A place for everything..

My whole life I've been defined as the "carefree" one, or silly, goofy, not exactly irresponsible, but very aloof and fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants.  I've never been what you'd call "organized" or "tidy" and although I don't like a dirty house, I admit, the clutter is pretty crazy around here most of the time.  I prefer things to be temporary, fluid and without structure.  Very much the opposite of "a place for everything and everything in its place".  And for most of my life I've completely rejected other people's attempt at enslaving me to their way of "thinking".  

As and artist and a free-spirit I have my own sense of organization, in general, being organized to me means being able to see everything at once.  If Type A's are the card catalogue, I am every book on the shelf, or quite possibly the floor.  I can't do dressers, piling all the clothes on top of each other (folded or otherwise) is just silly, who can find anything?  My husband keeps trying to get me to use filing cabinets, but the idea of all those little tabs, and not actually being able to see all the papers just bothers me.  And how to decide where it goes?  Name? Date? Category? Serial number? I'd need a tab for every item and that just wouldn't be practical!  In keeping with my philosophy that the things around me should be fluid, able to move and non permanent, I'd call my sense fluidization vs. organization.

Having three kids does something to you though.  I find that we really just don't have room for everything to be out all the time, and different seasons do call for different things, clothes, decor, etc... And don't forget the kids are constantly bringing home papers from school.  Right now we have tons of the art projects tacked up in our hallway, lining it from one end to the other, like a child-finger-paint-doodle-mosaic-wallpaper.  Just the way I like it, seeing everything at the same time, and who am I to decide which masterpiece should be tossed to save another?

I find myself, and my mind, constantly at odds with my spirit, like somehow internally I'm being nudged in directions I'm not sure I want to go.  Every step of the way I realize I'm saying things like "hun, we need to find a home for this" or "yia yia, does this have a spot on your shelf?"  It all came to a head at Christmas.  The kids got all these new toys and clothes and it just wasn't going to work to have the clothes thrown in their dressers, and the toys in the toy bins.  I knew something had to change, and try as I might, this change was rushing in like waves in high tide, crashing with bolder smashing force.  How was I going to brace myself for this?  I was I going to keep my free-spirit intact with all this "need for change" swirling about?  

Well my husband, not exactly a Type A, but still much more "traditionally organized" than I am, and I started sorting through some things, and started putting old clothes, summer clothes, miscellaneous electronic items, less used toys, hand-me-down-clothes, and every other sort of thing in designated rubbermaid bins.  (I cringed as I realized I wouldn't be able to see through the bins and know exactly what was inside, but I decided to let it go and at least be thankful that all the things left out could be arranged however I desired.)  We don't have a garage, nor do we have extraordinarily large closets, so the task of finding the perfect home for these things was big.  I had to completely rearrange the girls' closet, moving a toy shelf over, trading spots with some hanging basket-thingys, and getting a second, lower hanging, bar for claudia to be able to hang her own clothes up.

All of this was going really well; I even enjoyed it a little.  In the girls room I was maintaining my organizational standard of "seeing everything at once" by how I arranged the closet and kept as much out of buckets and bins as possible.  Joe's room is similarly organized and so is the mud room and kitchen (albeit behind closed cabinets).  All of these small nudges and slight directions didn't seem to be taking me down too dark of a path to 'spirit doom' so I let my guard up a little bit and started to relax.  I didn't seem to be completely losing myself to this crazy process.  I was going to be alright, what was the worst that could happen?

As I slowly surrendered bit by bit and allowed the waves of "traditional organization" to crash on to my wild-spirit-home, they grew bigger and bigger culminating in one final tsunami that took my by surprise and for a minute I went under, and in that moment of chaos being tossed under those waves, something terrible happened.  I must have hit my head on the reef or something, but before I realized what was happening, in that moment when I was totally engulfed, I uttered words that are the harbinger of death for any free-spirited person such as I,

"hun, do we have a label-maker?"

GASP!  What did I just say?  Am I dreaming?  Did I actually just ASK for the tool of the enemy?  This instrument, when used properly, could spell doom (heh heh) for anyone trying to keep their unorthodox soul alive.  A tool long used to usher in a regime of rigid structure and permanency, "this item shall belong in exactly this spot, and only this spot, for eternity, or at least until you use fingernail polish remover to strip this label off"    

Fortunately as the waves subsided and I surfaced for air, I realized that being deprived of oxygen can make anyone say dangerous things, make deals with the Type A Devil, just to stay alive.  And fortunately (thank the gods of Wild and Free) the answer was "no", we do not have a label maker.  So for now, we have many rubbermaid bins, none of them clear, and all of them with contents soon to be forgotten and unknown.  Although a part of me is at odds with not knowing, another part, my renewed and secured fluidization, rejoices at the lack of structure, and looks forward to the day when, upon searching the contents of said bin, I get to dump its inventory on the floor and see everything at once.

Yosemite's Real Beauties

So I've told this story a few times, ok, more than just a few, quite a few.  I knew that I should blog about this at the time it happened, but of course I'm the Queen Procrastinator and, well, I just didn't.

But anyway, here it goes now, better late than never.

So back in August we took a family camping trip to Yosemite National Park.  There are about 50 stories I could tell about how beautiful, big, emotionally impressive and breath taking it was, but the most moving story is from our last night there.

The entire time, Claudia was really emotional, in a very good way, she was really intune with what was going on around us, the majesty of it all, and more often than I can recall she'd say something like "oh mom!  it's beautiful!  Jesus made this for us because He loves us right?!"  "yes, baby, He made all this, and made it beautiful, because He loves us."  awwwww.... yes, it really was sweet.

So the last night that we're there, we decide that we wanted to take the kids out of the forest where we were camping, and out to the meadow so they could see all the stars.  We'd brought our bikes, so we took turns, first I headed out with Claudia on my handle bars and in the pitch dark of the night, with the path illuminated with our little flashlights, we rode out of the forest into the starlit meadow and laid down to look up at the stars.

We're laying off the path, in this meadow in Yosemite Valley, cliffs with the Royal Arches on one side, and the forest and more cliffs on the other.  As we look up, you could see the whole universe.  Ok, well not really, but living in southern California, you maybe see 50 stars at night, and in the clear sky up there it was mind blowing how many stars there were.  Claudia was about to cry, again, and she says "momma look!  they're beautiful, and Jesus made them for us because He loves us so much, right?!"  "yes hun, He loves us that much."

We agree that it's not fair to leave Joe and Papa waiting, so we get back on the bike, turn on our flash lights, and head back into the dark forest to our camp.

Claudia briefly tells Darren how beautiful it was, and that she hopes they have fun too, then they take off and we sit down next to our campfire and she cozies up in my lap.

She starts to talk to me about how beautiful it all was, we look up and in the parting of the mass of trees above us, the small break in the canopy lets us see a few stars, just a fraction of what we saw a few minutes earlier, but probably still more than we ever see at home.  She keeps talking, and in a way that is very typical of her storytelling-reminiscing-memory-wandering, she starts to tell me how she missed me when she was still with Marisa, her birth mom.  Of course, she doesn't understand that she didn't actually miss me, that she didn't even know me, but because she's still young she doesn't necessarily 'remember' in chronological order.  I told her that I didn't know her yet and that's why she wasn't with me.  She started to get really sad, emotional at least, saying that she wished she just could have been in my tummy instead.  I had to explain to her that Jesus had a very unique plan for her, and that part of that was to be made inside Marisa's tummy, not mine.  And that Marisa would always have a very special part of her story, she'll always get to be her "tummy mommy", and my special part of her story is to get to be her "family mommy".  

She started to tell me a story about a time when she must have gone on a court appointed visit to see her birth mom.  At the end of the visit Marisa told her it was time to leave and Claudia had started crying saying she didn't want to go, Marisa told her that she had to, that she'd have to go back to Wendy (the temp fostermom at the time).  She was upset that they were taking her away.  Claudia turned and looked at me and said "and she didn't feel bad."  we try to help her to remember these sorts of things with as little negative subjectivity as possible so I said, "you mean she didn't cry?"  

"no, well, maybe on the inside, but I didn't see it"  

"hmmm"

"you would have cried, right mom?  if they were taking me away from you?"

"yes, Claudia, I would have cried if someone took you away."

"okay then"

She smiled, gave me a kiss and then turned back to look at the fire.  For a long time we just sat there, holding each other.  Her probably now thinking about stars, s'mores and bears and all the beautiful things we'd seen in the week we'd been there.  And me thinking about how she'd worked through a painful memory in her past, recognized that although Marisa loves her, something is definitely different about her and the kind of mom she is, and how she realized that although I didn't have her in my tummy, I would have cried if someone tried to take her, and that's the kind of mom she wants, a family mom, a real mom.  

Sound Off

Thanks to a friend's blog i'm following, i'm also posting a sound off post.  this is a fun way to see who all actually reads this and where you're all from!  post a comment with your name and location!

"See ya later"

ash

Theia Lynn

so monday, december 15th, was the day we signed the adoption paperwork for theia.  it was such a good feeling to change her name and have her no longer be a foster child.  

her name before was Cynthia Rose, which is actually a very cute name, something i'm sure any other girl would thank their parents for some day when they're older.  certainly not something she'd be teased about for any particular reason.  

when we adopted the other two kids, we didn't change their first names.  they're at the age where they're too old to change their names and assume they wouldn't notice, but they're also not old enough to understand the concept of being able to change it.  so the notion to them just seemed silly, like we'd be playing a game if we started calling them something else.  so their first names stayed the same, and we only changed the middle, and last of course.  

we'd decided  long ago when we were still trying to get pregnant that the kids middle names would all come from family, so naturally, we gave the kids those middle names, joe's is now Todd, and claudia's is now Jean.  initially in our fantasy plan, we were going to have 2 boys and a girl.  so although we have another boys name, we didn't have another girl name, so even though from the beginning we knew we'd change her name, for the longest time we didn't know to what.

as much as we both think that cynthia is a cute name, and i'm actually partial to names that have 'y's in them, darren and i are both very much against the name 'cindy' which all too often becomes the nick name for cynthias.  (and the birth mother does call her cindy, which proves my point)  so we knew from the beginning we wouldn't keep it cynthia.  even though yes, we could call her "thia" for short, we knew that inevitably she'd be asked "is that short for something?" and when she said "well, cynthia actually" she'd end up being called cynthia at times (and i know this from my own experience, no matter how many times i tell people to call me ash, they end up calling me ashley anyway once they find out that's what it 'actually' is, gah).  

i've had some people be kind of hard on me, saying that i shouldn't take that choice from her, "what if she wants to go by cynthia when she grows up?"  well what if i wanted to go by celeste?  it's not my name because that's not what my mom named me, and ultimately it was HER choice, that's just how it works!

changing the spelling to Theia was mostly my decision, darren would have preferred just thia.  i explained to him that i wanted to differentiate it from cynthia and thia as much as possible so it would remove as much of the "is that short for something..." as possible.  now she can just tell people it's greek for 'divine one/goddess'.  the same greek root word that we get theology from.

anyway.  in our quest to figure out a way to give her a family related middle name, we decided on my mom's middle name which is lynn.  of course there's a drama story about that and how my mom reacted, first when we weren't going to do it, and then how she acted like she couldn't care less when we did, but whatever, you'd have to know my mom.  *sigh*

but much to our relief and joy, as of monday december 15th, she's forever Theia Lynn Croteau, and yes, her initials are TLC ;)

it's her party...

we're in that wonderful stage of screaming for everything with theia.  it's been really rough, she's obviously not happy about something, or nothing, or maybe everything.  it's so hard to tell.  she's certainly always hungry, and then she's just had it with the car too.  nothing makes her scream like the car seat.  the minute she sees it she starts screaming.  i never know what to do, listen?, ignore it?, what?  we did take her binky away a couple weeks ago, so of course i'm sure that ties into all of this.  before when she'd get ticked in the car we'd just give her the binky and she'd be fine.  late night rides were almost certain to put her to sleep, but now with mr. b. gone, she just cries and hardly ever just cries herself to sleep.  

we've been playing jazz or blues in her room at night to help her get back to sleep when she does wake up and doesn't have the binky to help her.  it's been pretty effective, and now we mostly play jazz in the car, so when she is tired, it helps her to just lay her head down.  now i've got nothing against jazz and the blues, it's actually what i play mostly when i'm playing the drums, but listening to it constantly, well, i've heard about all the trumpets, trombones and brass i can handle.  

anyway, i'm sure that in time this too shall pass, but until then, i'll be hunting for my ear plugs.

my arms

i'm the kind of person that will hear a new 'favorite' song and will get addicted, listening to it over and over and over.  i'll put my iPod on repeat1 and just have it running through my brain all day as i go about all my business, sometimes not even really listening sometimes very fixated.  anyway, my latest addiction is In My Arms by Plumb and at first i have to say i was more in love with it just for the musical aspect and didn't even really know what the song was about, until the 50th time or so.  i sat down and really listened to the words and it was really amazing that it's a song she's singing to her child, and the message has made me love it even more.  a message that our childish fairy tale dreams may not come true, and how she's sad that there will be a time when her child realizes that for herself, and how we keep our kids safe in our arms.  it's the song play that should be playing first, and here's the lyrics so you can read them for yourself.

In My Arms

Your baby blues 

So full of wonder 

Your curley cues 

Your contageous smile 

And as i watch 

You start to grow up 

All I can do is hold you tight 

Knowing clouds will raise up 

Storms will race in 

But you will be safe in my arms 

Rains will pour down 

Waves will crash all around 

But you will be safe in my arms 

Story books full of fairy tales 

Kings and queens and the bluest skies 

My heart is torn just in knowing 

You'll someday see the truth from lies 

Knowing clouds will raise up 

Storms will race in 

But you will be safe in my arms 

Rains will pour down 

Waves will crash all around 

But you will be safe in my arms 

Castles they might crumble 

Dreams may not come true 

But you are never all alone 

Because I will always 

Always love you 

Clouds will raise up 

Storms will race in 

But you will be safe in my arms 

Rains will pour down 

Waves will crash all around 

But you will be safe in my arms

I only hope that it's true, that i really can keep my kids safe in my arms.  i'll try, for as long as they'll keep coming back to them.

the Murder of Ronald Opus

1994's Most Bizarre Suicide
Don Harper Mills

At the 1994 annual awards dinner given by the American Association for Forensic Sciences, AAFS President Don Harper Mills astounded his audience in San Diego with the legal complications of a bizarre death. Here is the story...

On March 23 the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a gunshot wound of the head caused by a shotgun. Investigation to that point had revealed that the decedent had jumped from the top of a ten story building with the intent to commit suicide. (He left a note indicating his despondency.) As he passed the 9th floor on the way down, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, killing him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been erected at the 8th floor level to protect some window washers, and that the decedent would not have been able to complete his intent to commit suicide because of this...

Ordinarily a person who starts into motion the events with a suicide intent ultimately commits suicide even though the mechanism might be not what he intended. That he was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below probably would not change his mode of death from suicide to homicide, but the fact that his suicide intent would not have been achieved under any circumstance caused the medical examiner to feel that he had homicide on his hands...

Further investigation led to the discovery that the room on the 9th floor from whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. He was threatening her with the shotgun because of an interspousal spat and became so upset that he could not hold the shotgun straight. Therefore, when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife, and the pellets went through the window, striking the decedent.

When one intends to kill subject A, but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. The old man was confronted with this conclusion, but both he and his wife were adamant in stating that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. It was the longtime habit of the old man to threaten his wife with an unloaded shotgun. He had no intent to murder her; therefore, the killing of the decedent appeared then to be accident. That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded...

But further investigation turned up a witness that their son was seen loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal accident. That investigation showed that the mother (the old lady) had cut off her son's financial support, and her son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that the father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus...

Further investigation revealed that the son became increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to get his mother murdered. This led him to jump off the ten story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through a 9th story window.

The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.

safe spot

so of course as a mom i'm constantly faced with the reality that my kids are raising me.  every day there are moments when i realize that i have to completely reevaluate everything i thought i knew about what is right and wrong.  daily lessons about what grace means, what discipline really is, and what punishment should really look like.

lately i've been struggling with what to do when claudia's in trouble.  i'm talking mostly about how things go when i ask her a 'hard' question.  that means anything that is just hard for her to answer.  whether it be because she doesn't know the answer, or she'll have to admit that she did something wrong and might be in trouble for it, and therefore, inclined to lie.

having grown up with a very intimidating, often abusive step-mom, i learned certain habits that helped me to feel more secure when dealing with her 'hard questions'.  mostly it was to stay as far away when she was ticked so there'd be as little chance as possible that she could reach out and hit me.

in my dealings with claudia, i've found myself projecting my feelings of needing to 'feel safe' during our 'hard talks' .  so from my experience, distance=security, so i've made sure that i have claudia sit on her bed, and i sit in the chair on the other side of the room.  or i sit on the kitchen stool and have her stand on the other side of the kitchen.  to me, this seems like it completely makes sense and i perceive it as "hey, i'm all the way over here and you're way over there so you know i'm not going to swing at you when you say the wrong thing"

so of course i'm dumbfounded when claudia continues to lie and bawl and seem just miserable when we're talking.  i'm thinking 'sheesh, how much more safe do you need to feel?'

after a lot of thought and a lot of prayer i realized a bunch of things.  first, claudia and i don't have a history of me hitting her.  this might seem obvious and stupid, but i DO forget that that was the most important factor in my history.  since i don't do that to claudia, she's not worried it's going to happen.  she's not thinking "i'm glad she's too far away to reach me, that makes me feel better".  the idea of me hitting her is like thinking about whether aliens would prefer milk duds or malted milk balls, irrelevant.  i've come to realize that when i sit claudia on the other side of the room she's not seeing it as safety, she's seeing it as part of the punishment.  in her eyes, since it's not a safety issue, she sees it as pushing her away and "mommy's so mad she doesn't even want to be near me right now, does that mean she doesn't love me anymore?" 

when i'm asking her a hard question and i 'push her away', she's faced with 2 problems.  #1-how do i make sure mommy will still love me? #2-how do i answer the hard question that started it?  when faced with the possibility that answering #2 'wrong' or admitting she did something naughty might mean i don't love her, (which is obviously not a real possibility) she's thinking "say whatever you have to about #2 so that you can satisfy #1"

we had to have a sit down talk the other day about what's going on when she feels safe.  what things make her feel good, what am i doing when she knows i love her, etc.  my hope is that if i can create a very loving and safe environment for her when i'm asking her hard questions, she won't have to worry about losing my love, so she can focus on telling the truth and letting me help her fix whatever needs fixing.  overwhelmingly her response was that she feels loved and safe when i'm hugging and smooching her (clearly the opposite of putting her on the other side of the room)  of course i'm thinking to myself, "how on earth do i do that when she's just hit her sister in the eye with a barbie for the 19th time?!"

we decided that giving her that environment was still the right thing to do, even if she has done something really bad.  we now call it the 'safe spot'.  if we don't think to go there first she knows that as soon as we ask her something and she starts to feel scared, she can ask for the safe spot and we'll go sit down and hold her, rub her arms or whatever, give her some smooches and talk softly.  all of that affirmation lets her know that we love her no matter what, and we just need to know what happened.  

the first time we used the 'safe spot' she stood eye to eye with me while i sat on the stool, i rubbed her arms and just asked her to tell me the truth.  she stood there silent and teary eyed for a while and i asked her why she wasn't talking. 

'because i don't want to lie to you!' 

'then tell me the truth, we're in the safe spot now'

then she proceeded to tell me the truth completely and without crying.  it was amazing.  even though i had to tell her what she did was wrong and we needed to go fix it, we were able to do it together and with love since she never had to worry about the love part at all.  grace in the moment is really the only thing that lets us fix the problem without wounding her in the process.

it goes against everything in my nature to sit and be loving and smoochy on a little girl that just called her brother a "stupid poop head" but that's the grace we have to give her when we go to the safe spot to work these things out.  and as we sit there, i'm reminded that when we take our sins to Christ, He doesn't shake His head, point His finger, or grab our arm and scream 'how could you...?!!!  what were you thinking?  why did you do this to me?  didn't you know that was wrong?  is your brain broken, did it fall out?  how many times do i have to tell you no?  don't you ever listen to me?"  no, when we have the hard questions with Christ, He opens his loving arms and holds us, gives us grace in that moment and asks us just to tell the truth. and with His help we fix it, then we can move forward.

christians are often referred to as jars of clay, or earthen vessels, these pots God has made with His own hands which He pours His love and blessing into, that we in turn pour out onto others.  most of us have been damaged along the way, that's just part of our fallen nature, some of us are damaged more than others, but in the end, we're all cracked pots (yes, even crack pots)  as a broken vessel of God's love, i might not be able to hold as much as a 'less broken' one, and if i'm only able to hold and pour out one blessing, at least God's given me this grace to pour out on my kids.  if this is the only part of God's love i teach them, i'll be happy.  being handled with this grace and care, it'll mean in the end, that my kids grow to be less broken than i, and will be able to hold much more, and pour out much more than i could ever hope for.  and all that God has planned.