Cylinders and Spheres on Stainless Steel, 2008

This is a toy they got for Christmas, they’re called Mag-Neatos. They are magnetic and the kids figured out pretty quickly that the pieces stick to the refrigerator as well as to each other. I think Doozer’s creation could be featured in the Museum of Modern Art, right alongside this prestigious work, as well as this one. Isn’t it a mom-thing to think your own kid’s scribbly expressions are better than the other kids‘ scribbly expressions?

“I am going to punish the next child who asks me for food!”

(For the record, this was in response to their piteous repeated cries of PLEASE-feed-me-mother-I’m-shriveling-into-an-emaciated-pile-of-dust
-for-lack-of-nourishment-and-will-soon-be-featured-on-a-3am-charity-commercial
-for-starving-children! while I’m preparing their lunch and reassuring them that food is forthcoming.)

Thus far the hardest part about moving in with my Dad has been the necessity of changing our family’s direction to include him. This may seem obvious, and it is, but it’s the little ways the decision plays out that can be hard. When we decided this, even before he was diagnosed, I knew that almost nothing was dearer to me than keeping my dad out of a hospice and with his family. He’s only 59 years old, freshly divorced, just lost a brother to suicide and has depressive tendencies. Then he was diagnosed with a terminal wasting disease. Any other option than moving him in with us was barely worth consideration. No way was I going to give over his eventual care and assistance to strangers paid to care for him physically but not spiritually.

Some of the requirements of this decision were obvious. We’d have to move to a bigger home, buy a wheelchair-accessible van, help him take care of insurance struggles and get his affairs in order, learn how to use various types of equipment and manage home nursing staff, and eventually incorporate his needs into every facet of our lives when he is fully physically dependent. We also want to fully include him as an integral member of our family, so that he is not facing this alone. Gotcha. No problem. Consider it done.

Some of the effects of this decision were more subtle. E and I are very “pro-kid” as I like to say, in that we want to parent lots of children. We were foster parents and hope to do that again. We adopted and hope to do that again. We birthed a child and hope to do that again. This is a very ingrained part of who we are. But because my dad’s disease has such a bleak and short prognosis, we have made the very difficult decision to declare something of a moratorium on adding kids to the family for the time being. It’s unofficial, as we practice FAM and no contraceptive is 100% effective (although I’m a huge fan of FAM, personally), and if we were to become pregnant we’d be incredibly thrilled. But when we look ahead to the level of care Dad is going to need, we recognize that it would be exponentially harder to care for him well with an infant and toddler in tow. Right now, the kids are almost 2, 3 and 4. They can follow directions, obey, go to the bathroom themselves and feed themselves with little assistance. (Well, most of the time.) This is a good trend, them physically needing me less as Dad physically needs me more. To continue adding children with abandon is to increase the physical demands on me, which I’m fully willing to do …except to the point that it decreases the quality of care I’m able to give my Dad.

Does that make sense? I’m back to the question we had when Dad was first diagnosed in the middle of our plans to adopt. Is it wisdom to recognize that we are young and can probably have more children later, and to put off doing so to better care for my father? Or is it denying God (not getting into the theological free will discussion) the chance to work more deeply in our lives through extra-challenging circumstances, knowing that suffering produces character (Rom 5:3-4 and Jas 1:2-4)? I mean, if you look at it that way, we’d all be seeking out suffering in order to refine our character, and I don’t know anyone that does that, not even Paul. He didn’t always shy away from the possibility of suffering for his actions, but he didn’t seek it out, either.

So that’s where we are now. No more kids while we’re taking care of Dad (unless CPS calls, but that falls under the same category of unexpected pregnancy: we’d be thrilled but we are not going to seek it out). This was an unforeseen conclusion of the choices we’ve made, and logically I still believe it’s the right choice. But my emotions are less easily convinced. I still want more kids. I still miss the babies my heart feels should be in my arms and my womb right now, but aren’t. I wish it were as easy as everyone suggests, “Well, you can always just try again!”

We want to. But we won’t. God help me to be content, and to perform well the work You have given me for now.

And of course there’s Jay-Jay. So many people saw him as being the window that God opened when he closed the door on Peanut. They hugged me and said how wonderful it was that He was going to comfort us with the adoption of JuneBug’s newborn brother, just at the time when we lost our pregnancy. What a slap in the face to be told by CPS eight weeks later, “Aw gee, we messed up, we never should have called you in the first place, just forget about him and if we need you to adopt him someday, we’ll call.” I do understand it now, I understand the whys and the reasons* and in theory I agree with them, sort of. But right now when I think about this eleven-week-old baby who will likely still end up in our family someday,** I know that each day he spends living with his relative is going to make his transition to our family that much harder later. And it royally ticks me off to think that this organization that is supposed to be about the children is creating a problem in this infant that didn’t exist in the first place. Whereas he could have come into our home at birth (like his big sister), bonded with our family and his siblings and never known the difference unless his mom got her life together (in which case we want to be a part of her life anyway), now he’s going to have a rough transition to our family at the age of 18 months or two years or three years. He managed to enter the system with the least issues of any foster kid I’ve ever seen or heard of, and yet CPS is going to create some by putting him elsewhere first. Thanks a lot.

So I started the year with three children, by August was expecting a fourth, and by October a fifth! Now I’ve ended the year with the original dear three with no plans for more under the present circumstances.

* I know this post doesn’t give enough details to make sense, but there are confidentiality issues and very complex policies that govern how CPS cases are handled and I didn’t want to get into them right now. Suffice to say, they originally called us to take him, but then decided to put him with a relative and will only call us in the future if they need us to adopt him.

** I am truly all in favor of reunification and would love nothing so much as seeing this mom get her life together, but her history and the odds are against it.

And really, how can you argue with that?

• We moved out to to the country to live with my dad. We are adjusting to country-speed internet access, which is partly to blame for our long break. We really enjoy the space and the house and the kids love the cows. The girls also each got a kitten, who will get their own post soon.
• We lost Baby Peanut at 14 weeks. The doctor said it was likely due to a chromosomal abnormality, meaning just a fluke, and that it should have no bearing on our ability to bear further children. It is still very sad and very hard.
• We “gained” and “lost” another baby. JuneBug calls him Baby Jay-Jay. Late October we got a phone call from Child Protective Services, informing us that Bug’s biological mother had just given birth to another baby, and his plan was adoption, did we want him? Of course we did, so we got everything ready and opened our hearts to bring him home. Two months later we found out his plan was changed to reunification with his mom and he’d been placed with a relative instead of with us. The only way we’ll ever hear of him again is if CPS needs us to adopt him at some point in the future.
• We are currently working on selling our house and improving the farmhouse.
• We had a good Christmas. My younger brother and sister came up Christmas eve and spent Christmas morning with us. The next day I gave the girls haircuts, and they turned out super-cute.

Quite a roller-coaster few months, and I may or may not expound on these topics in future posts. But, for what it’s worth, I’m back.

My PSA of the day: Parents, do not ignore snoring in your kids. Snoring is not normal for children and can be a symptom of a nighttime breathing problem. Lou has been waking frequently of late, crying, restless, impossible to soothe. I hate feeling helpless when my child obviously needs something, but I don’t know how to comfort her or help. I’m the mommy! At the very least, my presence and my love should be comforting! Last night I spent the better part of the night next to her in her bed, and I noticed a pattern. She would snore heavily and erratically, then she would stop breathing for about five seconds, take a shallow breath, stop breathing again, then awake spluttering and choking, shift positions and go back to sleep. And begin the cycle all over again. SLEEP APNEA!

I’d never heard of this in children. I knew it could be a problem in overweight adults or those with allergy problems, but a kid? Lou also has mild asthma to which I always attributed any breathing problems, but in the moments when she would fully wake, her breathing was smooth and her lungs clear. It wasn’t her asthma.

So at 1:53am this morning I’m sitting on the laptop, eating a muffin and reading up on sleep apnea. I wanted to see if there were any positioning tips to help, like sleeping in a chair or with a wedge. Nope. For true OSAS (obstructive sleep apnea syndrome), the two options are CPAP or surgery. CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) is a facemask strapped to your head and hooked up to a machine, that forces air past the obstruction so you can breathe and sleep. It is worn every night. Surgery is done to remove the obstructions, usually tonsils, adenoids, and/or excess nasal tissue.

I’m pretty sure Lou has true OSAS. One has to only hear her try to sleep to know it. In fact, I think I’m going to make a recording of her sleeping to play for the pediatrician, and maybe we can skip the sleep lab. As much fun as a nightly machine wouldn’t be, since most kids outgrow OSAS, I’m thinking I’d prefer it to surgery.

And now, on to the rant.

I went back to bed, but couldn’t sleep. I knew I needed to call the pediatrician in the morning, and I was dreading the confrontation. See, my kids haven’t seen the doc since January, when we took them in to get their general health checkups for our hoped adoption. We had a huge falling-out with our beloved pediatrician, Dr. B, when he got very angry and not-so-subtly called us irresponsible parents for our choice to delay vaccinations for our children and then only selectively vaccinate them (I’m not discussing our reasons in this post). He then subsequently refused to sign their forms stating they were in good health. We left, with E grinding his teeth and me crying and carrying unsigned forms. (See, I’d mistakenly assumed that the doc would disagree with us but recognize the limit of the professional relationship.) E then spent hours on the phone with almost everyone in the department, arguing the definition of healthy as being “free from disease” instead of fully vaccinated and not currently sick. He had the nurse send an email to every pedi in the practice (about 30 of them) to see if any of them would be willing to sign the forms. One, count ‘em, ONE doc was willing.

We got the forms signed, but the doc wasn’t one I’d like to be their regular doc. So today I must get Lou an appointment with a new doctor and interview him to see if he will be a good fit for our regular family pediatrician.

What do I want? I don’t think I’m asking all that much, to be honest. I want him to fulfill his role as a professional who gives me medical advice for my children, then ultimately lets me make the choice as the parent. I go to him for advice because he knows medicine better than I do, but I am the parent, I make the choice whether or not to follow the advice given. And I’m well aware that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends fully vaccinating your child according to their schedule, but they’re recommending it, and that does not translate into coercion in my book. Ironically, the AAP also currently recommends breastfeeding your child at least until age 1 (a slim percentage of moms do), but I don’t see them forcing that on mothers. They also recommend no TV until the child is 2, but how many moms do that? Can you imagine the uproar if a pediatrician refused to be your family doc if you didn’t follow all of his advice to the letter? Can you imagine the uproar if pediatricians guilted and coerced and insulted those mothers who didn’t breastfeed until their child was 12 months? If they called Child Protective Services because your 18-month-old watched Sesame Street?

I think if you’re going to recommend full vaccination and recommend breastfeeding to age 2, you should heavily encourage them and educate parents on the pros and cons, but ultimately respect the parent’s right to choose for their child. Both have documented health benefits but both require risk or sacrifice that the parent must evaluate. Anything more than encouragement and education is overstepping the bounds of the professional relationship between doctor and patient.

Or if you do, make sure it’s infrequently.

My kids are gorgeous. They just are. No question. But I don’t want them to grow up hearing about it constantly. They absorb and internalize everything we say to them (and much that we say to others). Tell one of them that their somersault was very impressive, and all of a sudden I have three children somersaulting all over the floor, crying out, “Look at me, Mama! Isn’t my somersault great?” You get more of what you acknowledge, and especially more of what you praise.

I don’t want them to think their beauty comes from their outward appearance, but if that’s all they ever hear about it can be easy for them to grow up thinking so.

If you compliment my children (and please do!), try to compliment a virtue they’re currently exhibiting. Tell them they’re sweet, or helpful, or caring, or gentle, or kind, or patient, or joyful. I’ve been very conscious to notice these characteristics in their behavior and to label them in a praise. Consequently, I often hear one of the girls tell me, “Mommy, I’m being so helpful to Doozer!” as she holds his hand to assist him down the stairs. Or one will get a cup for the other who has mentioned her thirst, “I’m such a sweet girl!” When waiting in line, “We gotta be patient now.” I want them to learn that (well, not that their value comes from their behavior, their value comes from their Creator) these virtues are something to strive for, that they are valuable, moreso than beauty or cuteness. When they become teens I don’t want them to spend time brainstorming how to become more physically beautiful, I want them to collaborate on how to be kinder and more loving.

I also want them to know that youth and youthful beauty is to be enjoyed for a time, but kindness is beautiful whether one is five or eighty-five.

Beware, dastardly bugs everywhere, for JuneBug the Bug-Slayer is ever-vigilant, ever watchful! She can spot you in the darkest corners, in the highest crevices, and with a loud cry of “It’s a BAD ROACH!” she will run to retrieve her bug-destroying tools! She will speedily swoop to bring you to your demise under the tread of Daddy’s tennis shoe! Then she will unceremoniously squish your carcass into a wad of toilet paper and flush you into the next world! No six-legged creature is safe in her vicinity, so consider carefully when you are tempted to enter the Rock home!!!

Be very, very afraid!

(Anyone got a good pattern for a superhero costume? I need to sew one for my daughter.)