Hug a Mom

Guys...last week I had my 2nd most horrific parenting moment in public (my first one is a good story, if you haven't heard it ask me about it, it involved Avery as a 5 week old, a long airplane ride to washington, and a stranger lactating because of my child's cries:).  But last week, that dat was bad.  As mentioned before my husband and I were out of town for 5 nights and the kiddos stayed with my mother-in-law (maybe the best gift she's ever given me, thank you thank you, thank you Kathy!!!)  She mentioned some various outbursts and bad behavior that occurred and we figured that there would be some behavioral issues because we'd been gone for so long.  Knowing all of this, I still had to go out to the grocery store with all 3 kids as Andy was at a meeting.  I went into the situation pretty optimisitcally (cough cough maybe arrogantly)...I've been taking 3 kids out with me for 11 months now, I've got this!

The girls really wanted to use the cart with the car attached to it so I grabbed one from outside and let the littles hop in as I wheeled them inside.  Now I am a good mom (every now and again) so I felt the seat with my hand before letting the littles climb in and it was hot, but not like burn their bums hot, just a little uncomfortable hot.  Myla changed her mind before even getting in and Olaf got in and started screaming, flailing, yelling, etc. as I walked into the store.  As the automatic door closed behind me and I felt the flow of air conditioning cool me down I also felt my face turn beat red as I realized this trip was not going to be ideal.  I tried talking to Olaf, pulling her skirt down more so she didn't feel the heat, etc. etc. etc. and nothing worked.  Now this is where you have a choice as a Mom, do you just abandon the cart and drag all 3 kiddos back outside to the 100degree weather to deal with Olaf privately or do you deal with it right then and there?  In the heat (literally) of the moment I decided I was going to do it right then and there, because that, to me at the time, felt like she wasn't winning.  So, when she wouldn't stop flailing/screaming I found a nice little corner in the floral section, I sat her down facing a box, and told her she would stay in time-out until she was done screaming and her 3 minute timer went off (just like I would do at home).  I placed my body, back to her back, standing facing away so that she wouldn't get out of time out and that other people would know from seeing me that someone is with this screaming child.  

Now this situation would be embarrassing regardless, nobody likes having a child throw a fit, let alone in public.  But, I'm pretty convinced that because she doesn't look like me, a higher alarm was raised.  The concern on people's faces is exponential because they're thinking who is this poor black child in the corner screaming and what is that white woman doing just standing with her back towards her?  Should I insert here that I had two other (white) children with me and one was in an identical outfit??? Same haircut, same shirt, same skirt, exact same shoes, literally the same thing, clearly we're together.  But still, I heard, "What's happening to her?", had multiple people coming up to me with the most concerned look on their faces and before letting them speak I would say, "she's mine, she's in time out".  What I wanted to do was yell "STOP JUDGING ME!!!  She may not look like me but she's my child, she's 3 years old, and she's throwing a fit so step off!!!"

I accidentally said out loud, almost in tears, "this is so embarrassing" to which Avery and Myla then continued to repeat (man kids are sharp!).  To make the situation better, I asked Aves to grab some grapes that were probably 15 feet away from where I was standing (still touching my legs to Olaf's back).  Of course since Avery did it, Myla wanted to as well.  To my horror, the bags were all open so when Myla grabbed her bag, she (obviously) immediately flipped it upside down on accident and every last grape spilled out of the bag.  I'm now standing there with a screaming child behind me, a 6 year old carrying grapes and throwing them into the cart, and a 3 year  old standing over a pile of spilled grapes on the floor #awesome.  I made the game day decision to leave Olaf screaming while I go over to profusely apologize to the staff that had now surrounded Myla and to say, yes, she's mine, yes, so is the other one (still in the matching outfit), and yes, so is the third.  I swooped in, cleaned up the grapes despite the fact that the young man was there with a broom to clean up as well promising the manager who had shown up (you know, cause there was a kid screaming incessantly in the floral department) that I would in fact not only pick the grapes up but I would also pay for them.  Oh, and that kid over there screaming?  She's on time out....yeah.  They eventually got the grapes out of my mortified hands, and did not allow me to pay for them.  Olaf stopped screaming after twenty minutes (okay okay okay if felt like 20 minutes but it was really 6.5 minutes) and we went on to do our grocery shopping.  The rest of the trip went better, only one person called Avery a boy (before giving her a knuckle sandwich on her head, I'll forgive him because he was an old man) and multiple people saying, "wow you have your hands full".  Thanks everyone, thanks.

Next time you see someone in a similar situation, go give the mom a hug, a high five, tell her she's doing great, ask if you can help in any way, don't just stare.  She's already mortified enough.  Actually, the next time you see a Mom of young children in general, just give her a hug, chances are, she needs it, STAT.

Life as a Zombie

First off I must admit I just got back from a five night's stay in Mexico with my hubs and our good friends and it was super FABULOUS.  I was the laziest I've ever been and it was perfect.

Unfortunately now, I'm back to a harsh reality.  I feel like I'm walking around like a zombie, 50% one person, 50% another and I'm kind of a mess.  Our situation has somewhat drastically changed with our Olaf, we're now deliberately and aggressively working towards reunification where she could be back with bio mom in a couple of months.  Here's my two personalities:

Firstly, THIS ISN'T FAIR!!!  This situation is so so so so so so hard and frustrating and painful and not fair.  Nobody is fighting for us, nobody (and when I say nobody I mean like in the system, not our friends and family:) cares about the impact that all of this has had on team Koning.  Andy, Haley, Avery and Myla are being affected by all of these things and that doesn't matter to anyone in the system.  Let's make a list of all of the unfair things: court kept getting put off for silly reasons (the  original court date was at the end of last year, when bio mom was still making bad choices but continued to change because of people's schedules, vacations, and unorganization).  Had the court date happened when it was supposed to, we wouldn't be where we are today.  Olaf would have been adopted months ago.  Then, bio mom got the court to side with her, she got a place to live from a family member, she got a car from someone, she had charges against her in other counties that she thought she was going to get incarcerated for but instead, the county dismissed the case and she got to walk away, scott free.  We, then, get a phone call (one day before leaving for Mexico, really???) that this whole case has changed to reunification and Olaf is going back to bio mom.  What does that look like you ask?  Driving an hour to drop off our daughter for a 4 hour visit with her bio mom EVERY SINGLE WEEK.  Were we asked if this was even possible for us as a family with other kiddos? No.  After a few weeks of 4 hour visits it will switch to 8 hour visits, then weekend visits, then reunification.  What was I supposed to say to this phone call?  How the hell (sorry, heck) was I supposed to react?  We have swim lessons, vacation bible school, a family reunion, camping trips, etc. planned for this summer, we can't just drop everything to make these visits that were never supposed to happen, happen.  Also, maybe the icing on the cake for me, the new social worker mentioned that she thinks the best thing for Olaf in the long run is if we stay involved in her life forever (this is when I started crying on the phone, I just couldn't help myself).  In the perfect world, once she reunifies with bio mom, we could take her once a month for a weekend to keep our relationship up with her and to provide respite for bio mom.  Oh man, I DID NOT SIGN UP FOR THIS.  This half of me is angry like I've never been angry before, why does nobody in the system care about the foster family?  Why is the system so broken?  Why is this so hard?  How can anyone expect us or anyone to do this again?  Why, God, are you allowing this to happen???  I feel like I'm losing a child (let's take a moment here to pause and say that if you have lost a child to death, disease, mental health, etc. I'm not comparing myself to you, I will never feel the loss that you have experienced) but after having Olaf for 11 months, treating her as a daughter, defending her as a daughter, loving her as a daughter, and being told she is my daughter, it feels like my heart is literally being ripped out of my chest.  Okay, venting done, thanks for listening, sorry it was so negative, I'm a sinner like the rest of us.

Okay, secondly, this (as I've said before) is a beautiful story.  I have a friend who is way wise beyond her years, who has been with me throughout this process both as a support but also going through the ugliness herself (well okay I'll just tell you, it's my friend Annie, she's a stud, get to know her) and she pointed something out to me about my (and her) situations.  If you look at this whole thing from an outside perspective, it's such a cool story.  There's a woman who has lost children to her problems in the past, has a child that gets sick, gets her child taken away, gets her life together, goes to a facility to get help, graduates from that facility, and fights to get her sick child back (oh and the family that was taking care of her child couldn't have been more perfect for her:)  If I heard this story or read it in the newspaper I would think, "oh my gosh, way to go lady, way to fight for your kid and get her back!"  How amazing is it that bio mom could get over her problems and get her child back?  And how cool is it that I get to be a part of her story?  Also, Olaf has fit into this family so seamlessly (now I didn't say perfectly, because no child coming out of such awful backgrounds ever fits in somewhere perfectly) so if she's not our forever child, I can't wait to meet the child that is!  How much more perfect for our family will they be?  Hopefully it'll be a boy;)  And for a moment, I'm a happy Haley who knows that while this time is painful, the whole process will be an amazing picture of selfless love.

So yeah...I'm totally living in a bi-polar body.  One moment I think "yeah no freaking way is this child that I love so so so much going back to a potentially harmful situation" and the next moment I find myself smiling thinking about the fact that God let me care for this little life for however long that might be.  If you've been through this, how the heck did you survive?  What kept you alive?  How do we talk to Avery and Myla about it?  If you're a friend/family member have grace with Andy, Avery, Myla and I.  We're all confused, hurt, angry, happy, sad, etc. etc. etc.  You have all been doing an amazing job supporting us, we feel the love, and we really appreciate it.  Thanks.

We will be okay...

To say this past month has been a doozy would be a complete understatement.  I've been wanting to write about it here for a while but recognizing that I have to be sensitive in the words that I say realized I need to let everything marinate a little before blasting the internet:)  While I am not yet settled about everything, I feel good about talking/writing about it.

The leadership team at Canyon Creek Presbyterian decided that they were going in a new direction, writing a new job description, and that Andy did not fit into that.  What I will say is that it was a surprise to us, not only that it happened but how it happened.  What I won't say are the details of everything.  Andy and I have tried our best to be above reproach throughout the situation and while I'm sure we've messed up along the way, we're trying.

The following week, we FINALLY had the trial for our little Olaf.  Remember, this trial has been post-poned multiple times since it's original date in October of last year.  We have been assured time and again  that because of bio mom's behavior, CPS would not be offering her services of reunification for Olaf.  The night before the trial, I was in the car parked in the garage (somewhat stuck in the proverbial sense, I didn't want to go back into the house, back to reality) listening to worship music and watching the storm clouds roll in.  I was in a weird place.  Then, at 9pm we got a call from our social worker saying that tomorrow, in trial, cps WOULD BE offering reunification services to bio mom. It felt like my heart literally stopped beating and it took everything in me to not start sobbing on the phone (but yes, I was crying;).  It was a very quick yet difficult phone call, and then it was over.  There was nothing we could do about the decision.  All we could do was show up the next day and listen to everything happen.  Bio Mom was in fact granted reunification and everything postponed for 6 more months.  It does not necessarily mean that she WILL get her back but it is a step in that direction.

Bio Mom and I had a moment...I asked her if I could talk to her about something going on at visits which was followed by, "you know I'm not going to stop fighting for my baby until I get her back right?"
Me: "I know."
Her: "But I want you guys to be a part of her life forever.  You stepped up when I couldn't step up, I love you guys more than you know."
Me: "Okay.  And although we have no control over this situation, if we have her forever we want YOU to always be a part of her life."
Then we hugged it out.
That was the positive about the trial...anytime I can make a human connection with what often seems to be a statistic, my heart changes a little bit.

Now, we're in such a weird place in so many ways...we cannot parent Olaf the way we do our bio kids because we don't know that she'll be our forever child.  We cannot fully let down the walls that we've unfortunately built up the past 9 months that she's lived with us to love her with 100% of our hearts.  I do not wish anybody a life of addiction and I certainly wish that once they're clean, they stay clean.  I believe in a God of miracles. I believe in a God that can restore broken people, make those that have been addicted to a substance for 20+ years completely clean and never look back.  In my heart of hearts, that is what I want for bio mom.  Conflictingly (is that a word?:) I want Olaf to be my forever child.  I love her like my bio kids and I want to watch her grow up, make wise choices, live an abundant life.  Unfortunately, those two things contradict each other at this point in time and it's the tension that we're living in.

Going through this while trying to find a new church feels unbearable.  We  don't have the same support system we had before and that's what makes the timing of all of this so difficult.  Amidst the Olaf drama, we're going to lots of churches every weekend to check them out and see if they're a good fit.  Andy's networking like crazy (I'd like to take a moment here and say he's doing a #kickass job finding a new job and totally holding down the fort at home), I'm picking up shifts like crazy to try to pay the bills, and we're both trying to stay out of an insane asylum (I tell me co-workers all the time if I'm not at work that's where I am and to please come visit me:)  Have I mentioned that church shopping is weird?  You have to decide what areas you're willing to compromise in and what areas you're not.  To add an extra layer, it needs to be a church that has an opening for a worship leader. #ha #feelsimpossible

In one of my updates on social media in the past few weeks I started writing the sentence "But it's all part of God's plan..."  I have to admit, after saying that for 29 years, I don't know that I can say that with this situation.  God is just, God is all loving, God is sovereign.  These facts lead me to the questions that so many face, how can a just God allow kids to get cancer?  How can a loving God allow all of this to happen to team Koning all at the same time?  How can this be part of His good and perfect plan?  It's so hard to believe that Olaf could potentially be better off with bio mom.  She doesn't lack love, she loves Olaf like crazy, but she lacks almost everything else!  Because I cannot add crises of faith to my list of things that I'm going through I am constantly reminding myself that this isn't all God's doing.  Much of this is because we live in a fallen broken world and amongst sinners, and because we're sinners ourselves.  I am not ready at this point to say that if Olaf goes back to bio mom it's part of God's plan, but what I can say is that God can REDEEM any situation that He chooses.  That is where I'm holding steadfast, that is what I am trusting.  God doesn't think/can't think that what we're going through is what's best for us, but He can redeem it.

Last thoughts...I hate that this world is imperfect, I hate that we have to have these types of conversations.  I hate that I'm so in love with Olaf that I want her to be in my house forever.  Why oh why do we live in a place that children have to be taken from their parents? The system is so broken.  The system, so far, has failed bio mom and is currently failing us.

Feel free to pray for us.  Pray for a job for Andy, pray for bio mom that she will stay strong when she gets out of rehab, pray for our hearts to be open to whatever God has in store for us.  Pray for redemption.

Protecting our Kids

One of the many hats we wear as parents is a protective one.  We recently crossed a bridge that I never imagine crossing (in the hypothetical sense of course) and it's had my mind spinning in circles since it happened.  I'm not working through being a helicopter parent (because for the record, if you're one, I think you're annoying, and I mean that in love) I'm talking about the difficult decisions around bio families and "other" bio families.

This has become super difficult for my two bio kiddos since taking in a foster to adopt child.  There are times that Olaf will randomly start talking about various memories (very very difficult memories) and we panic...we want her to know it's safe to talk about them but we don't want our bio kids to be exposed to such awful memories.

We've also been "protecting" them from bio Mom...they know about her (obviously because we talk about her a lot with Olaf) but we weren't sure we were comfortable with them meeting her.  Recently though, the time came where it was unavoidable.  I panicked a little before hand, a little during, and a lot after but then I came to a beautiful conclusion.  I don't think we're protecting them from anything by not having them meet bio Mom.  She's a part of Olaf's story.  She's a woman who has had a really hard life, made some good decisions, made some bad decisions, but is doing the best that she knows how at cleaning up her life.  She's part of Olaf's family, end of story.

What a cool thing that my bio kids get to experience this!  It goes with this over-arching theme of teaching them to love the unlovable.  We love Olaf's other Mommy because she gave birth and cared for Olaf for a few years.  We love her because society shuns her.  We love her because, even though I it's difficult to watch, she's doing her best with the cards she's been dealt.

I don't know how this whole thing is going to turn out.  I definitely never pictured myself here, a few days before a very significant trial in the case happens, thinking about the affect that Olaf's bio Mom has on my bio kids.  Foster care/adoption is a hard, scary, sticky, unknown process, but it is so beautiful.  Chalk this up to yet another thing I wasn't prepared for as a entered this journey:)

Welcome, bio Mom, to our broken, crazy, imperfect family, you fit right in.

Haircuts for all!

I have never been as proud of my children as I am tonight, they were a perfect picture of love.  My heart was literally bursting with joy!!!

Avery and Myla have been asking us to shave their heads for a while to be like Olaf.  We put it off, changed the subject, always had a reason to not do it.  But tonight, we did it.  I know that not all of you will understand our decisions and that's okay but we want you to understand our hearts.


In the world that we're living in, so much of beauty is placed on outside appearance, education, money, job status, etc.  We feel it is our job as parents to help our girls feel otherwise.  While beauty is somewhat found in looks, it is mainly within: looking to serve others before yourselves, caring for widows and orphans, empowering women, I could go on all night...  Tonight, my kids captured that as 5.5 and 3 year olds.

Sweet Avery and Myla wanted to support their sister who has been battling rhabdomyosarcoma for a year now.  They were sick and tired of people staring at her and/or making fun of her and what better way than to join in with her?

We are not naive...admittedly Avery had some anxiety beforehand saying, "what if my friends make fun of me?"  We told her what her response could be and she promptly (for the millionth time) asked us to shave her head.  We know that kids will most likely make fun of them and that tears are a real potential related to this decision BUT we think the payoff is way greater.  Avery and Myla, your beauty is within.

Everyone's response so far?  ECSTATIC!  Olaf (the sister with the cancer) had the biggest smile on her face watching the girls get their heads shaved.  Avery and Myla ran around the house like crazy people telling each other how beautiful they were.

I love that my kids aren't afraid to be different, I love that they love their sister, I love that they're so very excited about their new haircuts, I love how their little hearts are being shaped into such amazingly loving people, I love my family.

An unexpected love

So I got into this whole adoption thing for the kids.  I wanted to change the life of a child (or multiple children) by raising them in a loving, safe environment that they wouldn't get otherwise.  I was so anxious going into adoption via "fos-adopt" because we did not want a child to come into our home, become a child of ours, and then get ripped out of the family when the bio parents got their 'ish together.  People asked if we would ever consider fostering and I think our response was always a disgusted "heck no".

As you know if you've read a bit about our story, our child was placed in our home just after being taken from her bio parents.  This was not what we planned.  We wanted a "safe" fos-adopt situation where there was no chance they would come into our home and then be taken back out.  We always said this was for Avery and Myla's (our 2 biological daughters) sake but maybe looking back, it was to protect ourselves too (that's for another counseling session another day;).  Anyways, when we got "Olaf" we thought it was going to be super temporary, then maybe a bit longer, then maybe forever.

Our relationship with bio family was more than tumultuous in the beginning.  We did not see them regularly but when we did there would be lots of crying (on both sides), screaming, hitting, kicking, even cussing (unfortunately out of the mouth of our "new" 2 year old).  We would lay awake at night dreading when we'd have to face the family again.  We were the bad guys.  We were the ones taking the child out of the bio parent's arms.  Let's take a pause here and admit that our case is so different  (although are any cases really the same?) because of the medical fragility of our girl so visits were infrequent, unorganized, and quite frankly, Hell.

As time has gone on and visits have become a bit more regular, things have been changing.  This situation, our situation, is way bigger than me and my little family.  The change started specifically at one of our court hearings when I was able to sit and chat with bio mom for about an hour.  She shared her struggles, her history/past, details about herself, her family, and bio dad, her gratitude to my husband and I for taking care of her daughter, etc.  In the same sentence that she was thanking us for taking such good care of Olaf she said, "but I'm going to keep fighting for her."  At first, it was overwhelming and scary.  She is getting her life back together.  She is doing well.  She is fighting for MY daughter and in that moment, it felt like she might win.  Andy and I left that court room feeling so scared and confused.  Now that time has passed, I look back on that conversation and the conversations since that moment and there is such healing and beauty in this whole situation.

I used to hate bio mom (am I allowed to say that on the internet?)  I viewed her as a person who made really bad life choices that continued after having a child and who's choices had an affect on not only one of my children, but my whole family.  I blamed her for Olaf's bad behavior, the kicking, hitting, screaming, whining, constantly needing timeouts, for the bad manners, the addiction to soda and crappy food, not to mention the difficulty she had going to bed when we first got her.  I was mad because of all of the things sweet Olaf had endured in the short 2.5 years she was alive and that we would have to pay for it.  I hated how bio mom just cried and cried at visits and how Olaf would always say, "my mommy is so sad".  And then, bio mom and I chatted for an hour...

I learned a bit about bio Mom's past and what lead her to be where she is today.  I took a step back from the situation and thought about all of the peripheral things in her life that were pushing her down (don't get me wrong here, I'm not giving her an excuse for her bad choices, I'm simply empathizing with her).  I also realized that at this moment, she is doing the best that she knows how to do.  She's getting her life together and even though that looks so very different than me getting my life together, she's trying.  Visits are more than cordial now too.  We hang out where normal people would hang out (parks, etc.) and we chat and then I let them have their time together.  I keep her updated on all things medical, not because I have to, but because I think she deserves to know.

Honestly, it's weird and I can't totally explain it BUT I feel like a small miracle has happened because I can honestly say I love the bio mom.  Not like I love my family or friends, it's a different kind of love but a love none the less.  It's the kind of love that's full of compassion for her and her story.  It's the kind of love that says "We have one thing in common, our daughter, and because of that, I'm going to choose to love you."

I'm amazed to see how God has changed my heart.  Do I want Olaf to be our forever child?  Definitely.  Do I think she will be?  99% sure.  But I can honestly say at this point that if our role in all of this craziness was for us to take care of a child who was sick when nobody else could and to therefore give her bio mom a chance to get back on her feet, I would be okay with that.  I would be sad, maybe even devastated for a time, but okay with it.   God has a way bigger plan here than I could imagine.  Sure, I have my idea of what that plan should be, but He's all-knowing and He knows what's best for all 3 of our girls.  I can rest assured in that and live my life today as the best mama I can be to Olaf  (and my other two of course:) because that's what they deserve.  I am so grateful for the opportunity to love not only our child, but her bio Mom as well.