The Adventures of Adoption and Parenthood

[This blog post was inspired by a friend of mine who lives in hotter climates.] We hear a lot about the Mommy Wars. You know the woman who judges you for breast feeding. The woman who judges your for not breast feeding. The woman who judges you because you don't have your kid in a Mommy & Me Music Class at 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday when you are working and the toddler is at preschool. The woman who judges you for working. The woman who judges you for not working. The woman who judges you for not showing up to your kid's school to volunteer for the class party or not showing up for field day. And you don't hear anything about Daddy Wars. Daddies are not expected to take time off from work, they are not expected to show up at school for events, they are not expected to do doctor visits, they are not expected to talk with teachers about sensitive issues. Don't hear this as they don't. I'm merely listing the differences in expectations for mothers versus father...

Lately, my kids have been ... I don't know how to describe it ... let's go with ... challenging. Segunda has temper tantrums that are either super loud and long lasting or she makes no sound but throws everything in her reach attempting utter destruction. The no sound ones are a little freaky. Prima has been struggling with her emotions of late too. We aren't sure of the trigger, but she actually seems determined to let herself get out of control. You can see the cycle happening before your eyes and watch her head towards the cliff with purpose. I've read book after book and there are still more books to read. They all feel like homework assignments. And if you don't do your homework you are bound to fail. No pressure or anything. Most books agree that you are supposed to help your kids identify their emotion and label it for them and most of the time the kid is supposed to calm right down. I'm not sure if they have tried these techniques on actual children, b...

As you are growing up, you ask questions and you hear a lot of "you'll understand once you are a mother." Yeah, whatever. You hear "wait until it's your own kid." Uh huh. You hear "the love of a mother can move mountains." If you say so. We have a lot of solitary experiences in our lives even as others are going through a similar experience: living through cancer, battling with inner demons, divorce and it's aftermath, physical pain. But one thing I have learned is that motherhood isn't one of those experiences. There are days when I am in the thick of mothering my children that I'm suddenly struck by the generations upon generations of women who come from far and wide who have done exactly what I am doing at that moment. There were women in eastern Russia hundreds of years ago who fought with the children to get them clean. There were women in Africa who argued with their children over what they will put in their mouths. There were...

Tonight was Family Movie Night. We chose Home because Prima wanted to see it in the theater, but we never made it. So we watched in the comfort of our family room. Spoiler Alert - at the end when the girl finds her mom, Prima was a full on disaster. I admit, I didn't see that coming. "She found her Mom, and I don't know mine." My poor baby was hysterical crying because she doesn't know who her birth mom is. I know I write about birth moms a lot, but guess what, in my household, they're paramount. Without birth moms making the ultimate sacrifice, there would be no children. So, my great big 6-year old girl who is gorgeous beyond belief, who hates to be told she is cute or pretty, who scored a 100% on her math test, a 100% on letter sounds, and a 56% on her letter formation (just like this mama), who loves karate because it leads her to kung fu, who can't get enough of wonton soup, who adores chocolate, is crying the most heart-rending tears imaginable o...

I just finished reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. I picked it up in the Tucson airport on the tail-end of a business trip so that I had something besides a business book to read on the plane. When I wasn't being pulled out of the book by her obvious wealth, which makes some of her Resolutions darn near impossible for most us, I found that I have been working on my own Happiness Project without realizing it. A few months ago, I began to notice that I was constantly yelling at the kids, constantly criticizing my husband or nagging him, constantly fretting over the state of the house, always on the go trying to get everything done all of the time. And this had been going on for who knows how long. I was sad because I didn't have any time to myself. I was overweight. I was unfit. I ate junk food every day. I never read. At my annual physical I talked to my doctor about my mental state because I wanted it to change. Doctor: Do you want help with your anxiety? Me:...

Prima is a People Pleaser. I'm trying to tame that a bit because I know that it will get her in trouble in the future. People Pleasers give away their belongings to their friends because their friends ask them to and they want their friends to be happy. People Pleasers have sex because their boyfriend or girlfriend asked them to and they want their boyfriend or girlfriend to be happy. Yes, that escalated quickly, but that's where we are headed. Yes, I know she is only six years old. Prima has a new found love of Pokemon that she acquired over the summer. She went to a Day Camp/School place that had students in her class ages 6 and up. There is a 9 year old girl who wants to trade Pokemon cards with Prima. We have banned Prima from trading. Why? Because she has no earthly idea how to play Pokemon although she thinks she does and will end up trading all of her great cards to the 9 year old who is itching to get a hold of my daughter's "Mega EX" cards (whatever tha...

Being the incredibly wise parents that we are, we decided to take the girls on a mini-road trip this weekend. We went to Crested Butte. It's a 4 hour drive without traffic and interminable with traffic. Let me preface this by saying that Prima had temper tantrums at 2, but they were generally because  she didn't get her way and they were rare. Most of the time she was over-stimulated and they were predictable. On the drive down, we got about 35 minutes out of town and Segunda decided she needed to go potty. Since we are potty-training, husband dutifully pulled into a parking lot. Out comes the Potette. Segunda planted herself on it and delivered exactly bupkiss. Back into the car she goes only to scream for 30 solid minutes before finally falling asleep. Whew. Throughout the weekend she had tantrum after tantrum. We've never experienced this before and at the end of the long weekend we are frankly exhausted and eager to return to work. At the 4th of July parade, Segunda...

We've all seen those silly memes about first world problems. "I had to tidy for the cleaning lady - first world problem." "My diamond earrings keep scratching my iPhone - first world problem." They are silly, but they are covering up some genuine first world problems. It's almost like we collectively feel guilty for any problems when there are people on the planet without clean drinking water, enough food to eat, clothes on their back or a roof over their heads. Those are the real problems in the world, not our piddly little first world problems. While those are very real problems that we should all be striving to fix, we have real first world problems too. I think it's important to call them out and talk about them so that we can address our problems too and shove them under the rug in shame. There are middle class families in America going bankrupt because of the cost of medical care. Those same families in 1950 would belong to a country club an...

This is not a political diatribe on testing, but an ode to teachers and the lifelong impact they have on our lives. As you read this, think about whether or not teachers can have this kind of impact on children if they are spending their time in test prep and test delivery. I had five teachers/professors in my life that had a major lifelong impact on me. One in elementary school, one in high school and three in college. In elementary school, my 3rd and 4th grade teacher was Ms. Randolph. She taught at Fremont Elementary in Cupertino, California. She took a personal interest in me. I remember her encouragement when I struggled with penmanship. She made me want to practice and practice so that I could please her with my improvement. She knew me so well that I was cast as the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland in the class play because I rolled my eyes a lot. At the end of the year she showed me a handwriting sample from the first day and a sample from the last day so that I could ...

This is a post I've been thinking about for weeks and it will be haphazard and scattered, but I need to get it out there for me. If you read to the end, thank you. Food, I have discovered, is an emotionally charged topic. Until I was in my early 30's, I always found it easy to maintain my "ideal" weight. I could eat what I wanted, eschew exercise and look great doing it. In my 30's, I started gaining weight, but it was a slow process. I also started going to the gym. I still felt pretty okay and looked pretty okay. When we adopted Prima, I felt great and had a wonderful trip to China. When we adopted Segunda, I hurt everywhere and the trip to China was very very hard for me. In my mid-40's I have begun to deteriorate and I'm fat. Paradoxically, I'm also not into body shaming. There is nothing I want more than to give my children the idea that I have a healthy outlook on my body and I hope I'm faking it well enough to convince them. But my body ma...

The CCAI Adoption Reunion is coming up in June, and it got me thinking about our guides for our two adoption trips. Three of them will be at the reunion. They aren't going to remember us because they have helped over 11,000 children meet their forever families. But I'm so excited to see them again. This is a biased opinion because I haven't used any other agency but CCAI has the best guides in the adoption process. They shepherd worried parents through every step; they hand feed babies; they change diapers; they carry bags; they argue with the Chinese equivalent of TSA. In a word, they are AWESOME. And I mean that in the true definition of the word. Our first trip started in Hong Kong. We had Joann and Matthew. Joann picked us up from the airport with several other families, handed out water bottles, loaded us onto a bus, counted heads, made sure our bags were stowed on the bus, counted heads again, double checked water and we were off. She checked us all into our hotel r...

I haven't been blogging much lately. My kids are relatively stable emotionally. Segunda is doing unbelievably terrific with her current set of limitations. We have settled into a routine and all is calm ... for now. I have made some new Facebook friends. Their struggles with their kids are so much larger than mine. It feels petty to write blog posts about minor surgical procedures that scare the hell out of me, but are really just a tiny blip on the radar. My friends have kids who have had heart transplants, will have a hemispherectomy, spinal cord surgeries, have fought and concurred brain cancer, have multiple cleft lip/palate surgeries. My friends have kids who have ODD, ADD, ADHD, Sensory Processing Disorder, Auditory Processing Disorder, Autism. I don't have anything to add to that conversation. Of course, Segunda could get diagnosed with those things. Prima has not. Prima uses her words at level expert. She is just a dynamite kid. She enjoys karate and wants to learn ...

I am in awe of my 6-year old. Prima has always been a verbal child and able to express herself and ask questions about things she doesn't understand. At 2 1/2 we took her to Sea World. She spent the day in a state of silence just taking it all in. The next day, she couldn't stop talking about everything she saw the day before. Thus launched her interest in marine life. She learned everything she could about dolphins and could probably give a mini lecture to anyone who asked before the age of 3. This is just back drop to her history with the spoken word. Fast forward to today and she uses her verbal skills to tell us how she is feeling and what she needs. I often feel like she is parenting me. Segunda necessarily needs quite a bit of attention in the form of carrying and sometimes just plain cajoling to get her to do stuff like hold still for a diaper change. When this happens, Prima quietly says to me, "Mommy, I'm feeling jealous and I need some attention." Lite...

Today is my birthday. I'm 44. I have a very sick Segunda on my hands. The child can't stop coughing and she throws up and she chokes on her own snot ... you get the idea. My husband is starting to get sick too. Prima's birthday was Wednesday, but we didn't celebrate it until yesterday. Husband travels to Houston very early tomorrow morning. I took Prima to the birthday party of a classmate today. It wasn't much of a birthday. And as I wracked up the sympathy from the kind people who called to wish me a happy birthday, I realized that this is the best birthday ever. You see, I have a husband whom I have been married to for over 15 years. I have a lovely home. I have 2 children. What more does one need to have a great birthday? Every time Segunda sprayed her germs all over me when she coughed, I just held her tighter.  Every time Prima complained that she wasn't getting enough attention, I just smiled at her and reminded her about Chinese New Year on Friday, h...

It seems inevitable that I would write a post today. Things that shake me emotionally generate blog posts. I have a friend, who I only know through Facebook, who died this morning from brain cancer. She leaves behind a husband and daughter. Her daughter is adopted from China. This is hitting me particularly hard because I have been reading a book pointing out how very difficult the lives of adoptees really are. The book is called Primal Wound and anyone associated in any way with adoption really needs to read it. What I've learned is that adoptees never recover from being abandoned by their birth mother. Let me repeat that, they never recover. They may find ways to cope with it. They may not even be aware that it is impacting them. But every decision they make with their lives is impacted by this abandonment. And I got to thinking about my friend's daughter, who is in elementary school, who has lost not one but two mothers. I wish I could help them, but they live very far awa...

Lately Prima has been asking questions about where babies come from, which leads to questions about her birth mother. Tonight, I was watching Downton Abbey while the kids played and when Lady Edith lay in bed crying over the picture of her daughter, Prima wanted to know why she was crying. So I told her. Good or bad, I told her. To best describe the pain of an adoptee for the incredible loss of her birth mother, here is our conversation to the best of my recollection. P: Why is that lady crying? Me: Because she gave her baby to another family so that they could raise and love her. Prima looked at me with compressed lips and huge eyes. I stopped the world and focused on her. Me: Prima, are you okay? P: I don't want you to ever give me away. [and she began to cry] Me: Sweetie, adoption is forever. I'm your mommy forever and ever. Do you know what forever means? P: That you stay. Me: Yes, forever. So even when you are fifteen and tell me that you hate me and you wish I wa...