This is my last Boy Mom post. Five years I’ve been telling these stories. Stories of adoption, faith and family. Stories of five boys,...

The dragonflies were out yesterday afternoon when we returned from the airport. Somehow this seemed symbolic. My boys taking flight all over the globe. We don’t even have a kid in the state. Kyle’s comment at dinner – and his tone (shhh, don’t tell the guys) was noticeably giddy. “Do you worry?” Friends ask, thinking about international travel, news reports about a less-than-safe country. And we are aware. But we’ve been here and done this, been doing it now for a handful of

Dear Jimmy, You are amazing. An Anomaly. Dad said so just the other day, talking to someone at a wedding. Four and a half years you’ve been here in our country. Four and a half years you’ve been here in our home. A fraction of a lifetime. But a lifetime of change. You were shorter than Ingri the first time we met you. We have pictures to prove it. Ingri who stands about five foot nothing. That was Camp of Dreams, and for the next thirteen months I’d dream nonstop of Two Skinn

How are you doing with all of this? Everyone asks and I hardly know what to say. I’m not sure, to be honest. Years ago, when the boys were young, we did this thing at the Science Museum. It was a contest to see who could most effectively think about nothing. I can’t really remember the specifics now, except two opponents went head-to-head, electrodes measuring brain activity, and the one who could most effectively shut it off came away the winner. And it was Grant. Every time

Luke Anderson blesses his mom with a Mother’s Day post. Mom likes stories. Of course, you don’t need me to tell you that; you read her...

I’ve been CLEANING. Not so much spring cleaning, as season-of-life-cleaning. This move thing is getting real, twenty-three years of accumulation, and I’ve never been accused of being a hoarder, but still. The weird thing is how much I enjoy it. Reminiscing and purging somehow add up to real satisfaction for this mom turning Nana. A couple of weeks back it was the school stuff in the kitchen cabinet. Lately where Jimmy’s been tucking his half-used notebooks, and I’ve had a sta

A few nights ago Kyle and I watched the movie Instant Family. It was Felipe’s idea. He’d watched it in the theater with Marcella, and he’d told us then, you’d like this one. And then, again, at the Village retreat, back in January. Adoptive moms chatting around a ginormous dining room table at the Linden Hills Mansion, and they’d said it, too. You should see it. And so finally, this week, we did.* We were talking about it still on Sunday. Kyle and I, sitting by a sunny window

Earlier this week I ran across something I wrote in the fall of 2014. Just weeks away from our trip to Colombia, still waiting, still wondering – if and when and how we would ever become a family. It was Spiritual Emphasis Week at Legacy, Del Tackett, the chapel speaker. Tackett is known for his Truth Project, which is why this particular message surprised me. I remember it well. How he spoke that day, of shalom. Less than a year before it had been Mike’s shalom, and Barb’s –

(Photo credit to Kiana Grant Photography) We’re back in the Jeep, heading home, six of us in close quarters. It’s two days past our...

The boy is on the road, heading due west. Like a pioneer. Good-bye Iowa, and if all goes as planned, home-sweet-home Colorado by nightfall. Home as in this is where he plans to live for the next leg of the journey, along with his new bride. Actual address still TBD. We’re all in the final countdown. Twelve days until Christmas, another week until wedding. And I’ve been making my lists and checking them twice all week long. (Mom-of-the-groom dress and accessories – check. Midn

I’m a bit obsessed with Ben Rector’s newest album. Not since Crowder’s A Collision, released in 2005, have I willingly listened to the same set of songs again and again without getting tired. And I don’t know what it is… Or maybe I do. I think I listened to it first with Nils during our drive to Des Moines to see Miss Maisy. Magic was released the week she was born, and I do remember Kyle asking me if I’d heard the title song. We were feeling the magic for sure, just thinking

Tuesday was a hard day. Monday I endured bravely the driving away and the change of the seasons. But I still get to enjoy a month of summer. Soccer practice starting this week for Jimmy and school starting Monday, but I’m defiant, hanging on tight to the season I love. It’s a three-hour evening practice, Kyle and me in an empty house, so we go to the lake, and I say it again. One more month before summer ends. But the next morning is hard and I’m not sure why, with a million

You’d think I’d be used to it by now. This packing up and moving out and saying good-bye. It’s the same thing every fall, and summers, too, for that matter. But no. Every change of season everything changes one more time and I’m never quite ready. This time it’s double-whammy. Last week it was Luke packing a trailer once-and-for-all, and today it’s Nils setting out on the same stretch of highway. His Dad and I circle the boy on a too-hot driveway to bless and pray. He’s got o

It was just three of us sitting at the fire Wednesday night. Luke’s friends on their way back to the city, and parents savoring a few more minutes with an adulting boy. Clouds and mist concealed the setting sun, but not the evening glow of dusk over water. My favorite hour at the lake. Luke’s lanky frame straddled an old bench, intended for the dock, long left to rust in the lakeside brush. And it’s from there he asked his cheeky question. The one about moms and is there some

We’re living a love story. Me and my family. And I’m not just talking about Luke and Ali, although there’s no doubt about the boy’s smitten. Yesterday he’s on his way home from Colorado, seven buddies in one car and I didn’t even ask the question about how many seatbelts for all that driving. I called him in route to ask about plans and an ETA. He talks about friends and fun and coming back home, and then he says it. It was such a sad morning. I know what he means. I hate goo

It was the name of the new playlist Nils created and shared with our family, and it was me who asked it. Why GOAT? I have a history with this particular animal, and I wondered what it could possibly have to do with the worship songs I was enjoying. He explained in a text-message, eye-roll emoji. AH, I see… Greatest Of All Time. (Explanation given for any others not cool enough to understand, which most likely includes the Great-Grandmas reading this blog.) It was just a week

It’s a GIRL!!!! Our little Maisy Rae, born last week, and what does this mean for a boy-mom Grandma?!! Nana, that is. And I’m telling you what. Since last Wednesday, I’m seeing them all over the place. At the craft store, and at Target, and there on the street. Pigtails wagging, and non-stop chatter, holding hands. Little girls with their grandmas are EVERYWHERE. Like how you get a new car and then everyone has one – but a million times better. This new-grandma thing. And did

Love is the silver bullet. I said it without even thinking. Or thinking out loud more like. Church staff gathered around tables, talking about outreach and the gospel, and how it’s not one-size-fits all, and yet. It is. Sort of. Isn’t it? One size, or one thing needed, and it’s Jesus who said it. Love. Last summer Luke came home from working at camp and you could see it written all over his face. How he’d met this girl, and after all those years of him trying to explain what

Us. It took me a while to tune into the show everyone else had been talking about. Last fall we even named a sermon series after it at church, and I had no idea at the time, who us was or why it mattered. But finally now I’m in the know. Doing the opposite of binge-watching, which is to say every few weeks I watch another This is Us episode, just enough to be able to talk about Kevin, Kate, and Randall as if they’re real life people. The fact is, I struggle to prioritize TV d

There are believers in Minnesota. No doubt, there’s no other explanation than this. They’re calling it the Minneapolis Miracle – the purple play that couldn’t possibly have happened. But it did. I am a fan of fairytales. I am just enough child with just enough imagination to believe in happily-ever-after. Last weekend there were twenty-five or so of us adoptive moms at the Linden Hill Mansion. Pretending freedom and feeling pampered, sharing our lives and our stories. You had