Category Archives: Parenting

Enough is Enough

16 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by in Christmas, Parenting, Relationships

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The cat is the most honest creature in our house.

Our whole Christmas season had the looming knowledge of a still-to-come hip surgery for my husband, but we all wore brave faces and soldiered on.

The plan was once the out-of-town kids went back to their homes, he would have the procedure, which is basically out-patient if all goes well, and have several weeks of recuperation during which the kids could all call or visit or help out at home. There would be long days for him watching movies or finding projects for Dad to work on in the house, and all would be well.

The house itself was not cooperating with the plan.

Right before Oldest Son came home, our ongoing problems with water came flowing back. The new water softener was leaking in the garage, and the kitchen sink handle was not holding firm enough to shut off the water.

So Christmas shopping had to wait on the plumber, followed by finally being able to thoroughly wash the dishes again. I felt like I could never get everything done that needed doing, so I scaled way back on my expectations.

And then the excitement of opening presents and eating traditional foods, taking naps and eating some more. Spending lots of time with the people I love the most.

Once I am past it I’m fine with everything not getting done the way I wanted. There will always be more opportunities to give the perfect gift or try some new food to fix or start a new tradition.

The being together is always the sweetest part.

I guess if I could have one thing be different about the season just past, it would be that I wish we had all been able to talk more openly and honestly about the love we have for each other.

Because hard days will always come, even after surgeries and still-unconfirmed medical diagnoses are in the past. The days when you savor the memories of words spoken in love and deep affection.

There were great moments, don’t get me wrong. Several one-on-one talks with different kids, or just a couple of them at a time, where we were able to get real about how we felt about Dad’s impending surgery. Discussing possible outcomes and what he might not be able to do, things we could do to make the house safer for his rehabilitation weeks.

Those times were sweet, to hear my kids express their love and concern for their dad.

And while they all did express their concern to his face, I wish there had been more ease in talking about it. Because once you get past the fear, you can more easily express the love that huddles behind its fortress walls of protectiveness and anxiety.

The cat is much more transparent than the kids.

From back in October when the workmen started waltzing in and out on a pretty regular basis, leaving doors open, making noise with their electric tools, the cat has been on edge.

Her home has been invaded and plundered, and she had no say in it.

Strange bodies and voices in and out for day after day. Then a quick weekend trip before Thanksgiving when she had to fend for herself, eating her way through a massive bowl of only dry food. And T-day itself with too many legs to count sending her running to the farthest corner of the house.

Middle Son and his girlfriend home from college, then Oldest Son and his girlfriend, and her litter box was brand new and in a different part of the reconfigured laundry room, and there was paper carpeting the floor and then we took it away before she could play with it all.

Enough is enough.

She took to peeing other places than in her litter box.

She developed colitis from having to change her canned food (the old kind was discontinued), and once that was treated we thought she’d get back to normal.

But she didn’t.

Her world had been messed with one too many times, and our Sadie was not having it. Even the vet thinks it might be stress related, and advised us to get yet another new litter box after going through a course of antibiotics to treat what we all hope is a UTI and not spiteful behavior.

But you know what, sometimes a tantrum can relieve some of the stress. And I must say that the cat is not timid in letting us know when she is not happy with the way things feel in the house.

I can’t imagine how much stress she’s been picking up from us, but I know we’ve all been feeding on each other’s, and enough is enough.

I personally would like to be able to go somewhere and just throw things and break them. And not have to clean them up! Just yell or cry and get my frustrations out on some inanimate object that doesn’t care if I break it to bits. I’m sure there are more productive ways of dealing with stress, but for a few minutes I’d just like to be a confused and slightly vindictive cat.

If only we could all just have one big acting out day where we would all just nod and cheer each other on in our release of fear and anger and worry, and then we’d all move on feeling much better.

And then I come back to the real world, where in the last week we’ve had another leak from the new water softener. They think it’s fixed this time.

And during a really hard rainstorm the other night, our fireplace started leaking.

More water. Leaking, dripping, puddling. Just like all the others.

Like my tears, cried mostly in private, but the truly healing ones with friends and family who love me. Who see that I’m not handling this stress much better than the cat, and are willing to help me clean up the mess I feel I become sometimes.

I know this will all pass. I know God is in control. And I know I want to be able to talk about this all openly, and encourage my kids to express their thoughts and feelings as well, so we don’t all end up taking it out on each other.

And meanwhile, the cat is enjoying lapping water out of the container we used to catch the drip from the fireplace.

Gathered to My People

09 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by in Death of a child, Death of a parent, Parenting, Recovery journey, Relationships, Tragedies

≈ 1 Comment

We’ve had a challenging week in our family.

I’m still debating, as I write, if I even want to get into this yet. It’s so fresh.

Someone out there needs to hear that it is possible to have impractical, unbelievable peace in the middle of emotional chaos.

Because I’m feeling it.

And at the same time, I’ve had bone-crushing uncertainty and stress.

A couple of weeks ago I thought this blog would be about my husband’s hip replacement surgery.

It was scheduled for yesterday.

We planned it more than a month ahead. We made changes in our house and prepared to possibly be without income for a few weeks, getting the kids used to the idea and spreading the word to friends and family.

The surgeon’s office was less thorough, so we found ourselves at a pre-op visit to the hospital the day after Christmas, as well as an impromptu stop at the surgeon’s to communicate some of our concerns.

And quite unexpectedly there was another visit last Friday to the primary care office to be released for surgery.

The call my husband got at the end of a long work day led to a weekend of contemplating his mortality. Surgery was put on hold because of high white blood cell counts, and after more tests early Friday, a couple types of cancer were mentioned.

Just enough to make your imagination go round the bend.

So of course we both did what we know to never do.

We googled the ugly words.

After thirty-four years of marriage with this man, I was not surprised by his “it is what it is” attitude. Or the silent funeral planning behind his brooding eyes. Questions followed about life insurance and his desire that all our kids be able to have college paid for out of it.

Covering all the bases.

Having all that time to think could have been devastating if it weren’t for this.

Jesus. And hope.

At first I didn’t want to tell anyone.

I was headed to Celebrate Recovery an hour after we heard the news. In the safety and support of my open share small group, I began processing my own thoughts and feelings before telling any of the kids.

My CR women freely put aside their own hard things to hug and love on and support me that night. And I found clarity that comes from seeing what really matters.

Over the next day all of our children heard personally about this new development, and we counted down the hours to Monday morning when we could make more appointments.

Our care group met Saturday so my husband and I both were surrounded by men and women who love and care deeply for us.

Our kids each took in the information in their own ways, and I’m sure are going through many different stages of understanding and processing. Those first couple of days were hard for all of us. They will ease up in time.

Uncertainty stinks.

By Sunday my husband and I had thought all the thoughts we could stand. And talked about many of them with each other. And each of us had expressed that we were okay with wherever God takes us in this, whatever lies ahead.

Because we know where we’re headed.

Even knowing, I still cried a lot of tears and held even more back. Who can understand God’s plans?

But in all fairness, do we ever question why we have good times, when everything is going right? Do we ever wonder why God thinks we deserve easy?

We’ve learned in our life together, this man and I, that God is in control. And that it is always better to obey and follow him, no matter how hard the path looks to us.

So we went to church and answered questions about the surgery and why was it canceled and what does this mean.

We heard about friends with those same scary conditions and how unlifechanging they actually are.

And we breathed a little easier by day’s end.

But not before I had an unexpected moment.

It was during the final song. I was choked up. So I just bowed my head and said the only words I could put together.

“Jesus, help!”

And immediately an image came into my mind. That even if … it’s all good.

Fourteen years ago our pastor was killed in a car accident. In the hours and days and now years since I’ve seen God provide for his wife and young daughters in intimate, personal, miraculous ways. It was hard. But there was hope.

I thought a lot about that time over the weekend, the strength that was given to my friend as she navigated the unthinkable task of telling her girls that their daddy was with Jesus in heaven.

She didn’t get that strength until the moment she needed it.

And as I cried out to Jesus to ease my own fears for my husband, standing next to him in our church, a picture came into my mind.

Even if my husband were to leave this life way sooner than any of us would want, there would be a beautiful result.

He would meet our baby first in heaven.

Monday came and God quite directly provided an appointment with the hematologist/oncologist for that same day – a sudden cancelation that was no big deal for God to arrange. And oodles of blood tests and orders for an ultrasound.

And the very positive opinion of the doctor that after all our worrying, this wasn’t going to be a big deal. Even the hip surgery will get rescheduled after a solid diagnosis and some monitoring of his blood counts.

Numb from the whole thing I decided to go to Monday night Bible study, and I read words that have always been a comfort to me.

“He was gathered to his people.”

An Old Testament saying I had always loved to read, as it gave even my little girl imagination a picture of people I knew had died greeting someone else at the time of their death, gathering them in to a family, welcoming them home.

I had always pictured grandmas and grandpas in the mix, but now I added babies.

I have no fear of death. For me or my husband.

I want it to be a long way off, when our children are all grown and settled into their own families, raising our grandchildren and teaching them the things that matter.

Because when they go through scary, uncertain times like the one we are navigating right now, I want them to know the bottom line.

That God is not just a nice thought, but a real and powerful being. That he created us because the idea of eternity with us pleased him. That when we choose to follow him we will have bad things happen, but we have the absolute certainty that when they do he is bigger and stronger than anything that comes against us.

And he WILL work EVERYTHING for our good.

So as we live the next day and week and month with no guarantees, we can know many things for certain.

God is real. His love is unstoppable. His peace is unexplainable. He has made a people for himself from all of us who believe.

And no matter when any of us who follow this amazing God die in this body, we will be gathered in to our people.

And living life with so many of them now is just a bonus.

Dark Day Memories

12 Thursday Dec 2019

Posted by in Death of a child, Parenting

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I keep hemming and hawing about what to say this week, because Monday was my dark day.

Except I didn’t have the time to sit with my thoughts and let memories wash over me on that day. And the rest of the week had work and appointments and few quiet moments.

So I’m using this exercise of putting thoughts into words as my time of marking the passing of my third child. The one I was just beginning to know, and now will wait until eternity to meet.

Those of us who have been through the loss of a child by miscarriage have these dark days. They aren’t always on the ones you mark.

Day the baby died. Day I miscarried. Day we buried the child’s remains. Day the baby was due. Day he or she was conceived. Every birthday.

Sometimes they’re the day I think, “I wonder if that child would have liked…” and off I go, missing the things I just might have convinced that child to do with me. Things the others have no interest in doing.

For me it has been 22 years since I lost my baby.

I’m not over it.

It’s not something you get over. It doesn’t get better, because you always come back to a baby that died, and there is no happy in there.

The day I first felt pain I had been wrestling with an old vacuum cleaner, taking it apart and putting it back together, cleaning it out and trying to force it to have some suction. It was heavy and clunky and frustrating.

I always wondered, what if I hadn’t been messing around with the vacuum?

I was leading a Bible study in the next town over, and even though I was very crampy I headed out. People were counting on me.

And in the restroom I saw the first bleeding, the first visible, physical evidence that something was wrong.

The next day was a roller coaster. We had workmen right outside the patio doors in the addition that was being put on the back of the house.

God had told us to add on this huge room, and even though we only had two kids we started building. And within a few weeks I was pregnant.

Every morning they were working I would print off a Bible verse and stick it on the glass door so they could see it. The kids and I would usually do a walk-through at some point to see what progress had been made each day.

And on that second day of labor, I found myself out on the porch area, discussing rooflines with the contractor, smiling and chatting, all while my womb was weeping in pain and sorrow.

On the third day our daughter had a Brownie meeting, and Dad took her as I was in so much pain. So my son and I were home alone when the labor ended.

So did the pain. Immediately.

And I knew right away I had lost the baby.

This labor was honestly my worst. It was longer than any of the five others I’ve had. It hurt with great intensity for most of the time. I tried not to let it show, I didn’t want to worry the kids. I have a really high pain tolerance, which was a good thing as I attempted to act normally.

But three days of pain, and no baby at the end is…

why I have a dark day.

A curious thing happens after you lose a baby. If you tell anyone. You find that you are not alone. Women I had known for many years shared that they, too, had miscarried. But they never told until they saw my open grief.

I must have the universal friendly face, because strangers are drawn to talk to me in grocery store lines and waiting rooms, and even complete strangers opened up to me about their own losses.

In this journey when I felt lonely for my child, I found I was not ever the only one this had happened to.

There’s something comforting about that – knowing at least one other person you can call and say, “Hey, can I talk about my baby for a while?”

And in the past 22 years I’ve been privileged to be that listening ear many times.

Every story is different. Every ending is the same. And every mom remembers.

With my five kids, there are countless memories. Sometimes I have to really think through a story to be sure I’ve assigned the right children their part in the drama, but I could sit and talk for hours about funny things each of my kids has done, or what they’re up to now, or tell you some of their milestones.

I also know things about my kids that I’ll never tell anyone, because the thought of special times with them, sweet words they’ve spoken, the look of love in their eyes, those are the things you keep safe in your heart. Ready to be pulled out when you need a smile or a reassurance of love.

And when there are no pictures of a face, no funny escapades, no muscle memory of how they feel in your arms, where do you harvest the memories?

I’ve never pictured what this child might look like. I’ve never dreamed him or her. But they were part me, part their dad, and sometimes I choose to think through what their unique self might be.

In the not knowing there is a freedom to imagine endless possibilities, as different as one day is from another, new choices every time I think of Isaac Fred.

But the thought that gives me the most comfort is that my child is safe in the arms of God, he sits on Jesus’ lap, and maybe they say to him, the way you smile reminds me of your mom.

The Perfect Leather Jacket

14 Thursday Nov 2019

Posted by in Childhood, Parenting, Relationships

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Over the last year I’ve been slowly working my way through a book, Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. I say slowly because I’m only halfway through it!

I got the book and the accompanying workbook out of the library and dug in deep. (I’m too cheap to buy them!) I found I had a lot to learn about boundaries, but I have felt God gently showing me a lot about myself and the way I was raised, and also about my parents.

There were some things I held against them over the years, things that became my own battle cry to “never be like my parents”, until (shock) I heard their words come out of my mouth.

I can’t explain it any other way than that God supernaturally brought understanding to my mind, helping me see the way life had molded my parents based on all I know about their childhoods.

I’ve had a lot of light bulb moments in the past year. I’ve learned to see the reasons behind their inability to set good boundaries for me, to teach me how to set them for myself. And as I remember the way my world was as I grew up, I’ve had a lot of questions answered by diving into this book.

I’ve also rejoiced when answering questions showing the good sides of my parents. Though it’s necessary to examine the negative, the book really does balance it with applauding the good things I’ve learned and the people who have helped me.

This week I’ve journaled about how my parents taught me to make good decisions, and to learn the value of delayed gratification.

And it all comes down to the perfect leather jacket.

I was about 17 years old, working my first job, driving a car a family friend had donated to the preacher’s kids (my older sister and myself). It was made the year I was born.

I have to clarify. This was my first job working for a business that gave me a weekly paycheck.

Because one thing my parents excelled at was living within their means. Which meant that they didn’t splurge on lots of extras for us four kids.

I never really thought about it until I was grown and married, but we were probably poor. The thing is, it never felt that way. We had a home and food and clothes and love, and I never lacked for anything I truly needed.

And there’s the secret.

Of course when I was little I didn’t know the difference between a want and a need. But that was one of the first and best lessons I ever learned. As we got older, Dad especially impressed on us that they were taking care of our needs, but our wants were up to us to supply.

He helped out by taking us strawberry picking at a friend’s patch once school was out in June, and we set up shop in the front of our big barn. He made signs painted to show our hours, what we sold, and if we were open or closed.

We kids sat out in the barn, sold the baskets of berries, restocked the table, collected the money, and cleaned up when we sold out.

This led to getting more produce already picked later in the summer: tomatoes, squash, green beans, peppers, cucumbers, watermelon, cantaloupe, and the season ender, corn.

In this home produce stand was where I found my love of numbers and counting, handling money, calculating and distributing the profits that were left after we repaid Dad for the produce costs.

I excelled at this. I don’t remember what my siblings loved most about the stand, but next to talking to the customers and adding up their purchases, the hands-on economics class was a thrill for me.

I would keep track of how much time each person spent working the stand. Down to the minute. And once we had paid Dad, we took 10% off the top and put that in what we called the “family fund”, which was to be used for whatever we all agreed on. Maybe a trip to Cedar Point or extras during our annual trip home to North Carolina.

The rest was divided between us kids based on how many hours had been worked and what percentage of the time was spent doing the work.

We each then tithed off our profits, and the rest we could spend on whatever we wanted! My favorite was to get tart ‘n tinies, which were miniature Sweetarts in the shape of little pellets once in a while, play a few games at Cedar Point, and save the rest.

I was probably 9 or 10 when we started working the stand, and it lasted past when I started that “real” job. It was no wonder that within a year I was asked to do the weekly inventory and cash reconciliations, once they learned how good I was at handling those details of the restaurant where I worked.

And so finally, after years of socking most of my money away in a savings account, I found myself at the local mall in a trendy clothing store, smelling the rich warmth of that brown leather jacket.

It fit me perfectly! Not too baggy across the shoulders, but with enough room to move my arms. I remember the feel of the silky lining as they slipped into it the first time I tried it on. Cool and smooth and luxurious.

As my hands warmed the leather the fragrance of it teased my senses. It was similar to the musky cologne I liked.

I had to have it.

So I did what people did in the 70’s. I put it on layaway. I put a small deposit down, and then I would need to come and pay a minimum amount every week until I paid it off.

Only then could I take it home.

That first week I described it to my family and friends. I couldn’t wait to go “visit” it the first time and make my payment, trying it on again to be sure it fit as good as I remembered.

Meanwhile life was moving on, and I was looking at going to college. And starting to figure the cost, because my parents couldn’t help much.

And I had to make one more trip. To say goodbye.

Lots of “if only’s” came to mind for several months after I got my money back. The thoughts of how I would have looked walking into school or church, the envy or congratulations from my peers.

That perfect leather jacket wasn’t the only thing I’ve wanted and not gotten. But it was the first. And the lessons it has taught me have carried me safely past potentially bad financial decisions.

Because, like I eventually had to say that last time in the store, I can still hear my Dad saying, “Is this something you really need, or is it something you only want to have?”

And those are words I don’t mind hearing come out of my own mouth.

Thanks, Dad. You taught me well.

Spike’s Legacy

27 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by in Death of a parent, Grandparenting, Parenting, Relationships

≈ 1 Comment

This June my father-in-law would have turned 96.

One of the worst parts of not having him around any more is that my kids never got to really know him. My oldest son was not quite a year and a half when Spike died. I was pregnant with my older daughter when he got what he thought was the flu, and days later died from a massive bacterial infection and heart failure.

So for all their lives my kids have heard about Grandpa Spike. They see pictures of him, hear stories, see his name on Dad’s work truck, as Spike named his business after himself, and it has been our livelihood and his legacy.

I knew my father-in-law, beyond just a name or to recognize his face, longer than I’ve known my husband. Which was a good thing, because he could be very intimidating.

He was a big man, a presence you had to notice. He could also be loud, startling even, when he wanted to make sure you knew he was there.

But for all his blustering, he often was content to just sit and not say much.

I knew him initially as a customer in the restaurant where I had my first “real” job. I had become a waitress and worked some weekend mornings when Spike and his wife would come in for breakfast. I recall the other waitresses would grumble, “there’s that grouch again”, and I would look at it as a challenge.

“He’s just a teddy bear,” I’d say, and march off to serve him his coffee with a handful of creamers (he preferred it black), just to make him yell. But it would soon turn into a chuckle when he realized I was egging him on to get a reaction from him.

It didn’t take long for him to become one of my regulars, and I liked it that way. I wasn’t easily intimidated, and he wasn’t easily won over, so it was a challenge for us both.

So fast-forward about seven years to the second date I went on with my not-yet-husband. After dessert we went to his parent’s house where he lived so that I could balance his checkbook and roll his change, things I loved to do and he never did. And meet his parents.

He warned me that his dad might be a little scary at first, but I assured him I wasn’t worried. I knew what I was in for.

I don’t know if he remembered me from the restaurant, but I had no trouble getting reacquainted with my future father-in-law. We went for cheap dates, so I spent lots of time in their living room. And once we were engaged we were down the road where our house was being built every spare minute, so we often dropped in to eat dinner with them.

Even after we were married and moved into our house, we didn’t have a phone for a few years, so I made a habit of stopping by their house most afternoons to make calls and chat with them. And see if they’d invite us to dinner.

Then when our first son came along, we broke down and got a phone, but the habit of stopping in almost daily stayed with me. Especially since the summer I was pregnant it broke records for the most days over 90 degrees, and I’d sit in front of a fan until I couldn’t stand it, then drive three miles to sit in delicious, cold air.

And since my mother-in-law was not a big talker, and my new husband took after his mom, Spike and I carried the conversations. I loved his stories and jokes and pronouncements on the latest happenings in our world.

One of my absolutely proudest moments came when he showed me how much attention he’d been paying to the things that were important to me. We were out to dinner with them, and walking through the restaurant I was behind him carrying our one-year old son. Spike pointed at the baby and told everyone along the way, “Look at this kid. Look how healthy he is. He hasn’t had a drop of anything but mother’s milk his whole life. Not a drop of water, no juice, no cow’s milk, just mother’s milk. Isn’t that something?”

I never asked him why he was so impressed by this, but he was, and it was the most empowering thing I think anyone had ever said about me to my face.

He’ll never know how, when our second child was born a few months after he died, and I would breastfeed her, I would picture him standing over me, bragging about how healthy she was, and by association what a good mom I was.

It was the same for our other children as they came along, for all the years I nursed them I had Spike’s voice in my head cheering me on.

Some of my children look like him in ways. Others have some of his personality traits. Or maybe I just like to imagine they do, because I got such a kick out of knowing him that I want them to be a little like their ornery grandpa.

And when they did seem to act like him, I’d just say what he always said to his grandkids, “Go outside and get the stink blown off you!”

Spike was a hard worker, proud of a job well done, but also a man who liked to kick back in his recliner and chuckle over a corny joke, especially if he could goad you into laughing with him.

So when my kids are horsing around or lazing after a long day, I like to think that Spike would have loved to sit with them, maybe holler to get their attention, have them pull his finger, or just lean back and smile at the parts of himself he would see in each one.

And that’s the real legacy.

This Day That Defines Me More Than Any Other

16 Thursday May 2019

Posted by in Childhood, Parenting, Relationships

≈ 2 Comments

I have a hard time with Mother’s Day.

I suspect greeting card companies were in on its creation in some way.  It has always seemed manufactured and awkward to me.

When I was a girl Dad mostly remembered to help us pick out a card and make our marks as best we could.  There would be a carnation given to each mother in church that morning, and potted plants for the mother with the most children present, the oldest mother, and the mother with the youngest child.

I never noticed the other women who didn’t get recognized.

It became our tradition as we got older to pick out a hanging basket for Mom, usually a fuchsia, but we never got extravagant gifts, and I felt like she didn’t expect them.

But there were years Dad forgot to get the card.

I remember one time, maybe it was one of those years, when Mom cried most of the ride home from church.  I was never sure if she was mad at us or him.

Or maybe she had other reasons altogether.  Reasons she never shared.

Reasons many women identify with.

There have been years when I would rather have crawled back under the covers until Monday than face the onslaught of grinning-faced “Happy Mother’s Day’s” coming from every direction.

Because, no, it isn’t for every woman.

Someone, years ago, thought to honor them by having a day when everyone recognized and acknowledged their mothers.

But is this reasonable?  Who is most likely to remind children to do something nice for someone?  Or plan the menu or pick a restaurant where everyone will agree to eat?  There are dads and extended family out there who are conscientious and thoughtful, or at least well-meaning, but I feel like moms are more invested in pulling off special days and celebrations.

And more aware of when they don’t go well.  Because we hold ourselves accountable.

Just watch “Mom’s Night Out” if you want a visual.

So the day comes. Grown women hope their children will miraculously behave, and suddenly have a burning desire to speak and write and sing out their love and respect for their mother, their awe for her selflessness and sacrifices, their realization that no person could ever love them more deeply than she does.

And then they wake up.

As a child, we were our only family.  Our relatives were almost all in North Carolina, so we never visited my grandmas on Mother’s Day.  But as adults, there was the expectation we would spend most of the day with my mom, when I would rather have just enjoyed my children.

There’s a vulnerability about letting the rest of the family orchestrate the day.  Will there be any genuine feelings expressed?  Will we make some sweet memories?  And with too many things on the agenda, will any of the moms involved make it through the day without some kind of breakdown?

That this is the proper, sometimes the only, day for expressions of love and appreciation to moms is too much to ask.

In my youth, I went from liking the smiles on Mom’s face, to feeling her disappointment with my impatience to move on to my own pursuits after the card was opened and the flowers presented.

Then I was married, and dreaded those well-meaning greetings that hit me like a slap in the face, making me keenly aware that I still wasn’t pregnant.

Until I was.  Those few years were bliss.  I could revel in the glow of motherhood glorified in my swelling belly, or leaking milk, or babes crying for me.

But then many more years followed of infertility, and no matter how I tried to avoid the well wishes, I felt like a traitor to the children I had to long for the ones not yet here.

And the bittersweet May when I was both mourning the recent loss of one child, and ecstatic at the healthy growth of another in my womb.

I sometimes think we should do away with Mother’s Day.  Not because moms don’t deserve a pat on the back.  But because it isn’t enough.  And it doesn’t require enough.

It is too easy to share a sappy tribute to moms on Facebook, or to buy a card and sign it “love, me”, or to eat a meal out that you would have eaten anyway.

The title of this post is a direct quote from me on a long ago Mother’s Day when, yes, my husband forgot.  Maybe the card, maybe the plant or the gift.  Maybe to have the kids say the obligatory words.  And my response was, ‘How could you?!  On this day that defines me more than any other!!’

But does it?  It’s not about a day.  It’s about a life.  It’s a hug when I’m tired or overwhelmed.  It’s hot cookies after a good supper.  Or doing any chore without being asked.  Putting laundry away within a week of it being washed, carrying in groceries, laughing at my jokes.  Cutting fresh lilacs during those brief spring weeks, filling the house with what I hope foreshadows the fragrance of heaven.

Don’t expect mothers or kids to be ready or able to celebrate this on one day in May.

But please, do celebrate.  When the joy overflows, the gratitude, the contentment, don’t wait for one day.  Say it, write it, sing it out.

That’s way better than a greeting card holiday.

Exchanging

25 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by in Grandfostering, Parenting

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So a little more than two years ago, my daughter accepted her second newborn foster baby, just one month after the first moved to a new home with her older brother.  I’ve already shared some of the similarities and differences in my experience with each baby, but this second placement came with a brand new addition to the routine.

Visits with mom.

While my daughter had Baby A, the birth mom never arranged for any visitation time, so I didn’t need to learn the ropes of taking a child to children’s services.  In fact, other than going downtown for my background check, I had avoided driving in town for years.  It wasn’t that I never had, or that I didn’t know where anything was, I just don’t care for busy city traffic.  With Baby A I think there was one time I was needed to pick her up from daycare downtown, and the day my daughter had to turn her over, but both times I was a passenger.

Baby B’s birth mom was different.  She wanted visitation very soon, and it was scheduled twice a week in the middle of the day under supervision at the agency.  While the downtown daycare was operating it made it convenient for my daughter to transport her, but she had the occasional  meeting or training scheduled, and I was available to ferry the baby around.  Bringing her there involved a parking garage and carrying her in a car seat or stroller, getting her signed in and transferred to mom.  If I was also picking her up after the visit, there was a coffee shop nearby to hang out, and then return to sign her out and pack her up to go back to daycare or home with me on occasion.  And validating multiple parking tickets.

After her daycare location changed and the drive was farther from my daughter’s work, there were more times it helped to get her into town and let my daughter pick her up when the visit was over, so my presence at the visits became more frequent.

The biggest difference was that I got to know Baby B’s birth mom.

I didn’t need to know background details about her.  And likewise I feel I shouldn’t say much of what I did learn, at least nothing identifying.  But I’m a mom.  I’ve felt five babies moving within me for the last six months or so of every pregnancy.  I found myself knowing these little people I carried more deeply than I ever thought possible, before they were ever born. I couldn’t assume that she felt any less of a connection with the child that she had given birth to, who had to be removed from her arms and given to another person to love and care for.

I remember not wanting to offend or intimidate her in any way.  If she didn’t make eye contact, I wouldn’t force it.  If she didn’t talk, I was polite but didn’t ask a lot of questions.  But I did feel for her.  Because I knew how it felt to lose a baby.

I always smiled at her, tried to place Baby B from my arms into hers, or transfer the stroller right to her hands, and give her some reassuring thing to notice about the baby.

My daughter had shared her desire to see moms reunited with their child in her fostering adventure, and I was looking for the same outcome.  So as a mom, I tried to encourage any good thing I saw her do or heard her say.  There were a lot of long stays at the coffee shop, praying for mom, and returning to hear her tell Baby B that she loved her as I took her back.

There was hope for their reunion.  For a long time.

I won’t go into detail, but in my understanding, when a baby is taken away from the birth mom, there are serious reasons that could be any number of things.  And in order to regain custody, each mom would have her own set of requirements to meet, goals to be working toward and achieving, before the system would consider reuniting mother and baby.

The passage of time would be the only way to know if  Baby B’s mom was able or willing to successfully meet her requirements.  Time, and official meetings and hearings and I’m not sure all the hoops to be jumped through.  But this was a process, and it had to be lived out, before a day would eventually come when either the birth mom could try to regain custody, or the door would be shut on Baby B ever being with her birth mom.

So until that day came, I had those occasional chances to make an impression on a young woman I grew to love and care for, who is still in my prayers, whose face I looked into as much as I could, seeing what Baby B might be like as she grows.

And I wanted her to see the love of God in me.  I wanted her to see joy and peace and contentment, with the world, with the situation she was in, with her baby passed back and forth between us.  I wanted her to know some of the love her baby was getting.  I wanted her to feel it.

It took a long time, but she started looking me in the eye.

I can’t tell you what she saw, why she was finally willing to look.  But what I wanted her to see was hope.  Hope for herself, that I would be happy for her if she were able to do all she needed to do and someday take her baby home.  Hope that even if she didn’t, she would know I still cared about her.  And mostly that Baby B’s birth mom could always count on her baby being loved by people who also took time to see and love her.

 

 

 

 

 

Second Chances

28 Thursday Mar 2019

Posted by in Death of a child, Grandfostering, Parenting

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Baby B at 15 days old.

 

Baby B had arrived.  It was March of 2017, and once again, I had the joy of taking care of this second foster for much of her first five weeks.  But this time I had the routine down from the beginning.  And she came over to my house more than Baby A had, which made it easier to keep up with my own life.

If you’ve had more than one child added to your family, you may remember the novelty of everything the first one did, how you wrote down every milestone, took tons of pictures, told everyone the new things they were doing.  And when the second came along, you noticed things, but didn’t take time to write them all down because for you they were no longer as surprising, and you were too tired.

With my daughter’s foster babies, I also felt changes from the first one to the second. With the first foster it was like having our first child:  a totally new experience that I had no working knowledge of how it might go.  But with the second, even though I was savvy about bottles and car seats and various gadgets to lay her in and use to keep her clean and comfy, it didn’t fully equate to the feeling of having a second child.

An obvious difference with Baby B is that Baby A was no longer in the home, so there wasn’t the need to divide time and energy between two babies like when we had our second child.  There was still the newness of getting to know another unique person, learning her noises and cries, watching for any signs of feeding problems, getting adjusted to her sleeping and eating schedules, all the things any family has to learn about a new baby.

The biggest difference was that I knew all too well the possibility that this child may not be with us for very long.

And I have to admit, I felt myself guarding my heart a little, not with the love I showed her, but with the love I allowed myself to feel.

This was not new to me.  Nineteen years before I felt the same dilemma.  Our third child died and was miscarried in December 1997, and unknown to us we were pregnant again only seventeen days later.  We were grieving the loss of our much-loved, much-wanted, tried-for-seven-years-to-conceive child.  The whole family went on a scrapbooking weekend where the kids played around with Dad while I recorded our brief one month of having this child living inside me.  It was a necessary exercise, giving thanks and remembering and recording all our joy and sorrow.  It helped us all, me especially, be able to move on.

And after that early January scrapbooking weekend, it seemed we were able to look up from our hurt and timidly ask God what was next.

Just weeks later I was feeling hesitantly sure that we might be pregnant again, so at the end of a very busy day I managed to take a pregnancy test at our favorite coffee shop hang-out, where we all crowded into the bathroom to watch the lines appear, and then celebrated with the baristas who knew our struggles.  And as we waited for our drinks to be made we decided to nickname this baby “Joy” while he or she was growing inside me.

In case it’s rubbing you the wrong way, whenever we were expecting, we always talked about how WE were pregnant.  There were two people involved, both committed to raising any children God chose to bless us with.  And the meaning of pregnant that I always loved was “full of expectation!”  My husband and kids were as full of expectation as I was!  I was just the one full of baby as well.

So in that season all those years ago I knew what it was to be deeply in love with a baby I had just learned existed, and then to have to commit that baby completely into the hands of God, trusting the plan of the one who created us all.

And then the joy filled reality that I was carrying another unique person that God was forming in my womb moment by moment!  I was truly feeling all the feelings.  When you know the finality of loss in this world, it tempers joy.  It doesn’t eclipse it, but it lets you remember the sting that is possible.

It was time to put aside my sorrow and focus on taking care of myself and this new baby.  God had allowed me that oblivious time of mourning to process my hurt and gratefulness for being allowed to carry our little one even for a short time, to feel that connection again.  And I was back at the midwife’s office, arguing with her backup doctor that no, this wasn’t a twin of the baby I lost, I was sure this was a new pregnancy, and taking daily blood tests for a while to prove it, and then we were all amazed at how quickly I had been able to conceive again.  After seven long years of infertility.  It was truly two miracles in a row, and I was able to feel joy again.

Still I felt myself guarding my heart a little.  I was already past the time when I’d miscarried, but to ease my mind that I was doing all I could I waited for various milestones to come and go, letting more and more of my heart  be captured with hope that all would go well this time.

So two years ago, being immersed into life with Baby B felt much the same.  I knew the possibility of loss after Baby A moved on so quickly.  The circumstances were not ever in my control, but I could watch and see, could try to understand the system and how it all worked, and little by little I let myself begin to hope that we might be able to care for this child longer than the first foster baby.  Beyond a couple of months, I had no experience or knowledge.

And my heart, I know my heart wanted so badly to be all in.

Freefalling

14 Thursday Mar 2019

Posted by in Grandfostering, Parenting

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I grew up hearing a phrase, “Once burned, twice shy,” and like all things words I had spent some time trying to parse out what it meant.  I certainly had been burnt many times: candles, electric stove burners, oven racks, fireplace, car cigarette lighters, heating irons.  The things that burn you may be things you really need or want to be able to use.  So I had come to realize the phrase referred to caution, a hesistancy to stick your hand into something you knew would burn you.

So after Baby A left my daughter’s home in February 2017, I was ok with time passing before she took her next placement.  Burned maybe isn’t the perfect analogy, but the grief when she left certainly felt like surviving as if through a fire.  And I was hoping for time to heal before exposing myself again to being all in with a new baby. The second time around, yes, shy.

I wanted a couple of months or more before my daughter started entertaining the idea of taking in a new baby.  I hoped, for her heart, that she was able to work through her feelings and be emotionally focused on the next child, and I didn’t want her to feel rushed or forced to accept a placement if she wasn’t yet ready.

She started getting calls that she declined for good reasons.  When she told me about those coming in, my heart beat faster until I heard she turned them down.  Take your time, wait for the one that feels right.  It had barely been a month.

There’s another saying I heard as a child, “In for a penny, in for a pound.”  That one I deduced had to do with British currency, and how if you were willing to invest a small amount, why not go big and take a real chance?  That’s how I felt when I got the call.

Could I come over early evening that day?  Because a new baby girl was to be delivered by a caseworker to her home less than an hour before my daughter needed to leave for work.  Could I stay with her for a couple of hours until she got back home?

Just three months earlier, I was brand new to bottles and formula, but after two months with Baby A, I was a pro.  So with younger daughter in tow, we headed over to start the next big adventure.  With penny in hand.

Meeting Baby B was such a different experience from the first foster baby.  Same general circumstances: a baby in need of care, fresh from the hospital, just a few days old.  But we were all completely changed from three months before.

I was relieved to find my daughter just sitting with the baby.  Not worrying about getting everything prepped.  She only had a few minutes to greet this child, and I was glad she was spending it gazing at her, learning her little features, before running off for a few hours of work.

For me, I was ok not holding her right away.  I guess that was the same when meeting Baby A, when I was not sure what my heart would do once my arms embraced her. Only this time I knew, and I felt myself holding back, willing to be in for a penny, but not sure if I would be able to chance my heart on her, if there was room in there with Baby A.

Maybe you’ve heard someone express that idea, that adding a new baby would be too hard because how could you possibly divide your time and resources between two or more?  And the implication is, how could you divide your love?

I heard it as a parent, the protests increasing with the imminent birth of each of our five children, how hard it would surely be to raise more than the number of children the speaker was comfortable with.  There seemed to be a widespread misconception that the more kids you have, the less able you are to care for their needs.  But that wasn’t our experience.  In fact, I felt like it got easier as there were more people to look out for each other. And since I didn’t pay attention to how expensive children are supposed to be, I was always content to see how “again God provided for bills he’d incurred.”

So here we were, my younger daughter and I, meeting foster baby number two.  I let her hold Baby B first, watching them, taking some pictures, getting one of the premixed bottles from the hospital ready to feed her.

I was amused by the downright grumpy look on her face.  This child definitely had her own opinion of this outside world she was now a part of.  Her dominant expression was a scowl, though she was dry, warm, held gently, talked to quietly.  Still she looked mad at everyone and everything.  For a brief moment I thought maybe it would be possible to hold my feelings aloof for a while, just in case this didn’t work out.  I knew nothing about her circumstances, and as with the first foster I knew my daughter’s hope was to be able to reunify this little girl with her mother.

So when it was evident she was ready to eat, I took her into my arms for the first time.  I looked into her skeptical face, trying not to match it by smiling into those eyes as dark as my daddy’s had been.  I’d always wished for a brown-eyed baby, and here she was.

She was impatient for milk, and as soon as I got the nipple into her mouth she sucked vigorously, emptying the small amount in less than two minutes.  Yet another way she was different from Baby A, who had a perpetual dribble of milk out one side of her mouth, who took a long time to finish any bottle, needing burped often.  Baby B was certainly her own person.

In my younger years, before husband and children, I imagined myself to be an adventurer, a risk-taker.  I would list the things I expected to do in my adult life: skydiving, hang gliding, skiing, surfing.  All things I never got around to doing.

And then, bottle finished, I lifted up this tiny bundle, wrapped my arms around her, and my heart leaped off the ledge.

 

 

 

 

 

Five Weeks of Heaven

17 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in Grandfostering, Parenting

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IMG_1651Five weeks old.  That’s when a foster baby can enter daycare.  So on top of no maternity leave, foster parents also have to find acceptable temporary caregivers for their newborn charges, which can be people they choose to be emergency backups.  In my daughter’s case, I was one.

An emergency caregiver goes through a simple background check and fingerprinting, but in order to pass that, there’s a lifetime of being a decent person that came first.  For what it’s worth.

The timing of those five weeks was great, from just before our Christmas break  into the first of the year.  Some days my younger daughter would come along, or Papa, as my husband wanted to be called, would stop by between jobs to get some cuddle time in.  My older daughter would pop in as she could, but for the most part it was just me and Baby A all day long.

Funny thing, when my kids were newborns, I had no desire, time or ability to plot out a schedule of any kind.  I’m a blowin’ in the wind kind of gal, so I liked the freedom to do what we wanted.  I didn’t work outside the home until  our youngest was a few years old, and I wasn’t worried about chores.  My husband and I loved our cozy home and our laughing kids.

With Baby A I was introduced to apps that keep track of how much a little one eats and sleeps and needs a clean diaper and probably lots more that I wasn’t aware of.  And surprise!  My daughter wanted the rundown when she got home to plot things out.  That was probably the hardest thing for me, getting used to keeping statistics like Baby A was a baseball player.

I would drive home thinking  I didn’t know how many ounces of breastmilk my babies drank, I just knew they had plenty of wet and soiled diapers.  Nor could I tell you how long they slept.  The chill-out hormones running wild in me knocked me out so I napped with them, and we all woke up rested and content and oblivious to how much time had passed.  But then, those were my own children, and I didn’t have to answer to anyone for their progress.

With this foster baby, I guess there needed to be some way of proving she was getting enough formula and her body was functioning as it should, but it all seemed tedious to me.  Time would tell if she thrived or had some struggles, and my eyes would glaze over when it came time to count.  I was more interested in how many smiles I saw in a day than how many diapers.

Even though I don’t like rigid schedules, I did develop a rhythm with Baby A.  I’d brew some coffee and try for a daily devotion and journaling time before she woke up, followed by breakfast.  Of course her needs always determined what happened when – that much was the same.  Then feeding and changing and dressing, playing and singing and talking until she was ready to sleep again.  And reheating abandoned coffee.

I often let her sleep on my lap or the couch right next to me as I knitted washrags for her baths.  We had lots of quiet times, no tv, or on very quietly.  There was a little song from an old movie that I would sing to her, “Baby Mine”, and it became our thing, singing while I changed her to hold her attention (I never made it past the second verse because she didn’t like being exposed).  Or as I held her close to calm her if she were fussy.

As had happened with my youngest, I got to watch her roll over on her own for the first time at only a couple of weeks old.  Of course it was a one-time thing that didn’t repeat for months, but it was thrilling, the shocked look at finding herself flipped over.

Almost everything brought a smile to her face.  Yes, a real smile.  Yes, almost right away.  Her resting face always held a hint of it, the corners of her mouth perpetually curved up.  I spent most of that five weeks enjoying those smiles.  And she wasn’t just smiling at nothing.  Baby A had great focus, especially looking into the many faces of people who held her, and she was alert whenever she was awake.

One thing that was just the same as with my own kids, was how fast that first five weeks flew by.  Before I knew it the day came when she could officially go to daycare, where others would feed and burp, change and cuddle, rock and put her down to sleep.  And I’m sure they would be efficient and conscientious.

But they wouldn’t be me.

There’s a passage in Luke 2 that’s telling all that happened around the birth of Jesus.  Mary and Joseph traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the census, with Mary very pregnant because she gives birth shortly after they arrive.  Meanwhile, shepherds are out in the hills where first one angel appears and announces the birth of the Savior, Messiah, Master, and then a huge choir of angels joins them all, singing praises to God over the birth of this child who forever changed the world.  And all the details aren’t mapped out for us, but the shepherds went to find Jesus, and I’m sure they couldn’t help but share all the excitement they’d experienced with Mary and Joseph.

When a baby is born, each mother, each father tends to think of them as their own.  And for years many of us have that luxury of caring for our own children in our home.  If they are in daycare, we know that they will return to the security of our family in our home every day.

With a foster baby, there’s a very real sense that this baby doesn’t belong to the foster family, or the birth family, or the local children’s services agency.  At least nothing is for sure until a lot of steps are taken and all the options explored and eliminated one by one.

One thing that I have no doubt of, after spending five weeks in the heaven of being with Baby A almost every day, is that each baby is made by God with a plan and a purpose.  And for however long the relationship lasts, after those five weeks I was deeply sure that I was privileged and honored to love this child from the beginning of her days, no matter what course her life would take, no matter how many different people enter it or declare claims on her or make plans for her.

In those weeks I thought a lot about Mary, and the wonder and confusion all the attention given to her baby must have created in her, and this verse kept going through my mind:

Luke 2:19    Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself.
  My heart, too, holds many things dear.  Like how this child has changed my world.