National Adoption month.

The essay below is from my 2012 appearance in Austin’s Listen To Your Mother Show.

The entire experience was unforgettable–but nothing more so than seeing the pride on my child’s face as I shared our story.  Recently, as we chatted about National Adoption Month, she expressed her excitement for our *dear* friend Sarah & how cool it is one of her new Oakland BFFs is adopted from Guatemala, too.

We looked through pictures.  We talked about adoption.  We brainstormed/listed all the various ways families are created. We watched the LTYM video again.

Im sharing today.  At her request.  It’s her story. 

Life in Guatemala

People frequently ask me if my daughter knows she’s adopted.

They tend to ask in front of her using stage-whispers which make me long to point out she’s six, she’s not deaf.

It’s odd to even consider the notion that when I was young, parents decided when and how and whether to tell their children they were adopted.  It’s baffling to me how common it was  for children to have this news thrust upon them at age 5 or 8 or, if the rumblings I heard around junior high school were true, even as old as 13.

Thankfully things have changed.

The majority of adopted children grow up having a sense of always “just knowing” their story.

Rather than being something silenced and secret it’s told over & over in the same fashion biological children ask to hear their birth story repeated.

Adopted children ask the same questions each time and find the same comfort in hearing the answers recited the exact.same.way. each time the story is re-told.

“I’ll never forget when we got your referral pictures…” our story begins.  “Your dad was working late and I could not WAIT for him to get home so I could open the email.  I *barely* waited till he came home.  I sat on the couch, computer on lap, finger hovering over the word OPEN so the moment he walked in the door I could click and you’d be there INSTANTLY and forever a part of our family.”

And then? Tell me about the necklace,  Mama.

“And then, after we’d sent everyone we knew your perfect picture and told them what we’d decided to name you, I had a necklace made.  Right then.  That night.  Thank G-d for online shopping.  I made a tiny charm with your picture on it and I vowed to wear it until you were home with us forever.”

And the Buddha? Tell me how someone thought I was the Buddha.

“I wore the necklace from the moment it arrived and I never took it off.  Not to shower. Not when I got “fancy.”  Never.  The days dragged and the red tape wrapped around your adoption file and the necklace remained around my neck.  Most days I forgot I had it on even as I absentmindedly rubbed and fiddled with the piece of silver until the picture was there but it was smeary and fingerprinted.”

And the Buddha, Mama? That part?

“And one day I was waiting impatiently in a grocery line (rubbing and fiddling. Fiddling and rubbing.) when a woman turned to me and said: that’s the most lovely Buddha necklace I believe I have ever seen.”

And you didn’t wanna embarrass her did you, Mama?

“I didn’t, BabyGirl.  Your eyes were closed, the picture was tiny and I kept you with me for strength and calm.  In a way you were *my* Buddha.  I just smiled and said thank you.”

The Buddha and the necklace

Tell me about Guatemala, Mama.  Did you go there and look around and say I’ll take the girl with the black hair, mama?

“Do you love movies as I do, BabyGirl?”

Yes.

“Are you afraid of thunder as I was when I was a girl?”

Yes.

“Do you love to dance and sing and write as I do, BabyGirl?”

I do Mama I do.

“You were meant to be my girl.  And I was meant to be your mom.”

Tell me about the first time we met, Mama. Tell me about the blankeys.

“You were tiny, BabyGirl. Teeny tiny and your foster mom had you wrapped in more blankets and layers than I’d seen in a lifetime.”

Tell me how excited you were , Mama.  About how you held me.

“With all the words in the world, BabyGirl there isn’t one that describes how excited I was.  I unwrapped and unwrapped you and I held you.   And I held you.”

Tell me about how you had to leave me there,  Mama. Tell me about crying and Texas and about coming back for me.  Tell me how you came back for me.

“I did, BabyGirl.  I treasured our visits. I was grateful we could visit and I hated our goodbyes.   I cried.  I cried big deep sobs from the bottom of my belly from a place I didn’t know I had. From a place marked BabyGirl.”

And then you came back…

“And then I came back.  I grew tired of the waiting and I longed to be with you.   I brought my stuff and your stuff and I came back to stay.  And we waited there together.  And we counted the weeks. And we measured the months.  And we unwound the red tape until finally—“

Until finally I could come to Texas and be home.

“Yes, BabyGirl until you could finally come to Texas and be home.”

Newly Texan.

I live a public life.  A very transparent life.

I’m a professional blogger and I let it all hang out online—the good and the bad— in a decidedly open fashion.

I don’t much mention my daughter’s adoption story online because I feel it is her story to tell.

Because of this fact people frequently ask *me* if my daughter knows she’s adopted.

She knows she’s adopted.

She knows her story.

And maybe, someday, if you’re very good and very patient and ask the right questions at the proper time she’ll share it with you, too.

View the original article here

National blogging day of remembrance

I was torn about whether or not to post today.

Do my thoughts and musings matter? 

Would my blog be better left “dark” as a sign of solemnity and solidarity?

Is there anything really to *add* when words of remembrance have been expressed by those far more articulate than I?

And then I went to Sunday School with the Tornado & was given her consecration photo.

And in that moment my heart broke for all the parents who would never again celebrate seemingly ‘routine’ rites of passage with their children.

I spent last night wondering and challenging myself if Id have had the presence of mind and the COURAGE shown by the six adults who gave their lives on Friday in an effort to protect the children they loved.

Today I am living not blogging.

I am mitzvah‘ing in memory of those whose lives were cut short.

I am working to create light in the darkness and I invite you to join me in whatever manner feels right to you.

Tags: sadness for Sandy Hook, solidarity

View the original article here

At the US National Figure Skating Championships. (Where, alas, I did not get to ride the Zamboni.)

Last November I saw a TV ad for the National Figure Skating Championships being held in Greensboro, NC in January. Being highly susceptible to advertising and sequins, I bought a ticket to the Skating Spectacular. That’s the exhibition held after the competition where the skaters get to have fun and dance to music with lyrics. I drive an hour to Greensboro all the time to see my headache doctor, so it was no big deal. And I already knew where to pick up a Cheerwine slushie on the way out of town.

I got my ticket early, so I scored awesome seats in the second row, right behind an Alka-Seltzer Plus ad. (That’s not why this photo looks like it’s from Picasso’s blue period. That was just the low lighting.) The lady sitting next to me thought they were horrible seats and started to complain about how the stadium sucked and her hotel was too far away, whah, whah, whah. This made me realize that your attitude affects 90% of how you perceive life. I thought they were great seats and I was stoked. Complainy Bitchmonster decided she was going to be miserable and whined all the way home.

Thankfully, I was then distracted by the Zamboni, and mildly tempted to hop on board to escape my seatmate.

I’ve never seen an ice skating event in person, so it was cool to see how high the skaters actually jump, how they move around the rink, and how fast the spins look outside of a TV’s 30 scan lines per minute. It was great to have actual depth perception instead of a flat 2D image. The oddest thing was to be watching an ice skating event without hearing Scott Hamilton’s voice in my head during the whole thing. I had no idea if skaters were doing double-axels or sit spins or twizzles. People jumped all spinny like, that’s all I know. I did spot the NBC commentators on their own special platform, though we didn’t get to hear them. I guess you have to pay for cable for that. They also glowed because they are saintly, or because TV lights can melt plastic.

I liked seeing the little sweeper girls skate around the rink after each performance picking up stuffed bears, roses and…frisbees? Uh, ok. I bet that job is SUCH A BIG DEAL to those girls, because it sure would be to me. They remind me of the ball boys at tennis matches. They have this rather simple, yet highly public job, which would probably make me freak out and accidentally decapitate a teddy bear with my skate on national television. They did a good job, and no one fell on there faces or their asses.

I also got to see a few performances that are probably cut out of the national broadcast, like the synchronized skating team. I did not know synchronized skating teams exist. It was like watching a marching band on ice. (Has anyone done a marching band on ice, yet? If not, it was totally my idea first!) I played flute in marching band Freshman year, and I still remember feeling totally inept at staying in formation. So, way to go girls! They also did a spinning pinwheel, which makes me wonder if the girls in the middle ever go really fast if they’re pissed at the girls at the very end so they’ll go whipping into the walls.

My favorite skater of the night was Jeremy Abbott, who surprisingly finished 4th. He must have lost a skate or knocked over a judge during competition because he was awesome. He did a routine with a hat, which easily could have been cheesy. Yet he did lots of creative things with it and had the stage presence to pull the whole thing off. The kid put on his hat while doing a jump, so the dude’s got skills. I hope he’s not underage, because I’m not ready to be a dirty old woman.

One guy pulled off this cool move where he was skating like a snowboarder who jumps in the air and grabs their board. Except he was on the ice the whole time, crouched down balancing in a way I would have thought impossible. He must be a lot of fun in a conga line. There was also a little girl who did a routine to the Glee mashup version of Rhiannon’s “Umbrella” and “Singing in the Rain” which I enjoyed. Another girl went into a spin, and holy shit, she was spinning like a hand mixer. Hand that girl some eggs, she’ll make you an omelet right on the ice. She became a human blur. I don’t know how she didn’t fall over dizzy after that. Speaking of blurs, here’s Evan Lysacek aka The Flash:

Yes, he moves so fast he is a human blur! Or, I had my camera on a low shutter speed to accommodate the low lighting. One or the other. Evan won the Olympic gold medal last year, so he wasn’t competing. He just came to show us how it’s done. It was quietly thrilling to know I was watching one of the best skaters in the world perform right in front of me. There are literally only a dozen or so people in the world at this moment who can perform at his level. The sound guy evidently isn’t one of them because he started off Evan’s performance with the wrong music! I think Evan got a kick out of if though, and after a short delay he skated his performance.

At the very end of the show, all the skaters came out for one last bow. Then they started grabbing t-shirts, stuffed animals, and frisbees from a table and threw them at us, which is only fair since they have to dodge that stuff all the time. It was rather funny to watch skaters hurling things because they’d glide backwards suddenly, demonstrating Newton’s law that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. I managed to catch a frisbee, and not just any frisbee…

This frisbee is signed by John Coughlin and Caitlin Yankowskas who won the gold medal in the pairs competition! I am the owner of honest-to-God ice skating memorabilia! It was totally worth the ticket price.

"Smart, unflinchingly honest, and laugh-out-loud funny."– Lisa Genova, New York Times bestselling author of Still Alice

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Jumping in Leaves: A Belated National Love Your Body Day Celebration

I found out through MizFit that Wednesday was National Love Your Body Day. I wasn’t feeling the body love that day, nor was I feeling body hate. I had so many things going on that I really didn’t have time to give the day much consideration.

I guess that’s one reason I love my body. It doesn’t need me thinking about it all the time to function.

Yesterday was different. I gave my body a good early morning workout before picking up my granddaughter Claire for a sleepover. When we got home, the sun was shining, even though rain was forecasted, and when I opened Claire’s car door, she said, “Wow! Grammy you have lots of leaves! Let’s rake them in a pile and JUMP!”

Remember a few weeks ago I wrote how Claire loves to hop and jump, and how since my knee surgery in June I haven’t been able to hop or jump? (See “Joy vs. Drudgery: Weight Loss and Hopping.”) The thought of jumping in leaves scared me a little, mostly because I thought I’d be disappointing Claire if I couldn’t do it. Besides, I had groceries to bring in the houses, boxes to unload and bring to the basement, food to put away, bananas to cut up and put in the freezer, yadda yadda yadda.

But the absolute joy on her face as she walked through leaves so thick she couldn’t see the grass was too much for my Grammy heart to stand, so I put everything on the porch and Claire and I went to the garage for rakes. She found her purple sandbox rake and I grabbed the big rake lodged behind the snow shovel. We marched to the front yard and raked a huge pile of leaves.
And we jumped in.
So did Cooper.

It’s hard to hear on the following video, but Claire is talking about how Cooper misses Mathilda, our dog we had to put down last month. She talks so lovingly and compassionately to him. “Wait for Tilly, wait for Tilly,” she says, assuring him that one day he’ll see her again and they’ll jump in leaf piles together. What. A. Kid. *tear*

Then Claire took a nap. (I could have used one, too!) When she woke up, she said, “Look, Grammy! The sun is shining! Let’s go rake leaves again and JUMP!”

And so we bundled up and jumped in.

So did the dog.

And after all was said and done, I thought, ‘Body, I really do love you. Thank you for the arms to rake and the legs to jump, the heart to love and the mind to think, the smile to assure and the eyes that show compassion, the scars of remembrance and the aches that remind me to slow down. I promise to do all I can to keep you running smoothly.’

So happy belated National Love Your Body day. I hope you find many, many reasons to celebrate the body you inhabit, no matter its size or ability.
--------------------------------------------
Thank you to all of you who entered to win Joy Bauer’s cookbook, and a big welcome to all you new Lynn’s Weigh readers, both here and on Facebook! I’ve enjoyed your emails and comments, and I especially appreciated your encouragement regarding my new career goals. Congrats to Bonnie S., who’s name I drew out of the hat! I’ll get the book to you as soon as I get your address.

It’s almost time for another workout DVD review and giveaway, so be looking for that blog soon. Also, after Thanksgiving I’ll be giving away another yearly subscription to Nutrition Action Newsletter, one of my favorite publications.

View the original article here

Jumping in Leaves: A Belated National Love Your Body Day Celebration

I found out through MizFit that Wednesday was National Love Your Body Day. I wasn’t feeling the body love that day, nor was I feeling body hate. I had so many things going on that I really didn’t have time to give the day much consideration.

I guess that’s one reason I love my body. It doesn’t need me thinking about it all the time to function.

Yesterday was different. I gave my body a good early morning workout before picking up my granddaughter Claire for a sleepover. When we got home, the sun was shining, even though rain was forecasted, and when I opened Claire’s car door, she said, “Wow! Grammy you have lots of leaves! Let’s rake them in a pile and JUMP!”

Remember a few weeks ago I wrote how Claire loves to hop and jump, and how since my knee surgery in June I haven’t been able to hop or jump? (See “Joy vs. Drudgery: Weight Loss and Hopping.”) The thought of jumping in leaves scared me a little, mostly because I thought I’d be disappointing Claire if I couldn’t do it. Besides, I had groceries to bring in the houses, boxes to unload and bring to the basement, food to put away, bananas to cut up and put in the freezer, yadda yadda yadda.

But the absolute joy on her face as she walked through leaves so thick she couldn’t see the grass was too much for my Grammy heart to stand, so I put everything on the porch and Claire and I went to the garage for rakes. She found her purple sandbox rake and I grabbed the big rake lodged behind the snow shovel. We marched to the front yard and raked a huge pile of leaves.
And we jumped in.
So did Cooper.

It’s hard to hear on the following video, but Claire is talking about how Cooper misses Mathilda, our dog we had to put down last month. She talks so lovingly and compassionately to him. “Wait for Tilly, wait for Tilly,” she says, assuring him that one day he’ll see her again and they’ll jump in leaf piles together. What. A. Kid. *tear*

Then Claire took a nap. (I could have used one, too!) When she woke up, she said, “Look, Grammy! The sun is shining! Let’s go rake leaves again and JUMP!”

And so we bundled up and jumped in.

So did the dog.

And after all was said and done, I thought, ‘Body, I really do love you. Thank you for the arms to rake and the legs to jump, the heart to love and the mind to think, the smile to assure and the eyes that show compassion, the scars of remembrance and the aches that remind me to slow down. I promise to do all I can to keep you running smoothly.’

So happy belated National Love Your Body day. I hope you find many, many reasons to celebrate the body you inhabit, no matter its size or ability.
--------------------------------------------
Thank you to all of you who entered to win Joy Bauer’s cookbook, and a big welcome to all you new Lynn’s Weigh readers, both here and on Facebook! I’ve enjoyed your emails and comments, and I especially appreciated your encouragement regarding my new career goals. Congrats to Bonnie S., who’s name I drew out of the hat! I’ll get the book to you as soon as I get your address.

It’s almost time for another workout DVD review and giveaway, so be looking for that blog soon. Also, after Thanksgiving I’ll be giving away another yearly subscription to Nutrition Action Newsletter, one of my favorite publications.

View the original article here