The Cutest Darn Writer's Block Ever

I haven't written much in a good long while, and as much as I kind of rue that unfortunate truth. I simply adore the reason for it. My little man steals a lot of my time and energy these days. Not to say that I would change that for the world. I love being his Mommy. Its the most natural life transition I think I have ever made, going from just Jo to MamaD.

But I was challenged lately to get back into writing. A friend of mine recently started a group for prospective writers to help encourage us to keep going forward in our projects. Currently I can't really say that I have any projects on the table, but I do have this blog which has been woefully abandoned. In the interest of staying true to this new group I feel I should pick back up on posting short stories and life lessons on here.

It used to be one of my very deep avowed hopes to someday be a published author and be able to help support our family from my writing. Unfortunately for me... my writing requires a certain level of calm determination which in my crazy busy life I do not often feel that I have. I need to be able to ruminate on ideas and concepts before they can be transferred into tangible words and expounded onto paper.

And wouldn't you know it, God even gave me the time to do this! One of my client's passed away a couple months ago and I haven't been able to pick up a new permanent position so I have 1 day a week off work. Lately, that has ended up being a snow day from preschool for my little distraction and I end up playing with him all day, but today its just a day off so I am sitting in the coffee shop as I used to do so frequently back in my 20s and just typing away. I'm not even sure that I have that much to write about today, but when I start typing sometimes everything else fades away and I am able to get to that calm, contemplative place where things are born.

So, here is the question: If I were to work on writing something, what would you most like to read?
Maybe I should go back and dust off that book that I had previously been working at writing. It was a bit of an autobiography and that of course is 1/2 silly (because I'm nobody special) and 1/2 scary, because there is so much of my soul bared in those pages. I'd really love to write more about my experience living and working in Uganda. Some about my experience in a multicultural, multiracial, long distance, multi-dimensional relationship with me and my husband and our little. I think that a lot of my experiences in Uganda, while not really out of the normal for me at the time, or out of the normal for Ugandans that experience that style of living every day, they would perhaps be a little shocking to our American sensibilities and therefore perhaps entertaining?
I've never been very good at writing fiction, so you'll have to excuse me from fabricating much in the way of my new writing project.
I could do a collection possibly of short stories. Or perhaps work on beefing up my poetry skills that kind of died off when the tablet that contained a lot of my works was stolen.
You'll have to let me know what you think.
For now, I'll plan on continuing to work on this blog and kinda get back in the cadence of writing more and fully utilizing my vocabulary.

All the Feels

There is a writer that I follow on Facebook and his posts have the power to evoke intense emotion! I have been inspired by his writing many times, and I hope someday to have honed my skill enough to tread very lightly in such footsteps.

One of his posts recently was a heartwarming piece basically listing off things that he found inspirational or encouraging. So I thought I would start making my own list of things that give me the feels to help uplift my spirits! Maybe you will enjoy it too, or maybe you can be inspired to go out and create your own list. This is a big beautiful world and sometimes its easy to not see the shimmers of inspiration through the scars of tragedy or doldrums of the mundane.


* The waft of summer breezes through an open window, preferably with the faint smell of freshly mowed grass.
*The color green. Pretty much anywhere. It feels like the color of life. 
*Ice cold lemonade served in a glass glass with ice cubes and a sprig of mint or strong hot nutty coffee served black in a thick ceramic mug, depending on the season.
*The smell of my Grandpa's barn. I still catch a whiff sometimes when I climb into my Grandpa's old farm truck that my brother drives now. It smells like alfalfa hay, sawdust, axle grease, and good ol' sweat. 
*Morning sunlight through wispy curtains. 
*Kitenge fabric. Every time I see it some place unexpected or used in a new and unique way it just makes me smile. I love the kitenge throw pillows on my couch, the kitenge I used to wrap my sweet little Afro-child in, feeling the stiff fabric slide over my skin as I pull on a kitenge dress, or recognizing a fellow sojourner from the motherland by the bright colors they are clad in. 
*Fresh sheets.
*Tomatoes, green pepper, red onion, garlic, cilantro, salt, black pepper.
*Tomatoes in general. Mostly grape, cherry, or roma but I'll settle for most any of them.
*Good Mexican food. My mom has the most amazing chicken enchilada recipe that probably has WAY more calories than I should eat in it, but every year for my birthday I try to work out a way to have it because its my absolute favorite. Best beans are from CocoBolos in Manhattan, Ks. (also try their Tijuana Train Wreck, mmmm) Best salsa is the fresh batch I can whip up in one of those enormous metal mixing bowls after lots of slicing and dicing. Best burrito is Chipotle. I used to eat it as my last meal before leaving the US and my first meal coming back. 
*Afrojazz.
*Good music in general. You know that kind of music that you can tell the musicians had their eyes closed when they were playing it because it just sounded so sweet. Yeah, that kind. I may be crazy, but I feel like I can audibly hear the passion leaking through.
*Well written poetry that makes you think and feel at the same time. 
*Roadside food. I know you are likely to get typhoid... but everyone needs a good colon cleanse every once in a while right? No, but for real. I have met some pretty amazing roadside food vendors that are magicians at their craft. Shout out to my guy in Wandegeya that still makes the best rolex. And the little old lady in Kawempe-Mbogo that insisted that I just call her Mum when I asked her name. She fed me many a supper after a long 12 hour day at the hospital. And not forgetting my original chapatti guy in Kitintale who makes the most airy chapatti ever and kept me supplied with my daily staple when I couldn't afford much more. From samousas, popcorn, and banana pancakes to roast chicken, kikomando, and chips and eggs I've eaten it all and its amazing!
*Brightly colored flowers. Especially in unexpected places. 
*Throw pillows. Don't ask me to explain, cause I can't. But I want them all. 
*Seeing my husband wolf down the plate I just handed him. There is something super satisfying about seeing your hard work get demolished in such an unceremonious fashion but with such absolute pleasure that you forget that you spent 2 hours on what is being torn apart in 2 minutes. Its a good feeling to be appreciated like that. 
*And while we are on the topic of husbands... watching my husband and son from a distance holding hands and trotting off somewhere, talking and laughing to each other. Just about the fullest heart feeling that I ever did feel. 
*When a little kid falls asleep on your shoulder. Especially if its your own little kid, but nephews and nieces are pretty close seconds in my book!
*Cheekiness. (a little bit of humor mixed with a little bit of sarcasm)
*and many, many more...


So now its your turn... What makes your heart full? What inspires you? What uplifts your spirit? What feels like your "happy place"? Try making a list and look back at it every time you are starting to feel like life is dragging you down. You'd be surprised how it may help you refocus and remember that life is still beautiful in so many little moments!

Motherhood

So the other day my Mom asked me a very pointed question about motherhood. Nevermind that it may have been a thinly veiled attempt to probe my openness to bearing any more grandchildren for her. It has bounced around in my head several times since then. I think the main thing that gave me pause was that I felt I should have had a different answer than the one I had.

So what was the question you ask?

"Is motherhood everything that you thought it would be?"

My answer: simply "yes".

Maybe I am just more practical than most and didn't enter motherhood with any stupid ideas of idyllically rocking sleeping babies with my perfectly coiffed hair and satin dressing gown. It was probably just the way that I was raised. I knew what it was like to be a mom. It meant that everybody else's needs came way before yours. In fact you were probably so low down on the totem pole that the only time anyone ever made a consideration just for you was Mother's Day or your birthday, and even then, probably after you had been up all night with a teething or vomiting little one, feel perfectly dreadful about the baby weight and how you can't fit into any non-stretchy clothes anymore, and the last thing you want is people looking at you or giving you cake to eat. (But YAY, here's to you!)

Needless to say, I expected it. (Maybe not the extent of the baby weight, but I expected it). I knew that having a child and being a good mother meant daily laying down my wants and needs and emotions. He demanded that. You can't talk down a fussy 2 year old with your own complex emotions! HA! I'd like to see you try! Nevermind, none of us want to see that... enough evidence in the grocery store check out line. You can't eat healthy and exercise when he's there demanding you read him books and feed him an endless supply of cookies and chocolate milk. And lets be honest, you are going to be too tired for that stuff anyway by the end of the day running after this endless ball of energy. (Mommy didn't get to take a nap today like you, be kind kid!)

Now to be perfectly fair, I may have gotten off lucky with my little man too. He was by no means a particularly hard or fussy baby. He still had his moments when try as I might nothing could get him to calm down, spit up an appropriate amount at in-opportune times, cried when I left him at daycare, spread poop from one end of his room to the other, and the usual. But for the most part he's a pretty chill guy. I would like to take credit for raising him to be a tough little trucker. When he falls down or bonks on something he's not one to burst into tears, especially if he is busy playing. He'll likely just get up and run off for another adventure. Truthfully though, I don't know whether to credit that to nature or nurture.

Is motherhood full of those precious snuggly moments though? Oh my goodness yes!! I CANNOT even tell you how good it feels to snuggle up next to this little guy on the couch while he is watching his Lego Movie for the umpteenth time. The hugs, kisses, and "I love you SOOOO much!" and "Nkwaggala nnyo!" (because our love is so big one language can't contain it) that we say to each other every night before bed. The way he runs up and tackles my legs, yelling a happy, "Mommy!" when I pick him up from preschool. Tickle fights on the floor. Hide and seek/jump out and scare somebody are pretty great too.

I love to see his little mind turning with thoughts and when he pulls a new random word into his vocabulary. He's simply a star at singing at the top of his lungs in the car (I think he got that from me). My personal favorites are "Skinnamarinkydink" (or however you spell that) and when his sweet little voice belts "...I'm a child of God, yes I am" (from Hillsong's Who You Say I Am).

He is the perfect little cheerleader, always quick to say, "We did it!" or "Good job, Mommy!" Although some of that is slightly unfounded (I don't ACTUALLY have the power to change traffic lights from red to green... but we'll let him think that for a little while longer.)

There is also a simply beautiful feeling when I watch my husband being "Papa" to little man. Oh my goodness it nearly melts my heart! The way they interact and laugh together. Them dancing in the living room to Ugandan music beats or running around the yard together. I don't know if that technically falls under motherhood, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't feel that if I wasn't a mother, so we are going to count it.

But even with all that, I felt like I should have said no to her question. Like I should have been expecting something different than what I got. Most people I hear of do. They don't expect to have their lives monopolized by their tiny creation. They don't expect to lose their figure, their sleep, and a strong grip on their sanity in one fell swoop. But I had no such naivety. Perhaps that is why my husband and I reacted so differently to the news that we were to become parents. I knew what motherhood would require of me. I knew that the rewards would be beautiful, but I knew that the loss would also be real.

Worth it?

Definitely.

But not to say that I am ready to do it all over again Mom. That jury is still out. ;)

Confessions of a Kansas Girl in Missouri

Jan 29th was Kansas Day and let me tell you, as a proudly born and raised Kansan, I was only too happy to post about it on social media and not be low key for once.

I don't like Missouri really. I mean, CoMo is okay, but for the most part I just roll my eyes at everything here. Mold and pollen allergies are worse here, though dust and goldenrod are slightly better. The landscape is dull. It gets uncomfortably hot without a breeze and ridiculously cold. We got 17inches of snow the other weekend. I wanna go back to Uganda!!

People in Missouri can't drive worth a cow fart. No really, I looked it up. The death rate for road traffic accidents in Missouri vs. Kansas, Missouri was over double. DOUBLE! Kansas is right next door. And we take our tests with the grumpy lady from the DMV. Missourians take their driving test with a highway patrolman! How do they end up driving worse??

People smoke here. A. Lot. I hate it. My nose finds it offensive. My lungs are repulsed by it. My asthma nearly chokes and dies on it.

The only really good thing that I can get behind is their hate of KU. As a born and raised K-Stater I fully endorse a good honest dislike for all things related to Jayhawks. As they say, "My enemy's enemy is my friend."

And in a few non-Missouri related confessions:

I get unnaturally paranoid about telling people about my husband in relation to my son. If I say "my husband" it sounds like he isn't D's dad, but if I say "his Dad" it sounds like I have nothing to do with the guy! I know this paranoia is just a residual effect of being a single mom for that long year and a half, but still... Is there a good compromise besides saying both and sounding like you are confused or redundant?

My kid has become increasingly aggressive at preschool and I don't really know how to handle it. Part of me wants to pull him out immediately and keep him with me so I can preserve my sweet little boy!

I drove across town with a giant art piece on top of my rather small car last night. Not the brightest move. I didn't realize it was sprinkling until I had already walked out of the building. Thankfully I had a spare old blanket in the car to wrap the piece in. Then with the help of some spare rope to tie it down and an improvised elastic cord from the trunk to try and keep the blanket in place we set off. I had to stop probably 3 times to readjust the thing and couldn't go more than 30mph for fear it would fly off the top of my car. I made it home, but I really need to start thinking more before I do these crazy things!
In other news, the new art looks great hanging in my husband's den!

90 Day Fiance (Part 2)

Well life in Kansas was awkward for a while. I waited until after my brother's wedding to tell my parents about the pregnancy and our engagement.

I think what I stressed to them the most (and then to the rest of the family as I told them by turns) in those moments is that I was not making a rash decision to get married to Moses just because we were pregnant, but that when we did get married it would be a well thought out and prayed over occurrence. I'm not sure they were completely convinced.

I made the difficult decision to not stay in Kansas, but to move to Missouri with my older brother's family. We will both be forever grateful for the love and generosity they showed to me and the baby in those next few months.

Whether from pregnancy hormones or from exhaustion or just from the stress of the whole situation, I found myself crying to sleep at least once a week from the time I came back to the US. We tried to talk to each other as much as possible, to hide from the other one how bad things were, and to keep one another encouraged. It worked sometimes, and sometimes the entire conversation would just disintegrate into "I miss you"s back and forth.

It was a long 7 months carrying that little guy alone on this side of the ocean while his dad struggled to make ends meet in Uganda. I found a job, but could only work a few days a week or I would lose my health insurance that I needed to be able to deliver the baby. Carefully I rationed out what I would need to purchase for the baby. A lot of things were purchased second-hand, hand-me-downs that were generously shared, and loving friends and family showered us with gifts for Baby D (as he was affectionately called).

Moses and I had settled on a name, and then a middle name for D, but we kept it a secret until after he was delivered.

After a good after dinner walk one night in early May I went to get up from sitting and felt a pop and then liquid streaming down my legs. Little man was getting ready to make his arrival!

Moses and his mom went to the church and prayed all night for us as my labor wore on. My sister-in-law sent him constant updates on how things were going... but the long and short of it is that they weren't... going... anywhere. Water broke at 8pm; Mom, sister in law, and I went to bed around 930-10 thinking we'll have to go in sometime later. Around 1 am my mom came out and found me sitting on the couch timing contractions. They were about 3min apart at that point and she was like, "Oh my! Let's get you to the hospital!" I calmly walked upstairs and woke up my sister-in-law to go with us. But by the time we got to the hospital they slowed down to 4-5min apart and I wasn't dilated hardly at all. By 6pm the next night I still was not dilated, and starting to run a fever from exhaustion, so they opted for a C-section thinking it might be infection related. When they tried to give me pit it spiked late decels in D's heart rate as well, which I could very easily read on their in room monitor. (never underestimate a nurse to keep nursing, even on herself, even when slightly loopy on a epidural) They turned the monitor so that I "couldn't see it" but I already was asking for different intervention and told them to stop the pitocin. So off to surgery we went.

That was incredibly hard... not having Moses there with me for that. I've never had surgery before or since and it was scary, though I tried very hard not to show it since my Mom was in the OR with me. My sister-in-law was given the job of accompanying Baby D wherever he went. And I wanted no discussion on that topic. I knew they weren't going to come and ask my permission to start anything on him since I'd be coming out of surgery and Moses not being there with him, I put my sister-in-law's Mama Bear skills to work making sure my little one was gonna be safe and cared for.

The post-surgery nurse had compassion on me and took me down to the NICU to visit D before going to my floor (even though she really wasn't supposed to). The torturous amount of time that it took for them to accept my leaving the floor to go and see him was just that... torturous. They hooked up a live facetime feed for me for a little while, but then the battery died on the ipad. And I was done anyway. I wanted D to know that his Mama, the only person he really knew in the world, had not abandoned him to a unit of alarms and strange lights, lack of body warmth, missing my heartbeat, hungry, and confused by this whole big world that he had suddenly been yanked into. Hang sleep and recovery from major surgery, there was an infant that needed me!

Holding and cradling him to my chest was the absolute best feeling I have ever felt in the whole wide world.

It still is, to this day. Though he has grown a lot and Moses does come in a pretty close second on the cuddling front. ;)

90 Day Fiance (Part 1)

Someone asked me the other day if our experience was like "90 Day Fiance" the TV show. I wasn't sure how to answer, mostly cause I had never seen the show. I mean, yes, we did have 90 days on a K-1 visa, but not sure how much else was accurate.

So, to better understand in case I got asked that question again, hubby and I decided to watch the show (and because we don't always agree on shows but we kinda like reality/documentary types...)

I couldn't help thinking throughout the whole season (we got through Season 1 already) that I kinda wished we could tell our story like that. It was so easy to see the similarities and GLARING differences in the stories.

So for lack of a better intro than that, this is part of our "90 Day Fiance" story:

I had been in love with Uganda since I first traveled there back in 2008, but frankly I wasn't thinking about any other kind of love when I walked into The Sound Cup in Garden City Mall, Kampala, Uganda in early 2015. I had been volunteering with a hospital in the Kampala suburbs and was redesigning charts for them. The Sound Cup had relatively fast wifi and good coffee, so I was fixing to get some work done.

Apparently he took one look and was sold. Moses was working as a waiter in the little cafe. When I arrived he made sure that the other waiters knew that was HIS table and then promptly forgot my order as soon as he took it. This necessitated several extra trips back to my table to make sure that he had actually gotten my order right. He saw my lips moving, but he didn't hear a word I said.

He fell in love at first sight, but I took my time. Through a little careful finagling he finally convinced me to go on a date with him, and then to start hanging out regularly. Long walks, shared meals, dancing, live music, movie nights, and talking late into the night. He made life so fun and was so easy to talk to. I found myself falling a little more every time we were together.

Things went fast. In August we found out we were pregnant. Two weeks later Moses lost his job. Another week later we found out that the hospital I had been working at was not going to help me renew my visa like I had thought they would. I was already scheduled to come back to the US for my brother's wedding so we made plans for me to travel now and hopefully come back in a year's time. It was hard to say goodbye, especially not really knowing how everything would go, or really even how our relationship would weather the separation.

In the meantime, Moses and I tried to soak up what little time and energy life had given us. We went to the hospital for a sonogram and took a close and precious first look at our little baby, affectionately called "Blueberry" at that point. I was convinced it was a girl and Moses firmly believed it was a boy. This is one disagreement I'm glad he won.

We took many long walks up to the market after work to get the baby's favorite snack: popcorn. We looked up baby names together. We squeezed drops out of every day going to live music and music festivals together. We planned days out, just the two of us to go to the movies or swimming/picnicking. And we tried hard to not talk about the fact that we wouldn't be together too much longer.

In October Moses escorted me to the airport with the clothes and belongings that I might need in the next year. He was to pack up and move the rest of my things out of my apartment by the end of the month. He would keep them in his apartment and store them until I could come back. He was so quiet in the back of the car in the wee hours of the morning as we sped towards Entebbe airport. I didn't really know what to say to him either.

When we reached the gate all I could hope for was a quick goodbye without a lot of gushing. Instead he got down on one knee and asked me to make him the happiest man in the world. Let's just say that waterworks were definitely in the picture (I can blame it on pregnancy hormones right?)

The whole plane ride I sat in a state of shock and looked at this strange new shiny thing on my finger. I couldn't help but feel like my whole entire world was changing and strangely enough, for someone who had sold all her household goods to move internationally, I feel so scared that I was sick to my stomach. (And that, I cannot blame on pregnancy hormones.)

It takes a tremendous amount of courage to open your heart to another person and commit to spending the rest of your life with them. And I was scared because I was at the airport not knowing when I'd be back or even see him again, pregnant with his baby, and needed to catch my plane. I didn't even feel like I was able to say "no", even had I wanted to. It would have been so cruel to him for me to say "no" with no time to talk about it, and then just get on a plane and leave.
But by the same measure, we had no time to talk about what my "yes" meant either. We didn't have a good plan of how to even see each other again, let alone raise our child together. To top it off... I had a massive UTI setting in.

And you have never experienced UTIs until you have experienced a pregnancy UTI... during a 48 hour international plane trek... through countries you've never flown through... running to the bathroom every 5 seconds but still feeling like you are constantly about to have an accident... while the airline attendant is telling you that you need to pay an additional fee for your checked bag because British airlines is stingier than any other airline and only allows one checked bag for international travel.
In my very least exasperated voice I informed her that she could have free reign of the $10 that was on my card, but I had no other currency and had no way to get any. (By that point I was in South Africa.) If she insisted in removing one of my bags then to please be kind enough to let me tell her which one to remove or to let me repack things into my carry on bag. (At this point I realized that it was already loaded on the plane and she had no intention of giving someone the task of finding and removing it from said plane. A task that was probably nearly impossible seeing as it was a double decker Boeing 747.) After several unsuccessful attempts on her part to make me "cough up" the extra cash, she did print my boarding passes with a ominous, "I'm probably going to get in a lot of trouble for doing this."

Unfortunately, but this point it was too late. I made it into the stall, but that was all the farther I got before what we most fear to happen during a UTI, did indeed happen. Stupidly, I had packed only shirts to change into during my flight, not pants, so the only other thing I had in my carry on was my bridesmaid dress for my brother's wedding. On it went and I stepped off the plane in Kansas, much to my brother and sister-in-law's surprise, all ready for the big event that wasn't for another week.

Finally safely back in Kansas I had to deal with an even bigger issue. Telling my family and friends that I was not only engaged (to a man that they had never met), but also pregnant.

What in the World, Church??

Something that has really irritated me lately... and probably it shouldn't to the extent that it has, but this is the interwebs and basically ranting is a thing... is nativity scenes.

Our immediate family is biracial. I don't make a big deal about it, because honestly... despite what people try to tell you... its not a big deal. Its just something about us individually. I have blue eyes (gray, hazel, depends on the day actually) and my husband's eyes are black. I have a astigmatism in my right eye and I am overweight. He has amazing pec muscles 😉 and his glasses are fake! We are just different.

That much being said... I was really hoping to find a nativity set for our Christmas as a family that showed multiple races all coming together around the baby Jesus! Cause how sweet and authentic would that be, right?

URGH.

So, if you are lucky, you can find nativities where the wisemen are African, Asian, etc... but then the rest of everybody has this pasty Caucasian skin. Eww.
Honestly, probably prior to getting really involved in Uganda this never really occured to me as a problem. I mean I had heard people joke about "Black Jesus" but I thought that was just a joke. I hadn't really stopped to realize it was an attempt to make the stereotypical depiction of Christ more relevant and relate-able to marginalized people. Dang. #softlyhangsheadinshame Then I realized that most artwork pictures him with blue eyes and soft straight brown hair. Which, I am sorry, but what Middle Eastern man do you know that has blue eyes and soft straight brown hair? Like really, Christian America, really??

Okay, so that is my rant.
All this to say... if you have any good leads on wooden nativities, teddy bear nativities, or anything else that might be racial neutral and not cost a fortune... Let me know!
I'll just be over here cutting out nativity silhouettes... in a nice, neutral grey. 😒