Cancer sucks.

Childhood cancer sucks. Cancer sucks. Period.

Our friend Superhero Ari is in the second year of his three-year chemo treatment for acute lymphoblastic lymphoma. He's doing well, although the recent death of an age-mate has shaken him and his family. Please watch the video and do what you can to help. I sure wish I knew how to embed it, but, well, I don't.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGS4yE5v9rM

I am a rock

BabyGirl was recently introduced to Simon & Garfunkle. Their music is great for long drives when she needs to rest but won't put up with lullaby music--enough vocal and musical variation to be interesting, yet smooth enough to be soothing.

She requests "I am a Rock" over and over. You know, the achingly sad one about someone who's been so deeply hurt by love that he lives surrounded by impenetrable walls. The one that sounds so nice, as long as you're not listening to the words.

But she is. She's listening to the words. Intently.

I get the song because I've been hurt by love that deeply. I get the song because I'm 43 years old and I've been around the emotional block a time or two. She's six, and as far as I know, still thinks boys are kind of goofy alien creatures.

There's been only one great loss in her life: not being raised by the ones who created her. Can a first-grader intellectually understand the Primal Wound? I doubt it. Can a first-grader feel the pain of that loss? I'm sure she can.

So we listen to it over and over. And my heart aches for her pain that I'll never fully comprehend, that my magical mommy kisses will never be able to fix.

A winter's day
In a deep and dark December
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.

I am a rock, I am an island.

I've built walls
A fortress deep and mighty
That none may penetrate;
I have no need of friendship, friendship causes pain,
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain.

I am a rock, I am an island

Don't talk of love,
But I've heard the words before;
It's sleeping in my memory.
I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died
If I never loved I never would have cried.

I am a rock, I am an island

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me,
I am shielded in my armor;
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb
I touch no one and no one touches me.

I am a rock, I am an island

And a rock feels no pain
And an island never cries.

Some days are just (almost) perfect

Last Saturday, we had "family reunion" on the big kitchen calendar. My Norwegian/Swiss relatives are in Wisconsin, Mr. Handsome's Romanian/Jewish kin are in south Jersey. Nope, not our sides of the family, we were going to a reunion of our daughter's multiracial/African American/Eritrean side of the family, most of whom we'd never met.

What a treat it was. It was so great to have all these folks take one look at BabyGirl and exclaim, "We know who made you! She's written all over your face!" They're right, too. BabyGirl has Raoul's smile, but everything else is Mitzie. So many folks knew her from the photos proudly shown around by Mitzie's dad, one even asked specifically about a particular dress she wore in one (which made BabyGirl beam because it's her favorite dress e.v.e.r). The only thing that would have made the day perfect would have been to have Mitzie there herself.

When we got into this open adoption, I was terrified of the whole thing, the uncertainty, the unknown, the fear. But, we were certain that open adoption was the best for our child so we held our breath and jumped in. Oh, how glad I am we did. I am so thankful that we didn't let ourselves be overwhelmed by the fear of the unknown, that we trusted that tiny voice that kept telling us we could do it, that it would all be ok in the end because that's what's best for BabyGirl.

On the way home on Saturday, I watched BabyGirl in the visor mirror. She sat silently, lost in throught, and smiling to herself. When she seemed to be less in her own thoughts, I asked how it felt to be with all those people who are her relations.

"Good, Momma, it feels really good in my heart."

That's all I need to hear. I can't imagine not letting her have this in her life because I was too afraid of it.

Sometimes it's just overwhelming

I know I've been gone for, like, months. I'm the Marketing/Publications manager at BabyGirl's school and trying to work with her home has been challenging. But I'm not here about me. I'm here to ask for prayers/thoughts/good wishes/karma for friends.

My best friend's dad had been in hospice at her home until his death a month ago. As an only child with both parents now dead, she's feeling lost and alone. Her husband, an active alcoholic who hasn't lived at home with her and the two kids for over a year, waited just one week after the funeral to inform her he wanted a divorce. She's a mess.

Dear friends of ours were part of the Pfizer debacle here in Ann Arbor and had a forced relocation to San Diego. In theory, San Diego sounds great, but they and their 3 kids are living in an 800-square foot two-bedroom rental because they can't afford to buy anything until the wife is working again. She's a nurse-midwife who was just hit with a personal lawsuit over a birth outcome that didn't go as well as anyone wanted; the investigation firm hired by the CA hospital said she never graduated from college or nursing school. They're stressed, far away from everyone who loves them, and nothing but nothing has gone right for them with this move.

A dear, dear friend has Fifth's Disease, normally not a problem for small children, but potentially very serious for adults with potential auto-immune complications. It appears her immune system will be affected and she may end up with lupus or rheumatoid arthritis.

About two years ago, a college friend, Jackie, died from ovarian/uterine cancers leaving her four children motherless. Her husband, another college friend, is an itinerant pastor. Before she got sick, they served as missionaries all over the world and were beginning to explore returning to Africa for a multi-year posting. He and the kids were turning that dream into a reality with a placement to George, South Africa and they were fundraising in preparation for a fall departure. Their house burned down last weekend taking with it the albums, photos, and momentoes they had from Jackie.

So, here I am. First real post in a long time and I'm asking for something from you. Please keep Pam, the BabyCatcher, Kristen, and the deTombes in your thoughts. Thanks.

School starts again Sept 4 and I'll be back more regularly after then.

Open question to the adoption community

Our former adoption agency has invited me to be one of the prep group speakers.

For parents by adoption, what do you wish someone had told you before you adopted?

For firstfolks, what do you wish prospective adoptive parents knew?


For better or worse, I want to know. Bring it on.

Another quickie

BabyGirl's school doesn't do report cards, they have portfolio-based assessments, instead. Here's BabyGirl's page from her human body unit. Mind you, these are dictated verbatim by Kindergarten Teacher Extraordinaire. The artwork is original.

Quick quote

Our fridge got very, very sick last Monday and the repair guys couldn't come out until last Friday, leaving us without a fridge for those five days. Refrigeration has been a common topic of conversation at our house, needless to say.

My mom, who grew up on a farm in Wisconsin during the late 1930s and early 1940s, told BabyGirl about not having a fridge when she was a child. Grandma shared about her ice box and the Ice Man coming to deliver ice every couple of days. More exotically, her aunt didn't have an ice box but rather had a trap door in the kitchen floor that led to a small root cellar into which cold items were kept.

BabyGirl's comment:

Well, isn't that something! My teacher doesn't even know about that and
we've studied the Middle Ages.

(The fridge blew a $40 part that has to be ordered so I bought a little dorm fridge as a stand-in until the big fridge gets repaired in a few weeks. Inconvenient, but still much cheaper than a new fridge!)

Rats!

Just when I thought I was laying low enough, I went and got employed. This is totally getting in the way of reading blogs and goofing off (and doing laundry and cleaning up the dust bunnies that are about to unionize under my bed and having a snack ready when BabyGirl comes home from school).

I'm afraid I've got to step out for a few more weeks. Wouldn't you know it, right when Mother's Day is coming up and I've got a lot on my mind and heart about it.

Work is filled with putting out fires left by my predecessor (Mar, the woman who wondered if it was worth the effort to parent a "child who wasn't her own," see below) and in figuring out a plan to get BabyGirl's little school back on marketing track.

Happy spring!


(Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to be asked and, in this dreadful economy, any job is hard to find. Ask my brother.)

Paragraphein rocks it out

We've always told BabyGirl that adoption is one of those things in life that's both happy and sad.

While we're happy that she's in our everyday family, we're sad that she's not in Mitzie or Raoul's everyday family; we're happy that she has us as her everyday parents, we're sad for her that she doesn't get them as her everyday parents; we're happy for us that they asked us, we're sad that they were in a position in which they felt they had no choice but to ask.

We always try to make it ok for her to have conflicting feelings about our adoption, that both feelings are true and honest, even if it's confusing to hold multiple conflicting emotions at the same time. Life is like that: conflicting, confusing, and legitimate.

Paragraphein expressed this dichotomy eloquently. Go check it out. Read it slowly and thoughtfully. It's worth your time.

http://paragraphein.wordpress.com/2007/04/28/relinquishment-vs-adoption

mixed up order

Oooh, go look for the Family Tree Assignment. I just posted it but it's showing up as the second one. It made me cry happy tears right in her classroom!

All unsettled

This whole VirginiaTech/BabyEvelyn/AJ'sGrandmom/UnemployedBrother thing has me completely unsettled. I'm not sure why, but I've decided to take all of the books from my office and put them in boxes. Then I think I'm going to rearrange. I don't know. For now, I just want to get the books down and cleaned out. And there are a lot of books. A lot.

The thing is, I have no place to put the multitude of boxes so rearranging around them will be very difficult.

What was I thinking? This is just crazy of me. The thing is, going through this exercise isn't making me feel like I'm in more control of my environment, just dusty.

The Family Tree Assignment

I knew it was going to happen sometime in BabyGirl's education, I just didn't expect it to happen in kindergarten. This month's theme at school is Trees. You know, trees: types of trees, identifying leaf types, ecology, growing seedlings, Earth Day, leaf prints, etc.

I just didn't expect they'd cover family trees, too.

Knowing this school, it doesn't surprise me, but I wasn't prepared for it. I didn't have an opportunity to do the adopted-family-tree talk provided by Adoptive Family Magazine, I didn't get to research e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g there is to know about family trees and adopted families, then try to get my 6-year old to understand it all. In fact, I didn't even know they were doing family trees until I walked in earlier this week.

Of course, BabyGirl handled it all with her usual aplomb without my coaching, angsting, or interfering.

Right there, in the leaf portion of her tree, she had four circles--labled Mom, Mom, Dad, and Dad. Off to the side were BestFriend and her husband, below us grown-ups were BabyGirl, BestFriend's two kids, and my parents. My favorite part, of course, is how she showed from whence she came.

I like this Nike ad re: Imus

From the Sunday 4/15 New York Times, Sports section page 5.
Mostly white space, small Nike swoosh in the bottom right corner, about 12-point type size, all left justified.



Thank you, ignorance.

Thank for starting the conversation.

Thank you for making an entire nation listen to the Rutger's team story. And for making us wonder what other great stories we've missed.

Thank you for reminding us to think before we speak.

Thank you for showing us how strong and poised 18 and 20-year-old women can be.

Thank you for reminding us that another basketball tournament goes on in March.

Thank you for showing us that sport includes more than the time spent on the court.

Thank you for unintentionally moving women's sport forward.

And thank you for making all of us realize that we still have a long way to go.

Next season starts 11.16.07

Heavy heart

Oh, this whole tragedy surrounding Baby Evelyn weighs me down, it fires an anger so intense I don't know what to do with it, it makes me ache in so many ways. I wanted to post on it as part of the blogger blitz but the weeping kept getting in the way. I know the fear and the pain her prospective adoptive parents are going through, but I also know what the right thing to do is, and keeping Evelyn certainly isn't it. I know how much they want to pack up the car and leave, no forwarding address, no cell phones, to just disappear with this child whom they love deeply and intensely. I have no doubt they'd die for her, just as any parent would. I know how much they want to believe that what they're doing is "in her best interest." I know how hard it is to lose the child(ren) you thought you were going to raise forever. My heart goes out to them. But the whole situation is just so incredibly wrong. It never should have gotten to this point. The child must be returned to her family now. Period. End of discussion. But the tears will go on for a long, long time.

AJ's grandmother invited me to get together with her in early May. She says she has lots to share about him, about how she'll be taking guardianship of AJ's older sister, about how my little man's life is a hard one. She said that AJ's mom apparently always intended to reclaim him once he was sleeping through the night, that she'd planned to do that with his sister. I'm afraid of what she has to tell me, I'm afraid I can't not go. I'm afraid of the pain I know I'm going to feel.

My brother is still unemployed and his little girls are getting that haunted look in their eyes because they know something's up, something big and bad. His last bout of unemployment lasted a long, long time.

So many things are weighing on my heart, I feel old and heavy and tired tonight.

Don't bother with me today

Go read here.

http://newflowerblooms.blogspot.com/2007/04/on-grieving.html

It's better said than I could say.

Abebech, my hat's off to you on this one.

A Girl Like Me

Vote for A Girl Like Me at http://www.cosmogirl.com/entertainment/film-contest-vote. As the white mom of a multiracial Eritrean/AfricanAmerican/Cacasian girl who, at 5 told me that white princesses are more beautifuler than brown princesses, this video hit especially close to home.

And let's help get this woman a $10,000 scholarship while we're at it.

Go vote. All the cool kids are doing it.

*******UPDATE********

There was this on the cosmogirl voting site:

"CosmoGIRL! and Take Action Hollywood announce our Film Contest finalists.
"We have determined that the online voting has been corrupted as a result of one or more instances of tampering with the voting process by users. As a result, none of the online votes will be counted, and we will submit all three of the semi-finalists to our panel of experts for final judging and selection of a winner."

What's up with that?

Good news and bad news

Good news first:
When we got back from 2nd night Seder last night, there was an unexpected, pink, sparkly package on the porch for BabyGirl.

Would you believe Mitzie and her boyfriend had stopped by with a gift? You should have seen the look of pure joy on BabyGirl's face when we read the card. Heck, you should have seen the look of pure joy on my face when we read the card. BabyGirl hugged the card tight to her heart and said, "This is absolutely definitely going in my treasure box." She's absolutely definitely right.

But wait! There's more! There were two messages on the phone, one from Mitzie and one from Raoul, wishing BabyGirl a happy birthday.

When we did a little birthday gig last weekend with BabyGirl's best buddy, Lulu, who was born on April 1st, I said my own wish as the girls blew out their candles, and this momma's wishes come true.


And the bad news:
My brother, one of the legion of working poor, was laid off yesterday. His wife is a hair dresser who works part time, he was a technical writer. They have two young daughters, 4½ and 2. He was given $3,000 which would cover his COBRA medical coverage for 5 months. The contract technical writer he helped hire a year ago got to keep her job because she costs less than a salaried employee.

He went through a spell of unemployment just before my sister-in-law found out she was pregnant with their youngest, but managed to find a contract job that turned into salaried. He said he was just beginning to feel like he could breathe again, and now he got kicked in the gut. Again.

My brother is one of the nicest guys I know. He's also one of the smartest guys I know but he was always hampered by some severe learning disabilities. Of course, we're old enough that schools didn't know from learning disabilities when we were coming up. He spent most of his school years being told he was stupid and that he didn't try hard enough. He even had his 2nd grade teacher tell him that he didn't deserve to have survived his 1969 open heart surgery because her daughter didn't. He did some college but didn't finish.

Nothing, nothing has ever come easy for him, and yet he's still one of the nicest guys I know. It was just starting to look like life was smoothing out for him a little and now this. They have no financial cushion, they have no retirement funding, and I'm sick to my stomach with worry for them.

It just breaks my heart.

Happy Birthday, BabyGirl

At 7:35 this morning, the time of her birth, after BabyGirl came in to my bed for morning snuggles and I sang Happy Birthday to her, we talked about Mitzie and Raoul.

We talked about how they were happy she was born, but sad that they weren't ready to be her everyday mommy and daddy. I told BabyGirl that one of the things I think is the most special about April 3rd is that Mitzie and Raoul were her everyday parents on that day; they were the only mommy and daddy she had right then.

I've deliberately not asked Mitzie or Raoul about their hospital experience because I want them to be able to tell it to her, I want it to be their information to give to her rather than something she learns from me then confirms with them. I told her what little I know about her birth (6 hours of labor, 7:35am, 12 days early). I told her April 3rd is their special day, and that April 4th is special to me because that's when we met.

BabyGirl, in her wonderfully perceptive way, said, "I'll bet Mitzie didn't want me to come out and be born because then she couldn't be the mommy anymore." I told her she just might be right about that, and that some of her may always want to crawl back in to keep being Mitzie's baby. And wanting that, I told her, is totally ok. Then she got bored with me and wanted breakfast.


Mitzie and Raoul are heavy on my heart today. Knowing how much I miss AJ gives me only the littlest hint of how hard it's got to be for firstfolks. And missing him can be crushing.

Early April is hard

BabyGirl turns 6 next Tuesday, April 3.

It's a milestone I both celebrate and mourn because 6 means she's getting big, and it means she's not a little girl anymore. It's the end of an era. And because we've stopped trying to increase our family, I'll never get to parent a little girl again. Ever. She's done being a little girl and I'm done being the mom of a little girl. While I truly look forward to being the mom of a big girl, it sure was pretty great being the mom of a little girl. I celebrate how really cool she is, her curiosity and imagination, and what a neat kid she is. I can't wait to see more of who she's becoming.

And AJ turns 2 next Friday, April 6.

That's a milestone I can only mourn. It's another birthday we'll never celebrate with him, it's another year that we've missed him, it's another reminder that he's not our son.

BabyGirl said she wants a brother or sister for her birthday instead of gifts because a sibling "would be the bestest gift ever."

I think I'm going to go cry now.

Go figure!

The day after I posted about changing our wills, guess who popped up. Mitzie!

I'm actually relieved because she indicated that she's feeling stronger and wants to be more involved with her daughter and with us, and that means we can set aside our will-change for now. Not that I want to avoid making any decision, I just didn't want to make that decision.

She said she went back to the agency for a counseling session and that it's helped somewhat. My heart goes out to her: just a few years after BabyGirl was born and she was beginning to really deal with that loss, Mitzie's big brother was killed in a hit-and-run accident by a retired Detroit police officer who then fled the state. WHAM! Another loss of a significant person in her life. She didn't really deal with either loss and that's made involvement really painful for her.

She said she's going to continue with counseling and that she's working toward reuniting with BabyGirl. I can't believe how happy I am that she'll be a part of our everyday lives, that BabyGirl will know her deep in her heart, that Mitzie is beginning to work with the losses in her life. Mostly, I'm just tickled that those two will have each other.

See? I'm not that great after all.

A while ago, the Queen of Spain's son was asking about death http://queenofspainblog.com/2007/02/26/go-to-jail-go-directly-to-jail/#comments. She'd just had an operation and was in the hospital for a few days, her child developed a vague feeling of anxiety about death and being left alone. She asked for advice.

BabyGirl was experienced with the concept of death after we lost 5 loved ones (she even invented a song that went "when you're dead, you're dead, but your sprirt stays to looooove us"). We've talked about death a lot. I told the Queen what we do at our house, one thing was to make sure our wills are up to date and to let BabyGirl know that we've talked with people who have promised that she'll never be alone, that she'll always be taken care of, and that the judge knows about these plans. (BabyGirl is familiar with the importance of the judge from having to go see a judge about losing AJ, so we just went with that rather than explaining wills and trusts and attorneys.)

Back when BabyGirl was new, after she was legally our child, we wrote our wills so that her firstfolks would have, for lack of a better phrase, right of first refusal, should Mr. Handsome and I kick it. Mitzie first, Raoul second, then our dear-heart amazing-parent friends third (who are already as committed to openness as we are so there's no chance that BabyGirl and her firstfolks would lose each other). When BabyGirl was little-little, we thought this was right and appropriate that they would have the opportunity to raise her.

But we're not so sure about that anymore. Raoul, absolutely. He'd make a great full-time father for her--for any child lucky enough to be his. He and BabyGirl have a close relationship even though he lives down South and we're in the Midwest. Heck, he even flew up specifically join her on her first day of kindergarten! We have no qualms about him having the opportunity to be her daddy. We're confident that, if he chose to take on the responsibility, he'd be great at it.

Mitzie, though, not so much. We'd hoped she would have pulled her life together a little more by now. We don't see her often, she doesn't answer emails/calls/letters, invitations are ignored, and BabyGirl is not really comfortable with her. Despite living less than a mile from kindergarten, Mitzie was a no-show for first day of kindergarten pick-up.

I'm to the point now that I'd like to amend our wills to revoke her opportunity to be the mommy, because I'm not comfortable with this near-stranger, who is our daughter's firstmom, raising her. We don't know her values or plans, employment is sketchy, and we just don't know her like we know Raoul. Of course, our wills will always state that Mitzie and Raoul will always have open contact with them, no matter what.

Nonetheless, am I being a bad open adoption parent, or a good mommy? Can the two be reconciled in this case?

"For my two moms"

There's been a lot of conversation on the blogs I read about what to call the various parents in an adopted child's life.

I've chimed in occasionally with what we do here. BabyGirl calls Mitzie and Raoul by their first names and says that they're her birthmom/dad or her firstmom/dad. I admitted that when she said they're her "real parents," I had a bit of a wobbly feeling. That one hit a little too close to home that, indeed, she didn't grow in my uterus and Mr. Handsome's sperm didn't kick-start my egg.

But, I added. It's not about me. It's about her processing her own story of how she came to be and how she came to be a part of our family. We've always believed that, as parents, it's not our job to do what's easiest or most comfortable for us, it's to do what's right for her. Period. Have I always been successful at living out that credo? Not always, but with regard to her relationship with Mitzie and Raoul, yes. I'm trying to remember that she's only 5 and she's doing her best to figure out some mighty big ideas. And if she wants to call them her real parents, I'll adjust and learn to celebrate that, too, because, after all, they're as real as we are.

So yesterday morning, she came charging into my home office with two folded pieces of paper saying, "These are for my two moms." She made beautiful portraits of us. Mine is hung up already and we put Mitzie's in the mail right away. I know she'll cherish it as much as I cherish mine.

Mitzie, with her lovely hugs-and-kisses top and a crown.

Me, a floating head.

Fashion Evolution

I like to sew. I especially like to sew Halloween costumes for BabyGirl. When she was three, she started her passion for princesses and fairies and all things pink. I asked, why be a princess when you can be a queen, so for Halloween when she was 3½, I found the most wonderful double-faced satin that is pink on one side and orange on the other (she already had the cutest pair of orange patent leather mary-janes). Et voila, a Queen Esther dress sized large enough to wear the next spring to the Purim carnival at our temple.



















The next autumn, two weeks before Halloween when I was knee-deep in black fleece trying to whip-up a lightening bug costume, BabyGirl received a come-as-your-favorite-princess party invitation. By that point, she'd discovered the Disney animated Cinderella and her best buddy Lulu had the store-bought blue Cinderella dress. She wanted to go as Cinderella. There was no way I was going to pay for the blue dress, so we came to a compromise: I'd retrofit her Queen Esther dress to look like the dress the mice made for Cinderella in the Disney movie. Deal.









Well, it's Purim time again. BabyGirl has sprouted another couple of inches, and the old Esther/Cinderella needed another face-lift. BabyGirl wore the latest incarnation of her dress this afternoon for the Carnival, but I think this is its last public showing since the bodice is getting too tight and there just isn't enough fabric to add yet more length.

Bless her heart, she says she wants to donate it to children who don't have any play dress-up clothes. We always say that it's a good thing we're raising her right because she just turns around and teaches us right back.

A new look for BabyGirl

NEWS FLASH! The other front bottom tooth came out just a few days later! That Tooth Fairy is glad she bought a half-dozen of those fancy-schmancy gold $1 coins.

It was like this before school, totally creeping me out.

After school, BabyGirl was sportin' a whole new look! I heard the Tooth Fairy laid in a supply of those new gold dollar coins...

For those who've followed the hair saga, this hairdo consists of mommy-supplied double-stranded flat twists done on an angle from left to right in the front, the twists held with mini butterfly clips, then the rest a mass of the most gorgeous ringlets, curls, and a few snarls.

Hair salon disaster

BabyGirl's long-awaited, eagerly-anticipated Very First Ever hair appointment was yesterday at 2:30. It was awful.

Because this was primarily a braiding salon and not a full-service salon, I pulled her out of school right before lunch to do the wash and comb-out. I sectioned and braided her hair into thick plaits so all they had to do was undo a section and make micro braids without too much pulling and tugging.

We got to the salon at 2:30 and were met by a bunch of blank looks. The owner of the salon, who was supposed to do BabyGirl's hair, wasn't there and hadn't left any notice with the rest of the loosely-organized staff about us coming in. They called someone and the woman came in after about 10 minutes. I should have followed my instincts and just rescheduled but, since I'd already taken her out of school (and that certainly wasn't going to become a habit), I felt obligated. Lesson learned.

When the new woman finished heating up then eating her lunch, she promptly undid all the thick braids I'd put in, fluffed BabyGirl's hair into a giant knotty afro, then got to work on those tender hairs at the nape of BabyGirl's neck. After the first two braids, I told her they were too tight against BabyGirl's scalp and they had to be looser--enough to stick a pinky in so she doesn't develop traction alopecia. The woman, who never even introduced herself, said she'd do them looser, although under protest. She didn't.

By the time the 4th braid was in, I could see the tears welling in my baby's eyes. By the 5th, I called it quits. She was trying to be so brave. She leapt into my arms and sobbed right there in the shop (this from a child who'd rather do anything than cry in front of people), not wanting to get down for a good 5 minutes. We packed up our stuff and went home, holding hands all the way, both of us feeling terrible.

We came home and spent the next 2 hours carefully picking out those 5 tight, tight braids and trying to comb through the rest of her hair. By then, we were both just done with hair for the day so I just put her in two big puffs and we'll come up with a style this weekend. A total of 6 hours of hair related activities for two puffs; what a waste.

I'm much more traumatized by the whole thing. I feel like I led my precious baby into a lion's den, I feel like I should have followed my instincts and left before anyone touched her head. I'm just glad I stopped it when I did, that I did protect my baby (eventually), that she slept well last night (unlike me) and seems ok now. I'm glad we'll never go there again.

Damn those Rice Krispies people

For every one of our babies, I've chosen two songs to sing to them as they fall asleep, songs that are near and dear to my heart. While I love that each of them have had something special just for them, I'm also now left with old favorites that are now inextricably linked with the loss of those babies. I can't hear the songs without the aching, empty-arm heaviness washing over me.

AJ, the one of the four we were most certain would be our child forever, got the two songs I'd saved, hoping to sing them to my child some day. I knew better than to do it, to use my two most favoritest songs; I knew his birthmom still had options. I knew he might not be mine forever.

But she kept saying, for weeks and weeks, months and months, that she was certain of her choice, that she wasn't going to change her mind, all the while continuing to be given baby showers (unbeknownst to us at the time) while we got him through his first cold, clapped when he managed to sit up by himself, received his first smile, laughed with him as waves washed over his little piggies, reveled in that first wonderful time he slept through the night... We became a family as the months passed; I sang him the songs I'd saved since high school for my future babies.

So, AJ got my two most favorites: Over the Rainbow and Wonderful World. Not the traditional versions, but the version by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole with his gentle voice, sweet ukelele, and haunting opening bars.

And now every time Kellogg's hawks their stupid cereal, I have to hear it again. It hits me like a punch in the chest every time. Every damn time.

Listen here (sorry for the inelegant link but I'm not wise to the ways of the internet):
http://www.npr.org/templates/dmg/dmg.php?mediaURL=/asc/perfectsong04/20041123_asc_listeners01&mediaType=WM
I like it with the Windows Media Player ocean mist visualization; it looks my tears.

Childhood magic vs. reality

BabyGirl's school has themes for each month around which all the lessons revolve. This month's theme is literary genres.

Here's part of an email from her Kindergarten Teacher Extraordinaire:

During the month of February, the Lower School is
exploring literary genres. Teachers have chosen a
genre to study with their class. I have chosen Folktales.
As a bridge between January [African American history]
and February’s themes, last week we read from More
Tales of Uncle Remus: Father Adventures of Br'er
Rabbit, His Friends, Enemies, and Others as told by
Julius Lester. This week we will be reading from: The
People Could Fly: American Black Folktales retold by
Virginia Hamilton.

Last Friday, we had a preliminary discussion regarding
the difference between fiction and nonfiction. After an
explanation of the categories, I showed the children
books and they told me if they thought they were fiction
or nonfiction. When I showed them a Disney version of
Winnie the Pooh, a debate erupted. Some children
thought it should be fiction and others insisted that it
was nonfiction. The reasoning for it being nonfiction was
that several children had “seen” Winnie the Pooh
“for real.” Cinderella was also nonfiction because several
children had seen the real Cinderella at Disneyland.
Despite convincing arguments from both camps, no one
budged from their original stance. Hopefully, the rest
of my examples will be less controversial.

Any guess who instigated the debate? That would be my BabyGirl.

Despite her familiarity with basic literary genres, she's adamant that Pooh and Cinderella are nonfiction. And I just don't have the heart to disabuse her of that notion. That kind of childhood magic has such a short shelf life, I just don't have the heart to hasten its end.

Gratefully, Kindergarten Teacher Extraordinaire didn't get all I'm-the-teacher-and-I-know-all-the-answer-y (which would have been totally unlike her). Instead, she simply commented that BabyGirl--and the others in her camp--had a good point, and let it go at that.

Respect for the brevity of childhood magic, respect for different points of view, modeling the behavior I hope BabyGirl continues to develop.

Oh, Molly

Molly Ivins, I'll miss your words, your humor, and your point of view. May you rest in peace.

Being BabyGirls's mommy is a waste?

On Friday, I chaperoned BabyGirl's field trip. I drove a minivan full of children plus the school's new Marketing/Admissions person, Mar.

Mar’s young, in her 20s, very well-educated (she’s working on a PhD in Educational Policy, has an MS in social work, an MA in history, and is thinking of picking up a JD in her spare time); first-generation American whose parents came from Jamaica; and passionate about children, education, and social welfare. Since Mar’s new to our area and hasn’t made it to that museum yet, I invited her to come with us, and, well, I was assigned to drive FIVE kids and needed another grown-up to manage the chaos.

I like her. She’s young, idealistic, and working hard to meet the goals she’s set for herself to make the world a better place. She reminds me of me when I was her age: focused and driven on education and career.

In the blizzard-slowed hour-long drive, we talked. Mar mentioned that some of her friends are starting to marry and begin families, and that she’s not interested in any of that yet. I reiterated that her focus on education and career are fine (not that she needed my affirmation), then she said that she wonders if, in 10 or 15 years, she might regret not having started a family yet. I mentioned that there are lots of ways to make a family; that it’s about being a parent, not being pregnant; there are children in need of families; and that medical science can work wonders.

Her response? That my point about being a parent vs. being pregnant is poignant but that:

"It seems like putting all the effort into a child who isn’t your own is a
waste."

This, from someone with a Master’s Degree in Social Work and working at my daughter's school, was disheartening and a little alarming.

I don’t think she knows I’m a mom-by-adoption, and I wasn’t about to get into a big discussion on the validity of parenting-by-adoption because the car was filled with BabyGirl’s school friends. But I still find myself getting torqued up about it.

Pink Curtains

I know the building because BabyGirl and I drove them to the hospital when labor started. I know the windows because I helped her down the stairs between the contractions.

Driving past the apartment complex where Baby #3 (Audrey, to us) lives with her parents, I saw that she has new pink girly curtains in her room. She'll be two years old in a few weeks.

Why does it still hurt so much? It's not like she was with us for very long--only 4 days. Why do I still feel the need to look at those windows?


When I "interviewed" BabyGirl for the big letter to her firstfolks, one question was what she wished for the world. Her answer: that everyone could have a brother or a sister...

It's official!

My consulting business is up and running--legally. I've been consulting for a while, informally and without registering with the state, but, as of 1:27 this afternoon, I made an honest woman of myself.

AI is an official business providing architectural research, architectural history reports, National Register nominations, Historic Structures Reports, Section 106 Reviews, and restoration consulting. Now, all I need are some business cards and enough clients to keep myself busy while BabyGirl is at school. I can begin advertising now that I'm legal so that should help with the clients, I hope, and the business cards are in process at a local print shop.

I'm excited and scared to death at the same time. This is real grown-up stuff and I haven't been a real grown-up for over six years. I have a surprising lack of self-confidence especially knowing what all I accomplished when I was still working full time.

I once read that Harriet Tubman once said that when she got scared (and she had a helluvalot more to be scared about), she just "put her scaredness under her feet and stood on it." Since I haven't worn high-heeled grown-up shoes in the longest time, I should be able to balance on my giant bubble of scaredness pretty easily in my sensible mom-shoes. I hope. Even that feels a little tenuous right now.

Just keep breathing, just keep breathing...

What to say?

A couple of times a year, I handwrite a loooong letter (10-15 pages) to BabyGirl's firstfolks filling them in on the mundane and every-day details of her life. Everything from her current fascination with fairies and princesses to how we selected her kindergarten to her favorite colors and how she fills up time during the day. I take notes over time to make sure I get the details right, and I try to help them to feel like they're a little more involved in her parenting.

We keep the original in BabyGirl's memory box and send copies to her firstfolks. No one else gets to see these letters--not that there's anything incredibly private in them, we just want the letters to be special for just her firstfolks, not some big distribution list; after all, if they'd been able to be the mommy and the daddy, they'd already know this stuff. Right?

It's about time to get going on a new letter. I wonder what, specifically, firstmoms and firstdads would want included. I have no idea if anyone other than me is reading this, but I'd love to hear ideas from the firstfolks out there. What would you want to know?

I'd send her cash if I could...

I'm about the biggest law-abiding geek there is. Especially when it comes to children. But if I knew how to find a momma and her twins, I'd send them money since she's already spend nearly a half-million dollars to get her babies back.

Surfing for new blogs to follow, I came across http://away2me.typepad.com/ and was incensed to read two articles from two newspapers. 10 hours after signing adoption placement paperwork for her twins, their momma changed her mind. Within the laws of Florida, she was entirely within her legal rights, and the children should have been returned to her immediately. The babies are 17-months old and still living with their potential adoptive parents. There's so much wrong with the whole thing!

http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-803325.cfm and http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/525742.html

My heart goes out to the momma. I'm angry at the potential adoptive parents for not returning the babies ASAP. I'm furious at a legal system that would allow this to happen. I'm anguished for a culture in adoption that makes this an all-too common story.