Fake Names

When we have foster babies in our home I am not able to post their picture anywhere on the internet or release their real name. This is for their protection and privacy. I am happy to comply.

So I figured it might be time to give all my loveys fake names for the blog. I need your help. I'd like to give them cute names, rather than just writing initials. And I'd rather it not be a nick name we actually call our girls. That kind of defeats the purpose. I'm thinking of calling Violet, Squeeze. I have no ideas for Nola. I'll probably fake name our foster babies as we get them. Nola wants to "name our new baby sister Bubble Grass." We'll see about that one.

Ideas for me?

Something You Should Know

I realized recently I've been writing posts about adoption and foster care with absolutely no life experience to back it up. So, take everything I say with a grain of salt, will you? I have a feeling I may look back at these posts one day and say to myself, "What was I thinking?!" Running the risk of someday realizing I had no idea what I was talking about...there is one more little thing I've been wanting to share with you about our family's decision to adopt.

When I tell people we are entering the world of foster care and hoping to adopt, I get some varied reactions. People who have any sort of experience with either fostering or adoption tend to congratulate us and say it's awesome. Or they give a little warning about how hard, yet rewarding, it will be. Others who have no experience with it often seem at odds for how to react. They're not sure to be happy or concerned for us. One guy said to us, "Exciting!...Right? Exciting is the thing to say?" That was a sweet one. Occasionally when I talk about it, I feel as if the person I'm talking to suddenly feels guilty. As if I'm preaching to them. In reference to the fostering part of our journey, the one thing I hear most often is, "Oh, good for you! I could never do that!

Because I am a Christian, most people assume I am doing this out of a desire to obey the scripture in James 1:27 that says, "Pure and real religion is this: take care of orphans and widows, and don't let the world corrupt you." (That's my paraphrase. Don't use it for your kids' memory verse this month or put it in your church bulletin for Sunday.) While that assumption is true, it is only part of my story. I do feel that every Christian should ask God how He wants them to live this scripture out in real life. But I am not adopting in order to tick off one of the boxes of good deeds that will get me into heaven.

Don't get me wrong. I am moved by the plight of the orphan around the world. It makes me sad to think of all those children in orphanages or foster homes. It's unfair that I have so much while they have so little. I hate that they are stuck in limbo land while I revel in steady permanence. But that's not why I'm adopting. Initially, it was the reason I asked Ryan if we could go on this journey together. But then, in all the considerations of where to adopt and how to adopt and can we adopt and is this even helpful...I stopped hearing the cries of orphans.


I heard my daughter crying for her mom.

That, my friends, changes everything. I'm telling you, I'm practically lactating it's so real to me. I don't feel like a Saint taking care of orphans. I feel like a mother on a desperate search to get to her child. And if you could hear what I hear, you could do it. The word never would not even be a consideration. When a mother hears her child crying, she can not stop herself from responding. I'm not a hero. I'm a mom.

In the end, I'm not adopting an orphan. I'm adopting my son. (Or my daughter. We did not put a gender preference on our application.) I heard one adoptive dad explain it like this: He has a biological son who was born prematurely. His son is a miracle, and while it is an amazing story, he does not introduce that son as "our preemie son Johnny". In the same way, he doesn't introduce his adopted son that way, either. Adoption is just the way a child enters a family. After the grand entrance, they're just in. I have also heard Kristen Howerton say, "You can save a child once. After that it's called parenting."

If you haven't heard that cry in your heart, don't feel weird when someone else tells you they have. Don't feel like you're not a good enough person to do it. Instead, sponsor a child. Give some time or money to a local crisis center in your city. Or help fund my friend Rachel's adoption. These are extremely important and valid ways to help orphans around the world. And, most definitely something you should consider. Adoption is not for everyone. I don't mean that in the way that not everyone is strong enough or heroic enough to adopt. I mean it in the same way as...not every baby is supposed to be born in October. Or, not every family is supposed to have ten children.

So I guess this is me letting you off the hook. There are so many ways to give care to orphaned children. Pick one. And if you're looking to grow your family, adoption is one beautiful way you could do that.

School for Nola

So Nola is 3 1/2 and doesn't usually take a nap anymore. She tries. She really does lay nicely. Only talks to herself quietly and maybe acts out a few scenes from Diego with whatever animal she's sleeping with. So I decided it might be time to let her stay up a little longer in the afternoons. After I lay Violet down for her afternoon nap, I spend time with Nola doing "school". We haven't been doing it long. So far it has consisted of writing letters from a pre-school activity book we bought. It's a bilingual activity book which is cool. All the directions are in English and Spanish, and each letter has a word that starts with that letter in each language. The letter "E" is for elephant/elefante. The letter "F" is for flower/flor. The letter "L" for lemon/limon. It's cute.

I had heard you shouldn't push kids to write too soon. Because of this, I'd kept the workbook in the closet for a long time because it's mostly just writing worksheets. But we keep it very low key and I try not to correct her too much. I just let her effort be the goal. Sometimes she wants to keep going to a new letter, but I say no. Short and sweet is my goal. I want it to remain a happy, fun, stress free time. 

I got an awesome book from the library called WOW! I'm Reading! It has very simple activities that feel like games, but have a purpose in preparing your child for reading. I love it. We've done a couple of the activities so far, and Nola has enjoyed them.

We usually read together after the worksheet. Reading a book with your kid is never a waste of time in my opinion. And I love it. I wasn't a huge reader growing up, but Nola seems to really love it. I hope I can encourage her to keep loving it.

I have loved getting a few minutes of Nola to myself each day. Spending time just the two of us reminds me just how awesome she is. There's a whole lot of awesome springing out of those curls, I tell 'ya.


P.S. Ryan and his dad made that super cute picnic table. Isn't it great? That's where we have school.

Violet's 17 Months EC Update

With both my girls I have taken care of their lovely toilet needs with elimination communication. I started taking Nola potty at 7 months, and started with Violet around 2 weeks. Elimination Communication is not potty training. So don't ask me how to get your 2 year old to use the potty. I have no idea. All I know about is taking babies potty and saving yourself some nasty poop clean up. Yes, people think I'm crazy. Yes, people think it's too time consuming. Yes, people think I'm an over achiever. But I love it anyway.

So Violet is 17 months old now. Not an entirely unheard of age to try out traditional potty training. I don't get as many strange looks when taking her potty in public places. She hasn't made any huge changes since my last update at 15 months. I would say that in general she is staying dryer, communicating her needs more often before she goes, and we are cleaning up less wet training pants. The last time we cleaned up a Numero Dos, was a Friday morning. I heard she was awake, but I laid in bed ignoring her longer than she was able to contain her bowels. When I finally got up I knew she would be poopy. A good pre-breakfast poop is usually part of her routine.

We are still using good ol' Gerber training pants in an 18 month size. We also have some Green Sprouts training pants. They are thicker and have a layer of wet resistance, which doesn't really do much after so many washings, but they hold a little more pee than the Gerber. On average, she only pees her pants once or twice a day.

I'm really proud of Vee! If you have questions for us about EC, leave a comment below.

Mixed Emotions

"Do they actually think they can make something of stones from a rubbish heap—and charred ones at that?"

Nehemiah 4:2 

Our home study was completed this week. I know our agency probably has a lot of work to put it together now, but our part is done. Before the social worker came, I thought she was coming to our home for just a preliminary visit. I thought the big, scary home study was down the road. I'm glad I thought that. I saved myself from a lot of stressful cleaning. As she was heading out the door we asked her when our in-depth home study would be and she replied, "This was it." Sweet. When actual adoption comes across our path there will be more home visits, but technically she says we're done.

We felt like celebrating! I posted as my Facebook status, "Our home has been officially studied. We will be licensed for two. Bring on the babies!" 63 friends liked my status and 22 friends commented. That's some serious celebration.

But then that felt weird.

As we anticipate the joy of adding another child to our home, somewhere a mother is about to experience a deep loss. It's possible that somewhere our baby is not being thought of as good news. Somewhere a mom is breaking. A relationship is being torn apart. Circumstances are about to cave in on someone and bury them in brokenness. And, somehow, God is going to reach into that situation, pull from it the most beautiful charred stone, and give it to us.

Adoption is a beautiful redemption of a broken situation. Beauty from Ashes. It's hard to know when to grieve the ashes, and when to revel in the beauty.

When our baby does come to us, I hope I know when to grieve with them and when to celebrate with them. I hope I can make them understand how badly they are wanted by us, while still giving worth and respect to their beginning. I hope they will know that God saw them while they were being knitted together in their mother's womb, even though that womb was not mine.

And I hope, if God brings redemption to the whole situation, that we will be able to release our precious gem back to their first family knowing that God is a better author than we are. It may not be the story we would've written. And it will hurt our hearts to only be a blip in Scene Two when we wanted to be the best supporting actors of Act One. But God knows better than we do. We will make it the best Scene Two any baby has ever seen, gosh darn it! And then we will slip back stage, and most likely miss the rest of the Play.

Don't feel bad for us.  Every baby should get a great Scene Two! We're happy to do it. Someday, there will be a baby who needs us for all of Act One. What a reward that will be. But I hear the journey will be full of ups and downs. One foster/adoptive mother told me, "You gotta become a faster and a prayer to do this, girl!"

I always hated roller coasters as a child. This may be the scariest, and most exhilarating one yet.

The Short Story

Ryan and I are in the middle of classes to become certified and licensed foster parents. We feel our next child is going to come to our family through the miracle of adoption. After much prayer, thought, consideration, and advice from our parents and friends we decided to go the route of foster adopt in the United States. While there is great need all around the world for families to care for orphans, I feel in my heart that our next child is here in the States. We've decided the best fit for our family is to only bring children into our home who are younger than our youngest, 16 month old Violet. The greatest need for foster and adoption in the US right now is older children. However, there are infants who need families. It's not as common, but it happens. We are in no hurry to have a child in our home, so we are just getting everything ready, getting approved and checked out, and buying lockable cabinets and fire extinguishers. So when the time comes that there is an infant who needs a home, we are on the list.

We have decided to foster babies who are likely to be available for adoption. What that means is that we aren't waiting for an infant whose parents' parental rights have already been terminated, making the baby immediately available for adoption. We will foster them and see where their road leads. It may lead to reunification with their parents or another one of their family members may decide to adopt them. This is risky for our hearts and we know that. It's also a risk we are asking our girls to take and we know that as well. But we feel it's fair risk to ask of our girls. Love is always risky. Even if we get babies who don't stay with us forever, we know that the time we give to them is priceless. They won't remember us, but however much time we can give them in a home of peace and stability will affect their lives forever. We truly believe that.

I haven't blogged about this yet for a couple reasons. First, it's kind of like saying "Hey! Me and Ry are trying for a baby!" And, yeah, that's awkward and personal to tell the world. Secondly, it's a big step. I wanted to make sure we had really thought it through, talked with our parents and friends, and received advice from people in our life we love and trust. This is not something we have decided on a whim. And it's not something we would be able to do without our community of friends and family.

There is a chance that through the course of foster care classes we may decide to do things differently, maybe take a different path with adoption. I'll be glad to share the journey with you. Honestly, I hope that maybe it will inspire you to do something you've always dreamt of but it seemed too hard or risky or just didn't quite fit inside your white picket fence.

After discussion back and forth with my family about adoption, and the risks and myths, and the possible heartache of foster care, my dad said this to me:

"Do the hard thing, baby. You will never regret it in the long run."
  


 

Violet's 15 Months EC Update

Big news here on the elimination communication front. Violet has begun communicating! Yay! It started with her communicating that she had already peed her pants. She freezes, looks at us, pats the front of her diaper and says, "Uh?!" We take her to the potty and discover a freshly warm, wet diaper. How's that mental picture working out for 'ya?

The even better news is that she does occasionally tell us before she pees! And she often tells us before she poops! She always poops in the potty, but she doesn't always tell us she needs to go she just always holds it until we offer the potty. She hasn't pooped her diaper in ages. I can't remember the last time she did. Now that I've said that, she will poop her pants soon, of course.  Update: I was lazy one Saturday morning and didn't get her up when I heard her. I reached her too late and she had pooped in her diaper. When a girls gotta go, a girls gotta go.


I am very excited about this new development. Although the point of elimination communication is not to have your child traditionally potty trained earlier than normal, it is very rewarding when it seems like that will happen!

I am so proud of Violet. I just really wish I had taught her a more socially acceptable sign for potty.