Category Archives: family

How do we date our future children??

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So far, compartmentalizing and minimizing has kept me sane. I tell myself we aren’t going through all the stages of adoption in one big chunk. First we tackle step 1, then 2, then 3, then 4. One decision at a time. This tactic has proven to be an effective method for me to avoid being overcome by thoughts and losing all function and usefulness in society. But, soon we might face the part that I still can’t quite wrap my mind around—the part about meeting and play dates and sleepovers.

Drew says I need to process this one. I need to think this through and prepare for it, even though this could go a number of other ways, like getting a call that a newborn needs a home, or having DFCS bypass the “meet & greet” stage with a kid who’s immediately ready for a new set of parent figures.

So, here we go.

Let’s think about the moment where I hug them and smell the smell of someone else’s house on them. Not their house. Not our house. And then I will know their faces and names and what the color of their eyes are. And they will know my name. And we will talk about school, or toys, or drawings. Or something. Will they be old enough to talk?

Let’s think about the Friday when their caseworker brings them to our house for the weekend. I open my front door to see them and their little backpacks and teddy bears walking slowly up to our house and my heart will leap out of my chest and I’ll blink back the tears like I’m blinking them back right now.

And then there’s bedtimes. And mac and cheese. And chicken nuggets. How many chicken nuggets are too many chicken nuggets? Or should we have hotdogs instead? And what if they just want to watch TV all day? And what if we take them to the playground and they fall down and break something? And what if we want to take them to the zoo? Maybe we shouldn’t take them to the zoo since it’s in another state. Yes, let’s not get arrested for child-abduction.

What if there are diapers involved? When am I going to learn how to change them? And what time is a three-yr-old supposed to go to bed? And what do we do if they cry all night?

Or if I cry all night?

And what do I do when the caseworker comes to pick them up to take them back to that other house? Do I use all my nervous energy to rush to Lowe’s to buy gallons of their favorite colors?

Or do I wait?

I’m beginning to hate that word.

Don’t knock, won’t answer.

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I grew up at the end of sandy tire tracks that were connected to a few miles of dirt road. If someone drove up on my parent’s property, they were either invited, lost, or doing something illegal.

Now Drew and I live in this cutesy little neighborhood that seems the perfect place for solicitors. And I don’t like strangers. And I don’t like strangers knocking at my door when I am at home not interested in being bothered.

When I was home with a fever I told the lady from the newspaper that we didn’t read the newspaper. No, we weren’t interested in the deal where we could get a few days free and all the amazing coupons, and (when pushed) “No thanks, I think it’s best to save the trees.”

Just recently, I told the lady selling meat that we weren’t eating meat. Which was mostly true. We actually weren’t buying it, but who wants to go to the trouble of defending their household decisions to some uninvited stranger?

The ladies from the church down the street come by sometime, too. So I tell them I know Jesus and am married to one of the pastors in town.

Yes, it’s almost always ladies, and they are about to make me the mean old woman in the house on the corner who shuts the door in their face. They’ve already made me the person who will sit quietly and not answer the door.

Did you catch that? If it’s quiet in the house and they can’t see in my front window (yes, they’ll glance in), then I won’t answer the door.

Just the other day, I asked Drew if we could get a “no solicitors” sign. I’m not sure if they actually exist, so I’ve got a few home-made ideas:

“No solicitors.”

“No solicitors please.”

“Don’t knock, won’t answer.”

“If we don’t know you, we didn’t invite you, and you aren’t delivering a package, then you’re trespassing.”

“Do you want to find out if we own a gun?”

Any tips or advice? What do you do?

Remembering…

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The fire roared and crackled and spat and warmed, soothing me as I thought hard about the last pages. I don’t want it to end, this journey I’ve walked with Sabrina Ward Harrison through her “The True and the Questions.”

My hands and heart are frozen in her last chapter, the one that turns my face to the family that birthed me and then gently tilts my head forward to the family that Drew and I are hoping to create. These pages are soft like cotton on my tender heart, bare for all the wishes and wants that suspend me between two families.

Remembering what it was. Hoping for what it could be. Holding neither.

Staring into the fire, I see the sand fly off the heels of my dad’s 80′s flip-flops and onto the endless trail that would take us to the tea-colored water of the Ohoopee river. This river so shallow and so slow and so perfect for summer Saturdays.

I see myself holding onto the front of his wheeled egg gatherer that crawled down the center of each long and slender chicken house.

I see the sunken stump holes in our woods, filled with straw and leaves—he said the Devil lived down there.

I see the two of us laughing outside the packed and noisy house where I snuck out and we toasted the quiet. Laughing at what I just did. The secret we had that nobody would ever believe. I see us making a memory that I should’ve written down for everyone and no one. The memory I should’ve written down for me.

Replaying memories from childhood to present left the biggest stump hole in my heart. A hole where a moment once stood. A grand moment. A moment worth writing. The moments had passed—uprooted and burned by the years, floating light as smoke rising from that fire. I couldn’t hold on to them.

I should’ve written it all down when it was still a part of me.

Adoption Update: While We Wait

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I went to a baby shower on Sunday. Most of you who know me well will know that I haven’t done much of that in the past few years. I’ve had my “excuses.” This time was different. This time I feel on the cusp of motherhood, just without all the cravings and crazy hormones. And I’m not sure when I’ll become a mom. Or to what age child(ren). Or to what gender.

So we don’t paint any kids rooms. And we don’t buy kiddie-clothes. And we aren’t showered with gifts every-other Saturday for months.

Watching her open all those presents caused a bit of a panic attack for me. And I know y’all wanna rush down to the comment box and say “oh mandy, y’all will be fine” but lemme explain. :)

Although we have one more step in finalizing our application papers, I’ve got this feeling that it could happen quickly. I don’t mean “quickly” as in the next few weeks. But quickly as in the next few months. Pre-summer?

Maybe?

Good grief, hopefully…

And, while my ready-to-pop friend is opening an hour’s worth of gifts, I’m comparing. (And I know that’s the one thing that women aren’t supposed to do—compare themselves with other women. But I was at a baby shower, for crying out loud.)

If the adoption process goes as it may, we’ll have about a month—maybe six weeks—from when we hear about the kids until we bring them into our home. If we are spending weekends getting to know them, when in the heck am I going to have a half-dozen showers? That was my panic point right there: Knowing there’s a wonderful community of people that are sitting on go and ready to help us bring these kids into our homes, but not knowing how we can cram the “getting ready” part of it into just a few weeks.

Thankfully I had a wing-man at the party, and as we drove home afterwards she reminded me that we won’t be able to make the adoption public until just before they are moving in. See, as it works with the state, you sort of “date” the kids and if everybody likes everybody, they move in. So the “yay we’re adopting these kids!” moment comes just before we bring ‘em in. By which time we’ll already have beds and books and maybe even bikes. (eee!!!!!)

Oh and then there’s the other possibility, which is the newborn at the hospital who needs a home and we have a few days/hours notice.

Either way, I ain’t got nine months to figure this out. And I ain’t got no “What to Expect when You’re Expecting” manual to read, either.

So what do we do? We paint our living room tomorrow. And call it “nesting.”

I mean, seriously, what else can we do? Wait.

Thank you so much for reading attentively. Now I unleash you to leave those “oh Mandy, y’all are going to be fine” comments below. I could use a few today, because I’ve got two hours to get this house ready for our last home visit. The one where we need to have our knives out of reach and our poisons put away. Oh and she’ll look for a fire extinguisher and carbon monoxide detector, neither of which we have at this current moment.

Ah. Time to wake Drew up.

Who gets in a fight over having family devotion time???

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We do.

The conversation was so tense that we might as well have been yelling. Our words were slow and careful and calm—the kind of eery calm that holds back the rising tide.

The conversation rolled in waves over a span of a weekend. Oh, it was supposed to be a wonderful weekend, but he said he wanted us to start having family devotion time together and, well, I didn’t take so kindly to that idea.

Before bed that Saturday, I spent a good 20 minutes holed up in the bathroom trying to figure out what I was going to do about this. And he tried desperately to keep me from shutting him out. That’s our dance. I’m the quiet one. He’s the pursuer. And he bravely pursues.

This kind of disagreement meant going to bed angry, which also meant waking up to the mess on Sunday morning. And doing church together as the preacher and the worship leader.

Oh, mercy.

Oh, Sunday.

I try hard not to talk to him all the way to church that morning, even though he kept pursuing with his harmless questions and me with my short emotionless answers. And I run to practice with the band. And I’m not even thinking about the lyrics, I’m thinking about how I’m going to get through the Family Devotion Time Fiasco of 2012. What do I say to him? Do I say anything? Do I tell him how I feel about this? Or do I just comply?

I mean, seriously, just days before I told a young woman that the backbone of marriage is communication and if that breaks down there’s little left between the two of them.

He walks into the sanctuary—my handsome preacher husband who I know would die for me and who knows I want to kill him and who probably isn’t sure why because I’m not sure why, but here we are and I don’t even want to make eye contact with him. How do we get to these places?!

Yes, the grown-up thing is to talk about it. I can at least tell him how I feel. That is a very strong gesture towards maintaining open communication and open relationship. He’s a big boy, he can handle it.

So, between practice and service, I walk up and hug him and then I keep moving with very little eye contact. But that hug said “Ok, let’s do this church thing. And then let’s keep walking.”

After church we went out for lunch. Tense “conversations” are so much better in public when we know others can hear us. And I told him that I didn’t want to change his mind about any of this and that I really do appreciate his desire for us to share more of our spiritual journeys with one another.

But, I needed him to know how I felt about all this.

Inhale.

I told him how I felt. And I admitted that I was very messed up and that this family devotion time topic seems to bump up against an overwhelming number of sensitive areas in my life and I’m having a hard time with it.

And he listened.

And he knew that my only goal was to maintain open communication. Not change him. Not change our plan. Just give him an understanding of my side of this conversation.

And you know what?

That made all the difference in the world. And there is peace in Casa Thompson now. And, yes, we are having FDT and it is weird and slightly unconventional but it’s a middle ground and it fits us. And we’re both happy.

And I kinda like him again.

I guess I should tell him that, too, huh?