“Time for some thrilling heroics."

daddy is the unsung hero in our house. he can turn a moonlit bike ride up and down our street into the most rousing adventure, complete with gold coins tumbling through pockets cut on the sly, war ammo rocketing every which way, and portals that open up out of nowhere, all for the sake of hatching dastardly plans with one little boy. he also reveals a pretty slick trick silencing the ever freaky, panic inducing bicycle bell with none other than the mysterious one glove that showed up on his handlebar sometime in the night with nary a trace of its rightful owner. in the midst of it all, i glide up and down the street smiling, thankful to be a part of this moment. i feel the most profound joy, stained with sadness, as i marvel at the magical connection between boys and fathers and long for another little boy to come home. 

i saw this the other day and laughed:  “The worst part of life is waiting. The best part of life is having someone worth waiting for.” i laughed, but then i thought it’s probably true, and i will try to remember it. waiting is indeed so hard for me, the worst part by far. but the flip side to that must surely be the little boy who also waits… and sweet boy, you are definitely one of the best parts of my life.

still here...

i know, it's been too long. we are still here. we are still waiting for our little boy. we are still moving forward, though sometimes it seems like the paper chase is forever. we finally got our homestudy in the mail and USCIS confirmation of our file. hopefully our fingerprinting appointment won't be too far out. i'm getting excited. we are ready. for awhile i was worried about work, but things are lining up in such a way that no matter when we get approval to travel, whether it is september-ish or november-ish, it will all work out great. thankful for that small piece to be easy. hoping to get brother c's passport in the mail soon. i'm having dreams of exploring another country with both boys and it makes my heart happy.

if you've had a baby, or adopted before, you know that stage you get to where you want to start buying things for your child. he has a bed, and he has clothes in drawers. i've talked to our doctor and we've thought about all the appointments and things we will need to do when he gets home to get him feeling better and stable. we have plans and specialist contacts. but lately i'm starting to think about the things that always come last in my mind... after all the big things, the necessary things, the medical things. things like bicycles and books, trains and special blankets. things like his own little alligator boots, and cars to race around the floor. this little boy, he already has a big piece of my heart, and i can't wait to hold him in my arms. so i'm still here, but when i'm not busy with six kids in the middle of summertime fun, i'm probably lost in a daydream about a sweet little boy.

and so it goes

mother’s day came, it snuck up on me ever so sweetly, and it lingered long enough for me to cuddle my lovely children. i pondered my life and past mother’s days long gone. i spent moments loving the mothers and grandmothers i am forever linked with. i felt grateful and amazed at what my life has become. i felt sorrow for the losses we carry; some for ourselves, some for our family and some for our children. my thoughts drifted to wilson, wondering how he’s doing and wishing he was feeling the love of a mother every day of his life. and then just like that, it was gone. this mother’s day left and my heart remains full of paradoxical emotions; joy and sorrow, satisfaction and longing, love and heartache.

i discovered something new about myself this year, and that is this: my heart can hold it all. i no longer feel compelled to banish the hard stuff. life is full of hard stuff, and all of it has a place and a purpose. my desire to ignore, repel and send the difficult feelings into oblivion are deeply rooted in my childhood and the care i received from people who, while they were well intentioned, just didn’t know what they were doing. it really is as simple as that. i’m very mindful with the lessons i teach my own children, as well as any children that spend time with our family. this has always been important to me, and i’ve discovered the driving force behind it was created within myself, many many years ago… the heart knows what it’s missing. i take extra care with the hearts i hold close, and when you do that you have to have room for the hard stuff.

i knew the wait would be difficult for me, and indeed this has rung true again. the wait is incredibly hard once your heart has expanded to hold another child. i suspect it’s never easy to wait for a life to join yours, no matter how it happens. there is no fooling myself on this one, so i will just hold that in my heart, along with images of a little boy who is waiting too.

"Those are the same stars, and that is the same moon, that look down upon your brothers and sisters, and which they see as they look up to them, though they are ever so far away from us, and each other." - Sojourner Truth

life

a friend of mine posted this on his facebook wall:

"There is no passion to be found playing small in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” - Nelson Mandela

this resonated with me and it's been in my mind the past few days. i discovered that it's been in my heart for so much longer. this is exactly how i feel. life is meant to be lived big. for some people that means fame, fortune, admiration, etc. for me it simply means giving myself to my passions and creating a life, a family all my own. 

i remember a few years ago feeling that my life was a fraud. that every day i went to work, i was inferior to those around me and one day i would wake up and everyone would discover i was a fraud and take away everything i'd been given. for those that know me, there is a disconnect here because i have worked so hard for everything i have in life. whether it is my education, my job, or my relationships, i have worked so very hard. but yet i couldn't shake this feeling. imagine my surprise when doing studies on women in the technical workplace and discovering that so many women felt the same way i did, specifically i even saw the "fraud" discussion being raised. i was blown away. blown away. this is apparently a typical feeling for technical women in the workplace, to feel less than. what a rip off really... to work so hard in school and land a great job, only to feel inferior nearly every day of your working career. or at least, that was true for me for so long. so very long.

so do i still feel that way? sort of. not as much. what changed? i started looking at my life. the truth is i fell into engineering. as funny as that sounds, it's honest. i'm just good at math and such. i love math. adore it. it's my first love really. my dream job would be to be a college math professor, but alas, i don't think it's in the cards. i guess you never know. never say never. but i just found myself good at technical things. i don't have a passion for them though, and that's the problem. i think when you lack passion, you doubt yourself. small seeds can grow so very large over the course of 17 years. the next thing you know, you've got this huge tree towering over you, shading such a large area that the light that tries to shine through is obscured... sure it makes it in, but it's not glorious and overwhelming. i really want glorious and overwhelming, if i'm honest. and i pride myself on my honesty so there you have it. i started thinking about what i do have a passion for. oh that's not as easy as it sounds. so many things. so little time. but when i look at all the things i have passion for, it comes back to family, children and helping others.

i love my family, and it's no secret that i come from a broken home. so broken i'm not sure how me and my brothers survived sometimes, but that's the irony of it all... we did. we ended up on different paths and it seems maybe our paths are criss-crossing over time and maybe i'll be able to weave them a little closer in time. i adore my children, they have made me, well, me. not too long ago, when we were adopting our girls, i wrote about parenthood and i decided i'd update it now that the girls are home:

parenthood has always been one of life’s greatest blessings for me. i have six of the most amazing children, all of whom i adore. they are each unique and hold special keys to my heart, inhabiting spaces where only they fit. i absolutely believe they’ve contributed enormously to the person i am today, carving away some of my rough spots and smoothing me out to tread more lightly upon the world. brother K has taught me that i am strong and capable of moving mountains when necessary; i had no idea. sister K has taught me to pause and take a deep breath and look at things from a different perspective; i’m getting pretty good at that. C has taught me to be inventive and act quickly on my feet; indeed i am quite clever after all this practice. L has taught me the resilience and beauty that one tiny human being can possess; she makes me re-examine my own limitations. M has taught me it's never too late for love and life and growing and becoming all that we can be, no matter how hard the road to here has been; i see this reflected back from my childhood to now and it's powerful. N has taught me that no matter the age, our struggles cannot be forgotten nor brushed aside; instead we must acknowledge them, grieve them and set them free. and with everything i have learned, i find that i still have incredible amounts of energy that appears to regenerate with each new day. i am eager to bring another child into our family, for i am positive i continue to have so much to give, and so much learn.

i want to live my life big. i don't want to settle for a life less than i'm capable of living.

sunny sunday

it was a beautiful day today... warm, windy, full of playtime, water, good food, some family visiting. sitting outside for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and most times in between. we sat on the grass for dinner tonight, like a picnic in our own backyard. it was nice to go around and give our highs, lows and funnies of our days while we were outside. we started doing our highs, lows and funnies about 5 years ago with the kids and haven't looked back since. it's the best part of dinner. the girls didn't understand the concept for the first few months they were home, but now they totally get it and can't wait until it's their turn. C remains ever adamant that he will go last. the neat thing about having a large family is that you get to watch everyone take an interest in each other, be supportive, and share moments that might otherwise go unshared. i love watching our children learn from each other, and dinnertime has become one of the things i most look forward to. the other thing i notice is that by the time you get done with everyone's days, dinner is nearly over. we definitely have room for one more, in fact, one more kiddo's daily review and i think we'll be set.

i'm buried...

...in the seemingly never ending paperwork. so many forms to notarize! send me good thoughts, so that i can focus and complete everything that needs to be done quickly!

dear wilson

dear wilson,
we looked through a telescope tonight and saw saturn and saturn's rings. it was so cool, and i wished you were here to see it. i want you to see all sorts of things you never have before. i want to learn what excites you, and take trips and jump into all sorts of fun adventures together. we're going to the beach tomorrow. i wish you were going too. i want to take you into the ocean and watch you chase the waves. i want to stroll down the sidewalks of our favorite beach city and eat shaved ice while we watch with amazement the guy on the corner who is playing five instruments at once. it seems a shame every weekend that comes and we're heading out together having fun times and i don't even know if you know we are waiting for you yet.

my heart longs to know you've heard the news. it might be scary. it might be exciting. it's probably both. i totally get that. it's totally ok.

i am thinking of you tonight, missing you, loving you. we are working hard to bring you home as soon as we can.

xoxoxox