Where do Babies Come From?

Mr. Wonderful and I had been married for two weeks when we went to the State Fair and gazed at a table of black and white pictures of babies in Korea.  We had never spoken of adoption before but in a two minute time frame, we made up our minds.  We wanted to adopt a baby.  

The baby would be a girl, we felt that if there were to be prejudice, it might be easier to have a darling little pink princess.  Who could look into those black eyes and not love her?  We watched a  movie with William Holden called The World of Susie Wong.  We knew we would love the little girl with black hair and almond eyes before we ever saw her.

We moved back to the Upper Midwest from Oregon because the adoption agency here didn't require that we be married for five years to qualify.  We both worked two jobs for a year and we prayed for the birth mother who we knew would now be expecting.   We had a home study with the social worker taking notes about our families, our future goals, our opinions on parenting a child who didn't look like us.  We wrote the answers to essay questions, 35 pages worth of answers about why we wanted to parent a baby from Korea.  And then we waited.  And waited and waited some more until one day, there was a call.  

The term 'up for adoption' comes from the late 1800s when orphaned children were put on the trains in New York and headed across the country.  The trains would stop in small towns where the children would literally stand up on the train platform and families would come and  pick a child from the lineup.

Our daughter was delivered by a 747 Northwest Airlines stork.  We took her into our arms and hearts and called her angel baby because she had been in Angel Babies Hospital in Seoul before coming to us.  She grew up, got married and now has babies of her own.  Today we celebrated the third birthday of her own little black eyed baby girl.    I call grandparenting 'the bonus round', anything I didn't have the time or the money for the first time, I have a second chance for now.  

Do not be afraid, for I am with you;

I will bring your children from the east

and gather you from the west.

I will say to the north, 'Give them up!'

and to the south, 'Do not hold them back!'

Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth...

Isaiah 43: 5-6

Timmy & Lassie

On Sunday night, right before Wonderful World of Disney, I used to watch Lassie.  By that time she had left Timmy and life on the farm.  Lassie now saved small children, adults and whatever else needed rescue, she was the partner of Cory Stewart, a Forest Ranger.

We got our first Shetland Sheep Dog (Sheltie) in 1982,  a puppy we named Cider because of her Sable coloring.  The puppy was not healthy and hundreds of dollars went to the vet.  We had a two year old girl, Mr. Wonderful was in grad school and the money for milk was spent on the little dog we loved so much.

Finally, it was determined that Cider needed  surgery that had a 50% chance of making her well.  We took her to the Humane Society and left her hoping someone else could take care of her medical bills.  Back in the parking lot and cried our eyes out.  The grief went on for about two months, then one day the two year old came asked, "Where did Cider go?"  We said we would 'never do that again.'  We had two more children but no dogs.

In her senior year of high school our youngest daughter took a marketing class.  She used it to her advantage, I'd close the bathroom door and there was a poster with the words, "I want a puppy."  Her sister got married, her brother was in the Air Force, she wanted a dog.

We went to the Humane Society and brought Maja home, a five year old Sheltie.  She was the smartest dog we had ever met, her vocabulary was more than 75 words!  Our daughter taught her Spanish in addition to English!  She liked catching popcorn mid-air and she could bounce a ball repeatedly off her nose.  She lived to be 11 years old.  We cried our eyes out again.

We lasted six weeks (with no dog) when Toffee, a beautiful 18 month old barking boy came from another shelter.  That Sheltie is another story, he was with us two years.

Shelties are herders and love to run, they are small but quick.  Bo Peep's sheep don't have a chance!

Everybody sing:  "There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name -Oh!  B-I-N-G-O!

The last tag on the string, the names of our Shelties and Baby Sally making doggie cookies.

Here's Miss Josie hanging out in my craft room, this is the last "baby" I intend to have!

Which Came First?

The chicken?

Or, the egg?

Neither!  Really, I found the picture of the little girl having a tea party with her little teapot that looked like a chicken and THEN I found the chicken tea pot!  What's a thrifter to do but take it home to join that cute little picture?

So of course, when the egg tea set was found, it had to come home too.  This little set also was a thrift shop score.  A sugar, creamer, egg shaped teapot and the two matching cups.  You've heard the expression, "They must have grown legs and walked off"?  Well, in this case, they did!

You can't drink out of something with legs on it?  Well then, the cups work well holding jelly beans too.  Hey! There were more jelly beans in here when I set this up; we won't name any names but his initials are...  Mr. Wonderful!  Norwegian with a sweet tooth, that one is!