Parenting in our 50s

This could easily be a series on its own.  Parenting littles in your fifties is not the same as parenting littles in your twenties or thirties.  The obvious differences come with the changes we often go through as we age.

Being older, it’s harder to go without sleep.  We are tired!  I say this with some restraint. A lot of that is personality and how we are made.  I naturally function better without sleep than my husband.  For most of our parenting years, I got to be a stay-at-home mom while my husband worked out of the house, so I always took night duty.  (It was a less happy situation when I was working full time and still did night duty!) Even in the gap when we did not have little sleep-thieves, there were occasions I pulled all-nighters and kept on ticking.  I plowed through my BA and MS this way.  I loved people who spent too many nights in an ER or nursing home.  I can sit in a chair with the best of them.

Even so, we are tired!

On that old-body bandwagon is that we are jointy and creeky.  Raising littles after back surgery looks different from when you could throw the kids in the air without a care.  I broke my feet and have plantar fasciitis.  I’m not the runner I once was.

A benefit of age is that we are wiser and have perspective.  We know what will last and what needs attention.  We can laugh. This is a huge boon.  Things that seemed dire once are merely blips that we can ride out with grace.  Our vision is longer.  The concept of raising adults is not new, we have actual tangible evidence that they do grow up.  The first time around, it was theory, a hope.  This time, we have more assurance. 😊

A real zinger about raising kids in your fifties is that your kids talk about and pretend to have hot flashes way more than is normal!

Snow Day

It’s a snow day! I love the snow. The only reason why Iowa was on the list was for its snow.  Truth be told, it hasn’t quite measured up.  This is our third year, and I don’t think we are expecting anything spectacular.  Since I have a hero husband and two grown kids commuting in the weather, I’m not as heartbroken as I could be.

We raised our first two kids in snow, living for five years at an elevation of over 5000 ft with snow, glorious snow, filling our winter months.  I will always remember looking out the window at just the right moment to watch an evergreen timber silently from the neighbor’s yard over our fence.  It was awe-inspiring.

Either way, here we are, on a snowy-more-icy day with the girls playing with the neighbors.  These are the good old days.

Do Prisons Feed You?

Over lunch today my middlest announced she was going to be a missionary.  She plans to travel the world to tell people about Jesus and get imprisoned for it.  She wants to be sure to bring paper and pencils so she can write to people about God’s love and hopes that those delivering the messages won’t ruin them.

Not to be outdone, my seven-year-old interjected.  She says she will do everything the same except pack food so she doesn’t starve.  This gave our middlest—the one most likely to finish her meals—pause.  She looked at me intently.

“Do prisons feed you?”  I said that in the US they do.  Impressively, her eyes grew bigger.

“OK! We WILL need to pack some food, then!  Ramen, potatoes, and spaghetti!”

Grief

Grief is a horrible honor. The horror is pretty evident and requires little explanation.  To live without someone who filled the space in your life and heart is agony.  The honor may be more mysterious but beats steadily beneath the keening. I got to know wonderful people who decided to fill my life and heart with themselves.  I would choose to miss them over never having known them.  I outrightly pity those who can’t grieve the people I’ve lost because they never got to know them.

I have been ‘honored’ several times now.  I lost my dad’s mom when I was 14.  We lost a baby we named Alex before birth.  Then my mom’s mom died when my son was 7 months old.  That was hard and I actively miss her each day.  We lived with her for over five years, and she was like a second mom to me.  My son is named after her.  While my kids never knew her, they all know about her.  I keep her alive with stories, photos, and furniture. 

After that my cousin was brutally murdered and his killer has never been found.  I pray for his parents and brother all the time because I know grief never leaves.

The next ‘honor’ that changed my life was when my big sister died just before her 45^th birthday.  We are coming up on the 10^th anniversary of her passing.  I hate it. I positively, 100%, hate living without her in the world.  It’s wrong and definitively grievous. My life has changed so drastically since she left, and I don’t know how to process that I have lived in homes and loved children without her.  It’s anathema.

Her loss initiated a string of more losses, starting with her husband who followed her 19 months later. We also lost our first foster daughter whom we had hoped to adopt.  She is alive but lost to us. Her leaving changed our family.  My children are markedly scarred, and my husband and I cannot make it better.

So, I know grief.  I know the waves that hit from nowhere.  I know the anniversaries that loom large and fill me with dread.  I know how some anniversaries shock me with how mildly they pass.  And other instances when there is no perceivable reason, but I am laid flat.  I know the sweet remembrances, the tortuous what-ifs, and the ridiculous deals I make with myself or God.  I know the sense of isolation and the wondering how everyone else seems so very fine today while I sit having to will each painful breath into my lungs.

I also know that God wastes nothing.  My grief matters—and so does yours. I know He sees and feels it all with us. Every tear is captured in a bottle, and there is a promise that one day every tear will be dried.  All grief will be gone.  This pain is temporary, but still not a waste.  Not merely something to be endured. 

One good thing is that my experiences help me love my three little girls effectively.  In fact, they help me love my whole family meaningfully. Further? They help me love everyone I encounter.  I am more compassionate since experiencing loss.  I know what I can and cannot fix.  I know that there are times when the best thing to do is sit—like Job’s friends BEFORE they opened their big dumb mouths.  Sometimes, we are called to merely witness.  We don’t always have to do; sometimes we need to be still and abide without words or actions and witness the horrible honor of grief.

To Intervene or Not to Intervene—The Daily Parenting Question

What do you do when you hear the kids ramping up for either a good old-fashioned fight or a too-much-fun hullabaloo?  The former usually ends with broken things and angry kids.  The latter usually ends with broken kids and angry parents. 

I have a few standard responses.  I holler from the bottom of the stairs, or I might march to the playroom and ask, “What’s going on?” If I’m yelling from the other room, I get the same volume answer: “Nothing!” If I’m in the same room, I am blessed with wide-eyed innocent faces coupled with the same answer.

Another common response I give is cautionary or corrective words. “Be sweet!” “Calm down, please!” To this, the kids might yell that they are being sweet or calming with zero discernable change in behavior. Or they may take the opportunity to highlight someone else’s misbehavior.

We still end up with something getting broken and someone getting angry. Well, I have discovered a new tactic that is—so far—working like magic. Are you ready for my brilliance?

Now when I hear muffled or maniacal laughter or an escalating argument I say, with a smile in my voice, “Do you need my help?” Oh, folks!  This is a game-changer in my house!

First, this builds our golden goal of attachment because my offer is a desirable thing; I am coming to help rather than correct or scold.  It’s good for all of us to remember that.

Second, the girls can conduct a self-assessment and decide if an adult is needed. This pause in their activity seems to be enough to regulate their bodies.

Third, I think there is a surprise psychological component to this tactic. I imagine sets of eyes meeting across the room, and the prisoner’s dilemma comes to life. I’m approximately half-joking about that.

The girls have asked for help and have declined my offer with this tactic, and both ways qualify as a win.  When I go to help, we are all unified in seeking a solution rather than blaming or feeling shame.  If I don’t help, I hear the narration of them working out the issue and I am so proud of them gaining negotiating and peace-making skills.

How do you de-escalate kids getting too rowdy? How successful is it?

Parenting Kids at Age 25, 23, 9, 7, and 3

I think I am in a special parenting situation. Our oldest is 25 and our youngest is three—though she will be four by the time this is published.  While there are families with that age range, there are usually more kids evenly distributed between the oldest and youngest. 

When there is a big gap like we have—our second born is 14 years older than our ‘middlest’ kid—it is most often because the parents have regrouped to start second families with new spouses.

But here I am, with the same man, parenting five kids in a 21-year range.  My husband and I have been seen as the grandparents to the littles with our adult kids assumed to be the parents. When I go out with my four daughters, people ask my oldest how old the younger girls are, thinking they are deferring to the mom.  It is fun when they hear the baby call me mommy.

Combinations of parenting duties highlight our unique situation.  I potty train and meet boyfriends.  I have girls’ night out with my friends and oldest daughter, but speak in code to evade my younger girls’ comprehension. I watch Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, Superhero movies, Call the Midwife, and Reacher. 

I stay up late to connect with my oldest kids—ask me about the midnight questions!  Then I am up at 2:00 because of night terrors. Then I need to get up as usual because the early riser won’t be delayed. 

I talk about what sound letters make, drill kids in addition facts, review the Gospel, discuss the pedagogy practices of English Language Learning middle schoolers, and listen to stories about spays and anal gland expressions all in an average day.

I have to keep three rapidly growing girls clothed in the right size; sometimes that seems like a job all on its own.  I also listen to my adult daughter lament the trials of budgeting and eating healthy when grocery prices keep climbing.  At the same time, we are helping our son get into a position to move out despite the low wages people in education are paid.

I love my life. I like participating in disparate stages of life simultaneously.  It adds layers and enriches everything. I know each stage will end because it’s right there in front of me in the life of another child of mine.

Living this way also accentuates what does last.  Trials will always be around—the type of trial may change, but they all have stressors and challenges.  The trials—even the ones I know are more trivial—break my heart.  I’m pulling for my kids, praying daily for them to choose Jesus, to persevere, to trust, to stand up, and to choose well.

I don’t need to follow celebrities or sports.  I just fangirl over my husband and kids. That leaves my heart as full as my hands!

Time—Rich and Poor.

I was talking with a precious friend the other day.  She was struggling with time.  She is in the proverbial sandwich stage of life—caring for an aging parent, parenting her children, and providing care for her youngest grandchild.  You don’t have to add that she has a flourishing home business to imagine why she would struggle with time.  There is never enough.

As I listened, I felt like she’d been peeking into my home and brain. She kept saying the same things I’d been thinking for weeks. We both felt drained and in desperate need of a break that we couldn’t see coming. We needed more hours in the day…and the night. At the same time, she (and I) confessed in frustration over frittered time.  We would realize only after the fact that we had wasted a whole uninterrupted 30 minutes on garbage.

Then, like a flash of lightning illuminating the landscape (that’s a line from a play I did in Junior High that I can’t forget), this allegorical vision came to me. Rich people and poor people spend money differently. There are things one group would not likely purchase that the other would.  Poor people won’t buy a top-of-the-line vehicle. Rich people are not going to buy lottery tickets. Rich people invest in things that would grow their wealth. And the kicker is that the junk poor people purchase wastes what little money they have, actually perpetuating their deficits.

In the same way, a time-rich person might commit to large blocks of time to accomplish a task. They are also free to luxuriate in lengthy leisure activities.  Time-poor people can’t imagine pampering themselves or lingering over coffee with a friend. 

I am in a time-poor season.  I stay up late to talk with that precious friend once a week.  She is important to me.  But I cannot talk with her during the day. I am constantly interrupted and can’t finish a thought during the day. I get so frustrated because I don’t have time to sit, to think, or to finish anything!

But!  Here’s the rub.  I spend my time the way a poor person might spend money.  On those gumball machine toys and lottery tickets.  I buy trash with my time.  I get on social media.  When I realize that I just scrolled for 45 minutes, I am astonished and chagrinned. How did that happen?  I know I get on because there is no commitment.  I can spend 2 minutes checking notifications.  I can stop in an instant when a new demand comes collecting. It feels ‘safer’ than trying to read a book or start a project. But what a waste!

This realization was profound for me.  I told anyone who would listen. I didn’t know quite what to do with it, but I was convinced that the way I spent my time was robbing myself.  I needed to think like a rich person and make wiser purchases that focused on quality even when I can’t have quantity. I needed to invest rather than indulge in trash.

I haven't figured out how to do this exactly, but I am working diligently to cut waste and to treat my time as something I have control over and must steward wisely.

Are you time-rich or time-poor right now? Does the season affect how you spend time? Does this analogy ring true for you?

Light looking

Another tradition for memory making is done—but not for good.  We will do that a few more times before the year ends.  The other day, we had some friends over and walked our two neighborhood streets that go all out with holiday lights. After bundling them up we gave each kid a candy cane and a cup of cocoa.

The streets are about ten short blocks away, and there are plenty of decorated houses along the route, so we made short work of it.  The kids spontaneously broke into carols with their sweet soprano voices on our trek.  They gasped and squealed with delight at the beautiful colors.

I love light-lookin’! The crazed blurry photo captures it all.

Attachment Injury--the Dos and Don'ts

I talked about the power of yes earlier.  It is crucial to kids’ development to receive innumerable yeses.  While meeting that need, we must monitor exactly who gives out those yeses.  Getting a yes from anyone and everyone doesn’t serve the kids well. On the contrary, it actually causes harm.

We are fearfully and wonderfully complicated creatures, praise be to God!  As such, no part of us functions in isolation—and there are many parts to us.  Kids need those yeses to develop cognitively, emotionally, and socially.  However, forming strong, healthy attachments is just as imperative. 

Kids from hard places often sustain significant and multiple attachment injuries.  Some are injured to the extent that they stop seeing people and relationships as valuable (because they are unreliable).  Instead, they see people as tools to get what they need—or want, but that’s another post for another day. 

It is easy to see how this happens. Kids go to school and daycare where every adult is there to respond to the kids’ needs.  Both places—daycares to a greater degree—have a high turnover rate.  The kids are trained to listen to and receive help from any adult.  Add social workers to the mix and consider how we tell foster kids to get into a car with the new social worker (a stranger) who will take them to see their parents.  I remember with every foster placement we had losing count of the social workers. How wacky is that?! 

In addition, kids from hard places don’t often attend family functions where the parents are the sole caregivers in a sea of ‘other’ adults.  Think about birthday parties, libraries, children's museums, and places of worship. Because of this, foster kids can lose the ability to distinguish the significance between adults.  When they don’t have a steadfast set of adults who are only there for them, there’s no wonder.

Autumn starts with too many Halloween events where kids literally wander around taking candy from strangers. Next, there are a plethora of Santa visits where kids are told to sit on the laps of men they do not know and tell them their deepest wishes.  Foster kids are often enrolled in extra programs like WIC, therapies, services, and medical screenings.  That means more strangers are asking personal questions and conducting exams (with the requisite piece of candy at the end of every meeting).

This doesn’t even touch on family/home life, where strangers are primary caregivers.  Strangers doing baths and bedtime routines.  Strangers doing breakfast. Strangers, with their different smells, different voices, different food…  Strangers meeting the need for comfort and affection—or not. And who knows how long this place will be?

It makes perfect sense that over time a kid would think that all adults are there to serve them.  Understandably, kids from hard places have a weird sense of entitlement.  It also follows that they wouldn’t dare attach to any particular adult, but still be happy to get a much-needed hug and gift from one, without bothering to learn that adult’s name or caring if they meet again.

This is when kids learn to use affection as a commodity and develop masterful manipulation skills.  These behaviors are cultivated to survive but can become ingrained and intensely difficult to undo even when they find a safe and stable environment.

To protect children from a diagnosis like RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder), we must help them know who their adults are.  And it is important for other adults to consistently direct the kids to their primary adults for all their needs.  This is tough.  The kids are sweet and huggable. Their stories inspire compassion. Their reactions to even little gifts are phenomenal; who wouldn’t want that hit of dopamine?  But true love does what is best for the other, and what is best for kids from hard places is to heal from attachment injuries.  And that is done by letting them know they have special adults who belong to them above everyone else. 

What does this look like day-to-day? You don’t have to push them away or do anything that feels like rejection.  Gentle redirection with open body language builds appropriate connections without undermining the attachments growing in the new family.

Ø  Showing joy with smiles and high-fives when you see kids from hard places. 

Ø  Limiting tangible gifts.  This helps them see you as a person with value in your presence, rather than what you bring.

Ø  Sitting a child next to you rather than on your lap.

Ø  Affirming a need and stating that their adult would be happy to meet it.  “Wow! You drank all your water. Nicely done. I know Mommy would love to get you more if you're still thirsty.”

Ø  Consistently and visibly acknowledging parents as authority.  “You want to go outside? What does Daddy say about that?”

Ø  The best thing to do is check in with parents privately for guidance.

I wish I had known this before. When I loved other people’s foster and adopted kids, I didn’t know.  I learned the most by watching an informed friend relate to my daughters with astounding love and astonishing wisdom.  I hadn’t even noticed what she was doing until she mentioned it when she checked in with me.  She had never given them food or drink, never helped with a shoe or jacket!  She managed to use exceeding grace in directing them my way for everything. These subtle nudges underscored for my kids appropriate ways to relate to us as parents and to other trusted-but-secondary adults in their lives. 

Tree lighting

Oh, what a night! We went to our community’s tree-lighting event the other night.  Whenever our whole family of seven is together it is an extraordinary gift to me.  It happens at least once a week, but each time feels like we are actively creating our own ‘good old days.’

This was one of those times, magnified. We wandered around the area and got photos in front of the tree before the lighting.  The sunset was stunning and made for beautiful pictures. 

Then we found a restaurant that would seat seven without reservations. We never take the kids to restaurants, and we did it without prepping them at all.  We were begging for chaos!

But it went marvelously!  The girls behaved so well and waited patiently for their food.  We finished in time to get back to the square for the lighting.  We danced and took more photos as we waited.

After the lighting, we pivoted 180 degrees to watch the fireworks. My first daughter is not a fan of fireworks because the noise bothers her.  We discovered that fireworks without mountains and canyons have no reverberation, and are far less uncomfortable. Yay for the flatlands! But she has compassion for the baby who didn’t love the sounds, making a great partner for her.

As I stood there watching the fireworks with my nine-year-old on my shoulders, I looked at my son. I was overcome with gratitude for the moment, I just shouted thanks to our Lord whose love is so extravagant.  He is just as extravagant with His love and goodness when things are horrible, and loss is shredding our hearts.  I know this full well.  But I am no less grateful for the moments when everything is just right.  This night was just right.

The Power of Yes

 Are you familiar with the term TBRI? It stands for Trust-Based Relational Intervention.  Karyn Purvis is credited with its creation, and you can check her and her ideas out at the links below.  It is worth your time.  While taught to adults who love kids from hard places, the ideas apply broadly and are helpful across the board.

One of the ideas I learned was the notion of yes. I will speak in generalities, but concrete information is available in those links.  Basically, we all need to hear a mammoth number of yeses in our first years. This sets us up to develop successfully through the stages of early childhood.  It touches on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Erikson’s Stages of Development.

Maslow teaches that until the basic needs are met (along the lines of shelter, food, and security), we cannot develop at higher levels (like academics and morality). You can check out more at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Erikson teaches that in the first five years, kids need to learn that they can trust their caregivers, that they are themselves capable people, and have a purpose. More on Erikson’s stages can be found here. Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development - StatPearls - NCBI Bookshelf

The idea is that kids need to hear yes (in word and action) thousands of times for them to move through these critical stages of development successfully.  Meaning that they will be equipped to tackle the next stages with confidence and a sense of self-efficacy.  The stages build on one another, and without firm foundations, they are left limping through life.  In short, the yeses count.

Kids from hard places, who’ve experienced trauma, abuse, and/or neglect, lack the necessary number of yeses. To build their resiliency and provide them with what they need to continue to grow, we need to make up for the loss of yes in their lives. How do we make up for all the yeses? 

It’s a big and essential task. In the TBRI training, we learn to do our best to create opportunities for yes.  An example is to have snacks available all the time, but require the children to ask for them—so that you can tell them yes! To help children feel safe with us as caregivers, we need to find ways to provide nurturing that they either missed entirely or lost when they were removed from their first caregivers.  That can mean massages and snuggles.  It might also mean feeding the kids—in a straightforward manner or playfully like throwing popcorn for them to catch in their mouths. 

In my family, I am still very hands-on in the bathroom with bathing and toileting.  They need the extra touch time and nurturing that comes from applying lotion and assuring basic hygiene practices are followed.  I frequently feed my youngest and try to give a cup of milk to her on demand.  She needs this the way an infant does. 

Because that is another thing we learned. When kids come from sustained trauma, new caregivers need to cut their chronological age in half (and round down!) to understand where they may be developmentally.  That means the two-, five-, and seven-year-olds who arrived in our lives were more like one, two, and three! 

This drives home the wisdom of a friend who was comforting me when we had had the girls for about ten months.  She told me we had ten-month-old triplets who happened to be two, six, and eight. This was the most accurate (though seemingly paradoxical) description of our situation.

https://youtu.be/7vjVpRffgHQ?si=w9IcgVVUa9zjEOU4

Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development

My Baby is turning Four

This is the second time I get to experience the “My Baby” things.  Two decades ago, we thought our first daughter was the baby, our last.  Since the three girls moved in when our baby was 22 and already living on her own, she genuinely was the baby. 

And I felt all the things when ‘my baby’ started walking at eight months and never stopped pushing.  She had this paranoia that one day her big brother would tire of her for being too young. There was no reason to fear; he’s a marvelous brother and adores her.  Nevertheless, my ‘baby’ has been growing up with fierce determination and I have watched with that poignant cocktail of pride, delight, horror, and grief.

My point is that I have done this before. I am familiar with the flood of images of all that has come before: nursing, first teeth, her little legs only coming to ‘here’ on my body.  I have seen the firsts and the lasts and marked them in my momma heart. I felt them in their totality.  I didn’t miss anything in the feelings department.

But now, I have discovered another level. Watching your baby leave a stage with finality is touching. But lacking the experiences of the earliest years is far worse than being inundated with their memories.  It is such a closed door. I will never nurse her.  I never saw her without teeth. I never got to see her work to roll over, lift her head, laugh, crawl, cruise, eat, take her first step… A birthday carries a new grief I’ve not known before. 

It is exciting to see her grow.  That’s what it’s all about.  I want her to mature, learn, and develop into an honest, capable, and loving young lady. But my momma heart is feeling new losses as this birthday approaches.

Language

For the past couple of days, my seven-year-old has been given instructions that she hasn’t followed.  I know, blow me down!  A kid didn’t obey?  Whodathunk.  What is remarkable is that when asked what instructions had been given to her, she answered with a poorly paraphrased answer.  We would reiterate the directions, and she would quickly adjust her behavior.

After seeing this a few times, I wondered if her brain is interpreting so quickly that she doesn’t have time to process the precise words people say.  So, we played a game to test my theory!

I went around the breakfast table, saying four words at a time for each kid.  On the second loop around, each kid had to say the same words back. 

I gave my three-year-old associated words coupled with sign language and she did nicely. 

For my nine-year-old, I started easy, but she asked for more difficult words.  By the last round, she couldn’t remember her words and said, “I think you need to bring it down a notch!”  She cracked up the whole table with that line.

I worked hard to stump my 25-year-old and could not. My husband joined us for the last round and I couldn’t stop laughing at the words I selected.  I got him on ‘read,’ because he said the baby’s word instead: ‘room.’

As for the seven-year-old, I tried different tactics to see if I could replicate what I was seeing.  I used synonyms, words associated with a theme, and unrelated words. Each round after the first, she kept trying the word ‘smile.’  A few times she tried words that had been given to another player.  I did notice that she never repeated the words in order.  There was always one word that seemed to capture her.

When the game was finished, I talked it over with my 25-year-old son, we were thinking ‘smile’ had been used in the first round.  I looked at all the notecards and was surprised to see that I had never given ‘smile’!  But I did give her ‘happy’ and a sister ‘laugh.’  She did it!  She interpreted the words in the same way we’d seen her do before.  So cool! 

My husband asked, “So, how are you going to teach to that?”  Hmmm…  That’s the rub.

By the way, this was fun!  I recommend pulling this activity out next time you are looking for something around a meal or when you need to wait quietly somewhere.  Everyone was engaged, and there were a lot of laughs.

The Gift Conundrum

We use Amazon… liberally.  I use the subscribe and save, my oldest daughter uses the music stations to teach dance, three of us read using the Kindle app, and we take advantage of the rapid shipping. My husband and I used to do Christmas shopping on Amazon and would get a kid to open the package if we were expecting things from one another.  Suddenly the oldest two grew up and got jobs and money and started using Amazon, too!! It was not a problem until Christmas came around.

To fix the problem, we invented a tradition.  We simply wrapped EVERY Amazon box that arrived after December 1.  Yep, I do use the subscription service for toiletries and household items.  That means under our tree were paper towels, dishwasher detergent, and feminine hygiene products.  There were no names on these gifts, so we took turns opening gifts randomly on Christmas morning.  When a gift was unwrapped, the giver would claim and assign it to the intended recipient.  When a big brother opened his little sister’s first menstrual cup, he had another opportunity to become the best-husband-in-the-making.  We’ve done it for a few years, and it made for a morning of fun and giggles. We even had a few gift-wrapping parties with invited friends to add to the Christmas festivities.

Last year, my husband said he didn’t want to do it anymore.  He missed watching people open his gifts.  So we aren’t doing it.  We have no plan in place for the boxes that are coming to the house, and let me tell you, folks, it's pandemonium over here.  I’ve already opened the gift to me from my darling husband.  And there is a box sitting in the entryway right now with something from me to him, from him to the littles, and I think from him to me.  What are we gonna do now?

God Perfecting Me

Before we adopted, I was growing.  I got two degrees in education and attended training for trauma, special education, and foster parenting. We got some tough on-the-job training with two previous foster placements.  I learned to navigate the endless paperwork, the unending parade of social workers, and the sleepless, prayerful nights.  I also ran the birth-Kinder program for our church and later taught preschoolers and Kindergarteners at a private school.

At least on paper, I looked good!  I—being me—am intimately aware of my weaknesses and outright wretchedness. But even I was blind to too many issues. I thought I was pretty grown up and ready as I would ever be to mother more children. Ho, ho, ho!  God had another think for me!

Since welcoming these precious little people into our home, hearts, and lives, that thought has quite rudely smacked me to the floor. Turns out, I have problems so vast and varied that I frequently wonder if I have any business at all mothering anyone.

God uses the kids to sort out my myriad flaws.  That seems upside to me. These kids are bruised and vulnerable.  Why use them to work out all my flaws? If you know me, you already know I despise using the term ‘deserve’ for much of anything. But these girls deserve better than that.  Even if they don’t deserve it, they certainly need it.

But here we are: the girls living their lives and me frantically trying to learn my lessons and peel away the defects before I cause more harm.

I'm a Tired Girl

Today I worked hard. It is the second day after Thanksgiving break, so the kids need extra encouragement to get back to life. (Does anyone else break into the Into The Woods song?  “Who can live in the woooods?”)  Yesterday, the first day back, was the type of day that got my nose bitten. I’m serious.  One of my sweet darlings bit my nose in fury.

Highly motivated, I was diligent today with preemptive ten-second snuggles, our go-to method for calming things down.  I broke up lessons with snacks, cuddles, changed locations, and exercises.  And still, I yelled.  *sigh* I’m disappointed in myself.

My goal is to never, ever, ever, ever, ever yell again.  I have NOT yet reached that goal.

I knew that letting the girls play unsupervised would lead to trouble. So after school, I brought two sets of toys into the kitchen for the girls to play with while I made lunch and dinner.  I enjoyed hearing their chatter and imagination as I haphazardly switched between meal prepping.  I made my killer chili with a new ingredient.  The other day, my friend served us soup with pureed veggies, so I copied her!

Once the kids had eaten; veggies were chopped, sauteed, and pureed; and chili in the crock pot, the girls went to play in the remnants of yesterday’s snow. I threw some biscuits together (that same friend made some and it reminded me that I know how to make them).

I needed to fold some laundry.  I was a tired girl and excited to sit down to it with something cool to drink. We are out of milk and the blender was in the dishwasher (so no smoothie).  Inspiration struck and I started to sing:

              I’m gonna have a lemonade

              That’s what I’m gonna have

              I’m gonna make a lemonade

              Cuz it makes me so glad!

I can’t tell you how proud I was of my composition. I sang it again and was suddenly confused.  This is how tired I am, folks.  I thought my limerick rhymed.

"Adoption Is Hard Sometimes"

My daughter said she got sad while coloring because she saw a page she had colored with her first mom.  I asked her how she feels when surprised by memories like that.  Does she wish she didn’t have them?  She said that it depends. Sometimes it is nice, but other times she wishes it wouldn’t happen. 

Then she said, “Adoption is hard sometimes, especially for me because I get really emotional.”  I assured her that she is just the right amount of emotional.

That’s a pretty smart girl!

Advent Traditions

Happy Advent, all!

I love this time of year and am excited that we have more kids with whom we share traditions.  How do you spend this month?  We have a few traditions that are special to our family.  Some traditions come from my childhood or my husband's. Some we created with our adult kids when they were young. And we are making new traditions now!

New and Old Memories:

Last year was our first Christmas with the girls and I’d read some good tips about blending families and honoring traditions.  We asked the girls about any activities they could remember doing with their first family that we could repeat.  They remember ‘light lookin’ so that was easy.  They jump in with two feet to our activities and love being part of them.

Stories:

Tabitha’s Travels is one in a trio of books about kids spending the month before Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem.  They have adventures and meet Jesus.  We read this each evening. We tried Jotham’s Journey last year, but they weren’t ready to sit for that long.

Decorations:

We have a Christmas tree in the living room and the basement by our school area.  We have nativity scenes all over the house. My husband has a little Christmas village to which he adds every year. We have a new mistletoe bell in the entryway, so kisses and giggles are flying about.  I love the decorations, and we keep them up until the 6^th of January.

Christmas “Light Lookin’”:

This is a favorite every year, but now we live in a neighborhood with two separate streets that go all out.  Instead of driving, we bundle up, bring hot cocoa, and walk around to take in the sights. I truly love this time and we do it more than once. When we get to include neighbors and friends, all the better!

Movies:

We have a long list of movies we enjoy this month.  Top of the list are The Star, The First Noel (with Andy Griffith), and Why Do We Call It Christmas with Buck Denver.  We also enjoy While You Were Sleeping, The Santa Clause Movies, The Polar Express, Jim Carrey’s Grinch, and Noelle.

Advent Calendars:

My oldest daughter got me a great one a few years ago with drawers.  I put a strip of paper with a Bible verse in each. I used to add a Kiss to each, but now we do M&Ms or Skittles so there are enough for each little mouth.  We also have a paper chain with verses from our church this year, so we will see how to incorporate that into our routines.

Christmas Eve PJs:

Everyone gets to open one gift on Christmas Eve that just happens to be PJs. Then we all wake up wearing photo-ready pajamas for gift opening!  Pretty smart!

Santa Game:

We tell our children that Santa is a game families play to show love. It is not our place to tell any other child about the Santa game!  This is drilled in pretty firmly, let me tell you! 

We don’t play the game to the degree of saying Santa is real.  We want them to believe us in everything, so way back with our first two kids, we decided it would be a game born from the historical figure who gave gifts.  And play we do!  Stockings are stuffed and someone gets to be Santa on Christmas morning to hand out gifts from under the tree.

Crafts:

We make ornaments, Nativity games, graham cracker houses, and any other craft I can think of.

Quiet:

Along with all the activity, we protect quiet moments with no agenda. Time to snuggle, read books, listen to music, and talk is important all year round.  We discovered that it is imperative around holidays. This is a time for memories, some not so pleasant.  My adult children carry grief from losing loved ones this time of year. My young children carry grief from losing nearly everything and everyone they knew before us. Last year they also had some unexpected traumatic triggers.  Thankfully we had made room for everyone to feel what they needed to feel and process what came up in safety.  I feel even more prepared this year, though I’m probably not!

Those are the highlights. I would love to hear about your traditions!