The struggle is a good thing…

So I am blogging again today.  Looking back, it occurs to me that I have been away a while.  Baseball, tee ball, ballet (not me, the half-pint), teaching, working, scouting – all of those things that I love are taking me in a direction away from something else I love – sharing this little corner of the universe with you.  So it is that there is one thing in particular nudging me back into the electronic study where I can pace around and sort out my feelings. The Boy Scouts of America, yesterday, “affirmed” their stance on discriminating against “avowed and openly” gay scouts and volunteers.

What utter nonsense.  First and foremost, let’s just take a look at the words they use.  They “affirmed” their policy.  How does one “affirm” discrimination?  The juxtaposition of the two words in the same sentence brings to mind the inauguration speech of Alabama Governor George Wallace.  “Segregation now!  Segregation tomorrow!  Segregation forever!”

In that speech, the Governor “affirmed” his state’s policy, didn’t he?  No doubt about it that he “affirmed” his policy of never letting one group of people mix with another group of people.  50 years in our rear-view mirror, I have to ask – how did that affirmation hold up?  Was it the right thing to do?  Was it in keeping with our founding principles?  The answer is certainly “no,” at least for the humane and decent among us, it is.

So you have this “affirmation” from the Boy Scouts of America that they are going to keep discriminating against people.  They say that “a majority of their parents” want this.  Well, wait a sec – no one ever asked me.  I have been in scouting since my Star scout was in the first grade.  Can’t recall ever seeing a questionnaire from BSA mailed to our house or our troop.  How do they know what a majority of the parents want when they never surveyed them? 

I am just a volunteer, working my butt off for this great little Troop so that they can grow into strong, wise, and self-reliant confident men who make up their own minds about such nonsense.  I have no resources to donate to scouts other than my time and my commitment to the principles of scouting.  Principles like this little ditty from Sir Robert Baden-Powell:  “The spirit is there in every boy; it has to be discovered and brought to light. “  Or maybe this one:  “The most worth-while thing is to try to put happiness into the lives of others. “  How does any of that involve discrimination based on a person’s sexual preference?

Baden-Powell is, if you didn’t know, the founder of scouting (there is considerable speculation that he himself was a closeted homosexual.  While his sexual preference doesn’t matter a bit to me, I guess since he wasn’t an “avowed” homosexual, scouting’s founder must be ok in the BSA’s eyes, because to date they ain't kicked him out).

And let’s talk a moment about that concept of being an “avowed” person of any sexual orientation.  I missed a lot during puberty, I mean there was just a lot going on with girls, and sports, and school and family life…so I could have been out fishing or playing baseball the day the village elders came around intending to make me swear a vow to be either hetero or homosexual.  I do not remember ever “avowing” to any particular sexual orientation.  I do remember seeing Dawn Wells on TV in those little red shorts on Gilligan’s Island and being pretty well smitten by that, but that is about as close as I get to “avowing” anything in terms of my individual sexuality.  Maybe it’s different for others, I just don’t remember having to swear a vow about my sexual orientation.  Seems I just grew up having the one I got.  

So this topic of the Boy Scouts of America “affirming” their discrimination against “avowed or openly gay” kids and volunteers is nonsense.  Scouting should be open to all.  It diminishes the integrity and credibility of our commitment to the Scout Law to intentionally turn our backs on kids and their parents because of something as absurd as sexuality.  As a committee member and assistant scoutmaster, I find it absolutely inappropriate that I would be expected to engage any of my scouts in a discussion about their sexuality.  Discussin gthis decision, a good friend of mine and scoutmaster pointed out the obvious, "as scout leaders who grants us that license, that charter, that permission to engage kids that way?"  No one.  Yet the scouts have forced that dynamic precisely.  By making a big a deal out of individual sexuality, the BSA has wrongly thrust that issue onto local Troops.

A scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent.  Nowhere in there does it reference sexuality.  I will continue to love scouting and maintain my commitment to the kids in my Troop.  And I will keep faith that, at some point, the Boy Scouts of America will embrace the true meaning of their charter and open the doors of scouting to all by abandoning this antique and contradictory obsession with homosexuality.

So, today is a little more pointed than most of my entries.  I suppose that happens when you see something you love making a bad decision or heading off in a wrong direction.  The reality is that scouting, just like the scouts themselves and their volunteers, is not defined by this one issue.  There are millions of us out there who say “let the kids join; let the parents volunteer” regardless of this issue of sexuality.  Don’t mistake my passion for contempt – I love scouting and the opportunities it presents.  I am just a little sad and embarrassed today by the direction BSA is taking here.

Wherever you are today, whatever you are doing, I hope you can take some time to reflect on what is best about scouting in America; the kids. Their decency, their commitment to solid scouting principles, the promises they make, and keep, on a daily basis. I hope you can spend some time being assured that there are a million or so volunteers all pulling hard in the right direction and I hope you can join me by keeping that faith that someday, someday soon, we too shall overcome this.  Until the time that we do, like many things in scouting, the struggle to achieve will in the end serve us well.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today.

Yours in scouting,

Dennis

smalltowndad@hotmail.com

Having "the talk" when Santa's fate hangs in the balance...

When I was in the 3rd grade, much of the discussion among my school buddies at Christmas time was on whether or not each of us still believed in Santa Claus.  For me, the experience was heart wrenching.

“Of course Santa exists,” I remember thinking.  I even recall there was at least one fist fight with my bitterest third grade rival, Kerry Simmerson.  One day walking home from school I had heard enough about how Santa did not exist and anger grew to pushing, pushing grew to shoving, and shoving grew to punches being thrown. I did not win the fight; my oldest brother did when he jumped in and laid waste to Kerry Simmerson – but that is another story.

This story is about how I had to go home and tell my mom I got into a fight over whether or not Santa Claus existed.  I was petrified to do so because as a child in my mother's home, and in fact it is true to this very day for children and grandchildren alike, one did not question the existence of Santa.  So to even admit that I had been engaged in fisticuffs over the issue was to admit that people in my peer group were questioning.

I remember my mom sitting in the kitchen in our old Sears Craftsman in Detroit, and listening while I re-enacted the entire argument and subsequent fight.  I was crying when I told her I just couldn’t believe anyone didn’t believe.

Now, my mom was a school teacher.  And as an adult looking backward, it is evident to me that she was infinitely more comfortable with the issues important to little kids than I ever will be.  I will admit at times when I was growing up we had our issues, but from my perspective, as a 46 year old father of two myself, she was a friggin genius most of the time.

So she took in my tale and then gave me a hug and a kiss and told me “Denny, don’t worry about it if they don’t believe.  That’s their choice and you can’t ever change that – but what really matters is what you believe.  That’s what we call ‘faith.’  Do you believe Santa exists?"

I recall that my reply must have sounded like something from a cartoon “I do believe ma!  I do I do I DO believe!”  She gave me another hug and a kiss and told me not to worry about it then – that it was the beginning of Christmas break and we would all feel better once Christmas got here.

Important to this story is that in the front room of our home, there was a modest fireplace surrounded in red-brick and adorned with a wooden mantle.  We used the fireplace regularly and it was perpetually filled with ash and soot as a result.  To this day, I cannot look at a real fireplace with red bricks and not recall the tale I am about to share with you now.

Christmas morning 1972 arrived and I can remember tearing down the stairs with my brothers to take in the Christmas Day haul.  The tree, in my memory, was magnificent and surrounded by a veritable sea of festive packages.  In my home the packages from family were always wrapped expertly and the gifts from Santa were always presented right where Santa left them, unwrapped - ready to be enjoyed.  If you were especially good, there might also be extra gifts under the tree from the "fairies and elves" at the North Pole.

My eyes took all this in and, as I sorted packages looking to start my pile, I noticed winding through the mountain of toys; around the Hands-Up Harry and electric table top football game, a series of sooty boot-prints.  They began at the fireplace and wound their way around the entire room – first to the stockings and then around the tree and then completed their circuit back into the fireplace.

Seeing them was the first “Stop the Presses!” moment of my life.

“AAAA-HAAAAA!” I shouted to my brothers who, apparently oblivious to the tracks, circled the tree like leaves in a whirlwind.  My older brothers, then 10 and 12, said not a word to me about the footprints.  They are good brothers - always have been.

But there before me was all the proof I needed for rotten old Kerry Simmerson.  I begged and begged and begged for my mother to snap a few photos of the boot prints so I could take them to school with me after the start of the New Year and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Santa came to good little boys.

My mom relented and pulled out the family “Polaroid Swinger” and snapped two pictures of the telltale boot prints from different angles while my father made quite a show of saying he was going to catch that elfish devil next year for making such a mess out of our living room.

I counted those days remaining until I could go to school as among my most satisfying ever.  Kerry would have to eat an entire basket of crow once he saw the pictures, I thought.  I am sure I bored my family to tears with the many tales played out in my mind of what I would say and where exactly I would make my presentation of exhibits A and B once school got back in session.

The night before we returned to school, I put the two pictures on the rack by my coat, right where I wouldn’t forget them.  Kerry had always been my bully and at long last I was going to have some justice.  Santa did exist and I had all the proof I needed right in my pocket. Tomorrow, I thought, would be a day of reckoning for the bully, Kerry Simmerson. I went to bed that night dreaming victory dreams of the coming confrontation. 

What I did not count on in the many times I played this scene out, was that in the rush to get three boys out the door for school before she herself departed work, my mom would have forgotten to include my “Zapruder pics” in with my books and sack lunch.  So I was surprised when I got to school and realized the pictures were still at home.

"No problem,” I thought as I sorted through my things, “Tomorrow, then.”

At home that afternoon, I searched and searched and searched for the pictures but couldn’t find them anywhere.  I am sure I said horrible things to our babysitter because I remember she helped earnestly in the search but couldn’t find them either. I remember waiting, and crying, in the kitchen for my mom to come home from school.

“The pictures are gone!” I cried.  “Now I’ll never get to show him my proof!”

I was devastated.

My mother gave me a hug and said that “we have to have a talk about those pictures…”

My heart exploded into my chest. This was it, this was where she dropped the big one about Santa – she was going to tell me that there was no Santa and I have been acting like an idiot for the better part of two weeks.

She hugged me and we walked together into the front room of that sturdy old Craftsman.  There we sat down and she looked right into my face and said:

“Denny, what you believe is what you believe.  It’s why we call it “having faith.”  If other kids don’t believe then that is up to them; all that really matters to you is that you believe, ok?”

I am sure I looked to her like a dog looks to us when he hears a high pitched sound.  I felt like I was left hanging – so was there or wasn’t there a Santa?  Seeing this on my face, and being as good with kids as she was, she knew I needed more than that.  It was then that she told me the absolute truth about Christmas on Cooley in Old Redford in 1972.

“Denny,” she said looking me right in the face, “Santa sent elves, two of them, and a magic talking squirrel who's been keeping an eye on you, he's called the Telling Squirrel, to take back those pictures.  You see, faith is very important to Santa, and he asked me to tell you that if you truly believe, you won’t ever need a simple picture to convince you that love, magic, and Santa exist.  He said that people would only say you faked that picture anyhow.  And he also said to say he loves you, and that you are a very good little boy."

The essential truths I learned that day, shared with me in the Christmas of my third grade year, I bear with me still. They are part of the ready tools that aid me in my journey through life as a child of wonderful parents and a parent to wonderful children. Santa, and love, and magic most certainly exist, if only you have a little faith.

So thanks for stopping by my blog today and sharing this story.  I hope wherever you find yourself today, you are in hugging distance of those who love you, who lift you up, and who fulfill the very best parts of the person you are destined to be.

Dennis

smalltowndad@hotmail.com

Fencing, really?

My son, age 10, is an athlete.  Well, perhaps I should refine that statement.  He is incredibly fit, almost impossibly so. He has been blessed with foot speed, coordination, and an athlete's lean body which, aside from the striking resemblance of my "Fred Flintstone" big toe to his, would have me seriously questioning his paternity.  He is also pretty smart - all in all a good combination for most sports.

So when he begged for a year straight to play football, I gave-in and vowed to go to his mother, the lady who brought him forth into this world, and say "He gets to try it.  If he likes it, fine, if not - well at least he will know why not." 

Fifty years ago, in my grandfather's generation, they would have called it "putting your foot down."  In 2010 we call those ancient times "the good old days."  But after a much more cosmopolitan discussion with his mom, and no putting down of feet, his mother relented and agreed to let him play. I am certain she did it just to shut us both up.  She also let me know in no uncertain terms that if her beautiful boy suffered any injury that it would be my...well...let's just say she used a word not fit for a lady or for this family column...but she made her point well known that she expected her son to finish football in the same fine condition physically that he was in when he started.

Along the way she also said he did not have the temperament for football, was not aggressive, "did not spit."  I wondered what "spitting" had to do with playing football in her eyes, but ultimately we all threw ourselves into almost three months of football together.  We worried about him plenty, but, just looking at him, I knew he could keep up with anyone out on the field, right? Strong, smart, and fast.  Exactly what he needed.

Well, you know how they say that nobody knows their child like a mom knows her child?

Football season rolls around and we sign the boy wonder up.  And the first five practices are all fitness and conditioning - he loves it - he is a running, push-up, jumping jack doing machine and is having the time of his life.

Problem was, eventually they issued helmets and pads and started expecting the kids to hit each other. The boy wonder, who was raised "...not to solve problems using his fists..." didn't really understand the concept of hitting.  After the first practice in full pads I am sure, however, our first born firmly grasped the concept of "being hit."

So football was not an easy experience for our family.  His coaches, I am sure, sensed his unique brand of "Woody Allen-like" ferocity, I was terrified that if he didn't get more aggressive he wouldn't be able to protect himself, and his mom was spent emotionally over the concern that her terrific little kid would somehow be morphed into a flesh eating axe killer by three months of Rocket Football.

So over the course of the season, while I argued with his coaches for more playing time, and with him to protect himself, and his mom to not worry so much, he seemed to be working on his own agenda - survival.

Please understand that he is a beautiful kid inside and out. Ten times - no - scratch that - 100 times the child I was when I was his age.  But let's just say this; he is not overly burdened with aggression.  

He is incredibly competitive but his is ultimately a compassionate soul.  Turns out his mom did indeed know him better than any of the rest of us.  By the end of football season we were all ready to celebrate - him for surviving, and me and his mom for making it to the end of what was a contentious season for our family.  Contentious because I kept wanting him to play harder and play more; and for her wanting him to come home with all his Chiclets front and center and his bones, tendons, and ligaments still attached in all the right places.

I have to share that, after the second to the last game of the season, having watched him practice just as hard as any other kid on the team, I told him he could quit the team if he wasn't having fun.  That was a reversal of my deal with him when I told him I would "go to bat" for him with his mom over football.  I said I would do that but if he played, he couldn't quit.  He had to stick it out for the season.

I told him I thought he was being taken advantage of.  He never missed a practice, never talked back to his coaches, never quit.  He just wasn't real big into the whole "football aspect" of football.  Consequently, the coaches never played him. Understandable and true if you are coaching at the high school level, but this was a community league and this was his first exposure to the sport.  So I was miffed.

My miffedness escalated dramatically when family traveled from all over to an away game and my son got put in with 17 seconds to play in the 4th quarter and our team up by three touchdowns.  It was the only game that team won all season.

So after another game where he was only allowed in on a couple of plays; after working his butt off for the better part of two and half months, I said to him that if he wanted to quit I would turn his gear in myself.  I expected him to jump at the chance.

Instead, he looked up at me, arms covered in bruises from practice, after having played exactly two snaps in the previous game, and said "Dad, this is a little town.  I am going to see those guys at school for a long time. No one out there is going to be able to call me a quitter.  They can do whatever they want to me, but I'm not quitting." 

I was proud and relieved and angry all at once.  Proud because of how insightful he was at just 9 years old. Relieved because I was secretly hoping he would stick it out; and angry because I felt the coaches were just wrong.  None of it matters now, but I was livid then.

But that moment when he told me he wasn't quitting revealed more character in him than would have been created if he played every snap of every game all season.  I could not have been more proud of him.  So we agreed that his last game would be fun. He could do whatever he wanted, play if he wanted, sit if he wanted.  He was expected to give a good effort in practice and also if he got to play, but we weren't going to have any more fights, either me with his coaches or between him and me, about football. 

He played a lot the last game of the season - even made a spectacular tackle that he never got credit for.  I remember that they did not win but I don't remember the score.  What I do remember is that I saw in him what he was really made of that day he refused to quit and how happy we both were driving away from the grid-iron that day.  High fives and laughter all around, I remember that scene vividly.

So fall rolls around this year and we asked him what does he want to do.  He plays basketball and baseball but with no football this fall, what did he think he was going to do with all his free time?

"Fencing, dad."

"Fencing, really" I said to him.  "Son, we live in a small town - this is not exactly the fencing capitol of the world.  In fact our small town is probably not the "anything" capitol of the world so how the heck are we going to pull off fencing?"

Well, as it turns out we are close to a town with a major university and there is a fencing coach there who teaches youth fencing as part of the community recreation program.  So this fall I am proud and happy to report that my son, who attacked offensive lines with all the aggression and ferocity of your average cat burglar sneaking through a darkened museum, is Zorro when you actually put a saber in his hands.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.  Here's hoping that whatever you are doing with your kids this fall, it is fun for all and that everybody comes home with all their "Chiclets front and center."

Dennis

P.S.  What prompted this entry today was my reading of a news article about the suicide of a Penn State University football player who, after his death, was discovered to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy - a disease of the brain associated with repeated injuries.

I do not question the judgment of any parent letting their kids play football or any other sport, it's up to the parents and the kid.  But I wanted to throw this out there in the hopes that, as we continue to raise the awareness of kids playing while hurt, we also raise the awareness of the long term consequences of concussions and other chronic brain injuries associated with sports.

The miracle story of my miracle daughter, on her fourth birthday

My daughter is 4 years old, today.  She is everything you would imagine in a great kid.  Bright, funny, cute with huge blue eyes and the personality of a dolphin.  She is our miracle.

I used to joke, after my son was born, that the miracle of childbirth wasn't that anyone would ever have one baby. It is that anyone would ever have a second.  It is a scary thing bringing a child into this world. So much responsibility and so many what-ifs.  That, along with the actual act of carrying a child to term and then actually delivering it is enough to scare many away.

When our son was born, the pregnancy was uneventful aside from the run of the mill stuff.  No real scares. We conceived the first month we actually set about trying to start a family and the pregnancy was pretty much textbook stuff.  There was, however, just one brief scare during his delivery when the bloodflow from mom to baby was obstructed and his heart rate plummeted in utero, but that was about it. In hindsight, comparatively speaking, it was hardly even a bump in the road.

But you know what they say, sometimes you just don't know what you just don't know.  Such was the case with the relatively minor scare during delivery.  As it was, that one little scare terrified me.  The thought of what might have happened was enough to convince me that one was enough.  I hated the hospital, the monitors, the not knowing if everything would be OK.  When our son was born I thought we took home the pot on our first round of blackjack against the house and that we should walk away from the table right then.  I told my wife I would be perfectly happy raising just that one wonderful child we had.  She said she was not sure just yet.

So after our son was about 2, we started talking about having another baby.  My wife, the organized one in the family (if we lived on Sesame Street, she would be Bert and I would be every bit of Ernie and then some), started planning for a second child.

"We'll start in December," she said "so we can have a September baby."

I recall laughing and saying that there was no guarantee that would work.  Nonetheless she was confident and we started in December...of 2002...so we could have a September baby.

By September of 2003 we were concerned.

By September of 2004 we had watched every TV special on infertility, worn out several computer keyboards searching the Internet, and tried just about every home remedy short of voo-doo ritual aimed at engaging the fertility gods and blessing us with a second child.  No luck.

By 2005 we were at the threshold of the dreaded "specialist."  Specialist is Latin for a place where "there is no modesty."  I recall she was a humorless, brilliant woman with cartoon sperm all over her office.  Ceramic sperm, cardboard sperm, sperm in bas relief coming out of the walls.  There were even several "sperm mobiles" hanging from the ceiling.  If it was in a movie it would have been hilarious.  I think there was even a sperm puppet but my memory might be wrong on that one.  My reaction to all of it was one of dread.

"How much hope, and how much money." Those were the thoughts that dominated my mind on the trips to the specialist.  I had a definite budget for both.

My wife, Jeanine, for her part, was as courageous as I have ever seen any person about the process. "Whatever we need to do, we'll do it," she said.

Yeah, easy for you to say, sister.  You aren't getting sent into the room with vinyl couch, dirty magazines, and Tupperware and everyone knows what you are up to in there. 

Honestly, talk about the place where shame goes to die, the "collection lab" is the epicenter of the "no humility" zone.  On my first visit, I walked into my private room, took one look at the vinyl couch and began to laugh so hard that the 20 something female lab technician came back to check on me.

"Yes, ma'am, of course I am OK" I recall saying. "No ma'am, I'm just laughing at the couch...I don't know why I am laughing at the couch...It's a funny couch...No, I don't need any help and I don't think my wife would appreciate you asking me that question in these circumstances..."  I told her.  After that I heard her walk away laughing.

So after all the tests, two surgeries for my wife, and more "procedures," plus the addition of a second job for me to help pay for the procedures, it was now September, 2005.  Along the way, in July of 2005, my dad died unexpectedly.  I felt like quitting.  We were broke, financially and emotionally.  I was working two jobs, my wife had already had a miscarriage, we had a five year old boy at home who was perfect in every way you could expect a five year old boy to be perfect - handsome, funny, strong, smart, well mannered, compassionate.  I was ready to quit. I wanted to quit and I told my wife I was quitting.  She was faithful and said, "not just yet."

It was late summer in 2005 that my wife, unable to sleep and channel surfing after midnight, made a significant discovery watching one of those morbid TV medical shows. You know the ones, they show you all the physical torment a person is going through and you see how all the doctors along the way have screwed up diagnosing their condition until that one special doctor sees something that fixes it.  She was watching this show and I heard her say "This is me, this is what I have..."  Skeptical and tired though I was, I had to admit that the symptoms described did seem like her in a mysterious, unsolvable inability to become pregnant kind of way.

So she, the "A" student, took copious notes and we made an appointment with our "specialist" and our family doctor.  Both  gave us a collective "m'eh."  I was going on 41, my wife just turned 39 and I think they thought it was time for us to start looking at other options (the specialist was talking "IVF" to which our bank account said "NFW" and our family doctor was talking about adoption).  But, the Nurse Practitioner, an enthusiastic force to be reckoned with, had heard of this condition, had seen it in her own family, and, after a simple blood test and the writing of a 7.00 per month prescription, ultimately got us on what we thought was the right path.

So meds in hand, we started a new course of medicine and procedures.  The specialist's fees were not enough to make us go broke all at once, but just enough to bankrupt us slowly over time.  By November, 2005 we started talking about what seemed obvious - if we weren't pregnant by December then we were done.

When the middle of December, 2005 came and the monthly pregnancy test came back negative, we decided we had had enough.  We were done.  Jeanine, earlier in the summer had another miscarriage, there was thousands upon thousands of dollars spent at the specialist, horrible fights, horrible tension, the romance gone from our marriage. We decided "enough."  Our November visit to the specialist would have been our last. That is, except, as it ultimately turned out, for that one part of living where, just when you've made up your mind to quit, hope has a way of tip-toeing in and whispering softly, "not just yet."

After 4 years of trying, our minds were made up. We resolved to meet our family at Christmas, 2005 and just get on with our life.  We gathered at my oldest brother's home for family Christmas - the first time we had all been together since my dad died. 

As one of the executors of his estate, I had a modest amount of his money to distribute to each of my siblings and thought this would be the perfect time to do it.  Dad's passing was a surprise and hit us all very hard, so I sought out each sibling privately and delivered to each, individually, an envelope with a little money in it from Dad.

My oldest brother, himself a family man, in the quiet of his beautifully appointed dining room, looked at me as I handed him the envelope and said "Denny, you got bills?"  I actually laughed out loud and said, "Yeah, Pat, you could say I got some bills..."

He met my gaze and handed his envelope back to me without even counting what was in it, and said "well then take this, and do something nice for your family."  It was a gesture so kind and generous and unexpected that I didn't know what to say.  I was embarrassed. Not wanting to refuse his generosity, I thanked him and put the money in my jacket pocket.

On the way home I told my wife about the encounter.  I am not too proud to admit that we both cried a bit as our son snoozed in the car seat behind us.  Without either of us saying it out loud, we both knew what we do with that sudden, lovely, unexpected gesture. We both knew what the "nice thing" would be that we would do for our family.

The next morning we called the specialist and arranged for an appointment the following week, the last week of December, 2005.  The money was just enough to cover one more "procedure." So once again we threw our modesty out the window, handed over the money, and said a little prayer.  That prayer was answered 10 months later when we welcomed a fantastic daughter into our family.

In the end, it turned out that we started in December (2002) to have a September (2006) baby.

The birth announcements we sent introducing our miracle daughter, the daughter who came home after we had all but given up dreaming about her, read "Sometimes, when life tells you to quit, hope walks in on tip-toe and whispers "not just yet." 

She is four years old today and, along with her big  brother, stands as the greatest thing I have ever done with my life.  She is a pig-tailed, giggly, wonderful slice of Heaven on Earth. 

Happy Birthday, little frog. Your mom, dad, big brother and all of your family loves you. Even the cats think you are cool.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and sharing this story of how the frog came into our lives.  I hope all is well with you and yours and that during your journey you take the time to remember that hope, just after love, is the greatest of all gifts.

Dennis