capuano family tour de USA

we are going on a road trip. not just any 8 hour, day long road trip... we are going across the great u. s. of. a. yes, our van has 160,000 miles on it. yes, we have many, many small children. yes, i only recently got my driver's license. yes, we are clinically insane. but, it's true. we are going to do it.

we are taking a month (well, a couple days shy of four weeks) and driving across the country with four kids. 6, 4, 2, and 6 months. we are in the early stages of planning, but we are leaving the day after our kids get out of school for the summer, and we will get back at the end of july. i am sure i will be blogging about this quite a bit as we make our plans, and am willing to commit to a certain number of blog entries during the trip for a small salary. or a large one. whatever.

so far, we are sure on the following details:

1. we are camping in a tent. all six of us. in the same tent. all of us.
   
2. we have a mad-tight budget. (and i mean is-it-wrong-to-make-the-kids-do-lemonade-stands-to-help-with-gas kinda tight.)
3. we will stay mostly at free campgrounds, but will occasionally splurge on a campground that has shower/bathroom facilities. and about once a week we will stay in a cheap hotel or hostel to do laundry and shower. we will also be visiting friends, family and the occasional friend of a friend along the way. we are open to ideas about free accommodations if you have any. (in other words, does your aunt in utah have a finished basement?)
   
4. we will have to bring a lot of crap. (we will have to use a car-top carrier, which is so obnoxious and embarrassing. my husband says they look like a big mac or whopper or something like that. it's funnier when he says it, or if you actually know the right hamburger reference.) i have a notepad that lists all the things we need to bring. it has a table of contents because there is so much crap you need when you traveling with one kid, let alone four. really, london is the one who is overpacking at this point. babies are so high-maintanence sometimes.
   
5. we are seriously out of our minds.

at this point we are just trying to make sense of the route, the gear we need, the budget, the timing, and all the "what-ifs." (my what-if's include... what if we get a flat? what if we gets lots of flats? what if our van kicks the bucket mid-trip? what if tom really does make us drive to astoria, washington to see the museum that makes a brief cameo in the goonies? what if our kids cry incessantly the entire trip? what if a bear starts to eat me or one of my family members? what if we have to turn around after a few days because instead of instilling a sense of adventure and appreciation for nature, our kids develop an aversion to traveling and all things outdoors? what if tom continues to see this as an opportunity to purchase and use a tazer?)

the kids have been very involved in the preparations. we have been making lists of the gear we need, and marlie (4) reports that above all else we will need to bring "a computer to check the weather... or a window." harper (2) said that for our trip (or "chip" as he says) we will need a restaurant. annalee (6) is a little more pragmatic in her request for a tent.

hearing their idea of the essentials suggests to me that they really have no idea what we are about to do. and the reality is, we don't really either. i know that, along with all my worries, i have really high hopes for what we will experience as a family, what we will learn, and how we will grow. in the meantime, i am open to any advice about to prevent bear attacks.

rant-o-mom

if i read one more mommy blog, or article, or book about how not to be a stressed out mom... i am going to vomit. not because i think de-stressing is a bad thing, because i don't. i actually think it would be nice. i get suckered into reading these things because i actually would like to feel a little less overwhelmed. they all start the same way...

"are you stressed out? are you feeling overwhelmed? having a hard time juggling everyone's schedules?"

ummm, yes.

how about: "are your keys lost, your dinner burned and you haven't shaved your legs since '06? are you considering enlisting in the military because you need to get away and can't afford a vacation? can you remember the last time you showered? do you shower, ever? are you feeling secretly enraged that your husband has to go to work every day?"

my husband is very helpful, and he works at home. so "going to work for the day" means going upstairs. so, you know i've got a serious problem when i'm mad that he's upstairs! ok, so i guess this could be considered "confessions of a dead beat mom, part 2." but, i really feel like these articles might apply to me. so, i get sucked in. some expert swears that if i "just keep reading" i will figure out the key to reducing my stress-level, managing my home and guarantee life-long peace and happiness. i read on. without fail, the same crap advice is given.

1) find time for you. (this might be worded any number of different ways. "make time for you" is a popular alternative. i also love the ever-faithful "put yourself back on the priority list." (gag.) trust me, being more selfish than i already am is NOT exactly the solution i am looking for. it's BECAUSE i am selfish that i don't clean my house. i would rather read a book, or watch a movie with tom at the end of the day... it's because i am totally self-indulgent that i don't have a clean house. next.

2) hire a "mommy's helper." this brilliant suggestion can also entail such words and phrases as "babysitter," "hire out services," and "neighbor girl to play with your kids." of course, this advice is usually combated with concerns of money, to which the advice-giver will undoubtedly reply that "if you refer to piece-of-useless-wisdom #1 (see above) you will see that when you put yourself first you will learn to allocate money for hiring people to do the stuff you should magically be able to do yourself. the problem with this is about 100-fold... so, i'll just scratch the surface with how much i hate this advice. first, if i could afford to hire a housekeeper/butler/nanny/personal assistant i would have done that a long time ago. i did not need permission from some lady who already has those people doing things for her. but, i can't afford those services because i am a stay-at-home mom. that means only one income for us. (yes it's our choice for me to stay home, and yes, i love it. but no, i don't get everything done and cannot afford to have someone else do it for me. and finally, i would like to briefly advocate for the "young neighbor girl down the street" who apparently has nothing better to do than play with my kids. first of all, i don't think there is a young girl on my street. if there was one, i don't think i'd feel right paying her next to nothing (which is what we have to spare) to play with my kids. i used to babysit for my dentists kids and so much was wrong with it. a) he was a horrible dentist and he smelled like bacon bits and rubber gloves. b) his kid used to bite me. c) i really knew nothing about child-rearing and am certain i was a horrible babysitter, which may have been why i kept getting bit in the first place. d) people usually felt guilt-free about underpaying me as an 11-year-old girl, child labor laws anyone? (you know who you are, donna "$1.29" mchenry). but i made up for it by eating so much fruit snacks while i was there. mwah ha ha.

3) don't stress if you aren't perfect. first off, you can't tell someone that the way to not be stressed is to not stress. that is the opposite of helping. and second, i don't think that falling just shy of perfect is what's stressing me out. i am stressed out because at least 3/4 of the square footage of my house is covered with large, obnoxious toys (courtesy of my mother), and laundry. clean, dirty, folded, stacked... it's out of control.

*i realize that i am just complaining and am not offering any solutions to other mothers. if i promised that reading this post would energize you, make you efficient and diligent, i would be lying. i'd rather call this what it is: a rant that will help distract you from all the laundry you should be putting away.

when i ask my daughter marlie (4 1/2) to help with the chores, she will say that "her arms are very broken and tired." i know exactly what she means. i know that she is really saying "but there is so much to do, i am overwhelmed and paralyzed by it all." at the top of my chore list i used to have a bible verse that promises that god will show up and help me, strengthen me and uphold me. i am a desperate women, and i am not above asking jesus to help me do my laundry. it is really the only hope i have that it will get done. not hiring a mommy's helper, not taking a day to myself, not lowering my expectations. i seriously need me some jesus if i am going to get anything done around here. because apart from that, my arms are just very broken and tired indeed.

when i was in first grade i was in the school spelling bee. i had it in the bag. my biggest competition was going to be this kid whose head was enormous. for a kid's head to be that huge, he had to be packin' some serious brains. he was smart, his spelling was accurate and fast. he knew the method. say the word, spell the word, say the word again.

as the competition neared, señor huge-head started winning the spelling games we would play in class. i imagine him at home doing spelling drills. i was at home cutting my barbie's hair, he was spelling words like humidity. i was sneaking chewable vitamins that came in the shape of various cartoon characters, and he was timing himself spelling athletics. this was not going to be pretty.

it was time for the big night. i had envisioned myself winning the bee, taking the cup, spending the winnings entirely on malted milk balls. i gotta be honest, i thought it would come down to me and huge-head for the championship... and in a deep, slow-motion voice, i would spell something like "barbecue." and i would, inevitably, take the title.

that was not what happened. what actually happened was that i misspelled a word a few rounds in and huge-head didn't misspell anything. his brain-packed head took the prize, while my pathetic, overly-vitamined-brain laid in my mom's lap in the audience... watching him receive his handsome reward, MY prize money. i cried. for the rest of the bee - all 6 grades.

at some point my mom "suggested" that i pull it together and try to "be happy for the boy that won." i couldn't have done that to save my life. i wanted to win. i wanted him to lose. there was no collecting myself. there was no happy.

then, the boy with the alarming head started coming toward me. he was coming to gloat. he was coming to rub my nose in his victory, i just knew it. as he approached, i sort of did the shy, hide your (puffy) eyes behind your mom's leg, hoping to disappear and not have to face his heckling.

then huge-head did something unexpected. he said "good job," and he offered me half his winnings. i think he won like thirty bucks, which is basically the lottery when you are in first grade. he was going to be a millionaire, and he was offering ME half his loot. i don't know if he felt bad for me because i kept crying like an idiot, or if his parents forced him to make the offer as a pity offering, or what... but he did it. he offered to split the prize with me.

nothing makes you feel like a jerk more than looking back on your life and realizing that you actually ARE a jerk. i, of course, did not accept the prize money, and i have felt guilty ever since for secretly wishing for his demise and for fixating on what is now a probably successful, and average-sized head. i'm not sure if or how that experience changed me, but i will say that it set the stage for the understanding that people may not always be what they seem.

i think a lot of moms, myself included, are terrified of having their kids turn out like them. i used to be so scared that they would be selfish like me, overly-sensitive like me, competitive like me. lately, i have gotten to see my kids, especially annalee, become something so different than i was. i get to see her sharing her faith with kids at school, praying for them "ten times" in her bed. i get to see her cry when they struggle or fail, or when they miss a parent who has passed away. i have seen her pulling for and praying for her friends to do what is right, and grieving when they don't.

i am learning to be a little less afraid of them becoming me, and a little more intentional about helping them become themselves. someday, they will be in a spelling bee. they may win, they may lose, they might even cry themselves to sleep over losing. or they might just be the kind of kid that wins the spelling bee only to think about the wretched kid who won't stop crying. all i know, is that for now, they are shaping up to be something special, something a little like huge-head.

london bridge is falling down, my fair lady

i do not love being pregnant. i love having babies. but, being pregnant... not so much. i cannot express the relief i am experiencing now that i am no longer pregnant. but, when i was just into my second trimester and i started bleeding... i would have given anything to stay pregnant.

it was the middle of the summer, and i hadn't been outside for months apart from the car ride to the doctor, hospital or acupuncturist - all attempting (in vain) to alleviate the severe morning sickness that was slowly stopping my body from functioning properly. i was about 15 weeks along when my mom and my sister had come from michigan to help take care of my kids since i was bed-ridden and attached to a home IV. i started throwing up (not unusual), but i also felt cramping (unusual). i realized i was bleeding quite a bit and i was instantly terrified.

i collected myself before i went downstairs because i didn't want tom, my mom and sister to panic. i think i was calm, but i am not really sure about that detail. i just said that i was bleeding and that we needed to go to the hospital right away. we left immediately and in the car ride, the bleeding got much worse. i was sure i was having a miscarriage. i was crying, and just kept saying "no, no, no, no..." tom was crying too. we sort of took turns being stable. i would panic and he would calm me down, and just when i started to believe him, that maybe "everything will be okay..." he would take his turn to freak out and i would take a shot at being rational and calm.

it was a horrific drive to the hospital. in my mind i felt like i knew i was having a miscarriage, but i never would have said it out loud. when tom called our obgyn to tell her we were on our way to the ER, he said "yes, hello. i think my wife is having a miscarriage." i couldn't believe it. i knew I was thinking that, and i knew that HE was thinking that. but i didn't want it to be true, and in that moment, i felt like saying it out loud would make it true.

we got to the emergency room and it was packed with people who were groaning, sleeping, or just waiting patiently. i walked in sobbing, checked in and sat down next to a groaning lady in a wheelchair. i waited. and waited. nobody called my name. i looked down and realized that there was blood on the bench. tom went to the desk to ask when we would be seen, saying that i was getting worse. the man handed him a towel and said to wait.

we left and went to another hospital. i couldn't believe that i was getting back in the car. i was in so much pain. i felt like i was having contractions, and all i could think of was the long days and nights that i had spent throwing up, feeling like i had the flu for 4 solid months, and how i prayed for the nausea to go away. i thought of how i couldn't even keep a sip of water down. how i felt like i was dying. and how i prayed for the pain to stop, for the slow, miserable death to come quickly.

now, here we were. on our way to hospital #2, and my prayer was coming true. god was going to grant me this one horrible wish, that the nausea would go away, but so would my baby. i felt so guilty, as though wanting the miserable pregnancy to end, had actually brought on a miscarriage. i regretted every single thought i had. every second i had wished away, every prayer for relief... i knew that i was responsible, and this was my punishment.

when we finally got into the second ER, we were seen almost immediately. i still remember the nurses asking all the questions, and their sad faces when i gave my answers. they gave that face where you put your lips together, pull them both in tight, kinda more to one side than the other. the face that says "you poor thing." the pity face. i knew what was happening. i know what bleeding this much during your second trimester means. i didn't need tight, crooked lips to tell me that much.

we waited for a while for the ultrasound technician to come in to give us the final say. at this point, the bleeding had slowed down a bit... so i had some hope. i laid in the cold, sterile bed imagining the scene that would play out in the coming moments. the tech would come in. she would search for a heartbeat, and she would not find one. she would say "i'm sorry, i cannot find the heartbeat." i pictured myself getting enraged. i pictured myself grabbing the little microphone thingy and yelling at the lady. i pictured myself screaming that "this baby was created by the god of the universe, so don't tell me that there is no heartbeat. there will BE a heartbeat." and i imagined a heartbeat. i believed that there could be a heartbeat.

about 5 minutes later, the tech walked in. she squirted the gooey stuff on the microphone and she pushed the wand into my still-flat belly. i thought of how small the baby must be in there, all alone, hard to find. she searched on my right side for a while, then slowly slid the wand over the middle, then finally down to the left side. she seemed to listen for so long. several times we heard the swishy sound, but it was too slow... it was the sound of a big heart, my heart, and it was breaking. we needed to find a tiny heart, with a quick beat.

finally, just as i had imagined the scenario going, she said it.

"i'm really sorry. i'm not finding a heartbeat."

i hesitated. just for a moment. did i believe my pretend monologue i had daydreamed about giving in this moment? did i really believe that the creator of the universe had knit this baby together in my womb? did i really believe that he could restore it's life, which had surely been lost by this point?

i did. i believed all of that. so hanging onto a hint of faith that god would restore the quick and tiny beat of my baby's heart, i put out my hand and said "can i just try?"

now it was her turn to hesitate. i think out of pity for my desperation, and that alone, she relinquished the ultrasound wand to my control. i laid my head back and closed my eyes. tears were rolling down my face, but just like she did, i swept the wand around my tummy. first on the right side. nothing. then down below my belly button. still nothing. then finally over to the left side. and there it was. that perfect, sweet, swishy, little washing machine sound.

my baby was alive and also a warrior. i was a rock star for not giving up until i could prove it. and my god had breathed life into her that was meant for something big.

this would mark the beginning of what would become the longest pregnancy of my life. riddled with various complications, including an amniotic band which threatened to harm, deform, or even kill our baby, the pregnancy dragged on until i was 8 days overdue. my wonderful hippy of a midwife broke my water and told me "do whatever my body told me to do." and five hours later, my body told me to push. then, she came. little london claire. a perfect peach of a head, and the sweetest little piglet nose you ever saw. a fine and elegant lady, she was.

my friend erica was capturing every perfect moment, expertly avoiding any scandalous pictures. and i might have imagined this, but i am pretty sure my other friend sam leaned over and whispered "she is a masterpiece." i am not totally sure that happened, because it was all a haze at that point. but, even if i made that part up, it was true. she was a masterpiece. knit together by the god of the universe. fought for by her mother. and welcomed by a roomful of family and friends who already loved her.

matthew 15:28 "then jesus answered her, 'o woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.' and her daughter was healed instantly ."

sometimes i feel bad about being white.

lately i have been contemplating all things race and adoption. we adopted our son harper (2.5 years) when he was 10 days old. my husband and i are white, and we had two biological daughters at the time we brought harper home. harper (whose birthparents are both african-american) is very obviously an adoptive addition to our family. i have done unbelievable amounts of research on the topic of adoption, specifically trans-racial adoption. this what i have discovered: you can't do the right thing. well, at least not in everyone's eyes.

first, you've got the people who are overly-sensitive about race. (i can say this, because i am probably more on this end of the spectrum. i think that racism is still a huge issue and i think it is negligent and naive to pretend that it's not.) but, i think some people take it over board. people don't know if you are supposed to say black or african-american, hispanic or latino, person of color or person of colour. i mean... it is terrifying to be in front of someone of a different ethnicity, use the wrong language and look like an ignorant butthole. there are people who will be offended no matter what you say. when i recently described harper as a minority in our family, one woman said she found my use of the word minority disturbing. i mean... if you've got 5 pennies, 5 nickels and a quarter, i think we all know that the quarter is the minority. just means: not as many. doesn't mean not as valuable. in this case, the quarter is actually worth more... there just aren't as many of them. that's sort of how my family is too. harper's worth is not being described when i say he is a minority. in a family with three white sisters, his reality is being described.

next, you've got my personal favorite: the "colorblinders." these people are great. they just say "i don't see color," and that somehow solves the racism issue. i mean, you don't see color? with all the colorblindness happening, it's a wonder how these people get their socks into pairs. i just think it a bit naive to say you can't see differences. again, it is not about worth or value. it's about reality here, people. i can SEE the difference between blonde hair and brown hair, brown skin and cream skin, purple socks and red. to pretend we can't see our wonderful and unique differences, cheapens the experiences of people who have been discriminated against for those very differences. seriously people, stop saying that. saying you don't judge people based on color is different than saying you don't SEE color. it's foolish, and it's a lie. (*author would like to note that this does not apply to those who have an actual diagnosed colorblindness problem. she is sorry to hear that... she permits you to continue using the phrase "i don't see color." and, to make amends for her offensiveness... she will gladly fold your socks into pairs.)

in the early 90's nike launched an advertising campaign featuring michael jordan and spike lee saying phrases like "the mo' colors, the mo' better." (my brother was in high school at the time, and he wrote an award-winning essay about embracing racial diversity in which he quoted this spike lee original.) the point of the campaign was, of course, to sell shoes. but, the secondary issue was to spark some dialogue and some thought about embracing people of all colors... not to deny that we are all covered in skin of varying colors, or to intimidate each other with so much political correction that we can't speak openly about race and ethnicity.

i am a tall, brown-haired, heterosexual, white, christian woman. i'm a youngest child, a child of divorce. these things are not a matter of better or worse, they are a matter of my reality and if i'm honest they do define a lot of who i am. i cannot speak for what life is like as a man, a muslim, a homosexual, or as a small black boy in a white family. i raise the question: what might it be like for him, now and down the road. i ask, not because i love him differently than i love my daughters... but, because i love him so much i feel obligated to acknowledge that his life experience will be different than my daughters' and sometimes it will be harder. i think i would be doing him a disservice if i were to take people's advice and treat him the exact same as my biological kids. i tried using the same eczema cream and it fried off his tiny baby mustache. HE IS NOT THE SAME! nor should he be!

today, when playing a board game with harper and marlie, she gave him a gamepiece and said "here harper, you'll be blue." he pulled up his little pantleg and pointed to his skin and said "noooo, i be browwwn." then, he looked at me proudly, flashed a huge smile (showing just the bottom row of his teeth), he raised his eyebrows once and said "harper handsome." he's also proud to tell you that he is adopted, just like jesus was adopted by joseph, and that he has handsome brown skin, and that the bottom of his feet are pink. he'll tell you that i am his forever mama, but that he has a birthmama too. my girls can't say any of that. they. are. different. to pretend otherwise wouldn't only be ridiculous, it would be sad.

i'm glad we adopted, and we are going to do it again. (yes, that will make five kids in all.) i am glad harper is "browwwwn" and i'm glad he thinks that it's handsome. i don't care if people think that "black children belong in black families." i think that in a perfect world children belong in the home with BOTH of their biological parents... but until we live in a perfect world, i think children belong with whoever is willing to love them, believe in them, and take the time to make them feel good about who they are... similarities, and yes, differences.