mystery baby - adoption update

i am happy to report that we are making significant progress with the adoption of baby #5, also known as 'our mistry baby.'  we have submitted all the necessary paperwork, and saved/raised enough money to pay for the next step.  this puts us at the halfway point financially, we still have to come up with approximately $8,000, which is due at the time of placement.  if we cannot raise enough money by that time, we will have to take out a low-interest adoption loan in order to bring our child home.  we paid off our first adoption loan just this past year, so we are really praying that we can raise the funds necessary to avoid another loan repayment.

the next step is completing our home assessment, which will likely take place in the next 1-2 weeks!  this is very exciting because that is are last major step.  after that, we just have a few loose ends (physicals, fingerprints, etc.) to finish up while we are considered a "waiting family."  the length of time that a family will wait varies significantly.  if birthparents choose us right away, and the child has already been born... things can move pretty fast.  if it takes a while for us to be chosen, and the child is not yet born... the wait can be several months, or even years.  we have zero control over how quickly we are chosen (short of photoshopping us into j.c. penny's catologs so our family profile makes us look like we have perfect lives), so we are simply going to trust the lord to bring our family to completion at the perfect time.

since it could go as fast or as slow as one could imagine, i thought i would re-post a blog i wrote a long time  on adoption do's and don'ts, where i address some frequently asked adoption questions.  if this doesn't cover it, the best advice i can give is this:  google it.  or don't.  but whatever you do, please do NOT ask me (or any other mother) these heavy, personal questions right in front of my children!  i know children are short, but typically they can hear.  and my kids, in particular, are brilliant, so they know exactly what you are talking about... even if you don't.

i hope that the re-post serves as a little refresher course on dealing with families who are formed through the beautiful thing that is adoption.  we are so thankful to all of are amazing friends and family (and perfect strangers) who have supported our adoption journey... again.  tom and i are really bad at asking for and receiving help from others, but we have learned a lot about allowing God to bless us through people.  it is amazing and wonderful, and very uncomfortable if i am being honest.  but, we couldn't bring home our mistry baby without help... so, we will continue to scrimp, save and hover above the poverty line, while we accept whatever support you all can spare.  

i hope to have another update very soon! 




Harper's early christmas gift from aunt lexi... He's seriously out of control cute. And tough, as you can see from his hat-wearin' face.

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lara's crazy carol countdown - 10 days left

i am notorious for getting lyrics wrong.  it doesn't matter how many times i have heard a song, i can never hear the lyrics right or something.  the problem is that this does not deter me from singing the wrong lyrics, loud and proud.  my poor children do not know any of the right words to traditional christmas songs.  it's kinda sad.  but not really that sad.

so, i have decided to do a christmas carol countdown.  i will offer a sampling of carols done my way.  the wrong way, yes, but still pretty great.  these are all actual songs that i sing to my children (and anyone in earshot) around christmastime.

to the tune of frosty the snowman:


"frosty the snowman, is a pretty real-looking guy.  with corn for his nose and sumpin' for his eyes, and buttons for other things!  oh frosty the snowman, yes, he will marry you.  oh, down by the bay, with doctor brown, yes he will marry you..."

merry christmas to all, and to all a good job!

high fives and pooping pockets.

lately, i have become keenly aware of how strange i am.  i mean, i always kinda knew... but some of the things coming out of my mouth lately are so strange, that it startles me.  por ejemplo...

"well, if we can't do it (cut down our christmas tree) right, then i guess we'll just rip off the abortionists."

or


"i should say, if i had to marry a sandwich, this would be the one... not if i could marry a sandwich."


or

"honey, don't tell a lie just because you want someone to pull your legs."

or

"i don't know a song about a puppy going na-night, but i can sing you a song about jesus and some hay!?"

or, my personal favorite,

"just pretend my upper half is stuck in a metal canister and you have to really jostle me out."

it's no wonder, then, that my children are the way they are.  they have a way of seeing things (and saying things) that continues to crack me up... and sometimes blow my mind.  one cloudy night, when annalee was only two years old, she whispered to me, "mama, the moon went in the cloud's pocket."

marlie has called lasagna "a-la-bazoonia" since i can remember.

when harper was still having accidents during potty-training, he would say "i drilled a little in my undies."  and to this day, if he sees something wet on the floor or couch, he says it's "prolly drill."

now london has started with all these shenanigans.  today alone, she asked to wear "high fives," told me to check out her "waffles on the snow man" and notified me that my pocket had pooped.  i realize this is all very cryptic, so allow me to translate.

high fives? = gloves
waffles on the snow man? = footprints (that look like waffles) in the snow (there was no man.)
my pooping pocket? = when my cell phone slipped out of my pocket and landed on the floor.

i love how she sees things.  i love that she sees things.  i have spent much of this year just trying to make myself SEE things.  to be present, aware, thankful.  this is really hard.  it is much easier to miss it all in my distraction.  to check out, ignore, complain.

with four strange and amazing kids, what a waste if i miss a second of it!  so, 'tis the season to keep that crappy phone (ha. ha.) in my pocket, and throw on some high fives and make tons of waffles in the snowman.     and... if i happen to get my torso stuck in a metal canister, i have a great family who will jostle me free at the drop of a hat.  what more could a girl want?  well, besides maybe a little alabazoonia...

there's this guy who's in love with me.

it is not easy for me to write that sentence up there.  i don't understand all the ins and outs of it... but i am keenly aware that it is unusually difficult for me to say that i am loved.  i know that there are plenty of people in my life who care about me and would do anything for me if i asked.  and there are even some particular people who genuinely love me just the way that i am.  still, i am secretly afraid that if i were to actually name them here and now, those same people would flog me publicly.  *i don't actually know what it means to "flog" an individual, but i am pretty sure it is what they do to fozzy bear in 'muppets go to hollywood.'  in order to flog another, there has to be a lot of throwing lettuce on a stage, i think.

i know that none of my loved ones would really ever throw lettuce at me, just for saying that i think they love me.  however, i have always had this fear that if i make a declaration of certainty about any relationship... that everything i think to be true will blow up in my face and i will have been bamboozled in a serious way.  it's as if i believe that if i avoid ever being vulnerable enough to say that someone loves me, then i can also avoid the  suffering and humiliation that comes when you find out that, in actuality, they do not.  i realized this was a serious problem when i would not even say out loud that God loved me.  primarily because i did not fully believe it to be true.

i once had a college roommate tell me that Jesus probably didn't love my singing voice.  but, other than that... i had no reason to believe that Jesus had anything against me in particular.  (aside from my obvious, heinous sin nature that is.)  so, why couldn't i feel loved by God?  other heinous sinners seemed to bask in the love of God, why couldn't i?  

i honestly have no real point here.

it's just that the other day, i was driving in the car, feeling very sad, and i was listening to a secular love song about how the singer will make everything okay, and will be there to show the listener all this love.  and right when i was about to dry heave, something hit me for the first time, i really believed that Jesus was trying very hard to say "hey, you. i really love you.  and all these words are cheesy and unrealistic as far as romantic love goes... but I died and then I came back to life and I did that for you.  and I can do things like that because I am God... so, i think that i can handle loving you.  stop protecting yourself, I can take it from here thank you very much.  but, keep it down with all the singing.  just kidding, you belt it out baby."

this made me realize two things.  i will list them below.
  1. Heaven might be a little bit like the 6th grade, in that i still had a nice singing voice at that time.  it wasn't until the 7th grade that i recorded myself singing a gospelly version of amazing grace on my answering machine taper and realized how horrific my voice was.  the 7th grade is more like hell as far as singing voices go.  but in heaven, they're all a bunch of 6th graders up there lovin' every minute of my jams.
  2. Jesus is seriously wild about me.  
now, i realize how stupid and ridiculous it sounds to say that i believe that God literally came down from heaven, became a little baby Jesus-God, who grew up to be rejected and tortured and executed just so He could push me out of line at the gates of hell.  i know that it is crazy to believe that Jesus is speaking to me through the theme song from the movie hope floats.   i know that sounds crazy.  it IS crazy!  but, i actually believe all of that.  and i am so thankful that i do.  because in Him, there is hope.  there is hope that someone like me could be loved!  there is hope that God can redeem the cheesiest of songs, and also my wicked soul.  there is hope that i can be vulnerable in my relationships without fear of being flogged.  and there is even hope that somebody out there in the universe could love my singing voice.  

and if that isn't proof that there is an all-loving Creator ... i seriously don't know what is.

london: before & after blood transfusion

i came across this picture the other day when i was starting to put pictures together for the next adoption profile. i could. not. believe. how different london looked when she was sick.  looking back at pictures when she had transient erythroblastopenia of childhood (TEC), it is so obvious how sick (and even sad) she was.

after discovering this picture... i am praising the lord all over again for her improvement.  i have never been more thankful to live in a country where a blood transfusion is a relatively easy and common procedure.  it blows my mind that human blood is accessible to all people at any time in our country.  we are a rich people.
see for yourself what a dramatic difference a few, life-saving blood transfusions can make...

london before

london healthy


for the sake of awareness, here is a little info on transient erythroblastopenia of childhood.  it does not mention this, but TEC also seemed to be responsible the complete stoppage of london's growth.  while her development stayed remarkably ahead schedule, her height and weight completely dropped off for several months.  as you can see... she has more than made up for lost time, and has begun to look like something of a chubby cherub.

how much love can you squoosh in one square foot?


after the recent break-up and make-up drama with a beautiful house we are trying to purchase, i am left feeling very drained and not just a little confused.  the most recent chapter of this saga?  well, we made another offer on the house, and it was accepted!  the offer was contingent upon the quick sale of our current home (which is a huge challenge in and of itself). the contract is also hinging on our comfort level with the results of an engineer's inspection we had done this morning.  

we knew that there was some trouble with the roof, because that was what caused the last buyer to bail out.  the sad truth is that we may have to walk away from this house because somebody put cedar shakes under the shingles, and that means the whole roof will need to be torn off.  i am looking into finding the guy that invented cedar shakes, and having him apologize to thousands of homeowners, publicly.  i am sure he will come and personally tear off every last bit of cedar from my roof, and will replace it with something very energy-efficient, and cutting edge, so that it is both maintenance-free and will never need replacing.  while he is at it, i am pretty sure he will offer to finish the basement.  and peel the wallpaper.  in the slim, outside chance that mr. miracle-cedar-remover-man does NOT show up, we will need to make some pretty hard decisions. 

as i was walking through the house today, i could not help but imagine the kids running through the house.  i was picturing where we would eat, and play, and hang our stockings.  i couldn't help but move in, emotionally.    i know that you are not supposed to do that when you are looking at a house.  but, it seems like if you can't NOT do that... then maybe you have found the house.

in other family news, we have recently learned that between fundraising, saving, and the generous gifts of others... we have officially raised enough money to move forward with the adoption.  we will submit our family profile and complete the home assessment as soon as we are certain as to which home our mistry baby will be brought! 

if we aren't able to afford this particular house (of my dreams), then we will wait on the Lord that provides more than i could dream up on my own.  the day that we get to bring our last baby home is drawing closer, and that fact is much more significant than to which building he or she will come.  it is a good reminder that no matter what house we end up in, we will pack every square foot of it with all sorts of love and babies.  

and if the Lord wills it, every square foot will also be recently refinished hardwood.  

 







making up us even harder...

in my most recent post, i wrote about the striking comparison between finding (and losing) a great house to finding (and losing) a great guy.  i lamented over our recent "break up" in which our offer on a house was not accepted because mommy and daddy warbucks came in with a non-contingent offer.  i was seriously devastated because i felt so sure that this was the right house for us.

i shamefully admit that i threw a  pretty decent pity-party, and have slowly tried to recover.  however, despite all my efforts... i could not move on.  everyone kept telling me that "it just must not be the house for us."  i pouted and told them "buuuuut, yes it definitely was."

after praying for a miraculous intervention from the God who knows all things before the engineer's inspection... the original warbucks deal fell through.  apparently the roof needs work, and since the fickle buyer was not truly devoted and committed to choosing love, even in the hard times, they backed out.  the house is now back on the market.  and i am back in the full swing of being in l-o-v-e.

tom, on the contrary, is back to having chest pains over the decision.

yet, in the midst of the major-decision-anxiety, even tom feels that this is supposed to be our house.

sooooooooo... we are in the "make-up" phase of our relationship with this house.  we are re-approaching the relationship with a little more caution this time, taking time to evaluate where we both went wrong. we are trying to start fresh, letting our past be in the past.  i am just trying to keep my mind clear of the ugly reality that another woman walked through that house and planned where she would hang her pictures.  tom is foreseeing every possible expense and is overcompensating by re-brewing coffee grounds to eek out one extra weak cup.

we can't exactly say where this relationship is going to go... but, if i have my way, we'll be wed and living together by november.  i don't want to rush it, but mama ain't losin' a good man twice.

@laracapuano