The Judge Finds . . .

In the case of the Wetzels and the country of Ethiopia vs. stupid delays, the court finds in favor of . . . the Wetzels! We are officially Mom and Dad to Anna Jubilee!

And just as icing on the cake, we got three new pictures from a recently-returned traveler (thank you, E.W.!). Our daughter just keeps getting cuter, doesn't she?

















Tomorrow has enough worries of its own . . . today, we rejoice!

10 Reasons the Birthday Boy Will Be an Awesome Dad

Happy birthday, Aaron! Let's get cheesy and recognize 10 of the many reasons I love him and he'll be a great dad.

10. He's bionic (or will be soon).
9. He's tall enough to place things out of reach of children (and his wife).
8. He laughs out loud. Hopefully not at me when I don't know what I'm doing with the kid.
7. He's not a big pushover like me. He can be firm with kids.
6. He's been taking better care of himself so he can keep up with Anna (although I will say this is making me look bad . . . please pass the Snickers).
5. He strives to love the Lord our God with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength.
4. His commitment is true and total. He never even considers giving up on me--even when I would.
3. He has a true appreciation of toys, especially Legos.
2. He is real. He has no interest in pretending and sees through those who are fake in words, motives, facades.
1. He is easygoing enough to say hey . . . spit happens!

PS: Yep, this is a filler post (albeit a true one). Until Friday I'll be using my Get Out of Blogging Free card, although not due to dial-up.

Court's Coming

Our court date is next Thursday, May 31. Once our case is heard and approved, we are officially, legally, technically, permanently, and in all other ways the mother and father of Anna Jubilee.

I am anxious for it to be over and done with. I don't like to tell God what to do (okay, let's get real: yes I do), but in my humble opinion we can NOT afford a delay. Please pray that court is successful on the 31st or . . . somehow even earlier!

I will try to post soon on the plethora of baby gear we now own and other scintillating topics.

Any questions on anything else (ahem) . . . email me. Some things are best discussed off the Internets, since they are, you know, a series of tubes.

Anna at 4+ Months

We received an update on Anna today:

• 10 pounds 2 ounces
• 23 1/2 inches
• 100% adorable!

Sale Report; Court Date

The Great Garage Sale weekend was . . . appropriately great. We did pretty well--lots of people, steady sales, $750 in the bank, and only an entire trailer load left over for the thrift store. Thank you to all those who helped work and make it fun! This sale's Workhorse/Selfless Servant Award goes to Margaret Ann, the only person who at age, uh, a lot more than me will outwork you for three days straight and then call you to thank you for letting her do it!

We have a court date set for May 31. This takes place in Ethiopia without us. I am going to be getting nervous because delays do occasionally happen. If our court is unsuccessful or postponed, besides the general suckiness of waiting longer, there is no way Aaron will go to Young Life camp. But God knows how much the kids and new leaders need him there and has taken care of everything this far. Pray that he ensures success for court and comforts us in our anxiety about it.

After court our embassy date will be scheduled for about a month later. That is the date we plan our travel around. The earliest would be the very end of June . . . so it's possible we'll try to pull off some crazy scheme of going to Michigan for Justin and Toshia's wedding and going from there to Ethiopia. Maybe we will meet our baby on our tenth wedding anniversary! However, that would mean leaving here in one month. Aack! That is exciting yet terrifying because we have so much to do beforehand and because we can't really plan our travel until after court. So I can't plan travel until after court but I want to start traveling just two weeks after court?!? I am going to start calling the expert travel agents and see who has an impressive solution to that little dilemma.

That is just some of what's going on. Please pray for us . . . this is a very stressful time. More information soon.

Anna's Age and Size; Out with the Junk, in with the Pink!

I think an update is overdue--although it has to be fast because we're having a garage sale in 24 hours and I'm not even close to ready!

Anna is now four months old. Yes, just four months now, because her estimated birthdate was changed from December 7 to January 7. The main orphanage doctor saw her and disagreed with the first doctor's assessment of her developmental markers. Unfortunately no word on exactly what that means, but I guess this is not uncommon. But the more accurate the better, and we are happy to have her a little younger (one month longer until she's a teenager, ha ha). This does, however, ruin the cool story that her birthday of December 7 was the exact day we dropped off our completed dossier at the agency. Ah well. We'll say it was exactly one month after. If anyone happens to have a newspaper or the like from January 7, could you save it for me?

At her medical exam on April 7, she was just shy of 8 pounds and 21 inches long. Tiny little girl! Americans are born that big! But Ethiopians tend to be smaller, and it's possible she'll start growing faster now that she's in good orphanage care and once she gets on super-nutrition-ized U.S. food. Or she may always be tiny. I am anxious for a medical update to see how she's growing. I look at baby clothes and some look so tiny, but then some make me think, "If she's that small, this'll fit her in a year!"

Mom was out here for a fun visit and brought a bunch of clothes she'd picked up at the resale shop and some gifts from others. We couldn't help but buy a few more things so her closet has a significant amount of pink (and a great football rattle) in it already. I also bought some organization-type things for her room and things we'll need for travel to Ethiopia. Church is throwing us a "baby party" (I think the word shower is verboten lest all the men run away) after church on the 20th. You are invited.

We are having our second fundraising garage sale Friday and Saturday. I didn't advertise but Saturday is Great Garage Sale day, when everyone has their sales, so I figured since tons of people will be out cruising for sales, we might as well throw everything out there and see how we do. Yes, I could really use some help getting ready and in the mornings which tend to be busiest. Time to get to work!

World AIDS Orphan Day

May 7 is World AIDS Orphan Day.

Please read my previous post from World AIDS Day. I really don't know what else to say, except that since I wrote that, at least 948,000 children have lost a parent from a one hundred percent preventable disease. And not only should this not be happening, it does not have to be happening--but we have to be the ones to stop it.

Will you do something this year? Will I?

The (Other) Call That Shook the World

I told the story of us getting The Call, but the call story I will remember just as much is calling my mom to tell her. You probably have to know her to appreciate this, but know that 1) she is really really excited for her long-awaited first grandchild, 2) she really wanted it to be a girl, 3) she is a first-grade teacher, and 4) she is on the hyper-emotional side! (Sorry, Mom—if you want to defend yourself, you'll have to figure out how to leave comments on here!)

After we printed the photos and absorbed the referral information a bit, it was about 12:15 here—just after-school time for Mom in Michigan. Perfect. I called her school and asked for her. Mom had told me about how when she was a young married gal she and her friends had a deal that when one of them found out they were pregnant, they would call the others collect—so you knew if you got a collect call from Linda, Judy, Cindy that they were having a baby. So I asked the person at Mom's school to page her saying that she had a collect call (I didn't really call collect). After a minute Mom got on the phone with her professional teacher voice:

"Hello, this is Linda H."
Me: "You have a collect call from the mother of your grandchild."
Mom—confused: "Who is this?"
"It's Wendy."
"Wendy! Oh!" (starting to shriek)
"It's a girl."
"It's a girl?! IT'S A GIIIIIIIIRL!!!! OH! OH!" (and other extremely high-pitched, loud, shrieky noises!)

And all the other teacher ladies started shrieking too! The yelping and ohhhing went on for several minutes as Aaron and I stood there laughing. She was completely blubbering and freaking out. More people kept coming in the teacher's lounge to see what in the world was going on, so she'd tell them and they'd all shriek and laugh again. Finally I said, "Do you want me to tell you anything, or do you just want to keep screaming?" It was so funny—and fun! I will never forget that . . . or let her live it down!

She is coming to visit next week and, after showing baby Anna's photo to all the world and hitting the local baby resale shop, called her travel agent to see how many suitcases/pounds she can bring—Lord have mercy and bring more grandchildren so this one isn't spoiled to death!

I love you, Mom . . . Anna's grandma at last!

More Photos from Referral Day

We got these from the agency today--two staff members were in Ethiopia last week and were able to hold Anna and tell her she gets to live by the ocean. They were not kidding when they said she is so cute and so much cuter than the first pictures!

Oh, what big eyes you have, my dear!

Getting "The Call"

I had vowed that Thursday would be a productive day, since we would be gone all weekend. I work at home, so I took care of some things around the house, sat down at my computer, and buckled down.

For forty minutes.

I was sitting at my desk minding my own business when the phone rang. "Agency!" blipped through my mind for just a nanosecond, but I didn't really think it would be; I thought such a call would come earlier in the morning and didn't give much thought at all to who it might be.

"Hello?"
"Hello, is Wendy or Aaron available?"
"This is Wendy."
"Hi, Wendy. This is So-and-so from Such-and-Such Adoptions."
" . . . Hi." (suspicious)
"How are you today?"
" . . . I'm fine . . ." (very suspicious)
"I have some good news for you."
" . . . . . . Really? Like . . . really good?" (You had better not be kidding, lady!)
"Yes. I have your referral."
"Oh my word!"
"I'm looking at her picture and she's so adorable. Very photogenic!"

Adrenaline took over my body as I realized this was really happening and we had a daughter. The agency person asked me to first tell her where to email the photos and information. She asked me what I wanted her to tell me. Uhh . . . everything! I believe I said, "My brain is starting to leave my body. I can't think of questions. You start talking and I'll interrupt you."

She told me the basics and I attempted to make notes. As soon as I hung up I closed my laptop and called Aaron's cell phone. I said, "I need you to come home right away." He said, "Why? What's the matter?" "We got our referral!" I scared the heck out of him--he figured we had a burst pipe or some such disaster he needed to fix before we left town.

He got home in about 5 minutes. We ran upstairs to my computer and opened it. Check email! NO EMAIL! No! Maybe she had to talk to someone else before she got a chance to send it. I read Aaron my notes from the phone call. Okay, check email! No new messages! Check! No new messages! Check spam filter, maybe it doesn't know her address . . . nothing! Check other email account, maybe she didn't listen to me . . . check! check! check!

I called the agency. Voice mail—what, did you go to lunch? (I have since realized that you always get this, then press a number for the person or general line, duh.) Check email! Okay, okay . . . killing time--what's our plan after this? Who do we call first? Do we tell them the name we picked right away? Okay, moms first, tell them whatever. CHECK EMAIL! Dial agency again . . . receiving 1 message—got it! Open the pictures!

. . . Ohhhhhhhhh! She's perfect!

I'm pretty sure our call story is not at all out of the ordinary as referral calls go, but the inability to get the email was pretty funny. Not as funny as my call to my mom, though--I'll post that next.

Referral Aftermath / What Happens Next

First of all, thank you for all the congratulations and well wishes this week! It has been wonderful to hear from so many of you, and we are so blessed to have such incredibly supportive friends and family. You all seem to share your love as naturally as if no other response is even possible, but not everyone experiences such support--so thank you.

Several people have asked, "So when do you get to go get her?" The short answer is: in a couple months. First we must have a successful court date in Ethiopia. This date should be scheduled within a couple weeks and hopefully take place within a month or so. That court date makes us the eternally legal parents of Anna! However, after that an embassy date also must be scheduled--that appointment takes place at least 20 days after court and is when we get her U.S. visa to bring her home. So we plan our travel around that date--if all goes well, it could be late June. Start praying for soon and successful court!

The last six days have certainly been wild and wacky. Suddenly having a daughter kinda throws off your plans for the day, ya know? After we got our pumping adrenaline under control, we had a billion phone calls to make and then congratulations flooding in. We had to get ready for the youth weekend and get Aaron and our gear to church by 11:30 a.m. Friday. I actually got gas, got cash, came home, ate lunch, paid a bill, forwarded the referral information to the pediatrician to look at, and was on the phone with the agency asking the questions I couldn't think of at the first call at 12:30 when the kids were loading up at church. Fifty-one hours later (only about 11 of which were sleep) we were back from the youth extravaganza, and 27 hours later we were back in action for Young Life Club. With more agency and doctor and congratulatory phone calls and emails in between, of course! Now I have boatloads of work to get done in a week and more referral-related details to wrap up, and Aaron is sick. Aaaugh!

Best part of the weekend? Randomly asking kids "Have you seen my baby?" and whipping out the photos!

Coming soon: the story of The Call . . . and The (Other) Call That Shook the World!

IT'S A GIRL!

Today we received an amazing phone call. We are thrilled to introduce . . . OUR DAUGHTER!!!!

She is 4 1/2 months old. Her name is Yegetanesh, which means “You belong to God.”

We are giving her the full name Anna Jubilee Yegetanesh.

In Hebrew Anna means grace. In the New Testament Anna was a prophetess who recognized Jesus as Messiah. Grace is a gift you don’t deserve. The most beautiful gift ever given. “Grace...it’s a name for a girl / It’s also a thought that changed the world...”

Jubilee means joy, but also so much more: it calls to mind freedom, rest, redemption, justice, forgiveness. The biblical concept of jubilee stems from Leviticus 25, where God instructed the Israelites to make every seventh year a sabbath and consecrate the fiftieth year—year after seven sets of seven—as a Jubilee year: a time of rest from harvesting the land, relief of debts, freeing of slaves, redemption of land. The jubilee freed the poor from the burden of debt. In the Christian tradition jubilee also calls us to rejoice in our freedom from the burden of our spiritual debts—to find joy in the gift of forgiveness through God’s grace. “Lift your voice / It’s the year of Jubilee . . .”

Yegetanesh means “You belong to God.” By grace you are ours to care for here on earth; with joy we offer you back to God.

Anna Jubilee Yegetanesh Wetzel.

Born December 7.

Born...at the right time.

Thank you for all your prayers and encouragement as we've waited for this day. Watch for more updates soon--after we spent a weekend away with the youth group!

An Update You Can't Refuse

I feel like I should drop a quick update before the weekend hits and I am surrounded by 17 giddy teenagers (and 4 weeping adults) in vans and then with 10,000 more screaming teenagers at a stadium youth event. Yikes.

The big news is a blessing that has not really sunk in for me yet: We own a new MommyMobile! Yes, we have a new used minivan. We really needed to get something soon because we already inflict cruel and unusual punishment every time we squeeze a six-foot teenager or three into the miniature backseat of our little Suzuki "buggy." That was not going to work with a car seat in the equation. Our friend Nancy got a new truck . . . yada yada yada . . . we have her van. Let's just say it was an offer we couldn't refuse!

You know what that means . . .

This beauty is available.

You know you want it. What's not to like about a vehicle that's the same age as it's owner?

Interesting trades considered.

Where All the Wait Times Are Above Average

Greetings from Adoption World, where all the women are obsessive, all the men are impatient, and all the children's wait times are above average.

Today marks 16 weeks of waiting for referral for us. The agency told me a couple months ago that 16 weeks was the average wait. I can't decide if I want to call and ask them if that's still true or not; seems like now most people have been waiting longer than that. Still, now that we're above average in weeks (to go with our looks and intelligence, of course), any phone call could be The Call. Forgive me if I sound disappointed if it's only you.

Today we get Hep A boosters and round one of Hep B shots. Will I pass out? As always, please: no wagering.


Update: I remained conscious but am now experiencing soreness in my coffee-drinking arm. Not good, comrades. Not good.

Miscellaneous Thoughts, Rants, and Tax Tips

Yellow fever! No, not the shots--that'll be in a few weeks. I'm talking about my scrumdiddlyumptous golden upstairs. I spent three days clambering around spiral stairs like a monkey and straddling a twelve-foot-high loft half-wall like cowgirl--curse you, architect of crazy nonstop-curved-walled spaceship houses! Then a bookshelf warehouse exploded up there. I am enjoying the (almost) end result, though. I think I'll really like having my office up there; I noticed yesterday that it's twenty feet in the air closer to the bald eagle cruising around behind the house. I still have to haul up all my books (good workout) and desk (good luck) and piles of papers (good lord!), but the bedroom side is very clean and cozy. I hope to have the baby's room painted by the time Mom visits, since green is her favorite color and all.

We'd better have our referral by then too, because--besides all the other reasons--I need major Mom-help on baby gear. I went into the used baby stuff shop on Saturday and couldn't bring myself to buy a thing. I just didn't know where to start, since I have no idea of size or anything. Part of me wanted to buy; part of me wanted to cry. I chatted up the nice shop guy about our baby.

I did buy coffee and wonderful apple turnovers at the new European-African-Carribean deli. (Yes, I was scoping for Ethiopian food and black friends.) Coastal dwellers, stop by and support the Volta Deli, on 101 by the hippie music store! I chatted up the nice baker lady about our baby. She said Ethiopians are very beautiful people, which is exactly what all the adoption agencies say, but I had figured it was just biased PR. Apparently it's universally known. So there.

Mr. Famous Singer Guy finally has everything he wants for his grant application. We should hear by May 1. Really hope we get something from that one. I tried starting on some more grants today but found it depressing. Maybe it's the rain, but it felt like doing a dossier all over again.

The good news about taxes: we are getting a refund!

The bad news about taxes: WARNING TO SELF-EMPLOYED ADOPTERS: the adoption tax credit can NOT be applied to the self-employment portion of your taxes. This means that if your income is too low, your (non-self-employment) tax liability might be too low to take the full credit. Even over five years if you are really lucky. I never thought I'd say I hope I can increase my tax liability. Nice to know that those with cash to cover their adoption expenses will get it all back right away so they can help the economy by going to Disneyland or something while those who need the help to enable them to adopt (the purpose of the credit, no?) will get a tiny check and remain too broke to adopt again. Mmmm, it kind of reminds me of my other favorite system, health care . . .

"It’s simple. Most people who can’t afford health insurance also are too poor to owe taxes, but if you give them a deduction from the taxes they don’t owe, they can use the money they’re not getting back from what they haven’t given to buy the health care they can’t afford."

--Stephen Colbert

I apologize for the random and ranting nature of this post. This stuff was cluttering my head so I figured it'd be better to clutter the Internet. This is probably a good argument for the Internet not being free of charge!

Happy Easter!

Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed!Photo: JesusMafa.com

(We've been waiting 15 weeks and 3 days.)

Prayers, Progress, Procrastination

After a long last week of holding our collective breath, several families from our Ethiopian adoption Internet group had successful court dates in Ethiopia. Some had been waiting so long for referrals, then court dates, and then had their court dates rescheduled for two weeks later. Last week at small group I felt I must speak my prayer for these families waiting for court, and my eyes could not stay dry. And truly this time it was not for me—not for the factor that we will probably not get a referral until some families get through court and set to travel but truly for the ache of waiting these friends across the country are feeling. This is a purer prayer, but not an easier one. Some of them have waited so, so long already. How much longer? How long, O Lord?

Oh, when we started it was all so fast, it was all such a breeze. Woe to those adopting from slow countries, we thought! We must not rush things or we’ll end up traveling smack during the school year. Now wait times are skyrocketing and complications are being added and though we are hopeful that the floodgates of referrals will open soon, we hover between optimism and resignation and despair that we will hold our child before the fall. We survive only on solidarity and stories of the kids who are home already.

And ice cream. I have been enjoying lots of ice cream lately. And pickles. But I have yet to combine them.

Today I spoke with two clinics about travel shots ($305 each just for consult and yellow fever shot?!). Left a message with adoption pediatrician in Portland. Sent updated information and still more sappy, shameless paragraphs to a grant ministry that in my opinion already knows far too much about us. My big project is to start slathering delicious yellow paint all over our upstairs so we can move my office up there and I can slather delicious green paint down here. However, I was apparently feeling the nesting urge much more strongly when standing in front of the glorious rainbow display of paint samples Saturday much stronger than I am feeling it now that I’m faced with the dirty work. Why do today what you can put off until you have ten thousand things to do before traveling?

For a Girl Like Mine, No Matter How Beautiful

In a recent New York Times article, one brave white dad recounts his triumphs over the whole new world of black girl’s hair care here: “I Have Taken On My Daughter’s Hair and Won.”

Somehow I suspect that in this household, the handling of hair will fall to me—especially in the case of a girl’s hair. I have only the most negligible skills in brushing, braiding, parting, and prettying (see: my head, circa 1985–2007). I will even confess that many years ago when adopting a black child was only the most abstract of concepts for us, my husband pointed out the different hair and skin care needs of black children, and I pooh-poohed it. Isn’t that a paranoid stereotype? How different could it be? “Of all the things I don’t know about taking care of a baby,” I said, “that is way down the list of things I’m worried about!”

In a sense this is still true: I still have many more basic and urgent things to learn about caring for a baby! However, this is no longer way down my list of concerns. In fact, it’s been high enough on the list that I’ve actually learned a good deal already—chiefly, the importance that I keep learning. As white adoptive parents we hear over and over that hair is important in the African-American community—for a variety of cultural reasons—and that we must keep our children looking good and feeling that their hair and skin are beautiful. We fear the unsolicited scrutiny and hands on our children’s hair even as we secretly seek the ultimate stamp of approval: compliments from black women. We wonder if we will learn to braid and twist and cornrow well enough; we wonder how to tell her that the amount of kinkiness her hair has is just enough; and in a world where every girl’s sense of self is under fire, where white girls want to be tanner and black girls want to be lighter and every girl wants to be thinner or taller or sexier . . . we wonder if it will be enough.

Please watch the award-winning student film “A Girl Like Me” at the Media Matters Film Festival website. It is #2 in the boxes on the right side of the screen. (Number 1, “Slip of the Tongue,” is pretty dang good too.) And tell a girl you know she’s beautiful for something she thinks is not, for something outside of—or rather inside of—her body.

O God,
help me
to believe
the truth about myself,
no matter
how beautiful it is!

—Macrina Wiederkehr, “A Prayer to Own Your Own Beauty,” in Seasons of the Heart
(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), 71.

The Process after Referral

Or, Five Unknowns Don’t Make a Known

If you’re reading here you probably know that we’re waiting for our referral—waiting to receive The Call saying we’ve been matched with our child, for our turn to ooh and ahh over a couple unflattering photos of a baby in an oversized diaper and off-gender clothes being propped up in an orange plastic chair. But after that glorious day when we officially accept our referral, a few more things still have to happen before our little episode of Bringing Home Baby.

A big variable is Ethiopia’s three-month rule: if a child was found abandoned, they must be in the orphanage’s care for three months before being adopted in order to allow time for any extended family members to come forward and say they will take care of the child. Many of the children—perhaps most infants, though I’m not sure—have been abandoned, but I’ve never heard of anyone coming forward. Ethiopians do highly value children and many families care for extended family members, so if a child is abandoned, most likely the options have been exhausted and none of the family are able to help. An abandoned child is not left to die but left to be found—being taken in to an orphanage care center being by far their best chance at a better life. Babies can be legally relinquished to the government, such as at police station, but I believe this is culturally stigmatized, so they are often simply left somewhere busy where someone will find the child quickly. Perhaps the mother watches from a distance to make sure. I cannot fathom a life where this is your best option, but if you are dying in abject poverty, the unthinkable becomes an act of love.

An abandoned child must be in the orphanage for three months before court can take place. If a parent or other family member brings in the child, this waiting period is not necessary because they sign papers legally relinquishing their rights. When we accept our referral and any necessary wait time is up, documents are sent to the Ethiopian Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (MOLSA) and a court date is set.

This court date is when we officially, legally become the child’s parents. It normally takes place about a month after referral, but Ethiopia made a new law in January (without warning—I’m pretty sure this is Madonna’s fault) saying that if the parents relinquished, they must appear in court date to confirm their relinquishment. I’m a little fuzzy on the details of this, but it’s apparently slowing things down a bit because agencies/orphanages have to find the parents again and bring them to Addis Ababa, even if they live days away. I’m not sure what happens if they can’t be located, are too sick to travel, or have died; perhaps other family members can appear instead. A court date can be unsuccessful if the case isn’t heard when scheduled (just happened to a bunch of folks I know) or more documents are requested for some reason. So once we get our referral we will start praying like crazy for successful court!

After a successful court date, we are legally parents, but an embassy date must be scheduled. When we travel to Addis, we will spend one day at the U.S. embassy getting a visa for our child. I believe this can’t happen sooner than twenty days after court. We plan our travel around this date.

The estimate used to be that we travel six to eight weeks after referral. Now court seems to be taking a little longer, so we’d better figure two months. Then there is the possible three-months-wait complication . . . and let’s not even talk about the fact that the Ethiopia courts completely shut down in August and September! This is why I quit counting weeks—it was actually the estimating and re-estimating of when we might travel that was making me nuts. Now, I am as optimistic as anyone, but do you see why I am shifting my expectations to June travel instead of May? Of course ye of greater faith are welcome to still root for May! But an awful lot of things will have to go right for that to happen. Some of them must be in motion already. I wonder what’s going on there on the other side of the world.

A Prayer for Responsibility for Children

I do have many thoughts which I hope to blog soon. Until then, think on this--and pray.

A Prayer for Responsibility for Children

We pray for children
who sneak popsicles before supper,
who erase holes in math workbook,
who can never find their shoes.

And we pray for those
who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
who can't bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers,
who never "counted potatoes",
who are born in places we wouldn't be caught dead,
who never go to the circus,
who live in an X-rated world.

We pray for children
who bring us sticky kisses and fistfulls of dandelions,
who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.

And we pray for those
who never get dessert,
who have no safe blanket to drag behind them,
who watch their parents watch them die,
who can't find any bread to steal,
who don't have rooms to clean up,
whose pictures aren't on anybody's dresser,
whose monsters are real.

We pray for children
who spend their allowance before Tuesday,
who throw tantrums in the grocery stores and pick at their food,
who like ghost stories,
who shove dirty clothes under the bed, and never rinse out the tub,
who get visits from the tooth fairy,
who don't like to be kissed in front of the carpool,
who squirm in church or temple and scream in the phone,
whose tears we sometimes laugh at,
and whose smiles can make us cry.

We pray for those
whose nightmares come in the daytime,
who will eat anything,
who haven't ever seen a dentist,
who aren't spoiled by anybody,
who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
who live and move, but have no being.

We pray for children who want to be carried,
and for those who must,
for those we never give up on
and for those who don't get a second chance.

For those we smother...and for those who will grab
the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.

Ina J. Hughs, Children 1990 (Children's Defense Fund, 1990)