let's be honest- I don't have supermom skills

I spent three days watching my cousin's kids while she went on a business trip. Usually she works during the day and her husband works at night. When Loretta has to go out of town for work, their delicate family balance gets thrown off. Since we moved to Houston, I have been able to take care of the kids several times when Loretta has gone on work trips.

So I spent my days this week making meals that were mostly left on the kitchen floor, cleaning the house and then cleaning the house again, answering the same questions over and over again, stopping fights and tantrums, putting kids to sleep for naps and then trying to get them to stay in bed at night, changing stinky diapers and then changing diapers again, helping with sidewalk chalk art while applying bug spray, taking the kids to the pool (a major ordeal involving trying to remember to bring swim suits, towels, sunscreen, bug spray, treats, water, swim diapers and another diaper for after swimming) and then trying to convince the kids that it was time to leave the pool because my pale skin was turning into boiled tomato.

It was wonderful to see their simling faces and hear them laugh but by the end of each day, I was tired and worn out and yet still most of the things I had on my to-do list were not done. Going to the grocery store was in itself a major task. When I talked to my dad on the phone yesterday, I said that I had decided that, instead of wanting to be mother so badly, I have now decided that I want to skip directly to the grandparent part. We could just adopt adult children who are already self-sufficient, post-pubescent, and potty trained. They would have cute kids that we could visit but not be directly responsible for all of their actions.

But the best part of the day was when Lonnie would come home from work. The kids screamed and jump up and down, yelling his name. Lonnie chased them around the house as they yelped with delight. Their playing eventually wore them all out. Together, we gave the kids a bath and put them to bed. I sometimes joined in the pretend roughhousing fun but mainly I just sat and looked at my wonderful, patient, fun loving husband, regained my strength, and I felt like I wanted to be a parent.

I also realize that I can't do this alone. I'm not going to wake up one day with the skills of a supermom. Learning to be a great parent will be a process. But luckily I work on a team, and together I think Lonnie and I will be pretty good parents.

-Alisa

it takes a network to build this family

As far as I understand from the science books, bringing children into the world usually involves just two people.

Adoption, on the other hand, involves two people, plus a million other connections that have to fall into place in order to bring the child into the home.

Our hope is that someone, will know someone, who might know someone, who is hoping just as hard as we are to find the connection that will be right and good to form an extended family of birth-parents, children, and adopted parents.

Luckily, Lonnie and I both know a lot of people. And the people we know also know a lot of people. Plus, we live in the age of social networking. If Lonnie and I were find each other, why not find our family through a wide network of people. We also hope to meet many more people. So as a first step we have created this blog.

We will also sign up with an adoption agency. We are working on that this month. But even with an adoption agency the timing of adoption can be quite lengthy and foster care is only temporary. We want to do whatever possible to help increase our chances of finding the children that are looking for us.

We haven't sent out our blog link to many people yet....a couple family members and close friends. Some of those people have sent it on to others. I've been hesitant to send it out to many people who will only look at it once and then forget about it.

So suddenly we are dependent upon the graces of kind people who we know, as well as many we don't yet know, to find our children, upon whom we can spread all our love, patience, tolerance, and parenting affection. Feel free to spread the love.

-Alisa

relying on the improbable - READ THIS FIRST

I always thought that I would start a family by having a baby in a traditional way, you know...falling in love, getting married, months of planning...then on the predetermined date...candles, a night alone, and then nine painfully pleasurable months later...an amazingly, perfectly peculiar child keeping me up at night. Then over the years, I would bake pies, take the kids to soccer practice and coach the team, make the world more beautiful, vote with my heart, be a friend to those in need, save the world, and be a loving wife as well as a patient mother to my children.

Yet, what I have come to realize, is that my life is not often what I have planned. And, in most cases, life has given me gifts that have been far greater that anything I would have imagined for myself.

It never occurred to me that I would be using the internet as a tool to bring children into our family and home. Yet, for some reason, this method, although possibly less romantic than the way most children come into families, makes sense to me.

I actually met my wonderful husband through a large network of contacts. So it makes sense that our family may grow through the benefit of mass electronic communication.

-Alisa