Scariest thing this Halloween...

No internet service all.day.long! Eek! Pictures and further inconsequential ramblings coming soon...

Check out this month's Catholic Carnival!

You absolutely must visit KT Cat at The Scratching Post who hosts this month's carnival. I do believe it is a combination of two of my favorite things-cats and Catholicism. I wonder if KT is a fan of Cat Chat? Hmmm...Either way, the carnival presents interesting commentary (including one from yours truly) on the Catholic faith and The Scratching Post is a cleverly written stop for all blog readers.

Couple of Links

Michelle, at Dei Gratia, has been updating her blog with some of her families' Advent/Thanksgiving traditions. She has a bunch of great ideas you can check out, but be sure you don't miss the Blessing Box and the Blessing Mix. These are two super ideas that I've never heard of before.

Anyone have any other great suggestions for what your family does to celebrate Thanksgiving? (I'm going to re-ask the same question about Advent once I get our family traditions all sorted out in my mind, perhaps after Halloween is finished!)

Also, for those of you who live in the Chicagoland area, Dr. Ray Guarendi is coming to speak at our parish on November 12th at 7pm. There is no cost for the event, but a free will offering will be collected. He is a psychologist specializing in family/children and has a wonderful "no-nonsense" approach to problem solving. He is also the father of 10 adopted children, many of whom have special needs. You can hear some of his wisdom here and read more about him here.

Dance Practice

With Halloween only two days away, it's crunch time for costume design. We're really in pretty good shape considering past Halloweens.

I won't even mention the year a certain child, who insisted he wanted to be a football player until 10:07 am on October 31st; which led to a last minute run to the mall for a dinosaur costume (size small) on clearance for $4.99. Lucky for him, he was our only child at the time.

I also won't mention the year another child, who needed a specific princess costume (lovingly provided by Grandma and Grandpa for the lone granddaughter of the day), refused to set one single sparkly pink slipper out the front door on Halloween night.

This year, everyone has a costume. Everyone *appears* to be on board with going out for trick-or-treating. And, with six kids to disguise, any last minute costume changes will involve a sheet, scissors and a diagram of Charlie Brown's first costume. There's only one last detail. It involves The Boy, moon boots, a curly wig, wire-rimmed reading glasses and the learning of this dance:

Any interesting Halloween costumes out there?

Perfect Gift

On this day, last year, I was on pins and needles for news about our Embassy date and travel plans to Ethiopia to add two new blessings to our family. There wasn't a better gift out there and God knew it. (Not even at Talbots!) This year, I waited again for news. But the waiting was different.

Today, the one who gave me my first birthday gift-the gift of life, received news that all her biopsy testing had come back normal! Thank you, God for another year and another perfect gift.

Accidental Adoption

Not surprisingly, we've witnessed some bewildered people and heard some jaw-dropping things as we've shared our decision (Really, we had to do it...The neighbor's dog was very clear when he said we had to...) to adopt again and add to our six-pack.

One that made me chuckle to myself was, "Did you mean for this to happen?" I shared it with my husband (ever the quick-witted) who retorted, "No, our adoption birth control didn't work and now we're stuck."

Just a warning for those of you not practicing safe adoption.

Read on to find out just how it happens...

Have you ever noticed that you hear all the time about "accidental" pregnancies, but never about couples who experience "accidental" adoptions?

Can you imagine:

Honey, sit down. I have some news for you.

What is it?

Well, I don't know how to say this, so I'll just come out with it. I went out to the mailbox today and ... well, we got an I-171H.

A what?!? An I-171H? As in, we're going to have a(nother) baby?!?

It looks that way.

But how? We've been so careful! I put away all the blank I-600A forms. Didn't you hide our homestudy update?

Of course I did. But don't forget, there was that one night...

What night? (pauses) Ohhh, that night. But it was only once. We were just messing around. I didn't print clearly. I didn't even use ink! (pauses again) But it was kind of fun.

(giggles)

It was, wasn't it? I'll never forget how cute you looked getting your fingerprints.

So now we've got our I-171H, eh? But that doesn't always mean you'll adopt, does it? I mean, shouldn't you see the agency or something, make sure everything's okay?

I already did.

And?

I'm five documents along.

Five documents! And they're all notarized, certified and
authenticated okay?

Just great. There was one small scare when the agency couldn't see the Notary's middle initial, but it showed up just fine under the magnifying glass.

Thank God. And you, honey? Are you feeling okay?

I'm feeling fine. As long as I know you're happy about this.

Happy? I'm thrilled! It's always a shock at first when something like this happens, but of course I'm happy.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Weekend Outlook

The outlook for this weekend calls for a girls-only Halloween party with a smattering of pumpkin picking and carving. This will be followed by a choir appearance early Sunday morning wrapped up with a good ol' fashioned church breakfast. In between, we're predicting lots of laughter, cooking and consuming of fall goodies, and late night chats with our out of town guest!

Blogging is expected to be light throughout. Have a great weekend!

Prayers needed

We received a phone call yesterday that an individual at The Boy's school has contracted the MRSA or "superbug" that has been plaguing schools across the country. Please pray for complete healing for this individual and for the health and safety of the others in the school.

Tend your sick ones, O Lord Christ.
Rest your weary ones.
Bless your dying ones.
Soothe your suffering ones.
Pity your afflicted ones.
Shield your joyous ones.
And for all your love's sake. Amen.

Saint Augustine

Details

After a hectic past few days, I finally find myself alone at the computer for a few moments to share the details of our latest adoption plans--or at least the details known to us right now, which at this point are fairly scarce. But anyway, here goes...

First, many of you know that our two adopted children came home from the beautiful country of Ethiopia almost a year ago! We had talked about adopting again and were already dreaming up fantasy scenes where we (we-meaning the Captain with a few older kids as co-pilots) would return to Ethiopia, bring our 9 year old Ethiopian daughter back to her homeland, soak up the smell of roasting coffee beans, eat lots of injera and wat, and linger for a few days in a place where the daily, the mundane elicit God's awesome presence. Just as our fantasy began to catch up with the reality of starting an application, we were dealt a devastating blow. Some of you may remember me mourning our loss of an opportunity to return to Ethiopia to adopt again.

As noted, I had emailed our agency director to receive information about beginning another adoption. And as noted, the same stinking day the news broke on the Ethiopian government limiting the number of children living in a prospective adoptive family's home.

What was not noted, (perhaps due to a tendency to guard my hand-and heart- closely in all matters of a family nature) was the response we received. We would be allowed to get in under the wire and be placed "on the list". We would simply get our initial application underway quickly and once that was complete we could move at our own pace with the rest of the process. What wonderful news!

So, we waited for our application...and waited...and re-requested it...and waited...and re-requested it again...and waited some more. Finally, it was mid-summer and nothing had appeared. We began to think that perhaps, as is often the case, God had different plans for us. Feeling that whatever happened, God knew knows who our child(ren) will be and we would trust Him on this one. Father knows best, if you will. So, we requested information on a different country again mentioning that we had still not received an application. We waited...and (I'm not kidding) nothing-nada-zip-zilch-zero. Perhaps we thought, another adoption is not in our plans right now, perhaps never. We decided to let it rest.

As you know, however, when God puts something on your heart it never really is put to rest until you have His peace about it. So, around the beginning of September, I began informally polling families whom I knew were in the process to adopt again. Did THEY get an application, I wondered? Or was there some kind of secret gumdrop pass that the second-timers got to use that I was unaware of? The answer was very clear-we needed an application and we needed it quickly. So in late September/early October, I gathered our winding trail of email correspondence and resent it--all of it--to our agency director asking, for the sake of our sanity, if we were or were NOT "on the list" and if so, did we need an application?

She quickly responded and asked, "Do you meant to tell me that you have NEVER gotten the application?" Even more quickly, I responded, "Yes!" She was so extremely gracious (just one of the many reasons we are with the same agency again) and within 24 hours we had our application-as well as three follow-up emails ensuring that it had arrived.

To date, for those who like a checklist: our homestudy has been re-done. Our application has been accepted. Our adoption processing contract arrived a few days ago. Shortly, our dossier paperwork will arrive and we'll begin that process again. And as for a referral or specifics about our newest ark member(s)-well, we've left a lot of those lines blank and will wait for God to fill them in for us. Although, sometime next year, that fantasy trip back to Addis looks like it will become a reality.

Many times, during the past six months, it would have been easy to become discouraged, to doubt, to fear or to question our calling. But our last adoption taught me something. This process has little to do with having all our paperwork ready, fingerprints checked or papers notarized, racing to a deadline we think we should make. It has everything to do, however, with simply being where God needs us when He calls us to act.

Do you have any plans?

Ever the inveterate planner, I was trumped by my four year old the other day in the car.

It could have been the fact that it was 7:30 AM and there were six wide awake children in the car I was auto-piloting to school, or it could be that I have given birth to someone who has already "out-planned" me.

CB had been sitting in the back talking with N about playing dentist after the big kids were all at school. (While she has a healthy, okay-perhaps slightly unhealthy, fear of dentists and doctors; she LOVES to pretend to be those very same things.) Overhearing her, The Boy decided to get into the conversation and perhaps antagonize the pre-schooler a little bit.

The Boy (to CB): Hey, CB, are you going to play dentist later?

CB: Yes.

The Boy: Maybe you'll even BE a dentist when you grow up?

CB: No!

The Boy: No?! Well, why not?

CB: Because, she announced decisively, I have other plans!

Jury's still out on this one

The other night The Boy alerted me to a program on TLC featuring a large family. He suggested that I might like it and since he hadn't watched the whole show, he presumed that perhaps some (or all) of the children were adopted.

Well, as the Captain and I (okay, so the main flipper was not so much me) flipped back and forth between sports telecasts (see, I told you I didn't have the remote...) we happened upon the show.

I'd tell you the name, but you'll just have to click on the link-because truth be told, the mother frightens me a little and I'm not sure I want to be one of her google search results.


Needless to say, I only meant to watch for a few minutes to learn more about the family but a combination of disgust, disbelief and the occasional moments of great compassion, I watched the whole entire show. And I'm still not sure what the point of it is.

It is not about an adoptive family.

It is not about the joys and sorrows of fertility drugs and multiple births.

It is also not an ode to the joys and sorrows of life with a large family (or a family of any size for that matter.)

Honestly, I'm not sure what it is about. There were moments when it seemed as though perhaps a demo tape for the Supernanny show had accidentally been aired. There were other moments when I was waiting for the camera to flashback to Oprah or Dr. Phil and their live studio audiences waiting to help this couple work out their issues on national TV. Perhaps it was a contest to see if any person in real life could possibly be more OCD than Adrian Monk (This mother of 8 children 6 and under washes her kitchen floor-on her hands and knees-three times a day.)

Their life is not for my judgement, (although I guess I've already done that, huh?), but it is just one more program under the guise of reality television that allows/requires/eggs on people to act in ways that show them at their worst, while most of the good gets left on the editing room floor. I am fairly certain that raising 8 kids is no walk in the park. I can be 100 percent sure that raising 6 is hard; and that try as we might, the Captain and I and our Ark crew get things wrong just as often as we get them right, which is why you have not and will not see us on the next big reality show. But I can assuredly say that we have more good times than bad, more happiness than sadness, and more love than we deserve on most days. And if I'm not mistaken, and we dug around on the cutting room floor, I bet we'd find that their family does too.

So, what's your take? Has anyone else seen this show? Or am I tuning into something that's now playing in repeats on Nick at Nite...

Seriously?

This message comes from our parish's youth minister via fellow parents at our school:

"I was just informed that the Beacon news could not find any parents who would be against allowing their child to have an abortion without their knowledge. If you have 5 minutes today, please call the Beacon News at 630-844-5845 and ask for Andre Salles to voice your opposition to concealing abortions from the parents of underage children."

I thought this was worth passing on to concerned parents (both native to Aurora and elsewhere) who would be opposed to a no-consent abortion for their daughter. I'm sure there are one or two of us out there...

Hey mom, are you looking for something?

I know it is a fear of many moms that in their heroic efforts at mothering they will lose themselves, the woman who they were, (as Claire Huxtable said) "before the children". I would suggest that in our journey as women who are also mothers that we haven't lost ourselves, but merely undergoing a metamorphosis into the fullness of the woman God has called us to be. Perhaps different from the woman we once were, in thoughts or actions or dress size (ahem); no less of the woman we once knew-but more of her. And no, this is not a reference to aforementioned dress size.

American Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, has a beautiful reflection on this thought:

Ultimately, the only way I can be myself is to become identified with Him in whom is hidden the reason and fulfillment of my existence.
Therefore, there is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace and my happiness depend; to discover myself in discovering God. If I find Him, I will find myself and if I find my true self, I will find Him.

Where in the world have the ark readers (and writer) gone?

You can check my other post about where I've been, but if you're wondering about the Cluster Maps widget in the sidebar; my email tells me that one year is up and the previous year's readers have had their little red dots safely tucked away in a cozy archive somewhere in cyberspace.

So very, very tired

Is it just me or is there a pseudo-first-trimester-esque exhaustion that accompanies the start of a new adoption?

Based on the last few days on the Ark, I'd have to say, emphatically, YES.

Worth the read

"Pre-natal tests target children like Lucy and doctors apologize when
children like Lucy are born. Lucy is a child the world would choose not to
have. Foolish, foolish world.

She will never do all the things that typical kids do. That's what the
experts say. What they fail to mention is all that she will do..."

Head over to The Vietnamese Ladybug to read the rest of this touching story and then when you're finished, keep the tissues handy and head over to hear Becky's heartfelt words about her special boy.

H/T to Jena for sharing this one. And to Becky for writing such a beautiful response.

Jimmy Doesn't Like It

This old Seinfeld episode is the first thing that pops into my head each time CB uses the third person to talk about herself.



Would it be too much to hope that any future references on the Ark NOT involve her pinky toe, low talkers, the Soup Nazi or Farbman furnishings.

Pumpkin Picking Pilgrimage

The two littlest ones and I traveled with CB for her first ever school field trip.






For those of you in the Chicagoland area, here is the link to the pumpkin patch. Just a little of my opinion inserted here, however, there were quite a few more scary than cute things at this farm. I think the attempt was made to appeal to a wide age-group, but I'm not sure there was ANY target audience who would have appreciated everything here. Check it out yourself on their website.

You can't fence out truth

but apparently Dominick's grocery, along with their sneakiest new neighbor wish to believe that it can. Read more about this here.

And since we're talking about businesses...I just have to add this link from Praying for Grace.

Did you all know about this? I had NO idea, but I'm just sickened by it.

***UPDATE***
Here is the quote from LDI:

The Boycott List (see above) includes a section called Dishonorable Mention, which lists seemingly innocuous nonprofit organizations that are involved with Planned Parenthood or otherwise active in the Culture of Death. Among the groups included are Outward Bound West, American Automobile Association (AAA), Kaiser Permanente, American Cancer Society, Dr. Phil Foundation, American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), Camp Fire, Girl Scouts, Kiwanis Club, Rotary International, March of Dimes, Lions Club, Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, American Diabetes Association, and the Young Womens Christian Association (YWCA). Involvement ranges from donating funds to pro-abortion groups (or allowing affiliates to do so), supporting anti-life causes, allowing pro-abortion groups access to membership, adopting an official pro-abortion policy position, and so forth.

Prayers for World Peace



The ladies over at View from the Pews have started an initiative to encourage prayers for peace in our world. To get involved, simply commit to a prayer once a week (any day will do) on your blog. As the Boy was studying this prayer last night, here's our prayer for peace from the Ark:

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
-St. Francis of Assisi