Billy's Article

Billy's article appears in this month's issue of Adoptive Families Magazine. The picture of our family is way bigger than we thought it would be-I would have been more particular about what picture I chose if I knew that was going to happen! His story is one of the cover features on Intrusive Questions titled Why Do You Ask? It was written after I dictated to him an awful experience I had at a lunch with a group of moms. You can get the magazine at most Barnes and Noble or order it online! I am so excited for him...his first published work!! He is currently working on a submission for an upcoming book that the author of The Five Love Languages is putting together. It might be his most difficult piece yet as he has to write about himself...not an easy task! He has begun to participate in an area Writer's Guild though, so hopefully they will give him some good suggestions when they edit it next month. And then we will pray that the author will want to use his piece in the book. We will find out sometime in November. But for now we are just excited he is in a national magazine! Oh-and a picture of the kids in Hawaii is at the beginning of the magazine too.

Birthday Geek

Am I the only one out there that plans my kids birthday parties way in advance? Isaac's isn't until October and I've got the whole thing pretty much planned and the place booked (which was a good thing because it was filling up fast). Then I was at a park with the kids yesterday near our apartment and I thought, "this would be a great place for Vivi's 2nd birthday! Should I call the city's parks and recreations department to reserve it today?" The girl's birthday isn't until March! Sheesh.

My birthday is in August (I am turning 30, YIKES!) and Billy's is in September...am I thinking about ours- NOPE. But that is because children's parties are so fun! Billy and I don't want pinatas and cupcakes. A pile of beautifully wrapped gifts for me doesn't make me giddy-but something about those Fisher Price Little People and Little Tikes toys send me over the edge with happiness. And don't get me started on seeing sweet little outfits with new tags dangling from them.

I justify my party obsession with the fact that I waited and wanted kids so bad, and the fact that I really enjoy other kid's parties too. I've gotten in the habit of getting oh-too-involved in the planning of my friends parties for their little ones. And heaven forbid I hear the dreaded words "we are just going to do a little small thing this year. Maybe just family." I gasp! No party? No pretty plastic ware and balloons? No invitations? No theme? Are you kidding me?

I understand the money factor, parties are expensive. But I asked Billy if I scrimp and save all year long, can I still have a nice party for the kids? And he agreed. He knows I am a woman obsessed. I don't need to hire an entertainer or spend $40 bucks on a cake, but you can really do alot with some planning and shopping around.

My only consolation is in knowing I'm not the only one. My sister is a party animal too. She rarely turns down an invitation to go to a child's birthday party, and she also has her daughter's 4th birthday booked and planned out-and that is not until December! It must be our shared DNA. But I can tell you we didn't get it from my Mom. She is not really into the entertaining thing, but she can appreciate a good party herself. One of my favorite pictures is of me at my 6 year birthday in a care bears bathing suit (August remember) blowing out candles on a cute cake with several friends around the table.

I just LOVE birthday parties.

Swimming Lessons

Last week Isaac finished his swimming lessons. Here he is with his little certificate and a lollipop. He did well. He was a bit wild in the water which is difficult for receiving instruction, but I was glad to see that he didn't mind going under.

Vitamin Testimony

Ya'll know I love Dr. Sears vitamins and I posted a month or so ago about them asking me to record my response email to their inquiry about how I liked the products. Well they put the recording on their product webpage. It cracks me up to hear my dorky voice! If you click here and scroll down to the right where it says hear a "real mom's" testimony. There I am. Too funny. Just glad I get a free bag of vitamins (over a $25 value with shipping) for my embarrassment! Thanks Dr. Sears!

http://www.drsearshealthykids.com/products/little-champions-vitamins

Poop Bag

Tonight we went out to dinner and Vivi had a Blowout Diaper. I'll spare you the details. But the point was there was no way we could change her because she would make a huge mess and be without pants. So I tore two leg holes in a Target bag and we drove her the 2 minutes home to change her. I was laughing hysterically the whole way. It was the funniest thing. Then in our parking lot was our neighbor across the hall and his girlfriend and they said "What is going on here!" Through laughing tears I told them why our baby was wearing a bag. He said "Now that is ingenious parenting!"

Growing...

Vivianna had her 15 month check-up (a week and a half late!) yesterday and she is still not 20 pounds! Close though. The Dr. said it is still okay to have turned her carseat around because of her height. whew! She is 10th percentile for weight and head size and 40% height. I guess we have a petite one. I wish I had her metabolism. :)

Juneteenth

Today we went to a Juneteenth celebration-the day that Texan slaves were declared free. The news arrived in Galveston about two years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Isaac quickly made some friends at the party ( I died laughing when he put his arms around these boys for the picture!) along with enjoying bounce houses, having his arm painted, a talent competition, and a giant dill pickle! Vivi was little miss social too. It was warm but we were in a pavilion so the shade was much appreciated!



Hanging out with the watermelon farmer. When we tried to coax him away he said "I think I'll stay right here for awhile."

children's choir

14 teeth!

Vivi got her canine bottoms about a week ago. With a mouthful of teeth, the kid can chew through anything. Average things that would be choking hazards for most toddlers-she takes on with gusto! Here she is eating her snack of pretzels, cheese, and apple slices w/skin! The girl eats almonds, granola, cherry tomatoes-and has never choked! Not to say she won't someday.

On the topic of eating-we went to a birthday party Saturday and when on the hunt to see where she was, I discovered her on their dining room table eating salsa out of the jar with a plastic spoon. If this wasn't shocking enough, she later repeated this maneuver on the kitchen table and got into the fruit bowl. It's as if we don't feed this child.

Bob and Larry

Isaac is a huge fan of Veggie Tales, although he still doesn't care for the movies w/ bad guys! Everytime we go to a Christian bookstore he stares in awe at all the toys and products. I am not into the mass marketing of children nor can I afford all of the products that cover the walls of these stores. So what can a mother on a budget do to encourage her child's love? Don't laugh, but we went to Dollar Tree and with $2.00 of plastic vegetables and a Sharpie, Bob and Larry were born. He loves them! He took them swimming and is currently sleeping with them. I made them little paper pirate hats so they could be The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything.

Father's Day

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Picture Update

Thought ya'll might want some pictures, finally! This summer has proved to be crazy-so I have not been able to upload and deal with photos much, but don't worry I am still snapping away. Here are some from the past week. Last week we went to Paradise Pond with our friends Kristin, Jaimes and Gracie. Vivi and Gracie

(in orange above) are only days apart. Isaac and Jaimes enjoyed the teeter totter.
And Isaac enjoyed the trucks while Jaimes hung out in the dress-up clothes.

Isaac has been sleeping a lot more. He is either going through a growth spurt or is tired from our very busy summer. The other night I checked on him and he was sweating below this hat! sheesh. In the morning he usually gets up between 5:30-6:00a.m. and falls back to sleep in our bed as seen below.

Our trip to Waco.

Isaac has been taking swimming lessons every morning this week and next. More pics will come next week during "show off" day.
And finally, this is the sight that greeted me when I rounded the corner this morning. I guess she was thirsty. What am I going to do with this climber?!!?!

Adoption, adoption, adoption!

This has been a week of adoption topics for us!!
I had a woman approach me last Sunday at church who is parenting an African American daughter and biracial son and she told me about the Adoption group she had started. So I met with her and three other women Thursday night and we shared our stories and talked about where we want to see the group go.

On Friday while out for lunch with a friend and her girls, we met a couple that have started a group based in Fort Worth for adoptive families who are parenting transracially. I look forward to possibly getting involved there, as I am always excited about meeting more families like us.

That afternoon a woman called me and wanted to talk about adoption and the agency we used. It was a great opportunity for me to help bust through some of the myths surrounding birthmothers and various other aspects of adoption.

Then we traveled to Vivi's birthplace on Saturday to speak on a panel of couples at our adoption agency's training for potential parents. There were 13 couples in training, so it was a bit overwhelming! But it was also lots of fun. We had the last 20 minutes where we talked about Transracial Adoption. We never turn down an opportunity to talk about the great need there is for parents for African American babies. Our agency had emailed us about 6 months ago to pray for more couples to come to them who wanted to parent African American children and we met two couples this weekend who were excited about this possibility.

Then our agency asked us if Billy and I would want to speak at their annual Gala fundraiser. Every year they have a couple and their child's birthmother give their adoption story. This year they expect there to be over 500 in attendance! A bit overwhelming but when Vivi's birthmother said she would be fine speaking to that kind of crowd, we said yes too. That will be in November.

Finally before we went to our training, we hung out with Vivi's birthfamily at Burger King for a couple of hours. It is always a blessing for them to see how much Vivi is growing and how beautiful she is! We are so proud and so happy that she has extended family to love on her. For the first time, her birthmother gave us her email address and apartment address! I have been wanting to be in more contact with her for awhile but now that I have the opportunity-I almost don't know what to say!! I guess I can ease into it by sending some pics of Viv over email. But she checks it at work and so I don't want to get too emotional with her! She still wears the necklace we gave her at Vivi's consummation of a baby shoe with the baby's name on it. She said that people ask what it means and she tells them. She has gotten a lot of positive support this way.

I am thankful to our Lord for open adoption. What a wonderful way to have many opportunities to love on and show appreciation for your child's birthmother. It is a beautiful picture of pure selflessness and we are incredibly blessed to have this kind of contact.

Yikes

***Thankyou to all of you who left comments on Billy's blog and here in regards to his latest post. As you can see from this site meter, he had a TON of traffic on his blog the day of and after he posted it! Nice to know that his work is being read!***

Well I figured it wouldn't be long before Billy's creative essays on his blog stirred up some controversy. Afterall, he writes in the style of David Sedaris- and I can't imagine that guy can write for the New Yorker and have 6 Best Sellers without conflict!

The sad part is that the criticism he has received for writing Black Sabbath, is neither constructive or all that well thought out. He has posted the comment in full along with a rebuttal and I would love for my faithful blog followers and friends to weigh in on the subject. You can comment with just your first name under name or with your contact info-whichever you prefer. Or you may not want to get involved. But I will say that the topics brought up by "Anonymous" are ones that we have educated ourselves on and continue to do. We did not go into Transracial Adoption lightly and were blessed to have great training on this aspect of parenting by our foster care placement agency and our social worker who happened to be African American and was with us for the entire first year we had Isaac. We currently have a network of friends and continue to build upon that, families who also do not all look like each other.

And in defense of my husband and his work (which I edited myself very carefully)-it was not meant to be a piece on adoption or raising an African American child. It was more of a reflection upon how hard it can be to be the minority in a majority. Our desire to attend this particular church for awhile was two-fold. First, and most importantly it was to open our horizons to the way others worship, particularly in the African American community. And it was also to get ourselves into the mindset of what it feels like to be the only one who looks like you in a group setting. We were looking for a new church and this was one of many that we tried for awhile. I believe my friends who are parenting African American children would agree that our desire to be involved in a diverse community is not just for the sake of our child, but most importantly because we are now a family of color and all people desire to be around those whom they can identify with. Our children's racial identity is, and with God's wisdom and guidance, will continue to be a priority in our lives.

So if you have time-click on Billy's Blog to the right and read on!!

Kicking off the summer!

Flip Flops and Painted Toe Nails
Baby's First Waterpark

Vivi got to have her first waterpark adventure Saturday when Daddy got off work. She went to waterparks twice last year but was too young to swim. So as you can see from the pictures, she loved it! I would have more pics of Isaac but he made a beeline to the slide and did that the entire time we were there unless we dragged him off to the lazy river. Vivi is a fish just like Isaac was as a toddler!

Paige and Jarrett spent the night with us last night at we went to Gattitown. I will be having them about 5 days a month this summer. They just can't seem to let me go, even when we move!! But we love them and will enjoy all of our adventures in Summer '08!

Ha ha ha

Today Isaac did something cute and I told him I was proud of him and he said "Can you put me on the blog?" So here is my Ode to Isaac:

Lately we have been having him do "big belly" where he sticks his stomach out and looks 8 months pregnant. Funniest looking thing!

When Vivi eats her food at mealtimes he says "Good job, Baby Doll!"

He cannot handle bad guys on videos of any kind. Today we got LarryBoy (veggie tales) cartoons from the library and I walked into the room and he was crying. I said what is going on and he said "the angry eyebrows are going to get on LarryBoy!!" . So that ended that video. So much for a G rating when you have a sensitive child. So I put a little washcloth cape on his Larry Boy doll and he was better. I guess the cape made him more fierce.

At the park the other day he said "Can I pee on a tree?" So after much negotiating and the fact that there was no bathroom I took him into the woods a little way to relieve himself. At the same time he was going, Oscar lifted his leg on the other side. Boys!

Today for church Isaac asked what he was going to be wearing and I said a white shirt and he said, "Is Daddy going to wear a white shirt too?"

When we tell him he is a big boy he says, "Can I drink coffee now?"

This child keeps us rolling!