Easter Memory

My late husband, Dave, and I  purchased a house in a rural subdivision called Woodmoor, adjacent to Monument, Colorado in 1995--the same year my first novel (SHADES OF ROSE) was released.  It used to always snow on Easter here in the days before Climate Change.  Typically, March and April are our snowiest months, but not this year!  That's another topic for another post....

This would have been Easter 1996.  Our son, Ben, was 6, Bonnie 9, and Barbi 13-14.  As usual, it snowed (a lot) on Easter Sunday.  Dave loved to hide the eggs, and we had 1.25 acres of old growth pine forest.  I reminded him to leave some of them out in places easy for Bonnie to find.  Even though older than Ben, she was smaller and has Down Syndrome.  As it turned out, he didn't have to that year.  :)

Because the snow was deep and still falling, we left the baskets inside and gave the kids plastic grocery bags to use for their hunt.  I don't recall Barbi participating.  I think she already considered herself "too old" for such activity, but not for the chocolate bunny, of course.  We had no  idea that young Ben's bag had a hole in the corner just big enough for those real and plastic eggs filled with goodies to slip right through....

In typical fashion, he darted around our wooded lot from tree to tree, finding all the loot in record time.  Bonnie plodded along in her pink snow suit behind her brother, bending over every few steps and picking up what fell through the hole in his bag.  Each time she did, she said, "Thank you, Ben."  I'm sure she repeated this motion and statement at least twenty times before they finished.  When both children came to us with their bags, Bonnie's was full and Ben's had one little egg that hadn't slipped through the hole.  He looked devastated.  We showed him the hole and Bonnie said, "Thank you, Ben" again.  Then she gave him the bag after removing one plastic egg.

I really wish I  had a video of this Easter morning--especially of their dad laughing so hard there were tears streaming down his face.  We were all laughing, of course, except Ben and Bonnie.  Both these children have hearts of gold, just like their dad.  They shared the candy, and all was well.

Have a wonderful day, however you spend it.  I hope you share it with someone you love.  Ben and Bonnie are both here with me to have dinner.  And even at 25, Bonnie hasn't outgrown the joy of dying Easter eggs, though now I devil them instead of hiding them.  :)  Look whose name she put on one of those eggs....

Happy reading.

Love,
Deb

"I got a Happy Meal and Mommy got a baby!"

Today is my daughter, Bonnie's, 30th birthday. Many of you know her online as "Princess Bonnie," which she is in every way. She's sunshine blended with a healthy dose of Missouri mule. ;)

After our birth daughter, Barbi, was born on Christmas Eve in 1981, my obstetrician informed us that another pregnancy was "paramount to a death wish." I have this nasty blood-clotting disorder that makes pregnancy very high risk. So we spoiled our beautiful baby for four years, then started looking into adoption.

One thing we knew for certain--we wanted an infant. The other thing we realized after taking a workshop on special needs adoption was that we had absolutely no qualms about bringing a baby with Down Syndrome into our home. So after completing this program and our home study, we went on a waiting list as not only potential, but eager, adoptive parents for a newborn with Down Syndrome. Imagine our surprise when a mere 3 months later, the phone rang to inform us that our wait was at an end.

We lived near Tulsa, Oklahoma at the time, and Bonnie was born in Oklahoma City. The laws at that time would not permit "placement" until she was eleven days old. We stayed in constant contact with the agency. Not only was she born with Down Syndrome, and a little premature, but she also had a heart defect, which isn't uncommon. Because her birth mother didn't have medical insurance, the only test that had been done was an EKG. Our medical insurance would cover Bonnie the moment she came into our family, so I made appointments for her with a pediatric cardiologist and our pediatrician before we even brought her home.

Finally, the day arrived, and the social worker suggested we meet somewhere between Oklahoma City and Tulsa. Dave took the day off from work, and the three of us packed the diaper bag, car seat, and blanket I had crocheted for our new baby, and drove to the appointed rendezvous point.

McDonald's, of course!


Bonnie only weighed four pounds, fourteen ounces. Considering her big sister had weighed eight pounds, seven ounces, holding her was like holding half a baby. Pretty scary little bundle, but sooooooo loved and soooooo adorable. People stared at us in the restaurant while we exchanged baby and paperwork. I have to admit, looking back, it must have looked a little clandestine, but nothing could have been more right or good.

The next morning, when I took 4 1/2-year-old Barbi to Noah's Ark Preschool, she marched in the door and proudly announced, "We went to McDonald's. I got a Happy Meal and Mommy got a baby."

The teachers and other parents looked at her with their mouths agape when I stepped through the door behind my daughter holding our tiny Bonnie. All I could do was laugh, because Barbi had simply told the truth. After the initial shock and a few explanations, we made our trip to the cardiologist, where we learned that Bonnie's heart murmur wasn't as serious as originally feared. While she did require heart surgery at eighteen months, she now has a normal--and very loving--heart.

Since that wonderful day in 1986, we went through another so-called "special needs" adoption to add our son, Ben. As far as my late husband and I were concerned, the only special needs were ours, and our children have fulfilled them and then some. Since both our adopted children are of other races, I was often asked while out shopping whether or not they were my "real" children. I always smiled and said, "Of course. I left the pretend ones at home."

It's all about love--not blood or DNA.

Each of our children was meant to be part of our family. It doesn't matter how they came to be here. We're family. Period.

Bonnie's special all right, but not because of that extra number twenty-one chromosome. She's special because she's Bonnie. Her dad often said she was born missing the mean gene. I think he was right....

Happy birthday, Princess Bonnie.

Love, Mom

Sweet & Sassy

Nothing sweeter than a sleeping princess all content and perfect.



And Princess Bonnie got to see the Wiggles for the third year in a row last night. She'll never outgrow this, so it's becoming an annual tradition. Now she expects me to make new T-shirts for them every year. I figure the cost of the tickets plus the T-shirts are worth the trade-off of bribing her sister and brother-in-law to take her instead of me. :) I think they had fun. Don't you?



And today I received the galley/page proofs of THE GIFT, just as I was really starting to make progress on my new proposal. Alas, first things first.

Baby, it's cold outside--at least for the end of July. We've had lows in the upper 40s and our high today was 55! Brrrr... Rainy, too. Nice change.

Happy reading, all.

~Deb