I'm sure we would have totally been bridesmaids if we weren't already totally married

You know how someone will say "Oh you have to meet my friend so-and-so, y'all are so much alike, you'd just love each other" and you're like, yeah yeah, whatevs, she's probably a freak and if we ever met we'd just stare at each other awkwardly like two eighth graders at a school dance and wonder if you have bread stuck in your braces.

But then sometimes you do meet and you actually do have a "wow, you are so neato and I think I love you!" moment. And then your husbands meet and they like each other and your kids like each other and it's just PERFECT. And she runs this company with gorgeous jewelry and every once in a while she leaves you, like, bracelets on your car door handle.  (Now that's what I call friends-with-benefits.)

That's what happened with me and Jessica (thanks, Sabra! you were right!)

If it sounds like making friends after your married is kinda like dating it's because making friends after you're married is kinda like dating. I had loads of girlfriends when I was single but now? A good girlfriend is about as rare as a good husband. Not quite as rare because I have a few good girlfriends and I only intend to have one good husband but you get my point.

And then when you do find an awesome girlfriend, you desperately want your husbands to be friends too. So y'all plan for weeks to get everyone together for dinner, and then you stare at the guys all evening, analyzing their every move. Afterwards, you quiz yours: Did you like him? I saw you laugh at his joke! He's funny right? He's nice right? Do you want to hang out with them again?? And your husband will go, eh. He's a nice guy. He's fine. The dreaded fine.
Hopes dash. Dreams die.

(I just realized that Walker has never, ever tried to hook me up with one of his friend's wives in desperate hope that we will hit it off. Not once. Guys are so weird.)


But - I love Jessica, and Walker liked Joe, and I think that Joe liked Walker.
I know! I should go buy a lottery ticket, right?!?

So now both the Honeggers who are loved by both the Dollahons are on their way to Rwanda right now to bring home a supposedly two but probably three year old little boy. And I am so excited I can't stand it.

If you want to follow the journey, you can subscribe to her blog here.

Now I am off to the Hill Country for some oh-so-needed husbandless beloved girlfriend time.
Y'all have a good weekend.

Denomination perception chart

Walker found this on facebook.

It's rather brilliant.

(click on it to enlarge)



See yourself?

On bein' all manly for a week

My week as a working mom resulted in a filthy house, mountains of laundry, a ridiculous amount of fast food, and my son walking around in public with a self-imposed haircut

in his pyjama top.


He looked kinda freakish. A cute freak,

but a freak. 

(Mimi took him to the zoo in his PJs on Friday. This was after GG sent him to school in his PJs on Thursday.)
(This is not to be deride the most blessed most appreciated most beloved grandmas. GG and Mimi were my rocks last week. I am abundantly grateful.)
(I'm just pointing out that had I not been a working mom, my child would have not gone in public in his PJ's. That is all.)
(The Barber of SePill could have and would have completely happened on my watch, however.)

I could not hack it as a full time working mom. That much is clear.

I have things to blog about but am still recovering. Until then, I can only say that I seriously redeemed my vacation from domesticity tonight at dinner.

Walker loves ribs. According to him, there are a few things in the world that all men love, and ribs is on The List. I bet you can guess the other things on The List. There's only about two or three more. See there? You got an A.

Me, never gotten the affinity. For ribs, I mean, for ribs. They're okay, but I've never had any that were so good that they justified a) the calories or b) getting brown crud underneath my fingernails.

But ribs were on sale at Kroger and I decided to be all good-wife-like and cook my man some cow.

What I did not know but now do is that there are short ribs, for which recipes abound, and long ribs, which just about every google search says to grill.

I bought the things, y'all. That's huge. Asking me to fire up the grill would be seriously pushing the limits of my chromosomal capabilities.

It took me a long long time to find a recipe that utilized the oven. But being a Presbyterian I persevered, and lo, I beheld the only recipe on the dadblame internet for oven roasted long ribs.

And, y'all.

I get it now.

They were a maz ing.
So worth the brown fingernail goop.

Next thing I'll be picking out my teams for fantasy football!

Pffft.
As if.

I've got much bigger problems to contend with.

Saturday, as I was walking out the door to my job selling smocked clothes for girls and boys, my husband suggested, "I'll just take Ike to get a flat top. Or a mohawk!"

Nine years of marriage, y'all, he says this to me. I just stared at him, asked him if he knew who he had married, and threatened to harm something on The List if he dared bring any clippers within a foot of my baby's head.

Momma's back home, praise the Lord, and just in time.

Am I a hero?

I've got a confession to make: I've been boycotting all things orphan.

I only casually glance when facebook friends bring home their newly adopted children. Haven't watched a gotcha video on YouTube in weeks, maybe months. My Africa reading list? Collecting dust.

This book, especially, I have boycotted. I stopped just a couple of chapters in. I knew it would be too painful to read the detailed descriptions of abandoned orphans in Ethiopia. I'd be in complete agony, wanting to go there now, to grab hold of just one of them now. Decided not to torture myself.

We thought we might have our daughter by now. Thought we would at least be close to having her sleep under our roof, in our arms. But our adoption has trickled to a crawl. Slow as molasses. Slower than Christmas. Insert any other annoying euphemism to describe how painfully long this process has taken and the disappointment and heartache that has ensued.

To cope, I've shut down emotionally. I can do that, if needed. Years of practice taught me that skill.

I've reminded myself that it is God's timing several billion times. Decided to delight in the fact that I have serendipitous free time, for the first time in eight years, what with all four of my children in school. I've painted half the rooms in my house and have big plans for the rest. Organized many cabinets, even built a shelf in one. Got a much needed surgery done. Scheduled long neglected physical therapy appointments. Joined bible studies, prayer groups, the PTO. Met friends for lunch. Got a mani/pedi, right in the middle of the day.

I even convinced myself that this was a good thing, this delay. A gift. Some "me time" before I jump back into the me-less world of mothering an infant, especially an adopted infant.

Then tonight, I get a text from a dear friend, with long awaited and coveted information about the child she is finally about to meet. "He was abandoned in a market," she writes. "Someone brought him to the orphanage. They gave him a name and a birthday. He was so malnourished, they were probably a year off. Think he's 3, not 2."

And the walls I've built up come tumbling down and pummel my heart out of its sleep state. As it awakens I remember why I turned it off. It was because these stories hurt.

Once I was shopping at Target and there was a little girl of about four years old, walking alone. I took note, then a minute later, when she was still alone, I walked closer, and stared. When I took my eyes off her for a quick second, I noticed that there were no less than three other women, all of us staring at her. Our mom-dars had all gone off, and from a safe distance, we had encircled her like a band of wild animals. We would not leave her until we knew she was safe. Finally she cried "Mommy!" and bounded away to a worried faced woman. Instantly the spell was broken, and all of us went back to sifting through sundresses or pocket tees.

Had a boogie man tried to approach that child, he would have had four women to contend with. Would we have let him take her had we any suspicions? Not on her life. Not on his life. Not on our lives. Is it because we were heroes? No. We were just mothers.

I vividly recall myself at her age, wandering in another Target unaware that I was even lost, when someone firmly gripped my arm and began to walk away with me. I tagged along unquestioningly, curious, until we appeared at the front counter where a man asked my name and paged my mother. The strange silent woman disappeared. She had rescued me from the unknown. Was she a hero? No. She was just a mother.

Another time, I was separated from my family at Galveston beach. Another strange woman grabbed my hand, talked to me about seashells as she walked me up and down the beach until I was claimed. Was she a hero? No. She was just a mother.

I picture another little boy, abandoned in a crowded place on the other side of the world. Tears stream down my face as I imagine how scared he must have been. I pray that if he has any memory from that day, the Lord will see fit to erase it. I praise Him that He has taken what was eaten by locusts and is restoring it here, with two parents who have labored so long and painfully for the opportunity to call this child their own.

But I wonder what happened, that day at the market. How many strangers passed by, not taking note of a crying, lonely toddler? But some noticed. Some strangers stared, and circled him, until one grabbed his hand, took him to the proper place, made sure he was not left prey to anyone who might wish him evil. Because Lord knows they are out there. The stranger who took his hand knew that they are out there. And the stranger rescued him.

Was that stranger a hero? No. But I bet you, I just bet you, she was a mother.

And now that child, who has fattened up and found his smile in an orphanage in Africa, will soon be held firmly by the hands of my friend and her husband. She has sacrificed more than the woman at the beach. She has spent a lot more than the women at Target. Is my friend a hero? No. She is just a mother.

There's a lot of controversy about those of us who adopt thinking of ourselves as "rescuers" - there's a lot of criticism for rich white people who "swoop in" (as if) and adopt poor brown babies. This mentality is probably contributing in part to the slowdown in Ethiopia now.

I get it - now, finally, over two years in this wretched process. I've been schooled. My innocence is gone. I've learned things about the adoption 'industry' that has made me literally want to throw up.  And recently Walker and I watched this movie, which shows clearly that indeed, those people do exist.  A certain celebrity and her questionably ethical adoptions have only perpetuated the stereotype of a brown skinned baby being the latest must-have accessory for the highly fashionable trendsetting white woman.

Do I think that we are "rescuing" our daughter?

Another confession: (deep sigh) (bracing myself) yeah. I believe fervently that orphanages are no place to raise children. I believe that even the most loving, well run orphanage is an institution, and God did not design the human child psychologically, emotionally, or spiritually to be mothered by an institution.

Was I rescued as an infant by my own adoptive parents? Yeah. Although that was not their intent, I was. Because I also don't believe that I was designed psychologically, emotionally, or spiritually to be mothered by an unwed, unsupported, immature teenager.

Is adoption the answer? Not in the long term. Adoption is chemotherapy to the cancer of the orphan crisis. And like chemo, it is painful and sickening and makes your hair fall out and sometimes it doesn't even work. In a perfect world, there would be no adoption. There would be no need.

But our world is far from perfect.
And this imperfect world is full of orphanages full of children.

I am white, but am not rich (not by American standards anyway). It takes an incredible amount of effort for me to be marginally fashionable, and I haven't set a trend in a good twenty years. I'm just someone who enjoys being a parent, who (with my husband) was called to adopt - neither by a chorus of angels nor a burning bush, just the boring ole way of seeing it mandated in Scripture over and over and over and over to care for the orphan.

There are millions of little children wandering alone in places like Ethiopia and Russia and Korea and Houston and Dallas and Nashville and Peoria. My mom-dar has got to beeping, and I am slowly, oh so dang slowly, encircling one of them.

Am I a hero?
No. I'm just a mother.

Proverbs 32 Woman + the Most Important Meal of the Day

Y'all, I am so not a morning person. Ugh. Getting four kids up, brushed, dressed, fed, and out the door in the morning drives me daily to drink.

Coffee. With lots of half and half. Lots.

My disdain for all things morning has resulted in the fact that I am not a breakfast person either. Walker thinks I am very weird because pancakes do nothing for me. Or cereal. Or oatmeal. Blech.

Well, aside from grits, which are manna from heaven with butter.

And omelets prepared by men wearing white coats

Oh, and I love me some breakfast casseroles. I have hauled my sleepy self to many a MOPS meeting seduced by the lure of a breakfast casserole.

But that's about it for morning fare. Really.


Dislike for mornings + dislike for breakfast food = bad habit of feeding my kids junk in the morning. Like, Eggos. Especially the chocolate chip ones. Which are incredibly yummy in case you were unaware.

With the beginning of the school year, I made a Momolution to serve healthier breakfasts. Start the day off right and healthy most important meal of the day blah blah blah blah blah.

Which meant a sad goodbye to processed foods...like chocolate chip Eggos.

{Insert stifled sob}

Y'all every time I've gone Krogering I've gazed longingly through the freezer doors at those Eggos. They've gazed longingly back. I wipe the tear from my eye, trace "I love you" on the frost...and walk away humming Meeeeeeeemories light the corners of my mind...


Sometimes, I swear I hear them sing back to me.


Knowing my recent loss/depression/confusion as to how to proceed, my mom sent me a recipe she saw in Heloise for freezer waffles.

Okay, before we go any further, do y'all read Hints from Heloise? I used to read it religiously back in the olden days when people actually read the paper on actual paper (even Frieda reads the Houston Chronicle online now. The times, they are a-changin.) (This topic causes my normally moderate husband to morph into a cross between Rush Limbaugh and his 91 year old grandma before my very eyes. 'Liberal rags! That's what the media get for selling out to the far left! I hope they go totally out of business! The Internet has destroyed them like network news! MUHAHAHAHAHA!')

Occasionally I'd get a helpful tip from Heloise but I really just read it because I was so intrigued by her definition of "helpful." Cause people write in the stupidest stuff. Like, "Dear Heloise, I have a tip that changed my life! When I take off my shoes, I put them in the closet with the left one on the left and the right one on the right. That way I can just step into them! Delores, Peoria IL."

I'd put my paper paper down in my lap, gaze into space, and ponder Delores, Peoria IL. Is she really that simple? Did she really think this was a life changing tip? Is she so desperate for attention that she has sent in 100 similar vapid tips in hopes of finally having her 1.5 seconds of fame? Is being published in Heloise the highlight of her sad vapid life?

Will Delores, Peoria IL clip it out and hang it on her fridge and still be bragging about it to the plumber when it is old and yellowing? Will the plumber feel awkward?

Or, is Delores normal? Am I just incredibly brilliant? So much more brilliant than the majority of people in the world that I figured out the shoe tip in preschool?

Am I the only human in the world and everyone else is a robot?

As you see, it was quite time consuming and distracting.

Good thing my mom fields Heloise for me.

So Mom sent me this recipe for freezer waffles and I made them this morning and they were the best waffles I've ever made. Which is saying a lot, because I'm not really into stuff like waffles, remember?

I shall now share it with you. In case you are trying to be a Good Morning Mom.

2 cups Bisquick (I buy the Heart Smart with no trans fat, because I'm such a good mom now)
1 egg
1/2 cup veggie oil
1 1/3 cups club soda

Mix with a spoon but not too much and use immediately or it will go flatter than your hair in record breaking Houston heat.


They took longer to cook in my waffle maker than regular waffles. The waffle maker that was Frieda's, which means it's probably older than I am, which means it is still working, as opposed to every appliance we've bought since we got married and have had to replace three times.

To freeze them, flash freeze - lie out on a cookie sheet in the freezer overnight, then you can put them in a ziplock and they won't stick together.

Pop in the toaster like...(sigh)...Eggos. Dear, beloved, fake Eggos.

So it's the laughter....we will rememmmmmmber....whenever we rememmmmmber....the way we were....

Things that go on in the spooky Holy Spirit house

 

Last week Walker texted me: "Next Wednesday. 8pm. Elder So&So and Elder So&So coming for a visit. Boo-yah!"

I instantly knew that the elders he was referring to were not the appropriately graying decision makers of our own Presbyterian church, but 20 year old pimply Mormon kids on their mission to convert us.

Now, the Mormon fascination in our home runs deep. I've been a little obsessed ever since I was 7 and ordered a free pamphlet called "This We Believe" from the Osmonds. I pored over it. Twenty five years later God sent me a man who is equally fascinated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

We live in a part of town that is heavily populated with Mormons. Once, Walker discovered that everyone at his work just assumed he was one. He fit the stereotype: cute, very friendly, clean cut, with a perpetually pregnant wife.

I am bothered by all who twist the gospel into bad news but the Mormons especially hurt my heart because, well, you know why, right?  They are just so nice. Just the nicest people.

We've read lots and lots of books about the 'church'. We've listened to podcasts of former Mormons. We've been to seminars on witnessing to them using the very book that they claim to be truth.

We're armchair experts on the scandalous history of Joseph Smith, how much of Mormon ritual is plagiarized from the Masons, the inherent racism in the Book of Mormon, the many discrepancies in the original manuscripts of the Book of Mormon (not to mention grammatical errors to make your teeth hurt), the polygamy history, the Mountain Meadows massacre.

Big Love is one of our favorite programs. 

Every time we drive past the big Houston temple, topped with the giant statue of the angel Moroni thumbing his nose at God, my daughter sighs sadly and says, "I just want to go inside and tell them about the true Jesus."

But mainly we're caught up on our bible enough to know that there is only one triune God, in three persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Which means that, contrary to LDS teaching, we do not become gods of our own planet when we die.

We also know that God did not literally have sex with Mary to conceive Jesus. That Jesus and Satan were not 'spirit brothers' who had a falling out. And that the teaching that perhaps offends me the most: that it is my Savior, not my husband, who determines if I get to go to Heaven when I die.
Not my husband. 
My husband is not my savior.
Humph.

We know that there are these young boys - so young - earnestly, sweetly, tirelessly pedaling their bikes and their lies to many who know no better, sent out at age 19 to complete their "mission", to far away exotic places, including the burbs of Houston, Texas.

We've seen them on their bikes in our neighborhood, wearing the ties that always make me think of Pink Floyd's The Wall video.  Lately they've been in a car and I've thought - mercy, you know it's hot when the Mormon missionaries abandon their bikes.

If they weren't so dang young, I'd be more desirous to burn them at the stake for the heresy they spread about my Lord. But I tend to see them as victims of the same lie. Believing the same lies that so many of my fellow Christians believe: that works count more than grace. That personal experience trumps the Word of God. That feelings are more important than rational theology.

My heart hurts as they sweat in this Houston heat. And like my daughter, I just long to tell them about the true Jesus.

They used to come knock on our doors, always around 5pm. Which made me want to say, I know your momma probably has 4 or 5 kids herself, don't you know better than to ring my bell at dinnertime?

Till we got ready for them, till we prayed for them, then they stayed away - like the Jehovah's Witnesses did after I told them "Oh I'll read your material, if you read mine."

{Shoot! Our house has been blackballed by the cults!!}

But then last week, they came - at dinner, of course - and when four hungry children climbed his legs and whined for dinner, Walker asked them to come back. Wednesday at 8. Walker brushed up on his Mormon facts and bought a couple of Sprites.

I was having a serious chronic fatigue flareup and had taken a nap as soon as Walker came home, so he had put the kids to bed after they watched a movie in the family room. I was still in our bedroom when our doorbell rang promptly at 8. Feeling strongly that the conversation should be a guy thing, while Walker welcomed them, I stayed hidden in my room. And prayed like a madwoman.

I prayed for wisdom for my husband, that the Lord would speak through him. I prayed for these kids, that the Holy Spirit would crack open their hearts. I prayed for angels in every corner to shoot them with fiery darts of Truth. I prayed for the satanic influences that hold the LDS church strong in their clutches to be cast down into hell. I prayed for a spirit of confusion to be planted in their hearts after they left our house, that they would search for answers, that the answers would lead them to the Truth, that the Truth would set them free. When I ran out of words, I read Psalms.

I prayed that the Word of God would not go out void and that basically those boys would be utterly freaked out and flat out assaulted by some spooky Holy Spirit business that they encountered for the first time in my spooky Holy Spirit house.

A to the MEN!!

An hour and a half later, they left.
I will go ahead and say that I have never prayed for an hour and a half straight before. Out loud. Fervently. Desperately. I was feeling kinda holy, y'all.

When I walked into the family room where they had been it was completely littered with pillows and blankets and stuffed animals from the kids. "Aw, babe!" I said. "You didn't even clean up for them!"

Then I looked down and there it was, right there, where I'd tossed it earlier when I was watching TV. Smack dab in the middle of the floor, like a gleaming white centerpiece for all to gaze upon in awe and wonder was my bra.

Maybe the angels had used it like a sling shot to ping some truth at those boys?

Cause y'all, that's just how things tend to go here in the spooky Holy Spirit house.


For more info on Mormon beliefs please go here and here.

The magic is gone

Last May, after filling out about 80 trees worth of paperwork and raising a miraculous amount of money in a very short period of time, Walker and I excitedly drove down to the United States Central Immigration Services (USCIS) office to be fingerprinted.

These "biometrics" are a huge milestone in the adoption process. It typically means you are DONE with the work.  Next step is to be put on the waitlist and wait to receive the wonderful phone call telling you who your child is.

Ah, we were so excited. Bluebirds chirped in the sky as we skipped into the serene white offices, beaming smiles at all the shiny happy government workers.

I almost cried as I rolled each of my fingers on the computer thing. Afterwards we took a photo

and went out to lunch at an Ethiopian restaurant to celebrate.

We mailed off the paperwork and waited for our 171HI - or something, I always feel like a loser international adoption mom because I can't remember all the dang numbers and letters of all the forms like the good international adoption moms do -  so that we would be put on the wait list with Gladney. We waited. And waited. For almost three months.

At the time I was so upset about the delay. Other people would get their's back in 10 days - but not us. I fretted and cried and prayed and made crying prayerful phone calls and ran to the mailbox every day to see if it had come. On August 19 it finally came.

I overnighted it to New York, and it was hand couriered to the Ethiopian Embassy along with the rest of our dossier. Or something like that - I always feel like the loser international adoption mom because I can never remember the exact details of the process like the good international adoption moms do. Anyway, we were on the waitlist! We expected to receive a referral in April and have her home, oh, about right now. Maybe next month?

Please join me in a communal Pfffffft.

Over the past year, a variety of issues, both with our agency and the Ethiopian government, have thrown that timeline out the window and into the street and run over it with a mack truck.

I hope we get the magical phone call around Christmas. I hope we get to bring her home next summer. But there's absolutely no way to know.

A few months ago I got an email from my caseworker, "Your USCIS form will soon expire. Please fill out all this paperwork and mail in so you can go get fingerprinted all over again."

Now, last time, doing all the adoption paperwork was exciting. It was hard work but it was fun. We were making a baby with all those notarized forms! Yes, in a truly bizarre way, it was like sex. The giddy, fun kind of sex you have when you are trying to get pregnant.

But now? Doing all this paperwork again? This is not good sex.

This is the sex after you've been trying for a long time to get pregnant and it hasn't worked. This is the, 'you've gotta come home at lunch, I promise it'll only take ten minutes' sex. This is the 'I'm tired too, let's just get it over with' sex.

This isn't fun. Or giddy. Or in any way exciting.

So I did the boring sex paperwork and mailed it in and we got invited back to get fingerprinted and I hung the invitation on the fridge. Until this morning, when it fell on the floor, and I picked it up, cried, "CRAP!" ran upstairs to where Walker was working.

"We have to go to CIS today! At 1pm! Or our application is considered abandoned!" I don't know what an abandoned application would mean but it doesn't sound good.

"Ah, crap," Walker answered.

So today we drove down to the CIS office, trudged into the stark white building, and rolled all of our fingers over the computer thing. Again.

Afterwards we took a picture.

 

Back in the car, Walker asked, "You hungry?"

"Nope," I answered.

"You sure?" he asked again.

"Honey, I love you," I replied. "But I really don't want to talk. I'm just tired." 

Then I turned away from him and went to sleep.

I is smart, I is kind, I is important, I is the last on the planet to read this book

Beth and I went to see The Help tonight. Finally.

She had read it but I, unlike the rest of America, had not. I normally try to read a book before I see the movie. Which is why I have yet to see any of the Harry Potter movies. Okay, no, I haven't read Harry Potter, all right? 8000 page books intimidate me! I have commitment issues! Don't be hatin!

But I have trying to get my hands on this book since my mom first mentioned it in 09 and asking everyone I know if I could borrow it, I finally gave up and went to see it anyway.


I loved the movie. L to the O to the V to the I to the E'd it. And part of the reason was that baby Mae Mobley

 

 reminded me so much of another chubby little blond girl I used to know

that it hurt my heart to even look at her.

 

You see what I mean, right? It's not all in my head is it?

I miss my baby Eva Rose. And the fact that my girl has had an especially hard week at school - and well, actually, a pretty hard year - only made it hurt more. {Prayers are appreciated.}

After the movie was over, I went straight to Target and - girrrrrrl you know it - finally bought the book. With real cash money.

So I'm going to bed now. I'll let you know how it is around 3am. Because I saw this on Pinterest and, well, yeah.

Did y'all read the book or see the movie yet? What'd you think?

And which character did you see yourself in the most? My name's Celia Foote, nice to meet you.