Our Impossible Adoption Story
If you're looking for the unbelievable account of how "impossible" became "done" in 5 business days, start here.
Hello, New England
We’re on vacation this week.
Vay. Cay. Tion.
There will be substance this week, but right now I’m at the end of the first day that we didn’t drive at least seven hours. All my brain can handle right now is a photo-dump.
Little boy blue – We found a little park across the street from our dive hotel in Pennsylvania. No swings, though.
Birthday pie – Peanut butter cream pie at Perkins. I’m 30 – I do what I want.
We got in around Sunday, early afternoon, and promptly hit up some lunch via sea-side shack. Literally sea-side. (Also literally a shack.) So tasty.
Monday morning – Our host took us to some beautiful locales, and explained every plant, animal, shell, and property along the way. So awesome. We pretty much got a private historical/ecological tour of the area. Read more…
How To Always Be Happy
“Baby,” I started, suddenly, and ironically, rather serious, “you’re so happy. I wish I was always happy like you.”
He continued studying the tag on his plush soccer ball without so much as a raised eyebrow to acknowledge my thinly-veiled request. I leaned in and stared at the tag, hoping I’d missed the secret to contagious happiness somewhere beneath the washing instructions.
“Hey,” I whispered, kissing his fat cheek. “What’s your secret?”
He said nothing.
But the rest of the day, he told me how he does it.
So here you go. The wisdom of an almost-nine-month-old. How to always (okay, almost always) be happy, in ten simple steps.
1 – When you’re hungry, eat.
Eat well. Lots of fruits and veggies, mix it up, but get over all the food fads and diet plans and weight-loss miracles and just eat.
In the middle of something? Pause and eat. You suck when you’re hungry anyway.
And don’t multi-task it. Don’t eat while you play, or study, or explore. Stop and eat. Enjoy it. Savor it.
Of course the reverse is implied, right? When you’re not hungry, don’t eat. Flail your arms and twist your head and press your lips shut, but do not eat. Food is not for comfort or entertainment. Family and friends are for comfort. Soccer balls and plush tigers are for entertainment. Read more…
Wednesday for Water!
I’m turning 30 in a couple of days, and we’ve been talking about saving lives in India.
(If you don’t care about nostalgia and just want to jump right to saving lives and creating social equality, you do that here.)
All this talk of India has made me nostalgic. Some pictures and some memories:
A group of children in a village in Andhra Pradesh, 2007
I can’t believe it’s been six years since I was there. It makes my heart ache. What has happened to those children in the last six years? Some of those girls are married now, some may have children of their own. I hope they’re all well.
A child’s sandals waiting outside a small church building
India is magical.
There are people everywhere.
Every. Where.
It’s polite to honk your horn in traffic so that people around you know where you are. Except that everyone is always honking, so I’m not sure how that works. Almost every truck has, ‘Please sound horn,’ painted on the back. Bicycles and motorcycles carry entire families. Rickshaws are everywhere. Buses are packed full and people hang off the sides. People and cattle line the sides of the streets. It’s madness.
Driving home from the airport after our first visit, our whole group was creeped out by the silence. It was July, and we drove through whole neighborhoods and towns in Illinois without seeing a single person.
Carpet is expensive, but marble is local, so every building with a floor has marble tiles. The contrast is stunning.
The women are exquisite. Their saris and kameez are almost always brightly colored, sometimes embroidered with metallic thread, and somehow untainted by the dirt and dust that surrounds them. I seriously don’t know how they do it.
Children performing a traditional dance in church
The people are amazing. Read more…
Birthday Give-Away!
One week from tomorrow I turn 30.
30
Thir-ty
Presents are in order.
Not for me. For you.
I hooked up with Charity:Water again this year to try to get people in India safe, clean water for my birthday. If there are 30 people out there who love me, and have the means to give me $30 for my 30th birthday, two families will have clean running water in their home – a kitchen tap, a bathroom tap, and a shower.
(Last week I asked all the mommies to come together for a memorial offering. If you missed it, mama, it’s here.)
Everyone needs clean water. You can imagine the health benefits.
What I never imagined, was all the other benefits.
- Easy access to clean water means that women don’t have to walk for hours to find water. That means they can work from home or raise their families.
- It means girls can stay in school instead of walking for water, or staying home to care for the family while mom goes to find water.
- It means husbands and fathers stay healthy, so they can work to earn money.
It practically and realistically breaks down the illegal caste system in Indian villages.
That’s amazing.
That’s what I want for my birthday: social equality in India. It’s fun to say, but it’s actually do-able. You can actually help make it happen for $30. If you’re down for that, click here.
But enough about me. Let’s talk about you. Read more…
August Through the iPhone
And with August goes my hopes that summer will last forever this time around.
It feels like I’m the only one not excited about autumn this year. Usually, I’m about it, but not this year. This year all the posts and pins and tweets about sweaters and pumpkins and spices are falling on deaf ears here. Maybe it’s because we skipped our usual July vacation in favor of a September one, but I feel like I got robbed of a summer. Maybe it was just my first summer with a baby, and I missed some things because of it.
August was good, though, and as I drop in, and rearrange, pictures, I’m discovering that August was about growth.
The Meatball is growing, obviously. Standing on his own, walking with help, and just dying to walk on his own. I’m not sure what the rush is, exactly.
Other things are growing too, though: friendships, careers … radishes. (I’ve been all over the farmers’ markets this year.) Read more…
Spits and Wiggles 