About The Man (Experiences With a Beggar)

"Mama, don't forget food for the man."

We were running late, and I barely remembered what the context of Million's reminder was.
And then it hit me.

"The man" is a professional beggar that begs at a corner near Michael's work every day from 3:30 until 4:05.  And then he hops on a bus and begs at a different corner a few miles north.

A few days ago, on a whim, I asked Million if he saw that man.  We talked about how he must be cold because he doesn't have a house, and he might be hungry.  Ever since then, Million has been talking about "the man."

The first day that Million reminded me to pack some food, "the man" was not at his typical intersection.  Million proposed that maybe the man had found a home.  I felt a strange feeling of relief in the pit of my stomach.

The second day, "the man" was there.  It felt so inconvenient.  The light was about to turn green; the man was several lanes away from my car door.  And then it happened.  "The man is there! Mama! The man is there!"  And I knew, in that second, that my son was watching me to see if I would be generous and kind or if I would ignore the man and drive on by.
Fortunately, this time, I got it right.  I handed the man a bag with soup and other food items, and drove by.  And Million has been glowing ever since.  He repeatedly tells Michael, "Mama said, 'here's soup for you', and the man isn't hungry now."

I got it right this one time.  But how many times have I gotten it wrong?  How many times have I driven by this SAME man?  How many other hurting and wounded people have I passed by?  Why do I suffer from a cultural double-standard of feeling compassion for beggars in other countries but avoiding or ignoring beggars in my country?  I didn't question how people in Ethiopia would use any money that I gave them.  Why do I hold beggars in America to a higher standard? 

Soften my heart, Lord, for the needs of "the man" and any others that You choose. 

Waiting and Learning (And How Learning Helps Waiting)

Michael taught me to glue and nail crates this weekend.  This is the first crate I put together by myself.   (I didn't do any of the sawing; that will be another lesson.)

We're going to be participating in five craft fairs/art bazaars this year, four of which average 1500 to 3000 people in attendance.  We're leaving the actually "big" ones that average 5000 or more people for next year.

We became DTE last Friday.  Right now, I'm occupying myself writing a list of 36+ fun activities that our family can do that are "out of the norm" to make each month of waiting fun.  I need to add in a buffer so that once we hit the three-year mark of waiting, I don't spiral into some crazy lady vortex with no activities or purpose left.

Michael has requested that he and Million can construct a outdoor clay oven as one of them.  That will be on this summer's docket.
Other examples are: visiting a lighthouse, going to a chocolate shop and watching chocolates being made, visiting a garden conservatory, going to an airplane show, etc.

The objective is to defeat the dreary and long wait with new educational opportunities for us to obsessively research about each month.  When I look back at our best waiting months from our last adoption process, I saw us in the midst of huge demolition projects in our home, learning to clean wool and spin wool into yarn, having an insanely large herb garden, and learning to cook Ethiopian meals.  Learning (at least for Michael and me) defeats the boredom which leads to discontent.

And if we can impress on our boys the fun of self-education and that The Wide World is an adventure waiting to happen, I'll be happy.

What are some ideas of family-friendly-ish activities that you wish your parents were crazy enough to do with you or to teach you?

Why I shouldn't Say "Almost"

I've caught myself using the "almost" word when I talk about my kids.
Creedence is *almost* two months old.
Million is *almost* ready to give up diapers during his nap.
They are both *almost* into the next clothing size.

I need to stop thinking as much about the almost's and start celebrating what my kids HAVE achieved and where they are right now.  It's unfair to them to have a mom who is continually looking to the future and who is unable to fully revel in the present in all of its messy beauty.
___________________________________________________________________

Dear Million and Creedence,
I love you.  
You are the sunshine to my summer day.
Both of you are so uniquely special and different from each other. 
Mama wants you to know that on days like yesterday when "things went south," I love you still.
I try each day to be a better mama for you both.  I fail at a lot each day, too.
Failure is okay, as long as it propels you in the right direction.
Let's have a fun day today!  You can be the 2-year-old and the 8-week-old that you are. 
And I will be the mama who is grateful for where we are and who rejoices in each moment. 
Love,
Mama

Because we set a pretty high goal for our business this year (more about goal setting later), I've been thinking about our business a lot more.  

And because I've been thinking about our business a lot more, I've been working a lot more.

And because I've been working a lot more, I needed an avenue to let off some work stress.

And this was not the place.

So if you're ever interested in stories about our business, things I've found on Etsy, other artists I plan to feature, colour schemes, etc.  go to our business blog, here. 

This blog will stay pretty much stories about our family, adoption, natural food experiments, etc.

My beautiful distractions.

And tellingly enough, after that post about our "new normal," I realized that I would not be taking the boys to the indoor park.
Michael had my car keys in his coat pocket.
Lovely.

I'm taking the boys to an indoor park today.
Not trying to win mother of the year---just trying to stay sane.
I've also decided to stop searching for our elusive "new normal."
I think I've been looking for a new normal that doesn't involve bad or unpredictable days.  Not realistic.
This sometimes completely out of balance sometimes completely in control IS our new normal.

the business of being in business

It's one of those days where my to-do list is long.
And my want-to-write list is also long.
This was going to be a post about our business.
But it might end up just being a paragraph about busyness, depending on if I can get boy number two back to sleep or not.
It's one of those rare seasons of life where busyness is actually healthy and therapeutic.
My creativity took the last three months off.
And it came back in full force on Saturday.
Glory be.  My mind is exploding, leaving creative shrapnel behind....in the form of a to-do list.
And it's fun.
It's fun having adult ideas...and ideas that don't reek with self-pity.  (It was what Michael termed a "hellacious" week last week.)

I really haven't posted much about our business on here.  I like to keep it a separate entity and enjoy feeling like I'm not a salesperson... It's an interesting paradigm----to want to simplify our lives and free ourselves from materialism and at the same time making things and preying on impulse shoppers and convincing people that they really do want or need our items.

Can't say I've wrapped my head around that one yet.

Our business has moved past the point of being a fun project to the point of being a business.

I'll be extra-honest.  With only Million in the house, I was able to devote a lot more time to being in business (and blogging for that matter.)  He still takes approximately two-hour naps, so I had 14 predictable hours in a week for work on marketing, budgeting, documenting, photography, customer service, etc.  Now with two children, one of whom doesn't have a predictable nap schedule yet and one who is testing boundaries, I don't have a built-in two hours every day.  Michael has been taking a whole lot of my responsibility on his shoulders. And I appreciate him for it.

But we have some newer hurdles to leap over in our business.  Good hurdles.  Hurdles that will pay well.
I am so pleased that God has chosen to bless this side venture.  However, it is also incredibly intimidating when I'm confronted with the responsibilities that are before me.  Owning an actual tax-paying, decently functioning business with deadlines is one of those things (like having two kids) that makes me reflect every now and then on my life and have a minor self-identity crisis where I say to myself "Since when am I a grown-up that has to do grown-up things?

 Scary how mature that sounds, right?
Especially in light of my last two posts.  (blush.)

Mary Cassatt And Potty Training

**(Artistic Nudity Warning)**

I have determined that Mary Cassatt must have believed in elimination communication. (No diapers, no clothes, just watching baby for cues and hanging them over the toilet, praising them for their "job well done.")

This is just a small sampling of my "evidence."  There are plenty more paintings that had more revealed than these did.

Sleepy Baby, 1910

Mother and Child 1900

Mother Holding Her Baby 1917

Mother and Child 1900

Mother Sara and the Baby, 1902

And my personal favorite, because you don't have anything better to do with your baby...

And you don't have to worry about bees in orchards.

Or worry about the potential for skin cancer...

Child Picking Fruit, 1893

Simple Games: Initial Reversal

I remember exactly when I learned to play the game.
I was hiking up an easy trail on Mount Rainier with my cousins in the summer of 1994.
It was about 85 degrees, and we were on our way up to a snow patch on the mountain.
My cousins introduced me to the game where you switch people's initials on their first and last name.

So Robby Gum would be Gobby Rum.
And Doctor Seuss would be Soctor Deuss.

Anyway, I sometimes play the little game in my head.
But I can't get this one out of my head because it makes me laugh EVERY time.

The Little Engine that Could is written by Watty Piper.  (Really...who names their child Watty?)
I just get a kick out of Patty Wiper.
And I chortle to myself every single time Million shows me that book.
My children will be so troubled. 

To wait...

and then we wait.
today, we mailed our dossier off for little sister.

I think with every child, there comes a different kind of anticipation.

When we were adopting Million, someone told me that adoption waiting isn't as hard if it isn't your first child.  I remember blogging that on our adoption blog and getting a lot of nasty comments about "how do you know? you don't know our situation..." Of course, I understand the upset that a comment like that can cause, because it didn't exactly validate their pain.  But I see truth in it, too.

Especially now that we're waiting again.  And looking at a wait that will likely be four times longer to referral than our last one was.  (crossing fingers that we don't end up with all the waiting AFTER referral that we did with Million's case...)

But it is different.  It doesn't feel so desperate.  It doesn't feel so life altering.
With our wait for Million, since we were still "yuppies", I felt the need to announce it to the world that we were adopting.  I felt slighted when people didn't remember that I was a mama-to-be.  I had a whole blog about the experience of adoption.  I hung on every word in internet forums about Ethiopian adoption, skin care, hair care, etc.  I obsessively checked the wait list to see what "number" we were.

With our wait for Creedence, there was an anticipation that was brought on by education.  We went to so many child birth and natural pain management courses along with educating ourselves with scads of books.  Quite naturally, we anticipated labor and delivery as "the big event" and (I think) failed a little in preparing for life afterwards.  We're recovering now and have nearly a normal life as a family of four.  I didn't feel slighted when people didn't know I was pregnant at seven months along.  In fact, I thought it was funny that I was still getting "is she or isn't she?" looks and dropped jaws.

I'm not claiming that this adoption's wait won't be difficult.  That would be an absolute lie.  Especially, I anticipate, when we hit the two-year mark of waiting for a referral.  It will just be a different kind of difficult.  It won't be filled with the intense longing of a woman without children at home.  It won't be a status change from yuppie to stay-at-home mom.  It won't be a brand-new adventure that no one we know has ever done before.  We have a support network.  We have friends who have adopted from Ethiopia whom we write to and talk with on a regular basis.  We have friends in Ethiopia.  We know the sights, sounds, and smells of several portions of Ethiopia.

At the same time, we will be constantly reminded of our adoption process, as our business will be our main source of providing the remaining funds for the adoption.  Every time Michael builds a crate, or every time I answer an e-mail or change a listing, we're working towards bringing a daughter into our crazy lives.

So, dear wait, I plan on being your good friend and worst enemy for the next several years.  I plan on growing, learning, changing, being challenged and stretched.  I plan on embracing you, oh wait, and allowing the worst moments and best moments to shape me and mold me as a woman, as a wife, as a mama, a daughter, a sister, and a friend.  You don't intimidate me, wait.  You excite me.  With God's help, I will be a changed woman because of you.

Naptime Notations

HA. Both boys napped for two hours today.  

At the same time.

I feel like superwoman.  

Because I felt so good about my capabilities today, you get a blog post.  

Lucky you.

Excessively manly boots...cough cough...and wool longies.

Michael has surprisingly fallen in love with prefold diapers...I guess it's just one of those second-child-makes-you-a-little-more-open-to-trying-new-stuff things (for me, that is... I was the one who was scared of prefolds to begin with.)  What Michael *really* loves is the existence of wool longies.  Those little pants up above.  We've got three pairs, all made out of old sweaters by independent craftswomen on Etsy.  Wool has antibacterial properties as a diaper cover, so you don't have to wash as often, and also retains moisture really well.  And the little pants are great for our cold Minnesota winters.

And I just get a kick out of my manly man touting the virtues of longies.

One of the few photos that I can see "me" in.

And tra la la! I got our baby announcements ordered today.  I'm a productive member of society, once again!
For a while, I thought about doing monthly photo shoots for Creedence.  Those cute ones you see on Pinterest.  But I decided against it.  Because with one child who didn't come home until he was a toddler and another adoption underway, it would only serve to draw attention to Creedence being our (currently) only birth child.  What we ARE doing is replicating some photo shoots with Creedence, like wearing a Santa hat (someone took a picture of Million in a Santa hat at his first Christmas) and pictures with landmarks around our city that we took pictures of when we were getting ready to fly to Million.

His hair WAS perfect for...half an hour today...but no photo evidence of that.

Speaking of Million, he is getting so big.

Physically and intellectually.

The other morning, Creedence was crying, and Million came up and patted his hand and said "Creedence, it will be okay.  Sometimes it's just hard."  

Where did that come from?

He also swears up and down that "daddy and Million will be on our best behavior if we go sledding."  Yeah right.  Think that's going to convince me in negative windchill advisories?  And I'm not so certain about the daddy being on his best behavior part.  :) 

He's also (fingers crossed) potty trained (and our nap/night average is 30% dry).  Or has his parents potty trained.  He's only had one accident in the last week.  He enjoys announcing to the world that he's wearing big-boy undies.  

We're going to re-introduce an old family tradition of going to our library every Thursday night as a family. We used to do that before I got pregnant and before an excessively hot summer involving some medications for Million that required that he not be out in hot weather... 

Anyway, we're ready to start up our tradition once again.

And finally, our t-shirt and sweatshirt fundraiser reprints came in the mail yesterday, and they were correct.  So tomorrow my life will be free of stress, hypothetically speaking.  

And I'm loving that feeling.

2013---The Word Choice Nearly Didn't Happen

I missed the boat on summarizing 2012.
I nearly missed the boat on picking a "word" for 2013.

I didn't start thinking about it until around 10 a.m. this morning, when I finally had a chance to shower, thanks to Michael.

So apparently, my words come from deep and studied reflection.

That's right.  Plural.
I chose two words.

(Gasp! Covering eyes! Can it be done?  Am I breaking some New Years Word-Picking Rule that I'm not aware of?)

I chose the two words "health" and "structure" for 2013.

I am typically the goal-setter and resolution maker.  Sometimes obsessively.
But not this year.
In fact, I think the only thing I have that could be called a goal (which is really more of a desire) is that I would like to run a 5K with Michael this year. And be somewhat close to his "easy" pace of 8 minute miles.

I chose "health" not to emphasize weight loss.  I chose health because I noticed areas in our family's life and daily existence that could use some work.  I recently read an article that suggested that many of our sins creep into our lives as a result of physiological shortcomings: not eating correctly, not getting enough sleep, not handling stress in appropriate ways, not drinking enough water, not exercising.  Lately, I've been struggling with patience and feeling at peace, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that choosing a healthier lifestyle could greatly enhance those two areas of my life.

I chose "structure" because of the word itself.  It's so different than choosing "order", "control", "organization" or "simplicity."
If you think of a structure as a building, a structure requires walls, internally and externally.  And typically if you take one or two of those walls away, your structure is still okay.  It may be a little shakier, but it's still standing.  I'd like that in my life.  I'd like my internal and external walls to be my good intentions and healthy habits for 2013 (which I have yet to nail down officially).  If I end up taking a few away, I'd like to still be standing and in decent shape, relatively satisfied.  Obviously, I could take this metaphor a lot further than I am right now, spiritualizing it with Christ as the foundation for my structure....but Creedence is napping, and I need to seize the opportunity to spend some time with Michael and Million uninterrupted.

Here's to health and structure (and whatever words or goals you have set for yourself) in 2013!