What I Wish I Didn't Have To Tell You

My Darling Boy,

It's your first birthday this week. We made it! That first year is so hard, kid. Sleepless nights, feedings round the clock, no personal space or time for your mama, older brother adjusting, dog in panic mode again with a little one around. It's been good and hard. The way that first year should be.

Like most parents, I've tried to treasure this year even as I've wondered what will come next. What will your personality be like? Which sports will you try and which instruments might you play? Will you like to read or prefer math or maybe both? Will you like to work with your hands or be a visual artist or dancer? Who will you be?

But son, in the wake of recent news, there are bigger questions I have right now.

How, in the name of God, will we as white parents teach you how to be a black man in this America? An America that claims to be post-racist but will target you as inferior from the get-go. An America with systems set up to make you seem suspicious, to assume failure, to promote fear of you. To hire people who will assume the worst of you because you might listen to hip-hop or wear a hoodie or walk alone in a neighborhood that is predominantly white or get behind the wheel of a car and dare to drive somewhere or play with a toy gun in public.

Who will not look at you as an image-bearer of God but a thug or a hoodlum or a troublemaker.

How, in the name of God, will we ever understand what you will feel like when these things happen? How will we help you understand? I may have been teased or underestimated or harassed as a woman. But you, my son, if things don't change, you will be in danger.

I remember the moment I realized how truly different raising you would be. I sat across a table from a Black friend at a coffee shop. She told me that she had to tell her teenage son not to drive too slowly. Not to wear a hoodie in the car. To always, always be as compliant as possible if pulled over. To keep his hands visible. To make no trouble. To be lessened, somehow. About how she worried when he was out. How she knew he would not be treated fairly. This was all before you came home, son. This was early in our process when we were trying to figure out if we could do this. Should we do this. Unfortunately, transracial adoption is not as simple as love. You will need more from us.

So, son, in the wake of continual news that has rendered me speechless and grieving, I promise you this. We will not stay silent. We will not whitewash your history. We will not pretend things are fine and good. We will not celebrate colorblindness. We will continue to teach your white brother about racism and the horrific history of our country in the hopes that he will be a voice for justice. Not just for you, but for all. We will teach you things we wish we didn't have to say. Oh sweet, innocent boy, I wish these were things we wouldn't have to say.

They shouldn't have to be.

Son, you are only one. You are still young. And because I believe in a God who wants justice more than any of us, I will also hope. Hope for deep change. Hope that this new wave of protests, that words uttered now and in the coming months will stir hearts, will unite believers and unbelievers alike to speak up for the oppressed, will ignite change in this country, will cause repentance and anger and grief. I will choose hope, even as I choose honesty. Even as I prepare for what I will say to you. Even as I try to explain Michael and Eric and Trayvon and Tamir to your brother.

Maybe by the time we start to talk about it change will be in the works. Honestly, I doubt it. But I have to hope - as a mother, as a daughter of God, as someone who cannot imagine that anyone will ever look on you with any feelings other than deep love. I have to choose hope.

So, darling boy, I ask in advance for grace. I will get it wrong. Dad will get it wrong. We can never truly understand. But son, we will ask for help along the way. We will apologize often. We will listen well to you and never discount your experiences. We will choose to live in communities who will talk about this and try to live it out, who will never separate the gospel from God's good work of justice. We will do our best to prepare you for what's ahead and we will stand beside you and behind you as you face it, knowing that God goes before us all and loves you more deeply than I can ever imagine.

Love,
Mama

All the Unknowns

Every two weeks, I faithfully take out my pathetic little camera phone and snap a shot of my littlest. I compose a short text with some updates and send it all along to his birthmother. In 10 1/2 months, I had gotten two replies. Two. That's 34 messages and only twice had they been acknowledged. Both times, his BM stressed how hard this is and how much she missed him, so I'm not sitting around feeling annoyed or bitter about her lack of reply. Simply put, I have no idea what she's going through and I don't begrudge her her silence.

Two text messages. Until his birthday this past weekend during during which we were surprised (and so very excited) to receive a birthday message for him and the first pictures we've ever received of his birth mother and half sister. Treasure, really, in the adoption world. We were so grateful and those pictures will go right in his life book. But you know what? I want so much more for him than 3 text messages and a few pictures.

Daily something arises in his little life and I wonder if it's just his unique personality or if one of his birth parents was like this. I don't have his biological grandparents to ask those fun questions- "Did his dad scream with delight like this as a baby? Did his mom blow kisses to the dog, too? Were either of them this mind-bogglingly large at this age?" I don't know who he looks like - the recent picture we received was more of an artsy profile shot. No idea whose toes he has or which expressions mirror which parent.

All the unknowns feel like a loss to us. I can only imagine what they will feel like to him when he realizes them.

One of the things I pray for daily is that his BM will change her mind about meeting us all. I have these fantasies of us sharing Thanksgiving dinner in 10 years or meeting up every few months to laugh and chat or, at the very least, when we likely need to leave Wisconsin in a year and a half, being willing to hang out at a coffee shop for a few, potentially awkward, minutes so she can meet him before we move very far away. Not to say that we wouldn't return for him to see her- we knew when we adopted here that we were also quite possibly making a lifelong commitment to Wisconsin.

But you know what I want to know? How long has his family been here? What is his sister like? She looks sassy and sweet in her picture, having struck this adorable little pose with her hand on her hip and this huge smile lighting up her face. How is his BM handling the loss of him TODAY? How can we support her and love her?

And possibly the hardest part of all of this is that we will truly never know his birth father. That door closed a long time ago. We may eventually get answers to the pieces of his life puzzle on his BM's side but the other side will always stay dark. There will always be more unknowns for him than for my other son. And having to tell him about that man? I don't look forward to the hurt and confusion it will cause when that day comes but he deserves to know his story.

Before we adopted, I remember a friend of mine with two internationally adopted children lamenting the fact that there will be whole pieces of their lives that don't include her. The first years of their lives in orphanages, their birth stories, the missing newborn pictures. When they first spoke or walk. There was a whole other life these kids had lived.

I cannot imagine how that feels.

Having our little guy come to us at 6 weeks old, we have gotten to experience a lot of the firsts. His brother and I watched him take his first steps exactly two weeks ago. I get to hear him call the dog "God" and I was there the first time he called for Mama from his crib. I've rocked him to sleep for almost 11 months now. I watched him learn to grab things and sit up and recognize us and crawl with passionate delight towards his dad when he gets home at night. He didn't have much going on in life before we met him- pretty much that newborn trifecta of eat, sleep and poop at his foster parents home. We did miss his birth, his coming home, his first smile - but he's rewarded us with about 10,000 since then so I guess we're ok. In the grand scheme of things, we didn't miss much.

I am grateful I'll be able to tell him anecdotes about him as a baby and fill in some of his story. But I also long for the ability to tell him more. To fill in hard gaps. To help him learn how to cleave to God when his human story cannot be enough for him and, to be honest, might be entirely too much to take in. To teach him ways to work through questions of identity and community that will be more confusing for him being raised by white parents.

There will always be unknowns. That's adoption. We welcomed the unexpected and the unanswerable into our lives when we signed all the papers.

We also welcomed deep joy in the midst of the all the questions. I am hoping that as we continue on this path, as he grows more and learns to talk and hears his story, that he will be able to fully mourn the losses and unknowns even as the Lord teaches him to fully delight in Him.

Advent is a season for pondering the suffering in our lives and in the world- and right now, we don't feel much of that. We are in a place characterized more by joy right now. It would be tempting to jump straight to Christmas. But I am no stranger to the idea that our joys are made sharper, more intense by the sorrows we've experienced- I did spend 6 advents and Christmases longing for this child, waiting in sorrow, mourning the loss of Amara. The sorrows our little guy has in store will be no easy thing to work through. We will cry alongside him when he's hurt, we will fight alongside and before him when he is treated unjustly, we will mourn alongside him when the pieces we have of his story only cause confusion.

May we continue to learn to both mourn and delight as the time of his understanding approaches so that he might, as much as possible, learn those things with parents who know them, too.

Digging Into the Wait

One year ago, I was in a very different place than I find myself today.

One year ago, I dreaded Advent. Experience had led me to believe it would be a painful season, a season that only heightened my feelings of loss and frustration.

One year ago, God surprised me.

Not only with an Advent experience that ended up being full of peace, an experience that taught me more about Him, that helped me take the focus off myself- but weeks into it's celebration when He had already shown up and worked some healing in my soul, we also got the call that changed our lives. Last advent, the Lord met me in powerful ways- both spiritually and tangibly- with the gifts of hope and the (almost) fulfillment of a dream that was to come to fruition just a few weeks into the new year.

This year, I have been eagerly anticipating this time. Remembering dark, quiet mornings, sipping coffee, pondering the stillness. Knowing that there will be mornings I don't quite get to enjoy it that same way this year, but for a pretty good reason. This year, I have a crazy one-year-old careening around the house, pulling ornaments off the tree. We can't put up our stockings or he'll pull them down. He won't understand a bit of what goes on for the next month, but he'll enjoy the sparkly lights, the crinkle of the wrapping paper, the Christmas boxes that will be so much more fun than the actual toys that come inside them. My older son, however, continues in that sweet spot of parenting. Old enough to enjoy, old enough to participate, to continue to learn and young enough to want all three of those things. To find magic in awaiting the Christ child, to anticipate our nightly readings with the Jesse tree. We don't do Santa or the Elf around here- and I'm pretty convinced his Christmas is just as magical, and certainly as or more meaningful, as any other kid's.

This year, though, I want to dig in in a fresh way. I want to blog my way through the experience. I want to see it from my son's eyes, to experience the Jesse Tree like he does, to do my morning Advent Experience and to continue to train my heart that grew up without much idea of liturgy what it means to really live Advent.

So, today I start. This morning I'll start the Advent Project online. Then I will head to church to worship with my community where hymns and choruses will be sung, where the first candle of Advent will be lit. Later this afternoon, I will head back to celebrate with 70 of those people and our children as we make our own, fresh advent wreaths and celebrate the beginning of the season with a meal together.

Let's go, Advent. Let's see what fresh joys and challenges await.

The Delight

No one ever said that parenting is easy. Well, maybe somebody said it, but I'm sure if he did he was delusional. Or particularly gifted in dealing with unreasonable and illogical humans. 

I've learned, though, that finding small things to enjoy and delight in each day goes a long way. And one of my favorite parts of being a mother these past 8 years is watching my sons with their father. 

The way my firstborn would wait at the back window with the dog for his daddy to get home from work. 

The way my youngest now goes charging in his loud, passionate way down the hall when he hears the kitchen door open, yelling until his dad picks him up. The difference between the two ways they deal with this is so telling of their personalities- one, cautious, thoughtful and always a little older than he really was and the younger who never stops moving, exploring and throws himself at everything.

Hands down, though, one of my current joys is watching the youngest at the end of dinner. 

It's become habit that when the youngest is clearly finished, my husband will get up and walk over to the piano and play some music to keep dinner time going a little longer so the oldest one (and usually me) can finish our food. The sheer anticipation and joy of that walk and those first few notes played cannot be described with anything other than a video. 

Seriously, people.

The grinning, the clapping, the dancing. The realization dawning on his face of what's going to happen as his daddy walks across the room. It's almost too much. And I know this is one part of the early years that I will miss deeply when he's older. When he goes through apathetic phases or times when he doesn't feel like a rousing family band moment is all that cool. 

It struck me this week as I watched this scene unfold for the umpteenth time, how much my husband's actions mirror the Lord's. How we are going through the day, the regular, mundane activities of cooking, eating, cleaning up and how he sees us. He knows what we delight in. He knows the aspect of His character that we need to see, to know better, to yearn for. And he reveals himself to us. In sweet, moments like this. Like a daddy walking slowly to the piano to create music for his infant, he longs to bring delight to us. I love how watching my husband be a father has shown me so much of my own heavenly Father's heart for us. 

It brings to mind a verse that has always meant much to my music-loving, dancing soul:

The Lord your God is in your midst,

    a warrior who gives victory;

he will rejoice over you with gladness,

    he will renew you in his love;

he will exult over you with loud singing. 

Zephaniah 3:17 (RSV)

This picture of a God who loves us, who fights for us, who renews us and who covers us with his song. That is a picture of fatherhood that is one worth pondering, one worth embracing. 

I am so grateful my sons are growing up with a daddy who knows how to delight in them and to bring them joy, who is constantly discerning what it means to cover them with his love and exult over them. When the evening piano times fade, as most phases do, I eagerly anticipate what new and fresh and delightful ways the Lord will continue to teach us who He is through this crazy and exhausting thing we call parenting. 

DIY Holiday Luminaries

I am not ashamed to admit that I love the Christmas season. I love the spiritual side of it - the advent readings, the carols, the Jesse Tree, the candlelight Christmas Eve Services. And I love the aesthetic side- the decorating, the twinkle lights, the smells of baking, the parties. All of it, really.

My son shares in my deep love for this. Each year on the day after Thanksgiving, we get down all the boxes, carefully take all our knickknacks down from around the house and replace them with holiday decorations, trim the tree, wrap the banisters and set up the advent wreath, manger scene and Jesse Tree. He has already asked me several times if we can just do it early.

Nope, I'm a stickler. Thanksgiving first, my boy.

In anticipation of that day, however, there is one area of my house I've never felt looked truly finished when decorated- our mantle. I had a little idea rolling around in my mind this fall involving mason jars, glitter, letters and candles and my son was completely on board with making a fun holiday project a few weeks in advance.He loved that it felt like decorating early and I loved that they would be ready for when that actual day comes.

So, without further ado, here is what we did.

Materials:

3 Large Mason Jars
3 Small Wooden Letters - we chose "J", "O" and "Y". You could obviously adjust and do a longer word with more mason jars.
Mod Podge
Foam Brush
Glitter - we used a white/silver snow-like glitter.
Ribbon
Votive Candles or Tea Lights
Paint or Spray paint- we chose royal blue
Beads

First, we covered the mason jar with a layer of mod podge using a foam brush. You don't have to wait for it to get tacky before moving on to the second step, like you do with some projects.

Second, we sprinkled glitter all over the jar.

Repeat steps 1 and 2 until all your jars are glittery.

Third, while the jars were drying, we spray-painted the letters with a royal blue. I also painted the jar tops but didn't end up liking the way they looked on the finished product. We chose spray paint because (a) we already had it in the house and (b) it dries quickly. I did also paint the tops of the jars but ended up not liking the way they looked.

Fourth, we cut some silver and white ribbon and tied it around the tops of the dried mason jars. We added a decorative silver bead at the top to cover where we tied it and left one piece hanging down the middle of the jar. Make sure it's long enough to glue to the back of a letter.

Fifth, once the letters were dry, we got out the hot glue gun and glued the piece of ribbon to the back of each letter. Hot glue dries so quickly you can just hold it there for about 30 seconds and then gently turn it around so it lays against the jar.

Sixth, we raided our candle stash and found three small votive candles and gently placed them inside.

We lit the candles, turned down the lights and were delighted with the results!

I think they'll spice up the mantle nicely.

How Many Clicks?

Just moments ago, I stood on our driveway waving goodbye to my oldest child as he scootered away for another day of school. This kid wakes up raring to go, eats his breakfast, gets himself ready and prefers to be waiting by the doors of the school when they are opened at 7:45. All the while he is getting ready, he is chattering about what he looks forward to: his teachers, his schoolmates and science.

I love this kid.

As a parent, we all hear the old adages: "the days are long but the years are short", "they are only young once" and anything else meant to encourage a sleep-deprived and frustrated demographic to treasure the time when their children are really young. Sometimes we manage it and other days we just survive the hard days and try not to feel too badly about the treasuring that may or may not have occurred. And then they hit this age when they are self-cleaning little conversationalists and you talk about life and love and science and God with them and wonder how you got so lucky and how your family became what it is.

Along the way of just doing life, we develop these little traditions. Things that define our family, things that build into our relationships with our kids and our spouse that become distinctly us. I assume these are the things we'll remember when old: monkey bread on Christmas morning right after opening presents, family band times after dinner, camp-ins in the living room. And all the littler, day-to-day things that feel mundane but really make up the significance of this time in our lives.

Every night, we go through the same old (seemingly insignificant) bedtime routine. Snack, drink, reading, feed the guinea pigs, brush teeth, floss, mouthwash and prayers. And every night, just before I tell him how much I love him, I ask this question: "How many clicks?"

You see, he has this awesome moon given to him by his uncle. It has craters and shadows and lights up from a little remote control. The number of times you click the button determines what phase the moon is in. To me, this is the coolest night light ever. It fades after a half hour down to darkness but he gets to fall asleep to this beautiful light and be reminded of the bigness of the universe.. And I don't know how it started, but my husband and I are the ones who light it. He picks the phase, we press the buttons, follow it by an "I love you so much, I'll see you in the morning!" and then leave the moon-lit room, the child snug in his warm bed, the scent of his hair lingering in our memory, the sense of another day come and gone, full of memories and mistakes and successes and us.

There is no way he would let us forget to do it, either. It's just a part of who we are right now and like all the other little traditions that have come and gone, this one will likely fade at some point, too. He'll get too old for it or it will break or he'll want to pass it on to his little brother. Something will change. But for at least a year of his life and counting, that moon will have been as crucial a part of bedtime as the words we share with each other. We'll remember it when he's older. It'll be one of the things we talk about when we remember the sweet years when we still played a big role in bedtime. It'll always be something his uncle gave him that was really meaningful for a time.

I love that. And as much as I've always loved the big traditions- lighting all the candles on Christmas Eve, eating dinner at my grandparents pool when we visit in Florida and all the other things we do that fit into that category, I think I'm growing to love these small moments more. It's almost impossible to pinpoint how they start and why they become necessary, but they are all the sweeter for it. They are what I really want to remember some day. When the kids are dropped off at college or walk down the aisle or get those first real jobs, it'll be all the little things that we did, all the small moments and the ways we learned to celebrate them, that truly make our family what it is. It'll be those tiny traditions that came and went that we'll laugh about and remember and maybe even see replayed in their own families some day.

Yes, the days can be long and the years can feel short, but I'm learning to take it one day at a time, not rushing the littlest one in growing up and not holding back the oldest one, and just letting life happen.

The Never-Ending Deck Project

More than 20 days ago I posted a photo to my facebook page proclaiming my intent to finally, after living here for over a year, refinish the deck. If you are like me, once something around the house bugs you, you likely think about how soon you can fix it on a daily, if not hourly, basis. So, I was excited to no longer have a deck that was the world's largest splinter with splashes of paint in random places. A deck that might actually look at home in our beautiful yard and garden.

Deck after powerwashing and sanding

When I posted that picture I had already powerwashed and sanded it which, since just about anything I accomplish these days happens during my littlest's nap times, took me a solid week. I didn't have high hopes for finishing the painting part quickly.

I was right.

Today, just after I finished it, Reed said to me "So the painting only took like a week, right?"

Not quite, and I'm glad to see his powers of observation are working as well as mine are through all the sleep deprivation around here.

No, 3 weeks of painting during naps, waiting out the rainy days and taking a break when family visited and here we go. Probably not my best work ever, but I think it looks pretty nice against the light grey house and white trim and I look forward to all my flowers complementing the blue next summer season.

Deck after two coats of paint (and yes, that was a lot of trim)

For now, since it'll likely be covered in snow starting in a little over a month, I'll enjoy it in its flowerless state during frigid mornings full of steaming coffee when the little is asleep and I am no longer on my hands and knees painting.