Still Stylin'

Every year on October 27th we have a tradition. That is the day we celebrate "Gotcha Day" with our baby.
We get out all the baby clothes she was wearing on that wonderful day, and she tries them on. I can't believe that after six years they still fit her, amazing.
The funny part is she is turning into a model in them, even down to the split pants.
This year was fun as she is understanding more and more about the whole mind boggling idea of adoption. I'm not real sure when or if it ever actually makes sense to a child that their birth mother gave them up, but she acts like she gets it.
She never asks questions about her birth mother. She just tells people that she has two moms one that had her in her belly and another one that takes care of her.
I guess every year it will become more understandable for her. In the meantime we will enjoy the excuse to party!

Memories

I am a big baby about separation. Maybe better to just admit that I have some attachment disorder issues myself. When I was studying about our adoption I read a book about attachment disorder. Low and behold I found myself very much identifying with the book. My father died when I was six, and I believe that was the moment that transformed my life. At any rate that is my excuse and I am sticking with it:) As a side note no kid should ever go through the death of a parent without some sort of counseling!

One thing I have lived long enough to realize is that the intense feelings of missing a person only last a few months. That is my consolation with my daughter and her family that just left on Wed. O.K. like I said I am wimpy! I have a hard hat that my grandson always wore under my night stand. He left it here last time he played here and I will not pick it up and move it, too many happy memories. I also told the family I would not be making any cookies until I saw my daughter again. They were a bit sad about that, but knew better than to try and talk me out of it. I mean after all I got dreadlocks the last time a kid left.

In my closet on my undie shelf is a picture of my granddaughter. I see it every time that I have to get something out of my closet. I do wish she was smiling, but the picture is sheer her! Today I was watering the garden and was reminded of last week when I was watering and baby boy started running back and forth in front of the hose. This pic is of him after a few runs through the water. He is a hoot and I can only imagine that he is giving his "other Grandma" fits. I do hope he warms up to her and will even go to her.

In the meantime I am planning our trip to Hondurus. I should be able to make it until Sept. or Oct. then we will be headed out on the bus for the road trip.

BIRTHDAY BOY

How the heck can I have a 29 year old kid? I am just really puzzling about that one in my head right now. I mean come on I ran 25 miles last week and will do 28 this week, aren't I supposed to be in a rocker or something at this phase? I guess it is more fun to keep up with them, than to just watch them.

I just hope my son has a good birthday and I'm sorry I missed it. He was very excited to sleep in, as the family were out working and his father in law called at six thirty to wish him a happy birthday before he went to work! This is a guy who works sixty hours a week and seldom gets a day off, much less a chance to sleep in.

I still remember the night he was born, in fact it is about fifteen minutes before the time he was born right now. I was in hard labor for 24 hours after my waters broke at the theater. Hubby was in the army and we had gone to the movies on base. My mother and older brother were there with us. It was hot as hadees in San Antonio that summer, in fact they made t-shirts that said "I survived the heat wave of 1980" That is hot.

After standing out front waiting for the theater to open, after a great Mexican food dinner, we went into the air conditioning and sat down. Before movies at the base theaters they play the National Anthem and you have to stand up, of course. So I stood up and my waters broke everywhere. I was so glad it was dark. I told my family what happened and they asked what I wanted to do. I said that I wanted to stay and watch the movie. It was "Coal Miners Daughter", good movie by the way.

Fast forward, or I should say slow forward to 24 hours when the little bugger was finally dragged out by the head with forceps. He was posterior, so it was a very long painful birth. Third degree tears and I felt all beat up. Here I was 18 years old and scared to death. The funny part was my mom was with me and she was five months pg!

It took me about five minutes to decide it was all worth it and to fall in love with my little blue cone head. I thought he was beautiful. You can see by the picture how big his head is, and that it is a little pointed to this day!

The amazing thing is that I went on to have five more, only getting smart on number seven and adopting!

READING PLEASURE

This is how I caught Dad putting baby to sleep! The plan is he is supposed to read her a story and put her to sleep. The plan according to her? She lets him read until he falls asleep and then she sneaks off to watch tunes!

It is bad when the kids get smarter than us. This at five, fifteen is going to be a real picnic especially at the rate the hearing, site and memory are going.

Yesterday she brought home from school a paper for us to fill out about her health. They had questions like, "did you have good prenatal care, when did she lift her head, when did she first respond to people" you know the usual questions.

In a way I hate it when we get those. It always proves to remind me that I don't know anything about her family or her health history. I really don't know if her biological mom was healthy, starved, or what her health was. Judging by her health now though I would say that her Mom was very healthy and took good care of herself.

She has never been sick or even had problems with her teeth, other than her brother knocking one out on the trampoline. Over all perfect health in other words.

Finally after looking over all the questions I just wrote that she was adopted from China at 13 months and we had no health history on her. I told them she is just perfect and gets along well with everyone and has no health problems.

That was really pushing my Spanish vocabulary. My older daughter suggested I write up a whole story based on the info we got on her referral, so I think I will put that together. I think it is important for her to have some sort of story about her first year of life on earth.

We do know where she was born, where she spent her first year, not specifics of course, but the rough outline and we can go from there. After all we all need a story right?

THERE ARE NO ACCIDENTS

I just love it when we meet people and I try to figure out the reason for meeting that particular person. This happened to us a few weeks ago. My daughter and her hubby had left our house late one night to get the bus for home with the babies. They were waiting and waiting. There was one other girl at the bus stop who looked Chinese. Rebekah asked her if she was Chinese and found out she spoke English. They hit it off well and have been talking and visiting since then.

Tonight they invited her family over when we were there. It was so wonderful to see this girl, who by the way is Taiwanese not Chinese, hit if off with our daughter. We are always concerned that she will not feel like there is anyone else in the world who looks like her. Now that she is becoming aware of the fact that she looks different it was great to see her connect with someone who looks like her.

We took a great picture of Maleah sitting with her family looking much more like them than she does like us! Now that I have spent a couple of years being a minority myself I can certainly relate to the great feeling when I see another blue eyed person walking around. Kind of takes the heat off, if you know what I mean.

Next week we will be going to their house for sushi, I will make sure to take lots of pictures and include them.

15 YEAR OLDS AUGHHHHH!

You know how they try to tell you that myth that you will forget the pains of childbirth? We all know it is a myth, we just choose to go through it again. At any rate if it was true than it should also be true that we forget the joys of teenagers.

As my teen quickly approaches 15 this month I am starting to sweat and get the shivers. I think of all the experiences I have had with my 15 year olds and I think I do not want to do this again. Is there any way I can opt out of this phase? Maybe just put her in a barrel and feed her through a hole in the side, then let her out when she turns 18. That was Mark Twains idea by the way not mine!

My most vivid memory of 15 was with the above charmingly handsome big brother. Favorite brother by the way. It did not start out that way though. He was always the one that said he should have been an only child. Come to think of it that is what all 7 of them have thought.

When I decided I wanted another baby and adoption was the only option for us he threw a real hissy fit. He refused to even talk about it. Well it came time for the social worker to come over to the house and do the home study. If any of you have had that pleasure you can relate to the stress involved.

I asked Jake nicely to please put down his mohawk and tell the lady when she asked that yes he wanted a little sister. I have to say he drove a very hard bargain. One skateboard later he was very proudly saying that yes he wanted a baby sister.

When we returned home from China he would not even look at her or have anything to do with her, for about three days that is. About the third day we went to Taco Bell for some food. We were standing in line and I had to pay. I told Jake to hold the baby while I paid, he held her out in front of him like she was the baby from Monsters Inc. and went to sit down.

After I sat down she was standing by me holding on. He leaned over and said boo! to her very loudly. She did not even bat and eye and turned back to him and said boo! just as loud. He grabbed her up in his arms and is her favorite brother to this day. They were pretty much inseperable when we lived close. She still composes great letters to him and talks to him on the phone about 3 times a week.

I guess looking back on that story I can take courage and know that this too shall pass and after a few years we will be friends and be able to laugh about all the memories we are making. That is what life is all about after all.

WEEKLY SERMON

I found an awesome blog site yesterday and would highly recommend it to anybody who has, will or is adopting a child. It is A4everFamily.org. I learned a lot from it about some of Maleahs behaviors, as well as my reactions.

After raising six children you would like to think you have it somewhat figured out. Guess what, I just keep being amazed at how much I do not have figured out! Just when I think I have it figured out the rules change, or the kid changes, or the world changes, or I change! You get the idea, there are no rules, there are no constants except the values and principals we live by.

The real trick I guess is learning to apply our principals on every situation we run into with our children as well as ourselves. A good example of this is the belief I have that it really does matter who your friends are and who you hang out with.

My daughter is just starting to believe me on this one, but it is really difficult to learn. She would like to believe that as long as she is doing what she knows is ok it is all good. Unfortunately it is not like that anymore.

She has an older brother who is going to be in prison for at least five years because he did not believe this concept. He thought and actually still thinks that it is ok to go along with the group, as long as you don't "inhale" so to speak. Not true as he has very painfully been made aware of.

I guess this is my soap box for the week, and why I love blogging! I get to choose who I check out and who I hang out with! There are so many blogs and so little time. I have a great new word for friends who blog "frogs"!

MOMS

Half of the equation of being a hotmom is of course being a MOM. Both parts are a choice, but we do have a whole lot more control over the hot part than the mom part. Our children will be children and will do whatever it is children do, test and try us of course.

Having seven children makes me a little bit different than most moms. I don't think most moms get to have near as many experiences, good as well as bad, as I do. Now that can be good or it can be bad, depends on the experience we are in the middle of.

My oldest son will be 29 next year, whoa! I know I should probably just give up on the whole hot part at this point, but I refuse to give up! My youngest daughter is 5, and the saddest part of that one is that I gained more weight with her than I did with my oldest. Why is that so bad? She is adopted! Now that is sad. The premenopause thing was kicking in what can I say?

The thing about being a mom is to take control of all the aspects of motherhood that you can. That does not leave much, but you can take control of your body, mind and time. I have a quote that I love "your lack of preparation is not my crisis". Think about that for a few minutes and apply it to your children.

When your kid calls you from school because they forgot their football gear in the washer and you need to dry it and bring it to them within the next hour what will you do? If you are smart you will take it in stride, if it works do it, if not don't sweat it.

I know that is easier said than done, especially if you baby your boys like I do! The funny thing is all of my boys laugh about what mommas boys they are, all four of them! My youngest son says he is 300% mammas boy. I am trying to talk him out of the tatoo telling that to the world.