This Reminds Me

Archive for March, 2009

Our church recognized Julia and 40 other kiddos this morning for their “Pastor’s Pals” bible memory work.  With each grade level, the requirements are more stringent.  For second grade, Julia memorized the 10 Commandments, the greatest commandments and a regular verse.  When Rachel, Lois and Hannah were doing this, they always hoped the children’s minister would add John 11:35 to the list of eligible verses.  Ummmm…..no.

That’s my girl – bottom row, second from the right  When I go to heaven, God’s giving me her beautiful glossy hair.

After church, the children’s minister treated all the Pastor’s Pals to Incredible Pizza.  Rachel, Hannah and I went along for fun.  Julia tried to act “cool” and distract me while Rachel seruptitiously salted her already over-salty mac’n'cheese, thinking Mom was too dumb to notice.  Fail!


Rachel and Hannah demo’ed their mad hoop skills in quest for more tickets.  Rachel gaves hers to Julia, who receemed them for a ball and some manner of tongue-dying candy.  Hannah is now the proud owner of a gynormous Hannah Montana pencil.

Julia and I continue to slug away at a children’s story bible every night.  She gets so excited when she recognizes a story, or relates a story to what she’s heard in Sunday School.  Two weeks ago, I casually mentioned I was worried about something.  Julia immediately scolded me with, “Mom, we’re not supposed to worry.  We’re supposed to pray.”  When we started the read the story of Jonah traveling to Ninevah via whale gut, her face lit up and she stabbed the page telling me, “Mom, I know this story, Jonah wanted to get away from the Lord, but he couldn’t – because God is everywhere.”  Well, yes.  Yes He is.

I know many people would scoff at Pastor’s Pals and bible story books.  After all – bible story books are diluted, they’re not the pure Word of God.  And why should kids be bribed/rewarded to learn scripture?  The knowledge itself should be its own reward.  And I could have argued that position, too – before I had kids.  And before I had a child that didn’t hear a single bible story until she started learning English at age six.

Reality is that Pastor’s Pals and bible story books are venues not only to teach Julia about God, but also to make me examine what I truly believe myself.  If my faith is so etheral and jargon-packed that I can’t explain it to a child…well, then, I really don’t know what I believe.   I just know the pretty words to spit up and hope no one challenges my pablum.

Julia told me at Christmas, “You are my Jesus teacher.”  But she’s wrong about that.  She’s the one who’s teaching me..

The water is 60 degrees now.  So the koi can be fed.

Notice the reflection at the water’s edge.  I am going to have fun with my waterproof Olympus this summer!

Nobody adopts accidentally.  You might get pregnant accidentally, but you’re sure not adopting accidentally.  Sometimes – facing the mountain of paperwork, interviews, medical exams, background checks, etc., you wonder if you’re ever going to adopt at all, or if someone 100 years from now is just going to stumble across your withered corpse hunched over a stack of paperwork clutching a blue-inked pen with your eyes forever frozen scanning the horizon for a notary.

A tiny fraction of that paperwork is a lengthy written personal evaluation done in preparation for a social worker visit.  Keith is not keen on questions more personal than, “What’s your name?”   So imagine his delight when – in October, 2004 (Julia came home in May, 2006) - he and I each had to answer literally 18 pages of questions like, “Describe why you are not satisfied with yourself” and “What are your three main fears or concerns?” – all before our first social worker visit.

I had never before had any meaningful contact with a social worker.  I’d met a few social work majors in college – generally people whom (to me) seemed to be trying to compensate for majorly messed up home lives of their own by trying to fix everyone else’s.  But here I was in October, 2004, chasing dust bunnies and mentally preapring for whatever else I might be asked by whom I pictured to be an 80-year-old drone in bi-focals and corrective shoes, eager to peer under my couch cushions.

Instead – our agency (Buckner) sent us Jennifer, a super-friendly, well-organized social worker from Ft. Worth, who specializes in adoptions.  One of the first phrases out of her mouth, “I don’t care about your dust bunnies.  And I don’t even look under my own couch cushions.”   I knew I liked her right then.

Jennifer did the required pre-placement family visits before Julia arrived home in May, 2006, as well as the required post-placement visits (monthly for six months, then on the year marks.)  We actually looked forward to them.

Today was huge for us.  Today was our last required post-placement visit.  We’re coming up on the three-year mark of Julia’s adoption, and that’s the last post-placement visit required by the Russian government.  Jennifer flew in to ask a few more questions, check out the house, talk to all of us (individually and together) and share a pizza.

Everyone in the home has to be interviewed alone.  Rachel told me later, “Mom, I told her how you beat me every night.”

When we started in 2004, Jennifer was taller than Lois and Hannah.  Not so much now.

So as soon as Buckner files this last report, stick a fork in us, we’re officially “done” with what we owe the Russian government.

Of course, we’ll never be “done” with what we owe Buckner. And everyone who helped us bring Julia home, like Jennifer – with whom I want to be friends for a long, long time.

But in the meantime – it feels good to be “done.”

Spring Break weather has been warm and breezy – until today.  The day we picked to go to Fiesta Texas.  And we froze our ta-ta’s off.

The new Wiggles section of the park is sooo cute!  There was virtually no one there today, so the girls rode the Wiggles stuff multiple times, and we all did Scooby Do and the bumper cars several times.  In between the shivers and dodging sprinkles (which haven’t hit our yard yet.)

Note to parents: Let your kids go first.  They dry the seat for you.