Kiddie post & plea

 So if anyone is reading at all you've caught on that I have been horrible at posting about these sweet lil lovies these past few months.  So I wanted to give some updates on them!!!  They are the whole reason I started blogging in the first place :/   Here is Sadie this summer being her crazy self...she is SO strong and can do the monkey bars all by herself.  She has some serious upper body muscles.  She is FAST and can nearly out run me.  She is constantly smiling and giggling and mothering.  She loves everything and will make it her baby to love on and take care of.  She talks to babies, grown adults, dogs, bugs, balls, dolls, etc like they are her very best friend.  Its super sweet most times, but awfully scary when she grabs adult men by the hands to play with her.  Perhaps we need to cover stranger danger again! 

 Owen is an incredible young man.  He is a wonderful leader at school and a huge help to his teacher.  He is very active and loves playing basketball, riding scooters, playing football, soccer, golf and tennis.  He is sure having fun with a backyard, we missed that when living in an apartment last year.  He loves to read and often stays up with a flashlight reading past his bedtime.  He too is a fast runner, but it's not his favorite thing to do.  He is a great listener, master negotiator, & is sensitive to others needs.  Tonight as I walked in to scratch the boys backs Owen started singing a song we had sung in church...but he never sings during praise so I didn't know he was listening...he sung it perfectly pausing just as the song is written, "My heart will si-ing...no other na-ame...Jesus...Jesus" over and over.  Oh love, there couldn't be a sweeter sound for a mama to hear, and even more so for our Father to hear!  This year he turned 7!  I don't know how we have a 7 year old!

 Emery, who we usually call Emme, is at such a fun age...most of the time.  She is particularly frustrated when everyone else has someone to pick on and she does not :(  So we are working on talking about our frustrations rather than hitting them out.  Whoops.  Her favorite things to say right now are: I gonna tewl mommy!, I no wan to, I tootie, No Sadie pfthtttt (we have a minor spitting problem), Aw we goin?, Aw da guys? and I do it!!!!!  She still loves to cuddle, is left handed and is our best sleeper!  She is TALL and skinny.  Most people mistake her for being 3 and older, and she just turned 2.5 this month!  She talks really well, still loves to sing and knows a lot of songs and she loves to pray, even for large groups of people.  Be still my heart!

 Cooper!  Coop turned 6 in November and got a bouncy house of all things.  Have you ever checked out purchasing one of those boogers instead of buying one?  No?  You should.  Google it!  We just had a few grands chip in and vwa-la, we got to keep the dang thing UNTIL IT POPS!!!  It has been endless fun and can hold up to 500 lbs so that means that occasionally we have a mom that hops in and plays monster tickler.  Fun times.  It's even more fun when you have no furniture and can inflate it in room and just leave it out during the winter.  Cooper is another blessing of a kid.  He is bursting with passion, compassion, ambition, skills (he has wonderful penmanship as well as one heck of an arm) and love.  He often comes home from school and has drawn pictures of the crucifixion and resurrection during his brain break at school.  Just like with everyone of our kids, I cannot wait to see how this guy follows God through life. 

 One thing I have hesitated to share about our Sadie is that we have "lost" her birth mom.  I haven't wanted to share it for several reasons.  First, so many people don't get open adoption and quite frankly don't need another reason to not understand it.  Second, so many people don't try and understand birth parents, and I don't want people to judge these precious precious family members.  They are our family, so please understand how intimate and personal we hold them in our hearts.  But it's been nearly 2 years since we've seen Gerlisha, and we miss her terribly.  Sadie prays for her daily.  She cries for her.  She draws pictures of her.  She is only 4, so I am not sure what memories she has or if its just because we talk about her so much and tell her stories and look at pictures.  Whatever it is, it's real and it's painful.  I know adoption is layered and bittersweet, and we have been educated and counseled on how to walk through this with our loves.  I don't know where I would be without our adoption agency and their support.  But they don't know where she is either.  So this is me asking for prayer and only prayer.  Please do not judge our choices or Gerlisha's.  My hope is that she might follow the blog and see how desperately we need her, and that's why I am finally sharing this.  I am so thankful that I ALWAYS take pictures when we see our first families because we never want to take a day for granted. 

 Emery right before turning 2

 Cooper found a worm...he is such a boy loving dirt and bugs and all things boy!

 Priceless picture of me telling Owen thank you for smiling for the pictures...he HATES taking pictures so we bribed the kids with QT if they smiled!

 The girls had pajama day at school and watched Polar Express

 Owen's holiday party at school!  We had so much fun at his party and stole the idea to MOB the Neighborhood with love and give the holiday away.  It was cheap and helped the kids focus on OTHERS during the holiday instead of giving them a bunch of silly dinky knick-knacks.

 This was the girls party at school, even though we don't do Santa they got a kick out of seeing our pastor dress up and read a story. 

 Cooper's class party.  Isn't he such a handsome stud with that too cool smile? 

 I think since we never talk about Santa she was fascinated with him.  Ha!

Emery was just excited to get herself some candy!  This girl LOVES sweets! 

OH my

Wow. I feel like a million things have happened in only 3 weeks.

We've had a lot of giggles and a couple really awkward moments.

Here is a run down.

• Nanny at the park asked me how all my kids were different shades. I do my best to just ignore such silly remarks. But then continued on with "they must all have different dads". Really lady. Really?
  
  


• Dude at the pool when I strolled in with my 4. "That's interesting." To which 8 people turned our direction to look us over. Needless to say, we didn't stay long.




• Lady from Louisiana at the aquarium asks my MIL in a southern drawl, "So are y'all babysittin?" To which our Gigi replied, "Nope. They're ours."




• Went to pick up Emme from nursery and they couldn't find her. At what point should I tell new people that my child is chocolate? They were searching for a peach Emery. I kept describing her dress and giving them her number, and looking for her from the door. Phew. She was easily found when I mentioned she was black.




• A little girl in the sandbox told her grandma that Emery was lost (she was about 15 feet from me in the sand). Her grandma nicely explained that I was her mommy.
  
  


• Found a new church that we loved! It's really diverse and a straight shot from our apartment (nothing is a straight shot here).
  
  


• Met our teachers at school and found our new classes. I haven't broken the news to Owen that he has to wear a uniform. The dude does not enjoy "church clothes" as he calls them.

• Our new neighbors baked the kids cupcakes to welcome us! They were gone in 6 seconds flat.
  
  


• We found a new pediatrician! We are so thankful and we love her already. She did her residency at OU, small world! It's pretty fabulous to have an AA doctor. She was recommending things for Emme's slightly dry skin that I never would've tried. AND they sell hair care products at their office. We hit the jackpot!





• I drove on the highway all by myself to get to the pediatrician. Big accomplishment. I have only filled up the car once (1/2 tank) in 3 weeks. It's nuts here people! This mama isn't driving alone unless I have to.





• While on the phone with peds office to register kids I was asked what race Cooper was. I told them he was biracial, both Caucasian and AA. She told me she could only enter one race and that she would enter the primary insured, so what race was his father? Well, his father's white. She continued to register Emme, asked if the info was the same. I said all but race, she again told me that head of house would be entered. What? So since my husband's white we have to register my kids as white. What the? I explained. She didn't seem to care. Needless to say we got it straightened out in person ;o)





• Gigi came and stayed for a week!!!! We had so much fun exploring new places around town. We also found ourselves scratching our heads when the GPS didn't know certain intersections existed. I might have headed down a street in the wrong direction. Yikes.

• And my new camera charger came in today and is currently charging so I will have pics to post soon!!! I am too scerred to post pics from my iphone on here for fear of any weirdos out there that might try and find my kiddos.

Book Review

Emery's late feeding...she was bright eyed and bushy tailed....her mommy and daddy weren't but we just couldn't get past that grin.

We did projects for GroundHogs Day. Both the boys predicted that he would not see his shadow and I couldn't get them to watch the news with me to find out if he did. Happy Groundhogs Day...does anyone know?

Doing our school work and they are loving it!

Owen and Cooper being the camera man.

Well, that makes for an interesting title. Makes you wanna read on, huh?

I think in an attempt to get your attention and not give you so much info about the book that you wouldn't read it, I was very vague about Black Baby White Hands when I first talked about it.

I know, I have serious control issues, right?

Why not just suggest the book and tell you why I liked it? Because I am controlling that's why. I know...I need recovery.

It is a horribly hard book to read. In all honesty if my dear friend who I trust with these difficult issues had not told me, "Molly you will want to put it down. But just keep going. Read it from front to back." I know I would have stopped reading. In fact, it's why I never read it when I heard about it years ago. And it did take me a full 2 weeks to read. It's heavy stuff.

As I read the book and really opened my mind up to trusting the author, it became so clear to me how off I was in my views on transracial adoption, racism and prejudice.

Let me be clear...I do not think transracial adoption is wrong. Quite frankly, if we don't allow this/encourage this, I can't think of what other options there are. Would it be better for black children to go to foster care than be placed with parents of a different race? So this is not at all what I am saying. Transracial adoption is what we CHOSE...and if we had it to do all over again, we would do nothing different.

But what I loved about the book was that the author talked about what would have helped him. It gives us parents a much better understanding of how this must feel. He goes into great detail describing his heart and emotions...he reminds me so much of one of my children and I know that it is why I so appreciated his words.

Someone commented that their children have never had issues with this. WONDERFUL! I think that's fantastic, but some of mine have and I am so glad I now feel a little bit better prepared. I don't think that all of mine will, but heck, you just never know. What I am thankful for was that my kiddos felt okay sharing with me their heart and their hurt.

Someone commented about how to handle if your child is doing the staring... Perfect way to handle it; just talk to them about how God made everyone different and beautiful. And please let me point out that my kids do their fair share of staring. Especially at all brown families. How funny is that? They so wish Blake and I were black. Staring is something that happens and sometimes it's like watching a car wreck...you just can't not look. Whether it's because you think we are cool or that we have a beautiful family or because Cooper has a booger...it happens. Just do your best to minimize it and remember that just because you are interested doesn't make it right to ask questions.

Yep, you read that right. No questions at all. Just like I don't ask you if your kids are your step-kids, please don't ask if mine are "real" sisters/brothers. Just like I don't ask how your child came out of your body, don't ask me "where I got them". Just like I don't ask you how much your c-section or epidural costs, don't ask me how much adoption costs. Just like I don't ask you how long you were in labor with your 6 year old, don't ask me if my children are foster kids or how long I waited for them. You get the gist...if we are just meeting in the line at the grocery store or at the zoo or waiting to be seen at the doctor...you don't need to know my kids' stories. Shoot...they don't even fully know them yet. The kids may stare but its usually the parents that make it worse.

If you really want to know, you can email me or call me or come to Chosen. Heck, you could even scoot close to me and whisper your questions. And if we are good friends, you already know these things and chances are I told you when I wanted you to know the details....just like when you told me you only pushed three times for Johnny's delivery ;) But for Pete's sake DO NOT ASK THESE THINGS IN FRONT OF MY KIDS!!!!

Now, the funny thing about this is that the people I really want/need to hear this are not reading this blog. Shoot. All of you reading this have most likely never said something off hand. And if ya did, I knew your heart. It's all those random strangers out in public. Oh and what is it about church and Oklahoma?

I digress...back to my dudes...the great thing that I have noticed when these moments come up with my kids is that they are usually pretty quick and passing. It's not like they go around moping all day or can't quit thinking about it (at least from what I can gather). They seem to want to quit talking about it before I am done mulling it over. We'll see if/how that changes over the years.

The thing I couldn't get over about this book was how well he articulated his feelings and how he described exact things that I had thought. I do hope you will read it.

Again, thanks for your encouragement. Like any good control freak, I didn't want you to think that our kids are having a horribly hard time. So I had to respond. Dear God I do need recovery.

Adoption Etiquette

I often think of the silly things that are said in public around my kids.

Most of the time I can shrug them off and move on, but some need to be shared here. I also want to talk about them because I know several of you have adopted and can share your stories (and your clever responses). One of my friend's brother is starting this process and is using these etiquette posts to educate her family on what is okay to say. You might pull up some of the other posts using the adoption etiquette label, because I think the first one had some good thoughts too.

"Where did you get them?" I politely inform them of the agency we used and the city they were born in.

"Are they foster kids?" No, but even if they were that's not right to ask. If we had foster children, pointing that out only reminds the child of the situation with their first family. They need to feel loved and chosen, and not reminded all of the time they are only here for a little while. They aren't my adopted kids either...they are my children! They just happen to join our family through adoption. It's not a label, just a part of their story.

"Do they have the same parents?"- Yes, my husband and I are their parents. No, they do not all share biological parents. And why does that matter anyway? Questions about birth families are generally off limits. I will tell you what I want you to know. That is very private information and very intimate to my child. I want them to understand their story first before everyone else does. I could not say that enough...be very sensitive to the subject of birth families.

"Do you have any of your own?" - I really don't like this one. What makes a child more my own than these three? Please use the right words: biological children. And no, we don't have any of those, we chose not to. This wasn't our plan B.

"Do they call you mom?" No lie, I got this one yesterday. Lady...come on. Have you never known a child in an open adoption? Yes, I am their mom and they call me that. This one was almost laughable. But so many people have questions about open adoption. We often talk about how our kids have 2 moms that love them very much. We know less about their birth fathers, so we don't talk a ton about them except for in very quiet moments.

"How do they feel about open adoption?" First, we never say that "open adoption". They just know adoption and they know their story and it's very natural for them. They have no weirdness that adults put on kids about having relationships with their birth parents. That's all bunk in my opinion. That's adoptive parents making excuses for why they don't embrace birth families. Kids pick up on how parents feel about their birth parents. They will be weird about it if you are...and I seriously believe it will become an issue down the road. They will embrace it if you do, and your closeness with your child will deepen because you are loving and accepting ALL of who they are.

But some of the worst things are not questions at all, but what people think are compliments. These make me want to gag.

"They are so blessed to have you." Are you kidding? We are BEYOND blessed to have THEM!!! I mean, I think we are good parents, but every family is blessed to be together.

"You are doing the ultimate mission for God." NO! This is not a mission, these are my children. I didn't save them. Yuck. That's awful for a child to hear that someones sees them at "outreach" or a good deed. Please don't adopt children because you feel this way. Can you imagine what it must feel like for a child to be brought up feeling this from home?

"I just couldn't do it. I couldn't handle losing a child." Well, life is not about you. How come I have never heard someone say that of marriage? One in every 2 marriages fails, and yet no one says I just couldn't get married because chances are we'd be divorced. No one could walk into this wanting to lose a child, but it's well worth the risk. Being with Kennedy for 8 days was worth the loss of her. I'd do it a million times over. We are not super heroes, we are parents and we have to take that risk because it's a part of the journey. Don't act like we don't have feelings and intense bonding and deep love for every child placed with us. God carries us through, it's not by our own strength.

One of my sisters wanted to know what IS okay to say. She sees families like ours in public and wants to show her love and support. Yes, we have a need to talk to everyone in our family! Here are things I love hearing and we actually get a lot of these:

Your family is beautiful! Sorry but we just couldn't keep from staring.

Your family looks just like my family. I love seeing that!

Your children are gorgeous. They behave like angels too (just kidding, just wanted to see if you were still paying attention!)

Your kids are beautiful. We have always talked about adopting, do you mind if I ask questions?

Your family makes me smile.

Okay, hope this was read how my heart meant it to come out. I never want to offend anyone in writing this stuff.

Random pictures of the week

We've all had a bit of a cold this week, so we've been laying low.

Just wanted to share some pictures and say thanks for all of the prayers and support with Cooper's Law.

We are making some great progress. If you know any senators or representatives, this would be a great time to contact them and explain Cooper's Law. If they can contact Representative Nelson or Senator Russell, that would be incredible help!

Owen and Josee on the rhino at the zoo! Today we had our monthy Kaleidoscope Kids playgroup! So much fun to hang out with families that match us!!!

The funny thing about this shirt...as much as I love it, I feel like I just labeled my child when he wears it. I hate when people introduce my children as adopted. I don't care if people know, or if it comes up in conversation...but it's completely different when someone says, "This is Molly and her adopted son Owen." Do you get my drift? They are my children, and they happen to be adopted. It does not identify them, it's just a part of their story. Anywho, the first time he wore this shirt out in public it hit me that many will not get the meaning behind Adopt(ed) and will assume I am announcing that I adopted my kids. Oops!

Sadie being sassy with her boots on! Man, I love having a daughter and all of the fun stuff that goes comes with girls!

Making malts with daddy! We actually haven't made malts in quite some time and thought we better before it gets too cold! The kids loved it!Think we need a bigger stroller? Or maybe we should suggest the big guy start carrying his own weight!

Notice Cooper handing out the goldfish...I love those little things you catch them doing. So cute! We took a family trip to the zoo on Sunday morning! Our church started Saturday night service, which is when Chosen (adoption ministry) meets, so Sundays are totally free now and we love it!

Sadie getting frustrated that she can't get the drawer open for a sippie cup. How can you resist that face? We were getting ready to go to church...I don't dress her like this for playtime, I swear!!!

Adoption Etiquette

I have been wanting to write something about adoption and what is and is not appropriate to ask or say. Things got busy and I just let it slip.

Blake's on call tonight and I have the computer to myself! So I am going to take a moment to share some thoughts, but this very well may be an on-going process.

First, let me say that when you are talking to me about our adoption I can totally tell where your heart is when you are asking questions, just by your demeanor. I don't want people to be so scared they might offend me that they don't ask questions...we want to share how God has blessed us through adoption. Please know that walking through this myself has taught me so much, so I am not pointing fingers. I just know so many of you have wanted to ask questions and have not known what's appropriate! We think this is a miracle and we want you to be able to experience in it.

So, in saying all of this...I hope this is helpful and answers questions for you.

1. Always remember how incredibly important our children's birthparents are to us. We will respect them in every way possible. We ask you to do the same. These birthparents are FOREVER a part of us and our children. In general it's probably more safe to just not ask questions related to their birthparents. We will give you the info we want you to know about them. As with anyone, as Christians we are to be gracious and show love to everyone, especially someone as heroic as a birthparent. Nuff said, tho I could go on and on here!

2. Before you ask a question, ask yourself, "Why do I want to know this?" If you are wanting this information so that you can judge the situation, then you probably should not ask it. We need no judgement, our children need none either. If you are judging the birthparent, then you are judging our child and therefore us as well.

3. Please do not refer to our children as "real" brothers. This makes it difficult to explain the next child that we will adopt, are they going to be a "fake" sibling. Come on guys! They are siblings because we adopted them and they are both now Shockleys, as will be the rest of our crew. The appropriate term is biological siblings.

4. On the same note, but even more painful...please do not refer to our children as "not your own". This happens more than you would ever imagine. These are our children, just as much as God gave you your little miracles, He did the same with us.

5. Please do not identify/label our children as "adopted". It's obvious that they are adopted, we are very open about this. They know they are adopted, we talk about it almost daily. But just as I never wanted to be identified as a diabetic (and still don't), please do not introduce our children as "adopted". Their adoption is not who they are, but just a part of their story.

6. Owen is almost 3. He understands much more than most adults think he does (Cooper does as well). Please do not ask me questions about their adoption or adoption in general when they are in the room. You might as well look down at those sweet brown eyes and ask them. In fact, I did that the other day when someone just asked right in front of Owen why he was placed for adoption. He clearly stated that he did not want to talk about it and we ended the conversation. Please remember how confusing it is for a child to understand why they were placed for adoption. Help us respect our children and their hearts.

I love you all! Thank you for walking through this with us. Thank you for loving our children and our road to calling them Shockleys. Thank you for loving adoption with us, even in the midst of it's trials. I hope this all came out right and was not offensive. I want it to be informative and helpful.

I know there will be more that comes up from time to time and I promise to post about it again.