Our Impossible Adoption Story
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September Through the iPhone
We’re more than a week into October, and I’m still in September. I’m getting slow in my old age.
August was about growth. July was about friends. June was new, May was circles and April just sucked. September? I had a hard time, as I edited and cropped and arranged pictures from September. I started to think maybe there are just too many of them for any kind of pattern to emerge.
And then I noticed that horizons seem to be a theme.
Which is ironic because I don’t remember a time when my horizon seemed so unclear.
There are some other patterns that peeked through and inspired a kind of resolution in me, but more about that next week.
(Right now you can’t tear your eyes away from that blue-hued shot of Cyborg Meatball, anyway. That was a vision test at his nine-month check-up. He does not have a lazy eye. No one thought he had a lazy eye. They could have just asked me if he had a lazy eye. I didn’t even know that’s what they were checking for, and I was having too much fun sticking electrodes on my baby’s head to ask. He looks startled, but he took it all in stride really well. I can’t not laugh at that picture.)
September was a weird season of remembering the past, and looking to the future. Read more…
Choosing a Wife for My Son
Last Tuesday was our anniversary. Eight years since we said our I Do’s. Crazy.
Every year on our anniversary, we go back to that same park and stand under those same trees and smash our lips together and take selfies.
And I sat, last week, editing and deleting pictures, and thinking about some deep reflections on marriage I could write to go along with them. Or a fun list of tips or lessons learned, or something. I might still do that.
But as I sat and mused and sipped my lukewarm coffee, my mind wandered to my dad, as it usually does on milestones these past five months. I pondered and wondered and smiled at the idea that I really did, in a lot of ways, marry my father. Freud would be so smug.
As I turned the idea over in my mind, the nine-month-old toddler across the room stood up from his pile of alphabet magnets and waddled over to me. I slid to the floor, scooped him in my arms for a hug and a slobber, and had a minor epiphany.
It has often struck me that Husband and I need to be the people we want to raise him to be. Because, “Do as I say,” will not work for long, and never in the ways that really matter.
But I realized, on my wedding anniversary, that if there is a good chance he is going to grow up and marry a young woman much like his mother – then I especially need to be the kind of woman I want him to marry. If he is going to unconsciously create a standard for, and an expectation of, women based on the example he sees most in his life – then what am I helping him create?
What kind of woman do I want for him someday? It’s already time to decide.
I want him to fall in love with a woman who loves God, so am I modeling what she looks like? Will he recognize the difference between a woman who only runs to God when she needs a miracle, and a woman who searches Him out every day?
I want him to value a woman who is patient and humble enough to love and serve people, because she will be a woman who will love and serve her husband too. I want him to be able to wait for a woman who values honesty and hard work and education. I want him to have the wisdom to chase after a woman who is full of grace and passion and life.
But little boys tend to not be so drawn away by fairy tales, so is this woman real? How do her eyes speak? What do her arms feel like? What does grace sound like on her lips, and what does love look like in her hands?
Am I showing him? Am I setting that kind of example? Helping him build that kind of standard? If he meets her, will she seem familiar? Comfortable?
Every day I’m setting him up with a girl two decades from now. Do I like her?
4 lessons from a road-trip with a baby, Part 2
Monday we started four lessons from surviving a huge road-trip with a nine-month-old baby. You got busy and I got self-conscious about posting a huge piece, so here is Part Two!
3 – Your bladder is bigger than you think it is.
Being a parent teaches you all kinds of new things about yourself. It pushes you to become better in so many ways – even ways you don’t necessarily want to be better.
But when you have 15 hours to drive, and the baby is sleeping, it doesn’t matter how badly you think you have to pee, you are about to discover amazing new things about the capabilities of the human body and the elasticity of your bladder. Do not. Wake up. The baby.
4 – Other people at rest stops are tired too.
Early Sunday afternoon, the After Church Nap hit Husband, and we parked at yet another rest stop for a quick snooze in the car before finishing the drive home.
The Meatball, of course, doesn’t sleep in stationary cars, so we went inside to kill an hour or so.
Maybe this is just me, ’cause I’m a fat jerk, but when I’ve been on the road for two days, and I pull into a rest stop out of some kind of necessity – hunger, bladder swollen to new capacity, sleepiness – I’m usually thinking about me.
I’m usually scanning the top of the walls for the Restrooms sign, or surveying the neon signs for something that promises coffee. In line, I’m usually staring at menus, or my phone, or doing a funny dance – kind of the opposite of a rain dance. If I look at the tables and chairs, it’s usually to find an empty set.
I never think about what I look like, or what expression I’m wearing, or what my body language might be communicating.
Not The Meatball
He scanned faces, looking for any one that would meet his. And when someone noticed him, he dished it out – big smile, usually a sigh or a coo of some sort, sometimes a point or a wave, occasionally a squeal.
And I watched him, because I love him and he’s adorable, but after a little while he pointed at someone else and I followed his chubby finger to the man he was greeting. A man who smiled and waved, and then walked away a little taller.
Next was a pair of middle-aged ladies who shuffled in, yawning, stretching – until they saw him. They returned his smile and his waves, and walked away laughing.
Person after person, pair after pair, walked in tired and withdrawn, but walked away smiling. We walked in circles and dished out joy for an hour. Would that I could remember to do that on my own. He’s working on me, though, and I’m learning.
4 lessons from a road-trip with a baby
We’ve been home for a week, and my house still looks like a vacation exploded in it. I blame car trouble, and Husband’s burgeoning art career.
Pictures are uploaded, stories are being shared, and I’ve had time to process the fact that we drove several thousand miles with a nine-month-old baby in the back of the minivan. Here’s what I’ve learned:
1 – Pennsylvania has the best rest stops east of the Mississippi.
Husband wasn’t feeling well, so he was walking a couple laps in the parking lot to get some air. I walked into the Women’s room and was immediately confronted with a door, adorned with a plaque that simply read, “Mommy and Me.”
A sink, a changing table, a toilet, a mini-toilet, and … wait for it … this thing:
No, he’s not sitting in a urinal. It’s this:
Where has this been all his life?
I eagerly strapped him in and sat down to pee. Then I washed my hands – both of them – at the same time. Without trying to hold him on my lap, or stand him on the dirty floor and hold one arm so he didn’t crawl on it, or sit him on a wet counter and alternate securing him with one hand while I washed the other.
Dear Illinois – get on this.
2 – Sometimes it’s okay to party at midnight.
It was 11:50 PM on the first day of driving home. We really wanted to make it to Cleveland, and we were about 30 minutes out when he woke up screaming. I don’t know how he does that, but somehow his vocal chords start to vibrate as sleep begins to fall off and by the time he’s awake he’s just screaming.
But only in the car seat.
I crawled into the back seat next to him. I stroked his hair. I sang the bedtime songs. I spoke sweetly and rhythmically. I did everything that ever puts him back to sleep. No go. Finally, I clicked on the dim light that points at the chair I was in and handed him an empty water bottle.
He snapped the rest of the way awake, started attacking the butt-end of the water bottle with his eight vicious teeth, and we chatted and sang and giggled to Cleveland.
Sometimes – nay, usually – midnight is when you go back to bed. But sometimes, midnight is when you wake up and have a good chat with someone you love. Is it going to mess up your schedule in the morning? You bet. Is it worth it? Absolutely.
(Stay tuned for Lessons 3 and 4 on Thursday.)
Have you ever done a long road-trip with a baby? What did you learn?
How To Always Be Happy, Part 2
The Meatball has been schooling me on the art of happiness. He’s pretty pro at it.
Last week, he dished out half of his secrets. Here are the rest:
6 – Just love people.
People are awesome. We’ve talked about this.
I know, I know – Some people … But, first of all, those people are the minority. They really are. And you know what? You’re not exactly 100% love-able all the time either. Get over it and just love people.
Look to the good in them, love the good in them, and leave the rest up to someone else to deal with.
7 – Dance to the music.
Any music. At any time.
Music is made to move you – metaphorically and literally. So move. Slow dance with your mama in the grocery story. Bounce in your seat at the mall or in the car. Shake that big ol’ cloth diaper when someone starts strumming a guitar.
You’re just lying to yourself when you stand still anyway. You’re not really that cool. We all know it.
8 – Be amazed.
The world is amazing. Life is amazing. Trees are amazing.
You’re in such a hurry most of the time, and I get it – there are things to do. But come on – dogs are hilarious, and nothing really tragic is going to happen if you pause for a minute to laugh at one. Pet it, even.
It’s autumn, and autumn probably isn’t new to you this year, but what if it was? What if you’d never crushed a dead leaf in your fingers? Never smelled that crisp air? Never wrapped up in a new scarf or tasted pumpkin or ate an apple as you walked through the orchard filling your bag? Try it this year. Memories are priceless, but sometimes the familiarity they generate needs to be erased so you can create more.
9 – Don’t wear pants unless you have to.
Be free. Pants were made to keep your chunky thighs in bondage to oppressive social norms. Public decency laws and stuff for when you’re out, sure. But when you get home, and it’s time to just relax before bed … ya.
10 – When you are unhappy, be real about it.
Even the happiest baby isn’t really happy all the time. Sometimes bad things happen. Sometimes people leave, people lose jobs, people get hurt, people don’t let you play with electrical outlets … Sometimes you’ve just had a bad week and it’s too much. It happens.
We know that. Don’t pretend like you’re all good when you’re not all good. You insult our relationship. We can handle you having a bad day. We’re not fair-weather friends.
Sharing your burdens lightens the load on you, and it forges better relationships because it draws us closer. Some people don’t want to help, and you’ll push them away, but those are the people you don’t want in your life anyway. Sharing your burdens makes us better people too.
Cry. Yell, if you need to – not at us, but to us. Hug loved ones tightly, and plant your head on their shoulders until it passes. Anything else just prolongs the healing and pushes the right people away.
.
So there. The Meatball’s 10 tips on how to almost always be happy. Anything you’d add?
Spits and Wiggles 