House

Here's the latest:

* Paint colors--for those who asked, I'll try and get down the actual names/numbers in case you want to check them out. I'm going by memory right now. The pale blue for the master bedroom and Miss Z's room is Constellation (AF-450 I think). It's the dreamiest, most relaxing hue I think I've ever seen. Walking into it I feel like I've just done an hour of yoga.

The chocolate brown in the dining room is also an AF color (all of these are Benjamin Moore--the AF designation means the color is from their new Affinity line which they used to launch their Aura paint--the low-VOS/low-odor stuff that's better for you). Anyway, I don't have the number but the name is Kona.

I got the color for my basement studio nailed down--also AF it's called Fondant, a really nice pale pink (I enjoy being a girl). And the guest room will be Peau de Soie (AF).

I'm working on the kitchen color right now--the original idea of a brightish yellow isn't sitting right, so I'm thinking something more along the lines of a cream w/ some yellow hint to it. Lychee might work.

* Tile is still going in. Basement bathroom is done, the kids bathroom is getting there. Tomorrow I'm going to select the stone for the Mr.'s boom boom room counter tops and for the counter in the wine/cat room. Also needing to be determined asap is the surround for both fireplaces.

* Landscaping should start soon. How is it in my family--my mom is a master organic gardener and my brother an acclaimed landscape architect--I didn't get a green thumb? I have no clue as to what I'm doing in that area and the Mr. has even less. But we need to get an opinion soon.

* Cabinets are going in, and the shelving, desks, wainscoting. There's a lot of all that stuff.

* The Mr. is not convinced that we'll be ready to move in June. I am cheerfully not hyperventilating about it.

If You Go to Junior Gym

a place I love and suggest frequenting, could you do two favors for me please?

1) please wear a combination of jeans and underwear that allow me to see you bend over without showing me your entire thong and part of your butt crack. Really, the world would be a better place without that visual, no matter how size 2 you are.

2) If you are sitting in the lobby waiting for your child to finish a class and there are toddlers around, could you please find somewhere to put your really huge, hot cup of Peet's besides the floor? No one benefits in that scenario. Ditto the special, easily torn playing cards your child has carefully arranged in a pattern on the floor. That + toddler (especially my toddler)---you see where I'm going here, right? I think my exasperation was quite reasonable.

Thank you.

House

Latest update, for those concerned (or interested, or midly interested).

* Paint colors are coming along. The Mr. said today "gee, there's a lot to do with paint colors, huh?" To which I replied "would you like the job?"

The dining room is sporting a dark chocolate brown (Benjamin Moore Affinity collection "Kona") which we'll go with. The day-glo aqua just wasn't doing it for me in Miss Z's room, so I decided to put the blue in there we're using in our bedroom (I'll look up the color name and get back to you--but it's another Affinity color. They're gorgeous). I think a pale blue in there will be charming and, very important, soothing.

Still working on a color for the guest room. If you think you might someday be a guest, chez Poppy, then log on and cast a vote. I got nuthin' so far.

* Tile flooring is almost done in the basement and looks great. Tile is going on in the bathrooms. I'm having a very low-level freak out about the countertops I chose for the basement bath and the kids' bath, but it will probably all be fine when it comes together.

* Landscaping is supposed to start in two weeks. Oy. I know nothing about gardening. I need to get an opinion soon.

* I chose the pavers for the driveway yesterday--McNear "cobblestone" in charcoal/grey. Hope they look alright once they're in.

That's it. A bit dull, but what the heck.

To the Tree House

The Poppy family had an amazing weekend. To rip off my treasured Boz, "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times." It included multiple barf-in-the-car episodes, a family milestone, lots of drama and some real highs.

* I'll get the barfing out of the way first. X-Man is a champion barfer--the kid has great aim. Unfortunately, on Thursday, there was nothing to aim at but himself, the carseat and the car. We were driving to meet a friend so we could borrow a pack-n-play for the weekend away. He gave me a second of warning and then whoosh. A word of caution about the X-Man--he's a little trigger happy on the gag reflex. If he's the right combo of tired and phlegmy, he barfs. That's for your future reference.

The first time it happened on Thursday I pulled over and went into full haz-mat mode and thought (ah, pride goeth before a fall) "I am a pretty damn together Mommy. I'm working it out." After the fourth incident in less than 30 minutes, I was not feeling so hot on myself (or my kid or my car). But we finally got it all dealt with.

* Family Milestone: on Friday it all became official--The Mr., the kids, my parents and I stood before the judge and said "yes indeedy, Miss Z is our little gal forever." With her adoption finally finalized we proceeded to Il Fornaio to get foodie. How blessed we are to be the parents of our kids.

* And then--on some mistaken notion that I could manage with two children, away from home, on my own for more than a day, I had agreed to go to our church's parish weekend retreat here . There are various purposes to the weekend: fellowship with other parishioners, time spent in a really beautiful place, reflection, maybe some kind of transformative experience. And truthfully, I got all that plus lost two pounds in the process. And the kids had a blast.

There were some ferociously low moments. Those moments of feeling like the crummiest mom in the world (or at least in this group of people). Lunch on Saturday was particularly unpleasant, with the X-Man doing his best to push me over the edge--and succeeding. I had to send him off with the other families with children for the afternoon while Miss Z napped and I pulled myself back together. The sleep was not great for any of us, and that factored in. I wasn't able to stay in chapel on Sunday because I had Miss Z with me and she was way disruptive. I was embarrassed several times over the weekend by my apparent lack of control of my children--and of my own temper and internal emotional compass.

So that all sounds pretty crap, doesn't it? But you know what? It's wasn't. It was a really great weekend. This is probably going to sound really churchy, but every time I was struggling there was someone there to help me out. Pete and Lee with hot coffee when the kids were up too early. Leslie and Susan rocking Miss Z and singing their own greatest hits to her while I got X to bed. Serina and Lisa taking him off to play with Ella and the other kids. The fabulous Bolt family who let the X-Man try out their new metal detector (totally his thing) and sit at their table for lunch. Kristi telling me that she never would have left the house with her kids when they were this little. And on and on.

And somehow, being out of our usual environment, I was able to get a fresh perspective on my parenting without fully freaking out about it. I came home thinking "you know, what I'm doing is really, really not working. So I've got to try something else." And that's what I'm doing, and I like it a lot better than what I was doing before. I'm not sure it's the ultimate fix, but it's an improvement.

Tag on to all that the joy of watching Miss Z act as ring leader to a small toddler gang and charm the pants off all the grown ups. And seeing X in a pack of kids, hiking to the tree house, running up and down hills, playing fire fighter with an old hose, taking communion with this really special community of ours, TALKING, and having a blast. All that is just priceless. We'll be back for more next year.

Turn Offs

* Wind. I hate wind. And it's pretty damn windy today. Grrrr. The whole Cathy/Heathcliff thing--count me out. No heaths for me. It just makes me grumpy, irritable, pissy.

* Linen. I don't care if you wear linen. I don't care about the wrinkles. It's fine on furniture. But I've finally figured out that if I buy a piece of clothing in linen, it won't find its way out of my closet. I can't stand the way it feels on me.

* I won't get too deep into the shopping cart thing. I'll just say, the carts belong to the store and there is no "borrowing" as it relates to shopping carts--that's just stealing. I won't say any more on the topic in case I start foaming at the mouth--not a good look for me.

The Spell Is Broken

Ah yes. It all comes back to bite us in the ass eventually, doesn't it?

If I've ever directed any smugness your way, or exhibited any smugness near you related to sleep issues (or the relative lack of them chez Poppy), well the chickens have come home to roost.

Three times in the past week, instead of simply falling asleep to the sounds of a book on tape (as he has done for lo these several years), the X-Man has actually LEFT HIS ROOM AT NIGHT!!!! What's that you say? Get a grip Poppy. Children have been doing this since children were invented. Not in my damn house. Oh, but it gets better. As the Mr. says, X is a formidable adversary. You know how in Alien, the alien is so adaptive? Well, take away the sticky, drooly bit and the many snatching claws and you've got X (and yes, he's also hell-bent on world domination).

Three nights this week he has left his room, flung open the door to his sister's room, turned the light on full and stolen all of her Dohs (those not familiar with the peculiar Poppy family lexicon, these are actually Taggies--and she uses them to soothe herself to sleep. They are as essential to her well-being as coffee is to mine.). He then hops back in bed and hollers "I didn't take them" when a parental type goes upstairs to investigate. Ah, but they sit right there on his bookcase, in full view. Guilty as charged.

It gets worse. Tonight we had a sitter and X not only left his room, but he came downstairs. This is totally and completely unheard of. It means he's realized that he CAN LEAVE HIS ROOM AT NIGHT and that scares the crap out of me.

Our wise sitter took all his guys away (guys = his precious collection of stuffed animals). After the second noctural foray I had warned him that there would be dire consequences for not staying in his room. Tomorrow night, the strong arm of the Poppy Mom law will be lowered. Stay tuned.

House

So Poppy, how are things going with the new house? (you may or may not be asking). Here's the status report:

* I am knee deep in paint colors. I love and hate this part of things. I wish I had a little more time to focus on it, because I do actually enjoy it. It's especially nice to hit it out of the park right off the bat--we found the perfect pale blue for the master bedroom. Ethereal, soothing, sophisticated. I let the X-Man choose his own paint colors. If you guessed something with orange, you're a winner. I have been trying to work from the new line of Benjamin Moore colors--low-odor, all the colors coordinate with each other (the Affinity collection of Aura paints). And no, I don't get a kickback for that there product placement. Anyway, I showed X the fan deck and he chose the orangest orange on there and a medium blue. And he got it right the first time--they're great colors and great together. His inspiration (clipped from Metropolitain Home) is a Todd Oldham room with very bright colors, a funky lamp, and a painting that reads Hotties 125 (X is pre-literate). So a chair rail for him with orange on the bottom and blue up to the ceiling. Miss Z's room is the one I'm agonizing over. It's a fairly bright aqua right now. Part of me wants to do over and tone down. And the other part of me knows that things like this actually work out. I don't have some grand plan for her room--I am trying to avoid that pink & lavendar, cottage, princess, shabby chic look (no offense to anyone). I'd like to go more boho and funky for her.

The trickiest color so far is what to do all the hallways and extra spaces in. I'm going down today to look at a green-blue-grey we chose to see how that's coming.

And we're going to try a chocolate brown for the dining room, with a blue-teal for the living room. I'll keep you posted on that.

* Tile is starting to go in. Woohoo.

* Cabinets are going in. The pantry is ginormous--making up for the seven years I've spent in hobbit pantry hell here.

* Driveway is going in soon. The brick patio in back and railing are done. The exterior is painted.

* Hardwood floors are in.

Not really a witty and scintillating post, but figured I'd do the update for any interested parties.

I Don't Eat Animals (part--oh whatever)

Add Peeps to the list. Can you even imagine? My sister is probably sobbing at this--with either despair or delight (more Peeps for her). Yellow only please.

And add jelly beans to the list too--even though they don't look like any kind of animal, they disgust X.

Braveheart

Because we still have a few marbles to spare, the Mr. and I decided to take the kids to Disneyland Easter weekend. What actually transpired is that the Mr. had some business to do and could meet us down there. That meant that I needed to get myself and the two kids on an airplane and to the O.C. by myself. So I girded my loins (with goldfish crackers and stickers) and took the plunge. And you know what? It was totally fine.

Anyone looking at me in the airport and on the plane with X and Miss Z probably thought "what a cute couple of kids. What a together mom." I'm not even joking (as X-Man says). Is there something easier about two kids vs. one? Am I jinxing myself to a fresh new hell by writing that? There were a few moments on the plane of "that's stupid" (X's favorite new way to get under my skin) but that was easily outweighed by his total capability going through security, Miss Z's cuteness and well-timed nap during the flight, and the actual helpfulness of X.

And Disneyland itself? We had a blast. Our expectations were very low, which helps (I'm becoming convinced that actual fun with children in tow really is about expectation management). The boys got to go on a few key rides: Pirates, Haunted Mansion, the teacups. We all went on Small World--it was priceless to watch Miss Z--who, my sister pointed out, looks exactly like a Small World doll--clapping in time to the music and pointing at all the fake animals. And on a side note, I totally dig the Small World aesthetic--my 70's childhood showing. Disneyland also has their dude ranch stocked with the nicest, cutest and smallest goats ever (of course, Disney goats)--and the kids loved that. There was a fantastic interlude with a fiddle playing cast member in Frontierland who geared his whole spiel to Miss Z--while she stood in the middle of the crowd clapping, dancing and demanding "mo." And back at the hotel on Friday night, we had some real sibling love going on when we tried to bed the kids down in the same room--the Mr. and I overheard X trying to sing Miss Z to sleep. And when I went in to check on them I found them both in the crib, Miss Z climbing on top of her bro-bro while he giggled. As we dragged him to the other room he kept saying "I don't want to be separated from Sissy!" Pretty damn heartwarming.

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.

Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner

Considering that Miss Z's arrival in our family meant X's demotion from complete center of the universe, he's doing pretty well with her. There are wonderful moments when they laugh together in the car, urging each other on to ever sillier noises or faces. They rough house with the Mr. and it's a joy to see. There is occasional sharing (mostly on X's part), and sweet words and hugs. But there are also more-than-occasional skirmishes and anguished cries of frustration--from X--when Miss Z thwarts his plans.

Last night I was making dinner and X had been badgering Miss Z for long enough to get her frustrated (which means a long time because she's incredibly easy going). She went over to the lazy susan and started to scrounge through it--a favorite activity and something we totally allow. X got in her way, I wasn't watching closely and suddenly I heard agonized screams--from X--accompanied by copious tears. In between sobs he showed me his bicep with a perfectly clear bite mark on it, two little half moon indentations of teeth.

It is not the first time--nor I imagine the last--that Miss Z will bite her brother. She has some words now--cracker, more, MillMill (the beta cat), Bro Bro--but not enough vocabularly to tell her brother "God damn it, stop hounding me and let me get down to my toddler business!" So she bites. Each time I explain patiently to X that, yes indeed that doesn't feel good, and no indeed we don't condone biting in our family (unless it's me biting Benny--the alpha cat--because he really likes it). But that babies who get frustrated by aggravating big brothers will bite, so his best defense is to simply be nicer to her.

It's amazing to me how we got the perfect baby sister for X.

Sister, Sisters, There Were Never Such Devoted Sisters

My big sister, aka Kiki or The Apple, is coming for the weekend! The Mr. has to be out of town for a work/fun trip that I usually go on--but the X-Man has a school audition (err, observed playtime) so I'm taking one for the team. But since Kiki will be here, it's not at all a raw deal.

Our history of her being absolutely wonderful and great to me goes way back. When I was two--and she was eighteen--my parents somehow convinced her that we should share a room. What were they thinking? Or maybe they were smarter than we all realized-when I was old enough she told me that was the best birth control ever.

When we were both a little bit older and she was out on her own, at the start of her nursing career (did I mention she's an incredible nurse?), she would come to visit and take me to SF in her VW bug. I'd ride "shotgun" on the side--the front passenger seat was out (I don't remember why), so I'd stretch out in the open space. She always let me choose the restaurant and I'd always pick Zim's.

Having her for a big sister is a little like having a spare Grandma around--she's willing to hang on every tiny anecdote about the kids, no matter how ridiculous or trivial. When the X-Man was a wee, tiny baby and still on oxygen, she would come to visit and play night nurse so the Mr. and I could get some sleep. I'm not sure I would have trusted anyone else with him at that point--but hey, my big sister and a NICU R.N., no problem.

She went even further for me with Miss Z. We had to stay out of state for two weeks when Miss was born--holed up in a hotel in the middle of winter, missing out on Thanksgiving. the Mr. had to get back to keeping the world safe for capitalism, so he flew Kiki out to keep me and Miss Z company. I can't imagine anyone else being with me then. We took turns sleeping with the baby, changing diapers, kept each other company watching bad tv and eating tuna and rice. We got really familiar with the local Starbuck's (never my first choice--but they don't have Peet's in Ohio). We California girls drove around in the snow in a huge SUV, trying not to panic when the passenger seat would flop back and the tail gate would suddenly fly open (Miss Z sleeping through it all). We had Thanksgiving dinner (my first away from the Mr. since we met) in a restaurant and actually had a lovely time.

She's just the best. She understands what makes our darling parents so crazy-making and why on occasion you have to tell Mom to just "back away from the fridge." She knows what a spoiled primma donna I am, and she loves me anyway. She appreciates my obsession with Michael Buble because she has a parallel one with Josh Groban.

So this weekend we'll hang out with the kids, do a little shopping, eat some yummy stuff and just revel in each other's company. I "heart" my big sis.

In Another Life


Aren't these pretty?
http://www.annsacks.com/onlinecatalog/program.jsp?cat=272104&coll=279004&prg=1365904
Especially the mosaic of birds and vines. I tried to put them in here as a photo but I am seriously computer-impaired. It's a wonder I even have a blog. So you'll have to jump on the link to see.

Where you won't see them is in the new house. There is no place where they obviously fit. But they are just so great--any takers? Then I can come visit you and oooh and ahhh over them?