Category Archives: Love

“Awesome” Gifts

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Words of Micah: “I like it when adults share their things with me. It makes me feel awesome.”  These words struck me and I pondered them over the course of the weekend.

Saturday morning I was trying to tuck up some things for the crisis nursery work before we headed out of town.  Micah was so eager to get into the car that he kept coming in and out of my office.  Suddenly, he gasped when he saw a small digital camera in a box.  “Will you let me use this camera?” he asked hopefully.  “Why, sure,” I replied (and then of course thought about the fact that Christmas is just weeks away and wouldn’t it be great if I had thought of giving it to him for Christmas!).

His excitement of being able to share in the grown-up world with “grown-up things” runs through my mind.  We are in the season of giving as we enter the month of December and I always work so hard trying to find “great” gifts for people because it’s so much fun to see their joy.  What it is, though, is that I feel good when I make someone else feel good…..when I give, and someone feels “awesome” because of that.  How wonderful to be able to do that for a child.

So this past weekend, I gave the boys the “gift” of tradition.  Since at least 1996, I have driven to a small town east of Cleveland to visit one of my best friends from college.  Her best friend from high school joins us in making Christmas cookies (2260 cookies this year!).  Years later, the group that gathers has grown to between 25 and 30 people and many of them are our children.  It’s such a great day for the boys.  They run around

Young baker

Young baker

and play with the other children.  They taste-test triple chocolate cookies, hazelnut shortbread, coconut pyramids, decorated sugar cookies, chocolate crinkles and chocolate espresso cookies, peanut butter blossums, thumbprints, kolaches, and so many more (probably the only day of the year that I’m not constantly saying “no more treats!”).  They stay up as late as their bodies can survive and then wake up as early as possible the next morning to continue to marvel in the abundance of new-to-them toys!  They love this day….and it is my gift to them to create such traditions.IMG_2141

Naturally, there are so many gifts that I give to my boys – not even thinking about the upcoming swarm of Christmas presents they’ll find under the tree in two weeks.  As I trudged back upstairs with Micah just now at 11:22 pm, I realized that in agreeing to stay “just one minute” more with him as he drifted back to sleep, I was gifting him with some time (a pretty precious commodity which is not always my strong suit in gift-giving!).

There are many gifts that other people give to my boys as well – love and attention from

Thank you, Tom.

Thank you, Tom.

grandparents and other family members, care and education from their teachers and day care workers, and the gift of attention from the men at Cookie Day who wrestled with the boys, threw balls, exclaimed happily at a new skill, and rustled their hair.  I thank these men for the gift of making my boys feel special.

And there are many gifts my sons bestow upon me – slobber and snot on my work clothes first thing in the morning, painful cheek from being accidentally whacked across the face, and of course, the favorite gifts of bodily fluids spewing onto floors and carpets in the most unexpectant and triumphant of fashion.

The best gift, though, came from one particular woman…. Miss Hannah …. who carried each boy in her heart and her womb for 9 months and then walked away so that they would experience a new life in my heart.  As I contemplate this most wondrous of gifts, I consider the greatest gift of all – the reason we celebrate this time of year, the reason we give so many gifts, the reason we live at all – the newborn in the manger.

Glimpses of love

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A Steeler fan

I am a sucker for plush baby animals…..squishy….delightfully comforting softness.  I just am.

So, after an absolutely perfect morning at the zoo the other day, I decided that of course, Seth needed a new stuffed animal.  I have a monkey theme occurring in his crib – but the white polar bear was just too precious.  (You have to inspect all of them and pick the face that touches your heart.)

Seth smiled and clasped it to his body….for all of 3 seconds and then he shoved it aside and concentrated on the live animals.  Oh well, I thought, pushing the white softness into the bottom of the stroller.

But later that night, Noah found the little polar bear.  He lifted it high into the air with a huge smile and said “Did you buy this for me?”  “Oh yes,” I replied happily (I try to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, except in cases like this little white lie.)

He spent that night and the next day playing with the polar bear.  When he brought the adorable little creature to bed last night, I asked “So, what is your bear’s name?”  He replied “Mawzi.”

And Mawzi it is.  Mawzi gets lots of loving.  He likes to have his belly scratched.  He loves it when you rub his ears.  And he’s particularly happy when you go fishing over the edge of the bed with a pole of glow-in-the-dark wands to catch him some fish.  And if he seems to be getting full, you can just put the extra fish in a bucket for tomorrow.  Mawzi will be so happy, apparently.  I’m learning a lot about polar bears.

I was actually a bit surprised that Mawzi was still getting attention on day 3 of his adoption.  Apparently he is also ideal for monkey-in-the-middle games and doesn’t seem to mind being bounced on the floor, landing behind the TV, or snagged from mid-air by screeching 6 year olds.  Mawzi is very adept at fitting into the household of boys.

I was at a meeting tonight and when I returned, I did my typical “tucking in” of the boys.  I put the covers back on, kiss them goodnight, and linger for a minute in peace.  I walked into Noah’s room wondering if Mawzi had made it upstairs with the babysitter.  As I leaned down to kiss Noah, his eyes fluttered open.   “I love you,” I said.  He sleepily replied, “Can you get my Mawzi?”  I just smiled and went downstairs to answer the request….only to find Mawzi sitting upright joyfully playing with a little red fire truck.  He seemed ready to get to bed, though, so we trudged back upstairs.  Noah tucked him under his head as a pillow and drifted off to sleep.  Mawzi seemed to understand.  I’ll make sure he gets some extra fish in the morning for being so gentle.

Never…and No, I won’t

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“Well, acknowledging your ‘issues’ is 3/4ths of the way there,” a good friend recently said over a very nice margarita and nachos supreme.  And I kind of wanted to ask – if I’m at 75%, is that good enough or do I have to actually try to go for 100%….ie, do I have to work on improving myself?

I was explaining to my friend the difficulties that I sometimes have with Micah as he continually tries to test the limits I set.  I joked that I had just picked up another book, this one called “Try and Make Me,” and it described us perfectly in the first 5 pages.  It also suggested rather firmly that the fault of all power struggles lies solely in me, the adult.  Yes….I roll my eyes, I know.

So, I am starting to feel a little confident that I have found a book that understands my problem, and on Thursday as we are all getting ready for school/work/day care, Micah is throwing a ball at the chandelier (right after being reprimanded and having the first ball removed from his hands).  I turn to my sister and say “he’s baiting me.  Yep, that’s what the book says – he’s baiting me.”  “So,” she replies, “what does it say to do about it?”  I shake my head, “no clue, haven’t gotten there yet, but he’s baiting me!”

Then this morning, the woman working at the community center where Micah plays basketball offers that her life was completely changed around by the “1-2-3 Magic” system by Thomas Phalen.  Good, I think, another book for me to read….

A few months ago, I joked with a co-worker that the only “literature” I read now is parenting books.  He surprised me when he said, “you know, I really admire that.  I mean, if I want to become an expert at something, I read about it.  I would imagine that if you want to become good at parenting, it’s good to read about it.”  I actually had never thought about that.  Somehow I expected parenting to be as easy and natural as babysitting – feed them, rock them, play with them, viola! – return them to the parents!

But no….not that easy.  Now I feed and rock and play and worry about whether their school/day care is right for them?  Whether Seth’s hair will grow back quickly as he has no bangs after that haircut yesterday?  Whether they will grow up to be independent, ethical, hard-working young men?  Whether they will stay as beautiful (ahem, handsome) as they are now.  So, now I read books:

Wild Things, the Art of Raising Boys – loved it

Love and Logic – couldn’t really get into it

The Explosive Child – described Micah and our difficulty perfectly, but the solution – not so helpful

The Help – great book

The Irresistible Henry House – thought I’d love it, never finished it

Goodnight Moon – a classic

The Very Cranky Bear – my favorite

Here’s what it boils down to.  My issues.  There are two parts of my personality that I struggle with – my need for control and the desire to be right.  Those two qualities are deep-seated and highly ingrained features of me.  And I’ve come far because of them (elementary education degree, developmental psychology doctorate, pediatrician – driven by my ability to control my learning and my need to be right).  However, these two qualities are at the root of much of my parenting difficulties.

Guess what?  You can’t actually control a child – they are their own unique human beings with their own will (and, not surprisingly, their own desire for control!).  My job is to help shape that will, but I can’t control it.  And when it comes to parenting, I am not nearly as right as I sure would like to be and that frustrates me.  So when Micah and I are escalating into one of our classic power struggles, it is actually me grappling with my own self and nature and refusing to give in or be perceived as being “wrong.”  Heavy stuff.

So….this is where I am right now – at 75% – and halfway through one book with two more in my Amazon cart….and I am open to suggestions.

————————- A  brief update to last week’s post ———————–

I called the caseworker supervisor on Monday to say that the visit almost never took place as the mother’s name was not on the list again.  He said, “Well, that’s her responsibility to make sure she’s on the list.”  I replied, “She didn’t even know a visit was happening that day.”  To this, he became quite agitated – saying that the mother’s lawyer had thrown a dramatic fit at the court hearing a week prior that CYF was ignoring the mother’s rights and treating her poorly and that the mother was so upset about not having a visit.  And now we’re all wondering how much of this craziness is being driven by the lawyer….rather than the mother….and is the lawyer even talking to the birthmother.  Who needs fiction?  Life is crazy enough!  So birthmother will be released in about two weeks and we’ll see what happens next.

A Love Song

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I think I was mostly paying attention at a conference the past two days, although I’m starting to feel a little over-conference-ated!  (3 days at Prevent Child Abuse conference and 2 days at the Infant Mental Health conference in the space of a week).

Here’s what I learned (other than the fact that if you wake up boys 2 days in a row to make it to a conference, when it’s Saturday and you can all sleep in, they will obligingly wake up at 6:10 for you!):

– the “dance” of love in touch and expression between a mother and child is both fascinating and incredibly sacred.

– over the years, research has not really focused on fathers at all….very strange.

– my kids actually need to dance more, despite the fact that I am not a dancer (so I went out a bought a CD/FM/cassette player last night – who knew they still made cassettes?  The iPod/CD one was sold out….).

– there are probably a lot more environmental toxins affecting our children’s development than we want to admit and Rachel Carson (from Pittsburgh!) was way beyond her time drawing attention to environmental impact

– it is important to continue to develop our children’s sense of wonder – and our own!

– and when the mind drifts as a presenter drones, here’s what happens:

A love song:

Why is it so hard sometimes?

Why do we struggle?

We love

We hold

We play

We tickle

We smile

We laugh

We wipe snotty noses

We sweep up messes

We scrub dirty bums

We pick up toys

We clean up high chairs

We sit exhausted

We run and run and run

We become weary

Until we watch the soft sighs

of deep slumber

Rocking the angel

Who rests in our arms

In peace and hope

For another day.

Voice….less

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“Didn’t you miss me just a little, teeny, tiny bit?” I asked Micah when he first woke up.  “Nope,” he replied, “I was having too much fun.”  “Just a little?!?!?”  I tried consoling myself that this was good.  Clearly he wasn’t miserable that I was gone for 3 days.  Clearly he had a good time with grandma and Aunt Kathy, but seriously, can’t you miss me just a tad.

Well, I missed the boys.  I was away for 3 days at the Prevent Child Abuse – America national conference and can’t even remember the last time I was away, not even for a day, much less three.  It was the first time for Seth who is almost 18 months, so he had quite a lot to say about it in his body language.  Noah, however, gave me the sweetest tightest hug when I woke him up in the morning after returning home late Sunday night.

I confess, it was nice to have some time away – without noise, without 68 pounds of deadweight in the bed beside me, without the demands of feeding hungry mouths or giving baths or getting them to bed “on time.”  I also had a visceral reaction to seeing families in the airport carrying babies in front packs and remember getting back from Disney World last year and being so thankful not to have the weight of a baby constantly strapped to my body almost 24/7.

But I missed them and I missed having a physical presence in their day and knowing what they were doing.  It’s not the same to listen to them on the phone (the 6 year old doesn’t really want to talk, the 3 year old just repeats himself, and the one-yr-old just stares at the phone).  I missed sharing in all their activities and joys (like winning the soccer game again – still undefeated!).  I missed interpreting their world for them as they moved through it.  I missed being their voice.

I’ve been contemplating that concept today – being a voice.  My kids clearly have a “voice” but they really don’t know how, much less when, to use it.  And often they use it at decibels I wish they wouldn’t or to talk about subjects I really wish they wouldn’t.  But they don’t really have a voice in their world and in their community.  For the most part, that is funneled through me – their mother and protector.

Yet, as I think about the project I am working on – to develop a crisis nursery (a safe place for temporary care of young children when their families hit crisis) – I realize that the real reason we need this is because the very little children in our world and in our city do not have a voice.

My safe, secure, fun-loving boys do not have a voice….and so too the child who has been hurt at some time in his life or has seen one of his parents hurt.  And the child laying in the hospital bed being treated for multiple injuries has no voice.  And the little boy hungry and dirty and cold….alone in his house…. has no voice.  And the teen “graduating” from the foster care system and moving into a world all on her own where she might one day get married and have no one to walk her down the aisle has no voice.  And the four-year-old who has moved from one house to another and one apartment to another until he ends up in a cold dark homeless shelter has no voice.  And the girl taken from her family and ravaged by the human trafficking nightmare that is upon us has no voice.

It is we who give voice to our children.  It is we who need to speak up and speak out for them.  It is we who need to demand a change for the sake of our children’s hearts.

Be the voice.  Be the change.  As often as you can speak.

Awakened…by the foster care system

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It’s almost 7 am on a Saturday morning.  Six-year-old Micah has already been appeased by Netflix on my cell phone and it’s a dark rainy morning so I’m loving the chance to drift back to sleep.  Suddenly, though, I open my eyes to see my sister standing over me, “Lynne, there’s a case worker here to pick up Seth for a visit.”  I’m awake.

And I’m mad.

It’s Saturday morning and apparently they decided to schedule a visit for an 18-month-old boy with his birth mother whom he’s never actually seen, who is in the county jail, and who has no chance of ever being his parent because of her repetitive mistakes.  He doesn’t need to see her.

If this isn’t infuriating enough to me – the fact that no one ever told me that they scheduled the visit has definitely pushed me over the edge!

I throw a sweatshirt over my jammies and grab Seth and a change of clothes for him.  While I change him, Kathy is packing up a diaper bag (her foster boys have gone on visits before – she knows exactly what to put in it).  I rush him out to the case aid at her car in the alley and inform her that “heads are going to roll” come Monday morning (or Tuesday, since Monday’s a holiday).

She’s empathetic.  She just does the driving.  She had no idea that I didn’t know.  She also has no idea how to buckle a baby into a car seat….nor how to install the car seat in her car….and yet she’s paid by the county to transport young children daily! (ahem, get down off that soap box too, Lynne!)  Seth is crying in her arms as I try to buckle in her seat.  I take him back and say “give me 5 minutes to get dressed and I’ll follow you down there.”

Twenty minutes later, I’m feeding quarters into the meters outside the Allegheny County Jail.  I’m shaking my head that for poor people coming to visit a relative in jail, getting 5

The jail entrance…where we sat for 20 minutes.

minutes on the meter per quarter seems sickening.  We walk inside.  The case aid finds a locker to put all the stuff – “Including the diaper bag?” I ask.  Yes.  I sit in the cold lobby with Seth on my lap and start to feed him some breakfast as we had to be there an hour early anyway.  He’s making a mess — spilling Kix all over the floor and bench. I’m cowered over him in a most protective way.  People are putting all their items, including any “hoodies,” into lockers and going through the metal detector.  The case aid enters through the detector to check in and wait for me inside.

We finish the yogurt and the aid comes back out.  “Well,” she says, “I’m glad you came down with me.  There’s no visit.  They didn’t put mom’s name on the list.”  I’m reminding myself to take deep breaths now…and yet letting a few out with relief.  One error after another has spared this tiny little boy from a very traumatic morning.  And yet, some judge, somewhere in his cozy house with a cup of coffee this morning, without ever a clue as to the disruption and pain he “court-orders,” has deemed it appropriate for a woman sitting in jail to spend one hour with a boy she birthed but can’t parent.

Yet, who is advocating for the child?  And who is advocating for the foster parents who step forward to care for unwanted children, yet whose lives are turned upside down over and over again?

Some day, I’ll look for answers. But today, I gave Seth some mighty tight hugs, strapped him into the car safely, and brought him home to his family.  Please, Lord, let’s not go through this again next month.

“Will the robber take me too?”

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How do you answer a question such as this from a 6-yr-old boy?  Why would you ever want to be faced with the question?

Well, this week I was.  I left the house Monday morning to take the kids to daycare.  I went to a meeting as part of my foster parenting requirements (one of those in which the facilitator just reads a powerpoint presentation to the audience…and I try not to roll my eyes).  I returned home planning to knock out an hour or so of work on the crisis nursery project before heading to teach a class to medical students.

As I came up to the back of my house, the back door screen was propped open with Seth’s diaper box.  Not too unusual…my dad sometimes stops by to do some work around the house. I headed into the dining room and noticed the front door open as well….I grabbed my cell phone and dialed 911 while calling out “hello?”  I passed by the stairway and felt a coolness and brightness of air change….looking up there was a gaping 8 foot x 4 foot hole in the staircase where our beautiful stained glass window had been less than 2 hours before

I hit send on the phone and ran out the back door.  In minutes, an officer was patrolling our house with a machine gun poised and ready. Bazer the police dog was “sweeping” the house for intruders (but finding only a couch and a mattress to shred to pieces).  No people were found….as were none of our electronics.  TV, computers, digital cameras, the Wii system (including the balance board under the table), jewelry…everything.  To make matters worse, the idiot that I am had left my safe in the office upstairs and that was cleaned out of all my important documents as well as the back-up external hard drive for my computer (I backed up the files for virus protection…but never thought about needing to hide it from robbers!).  Gone is my passport, birth certificate, social security card – my identity paperwork.  Gone is the birth certificates and adoption certificates of my sons. Gone is my work on the crisis nursery nonprofit and all my professional and personal life.  My stomach dropped to the bottom of my soul.

It’s amazing how long the state of shock lasts.  It’s amazing how much more hyper-alert I am.  Where an out-of-place kid’s toy was once cute, it now appears threatening in the middle of the floor at night.  The random noise makes the heart stop.  That sense of safety is now fragile.  The disbelief rings out through the silence.  The ache of loss seeps throughout the daily rhythm.

For the boys, there is a missing TV.  The excitement of possibly falling out of the missing window is replaced by the starkness of plywood. The fact that the police dog chewed up the living room couch brings smiles to silly faces.  But for the older boys, there are also some questions.  As Micah fell asleep that night, he asked “Will the robber take me too?”  It pierced my soul.  “No, my child, you are safe.”

For after the excitement died down – the police had come to fingerprint the area, a kind man arrived to put up the huge sheet of plywood to keep the impending rain out and the children in, and the children were tucked in bed – I found Noah sleeping on the staircase landing under that big window.  The image is imprinted in my cortex. He was curled in a fetus position of absolute comfort.  He trusts that he is safe.

And I realize that this is what we as parents do for our children.  In the moments of the storm, we tell them “You are safe. Mommy is here.  I protect you.”  When gaping holes appear, we find the patches to block the winds.  When pieces of their world go missing, we stay by them and remind them that we are not leaving.  When there is stress and anxiety and worry in the air, we hold them tight and kiss them softly.  You are loved.  You are safe.  You are my child and I am your mother.  I am here. God grant you peace, my little one.

Smitten by a Kindergartener

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“My baby girl fills a place I didn’t even know was empty. I am positively smitten.”  (K.H.)  I love this line that I “borrowed” (with credit) from a friend in her Facebook stream.

I also love vicariously reliving the “smitten” stage of the first-born child.  There is something so wonderful and special about those magic moments.  Those moments when time stands still and you realize that you have sat on the couch for two hours listening to the uneven yet peaceful breath of your baby and your mind has been still and content.  Those moments when you stare into your baby’s face and realize you never knew love could be so powerful and so peaceful and so strong.  Those moments when you realize your life has changed forever and you’re so thankful for that.

I watched my friend cuddle her 2-year-old son on the subway during our recent trip to New York City.  Her arms wrapped around him.  Her face bent forwards to snuggle against his cheek.  She spoke softly, whispering. Smitten. Blissful.

I was on the other side of the train – restraining a one-year-old with one arm, “spotting” the three-year-old as he bounced around looking out the window into the darkness and jumping back to look at all the people on the train, and verbally reminding the 6-year-old to “hold on,” “sit down,” and “be quiet.”  There was no quiet within my brain.  And yet, I was still okay with it all the chaos and the madness of my three.  (Alright, actually….I was thinking “yes…just you wait until baby #2 is born and then all of that lovey-dovey-attentiveness will change.  Just you wait.”  Not in an evil-haha kind of way, but in a reality-is-coming kind of way 🙂 .)

You see, I have a great friend who has 4 little boys about the same ages as my three guys (poor dear – she’s amazing!).  And we are good for each other because we are honest with each other.  And we agree that we absolutely love our boys.  No questions about it.  But we don’t always feel that love.  Sometimes, I’m just going through the motions of care-taking. Sometimes I’m just changing another diaper, wiping another snotty nose, putting on another pair of shoes that I just put on and that he just took off again.

And sometimes, I am “not happy with your behavior” and the love feels far away.  Present, but currently unavailable.  But then I sneak into the boys’ bedroom before I go to sleep each night, and lean over to kiss each one (a blown kiss to the little guy whose crib mattress is too far away), and whisper I love you.

Yet, it is in some of the “big moments” of parenting when I am overwhelmingly reminded that I am still, 6 years later, smitten with my boys.  This week Micah started kindergarten.  I stood along the wall of the church’s gymnasium and watched as he made new friends with the boys sitting beside him as they waited to go to their classroom.  I signed “I love you” whenever I caught his eye, and I gave him a kiss as he walked away from me.  The tears flowed by the time I reached the anonymity of my car.  My boy.  Kindergarten.  The start of the journey of school.  And as I drove to work through the fog of my eyes, the chorus of a song played over and over in my brain – “well done, well done…” (Moriah Peters).  It just seemed to sum up my love for him, all the work that we’ve done together over the past six years, all of that – well done – you got him to kindergarten!

I did much better the next two days of dropping him off, until I opened his backpack Friday evening and found a card that Micah made at school.

A Handful of Love

(by D. Conway)

It was my first week of school,

And now that it’s done,

I can’t wait to tell you

About all the fun.

We read a book called The Kissing Hand

About Chester, a sweet raccoon.

He went to school up in a tree,

Beneath the shining moon.

Chester was scared and a little shy,

Until his mom kissed his hand.

It sent the love right up his arm,

Towards his heart for it to land.

Just like Chester, I was brave

Because of love from you.

I made this gift so I can show

How much I love you, too!