I'm curious about how people do things. For those who have adopted, how do you explain your child's story? Is it something you have done from the very beginning? Was there a time you felt your kid was old enough to start telling it?
What are your best resources for creating a lifebook for your child?
Thanks in advance for your wisdom.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
Gravy.
Our weekends are exhausting in the spring. We are feverish with excitement to be outside among the cacophony of migrating birds, peepers in the pond, geese battling for territory, dogs barking, rooster crowing, kids running and hollering. I told my husband that the thought of our son coming home from Ethiopia makes me feel like someone is just pouring gravy over our lives. The rest of my life, I told him, I wonder if it will all feel like gravy, this blessed feeling covering me in richness.
My sweetheart friend wrote this the other day. After I read it, I ramped up the hugs and kisses I put on my boy. We have talked and joked more. I made sure his weekend was crazy and fun. My husband wanted a girl and he was sad to think of never having a daughter, but I know he rebounded quickly. When I heard that word, 'boy,' though, my heart soared. All my life, I had some strange idea that I would have a daughter first. It was such a given in my mind, that I felt as if the world had turned upside down when the doctor said it's a boy. But when I met my son, really got to know him, I saw how meant to be it truly was. I fell in love. Manny's old clothes, stored away in plastic bins in the attic, had haunted me. I loathed the day I would have to let them go. We would surely have used some of them for a girl, but it's not the same as getting them all out now and picturing my second son choosing from them, the clothes put to use again.
This weekend, we had Manny's friends here, some beautiful boys and there was much hollering, battling, eating (and more eating), and fishing, and falling into the mucky pond and sitting by fires. And I sat back and watched the rowdy boys and felt the gravy pouring over me and I thought of you little one. You are wanted, my boy, and we will pour our love on you.
I feel like I'm off the hook, that the sun decided to shine on me. There were days in my life when I felt forsaken. But I feel the sun, I taste the gravy.
I say this humbly, I am guarded. I know my son in Ethiopia has suffered losses and there are more to come. I know this. But I think we will make his weekends crazy and fun, we will make gravy for you, little one.
My sweetheart friend wrote this the other day. After I read it, I ramped up the hugs and kisses I put on my boy. We have talked and joked more. I made sure his weekend was crazy and fun. My husband wanted a girl and he was sad to think of never having a daughter, but I know he rebounded quickly. When I heard that word, 'boy,' though, my heart soared. All my life, I had some strange idea that I would have a daughter first. It was such a given in my mind, that I felt as if the world had turned upside down when the doctor said it's a boy. But when I met my son, really got to know him, I saw how meant to be it truly was. I fell in love. Manny's old clothes, stored away in plastic bins in the attic, had haunted me. I loathed the day I would have to let them go. We would surely have used some of them for a girl, but it's not the same as getting them all out now and picturing my second son choosing from them, the clothes put to use again.
This weekend, we had Manny's friends here, some beautiful boys and there was much hollering, battling, eating (and more eating), and fishing, and falling into the mucky pond and sitting by fires. And I sat back and watched the rowdy boys and felt the gravy pouring over me and I thought of you little one. You are wanted, my boy, and we will pour our love on you.
I feel like I'm off the hook, that the sun decided to shine on me. There were days in my life when I felt forsaken. But I feel the sun, I taste the gravy.
I say this humbly, I am guarded. I know my son in Ethiopia has suffered losses and there are more to come. I know this. But I think we will make his weekends crazy and fun, we will make gravy for you, little one.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Country roads home
When I was a kid, my family always had dogs. The most remarkable dog was a poodle/wire hair terrier mix whom I named Taffy. She came home to us very young, something had happened, I forget what, that caused her to need a home before she was properly weaned from her mother. She was the runt of the litter. My dad preferred to choose a pup from a litter and he always says that the runt makes the best pet because they need a little extra love and are more loyal and gentle.
I was seven when Taffy came home. She could fit in the palm of my father's hand. She slept near the furnace in a box in our basement and I would hear her crying through the vents at night and I would creep downstairs to find my father feeding her a bowl of milk and some softened cereal. My father, he was and is a giant. He has great, swinging arms, a thick body, and he is gruff. He is an unbelievable mixture of gruffness and tenderness, the two attributes can't seem to coexist in one person the way they do with him. Yet it is true. Dogs were the true bonding place between my dad and me. We felt the same exact way about something. My dad didn't love unconditionally, but we were both loved unconditionally by our dogs, we were co-conspirators in finding the meaning of love and life.
Taffy lived 16 years. She was deaf by the time she was 16 and my brother's friend inadvertantly ran over her with his truck as he backed out of our driveway. My god, he felt terrible. My father decided to put Taffy down himself. She was 16, surely suffering, he didn't want that for her. I wasn't there, I was at work that evening. They didn't call me to tell me, they thought I would be too upset to drive home.
My dad got his gun and stood over his now scrawny broken deaf dog. She was completely aware of him, looking at him with soulful eyes, I'm sure, forgiving eyes. He couldn't do it. He asked our neighbors to come please shoot his dog. They stood around her and they tried, but no man there could shoot her. She had been their loyal neighbor dog, coming to their back porches to lay on cool concrete and have a snack and a pat.
My dad took her to the vet, decided that she could have surgery and she would make it.
I arrived home to find my mom (the non-dog-lover) a complete mess. She held my shoulders as she told me what happened. I cried, long and hard. I was shocked to hear myself, at the age of 23, call out, 'I want my Daddy.' He came home after I had calmed down and said that the doctor was going to observe her, run tests, and maybe do surgery. How was it that I knew that she would not make it, but my father still held out an obscure hope that she somehow could? We each retreated to our bedrooms, resignation in my heart, and hope in his.
The next morning before work, my dad told me to go the vet and talk to the doctor, let her have the surgery if it could be done, don't tell mom about what it would cost.
I drove to the country vet by myself. I talked to the vet. He said he would do the surgery if I gave him the go ahead. He said she still might never walk again. I thought of my dad, his hope, but I said 'no, put her down.' And I said good-bye to her and they gave her to me and I laid her in my car, drove the dusty country roads home, and buried her in the yard, in the hole that my father had already dug for her.
He had hope, yet he was pragmatic. He didn't want me to dig the hole by myself.
That dog, she was with me through the meat of my childhood. She accompanies the memories of entirely everything that happened to me. She was the conduit of love between my father and me, the manifestation of unconditional love between a father and daughter. Even now, I will cry over losing her, especially that it hurt my dad so. To love is to lose, it is so sadly and unavoidably true. Yet, that love, oh, I could never hold back.
I was seven when Taffy came home. She could fit in the palm of my father's hand. She slept near the furnace in a box in our basement and I would hear her crying through the vents at night and I would creep downstairs to find my father feeding her a bowl of milk and some softened cereal. My father, he was and is a giant. He has great, swinging arms, a thick body, and he is gruff. He is an unbelievable mixture of gruffness and tenderness, the two attributes can't seem to coexist in one person the way they do with him. Yet it is true. Dogs were the true bonding place between my dad and me. We felt the same exact way about something. My dad didn't love unconditionally, but we were both loved unconditionally by our dogs, we were co-conspirators in finding the meaning of love and life.
Taffy lived 16 years. She was deaf by the time she was 16 and my brother's friend inadvertantly ran over her with his truck as he backed out of our driveway. My god, he felt terrible. My father decided to put Taffy down himself. She was 16, surely suffering, he didn't want that for her. I wasn't there, I was at work that evening. They didn't call me to tell me, they thought I would be too upset to drive home.
My dad got his gun and stood over his now scrawny broken deaf dog. She was completely aware of him, looking at him with soulful eyes, I'm sure, forgiving eyes. He couldn't do it. He asked our neighbors to come please shoot his dog. They stood around her and they tried, but no man there could shoot her. She had been their loyal neighbor dog, coming to their back porches to lay on cool concrete and have a snack and a pat.
My dad took her to the vet, decided that she could have surgery and she would make it.
I arrived home to find my mom (the non-dog-lover) a complete mess. She held my shoulders as she told me what happened. I cried, long and hard. I was shocked to hear myself, at the age of 23, call out, 'I want my Daddy.' He came home after I had calmed down and said that the doctor was going to observe her, run tests, and maybe do surgery. How was it that I knew that she would not make it, but my father still held out an obscure hope that she somehow could? We each retreated to our bedrooms, resignation in my heart, and hope in his.
The next morning before work, my dad told me to go the vet and talk to the doctor, let her have the surgery if it could be done, don't tell mom about what it would cost.
I drove to the country vet by myself. I talked to the vet. He said he would do the surgery if I gave him the go ahead. He said she still might never walk again. I thought of my dad, his hope, but I said 'no, put her down.' And I said good-bye to her and they gave her to me and I laid her in my car, drove the dusty country roads home, and buried her in the yard, in the hole that my father had already dug for her.
He had hope, yet he was pragmatic. He didn't want me to dig the hole by myself.
That dog, she was with me through the meat of my childhood. She accompanies the memories of entirely everything that happened to me. She was the conduit of love between my father and me, the manifestation of unconditional love between a father and daughter. Even now, I will cry over losing her, especially that it hurt my dad so. To love is to lose, it is so sadly and unavoidably true. Yet, that love, oh, I could never hold back.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
What's going on now.
There's a lot going on around here. We have the baby dog who has turned everything upside down in our house. Look at that face. Innocent looking little thing, isn't she? She is pretty innocent, actually. She is not one of those little nuts who seem to look for trouble. When she is doing something wacky, she doesn't seem to have realized it was not okay. Plus, the cuteness makes up for the orneryness.
Jack, the ever-faithful. She's been put to the test by baby dog and is succeeding with flying colors. Not to mention we have been training her on an invisible fence and she is doing very well. She's so happy outside running through the yard, playing catch. Ordered new 'indestructible' frisbees, that ought to ratchet up the excitement in her heart.
And the eggs keep on coming. The chickens are doing some salon care in the coop, though. Some of the hens have bare legs or bottoms where another chicken has taken a liking to plucking. One has a Brazilian, for cripes sake.
But here's Waddles, the rooster, and two hens who have not been over-plucked. They fared well over the mild winter.
One day, about a month before we got a referral, I became so frustrated with sublimating my energy into cleaning and whatnot that I had to something completely and totally different. So I grabbed some paint and did a little acrylic. It satisfied me for a day.
Sometimes it snows and sometimes it is in the 60's here in late winter. Here's Manny with Tulip out and about.
I have started some seedlings. That tall stuff is nasturtium. In the water bottle, there are purple carrots and that stuff in the front are tomato seedlings.
I'm trying to find a good pad thai recipe. I'll be at it again today. So far, just fair. Nothing compares to having it at the Thai restaurant, but who can afford that place?
And last, but not least, I tapped a few of our maple trees and here is our first gallon! Only 39 more to go to make a gallon of maple syrup. I have to perfect the taps because sap is also leaking down the sides of the trees. But I shall prevail!
And through all these days and activities I think of our son in Ethiopia. He never leaves my mind. Sometimes I have angst, sometimes I feel confident that he is in good hands. My mom saw his picture and told me that he looks like a happy baby. That made my heart lift to know that I am not the only one who thinks there is someone there in his orphanage who makes his face light up and his hands reach up.
Jack, the ever-faithful. She's been put to the test by baby dog and is succeeding with flying colors. Not to mention we have been training her on an invisible fence and she is doing very well. She's so happy outside running through the yard, playing catch. Ordered new 'indestructible' frisbees, that ought to ratchet up the excitement in her heart.
And the eggs keep on coming. The chickens are doing some salon care in the coop, though. Some of the hens have bare legs or bottoms where another chicken has taken a liking to plucking. One has a Brazilian, for cripes sake.
But here's Waddles, the rooster, and two hens who have not been over-plucked. They fared well over the mild winter.
One day, about a month before we got a referral, I became so frustrated with sublimating my energy into cleaning and whatnot that I had to something completely and totally different. So I grabbed some paint and did a little acrylic. It satisfied me for a day.
Sometimes it snows and sometimes it is in the 60's here in late winter. Here's Manny with Tulip out and about.
I have started some seedlings. That tall stuff is nasturtium. In the water bottle, there are purple carrots and that stuff in the front are tomato seedlings.
I'm trying to find a good pad thai recipe. I'll be at it again today. So far, just fair. Nothing compares to having it at the Thai restaurant, but who can afford that place?
And last, but not least, I tapped a few of our maple trees and here is our first gallon! Only 39 more to go to make a gallon of maple syrup. I have to perfect the taps because sap is also leaking down the sides of the trees. But I shall prevail!
And through all these days and activities I think of our son in Ethiopia. He never leaves my mind. Sometimes I have angst, sometimes I feel confident that he is in good hands. My mom saw his picture and told me that he looks like a happy baby. That made my heart lift to know that I am not the only one who thinks there is someone there in his orphanage who makes his face light up and his hands reach up.Friday, March 2, 2012
Balance
You know what was weird? We got this pup, Tulip, two weeks ago, right? When we brought her home and walked into the house with her, our adult dog was foaming at the mouth. I thought to myself, have we kept up with those rabies shots? Our adult dog, Jack, was a hot mess, hypersalivating, undone by the 8 week old little excrement machine. I began to over-empathize with Jack, I felt so badly for her, her normal life turned upside down by this intruder, this baby, this tiny freak with razor sharp teeth. I felt so badly for Jack. I took her in my car with me everywhere just to get her away from the baby dog. I went to the grocery store, baloney was on sale, I bought her a half pound and fed it to her in the car. I tried reassurance, I tried treats, I tried sleeping with her alone, sleeping with Tulip alone, anything, everything. There was no aggression, no growling. Just Jack's pleading soulful eyes asking me to return her old life.
I was like a cat, a tense cat, ever watchful, charging the atmosphere with my own weirdness.
I went to work, pitying my poor husband his evening alone with a six year old and Jack and the baby dog. When I came home the next day, the dogs had started playing together. Hmph. Interesting.
Then I went to work for three days in a row and in that time they had become real playmates, they starting laying near each other on the couch, and they seemed to be acting more like a mother and daughter. They had started to get their groove on.
But, most interestingly for me, my nearly five year old dog, Jack, has become more balanced. She no longer harasses my husband endlessly to play fetch with her. She no longer paces throughout the house, looking at the door, then at my husband, pleading eyes asking to go outside and play. She greets people at our door more calmly. She sits sweetly and lets people handle her more, all people, not just us.
Getting a referral in the midst of all of my feelings about the dog's adjustment and my crazy over-the-top projection of my feelings onto the dogs, that had me kind of locked down. I'm not comparing dogs and kids, I'm just saying this has all made me stop and think. I wonder how things will balance out when our little one comes home. I wonder how it will shake things up and settle things down around here. Remember, I'm in the dictionary, my face is next to the definition for adjustment disorder. I do believe I am as prepared as I can be to become discombobulated.
I was like a cat, a tense cat, ever watchful, charging the atmosphere with my own weirdness.
I went to work, pitying my poor husband his evening alone with a six year old and Jack and the baby dog. When I came home the next day, the dogs had started playing together. Hmph. Interesting.
Then I went to work for three days in a row and in that time they had become real playmates, they starting laying near each other on the couch, and they seemed to be acting more like a mother and daughter. They had started to get their groove on.
But, most interestingly for me, my nearly five year old dog, Jack, has become more balanced. She no longer harasses my husband endlessly to play fetch with her. She no longer paces throughout the house, looking at the door, then at my husband, pleading eyes asking to go outside and play. She greets people at our door more calmly. She sits sweetly and lets people handle her more, all people, not just us.
Getting a referral in the midst of all of my feelings about the dog's adjustment and my crazy over-the-top projection of my feelings onto the dogs, that had me kind of locked down. I'm not comparing dogs and kids, I'm just saying this has all made me stop and think. I wonder how things will balance out when our little one comes home. I wonder how it will shake things up and settle things down around here. Remember, I'm in the dictionary, my face is next to the definition for adjustment disorder. I do believe I am as prepared as I can be to become discombobulated.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
It happened.
It really happened. The mystery is revealed. I have a son.
Another son.
A 9 month old beautiful little boy. My husband is so pleased that our little one looks content and even smiles happily in photos. Someone there is obviously accustomed to getting a smile out of him. Thank you, smile-maker. I am over the moon happy that we will have a second son.
I. adore. boys. So much!
I can't stop looking at his face and his fingers and plaid farmer's shirt and his overall scrumptuousness.
On the night you were born,
the moon smiled with such wonder
Another son.
A 9 month old beautiful little boy. My husband is so pleased that our little one looks content and even smiles happily in photos. Someone there is obviously accustomed to getting a smile out of him. Thank you, smile-maker. I am over the moon happy that we will have a second son.
I. adore. boys. So much!
I can't stop looking at his face and his fingers and plaid farmer's shirt and his overall scrumptuousness.
On the night you were born,
the moon smiled with such wonder
that the stars peeked in to see you
and the night wind whispered.
“Life will never be the same.”
Because there had never been anyone like you . . . ever in the world.
Because there had never been anyone like you . . . ever in the world.
For never before in story or rhyme
(not even once upon a time)
has the world ever known a you, my friend,
and it never will, not ever again
Heaven blew every trumpet
and played every horn
on the wonderful, marvelous
night you were born.
-from a book that always makes me cry
On the Night You Were Born, by Nancy Tillman
I have no doubt, son, that you are fearfully and wonderfully made.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Bullets again.
I don't care for this 'holiday,' Valentine's Day. I like it when it has something to do with little kids, that makes it a tad sweet, but otherwise I feel like it is a dumb holiday. I remember back in high school, it became o.m.g.so.cool. to buy a carnation for a dollar and write a secret note to accompany it and then the flowers were delivered in class by, who else, the cheerleaders. There would be girls walking around with armloads of flowers and girls with definitely not armloads of flowers. And it seemed like it was a day that was meant to exalt the popular in a very showy way and to make others feel badly. Today there are widows and widowers, the jilted, the lonely, made to feel lonelier by this dumb over-dramatized day dedicated to love. Not to mention, it's just another way to suck money out of your wallet. Love happens at odd moments, it is not just romantic, and does not get expressed on VD.
Tulip comes home on Saturday! She will be just under eight weeks old. As with most things worth doing, I can't wait!! And I also dread it. Animals take work and dedication. Very similar to parenting, although I won't travel down that path of comparison. It gets things wonky.
My kid has pink eye today. Notice the irony? A pink eye on Valentine's Day? Har. Har. Trying squeezing a drop of love medicine in this guy's goopy eye. He doesn't try to hurt me, but his body is full of sharp angles and it is inevitable that I get the ugly end of that attempt at treating his eye.
I am listening to 'god is not great,' by Christopher Hitchens on CD. Yowsers, wouldn't have wanted to keep up with that guy's chatter at a dinner party, but I sure wouldn't have minded eavesdropping on him. And I am reading 'The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,' by Rebecca Skloot. I read one reviewer who said, "I put it down once to wipe off the sweat." That puts it well, it's a tough read, but well worth it. Reading anything interesting?
I am thinking of starting a little rock climbing. It's very big here where we live. My son goes to an indoor climbing place once a week and I am thinking of giving it a try. That is, if I ever recover from the workout I put myself through yesterday. Lunges and mountain climbers will cripple you for at least a couple days, I believe.
Thoughts of gardening are beginning to make me itchy to get outside and get dirty. We have over an acre of land, but most of it is wooded, wet, or sloping. The amount of actual yard we have is pretty small and I have always been hesitant to use up what is left with a garden. But no longer. What good is grass anyway? I hesitate, too, because I am always thinking about re-sale value of my house. Would normal people/buyers like a garden that is consuming what little is left of the actual yard we have? But then again, would buyers like that chicken debacle? I don't know. It's my house, I ought to be happy in it and outside of it. And nothing makes me happier than walking through my garden, hot coffee in hand, in pajamas and flips flops, in the morning.
Tulip comes home on Saturday! She will be just under eight weeks old. As with most things worth doing, I can't wait!! And I also dread it. Animals take work and dedication. Very similar to parenting, although I won't travel down that path of comparison. It gets things wonky.
My kid has pink eye today. Notice the irony? A pink eye on Valentine's Day? Har. Har. Trying squeezing a drop of love medicine in this guy's goopy eye. He doesn't try to hurt me, but his body is full of sharp angles and it is inevitable that I get the ugly end of that attempt at treating his eye.
I am listening to 'god is not great,' by Christopher Hitchens on CD. Yowsers, wouldn't have wanted to keep up with that guy's chatter at a dinner party, but I sure wouldn't have minded eavesdropping on him. And I am reading 'The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,' by Rebecca Skloot. I read one reviewer who said, "I put it down once to wipe off the sweat." That puts it well, it's a tough read, but well worth it. Reading anything interesting?
I am thinking of starting a little rock climbing. It's very big here where we live. My son goes to an indoor climbing place once a week and I am thinking of giving it a try. That is, if I ever recover from the workout I put myself through yesterday. Lunges and mountain climbers will cripple you for at least a couple days, I believe.
Thoughts of gardening are beginning to make me itchy to get outside and get dirty. We have over an acre of land, but most of it is wooded, wet, or sloping. The amount of actual yard we have is pretty small and I have always been hesitant to use up what is left with a garden. But no longer. What good is grass anyway? I hesitate, too, because I am always thinking about re-sale value of my house. Would normal people/buyers like a garden that is consuming what little is left of the actual yard we have? But then again, would buyers like that chicken debacle? I don't know. It's my house, I ought to be happy in it and outside of it. And nothing makes me happier than walking through my garden, hot coffee in hand, in pajamas and flips flops, in the morning.
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