family tree

I love to start projects, or plan projects. I have Pinterest boards that would make you cry they are so beautiful, and so many saved magazines it makes Karl a little crazy. I can SEE it all in my  head, but somehow I often seem to lose momentum before I get to the finished part. Maybe it's the whole little-guys-not-giving-me-much-time-to-sit thing. But this week I did finish a fun little embroidery project I started a year or so ago. I'm giving myself a little grace with this one since we have been living in four different homes since I started it, and the majority of the time it was in a box in transit somewhere between here and Jordan.

I saw this on Etsy (which is an entirely too dangerous site for me!) designed by Liz of the lovely shop cozyblue and loved it, especially being able to add on new "leaves" as our family hopefully expands over the years. There's something about family trees that I just love, and this one was so unique and creative. It's a fun addition to the artwork in our bedroom.

 

Tribute to a mother

Motherhood is a marathon. Not a new idea, I know - and I'm only on about mile 3, with my preschooler and toddler and still focused on the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other challenges of diaper changes, potty training, wiping noses and bottoms and faces and hands, reading books (over and over and over again) and doing battle daily with naptimes and bedtimes. But every so often I see or read or hear something that reminds me of the bigger picture: where it is we're going. The goal, eventually, for my two guys to become men; men who love God, who are kind and courageous and brave, who run fearlessly themselves in the race they have been set before. And I realize how humbling and awesome and terrifying and crucial this role of Mother is in shaping them on that journey.

If you haven't seen Stephen Colbert's tribute to his late mother Lorna yet, watch with tissues in hand. The powerful forging of a mother's love and laughter is clear in all the words he says, and what he doesn't say. I don't know right now what my boys would say about me in eulogy. God willing, they won't need to think about that themselves for many, many years. But I know what it is to pay tribute to a mother after she's gone, and to think daily about the impact she continues to have on my life.

As my feet hit the ground, one after another, with my eyes fixed on a horizon that seems so very distant right now, the prayer that has become a pulse, a rhythm, for me is just this - may I be a mother like my mother was. May my boys one day remember me like this.

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freedom and security

Happy Memorial Day.  Probably because I come from a military family (myself, my husband, my brother, my sister, my dad, my mom, several uncles, both grandfathers...), this holiday has always meant much more to me than just cookouts and concerts and a day off work.  It's a time to remember those who have fought and sacrificed to win and protect our nation's freedom - especially those who paid the ultimate price.  So I try to take some time every Memorial Day to say a prayer for those who are serving in uniform, and for the families of those who won't make it home.  Freedom is so valuable, and so costly.

Cashel's been getting a little taste of freedom this last week, as he's started to crawl (!).  Maybe I should say he's started to scoot... it's more grabbing the floor and pulling with his fingers while he pushes with his toes, powered by a heavy dose of pure stubbornness.  But he does get where he wants to go, and he's getting pretty darn fast.  As I've watched him and encouraged him, I've noticed a couple things: first, that my floors need to be swept much more often/thoroughly than I've apparently been doing, and second, that my baby needs to balance this little taste of freedom with a healthy serving of security.  He loves to be on his tummy, scooting around and chasing after his toys, but every few minutes he looks around to find me in the room and orient himself, and every ten minutes or so he makes his way over to wherever I am to grab my foot and ask to be picked up.  He usually doesn't want to stay long; he just wants a hug and to know that I'm right there if he needs me.  He's just touching base.  Making sure I'm still within reach.  And when he gets tired or scared or hurt, he wants to know that I'll come rescue him.  As long as he can see me, he's a pretty happy kiddo; chattering away and exploring everything he can get his hands on. 

Being a parent has taught me more about God and His relationship with us than I ever understood before.  Concepts I might have gotten in my head before are now firmly rooted in my heart.  The idea that He loves us more than we can comprehend, no matter what we do?  I just have to think about that sweet little boy to understand that.  Knowing that when I cry out, when I'm hurting or scared or tired, He's there to comfort me?  I have a much better picture of that now.  The idea that even though we have the freedom to go off on our own, do our own thing, it's always better to keep a connection to Him and "touch base" throughout the day?  Okay.  Got that one too.

Freedom is always linked to security - for our nation, we only have the one because we maintain the other.  For Cashel, he only feels comfortable enough to explore this new freedom when he also feels safe and connected to me or Karl.  And in our relationship with God, it's only in the security of His love and the sureness of His rescue that we have the freedom to be able to really live.

Today I'm thankful for the men and women who sacrificed their lives to protect my freedom.  And for this scooting, squirming little baby who preaches me a sermon every day.  May God make me worthy of both.

       

defining normal

A few weeks ago, we took Cashel to the Eastern Market area in DC.  It's such a great place with an indoors, more permanent farmers' market feel to it, and one of our favorite spots is a lunch counter in one corner called, appropriately, "Market Lunch."  You wait in line (usually pretty long) until you get to the counter, give the guy your order and he shouts it to the cooks diner-style.  Then you have to wait until you actually get the food in-hand to claim a seat at the long counter.  We happened to be there at lunchtime, and had been walking around a bit with C in his front carrier.  He loves shopping that way - I think it makes him feel safe and secure, like I'm holding him, but at the same time lets him look out at everything and take it all in.  He did great the whole time standing in line, but when we gave our order and the guy turned and yelled it back loudly, Cashel jumped, looked up at Karl, and burst into tears.  I realized that I don't think he's ever heard yelling like that before - neither Karl nor I are yellers, and he's just not been around that.  It scared him!  In his world, grown-ups might talk, or sing, or make funny animal noises, or laugh - but no one yells.  (At least, no one over the age of one.) 

It hit me that I have the enormous responsibility of defining what "normal" is for Cashel and any other children we may have.  As he grows, it will be the rhythms and routines and traditions and actions and words he encounters regularly in our home that shape his world, and that impact who he is and what kind of man he becomes.  Will "dinner" mean sitting down together as a family, eating something I've cooked and talking about our day?  Or will it more often mean grabbing something quickly, with the TV on?  Will the words he hears around him and to him every day be kind, hopeful and loving, or critical, negative and hurtful?  Will he have more memories of us reading together, or running around outside, or of playing video games?  Some friends of ours recently adopted a little girl from eastern Europe.  She has had no boundaries at all in her young life, and had periods of time where no one really cared about her at all.  Our friends are faced with the challenge now of redefining all those previous memories and habits and behaviors, and giving her a new "normal."  God is good, and is already working great things in her life, but how much better would it have been if she had started with such loving structure from the beginning?      

I'm trying to be very deliberate now about what the "normal" I define for Cashel looks like on a daily basis.  I know he's only seven months old, and he won't remember any of this later, but I watch him taking it all in every day, and I know he's starting to build those ideas and thoughts about this world of ours.  Someday he'll come smack up against the harshness, the dirtiness and sinfulness and meanness that's out there, but for now, I want to make sure that his "normal" is full of lots of hugs and kisses and cuddles and giggles, safety and warmth, prayer time and Bible stories every night, singing silly songs in the car, coming with me to take a meal to friends with a new child or helping him learn how to be gentle and kind to other kids.  I want his "normal" to look nothing like the "normal" that the world accepts.  I want him to live a life that's extraordinary in its compassion, kindness, and integrity - and I want him to see it as being absolutely, unremarkably normal.  

breathe

I've been meaning to start posting again for... oh, about a year now, but it seemed every time I'd think about it the list of things to update and write about had grown longer. But since most readers would probably be the same people who keep updated on Facebook, there's probably not a need to do a huge explanation. Here's the whirlwind rundown of what's happened in my life since Nov 2008 (has it really been THAT long?? Wow - I'm embarrassed.):

*Jan 2009 - Karl and I started the process to become foster parents, looking at eventual adoption as a possible way to expand our family. We joined a new church with a heart for adoption and immediately felt at home, and started making some great friends. Then... I'd been feeling especially tired and a little, well, strange. Just to rule it out, took a pregnancy test - surprise!! We were thrilled beyond words to have those years of prayers answered. We decided adoption would wait, but that it was definitely in our plans for the future.

*Summer 2009 - I LOVED being pregnant. I felt great, better than I had in years. It all felt so right, somehow, like everything physically was exactly as it should be. Sharing my days with this little person, feeling kicks and movement and reading every week about how big the baby was and what was happening developmentally... it was a magical time.

 *Late summer - My mom's cancer gets worse. She doesn't ever give up hope or lose heart, and continues to try all the treatment options out there. I decided to head to Colorado to visit before it's too late in the pregnancy to fly. It's such a sweet time with her, and she loves feeling the baby kicking. Two days after I got home from the visit, I got a call - they're putting my mom on hospice at home, and she's not expected to last too long. My sweet husband suggested that we have the baby in Colorado so that I can be with my mom, so with three weeks to go to our due date I pack up, kiss Karl goodbye and fly across the country. My dear friend Gayleen helped me find and get an appointment with a great midwife, we got everything worked out with insurance and the new hospital, and I was able to spend my time with my mother, praying, singing songs, telling stories, laughing, crying, making her comfortable, telling her we love her.

*2 Sept 2009 - My sweet, wonderful mother is finally freed from the pain of her cancer and got to go home to be with Jesus. She was at home, surrounded by family and those who love her.

*22 Sept 2009 - I go into labor, a week past my due date.

*24 Sept 2009 - After 30 hours of labor, Cashel Joseph is born - he has a head full of dark brown hair and blue eyes, and weighs 8 lbs 14 oz. We fall immediately head over heels in love with him. He gives us a little scare when he isn't breathing well at first, so after a few seconds on my chest they rushed him off to the NICU with Karl close behind. Twelve hours, several chest x-rays, an IV and many prayers later, he's released back to us, a perfectly healthy baby.  (You can see the little splint on his right hand for the IV tubes in the first picture - it makes me so sad!  He was such a trooper about everything.)

The past few months have been a mixture of grief and joy, tears and laughter, happiness and pain. The wonder of a new life, following so soon on the heels of a dear life ending. Cashel keeps me firmly planted in the present, and makes sure that I give thanks for each new day. He is a joy and a gift. I feel like I've been changed in some elemental, indefinable ways this past year, and I'm still learning who this new Kristin is. I'm learning to be a mother without my mom, best friend and confidante, but with this precious, sweet little boy who loves to grab my neck for a hug and giggle when I tickle him or make a funny face. I have so many memories of exactly the kind of mother I want to be.

I'm hoping to post more often, both as a way of keeping family and friends updated on what's going on with Cashel and as a way for me to process things - I always think better on paper. So. Here we are... it's a wild ride.

They are the future

This is beautiful.

Ponderings

"When we lack proper time for the simple pleasures of life, for the enjoyment of
eating, drinking, playing, creating, visiting friends, and watching children at
play, then we have missed the purpose of life. Not on bread alone do we live,
but on all these human and heart-hungry luxuries." - Ed Hayes

I like this quote. I've been thinking a lot lately about priorities, where my time goes, and what really matters, and I've come to exactly the same conclusions as Mr. Hayes. It's so easy to get caught up in schedules and goals and projects... or even lose track of the days in laundry and errands and watching TV. "Heart-hungry" is exactly what I feel right now - hungry for dear friends to sit and talk with, hungry for more of a connection to the passing of the seasons than I feel now in my city apartment, hungry for children.

Growing up as an Army brat I've gotten used to moving every few years, and there are many things about that lifestyle I love, like the chance to rearrange furniture and the necessity of regularly purging things you don't want to pack. But the best part was exploring a new place with my family - my brother, Peter, especially was my comrade , and our family ambassador to all the neighbors. (He used to walk house to house to knock on doors and introduce himself, "Hi, my name is Peter and I'm five years old. I just moved into that house over there. Do you have any kids here to play with?" and report back to me where likely playmates lived. My parents were usually known as "Peter's parents" for several weeks before they made their own inroads.) No matter how uncertain the changes were, or how unfamiliar the community, we always had each other. My parents were great about making family the top priority for us, and it affected how I handled each move.

In the Air Force myself, I moved alone - and that was harder. Each new location meant starting completely over again to develop some kind of support network or social group. It helped that I could get involved with a local Bible study, but I still usually had about six months where I ached for someone who really knew me, and loved me. Karl and I lived in separate states for nearly all of our courtship and engagement, and the first four months of our marriage, so he wasn't there to make the moves any easier then. What did help was regular trips home to Colorado, where I could be with family and people who did love me. I went home whenever I could schedule the vacation time.

Married life has given me a best friend to move with, an immediate partner to go to the movies, or out to dinner, or just exploring. Karl is wonderful for this, and I am so glad we were best friends before we fell in love. And being on the east coast has also meant that we're only a couple hours from Karl's family. That's been really wonderful - to be able to drive up to Pennsylvania for the weekend to see his brother, Eric, and his wife Meala, or his mom. We were there when our niece Macey was born last month, and are excited about being able to be close to her as she grows. But as close as we are now to my in-laws, we're farther than I've ever been from my family. And now there's a pull in another direction for holidays or vacations.

I'm not sure yet how I bring back more of a sense of balance to my life... but I know I need to find out. I'm heart-hungry for balance, for those "simple pleasures," for renewed creativity, for a sense of peace and contentment.

"Not on bread alone..." Maybe I'll start in where that phrase began.

journey

In three days, my mom and I will be hitting the road for a long-awaited adventure together. We'd originally planned to go to England - a place she's never been and always wanted to visit, but with the flooding there and her doctors' concerns about the long plane ride and her being so far away, we decided to make it New England instead. Neither of us have ever spent much time in that part of the country, and the beginnings of autumn seem the perfect time to go (I'm hoping for some of that famous color). We're leaving Thursday to fly into Portland, Maine, then renting a car and driving around through Maine, New Hampshire, and down into Massachusetts, spending a few days in Boston before taking the train back to D.C next Friday. We're planning to go hiking, eat good food, explore the coastline and countryside, shop (or at least window shop), maybe see a show, take lots of pictures and talk even more.

My mom has been my best friend my whole life. Even in the midst of teenage angst and drama, she was my sounding board, my touch stone, and my confidante. I'm not sure if it's because I'm the oldest (and therefore the closest thing to adult companionship she had while at home with all of us), or if it's because her own mom lost her battle with breast cancer when Mom was 16, or if it's just how well our personalities seem to mesh and compliment each other, but our relationship has always been something special. In high school, she became a speech and debate judge when I was competing, so we'd travel together to and from meets all across the state - it got to the point where the entire team called her "Mom" and looked for her encouragement and support, but I was the one who would quietly make my way up to her seat at the front of the bus on the way home to lean my head on her shoulder and talk about the day. When our interest in sign language and interpreting grew, she and I decided to begin an associate's degree program in interpreter preparation at the local community college, attending evening classes during my senior year of high school and then moving to full-time the next year. The rest of the students in the class nick-named us "twin" (me) and "twin-mom" (her) because of how much we were together. The hardest thing for me about growing up and flying away from home has been being far away from her. Especially now.

For the last three years, my mother has been battling ovarian cancer. She's just completing her second round of chemotherapy (after a period of remission) and the doctors are optimistic about "controlling" it for the near future - but there's an aspect of uncertainty about the future in these post-diagnosis days that may have always been there, but is now undeniable, constant, forceful. It's such a strange thing... even when I'm not consciously thinking about the disease, or what's happening, or what may lie ahead, it's still there somehow in the back of my thoughts. This shouldn't have been such a drastic change for me - really, we never know what the future has for us, what God has planned, how things will work out or when or why - all we can do is hold on to Him and believe in His love. But nothing had smashed into my world before this to make me so aware of that. The blessing this cancer has given me is a consciousness about what is valuable and precious, and a sense of gratitude for every day we have. It's forced me to trust God more, to hold on even tighter to those promises. And it's shown me just how dear my mother is to me.

These next two weeks are about making memories, about talking and sharing and spending time with each other. About affirmation and love, family and friendship. And about hope.

visitors!

Karl's gearing up for Girl OVERLOAD this weekend: my youngest sister Susan and her best friend Nicole (and hence my adopted sister) are stopping here for a few days on their Great Road Trip of 2007 journey - we hope. They're driving down from New Hampshire today in Nicole's old boat of a car, and are at a garage waiting on repairs at the moment in some town in Connecticut. Hopefully it'll be fixed soon, but knowing these two it's all part of the Adventure of it all.

Susan and Nicole are both very vivacious, outgoing, talkative girls on their own, but put them together and you get that peppy, frenetic, joyful conversation multiplied, with LOTS of exclamation marks. It can be overwhelming for the uninitiated, but I think it's great to have them around. Sue is the kind of girl who makes friends as easily as most people breathe in and out, and seems to effortlessly make everyone around her feel like they're involved in some great adventure. She was Homecoming Queen and on Student Council in high school, has about a million friends on Facebook and MySpace, and is absolutely beautiful. Nicole is her blonde twin, and together they're a riot. They spent three months together this spring in Uganda working in an orphanage, and I can't wait to hear the stories.

Karl's thrilled to see them too, although the big drawback about female guests for him is that he can't walk around in his boxer shorts for a few days. He also has to expend more energy convincing me that no, we don't need to clean all the grout with a toothbrush just because someone besides the two of us will be in the apartment (I get a little crazy about cleaning for company). We've got plans to go walk around the monuments and memorials, eat Ethiopian food in honor of Susan's birthday (twenty!) and take lots of pictures.

The one thing I miss more than any other living on the east coast is how far away from my family I am - I can't wait to see these two.