10 Things for Memorial Day Sunday
May 25, 2008 The Story of My Life
- Brett is working today. In honor of his new job, he bought jeans. The last time I saw Brett in jeans I was pregnant with Noah. I don’t recognize him. He’s more of a khakis guy.
- Madison is digging in an enamel pan full of stale grains from the back of my cupboard. Bulgar, stoneground oats, something else I don’t recognize and some left-over alphabet noodles. I keep a pack of cheap plastic animals for these kinds of activities. Plastic dinosaurs and their ilk go well with dried beans, playdough or water play. This pack has been around since Noah was digging in stale grains.
- I got a weird phone call last night at 9pm from someone who wanted to talk to me about my Salon essay only she referred to it by the name Adoptive Families gave it when they reprinted it. I don’t know how she got my home number (my work number is on my web sites) and she didn’t exactly explain why she wanted to talk to me either. I’ll call her back because I’m curious but I feel a little odd about it.
- I got a very new-to-me assignment last week — something I’d never done before — and it was a total kick. The client seems happy so I hope I get some more like that. Did I mention it was a kick? Said client says that they can keep me busy and busy I like. Also got contacted by two other possible clients. Am feeling potentially wealthy.
- Brett got a new-to-us BBQ yesterday courtesy of this family. (Their neighbors had it out on the curb.) Between you and me it’s pretty beat down but what do we care as long as it works?
- We can’t decide on a new color for our living room. I’m tired of the red wall and want to paint a stronger color on the rest of the room because our couch is just about the same color as what’s currently up there. I enjoy taping paint chips to the wall and wandering around trying to figure out which one works. Seriously.
- I’m missing some Memorial Day Weekend events because of our gas hog of a van. Such is life in 2008 (and beyond).
- My mom came and got Noah yesterday to try out her Wii Fit. Then he’s off to a sleepover tonight with friends. Tomorrow we’re hitting the Clippers game to see fireworks.
- We’re thinking of giving up cable because we’re watching too much television. We’ll keep Tivo because we already paid for it (and because it allows us to watch Lost after the children go to bed). When we bring this up the kids weep — especially the big one. We’ll see.
- Sometimes I wake up in the morning and just know it’s going to be a great day. Today was one of those mornings. Now I’m off to go play in it!
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Tags: Adoptive Families, Brett, client, clients, color, essay, Family, Friends, job, Madison, my mom, Noah, salon, work, working
Hearing from you all
May 23, 2008 Adoption
It really helps to hear that other adopted kids are having/have had the same struggles that Madison has had. It’s especially important to hear it from people who hold the same values around adoption that I hold. Thank you for that. Sometimes I’m hesitant to post stuff because I know it provides ammunition for the anti-openness camp but I also think it’s important to talk about it so that we all can get support from each other and keep working to do right by our kids.
Yesterday I met an adoption mother who is not only on another page, she’s on another planet. It was like walking into an alternate universe, truly.
After a ten minute conversation with her I knew the circumstances of her children’s placement (including way sensitive information); I knew how much her adoptions cost; and I knew details of her children’s first moms’ circumstances. I was very uncomfortable and felt bad for her kids.
She asked me if we were going to adopt again and instead of just saying, “Two kids is plenty for us” when she asked why, I said, “We have concerns about the ethics of the industry.” (Why did I say this? I think partly because I wanted to let her know that we were not on the same planet and partly because I wanted to yank her chain a little. I’m not proud of it but I can be petty like that.) She said, “Thank you! Yes, thank you for saying that!” Which led into a little diatribe on her part about how adoptions cost too much and that sure wasn’t ethical for the poor put-upon adoptive parents out to save the world one child at a time.
Argh.
I said I was more concerned with the the presence of coercion and she rushed to assure me that her children’s parents really didn’t deserve to have their kids anyway. That made me feel so much better. (Not.)
I could tell she was casing Madison before she said anything to me. I’ve seen her around before so I knew she was the white adoptive mom of at least one African American child and I figured our paths would cross sooner or later. Yesterday I saw her standing eyeing Madison and I knew she was going to come and try to find out how Madison came to be my child. She opened by complaining about her own 2-year old daughter’s hair and telling me that they were going to straighten it soon so pretty much from the start I knew we weren’t going to be hanging with each other.
Ahh well.
What disturbs me about people like this woman (beyond their having adopted kids who then have to grow up in families like this) is that they help shape our public view of adoption. Like Madonna who can’t understand why people are so angry with her for “saving a child”, they make adoption an altruistic good deed that’s all about the adoptive parent and totally dismiss the needs of their children.
(Honest to god, this woman introduced herself to Abby with, “Hi, I’m [name] and I have [number of kids].” Bully for you, you sainted bastion of motherhood. Bully for you.)
Why am I ranting about this? So I can say again how grateful I am to the people I know who share my values — both the in real life people and the in my computer people. Why thank you, kind friends. Madison has a better mother for your presence in my life!
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Tags: adoption ethics, adoption reform, adoptive parents, adoptive-parenting, Friends
More color talk
May 22, 2008 Adoption
Miz Madison and I were chatting the other day while we waited for Brett to pull the van around. We were talking about having a tea party with Pennie and why Madison gets worried about not having me around for these things. Truth be told, I was getting a little exasperated and I was saying, “Madison, you know I will always come back and Pennie will always bring you back. I am your mother. I will always be your mother and you will always be my daughter and Pennie knows that.” And Madison said, “Because I’m not brown!”
I always feel flattened when we have these conversations because it’s so hard to peer into her little mind and know what to say to make it better. I don’t know if I can make it better. Is it possible to reassure her enough that she will feel safe to trust us and trust Pennie to always get her back to her home?
I know this is one of the arguments against open adoption — the confusion part. But I don’t think openness makes it worse; I think it brings an ingrained adoptee fear to the forefront. The transracial part just makes it that much more obvious. Madison is asking, “Where do I belong?” and I know this is something most every adoptee has to ask.
I worry that when I say, “Pennie knows that you are my daughter because she chose me to be your mommy” that I’m giving her the idea that maybe Pennie can UN-choose it. So I said, “Madison, you are our daughter. That is the rules. That is the law. That is the truth. We all know this.”
I tell her that parents and children don’t have to match and I point out the families we know who don’t match. But she doesn’t really care about this — who are other people to her? — she is only thinking about her own survival and need to be safe. She’s four. Who can blame her?
I think, too, that this is at the forefront of her mind right now because she is having a mad love affair with Pennie these days. She is crazy about Pennie and LOVES the visits and talks about her a lot. Is she afraid that if she loves her too much that we will change our minds and trade her out? I probably need to address that specifically with her. (Maybe over lunch today.)
I worry how this hits Pennie, too, who has to hear Madison go into a minor panic when we’re making plans for them to get together. I know it’s one thing to intellectually understand the attachment needs of a preschooler and another not to let them break your heart.
(Note: a picture of Madison’s big feet and Ginger’s wee little feet yesterday at the park when they were leaping off the picnic table)
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Tags: adoptive-parenting, Madison, open adoption, transracial adoption
Hair days at four
May 21, 2008 Uncategorized
Madison and I spent some times yesterday watching youtube videos about doing hair. Someone in the local IFIF group forwarded this channel to our email list and I was watching it the other day because Madison wanted to learn how to put beads in her hair. She saw a guy with black beads and braids at the grocery and then we saw two little girls at the park and another little girl at a restaurant so Madison was inspired for me to try it.
Madison’s hair is tricky. It has a lot of different textures throughout (it’s getting very kinky just at her forehead and no place else) and she is prone to play hair salon, which means she dismantles her braids or pony tails and brushes it hard. I’ll sit down and get her hair done for the day after breakfast, go downstairs to work and by the time I come up for lunch she’s taken it down and brushed it to a wide frizz around her head. Most days she ends up with a simple scraped back ponytail. I’m not crazy about the ponytail look. Yes, she looks adorable but to me it also looks lazy. Still I’m not going to stop her from wanting to mess with her own hair and we keep ponytail holders in the car now since she often does it while we’re driving and she’s bored.
My goal is to just get her dang hair out of her eyes and the more braiding I can do towards the front of her head, the more the style will hold since the front is so kinky and also so much shorter (it’s all her new post-baby growth coming in). That’s why her ponytails always end up looking sloppy. I could slap a bunch of product on her hair to keep it down but I’m not so hep to the product — even natural product — since it would mean more hairwashing for her, an activity she despises. I like to stick to once a week hairwashing and so we live with the frizzies. (I do use some loc butter to keep her braids tight but otherwise it’s just leave-in conditioner.)
Anyway, our favorite youtube video was this one:
So after watching that we were both inspired even though Madison’s hair wouldn’t hold most of those styles. Still, we got an A for effort and this is what we did with her hair yesterday:
I know — it’s kinda sloppy. It’s hard for me to do tight braids because 1) I’m not the small motor skill girl in the family (that would be Erica) and 2) her hair is really slippery and 3) she’s a pretty wriggly person even when she’s trying very very hard to stay still. It took an hour but it’s holding today (most of her hair styles don’t hold for very long before the braids start coming undone) so it was worth it. Likely if I could do smaller braids it would last longer but I’m not that skilled and she’s not that patient. (Watching the “how to” videos fascinated her in part because the other little girls sit so still but her body just won’t let her.) You can see that if her hair is combed or brushed, it gets pretty straight in the back.
This is another style we did the other day, which she loved but took apart just a couple of hours later. (sigh):
This was my first time trying piggyback braids but I should have done it lower towards the front of her head. The back I left unbraided, which I usually do with all of her styles because Madison likes to feel it on the back of her neck. Come summer we’ll probably rethink that.
Next post some pictures of Madison where you can see her face. (As always, write me if you want the password!)
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Tags: african american hair, hair, haircare, hairstyles, Madison, piggyback braids, transracial adoption