2 adults, 3 kids...

"2 adults, 3 kids menus and we also need 1 highchair and one booster seat.  We would really prefer a booth if you have one."

This is the usual response when the hostess ask "how many" when we arrive at the restaurant.  Hopefully we are eating a restaurant that allows us to put a highchair at the end of the booth.  Some restaurants don't allow it because it is either inconvenient to other guests or it goes against "fire code" (yes it makes complete sense that if there is a fire or emergency in the building a small highchair is going to be the cause of my immanent death!  I will be trapped in this booth forever!)

So it is obvious we are out numbered when it comes to eating out, but it doesn't have to be a disaster.  It is never a disaster at home, but my home is also kid friendly and prepared for the monumental task of getting everyone fed at the family supper table.  The big difference in eating out and eating at home is the fact that when I call everyone to the table supper is already there, if you want seconds it is sitting in a bowl on the table, and if you run out of sweet tea I will just go get more in less than 30 seconds.

When we go out to eat our mere entrance into the restaurant seems to make waiters, guests, and even the hostess nervous.  It seems like the group of waiters stare at the hostess in fear trying to telepathically send the message of "not my section!" All the guests in the restaurant look at us and sneer in a way to say "eww children!  How dare you bring those out in public! "  When did America become so anti-children anyways?!

We have developed a few little strategies to make eating out enjoyable for us and those surrounding us:

1.) As soon as we sit down we demand bread, or the equivalent there of, such as, crackers, tortillas, chips, etc...  Little humans are not keen on waiting.  They way they see it is, "we are here to eat, let's do this!"
        * The problem happens when the waitress thinks we want to hear the specials, ugh!  Luckily I am just socially awkward enough to interrupt and say "seriously we need bread now!  Like 2 minutes ago, these guys will completely loose their shit if we don't give them bread now."  Trust me, it's for the good of the restaurant.  I learned how to read a long time ago, I got this menu thing under control!

2.) Bring your own juice cups already filled.  Again these guys don't like to wait, why make them wait for juice?

3.) Allow each kid to bring one toy to the table.  We try to stay away from action figures for obvious reason.  Ninja turtles seem empty a salt shaker faster than a speeding bullet.  NEVER rely on the restaurant to provide an adequate kids menu with colors, more often times than not the crayons are those crappy kind that every kid hates because you can't tell the difference in red, yellow, or orange.  So frustrating.  If all else fails, break out the smart phone! It should obviously be equipped with talking friends, abcmouse apps and disney apps.

4.) Always instruct the waitress to bring the kids food out first!  Doesn't mean that they will, but hey, you tried.  If the kids food there is first then you have time to cut up, open ketchup, blow on, and sample ( to make sure there isn't rat poison in it of course!  A request from Max...I think he has overheard me refer to ramen noodles as poison one too many times).

5.) I know that when a restaurant describes itself as "kid friendly" the food is destined to taste like crap, but try and stick to these restaurant.  American's don't like to see or hear children, especially when they are eating and I don't think that is going to change, so unless you want a restaurant riot on your hands, stick to those restaurants that members of you cult (cult of the people with children) frequent.  If the restaurant doesn't even offer a high chair, turn around and run the other direction, try not to drop your Cheerios on the way out.  Any restaurant with a patio is great.  Nothing says kids like patio!
  * Side note- I have seen restaurants where they seriously would allow DOGS before they would allow children!  What is wrong with people?!

6.) Ask for the check as soon as your food arrives.  You know you are not going to feed those sugar fiends any dessert!  The waitress will look at you like you are rude, but they will inevitable dilly dally around and take too long for you to get your check anyways. She obviously doesn't have children and realize that a child can eat a 3 course meal in less than 10 minutes.  Wait, what are you doing at a 3 course meal place?!  They don't let kids in there!

Good luck to you.  We will pray for peace of your digestive tract from the inevitable heartburn from inhaling your food :)

Adoption Myth # 2 & #3

Myth #2
I want to be very clear on something.  Not all birthmother are considered angels...most of them are complete and absolute monsters!!

While going through the long process of adoption we were often times presented with situations for adoption and the situations read more like a rap sheet, such as:

Code name : Bethany
Age 32
Race: Caucasian
30 weeks pregnant
Birth father is unknown

Bethany is 30 weeks pregnant with her 4th child, she has placed 2 prior children for adoption.
She currently smokes a pack of cigarettes a day and drink on occasion.
Upon finding out she was pregnant (at 20 weeks!!!!) she began making her placement plan.  She continues to use crack/cocaine weekly and refuses to enter a methadone program for her perscription drug addiction.
She has been incarcerated 3 times for theft and violence and is currently on paraole. Living expenses not to excede $5,000

Price- $ 30,000 not including finalization


WHAT THE HELL?!
Yeah, great she is giving her baby up do adoption, but she has no choice, hopefully the state would just take the baby away at delivery, but states like Oklahoma will not...don't even get me started on that!  Birthmothers like this make me so very angry.  They want to be praised for their "brave decision" and I am supposed to respect her for "doing the right thing."  Not a chance.  First of all, she didn't notice she was pregnant until she was 20 weeks along, she must have been completely wasted the whole time I guess.  So, no prenatal care.  When she found out she was pregnant it was life as usual...sounds like a crack whore to me.  She does not deserve my respect.

Our birthmother was young and yes, she did do a brave thing, but she was by no means a perfect angel either.  I will be forever grateful for her giving me the most amazing gift and I will also be grateful that she stayed away from crack/cocaine.  I'm not going to go into details about our birthmother on my blog because I am not sure how Abilene will feel about it when she is older.

Myth #3

Adoption is all about money.  Those who say otherwise are completely and totally dilusional.  Just by reading the situation above and seeing that a baby from a crack whore is going to cost you at least $30,000 should tell you that.  They should be literally giving that baby to a family who is willing to accept such a HUGE challenge of raising the unknown (dealing with possible FAC, withdraws in the nicu that could stop the heart, development delays, and possibly hepatitis C from drug use)  and dealing with a crazy person for a birthmother.
Yes, you can adopt and you can do it quickly, but its going to cost you...a lot.  Many, if not all agencies price adoptions based on race, they say this is because african american babies do not get adopted, so they make the price less and more afforable to "help families out" and hopefully "encourage the adoption of african american babies."
Hmmm....so you are saying that if I want to adopt a black baby you can make it happen for 10,000-15,000...I guess the court cost just magically disapears?  However, if I want a white or an Asian baby is going to cost me a lot more, supply and demand?  So these adoption agencies are proving that they can complete and adoption for less, but they just won't do it for every baby.  This whole part of adoption is heartbreaking for me.

I would LOVE to adopt again (internationally this time).  However, we can't because for some reason adoption is crazy expensive.  There is proof that it doesn't have to be expensive and the agencies will talk circles around you tell you why it is so expensive and get really mad at you and refuse to work with you when you just ask "so how much is it going to cost me to buy a baby?"  Why that questions offends them I don't know.  That is what you are doing!  You are going to an agency (the baby store) giving them descriptions of the type of baby you want for your family and they are giving you a price of how much it is going to take to make it happen.

These 2 beautiful babies live in DRC (the poorest country in the world, yet it take 30,000 to bring them home!

I do understand that court documents and attorneys do require money.  If it was truly about helping unborn babies and orphans then the agencies would pocket a lot less and adopt out a lot more.

Yes, I am going to tell her!

A lot of things in life I will just never understand, but here lately the main thing that just completely baffles my mind is the huge misconception and completely ignorant way of thinking and viewing adoption.  So to help clear some things up and hopefully keep myself from screeching at a mindless idiot who thinks public places and crowded situations are a good time to dig deep into personal questions about my family structure let me point a few things out.

Oddly enough, despite the fact that I am completely white without an ounce of tan in the middle of summer with white/blonde hair and my daughter is extremely tan, with dark curly hair, we constantly get asked if we are going to tell our daughter she is adopted.  Really?!!  

Super adorable!!  But COME ON!  Use your eyes...all 3 are my children 2 from growing in my tummy and 1 grew in my heart...I did not just "step out" on Reed lol.

This questions makes me laugh most of the time, for obvious reasons, but sometimes it makes me a little sad.  Of course I am going to tell her!  I am already telling her!  It makes me sad to think that society still thinks it is acceptable to lie to your adopted child for their whole life by using a huge conspiracry theory type of cover up for one of the most happy events in our life.  

Of course I am not an expert, but when I am dealing with the most important people in my life I tend to research A LOT.  Everything I have read has stressed how important it is that neither the adopted child or the siblings ever have a moment in their life where they are sat down to be told the news that they are adopted or their sibling was adopted.  It is just one of those things that child should use to describe themselves, such as, "I have brown curly hair, I have brown eyes, I am allergic to strawberries, I am adopted, I am 5 years old..."  This is important because it is what makes you "you!"  Keeping adoption a secret makes it seem like a bad or dirty thing.  The child is obviously going to wonder "why did they not tell me I was adopted? Was there some other secret about this adoption they are not telling me?" It is important for Max and Jerry to know the Abilene is adopted because it is a part of their life story as well.  

All children like to know where they come from, or how as Max puts it "how'd I get here?"  So we have built on this and when we have story time we tell fun little stories about how everyone got here.  Max is obsessed with it, but he gets it and it is a fun story that everyone likes to hear.  Even though Abilene can't understand or even listen to her whole story we still tell her, partly so we get in the habit and so Max and Jerry can hear the story.  

I do want to point out that I would happily talk to anyone who is considering adoption or anyone who is just interested in it.  I do not have an issue with people asking questions.  My issue is in the fact that you are asking highly personal questions in front of my children or people are asking while I am standing in line at Target and I DON'T KNOW YOU!  What if I hadn't told my child she was adopted or what if Max and Jerry didn't know? Seems really rude to me.  It also is important to me that it is not constantly pointed out that Abilene is different.  In our heads she isn't different, we don't even see it half the time, but we are constantly reminded and so are my children that she is "like adopted."  If you have questions please keep them in your head and ask them when my children are busy playing, I would be happy to answer in short or long version.  I also realize that I can't control the world and i am lucky enough to live in a small enough town that these questions will soon stop and everyone will just see adoption as our family story.  

Wow, that was a lot longer than I expected.  Maybe I will write about other misconceptions later :) 

Abilene is yelling "Adopted." Just kidding, but it probably will be one of her first words :)  

Jerry Allen is 3!

Jerry Allen is an amazing little human!  Of course I would say that about all my children, but this is just a special little post for Jerry :)






As soon as I found out I was pregnant with Jerry I knew he was going to be a very special baby.  When I finally found out he was indeed a he, I was even more positive that this little man was going to be amazing.

Jerry has a lot of qualities that make him amazing and I will just try to shorten it to some of my personal favorites:

Jerry and I have A LOT in common, which makes it very easy for me to understand him all the time.  We share a very special bond of introvertedness.  We both need our time to ourselves to do what we want, when we want, and we need people in our lives to understand this without getting their feelings hurt.  Don't get me wrong, Jerry loves being around his family, but this little man needs to be able to sit down and build his legos in peace at least once a day.

Jerry has very intense emotions.  When he is happy, he is beyond the moon happy, when he is excited, you can't contain him, and when he loves someone you can just feel the love coming from him all the time.  A lot of people don't like this trait about Jerry because when he is sad he for sure lets you know about it by whining until he is no longer sad and worse than that, when he is mad or upset his temper will rival a grown man on steroids.  I love this trait about Jerry.  I never have to wonder what he is thinking, how he is feeling, and since Jerry loves me dearly, I get a constant little emotional love hug all day long...even in the middle of a temper tantrum I can still see that he loves me.

Jerry has an infectious laugh.  When is laughs his whole body laughs and his eyes look amazingly blue and happy.  You simply cannot look at Jerry when he is laughing and no laugh along with him or at least smile uncontrollably.

When I call Jerry a little man, it is because he truly is a little man. Jerry just turned 3 and is still wearing size 18 month clothing.  Jerry weighs in at a whopping 26 lbs and is 35.5 inches tall.  I used to say that God was keeping Jerry small so I wouldn't be sad that my babies were growing up when we were trying to adopt Abilene.  However, Abilene is now almost 10 months old and he is still the SAME SIZE!  Yes, I worry about his health, but there is also nothing I can do about it at the moment, so I am enjoying him being a little man.  He is just the perfect size for a cuddle and when he gets scared and crawls into my bed at nights I always sleep the best.  He also acts like a man.  He always tries to be so brave and his favorite compliment is "Jerry you are such a gentleman."  He enjoys helping me out, especially helping me kill the bugs, "checkin on mama to see if she is safe," and "holding me" (which means, he wants me to hold him and carry him around, but he thinks it is for my benefit because I say I need some hugs ).

Jerry's 2 year check up in the 3rd percentile...still weighs the same 

Jerry idolizes his big brother.  They are NEVER EVER away from each other and they have such a close bond that it is almost freaky.  When I take Jerry away for special Jerry dates, he will ask where Max is about 20 times, want to call him, and then when we get back he will hug him like he has been missing him for days.  It is really special to witness how close they are.

Jerry loves all animals (minus Aunt Awa's dog, and they have a love/hate relationship.  Awa's dog likes Jerry's pacifier and that causes a lot of issues).  He loves to take care of the animals, feed them, and literally love on them until they hurt.  Sometimes he gives the animals such intense hugs, pats of kisses that it hurts these poor animals.

And finally, my favorite thing about Jerry is that he is 100% a total mama's boy!  I am his with out a doubt favorite person in the entire world :)  Yes, he has others than he just idolizes, like, Max, Christian, Nana (Jerry and Nana actually have a really special little bond), and a few others, but Jerry and I just understand each other in a very special way.  I was always worried about middle child syndrome and him not feeling special or loved as much, but I never have to worry about this with Jerry.  I know that he knows I love him very much and that he is "the best Jerry ever!"