It Is All About Respect

Yesterday Scott and I went to the pool. Courtney chose to sleep through pool time. I swear that kid can sleep like no one else!

When we arrived and were walking to our chairs, I heard my name. I looked down to see two women sitting in the pool with their kids. They were talking about their friend who is named Melissa.

Apparently these two women and their families got together with Melissa's family the night before. After Melissa got home, she called her two friends to tell them that her son had a fever.

Now, we have all been there...you get notice that your kid hung out with another kid who is now sick and you watch your kid for the next week making sure they don't get sick too. And if you really stopped to think about it, your kid can get sick just by going to the grocery store. The only difference is you don't have a mom calling you to warn you.

The two women proceeded to sit and talk not so nicely about their "friend" and her parenting. They even went on to say that her son looks like a girl and they feel sorry for him.

Not even 30 minutes later, Melissa shows up to the pool with her son, who does not look like a girl, he looks like a toddler. The two women were sugary nice to her.

I hate that. If you don't like someone or don't want to hang out with someone, respect them enough to tell them or cut your ties with them. Don't sit there and talk about them in a public forum where anyone can hear and then be fake to them.

I think friendship is a lot about respect. Respect the friendship enough to always be honest, to address issues when they arise (and they will arise), to forgive because you will want to be forgiven and then to also forget and concentrate on the positive.

Scott and I don't have a lot of friends by choice. Those we do have we respect enough to be 100% honest with them.

And I think they respect that about us!

Might As Well Face It, You're Addicted To Love

Scott and I are very dear friends with a couple who can’t have children.

Several years ago they came to us and told us that they were going to go through the process to get approved to adopt a child. They had already talked to the “powers that be” and were told that while it could take forever to get a baby, they could get an older child quicker. I think they agreed that they would take a child up to 5, but I could have that fact wrong.

They asked us to write a letter of recommendation for them.

So I sat down and wrote a letter straight from my heart. It talked about how kind they both are and why I thought they would be excellent parents.

They went through the process and got approved. The day they were approved they were told it could take MONTHS for a child to be placed in their home.

It wasn’t a week later that they got a call that there was a 4 week old little boy who needed a home. His parents are addicts and he was born addicted. If they thought they might be interested, he could be in their home in a couple days.

Interested?

OF COURSE THEY WERE INTERESTED.

So I went over and picked her up and we went to Babies R Us and grabbed a couple carts. I started telling her how many of what to get just to get them started. Other friends started arranging a baby shower.

Then he arrived.

4 weeks old and his birth mother had shot up within hours of delivering him.

The saddest thing was to see him try to get un-addicted to what his birth mother forced him to be addicted to.

But this child came into a home full of love and friends and family that would move mountains for him.

Today he is a normal kindergartener with a smile who will melt you hair.

When he was a couple years old, they received call that he had a brother. This baby was 4 months old and were they interested in him?

Interested?

OF COURSE THEY WERE INTERESTED.

So along came baby #2.

Also addicted.

Just as cute!

So began the journey of getting this little one clean and sober.

Sober he got and today he is a normal three year old who is hard headed and ALL BOY. This one can do no wrong in my eyes and I enjoy watching him when he doesn’t know that I am.

Over two years ago they received a call that the birth mother is in jail and she is pregnant. Were they interested in this unborn baby?

Interested?

OF COURSE THEY WERE INTERESTED.

So two years ago this month, they brought home the sweetest little girl. Big blue eyes and the same dimples as both of her brothers.

Born addicted, but not as bad as the boys. Apparently you CAN get things in jail.

This past Saturday she turned two. She can keep up with her older brothers like nobody’s business.

You want to know what is funny? ALL three of these kids look like our friends. To look at them, you would not know they were adopted.

It’s like God, when he was making these babies, took a little bit of our friends and dropped them into these children.

And then he dropped these children into a home full of love.

And now that home is really noisy.

And toys are everywhere.

And our get togethers are not what they used to be.

And NONE of us would have it any other way!

The Odd Couples

You know what is funny?

Not funny as in ha, ha. Funny as in…I don’t really have a word for it, funny as in odd.

It is funny how people come into your life.

Scott and I are friends with a couple who are too old to be our parents, but not old enough to be our grandparents. They are between that. They are tweeners!
This couple includes us in family functions. They remember all of our birthdays. They make sure that we are not alone for holidays. They have helped me and guided me through part of my adult walk with God. They hug us when we walk in and when we leave.

Last night we had our Christmas with them. There was great food and even better company. It came time to open the gifts and I must tell you that we received the best gift last night! They must have saved every single picture they have ever taken of Courtney and made us a calendar. There are pictures of her when she was 4 and 5 years old. There are some I don’t even remember being taken. And with each turn of the page, there she was again and again growing up.

We will treasure this gift and I can’t wait for January to get here so I can hang it up!

I am grateful for their gift and their friendship.

Who would have thought that all of us would be as good as friends as we are?

Whatever it is we have, the dynamics of it work.

And that might be odd, but it is also really great!

Not Mine To Fix

The very first friend I made when I moved to Georgia was a co-worker. We each had daughters that were close in age. How we met was I was walking through her office and fell. She stood up, introduced herself, stepped over me and walked away. Looking back, I should have been insulted, but strangely, I found it funny.

Over the years we have been through a lot together. She was with me every step of the way through the Autism diagnosis for Courtney. I was there when her husband lost his job. She was there when Scott and I were trying to decide if marriage was all it was cracked up to be. I was there when she decided that it was gastric by-pass surgery that was going to save her life. She got me hooked on Georgia Tech football. I got her hooked on the Bare Naked Ladies (easy, it’s a music group).

Life progressed and both of us took jobs with other companies. Kids have grown older. Houses have been sold and new ones built farther away. But, our friendship hasn’t changed. If I want to see a chick flick that Scott won’t take me to, I call her. If she wants to go see Pink in concert, she calls me. Thank goodness for e-mail, texting and Facebook; we can talk daily. And no matter what, we know that we are there for each other.

A couple of weeks ago she tells me that she isn’t sure about some things in her life and wonders if they are all that they are cracked up to be. My first instinct was to sit down and talk through it. And for her being the non talkative type, she did amazingly well at laying it all out there for me to see. She knows that I don’t side with her just because she is my friend and has let me point out where I think she is wrong. She has let me make a million suggestions as to what to do to “fix it”…..and she finally had to tell me it wasn’t my problem to fix.

What?

That’s what I do. I fix things. Everyone should be happy, especially my friends.

What do you mean it is not mine to fix?

She told me that all I can do is to be there for her.

I can do that.

But this is the hardest job I have ever had!