Come one. Come all. Step right up and enter to win a GRAND PRIZE for you or a mother dear to your heart this Mother’s Day.
What would every mother want? A diamond ring? No. (Could get lost while playing in the sand at the park!) A new MiniVan! No. (Take it from my experience, after you hit someone in a minivan, they are not that great any more!) A dozen roses! No (They wilt in no time, especially if you bought them at Walmart!)
Maybe something to bring joy to her heart. Something to make her laugh…. and snort… and laugh some more! Yes, you guessed it! A Book! YES!
Yes, a FREE autographed copy of my book Laughing in the Midst of Mothering! Every mother you know needs a laugh! This book can be yours (for your mom if you aren’t a mom) by merely entering your name in the comments section of this blog.
You have until May 5th midnight to enter. On May 6th, after I sleep in, I will randomly draw one name from the list and announce the winner here on MSJ. I will blast the name for all to see. The winnerwill have 24 hours to contact me with an address for where to ship the book. If person #1 doesn’t contact me, I will draw another name on May 7th. :o)
My husband actually called the couch a chesterfield this week and he hasn’t even been watching Downton Abbey. I believe it was a Canadian flashback for him. I remember my Canadian grandparents using that term for the sofa, but not my husband!
Meanwhile, back on the chesterfield, I have made several life altering discoveries.
1. Healing takes time. Time allows you to think and write and read, all activities that tend to get brushed to the sidelines during a busy schedule. I have missed writing. I need to carve out some time to express myself with written words. It brings me joy…. and I like joy. It’s one of my favorite things, but not exactly in a brown paper package tied up with string. (Name that movie song.)
2. My daughter and my niece hand picked lovely yellow and purple wildflowers, placed them in jars and brought them to my coffee table that holds everything I could possibly use while on the couch. I have spent long moments watching little bugs crawl all over the sunny blooms. A bit of wildlife right here in the living room.
3. Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy. (Name that artist.) My front yard blooms are in their glory mode and I have spent time each day sunning myself next to their colorful display: royal blue lobelia, cadmium snap dragons and pansies, hot pink, pale pink, variegated and snow white Sweet Williams, four shades of purples in pansies, violets and violas, and a salmon pink geranium that has yet to open its glowy blooms for my pleasure. Vitamin D is a glorious bonus. My nature journal is calling to me to capture the array of colors.
4. I am the sole individual who wipes out the microwave. Sad but true. Come on over and have a looksie at a week’s worth of blown up food bits.
5. Ringo the wiener dog eats orange foamy earplugs. Disgusting.
6. I truly am a night owl. Even on narcotics, my best hours are from 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. However, this was aided by a total of six hours of napping today.
I pray you are blessed with a full night of restful sleep while I am uninterrupted on the chesterfield.
Quietness and darkness have enveloped our home. Only because it’s 4:35 a.m. Our house is rarely quiet, rarely dark and rarely active at this time of the morning. It has been one week since my car accident that has driven me to sleep on the couch (I couldn’t even THINK of climbing stairs for the first four days home). And as much as I love sleeping with my husband, I love sleeping …. without fearing that he will kick my battered legs, bump my aching arms, yank the sheets against my seatbelt bruises on my neck or snore and make me crabby. I’m starting to understand why my grandparents had separate rooms. (Don’t worry, Honey, I’ll come back upstairs eventually.) Aching arms woke me up in these wee hours… and it’s not time for the wonder drugs yet. The fact that I can wait it out gives me hope that I’m not completely addicted to pain killers. Even in weariness, I have some level of self control.
My six year old habitual pastime of reading adoption blogs is still a passion of my soul. It always will be. Reading about a young couple tonight faced with infertility who have chosen a child in Ethiopia makes my adoptive mama heart beat with glee. Another baby will have a mama. Another daddy will cry tears of joy. Another child will be placed by God and the nightmares might just fade a wee bit, making life a better place. A safer place.
As an adoptive mama, I have had the normal adoptive mama fears that I am the worst adoptive mama on the planet. I have cut off the Colombian princess from sugar at times, even sending her to bed with no cake! Imagine!!! I have sent her to her room when I couldn’t think of answering one more question about heaven. I have not taken her to Disneyland. I won’t buy her cute clothes just because they are cute, when her stuffed closet has more than enough. I am sure I have been caught on surveillance tapes more than a dozen times in the Walmart parking lot saying, “We are not here to buy anything for you today.” And I’ve wondered if she was in a different home, would she be granted more stuff and have more privileges. I have expressed this self-doubt to other mamas and one in particular has told me again and again, “You are the perfect mama God chose for your girl. She is in the right home. You are the right mama. You are loving her just the way she needs to be loved.” And it does my heart good for about three minutes and then the doubts return.
The before mentioned car accident was actually a glimpse into my “good adoptive mama” side that I needed to see. The crash happened in the blink of an eye. The air bags exploded. Stinky smoke filled the van. And all I could think to do was jump out of my door which only opened half way to get to my nine-year-old baby in the seat behind me. We hugged each other and balled our eyes out together. She was not hurt. I quickly realized that my legs were not fine and I was needing to sit back down. Yes, the metal hitting metal sounds were ghastly and hurt our ears, but I believe what scared her the most was hearing me cry for the first time. The ugly cry with snorts and uncontrollable guttural sounds. She kept reaching up and touching my shoulders in the front seat. Through the tears and pain, we bonded at a deeper level.
On my girl scout sash of life, I feel like I earned my “Unconditional Adoptive Mama Love” badge. And my bruised body is a mere side effect of the stamp of approval on my heart.
Before this past Saturday, the previous car accident I participated in was in 1999 in Anaheim, California. Thankfully I have been fender bender free for 14 joyous years. (However, in my current state of narcotic use, I could easily and most probably be missing large periods of my life in my memory banks.) When one meanders through life without hitting other vehicles, you tend to forget many important facts regarding collisions. This morning, at 4:06 a.m., I am here to inform all those who need informing on said subject.
1. Accidents happen when you least expect it and when it is not convenient in your life. In my case, I was casually heading to Bed Bath and Beyond to purchase a much needed shower curtain liner for the main bath due to visitors who were scheduled to arrive at my home in exactly four hours. My daughter and two friends were descending upon our house for Spring Break from college in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a mere 14 hour drive to Phoenix, Arizona. Two days after their arrival, three Canadian relatives were also visiting for a week. Hence, the new shower curtain liner was MANDATORY.
2. Teenage drivers are a danger on the road. Out of a neighborhood shopping center driveway (right next to Charming Charlie’s purse/accessory mother ship store) a small white vehicle came flying directly into my lane from the right without any warning time, hindering me from doing all those things you know you should do when you figure out you’re are going to hit another car, i.e. brake, scream “Sweet mother of God!”, brace yourself so as to increase muscle injuries, curse the driver’s day of birth, yell at your kids “Hang on, Mommy’s going to hit someone!” or any other such nonsense. I glanced at the car and slammed into it. That is all. I never saw the driver’s face as she was looking to her right the entire time she was entering the four lane road, planning on crossing two lanes of traffic. The kind police man asked me how long I had between my visual awareness of the other car and impact. “One second.” I have since wondered about her actions. Did she just find the queen mother purse to match her favorite hot pink and cheetah print shoes, and couldn’t wait to get home and unite the two, creating the perfect ensemble? Did she just eat at the Mellow Mushroom and was in a pasta induced coma with garlic permeating from her pores? We will never know, dear reader.
3. When the kind police man finished my inquisition and then glanced in the back seat of the van to witness a tear-stained little Latina child, he should have used his kind policeman voice and asked a politically correct question like, “Who is this little sweetheart?” or “I see we have a princess in the back seat.” or “Honey, are you ok?” But NO. He got the wrath of the blubbering adoptive mother when he blurted out, “Who is THAT?” like I picked up an illegal alien down by the border and was transporting her color-coordinated, well manicured dimpled self like a criminal. I will admit I answered a bit tersely, “SHE’S MY DAUGHTER!!!!” My tone set him in his place and his kind police man voice surfaced as he praised her for being in her booster seat and wearing her seatbelt. I am a protective mama first, and an injured car passenger second. Don’t ever forget that!
4. Auto injuries are curious beasts. Due to the impact of the airbag underneath the steering column of our van, my shins took a real beating. I did not know there was an airbag under there, nor was I aware that it was hinged from the bottom and the molded plastic cover was capable of shaving your legs so thoroughly upon explosion, you might never need to shave them ever again due to the absence of several layers of skin and hair follicles. Thank God I was wearing jeans. As was predicted by my ER doctor friend, other injuries will surface when the most intense injuries subside. After four days of lying on the couch with my legs elevated and iced every hour around the clock, I was able to stand without tears accumulating in my eyes. Then I realized my right shoulder was not working as well as it had been performing before the white car jumped in my path. Yesterday x-rays were had and after two days of icing my shoulder every hour around the clock, we will hopefully have some answers tomorrow as to my gimpy limb. When that is concluded, I do not know what will make me cry next…. the seatbelt bruise line across my entire torso? Or some other area still in shock waiting to surface. I will surely keep you posted, even though I am aware of “women’s tea rules of courtesy” of not speaking of sickness or operations. This ain’t a tea…. it is my blog, and where else can I complain with my sense of humor intact for the enjoyment of others?
5. God takes care of His children. When God found our new-to-us van on November 30, 2012, He was testing my thankfulness at receiving such a good and perfect gift from Him, despite it being red. Red is my least favorite color. But I WAS thankful for the van… the low miles, the reasonable price, the stow-n-go compartments to haul more junk, the awesome air-conditioning, the radio controls on the back of the steering wheel, etc. And I was content knowing that I couldn’t see that it was red while I was riding in the van. I imagined that it was a purty royal blue color. So I am pretty sure I passed the red van test and now get another new-to-us van that is not red. I will keep you posted.
Currently my pain meds have once again done their duty and I am ready to drift back to a psycho-dream filled sleep. Good night for now.
Never have I been accused of being an animal lover. We had a few pets during my childhood in suburbia Northern California, but never a dog and only once for a short time, a cat. The kitty caused my brother’s eyes to swell shut, so she didn’t stay long at all. But I did have the joy of picking out Meow Mix back in the day when the Meow Mix song was popular, hence making me popular. I was nine, it didn’t take much.
Fast forward to my ten-year-old daughter praying every night that God would change her mother’s heart (ME!) so that she could get a dog. I about coughed up a lung the first time I witnessed her heartfelt petition to the God of the universe. Anyway, the two-year vigil ended with God changing my heart… and for the past 9.5 years we have had Trixie, the Rat Terrier burrowing into our hearts and lives.
Foolishly I read Dr. Doolittle to my children years ago. Unmistakably, that was a cockamamie move on my part. Yes, we did do a stint with younger boys who NEEDED tadpoles, then frogs of course, lizards, mice, a hamster named Teddy, chickens, fish, turtles, and a hermit crab named Elvis. Truly I felt that I did my time. Of course there were requests for a horse. Thankfully we live in an HOA that doesn’t allow for horses.
Then Christmas 2011 did me in. It was December 23rd at 10:15 p.m. and my husband and I were sitting on the blue couch when my cell phone notified me of the arrival of a message. Who would be texting me that late? Of course it was a friend who had a friend who had a baby wiener dog FREE for Christmas. Good grief. We were sitting ducks. The next day I called another friend who got a baby wiener dog for Christmas the previous year and DIDN’T keep it! I gave her all my reasons for not taking the free dog, and she solved each dilemma as it arose…. we would need a crate. She had one. We would need a doggy door. She had one. And her reason for returning the puppy was because she was never home to train it….. she pointed out that we are ALWAYS home. We homeschool. We don’t leave the premises unless it is for church or a library trip. So we got sucked into Ringo the wiener dog who has been snuggling with us for over a year now.
I still cannot believe I have two dogs. Linda Ann Crosby… NOT a dog person, has two dogs, and probably will have two dogs for another five to seven years. Unbelievable! I can hardly believe I am writing a blog about dogs. I am not a dog person. Didn’t I already say that?
So the moral of the story is DON’T READ DR. DOOLITTLE to your kids if you truly want to do little. BAM!
This photo showed up today on facebook… and I shared it on my wall, like 29,368 other people did. Being an adoptive mama, I have mixed feelings about this on several levels.
For this beautiful 22-year-old woman I pray that she gets a glimpse of her birth-parents for no other reason than looking in the face of someone she is related to by blood. That connection cannot be replaced, other than by having her own children. It would also be a treasure for her to learn of family history, possible siblings and birth grandparents, aunts and uncles. In a peaches-and-cream-everything-always-turns-up-roses life this could be the start of a beautiful family expanding experience. But I don’t know one single family where life has turned up roses and there aren’t real life sad situations to deal with.
However, there are the birthparents and their current lives to consider. What if they never told ANYONE about the daughter they had when they were in the middle of high school? What if the birth-father doesn’t even know!? There are many reasons for choosing an adoptive plan for a child and many more reasons for requesting it be a closed adoption. I understand closure is desired by some who are adopted, but through this possible re-connecting are two separate lives who have moved on from the 22-year-old monumental decision they made to give life, love her to pieces, and make a better plan for her life than they could provide. If found, they have the choice to embrace their long-lost daughter, or protect those around them and hurt their “secret” daughter again.
Because of our Colombian princess’s situation in her homeland, we do have quite a bit of information about her birth-parents. Most likely, we could find them with a bit of sleuthing, thanks to the healthcare system in Colombia. However, Colombian law holds all adoption records as confidential for 30 years. THIRTY YEARS! Good grief! So it is unlikely that our girl will have anyone looking for her. It will be up to us. Colombian law states that “every adopted person has the right to know about his/her origin and the character of its family links. The parents (of an adopted minor) will decide on the moment and conditions in which it will not cause the minor harm to know such information.” THAT is the conundrum. No matter the circumstances of an adoption plan being made, there is the possibility of a real sense of abandonment for the child, and when has abandonment ever not caused harm?
I still believe in, support and love adoption with my whole being. Yet someday we will face the heartfelt question, “Can we try to find my birth-parents?” One day at a time. One day at a time.
When my children were 7, 4 and 2-years-old (back when I only had three kids!) I read a book that stated, “A seven-year-old is capable of running a household.” It shocked me. But I bit into it…. with my jaws wide open… similar to my first bite of a Krispy Kreme donut. That night, as I laid in bed with my eyes wide open, I dreamed of training my 7-year-old to take over all the menial tasks that I dreaded as a mother and keeper of the home. I envisioned my next two offspring also reaching the ripe old age of seven…. and helping their older sister do EVERYTHING! Oh, sweet baby Jesus, this was the answer I needed … my ticket to sanity… the train bound for the hot bubbly bath surrounded by candles …. and TIME to read a good book without interruptions.
The chore chart was born that night and materialized the next day. It worked like a gem. I taught each kid a single chore, one at a time, year by year, that they could master at my cleaning expectations. Oh, would my future daughters-in-law sing praises to my name!
You may be asking yourself what I would do with all my new-found free time…. well, I’m a homeschool mom. BAM! (Homeschool mom = no free time.)
Reflecting back, after 12 long years in the saddle (and 9 to go, but who’s counting?), I have come to see the harm the chore chart did to my children. Yes, it’s true. And I am admitting it here for all the world to read. (Well, that is…. the 80% of those in the world over the age 15 who are literate… according to a 2002 statistic.) (Homeschool moms are experts at finding statistics to prove their point.)
As the teen years encompassed our home, I realized that my sweet chillin’s wouldn’t lift a finger for any chore that did not have their name next to it on that particular day. “WHAAAAT? Is that how we brought you up??? To be selfish and petty?” Made my blood boil. (That only happens at 212 degrees F…. and I was THERE, baby!)
Discussions revolving around teens and the spirit of helping, a willingness to serve, desiring to be like Jesus, etc. etc. etc. were had by yours truly and many others in my life. Since then, we have regrouped and are trying something new and improved… it’s called being nice. Being thankful. Not feeling entitled. An announcement was made at the dinner table not long ago…. it went something like this: “We are a family. We help each other. We serve each other. If someone cared enough to plan your meals, go grocery shopping, cook for you and set the table….. then you need to stick around until the whole kitchen is cleaned up and the food is put away.” BAM! It has worked beautifully for three nights now. I will keep you posted on the success of trying to teach my children to be helpful without their name written on a chart. Pray for me.
Now, those who have great faith in my chore chart abilities, do not fear. Only the kitchen tasks have been removed. Their names are still next to chores that include wiping toilets, vacuuming, dusting, cleaning windows, collecting trash, etc. etc. etc. Some things just need routine. Ok, I just need routine…. and a long bubbly bath surrounded by candles.
It’s true. We have been home from Cali, Colombia for 23 months with our little Colombian princess. The adoption journey has had bumps and twists that we didn’t expect, but it has been so wonderful and rewarding.
Tomorrow is GOTCHA DAY number two!
TWO YEARS!!! Hard to believe it has gone by so fast. Sometimes our month in Colombia seems like forever ago… and sometimes it seems like last week. I miss the lush greenness of Cali, the vast array of mystery fruits that were scrumptiously yummy, the glimpses of the Andes when the fog lifted, the bamboo forest we drove by to our villa, the coconut ice cream bars, the afternoon rain showers, the neighborhood boys who would come and ask, “Is Austin Rick’s son?”, the sweet smell of the flowers, arepas filled white cheese, the stickiness of the night air and the pee-po pee-po LOUD evening serenade of the coqui frogs.
People often ask “Why Colombia?” Quite a few factors lead us to the beautiful and tropical South American country.
1.) My husband, Rick, went to Valledupar, Colombia for a summer to build a church when he was 17-years-old. He grew to love the warm-hearted people and the countryside teeming with unknown vegetation, never imagining that he would return to meet his daughter twenty-something years later.
2.) We have three bio kids who do not look like Rick AT ALL. Ok, one does a little, but I was expecting little chubby, black-haired Indian babies when I married a Cree Indian. Didn’t happen. The Irish and Finnish genes dominated and we got two blonde-haired, blue-eyed kids and another slightly darker. So, when we had chosen an adoption agency, I looked through the pages for the countries they worked in…. I held up the two pages and announced to Rick, “El Salvador and Colombia are where the kids look like you.“ “Colombia,” he replied. And it was a done deal.
3.) Not that I was anywhere near proficient, but I thoroughly enjoyed taking Spanish… back in the day. Larisa also had Spanish courses and was mastering her second language quite nicely. So a country in South America seemedfamiliar… somehow. (Not distant in my mind, like, say, Kazakhstan… or China.) I related to Ellie from the movie UP…. her dream was to visit South America. She tore pictures right out of a library book of the fascinating country.
I am as American as you could get. I LOVE my country… the anthem brings me to tears. Studying and teaching the history of our great land is a deep passion of mine. But I have to say that my heart beats in thirds… a third for the USA, a third for Canada, where I spent my college years and the first 10 years of marriage, and now a third for Colombia where I fell in love with my daughter’s people and homeland. My heart is still in Colombia. <3
This is the new one liner our little Colombian princess is repeating… and repeating … and repeating. “Watch and learn!” We’re not sure where it came from? (Austin?)
Just another few factoids of folly from her today as well: We have friends who are Anglo-Saxon (do they still call us white folk Anglo-Saxon?), with 2 bio kids and four adopted kids, one of whom is from Korea. Nora asked me today if their family does “Gotchya Day”. “I’m not sure if they do, but they would have a lot if they did!” and I named the four adopted kids. Nora was astonished that the 13-year-old from Korea (in the family of 7 other white people) was adopted. She amazes me sometimes.
Later this afternoon, I witnessed her parade to and from the bathroom and her bedroom…. a few too many times for normal wear and tear. The following conversation followed.
Me: “Nora, what are you doing?”
N: “Playing”
Me: “What are you playing?”
N: “I made some food for my dolls.” Carrying a little sauce pan to the bathroom again.
Me: “What did you make for them?”
N: “Soup.”
Me: “What is in the soup?”
N: “Water.”
I looked into the pot…. it was a milky white substance with chunks.
Welcome to My Sister's Jar. The story behind the blog lies in the original post on Feb. 2, 2008. Type "giddy moments" into the search box to find it.
I'm a homeschool mom who loves to speak and write, encouraging moms to press-on in motherhood. Two of my books are available NOW! Laughing in the Midst of Mothering and Laughing in the Midst of Marriage. See them at www.LindaCrosby.com or www.cbd.com.
I have four children, one of whom is adopted from Colombia, so there are LOTS of adoption tidbits here.
~~~~~~ Linda Ann Crosby
