I’m Confused

Yesterday was Anna’s Sunday to sing on the praise team at church. That means I sit alone with the four children at church. Surprisingly, I don’t really have any horror stories. My only issue was keeping the little Ethiopian quiet during church.

It must be pretty confusing for Cooper though. All day, every day we encourage him to talk. He probably thinks his old man has lost his mind when I’m suddenly telling him to pipe down.

Speaking of confusing (what an incredible tie-in), here are a few other things that confuse me…

Tomato Juice on Airplanes

This week I have travel for work. It’s almost guaranteed that someone around me will order tomato juice while I’m on the plane. Who are these people who drink tomato juice? I’ve never seen someone in any other setting ask for tomato juice. Do I just run in the wrong the circles? Am I just oblivious to the tomato juice craze going on around me? Do others notice this when they are on a plane?

Family Grocery Shopping

I’m all about family. We have a large family and I love spending time with them. But I’m always perplexed when I go to the grocery store and I see an entire family grocery shopping. The kids are miserable and so are the parents. I understand when one parent has to take the children because the other parent is at work or tied up with something else. But who says, “hey honey, why don’t we load the whole family up and get all of our groceries for the week?” That just seems like a miserable experience for all.

BCS

By the time this is posted, my team will be either in or out of the championship. People will cry foul no matter what happens and will say that this year the system was crazy enough to finally force a playoff. I’ve been talking about this for years, but when are people going to realize that the people in charge have no incentive to move to a playoff system. The bowl systems lobby hard and make millions of dollars. The BCS is controlled by a handful of presidents who don’t want to share the wealth. The system is what it is. It’s much more complicated than that, yet it’s about as simple as that as well.

Santa

I’ve read several blogs and posts about why people don’t do Santa with their family. And I agree with all of their points. (Make sure you read this sentence again before you send me any nasty comments) Here’s the one thing point I can’t reconcile in my mind. I’ve never met someone who was emotionally scarred because their parents carried on the Santa tradition. Have you ever met someone who said, “Once I found out that Santa wasn’t real, my whole life fell apart.” Again, I agree with those that chose not to do it, but I’m still waiting for this book to come out “The Santa Effect… The Reason for the Moral Decay in Our Country Today.”

 

You are a Ribbon Bully!

Yesterday I spoke at the World AIDS Day event in Tuscaloosa.  I’ll have much more to share with you about that on Monday.

As a guest speaker, I know I’m supposed to be serious, but when they asked me to wear a ribbon, this is the first thing that came to my mind.

I even witnessed someone initially balk at wearing a ribbon, but then he caved.

I wonder what would have happened had I not worn the ribbon….

 

Daddy Daughter Day – 2011

Before any of my children were born, Anna and I spent a lot of time working with the youth group in our church.  During that time, I noticed that the “well-adjusted” girls  (well-adjusted?  I’m not sure of the right word here.  I’m trying to describe the girls that loved the Lord, didn’t have an unhealthy desire to always have a boyfriend and  seemed to have love for all the other girls) had one thing in common.  They had a great relationship with their father.

Was this a scientific study?  Nope.

Can you show me girls that had a great relationship with their father and still had issues?  Yep.

Can you tell me about girls that hate their father and they are the equivalent of Mother Theresa?   Of Course!

Are all these questions getting annoying? Umm….

It goes without saying that I want to be a great father.  With three boys and one girl, sometimes it’s easy to spend more time throwing the football with one of my sons than sitting down and talking with my daughter.  I have to be intentional about it.

Fortunately, I have a couple of friends that have daughters that serve as role models for me.  We talk and share stories about what it is like to see our daughters grow up.  Being the younger dad in the group, I get to let all my friends make the mistakes and I can learn from them.

Several years ago, four of my friends decided it would be fun to have a Daddy – Daughter Day retreat.   The dads and the daughters would get away for one night and just spend time together.  And it was incredible!  It was so much fun, that the girls immediately asked us when we would do it again.

This past weekend we had our fifth Daddy Daughter day.  Two of the daughters were home from college and the youngest in the group is a fourth grader. Sadly, Virginia our youngest had strep throat and could not make it this year.

The weekend is filled with a lot of laughter and also great worship time. Without a doubt, the most effective thing we have ever done was when each dad set their daughter in a chair in front of the group and told the group what made their daughter special.  At first, each girl was embarrassed to be sitting in front of the group.   Very quickly, they melted as they heard their father tell others how much he loved them.

You want to know how I know it’s effective?  In a time when most middle school and young teenagers are “ashamed” to spend time with their dads, these girls beg for us to have this weekend each year.  If it were up to them, we’d do it more than once a year.

Here are a few pics from the weekend….

Most of you Dads could learn a lot from this man.  He once called the boyfriend of his daughter and told them they would no longer be dating because he was acting inappropriately around her.  And guess what, his daughter didn’t hate him for it.  He also obviously doesn’t take himself too seriously….

Maybe this is why they have so much fun.   I’m pretty sure the moms would have shut this down.

Spending quiet time with the Lord on Sunday mornings is an important part of the weekend too.

Bill Cosby lets his children have chocolate cake for breakfast…. I let Riley have a Mountain Dew.  Oh yea, and it’s a pretty good pic too.

Here’s the required group pic….

And here’s the most awesome Dad pic ever…..

 

Fifty Cent Pieces, “Football” and the Great Dressing Idol

Why yes, I had a great Thanksgiving weekend, thanks for asking! I was able to spend several days off of work with my family and ended up making four trips to Birmingham in four days. As one might expect, I have a few stories from the weekend. Each story is too short to put into its own post, so I’ll just combine them here.

The 50 Cent Piece

Wednesday morning, Anna and I took Cooper to Children’s Hospital in Birmingham for a follow-up MRI. In order to arrive at 7:30, we had to get up pretty early, thus we treated ourselves to some coffee. With our change, our “barista” included a fifty-cent piece.

I looked at her and said, “What is this?”

She said, “Fifty cents. What is your problem?”

I said (in my best George Costanza impression), “This is 2011. You can’t just give someone a 50 cent piece and not acknowledge it. (Unless you are a grandparent giving it to your grandchildren) What am I going to do with this 50 cent piece?”

Actually, that scenario ran in my head. I never said anything. Because the girl was probably 18 and could care less. But seriously, who gives you a 50 cent piece and doesn’t acknowledge it?

“Football”

Recently, my two older boys have become obsessed with professional sports. Specifically, professional football. So much so, that Owen who is four and can only read a few sight words, was able to get on the internet and pull up the San Fransisco 49ers depth chart so he could find out more information about their middle linebacker.

Sunday, Walker was talking about “Football”. It wasn’t long before I realized he was talking about the game of soccer. And my heart skipped a beat.

Now hear me out. I live in the deep south. I get enough strange looks for having a black, HIV+ son. So I’ve learned to develop some thick skin. (Side note, yes it’s 2011, but based on the stares we get and the racist comment I received from a family member while holding Cooper over the weekend, everyone’s not exactly good with the whole black/white thing) I quickly warned Walker to never call the game soccer “football” again. I don’t want to get run out-of-town or excommunicated from our church.

Dressing Worship

Have you noticed everyone’s irrational love and staunch defense of dressing at Thanksgiving? In the South, everyone has a Mother, Mother-in-law, sister or Maw Maw that makes “the best dressing ever”. You can’t convince them otherwise. I heard more than one person talk about how their Thanksgiving just wasn’t the same because they weren’t able to have their Mom’s dressing. Or how their Aunt Sally makes the best and you can take it to the bank.

It can’t be possible for every family to have someone that makes the best ever. As I discussed this with a few of my friends, they admitted that there might be better dressing somewhere else, but they would never tell their Mom/Sister/Grandmother/Aunt/MawMaw.

I spent part of this past weekend on a short Daddy/Daughter retreat (more on that later) in which we discussed with the girls the concept of being valued by God. Please tell me my daughter doesn’t have to grow up in a world finding her value in her ability to mix some ingredients together and warming it up.

Put it this way, so many of us love to rail on football as an Idol, but couldn’t we also post on Facebook and Twitter “I wish everyone got as excited about Jesus as they do about their Nana’s dressing.”

Hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving as well. Anyone got any good observations?

 

 

So what do you think?

As I’ve mentioned recently, I’ll be speaking at World AIDS Day for West Alabama in a couple of weeks.  Our adoption of Cooper has opened some doors for us to talk to people about HIV and adoption.

I recently asked one of the folks organizing the event, “What exactly do you want me to talk about?”

Among other things, he said, “how you’d like the church and the South in general to perceive the issue of HIV.”

Obviously I have plenty to share, but I’m curious, what would you share?  What have we shared with you that you would like for us to share?

You can leave a comment here.

You send me a message on Facebook.

Or you send me an e-mail at the address on the right column.

I’m really curious to hear your thoughts.  Fire away…

 

Exit 49

“What has adoption taught you?”

It was a question posed to me as we slugged through the miles of a long run by a good friend of mine.  And I didn’t have an answer.

I’d like to say it was because we were running.  Or the fact that is was still so early.  But to be brutally honest, I just hadn’t thought about it.  And as I continue to think about it, I realize the reason I don’t have a quick, awesome answer that I can post on Twitter or as a Facebook status, it that my answer wouldn’t make sense.

Telling someone “My perspective of Exit 49 has changed” would likely be pretty confusing.  So let me explain…

Almost three years ago, I traveled to Atlanta,GA for business.  I was riding with a few co-workers, but on the way I was going to meet another co-worker who was already inAtlantavisiting with customers. We were planning on taking in an Atlanta Hawks basketball game, while the rest of the crew wanted to go ahead and get to the hotel to rest up for the next day.  Andy, the guy I was meeting, was delayed, so I had the other guys drop me off at a McDonalds (at exit 49) which just happened to be a couple of miles away from Andy’s meeting.  I figured I’d hang out for a few minutes and wait on him to pick me up.

As soon as they dropped me off, I received a text from Andy which let me know that what I thought was going to be a 10 minute wait, was now probably going to be an hour wait.  “No big deal, I thought”, as a father of three children, an hour doing nothing sounded good to me.

As I sat there surfing the web on my phone, I quickly realized that this was no ordinary McDonalds.  As my father would say, I looked like a fish out of water (read…  I was the only white dude there).  I noticed about 99% of the customers using the drive thru and staying in their locked cars. Despite the fact the McDonalds was brand new, everything else around me was dilapidated.  Even the hotel next door looked pretty sketchy.   Suddenly, I didn’t feel so comfortable anymore and I wanted Andy to get there fast.

I had been there about 30 minutes when a young girl walked in and sat down at my booth.  Awkward doesn’t begin to describe how I felt.  First, I was the only person in McDonalds.  And since every accountability group I’ve ever been involved in teaches me to never be in a situation where I’m with another woman alone, my mind told me to flee the situation.

She asked if she could use my phone, giving me some excuse about hers not working and she needed someone to come pick her up.  What was I going to say, I was sitting there by myself with my phone in my hand, so I gave it to her.  She then called one of her friends and as she talked nothing was even mentioned about picking her up.  I began to get extremely uncomfortable and wondered “WHERE IS ANDY!”

After she got off the phone, she just sat there.  This was getting really uncomfortable.  It’s as if she was expecting me to say or do something.  Did she need some money?  What did she want?   I didn’t get it.  After what seemed like 10 hours (it was probably only 5 minutes…or less), she got up and walked away.  To further confuse me, she walked out exasperated with me.   I let her use my phone, what more did she want?

The whole thing was so confusing, until Andy picked me up.  (It’s about time!).  As we left the parking lot, I started to tell Andy this crazy story, when I noticed the strip club one block away.  And then I noticed all the women walking around the streets and saw a few of them walking with some of the men over to the hotel.  And then it hit me.

That girl was a PROSTITUTE!!!!  And she wanted me to….  Hey…. wait, what just happened??????

I immediately called Anna and told her what happened and assured her I wasn’t caught up in anything.  Over the next few days I had a few good laughs about my encounter with a prostitute.   And then I moved on….

You want to know how adoption changed me?

Three years later, I’m disgusted with my response.

Instead of seeing a prostitute, I see a hurting soul.

A girl that more than likely was being trafficked as a minor.

A girl that may have nowhere to call home.

A girl that may have no parents.

She was one of “the least of these.”

And I acted no different than the Priest or the Levite who walked by the beaten man and did nothing.

Three years ago, I felt I should flee from exit 49.   Three years later, I’m heading towards exit 49.  It’s where I should have been all along.

And that’s how adoption has changed me…..

 

The Bios that didn’t make the Cut

Yesterday, I received an e-mail from one of the organizers of  the World AIDS day event here in Tuscaloosa.  He has heard about our adoption and has asked me to speak.  Basically, the e-mail said…

“Can you send me a short bio for us to use in our World AIDS Day Invite?”

For some reason that made me really uncomfortable.  What do you say, without coming across like a complete show-off or a loser?  When you think about it, it’s something that should be relatively easy, but I made it a lot harder than I should have.  Believe me, I went through several variations before I finally settled on the final version.  In all honesty, I would never even put down half the things that ran through my head.  So I decided to put them here.

Here are a few that didn’t make the cut.  I’ve even labeled them for you so you will see why I didn’t choose it.

The Humblebrag

Tim Dreyfus and his wife Anna have been Tuscaloosa residents for 15 years.  Sometimes they wonder why they are so fortunate that they didn’t end up in the slums of Ethiopia, where their adopted child is from.  Now unbelievably blessed with 4 children, they feel humbled to even be mentioned in the same breath as the words “adopted parents of an HIV+ child”.  They can’t even believe you would even consider looking at them, much less hear them speak at an event.

What I Dreamed My Bio would be when I was 15 yrs old

Gifted at an early age with a silky smooth jumper, Tim Dreyfus led his high school to the state championship three years in a row.  After the most talked about recruitment in years, he chose Duke over every other college in the country.  Now considered the most famous Blue Devil ever, Tim led the team to 4 national championships and was an Academic All American four years as well.  He and his wife Anna have spent the last 15 years in Atlanta, where he has led the team to 6 championships and is widely considered the greatest shooting guard ever.  After successfully solving the NBA lockout, Tim and Anna have adopted an HIV+ child from Ethiopia, bringing much-needed awareness to orphans around the world.

A Bio with completely irrelevant facts

Tuscaloosa residents Tim Dreyfus and his wife Anna are proud parents of four children.  They recently completed the adoption of their son Cooper, an HIV+ orphan from Ethiopia.  Tim is an avid marathoner, having completed 5 marathons and numerous half marathons.  Tim also enjoys coaching youth sports and has recently lead his daughter’s basketball team to the championship game two years in a row.  Their son Walker is an avid Green Bay Packers fan and is hopeful that Aaron Rodgers could lead them to an undefeated season.  In her limited spare time, Anna enjoys browsing PINTEREST and makes a mean homemade chocolate chip cookie.   While, yes, they do advocate for HIV+ orphans, they also are big advocates for exercise and encourage everyone to try Crossfit.

The Social Justice Bio

After getting matching James 1:27 tattoos, Tim Dreyfus and his wife Anna made the decision to advocate for the orphan worldwide.  Decked out in TOMS Shoes and social justice t-shirts, they traveled half way across the world (spending all the money they had) to bring home their son Cooper.  Sickened by the lack of concern around them, they’ve decided to fight injustice at every turn.  After selling their house and living on a park bench to better understand what’s it’s like to be poor, Tim and Anna want you to join them in their fight for social justice around the world.

I’m sure I’ve left off some things that you think I should include.  And I’m more than sure you will let me know what I forgot.

(I’ll have more info about the actual event soon.)

 

One Hour

The last several months have been a whirlwind in the Dreyfus family.  Besides adding a new one, our normal busy life has continued.  My Mom sent us a text the other day talking about how there is a no way she could keep up with our normal schedule.

Fortunately for us, we’ve found ourselves enjoying a weekend in which we had nothing scheduled.  And IT.WAS.AWESOME!

Naps, playing ball in the yard, a big breakfast with the kids after my Sat AM run…  just a few fun things we were able to do.

But one hour of the weekend stands above the rest.  As they were happening, Anna said, “This is a blog post isn’t it?”  My response, “This whole hour is a blog post!”

On Sunday afternoon, Riley fell asleep on the couch.  Unfortunately for her (and us) Owen started making some loud noises and woke her up.

When someone wakes up Riley, or Walker, or Owen (and Anna would want everyone to know that I do this too), their body starts shaking in convulsions not unlike when a football player gets a concussion in football.  Check the receiver’s arms in this video.  That’s what they look like.  And for the record, you better steer clear of them for about 30 minutes as well.  (Again, Anna would say steer clear of me too.  I have no idea what she is talking about.)

Not long after that, Anna came into the living room, fresh off a session of surfing the internet.  Translated… PINTEREST TIME!!!

The kids were snacking on Pop Tarts, which led to a discussion about how a friend of ours buys Organic Pop Tarts for her kids.  (Don’t worry, I’ve already called DHR to report this.)

Anna, then asked me, “Hey, do you have access to any 5 gallon buckets?”. Followed by, “Before you laugh at me, just hear me out.”

She then proceeded to spend about 30 minutes trying to convince me that we could make our own detergent.  Here are a few highlights of that conversation..

“For less than $10, we could make up to 10 gallons of detergent.”

“It’s going to be different this time, because it’s liquid.”

“It only costs one cent per load.”

“Your running clothes are going to stink no matter what type of detergent we use.”

“This blogger said she got the recipe from the Duggars.  It also says she hasn’t ever seen the show because she doesn’t have cable.”  (Note – this is my favorite one!  Really, someone who makes their own detergent doesn’t have cable?  I’m shocked!)

Anna and Riley were talking and somehow the word “poo poo” came up.  We discovered today that Riley can not say the word “poo poo” without laughing.  We tried to get her to do it for at least 5 min.  She couldn’t do it.

We then took Cooper outside in his walker to work with him on his walking.  While Anna was working with him, I started throwing the baseball with Walker.  We had one errant throw in which I yelled “Look out!” to the Ethiopian toddler, as if he had cat-like reflexes to get out of the way.  Good one Dad!

All that happened in just one hour and this is a normal day.  And WE LOVE IT!

 

“Ummm… Next time you send me a picture, you might want to take a closer look!”

I’ve got a few photos to share with you… Here we go…

One night after his shower, we asked Owen to put away some of his clean clothes.  He decided it would be a good idea to carry all of his clean socks in his shorts.   #FAIL

Remember the picture I showed you of my family in front of the cotton field?  This was in the men’s bathroom at the restaurant.  Not sure why it is on the sink rather than by the toilet, but Owen thought it was hilarious.  I have no idea where he gets it from.

Based on his license tag, I immediately assume I know everything there is to know about this guy.

It’s always comforting to see this on a wall at the ballpark where your kids play baseball while holding your Ethiopian son in your arms.

After a halloween party, this was the wallpaper on my phone.  You win this battle Mary Helen, but you have not won the war.

Speaking of the Halloween party, I had this picture taken of my socks and shoes (I went as Richard Simmons) to send to one of my friends.(Long story)   Lesson learned,  make sure you get a GOOD LOOK at any picture before you text it out to one of your friends.

 

You’ve Got Something In Your Teeth

Have you ever gotten home or gone to the bathroom after you’ve spent some time with some of your friends and realized you have a big chunk of food in your teeth?

You wondered why your friends wouldn’t make eye contact with you. You even wonder why they wouldn’t just tell you about it. After all, it’s not like you strategically placed that piece of brocoli in your front teeth as an accessory. And while it may be awkward for someone to tell you the truth, you are thankful they told you rather than letting you know that you have a big green chunk of food between your teeth.

Consider this post in the same vein. It’s not a complaint at all. It’s just I think after you read it you’ll say, “Why didn’t you just tell me about it earlier?”.

Anna and I have noticed over the last month or so a common theme in our conversations about Cooper. People are excited to meet him and spend some time with him. (Likewise, we’re excited for you to meet him as well) However, at some point people will tell us, “Aww… he looks so tired.” And when they tell us this, it’s well-intentioned. For most people, it’s their first time to meet him, so they don’t know any different.

OK, here comes the uncomfortable part… the part where I tell you about the huge chunk of food in your teeth….

99% of the time, what you are seeing is not a tired little boy. It’s just how he looks because of some of his developmental delays.

Before I go any further, I know what some of you are thinking… “dude lighten up. don’t be so sensitive.” Please understand me when I tell you this, it doesn’t upset us in the least bit. We don’t get tired of hearing it. We don’t get frustrated hearing it. It’s just uncomfortable for everyone when you have to explain why he looks that way. Just like when you tell someone they have food in their teeth.

Now that we got that out-of-the-way, I’ll try to explain why he looks tired. There are a few reasons why he looks this way….

1. He is partially blind in one eye, as a result he tilts his head a certain way to see. Many times this results in him burying his head in either mine or Anna’s arms. Also, many times that eye goes cross-eyed, which also makes him look tired. (Side note, Anna makes fun of me when I’m tired because I suddenly get a lazy eye. I tell her I do it so that I can show sympathy to Coop)

2. Since he’s been home with us, his head control has gotten better, but he still doesn’t have full control. This also results in him burying his head in our arms.

3. Since he can’t sit up by himself (YET! He’s on his way for sure) he sometimes slumps in our arms, just like a tired child would.

So he naturally looks tired.

Another small (well maybe it’s a huge) reason he looks tired may be the fact that he’s still unsure of all these white people who speak English all the time. So he gets a little shy as well. Which, again, makes him look tired.

As I write this post, I’m fully aware that I have at least 5 friends that will now tell me he looks tired every time I see them now. And I love it. I’d do the same thing.

We love the way you guys love Cooper. Now just don’t have to wonder if he needs a nap….