Considering Halloween

The children and I have been asked many times over the past week what we were doing for Halloween and what they were going to "be" for Halloween.  How we have approached Halloween has changed a lot over the years for a number of reasons which I will expand on tomorrow.  

If you are reading this blog and you have recently adopted children (within the past 2 years), 

I will give you this little tip that may save you a little sanity:  whatever you usually do on Halloween, SKIP the sugar-laden, high sensory-overload Halloween-fest or Harvest Party at least for this year.

  It is O.K. 

Your children will not die if they don't get to go trick-or-treating.  Nor will they die if they don't go get their faces painted while inhaling huge amounts of sugar and popcorn just before winning a game of "Jesus Jack-O-Lanterns" and then bringing home a small goldfish which will most certainly die the next day. . . 

If you have NO idea why I am saying to SKIP it this year, you have probably just very recently arrived home and you really should believe me when I say that the last thing your new child needs is this high level of stress mixed in with the very real spiritual battle that is raging for his or her heart and is often intensified on this night.  

More tomorrow on our family's personal Halloween journey, but here's something to think about:

"Instead of hating evil, Americans toy with it. We toy with holidays like Halloween that were conceived in evil and that promote the “cute-ification” of evil, whether that evil takes the form of witchcraft, sorcery, ghoulishness, or some other form of malevolent imagery paraded before our children. We laugh at the very things that the Lord describes as “abominations,” and we find ourselves obsessively fascinated by, and attracted to, all things dark.

Yet we do not fear the Lord. . . "

                                                     - Doug Philipps (read the rest of the article here)

Yes, read it now!

Sara, who writes at , is one of the most amazing writers I have ever read (btw, I think she is also a songwriter and I'm sure I would love to hear her music someday!).

 PLEASE skip over to her blog today and read "When Love Cries Out."

One small morsel that I will be adding to my favorite quotes list:

"Our God is not a passive lover 

and the love He calls forth from us cannot be passive 

if it is going to trump fear."

Choosing to say "YES!" to what Sara calls the "awkward, unnatural love" of adoption is what changed our lives completely. . . wrecked our lives (for good), trumped our fears, and has taught us more about the Father's love, grace, and our complete need to depend on Him and abide in Him in all things.   

Adoption Lessons: To Sum it Up:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”                    

---C.S. Lewis

"If you want to be great in God's kingdom, 

learn to be the servant of all."  

--Jesus

Thank you Auntie Leila

If you've never heard of Auntie Leila, you are seriously missing out on some wonderfully practical and biblical parenting wisdom!  

Today, her advice couldn't be more helpful since it is actually a response to a personal question my friend Shawna and I sent her about the new dynamic of parenting all of our "early teen" aged children - especially in regards to them spending time together with friends.  

Most days I feel like I have a small jr. high youth group in the van with me and I'm finding (as Auntie Leila suggests) that it is extremely helpful to have productive activities to involve them in rather than letting them play the day away.  

In fact, whereas my "littles" and "middles" (those aged 4ish - 10ish) seem to be able to productively fill their day with appropriate creative active play, the "bigs" (11-14) can seem only to be able to find mischief and trouble when left to their own free time and tend to start to pick at the younger ones.  

SO, I really really appreciate Auntie Leila's advice today!  Hope you will click over and read!  Especially if your "littles" and "middles" are becoming "bigs."

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Thanks to a friend I saw on the 4th of July who encouraged me to start blogging again - I think I'm back. ;)

Adoption Lessons: What's Love Got to Do with it?

My new blog friend Jamie has just recently published a new blog series 10 Days of Adoption.  Be sure to check out all of her great posts and her story (while you're at it!).  

I was honored that she asked me for a few of my thoughts on parenting children with Reactive Attachment Disorder and on bonding and loving children with RAD.*  

Parenting children with attachment issues is not easy by any stretch of the imagination, but it HAS taught me about love.  

Here's my small contribution to Jamie's post on bonding:

Children from hard places who have experienced trauma 

(and I would argue that losing your birth family is always traumatic) 

are going to have “attachment issues.”  

Their trust has been broken 

by the very people who were 

supposed to be the most trustworthy.  

Your words mean nothing to them.  They have no reason to trust what you say and they have every reason to doubt.  They have been hurt, they have had to learn to protect themselves, they lack the ability to empathize, and they are scared to death, they are master manipulators and they want to be in control. 

WARNING:  Their behavior is going to reflect this.  

And it is going to make you feel crazy.  

And parenting them is hard – CRAZY HARD.

Even if you “fell in love” with their referral pictures, chances are that once you enter this crazy hard world of loving a child with attachment issues, you are not going to FEEL like you love them. No, it does not FEEL the same as parenting a healthy attached child. Not the PC thing to say, but true. It’s hard to feel love for a child who tries to sabotage you at every turn.

But, you see, you DO love them: 

You love them by doing the loving thing over and over and over. 

You love them by parenting them in the way they need to be parented – with high nurture and high structure (despite how you parented your other kids or how your church friends parent). 

You love them by holding them when they are raging and telling them that you aren’t going anywhere. 

You love them by praying for them and fighting the spiritual battle on their behalf. 

You love them by not being easily offended. 

You love them by not being easily manipulated. 

You love them by not giving up, by not confirming their suspicions that you are just like all of the others who abandoned them and broke their trust. 

You love them by laying down your life, picking up your cross, and dying to yourself 

over 

and over 

and over.

Yes, you love them. . . and by the grace of God, someday, yes someday, you will wake up and realize that they believe you and they trust you and both of you FEEL, truly feel that phileo (friendship) love that you have both been longing for.

Dear "trauma mama" if you are in the trenches today, lovingly parenting through the crazy-hard, please do not lose heart!  Do not give up or be easily discouraged.  Fight the battle by dying.  Just for today, lay down your life and choose love.  

If you have time today, please skip on over to Sara's as she poetically describes just what I am talking about!  

*If you don't know much about RAD, please check out this great description by Lisa.  All of my 9 adopted children showed almost all of the symptoms that are listed when they first came home to us.  

To Eat or Not to Eat

Always wanting to eliminate the unhealthy and incorporate more of the healthy from our lives.

Here's where you can find some great inspiration and information today on

WHAT NOT TO EAT

and

WHAT TO EAT


Feeding my family well is certainly important but can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming since I'm cooking for TWELVE pretty big people 3 times a day!

How do you feed your family well?

Perspective and the Little Red Hen

While I'm not a huge country music fan, I don't suppose any mama could hear this song and not get a lump in her throat.

Ironic that those things that drive us so crazy in the "dailiness" are the very things that should remind us of how very blessed we are to have these small ones with us here, now.

But, what are we doing with them here? now?  

Are we feeding them scraps off the floor?

Really and truly, you must read THIS over at one of my new favorite places!
(because it is all of my favorite mama bloggers in one place)

Am I feeding my children scraps?  ouch.

Thanks, Ann for encouraging me today to be the Little Red Hen Mama that my children need and for reminding me that

"Life’s too exquisite to serve souls discarded left overs."