BlogHer

for the love of furry babies

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I grew up with a dog as a member of our family.  In fact there were three before I was out of the house.  My first dog as an adult was the cutest miniature schnauzer I added to my family from an acquaintance.  My husband and I added our first family dog after we bought our first house 15 years ago.

This December will be 1 year since we lost our first dog to old age.  Cody was a majestic Lab-Weimaraner mix.  He was almost 14 when his age got the better of him.  He is the first dog our girls knew as babies and he loved the girls as much as we did.  We added him to our family the summer of 2001 in August.  I can remember him watching us from our back porch as my husband and I labored with sod after 9/11 doing our best to keep our minds off of the current events in our life.  He even traveled with us on our road trip to parenthood.  We drove to Minnesota for our older daughter’s birth and he came along for the ride. We thought why not? He would get to know the baby from the beginning and we would not have to board him for 3 weeks so along he came in the car for the drive that would change all of our lives.

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As our girls grew older we added a 2nd dog to our family, the infamous Princess Molly Bear, a Weimaraner I came across accidentally needing a home and why not add another Princess to our family?  Molly was 5 when she joined our family and Cody and our girls fell in love with her right away!

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Molly was a great addition to our family.  She lived a happy life with us before dog cancer took her away from us too soon in January of 2013.

Our life is not complete without at least one dog in our family and since having two for a few years was something we ALL enjoyed we again have two furry babies that grace our home with their witty, loving personalities.  We now have a German Shorthaired Pointer, Baron Von Friedmann Bear and a Weimaraner Princess Pepper Lou Lou ages 3 and 2 respectively.

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The unconditional love our furry babies give us is what makes having them so great!  These two are characters and we ALL love them.

Do you have pets?

Day 18, #NaBloPoMo #BlogHer

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what is a friend?

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friend
noun \ˈfrend\
: a person who you like and enjoy being with

: a person who helps or supports someone or something (such as a cause or charity)

I realize throughout my life I have made many friends.  My friendships go back to those I attended grammar school and high school with.  We have found ourselves reconnected because of social media.  Throughout recent years I have found myself with friends that live in my computer.  What is that you ask?  We met through common interests mainly blogging and adoption.  Why do they live in my computer?  We live across the world and may not ever meet in person.  Why then would I consider them a friend?  Because we have shared interests and converse somewhat regularly and again through social media.

Yet I have in my current life friends.  Friends that I have known through the 22 years I have lived in California, my mommy group friends who I met when our oldest was still a baby,  the friends we made on our shared journey to parenthood through adoption and those who we met when we moved to our neighborhood almost 2-1/2 years ago, and the friends I have made through being with my girls whether it be ballet or their elementary school .  I can say ALL of these people add to our daily lives.

Friends have been able to step in and help and in return I have been able to do the same.  Friends have celebrated with us holidays, birthdays or just a new season and reason to get together.  We are creating fun memories.

I watch my girls form their own friendships separate from those of the families we know together.  I see them create their own independent lives and realize how much they have grown.  When they were little, their immediate friends were the children of the Moms I met from the Mommy Group I had joined. Now they have friends from school, girl scouts, ballet and soccer too.

I thankful we all have these friendships in our lives and share with them interests and time.

friends

Day 17, #NaBloPoMo #BlogHer

 

 

always truthful

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We learned early on during our journey to parenthood through adoption that the truth always comes out.  As parents through adoption, we have learned that we can tell the truth to our girls about their stories, but it needs to be age appropriate allowing them the ability to digest what they are being told.

Our younger daughter has lots of questions and feelings lately about her and our family.  Her questions relate to why she is part of our family but her younger brother lives with her birth mother and her husband.  Why did S make the choice of us to be her parents?.  At 7 years old she is working to figure out her place in ALL of her family.  Luckily not only does she have us to speak openly about how she is feeling and ask us questions, she has her birth mom to go to and ask the whys?.

Earlier this year she asked S directly about her placement with us.  S was honest and shared the truth about how hard it was to make that decision.  She also shared the hard truth of where she was in her life with struggles. That she had to learn to take care of herself and didn’t feel she could also take care of her daughter.

Today our daughter helped her brother celebrate his 6th birthday.  It had been sometime since we had spent time with him, her birth mom S and her husband.  A lot has transpired in the last 9 months.  S has been struggling and we had to step out of the picture.  It is a hard decision for us to step out as we love and want to support S.  At the same time, our girls are young and we don’t want them to create an impression of S when she is struggling that will leave a lasting impression that could harm their later relationships.

The party was fun and the kids had a blast.  It was near the end I saw S sitting with our daughter and could see they were talking. I know J had her questions of S as she is seeking answers that we can’t fully answer.  I could hear part of their conversation and knew that S was being her honest self as she tried to answer our daughters questions.  I could see she was upset and I moved in closer to see if I could be of help.  They didn’t need me to enter the conversation I just wanted them to know I was nearby for support.

It was in the car ride home that J shared their discussion and asked some more questions but this time for me to answer.  We talked about the early decisions S made when she was still pregnant with her.  We talked about our love for S and our support for her.  We talked about what has been happening and the outcome also being that S and her husband are separating.  We spoke about how that doesn’t affect our relationship with S, her brother and her husband that we are family and although it may look different it doesn’t change our relationship with each of them.

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We continue to be here for our young daughter to answer her questions and always be truthful.  We know that honesty in her story is what she needs to understand.  The truth isn’t always easy and we have learned in giving each of our girls a safe place to talk and ask questions, that they continue to seek us out at these times.

Open adoption is hard at times like being a family can be hard at times.  But the hard times do not outweigh the easy good times and we know we will make our way through this always truthful.

Day 15, #NaBloPoMo #BlogHer