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.