Good Girl!

 

I have quickly learned that as a parent one of the best motivators for a toddler is praise. Pick up toys and put them I the box? Good girl! Use a fork to eat green beans? Good job! Try to dress yourself?  Good girl! Pee pee in the potty? What????? Oh my gosh! You're such a smart girl! Mommy loves you so much for using one less diaper today! Lol! ( ok, so maybe that was a little extreme, but pee pee in the potty gets TONS of praise!)But my favorite thing is that The Little One (TLO) has learned to praise herself when she does something good. I love hearing her pick up her toys and tell herself "good girl!" And now if I do something she deems worthy she tells me "good girl Mommy!" She may only be 20 months old, but it's nice to have her approval! :) 

But I have to wonder at what point it was in life that I stopped being able to tell myself I did a good job? At what point did I stop looking in the mirror and saying "pretty!"? When did I become so critical of myself that I couldn't recognize the beauty of Gods creation in me? 

So here I go. I'm taking a lesson from TLO. 

I am beautiful. I am pretty. I am good at many things. I am me. I am a beautiful creature created by a perfect God. I am made in His image and I will rejoice in that! 

Thank you Lord for the beauty in and around me. Thank You for the beautiful child who helps me understand your lessons. Thank You for remaining perfect and steadfast when satan tries to make me criticize myself. Please continue to help me recognize his attacks in my life and continue to grow in my strength. Amen.

We fit, I Promise!

After reading this article Virginia Parents Outraged After Walmart Security Allegedly Suspected Father Of Kidnapping Biracial Daughters tonight I hate to confess that I have a fear of this happening. 99% of the time my daughter is just my daughter, but there is a small amount of time that I feel very vulnerable. Unfortunately, as my daughter approaches the terrible two's and starts throwing tantrums and yelling things inappropriately I'm afraid that amount of time may be increasing. Just this evening we were at WalMart walking through the clothing section. The Little One (TLO) wants to reach out and touch every piece of clothing, as most kids do. I've been repeating to her "don't touch" and now she says that when she knows she's not supposed to touch something (but usually touches it anyway!) So tonight as we're going through the store with TLO sitting in the cart I had told her "don't touch" and she started saying it over and over and over. As she repeated it she got louder and Louder and LOUDER!!!! Eventually she was slinging her arms and head back and forth yelling "DON'T TOUCH! DON'T TOUCH!" As I distracted her by quickly handing her a snack-trap filled with Cheese-Its I glanced around and noticed at least 5 different people looking at us. Don't get me wrong, if I heard a child yelling that I would be checking out what was going on too! But what if someone mistook the situation? Or what if it was my husband that this happened to?  Or then there's this situation White Grandfather Detained While Walking With Black Granddaughter: Scott Henson Cuffed By Texas Police  that makes me a little scared too. At this point, I have to admit that when we get attention when we're out and about I know that it's just because TLO draws people in. She will look at you, smile at you or tell you "hi!" until you pay attention to her. But there is the terribly self-conscious part of me that has always tried to avoid excess attention that feeds into fears of the situations mentioned about.

If you have a family like ours, how do you face these fears? Is this a ridiculous fear?  If your family isn't like ours, if you saw a family of mixed races what would your first instinct be?  Regardless of what your family is like, what do you do when your kids scream inappropriate things at the top of their lungs in WalMart???????? :)

Thank You Lord for getting me out of my comfort zone. Thank You for blessing me with a child who keeps me on my toes. Thank You for giving her the ability to verbalize her actions and needs, no matter how inappropriate they might be! Please help me to remember to nurture those actions and not stifle them. Amen.

Accepted

The Little One (TLO) and I recently spent a few days with my parents in Missouri and on the way back home we stopped at the mall. We stopped at the mall to return a dress and eat lunch at the food court. So we got our food at Chick-Fil-A and sat down at a table. As we usually do, we had some serious conversation while we ate...in the form of "I see you" through the clear lid of the fruit cup! :) When we almost done I saw someone walking towards us from Burger King.

My princess!!!!!

A sweet young lady handed TLO a Burger King crown and said she was so cute she should have a tiara! We both smiled at it and said "thank you" and I noticed her hesitating. Then she quietly said she was on a short break and could she sit and talk to me for a minute. It felt a little awkward but I could see she really needed to talk so I said "sure!" The relief on her face was immediate as she pulled a chair over to our table. She asked if TLO was adopted and I said "yes". "I thought so," she said. And then, I listened. I listened as she told me her story of being raised in, and eventually aging out, of the foster care system. I listened as she told me how she found herself moved from one family to the next, sometimes with as many as 6 families a year. I listened as she described the feelings of loneliness and wanting to belong to a family. I listened as she told me that every single foster family she had been placed with through the years was white (and she was black). I listened as she confessed to me that she grew up never feeling accepted because she was the wrong color to be in each of these families and just longing to fully be accepted. I listened to her story of heart break. I listened...and my own heart broke for her. And then I listened as she told me her story of redemption. She started going to college and had a professor who became a mentor, invited her to church, and helped her get on her feet. She is now working part-time and going to school full-time and has plans for her future. She shared with me that she has finally found a family that accepts her regardless of her color - her church. Yes! God is good!

That precious young lady gave me a lot to think about on my 3 hour drive home that day. I thought about the fact that I had just spent 5 days with my parents and what it would be like to not have a family to visit. I thought about the fact that not a single person in our entire family has ever questioned the fact that TLO would not be fully accepted into the family even though she is black. I thought and I cried while I drove. I cried from heartbreak over the story I had just heard and then I cried because she was a survivor! I cried because Satan tried to keep her down and make her feel alone and unwanted but God won out and let her know she is His child and she has a father so much bigger and better than any one she could have ever had here on Earth. 

No one deserves to feel unaccepted in this world. No one deserves to be alone in this world. With God, you don't have to be alone. 

I don't have any big insights today, just wanted to share.  Red and yellow, black and white...they are precious in His sight! 

Thank You Lord for accepting me just as I am!  Thank You for accepting me even though I'm overweight, short, have a big mole on my nose, scars on my body and look ridiculous when I run. Thank you for the blessing of a family - both my physical one and my church one. Thank You for planting people in our lives to help me when I've needed it and for the people you placed in the life of this young lady to offer redemption! Amen.

Disney Travel with a Toddler

A blog post a little off from my normal topics, but I'm feeling informative! :)

We've had a long weekend trip planned to Florida for several months now. So I spent many hours pouring over blogs, reading about the experiences of other moms who took a toddler to Disney World. All this because so many people had told us that The Little One (TLO) was too little for Disney and she wouldn't get anything out of it. I read up on the ideal places to help a child get a nap during the day, things to take to the park, which park was best for a child her age, etc. And here's my conclusion after all my research : there is no right answer for anything! :) Since every child is so different, there is no right or wrong way to plan for your trip. So here's my breakdown of how we did it in the hopes it will help someone else. Since we've traveled quite a bit with TLO I've had a few friends ask me for tips, so I'm going to include those along the way. Hope they help just a little!

First, when packing for the trip, we knew we would be gone 5 days and that should be doable in just 2 checked suitcases. Thanks to my husband's elite status on American Airlines (yay!) we always get to check our suitcases for free, so it wasn't a concern about baggage fees so much as just having too much stuff to be able to handle. I try to keep our luggage as organized as possible to help my sanity level in the trip. This means clothes for me and TLO all go in once suitcase and dad's go in the other, along with my makeup and hair stuff and the extras. We had previously borrowed a carseat bag but decided to bite the bullet and buy our own for future use. We opted for the Britax Travel Bag because of it's size, straps and wheels. We prefer to gate check the car seat so there isn't a question of getting to our destination without a proper seat for TLO and to prevent any damage to her seat if it was checked (have you seen the way luggage is handled???) so the backpack straps and wheels were both major pluses for us. And I even felt like if I was traveling alone with TLO I could still handle the bag plus push her in the stroller. Here's the great thing about a carseat bag, it's like free storage space! I strapped a bag of diapers, blanket and sheet for TLO, her stuffed animals for bedtime and daddy's dress shoes all into the carseat. There's was plenty of room for more, but I would caution to make sure anything you put into a carseat bag is somehow attached to the carseat inside just in case a zipper comes open (or I guess you could fasten the zippers together too, but I didn't want to mess with that.)

The first night we were gone was just to get close to the airport because we live 1 1/2 hours from the airport and we had a 6am flight. Yes, 6am. When you travel on frequent flier miles you learn to be flexible. That night we were just in a regular hotel room, which can always be hairy with TLO. She's so used to sleeping in her own room that if she can see us at night she won't settle down and wakes up frequently. So our morning started at 3am when she woke up and refused to go back to sleep. And since I refuse to let my child be the one who wakes up everyone else around us at 3am, we all got up. And by the time we checked in at the airport, you couldn't tell that she'd had only a few hours of sleep (unlike the way mommy and daddy looked!)

But once we arrived at our resort the short night was forgotten (mostly because we all settled in for naps!) To ensure we ALL got good sleep the next few nights, we took advantage of the enormous bathroom and put TLO's pack n play in there. :) Don't judge. Thankfully the toilet was accessible from the living area and could be closed off from this part of the bathroom or we couldn't have done this. But this bathroom is bigger than her room at home so I didn't feel bad at all! (By the way, I had other people tell me they put the crib in a hotel closet in order to make this work - we do what we've got to do!)

We spent our first day spending time with my aunt and then doing some miscellaneous things around the area and headed to bed early in preparation for our day at Magic Kingdom. Of course the weather turned cool when we were there so if you're traveling in the spring be sure you pack blankets for the kiddos. I saw a lot of unprepared parents spend $$$$$ to buy extra layers for their kids. Also, if you plan to do naptime in a stroller, it's nice to have a blanket to put over their ears for sound muffling and also over the top of the stroller. Thankfully, TLO is usually ok with riding in her stroller. But every once in a while if she had been out of it and we knew she'd need out again soon we opted for Daddy's shoulders. I can't begin to tell you how much I love seeing this!

Sometimes carrying your princess is great...sometimes it's not! 

For us, taking our own stroller was a no-brainer because we wanted it in the airport and for other outings. I also wanted a stroller that I knew TLO would nap in and we would have plenty of storage in. We recently purchased the Graco IPO Stroller upon a recommendation from a friend. So glad we did! It's much more compact than our travel system stroller but still handles great, reclines and has a storage basket. I did purchase an add-on cup holder and stroller organizer. Whether you take your own stroller, arrange one from a rental service or rent one from the park, I highly recommend you do something to it to make it stand out from the mass of strollers. At each ride, restaurant, etc all strollers are left in a holding area and it's much easier if you can spot it easily and not have to go through all the rows. For us, the cup holder helped and we also left one of her blankets wrapped around a bar. Some people had ribbons, name tags, or other identifying features. I was amazed throughout the day that people don't try to "upgrade" and take someone else's stroller or take things out of other strollers, but as my husband pointed out, if you're going to pay the heft ticket price to get in, you can surely afford to not ruin someone else's day!

We did only 2 rides (yeah, I know, but we didn't care!), It's a Small World and Pirates of the Caribbean. Both were great for TLO, she clapped, cheered and danced through most of It's a Small World and even "wheeeeee'd" through the small drop during the Pirates ride and had fun watching for the doggies. After lunch we made our way to the Hall of Presidents where a nap began for TLO. We had about a 20 minute wait in the lobby before the show and the quiet chamber music was perfect to set the mood. By the time the show was over we positioned her in the stroller like this and she didn't move for 2 1/2 hours!


My best tips for going to Disney with a toddler? Take disposable bibs, leak-proof cup, cup leash to strap to stroller, small camera (I left my precious DSLR at home to avoid the extra weight/hassle), Tylenol, blankets, a couple of ziplock bags for those "just-in-case" disasters, and change of clothes for your little one. We only visited the baby care center once since the rest of the diaper changes happened in bathrooms, but that place was nice! If you just need a quiet place for your little one to move around on their own, there was a small play area with less stimulation than the rest of the park, a room with high chairs to feeding time, a breast-feeding room, and my favorite the awesome padded changing tables. Go find the baby care center! We also went to the park with no expectations and no set plans. We arrived around 10:00am and left around 5:00pm. That was really the perfect amount of time. TLO was still able to get through dinner without being too weary and crashed hard at bedtime. The key is to leave BEFORE the child is over-tired. Believe me, there were many others on our train out of the park who probably hadn't napped and were way past their limit. Know your child's limits and just make it work. It is not worth ruining a fun day just to get in that one extra ride!

What would I do differently on another trip? That's tough, because we had a GREAT day at Magic Kingdom, but I wish we had gone to Downtown Disney the night before or the night after we went to the park. I also had thought so much about books/toys to keep TLO busy on the plane and make sure she had stuffed animals to sleeps with but totally forgot about things to keep her busy in our condo! Thankfully our condo had a stocked kitchen, which means we had cookie sheets and a cake pan plus some wooden spoons to play with. :) Other than that, the only thing I would change would be my stress level. I was constantly checking to make sure I had everything we needed and it took away a little of my enjoyment. Funny enough though, once we were at the park all my stress went away!

Thank You God for our safe travels. Thank You for the blessing of time as a family away from our normal activities. Thank You for blessing our lives with joy and laughter and relieving my stress when I needed it most! But most of all Lord, thank You for my family! Amen.

Comfort and Healing

Before I became a mom I remember seeing snotty-nosed little kids running around and wondered why in the world their moms couldn't keep those runny noses under control. Yes, I judged. And I am so sorry moms of the world! The Little One (TLO) has had this never ending runny nose now for weeks. We've salined and suctioned (I cannot recommend the Graco Nasal Aspirator enough! so much better than the bulb syringe!), we humidified, we Vicks'd and we medicated. But the runny nose never stopped. We went to the doctor with bronchitis and started nebulizer treatments which cleared up the wheezing, but the runny nose never went away. Her wheezing stopped, her cough got better...and then came enlarged lymph nodes, bilateral ear infections and 102.8 fever.  And that was after mommy being sick for 5 days. Now that we're treating that I'm praying that we are all on the path to good health. But here's the thing that kills me even when she has pain and fever, I still get smiles like the one on the right.

I also have a secret...I secretly enjoy the hours of snuggles I get when she's sick.  Those hours of snuggles just remind me that I wouldn't trade this life for anything in the world. Those hours of snuggles remind me of how much I prayed for this. I know those snuggles provide comfort to The Little One, but I am convinced that those hours of snuggling provide healing too. Those hours of snuggles remind me that I will never stop worrying about her! I am her mom.

I am TLO's mom, but I am someone else's baby. Yes, I am the baby in my family and after hating being called "the baby" for so many years, I am happy to say it now. I am the baby. And I just found out my mommy is sick. And she's not sick in the way that a little antibiotic or a breathing treatment will fix. She's sick in the way that doesn't show to anyone else and in the way that no daughter ever wants to hear. My mom has breast cancer. My mom has cancer and I'm a nurse. I'm a nurse and can't do anything to help her. I know it's a small tumor. I know it's treatable. I know that God heals and gives knowledge and talents to human hands to do surgery and offer treatment. But I also know that she's my mom. If I thought I could snuggle with my mom and provide healing and comfort the way I do for TLO I would do it. She doesn't fit that well on my lap though and I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way. So I'm asking for our Father to hold her in His arms instead and provide the healing and comfort. And I'm asking you to remember TLO's grandma in your prayers.   Next week we will meet with a doctor to start the treatment journey. I will do whatever I can to help her on this journey because she is my mom. And...I am her baby.

Thank You Jehova Rapha, the Lord who heals,  for helping my child while she's sick. Thank You for blessing me with the time to hold her closely this week. Thank You Lord for allowing the cancer inside my mom to be found early. But please provide Your comfort to our family as we figure out what happens next. Hold her in Your arms and provide the healing that only You can provide. Because she may be my mom, I may be her baby, but You are the Father to us all. Amen.

Chosen

Photo courtesy of Allison Harms Photography

Last week I was at lunch with my parents and The Little One (TLO) when a kind, well-meaning stranger approached us. This lady was clearing tables in the restaurant and stopped by our table and said to TLO, "well aren't you just beautiful!?" At this I smiled, then she went on to look at me and ask "did you get to pick her?" Um, er, what? I held my smile and said "God picked her for us before she was ever born." She said she would pick her just for those eyelashes she has and that we were blessed, I agreed and she moved on. And then I looked at my dad and I'm pretty sure my jaw was on the table as I said "What????? Who asks that?????" My parents assured me that I was tactful in my response and that she meant well. I am very used to questions about adoption at this point, as well as comments about how beautiful TLO is and how social she is (see my post of last year : Home and Hope)  but this one bothered me. All kinds of mean statements came to my head, so God must have been with me to help me control my tongue! I felt seriously conflicted by this short and simple conversation, much more than I should have been. Just the word "pick" brought up all sorts of images of eeny-meeny-miney-moe or the dreaded school-yard pick which always leaves one child standing alone and embarrassed at the end. Perhaps it hit to close to home because it made me think about being picked. You see, I was picked. I was chosen by God. But I wasn't chosen because of my beauty because I have been clouded in ugly sin. I have done ugly things and I have said ugly things. I wasn't chosen because of my physical features because I am overweight in a body that sometimes fails me. I have graying hair. I have physical scars. But I was chosen. I was adopted. I was made beautiful in God's sight.

⁴ For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will -- ⁶ to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. Ephesians 1:4-6

What a joy to know that God doesn't see my ugliness, my scars or my weight! I am holy and blameless! I am His daughter! There is a beautiful song by Gungor playing on Christian radio stations now (and is a favorite on my iPod!). The lyrics are very simple, repeating over and over throughout the song. In fact, there's not a lot else to the song other than a few lines, but are more words needed when these are so powerful?

"You make beautiful things. You make beautiful things out of the dust. You make beautiful things. You make beautiful things out of us"

God takes the lowest of the low, the dirtiest of the dirty and makes such beautiful things. God takes us, whether rich or poor, athletic or handicapped, fat or thin and makes something beautiful. God picked me. God picked you.
My lesson has been learned.

Thank You Father for picking me just as I was, just as I am every day. Thank You for choosing me in my ugliness and in my sin. Thank You for making me beautiful. Thank You for giving me the words I need to express Your love and Your hand in my life instead of allowing my own tongue to spew spiteful words. Thank You for adopting me and for choosing the sweet, beautiful child You have blessed my life with! Amen.

The Journey Continues

How is it possible that I have not blogged since October? So many times I think "I should blog about that" so how is possible that I never do?????? Oh yes, I have a 14 month old, that's how!  We have also battled a couple of rounds of illness in the family and traveled over 1500 miles through the holidays, so please accept the sweet pic above as a token of my apology!

Short summary of the last few months and then I have seriously have some new topics planned to write about soon!  It happened. The Little One (TLO) turned 1. *sniff, sniff*  We had a great birthday party with lots of family and friends. She LOVED her cake, can you tell? And then she got to be the cutest pumpkin ever for halloween.   It seems like every day she learns a new word. She only repeats the words when she wants to, of course. It seems at 3am when she wakes up to talk she can say anything she wants though!  Silly girl. But who am I to judge, I only do things when I want to too.

The past  year has been incredible. I didn't really understand what I was missing until we had this sweet bundle of joy in our lives. I also did not realize the utter destruction that a small child can accomplish! My dad noted that TLO can take everything out of her toy box and have a room destroyed faster than a tornado!  And what is with the puppy-type chewing? On a recent 1 hour drive, I got home to discover this: No, it's not the first and I'm sure it won't be the last. But surely a book can't taste good, right? She's working on those stupid molars (1 of 4 are through and the last 3 are painful for all of us!) So any molar teething suggestions will happily be accepted! I happen to think if you can destroy a hard book with only 9 teeth you must not need the rest! 

Too many changes are happening too fast at this point. Just. Too. Fast! I had truly planned to keep TLO turned rear-facing in her car seat until she was 2 which is the recommendation. But at 13 months I turned her forward for the aforementioned 1500 mile car trip. Bad mom? No, just a mom trying to keep sane on the trip and not kill my back anymore than necessary. Because in my other "bad mom" move I set up the iPad on a holder in the car so she could watch Elmo on the trip. She didn't get to watch it very much in the car, but when it was playing she was one happy little traveler!  

We are also in the process of taking down the baby gate and allowing more freedom in the house. To this point, she's been able to play in the living room, dining room, kitchen and entryway. The gate was up in the hallway leading to the laundry room, bedrooms and bathrooms. This was partly to keep her safe but also to give the cat a safe place to exist too. But the time has come that she can tear the gate down pretty quickly and she really needed to be able to get to her own room to play. So the solution was to put a cat door in our bedroom door to allow the cat an escape. I guess TLO understood the concept of a cat door...or else she wanted to give the real cat a little company? This is what I found when I went to put TLO to bed last night. Sweet girl!  I have some furniture to get strapped to the wall as well.  If you haven't secured your furniture, please read this to remember the consequences. It's not easy to read as a parent, but being a parent isn't easy, right? Love, Light, Laughter and Chocolate - One Mom's Journey  I would love to hear how much freedom you allow. Has your child always been allowed free reign? Are you a babygater or an openhouser?  I happen to think there's no right or wrong answer, just the answer that works for each family. 

Thank You Father for the safety you provided us during our travels, for the health you have restored us to and for the family we were able to visit. Thank You for blessing our lives this past 14 months! Please continue to keep us safe as we go through this next year, help me to grow in my walk with You, to develop more as a mother and to be a better wife. Please continue to help The Little One grow and learn and for me to know how best to help her do these things. Amen.