There’s a careful little gymnastics routine I have to perform on most days, in the dark before I leave the house. I quietly tiptoe out of my bedroom holding my running shoes, careful not to wake anyone. Blindly I try to recall the layout of my path—three steps toward the hall, 12 lunges to the living room, right turn, through the kitchen, through the garage, and then I’m outside. At least it should happen that way, but unfortunately it doesn’t. Because I have kids.
Instead it’s more like three steps to the hall, “Oh crap, what did I step on?” Followed by 12 lunges to the living room, reminding myself to make them high or I’ll step on that toy truck on the ground. Step painfully on an action figure, hop on one foot holding the injured foot, drop my shoes, bed over to pick them up, hit my head on the corner of the table, stand up and bang my knee on a chair that is inexplicably sitting in the middle of the kitchen, before finally stopping for fear of injuring myself further.
I then walk confidently into the garage toward the freedom of the early morning air only to stub my toe on a skateboard (thankful I didn’t step on it, Chevy Chase-style), before banging my hip on somebody’s broken bike and eventually making it outside.
The only thing that makes me feel better about this routine is that I know my husband, Ron, will have to go through the same obstacle course and suddenly it becomes kind of funny—because those things are a lot funnier when they aren’t happening to me.
Somebody I know posted online a picture of a messy room with the words, “Having kids is like constantly having to clean up after a party you weren’t invited to attend.” In an Internet full of half-truths, uninformed opinions, and outright lies, this little gem was a beacon of truth.
So many days we perform the same repetitive ritual of tripping over the hazards to make it out the door to provide for our children, who then converge on us like a flock of baby birds, chirping for food, money, or permission to go out with their friends, or all of these things at once. We divvy these things out as we come in the door, then drop onto a couch before tackling house cleaning and dinner prep, or Round 2 as we call it.
Surprisingly, this is what we live for. This, on Thanksgiving Day, is what we give thanks for. And for some reason, this, we often think, would be the perfect place for a young child in need of adoption.
A few weeks ago I was talking to Kelly White O’Neill, executive director of Angel’s Foster Care. She reminded me that a lot of little children have plenty to be thankful for this holiday because November is National Adoption Month.
Occasionally I think of one of the little girls we fostered years ago. One day as I puttered around the kitchen, the girl who was 7, going on 5, looked up from the picture she was drawing and called my name. She asked, “Did I tell you about the day I was tooken away by the lady?”
I tried to stay cool so she could open up. “No, why don’t you tell me about it.”
“I was at the kindergarten school. The lady came to ask me about our house and the things that happened there,” she said. I sat down at the table across from her. “What happened there?” I asked.
“I told her all about how there was no electricity. We had to light candles and we put them all over the house and we left the door open so we could see outside,” her voice began to rise with enthusiasm. “We ate dinner and then we played, and we played, and we played outside. Then we watched the stars and then we came inside. It was the funnest day of my life,” the little girl said.
My stomach hurt at that moment. I didn’t know what to feel. Then she went on.
“Then the next day someone came and talked to my mom. Then I went to school and I was takened away. I don’t know why I was takened away from my mom and dad,” she said.
“You still don’t know? No one ever told you?” I asked.
“No. I don’t know. But I know I am not the only one. A lot of kids get takened away. My friend at school was takened away and now she lives with her uncle.”
It’s interesting that White O’Neill discussed in our meeting how foster children don’t come from uncomplicated situations. “No child enters foster care from a rainbow, unicorn background,” she said.
That was true in our foster care situation. There was a lot more ugliness to her home life, but in this little girl’s eyes there was beauty in a bad situation. Kids can be resilient like that.
That was about seven years ago now, and the story still brings tears to my eyes. All kids need a place to giggle, play, make noise, make messes, and just be an innocent kid. White O’Neill said this year Angel’s turned away about 30 babies because they had no families to foster them, but happily about half of the foster babies that Angel’s took in were adopted. She said that most of the county’s foster children are from North Santa Barbara County, but North County also faces a shortage of foster families. Families who may not be perfect to the world, but who would be perfect to a child in need.
Sometimes we think we’re crazy for having kids.
Then we look at our messy house; the dishes in the sink, the skateboards all over the yard, the lights left on in the back bedrooms, and the snack wrappers the kids toss on the ground; the way we tend to huddle in the living room to watch movies together, or apart on our own devices. Either way there’s comfort knowing we are all close—and at peace.
This Thanksgiving I’m thankful for the mess, for the chaos, noise, the massive piles of laundry, the never-ending dishes. In short, I’m thankful, if at times, begrudgingly, for the abundance that we share.
Editor Shelly Cone has a weakness for ice cream, puppies, and kids. Email her at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 26 – Dec 3, 2015.
