Time Marches On

Soooo...I know, I'm way off on the blogging thing...AGAIN. However, I have 4 REALLY good excuses. Alright, so mainly I have ONE really good excuse and he's really cute and squishy and makes A LOT of noise. (No, its not Rob.)
Okay, enough of the suspense...
Its a wombat cookie face. And yes, he is THAT cute and THAT DIRTY. In ALL of his glory, Joshua is now 7 1/2 months old and absolutely the apple of our eyes. This kid is very vocal. (I LOVE that our dear friend in FL says, "Girl, dat becuz he black and proud of it!" Yes Caldonia...he most certainly is!!!) Although my other theory is that he's the baby of the family (for the time being) and feels the need to put in his 2 cents...even if its at 230am, 330am, and then again at 430AM. Why must there be a fiesta in the wee hours of the morning? I don't know, but I'm so very thankful for the new mattress on the bottom bunk that I have had the privilege of sleeping on when I'm just too tired to go back to my own bed. Holy smokes going from 4 year old to infant has been a ROUGH transition! (I FEEL OLD!) Add to the fun that Josh is especially cranky because of the two bottom teeth he's trying to push through...AT THE SAME TIME. DEAR>LORD>HAVE>MERCY.

"Mommy...seriously?"

Josh is SUCH a joy. He is quick to smile and has the most contagious laugh. He's not quite crawling yet. Actually he hasn't displayed any interest in it either. I introduced Josh to my good friend's little boy who's about 6 weeks younger than Josh and is already army crawling and actually moving his feet for walking if you hold Gunner up...

Gunner checking Josh out

I tried to show Josh and help him observe Gunner, but Josh was more concerned that mommy was holding another baby...so it was mostly a failed lesson of sharing rather than crawling competitions. At first I was abit concerned...then I remembered that there are 3 older siblings that fight (almost constantly) over who gets to hold the baby. GOOD.GRIEF!!!!! I'm always having to remind his big sisters that they need to leave him alone...Josh gets super annoyed after awhile and just wants some space and so his main form of announcing this little tidbit is to shriek this scream that makes my eyeballs and eardrums vibrate in unison. LOL WOWZERS. He is really good at sitting up and at his last appointment, Dr.Ryan told me that he has really good trunk control. Thats good...'cuz this boy has a big trunk!!! At his 6month appointment he was one ounce from 20lbs. NO WONDER HE'S SO HEAVY AFTER A SHORT TIME HOLDING HIM!?

Joshua in the MOBY with daddy on our WY hike!

I still haul him around in the MOBY, but he's almost too heavy and too grabby for me to do any chores in the house. I struggle some days with not getting anything done because he doesn't want to be held by anyone but me and being put in the bouncer is not only unacceptable, he will not even have it in sight! YIKES...so praying for the Lord to help me prioritize my time while he's napping is crucial lately.  There are days that I'm completely exhausted, wondering why the Lord trusted me so much as to give me 4 children, but then I am grateful because we asked Him to bless our life.

 I have seen my husband transform into this AMAZING, compassionate man. He has always been wonderful, but in the last year I have watched my husband struggle and wrestle with the Lord in ways that have ultimately changed his heart and attitude. While Rob and I both struggle to maintain a 'normal' schedule (is that really even realistic on a cop's shift work?) for our childrens' sake, it has been a cobblestone path of trial and error. But as I look back at the intricate design of our winding path with odd colors and chips in our stones, I see that God has been the pavement holding our cobblestones together and the soil that those stones are laid upon that have held our little family together to weather whatever storms have come. And let me tell you, we have had a few hail storms and hurricane type winds!

OH! A very interesting tip I received was from Duncan a few days ago in the car...when he announced to Rob and I that he and Josh were, in fact, TWINS! Nono, he's very serious...they are twins. "Mom!? I'm telling you! Josh and I are twins!"
 Rob and I look at each other with a bit of humor and Rob looks at him in the rearview mirror, "Buddy, Joshua is your brother, but you aren't twins...I'm sorry. You are his BIG brother..." Incredulously Duncan looks at his father and retorts, "Uhm, yeah Dad we are. See? We have the same birthday. We are twins!"

my twins :)

"Duncan, your birthday is in May. Josh's birthday is in January. You are BROTHERS...not twins. Do you know what 'twins' means? It means you came out of the same mommy...at the SAME time."
"Dad!? We did come out of the same mommy!"
"Son, I hate to break it to you, but you came out of Mommy's tummy and Josh came out of his birth moms' tummy...so...can't be twins. And you are 5...Josh is a baby...do you understand?" Duncan was having NONE.OF.THIS. But he saw that he wasn't going to make us see his point of view and said, "Well, we are." I LOVE THIS ABOUT MY OLDEST SON!!!! He sees NOTHING different about his baby brother, rather Josh is an extension of himself...it makes me cry because my son has learned what some ADULTS are NEVER going to see nor want to learn: LOVE IS COLOR BLIND.

Recently I was completely sickened to my very core...disgusted to the point of vomiting. I mean, I KNEW that we'd run into racial slurs that would make anyone cringe...but I expected it to be from people I didn't actually know personally...certainly not friends...or those I thought to be. WOW. And here I thought my 'mama bear' was only engaged on the playground with the mean kids...HOLY FREAKING LOOK OUT...frothing at the mouth, get a brown bag to breathe in because I'm hyperventilating just try to maintain my COMPOSURE in front of my older kids... who can SEE that my eyeballs are about to pop out of my skull and by the sheer look of utter terror on their faces, something ugly is gonna happen...everyone take cover 'cuz Mama's about to lose her mind. (Have you gotten a picture of my bodily reaction to these comments? LOL!) This person actually asked me (KNOWING we have completed Josh's adoption) if we were 'trying build an f'ing plantation' because I mentioned that we were going to adopt at least once more. I.KID.YOU.NOT. At the moment this remark was said I'm pretty sure my jaw hit the floor and breath left my lungs. (It wasn't until much later when the words this person said actually registered in my brain and my children ran for cover and my eyeballs shot out of my skull like pingpong balls...so I had to look on Pinterest and learn how to put my eyeballs back into my head without damaging them further~FYI baking soda is a great way to help with that! heehee). I could not wrap my mind around what I just heard nor could my heart endure the fact that our family will surely face situations like this in the future. I guess because Josh is an INFANT (and completely delicious at that) I naively thought we wouldn't be encountering things like this for awhile. (Yes, and if you notice I admitted being NAIVE) I FORGET THAT MY SON IS BLACK! I FORGET THAT I DID NOT BIRTH THIS PRECIOUS CHILD! I'm actually shocked when people ask me if Joshua is my baby. However I get the BIGGEST kick out of my closest friends and family saying that Josh looks like me. I LOVE hearing this...I think my children are the most beautiful children God created...I understand I'm completely bias, but that is my right as their mother!!!! (I will admit that sometimes I think Duncan is much more 'beautiful' when he's in a DEEP sleep)

I totally get that we live in a community where diversity is NORMAL and that being a 'mixed' or biracial family is COMMON. But I absolutely do not believe that its okay for ANYONE to be so disrespectful or just flat out RACIST and ugly...especially about a child. If skin is stripped away, a body is a body is a body. Why does it matter so much!? Why!? I absolutely understand that its different here in the middle of America than it is in the south!? But I'm finding that its the WHITE population that seems to think that they can just say whatever the heck they feel like saying; to hell with the consequences and to hell with whoever hears their ugly and destructive words! And I feel like its not even FIRST GENERATION who has the biggest mouth about their beliefs regarding race and 'mixing cultures!?' Its the 2nd and 3rd who have to run their mouths like they know from personal experience. It makes me crazy. I have a physical reaction to the ignorance and flat out STUPIDITY that runs like verbal diarrhea from the mouthes of these kinds of people...okay have you ever seen Toy Story 3? You know the monkey that is watching the monitors in the office that bangs the cymbals? THAT IS ME!!!!! I'm not kidding...the freaking out motion with the arms banging together is me...except I'm making other sounds along with the screeching. 

Anyway, these are the things that have been occupying my mind. But mostly, I love my life...and the idea of all that can be as long as we continue to seek the Lord's heart and will. So much excitement and faith that surrounds the decisions we make that will inevitably shape our future. (and yes, I was very serious when I mentioned that Josh is the baby...FOR NOW...) Ahhhhhh, back to life for the moment though...hungry cranky baby that needs to go to bed with a full belly and some undivided mommy time. Yep, its a great way to end a long day. :)