Huh...so this is what 40 feels like.

I turned 40. I'm officially getting old. Let's take a look back at my first 40 years of life, shall we?

I was born back when Elvis was still alive. And he wasn't fat yet.



I remember my mom singing the song "American Pie" - it spent 4 weeks at #1 in 1972.



Hmmm....my childhood. My mom was young when she had me...18 years old to be exact. And she was a single mom...in 1972 that was not as acceptable as it is now. But my mom was strong, wise, and a great mother. She took really good care of me and until I was about 6 we lived mostly with my grandparents. She had gone to beauty school and I remember her doing my grandma's hair with curlers a lot. I remember her doing a few other people's hair too, and mine but she never took a job in a salon doing that. I also remember going with her on her visits selling Avon. She also worked in the lab of a local cheese plant until I was a teenager.

I think I was in Kindergarten when my mom met and married my dad. He adopted me. My biological father...wasn't in the picture and gave up his rights so my dad could adopt me. I actually remember being at my adoption hearing in court. I think the judge asked me if I wanted to be adopted. I said yes..I didn't really understand the whole thing, just that he was going to be my dad and I liked that since I didn't have one. I remember in 1st grade (I think) learning to write my new last name. I liked my new name because it was a lot easier to pronounce for people than my old one. They still had trouble with my first name, but at least they could get my last name right. It also moved me up toward the beginning of the alphabet for when we lined up in school too. :)

When I was in 2nd grade I had a gold fish....I remember this mostly from a picture my mom took of me feeding it in our first house - a trailer house on some acreage up the road from my grandparent's farm. I remember when my sister was born - I was about 8. I was with my aunt M. at her cheer-leading practice because my mom was in the hospital having a baby. I remember her using a pay phone in the school to find out how things were going and she got really excited and said that the baby was born. We went to see her. My baby sister was cute and had bright red hair - lots of it.

My grandpa had died just before my 6th birthday in a farming accident. It was while I was still in elementary school that my mom and dad bought the farm from my grandma. We moved there and I LOVED it. I was reunited with my dog that we got on the farm when I was 5. I loved pets. My dad had been a milk truck driver (my mom met him at work at the cheese plant) and he decided to farm. When I was growing up we had lots of pigs and beef cattle. I remember my dad saying we had 150 head of pigs. I'm not sure how many cattle we had, but there were plenty. I had lots of chores to do - feeding pigs, holding them while my dad castrated the males (not my favorite job), clipping their eye teeth, clipping their tails, giving them shots when needed, cleaning pens, feeding the cattle, and feeding the calves when we bought them.

not one of our actual calves...stock photo. LOL

That was probably my favorite job - feeding the calves. Have you ever fed a calf milk replacer out of a bucket? We didn't have those fancy giant bottles...we had to get in there and help them learn how to suck it right out of a bucket. You fill an ice cream pail with milk (milk replacer powder and water mixed), dip your fingers in the milk, then you let the calves taste it by sticking your fingers up to the calf's mouth...they will start sucking by instinct since they want milk. Then while they are sucking on your fingers (and they suck HARD!) lower your hand into the bucket of milk you are holding up to them. Then slowly pull your fingers out of their mouth and if they get it right away they will keep sucking the milk from the bucket. However, they also nudge their mom's utter REALLY HARD normally so they do the same to the bucket when it starts getting low. If you're not prepared it can send it flying. So hang on! :)

We had lots of out-buildings and lots of things to do on the farm. I was never bored, that's for sure. I was like my father's son...and very much a tom-boy. From a young age I worked in the field, I stacked hay in the barn, and took care of the animals. Like a lot of farmers, my dad had to work at jobs besides farming so a lot of the chores were left to me. He had a trucking company of his own for a while and then he took 2nd shift at a local manufacturing company. I did the evening chores since he was gone. By this time my brother had been born. I was 10 years older than him. He was the cutest, sweetest little blond-haired boy. I took care of them a lot when I was a kid too.

When I reached about 7th grade I went through a rough patch...without going into too many details, the results were that my grades suffered, I dropped old friends and picked up new ones, my parent's marriage was in trouble, I no longer enjoyed helping on the farm and instead spent as much time away from home as possible...going to friends houses and anywhere but home. This lasted for a few years. In high school my parents got divorced. For some people that sounds horrible, but for me it was....relief. My mom eventually bought a little house not far from the farm and my brother, sister, and I moved there. It wasn't easy for my mom. We went back to being broke. My grades went back up to A's and I stuck with a few good friends and dropped the bad ones. I got my first car (an old one) as a gift from a relative and my first job - at Taco John's. From there things kind of went in fast-forward until now.

I don't know when it happened. You know, when I grew up. I remember thinking when I was 23 and had my first child - holy shit! This baby depends on ME. Only ME. I am responsible for another human being's life. I'm still a kid inside! But, having her - my first born, my little girl, is what gave me the motivation to do better. I knew from child development class and child psychology in college that children need stability in their lives most of all. I learned from my mom how to love a child unconditionally. I knew that I loved this baby and had to protect her from all the bad in the world and provide a stable home for her. I lived with my grandma for the first 2 years of her life and saved up money to buy a home. I bought our first house and we moved in, right in town.

My 2nd daughter was born when we lived in that house too. The house was small though. It was a 2 bedroom with a 3rd bedroom added on, but you had to walk through one of the other bedrooms to get to the 3rd bedroom. Kinda weird. I wanted more space and I hated living in town with neighbors on all sides of me. I'm a country girl and city living (even in a small town) just doesn't cut it.

I talked to my dad about buying some land from him. There is a pond on some of my dad's farm and I always loved going down there for walks when I was a kid. I would sit in an old deer stand and listen to nature. I pitched him the idea of building a house there and he said yes! So I bought some acreage and built a house when my kids were about 5 and 1-1/2. I searched designs/floor plans on the internet and found a couple I really loved. A good friend of mine had gotten his builder's license and I had him take a look at them. We met with an architect and decided on a plan...tweaked it a bit and boom - started building. I put my house up for sale and 3 days later it sold. I rented until my house finally got done....11 months later. New builder = bad idea. Friend builder = even worse. Lesson learned.

Now I am a mother of 3. My son joined our family when my daughters were 12 and 8. He came into our family by adoption. It's funny how when you have one child you can never imagine loving another human being as much as you do that child. I felt that way - when I found out I was pregnant with my 2nd child...it felt odd...I didn't quite know how I would handle loving another child with my whole heart like I did the first one. How can you love that much? Won't your heart just explode at some point? And then my 2nd child was born..I stared into her eyes for HOURS UPON HOURS after she was born...and fell completely, madly in love with her. When I decided to adopt...I had decided when I was a teenager that I would adopt someday....but when you're a parent and you know what you're in for and you decide to have another child (by birth or adoption or whatever)...I just knew I would love this new child the same way as I did with my 1st and 2nd. Your heart doesn't love your other children less, it just grows more to love them the same amount. I'm not sure when it happened, really....with my 3rd child.

I know my heart grew that day I received his referral. I was at work...I got an email from my adoption agency saying they had matched me with a little boy. I was scared & nervous to open the attached pictures. Before I did, I forwarded the email to my mom and called her so we could open it "together". I shut the door to my office, and opened the attachments. This is what I saw:

I burst into tears. He was so cute! He was alert - looking right into the camera...reaching for it perhaps. It was July 14th 2008 when I got his referral. He was about 4 months old in the pictures. I couldn't go to get him until December 2008. Then I saw him again....through the window of the orphanage. I spotted him right away. He was on his tummy on a bed next to a nanny and some other babies.

This is when my heart grew some more....and in the days that followed knowing this little baby boy was handed over to my care and I was now fully responsible for another sweet gift from God, my heart grew even bigger...loving him the same way I do my first two.

I remember joking with my aunt M. (who came with me to Vietnam) that I went to VN and they just handed me a baby! How strange that seemed to me...that someone would just hand you a baby...the most precious gift - the most vulnerable, precious gift to the world that ever could be...and here he was. Mine. Wow. I am still in awe of the gift I have received. (Sidebar - if you just happened to stumble on this blog...they don't actually just hand out babies in VN or anywhere else...it took lots of paperwork, background checks, home checks, money, and 2 years to adopt. Just sayin'.)

I would have included more pictures of the girls, but I didn't have a PC or digital camera when they were little. But here we are....all 4 of us. I feel pretty complete now. I have GREAT kids. It's not easy being a single parent...sometimes I feel stretched thin. But it is WORTH IT. I don't do it "half-assed" as my first boss would say. I do it whole-heartedly, full time, all day, every day. My heart is worn outside of my body...in three separate places all at once. Terrifying, but so worth it.

I love my life, I love my kids, and I love my family. I wonder what the next half of my life will bring?

I am celebrating turning 40 with friends and family at my favorite place to eat and then we're heading over to a place called Feed My Starving Children where we'll pack food to be sent to starving children all over the world. I can't wait! :)

All Aboard!!!