Welcome to my circus.

June 28, 2015
by Maralee
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A Life in Status- March #1, 2015

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Watching a movie about dolphins with a three year-old = saying 1,000 times “No, that’s not a shark.”

I have yet to understand why it is so much easier to put dirty clothes NEXT TO the hamper rather than IN the hamper. I’m contemplating putting a decoy hamper next to the actual hamper in the boys’ room to see if that solves the problem.

So maybe social desserting is fine, but when you find yourself eating a couple pieces of cake alone in a dark room, you know you have a problem?
‪#‎clearlyihaveaproblem‬ ‪#‎momsurvivalskills‬

I was about to scold the kids about sending another crayon through the wash and then I realized it was actually an eyeliner pencil and there’s only one person in the house that wears that. . .

Josh: Mom, you picked the right husband. Have you SEEN what he can make out of Legos?!
‪#‎priorities‬

Josh (8): Mom, I got The Hobbit book from the library! All three movies are in here!

Daughter thinks my name is “Say Mama”. I may have been over prompting her. . .

Bethany (5): Mom, I want to hear my favorite story. The one about Jesus. When he had the horns.
Me: The horns? I don’t remember that one.
B: You KNOW, Mom. When he had the CROWN of HORNS!
‪#‎soclose‬

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June 25, 2015
by Maralee
5 Comments

Book Report: “Good Pictures Bad Pictures”

I am passionate about parents speaking honestly with their children about sex. I have written about that a bunch (here, here, here and here for starters). I am also passionate about helping prevent the sexual abuse of children. I think these two issues are closely related. When we teach our kids about their bodies and how important they are, we empower them. We want to teach them in ways that aren’t shaming, but give them permission to talk to us if something questionable happens. As part of that educational process, it is important to me to talk to my kids about pornography.

You don’t have to be a researcher to know that porn is a MAJOR problem today. It is harming everybody involved. The porn that existed when I was a kid has been replaced by something much darker and much more accessible. It is available anytime for free via devices that are all over my home, the neighbor’s house, the library, the school computer lab, etc. The latest research I read indicates the average age of a child’s first exposure to pornography is  between 8-12 years old. Let that sink in for a minute.

We cannot passively sit back and think if we don’t talk to our kids about porn, then they won’t encounter it. All we’re insuring is that they WILL encounter it, but they won’t know what to do about it. They will feel guilty and shameful and they won’t want to talk to us about it because we have not established that we are safe people to talk to about this topic.

On the recommendation of a friend (she’s a Licensed Professional Counselor-Mental Health Service Provider), I bought “Good Pictures Bad Pictures: Porn-Proofing Today’s Young Kids”.  My friend and I have a shared passion for educating kids and protecting them when it comes to issues of sex and sexual abuse. I’ve done it as a mother/foster mother/group home mother and she’s done it in the professional realm through her work with kids. She said this has been a helpful tool in her work and I also found it to be a great resource with my kids, so I wanted to share it with you.

(Full disclosure- If you click on this picture, it will take you directly to Amazon. If you buy the book while you’re there, that benefits me. If you decide to go that route, thank you!)

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June 8, 2015
by Maralee
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The Sacred Act of Laundry

I have long struggled with knowing what it means to make Sunday a day of rest. What does “rest” look like when you are parenting small children who don’t take a day off from needing your constant attention and supervision? You know you’ve reached a breaking point of exhaustion when you can’t even imagine what would be restful to you other than just going completely comatose for a day. But motherhood doesn’t allow for such things. Especially not when part of your day of “rest” involves getting children dressed for church and out the door in a timely manner amidst what seems to be constant acts of sabotage– somebody can’t find their shoes, somebody is just starring at their cereal instead of eating it, somebody is having a meltdown over the outfit you picked, and then somebody dirties their diaper as you’re putting them in the carseat. This is hardly restful.

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May 29, 2015
by Maralee
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Her View From Home Writer of the Week

About three years ago (THREE YEARS AGO?!. . . I can’t believe it’s been that long) I was approached about writing for a website called Her View From Home. It has been a fun journey to get in on the ground floor of that operation and see how it has grown into a large community of (mostly) female writers who are passionate about the topics they address. It’s also been extra fun for me because my monthly posts are (usually) collaborations with my friend Rebecca. . . since we all know I do not have an artistic bone in my body and need someone else to provide the photography for anything I do.
Her View From Home has been doing a series of writer profiles and this week it was my turn. I’m posting an excerpt below, but you can click here for the full post.

Tell me a little about yourself. When did you start blogging and why?

I’ve got six kids and an opinion. That may be the briefest definition of me possible. Over the last 12 years my husband and I have helped to raise 22 kids (2 we birthed, 4 we eventually adopted) and through that experience I’ve become passionate about encouraging moms and advocating for the needs of children. Some other facts about me:  I’m a Nebraskan, the fourth of five kids, I’ve been married to my husband Brian for 12 years, I enjoy cooking but hate baking, and I secretly like politics and documentaries.

I started blogging when we had four kids and my youngest was almost one. I had two motivations:
1) I felt isolated and wanted a way to reach out.
2) I was coming to the realization that I would never be able to care for ALL the kids who needed a family, so I wanted to encourage other people to get involved.

About a year before I started blogging I was asked by My Bridge Radio to create weekly 90 second radio spots to encourage moms. Through that work I realized I had things to say that didn’t fit in the 90 second format. There was a lot I had learned in parenting so many kids from so many different backgrounds and I wanted to share the things I wish I would have known when I was just starting out.

What does a typical day look like for you?

A friend recently said, “A home game is easier than an away game” and I find that with 6 kids ages 8 and under, that is my current parenting philosophy. I am very much a STAY AT HOME mom because it’s simpler to handle things here than to take this show on the road. My typical day revolves around meeting the very basic needs of little people– feeding them, clothing them, diapering them, getting them down for naps, reading stories, bandaging wounds, talking through conflicts, and cleaning up the messes. Then I have this alternate reality where I’m writing for a couple different websites, advocating for the needs of foster kids, supporting foster moms, recording radio material, responding to emails from strangers who have questions about parenting and foster/adoption issues, writing for my own blog, handling social media for Christian Heritage and speaking at foster parent training events. It’s wonderfully bizarre and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

What advice do you have for someone who wants to blog or share her/his story?

If you’re thinking about blogging, I would really encourage you to ask yourself two questions:

What is unique about my perspective?
Who am I talking to?

Those questions have helped me clarify what it is I’m doing with my blog and why I’m doing it. There are a lot of voices out there, so why add mine? I have to value the uniqueness of my experience and speak from it instead of trying to imitate somebody else or try to be the expert on every issue. I know there are lots of women like I was when I first started thinking about motherhood, especially motherhood via foster parenting and adoption. These are women who have fears but also an intense passion. Those are the people I’m talking to and when I’m writing I think about them with every post.

May 28, 2015
by Maralee
2 Comments

Hey Summer Moms

Don’t laugh at me homeschooling moms, but I literally woke up in the night five different times with the anxiety of facing all six of my kids home with me for the next couple months. Ah, Summer. I love the thought of us all being together. I love the change in the routine. I love not having to be up at a certain time or having to remember to pack the lunches or trying to figure out if it’s library day (WHERE ARE THE BOOKS?!) or P.E. day (WHERE ARE THE SNEAKERS?!). Summer is all kinds of wonderful. . . and also super stressful. So here’s what I’m reminding myself today:

Hey Summer Moms,

If you’re feeling panicked right now, just know you’re not alone. Yes, you love your children and you enjoy being with them. Feeling anxiety about summer doesn’t mean you’re not a good mom. The problem is that your children love structure and knowing what to expect each day and now you have entered the land of CRAZY SUMMER FREE-FOR-ALL. But you can do it! Go ahead and make a schedule for how your days are going to go and post it on the fridge. Ask your kids to make a summer bucket list and cross things off as you do them. ENFORCE A QUIET TIME, FOR THE LOVE. This year I think I’m even going to plan a weekly breakfast and lunch menu (I always have a dinner menu) to head off the questions about what we’re eating each day.

But as much as the work of adding structure to the seemingly endless days of summer may be stressful, that isn’t what really bothers me.

It’s the sound of my own voice.

During the school year a couple of my (high maintenance) kids are gone for a couple hours each day, five days a week. That means for a couple hours I am not using the stern voice. I am not saying, “That is unacceptable in this house.”, “If you get it out, please PUT IT BACK.”, “We don’t use that whiney voice.”, “FIVE MORE MINUTES.”, or “I didn’t ask if you liked it.” I have three kids who are not in school at all yet, so it’s not like I’m sitting around sipping lemonade on my porch swing through the school year. But the kinds of issues that come up with babies are different than the problems I need to deal with when it’s my school aged kids. The kinds of boundaries my older kids need are different. It requires a lot more thinking on my feet and a willingness to not wimp out when I have to reinforce what I’ve said.

It’s exhausting.

But it’s not bad.

I can start to feel like a jerk when the carefree summer I’m picturing in my mind becomes me just grumpily stomping around the house after the eighth time the toddler cried because the big kids are leaving him out of something. I’m irritated at the sound of my own voice having to explain again for the MILLIONTH time why SHOES DON’T GO RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE DOOR. I have to retrain my brain about all this. I am no longer the Let’s Do Our Homework And Then Have Fun Mom. I am now the We Have All Got To Figure Out How To Get Along Mom. And she’s on duty 24/7.

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May 24, 2015
by Maralee
2 Comments

A Life in Status- February #2, 2015

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Preschool Teacher: . . . but she doesn’t know what sound a “w” makes yet.
Husband: (mutters) Thanks, Obama.
‪#‎parentteacherconferences‬

The three year-old keeps telling me that he *still* loves me. I don’t know if that should be reassuring or disconcerting.
‪#‎istilllovehimtoo‬

Danny: Mom, we got Olafs at the grocery store. Not the snowman kind. You know, the green ones with red in the middle? I love those Olafs.
‪#‎olives‬ ‪#‎momtranslationskillz‬

Early morning wake-up call:
“Mom, I need clean things.”
“Did you pee your pants?”
“No, Mom.”
“Oh good.”
“These aren’t pants, they’re footies. I peed my footie pajamas.”

6 year-old saw somebody had left the water running in the bathroom.
“GUYS! It’s like money is just going RIGHT. DOWN. THE. DRAIN.”
‪#‎currentfavoritechild‬

When people want to tell me they’re color blind because we’re all the same under the surface, I want to tell them about how different races have different kinds of earwax. But apparently that’s how you get labeled the “crazy adoptive mom.”
‪#‎adoptivefamilyproblems‬

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May 17, 2015
by Maralee
0 comments

A Life in Status- February #1, 2015

How to determine if a child needs to use the bathroom: Put him in four layers of snow clothes.

Anybody else hand their toddler a sandwich and then start singing “I don’t think you’re ready for this jelly.” No? Just me? That’s what I thought.

When one of my kids hurts another one (on purpose or accident) I ask them to go comfort their sibling. 90% of the time this results in further injuries. . . on purpose or accident.
‪#‎toddlerhugsaredangerous‬

Joel: Mom, can I chillax in Josh’s room?
Things only 3 year-olds with older siblings say.

Josh: Mom, my hands are freezing from outside!
Me (warming them in my hands): They don’t feel that cold to me.
J: But Mom, I’m African. I’m not made for snow.

I’m pretty sure one of the circles of hell involves putting mittens on toddlers.
‪#‎whereisyourthumb‬

“Whoops. I forgot there was a baby in that closet.”
‪#‎largefamilyproblems‬

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May 15, 2015
by Maralee
2 Comments

Foster Mom, it’s okay to ask about Race

When my husband and I decided to adopt, we knew we were becoming a transracial family. During the lengthy wait to be matched with our Liberian son I joined educational groups to learn how to appropriately care for African hair and skin. I read books about being a transracial family and the experience of transracial adoptees. I bought brown dolls and African music and storybooks that had brown kids as the main character. I collected African recipes to try. We knew that we could never duplicate the experience of growing up inside his own culture with people who looked like him, but we wanted to do the best we could to embrace his history and his people. We wanted him to know that we valued his culture and that we wanted him to value it, too.

While we were already a transracial family when we became foster parents, we were still a little blindsided when we took our first foster placement. We got the call about a baby who needed a home and for very important legal reasons (ICWA) it was immediately disclosed to us that this baby was Native American. All of the months I had in the adoption process to prepare to add an African to our family and now we were just a weekend away from adding a child with a totally different culture and history from either ours or or son’s. And I was totally unprepared.

It has been a crash course for us in learning what it means to be Native American and value Native American culture. We now care about issues we had no concept of before. We’re interested in a new history, we buy a new kind of books, cook new kinds of foods, and talk about current events in our son’s tribe. I watch documentaries on Native American issues and reservation life with a new passion because this stuff matters to my family.

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