Being a Bandaid

Wow! I'm borrowing the following from someone who borrowed it from another adoptive parent's blog:
"It is easy to sink into the bliss of being an adoptive parent - but it is important to always remember that the bliss comes at great expense - often the heartbreak of a birth parent left without options, or the hopelessness of a child's prospects in their broken birth country, or the death-knell of an incurable disease, or the ramifications of poverty on a small life.

Adoption is not the answer - it is a band-aid and it is absolutely necessary, but something needs to be done about the problems - poverty, disease, war, racism, economic disparity - that leave children in this chasm.

It is imperative that those of us who walk down this road vow to always engage ourselves in solving the bigger problems - the very problems that brought our children home to us. Find an organization that is addressing these problems and send your money, give your time, advocate on their behalf."

It's so easy to feel that "I'm doing my part" by just fixing the next meal and comforting the next owie and being the parent that Leon and Aliou need for the rest of my life. Really that feels all consuming at times! But I love a challenge like this to look beyond my little world to see how I might keep trying to make a difference at the root of the problems that brought them to us. My main calling is to be a band-aid but I don't want to limit myself and my family to only that.

Pictures!

For some reason I can no longer put captions under each picture. My Blogger adviser isn't due for a visit until mid-summer so I'll comment on all the pictures down here.

First is our Little Flowers/Blue Knights Clubs end of year BBQ. Can you find the 5 Tippett kids in the picture?

From there we usually go to Costco. It's an hour from home so we do big shopping and Trader Joes shopping and the Catholic store shopping, etc. All things we don't have at home. Here we are shopping with only 5 kids. Yes they look lively but they were very good shoppers that day. They are getting better all the time!

Next is a top secret card-making session headed by Anna Mae for Gianna's First Holy Communion tomorrow. God willing I'll have some lovely photos of that to share soon.

And I just had to share the picture of my favorite book-end given to me by my mother-in-law. It is symbolic of my recent decluttering efforts since I usually have been unable to use book ends because the book shelves are usually too stuffed. Ahhh how refreshing is open space - on the bookshelf and everywhere!!

36 weeks

I had grand plans to document this pregnancy here with weekly photos. Now here I am with less than 4 weeks until my due date. I hope you can see what I've been doing with my free time instead of blogging. Here I stand with my largest load yet ready to be donated to St. Vincent de Paul on our trip out of town to our Little Flowers/Blue Knights clubs. I just love the recreational decluttering that comes with the last 5 or 6 months of pregnancy. I was hoping that adoption would trigger the same thing in me but it didn't. So with our current baby already 3 1/2 and with 7 children ages 13 and under in the house - well this intense nesting was LONG over due.

I've been wanting to read It's All Too Much but I've been too busy aggressively purging to read a book about it. And though I love systems and plans I've found that other peoples systems and plans only "work" for while and are harder to follow through with. I better save that book for the next clutter slump and make the most of this passionate nesting while I can.