Happy Birthdayssssss!

I really like that the girls' birthdays are just five days apart. They're so competitive that it's nice to be able to do much of the celebrating together. Plus, they enjoy the same things, so they often get the same things, which is much easier to deal with when they are getting their gifts at the same time.

C kicked off the birthday season when she turned six. We had a quiet celebration at home with just us and the Mod grandparents. C picked out a menu of pepperoni pizza and a chocolate heart shaped birthday cake. Since her birthday follows closely on the heels of Valentine's Day, I'm sure that's why she was so adamant about the shape of the cake. The week before I ran across a recipe for chocolate ganache in the paper. I'm no cook, but I do love ganache, so I thought I'd give it a try. As luck would have it, not even I could screw it up! Yum!!

The birthday girl sampled the ganache and agreed it was fit for her cake.

The next day the girls each brought a friend for their annual visit with Chuck E Cheese. C and her friend had a great time. M's friend wasn't too sure what to make of it. Like any good hostess, M ditched her friend to pursue her own fun activities. Meanwhile, I tried to talk her friend into various activities, but the only one that piqued her interest was feeding the tickets you earn from games into the automatic ticket counter that made munching noises.





We tried to get a picture of all the girls together looking happy, but our suggestions to smile were met with resistance from one little party goer. So we resorted to turning it into a game - which seemed to work, as long as we didn't tell her to smile.

Roar like a lion!

Look silly!

Go to sleep!

Grandma and Grandpa Beachy made a trip in to town to take us all out to eat, and the girls got to open presents from them the next morning.


Then later that day we met C's birthfamily at McDonalds for another celebration. Although C wasn't shy about eventually requesting her presents, I was surprised at how reserved she was with the adults. She's normally quite outgoing with children and adults alike. Our shy one, M, was the one that snuggled up with C's birthmother when we attended her other daughter's basketball game after lunch.

I couldn't stop pondering the situation, and came up with my own theory as to why C was standoffish and M was perfectly comfortable with C's birthfamily. The next night I asked her why she seemed so shy. Without any prompting from me, she confirmed my theory that she was worried they might try to take her away. I assured her that while they like to be able to see her, and they love her too, they are happy that she is a member of our family. They don't want to take her away from us. I also explained that although foster children have been a part of our family and then gone away, neither of them were adopted by us. Both she and M are adopted, which means that they will be in our family forever and ever! She seemed to understand, but it remains to be seen whether she will be more relaxed at the next visit.




For M's fourth birthday, she requested chicken noodle soup and quesadillas for dinner, with popsicles for dessert. Go figure. I had to talk her into an additional dessert just so we would have something to put candles in. I have to say though, that with all the cakes and cupcakes we have had between our parties, and bringing birthday treats to their respective church and school classes, I was really ready to have something besides cake!



After six days of celebration, we wrapped up with the combined birthday party for all the locals in the Mod family to attend. It is by far the biggest party since P's family is so large and the girls have so many cousins. As giddy as I was for the birthday season to begin, it was a huge relief for it to come to an end!


A few days after things quieted down, we took the girls in for their annual birthday pictures, and decided to do a few of the family too - so be sure to check out the slide show at the top of the right column.

I'm a grandma!

The other day I picked M up from school and we headed down to the library, only to find that it didn't open for another 45 minutes. We decided to kill some time by going to Taco Bell for lunch. M was in a great mood and was very well behaved. This day she didn't go out of her way to engage those around us, but I kid you not when I say that she interacted with virtually every one in the dining room. Everywhere I looked people were smiling, winking and waving to my little girl. One woman told me that she must have gone back for a second helping of cute.

While we were sitting and eating, I noticed one of my co-workers in a nearby booth so I talked to him briefly about his recent promotion and upcoming relocation, and then we all went back to eating. When he got up to leave, he stopped by our table and asked if I was with my granddaughter. Thinking that I couldn't have heard him correctly, I asked him to repeat himself. Again he asked if M was my granddaughter, to which I replied that no, she was my daughter and he continued out of the restaurant without further exchange.

I may have been a bit haughty in my reply, although I was more surprised at his question than offended, and within seconds I found it all rather funny. I quickly dialed one of my friends at work and relayed the tale to her, which she also found quite hilarious. I heard a nearby diner giggling as she overheard my phone conversation, which helped reassure me that I'm not delusional in thinking it's a bit of a stretch to make me a grandma already.

I think part of the reason I was so surprised was because this co-worker used to sit in close proximity to me, and we had discussed that he had gone to high school with my husband's younger brother. While I'm pretty sure he must have been kicking himself as he was leaving, I kept pondering why he would have assumed I was M's grandmother. Perhaps he was confusing me with someone else at work that he knows is a grandma? While it wouldn't be under desirable circumstances, it is technically possible that I could have a young grandchild. Maybe he has other friends in their late 30s that are grandparents. Or what I have decided could be the most likely reason is that he simply failed to consider that two caucasian parents could have a child of color.

As M gets older, it seems like the difference in our family's coloring comes up a little more often. A few weeks ago the girls were playing on a play structure in a neighborhood playground (not ours) that is on the way home from school. Another girl a few years older than C came and joined them, and we mentioned that she had the same first name as one of the girls' cousins. After another 10 minutes of play she asked if the girls were cousins. I told her that no, they were sisters. Sensing her confusion, C explained on her own that they were adopted. Then we had to clarify that both girls were adopted. Surprisingly she inquired about my infertility, but phrased it somehow about not being able to have kids of my own. While I confirmed that I could not give birth to my kids, I explained that adoption is a beautiful way to build a family and how it is a win-win situation for both the children that need parents to raise them, and the parents who want to have children - to which C heartily agreed. I hope that taking the time to have conversations with other kids will help plant the seeds for a positive view of adoption.

While adoption is not a daily topic in our household, it does come up regularly. C is now the most likely to bring it up and she goes thru cycles where she has many questions for days or weeks in a row, and then she's done with the topic for awhile. M has never shown much interest in the topic (neither did C at this age), so I was surprised the other day when she brought it up out of the blue. We were looking at shoes at the store when she became agitated and told me that she didn't want to come from someone else's tummy, she wanted to come from my tummy. I told her that I appreciate that she feels that way, but that it didn't really matter whose tummy she came from, I still got to be her mother! She calmed down and then asked if she was born in America. Yes, I said, you were born in American Samoa. Then she asked if she cried. I verified that she meant A, and supplied her once again with her birthmothers name. I told her that A did cry, but that A told me she was crying not out of sadness, rather because she was happy for M. A was crying because she was giving M a life that she couldn't have given her herself. She was happy because she knew that M was going to have two parents and a sister that loved her, and a comfortable home, and that she would have many more opportunities available to her than if she had grown up on the island.

And then, as suddenly as the topic came up, she moved on to something else. Who knew that I'd get all teary eyes while browsing for shoes! The whole exchange probably only lasted five minutes, but I loved having the opportunity to talk to her about her adoption and was very pleased that she was showing an interest. She must have liked what she heard, because the next few nights when I put her to bed she would ask me again why A cried.

Another call

Last week we got another call from DHS about a potential foster to adopt situation. J is a happy and healthy six month old baby boy who has been well cared for by his grandparents, who want to be grandparents and not parents at this stage in their life. The caseworker had me at "mellow".

When I asked her about J's ethnic background, she was a little taken aback. She said "He's caucasian, but does it really matter?" I briefly explained that while it isn't a deal breaker, we think it would be nice to have another non-caucasian child so that M won't stand out as being the only one physically different. She said "Well, he's 1/4 Jewish, if that counts." I don't think she was offended when I laughed at her.

We did go meet J and his grandparents. He truly was a happy and easy going baby, and the grandparents were really nice too! I don't know why I didn't feel any kind of connection with him. I really didn't feel anything at all, so I took that as my sign that J is not meant to join our family. After praying about my decision, I didn't feel any differently. P didn't feel anything either, but he's not expecting as much as I am either. He thinks that I'm expecting to feel like I've been hit by lightning. I don't think that I am, but I don't think it's too much to expect to feel strong feelings.

I already know that it's going to be different when we're talking about a child that is already here (and a greater risk that the adoption won't happen when doing foster to adopt) than when we adopted our girls as newborns. Although we were scared about both adoptions - whether everything would work out for us to bring the girls home, or where the money would come from - we felt very certain that we should pursue both opportunities, and that if the girls were meant to be ours that everything would work out. I'm sure that we would have been heartbroken had either girl not become our daughters, but it would have happened within weeks of our even becoming aware that we might be able to add to our family. Now we could have years of loving a child and then not being able to make them a permanent part of the family, not to mention taking into consideration how a failed situation could affect our girls. I just don't want to take any chances unless I feel confident that this is what we should do.

It's hard to understand why such a happy child shouldn't be part of our family. It's even harder to explain to caseworkers and especially the grandparents why we weren't going to take J. Understandably, I think the grandparents felt that it was a personal rejection - which it absolutely was not. Perhaps his case won't go the route of adoption after all, or perhaps there is a better family for him, or maybe our employment status is about to change and we just shouldn't be taking on the extra responsibility now. We may never know the "why".

On an adoption related note, I had an interesting little experience at the swimming pool last week. Most people don't give my little transracial family a second look, although I do occasionally have someone ask if M is adopted. This time a woman asked me if I was M's babysitter! I assured her that both girls were mine. She looked a little confused, but I didn't elaborate. She probably just came to the conclusion that I get around.

Tough decisions

I guess that maybe I'll start with a little background here. About a year and a half ago, someone close to us had an allegation made against them and the kids were removed from the home while DHS did an investigation. Our family & another offered to do emergency certification so that the kids wouldn't have to go to strangers. It was five weeks before the little boy we had was able to go home. Afterwards our certifier asked if they could keep our file open for future foster placements. We felt that perhaps we had found ourselves in this situation for a reason, and told her yes. We laid out a few parameters. Since our kids were so young, we didn't want to have a lot of children coming and going from our home. We were open to children younger than M, and either situations where it was anticipated that they would become free for adoption, or else we could help out by providing VERY short term (2-4 weeks in my mind) foster care.

Early last year DHS called us on a pretty much weekly basis with kids they needed to place - mostly children two and under, but some sibling groups too, and even a set of newborn twins. Many times we could make a decision right on the phone as to whether it was a situation we felt we could handle. Each call would tug at your heart strings, and you would wish that you had it in you to take care of all of these poor children who so far had had such a raw deal in life. P had a harder time than I did saying no, even though he does realize that we can't take them all. We did say yes to the short term care of a five year old girl just before Easter, but then they had a change in plans and she didn't come after all. A week or two after that is when they called us on the foster daughter we cared for for six months. Since they were only looking for a short term placement for her while they sorted some things out, and they needed a home for her in a matter of hours, I didn't really put a lot of effort into my decision. They had a need and it sounded like we could adequately fill that need, so sure. Four hours later she was in our home.

I quickly learned that there really is no such thing as short term in the foster system, and the only thing predictable about any case is that it is totally unpredictable. It gets a little frustrating, because even though the social workers we have dealt with to date have been very caring, it's still just a case for them - but for the children and the foster families, it is our LIVES! We got very involved in the process, hearings, etc. Perhaps we shouldn't have since then we felt every little bump of the roller coaster ride. For a while there it looked like we might want to be an adoptive resource, but the issue of whether she might become legally free changed on at least a weekly basis - and this went on for some time. After awhile we (particularly me) became emotionally run down. Then her dad came for his first visit (he lived out of state). From that point on, the goal for the father & for us was reunification. We did all we could to help support him and assist him with what he needed to do to get his daughter. However, the system became very adversarial towards him and the case kept dragging on. By the end of the summer, I was an emotional wreck. I could no longer live the drama on a daily basis, and I didn't think it was in our girls' best interest to continue bonding with a sister that wasn't going to stay here - so I made the heart wrenching decision to ask to have her moved to another family, and I suggested that she might do better in a family that didn't have such young children so she could have even more attention. Looking back now I can say with full confidence that everything has worked out as it should, but man was that a rough chapter in my life.

Our certification expired shortly after our foster daughter left, and we really deliberated long and hard as to whether we wanted to re-certify. I felt like my heart was still bruised and battered, but we finally decided to move ahead in that direction again and just have them keep us off of the call list to give us time to heal. Just because we're certified, doesn't mean that we HAVE to accept any children, but if we hear of a situation that feels right then we'll be in a position to accept. This time we gave them even narrower parameters. We are most interested in a minority boy under twelve months old. Our certifier is awesome, and she makes us feel like she is making it her mission to find a child that will be perfect for our family.

The reason why I'm writing about all of this now is because it appears that we have been put back on the call list. Thankfully the calls are not so frequent now. So far none have exactly matched the narrow window we set up, but that's okay. Every time we get called, it seems to be because someone at DHS that has met us has felt the child would be a good match for our family - so it seems a little less random. In every case, the child sounds delightful, and young enough to have had little ill effects from being in the system or from being in the families from which they were removed (usually pretty close to birth). This sets us up for having to make some tough decisions. Each call we get is for a potential forever member of our family, AND the social worker is hoping to have an answer that day. It's a huge decision to make, for a child we've never seen, and in such a short time. Our lives could forever be changed in the course of 24 hours (or even less). These children are not yet legally free, but that is the direction their cases are headed, and we feel we'd rather take the risk and get the child younger than to have them move around in the system and only consider them once there is no legal risk. We know it could even take a few years for everything to work out. No matter the situation, we're sure to have a bumpy ride. So it's a decision that we don't take lightly. I personally feel like I'm going to need Heavenly Father's assurance from the onset that we are supposed to bring this particular child into our home, so I can cling to that during the stormy times.

Whenever we get that call from DHS, my heart leaps into my throat and I start to feel nervous. Life is so good right now, it's hard to consider making changes that will certainly make life more challenging. But I can't help but try to envision my family with the new face that I haven't seen yet. Will I be able to handle it? I know from experience that three is a lot harder than two! Will the girls be happy with the new dynamics?

Yesterday afternoon we got another call. An adorable 18 month old African American boy that is healthy and happy, no drug effects, and he has been in the same foster family since six weeks old. Although they say that boys are harder to place, this is only the second boy they have called us on (the first being one of the newborn twins last year). From what they say, he sounds like he would be a great match, although this move of families is certain to be very hard on him. I feel so sad for him and the trauma that is unavoidable, due to no fault of his or his loving foster family that will also be hurting. He needs to be moved by today. (His biological parents knew the foster parents before placement, but now with the case plan changing from reunification to adoption - they have begun threatening the foster family.) I think I want the answer to be yes, but after praying, I feel no strong feeling or enthusiasm for pursuing this. So I guess my answer is no. It's hard to call the social worker and tell her why we can't take this wonderful boy, but she's very understanding. Most social workers we've talked to really do believe that everything works out the way it is supposed to. So for now, it's back to life as normal ... until we get the next call.

Happy Birthday, again, C!

As I mentioned in our intro, both of our girls have open adoptions, although the degree of openness is quite different. Since C was born locally, we have regular visits with her birthfamily, at least once a year for her birthday. I feel bad that M won't have the same kind of contact with her birthfamily largely due to geographics, but also different circumstances. Hopefully she will understand as she gets older and it won't be an issue. I know I worry too much about things that haven't come to pass yet, but that's just what I do.

I've made a point of discussing adoption regularly with C. We have terrific photos of her birth (C-section) where she can see quite clearly that she is coming from her birthmother's tummy. I have no doubt that she "gets" these things because I've heard her explain them to others. Beyond that, she doesn't really understand yet her relationship to her birthfamily. We refer to everyone by name and I explain all members of the family based on their relationship to the birthmom - her mom, her other daughter, etc. I want to give her all the pieces of the puzzle now, and then as she gets older and can better comprehend, she'll see how the puzzle fits together in relation to her.

Anyway, last night we had a birthday party at McDonald's with C's birthmother and family. We had a pleasant visit while the kids had a great time playing! C came home last night excited about all of her "friends" and the great presents they brought her. This morning she climbed into my bed and asked me to read her a book - "How I Was Adopted" by Joanna Cole.

Grandma and Grandpa are in town!

My parents are retired and live at the beach. However, between dad's church responsibilities and mom's doctors appointments, they seem to come into town pretty regularly and often will stay a night or two with us. The girls LOVE when they come. They do love both sets of grandparents (P's parents live just a 1/2 mile away, so we see quite a bit of them), but after they've clarified whether it is Grandma and Grandpa At The Beach or Grandma and Grandpa At Home we have much squealing and jumping. It is certainly gratifying to see how much they love their grandparents, and I know it does much for them too to be met with such a high level of enthusiasm. However, the best thing about when they come to town is that they usually suggest P and I go out and leave the kids to them. Wahoo! You don't have to ask me twice!!!

We decided to go see a movie. I know, how creative is that? But this is one of our favorite past times, and now the number of movies we actually see in a theater are few and far between. Luckily for me, P didn't ask me what was playing (meaning he'd get a say) but rather what did I want to see. Maybe it was because he felt so guilty because the last movie we saw was his choice and we both hated it (I Am Legend). I decided to pick something that he probably wouldn't have agreed to had he been given the opportunity to weigh in. Yes, I am that kind of wife.

So we went to see Juno. The only reason it was even on my radar was because there had been much discussion about it on my adoption group lists. It's about a 16 year old girl who gets pregnant, can't go through with an abortion, so she makes an adoption plan for her baby. I have to say that I loved it! It was funny, sweet and irreverant. I bawled through much of it, much to the chagrin of my husband - but he should be used to it by now. Movies with positive adoption themes always tug at my heart strings. I still tear up at the end of Meet The Robinsons, and I can't tell you how many times I've seen that now. Anyway, back to Juno, I would highly recommend it for adults if you are not super easily offended. P kind of grudgingly admitted that he liked it too, although he was distracted by the teenage vernacular that we are apparently totally out of touch with!

P has teased me mercilessly for years for my waterworks display at movies and even TV programs (but so far, no commercials). I try to discretely wipe away my tears so he won't notice, but even my eyes welling up is cause for jest. Well, now I am happy to report that I am not the only crier in the family. C cried at her first movie recently. Actually, she cried the first two times she saw it. It was A Little Princess, and it was at the end when Sarah's father didn't recognize her. Well, crying isn't really the most acurate term. My sensitive little girl literally wailed the first time she saw it. (I would also recommend this movie for anyone with young girls.) I sure look forward to crying through many a movie with her as she gets older!

Introduction

Welcome. I'm M Mod. I'm a mom to two beautiful girls, and I've been married to P Mod for almost 15 years. I've worked in insurance for 11 years now, and my husband is an entrepreneur. He's in business with his parents, and together they own two restaurants and an auto wholesale company. His life is stressful and chaotic, and I wouldn't recommend his career choice (especially the restaurants) to anyone. I don't do stress very well, it seriously gives me migraines. As a result, I really try to keep our home and family life very separate from his work life - but it's hard since he's in a family business, and often works from home. At any rate, you won't be hearing much about his work here since I strive to not get caught up in all the drama. That could be a whole other blog by itself!

What you will be hearing about is the girls. Lots. It took a long time for me to become a mom, and most days I LOVE being a mom! The fact that we even have our girls is truly a miracle, and I'm sure I'll be writing about adoption too. In a nutshell, both of our adoptions pretty much fell in our laps. We weren't signed up with any agencies waiting to be picked. We got a phone call from a family friend to see if we were interested for our first adoption, and our second came about because of a conversation with someone at church who knew our daughter was adopted. Both adoptions are domestic, independent and open. Both times we had about three weeks notice before the girls were born. Our oldest, C, is four years old and homegrown. We were at the hospital when she was born and were able to hold her within minutes. She's been home with us since she was two days old. M is two years old and was born in American Samoa. Due to the distance, and extra paperwork required, we arrived in American Samoa when she was 12 days old. What a blessing these girls are!

While I do a fair job of documenting our lives by taking pictures, I've really fallen short when it comes to making some sort of a written record of the great things they do and say. I hope to rectify that from this point on by keeping a sort of online journal via this blog. I hope you'll enjoy!