Birthday Bonanza

Yesterday was Thing One's 5th birthday. I can barely believe that I have only known him for five short years. He is such a neat kid. I realize that any parent will say the same of their child...but make no mistake, he is one of the neatest people I know. He has this huge personality - so much so that when I was pregnant with Thing 2, I was sure that this poor baby was going to end up just sitting in a corner watching the world go by because Thing 1 has so much personality there was no chance there was any left for this new guy. It remains to be seen if that is the case...too soon to tell.
Anyhoo, back to my BigLove. He has an incredible sense of humor and impeccable timing. He is so loving. I cannot watch any sappy girlie movies around him without him asking me why I am crying. He will ask me if he gives me a hug will that make me stop crying. He is my funny, sensitive little prince. I am incredibly lucky to be his mommy.
There have been talks in the last few weeks about the birthday. What sorts of gifts would he like, what it was going to feel like to be five, etc. The culmination of all these talks was the cake. The flavor choice was immediate - chocolate and strawberry. The theme...Coyotes. He is a huge hockey fan. You name the city and this kid will tell you the name of the team...it's a little out of control and I am on the verge of being concerned. I struggled with his choice of theme. How the heck was I going to pull this off? I know that I have been dipping my toes in the creative pool as of late, but a Coyote's cake? Let's be serious!
I asked my friend for all the creative juju they could muster and I conjured up all the mother's love...and this is what we get:

 It could have been better, but at least it resembles the actual mascot, and truth be told it could have been a whole lot worse.  When Thing 1 woke up in the morning, I let him have a peek and he was dumb-founded, almost without words...which I don't think I need to say is quite rare!  He turned to me, mouth gaping wide and asked, "How did you even make that?"  In that moment all the flaws that I could see in that Coyote disappeared.  It was perfect in my BigLove's eyes and that was all that was really important.

After the peek at the cake, the boy and I ventured out for his birthday breakfast.  The Husband and I are new at this whole normal family business, so we
are making it up as we go along.  We are working on creating family traditions that work for us.  So we came up with Birthday Breakfast.  One parent will take the birthday having child to breakfast at the eatery of their choice.  Thing One opted for Denny's.

Pancakes were the choice for Thing One.  After he cleaned his plate, which rarely ever happens, he asked if he could have dessert.  Dessert?  I had never heard of Breakfast Dessert, but it was his birthday, so why the heck not?!

And this instantly made me the coolest mom on the planet...in my BigLove's eyes.  In that moment that was all that mattered.
Once we came home there were gifts to be opened before I had to take off (that will be in another post...a very long and potentially boring post).
He got some matchbox cars and a game...a very exciting game:

He was very excited to see yet another Star Wars game for the Wii.  This is number three.  He also got a special gun to go with another game that was opened in my absence.

After I returned home, we recieved a visit from Nana and Poppa and there were more gifts to be opened, dinner of his choice (pizza) and then we had our fancy cake with a side of ice cream.  The cake, aside from being nice to look, ended up being delicious.

My special guy had a great day and I will be forever grateful that he was born and ridiculously proud to be him mom!

I did it!

I did it!  I went site stalking and found some delightful decorating ideas and became a big ol' copycat!

 

I saw this great idea and the husband ended up having just the right amount of scraps in just about the right sizes.  Thing One was quite happy to help, and of course have his picture taken.

Then, I remembered having seen "House Rules" canvases on a number of sites, so I came up with this:

Mine is not near as polished and lovely as those that I had seen.  This was the first project I took on.  I fell short in a few areas (some papers were not so perfectly lined up and I don't think I did a great job hand painting the writing), but it was not an epic fail.  I tried and The Husband and Thing One think it's pretty fancy, so that counts for a lot in my book. I think that I will start cruising thrift stores in the coming week - just to get a feel of what is out there.

Feeling Creative

Well, actually - feeling like I wish I was creative.  My late nights have left me surfing the internet looking at all the amazing crafting blogs.  I wish so badly that I were capable of coming up with at least one amazing thing.  Instead, I have decided to "borrow" other people's creativity in the hopes that after enough stolen projects are completed I will spark the crafty section of my own brain and be able to contribute at least a tiny bit.

I have such an itch to go to Goodwill and see if something I see there "strikes" me.  I have seen so many amazing things in the wee hours of the night that I think I just may have a chance.  Should be an interesting trip with my babies.  I am sure that the 4 year old will find tons of things that he just has to have.

Wish me luck!!

Here we go again

It seems interestingly odd to me that one of my last posts was about the FirstBorn being in big trouble...and we find ourselves there again.  I got notification via FaceBook of all things, that the boy is now in jail.  I am waiting to hear from Beth, the adoptive mother, sometimes this morning for all the details.  

It's so hard to think that someone that I had a hand in creating has found his way to so much trouble.  I mean, not to say that I blame Beth at all - or even that I am remotely close to perfection as far as parenting goes.  Ask my 4 year old and he will give you a dissertation on how I am not the best mommy.  It's just that I am not a bad person and his birth father, though he has been in trouble himself a time or two, is not a bad person.  I just can't wrap my head around how all of this has happened.  Don't get me wrong - it may appear that I think that FirstBorn is a bad person - that is definitely not the case.  I just can't figure out what has happened to him to have had his life turn out the way it has.  His adoptive parents have been loving and nurturing caretakers - people that I would have loved to have had as parents myself. 

So the question is - what can happen to a person to make their life turn completely in the wrong direction.  I watch Intervention on a regular basis and 9 times out of 10 there is some devastating event that takes place that is the trigger for their addiction.  Could that be the same for FirstBorn?  What was the trigger - the thing that brought on the darkness?  Was it me, my decision to put him up for adoption?  Was it something that he might have done in his head with that information?  I know that I have a propensity to over-analyze almost every interaction that I have with people in my life - actually keeps me from getting to sleep some nights. Could my decision have broken him in some way?

My heart hurts.

The Other Mother

I had a baby boy when I was very young, 17. He was eventually adopted, as I didn’t know what I was doing and had no right testing out on him. He was beautiful. And I have missed him everyday that he has been gone. His adoptive parents and I had created a spoken agreement, of what each of us wanted and needed in order to proceed with the adoption. For a while all things were heeded, but eventually they tapered and then there would be years in between phone calls and letters.

Last year I called. I broke down and called because I couldn’t handle the not knowing any longer. He was in trouble, a lot of trouble. I suppose some would say that might be perceived as a mother’s intuition. Who knows? He was having a lot of behavioral issues, which seemed to coincide with the birth of his adoptive parents’ twin boys; he was 10 at the time. In the years to follow he would have some serious issues in school and at home. I was encouraged by the care in his adoptive mothers voice and candor that they were working on it and were sure that things would get better.

Almost another year went by.

I called.

He was in more trouble, big trouble. The adoptive parents no longer have custody of this boy. He is now “property” of the state in which they live. She provided me with vague details and said that they were trying to get him back – but in the event that they did he would not be able to live in their home. He is currently living in a boy’s home – not a juvenile detention center or anything so severe. But he has no home. He lives with other boys tossed to the side, discarded. Does this make him think that he is without value? His birth mother tossed him aside, and now the people that chose to be his parents, those that chose him over all others – have done the same.

Is he destroyed?

Is he lost?

Is he broken?

Have I created this?

I am destroyed, lost and broken for him.

peanut butter...

I have many books that have been recovered from my very own child hood. These were saved by my mother, after having been shared with a set of cousins and my younger half-sister. I now have these wonderful relics of my youth to share with my son. One of my favorites from the bunch is called A House is A House For Me. It tells of all the great things that can be houses or live in a house. My son and I have pored over this book many, many, many times. So much so that at this point I could recite the entire book to anyone who asked without a second thought. Last night he picked this book for bedtime reading – but he wanted to read it to me, which is a special little treat I get every now and then. Some words come out as they were intended by the author and others sound as if they are in some very complex foreign language I have never been formally introduced to.
After he “read” the book to me he wanted to go through and find out what all the pictures were of. The book has wonderful watercolor images and is jut plain pretty and fun to look at. We came upon some butterflies which he immediately decided were bugs. I chose to gently correct him and let him know that these were actually butterflies. There were about 5 on the two corresponding pages. He repeated the word and seemed comfortable accepting it and we temporarily moved on to name other objects on other pages. Eventually we arrived on the same page with the colorful pretties. He looked at me and said:


Momma, I remember! Pretty peanut butterflies!


I love him like no other.

Reclaiming my mind...kinda

So it’s been a ridiculously long time since I have been here, done this. In the time that I have been gone (not that anyone was keeping track), I have gotten married, celebrated my son’s 2nd birthday, been on a fabulous honeymoon cruise, had a ginormous party to celebrate said wedding and oh, yeah, gotten a wonderful new job (that actually happened prior to all the other things I mentioned).

My son has been growing like a weed and chatting off the ear of anyone in earshot. He has completely mastered the ABC song and is turning into quite the entertainer. He is my absolute joy. All things good and bad in this life of mine are as a result of that one little tiny person.

There are so many more things to share – but I need to reign in all this enthusiasm and organize my thoughts a bit better…but I have returned and am anxious to spew forth all that lives in my tiny little mind!!