waiting

bebo norman has this song, written many years ago now, and he sings, "the clock moves so slowly; time moves so fast." i don't think i'll ever get past the mysterious truth of that line. time is a strange thing.

i just reread my last post, the one about grandma. during those 2 1/2 short weeks in july, we wanted whatever time of suffering that lay ahead to happen swiftly, for her sake....and yet, we clung to every moment we had remaining with her, always reaching for more. five months later, my sadder days seem to drift by slowly, like a lazy river current...and this mornin, i can hardly believe it's been a whole five months since she left.

i'm beginnin to feel this way a little about adoption. well, this adoption anyway. we were cautious to find and apply to another agency. we had a lot of money to work for and save. i was in grad school and, ideally, wanted to be finished writing monster papers w/o an infant learning how to sleep and wake w/the rest of us. josh and i had simple differences of opinion regarding how many years we wanted b/w our kids. probably underneath it all was a question as to whether we could do it - could we save enough money? could we put ourselves on the line again? could. we. do. it. ?

needless to say, it took us a while to pull the trigger and begin the process again. it was on our minds every day for a long stretch of days...days that turned into weeks....and months. but we finally took the plunge. we made phone calls and went to meetings and completed the application and worked to save and cleaned the house before the home-study. those days seemed to last a lifetime. and days/shifts of extra work? josh would say his night shifts crawled by...sometimes i visited patients and was pretty sure i wasn't gonna make it out of their houses before nightfall. the clock moved so slowly.

when we had enough money to feel a little more comfortable, we turned in the application, and we had the home-study done. suddenly, we realized those laborious days had somehow turned into months and months. nine months, actually, b/w deciding on an agency and submitting our application. did we intend for it to take so long? time moves so fast.

neither of us believed adoption #2 would play out as quickly as riley's did. with riley, by the time we finally decided on adoption and submitted our application, it was may...we met her birthfamily in august....she was born in december. bam. i kinda thought baby #2 would come in the summer. so we tentatively made a fewish plans for last spring. after finishing school, i didn't even consider looking for a teaching position. just a few weeks out at a time, we'd put things on the calendar. never spending nonrefundable money or committing to responsibilities we couldn't slip out of. my aunt gave me a book series by madeleine l'engle for christmas, and i eagerly shelved it, saving it for the during-the-first-few-months-of-mothering-another-infant time sure to come. the closer to summer we drew, the less further out we made plans. the pictures of riley we'd taken in february i kept in the thick folder, waiting to send them out (however belated they might be) with the birth announcements we'd be sending out (i presumed) soon.

then the summer came, the summer our family will never forget. a whole lot of days that seemed to last years - the night daddy went to the er, the next few days when he was diagnosed with lymphoma, and we scrambled to make sense of it all. we braced for a long and unexpected journey, and every single day we spent attentively to switching gears to do whatever might need to be done. then a couple weeks later, grandma, and the couple weeks that we had left w/her. hour after hour on the road, caring for riley and grandma and each other...navigating the unwanted decisions of grandma slipping away. all the while, daddy began having appointments and procedures and began treatment. it wasn't until about the middle or end of august that i even remembered adoption.

oh yeah - we were still waiting. the summer had now come and gone, and not even a hint of baby on the horizon. but my stars - i was relieved. there was no way we could have cared for an infant the way we'd wanted and been present w/my family the way we were, all at the same time.

autumn arrived. daddy was doin well. we were grief-stricken over grandma, but we'd all had to return to at least a semblance of normal life...as work and kids and bills had never gone away. nor had adoption. our routine 3-month follow up calls came and went. our profile was still bein shown; we simply had not been chosen. the agency had no suggestions - no changes to our profile picture might help, no tweaks in our letter should be made. just....wait.

so we return to our springtime mentality a little bit - plan for things a little at a time, though there was a newer mix of surrender and breath holding, as we began making decisions that weren't as easy to get out of - like my decision to take a 6 week position teaching nursing with midwestern starting in october.

day after day of decisions...small ones and big ones. flexible ones and ones that don't bend as readily. an hour here, a weekend there. a month over here, six weeks there. the clock moves so slowly; time moves so fast. now it's december. almost christmas. riley's almost four years old. we've actively waited for her brother or sister to come home now for a year. a year. how did that happen? 
still no prospects on the horizon, as best we know. so we look ahead into 2015 and pause, our eyes beginning to look a little heavier with the weariness that comes from long waiting... and we wonder. we can't help but wonder a little if we made the "right" decision, whatever that means, about the timing and the agency and what's good for our family.....and the list goes on.

the saturday after christmas, our social worker will be here. home-studies are good for a year. after that point, if no baby has been placed and no match has been made, the home-study must be revisited. the social worker is required to physically inspect our home. as we'll be away most of next week for christmas with josh's family, i'm tryin to skim away the most visible layers of untended-to chores. 

in the meantime, our waiting stretches on. our waiting and our wonderings aren't as tumultuous and volatile now as they were during the wait for riley layne. they're quieter, more settled. but they're here all the same. so we wait. we wait with whispering hearts.

grandma, who wouldn't have approved of me devoting a blog post to her

death is strange. it's equal parts hard to believe and permanently real.

today marks 2 weeks since grandma died. i can't quite wrap my heart's mind around that truth. it seems like yesterday. and it seems like weeks and months ago already. i haven't had a tear-free day since july 5th, the day we learned of the cancer that was ravaging her body. and yet, there's this part of me that feels the slightest bit disassociated with the story....as if grandma's just out visiting my aunt's family and will return after what used to be her standard 2-week stint out west.

one week, we were talking about riley's singing, incessant chatter, and obsession with cats...immigration reform....rain. a few days later, she was in the hospital. a few days after that, we were taking care of her as she began slipping away. a few shorter days, and she was gone. i think we're all havin a difficult time adjusting. it was so sudden. well, she was 86 after all, so i don't suppose we can label it a shock. but the ferocity of her independence was such a normal and daily part of our lives, that her absence is deeply felt....nearly palpable at times.

grandma was the one i remember encouraging me to write - my most vocal writing advocate. so i suppose it's fitting that i'm scribbling with words as a way to grieve.

at grandma's funeral, daddy talked about one of grandma's character traits - an unusual but somewhat exceptional one. she had this ability and willingness to disagree with someone while maintaining a respectful position, and in the case of family and close friends, a loving one. daddy's example was tattoos. all six of grandma's grandchildren are adorned w/permanent ink. did grandma approve? no. did she ever "come around" on the issue and give any of us her blessing regarding future inking? nope. she maintained her opinion on the matter while not once ostracizing any of us.

i've thought a lot about what daddy said....thought a lot about my 33 years w/grandma...and thought about the stories and dimensions of grandma that we were not privy to until the days leading up to and immediately following her death.

there's this other part of her character that, in the last month, has been enlivened with fuller color. grandma had this very matter-of-fact way about her that easily led folks to assume she lived unafraid and unbothered. it was an easy assumption to make. after all, she was fiercely independent and lived alone for decades. but i don't believe she was unafraid, unbothered, and unscathed. i heard her talk about bein afraid of the water and afraid of snakes and mice. so it wasn't that she was unafraid, undaunted for 86 years. it was that she refused to be ruled by her fears. so her answer to the things that frightened and unnerved her? she simply faced them. she enrolled mama and aunt janice in swimming lessons when they were really young, and then donned her own swimming suit and took the lessons alongside them. she was afraid of the snakes in the hen house, but she gathered the eggs for her folks anyway. and when she was well into her 70s, her house was infested w/mice...but rather than calling an exterminator, she set mouse trap after mouse trap until the nasty varmints realized they'd met their match.

these are easy examples to describe. but there were other hurdles, other things she learned to do - not b/c she innately took pleasure in such things, or because she sought out difficult endeavors, but b/c she was determined to live, determined to not be ruled by fear. so she lived alone for decades and learned how to change her own oil and how to get out of debt and went back to school. she retired and then subbed for months on end at an alternative school for kids who'd had terrible hands dealt to them - she was in her 70s then. she decided goin to church was better than living with bitterness.

then there were the rivers more personal, more sensitive. every one of her grandkids (myself included) made lifestyle decisions that were not directly in line with her preferences. decisions more difficult to grapple with than tattoos and piercings. decisions about religion, spirituality, relationships, marriage, race. not one time did she smile and nod and accept our choices blindly. and not one time did she hold so tightly to her established viewpoint that her grandchild was tossed aside. i don't know that there are many octogenarians who were as determined to work through their prejudices and long-held beliefs for the sake of loving and accepting their family.

with a heart as sturdy as hers, i think it would have been easy to push folks around. independent, determined folks sometimes bully others. it's a means of survival. but somehow, grandma steered clear of that slippery slope. she somehow managed to not jump onto every religious, political, social bandwagon, while at the same time she refraining from forcefully pushin and pullin people into her corner.

time and age and life ultimately softened her. grandma was intelligent and thoughtful. she was never the "sweet old lady" type, to be sure. she never placated people or pulled back on who she was for the sake of complacent harmony. she wasn't without her flaws, either. she was determined to the point of stubborn, independent to the edge of closed self-sufficiency. but, at least in the last 20 or so years, she was never so set in her ways that she isolated herself.

at least in part, i believe this is why many have been moved to tears by her death. not only her family, but her friends, too. she lived, determined to engage in life thoughtfully. not all of us are that brave. we can't help but be sad.

gratitude and grafting

it's mother's day again. officially my fourth to celebrate. i tend not to succeed in the "be really excited on holidays" category. the pressure of it all causes me to recoil. when given a gift on a particular holiday, i've never been the demonstrative recipient who makes the whole gift giving event fun. so four years ago, when i awoke on a sunday mornin with a 4 1/2 month old precious little girl in our house, i was taken aback by the delight swimmin in me. mother's day. my first mother's day. after years of this day bein soaked with ache, occasionally sprinkled with confusion and anger, my arms were now full. a squishy, dark haired little girl captivated me....and turned mother's day on its head. i remember tellin josh, "now this is a holiday i can enjoy!"

so here we are, four years later. my delight this mornin is less expectant and more....restful. mothering a 3 year old is a continuous mix of pleasure and pain. equal parts laugh out loud fun, melt your heart sweet, and infuriating. and i don't expect anything less or anything more than that today. maybe that's why it's a restful delight.

there's an ache here, too, though. a small part of it is, i think, tied into a broader world....the horrors mothers and fathers and children endure, like in nigeria. but admittedly, the ache i am more familiar with is my own... as we await another baby to be grafted into our family. 

the ache now is different than it was before riley came home... it's not as tumultuous, and i'm not angry about it. that's enough different to make it different....not to mention the tectonic changes that come with having just one baby-toddler-preschooler fill your home and your life. but it's an ache all the same. an ache to love and an ache to hold...and ache to stretch and break...an ache to graft a friend and brother/sister into riley's world. 

so we wait. we wait for an agency staffed by diligent women to tend to an unborn child....we wait for a long-suffering social worker to match us...we wait for a brave birthmother to choose us. we wait to be grafted into a stranger's forever life. we wait to graft the stranger into ours.

and that's where we are right now. we're living life here while waitin for a call from there. 

for a year, we've waited and worked toward meeting the financial requirements of affording this next adoption. workin more (for me), workin extra (for josh), workin creatively (both of us)...and humbly receiving the generosity of family and friends. i don't think there's a single person who's given to us that wants to be named, but i have to mention at least one.

betsy reynolds. she contacted me several months ago about doin a fundraiser for us. she was starting up as a new consultant for usborne books. it's not like she'd been selling books and such for a long time and was reaping the rewards of success. she was brand new to it. she wasn't offering to help with a fundraiser out of the abundance of her success...she was offering to work on our behalf so that we could benefit. i wrote about this fundraiser several weeks ago here. well, the book sale and the card fundraiser were quite successful - thanks to betsy's hard work and the extended generosity of other friends and family (some of whom are reading this post as we speak). 

thanks to yall, we received $445 that's now in our adoption fund. what's more, this $445 directly helped us meet our goal. our adoption funds are now raised and taken care of!

happy mother's day.... to all the women who have taught, loved, and helped. and thank you to all who generously participating in betsy's fundraiser. we're so grateful.

helpin

in a round-about, adoption related post...

one of the benefits in growin up in the texas panhandle when i did was the circle of people you knew. now, we call it networking. fifteen years ago, it was simply a part of bein a church kid. at the height of the youth group era, when youth group kids went to church and camps together, traveled in small mobs for mission trips, and ventured into the emmaus movement, we knew folks all over the panhandle. lots of our circles overlapped... maybe we went to school together. if not, maybe we played against each other in sporting events. there was a pretty good chance our parents knew each other, too - from their own days of growing up in the panhandle way of life.

so what does this have to do w/round two of adoption? well, i'm glad you asked.

an old panhandle friend of mine - yep, one of the very kind that developed through camps and chrysalis and maybe a little basketball - sent me an email the other day. as a wife and mother of two little ones, she's started selling some books and greeting cards on the side. as she read about our adoption process and the financial burden of it all, she wanted to help.

honestly, i was a little hesitant. josh and i are working in all sorts of ways to fund this deal, and we've believed it's no one else's responsibility to make this happen. but the more i prinked (like that word? it's kinda like thinkin and kinda like prayin...), the more i find myself thinkin - who am i say no to help? 

we ask for and hope for and want and need other kinds of help in adoption...from all sorts of people. from the adoption agency, to our friends and family prayin, to the birth family's support system. so i finally emailed my old friend back and said yes.

so here's the deal.... my friend betsy is selling great children's books and really fun, well-made greeting cards. for every book and every box of cards sold, a good portion of the proceeds will go toward our adoption. 

there are books for children of every age. there are cards for all sorts of occasions. if you're interested in buying a book or a box of cards, you have from today, february 2 to saturday, february 15th.

to peruse the book selection and place an order, follow this link: books for riley to have a companion

to order a box of cards, you need to contact me. to look at the options, follow this link and click on "products": cards for riley to become a big sister

thanks.... for following, for prayin, for believin, for helpin...

thanks, betsy, for your thoughtfulness and generosity.

grateful for the panhandle way of life today.

a lot of little things

i'm walkin through an advent series right now... read some Scripture, read the author's poetic take on said Scripture, reflect on both through a couple of questions at the end. i love questions - i love asking them, and i love answerin them, so this is good for me. one of the questions this week was, "when have you seen God take what was torn and turn it into a gift?" (voskamp, 2013, p. 83...probably not the correct form of citation, but apa has served me well the last four years).

i read the question and immediately thought of a few friends.... those whose lives have been struck by ridiculous illness...but rather than gettin stuck with their families lives bein defined by those illnesses, the illnesses seem to be serving some sort of more beautiful purpose...to turn strong men tender, to turn sure people gentle, to turn stories of grief and labor into stories of profound faithfulness. i'm 32 years old now, and when i have these moments of recognizing the stories around me, i'm often struck...i find it hard to believe that i'm old enough to know people who struggle and fight and grieve and suffer like this....through illness and divorce and abuse and death and loss.

it's easy for me to get stuck here, in the suffering and in the struggle. it's where i lived for years in the realm of infertility. and it made me angry. really angry. i felt bombarded by the injustice of of it all... how could i, of all people, not be able to have a baby? i actually had someone tell me once that i was "the all-american girl," so what was there about me (or my handsome, smart, tender, big and strong husband, for that matter) that deemed us unfit to conceive? and this self-righteousness was inflammed every time someone else became pregnant or delivered a baby or nursed an infant...

the adoption process inflammed the anger, too. although my logical mind understood the reasoned purpose which drove so many facets of the adoption process (i.e. homestudy, cost, legal aspects, strangers delving into our most personal matters), logic didn't make it any easier. of all people - rich and poor, active and sedentary, urban and rural, broken and whole, educated and illiterate - only people who choose to adopt are required to take such profound inventory of their lives and relationships, turn back pretty and ugly corners alike, and bear all to a group of strangers (a.k.a. the adoption agency) in order to be measured and found fit-to-be-parents...and that's before the tumult that can follow bein matched with a birthmother!

even the word "choose" there inflammed the anger and the hurt. we weren't choosing to adopt out of the benevolence of our hearts or the abundance of our lives or b/c we felt divinely called. we were "choosing" to adopt b/c we longed for children we couldn't naturally create, and we flat out didn't have the money to pursue fertility treatments and then have enough reserve to adopt if the medical world didn't fix us. we didn't feel like we were choosing as much as we felt backed into a corner with only one realistic way out - adoption.

 i was sad and heart-broken, but those two emotions make me really uncomfortable. they have a connotation related to weakness. anger made me feel better. it made me feel less weak and less out of control. it gave me somethin to clench in my fists when all else felt like sand runnin through my fingers. it gave me a way to emotionally bull-doze my way through a situation i wasn't at all happy about. anger gave me a way to avoid the sadness.

i've grown up in the church and done all-things-God for as long as i can remember, and yet during this time of loss, all the things that were supposed to help and comfort weren't doin the trick. it didn't soothe any place to "trust that everything happens for a reason" or to hold to the belief that "God has a plan." even those exhortations felt like invitations to avoid the sadness. tossin romans 8 and jeremiah 29 into a chasm of confusion and hurt didn't help...it seemed more like tryin to swing on Scriptural ropes across the chasm rather than walking through it one small, treacherous step at a time.

i can't really say for sure what happened, what changed between then and now. i didn't have one singular moment in time when the momentum slowed and then shifted away from anger. i didn't wake up one day and see the world from a different perspective. it was more like a series of moments, a string of countless decisions and subtle realizations that i didn't want to live angry. i didn't want to be an angry mother (or wife or friend or daughter or neighbor or....). the only way out of anger seemed to be a journey through the depths of sadness.

so i started learnin how to be sad... how to be sad about living my life with an empty womb...

avoiding the uncomfortable has never proven helpful for me... it's led to anger, depression, and life hurled toward blame. for me, the uncomfortable here is inextricably related to sorrow. so it came as a surprise to me a few weeks ago during our homestudy when the social worker asked us somethin to the effect of, "tell me about your journey through infertility and healing from that." healing? i don't feel healed. i'm certainly not physically "healed" of whatever keeps me from carrying a little life inside. i don't feel emotionally "healed" either...

but maybe that's b/c my definition of "healed" isn't a whole one. because the thing that surprised me when the social worker asked that question was the answer that came out of my mouth. "i think i'm learning to accept that i may never have a baby that we create. i may be sad about that for the rest of my life. but i'm learnin to be okay w/that. and i'm not angry about it anymore."

i'm not angry about it anymore. do you know how big of a deal that is?

that doesn't mean that i'm blindly trusting that "everything happens for a reason" or that "God is in control" in the ways i've always understood those things...b/c even now, even though i'm not seething anger, those claims don't quite settle the dust.

what i am beginnin to believe wholeheartedly is that The Lord is Good, through and through. that He may not move the mountains of circumstance around me, but He continually offers to move mountains of anger, hurt, and unbelief in me. that in the really crappy context of infertility, He gives the most beautiful gifts. w/o infertility, we wouldn't know our riley bear. and i cannot imagine my life without her.

our christmas girl

as it began to grow colder, and the days grew shorter, i found myself wonderin how we'd pass the cooler, darker hours of the evening. during the warmer months, we stay outside as long as possible, which is a great way for a toddler to spend her last couple hours of each day. i was a little afraid she'd grow restless w/all the time spent inside - i knew i would! fortunately, her imagination has taken off the last few weeks, so now she spends the better part of her evenings lost in a world of stuffed animals and song. 

of the many wonder-full delights that her imaginary world brings into our lives, one of the sweeter ones has begun this week. sunday school this last week was spent decorating one of the church's christmas trees. though reluctant at first, riley eventually joined in the fun and had a ball. the next mornin, we loaded up into the pickup and went into town to buy a real christmas tree. a while later, the tree assumed its rightful place in the livin room. from that moment on, there's a phrase that's been repeated countless times... "mama, it's christmas! it's christmas, mama!" it's as if she forgets over and over that there's a christmas tree in the house....and so over and over again, as she emerges from her imaginary world, she realizes that it's there, and she exclaims suddenly each time, "mama, it's christmas! it's christmas, mama!"

i love it. i love her surprise and sudden recognition over and over again. i love that she delves so deeply into her world of song and play that becomes unaware of the obvious. 

she loves christmas music and christmas cartoons. in the middle of summer, she sometimes asks to watch this old mickey mouse christmas carol movie. 

while watching 'the sound of music' last night, she sang and danced around the living room.

she likes crawling up into our bed, squirming under the covers, pulling the comforter up to her neck, and sayin, "it's chrismas every day."

there's a dusting of snow on the ground right now. she was pining to go outside yesterday evening: "mama, we'll get our socks and our shoes and our jacket and our hat on and bundle up and go outside, and it'll be okay." how could i resist? so bundle up we did...and we stayed outside for a few minutes, just long enough for our hands to hurt. when it was time to come in, she cried. at first, i thought the tears were due to the pain of having such cold little hands, but when i asked her if she was crying b/c of her hands or b/c she wanted to stay outside, she blubbered, "b/c i didn't want to come inside."

and i know - all of these things are probably universal findings in all toddlers.... but as a mother of a baby born on christmas day, i've slowly begun to melt into the beautiful delight of this season...and i can't help but watch her, listen to her, laugh w/her, sing with her, and think.... our christmas girl, through and through.

as advent lingers and draws us to linger as well, i do so w/the smell of a fir tree and the sound of a fire and the beautiful presence of our christmas girl lightin up every corner of every room....

and still we wait and we long.... our christmas girl will be a big sister at some time in the (hopefully near) future. the agency called and told us we've been approved. there are a couple of logistical things josh and i have to take care of before we're "official." but hopefully we'll get those things wrapped up next week. 

in the meantime, we savor every "mama, it's christmas. it's christmas, mama." yes, darlin, it is....

we survived

monday mornin came and went and left us tired :)

as best we can tell, the home study went well. no red flags during the home/environmental inspection. it helps, i think, that we have an almost-3-year-old runnin around who has yet to seriously harm herself. as for the interview-y part (which comprised about 85% of the 3 hour visit), it was very similar to the home study we had to have done before riley came home. lots of questions about our pasts and present, both individually and as a couple. lots of questions that were the same or closely related to the application questions we had to answer on paper a few weeks ago. no big surprises, though it always seems different to talk through things like that rather than write a few words. 

for what it's worth, this application and home study process this time around has given me a little different perspective on the purpose of the process. on the surface, and for good reason, it seems to be a system established to ensure that the adults wanting to adopt a baby/child are reasonable, well-adjusted, responsible folks who have the potential to be really good parents. i'm also beginning to wonder if there isn't somethin really good, albeit difficult, about goin through the process... b/c it's like taking an inventory of our life/lives. whether that's taking a little bit to think and reflect on who we are in our different roles (mama, daddy, sister, brother, daughter, son)...or havin to sit down and hammer out some money stuff that we've been puttin off. it just seems like a good idea. 

and for me, it's been a process that has caused gratitude to stir from somewhere deep within. gratitude for the growth and the gifts of the last 32 years and the last 3 years. gratitude for people....and, dare i say, gratitude for circumstances, however unforseen and unwelcomed, that have worn me to patience and kindness and love. 

the road from here.... the social worker will take a couple weeks to work through and write up our home study. then our completed application will go before an approval committee. in the meantime, we will write a profile letter and create a scrapbook of our family. once we're approved and have submitted our little projects, we'll be "officially waiting." 

thanks for hangin on for the ride w/us :)

home study to come

i can't really remember the contents of the last post, but given that it was written in july, i know a lot has happened since then. several trips to see friends and family, the arrival of huntin' season, the start of my last semester of school, and the completion of our adoption application. not many days after the application was turned in, the social worker called to arrange a date for the homestudy. that date is november 4. yep - just a few days away. 

in case you're not familiar w/adoption lingo, the homestudy is the first in-home visit completed by the agency's social worker. she comes and spends at least 3 hours (our first one before riley was about 5 hours) in your home....she'll talk to josh and me together and then to each of us individually. a great deal of the discussions will be related to the answers we provided on the application - our backgrounds, our relationships, our expectations for our children, etc. then she'll eventually walk through the inside and around the outside of our home, inspecting the safety level of our home environment. 

this last thing is generally the part that leads those in the world of adoption to term the homestudy "the white glove test." the agency says, "we just have to make sure your home is safe for a child. that you're fit to be parents." what the adoptive couple hears is, "we have to be on our bestest best behavior. our house has to look its bestest best ever."

so last time, we cleaned and sorted and bought all the necessary baby-proofing instruments. we worried and sifted and paced. i tried to ward off the nervousness by justifying the deep cleaning that was goin on as a necessary mid-summer cleaning spell. hours and hours were spent tryin to make our little rent house and our lives seem a little more put together than they actually were.

i vacuumed under the couch cushions. 

that's a serious extension of normal cleaning around here. 

this time around, i can almost guarantee the vacuum cleaner will make one sweep over the carpets and go back to the closet.

b/c this thing happens when you have a kid....and then want another one. at least it did for me. lots of things shifted and turned upside down and inside out when riley came home almost three years ago. i don't quite have the energy to prop up the veneer of all-is-well-all-the-time. there's no pause button on life right now. josh is working off-duty night shifts, and i'm workin when i can...so we can afford this next adoption. huntin season is in full-swing, and i spend my early mornings and nap times workin on school. in the meantime, riley sings at the top of her lungs hours each day...when she isn't singing, she's normally playing w/her cats (either real or imaginary) and often eager for mama to engage in her world of play. it doesn't stop....life doesn't stop. don't get me wrong - i'm not complaining or wishin for a different pace. i'm sayin that life is better now. 

life as a mother is good.

it's fuller and messier. it forces patience and an ongoing realignment of heart and mind. 

we're having to sacrifice and work toward this adoption in ways we didn't have to the first time around. it's hard, but it's a bearable kinda hard. it's a worth-it-kinda-hard.

so our homestudy is monday morning, and b/c life is fuller and messier, harder in some ways, and better in lots of ways....i'll clean as i can this weekend and hope this social worker is okay w/couch cushions that have been flipped over to hide the toddler-wear. in the meantime, we'll work and play and dress our girl up as minnie mouse this evenin and let her eat more candy than she needs.

p.s. due to josh comin home from a night shift and riley waking up right at the same time, it's taken me 2 hours to write this. i don't have time to proof it for confusion. sorry!

the rest of the story...

a few days ago, i took to facebook and urged my panhandle friends to attend a fundraiser in amarillo featuring willie from 'duck dynasty.' my guess is that the connection b/w this event and my facebook status is not all that mysterious....

the fundraiser is a joint effort by and for the benefit of san jacinto christian academy and special delivery infant adoption agency. 

clearer now? 

i suppose in the world of adoption, this is similar to sending out a cute picture of riley in a t-shirt that says, "big sister." only here, the timeline is completely uncertain :)

so there's the news, the rest of the story....

we'll be working with special delivery this go-around. we've already attended their orientation and training. we're currently, albeit slowly, working on the application. we hope to get it turn in my the start of huntin' season (september 1). in the meantime, i'm workin more this summer in an effort to save money for the expenses soon to come. 

one of the things that sets special delivery apart from most other adoption agencies is their concerted effort to minister to birth mothers over an extended period of time (beyond the few months of pregnancy and immediate post-partum weeks) AND to minimize adoptive parent expenses as much as possible. one of the ways that they do this is by holding fundraisers every year. the contributions and donations gained through these events help sustain both their ministry to birth mothers and their desire to keep adoption costs as low as possible. 

so....if you're a 'duck dynasty' fan or an adoption fan or anyone who might in any way be affected by either, consider an evening out listenin to willie talk about his own experience with adoption :)

no monsters under the bed here

i think i'll forgo the urge to apologize and explain away the six month gap between posts.... anyone who's readin' this and anyone who tries to blog regularly knows life keeps happenin', despite our best intentions.

i don't have anything adoption-related to write about this mornin'. actually, in the last few months, some of the adoption-frenzy that whirled inside of me for so long has subsided some. we've found ourselves pulled headlong into the life of parenting a rather opinionated, expressive, personality bursting toddler. our latest battle? 

paralyzing fear of the vacuum cleaner. 

it's a ferocious fear our brave little girl has somewhat suddenly developed. when she was itty bitty and making more noise crying than a freight train, i'd wrap her up against me and vacuum until she slipped away into baby slumber. and then somethin happened. not exactly sure what it was, and i'm not exactly sure when it was....but sometime in the last few months, the rumble of the vacuum cleaner switched from being soothing to soul-gripping. up until about a week ago, it was a manageable anxiety. i'd vacuum while she napped, and if i just had to do it while she was awake, josh would help. we tried everything from keeping her in the other room, thinkin maybe she'd outgrow the fear....to josh holdin her and talkin to her while i vacuumed....to puttin her little feet on the same carpet i was trying to clean....but nothin worked. it was mere survival. and like i said, this was all manageable until very recently.

the vacuum has a home. it's a hall closet it shares w/the coats, a yoga mat, an air mattress, and josh's grad school graduation gown that he refuses to get rid of. the closet is right next to the living room, and now riley has realized the door is the only thing b/w her and the frightening machine. about 4 days ago, she began pointing at the door and in her "i'm a little nervous here" voice, sayin "oodooo. ooodooo." translation: "there's somethin in there. i think i know what it is. i don't like it. but i'm not sure what want you to do about it." so we tried openin the door and showin her that the vacuum was put away. openin the door almost seemed better to her....as if it was better to see the monster rather than just fear that he was hiding behind the door. except that the pointing and the "oodoo"ing didn't stop. so we tried shuttin the door again. but that didn't work either. so we just left the door open. nope. still not makin any progress.

so a couple days ago, josh was gone, and it was just me and the tot. this routine of pointin at the door and "oodoo"ing was becoming incessant... we couldn't read books or stack blocks or even walk through the house. really? yes, really. so i decided, in all my 18mo of parenting wisdom and forethoughtfulness, "i will embrace this as an opportunity to teach my daughter not to be irrationally afraid of things." great idea, right? yes, of course it was.

attempt one: riley, i know you're afraid of the vacuum cleaner. that's okay right now. but look - the scary thing has a home, and sometimes when you're really afraid of something, you can just close the door....shut the scary thing behind somethin bigger and safer. riley, help mama shut the door. good job, riley! see? no more scary vacuum. the door is shut. 

this seemed to satisfy her for about 17 seconds.

attempt two: ignore the vacuum and ignore the pointing and "oodoo"ing.

this seemed to satisfy me for about 7 seconds.

attempt three: face the fear head on. i pulled the vacuum out of the closet and laid it over on its side. i sat beside it and started to mess w/the various dials and doors and wheels....tryin to show her that it's just made up of a whole bunch of parts that if found on any other piece of plastic, she would thoroughly enjoy. she kept her distance for a while....and then she would eventually lean forward and point to a part until i told her what it was. slowly, she inched her squatty little body toward me...and w/great trepidation, eventually sat down in my lap. i continued to name and show and play with the moveable parts.....and over the course of 40+ min (i am not kidding), she began touching and playing with the parts, too. 

i thought maybe we had conquered the fear once and for all....though it seems like this will be more of a process than a one-time deal. for convenience sake, i tried to return the vacuum to it's closet home, but the toddler fixation returned until the monster was drug from its den. so in the middle of the space b/w the living room and the dining room sits an upright vacuum cleaner....which, by the way, in its upright position still grips her w/anxiety and nervous "oodoo"ing. but as soon as we lay it over and (and this is an important step) go sit by it, she seems to gain some confidence.

it makes so sense to me, really. of all the things to be afraid of out here - a tree house whose first platform is about 5ft off the ground, a 100lb shaggy dog, sharp-clawed kittens....of these things, she's undaunted. the other day, she even walked off the couch - yes, was standin on the couch and walked right off the edge of it as if she could walk on air. and the vacuum cleaner is the monster. 

oh to know the inner workings of an 18mo old little girl.

right around the corner

i'm a swirl of thoughts and emotions today. i keep thinkin about this time last year - the 24 hours of unexpected tumult before riley was born, the mornin of her birth, the conversations and decisions on christmas day, the hospital stay, the tears and floods of emotion....and then riley's homecoming.

i think about her birthmom, who texted this mornin and asked for a picture or a video. she said she's havin a hard time today. of course she is. i can't imagine what christmas must be like for her. despite my edgier days (as recorded in my previous post), i really do want to be gracious and kind and patient. i need to be those things. i need to grow into a better version of myself where riley's birthmom is concerned. so after lunch, we got the camera out and tried to catch a few of riley's tricks - walking with the walker thing she got for christmas a few days ago, clappin for herself, pointin to her hair and pj's, and her latest face - the furrowed brow. we had fun and laughed and laughed. i just emailed them. the caregiver/fixer in me wishes there was somethin we could do to help bring her closure. somethin we could do to convince her she made the best decision. but we can't really. only she and The Lord can work to find Peace together.

i think about the last year and how in so many ways, it's been the best year of my life. i look at riley - while she's layin on her back, and i'm changin her diaper....w/a gigglin mouth full of teeth, a soft and squishy tummy, and a head of crazy hair...and i can hardly believe it. a baby in our house, in our arms...the pitter patter of a little girl chasin after us...the squeals of delight...the laughter when we wrestle...the little bitty socks that have disappeared....the livin room that's a danger zone due to the toys strewn about...our first arguments over whether or not she can play w/the dvds...her enjoyment and peace in bein outside... i think about the mornins i "sleep in" and have the babbles of a baby serve as my alarm clock....i think about the near constant desire to creep into her room and watch her sleep and the urge to pick her up and rock her for hours... i love the way she sounds, the way she smells, the way she looks, the way she eats and laughs and plays...

i think about Christmas. i think about how Christmas will never ever be the same again. in lots of ways. i think about the anticipation of birth and the community of people waitin for the Good News. i think about how wonderful it will be for riley to have a birthday-eve her whole life. i think about celebration and what Joy really is. i think about gratitude - for Grace, for Prayer, for longings fulfilled.

i think about wakin up tomorrow mornin and hearing the sounds of a happy one year old baby chatterin herself awake. i think about walkin in to get her out of her crib. in some ways, she'll think it's a mornin like every other mornin. in other ways, it's like she fully wakes up to a brand new day every mornin. maybe we'll sing. maybe we'll dance. maybe we'll laugh and play. we'll definitely delight in our little girl.

Beauty is everywhere today.

the rest of the story

we had a fairly rocky 7-10 days over thanksgiving....lots of things seemed to land on miss riley all at once - travel, a cold and cough, teething of molars, family, a wedding, and daddy workin a lot (which meant very little riley-daddy time). it was an unexpected rough patch, and although we seem to be well over the worst of it, the tension has stayed w/me some (and the anticipatory stress i'm havin over the busy-ness of this month isn't helpin).

have you read eastman's "are you my mother?" surely. remember the last not-my-mother thing, the big thing that the baby bird finds? not the kitten or the hen or the dog or the cow. the snort. when the baby bird realizes his mistake, he exclaims, "oh no! you are not my mother! you are a scary snort!"

days like today, when my temper and patience are equally short....i feel like riley looks at me and has that very same thought: "oh no! you are not my mother! you are a scary snort!" you look like my mother....you sound like my mother...you feel like my mother....but you are most definitely a scary snort.

and i feel rather snort-ish toward the birthmother right now, too. sometimes, i'm gracious. i feel gracious, and i behave graciously. but not always. sometimes, my phone dings w/a new text message, and when i see it's from her, i pretend i didn't see it for a while. when she wished us a happy thanksgiving, i responded "thanks! you too." but what i wanted to say was 'mind your own business.' when she asks if there's anything we want her to get riley for christmas, i don't know what to say. or when she says she's havin a hard time w/riley's birthday comin up....well, i'm just not very nice about it today.

i know - someone readin this is probably thinkin "well cut off communication w/her. it's your right, and your call." i know. but i don't think we need to make a decision like that just b/c i'm tired and moody.

today, it's just one of those things i want to forget about. i look at, listen to, and hold our beautiful one, and i most certainly don't want to be a snort to her.... but today, i can't say the same about her birthmother.

so there it is. the ugly truth.

exploring oceans

an ocean to explore....

in our western culture, we think everything's linear - life is a series of sequential events, people grow in developmental stages, and we conquer things w/in measurable parameters. sometimes this is true. sometimes things are linear. but not everything. and maybe not even most things. my current delving into the recesses of my heart and riley's adoption isn't linear. i think i try to make it linear, formulaic. it seems easier to me when struggles are perceived as equations....when i treat life like a marathon, tallyin mile markers along the way. 'seems' is the operative word here....

over and over again, i'm reminded that learnin to be a follower of Christ, a wife, a mother, a friend aren't one-dimensional objectives....they're experiences full of color and mess, beauty and sorrow, struggle and redemption. life and Life in The Lord are oceans to be explored....

one of the driving forces behind my current pursuit into adoptive mothering is a....what?...a sense? a wondering? a beckoning, even? i don't have the right word....but it's like there's a part of me that knows there's somethin else about this adoption thing that i'm not gettin. that the frustration and grief and confusion i'm carryin can't only be evidence of what i don't have, of what i can't do, of who i can't be....but evidence of what is offered. it's like....it's like bein hungry. when you're hungry, your hunger pangs and thoughts of food aren't only evidence of your lack of food....not only evidence of your desire for food....but also evidence that there is somethin out there that promises to satisfy.

these questions i'm wrestlin w/about adoption and riley and bein the kind of mother i dream of bein....i don't think they're just about the next 50 years of my life....i think they're drawin me to The Lord...maybe in ways i wouldn't know if i was able to conceive and carry our "natural" children.

i think there's somethin more to this than meets the eye.

difficult rights

i think we've been fortunate to adopt in the 21st century. the amount of information available to adoptive parents (or anyone interested in adoption) covers a wide range of subjects - everything from the logistics of the adoption process to literature discussing open adoption to bonding w/your adopted baby. technology helps, too. the access to all of this information is convenient and readily available, day or night. and there are online support groups....and while they don't offer the same degree of connection that an actual, 'we all meet in the same room and drink coffee' group would, they do help lessen the sense of isolation somewhat.

and yet....even in a world w/unprecedented information available...and in a time when candor is appreciated....there are some things that are just flat-out hard to talk about. hard to face. hard to wrestle with.

in adoption, and in most other aspects of life as best i can tell, we have a tendency to gloss over the more difficult places. if somethin's confusing, frustrating, sorrowful, or maddening, we're not sure what to do about it, what to do with it. we sure don't know what to say to someone who's in the middle of one of those places. so we tell others and ourselves - it'll work out. it'll be worth it. God has a plan.

and all those things are true. so very, very true. but 2 years ago, someone tellin me "it'll work out" didn't do me a hill of beans of good. this time last year, i was hangin on by a thread as we were tossed about on the seas of the birthmother's turmoil. i'd be so mad some days i couldn't see straight. all i could say was "i know this will be worth it in a few months, but that doesn't help me today." and yes, God's Goodness surpasses our understanding....but that doesn't answer all of my questions.

more specific to adoption, there are certain things that are uncomfortable to talk about. the money, for instance. the final cost of bringin home a baby through adoption, and the twists and turns just down the financial road were almost too much. or things like.....well, things like i've written about before - gettin to know the birthmother, the awkwardness and un-natural-ness of that relationship, and the inexpressible compassion we have for her...and how that compassion isn't always steady. or things like race and gender and special needs. these issues are so personal, so potentially controversial, so uncomfortable.... but in adoption, they have to be addressed. they can't be glossed over. you can't pretend they're not there. you can't hope they'll just work themselves out.

and i'm beginnin to wonder, too, if other questions don't need to be addressed as frankly, as straight-forwardly, as gently and courageously. such as....

(deep breath.....and bear w/me....these are things i haven't written or really talked about before, so the words may be rambly)

the idea of rights.

in this country, individual rights are a big damn deal. as they should be, maybe. i don't know - i'm not a philosopher or politician. but as americans, we are raised to believe we have rights - the right to vote, the right to be treated w/respect, the right to education, etc. i think this concept is deeply ingrained in us....even in terms of relationships and family. we have the right to have as many children as we want - unlike parts of the eastern world. women have the right to choose whether or not they want to give birth to their unborn baby. but what if you can't have children?

when i was in nursing school, i was fascinated by the body....how every aspect of a human being is intricately connected (mind, body, emotions, relationships, etc). one of the most fascinating facets was/is the life-giving power we have...from conception to birth to raising our children. the way we're designed to reproduce and nurture life, especially for women, is utterly amazing. down to the smallest detail - like a newborn can't see more than about 12" at first, and this is generally the distance from a woman's breast to her face, so that the first thing that newborn sees and focuses on and begins to recognize is his mother's face, even as he's receiving physical nourishment... or how unborn children can hear what's goin on in the outside world so that they recognize their parents' voices at birth...and how unborn children can feel the sway of their mother's gait and often times, after birth, go to sleep in their mother's arms when she's walkin b/c that's the rhythm their used to. i mean seriously! it's unbelievable!!!!!

but again...what if you can't carry a child? what about all of those built-in mechanisms to bond w/your mother and father....the ones who have cared for you the first 9 months of your tiny life? what happens to all of that if a baby and mother are matched after birth?

what about the birthmother's built-in, innate, natural "rights" to her child? just b/c a judge bangs a gavel and a piece of paper says "adoption finalization" doesn't dissolve the connection b/w a woman and the baby she conceived and gave birth to.

all of that to get here - one of the questions that lingers around the corners of my heart is this - do i have a right to riley? legally, there's no question. that was taken care of march 11. but i'm not talkin about legality. i'm talkin down deep....she's not our flesh and blood. her genetic makeup belongs to someone else. she's forever ours, i know that.....but is she thoroughly ours? can she be? how does that work? if we're made of genes and flesh and blood, and we're made to reproduce and pass those things on to the next generation, what happens when your family no longer shares them?

we're so proud when we look back at pictures and notice family resemblance - especially physically. sons who look like their fathers or uncles or great grandfathers. daughters who look like their grandmothers, cousins, and sisters. where did you get your eyes? your hair? your weird pinkie toe? and what about your quirks - like on forest gump when he meets his son for the first time after 6 or so years, and they sit down together in front of the tv and both cock their heads to the side. didn't that scene just melt your heart? does your heart not swell w/pride and a sense of deep belonging when someone says, "gosh, you look like your daddy." these connections run more deeply in us than we know, i think. we put a lot more stock in them than we realize. and adoption splinters that bedrock.

even when you're white, and you adopt a white baby. even though her hair color could pass as combination of yours and your husband's. she did not come from our bodies. she will not look like any of our pictures from when we were little. maybe a little, but not really. not year after year after year. and i can't help but wonder at times - do i feel differently b/c of that?

someone might be readin this and thinkin - what awful things to think about. you shouldn't dwell on negative thoughts. you have her. be grateful and move on.

maybe that approach works for some people. but it doesn't work for me. riley will be 10 months old in 4 days, and the lingering questions haven't disappeared. i'm not particularly proud of my uncertainty....but ignorin it or hopin time will take care of it hasn't worked. at all. so the only thing i know to do is drag it out into the light and see if it's as big and scary as it feels sometimes.

b/c i love her. deeply, adoringly, i love her. and i want my love for her to be good, true, high, and long. i want my love for her to be refined and redeemed if needed. i want to be a good, honest, devoted mother....not one who hides from hard things or hard questions. and b/c i want to be able to have an honest conversation w/her when/if she talks about not lookin like anyone in our families' photo albums.

adoption

i've been in a funk lately. in the last few weeks, we've moved into a new house, huntin season has started (which means josh is gone a lot more), and school started back up. i've been a little overwhelmed. i've never been a fan of movin and am notorious for never completely unpackin all the boxes. i'm also a procrastinator, so put all of that together, and you get a "i'd rather ignore everything and watch tv" funk. plrbgh.

as i've reflected on how i got here, into this funk, i've realized writin is often such a breath of fresh air for me...it can help me find a way out. writin helps me reflect. helps me become more aware of what's goin on inside and out. helps me see the light at the end of lots of proverbial tunnels. it's just flat-out good for me.

bein a parent of a 9-month old easily opens avenues for words and descriptions and stories....avenues that most other parents can relate to, sympathize with, or laugh at. and i enjoy this time of life, immensely. i love that riley gets cereal boogers from stickin her finger, knuckle deep, up her nose while eatin, smilin and gigglin all the while. in the midst of gettin frustrated w/her squirmy little body during a diaper change, i can't help but laugh when her bare-bottomed little body escapes and crawls like crazy across the floor. she's somehow learned to flash a smile when a camera is held up and delights in chewin on whatever she can find. she's quite vocal and regularly competes with the pastor for the congregation's attention on sunday mornins. we're just truckin right along....and she's growin like crazy (in the 90% for wt now!)...all three of us are havin a ball.

and i'm not only a parent of a 9-month old....i'm an adoptive parent of a precious baby girl to whom i did not give birth. some days, this is just a simple fact. others, it's a hard pill to swallow. i don't think i can say that it's a realization that ever brings warm and fuzzy feelings. and to say that i don't ever think about it, or that it's a non-issue now that riley is here would...well, frankly....be a lie.

it's this part of my life... no, wait.... it's more like a new color that sometimes shades and sometimes adds new beauty.... it's this color that i think i need to explore w/some degree of intentionality. it's the kinda color that can shade and shadow things as easily as it can invite and illuminate other things.... and i think exploring it more deliberately will bring healing to me....and hopefully one day, a grace-filled refuge for riley to explore for herself.

i'm thinkin this blog will serve as my means of wordy exploration....so reader, beware :)

i hope to write a bit more consistently and a bit more candidly regarding the life of an adoptive parent....and i hope to do so w/o apology. in a few days' time, i guess we'll see how determined i really am...

so.....

...two rather monumental things have occurred in the last few days.

1. josh and i finally found a house to buy here in seymour. super excited! hopefully movin in by the end of the month. we'll miss the character of our little white farm house and the most wonderful landlords in the whole world (really- the WHOLE world. i'm not jokin)...but it'll be nice to have a place we can call our own.

2. yesterday, we met w/riley's birthfamily.

yep. we did.

i intended to write a blog beforehand. but that didn't happen. so now there isn't a before and after sort of comparison to read and interpret. oh well.

ya know, there are a lot of days when i don't even think about riley bein adopted. it's not quite like i've forgotten necessarily....it's just the dailiness of life sorta washes over the rocks of our journey....eroding the jagged edges a little. and then there will be moments in which the edges, even those that are eroded and smooth, stick up outta the water a little. sometimes it's while i'm filin stuff away in the desk and come across the adoption folder - bulging and semi-organized. sometimes it's when i'm checkin out at united and the friendly cashier asks how old my baby is and if i'm still nursin her. sometimes it's when people (friends and strangers alike) comment on how riley's appearance favors josh's or mine. sometimes, it's when i get a text from her birthmother.

we've texted w/her off and on since bringin riley home. we rarely, if ever, initiate the textin or emailin....but we answer her questions, tell her stories, email pictures. contact w/her has slowly diminished in frequency over the last 7+ months. she's kind and considerate... and still immature.

all of the books and articles and experts advise adoptive parents to make all sorts of decisions, short- and long-term, prior to meeting the birthfamily....and definitely prior to the hospital experience. and they're advice makes sense. they argue that the emotional gravity of the relationship and the weight of all that happens at the hospital can lead folks (generally on the adoptive side) to agree to things they don't feel comfortable with, things that they'll regret later on. so, we tried to be good students and had what felt like a hundred conversations about how much contact we were willing to have w/riley's birthmother...we talked about this before we were even matched, then we talked just before we met her, then we talked several times b/w meetin her and goin to the hospital.....and we communicated our expectations w/her. we were all on the same page - talk and text and email before the baby's birth....only pictures and occasional emails afterwards.

then we arrived at the hospital. it was like walkin thru a drought-stricken desert for six years, and in a matter of moments, walkin into a monsoon. so many things we thought we had so firmly decided, so many opinions we held...they were washed away. the birthmother wanted to see us in the hospital. so we walked next door. her mother wanted to be the carrier of the baby - carryin riley back and forth b/w our room and the birthmother's room. and we welcomed the gesture. the birthmother wanted us to come to her room to get riley that last time...and we did. we took a great big deep breath and walked into the room w/empty arms....and came out carryin our baby girl. the birthmother wanted to see us again....in the future....6-9 months down the road. josh and i looked at each other, our hearts melted again, and we agreed.

a person. a human being. that's who the birthmother is. not an idea. not a statistic. not a vehicle for our fulfillment. not a long string of adjectives like irresponsible and immature, etc.... a person. a young woman who got into a tight spot. a woman who loved her unborn baby so deeply that she was willing to place her into our arms, hearts, and lives. a woman who carried a baby for 9 months, kissed her, and said goodbye. josh and i will never understand the road she's taken, the grief she's experienced, or the questions she may always have.

we decided that we wanted to do what we could to help her.... help her grieve, help her heal. we can't do much, but we can assure her of the redemption of her decision. we can assure her riley is well and healthy. we can assure her that we absolutely adore the baby she carried and birthed.

so yesterday, we ate chinese food w/riley's birthfamily - mother, grandmother, aunt, and nephew. they held her, took pictures, asked questions. we laughed at riley's funny games and faces and habits. we told stories. we ate. then we left.

that was it. it was....anticlimactic. it was nice and not threatening and relatively brief. and then over.

before, i was anxious. edgy. a little fidgety. all sorts of jagged edges scrapin thru the waters w/in....and maybe i'll write about those some days.

all kinds of other questions will undoubtedly arise....it'll be messier than we'd prefer, i'm sure. we'll eventually have to decide about future visits....there will come a time when bein in contact w/riley's birthmother will be more about what's best for riley than what's helpful for her birthmother. i'd kinda rather decide today and not look back rather than wrestle w/it as we all grow and change and age....but i kinda don't think that's best.

we get funny looks from most folks when we tell them we're still in contact w/the birthmother. but that's okay. for now, it's worth it.

oh summer

the past 2 months have brought about lots of laughs. like this one - riley's first jaunt in the sprinkler.

while eatin, riley's showin more and more interest in the spoon...and i'm not real sure what to do about it. when she gets her little hand around the handle, and i try to reclaim in, food flies. when i let her hands flap about, they often hit the spoon, and food flies. when i give her her own spoon, she chews and chews, and when tryin to get it out of her squash-filled mouth, food flies in a catapulted fashion. and we laugh.

she's almost crawlin... she currently pulls herself w/her forearms on the ground, pushes w/her right leg, and drags her left leg. her poor little left knee stays red most of the time. she'll occasionally get up on all fours, rock back and forth, and seriously consider a different form of mobility....but as soon as she sets her sights on a rattle, her brush, my toes, or the stack of books we don't let her chew on, she flops down to her belly and army crawls at a pretty good pace...huffin and puffin like she's climbin uphill. and we laugh.

she plays a game....she tucks her chin down towards her chest and looks up at you w/a most serious look...and won't move until you make the same face. as soon as you return the favor, she lifts her sweet little face up and grins from ear to ear. and we laugh.

i could go on and on....the hundreds of things she does that melt us, capture us, still us...the few things she does that make us cringe (like this really high-pitched squeal thing)... she brings such joy and delight and peace to our lives. not only is it a joyful thing to watch her, love her, play w/her....it's also a joyful thing to become parents...to realize we're growin into these people we've talked about bein for so long.

even though it's a little late, a happy first father's day to joshua....a joy to have such a beautiful baby girl, a joy to parent w/him, a joy to watch him become a wonderfully strong, tender daddy.

thrilled

more often than not....well, actually, almost every moment of my days are filled with what i'd imagine most other new moms' days and thoughts are filled with. becomin a parent for the first time is unlike anything else in all the world. it's beautifully messy, awkward, mysterious, and surprisingly frustrating - and that's just the short list.

like probably every other parent out there, we think our baby girl rocks. she's just awesome. it's that simple.

one of the most recent new-parent discoveries is havin my heart swell w/pride. i've experienced what feels like a sea of emotion for our little one - gratitude, awe, adoration, joy, uncertainty, helplessness, overwhelmed-ness, stranger-ness and familiarity, celebration.... but until quite recently, i don't know that i would have included pride in that list. the trigger for this pride seems silly when i say it out loud or type it for all the world to see...but chances are, i'm not the only new mama who's felt this way.

as i wrote earlier, we tried the rice cereal thing a couple days ago. the first time went exceedingly well. tomorrow, it may be a disaster. a day might come when pureed peas don't go as smoothly. but the rice cereal, for about the last 60hrs, has been a huge success. each time we've set her in the high chair, strapped on the bib, and soaked up the sweetest moments of sharing our first meals together, a new but undefined wave has come over me....w/each feeding, the wave seemed stronger...and it was just a few hours ago that i realized the wave's name is pride. i'm so proud of her!! and bein proud of her for these seemingly tiny accomplishments far outweighs any pride i've had for my own feats. how marvelous is that?!

it's days like this.....sundays, when i deliberately slow down and attempt to rest and learn what sabbath is intended to be....that life is most beautiful. days when i put the to-do lists aside...let the dirty clothes stay scattered here and there...leave the tv off....and instead spend hour upon hour tellin riley all sorts of stories and listenin intently as she tells me her own....when i lay in the floor w/her and read books...walk outside w/her snug against my chest...and laugh and play and tickle and sing until i force myself to put her down for a nap.... days like this are what i've dreamed of for so long. i don't know that i've ever been more grateful.

all the fun things

all sorts of fun things are happenin around here lately...

riley tried and loved rice cereal! she's been eyein' us pretty closely as we shovel food into our mouths the last few weeks and seemed all too eager to have some shoveled into her own. it's so fun! she opens her mouth about as wide as the door of an airplane hanger. sometimes she smiles and laughs in the middle of tryin to get it off the spoon, so it goes anywhere but in her mouth. yesterday evenin, i was tryin to coax her a little (it was her windin down time). when i opened my mouth so she'd mimic me, she just smiled and laughed. now why she thinks it's hilarious for her mama to open her mouth like that is beyond me....and the years of 'my mom's weird looks' have already begun.

her skin's been understandably dry the last few weeks (similar to most of texas lands these days), so we've been givin her a bath every 2-3 days. well, needless to say, i haven't figured out how to keep the cereal out of various crevices... last nite, for instance, she got it b/w her toes, in her left ear, both nostrils, and right thigh fold. how that happened is beyond me... i mean, she hasn't even really found her toes yet, so they were never close to her mouth. i don't know. but we had a blast!

she's also diggin her wonderbug. she especially likes the parts she can grab, pull her way, and cram into her mouth. makes sense, i suppose, since her first 2 teeth are already in!! she's rollin and wigglin all over the place. the blanket that we lay her on used to be so big...and now? we can hardly keep her on it for more than a couple minutes w/o havin to reposition her.

we were SO happy to meet riley's newest cousins - silas and lydia sims. they were en route from kentucky to levelland, and we were glad to offer a rest stop. it's funny seein babies that are younger and smaller than your own - it made riley seem like a beast!

well, it's sunday mornin, and i was just tryin to get in a quick catch up blog before church. better get goin...