I emailed back and forth with the lady who taught my adoption/foster classes when I was going through everything with Cody. It took me over a week to be able to write the letter below. I needed time to reflect on how I felt about the Cody situation and how it had ended and truthfully, I needed a little time to grieve what I felt as a loss.

Good morning [caseworker],
Well it took me a little time to be able to send this email... Cody is back with his father.
It was a tremendously heartbreaking experience to go through. I can't believe how many different emotions you feel when you have a child staying with you, even temporarily. It makes me respect those parents who can do foster care about a million times more than I already did.
It also makes me certain of the choice I made to go straight for adoption and not do foster care.
I was so ready to make a place for Cody in my home, in my family and in my life. It was a hard choice to make but once I'd thought through as much of it as I could at one time, I had made the choice to choose him and for me, that started the really hard part of letting him then choose us and then talking to his parents. It was hard because I once I decided I wanted him with us, I didn't want anyone else to come along and tell me no. Additionally, I started to realize the enormity of that choice. That my parenting, my family, my household - it was all going to get harder because I would be fitting a new child, a male child, into it. And I knew it would be a long time before I could relax again about it all.
Anyway, his mother couldn't have cared less. But when I called his dad, it turned out he cared quite a bit. He said he had no idea the situation that Cody was in, not having a place to live and with his mother not caring one way or another. He said he would be down that weekend to pick him up. Just like that, all the thinking and preparation I had done both alone and in conversations with my girls, was done.
I talked to his dad several times on the phone about Cody, and Cody's life, and Cody's future. His dad is scared, overwhelmed, at the prospect of raising this teenaged boy. But he is scared and overwhelmed because he wants to do a good job. He wants to be a dad.
As this all was happening, I reflected back on your class. I kept telling myself that it is best for a child to be with their parents. That reuniting them is the goal. And I believe it too.
I will make myself available to Cody's dad as much as I can be. Even if he just needs someone to talk to when things aren't easy. But in the long run, I have to believe that this is what is best for everyone.
I feel like I learned so much from such a short experience... things I will take into my own adoption process as valuable lessons. It made me all the more certain that our family is ready for that little girl to be here. I hope that we find her soon.
Thank you so very much for being someone I could talk to about this while it was all going on and all overwhelming me. You've truly been a friend.
~KHE

Labels: adoption, Being Mommy, my crazy life

I'm sorry for the "radio silence" lately... Every time I think about writing anything here, I am just overwhelmed by all of the stuff I want to write and the enormity of some of it and I end up out in my yard pulling weeds and planning out where I think I should plant my zucchini next season.
What?
Who wrote that?
Gardening?
What is today? June 16th right? Let's pop back five years in the past and see what THAT Heather was doing...
--insert dreamy back in time music here--
*~*~*~*~*~*I was telling the girls about the possibility of my meeting Matthew McConaughey on the way home. The VERY 'G' version, of course. Nothing about me wanting to do interesting and nasty things to his body....*~*~*~*~*~*
Yeah, that's more like it. What happened to the girl who used to blog about Matthew McConaughey's body? Now it's all gardening and how I don't ever get laid anymore.
Why do you guys come here again?

Anyway, some reality. The Cody thing hit me harder than I thought it would. I wasn't ready to write about it because it made me sad. I wanted to help him. And while I think that he is much better off with his dad than he was with his mother, I still know it wouldn't be as good as being with me because I do shit right.
Additionally, I realize that I can't fix everything and everyone and that he isn't mine to fix.
So I am repeating that to myself daily and the more I do it, the less I feel angry and defeated.
I do feel like it was a little bit of a dry run for the actual adoption stuff that is eventually coming. I had no idea about the barrier that would be there between the child and I and I got a good taste of that with Cody. The whole acting like your parent but not actually being your parent thing. I don't know, maybe it will be a little different when I get my little girl... because she'll be younger, because she'll know she is being adopted...
I guess only time will tell.

I'm also going through some work stuff that I am not ready to blog about. Soon, my pretties, soon.

I am not going through any guy stuff. The last almost guy stuff fizzled out and died. Which was totally my fault because I've apparently decided I'm... I don't even know. Not ready? Too controlling? Interested in the accumulation of both spinster dresses and cats?
I sent an email to a friend the other day about dating...

We are used to being in relationships, we want to have someone there to
help, to be the co-parent, the partner... Being alone is
scary.
Let me tell you a secret. When your girls are little like yours are
now, you really feel more alone because you are just the caretaker, at that
point, you need your friends and your family more than anything. You need
to have someone to call who gives a shit about the random ass thing your five
year old just said. Your support system. If you don't have that,
find it asap. And please know, I would love to be a part of that support
system.
But here's the secret part, in a few years, your girls are going to start
becoming these people. They are going to be people that you want to spend
a lot of time with. They morph from someone you take care of into someone
who can help out, who has amazing things to say, who makes you laugh, who is
super fun to watch a movie with or take a walk with.
And then, at some point, you are going to look back and think to yourself
that you are so ridiculously lucky to have had all of those years where it was
just you and them. The bond is going to be this amazing thing, suddenly
you are going to realize that you'd rather finish the journey with your
daughters before you embark upon a relationship journey.
I wasted a lot of time trying to find the right guy. Going through
all of the excitement that comes with a new relationship, all of the
infatuation, the phone calls, the slipping away for a weekend. And in the
end, I found that I'd rather hang with my girls. My oldest leaves in five
years. Five years. It was like yesterday that she was only five
years old. I have no idea how it happened. I guess what I am saying
is once you find balance in yourself in the life you have now with your girls,
you will find that you don't really want more right now.

I think that sums up, pretty well, why I just can't seem to get excited about dating right now. I mean, if Matthew McConaughey comes a-knockin', I'm not sending him away or anything :-) Or for that matter, if I met someone who really seemed like a good and patient match, I'd probably give it a shot... but I'm not looking.

Ok, that's all I have time for this morning, gotta get to work. I promise to try and get more stuff up here. I miss you guys.

Labels: adoption, At work, my crazy life, My pathetic excuse for a love life

So last week I spoke with Cody about the possibility of living here. I talked to Amanda about sharing a bedroom with Triniti. I talked to everyone I know about summer options. And I talked to my doctor about upping my anxiety meds. Ok, not really. But maybe I should? :-)
I still can't take a deep breath.
Yesterday, Cody's brother brought him back here. God, I almost typed home. You can see where I stand on this already. I am ready for this to be his home. I'm done with the whole teeter-tottering. When I decide to take something on, I don't want to stand at the starting line for three freaking months, I want to go. Accomplish.
Anyway, I don't think his brother would have even driven him to my house if it weren't for the fact that Cody had left his brother's cell phone here and his brother wanted it back. So Cody got here and ran into Amanda's room to search her closet. I was still shamefully in pajamas at noon yesterday and when I saw that his brother was waiting outside my fence for him, I threw on clothes so fast it would make your head spin and went outside to talk to him.
He is eighteen. He came from a shitty family. You can tell just by looking at him. He was super defensive and standoffish with me initially. I could barely get him to answer me. I think he was expecting me to ask him why the hell he was bringing Cody back. Once he understood that I WANT Cody here, he loosened up a bit. I told him that I was making plans for Cody for the summer and that I just wanted to know if there was any period of time over the summer where he was looking to have Cody come and spend some time with him.
I swear you could visibly see the relief wash over this poor kid.
I gave him my cell number and asked him to call me next week and let me know.
When he left here, I knew that the next step is talking to his mom. So I have contacted my teacher from CPS to ask for help. I need some kind of free or very inexpensive resources. I need a pro-bono lawyer. I need for there to be an organization that will be on this kid's side.
I am waiting to hear back from her tomorrow and then I am going to either follow whatever direction she can give me or start cold calling lawyers straight out of the damn phone book until I find someone who will help us. When I go to talk to Cody's mom, I want to be prepared. I want to be able to sit down with her and tell her what the best option for him is and why. And people, if the best option for him is for me to adopt him, then that is what I am going to do.
I am pretty sure I will have to have both his mother and his father sign off on everything but I don't care. I'll do it.
He needs lots and lots of stuff. He has three pairs of clothes in a backpack to his name. He needs PJs, summer clothes, bedroom items, hygiene products, a bed... Lots of things. But I want to make sure I can offer him the thing he needs most first: a family.
Advice would be greatly appreciated on this one ya'll...

Labels: adoption, Being Mommy, my crazy life

So, life got in the way of blogging.
And then, last night, when I was watching How I Met Your Mother (I'm not linking to it because YOU SHOULD ALREADY KNOW) and they were ragging on Barney because he has a blog and they were all "blogs were cool like eight years ago" and I scoffed. Loudly.
Because I [heart] my blog.
All five plus years of it.
And then I felt bad because I hardly blog. I mean, I turned thirty, Em turned twelve, Trin's turning eight and has started "hand-flapping" which accompanies her teeth grinding and makes me wonder if I should be looking into more therapy and the cat had kittens and my mom and brother are renting a new place and Amanda had a band concert and I have pics and stories and I haven't blogged ANYTHING.

And then I tried to justify the fact that I haven't been blogging because it was Birthday Month. And because I am planning a baby shower and the over achiever in me wants it to rock and I only have ONE MONTH left and holy crap, Fairy will be having a baby in August. A little baby nephew whose head I can smell until my body longs for the uterus that no longer resides there. And school is over, finally. Which means I am planning how to turn the kids into slaves activities for the kiddos. And planning my vacation with the girls. And learning French for said vacation. And planning what to buy the girls to eat while they are home for the next three months so that they can stay relatively healthy. And oh yeah, did I mention I am working on my book? LIKE FOR REAL working on it. And I have a garden and monthly dinners and a freaking house to clean. And my job that isn't awesome any more and I HAVEN'T HAD SEX IN TWO YEARS.
Pardon me while I breathe into a paper bag for a few minutes.
And then I have this other thing.
This important thing.
This big thing that makes my stomach muscles (ok, yeah, I don't have stomach muscles - shut. it.)... makes the butterflies that live in my stomach do nose dives into my... well, I guess other parts of my stomach.
I truly feel like barfing.
Remember Cody? Cody has a sad story. A sad story about a family that doesn't care about him. And he hasn't been in home in three weeks and he landed on my couch on Monday. And I knew it was coming. I knew it was a matter of time before he'd be there and I've been wondering how I would handle it. What I would do. If I could do anything. And I emailed my caseworker with CPS and asked for advice and crazy pills.
Then Monday, there he was. This thirteen year old boy who is taller than me and who has no where to go. PEOPLE. He hasn't been home in three weeks and NO ONE CARES. That makes me want to cry and then punch someone in the face. Preferably his mother.
Last night, I had The Talk with him. The talk wherein we discussed his future. The talk that I had been trying to mastermind a plan for for the last six months because I knew this was coming. I've thought out every possible scenario I could think of. I've talked to EVERYone I know who would listen. I've looked up anything I could think to look up. I even spent a few minutes in Total Denial. But the townspeople kicked me out, they knew I was a fake.
When I decided to adopt a few years ago.... when I decided I wanted us to be a family for someone who needed one, I said The Universe will send me who I'm supposed to have. The Universe will choose a child who needs us.
The Universe didn't get my memo about NO TEENAGED BOYS.
And listen, I have so totally tried to fight this. I've tried to ignore it, to find someone else to step in. I've cried. I've pleaded. I ran into wall after wall after wall.
And finally, yesterday, I just accepted it.
It is what it is.
It is harder. Most choices I make in life are.
Hard Choices walk up to the average Joe and say, "Nah, let's go find that Katehopeeden girl. She'll take us." And they are right, I do.
My brother and I have had like four hundred and seventy three phone conversations about this. And every one of them has ended with, "God Kate, you are out of your fucking mind." Don't get me wrong, he's on board because THERE IS NO OTHER CHOICE but he is just verbalizing his concerns the same way I am internalizing them.

I'm taking baby steps here. This isn't a jump in with your clothes on kind of situation.
First step was yesterday: Acceptance
Second step was last night: Talk to Cody, see what he wants to do, let him know that becoming a member of my family is an option.
Third step is finding stuff for him to do this summer since I can't have him and a certain thirteen year old girl just hanging out.
That is what happened today.
Can I tell you something real fast though? I can't believe how many people were willing to jump in and help. How many people that I've talked to who genuinely said, "Let me see what I can do."
That warmed me. And while I was compiling a list yesterday of possible summer activities for Cody, I thought I have good people.
Today, the sun broke through the clouds when a lady from The Boys and Girls Club in the town where I work called me back and listened to my whole story and then said they would make a spot for him. For $70 bucks registration and $25 a week, I can put this kid into a summer program. Where he can be a kid.
Does this make things easy? No. Not by a long shot.
There is this whole reality of me not knowing this kid, of me not trusting this kid, of him not trusting me. There is a whole lot of reality.
And it scared the ever loving shit out of me.
But when that lady called today, I had a flash of hope. And even that tiny flash brought me to tears. The road is long and scary and REAL but I was really grateful today for a little help.

Labels: adoption, Amanda, Asperger's, Being Mommy, Emilee, my crazy life, Triniti

What do you say?
When you read a blog like this, what do you say? Do you think about your consumer driven lifestyle? The Groom's Cake ice cream you and your daughters had for desert last night? The fact that you were laying on your couch watching The Big Bang Theory AND shopping on ebay for macbooks after you ate that ice cream?
It makes my insides scream.
It makes me want to forsake everything that I am and start over because there are children out there who are DYING because their parents can't feed them.
And I don't help.
Nope... I sit in my ten by ten office and shuffle paperwork while I listen to music and occasionally blog.
I don't contribute to saving lives like the amazing people who work at these places where almost dead children are brought in.
These are BABIES. Babies that die every day because there isn't enough food. How is that okay? How is that acceptable?
I can't get my head around it.
I don't have the words.

Labels: adoption, At work, Being a Chic, Being Mommy

So a few things have happened... the first is that my case worker sent me an email a few weeks ago with a link to a little girl who is ready for adoption right now and who doesn't have anyone interested in her.
Did your heart just break?
Mine did.
The thing was that this little girl is older than Triniti and the one thing we are certain of is that we don't want to get someone older than Trin.
Does that sound ridiculous? Are you thinking to yourself right now, "what does it matter? She needs a home!" I battled with the same thoughts.
Here is the thing though, I believe that your sibling order is a big part of who you are. I also believe that this isn't my choice to make on my own since it involves all the members of my family. So the girls and I talked about it and Triniti said she really didn't want to get another older sister and so we had to pass on this child.
It is really amazing how hard that decision was for me.
I've had to say to myself so many times in the last few months that I can't save them all. I can't take them all. It's hard for me to accept that because there are so many little girls out there with out moms and I am a Mom.
That simple fact will have me crying at night sometimes.
What I have had to accept is that when it happens, it will be what it is supposed to be.
The first night of my Foster/Adopt class, I got in my car to drive home and I was so overwhelmed with feelings. I felt like crying and I was so scared but there was something else there too, something I hadn't ever felt before and it was eating me up inside. At first I thought it was the fear and my mind immediately sent the thought forward of You don't have to do this. You can stop now. And I could have. I could have quit that class that day and never went back.
But I didn't.
And the reason I didn't was because that feeling I hadn't ever felt before was this inherent longing and I truly believe the first strings of a connection to a little girl who I have never met.
In the thirty minutes it took me to drive home that night I went from tears to certainty. The fear is still there. But it isn't only in regards to the adoption but just permanently attached to my being a mother. When I start to get a little scared about adopting I have to tell myself that I apply that same fear to the daughters I already have all the time. It is normal to be scared. I was scared each time I was pregnant and I don't think it would be natural not to be scared now in the "gestation period" of my adoption.
I have a sort of faith in that The Universe is going to present to me exactly what I am supposed to have. So when I start to reel a little from all of this, when I think to myself on a Sunday If I can't get this laundry done with just three girls, how am I going to do it with another one? I have to remember that I can handle anything. I didn't think I could handle one or two or the three girls I have. I didn't think I could do it alone. And I have to remember that this little girl isn't going to care whether I got all the laundry done any more than my current daughter do. She is going to care that I listen to her and hug her and tuck her in at night and support her choices and that I love her.
And I can do all of those things with clean or dirty laundry.
So when I start to feel a little like I can't breathe, I remind myself that what is meant to happen is going to happen.

So I emailed my caseworker back and told her that we weren't going to put our family in for the older little girl and asked about the progress of Carebear since we haven't heard anything since the very end of July.
Her response:
"I haven’t heard anything on Carebear. I did give your home study at our selection staffing for a sibling group of two girls 4 and 7. They are Hispanic with no major behavioral issues."

Wow.
Universe? I have my eye on you.

Labels: adoption, being a Home Owner, Being Mommy, The Universe

First email is here.

This isn't technically the second email since there have been a few emails between myself, my trainer, my caseworker and the caseworker who is compiling families for the child's caseworker.
There are a lot of caseworkers involved.

Anyway, here is the email I got this morning...

Thank you for your interest in helping to provide waiting children with adoptive homes. I did receive your home study. It will be processed and forwarded to the child/ren’s placement liaison and caseworker.

* If your family is identified as a strong match for the child/ren then the listed caseworker/ agency representative for the licensed family will be contacted.

* The family’s caseworker will be invited to participate in a selection staffing.

* The family with the best-matched strengths that meet the needs of the child/ren will be selected as the adoptive family.

* The family’s caseworker will be notified that their family has been selected. They will also be instructed on the next steps in the process.


We are officially in the process... now it just comes down to matching her with the best family for her needs. They will have a staffing meeting to go over potential families for her and then we will find out whether we are a good match.
If we aren't, our family will be presented at the next staffing meeting for all available children that haven't yet been place on the TARE website.

For that staffing, they requested a Family Flier, which I made yesterday which shows our family and gives some basic information.

It was a little harder than I thought so I tried not to over think it and instead just went with the first things that came to mind and kept it mild.
I would have needed five pages to say everything I wanted to say and it would have made me cry to write it all :)
Anyway, we are officially on the ride now.

Labels: adoption, Amanda, Being Mommy, Chica, Emilee, Triniti

Last night, I was laying on my couch watching So You Think You Can Dance with my kids and I absentmindedly picked up my phone to check my email. I check my email on my phone a hundred times a day. It's this constant stream of junk mail and bills and the occasion update from facebook... every once in a while there is an email from a real live person but mostly it is just stuff I sent to Deleted Items.

AFN Broadcast TIME SENSITIVE Texas Families Only: Meet "Carebear", 6 yrs‏

So it's starting.

Deadline to express interest: July 23, 2009; 5 pm

I try to pay attention to the times that something in my life could be drastically changing. I don't want to look back and think, I had no idea that everything was about to change.
I want to know that change is possible and coming. I want to feel it all, experience it.
Does this email and the fact that I've "expressed interest" mean that I am going to have a new family member in a few weeks? Not at all.
There is this whole long process from where I am to when we have a new person in our family.
But last night? Getting that email?
That was an initiation of sorts.
I paused the TV and went to my computer as I mumbled something to the girls about an email from "the adoption people". We all huddled around the screen to read about this little girl.
Her description was riddled with fantastic things including a very in-depth comparison of her to various carebear characters. She is from a home where she has two older siblings (who aren't available for adoption) and her profile states that she would like to be adopted into a home where she can have a sibling close to her own age.
I read everything to my mom last night and it broke her heart.. I don't think she realized how many kids are out there. She was concerned about this little girl's emotional state and how it could possibily affect my daughters... I had to explain to her and my girls that there isn't a single child available for adoption who hasn't suffered somehow. There isn't a child who doesn't feel abandoned, confused, scared, insecure... All of these kids are damaged. All we can do is offer to give them a place to heal and become part of a family who loves them and wants them and will always be there for them.
This is the first step for us. "Expressing interest." Maybe this little carebear won't be the one for us. Maybe she will be the one for someone else. But I will always remember how I felt last night when I realized that she could be the one. And I will always remember the butterflies in my stomach this morning when I sent the email to my caseworker and let her know that we would like to be considered as her new family.

_{An aside: I usually use my children's real names here but seeing as how this sweet little girl isn't mine yet and may not be, I feel a certain responsibility to offer her a tiny bit of anonymity. Should she become a member of my family, I will reintroduce her here with pictures and an actual name...}

Labels: adoption, Being Mommy

Today is Trin's birthday! And what does any newly-seven-year-old fairy obsessed gal want for her birthday?
Oh yeah baby! Fairies! And girly dress-up gear.
This is my Trin Trin this morning...

NOw let's zip back in time to when the Trinster was just a wee little new born lass... How much would we have LOVED this adorable (and recycled) Ramones Tutu outfit, (available in this store on etsy)? She'd have been rocker fantastic.

Now Trin is about to be getting her own room that she will share with the little girl we will be adopting this year and when we redo it to be all fairy, girly, WONDERFUL - we will definitely be making several strands of these lights to hang around her room...

Made from recycled egg cartons to give them that forest-y, natural appeal.. and I imagine you could paint them different flower colors and make them even prettier! Ooh, and do these pressed flowers and hang on the walls??

ANd of course, no proper fairy would be a fairy without her recycled fairy wings right?
Here is a link to youtube where there is video that shows you how to make your own fairy wings... and keep in mind, recycling folk, that you can hit up any thrift store and by one of those GOD AWFUL dresses from the eighties prom nights and turn those into a wicked rad fairy costume.

Labels: adoption, birthday, RBATOTD, stuff I like, Triniti

This is my second book on adoption and it varies so much from the first one I read. As authors or writers or whatever, we often want to convey how events shaped our writing techniques or stories or lives as writers. What we too often forget is that the people reading those stories, even sometimes our fellow writers, don't really want to read about that process as much as they want to read the story. That's why they've gotten the book in the first place.
Betty Jean Lifton is doing an awful lot of that in this book. And while I don't mind it too much, I am finding it to be a little annoying because I want to read the story for what it is and less for how it would come to effect her as an author.
Currently, I am a little more than mid-way through the book and I am enjoying it. The story is a memoir about the author herself who was told she was adopted when she was seven.
"I was seven when I was told I was adopted. It was during the Depression years and my adoptive parents, having lost a comfortable way of life in Cincinnati, Ohio, were struggling to put it all together again in a one-bedroom apartment on Chicago's South Side. They who were used to the comforts of a large house, now slept on a bed that folded into the living room wall, while I, their only child, slept in the bedroom.
The shades of that room are drawn.
I have scarlet fever, a dread disease in those days before penicillin. There is a quarantine notice on the door of the apartment warning the public not to enter for three weeks. I lie there burning with fever, but I am a docile, uncomplaining child. I make no demands. Although I do not understand it then, this period is a kind of transition from the past and a preparation for the future. I will not rise from this bed the same person."

I have to admit I feel like I am gaining great insight into the ways that being adopted has influenced her life and the way she feels about herself as a person and how confusing it was as a child to know you are tied to something else but not know what that something else is. But at the same time, my situation will be different in that adoptions are open now and the little girl I get will know who her parents are, she will always have that information. It won't be like finding out when you are seven years old that your parents aren't your biological parents.
I need to start looking for books that are a little more like my situation I guess.

The thing I am enjoying the most about this book is that the author and her husband are frequently going to Japan. Japan is so important to her and she is constantly telling stories about the people there, their myths and legends and the way she feels like Japan is her mother. I look forward more to the stories about Japan than anything else.

Labels: adoption, What I'm reading

The other day while I was at Wal-mart, I took a shortcut through bedding on my way to fabric and even though I was in a super hurry and on the phone with SnowElf, I still managed to notice this bedding set on an endcap and fell in love. The little pink birdies? Too freaking cute.

I am currently shopping for bunk beds and new bedding for when I set up the room my brother currently lives in to accommodate Triniti and our new girl we should be having placed with us soon. So when I saw the above set, my first thought was that I was a little bummed there was only the one "girl" set and then next to the birdies was this more "boy" set:


On my way out of the store, I stopped and snapped the picture of the birdie bedding so I could send it to SnowElf so she wouldn't think I was a complete loon. (Not sure if that helped because I am pretty sure she and probably 99.9% of my friends are certain I am a complete and total loon.)
When I got home I tried to look them up online but no luck... I couldn't find anything. Of course, it probably didn't help that I was searching "Gorilla bedding" since I couldn't see the "Green" part from my camera phone shot.
So when I was at Wal-mart yesterday, I ran back by to get another look and this time got the entire name ;)
Yay me!
Upon some searching today, I found a press release that said, "CHF Industries this market unveiled a new organic bedding line for kids and teens called Green Gorilla.... Cotton used is 100% organic, certified by SKAL, and created with low-impact dyestuffs, she said. Designs feature animals, butterflies, sports, florals and '50s graphic themes....Eco-friendly packaging has a smaller carbon footprint, and the insert is made from recycled materials."
Yay for organic!
And yay for low-impact dyestuffs.
Dyestuffs is a cool word.
And super yay for recycled inserts!!

I found the two designs below and the animal design above on their website but not my little birdie bedding (which is why I had to subject you to my awful grainy two megapixel camera phone shot of it). I did some googling as well as searching on some sites that they had listed in their where to buy it section, but to no avail. Which is unfortunate really. They have this very nice product that no one has managed to start selling online yet? Oh well, their loss.
New marketing department anyone?
Anyway, I just wanted to show it to ya'll because I am absolutely in love with Green Gorilla Bedding.

Labels: adoption, Being Mommy, google, shopping, SnowElf, stuff I like, Triniti

Ok, so I am trying to get my mom into this new business venture I thought up (details forthcoming) and while I was searching for a good site for some "modern" fabrics, I came across this necklace that I LOVE.
And I was thinking about ordering it and then I realized that I wouldn't want to order it with only three birds since I will have a fourth bird soon. So I am going to wait and order it when I know who that fourth bird is :)
Isn't it so super pretty?
Check out everything at Figs & Ginger.

Labels: adoption, Being Mommy, stuff I like

Hello,
I asked [other teacher] to send me your email address, I hope you don't mind.
I wanted to thank you, for several things.
The first is for taking the time to teach our class. I know how much time ya'll invest in these classes and the kids that these classes eventually help and I wanted to you to know how much I appreciate it.
The second is for being the first person in our classroom to say the words "single parent". That first night that we were all there and I was looking around that room at the various couples and well it was a little unnerving. I was thinking to myself, what am I doing here? These people will all think I'm crazy. And when you stood up and did your introduction, it eased a lot of that for me. I know I'm a great mother and that my girls absolutely have happy and wonderful lives but sometimes I know people just see the "single" part of our being single parents and don't see the wonderful parts.
I don't know if you remember or not, but at the end of that first class you told us that since most of us were looking at older, school aged children and with our end result being adoption, that we could just adopt. That there were a bunch of children out there already just waiting to be adopted. That night on my drive home I called my friend in Wisconsin and talked to her the whole way home, both about whether or not I had lost my mind as well as the possibility of adopting a child. I was overwrought with emotions and didn't know what any of them meant or what I was actually feeling about all of this. But the next morning, I woke up and it was all gone and I just knew in my heart what I was going to do. At our next class I changed my application to adoption only.
This of course came as quite a shock the people who were already shocked at my initial decision to foster. And you know all I could say to them was I just feel that I am meant to be doing this. I can't explain it. I just know that there is already this little girl out there and she is already going through all of these horrible things and she is meant to be with us. She is meant to be my daughter and my daughters' sister.
It's all already in motion.
I took your advice and went and bought a couple of books written by adopted children. I finished the first one today. It's called Hope's Boy, written by Andrew Bridge. I'm sure you've read it but if you haven't, you should. I couldn't put it down after I picked it up on Monday.
Anyway, I didn't mean for this to get so long, I just wanted to thank you for being our teacher and for sharing your experience with us.

Thanks so much,
KHE

Labels: adoption, Being Mommy, What I'm reading

"Mrs. Karen Ross was the incontestable commander of an English Department seething with rebels. Principal Phelpson hated her, and rumor had it that he had called her a name during a heated meeting that would have gotten any one of us expelled. She was in her mid-forties and commuted into the San Fernando Valley from Malibu every school day. WE gossiped that she was married to a wealthy stockbroker and had a daughter who went to a private boarding school in Switzerland. Her teaching job was not something that she needed but rather an irritating hobby. She regularly threatened to quit, simply not show up at school the next day, though all of us knew that she never would do it.
She was the only high school teacher whom I ever approached for help. She was tough. She was not an angel or a savior, parent or confidante. Had she offered to be one, I would have rejected it. Those promises had been made and broken, and now it was too late for more. She and I never discussed foster care, the Leonards, or my mother. When I did badly on a paper or answered a question poorly in class, she was deadly honest but kind. She was the first to teach me that I could disappoint someone without losing her.
Finally, there were the little reminders of Hope that I looked for in nearly everyone. The two of them looked nothing alike. Mrs. Ross was tall and blonde. Hope was petite and dark. Yet both women snapped out retorts that left their opponents sputtering. Both challenged the world. Both seemed braver that I could ever be.
When she strolled into class on our first day of twelfth grade, Mrs. Ross had promised that we would - as we had in earlier English classes - read books and poems, only this time a little better. Some of what she taught appealed to me by accident. When we read As I lay Dying, she never knew that the story of a mother who had died and the son who could still hear crying in the night would mean so much to a shy boy sitting at the edge of her class. When we read Catch-22, she never knew that the same boy had already understood that heroes may not be as pure as we like, that they may not act or appear as we expect. She taught me poetry, especially her favorite poem about a pitiful and proper middle-aged man named J. Alfred Prufrock, who imagined himself lingering on the floor of the sea, listening to the distant songs of mermaids who sang to others but refused to sing to him. Mrs. Ross never told us what to do with our lives, in high school or beyond. Instead, she warned about old and frightened Prufrock, a man who had wasted his life in silence, too frightened to challenge the world, too timid to demand his place in it.
Mrs. Ross never denied that life could be horribly unfair. Occasionally she even implied that she thought it would be for some of us. She merely claimed that unfairness need not be the end of it. She believed that words mattered, that they could persuade, that now and again they could make us better than what our nature might have us be. Fair or not, life could still be something important, something meaningful. On the last day that I saw her, she handed me a note, quoting from the poem that she loved. Reminding me that the future could hold more than empty silence, she wrote that the mermaids who had never sung to Mr. Prufrock would someday sing to me.
I believed her."

Written by Andrew Bridge.

Labels: adoption, What I'm reading

What I'm reading right now...



“And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world's sounds - wouldn't you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attentions to it.”

— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

If I had answered the questions at school, if I had told the truth and been as honest as my heart had wanted, what words would have come from me? Where would I have started? Everything would have begun with Mom.

She grew up on the eastern plains of Colorado, where the final stretch of the Midwest meets the Rocky Mountains. From a dusty bungalow outside Colorado Springs, she knew Pikes Peak, the summit named for Zebulon Pike—the white man who, after seeing it, tried to climb it and failed, then tried again and got lost. Nearly a century later, Katherine Lee Bates, an English teacher from Wellesley College, took a carriage to the top, announced that she had found the Gate of Heaven, and wrote “America the Beautiful” on her way back into town.

My mother’s family came from the “dry land” farms in the shadow of the peak, where survival depended on grudging rain and stubborn wits. The high point of my family’s wealth came when my mother’s grandfather acquired a withered plot, which he passed down to her mother, Katherine Reese. The first woman in family memory to have something more than herself to bring to a marriage, Katherine chose a man who was a generation older than she and who had been gassed as a young soldier in the First World War. He widowed her with their two children: my mother, who had just reached her sixth birthday, and her brother, who was still working toward his third. The local child welfare agency suggested a children’s home. In desperation, Katherine married a second man, who shortly thereafter sold Katherine’s patch of dirt for promised oil royalties. When the payments never arrived, Katherine’s second husband abandoned the family. Katherine had chosen poorly—twice—in a life that offered few accommodations for mistakes. Her daughter and son went in and out of children’s homes while she did her best to keep them for as much of their childhoods as she could.

When my mother, Hope, was sixteen years old, she met Wade—a twenty-one-year-old outsider stationed at one of the several military bases nearby. In Katherine’s words, Wade was an angry man who loved my mother selfishly. Against Katherine’s wishes, my mother dated Wade for nearly a year. She left school in the middle of tenth grade. Then, in a final act of defiance, she married Wade in the town clerk’s office a week after her seventeenth birthday.

Following his discharge, Wade convinced my mother to see what they could of the world in a Chevrolet station wagon. They left Colorado, traveling for months on a grand tour of America’s dust bowl. When they were in Missouri, they called Katherine to announce my arrival, describing me as a blond baby boy who looked more like him than her. They did what they pleased and stayed where they wanted, paying first with the savings that Katherine gave them, then with bad checks. Outside Bakersfield, California, they were arrested for bank fraud. Barely in their twenties, they were sentenced to state prison. I was not quite four years old when I was sent to live with my grandmother, who had moved to Chicago.

Like Katherine before her, Hope had chosen badly. After her release from prison, with me safe in Chicago, my mother settled in Los Angeles, refused to return to my father, and demanded a divorce. On a bench in a public park, Wade agreed to the breakup, but on his terms. If my mother insisted on retrieving me from Katherine, Wade promised a meager monthly stipend for child support. He refused to pay alimony of any kind. There were no assets to divide. Wade declared that their agreement would remain a private one, without the intervention or enforcement authority of a court. If his young wife refused his offer, if she asked for more, if she went to a judge, Wade reminded her that, with or without legal permission, a little boy would never be hard to steal.

From her own mother, my mother knew how easily a woman could lose a child. She accepted Wade’s deal, and in return, he abandoned any claim to me. She kept the boy she loved from the man she despised. Yet even with Wade gone, my mother’s fear of losing me always lingered. “You have to be ready,” she warned. “Someday, someone may come to take you.”

Labels: adoption, What I'm reading

The thing about adoption is that it is different than having your own kid. When you have your own kid, you go through all The Stuff. The conception and relationship with their other parent, the pregnancy and birth... and then you might feel like your not qualified or don't know what the hell you are doing but you fucking earned it and that "Mamma Bear" comes out and says, "this is my kid, back off."
You can second guess yourself in private or with your friends and maybe even your family, but to the rest of the world? You're the best mother in the world and they can just kiss your ass. Why? Because you know two fundamental things:
1. No one in the whole world, the entire Universe, knows that kid the way you do. You know everything about them. What they think is funny, what words they don't pronounce right, what size shoes they wear, what they were scared of when they were three, where they lost their first tooth, how they like their eggs, what their belly laugh sounds like. That's your kid.
2. No one in the whole world, the entire Universe, loves that kids as much as you do. Period.
But right now, I don't feel like I've earned it yet. It's just as scary as it was when I was having any of my girls. Of course, it's scary for different reasons. I'm scared because this person, they don't know me. They haven't known me since before they knew themselves. I don't know how they like their eggs yet.
I look at the fact that I must be growing up more. I bought a house right? But I'm still unsure when I punish Trin if my method is the best one for helping her grow up with Asperger's. Or I look at the fact that I bought freaking spring form pans at the store today because I need them and surely only grownups or bakers need spring form pans but then Amanda rolls her eyes at me tonight because I basically tell her she's being a bitch to Emilee and I wonder how much I know about taking care of an almost thirteen year old.
Every time I think I know what I'm doing, The Universe slaps me in the face with a nice little reminder that really, I'm still learning.
So, do you ever really know? Do you ever make a choice about yourself or your kids or even kids that aren't biologically yours without second guessing it? And does the second guessing become even more frequent when it's a whole new person? One I haven't known forever?

Labels: adoption, Amanda, Being Mommy, Emilee, Triniti

Yesterday after Triniti and I dropped "The Sisters" off at softball practice, we were driving home and she asked the same question she's asked me like a hundred times in the last few weeks:
"Mamma, will we be able to get my new sister while I am still six?"
She likes to gauge time based on her age.
Since her birthday is only a couple of months away, I had to explain to her that she would probably already be seven when it happened.
She doesn't like that because, similar to becoming seven, waiting in line and walking home from school, it takes forever.
We talked some more about it and the more Trin talked, the more I realized that her little innocent mind hadn't realized that this little girl wouldn't be just like her. Or just like her friends. She wasn't going to arrive here all happy and ready to play.
"Trin, can you tell me what kind of heart you have?"
"A happy heart."
"That's right. And your new sister, when she gets here, she is going to have a very sad heart."
"Why?"
"Well, think about all of the things that make your heart happy. You have a Mommy and Daddy who love you so very much and The Sisters and Yai-Yai and Doh-Doh and Aunt Ruthie... and all of your friends and Chica and Lila and Tucker? And your friends at school. You have a home with a yard you can play in all day long. You have toys and dresses. But most of all, can you tell me how many people love you?"
"A LOT!"
"Yup, a LOT of people love you. But your new sister? She doesn't have a Mommy or Daddy or a Doh-Doh or Yai-Yai or any puppy dogs or friends. She is all alone and she's scared and her heart is very sad."
"Mamma, I think I'm going to cry."
"Awww, baby, don't cry. But you gotta know that when she gets here, she isn't going to be happy. She's going to be scared. She's going to be scared that we won't want her too. And she's going to be scared because she's going to be in a new house with all new people and she won't know any of us. Wouldn't you be scared too?"
"Yeah, I would be really scared."
She thought about all of this until we pulled into the yard and then I asked her, "So, what do you think the hardest thing will be about having your new sister?"
"I think it will be making heart happy again."
"Yeah, me too."
"Wait! I think the hardest part will be getting her juice, I'm not a very good pourer."

Labels: adoption, Being Mommy, Triniti

Most of you know I feel pretty strongly about doing the right thing. I feel compelled to do as much as possible in as many ways as possible to do what is good and right. Sometimes it's a pain in the ass and sometimes it's this wonderful and amazing thing. But regardless of what it is or who it is for, I feel pulled towards helping or doing what I feel is right no matter how much time I have or how hard it is or who it is for.

Add to that the fact that I truly believe we are in a time of change right now. It is almost as though I feel like my generation is stepping into the spotlight and we are all looking around at each other going, "Holy shit, we're supposed to be taking care of the planet and the people?" And more than I have ever before, I feel compelled to make use of that time. What am I doing? What legacy will I be leaving my kids. Why will it matter that I was here?

I can no longer blame my age, my time, my situation - my anything - for my actions. I am wholly and completely responsible for what I do and how I contribute to my world.

"Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein."----H. Jackson Brown

So what is it that I feel drawn to? The Environment is a huge thing for me. Every single day I fight for that just by going to work and being that voice in my office. I find that when I am going to buy things now, I purposefully look for the recycled or environmentally friendly version of whatever it is that I am buying and when it isn't freakin' outrageously priced, I purchase it. I compost at home with my earthworm farm and while I realize that having an earthworm farm in your kitchen isn't ideal for everyone, I always encourage as much as someone will listen the benefits of it. The Environment is important to me and when I do something unfriendly towards it, it eats at me and I hope that I am passing that on to my children.

I also feel very strongly about children. I mentioned on here a few months ago that I intend to start fostering. At the time I wrote that post, I had no idea what all was entailed. I had no idea the amount of hoops one has to jump through in order to become a foster parent and I can tell you it is a process but I do hope to start the fostering classes in just a few weeks! And I am so very, very excited about it. And I implore you to look at your household and see if there is room for just one more person. And if there is, at least look into it because there is nothing you could ever do in this life that is more important than being that person for someone else.

The third thing that I feel very strongly about is teen mothers. Having been a teen mother myself and having had really no support, no one in my corner that was rooting for me to win, I know how hard it is. And I also know how rewarding it is to come out of the other side having succeeded. I would like to, at some point in the future, be able to set up a foundation or website or a center or something to help teen mothers. It's one of my most auspicious goals and one I truly hope to accomplish.

Now why in the world am I telling you all about this? Because February tenth is right around the corner. And on February the tenth, I will be telling you, again, what I am doing to help, what I am doing to try and improve this planet and lives of the people on it. That is twelve days from now which I hope is plenty of time for you to do a little soul searching and be ready to announce on your blog, your myspace page, your facebook or whatever means it is that you use to communicate with the cyber world and to your friends and family what it is that you are doing to help, to contribute, to attempt with all of your heart to make this world a better place.


^^**click me**^^

Labels: adoption, my crazy life, The Universe

Recently I went to the home of an older woman who was the foster parent of a little boy who is in Triniti's class. The state of this home was atrocious. The elderly woman claimed she had been very ill lately and everything had gotten away from here and whether that is true or not, all I could think about was this poor little boy. I wanted to put him in my car and take him home and put him to bed in a clean and safe home. A home without roaches or that smell of too many animals who aren't house broken.
It killed me.
And in doing so it made me realize that there are an insane amount of kids just like that little boy. There are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of kids out there who dream about a clean and safe home. And, dear reader, I have one.
So I have applied to become a foster parent.
My brother will be moving out at the end of the school year and when he does, I intend to take in another child. Someone who is between five and ten years old and who needs me and who needs my girls.
I cannot think of a single reason why not to. I have a home which is plenty big enough, I have the financial capabilities of taking on another person but more importantly - most importantly I have the room in my heart to love someone else and there is with out a doubt someone out there who needs to be loved by me and my family.

Labels: adoption, Being Mommy, family drama, my crazy life, Noah, sisters