Planking

You’ve heard about planking, right? The “big” internet craze? Okay, so maybe it isn’t all that big, but you’d be surprised how many pictures you come across of people planking. Clay became aware of it a couple weeks ago, and the Davises just had to try:

Meredith and Benji Plank

Alayna Planks

Benji and Nate Plank

Clay Planks

The “official” definition I found when I googled is the act of lying facedown for a photograph. More specifically: to put your body face down to the ground (or table, or object, or anything) with your arms to the side. Ours aren’t all that exciting compared to the man planking between two camels, or the two women planking in Vegas on either side of Elvis, but I still got the smallest of thrills. Why?

We did something together as a family. Some of my favorite moments have been spent with my entire family, whether around a dinner table or on a plane to Morocco. Even better, we laughed together. Oh, I love to laugh. It happens when I hear my voice echo back to me if my phone gets funky. Or when I see bodies all stretched in wavy mirrors. We took this picture at a “Hall of Mirrors” in Lucerne, Switzerland.

That day I laughed ‘till tears ran down my cheeks and I had to cross my legs so I wouldn’t pee. But another reason I liked planking is because we put ourselves in an unusual position and saw our world from a different perspective. Our living room looked different lying horizontal on a barstool. And it felt a little weird, but cool, to put my body in a place it had never been before.

There’s a point to this post on planking. We’re doing this adoption as a family, everyone is on “board” and can’t wait to meet their new daughter/sister. It is the topic of frequent dinner conversations as we talk about going to Honduras and try to come up with names. And the whole naming thing has led to lots of laughter, and I’m sure that’s just the beginning. Bringing a baby into our home means diaper explosions, carrots on the face, and those funny phrases she’ll come up with when she starts to talk. There is a lot of laughter in our future.

And we’re definitely putting ourselves in a place we’ve never been before. Lots of places. In particular this week, Clay and me drove to Fort Worth to meet two of the people who live in Honduras, and lots of the people we’ve been corresponding with via email and phone. We really liked everyone, and got lots of questions answered. There are still plenty of questions out there. There is uncertainty, and a healthy bit of fear, but I think it really isn’t an adventure without a little uncertainty and fear.

I also did a psychological review which is required of both Clay and I for the adoption. I’ve never sat in a chair in a psychologist’s office, and it’s been a long time since I took a bubble test. The MMPI had more than 500 true or false statements, which ranged anywhere from “I enjoy fixing door latches” to “I’ve thought about killing myself.” That same afternoon we had our home study. Our caseworker was a really nice woman who asked us some easy and hard questions. We were pleased to find out we’ll be seeing her over the years for child evaluations once we adopt our girl. She was full of ideas and advice that made a lot of sense.

Because this is all new to us, this adopting business, and we can use all the ideas and advice we can get. But we’re in it together as a family. I didn’t find out until later that day of our home study that Alayna had missed a fun day with her friends, who all got together to swim and watch a movie. She hadn’t even asked if she could go, because she knew where she needed to be. Where she wanted to be.

So I have a new definition for planking, the Davis definition: doing something together, experiencing much laughter, as we put ourselves in places we’ve never been before. Come on, admit it, you want to try. I can’t wait to see the pictures . . .