The Ranch Files: Mud, Mesquite Thorns, & Campfires

My nephew Austin driving my parents' electric golf cart, along with my other nephew Nick and also Tori -- and a slew of children!

Skip felt like the king of the world on this tractor.

Here's a glimpse of the muddy conditions.  This is Zadie with her cousins Jonas and Max.

We just spent the past five or so days at the ranch in South Texas.  This ranch has been in the family for 100+ years and, though I only visited a few times when I was a kid, it was very significant in my dad and granddaddy's childhoods.  And it's very important to me that my kids get to spend time there not only because of the history but also because I want to have a place where they can run "wide open and sideways" (as my dad says) and also engage with nature.  According to my naturalist uncle, South Texas is one of the best wildlife spots in all of the United States.

Tori said she thought that was baloney because she's now been there twice and hasn't seen much nature.  It's in a very low rainfall area and is in the midst of a long-term drought, but somehow every time we visit it rains buckets, which means that Tori hasn't been able to see all the wildlife we've been talking about.  The local government should pay us to vacation there just to help them out with their drought.

Lots of rain means serious mud, so our vacation was full of rubber boots, muddy clothes, and the constant battle of trying not to get your vehicle completely stuck in the mud (which happened numerous times).  South Texas is also full of mesquite trees, which are great for more flavorful barbecue, but not so great for having around small children.  Each of our kids had to have mesquite thorns removed, which made them a lot more careful about where they were walking.

This is the first part in a series of blog posts I'm going to do about our trip to the ranch.

Catching Up: Thanksgiving

I fell behind on posting about Thanksgiving because I was waiting for a great photo, and now I have one!  Tori's sister Katie is always responsible for getting a group shot and it's amazing that she manages to get all of us together and even knows how to use the timer function on her camera.  Far beyond me.

We rotate holidays between my family and Tori's family, so this year we spent Thanksgiving with her family in Seattle.  Her brother Zach has a big house with lots of room for our enormous group and her mom rented a 15-passenger van for all our adventures.  Our adventures were cut a bit short by the fact that it rained most days, but we made the most of it.  This photo was taken during a break in the rain, when we all scrambled to a beautiful park and played kickball (a family tradition).

It's fun to just take a few minutes to look at all the people in this photo.  Now that is a big and crazy family!

Charlie is Officially Adopted!

 I'm happy to report that Charlie was officially adopted on Friday, December 16th.  We've been eagerly anticipating this moment for a very long time.  I'm fortunate to have a wife who is very talented at pursuing social workers and lawyers with her own personal blend of friendly stalkerism -- without her follow-up there's no way that this could have happened before the end of the year.

What does this mean?  First and foremost, this means that Charlie is officially our child and no one can ever, ever take him away from us again.  As they said in court, we have all the rights and responsibilities of parents and Charlie is due any inheritance as a "natural" child.  Sorry about that last part, Charlie.  Not sure how much help we'll be in that department.

It also means no more visits from social workers, no more paperwork, no more locking up all our knives, and no more smoke detectors (just kidding about that last one!!).

This tuxedo that Charlie was wearing was a hand-me-down from a friend and it happened to fit him perfectly.  He was quite adorable in court, especially after they gave him his little teddy bear (all kids get teddy bears when they're adopted).  The judge and other staff were quite smitten.  And so are we!

Mom to the Rescue

Five days ago I crashed my bike with poor little Charlie on it.  Although I say "poor Charlie," actually the whole thing was his fault.  We were going down a big hill and he was giggling with joy about the wind in his face and the whole experience.  I was turned around smiling back at him and saying, "Woohoo!"  Then I turned my eyes back to the road (where they should have been in the first place) and swerved to avoid a big pile of dry leaves and branches from our recent windstorm.  The bike skidded out, and we crashed.  So my point is that if Charlie hadn't have been such a cute, giggling ball of joy, the whole thing never would have happened.

In all seriousness, I learned my lesson and will be much more cautious in the future.  Not only because I feel like a totally irresponsible parent and bike rider for crashing with my baby on the back, but also because I got five stitches above my eyebrow and lots of painful road rash and I've been a total wimp about the whole thing and don't want to ever go through this again.  Charlie, I'm happy to report, is 100% fine and he was safely ensconced in his bike seat and helmet.  It would have been MUCH worse if something bad had happened to him.  Awful to think about.

Anyway, the point of this post is that my mom kindly offered to take all three kids for three whole days this week.  It's true that the road rash on my hands makes taking care of the kids difficult -- and Tori basically has to take care of me and the three other kids -- but the truth is that we could have managed.  Tori felt guilty about my mom taking all three, but I felt sorry for myself and decided to take her up on her offer.

So thank you, Mom, for juggling all three kids all by yourself (my dad was out of town).  The kids had a great time and are anxious to return.  And Tori and I got to go on two date nights and sleep in!

When Charlie Starts to Walk...

I've always been pretty good at being content.  I know some people who struggle to enjoy the moment since they're kind of preoccupied with the next thing, whether that's a new adventure or a new material good or a change in status.  Unfortunately, since I've become a parent (of multiple children at least), I find myself guilty of the same compulsion.  I often find myself looking forward to the next developmental stage because I like to imagine that life is going to be soooo much easier once I get to that next stage.

When Charlie was an extremely unhappy newborn, I was very focused on making it to three months because I had heard that's when all that colic-y stuff ends.  As my dad would say, I was in "survival mode" to make it to that milestone.  Turns out that crying stuff didn't go away until the six-month mark and when it did, life was definitely much easier but I quickly found something else to focus on.  I remember one big milestone I was focused on was when we could transition him off the bottle.  I thought that was going to be a big life-changer.  I did a Facebook post about never washing another bottle again for the rest of my life.

But somehow I don't think that really changed much (it's not like you don't have to wash sippy cups!).  My latest preoccupation is Charlie walking.  This child is pushing 15 months and still not walking (although he has definitely taken steps and I need to catch it on video).  It seems like I've been telling anyone who would listen for the past six months that as soon as Charlie starts walking, things will be a lot easier.

This time, I can't help but believe this is going to be a game-changer.  First of all, he's really heavy.  I think he weighs around 35 lbs and that's a lot of weight to be lugging around all the time.  Secondly, he's really happy when he's playing with his siblings, but he gets sad when he gets left behind all the time because they're running around without him.  I have a vision that involves my three children frolicking together, skipping around and running, just as happy as can be.  When Charlie starts to walk, they'll be so happy playing together that there won't be any crying or fighting and there probably won't even be much need for parenting, really.  I think I'll just sit at the kitchen table sipping my green tea and casually reading the newspaper while glancing up occasionally to watch them frolicking around in the yard.

It's gonna be great.

Adoption Court Date Set for Charlie!

We're very happy to report that Charlie's adoption hearing has been scheduled for Friday, December 16th.  As of that date, he will be officially ours!

I'm so thankful that my wife is talented at gently harassing all the social workers, lawyers, and assistants in the system to make this happen.  We really wanted to get this paperwork completed by the end of the year (for a number of reasons) and it definitely wouldn't have happened without Tori's very frequent phone calls.

It's crazy to think that we lost custody of Charlie for a month.  I just re-read the blog post that I wrote when we lost him and I feel a little embarrassed about how at terms we were with everything.  It's kind of bizarre to understand my mindset at that time given how attached I am to him at this point.  I think that, as much as I wanted to think otherwise, there is just a difference in how connected you can be to a child when you know that you may not get to keep him or her.  It must be some kind of self-defense mechanism.  We definitely experienced loss and sadness, but it did not debilitate us like I think some people thought it would. And, unfortunately, I feel like our experience losing Charlie for that month has turned a few prospective foster parents that we know away from becoming foster parents because of the twists and turns that they have witnessed us go through.  I really wish that wasn't the case because I think that you do figure out how to deal with it -- it's sort of hard to explain unless you've gone through it.

Anyway, the point is that now I cannot possibly imagine losing Charlie.  You know that song, "(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman"?  Charlie makes me feel like a natural mother.  He is the only one of our three kids who has a clear preference for me, so I have to admit that it makes me feel special to have him always reaching out for me or crying until I hold him (though sometimes it's both a blessing and a curse!).  On a deeper level, Charlie has not been an easy baby and so the fact that he has challenged us and that I've still managed to be a loving and (mostly) patient mother gives me confidence.  Because I have certainly wondered whether I have the proper personality for being a good mother!

That's just one reason that Charlie is so special to me.  I also love his great cuddling skills, the way he crinkles his nose when he laughs, his willingness to eat anything and everything (except hummus), his pure joy at laughing with/at Skip, and his adorable face.  We're so excited for him to *officially* become our son, although of course he's already been a member of our family before we sign any of these documents.

Now if he would just learn to walk!

Thank You For Not Choking

On this Thanksgiving weekend, I am feeling very thankful for all the items that Charlie has NOT choked on.  Here are some of the items I have found in his mouth:

a safety pin
a screw
a pushpin
a hairball
a small bouncy ball
endless piles of sand

And, of course, the most frightening of all was the tiny lava rock from our fireplace.  Had to call the paramedics on that one.  We try really hard to have a safe environment for him, but it's pretty challenging with older siblings who leave things out.  And many of the items on this list were when we were visiting other people's houses who do not have children.  The hairball unfortunately was at our house (Zadie is the only one with long hair!).

Soon I think we will be in the clear and we'll not have to constantly be ripping things out of his mouth.  We've got him trained pretty well -- we just say "Open your mouth!" and then he spits the item out.