June 19, 2011

We'd known about Dez for 2 weeks already. We were advised to wait to meet him for one main reason: on account of his cuteness, knowing it would sway us. They wanted a yes or no before we met him.

We'd pretty much decided it was a "yes" unless someone told us otherwise (parental rights hadn't been terminated yet). So we agreed to meet him. As soon as Russ got home from work, we all climbed in the car and headed the ten miles west. I was all, "I promise I'll protect my heart, Russ, geez. I can meet a baby who might need a mom and be TOTALLY unattached, watch me."

When we arrived and rang the doorbell, the nurse told us it would be a minute. They heard we were coming and wanted to give him a bath and a fresh outfit so he'd look his tiny-self best.

And they brought him into the room. And my promise flew out the window.

And here we are, a year later...

The job that never ended.

See these ladies?

They were a few of my "D-group" (Discipleship) girls from ten years ago. When Russ got hired as a youth pastor, I was handed a group of about 7-10 girls ranging from 7th grade to 9th grade.

Here's the thing...Russ' job ended like 7 or 8 years ago and they won't go away. In fact, they all went to college and then came back. Not all of them, we lost a few to other states and whatnot. But 3 of them actually moved into our neighborhood, one in the condo below us, and one more looking to rent the house next door. They're circling like cute little vultures...

At the beginning of this year, they asked me to start D-group again and I caved. Right when I'd dug my heels in and said I was not adding anything to the schedule. I can't help it. It's fun to see these girls as adults and having invested SO.MUCH.TIME. (and money and gas mileage and snacks and wait-a-minute-isn't-that-my-sweater?)It's a blessing to be re-invited back into their worlds. I know I'm blessed having this crowd around again. I'll just be adding a lock to my closet this time around and making them drive me around all the time.

5/12

May included an international mission trip, so our date had to be low key. Plus last month was all adventurous and whatnot. It's all about balance, people.

Before children became financial parasites in our world, we used to shop a lot. We never spent a ton of money but we liked spending time looking for good deals, etc. We're actually pretty cheap, to be honest. We rarely hit the malls now since we spend half our time convincing the children it's super fun there without letting them ride those big plastic germ-fests. So I planned a night out, complete with spending money and no kids. Since I quit my job a year ago, money is rarely spent on new clothes for us so this was a treat.

After we'd spent our last penny, we headed to Ted Drews, a STL fav, for some summer treats.

Not our most creative date but good conversation over dinner (watching Friday Night Lights has spurred an endless supply of parenting conversation! Egad!) and a chill night together was pretty perfect.

For more date ideas from other peeps, click here!

City Stories

Our church has started showing short videos of people in our church and their stories. Ours was featured a couple of weeks ago and I thought I'd post the link if you wanted to check it out. It's 5 straight action-packed minutes of the Mohrs circa February...enjoy...

click here, yo.

I know I shoudn't have but...

I totally messed with a mom at the park.

Dez, Eliot and I were at the park in a fairly open space. Eliot was off playing and Dez was crawling around. I'm not really a helicopter-type-of-mom so I was giving Dez some space to explore. Another mom sat next to him on a curb to tie her son's shoe.

Dez was playing with a stick. The mom started looking around. (clearly for Dez's mother.)

She waited a minute. Then looked around the park again. A little more slowly.

Apparently Dez playing with a stick made her nervous so she asked him to give it to her. Once it was safely removed, she started looking around again, a bit more frantically this time.

She was starting to get a little panicky so I walked over.

"Is this your daughter?" she asked urgently.

"No," I said, "that's not my daughter."

=) Which is 100% true, people.

The Fro.

Dearest family and friends,

In answer to the most commonly asked question right now, No, we're not cutting his hair.

From the beginning, it was recommended to wait until he was at least a year old. That time is here now and it's not going anywhere. We're obsessed with the fro. We love it. We want it to grow bigger, actually.

So, get used to it. It's gonna be here for awhile. Embrace it.

(Not literally, he'll get mad and give you a dirty look.)

Wordless Wednesday

This pic almost didn't look like this.

This little turkey is fast. And curious. And thinks he doesn't need to listen to the word "no."

I'm already blaming him for the increase of my grays, and he's not even a year old. He might be our emergency room baby.

He's been crawling since 8 months and looks like one of those mechanical baby dolls you wind up and let loose. He's still so itty bitty.

One morning Eliot was playing in the living room, I was finishing getting myself ready. Dez usually doesn't leave Eliot's side, no matter if Eliot's playing with him or not. But that morning he was crawling between my place in the back of the house and back up front where E was.

Then I felt it. The pause in the air. I froze and listened intently while walking rapidly out of my room. The pause interrupted by Desmond's cry. The cry that makes you run the last few steps left between you and him.

From the last moment I checked on him, it took just a few seconds for him to be in the bathroom. He knew exactly where he wanted to go. Straight for my curling iron which I'd just unplugged moments ago, which I'd tucked as far back and up as possible to cool off.

He was sitting on the floor, the curling iron in front of him, crying. A deep cry.

I frantically searched his face, his arms, his hands, his feet looking for the burns. Everything appeared intact. The only sign of anything was a scratch (that didn't even break the skin) from the seam of handle.

He had pulled the curling iron off the stand by the cord. He must have reached his short chubby arms all the way between the stand and the sink to reach it. I have no question that God intervened so that only the handle made contact with the little investigator. Even with it sitting on the floor in front of him, he didn't attempt to grab it, which is also a miracle.

These moments are one of my least favorite parts of parenting. Thinking over the "what if"s. Immediately I thought of
this incident from when eliot was 2 1/2. I still have no idea how Eliot got out of that unscathed.

Mr. Miyagi meets cheesy The Bachelor analogy. You're welcome.

If you saw our last 12 in 12 in '12 date, you know we are now professional rock climbers. (maybe "professional" is a bit strong) When I signed up for this back in December I asked lots of questions, wondering what we would have to do in order to climb. Would we need classes, etc. They casually mentioned "auto belaying" and said that's all we'd need, that we could indeed climb without a great deal of instruction. Because when I'm risking my life, climbing 35 feet in the air, I want the least amount of instruction possible. Straight wisdom, people.

When we arrived, the friendly worker showed us the auto belay system, explained how it worked, and set us free in less than 5 minutes. Signing the waiver actually took longer.

See the red wire in front of both of us in these pics? That's the auto-belay. At the bottom, it's attached at two places to our harness. The other end of it goes all the way to the ceiling, attached to a pulley with quite a bit of tension. So much tension that the first time I carabinered in (I just made that word up, I think! Feel free to use it) my feet lifted off the floor and I had to grab the wall.

My first attempt wasn't very successful and I immediately regretted the whole idea. I didn't know how to get back down and I had no intention of going any higher. Then I saw the lady next to me finish her climb and gracefully glide back to the ground, pushing off the wall.

I tried it since she made it look so easy. I hit the wall. Cuz I'm awesome like that.

I climbed again to the same height and tried falling again. This time smoother, sparing the wall from by body slam. I felt like I got the hang of it. (get it? My dad will be proud of that one.)

My next turn was more successful and I was able to reach the very top.

{Put that story off to the side for a minute}
{and stop checkin' out my booty}

Our church is studying James right now and the last two weeks have addressed the first section of chapter 1. The whole "consider it pure joy when you face trials" thing. The question was raised, "how do you handle trials? what's your reaction?" A few months ago our church filmed us sharing our story. In talking through what we wanted to say, I realized something.

During infertility trials, I went through a lot of anger at God. During Eliot's adoption trials, I yelled at God a lot (and other people...). When Russ and I have struggled with trials in our marriage, I question "Why God?!"

However, when the adoption fell through last spring, there was no anger at God, no questioning His ways, His plan. There was devastation and deep grieving, but nothing directed AT God.

{Aaaaaand tying them together...}

I think we've learned how to fall. We've certainly not "arrived" but looking back, I think we're getting better at it, even if we hit the wall every so often.

And the take away? Learning how to fall means climbing isn't as scary, taking risks isn't as intimidating.

Wordless Wednesday