What's Unlucky to Caleb Is Our Pot of Gold

"I'm the unluckiest kid ever."

"Why is that?"

"I'm adopted, I don't have any brothers and I'm an...outtie...what's that letter?"

[He does have an outtie belly button which I think is the cutest one I've ever seen and I thought maybe that's what he was talking about until he said that about the letter.]

"The letter?"

"Yeah, you know, the letter that means I like to be around people."

"Oh, an 'E' -- and 'extrovert'?"

"Yeah, I'm adopted, I have no brothers and I'm an 'E'."

"What's unlucky about being an extrovert?"

"Well, I have no brothers, nobody to play with."

"Oh, what's unlucky about being adopted?!? Adopting you is about the 'luckiest' thing that ever happened to Dad and Me!!!"

As so often happens, the conversation got distracted from there and my heart was left in pieces on the living room floor.

The Measure of One's Life

"They fit all of his life into seven discs! That's short."

Caleb's current audio book is on the life of Benedict Arnold. A lot of the stories he has been listening to are eleven discs in length.

"How many discs do you think it would be if they turned your life story into an audio book? Eleven?"

"Yeah. [Pause, moment of thought.] No, thirteen."

The boy has aspirations. I have always said he needs more than one life to live in order to do all he hopes to.

Tough Jobs Call for Rough Languange

After not playing with his Playmobil for months, Caleb had finally pulled them out again. I was on my bed semi-distracted (painting my fingernails) as he had a game of cops and robbers going nearby when I suddenly heard:

"Get in the car D*** it!"

"Caleb, that's not something to be saying."

"Why not?"

"You know how we've explained that words are like knives. Well, that one is like a sharp, sharp knife. It's not for everyday use. It may have its uses, but it is certainly not for play."

[This is a concept that we got from the book "Loving the Little Years" by Rachel Jancovic.]

"Well, what can he [the police man] say then?"

"How about 'Darn it'?"

"Well, that doesn't sound like a real police officer. This is a realistic game."

Melting Mama's Heart

On our annual road trip to Leavenworth (enjoying the gorgeous autumn colors along the way), we were talking about beauty.

Me: "What comes to your mind when you think of beauty, Caleb?"

Caleb: "I don't know." (No surprise here.)

Me: "What's the most beautiful thing you can think of...that you have seen?"

Caleb: (without missing a beat) "You."

Debt Free Living

Over lunch I think I burst Caleb's bubble by explaining to him that Papa doesn't actually own his house but rather that the bank does. And it's pretty much that way for most people.

He will not be one of those.

"I could live with someone while I save up enough money to pay to build my own house. It would take...maybe two years. We [I'm pretty sure he was meaning wife and kids] would live with a friend, someone we know pretty well who wouldn't mind. Beothan, maybe! That could probably work."

I got the sense that in his mind this friend would have already gone through this process of saving and building and owning free and clear and I can only say, in light of that, his choice made absolute sense to me.

I GUESS I Knew This Day Would Come

"Are you adopted?"

Silence.

"Is he adopted?"

"Yes. Why?"

---

"Did you tell them I was adopted?"

"Yes."

"WHYYY?!?"

"Well, they asked, and I didn't know there was any reason not to."

"I don't want them to know!"

Insert broken Mama's heart here. Delete rest of conversation that followed.

---

If you have ever stumbled into the use of the term "real Mom" around me, you have probably found yourself in the presence of what is known as a Mama Bear. You may have left licking a few wounds. The thing is, I cannot imagine how Caleb could feel any more like my "real" child if he had crawled out of my womb. In fact, there are days that friends and I ask each other, "are you sure I didn't give birth to this child?"

And I think somehow, from that place of "real" mothering, I let myself slip into the naive fantasy that we could somehow avoid those potholes (or will they be ravines?) of wrestling with the reality of how Caleb came into our family. How others will engage that but really more importantly, how Caleb will settle that as he finds his true identity.

My hope and prayer for him is that who he is in relation to Joseph and me is never the most significant thing about him. And as he looks to his True Father, he will see that we are all like he is: adopted, desired and delighted in.

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

~Romans 8:15-17

But now thus says the , he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you,...”

~Isaiah 43:1, 4a 

Real Mom (aka MOM, MAMA, MOMMY) - the one who has been raising him, and FIGHTING FOR him, all his life

Real Mom (aka BIRTH Mom) - the one who gave him the gift of life and chose a forever family for him

Hebrews 4:12-13

"For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account."

We have started having Caleb copy down the main points during the sermon with the hope of helping him to engage worship. It's obviously a learning curve because the focus for him is pretty much his penmanship more than the content of what he is actually writing.

So you can imagine my surprise when in the midst of copying off the main point yesterday, he was tracking so much with what the pastor was saying that he blurted out this appalled response:

"I get angry. So I'm a fool?! That's dumb. That's a insulting word! That's insulting to the WHOLE CHURCH!!"

I ended up giving him the option of setting his clipboard aside if he agreed to listen closely. He chose that option, of course, and later had this to say when the topic was the industriousness of the ant:

"The kind of ant I want to be is an army ant...actually, a fire ant, they are defensive."

You've Heard of the Song That Never Ends...

"There's an everlasting wedgie! I gave myself a wedgie and it's everlasting and I don't know how to get it out of here."

Good luck with that one, son.

What's in a Name

Caleb JOHN* Andrew

When we were childless, asking God to gift us with a child to call our own, I read and "connected" with every story of barren women in Scripture. But the one that spoke to my soul the most is the one of Elizabeth, the relative of Mary, the mother of Jesus. And not simply or even primarily because we share a name.

It was this passage that jumped off the page at me as I was reading it one day:

     ...you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness
     and MANY WILL REJOICE AT HIS BIRTH, for he will be great before
     the Lord.
     ~Luke 1:13-15

I knew there and then that if God ever gave us a son, he would need to share this name because I knew that indeed many would rejoice at his birth.

What I didn't know at that point is how much delight he would bring to many throughout his life.

Depending on where you look, the Hebrew meaning of the name John is something along these lines:

     YAHWEH is gracious
     graced by YHWH
     Jehovah has been gracious, has shown favor
     God is gracious

Indeed He has been gracious and shown favor...in too many ways to count but Caleb JOHN Andrew is certainly one of the big ones.

And he has shown His favor to him. My prayers for this boy have been many but as the passage in Luke goes on, I certainly pray this will be true of our son:

     And he will turn many...to the Lord their God, and he will go before
     him..., to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the
     disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord
     a people prepared.
     ~Luke 1:15-17

 

Jesus knew who we needed in our family and we cannot imagine our lives without this passionate, clever young man. He is so different than either of us and we love that. He has forever changed us and for that we can never thank our Father enough.

I am beyond curious as to what his "white stone" name is (Revelation 2:17). But that is for him to hear from Jesus.And I wouldn't have it any other way.



*Two Side Notes:
1) This is not to say the other two names don't have their own significance. This is just the one on my mind today.

2) This is also a name he shares with many in our extended families. I am sure I will forget some if I try to list them all, so I will simply mention the two closest: his Papa John, of course; and his Uncle Nathan John (his Daddy's brother). As a side note to the side note: he shares a middle name with an uncle on each side: Uncle Stephen Andrew (his Mama's younger brother) is a part of the significance of his second middle name.

Mamarazzi

Mom: "It's not like you're so famous, that you have to worry about having your picture taken."

Caleb: "I'm GOING to be famous by the time you take thousands of pictures of me."

He might be on to something. :)

All In the Name

While enjoying a rare "off-restriction" treat:

"I didn't know cheese pizza had this much cheese on it."

From Mid-October through End of July

October 20, 2013 - 7:45 PM
ON FLEXIBILITY
"When you're young, you're move moveable."


October 22, 2013 - 8:10 PM
NON-OFFENSIVE?

"I'm used to offending people. I do it all the time."


October 29, 2013 - 12:50 PM
HARD-KNOCK LIFE
"Life as a baby can be disappointing. I know that 'cause I was a baby...and had all these hardships."

Well, we'll plan to help pay for your therapy down the road, buddy. :)

December 1, 2013 - 12:38 PM
THE REAL DEAL
Caleb: "I'm Irish?"
Mom: "Where do you think you got that red hair?"
Caleb: "My artificial Mom probably had red hair."


December 6, 2013 - 6:29 PM
CONSERVING...ENERGY? (***warning bodily "noises" referenced***)
Caleb on why he said, "Mom, I have something for you." and then passed gas in my direction:

"Since Dad wasn't around, I had to use it for something. I don't want my [gas*] to go to waste."

*not his word of choice :(


December 29, 2013 - 2:01 PM
SIZING US UP
"I've got a way to go to be belly twins with Dad, and you've [Mom] got a way to go to be belly twins with me!"


December 30, 2013 - 3:35 PM
I DO NOT THINK THAT WORD MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS
Caleb: "I need help finding something."
Mom: "In a minute."
Caleb: "I don't think you know what a minute is."


March 13, 2014 - 7:05
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
On our way out to a house Dad and Papa had "flipped" and sold, in Monroe, WA:

"I think the people that are living here are making a bad choice. This is waaay too far away from the city."

This from the boy who is dying for us to buy some property in the country.

???


June 1, 2014 - 7:45 PM
LOOKING AHEAD
"The future decides for itself."


June 2, 2014 - 7:25 AM
RELATIVES
"We're the yawn brothers."

As he and Daddy yawned simultaneously.


June 2, 2014 - 7:35 PM
HUH?
I'm sorry, I don't remember the context on this one, I think it might have helped. Nevertheless,...

"Not including the ears 'cause that'd be pretty obvious. It's pretty hard to find your own head."


June 3, 2014 - 7:06 PM
A NEW KIND OF METEOROLOGY
Mom (presumably, asking Dad): "Did it get up to 73 today?"

Caleb: "I don't think so. My hands are moist. It if was warm, my hands would be drier."

June 20, 2014 - 2:50 PM
CART GADGETRY
At Costco, while pushing the cart: "I'm the speed thermometer."


July 28, 2014 - 9:15 PM
COMMANDER IN CHIEF
"If I were Obama, I would send out my soldiers to protect my allies. But Obama doesn't do that because he doesn't want to lose his precious [spoken in a syrupy, sweet tone] soldiers. But he has thousands of them."


July 29, 2014 - 9:43 PM
NEW LIFE GOAL
Mom: "...men want to be needed."
Caleb: "Why do I want to be needed? I want to be despicable."

The Cat Is Out of the Bag

Caleb: "Cows have FOUR stomachs. That's why they are chewing ALL the time."
Mom: "Who told you this?"
Joseph: "Did Beothan tell you about this?"
Caleb (nonchalantly, almost as if he didn't care to acknowledge it): "Beothan's Mom."

He then went on to describe the process of how it moves from one stomach to another...well, you know.

During a lull, I piped in, "I can't wait to tell Beothan's Mom. I'm sure she will be tickled to know you LEARNED something from HER!"

Without missing a beat he looks right at me and say, "DON'T TELL!"


HA! I looked right back at him and said, "I am making no agreement with that. You cannot bind me to that."

So, without further ado, Beothan's Mom: CALEB LEARNED SOMETHING FROM YOU!!! :)

What's Wrong with YOU?

Caleb lost another tooth. Around here, instead of a tooth fairy, we have a tooth collector*. And instead of money, he/she leaves presents (small toys, etc. aka "day toys").

Yesterday, Caleb lost another tooth. For a little while, we actually thought it was lost! He was telling me this story about how he thought it had fallen out days or weeks before onto the floor while he was playing...I was convinced he must have dreamed that because I was pretty sure we all would have noticed it missing before that moment in the car. The consensus was that he had swallowed a second tooth in his (short) lifetime.

When Joseph went to change his sheets before tucking Caleb in bed, lo and behold, there was the tooth!?

Proof of my dream theory? I think so. He was dreaming about losing it as it was happening. Try to convince me otherwise. You're talking to a Mama whose son dreams just like she does and this one would make PERFECT sense with many dreams I have had.

Anyway, the title of this post relates not to any of that but rather to the toy the tooth collector left for said tooth.

A little dragon with markers and stickers for Caleb to decorate. So he and I set about creating the dragon of his fancy this morning.

One of the stickers was a worm, don't ask my why. So I suggested to him as he had already used most of the stickers and informed me he wanted to try to use as many of them as possible, "you could put the worm on there coming out of his mouth, kind of like he's eating it."

His response?

"Why would I want to do that? That would be disturbing!!!"

Who knew?!

You've Been Warned

A tradition around here is to watch a movie as a family on Sunday afternoons after lunch. We call it our family date. For several weeks now, Caleb has been begging to re-watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy. (Yes, he has seen it in its entirety already. We are those parents. Of course, remember, he doesn't have younger siblings he has to take into account.)

So, without other compelling movie choices, we decided to grant his wish and begin down that road yet again. Just as we are settling ourselves in, he decides to let us know what we're in for:

"Are you sure you're gonna let me watch this? I'm gonna be WILD after this!"

What do you do with that?!

Warrior for Life - PART 2

PART 1 can be found here.

On Friday, March 21, 2014, as I was standing outside Planned Parenthood praying, I was led to pray that the Spirit would give Caleb a passion to use his warrior spirit to fight for the lives of the unborn. I don’t know quite why but I wasn’t expecting an answer to that prayer quite as soon as it came.

The following week, I was scheduled to pray on a Tuesday instead of a Friday. This meant Caleb would be coming along with me. I figured he could just hang out in the car entertaining himself with my phone or a book or the travel DVD player.

The night before when I was tucking him into bed, it was the usual routine of going over the plans for the following day. When I told him I was going to be praying with 40 Days for Life, he asked what he would be doing. I told him he would sit in the car and could look at books (I didn’t want to immediately offer the video entertainment).

Much to my surprise, he asked if he could stand with me. With slight hesitation, I said, “sure.” The hesitation came from having watched other moms helping their children respect the property of Planned Parenthood. But I decided that would be less of a challenge if Caleb was voluntarily there than just because I had not given him a choice in the matter.

When he found out that I usually hold a sign with a Bible verse on one side, he said he wanted to hold a sign and he knew what verse he wanted on it:

Be strong and courageous…

for the Lord your God will be with you.

–Joshua 1:9

It’s one of his memory verses from Awana. I couldn’t have picked a more fitting one. So the next morning, we made our sign. We also added these words:

“I AM ALIVE

BECAUSE MY BIRTH MOTHER

CHOSE LIFE.”

It was chilly, windy and drizzly but he was not deterred. Whenever anyone drove in or out of the parking lot, he held his sign out a little more defiantly. He was quickly discouraged that it didn’t keep anyone away. But I assured him that he has no idea how Jesus will use this in their life, even years from now. He stayed out there with us for a half an hour! Oh, and did I mention he wears flip flops year round?

Lest you think this kid is brain washed, let me assure you: he will not take my word for anything. Now, if Papa’s TV says it, on the other hand… ;) Seriously, though, I have to have a source list a page long for any point I am trying to make. Most seven year olds I have been around (and I have spent my share of time around kids), are by and large still pretty trusting of their parents. Caleb is an independent thinker and has been for years.

Whatever his convictions are and ultimately will be, are and will be his own.

That said, his Mama will continue to pray that that warrior spirit always fights to preserve life!

Warrior for Life - PART 1

Looking for Part 2? Here it is.

Caleb is passionate about weapons. Am I stating the obvious? We believe he was born with a warrior spirit. It is an inherent part of how who he was created to be.

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. –Psalm 139:13-16

A year or so ago, I asked Jesus what it would look like if that fascination with weapons were redeemed for His purposes. The answer I heard was that Caleb would fight to preserve life. Naturally, I began to pray that the Spirit would ignite this passion in his heart.

A little glimpse into an average dinner conversation in the Zerfoss home: I will often encourage Caleb to tell Joseph about his day. “Caleb, can you tell Dad something new you learned about penguins that you didn’t already know?” “I don’t remember.” Or, on Fridays, when he has spent the day away from both of us (with Grandma and his cousins), we’ll ask him about what they did, where they went. If we went by what he tells us, we would have to conclude it must be the most boring day of the week. His anticipation of Fridays tells us otherwise.

Enter, Friday, March 7, 2014. At dinner, I said, “Since you don’t really like to talk about your day, I thought maybe tonight I could tell you and Dad about what I did while you were with Grandma and the girls.”

Joseph, knowing I had spent my first of what would be six weekly, hour long peaceful prayer vigils outside our local Planned Parenthood with 40 Days for Life, interjected that he wasn’t sure Caleb was quite old enough to tackle that subject.

Unbeknownst not only to Caleb but to me as well, Joseph was hoping to pique Caleb’s curiosity. It worked. Especially because I respectfully voiced a differing opinion about Caleb’s readiness.

The timing was also providential. We were just around the corner from the SEVEN year anniversary of the first phone call we had gotten about a birth mom who wanted to interview us as potential adoptive parents for the son she was 38 weeks pregnant with.

We love to retell Caleb the story of how God brought him into our family. This time, we highlighted how his “tummy mommy,” Katrina, made the choice of life for him, rather than choosing abortion. And from there I went on to explain why I am passionate about praying for an end to abortion and would give some of my Friday time to that.

This has gotten rather long, so I’ll tell the part about Caleb joining me to pray in PART 2.