Precarious Joy

It’s not every eighteen-year-old guy who decides to take his sister to prom …. Then again, Chris isn’t your typical eighteen-year-old guy. And this isn’t just any sister … it’s the sister he hasn’t seen for six years for reasons beyond anyone’s control. Except perhaps the PA Juvenile Court System. But this is a day for joy, and so let’s not muck it up with the details, shall we?

One of the few things both the judge in Michigan (who granted our adoption) and the one in PA (who presided over our case when Chris was 11) agreed to was that once the minor children turned 18, it would be up to them to decide whether to get in contact with their birth family members.

On his 18th birthday, he was on the phone with his first mom. I dialed the number for him. And when it came time to choosing a prom date, there was one girl he most wanted to spend it with. And they both look happy, don’t they?

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A Mother’s Day Wish

When your child turns 18, is he (or she) going to be able to connect with family members that have not been in his life for a long time? If you’ve already been through it, what advice would you give to those who are anticipating this milestone?

Life on the Road Less Traveled

So last night just as I was putting dinner on the table, Man Boy galloped through the kitchen, into the dining room, and sent a plastic package spiraling toward the table. “Happy Mother’s Day, Mom,” his voice trailed off as he galloped upstairs to the sanctuary of his room.

My annual white roses had arrived.

Now, I love getting flowers, and white roses are my particular favorite. (Mom got some pretty ones from my sister in New Hampshire, too!)

The thing is, this weekend is prom, and Chris is taking someone we haven’t seen since we moved here from Pennsylvania. When he turned 18 he was allowed to reconnect with his birth family, and so this seemed to him  like a good way to go. To be honest, I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. But it’s time to start letting go, and letting Boy Man turn into Manly Man. Make…

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Alone Again … at Lunch

Earlier this week at “Life on the Road Less Traveled,” I wrote about our recent drama concerning a child’s repeated requests to come home from school. Honestly, if I picked her up as often as she called home, she’d be out of school more than she was in.

Which would be just fine with her. For her teachers, and for us, not so much.

After some careful deduction, tracking the time of day these requests tend to arrive, it seems that lunchtime is particularly stressful for her. Like many schools in this area, Penn works on an alternate day schedule, and she has an extremely small circle of friends … so every other day she sits alone in the cafeteria. I can see why that would be upsetting. But I just don’t know what to do about it.

She won’t join a club, or choir. (Though she has a spectacular voice.) So it’s kind of tough to expand her social circle.

She refuses to go up and introduce herself to someone else sitting alone. (She thinks they will laugh at her. Which they might, but they might not.)

She doesn’t want to role play. “MOM! I’m not STUPID!” (Okay, then.)

She actually thinks she has a friend who has the same lunch, but the cafeteria is so big she is overwhelmed and can’t find her. (Penn has 2000 students, so it would be tough.)

Her teacher of record and I are trying to find a way to help her stay in school … yet I feel so bad for her, that this is such an anxiety producing situation that she feels physically sick at the prospect of eating lunch. When I was her age, I remember sitting by myself a lot … but I didn’t mind. I’d go to the library or some other favorite haunt with my book, and be happy. That’s not a solution for my daughter, though, who is “allergic” to books.

Social isolation can be one of the hardest parts of raising special needs kids, I think. We want them to feel happy, accepted, and safe … and yet so often the world feels like a big, scary place to them. We try to coach them from the sidelines … but ultimately what they need most is an understanding friend.

Lord, please send her an understanding friend. And have her stand behind Sarah in the lunch line, so she doesn’t have to go looking for her.

Amen? Amen.

Have you ever experienced this with your kids? What solutions have you found that worked for you?

 

When Mom Prays…

Do you ever wish someone would pray for you? Just another unexpected blessing of a multi-generational household.

A Woman’s Life in Shoes

Today over at “Life on the Road Less Traveled” … what do your shoes say about you? (If you or someone you love is a caregiver for someone with dementia, why not subscribe to “Life on the Road Less Traveled”. I’d love to see you there!

A Mommy Monster’s Heartache

Today over at WINE (Women in the New Evangelization), I share a bit about what it is like to raise children adopted very young through the teenage years.  In particular, what it is like to come face to face with a version of yourself you never knew existed. I call her “Mommy Monster.”

They were still little when I wrote a little study for the Women of Grace Ministry (Johnnette Benkovic). Originally I had titled the book Taming the Mommy Monster, but the publisher decided to go with something a bit more, ahem, uplifting: Raising Up Mommy: Virtues for Difficult Mothering Moments.

This book looks at the seven deadly sins through the lens of motherhood. Of course, I wrote it while I was in the early throes of motherhood — there is so much more I could say about it now, a decade later. But if you or your study group is looking for a quick little pick-me-up that will lead to some good old-fashioned motherly camaraderie, you might consider this!

Don’t worry about letting your “mommy monster” show. We all have them! That’s the beautiful thing about raising children, whether from the womb or from the heart. In the process, we find they are raising us up, too!

Gladys Aylward: A Heart for China

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Originally posted on Life on the Road Less Traveled:
Last week I had the chance to speak to a group of local women — and my mother, who had never heard me speak in public until then — about a…