Mundane Mothering......NOT!!!

As this day rolls around every year I'm always at a loss as how to embrace the sentiment! You see it was clearly designed, promoted, and merchandised for a 'traditional' mother child dyad and we are far from 'traditional'. Even generations back on both sides reflect a unique mother child dynamic so do I take what 'fits' and glorify it or do I try to remold it to fit? Every year is different and until bedtime tonight I can't even tell you how this day will evolve for the Mahoney's! It's very likely that the stories go generations further back than I am aware of but as of today our story starts in rural Ireland in the dark desperate days of the turn of the last century. Noble and moral even then, the O'Mahony family in County Kerry stood strong against the injustices still being inflicted by an English occupation on their less fortunate neighbors. As a reward for offering food and shelter to those targeted by greedy foreign landlords, the family was physically forced from their fertile valley farm and relocated high on a windswept mountainside with more bog than arable fields and with more daughters than sons it was an arduous existence. Precious little survives from those days in the early 1900's but one worn and tattered photograph is left to show the woman who would become my mother-in-law! So precious little of her seen! Just her face as it peers over her little sister's head from the back row. Hidden from view the rock hard muscular build of a girl doing man's work in an effort to keep her family alive! The hint of the hard work showing in the rocky rough field in which they stand proudly smiling for the 'Yank' relative who had come 'home' for a visit with the unheard of luxury of a camera!! How does one describe a woman who laboured like a man so that sister after sister could have the fare to sail off to America? The woman who so loved to read that a book could always be found tucked into the pocket of her pinafore but who never made it to high school because there was work to be done? The woman who then had to watch as seven of her eight children boarded a plane for America?!?!?

Patrick has so very few photos of his mother! They were poor and photography an expense far beyond their imagination. Most of the pictures are like these taken by his brother on a visit back with his children. She is always in a 'work bib' standing in the back row just like the earliest picture we have of her! One is tempted to use the rock of the family analogy but.....

this rock had a human heart at it's core. A human heart that must have lost a piece every time one of her children came home for a visit only to leave again! This is the last picture Patrick took with his Mother on rare sunny fall day in Kerry. On Valentine's Day only a few months later, Bridget O'Mahony sat down at her kitchen table after morning chores and pulled the ever present book from her pinafore and opened it on the table. A few faded photos of children far flung slid from the pages as her heart finally broke for ever. My girls and I never met her as she died long before we were a family but we are the beneficiaries of all her hard work and sacrifice.

While Bridget was toiling in the fields of Ireland to send her sisters to America, another family driven from that land by starvation generations before had made their new home in Chicago. Ironically, just as George and Margaret Sullivan started their little family the Great Depression reared it's vicious head. Suddenly a generation poised to grab their American dream was pushed to the edge of survival. Hungry bellies and threadbare clothes accompanied the young Sullivan children to school every morning but to school every morning they were sent! One wonders sometimes just how fate impacts the trajectory of a life? The eldest child was a whip smart daughter with a backbone of steel who talked her way into school at four years of age. I do believe that born in my generation, this woman of the depression could very well be one of the jurists being considered for the Supreme Court opening!!! But the fates do not do our bidding and when World War II erupted during her high school years she went off to work instead of college.

Returning soldiers and sailors meant lots of weddings and Loretta Sullivan joined her peers in creating the Baby Boom!! The backbone of steel never softened nor bent and all nine of her children were EXPECTED to get an advanced education even without financial resources!! Her children number nine only in the legal definition and even then one of the nine was denied the piece of paper due to his age! Over 63 wards of the state slept under her roof at some point in their battered lives and some decided to keep hanging with her crazy crowd. The definitions of brother, sister, and family were far from 'traditional'!! In a uniquely Irish tradition, the daughters were expected to do as well if not better than the sons..before the ERA there was the Irish mother!!! Barbie was forbidden in my youth as she epitomized the glorification of physique over intellect. Men were for companionship and love not support and domination. Cheerleading was 'beneath' us Irish girls since it was idolizing macho males instead of competing with the intellectual men. Marriage should come AFTER you have seen the world and made a career.......little did we know the consequences of those decisions!

Now in her eighties, Loretta is showing some signs of bending. The backbone of steel is brittle but the spirit never wavers. I have her name as my middle name and ruefully I must admit the comparisons can be very close more often than not! As her eldest daughter I have the best and the worst of her in me but since the Best far exceeds the Worst I'm delighted to call her my Mom!

So I saw the world....sort of....and I had my career. The lovely son of Bridget O'Mahony came my way and we married. Then it became apparent that our delayed lifestyle had cost us parenthood! A very brief dabble in the field of fertility proved not to be the answer for us. The physical and financial toll of fertility treatments with no child guaranteed was not how we wanted to proceed. So where does that leave us? Do we just become the 'fun' Aunt and Uncle and continue to travel the world? Do we want to wade into the emotional quicksand of adoption? ....and then Patrick opened a fateful e-mail!! Somewhere far away in a country called Guatemala there was a little toddler hoping to find a Mom and Dad.

"You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them." Desmond Tutu

How do you actually 'thank' God for this woman?!?! Mercifully we were blessed to find Josefa, the woman who's selfless love for her daughter made me a Mom! Another woman in my life who worked hard under extreme circumstances to keep her family alive. Twelve babies to feed and raise on less than a dollar a day does not make for an easy life! Like Bridget who watched as those pieces of her heart emigrated, Josefa watched five of her twelve babies leave in the arms of adoption lawyers! How great must be your trust in God and mankind that those five babies would find a loving family and a better life? Only time will tell how her strength and my guidance will shape Mari but in the meantime we both get to love her!

Then there is Leda! The foster mother who held our Mari close to her heart for the two years it took to slog through the legal process. This picture was taken on the occasion of our return to Guatemala to visit with baby Julia and it is beyond obvious the love this woman shares with Mari!!!! Yet another woman in my life who toils in a bitter vineyard where the fruit of your labor leaves for another family in another country!

On this Mother's Day we are waiting for another miracle! Life in Guatemala is not long and the fates are not kind to the Mayan people but can it be possible that after eight years one can find yet another poor woman?....

Sadly, this is all we have in the way of a photo of Julia's mother. A dark and smudged Xeroxed copy of the DNA Polaroid taken on April 2, 2001. This is Julia. Yep, unbelievable as it can be we received a call from the attorney the morning after Julia was born telling us that our new daughter was born and that the birth mother was giving us the gift of choosing her name!!! With absolutely NO knowledge beforehand I called Patrick at work and told him we had TEN minutes to pick a name before the attorney had to go and register the birth. We wanted a name that fit in both the Hispanic and Irish cultures so after tossing around Anna and Rita we decided on Julia. Two weeks later when we opened the referral packet it just JUMPED out at us...."Julia Margarita, daughter of Julia..."!!!!!!!!!! Yes, Rev. Tutu, this was God's gift to us! Now that we can be blessed to find her alive and well..............

Marina, too, works in that bitter vineyard! Julia's foster mother 'only' needed to care for Julia for six months before the adoption was completed but she did it with all her heart and it shows!! Julia was clearly a well loved and secure baby when Marina placed her in my arms that summer morning in July 2001 as well as WELL FED!

So here we are on this Mother's Day with all the schmaltzy media coverage and I'm thinking this year I'll just sit sit back humbled by the acts of the women in my life who've done more than I can ever hope to do...and in doing so made me a Mom!

"Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country." Anais Nin

Fresh From the Mine!

It's amazing what one can accomplish when they've had a full night's sleep and an unscheduled day off!! Due to a staggering number of conflicts with end of the year events at the school in which I was to work today coupled with the huge absence rate due to the swine flu panic among the 98% Mexican student body, the health department decided to reschedule our clinic for Monday. Feeling the need to get back on track earning money for the food baskets we supply to Mari's birth family I got back into the salt mine this morning. Using Mairead and Deirdre's up coming Disney vacation as incentive I put together a few tops.(That and many, many loads of laundry!!!) The Mouse House colors are used in these 'sisters' tops. I'm hoping to master Photobucket or Flicker tonight so I can resize the jpeg file in order to get my Etsy store up and running. If and when I do I will be putting a link on my sidebar to the right.

They both wanted the iconic mouse head to sport a red and white polka dot bow as Minnie!!

Mairead is a Tinkerbelle fanatic but a little too 'mature' for a lot of the commercially produced products. I'm thinking of reworking the elastic waistband but will wait to try it on her before ripping it apart.

The sun had a very limited visit today as yet again the storm clouds blew in from the west! Hoping Julia's soccer practice is over before these let loose with all their fury!!!! Thinking I might need to check out the canoe's over a Dick's Sporting Goods......

Time for Tag?

One of those crazy OVER-committed days!! Since I sort of promised Leslie over at http://www.guatemama-leslie.blogspot.com/ that I'd post after she sucker tagged anyone reading her blog yesterday I am throwing this on quick! Worked all day in the poorest school district in the county and then flew home to snag Mari from patrol guard so we could gulp down a quick dinner. Now they are hustling through homework so we can get to "B.R.A.G." night at her new school and when it ends Patrick and I have to dash over to the Junior High for new 'parent' orientation night. 8 things I'm looking forward to: 1)Patrick's Birthday (May 13th) 2)Family Reunion Picnic (June 28th) 3)MoGuate (Aug 7-9th) 4)July 4th Fireworks 5)Summer vacation/sleeping in!!! 6)First tomato crop from our new family garden. 7)(long term) Retirement :)!!! 8)(very long term!!) Grandchildren :)!!! 8 things I wish I could do: 1)Find both birth families and have the resources to visit, house, and feed them! 2)Be a SAHM with 'hired help'! 3)Have a subscription to the Chicago Lyric Opera every season...or at least be able to sing a note or two on key?!?! 4)See the 'alps'....Swiss and/or New Zealand!!!! 5)Buy my husband's family farm in Ireland and build a vacation home in the highest field! 6)Swim and snorkel in as many coral reefs as possible WITHOUT burning to a crisp!! 7)Take my girls to a different country/culture every school vacation and become citizens of the world. 8)Draw freehand! 8 shows I enjoy: 1)Amazing Race 2)Ace of Cakes 3)Nancy Grace 4)Chimp Eden 5) Antique's Roadshow 6) Colbert Report 7)Good Eats 8) Anything on MSNBC or CNN! Now all who read this..... consider yourself TAGGED!

Wordless Wednesday- Facials?

A First for Mari Too!

As sluggish as we were on Sunday there was one more "First" for us to attend! As if her two hour stint in church on Saturday for her sister's First Communion wasn't enough, Mari was scheduled to be an altar server for the FIRST time at the Sunday evening service. To say she was stressed would be an understatement!!! My little world class worrier was so sure that she would flub big time causing the congregation to think less of her...AS IF!!!!! To her family who shamefully spent considerable more of their attention watching Mari rather than listening to the scripture, one teeny tiny misstep was noted (which she obsessed about for hours after) but was surely missed by 95% of the congregation. Thankfully she's laughing about it now! She knew the two seventh graders scheduled with her would be helpful (which they were) but was really hoping to convince her Auntarie to let Mairead skip the weekly dinner with the other grandparents to join the team! That disappointment was erased when her BFF slipped into the front pew with her WHOLE family in tow....this after they had a First Communion the day before also!!!!!!!!!! A TRUE BEST FRIEND if ever there was one!!!

Sometimes little sisters just don't get the seriousness of the moment :) Just wait, her day will come!

Queen for the Day!

Well we are off to a very sluggish start today! For once in our lives everyone wanted to get to bed ASAP last night as we were all bone tired. The true measure of how pleasurable the fatigue was the fact that the girls willingly tucked themselves in last night! They knew how wiped I was by the fact that I collapsed onto the couch after the parties (yes plural!) and they were just too tired to wait for me to drag my sorry self up and into their rooms. To the degree that bladders allowed we all 'slept in' this morning :)! After loading 250+ pictures on the computer....(yes Auntie Peggy provided 194 of them!!!!!!!!!) I've put a few for you to celebrate with Julia on the occasion of her First Communion. Mother Nature came through for Julia!! After countless days of rain and clouds this is what greeted us on the morning of the big day! Beautiful, yes but worrisome too when the Queen for the Day is an allergy induced asthmatic!

Auntie Peggy was our hero!! She arose at an unholy hour to go to the morning services in order to 'stake out' seats. Now Mari and Patrick did join her but they are Julia's family and SHOULD do that kind of thing but Auntie Peggy is the family photographer and she wanted clear angles. She snapped this as Julia and I walked over to the church which is right across the street from our home.

Not quite as nice as the one from Mari's big day but it will do.

The sisters!!

Now should you really be high fiving at church Auntie Peggy?

Grandma was up to the day and made it to both the church and the party! Here she is with 3 of her 13 grandchildren at the church.

Nice shot of the BFF/Cousins as they walked out of church for some outside picture taking.

See how glorious the morning was!! Auntie Peggy is both of the girl's Godmother...wonder if that is why she wore white lace too? Just kidding Peggy!!

The 'imported' cake! See the compromise? Julia has the cupcake vote while Deirdre chose the cake. The baker out did herself and as usual the kids vied for the pieced with the most frosting.

The secret inside was that the girls had chosen a tie-dyed cake!!

The party was held at a new pavilion in our community which includes playgrounds, miniature golf, batting cages, and a sprinkler pool. Clearly still too cold to don a swimsuit for the sprinkler pool but the lure of the park on a sunny day was great!! So once the guests had arrived we let them get casual.....

"Torture!" is what Julia is shouting as I removed the bobby pins and combs so that the veil could come off.

Ahhhhh now she's comfy!! Since she was going to miss the Kentucky Derby for the party I made her a horse print cutified overall SKORT. Yep, I figured out how to slip a soft jersey short onto the jumper without making the gather seam too bulky :)!!

After a full day of ceremony and party we cleaned up the pavilion and headed towards home planning only to stop long enough to exchange gifts with her other BFF. Well from the opening of this post you can surmise that we didn't exactly ding dong ditch their party. Really I wasn't thinking when we agreed to 'stop by' because I should have known that we would have too much fun to leave!

Those were the days!

I spent way too many hours last night (well early morning actually!) scanning hundreds of my pre-digital photos. My sister and I decided to have a slide show running on her laptop, at the party, of the two cousins and since I'm only a recent participant in the digital age I needed to get on to the task! I have already gone through the BIG baby blues and am very comfortable with the fact that these two little ladies are all there will ever be but one does get a bit nostalgic for those baby days while going through the photos! The thing about maturing is that before the BIG baby blues I would get nostalgic and feel like I needed another baby but now it's more like a longing to return to the time pictured in the photos. I struggle to find the energy to keep up with these two fairly independent souls and their schedules let alone an energetic toddler! Well, at least I now have a hefty pool of pictures to draw from for future posts :)!!! I loooove this picture of Mari holding her baby sister for the first time as SISTERS. We had gone and visited when Julia was 5 weeks old with Mari but had left her home for the pick-up trip. Good thing because the attorney had severely bent the truth on when the amended birth certificate had been issued and we arrived to find that she didn't even have the passport yet!! Luckily that was in an earlier era in Guatemalan adoptions when the Pink was issued on the spot at the embassy window once the completed packet was presented. (for the non-adoption crowd it was the color of the paperwork issued giving permission for the final physical and visa interview and thus the name) What was supposed to be a 3 day trip turned into a 9 day saga and poor Mari was waiting so anxiously back in Illinois with Auntie Peggy for her baby sister to finally come home.

Just look at how Julia is looking up at Mari!! All of the cousins had come wearing patriotic t-shirts to greet the newest member of the gang.....obviously it was pre 9/11 since you see they are all sitting in the gate area!!

My Mom holding Julia for the first time back when she was healthy and confident enough to leave the security of her living room. Tell me you aren't melting into those gorgeous eyes!!

Funny but I have a bunch of pictures of the two of them down on the floor hugging each other?!?! The sibling rivalry is pretty healthy so I forget these candid moments when it's apparent that they really do love each other. I'm thinking of trying to do up a poster of these shots to hang in their rooms so they can be reminded of how much they love each other!!!

This is so their relationship in a nut shell!! Mari torn between a big hug or a choke hold while Julia happily grins and plays along with whatever Mari devises.

Well I'm stalling here and need to get to a list of a million things that need to be done for the party on Saturday.