Welcome to my circus.

August 27, 2012
by Maralee
8 Comments

The 5 Love Languages of the Mom of Toddlers

Gary Chapman has a great book that most of us have been exposed to at some point. In his book “The 5 Love Languages:  The Secret to Love that Lasts” he details what he perceives to be the five ways people give and receive love. He uses five categories:  quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, or physical touch. When we were going through premarital counseling it was easy for me to see how I most wanted to express love and how I most wanted to be loved. Those were the days before I had toddlers.

I imagine when Chapman sat down to write this book he probably didn’t have mashed banana smeared on his shoulder from where someone wiped a face directly after breakfast. He probably wasn’t up four times in the night taking somebody to the bathroom, soothing after a bad dream, answering a question about the next day’s activities, and giving one last hug. I’m guessing when Chapman needed a bathroom break, he probably took one. Alone.

So in trying to help my husband understand exactly how I would most like to see love expressed towards me and how I am likely to express love these days, I am coming up with the 5 Love Languages of the Mom of Toddlers. Your Mom of Toddlers would like to see love expressed in one (or more!) of these five ways:

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August 23, 2012
by Maralee
2 Comments

Who Needs a Hero

I ran across an interesting article yesterday about the traits of “heroes”.  You can read the full text here: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/are-you-a-hero-or-a-bystander-.html  The article details what kind of character traits are common to people who take risks to help others.  It also has some compelling stories about normal people who have done heroic acts.  It made me wonder- am I a hero?

I am not a risk taker.  Almost to the extreme.    I will confess there are times I am living so that nobody looks at my obituary and thinks, “Well, there’s your problem.”  I don’t want to die doing something a person of average intelligence would have known not to do.  This is also why I refuse to use the bathroom during thunderstorms.  If I’m going to get struck by lightening, I’d prefer to have my pants on when they find me.  I think this concern keeps me from assuming I’d be the kind of person who would take the necessary risks in a time of crisis.  I am cool under pressure, but being cool and being smart are not the same thing.  I wouldn’t get overly emotional, but I also wouldn’t trust myself to know what to do.  Am I CPR certified?  Yes.  Do I hate that I am CPR certified because then I’d feel accountable if somebody should collapse around me?  Also yes.

My husband is the opposite.  Brian seems to get smarter in times of crisis where I tend to go into this denial mode.  He loves being CPR certified and always seems to be expecting he’ll need to use it.  If a kid gets a cut in this house, they go looking for Daddy.  Mommy might slap a band-aid on it if you’re really bleeding, but Daddy will clean it, dry it, and has almost an obsession with getting the right size dressing for the wound.  And he does it all with a calmness and presence that is soothing to the little patient.

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August 21, 2012
by Maralee
11 Comments

Are fourth kids the dumbest?

I’m afraid maybe fourth kids are destined to be the dumbest.  I’m a fourth kid, so I think I’m allowed to say that.  I was contemplating this the other day while putting away the basement toys.  There was the little drum that when you hit the top used to sing the ABCs.  And here are the maracas that when you shook them would name off colors in English and Spanish.  In the corner was the barn that used to tell you what sounds different animals made when you opened and closed the doors.  That was the world my first born lived in.  And my second born.  By my third child, the sounds were all starting to get a little lower and slower in that evil sounding way that toys do.  And by the fourth child, the batteries are dead.  The fourth child never knows the toys used to make noise and tried to sing an education into his impressionable brain.  The fridge alphabet letters are only to be batted around and thrown on the floor, never again to sing their lovely songs about what sound each letter makes.  How will my fourth child ever learn?

I had a lot of emotions when we found out we were pregnant with this fourth child (my first biological baby).  Not a lot of them were pretty.  I was taking this pregnancy test in the very same bathroom where a few minutes before I had been cleaning out dirty underwear of my child who was taking for.eve.er. to potty-train.  Did I mention I was potty-training two kids at once?  And my oldest child was not yet old enough to go to school for another year?  That positive on the pregnancy test did not exactly give me the joyful high I had always anticipated it would.  And maybe the overwhelming emotion I felt looking at that test was guilt.

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August 17, 2012
by Maralee
16 Comments

Pat Robertson and “weird” adopted kids

I guess Pat Robertson has gotten himself in trouble again.  This time it was for giving advice to a woman with three adopted children who was asking why the men she was dating didn’t want to take on the responsibility of her daughters.  According to her, they were okay with the idea of her having biological children, but were bothered by the fact that the kids were from different countries and didn’t come with child support.  Sadly, nobody writes to me for advice on this topic, but if this woman had, this would be my answer:  If God called you to adopt those precious girls, then He can bring a man into your life who is prepared to help you raise them.  That’s really the end of the story.  Do you want a man who doesn’t want your kids?  Especially if they’re implying it has anything to do with receiving child support for them?  Those are not quality guys.  Thank goodness they have been scared off by your kids before you got into a longterm relationship with somebody that flaky.

This was not the direction Mr. Robertson choose to go.  He validated that these guys do not want to parent “the United Nations” and then shared an example of how he knows somebody whose adopted kid grew up “weird” after living in a Colombian orphanage.  So basically, he gave you the exact same answer anybody’s vaguely offensive uncle would have given when you told them you wanted to adopt.  When talking to your uncle, this part of the speech comes right after “but don’t you want to have kids of your OWN” and right before “they’ll probably always want to be back with their real parents”.  Basically, Mr. Robertson answered something way out of his depth.  (I should probably add that my actual uncles are all lovely and didn’t say any of this stuff, but you get my drift.)

I would recommend reading Russell Moore’s beautiful response that really gets to the heart of the matter (www.russellmoore.com/2012/08/17/pat-robertson-vs-the-spirit-of-adoption/), but I want to address *gulp* what Pat Robertson and I might agree about if we weren’t talking about what kind of men this lady should be dating, but were instead talking about what to consider when preparing for older child adoption.

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August 14, 2012
by Maralee
6 Comments

20 boys. And 1 girl.

I am no expert on raising girls.  You might think that being a girl and having sisters would do something to prepare me, but after spending five years houseparenting in a boys home and then adopting two little sons of my own I was totally unprepared for the unique demands of a little girl.  And what a little girl I have!

We got a call from our foster agency that there was a baby that needed a temporary home, maybe just for six weeks.  They told us the baby was healthy, but the person giving us the information wasn’t sure if the child was male or female, black, white, or purple, newborn or crawling.  This is the strange world of foster care referrals.  We kept pressing for more information so we could make an informed decision and eventually some dots got connected- baby girl, five months-old, relatively healthy.  That was enough information for us to know we could say yes.  Well, I knew we could say yes, Brian needed a little more convincing.  That convincing came in the form of a little background information that told us she truly needed a family.  Maybe just for six weeks, but she needed us.  So we entered the world of sugar and spice and everything nice.

But it wasn’t so nice at first.  So much of that had to do with bonding issues (a subject for a different post), but for our family it was also the adjustment to having a little girl in the house.  I remember Brian saying, “Do all girls squeal like that?”  Good or bad, this girl made a lot of noise!  And all of it high-pitched.  That was our first glimpse into the differences between this girl and our sons.

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August 12, 2012
by Maralee
8 Comments

Our future Olympian starts Kindergarten

I am not an athlete.  Not by a long shot.  In fact, I probably couldn’t make “a long shot” in whatever sport might require one.  If I try to run I start to panic because my body knows I’d only be running if I was being chased and my life was in danger.  So watching The Olympics is always fun for me  because I absolutely can’t fathom how anybody can do what these people can do.

This year I was especially fascinated by the track and field events because our five-year-old is pretty sure he’s a track star in the making.  If the long jump should at some point involve a pit of couch pillows at the end of it, I’m going to agree that he’s off to a good start.  As I watched with new eyes this year thinking about what it involves to be the parent of an Olympian I became fascinated with the role of the coach in a runner’s success.  A coach?  What is there to coach?  You just run fast until you hit the finish line, right?  This does not seem complicated.  But then I heard all the commentators discussing how somebody didn’t pace themselves right- too fast at the beginning or waiting too long to put on the extra burst of speed at the end.  Oh. . . right. . . pacing.  Pacing is something somebody has to teach you.  Has to coach you.  Helps you learn to internalize.

Pacing has quite a role in parenting, too.  I’ve been thinking about this as Josh prepares to start Kindergarten in two days.  On Saturday morning I was feeding our seven-month-old and when I got up to make breakfast I found that the job was already done.  Yep.  Josh did that.  All without prompting, making a mess or breaking anything.  Sometimes I’m kind of astounded at what that child can do.  Like a couple months ago when the dryer buzzer went off and he just got the laundry out and brought it to me to fold.  Or when he decided to make sandwiches for his brother and sister because I was unloading the groceries.  Whose child is this?

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August 8, 2012
by Maralee
7 Comments

I hear the first ten years are the hardest

There are lots of good reasons to stay married.  You already know them.  At least you think you do.  When we got married ten years ago I was pretty sure life would always feel like a road trip- my man and me traveling through life side by side, seeing each new day as an adventure we’d face together.  I didn’t realize married life would always feel like a road trip- my man and me getting irritated when somebody (I won’t mention who) got us lost, or forgot to put enough gas in the car, or brought the wrong snacks, or picked a crummy hotel.

In those first years there is a lot of passion, which isn’t purely a good thing.  I can be pretty passionately angry when I want to be.  While you can find a ton of material on keeping the passion alive in your marriage, I’m thankful for some relief from those dramatic ups and downs.  So if you want to know why I think it’s good to stay married, I’m going to give you the world’s simplest example.

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July 27, 2012
by Maralee
7 Comments

Pinocchio and Me

As an adoptive mom I can get a little worked up about the word “real”.  Seems innocuous enough, right?  But when somebody says, “So, what do you know about his REAL mom?” you suddenly get a little irritable.  I’ve wanted to say things like, “His real mom?  Because I am a figment of his imagination?” or “Whoever cleans up the puke is the real mom.”  Mostly I just say, “You mean his biological mom?” and people are nice enough that they correct themselves.  Problem solved.

Except that sometimes that problem follows me home and I keep pondering this concept of “realness”.  When did I become a “real” mom?  Was it when I became a housemom to my first set of children’s home boys?  Was it when the orphanage director put my son in my arms?  Was it the first time I saw a positive pregnancy test?

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July 14, 2012
by Maralee
Comments Off on Please be nice in the grocery store. Some of us have our hands full.

Please be nice in the grocery store. Some of us have our hands full.

One of the perks of being a stay-at-home mom is that I have the luxury of getting groceries whenever I want.  This means I’m often there early in the day during the week and I share the grocery store with a community of retired people who also have that freedom.  This has turned out to be quite the educational experience for me as I am exposed to women who can either be a great encouragement to me in my mothering or else they can make me feel like I might as well just give up.  I am learning from these experiences that when my days of parenting little ones are far behind me I want to be like the lovely ladies who tell me how cute my kids are and engage them in conversation.  I love when they express fondness for my kids, even if it also implies that we might be a bit of a rowdy bunch by saying, “Oh, aren’t they lively!” or “Such exuberance!”  I want to be like the lady who told me how blessed I was to have such well-behaved kids, although apparently her definition of “well-behaved” is a little more loose than mine.  And if a child waves and says, “Hi Grama!” to me even though she isn’t my grandchild, I want to be like the sweet ladies who wave back and give a big smile.

So for you women who have to share the grocery aisle with me, I apologize in advance for all the noise and commotion we make even on our best behaved days.  And I want you to know how much I appreciate your kind glances, your warm encouragement and the love you lavish on the kids around you.  You are the hands and feet of Christ, even in the grocery store.

July 1, 2012
by Maralee
Comments Off on Stupid Past Maralee

Stupid Past Maralee

Sometimes I get mad at myself.  But not at the current version of me, I get mad at Past Maralee.  Past Maralee makes some dumb decisions.  She often thinks things like, “Future Maralee will have time to iron, so I’ll just leave the clothes sitting in the drier to get wrinkly.”  or “Future Maralee won’t mind sorting through all the baby clothes so I’ll just stuff all these onesies into a tub for later.  I’m sure Future Maralee will have more time than I do now.” or even “Future Maralee will probably have a sensible late night snack, so she won’t mind if I just eat a chocolate bar right now.”  I get so mad at that Past Maralee who condemns me to wasting my time ironing or sorting through baby clothes or eating celery.  Am I the only one who thinks this way?

I seem to always be putting off until tomorrow the things I really should be doing today.  I have no trouble coming up with reasons why surely later I’ll be ready to take on the challenges that I just don’t want to dig into now.  I am learning as my life seems to get ever more chaotic and complicated the best time to do the things that need to be done is now.  If I can just keep that lesson in mind, I’m sure Past Maralee and I will get along just fine.