An Article For Our Local FCC...

...when asked to write about our experience with creating a life book for miss Ruby, I was happy & a tad bit nervous. I finished my article last night & submitted it to the woman gathering the information for publication. Should be out in the next New England issue of our FCC. Figured you all are the best test audience I know, so here goes:

“I can’t believe it’s been almost three years Ruby…” I say to my little girl as she’s lost in her paints & isn’t hearing a word I’m saying. “Ruby? Did you hear Momma, baby? We’ve been together almost three years now, isn’t that great?!”
“Momma, can you help wif da gween pwease?” she asks looking up at me with hopeful eyes. “Yes baby, I can help you with the green…” I say as I manage to mix just the right shade of green for her beloved Bear’s sweater. “Fank you Momma!” she says, and with a kiss to boot. Isn’t motherhood grand?

After the ‘green crisis’ is averted, I leave Ruby to her arts & crafts. Each picture a masterpiece, each one unique, each one special saved into a steadily growing arsenal of one of a kind works of art made by my little girl. A little girl who, three short years ago was waiting for a Mom just as much as I was waiting for a daughter. The whole process leaves me in a state of awe. Anyone who has ever adopted need only to stare at their perfect child, not perfect in the sense that they make no mistakes because make no mistake about it, kids mess up… no, I’m talking about the kind of perfect that you just know in your heart you couldn’t have hand crafted a better child to fit perfectly into your family to fill the void that was once there. It’s like the stars & the sun & the moon all align to make this connection happen & each & every time, it’s flawless and it leaves all of us parents dumbfounded & feeling blessed beyond blessed. How was such a perfect match made a world away? I’ll never know, none of us will but we all know that certain things were just meant to be & aren’t we the luckier for it?

How in the world do you do justice to such a feeling? How do you give something that is so profound & so life changing, a gift such as our children, how do you then take that gift & turn it into something that lasts a lifetime? I know for me that started in the form of a blog. Nothing fancy, just a blogger blog, simple yet elegant, fun and easy to do. I had owned a computer since I was 18 & up until my 20’s had only used the thing for storing my music, emailing far too many people and chatting online in IM’s with friends till the wee hours of the morning. Seems foolish now, but all those years of merely ‘fooling around’ online taught me how to type like a banshee, over 200 wpm now if you can believe it, and to know my way around the internet comfortably and confidently. I originally started ‘Ruby In Her Own Time…’ to help with what seemed like an endless wait. (Although now I chuckle at that because I KNOW how long families are waiting currently for their children & it honestly makes me ashamed to suggest that my 9 month wait was anything but a short little gift.)

My first post onto Ruby’s new blog was August 4th, 2005. I had no clue that, as I typed that first little entry, half way around the world in a small village in Jiangxi China, was the very child I was blogging about. My beautiful little girl under the watchful & loving eye of her foster mother in their very humble one room home with the dirt floors, my Ruby. I didn’t have a clue that she was beautiful and loving and silly and full of smiles… I only knew that I was tired of ‘waiting’ so I was going to do something to fill the void. Also, I had previously gone searching for some sort of a ‘baby book’ to document things in, but as a single Mom to be, adopting from a foreign country, there weren’t much in the way of options. Over the years I’ve come to realize that when you choose to start your family in a non-traditional way, you need to be ready for the bumps along the road as the world still views family in it’s old ‘cookie cutter’ style of ‘Mom, Dad, Children born biologically in a hospital, etc…’ All the books I was finding were for the mom & dad to write their feelings down in the appropriate spaces… strike one, just a Mom here people.
Then there were little places for putting the hospital bracelets & others for the first footprints & hand prints, first hair cuttings, etc… no hospital or ink pad or first haircut in sight. Just a single woman, with a dream in her heart & hopefully enough patience to see it come to fruition.

Feeling slightly discouraged at my first attempt to find a book, I was now pretty happy with the prospect of having my ‘own’ space in the world in which to document my thoughts & feelings as my adoption journey was nearing the part where, any day now, a light should be shining at the end of the tunnel & I’d have my referral. I blogged daily about everything until, finally on September 7th, 2005, I got “the call” and shortly thereafter, received the most beautiful images I’ve ever seen in my whole life. My little girl, my Fu Pei Mu, soon to become Ruby Cate Pei Mu, was looking back at me from my computer screen in all her gorgeous glory! Somebody pinch me, I have a daughter!

Man was THAT an emotional day! I captured all of it on both film AND the written word, thanks to the blog.

Years have gone by & I’ve kept up the blog, some weeks more regularly than others, but I’m always adding to her story. And it is her story, it’s our story. It’s priceless and one day I realized that, yes… an online blog is a great outlet for me to get my thoughts down & to share with others, (currently there are about 200 faithful readers of R.I.H.O.T as it’s invitation only) but I started to think about the what if’s…

What if I could figure out a way to reach inside of my computer screen & pull out that blog book with both hands to not only share it with Ruby, but also with other family members, especially those who weren’t as computer savvy? Man, wouldn’t that be something! I happened to mention my thoughts to one of my dearest friends Kristen, and she sort of got this look on her face like the wheels were cranking.
“What is it?” I asked her… I’ve known her long enough to know when she’s cookin’ something up in that head of hers.
“Well, why don’t we do it?!” she said.
“Excuse me? Why don’t we what? Just do it? Ahem, and how exactly do you propose I reach through glass & pull out a book that only exists online? Don’t be crazy Kris, I was just daydreaming out loud…”

“Aim, seriously, we can do that, let’s figure out a way! Don’t you want Ruby to have access to all that you’ve written since before you went to China? It’ll be like her own special Ruby Story Book and she’s the star! Let’s DO IT!”

Now, I must preface this by saying Kristen had just recently graduated from Babson University with her masters in business and was the smartest cookie I knew.

“Ok then, HOW?!” I said.

Fast forward several weeks and while working at the local YMCA in their babysitting room, I see a woman standing outside of the door to our room & in her hands & held right up against the glass was a book I didn’t quite recognize. Puzzled, I walked up to the door, opened it & Kristen, with a smile bigger than my VW, hands me a copy of “Ruby In Her Own Time…” by Amy E. Scarcella.

“WHAT?! BUT HOW DID YOU? WHEN DID YOU? OMG KRISTEN! THIS IS AMAZING!” After a HUGE HUG (which I know she wasn’t all that thrilled about because she’s just not a ‘hugger’) I sat down & ogled at this AMAZING THING in my hands! OMG, this is RUBY’S BLOG IN MY HANDS! I was teary, I was amazed, I was happy, I was literally turning the pages of my daughter’s journey into my family one page at a time.

After calming down she explained to me how she had done it & asked me if I thought we should maybe do the same thing for other families who might feel trapped online like I did. Maybe other adoptive families had online journals that they’d love turned into a book as well? We talked at length about all of the things we could do for other families & all of the children who were the stars of their own blogs and felt it was very important to do whatever we could to offer the same gift to others that Kristen had just given me.

Thus, bookmyblog.com was born.

Being a single mother working only part time at the Y, didn’t afford us many extras in life. We lived paycheck to paycheck like most families and were finding joy in all of life’s free gifts. Like the library, and the local parks, the ocean that we live walking distance to, and the great big hill around the corner perfect for some winter fun!
But to be able to maybe earn a little bit more towards Ruby’s college fund through helping others create such a lasting physical legacy for their children & families? I couldn’t say no to at least trying!

I had talked with Kristen about paying it forward first. Choosing another single mom who I know wouldn’t otherwise spend the money on such a thing, and creating a blog book for her & her daughter as a surprise & just sending it to her sight unseen. I got to work right away on a book for my friend Tiffany & her daughter Eliza. It took a couple of days to get the hang of it but once it was all said & done and the work was off to the publishers, I felt a sense of accomplishment & pride. I knew how much Ruby’s book meant to me, so I knew in my heart how much this book would mean to Tiffany.
Weeks went by and the book arrived, we couldn’t stop staring at it. Our first book for someone else. Our first ‘pay it forward’. I was beyond excited & Kristen and I spent hours reading it, although I knew every word it contained as I gathered all the information for it, there’s just something about seeing it literally in your hands that takes you off guard. Amazing, truly amazing that I was about to package up & send this gorgeous book, the front cover was identical to her blog’s layout & look, and the back cover was a full page image of Tiffany & Eliza embraced in a hug & loaded with smiles.

We sent it on it’s way with a note that said, “ Dear Tiffany & Eliza, we really hope you enjoy this book of Eliza’s blog. If you wouldn’t mind, please share with others what we’re able to do via your blog & perhaps we can help more families take their memories out of the computer & put them into their hands as well. Thanks!”

We’ve done five blog books to date & each week brings a new family hoping to create their own keepsake life book for their children. The books take time & are a labor of love, but honestly I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I sometimes sit & think, after Ruby’s sound asleep in her bed, about what it will be like twenty, thirty years from now, when I’m much older & Ruby’s a grown woman. What will she feel in her heart as she picks her childhood up by the hands, and peruses the pages of her memories, one at a time. One book for each year that we’ve been home, one book per year until Momma’s hands refuse to cooperate any longer & typing becomes too difficult. Unconditional love has always been her gift to me, and what a gift it’s been. It seems only fitting that this living legacy of her childhood, our years together as mother & daughter become my gift to her. Seems so little in comparison.
Her own little time machine in the form of a hard cover books…

… I hope she thinks it’s as cool as I do right now.

-Amy E. Scarcella