Our Impossible Adoption Story
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Autumn Colors Resurrection
We’ve had some really nice autumn afternoons the past couple of weeks, and we have not taken them for granted. The garden is put to bed. We’ve laid in the cool grass, and taken long walks to the grocery store. We’ve carried brightly colored leaves up and down the sidewalk, and waved them at every car that passed by – reminding them that things are changing.
He doesn’t miss any of it. Crunchy leaves underfoot are all inspected, and the really dry ones are methodically crushed to pieces. Colorful leaves overhead are studied and wondered at, especially when the wind blows.
And we talk about shapes and colors. We count. We sample texture with our cheeks. We pile and we toss and we talk.
One afternoon last week the wind came through, demanding some attention, which The Meatball was all too pleased to pay. The golden trees that line the back yard shivered at the hint of winter’s approach, and the baby, from where his butt had landed in the yard, looked up, pointed, and cooed at the dancing branches as they shed another layer all around him.
“The trees are letting go of more leaves, huh, Baby?”
He looked at me, right index finger still extended, as though to not lose the trees’ attention.
“It’s okay,” I explained. “That’s how God designed the trees.”
He stared up at them again, and I let my rake fall to the dirt to go and sit with him. We watched the trees together and talked about seasons. Read more…
Song for a Mommy
So last week I decided it would be fun to sit down and update Song for a Fifth Child. You know the one:
” … I’m rocking my baby, and babies don’t keep.”
It’s a beautiful poem that has given mommies peace and assurance for decades. It’s wonderful.
It was published in the ’50s, though, so I thought some references to blogs and email would be fun.
I realized as I sat down with it, though, that I also might have had a bone to pick. I thought I was going to not only update it, but add to it. Because so many mommies are not ’50s housewives anymore. So many mommies work outside the home these days, and then come home to be be mommies.
Somewhere deep in my heart I think I was holding a little sneer that whispered, “You think you had it bad? You think you had pressure? You didn’t have Pinterest!”
Photo Credit: Pat Kight
And while I will continue to flirt my love/hate relationship with Pinterest, I was surprised, as I read through the opening stanzas that no one has ever posted on my timeline or left in a comment, at how little there was to add or update.
Dishes, grocery shopping, bills, yard work, sewing, cleaning … Pretty much
At first I was disappointed. Read more…
October Through the iPhone
October was big for us, but I’m not exactly sure how just yet. Things have been unsure and unstable – in my heart at least – but we’re moving again and the horizon is starting to take shape.
All month we’ve been talking and praying, and God has been speaking, and peace has been creeping back into my soul. I wasn’t sure how – I wasn’t really completely aware of it – until I started dumping photos last weekend. Watching them flick by, from my phone to my iPhoto, I scanned for a theme and was almost disappointed when I started to notice a trend.
Work
How completely uninspiring is that? October was about … work?
But there it is, because, look – eight years of marriage is work, friends. Walking on a sandy playground? Also pretty hard work. Ministry is sometimes more work than I’d like it to be. Gardening is work. I started some new work with an old friend this month, and some new friends expanded on old work with a Grand Re-Opening.
And let’s be real: It never stops. You work at work, and then you come home and work at home – laundry, dishes, and on and on. Even days off and weekend outings are work with a toddler.
There is no rest, only do.
We went to the last Trail of History in October – the end of an era for sure. You hike(d) through the park, to a valley that – for the weekend – becomes home to a sea of white canvas tents. A whole town of early American settlers, and do you know what everyone is demonstrating? Their work. There’s an ironsmith, a weaver, a woodworker, a school, and a whole pre-colonial food court.
When we’re not working, we get a kick out of – and will actually pay money for the privilege of – watching other people use their spare time to pretend to work. If you think about it.
(Oh, and this is the most casual thumbs-up ever. “Ya mom. Take another picture. So cool.”) Read more…
Song for a First Child
Shout-out to Ruth Hulbert Hamilton, whose poem has, since 1958, been honoring mothers, and giving the permission that so many of us crave to be mamas first and homemakers (and everything else) second. I don’t know how many times someone has quoted the last stanza of her poem to me in the past 10 months, and every time I sigh and think, “Ya. It’s okay.”
That said, I thought the rest of it was due for just a little updating. Some fun on a Friday:
Song for a First Child
Mother, oh Mother, come update your blog,
Clean up this kitchen, and then walk the dog,
Answer these emails and mimic this Pin,
Do something crafty and pick up that chin!
Where is the mama whose life is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.
Dang it, I’m tired and my baby is too.
(Lullaby, baby, sweet cutie-poo)
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due.
(This little piggy, and peek, peekaboo.)
The shopping, the laundry, the slow-cooker stew,
And back in the office there’s so much to do.
But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo,
And my new-mama heart melts with each little coo.
(I love you, baby, and Daddy does too.)
The cleaning and posting will wait till tomorrow,
‘Cause babies grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust, go to sleep.
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.
Happy weekend. Spend it with your babies!
How to Win at Trunk or Treat
Paint a beard on your cute baby and borrow as much of your cousin’s hunting gear as you can pack in your minivan.
Bam
Aaand have an awesome husband that will talk to kids in a southern accent, and help them shoot a Nerf rifle, and blow duck calls, and say “Happy, happy, happy” a million times, for two straight hours. He’s pretty awesome.
The whole thing was pretty great. Lots of costumes and games, the petting zoo was cuteness overload – food, face-painting, fire trucks, bouncy castles.
And a baby with a beard
Husband strung up rubber duckies, and applied camo duct tape to a plastic gun (it discharged shells and everything – come on). I think he started by having each kid blow a duck call before they shot, but then the line got too long. Good, clean fun.
And El Meatball got goats and both of his grandmas on the same afternoon. It was a good day.
Closing epic-ness:
Spits and Wiggles 