Dropping like flies
So many of the old-timer adoption bloggers are going underground or stopping altogether. Maybe it’s a passing the torch thing.
I went out to eat with AmFam and our blog-less friend Paige tonight. AmFam bought me dinner (Indian food!) for messing with her blog. We talked about adoption and race (of course) and sex and sex education. It was the highlight of my week! (And yes, I know this week started off with Christmas but I was tired of the holidays before they started.)
Speaking of adoption, Madison can’t stand to have any closed doors between her and me. I know part of this is 2.5 but I’ve heard adult adoptees talking about this, too, and so I think it’s more than “typical” twos. Also her hysteria is that much more than Noah’s was at this age (and he was a clingy monkey type for a long, long time). She can see me leave more easily than Noah could; she can mix with other kids more easily; and she is more fond of Brett than Noah was but still, she needs to know that she can get to me if I’m home and a closed door (even unlocked) will send her into a panic. So the doors stay open for now.
It’s hard to know — is this really adoption related? Is it “normal” toddler anxiety? But way back when in our adoption classes when we got told to expect this kind of behavior I decided that I wouldn’t worry what was adoption and what wasn’t and just meet the need. So like I said, the doors stay open for now. But I wonder. How can I help wondering?
She’s all about her baby dolls right now. There is Baby Baby, her bald-headed Cabbage Patch (and Baby Baby’s twin, who is white and who she only plays with if the actual Baby Baby got left in the car); there is her Little Sister, a doll with hair; and there is the new one my mom got her for Christmas, Bitsy Baby, who also has hair. She likes these three because they have open mouths. (All the names are her own invention.)
“See, she’s happy,” she tells me. “Baby Baby’s mouth is open!”
She got a doctor’s kit from my inlaws and a package of musical instruments from Jessica. These are keeping her very, very busy. She likes giving people shots (”Say ouch!” she orders) and she likes playing with the maracas (”Just like Violet!” — we sent maracas to cousin Violet last month).
Her other favorite thing is listening to a CD by Jackie Torrence. Noah also loved this CD at her age — I highly recommend it. She tells several nursery stories — Billy Goats Gruff, Goldilocks and a rated G Red Riding Hood. It mesmerized Noah and now it’s mesmerizing Madison. I adore story CDs because they are better than television at keeping kids entertained but they will also do other things while they listen — build with blocks or color or play with their dolls. Madison, like Noah, especially likes The Gingerbread Man and randomly will run down the hall hollering, “You can’t catch me! I’m the Gingerbread Man!” (She will also sit down at dinner and say, “Is this Goldilocks’s chair?”)
Noah’s Christmas gifts included a gameboy, much to our dismay. I won’t get into the whole mess of his getting it except to say that many emotional emails went flying before the big day arrived. Just about everything he got this year needed batteries, which is kinda depressing but what can you do.
Ok. I guess that’s my enormous blog entry for the week. I’m keeping this up as a memory blog for myself and just needed to get Christmas down.
Merry Christmas Dawn! As for “disappearing bloggers”, I tend to get slightly annoyed at the ones who heavily leaned on their readers all throughout their infertility/adoption saga and then, as soon as they have the child, cheerfully wave “bye now” and disappear into a cloud of pink bliss. Their readers were worth propping them up during their pain, but not worth sharing their joy with. Not that it’s not totally their life and their right to do whatever the heck they please, but I still get annoyed. *grin*
I think as far as disappearing bloggers go, people turn and turn something in their mind for so long and then move on (remember how y’all blasted me at one point for basically saying “Jesus at some point can’t we just get on with parenting?”) Sort of like how I don’t hang out on AP boards anymore (I have a group of women friends to hash things out with who have opinions and views I trust) or plan on hanging out on any pregnancy groups or boards if/when I become pregnant again. I’ve been there, I’ve hashed it out, I’ve decided my mind, and now I’ve moved on (or to my small select group of friends who have opinions I respect and trust). Also… there are things I want to talk about that are just waaaaay too much TMI and I always blab too much online so people would know who I am. So I just feel a lot safer discussing my most serious dirt with people I know really well.
Now when I finally DO get around to that great adoption pie in the sky dream, I will very likely be more active on those kind of boards as I have never done it before. And I will probably angst a lot about it every day. But I do hope after a few years I disappear too and it’s just yk, a regular part of my life.
FTR my two homegrown kids were like Madison, my husband was not that way with his aparents. More anecdotal and all, but yk. Just data for you. However, husband has some serious “food issues” as in having enough of it must be fed at exact certain intervals, etc. Not only is his mom exactly like that, but his mom is convinced that this comes from when they were both newborns and the hospital *required* a four hour schedule from birth even for breastfeeders. Maybe true maybe not, but she’s convinced of it.
I’m around.
In various forms, even! I’m like that fly that won’t die. 
Jenna, I get the sense that you are just hitting your stride!!!
RE: the gameboy.
My best friend’s son got one when he was about 10. He, like Noah, is this senstive, compassionate, smart kid. They laid down some rules with him, and he really did take them to heart. He is 16 now, and the gameboy never really became a problem. He played with it as a treat, not an obsession.
i keep thinking about shutting it down, too. it’s odd how it works - a whole slew close down - new ones open up - and the cycle just continues - even when you think you won’t live because your daily chez miscarriage is gone.
i think maybe your idea of refocusing might be a good one for me.
A belated Happy Holidays to you Dawn! It’s been a while since I stopped in to say hi.
I wouldn’t worry about the Gameboy too much. Noah and Natalie sound a lot alike and she could take it or leave it. (Mostly, she leaves it…art is her passion). I worried for nothing.
Madison sounds delightful! I like your idea of story cd’s. We do that whole playing with a soundtrack thing with music cd’s and/or movies (it’s all about background noise though Anna Sofia has become disturbingly obsessed with Elmo in the past week). Anyway, I’ll have to check that one you recommended out.
Happy New Year!
I’ve been thinking of closing up shop myself. My own personal focus has been shifting to address other areas of my life aside from parenting. Also, I no longer feel the impulse to process my parenting/adoption experiences in such a public forum. I feel more confident, I guess, and ready to trust my instincts. And when I blog about personal parenting choices I always end up feeling either preachy or defensive. AND, I’m more interested now in finding a real life community that has been as great as the blogging community I am lucky enough to have been involved with.
We’ll see, though. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the old blog.
I like the new template. That’s a great photo! I miss your constant posts though. I am glad you are still recording stuff!
I like writing a blog, and some people whom I’ve met along the blogway sent me Christmas presents, I’d be a fool to stop now:)
Maybe I should have taken a break instead of quitting, or maybe I should have found another format.
I only know that my own decision was influenced by my son’s new insistance that I not share stories about him with his grandparents(!) let alone strangers, by my concern that my daughter would feel someday that her privacy was violated (yes, it was my story of becoming her mother, but wasn’t it _really_ her story, no matter what details I protected?), and by the fact that we had become identifiable to those who didn’t know us, leaving me feeling that I hadn’t protected their privacy overly-well (or that I couldn’t, due to our conspicuousness).
I’ll miss blogging, but maybe this way I’ll be able to get the baby to bed and do the laundry . . . (or maybe I’ll be haunting all of your blogs too much to do that . . .)
Oh, and both my son (bio) and daughter had hysterical responses to anything coming between us, so I can’t say for sure (even in our case, toddler adoption) that it is adoption-related. (And your daughter and mine received many of the same presents! We have Abebe, Baby and Beebee).