This person is really getting my parenting experience right now.*
*Warning: language. Don’t know why I used an asterisk though, this post is only two lines long and this warning is one of them. The longest one in fact.
Thanks dooce for your stuff I found while looking around posts that alert me to such therapeutic gems.
I am not a big fan of Christian music. The reasons are not that important to spend time on it here, I only mention it because I am about to show you a Christian music video and I don’t want it to affect my super cool rep. Oh I already did that when I posted like 20 times about purging my pantry and that one time I had a quarter life crisis over switching sides of the bed?
Oh okay then, moving on.
I share this video because one, Third Day is an exception to my rule about Christian music not being my kind of music (they were influential in my life at a few points so they get a permanent free pass) and two, this song and the way it is visually expressed help to give insight into my person conviction about adoption. For me, because of what I believe about Jesus and that God considers me his adopted daughter, when I see a child adopted, I see a picture on earth of what my God is like. How much he loves. How much we can love because of how much he loved.
My words fail which is maybe why I rarely attempt to write about this. Hopefully the video will help. Watch to the end, there’s truth there. Truth and beauty I needed to see today when being a parent was weighing me down and my eyes had been on the ground for awhile.
Perhaps to the dismay of some in my life, I love tattoos. Love them. On other people, on me, wherever. When well chosen and well executed by a talented artist I find them beautiful. I love how they tell a story, a visible representation of the journey of that individual, of what matters to them. I love the way, like art on a canvas, they can accentuate the strength and power of a strong shoulder, or the delicate curves of a dancer’s long neck. For me, they don’t distract from the beauty of the human body, they highlight it.
I’m aware many don’t hold this view and that’s okay, but you may want to just stop reading here because in a matter of a few lines I’ll be showing off my new ink.
You’ve been warned.
Last night after 16 months of saying I wanted to do it, needed to do it, couldn’t believe I hadn’t done it, am definitely going to do it, I did it. So while it comes as a surprise to most people in my life, it had been on my mind and in discussions in our home since the twins were born. I wanted to get a tattoo for them.
So while J gave the kids supper I headed across the street to Gastown Tattoo Parlour where Craig hooked me up with a simple but lovely reminder of my two little people. I couldn’t decide on a font though and after months of searching I finally decided to ask J to write out the twins’ names in his own handwriting. So he wrote them many times and then the artist took the best ones and combined them cleanly. I couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome.
The topics of orphans, orphanages and adoption have been swirling around our lives recently. Not only do we have friends on the journey to adopting, but we recently had the privilege of meeting our friends’ newly adopted son for the first time. And in the past few days several charities and churches have been bringing awareness to the plight of this most vulnerable group, the world’s orphans.
Some of you know that before we had our twins we were considering adoption. We researched, attended an information session and seriously considered taking the next step. But we didn’t and then we got pregnant and THEN found out we were becoming an instant family of four. That really changed everything as we never really wanted to have more than two children. This sounds selfish to some maybe, but we want to live in the city (the city being specifically Vancouver if possible) and by that we mean downtown. And we may never want to own our home, or even a car, so we knew that the life we were choosing may not be conducive to a larger family.
I’m getting off track. We don’t know where having twins has left us when it comes to adoption.
But the thing is, you can’t un-know what you know.
I can’t forget what I’ve learned about the babies spending day after day, night after night, alone in a crib. I can’t un-see the pictures of the brothers and sisters, with their arms around each other, waiting for someone who with love them as a pair. I can’t put my kids to bed in their warm cribs with their full bellies and not be aware that there are children going to bed hungry, cold, lonely. I can’t look at my life overflowing with love, relationships, possessions and comforts and settle in my mind that I am not compelled to open my home to the little children I know hold a special place in the heart of the One who made everything.
I can’t un-known what I know.
I read yesterday that there are 40,000 orphanages in China. Not orphans, orphanages. They house 143 million children, most of them abandoned because of birth defects or life-threatening conditions. And here’s where things become infinitely more raw for me.
Our daughter was born with a birth defect. You may not have known that because if you haven’t met her you might not notice it and because, well frankly it never seemed like the kind of thing I should just put out there via Facebook status update. She was born with a cleft hand and had surgery just before her first birthday. She has two fingers and a thumb and there is nothing more they plan to do for her so that’s the way it will likely always be.
We didn’t know she would be born this way, we found out in the OR when the doctors delivered her one minute after her twin brother. I wrote the story once and maybe someday I’ll share it here. But the thing is, no one ever even considered for one moment that we wouldn’t want her. We never considered it and we never ever will. Ever.
But there are many places in this world where Marlow would have been discarded. I can barely type that. If she hadn’t been born in this country to a middle class family with medical insurance she might have been abandoned. It is so hard for me to face that had they been born in a different time or place, Soren would have probably been kept and Marlow, if she had even lived, would have never known her family, or that she had a twin brother.
I have cried for her so many times, that she can’t be spared a life full of challenges, but when I think of what might have been I realize we are so blessed to be able to provide a life for her at all. I know she won’t always see it this way but I hope somehow the life she has been dealt will give her a compassion for others beyond her years.
How can I look at my daughter and know that across the globe there are little girls as beautiful and full of life as she who will grow up believing they weren’t worth keeping because they are different? Perhaps one of the things Marlow was born to teach us is that there is room in our family to love more. Especially those who have only understood that they weren’t worth loving.
I don’t know what part we have to play but I think there’s a purpose to all this. And I can’t unknown that now.
Yesterday I was in the kitchen doing something or other and my 15 month old daughter was pushing her cart full of toys she had been alternately collecting and tossing back on the kitchen floor. Her twin brother toddled in and locked in on the cart. He gripped the handle and began edging out his sister with his slightly bigger frame.
Sometimes when this kind of challenge is initiated by one the other gives up quickly and moves off to another toy. But this time, and this seems to be happening more these days, Marlow wasn’t interested in giving up the cart. She held fast and the battle resulted in Soren losing his balance and falling to the floor. He began to sob, and probably not just because of the loss of the cart or the injustice of being sent sprawling on the floor. Toddlers get into funks like grownups, and in those times it seems like nothing goes right. They get accidentally bumped into, they fall more, buttons don’t push, toys don’t make their noises, book pages won’t turn. Life kicks them when they’re down.
So there he was on the floor, life having handed him lemons for a good 30 minutes, which is probably all of his recent memory and therefore he was on a hard, hard journey. And my sweet boy has one sorrowful sad face: big lower lip, eyes closed, puppy-like wail.
Then something happened that I had never seen before, and may never again so I want to remember it. Marlow looked at him, let go of the cart and toddled out of the room. I didn’t think anything of it, often after the damage is done that’s when the toy loses its appeal.
But she quickly returned holding her Blankie.
Blankie is a bright orange blanket given to her by her Great-aunt Eleanor and from the day it arrived in the mail it has eclipsed the blankie she had since she was born. There was an instant love connection and now Blankie sleeps with her, travels with her and must be hidden to prevent it from being dragged around our [dirty] floors all day.
Holding her bundle she toddled (I use this term for their walking because walking doesn’t give the right visual of what it is they’re doing at this point) up to Soren and held out Blankie. He took it from her and held it to his face. His crying stopped and he sat on the floor letting Blankie do its work. Marlow plopped beside him and laid her head on a spare corner of Blankie. They sat together for a minute until Soren was ready to go on and then Blankie was left on the kitchen floor, the only evidence that this moment had existed.
I don’t know what goes on inside those little heads most of the time, but in that moment I saw Marlow recognize sadness and make a connection between feeling sad and something that makes one feel better. She saw her twin brother needing comfort and she knew just the trick. I hope all their lives they remain sensitive to those times when life has got one of them down and they are the first one to come to the rescue. And bring Blankie.
I am window shopping for spring shoes for the twins. They currently wear adorable soft soled corduroy numbers from this Etsy shop (highly recommend, quick shipping, so easy to put on, never come off, made me abandon all their other shoes) but have almost outgrown them and need something for when they hit the parks as new walkers. I think I still want to get another pair of what they have but I’m also looking for something primarily for outdoor activity in a hard wearing fabric that is still comfortable enough to be worn without socks.
I’m taking suggestions but I should warn you, I throw up on goofy looking baby shoes and I won’t pay for Robeez.
Oh and they also can’t be too “loud” because they already hit their max colour allowance when they insist on wearing their favourite coloured toques EVERYWHERE. Like in the kitchen.
I have a dilemma and I need your ideas. Maybe between all of us we can figure out a solution that will look good and hold up against two very determine, crafty one year olds.
See the thing is, I want to put up our Christmas tree this year. It’s not a big tree but it’s most definitely going to draw the attention of certain little people whose mission would be to dismantle it piece by piece, or all in one big CRASH if that could be arranged.
As I said, it’s not a big tree, maybe 4 feet tall? It’s on a four legged stand that makes the total height somewhere around 5 feet. I want to set it up off the ground unless someone has a suggestion for protecting it that doesn’t just involve setting it up in the bathroom.
Here are some [very poor] shots of the corner where I would like it to be. As you can hopefully see there is a ledge that I thought might be a good place to put the tree but it probably not wide enough for the base and the tree would need to be secured somehow. Maybe with those temporary Command hooks and fishing line or something? Anyways it’s kind of an awkward corner but the only one in the living room where the twins hardly ever go because we don’t want them getting to comfortable messing around near the balcony door.
I still have the issue of how to keep Sticky Hands and her accomplice Sneaky Pete from being able to access the tree. So does anyone have any ideas that have worked for you, that you’ve seen or you just thought now? Options for tree placement/security and child-deterents are welcome.
And yes, invisible electric fences will be considered as viable options.
Can you spot the cloth diaper bum…
Well that plan didn’t last long. Can we just start out by scratching everything I said in that last post? That seems to be how most of my best-laid plans go since we had kids, as soon as they are made something happens to change everything and I have to start over with a new idea.
As it turns out, folks, this is just not the year for trying my all-online shopping plan. Normally, living far from family means online shopping saves time and money and makes it possible to make sure there are gifts under the tree in various cities in time for Christmas Day. But this year we’re having visitors from both families and that means the real time/money saver is to hit the stores in our neighbourhood early, wrap our purchases and send them home with family members. Saves shipping, forces us to get it done early and still gets those gifts under those trees.
So yet again this year due to circumstances, however happy, we are shopping both online and in person. So far we were able to send two gifts home with Jakki, purchase four online and plan to send gifts for my whole family home with my parents who arrive in less than a week!
As much as I wanted to try to shop online, it just makes sense to do it this way. Our neighbourhood is full of cute shops and unique gifts so to purchase them from far away when I know they exist one block over doesn’t seem to have enough of an upside, even if it means I wouldn’t have to leave my home.
Another point I’d like to bring up is that Christmas shopping is likely less stressful when done very early. I think I’ll find that going to stores is not nearly the beating that Metrotown was for me last year because I am there in early November, not mid-December. Oh, and it’s not a mall. Oh and my kids are one, not 2 months.
So goodbye online shopping plan, hello just get it done early.
I have been thinking about Christmas and starting early to pace myself for awhile now. I’ve tried it in the past with some success but I need to turn it up a notch this year, for two obvious reasons.
So when I read a post today on a blog I frequent I knew it was a sign to switch into high gear. I tend to agree with the author, it’s the gift buying, second guessing purchases and wrapping that slow me down and drag on until the last minute. I love the decorating so that is always done in a day, babies or no babies. Even last year with two month old twins still eating every three hours I didn’t neglect my holiday decor. It would take a lot more than that to keep those two green tubs on a storage room shelf through December.
So knowing what I know about gift giving stress, here’s my plan of attack. I’ve always wanted to try buying everything online and I think this may be the year to do it. Not that I can’t take the twins out for some shopping but a) they are too young to enjoy the holiday spirit and b) it is stressful to be bound by the clock, nap times, the hunger/impatience/ants-in-the-pants of two one year olds.
So I’m going to try it. I’ve made my list of people to shop for and some preliminary ideas. I’ve even purchased a gift for my nephews already. I predict I still run into the problem of indecision (is it just me or are there certain people in our lives who are SO easy to think of a gift for that they are actually the hardest ones for which to settle on just one thing??) and I’ll have to do my research to stay away from expensive shipping/stores that don’t ship to Canada, but I think it can be done.
First stop, Etsy. I’m a fan of small businesses and one-of-a-kind gifts and I think that’s the place I want to start.
As for me and my Christmas wish list… that’s another whole post which I am itching to write and will hopefully do so this afternoon. That makes me sound greedy but in truth it actually leads into a bit of bigger discussion I’ve wanted to have with you. Or this blog. Or myself if I’m the only one here.
