What the Girls Say

Rachel: Lila what are you going to eat for Thanksgiving?

Lila: Baby Jesus!

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Little Sister: Daddy?

Rachel: Honey, I don't know where Daddy is.

Little Sister: Sigh...Army.

Rachel: No...I think he's just in the bathroom.

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Rachel: Lila, who's coming to visit for Christmas?

Lila: Baby Jesus!

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After getting out of the bathtub and putting on a diaper...

Lila: No more naked baby!

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Potty Training Time

Lila decided to pass the time by studying her shapes.

Christmas Cards 2013

It's that time of year again! When you sit in your backyard on a blanket and force your kids to smile for the camera, promising them cookies and whatever else you can think of to get a decent family photo.



One of my more popular posts last year had to do with how to properly write and address your Christmas cards, so I thought I would revisit that this year complete with photographic aid. I am revisiting this because apparently my post did not change the entire world.  I went to HappiNames a few months ago to order a present for my friend Sarah who was getting married.  I wanted the bucket to say "The Borlands," and the girl working there asked if I wanted a comma in their name.  A comma!  That poor girl didn't know she was in for a thirty minute punctuation lesson.  So here we go, and once again I apologize for the soapbox I will be standing on and if I insult you and your Christmas card writing and addressing practices.

Let's just make this short and sweet: Nowhere on your Christmas cards should you have an apostrophe.  "But Rachel..." Nope.  "What if..." Nope. "I think you..." Don't do it.  The purpose of an apostrophe (when you're using it with a name) is to indicate that those people own something.



Notice here that I have addressed a letter to my parents.  Their last name is English, so to make it plural since there is more than one of them, I added an "es."  If I had written "The English's" not only would my father probably rip up the card and then disown me (do you see how I was raised?), but that would be completely incorrect.  "The English's" doesn't make sense in any way, shape, or form.  Even if I wanted it to write a letter to the dog owned by the Englishes, I would have to pluralize English first: "The Englishes' Dog." And I guarantee you that their dog does not want to read your Christmas cards.

To reiterate the point, in the return address section you can see that I wrote "The Hutsons" not "The Hutson's."  This idea applies to the inside of your card as well: "Merry Christmas! Love, The Hutsons." Beautiful.

Of course you can always take the easy way out and just say "The Hutson Family."  That is assuming you are sending the Hutsons a Christmas card at all, which I expect you aren't because you don't want to endure my ridiculous scrutiny.

Merry Christmas!

Stupid Things That Rachel Does

I had this great idea today that while the kids were playing in our family room I would clean the stairs.  You know, sweep, mop, etc.  I grabbed the dustpan and broom and then remembered that my Swiffer is this size (obviously I don't clean the floors very often).  So I went ahead and pulled out one of those Swiffer dry cloths to just use with my hand, but not wanting to use the mopping pad with my hand, I pulled out the next best thing: Pledge.  I use Pledge on my wooden dining room table; why shouldn't I use it on my wooden stairs?



Sweeping: done. Swiffering: done.  Pledge: done.  I stand back and smile at my handiwork.  "I am so amazing," I think to myself.  Then I walk down the stairs in socks and almost die.  Apparently treating your floors like a gleaming dining room tabletop is a bad idea.  I have since spent the rest of the evening trying to dirty my stairs in an attempt to make them less slippery.  I am also now wearing shoes.

How Long Have You Had Those Kids?

This month marks eight months since our foster kids, Little Guy and Little Sister, came into our home.



Legally I'm not allowed to show their faces on the internet or write their names or really talk about their situation at all, so it makes it really difficult to share anything about that part of our lives.  One thing I can say, however, is that it's definitely the most difficult and challenging thing that Johnny and I have ever done.

I started doing a little reflecting after reading this article on fostering/adoption from the New York Times that my friend Anna posted on my wall.

My favorite part of the article went something like this:

  “When I first went into this, I had this idea that everyone should be doing this,” Maureen told me, referring to foster-care adoption. “But if you are going to do it, you better be darn well sure you can handle it.”

I couldn't agree with this sentiment more.  When we believe in something, I think we have a tendency to feel that everybody should be doing it, especially in the Christian community.  I remember feeling guilty at Wheaton every time I went to a speech or fundraiser or whatever for different causes throughout the world.  I think by Christmas of my freshman year I had opportunities to "adopt" world vision children, buy cows for farmers in third world countries, tutor underprivileged children in Chicago, give money and wear red to support AIDS research, and so on and so on.  I'm not saying any of those things were bad; I just didn't need to do all of them...or any of them.

That being said, I do think that Johnny and I have been called, at least for now, to be foster parents and possibly adoptive parents.  If that's something you are interested in and you have a good support system and you don't mind if you get crayon on your walls or that all your hair will turn grey by the time you're 27 or that you just might unexpectedly see your kid's biological family at the library or that everywhere you go people will either ask you if "all those children" are yours or glare at you for having children of different races, then go for it.  It's an understatement to say that there are tons of kids who need help.  Just while writing this I got an email from my case worker asking for an adoptive family for a sibling set of three precious boys.  Our agency's website has literally pages and pages of children needing families.

So before I start rambling, here's the gist: fostering is hard, hardest thing we've ever done, don't do it if it's not for you, jump in head first if it is.  

Dark White is the New Black

Little Sister is having a difficult time with taking baths, so I thought it would be a good idea to get her a special bath time baby.  Until I had to shop for an African American baby doll I had no idea that dark skinned baby dolls don't seem to exist.



This baby doll is the only African American version of the Water Babies brand, and it's maybe two shades darker than Lila...whitest child ever.  Is it too much to ask for there to be baby dolls in the same shades as people?  (By the way, what in the world is this baby wearing? It's supposed to be the "angel" baby, but I don't see why the baby has to be wearing a shear white negligee to portray that.)

Cereal for Breakfast

This is why we use Baby Bjorn plastic bibs with pockets.

 

 

Delicious.

Put On Your Freaking Tutu and Get in the Car!

I was originally going to title this "A Hutson Halloween," but I think the current title is more fitting: Halloween was clearly not invented by a parent of young children.  Here are a few snapshots from our Halloween festivities.

We carved pumpkins on Tuesday, and once they were carved, Lila kept saying, "Me sit pumpin."  She then encouraged Little Sister to sit on the other pumpkin, but Little Sister's lid kept falling off, so she did not understand the appeal of pumpin sitting.



This photo was taken right after Little Sister put Princess Tianna inside the pumpkin.  I believe she is kissing her to make it better.

After naps on Halloween, we rushed over to Johnny's office in full costume to go trick or treating.  Little Guy was a dinosaur.

And the girls were two pretty peacocks.  I realized when we walked in the door to his office that I didn't explain Halloween beyond, "You have to put your tutu on because this is the day that everyone wears a tutu, and Daddy will be so sad if you're not wearing a tutu so put on your freaking tutu and get in the car!"  I quickly gave them a run down about saying trick or treat, but they clearly had no idea why all of Daddy's friends were giving them hand fulls of candy...or why Mommy said after one piece it was just for looking at.

 

After trick or treating at Johnny's office, we had to deal with the reality of having a family made up of two families and splitting holidays.  But after being driven all over Kansas City, Lila got to end her day handing out candy at Grandmommy's.  Once we pulled into Grandmommy's driveway, Lila was very excited to show her the costume that only thirty minutes before she had pushed to the floor of the car.  She was all like, "Um Mom get my tutu!" and I was all like, "Um Lila where was that enthusiasm an hour ago?" Geeze.

Happy Halloween!