Welcome to my circus.

April 10, 2018
by Maralee
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To the Lawyer I Thought Would Hate Me

I remember how hopeless it felt when I realized I had a problem I couldn’t solve myself. My daughter was being denied a right that seemed to be clearly present in our state law. I’m no attorney, but even I could tell this just wasn’t okay. But what’s a mom to do? Well, this mom got to writing.

I had a list going of every individual, agency, organization and advocacy group I thought might care about what we were facing. I started with the ones I felt most aligned with our values. I went to people I knew would like me. They voted like me. I had supported them in the past. They were comfortable and familiar. I set a goal to contact one of them each day as we worked to find answers.

www.amusingmaralee.com

On our way to watch LB1078 become a state law

Some of them responded with kindness, but no ability to help. They told us what they believed to be true— it was a sad situation, but there was nothing to be done. Some wished us well on our quest, but couldn’t offer us anything. Some were less empathetic and just told us this was the way of things and we needed to accept it. Some never got back to us at all.

And then there was your organization.

I didn’t want to contact you. I knew you were there and that in theory, you might be interested in our case. But I didn’t think you’d like me. I thought if you knew my values, you’d decide you couldn’t partner with us to fight for the rights of our child. I thought I knew what kind of causes your organization supported and I didn’t think we’d fit the profile of people you liked to help. In my worst-case-scenario moments, I imagined you hearing me describe our situation and my family and then deciding you were going to take up the case of the opposition and fight against us. I didn’t want to call you at all, but I was all out of options.

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April 5, 2018
by Maralee
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A Love Letter to My Husband From My Sickbed

Moms aren’t supposed to be sick. And yet, here I am. A fever, a cold, a stomach bug, a migraine, for whatever reason I can’t be the mom I feel like I’m supposed to be today. And so you step in.

You step in with love and tenderness for me. You make sure I have fluids and you remind me to drink them. You keep the kids from running into the room to jump on me (sort of. . . mostly. . . they are very sneaky). You take the stress off my shoulders so I can get to the exhausting and frustrating work of helping my body heal.

And let’s be honest—the kids love it when this happens. When Mom is sick and Dad is in charge, the rules change. The TV is an acceptable babysitter, snacks become dinner options, and toothbrushing is optional. This isn’t the way we want to live every day, but for the brief time Mom is sick, it works. In a time when the kids feel nervous or anxious about having a sick mom, the thrill of a routine change can be enough to keep them happy.

As I lay here on my sickbed hearing them yell things like, “One more episode?” or “Can we have the Lucky Charms for dinner?” or “Let’s get out all the temporary tattoos and put them on our faces!” I am tempted to jump up and intervene. But I can’t. Because I’m sick. And sometimes I think God needs me to deal with the reality that my kids will survive one more episode, while eating Lucky Charms for dinner, covered in facial tattoos.

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April 2, 2018
by Maralee
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Be a Child’s Trusted Adult

My son came home from school with an assignment. He was supposed to sit with me and talk about who were the trusted adults in his life he could talk to if he had a problem. The focus of the assignment was on bullying, but this is actually an activity we’ve done many times with our kids.

Each August we make sure to spend some intentional time answering our kids questions about reproduction, development and boundaries. We talk about porn and we talk about sexual abuse. As part of those conversations, we ask them to tell us five people they could talk to if they felt uncomfortable and for some reason they weren’t able to talk to us right away or if they felt unsure about talking to us for some reason. We help them think about who is their most trusted adult at school, at church, in the neighborhood and in our extended family. We talk about how loved our kids are and how any of those adults would believe them and would want to help them.

So as I sat there with my six-year-old, the names came quickly. We ran out of space on the sheet of paper before he ran out of names. And the names he picked were all good ones. They were people I trust who do have our family’s best interests at heart. When I asked him who he could tell if something happened at church, he said he would leave his class and go tell our pastor, which made me laugh. I loved the idea of something uncomfortable happening and my child feeling confident to interrupt a sermon to make sure the pastor knew. I don’t imagine that would actually happen for a number of reasons, but I do whole-heartedly believe my kids feel confident that their pastor would want to know and would want to do something about it.

www.amusingmaralee.com

I would highly recommend all parents do this kind of activity with your kids regularly. Do it in the car on the way to school. Do it in the grocery store. Do it during story time. Make it low-key and simple. It doesn’t need to be some high-pressured thing that makes them concerned that they’re unsafe, just a conversation you have together. I have found it to be really helpful in letting me know who is influential in my child’s world. Knowing that information can help me encourage mentoring relationships and it helps me see some aspects of my kids’ personalities that I might not otherwise have seen. It’s great to know who connects with them and what personalities they gravitate towards. And if I have concerns about who those people are, this is a good time for me to have that conversation, too.

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March 26, 2018
by Maralee
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What My Friends Taught Me About Love on a Restrictive Diet

On the long list of topics I dreamed of writing about, this was not one of them. I did not want to have food issues or diet problems or whatever. This has been a hard season for me as I realize how much identity I’ve had in being a low-maintenance human and how my current health situation has changed the way I see myself. I have gone from being a human garbage disposal to being that “Is there gluten/sugar/soy/dairy in that dressing?” person. This is not a change I ever saw coming in my life and it’s been frustrating.

As with many of the challenges and struggles God has allowed into my world, it has also brought a new sense of empathy with it. In retrospect, I’m a little ashamed of how blind I’ve been to the challenges of my friends who have food struggles. I have seen it as their personal problem and never stopped to consider how I could make things easier or harder for them by my choices.

The truth is that this IS my “problem.” Nobody else can make these choices for me and nobody else will suffer if I don’t stick to the eating plan that’s helping my body heal right now. But as friends of mine have stepped up to support me in this journey, I have seen what a role community plays in the success or failure of my pursuit of good health. I didn’t expect this level of support and understanding from my friends, but I can see how it has made this process much easier than it might otherwise have been.

If you’ve got a friend dealing with a really restrictive diet, I’d love to teach you what I’ve learned from my friends (who clearly are much more thoughtful than I am):

Be informed. I have friends who have asked for information about my health issue and have read up on the subject. They’ve sent me follow-up questions, prayed for me and let me know about good resources they’ve found. They’ve moved from casual observers of my struggle, to informed helpers when I need wisdom. They’ve done it all respectfully (not trying to tell me what to do or offering questionable “cures”) and out of a love for me.

Take it seriously. For years I’ve been orchestrating an annual lunch for friends of mine. This year it just couldn’t happen because of my diet issues. And nobody pushed me about that. Nobody told me to give up my restrictive diet for the day or tried to talk me out of the changes I’ve had to make. They’ve been nothing but supportive, even when it means we can’t do the fun things we used to. They get how important this is to me and how hard it is, both physically and emotionally.  Continue Reading →

March 22, 2018
by Maralee
3 Comments

When “Encouragement” Makes You Feel Like Garbage

If I hear one more empowering mantra, I’m going to go into hibernation until this cultural moment has passed. I don’t know what is wrong with my brain wiring, but those things seem to have some kind of inverse impact on me. They tend to make me feel like I’m failing.

All the encouragement to do hard things or be brave or believe in myself tends to make me feel inadequate. Today, I don’t want to be brave or change the world. I just want to make the eggs for breakfast, not get swallowed by the ever-increasing laundry monster, and be kind to my kids. Can that just be enough?

My mom showed me some pictures the other day of my grandma on the farm. I just wondered about the thoughts going through her head. Was she feeling inadequate because she wasn’t out changing the world? Did she feel like she should be doing more? Being braver? Making sure everyone in her social circle knew where she stood on the controversial issues of the day? I looked at her wide smile, her floral print dress, her sensible shoes and it just seemed unlikely to me she was looking to the outside world to validate her role or her strength.

I don’t want to overly romanticize my grandma or your grandma or anybody’s grandma. I know they had their own struggles, but I do think their world was different in some ways. I think she was likely not struggling with the expectation of exceptionalism the way many women today struggle. Raising our kids isn’t good enough. Maintaining a home isn’t good enough. Working a job isn’t good enough. We imagine we are to be all things, and be them all while wearing four-inch heels and maintaining a perfectly contoured, wrinkle-free face.

No wonder we need all the encouraging mantras. How else are we supposed to keep functioning in a world that seems bent on reminding us of all the ways we aren’t measuring up. We need positive self-talk to keep us afloat when the expectations seem to keep pushing us under. But what if freedom isn’t found in trying to prove we can do the hard things and instead comes to those who opt out of the chaos of always hunting for the next hard thing to do? What if we find our power not in embracing our inner all-knowing goddess, but in accepting our own limitations? What if we lived a YOLO life in all the best ways— finding joy in the moment we’re experiencing instead of wishing it could be grander and more exceptional?

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March 15, 2018
by Maralee
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When the Adoption Moment You’ve Been Dreading Actually Happens

The other night my son ran out of my room in tears. He yelled a few things from the hallway, then slammed his bedroom door. I didn’t go after him because I honestly wasn’t sure what to say. I gave him a few minutes to calm down. Then I went into his room and we had a good, hard talk. I did my best to validate his feelings and we also talked about how sometimes it’s easier to be mad at the person in front of you instead of allowing yourself to feel angry at people you can’t communicate with. We talked about why we don’t yell angry things and slam doors.

The next morning he was fine. I took him to school and he was nothing but sweet and my same precious son. It was on the quiet drive back from school that it hit me— this was one of those moments I had been dreading for years. It happened. It’s over. We’re fine.

When you first imagine becoming a family through adoption, it’s normal to have some level of fear. We worry about a lot of things (genetic issues, will I know how to be a mom, attachment struggles), but in our honest, middle of the night moments, we’re most afraid that some day this child will look at us and say, “You’re not my REAL mom.” or some other statement that will make us question who we are to our child. All of our darkest fears would be realized and this would all be for nothing. We would be rejected and our family would be invalidated.

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March 13, 2018
by Maralee
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Reining in Our Children Without Making Them Go Backwards

As part of the therapy offered to the children at the group home we worked at, kids took horseback riding lessons. While we houseparents were not required to attend these lessons, I snuck my way in by showing up at the barn during our days off. I knew this was the closest I’d ever get to having a horse and the 12-year-old girl inside me just couldn’t walk away from that opportunity. I learned so much by watching how my boys interacted with these giant beasts. And I learned a lot about myself.

I am not a fearful person, but I do like to be in control and I can tend to be cautious in situations where things feel out-of-control. . . you know, like when you’re on a giant animal who could get easily spooked and throw you to the ground. Learning to ride a horse as an adult was an exercise in trust and it required me to be much calmer than I felt. When I worked past some of my instinctual fears, I realized a lot of what I was learning about communicating with this horse had a direct correlation to the parenting I was doing.

Before getting on a horse, most of what I knew about riding came from what I saw in movies. Kick the horse to make it go, yank back on the reins to make it stop. As you can imagine, this is not the way to have an optimal riding experience. What you really want is the least amount of pressure to get them to do what you want them to do and as soon as they move in the right direction, you stop applying pressure. With a well-trained, responsive horse, a gentle squeeze of your calves might be all you need to get them moving and as soon as they move, you quit squeezing.

The same applies for stopping. Gently pulling back on the reins should make your horse stop and as soon as they stop, you quit pulling back. Here’s what I learned from watching scared kids try to make a horse stop—they would pull back too hard and didn’t know when to stop. Instead of making the horse quit moving, they actually communicated to the horse to start backing up. To see a kid wildly flailing around on a horse was to know that they weren’t effectively communicating and somebody could potentially get hurt.

The longer I’m a parent, the more I think motivating and reining in our kids works about the same way.

First of all, it may require you to be more calm than you feel. We can talk all day about the positives of being “authentic” and “transparent,” but sometimes what your kids most need is to think you’ve got it under control even when you’re authentically terrified and you’d like to be transparently angry. If we want the best out of our kids, we need to take a deep breath and be calm when they are chaotic. When you work with large animals you want to be low and slow. I find it can be helpful to work similarly with anxious kids. I speak in a low voice and I move slowly—gently patting their back, or a gentle hand on their shoulder.

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March 8, 2018
by Maralee
7 Comments

For My Child Who Has No Wild Oats

You beautiful kids are all so young. So carefree and full of life. It’s a delight to watch your beautiful personalities unfold and it has given me new perspective on the child I once was as I watch you find your footing in the big world of decisions and responsibilities that are slowly being handed to you. I don’t know if this description will someday fit one of you, but I want you to know:

Some of us were never given any wild oats to sow.

I remember being a young child and playing a favorite game I called “orphanage.” It involved about 20 dolls and a schedule I had written down of what kind of care they needed at certain times along with their names and any personal information I thought was relevant about them. Even in my games, I was being responsible.

No one made me get good grades or work a summer job or periodically organize my closet, but some internal force always felt like it was driving me to be the best, most adult version of myself I could figure out how to be. And I genuinely enjoyed that. I found pride and meaning in extra curricular clubs and service projects. I have always loved a good meeting. Seriously. There are few things I love more in life than a well-run, productive meeting.

I was ready to marry young. I wanted kids right away and when that didn’t happen, we found some other people’s kids to love, nurture and care for. I found myself feeling more at peace with myself as I settled into a world that finally saw me as the dutiful adult I always wanted to be.

Throughout my life I have struggled with feeling like I wasn’t “fun” enough. Sometimes that was because I could see the “fun” other people were having and I knew I wasn’t participating in it. If people wanted to dress in costumes and run to the local Burger King, I was not in it for that. I refuse to play charades and the idea of a murder mystery dinner sounds like an actual nightmare.

I felt guilty that of all the things I could do well, I couldn’t seem to master the art of “fun” the way other people were having it.

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February 28, 2018
by Maralee
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The Big, Beautiful Story of an Open Adoption

This last weekend was a big one for our family. Our son got to meet his birthfamily for the first time since he was just a few weeks old. We were invited to a family wedding on pretty short notice, but decided this might be a good time to try and make that connection with his biological family that up until this point had only been happening in letters and pictures. It was a beautiful experience and we were very blessed by their loving acceptance of this son we share and our family.

There was something especially poignant about seeing our child in the context of his birth culture. He was being held and cuddled by people who looked like him. And that’s when it struck me-

His story is big.

With our biological baby, I feel as though his story is my story. His relatives are my relatives, his medical history is my medical history, his blue eyes came from me. I think that’s why it’s easy to feel like I “own” him and his story. It’s a very false sense of control when you think you’re totally responsible for the fate and future of your biological child.

I think this is why some people have an adverse reaction to the idea of adoption, especially open adoption. There’s this loss that comes from not having total “ownership” of your child. By sharing their life and their love with another family, it’s easy to think you’ll be losing something. But I think that assumes that a child only has so much love to give and that it will be made less in sharing. We know as parents of more than one child that isn’t true for us. We are plenty capable of loving multiple kids without diminishing our love for the first. Continue Reading →

February 26, 2018
by Maralee
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Regrieving- When the Beauty Reminds You of the Pain

Grief is a funny thing. Sometimes it’s always with you. Sometimes you get a break. And sometimes after you think you’ve fully grieved and moved past a particular hurt, it all comes rushing back.

I thought the griefs of my miscarriage experiences were far behind me. I had my first miscarriage eleven years ago and my second one a year later. I went through the typical stages of grief and for the most part the sharpness of that pain is gone. It feels hard to believe in the moment that time will make the intensity of your grief fade, but I have experienced it. What at first felt like a stabbing pain turns into a dull ache and then may seem to vanish altogether for certain seasons.

I anticipated that the birth of my first biological son (after ten years of infertility) would be a healing experience. I thought that by being able to get pregnant, stay pregnant and give birth I would finally have beaten the feelings of loss that had been so painful through our miscarriage experiences.

I was wrong.

I remember when Joel was just a tiny thing—barely a month old. I was looking into his blue eyes that looked so much like mine when that stabbing pain came back into my heart. This little boy in my arms was so amazing. So beautiful and precious to me. I would walk through fire for him.

And there should have been two more just like him. Continue Reading →