Sunday, September 30, 2012

Tortellini.

If you're visiting from SITS and wanted to read "Open Adoption Chose Us" the link is wrong!  Oh no! But you can check it out here!  But....you can....of course keep reading here and learn about my grandmother's amazing tortellini too!  

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We called my dad's mom Nini.  That's some version of grandma in Italian, although it's more the result of four grand-kids who couldn't say the Italian word Nonna (the real word for grandma in Italian) correctly when we were learning how to talk.


 How adorable was this woman? 

Nini knew how to cook like an Italian grandma should.  She made her own pasta, all forms of it, and I am not lying or exaggerating when I say I was never served a noodle in her house that was not home-made.  Her basement was littered with clothes drying racks strewn with long strands of spaghetti, fettuccine, and vermicelli.  My cousins and I would eat untold amounts of tender dried pasta off those racks--because even dried--it was delicious. She had hand-crank pasta makers clamped to the edges of multiple tables and she had an entire second kitchen down there where her and my grandpa would make their own sausage, stuffed artichokes, spaghetti sauce (which no one can duplicate, I'm sure of it), canned figs, bagna cauda (check that out if you're not familiar with it--and then never make it--unless you're going to make it outside), pizzelles, flan, and tortellini.

And did she make tortellini.  She'd grind up the veal and prosciutto herself, cut uniform squares of pasta dough, put the exact right amount of filling in the middle of them, and fold them up perfectly into little belly button shaped dumplings.  And she'd have bags and bags of tortellini in her freezer at any given time.  It was the first course of almost every meal that she made.  Perfect tortellini's bobbing around in home-made chicken broth topped with generous scoops of parmesan cheese.

She really wanted to teach me how to make tortellini.  She'd ask me all the time while I was in high school.  But I didn't really want to learn.  I wasn't that interested in cooking while I was growing up and I think that because she was so relentless in her asking I was equally relentless in my saying no.  And I'm pretty sure it hurt her feelings.  Cooking was her thing.  She loved cooking for her grand-kids.  She would have made every single person's favorite dish for dinner even if it was seven different things if our parents would have allowed it.

Every time I'd say no, she'd just shrug and say, "Maybe another time.  It's okay."  And you can guess......that 'other time' never happened.  I went to college, and I still loved eating the tortellini she'd make and bringing bags of it back to college with me, but I was even "busier" than I'd been in high school and.........Nini wasn't feeling as good as she used to.  She was sick.  The only time that Chris ever met her was before we were even engaged and about a week before she passed away. She didn't  really know we were there.

And I never learned how to make tortellini.  
And that makes me so upset.  With myself.
It would have been so simple to spend an afternoon in my Nini's basement with her folding pasta and it would have made her year.  But I didn't do it.  I just didn't do it.......for selfish and ridiculous sixteen....and seventeen......and eighteen year old reasons.

I still love tortellini.  I buy the pre-made beef tortellini and boil it in chicken broth (not home-made) and I think about Nini every time we eat it. It's actually, ironically, one of Georgia's favorite things to eat.  She cheers when I tell her it's what we're having for dinner.  A dinner that took so much work on Nini's part because it was made from scratch......and love, takes me about ten minutes and I consider it one of my, "I forgot to think about dinner so this is what we're having," dinners.  But Georgia loves it.



And I know that would make Nini so happy.  She would love Georgia and all of her gregarious energy and zest for life.  She'd think it was so amazing that Georgia was adopted......and Italian.......and ours.  Because she loved what her grand-kids loved.

Even if her grand-kids didn't understand and place enough value on what she loved.

So when I'm dumping a plastic tray of tortellini into a boiling pot of chicken broth I think about spending time with people I love.....and who love me.  And I think about how important it is to be with them, really be with them.  And to do with them, what they want to do with us.......because they want us to understand them better; they want to give us a part of who they are.

And that means our own parents, our spouses, our best friends, friends that we're just making, mentors........our kids.

Don't be too busy to make tortellini with someone.  It's probably just one afternoon of your life......and even if it's more...........who cares?

Love you Nini.  You were an amazing grandma.  A really amazing one.


Friday, September 28, 2012

When did you know?

"So, when did you know you were ready to stop infertility treatments and pursue adoption?"
"What does it feel like to be sure you want to do the adoption thing?"
"How will I know I'm ready?"
"I just don't feel quite ready to jump into adoption even though I'm so frustrated that we haven't had a baby yet."
"My husband is really ready to start adoption stuff, but I'm not really there yet."

When did you know? 

Yep.  I've heard all that. I've probably said all that.

And I'm going to be extremely honest when I say, I don't think you need to be one hundred percent ready to embrace the reality of adoption in your life to get started on the adoption process. I don't think it needs to be your final answer just because you fill out paperwork.  I don't think you should be all that worried if when you sit through adoption education classes at the agency you've chosen you're still having doubts about what you're doing. I don't think it should scare you more than anything else that you do that might be a bit scary if when you turn in your adoption scrapbook you have a hard time actually letting your social worker take it out of your hands.

Because the thing is........are we really ever one hundred percent ready to do BIG things?  Are all of the stars and details always aligned and perfectly in place? Are there always some lingering doubts?  Of course.  It doesn't mean we don't do those things.  And we do them because we've spent time weighing out the pros and cons of the situation.  We do them because we know what we want the end result to be even if the path to that result is a little scary......or a lot scary.  We do them because so often at the end of great risk is the greatest reward.

So when people ask me, "when did you know?"

"Was it when you wrote that first check?"


"No," I say.

"Was it when you got your finger-prints done?"


"Not then," I'll reply.

"For sure then when you filled out all the paper-work."



"Not even then."

"How about when you mailed everything in?"


"I was getting closer.  But I still wasn't one hundred percent there," I'll admit.


Even in this picture that Chris and I took of ourselves after we'd turned in our very last thing that our agency needed to put us on the official "waiting" list I had a nagging feeling like, "I don't think I can do this."


Because apparently, I had a deep, deep love for Sparrow and I couldn't imagine loving something more than him besides Chris.  I literally must have been psychotic four years ago and Georgia is what I needed to jolt me back to reality.

So when did I know?  I knew when I met Georgia's birth-parents.  When my social worker opened the door and they were sitting at the table; the same table we'd sat at for all of our adoption education classes, the very classes that made me question whether adoption was for me more than anything else I encountered through the process,......I knew.  I knew I was ready to pursue adoption.  I didn't have one doubt left in my body.  Not even the slightest hint of one.

So, it's okay.  To not know.  When you need to know, absolutely need to know.  You will.

It's just another one of the ways that God works incredible miracles through adoption.  One.  Of trillions.

Don't let the logical need of "having to be sure" stop you from pursuing something that could be the greatest decision of your life.  If you know where you want to be and there is a road that will take you there......even if it's a dark and twisting and turning road.........get on it.  You'll have enough light to get you to the next part.  And one day.........you'll turn a corner and you'll be in a parking lot full of flood lights and street lamps and huge blinking signs that say, "You made it."

And then.......you'll know.


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If you like what I have to say about adoption, in this post, and others......would you mind voting for my blog by clicking the little brown button down in the side-bar that says "Vote for Me. Top Mommy Blogs?" A click is a vote and it's just one way that I can keep spreading the positive message of adoption to more and more people.  Thank-you. 

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Knock Knock Wednesday.

I was in the middle of writing a serious, mature, intuitive, post about adoption......but then Georgia and I started telling knock knock jokes.  She's just starting to actually get them.  My youth pastor while I was growing up taught me this one.  It's high brow.  But......it always gets a laugh......especially from three year olds! Even three year olds who get the punch line when someone else delivers it, but have no idea how to deliver it themselves!  

So anyway.......no serious post.......just us.  
Happy Wednesday!  Loads of great premiers on tonight.  Have a good one!  

(And I have no idea why this video turns sideways once you hit play!  If you've got a laptop turn it sideways.  If you're on a desk-top.....you're out of luck. It doesn't do that on my phone or on Vimeo and I've never had any issues with this before on Vimeo.  Any ideas?  Anyone?  Bueller?) 

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Home.

Georgia and I went to down to visit my parents this past weekend.  We hadn't been there since 4th of July weekend and going home in the fall is one of my favorite times to go.  Maybe it's because the fall is when I usually left home growing up as school would start or I'd head back to college--so it feels good to do the opposite, maybe it's because I just love everything more in the fall--how can you not?, or maybe....and most definitely....it's because, my mom, who excels at making home a haven hits a grand-slam in this department when it comes to the fall.  Her mums on the front porch look cozier than anyone else's, she has cinnamon candles burning in the kitchen, she has vases of yellow and orange leaves on the counters, she'll have my dad build a fire in the fire-place before anyone else does it, and a pan of baked spaghetti in the oven on a rainy night.  It feels good to go home.

And what I love, is that Georgia can sense how good it feels to go to Gaga and Pop Pop's house too.  Every fifteen or twenty minutes on the two and half hour ride down she'd shriek, "We're going to Gaga's."

I didn't grow up in this house.  My parents called me about two weeks before Thanksgiving break my freshman year of college and told me they'd sold my child-hood home and we'd be moving into a new one when I was home over Thanksgiving.  I might have been a little sad.....sure, but I know I wasn't devastated in any way.  I knew it would be fine, I knew that the new house they'd bought would feel like home in no time, and more importantly I knew that it didn't matter where we lived, my mom could make it feel like the most welcoming, comfortable, lived-in in the best of ways, you-never-want to leave places I'd know. Just like good moms do.

Now that I'm raising my own daughter I appreciate home more than I ever even knew that I did........and I've always appreciated it a lot.  I want our home to be a place that Georgia....and Chris want to rest in--both physically and mentally, I want home to be a place that is easy....and not easy because hard stuff never gets done there.....but easy because the end result is growth and love, I want home to be a place that is cathartic, comfortable, welcoming, familiar, and remarkably part of who Georgia becomes.....how she identifies herself.

And the thing I've always realized about home is that it's about the people who reside there; have resided there,  more than it's the walls that enclose those people.  Because no matter where my mom and dad's home is, there will always be..........


'Fairy Toast'..................


playing Annie and Christmas carols (no matter the time of year.....it's just that I can actually remember how to play a pretty good Winter Wonderland) on the piano.........


Gaga's bath toys..........


rainy day trips to the Henry Ford museum.......or just anywhere really...........






And I just love this picture of my mom and Georgia that I caught through the curtain of a photo-booth so I had to include it.  

..........the fact that my mom lets us just trash the house with toys, and books, and suitcases because she really just cares that we're there, my dad taking Georgia on walks around the neighborhood with the dog, the room upstairs with all of our family photo albums that I look through almost every time I'm home, the little jars of candy that you find hidden in different spots each time you're there (and they're usually Rolo's or tootsie rolls--keep that up mom), the softest sheets on the guest beds, my dad begging me to go to the basement and take something home with me, music playing all the time, little cozy lamps lit in remote corners of every room, and.........just.......my parents.....being my parents.

I know that not everyone has the same nostalgia about their own homes for various reasons......but what I also know is that we can vow to create that for our own kids no matter what we've come from.  It doesn't take money, a beautiful house, fancy vacations, gourmet food, and certainly not perfect people.  It takes parents willing to work hard to make simple things, amazing things.........cold nights, warm nights........crazy lives outside the home, calm nights in the living room.........the routine, the definition of safe........and our kids, the most important thing to ever cross our paths.......really and truly the most important thing.

So thanks mom and dad.....for living out the definition of home.....

Thursday, September 20, 2012

So.......this happened.

It's uncanny really.  How when Chris goes out of town for an extended trip it's like someone flips a switch and everything kind of falls apart........

In order.......since Chris left Monday morning:

His car gets dropped off to get new tire seals.
I fill up my car with gas.
The gas gauge is clearly broken as it's flying up and down like one of those love-meters at bad restaurants.
I call the mechanic to see if Chris's car will be done later that afternoon so I can drop mine off in its place.
It will--but it actually needs new brakes too, so it will be three times as much as we thought it was going to be.
But it's brakes.  They have to get fixed.
The neighbors behind us put their house up for sale.
For $20,000 less than our house is listed for. Helpful.  But actually not really.
I drop my car off.
Tuesday is fairly normal. However, Georgia is clearly sick when I get home from work.
Wednesday--Georgia is sicker and sleeps through the first 1/2 of ballet class.  No big deal.
I drive to ballet where my friend Rachel is going to help me do this ridiculous car switcheroo at the mechanics.
I do the whole car seat wrangling bit and I'm back in business with my car.
Rachel takes off.  I head to Goodwill where I need to drop some things off.
The car isn't right.  I can feel it.
I get to Goodwill and discover gas gushing out of the bottom of the car.  Gushing.  Like Old Faithful.
The Goodwill guys let me know what they think of my mechanic. I'm inclined to agree.
Georgia and I hang out in Goodwill (and it's not a good one) while we wait for a tow truck and the rental car the mechanic is going to get me.
The tow truck arrives.
As does the mechanic in an 1820 Lincoln Continental. I think Lincoln might have actually owned it.
He says he couldn't find a rental car.  Really?  Cuz there's an Avis about half a mile away.
I drive home in the grossest car I've ever been in.  Georgia asks me why I'm only using one hand.
"Some people don't take care of their things."  I'm not ashamed to sell the mechanic down the river like this.
Chris drives home from Chicago for another family emergency that's come up during the afternoon.
He brings the horrible Lincoln back to the mechanic and says, "Think again giving my wife that car to drive."
He gets them to reimburse us the labor costs.
He flys out to Germany this morning.

I'm going to my moms tomorrow so she can babysit G and I.  
And crossing my fingers we have an uneventful week ahead of us.
Come home babe.  We miss you.



Have a great weekend!  And if you feel your car surging like someone is pushing on it.......you might have gas gushing out of the bottom of it.  Pull into a Goodwill and they'll confirm it for you.  Oy!


Monday, September 17, 2012

The Return of For Real.

I'm fully aware that it is no longer Friday.....as it was when this post was started....rendering the name a bit moot.  But.....I was so distracted with a hundred things this weekend that I just didn't get it done.  But it's done now.....so it's getting published.  

You know how there are things that you do for your kids that make you want to gouge your eyes out and curl up in a fetal position?  But you do them anyway--because it's the mom thing to do and other moms everywhere would think you pretty much failed the mom pop quiz if you admitted to not liking them?  Even though......even though.........I bet there are more of us in the same camp over 'said things' than anyone will admit?

Let's come clean together, shall we, in a long over-due episode of 'For Real Friday's.' Judge me, think horribly of me, or ............. join me.

1.  Playing outside.  I was the kid in elementary school who would do a cheer on rainy days because it meant indoor recess.  Now, I understand the teacher-me loathed rainy days because it meant indoor recess and indoor morning duty, but the kid-me.....that's a different story. And the mom-me...........

Playing outside for me is one of my least favorite ways to pass the time with G.  It's usually either too hot or too cold, and it involves a lot of me running into the street to get a ball.....after I've just sat down from killing a spider..........right after I filled up the pool (which of course involved wrangling a hose)............right before I got out the sidewalk chalk and killed myself drawing a 'to-scale' version of 28th street..........which was interrupted by a frantic run to the ice-cream truck........all the while fighting over sun-screen, why Georgia can't drink one more 'special juice,' why we aren't walking to the park RIGHT NOW, and topped off with begging to just go inside and watch a show.

It's really delightful.

2. Playing dress-up.  Inevitably this is accompanied by a list of requests demands regarding who I will pretend to be, what my character will say, how she'll say it, what I'll do while playing the part and how I'll look.  And for the love.......it's never right and ends up in a crying fit.  And it's not always Georgia who's having that fit.

If I'm told I have to be the mean lady (ha!  I love that I get assigned that prophetic role) I'm usually not mean enough, if I'm relegated to play a princess I'm not happy enough, if I'm supposed to be a ballerina I am a huge failure at it because I can't squeeze into a tutu made FOR A THREE YEAR OLD, and if I have to portray Maximus (yep--the horse) from Tangled I don't gallop the right way.  Seriously?

A lot of the times when Georgia asks me, "Who are you going to be today mommy?"  I reply back with, "Mommy--that's it."

I grant her a, "Mother Gothel, King Triton, or horse," once or twice a day.  It's really all I can take.

3.  Playing with food. By this, I don't mean cooking and baking with Georgia.....that, I love and think is crucial to a child's food education.  But playing with food at the table while she's eating?  Ridiculous.   And I think it's a huge joke that's been played on American parents by pediatricians and even some chefs who think they've found the cure for picky American kids. "If they play with the food, they'll learn to love it."  Really?  So smashing things into a paste and mixing up mashed potatoes, cherries, and ketchup helps kids learn to love cherries?  Or just hate them because they taste like a mashed potato ketchup brew?  I'll go with the latter.  Kids learn to love food by trying it....when it's prepared in a delicious way.  And trying it often.  I just can't get behind the whole-playing-with-your-food movement.

I'm sure this will come up in therapy one day.

Now lest you go thinking I don't like doing the typical mom things with Georgia, rest assured......I love.....

  • Play-doh
  • Art projects
  • Dolls
  • Taking walks (I know.....it's outside....but it's different)
  • Reading books
  • Playing vet & doctor
  • Practicing letters
  • Going on bike-rides
  • Glitter
  • Playing hide n'seek
  • Decorating cookies
And of course......letting Georgia play with my hair.  I've been waiting for a personal hair stylist for....forever.  Just ask my sister.  

Agh.  And while we're coming clean....I have seriously fallen off track with my running.  So sad.  Just....why can't it be more fun?  

Monday, September 10, 2012

How did we get here?

I don't have a lot of words today.  Just pictures.  Preschool moms who have gone before me have summed up all those nostalgic, emotional, and "I think living in a yurt in Siberia sounds good about now so I can protect my child from anything bad ever happening to her or her learning any nasty habits from her class-mates" feelings for years.  And they're all right.

I've done first-days of school my whole life.  Whether they were mine or because I was teaching......but none were as great as Georgia's.  And not because I went crazy and hired her a Dorothy impersonator to get her up in the morning or a Scarecrow to jump up out of a cake--but because she's my baby and to watch her take in all of the activity in her classroom, walk independently to circle time, or stride confidently out to the playground all by herself makes me just feel so lucky.  That's it. I can't believe she's mine.  I can't believe God gave her to me.

Sometimes it's just too much to describe in eloquent or creative words.  So pictures will have to do.



Those kitty shoes?  She spotted those last spring and told me, "I want to wear those on the first day of preschool!"  They were $8 at the grocery store so I indulged her, never thinking in a million years that she'd still be holding on to that dream or even remember that we'd bought them.  Last week she made sure to remind me to get out those kitty shoes that we bought for the first day of school.  They kind of make me want to eat her feet up they're so cute.






Grandma Cathy bought her this little deer purse yesterday and of course the only "good" picture of her and I that I got this morning included her squeezing the love out of this deer purse in excitement and shoving it in my face.....ahhhh.....the deer purse.




Her most favorite girl in the world, Fiona, was calling down to her from the loft--and that takes all precedence.....picture or not.






Georgia and Fiona.  I couldn't really ask for a better friend for Georgia to go through life with right now than Fiona.  She is an amazing little girl.


Pre-school.  I think it's going to be a good year.  I'm so excited to watch her learn to play with other kids in an academic setting, fall into the rhythms of school routines, talk to me about what she's learning, and become more of the Georgia that she's meant to be.

Today.....her highlight was learning a song about a whale that burps.  She was quick to tell me that the whale did in fact say, "Pardon me."

What's been your school highlight so far this year?

Friday, September 7, 2012

Open Adoption Chose Us.


This post is part of The Open Adoption Roundtable group. The Open Adoption Roundtable is a series of occasional writing prompts about open adoption. It’s designed to showcase the diversity of thought and experience in the open adoption community. You don’t need to be listed at Open Adoption Bloggers to participate or even be in a traditional open adoption. If you’re thinking about openness in adoption, you have a place at the table. The prompts are meant to be starting points–please feel free to adapt or expand on them. 

What were your reasons for choosing open adoption? 

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Over the last three years I've talked a lot about our open adoption.  To anyone that asks, and really......to anyone that doesn't.  Because I love it and I'm proud of it and it's kind of like sharing my labor story--just without epidurals, and ice diapers (I've heard about these from my brave friends), and extreme physical pain.  And naturally, what people want to talk about with me the most is the fact that we have an open adoption with Georgia's birth-mom and family.  A very open one.

They want to know how we came to the decision to have an open adoption.  Did it take a lot of thought?  Did we spend a lot of time weighing out the options?  What books did we read?  What experts did we consult?

The answers go like this:

--Up until six weeks before Georgia was born, when we met her birth-parents, our thoughts were, "We will never have an open adoption."
--We didn't weigh out any options; our adoption would be closed.
--I read no books because they all (at least the recently published ones on domestic adoption--all two of them) encouraged open adoption and I didn't want to hear it.
--We consulted no experts and my social worker would just smile a ,"I know you'll change your mind when you meet a set of birth-parents and prove that I'm always right," smile when we expressed our very strong (and of course so well informed) opinions on open adoption.

And that's pretty much where we stood until one wintry February night in 2009 when our social worker called us and said, "Are you guys both home?  Can Maggie get on the phone?  There are some birth-parents that want to meet you.  They're young, amazing kids, they are due in six weeks, and they want to know if you're available to meet them next week?"

In that instant, before I'd ever met them or their parents, before I even knew what their situation in life was, before I knew where they were from, how resolved they were to pursue an adoption plan for their baby, before I knew what they were having, before I knew how supportive their families were of this decision, before I knew if they even wanted an open adoption, and before we'd even gotten off the phone with our social worker I knew we'd have an open adoption.

My hardened resolve melted, just like that.  It was like God turned on the light in that dark shadowy part of my 'adoption room' and all of a sudden I could see exactly how things were going to go.  And I say, "I saw exactly how things were going to go," as a way of saying that open adoption chose us--we did not chose it. We were not open to it, we weren't interested in it, and I even went as far in my crazy little head to call it irresponsible.

Looking back, I can honestly say that in that moment, even if things hadn't worked out with who are now our daughter's birth-parents, I decided that I wanted an open adoption and probably would have been disappointed if we hadn't been able to have one.  I needed that jarring phone-call to realize that in  adoption it is not just about me and this picture perfect life that I want to build.  There is another family who is making gut wrenching decisions, who love their babies who are having a baby, they are potentially making an adoption plan for their very first grand-child, and they are selfless.  I felt an instant bond with Georgia's birth-parents just hearing about them over the phone.  I couldn't wait to meet them.....and know them....it just over-came me and to deny that feeling would have been like denying my name was Maggie.

And foremost, there is the baby......my Georgia.  Who would become a three year old, who will become a nine year old, a fifteen year old, and who will desire a solid sense of identity that will need to be woven out of her adoptive family and her birth family.  Unless the situation with her birth family had been extreme, I refused to be the one who left a weak spot in the development of who she was and will become.

Open adoption for us, like so many other uncontrollable forces in life, didn't really feel like a choice when it came right down to it.   To say no to it would have been like trying to force repelling magnets together.  As hard as you try, it's not going to happen.  And thankfully, in the end you find out that your choices would have been wrong, un-fulfilling, empty, baseless, and that they would have kept you from one of the greatest blessings of your life and ultimately your child's.

Is open adoption for every person, in every adoptive situation.  No. And that's okay.  And it's also okay to not know you want an open adoption until it washes over you and there is no way out.  Take adoption one day at a time, listening to other peoples experiences but knowing every situation is unique and just for you.

For me, for us, for Georgia, for her birth-mom......it works.  And it works well.

Open adoption chose us.  And we're glad to have been chosen.

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And can I just say to all of you who voted for me over at Top Mommy Blogs--THANK YOU!  Pink Shoes is the #2 Adoption Blog in their roster and that makes me happy because the more people I can share our adoption story with, the more I can promote adoption as a healthy choice, and the more I can cultivate a culture of adoption in this country--the better!  If you haven't voted yet and want to.......that'd be cool.  Just click the little brown button at the bottom of my side-bar!  That's all you have to do--that's a vote! Thanks in advance!

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Traditions. Are you building them?

We went camping this past Labor Day weekend.  I'm missing the camping gene for the most part, or at the very least it's way way recessive.  However, it rises to the surface, or almost to the surface every Labor Day weekend. And that's because I've been camping every Labor Day weekend at the same place with pretty much the same people since I was five years old.  I missed one weekend while growing up on account of our family getting a new puppy.

And Georgia?  She's now been since she was five months old.  A tent and a five month old?  Good times.  We've since upgraded to borrowing my father-in-laws trailer and that's pretty much awesome.  Georgia loves camping on Labor Day weekend.  From Friday evening when we arrive to Monday morning when we leave she is covered in dirt, s'more residue, art project remnants, ash, and sugar.

And I love watching her love it.  Her loving it makes me love it a bit more.


That's how it is with traditions right?  When we see our kids eating them up it makes you realize why all the work of camping, and it's a lot of work, is worth it.  Traditions are so important to kids because they are the glue that seals the edges of a family bond.  Even simple traditions.

I heard a speaker this weekend that talked about his family taking full-moon walks every time they'd see one.  Full moons would remind him and his wife that their time with their kids was fleeting and they should take advantage of every one that they saw.  Their kids grew to love full-moon walks.  And it made me think about all of the traditions that we are building for Georgia.


We celebrate her adoption day without fail every December 17th. And we always will.
Georgia gets donuts from Van's pastries almost every Saturday morning with Chris.
We eat dinner at the table as a family at least three nights a week.
We decorate the Christmas tree together the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
We've gone to Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan for the last two 4th of July's and we'll continue to do so.
We head to a cottage with my family every summer.

And there are probably a few more that I'm missing that are truly traditions.  But talking about them makes me want to build more.  Not huge extravagant crazy ones, but simple, meaningful ones.  Like breakfast for dinner one night a week, movie night, Christmas ornament making days, Valentines Day cookie decorating parties, back to school shopping day, and one that my friend Brooke started this year.....Christmas caroling parties.  

I think it's important to remember that traditions can be as simple as some are incredible.  And really, sometimes those are the ones that kids hold the most dear as they get older.  It's really just about choosing to be more purposeful when we decide what we're going to do with our kids and remembering that traditions give kids a solid foundation when it comes to the importance of family.

So camping on Labor Day has become a tradition for Georgia just like it was for me.  That kind of makes it a super-tradition doesn't it?  She loves it, so I'm loving it more and more and more.

What does she love about it?

Hayrides.


With great friends.


Especially her Owen. The first boy we ever let her go off in a car with.


Art projects.






This 150 ft. slide down a drainage tube.  It's freaking awesome.




I think she even loves the walk back up the hill from the slide.  We do it over and over.


Campfires.


Playing with my hair in the woods.......of course.


Gaga.  And the iPad.


And taking pictures.  Georgia took this picture on her own.  She's becoming quite the pro with my huge camera and I think this is pretty impressive don't you think?


So tell me.......what are some great traditions that you uphold that we could all adopt?  Simple ones, big ones, meaningful ones, and ones that are just fun and silly.

They're important.

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