How I Feel About Adoption

Currently, we are updating our homestudy, so that we can remain an active resource family with our agency. Since our first study was done, there are quite a few more bits and pieces they require. One such new requirement is that each member of the extended family that resides in the home write a letter explaining how they personally feel about adoption. The prize for "Most Entertaining" goes to... drum roll please... Boo.

"I feel that adopting a child would be an excessively excellent idea. Although we have a plethora already, the ****** house is always open. Children would be taught endless virtues, and also the value of hard work. Education, integrity, and honesty are also taught. Guaranteed (with a little hard work, of course) children who were adopted by the ****** parents would be totally transformed. Take me, for instance. Just like everything else, I feel that adopting a child would also be a whole lot of work. The adjusting, the money, the time, the money, would be very strenuous. All in all, this is how I feel about adopting a child."

Apparently the money is a double concern, and did I mention that if you were to be adopted by our family, you would read a lot of Jane Austen?

Here We Go!

We are moving along with our plans to make some cash for Haiti.

• Phase one, giant cookies. We make this pizza sized, colossal cookie as a gift now and then. It's very popular with just about everyone. We're taking orders for Valentine's week, and making them with Valentine M&M's. I'm going out tomorrow to scout material costs so I can price them.
• Phase two, purse parties. My dear eldest daughter and I are hosting home parties to sell purses made by Haitian seamstresses, to help them be self supporting and to help fund the relief effort.
• Phase three, bring on the bling. My three youngest daughters will use their jewelry making skills and creativity to make (truly) gorgeous jewelry. They plan to sell this and send all the profits to the Haitian relief effort.

This effort involves all of the children in baking, creating, selling, and maybe even a few unglamorous jobs like dish washing and house cleaning. Our plan is to be done by the end of February and see how it goes. Then, who knows. Maybe phase four?

Nothing Matters...Everything Matters

This past week began with a friend from Bloggyland, running the Disney marathon to raise money for a mission in Haiti. It is a ministry to pregnant women (among many other things), and they were trying to raise the funds for an emergency vehicle that would reliably transport women to the center when they were in labor, as well as other emergencies. Many women, with no reliable transportation of any kind, end up delivering at home, or on the street as they try to make their way on foot to the center. Often the babies are delivered in the dark, as there is no reliable electrical power either. That was Haiti on a good day. In the eleventh hour, our family decided that we wanted in. We wanted to donate a little of the excess we enjoy, and so we hit that Paypal button, and watched our in-the-computer friends with even more interest. I had been checking the blogs to see how the event went. It went well. The huge sum of money was raised. There is to be an emergency vehicle, praise God. Next came a blog about unwinding in Disneyworld with the family, and I could smile, and remember doing the same. Then came a blog to pray for Haiti, and everything changed.

How hard to be in the "happiest place on earth", and be filled with fear and grief for loved ones in Haiti. I cannot imagine. I have no ties to Haiti, not really. I have friends who have adopted Haitian children. I read blogs about several missions to Haiti. I have friends and family members who traveled to Haiti on short term mission trips. I have sent a few dollars throughout the years, to help here and there. But even I cannot pull myself away from the news reports. I scan the mission blogs for ways to help. I consider ways to pull some money together. It seems like so little in the face of it all. It almost seems as though it doesn't matter.

I am acutely aware of how comfortable I and my family am. I have better medical care for my pets than the people of Haiti have for their children. I have so much food, that I have to clean my fridge of leftovers...well not much, but some. Everything in my life screams, "You have more than you need." I am tempted to feel guilty, but guilt just makes me want to shut it off and feel hopeless. It must matter that I am here, living this blessed life. I need to take stock of the many good things we enjoy, and not forget them. I know I can pull together some money, and money is probably all I can do to help. I could write a check and mail it off. But I am smart, and able bodied, and I have time (no really I do). Is there a way to multiply that money so that it keeps growing? Is there a way to draw my coddled American family into the labor? Six more able bodies, and mostly able minds? I'm not sure yet, but I'm thinking about it.

I'm in a Good Mood...

...and gosh darn it, no one's going to knock me out of it. I've had a hugely productive week and an even more productive weekend. Not that it looks like much is going on, because most of it was paperwork, but as you know, THAT is a huge thing. I challenge anyone to ask me for one single scrap of paper that I can't put my hands on, and quick. Plus I threw a lot of stuff away too, which is always therapeutic for me. Friday I spent most of the day cleaning the girl quarters...even crawling under beds and hauling furniture away from baseboards. On Saturday I ventured into the black hole that is boy territory, and after about eight hours, felt as though I could breathe in there. Lest I mislead...neither set of rooms was a terrible mess, only disorganized, with too much stuff. My children cannot part with anything, and they must have it all close at hand. I am a minimalist, and would cheerfully strip down to a mattress on the floor. My family keeps me in check, and so we have furniture. This week brings more jobs to tick off the list, more papers to file, more rooms to shake out and reorganize. It's really cold here, and my little goats don't like it. I don't like it. Maybe I am trying to hasten the coming of Spring with all my cleaning.

Happy New Year!

What a nice, snowy, quiet day on the mountain. Everything is wrapped in about three inches of soft, fluffy white stuff. The house smells of chocolate. I made two different kinds of brownies to take to our party tonight. The turtle has a fresh clean tank for 2010. The children are napping, so as to be fresh and rested for the long night of festivity. I am getting ready to go stand in a hot shower for a ridiculously long period of time. Happy New Year to all my friends and family...those I see face to face, and those who live in my computer. May God bless you with an adventure or two in the next twelve months.

Why Bother?

I have a lot of thoughts kicking around in my head today. It has been an uneventful holiday season so far. This is a biggie, as this time of year is usually a signal to some of my children to self destruct, crash and burn, and try to take all of us down with them as they spiral into the frozen dirt. Imagine my surprise when so much of the holiday hoopla has passed, and no fireworks...yet. I am well aware that we are not out of the woods yet. I am also fully anticipating at least one child to tank as soon as school vacation is over. But it has been nice while it has lasted, and I am going to keep on basking in the glow as long as I can.

Yesterday I was pondering how well Lala has done over vacation. She has about a week and a half off, and the first third was spent in the bustle of preparing for Christmas, celebrating, and cleaning up. Then camp got into gear on Sunday, and she has (unwillingly) been going to work at the kitchen with her Dad, helping out as she can, and learning some of the jobs her older siblings usually do. She has been "early to bed and early to rise", with lots of structured activity in between. She has whined, and even wept over her lot, as she would prefer to lay on the couch and watch TV until her eyeballs fall out, or even just sleep all day, rather than WORK. Not that anyone else around here does such things, but she always thinks of herself as a special case. Today I watched her bustle about the kitchen, helping her Dad assemble some sandwiches in a hurry, and although she still gets in the way a bit, she is clearly trying to be helpful, and feels like she is doing something that matters. Tomorrow our campers will leave after lunch, and we will slip back into party and relaxation mode. The final third of vacation will wrap up with a typical Sunday at church and quiet winding down to school on Monday. I don't foresee any major bumps in the road.

Yesterday I was hanging out in the camp kitchen with beloved husband and Lala. It was between meals, and we had a few quiet moments to chat. Lala had made herself a bag of microwave popcorn, and was angrily stuffing it into her mouth piece by piece, to show me how peeved she was because she was grounded and couldn't go off with her sisters and a friend. I asked her why she was angry. She couldn't tell me. I asked her why she was grounded. She couldn't tell me. I asked her how long she was grounded for. She couldn't tell me. I felt so bad for her in her chronic state of confusion, that I decided to GO OVER IT ALL AGAIN. Slowly, painfully, excruciatingly, we went over the series of bad choices that had landed her on extreme grounding. Then we went over the string of bad choices she made that had further compounded and extended her grounding. We reviewed the rules, and discussed the warnings that had been issued. We talked over her debts, and why she owed money (restitution for damages), and how she would pay them.

When all was said and done, she admitted that none of it really mattered to her because:

• She was never going to get off grounding because she would never make good choices.
• She was never going to pay off her debts because she would just keep making new ones.
• She thought we were all really mean, and she wished she had gotten a nicer family.

She did concede that her sisters didn't find themselves in a similar predicament, that they actually seemed pretty happy. Her explanation? We like them better, and we are much nicer to them. Though she did concede that they had to obey the same rules, and pay restitution when they destroyed things. Hmmm. Makes perfect sense to me.

At one point, when we were discussing her desire for a nicer family, I just broke into a monologue, in my sweetest, kindest Mom voice. I told her that when she laid down in her bed at night, she should thank God for giving her the most perfect Mom for her. That she was so lucky to get such a stubborn, ornery Mom like me, that WOULD NEVER GIVE UP ON HER, no matter how silly she might be. I also told her HOW LUCKY I am, to have her for my daughter, because she always makes my life so INTERESTING. I thanked her for giving me so many interesting things to do, like emailing her teachers, and scouring school websites for missing assignments. Like watching her every minute, to be sure she wasn't doing anything too..."interesting". And all the while, she was shaking her head back and forth harder and harder, trying not to grin. As I rattled on and on, she kept saying "No! You would LIKE it if I stopped! You would be HAPPY if I stopped." And yet again, I realize that this child never, ever wants me to like anything about her, and never, ever wants to make me happy in any way, shape, or form.

Right on cue, Boo galloped into the kitchen and demanded to know what was so funny, and what were we laughing about? I didn't even have time to come up with an answer, when she went on in an accusatory and suspicious tone. "You and Dad are so weird. You're so HAPPY all the time lately. It's not normal...but I like it!" And with that, she galloped back out the door, leaving her father and me laughing, and Lala huffing indignantly, and declaring, "I think you LIKE it when I'm in trouble!"

Last night I was laying in my bed, listening to the wind rip the roof and the tree branches off, and turned on the TV to keep me company, since beloved was snoring already. There was this horrible show on about hoarders. I say horrible in regard to the subject matter, not about the show itself. There was this horrible woman living in a hell hole of her own making. They actually found two of her missing cats, dead, in the piles of refuse. Her son and daughter had arranged the whole intervention because they couldn't stand to see their aging mother living like this, plus her house was going to be condemned. It had been going on for years and years. The daughter had actually raised her brother, because child services had removed him from the house when he was a child. The mother had never cleaned up the house and gotten him back. The whole time everyone was working, the mother sat out on the porch in a rocking chair and *itched about how this was all someone else's fault, namely the daughter, who seemed to have done a great deal for her ungrateful, mean mother. The clinical psychologist on the case said something to the effect of, "As long as she blames other people for her situation, she will never have the impetus to change."

When I heard that, it dropped like a stone into my brain. Lala wakes up every day and blames everyone else for her situation. She doesn't even care if her accusations and blame casting make sense. She really believes we are a mean family. She believes we like her sisters better, and treat them nicer. She wishes she could have gotten lucky, and gotten a "better" family. She thinks her teachers at school are mean too. She thinks they like the other students better. She thinks her classmates' grades are higher and they get along with one another, because they are "lucky". Why would a girl like her even bother to try? Her family hates her, her teachers hate her...everyone hates her.

What We Do For Fun

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