Women of Planks

This is one that's been rolling around in my head for quite some time now.

I've noticed that online, in print, and on social media outlets people have lost all decorum and sense of self-control. They no longer think about who they hurt with their words and instead just go all-out vigilante on whoever they think is doing wrong in the world at the moment.

The one that really got to me recently was a series of posts by a friend who is a pro-life activist in her area.

Now, before you start heading for the "x" button to get the heck out of this blog post ASAP... hear me out.

I'm pro-adoption, pro-babies, pro-mommies, pro-people.
I'm pro-making good choices and I'm pro-marriage. I'm pro-waiting. I'm pro-choosing what's best for another even if it hurts you personally. I'm pro-loving people who don't think like me. I'm pro-Jesus and I think he's anti-hate.

When I scrolled through some pictures from a church event at a pro-life rally recently I noticed SO much hate. So much looking-down-our-noses at those who would/are/did choose abortion. I saw fear and hate and guilt and disgust and pride and ickyness. I saw the clear absence of Jesus. I saw name-calling and condescending terminology. I saw Christians acting like Pharisees. I saw Godly women with plank-filled eyeballs calling out others' sins in disgust. I wanted to puke. Then sob in a corner.
Because, people... this is NOT what Jesus would do. I've yet to find one reference in scripture to Jesus blasting someone's sins with hate mail or wearing an outer-garment emblazoned with "babies>murder". I've yet to find him not reaching down to touch the hand of the broken, healing the wounded, and comforting the mourning soul. I've yet to find him preaching via sign-on-a-stick.

The pro-lifer's call it "going to march at the abortuary" or "murder office"... pro-choicer's call the pro-lifers "forced birthers" and say they "seethe with hatred and disgust while preaching about God's laws".

Am I saying don't be active with causes you feel strongly about? Absolutely not.
What I AM saying...

Choose life, yes. But choose LOVE in how you speak.
Choose to help, not to hurt.
Choose to support, not to shame.
Choose to love, not to hate.
Choose to empower, not to fear.
Speak kindness and love and compassion over those who are fearful.
Speak kindness and love and compassion over those who are ashamed.
Speak kindness and love and compassion over those who feel stuck.

And put down your freaking signs.
They are disgusting.

If you MUST carry a sign, carry a sign that simply says "Please, don't."
Carry a sign that says "I'll help."
Carry a sign that says "Signs hurt, Jesus heals."
And then carry plentiful hugs, smiles, compassion and tears.
Consider their sins no worse than your own.
Consider if this was your daughter, or sister, or neighbor or best friend.
Consider your greatest failures on display for all to see... then trying to hide from the fear and shame...
but instead you are doubly shamed by those who were commissioned to love you.

Shame on us for ever looking down on another in disgust.
Shame on us for using our "christianity" to bring condemnation on another.

*EDITED TO SAY**
Thank you sweet friends who are concerned about my stance on abortion. I'm pro-life, but pro-ALL-life. I think that with as much passion as we have for the unborn, we should love the already-born. I think pro-lifers should be pro-adoption. They should be pro-teen mothers and pro-incarcerated mothers and pro-homeless mothers. We should love others the way we've been loved. And if love is the ultimate way we can BE Jesus... we should love that way and I don't think that way includes being hateful. Yes, pray. Yes, discussions in love. Yes, march on Washington. NO hateful, shameful, angry signs written to the women visiting the clinic.
I hope that clears up my position. :)

20 things I've learned

I realize it's been awhile since I've blogged anything.
It's not for lack of activity... I just feel like anything I have to say goes like this:
"Hi there! Well... things are busy... mostly good... it's winter... I'm tired of cold...the end."

So... I decided instead of 2 months of posts like THAT, I'd share with you some things I've learned over the past many weeks of radio silence.

I present to you: "
20 Things Chrissy has learned and feels the need to pass on to you, unsuspecting blog readers!"

1. The 6' tall shelf in the pantry is no match for a 4 year old in footsie pajamas who REALLY wants Girl Scout Thin Mints at 5:45am.

2. A 4 year old who is startled at 5:45am while eating stolen cookies will not drop the bag of cookies, but will drool chocolate while formulating an excuse.

3. The inner cardboard tube does not go down the toilet. Ever. Just put on gloves and pull it out. Long gloves.

4. You don't want to know what the sticky thing is on your sock. Just pull them off and throw into the washing machine.

5. Birthday cake for breakfast is totally acceptable. Just do it. It's no worse than donuts or Cap'n Crunch - no offense, Cap'n.

6. There is no vacuum in the world that is a match for 12 kids and a Great Pyrenees. A shop vac with an extension cord is your friend.

7. Noise cancelling headphones are also your friend.

8. Drink lots of water. Migraine-free for 15 days on 80oz a day! Woot!

9. If you spend 2 hours making homemade soft pretzels 5 of your children will think they are toxic. Actually 7 will... but two will see the reaction the 5 caused and decide to quietly choke it down anyway.

10. The amount of time spent doing a new hairstyle is directly proportionate to the difficulty your daughters will have locating their elusive sleep hats. You will threaten to wrap their heads in underwear. Take deep breaths.

11. 2100 square feet is not quite enough for 14 people and a giant dog. Well, the people can fit... it's all of their stuff. Not my stuff. My stuff is awesome.

12. If you plan to relax with a cup of hot something and read a book for an hour during nap time it WILL be the day your children act as though your quesadillas contained ephedrine.

13. Chalkboard paint + red sidewalk chalk = no bueno (in keeping with the quesadilla theme). Let's all ban together to outlaw Red Dye #40. And all other red dye too. I hear you can use beet dye to make Red Velvet cake. If this is true, I'm starting that petition.

14. The Care Bear Stare does not work on a sink full of dishes. It's not moving. Stubborn.

15. A coughing child is pitiful. Two coughing children grate on your nerves. 4-6 coughing children drive you to noise-cancelling headphones and googling "world's strongest cough suppressant" even though three of your kids are allergic to dextromethorphan. Yes, I spelled that without looking it up. (and just so you know... the general consensus is that the world's strongest stuff tastes like "melting down a Vicks mentholated cough drop, steeping a bunch of pine needles in it and then sprinkling in some ground-up moth balls for seasoning." I'm totally getting some.)

16. Your straight-A earning, honor-roll making, AP class taking daughter who has missed 13 days of school without getting a doctor's note will not be granted any special exceptions to the "over 10 absences" rule and will have unexcused absences listed. You will not care because she's a straight-A earning, honor-roll making, AP class taking sweetheart of a girl who was legitimately sick but didn't go to the doctor because who wants to pay $40 to hear "rest and fluids... it's a virus"? Certainly not you. Or me.

17. As much as you don't like to play the "give me a freaking break. I have 12 kids." card, the day you email the wrong info to the wrong person about the wrong children, then send in the wrong field trip permission trip form with the wrong kid, then forget a doctor's appointment and realize you never made a follow-up ortho appointment... you can play that card and play it you shall. Get a t-shirt made. Order business cards. Or make them yourself out of empty toilet paper tubes and red sidewalk chalk - that would be more effective anyway. And pat yourself on the back when you go to bed knowing you kept everyone alive for another day - even if you didn't once call a child by their actual name on the first try. There's always tomorrow. Or the day after that. And accuracy stifles creativity. Go with it.

18. Do not try to do yourself any favors and get the sugar-free or lite version of any coffee at Starbucks. You will hate it and it won't be the same. Get a small instead and enjoy it. Sheesh.

19. Small children yelling from the back seat - even in a giant 15-passenger van - CAN and WILL be heard at the drive-thru yelling "CAKE STICK!! CAKE STICK!!" Assure the drive-thru operator that they are not cake-stick deprived and no, you don't wish to crawl through the van trying to find the rogue cake ball to stop the shrieking of one very small 4 year old with ZERO cake-stick coordination.

20. Never underestimate the power of a well-timed Disney movie. DVR shows and don't allow them to be viewed until juuuuuuuust the right time that you need it... then WHAM! Instant TV-trance and you have a few moments of peace! Win-win.

Melkam Genna, a year later

A year ago this morning in Addis Ababa, I anxiously awaited a driver named Binyam (who ran on Ethiopian time) to arrive at the guest house to drive me and the other parents who had arrived in Ethiopia before me over to the orphanage to meet my children!

I had consumed multiple cups of super strong coffee, forced down some eggs with shells mixed in for good measure, chatted with the families I had only previously met through emails, and kept glancing out the door like a crazy person.

Finally, he arrived, I ran around announcing to the other families that he was here and it was time to GO!

The long, bumpy ride through the streets of Addis seemed to take forever. It was a familiar ride - horns beeping, goats and cows interweaving with people on the sidewalks, children in tattered and torn clothing, mothers begging at cracked open car windows, buses crammed so full of people I started suffocating just looking. Finally, one of the other mommies said "this is the street" and I felt my heart rate triple instantly. I fumbled with my cameras, asked others to take photos, mumbled something about not photographing my hindquarters, wiped sweaty palms on my jeans and grabbed the seat in front of me as we hit every pot hole down the alley to the gate. The van stopped with a jerk and the driver turned off the engine. Immediately little hands and toes appeared at the gate as children were shouting that someone was here.

I was so incredibly nervous.

Would I recognize them from their photos? Would they know me? Would they run away? Would they even like me? Would they be afraid of me or turn into show-offs? Would I like them?

As we piled out of the van and fumbled towards the gate, I remember thinking this was lacking any sort of pomp and circumstance. I'm about to meet my children! Where is the ceremony? Where is the parade? Life just goes on all around us like the entire world isn't aware of how this meshing of two worlds is about to change the lives of 14 people forever!! Don't they care? Shouldn't there be a moment of silence and some sort of... something?? This is EPIC, people!! Somebody make an announcement or stack up some rocks as a monument to this moment!

Then the gate creaked open on it's rusty metal hinges in that sound that normally races up my spine like a horror film sound track... but I barely noticed. I was scanning the sea of faces looking for the ones that belong to me.

I saw her. The baby of the five... looking up at me with those big eyes that we now joke would allow her to get away with anything. She looked nervous, so I smiled and walked inside the gate. I recognized them immediately, even mingled in with the other children. In my head, I was matching names with faces and trying to absorb everything my senses were picking up.

In this 15 seconds of elapsed time, suddenly I realized I was standing within the same 4 walls as the children I'd been dreaming and praying about for the past 5 months and I reached down and scooped up that baby girl and squeezed her tight.

She giggled, hugged me back and started inspecting my necklace, sunglasses, ponytail and face. The other four were right behind her, clamoring for hugs and inspecting this white lady from their photo albums. There was this somewhat awkward moment when we were all just looking at each other and across the lines of two languages there was an understood emotion of "It's really YOU!" in the air. 

Photos were taken, videos were rolling, and I think the only word I was able to say was "Wow..." for about 5 minutes.

 

 

 This day was incredible to say the least. It also happened to be Genna - Christmas in Ethiopia where they follow the Julian calendar. We played and hugged some more, saw everything there was to see that they wanted to show me, and then had a Christmas feast together complete with goat, lots of things I couldn't identify, lots of injera and lots of coffee. The kids drank soda and I attempted to choke down a tiny glass of honey wine out of respect.

I don't remember much of the rest of this day except for an overwhelming sense of peace - I had met them, they were wonderful! Any fears I had previously had about adopting older kids, older boys, a large group of children all at once, or anything else I'd imagined or read about online... were gone.

Melkam Genna, Ethiopia.

Blessings of Christmas

December blew me away.
I've talked before about how the Lord always provides for our family...but I need to share about the past month.

The first blessing of Christmas occurred just after we returned from Thanksgiving with Paul's parents in NY.
We were just running low. Low on gas, low on groceries, low on cash and low in spirit. It was just one of those times...more bills and unexpected stuff on top of an already tight budget and we were waiting on payday. It was no fun.
I just prayed "Lord...what's going on?! I feel forgotten right now."
I got a call from a friend who asked if I was home. Frankly, I had no desire to see anyone... I was just in a funk. I had a headache (and a side of pity party) and I almost said for her to please come any other time... but that nagging voice in my head said to tell her to come now. Well, she showed up with 3 cases of leftover cans, boxes, bags and turkeys from some local holiday meal thing! Suddenly I was standing in the kitchen filling up the pantry and planning meals.

Christmas continued to amaze us when church friends started leaving anonymous cards with cash or gift cards, cards came in the mail with grocery cards and Target cards and people were dropping envelopes in my purse at church!
One life group from our church collected money to bless a family with and they picked US! The same friend who brought the food over that day called to see if I would be home for another delivery... so you can imagine my surprise when it wasn't her carrying a turkey, but the sweetest couple at my door with a small box! That little box contained MULTIPLE gift cards so that we could go shopping for food or gifts or whatever we needed!
I cried. Big huge tears. It was simply amazing! Christmas shopping was suddenly less stressful, and every time I used money from one of those gift cards I was just so grateful to those sweet families who blessed us in this way.

A sweet friend of mine called me one evening to tell me she had received a strange phone call... someone who said they got her number from a mutual friend and wanted her to contact us and be sure someone would be here at a certain time so that they could make a delivery. Not sure what to make of that (and having watched a few too many episodes of NCIS and CSI) I wasn't sure if we SHOULD be here at that time... but considering I was more curious than fearful of certain death... we waited for the mystery to arrive! Somehow the local AAA (yes the auto club) had heard about our family and their office chose us to shower with gifts! They showed up with two cars - both trunks full of wrapped gifts addressed to each of our kids by name - and some for Mom and Dad, too! It was SUCH a shock! The kids all enjoyed the gifts they received, but nothing was as incredible as MY gift (well, it said "family"...) a new 6qt KitchenAid mixer!! My 17-yr old mixer had died earlier this fall! I was so surprised and I have already tested it out on a quadruple batch of muffins and some biscotti! I have NO idea how they got our name, or how they knew that I had been drooling over this mixer for months now... but that was such an amazing gift and something that will be used VERY often!

Another day a local family contacted my husband and said that they had hoped to bring us a meal back when we were first home with the 5, but our meal calendar was filling up and they wondered if that night might work well! What they didn't know is that he had just left town, things were CAH-RAZY around here with school and stuff, and that meal could NOT have had better timing. They brought pizza, salad, cookies and apples AND a gluten-free pizza for me. They also gave us a card with an additional gift inside to use later. 

After Christmas, we were heading up to Pennsylvania to visit with some of our closest friends (Paul had work in the town where we previously lived, so we made it into a family trip!) and after driving through the night and being completely exhausted, we decided to stop at a Cracker Barrel for breakfast. We had to wait for a table (something about there being 14 of us? hahaha!) for a bit, but everyone handled the wait very well by playing with the toys in the store area. We sat down, ordered our food, spilled cups of water everywhere three separate times... but three separate people came over to complement us on how well-behaved our children were. When you stand out like we do, those are the absolute sweetest compliments anyone could give! One kind older gentleman walked over to our table, asked if these children all belonged to us and when we said yes, told us how blessed we are and said to Paul "Santa told me to give this to you... Merry Christmas" and handed him money... enough to pay for breakfast!

Twice in December someone dropped off clothes on our porch.

One of my daughters' Sunday School teacher cleaned out her toy room and brought over a ton of Rescue Heroes (which have become an instant favorite), a basketball hoop and some other toys! I was going to save the Rescue Heroes for Christmas, but they saved the day when we had a full day of rain and all these kids stuck inside!

A very close friend received an amazing gift, one that restored her heart from brokenness, and I got to count down the minutes with her and watch it unfold. (sorry to be vague...but it's her story to tell)

A friend "got an AMAZING deal" on a Keurig machine... which she gave to me... because she knows I bleed dark roast arabica.

Another friend handed us cash for the car trip home...because she knew it would help. It bought lunch!

Finally, but certainly the top of my list...
watching my children experience Christmas - several of them for the first time. The joy on their faces and the pure excitement and honest appreciation for every single gift is something that words don't every accurately depict. It was wonderful.

The blessings lavished upon all of humanity in the gift of Jesus, blessings lavished upon my children through the generosity of others... all a picture of that kind of love that gives with no expectation of return, just to bless the recipient.

If you're reading and you were a part of any of this...
 please know how much we appreciate everything. This past month I've felt the presence of the Lord in these gifts, and I've heard him say with each thoughtful gesture from friends and strangers...
"You are never forgotten."

Laundry Logistics

I remember it well.
We brought home our third baby and the laundry seemed to quadruple overnight.

I was so naive.

Enter the fourth, fifth-seventh, and eighth- twelfth children and...
well...
the laundry fiasco consumes my life.

Kids pile clothes in gender-specific baskets by the washer and dryer, teens not included (they do their own laundry). I wash clothes multiple times per day, dry, take them out of the dryer and put into a basket to be folded. Lots of times I bring the baskets to the living room and declare it a "folding party" and get all the kids to help fold clothes really quickly, which means I find girls jeans in the boys piles and boys pajamas mixed into the pink silky stuff. These piles get sorted by bedroom and I either put them away myself or delegate that to the kids, which results in multiple mornings of "moooommmmm.... I can't find jeannnnnssssss!!" when I know they are clean, but not put away correctly. This part makes me insane. When you have 3 boys in a 8-10 and they share a closet, you'd think it would be easier to find ONE pair of jeans that fit one of them. You would be wrong.

So... one day, I had asked the kids to clean their play room ONE TOO MANY TIMES which resulted in a version of "clean" that looked like this:

Clearly not okay.

I mean, I'm not the most organized person on the planet... (dear husband: stop laughing.)

but I had organized bins and labeled containers for everything to get put away in the right place. 

I had made this easy on them - they CHOOSE to be lazy and not do it the right way.

So... I did what any logical, calm, thinking person would do.

I totally flipped out and pulled EVERYLASTSINGLESTINKINGTOY out of the playroom into the entry and started bagging them up like garbage.

Uh huh. I do that too. Oh, you thought it was just you? Nope. I have the patent on freaking-out-mommy-ism.

Then I decided I was repossessing this room. They can't have it and not take care of it... space is at a MAJOR premium in this house and I'm not dealing with THAT kind of mess on the main level, right by the front door. Nope. Done.

So I went around and assessed the clothing situation. 

Again, for your viewing pleasure...

 I'm so not kidding. These were all taken in a matter of 10 minutes. This was not staged for some dramatic blog purpose. These are actual rooms/hallways/closets IN MY HOUSE! I can't physically stay on top of this mess. It's impossible for one person. Not possible. IMpossible. I have other things to do besides laundry... like cooking for 14 people multiple times a day. Sheesh.

So... my social worker and I were talking that day (not about laundry specifically) and she said "you know, your complaints are never about the kids, or about behaviors, or about the noise... it's always the mess. You need a helper."

Well, I thought about that... and since I'm a major introvert/private type person and the thought of having someone come help me clean up my house causes me to break out in hives with a rapid heart rate and breathing abnormalities... I decided instead that I'm TAKING MY HOUSE BACK, dadgummit!!

So... the logical conclusion was to move ALLLLLLLLLL those baskets of clothes into the play room, ahem... "kids closet"... and begin to sort, box up wrong sizes and wrong seasons, and put things into size order by child - not by number. I have a 6 year old who can wear the same size as our 4 year old, and two 7/8 year old boys who wear basically the same size except one has more trunk space than the other and therefore the same jeans don't work with both of them. 

More pictures:

I had found some shelves up in the attic that were previously in the closets and above the laundry area before my husband did his awesome built-in cubbies. I used those and had to buy one more long shelf and some brackets... which was not very much expense for the whole project.

Dremels are awesome. 

Level. Uh huh. Awesomeness.

Half of the room... bookshelf that still has toy-room remnants. That was quickly fixed.

View of the center of the room - windows. I added benches for shoe-application.

Right side of the room... boy's side.

 After I put up these shelves, I spent a day just admiring the cleanness of the room. No chaos, no piles of junk, no stepping on Legos... it was nice. The next morning... that came to an abrupt halt.

I brought ALLLLLLL the clothes to the room and bought every child-size hanger at the Everything's-a-dollar store. Every. Single. Hanger. 

I wish I had a better size comparison for this. Some sort of scale.

This pic is a little better. The red bin is a large storage rubbermaid tote.

 So, I started sorting. A pile for "out-of-season", a pile for "won't fit anyone next season" and a pile for "stained to embarrassing levels" and two piles of "keep-wearing now", one on the boys side of the room, the other on the girls side. This was fast. It was furious. It was decisive and cleansing.

After that was done, I started sorting the girl piles. One for the younger girls (who thankfully wear the same size) and one for the older girls (who also wear the same size). I sorted them into full outfits - skirt/leggings/top, pants/turtleneck/sweater, dress/leggings. I left some jeans by themselves and some tops by themselves for those days they want to choose an outfit for themselves. I put the outfits on the top hanging rod and the single items below. I sorted and folded pajama sets together. I put undies into two bins - 4T and 6X. I made a bin of socks and I put things I think they may grow into very quickly on the top shelf. DONE!

I moved to the boys clothes piles and did the same thing, except I didn't make "outfits". I sorted pants from tops, divided by size and type, and put everything on hangers. I have two small open dish pans for t-shirts, one for athletic pants, and one for dress pants that they ALWAYS try to wear to school. (That one went up high.)

I bought more dollar-store dish pans for shoes. They slide right in under the boys' clothes racks and I labeled them by person. I have yet to hear "I can't find my shoes" at 7:58 on a school day since.

Here are some mostly-complete version photos:

girl side taken at night... weird lighting.

Boy side - it was dark when I took this, too.

You can sort of see the bins in these last two pictures. The bins on the middle shelf above on the left are extra leggings and tights by size. On the bottom are dressy shoes, but those got moved up high and pajamas took those bottom two shelves. The undies are in the blue buckets. 

My next problem was that those french doors to this room... well, they don't exactly help me hide my new organizational heaven from those who come to visit and who might not understand the decor.

So... my friend Shauna reminded me of these french doors I had seen online covered with maps... and I just happened to have a giant stack of old National Geographic maps...
so I used a few of the less-popular ones and covered the windows! Now there's privacy, cute design, and I can shut the doors when we have company and not worry about them wondering why I have 9 kids worth of clothing in what used to be the office (that turned into the playroom).

The picture on the left,

 you can see bags...

those are gone now. I was unpacking from our trip!  

Oh, and I left the TV in there...
so I can still use this room as a quiet retreat for a few littles if need be!

P.S - what happened to their toys? Well, the room I created in their bedrooms by removing all the clothes left nice cubbies and organized spaces to put crates of toys! Now the boys can sit in their bedroom and play legos or the girls can go build their doll house and play tea party in their bedrooms without bumping into each other and dragging the tiny parts all over the entry way and into the dining and living rooms. Amen.