christmas cards

christmas cards are my favorite part of the holiday season, especially as a graphic designer. I LOVE designing my friends cards, then getting them back in the mail. I love seeing my cousins kids grow from states away. I love the whole tradition, I really do. 

but I read an article yesterday about how sometimes, christmas can be a dark time for people. people who have experienced death, divorce and other dark times the previous year. my first dark christmas as an adult was last year. our marriage wasn't good and I was terrified that it would be my last holiday with my daughter. I was a mess. we had only a few people that knew our darkness and they rallied around us at christmas time. but it was still foggy and sad and strange. all the while I was receiving christmas cards in the mail from happy newlyweds, growing families, happy people. it was like ripping a layer of my heart away every time I checked the mailbox.

so this year? I'm intentional. I just made our christmas card list and it was half the people of what I expected. I want to

sit in the darkness with my friends, not send them an impersonal card that says "look how happy I am!" - my friends who have had job loss, divorce, death, sorrow; they will get a phone call from me (or something? any ideas?) so I can sit in the darkness WITH them. I challenge you you all to review your christmas card list with me.

and I know they will never read this, but

thank you, tom and marcia, for sitting in the darkness with us last christmas.

thanks for reading,

chelsie

uncle chris

my precious E,

his name was chris. he was tall and blond and handsome. 9 years my senior and an obnoxiously overprotective. he went to OSU (as I'm sure you will, too - like a good girl). he was a construction engineer. he moved to houston for work when i was 15. when your mother became too much for grandma and pampaw to handle, they would ship me down to houston for a week or so. it was a lot of fun. we made precious memories in the traffic of houston, yelling at each other like only brothers and sisters do. this is the person that taught me to drive, so when your daddy complains about my driving you can blame it on uncle chris. this is also where mommy got her ridiculously good looks.

chris had a girlfriend for several years (a girlfriend is someone your father will

never let you be so just try to follow along), she would have been your aunt ann, and she would have been so in love with you. they both would have. your aunt ann left earth just a few months before you were born. uncle chris left much sooner.

uncle chris left november 7, 2004. ten years this month. i wish i could say things got easier, little heart. and i so wish that he was here to watch you grow, to experience adoption, to see me as a mother. even more so then when i wished he was at my wedding; I wish he could see me as a mother. 

as always, the Lord has filled in where sin left a gaping hole.

you have two uncles who absolutely adore you. uncle chris would be so pleased to know that they take such great care of you. uncle taylor is so much like your uncle chris, as brothers are. I hope you get the treasure of having a brother one day, my dove. anyway, uncle taylor is much sillier than chris (much sillier than ANYONE). he will have you laughing until you cry when you are older. you already love him. when you first met him, mommy was still very sick in the hospital. I don't remember much, but I remember your daddy handing you to him and you looking at him like he was a giant (he is, you intuitive little monkey, you). this is the moment I remember so well: 

you and uncle taylor have a sweet bond. you are so lucky to have him. I am, too. something tells me you will have uncle taylor's sarcasm and wit one day.

and your sweet uncle sethy. oh precious girl, the way your uncle seth looks at you is perfection. he is so much like your daddy. he loves playing with you (when you and aunt jenna aren't hogging each other). and every single time he sees you, he tells you that you're pretty. it's your thing with him. he tells you how pretty you are and you soak it all in. and when you're asleep he is always the first to ask if he can go get you out of your crib. he loves you very much, and uncle chris would be so thankful. so very thankful that there are two uncles to fill in where he can't be.

the day God made me a mother

I'm not sure I even remember which day it was. if it was the day we met baby J in her NICU isolette, or if it was the first time

her state-appointed attorney sat at our kitchen table and asked "would you ever consider adoption?" and my stomach sank. she was 6 months old the first time

people started using the word "adoption" about her and her sister's case. was that when I became a mother? I wish I knew. 

my life plan was so different before I met my husband. the baldwin side of my family, they are notorious for having children later in life, and that sounded appealing to me. even when stefen and I were married we decided we would start thinking of family planning when I turned 30. we were married at 23 and 24, so it seemed great to have several years of "just us". then, for whatever reason, we decided to use that time less selfishly and that we would use those years being foster parents and helping other families before we had our own. that plan worked, until it didn't. we went into fostering blindly but have truly done the best we can. and then this word "adoption" kept flying around, and I remember thinking one day, when baby J was maybe 8 months old, "I think she is going to be mine forever. holy shit." maybe that was the moment God made me a mother. when I felt like every ounce of autonomy seeped out and was replaced by a selfless love that was almost crippling. 

I didn't come into motherhood simply.

it was preceded by months and months of missed visits and serious concerns that maybe the biological parents weren't actually going to ever be what this tiny human needed. it was preceded by harsh words and character assassinations and a comments about how I "must be a foster parent because I can't have kids of my own" to a room of 40+ people. it came with fear. it still comes with fear. fear for everyone's safety that I love. my journey into motherhood has been messy, and did you know? it has been excruciatingly painful. God gave me a taste of

motherhood and I desperately want more, and more, and I can't have it yet. yesterday I told my friend abi that if someone would have asked "what's your biggest fear/worst case scenario?" when we began fostering it would have been this. now. this. the limbo between fostering and adopting, the going to bed every night not knowing if we will lose her. the fight between biological parents, the state, us and DHS. this. this is my nightmare. 

but would I do it all a million times over? of course. I would do it over, and worse, and harder. God's plans really ARE the best. I could be 30 something with a family or I could be me, now, watching my 20 month old run around like a maniac, laughing hysterically. she doesn't just bring me joy, she IS my joy.

motherhood snuck up on me like the best kind of love does. like the kind of love I found in stefen, on an unassuming spring night at a concert [after I was sure I was going to die from the heartbreak of losing my college romance]. motherhood didn't come through a sweet adoption story that I can proudly tell everyone "is just such an example of the gospel, you know?" or maybe I can. because when people say adoption is a great correlation with the gospel what they really mean is that we saved a kid and Jesus saved us and oh how romantic. but what it actually means is that there was torture and depravity [long, long lines of depravity] and heartbreak and sorrow. the resurrection and the holiness and the peace, that didn't come until after the suffering. my motherhood journey isn't there yet. I day dream and night dream about the day it will be, but it's not.

when my heart feels overwhelmed and I call my dad [my very best friend] he always tells me "chels, just focus on taking care of that baby girl. just give her all of your love and take only today's burdens" - or something more eloquent because he is amazing like that. and then he tells me I'm the best mother, and I was made for this little girl, and I feel a rush of peace and calm. 

thank you, so deeply, for letting me share my fears.

-chelsie [mother of one].

truth

i'm overwhelmed.

i'm overwhelmed by two babies, by bio parents, by DHS, but the judicial system. i'm overwhelmed by it all.

stefen and i came into fostering full throttle, eyes closed, heads down, running fast. we got burnt out instantly with our first sibling set. the shame that came when i had to call the caseworker and say "we can't do it" was insurmountable. so then we stopped. we didn't take a kiddo for months. then our baby girl was born.

the lesson is this: i have to find balance in being a foster parent. i can't let my heart strings be tugged on every time DHS calls. because once the fun of having a new blessing in our home wears off, i am worn down to nothing. i am walking exhaustion. it's not the physical exhaustion that is debilitating - it's the emotional exhaustion. the appointments and the diagnoses and the birth parents and the visitation aftermath. it all falls on me at the end of of the day, onto my shoulders but mostly my heart.

when the beauty of fostering collides with the darkness of it; that's when reality seeps in.


but the balm to my heart is this: i would never know what i could (and couldn't) handle, without experiencing it. experiential learning. it's painful, but it's how so many of us learn.

i've spent the last 2+ years making sure that all of the kiddos in our home come first. my desires, my heartbreak, it can all wait. it can all be stuffed far enough down. i ignored my feelings in the present to project the goodness that would hopefully, eventually, come out of fostering. my feelings in the present were: sadness, confusion, heartbreak, shame.  this will not be my anthem anymore.

baby b leaves the nest.

today baby B left our home. we knew it was coming but oh, has this day been painful.

kinship is almost always the goal when a little one is taken into custody, and that's where B went off to. a great-uncle who i've met, possibly slightly interrogated, and ultimately loved. he will be so great at his uncle's, i just know it. he will thrive. he will hopefully get to see his amazing parents even more. but our house is still so sad today.

i couldn't wait to blog my feelings about it because it's so cathartic for me. so here is my usual 'list of things i love and will deeply miss' about baby B:

- his piercing blue eyes. they held so much sweetness. when he looked at me i was a puddle of mush. he will get away with a lot in his life with those sweet eyes ;) 

- his courage. this boy is a fighter. i've never met a more sad baby to be taken away from mom and dad. he wouldn't crawl, he wouldn't look at us, he wouldn't eat, nothing. after a week he was trying to walk, trying to say big boy words, and we even got a laugh here and there. all he needed were a couple visits with his mom and dad and they lit a fire in him. when he left a few hours ago, he was practically running and never let a day pass without belly laughing.

- his amazinnnnggggg blond hair. and the way stefen so proudly fixed it for church into a most perfect mohawk.

- his ability to trip over anything, including air.

- his appetite. holy wow, that boy can eat! he ate double what baby J did and then ate her leftovers! we are going to save so much money now that he's gone (kidding, kind of.)

- speaking of his appetite, i will miss telling him "B, food is not love, food is NOT love." and having him giggle afterwards. it was a common phrase used around here.

- his busyness. no time for cuddles, aunt chelsie. i've got giant legos to destroy.

- his love for my daughter. oh bless, this is why i spent so much of my day crying. thinking about them being separated is just…sad. 3+ months of sharing a room and spending every waking second together really bonded them. before he left, stefen told him "never forget who your first love was, B."

- HIS BELLY. SO BIG AND CUTE.

- i will miss tucking him in every night.

- i will miss his precious baby smell.

- i will miss brushing his tiny teeth.

- i will miss everything.

i am asking whoever reads this to please pray for him, as moves are always confusing for little ones. please pray that he isn't confused, but secure in his new home. that he continues to thrive and learn and grow. that he gets to see his parents exponentially more. and finally, that they are all three reunified as soon as possible. 

thank you, everyone.

chelsie

the complacent foster home (read: us)

let me set the scene for you: i'm at my every-6-week doctor's appointment with baby in tow because i couldn't find a babysitter in time. she was acting crazy. my pulse ox read at only 89, low blood pressure, not feeling great about this tuesday morning.

as i'm waiting for the doctor to come in, payne county DHS texts. 11 month old boy from a police raid, has been at the DHS office all day being loved on. needs a foster home.

i sigh as i am picking my daughter off the floor from throwing a fit. i feel the Lord say, "say yes"…so without so much as even asking my husband, or our college student roommate who is renting our guest room right next to the nursery, i say yes. i fill everyone in. i call my friend abi for clothes. DHS delivers him to our house and he is so perfect and beautiful. i thank the Lord, but then i feel intense grief.

he needed an immediate check-up, to which i left sis with laura (live-in nanny, friend, chef). the whole way to the ER i cried as i thought about leaving my daughter for a couple hours, as if i was leaving her for another baby. as if i was cheating on her to help another child. it was such a weird feeling that i had to spend time in prayer unpacking it.

you see, this is our problem: complacency. we have fostered very short term other than the baby girl we have had for the last 17.5 months and are, Lord willing, going to adopt. we have become so comfortable in our little family. we don't need to stir the pot now, right? we are smooth sailing and, after all, foster care is messy, so why would we take a kid straight from a traumatic police raid? what if it effected our little girl? then God gently reminded me that our precious baby was once "just" a foster kid, and was alone and scared and confused, just like our new little guy (baby B) is. complacency is a sickness and we have it bad. we have taken only 2 kids into our home since baby J was placed into our care at birth. only 2 kids. in 18 months. i beg for God to gently make me uncomfortable. for the sake of baby B and my own sanctification. having two babies just 5 months apart is a lot, but i said yes, and God went before me into this. and people have done more, and will do more, and i have fallen short, and will continue to fall short.

will you pray for us as we settle into life with two babies? my heart knows God has made smooth a path before me if i can just die to myself. you see, if we see baby B through to reunification it could be several months. several months of postponing our own adoption, and growing our family. right when we decided to adopt and say "goodbye" to foster parenting, God said "just wait, sweethearts, we aren't finished here"...

thank you for reading,
chelsie

what's in a name?

hi all! i haven't blogged in for-eva. we have been doing great here, trucking along trying to get closer to adopting baby J. a lot of people have asked if we will be changing her name pending an adoption. i thought this would make a great blog post, because we have gotten mixed reactions when we tell people our answer.

yes, we would change her name. when baby J's attorney and caseworker came to us to ask if we would consider adopting her, she was 7 months old. at that time, we started to think about changing her name. keeping her given first name and middle name would be a fine decision, but it's not for us. to us, it's just a name anyway (her old name and her new name). it holds no bearing on her worth, who she is as a tiny wonderful person, or anything. some people are shocked that we would change her name because they are worried it would be hard for THEM to learn to call her something different. we typically don't make decisions based on what's convenient for other people. people often wonder if they should start calling her by her name we would give her, and while that's a good question, it's hard for people to understand when i say "it really doesn't matter".

you see, people these days spend a lot of time picking out their children's name. they take a lot of pride in it. too much, probably. whether they take pride in it being a family name, a trendy name, a traditional name, a trendy name that's not too trendy, and the stipulations go on and on and on. so when we have a lackadaisical attitude about baby J's name, they get flustered and confused. i went through a phase where it really bothered me. i just couldn't understand why people were more concerned with her name than with where her development was, where her heart was, how she was growing, etc. since then i've become more patient with people, as is with most topics we have experienced as foster parents.

we typically tell people to call her by either name, or by her nickname "sis". it's truly whatever people are comfortable with. but when the adoption is finalized, the J name will be written on a piece of paper and put in her memory box, because at that point it will be just a memory, and we can all start calling her "E", without fear of being disrespectful to her birth parents or confusing to her siblings or friends.

eden emersen french will be all mine, and i am most excited to share a last name with her. that's the name that really matters.

thanks for reading,
chelsie

J5.

a couple of weeks ago we had our monthly visit from our caseworker. {by the way, let me just say that we LOVE our new caseworker. this is our third one, and our fave. she is such an advocate for baby J and i feel like an advocate for stefen and i as well}. moving on - during her visit (friday at 5 pm), she got a call about a little boy who had been sleeping at the DHS office because there were no foster homes and all the shelters were full. since i'm the nosiest person on the planet, i asked what the phone call was about, she told us, and we immediately said we could take him for the weekend. we ended up keeping him for ten days, not two. it was so fun.

his name also started with a J, so i'll call him J5 in this post. J5 came to our door with a walmart bag of belongings. we were able to take him to the consignment store the next day to get him a wardrobe, toys and of course a book (dogs don't brush their teeth - or as he called it all week, dogs don't brush they teeth). it's mind blowing how little these kids come into custody with, especially in oklahoma - because we are the meth capital of the world and when a drug bust happens all items in the home (including little one's clothes and toys) are considered evidence. really sad. for the record: this is not why J5 was taken into custody.

some of my favorite things about J5:

-his sweetness and kindness.
-his amazingly gorgeous hair.
-his appetite. i've never seen a human eat more food in my life.
-his gentleness with baby J.
-his laugh.
-his cute teeth.
-his imagination.

5 year olds are exhausting, but we told his caseworker if his future plans don't work out that he always has a place here.

also, shout out to my church family for loving on him so greatly! he had never been to church before and he was showered with love during his first experience.

thank you for reading!
chelsie

first birthday

my tiny love,

happy first birthday! I'm so happy to get to spend this day with you, you will never know the joy it brings me to see you grow. I pray so hard that we will get to see you grow forever. you are the funnest baby I've ever known. you have the best laugh, especially when I tickle your ribs in just the right place. your smile is perfect. it does something to my heart every time you smile at me, especially in the car when you don't think I can see you. I love your skepticism. you are always slow to inspect everything, with your brows furrowed. I love when you are hyper and you crawl around the house, only stopping to let out a high pitched scream. you are so opposite from me, and I love that. you bring so much to my heart that only you can provide. 

I will never forget the day that we got the call that there was a 3 day old baby needing a home. I called your father, and he said "of course"! they said it would only be for a couple of months. I'm so glad it has been longer. you knew before I did that I would be your momma. my body didn't make you, but my heart couldn't have knitted together a more perfect addition to our family. 

as much as I love you, our God loves you so much more. Jesus died so you could have life, and I pray that you know Him and love Him. you belong to Him. you are His treasure and his sweetheart.

thank you, Lord for letting her spend her first birthday with us. 

in this season

she's almost 11 months old. next month she will be 1. my mommy heart is broken by the fact that i will never get to hold 2 month old baby j again, or stare at 6 month old baby j's sweet eyes. she is so advanced, almost walking, lots of talking: no no (she says this to the dogs) mama, dada, nana (banana), baba (bottle) and wawa (water bottle). she is so ornery and energetic, that's what i love about her most because it's so different from stefen and i. we are low energy (me more than stefen) and i like soft quiet things in life, so a chirping and screaming baby beating a toy to death with a remote control while the victimized toy still sings his sad song is just the most beautiful confusion in my mind. i pray that God allows us to adopt her soon, and i pray that for the remainder of our lives as a family that stefen will be in charge of running all of the energy out of her. we can call it a "daddy daughter date" but  really they will just be doing laps in our cul-de-sac.

i plea to my readers to pray for us. pray for the caseworkers on our case. pray for all the kids involved in foster care. but please, pray for our judge and district attorney - they are the ultimate decision makers. we need to get through to them that if they took baby j from us now, she would grieve, continue to look for us and long to hear our voices. until she doesn't find us, and then it breaks her heart.

simplifying.

i haven't blogged in a while. life has been stressful. a few weeks ago i was talking to my dad and he said "you need to make a list of the things that are getting in the way of your peace, and get rid of them one by one"...so i did.

i won't repeat the list here, because to be honest, i name names. people cause me anxiety, expectations cause me anxiety, money causes me anxiety, marriage and motherhood do too.

i started off by physical distractions that get in the way of me feeling peace. my home. i'm here all the time, and when my home isn't in order, my mind isn't in order. i made a list of 28 spaces that i needed to declutter. and even though i've got 3 left, i've been getting rid of everything we own. gifts that i've kept for YEARS because i felt too guilty to get rid of, gone. wall art that makes my home seem over cluttered, gone. clothes, toys, books, movies, gone.

next were time distractions. facebook, deactivated. i've blogged considerably less. less tv (more reading).

emotional distractions. for me this is relationships. anyone ever feel like they need a sabbatical from people? is that an introvert thing? it takes energy and time to nourish friendships, and it is very rewarding...but the last few weeks i have just needed a break. it sounds selfish, but i have been craving to pour that energy into my marriage and my daughter. i'm spending more energy on my relationship with my parents, and less energy on strangers. i'm nourishing my small circle of family. this phase won't last forever, but i'm enjoying it for now.

why i'm sick of social media.

a couple of weeks ago i deactivated my facebook account. best decision ever. i don't even miss it. and why did i do it? because i'm so tired of seeing super-moms. and people who are trying to let the world know how awesome they are.

you heard it right, and yes i'm looking at you, too pinterest and instagram. you are a feeding ground for super moms to show off their adorable children and perfectly vacuumed carpet (the valencia filter is really good for that, by the way).

things that super moms do and say that make me want to crawl inside my preheated oven and hold my breath until i pass out or burn to death:

blogging- HOW in the WORLD do you women have time to blog about how to be a perfect wife and mom, all while still being a perfect wife and mom? and then you pin pins to your pinterest that link to your blog. and i just can't.

pictures of your perfectly coiffed children- look, my kids hair has a mind of its own. she only gets bathed every day if she's sick or if she decides to run a marathon during the day. she only wears bows and/or anything other than pajamas if we are going to see important people. but your kids? they have the perfectly matching mudpie outfits that costs more than i spend on groceries for the month, with matching bow. and shoes. how do you even keep shoes on a baby? i mean, really.

pinning pins that link to your own blog about how clean and wonderful you are- a part of me really wants to read your blog article (that you have pinned SEVENTY FIVE times) about how important it is to not have clutter on your kitchen counters. really. i do. and then i get side tracked by your other blog post about how to only spend $1.50 on groceries every week and how to freeze every meal ever (i will never be okay with eating food that's been frozen for 6 weeks, i don't care how much money it saves me).

women, is this what really God is calling us to be? aren't we more than HOW-TOs and DIYs? shouldn't we do less pinning and more serving? more human interaction? less cleaning and more kingdom-minded things?

i've vowed to only follow people on instagram that are uplifting, that encourage me and remind me that being a mom to a baby is fun and not perfect. i only want social media interaction with people that i would have face-to-face interaction with. and truly, i don't need to be spending my time checking pinterest, seeing the same pins over and over, and wasting my time. i want my 2014 to be about relationships; about loving on the people who have loved us so well in 2013.

energy isn't a fountain that never dries up. it dries up all of the time. i can spend my energy worrying about why my house isn't perfect, or i can spend my energy focusing on my family. how to better love them and serve them (in my experience, that takes a lot of energy if you're doing it right). and at the end of my energy cycle, if i don't have enough reserve to clean out the pantry like i had wanted to - that's okay, because i used my energy in a much better way.