Parenting at Both Ends

The other day, I read a post from an anonymous mother looking for advice in getting her infant son to settle to sleep. It was taking 15 minutes of patting his back and cooing in his ear each time, she complained.

I wanted to tell her to stop complaining and enjoy it because some day – far, far sooner than she thinks – she’ll be begging for each 15-minute segment of holding him and shushing him to sleep.

I know this because tonight my oldest will graduate.  I will watch her walk across the platform to collect her diploma. On Sunday, she will turn 18. A few months later, she will head off to college, never again to be wholly mine.

I swear she was a baby yesterday.

The years whipped by faster than I thought they would. Phases I thought would last forever proved as temporary as the bubbles she used to blow in the backyard.

The struggles, the celebrations, the losses and triumphs that at the time were so vivid and overwhelming seem to blur from the speed in which they flew by. I blinked and she grew up.

But I’m getting a do-over of sorts.  When she walks across that platform tomorrow night, I’ll be sitting in the audience, holding my infant son – her spitting image – on my lap.

I get the chance to see the same smiles and the same impish gleam in the same big eyes in living color and not Kodak color.

 I get to savor those milestones and phases with the knowledge from hindsight of how fleeting they actually are.

It’s a strange thing to begin with one child at the same time you are wrapping up with the first, simultaneously parenting at both ends of childhood. You see the fruits of your labor in one while planting the first seed in the other. Reassuring and daunting, all at once.

I won’t complain when, like Monday night, I am up until 12 a.m. until 2:15 a.m. trying to get him to go back to sleep when he wants to socialize. I’ll hold him and marvel at his rosebud lips and long lashes. I’ll pat his back and stroke his chubby, dimpled hand and store the time away in my heart.

Because tomorrow he’ll graduate.

Dr. Seuss Day

Our oldest Master Hat had Dr. Seuss Day in his class today, to celebrate the wonderful author's birthday (March 2) and kick off March is Reading Month.

We signed up to send a "Seuss-Themed" snack and needed to send something that wasn't a boatload of sugar. A classroom of first graders strung out on fun activities and sugar... I couldn't do that to a teacher. I also didn't want to use her excellent suggestions (like goldfish crackers for one fish, two fish...), fearing other parents would be using those.

So after wracking my brain, I hit on a combination of his favorite snack and most-loved Seuss book: Hop on Pop(corn).

Simply popped several bags of microwave popcorn, cooled the popcorn (fresh out of the microwave, it melts ziplock bags, apparently), and loaded into 2-gallon ziplock bags outfitted with a label I printed onto a full-page label sheet. Voila! Fairly healthy, easy, Seuss-themed snack.

At this point, I'm not sure how to load the label file for you to print from, so contact me if you'd like me to send it to you.

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Jen

'Tis the season of thankfulness. All month, I’ve read the many things my friends have given thanks for each day, and contemplated my own state of gratitude.

This year, I’m thankful for something rather odd, something I never thought I’d ever admit to being, much less thankful for. Take note, mark it on your calendar, burn it into memory, because it’s that unlikely an admission and you won't see it again v. I’m sure Mr. Hat will be hauling this out for years to come. Ready?

I’m thankful that I WAS WRONG.

Better said, God was right. As always.

It isn’t the first time He’s taken my well-laid plans and altered them. By “altered” I mean laid waste to, annihilated, completely obliterated. I never get that “still, small voice,” but rather the 2'x4' upside the head. Hard.

And back in March, that two by four was shrunk to one little stick 6"x1” – a little white stick one pees on. 

After 17 years of fertility treatments and sheer negligence that produced nothing, one doesn’t expect it to say “pregnant.”  I gave up any hope of seeing that result 12 years ago and happily adopted to complete my family. My family was made complete six years ago, with the adoption of our son. All three kids were finally in school all day.  Everyone could carry their own gear, zip their own coats, feed themselves, pick up after themselves (even if it does take lots of badgering). We could go out without having to hire a babysitter or take kids with us. It was a brave, new, wonderful stage of life – and we loved it.

So, I wasn’t at all happy to see that word. Nope. I cried – and it wasn’t tears of joy. I ranted. I contemplated jumping from the roof. I swore a blue streak – a few blue streaks. I cried some more. I panicked a lot. Why now, after all those years we would have welcomed this news but went without? Suddenly, I identified with a whole new side of Sarah, beyond the years of ache.

So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?” Gen 18:12

And so began eight months of denial, discomfort, health complications, tears – and a good deal of laughter. It really was just so ridiculous at my age, when menopause was more likely than pregnancy. My oldest was beginning her senior year; surely one shouldn’t be shopping for colleges and layettes at the same time. I felt like I was the amusement in God’s sense of humor.

Then, as suddenly and surprisingly as it began, it ended in an emergency c-section a few weeks early.

They handed me this unbelievably tiny little thing, with a nose the size of my fingertip and a mouth equally small. His cry, when he cried, was also tiny, much like a slow leak in a helium balloon. He looked at me with these steel blue eyes, pursed his little lips into this adorable little “o” the size of a Cheerio – and suddenly it was all OK. More than OK.

It was perfect. And wonderful.

I confess I spend a good portion of each day just staring at him, loving him so much it hurts, overwhelmed with the feeling of unbelievable gratitude to have him. Sure, I knew in my head that when he got here, it’d all be fine and I would be glad. But I find I underestimated just how thankful I would be. Sleepless nights, being covered in spit up, changing countless dirty diapers aren’t dimming the wonderfulness in the least.

I should have known that having my plans thwarted would be this wonderful. I've been here before. In being deprived of the ability to conceive, I was moved to adoption, a thing I’m so privileged to be a part of. I’ve known for years I’d have been robbed of something so awesomely marvelous if I’d have had the biological kids I’d planned on. There it is again – my plan, exchanged for something better.

So this season of Thanksgiving, I’m tremendously thankful: for miracles, survival, sanity, coos, a sacrificial spouse, a six year old who adores being a brother, a rosebud mouth and tiny fingers, supportive friends, thwarted plans, a God who knows me and my needs so much better than I do...

...for being wrong.

Ten Years: Remembering Mom

Ten years ago this evening, I was cleaning the bathroom when the phone rang. It was such a mundane task to be in the middle of for such a life-changing, earth-shattering moment. The call was that one you dread, the harbinger of sad tidings, loss, and life as you know it irreparably changed.

Mom had just had a massive stroke and was en route to the hospital via ambulance. What followed was a frantic, confusing night in which she never regained consciousness and ended with us tearfully bidding her farewell. We were surrounded by her friends and ours, covered in their prayers, comforted with their hugs, but still hurting tremendously all the same.

She wasn't "officially" my mom. She was my husband's. But when I married him - even well before that - she became heart and soul my mom, too. Ever supportive, always encouraging, she loved us equally and loved us well.  We had a common love for gardens and flowers and had just spent the day before together in our annual "April's here, let's get plants" shopping ritual.

When she became a grandmother, she did that even better, if that can be. She adored her grandkids. Her house was well-stocked with toys, playrooms on both levels. She was a ready and willing babysitter. She was the one ensuring the kids were taken out for frequent special outings with Grandma and Grandpa. Photo album upon photo album was filled with hundreds of pictures of Matthew, Cate, Alyssa, and Ben. She didn't get a chance to fill an "ablum" (one of her quirky pronunciations we miss) with pictures of Gracie, who joined our family on Mom's last birthday, barely a month and a half earlier.

Tonight, we'll have dinner and whisk off to conferences for a grandson she never met. She'd have loved him and his funny ways. It grieves me to think of the friendship they would have had and that he'll never get to enjoy it or her, him. He'll never know what it was to spend the night at her house, play in her garden, or walk the boardwalk at the beach with her, Pronto Pup in hand.

Above all, Mom loved her God, passionately. She volunteered for hours in the missions office and elsewhere at church. She had a large bulletin board with a map surrounded by pictures of the missionaries she prayed for every day. She opened her home every week for years to a group of teens wanting a place to have Bible study before school. She studied her Bible and worked hard to live up to and by its words. So we know that while her death was such a great loss for us, it was a tremendous gain for her.

When we left her bedside for the last time, one of us mused about the gardening she'll be doing in heaven, looking forward to the day we see her again and get to stroll through it with her. Outside my kitchen window is a rosebush she bought on our last trip to the garden center together on April 25. It was supposed to a smallish carpet rose, but it's so big now, far bigger than it was supposed to get. Its canes are eight or more feet long and it can barely be contained or trained, and sets new bushes where its canes touch the ground. I look at all that growth from that tiny little bush and think of how much her garden in heaven must be like it after all this time: lush, full, rampant, mature.

I look forward to seeing it with her, to again walk side by side, discussing each plant's attributes as we used to, with our kids nearby, laughing together. Until then, I walk through my own garden, filled with plants from her earthly one, and contemplate how to remember her to my kids, soon to be three now who didn't get to know her. There's such a lot to remember and share.

Which means there's also so much to miss. And I do. Every day.

So, Happy Heavenly Birthday, Mom, with all my love.

The Day the Heartbreak Stopped

Grace is the good pleasure of God that inclines Him to bestow benefits upon the undeserving. 

~ A.W. Tozer. 

March 8 is an auspicious date in our household. It is the birthdate of Mr. Hat's mother. It is also, less significantly, the date our naughty Cat Hat was born. 

But most importantly, it is the day that saw the end of years of heartbreak. Ten years ago today, Grace came home.

For seven years, we had tried to expand our family. We made charts, endured tests, hoped the drugs would work. We contemplated and debated adoption, unable to see how it would ever be financially possible. 

Then one day, a baby fell from the sky, into our arms.

A friend in another state was housing a girl at the end of her pregnancy, a girl who suddenly, finally realized adoption was the best choice for her child. Remembering our desire to adopt, they called us, touching off a whirlwind as we sought to cram a process that took months into just two weeks, which was when she was due. When we got the call she was in labor, we drove an entire day to get there, the whole time feeling indescribable excitement.

They put this darling little bundle in my arms. This little, tiny thing with big brown eyes, a shock of dark brown hair, rosy cheeks and rosebud mouth. My son was beautiful; he looked just like that picture by Bessie Pease Gutman. For three days, we held him, loved him, planned for his future.

Then, just as suddenly as he came, he was snatched away. His birth mother learned the limits of his father's rights and beat a fast path home to Virginia. I never got to say goodbye. Instead, I came home to a ready nursery, piled up shower gifts, and the antique wicker bassinet in which I once slept trimmed in blue ribbon. I didn't get cards of congratulations; they were messages of condolence.

It was a while before we dared to dream again. When we did, we looked in Mexico, Afghanistan, and China. Three times, we started the process to adopt from China. Three times our process was sidelined. Clearly God had some other direction for us. 

We began our plan B late summer of 2001: domestic, transracial adoption. It was terrifying to trust the domestic process again, but it was clearly what God had in mind. Our only child, a tiny little autistic girl, enthusiastically begged God every night for a sister, asking Him to give her brown eyes, brown arms, brown legs.

In late January 2002, we got THE call. She was here! She'd be ours. We visited her in a temporary foster home, bonding with our new daughter, cooing over her gigantic cheeks, counting the days until she could come home. We swapped out the blue ribbon on the bassinet with yards of pink; she was coming home tomorrow.

And then it happened. On Valentine's Day, our hearts were broken again, as her birth mom came to claim her. It was just as heartbreaking, but this time, I at least knew I would survive. Another ribbon-tied bundle of condolence cards and pictures joined the first in a drawer, the only proof I have that for too short a time, I was a mother to two others.

Two days later, another little girl was born. I didn't know until the week after. We were so afraid she'd be lost, too, that we didn't visit. We couldn't bond and lose again.

Court day came. We got on our coats to head to the agency, breathless with anticipation that this might just actually work this time. Miss Hat was bouncing with joy. 

We headed to the door. Hands on doorknob, the phone rang. Not today. The judge wanted to see more effort to find the birth father, so he would have the chance to assert his rights to her. A man who abused her birth mom, who disappeared and was never a part of her life or pregnancy, stood between us and a dream fulfilled. So again, we waited.

A week later, on March 8, 2002, I was on my knees, while a woman I'd never met stood before a judge in another county, voluntarily relinquishing her rights to this little girl. I begged God for her courage and the judge's common sense. I begged Him not to let this fall through again. 

And then the phone rang again. It was done. She was OURS!

Her sister nearly crashed through the door of the foster home in her excitement to finally meet her baby sister, this baby she'd prayed for for years. The foster mom, Mama Pat, met me at the door with the most beautiful baby I'd ever seen and put her in my arms. 

There really aren't words to describe how that moment felt. My heart hurt, tremendously, but for once, not with breaking. It hurt with bursting gratitude and joy. Seven years of ache and many thwarted plans had finally met their end with this tiny little thing in my arms. Here was a gift of such tremendous worth I never could deserve it: Grace.

Ten years later, Grace is an energetic girl who lives her life in extremes; there's no middle ground for this child. She's wild, quirky, entertaining, and talks incessantly. She's brought tremendous joy and lots of laughs. She's also given us lots of frustration and challenge. There are days I want to quit. But at the end of the day, it's all OK, because...

SHE'S STILL OURS.

Linking up to Serenity Now's Weekend Bloggy Reading Party. Stop by for lots of inspiration!

A Tale of the Wet-Mitten Takeover & How They Were Defeated

Well, winter finally came. With it comes the plethora of mittens, hats and scarves needed for three kids. And so begins the daily battle of what to do with all this stuff.

Some moms find those pocket organizers you can hang on your door a good solution. And it is, if your kids keep their mittens and such dry. My kids don't. Their stuff gets wet. Very, very wet. And thick mittens take FOREVER to dry.

For many years, our solution was to toss it all on the various large heating grates around the house. Which means they are in the way and getting scattered all over, while we all freeze because the vents are down to a quarter of their capacity.

"Mudroom" is an ambitious name we use for a tiny little space between the kitchen and entry, about 5' x 5', off of which is the bathroom, the kitchen and the great outdoors. So there's no place for a drying rack.

I saw the solution in an issue of Handyman Magazine a few years ago.  A reader submitted his idea for utilizing wall space to handle all this wet gear. Wall space I don't have either, but I do have the back of the door. Bingo!

The reader used a permanent installation of eye hooks and wire. If you want to look at it all year, this will work well. Me, well, I don't need that reminder of winter in the middle of summer, so I use a strictly utilitarian, temporary method: nylon twine and 3M hooks. It isn't pretty, but it works. If you care about the aesthetics, use some of the pretty 3M hooks and the colored butchers twine.

Begin by placing your hooks in rows, lining up both vertically and horizontally. Use a level if you really care about it being straight. As you see in the photos, I don't really care. Add a hook in the middle (or more if you are going wider), which will help bear the weight and lessen sag when loaded with gear. If you are using a wall and have more horizontal space, you can add more hooks than I have here.

Tie the end of your string to the upper leftmost hook and thread it horizontally to the next hook and wrap the string around it. Then continue to the next hook(s) in a row. At the end, you can either tie off and do the next row just like the first, or, as I do, you can run your string down to the next row, wrap and head the other direction. The particular string I had on hand unravels and it's a pain to tie, so I try to keep the need to knot to a minimum. And I've actually used the vertical runs, too.

Once all your hooks are covered with line, you can hang your gear with clothes pins. Voila! Drying mittens, hats and scarves. Oh, and you'll be able to find them again in a rush to get to school. Bonus!

Linking up to Serenity Now's Weekend Bloggy Reading Party. Visit for more ideas and inspiration!

First Christmases

I will never forget my first Christmas as a mother.  It was full of the usual poignant moments, the handmade Christmas dress, the "First Christmas" ornament.  But it was the most ordinary task in the middle of all that celebration that became the greatest memory, because in the middle of it, I was so profoundly struck by what that First First Christmas was.

Of all the elements and activities of the season, my epiphany came while I was changing my baby's diaper.

Wiping her little bottom, it hit me like lightening what it really meant when Christ came as a baby.

Not as a shiny, giant, glowing God who is instantly feared for His power.

Not as a grown man who one day showed up in town, offering parables, miracles and grace.

Not as a verbal child, able to make himself understood.

He came as a baby.  A human baby, the most helpless creature on earth.

The Creator of this...

the Provider of this...

came as a baby who had to cry for food...

a baby who couldn't control his own body and soiled his diapers, sitting in it until someone noticed and could take time to change him.

He chose humility on an unimaginable scale so that He could not only be my sacrifice, but understand my daily struggles, great and small. To know what it was to be a puny human.

That's love. A love so far beyond anything language could explain that it required such abject humility and sacrifice to express it.

A love for me. A love for you. Love given despite His knowing what we would be and how little we would deserve it.

So as you purchase and wrap the Christmas gifts for those you love, and as you open their gifts to you in turn, I hope each piece of tape and ripped paper reminds you of that First Christmas gift: a love for you so wide and broad and high and deep, it can barely be comprehended.




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The Bread So Fabulous, It Spawned a Family Tradition

If you are Scandinavian and celebrate St. Lucia Day, be warned: We have a very skewed celebratory tradition for this day. We do it completely wrong. We know. And I'm great with it.

Mr. Hat's maternal grandfather was Swedish, despite the family hailing from Finland as far back as I can go. Still, by the time Mr. Hat was around, there was no familial observation of St. Lucia day, a major Scandinavian holiday; as far as I know, it wasn't something his mother celebrated while growing up either.

As an adoptive mother, I can't pass along genetics. But I can pass on the traditions and cultures associated with our genes. This desire serendipitously collided with a recipe I found in a magazine for an amazing "St. Lucia Bread" I HAD to try. Hello, orange infusion? Orange glaze? Homemade bread? Um, yah. We've got Swedes in our house, so why not celebrate this holiday? At the time, I knew no one Swedish who celebrated St. Lucia Day to show me how it was done.

I was on my own, wanting that bread.

I began by learning about the day's honoree: St. Lucia. She is said to have brought food and comfort to the poor and/or Christians hidden in the dark catacombs (depending on the version of the story you read). Her hands laden with provisions, she needed a hands-free way to light her path. Adding some lighted candles to her braided, coroneted hair, she entered the dark warrens looking like the angel she was.

And so began our tradition: gathering around our braided, lighted bread in the evening of each December 13, to reflect on how fortunate we are and plan how we will give to those less fortunate as St. Lucia did, donating toys for Toys for Tots, contributing to food pantries, gathering new mittens or scarves for the homeless, etc. Though money is tight, often painfully tight, for us, we are still so, so fortunate and I want my kids to realize it.

Now that my kids are older, I wanted our giving to be more sacrificial on their part. So this year, we sat around our bread and I told them my plan (which I'll confess has some benefit for me, too). There are a bazillion things on my "to-do" list to prepare our house for hosting Christmas this year. And I have three little hooligans who need something to do for the week of break preceding Christmas. So they'll be giving sweat equity: each task will have a penny value assigned, one cent for minor tasks and more for more difficult or time-consuming tasks. When the task is completed, the assigned number of pennies will be put in a jar. At the end of the week, we'll convert those pennies to dollars that we'll donate to a local homeless shelter. Our children, having no money to give, will give of themselves, working and denying themselves the pleasure of spacing out in front of the television or Wii time.

So, you see it isn't how one is supposed to celebrate the day. But it's the way we do it, and it tastes sweet all the way around.

New Vintage Bottlebrush Trees

I love those vintage bottle-brush trees in white and pastels. They're classic, nostalgic Christmas goodness. They're also hard to find, and even harder to afford in a quantity you can do something with.

Which is why I was thrilled to find on Pinterest some magic performed by The Crafty Minx. She took the readily available and far cheaper green, flocked trees and bleached them! I loved that they weren't the stark white that most new ones are, sporting a creamy vintage look instead.

I found a big bag of trees in assorted sizes (about a dozen and a half) at the Home Depot for $7 and determined to try this myself.

I won't reinvent her tutorial. But I will share how I deviated:
1) I didn't use gloves. I wish I had. But if you want a chemical peel on your hands, skip the gloves and you'll experience pretty much the same thing.
2) I just used a big glass bowl instead of a plastic tub, since I had a bowl and not a tub, and did them a few at a time.
3) I found both mildly diluted bleach and straight bleach worked fine and took about the same amount of time.
4) I didn't scrub and I didn't soap/water wash. I just soaked and then rinsed thoroughly. I scrubbed and soaped the first one and thought it too abusive. Because I didn't beat the bejeebers out of them, some of the flocking did remain, and I liked that look, too.
5) It took a lot longer than the five minutes she cited to achieve the right color.  More like 20 minutes. But I used house-brand bleach, so maybe the "good stuff" would act faster.
6) I opted to glitter and not dye (see Crafy Minx's tutorial if you want to dye). I think it'd be worth trying to leave them white with colored glitter, too. But for this batch, I used a white-ish iridescent glitter.


To "glitterfy" your dried trees:
1) Set your sound system to play Christmas music. Is there anything better than Michael Bublé and glitter? Thought not.
2) Cover your work surface. Consider donning an apron to protect yourself from glue spatter.
3) Gather materials:

• Adhesive. A white, clear-drying glue like Elmers or ModPodge. I had ModPodge on hand, so that's what I used. Pour some in a small bowl or measuring cup and thin with a little water. You want to prevent crushing the fine fibers with thick glue. Alternately, you probably could use a spray adhesive; just make sure you have good ventilation, protect surfaces and tree base from over-spray, and tape your base to a surface to prevent the propellant from blowing these lightweight trees over.
• A paintbrush. I used an old paintbrush I had laying around from a recent paint project. A medium artist brush would probably work fine; the little ones like those that come with your kids' watercolors is probably too small.
• A bowl for excess glitter.
• Glitter. I got my iridescent glitter at Hobby Lobby a few years ago.

4) Dip your brush into the thinned glue and dab onto your tree, using a stippling action at a slight angle, from bottom to tip.

5) Clean ModPodge off your camera. *sigh*
6) Once you have the glue all over the tree, hold the tree over your bowl and sprinkle with glitter.

I have a whole new appreciation for photo tutorials.
Do you know how hard it is to craft with one hand and photograph with the other?

7) Shake off excess and set tree aside to dry.
8) When done, make sure you clean your brush, glue bowl and anything else with the glue on it right away. ModPodge is used to seal and adhere materials to surfaces permanently; you don't want that hanging out in your brush.

Let your trees dry - done!

Epsom salt, by the way, makes perfect snow. And post-holiday, you can soak in it and relieve all that holiday stress.

Merry Christmas to Me!

Several years ago, when we lived in Nashville, I found this exquisite armoire at a flea market. It had all its interior compartments intact with little glass-doored, labeled cubbies for folded items. And it was priced for a steal. For reasons I can't recall, I debated and ended up walking away, still regretting it after 17 years.

So, you'd think a girl would learn, right? Apparently not.

Yesterday, I had 15 minutes to kill between an errand and picking up my daughter at school; it wasn't enough time to head home, but it was too long to sit and wait at school.  So I hopped over to our local Goodwill store.

Which is when I found a set of china that I'd admired on a blog just a few weeks ago.  Thirty-five pieces of Homer Laughlin Chateau in pristine condition. $500 or so worth of gorgeous china for a mere $15. The square salad plates alone are sold online for around $40 each, and there are 10 of them. Seems a no brainer, doesn't it? But no, I walked away! I didn't need it. I don't know where I'd put it. But I loved it. Passionately. And I would use it. So the thought of it haunted me all evening, as did the memory of that armoire.



Mr. Hat pointed out that it was exactly the amount remaining for him to spend for my Christmas gifts. So I wished me a merry Christmas and decided I'd head over there first thing, praying no one else snapped it up in the meantime.

Sure enough - they were still there! And now they aren't. Now they're at my house, looking lovely and making me giddy happy.

All 11 dinner plates, 10 square salad plates, 9 bread & butters, 4 soup bowls, 1 precious berry bowl.

Suddenly, I know exactly how I'm setting my table for Christmas this year.  Looks good with my newly vintaged bottle-brush trees, no? (Would you believe this tree started out as one of those green ones you see with ceramic villages and train sets? True. And I have an army of them.)

So, thanks "Santa!" You did swell.

Countdown to Thanksgiving Day 22: Baileys-Free Holidays

The other night while watching TV, there was a commercial for Bailey's Irish Cream in which this lady drags a bottle through her houseful of odd party guests in even odder situations.  Mr. Hat remarked, "This doesn't make me want to buy this product at all." I suggested the effective ad would feature the woman at a family holiday gathering surrounded by all the family members who otherwise annoy, despise or avoid each other.  She would take a sip of her Baileys and suddenly be surrounded by pleasant, sparkling guests as a tagline says, "Baileys Irish Cream makes everything better." That, I think, would work.

I jest, but we hear so much this time of year of family disfunction. There are classics like "Christmas Vacation" based on this seasonal phenomena of gathering with people you don't particularly like and sometimes outright can't stand just because it's a holiday, you're family, and therefore togetherness is mandatory. So they groan and head off to Mom and Dad's or Aunt Jane's, spending in misery what should be a pleasant celebration.

Fortunately for me, this is not my reality. Having grown up together, my husband and I have families who were already acquainted and friends. We have healthy relationships with our parents and siblings. There might be the occasional scheduling hitch for these grand events, but we can all gather in the same room and end up with nothing but laughter and good conversation. We often fold in my brother's in-laws, too, with the same happy result. I could, if I chose, drink Baileys at these gatherings for the taste and not the bracing.

I'm lucky - and I know it.  I also feel blessed that, barring my sister and her family, all in our family unit are within a half-hour drive of our home. We don't have to make choices about which family we'll see this year, knowing we won't see the other family until the next one.  Having once upon a time lived away from them all, I treasure the proximity.

So as I enjoy our TWO Thanksgiving feasts on Thursday, I'll be grateful as I pass along the turkey instead of the Baileys.

Countdown to Thanksgiving Day 21: The Giant Hamster Wheel

OK, I know.  I'm late AGAIN!

And that's because, well, life this time of year is busy, full of the mundane but at increased volume.

As I was preparing to fall exhausted into bed last night, I was reflecting on how mundane it all is.  Get up and dressed, wake the Alpha and Omega kids, get them out the door with Mr. Hat, chug coffee, greet Ms. Grump, goad Ms. Grump to get ready for school, drive her there, come home, pick up, chug more coffee and catch up with friends on Facebook and/or blogs, shower (if I'm lucky), work or run errands, eat, work some more, fetch Alpha and Omega again, drop them off at home, get back in the car five minutes later and go get Ms. Grump, come home, muse about dinner, stall about dinner, start dinner, split up squabbles, help with homework, get them all in bed...  It's like I'm stuck on one giant hamster wheel, running and running, getting no further.

But you know what? My child isn't fighting cancer. My spouse isn't eking out his last days of life. We aren't unemployed, wondering how to pay for necessary groceries and heat. We aren't scrambling to find housing because we're being foreclosed on or our landlord has made other plans. We aren't laid up, trying to recover from surgery or wounds. I'm not fighting for my life in a divorce. I'm not single parenting. These are but a handful of terribly real struggles my own friends and acquaintances are enduring.  There are millions more people living in war zones and land stricken with famine.

I'm thankful for mundane.  It's a GOOD place to be.

So I'll just keep running and running...

Countdown to Thanksgiving Day 20: UN Midwest

This afternoon, I ate lunch with my family in a corner of a large room at our church, looking over 15 other tables with seven to eight people at each.

Each table was diverse in age and race, the room ranging from newborn to 50-something.  We all had one thing in common: adoption.  This room was full of parents who made significant financial and emotional sacrifices, biological children who made room for more, and children who were once orphans or at-risk.

Ten years ago, there were perhaps a dozen adoptive families at our church.  Today, we have at least three times that.  Just since January, we have had three families return with new children from around the globe, and two others who will be expanding their families before the year is out.

I'm always overwhelmed with gratitude to see these gatherings getting larger and larger, knowing the stories behind each family unit, and to be one of them.

I sat there, knowing the dismal future (if any) these kids have been redeemed from, and make mental comparisons to their new reality.  They aren't just saved, they are loved.  I watch the spontaneous hugs and kisses these former orphans lavish on their new parents and the affection returned. I see the little ones sitting on laps, arms around their mothers' necks.  I giggle to watch the gentle interaction between older, biological children and their younger adopted siblings.  My heart swells with their sense of security and worth.

These kids have come from China, Ethiopia, Russia, Korea, Haiti, Guatemala, and within the US. Many came as sibling groups, instantly doubling the size of their new families. Some came with the additional challenges of limb deformities, deafness, cleft palates, or serious illness. Some came "healthy" and had serious conditions discovered later, conditions they probably would not have survived had they not been adopted, yet are manageable in the US. They've been harshly abandoned on trash heaps, lovingly turned over to orphanages to save their lives, or sacrificially given in adoption to give them a better future.


All of them needed a family.

And, boy, they found not just one, but two. They also have this church family, a huge group of people who prayed for them before they were known, helped their parents prepare, and celebrated every milestone in their adoption process.  People who will continue to pray for them, teach and mentor them, and encourage their parents. A large group that just keeps getting bigger, changing the world one family at a time.

Countdown to Thanksgiving Day 17: Easy Bounty

Perhaps I should be thankful today for an ability to count or read a calendar, because I can, despite the fact that I posted "18" before "17." I was trying to rush November, as though it wasn't already flying by fast enough. Indulge me and pretend day 18 is really 17 and vice versa.

I often complain about grocery shopping.  I. hate. it.  Actually, I'm not sure there's any possible way to utilize the English language or font treatments to correctly capture just how much I loathe it.

Sale stuff I've planned a week of dinners of is often out of stock.  Other items I've come to rely on for certain recipes are suddenly removed from stock.  The produce department is rearranged every week. My fellow shoppers seem to be in a parallel universe in which they are alone; I can see them, but clearly they cannot ever see me. Cashiers bag my things in completely illogical ways despite the fact I already organize it all on the belt exactly the way it needs to be bagged. And if it fits, they'll cram it in.  It doesn't matter if I have 50 pounds worth of canned goods in one bag.  It's a miserable place to be most days.

But I always leave with several bags of food.  Food I didn't have to grow, raise, butcher, preserve, and in some cases, cook.  Food that's just there, ready when I want it, in quantity beyond my needs.  Exotic and gourmet food beyond the basics needed for survival is heaped up so much that they can't even put it all on the shelves requiring them to keep some in massive back rooms.

Once upon a time, there was a show called "Frontier House" in which modern souls turned themselves into frontier settlers for a social experiment. At the end of the series, they were rated on their preparedness for winter, because for the real frontier settlers 150 years ago, if you didn't personally grow, hunt or raise/butcher enough, you'd die. It was interesting to watch how unaccustomed to the labor and wait these men and women were.

Thanksgiving is a time at which we recall a celebration by pilgrims and Native Americans.  They celebrated and feasted because they were able to raise, hunt and preserve enough bounty to see them through a long New England winter, unlike earlier years and other settlements.  They knew what it was to starve.

Source: www.plimouth.org

Each week, I waltz in and out in an hour or so, loading up my basket with more food than many people around the world get in a month - or longer.  I tote it home, moaning under the weight of the bags that have to be schlepped into the house, and sighing over the task of putting it all away.  Yet, I didn't have to keep a cow for milk. I didn't have to hunt and butcher something for meat. I didn't have to raise wheat, get it ground and then spend hours making bread.  I not only didn't have to make my own cheese, I can buy it already sliced or shredded. Sure, some of us do can, hunt, raise chickens and beef, but it's optional, a "hobby" instead of survival.

It's crazy-easy, massive bounty I so often take for granted to the point of complaint. I even complain about having to turn it into "dinner" each night.

Which makes me realize it's about that time to head to the kitchen and figure out what "sounds good" for dinner. See? We have such bounty we can decide what we're in the mood for.

Easy, plentiful bounty.


Photos: Microsoft Office unless otherwise specified

Countdown to Thanksgiving Day 18: Baby, It's Cold Outside

You know that weather when you walk outside and the wind takes your breath away because it's so cold? Yeah, it's like that around here lately, and we still have another 30-40 degrees (F) to drop before we're in the dead of winter.  That wind just bites.

Which is why I'm thankful to have shelter. Not just shelter, but a home. A home with heat, a bed with down comforter, adequate clothing and cold-weather gear.

Our house is old, as in "built before anyone ever heard of insulation" old.  And it has its original windows. Heating it to a comfortable level is a challenge most days and impossible on the coldest days, but still, I'm not up under a highway overpass trying to eke out an existence in a cardboard box while the wind howls and the "feels like" temperature is -10F.  No.  I'm sitting on a comfortable couch with snuggly blankets, drinking hot tea or chocolate, listening to the furnace blow warmed air through massive antique vents.

Sure, the plaster is cracked in places and the floor is so out of level that one can shoot a marble in one corner of the dining room and have it circle the room and come right back.  Sure, it requires never-ending maintenance and then some.  But it keeps us dry and warm, which is so much more than many have.

So I'm not going to sit here listening to the wind howl and the furnace activate in rapid succession as it tries to keep up with the cold, and think of all the dollars it costs to keep it running. I'm not going to lament the drafts and cold walls. Instead, I'm going to think just how fortunate I am that I have gas heat to pay for, the means to do it, and that it's just drafts and not full-on chilly winds unchecked in their velocity.

I'm fortunate to be inside and warm.  Because baby, it's cold outside.


Photos: Microsoft Office