Happy Gotcha Day to Us :)


So many times in this journey of life, I have been frustrated as the light has turned red and I've been forced to stop and wait. As time has gone on, I've come to realize that it is the time spent waiting at these lights that makes up the very essence of what life is supposed to be about!
Mikey had just had his first birthday and we were on our way to Kindermusik class in the car. It had been a busy day with me at work and him at his dayhome all day. We had shared a quick supper and then gotten in the car to drive to his class. When we hit a red light, I turned to check that he was doing okay in his car seat and his face instantly lit up and his little fingers came together to make the motion used when the spider climbs up the spout in the "Itsy-Bitsy Spider". I took his cue and began singing and acting out the song with him and was all too soon interupted by the driver behind me honking his horn to get me to respond to the light that had turned green. As I began pulling forward I had a flashback to a time before Mikey when a red light would have frustrated me simply because of the "wasted time" that took place while trying to get somewhere. The moment and thoughts became frozen in my heart and soul and mind as I knew there was a lesson much larger in it all then just what was on the surface. And so it began...
I am Monica, single adoptive mommy to 6 year old Mikey who happens to have trisomy 21 (aka Down syndrome). I am a Middle/High School teacher in a small town in Southern Alberta. Life is busy, full and wonderful! I have a dream to someday be a published author. One of the books that I would like to publish is a book of the lessons I've learned since I've become a mother. My blog "Red Lights" is meant to be a place for me to begin to organize the thoughts that I would like to someday put in this book as well as a place for me to just post about my day to day life!
I welcome your comments and/or responses to any of the things that I've written. Feel free to use the comment links that follow each of my posts. I would love to know who is all lurking out there!
monica.braat@shaw.ca
mom2mikey
mbraat_99
People that learn together, learn to live together!
Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them, and you have their shoes! ~ Frieda Norris ~
You cannot like or hate something about someone else unless it reflects something you like or hate about yourself!
The problem is not the way I look, but the way you see me!
A kite rises highest against the wind... not with the wind!
It takes sun and rain to make a rainbow!
Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game!
I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world. ~Mother Teresa~
I can't believe God put us on this earth to be ordinary!
Whoever said silence is golden has never heard the laughter of a child!
You're laughing because I'm different... I'm laughing 'cause you're all the same!







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Visitors Since May 2005 |




I have sort of lost track of my blog again. I do feel so much better when I get a few words down each day and I want to try to refocus and use this blog again. I'm hoping to find a few minutes each morning to keep "Today's Thankful Ten" going as well as 3 to 5 times a week to write about other things. So here goes for today's list...
Mikey loves those Fisher Price little people. In the past few months, he has taken to carrying one of them around almost all the time. They have tea parties together (the little people look ridiculous sitting on the table and chairs that is the right size for Mikey), they sleep together (there is always at least one little people on Mikey's pillow beside him and some days I go in to my room at night to see a whole line of them on my pillows too), and then Mikey just plays with them all the time. His room is full of little people - the house, the barn, the airplane, the bus, a couple of different trains, all the circus stuff, the grocery store, the pet shop...etc. Its a little people town!
On Friday, Mikey want to hang out with my friend and her family. He brought his little person with him. At one point, they needed to run to the store to get a few groceries. Mikey is constantly trying to put things he wants in the cart when we go to the store. On Friday, apparently the little person put some soda in to the cart. My friend says that Mikey promptly took the little person, made it face him, said "look" (which means look me in the eye - something we do with Mikey as he finds it hard to make eye contact) and then proceeded to give the little person what for. He started with a pretty loud "no-no-no-no" and proceeded to say "put-back-now". At which point, he hand over handed the little person to put the soda back on the shelf. And with that crisis solved, they moved on down the aisle.
Will this kid never stop amusing me? He is way too cute.
This past Thursday and Friday, I attended yet another teacher's convention. The ending keynote speaker was a man name Doon Willkens. I really enjoyed him... not because he really gave me a whole not new but more because he affirmed some of the things that I believe in. One of the things he talked about was journaling. He talked about how he gets up each morning and writes down 10 things that he is thankful for that day and I got to thinking what a great way that would be to start the day. Now I don't know if I will be able to do this every morning but I'm going to try. And really... even if I can't do it every day, I'm sure it will be great to do it on the days I can. So here we go...
I've been tagged by Betsy (Bits of Betsy) to share my story of the first person that I knew with Down syndrome. Betsy's started this me-me herself after sharing a wonderful story about Jake. Here is my story...
I grew up in a small town. There were a couple of kids who I would see around town whose names were Suzy and James. Suzy was much older and she used to come to the swimming pool when we were little kids. Later, when I was a teenager, there was this cute little blonde boy who just seemed to be roaming. He was a very independent little boy but would wonder in to places that we all knew one shouldn't wonder in. Once there was a teacher who had bought a whole bunch of little bags of chips for the school store. She left them in the backseat of the car through the morning with plans to go and get them at lunch time. When she went out at lunch time, there was James sitting in the backseat with about half of the bags open munching away on the chips. None of us never got to really know either of these children as they didn't appear to attend school and once they got a bit earlier they simply disappeared out of our town. I learned years later, after adopting Mikey that both had eventually went to live in group homes. I am not goign to write about these people for my me-me as I never really knew them... I only knew of them. I could not tell you much about them except that Suzy liked to swim and James like potato chips. Instead, I will fast forward several years and tell you about Joy-Joy... the girl who changed my life.
When I was 23 years old, I moved to Kelowna, B.C. for my first fulltime teaching job. I got the job about 4 days before I was supposed to start teaching and I frantically threw everything that I could fit in to my car and off I drove to my new life. I was an extremely niave little town girl and knew no one in Kelowna but I was so excited to be facting this new part of my life. Upon arriving in Kelowna, I stayed a couple of nights in a hotel while checking out "roommate wanted" advertisements. By the time, I started teaching, I was sort of settled in the place that I was going to live in. Our first day of work was with just the staff and I quickly got to know a few of the people.
Within days of working there, I heard the story of how one of the men on staff had lost his son just that past April. His son had Down syndrome and had died before his first birthday of heart complications. I didn't think much more of it until just around Christmas, he announced to everyone that they were going to be adopting another child and this one would also have Down syndrome. Eventually, some of the staff members put together a baby shower and we all congregated at their house. This is when I met little Joy. She was about the cutest little girl I had ever seen. My first thought was related to her radiating sunshine. As she was getting passed around all over the place, I didn't get to know her very well.
The next time I remember being around her was our year end party in June. We had it out at the beach and a bunch of the guys bought boats. Joy's mom and dad wanted to go out on the boat and I offered to watch their kids while they did. I ended up with just Joy as the other children went out with them. Joy was eating a banana and we had our first interaction. She reeled me in, hook, line and sinker!
That fall, I had to deal with something that involves someone else and is very private so I will not share the details here except to say that it threw me into a place of depression that I have never been in before. The people involved in this situation were well known to both me and the family of Joy. I was hundreds of miles from my family and it seemed that things progressed to the point that I turned to his family to be my suragate family in these times. And they welcomed me with open arms.
As I began to spend time with them, I got to know Joy much better. She was an imp of a girl who made me smile when nothing else in the world would. I would often watch her in my darkest times and be reminded that it was important to live in the moment and let things go. There were days that I would get out of bed only after thinking about this tiny little girl. It quickly became evident to me that I had much to learn from this little girl who many in society would deem as insignificant.
Once Joy was old enough to swim, I would head over there at least once a week and pack Joy in my car and off we would go to the swimming pool for a swim. Although for much of the week, I was in a state of depression, these times at the pool would heal and energize me and give me the power to keep moving through things.
A couple of years after having this family become my family in my heart, they adopted another child with Down syndrome - Christopher. He also very quickly moved in to my heart.
It was this same family that first suggested to me that I should adopt a child with Down syndrome. Its amazing how people move into your life at the moments that they are meant to. And its amazing how one tiny little girl had such an impact on the path of my life. Her name - Joy - is perfectly suited as that is what she brought to me in a time when I didn't know any other joy.
For some time now, I've been thinking that we might need one more child before our family is considered complete. I've been haunting the Alberta adoption profiles that are posted online and imagining some of these children in our home.
Before Christmas, I decided that I needed to explore this whole thing a bit more and went to meet with a social worker. We spent some time talking about my desire to adopt an older child (3-6 years old) and the impact that this may have on Mikey. The social worker explained the process to me and also talked about what type of child they would and would not place with me given that Mikey was already in the home. I left the meeting feeling secure that adopting a second child would not end up being harmful in anyway to Mikey. And with the hurdle of the impact it would have on Mikey behind me, I needed to move on to the other hurdles that were within me.
People often ask me about Mikey's adoption and I always feel ridiculous saying to them that the process just sort of happened around me. Really though, at each step, I just kept moving forward thinking that we would see where it went and if it went somewhere great and if not then it wasn't meant to be. Don't get me wrong, I would have been disappointed but it just seemed like I was taking each successive step not 100% convinced that it would happen. I remember two days before I was going to fly out to get Mikey still thinking along the same lines... although at that point I also spent moments being completely excited and other moments wondering what on earth I had done! Its funny now as I see some of the process repeating itself. When I handed over my application today I was thinking that we would just do this and see where it all led to.
Today, I started testing out saying the words to other people. I was at teacher's convention and told a couple of people that I was considering this and the response was great. I find it funny the complete confidence that others have in my ability to do this. Do they not know that there are moments right now where I am just barely hanging on? Do they not know of all the mistakes I've made as Mikey's mommy through the years? And then I'm back to wondering what on earth I'm doing.
Yet... its there again... something inside me just taking over and moving forward despite the fact that the rational brain in me is talking. And then I look at the things in my life that have been guided by that something inside me (or probably more accurately Something outside me) and figure that perhaps it is again time to just let go and throw myself over the next cliff.
And I always said I would never bungie-jump!
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