I had lunch on Monday with a couple of ladies who have had a big impact at CSC, especially at our school.  Shari Reasoner has served as a consultant to the school as a volunteer and staff member for years, and Amy Luck is a preschool teacher who was there the first year the school got off the ground.  They are both licensed educators, and I just learned they both have a thing about red pens.  Get this; they're against using them.

What sort of new fangled thinking is this?  Teachers who don't use red pens?  I thought red pens were like desks, apples and summers off--fundamentals of the teaching profession.  As I talked to them I felt convicted about something...I'm a red pen parent.  Honestly, we have our kids read for 20-30 minutes a day and write three sentences about what they read.  I correct them with a red pen.  Not only that, but I'm kind of a jerk about grading when I'm the one to do it.  They are amped when they happen to get an 'A'.  It doesn't happen a ton.

This reminds me of a study I heard of on children succeeding differently in different income levels.  Research was done on parents who were on welfare and parents who had professional jobs.  The biggest difference they found was in language.  The kids who grew up in professional households heard 20 million more words by the time they were three.  Not only that, but those kids had heard 500,000 words of encouragement and 80,000 words of discouragement.  The kids who grew up on welfare had heard 80,000 words of encouragement and 200,000 words of discouragement.  That's a significant difference.

This is a major point of conviction for me.  My gut response is to try to get my kids to do better, to correct what they did wrong.  When I see any report card (including my own) I give first attention to the grades that need to come up.  I for one need to be deliberate: be one of the parents who encourages 6 times for every correction.  For starters, next time it's my turn to go over the kids' sentences I'll be getting out a nice black pen.

It's school conference time here in Minnesota.  Here in Minnesota where it has snowed twice already in mid-October.  For those not from around here that is early even by our standards.  I was a little bitter about it when the snow fell on October 10th, but I've since adjusted my perspective.  I'll just plan to be in Cebu during January and February.

A pretty cool thing happened in Raymund's parent-teacher conference.  I was talking to his teacher about all the standard progress things, when we began to discuss a "floating" teacher who helps drill down on specific things with Raymund and other kids.  I asked if she was connected with the ELL program (English Language Learner).  Raymund's teacher looked at me kind of perplexed and told me it was standard for all the kids to do this.  Then she asked, "was Raymund in ELL?"

That was the best question I've gotten at any conference.  Raymund has lived in the U.S. since July 27, 2007.  The language he learned in his childhood was Cebuano.  In fact, when he sees something startling or funny he'll still point and say "A LA" loudly in classic Filipino fashion.  But he has become quite an English speaker.  Last week he corrected an older sibling on their incorrect usage of the past tense.  He actually said "past tense" and Theresa and I about fell out of our chairs.

It's cool to see the progress their making.  It's not fast, or always easy, but it comes.  It's coming for all of them.  We do this thing around the house now where I ask them to think of taking "10 Extra Seconds."  It's an idea that if they're in a room, and something is messy or out of place, they take the 10 extra seconds to make it right regardless of whether or not they did it.  They will announce their acts of "10 Extra Seconds" to me when I come home.  To think these are the same kids who couldn't close a screen door behind them, or understand complete sentences, when they got here.  I've seen plenty of biological kids blow it on the screen door thing...and it's pretty cool to see how far our kids have come.

This is a big day at the Children's Shelter of Cebu--one we will not soon forget.  Today we get to watch the airing of the Oprah Winfrey show that included our own Sandy Swanson.  Suddenly the Sandy who left a Bible camp to go to Cebu and work at an upstart orphanage, who has fielded countless questions from prospective adoptive parents, and has written hundreds of worker schedules in our homes, will have a tag we've seen on lots of things: "as seen on Oprah."  And CSC will have been seen there too.

The best part about today is that it doesn't change anything.  It doesn't change the interactions Sandy is having with the kids we've committed to give our best to.  It certainly doesn't change Sandy...I think back to waking her up (remember Cebu is 13 hours ahead of Minnesota and Chicago) back when we got the call from one Oprah's producers and encouraging her to go on the show.  We're not dealing with a spotlight seeker here.  It doesn't change our work in Cebu either.  We are CSC.  We are about giving every child a chance at a family, and providing a loving home until an adoptive family can.  We could try to explain to the kids at the shelter that millions of people will see Auntie Sandy on TV today, but they won't get it.  They'll just get that they're finally in a place where they don't have to worry about their food or safety anymore.

Today would have been a big day without a TV show.  Today we have a great looking, professional new website.  We got it done just in the nick of time!  I say "we" loosely.  The truth is that the "we" really boils down to one volunteer, Chris, who poured hours upon hours into this.  It's quite a combination to have someone who has both expertise and the heart to give it away.

Expertise and the heart to give it away.  I hope that's what CSC is always about.

I've visited my blog several times lately trying to decide what to write.  I've gotten stuck every time.  The thing is, my mom passed away three weeks ago yesterday.  She was incredible, and I can't begin to tell you how much I miss her.

I hadn't actually planned to write a blog about any of it.  It seemed so trite.  I just felt like Mom deserved so much more than some blog entry.  I finally changed my mind.  For one, I don't think I can write about anything else (talk about things that feel trite) unless I write something about her here.  It won't be a writing I do for healing (that's what journals are for), but she deserves at least this.  My mom loved this blog--she was hands down its biggest fan.  She honestly printed entries and saved them so we could always go back and look at them.  She loved the news I was sharing with people about the kids, and she told me all the time how she loved to read my writing.  In my life I have never wondered one time if my mom was proud of me...I have always known.  I became who I am because of who she was--including a man of faith.  She loved that about me more than anything.

Her love for our kids went way beyond this blog.  When you adopt older kids one of the early questions an expert will ask you is: "how does your extended family feel about the adoption?"  There was never any doubt about where she stood on us adopting: she stood with us no matter what might come, and she was thrilled for us.  She and Dad bought us a basketball hoop that I turned into a court in our driveway, and then went ahead and bought a hoop for them--the kids needed to have fun at their house too!

I could go on and on with stories about her.  How in our house you basically got a day and a half for your birthday, she would sit us on her lap and rock us in her chair the night before saying "this is the last time I get to rock my X year old".  She actually did this when I was in college, ignoring my argument that I would crush her--I remember how much we laughed about it, and I'm reminded how safe I always felt with her--even as a 'tough' college kid.  The day after our birthday we got to eat cake for breakfast, because homemade cake spoiled too quickly.

I have this picture in my mind, its been there since the day I got the worst phone call in my life.  It's an image of three little birds nestled under their mother's wing.  There is a storm around them, but the little birds are oblivious to it.  All they know is that they are safe.  My mom did not have an easy upbringing, but she somehow found strength in herself in it, and vowed to do things much differently when she had a family of her own.  In the history of the world I don't know if anyone's ever done a 180 like she did.  I know I thanked her for that at least once...I could have told her every day.

The English language has a cruel characteristic.  When we speak and write we modify verbs to indicate whether they are past, present or future.  Talking about my mom in the past tense feels awful.  But there is at least one statement I can make without having to make any verb changes.  Mom, you are my hero.  You always have been.  That doesn't have to change, that doesn't have to be quarantined to the past tense.  I hope I told her that.  I am my mom's son.  You can't separate her from me any more than you can take away my skin or my bones.  The hole in my heart won't ever go away, and I don't want it to, but healing will come around it and I will grow, and I will keep putting one foot in front of the other.  And the God who went to a cross for both our sakes will hold my life in his hands, just as He has hers.  And me knowing that is the greatest legacy she could give.

I hope there's a rocking chair for us in heaven, but for now I'll soar as high as I can here on earth.  I love you Mom.  I always will.

We have this term around CSC that is definitely not a word: "mailout."  Spell-check catches it every time.  It's not as bad as Minnesotans calling the thawing of something "dethaw," but it's still bad grammar.  Anyway, the mailout is the event where we bring all our newsletters, invitations or fundraising letters together with a bunch of volunteers and they get it ready for immediate dropoff at the post office.

The volunteers who work our mailouts are awesome.  I'm not going to guess the average age, but someone in their 50's would definitely be a young'un with this crew.  In fact, when we did our volunteer appreciation event last fall we did this thing where I asked for everyone's birthday and promised they didn't have to disclose the birth year.  I was quickly informed that there was no need to be discreet because "we're at the age that we like saying how old we are again."  I love it.

We take a break at 10 o'clock on mailout morning that is announced by Millie, the official timekeeper and maybe the sweetest person I've ever met.  She always has a hug to deliver to Theresa and a word of encouragement.  She's hard core about the break though.  She announces it every 10 minutes until it comes (sometimes several times in the last 10 minutes) and keeps everyone buzzing and laughing.  Then we always get some incredible treat that Brenda in our office has worked up.

It was good to be with them.  This newsletter got botched up in the final stages, and eventually ended up causing me to completely rehash the schedule we use and the creation of a proofing checklist.  After all of that though, it's off now.  3,000 people will receive it.  Last year over 1,500 people gave to CSC.  How many places can claim that many people giving in comparison to their mailing list?  Not many.  We've got some amazing people taking part in CSC...including a group of people who have no qualms about sharing their age.

Amy's home on a well-deserved furlough, and just came to see us in Cambridge.  Our missionaries always deserve their furlough year, but usually we have a 3-years-in-the-field, 1-year-back-in-the-States cycle.  Amy was in the field for 6 years!  She had some breaks in there, but nothing like what she deserved after working that kind of schedule that long.

I like having missionaries on furlough.  They're likable people who come with lots of stories from Cebu, and their schedule helps a guy with a memory like mine keep track of when things happened.  I find myself remembering what year something happened by remembering who was on furlough then.  The older I get the handier this becomes!

I promised Amy I'd tell my new shoes story.  I got new shoes yesterday and had an old can of that water-repellent stuff you can spray on them.  Since I was concerned about the smell I decided to bring them down into the utility room and spray them there.  A more thoughtful person might have brought them outside.  Mary Joy was chatting with me while I gave them a good dousing out of the perfectly usable, but leaky can.  It was getting to the end of the night, and Mark had gotten in the shower around this time.  So, I was spraying when the water heater started up.  Wow.  The whole memory unfolds slowly in my mind so I can remember in some detail a 3 to 4 square foot space igniting in flames which ran up my arm (without injury), of course lit up the shoes and even caused a flame to sit on the outside of the spray can.  All I could hear was the sound of me whacking things with the shoe box and Joy screaming for Mom to come downstairs.  It was a pretty exciting 9 seconds.  A pretty exciting 9 seconds you might want to avoid.  Learn a lesson from me and take the shoes outside, or just don't be a sucker and skip buying the stuff in the first place.

Oh, and don't worry, the shoes made it out fine.

I just got word from a friend that might interest you other adoptive parents out there.  There is a conference in Franklin, TN on October 2 & 3 called Together for Adoption.  I've looked over the website, and am personally really interested in going.  Maybe Theresa and I will be able to "grandparent-out" the kids and head down for it.  You should come with us!  I'll admit that I don't know much about the organization, but the friend who recommended it is a discerning, well-connected pastor and I trust his judgment.

The conference itself is only $55 for a couple.  That's obviously a great deal.  The only downside for us Minnesotans is the flight costs are a bit high as I look today ($316 on Expedia, $315 on Southwest).  But, flights to Chattanooga are better at $268 and it's only a 2hr 20min drive up to Franklin from there.  Let me know if you plan on going, it'd be fun to have a CSC contingent!

Twice today I've heard a peculiar statement.  A sort of half-statement that sits empty and unfulfilled.  In neither case has it been directed at me, so I'm responding to it as an outside observer.  The statement?  "You are in my thoughts."  You are in my thoughts?  Hmm.  That's kind of nice I guess.  You haven't forgotten this other person, you are perhaps worried for them or feel a sense of empathy for their situation.

For me though, that doesn't hold a candle to "you are in my thoughts and prayers."  Now we're talking.  You are not only remembering me, but bringing me and my situation before the great God of Israel, the Lord of all the universe?  Now that's cool!  That brings me peace and hope and causes my heart to skip a beat.  That statement fulfills my desire for relationship with another person, and with my Creator.

The "secularization" of the statement leaves it deprived of all its bounty and wonder, and left bland and barely worth saying.  I don't mind being remembered one bit, but being remembered in prayer?  I'll take that option any day.

It's banquet week!  It's pretty unusual that I would pop in to make a blog entry this week.  It's typically the craziest week of my year.  I'm not sure why, but this year is not as harried as usual (yet anyway).  I actually ironed a shirt this morning to wear Saturday.  In my life I've never been that in front of an ironing job.  Perhaps I've finally got some things figured out in year five.  Or, shoot, maybe I just delegated more.  Hope someone else isn't feeling new pain on my account.

A couple of weeks ago I talked with a Licensed Social Worker from here in the Twin Cities named Peggy Thomsen.  Recognizing that sometimes kids have a little trouble adjusting to a big CSC reunion, she had some good advice.  I heard somewhere that it takes 7 years for an older-adopted child to fully bond in their new family.  That's a long time, but not implausable and I for one need to be mindful of doing things that will help foster that, especially during a big weekend like the one coming up.  It's got to be a mind-blow for these kids to have all these awesome reunions, but it's probably good to remember there will be higher emotions and some preparation isn't a bad idea.  Here are a few thoughts from Peggy that you might like to ponder, perhaps they'll help families avoid a "crash" when they get home as well:

"Attachment requires that children experience and learn over time to trust that their own parents are the primary source of warmth, comfort, safety, value, and joy.  We are mutually supportive of each parent-child connection when we:

1. Do not pick up or hug children besides our own. It is friendly, fine, and healthy to gently avoid a hug, smile, and let the child from a different family know, 'It is so good to see you! Give me a high-five and save your hugs for mom and dad.'
2. Do not offer food or drink or any type of gift or trinket to any child but your own.
3. If a child needs help with anything direct the child or teenager back to mom or dad saying something like, 'Your mom can help dish up your lunch (or has your lunch ticket)' or, 'Let’s go find your dad so he can put a band-aid on that for you'.  'I think your mom has the towels for your family.'
4. If you want the child to participate in any activity, turn back to the parent to ask permission (for any age child). 'Can Sue go into the deep end of the pool with us for a little while?' or 'You will need to ask your mom if you want to make a phone call.'

Love abounds for these children in our greater CSC family.  It is in a greater spirit of love that we actively show all our children these boundaries and demonstrate for them as a community that their own parents can be trusted to provide for their needs."

It's been a couple years now since Theresa and I were in the "waiting for our kids" mode.  Looking back now I have to laugh about what seemed important then.  The rooms had to be painted, somehow we needed to come up with clothes, beds and bikes for all of them without knowing sizes or having them there to know what they liked.  The things we concerned ourselves with were important, but I would have prepared differently if we had it to do over again.

I would have picked a good devotional for us to do together each day (it would have been Josh McDowell's Family Devotions).  We should have toyed with some new recipes and come up with 7 more solid meals that we liked and could count on when we had the kids here.  A regular meal rotation took a long time to get to!  Of course, them thinking normal American foods were normal took a matter of months too.  The other big thing is that I wish I would have thought more about discipline and consequences.

The weirdest surprise I've had in parenting is that I have a hard time coming up with good consequences.  You have to be creative to land on something appropriate and that will actually prompt a change.  Theresa is much better at this, she'll come up with consequences that relate to the crime so they are reminded again what they did wrong while they're serving the time.  She should teach courses on this!  If it were up to me I'd probably just implement the same consequences for everything.  They'd be scooping dog poop for every infraction.

Lately the challenge has been lying.  The other day I had a glass of milk.  The milk was almost gone, but I didn't have time to replace it.  I knew the next child to have their milk was going to have to go to the garage and get a new jug in order to have their required morning glass of milk too.  It led to a conversation that included three bold-faced "yes I had my milk" lies.  Our kids have made bigger mistakes, but I can't remember being this disappointed.  I actually had to walk away from the conversation to remind myself not to take it personally and to think about what in the world the consequences should be for this.  Eventually I came up with something, but it wasn't until the next day that the real consequences were enacted at supper time.  I told the child in question they had to have their milk.  They insisted they drank it in the morning...repeatedly.  It eventually led to a declaration like "I promise I'm telling you the truth this time."  And that's when the real consequence and the real lesson came clear.  Of course I told them that I simply couldn't believe them because they'd broken my trust just the day before.  That visibly hit home.  I could see sadness on this face that dad couldn't trust them.

I wish it always worked out that way.  Sometimes I'll just have to settle for a poop-free lawn.

I'm currently taking a class called Transforming Public Policy which has a reputation for being the most challenging in my public affairs degree program.  So far the reputation has been deserved.  I spent 5 1/2 hours today with my project team.  We haven't met for less than 3 hours a week (oh of course that's on top of class) since the semester started.  There's just no way around it.  The policy issue we have to impact is just too big to divvy up tasks and throw together at semester's end.  On top of that I've been the TA for a grant writing class the past couple of Saturdays.  Not hard labor, but I've just been gone from home too much.

Theresa and I have learned that with our family if something in our pattern changes, we see some fallout coming down the line.  For instance, if one of us is out of town the kids are usually really great about stepping up in the absence of one of their parents.  But, a day or so after that parent comes home, we'll notice a handful of behavior things come up at once.  Or, when we get together with old friends from CSC the kid(s) of ours who saw a close friend or one who was close in age might struggle for a day or two afterward.  It's almost like the nostalgia of CSC comes back to them and we go through a short readjustment to family life after the reunion has ended.

Me spending so much time away from home had a similar effect this weekend.  Behavior things came up while I was gone, and when I got back home, that I would have guessed we were past.  Nothing devastating, but a lot of little things added together.  Some of it seemed to be based on the pattern change of dad being gone so much.

So we convened a family meeting to talk about it.  It's sounds so prescribed, but I wish we did this more than we do.  One of the things we talked about was an analogy between our family and a sailboat.  We took a picture of a speedboat and a sailboat and talked about how the two were different.  The kids really ran with it.  They figured that the sailboat was harder to learn how to use, was slower and could go farther.  We came to the exact point Theresa and I wanted to make.  A family is a little like that sailboat.  It's not easy.  Everyone has a job to do that the others are depending on, and they have to do it well.  It takes commitment and it takes work.  But, when everyone can trust and be trusted you've got quite an amazing thing.  That sailboat can go forever with just a little bit of wind.  For Mary Joy that means a dad to walk her down the aisle, if they have kids it means a grandma and grandpa to call for free babysitting, for all of them it means having parents and siblings to call on for years to come.  And, it means Theresa and I have had unmatchable meaning added to our lives because we get to do all those things with them too.

The speedboat is easy, but it just wasn't meant for the long haul.  We're fully invested in the hard work, risk and reward of our sailboat.

Setting: the Buley minivan heading home from church.

Dad: So, Mark what did you guys learn today?

Mark: We learned about patience.

--small talk omitted--

Dad: So, who's one person you can show more patience to?

Mark: Um, probably Raymund.

Mom: That's a great idea!  So, Raymund what what did you learn about patience?

Raymund:  Um...well...(a few moments pass).

Mark:  OH COME ON RAYMUND!!

You can't make it up.  Have a good week.