Left Field

Philippians 3:13-14    But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

 Peaches are everywhere.  Pressure canner brought in from storage.  It's a 100 degree Texas day, but I have two boxes of peaches to take care of.  I'm cutting, dicing, peeling, sticky, and HOT.
And an 8 year old girl sticks by my side like glue, talking all the while.

I tune in to her chatter just in time to hear:

"Sometimes, I think this is just a dream, and I will wake up, and I will be with (birthmom)."

Wow....that came out of left field.
 And it hit me right in the chest.  I was not expecting that blow.

Take a deep breath, Carla, and be calm, because this is one of those things adoptive moms cannot make a mistake with.

"So, what do you think you would be doing if this was a dream and you woke up with (birthmom)?"
"Oh, I don't know.  I'd probably eating dry cereal for supper instead of peach cobbler."

She's been listening to big sister.  It's been half her life since she lived with her first family.

"Have you been dreaming about her?"  I ask.
"I dream about her a lot." she answers.

I live in right field.  All the time.  And sometimes, I forget that there will always, always, be left field for the older adopted child.
And even though I ALWAYS live in right field, there are times I have to deal with left field, anyway.

I know she loves me, and I love her.  I forget there was ever another life before she came here, because I didn't live it.  Her big brother has lived here with me since babyhood.  I rarely think about that first family.

But she does.

And that's okay.  That's her truth.  If I try and deny it, or sweep it away, or insist that she cannot dream about waking up and being back with birthmom, I will damage her.

I have to stop in the middle of peeling peaches, and let her talk if she needs too.

Adoption for the older child is not always rainbows and butterflies.  Sometimes, most times, it is.  But sometimes, it hurts, even if bad things happened in the birth home.  Even if you are well adjusted and happy in your adoptive home.
Sometimes, you have to revisit left field and try to make sense of it all.

Because you can't help what you dream...

And hopefully, your adoptive mommy is strong enough to step into left field, even is she doesn't live there, and help you work through it.

Purging - a mean Mommy post

1 Corinthians 14:33 God is not a God of disorder but of peace. 
2 Peter 2:19 A man is slave to whatever has mastered him.

 A while back, my family was considering a move to a small town near us so we could attend the church there.  It got serious enough that I actually had a realtor out to look over our place and see what she thought we could sell it for.

When I had finished showing her around, we went back into my kitchen and sat down, and I asked her what she thought I should do to make the place more sell-able.  I was thinking along the lines of painting and new floors.  So I was surprised when she told me that other than touch ups, I could probably get away with not repainting the whole house, since many times people want to put their own touches on everything.

No, she said, I really just needed to declutter.

Declutter?  I was surprised.  I mean, I have always prided myself on keeping things and reusing them.  And I wasn't a hoarder...

Was I?

I began to look around.  Okay, maybe I WAS hanging on to things I could get rid of.  I looked at things through new eyes.  And it wasn't pretty...

We didn't move after all, but I began to declutter anyway.  Little bits at a time, I went through things and even sold some "clutter".  I gave things away and carted clothes I have saved forever to Goodwill and the big collection box at the gas station here.  I have a long way to go, and I'm working on it.

Which brings me to today...

My younger kids have an older mother.  As in, a mother who will be 60 years old this month.  Age is beginning to rear it's ugly head, and one way it's done that is that my knee is bothering me a bit.  Which translates too: Mommy doesn't like to climb stairs anymore.  When I overheard my little girls, ages 10 and 7, talking about how great that was because when Mommy says clean your room, she rarely checks up, I knew things were not good.  Still, again, it hurts to climb the stairs, so I would mostly send big sister up to check things out.

This week, my son Spencer has been here, and he has done amazing things around our yard, and I was in the mood to do some more decluttering.  I started with our addition, which is the worse, and as I was working today, I told the younger kids to go clean their rooms.  I told them they had 30 minutes, and after that, everything not picked up was going in the trash.

Now it's not like I don't tell them this often.  In fact, every day, from 10 to 2, we do school, and then we clean.  They are supposed to be cleaning their rooms on almost a daily basis.
But today, I told the 10 year old girl she only had 30 minutes, too.  At which point, she got absolutely hysterical.  There is NO WAY she could clean her whole room in 30 minutes, she tearfully declared.  And as she was having a panic attack, the 7 year old also began to wail that the 10 year old had helped her mess up her room, and she should have to help, too.
I remained firm.  30 minutes, I redeclared and went to hang clothes on my new clothes line son Spencer had hung.

30 minutes, later, I went to check.

Oh.My.Goodness...

OH.MY.GOODNESS...

Have they been motherless?  Or are they deaf when the mother tells them to clean?  Or is this a matter of too much stuff for 4 young children to handle?

Because it was BAD!

And it's an ongoing thing.  It's just that once in a great while, I lose it and I yell and holler and I make a big show of throwing stuff away.

But today, I kept my composure.  I told them, you simply have too much stuff.  If your room can get in this condition, then obviously it's more than you can handle.

And the declutter began.

At first, the 7 year old was smug.  She thought she had done a pretty good job of cleaning her room.  No matter that you could not see the floor, that was just trash she didn't want anyway.  She was confident that her things were safe.
Everything she wanted, you see, was piled on her bed.  And on her desk.  And on the little kitchen that I have told her repeatedly not to pile stuff on.
So I called for trash bags, which she brought me, still smirking.  She's a master smirker.  Ask her siblings.

She ran on off to play outside while, she thought, I cleaned her floor.

I opened the bag, totally ignoring the stuff on the floor.  I started with the bed.  I literally filled a trash bag with the stuff on the bed.  In went the princesses dresses.  In went some dolls.  In went a leapster.  Under the bed, which she hadn't bothered with much, had her little camera.  Some more little toys.  Into the bag they went.
At some point, a sibling walked by and saw what I was doing, and headed off to tell her.  She frantically ran up the stairs, and saw what was in the trash.  Great weeping and wailing began.  "But I didn't know you meant I had to clean off the bed!!"  She cried desperately.
"Selah, I said clean your room.  Picking up everything on the floor and piling it on the bed isn't cleaning." 

This is one of my mantras in EVERYTHING, EVERYDAY.  They hear it often.  Moving things, whether it be in the kitchen, the bathroom, the living room or your bedroom, from one surface to another surface, is not cleaning.  Cleaning is picking things up and putting them where they belong.
"Give me another chance!!"  She screamed in horror, huge tears streaming down her face.  I was not moved.  I finally sent her outside so I could finish.
As I worked, I decided that enough truly was enough, and that one container of toys was all she needed.  I pulled out all her bins and began to go through them.

OH.MY.GOODNESS...

All the socks I thought were lost?  In the bins.  Remember this morning when everyone was so frustrated doing school because there were no pencils?  In the bins.  Wow, here's her shoes.  Here's the wrapper to every candy bar she has eaten in the past six months.  Hair pins, headbands.  CUPS??  PLATES??

Help...

I think I spent a couple of hours in there, but when I was done, I had carried out a large trash bag of  toys to give away and at least two large trash bags of plain old trash and broken things.  I collected a large number of pencils, pens and dishes.  All her crayons and markers went into the communal art box.  Once I was done, she had one bin of toys left.  I told her, "It's your choice.  If you want to fill this bin with socks, shoes, dishes and trash to the point where there is no room left for toys, I will take the rest of the toys to Goodwill too."

Then I moved to the boys room. 

Another OH.MY.GOODNESS...

Since they share a room, I got them down to three bins of toys.  But the sheer amount of trash, sticks and all kinds of outdoor junk they had collected in there was amazing.  I didn't have to fill a trash bag with toys, but I filled another couple of bags just with trash and sticks and shells and old jars of dead bugs.  I even found a bunch of dried up snakes.  Lovely...

The ten year old?  I gave her a bit more time while I rested, but I am on my way out there very soon.  Hopefully, she was big enough to purge the room herself.  I told her one bin of toys, and all trash and clothes had better be out of there.  She says they are, but I've obviously heard that before.

Do I feel mean?  Yeah, a little bit.  I want them to have "things".  But I also want them to learn to take care of those things.  If they have so much they literally cannot contain it all, then they have too much.  And I'm tired of telling them to clean their rooms, and having them do such a poor job.

And sometimes, a mom has to resort to drastic measures to make her family realize she means business.  I sort of doubt I will have to do this again for a while.  I mean, if nothing else, they only have one bin each of toys now.  And they, especially Selah, lost a few favorite things by not taking mommy seriously.  But it shouldn't be so hard to keep the room clean - at least of toys, anyway.  Candy bar wrappers, and dead snakes might still accumulate up there...

And some little girl is going to be awfully happy with those princess gowns...

Fleeting...

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever."  Isaiah 40:8

Time is marching on.  I will be 60 years old in a couple of months.  I am finally acknowledging that I am indeed getting older.  Am I elderly?  I didn't like that idea, so I googled "elderly" the other day.  According to the internet, I have five more years until I am considered such...that doesn't mean, though, that the young lady at McDonalds the other day didn't offered me the senior citizens discount.  I firmly believe that senior citizen discounts should NOT be offered, they should be asked for.  I guess it's vanity, but I would rather believe I still look too young for one of those.  And the crummy thing was that, according to McDonalds, who caters to the very young set, I WAS eligible for it!

SIGH...

Which brings me to the reason I am writing this blog this early morning.  It's not just me that is getting older and moving into a new stage of life.  My children are moving right along with me.  They are ALL growing up now.  I've been a mom for 38 years.  With birth, fostering and adopting, it's been rare that there has not been a baby in my house for most of those years.  But now, there's not.  And I'm thinking, the way my back feels and my bones ache, that likely, except for grandchildren, that part of my life is probably over.  I hung onto it for about twenty years longer than most of my friends.  I have loved raising children so much.  And I'm not completely done yet.  It's just that it seems the baby part is over.

My youngest child is six years old, and growing quickly.  Recently, I have realized that having a child who thinks I can do no wrong, and is so dependent on me is fast coming to an end.  It's funny what can bring you to that realization, although it has been at the back of my mind for a while.
We went to Legoland with our homeschool group.  I don't take my children to places like that very often, so I decided to go ahead and spent the massive amount of money for seven of us to attend - mainly because we were getting a group discount, which barely made if affordable.  Later, Angel-Leah grabbed my cell phone and went through the pictures, and then hotly declared that the only people I took pictures of were Mary Susannah, Cynthia and Tommy.

"Mary Susannah and Cynthia confiscated my phone and took pictures of themselves!"  I defended myself.  "And the rest of you ran away, and Tommy was the only one who wanted to hang out with me!"

And it hit me how true that was.  Even Selah, who is only a year older than Tommy, spent her time with big sister Angel-Leah.  I think, though, Legoland was too big and too loud for Tommy to feel like Luke could take care of him.  So he opted to spend the day with me.

We took selfies on the airplane that I had to peddle like mad to keep up in the air:

And I caught him in a picture while he was trying to catch criminals:

It was a long day, but very fun.  As Tommy said once when he could barely talk: "Me (Tommy) and Mommy, on a team!"

Yesterday, we pulled up in the parking lot of our homeschool co op.  I walked around the back of the car and opened the hatch.  Big and little kids grabbed their things and ran off to the door, leaving me standing there alone - except for Tommy.  He stood chattering away, waiting for me.  I smiled at him and remembered Legoland.  Me and Tommy, on a team.  We walked into the church building together.  Later, at lunchtime, my kids ran to find their friends, not acknowledging me at all, except for Tommy, who also ran to sit with his friends, except that he glanced back, just making sure mommy was there.  And I was.

I guess what this mommy, who was been mothering for nearly 40 years and has 12 children, wants to leave with you this morning is just this:

They grow up.  Even when you have 12 children, eventually, the time of having little ones is going to end.  Those sleepless nights, those clingy days when you get nothing done except rocking the baby, the messy house, the diapers, the nursing...

It ends.  They get married.  They go to college.  They might even move off to Viet Nam.

And all you have is the memories.

And no one left to take selfies on the airplane with.  In fact, you don't even get on the airplane anymore - unless your grandchild wants you too.  Which is good, too!

Enjoy them.  It so fleeting.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.  Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Finding Our Way

Proverbs 29:15 “... a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.”

Just a  little over a year ago, I adopted a 16 year old girl.

Lots of people told me to my face I was crazy.  Lots of people thought I would be sorry.  Lots of people thought I would do damage to the children already in my home.

I was pretty wise in my own eyes - or at least, I put on a VERY brave front that I was.  I never felt a check in my soul that I was doing the wrong thing.  I prayed a lot.  And I had raised up 6 children through the teen years already, and had a daughter the very same age as this 16 year old girl.  And I had loved her back when she was 6 to 8 years old, living in my daughter Rachael's group foster home.  And she was the sister of my son, Luke, after all...
And she and Luke had a very cute half sister that was included in the package:

The picture above is the first time we saw Cynthia again after we were called and asked to consider adopting her and Selah (then named Selena).  Cynthia had completely forgotten she had a baby brother, she had not seen him since he was a year old.  Her red eyes in this picture are the aftermath of much sobbing when she brought forth a dim memory of that forgotten baby brother, and remembered him...

So here we are, a year later.  We've done a lot of learning about each other during that time.  And I admit, I really DON'T know much about beginning to parent a child AFTER they are 16 years old.  There's so much I've missed and so much I never got to teach her.  It took me a bit to truly realize this girl was not Mary Susannah and that I could not expect the same behavior from her.
Even if they were only two weeks apart, and we celebrated birthdays both together and separate!

I took 6 year old Selah out of school the very day of the adoption.  I wasn't sure what to do with Cynthia.  She wanted to finish out the year in public school, and since it was more than half over, I allowed it.  When school started up again in the fall, I still wasn't sure what to do.  She wanted to go back.  Because I didn't know what I would do with her all day, I let her, although I never felt good about it.  I felt like I was taking the easy way out, when I should have been parenting her better.
But then Cynthia began to tell me she wanted to stay home more and more.  She would ask to skip school and go do the things we were doing.  I always said no.  If she were going to go to public school, then she needed to go.  If she wanted to stay home, though, I would withdraw her.  Her refusals got less and less strong.
Then she began to have stomach aches.  Finally, one day after picking her up just one hour after school started, and the school nurse had called to tell me she was sick, I said to her, "Cynthia, just come home."
And she did.

But how was I supposed to keep this already 17 year old busy?  Mary Susannah was finished with school and had a job two days a week.  I hadn't schooled a high schooler in a while. I found all the books and gave them to her.  Since she insisted she wanted to go to college, I told her it was her responsibility to take those books and really learn.
So she took them into her bedroom, but I was pretty sure she was not "doing school".

The holidays were upon us, and that kept me busy.  Then just after Christmas, Angel-Leah got sick, and was sick for a whole month.  It was a terrible, scary time for me, and took all my energy, just trying to tend to her and do the minimum for everything else.  School suffered a lot that month.

Then we came out from under that cloud.  But during the time since I had withdrawn her from public school, Cynthia had gotten into the habit of NEVER coming out of her room except to eat meals.  Never.  And laying in the messy room, all day long, tended to make her grouchy sometimes.  I knew it wasn't good, and no matter how much easier it was to just let her do it, I knew I was "leaving her to herself", the very thing the Bible warns us not to do.

So one night, I spent some time just thinking.  How could I change this?  What could I do to make things better?

And I came up with a plan!

I got all the kids together and told them that from now on, no one was allowed to be in their rooms between the hours of 10 to 2.  I made out a schedule:  From 10 to 11 was school time (that had Cynthia working for one hour.  The younger kids did more school in the earlier morning, but from 10 to 11 everyday, I read to them: Bible, character building, history, science...etc)  From 11 to 12, we listened to the younger ones read and then cooked and cleaned.  Cynthia and Angel-Leah could make desserts if they wanted too.  They could make a big lunch if they wanted too. And we got some housework done.  From 12:30 to 1:30, the ones assigned to the dishes did that, and the rest of us worked on a cleaning project.  So far it's been the addition/laundry room.  We have just about filled the dumpster with the cleaning out we've done.  From 1:30 to 2, we work on the outside - right now our project is getting the yard clean, and making a sitting area on the side.  Soon we will plant flowers and tend those.

The first day of this, Cynthia started out a bit grumpy.  But then, she and Angel-Leah made cupcakes.  They were a total flop looks wise, but they tasted alright, so we scraped them up off the tops of the cupcake pans where they had overflowed and put peanut butter in the holes in the middle where they had sunk in and they mostly got eaten.  After lunch, we tackled that addition. We actually had fun working on it.  We talked and sang - okay after a while, the grown up of the house - ME - gets a bit tired of "this is the song that never ends", but I will grit my teeth for the better good of it all.  Then we went into the yard and we picked up and laughed and talked some more.
And I asked Cynthia:  Doesn't it feel better to get out of your room and actually do something?  We did a LOT today!  And she admitted yes, it felt a lot better.  In fact, she might play with the kids for a while after it's done.

I bought her a GED book, and that's what she began to study today.  She was interested in the practice tests.  She is very good at English, which didn't surprise me a bit.  I gave her a choice when school time was over: she could do housework or bath our little Yorkie, and she choose to bath the Yorkie:

Then we worked on the addition once more and cleaned the yard a while, and around 1:45 I told her if she would brush out the little dog now that she was dry, she could be finished and have the rest of the day to do what she wanted.
So she brushed the dog, and then she decided to groom our Pyrenees, Goliath.  And he was a MESS!  She enjoyed it, though, because she is the only one Goliath is affectionate towards.  She did a really good job cleaning him up.

She's a very good girl.  She's a very hard worker.  She is almost always cheerful, and I think she's going to do well in life.  I am so glad I didn't listen to the people who tried to discourage me.  I always have felt like if I stayed close to the Lord and prayed about things, I could trust my gut instinct in everything, because I think that's the way we hear the Lord.

I am blessed she's my daughter.  I'm blessed they are ALL my sons and daughters!  God has been good to me!

Rainy day outing

Changes are always hard.  Even changes that you really, really, REALLY want to happen.  Changes you have waited thirteen months for, and thought for about six of those that the changes were not going to happen...

But they did.  And while we are happy, we've also had kind of a rough time...

So when the grandkids called wanting to come over, I felt for one of the few times of my life that maybe I couldn't quite do it this week.  So I offered a day out instead, and I would take them back home afterwards.

Yesterday was pretty hard, with the little ones spending the entire day tattling on each other.  So even though we woke up to rain, I decided that we were going to go ahead, get out of the house and get the grandkids, anyway.  The grandkids felt the same way, a phone call from their mother let me know.

Tell them I'm coming, I assured her!

I picked them up, and we went to the park in the steady rain.  We ate peanut butter sandwiches and animal crackers, me holding my plate under a picnic table to try and keep it dry.  I finally retreated to the car while the kids played on the merry go round.  It wasn't long, though, before they felt done.

Besides, the park wasn't really their main goal.  The Botanic Gardens was where they really wanted to be.  The park has swings and climbing things, but the Gardens have ponds, creeks and turtles. And the big girls had cameras.

Can someone tell me how I have lived in Texas all but six years of my life, and have been a mommy for 36 years, and have never discovered until now that Botanic Gardens is a wonderful place to spend a free of charge afternoon?

I hate that I can only show my new daughters from the back right now:

But I am being promised that they will be made adoption placements very soon, and then I can show the world how beautiful they are!

In the meantime, I can show you my other beautiful kiddos (although my pictures of Tommy were all blurry ):

 

 And beautiful grand daughter Chloe:

 

It seems like when ever I am with grandson Mikey these days, he is catching turtles!  

It was a great afternoon, even if little sister, Miss S, did fall into the creek:

 She loved Botanic Gardens.  I thought it was funny once, watching her look at the fish in that beautiful setting, how loud the highway was right next too it.  It seems like we can't get away from highways, either at home, or at the park.  Can you see it in the background?  It seemed VERY out of place!

 

It was nice to see Miss S and Angel-Leah make peace with each other and act like the sisters they are now.  For the first time in five days, they were united enjoying the flowers:

We needed this day.  Rain and all, it turned out great.  Sometimes, you've just got to get away!

Beautiful children

We went to a funeral this week.  It was a very sweet funeral of a much loved lady who was nearing her 90th year.  She was the mother of Bill's brother in law.  I didn't know her well, but I wish I had - the people who spoke and sang at the funeral obviously loved her much. My son Max remembered that she always made coconut cream pies for him when she knew he was coming.  I heard a lady behind me whisper to her friend, "She never missed a service.  She was there Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday night."  I felt a bit convicted...
The preacher agreed in his eulogy.  He said that after this lady was diagnosed with cancer, sometime other parishioners would call and tell him they weren't going to be at services because they had a headache.  "I'll ask Miss Liz to pray for you,"  he said he would tell them, because Miss Liz would be sure to be there, even with the pain of her cancer.  That was usually enough and the person on the other end of the phone would be at services, he said, laughing.  It was obvious he loved her very much.

After the funeral, we were all invited back to church for a meal.  Our family went, Bill and I and our five youngest children.  Bill's extended family doesn't have a lot of children in it.  I'm not sure why that is, because it is certain that they love children.  But regardless, when this family gets together, my children are usually the only ones there, and they get much attention.  This day was no exception.
One thing I heard throughout the day, both by family and people I had never met before, was how beautiful my children are.  I have to admit, I agree!  Beau was especially fussed over, because he has grown into a man now:

And no, I'm not ready to marry him off, so don't email me pictures of your daughters!!  :o)

But then, they are ALL beautiful, pretty Celeste is the only one missing from the first picture:

Someone asked me how I managed to have ten children, and all of them beautiful!  I jokingly replied it was because Bill and I are so beautiful, ourselves.
Then last night, I was reading a new book after all the kiddos went to bed.  In it, the main character was talking about a family who lived in the hills.  She said there were many children in the family, and they were all ugly.  At least, she thought so until she got to know one of the sisters.  The more she knew her, the more beautiful she became, until this person thought, "Why, she isn't ugly at all!"

I thought about that...

What is beautiful?  Here is a dictionary definition:

adjective

1.

having beauty;  having qualities that give great pleasure or satisfaction to see, hear, think about, etc.; delighting the senses or mind: a beautiful dress; a beautiful speech.

So it doesn't have to just be a perfect face, it is something that "gives great pleasure.. to see" I thought of three things that are beautiful to see in a child:  Good health, nicely dressed, and happy.

As mom's, we are responsible for our children's health.  Healthy children are a joy to look at, and usually, a joy to be around.  If you are pregnant, are you taking your vitamins and eating healthy, well balanced meals?  This is the very start.  Once baby is here, are you breastfeeding?  Again, as a mommy, it is the very best you can do for your child.

Now that they are older, are you being careful to provide healthy meals?  Or are you throwing a box of sugar laden, food colored cereal on the table?  Processed lunch meat on white bread?  Come on, mom, you can do better for your children...

That food is okay once in a while, but it should be the exception rather than the rule.

How about how your dress your child?  Do their clothes fit?  I remember going to a foster care meeting one day and I could almost tell which of the foster children were welcomed into the family by how they were dressed.  Some were wearing ill fitting, worn out looking clothes that obviously came from charity, others were dressed like well care for children.  I'm not saying thrift store clothes are wrong.  We went to Goodwill ourselves yesterday.  Mary Susannah found name brand Aeropostale clothes mixed in with everything else there.  They cost the same amount as the worn out looking shirts.  She found a trendy skirt.  She is turning into the queen of thrift store clothes.  I, on the other hand, don't often have the patience to dig through the tremendous amount of clothes that she does.  I was looking for shirts for Luke and didn't find anything I thought was nice enough for him to wear.  I've sort of learned that to find clothes for Luke, I need to go to the Burleson Goodwill.  I don't know what the difference is, but it's there.  This Cleburne Goodwill, however, is great in the book department!!

And lastly, is your child happy?  A happy, clear countenance is priceless.  A well loved older man who has passed on to glory, Richard Mummau, told me once that a Christian always has a clear countenance.  I could write a whole other blog about that, maybe I will someday.

Do your children have a clear countenance?   What do you feed their minds on?  Are they innocent?

One lady at the funeral told me that Luke was the cutest little boy she had ever seen.  I know what she means.  While Luke may have funny ears and a skinny body and he doesn't talk much in public,  he was born smiling and hasn't stopped since.  He doesn't need to talk, his face is very expressive and  says it all.  He looks like a child who has never seen a bad day.  Yeah, he can be naughty, when he is, it's hard for me to discipline him (although I do, honestly) because I don't like to do anything to make him cry or be sad.  When the church we were attending made it a rule of membership that the children HAD to attend the church school, I knew I would never be a member.  Trying to explain it to them, I told one lady, "I can't imagine that I would have to go all day and not see Luke's smile!"  Her reply?  "Oh, you will get used to it."

Used to it?  I don't WANT to get used to it, I told her.  She looked at me like she could not comprehend that...

So momma's, take stock: are your children beautiful?  

I think I can hear a lot of "yes's" out there!!

Old moms

Do not despise your mother when she is old...may she who gave you birth rejoice!  Proverbs 23:22,25

Our adoption worker sat in our living room a week or so ago, and informed me that we had enough training now that we could be respite providers (babysitters for foster parents) with their agency.  When I said I would be glad to do that, he said I should be careful what I offered, and by the way, what ages would I be willing to take care of once in a while, should they need me?

hmmm...

ALWAYS before, I would have said newborns up to two years old would be my favorite ages.  Especially newborns.  They are still little enough to cuddle and keep close to you.  You always know where they are.

But lately, I've noticed it's been a bit hard for me to take care of newborns.  My back is not strong anymore.  Cuddling a good sized baby at church a few Sundays ago made me realize I was pretty glad to hand him back to his young mommy, even if he was awfully cute.  Holding him hurt my back enough that I didn't really enjoy it, at least not in a standing position.

So I'm having to face the fact that I will be sixty in less than three years now.
Sigh...who ever would have thought I would get that old?

Another thing is that it's getting a bit harder to pull myself up out of my comfortable chair when the kids need tending too discipline wise.  I'm a bit slow now, hoping that they will resolve their problems without my intervention.  And sometimes they do, but often, once it gets to the point that I'm hearing it (It's amazing the selective deafness of a mother of ten) it's past the point of their resolving it themselves, and they need me to be there to help.

I have some really well behaved children if I do say so myself.  I thought about that a lot this afternoon, after an eye doctors appointment for poor Mary Susannah.  She has had a TERRIBLE time with her beautiful eye.  For two months now, after three clinics and six different doctors working on her and more prescriptions than I can count - some we only used a very few times before we were told to quit using that one and use this one instead - we are just now seeing real progress in getting her eye well.  It's been awful for her, and it's made her cry many times, because she's just so tired of hurting.

So we've been at this eye doctor's office in Fort Worth once a week for about four weeks now, enough that they recognize us when we walk in, and know my children.  The older doctor, father of two of the younger doctors in the office, always comments on my lovely family.  Today he told Mary Susannah she was his best patient, and that I have a lovely family of well behaved children, to which the nurse replied that she had not seen such well behaved children in the office in a long time, and gave my kiddos stickers to reward them for being so good.  Last week, the male assistant told me my children "looked like I cared about them."

It made my mind run back over the years, to other times people have told me that.  I remember many, many years ago, walking into a glass shop to buy new windows.  When I walked in the door with my crew, four little boys ages about 8, 6, 3 and a 1 year old in my arms, the man behind the desk came up out of his chair, pointed at them, and almost shouted at me, "You better watch those boys!  You better not let them run around in here!  You better keep ahold of them!"

Who, me?

I drew in a quick breath, remembered my Christian testimony, and told him, "Oh, don't worry.  They are going to sit down in these chairs and be really good while I pick out glass."
And they did.  I kept the one year old, my BIG baby Beau, in my arms, because there is only so much you can expect out of a one year old.  But the other three sat quietly.  The man relaxed, and even told me I won the prize for the strangest story about how the glass got broken (I'm sure he expected me to say my boys did it) when I told him - and this is true - that my jersey cow got into my entry hall, slipped and slid on the slippery tile and backed her fanny into my entry hall window, crashing it to pieces.
Glass picked out and paid for, we went to the car.  I strapped the boys in, climbed into the front seat of my big Suburban, and was about to drive away when I saw the man run out the door of his shop towards me.  I rolled down my window, and he said:
"Ma'am. I was very rude to you when you walked in today, and I just felt like I had to come back outside and tell you that you have the best behaved children I have ever seen in my life.  I'm sorry for what I said earlier, and I just wanted to tell you that."

Well, that sure made my day, and it wasn't the last time it happened, either...

Another time that stands out in my mind was at the Social Security office a couple of years ago.  I had gone there after our third adoption to change the kids names on their social security cards.  I had the three younger ones and Mary Susannah with me.  I ran into a friend, also a foster/adopt mom and mother of a large family.  She finished before I did, and came over to our seats to talk for a minute.  As she got ready to leave, she commented on how good my children were being.  I laughed and said I was sure hers would be the same, and she said, "No.  You people" (you people...as in you people who are short?  old?  you people who homeschool?  you people who wear dresses only and headcovers?  :o) )  "You have something, and the rest of us need to learn it."

Then today, the compliments at the doctors office.  Afterwards, we went to Aldi's to get a few groceries.  And I noticed, maybe because of what the doctor and nurses said just a bit earlier, that sure enough, not every child follows closely beside their mother's cart as she shopped.  We watched an absolutely beautiful set of twins consisting of a good twin and a bad twin - the bad one screaming and crying and yelling at her daddy and climbing out of the cart.  In the checkout line, we watched an older child sitting in the baby seat with a cast on his leg that just fascinated Luke, as he slung a jumbo sized bag of Smarties out of the cart.  And his mother picked it right up and flung it right smack into the child's stomach.  And he slung it right back out, and she picked it up and clobbered him in the stomach with it again.  He threw it out, and she smacked it right back into his stomach, declaring in a loud voice that if he did it again, she just might put it back on the shelf and not let him have it!
At which declaration, I thought, "Well, yeah, mama.  If you would have done that in the first place, you probably wouldn't have to do it more than once or so before he learned that kind of behavior isn't allowed..."

I'm not a perfect mom.  In fact, you can read about an amazing tantrum Tommy had in public recently HERE.  But I guess if there is one thing that "we people" or at least, "I" have learned, it's that you have to expect good behavior from your children, and not only expect it, but not allow anything else except good behavior.  There's not really much secret to it.  Just stay calm, and teach your children the proper way to behave.  Teach them to be ladies and gentlemen.  That should be one of the priorities of your days.

And it takes a lot of work, and this old mommy is more tired lately than she used to be.  Sixty years old is coming fast.  My rocking chair looks better all the time.

So, Mr. Adoption Worker, give me the older ones, the ones that can walk.  I might be old, but really, there is still a little good in me, yet!