I’m an excellent driver. Being a mom, I’ve perfected my ability to simultaneously drive the van, discipline the kids, and change the DVD—that’s multi-tasking, my friend. In spite of this amazing talent, my husband does the driving on long car trips. “It’s not because you’re a bad driver,” he tells me. “It’s because you can sleep in the car and I can’t.” Okay, valid point. I’m also an excellent sleeper. Due to my tendency towards motion sickness, I can’t read a book or check Facebook on my phone or crochet in the car. Turning around to pass out juice boxes even makes me want to puke. My husband will no longer humor me with car games (“Female actress from the 1980’s. You’ve got twenty questions…go!”), so I either sleep or daydream. When I’m not feeling very sleepy, I’ll recline my seat and just start thinking. Sometimes I fantasize about becoming a famous author. I’m being interviewed at the red carpet premiere of the movie version of my latest novel. Cameras are flashing as the paparazzi are yelling at me, “This way, Abby. Who are you wearing, Abby? You look amazing, Abby! How did you lose those thirty pesky pounds?” I would just smile and say, “Clean living, boys. I credit it all to clean living.” Sometimes I write a screenplay in my mind. For instance, I recently created an entire drama starring my husband and me. It was a “It’s a Wonderful Life”-type story where we broke up my freshman year (instead of dating all through college and getting married the day I graduated). He married a seemingly genuine, but–in my opinion–overly attractive girl. They moved away so he could enroll in medical school but she realized being married to a poor med student wasn’t what she had signed up for so she left him for a dermatology resident who was willing to help her finance a new Lexus. We met years later. I had never married and he still loved me. It was like that Dan Fogelberg song they play at Christmastime except we didn’t meet at a grocery store and I didn’t spill the contents of my purse while we laughed until we cried. And sometimes I just fantasize how I could organize my pantry better. With the current pace of our often-hectic lives, it’s a nice break to be able to just sit and daydream. A friend who is now cancer-free recently told me what a treat it is for her to go her oncologist every three months for a check-up to get a CT scan. She’s forced to sit very still under a warm blanket in a dark room. There’s definitely something appealing about that! We’re pulled in so many directions. We have calendars on our phones reminding us where we need to be in the next five minutes and yet we still feel like we’re a day behind. Even now, as I’m typing, I hear an annoying voice in my head telling me to go down to the laundry room and take the sheets out of the dryer so the towels can go in. It’s dizzying. So here are my New Year’s Resolutions: Slow Down. Pray More. Invite God into my Daydreams. I may not believe all of my daydreams, but I am a big believer in them. I’m going to make room for plain, old thinking and see where God takes me. *I’ve had the song “Daydream Believer” by The Monkees in my head for the entire time I’ve been typing. When I get to the part “You once thought of me as a white knight on a steed…” I always get stuck. I keep singing the end of the verse something like this: “But how much paper do they really need?” I looked it up and, believe it or not, that’s not how it goes. So disappointing.

A very sweet friend recently gave me a handmade necklace for Christmas. It had a pendant with a picture of a songbird, some lovely beads and a couple of tiny charms—one of a leaf and one that says HOPE. The accompanying card was chock full of scriptures and encouraging words about the successful completion of our son’s adoption from Africa. The main theme of the note was her charge for me not to lose hope. I wore it all of the next day as I ran errands and carpooled kids around town. Compliments were made by friends and strangers and my heart was cheered every time I looked at this thoughtful gift. It wasn’t until I was getting dressed for bed that I realized one of the charms was missing. That’s right—I lost HOPE. Even though I love a good bit of irony, it was a kick in the shins to my spirit. (That is, if spirits have shins.) You don’t realize how close to the edge of despair you are until you get a little shove sometimes. Some days it only takes a light breeze. Once I picked myself up off the floor, I began to ponder what hope really means. With the Christmas season in full swing, I can’t help but think about a night many years ago in Bethlehem and the hope that Christ’s birth brought to this world. When the angels told the shepherds, “I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people,” it must have been a huge source of encouragement. These men smelled like sheep and were ruled by an occupying government. They needed a shot of hope. They went to the stable and saw that the angel’s words were fulfilled. And then what? They went home and slept and woke up to another day of sheep herding. Jesus didn’t start his ministry for thirty years. Chances are, He didn’t even begin healing and preaching during the shepherds’ lifetimes. So how was this hope? I can see now that I confused “hope” with “happiness.” Hope is a perpetually-filling reservoir and happiness is a fleeting rain shower. Hope is seeing God’s majesty to create anticipation for greater things and happiness is the majesty of one moment that doesn’t usually live up to the hype. Hope can be a long wait, but it will be worth it. Some part of the shepherds’ spirit must have known that night was unlike any other. (I’m guessing the chorus of heavenly beings probably tipped them off.) Even if they never saw the culmination of that miraculous birth, they were able to die with the taste of promising hope on their lips. That’s a gift…if you can hold on to it. A few days after I lost the charm on my necklace, I was sitting in the carline and talking to a friend on my phone. I was asking her if I could borrow some items for our church’s Christmas play. My list was full of props like gold, frankincense, and myrrh. (God works in mysterious ways…) As I was talking, I looked down in the floorboard in the narrow space by the console. I saw something glinting in the afternoon light. Yep, you guessed it…I found HOPE. I had to stop mid-sentence to collect myself. I hadn’t even tried to find the charm because I had assumed it was lost in one of the many places I had visited that day. But here it was, patiently waiting for me to pick it up and marvel at it. I carefully slipped it into the change part of my wallet so I could re-connect it to my necklace later. Now that I think about it, I may just leave it in my wallet. HOPE is that precious to me this year!

Ever since I discovered characters with names like Jessica Fletcher and Nancy Drew, I’ve enjoyed a good mystery. Maybe this fascination began because my mom was a huge fan of the PBS series, Mystery. As kids, we would often join her to watch the animated beginning of the show to see the sinister villains and damsels in distress, the dead body in the library and the ill-fated croquet game. We frequently commented on the woman on the roof. She was wailing, hand to forehead, while lying helplessly with her ankles loosely bound. “Just sit up and untie yourself!” we’d shout at the TV in utter disgust. Following that intro was an episode featuring professional detectives or problem-solving amateurs: Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and Miss Marple to name a few. They all possessed an incomprehensible ability to solve a mystery. The hidden clues were glaringly obvious to them, both in existence and relevance to the current case. The suspect’s shoes were too clean or his overcoat too dirty. He wore his watch on his left wrist but wasn’t he left-handed? It must be an evil twin! These obscure details always became supremely important by the end of the program. In real life, we’re bombarded with millions of supremely unimportant details and events. How can we ever know which ones are worth noticing and which ones are just filler? It’s all part and parcel of this mystery called life. When a major weather event happens, we call it an Act of God. When a good thing occurs unexpectedly, usually after a chain of bad events, we say, “God sure works in mysterious ways.” We are quick to attribute these unexplainable phenomena to God but when we don’t get a quick answer to prayers, we get all Psalms-y—and not in a good way. “My God…Why are you so far from saving me so far from the words of my groaning?” (Psalm 22:1) In other words, “Hello, God, it’s me, Abby…Anyone? Can I at least leave a message?” Then, when the answer still isn’t coming through, we get up a prayer brigade. In some ways, it’s the prayer equivalent of the climax of the book Horton Hears a Who. The miniscule folks who live on the speck, which is precariously resting on a flower, carried around by an elephant named Horton are desperate to have their voices heard. They must prove they exist so that the angry mob of jungle animals won’t boil their entire planet in beezle-nut oil. All of the townspeople are shouting and tooting their instruments, but it’s just not enough. The mayor soon realizes one boy named JoJo who isn’t making a sound at all. When JoJo adds his mighty “Yopp” to the din, the collection of sounds pushes its way through a portion of the cloud cover just in time. They are heard and they are saved. That our prayers can be heard by God at all is a great mystery. Having a large group people unite to pray isn’t because God can’t hear the one tiny “Yopp” that floats up all alone. Maybe the mass prayers are there to encourage the downtrodden by the force of their volume. Maybe this large group of praying friends is a great cloud of witnesses and they’re there just for that purpose—to witness what God will do with the petition laid before Him. As a recipient of such prayers for an extended amount of time, I can attest to the encouragement they offer. To know you’re on someone’s prayer list—quiet time, dinnertime, bedtime, all the time—is a wonderful balm to a wounded spirit. But there are moments when even this encouragement doesn’t feel like enough. Moments when my “Yopp” seems ignored. That’s when an even greater mystery comes in to play: the mystery of trust. When I am told to trust in the Lord and lean not on my own understanding (Proverbs 3:5, 6), it flies in the face of human reasoning. When I am told that God has made everything beautiful in its time and He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end (Ecclesiastes 3:11), my head spins with the utter unfathomability of its enormousness. I want to take God’s will for me a make it into a “To Do” list or an excel spreadsheet. I want to list it and dissect it and tidy it up so that it makes sense to me. But I’m beginning to see the folly in that kind of exercise. Every day is an opportunity to seek Him, plead with Him, and praise Him. My new goal every morning is to drop my worries and doubts at the feet of my mighty Lord. I don’t know why He hasn’t given us the answers we’ve been begging for but I do know He says I don’t have to go this alone. I’m trying to trust Him and His plan. It won’t be easy but if I can make it through this, I will eventually get to see the big finale of my show. It may not be on this side of heaven, but I will trust God to explain all of the seemingly unimportant details and plot twists that have made my particular episode so mysterious. “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.” (Romans 11)

I’m not a big fan of Halloween. Don’t get me wrong–I like carving pumpkins, making caramel apples, and coming up with fun costumes for me and the kids. And who doesn’t love to eat candy by the fist-full? My dislike stems from the fact that I don’t like to be scared. I don’t like scary movies or haunted houses. And with the deteriorating efficiency of my bladder, I don’t much care for anyone to crouch behind the sofa, waiting for me to pass by so he or she can jump out at me. Not my idea of fun. I’ve had very limited experiences with haunted houses, but the few times I have “got my scare on” they’ve been fairly well rounded. I’ve been the person being scared and also the person who scares others. I didn’t care for either role. When I was in high school, a bunch of people from our class went to a friend’s house for a bonfire or some other autumn-related activity. Once it got really dark, several boys arranged a haunted woods atmosphere for us to walk and scream through. The prelude to this uncomfortable adventure was a Jason-esque fellow who revved a chainsaw in our faces. I’m pretty sure I had classes with this doofus but his maniacal attempt to scare us was still unnerving. (If he had only put this much energy into learning geometry…) My friend and I ran through the haunted woods but I got not even a second of enjoyment from it. I realize now I’m just not the Haunted House type. I assume you have to be a girlfriend to a burly boyfriend you can hang on and hide behind or a Goth freak to truly enjoy the scariness of it. I was just too much of a nerd to get it. I remember coming out the other end of the woods and seeing a goat in a pen. Then my friend and I discussed the relevance of the goat to an episode of Quantum Leap we had just seen. Did I mention I was a nerd? My other memory associated with a haunted house was also in high school but in a different location—our church building. At the time, my family worshipped in a building downtown with several floors. The upper floors had previously been used as apartments but by the time we were there, the rooms were empty and dark and very creepy. A bunch of us staged a haunted house and kids from the inner city were bussed in to see it. Because these kids didn’t have it bad enough and what they really needed was some white people to scare their pants off at a church building. Being a team player, I volunteered to lie down in a makeshift coffin in one of the cobwebby corners of the stairwell. When a group of unsuspecting kids were ushered by, it was my job to rise up slowly and say something vaguely vampire-like. I got ready to do my shtick for one group as they stopped by my coffin. When I rose up, a upper elementary age girl took one look at me and punched me squarely in the face. Who could blame her? That was the end of my vampire phase. Personally speaking, it’s ludicrous to pay someone to scare you. I don’t need zombies or werewolves or vampires to get the willies. In real life, there’s plenty of stuff to scare us. Government shut downs, Ebola outbreaks, and killer bees to name a few. Why should we make up even more? So every year, I suffer through Halloween because I know what’s on the other side: Thanksgiving and Christmas. They are the only things that make the holiday gauntlet of Halloween worth getting through.

I apologize for my long lapse in blog posts. (All really great adoption blogs eventually have a post that begins like that, by the way. It’s true. Check it out if you don’t believe me.) Anyway, after waiting through (yes, through is the correct preposition to use when you’re talking about a thick, nasty bit of waiting. You’re wading through the waiting. Again, I digress…) We waited through more than six months of an investigation that extended our already lengthy delay in bringing our son home. After the six months ended, I called the US Embassy and received bad news about our case. Our son had been removed from his orphanage and there were questions about his paperwork. We were afraid we had just hit a giant speed bump. A week later, I called again and the embassy begrudgingly passed his case. They set his appointment to be interviewed at the US Embassy for September 25. Our heads were spinning. (Side note: When I picture him going in for his interview, I always think of him wearing a little suit and carrying a briefcase. He would set it on a desk and click the latches open, then he would pull out his resume and various letters of reference. I don’t think it really happened that way.) We learned that our Congolese lawyer brought our son to the appointment but didn’t bring all of the documents. (Up, down) A different lawyer brought those documents the next day and then we learned that another appointment was scheduled for next month. (Up, down) Then came a much bigger dip: As I was dropping off the boys who ride with us to soccer practice, I checked the email on my phone. I quickly glanced something from our agency but I didn’t get a good look at it until I pulled our van into the garage. I sat in the garage and read the full, sickening email. It contained an alert from the state department. Here’s a little of what it said: “On September 27, the Congolese Ministry of Interior and Security, General Direction of Migration (Direction Generale d’Immigration, DGM) informed the U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa that effective September 25, 2013, the DGM suspended issuance of exit permits to adopted Congolese children seeking to depart the country with their adoptive parents. The DGM reports the suspension will last up to 12 months. This suspension is due to concerns over reports that children adopted from the Democratic Republic of the Congo may be either abused by adoptive families or adopted by a second set of parents once in their receiving countries.” I almost turned the engine back on and put it in reverse just to get out of the space I had just read myself into. Nevertheless, I pulled myself together and went in the house. Brent was making grilled cheese sandwiches to go with the soup in the crockpot. I took one look at his face and I knew he knew. We suffered through eating with Knox—the girls had already eaten while watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I tried to gulp down my soup and sandwich then I went to our bedroom to search the Internet for some ray of light. I’m unsure what I was looking for. Maybe a “Just Kidding!” from the State Department? Who knows, but I didn’t find it. What I did find was adoptive parents like me venting and scared on Facebook. I found a nauseating article about a child who was handed over to another family and this article is apparently the match that lit this recent explosion from countries who participate in adoptions with the US. I left my bedroom and went looking for Brent. I finally found him sitting in a dark room with the windows opened. He wasn’t on his phone and he wasn’t asleep. He was just sitting in an armchair. I sat in the chair next to him, listening to the announcer call the football game at the high school down the road. Neither of us could say anything. The hopelessness and the futility of the past two and a half years eventually weighed down on me and I began to cry. I just couldn’t stop. How many times have we been at this point where we thought we’d leave in a month or so? How many times have we kept our vacations and holidays tentative because we just weren’t sure if we’d need to buy plane tickets and fly across the world in a hurry?  What really convinced me of our state of wretched misery was Brent’s reaction. I held my face in my hands and wept while Brent sat motionless. In all our years together, it was the first time he was unmoved by my tears. I realized he was as broken as me. I stood and went to sit in his lap, trying to comfort as I drew comfort from him. So that’s where we end our evening, with questions and grief and anger. We’re running out of the energy needed to get back up to stay hopeful. Prayers are always appreciated. Thanks for loving us through this.

(A Sequel to “Grace Abounds at the Water Park”) On Saturday, I took the kids to Lake Winnie, self-described as “The South’s Favorite Family Amusement Park!” (Their exclamation mark, not mine.) We went with several church friends and approximately one million strangers. I have to admit, amusement parks are not my first choice in entertainment. It’s hot. There are long lines. People are everywhere. And then there are the rides… I used to love rides when I was growing up. I’m spinning so fast I have to squeeze my eyes shut? Super! I’m staring at the ground, looming a mile away? Great! I’m strapped to a creaky contraption and climbing a steel mountain until I’ll reach the top then I’ll drop quickly down a shaky slope all the while curving and swerving, upside down and screaming? Let’s get in line again! The Wabash Cannonball is awesome! Now that I’m older and can get dizzy if I stand up too fast, I just can’t take the rides. The other problem is that I know too much. Being an adult, I’m over-exposed to news stories. In the summertime, you can’t turn on your television, radio, or computer without eventually hearing a story about a woman falling off the top seat of a Ferris wheel or a lap bar not working properly on a roller coaster. Then there’s those teen park employees. Yikes. Have they been adequately screened? Can I see some credentials first? Why did he jiggle everyone else’s harness but not mine? I even included them in the Bingo card I’ve been working on for my next, inevitable trip to another amusement park. It looks a little something like this: Other than the dizziness and the barfing and the heat stroke, the other tricky part about riding rides is trying to board them with an odd number of people—like seven, for instance. At one point on Saturday, we decided to ride the ski lift.  Everyone paired off, leaving me to ride alone. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I was a little nervous. How can this be? It’s not even a real ride. If we were skiing the slopes, it would be a mode of transportation. I made sure I was in the exact center of the bucket. I sat back, never leaning forward as I rose up and over the man-made lake full of paddleboats below. As I rounded the end of the line and headed back to the ski lift dock, I began to relax. The ski lift had earned my trust. I hadn’t dropped to the depths below; even my purse remained with me. Lately, I’ve been struggling with trusting something that’s bigger than myself and out of my grasp to control. That’s how the ride started off for me. No steering wheel. No brakes. I couldn’t stop the ride or make it go slower or faster. No control. Then it dawned on me: I’ve got to keep putting myself out there if I want to rely on God more and strengthen my trust in Him. It’s hard but it’s the only way to really know where I place my trust. If I always stay on the ground in the safe bubble of my comfort zone, I might as well be telling God He isn’t big enough or strong enough to carry me across whatever obstacle seems to be looming before me today. When He calls me to board the next roller coaster and I can’t see where it’s going and how many times I’ll be hanging upside down, I hope I’ll answer Him, “Yes, I’ll go, but only if You’ll go with me.”

I’ve always been an emotional person. It’s just part of who I am. So what’s the logical activity for an emotional cry baby like me who is waiting to hear news about an adoption which has been languishing interminably long as we approach an important “deadline” (if such a word exists in the adoption world)? Watching home movies, of course. I recently took our videocassettes to a place where they can convert them to DVDs. I picked them up on Saturday and we spent the whole weekend watching them. I sat next to two 11-year olds and an 8-year old on the sofa while we saw babies and toddlers take first steps and blow out birthday candles. We listened to tiny, high-pitched voices sing the ABC song and “Jesus Loves Me.” I wept. The only thing missing from this tear-fest was some major hormones…oh, wait…I had that going on, too. The one section we didn’t watch was the birth of our son. My husband did the videoing (I was too busy pushing a human out of my body). He didn’t start filming until after our son was out and in my arms, getting kisses. Unfortunately, he didn’t realize what was in the periphery of the shot. Let’s just say I wasn’t ready for that kind of close up. When I took that cassette to be converted, it came with a backstory, a plea, and some nervous giggling. We decided to put that one on its own separate disc so I could do some cropping later. Other than that X-rated scene and the random 20 minutes of a dog show when someone from work borrowed our camera, it was priceless. It made it all the more difficult knowing how much we’ve already missed with our son who is in Africa. We’re sick of missing holidays and birthdays and regular days and EVERYdays with him. We’re sick of wondering if this will have a happy ending or any kind of ending at all. Here’s the truth: we’ve been in this additional wait for 181 days. This doesn’t include the year we waited to be matched and the nine months after that before this wait began. But here’s another truth: it doesn’t matter how sick we get of waiting. It just doesn’t. We’ll wait. We’ll wait for the email or phone call, and we’ll live in expectation of it everyday. That the human heart is capable of processing this overwhelming amount of emotions without imploding is as miraculous as it is commonplace. Nevertheless, I’ll be grateful when I can feel this and so much more with our boy in my arms, getting kisses.

Growing up I was like most kids, flitting from one career path to another. I wanted to cut hair or bake pies or be an acrobat in the circus. My possible future professions were sometimes based on one afternoon’s experience: giving my cousin bangs (whoops!) or baking muffins without a mix or receiving a compliment on my monkey-bars prowess. The passion for this new skill came with a sudden and heady anticipation but it left almost as quickly. I still cut hair from time to time and I’ve been known to do some baking, but they don’t inspire me or give my life meaning. (I’m not much of a monkey-bar girl anymore. My husband does make me watch American Ninja Warrior, though.) My real and lasting dream job—the one I would barely even admit to myself—was to be an author. In my private moments, I would imagine typing away (on a typewriter, “Murder She Wrote” style) in my writing cabin out in the woods. I would carefully script my interview on Oprah when she would introduce my book as the next “Oprah Book Club” pick. (“Thanks, Oprah! I’m so glad you enjoyed reading it. No, you’reamazing! I’m just a regular gal.”) So that’s what makes the last few months so special for me. If getting your book published makes you an author, then I’ve accomplished a big chunk of my bucket list. Actually that may be my whole list. (It’s a very small bucket.) The culmination of this dream-come-true experience has been my book signing events. My first one was at the home of my good friend, Melissa. It was open to anyone who wanted to stop by and pick up a signed book. There was definitely a baby shower atmosphere, with a few alterations. Here’s the formula: Melissa’s party = (Baby Shower – Baby/Gifts) x (Book + Signature) + tiny pecan pies It was amazing and a huge ego trip. Everyone who came already liked me and are sweet enough to congratulate me and buy a book even if I’d written one about mold spores. The next event was at my Alma Mater, Lipscomb University, during their summer lectureship. One evening after the keynote address, I sat at a table and chatted with people next to where the manager from the bookstore sold my books. They were so gracious and encouraging, but this came as no surprise. I was a student at the elementary, middle, and high schools affiliated with the university. Both my parents worked there. I was just a hometown girl who came home. I spoke to many people I didn’t know but my connection to the university bridged that gap. The next stop on my book tour was at the Vanderbilt Barnes and Noble store. Here, I took a much larger step out of my comfort zone. Though some very good friends stopped by to visit, most of the people I met were total strangers. I was forced to sell my brand, something I’m not very good at. I knew it would be more difficult, so I came prepared. Since my book is set mostly in Tennessee in the 1920’s and 1930’s, I passed out mini Moon Pies to the people who came over to inquire about my book. (According to their website, “The Moon Pie brand was born in 1917” and created by the Chattanooga Bakery. Perfect!) I stamped little bags, slipped a Moon Pie in them with my business card, and Voila! Chocolate bribery! The most difficult part of the book signing, other than the sweaty palms and awkward small talk, was deciding how to actually sign my books. Down to the final minutes before I left for my first event, I was still trying to decide what I would write. Would I go for something inspirational? “Reach for the stars!” or “Never, never, never give up on your dreams!” How about something a little more practical? “Final sale. No returns.” I wanted to have my own catch phrase like Ed McMahon or Fat Albert, but nothing came to me. I finally decided on something simple but true: God bless. It’s probably overused, especially in the South, but it’s no less true. For anyone who buys my book, even if they just want to use it as a coaster, I could wish for nothing better than God’s blessings. It’s also been a constant reminder to me that, yes, God blesses. He has blessed me more than I could ever deserve or acknowledge and it’s never been more true than with my book. So…God bless, ya’ll!

Hello. My name is Abby and I’m a people-pleaser. If you’ve spent much time with me or others from my tribe (or you are also a fellow PP), you know that we yearn to tell you something you want to hear. If there’s a lull in the conversation, I’ll get you talking about yourself. I’ve done it for so long now, I give off a scent that alerts strangers to share very personal information with me. I’m the Barbara Walters of Murfreesboro. I recently went to a store to get a new battery for my watch. This particular store only sells batteries and light bulbs, a very specific inventory the salespeople are eager to explain in depth to you. I really needed to go to the bathroom, so when the clerk finished installing my battery and asked me if I knew about their new line of light bulbs, I should have told him I wasn’t interested and hightailed it home. Due to my condition (PP), I begin asking probing questions about the decline of the incandescent bulb and the halogen vs. LED debate. I REALLY had to go to the bathroom (pee-pee), but I allowed him to escort me to the display where I could compare the color and quality of the different bulbs. I am my own worst enemy. I also don’t enjoy being the bearer of bad news. So when friends ask about the progress of our adoption, I’m crestfallen. Obviously, the majority of my disappointment is because we haven’t brought our two-year old son home from Africa, in spite of the fact that we’ve been matched to him for over a year. Another part of my sadness, though, is that I can’t say: “We’re leaving Thursday!” That would be the ultimate people-pleasing moment. And no one would be more pleased than my family and me. The longer I’ve been in this holding pattern, the harder it’s been to battle the demon so easily accessible to me: Bitterness. Yesterday, I heard a news story about a Tennessee Congresswoman who’s taking on a new fight. She got wind of the Government’s plan to create new standards for the ceiling fan industry and she just won’t stand for it. She recently took on the new laws about the incandescent bulbs, too. (I know of a certain light bulb fanatic she might be interested in…) Several months ago I contacted her office to ask if she could help bring focus to the plight of the many children waiting unnecessarily to be adopted. They told me we don’t live in her district so she is unable to help. Now if only I had a ceiling fan complaint, then she would’ve been all ears! Cynicism is the fast food version of dealing with your feelings. I can run pass the drive-thru and get a greasy bag full of anger and resentment with a side of blaming others. Or I can sit down at the dinner table with my disappointment and hash it out. I tell myself that life is full of frustration and for most of the world it’s much, much worst. I say, “Buck up, Grouchy-Pants. Just keep doing the best you can,” but that will only get you so far. I want news. I want GOOD news. I want GOOD news NOW. So that’s my update for today. We’re still waiting. We hoped to travel this summer but it doesn’t look likely. Not very pleasing. Sorry.

In certain circumstances it may be just as satisfying to be the runner-up as being named the winner. For instance, according to the International Ice Cream Association, vanilla is by far the preferred ice cream flavor over #2 choice, chocolate. Not one to dither over arbitrary titles, I’ll happily take a scoop of each. In most cases, though, we don’t want to be the alternate, the understudy, the substitute. When the man of her dreams is kneeling before her with an open box in one hand, she’d rather not hear, “You weren’t my first choice but you came in a close second. Will you marry me?” On the highlight reel of her life, that invitation would come just before getting her older sister’s hand-me-downs and finding out her new ride is the family’s old minivan. That’s the educational equivalent of walking into a classroom and telling the students you are their substitute teacher. Every child responds differently. Some greet this news with anxiety. Others welcome the occasional change to liven things up. Then there are those streetwise and entrepreneurial students who quickly size you up to determine how much of a fool you are and what they can get away with. When I recently filled in for a second grade teacher while she was away on her honeymoon, I met one such Machiavellian eight year-old. I had read them a story about a group of friends who build a clubhouse. After we finished, I dismissed them to their desks to draw a floor plan of their own clubhouse. One little girl grabbed me and said, “Whenever we design a clubhouse, we alwaysget to use pipe cleaners and beads and glue and googly eyes. I know where they are. I can get them out.” I gave her the look I’ve been perfecting for the last year and a half I’ve been substitute teaching. It’s a mixture of my “I’m-shocked-by-your-behavior!” look and my “You’ve-gotta-be-kidding-me” look. It involves some major eyebrow acrobatics but it’s pretty effective. I gave her a blank sheet of printer paper and sent her to her desk. My no-nonsense approach is meant to convey that though I’m not the real thing, I’m the next best thing…and I’m all you’ve got today. A substitute teacher who wants to survive must have this approach or she’ll hear “That’s not the way Mrs. _____ does it!” all day long. I wasn’t the only one who had to deal with the reality of being a substitute that week. I was surprised to learn that in the second grade, there is note-passing. Here’s the first one I found: Transcript- Boy: I like you, _______. (I erased the name to protect her identity.) Girl #1: Cool. Will you give me candy? Boy: Yes ________. Girl #1: Fun dip please! OK? Boy: OK. Don’t tell nobody Girl #1: OK. And I want lolypops She’s playing him like a violin made of Fun Dip and lollipops, right? Well, the saga continues. I found another note crumpled under a desk, same boy but different girl. It read: Girl #2: Who do you like the most? Boy: You, ______ (Girl #2. He’s a player.) Girl #2: Can you tell me who you like the 2nd best? Boy: You, ______ (Girl #2). Okay Girl #2: What about 3rd? Boy: You, ______ (Girl #2). Girl #2: 4th? Boy: You, ______ (Girl #2). Girl #2: 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th? Boy: You, ______ (Girl #2). All the time. Girl #2: Really? Boy: Yes. OK but for the record I don’t like you. I like _________ (Girl #1) Gasp! Girl #2: Who do you like more, me or _______ (Girl #1)? Boy: I will think about it. Love is not for those with fragile hearts! The second girl was smart to check where she stood with Casanova, Jr. After she realized her iffy spot in his affections, she was gone. No matter how much Fun Dip you’re promised, it’s not worth it to play second fiddle when the fiddler’s a player.

When I was in middle and high school, my older sister had the coolest best friend. She over-flowed with a bubbly confidence. Her constant gum-chewing gave her a nonchalance I envied. She perfected a wink that punctuated her statements with self-assurance. Not one to wear the latest fashion, (During the Keds craze, my sisters and I drew blue rectangles on the back of our Walmart sneakers to give the near-sighted passerby the impression we were wearing the real thing. It was a temporary fix, unfortunately, because we used dry erase markers.) I was always thrilled when I got her hand-me-downs. She knew how to dress and fix her hair. She was a cheerleader and she had a boyfriend whose letter jacket she often wore. There was something so effortless about her sophistication. As a chronic over-thinker, I felt like an awkward goofball in her presence. I studied her winking and tried to incorporate it into my conversations but it didn’t work. Instead, people asked me if I had something in my eye. I couldn’t keep up with the fashion trends, even if I knew what they were. I didn’t have a boyfriend and I wasn’t a cheerleader. I came to realize I would never achieve the level of coolness I saw in my sister’s friend. Now that I am old(er), I see cool in a different way. When friends arrange a birthday lunch for me or a prayer session for our pending adoption, I see cool. When my husband works hard all day then comes home to play soccer outside with our son even though he’s exhausted, I see cool. When teachers use their free time to work with struggling kids and their own money to buy these kids books at the Book Fair, I see cool. The lack of effort used to impress me. That’s the false claim of youth: Don’t act like you care. Now I’m impressed when I see someone exert an effort they didn’t know they had to do the things that need to be done without expecting anything in return. Giving that last bit of energy or brainpower or spending money is what amazes me now. It would be so easy just to let someone else make the effort. What if we all stopped coloring the back of our sneakers and got busy being the real thing—the hands and feet of Jesus?

(This is an homage to one of my favorites books, Alexander’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, but I’ve tricked it out…mom-style.) When I woke up this morning I realized that I forgot to take out my contacts last night. I tried to peel them off my eyeballs but they clung to them like second skin. I finally just gave up and left them in with the understanding that I would spend the day blinking and peering through a fog. After more investigating in the bathroom mirror, I found a long blond hair sprouting out the middle of my forehead. It wasn’t there yesterday. How could it grow so quickly? Did I accidentally replace my regular moisturizer with Miracle-Gro? I got the kids out the door for school. When I returned home I emptied the dishwasher. After all the plates and flatware and drinking glasses were neatly put away, I realized the dishwasher detergent was still in the dispenser, a chalky, soapy chunk. The hot water is what really sanitizes the dishes anyway, right? Starting my period really caught me off-guard. I was totally unprepared with supplies. (I’ve only been doing this nearly every month since I was twelve.) The only feminine hygiene products in the house were those giant pillow pads they pass out in the hospital after you give birth. I decided they would be better than nothing. I make a grocery list and head out to Kroger. I get all the way in the store before realizing that I left my reusable bags in the car. I turn around to go back and fetch them but the automatic doors will have none of that. You know how some doors that say “ENTER” are fairly loose in their interpretation of the term? “Enter…Exit…I don’t give a care.” Well, these doors were really sticking to their guns. I stepped forward, anticipating them to spread apart and ran into them instead. While perusing the produce section my list got sprayed by the automatic vegetable mister. Then I hit my head on one of those thoughtlessly placed hanging scales. They obviously don’t want me too near the vegetables. I spent most of the day running errands. When my list seems too long for the allotted time, I give myself pep talks. “Okay, you can do this! Just go to three more places and it’s back home!” At a recent soccer game, I got a mosquito bite down the front of my shirt. I was doing an indecent amount of scratching as I drove around town. This fact, plus the talking to myself, plus the stress twitch I had developed in my right eye, all added up to me looking like a crazy person who should not be allowed among regular people. When it was time to pick the kids up from school, I noticed how hot the afternoon had become. I went to change into shorts and then I paused. I hadn’t shaved anything above my knees all through the winter, jeans-wearing months. Now I had a nice set of bangs to set off my Bermudas. That’s why God made capris. (One could use the same logic that God also made bikinis, but we know Him to be a lovingGod. I’m pretty sure Adam made the first bikini for Eve. It was part of her punishment for eating the fruit—bikinis and painful, messy childbirth.) After homework was finished, supper was eaten, baths were taken, and children were in bed, it was time to breathe (and get my eye to stop twitching). I don’t know how full-time working moms do it! How do they get it all done when they’re away from home eight hours everyday? I’m in awe of them! There are days when I feel rushed and pulled and rung out, and I know that working moms have those days much more often. They are my heroes!