Summer on the Brain.

SO ready for summer. The boys and I are counting down the school days (11 including today) and I’m fine tuning the summer calendar to make sure we get it all in. The weather around here is helping, too. Perfect days in the eighties. And who wouldn’t be ready for summer when you get to look at these freckles on these beautiful faces every day…

Summer List & Finding Balance.

Summer is coming…my favorite time of year! Time to relax with the kids, sleep in, laze about, read books, swim…

And I’m determined to find balance in the coming months. I have let Midge’s fostering consume too much of my time and emotional energy in the past five months. She had a court date on Thursday, but, as expected, we are again in a holding/waiting pattern. In my mind, Orange County is pushing hard towards a reunification that won’t be safe for Midge. And there’s nothing we can do about it. It is heartbreaking and the temptation is to fall into the obsession/depression pattern. So I need to figure out a way to find balance this summer and not let it drain the fun away from the rest of the summer activities.

I imagine it’s the same for people with terminally ill loved ones…do you feel guilty enjoying the happy moments that you can, knowing that something terrible could happen at any moment? Do you try to compartmentalize and not allow the pain to seep into all areas of life? I am determined to find a way to keep her circumstances (which are really our circumstances, too! We love her!) from taking over my thought and activity life this summer. I am not going to let a very broken system rob me, my husband, and my kids of a joyful summer.

I know there are seasons of life when you need to pare down and give yourself grace and space to pray, think, and neglect the cleaning! I have done this effectively since January. Now I feel the need to pick my hobbies back up, clean the house, fill my time back up with kids and fun, and move forward into a thankfully busy season.

So here’s my

SUMMER LIST:

• get my office/art studio desk cleaned off and keep it that way to make space for creating!
• make juice popsicles and eat them in the backyard
• go for walks around the neighborhood after dinner
• start taking and editing more pictures again
• get the kids outside into the backyard every day
• clean out the closets…all of them!
• eat nectarines off of our tree
• pack for beach night early so we can enjoy it with less packing stress
• survive (and purposefully find things to enjoy about) the two weeks of respite we’re doing for the 3 little foster kids
• finish Sara’s birthday quilt
• practice free motion quilting
• go hiking with the whole family
• read aloud with the boys
• make/buy matching outfits for all six kids for fourth of July
• soak in the week with my niece, nephew, brother, and sister-in-law here!
• playdate with my sister and other niece
• go on an anniversary trip with Greg to celebrate 12 years!
• eat at the new waffle sandwich shop nearby
• attempt to do an online art class with the four oldest kids during respite
• eat dinner outside (we’ve done this a few times recently and now every night at dinner, Midge stands at the back door and says, “bak-ard!”)
• figure out where to put the punctuation when I’m using quotations and parentheses (see above.)
• back up pictures onto disc
• practice some meat recipes with our grass fed cow that’s arriving soon
• catch up on the boys’ school memories notebooks
• make a quilt for my cousin’s coming soon baby boy…free motion quilt his name onto it!
• take a vertical picture of my three kids to replace the old one in my hallway frame
• get Jake into a kids’ tennis tournament
• teach Tyler to float on his back in the pool
• go camping
• run in the sprinklers
• play tennis

Here’s to a summer of fun!

Nerves.

Strangely, I’m not feeling nervous about Midge’s 18 month court hearing tomorrow. We’ve been told that nothing will happen except the setting of a date for a trial where the parents will contest whatever is recommended in court tomorrow. I am to the point where I realize that as irrelevant foster parents, we have no input or impact whatsoever on the decision making, so I am just handing the whole thing to God, who has serious input and impact. I hand it over several times hourly after my mind so selfishly snatches it up over and over again.

My body did not get the memo about not being nervous. Stomach problems have been plaguing me for a few days. At first I wonder if I’ve caught a little bug. Then I remember that I threw up (although otherwise perfectly healthy) two nights before the 12 month hearing in December.

I was at school volunteering for Jake’s Christmas Party the next day and somehow the kids started talking about sickness. Jake, in front of the two other parent helpers and his teacher, says, “My mom threw up last night!” As I stand there, handling every child’s water bottle penguin craft just days before Christmas. Oh boy.

I was incredibly nervous before that December court date. And then I was incredibly excited before the January date. As it turns out, I should have flipped those two, as the December date turned out to be very promising and the January date stunk. Badly. And continues to let its stench overwhelm our lives.

So what is my body telling me about tomorrow’s court date? Who knows…we shall see.

(I am posting a photo from Hawaii because of the footprints. What path does the future hold? Also, wouldn’t it be nice if we were in Hawaii with no cares right now? If only you could live your whole life on vacation hiatus from problems…)

Canyon Garden Tour

On Saturday morning the Berg tribe met up for a garden tour of the nearby canyons…so fabulous! The gardens were beautiful and we had a fun morning checking out different plants to try in our nearby gardens. Or in my case and my sister Amy’s case, we just plan on buying the houses we saw, thereby avoiding all the troublesome planting and cultivating.

I only brought my little pocket camera and was so annoyed to see every picture blurred along the right side! The camera isn’t old and already it’s broken! But then I turned the camera over and saw that there was a big smudge on the lens! Could that have anything to do with all the junk I carry in my purse? (snacks for kids, old string cheese, spare change, receipts, kleenexes…) Unfortunately, the only group photo we got was before I discovered my smudgy lens. But here’s the whole gang. (From left to right…my cousin Michele, my mom’s cousin Karen, me, my aunt Kris, my sister Amy, my mom’s cousin Debby, my mom Donna, my cousin Lisa.

Only in the canyon can you have a totally private working outdoor tub with a gorgeous hillside view!

Messing with the newish camera again, I discover that I shouldn’t use its “vivid” setting or I’ll get wacky greens and yellows that are hard to fix!

Remembering Papa Berg (this group of ladies’ patriarch) as we walked past this fence in one of the gardens. Papa never wasted or got rid of anything.

Speaking of houses we’re going to buy, through those trees you can see a house and property that I actually looked at several years ago when we were thinking of moving into the canyon. I love the seclusion and rural setting of these beautiful places.

Here’s Amy’s house. (Well, the owner told her that if she wanted to buy it, she’d have to get in line.) A cute craftsman that they let us explore inside!

What a welcome getaway we had together! I think it will become an annual tradition.

Wasting Time.

It’s 8:00 p.m. and I’m just poking around on Pinterest rather than getting up and doing/making something. I told my best high school friend that although I’m still on the jessicasprague.com creative team, I really don’t scrapbook anymore except for my four layouts a month for them. She asked me what I was doing with my time instead, and I was totally stumped. Couldn’t really answer her.

Driving people around? Praying in desperation for God’s guidance and reassurance? A teeny tiny bit more quilting? Yes to all.

I love being thirty-five. There is so much wisdom you collect in your adult years, especially the years of parenting. I can’t wait until I’m 45 and am even wiser. Don’t worry, I have warned Greg that his will be the only O.C. wife who gets wrinkles, as I’m not interested in Botox! He is okay with this.

One piece of wisdom I’m hanging onto right now is that the mess will always be there later. I wish I had worried less about the state of the house when the boys were little and more about the state of my sanity. I think it’s easier for a husband to come home to a messy house when the wife is happy. I am carrying this into my life right now. Top priority? Staying rooted in Christ and His strength. I probably spend 20 minutes each morning reading the Psalms and sometimes Proverbs before getting the day going. Then during Midge’s nap I spend another hour or so, depending on how hard life is feeling that particular day.

At first I felt super lazy doing it. Wasting time that could be spent making a dent in the ever messy house. Then I realized that this is a season that will pass. Just like the two tiny boys season was. The most important thing I can do is refill my tank whenever I get a chance so that I can pour out into the kids’ lives again. I have stopped feeling guilty and embrace the silent time in begging prayer.

And after the kids go to bed? Reconnect with hubby. Float around online. Leave the office floor disastrous. Get through by embracing the happy moments God sends daily.

Can’t wait for summer in 3.5 weeks. Slower mornings. Time with my brother and his family. Doing two weeks (two weeks?! ack!) of respite care for the three little foster kiddos. NUTS! Little trips here and there. Thinking about adding to the family again…we’ll keep you updated as we learn more about that process. Just enjoying each other as best we can with the family God has given us right now.

Wasting time is the best way to spend it.

He is doing it.

Yes, God is doing it! He is holding me up. He is keeping me sane. He is handing me sweet moments of joy in the low times. In the times when Midge’s new social worker seems to want to disregard 14 months of history, thinking she knows better than everyone who came before her and everyone who’s supposed to be collaborating with her. Knowing that she has tremendous pull in this courtroom, with this judge, who also favors reunification above all else.

I can safely say these are the low times. If Midge is reunified, this is just the beginning of the low times. If she stays with us, this is the worst of the low times. But the times are definitely low. They are times when every happy day is shadowed by the fact that this could be the last Mother’s Day, last birthday, last anything together.

But God…HE is good. He is teaching me how to let go of worry. (and then again. and again. and again.) How to put down my fighting hands and lift up my praying hands. Knowing that He knows the future. He wants the best for my entire family. He knows the best way to draw me closer to Him. He knows exactly what I need to experience today. He knows how to bring my boys and my girl into His arms. He is working it out, day by day. I’m learning to hand over the reigns of my perceived control. (and then again. and again. and again.)

LORD, work Your good and perfect plans in court next week. And in the next court date after that. And after that. You know the future. You hold the present. Help me remember this, moment by moment.

Blue Skies: Point of Grace (God can even use the kids’ Veggie Tales cds to do whatever He wants in my life)

On days of gray
When doubt clouds my view
It’s so hard to see past my fears
My strength seems to fade
And it’s all I can do
To hold on, ’til the light reappears
Still, I believe though some rain’s bound to fall
That you’re here next to me
And you’re over it all

Lord, the sky’s still blue
For my hope is in you
You’re my joy
You’re the dream that’s still alive
Like the wind at my back
And the sun on my face
You are life
You’re grace
You are blue skies
You’re my blue skies

When nights are long
Seems the dark has no end
Still we walk on in light of the truth
For waiting beyond
Where the morning begins
Is the dawn, and you’re mercy anew
Oh, to believe we’re alive in you’re love
There is so much to see
If we keep looking up

Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit VIII

Gosh, it’s been over a week since I wrote last. The whole Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit was amazing. I vowed not to overuse that word, but I don’t know what else to say…eye-opening? inspiring? sad yet hopeful? Yes. All of those things, too.

We went to a seminar by the country’s foremost attachment expert, Karyn Purvis, which was fascinating. To see the brain scans and the brain chemistry of traumatized children was so interesting. She pointed out that the lowest chemicals these children displayed were the ones our brains rely on for regulation of behavior and decision making and such…and the sad part was seeing the high levels of chemicals our brains use for stressful or combative situations in these small children. The things she’s doing with hurt children at her university (was it Texas?) were so inspiring. I know there has been a great leap in what we understand of attachment and trauma, and she is paving the way for us to understand even more, and to learn how to treat it.

There were hundreds of vendors there, representing different ministries providing for orphans in some way. All of the speakers had a definitive connection to orphan care, with most of them being adoptive parents themselves. So many different perspectives and stories. All different and inspiring.

But the most amazing thing about the whole conference was the determination on behalf of everyone there that the church be the one to solve this orphan crisis. And I see it. Christians are waking up to the fact that this world is not about us. It is about being Christ’s love to the world.

When people ask how their family will be affected by bringing in another child, and maybe a child with a traumatic past, it is a legitimate question. We need to be good stewards of the gifts (families!) God has given us. It is something to be considered with much prayer and thought. But let’s not forget that it’s not all about us and our own little families. Yes, it will be inconvenient to add another person to your life. Yes, your “normal” will have to change to adapt to another personality and another set of needs and issues (we all have them!) But when those questions have been considered, it’s easy to say, “Nah. It will be too hard. It’s not really the right time. That would be too big of a change for our family.” But if there were a tragedy and it were your niece or your nephew who needed a home, would you make a way? Would you put up with the hassle and the tough transition for the child and for you? Most of the time, the question we’re forgetting isn’t about us at all, it is What will happen to these children if we don’t step in? Sometimes, once we see the need and pray for guidance, we just need to get beyond ourselves and our comfort zones, and it needs to be all about them. The 143,000,000 just plain kids who need a family. Can I give them one?

(geo-cacheing with all six kiddos last weekend…no, this picture wasn’t staged! I promise!)