Mother Paradox

A confluence

2012-01-19T09:07:00.003-05:00

Sometimes an event or the confluence of a few events will make you veer onto a slightly different path. You may not stay on that alternate path, that byway. You may merge back onto your old road, the familiar path, or you may take the road less travelled, less travelled by you, that is.

This weekend, three things came together that shifted my poles a bit, set me quite off kilter. I am listening to the audiobook, Earth, from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

It's a guidebook to the earth, written for aliens, when they come to a ruined and deserted planet, upon which maybe just cockroaches and rats could have outlived humans. Jon Stewart. His humor is alternately goofy and then biting, as in, with fangs. I think the thing that I get lulled into feeling when listening to him is that I am on *his* team, that when he is cracking jokes I am laughing along with him at *them.* Yep, me and Jon laughing at the absurdity of how people are, self-centered, dim, materialistic. But then he said this:

We called her Mother Earth. Because she gave birth to us, and then we took her for granted and treated her like shit.

Thanks, Jon, now I feel like shit. And then he went on to talk about fascism. I can't find the direct quote, but basically he explained to aliens that Nazism is a unique variety of fascism that focused on creating an Aryan race, carried out in the persecution and mass extermination of millions of people. But here's what got me, he says to the aliens:

We did that. WE. did. that.

I was appalled to be included in any group of people, in with the human beings, as part of humanity at all at that moment. I mean, I already knew this, but there are moments when things become crystal. You see it for what it is. You see humanity, you see yourself.

I was listening to this book on CD in my car, tooling along on a fairly deserted road at just after 6:00 in the morning, on my way to work, being appalled at humans, when I noticed a flare in the road ahead. Not uncommon, people throw those things out on the road for flat tires, other various car problems. But then I saw it wasn't a flare. It was a fire in the road. It was a car, upside down, in the road, on fire, with its wheels still turning.

Screw you, Jon Stewart. I am a human on the move here, buddy. I called 911 and was rambling like some kind of damn fool, it was embarrassing. The 911 operator probably wanted to throttle me. I do this all the time at work, but I never do this out on a dark road on a Sunday morning. She was probably like, oh here we go again, another maniac freaking out. Dang, next time, I will be calm, I swear. So there was a man there with me, he was a nurse, too. He started talking to the three women trapped in the car. He was calm, reassuring. Then other people started to arrive and they were paramedics, EMTs, more nurses. You see, it was that time of day, change of shift. Early on a Sunday morning isn't a bad time to be in a car wreck if you are going to be in one because lots of medical types are on the road going to work. One of my favorite paramedics was there. Once, when I was doing CPR on a patient at work, he walked in the room and said, "I like what I am seeing here. Everybody is doing exactly the right thing. You're a good team. Keep going and you are going to all slowly turn this man over to me." And I had needed to hear that and thought that he must be an excellent father or husband or friend.

The fire on the car went out on its own. We pulled one girl out because she was confused and crawling around inside the back seat. She was freezing on the ground so we helped her into my car to keep her warm. The other two women were thoroughly trapped. The fire trucks and ambulances arrived and they quickly did their job and safely extracted the two trapped women, put all three into ambulances, and sped off. The rest of us got back in our cars and went onto work.

All three women, miraculously, were not even admitted to the hospital. No one was drunk. It seems they veered slightly off the road, over corrected and rolled the car. They walked away with their lives.

What did it make me think? Life is tenuous, fragile, constitutionally delicate. Don't even think that it isn't.

And lastly, I had a long and honest discussion with my husband about our adoption. He talked about his fears, fears about ethics, fears that our family will be adversely affected, fears that our second child will be forever hurt by the events that will bring her to us. Just fears. And I listened.

And then I told him I have all the same fears and that they are not overridden by joy, not at all. I no longer cling to the idea that it will be *so great.* I told him that when I became a mother, my role in life completely shifted. I wanted another kid. I told him that I have gone through so many levels of thinking and worrying as I have waited, almost, almost to the point of giving up, calling the whole thing off, but that I just could not close my heart, my hand, outstretched to catch hers. I would never presume myself to be so important as to think that I could parent this child better than someone else. But as our fates have become intertwined, hers and mine, I just couldn't extinguish the possibility that her hand is stretched out to mine, too, waiting to grasp. Not only that she is my fate, but that I am also hers. I told him that I cannot put my hand down, I just can't close my hand.

Maybe they aren't all connected, but it feels like they are. All three concepts came together in one day:

Life is constitutionally delicate. Humanity is dubious, suspect. I can't close my hand.

Tulip

2012-01-18T12:46:00.003-05:00

This weekend we visited our little boxer baby, Tulip. She is just about three weeks old. Manny is smitten. We are all smitten. Sorry you can't really see her, but you get the idea. She's a snuggly little plumpster.

Freaking January.

2012-01-13T19:46:00.004-05:00

If my adoption agency were to call me for any reason right now, I am likely to fall over with a damn heart attack. In light of THAT, let's just talk about January.

It's mostly awful. It's dark, it's cold, it is usually snowy. But this year, not so much. We had snow before Halloween and since then: nada. Fine by me. I like to be able to walk without the threat of busting my ass on the ice. But. I have been busting my ass trying to get those damn chickens to lay eggs. We went from a low of 2 eggs in late December and are back to about a dozen a day now. Boo. Yah! All this happened, I think, because I pampered their feathered bums, feeding them a box of pasta and organic apples all cut up here and there and put a heat lamp in their coop. We are back to a decent supply including blue and green eggs. thank. you.

So. Next week, I will be schlepping to Jersey. Why? Because it is January and it is heaven there for those who enjoy hit and run shopping, for those who do not like to browse. It's good for getting the twice-yearly stock up at Trader Joe's, Ikea, Crate and Barrell (I'm stretching it here, C & B is not a stock up store), and a long and leisurely stroll through Anthropologie (because I have a gift card there, after all).

It's happening. Need anything?

p.s. I watched the first episode of House of Lies on Showtime. Ho. Ly. Cow. Was it good. Don Cheadle, I see you in a whole new light.

While I'm strong.

2012-01-10T09:53:00.004-05:00

Have you ever run a race before? If you haven't run a race, I'm sure you've done something similar, something having a metaphorical finish line, right? Running a race is not easy. However, there are things that make it easier, like water stops set up regularly throughout the race, people along the way cheering you along, the halfway point, and the very thought of the finish line can be enough to pull you through.

But what if you started running a race and you thought it would be _____ long, you fill in the blank. You have that length in mind, you gear up for it, you know you can do it. But then what if when you get there to the finish you see that someone or something had moved the finish line? You get there and there are no cheering crowds, there is no tape to break through, there is no t-shirt to pull onto your sweaty body.

You think, huh, I must have had a different idea of where the finish line was supposed to be. You soon understand it's true.

The finish line is farther away, you pick up your pace, you start to run again. You keep on running, you are talking yourself through it because you are getting tired, you cannot even see the finish line. Someone keeps moving that thing.

You start to think you are really crazy to be running a race in which there is not a finish line that you can see, you start to wonder if there is a finish line, you turn a lot of stuff inward on yourself, why did you tell your family you could do this, why did you promise your son you would finish this race? You stumble at times. You try to keep drinking water, you try to keep yourself nourished as you keep on running. Sometimes you stop and your hands are on your knees. When you are stopped a friend will always come through and do the slow clap....clap....clap and you step forward again. When you are really struggling, I mean, you have come to a full-on halt, your friends and loved ones will step in and hold you up a while and walk a piece with you. And you go on and your hand shields your face from the sun as you peer ahead and look for the finish line. And you just go on, with faith, that it is there somewhere. You're there, finish line, right?

I say to myself now, while I'm strong, for the next time I am bent over, hands on knees, my loved ones' hands outstretched to hold me up. Keep squinting, keep searching. Finish line, I know you have to be there.

Bullets.

2012-01-03T09:41:00.003-05:00

Hitting you with bullet points because I worked the last three days and slept just a couple hours last night.

*I got my boys a puppy for Christmas. She wasn't born until after Christmas, though. We picked her out of her litter on New Year's Day and Manny named her Tulip. She is a sweet little plumpster, a red brindle boxer. I have never had two dogs at the same time before. (Interestingly, I have never had two kids at the same time before. I know, I am completely transparent, right? First the chickens and now another dog.) She will come home on February 18th.

*I have missed my regular routine and am VERY relieved that the holidays are over. I love being with my family, but I also need routine. I did go on two, count 'em - TWO - dates with my new boyfriend, I mean, my husband, over the last week. Uh huh, that's right, the guy got me flowers.

*Speaking of that guy, he got into the NYC Marathon this year. I'm just over the moon excited for him and swelling with pride. My big running man, he's a fanatic, I love that shit.

*Manny had a few meltdowns over the last 24 hours about his return to school. It was ugly. Then when the bus pulled up this morning, he said, I can't wait to tell my teacher about Tulip and he smiled and hopped up on the bus, sat down with his friend and started chatting away. So much for me and Daddy thinking the guy needed some kind of intervention. At least he is well expressed. Jeez, being a parent can be hard sometimes.

*It is cold here, I mean, ugly windy January cold. I'm a little relieved, actually. I like my seasons to get their groove on. Nobody wants a tepid, limp winter.

*There are otters in our pond. They are a couple of wacked out clowns, chasing herons, marauding the beaver from his dam, playing all the damn time. Manny and I are now studying the amazing otter. We are getting books and a film today from the library. Pray I don't fall into the pond as I try to get them on film. Also pray that they don't chase me around like the did the poor old heron.

*My chickens have all but stopped laying eggs. This happens in the cold dark days of winter. I found three this morning, two yesterday. Tonight it is supposed to get stupid cold so I am putting a heat lamp in their coop. I know they probably don't need it and you may think I am a wimpy chicken farmer, but I can't stand the thought of their little red combs or waddles getting frostbit.

*No referral yet, but there were referrals right before Christmas after a spell in which there had been no kids of any age referred for a couple months. So there is movement. Always weird feelings in my heart and mind. Just being with that for now.

*I have been drinking water and my pee is not the color of O.J. And I love V8 so I have been chugging it, too. I said it: I. Love. V8.

Resolutely, she resolved.

2011-12-30T11:35:00.003-05:00

Okay, fine. I will tell some of my new year's resolutions. I am so not big on this stuff and have gotten wise enough to know that I should keep my resolutions manageable.

1. Drink water. Sometimes, especially at work, I get dehydrated, with pee the color of orange juice. That is just stupid. I will drink enough water each day. One half gallon, at least.

2. Eat my veggies and fruits, raw. Why am I not doing this? I have no idea, but I'm gonna fix that.

3. I am going to design a strategy to remember people's names. I am the worst at this, it is utterly humiliating. Who has a good plan to help me with this?

4. Buy no books for myself (unless it is with a gift card). This is hard because I really like how-to books. Damn.

5. Do more stuff with my kid. I need to be pragmatic about this, operationalize it. I am starting off by doing a whole lesson/adventure/project about the otters who are living in our pond.

That's it. Let's hear it, people. Don't you dare leave me hanging out here exposing myself and then you just click on over to somebody else's goofball post on their way more deep and compelling blog.

ETA: 6. Go out on more dates with my husband. We had two dates this past week and it was fabulous.

Pet Peevishly, she kind of ranted.

2011-12-27T22:26:00.003-05:00

I know I am going to think of a bunch of other things that are really way pet-peevishly annoying than these ten things, but here's some of my pet peeves. I hope none of my friends feel like they are walking on egg shells around me now because I am such a turd. Actually, though, I think knowing one's pet peeves is very interesting. You really understand a person when you know this stuff. It's intimate. Actually, I like to know people's silly habits, too. And I like knowing what makes people cry and laugh. Anyway, I better hear some good stuff from you people, even you lurkers. Bring it on.

1. People who are rude to waitresses and waiters in a restaurant. I want to crawl under the table.

2. Hearing people smack their food or gum. Again, I want to crawl under the table.

3. People who walk with their dogs off lead and then their stupid dog comes after my ding dong whom I keep on a lead because I KNOW she is a ding dong and shouldn't be off lead.

4. Air blowing on me, like from a fan or air conditioner.

5. People who talk about my food in an icky way as I am eating, as in, "What's THAT?" Again, I want to crawl under the table and eat my food there.

6. On facebook, people who are cryptic. For example, an update that says, "I could use an extra prayer if you have one." Or, "Doctors can be wrong, can't they?" And then not another word about it. Annoying.

7. People who say "It's Merry Christmas, not Happy Holiays." For real, if you are well meaning, you can say "Happy ________." Fill in the blank. Please! People who think they are entitled to claim the period from Thanksgiving to December 25th as *their* time of year based on their religious/oddly pagan beliefs make me angry. Next year they are going to the top of the naughty list and also to the top of the pay me no mind list. In other words, I am so through with that, that I will be through with them.

8. People who can't, despite my requests, just ignore my dog. I mean, with my kid, I feel like people usually respect my wishes if I say, 'hey don't do that.' But with my dog, people are like a bunch of experts who say, 'Oh no! I love dogs! I know how to handle dogs! I've had dogs for years!' Listen, my dog is half off the chain all the time, I don't need you coming in with your expert handling methods and making my dog pee on the floor because she has now become completely unhinged.

9. When people read stuff out loud to me.

10. Falling down. I get furious when I fall down. My mom said I did when I was a baby, too.

It gets me every time.

2011-12-23T11:55:00.001-05:00

Read this. From my most wonderful friend. The world works in mysterious ways, I can tell you.

How it works.

2011-12-20T08:05:00.004-05:00

My job is far from home. I work opposite shifts from my husband which includes every other weekend. This has provided, in my opinion, my husband the opportunity to become a parent quite differently than he would have if I had always been around to co-parent with him. He and Manny have their own sweet relationship, their own routine when I am not around. There are a couple of little problems with my job, I'm not saying it's perfect. I work evenings during the week and then still have to get up to put Manny on the bus for school. The long drive home at midnight makes my husband irritable, he worries, can't really sleep until I get home. But it makes me happy. I catch up on phone calls sometimes (to my night owl friends) or I listen to the radio and I wind down from what is always a busy night at work. By the time I get home, I get cleaned up, fall into bed, and sleep.

The other thing my husband doesn't like is the opposite shift stuff. He would rather we were both on the same schedule, Monday to Friday working, closer to 9 to 5. No weekends and no evenings, if he had his way. (Besides the fact that I had thought we would at least have a referral by now and why change my schedule now when I would only have to change it again when Baby Sister comes home?) Can I tell you, though, how much I loathe the 9 to 5 grind? I mean, I despise it. I don't like talking about Monday like it is a horror and Friday like I live for it and it alone. I don't like dreading Sunday evening. That M - F/9 to 5 stuff makes me get weird, I feel trapped.

At the very least, my husband wishes I would get a job closer to home so I am not spending at least two hours out of my workday driving.

I like that either me or my husband are always with Manny when he isn't in school. And the same will be true for Baby Sister.

So I have been asked to get a different job, but I don't want to. I don't want another job. I. Love. My. Job. I love that it is a Veteran's home. It's unique. In a typical nursing home, you will have around 90% women to 10% men. It is the opposite where I work. And almost all of the veterans where I work are WWII vets. They are full of stories, full of the lives they have lived, it's an atypical nursing experience. Not to mention that most of these vets were born in New York City. They are everything wonderful you could imagine about men and women born in the greatest city in the world (at least to me, it's the greatest). I love the subtle differences between the Bronx, Brooklyn, or Manhattan accents. I love the roughneck ornery ones. I love the rascals. I love the kind-hearted solid men. I love the grumpy ones. I love the strong women, the WACS, the wives who held up families while husbands fought bloody wars all over this world.

If I left this job, so much would just disappear from my life. They are not my patients, not old people, not sick people, not the elderly. They are my elders.

Solidarity

2011-12-15T07:26:00.003-05:00

Well, we are quickly edging toward the end of the 25th month of our wait. Go look here at my friend who is approaching her 26th month and see why there is a slowdown right now.

And this friend is right there, too, with us. In limbo. In a liminal state.

And this sweetheart over on the Lost Planet, she is the boat with us. Solidarity, sisters.

two years and the heavy glob

2011-12-03T11:29:00.003-05:00

This week we passed the two year mark of our wait. Two years. The wait is hard for me because of the limbo feeling. That in process feeling that you cannot really put aside. I was explaining it to a friend, a good friend, one who really gets me. I said that most people think I am handling my wait very well. And I have to agree, I have been okay. But inside of me, in my brain or in my heart, or wherever it is, there is a space. And in that space resides *that feeling.* *That feeling* consists of many different emotions that are married to one another in a big hodge-podgey glob of many different feelings from different sources. I said that it is very hard to go around with this thing inside of me and I feel kind of alone carrying it around. I mean, sometimes it is a heavy thing and the weight of it kind of squashes me to the ground and I have a hard time standing back up and I will reach out to a friend who helps to pull me back up into a decent posture and begin to ambulate this world again. Sometimes I am so busybusybusy sublimating all of my energy into being uber-productive that my unending small accomplishments steer me away from even noticing the icky glob of feelings. But it is always there. And the accomplishments, meh, they are okay, but it just doesn't do the trick.

I said to my friend, too, that this road has become so long that I know longer know how I might see the world without this feeling to accompany me, to color what I see. Part of the glob of feelings I have is that I went through secondary infertility. And I HATE that. I really loathe that I had to take that time out of my life, out of my ability to enjoy life, to be fully grieving. And it took a while. I couldn't really hand in that dossier until the major part of the grief was over. I couldn't do adoption and grief at the same time. I know of people who have managed this and I give them all my admiration because I don't know how I could do that. But more than anything, I hate that the emotion tied to not being able to have a second kid the biological way is in any way involved in the feeling I have about adopting. Because as soon as it clicked over in my mind, I was adopting, for real, then I immediately became joyful about it.

(Of course, I worry about all the normal pitfalls of adoption and have thought about all of it and talked about it and mulled about it ad nauseum, until I got what is called adoption fatigue, but I will tell you with not one ounce of penitence or apology that I am joyful about this adoption, about this child.)

And this has led me to know this much. Friends and loved ones are important. I carry the space and in the space is the hodge-podgey glob. And I only accept into my life the people who know about the space and have mercy on me and are kind and carry within them the thought that my glob can become quite heavy at times. And on the days when the glob feels light, they are willing to laugh with me. One of my most treasured friends told me, "Your mind is a dangerous place, don't spend too much time there alone. You have to talk to people when you are feeling shitty like this." And so I do. I am. Thank you all, friends.

What's going on.

2011-11-28T07:36:00.006-05:00

Look at my boy. It took me a long bit of time for me to come to grips with having a rooster in my flock. After all, my chicks had been 'sexed' which means that they were supposed to be girls. (Wouldn't you just love to meet the 'chick sexer?' How's that for a profession?) But he, Waddles, has turned out to make life even more interesting. The other evening we let all the chickens out of their run to wander about a little bit. We did it at about dusk so that they would just put themselves away and we wouldn't have to round them up. We sat by the fire and watched over them, but we didn't need to because the rooster did his job. We saw him get puffed up and make some gurgly noise and each hen raised her head and he gathered them quickly together. We then noticed the hawk circling them, long after Waddles had noticed. He is so bad ass. I love that the hens have him to look over them.

I built a kind of swingset for everybody. Chickens like to be up high. Sometimes I will look outside and there will be ten of them nestled together on their perches.

It even has a little staircase which is probably more satisfying to me than to them. I enjoyed making it.

They are beautiful in the slanting sun at this time of year, hmmm?

Look at Sylvie. She used to perch on my shoulder when she was a baby. What a thing of beauty!

The dog is welcome in the coop. For the most part. One of the hens can't stand her and chases her around. Jack does the only allowable action, she squashes the chicken to the ground and then takes off running. And yes, that is a swing there. Manny loves plopping a chicken on it and laughs as they struggle to hang on.

That's the chicken update. We get about a dozen eggs a day as they slow down with cold and darker days, but they'll pick up to full throttle in the early spring.

As for anything else, no updates. No referral yet. I'm busy, hanging in there, doing my thing.

Edited to add: Today is the 2 year anniversary of our wait. Didn't realize it until I was writing a note to Manny's teacher and had to find out what day it is. Hmph.

Interview Project: Meet Monika

2011-11-23T08:10:00.002-05:00

I took part in the interview project, but have been dismally remiss in getting it done on time. Went out of town to my husband's marathon in Philly and I got sick while there. Philadelphia appears to be a lovely city, but I didn't see much. I slept through much of the weekend whilst my kid jumped across our hotel room from bed to bed. Yeah, just couldn't make the most out of that trip. Here, however, is my interview with Monika from Monika's Musings. She is, in her own words, "a birthmom of a beautiful and amazing girl named Mackenzie (born November 10, 2009). Mackenzie isn't her real name, but ya never know who reads these things. She lives with her parents near Portland, OR. I'm absolutely and totally in love with my man, Nick (and he'll most likely be a frequent "character" in my blog). We currently live just south of Tacoma, WA. I love to craft, hang with friends, cook, dance, read, and listen to music."

Me: Was your daughter born full-term? How did it happen that you didn't realize you were pregnant?

Monika: My daughter was about 36 weeks when she was taken via emergency c-section due to my blood pressure being so high it was causing seizures. The emergency room staff didn't even know I was pregnant. What I gathered afterward was that they wanted to do a test on my head that required them to know whether I was pregnant or not. They did the test, found out I was pregnant, and then did an ultrasound to estimate my daughter's gestational age. My boyfriend (and the birth father) was deployed at the time, and we'd always used protection correctly. Goes to show you that the numbers on the boxes aren't quite right, or just says that we were the 1% that didn't work. I was sick the whole time I was pregnant, but as a diabetic (for a long time previous - I was diagnosed in October of '94), I attributed it to my messing around with my medications a bit. It hadn't been uncommon for me in the past to miss many months of periods, so I didn't even count how long it had been since I'd had my last one. Voila! My daughter.

Me: Why did you start blogging? What keeps you going?

Monika:I started blogging initially because some of my birthmom friends were doing it. It didn't start out as adoption-focused as it now is, and there may be some point in the future where it becomes less adoption-focused again. Some people use their blogs for therapy for themselves. I think I use mine for more educating people on what a birth mother really is, and to get my opinions out there in an appropriate manner. I tend to be very outspoken about things about which I'm passionate, and adoption education happens to be one of those things. What keeps me going? I love to write. It's as simple as that. Growing up, I never thought of myself as a writer, but now I'm finding that I'm fairly decent at it and I really enjoy doing it. Plus, now being on the "member roll" of the Open Adoption Bloggers, I feel motivated to keep my blog fairly up to date.

Me: What are your favorite kinds of blogs to read?

Monika: My favorite kinds of blogs to read are definitely blogs of adoptive parents. I love to hear the "other side" of adoption and to see the different ways open adoptions can work. We're all rather pioneers in this whole "industry," so to speak, and I enjoy seeing all points of view. I have some favorite blogs on the birth mother side of the triad, but I tend to not want to read a lot of those because the whining that naturally happens due to grief can very easily turn into hatred of adoption as a whole. While I believe that there are some negative experiences out there, I have a hard time reading and supporting those that make judgments of adoption as a whole based upon a few solitary experiences.

Me: Have you ever had any comments that hurt or bothered you on your blog?

Monika: My blog readers have always been extremely supportive in the comments they've left. I've had some comments that have disagreed with my point of view, but that's not hurt or bothered me because they've been respectful. I enjoy hearing other people's points of view on the subjects about which I write because I realize that my point of view may not be the only one out there. I've been very fortunate to have supportive blog followers. I love getting comments on my blogs!

Me: What is the hardest part of open adoption?

Monika: The hardest part of open adoption for me would definitely be the fear that it might all disappear someday. I know enough birth mothers at this point to have seen some previously open adoptions become closed, and it not only breaks my heart for the birth mothers affected, but I've also seen through their eyes how it affects the children they placed. I'm fortunate enough to have been able to confess my fears to my daughter's parents and realized in doing so that they have some of the same fears of us disappearing someday, especially when their daughter (now just barely 2) gets old enough to realize what she's missing if we disappear.

Me: Do you read adult adoptee blogs at all?

Monika: I've read some, but haven't come across many. One of my birth mother friends is actually an adult adoptee from a very unfortunate situation. Both her birth parents and her adoptive parents were abusive to her in different ways. It makes me very sad to see that, especially when I know SO many great people out there that are struggling to either have kids biologically or hoping to adopt. Anyway, the adult adoptee blogs that I've read seem to have all come from very negative situations. They love their parents, but having been raised in times where there was no speaking of their birth families, they've had a lot of questions, confusion, and emotions that have never even been approached. I think that open adoption can actually solve a lot of those issues as a whole. I find myself thinking "if only" a lot when I read adult adoptee blogs.

Me: Did you get to choose your daughter's name? Did they keep it?

Monika: I purposely did not choose my daughter's name, so therefore they didn't keep it when they adopted. Due to my physical state at the time of her birth, the staff at the hospital was uncertain whether I was capable of making an adoption decision, so they put her into foster care. I imagine her foster family probably called her something besides "baby girl Zimmerman," but because I was so firm right from the start that I felt unable to parent and therefore wanted to place her with an adoptive family, I realized that they'd probably change her name anyway. I call her "Mackenzie" on my blog, which is probably what I would have named her had I chosen to parent.

Me: What is the best part of open adoption?

Monika: The best part of open adoption for me is definitely the relationship that I have with my daughter's parents, particularly her mother. Through my weekly (approximately) emails, I get to watch my daughter grow through her eyes and get verified on a consistent basis that my daughter is loved by her whole family and cared for physically as well as emotionally. I think at its core, that's what any birth mother wants is to know that her child is being loved like she loves her child even though she's not raising him or her.

Me: Do you hope to have another child one day?

Monika: At 36 now (I was 34 when my daughter was born), I'm thinking physically it just wouldn't be a good idea, either for the baby or for me (especially with my diabetes in consideration). Though I love children and especially my daughter, raising children was something I never wanted to do. The parenting urge is strong now, I'll admit. I think if I were to change my mind and want to raise children of my own at some point, I'd adopt from foster care. There are so many children in the system that need stable, loving, permanent families!

Me: Have your relationships with people changed due to your decision to have an open adoption for your daughter?

Monika: I've been very fortunate to have supportive family and friends around before & after placement. I'll admit I've lost a couple of "friends" because of my decision to place and not parent, but I have to say those relationships were never high on my list of valued relationships in the first place. I will say that adoption as a whole (open, closed, or somewhere in between) has definitely changed my life and has opened up the way I view and prioritize the people in my life. It's made me a lot more appreciative of my true friends and my family.

Thank you, Monika! You really are an angel to put up with me. I adore your positive attitude and your ability to share. You have a generous and lovely heart.

Reprieve.

2011-11-02T06:37:00.003-04:00

--We had that very premature winter storm over the weekend. Two days BEFORE Halloween! It was the heaviest, wettest snow and many of the trees still have leaves on them because it is actually mid-fall, not winter here. So that snow drug so many trees right down to the ground and across power lines, of course. Many people without electricity, including us. Ours came back. I know, first world problem. Still, I love a bit of grumbling, it was, um, a challenge.

--The heavy wet snow also weighed heavily upon my chickens. We had deer netting across the top of the run to keep out owls and chicken hawks that want to eat my babies. Well, the netting had some leaves on it which I fully intended to blow off, but that stupid storm came upon us so quickly that I only managed to quickly winterize the coop, putting plexiglass (which Manny kept calling "Pepsi glass" *snort*) on the windows, adding roosts, extra straw.....etc. The leaves clinging to the deer net provided a landing and sticking spot for that heavy snow and my entire chicken run collapsed and fell in upon itself. The chickens were stuck inside their coop for two days while we repaired it. Although the chickens are kind of my project, my husband was up there in the mucky mud helping me get them back out. He knew how it was bothering Manny and me, not seeing the chickens outside rooting around, clucking and cooing. I have to put more deer netting back on top, but the chickens are free to roam in the run again. Keep your fingers crossed about the chicken hawks and owls staying away from them in the meantime.

--I got the most beautiful book. It's called Ninety-Five. I really did not pay any attention to the title. The photos were so beautiful and my affinity for farm animals continues to escalate, so I just bought the book. It turns out that the general idea of the book is that one person who eats a vegan diet in a year's time saves the lives of 95 animals in our country. I'm not going vegan although I admire anyone with that kind of determination, but I did have the idea that I would try to swap out some eggs for some local meat and dairy products from farmers who raise their animals ethically and kindly. I like that idea.

--We passed the 23 month mark in our wait. I think it was a make-or-break moment for me. I kind of have had to re-make up my mind about my wait. I was doing fine with it up until around September and then I became tense and rigid and nasty and weird. I had a looooonnnnng talk with my husband yesterday about it, the poor guy, he must have watched me dangling at the end of my tether for quite some time before I was able to articulate anything of sense to him. Part of what is hard about the wait is that it feels difficult, if not impossible, to really plan anything else. You can't buy a house because all of your money is tied up in your adoption. You can't change jobs, you need stability. You can't go to school, you are going to be out of the country *soon* and you know what I mean by *soon.* It can be a bit of a black hole, sucking up every plan, every scrap of patience you have, every morsel of even-headed thinking you've got in there. And if you started out with infertility, your poor heart is a murky spot already, perhaps. I won't even go into my thoughts about baby sister and what her life is like right now, not to mention her birthfamily.

--You get me. It's hard to plan much when you are expecting your referral and travel and embassy appointments and adjusting to a new kid. But I went out on a limb yesterday with my husband because I. just. cannot. take. it. anymore. I must have goals, something else to look forward to, something to reach forward to. So we talked about some goals. Here's my most exciting possibility: I would like a small farm. Manny insists that we already are farmers since we have chickens and I suppose that is true. So, in actuality, I would like a bigger farm. I would like more land and I would like more animals, to include, ducks, goats, sheep, turkeys, and yes, you are reading this right: a cow or two!! If you think I love chickens, wait til you see me around a cow. All animals are lovely, but cows hold a special place in my heart. The most common description of a cow is guileless: genuine, honest, unpretentious. You want to get to know pretentious, meet Waddles, my rooster, the opposite of any cow, most certainly. (During the snowstorm, we spotted him out in the chicken run with the heavy flakes coming down on him, he had herded the flock into the coop and he was angrily clucking and churkling. What a badass he is! I was so proud to see him shaking his claw at the sky, demanding that the heavens heed his word. I am a rooster! Word. is. born.) So, yeah, I am interested in a bigger farm and cows.

--A reprieve. From worry, from wondering. Another plan besides baby sister entering our lives. It's okay to think outside of the box you put yourself in, the waiting box.

all is well

and all will be well

and all manner of things will be well

- Julian of Norwich

Erosion.

2011-10-21T13:33:00.003-04:00

This week I went out on the town. In the evening. That's right, instead of having a beer with my husband around our firepit or washing the dishes before heading right off to bed, I went out, sans kid, sans husband. Girls night out? Dancing? Cavorting?

No.

I went to a book reading by an author I have come to admire greatly. Kristan Kimball, and her husband, Mark, were at the college near my house. She wrote "The Dirty Life." Which, generally is about her love affairs with farming and her husband. They are both utterly passionate about farming. They own Essex Farm which is in upstate New York, way upstate, where the growing season is only 100 days long. It is a CSA, a Community Supported Agriculture farm. They grow nearly everything a family might need to sustain itself over a year's time (including meat and dairy) and each family pays a yearly fee for their organic food.

There was a question and answer period at the end of her reading. The couple was certainly preaching to the choir about their use of solar energy, their organic farming, their self-sustaining, getting-off-the-grid, and their getting in touch with our earth. Someone in the audience asked a question about how farming can create soil erosion and what do they do to prevent it? Mark Kimball explained that in his daily life as a farmer, as a manager of a business, he can only worry about so many things, that when a cow calves, when a root cellar needs to be dug, when there is a hurricane barrelling toward the farm, he only has so many balls he can keep in the air, and soil erosion is just not one of the things that he can put into his equation at this time. In his words, 'I'm a 1 on a scale from 1 to 10 when it comes to farming. Every day I am learning, I'm still struggling to be a better farmer.' The lady who asked the question did not seemed satisfied and re-phrased her question. He tried again to explain that with all the tasks that farmers have, they can't formulate every detail into their 'get-it-done-well-enough' equation.

Then he said something else I loved: He said, 'My best advice to you, is if you are interested in it, is to farm your land. No matter how small or large your piece of land is, farm it. And you will figure out your way, what priorities rise to the top and which get cast aside or put on the back burner to simmer while you are doing the real work of farming.'

And I do think he was talking about farming, but I also think that he was talking about life, right? You have your land, your heart, your mind, your family, your child, your words, pick anything. It's yours, do it your way. Listen to advice, help your neighbors, rush to side of friends who need you, abide in the love of your family, let the important stuff rise to the top. And let the rest wash away.

A thin wire.

2011-10-19T13:58:00.002-04:00

I'm nearing the end. Of what, you ask? My rope? My sanity? My wait? Oh, I get to the end of my rope now and then and my sanity is debatable on any given day, depending on your definition of the word, I guess. But what I am talking about here is the end of 'the wait.' I have no idea when it will end and you may see a post in the future that looks back at this post in rage that I thought I was actually near the end when I was not. It's almost two years now and people waiting this long through my agency have received referrals. Let's just all agree that the time is coming when we will receive a referral.

How would I describe my feelings these days? Angsty. I am hesitant to draw analogies to my pregnancy with my son, but there are similar parallels that are unmistakeable. I did quite a lot of medical stuff to get pregnant with my son. An IVF is time-intensive and not easy on the body or mind. I went through the pregnancy and I was, to say the least, hypervigilant. As I neared the end, two weeks before my due date, the perinatologist (I went to him because I had a huge cyst on my ovary when I was first pregnant and I also had advanced maternal age yeeeee!) told me that my amniotic fluid was getting low. I became obsessed with worry about the low fluid.

A few days later I went to my regular OBGYN for an appointment. I was on pins and needles, I was a wreck. Pete went into the exam room with me and as we sat there waiting for the doctor to come in, I began to sob. I mean, really sob. Pete didn't understand. We hadn't even seen the doctor yet and here I am sobbing like some kind of woman at the end of her rope, the end of her sanity. Through my tears and gulps of air, I told him that I was SO worried, that the worry had gotten the best of me.

My doctor came in and I straightened up (somewhat) and she decided to send me over to the hospital for another ultrasound and if the fluid was lower, then I would be induced. It was lower, I was induced. The baby was born and that overwhelming worry of getting him out safely was replaced by one worry after another. Up until this very day, it has truly just been one long string of worries because that's part of motherhood. But nothing compares to the overwhelming, crushing worry I had about him right before I met him, before I saw his face. When I look at the healthy strong amazing six year old boy who lives in my house, I know I was right to worry. He is so worthy of being cared for and worried over just that much. That emotion did not help me, it did not really hurt me, it just was there.

It's tense. It's like being on a very thin wire. It makes your joints ache.

For me, baby sister, in my mind, is in a between place. I think of her now, I worry. What has happened? Where are you now? This between place is uncomfortable. I keep a wall up about it in my mind. That tense feeling, being on that thin wire, it's a familiar worry. To bring you safely home, until then, I imagine, it will be a long worry.

Winning!

2011-10-10T08:16:00.003-04:00

And the winner is:

!!!!!!!

p.s. I am sending you that book, The Dirty Life, too.

Pulling strings. Thank you and a giveaway.

2011-10-07T10:03:00.004-04:00

This is my three-hundreth post on Mother Paradox. Jeesh, what a blabbermouth I am. So in honor of YOU, yes you, the loyal reader, the lurker, the person who might randomly find my blog when you google Nuchal Rigidity and Where the Mind Goes, yes, all of you, I have a giveaway. I am giving away a table runner which will be very similar to this one (flowers not included):

I am making this design again (I have one and I made one for this lovely beast as part of my Craft it Forward dealy-o). It's good, I think, because it has almost every color you could imagine with dark brown as pretty much the tie-in for the whole thing.

So, if you think you might like to win one of these things, leave a comment and I will do a drawing. You must post a comment by 7:00 a.m. EST on Monday morning, October 10th, which is when I will let Manny do the honors of selecting the name out of a hat.

Okay, then.

Onto more thank you's. I want to heartfully thank every single person who has sent me a bead and a lovely supportive note. I wanted to send each and every one of you a hand written thank you note, but I can see that the impending referral that is coming has me remembering how much a little one can absorb all of your time. I must get my life in order (whatever that actually means, I mean that concept just haunts my ass on. a. daily. basis.). Part of that order is putting that beautiful collection of beads into a strand and to begin wearing it. Up until now, I only gaze at them lovingly.

Just an aside. My dad always amiably bitches about my mom's sewing. 'There she is, pulling strings. As usual.' I find that crazily endearing. I also find this memory of him very endearing. They used to have an in-ground pool at their old house. When I visited them, I would inevitably be in the pool when he arrived home from work, scruffy and dirty. He would walk into the poolshed, get into his little fridge, grab a couple of beers, yell "Incoming!" and toss them high into the air and they would land dangerously close to me. He'd chortle, and go inside to get into his trunks.

So, I will be pulling strings. To gather together the love and support that you have given me through your beads. And to give something back to all of you.

The rules.

2011-09-27T08:10:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was my anniversary. I didn't even lay eyes on my husband. He left for work before I woke up and I worked in the evening. We had made a promise that we would give no gifts and nothing special would occur on our actual anniversary since we couldn't be together. We planned to celebrate later in the week. But wouldn't you know that he doesn't follow rules and he went and sent me these:

Well, it's a good thing I don't follow rules myself because I was already busy at work making an anniverary dinner for Manny and Pete:

There's the brownies. Those were really made with Manny in mind:

I'm so glad we have spent the last twelve years breaking the rules at all the right times. September is for lovers, I do believe.

Brunch for the Horn of Africa

2011-09-19T20:11:00.003-04:00

Brunchilicious:

Marcus Samuelsson and his wife were so gracious. The brunch was really fabulous. Harlem was fabulous and dynamic. We came across the African Day Parade and I spied David Patterson, Al Sharpton, Mayor David Dinkins, and Charlie Rangle. The day is imprinted to my memory.

Brunching.

2011-09-18T08:31:00.002-04:00

Today Manny and I are going here with this lovely and her boys. I'm excited. Our excursions to the city are always madcap adventures, generally with investment in making the kids' experience fun and interesting. Today, however, there is something in it for me, too. We will only be there for an hour or so, but I'm happy to do something for famine relief, happy for this opportunity. I'll let you know how it goes.

Close.

2011-09-15T10:10:00.003-04:00

This week we had our 'pre-referral' call. I am unsure as to whether or not every agency does this call, but ours does. The call is supposed to take place when your name is coming to the top of the list, when you are close to getting a referral. Just as a side note, as much as any agency tries to carry out these calls at appropriate times, it just isn't always possible to get them done in a timely manner. I have one friend who got a referral far earlier than expected wait times predicted and had no pre-referral call and I have another friend who had her pre-referral call last November and still no referral. Who knows why? Anyhoo, we had our pre-referral call and despite the fact that it is not a REAL indicator, I am taking it to mean that we are getting close. We are getting close.

One might assume that this kind of things sends my feet to skitter-skipping and I am floating about on air. Assume not. It triggered in me a sense of insecurity, manifested as how the hell will I ever be able to manage travel to Ethiopia, leave my son behind when we go, meet my daughter and then leave her behind in Ethiopia and come back only to wait for the final trip to bring her home? Slightly-panicky-check-your-head-feelings erupted.

Then, as quickly as I got that feeling out, it was immediately replaced by the underlying feelings. Which, to be concise, are that I was actually consumed with burdensome worries about how we would integrate this new child into our family. Would I be able to divide my parenting, my love, between these two children? Would I lead this family well enough? Would I screw it up miserably? Would adoption issues override plain parenting issues? Can. I. Do. This?

And then a friend called me and explained that this was the worst time for her, knowing that her precious cocoon of a family of three would become four. She felt protective, defensive. That's what I was feeling. But she said it works itself out and at first a mother might feel that she is splitting up her love, I give half to you and the other half to you and it's not enough. But then she said it all evens out because the kids love each other so much, too, and their love allows you to be buoyed enough to somehow start to give each of them 100% of your love. At the same time. And I see, it only reaffirms that mother = love = paradox. Rationally, I cannot give 100% of my love to both of them, but yet I can.

Another brilliant friend said that a family is like a mobile hanging from your ceiling. It's all balanced, but when you add that extra beautiful thing onto it it is weighted down and floppy and not hanging right and doesn't go around in circles like it should. For a while. But then it finds its way and gets its balance back and the wind blows it around and around, each beautiful thing balancing and supporting all the others.

Shooting again.

2011-09-09T07:05:00.004-04:00

This family will soon complete 22 months waiting for a referral. We have attempted to schedule a 'pre-referral' call with our caseworker a couple of times, but with floods and starting school and regular mayhem, the call hasn't happened yet. That's okay, I think I know what the call entails. It's not the call itself that is of interest, it's the fact that we are at this point in the process. We are about to enter what I call 'the window.' That period of time when we will most likely receive a referral. A window opens between here where I am, to there, where this child is.

Manny started school, went for two days, and then the remnants of Hurricane Lee slogged through our area and everything was flooded all over again (Hurricane Irene took a direct hit ten days ago) and Manny had no school. Then a two hour delay this morning. Needless to say I am not getting much done this week.

Why am I not getting much done (besides Manny being home)? Because our sump pumps have been testing my very last nerve. Our house is old. The basement has a dirt floor and stacked stone walls. When it rains, and it has rained here like I have never seen before over the last two weeks, there is a creek that flows into our basement. Call it what you will, a leak, a creak, a small river. The water comes in the back and has to go out the front. So we have pumps. Yesterday morning our old faithful pump bit the dust, it actually burned up inside, I could smell it. So it had to go. I ran like a maniac to Lowes and got their last sump pump and then struggled for FIVE hours to install it and tweak the damn float to get it working effectively. Thankfully, Manny played at a friend's house whilst I was downstairs cursing and banging and sawing and losing my shit and then finally getting it back together. However, I felt so neurotic about the sump going on the fritz during the night that we slept in the living room so I could quite often wake up to listen to it turn on and turn off appropriately. That was a shitty night's sleep.

I was going to do a cleanse of some sort, but I didn't, not really. But I started having massive smoothies full of fruit and vegetables. I even put in kale today. That's right, kale. *nods head, oh yeah, I'm a badass*

I'm still working on submitting our dossier. Again.

We are getting about a half dozen eggs per day from the chickens. We eat a lot of quiche.

I've mastered making pie crust. Now I want to master injera. Manny asked for it this morning. He also asked for kik alicha. Now that I can do. The lentils, yes, the injera, no. I can't find my damn how to make injera book. I don't have high hopes about the prospects of my injera, I just don't.

I have constant anticipation about that referral. It's a happy feeling these days.

Conspicuousness.

2011-09-04T08:00:00.007-04:00

She's gone and done it again. She's doing a Mr. Linky asking people to write about conspicuousness. So:

I have hesitated to write a thing about conspicuousness. I hesitate because I feel like it is not about me, the feeling of conspicuousness. Someone else said, we have to suck it up. I agree, we who have signed up to be in a conspicuous family, must suck it up. I can say, though, that neither of my kids have signed up for it, this is a decision I have made for them. As with most meaningful things in life, I assume it will have its two edges, one, perhaps soft, and the other, perhaps sharp.

Additionally, I don't presume at all that my previous experiences with being conspicuous will in any way prepare me for becoming so as a family, in which our equilibrium, our small life might have to shift about some. We do keep it fairly small right now. There is no other place that this family of three would rather be than at home. Beyond that we love to tramp over to good and trusted friends' houses and into our sweet town. And we love to plunk onto the train and go into New York City. Welcome to our slightly reclusive world, little one. I promise to stretch my wings for you. I have had conspicuous experiences, but I am not prepared to say that they will inform my future. I know that going from non-parent to Mother was a huge leap, a massive exit from a known road to a completely different expressway. The one way in I am perhaps prepared to parent an Ethiopian child is to know that I will not know what it is like until it begins. At least, somewhat.

This summer Manny and I went into the city and met up with blog friends. We were conspicuous, undoubtedly. Manny, however, remained clueless to this conspicuity, which I found interesting. We were a gaggle of white women and small and not so small black kids and one smallish white kid. This group in New York City must be much differently received than in any other place in the world. How I love thee, NYC, let me count the ways. One stranger asked if the children were from 'abroad.' I felt like saying, 'yeah, they are all from that broad right over there, the one with the red hair.' Actually, the woman was very sweet, I gave her the brief lowdown and she gazed at the kids with such fondness and said softly, 'oh I love that.'

Did I say that we took a four hour ride on a ferry around Manhattan?

It was exquisite fun and sweetness to be together with these beautiful blogesses and their goofy, messy, beautiful, smart, much-adored kids. Being with them was not about conspicuousness for me, it was pre-experiential. I sat amongst all of them, alone in my thoughts, thinking of the day when I will sit with them with my own little Ethiopian.

I cannot presume to know how the days will unravel for me or for any member of my family. I can only go on my previous mothering experience. I have a very exuberant kid of my own, similar to this woman. He is the goodwill ambassador of our family. He never shrinks away from the limelight. He is a genetic anomaly, he might as well be from another planet. He's so different from my husband and me. Still, I shrink from saying he has prepared me to parent a kid of another race. It just seems presumptuous to me.

In short, I have almost nothing sure to say about conspicuousness at all. Maybe part of that is because I feel like it is for my children to say how it is for them. I am not concerned with how it will be for me, except in that I may handle things with people around us with grace and intelligence. Just let me do a good enough job.

Being a boy.

2011-08-31T21:00:00.004-04:00

There are only a few days left of summer and my boys take up almost every moment. The one thing about having a little boy who is going into first grade is that you have already gone through letting him go to Kindergarten. Interestingly, going to Kindy was not so hard on me as my son enjoyed it and I was due for a break. I know, I so do not even come close to fitting the nearly wanting to home-school type of mom. I may be weird, but I believe in everybody who lives here having a bit of their own lives.

However. A six year-old boy is an amazing thing. (I know, people do wax on and on about their own kids. I know, but I really like who he is as a person, too, not just as my son.) This summer was an seemingly endless string of feats for him. He learned to ride a bike, to swim (!), to make scrambled eggs (from our own chickens) by himself, to blow up a balloon. He played 18 holes of golf with his parents. He rode his bike on a seven mile ride with adults, for cripes sake. He endured his first hurricane, New York style.

He is a new little Manny. And that makes my heart ache a little because I have in mind the littler version of the little man.

But I can attest that he still does the following: endures endless kisses without pushing me or his father away, gives multiple kisses to us at our request, still skitter-skips (you know, when kids are walking or running and they are exuberant, just walking does not suffice, you must half-dance in your mode of ambulation), still hums as he does anything and everything throughout the day, still talks to himself when he isn't humming (although I have noticed that he whispers when he feels self-conscious), still lets me pick him up and carry him when I am feeling the strength, still has that sweet lovely voice that sounds reminiscent of a toddler who once left me messages on my cell phone, whispering good nights and I love you's to me as he went to sleep while I was at work.

He is little and he is big. He is enjoyable in a different way than he ever was before. He has an understanding of me and his father that he didn't before. In short, he didn't just grow this summer, he matured. Thanks to him, I understand the growing of a boy in a way that I never did before. To be a boy, finding your way in the world, I have such compassion for it now. Kindergarten was one thing, but letting him go this fall feels, by far, more complicated. Everything feels accelerated.

Rules

2011-08-20T08:51:00.002-04:00

I was browsing through "Pinterest" and saw this quote:

You are a victim of the rules you live by.

This struck me as I have been pondering rules quite a bit over the last couple of days. Staying in my parents' home with my own six year old kid is an interesting experience. There are so many rules here that my son has to learn every year for the week that we are here. It's hard not to judge so I won't even say, 'I'm not judging' because that's just not true. But I am saying that in my house we live by a different set of rules. First and foremost, and if you have ever visited me you will know this, I don't care very much about messes. I also don't care too much about stuff. I am happy and relieved to have the chickens so that now I can honestly say that nearly nothing goes to waste from my fridge. That was not true before the chickens took up residence. A sunken cucumber, slimy shallot, moldy lemon could be found on any given day in my fridge, otherwise. Now things make their way quickly into our bodies or more slowly and perhaps a little less than freshly into the chickens' bodies. Having been way too lazy and inept to compost anything, I now give every scrap of fruit peel, onion skin, and watermelon rind to the chickens. The chickens have been a huge amount of work and trouble, but they are turning into something that makes my life feel more rounded, more of a cycle. (God, why does everything turn into a chicken story, so many analogies.)

Back to rules, I can't stand the stress they put me through. Of course, there are rules in my house, but it feels like there are way less, WAY less, rules in my own home. Constantly reminding Manny to be in or out of the doors so flies don't get in or to keep his hands off the blinds or not to swivel in the swivel chairs in the kitchen makes me tense. Tense. In our house, there are hardwood floors and dark brown carpets which makes for not much concern about spills or sticky popsicle sticks or partially chewed dog bones. Being in my mother's or brother's pristinely clean new houses makes me feel inadequate, though. How did I end up with the recessive slob gene? And I wonder if I am raising a slob for a son. Am I? What have I done by not laying down more ground rules? Is it okay to eat dinner in the living room in the evening and watch tv? Or am I distracting from our family life? But if dinner is tense because you can't swivel in the swivel chair or you have to eat every single thing on your plate, is that really quality time?

What if my son has inherited my recessive slob gene? My husband seems to have a dominant slob gene, truth be told. This kid is freakin' doomed to a life of slipshod table manners and a revolting regimen of cleaning skills. The writing is on the wall, most likely literally written somewhere in crayon on a wall.

summer and how it goes

2011-08-11T22:51:00.002-04:00

Summer is rambling along like a big fat hairy bumblebee, bobbing from one flower to the next, spreading the good stuff about as it should. Summer is my wheelhouse. Except for the overabundance of itching thanks to the overabundance of poison ivy I have encountered and the slight hint of peri-menopausal heat sensitivity I am beginning to experience, it's all good. The chickens and their coop and their pen have taken up far too much time, but now that they are in their permanent home, peace seems to pervade their existence. Whereas once I was a bane to their existence, constantly hauling them around, making them jump into pens, I am now quite mother hennish to them. As soon as they hear the back door slam and I call out to them, 'Babies, babies......' they hover near the door to their pen. Everywhere I walk, they scamper to be close to me and peck at my toenail polish or try to untie my running shoes. This week they have feasted on peach peels, slighly drying zucchini, a pie shell that had gone awry and grapes that were almost over the edge and on discount at the grocery store. And they get bananas every day. All is well.

The horrid heat and humidity has abated and the air is cool. As much as I think I will never feel this way when spring arrives, I am now longing for the first frost to kill off the mosquitoes and deerflies. Those bastards, what a bane to our existence. That's what you get when you live near a wetland. It's buggy.

I had a dear friend visit the other day and she wrote the funniest and most endearing post right here. Being around her was just what I needed, but didn't know it until she arrived. She's one of those friends, the ones who know things about you, about your heart, about how you've grown, and about where you are tender.

I told her that despite the splendidness of summer and all the other good things for which I am grateful, I feel like a cat. Not a cat who is purring on your lap. I feel like a cat who is testily tapping its tail, who looks like it might reach out and swat you or stalk off and sulk somewhere. A tense cat. I don't think anyone really likes a tense cat. Unless you have known her easier moments when she might like to curl up on your lap or lazes on a window sill with eyes at half mast, just at ease, you would certainly not like this cat. Had she not already endeared herself to you, this cat would be a pain in your tuckus.

It's a phase, it's part of getting close to getting a referral. It's worry about ethics and corruption in adoption in Ethiopia. It's worry about changes in my family. It's self-confidence or lack thereof, not pretty, but true.

The beauty of summer, of a kid who has learned to swim and ride a bike without training wheels, who cooks up the new little eggs from our own chickens, I'm not missing it, but the focus is shaky, it's haphazard. I'm aware, I keep trying to draw it back, I succeed and I fail.

The egg.

2011-08-04T08:15:00.002-04:00

We have our first egg from our flock of lovely girls (and maybe a rooster or two, we have yet to determine this).

We think that this is the young hen who gave us our egg. The first very small eggs you get from a young hen are called pullet eggs. Young hens are called pullets.

For comparison's sake, here is the tiny little pullet egg next to regular large eggs. It is so dark and it is also speckled which made me even more giddy than I expected.

Yesterday was auspicious. I took Manny out to the fairgrounds because he had to work at the 4H snack bar. If you have ever been to a county fair, you will know that fair food is known for its bizarre breadth of unhealthiness and zanyness. At this small county fair alone I saw deep fried hamburgers and deep fried candy bars. There is always the plain old fried dough booth and, of course, you will find fried cow testicles if you look hard enough. Most everything is fried. However, the 4H building offers fruit and granola bars and regular milkshakes, like vanilla, with nothing fancy and nothing horribly unhealthy, and all at a decent price. And in that building are all the 4H entries of handmade goods like preserves and horse sculptures made from vegetables and blankets and what have you. After walking through all the barns and seeing the giant draft horses and lazy pink pigs, the sweet and tidy goats, the roaring sheep, the rabbits, the chickens, I was overwhelmed. I was, in fact, teary-eyed. After spending so much time around and on farms as a child, to once again feel so at home in something, I felt grateful and sure that I had found something that my son also loved. (He is literally in hog heaven out in those barns, especially when he sees our own chicken at the county fair.)

All right, I gotta shut up, I think I am not getting to the point.

I was very mushy about the 4H barn, you get it.

From there I dropped Manny off at a friend's house to hang out and I stopped at a farm to get some eggs and tomatoes. The farmer was there and I ended up spending an hour talking to him about, what else? Farming and 4H. And then I came home and by then it was raining at a good clip and Pete and I went outside and finished off the chicken run well enough so that our ladies (and gentlemen?) would finally have a nice space to venture into right outside of their own little coop and that is when Pete discovered our sweet little speckled egg in the nesting box.

And I was jumping around and hooping and hollering and wishing that Manny was there and I was just very filled up to the top with joy. We finished the run well enough to let the chickens out and they flitted out and spread their wings and tried to fly out (but could not) and they charged each other and they pulled worms and gobbled up grass and ate the bananas I threw in there for them. And Manny came home and stood in the chicken run with his flock and then he held the egg and he also was very happy.

And I realized that the chickens have been no happy substitute for my second child. The chickens are a passion, not because I love chickens so much, but because they connect me to something I loved in childhood, they connect me in a new way to my kid, they connect me to something basic, something close to the earth, they connect me to other people who love the art of raising animals, growing things. It connects me and grounds me and keeps me feeling small and yet huge at the same time. It is a gift to do something that makes your cup run right over the brim.

I shall carpet tack you.

2011-07-29T18:35:00.002-04:00

If you try to claw your way into my chicken coop, I have a plan for you.

Today, we got up and went outside to let the cluckers out into their mini-coop. We found that something, something wild and chicken-hungry had been clawing away at their window which is covered with wire mesh and very firmly reinforced. I did see, however, that though thwarted for now, that the beast is likely to return. My 21 big stinkers have been a pain in my butt now and again, but no animal should test my mama bear freakishness.

I had already called my handy guy (who is such a character, such a solid person and yet a bit of a scheister all at the same time, but hey, he's my guy) and he came over to discuss putting in some new posts to complete the chicken run. He saw the damage laid by the wild beast (most likely a raccoon) and said I need to screw in some crapet tacking around the edges of the window and teach those little bastards a goddamn lesson. You know carpet tacking, needle sharp little tacks sticking out of a nice neat little strip of wood. He said they will never return to bother my babies again.

It shall be done. Oh, and the handy guy calls me the chicken lady.

Until I fly.

2011-07-25T08:14:00.004-04:00

I learned this once: You know what you know, you know what you don't know, but you don't know what you don't know. For instance, I know quite a bit about raising chickens, baking cookies, and sudoku. I am aware that I don't know how to build stairs, blow glass, or run a bulldozer. Then there are the things that I am not aware of, the things I don't know that I don't know. I can't really give an example of this, though, not looking forward. That's the point. The things that you don't know that you don't know are the things that creep up on you and you say afterward, I didn't even see that coming. At all.

However, in retrospect, I realize that this has happened to me. Regularly. (Part of the wisdom that comes with age is this particular part of 'knowing,' having the insight to be humbled by how very much I just do not know, that, yes, I will be smacked in the face by it, nonetheless, is a good thing, a wise thing. Yes, my body may be sagging, but my brain is holding its own.) Here's a good example of what I didn't know or expect. I didn't know that when you have a baby sleeping next to your bed, that you would wake up repeatedly in the night and reach over to make sure the baby was breathing or that you might still be doing this when the baby has turned into a six year old. That some habits, such as this, really never go away. I remember that, right after my son was born, I was talking to my mom about how poor my sleep had become and that I looked forward to it returning to normal. She said: Well. You never really sleep the same way again. Which, I think, meant that your child basically invades every nook and cranny of your being, that you, yourself, are never the same again, that a new normal must be met. Your equilibrium disturbed, you must reset yourself.

When I spend time with mothers who have adopted kids, I have an awareness of the yet untread territory I will travel. I talk with them and I listen very hard. I try to let their words invade my nooks and crannies, I try to let them make me wise now. I think, to myself, I must seem like a bit of a boob as I sit, at rapt attention, listening to their words of what it was like to travel to another country, to have this child placed in your care, to become the second mother, to wonder about the first mother, to care about your child's first country, to wonder and care about all of it. But, not there yet, I am quite confident that I don't know what I don't know. They have been shocked into that wisdom already. As generous as my friends are, as much as they are willing to share about everything, I feel like I am struggling to learn what is right now unlearnable. Until I cross over, until I fly, until a child is passed into my arms, until that child comes home, until this child becomes a member of this family, I will not be wise, I will not know what I don't know.

Two things.

2011-07-15T20:09:00.003-04:00

1. Our family has decided to forget about the choice option pertaining to gender in our adoption process. We are now officially waiting for a child 0 to 12 months of either gender or multiples of either gender.

We originally hoped to do two adoptions, but now we are not as hopeful to add two kids to our family (but who knows, you. never. know). Not because of anything other than our age and my laziness. Just kidding, except for the age part. Ethiopia adoptions have slowed down.

2. Manny learned to swim today. It may not seem like a big deal, but to me it is a very big deal. The capability of swimming is a life preserving skill. And fear of water is such a common thing among kids and adults. Manny has always been a water rat, but could never offically swim. But today he went under without holding his nose and swam like a little blue dolphin in the water. How I do love this boy. Whenever I feel let down by my lot in life, I am taken aback at my great fortune to be able to parent such a marvel, this boy, my son.

Hold tight.

2011-07-10T08:49:00.002-04:00

Pete and I lived in Queens on 9/11. Every person has their own memory of that day, what it was like to go through it. Pete was north of the city at work. His experience was isolating, his school was locked down and phones were not working. From our apartment back in Queens I could see the smoke in the sky, could hear the sirens of every single emergency vehicle in the city and those coming in from Long Island, could smell the acrid air. I went to work so that I could be with friends, could possibly be of use somewhere. The hospital expected an influx of patients, the overflow of the city hospitals, but not one patient came.

In the days following 9/11, the city and her people were in shock. There was a far away look in every person's eyes. People scrambled to be of use. I baked feverishly, packed up cookies into plastic containers, tucked in notes of strength, and took them to the firehouse. The firemen welcomed all of us, took our care packages, and let us sign this book, just like ones they have at funerals, to keep a record of who came to call.

Before I moved to NY, I had heard all of the customary cliches about what New Yorkers are like. Don't believe it. City life is not for everyone so there is no convincing some people that New York is a magnificent city and her people are actually quite lovely. But New Yorkers are some of the finest people you shall ever meet. If you go into a deli more than a couple of times, you suddenly belong to the store owner, you are his customer. He greets you with a sweet, oh, here she is again or he might even call out your name or he will tousle your kid's hair. I'm not saying that every NYer is a sweet tender spirit, but there are so many very fine people.

In the days following 9/11, everyone was kind, uber-kind, the kindest we had all ever been. Everyone held doors, helped you lift your packages. When I said thank you to someone we held each other's gaze for an extra second or two. The your welcome's were extended in time, as well, as we all gazed at one another, for a moment taken away from the far away places our minds were dwelling. I went to church and all along each pew, everyone held hands and tears streamed down our faces. When we said, peace be with you, truer words were never spoken, as hands grasped and held that extra moment longer.

That's the way it was, in the days after 9/11. Out of the awfulness of everything that happened, I took away with me the kindness, the kindred experience of grieving together. Ever since that day, I take greater notice of the kindness of friends when I am sad or suffering. I appreciate it so much more than I ever might have before. When times are tough, hold tight to your friends. Listen to your friends. Accept the kinship. And say thank you, thank you.

Shooting again.

2011-06-26T08:21:00.003-04:00

Bullet points:

My kid is done with school. I picked him up in his classroom a little early so I could say good-bye to his teacher. I cried. Manny gave her a real hug, not the fake lean-in he will do with people he doesn't really feel that comfortable with. He hugged her twice, actually. And friends kept coming up from behind and hugging Manny around the waist. It was precious. I don't ever want to forget how I felt, proud and sad and happy and sappy.

Manny starts Wild Earth camp tomorrow. This is his third year. Amazingly he started when he had just turned four. This camp is a dream, outrageously beautiful surroundings, all day outside no matter the weather. Plus, it means almost three weeks straight for my husband and me to hike and hang out. Alone. All alone.

I finished my first week of official training for a marathon. I am running the Mohawk Hudson River marathon because it is a nice flat course that ends in a really sweet little park. Pete did it last year and it was such a great finish area, I hope I make it there myself this October. I will make it. I am winning my battle against plantar fasciitis, too. I will conquer you, PF, you bastard.

We recently found out that two different couples, neighbors/friends of ours, are getting divorced. It is interesting how this information can send married couples reeling. I called another neighbor and was bugging out and she was, too. I told her, I don't care how freaking unhappy you guys ever get, you better not break up. I mean it! She was all, I KNOW! She and her partner did a pinky swear on it and I feel like Pete and I need to renew our vows or something. One of these couples was married for 27 years, for cripes sake.

I had to go to the doctor because I have a bug bite of ambiguous origin which was getting steadily uglier and uglier. The PA said it was not a tick bite, but she doesn't know how atypical my tick bites are and seemed to not want to put me on a round of antibiotics because, in her words, we kill so many people with antibiotics every year. So I just sat there and chewed on that one for a while and asked for the Rx for the antibiotics anyway. And she gave it to me, thank you very much.

The chickens. They are huge. They are still not in their own big coop because I am paranoid that a crafty fox will kill them all in one fell swoop. And Manny would be devastated. He. Loves. Our. Chickens. So much, it's crazy.

Mini-rant: Pete is a coffee hog. He takes almost the whole pot, even on Sundays, and then I inevitably find his nearly full cup of cold coffee sitting around someplace. That is purely greedy, hoggish behavior.

And, lastly, I wish we could get a referral for baby sister before our agency hikes its fee schedule up any bit higher. They raised it by $2500 last week. Tough for people who have stayed committed to this path for so long. *closes eyes and sighs*

Cut your worries.

2011-06-21T07:05:00.003-04:00

Ten Commandments of Endurance
by Marshall Ulrich in Running on Empty

1. Expect a journey and a battle.
2. Focus on the present and set intermediate goals.
3. Don't dwell on the negative.
4. Transcend the physical.
5. Accept your fate.
6. Have confidence that you will succeed.
7. Know that there will be an end.
8. Suffering is okay.
9. Be kind to yourself.
10. Quitting is not an option.

When I read these commandments, which are actually meant for ultramarathoners, I felt like they were intended for me to read. Not because I am an ultramarathoner, no, but because I have felt lately quite a bit of angst about our adoption. I was long in completing the paperwork for our dossier, long in sending it off, it all just took me forever, until I finally handed that dossier to the express delivery person and she smiled at me and said, "Congratulations." I was unsure of myself in this adoption, but as soon as I handed off that dossier, I kissed all my worries up to the heavens and let go of it all, comparatively speaking, that is. Since I let go of that dossier, I have enjoyed life far more than I had been before.

And then, last week, in the midst of an enduring bout of plumbing problems, a floundering attempt at getting the chickens into their big coop, serious pain in my foot from my nemesis, plantar fasciitis, I also had some free-floating anxiety, quite a bit of it actually. And I felt a huge wave of tears simmering away, trying to break the levee. I went on and on this way for the entire week before I finally got a grip on what was bothering me. It was many things, but actually it was a tremendous wave of feeling I had about baby sister and her family. Guilt. Being part of the problem, not part of the solution. Being selfish. And also in a nice extra layer of ickyness, I had real ugly selfishness, wondering how an adopted child will change the dynamics of my family, how becoming an interracial family will affect my family, how my life will be impacted. And then, even how much my 'me' time will disappear into the void. Truth. Not pretty.

I confessed my ugly, tear-ridden feelings to a good friend. She said that she figured that for someone who is getting at least somewhere near a referral, that these might be common feelings. It was reassuring. It was also very good to just let someone else hear what was churning away in my mind. I was equally reassured by other friends who are just smart and thoughtful and soulful. I think a long wait is a matter of endurance for a mother. I have tried not to lament the wait, tried to be embracing life, but some of my worries continued to simmer underneath it all.

I do think that participating in an adoption is much like running. Expect a journey, suffering is okay, be kind to yourself. I would add only this: Cut your worries and run.

Daddy.

2011-06-18T21:12:00.002-04:00

As Manny and I were making the last (of three) Father's Day cards for Daddy last night, I asked Manny what he loved most about Daddy (all in a secretive voice because Daddy was in the next room). And Manny said, I love that he is my t-ball coach and my daddy.

Happy Father's Day to you, most adored one.

Airborne.

2011-06-12T12:30:00.002-04:00

No, I was never Airborne. But I was in the Army. Below is a picture of me with one of the people in the world I respect most. He was Airborne. He was my Drill Sergeant. D.S. Bueno. I was 23 in this photo and it was right around the last day of basic training. If it had not been close to the end there is no way in hell this man would have let me stand so close to him grinning like a fool like that. I had to beg him to please let me get a picture with him. He relented. He doesn't look happy, does he? Even that made me respect him all the more. He had standards and they were extremely high. He never had any favorites and he never picked on anyone either. He told each one of us we were ate the hell up. He dogged our asses, but he took no pleasure in our pain, except to know that it was making us all stronger. When I was in basic, Desert Storm started. The first soldiers into action were, who else, the Airborne Rangers. D.S. Bueno was livid that he was stuck in New Jersey with us girls when he could have jumping out of an airplane into real action and he told us so. It made me a little sad for him, but I was still glad he was with us.

Here I am standing outside of the platoon sergeant's office door. A few days after basic had been underway we all had to meet individually with the head D.S. Drill Sergeant Watkins sat behind his desk with his hands folded and I stood stiffly before him and he asked me if I was having any problems that I needed to discuss. I fought back tears, but they slid down my face anyway and I told him I was so homesick that I couldn't eat. (It was true, I was so forlorn and felt so lost I couldn't eat anything.) He looked down at his desk when he spoke. I look back with empathy for him because I know now what I didn't know on that day, that he had an enormous heart and he did care for us, all of us. He said, 'Soldier, I'll having you eating soon. You'll be so hungry you'll love this food. Dismissed.'

I've been listening to some Airborne cadences when I run lately and that's why I am feeling melancholy about the Army. I also wanted to show off my mullet, though. I have myself a nice little mullet in the second photo, if you notice. You're welcome.

Animals.

2011-06-10T11:30:00.005-04:00

Every day I look at this thing that is so not ready to house chickens and I want to lay down and throw a baby fit. I can get it done, but I know what it will entail and I am just too damn lazy, no not lazy, too damn avoidant, to get it done. Why? Because I have already had poison ivy twice, am already full of bruises, and the bugs are vicious flesh-eating machines right about now. Last night Pete looked at my legs and hollered 'what the *%^$@# have you been doing, you're a freaking wreck!' Nice. I need to take some iron, I can tell I'm anemic. Full. Of. Bruises.
I'm full of bruises for many reasons. One of which includes the daily schlepping of this coop thing is divided by that huge thick piece of plywood. It has to be moved around the yard because the chickens eat every blade of grass and like to make themselves a little dustbath and they crap everywhere. Thus, I rotate it about the yard and I try to keep it out of the super hot sun so I don't kill off the chickens.

Here's one flock in the rabbit hutch. It stinks in there. More than I can say. These are the 'smalls' and 'mediums' which are no longer small or medium, but getting quite big.

These are the bigs who are just absolutely big and are just poop machines who love to peck at me when I put my hands in there.

Every. single. day. I strap that dog crate full of chickens onto that dolly and put bungee cords on it to keep it from falling off like it did the other day and roll them across the yard and put them in that outside coop thing.

Here are the bigs strapped onto the dolly. Yes, I know the neighbors must think I am a complete and utter freak as they see me schlepping the chickens around while I try to beat off the deer fly and smack the mosquitoes.

Ah, here go the poop machines into their coop. They hop in and greedily start pulling up worms and eating bugs and tics, thank you very much.

Maybe TMI, but this is about keeping it real. All of that is chicken shit down there. I have to take the bottom out and hose it off. Neato.

Here is the other flock as they are going into the dog crate so they can get hauled across the yard. Wait, did I say going IN? Hee hee, no, they go back and forth like a bunch of ding dongs because chickens always want to be OVER THERE. Not here, we need to get over there, and once we get over there, we most certainly want to be back over here. That's how they think, fyi.

There's the smalls and mediums finally trapped in the dog crate and loaded onto their dolly transport.

Here they are in their little brooder. They are beautiful and they are worth the trouble, but that doesn't mean I feel it all la la la lovely. They stink!

I come back into they house to get cleaned up and I am always always greeted by this face, the dog who wants to be outside, the dog who ever vigilantly waits to go for her walk. This dog is unrelenting. Good thing she's cute.

Oh yeah, and yesterday I saw a bear for the first time. I spied it about 10 yards off of the trail I was hiking with a friend in the mountains. This was not your shuffly old black bear mosying along all oblivious. This was a very alert, very beautiful, very large black bear who was staring at us, not at all shuffling-off-into-the-woods-to-get-away-from-the-scary-humans. I thought I said to my friend, all stealthy and cool, 'bear....on the left.' But no, this is what I said to her, 'bearbearbearbearbearbearbearbear,leftleftleftleftleftleftleftleftleftlefteftleft..........' So we kept on moving and talking loudly and then my friend says let's us go a little ways back and see if he's still there. So she gets all stealth and sneaks back and waves me over to look at the still staring extremely alert bear. I told her, because I was done trying to pretend I'm a bad ass, 'this is where I turn into a wimp and I am ready to haul ass out of here.' So we did.

Safety in numbers.

2011-06-07T20:14:00.005-04:00

I have only one sibling, a brother. As a child, he was a wild one, not unlike my very own son, with their matching hair color and hazel eyes. It's uncanny to look into my own son's eyes and see the ever-changing hues of green and yellow that I have also witnessed in my own brother. (And it's a bit of relief to see something so familiar that is really not 'me' I am seeing. You know, it's familiar, but I take no credit, they're just beautiful hazel eyes.) My brother was a fence climber, creek dipper, dirt clod throwing little ball of fire. He was absolutely, obscenely cute. Irresistible. He was the essence of 'boy.' My gawd, I know he doesn't know it now, but I absolutely adored this boy. Finally, a partner in the experience of life! What a relief to have a witness to life in all its intricacies, from the little person's view. Not alone, not me, I had a brother.

My mother had a late miscarriage after she had the two of us. I feel I know her feeling back then. In her mind, a pregnancy equaled a child, her third child. Her next wacky little curtain climber. But, I think, because she was past the point of 'normal' worry, this was unexpected, far from her mind, to lose this baby. Now, after losses of my own, I think of this little one as part of a continuum of existence that is excruciating to us on this side of life. How we long for you, the untold ones. My mother told me that without me and my brother to pull her through, she would never had made it through her grief.

My brother, as a child, was verbose. He was a force unbridled! He was a wonderful partner as we adventured through life. We tramped through creeks, hatched plots of disobedience, swam like fish, and lived thoroughly. Now, he is the same person, and yet different. He has stamped his life's adventurousness with a twist of thoughtfulness, order, and well-determined logic. I think to myself what it must have been like to be a little boy with all that insatiable curiosity, the verve for life, who, all at the same time, demanded and required some sense of schedule and sameness to his day. The competing feelings must have been what led him to runrunrun through every single day until he, at last, fell asleep.

It's not only about me. I never saw myself as a mother to just one, believe me, I wanted childREN. But I know and revere the vast loveliness and steadfastness of having a sibling who bears witness to you. My brother, though he may not realize it, is far and away in my fop five human beings of all time list. He is what drove me to more than one child, much more than I can say.

Similarly, like walking.

2011-06-05T21:36:00.000-04:00

I've been reading about running quite a bit lately. I have run all my life, off and on, mostly off (gotta be real). I am not sure of the longest run I have ever had. My farthest race was a 10K, but my farthest run was undoubtedly during basic training. At the end of training, the drill sergeants took us on a special run which was long. Very long, but not stressful. They let us sing cadences filled with the sounds of completion, of resolution, of redemption. The complete and total respect I had for my drill sergeants by the end of training was immense. I would have followed them anywhere. I was a girl - remade.

Now, when I run, most often, I find myself thinking about running. I have competing thought processes. On one shoulder sits the devil, 'You don't have to be doing any of this. You can just walk today. This plantar fasciitis is torture, just turn back.' And on the other shoulder sits somebody who is definitely not an angel, but she's forthright and determined and she says, 'You're gonna do this. Make it so. You've done much harder things than this little run. Ignore any and all pain and let the endorphins kick it in.'

And there are even times when I run and I don't even think about running. I lose track of my attempts to keep track of my form, you know, I try to concentrate on my form, not pounding that heel into my nerve endings, aiming for a midfoot strike. But it just doesn't work and I find myself thinking about my grocery lists, what needs to happen in order to get those chickens finally in their new home (the coop), or how horridly messy the attic is and what it will take to make it manageable.

And it occurs to me that I am thinking, as I am running, just like I think when I hike or go for a walk. About nothing in particular. My mind has stopped bickering about whether or not I will continue and it just runs along, taking for granted that, yes, you are just running this whole thing, there is no argument about it at all.

This is not just about chickens.

2011-06-02T07:53:00.007-04:00

The wily cuckoo maran.

The drama queen auracana.

The ever watchful disciplinarian, Buff Orpington.

Silkie Banty, lovely little one.

My husband is not too attached to the chickens. He actually has no attachment to them. He told me that he is afraid that if he gets attached to them he will have to become a vegetarian because he cannot imagine eating an animal that you also keep as pets. He just chooses not to notice them too much. Our chickens definitely fall into the pet category and we have no intention of eating them, they are here for other reasons which include: satisfaction of my ever-expanding femivore tendencies, teaching responsibility to Manny as well helping him to learn about the circle of life, taking just one more thing out of the hands of the 'food' companies.....etc. I could go on and on, but let's be real. I like to watch the chickens, it's like having fish, they are mesmerizing. And further, keeping chickens satisfies some mothering needs I have, presently.

So, like I said, I enjoy watching the chickens. I don't think that I have ever pointed out that I have ten different breeds of chickens. With the exception of our silkies, of which we have three, we have two birds from each breed. Having a flock of chickens with ten distinct breeds has taught me something. I have really noticed the qualities of the breeds. My auracanas are drama queens, the moment I pick them up, they squeal like I am trying to squash the life out of them. My cuckoo marans are wily, they are always the last to get get caught when I am trying to wrangle them from one coop to another. My orpingtons are watchful, seem likely to lead the flock, they like to hop up on roosts and watch over everyone, and they will exact out some discipline when needed.

Nature. Watching and learning about the different breeds has helped me to see on a deeper level how nature is there, on a genetic level, affecting how a chicken behaves, how a mother behaves, how a kid behaves. I lean so heavily toward nurturing as my standard for parenting. Not completely, though. I find Manny to be so different from me or Pete that I take almost no credit for so much of the way he has developed. I feel like I have kept him in line and helped him learn how to be a person, but much of the way he is would be difficult to teach. I find his tenderness and sociability so genuine and lovely, I marvel at who he actually he is, the way he is at home in the world. I also marvel at how raucous and noisy and poorly behaved he can be, just full disclosure. He's no saint, but his inborn temperament continues to be a marvel to me.

I still take my nurturing very seriously because I know it makes a huge difference. Sweet and gentle characteristics can be driven out of a child when they are treated poorly. Believing in the power of nature, the genes, can be empowering. It compels you to accept something for what it is, whether it is a wily chicken or a bossy chicken or a child or maybe even the person who gazes back at you in the mirror.

My Ball and Chain

2011-05-27T06:42:00.002-04:00

I've talked about him before. Nooch. That rowdy old Italian resident at my job. The crown prince of debauchery. I even told him about his title and he asked me what 'debauchery' meant, which cracked us both up. He is just debauched, sweet, quick-tempered, lovable, and bald. Plus he has that very atypical dementia, very difficult to describe. He has no loss, whatsoever, of his daily living skills. He has no tremors, no physical problems besides weakness. He can't remember the later years of his life. He can't remember when and how his wife died ten years ago. But he knows all the residents and even some of their names and he knows the staffs' names. He even knows my son's name and asks about him. And he's never had a stroke. It's all very odd, also, in that he doesn't seem to be progressing in his dementia.

Lord knows how and why a dementia would lead this man to have such a terrible and wonderful memory all at the same time. My theory is that his wife dying is such a painful thing to him that he has allowed that memory to fade away. When we do revisit it once in a while, his lip will tremble and tears will spill down his cheeks and I will hold his hand until his grief lessens. And then I will say 'I bet you teased her to death.' And he'll smile a trembly smile and say, 'oh yeah, I lived to see that woman laugh.' And we will look through his photos and he'll tell me about their life together. And I marvel at his love for her, how he must have harassed his lovely wife with his crazy sense of humor.

Nooch ogles us girls and teases us relentlessly. But I go for the jugular, right back at him. Because he loves it. I try to help with his memory deficit by reminding him that he is still bald. He said to me the other day, 'oh yeah, I'm bald and you're a pain in the ass.' I just stared at him for a beat and said, 'yeah, well I can stop being a pain in the ass, but you can't stop being bald.' Which sent us both into peels of laughter.

He does have that horrible temper, though. When he gets mad, he becomes a machine gun of cursing, and he'd most certainly choke the shit out of the object of his ire if he could. The cure for his temper: wheel him into his room and show him the crucifix on his wall, ask him if he sees it, ask him if he can calm down, and immediately he simmers down. It's amazing. All that boiling blood cooled by a glimplse of Jesus on the cross. Memory gone, but faith intact.

As if you couldn't tell, I am terribly attached to him despite how he constantly calls out my name at work, his relentless requests for food, his need for the bathroom, his ogling, his debauched requests, all of it. I love this old Italian man, my ball and chain.

Ready. Aim.

2011-05-25T07:13:00.003-04:00

Fire. Bullet points:

The chicks have gotten the boot. My biggest ones are huge and have become actual chickens, there is absolutely nothing chick-like about them anymore. Particularly their smell and the amount of poop they can generate overnight. The rest of the chicks, all fourteen of them, are pretty much feathered out, except for their heads, and despite what the books say, I am not pussyfooting around and keeping the littlest ones in the house any longer. Besides, it is warmer at night and they are roosting in the garage at night with a heat lamp. Now that the monsoon seems to be ending (we've had five inches of rain over the last week) the chick(en)s can be outside all day.

I have thought and thought about changing the age range and gender request for our adopted child. I keep thinking and thinking about it. I've been waiting for 19 months now. There doesn't seem to be much change in wait times, for a referral, at least. They are slowly lengthening, but I think that I have put in enough time to not change course now. Other than gender, that still plagues me a bit. Any opinions on that are welcome.

I am horribly pale, somewhat blubbery, and while I love summer, I always struggle at this time of year with switching from my winter clothes to the summer ones. So I keep looking like a slob and acting like a cavewoman/farmer. But we did get a treadmill yesterday, a gift from my parents, so I have hope, hope that I might stop jiggling, hope that I will not blind anyone with my extremely pale body and hope that I will not get a horrid farmer's tan (too late for that already, the back of my neck is pretty brown).

Pete has a marathon this coming weekend in Burlington, Vermont. I'm proud of him. You dedicated runners leave me speechless. Before you, I bow, very low.

I find that I hardly ever cry. There is a dam built up in front of my lacrimal glands or perhaps the dam is built up somewhere in my cerebrum, but I hardly every cry. So, the other day, I was moving crap in my little barn and I lifted a sheet of wood and didn't realize that on top of it laid a 2-by-4 and it smacked me right in the face. I started to cry and thought, 'oh no, this will just be a little squeak of a tear, pleasepleaseplease,' but oh no, it hurt, and the tears came down like a nasty cloudburst. I have found that I do keep my chin up most of the time, but when something makes me cry, I always have a good long one and I always end up thinking about baby sister. It's like a chain of events that are all tied together, that somehow leads to her, which then makes me feel selfish, which go on and on, and which is why I keep the dam built up nice and strong all the time. Does anybody else do this?

I am still getting beads, thank you to everyone. Someone even sent me a sweet hand-knitted pink blanket with hearts on it for baby sister. I plan to post soon about all the beads and the blanket and extend my most heartfelt thanks to you and you and you.

Here there.

2011-05-19T07:04:00.003-04:00

It's been raining here. A lot. My parents drove all the way from Illinois in the rain, arriving here on Saturday. They brought the rain with them and it's here to stay it seems. Last week was so gloriously sunny and mild. I spent every single day outside futzing around in the yard. This week I have been spending my days (with a nasty little sinus infection) staggering around in the alternately drizzling and then pouring rain trying to get my chicken coop in order while I have the wonderful talents of my dad here to assist with the serious building stuff.

Not only am I loathing all this rain, but everyone else is, too. My mom is not able to go on her daily walk which is no good for her. My chickens are literally going stir crazy in their inside coops. Last week they were outside every single day nibbling on grass and yanking worms out of the ground. Manny learned how to ride his two wheel bike without training wheels and he is not really able to sufficiently get his two-wheel groove on with all this wetness. My dad is cursing, for real, not just figuratively about various things, the jacka** who built the coop, the godda** rain, the bloodsucking mosquitoes. But then he's funny, too. He drinks a couple of beers in the evening and plays cards with Manny and goofs around with the dog. Pete has a marathon coming up in ten days. He, perhaps most of all, feels the tension of needing be out on the road at precisely the right times. The rain, it just interferes.

Last night I was reading from Bradt's Ethiopia, (thank you, oona) about the rainy season there. My grumbling is ridiculous, comparatively. I think of Baby Sister. Every day. It's strange how everyone else might be going through their day, grumbling about the rain, too, but everything to me is somehow linked to Ethiopia in some way. It rains here, it rains there. The sun rises here, the sun sets there. I think about here, I think about there.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-05-18T17:16:00.000-04:00

Two charmers

2011-05-16T07:01:00.002-04:00

Day in Photos 2011

2011-05-14T07:03:00.005-04:00

I've been on furlough from my job so my days are busy with catching up on outdoor stuff, especially since the weather this week has been so beautiful. I'm also almost done with school, have my final next week, have been busy ignoring my textbook all week and will cram it all in a day before the test.

Waking up to this little guy makes every day good. He does wake up pretty much like this, too. I however, wake up like a mute with a sign posted on my forehead, "No questions for at least one half hour, please."

Hello, lover. Ah, here's what I need in the morning, coffee, peanut butter on toast and a chance to read or write on my computer.

Let's see, I will ignore this pile of dishes for a little while. Leftover task from previous evening.

Somewhere in there I got Manny ready for school and put him on the bus like a normal mom. However, we are always in a rush. There is no way in hell I could have remembered to take a pic. This is my foot getting out of the car to go to my step class at the gym. Am I a weirdo because I love step classes?

Me sweating like a pig after my step class. I didn't want to post a photo of myself looking like a freak, but gotta keep it real.

Stopped at Lowes on the way home to get chicken coop building materials, and various sundry things.

Back home, have to unclog the shower drain. Damn my falling out hair all the time.

Lunch while the liquid plumr stuff does its work. This is pretty gross, go ahead and avert your eyes. Cheese, veggie dogs with bbq sauce, and half sour pickles. I know, disgusting.

Then I mowed the lawn. I actually love to mow when I have the chance. So much bang for your buck.

After I mowed, I ran down the road to my lovely chicken guru friend who gave me half a bale of hay to give my girls something to play with in their coop, as opposed to body slamming or pouncing on one another. They are a tad like puppies at this age. Above is my oldest group. Six are ours, two belong to a friend.

Oh, here's my little brooder coop. This really was what I was doing for about an hour, futzing with the coop, taking pics of chicks. I scored this from the lady I bought my big coop from, she threw it in as a bonus. Sweet!

Here's one of my crazy little ones and in the foreground is a CD hanging in their little coop. They like to peck at stuff like this, it's better than pecking each other. Did you know that chickens can get a little cannibalistic? True. Did you know they will eat their own eggs if they get a little weird? True.

I stopped futzing with the chickens and weeded this garden and blew out the old leaves left from last fall.

Quick, before my boys got home, I ran inside and did the dishes. Yes, I left them all day long.

My boy got home from school and he wanted to run through the sprinkler. Which we don't have right now because I think it got destroyed in the snow blower during the winter. So he was satisfied to run through the spray as I held the hose.

Big Daddy hanging out. He must have just returned from a run. I can't remember now, but he runs most days, so it's likely he just finished here in this pic.

Dinner. Apple chicken sausages, pasta with spinach, and a salad. I was ravenous. It was delicious.

We usually visit the chickens before going to bed. They are making their home in baby sister's room. This coming week, I will get moving with my dad on the new coop and give them the boot to the great outdoors. It's a jungle out there, people. My friend has chicks the same age as mine, she put them in the yard in the dog crate, went back in, heard them going crazy, came back out, and there was a hawk standing on top of their cage looking for a free lunch. At my house, a snake was lurking around my coop, wanting to gobble up one of my little chicks. So it is with a mixture of relief and worry that I send these chickens out into the wide wide world.

Daddy bids one of our silkie banties a good night. There should be a couple more pics here. But I put Manny in bed, cuddled with him for a bit and promptly fell asleep.

I loathe the grocery store now.

2011-05-11T10:27:00.003-04:00

The grocery store. I used to really enjoy it and now, not so much.

When I moved out of my parents' house and started food shopping just for little old me, I lurved it. Such independence! I'll take this, I'll take that, whatever I please, thank you very much. The grocery store became a place where I would not skimp, either. Of course, I have never been rich, but I take sweet delight in getting healthy beautiful foods or special treats and not feeling like I have to watch every penny. It is an indulgence for me, I guess.

When I had Manny, the grocery store took on a different tone completely. I think there are usually a good deal of senior citizens in my grocery store, at least half of the people are older, when I go there. Upon seeing a baby, there was so much oohing and ahhing, so much chatter, the whole thing became a social event. Especially with Manny, who is uber-chatty and uber-social. At one point, he had become an ambassador of friendliness for our otherwise rather shy introverted family. He said *HI* to absolutely everyone. If you know me, you know I'm a little shy and can even be stand-offish (not on purpose, it's just I'm, you know, a little painfully shy sometimes). So you get the idea. Grocery store = social event. Fine, I still liked going to the store.

Then Manny started Kindergarten. No more little friend with me in the grocery store. He won't go with me anymore, even if I ask. (And why, you want to know? Because the kid likes to stay at home pretty much all the time when he is not in school. Now there, he is right in line with the family dynamic. We are three of the biggest homebodies ever put on this planet. His social life exists at school now.)

And now for the first time in my life, I loathe the grocery store! I can't stand going there. Having gone with Manny all those years had given it a special flavor, a twist on something I had always enjoyed. Now, because I stand in limbo between my big boy and waiting for a new little comrade, I find the grocery store a deplorable place to visit. It feels dull, lonely, expensive, and it is now just a chore. It's a reminder of the second child who is not here. I'd take the dog or one of the chickens if I could. Friends don't go food shopping together. Who in their right mind would do that?

I have to go food shopping now so I guess this is the end of this post. There's nothing in this place to freaking eat because I have put it off for so long. Pathetic, but true, nonetheless.

Essential Advice: Travel

2011-05-04T17:45:00.003-04:00

I've been over here reading some invaluable travel details from someone I thoroughly enjoy. Go on over there and read her insightful and information-packed details about her travel to Ethiopia. But first, can I ask you for advice?

I am wondering what your favorite travel guides are, or books for learning about Ethiopia, learning Amharic, anything that pertains to traveling to Ethiopia. Please let me know. It's time for me to really get ready, I think, not to mention my traveling companions. Pete will go on the first trip with me, but on the second I am going with one of my bestest best friends and we all want to be prepared. (I have read lots of fiction and memoirs having to do with Ethiopia already, just looking more for travel information now, thanks.) Please feel free to leave any bit of advice you have, too.

Shoot.

2011-05-03T22:53:00.004-04:00

That's right, I'm shooting bullets. Bullet points, that is:

the last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of activity and I have not kept up with blogging, reading others' blogs, facebook, email, phone calls. nothin'.

tomorrow I have nothing scheduled except after school Manny has swimming lessons. they are almost over, thankfully. he will learn to swim, me thinks, but probably not at formal lessons.

tomorrow I am going to read blogs. it is supposed to rain. all. day. long. I can't wait to just spend the day reading.

my chickens stink. of course, all chickens stink. they need a coop. quickly.

I am pretty sure I did fairly crappy on my A&P test today. quite sure, don't try to blow smoke in the netherlands, I sucked.

Manny's birthday bash was huge. everybody who was invited pretty much showed up and stayed a long time and it was fun. word to the wise, don't let the pinata thing get blown across the road, scattering in the path of cars, unless you want most of the adults to have minor heart attacks in the midst of the festivities.

I have a new little friend from Ethiopia and I am smitten. I have a new nickname: Chlisteen. I love it.

I got furloughed from my job for two weeks. and it's good news. I could use the rest.

things are good.

With his permission

2011-05-01T06:20:00.003-04:00

I give you the story of my husband's first duathalon. We have a crazy busy life right now. All of us are going in different directions. (And Manny's big birthday house party is today and I really do not even have a spare moment to write this, but I just need to laugh so I'm writing anyway.)

So yesterday Manny had a t-ball game. Pete is the coach, but he had this duathalon to run/ride so his assistant was in charge, along with me and my constant high-fiving, leading five year-olds all over the field, and making sure nobody gets beaned with a bat. Since we've been so busy lately, Pete didn't get his bike down from the garage to air up the tires until right before the race. I walked outside and his bike was sitting in the driveway and there was a big baby seat on the back. He didn't complain or anything (which was a complete shock to me) so I put the bike rack on the car and he loaded his bike up and took off for his first duathalon. And Manny and I took off for his game and we planned to meet up back at home after our respective events.

It turns out that Pete took a great deal of good-natured ribbing about his baby seat during the race. People were hollering as they flew by on their ultra-slim racing bikes, "Hey, you lost your baby!" or something along that line. Did I mention that Pete's bike is a bulky mountain bike? After he had been heckled long enough, he decided to join in. When someone said, "Hey, where's your baby?" he would whip his head around and holler, "Oh no! Have you seen him?!" or "OMG, I lost my baby!"

Men really do mellow as they age. I can remember a time when that kind of thing might have bothered him, but he had Manny and me roaring with laughter yesterday when he told us of his exploits.

And now, I am off to the races, getting ready for the party!

Love letter to a six year old.

2011-04-28T21:53:00.006-04:00

Dear Manny,

Tomorrow you will be six years old. Six years ago tonight I tensely labored with you. When it was time for you to make your way into the world in the morning, the nurse threw back the curtains and then we saw the sunlight streaming across the beautiful river that you have come to know and love. Here's what I love about you:

*your defiance of gravity and amazing physical presence. You bombard us with your little body, you are bombastic, fast, you most often skip, and you can get as limp as a noodle when it's time to get dressed for school. You still fit quite nicely into my arms and you are one good snuggler.

*your talking, I still love this. You are never short on conversation and you are forever seeing something beautiful I have missed.

*your love of your animals. When Mimi died, you grieved for her so, and she deserved this, what a patient friend she was to you. I love how you love our crazy circus dog. Most recently, on a few occasions you got tears in your eyes when you talked about how much you love our chickens. You said, I love them so much, I feel happy sad.

*your kindness. May you never outgrow this persistent streak of kindness that makes you into a wonderful friend, an empathetic person, a beautiful son.

*your love of Daddy. When I told you that Daddy would be your t-ball coach, you didn't say a word. You just looked off into space with such a wistful smile on your face. In my mind you were picturing Daddy floating on a cloud with a Superman cape on, I think Daddy was even glowing.

*your love of routine. When your bus driver was out of work for a month, every day was a struggle for you to go to school. When she returned all was well with the world. You are a faithful one, you boy.

*you. I love you, in all your facets, in through every pore and out through every smile, every tear, every word.

Happy birthday, beautiful one.

Broodiest

2011-04-21T07:17:00.004-04:00

I am a broody hen. Here's the definition:

broody [ˈbruːdɪ]
adj broodier, broodiest
1. moody; meditative; introspective
2. (Life Sciences & Allied Applications / Breeds) (of poultry) wishing to sit on or hatch eggs
3. Informal (of a woman) wishing to have a baby of her own
broodiness n

All my friends and family have noticed how obsessed I am with the chicks and coops and eggs and such. The chickens meet a lot of my needs right now. I am busy with them. I am building things like little perches and covers for their boxes. I hold the little chicks, I worry over the newest little brood of six that came home yesterday. One is lame with a splayed leg, can't stay on its feet for long. I feed them, I water them. I call new chicken friends for advice. I have gone to various homes to tour coops so that I might create the ultimate design for my own flock. I am busy, my mind occupied.

Yesterday, in the midst of a coop tour, a new friend of mine bobbed in and out of the philosophical reasons for keeping chickens. In one moment she would be talking about keeping the coop ventilated and safe from predators, and in the next, she waxed poetically about a mother's need to provide for her children, how the chickens keep her close to the cirlce of life, and the lessons that keeping chickens teach kids. And adults.

I'm not missing any of the meaning involved in my new hobby. Believe me, it's a relief to put my instintcs to work at something useful. Manny is with me at every step, my apprentice, learning about the care and feeding of the small flock. I can craft no more, sew no more, cook no more. I am the broodiest of mother hens.

Chicks and beads.

2011-04-19T09:11:00.003-04:00

I've been getting a stream of beads in, thank you to everybody who has sent one. I love each and every one of them. Every time I see a little package, I am so excited! And each bead seems to be chosen with sweet intentions. I can really feel it. Thank you! And you! And you!
Here's the 'brooder room' also known as the room that awaits baby sister. Today I moved the three bantams into that smaller box there on the left. This morning when I got up I saw that the chicks had had some kind of crazy party during the night, water everywhere, everybody was all hung over, laying around like a bunch of sloths. So I broke up the party. The big box has six chicks and the little box has three sweet little banties.

This little one is a bantam silky. We have two, and are baby sitting one (who was getting picked on by its so-called coop-mates at my friend's house):

This is a white leghorn. We have two of our own and are raising two for friends who are wanting some white eggs later this year. We may be trading them for a couple of bard rock chickens. The white leghorns are headstrong little brutes! We handle the chicks everyday to help keep them somewhat tame.

This little girl is a golden comet. She will turn completely brown and lay brown eggs. They are calmer and sweeter than the white leghorns.

This is a wild banty boy. He has a coop of his own and refuses to sleep in it. He sleeps with his parents in their coop. Oh, that puff ball is one of the squashees he snatched up.

Finally, chick pics for you all. Six more chicks are coming tomorrow, I think. I will get pics of them before they get big like these girls. They grow exponentially, kind of like your banty children.

Round up

2011-04-15T07:04:00.004-04:00

It seems only fair that I should really post nothing over this weekend. What with this going on in L.A., I am in a full on pout right about now. The most I can summon up is bullet points about now so here goes:

My son and I both have wicked cases of poison ivy. I had previously not been a believer of its ability to spread from its original sight of exposure, but I am noticing more and more little breakouts about my body. And Manny is just a shake-your-head-I-am-a-crappy-mother-full-on mess. It. Is. Miserable.

I have eight quickly growing chicks in my house (in the baby sister's room, of course *sigh*). Yesterday in yet another fit of impulsivity, I order six more to arrive next week. And then, impulsively yet again, I ordered four more for the following week. And even this morning I keep thinking I should call back and make that four into a nice even half-dozen. I. Can't. Stop. With. The. Chickens.

I met my friend's lovely, bright, squishable, amazing little son recently arrived from Ethiopia. He is a light, this little man. I adore him.

My anatomy and physiology lab is almost finished and we are done with the wretched cat dissection. That was awful, truly.

It really is spring here now. The pond is a racket of animal noise. Things all around us are greening right up. I have been hiking up on the mountain twice this week and it was bliss.

Look out, L.A., there is, descending upon you, a powerhouse of beautiful, smart, and possibly rowdy women.

When I should have been studying

2011-04-09T14:13:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I took a walk in the morning with my friend down the road, the one who has chickens and goats. It was one long chicken-oriented discussion. I have been on the fence about getting chickens myself for quite some time. But I visited a friend of Manny's the other day for a playdate and they had chickens galore, the fancy kind. You know, feathers on the feet, silky little bantams sporting poofy hat-like plumage on their heads, huge ones, and itty bitty ones of all kinds of colors. I went over the edge and decided to get chickens. I started plotting where we would put the coop. I made plans to build my own coop. We cleared the spot of branches, brush, leaves and what have you for the little chicken run.

I planned to order them online, oh, you know, in the summer sometime. And then I saw that the local farm supply store had chicks. My mind started to race. And on impulse I ran out and got me some chicks and set up the heat lamp and the little box and built a lid (to keep out the extremely prey-driven dog) and I got food and it was all a surprise for you know who.

When he came home from school, he jumped up and down. He named them. He chatted them up. He held them. He coo-ed to them. He said awwwww over and over again. And right before we went to sleep he said, "Mama, I love them so much already." And that is what I did in lieu of studying and it was most definitely worth it. Pics tomorrow, I hope.

Sun down.

2011-04-05T06:42:00.005-04:00

Some time ago, who knows when, because my brain is addled, some blogger woman talked about a challenge to rock your kid, you know, in a rocking chair for a whole bunch of days. I apologize for not being able to link to it directly, I really did search for it, but I just can't find it. Anyway, the idea was to get your kid into your lap and to rock in a rocking chair and hold your not so little one for thirty days in a row and rock away. I love a challenge, but I didn't feel like I could take this one because it wasn't just me who would have to accept the challenge. It would also be an almost-six-year-getting-pretty-gangly-definitely-with-lots-of-sharp-angles-pretty-squirmy boy who was likely to resist the challenge on some of the thirty days of said challenge.

I really love this idea, though, for any child, or for any adult. Rocking is soothing, it's intimate, it's a throwback to something essential, it's grounding, it helps you locate yourself in space, unsettling your equilibrium so that you can really find it. And when you rock with your loved one, there is something there to find together.

So while I did not accept the challenge, I did offer to my boy some time to rock. In the room he inhabited as a baby, we have that rocker awaiting his baby sister.(Otherwise, it's a wreck, really, with her clothes and toys kept away in boxes and bins, and beautification projects half done and Manny's junk all over the place, but I can't do any more on that room right now.) Anyway, I offered to rock with the boy and he took me up on it each time I offered. We have sat together, rocking, and sometimes we talk and sometimes we sing. Most often, he asks me to talk about when he was a baby or about what it was like before he was born. The other night, as he lay draped across my arms and legs, his eyes drooped and he had that lulling to sleep look and his words trailed off for a moment. I had almost rocked him to sleep. But he snapped back to consciousness and continued his story.

My son is always sad on Sunday evenings, the weekend has ended, woe is he! This Sunday he invited me to rock with him. A first. And we sat there together and rocked the sun down.

The little things.

2011-03-30T13:05:00.006-04:00

Recently, I have received a few surprises in the mail. One was a beautiful piece of jewelry from a lovely blog friend. It is silver and inscribed with my son's name. I am so not a jewelry person, it is practically embarassing. However, I wear this particular necklace every single day and have pledged to keep it on until I see my second child. I also received a surprise box of books from a blog reader and friend of mine who rarely comments, but is always keeping track of how I am doing. The books she sent have been so fabulous, I have been soaking them up (when I am not studying). She could be my personal book stylist, I do believe. And my mom sent me a box full of handmade sewn goods to raffle at some point in the interest of Ethiopia Reads. I had asked her to make me one thing and instead I received a box packed with lovely sweet things.

All of these thoughtful surprises came right around the time I heard about the new changes going on in the adoption process in Ethiopia. Along with emails from friends checking in on me and keeping in touch on the phone with friends, those little surprises have buoyed me along as my emotions have started to dip across the waves of change and the unknown effect on the path to my second child. So it in this spirit of what little things can do that I ask you to participate in something special with me.

Quite a while ago when I was a burgeoning blog reader and soon-to-be blogger myself I found a lovely blogger, Il Panettiere, who told us of this wonderful idea: The Blessing Way. Another bloglovely expanded the Blessing Way, too. The idea is to give a bead along with a blessing to a woman who is getting ready to have a child. The string of beads connects this woman to all her friends and supports her during her experience.

So Il Panettiere says:

If you would like to participate, please pick a bead from a local store or, if you have limited choices, go online to find something that touches you (www.artbeads.com). Before sending it to me, write down a poem, story or wish to accompany the bead. Make sure to use a padded evelope (or your bead will be put through the wringer at the Post Office). Once received, I will place the bead on a strand. Eventually I will seal the strand and the beads can then be wrapped around my wrist or my neck.

If you know me at all, then you know I am fairly shy. So it is with a tiny bit of hesitance that I ask you to join me. But then I think of how very, very much I enjoyed picking out the beads for my friends and sending them off in packages to them and how much I cherished being a part of the string of beads that buoyed them through their own journeys. And then I think, it's okay, it's good, to just ask. Okay!

So, if you would like, leave me your email in the comments section or send me an email and I will give you an address where the bead can be sent! And, by the way, if you are a woman who could use a little support on your path maybe you ought to give this a try, too.

Faltering.

2011-03-22T07:19:00.004-04:00

I've been doing the 40 day challenge with this woman. Check it out if you want to lighten your load a bit, you know get rid of stuff that weighs you down. I've done some pretty great stuff, actually, which I will not bore you with. I've had nothing to say on this blog for a little bit now because I'm just kind of floating along. Since the news of the big slowdown in Ethiopian adoptions, I had one day of meltdown and after that I went into pragmatic mode, pretty much. You know, I wait and see what the new rules will end up looking like. I try not to overreact.

But life has taken a different turn. Manny goes on including Baby Sister in his conversation like he always has, but in my head I think things like, if there ever is a baby sister, or why did I let myself take so long to finish the adoption paperwork?

One of the first things I thought when I really grasped what the new rules meant was that Ethiopia is just going to end up closing and we will never have baby sister. I thought that I was foolish to have believed in fate, that there was a thread connecting me to a child in Ethiopia. I thought I was foolish to have been a nesting maniac and somehow connecting my activity to my imagined daughter in Ethiopia. Just magical thinking, I thought. It's interesting that I started to immediately turn it on myself, though. I immediately began chastising myself for believing.

But then, like I said, I went into pragmatic mode and started tip-toeing in limbo land. I had floundered for a few days and then I noticed that regardless of what the news was I still very connected to Ethiopia and still felt that I would go there one day.

But yesterday I had a fleeting thought, we could just give up. I put aside for a moment any thoughts of how this might affect Manny, and thought: we could just give up. No more children, just Manny, we're a happy little family. When you have an adoption lingering about, when you don't know if it will really happen, when you don't plan any travel, any vacations, when you don't get rid of any baby toys, any girl clothes you've been collecting, when you remain in this space for so long, you get to a moment when you want to put it all down. And you want to rest from all the stuff you are carrying around in your mind.

And I stayed with that thought for a few minutes, to let it wash over me.

And then I thought something else: if the tie between me and my second child is ever broken, I will not be the one breaking it. I won't give up. Something may impede this process, but I will never look back and think about what it would have been like if I hadn't just quit. I picked up all the worries and uncertainty, put my Liminal State t-shirt back on, and carried on with the belief that there will be another child in our home. I think that is the thing about faith, that it's okay to falter, in fact, faith is all about faltering and then believing again.

Many colored days.

2011-03-10T11:04:00.003-05:00

I have read so many interesting posts lately in bloglandia. Interesting, smart, insightful, and supportive. And even funny. I always need a good laugh, not just lately. This post cracked me up. I was definitely at 'check your head' level last weekend. It was also good to read this from Katy. On so many levels. I talked to my agency on Monday and they had nothing new to say, but it was good to talk to them, nonetheless. I pretty much regained my equilibrium on Monday and had been having a fair to midland week. Until I came sliding into today. Today, not so good.

Have you ever read this book? It is one of my favorite books to read with Manny. Right now my days feel unpredictable, kind of like my adoption process. I feel a bit afraid of sinking into a place that makes the days run together, not good days either, despite how much I have to be thankful for in my life.

This is me today, definitely. Besides the fact that it is actually quite grey out, with cold rain falling, I also feel this way inside:

Manny and I both have favorite pages in this book. Cool, green fish is my favorite page. That is my favorite way to feel. I don't need my days to be 'happy pink.' Cool and quiet is my favorite baseline emotion:

Interestingly, Manny loves this page. He is actually pretty much a relentlessly happy kid, but he loves this page for some reason:
Last night Manny asked me about who the fourth person in our family will be. What is the fourth person's name going to be? He has never asked me this before, not in this way. We talk about baby sister, but he has never said "fourth person." I mentioned to my friend who has a daughter in Kindergarten, too. She said she bet he brought it up because they are doing the family tree project in school. In case you forgot or don't know how I feel about the family tree, go here. So I start wondering, is the kid drawing a tree in school and trying to decide how to make a limb for the 'fourth person in his family?' Should I make a limb, not make a limb, what name should I put on it? Which makes me think a whole bunch of other troublesome thoughts. Is he struggling with waiting for his sibling? Has he overheard us lately talking about the news of a slowdown? Negotiating all of the adoption stuff with this whip smart little fella trying to nose into your conversations is not easy:
That's him in his Buzz Lightyear costume from Halloween. He's talking into the 'wrist communicator' I made for him.

Right now I worry about two things: one, that his sibling will be lingering much longer in care than I am prepared for. I can handle it, but that is always the time I was dreading to begin with, after referral until she comes home. I. Dread. It. And according to what I know now, that period of time is set to lengthen exponentially. Two, I worry about my son, how it will end up affecting him.

Disclaimer: Yes, I want an ethical adoption, whatever it takes. That doesn't make me immune from my own worries.

The good you are.

2011-03-07T07:38:00.002-05:00

A month or so ago my favorite patient died. It wasn't easy, by any means, to watch him die. However, the arc of his life was so complete, his wife was at ease with his passing, and I, too, was able to let go because he had no loose strings. Life was very complete for him, resolved. It seemed like a bit of a masterpiece in living.

That doesn't mean that I don't miss him. I really do, he lit up every single day at work. And I have felt kind of lost there with no special person to give my love to. Don't get me wrong, I give and take lots of attention and love from all the patients, but usually I have a special friend.

On Friday I met a brand new patient. Because of privacy laws, I can't tell you his name. That NAME is so incredibly sweet and intriguing, though, that I have to give you something to compare it to, like Sigmund Pumpkinflower, or Milton Pinkywinkle. That is how cute his name is, but because his name is real, it's even better.

Because Friday night was HEC to the TIC at work, I didn't get to say hello to this sweetheart until after he was already in bed. I walked into his room and told, Milton (I'll call him Milton) that I had to give him his evening meds. He looked up at me with confusion in his eyes and said, "I know that I buried my wife, but I don't know if I buried my parents and I just can't remember where."

He went on and on about where they might be buried, but what if he forgot, and this is not the kind of man he wants to be....etc. I sat down on his bed and took his hand. He went on to explain that he worked for the railroad, on the very dangerous electrified third rail. He said, "You can work that rail, but you can't have a leak in your boot. If it rains and you touch an electrified puddle, there is no just getting hurt," he said, "You're just plain dead. But I made my way through that job and I never lost a man on my crew. I made sure none of them had holes in their boots."

He said that every Saturday on his way home from working the Mott Haven line, he would stop and buy flowers. I grinned and said, "For your wife?" His eyes filled with tears again, "No, for the graves of my parents." He gripped my hand and the tears spilled over and I wiped them away with the sheet. He went on, "What good am I now? What kind of man am I now?"

I wish I could have whispered this, but he is hard of hearing so I said loudly, "The good you are now, is to me, to us here. You just gave me that part of your life and it means so much to me. And that's what good you are in this world."

I do believe I fell in love a little bit on Friday with Mr. Milton Pinkywinkle.

On the inside.

2011-03-06T06:59:00.003-05:00

The one thing I remember about going through infertility was the loneliness. I had primary infertility which was no picnic, by any means, but after I had my son and then a couple years later started with treatment for secondary infertility, I was a miserable woman. My desire for a second child was giant. Engulfing. I know, you may think I sound greedy, but it's just how I felt. I went through an IVF. Fail. I went through accupuncture. Fail. I went through an attempted frozen blast transfer. It didn't make the thaw. Heartwrenching fail.

I decided to adopt. I still felt that immense desire for a second kid. I was still possessed. I wanted an infant and I wanted it immediately, in order to halt the horrid feeling I had on my heart. I had a few people whom I could talk to about it, but the ones I found on the internet were the ones who really got me through. They became my real life friends who got it, who got me through.

When I was out in the world, at work or carrying on with the mundane, I felt encapsulated. Inside of me was a torrent of emotions and grief. I wonder if people saw me and thought, what a sad woman. People don't really notice. I felt alone in my mind and heart. I just went on though life like this.

My adoption paperwork process grinded to a halt over and over. I didn't realize it at the time, but I just couldn't turn in that dossier while I was still grieving about infertility. I know now that I had to be done with needing a second kid and get into wanting a second kid. I'm not saying I have no unselfish motives in my pursuit in family building, but I no longer NEED it like I once did. This child is wanted, not needed.

What scared me yesterday as I went about my life is that I felt that old feeling. Me walking through life with an aching heart and all the people about me not knowing how horrid I felt. It is because of how possessed I was by my infertility and the grief it caused that I have been pretty even-keeled about my wait in adoption. I just could not afford to have my heart jerked around anymore by things that are out of my control. I have largely ignored the rumor mill, trying to protect myself from obsessing, trying to not think about time, waiting, lists....etc. It's been self-preserving, life-preserving. Smart? Or dumb? I don't know.

I do know that when I put that grief behind me I became a better mom to my son, a better wife to my husband, and I liked being with me much more. But yesterday I felt like that other person, though, not noticing the little things, not easy to be with, encapsulated once again. Inside of fear, the not knowing.

I want an ethical adoption. I get all of this, I do understand how it works. But I worry about children caught in the middle. I worry about longer stays in orphanages. I worry about real needs not being met. I worry about my friends in the middle or at the tail end of long waits. But I also worry about ethics so I get it. Nonetheless, on and on, I worry.

Yesterday I talked to a friend. And I got emails from sweet friends who showed their concern. If there is a woman out there who can make it without her friends, I want to know who she is. For me, my friends make all the difference. I am so damn grateful for that. I don't really feel better this morning, but I do feel determined to hold on, to step forward on the path.

Here's the link to the article about possible changes in Ethiopian adoption.

I pout.

2011-03-01T07:30:00.003-05:00

I just got word yesterday that Ethiopia Reads did not make it into the NYC marathon charity program. I was already having a day that was less than splendid and this news was the cherry on top of the crapcake that was my day, thank you very much. So. My husband planned to run this year and I would have, too, if ER had gotten into the marathon. But now, I just don't see myself wanting to give my $2600 (x2 for both of us) to a different charity after all the hope I had put into Ethiopia Reads getting in. So, if Pete applies again to NYC lottery this year, next year he gets in regardless. So, I am going to try and convince him to just use his running skills in fundraising for Ethiopia Reads. And I will carry on with my fundraising plan for April. He has plans for two marathons already this year, one in Vermont in May, and probably the Mohawk River Marathon in October.

I am so sad about it, though. And I wonder what it takes to get into the NYC marathon as a participating charity. You can only apply with an on-line application which is pretty difficult to make look beautiful and intriguing. It's just a big form. I had even printed up business cards for myself to help me make some contacts and put the word out there. That's how much I was believing it would happen. I'm going to give myself a day to pout and then I will just get over it and move on. But today, I pout.

Magical Thinking

2011-02-28T07:34:00.004-05:00

I thought that writing about attachment would be easy because I had so many thoughts in my head about it. Since Claudia asked about thoughts on the subject, I have been thinking and thinking about it. Thankfully, not writing and writing about it. Because I had a few lightbulb moments that proved just how naive I can be. I've come up with a few bulletpoints. I think some people think bulletpoint blogging is not great, but I actually like this style.

*I have a biological son. He has some attachment issues of his own. I have written about his separation anxiety before. But I am having a hard time talking about it much anymore because I almost feel like it is too private.

*I have my own attachment issues. I remember distinctly, when Manny was a baby, that I wanted to be the one person who could comfort him. I wanted to be the one who was his preferred caregiver. Now, as I look back on it, I was just satisfying some of my own needs to finally be in the revered position of 'mother.' Maybe I am not feeling too kind toward myself right now, but it's not so pretty looking back on that.

*On the upside, I have been talking with Pete about this a lot over the last few days. I asked what it felt like for him to attach to Manny when he was born. For him it seemed simple and he couldn't really put it into words. It was his attaching to Manny that softened me from my entirely deer-stuck-in-the-headlights frozen feelings about my newly born son. I was overwhelmed with a sense of responsibility. Is he breathing, is he eating, is he pooping, is he sleeping, it was the new mantra of my life. I loved him, yes, but it wasn't emotional, it was instinctual, I felt like a mother wolf, not a human mother so much.

*My husband thinks our attachment to baby sister will be different. Of course it will be, I say, but I don't think I really believed how different it might be until now. Magical thinking. However, I do think we will do a good job, that we will do our best by this little one.

Did anyone else think about fathers and how they attach? I said to Pete, "You know, if a woman is pregnant, she knows she is the mother of this baby, I mean biologically (not including IVF where someone might make a mistake and switch up your embryo). So there is no doubt for a woman, but some men get tricked by women, they are told they are the father when the woman might not know who the father is (just watch Jerry Springer to see the truth). But these fathers can get attached to the kid because they are under the assumption that the kid is biologically theirs." Pete just kind of stared at me. I think he thought to himself, I have married a complete nut, did she really just refer to Jerry Springer in our discussion on attachment?

So. Anyway, I have thought a lot about this regardless of my husband thinking I am a nut. Fathers, how do they get attached to bio or adopted children, how do they bond? Do mothers have higher expectations about attachment?

*I feel a little self-conscious talking about attachment. It seems private, almost like talking about religion or politics. Why is that?

*I asked friends on FB to let me know about their favorite books on attachment. I have Patty Cogen's book, not to worry. But if you have a favorite, please let me know in a comment.

Jeez, I need a nap now.

The fevered nest.

2011-02-23T09:52:00.003-05:00

I have become a woman obsessed. I am in a constant frenzy of making one thing after another. I sew and sew and sew. I chop and saute and bake and fry. I have banished my husband from the kitchen in my effort to dominate anything that needs to be made. I craft and craft and craft with the boy. I often get like this, but not really like this, in the depths of winter when I am housebound.

It is satisfying, and yet it is not. My output is amazing by my own standards, although I am aware of people out there who lead entire lives doing this kind of making things all the time. But my activity has a bit of a frenzied quality. As soon as I finish one thing, the satisfaction lasts but a moment and I am on to the next creation.

I do believe I am nesting at a fevered pitch. I feel something about baby sister in my heart that compels me to do something, anything. I can't finish her room because, for some reason, it feels like it is not time to do that yet. I don't think I can bear to see it in its final stage of completion and being empty of the person who belongs there. I prefer that it remains mostly done and Manny and his friends use it as a classroom or a restaurant or what have you.

Today I woke feeling sorry, literally. I feel sorry for the circumstances that are leading to baby sister losing her family. Slightly melancholy, but once the coffee kicks in I will head off to craft or sew or cook or whatever else takes my mind of where she is, what is happening, and how my life is being woven into that of a family in Ethiopia.

You laugh.

2011-02-20T10:44:00.004-05:00

You have to laugh, at least I do. That's the nature of my job and maybe the nature of life, much of the time. The other day I was getting "observed" as I did my med pass. This lady, Cecelia, who is a sweet little peach, observed me as I poured my meds and administered them. It was kind of awkward, doing it all by the books when normally I have to do a little tap dance or concoct special little cocktails in order to get my patients to take their meds. Not to mention, she was expecting me to look at their wrist bands to be sure to know who they are (when I know them all too well) and then ask them their names. Asking that, I could get a variety of answers, such as, "Get the $%@! out of here" or "What? WHAT? You know I can't hear" or quite likely just a little smile and a long stare.

Regardless, I went through my paces for Cecilia. At one point I was working away at my med cart, looking all nursey and professional and all, when I hear a dreaded voice calling me, "Christine, hey Christine." I am afraid to even turn around. This man, I'll call him Nooch, has an unusual dementia. I would say he does not have Alzheimer's, although he cannot remember anything, but within a conversation, he can keep up quite nicely and has no confusion, very atypical dementia. And, oh yeah, I should mention that he has turned into a full-time chop-busting crown prince of debauchery. He speaks Italian with some of his paisans and, believe me, you don't have to speak Italian to know he's being naughty. One day this little 102 year-old man caught them talking nasty and hollered at them, "You think I don't know what you're saying, but I do!" And then he lectured something at them in Italian, in which I believe he invoked their mothers and how ashamed they would be and how they'd roll in their graves to hear their sons talk this way. They looked sheepish and I put my arm around little 102 and thanked the heavens for a respectable man to come to my rescue.

So, anyway, I digress. Nooch was whispering my name as Cecilia was monitoring my every move. Finally, she stepped away for a second and I turned around to look at him and he whispered, "Hey babe, sit on my lap whydontcha?"

Of course. I knew it was going to be something indecent.

I whispered at him through clenched teeth to knock it off. But, of course he couldn't hear me and he's all like, "what what what WHAT?!?" Normally, I would bust his chops because it's the thing he loves most. I would talk about how he couldn't possibly get any balder or when the baby is due (because of the size of that belly) or what have you, but I was trying to be all good and not end up in nursey jail. So I did the only thing I could. I pushed the very roguish Nooch's wheelchair over to one of the aides so that he could ogle and harass somebody else and returned to my very professional med pass.

Just asking.

2011-02-17T07:07:00.004-05:00

Do you think that mama guilt is worse when you have an adopted child rather than a bio child? I wonder about this. I am such a ridiculous sucker when it comes to feeling guilt about not doing my mama thing as well as I think I should. But when baby sister comes home, is my guilt about mother suckage going to be worse than it is with Manny? I loathe the idea that somehow my mama guilt will be increased (exponentially?). What do you think?

Also, I am in a nesting frenzy. I am a manic nester, sorting, organizing, getting rid of stuff, wanting everything to be more beautiful. I can't stop myself. What is this about?

I guess my MIL has the nesting bug, too, because she made this sweater for Manny for Valentine's Day. Mad cute:

I moved the kids' art table and put up some of our recent artwork: Put together my new compact little shelf unit from IKEA that holds way less than the big clunky hutch that used to fill up our dining room:
And I put together the new dining room table which was an all morning affair, but well worth it. And most importantly, the chairs actually fit under the table, no more jamming toes against chairs stuck too far out in to the path of walking: (and oh yeah, that's my new table runner, I finally made something for myself) And just in case you were wondering if there is still a lot of snow on the ground, here you go:

Nuchal rigidity and where the mind goes.

2011-02-13T08:18:00.003-05:00

My kid has had a sickness over the last week. He started off with a fever, nothing else. This was about eight days ago. Then he got neck pain (and this is where I started to get a bit of perseverating going on). Neck pain? Come on, this takes my mind to places it does not ever want to go. But I let it ride and the pain went away and he got a sore throat and a regular cold and no more fever. Went to school from Wednesday on through the week.

Friday afternoon, he gets off the bus, hustles into the house, the whole time he is talking about how terrible he feels, he's shivering, the fever is back. He has relapsed or is this a whole new bug? He asked for a pillow and a blanket, clambered on the couch and shivered. I gave him advil and climbed into help him get warm. He asked to drink water and he took lots of sips. I can't even say how out of character this is for him. To voluntarily lay down? Never. To ask for sips of water? Not a chance.

And then he said the trigger phrase, "My neck hurts again." My mind was back off to the races. And I was googling meningitis and encephalitis and other frightening things.

So he goes on being sick, spiking fevers, and the fever abating, complaining of neck pain.....etc. When I came home from work last night, though, I saw his fever from across the room. Bright red lips, rosy cheeks, watery eyes. 103 F. I double dosed him, tylenol and advil, googled some more stuff, talked with Pete about taking him to the E.R. Finally, I called his pediatrician's office, which I have to say, is absolutely fabulous. It is a HUGE practice so you might think it is impersonal, but it is so not. They have on call doctors and within two minutes one called me and we discussed the neck issue.

We discussed the difference between nuchal rigidity (neck stiffness) and neck soreness. I stressed how much I did not want to take him to the E.R. because more than likely they would cover all their bases and want to do a lumbar spinal tap. Terrible pain for my boy, I just didn't want to do it unnecessarily. The doctor said that it sounded like the flu and that I was right to worry about meningitis, but it was not meningitis. He even laughed at me as I explained how I kept tricking Manny into moving his neck so I could see whether or not there was really stiffness.

About an hour or so later, I looked over at Manny and the covers were thrown off him and there were beads of sweat around his hairline. The rosy look to his cheeks and the deep red of his lips had evaporated. The fever had broken. He looked over at me and said, "Mama, I'm so sweaty." And then he jumped up and ate a piece of toast, turning his head this way and that way. And I breathed a sigh of relief.

Little drummer man.

2011-02-11T09:18:00.001-05:00

I feel so much better.

2011-02-09T16:47:00.002-05:00

My dear friend sent me this beautiful image when she saw my distress over the lack of unicorns here in the great north. She is a lovely friend with a very wacky sense of humor and she ~~loves to mock my pain~~ loves me. I was a bit thrown by this first unicorn because I thought she purposely made the horn thing look like snow just to torture me (maybe I am getting a tad paranoid):
But, I will have you know that as soon as I complained about the snowy horn thingy on my unicorn, she quickly made a new horn thingy that is......what else? The color of the rainbow. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, you loon.

What, no unicorn?

2011-02-09T12:11:00.003-05:00

In response to my rather desperate post from yesterday, my friend, Kate, sent me this beautiful little ~~uplift to help me maintain my sanity through the depths of winter~~ happy postcard type thingy on facebook. She's very good to me. Once when my dog died, she sent me a book called Good Dog, Stay. I had been crying every day for a couple weeks straight and this book somehow put my mind and heart at rest and I was able to go on and love that nut we have for a dog now. She really is a good friend and she has a house that I completely covet. She is special indeed.

But there is one thing I want to know. Where in the hell is my unicorn??!! The unicorn is the thing that is going to pull me through. Yes, lollipops, rainbows, the sunshine, it's helping, but come ON! I really need my unicorn.

Oh, as far as dressing like a clown and actually being my own rainbow, I want to thank you, semiferalmama, for being one hell of a spin doctor.

I ask you.

2011-02-08T12:52:00.005-05:00

Where have all the unicorns gone? Are rainbows even possible in winter in New England? Do you have any lollipops I might borrow?

Because I had just about sworn off complaining about winter, but it seems that is just impossible. We had two inches of slushy snow last night which is currently cemented to the driveway like frozen grey lava. Additionally, the plow trucks keep coming by, seemingly to widen the ever-narrowing road, but are also dumping loads of ice chunks into the end of our driveway. The good thing about the pile of ice is that it has created kind of a cliff at the end of the driveway which almost helps me to see over the ginormous mounds of snow to each side. One more good plowing and I think my car will look like it is ready to launch into orbit rather than drive down a road full of black ice.

This morning it was all I could do to make myself go to school because that small college sits at the northern edge of the world and the winds howl straight off the mountains and can freeze your eyes wide open. The winds are murder. But, oh no, despite my lack of lollipops and no unicorns in sight, I dragged myself out, dressed in my scrubs (cause I gotta work tonight) and looked ridiculous in a bright orange coat, turquoise pants, and white shoes (I know, please, people probably think I am a clown and I've lost my circus troupe), and went to class like a good woman. But oh no, it was cancelled. That's right, cancelled, just my class, not the whole college.

And now, I am dragging myself out into the most uninhabitable tundra with nary a rainbow in sight and going to work.

It really does help to get it all out there. Thank you.

If you have a spare unicorn, maybe some skittles or lollipops, or like to draw unicorns or rainbows, just send them my way. Thanks again.

Boy and girl.

2011-02-05T09:09:00.005-05:00

At my job, there is a young woman who has a nearly 2 y.o. daughter. When you ask her how the baby is, she always answers comically. She recently quipped, "I had to tell my husband to take her away before I flung her out the door into the snow" and then we all crack up and go on about kids and their antics. This mother talks about how much her daughter is in love with her daddy. Another nurse who has three grown sons told her, "Oh girl, you need to have a son so that you can find out what true love is all about." And I looked at her and thought, she's right.

Which got me to thinking, of course. (what else is new, hmmmm?) The love I have with my son is the truest love I have ever known. I can compare it only to the love I have for my husband. But the love of a child is so innocent. Therefore, it lends itself to feel like "true" love, in my mind. Spousal love is different, unique in its own way. And then I get to thinking, what is the difference between the loves you have for your children, given that you have more than one? And is there a difference between loving a daughter and loving a son? Which then gets me annoyed with myself because I am then partaking in sex stereotyping and assumptions and that is not the direction I want to head.

But, I think I am also considering Manny's boyness. You see, not only do I love his personality, his spirit, I love that rowdy boyness. I love the taking a whiz in the yard, I love the pulling the underwear out of his buttcrack, I love the jeans falling down around his hips, I love the neverending physicality of him.

I had a friend who said, in reference to a newly pregnant woman at our job, "She needs a daughter to soften her heart, she needs to see herself in her daughter." And I wonder to myself, will this daughter soften my heart? Will she bring about in me an empathy I have never had before? Will I see the little girl I once was inside of this little one? I wonder what she will be like. I wonder what I will love about her uniquely.

This morning.

2011-02-04T09:06:00.003-05:00

Since I now have my labs (those of you on FB have heard me there complaining about how much I detest it) on Thursday evenings and then I work tonight, I wanted to spend some quality time with the kid. Two days straight with hardly any Manny time = not fun.

Just for fun: Hot Dog:

Here's Manny telling me everything about his drum lesson from last night. Daddy takes him now which means I miss out on the lesson myself. I had been learning vicariously.

Check this out, Mama. He is getting one drum at a time. If he practices. And he is, with some minor pushing.

And we kept working on our owls. I got the idea from That Artist Woman. I love her blog.

Happy weekend to you.

p.s. I hate the lab because we are dissecting something that is soaked with formaldehyde. The smell is horrid. And by the way, it's not a cadaver. I am completely convinced that the dissection requirement is in place just to scare away the squeamish.

Lifting, lightening.

2011-02-02T07:23:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was the nicest day. We had yet another snow day. Since the holidays we have had one storm after another and no melt. Our house and yard and everything are covered with white that is, as I write, getting a nice crystalline topping of ice. Chances are we may lose electricity. I am not complaining, really, I'm not! It just is what it is.

Yesterday, I noticed a lightness, a lifting. I think it was because it was February. The long night of January was coming to an end. The dawn of the new month makes me feel hopeful. In February, somewhere in there, the weather usually breaks, we may get some melt and we may even see some migrations begin.

Yesterday we walked down to our friends who have an excellent yard for sledding. We walked three abreast down our snow-covered road and pulled the sleds along, Manny jumping on them at times and laughing. Manny stayed at his friends' house after sledding and Pete and I walked home and we cleared the driveway and shoveled the walks and came inside and relaxed.

Often I experience background noise, even in my best days, noise involving worry about something to do with baby sister. Where is she? What about her birthfamily? When we will get a referral? I sometimes even feel dread about the changes we, as a family, are all about to undergo. Yesterday, though, I felt happy anticipation. I wish she were walking with us four abreast, or that she was toted in a backpack, or pulled in a sled with her brother. I just simply wanted her with us.

Celebrate him.

2011-01-31T07:05:00.003-05:00

My most favorite patient passed away on Friday morning. I wasn't there to be with him as I had hoped to be. I didn't know he had gotten that bad. But I can't always be there when I want or need to be. My friend called me and told me he was gone and I shed my tears here at home. My husband was so sweet, he kept saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." But I noticed that I was not as sad as I expected to be. I dreaded losing this man, my friend, but in the end it was not that bad. And now, after spending the weekend with my friends at work, I understand why.

Gerry was an 84 y.o. man who had spent the last two and a half years at our facility. He had had numerous strokes which left him paralyzed on his left side. He was our comeback kid. His health had dipped numerous times. At one point he had gone for months not talking at all. I thought I had had my last conversation with him, but one day he started to talk again, and once he got rolling the guy never shut up again. He had confusion and according to the terms of social norms, he was horribly inappropriate, especially with the ladies. All this added up to a man who was a complete laugh riot. He was a stinker deluxe!

Yesterday at work, one of the aides (oh she is a gem, the very heart of kindness she is) told me that she stayed with Gerry as he died. She said she kept thinking of me the whole time. As he was dying, there was an emergency down the hall and an admission of a new patient going on and she kept looking out the door in hopes that someone who wasn't scrambling around like a mad person would come sit with her to usher Gerry from this life. But, it wasn't to be. She stayed with him as his breathing, which had been labored for weeks now, deepened and calmed, and the grip he had on her hand loosened, and he was gone.

She told me this and the general good feeling I had about Gerry's passing grew larger. It was only increased again when I spoke to his wife on the phone and she told me about how she came to the home after he was gone and stayed with him for two hours in the room and the reverend came and said prayers and held her hand. She said she couldn't be happier that it had gone exactly the way it had. She was married to this rascal-y, wonderful, kind, and handsome man for twenty-five years. She had buried her first husband, who died at the age of 48, after twenty-five years of marriage, also. Two marriages, she said, both twenty-five years long, she told me she knew how to bury and mourn a husband. But, she said, I celebrate Gerry, what else can I do?

Instead of making me want to shield my heart from more losses, Gerry is the kind of man who makes one want to open your heart wider and love more. He had an entire flock of admirers, he was utterly popular, a very well loved man. We playfully argued with each other about who he loved the most, a bunch of silly daughters scrambling to be the favorite of the father. I never missed a chance to see him when I went to work. As his health started to fail more over the last six months, I dispensed with silly banter, went straight to his bedside, took his hand, and said, I love you. And our conversation was calm and sweet and I always knew that no matter how or when he left this life, the last thing he heard from me would be, I love you. I will miss him, but I celebrate him, too.

How to make ice sculptures (so as not to suck in winter)

2011-01-27T21:15:00.003-05:00

Okay, that green one in the front. I put a branch that had those bright orange berries on it (that I pulled off a tree somewhere around here) and put it in an empty orange juice box. I had cut off the top part. Then I put in water and some food coloring. For the tall spiky one, it's clear, I took another container with the top part cut off and broke off icicles and stuck them in it and added water. Same deal for the orange and the purple, some empty container, water and food coloring. You can add cranberries, rocks, anything you can scrounge up that looks beautiful frozen in ice.
In these two ones on the bottom right, just water, dogwood branches, coneflower remains from summer, and grapevine. (Anything else that would have been beautiful sticking out of the ice is BURIED under so much freakin' snow. I don't want to even talk about it.) Oh yeah, lastly, once you've filled your containers let those suckers set up in the frigid air of the tundra in which you live and then cut off or tear off the containers. Voila! If you don't live in the tundra, I suppose you could put them in your freezer, but when you take them out they will melt because of the lack of miserable frigidity in the air, oh, and congratulations on being so wise as not to live in the tundra. You have outwitted me.

Blog advice wanted.

2011-01-26T09:11:00.003-05:00

On February 3rd, this blog will celebrate it's 3-year anniversary. I have loved my blog and marvel at the blog friends I have made through the interwebs. It is amazing, truly. Let me thank you now for reading, commenting, and supporting. Oh, and laughing at me and with me.

I've been thinking about this blog, though, lately. I've been thinking about two things: privacy and being more public. My blog is not networked on facebook. The only really public place it is linked with is the people from NaBloPoMo, which is just a bunch of bloggers anyway. What I'm saying is that although this is a public blog and people can find it if they are really looking for what I do on the internet, I have not told most of my family and friends about it and I assume they don't know it exists. There is some stuff on this blog I would probably edit out if I decided to make it fully public, that is, if I invited people to read my blog, people whom I know in my life, other than you who are already reading. Like if I networked it on FB, which is something I really want and need to do.

I have some options I am considering:

*Have the blog printed exactly as it is now so that I don't lose that authenticity of how it currently exists. Then go back and edit it and keep this blog. (I have to edit some private stuff out about Manny so it has to be done.)

*Start a completely new blog and shut this sucker down. I could cry to think about it. I love the name "Mother Paradox."

*Just start a different blog that is unlinked to this one and make that the public one that I network on FB. (Do I really want to do that? I don't want all of my current readers to lose track of me on the interwebs, not to mention you lurkers.)

Why am I doing this anyway? Because I want some of the stuff I have written, particularly about Manny, to be not public. Live and learn. There are things I should probably not have written here. And I want to network the blog more because I am going to be doing some fundraising. I have stuff I want to raffle, I have a fundraiser for Ethiopia Reads to plan and advertise, I have a husband and *gulp* probably me who will be running the NYC marathon this year and I want to fundraise that, too. So it is to my benefit to go public, really public.

So, WWYD? I really want opinions, yes, even from lurkers. And especially from those of you who have switched up their blog identities and those who have stuck with the same web address forevah. Thanks in advance.

Trying not to suck in winter.

2011-01-24T09:06:00.006-05:00

It's January. It's winter. It's abominably freakin' cold. Because I have been participating in a bit of suckage when it comes to the entertainment of a five year old in this deep part of winter and in celebration of the arrival of my new snowpants, I made an effort to make this weekend a little more fun, despite the fact that goes against my very nature to frolic outdoors with temperatures such as this:
To further demonstrate my suckage, here's our Christmas tree out on the front porch, next to my clothes drying rack that is laden with ice and actually frozen to the porch:

And, oh yeah, those Christmas lights on the porch rail. They'll be there til spring. The family and I went to a museum, The Dia in Beacon. I became acquainted with the wonderful art of Sol LeWitt and am now smitten with his drawings:

Tony Cenicola/NY Times
Manny and I decided to take advantage of the frigid temps and make some ice sculptures:

I baked in my new apron. Green is my favorite color and this apron is the most beautiful shade of green ever:

We went sledding and played football in the yard:

I tried to build a little fire and had just gotten it going when the kids (Manny had friends over), the dog, and the husband decided it was time to go in and play:

And we had a little party on Sunday evening to celebrate the best effort of our beloved Jets. Yeah, they lost. Here's the disillusioned husband and the soundly asleep kid as the night came to an end:

Twas a good weekend indeed. Have a good week, everybody.

That part of my brain.

2011-01-22T08:26:00.003-05:00

We are well into our wait, going on 15 months now. When we went onto the waitlist the wait was between 12 and 16 months. Now I see people getting their referrals at 21 months of waiting. Right about here, in the dead of winter, with storm after storm barreling through the northeast, I have started to get antsy. And you may think, here's Christine starting to finally get broken down by the wait. But I am starting to figure something out around about now. I have been okay through the wait because I have been dreading the referral. Don't get me wrong, I don't dread the idea of a baby sister here in my home, loving her, learning about her. I really think that will be great (although I am realistic, as well, that there will be a learning curve and a new set of worries that will accompany fitting this kid into my framework of worry and concern that I know goes along with being her mother, having two kids, becoming a PAP......ad infinitum).

No. I dread the referral for a different reason. I dread it because I am a selfish control freak. Not completely, but it's a part of me. When I see her face, I am afraid I will become a bit obsessed with worry about her. I am afraid I will start to think of her as *mine.* I think I might think about her constantly and wonder if someone is holding her, feeding her, meeting her needs. And I, in no way, mean that I worry about how the nannies are taking care of this child. I have seen videos and photos of them with the children and I have muttered to myself, 'oh thank goodness, look at them kissing and holding them and smiling and laughing with them.' But, remember, I am a selfish control freak and when I think of my baby girl, I am afraid I will think, 'yeah, but it's not ME.'

And then I think about going to Ethiopia and that makes me a little giddy, but, get real, not too much. And why? Because we will be introduced to baby girl and she to us, and then we will turn around and leave her there. For how long? Who knows. Undetermined.

(Let me just take a moment here, a bit of a special report, shall we call it? I know I signed on to adopt a kid. From Ethiopia. I know that this is going on all over the place with people adopting children. I am not telling a lot of people anything they don't already know about two trips and leaving your kid or the wait or blahblahblah. I'm just talking myself down here a little bit. Okay. Back to my regularly scheduled anxious moment.)

And you might say, oh she will be but a baby, it's okay. (Well, maybe not you, but there are people who might think this.) And I used to think that stuff about babies, you know they are just little blobs, they won't remember it. But there was something I learned when my son came home. I found that a lot of people gave me advice that went against my instincts. There were people who encouraged me not to pick him up too much, let him cry, in fact, let him cry it out in order to sleep. And it just didn't work for me. (And it may have worked for you, that is okay, this is not about CIO.) I thought I would be one type of parent and I turned out to be a very different kind of parent. I am way more of a pushover than I ever thought I would be. Oh, I let my son cry it out all right, for all of about 2.5 seconds, the time it took me to reach over and pick up the little booger. And I started to understand what I believed. That yes, my son will not remember being a baby, but he will be shaped by how I parent him as a baby. His memory of this very young time in life will not make him into a fine man, it's how that time shaped him, how he came to see the world based on my best efforts to mother him well.

I've been reminded lately that my son is not mine. I know that, somewhere in the back of my mind, but that part of my mind is not the selfish control freak area. It's another area, I like it better in the part of my brain. It is more rational and knows that my son is no more mine than my daughter will be mine. I am here to foster these creatures into life, that they may have the skills to navigate it and the passion to love it, but they are their own people. Not just in the future, they are their own people now. Nothing makes that more clear than having no control over how and when my daughter will make her way to this home, this life.

So, I have noticed that I am jittery, I feel like I am closing in on a time when the selfish control freak might try to commandeer my whole brain and heart. But I'm trying to have some awareness about it, trying to keep some perspective, trying to give myself over to the absolutely-no-control-whatsoever part of it. That's gotta be the thing, though. I can only control me anyway, so I'm just going to have to get over it. Someone please tell that to the selfish control freak part of my brain.

p.s. Thanks to my friends who have listened to my little freak outs lately, whatever they have been about, because I think they've been about baby sister, in actuality, and you know who you are, and so, thanks.

And.....I'm off.

2011-01-20T13:56:00.004-05:00

Back off to school, that is. Taking the second half of Anatomy and Physiology. I feel positive about it, but don't fret, in no time at all, I will be wringing my hands and worrying about getting a good grade and dribbledribbledribble. We have had so many snow days lately, and just having passed the holiday break, the family has had a lot of together time. Lots. Of. Togetherness. And I love my boys, but when you are generally stuck in the house (because it has either been too cold or too rainy or too snowy or something) with other people for too long you start to just stare off. At nothing. That thousand yard stare of the mother and wife who cannot answer even one more question.

Being in school makes time fly, which I am generally not a fan of, but hey, it is winter and sometime in the spring or summer I might just get a referral for a baby sister and why not let the time fly a little bit? I shudder, thinking of our wait being extended much longer than I am expecting right now. I've been okay with the wait, but I don't want to keep on and on like this.

To pass the time, I think of things I would like to have for baby sister and her big brother. Here's one:

Damn you, Pottery Barn. You bring out the want in me.

p.s. I ordered it, except a smaller version, with green chairs. For the kidS!!

A good beating.

2011-01-19T21:35:00.002-05:00

I try not to go to the hair salon more than a couple times a year. When I go there it feels like I have gone to a tried and true S&M parlor, in which I am unwitting participant, the reluctant masochist. Except for the washing of the hair, it is pure torture. If the whole event were as lovely as getting my hair washed and scalp scrubbed by another human being, I would go weekly, maybe twice weekly. But, alas, it is not so. Besides the lovely hair washing, it otherwise is like a good beating. The combing of my hair is pure torture. My ears pin themselves to the side of my head in hopes they won't be ripped off, left to fend for themselves on the hair-covered floor. I have a few moles (yes, yes, I said moles, in all actuality even the word 'mole' makes me cringe, I start to get a flop sweat even thinking about a mole, much less it being ripped off my neck by the offending comb). I worry about them the entire time I am at the hands of ~~the sadist~~ my beautician.

I used to go the hair salon maybe once a year before I had a kid. After that, all kinds of things in my body went awry and I am left with hair that is no longer shiny and long and luxurious. It is now dishwater blond, all one dishwatery color. I cannot grow it long anymore. Once it gets a tad past my shoulders, it looks wonky and only emphasizes my butt which seems to now have usurped the domain of the back of my knee and joined forces with my calf. Calf + ankle = cankle, but butt + calf =??? I ask you. And in order to bring the hair even close to its former glory (and believe me, I am not vain, but my hair, it was a pretty thing once upon a time), I must put in the time at the ~~S&M parlor~~ hair salon. So, today I had the equivalent of a good beating. I only wish I could go to such a place once a year or so and magically keep my butt and my calf separated from one another.

A good man.

2011-01-18T16:04:00.005-05:00

As a child, I had a favorite uncle, as most of us do. Once I got older I learned the merits of other uncles and how good and sweet and kind they also were and I felt a tad guilty about having a favorite uncle at all. I had so much goodness available, but I spent so much time with this particular uncle and his family and he was so kind and loving to me that it was easy to feel that he was my favorite and maybe I was his, in turn. (I think that is the special quality of a good uncle, that every niece and nephew feels as if he or she is "the" favorite. How generous to spread your wealth of love so that many might feel special.)

He was a kind man, a quiet man. He smoked a pipe that smelled of the sweetness of cherries. He wore black rimmed glasses that added to his charm. He wore plaid shirts with short sleeves and work pants. He never once teased me, although I was accustomed to good-natured teasing in our big extended family. He actually didn't say that much to me at all. His soulful eyes spoke volumes to me, along with his chuckle, and his strong and long hugs. And though we never spent time in deep discussion, he never failed to tell me, "I love you," every single time we said good-bye.

With eight children of his own, one would think he might be frazzled with needy children. But they were far from needy. Indeed, they were robust, unique, smart, full of common sense, learned in school and in life. They took me camping with them where we slept ten to a tent that was certainly meant for less people, but they managed to squeeze me in. With my cousins, we were often up to no good, we took utter delight in everything that their home and the land around it had to offer. I delighted in the love of my cousins and my aunt and uncle. I rode bareback on a very tolerant pony through the woods, paddled in the waters of a flooded river (although we were forbidden to do this) and used a slingshot to shoot rocks into the night sky and watch bats use their radar to gobble them up and then fly back into the trees to spit them out. Our adventures were endless.

Without such a fine man in the world, the whole world seems depopulated. I look back at the luck I had, to have such an uncle and aunt and see that I've been blessed beyond measure.

Worse in the evenings

2011-01-13T19:59:00.004-05:00

Every day since the cat died, we talk about the cat. And death. And we talk about all of the dead animals who have ever inhabited my life. Daddy did not have as many pets as me, therefore it is me who gets to re-live the death and mourning of every pet I ever had.

It's difficult to watch Manny go through this part of life. The death part. He has always had death anxiety. The difficult part for me is that I feel like I have a hard time helping him with this because I am not sure what happens when we die. You might think, yeah, me too, this is hard. Or you might be someone who feels quite confident in knowing what happens to you or me or a cat when any of us dies and I really do wish I could feel that certain.

But me, not so sure. Usually, when Manny has questions, if I don't have the answer, we google it. We get a book about it. We search and find out. But when it comes to the death of his cat, I use the term, "Some people believe that....." this or that happens. And he seems to sense that I am not confident in any of these answers and because we can't discuss what actually "is," he is ill at ease with this turn of events. And with me. He seems to sense I am not sure about what happens to a cat, if there is really a Rainbow Bridge in heaven. For now, we have seem to have settled on the Rainbow Bridge as our understanding of how a pet dies and where it goes afterward.

I have tried to steer him away from talking about it in the evenings, especially right before sleep. I explained that grief is usually worse in the evenings and a little better in the morning. But, nevertheless, he still manages to get the subject going and is crying himself to sleep more often than not. Last night he asked me, "Mama, if you die before me, will you meet me on the Rainbow Bridge with all of your pets when I die?"

This kid has separation issues to begin with. And to think of the *ultimate* separation, death, is very hard on him. And so, it's hard on me. We keep telling him that time heals all wounds. And that's the truth.

Boys in winter.

2011-01-11T07:52:00.003-05:00

Here are my boys with their snowman. I have not been outside to play with my kid yet this winter. I resolve to get outside with him tomorrow after the next foot of snow falls.

Just gratuitous here. He's so cute. I still feel like taking a nibble of him, just like when he was a baby.
Ahem. Further evidence of doofball behavior of my husband. He is openly putting the moves on our snowperson.

Happy winter to you and you and you!

A little more about my husband.

2011-01-08T20:46:00.003-05:00

I have written about him before. Since last I wrote a detailed post about this guy, he has run two marathons, a couple of halfs, and a myriad of smaller races. I feel like his credibility has grown so much that I cannot properly make fun of him. I mean, I married this dude, I love him down to his giblets, but I love to tell stories about him. And why? Because he is so damn funny, he has me snorting and guffawing about one thing or the other almost all the time.

I asked him, on New Year's Eve, if he had any resolutions. He said, "In 2011, I will drink only "top shelf licka." (translate: "Top Shelf Liquor"). I roared at his doofy resolution. Maybe the occasional top shelf beer, but not top shelf licka.

We once went to a movie somewhere in Manhattan (not downtown). As the movie progressed, a woman sitting next to my husband said, regarding his eating of candy, "Could you finish that already?" So, my husband, tolerant of this cranky woman, said yeah, finished his candy, and proceeded to watch the movie.

For a bit. Then, cranky woman started to file her nails very noisily. My husband said loudly, "Are you KIDDING me?" She quickly put away her file and they exchanged glares for the rest of the movie. Only in New York, people.

He ordered P90X for himself for.....what? New Years? I don't know. It's a 90 day workout regime that will get you ripped and lean. One of the catchphrases is "bring it." You need to Bring it! if you want to get strong. This morning as he left for work he held up his lunchbox, hollered at me, "This is NOT bringing it." In other words, I had not made him a lunch, he had to make his own and it sucked.

A kind man who can make me laugh, I love him.

Covering baby sister

2011-01-06T19:00:00.004-05:00

Here are the two big blankets that have been made for baby sister so far. The crazy one pictured here first is my design. I guess, technically, it is a strip quilt, not a crazy quilt, but it looks crazy enough.
I even embroidered little elephant onto this scrap, my own design, too:

Within this quilt are two different beautiful napkins from Crate and Barrel. I couldn't resist putting them in:

So the crazy quilt was my design and I put the top together independently. My mom helped me with the batting and backing and I hand-sewed the binding myself. I love that my mom always gets my vision of how I want my sewing projects to look.

The next quilt, this huge beautiful red thing, my mother made, for baby sister. She told me it is called Red Work. Yeah, tell me about it, that is a lot of work. I can't imagine how many hours she put into it. Mine was a fraction of the work, believe me.

The following square design is at each corner. My mom was so pissed that the kit came with one square short of the main design. So she improvised and put these different ones on the corners. I love the change up more than I would have liked everything to match.This is the main design square:

My mom wants baby sister to have this when she is no longer a baby. She said the red is a little much for a little baby, but I think my girl can hang with it. She can choose for herself.

Mimi

2011-01-05T09:04:00.003-05:00

Last night our 13 year old cat died. She has had hyperthyroid and over the last year she had gone from quite fat to just right to, wait a minute, that looks too thin. Once she got fat in her middle years, she was pretty inactive, she had clumps of fur on her back that I would trim off, she was a bit of a loner. But when she started to get hyperthyroid (we didn't know it at the time), she became active, like a kitten again. She ran through the house, she chased her tail, she eagerly played with toys with Manny. She even goofed around with the dog whom she had previously despised. She became quite svelte and was a vision of her former younger self. But that jump in activity started to take on a manic feel and she became insatiably hungry while still continuing to lose weight. A blood test and trips to the vet proved her surge in energy was not a blast from the past, but, rather, a vision of her future. She went on meds that made her terribly sick and that seemed to actually speed her demise. Manny was asleep when she went. Pete and I held her until the end.

This morning, Manny was told and although he was tearful and sad, he was well-prepared. I think watching her, especially over the last few days, was more stressful than the actual death. It's amazing how different (2 y.o. compared to now a 5 y.o.) he is than when his dog dog died a little over three years ago. It was so difficult to explain to him and his grief was awful. It was the one and only time that we ever cried together. Normally I suck it up in front of him, let him cry if he needs to. I do cry in front of him, just not with him, usually. Am I the only one who feels that way, that two people crying together is just too sad? On the few occasions when Pete and I have cried together, it is so intimate, so sad, that I can't bear it.

She was a member of our family, our grey girl.

Hour by hour.

2011-01-03T12:39:00.003-05:00

I rang in new year's eve at work. I was there from 11pm on the eve until 3:30pm on new year's day. I'm glad I did it. I was worried about being up for so many hours with no sleep for two reasons. I didn't want to go making mistakes at work because hey, who wants an overtired nurse giving out meds. And I was nervous that my long drive home would be very trying. But, I did fine, it really wasn't bad. It was a good way to start the year, doing something I had never done before, and doing something difficult.

Anyway, I was trying to let the new year roll in by staying under the radar, trying not to make any resolutions, trying to be okay enough with me that I didn't feel I needed to change me or anything. So working was helping me ignore the turning over of the year. No resolutions, I swore to myself. You are fine just like you are. But that urge to turn over a new leaf is almost irresistible.

Actually, it IS irresistible for me so I shot right out of the gate on January 2nd with a new plan. I would dedicate an hour a day for each of these two things: organizing and exercise. Yesterday, we cleaned out our bedside tables. There were stacks and stacks of books and magazines overloading them. The drawers were a mess, they needed a good washdown and underneath the dustbunnies had formed colonies.

And guess what came of it? I had been missing my grandmother's rings for a couple of years now. I figured that was it. Gone. But I found them! And as soon as I can get my rings off my pudgy little fingers I am going to start wearing them. (Maybe that hour of exercise will get my pudgy fingers a little slimmer, allowing the rings to trade off and that will be another hour well spent.) Also, I found a nice copy of the Desiderata in my drawer and I decided to get a blank journal for a friend who is having a rough go of it, write the poem in the front, and send it off to her. And I did that, too.

And so far I am liking this little hour by hour thing. I just did the hour of exercise with my lovely, sweet friend. We walked five miles in the blistering cold wind (with my dog, who, lord knows, that poor beast deserves the hour out of the house). I told her about my hour by hour plan and she dug it. She went home to organize her closet for an hour. An hour of exercise spent with a good friend, deep in good conversation, perfect.

I like the idea of dedicating an hour a day to something. An hour is not that much, I can do anything for an hour.

Not so happy new year

2011-01-01T02:58:00.003-05:00

My boy is attached to everything. If I were to tell you what he is attached to, it would be the longest blog post ever. Anywhere. I'll give an example. Today we went to Grandma's and celebrated Christmas finally (we didn't get there until today because of last week's lovely blizzard the day after Christmas).

He got a toy - yay! It came with a box - yay!

Mama, let's bring the box home.

Manny, we can't keep every box that comes with every toy, it's a fire hazard.

What's a fire hazard? IneedthatboxMama. IneedthatboxMama.

So, me, quickthinker that I am, I say, we'll see.

Mama when you say 'we'll see,' it means NO. IneedthatboxMama.

We'll talk about it later, Manny.

Cutting to the chase, I cut the back of the box off with a bread knife and we brought home just one big piece of cardboard, not a whole box.

Hmph.

He is equally attached to the year 2010. He said he does not want to say 'Happy New Year' because to him it's not happy. He says he will miss 2010 and he wants it to stay. My only wish is that he love every year of his life as much.

About Twenty Things

2010-12-30T08:15:00.004-05:00

I've been reading this book. I expected to love it, I really did. But as I was reading, a couple things kept coming to mind. The author seemed to be missing the mark, going just a tad too far in her generalizations about all adopted people, and pathologizing adoption. Then I started to feel badly, thinking I was just not wanting to look at the reality of what it is like to be adopted, that I would be one of those adoptive moms who just la-la-la ignores all kinds of stuff. Then, I got smart and I read some reviews of the book and I found that there are others who feel similarly to me about this book. Thankfully, there were some adult adoptees who reviewed it and that made me feel even better because their opinions are the ones that matter to me most in reading and believing a book such as this one.

I am still glad I am reading it because it made me think about something else. This blogger is doing something that is pretty difficult and pretty amazing. This blogger has recently done amazing and bold. When I am reading about their desire to maintain contact with birthfamilies, there is a part of my brain that is slightly befuddled. I trust that these women are doing the right thing, but there is not that sureness in my mind that I could do something like this. It scares me. Which makes me think that when my daughter comes home I will be changing again. When I became a mother, I was a woman transformed. I felt so different. It was parallel universe different. It wasn't depersonalizing, it was REpersonalizing. That's why people say things like 'just wait til you have kids one day.' So then you have a second child, I am sure there is another transformation and I feel quite confident that when you become a mother second time around to an adopted child there is an additional change that rips through your life. So maybe this book might appeal to me more when my daughter comes home. I am keeping an open mind about it.

Any favorite books regarding adoption? I HAVE to get something else to read. When I don't have something good to read, there is a low level hum of anxiousness that puts me off kilter. Such is this life of a reading addict.

Piped-in music and that song

2010-12-26T11:52:00.002-05:00

At my old job at a different nursing home, there used to be piped-in music. First of all, I really loathe background music because I just cannot listen to more than one thing at a time. My brain is not wired that way. (Plus, how annoying is it for a nursing home to pipe in music, as if these patients want to be in their home having someone else choose music for them all day long, that they cannot escape. Ack! I digress.)

The last year I worked on Christmas there was right after I got truly done with infertility treatment. We had lost a frozen blastocyst during the thaw. When I heard what seemed like a stranger crying, but was actually me, I knew I could put myself through no more. My poor husband said he had never seen me cry so hard. His tenderness toward me was..... I can't think of a word. I will never be able to think of a word to describe how kind he was toward me. That's why I married him.

After we lost the blast, I was done. Hell to the yeah, I could take no more. Broken. Woman.

This was in December and there I was at work listening to holiday music over the horrid speaker system. And the big Christmas song of the year: Where are you, Christmas? by Faith Hill. Since I don't know how to embed a video, here's the lyrics that really turned the screws on my heart back then:

Where are you Christmas?

Why have you gone away?

Where is the laughter you used to bring me?

Why can't I hear music play?

My world is changing

I'm rearranging

Does that mean Christmas changes too?

Where are you Christmas? Do you remember

the one you used to know?

I'm not the same one, see what the time's done

Is that why you have let me go?

I don't think I can ever, ever like that song. Well, I don't feel anything like that this Christmas, not even close. There are occasional moments when I look back at those days, at that woman who stood crying silent tears in the hallway of a nursing home, force fed that song , I feel for her.

But I am not her anymore. I am quite a different person and I can't say exactly how, but I became happier because of it all. Happier than I have ever been in my life.

I do long for baby sister to come home, but as I told a friend, I don't really allow myself to think about it too much. It shows its face in my numerous ugly cries over beautiful things during this Christmas season. It shows its face in my crazy busy-ness on some days. It shows its face in moments of melancholy. Baby sister, there is not a day that goes by in which you are not spoken of and thought of with love and anticipation.

It's good.

2010-12-24T07:30:00.002-05:00

Woke up this morning to the sound of a little boy saying, It's finally Christmas Eve, Mama. Yes, it is, the boy has only one more day of waiting. Still in bed this morning, he said, Daddy, as soon as you say it's bedtime tonight, that's it for me, I will just go straight to bed cause the sooner I go to bed, the sooner Christmas gets here. And that's the good news. I don't know where he got this thing about the 'good news,' but he uses it often. It makes you want to squish him, it's so cute.

Daddy is putting the boy to bed tonight and I will be at work. When you are a nurse, that's the way it goes. I refuse to lament being at work on a holiday. I try to make the very best of it because living in a nursing home is not easy for these people, I will not go there and have a puss on my face. Plus, the residents are usually in grand moods and we have a good time. (Actually, on my regular unit, hardly anyone is lucid, the dementia is so rampant there, so they don't really notice it's Christmas so much. Being good to them on any given day matters that much more.)

Tonight I will work on the "D" unit. "D" is for damn heavy, medically, that is. It is a heavy unit, lots of medically fragile people. Despite the medically heavy aspect of my coming evening, there will be frolicking and merry-making. My BNFF (Best Nurse Friend Forever) and I have hatched a plan that includes a huge ziti, warm bread and butter, ice cream and pie and santa hats and wearing red and green. Oh, and homemade Christmas cookies, and hot chocolate and candy, oh my!

And who knows, I might just catch Santa on my way into the house around 1:00 a.m. I might just give him a big ole kiss! I'm happy and thankful for it all. Next year, may my daughter be here doing her thing. I want my children to have matching pajamas, I want hollering and laughing from my two rascals. But for now, it's good and I'm thankful.

Solstice.

2010-12-21T06:46:00.003-05:00

Inside of my own mind I have always celebrated winter solstice. It's not a big event in our house, although we have had dinners that were in honor of solstice, we mention it, and Manny loves that winter is here. He fully expected that because today is the first day of winter, it would most definitely snow. Because, hey, it is winter. Poor guy, we haven't had our good snowstorm yet.

Why do I love this day? Because it's the shortest day of the year. Because lack of sunlight has a poor effect on my psyche. Because every day from here on out it gets just a little easier. To me, every day is lined with a little hope. Winter solstice makes me feel hopeful.

After a roaring fever that was impossible to break for two days this weekend, Manny is on the mend. The doctor said it was viral, he was right. Can I say that I love our pediatrician? Pete took Manny to the doctor on Saturday while I was working. It is a huge practice and they have very flexible hours. Dr. G was the first doctor who ever took care of Manny. He was the on-call pediatrician on the day he was born. When Dr. G saw Manny's name on the roster to be seen at the clinic on Saturday, he switched up the list so that he could see him personally. I love him for that. He said that's his only patient named Emmanuel, of course he needed to see him. And he has talked at length with me about baby sister and taking Manny to Ethiopia and I think a good doctor is priceless.

Manny stayed home from school yesterday although he probably didn't really need to as he was completely better. I think he needed Mama time. I have a big final today and yesterday I really needed to study. It wasn't easy, but I got in quite a bit of studying done despite Manny's chatter and wanting me to do this and that and the other thing.

I was reminded of how much I have missed him now that he is in Kindergarten. These easy days, just me and him. It's a different dynamic with the whole family. And I was surprised that I felt a tiny bit of dread about becoming the mother of two. It's true, though, as much as I look forward to it, I am also sad that these days of deciding what to do with one kid are coming to an end. The freedom of having a sick day with just me and him are almost over.

The time is drawing near. I know that this is true because the reality is setting in. That's good. In any psychology book, under the term 'adjustment disorder,' there is a photo of me. Har, har. So knowing that I am not all rainbows and unicorns about becoming the mother of two is a good thing for someone like me for whom change is difficult.

But, as I said, every day is lined with a little hope. Hope for a few sick days and a few snow days with my son. Hope that I do well on my final. Hope that baby sister makes her way as softly as possible to us. Hope for her birthfamily, that I send them my thoughts every day. Hope that you enjoy solstice as you please.

The cat, the teacher, the social worker.

2010-12-17T07:04:00.004-05:00

The cat. Our cat, Mimi, is almost 12 years old. She used to be a big fatty. So fat she couldn't clean her back and it used to get all matted and I would have to snip off big hunks of fur and she would then look like she had a case of the mange or something. Over the last year and a half she has slowly stopped being a fatty, has become pretty thin, in fact, and is constantly voraciously hungry. That's because, we recently discovered, she has hyperthryroidism. She is on medication which seems not to work that well, very difficult to regulate. She throws up a lot, screams for food and then won't eat it, is lethargic, and then the next day, a maniac chasing after my husband (he's her main target when she needs food or comfort). Life is not fun for her. Sigh.

The teacher. I spoke to her about how upsetting her discussion of MLK, Jr./Abe Lincoln/Slavery was for my son earlier in the week. She was receptive to everything I had to say, not defensive at all. A couple of friends made the point to me that Manny was able to verbalize his emotions about the whole thing and that more than likely there were kids there who were as upset as him, but may have not said a word to anyone about it. That made me feel even better for saying something to his teacher. I was calm, but I held nothing back. I came away from the conversation knowing that I can still talk to this teacher about anything I find concerning.

The social worker. Yep, we are updating everything because we have been waiting for baby sister THAT long. I went too crazy yesterday cleaning and putting up smoke detectors that had fallen off walls, lighting candles so it smelled inviting. My attic, as always, was plaguing my mind. I called my friend to see if I needed to clean the attic. She said, "NO!!! Don't be ridiculous!" My neurosis got the best of me and I cleaned it up anyway. Besides, it was bugging the crap out of me and today I don't have that stupid attic mess plaguing my brain. All the paperwork I needed to do for the update is finished and we are now just waiting for our re-fingerprinting appointment.

Edit: The teacher said they started out reading a book about MLK, Jr. and there was a line of questions that led them down the path to talking about civil rights, slavery, presidential assassination.....etc. Listen, I still think it is the obligation of the teacher to steer these discussions and I still think it was way too much for any Kindergartner and she did understand my viewpoint. She was so upset that Manny cried and she apologized profusely. She has never taught Kindergarten before, actually. We also discussed the ethnic make-up of the different K classrooms and I was disturbed to find out that they group minority children in classes together so there won't be just one minority kid in a class with all white kids. Manny's class has zero kids who are non-white. His best friend's class has 25% kids of color. I hold myself responsible for not requesting that he be in a class with non-white kids. I won't say fail because I know it bugs some people, but I feel like Mother Mistake. Manny's teacher was very apologetic, stated that she understood that the subject matter went too deep, she got it. Plus, I told her the most important thing is that we could talk about it and not worry that our relationship would be changed. And it wasn't. Pete said the whole putting non-white kids in classes together is segregation. I'm still mulling that one over.

In Kindergarten?

2010-12-13T21:48:00.004-05:00

My son is a sensitive one. I can give that much to the issue at hand. It didn't doesn't take much to get to him. Around 7:30 tonight it was bedtime. We readied ourselves, crawled into the cool sheets and read our books. We almost always read three books. He chooses two and I choose one. Before we got through book number two, my boy started to talk. We didn't get to finish that book because he started telling me about the book his teacher read in school today. He told me about Abraham Lincoln. About how someone killed Abe Lincoln and why would someone do that, Mama? And there were slaves, Mama. And all the slaves had dark skin, Mama. And I almost cried, and I know I had the crying face and the tears in my eyes and I saw Nora and she had the crying face on with no tears, too, and she didn't cry either, but she almost did. Why would someone kill the president, Mama? And I know that no one would kill Barack Obama because he's our president. Will someone kill Barack Obama, Mama?

And on and on he went for a good half hour before he slipped into sleep. A hard day for the boy.

I feel like it is so personal. First off, I am from Springfield, Illinois, where President Lincoln himself lived his life and then began his political career, and where our own president announced his bid for his current presidency. I have visited the presidential museum and library there and I have never taken my son. I chose not to because I felt it was too much for him to take in at this age. I have never told him the history of Lincoln or what it was like growing up in a city so intertwined with a president who was involved in such a tumultuous time in our country's history. I have certainly never told my son about presidential assassination. I have never told him about slavery. I have never linked slavery with with African Americans or Africans or his baby sister. I have never discussed much of history with him at all except as it pertains to his life here near the Hudson River.

I have not discussed any of this with him because I felt it was okay to live tenderly for a few short years. To me, it seemed unnecessary to 'educate' him about some of the more sordid details of life, not just because of a desire to preserve his innocence, but because of his take on life.

I may be oversensitive myself, but I wish I could have been part of this discussion as it happened, to help prepare him for this story. I think the almost crying face might have just been the spilling over of tears and that might have been a little better if I had been able to facilitate this conversation. I don't want him to cry, but I don't want him to be at school sucking it up and trying to keep from crying when the story being read is just too much for him. Or that it does indeed warrant a good cry and he didn't feel like he could just let it go.

Is this what it's like? Am I always going to being playing clean up from school? No warning, just tying up the loose ends. I felt a little betrayed, also, because his teacher knows about our adoption plan and I immediately thought, did she not think of him?

He talked about people being stolen from their families, how they were put on ships, how they cried and no one cared about them. And so began our discussion about very good people and very bad people and kindness and cruelty.

For real, we go from learning about butterflies to presidential assassination and slavery? In Kindergarten? Any sage advice would be appreciated because I just don't think I can let this one slide.

The wall.

2010-12-10T07:20:00.004-05:00

You know that one little piece of paper that is THE important paper, the one that allows your adopted child to actually immigrate to this country from his/her country? You know the one, the I600A? Well, I put it somewhere safe and sound, people. Let me tell you, I wouldn't just leave that sucker in a pile of papers that get shoved into my office in the loft to be sorted through one day, a far away day. Nosiree, I put that thing somewhere safe. So safe that I can. not. find. it. And I need it because we have to re-do our fingerprints with USCIS. So I have been searching for the last week, high and low, and I even have the congratulations letter from our government about getting our I600A, but not the document itself.

And then yesterday I found out I had failed yet another A & P exam, yes I failed. another. one. My teacher looked at me, gave me the paper, and exclaimed in front of everyone, 'You see! I just don't understand this!' Thanks there, buddy, that whole public announcement about my grade was a real uplift. I actually love this teacher, but there for a moment I felt like, I. hate. you. so. much. right. now.

And I also have PMS which I really don't like to mention on my blog, but I wanted to tell you what PMS really means, according to me smart-alecky friend. PMS means: Pete Must Suffer. My friend, she's a laugh riot, right?! With that in mind yesterday I just avoided eye contact with my poor husband and tried not to talk at all.

Yesterday was demoralizing. I woke up today feeling I have to deal with the shit from yesterday. Did you think I was going to say I woke up feeling much better today, with a whole new outlook? Oh, you make me laugh! Hee, he he he! Nah, today's the day that I admit to my agency that I, perhaps their ding-dongiest PAP, has lost the most important document needed for our adoption. And today I will start studying for my final in that damn class. Because, ya know, I gotta ace this last one.

Excuse me while I go bang my head against the closest wall. :)

Edit: Called my agency and fessed up (I just really was not into feeling like a doofus, but it had to be done). They have a copy of the I600A and that's all I need for right now. Whew.

Hello, kitten.

2010-12-05T20:04:00.004-05:00

There may have never been a more sweet term of endearment than 'kitten.' I decided that today. I don't think I have ever been called 'kitten' before today.

Where I work there are people who are unable to feed themselves and the nurses and assistants feed the patients. It is an intimate time. There is quiet talk with the patients. There is cajoling of the patients to 'please eat.' There is the common question of the staff, unfamiliar with their patient, 'what is the secret to getting this man to eat?' The answers range, oh, he only eats breakfast, or, oh today is just not his day, or, only SWEET stuff, forget the turkey and spinach, here, just two ice creams and milk and the Ensure. There is also frustration, seeing a person not eat is hard on a caregiver. I try to respect it, but there is something about seeing someone stop eating that is just a difficult thing to witness.

So the drift is: mealtime. You're sitting, you're seeing, you reflect on how your people are faring.

Today at lunch I sat down next to Sal draping my arm across his shoulder, and said, "Hey there, Sal." And Sal said, "Hello, Kitten."

These are the moments when I slip into love with one of these old people. It's so easy to love someone like this, there is often little left of defenses, the true self is left open for all to see. The common courtesies, taught to them by parents, have woven with the overall sweet and kind nature, and the end result is a tight knit of warmth and tenderness. There are the opposite kind, but not one of the surly ones surpasses his or her capacity to be loved. Each and every one has a president of his or her very own fan club. Each one is someone's favorite.

Being called 'kitten' by such a fine person, such a kind person, it means so much to me. I think that about all of these people who might not feel quite as productive as they once were, a shadow of their once active, lively selves. But to me, these soft moments make it quite clear that meaning goes on and on.

Grey area.

2010-11-30T07:06:00.002-05:00

Santa. He's almost always depicted as this white guy, white beard. He's a white guy. Not to mention that he's also a fictional guy. Who sneaks into your house one night a year. For our family, there are numerous reasons why Santa is not exactly our cup of tea. However, last year Manny spotted him at a holiday thingy we went to, asked who he was, and asked if he could come to our hosue. I had thought a lot about Santa and had decided to take a pass on it, but when Manny actually asked him to come to our house, I said okay. Now that baby sister is going to be entering our lives (one day) the idea of Santa takes on a whole new spin for me. I used to not like the idea of telling kids about Santa because for me, (just me, not anybody else) it felt like a lie. A grey area of life, ambiguous, don't love it, but Manny wanted it, so fine, okay. Baby sister, I will find a way to help you deal with Santa.

So much grey area.

I have a similar feeling about this concept/question: Why are you adopting? There is, of course, a very pragmatic answer. I like this having a family thing. I want to have another child because I want more family. And while that is true, it's not quite the whole answer. I have tried to write about this for days now and nothing has come out of my head, through my fingers, onto the screen that really expresses what I am thinking. A friend got me to thinking about this when she asked why I'm adopting.

First of all, people are a tad strange. For real, I would never think to tell someone out of the blue, "Why aren't you adopting?" "Why don't you get married and have kids, maybe you ought to adopt some kids?" To each their own, I try to keep to that philosophy. Actually, she didn't offend me because we get along that way, so it was fine. But it did make me think about that question: Why am I adopting?

I googled it, read about it on blogs, have been thinking about it a lot. And the only thing that really gets to the bottom of it for me is this: one's intrinsic ways. Intrinsic: belonging naturally; essential; belonging to the essential nature or constitution of a thing. And that means a lot of things, when you get to the reality of how my desire for a second child led me adopt from Ethiopia. Truth be told, I am not into domestic adoption, the idea that I have to make a fancy book that gives birthmothers a little look into our perfect lives and don't you want us to raise your child? The truth is that I didn't think my self-esteem could handle getting passed over too many times. And I also didn't want to put my son's heart out there on the line. In case a birthmother picked us and then backed out, what would I be doing to my son's sense of stability? Okay, that route seems not for me, but this feeling of wanting more family persisted. So how about international? Get in line and you will sooner or later end up with a kid.

(Sometimes I envy the sureness of those who say that they adopted because god put it in their heart, that they wanted to save a child. How much easier is that? Of course, they have to go through all the same hoops as I do to adopt and they have to raise the little booger, but still, their minds are clear about why.)

But here's what I get about me. I do love being a mother, there is something selfish about it and at the same time there is something selfless about it. They are both things at one time. A paradox. To live that paradox, being a mother, is a horribly lovely place to be. And that I might give and get from another little person in this world that paradox, I am okay with it. All of the intrisic parts of ourselves become expressed through our actions in the world. That's my answer to that question.

Thanksgiving marathon.

2010-11-27T08:57:00.003-05:00

The time leading up to Thanksgiving felt like a marathon, not an uncommon feeling for me when I am in school, working, working on getting an actual marathon team together, and getting ready to host 14 people for Thanksgiving. I always set the bar way too high, especially with the house. I use having 14 people in my house as an impetus for getting stuff done in the house. Two trips to IKEA and lots of organizing later I actually do love the results. I put some more shelving in Manny's room and he has all of his books in his room. They are really great shelves that are big enough to hold them every single book he owns. One day his friends came over and he said to them, come to my room, I have a surprise for you to see. I didn't imagine it was a bookshelf so I hollered out to him, Manny, don't forget to show them your bookshelf! And he turned around, scowling at me, and hollered, MOM, that WAS the surprise. *glare*
Also, I finally covered the cord to his lamp and actually hung and then strung up his art work from Kindergarten:

In the midst of all the organizing we made time for a Thanksgiving tree which I just don't think I can bear to take down.

We brought down Baby Sister's glider rocker thing. (when I got it out of the attic, it literally smashed one of my fingers which spawned an argument with Pete when I unnecessarily snapped at him. bad wife. bad.)

I also added additional shelving to Baby Sister's room and anchored her shelves so that it is a safe place for anybody to play. It is now partly baby sister's room and partly a pretend classroom/playspace for Manny.

Oh, and then Thanksgiving really did come and Pete made a luscious moist turkey and there was much wine and merriment and goofiness. Manny declared, "This is my best Thanksgiving ever!" Last year, someone reminded me, when we went around the table talking about what we are thankful for, Manny said, "I am thankful for my whole life." My cup doth truly run over.

Oh, and in the midst of all this prep, Pete did one last race at this beautiful spot. Manny went rock climbing.

He finished his 20K up in the beautiful mountains. As he was coming up the hill at the end, Manny started jumping up and down and screaming, Go Daddy, Yay Daddy!!! And me, in my usual relief to see him finish and finish well, started hollering, Yay Daddy!! And the whole crowd of around 30 people started laughing and hollering, Yay Daddy!!! And Pete was laughing, too, and it was the sweetest finish to a race I've ever been to.

It was all worth it, exhausting, fun, organizational, stuffingly delicious.

Mother Paradox

A confluence

Tulip

Freaking January.

While I'm strong.

Bullets.

Resolutely, she resolved.

Pet Peevishly, she kind of ranted.

Top Ten Posts that never made it out of my head.

It gets me every time.

How it works.

Solidarity

two years and the heavy glob

What's going on.

Interview Project: Meet Monika

Reprieve.

Erosion.

A thin wire.

Winning!

Pulling strings. Thank you and a giveaway.

The rules.

Brunch for the Horn of Africa

Brunching.

Close.

Shooting again.

Conspicuousness.

Being a boy.

Rules

summer and how it goes

The egg.

I shall carpet tack you.

Until I fly.

Two things.

Hold tight.

Shooting again.

Cut your worries.

Daddy.

Airborne.

Animals.

Safety in numbers.

Similarly, like walking.

This is not just about chickens.

My Ball and Chain

Ready. Aim.

Here there.

Wordless Wednesday

Two charmers

Day in Photos 2011

I loathe the grocery store now.

Essential Advice: Travel

Shoot.

With his permission

Love letter to a six year old.

Broodiest

Chicks and beads.

Round up

When I should have been studying

Sun down.

The little things.

Faltering.

Many colored days.

The good you are.

On the inside.

I pout.

Magical Thinking

The fevered nest.

You laugh.

Just asking.

Nuchal rigidity and where the mind goes.

Little drummer man.

I feel so much better.

What, no unicorn?

I ask you.

Boy and girl.

This morning.

Lifting, lightening.

Celebrate him.

How to make ice sculptures (so as not to suck in winter)

Blog advice wanted.

Trying not to suck in winter.