Better luck next time

What's wrong with this picture? (Just kidding) Actually my husband has a mini-me. Our almost five year old son. It doesn't matter what my husband is doing, either tearing out walls or shoveling dirt, our son is there with a hammer or rake in hand! I will ask our son if he wants to come with Mommy or bake with Mommy, "No" He's our daddy's little boy! I'm completely fine with this although witnessing, I wonder how we can get our teenagers involved with a rake? Last weekend one of our teen boys asked if he could make money. Right away I stated that he doesn't want us as his employers but he insisted that he wanted to work. So my husband gave him a job fixing our driveway. Wheel barreling dirt from point A to B then raking smooth. Basically filling in large potholes. As the day progressed with texting, multiple drinking, bathroom and computer breaks the job wasn't finished. For the "effort" we decided to pay our teen the time he did shovel dirt. Unfortunately the job wasn't finished. So as seen above, my husband and his little mini-me finished what was started a week prior. Most of our teenagers work hard and respectively for someone else but for us, we can't be their employers. For our younger children they love having chores and collecting earnings but then all of a sudden once teenage hood hits; they either expect the money tree to deliver or the chore should take seconds for twenty dollars! If we all made money like this, we would be millionaires! What we're learning is to never criticize but to gently suggest on how we want things done. Even so, they know how to do it a different way! The different way consists of listening to their Ipod's and texting their friends while the chore magically happens itself. Then because they spent the time thinking about the chore, their time should be paid for! I'm realizing that with some of our teenagers, employment from us, can't happen. It's completely funny when my husband decides to have "the speech" about back in the day on the farm. Talking about gathering hay bails, cleaning out the barn and driving grain wagons back and forth. I used to pick and bundle salal to sell to the local florist shops with my Mother. If I really wanted money, I would collect pop bottles, now it's too embarrassing for the teenagers to bring in cans. I'm really evaluating our situation and why some of our teenagers seem to be clearly slack on the help department. I know I'm completely guilty for doing too much at times but finding the fine balance between being their Mother and teaching them work ethics is important for their future. Unless it's true, they work better for others. I do know technology has changed everyone. It's an empowering source that is great but also a complete distraction for our working youth. Texting is time consuming and if they're paid by the hour, exactly how much time is spent working? According to our potholes, maybe an hour and fifteen minutes throughout a four hour period. Two of our teens state that they work academically better with Ipod's. Perhaps, I couldn't. How on earth can someone focus on English listening to music? Clearly the decade has shifted from when I was a teenager. I also find that it doesn't matter how much you raise your child to be a certain way, how much you preach "back in the day" ultimately they find their own path and will work how and for whom they want too. I just hope that some of our teenagers are only being teenagers and their work ethics improve for somebody and most importantly for themselves, for their future. For now, my husband and his little mini-me is patching up the left overs while I contemplate how to explain a job not well done.

"Happy April!"

April is one of our bigger party months. Especially this April. Our oldest daughter is turning twenty one, another daughter is turning eleven, one of our littlest is turning five, my niece is turning sixteen and my Mother is turning sixty! My sister has plans for our Mother that I won't mention on here just in case my Mother decides to read this post but I've been stumped on what I want to do for her. Of course I will be a part of my sisters plans but I'm more of the quality sentimental type that wants to take a day to spend with my Mother. When I think of her, I think that she works to hard, she hasn't seen or has been able to see much of this world. She's never owned a passport, she rarely takes holidays and if she does, she spends her time working in her garden. My Mother has worked all her life. When I think of her, she's helped me all my life; from my first baby up until having many Grandchildren. She's accepted my life choices that have changed her life because now she has a list of who's turn (what grandchild) gets to spend the night with Grandma. She's the only Grandmother that juggles her time to make time for our children. She's my Mother who made me who I am today. Without her guidance through my childhood, I wouldn't be as organized, structured and routined as I am. Most of my fondest memories was of her baking and cooking in the kitchen, having a warm fresh bun with butter. Camping all summer long and her making us our homemade cabbage patch kids, big frog pillows for the floor for Christmas. So when I think about my Mother's birthday, I think giving a gift is traditional. All our children have a choice on their birthdays what they want to do. It's making it special for them, it's their day. For my Mother, she deserves a day off. Not only a day off from work but some quality time with her daughter. Yes that's me! I'm in thought mode but I want to bring her places she's never seen, I want to treat her as special as she means to me. When I was a child, (like our children now) I never thought too much about my parents, they were my parents. They were suppose to do everything they did. Now being a Mother reflecting back, I was lucky to have my Mother. I know she loved me and did the best she could, I know she loves me now and is trying to be the best Grandma she can be given her time. Gifts are like a collection of pigs, it's clutter. For years and years I bought my Mom different ornaments that she still has. Now I don't want to do that. She doesn't need another lawn ornament or cement statue for her porch. She needs a day off with her daughter, pictures and some good laughs about the good ole days. Now I just have to figure out where, what, how and when? For the rest of the birthdays it's a piece of cake, add a little icing, tlc of their liking and they age another year! Amazing how fast we're all aging and our hearts remain young. I hope when I grow up, our children will still spend some time with me too!

Through my daughter's eyes (Right now)

Hi, I am my moms second oldest daughter and I asked for her permission to write this post. I'm 15 years old in grade 10 and home schooled. Being home schooled is much easier than being in high school just because I can concentrate better without distractions and I can keep my grades up to what I need to get into University. I would like to attend V.I.U. when I graduate and become an Adoption Social Worker, so I am very determined to get the grades that I need to attend University. Right now my life is about school, family, and my boyfriend. School because it's what I need to get through life, family because they support me and are there when I need people to lean on and I love them dearly, and last but not least my boyfriend who I also love very dearly (Yes teenage love, what can you do about it?) He's my first boyfriend and I hope that he will turn out to be my only boyfriend. He's a very sweet guy who I adore and not to mention very talented and very good looking :) He's also really funny and I love being entertained by humor, he's a very special person in my life and I hope that we last along time. My mom and his mom like to joke around about pre-arranging a marriage for us and planning the wedding, which I wish that they would start planning it right now! Of course I'm not ready to get married right now, I mean come on I'm 15 years old and still in school but in the future I would like to wear my moms wedding dress. I think it is one of the most prettiest wedding dresses I have ever seen in my entire life, of course once I'm graduated University and have a solid job that is. Although he does live about 45 minutes away from me and we try our best to make it work. I wouldn't say that it's the easiest thing being apart from him because its not that easy but its worth it because of how much I like him and care for him. Normally I get to see him on the weekends and sometimes I worry that I wont be able to see him, for example I would love for him to come over this weekend but I don't know if he will be able to. I miss him dearly because I haven't seen him in about 2 weeks but like I said before it's worth it. I also love how my mama likes him and how his mom likes me as well so that is good and not to mention my family adores him and I adore his family as well. I also think that we are good for each other because we can relate to one another with being adopted and being teenagers. When I think about my future at this point in my life I think about graduating high school, graduating University, becoming an adoption social worker, getting married to the boy who I love, and having and adopting children. Most people my age don't know what they want to do with their life or can't picture their future, well I guess I am not most people, I can say this with 100% honesty that I have my priorities in check and I know what comes first in my life. I know my path and who I want to be and I will go after it with everything I have in me and try to make my life the best that I can make it!

I let my daughter write while I was cooking dinner. She has been asking me for days to write a post. I think it's nice to express yourself. For my daughter I believe there's more to her post then just writing her thoughts. Writing is a release for some. For me, I can express myself more in my writing then I can in person. I share not only because I love to write and release thoughts, I share in hopes to make a difference, to educate and hopefully provide insights on us as a family. Our life is different having a larger family, having a family with special needs, a family built through adoption. There is many questions from the general public. That was one of my reasons for starting this blog years ago. If anything; our family with the variety of needs, with our challenges and our triumphs we're succeeding through our own experiences that I can share to others. We're definitely NOT perfect but interestingly unique. I remember when we first started adopting, our Adoption Worker asked if it would bother us being out in the spotlight? (Being noticed more then others) Something like that was questioned......I clearly understand now why the question. We're not Society's normal. For me, I'm used to the positives and yes, the negatives that we receive and blogging is a part of my advocating why we are who we are. Writing is not only a release, it's a form of expression, perhaps a help tool for others that want to adopt and are waiting to adopt. I can almost write about anything, recipes, special needs to how I'm feeling and what we're doing. How we do it. If you're ever interested in responding, asking questions through commenting, please do so. You can by clicking on the link at the end of a post. Back to my daughter.....she's taking after her Mother. I've written about her before. She was our first older adoption. I'm not exactly sure why my husband and I chose to jump into older adoptions but I wouldn't change our history for anything. My only suggestion for parents that want to adopt older children is to remember to be patient, your children need to accept and feel comfortable with you. Sometimes it feels like acceptance will never happen, it does and could take years. Our now teenage daughter is a completely different person. She came to us with a Reactive Attachment Disorder. (Doesn't establish healthy bonds) A whole other post. Mmmm.....I can happily say our second oldest daughter is very attached. She's completely focused on her future as written above and I truly wish everything she hopes for becomes a reality. As her Mother, I am very proud of her. She's becoming a beautiful teenager, a thoughtful young lady. Of course she's still a teenager but I couldn't ask for a better one! Through my daughter's eyes right now is only young love......who knows what the future holds, what I do know is we will always be in it! So I'm thankful for her sharing her thoughts, always with me that I can monitor and apparently now with you.

Pack up the pigs!

After a bit of wacky changing of events during Spring break our children are back to school with new hair cuts, spring shoes and hoodies! Our son that was recently in the hospital is doing great! Healing well and in better spirits. (So am I) Our weekend consisted of buying a van of groceries, washing and putting away winter clothing, yard cleaning and a bomb fire. Now that we're back to some "normal" living, what we believe to be our normal......I'm thinking about Spring cleaning. Spring cleaning to me means removal of clutter. Years ago I wrote a post on de-cluttering. I remember when I used to collect ornaments, pig ornaments to be exact. Back then I felt I had some sort of sentimental attachment to these pigs. They were everywhere! Honestly I have no idea now why on earth I would spend money, find space for useless dust collecting glass pigs. So what do you do when you feel you have an attachment to material objects? First I quizzed myself if these items resembled who I was. I'm definitely not a pig. I don't own a farm nor have ever owned real pigs. They were cute and only something to collect. So after years of collecting I took a black garbage bag and filled it with every pig I could find. The trick is too never look back. Once in the black garbage bag it's gone, tie it and drive it down to the nearest Salvation Army. That's how I started de-cluttering material items. Now I have one lean display cabinet. The items have to have more meaning then "looking cute" For example, I have a mold of one of our sons baby feet. I have our wedding cake topper because it was built from a 1957 Chevy die cast model with our own wedding people sitting inside. I will guarantee if your home is feeling cluttered with items that aren't important, really are not important and doesn't resemble you and your family, just take that black garbage bag and fill it, you will feel a release. It's amazing how attachment to objects can control your life. What will happen is your home will look cleaner, bigger and you will save money because you won't want to buy anything anymore unless it's "needed" like food! I don't want to know how much money through-out those years of buying pig ornaments I spent! Not only that, I spent a lot of time cleaning each and every pig! Every Spring and Fall I get ansy to de-clutter. De-clutter for me is not only material objects, it's clothing, it's eliminating anything that we don't use or haven't used within the past year. I love coming into our home and feeling warmth, a place that we can call our home. Now that we have more wall space, I do want to design a wall dedicated to family pictures. An exciting project because our children love seeing their photographs and we're about family. Normally I bake on Mondays, I might still bake but I also have the black garbage bags out. Now this post is a test, look around and ask yourself if your home resembles you? Do you really need that lamp? Do you turn it on? Are you tired of dusting those useless ornaments? Just grab a black bag and don't look back. Once you've developed the space, the freshness of de-cluttering, keep it that way. Just like running or going to the gym, the hardest step is out the front door. De-cluttering is the same idea, if you have to think why you should keep an item, it's not worth having. (Drop it into the bag) Don't think about it, don't look back into the bag and get rid of it. I can optimistically say, "You will be happy with a fresh new look (clean) and you'll be on your way to saving money, also realizing that all those things really isn't you" You won't have to worry about anything breaking having children. The children should be the sentimental pieces in our lives, so pack up the pigs! When I refer to the word "clean" It's like looking at a vehicle with tons of bumper stickers. It's not clean looking at all. It's completely cluttered. That's what a house looks like with tons of useless stuff. I write this because sometimes we don't see it and just picture the back of someones bumper stickered car. Yes they're trying to make a point with quotes extra......kind of like my bla-ing blog, or the back of my van with little white family members but there's an extent to the madness before it's too much. I'm also writing because this is what I'm doing and I know how good it feels with the release of materials, so I'm hoping I'm only inspiring my idea for a chain reaction of feeling in control, relief and a new you. Be in control, don't let items control you! "My goal is to feel pulled-together and a little offbeat. And I like to keep things simple" I read this in the April Oprah magazine from Sarah Herrington. She was writing about her clothing style, I read it and thought, that's me within my home. Who are you?

"While the Mother is away, the Father will play!"

It's Thursday and our seventeen year old son is home. "It was a week"...... now 100% recovery with no recurrences would be great! All our plans for Spring Break changed but we survived. While I was gone my husband continued to keep busy with different activities, swimming, biking, go-carting and tearing out our old stairs in the living room. It's amazing how open our living room is! Just taking out the stairs made SO much difference! We're going to have SO much room, more of an open floor plan and exactly what we need for easy wheel chair access! If anything this week, I came home and was impressed with our space! Not only am I impressed with his accomplishments, I'm so grateful that my husband can handle all our children, do activities, continue to work and prepare meals when I'm away. It's excellent to know that he CAN handle our home if I wasn't here! Having a large family our numbers are against us with different scenarios, so when there's an emergency at least we're both confidant in each other. Now that I'm home, Spring Break is coming to a close, there is a list of chores for this Mother to do! So another nights rest, I will be good to go......but reflecting back, during our week in the hospital I made friends with this elderly fellow and his wife. We had a semi-private room with him. During the week, I would visit with him, help him with his television and discuss life. At the beginning of the week (Saturday) he wasn't doing very well at all. Today he was walking circles on our floor! I was so happy for him. This hospital doesn't have visiting times, it's 24/7 visiting because finally they know it's important for the sick to have family and friends around at anytime. It's a lonely place to be recovering on your own. He joked with me every morning about why I wasn't watching "The Price is Right" So leaving this afternoon I left with a friend. We exchanged emails. I bought him a multiple picture frame to put his family pictures in that seemed to fall on the floor and I held his hand saying, "Stay strong, you're coming out of here too!" While reading my past posts being SO worried and upset now feeling a bit of closure being home, I realized that with all our life's negative circumstances brings something positive. It's unfortunate our son has to go through multiple issues with his lungs, it's sad for any child to undergo surgeries and be away from home. Not something I wish anyone to go through no matter what age. Now being home I'm at ease while thinking about this elderly man's hand I was holding. A new friend I hope to see again. A person along with my "phone friends" I connected with and I really hope he gets to return home soon too. For me, I will always think of him when I see "The Price is Right" Now I'm still in shock what my husband has done, amazing while the Mother is away, the Father will play!

Update........

It's Tuesday. I've been confused the past five days on which day it was. I'm home momentarily for the evening to sleep, to have a shower and see my family. Some of you have been aware that I had no Internet access except for my Blackberry phone that receives emails. My phone kept me company especially on Monday while our seventeen year old had lung surgery. Behind the phone were supportive friends that I'm so "Thankful" for. They took him down to the operating room at 3:30pm and I didn't hear anything until he rolled in from recovery at 11:30pm that evening. I will admit, I was freaking out. I didn't understand why no one didn't know anything! I couldn't believe his surgery was 6 hours with a 2 hour recovery period. I found out later they were late starting because of another emergency. There was different periods I was always walking around or sitting keeping really strong. Monday wasn't my good day. Of course, as time went on, I kept thinking the worst! At one point I was waiting in line for a coffee, a long 20 minute lineup, when I reached the till it was cash only! Of course I didn't have any cash! I paused, walked away looking for a bank machine. I sat at a chair near the bank machine and blubbered like a baby. I didn't even care that people were walking by staring at me. It really didn't make a difference to me what anyone thought. When I pulled myself together, I made my way back to the coffee lineup. Cleared my face and went back to the seventh floor. Our son is doing well. He's in a lot of pain. Currently he's hooked to the pleura-vac machine through a chest tube, he has 4 incision openings where they went in to complete his surgery. I can't exactly explain the surgery as the surgeon but in short form they cut the blisters off the top of his lung, used a white powder material that burns the lung, they scrapped his chest wall and stuck the two together. This is to prevent any further pneumothorax's. Well at least eliminate how frequent he could have them. We hope he won't have anymore, we hope he doesn't have them in his left lung as his percentages are higher then our average person. So he's recovering at the hospital. I left today. I really had a hard time deciding to leave. It reminded me when I left my third birth son at the hospital, going home without my baby because he was premature. Almost eleven years ago and it still brings tears to my eyes leaving without him. So I'm home for tonight. I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone that has been involved with me (mainly by email) My family and friends were beside us. I appreciate it deeply. So we move on in recovery mode with hopefully no complications or pneumonia. My husband has been doing great with the rest of our children, taking them swimming, biking and other activities. He even came down one day, traded me places so I can take our children to the petting zoo. That was nice. What was really nice was when they came home, our youngest told our oldest that he saw Mommy today with a BIG smile on his face! My oldest daughter texted me this which brought me home and I received such BIG hugs that I really, really needed. I love being a Mother. Sometimes I feel I don't tell my children enough that I love them. When I left, I told our seventeen year old, "I'm sorry if I don't tell you enough that I love you" because probably like every Mother, sometimes we don't feel we say it enough then something happens and reminds us the importance of saying, "I love you" (Even if I (we) say it every night!) Life, we just never know when a day can change everything. So hopefully if everything looks like it's going well with his chest xrays, he could be coming home this Thursday or Friday to start his two week recovery! AND by the way - I love all of you! (You know who you are!)

Helpless

I wish I could take the pain from a child. I would endure the pain 200% if it meant no pain for my children. Back in June/July 2010 our son had a pneumothorax. A pneumothorax is a collasped lung. It's a collection of air around the outside of the lung. It puts pressure on the lung so it cannot expand while breathing. In our sons case it's called a spontaneous pneumothorax. A small area in the lung that is filled with air, called a bleb, ruptures, and the air leaks into the pleura space between the chest wall and the lung. June 2010 our now seventeen year old son had two attempts of the smaller chest tubes which resulted in the largest chest tube that admitted him for four days after a seven day ordeal. It changed his 2010 summer. Now nine months later he's in the hospital with another spontaneous pneumothorax. I've been with him at the hospital all day. He's been admitted and another chest tube has been put in. Good news is the doctor was able to sinch out 700 ml of air, imagine drinking a bottle of pop! That's what came out of my sons chest tonight. As his Mother I'm holding it together because I have to be strong for him. In my heart I'm crying. The doctor tonight has made arrangements for his transport by ambulance to the Victoria hospital tomorrow (Saturday) morning. From there we will be seeing a Thoracic lung specialist and our son will undergo lung surgery on Sunday. The lung surgery should prevent any further pneumothorax's in his right lung as he's now classified as chronic. This doesn't ensure possible future complications with his left lung. Right now we don't know why this is happening except for his body structure is lean. He's not a smoker. Symptoms of a collapsed lung is sharp chest pain, shortness of breath, painful to breathe, chest tightness and in our sons case, throbbing back pain generally localized around the collapsed lung. We're hoping that it's just a spontaneous pneumothorax and not finding any type of underlying lung diseases but time will tell with tests. I needed to write in hopes to get some sleep. Above pictures, left is from last year, June 2010. The right picture is from tonight. (Friday) I don't know what the next week will entail except that our son resembles a stabbing victim with multiple scars from chest tubes. From June until now our son has been worried that he would have another incident. His worries have become reality. As I remained strong and I will remain strong, our son teared and I wanted nothing more to take his pain away. I feel like I felt nine months ago, helpless. It's unfair and young people shouldn't have to worry about their health. As we move forward dealing with this unexpected turn of Spring Break, I know there will be positive results in the end. "There will be positive results" because right now, I don't believe it will get any worse. I just wish right now, I can have his pain instead and his worries because a teenager doesn't need any extra complications in their life. He doesn't need this............I'll be back with something positive soon. :(