True Story

Right Here.

The same is true of "freezers." Some of us don't have bloody noses, but we have bloody and tired souls. The rest still applies.

Hello My Name Is....

Naive Oblivious Ignorant Clueless Heartless Idiot Child Stealer Complicit Guilty by Association ... And:

I've come to the conclusion that, yes, I am naive. Even now. Not was. Am. And I'm going to be OK with that. I refuse to live in a world where you can't believe the best about people. And if I live in a world where people are going to believe the worst about me, well, not much I can do about that.

Happy "Hello I'm a Loser" Day

(Because all you get is this crappy card and the heart shaped pancakes I made for the kids.)

We don't do gifts of flowers, jewelry, chocolate or dinner.
I probably won't even shave my legs. It is February, after all.
We don't go to bed at the same time.
We don't vacation in normal places at normal times.
But you know my love for a fabulous sunset.
And you bought me a second tour to see Aurora because once just wasn't enough.
We may not do it the way the world tells us we should, but it works.

(I might even shave my legs.)

And then there was that day when the already shaky floor you were standing on dropped out from under you and the people you expected would prop you up began to throw stones of accusation.

The leaders of my (Ethiopian) adoption agency are in prison for bribery/forgery/corruption, what basically amounts to child trafficking.

As one woman aptly put it, "No one wakes up one day saying, 'I'll take the trafficked child, please.'"

People can be so self-righteous.
Have you never done something you regret that you started with the best of intentions?
How about we throw around compassion instead of condemnation?
I don't know about you, but when a person has been shaken to the core, I'm not sure that words like "special order children" and "oblivious" and "naive" do much to help.
Could we skip the "why didn't yous" and realize with us that the past is past. What's done is done. Can we look to how to restore the future without slinging around the past as if we live in a world with a time machine?

HOW was I supposed to know?! Call me naive, but the thought that buying and selling six-year-olds was even a thing never occurred to me. Babies, maybe. But you you BEEN to Ethiopia? Children swarm. We couldn't leave the compound without someone trying to give us a child. You wouldn't NEED to buy them.

People are scared. My friends are scared. We are looking at our children and asking ourselves is she one of them? And how do you know? And if you find out she was.....

What. Then?

I got four "praying" texts. An, "I don't know what to say...." email. A "I had a couple minutes and thought you could use a hug" friend on the porch.

But the majority of what I got was condemnation.

I'm angry. I'm hurt. I was mislead. I'm scared. I'm unsure. I don't need your negativity to add to that.

I didn't choose an agency. I found a child. I took the agency that had her. When you look at a photo and know, in your heart of hearts, that she is yours and the agency that has her is Hague accredited and the only thing you really know about international adoption is that Hague=good, not Hague=bad, why would you look further? Some of us that step out in faith have NOT been on the boards for a decade. Sometimes we just saw a photo and moved when our spirit said, "move." That does not make us naive, morons, oblivious, idiots, we are not child traffickers or hustlers, it is not our fault. It isn't. You, sitting there on your high horse that knew better. We saw a child and acted. A child who can't help where she came from or what led her to this moment in time or agency with which her mother left her. We are people who stepped out to do the right things for, hopefully, the right reasons....and some of us got burned. Many of us caught in this mess did not sign up with an agency and get a referral. We signed up for a child and got an agency.

I knew where to get a perfectly healthy newborn baby. The US has those in abundance. It just seemed a little greedy for me, who'd already had four of those to ask for more.

And for miss "special order," let me tell you about Special Ordering children. There's another place you can do that: domestic adoption. Newborn private. Newborn public. Newborn open adoption. Newborn closed adoption. The US Foster care system in general. It happens EVERY DAY. Go into any agency and say you want in and the first thing they do is hand you a four page checklist of what you will and will not take. So take your accusations and shove them up your nose. You can't tell me you didn't fill one out with your Completely Ethical Agency. Because you did and I know you did and YOU know you did. If you didn't, you haven't adopted and you have no legs to stand on while you are slinging around your hurtful words.

I'm disappointed in the international adoption community. The adoption community in general. I thought we were better than this.

Sadly, the people who need to read this, won't. But writing is my therapy and it needed to be done.

I'm scared.
I've hired an investigator.
We may never know.
And we may find out things we don't want to know.
And then we will have to make decisions we don't want to have to make.
And what we need is prayer. Lots of it.
If all else fails....If you can't think of anything nice to say, please, for the love of all that is holy,
SHUT UP.

Yes. This.

What Dreams Are Made Of.

I had a dream last night that rocked me to my core.

We were leaving the church Christmas program and piling into our van like we do when a dirty little girl with uncombed hair wordlessly climbed in on my lap where she appeared to have no intentions of leaving. She didn't speak, just sat. Brent and I consulted and we came to the decision that we needed to find someone who knew where this child belonged.

Brent stayed in the van with the kids and I took the girl into the.....hospital? Orphanage? Projects? Colorless hallways where I did, finally, find an elderly woman who told me the girl's story. Her mother was dead and she was looking for another one. What about her father? He beat her. Where is child services? No one cares about these children.

Somehow I got up and faced this little girl. I prayed for her protection. I prayed she would find a mother. And I promised her I would not rest until she was safely cared for. She grew up before my eyes as she drew up, into herself, steeling her resolve and she told me, "Never you mind. There's more of me. There's always more of me."

I looked around and I was surrounded by dirty children and no adults save the one old, tired, grandma and I felt completely hopeless.

When I dream like this, detailed enough I can write it down, I generally ask, "Lord, what am I to do? She's right. You 'save' one and there are always ten more. Not only that, you look back and ask yourself if you did the right thing 'saving' one in the first place."

My husband, in his wisdom, reminded me that this is why we sponsor through organizations like World Vision. And sponsor some more. And encourage others to sponsor.

He's right. We need to keep children in families. And we need to give families the resources necessary to care for their children.

Please, for the love of all that is holy, come alongside me and help these kids.

Twelve years ago, we accidentally happened upon being one of the very first sponsors of a brand, spanking, new ADP (Area Development Program, I believe) and we were able to see, with our very own eyes, what World Vision does from beginning to (near) completion. It is truly amazing.

You have that opportunity now. World Vision is opening a brand new ADP in The Democratic Republic of Congo and you can get in on the ground level. All the kiddos on my page are in the same ADP. You can sponsor one and a friend of yours can sponsor another. And your grandmother can sponsor a third. And you can see synergy happen. You can talk about something more important than the weather. You can visit them together. Imagine....

We've done this before. Let's do it again. Help me help this little girl.

Be the change.

For the Tired Mommies in the Thick of the Christmas Trauma

Go Again.

Because some of us need a daily reminder of why we can't just give up.

The Diet Plan

I have lately been accused of being too thin and questioned whether I had a "problem." Brent and I were laughing over my "diet" plan and he suggested I share it. I know I already did this once, but I now have a more complete list. Here it is. The miracle diet.

1. Spend three weeks in a third world country. Breathe in the poverty. Consume things you shouldn't.
2. Come home with a parasite so bad that food crossing your lips is an invitation for your entire digestive tract to violently empty. For six. weeks.
3. Bring home a child at the same time who thinks your food is the epitome of evil and is certain you are trying to poison her. Food battles ensue that spike your adrenaline which takes away what little appetite you have.
4. Because you have not been able to eat or drink anything fun for six weeks, you no longer crave it, and besides, your digestive system still hates you. Large amounts of sugar causes a less extreme case of stage two. Since it is working in your favor and it is something in your life you CAN control, give up sugar.
5. Do couch to 5K with your daughter who wants to run one. The sense of power running gives you is indescribable. You have conquered something. 
6. Begin to question whether you have larger underlying issues. Give up gluten. Consume vast amounts of probiotics in an attempt to heal your gut.
7. Go on daily sunset walks with your husband because it gives you 30 minutes of peace at the end of a day of chaos.
8. Get tired of having back pain. Do lots of abdominal work nightly while watching three seasons of Heroes.
9. Run with your daughter to train her for cross country since she's discovered she wants to be powerful, too. Discover the added benefit of ab work: faster run times.
10. Once you decide that it is humanly impossible to have hypo- and hyper- thyroidism at the same time and your issue is really exhaustion and control, eat whatever crosses your path that sounds good.
11. Discover you don't really like it anymore.
12. Be annoying and eat clean.

Who thinks I should write a book? Best seller in the making.

Where You Begin

Divergent

I just finished Divergent by Veronica Roth and in the Bonus Materials I ran across this little tidbit, interesting to me considering where I am right now.

"...both of us are wrong about perfect. We have no idea what it would look like, and our approximations of it are incomplete.
    And that gives me a lot of hope, because if I don't know what perfect means, it's not something I can reach on my own. Which means that I can stop trying to be perfect and just try to love the people around me and the things I'm doing. And strangely enough, that's Tris' journey. She tries selflessness on for size, and then she tries bravery, but at the end, it's what she does out of love that's more important than any virtue."

Adoption is Trauma

If I were feeling chatty, I would have said this. I was going to title it Adoption is Trauma. And I would have said some things directly relating to my children. But since she did it without me revealing my children's inner secrets, I'll have you read hers.

This is why I can't talk right now.
This is why I'm snarky and this is why I'm drowning and this this why I cry in the produce section when they are out of bananas.
And this is what you can be praying about.

I agree with every word.
Every one of them.
Yep, that one, too.

Lucky, Lucky Me

For Without Him, I Have Nothing.

Because Life's Too Short For Bitterness

Funerals n such

They leave me asking how my life will be perceived. May I live mine with as much dignity.

Pushing Back the Dark

Why I'm Not Blogging

I was recently asked why I'm not blogging. The answer is complicated. And long. And I may give the full story some day when I'm feeling chatty. And over this particular hill and before I see the next rise ahead of me. But the short, vague, answer is blogging gives people an opportunity to look into my life and make a judgement on it without engaging IN it. And right now I don't need people in my life that don't want to bother engaging. The road we've chosen is too dang hard to have a bunch of people who think they know what is going on-but don't-judging us based on something I did or did not say on my blog.

I'm not talking about YOU, of course. If you bothered to peek in after all this time, there is a chance that you might really care. Maybe not, but maybe. If I am talking about you, may you feel the wrist slap stinging. I'm too tired to care. Go ahead and make a judgement on that, too.

Meanwhile, some days I hear a song and I think, "YES, this is what's going on." So, for the time being, I will tell our story through song. This is today's version.

Born of Persuasion

Eight years ago, I wrote a story in 20 minutes, had my sisters proof read it over chips and salsa (they missed the misspelling of frapuccino (I'm still not sure how to spell it)), and, on a whim entered a fiction writing contest. Because of that story and the fact that it made top 10 in a nationally recognized contest, I call myself a writer. And because of that story, I found my first critique group that we called the Upstarts.

I have no idea where most of them are now.

But I opened an email from one of the Uppies the other day that started with "I don't know if you remember me...."

Remember you? Really? Which part would I forget? The part where you were my roommate at my first writers conference and we stayed up late discussing whether he was a sociopath or psychopath, or the part where you fed me your book chapter by chapter every time I sent you a message that said, "MORE! I need MORE!"

Friday, that book was released so that the rest of you can finally enjoy Born of Persuasion by Jessica Dotta.

The press release reads, "Bronte meets Austen" and that just about sums it up. Witticisms over tea meet creepiness upstairs, but it's inherently readable for people who just. can't. slog through the old language.

I have been known to tell people that once I got used to the fact that Jane Eyre was a trilogy rather than a novel, I liked it. It frustrated me that there seemed to be a story that came to and end and just as I got used to the new story line, it switched to yet another one.

I've decided to eat my words. My only complaint with Born of Persuasion is that it is a true trilogy and that is just not cool. I would prefer it be long like War and Peace in the Jane Eyre almost trilogy style. How am I supposed to wait to find out the end? (When she was feeding them to me chapter by chapter, I only got 2/3 of what is now book 1).

Well done, Jess.

And yes, I noticed that you dropped your opening line about the dun hooded sky and your old English spelling of colour. I also know you sneaked "dun hooded" in later (editing win! now that I know what it means....). The big bad They did a nice job of retaining you and opening with action. Eight years did nothing but make your story great. And it taught lots of us patience.

Jess is hosting a virtual tea party and 31 days of (basically Downton Abbey) giveaways on her Facebook page. You should stop by. Right after you go buy her book on Amazon.

Here's her back cover copy:
Few events unfold in the way they are supposed to. And if you look closely, you'll find that every story has two sides and each player in that story wears a mask. Everyone has a face they show the world, and a face they hide.

And therein lies danger.

Seventeen-year-old Julia Elliston is hardly prepared to handle the complexities of the Victorian era, much less the duality of human nature. She lives in a society where workhouses and slums loom in every parish, and her need to find a husband is more pressing than that of the average young lady. She is uneducated, orphaned and living ont he charity of friends.

When a rich, titled dowager offers to introduce Julia into society she quickly accepts. Just when she thinks she's made an advantageous match, she finds herself a pawn amidst a deadly gave of chess playing out between two of England's most powerful men. Her only hope of safety lies with discovering who is telling the truth and who is lying.

Sometimes truth is elusive.

A Normal Day

We went to the zoo yesterday. It was a gorgeous February Sunday afternoon in Kansas and out and doing was far better than in and trying unsuccessfully to nap. Or painting, which my love has been making me do any time we get a free hour and a half.

All the animals were really active. Maybe they were as tired of being cooped up for winter as we were. What, you don't see animals in this picture? Huh.

My monkey wanted to have a rest in the monkey nest.

"Why does the baby keep hitting the mama?" "Maybe he doesn't want to let her have a Sunday nap, either."

must pose with all statues.

oh look, another statue

huh, another statue.

The most extraordinary thing about the day was its complete ordinariness. It was a normal day.

Those of you who haven't adopted an older child might not understand the significance of that. Those of us in adoptive circles have been known to whisper or yell, "When will this feel normal?!" Those of you who adopted a newborn for your first child, I feel your pain, too. Your life will never be normal again. However, it will be far richer.

I'm happy to report that at the ten month zoo visitation mark, there are moments of normalcy. Enough so that even the children noticed. I feel especially qualified to say that since we did the zoo twice in our first month....and didn't brave it again until now. So I know to which I compare.

If you are in the throes, take a deep breath. Normal is coming. It may be a new normal, but it is coming.

"I want to be on the one that leads to Awesome."

What will be your Space Jam?? Give the world a reason to dance!