Planning a birthday for a woman you know well enough to know that you don’t know exactly how she thinks can be challenging. I planned out a whole day that I thought would be fun for CrazyMom, but I got concerned early on in the day. The day started with CrazyMom sipping coffee and reading the paper in bed. When I fixed breakfast I gave each kid something to deliver to mom in bed – a fork, a tray, a glass, a plate, etc. The kids delivered the goods to mom and after they left I stuck my head in to the room to make sure everything was alright.“Need anything else?” I asked confident the answer would be no since I had obviously provided everything CrazyMom could want right now.
“Yeah, a little company. It is lonely up here,” she replied.
Lonley?!?!? Is this the same woman who when I enter the house from work I find tired from the incessant bombardment of questions from her children? Now the over-stimulated mother declares herself “lonely” at 8:30 am in the morning. Well, I fixed that by sending the kids two at a time to talk to her for the next hour.
CrazyMom then had a day out on the town with a few activities planed for her (including lunch with a friend so she would not get too lonely) while the rest of us cleaned, cooked, shopped, baked, wrapped, and decorated to prepare for mom’s return. After a family birthday party, me cooking the dinner of her choice (umm, from my repertoire of one dish), we settled in for a family movie. When picking a family movie, I consider it a success if CrazyMom cries and the movie we watched was a great success. (It is actually easy to pick such a movie. Simply find a G rated movie where the review uses the word “heartwarming”. Kit Kittredge fit the bill.)
By the way, you may be wondering how old CrazyMom is now. In order to protect her privacy, I will only say that she turned 3 times the integral from 4 to 5 of the quantity of x squared minus seven. (Just think, my calculus students think that they will never have the opportunity to use their calc skills in their personal lives. I just showed them!)
6 comments:
Happyy Happy Birthday Crazy Mom!!!
Happy Birthday and happy Thanksgiving!!
Love Buddie's gift--hotties!
Are you all from the Buckeye State? We live in eastern Ohio!
Blessings! And Happy Birthday, Crazy Mom! You can't be too crazy if you're a Buckeye fan though! =)
Happy belated birthday, CrazyMom! Hadn't been to your site in a while, since we've been pretty busy with our relocation, but it was so fun to check in, read the new blogs, and see how well Anna is adjusting. Hope you thoroughly enjoyed your celebration (and gave the kids a quick briefing on algorithms, derivatives, and the like, to help them determine the number of candles they needed for the cake..."i to the fourth" not being a fair option). :-)
CrazyD, CrazyMom & family,
I found your blog last week, and read through the entire thing. Clearly, your family is one built on love. Thanks for sharing your journey through adoption with us.
The reason I found your blog is because I was curious to see perspectives from other families who have adopted from Ethiopia. Two couples I know have seperately adopted children from there - a girl and a boy.
One of the parents has written a couple of children's books - one about life in Ethiopia (written in a very positive light) and the other is a picture dictionary of first Amharic words. I thought these might be helpful to your family. The website is here if you're interested:
http://www.amharickids.com/default.aspx
Thanks so much again for sharing your story and life with so many people,
Tonia
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