My youngest grandson will be 16 on Friday. Today I was thinking about some of the unusual gifts I have given him. The first one that came to my mind was a large roll of bubble wrap. He loved the gift but his parents made him go outside to pop it. Have no clue why.
Last year for Christmas I gave him the little dinosaur ladles used for soup etc. In addition I found some unusual soup bowls. They had a place along the side of the bowl to put crackers or a cut sandwich. This gift included a selection of crackers and several cans of soup. Chicken noodle has always been his favorite.
This year being his 16th birthday I wanted to come up with something that none of his friends would probably have. I happened to see a website to name a star and have it registered. I mentioned it to him a few weeks ago to see if he was interested. He was and tonight we are getting together to order it. The name of the star will probably be Colin Chace. So if you see it floating around in the galaxy say hi to my grandson for me and wish him a happy birthday.
Wednesday, September 6, 2017
Sunday, September 3, 2017
The journey home
August 31, Labor Day weekend 1979, was an interesting time in my life. It was the weekend I brought home my youngest child and my only girl. Christina Marie was born in Albuquerque, NM at Presbyterian Hospital at 4:45 P.M.
When one of the Laguna Reservation Nuns was told her name she said, "Oh you named her after Christ Mary". Wrong! Her first name Christina was for a Swedish princess who became a queen at a very young age. A maternal great grandfather Godfrey Halverson was born in Sweden. Marie was for her Spanish paternal grandmother Marie (Mary) Milan and her French maternal great grandmother Laura Marie Laviolette . So she ended up being a mixture of several generations.
The Labor Day weekend in 1979 began very early on Friday morning with a trip to Presbyterian Hospital almost 100 miles away from Old Laguna where we lived at the time. My husband, Donald was working a night shift at the mines, my due date had passed and the doctor decided since we lived so far away it would be a good idea to start labor. Her actual birth took most of the day and her father was present in the delivery room. His first comment upon holding her was, "She has fingernails".
Because I didn't live in Albuquerque I was not released until Sunday, as a precaution. My doctor had a very busy weekend with way too many babies to deliver. I can still see him, exhausted, sitting in my room waiting to release me. Even though I was over 40 the birth and recovery went very well. I had an amniocentesis early in the pregnancy so I knew she was a girl before she arrived. I had already named her. That test was very stressful because the cells had to grow a second time, causing me to have to wait for the results for about four months.
Leaving the hospital we began the trip home. On the way we stopped off at the Catholic church to introduce Christina to Father Bill, the Pastor. I remember lifting her out the passenger window and putting her into his arms for a blessing. The surprised look on his face was hilarious.
The next stop was home. We were met by her paternal grandfather, Wally and I allowed him to carry her into the house and lay her in her crib. I noticed a very large bear that my son David, who was 13 at the time, had purchased and placed in the crib. We ended up naming it using the Spanish word for water. (I know the word I just can't spell it!) My other son Jeffrey 18 was in the Army at the time and didn't meet Christina for several months.
Well that's the story of the journey home
When one of the Laguna Reservation Nuns was told her name she said, "Oh you named her after Christ Mary". Wrong! Her first name Christina was for a Swedish princess who became a queen at a very young age. A maternal great grandfather Godfrey Halverson was born in Sweden. Marie was for her Spanish paternal grandmother Marie (Mary) Milan and her French maternal great grandmother Laura Marie Laviolette . So she ended up being a mixture of several generations.
The Labor Day weekend in 1979 began very early on Friday morning with a trip to Presbyterian Hospital almost 100 miles away from Old Laguna where we lived at the time. My husband, Donald was working a night shift at the mines, my due date had passed and the doctor decided since we lived so far away it would be a good idea to start labor. Her actual birth took most of the day and her father was present in the delivery room. His first comment upon holding her was, "She has fingernails".
Because I didn't live in Albuquerque I was not released until Sunday, as a precaution. My doctor had a very busy weekend with way too many babies to deliver. I can still see him, exhausted, sitting in my room waiting to release me. Even though I was over 40 the birth and recovery went very well. I had an amniocentesis early in the pregnancy so I knew she was a girl before she arrived. I had already named her. That test was very stressful because the cells had to grow a second time, causing me to have to wait for the results for about four months.
Leaving the hospital we began the trip home. On the way we stopped off at the Catholic church to introduce Christina to Father Bill, the Pastor. I remember lifting her out the passenger window and putting her into his arms for a blessing. The surprised look on his face was hilarious.
The next stop was home. We were met by her paternal grandfather, Wally and I allowed him to carry her into the house and lay her in her crib. I noticed a very large bear that my son David, who was 13 at the time, had purchased and placed in the crib. We ended up naming it using the Spanish word for water. (I know the word I just can't spell it!) My other son Jeffrey 18 was in the Army at the time and didn't meet Christina for several months.
Well that's the story of the journey home
Saturday, September 2, 2017
How did you get here?
Birth used to be a fairly simple matter, but not anymore. Now a female doesn't even need to touch a male and a baby is created from a sperm bank. Surrogates are everywhere. Healthy grandmothers can now give birth to a grandchild. Then there is adoption at birth, which can create all kinds of problems for not only the child but his/her entire family. An adoption can either be open or closed. I have had experiences with both.
As a columnist for the Cibola Beacon I interviewed a new mother whose first child was adopted through an agency. The adoption was open and the very young birth mother was allowed to keep tabs on the child through the years. She was given access to photos etc.and even had occasional visits. I'm not sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing, but it was the way this family chose to deal with the situation.
In my family there are at least two instances of a child being adopted. Both times there was no information given to the child about the birth. In both cases the families are looking for biological relatives.
Another unusual situation was my deceased daughter-in-law who found out as a teenager that her birth parents were really her aunt and uncle. She said it was devastating for her.
When a child is given up for adoption it creates three points of view. 1.the birth mother, 2.the adoptive mother and 3.the child.
Personally I think adoption should be open to the child if he/she desires to know the circumstances of the birth. It's really nobody else's business and the rest of the family should just butt out.
As a columnist for the Cibola Beacon I interviewed a new mother whose first child was adopted through an agency. The adoption was open and the very young birth mother was allowed to keep tabs on the child through the years. She was given access to photos etc.and even had occasional visits. I'm not sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing, but it was the way this family chose to deal with the situation.
In my family there are at least two instances of a child being adopted. Both times there was no information given to the child about the birth. In both cases the families are looking for biological relatives.
Another unusual situation was my deceased daughter-in-law who found out as a teenager that her birth parents were really her aunt and uncle. She said it was devastating for her.
When a child is given up for adoption it creates three points of view. 1.the birth mother, 2.the adoptive mother and 3.the child.
Personally I think adoption should be open to the child if he/she desires to know the circumstances of the birth. It's really nobody else's business and the rest of the family should just butt out.
Friday, September 1, 2017
Math has never been my thing
Math was my worst subject in high school. Lately I have had a problem deciding whether to add or subtract. I finally decided to subtract and it's making my life less stressful.
For years I have known that my grandparents had a son not too long after my mother was born. He showed up on some Ancestry.com information a couple of years ago. The child had no name, which I thought was rather odd. That created questions that have puzzled me for some time. Did he die in childbirth or maybe he was given up for adoption for some reason?
I have not only found out he was indeed adopted, but I know his adopted name and have information about his life and new family as he grew up. He died in 1998. For awhile last night I thought that was cool until my brain began working. I even put his adopted name on my family tree as my mother's brother for a few hours.
I have not been able to discover why the baby was adopted, but it must have been a mutual decision between my grandparents. One of my maternal cousins had said that she didn't know anything about the "Mysterious baby". She suggested it was no doubt a family secret.
After thinking about that statement from my cousin, Ruth, I have chosen to delete his name from my family tree and my life. Choosing to honor my grandparent's decision to keep the information a secret is the right thing to do. Perhaps the information was meant just for me and the decision to add or subtract it from my current life was mine alone.
For years I have known that my grandparents had a son not too long after my mother was born. He showed up on some Ancestry.com information a couple of years ago. The child had no name, which I thought was rather odd. That created questions that have puzzled me for some time. Did he die in childbirth or maybe he was given up for adoption for some reason?
I have not only found out he was indeed adopted, but I know his adopted name and have information about his life and new family as he grew up. He died in 1998. For awhile last night I thought that was cool until my brain began working. I even put his adopted name on my family tree as my mother's brother for a few hours.
I have not been able to discover why the baby was adopted, but it must have been a mutual decision between my grandparents. One of my maternal cousins had said that she didn't know anything about the "Mysterious baby". She suggested it was no doubt a family secret.
After thinking about that statement from my cousin, Ruth, I have chosen to delete his name from my family tree and my life. Choosing to honor my grandparent's decision to keep the information a secret is the right thing to do. Perhaps the information was meant just for me and the decision to add or subtract it from my current life was mine alone.
Monday, August 28, 2017
The question has been answered
A couple of paternal first cousins have finally shown up, even though they are deceased, so my family tree stays exactly as it was printed. The only exception will be to add more names to both sides.
The end.
The end.
Thursday, August 24, 2017
and the truth shall set us free
For all those readers who have been following my posts (I'm not sure who you are) you might like to know that I got my DNA results back yesterday. To review for those who are not regular readers, I have had doubts that the man I was told was my father was actually my biological father. The reason for that doubt is that my mother had a problem telling the truth. Everyone is deceased so it only matters to me and I can't fix the past.
First I would like to share something about DNA that I was not aware of until recently. We do not inherit equal amounts of DNA from each parent, thus siblings may have a different mixture. This explains to me why my brother looked pretty much like his father. He inherited more of his DNA and I inherited more of our mother's.
Now for the father question. As Scandinavia, which includes Sweden, showed up as 17% ethnicity it appears that my father was my biological father after all. It looks like more than half of my DNA came from my maternal side of the family. This doesn't surprise me because I have always felt more French and Scottish than Swedish & English.
So there you have it in case you are interested. The funny part is that when my parents were married back in 1937 my mother used a last name that was not hers. She used the same name on my birth certificate. Why I will never know, but a friend pointed out an interesting fact. My father was my biological father but he was not legally my mother's husband, even though they lived as such for thirty years before he died. Something that makes this even funnier is that my mother hated his last name of Halverson.
First I would like to share something about DNA that I was not aware of until recently. We do not inherit equal amounts of DNA from each parent, thus siblings may have a different mixture. This explains to me why my brother looked pretty much like his father. He inherited more of his DNA and I inherited more of our mother's.
Now for the father question. As Scandinavia, which includes Sweden, showed up as 17% ethnicity it appears that my father was my biological father after all. It looks like more than half of my DNA came from my maternal side of the family. This doesn't surprise me because I have always felt more French and Scottish than Swedish & English.
So there you have it in case you are interested. The funny part is that when my parents were married back in 1937 my mother used a last name that was not hers. She used the same name on my birth certificate. Why I will never know, but a friend pointed out an interesting fact. My father was my biological father but he was not legally my mother's husband, even though they lived as such for thirty years before he died. Something that makes this even funnier is that my mother hated his last name of Halverson.
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Personal stuff
A post just floated by on my Facebook newsfeed that caught my attention. It actually annoyed me so I decided it might make an interesting blog post. The post was written by a mature male who is about to get married, probably not for the first time. It read: Why air personal stuff on here unless attention grabbing?
People post personal "stuff" on social media for many reasons and I don't agree that it is for attention. There were two responses to his question. The first was, "Sometimes sharing what we are going through helps others to not feel alone." The second was, "Sometimes we need support from friends." I believe both are really good reasons for posting personal experiences.
This man is about to get married so I assume he has someone to talk to about whatever might be causing him stress. Not everyone is that fortunate and sometimes just need to get the stress out in the open. Yes, many times it is a call for feedback. What's wrong with that? That's what friends are for.
Ever since a friend asked me if I ever read what I write I have made it a point to do just that. I often go back and reread something I wrote years ago and end up thinking, wow that's really good. I believe quite often our soul mind blurts out things that it wants our human mind to rehash. I had a friend long ago who used to say "think about it". Perhaps sometimes it is simply a way to get it out of it's hiding place and into the universe so the help we seek can become available.
Those are my thoughts on the subject of posting personal stuff. I see no reason not to share.
People post personal "stuff" on social media for many reasons and I don't agree that it is for attention. There were two responses to his question. The first was, "Sometimes sharing what we are going through helps others to not feel alone." The second was, "Sometimes we need support from friends." I believe both are really good reasons for posting personal experiences.
This man is about to get married so I assume he has someone to talk to about whatever might be causing him stress. Not everyone is that fortunate and sometimes just need to get the stress out in the open. Yes, many times it is a call for feedback. What's wrong with that? That's what friends are for.
Ever since a friend asked me if I ever read what I write I have made it a point to do just that. I often go back and reread something I wrote years ago and end up thinking, wow that's really good. I believe quite often our soul mind blurts out things that it wants our human mind to rehash. I had a friend long ago who used to say "think about it". Perhaps sometimes it is simply a way to get it out of it's hiding place and into the universe so the help we seek can become available.
Those are my thoughts on the subject of posting personal stuff. I see no reason not to share.
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