Why I Won't Promote Adoption

Here we are, only a few weeks from picking up our two beautiful children Tadesse and Biruk from their orphanage in Addis Ababa. Some friends are excited to ask me all sorts of questions, but some hang back, likely afraid that I'll corner them into adopting for themselves.

But I won't. Because I'm not like that. Instead, I'm going to tell you why you shouldn't.

Living ...with Style

I have an odd—maybe vain—habit. When I've practiced a piano number to almost error free (See my previous post about that), I record myself to listen for inappropriate pauses, tempo changes, and my muttered frustration at mistakes. Then I work to fix those areas.

Today when listening to Lorie Line, who wrote most of the music I'm attempting to play, I didn't hear her correct notes. I heard her style. Her playing didn't resemble piano key-plunking as mine often does. Her rhythm didn't seem tiresome and rigid. It flowed. And her dynamics? Well, let's just say that I pretend mine are always mezzo forte, and something is lost in my interpretation.

What To Say (and What Not) To Your Friends Who Are Adopting

Note: This post is a work in progress. I'm posting it now because I want input from other adoptive parents and because I know it will never be complete.

Since I've begun this adoption process, I've learned a lot about people's misconceptions. At first when reading the blogs of adoptive parents, I thought they were overly sensitive. Now I'm just beginning to understand. I just keep trying to remind myself that people are not trying to be offensive, that they just are a little naive about the process.

So voila—this post describing the right and not-so-right things to say to adoptive parents. This post is for those of you who may find the subject of adoption awkward.

Here and There

My week in Ethiopia has given me much to be thankful about, namely

1. Tap water with pressure. Every day in America—and sometimes twice a day—I am relieved to step in to a steaming shower with water so pressurized that it feels like a massage. We don't recognize that many of the world's people lack clean drinking water, and I saw countless people hauling water who didn't have running water in the house. That's a daily chore in the rural areas of Ethiopia.

2. Toilet paper and sewer systems. Enough said.

Sleepwalking

This is what I woke up to this morning. A Mario Kart top bed sheet, crumpled and thrown down the stairs. I stared at it a moment, thinking, What in the world? before laughing at the thought of Elijah in his late-night sleepwalking, feeling the urge to hurl this unruly, untucked bed sheet downward into our living room.

We had awakened to light rap, rap, rapping (Sorry--English teacher inside joke) on our chamber/bedroom door to find Elijah sitting outside, mumbling gibberish. This has become a frequent spectacle at our home. (Kaylee has caught him on video, but I'm not quite mean enough to post that on my blog.)

His sleepwalking fog reminds me of what I consider one of the most confusing passages of the New Testament, Romans 7: 14-20:

Meet My New Friends

I have always had a label for people who habitually do tasks the same way or at the same time every day or every week. I would call them rigid. Controlling. Boring. Now because of my very judgmental assessment of these people, you could call me spontaneous, stubborn, and unstructured. You could say that I'm a person of poor habits. All of those would be correct.

I've been trying to become a little less so.

Readers, meet my new friends Coffee and Weights. New friends, meet my readers.

Some of you may have seen me lamenting on social media about my new friends. They are tiresome and bitter, but I still long to be close to them.

Waking Up

Last night the last thing I said to my husband was, "I'm really tired, so don't wake me up in the morning. I'm going to sleep in." Translation: "I want to think I'm going to sleep in. I'll probably be up at 6:00."

Sure enough, at 4:30 a.m. this morning, my eyes popped awake. (When I wake up, I wake up. No groggy stuff. Groggy hits at 3:00 p.m.) After a few moments of stumbling around in the darkness to get dressed, I slid open our squeaky deck screen to step outside and enjoy the sunrise (yes, I had to wait a bit).

On Forgiveness

I've been writing a lot about choices lately, choices to be thankful, choices to look at the truth instead of what we really want to hear. Today, though, I want to discuss one more, and that is the choice of forgiveness.

I know every one of my readers struggles with forgiveness, whether it's forgiving someone who has hurt you, someone who won't forgive you for a mistake, or perhaps even forgiving yourself. 

And so I want to tell you my story. It's not a story that defines me because I've found that we create our own definitions of self, that choices made by others cannot define us unless we go through life seeing ourselves as victims. This is not a story that I'm willing to give any more power over my life. 

Adoption Update - June 10

For the past couple of weeks, the Van De Stroet home has been a flurry of activity. We received a referral to adopt Tadesse and Biruk a couple of weeks ago, and if that wasn't enough, we found out that we would likely be making our first trip to Ethiopia this summer before the adoption court is scheduled to close (generally August-September). So we painted the bedroom. We talked to our travel agent. We went senior picture clothes shopping and scheduled senior pictures for Kaylee. We made lists upon lists. We underlined and starred items in our travel documents and ordered a map of Ethiopia and Amharic-English dictionaries. We bought travel supplies and Ethiopia-appropriate clothes.

My Marriage Expiration

Last month following my post about my wedding anniversary, I had a dream. In the dream, Jerome and I had
been married 25 years, and according to the law, our marriage had reached its expiration date. Yes, at 25 years of marriage, the contract was immediately dissolved, and it was up to the us to get married again or to part ways. I asked Jerome, "When are we going to get married?" and he said, "I was thinking in the fall." It was spring when our marriage vows dissolved, yet Jerome wanted to wait for fall to get married again! I was crushed and told him that I certainly wasn't going to live with him anymore if he wasn't married to me. Then I woke up and of course gave Jerome an earful. (Don't worry about Jerome. He just laughed.)

There is something beautiful about being chosen: chosen to be someone's wife, chosen for a job, chosen for an award. It speaks of our value to someone else, and it is a hallmark of being loved.