Things Fall Apart

I think I can't win! On Friday, almost a week ago, Madison's teachers told me, "We have 30 students in here. We just can't give her all the attention she wants, so she finds it any way she can get it....and we just don't know what to do with her."

Well, they didn't have to tell me twice. I went down the road, and Madison started her new daycare on Monday! So far, so good. She went from having 10 consecutive bad days, to four darn good ones. Or maybe the new place is just afraid to tell me yet....

That's okay....I'll take it. When asked why she's made such a complete turn around, Madison will tell you it's because of the guinea pig at her new school. I think the real reason is that my mom and I have made a real effort to congratulate her for every little baby step and good effort she makes toward being good, which includes not lying and not arguing.....her 2 favorite things to do. Watch out Johnny Cochran!



It's so hard to teach my little girl not to lie and not to argue, when I see liars everywhere rise to the top, and when a little sticking up for herself might be the only thing that keeps her from trying drugs, or letting some boy push her around. In a lot of ways, I'm proud of her for trying to tell her teachers what is fair, and it opened up a girl deep inside of me that's been beat down too many times to stick her head out. All of a sudden I remember all the times I said, "It's not fair!" and I can't believe those words aren't even in my vocabulary anymore. I grew up thinking I could make things more fair for people by becoming an attorney or a social worker. Somehow I wound up a teacher....and still I thought I could stop the bullying or somehow equalize the playing field.

Wouldn't the world be a better place if we let ourselves fight for what is fair every now and then? And can't I think of a few times where, if I just could have come up with a lie, instead of being completely honest, everything would have been better?

But, I search my heart some more, and I know that I have to teach her what is right, and that I have to get her past the thinking that what is right is always fair, because I think it's taken me 33 years to figure that one out.

So as Madison and I navigate this world with our strong sense of justice, Tyler has been navigating it in his own way too.

The little boy who always got in trouble, is now the little boy who follows every rule. The pendulum has swung, and he now insists on being the best, the smartest, the winner. At everything.

Right now in my family, we have what is right is not always fair, and what is fair is not always what helps you win. And...it's getting a little hard to balance!

Tonight, I yelled at him for telling me I was wrong. Again. And it made him cry. When talking to him and rubbing his back, I think I discovered that he realizes he has been being too hard on all of us, trying to make sure all the rules are followed, and he felt a little guilty at nitpicking everything we do. He might have also realized he's being too hard on himself.

It's so hard to teach my little boy not to try to be the best and not to try to help others see what is right, when I want so much for him myself, and I don't want him to stop short of achieving absolutely every dream that he can possibly imagine. In a lot of ways, I'm proud of him for trying to keep us all on the right path and make sure we are aiming for perfection. All of a sudden, I remembered that other little part of me that used to say, "I know I can do better! I know I can make it to the top!" That part that used to want everything to be perfect. I would come home at 2 in the morning in college, and I would make sure I washed my face and FLOSSED for goodness sake. Don't most people just pass out....make up, beer breath and all? I wanted to be in control, darn it. I edited and printed and edited and printed out my papers so many times that I'm pretty sure I'm the reason that paper recycling had to be implemented on such a large scale.

I guess I still struggle with wanting everything and everyone to be perfect. I bite my tongue sometimes to not correct someone's grammar or tell him or her a better way of handling something. And when I was very young, I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders. Trying to get all A's and trying to be the best. I grew up thinking I could change the world, inspire people, and, because of all my hard work, become some rich and well known philanthropist.




And wouldn't the world be a better place if we pushed ourselves a little harder and spoke the truth in love to help someone become a little better? And can't I think of more than a few times where, if I just would have worked a little harder, I could have achieved my dream instead of falling just short?

But, I search my heart some more, and I know that I have to teach him that hard work doesn't always get you where you need to go. Sometimes it's having money, or being a certain color, or who he may know. One day, he will find out that sometimes being the winner doesn't really make you feel as if you've won. I have to teach him the balance between working yourself so hard that you feel as if you are going off the deep end, and working hard enough to achieve your goals....but I also have to teach him that if he claws his way to the top but steps on others to get there, somehow he isn't quite being his best. After all, sometimes those who stand at the top look around.... and find that they are all alone. And while I'm teaching him how to be his best and how to follow his dreams, I'm pretty sure the little voice inside of me will be shouting, "Don't forget to be fair!!"

...or maybe it will be his little sister's voice that he hears after all.

So as Madison, Tyler, and I try to navigate justice with winning, I will teach them to put God first and to pray a lot. Because I'm 33...and I still haven't figured a lot of this out!



"...but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." Romans 5: 3-5

I think your truck is sexy.

I just got back from Iowa, and I went there to visit a guy. We talked on the phone more in the week before I went to visit him than I talked to my last boyfriend the entire year we dated.

I'm pretty sure I loved my new guy 100 times more than I ever loved my old boyfriend.

And we'd only known each other for 1 week.

In that one week, however, we talked for a total of....30.5 hours. That's 10 days, for 2 hours each day, and sometimes 3. And one night for 5 hours, with the following day another 4 1/2. That adds up to 30.5 hours in 10 days. Total. I think that's a lot. Especially since I have a full time job, and 2 kids. We did all of our talking after the kids were asleep...so don't worry. But I did lose a lot of sleep! It didn't matter though because I was running on pure excitment and adreneline!

We talked about God, religion, divorce, making out and what is okay to do before marriage, our kids, our jobs, our houses, our renovations, our hobbies, our dogs, how he keeps his dog outside (which I gave him trouble about), how he likes to garden, how I'm trying to get closer to God, how I'm obsessed with my dogs and take them everywhere, what it feels like to be a single parent, how important it is to have friends and how he has so many, our parents, our grandparents, hunting (his love for it and my feelings about never wanting to be involved in it) and.... our excitement for one another.

After talking for about 5 hours, he asked me when I was going to come visit. That made me nervous. I have been working on so many things in my life, and going slow with relationships is one of them. He hung up and called me back to ask me this, but I told him that made me nervous. I was hoping to meet at a later time and just talk for a while on the phone. I wanted to get to know one another before jumping into anything. I think I said that a few times.

15 hours of talking later, I was on my way to Iowa.

I was too excited by then. I had shared too much of myself, asked too many questions, gotten too many amazing responses. I'd been told too many times how excited he was about me and how he couldn't stop smiling. He even told me he let his dog inside for a while one night while we were talking. He told me he'd thanked our friend for setting us up, told his mom about me, and wanted me to meet his friends! And he told me what a hard time he had texting...but still he texted me. He even emailed me every day that he said he would. And lest I forget, he even put his 4 year old and his 1 year old on the phone to say, "Hi Stephanie..." to me!

I decided to be on my way to Iowa because I was afraid of myself. I have had too many blind dates to know that some brown teeth, a bad haircut, or an annoying facial expression is enough to make me go running. And I know that the image I have in my head of "the one" is hard to match. I didn't get to be 32 and single for nothing.

So I figured I better head up there after all, before I found myself losing sleep and talking on the phone for 20 more hours to someone who just wasn't going to make my heart race.

But he did.

Our conversation was just as good in person...and he even looked BETTER than he did in his picture...which never happens!

When I got there, I never expected to feel the same about him in person as I had all those hours getting to know him on the phone.

I also never expected this: he didn't like me.

The night I spent at his house we talked until 3AM, and woke up at 7. I left at noon, and except for 1 phone call to make sure I found the highway, I never heard from him again.

In the days before driving up there, I never called him. I say this to PROVE to you that I didn't make him like me, and mostly to prove it to myself.

In those 10 days, HE called me every night at 8:30, almost like clockwork...which I loved. HE asked me to come up for a visit, and even told me I could bring my dogs....INSIDE. HE told me he was ready for a relationship and didn't need more time to recover from his divorce. HE emailed me...when I never emailed him. And did I mention... HE told me how excited he was?

It makes me angry that I allowed myself to be so sucked in. I had good intentions of trying to take it slow, and I'm proud of myself for not calling him or emailing him. I'm proud of myself for letting him set the pace. But I guess that's where I went wrong. I know enough now to know what a healthy pace is, and I should have done better to do it right.

In the end, I really don't know what happened. What I do know is how it made me feel.

It made me feel mad at myself for not sticking to my guns and taking things slow. For envisioning myself with a hunter, thinking I could have a long distance relationship, and believing the words that he said about being ready.

It made me feel hurt because I always thought one day, God would put someone in my life who I absolutely positively could be excited about. Someone with whom I wouldn't have to temper my emotions or hold back my feelings. Someone I didn't have to play games with or lie to or hold back from. And I figured that with all the emotional hard work I've been doing lately, God had decided that the time was right for me to finally feel safe in the arms of the one He has chosen for me.

And I know that one day He will. But I'd hoped that one day was last week.

So, God, I will keep waiting, and like all of the other people and ideas you have put into my life, I will keep learning. I will grow and pray and rely on my new friends to help me through. But God, right now, I just can't shake the pain that I feel from being so utterly and totally rejected.





"Above all else, Guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." Proverbs 4:23

So THAT'S what friends are for...

One of the things I have been working on so hard for a while now is making connections. You would think it would be easy for me right? After all, I put all of these personal details about my life out to the world, I can talk a mile a minute, I'm outgoing, and I'm brave. And yes I am all those things, but I am also lonely. And I've been that way for 32 years.


I didn't hear the things God was telling me about making connections and having friends until my counselor and my church and my friends started making it all clear.

We need connections! God made Eve for Adam and God exists as the Trinity. We are never supposed to be alone! And God.. how I didn't know that!!

How I tried so hard to do everything by myself! I didn't ask for help, didn't need help, didn't want help. Except I did.

I used to think everything had to be perfect or else not at all. I thought if a relationship wasn't strong and solid with no hurt feelings and no miscommunication and only good times, then it wasn't a relationship worth having at all. If someone hurt my feelings, I was out. If someone made me feel too good, I was out. If someone was inconsistent or didn't call when she said she would call, or messed up a few too many times, I thought we couldn't be friends.

But I was wrong. And when I adopted two of the most beautiful, intelligent, wonderful, funny, loving, and DIFFICULT children.... God finally made me see. By giving me something, someONE....TWO SOMEONES that I just couldn't give up on, God made me see that relationships were worth fighting for. Friends are worth having.

I do not have one single friend from high school that I still talk to on a regular basis. I don't have sorority sisters who call me and ask me to go to dinner or to go on girl's weekends. I don't have a childhood friend who, though we haven't talked in years, makes me feel like we were never apart. I don't have any of that. And I never knew what I was missing.

What I do have are new friends. And new feelings. And the realization, this from my counselor, that "doing life" is messy. It hurts and it feels good. It can be messed up and twisted and inside out and upside down, but it IS. It is life and it is connection and it is God working through others and it is gentleness and goodness and imperfection. And where have I been for 32 years? How did I not know this?

What made me think that I could do this alone? What made me think that every time something became hard or imperfect, it was time for me to throw in the towel?

I feel like an idiot.




I can't believe I spent 32 years thinking I didn't need friends. Thinking that it was too hard to cultivate a relationship and WAY TOO HARD to find one that lasts.

But as one of my new friends has told me: "Some people spend their whole lives and never figure this out!" And as another new friend has told me, after I apologize for talking her ear off about something I'm stressed about: "That's what friends are for." And I have another friend who is proud enough of me to tell other people about my blog. And another who asked me if I needed to borrow money. And another who told me about something awful she has had to endure. And another who just said..."Amen sister."

And I'm finding out that friends are nice. And I need them. I even need the critism and the hurt. And I'm sorry to all the special people I've had in my life during the years when I just thought that I didn't.

...during the years when I thought if you hurt my feelings that meant you didn't care about me. And when I thought if you forgot to call me it meant you didn't want to be with me. And when I thought that if you said something I didn't want to hear it meant you didn't like the person I was.

I'm sorry. I have missed out on some GREAT friendships. I see now all of the trips I've missed and baby showers I didn't go to and husbands I have never met. And I'm sorry to all of my old friends for bailing out on the times we've had together. I know that I hurt you, but I want you to know....I hurt me more.

And through this blog, I've started to shed the pain. And through this blog, I've started to make some friends. And after this blog, damn it, I'm going to keep some friends. Because now I know.


I need you. And I want to share all of the experiences I have with someone else. I don't want to be alone anymore.

Got problems?

I haven't been "inspired" to blog in a long time. For a while there I was on such a role I thought I would never run out of topics. And then after 5, I did. And I wondered why.

I even almost started to feel guilty! I had so much positive feedback on the blogs I did write, and I felt like I was falling short of the expectation. So, again, I wondered why.

Why did I have so much material at the beginning, and lately...nothing? And I came to a conclusion! I was in pain. I had been carrying around the pain of those first memories with my children, and I hadn't really told anyone how hard it had been. I didn't let anyone see how hard Tyler had to work to become a "normal" and "typical" little boy. I didn't tell anyone how difficult it is to guide an "independent" 4year old. A 4 year old who became independent because she had to be. When you are 1 and you don't have a mom who hugs you when you hurt or feeds you when you are hungry, that independence sprouts out of necessity. And when you are 4 and you have a mom who wants you to brush your teeth and pick up your clothes, that independence tries hard not to take a backseat! Especially since that independence is what kept you alive!

So when I thought about my blogging I realized why I had so much material....at first. I even had a friend from high school tell me directly.... "Your writing is too negative! Hasn't anything good happened in your life?"

And of course it has. But those blogs were my counselor. They were my cries in the night. They were my prayers, my hopes, and my tears. I had to get them out because I'd been keeping them in for so long. Kind of like a Happy New Year! This is your fresh start. Shed your old skin, climb into your new shell, emerge from the coccoon!

I shared those personal and for me, traumatic, events as part of a long process I've undertaken to be the best God wants me to be....and it worked!

Since I've written those entries, I have felt more free! I have felt amazingly close to what God has intended for me. I can think more clearly, make better decisions, play more games with my kids...and lighten up!

So thank you, friends, for listening! Thank you for sharing! Thank you for your loving comments and your own personal revelations that have helped me to make connections I never would have had!

I'm so inspired these days that I've been too busy living to blog! And what a truly great problem to have!

Pick up your crap

I just got home from walking my dogs around the neighborhood, which I rarely do. My dogs and I are more of a run though the woods type trio. We don't like the leashes, we don't like the cars, and we don't like people stopping to yell at us. Well, actually, this is the the first time someone has stopped to yell at us.

For this particular reason anyway.

So there we are, nearing the end of our walk. We're in the home stretch. We have probably walked a few miles, through a Dierberg's parking lot, through some empty lots, and we're making it back into the subdivision...when of course, my dog poops.

Now one of my dogs has been so abused that he refuses to poop while on a leash. He gets as far away as possible from anyone and makes sure, if he's not far enough away, that at least he can still see you. You're safe with him. He won't poop on your lawn.

My other dog, yes, I should bring a bag. But I don't. Partly because I don't think about it because I hardly ever walk around the neighborhood, partly because I know he got most if not all of it out this morning in the back yard, and partly because I just cannot see myself carrying around a bag of poop for like a mile or so: I think I would puke.

And then who would clean that up?

Anyway, sure enough, here we are when Ross decides to squeak out whatever is left in his colon on someone's front lawn. It's not likely they'd be looking out the window right? And they aren't. But, sure enough, a car rounds the corner right as he pops a squat.

And the car brakes. And the man watches. And we begin walking again.

The man pulls in a driveway. We walk faster. He turns around, speeds to catch us, puts on his brakes and yells, "You need to pick up that shit! There's shit all over this neighborhood and it's all from you!" (He really says this!) We keep walking, he pulls up some more, "It's the LAW you know?!!" I keep walking and say, "You're right sir" several times as I begin panicking, thinking he's going to keep harassing me all the way home! But he stops, turns around, and I make it home.

Now he was right. I know that. It is the law. It's also common courtesy. It's also gross. While we were walking, I could not believe how many piles I almost stepped on. How many piles I had to drag my dogs away from. All I did was contribute. And I know I was wrong.

But here's where this blog comes in, because this interchange began to conjure up memories of other times I was berated. Sometimes I was wrong, sometimes I was not.

But I need to make this point. Are we really seeing the big picture? You know, the one God has in mind for us?

Does that man know how hard I try on a day to day basis? Does he know about my prayers, my trials in adoption, my hard work at school and the behaviors my students exhibit daily? Does he know I rescued my dogs from certain death? Does he know I lie awake at night alone and scared? Does he know I struggle to pay my bills every month in spite of all my hard work? Does he know that this walk is probably the only time to myself that I will have all week??

I know that he doesn't. And I know that I can't tell him. But everytime someone berates me, I wish that I could.

I also wish I could encourage him to find his own niche. I wish I could have a conversation with him. A real one. I think I could be some encouragement to him if I could only speak the truth in love and say, "Is this really what you have to do with your time, sir? Because if it is, maybe you need to adopt a child, volunteer in Haiti, help your neighbors, pray some more, read a good book, or fix dinner for your wife."

And maybe I would find out that he does do ALL of these things, but I don't think so. I know that in real life, I would never be able to tell him all this, but I wish that I could.

When my son first started kindergarten, he'd been with me for 2 and a half years. He went to his West County school with a background that I would venture to say NO other parent or child at that school could even imagine. Again, I could be wrong. But I say this to emphasize the fact that he was working on some things. He had a hard time telling right from wrong. After all, when your mom tells you to steal, how can you even know up from down?

One time, in art, he said some inappropriate things. The teacher called me. I was investigated. And at the meeting, I reminded them all about the long letter I had written before he started at that school, telling them all that he had endured. They hadn't read it. They thought when he talked about what his mom did with her boyfriend, he was talking about me.

We cleared some things up, I talked tearfully with Tyler, and he began to understand a little more about right and wrong.

The next day, I get a call from a neighbor mom. She said to me, "I want you to know that your son said some things in art that were just appalling." She said it with anger. She said it with malice. And she said it in a condescending tone that told me, a new mom, that I just wasn't doing things right.

I wish I could have told her then all the same things I wish I could have told the old man today. And I know that I can't. But everytime someone berates me, I wish that I could.

The last incident that came to mind as this man was yelling at me to "pick up the shit" is something that happened to me when I was teaching in one of those West County schools. I'd been teaching 8th grade for 3 years. Doing the absolute best that I could every day. Just out of college, trying my new ideas, grading my little heart out, and providing the most enthusiastic lessons I think anyone has ever created!

That year, I got called into my principal's office.

It was very serious. I had to have my union representative with me. My principal had to have his representative with him, and I just felt sick. I had no idea why I was there. But what he said was this: "Did you use the word 'crap' in your classroom?"

What I felt at that moment was immediate relief! Well yes I used that word! In fact, I think what I said was, "Make sure you pick up the crap under your desk."

And once again, I was wrong. I see now that I could have chosen a more appropriate way to say that. I know that I was an example, a model, a leader, a teacher. I could have done better. But wasn't I inspiring my students in other ways? Wasn't I teaching them how to write the best essays of their lives, encouraging them, listening to them, helping them understand the ins and outs of prepositional phrases, gerunds, and infinitives? Wasn't I listening to their hearts?

None of that mattered. All it said in my record that year was that I used inappropriate language. And it followed me.

I wish I could have told my principal then all the same things I wish I could have told the old man today. But I knew that I couldn't.

Still....everytime someone berates me, I wish that I could.

I lasted one more year there, and I resigned. I know God had a greater purpose for me, but it still hurt. Years after that, I ran into one of the mothers of a girl I had that year. She grabbed me, looked in my eyes while her own eyes welled up with tears and said, "You saved my daughter's life." "You made her feel good about herself and her writing. You gave her something to hold onto at a time when she didn't feel like she had anything. She would have killed herself that year....I just know it. But she didn't. Thanks to you."

I saved a girl's life!!! I can't even tell you what that means to me.

But the only thing anyone else remembered from that year was the crap.

That is an honest-to-God true story, and it's the story I hang on to when I'm being yelled at about picking up my crap.

My point in all this is: we have to make sure we aren't focusing on the crap. God has a bigger picture for all of our lives. And you don't know what His picture is...you CAN'T find what His picture is for you, or for me, when you are yelling at me to pick up my crap...or when I am yelling at you to pick up yours.

I make mistakes. We all do. But most of us are trying....and wouldn't it be nice if someone could recognize that?

So to the old man who wants me to pick up my poop, to the neighborhood mom who doesn't think I'm doing a good job, and to my old school principal, I'd like to say to you: Look at the big picture....because you never know who it is that you're telling to pick up the crap.

"For now I see through a glass, darkly, but then I shall see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete. But then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now."
1 Corinthians 19: 12-18

They're calling me up

So tonight for the first time, I watched The Rookie with Dennis Quaid. This movie fit in nicely with some thoughts I've been having about my dreams. Not the kind of dreams that you have at night while you are asleep, or even the kind of dreams you have while you sit through a boring lecture in class.

But the kind of dreams that make your heart race. The ones you've held inside, and probably not told a single soul about. The ones that you first started formulating when you were 5, or 10, or maybe even 13. The dreams that kept you going before you could start driving, before you had to choose a college, and before you had children. The dreams that defined you for so long and that made you feel light-headed when you thought them and about the moment when you would finally be able to take the steps toward achieving them.

For some people, probably for more little boys than I can imagine, that dream is to play in the Big Leagues.

But of course most little boys don't make it that far. And most of them probably don't even try.

From the beginning it seems too daunting. Maybe it's too much work, maybe somebody somewhere told them it was too much of a long shot. Or maybe they got close, but threw out a shoulder, or had back problems, like my dad. Maybe they made it to the minors but were just too short by a few inches, like my grandpa and my brother.

Whatever the reason, somehow, some way, most of us have given up on our dreams. Stuffed them down deep like that last bite of Thanksgiving Turkey. Sat back, unbuttoned our pants, and zoned out on some football. Or maybe even fallen asleep.

We live on auto pilot because we have to. Like Jimmy Morris in the movie, we have three children, papers to grade, a car payment, a lawn to mow, a strained relationship with our parents, and not enough time for any of that. Much less our dreams.

I've been thinking a lot about dreams lately because I'm reading a book called Sacred Romance by John Eldredge, and it talks about how our hearts have two parts: the part that holds the Sacred Romance and the part that holds our Broken Arrows. The Sacred Romance is the part that God gave us. The part of beauty and love and a slice of heaven. The part that most of us with normal loving childhoods live out of when we are young. It's that part of ourselves that just knows we are that one special boy who is going to make it to the Majors, or that one special girl who really will have our Prince slip on the magic slipper.

When we are young, we just KNOW that we are going to live happily ever after.

And then we are 32. Or 42. And we just aren't. Instead, we are living in the Broken Arrows part of our heart. The part that God didn't intend for us. The part that holds all the hurts we've experienced. The names we've been called, the times we disappointed our parents or our teachers. The times they've disappointed us. The first love that just didn't quite make it. The first promotion that we just didn't get.

We live in the Broken Arrows, and we pay our bills, and we tuck our children in at night. We punch the clock at 8:15 and punch it again at 5. Step by step, one foot in front of the other, we pass our lives. And our dreams pass us.

But what if it's not too late? What if we could be like Jim Morris....who was a real man by the way, and who really did make it to the Majors when he was 35. What if, at an age where no one thinks it's possible, at an age where even we have forgotten about the dreams we once had, what if we dug deep, pulled them out, dusted them off, and gave it a try??

I know. It doesn't seem possible, does it? But think about it. Think about that dream you always had. Break it down, break it open, break it apart and examine it. You probably even had more than one, and now that you are thinking about it, it's probably a little bit exciting to think about isn't it? It probably hurts just a little bit too.

Jimmy Morris had more than one dream.

Throughout the movie, Jim struggled with wanting to be with his wife, while wanting to be on the field. Wanting to make his dad proud, while needing to be a good dad on his own. Wanting to inspire the students on his team, while needing to be a success at work.

We cannot be all things to all people. But we ARE all things to one person. Ourselves. And we are all things to God. We have to find a balance between the Sacred Romance and the Broken Arrows. But in doing so, we can't just forget about our dreams.

When I was a little girl I wanted to be a veterinarian, a best-selling novelist, a Claire Huxtable mother, and a Cinderella wife. Instead I have 2 dogs, this new blog, too many times of yelling in a day to be Claire Huxtable, and no man searching his entire kingdom for only me.

But somehow here lately, my heart feels more free, and somehow, by thinking about my dreams, reading that book, talking with God, seeing that movie, and yes, talking with my counselor, I'm starting to shed some of my Broken Arrows. And as I shed all those Broken Arrows, I'm realizing that maybe I am living my dream after all.

Maybe it wasn't stuffed back down deep with that cranberry sauce from November, and maybe....just maybe.... it's right in front of my nose.

At the end of the movie, when Jim Morris finally gets called up, he gets to tell his son. He gets to make his son proud and show him that dreams really do come true, and here is how the exchange goes:

Jim: "Your daddy is gonna be a major league pitcher!"

Hunter: "Cool. I can't believe it! Who you gonna play for?"

Jim: "They're called the Devil Rays."

Hunter: "What's a Devil Ray?"

Jim: "It's a fish."

Hunter: "What color is it?"

Jim: "Black."

Hunter: "Can you eat it?"

Jim: "I don't know bud, it's got a stinger."

Hunter: "Cool."

Jim's son, who was with him at every game he coached, who was with him when he tried out for the Majors, and who listens to every Minor League game he has pitched, really only cares about one thing: being with his dad. He doesn't ask about the team. He doesn't ask about the money. He doesn't ask about the pitching. He just wants to talk with his dad about a fish.

And really....isn't that the stuff dreams are made of??

"I tell you the truth. If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move."
Matthew 17:20

mybabyMawMaw

The latest saga in the story of the babyfamily that I never wanted is that my babies' biological grandma wants to continue having visits with them, and this leads to further discussion of the ebb and flow of my hatred towards her as the matriarch of a completely dysfunctional family.

Now most of us have a dysfunctional family in some way, right? Most of us might even have a family member who did drugs, or does drugs, and a good many of us have probably even tried drugs. Well, maybe I'm wrong here, but it happens.

My babymama not only tried drugs, but she became addicted to them, went through a few boyfriends who sold them, and settled (for a while) on the great catch that is now and will forever be.... my babydaddy.

I know that my babydaddy has many redeeming qualities because I know that my children are born leaders. They have been dealt a difficult situation from the very beginning. But instead of becoming insecure, they became independent. Instead of getting lost in the chaos, they became cute and charismatic. Instead of creeping shyly behind the scenes, they have become leaders in their little social circles. In spite of the fact that the debate between nature and nurture lingers, I know that my babydaddy did, in fact, contribute some of his good qualties to the beauties that are my children

....just as I'm sure he contributed many positive attributes to his FIVE, yes FIVE other children. And just as I'm sure that his many redeeming qualities drew his three, yes THREE, other babymamas to him. That's 7 children by 4 different mothers, for those of you keeping count. And I am.

My children's five other brothers live with their biological mothers, which brings me back full circle to the woman that has now become the babymama that I never knew I could have and back to my discussion of the dysfunction that has now become part of my life.

What mother has her children taken away? How many family members of yours have had children ripped from their lives by the police when they come in to serve a warrant? How many of you at the age of 24 and already the mother of two children, have stolen a car, become addicted to heroin, chosen a man who already has five other children by three different women, had your own child steal formula for your other child, and failed to show up for three court dates...thus making you a wanted fugitive? How many of you have sat in front of a judge who said plainly and sternly, (I know because I was there), "If you do not shape up, you WILL lose your children!" and spent the next six months doing exactly NOTHING?!

This just doesn't happen to the people I know. In fact, this only happens to one person I know, and this person just happens to be my babymama. And now the woman who started it all, my babyMawMaw, wants to take an active part in my children's lives. Because she did so well the first time? Really?

She wants ME to allow MY children to be with her and see her and be influenced by her and learn from HER? Do you think I would say yes to that?

I did.

I did say yes. And I said yes because I'm learning that God doesn't need us to be perfect to earn His love. He doesn't need us to make all the right decisions. He doesn't even need us to believe in Him. He loves us right where we are.

It says in Romans 5:8, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" and in Romans 5:19, "For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous."

God didn't wait until we got it right all by ourselves. He didn't wait until we repented and were baptized and started going to church every Sunday. He didn't even wait until we gave up our addictions, stopped cursing, stopped doing drugs, or stopped stealing.

So as I struggle, and as I deal with that glimmer of hate for my babygrandma that threatens to take over my heart, I know that I am "still a sinner." And if Jesus has made men righteous again through his gift of Grace, who am I to take that away?

For though I am a sinner, I am NOT a thief, and I will not, like my babymama before me, teach my children to steal anything. I especially will not teach them that it is okay for me to steal away the love of their Mawmaw.



And I refuse to teach them that it is okay for us to steal away the love that God has given to her.

"I command you to Love each other in the same way that I Love you." John 15:12

the ebb and flow

As the ebb and flow of hate goes, my hate is beginning to ebb. That is if "to ebb" means to be healed with the help of God. It has been 3 years, twelve days and 18 hours since my babies first walked into my home. They each came in with a bag consisting of a comb, a new shirt, and the really stinky clothes they had on. My daughter had some tight braids in her baby fine hair that made her head look bald, her cute little baby pudgy face look bloated, and my son cried and cried and cried, until I sat him in front of Sponge Bob. (The only cartoon I knew about back then!)

The social worker left, my neighbors came over, and we began taking out braids, giving baths, and giving hugs.

That night began a series of nights that lasted for about six months where I would awaken to a little dude standing next to my bed staring at me. He wouldn't say anything, so with heart racing, I would say, "Are you okay? Are you scared? Are you hot? Are you sick? Did you have a bad dream? Do you have to go to the bathroom?" He still wouldn't say anything, but his little feet would pad back to his bed, and he would go back to sleep.

For a few hours. Until it would happen again. Little dude by my bed. Silent. My questioning. Then, the quick walk back to his room.

I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what he wanted, and I was sick of being awakened three times a night! I would lie there and toss and turn and wonder what I had gotten myself into, until one night, 6 months later, I finally learned to say what he needed. It was something simple. Something easy. But something so profound. It was, "I'm here baby..... and I'm not going anywhere."

And all those months later, my baby slept through the night.

From these nightly episodes, I started to put the pieces together about the first three and a half years of his life. And the first year and a half of his sister's life. "I can change her diaper," he would say. "I do it all the time."

He would also say, "Are you going to steal that or buy it?" and, "One time, my dad got so mad he made my nose bloody." And daily, "Are you coming home?"

I learned from a trip to Petco, while standing by the yellow cans of dog food, that my babymama and my babydaddy used to put formula under my baby's coat, and have him take it out of the store without paying. They don't search three-year-olds, you know?

I learned from checking on him at night that he didn't like to sleep in his bed. "In the hotel with G," [my babymama's boyfriend] "we slept on the floor," he told me.

And I learned from chasing him around the kitchen table repeatedly, and pulling him out from under the coffee table when it was time to go somewhere, that he felt the need to hide and to run. From somebody.

3 years, 12 days, and 18 hours later, he knows that we pay for our groceries. Even when money is tight. He knows it's too drafty to sleep on the floor and likes to "make himself a nest" in his bed. And when I say, "It's time to go," he's ready!

My hate got worse before it got better. My hate for the babymama I never knew I could have, and the babydaddy who, by now, I have met.

It's hard to be a parent! It's hard to be a single parent! And the days of wishing I'd tried route #2 (hot sex in the night with no condom), which would have given me at least a chance of a semi-decent baby daddy, are high in number and a source of many daydreams.... Oh God!! These are some of the most difficult years I have ever experienced!!

I wish I had someone to rely on. Someone to talk to about all the many decisions, big and small, that I have to make on a daily basis and which will affect the lives of my children perhaps well into adulthood. I wish I had a babydaddy whose care and concern for our children matched that of my own. I wish I had someone to go to the movies with or laugh with me at the funny things that my babies say. And Goodness!! I wish I had someone to help me figure out what to say!

But I know that I do. Because when I wake in the middle of the night scared and unsure of how to be a good mom, and how to heal all the wounds that have cut my babies so deep, and when I wake thinking about all my own wounds and my dream of having a real babydaddy with whom to share my life and the lives of my children, I pad to my own Father's bed, and I realize as he whispers softly to me, that I knew what to say to my son all along.....

"I'm here baby.... and I'm not going anywhere."

"I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness."

John 8:12

theotherbabymama

So I adopted my children. And now I have a babymama and a babydaddy. And a babygrandma. And a babyuncle. The whole reason I adopted in the first place was so I didn't have a deadbeat dad not paying child support, breaking my baby's heart when he didn't show up for his weekend, fighting with me over the phone, and otherwise adding stress to my life and my beautiful child's life. And now I have an entire babyfamily.

I could have paid for a sperm donor, I could have had hot sex with one of the many men out there who so easily get caught up in the moment of heavy breathing and a flash of skin that they don't even want to take two seconds to dig out the condom they have in their wallet. I could have put even more money on my credit cards and adopted internationally and had a babyfamily that was thousands of miles away and probably too poor to ever make it to America. I could have adopted through a local agency and made sure it was a closed adoption with no contact between families and completely sealed records until my baby turned 18. Believe me. I thought of all those options. And trust me I would have chosen #2. Maybe I even should have.

But then I would be missing out on the two smartest, most beautiful children in the world. My own. My own children who have their own babymama.

The first time I met my babymama, we were at a McDonald's. With 2 social workers, some fries, and some burgers. We waited and ate. Ate and waited. While I told a 1 year old and a 3 year old, who had just been ripped from their basement apartment a few weeks ago by the police, "Maybe your mom is stuck in traffic." To which my 3 year old replied, "Oh yeah! Her car probably broke down! That happened ALL the time."

With the allotted hour given to parents for visitation while their child is in foster care almost up, my babymama and her boyfriend strolled in. Or should I say wobbled, or jerked, or whatever word you use for the way a crackhead walks. They sat down at the booth with tears....or maybe those eyes were what you call "glassed over," and their knees bounced and their mouths twitched and they hugged all over my new babies. And I hated them.

I sat there so still with real tears for the babies I'd only had a few weeks, next to the social workers, who were already working on their notes, and I put on a happy face, and I made excuses for my babymama so that my babies didn't feel unwanted. Or unloved. And then, I began to grow some hate in my heart for the babymama I never even thought I could have. And the babydaddy, who already didn't show for his first visit.

"Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." Hebrews 12:1