Feeding and Housing a Small Army: Level, Expert

As we wind down the foster parent training and gear up for the holiday season, I may have gotten myself in over my head. In the excitement of our new home, I invited EVERYONE on both sides of our family to our place for Thanksgiving. Much to my surprise, most all RSVPed they would be making the trip out to see us! Fantastic!

However, that means not only housing 20+ additional people, but feeding them too!  Time to break out the apron, recipe books, grocery list binder, and get creative. Thanks to the internet, and sites like Pinterest, feeding a large crowd isn't too hard to do.  Aside from the big Thanksgiving meal, we will be enjoying a lot of crock pot style meals and/or hot sandwiches and soups. I couldn't be more in my element!

I love hosting! My sister in laws refer to me as "Monica" paying homage to not only my personality, but my love of the show Friends. I've embraced the fun behind the humor of it, and am totally OK with letting myself be a bit of an over organized control freak.  Case in point: I began the menu for Thanksgiving dinner weeks ago and have already stocked up on non-perishables.

As I enter the last week before their arrival and the fun begins, I am making last changes to turkey roasting techniques (to brine or not to brine, that is the question.) I am also starting to feel some anxiety about where everyone will sleep. I'd love to be able to offer each couple their own room, but our new home's basement is still unfinished so it may prove to be a summer camp situation with all of us on air mattresses in the living room! *Deep breaths. They know this isn't the Marriott. Where'd I put the Xanax?*

Either way, I know that I will be blessed to be with those who I love the most in the world, and we will have a wonderful time full of laughs.  Stay tuned....

Seriously? There is such a thing as a "Professional Parent."

So back at the beginning of the year, our family had decided to expand through adoption. We began the process of home study and paperwork for a private adoption in the state of WA. Then this summer we found out that we would be relocating over 1400 miles away from the Puget Sound. So this process was put on hold until we were settled in our new location.

We closed on our hew home in August and after unpacking, hauling away boxes, and finding a home for everything, we were ready to pick up where we had left off. However, our hearts had a bit of a shift. While we still wanted to add to our family, we were feeling the pull to look at fostering as an option.

Thus began a VERY new chapter for us! We found an AMAZING agency here in the state and began our journey toward the role of foster parents. The process, we were told, takes most people 4-6 months to complete. Being the overachievers we strive to be, we will complete our process this week. Start to finish, 5 weeks!

We have learned so much in a very short time. We have seen the best and worst of humanity toward children in our area. We have met some of the most wonderful, Christian, couples! We love the support our agency offers us through the entire process and way beyond. They require almost double the amount of hours for licensing compared to the state required minimum. That speaks volumes to their commitment to providing the best they can for these kids.

As we come into the home stretch before our first placement, we are adding swing sets, beds, extra toothbrushes/towels, and much more to our new home. It's very strange to imagine our home with more than our one child, I feel like I'm on a roller coaster. I've got in the cart, put on my belt, listened to the safety brief, and am now pulling away from the platform. I have no idea which direction I will be pulled first, or how fast the first big drop will be. I am excited, nervous, determined, and a million other indescribable emotions right now.  Only thing I know for sure is whether it is for 5 days, five months, or the rest of their life: for as long as I get to care for any child, it will be a privilege to give them the best I can during that time.

It's never "Happy Memorial Day."

Today I stopped by the local high school and took a moment to appreciate the hard work the students had put into honoring the military members we have lost in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. As you drive by you see the front lawn of the campus with rows of organized white markers. As I approached the area though I started seeing the individual names, ranks and dates each was killed in action.

It has been so long since I've allowed myself to miss him. I stay busy and distracted. I mention him in passing never lingering long on his name. However, today, walking among these names and markers, I once again felt that choking lump in my throat. I felt the tightness in my chest and the sting of tears as they filled my eyes. Four years, almost, now. In some senses it feels like a lifetime ago and in others it is still painfully raw.

I'm know time has made it easier, even if I'll never understand it. I have no doubt he is still with those of us who loved him so much. I don't wish for the remembering of the loss to be painless. To me that would mean it didn't matter anymore. I do, however, try to honor him and so very many others who died for me, for you, for all of us.

It's never "Happy Memorial Day."  It's just Memorial Day...and I will always remember.

Click on the link below to see how to make these fabulous spice jars!
Thanks to Lizzy Beth for putting together the instructional!


DIY Spice Jars from Critz and Giggles

Shared post from Courage Beyond

Shared from www.couragebeyond.org:






SPOUSE POST: NO TICKING HEARD HERE

• POSTED BY COURAGE BEYOND
 
• IN CHRISTINE CAIN, SPOUSE, WARRIOR/SPOUSE BLOG

APR142014

I have spent the better part of this morning looking for relevant content to share on Courage Beyond’s social media network. It’s part of my job, and I love my job. Today however, I feel a rock in my chest developing. It’s part anger and part fear.

For a while now, I’ve watched the media go down a road when “reporting” – and I use that term very loosely – on PTSD that makes me not just shake my head, but it makes my stomach turn. I’ve read about “PTSD Hot Spots” with an interactive map you could check like you’re looking for sex offenders. And I’ve seen cartoons with a soldier’s head replaced with a grenade. Ticking time bomb, ready to snap, prone to violent outbursts… the list of horrible things I’ve read this morning goes on.

So let’s talk a little truth from a caregiver who has spent the last 6 years loving a veteran with crippling PTSD. I’ve never once been struck. He’s never once been arrested; he’s never once been in a fist-fight; he’s never once attacked anyone. He has however locked himself away from friends and family. He’s suffered from self-doubt about his symptoms. He’s spent days awake. He’s talked about wishing he’d died in Iraq to make it easier on everyone. And he’s considered suicide more than once.

But he’s never been violent. I do not fear him or his PTSD. I do however fear society’s foolish reaction after reading “articles” that have no basis in real facts. They are only numbers strewn together to bring traffic to web pages so quotas are met and jobs are kept from reporters who collected their “facts” through Google and not a real live person who walks every day in the shadow of PTSD.

I hear no ticking from inside my husband’s head and we will continue every day to battle his PTSD. We will also be quiet about his battle because of society’s willingness to believe reporters who do their job like a 6th grader writing a research paper the night before it’s due.

(Untitled)

When the anger comes, it comes in waves. Crashing against the shores of our reality.
It is constant, never washing away the pain.
I watched you, watched you hurt her over and over. As a child, now as a woman.

Shame on you, shame on you for the shame you bring all of us. You're sick, I agree.
However, not in the ways you claim to be. Your illness is a selfish one, an infectious one.
It's continuance makes those around you suffer. Your only chance for recovery is acknowledgement.

You won't though. You never have. You blame her. You blame us. You blame those already gone.
Your need, your twisted, demented need will ultimately be your end.

She, who you blame, and have damaged, she will be the one left to clean up your mess.
Her spirit torn, her confidence bruised, her story a lie. Your lie.

I long to scream, to hit, to cut, to make you feel all you have made her feel. She is amazing, and you see none of it. Only what she can be to you. She deserves better. She's found it in him. I rejoice she was strong enough to hold on to it and go with him. He is the rock you never were for her.

Distance helps, but doesn't heal. Your long reach still stings her. She knows now. She knows better. She knows we are here for her.

I will not speak up for you. Not ever. I cannot understand your motivations. I struggle to find any love for you anymore. I am sad at how easy it has become for me not to care. I don't care, not about you.

So write your imaginary life and death. Maybe someday we can at least appreciate it as a great work of fiction. Just know, it is your story, and I will not, we will not, let it become hers.

Ignorance Be Damned, My Daughter's Onto Something Here!

Mini Me, given her ASD, has a different perception of things around her than most kids her age. She tends to pick up on things more in depth. Lately, she has been educating herself on the civil rights movement of the 1960s. She also has taken an interest in not just the assassination of great leaders over the last 200 years, (Lincoln, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, JFK) but the motivation behind those killings. Heavy subjects for a 7 year old?  Sure.

It is very hard for her to grasp the notion that you would feel differently toward someone just because of their skin color. To be honest, this is a hard thing for me to grasp. I was raised in the 1980s-90s, many years after the civil rights movement. I was also raised that people are defined by what they do and how they treat others. I try hard to instill this into my own child, although she seems to be coming to that place very naturally.

This morning on the way to school, she says to me that she wishes she could have "been alive when people were learning to treat everyone fairly." I told her...she is. While now the focus is not so much on the color of skin, there is a major movement in our country for the rights of others based on sexuality. Sexuality...there's a word my parents never used in my presence as a child!  However, it is a reality, it is everywhere, and my daughter is a part of the generation that will hopefully be more of a solution than a part of the problem where it's concerned.

I pray one day she will look back and see the amazing struggles, and progress, made by our country to once again see past what we perceive as different and embrace all lifestyles equally. I love that she views her friends with two moms, or two dads, no differently than she views herself. They are lucky kids who are loved and cared for, just like she is. I encourage her to stand strong in that, and remember that not everyone will agree.

She can't see the big picture now, but one day she will.  She, and kids her age, are a part of a civil rights movement. Now we just pray we all keep moving forward.

Love is love.

Behind the Mirror On the Wall

Years ago I suffered from terrible insomnia. I went night after night after night without any decent sleep. Finally, I sought help from my doctor. His response: There's a great new drug on the market that's non-habit forming. Here, I'll give you a prescription. Take it at bedtime. So I began the nightly dose of medicine that didn't make me sleep so much as it made me loose all consciousness. I sleep walked, had conversations I was unaware of, moved things around my house, and all without any memory of any of it! I woke up in the morning refreshed and feeling rested, so I put up with the "side effects."

Fast forward a few years. I was dealing with persistent heartburn. Tums and OTC meds didn't seem to really help. Eventually, as with the insomnia, I turned to a medical professional. His response: Let me just give you a prescription for this heartburn/acid reflux pill and your symptoms will subside. Take it once a day in the mornings. So I added it to the mirrored cabinet above my sink and took it each morning followed by the sleep aid each night.

A few years after I gave birth to our beautiful Mini Me. Then the dark could of postpartum depression set in. I didn't even realize how bad it was until my daughter was almost 5 months old. I was advised that this was very common and that my regular physician could help. I made an appointment and went in. During this appointment I informed my Dr that I was currently taking a pill in the a.m. for heartburn and one in the the p.m. for insomnia. Her remedy for my current state: I'm going to put you on an anti-depressant. Take this once a day and we can "up the dose" in a few months if necessary.
So...now I had an additional p.m. pill to keep my sleep aid company in the mirrored cabinet. I was getting quite the collection going!

As my daughter got older she began to have issues of her own. In passing it was mentioned to me to really watch her dietary intake and see if certain foods caused adverse effects on her and her behavior. It had never occurred to me that something like milk or sugar or animal products could cause my child to feel or behave differently. Why had a doctor not mentioned this? We'd seen half a dozen by this time.

Then it dawned on me that in all the years I had gone to the doctor, NEVER had ANY of them ever inquired about my eating habits!  It seemed so obvious that all of the things I had been pumping chemicals into my body to alleviate MAY be able to be taken care of simply by changing what I put into my body. I started reading as much as I could. While I am fortunate to live in an age of instant, accessible information, the Internet provides such conflicting information.

So I took the next step. I expanded my education and got certified as a Nutrition and Wellness Consultant. It was a 6 month, in depth course that taught me so much about how our bodies process the foods we put into it and the effects of such foods. Why with a 6 month course did I seem to know more about this connection than those I had turned to who carried a medical school degree?

So I went to the mirror, opened it and took out the now basket full of pills. At just 30 years old I was regularly taking SIX different medications for one thing or another. I stared at the orange bottles before me and thought...this can't be right.

I started looking further, reading about what foods cause the issues I was dealing with. I looked for certain foods that could aid in my ailments so just maybe I didn't have to keep putting these synthetic substances into my system. I started small, I made some changes and I started to feel better, much better. In fact, over time, I felt so much better I didn't realize how shitty I had been feeling!

I'm not completely free of the little orange bottles behind the mirror, but I am down to just one! It's a whole lot easier to keep track of and accept. I used to be really angry that none of the doctors I had seen ever told me that there was another way. However, being mad at them doesn't make me feel any better so all I can do is share my story and hope maybe it helps someone else.

The Tragedy and The Privilege

As the new year gets under way, Hubster, Mini-Me, and I are preparing to expand our family through adoption. I remember during the years it took for us to conceive Mini-Me we often heard that if were weren't successful we could always "just adopt." I know people said this because they were trying to give us hope in one day having a child in our home. However, I now know that people who do use that form of encouragement don't have the first damn clue what the hell they are talking about.

To start with you can't "just adopt." It's not like stopping by your local shelter, picking out a cute kid, filling out some forms, and paying a minimal fee that contributes to keep the place running. Aside from the obvious steps like mountains of paperwork and a home study that can feel so intrusive that you are sure you are being investigated by the NSA, there's the many MANY other things you ever thought about.  It starts with what kind of adoption, from where, how much, how to network, where to get reliable accurate information, who is going to look out for your best interest and who is just trying to profit from the industry. Once you have made yourself familiar with these things the biggest kick in the gut hits you. All of this effort, all of this money, all of this emotion and desire for a child requires one very basic thing to happen. Another mother must first lose her child.

I remember a show I watched several year ago. The little boy in it needed a heart transplant. His mother prayed and prayed for a heart to become available to save her son's life. However, the boy didn't want a heart. He was so angry with his mother for praying for him to live. When a priest came and spoke with the boy as to why he felt this way the boy said, "My mother prays for a heart for me. She asks God to send one, but I know she is really praying for some other kid to die so that I can live. How does your God feel about that, Father?"

It has come to my heart that in the case of an adoption, my prayers for God to send a child to me, for God to place us in the path of a child who needs us, I am essentially asking for the failed relationship of another mother with her child.  Even if a young girl were to choose us to raise her baby, there will always be that loss for her. There will always be that missing link for our child. How do I pray for that kind of traumatic thing to happen to a young girl?  If our child comes to us through the foster system, then it is because a parent hasn't been able to care for them. How do I pray for a family to be so damaged, so broken, with possibly drugs or abuse having been endured in order for me to have another child?  How does my God feel about that?

It almost feels selfish. It is something that came out of no where, that I never even considered, that I now have to find a way to make peace with. I know that those things are going to happen with or without us pursuing adoption. I know that there are many children who will need a good, loving, forever home. I know this. I know that I can give a child that. I can take away the pain of being neglected or abused. I can provide for a child who may have had nothing had their mother not made that decision in their best interest. I know this. I just don't know how to process it all in my heart.

I know God is with me through all of this. I know that in the end it is His will that shall be done, and that if another child is to be in my future, to call me "mom," that He will guide me to make that happen. He will give my heart peace with the process and He will make sure I never forget the sacrifice that has happened.

Day 1, Chapter 2014

As it is an unavoidable tradition, the end of one year and the beginning of another always brings on a time of reflection and the promise of possibility. I have never been one to make resolutions. Actually I think the only one I ever made was to quit smoking. I have, so I guess that one worked. To be honest, I cannot list all the things that happened to me in 2013, good or bad. I'm sure that's because I spent most of the year just trying to get through, day to day. Hanging on to yesterday or hoping for tomorrow was beyond my capacity of function.

2014 holds a lot of possibility, as has every year before it. Hubster and I have a couple hopes and dreams we pray will materialize before year's end. However, if they don't we are still overly blessed to be together and life is good!

So here's to the next chapter, to simplification, to expanding, to reaching beyond our "known" and embracing all the new that we will be faced with. Happy new year, folks!