This Reminds Me

Shortly before Rachel started kindergarten, we attended a welcome-to-school party hosted by a family whose home included a large swimming pool.  For a still-unexplained reason, Rachel – who could not swim – leaped into the deep end.  I stood there absolutely incredulous as she bobbed to the surface, gasped, and promptly sunk.  In just a few seconds, I had slipped off my watch and my shoes and jumped in fully clothed to retrieve my child.

I didn’t rationalize her plight and minimize my own responsibility by saying, “Well, Rachel, I can’t save you because there may be a drowning child somewhere else, and really, what I need to be doing is dictating mandatory swimming lessons worldwide, and/or lobbying legislators to require 24×7 lifeguards at every body of water.”  No.  My child needed me.  I jumped.

Sometimes, children need to be saved.

This week, I’ve been both irritated and horrified at UNICEF’s war against international adoption. UNICEF seems to believe that the “answer” to the needs of orphans is to improve the conditions in their home countries so there’s no need for international adoptions.  How lofty.  How noble.  That kumbaya-chanting ideal assumes (1) that all global economic imbalances can be solved and (2) that all parents want custody of and/or are capable of caring for their children.

The day she left Children’s Home #47, Julia’s friends wished her to be happy, be healthy, remember Russia and obey her grandmother.  I play “what if” often – like, what if Keith and I were 10 years younger with a bucket’o'money?  Would we adopt again?  Look at those kids.  Oh, yes, we would.

Global economic imbalances are a harsh reality.  The world has been and will be – until Jesus returns – a place where “the poor will always be with us.” As a Christian and a human being, I am sorry for the families without clean water, or enough to eat.   And while I wish I could wave a magic wand and make – say,Ethiopia – a land of plenty, I can’t.   And even if I could, that doesn’t mean that every Ethiopian parent would want custody or or was capable of caring for children.

Modern adoption language discourages terms like “saving children.”  And we are never supposed to say children were “given up for adoption,” oh no, it’s “the bio parents made an adoption plan.”  I know all the now-correct language to use.  But really – I think 99% of that stuffola really only applies to in-country, US-adoptions, almost always with infants.  When you’re holding a cooing little bundle of blue in a U.S. hospital for whom you’ve waited years to fill that empty crib – great.  Be all correct in your language.  Get out the whole “birth triad” language book out and jabber away.

But when you are adopting internationally – especially when you have other children – oh, please!  All of it just makes me grit my teeth.  What is wrong with flat-out acknowledging that yes, you’re adopting – but at least part of your motivation is in saving a child?  I’ve spoken to families who pulled children out of hellish situations in Africa, Russia, South America, etc..  When a family adopts a scar-ravaged Colombian toddler removed from the custody of a bio mother that almost burned him to death – ‘cmon, that child was most definitely saved and there was no “adoption plan” made.  That family, BTW, had several bio children already.  I have a blogging buddy in Michigan I admire tremendously.  She and her husband had three bio kids before adopting a school-age girl from Russia.   Now they’re adopting a Ukrainian teenager set to age-out of the orphanage.  Statistics say he’ll have a short, bitter life of crime – assuming, of course, he doesn’t commit suicide soon, as 20% of those kids do.  Her family is not trying to solve the poverty problem in the Ukraine.  They can’t.  They’re just going to rescue a little 15-year-old piece of it.

Fixing a whole country is just too big.  The families I know that have adopted intentionally can’t do that as individuals, and don’t believe it’s the job of the United States to shoulder world reform.   But they feel called to do “something.”  So – like most of us – they do what they can.

UNICEF’s answer to the orphan is, “We’ll get your whole country fixed and then your parents can keep you.  You’ll have no need to be adopted intentionally.  Wait.  Just wait.”

But children – as we all know – can’t wait.

Sometimes, you just have to jump in and save them.

Julia has announced her intended career.  She wants to be a dentist.  She’s been saying this for more than a year, and she’s sketched out line art and a time line to prove it.

That’s me represented in the reclining chair.  My child stick needles in my gums and run a drill in my head?  Ummm….I’m thinking not.

At age 11, I had no real idea what profession I wanted to follow.  History teacher?  Attorney?  Nurse?  I still ask myself from time to time what I want to be when I grow up, since many days, I don’t feel as much “mature” as just “older.”  I never pictured myself squeezing into panty hose, lugging a laptop downtown and managing various responsibilities for AT&T.  I think – over time – I’ve become what is essentially a “professional manager,” applying skills and knowledge acquired in one position into the next.  I’ve been very fortunate to have some great jobs the last several years, but still – I never pictured myself doing this.  In fact, I never pictured myself in most of the specifics of my life.  That’s not to say I’m unhappy with them.  I love my God, husband and kids; good books, gospel music and the neighborhood pool thrill me; I don’t envy much and I wouldn’t trade places with anyone.  But I can’t pretend my life is the result of a brilliant master plan that I’ve followed, or even that I’ve made all the choices God wanted me to make.

Hannah came to the office with me one summer day in 2004.  My good AT&T friend Vicki- always Hannah’s favorite – called her at my desk.  “My mom doesn’t really work,” Hannah told Vicki.  “She just types and talks on the phone.”

One of the events of my life I could never have foretold and had the most trouble dealing with was the death of my younger brother David in 2004.  You expect – at least intellectually – to lose your parents, aunts, uncles, etc.  That is the natural order.  To lose someone dear younger than yourself is not the natural order, and that upset adds an additional acrid layer of complexity to grief.  I’ve not been able to see his children Josh and Miriam too frequently, as they’ve moved about internationally.  But they are in Texas visiting family now, and we drove to see them yesterday.

(Clockwise from left) Lois, 17; Julia, 11; Josh, 16; Miriam, 14; Hannah, 15.  Wish Rachel had been with us, but she’s with friends from camp in Alpine this weekend.

I loved visiting with them about their school plans, and their career aspirations.  As I sat there, I thought a lot about my grandmother from the hills of Kentucky.  Barely literate.  Never flew on an plane.  And then my mom, a self-described “misplaced Hoosier” reluctantly dragged to Texas.  Voracious reader, and one of the first women to work for TWA.  She saw Charles Lindberg in the Indianapolis airport.  And now these kids – one born in Russia, two living in South America, all have traveled internationally, all with wider experiences than I had at twice their ages.

What will they be when they grow up?   Will Julia really be a dentist?  I don’t know.

What I do know is that life will deal these kids – as it does everyone else – some wild cards.  Circumstances, conditions and events none could not have foretold, and would not have chosen.  And like my grandmother losing her oldest son while rescuing her youngest from drowning, and my mother navigating the uncharted waters of rearing a disabled child – they’ll have to figure out who and what they are time and again.  Year after year.  Decade after decade.

Because no matter your profession or age, the ability handle the unplanned and unexpected is what really makes you a grown-up.

First day back to school – and only 179 to go this year.  The girls shoot me filthy looks when I mention that.

Hannah and Lois know to complete every scrap of information possible on those mountains of school forms before handing them off to me.  Why, oh why, does NEISD still require so much paper when parents are also required to enter the same info electronically in the parent portal?  Sigh.  I am still a huge believer in my favorite motherhood trick:  Clear address labels.   My using them embarasses the girls now.  I don’t care.  The embarrassment should be on the part of any entity that asks me for the same piece of information more than once.  BTW – For friends that have never visited – Keith built our kitchen table using floor planking from a tear-down house in Houston in the late 90′s.  It is the heart, soul and center of our home.

School year 2011-2012:  Lois, 17, is a senior in high school.  I am already noodling her graduation party, because I’m hoping we will  have lots to celebrate.  Hannah, 15, is a sophomore in high school.  Her lunch period is 1:50 – 2:45 p.m. this year, and they’re out of school at 4 p.m.   There are going to be lots of hurry-up-and-swallow peanut butter crackers in her Vera Bradley backpack.  Julia, 11, is in 5th grade, and a safety patrol officer.  I think that explains the toy handcuffs on her bookshelf.  Rachel, 20 is a college sophomore at UTSA with an afternoon job in an NEISD after-school program.  She brings the most lively stories to the dinner table.

Julia brought home an “all aboue me” paper cube to cut, fold and tape.  Note that “Sometthing Important To Me:” is “Jesus + My 2 guinee Pigs.”

This school year is a big one for our family.  Lois will graduate high school, and she wants to go away to college – maybe Baylor, maybe Tech, maybe Houston, maybe Alabama – maybe it depends on the scholarship?!  And  Julia will complete elementary school.  That may not sound like a big deal, but it is.  Since 1996 – elementary school has placed more (PTA) meetings on our calendars and more checks in backpacks than any other single “anything.”

We’ve had a child in elementary school since Rachel-the-kindergartener in 1996.  I confess:  My standards have lapsed.  New Stride Rite shoes?  Not anymore.  We’re talking “I know we got them in the clearance bin at Wal-mart last summer, but they don’t have any holes.”  Matching socks?  If you can find two identical in the plastic clothes basket on the top of the freezer.  Hair bands?  Don’t care as long as the going-to-school hair matches my three rules:  Clean.  Combed.  A color occurring in nature.

Tonight at bedtime Julia asked God to help her be a good girl tomorrow and to not get her folder signed. 

Amen, Julia!  Amen!  Pray that 179 more times this elementary school year and we’re done!

I am a total Fiesta Texas nerd.  Love the place.  And yet – today is the first day I’ve gone all year.  I’ve driven there a few times, only to turn the van around when the lines snaked onto I-10.   Plus summer events have conspired to consume my Saturdays.  If you have to be somewhere at 1 p.m. – that shoots the day.  Or if there’s an event from 10 a.m. – 12N – forget parking.  I finally realized with growing horror that I’d thrown away our June and July paper calendar leaves, and if I was going to get to go, I was going to have to take a day off work to do it.  So Lois, Hannah, Julia and I headed grabbed our slowly-disengrating Six Flags backpack and headed out this morning.

The swings ride at Fiesta Texas reminds me of this summer – it’s going by way too fast.  Julia and Hannah love it.  Lois and I are content to crane our necks.  When we left this ride, Lois and I reminded Julia of the first time we brought her to Fiesta Texas and the rides she enjoyed then.  She was half-bored, half-embarrassed by our recollections.  

The best feature of Fiesta Texas:  The water park is included in admission.  Texas’ summer temperatures are stuck on “broil.”  Here are Julia and Hannah photographed above the water line…. 

…and Hannah also photographed below it.  I absolutely love my waterproof Olympus.  It’s had 2.5 years of hard wear and – though scratched – still works perfectly.

Lois-the-summer-babysitter knows to wear a waterproof watch.  One failing at the park:  No visible clocks.  So you can’t say, “Meet me at the tube ride at 2 p.m.”

Crocs are the perfect park footwear.  Wet – no problem.  Dry – they’ve got good ventilation.  They keep me from dancing on the hot pavement, too – a mercy for all who don’t wish to bleach their eyes.

School starts a week from today.   We are in full countdown mode.  School supplies, backpacks, tuition payment, books, prep days – you name it - we’ve bought it, rented it or attended it. 

Saturday night, we’ll have “family movie night,” our first since school ended in May.  And during that two hours of snacks and a flick, we’ll talk about the summer, as well as the upcoming school year.  I think I’ll get a headstart right now.

My Top 10 List for the Summer of 2011:

10.   Reading more on my iPad.  I still have plenty of paper books I want to read (thanks in large part to the annual NEISD book sale), but slowly, I’ve been expanding my e-Library.  I can argue for/against e-readers and paper, but that’s another blog.

 9.  Visits with family and friends.  Not as many or as long as I’d like, but….

 8.  Music mixes for the car.  My almost-nine-year-old mini-van doesn’t have an MP3 player, but the girls have made me CD’s that inspire head bobbing, singing along and the occassional car dance. 

 7.  Rachel’s job at Highland Lakes Baptist Camp.  She’s the first of the flock to “be away” for an extended length of time.  I’m proud of her for doing a good job – and adding 100+ friends on Facebook, dang, she’s a beast.

 6.  Julia’s ever-growing comfort with technology.  If it’s got a screen – she’s in love with it.  This summer, Julia turned me onto “Appzilla” which is is the most fun I’ve ever had for $2.   She also declined my suggestion that she download Tony Hawk on her iPod instead of frantically searching for her Nintendo game.  Why?  She’d read the online product reviews and they were poor.  She is a fierce little Words with Friends and Hanging with Friends competitor, and many nights this summer she’s crawled up next to me to offer suggestions in my games – which I often take. 

5.  Hannah’s volunteering at Brownie camp.  Hannah’s childhood Girl Scout troop disbanded in middle school but has re-formed in high school.  Hannah invested herself in the training, then volunteered at camp.  She may do much more of that next summer.  January is coming…..cookies, anyone?!

4.  Groupons, Living Social deals, etc.  I bought several deals for the girls to use this summer which stretched out their weekly “blow money,” plus Keith and I used them ourselves.  Now that the girls are older – if there’s no pressing reason to hurry home in the summer – we can stop and get dinner if we want to.  Considering how little I cook in the summer, that’s fortunate.

 3.  Lois placing in the top 20 in four competitions at the Latin nationals:

Latin Vocabulary – 10th
Latin Derivatives – 15th
Latin Grammar – 14th
Greek Derivatives – 17th

 2.  Our five days at South Padre.  Lovely just to be away.  Ocean sounds relax me, too.  My kids think I should listen to them all the time.

And my Numero Uno summer joy…..

 1.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.    Harry’s been a member of our family since the first book release in 1997, and I miss knowing we’ll go visit him.

Back to school very, very soon……