Our Mighty Dream

Langston Hughes wrote, in part:

"Let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again."


Our mighty dream is back. My brown child can see other brown children playing with their puppy on the White House lawn. America's children will see a black man as president and it'll be no big deal. Our children will remember being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night because this is That Important; when they're older they'll understand its importance.

Breathing again

It's 10am and Mr. Handsome is still employed! Unfortunately, three of his direct-reports aren't. One of them was called at home last night so he wouldn't have to come in at all today. Everyone is breathing easier over that fact.

I, of course, had a major nightmare last night in which the employee came to our house and held me hostage all day. Mr. Handsome suggested I not be at home at all today, which would be fine except for the fact that the painters are beginning this morning and I need to be here for them. Maybe it's best the house is crawling with men today!

Nonethless, my husband still has a job, for which I'm thankful. We can breath again. For today, anyway.

***Update***

The engineer of concern left a voicemail on Mr. Handsome's machine at work promising not to do "anything stupid." It's all been quiet over there, and he was good about calling me every once in a while to let me know everything was ok.

Stretching

I'm pretty tightly wound in a lot of ways. I'm a perfectionist. I'll research any subject within an inch of its life. I relish the minutiae of the obscure . If there's an odd fact to be recalled, I'm your girl. I read a lot and I know a lot of weird stuff.

My daughter, on the other hand, ain't. I've been practicing my deep cleansing mommy breaths lately as BabyGirl worked on her presentation poster for Careers Day tomorrow. I've done my very best to let her lead, with my direction, and she produced a lovely poster on being a meteorologist.

But the pictures were crooked! But a word was misspelled! But she did a drawing that she didn't like in the end so she just scribbled it out! But, but, but!

(Deep cleansing mommy breath.)

But she was happy with it. But she was pleased with her effort and the final result. But she's proud of her work.

And I have to learn better how to be happy with it, too. And to be pleased with her 2nd grade effort and her final result. And to be proud of her work.

It's a real struggle sometimes, as a parent and as a parent by adoption, for me to remember that I am not her and she is not me. I struggle sometimes with letting go of my own expectations appropriate for a 40+ year old professional geek and expectations appropriate for a 7-year old 2nd grader. I'm humbled by the huge growth this little person requires of me. It's good to grow and stretch.

I hope I just don't hyperventilate in the process.

Holding my Breath

On Friday, Big Changes are coming to Mr. Handsome's company, namely, a 12% cut of salaried staff. As of now, his job appears to be relatively safe, thankfully, but I know that at least one of his direct-reports is getting cut.

Mr. Handsome has been very stressed about this, understandably, and last night I found out why his anxiety was so high: if a particular engineer gets cut, there are real concerns about whether or not he'll be able to keep it together or if he'll go postal. He's been known to behave erratically and he has lots of guns.

I was stressed about the potential life-changing events before, but knowing Mr. Handsome's additional concerns has me even more in knots. I told him that he owes it to everyone to make sure the local police are notified that there may be an issue; he couldn't live with himself if he didn't contact the police and something terrible did happen. Mr. Handsome and this particular engineer have worked together for years, most of them with the engineer as my husband's direct report. I'm afraid for him. I'm afraid for the engineer. I'm afraid.

Cyber Stalker

I’ve become a cyber stalker. Not the scary kind, but the kind who just keeps tabs on someone who wouldn’t want tabs kept on them. Not very often, once a month or so.

I’ve sunk so low that I have created a fake Facebook account and say I’m in the same network as AJ’s mom so I can see her rather open Facebook pages. Some questions have been answered for me, like from where Peggy came up with is unusual middle name (one of her FB “sexy friends” has the same name).

Other than that, though, I’ve learned she has had a third child and is possibly pregnant with a fourth (status: “BOY O BOY.... Wat Have I Done!?”) and she refers to AJ as “my stupid ass lil man,” she’s cut off his incredible curls, and considers a bottle of Jim Beam an appropriate de-stresser after a day with her kids. She also has an entire online album of herself flipping the bird. Lovely.

I do get to see photos of him, though. The fact that he smiles in some of them gives me hope that his life isn’t as bad as his grandmother has led me to believe.

Kind of pathetic, I know. Like a scab I can’t stop picking and making it bleed all over again.

Oh my!

My friend the BabyCatcher has me inspired to begin writing again. Well, her and the fact that BabyGirl is back in school and I have some time again.

Riding to school yesterday, my 2nd grader piped up and said wistfully, "I wish we could see Mitzie more." Me too, Sweet Pea, me too.

After writing last year about considering a change in our wills to remove her from the line of guardianship, then her magically appearing (well, dropping off a birthday gift when, unbeknownst to her, we were out for the evening), we haven't seen nor heard from her again. Sitting at the traffic light, I could check BabyGirl's face in the rearview mirror to see if I could get a clue as to her inner thoughts. All I saw was sadness.

"Do you think she's working all the time and that's why she can't see me?"

No, Sweetie, I don't think she's working that much right now, I could answer truthfully since Mitzie's dad told me she'd quit another job. Know what I think it is?

"What?"

I think it still hurts her heart so much that she wasn't able to be your everyday mom that she's afraid of feeling that kind of pain, so she just kind of avoids putting herself into a situation where she won't be able to ignore how much it hurts.

"Huh?"

Remember after we lost AJ and how sad I was for so long? Remember how some days I just cried all the time?

"Yeah. You were really sad. I'm glad that's over!"

It's not really over, though, I've just learned how to live with the loss better. Sometimes, it hurts as much as it did the day he left, sometimes I even forget he was part of our family, sometimes it's just like I've got a little splinter someplace that's a little annoying but not too bad.

"Really?"

And I'm absolutely terrified that we'll run into AJ sometime like we ran into Audrey's dad that day at the grocery market. I'm afraid seeing him would hurt my heart just as much as it did back then. I can understand how Mitzie would be afraid of feeling her pain, and it's got to be much worse since you grew in her and everything. Any of this make sense? It's kind of grown-up stuff...

"Sort of. No."

The important thing, BabyGirl, is to know that she loves you with her whole heart, she loves you and misses you. It's just too hard on her heart right now for her to see you right now. I know this because she's your mother and that's how mom's feel about their babies. We can only pray that in time, she'll find her way to see more of you.

"Uh huh. It's sure a good thing that we have Raoul, isn't it?"

Oh yes, my Love.

Didn't see that one coming

So BabyGirl and I are at the grocery store, picking up a few things for our trip to Baltimore and DC. She's lazing in the main part of the cart and I've got a few things in the childseat. We come around a corner, and a gentleman about my age pulls his cart out of the middle of the aisle. I say not to worry because there's plenty of room in the aisle.

He, an African-American man, then notices BabyGirl's Sisterlocks (http://www.locks4life.com/ that's her on their home page), the amazing solution to all our hair woes, and strikes up a conversation. That he'd ask about them is not unusual because Sisterlocks are relatively new in the midwest and they're gor-ge-ous.

After a second or two, he asks, "Don't I know you?"

Well, yes he knows me. He sat in my living room and asked me to raise his daughter. He held my hand as she was being delivered. He told us he and her mother thought Mr. Handsome and I were the best ones to parent Audrey at this point in their lives, and they really wanted Audrey to have a sister like BabyGirl.

So I answered, "William, it's Mommela." If a really dark man can blanche, he did. BabyGirl wanted to know what was up and I could only say that this was Baby Audrey's daddy. "No, she's Naida."

BabyGirl and I then zoomed for the next aisle whereupon I hauled her out, abandoned the cart, and had a good long cry in the car. I can never go back to that grocery story again. After three and a half years, it still hurts as much as it did the night he called and said they wanted her back.

BIG DISCLAIMER: I fully support his right to parent his own child! I'd never deny him that right and I actively work to safeguard firstparent's rights.

But it still hurts like hell.

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