Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Overheard by the fly on the wall....

The Lord has been gracious enough to keep me in stitches and surrounded by the cuteness factor much of the time.  It helps me through the day…it’s biblical even.  A cheerful heart is a good medicine; But a broken spirit drieth up the bones. – Proverbs 17:22.  At least one notable thing happens every single day that I can reflect back on during the tough times.  It’s just good medicine.  The week is young, but I’ve already pulled a few funnies from the file that I'll share with you.  

[Disclaimer:  My “offensive” filter fell off right about the time Tate was born, so I’ve been without it awhile now.  What’s funny to me might not be funny to you.  It’s actually pretty likely.  Nobody get mad at me. K?]

If you could only be a fly on our wall...oh, the things you would hear!!!

From my Funny File:
“Papaw, I sure wish you were black ‘cause you’d be so beautiful.”  Around about the time we welcomed our third foster child into our family, Tate decided that black was his favorite color.  He had a black rabbit he named Black Jack, he had an imaginary tiny child he kept in the palm of his hand named Black Billy, and everyday he prayed that we could have a black baby the next time Mrs. Joan brought one to our door.  We let Black Jack slide, but when it came to Black Billy…well…we had to say something. We tried to explain to Tate that it just wasn’t right to call someone, even an imaginary someone, by their skin color.  That made no sense at all to little Tate. How ever was he going to tell his two Billys apart?  He finally settled on changing Black Billy’s name to Ricky, and all was good until the day Mrs. Joan showed up at the door with a precious African American baby boy one day.  Tate took one look at that baby and exclaimed, “That’s not a black baby.  That’s a brown baby.  I told you I wanted a black baby, Mrs. Joan.”  Tate was won over within minutes by that precious baby boy and never called anyone – rabbit, child, imaginary or not -   Black-anyone again.  

From the Cuteness Factor file:
Riley, put your tongue in your mouth.  “I can’t.  I’m speakin’ my Russian.  Okay?  I gotta speak-uh my Russian.”  I’m going to have to break the news soon to this precious baby boy that he is NOT Russian.  While he is adopted, he was born right here in the good ole USA.  Riley was only 2 when so much of the talk around here centered on Russia.  His new brother Reagan took up residence in his room, and they began to play together constantly.  Maybe that’s when his memory really kicked in or something.  I know we have to do something to clear it up.  Last week at the pediatrician’s office he kept patting his puffed out chest and telling the doctor, “I Russian.  I from Russia.”  You want to hear something else hysterical?  Riley was building his little 2-year-old vocabulary at the same time B and R were learning to speak English, so he says a lot of his words with Russian accent.  Priceless!

An oldie but goodie from my Funny File:
Only Tate would ask me the following question…and if f you know Tate, you know what I mean… “Mommy, who is God’s wife?”  God doesn’t have a wife, baby“Well, he better stop having all these heavenly children, then.  It’s just not right.”  Visitation between a foster family and a birth family once prompted a conversation in our home about the importance of having children within the confines of holy matrimony, a conversation he was paying very close attention to, it seems.   

Another Riley moment for the Cuteness Factor file:

“I got no jobs. Hmmph.”  Awwww, the cuteness factor!  It’s so hard to be 3. The bigger kids have such cool jobs and don't really want Riley to help.

(And yes, that is Christmas garland still hanging on the windows.  And yes, I do know that it is March.  I am waiting for Dean to take it down.  He said he would.)

Don’t worry, little buddy, I’ve got your jobs.  There are plenty enough to go around. How ‘bout you just try not to make a mess for….say, uh…..oh, I don’t know….maybe 5 minutes.  That can be your job!  

Tate is a regular contributor to the Funny File:
“Mommy, today I want you to hold your hands like this all day.”  Why on earth, Tate, do you want me to hold my hands like this?  “It’s simple, Mom, really.  I want you to know what it’s like to not have opposable thumbs.  Really….Opposable thumbs are SO cool.”  Thanks, Tate, but I'll have to pass. I need my opposable thumbs. Thank you, God, for this child.  He keeps me in stitches!  
 
Cross-filed in both the Funny File and the Cuteness Factor:
J:  “G makes us call him Uncle G.” D:  “Yeah.  We have to.  He’s our uncle.”  Olivia:  “He’s your brother.”  J:  “I know, but he’s my uncle, too.”  D:   “He’s my uncle.”  Olivia:  “Well, he might be my brother, but he’s not my uncle.”  J:  “Baby W doesn’t call him Uncle G.”  D:  “Baby W can’t talk yet.” Olivia:  “When he can he’ll have to call him Uncle G then, I guess.”  Me:  “Ya’ll are confusing me.  Aren’t you confused?”  All three:  “No. Why?”  One of the blessings of our open adoption is the beauty of our now very complicated – but wonderful – extended family.  Olivia’s grandmother has adopted her older brother, G and now has custody of her younger brothers (that lived with us for a few years).  Over the years we’ve all worked together to allow the kids to know each other and grow up close to each other, even if the relationships are a bit complicated.  The reality is that sometimes life is a little bit messy.  Goodness knows we’ve redefined normal a time or two.  Adoption can turn grandmothers into mothers and brothers into uncles and nephews into brothers and foster mothers into adoptive mothers, all while keeping the children at the center of so much uncomplicated love and affection.  God sure builds beautiful families, doesn’t he?

That’s all for today, folks.  I hope you have a blessed week.  Embrace the craziness and laugh a little….

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