It's a Vertical Life

Heartbreak Hotel

2012-03-03T22:50:00.001-05:00

As you may have surmised from the deafening silence on my blog yesterday, we did, indeed, take custody of Little Man (too tired to think of a catchy bloggy name for him right now) and it's been a crazy 30 hours. I'll try to be coherent despite my fatigue but pithy went out the door somewhere around midnight last night.

Yesterday at noon, Brenda called to say that she still hadn't heard about Little Man but if that didn't work out would we be interested in the placement of 2 little girls who were "attention seeking"...um, hmmmm. Red flag? That wasn't to be, though. We received another call an hour later saying that Little Man was definitely going to be coming to our house at 3:30 p.m. because they feared Foster Mom to be a flight risk with him. Twenty minutes later we received ANOTHER call from Brenda that F-Mom and Little Man were nowhere to be found! Talk about scary, insane, ridiculous, did-I-enter-the-Twilight-Zone, is-she-as-crazy-as-this-guy thoughts running through my head! Fortunately, they found her half an hour later. She was hiding out in the house, refusing to let the caseworker in. Yeah, that's not going to improve your chances of adopting him, lady!

Around 3:45, Little Man showed up with his caseworker. Roused from his sound sleep in the back seat, was the sweetest boy, eyelashes extending to eternity, brown eyes swimming with confusion and apprehension. Clutching a plastic truck, the only possession that made the journey with him, Little Man stopped and pointed to his shoe. I tied it for him.

Brenda and Little Man's caseworker tried to explain things to him as best you can to a 4 1/2 year old. He didn't cry, he didn't take off his coat, he didn't talk until 5:30 p.m. It was as if he was holding his breath, just waiting, hoping, for someone to take him home. We gave him a tour, he chose a bin full of pirate toys to play with and the boys whisked him off to play. Oh, the hospitality that wafts from my children like a sweet aroma! They have made me nothing but proud the past two days.

Little Man's caseworker, stoic and still seething from his interaction with F-Mom, beat a hasty retreat. Fortunately, Brenda stuck around to talk to Little Man for a bit longer. He nodded his head a lot but spent the rest of the night asking Guitar Hero (I had to work) when his mom was coming to get him. There is no good answer to that question when you have to wait for the wheels of justice to move at their painfully creaky pace, determining the course of his future. They want to ask for a court-ordered removal from F-Mom's home. She's been deceptive, almost to the point of pathology, about everything, even unimportant things that have no bearing on Little Man's status in her home. She obviously loves and cared for Little Man. And that only pisses me off all the more. If you love him so much, then WHY have you not done what you needed to do to prove yourself worthy of mothering Little Man?! He loves her so very much and continues to ask when he is going him.

He has refused to eat since he arrived. Today at lunch when bug-shaped macaroni was shunned (I was at work again), Guitar Hero asked Little Man if he was hungry. He said that he was very hungry but didn't want to eat. He told me after work that he wouldn't take a bath, either. I informed him that taking a bath was not optional but did he want bubbles or no bubbles in the bath...did he want me to wash his hair or did he want to do it himself...did he want to brush his own teeth or did he want me to do it for him? Then I took him upstairs and allowed him to choose between three different pair of pajamas. He chose a pair of Little Drummer Boy's train pjs. Thanks to Karyn Purvis's book The Connected Child. I understood that while it was necessary to set boundaries, he should have choices within those boundaries. He's lost so much control that he needs to feel it in some areas. He really responded to that. After bathtime, I praised him for being a "big boy" and he wanted me to call Miss Brenda and tell her that he was a big boy. No doubt, he sees her as a gate keeper to his returning home.

While he was in the bath, he told me that Willa (the name he has for F-Mom) told him that he shouldn't eat here or take a bath. I repeated it back to him to make sure that I was understanding him correctly - he has a pretty significant speech delay so it's like talking to someone from another country sometimes - and he indicated that she did, indeed, instruct him not to eat (which Guitar Hero had suspected since lunchtime). It all made sense - the refusal to eat, the refusal to discuss his favorite foods and the assertion that, even though Willa makes him pancakes, he won't eat them anywhere but "at home". Enter the lure of chocolate. At dinnertime, the rest of the kids received a piece of candy for eating all of their dinner. Little Man kept asking for chocolate and we kept repeating, "Yes, you can have chocolate as soon as you eat some dinner!" By 8 p.m., he couldn't resist anymore. He drank some Odwalla juice and ate a small bowl of corn chips (a friend had graced us with taco soup and all the trimmings for dinner). After more than 24 hours, that was good enough for us and he received the coveted Reese's Peanut Butter cup.

Tonight's bedtime was a little better. He curled up with the Lightning McQueen Pee Wee pillow pet that I bought him after work...the kid needed something to call his own in this house. Fortunately, he didn't get up four times like last night. Although, I did have to wake him up at 9:30 a.m. this morning! I've lost track of how many times he's asked me when his mom is coming, when he's going home or when Miss Brenda is coming to the house to tell him when he's going home. It really is heartbreaking and infuriating all at the same time. It makes me want to smack some sense into Willa. Why can't you just do what you need to do?! The sun rises and sets over you for this boy, you've had four years...YOU'RE THE FOSTER MOTHER, DO WHAT YOU NEED TO DO!!!!!

A lot of people have congratulated us and I understand why they do. I appreciate the sentiment. We've been working toward this moment for a long time so why wouldn't it be a celebratory moment when we've "achieved" what we'd set out to do? I guess I've come to realize throughout our journey that having a child join our home because of brokenness might never be something I will want to celebrate. Little Man is a very compliant and sweet child. He plays well with my kids. He listens to us. What foster parent wouldn't want that? Then why does it hurt so flippin' much?! Because I have to watch this wounded baby mourn the confusing and unnecessary loss of the life he once cherished because of someone else's poor decisions. I didn't make this mess and now I have to clean it up. That's what we signed up for, though. Isn't it?

The Phone Keeps Ringing...

2012-03-01T20:36:00.001-05:00

When it rains, it pours, I guess. I'm not sure if I'm on a treadmill run by Bob Harper or a roller coaster but I'm getting a bad case of TMJ from clenching my teeth.

Yeah, I still think this
chick looks like me...

This afternoon, I was on the phone with my friend Ally. Y'all, I'm never on the phone. I mean NEVER. I hate the phone and try to avoid it because inevitably one of my kids will have a meltdown or chop off an appendage or find they can't master the next level of Angry Birds and come crying to me the minute the phone hits my ear. Anyway, we ended up catching up for half an hour and, OF COURSE, I hang up to see that someone called while I was on the phone (I loathe call waiting and refuse to have it). And, OF COURSE, it was Brenda who needed to talk to me ASAP as she is going into her meeting to discuss the little guy we're considering for adoption. I have suddenly lost the ability to write down a phone number and end up fumbling around with the buttons on the phone so I can manage to make my way through about six old voicemail messages before I get back around to hers again to hear the last four digits of her cell phone number.

When I finally call her back she is literally walking into the meeting and says to me, "We are pretty sure we need to move little man tonight. Can you and Guitar Hero take him on an emergency respite basis if we have to move him?" A phrase akin to George McFly trying to get a prom date manages to fall out of my mouth and I stammer something that probably put me as far from calm-cool-and-collected-pre-adoptive-mom as I could possibly get. Seriously, people. It was mortifying. I tried to explain that Guitar Hero worked late tonight and still hadn't had a chance to look at the profile since coming back and I wasn't sure we could pull it off TONIGHT (as I looked around at the toy carnage spewed all over my house)!!! Then she said exactly what I needed to hear and I fell in love with our caseworker all over again. She calmly stated the truth, "That's okay. If it's meant to happen, it will work out. If he's yours, it will fall into place. I'll call you after the meeting, as soon as I know more concrete details."

I got a hold of Guitar Hero at work who said we should go for it. I texted B and she called me after the meeting to say that the foster parents have until tomorrow afternoon to do whatever it is that the caseworkers have been asking them to do and if they don't then he will be on our doorstep tomorrow night. Still not how I wanted this all to play out but, then again, it is what it is. Have I mentioned that I don't do well with flexible?

Stay tuned tomorrow...same Bat time, same Bat channel...

Sorry, That's Just Not How it Works ("Parenthood" Spoiler Alert!)

2012-02-29T21:02:00.000-05:00

Now that Bumber's Bumblings has finally watched it, I can post this...

So, do you watch Parenthood on NBC on Tuesday nights? I do. I didn't mean to start watching it but Guitar Hero and I like to watch The Biggest Loser (does anyone else feel the urge to eat junk food during that show?!) and if we haven't finished folding laundry we would just leave the TV on for Parenthood. OF COURSE, there is an adoption story line this season which sucked us in and, since Zoe seemingly changed her mind last week and decided to parent her baby, I needed to find out what happened.

Zoe did, indeed, choose to parent her son (no, she did not "take her baby back"...please don't use that phrase; the baby was never Julia's to begin with). I was disappointed in how Julia handled the whole situation but it's not as if the characters are super-human, immune to selfish reaction. It's entirely plausible and even probably that a prospective adoptive mom would react like that. In her mind, she feels like she just lost her baby and should grieve. That story wasn't the most interesting/surprising/shocking/confusing part of the finale, though.

First of all, let me just say kudos to NBC for incorporating an older child adoption scenario into the show. I admit, when Victor stepped out of the SUV, my breath caught in my throat and the waterworks started. That, however, was mostly because of our own conundrum at the moment. I was brain-off expecting the caseworker (?? who is that woman ??) to hand them a baby...perhaps a baby of a different ethnicity, but a baby nonetheless. When I had time to process the ending in the shower this morning...what? You don't process things in the shower? You really should try it. It's quite therapeutic. Anyway, when I gave it more rational thought in the shower this morning, I was rather disappointed in the Parenthood writers' lack of research and fact-checking.

The problem I have already with this storyline is that it is NOT AT ALL realistic from the get-go. You don't just decide one day that you are going to "expand" your criteria, walk into a non-nondescript "agency" and tell some faceless woman that you want a child or a "sky" baby (is that even a real term?!). Then four days later, at your brother's wedding, you get a call to take custody of that older child with a "verbal agreement"? I don't think so. It takes six weeks just to get a state child abuse clearance! What agency with an iota of integrity would just hand off a child in the middle of the night like that to virtual strangers?! Even Philadelphia county in their desperation for foster parents still requires a minimum of six hours of training. COME ON!

I remain cautiously optimistic about the introduction of this new character. After all, they did a fair job of portraying Alex, the former alcoholic, homeless kid, as more than just a cradle-robbing loser. However, their misconceptions and stereotyping throughout the entire adoption story does not give me confidence in their ability to stay away from doing the same with "the foster kid". Perhaps they will get it right and it will come out as challenging but worth it even if he doesn't turn out to be the next Michael Oher.

It's a...Boy?

2012-02-28T22:33:00.000-05:00

When the phone rang yesterday afternoon I didn't think much of it. So, when I answered it and heard, "Hi, Kim...It's Brenda!" I thought, Hmmm...that's weird. She's not doing our home study until Friday. She must have a clarification question for the home study. And, when she asked, "Would you and Guitar Hero be interested in the pre-adoptive placement of a 4 year old boy?" My brain said, Um, WHAT THE WHAT?! But, my mouth said, "Wait, is our home study even done yet?"

She went on to explain that the home study wasn't a problem in the short term because we have all of our clearances. The little guy's caseworker is looking for a family with lots of adoption support (Check!) and siblings (Check!) to help him become more socialized. He only receives speech therapy and even though foster mom (who has raised him for 4 years) wants to adopt him they think it would be best to find a new family. As if that's not traumatic enough for this boy, the social workers don't trust that the foster mom wouldn't sabotage any transitional visits with a new family so they want to do a court-ordered removal. That means they would take the boy from the only mom he's ever known and drop him in our laps to deal with the aftermath. But, my foster care caseworker cousin tells me that's just how it has to work sometimes. Yippee.

I wasn't prepared for this. I was prepared to have our home study finished and to start submitting it to the caseworkers of the kids that we chose from photolistings and I thought they would be slightly older and/or come with brothers and/or sisters and transitional visits. People wait months and even years for a 4 yo with relatively few issues and no siblings! How does one just seemingly fall into our laps?! We weren't doing foster care so this type of situation never even entered my mind as a possibility.

And, OF COURSE, this would happen when Guitar Hero is away, with no e-mail to read a profile, until Wednesday. At least we don't have to make a decision right away. At least there's that. Did I mention that I've fallen in love...love...LOVE with a newly listed, unique (read: meets some very specific criteria we have) sibling group in another state? Yeah. There's that, too.

...and did anyone see the season finale of Parenthood? HOLY CRAP!

Diva Antics and Clarification for Commenting Trolls

2012-02-26T21:50:00.002-05:00

So, Tiny Dancer seems to have gotten the hang of half the potty-training deal. This afternoon, she said, "My tummy hurt. I need to poop on the potty." And, she did. She sat on that little potty seat, perusing an Elmo book, for 15 minutes until the entire business was finished. Then tonight, as I am running through her regular repertoire of songs (Twinkle, ABC, Jesus Loves Me, Now it's Time to Say Goodnight), she doesn't like that I messed up one of the songs. An Emmy-award-winning tantrum ensues and I proceed to place her in her crib with admonishments against throwing tantrums. As I head out of the room, I toss over my shoulder, "I love you. I'll see you in the morning." Heading into the boys' room to kiss them goodnight, I hear a *THUD* and assume that, in her rage, she angrily threw her water cup on the floor (not uncommon)...until I hear the bedroom door open. It wasn't the cup. She threw HERSELF on the floor! This is our fearful, never-gotten-out-of-her-crib, never-try-a-new-thing-without-much-ado diva. She made a bee-line for her brothers' room. Looking up at me, through wracking sobs, she declares, "MOMMY! I needa pway!!!" I scoop her up and head back to her room where I try valiantly to suppress giggles about the fact that she didn't even think about it, she ignored her fears and just dove out of bed to reconcile with me. She couldn't sleep without making things right. So, we prayed, asking forgiveness for her bad attitude. I re-sang the errant song and tucked a much more subdued Tiny Dancer into her crib with reminders that she needed to stay in bed. I never heard another peep. Phew. I hope this is not indicative of the teen years!

Okay, what's up with trolls? I mean, really. Do these people have nothing better to do than skulk around the internet looking to pick fights? There is a well-known, particularly ugly troll on Munckinland. I know that there are others on news sites. I actually feel bad for them because it seems like they just sit on the internet all day, in an attempt to escape their bitterly disappointing lives, waiting...waiting...waiting for something to argue about, disagree with or antagonize and it is obvious that their minds are not open to change. I'm not sure if I had a visit from a troll, a legitimately anti-adoption stumble-upon or someone participating in the Harvard binge-drinking study. In any case, she left a rather snarky, self-righteous, uneducated, poorly written and combative comment on one of my posts. Look, I have no problem if you want to engage in an adult discourse of differing viewpoints. If your philosophy about adoption, parenting, faith, money or even green smoothies is different from mine, fine. I am open to posting your comment if you are respectful. Ending your diatribe with the insinuation that I and my friends are not "responsible adults" followed by five question marks will do nothing more than invoke a sarcastic eye roll and immediate deletion cuz I have comment moderation and I'm not afraid to use it. My comments section is a Drama Free Zone. You've been warned.

Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels.
~2 Timothy 2:23

Where I Want You to Be and Other Health News...

2012-02-21T12:52:00.002-05:00

Still waiting. But, we have a projected finish date!

This post will get spiritual at times so, if "spiritual" makes you squirm like a bad case of hemorrhoids, you'd better find yourself another blog to read. Thursday was three months since our home study meeting and we still don't have a finalized home study BUT there is a light at the end of the tunnel! That day I happened to be e-mailing my friend Shannon about work (she writes for ATFM) and Bean's piano lessons (Bean takes lessons from her). Shannon and her husband went through the FtA process at the same time as we did but with a different agency and she told me they are now in the matching process. I am SO excited for them but, of course, I was also increasingly frustrated with the amount of time this is taking on our end. Thursday morning, when I mentioned to Guitar Hero that it had been three months, he asked if I would like him to call Brenda to see what was up. I tried to keep my enthusiasm to a minimum but I was happy about it since I was beginning to reach stalker status about e-mailing her. He didn't have time to do it on Thursday and didn't get around to it until 3:45 on Friday and, of course, she was gone by then.

At that point I was sitting in my older kids' elementary school waiting for Roadie. We have been going back and forth about red-shirting him for kindergarten and the K teacher offered to do an early kindergarten screening on him to help us decide. Guitar Hero texted me that he missed Brenda and I texted back about Brandon and Shannon being in the matching process. He simply replied, "Wow!" Incidentally, Roadie passed the screening with flying colors so intellectually and physically he's more than ready for kindergarten; we're pretty sure he needs another year, though, emotionally and socially (despite what the "experts" say) but that's a post for another time.

When I got home I did a faux dejected face to Guitar Hero about him missing Brenda. He said, "If you're looking for sympathy from me, I have none. I am so frustrated right now about how long this is taking and I don't think I really grasped the delay until you told me about Brandon & Shannon!" I threw my hands up in the air and said, "FINALLY!!! THIS...THIS RIGHT HERE is where I've been for the past month and a half! Welcome to my world! This is where I want you to be." He replied, "Okay, yeah. I get it now."

Fast forward to Monday...Guitar Hero called and actually got a hold of Brenda on the first try! When he asked about our home study, she was so apologetic. The back story is that we are with a very small agency, like three-people-in-the-office small. The foster care caseworker left last year and Brenda (the adoption caseworker) absorbed that job. She told GH that she had allowed the neverending foster care fires to overwhelm everything and at the beginning of the year she realized that she was going to have to schedule specific time to do the home studies instead of waiting for a "quiet" moment. For the last month she has been working on one home study every Friday and she's finally catching up. She has one more before ours and she's doing that one this week. We're on deck for next Friday! Woot! She thanked GH for our patience and asked us to hang in there just a little bit longer.

So, we have a projected finish date for our home study, assuming there are no foster care explosions in the meantime. However, as my friend Chrissy said, satan doesn't want us to adopt...EVAH. He's going to throw more than a little spiritual warfare (yes, I do believe that) our way in order to keep us away from our kids. He hates kids. He wants them to flounder without families to protect them so he's going to mess with the people who want to love those kids. He's been doing a commendable job messing with our finances and MY health and this morning he shot another arrow at me. I confess, I haven't shaved my legs since last summer. It's true...and it has nothing do with my crunchy granola job and everything to do with being just plain lazy. Anyway, I don't look at my legs much so when I was putting lotion on this morning and felt the raised, asymmetrical, sort-of-pinkish-brown "freckle" on my shin I knew something was up. I've been covered in freckles from head to toe since I was 5 so I know freckles and this ain't one. Honestly, my first thought was, "CRAP! This is going to delay the adoption even more!!!" Really, I'm not blasé about things like potential skin cancer and my health but I'm not an alarmist either. I'm such a medical sponge that I do know what melanoma does and does not look like and, if this is cancer, I know that it's not melanoma. I also know that most of the time skin cancer is a nuisance and a call to take better care of yourself which I've already been working on with some accountability partners so I'll be making an appointment with a dermatologist and praying that it is just another arrow. Will you pray with me?

In other news, our neighbor stopped by to say that there have been a lot of break-ins in our little development. That's comforting since Guitar Hero is planning at least two trips away in the next few months. Time to hook up our alarm system! And, to end on a lighter note, Tiny Dancer has two favorite songs. She makes us sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star every time she goes to sleep and whenever I am on the computer she asks, with her little index finger pointed up, to watch this "Just one more time..." It's so stinkin' cute that it almost makes up for the fact that she's a diva most of time...almost.

Singled Out...Table for One?

2012-02-12T20:26:00.000-05:00

(Originally posted Feb. 2011 on Fishbowl Living - my previous blog - so ignore the incorrect date references and appreciate the spirit)

Do you have hearts in your eyes thisValentine’s Day? Are you sitting aroundcounting the minutes until you’re whisked off to a candlelight dinner thatwould make Kate Middleton green with envy? For most of us, this is not the case. It’s a Monday, for cryin’ out loud! Who goes out for a romantic Monday night date?! Not me, I have to work tonight (evenromantics need their organic food and herbal supplements)…and not my singlefriends.

Hallmark and its coconspirators havedone a masterful job of marketing this day of manufactured affections as a staple in our society. My kids come home from school with more candythan anyone should eat in a lifetime and even though I know there is noexpectation from my husband whatsoever I still feel pressure to do somethingspecial because, after all, it is aholiday. Here’s my biggest beef withValentine’s Day, though…it’s like the prom or the homecoming dance. The pressure is on. You certainly don’t want to be caught withouta match on those occasions and you breathe a sigh of relief when you have thatspecial someone to claim as your date. Butat least prom will go away once you graduate…Valentine’s Day just keeps going andgoing and going. It will always be back tohaunt you next year.

So, what is a single person todo? Despite their assertion that “it’s aridiculous holiday with no real purpose”, even the most secure unwed man or womancan’t help but feel a twinge of loneliness when everyone else seems to berunning off to Romanceland. If you’remarried, have you given any thought to your single friends or your friends whoaren’t so happily married? I think it’sabout time that we do.

A sweet friend of mine, who issingle, poured her wounded heart out to me the other day when she was excludedfrom a gathering of all of her closest friends in her small group Bible studybecause she is…wait for it…not married. That’s right. This group decidedthat they wanted to have a dinner party with just the married people in theirfriendship circle which, out of approximately 10 people, excluded a grand totalof 2 of them. And the organizer had thegall to justify her actions by saying that “sometimes married people justneed to be together without singles”. Really?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I’ve been married for over 10 years and I amflummoxed by this woman’s logic. Perhapsif just two of the couples were getting together it would be understandable butall four married couples were getting together without my single friendbecause…they are married and she is not? That, in my opinion, is a friendship failure of epic proportions.

Look, my dear readers, I am notsuggesting that you invite a single person along on dates with yourhusband. What I am suggesting is that weconsider others (Philippians 2:3-4). Instead of feeling resentful of that single person tagging along weshould try putting ourselves in her shoes. The very thing you take for granted could be the thing that this man orwoman commits to prayer every single night, the deepest longing of their heart,made all the more blatant on a holiday of mass-produced candy hearts and roses.

God’s family is a beautiful mosaicof people. All of the pieces fit intothe big picture differently but they all come together, side-by-side, to revealthe masterpiece that God has designed. If we concentrate only on the pieces that look just like us, we willmiss out on a unique spectrum of color and reflection. Don’t short-change yourself by allowinghomogenous groups to isolate themselves within the church. When that happens, no one wins. At the risk of sounding Martin Luther King,Jr.-esque, I have a dream of meshing colors and languages, races and generations,styles and ideas, our lives intertwined under the umbrella of God’s grace. When we allow our lives to flow intoanother’s, taking on their struggles, blending with their differences andembracing the wisdom of the elderly and the energy of the young, the freedom ofthe single and the complexity of the married, we take God out of our littlebox. His relationship with each of us isas infinite as the grains of sand and as varied as each snowflake. It’s time we started seeing His love throughthe eyes of others who might not look quite like us.

If you are married you won’t fullyunderstand what your single friend is feeling this Valentine’s Day but thatdoesn’t mean you’re off the hook. Itmight mean that you are responsible to invite him into your family Valentine’sdinner or that you should send her some flowers to remind her how special sheis. Last night I had a recollection of agood friend from college challenging me to loosen my grip on Valentine’s cynicism. Although I made it clear that I wasvehemently opposed to the holiday on principle, he decided to surprise me witha single yellow rose (for friendship) to remind me that love comes in manyforms and I shouldn’t write it off completely. My exterior softened a little that day. It really did make that Valentine’s Dayspecial and about so much more than romance. So, I would like to encourage you to thinkabout your single friends – whether they are divorced, never married, widowedor single by choice – we marrieds need to remember that we do not have themarket cornered on Valentine’s Day…love is not self-seeking.

What can you do to make your singlefriends feel particularly loved today?

As if...

2012-02-05T15:20:00.001-05:00

I shouldn't have done it. I should have left the calendar alone but I didn't. I counted. On the 16th, it will be 3 months since our home study meeting with our social worker and my frustration reached new heights. It feels like I should do something. It feels like I should be angry at someone. But, there's nothing I can do!! I asked friends to pray that our home study would be finalized by my birthday (Feb. 24th) because that would be an amazing birthday present to be able to move forward to the next waiting room but I'm feeling more than a little pessimistic. I realize that the only person to be angry with is God! I know He's got this. I know "the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord and He directs it like a watercourse wherever He pleases (Prov. 21:1)" I know that. But, as M'Lynn said in Steel Magnolias, "I wish somebody would explain it to my heart!" Why isn't He directing that watercourse faster when my kids are sitting out there waiting and wondering if anyone gives a flying flip about them?!?!

As I drove home from church this afternoon, I turned the radio up a little louder to hear the music over the cacophony behind me. When I was finally able to figure out which song was actually playing, these words wrapped around me and seared themselves into my heart...We doubt Your goodness. We doubt Your love. As if every promise from Your Word is not enough. And, God whispered, "I place the lonely in families. I promise you, that's what I do." And, just like that, I stopped spiritually whining and started trusting a little bit more. I don't have to like the waiting but the pain reminds this heart that this is not...our home.

Death Becomes Her

2012-01-31T13:07:00.002-05:00

I am so very hungry. I haven't eaten anything in four days and I don't plan to eat anything for at least one more day...maybe more. Who knows? But, man, I'm hungry. I've been sick for four days now - backdoor sick - and it just.won't.stop. I mean, really, there's nothing left in there!!! Please make it stop! Haven't I paid my Mommy Dues with the previous two bouts of vomiting in a month and a half?! Apparently not as evidenced by the haunted house noises emanating from my mid-section at 3 a.m. this morning. I'd really like to write an inspired post about how blessed I am to live in America with easy access to everything I need to help me and my kids get better while kids in other countries don't have that and often die from this sickness, but I'm really, really tired so I'll just say that, yeah, those thoughts have frequently crossed my mind.

Anyway, despite the fact that I can't stop dreaming (yes, I know I'm torturing myself) of all the things I want to eat, I refuse to put anything non-liquid into my mouth until I get a reprieve. Tiny Dancer had it last week and today (8 days later) she is finally 100% poo-free. Please, God, don't let this last that long. As I lay in bed yesterday until 3 p.m., swaddled in my lava blanket (Guitar Hero's affectionate term for my blanket of electric warmth and blissful sleep) up to my nose, he says, "Babe, I'm really proud of you for taking this weight loss thing so seriously but don't you think you're taking it a bit too far?" Ha ha. My very own Tim Hawkins. I'd rather do 2 hours a day of HIIT on the elliptical for the rest of my life than deal with this just to get into my old jeans. I'm not even sure what my actual weight loss for January is anymore since I've had a vomiting spell and now this within two weeks of each other. So, were there any bright spots? Well, yes. As a matter of fact, there were...

My in-laws were here this weekend. They are awesome. Unfortunately, my illness put a slight damper on an extended family lunch we were supposed to have on Sunday but my MIL did my laundry and she and my SIL managed the kids so I could sleep in until 11 a.m. on Sunday while Guitar Hero reported to his worship team post at church. Have I mentioned how awesome they are?
I was too tired to freak out about the local tax audit letter we received saying we owed them $300 plus penalties from 2009 and the so-astronomical-its-comical electrical bill we received two days later (seriously, we've done nothing different and I've never seen a utility bill this obscene). Can't get blood from a stone, people.
This did not happen to me on a missions trip to a third world country with only an outhouse or a squatty, shared by 13 other people, available to use. That DID happen to my friend Cait and continued to happen for the rest of her 9 month trip.
Guitar Hero is just amazing. He's so giving. That man! He took off work yesterday so I could stay in bed and then at 11 p.m. last night when I remembered that I promised to make Bean some rice crispy treats for her half birthday at school he volunteered to make them. At least I had already bought the ingredients :-)

And that's the end of my brain dump. I'm now putting Tiny Dancer to bed so I can crash on the couch. She's not remotely tired but I need her to be tired.

Hurry Up and Wait

2012-01-26T21:48:00.000-05:00

Waiting, waiting, waiting. That's what we've been doing since November 16th. We had our homestudy visit with Brenda on LDB's 6th birthday, November 16th, and it's a good thing the holidays came right after that because we've been waiting ever since and I really needed the distraction. I watched Chrissy go to Ethiopia to meet her kids, I met a truly amazing birthmom/adoptive mom duo that blew me away, Guitar Hero began plans for another trip to Haiti and I spent a blissful week with my favorite mom in the whole-wide world. Did I mention that I was kid-free? So, I'm now ready to get this whole adoption ball rolling but the phone still isn't ringing. Now, to be fair, Brenda is putting out fires. She's doing the job of two people so home studies aren't high on her priority list, despite the fact that they are right up there with "Kissing my kids goodnight" on mine (although, frustrated with the theatrics, I did allow Tiny Dancer to cry it out tonight...but not without eleventy-two kisses first).

I have been trying not to be a nudge but I broke down on Monday and e-mailed Brenda with an "I hate to be a pest and I'm not pushing you, I swear, but please tell me what the timeline for our home study looks like" e-mail. Crickets. I haven't heard anything. Guitar Hero stopped into her office two weeks ago to ask her professional advice about a different situation and the good news is that the sizzly computer did NOT have our home study on it. The bad news...she's just as swamped as ever. So, we wait.

This system is so broken. The Brendas of the world work their arses off to do the best they can with the uniform they've been issued (i.e., budget cuts have landed a great big question mark on the hiring of another Brenda) thanks to Uncle Sam. Once you get your feet wet in the world of FtA, you realize just how inefficient, subjective and sometimes downright corrupt the whole process is and the kids and their parents (foster/birth/adoptive) are just the collateral damage. Don't believe me? Just check out Erica's blog. It's no wonder birth parents stuck on the DHS merry-go-round end up waving the white flag in defeat! I am so proud of Erica for not returning to old coping mechanisms! She is cut from a rare mold.

So, Guitar Hero is headed back to Haiti! WOO HOO! He really wanted me to go but it's just not feasible right now. Our church is partnering with a ministry in Haiti and this is our first trip down to work with them. Even better news is that GH and I think we have FINALLY found the orphanage we want to work with when we adopt from Haiti. It's been a long process to just choose the agency/orphanage. Kind of crucial before you can get started. Should we use a US agency for the convenience (someone to hold our hands as we work through the paperwork) even though it costs beau coup $$$ more than if you go straight through an orphanage in Haiti? What is the feeling we get from the people we've contacted (okay, I've contacted)? What is their reputation? I've been leaning toward the whole DIY/straight-through-a-Haitian-orphanage thing because of the money issue. Sorry, just can't in good conscious ask people to help us with funding the adoption when an extra $8000 was going to a middle man (woman?) for things that I am perfectly capable of doing myself. Pfffst...I've done our family taxes for years, ministerial wonkiness and all. I think I can handle a mountain of paperwork. However, I was open to using a US agency if I got a good vibe from them and I felt that God was leading us that way. I contacted quite a few US agencies and some Haitian orphanages and, people, you would be shocked at how inconvenienced they sounded by my request for information! In Haiti, if you have biological children you have to obtain a special presidential waiver for adoption. It's based on an antiquated law from 1974 that has never been changed thanks to governmental upheaval and basic infrastructure problems. It's really not a big deal but it does add a few more months to the child's wait time after referral to get the Haitian social services agency (IBESR) and the President of Haiti to sign off on it. One of the agencies implied that they were doing us a favor by accepting us despite the fact that they "prefer" not to work with people who have biological kids because it makes the adoptive kids "wait longer". I'm sorry, I didn't realize there was a huge line of people waiting to adopt the thousands of waiting Haitian orphans and we were taking up another childless adoptive family's valuable space in line! I didn't realize there was such a rush to adopt Haitian kids!!! (can you hear my eyes rolling?!)

When I contacted the mission with whom we'd now like to work, I had a completely different response than I had from all the others. The representative was warm and welcoming. I couldn't put my finger on why I enjoyed my correspondence with her and then, when I was talking to GH about it, I realized what it was. I told him, "I don't want someone to coddle me like some attention-seeking donor. I don't want someone to fawn all over my efforts to 'save' an orphan. I get that they are overworked and deal with hard stuff and flaky people all.the.time. But, I just want the people I work with to be as excited as I am that we want to adopt these kids." It's an exciting, hard, special, difficult time for all involved. I want to feel like I am not just another customer but a team member. After six agencies/orphanages, I finally found someone to be excited with us. I told the contact that my husband was heading to Haiti in the spring and would like to visit the orphanage and meet some of the kids. She was thrilled! That's all I wanted. I wanted the people with whom we work to adopt our kids to share our enthusiasm. I guess that was God's way of weeding out the prospects on our end. So, in the spring, when GH heads to Haiti, he'll be taking a trip to the orphanage that is currently housing our kids. CRAZY!!! But, in an awesome way.

So, that's where we are right now. Oh, yeah, and I'm also looking for anyone who might be able to host two Haitian boys for 3-6 months through Angel Missions Haiti. One needs to go to Boston for a corneal transplant. The other needs to go to Knoxville, TN for genital reconstructive surgery. After they are released from medical care they will return to their parents in Haiti. If you know of anyone who would want to or if YOU would want to host one of these sweet boys (both around 2 years old), please contact me through the comments and I'll get back to you with more info. OR, if you are looking to buy a Puppy for a Purpose, AMH has certified, tax-deductible Maltese puppies for sale.

That's it. Enough ads. Go to bed and stop reading blogs, y'all!

Did you know...

2012-01-25T12:24:00.001-05:00

Did you know that I am a writer and the Editorial Manager for the website All Things for Mom? I know, it sounds so grown-up. Shhhh...don't tell my boss...er, friend...er, boss, Kerry, that I'm totally winging it! Actually, I'm really grateful to her for giving me a chance to do what I've always known I could do but was too insecure to make happen.

Here is my latest post (a re-purposed Fishbowl post). Head over there and check it out...

Should I Dust Off That Mop?

Evenson Update - Post Surgery

2012-01-15T15:11:00.003-05:00

Harriet sent out an update today for, Evenson, our little Haitian sensation. Please continue to keep him in your prayers. It's still a very long road to recovery.

Playing at the playground
at Children's Hospital LA

Tunnel Time

This week Evenson had the remaining 3 radiation treatments. On Wednesday after the 6th radiation treatment and a chemo treatment, Evenson was very sick and vomited throughout the night. This was due to the radiation which has an accumlative effect and also the chemo on top of it. All day Thursday was spent in the day clinic receiving fluids through an IV. He was sent home for the night when he was finally able to keep some liquid in his stomach. Despite this, he was able to receive his final radiation treatment on Friday.

Harriet & E on an excursion

Next week we only have two doctors appointments on Thursday so he will have a break before receiving more chemo. He is doing much better and eating some solids. We are making sure he stays hydrated through the GI tube.

One of his many chemo caps...
this one courtesy of my friend Jenn

Thank you for your continued prayers as he continues with Chemo therapy for 21-24 weeks. Pray that he will not have too much nausea and we will be able to keep him hydrated.

What's missing? Oh, yeah!
A watermelon belly!

Four Things I Learned on January 4th

2012-01-05T20:38:00.000-05:00

For a random Wednesday, January 4th proved to be quite informative. Here are four things that I learned on the 4th...

1. When leaving for the ~~chamber of self-inflicted torture~~ gym, do NOT put your water bottle in your gym bag. It may leak and some of that water may get onto your jeans and the location of said leakage may happen to be in the most unfortunate of places to have a wet spot on your jeans. I actually contemplated whether or not I could get away with blow drying my pants in the locker room without looking like more of loser than I would if I walked around with a wet crotch. It's a good thing I have a long winter coat. Did I mention that it was like 16° out yesterday AND I ran into an old friend I haven't seen in months in the lobby of the Y? I saved the blow drying for my own bathroom.

Another gym lesson I learned is that you should always, ALWAYS get dressed in the little dressing room behind the curtain. Seeing a 115 lb. whale tail is just as traumatizing as the 350 lb. full moon view. I think I need to scrub my eyeballs...again.

2. If this happens to your microwave...

...you might not want to use the Pampered Chef paring knife that your long-dead grandmother gave you as a wedding present to open it. Otherwise, you may end up with this...

Sorry, Grammy :-(

3. When choosing to go to the gym at 5:45 a.m., it may be a good idea to inform your Guitar Hero before you actually leave. Otherwise, when his alarm clock goes off at 6:30 a.m., he may roll over, realize that you're not there and instead of checking his text messages to see where you are, he'll think, "Man, I married the most awesome babe in the whole world! She's up early to take care of getting breakfast for our kids and the neighbor kid we put on the bus in the mornings so that I can sleep in. She da bomb! Zzzzzzzzz....." Then you may come home to your children and the neighbor boy, unfed and watching Cars 2, with 20 minutes to shovel breakfast in their mouths and herd them into the van to school. An unkind tone may have been heard emanating from our bedroom when Guitar Hero was found, unshowered, blearily wiping sleep from his eyes.

And, THE BEST lesson I learned on January 4th...

4. My kids are amazing little people with a huge capacity for compassion. While I was at work last night saving the world from vitamin deficiency, Guitar Hero called to relay this awesome exchange:

Little Drummer Boy: Dad, I am going to pray every night that we will get enough money to adopt the kids from Haiti.

Guitar Hero: That's a great idea, buddy!

Roadie: And, Daddy, I want you to have all of the money in my piggy bank so you can adopt them and bring them home. I have A LOT of money in my piggy bank!

Oh.my.heart. I don't deserve such wonderful kids but I'm taking them for all they're worth!

It's actually a doggy bank but
who cares?! That's 100%
pure AWESOME right there

Sizzly

2012-01-04T13:59:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year!

Well, the new year is off to a typical start with NO puking...paRAISE JEHEEZUS!. The kids are back to school (I have mixed feelings about that), I'm back to the gym...again (no mixed feelings about that) and we're still waiting for our homestudy to be finished. Right before Christmas my supervisor at work mentioned that she was finally able to connect with Brenda for our reference and I was elated. I had no idea that Brenda had even gotten to our profile yet! There was hope that all would be finished by the New Year and we could bring some kids HOME! Um, yeah...it's never that easy. Brenda decided to take the week between Christmas and New Years off of work to spend it with her family (kudos to her for not even turning on her computer!), but that meant no homestudy until she got back.

Yesterday I e-mailed her to see if I could pick up a clearance packet for our babysitter to be approved to watch our new kiddos. In the course of our e-mail exchange she mentioned that when she returned to work and turned on her computer it sizzled. Her exact word. Sizzling bacon = GOOD, sizzling electronics = BAD...very, VERY BAD. It's particularly bad when she tells me that ALL of her work files are on that hard drive. HEAD ---> DESK. So, the jury is out on whether or not her hard drive will be resurrected. The good news is that she wrote down with an actual pencil all of our interview so at the most, for us anyway, she'll just have to re-type it. Cuz, ya know, it's all about me.

I'm finding it difficult not to be extremely frustrated with all of the bureaucratic red tape surrounding the approval process for foster-to-adopt. It's a classic example of hurry-up-and-wait. You see a heart-wrenching commercial or TV show (I watched about 10 minutes of Home for the Holidays and couldn't take it seriously, Last Mom summed it up well), you call and schedule your classes...your 36 HOURS of classes, you fill out mountains of paperwork and get every clearance known to man, you divulge the deepest, most intimate details of your life to a virtual stranger and all the while you look again and again at the faces of kids on some website who sit there wondering why no one wants them and you tell your computer screen, "I promise, we're trying to get there as fast as we can! Hang in there just a little bit longer. Someone DOES want you!" Don't get me wrong, our worker is phenomenal. It's all of the requirements that have been placed on her that drag the process out. Combine that with the fact that she's doing two jobs (they are in the process of hiring someone else) and it's clear why kids sit in purgatory for WAY too long.

For now, I'll live vicariously through my friend, Chrissy, as she travels to Ethiopia tomorrow for her court date. She'll get to meet her newest 5 kids, shower them with love and celebrate Genna (Ethiopian Christmas) with them. Then she will do the seemingly impossible. She will leave half of her heart in an orphanage in Ethiopia until the spring when they get their date to bring their three sons and two daughters home for good.

For whatever reason, God is telling us to wait a little bit longer and I'm trying really hard to rest in that without frustration. His timing is perfect and I don't want to run ahead of it. The hardest part for me, though, other than our kids not knowing that their future family is looking for them, is continuing to play out the unknown in my head. I just want to KNOW who our kids will be. I would like to KNOW what their struggles and strengths will be. I just want to KNOW them! Is that so much to ask? Apparently, for now, it is.

Wonder of Wonder, Miracle of Miracles

2011-12-28T15:39:00.003-05:00

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little. ~Edmund Burke

Lately, I've felt more than a little bogged down with financial issues. I'll spare you the details because there are some Judgey McJudgersons out there who think they are entitled to an opinion on our finances and I refuse to invite them into the discussion lest I lose an eyeball to excessive eye-rolling. Don't get me wrong, they are entitled to have whatever opinion they want...and I'm entitled not to listen. For the record, though, there are far more encouragers out there and I love every last one of you...MWAH!

ANYWAY, God has been doing really awesome things for some friends of mine and I wanted to share because they were uber-faith-restoring for me. In case you missed my post yesterday about our friends Chrissy & Paul, after being turned down for adoption grant after adoption grant for their current adoption, they were raising money for their travel expenses to Ethiopia to bring home their newest 5 kids. In just over a day God threw open the windows of Heaven and provided them with over $11,000...IN ONE DAY, Y'ALL! Most of the people gave less than $50 and God turned five loaves and two fishes into a feast! Never underestimate the power of seemingly small sacrifices. Their website went viral over the internet and the money is still coming in. Then, while our mutual friend Shauna and I were doing virtual cheerleading jumps about it all over the interwebz (we were more than a little ~~irritating~~ persistent in our Facebook posts on behalf of Chrissy and Paul), Shauna received a phone call from her social worker. Okay, back up...Shauna has dreamed her whole life of adopting a baby with Downs Syndrome and the only thing holding her and her husband back from fulfilling this dream was $$$. Did you know that it costs a lot of money to adopt kids? This fall, they decided to step out in faith and schedule their homestudy for January despite the fact that they just couldn't seem to save the amount they needed (four very special kids at home will do that to you). Well, today, TODAY, like an hour ago, their social worker called Shauna and asked when she wanted to start the homestudy because an anonymous ~~donor~~ angel had given ALL of the money they needed for the homestudy!!! PEOPLE, don't EVER tell me that God doesn't care about the least of these...He wants those babies in families who care about them and He moved Heaven and Earth and hundreds of generous hearts to make it happen. He is, indeed, Jehovah Jireh. Why do I continue to be surprised by that?

$7 for 7 Tickets

2011-12-27T14:24:00.000-05:00

UPDATE - They surpassed their goal within 24 hours!!! Thank you to everyone who supported their adoption journey!!

Meet my friend Chrissy and her family.

She and her husband, Paul, are a special kind of awesome. They would say that's not true but I would beg to differ. They have four bio kids and you see those three brown beauties snuggled in there? They adopted this sibling set from Ethiopia. But, their hearts still weren't full so they set out to adopt again. Unfortunately, many states in the US foster care system have cold pricklies for large families (BOOOO, Uncle Sam!) so back to Ethiopia they go. In fact, Chrissy has a court date in Africa in a week and a half to be approved for five...yes, 5 brothers and sisters (some with medical special needs)!!! If all goes well with this court appointment, they will be bringing those babies home in the spring which means that they need two round-trip tickets for her and her husband and 5 one-way tickets for those kiddos. Those seven plane tickets will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000. This is where YOU come in. Chrissy & Paul are asking if you would be willing to donate $7, one dollar toward each plane ticket. If you can spare that, then head over to this site: http://www.acharityproject.com/f/7for7tickets and donate. So many of my friends have already given above and beyond and they are already halfway to their goal. Would you consider giving just a little so that these babies can be with their new mom and dad? Would you forward this to your generous friends and give them the chance to be a part of this amazing journey, as well? Thank you so much for considering it!

The King will reply, "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." ~Matthew 25:40

Evenson Update: Success!

2011-12-19T20:57:00.003-05:00

I just received this message from my friend Catie (Harriet's daughter-in-law):

Evenson is on his way to the PICU from PACU, the surgery was just under 6 hours. The tumor
and kidney came out in one chunk and weighed 7.5 lbs. There wasn't any gross extraneous

organ involvement so it was just that kidney. Bowels were left intact etc. He does have

some fluid in the base of his lungs from not being able to fully expand them so they expect

that to resolve quickly. He has some swelling in his upper airway so they may delay taking

him off the ventilator but the plan is to extubate him this afternoon or tonight. It sounds like

he has an epidural catheter in place for pain control as the incision went across the entire

abdomen from hip bone to hip bone. He got a unit of blood during surgery and may get

another one, they have left an additional central line in place in his neck. His inferior vena

cava (the highway that returns blood to the heart) has been collapsed for a period of time

so they will want to evaluate how well his collateral circulation has developed to

compensate for this. No specific info re: prelim. lymph node path report but the oncologist

and surgeon were extremely pleased with the surgery. They will go ahead with a second

course of chemo and radiation in the post-op period. The oncologist was actually in the OR

to take pics of the tumor. I'll pass on info as I get it:-) Big win!

Thank you all for praying for Evenson! Keep the prayers coming!!

Evenson - Surgery on Monday!

2011-12-15T11:45:00.000-05:00

It's sooner than they were hoping but during his last trip to the Children's Hospital in LA to receive his chemo, the doctors ran a routine scan and saw something they did not like at all. I haven't heard exactly what it is but they have moved Evenson's tumor removal surgery up to this Monday. He will be admitted this weekend. Please keep him in your prayers. Pray for the doctors and his host parents, as well, for wisdom and strength. Also, pray for his sweet parents who cannot be with him right now. How excruciating that must be!!

Keep truckin', little man!

Evenson's Mama & Papa

Just hangin' out!

Excuse me,
have we met before?

Now What?

2011-12-13T14:08:00.002-05:00

In much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain. ~Ecclesiastes 1:18

I read blogs...lots and lots of blogs, particularly adoption-based blogs and more particularly adoption blogs about really hard adoptions. I'm an information hound and when I have a nebulous situation, I need to know what might happen. What is the worst case scenario and what do I do if that happens? I'm not talking about "hard" adoptions in terms of how gut-wrenching it is if the child has to go back to their birthparents or dealing with the US Foster Care System. While those are difficult, I'm talking about really hard kids. If you think your kid is "strong-willed" then you need to read these blogs (a lot of them are on my blogroll to the right). You'll have a whole new appreciation for your child. One of the major issues in adopting abused or neglected kids is RAD (reactive attachment disorder). It is the last stop on a long spectrum of attachment disorders and it's ugly. Basically, some children who are abused and/or neglected begin to form survival mechanisms that actually physically rewire their brains. When their needs are not met in a normal way they learn to turn off their emotions and meet their needs the only way that works for them and, when taken out of the abusive situation, that behavior is no longer merely a survival tactic. Instead it becomes destructive to them and the people who are closest to them. Kids with RAD are master manipulators. It served a very necessary purpose in their former lives but they have no idea how to turn it off and deal with their emotions. To everyone except their closest family members and people they trust, they appear to be charming, helpful and affectionate. A RAD kid uses this to triangulate (pit people against their parents or primary caregivers) when they are feeling threatened. They rage...oh, do they rage! No, it's not a temper tantrum. It's the anger of a bull seeing red, a destructive force that is supernatural to the child's capabilities simply because it's the only genuine emotional expression they know. That's why adopting these children is called trauma parenting.

Please excuse my feeble attempt at explaining the RAD kid to you without making this post too long. Some people have the good fortune to go into these situations with adequate training. They know what they are getting into and they are ready to meet it head on. Others are not so blessed. They heard about RAD along with 50 other possible issues and they figured that adopting a baby or a two year old would circumvent the possibility of attachment issues. After all, a baby can't remember that kind of abuse or neglect. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. There is a nice honeymoon period when the child first comes home but when they get to know you and feel comfortable with you, all hell breaks loose. There's no rhyme or reason as to which kids will be negatively impacted and which will bounce back and with a small child who cannot disclose abuse you may not know until they are much older just what happened to them.

So, why am I fixating on this when it's supposedly rare and there are a ton of other potential problems our kids might have and we've asked specifically NOT to be matched with RAD kids? This past weekend, I went to a party with some friends and one of them who adopted a child from foster care six years ago was clearly distraught. When others were asking her what was wrong, with a nod of her head in my direction, she whisked them off to another room to tell them, citing that she didn't want to "scare" me. Not one to be easily scared, I meandered into the other room where she was pouring out her frustrations about one of her children. All of the stories she told screamed RAD to me so I asked, "Does your child have RAD?" She looked at me and replied, "Yeah, it looks like that's what it is." She was lied to by the social services agencies and has been stonewalled over and over by most of her therapeutic team while county workers fight over who is responsible to pay for what because their family had moved across county lines since adopting the child. This child has physically attacked my friend and threatened her life. One of her bio kids regularly attends therapy for traumatic stress disorder from the abuse and terror that the RAD child is causing and the whole family lives in constant fear but they have very little recourse. She looked me in the eyes, tears trying to escape the corners of her lids and implored, "Please don't do this to your family. Your children, your family, it's so beautiful. Don't do this to them." Um, okay. Now what? What do you say to that?! I had nothing to say. This woman is A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. with kids. She adores kids. Her life is kids and she just told me to run away...fast...and not look back. We just stared at each other for what felt like an eternity. I didn't even know how to comfort her because it would have felt so hollow. I have no idea what she deals with day in and day out. "My child wants to kill me and just may succeed." WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THAT?!

Guitar Hero and I talked about it a lot this past weekend. We're trying so hard (or at least I am and I'm dragging him down with me) not to be naïve but some things you just can't prepare for until they are in your face. You deal with them when they happen. I'm the consummate worrier so it has been a struggle for the past few days not to imagine my life parenting crazy but neither Guitar Hero nor I felt a compulsion to back out. When that fear played at the edge of my brain, I heard another voice saying, "But, what about the other kids, the ones out there who don't have RAD and really need you? You still need to do this." I suppose if I held to a Prosperity Theology in life I would say that it would all turn out skittles and unicorns just because we're being obedient to God but that's not in my Bible. God told us to do this and we need to do it. And it might not turn out well at all. We live in a broken world. This will be hard and I suppose I'm glad that I'm a little naïve because maybe if I knew exactly what I am getting myself and my family into I wouldn't do it...or maybe I would. I don't know. For right now, though, this is us. I really hope there's a bridge there.

Only in the leap from the lion's head will he prove his worth.

What a Relief...I AM Human!

2011-11-27T09:49:00.001-05:00

This Thanksgiving holiday was sucktacular. Yes, that is a word.

Because SOMEONE needs to see this
besides me!

It all began last Saturday night when LDB threw up. It seemed to be an isolated incident but I e-mailed my Dad (who wishes to be called Popason) anyway to let him know that he might want to delay his travel plans until we saw how this played out. By Tuesday morning we appeared to be in the clear...and, as my grandfather would say, that's when Murphy likes to get ya. The Roadie and Bean both ended up with it on Tuesday night. They were both one and done; pretty mild compared to the third circle of Hell we visited last year (two kids and two parents down for the count all at the same time). Bean spent the better part of Wednesday moping because she "waited for so long" to go to her Thanksgiving party at school and had to miss it and I was peeved myself that I spent an hour working on an Indian vest for her to wear...glitter glue and all. Yes, I am aware that they didn't have glitter glue back then but if you know my complete craft-ineptitude you would know why I felt so accomplished and irritated that it would not be used. By this time, though, my Dad was on his way and we were having Thanksgiving regardless.

The day started out nicely enough...relaxing breakfast, parade, puzzles. Then Roadie did a faceplant outside and tried to contort his pinkie finger into unnatural positions. Much drama, swelling, arnica and icing ensued with GH fashioning a pretty impressive splint out of blue craft popsicle sticks. We decided to wait it out and see how he felt on Friday before spending the better part of the afternoon (and our Christmas money) at the Urgent Care Center. He's fine now.

I had prepared everything except the turkey the day before and I had a carefully laid out cooking schedule. Half an hour before everything was to come out of the oven and head to the table, Guitar Hero went upstairs to wake up the Tiny Dancer and found that she wanted in on the action. She had apparently puked and proceeded to nap in it. Hoping that I wouldn't miss the timer for the food, I tossed TD into the tub and hosed her down while GH cleaned the room.

She seemed fine after that and Popason read her a story so we could finish up dinner...but, of course, it's never THAT easy. TD puked on Popason. Once again we did the strip-and-bathe routine and then I heard the running water. GH had been filling the Brita pitcher when TD puked and he had come running, instantly forgetting about the pitcher. Water was pouring across the counter at exactly the moment that my timer went off for every single side dish and the rolls. GH stood there in shock & awe and declared, "I really want to be pissed at someone or something but there is no one to be pissed at!!" By the time we managed to dry the counter and get to the oven, the smoke detectors were going off (does that count as a DPW quarterly fire drill?), the green bean casserole was burned and the rolls were falling onto the bottom burner in the oven. Sometimes there is just not enough Thanksgiving wine in the world...

The next day, Bean woke me up to say that GH didn't feel well. He parked himself on the couch in the middle of the living room and proceeded to be miserably sick the rest of the day. The kids whined all day about the fact that we were not getting a tree and LDB complained intermittently of a sore throat. All of this was making ME miserable (and snarky and completely uncompassionate to GH...like he chose to be sick) so I finally dug through the basement and retrieved their little fake trees for their bedrooms which appeased everyone for about 45 minutes. It all gave new meaning to the term Black Friday. In the middle of everything, I really needed ibuprofen and we were completely out. So, I went to CVS and paid way too much for a bottle of 1000 pills (we will not run out again!) just to avoid being pepper sprayed in the Black Friday carnage.

Then, yesterday, it was my turn. Fortunately, mine wasn't as bad as GH's. Unfortunately, I missed a day of work and, therefore, a day of pay right in the middle of ThanksChristmasbirthiversary season.

And, that is the story of my Sucktacular Thanksgiving. When I chronicled my suckfest on Facebook and admitted to my lousy attitude, a friend commented, "What a relief! You ARE human!" It was the first time I smiled all day.

Uncle Sam Punks Me...AGAIN! (The Fingerprint Edition)

2011-11-22T09:24:00.001-05:00

Don't blog angry!

...that was the warning from Guitar Hero before he left my office last night after, yet again, I was frustrated to tears. Something you should know about me, I hate illogical answers. I need to know why. Don't tell me that something absurd is the way that it is "just because that's how it is". The assumption in such a statement is that I am just a lemming...a Stepford Wife...a brainless goose-stepper. I may be wearing the same jeans from last week while rockin' that ketchup-colored handprint on my back but don't let the Mom chic fool you. I DO have a masters degree from a pretty swanky university that would send me a denial letter in a heartbeat if I applied today so explain the absurdity to me and, if it doesn't make sense to you, then change it!

I had one of those experiences last week. Actually, I've heard stories of it all through our training but there has been a lot in my life lately that feels emotionally oppressive so this particular incident just pushed me over the precipice.

SO, clearances. They are required for dealing with children in any sort of official capacity. I get that. I totally get that. Who wouldn't get that (no Penn State jokes, please)?! To become a FtA parent, we need to have clear PA Child Abuse Clearances, PA Criminal Background Checks and FBI fingerprinting and Federal criminal background checks done at a local Intermediate Unit (it's all high-tech now and goes directly into a computer system). To volunteer at my kids' school, I need to have all of those same exact clearances performed. For GH and me, the total cost was $106 for all of those clearances. Chump change for some but something that requires financial juggling for us.

Where, exactly, does the punking come in? Well, since we had to perform all of those clearances for our FtA application, I made copies of everything to then send into my kids' school so that we could now volunteer in their classes and sub, if needed. Sounds good, right? What a great way to kill two birds with one stone! Yeah. No. Not so much.

Ralph, does that
ridge over there
look like Charles
Manson's face
to you?

When I e-mailed the school to ask to whom I should send the copies of the clearances, a Whose on First-type e-mail exchange began between me and one of the administrators at my kids' school (who is, incidentally, one of my friends and a totally cool guy). When he replied that our FBI fingerprinting wasn't valid for school volunteering I thought that surely there was some sort of misunderstanding so I carefully explained everything to him in detail. We went to a Cogent FBI Fingerprinting Center, just like the school requires, and had the fingerprinting done, just like they require, and the results show that neither Guitar Hero nor I have any Federal criminal record...the certificate we received in the mail clearly states: NO RECORD EXISTS. To me, that would, in fact, mean that, at the FBI, NO RECORD EXISTS under either of our names. However, there appears to be one small problem. When you pre-register online to have your fingerprints taken by the FBI, you have to choose the department for which you are having the fingerprinting done. So, I had to decide whether we were getting them for the Department of Education or the Department of Public Welfare. Considering it seemed more urgent to become parents for kids who don't have any, I chose DPW and assumed it wouldn't be an issue because, well, we were going to the same exact building that did FBI Fingerprinting for both departments, same fingerprinting, same governmental agency, same flippin' fingerprints for the same non-existent records...entered into a federal computer system that spits out approval for BOTH DEPARTMENTS. Ya'll, this program is so efficient that we got those certificates back in ONE WEEK. You may be asking yourself, what then is the problem?

Kids, this is what it looks like
when the Dept. of Education
has finally driven mommy over
the Cliffs of Insanity

Well, apparently the "problem" is that I did not register under the Dept. of Edu-freaking-cation. Despite the fact that they both check for the same exact thing, despite the fact that I have a certificate from the FBI fingerprinting that states NO RECORD EXISTS, there appears to be some magical wall between the DPW and the Dept. of Ed and neither the twain shall meet. Remember the Hatfield and McCoys type feud between the CIA and FBI pre-Homeland Security? Yeah, it's something like that. My school is NOT ALLOWED to use the certificate as proof that I'm not a serial killer simply because it came from DPW and not the Dept. of Ed. The DPW has approved me to parent the most vulnerable children...that means they will live in my home 24/7 but, obviously, according to the Dept. of Ed, that approval isn't good enough for me to come into my kids' school and do craft time for two hours and make sure that Billy isn't feasting on paste. A.S.I.N.I.N.E. That's my new favorite word. Sounds a little like the Dept. of Ed. needs to get it's head out of it's less-important-than-it-thinks-it-is derriere and solve this issue. Are you telling me that NO ONE thought, "Hey, a teacher might want to be a foster parent. Why don't we just make these clearances universal?" I'm not asking them to waive the requirement for a clearance. I want them to require clearances of every person who steps through that front door. I just find it hard to believe that the Dept. of Ed has more stringent standards than the DPW and, if they do, then THAT is an even bigger problem. In any case, I just want them to take the clearance that they said I needed to provide from the place I needed to provide it. We don't have $66 more to go back for the same exact clearance and, frankly, Uncle Sam, this smacks a little of extortion. I'm sending you a postcard from the Edge of Insanity but you haven't pried my fingers off just yet.

Evenson Goes "Home"

2011-11-17T14:15:00.001-05:00

Now, make sure to
get plenty of rest!

Good news!! Evenson got his second round of chemo and it appears that his tumor is, indeed, shrinking! They are also able to keep his vitals stable so Harriet and Tom should be able to take him home this weekend. He is much less anxious and Harriet was able to switch her sleeping schedule around so she wasn't beyond exhaustion everyday. However, if you've ever been in a hospital for any length of time, you know that it is not conducive to resting since the staff insist on poking and prodding you at ridiculous hours of the night so it would be best to go back to their own home...not to mention that whole Thanksgiving thing coming up! Who wants hospital turkey? {{SHUDDER}}

The sad news is that Evenson lost his adorable little braids. They knew his hair would be falling out so they cut it really short and after the second round he started to lose some hair. My friend Catie (Harriet's DIL) has begun knitting chemo caps for him and a few of my other friends have jumped on board (don't you just love this J. Crewesque version Natalie knitted?!). The plan is give him 10 more rounds of chemo, one a week, and then check the size of the tumor. Hopefully it will be of a more operable size at that time and they can get that monster out of there.

Keep praying for this little guy and for strength for his host family. This is a marathon, not a sprint. He will be here for at least another 8 months.

Heading to the playroom
for a little fun

Last Class & Homestudy...The Final Countdown!

2011-11-16T14:08:00.001-05:00

Sorry I'm a little behind on the updates. My brain is fried from the holiday dump which is much more significant for us than most people since, in addition to Christmas and Thanksgiving in the next month and a half, we also have two birthdays and our wedding anniversary. Whose idea was this?!

Last week we had our final training class for foster-to-adopt...HOLLA! It was awesome because we met a foster/adoptive mom who lives right down the road from us and adopted a pre-teen and later adopted a toddler. Her insight and advice was excellent and helpful to reinforce what we'd been learning. Knowing that a child will most likely enter our home at an emotionally younger age than their biological age is one thing, hearing how that actually plays out in a family situation is another. I loved when she described navigating their daughter's confusion about her memories from the past and how open they were in talking about her birth family with her and giving her the freedom to make choices about who from her birth family to see and not to see. It was refreshing to see adoptive parents who were not threatened by the birth family. They talked to their daughter openly about the issues that her birthparents had and allowed her to take a leading role in the decision-making process.

Another interesting, helpful and irritating fact that she reminded us about was that, until their parental rights are terminated and then the adoption is final, our new children will be considered "foster" kids and we will have people in and out of our home AT LEAST twice a month...usually more. One friend said to me, "I wonder how many of us wouldn't be considered 'fit' to raise the kids we already have?" Indeed! Some of the requirements are common sense (you have to have a working toilet, you have to have running water, you have to have an actual, appropriately-sized bed for each child, they cannot sleep in a bathroom/hallway/unfinished garage or basement) and then there are the WHAT THE WHAT?! ones. Like we need to have quarterly fire drills in our house and one of them has to be in the middle of the night. Yes, DPW expects us to set our alarms for 3 a.m. (or some other ungodly hour) and wake ALL of the kids to practice crawling on the floor to get out or putting the escape ladder out the window and make them go down it (yes, we DO have two of them because I am THAT much of a safety freak). Now, as freakish about safety as I am, I would like to say to DPW, "Are YOU going to send someone to my house at 3:30 a.m. to get everyone back to sleep or to babysit my cranky early risers the next morning while I sleep in?!" Yeah. I didn't think so. There are a lot of things that sound good in theory...let's just say that I'm hoping the adoption is finalized before a year so we don't have to do that one.

Today we finished our final piece to the process...the HOMESTUDY! Of course, there was a bunch of unexpected craziness. Why was it unexpected? I should have penciled in the crazies 'cuz they always make their appearance for important events. We worked it out, though, before Brenda got here and she was able to get what she needed. Most of the meeting was the interview process and only about 10 minutes was the walk-through. It was really quick and certainly not "white glove". She did flush the toilet but only because she had to use the bathroom before she left for another meeting. She didn't check to see if our medicine was locked up or if we had a first aid kit or if the fire escape plan was posted in a visible place. Maybe another social worker will do that when we get the new kids. Who knows? For now, though, we're a go! She said that she has two other profiles to write before she can get to ours so she's estimating that it will be done by Christmas.

Now, we're moving on to LDB's birthday fun. He gets off the bus in 15 minutes and we're decorating his cake as a drum right before we give him his new drumset! He's going to be so psyched and think we're the best parents in the world because...well, we are. At least that's what a social worker told us this morning so it must be true, right?

Evenson: Chemo Begins

2011-11-09T11:24:00.001-05:00

Tonight is our laaaaaast foster care session so I'll update about that later this week but I did want to keep you posted on Evenson's progress. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures for you this time because Harriet's laptop is giving her problems with the upload so she's going to send them out when she is able to go home.

The newest course of treatment is to give Evenson 12 rounds of chemo and then measure the tumor. Hopefully at that point it will be of a more operable size. Then they will take it out and continue with chemo and radiation. He had his first round of chemo on Friday night and spent most of Saturday sleeping.

Harriet has been concerned about him because he seemed so anxious and worried all the time but Saturday afternoon she read him Hand, Hands, Fingers, Thumbs (seemingly, but not actually by Dr. Seuss) and he was giggling and smiling for the first time which was comforting to her. Because of the chemo, he isn't eating much but they have him on a GI tube and he has actually gained a little weight which is the goal so that he is strong enough for the surgery.

Another concern for the doctors was that his heart rate was rapid, his blood pressure was too high and his blood oxygen was too low. He has been on blood pressure meds and an oxygen mask since he arrived and they have managed to stabilize everything now. He took a trip to the hospital playroom on Sunday without his oxygen and seemed to do well while he played for half an hour. The goal is to stabilize him enough for he and Harriet to leave the hospital. They are hoping to go home to Harriet and Tom's but, at the very least, they can move over to the Ronald McDonald House until he is completely stable and she will bring him back for chemo once a week.

That's the latest...keep praying!

Tauntaun & Cheese, Anyone?

2011-11-07T15:55:00.001-05:00

Okay, I will admit it. I thought that Luke Skywalker was a hottie...

...when I was like 8 years old.

Anyway, on Friday I made a ginormous batch of macaroni & cheese for a friend (her grandfather had died and they needed food for the dinner after the funeral). Before I baked it, though, I set some of it aside for Saturday night's dinner. C-dog was going to be babysitting said friend's kids while she was at the funeral and I was at work.

When I returned home from work, I asked Daddio how dinner was and he started laughing. He relayed this dinner conversation to me:

Bean: Dad, I really don't like this mac & cheese.

Daddio (slightly irritated that our super-taster was, yet again, snubbing food): Why not?

Bean (clearly hesitant to offend): Well, you know that part in Star Wars where they cut open that animal so the guy can sleep inside?

Daddio: Yeah...?

Bean: Well, it looks like the animal's guts.

Daddio: (hysterical fits of laughter)

So, it would seem that my homemade macaroni & cheese resembles Tauntaun guts. What do YOU think? Is there any confusion?

Great Expectations

2011-11-06T15:42:00.001-05:00

Now, where was I? Oh, yes. We were discussing sessions 10 & 11, issues galore! Session 10 was about the effects of care-giving on the adoptive family. We talked about stress and the need to ask for help before we blow a gasket and we talked about what happens if we experience an allegation of abuse either from the child, a birthparent, a nosey neighbor or whoever. If there is an allegation, they will have to remove the child from our home until an investigation is done (by a third party DPW worker, not our social worker) and, if the allegations are unsubstantiated, then we will get the kids back. Hmmm...now that I think about it, sessions 10 and 11 probably should have been reversed since the issues in #11 cause the issues in #10.

Whoa, Trigger!
Down, boy!

The bigger session was #11, the effects of permanency on the adopted child. It was another opportunity to understand the tremendous loss that these kids are experiencing and the importance of being tuned in to their needs. We talked about triggers and recognizing that an emotional outburst may be the result of an event or situation that brings back a painful memory or feeling. These kids don't have the emotional or intellectual capacity to say, "You know, new mom, Christmas was particularly difficult for me in my birth family and I'm afraid it will be here, as well, so it's really stressing me out and that's why I am agitated and whacking my brother over the head with a dump truck." Come to think of it, I don't know many adults who effectively identify their own triggers the first time around so I certainly shouldn't expect a traumatized child to do that for me. Which leaves us to play detective and try to figure out what's bothering them so we can head it off at the pass the next time Trigger rears his head.

Hang in there, Billy!
I'm on my way!

Session 11 all boiled down to realistic expectations. There is a dangerous mindset in adoption, particularly adoption from foster care - I will save this child from the awful foster care system and those evil birthparents and he/she should and will be eternally grateful for all that I have done to SAVE them. Um, no. Drop the landing gear, SuperParent. I don't want to stereotype, perhaps there is a small contingent of kids out there who would feel that way. However, before we don our polyester cape and red vinyl boots, let's look at this from the child's perspective, shall we?

Billy Foster is living the only life he knows. From the outside, you and I know that his parents are royal screw ups, but Billy just knows that they are his parents and they represent all that is familiar to him. One day a social worker shows up at his front door or his principal's office at school, maybe with a police officer in tow (yeah, that's comforting to a child), and tells Billy that he can no longer go back to his parents' because they have done something wrong. Billy is scared. He just wants to talk to his parents and find out what's going on. When will he go back home? Where is he going now? Will he get his favorite cake for his birthday next week? Can he go home and get his favorite teddy bear and book? Why not?

The social worker shuttles him to the home of total strangers and tells him that this is where he'll be staying "for a while" until his parents do what they need to do to get him back. In a child's mind, "a while" is a few days. In reality, it will most likely be weeks or months. The new people may or may not be kind and helpful. They may or may not have friendly kids. They may or may not give him nice fitting clothes and ample food to eat. They may...or they may not. When Billy wakes up in the middle of the night with a nightmare about being taken from his parents, the new people might irritably bark for him to "get back in bed". All Billy knows is that he doesn't like the new place very much simply because Mom and Dad aren't there.

Billy waits and waits for the day when his parents come to get him...to save him. He may be moved again and again because the foster home "isn't a good fit". Each visit with his parents brings hope of going home with them, despite the fact that the social worker and his foster parents say that it won't happen this time. In his little mind, it might because Mom and Dad are going to fix this. Finally, one day, a social worker tells Billy that his parents have run out of chances. A judge is saying they are no longer his parents. They didn't work hard enough to get him back and now he will get a new mom and dad. Billy doesn't want a new mom and dad. He wants his mom and dad. Enter the adoptive parents...

And we think that Billy should be grateful that we want to adopt him? Why on earth would we think that?!

You know you want
to adopt us because of
our grateful faces.
(insert ethereal music)

Perhaps someday our children will thank us. But, even if they don't, that doesn't negate our responsibility to care for them the way a child deserves to be cared for. It's all about realistic expectations. So, if you're thinking about doing foster care adoption...or any adoption, really, do yourself a favor and don't watch those sappy Wednesday's Child commercials that play your emotions like a harp. Personally, I think they are disingenuous and more than a little misleading. It's just not that simple. What I'm learning in these classes is that flexibility is key. The more flexible you are about how life will be with the new kids, the smoother the transition will be. It is completely unreasonable to think that we will conform these children into our way of life and beliefs with little change to our own. It's unfair and selfish. As Carl told one of our kids recently, "When the new kids get here, we're all going to have to make some sacrifices to be a family."

Now, we're in the home stretch. This week is our laaaaaaaaast class. Brenda is bringing in an adoptive family to talk to us about their experience. They adopted older kids from foster care and live near us. YESSSS! A resource! It should be a short session and then either next week or the following week we will begin the home study interviews. Brenda's estimate is that we will be ready to start matching by Christmas. Yippee!!! I'm trying hard to squash my inner "J" about the fact that we have no idea how many, what gender or what age of kids we'll be adopting. So, I have no idea how to rearrange the bedroom arrangements, how much furniture we'll need, etc. etc. etc. Breathe in, breathe out. It will all work out...SOMEONE TELL ME IT WILL ALL WORK OUT!!! And, while you're at it, if you wanted to drop off a nice 12 passenger van, I wouldn't complain...unless, of course, it wreaked of marijuana and had shag carpeting clued to the dashboard :-)

Evenson's Pathology Report

2011-11-03T20:13:00.000-04:00

Normally, tonight, I would be writing my weekly breakdown of our FtA classes but an update on Evenson will be way more interesting. Don't get me wrong, the classes were helpful and all, but Evenson's story is just plain A.W.E.S.O.M.E. and flying at warp speed now that he is settled at Children's Hospital of L.A.

So, when I last left you on a spooky HALLOWEEN (insert creepy music), Evenson was awaiting surgery but for what we weren't sure. They actually took him into surgery to perform a biopsy on that mammoth tumor taking over his insides and while they were in there they installed a port-o-cath to administer chemotherapy. They are going to give him chemo that will hopefully shrink the tumor to a more operable size and then attempt to remove that monster.

Dr. Ford & Evenson

Did I mention that Evenson's doctor is Haitian...HELLO?! How amazing is that? No one knew until he met them at the airport! While they were prepping Evenson for surgery, Dr. Ford (awesome Haitian doctor) called Evenson's dad in Haiti and explained to him in Haitian Creole the procedure he was going to perform on his son. And, then...THEN he put the phone on speaker and let Evenson talk to his Papa! That kind of stuff just doesn't happen in these situations. These kids come here and the parents are back in Haiti at the mercy of someone sending an e-mail update back to the clinic and eventually getting it to them like days later when the information might be out-dated. People, this is the stuff of Hallmark movies! Did I mention that Dr. Ford is a Christian and he.prayed.before.the.surgery?! Yet, another fact we did not know. ARE YOU GETTING ALL OF THIS?! Is it sinking in?! Is this thing on...*tap*tap*tap*?

Poor baby Evenson with the
watermelon belly :-(

After the surgery, Dr. Ford said that the tumor was very unusual (is there a "usual" look to a watermelon-sized tumor?). He thought that it didn't look like a normal Wilms' Tumor and perhaps was a different, more aggressive form of cancer but they couldn't know for sure and wouldn't know what type of chemo to use on it until the pathology results came back. In the meantime, Harriett, his host mom, was under strict instructions to fatten him up. It seems he has a discerning taste for chicken nuggets and French fries...what almost-three-year-old doesn't? She was apparently instructed to introduce him to McDonald's "downstairs". I'll refrain from a rant about McDonald's restaurants shacking up with Children's Hospitals because I'm just so grateful that this kid is getting a second shot at the brass ring. I'm not sure that it really matters at this point what he eats as long as he's eating something and putting on weight that is not tumor-related to get that surgery.

Today, the pathology results came back and everybody cut Footloose! It is a Wilms' Tumor and the most treatable kind! The bad news? He's already at Stage 3, but, really, did we not know this? I mean look at him. The great news? The doctors are very optimistic...of course, would they tell us if they weren't? Regardless, they aren't in charge of it all, anyway. If our God is with us, then what could stand against? I said during prayer request time in Bible study this morning, "Wouldn't it be just like God to make it the worst kind of cancer with little hope just so He could get all the glory when Evenson is completely cured?" Well, frankly, I'm glad it it isn't the most aggressive, worst kind because we all could use a lot of hope for this little guy. He's come so far...

My friend Catie's MIL &
Evenson's angel host mom...
LOOK AT HER!
Wouldn't you want that sweet
woman taking care of your child
if you couldn't?

SO, what's next? They are supposed to begin chemo treatments for him tomorrow and he will also be on a feeding tube at night to continue the fattening process 24-7. Please pray that the chemo shrinks the tumor to an operable size. Right now, it is my understanding that they will give him a 30 (yes, that's a 3-0) week course of chemo and then perform surgery and radiation so that we can, hopefully, send him home cancer-free for a long and productive life with his mom and dad in Haiti.

Prayer requests:

Strength for Evenson's little body to endure the treatments
Wisdom for all of his healthcare professionals
Strength and care for his host parents, Harriet and Tom
Strength and peace for his parents back in Haiti
Complete healing for Evenson
Funding for the remainder of his care. Angel Missions Haiti did not receive all of the needed funds for his travel, etc. Tax-deductible donations can be made here (scroll down to the donate button).

Stay tuned tomorrow for my regularly scheduled programming update on our FtA classes and our new Countdown to Kids...same Bat-time, same Bat channel.

Haiti is Phi Mu Pink for This One

2011-10-31T11:47:00.001-04:00

"That country looks like it's been hosed down with Pepto-Bismol!"

Yes, I do love a good Steel Magnolias quote...but I digress. Because I don't have enough to do around here, I decided to take on the job of medical missions. Okay, not really, but sort of and the story is such a God-thing that Carl said I have to share it.

Saying good-bye to Naph

At the beginning of September, I happened to be on the website of Angel Missions Haiti. It's an organization that we worked with about three and a half years ago when we hosted a little girl who came to the US for surgery to treat her hydrocephalus. Naphtalie stayed with us for two and a half months until we unexpectedly moved and then our friends Jason and Nichole took over for us. When she got the all clear from her doc, she went back to her parents in Haiti. Every now and then I interact with the director of AMH to check in and see how things are so, for whatever reason, I decided to take a click through their website. That's where I came across Evenson. This little guy with an enormous Wilms' tumor looked so miserable and I just couldn't imagine watching my child go through that with little hope of healing simply because of where he was born. Then I saw the picture of his father, smiling down, adoringly, at him. It was like the decision to help Naph all over again...how could I not do something to help him?!

Now, I do have to tell you that I am not a bleeding heart. I don't get a compulsion to tangibly help kids every single time I hear a distressing story. But, with Naph and with Evenson, it was as if God said, "You'll have no peace unless you do what I ask. I don't need you to do this, I can find someone else, but I want you to experience the blessing of working with me on this." I can't save the world but I can do something for this one (I promise to spare you the starfish story). With Naph, it was agreeing to be her host mom. With Evenson, it was much simpler. I needed to ask around for a doctor who might be willing to help him. I was really just throwing stuff at the wall to see what would stick since I knew exactly two people who might know someone who knew someone who knew someone who could/would help Evenson. You get the idea.

So, at the beginning of September, I e-mailed my friend Heather who is a pediatrician. She and I went to college together and are sorority sisters (yes, I was in a sorority...my husband struggles with this everyday but it is his cross to bear...mwahahaha!). Heather is a pediatrician in California and was our philanthropy chair at our collegiate chapter. If anyone would be able to convince someone to help out, it would be Heather. But, she took a look at Evenson's diagnostic information and she was not optimistic that 1) they would find anyone who would be willing to spend the money on such a sick child and 2) that he would even make it by the time all of the red tape was cut. Like me, though, she was willing to throw stuff at the wall and hope for the best.

She e-mailed several colleagues and, to our utter disbelief, within a few days she found a hospital and doctor who were willing to take him on for the needed surgery and months of follow-up treatment! Unfortunately, there was a misunderstanding about payment and it fell through but, almost as quickly, Heather found another hospital and another doctor who were willing to take Evenson's case for his complete care and they would provide the services 100% pro bono (a US Embassy requirement to obtain a medical visa for a child in Haiti).

With one big hurdle down we still had a few more to go. The US embassy will not issue a visa for the parents, only the child, so a host family is needed within an hour of the hospital where the child will receive treatment. Once again, I put out a plea to friends anywhere within the state of California or for anyone who knows anyone in California. Without a host family to agree to care for him completely at their own expense, the US embassy will not issue the visa. A few friends asked around at their churches but no one stepped up until I received an e-mail from another sorority sister, Catie. Her mother-in-law lived near the hospital and had put out a plea to her church for a host family but when no one came forward she felt God tugging at her heart to do it! Did I mention that she and her husband did medical missions for years and she knows French?! The story just gets better and better!

But, as always, there is that pesky little problem of finances. While the hospital, doctor and host family were offering their help pro bono, AMH still had to get the little guy a medical visa and passport ($500) and fly him, his nurse and the director to the hospital (>$3000). Their funds had been sorely depleted over this past summer because promised donations never materialized. Dontcha hate it when that happens? I mean, it was baaaaad. They had like $100 in their account. So, I started making pleas and when I make a financial plea it's no holds barred. When we were in college and had philanthropy fundraisers for our sorority, I would always be asked to work the table. I had a knack for getting people to stop and donate - "Buy a flower for your girlfriend and grant a dying child's wish!" Yeah, try walking past that one without wincing, Scrooge. By the time it was all said and done, God delivered four big ticket donors (one was yet another Phi Mu!) and a collection from my Bible study. The grand total = $2200. Not bad for just asking the question! I haven't heard the final total yet but I know that the host mom put out a financial plea, as well, so I think money is still coming in.

An exhausted Nurse Ginny
& Evenson finally arriving
in CA

The best part so far? This past Saturday, Evenson flew out of Haiti with Ginny, his nurse, to the US. The bad part? They connected through JFK in NY. Thanks to Christmas in October, Ginny sat in that airport with Evenson for HOURS while their flight was bumped and bumped and bumped again because of Snowtober. What is up with that?! Finally, FINALLY, they were on a flight to California and arrived in the wee hours of Sunday morning. Ginny was exhausted but they needed to wait for the doctor to arrive and when he did...oh, Heaven! HE IS HAITIAN AND SPEAKS HAITIAN CREOLE!! This poor, very sick child was taken from his parents to a foreign country where he doesn't know the language and God delivered him into the hands of a fellow countryman! Only God could do that from me throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. Seriously, y'all, I cried when I read that in the update. Cried. I don't cry. All I did was send a few e-mails...talk about 5 loaves and 2 fishes!

Pre-op testing

This morning, I received an update from my sorority sister, Catie (her MIL is Evenson's host mom). He is in the hospital being prepped for surgery. We aren't sure if it's just to install a port-o-cath or if it's actually the surgery to remove the tumor. The doctors were concerned about doing surgery right away because he's so malnourished but the tumor has grown substantially since his diagnosis in August and restricts his ability to eat. I am anxious for an update and I will post when I hear something new.

In the meantime, please pray, pray and pray some more. Pray for wisdom for the doctors. Pray for strength for Evenson, his host parents, his own parents who will be away from him for almost a year (can you imagine?!) and for everyone who will work with him. Pray for complete healing so that his parents can have him back in Haiti, whole and healthy once again. And, if you can, please donate to AMH through PayPal or send them a check so that they can help other kids like Evenson get the care they need that cannot be found in their own country. I am so humbled/excited/grateful to be part of this story and I can't wait to see what God has in store for this little guy.

Birthparents & Sexual Abuse...It's the Monster Mash

2011-10-27T21:19:00.000-04:00

First of all, let me say that we only have TWO more weeks of training left! WOOT! Our paperwork is aaaaaaaallllllmost done and then we move onto the home study and matching process. It's so close I can taste it!

Last night's first session was on birthparents. Now, when you hear birthparent you might be thinking about someone along these lines...

But, in all actuality, there's really no way to tell who will be your child's birthparents. I'm a birthparent, a first mom, not through foster care but rather domestic infant adoption. It doesn't really matter which avenue of adoption you use, though, because misperceptions about birthparents abound in all arenas. If it's international then she's poor and too uneducated to care for her kids, if it's foster care then she's a child abusing, drug-addict and if it's domestic infant then she's a pregnant, poor, unwed mother who could snatch that baby back from your loving arms at a moment's notice. Here's the thing...you can play out your little stereotypes until your head explodes but all it will get you is a vague caricature of an unredeemable person so that you can feel better about adoption and "saving" kids. Let's let people be the individuals that they are, broken and imperfect, just like us and not try to turn them into someone else.

Adoption isn't always the best choice for a child in foster care and we have to be okay with that. Going back to birthparents doesn't always pose a terrifying risk and refusing an open adoption isn't always in the best interest of you or your child...yes, even in foster-to-adopt situation. You don't know the situation until someone tells you all the facts so don't judge, Judgey McJudgerson.

The saddest part of this particular session for me was when Brenda described the grief and loss cycle of the birthparent (BP) and how, sometimes, the BP just can't seem to see any hope so she resigns herself to losing her children and gives up, walks away. She has no one really helping her to learn how to be a good parent (because she never learned from her parents). What breaks my heart is that a mom has lost even the will to fight for her own babies. I've watched this unfold in Haiti, particularly since the earthquake, where mothers just can't foresee a time when they can properly raise their children so they just leave them at an orphanage. Does no one else see a problem with this?!?! Adoption is not the answer to ill-equipped birthmothers! This band-aid is just not good enough for me. It's my area of Holy Discontent. Everyone cares about the cute little babies but what about the parents? Yes, yes, I know that some parents should lose their children forever but not all of them should.

Okay, stepping down from the soapbox...

The next session was about sexual abuse. It happens, it's ugly and I really didn't want to hear about it but it, too, is a reality. Most pedophiles were themselves abused as children. There is mixed research about the effectiveness of treatment. The non-abusing parent usually does not know it's happening because the perpetrator is that good at manipulating people. Most kids will not tell you because they are afraid of your reaction. They've been threatened that their parents will die or they will die or the perpetrator who is usually a family member or trusted adult will get in trouble because "no one understands" and it will be all the child's fault. Brenda said that it was important for us to be prepared to hear from our child about undisclosed abuse and that we shouldn't have a knee-jerk reaction such as having them removed from the home. It will only confirm their fears of ruining everything by telling the truth.

She also talked about the importance of getting counseling. Unfortunately, the best counseling in our area for children who have been sexually abused is over an hour away, without rush hour. Because we have small children and most likely at least one of the kids we bring in will be older than they are, sexual acting out is our red flag in the matching process. Fortunately, if the child has done anything like that it should be listed in their file and sometimes the online profile might even say something like, "Would be best raised as the youngest sibling or only child."

We watched another Oprah clip about a girl who was raped by her father from the age of 11 to 23. He did 1 year in jail. That was in 1986. You know that if it was today, he'd have probably been shivved in prison and never have seen the light of day again. The saddest part of the whole story is that HE was sexually abused by an older teen neighbor (this stuff happens, people, know where your kids are and who they're with...kids do this to other kids) and his wife was molested, too, so she was ripe for being an ostrich about the whole thing. She suspected but she didn't know and when her daughter told her, she took the girls and left...GO MOM! They were a wealthy family, in an affluent neighborhood and he was an elder in his church. It's not who you think it is. Talk.to.your.kids. Trust your gut. Get your kids out of there.

Okay, end of that public service announcement.

I can't remember what next week's sessions will be other than 10 & 11 but tomorrow C-dog and I are heading out to get FBI fingerprinted, yet another piece in a long line of paperwork to make this whole thing happen. I see a light at the end of the paperwork tunnel...

Honey? Do you need another Red Bull in there?

Me...in the Raw

2011-10-26T15:34:00.002-04:00

Okay, not that kind of raw. I took my employer up on their 30 Day Raw Food Challenge and I have been eating 70-90% raw food everyday for the past four days. As I said on Monday, it's really not that hard when you're sick and not remotely hungry. The hubs offered to join me but, frankly, it's just easier to "cook" (can you call it that when the food is mostly raw?) for me.

Sooo...what exactly do you hippy-freaks
eat on this crazy voodoo diet and
do you have to wear Birkenstocks while you're doing it?

Fair questions (except for the Birks comment), why would someone eat only raw food and what the heck do you eat on one of these diets?

WHY?

Did you know that most nutrition experts will tell you that you should be eating a majority of raw vegetables in your diet? Why is that? Well, when you eat food, your pancreas pumps out all kinds of enzymes to help your stomach digest the food. Fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, eggs and dairy all contain most of the enzymes we need to digest them already present in their raw form. For the sake of simplicity, I will just say that enzymes are living, active organisms and some of them have the job of breaking down our food into a form that our bodies can easily use for energy. However, when we cook our food, most of those enzymes are destroyed requiring our bodies to produce more enzymes to digest the food we eat. For example, if you are lactose intolerant, you are able to drink raw (unpasteurized) dairy products without any unpleasant side effects. Before it is heated, milk contains the lactase enzyme (the active ingredient in Lactaid pills) which is missing in the lactose intolerant person's digestive tract. Some of us are fortunate enough to produce enough lactase in our bodies to digest pasteurized dairy. Some of us, like my husband, are not. Anyone with lactose intolerance can eat or drink raw dairy products because they still contain the lactase enzyme to digest the lactose for them. However, once milk has been pasteurized, the lactase enzyme in the milk has been killed off and milk becomes a ticking time-bomb in my husband's digestive tract. Fortunately, we have an amazing raw dairy farm within 10 minutes of our house and, yes, that's what our whole family drinks all the time (except for Isaac who has a dairy allergy)...raw milk all the time for over three years and no one has gotten sick from it. Shocking, I know.

So, ideally, we should be eating 60-70% of our food raw. This helps to keep our pancreas and adrenal glands from becoming overworked and fatigued which can wreak all kinds of havoc on our bodies. I am doing this to help me feel better (I have weird, unidentified digestive...ehem, congestion). And, to help break off my long-standing codependent love affair with food. Wait, I don't think it can be considered "codependent" if the food doesn't depend on me to do anything other than eat it.

What CAN You Eat?!

No, I'm not sitting around noshing on carrots and apples all day. There are actually two different schools of thought on raw foodism (and a whole myriad of in between) - vegan and universal. The vegan raw foodists ascribe to a no-animal product raw food regimen. Universal raw foodists will eat anything as long as it's raw. I fall into the universal camp (kind of like Carol Alt without the whole raw-food-solves-all-of-the-world's-problems philosophy) and I chose to eat raw, humanely-sourced animal products (raw milk cheese, raw eggs*, raw honey) for this challenge because my body is not happy or satisfied without some food from animals.

So, for this week, I have made for myself a three-nut spinach pesto that I will serve on zucchini "noodles" with a sun-dried tomato sauce topped with Parmesano Reggianno (did you know that's raw milk cheese?). I also made a mock tuna using sunflower seeds which I will eat on rosemary garlic crackers that are currently dehydrating in my oven. I have a batch of chocolate, coconut almond cookies on deck for dehydrating, too, when the oven is freed up. For the past year, in the mornings, I like to drink a green smoothie (it's not as gross as it sounds and it's WAY more energizing than coffee) and, starting with the challenge, for lunch I have some sort of green salad with various toppings. Dinner has been a non-issue since I've been sick and not very hungry but I plan on saving the high maintenance foods for dinner. Saturdays are usually a work day for me and, as a treat, I am going to buy myself something from the Raw Can Roll Cafe for lunch to keep me motivated. It's a little slice of heaven whether you're a raw foodist or not!

Do I think I'll keep this up after the Challenge is over? Nope. It's really high maintenance and the whole Raw Foodism culture is a little too prescriptionist and unsustainable for me. Frankly, sometimes it can sound a bit like a religion when talking to some (not all) raw foodists. The last thing I need to do is find my "bliss" in any kind of food, raw or cooked...that's what I'm trying to leave behind! Also, to do this long-term would require an investment in crazy expensive appliances like high-speed blenders and 9-tray dehydrators. Not quite a budgetary priority right now. However, I have wanted to incorporate more raw foods into my diet and the challenge only requires 85% of your food to be raw so I don't have to feel guilty about "cheating" (yes, some (not all) raw foodists actually use this term to refer to eating any amount of cooked food and I think it's judgmentally silly but that's a post for another time).

Anyhoo, that's the advent of my foray into "raw foodism". Raw foods are very healing and I agree 100% that they detoxify the body, particularly when someone is struggling with a serious illness like cancer or HIV. The jury is still out on the long-term benefits of being a 100% raw food vegan since I've read more times than not about raw food vegans "falling off the wagon" because of serious dietary deficiencies. Right now, I'm going for healing, increased energy and detoxification. Nothing more, nothing less. I'll keep you posted on the results and maybe even include some pictures of what I'm eating. See you around the produce aisle.

*I would recommend never eating raw eggs unless you know and have visited your source of those eggs. They should be 100% cage-free and fed an organic diet. Eggs from anywhere else are too risky, in my opinion.

Discipline, Culture and Sudafed

2011-10-24T13:36:00.000-04:00

I make no promises about the coherency (is that a word?) of this post since my children were kind enough to share a head cold with me. I'm pretty sure it's a conspiracy (I know that's a word) since my voice now vascillates somewhere between chain-smoking grandma and small animated rodent character that belongs on PBS. Neither is helpful for a mom who needs a booming voice that can be heard over the rave that begins in my house at approximately 3 p.m. every weekday.

Sooooo...last week's classes were NOT about sexual abuse. That's THIS week. Sorry to get your hopes up and then callously dash them on the rocks like that. Last week we talked about discipline and culture. Sounds boring but it really wasn't.

A huge sticking point for some prospective foster/foster-to-adopt parents is that as long as the child is considered a "foster" child (in other words your adoption of them is not final) you cannot use any form of corporal punishment. No spanking, flicking, hand-smacking, pinching, etc. Clearly many foster parents DO NOT obey the law on this point or there wouldn't be headlines like Foster Son Left to Die in Closet, Bound in a Blanket and Duct Tape, While Foster Mom Attended Family Reunion. Yeah. That really happened.

Hey, you...YEAH, YOU!
Put the paddle down and
step away slowly...

Whatever you feel about corporal punishment, it's illegal with foster kids so if you want to do this thing, you'd better get on board. Our social worker makes no judgment calls about spanking, in general, either way. She definitely played the poker-face on that one. She simply re-iterated that these kids are very different from kids who have been brought up in a loving environment with appropriate discipline. They've either been beaten or completely ignored for their entire lives. In either case, you have to be creative and extremely careful with any form of discipline. She also pointed out the potential problems of inconsistency that could arise if homemade kids are spanked while foster kids are not. Then there's the whole lack-of-trust issue thing that could develop if, once the adoption is finalized, the adoptive parents begin spanking seemingly out-of-the-blue...at least that's how the child will view it. Yeah, you see the conundrum with spanking these kids?

That whole conversation has made us more brain-on with our own kids this past week to ensure that our discipline and correction are meaningful, loving and educational. That's harder than you think when you've been using the same bag of tricks for X number of years...especially after Big Al runs over your head. Fortunately, Carl took some mad notes so we can review it.

The next session was about culture. Again, very interesting! Culture is more than just skin color, religion, country of origin or language. It's where you live, how you are raised, life expectations, what you feel is appropriate to wear, how you've been taught to approach situations, what issues are important in life, traditions that you've experienced in your family. Basically, it's what has made you who you are to this point in your life. Brenda talked about the importance of really hearing our new kids on the issues of culture and learning what's important to them...even if they aren't sure what they need themselves yet. It's a tough topic to pin down since every single kid will be different. We just needed a reminder that we shouldn't expect no change in our own family culture when our newest kids arrive, that embracing some of their culture is vital to truly making them part of our family.

This week we'll be covering the topics of birthparents and sexual abuse (two separate sessions, thank God) and hopefully next week will be our last class...fingers-crossed so we can move on to the homestudy! Later this week I'll fill you in on my newest form of crazy called The 30 Day Raw Food Challenge. Yes, I'm doing it and it's actually not as hard as you'd think when you're sick and you really don't want to eat anything anyway.

I also have a new post up on All Things for Mom. Go there. Read it. Spend less this Christmas.

The One Where Uncle Sam Punks Me

2011-10-17T13:35:00.000-04:00

Soooo....on Saturday I posted about needing approximately $1700 to pay for an international adoption home study. Then I went to the mailbox this morning and found this little gem...

It's seems that Uncle Sam (or one of his underlings) thinks he owes us some money. Now, before you get all Hallelujah, Praise Jesus! on me, I will tell you that I know unequivocally and without a doubt that this is a big, fat mistake. How do I know? Because I have been doing our taxes, by hand, for our entire marriage (almost 11 years). When my husband became technically self-employed as an ordained minister, I just read up on the tax code and followed the instructions for what we had to pay and I made sure I knew each and every refund to which we were entitled...oh, yes. The government does not get 1 dime to which they are not entitled. So, when I got the survey in the mail this summer telling me that I may have miscalculated our taxes and missed the Earned Income Tax Credit, I was all, Oh, no, you DI-ENT just question my tax preparation abilities! But, like an obedient ~~lemming~~ public servant, I filled out the survey, assuming they would figure it out, and never gave it a second thought. However, I should have known better. If our taxes make Turbo Tax's head explode then why wouldn't it confuse a poor, seasonal IRS agent? I will spare you all of the gory details of when the Ministerial Housing Allowance can and cannot be excluded in tax prep...unless you are dealing with insomnia and then I will be happy to share. Suffice it to say, we are not entitled to any refund, let alone a refund this large.

I have no idea HOW we paid for this
home study...it just magically appeared!

Now, don't think for a minute that I was not tempted to shout, "SUCKERS!" and head to the bank. Oh, I was soooo tempted. There were enough rationales coming out my wazoo to fill about a dozen toilet bowls (cuz that's where they deserved to be) "They'll probably never figure it out"..."Maybe there is some new law I don't know about"..."It was THEIR mistake"..."I would be using it for a good cause"...all for about 20 seconds. I re-read the tax code that the poor IRS agent most obviously didn't read because, really, that book of regs it about the size of the state of Texas so who actually reads that thing?! Indeed, nothing has changed. The money is not ours.

Weeeeee!!!! I am SO getting fired for this!

I made a quick call to an accountant friend from church and he confirmed what I already knew, that someone was smokin' doobage on the job and handing out money like the Tooth Fairy. He gave me the number for the local IRS office and told me to write VOID across the check and mail it back. And, so, once they are back from their governmental lunch break, that is what I will be doing.

PSYCHE!
I can't believe YOU fell for that!

Sometimes doing the right thing stinks...like enormous, wet landfill STINKS. But, really, the money was never mine in the first place, as a good friend pointed out, so I never really "lost" anything. Here's the thing...I could have easily kept the money and explained it away in a way that would have satisfied pretty much everyone but deep down, in places where only God and I hang out, I know that it would have made an ugly mess. I don't have time to clean my bathrooms, let alone the aftermath of moral failure. So, this time, I think I got it right. But that doesn't mean that Satan (dressed as Uncle Sam) isn't trying to taunt me about it and that's the part that smells the worst at this very moment. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? (Jer. 17:9)...yeah, tell me about it.

Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So, if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And, if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own? ~Luke 16:10-12

Monay, Monay, Monay, Moooonay...MOOOOONAY!

2011-10-15T22:41:00.000-04:00

So, if money makes the world go 'round, then why does it bring my adoption world to a screeching halt? I'm not talking about foster-to-adopt (FtA) because the government is gracious enough to use my tax dollars from all of those years I spent working for ________________ (insert the name of the large, international law firm supported by the legal defense of the equally large and infamous tobacco company...yeah, that one) to pay for the adoption of my kids out of foster care. And, NO I do not feel bad about that considering the payment we'll receive for raising these kiddos will most likely barely cover the monthly payment and gas on the 12 passenger van we'll need. So, if you don't have anything nice to say...go sit next to Jerry Springer or Rush Limbaugh or someone who actually gives a flip about your armchair politics. I'm talking about our international adoption. We haven't even made it out of the gate, yet.

Ya'll come sit over here next to me.
I've got a Barcalounger with your
whiney-hiney name written all over it.

Here's the great thing about international adoption - there are tons and tons of grants, no-interest loans and fundraising options available to the prospective adoptive parents who don't want to sell a vital organ to pay for their child's homecoming. So, what's the hold up? Weeeeeeell, there is the teensy-weensy problem of the homestudy. Those grant organizations would love to consider our application for an adoption grant, I mean, that's what they're all about... if I can provide them with an approved homestudy. I get that. Really, I do. They want to make sure that they are gifting money to people who will actually bring a child home so they want to be assured by a licensed social worker that we're sane, psychologically-stable, not-foraging-in-the-dumpster-for-dinner, non-axe-murdering, anti-baby-eating individuals. Completely reasonable, right? The issue is the whole $1500-$2500 homestudy fee. Yep. That's how much it costs to get started, before you can even ask for an organization to consider you for a grant to pay for the remaining $20,000+ it will cost to eventually bring them home. And, yes, any U.S. citizen who is planning to adopt, domestically or internationally, must have an approved homestudy. It's the law. As one dear friend pointed out: ADOPTION FEES = RANSOM. And, the sooner I can get on board with that fact, the sooner I'll be mothering some more babes. It's not right, it just is.

You want me to pay HOW much for the adoption?
Well, bless your heart. You just go ahead and call
me back when you're not high on crack, k?

When Carl and I first started dating and we were all smoochy-poochy, head-over-heels, can-we-get-married-yesterday-so-we-can...you know, I remember lamenting about how much I wanted to just marry him, damn the torpedoes! He said to me something to the effect of, "I have $400 in the bank and I owe $11,000 in student loans. Even if we cashed in our chips and ran off to Rome, they'd say, 'Thanks, you still owe us $10,600. Will that be cash or check?'" That's how I feel about this adoption thing. The chips aren't there to be cashed, no matter how willing we are.

See that little country in Phi Mu pink?
That's Haiti...where my babies live.

So, what's a mom to do when there are babies to be mothered in a not-so-far-off, fourth world country and one of the good agencies says they are finally opening adoptions again for the first time since the earthquake but this mom doesn't have the money to convince someone to unlock the starting gate? It's time to pray. Could you join me? My Father owns the cattle on a thousand hills and loves these kids more than I do. I just need me some patience...and I don't have time for that.

Patience, you get your butt in here right this minute!

I've been calling you for the past year!

Just you wait until your father gets home and hears about this!

A Field Trip to Crapville, USA

2011-10-13T17:39:00.000-04:00

So, about those classes....

Well, the first thing you should know is that they are required but the amount of class time depends on the agency you decide to use. I, of course, managed to pick the agency that requires a virtual PhD in Foster Care issues - 36 hours. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about having to go...other than the fact that we already did all of this 8 years ago and then got pregnant with Ellie. Funny how that happens. I'm GLAD they require that much classroom time to learn about the needs of these children. What appalls me is that there are agencies that require just 6...six...SIX hours of class time for prospective foster parents. That kind of "training" explains why my Google searches for "foster child" produce about a bazillion stories of foster parents murdering their foster kids. But, I digress...for now.

Brenda is our social worker and the first night she had us watch a cheery movie called Richard Cardinal: Cry from the Diary of a Métis Child. Let me tell you, if you are feeling a little too good about life and need to come down a peg or twelve, this is the movie for you. Seriously, I think everyone should watch it. The cinematography wasn't stellar but the story alone was compelling enough to carry it. It's a 1986 documentary about a Canadian foster child of Metis Indian descent who spent most of his life in foster care. This rip-your-heart-out-of-your-chest-and-stomp-on-it-for-good-measure movie told Richard's story, right up until he hanged himself at the age of 17 (hanging pictures included) because he was so desperately lonely. This quiet child left behind a beautifully articulate diary of all of his gut-wrenching pain, the pain of rejection and abuse and being swept under the rug by everyone except his siblings. Unfortunately, his siblings had little say in his life and they were all frequently separated because very few people are willing to take in eight children at one time. The film is a pep rally for anyone with a Superman complex. Even though this happened in the late 70s, I'm not really convinced that all that much has changed.

We talked about the difference between straight adoption from foster care and foster-to-adopt. In straight adoption, you are only willing to accept children whose parental rights have already been terminated. The benefit is that there is virtually no risk of the parents getting their kids back. The downside is that the pool of available children is smaller so you might be waiting for a looooong time to get a match. In foster-to-adopt, the rights have NOT yet been terminated but the parents have dropped the ball so many times that the judge is now fed up and has asked the social worker to start planning for an adoption. The upside to FtA is that there are more children available but, obviously, they are still involved with their birthparents in some way and that means they could go back. Here's the thing, in my opinion, one is not better than the other. It is what it is. Sure, I'd like to have as little risk as possible but, frankly, this whole foster care system is one big crapshoot. It seems selfish for me to say, "Yeah, I know those kids really need us but I just can't take a chance on losing them." While I am not downplaying the tragedy of losing someone you've come to love, I hardly find it horrific if a birthparent got their act together at the eleventh hour. Perhaps that's an oversimplification but I've been feeling more and more like we need to be more proactive instead of reactive. Shouldn't we PREVENT orphans by helping birthparents keep their kids if they are healthy enough to do so? Again, perhaps it's an oversimplification...

On night two, we watched a lovely movie about a mom in the 60s who traced the cycle of abuse in her family all the way back to the Civil War era. She had so much pent up rage that she accidentally killed her child. She "spanked" him with a curtain rod (because he got potato chip crumbs on her clean floor) and then, in a fit, threw the rod back into the room as she left and somehow it stabbed him in the eye. H.O.R.R.I.B.L.E. She talked about how she should have gotten help with her anger and if she could do it over again she would have but hindsight is 20/20. The next movie had a painfully monotone narrator and I'm actually glad. It was hard to take it seriously with Ferris Bueller's teacher giving us the info. The movie showed various pictures of physical abuse, actual police photos of children and their wounds, so that we could identify it if we had kids who were still visiting with their BPs. Lawd! I really did not need to see the cigarette burns on the bottom of the baby's feet! There is a special circle in hell just for you, scumbag.

Does anyone want to talk about abuse? Anyone, anyone...?

In between all of the movies, we talked about abuse and how to report it and how it affects kids' ability to attach and what a social worker's schedule looks like on a daily basis so we don't get our panties in a wad if she doesn't call us back immediately and how difficult the decisions are that the birthparents have to make on a daily basis like taking a sick kid to the doctor or leaving her to infect poor old, practically dying Aunt Agnes so mom doesn't lose her job, etc. etc. It just reinforced the whole suck-factor of foster care, the socio-economic inequities and just how broken our world is. We can get on our self-righteous high-horses but, really, we're all just limping through imperfection and no one wants to hear your verbal diarrhea about birthparents or social workers or foster kids or where your taxes are spent unless you're willing to jump into the mud, too, and see it for yourself.

Last night's feature film was a real beaut. It might as well have been a Brat Pack movie. True story...straight out of 1985, ala Beat It or Molly Ringwald or something. It was a little vignette about a foster teen and there is no way to describe it other than "classic". Anyway, despite the pegged pants, bandanna headbands (on men!), the boyfriend named "Speed" and the Iron Maiden poster on the foster daughter's bedroom wall, we actually got some good tips out of it about things like tackling the safety issues first before tackling the values issues with a new kid (i.e., if she and Speed are playing house, make sure she's being "safe" about it and save the abstinence talk for when she actually believes you give a crap). Another thing we learned/were reminded about was not taking it personally. We're the last stop on the train and, as a result, we're probably going to get all of the crap dumped on us. It's all good to know in theory but someone please remind me of that when the poo car opens up on my head...m'kay?

The best part of the night, though, was when Brenda said that she had received an e-mail from one of the Heart Galleries (heart-wrenchingly adorable pictures of kids available for adoption) and she immediately thought of us when she saw the listing for the sibling group of 7. Yes, SEVEN.

I was all......

And Carl was all...

And it didn't really matter since we can't do anything about it anyway until we have a completed homestudy which doesn't come until after the completed classes. It was still really funny, though!

And, last but not least, I went to the doctor today for my physical to get that paperwork out of the way. Have I mentioned that doctors' scales are a tool of Satan or governmental torture or perhaps there is a secret governmental agency called the Office of Satanic Cruelty? After the TB test and an admonition to exercise more (um, yeah, about that...I have four kids, 'nuff said), I was on my merry way with an ENT referral for the death metal hearing distortion problem in my left ear but an otherwise clear bill of health.

Next week's class is all about sexual abuse. My head hurts just thinking about that one.

Well, Shut My Mouth

2011-10-09T13:16:00.000-04:00

So, yesterday I came home from work and, as usual for a Saturday, I turned my brain off as I plopped myself down to eat some dinner while Carl got the kids ready for bed. After her bath, the Bean came be-bopping down the stairs and announced, "Daddy wants his silver water bottle. Where is it?" Now, since I hadn't been home all day there was no reason I would have any clue where it was so I said in my toned-down-for-the-kids sarcastic voice, "I have no idea. I haven't been here all day." (um, yeah, the brain was definitely in the OFF position). She replied, "Well, I can't find it..." (imagine the wanna-be tween attitudinal shoulder shrug and it's like you're there...I know, I know, I started it). At this point, I just rolled my eyes and tossed back, "Okay, so maybe you should pray about."

When I didn't hear a response I turned back around to see my precious Bean standing in the middle of the kitchen with her hands clasped, head bowed and lips silently forming her petition. After she finished she cheerily proclaimed, "He said YES." Half-listening again, I tossed back, "To what?" "You told me to ask Him to help me find the water bottle so I did and he said YES." With that, she skipped into the foyer where, I kid you not, 30 seconds later she announced in her best I-told-you-so sing-song, "I found it!"

She began to fill up the bottle for her Dad while I watched, dumbfounded. Like the big disbelieving, brain-off doofus that I am, I said, "Wow! I can't believe you just found it." The look...oh, the look she gave me was positively Biblical, "Oh, you of little faith." Her response as she sweetly kissed me goodnight? "I told you he said YES."

I'm BAAAAAACK!

2011-10-07T21:45:00.000-04:00

You didn't think you could get rid of me THAT easily did you?! Actually, you almost did but there are a few "persistent widows" out there who are insistent on ~~creeping on my life~~ keeping up with our adoption story and they won't let it die so this is my new blog (btw - I'm totally lovin' that strike-through feature which lends itself, oh, so well to a touch of snark and which my crappy first web-host did not offer unless I paid $9.99/month...whatEVER!) No, seriously, I love those ladies and since they are adoption-lovers, too, I thought I would oblige...although they were split down the middle on the blog name...like this one? No? Too bad. I had to flip a coin, it was a tough decision and I have to make too many of those on a daily basis.

Anyhoo, here's the latest on our adoption journey. The Haiti part of things is on hold. The short story is that no one has given us a good answer about why some places (namely American agencies) charge a varying, but consistently astronomical "country fee" and some places (namely orphanages from whom you can adopt directly) do not. So, that's enough to put us in a holding pattern until we get that coveted lightning bolt from Heaven. We've had two opportunities to pursue adopting cheek-biteable Haitian babies but God put up His cosmic "Nope, not this one" finger and we had to step away from the baby. Le sigh.

It's okay, really. We aren't all gung-ho about adopting a baby. In fact, we're a little bit on the are-you-whacked side of adoption because we told our foster-to-adopt social worker, "We want older kids, siblings preferably and the more the merrier." Yeah, there was a little bit of drool on her lip. When we said that we would prefer they were over the age of two she practically jumped into my lap. Okay, not really, but she did have a distinct twinkle in her eye. Of course, if a sibling group comes with a baby that's not a deal-breaker but you get my point.

At the beginning of September, a week before our foster-to-adopt training classes were supposed to start, our social worker sent us an e-mail saying that we were the only people signed up for the class and would we mind pushing it back two weeks to see if anyone else joined. We were fine with that and then she said the most delicious phrase, "If no one else signs up we will be able to get through two sessions a night and finish in half the time." WHOA, Nellie! I was doing the Cabbage Patch! No, really, I actually did the Cabbage Patch in my office when I read that. It was a little bittersweet that, indeed, we are in a private tutoring session with our worker since no one else signed up. Bitter because there aren't more people interested in adopting these kids and sweet because we can get OUR kids sooner.

So, we've finished with sessions 1-4 (out of 12) since we had to miss last week because of the oh-so-lovely stomach bug. Here's to hoping that we're finished by the beginning of November and moving onto our homestudy. I will write more later on the actual content of those sessions because they are one giant downer but, really, what did I expect? It's a class on learning how to parent kids whose parents dropped the ball. Did I expect Skittles and unicorns?