Category Archives: Parenting

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

≈ 1 Comment

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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.

Grandfostering

10 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in Grandfostering, Parenting

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IMG_2953God, in his truly infinite wisdom, gives women a time to bear children for a season, and then we move on to another season.  One of emptying nests, which in our house has involved helping kids navigate licenses and cars, college and jobs, and gradually the nest is getting emptier.  We’re not going to be done with that whole season for years, thankfully, because we do enjoy having our children in our home.

Along with the independence of growing teens, at this stage of life I as a woman have gone through hormonal changes that have some interesting effects.  I have become more patient.  I am able to listen to and babble with kids for long periods of time, and not be frustrated by getting nothing done.  This is an actual thing.  It’s not just my personal laid back nature, but a way God designed us to be able to love unconditionally at a time when our children may be producing grandchildren for us to nurture.

I had read about this benefit of menopause before our daughter started fostering, and I was eager to see if I would actually have the patience to spend long periods of time with a newborn baby again.  I remember those days so well, as busy as they were, of unending next things to do.  Nursing, and cloth diapers, and spitting up, and changing outfits only to have another blowout diaper, and remembering that I needed to keep drinking water to make milk, and eat as well, and finding five minutes to fix food, and almost never getting a real dinner on the table.  We won’t even talk about how many days I could go without a shower because I fell soundly asleep while getting the baby down at night.

Now it was my turn to watch my daughter rush around and make sure she got all her stuff done before starting her work day,  while I was at her house holding the baby.  And then she would leave, and our time would begin.

I didn’t know what to consider myself in relation to Baby A.  Not only was this a whole new experience, but one with no known outcome.  Would this baby be wanted by her birth mother?  Would there be visits with mom, would she be able to work out whatever issues led to her child being placed in foster care and regain custody?  My daughter had hopes that Baby A could be reunified with her mom, but in those early days we had no way of knowing if and when that might happen.

And what if it wasn’t going to work out, if mom wasn’t able to care for this child?  What would happen to this baby?  Our daughter was certified to foster to adopt as well as fostering.  So when there was no contact with mom in those first few weeks, we held very high hopes that Baby A would someday be adopted by our daughter and be a permanent part of our family.

I don’t understand all the laws and rules and services that apply to fostering, but in our experience  we learned that the approved day care wouldn’t take a foster baby until they were five weeks old.  And after doing some research into short-term, in home care with a certified provider, my daughter was disappointed by the lack of choices and quality care out there.  So that left her with very real needs to find someone to care for her newborn foster baby, since most employers also do not allow any paid leave while the foster parent adjusts to their new circumstances.

I am honestly amazed at how hard it is to have a successful fostering relationship.  When I was expecting my children, I had nine months to anticipate, plan, rearrange my home and life to welcome a new member of the family.  And while a certified foster parent knows they can get a call at any time asking them to drop everything and take in a child who needs a home, that doesn’t account for the fact that this child will be a true unknown.  They have to learn everything, take the child where they are as far as age and health and life experiences, and accept them into their home and family with a couple of hours’ notice.

I couldn’t take in an overnight guest with that short a warning.

While my daughter had gathered all the equipment she needed on hand, put up gates and took safety measures to satisfy home inspections, she found the short-term care options available to her were not going to be adequate.  And thankfully my work schedule was light and our homeschooled teens were able to keep up their schoolwork so that I could be with the new baby, giving her the attention and care she needed.

So what did that make me in those first weeks?  If my daughter was the foster mom, was I the foster grandma?  I didn’t like the sound of that.  This grandfostering was going to be tougher than I thought.  Long before my daughter started calling herself mom, I decided I wanted to be Mamaw, like my grandma was to me.  I needed words to use as I cuddled and cooed with this tiny girl, a name for her to take in and know it meant safe and dry and fed and loved.  Mamaw Becky.   It sounded real.  It sounded permanent.  So be it.

So for the first five weeks I took advantage of all those hormone shifts and held that baby.  In my arms, on my lap, lying next to her on the floor, sometimes putting her down in a rock and play while she slept.  Talking to her, telling her story, telling her mine, singing and praying over her, pouring love all over her, sometimes with words.  And so did she.

What does Christmas Mean?

27 Thursday Dec 2018

Posted by in Christmas, Parenting

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I have a confession to make.  I have really mixed feelings about Christmas.

To give you a setting, I’m writing this post the week before.  All my kids are in town. (Yeah!)  Our business has had a good year, for which we are grateful.  Our granddaughter is officially adopted.  We are reasonably healthy and happy.  But I am having my annual inner dialogue about  Christmas.

Like carols.  People rave how great they are, but  I’m not buying it.  My husband will ask why, and I have no logical reasons. Those old, traditional hymns  need translation into modern English for me to understand. I learned them all as a child, but choose not to sing them now.

So it’s hard to get through church services during advent, and a relief when it’s done.  For me, traditional music puts a real damper on my enthusiasm for Christmas.

I turn off the old songs and listen to what my heart is trying to tell me.

I keep coming back to the gifts.  Do you get what you ask for?  There’s a running thing in our house.  For any gift occasion, if my kids ask what I want, I’ll say, “Obedient children.”  I’ll let you imagine if I get that.  (I DO keep asking.)

As a child I didn’t get many gifts, but enough to know I was loved.  Our church collected gifts for us preacher’s kids, and gave Mom and Dad money.  We’d have guests at dinner that added to the festivities, and gifts for each other bought with money we’d saved throughout the year.

As  adults, us siblings exchanged presents for many years until we all had kids and were more focused on THEIR gifts.  In our home my husband and I tried limiting  gifts to avoid feelings of entitlement in our kids in the early years, but it didn’t make any of us more pious.

Bottom line, I love having a room full of kids opening piles of gifts we’ve picked out for each other.

There.  I’ve said it.  For me, Christmas is about the gifts.

Which probably sounds really weird for a very grateful follower of Jesus Christ.

I love reading the historical truth of the circumstances of his birth, letting the details hit me fresh.  And I’m thankful for Jesus’ very real presence in my life. I just can’t reconcile  why the religious world in which I’ve always operated places so much importance on Christmas, and at the same time leaves me feeling vaguely pagan for enjoying the gift-giving so much.

I love it when someone knows me so well, inside and out, that they think of and find or create a something that is so perfect for me, the me they “get”, that I am ecstatic and moved and blubbering by the time I get it unwrapped and let the wonder of them finding such a perfect-for-me gift, wrap around me like a long, warm hug.

It’s not the “things” as much as the love I’m longing for.

And I love being the one who can occasionally think up that perfect gift for someone else.  I will admit I am not the best at this, because I absolutely hate shopping, but I have good intentions.

Having grown up in a family where we were poor but our needs were met, by parents who didn’t spend foolishly on frivolous things because they’d grown up with next to nothing, I have a hard time spending money on anything.  Ask my kids.  If it’s not a staple food it better be on sale.  If we need something for the house, same thing applies.  I rarely buy clothes or shoes or “toys” for myself, and it doesn’t occur to me to get them for my kids.  So I’m really bad at knowing if they have enough, and they often wait until they are low on inventory before they let me know.

Except at Christmas.  That’s when I splurge and have to stop myself from going into debt to buy all the things I’d like to get them.  It’s like I give myself permission to let my heart lead, and make my natural thriftiness be quiet for a few weeks, while I try to figure out what makes a good gift.

It isn’t always this way.  There are years when money is tight, we’re going through tough times,  when deaths tone everything down. Still there are gifts.

Matthew 7:11 (NIV)

11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

When I think of my own kids,  I have no desire to give them things that would harm them.  I often think of things I wish they would appreciate, because they could benefit from them, but they  aren’t ready yet, so I wait.  And if the day ever came when they approached me, asking for that perfect-for-them gift I’ve always wanted to give them, I would be ecstatic.

The decorations,  parties, tv specials and Hallmark movies, plays and concerts and yes, even the Christmas carols.  I don’t see anything necessary in any of it.

Except the gifts.

I’m not saying it’s all about the gifts.  But it’s at least partly about the gifts.  And the giving.

We, in the churches, often talk about Jesus being the real gift of Christmas.  No argument there.  Jesus, God in the body of a baby boy who grew to be a man who lived a radically different life and died an eternity-opening death that made it possible for us to receive the freely given gift of eternal life.

It will take to my last breath and beyond to understand the starting point for my faith.

So then to add that “then how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him” part is even harder to grasp.

You sacrifice your Son for the sin of the world, because I choose to disobey and turn away from you, and yet you say that if I come into relationship with you as Father, and me your obedient child, you will give me good gifts beyond forgiveness, salvation, being forever with you?

Am I brave enough to ask for those gifts?

Because right there is the only one who knows me.  I have spent my Christmases wishing someone would “get” me enough to give me a perfect-for-me gift, and all along God has an unlimited number of them ready.  Waiting for me to ask him for the gifts he has picked out just for me.  Seeking to know him through the gifts.  Knocking on the door and being welcomed in to open those gifts and laugh and cry and feel completely loved.

And even I, who is undeniably evil compared to God, hope that I’ve been able to give a few good gifts this year.

Baby A

20 Thursday Dec 2018

Posted by in Grandfostering, Parenting

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I have always been a very hands-on mom.  My kids were held.  A lot.  As much as possible for as long as they would let me.  When we got home from the hospital with our firstborn, we stopped in the doorway of the room we’d prepared for him, and I knew I could not put him down so far away from my heart.  So I followed my instincts, regardless of what any parenting expert of the day might say.  My children were all totally present with me as much as possible, waking and sleeping, breastfeeding for years, no rigid schedules, no idea how much they were eating, just the evidence of happy babies and children.  Secure, needs met, loved.

As my older children became adults, my thoughts would go to someday when they were married and had kids, what would my role be, how much involvement would they allow in caring for their babies?  Other than my husband and our mothers, very few people ever had access to ours.  Only time would tell how my kids would feel about me caring for their little ones.

I don’t remember talking with my older daughter much about how she saw my role, my duties, how much involvement she had in mind.  Honestly, I don’t think she realized how extensive it would end up being, caring for her foster baby while she worked those first few weeks.  And being a single, working woman, we’d never had reasons to “what if” about someday babies.

So that first day, meeting her first foster newborn, I didn’t want to overstep any boundaries.  What I wanted was to hold that baby girl! My husband and younger daughter got her first, taking their time learning her face, hoping for a glimpse into her eyes, into her.  It was so exciting!  We’d really had no idea that when they said our daughter would be certified by Thanksgiving, she would actually have her first placement on December 10: this three day old girl she had picked up from the hospital, and to protect her privacy had decided to call her Baby A to the general public.

My daughter loves schedules and plans and routines, and because of her nature and her schooling and her jobs working with little ones and their parents, she was eager to get this baby on a schedule, detailing when she’d had her last bottle at the hospital and what time it would be before she got hungry for the next one.  And I just had to keep quiet.

Because babies can’t tell time.

But before I had to worry about whether I was getting everything done according to the plan that would be detailed to me over the next few weeks, I most wanted to just hold this baby.

Finally my chance.

Jesus says in Mark 9:37:

“Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”

I knew this child was not bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh in any material sense.  Nor was she born of my daughter.  But my arms knew how to cradle her, steadfast heartbeat how to pick up the faster rhythm of a tiny one and sense when it is restless or calm and slow the breathing and hold against warm skin, and feel the syncopation of two hearts taking each other in.

Welcome, welcome sweet girl.  How could I not know I’d been waiting for this very child?  Thank you, Jesus, for this gift.

There are no guarantees with fostering.  My daughter had no way of knowing how long this child would be in her home, in our lives.  But from that first day, there was something I knew for sure.

My heart was irrevocably, intimately connected with Baby A.

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