How I ended up in a closet with Diane trying to open a beer with an Iron

It all started about 12 years ago.

My MOM told me to buy a house.
I bought a house.
I found a JOB at a church that I wanted because it was THREE blocks from my house.
At this job I became inspired to go to grad school MSW.
Because I knew that DEB (who was a member of the church I worked for)was a MSW instructor I started hounding her.
We rode together to go on a retreat and she talked about her and her husband's plan for adoption.
Soon they brought home baby Isaac.
I became his babysitter and my friendship with his parents grew.
Life happened.
I had a semi-hysterical "If I can't raise a child then I want to move to South America" breakdown in front of Deb after babysitting Isaac one night.
Deb suggested that I look at the possibilities of international adoption and close my eyes (for the moment) to the barriers.
I went to an information session.
Isaac's little brother Nathan came home.
I applied to the Ethiopia program.
I got my referral.
I travelled.
I started connecting online to people who were in the process or recently home.
I wanted to connect to people with children from Ethiopia.
I "met" Diane through the forum.  She was hysterical.  She was adopting (as a single mom) a toddler boy.
I laughed when I read her blog.
I was happy when I heard that she not only met her son in Ethiopia but also her future husband.
I went to Nancy's house one weekend.
Diane came.
We met again at culture camp.  She was really pregnant with baby Og
She drove to my house with a newborn plus her other two sons.
We camped again.
She drove to my house again in October.
She got us free hotel rooms and brought beer.
I packed the beer in a cooler but forgot a bottle opener.
We tried desperately to open it.
We failed.

In 2002 (or 2003, or something)

I was in my first year of graduate school of social work. I had to pick an internship. I knew life was going to be challenging. I had a full-time job, was going to be in full-time graduate school and had to put in 20ish hours a week at a foundation internship.


I originally picked (and was chosen for) an internship at a domestic violence shelter. I was pretty excited. The work sounded hard but good, I was able to work some evening/weekend hours and the internship seemed to fit with my goals and aspirations for my future (i.e.: NOT working directly with kids). Sadly my university decided to pull students from that placement at the very last moment due to staff changes.

I was stuck at an agency that I did not choose in an internship that had a lot to do with young children. I was unhappy. With a heavy heart I trudged myself in that first day. Immediately I was enveloped in a cushion of warmth, nurturing and I felt "a part of" something really big, something really powerful and something really intense. I was at Southside Family Nurturing Center.

Southside Family Nurturing Center serves families who are at risk of neglecting or abusing their children. These families have layers and layers of stressors and histories that could so easily lead to abuse or neglect. Many families and children have in fact experienced both of these things and so much more, at the hands of each other, community and most recently politicians.

Southside is unique (in my opinion) in how we serve families.  First we truly do NURTURE families.  Many of the children here have missed out on nurturing primarily because their mother's have missed out on nurturing as have their mothers (and fathers).  We take the children into our therapeutic preschool and nurture the heck outta them.  Then we work with the mama's and the papa's (and the siblings) and we see the child in them, we nurture them, we at times love their children for them, until they are able to.  We teach them how to play.  Sometimes we give the mama's back a piece of their childhood that was stolen from them.  All the while we are assisting in taking care of business.  Finding resources, filling out medical assistance forms, getting them help with mental health, physical health, housing.  Sometimes we are the first they call when they have new babies.  OH and we LOVE those new babies.  We have staff that have been around for 20+ years.  Staff that once taught the same mama's who are coming in with their own babies.  There is something about an agency that wraps it's collective arms around people who might otherwise be wrote off as hopeless. 


My internship was soon over and I tearfully said good bye to my clients, my co-interns and the staff of Southside. Within months, while I was deeply entrenched in my clinical internship and my final year of grad school I heard that Southside had a staff position open. Despite taking a fairly significant pay cut (even while accumulating student debt), I knew I had to do this work. I've been working directly with the mothers, fathers and children of Southside ever since.

Last year our agency took a pretty hefty pay cut from Hennepin County (we are contracted through them), even though the expectations of what we needed to do (for the county) increased. It's been a stressful year.

A few weeks ago we were dealt the lowest blow. Funding towards social services was unalloted by our governor. Letters were sent. Budgets were cut in half for the first quarter of 2010 and no guarantees of contract extensions were made beyond March 2010. No matter what our agency will be laying off staff and cutting programming by the end of this y ear. We will all suffer. Staff will be cut, and jobs in the field are scarce and competitive. Worse of all, families we serve will be left without supportive services. The children who thrive in our therapeutic preschool will have nowhere to go. My heart is so heavy.

On Monday we will hear our potential fate. We will at least be able to plan for the future.  Here is a link to our GiveMN page.  It has a very nice slideshow detailing some of our work.  There is also an opportunity to give (if one is so inclined). 

Monday

I am sort of failing in the whole blogging before I am too tired to write department.  Maybe tomorrow I'll start earlier.

Until then.  Here is Lucy in another vintage fabric dress.  Awhile ago I dug up some fabric that I've had forever (and my grandmother had forever before me) and had a co-worker fashion a couple of dresses for Lucy Lu.   I love this one!

Sunday

This is all I got left in me,  see ya tomorrow (photos are from 4 years ago this month!)

Lucky NaBloPoMo #7

It would be hard to beat the perfectness of this day, unless it involved sleeping until 7:00 and having a cook and a maid.  OHH wait, I was a little irritable until about 10:00 am.  Then the day turned perfect.  It was bright and sunny.  We were out in our yard bright and early.  Mel and Mo came over and we headed to my favorite playground where we met Betsy and Ivy. 

Lucy loves this equipment because she can spin very very fast! 

She throws her head back and puts her whole soul into enjoying the thrill of the spin.

Then it's off to her second favorite thing:  monkey bars!  She's getting so strong and can move herself half way across the bar.

Morgan hung out with her awhile.

Time for spinning on the tire swing!

We went home and had about 1/2 hour quiet time, and costume change before heading to enjoy the sun in our back yard.

Lucy found a tree to climb.

She did some serious raking.

and of course Zep got to run crazy figure 8's in our back yard. 

Friday

A quickie type post today because our day goes like this:   school drop off - work - school pick up - kuk sool - dinner - hang with friends till beyond bedtime - drive home- put kid back to bed- chill.  Won't see home until almost tomorrow and I didn't want to FAIL NaBloPoMo so soon.

A lot of mornings I let Lucy eat her cereal while watching Sprout.  While she eats I am able to wash my hair and make her lunch.  This morning I came out of the kitchen to this scene:

I took the photo and she put her legs down saying "I'd better not sit like this, the last time I made a big mess."   We've had a good morning. 

confessions ...

So I am going to risk getting teased by slacka-mom (you know who you are Diane) and confess a few uptight (helicopterish) parenting issues I currently have:

#1  See the photo below????   That's a photo I took from my bed.  That dark room right across the hall with the cat prevention gate, that's Lucy's room. 

Now look at the photo below ....  right down there,  that's the baby monitor.  I still use it.  The base is in Lucy's room (you know the room right across the hall) and the receiver is on my dresser.  I still don't know if I hear Lucy in the morning from the doorway (right across the hall) or through the monitor.  I tried turning it off and had a mini anxiety attack.  So I keep it on.  I'm sort of weird.

Confession #2 
   I still use a 5 point harness carseat for my 4 1/2 year old.  We'll probably use it until she's 12 and can ride in the front seat.  The thought of putting her in a booster type seat just makes my heart race.  I can see her sliding the belt under her arm and then us getting rear ended ....   I can see her falling asleep and having the belt misalligned. I get afraid almost every time we are in the car together that something bad is going to happen.  I worry all the time.  I constantly have to check myself on judging other people for being less then completely anal retentive when it comes to car seat safety.  I hate letting Lucy ride in other people's cars.   I myself survived riding in the front seat, in the driver's lap for my entire childhood.  I believe I started using seatbelts consistently when I was 16. 

Confession #3

Most of the time I still cut Lucy's grapes in half.  To better preserve the freshness of the grapes I do send whole grapes in Lucy's school lunch bag.  I worry on grape day that she'll act crazy when she puts a grape in her mouth and choke. 

#4 Wednesday Hump Day

Some Wednesdays (aka hump days) go like this:
Horribly hard
Uggghhhh  I need a beer(ssssss)
Mama is missing mental stability
Perfectly painful parenting palpatations

Dang is it almost Friday?
Ample avoidance of authority
Yawning and yelling

But then sweet things happen and I realized that my irritation with my child is really my problem.  I "social work" myself on the way to swimming lessons and see my babe for the amazing person she is ... and all is well in our world.  We're allowed bad days right????

#3 How we Roll at Dinnertime and some cute photos

So tonight at around 5pm I started pondering what we might have for dinner.  A quick check of the fridge showed nothing by way of fresh anything (except milk and grapes).  Freezer was similarly barren.  I just did not want to turn to pasta so early in the work week.  Ahhhh I think, we'll do pancakes.  I went to grab the cranberry pancake mix that Diane had so thoughtfully brought and left when it occurred to me that my last two eggs were baking in the oven as part of the cake Lucy and I had made for a later "hair do night" bribe. 

Voila, I had an emergency pack of just add water pancake mix.  I needed to spice it up a bit.  Folks, I created a culinary masterpiece and I am going to share it with you!  

Here are the ingrediants (water not shown):

1. take a ripe banana (i sometimes put my over ripes in the freezer for baking) mash it up in a bowl.

2. add about two cups of complete pancake mix (i use fiber one for the health benefits)

3. add a packet of instant oatmeal (i used apple cinnamon)

4. add about a tablespoon of brown sugar (for the yummy goodness)

5. add water until it's a thick pancake consistency

6. cook and eat.  syrup is not really necessary but obviously a yummy topping

we had our pancakes with some deliciously fresh clementines. 

now for some cute post hair do photos.  she wanted her hair like a ballerina.  the braids took so long to take down that it didn't leave much time or patience for the updo or for actual bun making.  but she's still quite a lovely ballerina.

NaBloPoMo Day 2. Halloween

We had a fun Halloween.  Started in the morning with a pancake breakfast (cranberry pancakes with cranberry jelly, mix provided by Diane).  Yum!  We bid farewell to Diane and the boys and began our post-goodtimes mood crash.  After lunch we went for a nap drive, and she fell asleep and stayed asleep on the sofa for two hours. 

Lucy woke up and decided definately that she wanted to be a witch for trick-or-treating. Great. I was counting on her sticking with the skunk costume (that she used for Zoo Boo, and that she used last year for halloween).  That left us about 20 minutes to put a costume together.  I had a hat, the hat I bought at the beginning of the season.  We were really lucky that Lucy had already decided on an all black outfit that day.  I threw a black dress over her leggings and sweater.I pulled some halloween theme mama size knee high socks on over her leggins.  Threw on a pink wig that she had in her dress up box, and a cape that she made in preschool and VOILA!  Punk rock witch!

Punk rock witch, is not overly into candy so she made it about 2 blocks before she gave up on walking.  Thankfully a stroller from a younger member of our trick-or-treating team helped ease the transition back to home base. 

NaBloPoMo

It's Day one of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Post Month).  I am going to attempt to do one blog post every day for the month of November.

Here are a couple photos of the visit with Diane and her boys.

Happy Halloween

ahhhhhh the quiet of this moment.   We've just had a very fun few days/nights with Diane and her boys.  Hanging out here, playing in the hotel pool, celebrating with 30 of our closest friends/family members our 4th famiversary (sorry Diane that one just got out of control, it shouldn't surprise me that SO many people want to celebrate Lucy, but it did surprise me ... and the restaurant, and probably every other diner at the restaurant).  By the way, I should mention that the folks at Fasika Ethiopian restaurant in St. Paul are incredibly patient and accomodating.  I don't think I've ever been disappointed at that restaurant. 

Lucy was a pretty darn great hostess.  There is nothing she likes more then a house full of boys.  This morning she covered Irmao with two blankets, brought him some hand sanitizer and offered (very selflessly) to watch hime play Nintendo DS.  She's quite the giver.   Wendim and Lucy spent quite a fair amount of time rekindling their friendship and baby Og, well he just charmed the pants off of everyone he came near.  I was on the phone with my mom this morning and I believe she said something like "oh my god he is just too cute" and he is.  Diane KEEPS claiming that he's not very cute in the middle of the night but she never once offered to let him sleep in my room, so she must secretly like all that extra time she spends with Mr. Perfect in every way.  

Today we lost a little love (Lucy and I) because I was pretty much ignoring her as I put our house back together and obsessed over our stinking washing machine that wouldn't spin our blanket yet REFUSED to unlock itself so that I could redistribute the weight.  Shoot, I even unplugged it.  Lucy stared at my as I hit the machine and screamed "NO NO NO NO NO!" I think she was glad that I was refocusing my irritation from her to it.   She went up stairs and I sooned joined her to be presented with a beautifully spit cleaned back door window.  I now refer to that window as either 1. an H1N1 factory or 2. privacy glass. 

So in desperation we went for a nap drive.  A nap drive is a test to see if she's really tired.  We get in the car, no jackets, nice warm fleece blanket.  We drive towards the drive through coffee place.  My rule: if she falls asleep before we get to coffee place I get nothing but a nap outtta my kid,  if she is awake when we get to the drive through I get coffee but probably no nap.  Today she was awake at the coffee place (rats), so I got coffee (!!!) and as we turned around to head home voila, she crashes!!!!   Dynamic duo, coffee and a nap!  

no photos, my camera is being held hostage by a famiversary attendee ... will post photos later.

Four Beautiful Years

10-24-2005  within moments of meeting for the first time.  She was already talking.

October 2006  from baby to toddler.

October 2007 a glimpse of the preschooler. 

October 2008 my baby meets baby M.

October 24, 2009.  My baby is a little stinker.

Hair Hair

I swear Lucy's hair changed over night.  What happened?  It was never "easy", not for me anyways but we had an established hair care routine that at least worked and ended up cute.  These days it still ends up cute but getting from point A to point cute is really changing. 

Old hair care routine:   once a week (or so) take down hair from whatever style it's in and either rinse it with conditioner in the tub or wash with shampoo then rinse with conditioner.  While conditioner is in hair I would have her lay in the water while I underwater combed most of it (the comb used to to through fairly easily under the water).  Then she'd play in the tub while I parted and combed and put her hair in sections.  I'd either finish the style in the tub or do the rest while she watched a movie.  During the final styling I would put a heavier leave in conditioner in her hair.  Viola, fairly drama free hair (always dramatic fussing leading up to the hair doing, but usually only fussing if I pulled during the hair doing).

These days something is happening.  I haven't changed products, well I have but I haven't had one solid product I've stuck with during the years.  Now, I take down her style, get her in the tub and when I get it wet it almost immediately sucks up and starts matting.  Tonight I tried washing it (it's been awhile) to get the products out, then conditioning it.  It took a long long time to coax the mats out of her hair ... and the thing is, the hair was in pigtails and mostly combed out before we started.   This is the second time this has happened.  The last time, I thought it was because I had let her go a couple days with free hair.  That time ended in a funky "trim", that still needs to be addressed by a professional.

Tonights episode was not as traumatic for Lucy.  I got the mats combed out and used a lot of conditioner to help, it didn't pull on her too much and she stayed mostly busy playing with water.  Her hair ended up really cute in 6 braids.  I think it helped that I washed one section at a time after I noticed it was starting to mat up when I got it wet.  Once I had the braids all in, I rinsed her hair off really well with water from the sprayer, then I put some olive oil in to condition it.  

Anyone have experience with any of this ... any one???  Suggestions? 

Saturday

We had time to clean out our pumpkins

We took a needed and well deserved (by me) nap before changing and heading to see The Wiggles Live (much thanks to Betsy for getting us in on some tickets)

we designed this outfit ourselves ladies and gents ... Lucy is the stylish one in our family

Lucy caught up on Wiggly news while waiting for the show to begin

Ivy and Lucy = two beautiful young ladies

The Wiggles with the Big Red Car

The Red Wiggle walked all the way up to the balcony, shook Lucy's hand and all I got was this photo of his arm pit. 

Thursday

Lucy had another sick day at home.  I worked 1/2 the day and was able to come home to my wheezer for the afternoon and evening. 

We took advantage of the evening to make some squash soup, some beaded necklaces and to love our puppy. 

Sick

Lucy's sick but so far (knock wood) not too sick.  She has a cold right now, which has triggered her asthma which unfortunately means that my normally incredibly active, short attention span child is now hopped up on albuterol ... wheeeeeeee ...    Here's to hoping we can back off the every four hour neb starting now. 

seems like maybe Zep is a little freaked out by the albuterol maniac

and here are the eyes of the sick. 

Sunday at Emma Krumbees

t

Saturday

Today was a nearly perfect day.  Wake up was perfect for Lucy, I ruined it all for myself because I was convinced she was waking up at 5 again so I layed in bed willing it not to be true.  Once I decided that she was sleeping it was already past 6 and I was just awake.  Lucy slept until almost 7 by the way (nice job rooster girl). 

I let about 45 minutes slip by before I told Lucy that there was snow on the ground.  About 3 minutes later we were outside.  Turns out the end of the season winter wear clearance jacket makers are not into coordinating with the end of the season winter wear clearance snow pant makers, the good news is that the jacket and snow pants will fit her all year AND doesn't matter that they don't match, she looks good in anything!  Zep the dog seems to be enjoying the snow more now that he's older.

We came inside and enjoyed a little quiet reading time.

We made and ate home made apple sauce, and my first home made apple pie (made in a corning ware casserole dish because I have no pie pans).  Yum.

We babysat the three boys for a few hours.  We ended up making a couple batches of home made playdough.  One brown - using cocoa powder (smells good, tastes [despite my warnings 3 of the 4 kids had to taste] not so good.  The other was light brown (was supposed to be orange) - using cinnamon and something else, smelled good.  

The boys went home and Lucy and I enjoyed a nice dinner together.  Lucy had a nice olive oil bath.  We rocked and watched Nemo and she fell asleep in my happy happy arms.  

Love ...

I love Thursday mornings.  Lucy gets to spend about 45 minutes with me at work.  I am the coverage worker and also a single mom.  Since Lucy can't be dropped of at her school until 9am and my coverage starts at 8:30, there's a little problem.

I bring her with me until a little before 9 and then run her to school quick and go back to work.

For two weeks in a row Lucy has demonstrated empathy and compassion to a degree that brings tears to my eyes.  She's also social (in a healthy way), helpful, hysterical and fun.   Last week a coworker was having a rough morning and Lucy just walked up to her and leaned in for a hug, then walked away.  It was touching and sweet, a gift without expecting anything back.  Truly from the soul.  It took my breath away.  This week Lucy was loving and caring to two of the preschoolers that attend the program I work for.  She was just so soooo sweet, and helped a preschooler transition into school in a calm, peaceful way.

Lucy loo, I love you!

Wrong or Right ???

After an extremely traumatizing hair doing experience last night (by the way, how in the heck does a kid get a free hair FULL of fine sand when it's been raining for a week straight with no opportunity for outdoor play?).  I mean it was BAD folks. Bad.  I figured that leaving her hair down for two days/nights would result in some discomfort during comb out time but last night was hands down our worst hair night ever.  It involved me "trimming" quite a bit off the ends, just to rid of some of the knots.  It involved a bathtub coated with sand.  It involved a lot of crying.  The result is some wonky knots in random none logically parted areas of her head.  There are 5 sections if that gives you sort of a visual of what we are talking about here.  I am pretty sure we'll be seeing a professional beautician to sort of even out the trim I gave Lucy.  

So maybe I had an unfair advantage this morning when I offered the following "choice":  "Lucy here's a deal for you; If you eat all of your eggs for breakfast (eggs are not a favorite) we'll do your hair after school.  If you don't eat them, we'll do your hair this morning."    Lucy immediately sat down and ate all of those eggs, all of her apples, drank her milk and put her dishes in the sink.   So she'll have wonky hair this morning but a full belly!

and um. if we do free hair again, it'll be put up before bedtime this time.  lesson learned. 

She is like 13yrs old now ...

Growing up ...

In between the sassyness, the potty talk, the inability to hear me, and the tantrums I see glimpses of this really really kid like Lucy.

She can pick out outfits that are generally fit for public viewing. She feeds the dog without supervision. She cleans her room, picks up her toys and occasionally is actually helpful with dinner/dishes.

Mornings go really smoothly these days (aside from the consistant pre-7am rising). I know I know I am totally screwing myself right now because of the blog effect but ... She'll actually sit and watch Sesame Street or Wiggles etc for about 1/2 an hour after she wakes up. Then as I make her lunch and breakfast Lucy will get her self dressed. She'll sit and eat breakfast most days with out needing me to super glue her bottom to the chair. We play with Zeppelin and then head out the door to preschool, easy peasy.

I need to stop every once and awhile and recognize these wonderful gains.