Holy Week

As you may or may not know (depending on how religiously you follow my life here or IRL), last fall I started attending church with the kids. Miss Z actually stays in the church nursery where, big surprise, she's the belle of the ball and a clear favorite of one of the paid caregivers (who went so far as to say she would name a daughter Miss Z if she had one). I digress. The primary reason we started going to church is that The Mr. works almost every Sunday. I got tired of looking out the window at families out having fun together doing family things. Self-pity is never a pretty thing. Church seemed like a good solution--a place to go, purpose and design to the day.

Of course that wasn't the only reason. I also felt ready for religion, somehow. I was raised in a Baptist family by parents who had stopped attending church before I was born. My mother says she "feels closer to God in my garden" than at church. And there's a distinct possibility that my father turned into a non-believer somewhere along the way. So the spiritual guideposts of my childhood were something like EST called Iamathon (ponder the solipsism of that for a moment) and transcendental meditation (or TM).

The Mr., on the other hand, got enough religion for himself, me and a few friends--chapel at religious school daily, and a Catholic mass or two on Sundays.

So with almost zero church-going experience, I gave the whole thing a try in September and was really pleasantly surprised at how great it is. I think we got very lucky by choosing the closest Episcopalian church--it turned out to be a fantastic place. The rector is great--wonderful sermons. His wife leads the children's liturgy--which the X-Man really enjoys. The community is welcoming, not overbearing, but filled with really nice people. It just feels right.

Now, coming into this with almost no background, I'm not always sure what I'm doing. I figure these are muscles that haven't been worked before. In some spots I go through the motions and figure it will all sort itself out. And of course, X being who he is, he has lots of questions. I don't think I always do a good job answering them, but I give it the old college try. The evidence of his religious experience can be pretty interesting. I give you the following:

Scene--the bathtub, both kids getting bathed by ME (a job I find incredibly tedious and off-load onto The Mr. whenever I can).

Miss Z (with a pitcher of bath water): bwahahahaha (crazy new laugh she's developed) and a little splashy splashy.

X-Man: (filling an empty shampoo bottle and pouring it into Miss Z's pitcher) The body of mice, the blood of mice.

N.B.--Don't Salute My Meatball

Sunday night is always spaghetti & meatballs chez Poppy. Tonight I had no meatballs. As I was plating the food (and X was waiting to "table" it--a job he relishes) he looked sadly at his plate of pasta & sauce and asked "isn't there any meat?"
Poppy: Well, I have these fearless franks in here--you can have one of those.
X-Man: Yes please.
Poppy: (wrestling with the wrapper) Okay Mr. Hot Dog, let's get you out of there.
X-Man: Mom, don't call it Mr. Hot Dog. I can't eat things that are called Mister.

Flashback

Thursday is GrandmaGrandpa Day at our house. My folks come to visit and play with the kids. Today I've got Miss Z dressed up especially for Grandma--she's wearing a dress that I wore at her age. It's a pale aqua Polly Flinders with the smocking on the front. It was a big deal to my Mom--I think she saved up for it and dressed me in it at every opportunity. I've got a photo of me in it sitting here on my desk. If I were the kind of person who knew anything about computers (see previous post) I would add that photo >HERE< so you could see. But I'm not that kind of person. I am capable enough, however, to do this:




Trust me, I was cute. But Miss Z--way cuter.

Just So You Know

There are a few things I'm pretty good at: cooking, knitting, theme parties, Cajun/Zydeco dancing (I am, in fact, a kick ass Cajun/Zydeco dancer), reading aloud.

There are a lot of things I'm not good at at all. Among them: sewing, gardening, packaging items to mail (if this weren't true, I might try my hand at Ebay selling).

And at the tippy top of that bottom list should be: anything related to computers.

So the fact that I have a blog at all is sort of astonishing. What's not surprising is that I can't figure out how to do a lot yet. So whatever is lame here, attribute it to the fact that I grew up without a computer and haven't caught up yet.

Related to this: the Mr. has taken to doing Sudoku puzzles in the evenings. We have a long tradition of working crossword puzzles together (we're about a SF Chronicle Thursday over dinner out). So I thought maybe the Sudoku would be fun. The Mr. started to explain it to me. After the second time he mentioned "there's a series of numbers . . ." my brain completely glazed over. So add that to my "not so good at" list too.

Bread and Jam

I read Bread and Jam for Frances to X-Man the other night. It was one of the more significant books of my early childhood. When I was 2 I received a Steiff bear in my Easter basket (yeah, Easter, should have been a bunny, whatever). I named her Frances and she became my most significant toy for the next 10 years. I realize Frances is a badger, not a bear, but don't get hung up on the details, okay?

With this rereading of it, it dawned on me why I liked the book so much. Once Frances has her epiphany and realizes there is more to eat than bread and jam, Hoban spends a page describing her lunch.

I have a thermos bottle with cream of tomato soup . . . a lobster-salad sandwich on thin slices of white bread. I have celery, carrot sticks, and black olives, and a little cardboard shaker of salt for the celery. And two plums and a tiny basket of cherries. And a vanilla pudding with chocolate sprinkles and a spoon to eat it with.

The utterly charming illustration that accompanies this shows Frances at her school desk with her lunch spread out on a doiley and finished off with a tiny vase of violets. How could you not love this? It's all about the food and the presentation of the food. I was a fledgling foodie then--my parents are still some of the foodiest foodies I know--so of course I found this just.so.charming and appealing on many levels. I think it's the cherries in a basket and the cardboard salt shaker that put me over the edge.

On the way home from school the next day, X started plotting out his lunch--"a grilled cheese sandwich, a boiled egg, a little shaker of salt, a bunch of celery . . ."

The legacy continues.

Resemblance

We are not obviously an adoptive family. Some families are--they've adopted transracially, transculturally. They get a lot more questions than we do. My best friend CeeCee adopted her two girls from China. People either get right away that they adopted or they think her husband is Asian.

What we get a lot of is this: X-Man and Miss Z look just like each other (one guy asked if they were twins, which cracked us up). X and the Mr. look just like each other. And this weekend, I got this for the first time.

Random Dad: How old is she?
Poppy: 15 months.
Random Dad: She looks just like you.
Poppy: (interior monologue--which direction should I go with this? Point out the fact that it's mere coincidence since she doesn't have a single one of my genes? Or just shine it on, since the feel I get from this particular guy is that he might launch into a litany of questions I don't feel like dealing with in front of our Music Together class, which is about to start?") I opt for the latter and say- oh.
Random Dad: Do you get that a lot?
Poppy: No. Actually people say she looks just like her brother.

Then class starts and--oh joy--we get to sing all those fabulous Music Together songs (I'll save the detailed MT rant for another post). But at that point I was off the hook.

I don't go around saying "these are my adopted kids" for obvious reasons (lameness being primary among them). My general policy is to deal with the information as a fact (which it is) in an appropriate context (when it arises).
Example:
Client wife (at a business dinner w/ the Mr. one month after Miss Z.'s birth): Wow, you have a one month old. You're like Heidi Klum. (and I'm not making that reference up just to impress you.)
Poppy: Thank you, but we adopted so I can't really take credit for getting back in shape.

Example 2:
Mom at playground: So, did you have a difficult birth, since X was a preemie?
Poppy: Nope, we adopted him.

And then I sometimes get really weird responses to the information. A common one is "are they brother and sister?" (okay, let's all just meditate on that for a minute). Also popular are really personal questions about their birth mothers (often laced with Lifetime Movie stereotypes and assumptions). If I sound ranty, I've actually mellowed a lot about this in the past few years. You should have heard me on the topic when I was a stressed out, sleep-deprived, newly-minted parent.

I'm Back

So I sort of disappeared again--not from my actual life, but from the blog. What's doin'? Lots of house stuff. The new house is now sheet rocked--I had no idea what a big milestone that was (I actually had no idea what it actually was since the only house we've ever had is this old lathe & plaster one). But whenever I would utter the words "sheet rock" to anyone, they would moan or ooh appreciatively like it was a big deal. So, anyway, sheet rock. Trim is starting to go up. The stones on the chimneys are on (or were almost complete last time I checked). All the bathroom tiles have been chosen--by me, in two 2.5 hour marathon tile & stone sessions. Which I actually really enjoyed and seemed to handle well. And then I would lie in bed at night trying not to hyperventilate thinking that I may have chosen the "wrong" things. Which implies that there is one actual "right" thing to choose--which I don't believe at all. But that belief doesn't stop me from stressing.

We've also been dealing with the school thing for X-Man. It's over now--the weirdly stressful & consuming admissions process--and we're just waiting for word from our top choice school (private). If that doesn't work out, our fall back position is the public school in our new neighborhood. We toured it a few weeks ago and it impressed us tremendously.

I had a strange series of dealings with our bottom choice school that culminated in me asking them to shred X's file and take us off their candidate list. I've come to believe that it's best to pay close attention during the admissions process. Each school we dealt with handled it slightly (or very) differently. I'm pretty sure it gives a preview of coming attractions. And the Mr. and I decided we weren't really that keen to have a long-term relationship with a school that couldn't make a tiny effort to accommodate our family's schedule (although the school expected us to adhere to its rather difficult scheduling process). We weren't crazy about the assessment process for X--taking him off to the library with an adult he'd never met before and asking him to perform undisclosed tasks. When I asked someone in admissions how they could get an adequate sense of my son if he wouldn't talk to them (a distinct possibility--and I think my actual words were "because Homey don't play that game") the reply was "well, my daughter's shy and she did just fine." Listen, we're not talking about your daughter (and um, last I checked you work at the school so isn't there some kind of break for your kid?), we're talking about my son. Who isn't shy. Who is, rather, profoundly , unbelievably stubborn and who has determined he will not talk in some situations, and not even Jack Bauer could make him.

The final straw came when they cancelled our appointment for the parent interview a mere 45 minutes before it was about to start. I had already performed some childcare acrobatics so I could make the appointment without resorting to leaving the children home alone with the cats (who are pretty competent as cats go, but you know). And the Mr. was already on his way down from SF and had about three places he could actually have been to keep the world safe for capitalism. And then the final, final straw--when the lady in admissions called and left me a message to reschedule SHE DIDN'T EVEN APOLOGIZE. Enough genuflecting for these people. We do not want to know your secret handshake and we do not want to join your club.

Something I Wrote

A few out-of-area friends asked to read this when it was published (in our local newsletter). So here it is:


Bonds of Love

Sometimes, while tucking my son, X-Man, into bed at night, I describe to him the bond that connects us. I tell him that it’s a cord of love that goes from my heart to his. Nothing can break it. It can stretch around the world if it needs to. It is invisible, elastic and our love for each other flows through it. And it was formed the day I held him for the first time.

That moment—having my son in my arms for the first time—is also the moment that I became a mother. It remains one of the single most powerful, profound experiences in my life, something I still can’t speak of without tears welling in my eyes.

It was a long, hard road to get to motherhood at all. Despite good health and relative youth on our side, my husband and I found ourselves not knee-deep in diapers but up to our ears in infertility treatments. But, when modern medicine didn’t work, we were extraordinarily lucky because both of us were open to adoption as a way to build our family.

I realize that for some people, the idea of bonding with a child who is not "their own" is a tough thing to wrap their brains and hearts around. Intellectually I understand that—but in my heart there was never a question that whether biologically connected to me, or adopted, my child would be mine. The trick was for us to find each other.

Suffice it to say that no one "just adopts." I tell people who are starting the adoption journey to imagine they are entering a giant building called "Adoption." And when you first get to "Adoption," you think you want the shortest line possible, the line that says, "Fastest Route to a Baby" or "First Available Baby." But there is no such line. The line you’re looking for, the one to get in, is the one that says "Your Baby." It might be the longest line in the building. Or you might get in one line first—thinking it’s the right one—only to get up to the front and discover you need to change lines. But eventually, by some amazing sort of kismet, you’ll find the line you need and you’ll find your child.

I know because that’s exactly what happened to us. My husband and I were taking a newborn care class geared toward adoptive parents. Mid-way through the morning my husband’s pager went off and he left the room to make a phone call. I assumed it was something about his work that was keeping him away so long. Then he came back in and started frantically writing notes to me—there was a woman who wanted to meet us. She was due any day and the baby would be premature—probably 32 weeks. Were we interested? When a break in the seminar came, the first thing we did was to call my big sister—a NICU nurse for the past twenty plus years. She told us 32 weeks would be very manageable and we should check it out.

On Mother’s Day we met our son’s birth mother for the first time. For the sake of our children’s privacy, we keep most of the details about their birth families under wraps—the stories are theirs to tell when they are ready. But I will say that there was an audible "click" in the room when we all met. Within minutes of saying hello we were truly laughing together—some of that laughter, I’m sure was brought about by what is, even under ideal circumstances, an unusual and awkward situation. But some of it came from a sort of connection, a sense that this was meant to work out. And that same laughter and slightly twisted sense of humor that was evident between all of us in the hospital is very present in our son. He’s got a devilish glint in his eye and a remarkably sophisticated comic sense. It’s one of the qualities that make us feel we all belong together. And it’s a reminder of his birth mother’s great laugh and big heart.

Three days later our son was born and two days after that I was able to hold him for the first time. He was a little over three pounds, about sixteen inches long. He had a breathing tube down his throat, wires attached to his tiny body and he was in an incubator to keep his temperature constant. He was absolutely the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. When it came time to hold him the nurse carefully detached his breathing tube, lifted him from his incubator, placed him in my arms and reattached his tube. Discreetly, he sat a box of Kleenex next to me and moved across the room. And then the most amazing thing of all—my son opened his eyes wide and looked straight into me. And the bond—that incredible, flexible bond that connects us—was forged in that moment.

He is four now, no longer a helpless preemie relying on me for everything. And there are moments—days sometimes—when I would swear four is a more trying age than two and I can feel the gray hairs sprouting. But the love and connection we have is a constant—through time outs, scraped knees, potty training, all of it. There are ways in which he is remarkably like my husband—in his laser-like focus when he’s truly engaged in an activity, his impatience when he’s asked to slow down and explain something. And there are certainly qualities and quirks he shares with me. Some of them seem strangely hard-wired and feel like fate; others that I’m sure are learned from all our togetherness. And of course—like any child, adopted or otherwise—there are the ways in which he is uniquely himself.

Once our son turned three, we felt we were ready to adopt again. It was an easier process for us the second time around, primarily because we knew first-hand that it works. We had complete faith that our next child would find us.
Each adoption is unique, and the experience of meeting my daughter, Miss Z, for the first time was completely different from that of meeting my son. I traveled all day to reach her. Arriving minutes before her birth, I was able to hold her for the first time seconds after she was born. In all frankness, it felt strange to hold a full-term baby and not a preemie. She was big and blooming, not a helpless underdog. The bond I have with her developed over the course of days and weeks—it wasn’t the instantaneous lightning bolt I experienced with X. It started slowly, with those first feedings in the hospital, her snuffly little sucking noises. I remember rocking her and singing The Mamas and The Papas—"Do You Wanna Dance?" wove itself in and out of our early days and became a guaranteed way to soothe her. All those little moments add up over time and, like strands weaving together, create the tie that binds. Like her brother, she bears a striking physical resemblance to my husband—I’m the sole blonde in a family of brown-eyed brunettes. But she is also very different from X—outgoing where he is reserved, jumping in with both feet while he deliberates his next move. She is lively, independent, and very decided in her opinions (and anyone who knows me would probably say that would describe me as well). I’m not sure who I expected to have show up this time around—my only reference point as a parent was the X-Man. It is a surprise and delight to realize how unique every child is, how little control we have over who they are—and how fierce our love for each of them can be.

None of this would be possible, of course, without our children’s birth mothers. They created these beautiful kids and had the courage and selflessness to choose adoption for them. My children share a connection with them too—not one built out of late night snuggles, kissed owies or shared laughter, but a strong bond as well. And in us, they saw something that led them to believe we could be the parents for these children. They are the mothers who made me a mom.

So here we are, six years, two kids and numerous gray hairs after starting on the road to parenthood—and I wouldn’t change a thing. Sometimes people will ask, "do you have children of your own?" Or they say "did you try to have your own before you adopted?" I know what they mean—they are really asking about biological children. But it’s a strange question to me, because I can’t imagine any children that are more mine than these two.