Jenn's Zen

Over this past weekend I watched the documentary Forks Over Knives.  One of the resounding questions that has stuck with me is which is more extreme, eating a plant based diet or having your body cracked in half for open heart surgery?

When we hear of someone changing their habits or lifestyle so dramatically we say or think, “wow, that seems extreme”. Yet, when someone has open heart surgery we don’t see it with quite the same extremeness. We seem to have been lulled to the fact that open heart surgery is almost normal, we all know someone (friend, family member) who has undergone this ordeal and it seems to happen with relative frequency. How many people do you know on a plant based diet?

Another fact that got my attention is that open heart surgery (bypass or otherwise) is merely a treatment of symptoms caused by heart disease. It is essentially a (rather large, painful and high risk) band-aid.  Surgery does not cure the heart disease. The patient is still sick.  Surgery has then prolonged the life of this sick person.  Why do we view radical eating habits as more extreme? Wouldn’t it make more sense to adopt a lifestyle that is healthy and sustainable (on many levels)?

The film definitely got my attention, definitely got me thinking. I’m not eating a plant based diet just yet. However, I can say that if I’m going to be extreme, I would much rather have it be in the way of health vs. disease.

Get born.

Find a group.

Find a job

Find the one.

Have one.

Have two.

Roast a chicken.

Cut bangs.

Run.

Breathe.

Run.

Relax.

Run a 5K.

Run a 10K.

Crunch.

Listen. Listen. Listen.

Be loved.

Look lovely.

Do good.

Give back.

We kick asphalt.

Power to the She.

Thanks to the Altheta ad/marketing dept. Y’all rock.

You prepare for possible scenarios and answer your phone.

Right now we are preparing for the both the possibility that we will have four children by Christmas and the possibility that we won’t. It sounds straight-forward enough, but they are children, and it’s Christmas. These are kids who don’t have much at all to call their own. While our daughter has had the same room for all of her 8 years on this planet, these children have not. I have to suppress the urge to have EVERYTHING monogrammed to announce to them immediately, “this is yours”. On one hand we want to give them everything in all the catalogs, make up for all the Christmases they haven’t been able to celebrate wildly. And then a (wise) friend pointed out that we don’t want to set expectations too high in case we do get to adopt them. How would we ever be able to do it again next year?

It is a tricky thing to prepare physically for both possibilities. If they do not come out things would have to be returned. It sounds odd to say that, why wouldn’t we ship it all out to them? The answer is that their stuff doesn’t always follow them. They could be shifted to another family and their clothes, toys, personal items don’t get packed up with them. So while a child’s delight is a beautiful thing, having to leave it behind is so very sad and yet another loss. We have a gift plan in place and we feel good about how we’ve balanced it. What we have now would get shipped out if they are unable to be with us. If we get the call, we have one more shopping trip to make. I would happily endure the retail masses on this endeavor.

Our phone now regularly rings with social workers on the other end. This has not happened before. This is one of the reasons I know this time is different. We are filling out paperwork (finally!), the social workers are filling out paperwork and the goal is to get the children here. We have talked to the children and seen recent pictures of them. This too is a change from how it has been before and another reason we know it’s different this time. We have been told that there is no other plan for our kids. We are the plan.

The children have been in a stable environment living with their paternal great-aunt. They have been living with her for over a year and it was thought by all that the situation would continue indefinitely as needed. We see the kids when we visit, talk on the phone, they text w/ E, but our involvement in their care has been on the back burner as they have been in predictable, reliable circumstances. Our names are still on reports in the CPS files, the kids know we are here, but it didn’t seem as immanent that we would be raising the children.

That all changed two days ago when the conditions took a turn for the worse. The children were met at school by social workers and taken separately to new foster homes. The girls are at one home and the boy at another. This is the first time in three years that they’ve been separated. Neither are homes they’ve been to before. It is not likely that they will return to their aunt’s home (that of course could change as much as anything thing else). We are not sure if they are being allowed to attend the same school they started in just a month ago. (Side note: I had no idea this was even an issue within the foster system. Not only are children moved from home to home more frequently than any would like, but when they are moved they must go to new schools if they have moved to a different district (neighborhood). Are you kidding me?! Let’s make it absolutely impossible for these kids to get a foundation under them and have a positive predictable school experience.)

Currently their father is not wanting to continue receiving services, which is a sterile way of saying that he doesn’t want to drug test, go to classes or stay out of jail, in an effort to regain custody of his children. There is a court date in early November scheduled to severe his parental rights. Their mother is still in prison and due for release after the first of the year. She has been told that it would be at least a year before the children would be placed with her as social services wants to be sure she can handle the stressors of day to day life in addition to caring for her children. The children do not know this. The children are waiting.

Taking all of the above into consideration the social worker indicated to us last night that they are running out of options and asked would we still be willing to care for the children. YES! of course. And so, we are back in the loop. There will be paperwork to fill out, home visits to plan, court dates to follow. When we pressed the social worker for a time-line in our favor she hesitantly replied, “by the end of the year”. So, we don’t have four kids today. We aren’t buying beds, clothes or sending away for immunization records to register for school. But it is a possibility again. This time it feels like we are more of an option, then again it could just be our hearts pulling for these kids. Our kids.

patient, kind, hopeful (I Corinthians 13). Those are the easy answers. Most people won’t disagree with those. They make frequent appearances in weddings and find their way onto our walls, bookmarks, Hallmark cards in various forms of verse.

What about the (much debated) “language” of love? And what to do when feelings of love and actions of humans don’t match? Loving someone can be easy, yes? Getting along through life with them can be tough. Is love ever wrong? Unhealthy? sure. but wrong? I don’t know. Read the rest of this entry »

At the risk of freaking out my family and friends I’d like to share and excerpt from Eat, Pray, Love that has made me “go hm….”. As an adult woman I should be able to express my thoughts and not worry so much about ramifications. I guess I’m not quite there yet, but I do want to share this.

“I have many friends in New York who are not religious people. Most, I would say, either they fell away from the spiritual teachings of their youth or they never grew up with any God to begin with. Naturally, some of them are a bit freaked out by my newfound efforts to reach holiness. Jokes are made, of course. As my friend Bobby quipped once while he was trying to fix my computer: “No offense to your aura, but you still don’t know (swear) about downloading software.” I roll with the jokes. I think it’s all funny too. Of course it is. Read the rest of this entry »

In the November issue of Bon Appetit there is an article titled Sauer Power written by Molly Wizenberg. The part of the article that caught my eye had nothing at all to do with the actual “plot” of the article. While giving the history necessary for the piece Wizenberg states that her grandparents met in 1943 and two months later they were married.

“They set up house in Baltimore, and over the eight years that followed, they had seven children, including two sets of twins born eleven months apart.”

Are you freakin’ kidding me?! Parenting like this blows my mind. Can you even imagine? Your oldest is eight, then six, then four then a pair at 1 and new born twins. I can’t even comprehend the type of housekeeping skills necessary to survive that kind of mothering chaos. This from me, the stay-at-home mother of one low key, seven year old,  who can’t keep her kitchen and laundry room free of dirty dishes clothes.

This mom used cloth diapers and she didn’t have a front loading washer to handle that mess all at once. She didn’t have Sesame Street and exersaucers to entertain her babes while she tried to fold that laundry. Her pharmacy probably wasn’t open 24 hours and her husband didn’t have a cell phone so she could call him on his way home to pick up something to complete dinner. She didn’t have a microwave to defrost the meat she forgot to take out of the freezer or to re-heat her coffee for the umpteenth time because she set it down to care for a child.  She didn’t have Chick-fil-a with a play area where she could sip a diet Dr. Pepper and breathe easy for two seconds while her toddlers burned off some steam in the middle of a chilly Baltimore winter.  I’m going to venture a guess that they didn’t have a six bedroom house with a playroom so everyone could have their own space. Although maybe that would have just been more to clean.

Today I will be grateful to be a mother in these current years. A time when birth control is legal and available so we can decide how many children we want in our family. A time when a mother can take time for herself and still raise happy, healthy children in a clean (OK, reasonably clean) house and not feel guilty about it.  A time full of convenience and plentiful hot water. Today I will be mindful and thankful.

Today I was at the gym, in the locker room doing my hair and make-up in front of the huge bank of mirrored sinks. Further down the counter from me were three bikini clad teen-aged girls. Their hair was up, suits on, towels ready and they were heading obviously out to the pool. While waiting for their friends they stood at the mirror and critiqued themselves. They pulled at their suits, they grimaced, they turned around seeing what others would see from behind. They thought they were fat. I wanted to scream, “You are young, vibrant, healthy young women. Love your body, you are beautiful!!!!”

It is a difficult thing to love your body.  I know of only a few who truly do.  This year I have worn a two-piece bathing suit (that bares my belly) for the first time since… EVER!  I’m 37, how did this happen?!  I look back at pictures and sigh because I thought I was fat THEN.

I’m blessed that my body works, my feet can dance, my arms can carry groceries, my hands can write. Yet, I often fail to appreciate those things.  When I was pregnant, and acutely aware of the power of my body, one of my mantras was, “my body was made to do this”.  Now I use the same mantra in spin class.  I was hit by a car when I was six years old. I spent three months recuperating, but I did. I healed to be a happy healthy kid whose body functions as intended.

We are so hard on ourselves, why? Wouldn’t we be happier if we accepted our bodies for their limitations, but worked within them to make them the strongest and healthiest possible? I think so.

You are young, vibrant, healthy. Love your body, you are beautiful!!!

It is that time of year, after May sweeps, when the selection of good, new (non-re-run) TV shows is nil. Thankfully for us, media hungry family that we are, we have Netflix. I don’t remember exactly how long we’ve had the service, but it has to be at least five years. Their selection is fabulous, everything from mainstream new releases to instructional videos to indie to popular television series. We love that there are no additional fees over our monthly $19.95 for three DVDs at a time. We love that the red envelope goes right back in the mail and a few days later a new red envelope shows up. We love that if there’s ever a problem with a damaged or missing disk there are no questions asked. What has become a bit of a conundrum is that we currently have 399 titles in our queue. Yup, after a few releases this summer we’ll be up over 400. Read the rest of this entry »

This could also be titled, “My Heart Grew Four Sizes That Day”. 

The little girl and I recently returned from a trip out west. Due to a savvy case worker and a six hour road trip we were able to reconnect with the children over lunch and a playdate at the park. Let me say this, there are alot of things wrong with CPS and the foster care system, but any social worker willing to drive six hours (each way) with three small children in one day so that we could all see each other gets some kudos in my book. We drove from WA, they drove from CA and we met in OR. As soon as the kiddos saw each other they were instantly “best cousins” all over again. At lunch they were making potty jokes, giggling and telling stories. The youngest babe sat on my lap and ate fries. It was delightful. After we filled our bellies we headed to the park.

We lucked out and it was a fabulous sunny day. We had packed snacks, sand toys, sidewalk chalk, and bubbles. They ran, swung on the swings, spun around, shot basketballs, blew bubbles, slid down the slide(s), traced each other in chalk, hopped hopscotch, and smiled for the camera. We were able to savor this family bliss for about 2.5 hours. It was not long enough. I had to make a conscious effort not to cry when it was time to say good-bye. I knew if I started they would follow and that would just be bad all the way around. We gave them gifts to play with on the car ride back to CA, we blew kisses and the social worker made promises of trying to get a visit to NC this summer. And instead of my heart breaking while saying good-bye, it grew. It grew as only a parent’s (guardian, care-giver) heart can. It grew the size of four small children (including our own dear sweet little girl) ranging in age from seven to one. It was great to see them all smiling, happy and healthy.

It was good to reconnect. Aug. 10th is the next court date.