A Thankful Heart

I can't believe this will be my THIRD Thanksgiving with Madalynn... my heart overflows.

I was just looking back at my blog from my Thanksgiving trip to the Westin 2007. 

I wrote this after I came home.

I loved this trip so much because I was really able to see Madalynn's personality. I know with certainty deep in my heart that she is meant to be my daughter. Our personalities seem so in sync. She has such a sweet, calm easy-going spirit, and is so content...

She is at that stage where she has discovered her hands, so she would just hold them in front of her face, and gaze at them from one to the other, and figure out how to get them into her mouth. Her hands are still so tiny, and I'm regretting I didn't get a close-up of them. She is cutting a tooth I could feel on her lower left gum, but given that she was teething she was not fussy at all. She still makes great little noises, and coos, and blows bubbles.

I have such sweet memories from that trip.  It was just her & I for a few days.  I also met some other adoptive families I'd only known online previously so it was wonderful to meet all of them.

This was also the time when things were getting unsettled with Guatemala adoptions, and there was much uncertainty as to whether or not adoptions would continue after December 31st of that year.  I just left with such an overwhelming peace that it would all be okay, and Madalynn would come home to me.  God gave me a peace that surpasses human understanding.

In the interest of walking down memory lane here are some pics from that trip...

 

Last November...

Last month...

 

Can't Wait

I feel like a little kid at Christmas again I'm so excited for Christmas this year. It's all I can do to wait until after Thanksgiving to begin decorating. My shopping is almost done, just a couple stocking stuffers (I LOOOVE that I have a stocking to fill for a little one), and a present for my nephew.

Let the hall trimming, cookie baking, tree decorating begin!!

We've already started wearing Christmas jammies (by 'We' I mean Madalynn), and watching "Polar Express" & "Charlie Brown Christmas".

I don't mean to be rushing it, but it's just so much fun with a little one. I even bought egg not today to make my egg nog latte's...

A Single Life

 

Disclaimer; I just want to preface this post by saying I know marriage isn't the 'fix-it' to life's challenges.  This is just my view from where I'm presently sitting.

 

Being a 35+ single was not my plan in life.  My plan was a husband, and a gaggle (is that a word?) of kids.  I always dreamed of having 5 boys, and 1 girl (the girl last).  I had a romanticized idea of what my life would be (a cross between the Waltons, and Leave it to Beaver but with all the modern day conveniences).

As I've often said God had a different plan for my life.    Here I am on the other side of 35 creeping closer to 40, with the joy of my heart... my daughter sleeping a few feet away .  She is my joy, and I love our life, and our little family.  I feel selfish, and ungrateful to ask for more than that.  Yet, everyday I say a prayer that says 'Lord, we need a man in this house'.   I long to have more children (adopted or non-adopted), and don't see a way to do that in my single state.  I also long to have a partner to share this journey with.

On, and off over the years I've dipped my toe into the online dating scene with no success.  A handful of dates, none that came to anything.  I've also explored 'single' support groups, things like "Parents without Partners", etc.   But, what I tend to find is that I'm a different kind of single parent... particularly a single Mom.  I'm a single parent by deliberate choice.  I didn't have a man walk out on me, I didn't have a husband pass away leaving me to face the challenges alone.  I CHOSE the path of single parenting.

Several people told me in the early stages of my adoption plan, that being a single parent would be hard.  I've never understood using the word hard to describe relationships.  It's not HARD for me to love the people who are important to me.

When people would say that to me I never thought the parenting thing would be hard, and as a single I don't think it's any harder than being half of a couple, and parenting.  I pray everyday for wisdom in raising my spirited daughter.

The aspect of single parenting I find to be hard, is the day-to-day things which now are more complicated as a single Mom.   Those day-to-day things were hard before too, as a single.  As I said now they are just more complicated.  Projects to be done around the house, financial/job concerns, decisions to be made, taking the trash out (I know it's cliche but this is something I HATE doing) all these thing existed pre-parenthood.

There is no partner here to carry the emotional (happy & sad), spiritual (high & low),  and financial burdens.  It all falls to me.  One of my lowest single moments was a few weeks ago walking out of the church behind my grandmother's casket alone.

Above all of this I ache to have a man that Madalynn calls Daddy.  She has such a special relationship to my Dad for which I am so thankful.   But having a male presence in our household, that person that

• Will encourage her to take more risks than Mommy's heart can handle (insert here... jumping off of furniture, scaling walls, participating in contact sports etc).
• Will throw her higher in the air than Mommy can.
• Will make her feel like a princess.
• Will teach her through his example how a man who loves, and respects her will treat her.

I do love our little life together, and know that if this remains a single parent household that will be okay.  I can do this, I've done it, and will continue to do so.  God is good, and I will trust Him.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

National Adoption Month

Fall Catch Up...

I've been meaning to catch up with my blog, and thanks to a nudge from Joan ;-)... I'm getting around to it. This post is long, lots of photos, 3 videos and 2 big events.

Autumn is my favorite time of year, and late September, and all October are probably my favorite 4-6 weeks of the year.

This year October was bittersweet, we had beautiful weather overall, (including snow), and beautiful foliage, but it also involved losing my grandmother, Madalynn being sick for the last 2+weeks, and not sleeping and some other personal issues going on.  In a lot of ways I'm glad October is over, and I'm looking forward to beginning the Christmas (not HOLIDAY) season.  I begin listening to Christmas music in October usually.  I OFFICIALLY started today.  I don't like to rush Christmas (and hate when I see items too soon in the stores), but I love Christmas music, and think it's a shame to only listen to it 3 weeks out of the year.

These were several weeks ago one morning waiting for Grandpa to come pick her up.  She's wearing some Converse all-star pink hi-tops that I bought long before she ever came home.  They've been in a box in her closet for 2 years I'm sure.  The girl also LOVES her some pumpkins... small, medium & large... she LOVES pumpkins.

Playing Peek-A -Boo

This is the road I LITERALLY turn off the highway onto to get to my house...it was gorgeous when it was at peak.  Same road that was covered with ice covered limbs last December.

Perhaps due to my daughter's love of Pumpkins... I've been a pumpkin baking machine lately.  Which is weird b/c I don't think of myself as a pumpkin person.  I've never liked pumpkin pie... but Pumpkin chocolate chip muffins... YUM... Pumpkin Whoopie Pies.... YUUUUUMY!!!

Madalynn enjoyed them as well

Enjoying a fall day...

As I took this picture the words coming out of my mouth were
"Madalynn don't eat the leaf".

Big event #1... BIG GIRL BED!!!

Mommy is sooooo not ready, but a couple weeks ago she started climbing out of our crib so it was time.  Yesterday Grandpa came over to change her crib over from a crib to a toddler bed.  I cried when I saw the front of the crib off, and it looked like a bed.  At the end she finds a 'Cookie Monster' sticker on the floor, that's what she's saying.

(On the videos press the play button in the lower left corner I couldn't get the play button in the upper left to work).

 

 

 

Grandpa's helper... they are such buddies.

 

Big event #2... Halloween...

I called my Mom this morning, and said I think I'm officially in the camp of NOT liking this holiday.  I hate to be a crumudgen, but between the candy and my daughter being scared half the night it's a day I could do without.  Next year we may find a church w/ a Harvest party, and just go there.  With that said I love seeing the little ones dressed up... Madalynn was a Patriots cheerleader... a very low maintenance costume which Mommy loved, add that it was on clearance at Marshall's & it's a double bonus!!  (We'll forget the fact that the turtleneck didn't fit over her head going on, or coming off... add to trying to get it off on a light night, after having sugar, and being scared half the time... fun times).

 

This is arriving at Ga-Ga & Grandpa's house, and as much as she loves Chatham, she was NOT willing to share her chocolate with her. At one point you hear her tell her to go to Ga-Ga.  **NOTE, no children, dogs, or chocolate were harmed in the making of this video.

 

Well I hope everyone had a safe Halloween.   I'll try to not go as long between blogs :-)

Saying Good-Bye...

This past Friday my Grandma passed away.   I've been going through photos to display at the wake & funeral this coming week... it's amazing to look back at 82 years in photographs.

She was one of 12 children born, and raised during the Great Depression in Miami Oklahoma.  She said the day she was born, her Mom worked all day, went home gave birth to my grandmother, and was in church a few days later.  She loved America, patriotism, old hymns, and Christmas.

This picture of her, and with her sisters I just LOVE.  I think they were just beautiful...she's on the left.  The one in the middle is now the only one of the 12 surviving.

 

In 2001 my aunt, grandmother & I went to Miami, Oklahoma to visit her.  It was a wonderful trip, one that I am now so grateful we took.

My favorite story is of how she & my grandfather got married... they went on a blind date & came home 11 hours later married... yes that's right 11 HOURS!!  She said they were out with a group of friends at a club, and someone asked the band to play "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" for Betty & Al who are getting married tonight, and it went from a joke to ending up at the justice of the peace to get married.  They were married almost 40 years before losing my grandfather almost 26 years ago.  Many of those years spent in the military.

Then some of me 'back in the day'...I think I look like a boy in this picture...I'm guessing I was about 12 or 13.

Now for the opposite w/ the BIG hair!! College years.

 

In this one I must have been growing out the "Dorothy Hamill" during grade school.  Several summers my brother & I drove from Mass to Florida to spend a few weeks with them in the summer.  This picture is from one of those drives.  My brother would just file away everything that was said, and then come home loaded with imitations to do of our grandparents, and their 'banter'.

While going through some old things I found a book she had completed for me.  Two things struck me.  One was on the page where she had to complete about the first time she met me, and she said "I loved you the minute I saw you... still do."  Another page she had to write about what she still hopes to do as a grandmother, and she said " Watch all of you get married and have children, and fulfill your ambitions", and she did live to see those things.

Meeting Madalynn

 

She gave me many gifts... while I got my love of photography from my grandfather, I got my love of cooking, baking & crafts from her.  She bought me my first latch hook kit, and later introduced me to counted cross stitch, and quilting.  Every Christmas she made dozens, and dozens of cookies.  My favorite were buckeyes.

Generations who've gone before leave with us more than shared DNA.  They give us a story that's rich with their history, they teach us their skills, pass on their gifts, and their talents.  For which I'm thankful.

Her body had been through so much in the last 6+ years,including losing a leg, and there is comfort knowing that she is no longer suffering, and at peace.

One of the last times my Mom saw her she said "I have to go now Mom, but I'm leaving you in the hands of God", to which my Grandma looked at her, smiled, and said "There's no better place to be."