Sports "men" Unite!

We are becoming fisher"people" in our family. This past Sunday, myself,  Little Man,  his cousins, and my sister went fishing together. Two women who have rarely gone fishing, and never cleaned a fish taking five kids out on a pontoon for the day. Sounds like a great plan right? What could go wrong?

Thankfully, nothing did go wrong. In fact I even managed to pilot the pontoon that we rented in and out of the harbor like a pro! With temperatures in the 80's and a slight breeze, it was a great day. Between the four of them (number five was doing homework) one wallet, and twenty-two perch were all caught...and released thank goodness. You can't beat fishing when they are practically jumping into the boat.

The day left everyone tired, a little sunburned, dehydrated, and happy. I personally feel I am really getting the hang of releasing fish (having never done it before last summer when a friend took us out for the day). Our weather is turning a lot colder this week, so that may have been our last fishing day for the season.

I guess that gives me the winter for searching the Internet on just how to fillet a fish.

Quite frankly, I'd rather clean a fish than a deer!

A 'Normal' Family

Ahhh, the quest to be normal.What exactly does that mean? Many don't view our family as normal. I have been asked, by children, teenagers, and adults many rude and unbelievable comments since Little Man and I became a family.

 "Can't you have children?" (Yes, I do have children, I have one son :) "No, you know one of your own?" (Last time I checked he was my very own son...I don't have any others.) "Is he your real son or are you his real mom?" (Neither one of us are pretend...you can see me right?) "Is he...?" (Very tall for his age...yes he is.) Was his father black? (Yep.) "You do make sure you tell people that he's adopted, right?" (Actually, that's really nobody's business but ours, he's my SON, not my 'adopted son'.) Ethiopia huh...did his parents have AIDS? (Again, nobody's business but ours.) He's your son? (Yep, we're both tall, we both have brown eyes and curly hair, he just has a better tan.)  Well, you know how it is over there (Ethiopia). They just keep having babies and then giving them away.(Actually, choosing to place your child to be raised with someone outside of the birth family is one of the hardest decisions a person ever has to make. Most of the families only do so when they see that the alternative for their child is death by starvation or illness. I've been there and seen the heartbreak in the birth families eyes.)

I'm sorry perfect strangers. The amazing, beautiful, heart breaking details of how we became a family are none of your business, even if we are in the same aisle at the grocery store. :) Little Man knows that the details of his life in Ethiopia before he came home (he was almost three) are not for everyone to know about. His birth history is special, and it's his to share with those people who are close to him, not the whole world.

There are not real children and adopted children. Just children and their loving families.

So, what is a normal family?

 

I've decided that I don't care. I work really hard at trying to not keep up with what the world thinks is normal in other areas of my life, and I don't plan on changing that now.  I'm choosing to go by God's standards and while there are a ton of 'begats' listed in the Bible, there are also stories of adoption of the natural and spiritual kind. I am just a mom who loves her Little Man, and Baby B (that she has yet to meet). A mom who recently spent nine days sleeping on the living room floor because he son was allergic to something in his room and it was keeping him up at night. A mom who would walk through fire to protect her children. A mom who believes an institution (no matter how loving)  is not a home, and no child should have to be raised in one. A mom who believes that families are grown in the heart. 

Is adoption better than having biological children? No, but it is an equally normal choice for forming a family.

 Are we normal?

I may be a little biased, but I happen to think our family is EXTRAordinary!

 

Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. James 1:27

Just B...

...Intentional

Two of the people that I work with experienced family tragedies this past week. In one case, three kids are now without a mom, in another a daughter is seriously injured. When you watch someone go through something like that, it really makes you want to wrap your arms around your own family.

I am a cancer survivor and I try to make the most of the moments I have with my family. Unfortunately, when things get busy I have a tendency to run on auto-pilot. "Must finish all tasks." My schedule starts to run my life, rather than me making sure my life is scheduled for ample time with Little Man.

This week I made the intentional decision to scale back on all of our busyness. Instead, Little Man and I cooked a new delicious meal together, read a ton of books, watched some funny DVDs, and drew crazy pictures of each other until we both were laughing hysterically. I quit with the internal conversation that i normally have with myself about what I really should be doing (what about the laundry, the dishwasher, etc.) I had time to really treasure my sweet little first grader. You know what, he is amazing and soooo much fun to hang out with! I always love my Little Man, but this week I was able to really enjoy him for who he is.

 Little Man will only be little this once. He already is planning for his future as an adult, complete with where he would like to go to college, what career he would like, how many kids he would like to have when he gets married, etc. My job is just to help him to become who he is meant to be.

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Proverbs 22:6

 Before we know it Baby B will be home and things will get so much busier. We both can hardly wait, but in the meantime I am going to give Little Man as many extra hugs as he will allow me to give him and treasure each moment.

The Sweetest Thing

We love Saturday's in our house. I love my job and Little Man loves school, but there is just something about not having to get up to be on time for anything. Somewhere between the book reading marathon, and the DVD, Little Man said the sweetest thing "I already love my sister so much, I don't even know how much I will love her when she gets here!"

If you are still wondering why I am choosing this crazy path of adopting a second child it's for my Little Man who can't wait to have a 'squishy' (baby) sister . Because, we have more love to give in our family. Because my son deserves (and wants desperately) to have a sibling to do things with. Because apparently I need a life that is even busier than it already is :)

 So while gas prices continue to climb to insane levels, and I continue to find more and more things I can cut back on... we wait and dream of the homecoming of Baby B. She really is the sweetest thing!

Big News!

 During the past two weeks, work has been so insanely busy that I barely have had time to think about our wait for Baby B.  Plus Little Man first was having allergy issues and then picked up his first whopper of a cold for the year. Then, this past Thursday after school as I was telling another parent about our wait for a referral...my cell phone started to ring! I am thrilled to announce that we have received a referral for a little girl! My paperwork is in transit to make everything truly official. It will be a little while before I post an actual picture (I need to find out when it is allowed in the process). You will have to trust me when I say that Baby B is a beautiful little thirteen month old. Little Man is beside himself with excitement. He is just learning how to read and can not wait to read to his little sister.  I am a bit in shock. Thrilled, but in shock and praying that this time there will be a little one who makes it home.

We still have time (probably a year) and some financial hurdles to jump. I am busy trying to make a ton of jewelry and collage prints to sell both online and at a craft show coming up soon.  But now our prayers have a name and face attached to them when we go to bed at night. For those of you who have helped make this happen, thank you doesn't even come close to expressing how I feel for your help.

I will try to be better about keeping people posted. Now that we have a new adorable face to go along with our dream, it will make the rest of the working/waiting towards bringing them home easier in some ways and harder in others.

I am praying for an early homecoming :)

Just B...

...Real

I work with children and I am a mom. One thing that I know is crucial when working with kids is to remember to be real. Kids can smell a phony from a mile away. Sometimes though, I can get so worried about living up to others expectations, that I am not as real as I aspire to be. 

This fall I will be moving to work in a new building, with a new group of kids (plus my son!)  I am very cognizant of the fact that to truly give the students the best of myself I need remember to be myself. That person happens to be a woman who is: flawed, embarrassingly goofy at times, has a temper when it comes to anything 'unjust',  is somewhat ADD, cries at sunsets/sunrises, loves being with family, gets excited making a nice collage, is stubborn, believes in second chances, gets overwhelmed by 'stuff', thinks bedtime is wonderful, cannot understand why children must ever wait for a family and LOVES seeing kids become who they are supposed to be.

God has big plans for everyone who allows Him to use them. I just need to stay out of the way!

"The people who influence us the most are not those who detain us with their continual talk, but those who live their lives like the stars in the sky and "the lilies of the field"-simply and unaffectedly. Those are the lives that mold and shape us."  ~Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

Thankful!

Sometimes it's hard to put into words exactly how grateful I am to God for those people He has put into my life to support me. 

Let me explain...

I've waited for this week with great anticipation/trepidation. After working the previous week on a video submission that would best represent our family's story, we had been chosen as the family of the week for Give1Save1 Caribbean. http://give1save1caribbean.blogspot.com/2012/08/new-week-new-family.html

I have never been one who has liked to ask others for help but circumstances during the past year or so have brought me to a point where I've had to finally do just that. First there were the failed Congolese adoptions and the decision to switch agencies (good bye thousands of dollars), then the diagnosis of Hodgkin's Lymphoma (hello higher medical bills than I had ever thought possible), and just when I had begun the process to start again, my car decided to go end our long journey together.

Which brought me to where I am today. Although I have always had a strong support system as a single parent (and an even stronger God) I have lived in the happy place of feeling somewhat self sufficient. Or perhaps I should say I have always been too stubborn to ask for help in most situations. Chemo worked some of that out of my system. Realizing I no longer had the funds necessary to complete my current adoption has kicked the rest out (at least I hope so, these are painful teachable moments for me!)

Sending the video in was opening myself, and our family up to being 'judged' by  way more people than was naturally comfortable for me. I am pretty private and I realize that there are those who think it is selfish of me to adopt as a single parent. Yep, that pretty much describes me...how selfish of me to want to become a parent to a child who has no one. :)  I admit even at the start of today, I was feeling frustrated and depressed at this fact-especially when I know some of those critics. But as we end the day, not only are complete strangers clicking SHARE for our video (which I pray gets others thinking about adoptive parenting) but our fundraising total has reached $990.34! 

I am completely shocked and humbled.

Know that tonight, as I continue in my second shift working on creating art that will soon be featured in the Etsy store we are setting up, I will be thanking God for those people who have decided that this single, flawed mama and her family is worth spending a moment of time in sharing our story, praying, or even donating money towards the future addition to our family.