A New Journey

“I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor’s children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.”
― Marjorie Pay Hinckley

This has long been one of my favorite quotes, and it pretty well sums up the new journey we are taking. Dear Husband and I have started training to become foster parents. It’s something we’ve considered doing for a very long time, and we’ve now arrived at the point where our family is ready for that. Several people have asked us why we want to do this, especially when we already have a busy home with three kids. Basically, the answer is that we can’t think of any really good reasons not to do it—not when there are so many kids who need help.

As time permits, and without compromising confidentiality, I plan to document our journey here. I hope it will help others who are interested in fostering.

If you’ve ever considered becoming a foster parent, stop considering and just do it. The first step is to go to an orientation meeting (follow this link https://www.azdes.gov/main.aspx?menu=102&id=1256, then click on the link at the bottom of that page for a meeting schedule). At the orientation you’ll get an overview of the foster care system and a list of licensing agencies. Then you’ll choose an agency (more about that later), and begin training. The training lasts 10-12 weeks, with one class per week.

We have completed the first two classes, which have been more interesting than I expected. You might want to bring a box of Kleenex though – some of the stories you’ll hear are heart wrenching. But I believe there’s a lot of joy and love to be found in this process – this surprise adoption, for instance:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iexJtB57bkY.

My 4-year-old son + PAINT = Why God Made StainMaster Carpet

So, I just spent the last hour on my knees with a ShopVac, a couple gallons of water, and a bottle of OxiClean.

Let me explain how I came to this illustrious place in my life.

My sweet 6-year-old daughter, Ms. A, wanted a craft project to work on this summer. So we headed down to the local JoAnn craft store and picked up a latch hook wall hanging kit. (You can tell you have a creative, crafty mom when her idea of a fun craft is a pre-packaged kit that was pre-packaged circa 1982).

Ah yes, nothing like a good craft project from 1982 to put a kid to sleep.

Anyhow, my 4-year-old, Mr. B, decided he also wanted a craft to work on, and being the train fanatic he is, he chose a kit with a bare-wood train and little paint pots.  Yeah, you can see where this is going.

Mr. B had his sweet, little, train-loving heart set on keeping the kit on the shelf in his room tonight. I explained to him why I didn’t think that was a good idea, and why he had to promise, cross his heart, and hope-to-Thomas-the-Tank-Engine-die that he wouldn’t open the kit during the night. PAINT MAKES A MESS! DON’T OPEN THE PAINT! WE HAVE TO SPREAD OUT PLASTIC BEFORE YOU PAINT THE TRAIN!              

Mr. B. could not resist the temptation.


After he was tucked into bed, light turned out, door shut, he hopped out of bed, turned on the light, and the little wooden train was painted in no time. So was the carpet. And the chair. And the ottoman. And the wall. And his pajamas. And his hands. And his legs.

Thrown-away train, never comin' back.

Noticing light coming from under his bedroom door, I went in. MR. B! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!! WE HAD A DEAL!!* So there I was, hauling the vacuum and cleaning supplies upstairs to see if I could undo the damage.

I had a lot of time to think as I scrubbed each little spot of green, black, and red paint. And it began to dawn on  me that sometimes I’m a lot like a 4-year-old. Impulsive. Short-sighted. Numskulled.

God must see me much the same way I see my paint-covered 4-year-old. “Did you really just do that? Didn’t I tell you not to do that? Now I’m gonna have to clean up this mess. You just don’t get it, do you?”

I think this is why we’re supposed to have faith, and a lot of the reason why we’re here on earth. Our finite, human minds just don’t get the big picture. Even when we think we’re brilliant and understand everything, we’re really just a bunch of know-nothing kids. We have to learn to listen to our Father and trust that He knows what He’s doing, and then have the faith to choose to do what He asks us to do.

Of course, He knows He put a bunch of 4-year-olds in a room with paint pots, so He sent His Son to “clean up,” as it were. Lucky for me, and all of us, that the Holy Trinity of a ShopVac, Water, and OxiClean can get the stains out.***

So when I finally finished cleaning and turned off the ShopVac, I looked over and noticed that Mr. B had fallen asleep. What an angel face! I love that kid more than he’ll ever understand.

ShopVac, paint smudge on wall, and sleeping angel.

And I’m really glad that Ms. A picked a craft that only involves yarn.

******************************

*This is a reference to one of our favorite bedtime books, Too Many Toys. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.**

**Yes, this is a reference to one of my all-time favorite movies. I think I need to watch it tonight – I could use a good laugh.

***I recognize that this is a rough metaphor, and maybe too lighthearted for the deeply sacred topic of Jesus Christ’s atonement. But I think it makes the general point.

Speaking of Too Much Exposure…

There I was, standing half naked in a large room with a dozen or so technicians scurrying about. It took me months to get here. I wondered if this somehow capped my initiation into French society.

It all started when I arrived in France* in August 1998 to spend a year as a nanny. To qualify for a long-stay visa, I had to get a chest x-ray to check for tuberculosis.  I received a letter informing me of my appointment date: 3/2/1999. I read that as March 2, 1999 (about 6 months after my arrival – good thing for France I was tuberculosis-free).

When I walked into the clinic on March 2, the woman at the desk took my appointment letter and looked at me with a genuinely French combination of scorn, distaste, and annoyance. “C’est trop tard,” she said, pushing my appointment letter back to me. That’s when I learned – the hard way – that Europeans use the dd/mm/yyyy format, and I was a month late for my February 3 appointment.

But this was the French bureaucracy, so a new appointment only required filling out another appointment request form and waiting several weeks for a new letter to arrive announcing my assigned appointment date and time.

Hopital Joseph Ducuing, Toulouse, France

This time I was to report to the downtown hospital. The one with an x-ray machine in the middle of the large room. The one where they put you in a private room to disrobe, but then expect you to walk shirtless down a corridor to get to the x-ray machine in the middle of the large room. With the dozen technicians swirling around.

I did my best to turn my arms into a shirt. Was this standard protocol, I wondered, or just punishment for being a stupid American who can’t read dates?

At any rate, the x-ray was done, and in perfect bureaucratic style, I received my long-stay visa on the day I left France several months later.

Such was my brush with socialized medicine. Certainly, others have fared worse.

Look, ma! No tuberculosis!

Obamacare celebrates its second birthday on Friday (though most of it has yet to take effect). However noble its intentions, I have to wonder how long it will be before we have to wait weeks or months just to find out when we can see the doctor, much less get treatment. And how long will it be before we’re just another number waiting in line, instead of a patient with unique needs? With the government’s dismal track record of cost-cutting, how long before the costs spiral out of control, like they did with Romneycare?

No doubt our current system is broken. But there are better solutions than government mandates and programs.

Next week the U.S. Supreme court will decide whether the President’s healthcare system is constitutional. Here’s hoping the justices will let us keep the shirts on our backs.

 *I am so sad to hear about the terrorist shootings in my beautiful French “hometown” of Toulouse. My prayers go out to those affected.

The Broken Windows Theory

If one accepts the Broken Windows Theory, then my house is about to be overrun by thugs and hooligans.

We have a broken window.

Last week, my sweet, innocent, petite, not-quite-two-year-old daughter locked me out of the house. In my neon green running shorts. With my greasy hair in a ponytail. Without phone or keys.  And it turns out that keys and locksmiths wouldn’t have helped anyway because the child-locks on our doors prevent them from being opened from the outside.

After more than an hour of my neighbor and me begging and pleading and using outright bribery (Girl Scout cookies) to cajole sweet, little Miss C to open the sliding glass door, we decided it was time to call for help. With my pride well swallowed, I dialed the fire department’s non-emergency line. They, of course, switched me to dispatch and in no time a fire truck was on its way – lights, sirens, and all.

Miss C soon had five hulking firemen and a police officer wrapped around her cute little finger. “Come on, sweetheart, open the door!” they begged. Then she smiled coyly and sat back in her little chair. After a bit she retreated to the laundry room and came back with a soda. Clearly, she had no plans to open the door and spoil her party.

So the window got broken.

The firemen tried to bend the child-locks back, but when it looked like doing that would rip the door frame off, we opted to lose a window. With a few quick swings of a fireman’s pick axe, we were back inside the house.

Where I picked up my little hooligan and gave her a kiss.

A Blog! A Blog! We Have Got a Blog!

I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a blog for some time. I’ve always hesitated because with all the blogs out there, who needs one more? Besides, I’m a natural introvert and a blog might be, well, too much exposure. Then today over lunch, a friend encouraged me to write one. So, since I believe in doing whatever my friends tell me to do, up to and including jumping off a cliff, here goes…

This will likely become a mishmash of topics since my thoughts tend to run tangentially. I hope, though, that this blog will improve my writing, force me to more deeply explore some of my interests, and become something of a journal of my family. We’ll see what happens!