Rottweilers.

Our neighbors have 3 dogs.  2 are Rotts.  I have nothing against big dogs.  However, these dogs have a mean personality.  They seem to be inside dogs except for when they need to be out.  And when they are out, they are like 2 loose cannons.  They go after anything that moves.  And have I mentioned they aren’t friendly dogs?

We arrived home and I noticed they were out.  (Unleashed and in a yard that is not fenced.)  I told the boys we had to be quiet and quick to get out of the car and into the gate.  Our garage sits right on the property line and we park on the other side of it.  It’s just a few feet to the gate entrance to the back yard.  But they still heard us.

Big Kid was in the gate and I was leaning in the car to get Little Guy out of his car seat when I heard them coming at us.  We just jumped in the car and slammed the door shut.  Their owner screamed at them to get back over there, and they shortly returned.  We made it in the house just fine.

The next day I made a little visit to animal control and explained what happened.  A few hours later they were at the neighbor’s house.  Come to find out, the dogs don’t even have their shots.

Dogs that are mean, go after people, and don’t stay in their yard don’t even have shots.  So they have a month to get the dogs up to speed on shots and generally straighten up their act.  Meanwhile, I’m left thinking that we shouldn’t be afraid to be outside our gate or in our front (ungated) yard, yet here we are.

Neighbors aren’t very happy with us, and Darling Husband wonders if I should have said something to them first.  I say no, because they know that their lovely dogs are a problem.  Is it my fault they have a month to catch up on shots and clean the junk up that spills out of their yard?

Not at all.

The Daddy:  We should give him an allowance.

Me:  Yes, we should.  Chores are a part of being in a family, so it shouldn’t be chore based.

The Daddy:  Agreed.  How about $4 a week?

Me:  Are you crazy?  How about $1 a week?

So it started.  Every Saturday night (or Sunday morning, if we forget), we sit down and lay out 10 dimes and 3 envelopes on the table.  The first dime (and sometimes 2, if he chooses) gets set aside to take to church the next morning with him as part of his offering.  We’ve explained, and he can tell you, that our money is really God’s money and we are to give back the first 10%.  Next, 3 dimes go into the savings envelope.    That leaves 50 or 60 cents, depending on if he takes 1 or 2 dimes to church.  He then chooses how much of the remainder goes into the other envelopes marked “spending money” and “give to others”.  9 times out of 10, more goes into the giving envelope than the spending.  (That means it takes him a LONG TIME to save up $3 to get a plastic animal from the toy bin at the store!)

I’ve learned much from this wise son.  He doesn’t hesitate to give back to God.  Hopefully we are teaching him to save wisely.  The “give to others” envelope was HIS idea, not ours.  He has a heart for others  and wants to make sure people have enough food to eat and healthy water to drink.  Their needs naturally (um, most of the time) come above his wants.  He knows that we will provide all he needs.  I’ve told him before that his willingness to freely give what little he gets is a special gift from God.  Nestled deep inside the exuberance that is a 4 year old is a son whose heart is unpolluted by the world, who can follow so naturally, like a child.

Like it should be.

I make our own granola.

I make  our own laundry soap.

I occasionally make bread (I’m not that good at it).

I buy organic, free range, hormone and steroid free poultry.

I cloth diapered for quite a while.

I make baked apple chips for a crunchy snack.

I’m trying to find free trade chocolate locally.

The hair care stuff for the boys is the natural stuff.

Off the grid doesn’t sound so bad some days (says she who must have the wonders of the Interweb daily).

A decade ago, I thought “those people” were a little crazy.  Now I’m one of them.  And perhaps the icing on the Hippie Cake… next year I become a homeschooling mom.

I’ve known about the dire conditions in the Horn of Africa (generally, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia) for quite some time.  Honestly, I tend to have an ostrich approach to anything difficult to hear.  LALALALA  I don’t want to hear this because it is personal for me.  It is painful.

I was reading this today about the desperation.  Here, I’ll summarize so you don’t have to click.  The crisis situation there affects 13 million people.  That’s more than the Haitian earthquake and the Indonesian tsunami together.  The worst drought in 60 years.  The worst famine in 20.  Constant wars and fighting governments.  1 child dies every six minutes in Somalia.  USAID’s program says that $10 can feed a child for 10 days.  (And that’s just 1 of numerous ways to do something.)

We did not adopt Big Kid from Ethiopia to save him.  To rescue him.  We adopted him because we wanted a child.  And because there was no doubt the time was right and that we were meant for him.  (Slippery slope side note:  I am NOT saying that the God who claims us as His meant for, or intended for, either his birthfamily or him to go through the pain and trauma of losing a child/losing a family.  Not at all.  Rather, the God who knows every hair on our heads provided a family for a babe, and a babe for a family.  Never in a million years would I be so…selfish to believe that a family was separated just so I could be a parent.  Heavens no.)

Tonight, for the first time in a while, I let my mind go there.  How the cowboy-loving, dragon fighting, super hero rescuer could have been the one with the distended belly, the sunken eyes, the limbs that are all bone.  Listless with flies buzzing around, but too weak to bat at them.  Perhaps the only remaining living child of a mother.  His part of Ethiopia is in a severely affected area.

I know that throwing a pile of cash to other countries isn’t the answer.  There is no one easy fix.  There is corruption.  But I do know this.  I spent $5 on a coffee today.  I did it twice last week.  We pay for Netflix.  Even though I suck in my breath a little at the price, I buy the organic, farm raised, hormone free chicken at the store.  Even though I raise kids and wash the clothes, I have my own little stash of mad money.  My husband works hard to provide and we work to keep our debt low.  (No car payments, no student loans, small credit card and the mortgage, that’s it!)  I can choose what food to buy, not if I buy food.

I am spoiled.

They aren’t even surviving.

It’s November.  That means any and every charity will soon be knocking on our doors, calling our phones, and setting up donation buckets at the store.  Please don’t just pass them by.  Throw some change in the Salvation Army bucket.  Buy a couple extra cans for the food bank near you.

And while you’re doing that, remember the approx. 13 million people in East Africa affected by famine, drought, and war.  World Vision is there.  Compassion International is there.  Charity Water is there.  Blood Water Mission is there.  Doctors Without Borders (the suppliers of PlumpyNut) is there.  Most of you reading my piddly blog either have children from there yourselves or know family or friends who do.  Look at those kids and families and think of the kids and families a world away that so desperately need us.  And do something.  I am.  Will you?

We ended the night with Rio, pizza, and keeping the boys up later for the time change. We’ve found it is just easier to go cold turkey on the time change.)

(typing on an iPod is hard. And I am done thinking for the day!)

For the first time in sweet forever, a babysitter has been procured.  The instruction/emergency paper is filled out.  Leftovers prepared.  Jammies laid out.

Outfit planned.  There will be dinner and conversation.  And perhaps some early Christmas shopping.  For the first time in a long time, I’m going out (ALONE!) with my love.  And I am rather excited!

He has always been terrified of the movie Finding Nemo.  Scares the daylights out of him.  He says he is scared of it because he watched it as a baby in his Ethiopian orphanage.  We laughed it off at first, but he is insistent.  Insistent enough that now we think that he may be telling the truth.  (I didn’t take a picture of the baby room – WW, do you have one?  So I can’t recall if there was a TV or not.  I would think not, but I’m not sure.)

At any given moment he can start talking about an event that happened either yesterday or over 2 years ago.  It boggles my mind.  So I shouldn’t have been surprised last night as we were driving, but I was.  Out of nowhere, he said “Hey mom, when I was a baby I was scared to be in my bed alone.”

And, you all…he totally was.  Terrified.  He came home as an infant.  That fear of abandonment would haunt him for years.  It’s only been recently that his security seems to have deepened to a new level.  4 years after leaving Ethiopia and finding himself in the middle of Podunk, U S of A. with some funny looking white people.

He remembers.  While he has no conscious memory of his life before us, he remembers the feelings associated with multiple caregiver changes.  Fear.  Abandonment.  Bit by bit by bit, we see the gradual healing.  He is able to handle situations now that he couldn’t handle not too far in the past.  For him, sensory issues and attachment issues are directly related.  When one is off kilter, so is the other.  Both seem to be improving greatly recently.  He is able to regulate much easier now as long as he is well rested.

So far, 4 is delightful!

Recently, I’ve been thinking.  About me.  About how, after 4 years of mothering (and half of those years mothering 2), I finally feel like I can do this parenting thing.  It’s not completely overwhelming.  And some days, I even think I do a good job!  We read books, visit the library, play outside, explore the state parks, do the occasional craft (I hate crafts.  They can go take a flying leap off a cliff.  Along with Dora the Explorer), and just generally feel like I have this whole mom thing down.

Not that I’m tooting my own horn, I’m not.  Seriously.  But it took so long before I felt like I could do this.  I watched other moms and wondered how they managed to keep their act together.  We have clean clothes (not folded, just clean!), a clean kitchen, we try to keep the house kind of picked up, we read Bible stories and work on memorizing verses, we have family time and us grown-ups enjoy each other’s company after nearly 14 years.

It took lots of time and a few detours, but this life right here is the life I dreamed of nearly 20 years ago.  (Well…after I had to give up on my Marry A Rockstar dream…)

My kids frequently drive me a little bit crazy.  My house is usually not always picked up.  If you live here, you know to look for clean clothes in the Pile, not in your dresser.  I could go on, but the crew is up and awake and we must start the getting ready for preschool routine or we will be late.  But this busy life with these two little boys and one awesome husband…this is pretty great.