You never know…

Yesterday morning something marvelous happened, my son Bryan said, “I love you mom.” We were all in the living room/kitchen area, I was washing dishes, the kids were all playing and talking and out of the blue Bryan said that to me. I replied, “thanks Bry, I love you too,” and “wow, that was random, what made you say that?” Bryan said, “I don’t know, I just felt like saying it.”
If you know Bryan, you know that he is very serious, very spiritual, and a man of few words. He rarely expresses emotion orally. He is very good at showing me that he loves me by his actions (which I love); he is extremely obedient, he helps me all the time without being asked, and in fact he is usually looking for something to do to help me. He talks to me and shares things about his life, he writes me amazing cards and notes and tells me he loves me in writing, but rarely verbally. So yesterday was quite a treat….

Then….Bryan has wanted to work at my husband’s shop for years, he was just waiting until he was old enough (my husband is a machinist). So Bryan finally got up the courage to ask for a summer job and yesterday was his first day on the job. Bryan can’t drive yet, so I offered to take him to work; he declined. Bryan is also taking two summer online courses and one of them is a fitness class, he figured he could run to work and complete one of his fitness assignments on the way. I was a little worried about him running because there are four stoplights and several busy intersections in the four miles from our house to his work. I told him to please be careful and to call me when he got there.

About a half-hour later I got a text from him; “I just got hit by a car, but I am okay.”WHAT???? I was so happy that he was okay, but a little freaked out about the accident. I tried to call Bryan but he didn’t answer, I called my husband but he didn’t answer…. Finally my husband sent me a text letting me know that Bryan had made it to the shop and that he was patching him up. After about a half-hour my son finally called to let me know that he had been hit by a car as he was crossing the street at an intersection. The car hit Bryan, knocked him over and then (in Bryan’s words) “the driver looked me in the eye and then drove off.”

Luckily Bryan only sustained some road rash on his neck, arm, shoulder and ankle, he was otherwise unharmed, for which I am extremely grateful. Only one other driver stopped to make sure Bryan was okay, ironically a teenage driver!

Me, Bryan, Amber (Bryan's friend) last week at my nephew's birthday party

I drove over to see him and make sure he was okay. He was a little shook up but otherwise was focused on the first day at his new job. After work Bryan went to his friend’s house until late that evening so I wasn’t able to talk to him until around 9 p.m., about 12 hours after the accident. Here is what Bryan told me, “that accident changed my life. I could have died. My entire life flashed in front of my eyes. My life is going to be different from now on.” He and I talked about how we both felt that he was being watched over and that apparently it wasn’t his time to go. I thought about our talk earlier in the day when he told me he loved me, I thought about how we never know if today may be our last day, or if when we say goodbye to someone it may be the last time we see them. I am so grateful my son felt like expressing how he felt…. I love him!

“I was born to Laugh”

Yesterday while I was fixing my daughter Ava’s hair, she said to me,

“I was born to laugh.”

I looked at her and she just grinned at me with a huge smile on her face!

Such a true statement! We are all born to laugh! I love my children!

"Advice"

Over the years I have received several pieces of advice, some good, some bad, and some I need to listen to more often!

Two of the best pieces of advice (for me):
Spend a “night” (each week) with each of your children. This has been the all-time best advice I have ever received. When my three boys were young and all slept in the same room, it was chaos at bedtime. They all wanted my attention, they all had something to say at the same time, and trying to get through a bedtime story was nearly impossible considering their age differences. I was complaining about this one day to an older friend of mine. She suggested I give each of my boys a “night” that I would spend one-on-one time with them. I took this suggestion to heart. It was definitely not easy at the beginning (and sometimes it is still difficult) but being able to spend one-on-one time with my children talking about their concerns and having the chance to tell them individually how much I love them has been miraculous. Several times our talks focused on questions they had about their birth mother or their adoption, they have asked me to tell them about the first time I saw them and how I felt, we talk about school, struggles, or sometimes just go for a drive and get a Slurpee or hot chocolate. I am so glad I took this advice!

Hold your children when you feed them. I was never able to breast feed (for obvious reasons), and most of my children were over 9 months old when they came to live with our family, so my time being able to hold them and feed them was limited. I have loved being able to hold my children, look into their faces, and hold their tiny fingers as they ate. (They grow up soooooo fast!)

Two of the worst pieces of advice (for me):
“Don’t tell your children they are adopted” – I acknowledge that I thought about this option briefly, but it just never seemed right to me. I am the first to admit that having an “open” adoption hasn’t been completely easy, but it has been completely worth it.

“Don’t let your children see their birth mother” – The people that gave this advice to me thought it would be too hard on my children to see their birth mother and be able to “move on” with their lives. Those same people even suggested that it would be easier on their birth mother if she didn’t see them, so she could “move on” with her life. Their birth mother Ruth has told me time and time again that being able to see her children and hear how they are doing has been the best thing for her being able to “move on.” I am so grateful I listened to my own intuition and am able to spend time with Ruth and her family ~ they are a wonderful extension of our family.


Advice I need to heed more often! “Enjoy what you are doing NOW, don’t be worried about what you need to do next.” So often I find myself half-listening to what my children are saying because I am thinking about the load of laundry I need to fold, what I am going to fix for dinner, or some other mundane thing that doesn’t really matter. What REALLY matters is giving my full attention to what matters most, my children *(and husband!)

What is/was the best/worst advice you have ever been given?

Better than Christmas

Mother’s Day memories over the years conjure up a host of varied memories for me… bitter, excited, sad, thrilled, happy, depressed, joyous ~ for example: the Mother’s Day that Preston went back to his birth mom (one of the hardest days of my life); the Mother’s Day Ruth called and asked me if Bryan could come back and live with us (one of the best days of my life); and Mother’s Day yesterday, receiving homemade cards from my children (one of the best days ever!)

Before I adopted my children, I loathed hearing the sappy, wonderful Mother’s Day posts with mother’s bragging about their children, and what a wonderful day they had etc. etc. etc. I would just go away even more depressed and upset that I wasn’t a part of that “group.” But my experience yesterday was life changing…..

It started with my sons getting up early to make me an amazing feast of pancakes and breakfast burritos! They dished up my plate, and even though I wasn’t really hungry I ate everything they gave me. I was completely overstuffed (but with a smile on my face!)
I then received a card from my oldest son Bryan (15)… He wrote the most remarkable personalized message for me. Here is a little extract: “Thank you for being so loving to all of us and thanks for teaching us how to love. Your example means so much to me and watching you has helped me know what attributes I want to look for in my future spouse.”

He always makes my cards on plain white paper with his own sentiments and sketches… they are worth their weight in gold to me!

My son Bryan was also asked to give a talk during our church services yesterday as a tribute to mothers. He had two weeks to prepare and he asked me if I would tell him about his adoption. He and I talked a lot about it and he told me he wanted to share some of his feelings about coming to live with us (he came to live with us originally at 2 ½ and then again when he was 4 ½). He shared how he naturally and instantly called my husband “dad” and held his hand the first day he lived with us. He mentioned how he felt when he came back to live with us the second time and how he adjusted to calling me “mom.” I had never really heard how he felt or how he really felt about me as his mother until I received his card and heard his talk. The last few months I have struggled with feelings of inadequacy as a mother, especially with regards to my son Bryan. I felt unworthy to even be his mother and that I wasn’t a good enough example for him, so his words of praise and comfort were extra special for me and lifted my spirits immensely. I felt peace. I felt pure joy. I felt the immense importance of being a mother to my children. I felt and feel completely blessed to be their mother.

I also feel saddened that Ruth doesn’t get to experience the complete and utter joy of motherhood. I expressed my feelings to her about this and explained to her how grateful I am that she has allowed me this opportunity to be a mother. In her usual humble fashion, she expressed her gratitude to ME for taking such good care of her children, she thanked ME. She thanked ME! I love you Ruth and your amazing example of selflessness.

My “handsome” son

Today after I picked up my oldest son Bryan from his Driver’s Education class we were talking about his day at school. He is 15 and very studious… always a mountain of homework every night. He likes several girls and usually gives me the update if he talked to any of them during the day, if they say “hello” to him in the hall, or if he talks to any of them at lunch, etc.

During this conversation he mentioned that one of the girls said he was “handsome” – at this point I wanted to say “yeah, I agree with that, you are handsome like your dad!” Even though Bryan doesn’t have my husband and my genes, I think he does actually LOOK like us. I can’t make that comment about Bryan looking like either my husband or me because he knows genetically he doesn’t (he has let me know before that he doesn’t). He knows he LOOKS like his biological parents (although he has never met his biological father).

It is so hard for me not to say to my children, “you got your nose from your dad!” or “you got your curly hair from me.” I forget all the time that I didn’t actually give birth to them; they are such a part of me. My children do look like their biological families, but several of my friends have told me that they look like me too. Whenever I go to their school to pick any of them up, I usually get a comment from the secretary that goes something like this, “you are Bryan’s mom? Wow, he looks just like you!”

I just smile.

Celebrating Ruth's Birthday with the children

We invited Ruth up to our house to celebrate her birthday. The kids got her some gift cards and a cute little Christmas decoration.
Ruth also came with us to the Santa Run 5K and helped the kids cheer me on as I ran... don't worry, I gave them my cookies and milk as I ran by!

Ruth with all the kiddos!

Ava and her two moms!

Ava and Aubrey getting ready to go to the Santa Run!

I haven't written anything on this blog for a while because I just didn't have anything to write about. I decided to just post things about my kids as they relate to adoption so they will have an accurate story of their lives.

For the last few nights Ava has been saying to me, "I want to go live with Ruth." I know that option isn't possible, but sometimes it hurts to hear it. I think that was one of my biggest fears, that my children would want to go back and live with their birth mother.

"Sharing" is hard sometimes.

Satan is working on the moms…

Time to write about something that has been on my mind for a while….

I had one of my close friends call me last night and tell me that her marriage of 18 years is about over. I listened to her reasons and I wasn’t surprised to hear her saying the same things I was saying just a few months before. As I mentioned a little bit in my last post, I haven’t been writing on my blog because I was going through my own “selfish” phase (although at the time I didn’t see it that way, it took stepping back and finding out what was really important to realize that is what it was, me being selfish).

This post is going to be very self-revealing but every one of us has our own trials and weaknesses, so I hope you will stick with me and that someone will benefit from what I have learned (and hopefully not make the same mistake).

Here is my story – a few months ago I got a Facebook note from one of my guy “friends” - It was a guy I haven’t seen since I was 14 (22 years ago). I have a cardinal rule not to chat or e-mail members of the opposite sex (especially if I have ever had a crush on them). I debated writing him back. He had only sent a small note saying that he thought I looked nice in one of my pictures (of course it made me feel good, everyone likes a compliment right?) Well I debated about writing him back for several days, (I knew deep down inside that I shouldn’t) but there was something I had wanted to ask him since the last time I saw him (in 8th grade) so I gave in to temptation, thus breaking my own rule.

We wrote a couple more times (quite innocently at first) and then of course a little more flirtatious. I wasn’t keeping it secret from my husband, I had told him about the first time he wrote me and I even discussed what I wrote to my “friend” but I was still being private. I knew nothing could physically happen between the two of us (he lives in another country) but it felt nice to get showered with attention, especially at a time when my self-esteem was lacking.
Pretty soon I started to notice little things that “bugged” me about my husband, and how “bad” he treated me. I started to question my happiness and everything around me “was I happy just being a mom and wife, was there more for me out there, was I missing out on something, did I need time just for ME?” etc.” I was in the “me” mode, I was only concerned with me (although at the time I didn’t see it that way, I was blaming everyone else for my “unhappiness.”)

I knew I needed to stop writing this guy, but it was almost like an addiction (I needed his attention it seemed). Finally, my husband said to me “you are acting like you did when you left me.” (For those of you who don’t know, my husband and I were separated and ultimately divorced and remarried during the fourth year of our marriage). I was surprised he was so perceptive to how I was feeling; I thought I was acting normal, probably trying to act more “normal” than usual, but he picked up on it.

I finally wrote this guy and told him I couldn’t write him anymore (it was hard to let go, even though I hadn’t even seen him in person and what did he mean to me anyway? NOTHING!)

I am writing about this and exposing my own faults because I have witnessed so many of my peers (women in their thirties, married with children) start feeling like they needed something MORE, needed something else, needed what the world deems as happiness. It may first start with innocent chatting with someone of the opposite sex and pretty soon you “realize” how “unhappy” you are.

“A good woman must constantly resist alluring and deceptive messages from many sources telling her that she is entitled to more time away from her responsibilities and that she deserves a life of greater ease and independence.” Julie B. Beck

So what is the end result of us (women and men) being selfish? Ultimately our children are the ones who suffer. During an especially trying day my son said to me “mom, are you going to run away?” I knew I could never leave my children; I could never hurt them by giving up just because of some selfish reason of me wanting “more.”

After I ended my “relationship” with my friend, I had to find new ways to start loving my husband again, finding even small things that I remembered I used to adore about him. I started focusing my time and energy on him and my children and getting away from the computer. I ultimately quit my job that required me to be on the computer for several hours a day (thus helping suppress my need to go online). The confidence in knowing I have been entrusted with these five beautiful children was enough to help me realize that I didn’t need MORE. I needed to be a MOM.

“It is unfortunately, all too easy to illustrate the confusion and distortion of womanhood in contemporary society. Immodest, immoral, intemperate women jam the airwaves, monopolize magazines and slink across movie screens – all while being celebrated by the world…. I urge you not to look to contemporary culture for your role models and mentors.” M. Russell Ballard