Cutest Kid

So I was at the Y yesterday when I happened to catch the last 10 minutes of the Live! with Kelly show.  Kelly announced that tomorrow at noon eastern time was the deadline for submitting a photo for the 2012 Cutest Kid contest (sorry folks, that was at least 4 hours ago).  Obviously, I hadn't tuned in for a over a month, since the window for submissions started June 6th.  After her announcement, they flashed snapshots of other people's Cute Kids on the screen.  

Like tens of thousands of other parents across the country, I thought to myself, "Maisy is soooo cute," and I began thinking of all of the adorable photos I have of her on my phone, camera, and computer.  That's it!  I would submit Maisy's picture for the Cutest Kid contest!


Yesterday afternoon, during Maisy's naptime, I remembered the contest.  I checked out the details on the Live! website and learned that the prize for each of two categories was a 7-day cruise for a family of 4!  Not only that, but the #1 Cutest Kid would get a Dodge Journey.  Well, what did I have to lose?  Again, I thought to myself, Maisy is sooooo cute.  Sure the odds were stacked against us, but we must have a chance?!  Tens of thousands of other parents across the country thought the same thing.


Well, the site required that the photo was taken in the last month, and suggested no hats, no sunglasses, looking straight at the camera, etc., etc.  That did narrow things down a bit.  This picture was clearly ruled out:

But I didn't give up!  I found several contenders and sent them to my mom's email address for her vote:

When we both agreed to narrow it down to #1, I sent it off to Rick for approval (I suppose the other parent gets a say before a child's photo gets submitted to a national competition that she has a CLEAR chance of winning...).  Not only did Rick think it was a cute picture, but apparently he agreed with me that our Maisy had a better than average chance at becoming Live!'s Cutest Kid, because he wanted to wait and look through the rest of the photos we have at home. 

Alas, that was the beginning of the end for our realistic hopes of Maisy as Kelly's Cutest Kid.  We forgot last night.  By the time I remembered this morning and attempted to submit it, the website was so bogged down that it was impossible.  And so, this year's Cutest Kid chances were swallowed up by technological failure and the procrastination of the tens of thousands of parents who had a better than average chance of winning.

No cruise for us!  No Dodge Journey for us!  

BUT... we know something the judges wouldn't have known anyway.  Something that couldn't possibly be captured by one sweet little snapshot at the beach.  

There are things a picture can catch:  Those sparkly eyes!  Those crazy untameable curls!  That wide smile!  Those sweet dimples!  Those chubby little legs that keep stretching, but haven't quite lost their baby-ness yet!  We love these tangible qualities of our self-proclaimed Big Girl.

Then there are the things a camera can't capture:  The way she says "I love you" so many times a day, and you can tell by the tilt of her head and the squint of her eyes that she really means it.  The way she prays with us before supper, and is thankful for "Daddy, Mommy, Maisy, Dini, and Baby... and ketchup, and burgers, and napkins, and carrots, and forks, and watermelon, and milk, and spoons, and cups... in Jesus' name we pray, Amen."  The way she can sense the feelings and moods in people around her - especially her Mama! - and will melt when something is sad, cling when something is scary, and laugh even when the joke is way over her head.  The way she says "I love our Baby" sight unseen - and we know she will.

That's our Maisy!  And I guess we didn't need any contest to tell us that she's our very own Cutest Kid.  

(Though that cruise sure sounded nice!)

  

Love It or List It: Nesting Edition

Ok, I confess, I've never actually seen HGTV's "Love It or List It."  However, I think I can guess at the premise:

1.  You have some things you want to change in the house.
2.  You change them.  (In the case of HGTV, maybe a little outrageously.)
3.  You decide if you "Love It" (aka let's stay)
4.  Or if you'll "List It." (you get the idea)

Something like that, right?

Since I DO watch Househunters, it happens every so often that I get the urge to check our local real estate listings to see what's available and reasonable in our area.  Sometimes they're pretty great!  But I'm held back by two questions:  Do I really want to leave the neighborhood?  And, do I really have the energy to get our house market-ready and keep it that way?

It certainly helps that houses in our neighborhood are actually selling for the first time in years!  Also, now that we've been in our home six years, we figure we could theoretically think about moving.

So that's what this is all about!  We've done some updates to our home over the years, but there are plenty of areas of the home that we'd like to change either to better enjoy what we have, or to make it more interesting to a potential buyer.  Assuming I stay motivated and interested in this scheme, you can check back for future Love It or List It updates.

Note to Readers: We're not REALLY making any plans to sell, or to buy elsewhere, so let's not get too carried away.

Second Note to Readers:  This is the Nesting Edition, meaning... we're expecting Baby #2!  As of tomorrow, I'm "officially" in my Second Trimester, so this is when I'm supposed to have increased energy, right?!?  So some of our ideas are about how we get this house in better shape before our little Who makes his or her first big "YOPP!"  

"Growin' and growin'"

Rick and I took Maisy to the City Clerk's Office the other day to apply for her passport.  We get to go on a family vacation to Mexico this summer, since my youngest brother decided to have a destination wedding.  We're thrilled to have an excuse to spend time at a resort on the beach!

Anyway, it came time for Rick to go to work and Maisy and I to go off and do a few other errands.  

Maisy: "No, Daddy.  You not go to work.  You come home with me!"

Daddy: I want to come home with you, but I have to go to work.  I'll see you at home after your nap.

Maisy: (screams, because yes, she is two, then says:) "This is so frustrating.  I am so upset right now."

Seriously.  She used those exact words.  She isn't quite 27 months old yet.  

The big news in our house is that Maisy is potty training.  We started a couple of weeks ago, right after we got back from a long road trip to North Dakota.  Maisy had been trying on the potty quite a bit for several months, and she had success here and there, but we hadn't really put any focus on it and we were still using diapers 100% of the time.  "U" was the letter of the week for Library Storytime on that Monday, so I thought, "Why not?  U is for Undies, after all!"  

After Storytime, we spontaneously checked out the book "Ian's Potty" from the library (highly recommended, though as Rick reminded me, you can't really spend time thinking about how many potties that book has been near).  Then it was off to Target, where I carefully diverted Maisy's attention away from the thin-as-tissue-paper princess-and-Dora undies to the practical-and-absorbent Gerber training pants (highly recommended as well!).  It took very little convincing to convince her of how cool the flowers, butterflies, and pink Big Girl Undies were - she had them out of the package before we got to the checkout lanes.  

That was a Monday.  We had a few accidents here and there ("like Ian") between that Monday and Thursday.  It's been two full weeks since we got the Big Girl Undies, and she hasn't had an accident since that Thursday!  She still wears a diaper overnight, but almost always wakes up "clean and dry," as she puts it, and she's starting to refuse a diaper during naps.  As she says, "I'm a big girl.  I'm growin' and growin'!"

What's Left After the Thaw

It's another beautiful March day.  We spent part of the afternoon in the backyard, raking up bits of leaves (me) and picking up doggy droppings (Rick) that have become visible now that the snow has melted.  We're also finding what else had been covered up by Winter.

A pair of camouflage gloves.

Colorful bits of broken plastic and toys.

A veritable minefield of wood shards and snapped branches.

More than one piece of 2x4 with rusty nails sticking straight up.

Two halves of a Razr scooter.

Two bike tires with broken spokes and twisted metal.

Boy felt better when he broke things.

For seven months, we called him son, and meant it even on the last day.  It's been over a month and a half since that cold winter day when we said goodbye to him.  So much has changed since then, yet so much is still the same.  His smiling school picture is still on the fridge.  Maisy points at it often and says, smiling, "There's Boy."  His school library books still sit on his dresser - the one he pounded a hole through with a hammer on one of his last nights here.  Every once in awhile, I walk in his old room and think about how I should really stop by the school sometime to return them.  The shattered window in his room is still covered up with plywood, the door is still torn off of the basement room where we feed the dog, the paneled wall is still knocked down and ripped apart.  When Maisy feeds the dog, she points to these things and says, "Boy break door."

Some of the pictures on the fridge can still make me smile, though.  For the first month or so of school, Boy functioned pretty well.  He let me help him with his homework.  He participated in an after-school activity, and Maisy and I went to every one to cheer him on.  He was different then.  Everything was different.

I remember when he began to unravel, sometime in October, for sure in November.  But I'm not going to get into all of that here.  The Whats and Whys and Hows.

So what's left now?  After the thaw?  The hard freeze is over.  What's left behind?

A pair of camouflage gloves.

A 25-month-old who still says "I sister."  Who remembers Boy almost every time we pray before meals.  Who still says, "I miss Girly" even though it's been nearly 7 months since the last time Maisy saw her - when we called our amazing, supportive friends to pick Maisy up at the spur of the moment and keep her away from our house for the night.  Who still points to broken pieces of whatnot and tells me the things Boy destroyed.  Who responds with "Boy loves me" when I ask her in a sing-song voice, "Who loves Maisy?"

Guilt and relief.

A working knowledge of several area pediatric psychiatry units and a sense of which ones are more appropriate for a child with a traumatic history.

Guilt and a feeling of renewed youth.

Residual fear.

Questions.

Vivid memories.

Gratefulness for the care I received in my mother's womb, in my parents' home, from Day 1.  I realize now how critical those early days are, those first few years.  I worry a little about the impact of the hard months on Maisy, but overall, I know she is fine.  She has always been well cared for.  She has always been loved.  She has never known hunger, or the brain-changing confusion of a caregiver who is sometimes warm and sometimes cold and sometimes totally absent.  I am so grateful I can meet her core needs.  Give her this healthy beginning in life.  I wish Boy had had it.  And Girly, too.  I wish it earnestly, and often.

Sadness, yet a sense that I should somehow feel sadder.

Awareness.  Of mental illness.  Of the importance of those first three years.  Of Reactive Attachment Disorder.  Of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder.  Of early sexualization.  Of trauma, and PTSD, and the effects of trauma on developing brains.  Of the complexity and desperation of trying to heal children with complex trauma and an assortment of acronyms.

HUMILITY.  I can have so much knowledge and compassion, go to so many trainings, apply this or that method, consult with therapists and experts, try, and try, and try again, and yet fail miserably.  Fail.  So rarely in my life have I failed at anything, and here I failed at something so huge.

Humility.  Powerlessness.  But with the thaw has come some peace.  I know that the Boy who was my son for such a relatively short time, is and always has been a child of God.  And even though I could do so very little, I know that God can do so very, very much.

What's left after the thaw?

Faith.

Hope.

Love
.

Manna from Heaven

Six months.  

That's about how long it has been since I wrote my last post.  In the beginning, I was too busy and exhausted to get down to the computer to write.  After a time, however, I just didn't know what to say.  

Every so often, I even contemplated deleting the last post because I couldn't imagine how I would build onto it from there.  I didn't, though, because deleting the post would invalidate the emotions I felt then, and those emotions were very real.  Deleting the post would erase a moment that happened, a joyful memory, regardless of the sad events that occurred later.  

I won't tell the details of what happened.  Even though I don't anticipate that either of the kids will ever read this, I need to protect their privacy and their feelings.  

Things didn't turn out the way we had hoped and planned.  I don't blame anyone, even myself, though that took some time.  It's just the way it is.  In short, we are now a family of 4.  The bright little girl from our first meeting is living with, and is going to be adopted by, the foster family where she thrived before the placement was made.  I heard her on the phone not long ago, and was so glad to hear that she sounded happy and healthy.  The enthusiastic 12-year-old boy still lives with us, and soon he will be a teenager!  The challenges are many.  They are undeniable.  But the memory of that first meeting, and the swell of love I felt for both of the children, they were real, too.  

We're in a new place now, a place where we need to trust God to meet our needs each and every day.  Like the manna from heaven that couldn't be kept from one day to the next, we rely on God for our daily bread, and we try not to worry about what tomorrow will bring.  I pray every morning for God to give us enough for today, and He does!  

Every day, He does.  Like manna from heaven.

What It's Like

Let me tell you what it's like when you meet your children for the first time.

If you've ever held your newborn baby in your arms, you remember the way that your eyes fill up:  Maybe just the prick of a tear, or maybe you let loose in a flood of emotion.

When your children are 10 and 12 years old when you meet them, it's exactly like that.  Only different.

When you meet your 10 and 12 year old children for the first time, you've probably already seen a picture.  So you already know they are a couple of adorable kids.  You've probably already talked to their social workers, teachers, foster parents, and other people who know them well.  So you already know that they are resilient, lovable, and one-of-a-kind (times 2!).

You're excited.  It feels so strange, knowing that in 5 minutes you will become a mom again, and that for the rest of your life you will have two more lives to guide and love unconditionally.  You're so nervous that your stomach is tied up in crazy twisted-up knots.  You know you'll love them (you already do), but what if they're not as happy to see you?

You pray.  The knots loosen a little.  You're relieved to remember that others are praying, too.

Then you spot them for the first time.  Maybe they're outside tossing a football around.  A beautiful blond pixie of a girl and a brown-haired boy with a smile that reaches all the way to his eyes.  You gasp and say to your husband, "They are so cute."

The tears prick your eyes: Yes, it's exactly the same.  I'm their mom, you think.  They're my kids forever, you think.

The car stops and you can't wait to get out.  On the way here, so many thoughts raced through your head.  Do we refer to ourselves as Mom & Dad right away?  Do we hug them when we meet them?  At the end of the visit?  Do we just wait?  What will we say?

But unlike that precious newborn with the scrunched-up forehead and the bleary eyes, your 10 and 12-year-old children can already smile at you.  And they do, and it lights up their whole faces.  You are utterly captivated.  Your children can already reach for you, and they do, and hugging them is the most natural thing in the world.

So what's it like when you meet your children for the first time?  It doesn't matter if they are a newborn with a button nose and pink cheeks, or a pair of preteens looking up at you with hope shining in their eyes: You are caught off guard by the awesome responsibility that is yours.  And you just love them.

Six Word Memoir: June 1st, 2011, 10:13 am

Chosen!!! And our lives changed forever.