Family
Sep 222009
Sep 182009
Roscoe Gabriel, 21 inches, 9lbs 3 oz (8oz smaller than his big sister)! Lots of hair and very, very strong (already trying to lift his head up!!!). Pennie is exhausted and Tommy is very proud but on his way to exhaustion, too. Madison and Noah are both charmed by him (I am, too).
He’s still in the nursery for some breathing troubles that are minor and common to c-section babies. Pennie is anxious to have him with her but he’ll be fine, I know, and in her arms soon. (My nephew had the same thing.) I don’t have a good pic of him but that’s ok because his mama does and she’ll share ‘em when she’s ready. Also Brett took our working camera by mistake so I got stuck bringing the one that leaves stripes in everything. Sorry about that! The nurses made a big fuss over big sister Madison and she marched around very proud. Everyone in the waiting room said Roscoe was gorgeous because he really is a big, beautiful baby — it’s not just our bias showing!!
Sep 032009
I really did. Brett is Lloyd Dobbler without the kick-boxing and maybe just a little more awkward.
I have this theory about relationships, which is that only one person can be a star at a time and that a good relationship means that there’s no jockeying for position. You can’t have two drama-addicts or two people trying to worm their way into the relationship spotlight or two people who like to hear their own noise. No, one person is the noise, is the energy, is the drive and the drama and the other person is strong enough to be the support.
In our relationship, I’m the one making all the noise and Brett is the one waiting in the wings. Like Lloyd.
If you haven’t seen the movie, Lloyd doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life but his girlfriend does. And that’s ok with Lloyd; he’s willing to be her stalwart supporter. There’s a line in the movie where he says, “What I really want to do with my life — what I want to do for a living — is I want to be with your daughter. I’m good at it.” And that’s Brett. He wants to take care of me even though (my mom will tell you) I’m sure not easy to live with.
We’ve been talking about, you know, finances and jobs and budgets and Brett keeps saying, “It seems like we should do whatever it takes so that you can do what you want because you’re the one who knows what she wants in this family. That should be our goal — to help you do what you want.”
Brett doesn’t care about work and he never has. He’s not in the least ambitious and his only goal job-wise is something that he can do reasonably well, that pays the bills and that lets him come home and be with his family. His family is IT. Nothing else matters as much to him and his only unhappiness with the job woes over the past few years is that he can’t take care of us like he wants to and that I don’t have time to write. How’d I get so lucky to find a partner whose goal is to help me meet my goals? Who insists on cleaning the kitchen so I can study the GRE?
Once someone asked him if it bothered him that I made more money than he did (this was back in more heady financial days). And he said, “No — I think it reflects well on me that she’s with me.” He wouldn’t care if someone called him Mr. Friedman. He just doesn’t give a damn about glory but he gets that I do.
He wants to be at every soccer game. He wants to help Noah with his math. He wants to be at dentist appointments and religious school services and teach them how to ride bikes. He wants to fill up the car and print out the google map so I can find my way to my workshops. He wants to fill out all the tax forms so I can get paid. He is happy being the behind-the-scenes guy who makes it all run more smoothly for the people that he loves. And what kills him is that he can’t do that right now because of his paycut. He doesn’t care for himself — he really doesn’t. His needs are few — a gourmet coffee now and then maybe. Time for a long, solitary run. But he wants us to be safe and sound; that’s all he wants. He says that when I get my counseling degree he’ll handle my appointments and the endless insurance forms. He’ll be happy to organize my office and keep things running smoothly. He understands that I’m bad at this and that I get bored with details so he’s happy to take up the details for me.
I know I write these Brett-posts periodically but I don’t think the quiet guys get enough credit in this world. I think it takes a strong man to be with a strong woman in a culture that says men have to be pounding their chests and roaring around like a hot shot. Brett is good and kind and quiet when to be that kind of man isn’t easy.
I am ridiculously lucky. (So are my kids)
Jul 202009
Pennie’s baby shower is this weekend and I’d love for you to help. If you’re in town and interested in coming, let me know and I’ll hook you up. If you’re not in town and would like to gift her something, her registrations are here and here.
But if you’re budget, like mine, is tight right now, I’d love for you to participate anyway.
I know many of you feel like you know Pennie even though you haven’t met her. Many of you have been reading my blog since before she came into our family or soon after she placed Madison with us. I know that lots of you are thinking of Pennie now and of Madison and of baby Rosco. I”d love it if you would share a note that I could print out and give to Pennie. You can email it to me or fill out the contact form (it comes right to my inbox). Good wishes, sensitive advice, loving encouragement are all welcome!
Come be a part of our celebration!!
Jul 152009
I had a falling out with my dad a couple of weeks ago. He didn’t do anything unusual to warrant it — he was just being himself. Accepting my dad for his (flawed as is all humanity including yours truly) self is something I’ve worked to do mostly with success. And in fact my freelancing struggles helped bring us closer because if anyone knows about cold-calling, networking and difficult clients, it’s my former insurance salesman dad.
But a number of things happened that just put me over the edge and I canceled the father’s day dinner I was going to cook him.
I’m not proud of this; it’s just true.
You know what it was, it’s that the Friedman Family reunion was just about to happen and I couldn’t go (neither could my sister). (It happened this past weekend.) And it made me think of all the visits my little sister’s have gotten back there courtesy of my dad and how he never flew us (myself and my full siblings) out there. How my big sister missed my grandfather’s funeral and how much this still devastates her. I can’t help it — it makes me feel like the forgotten post-divorce kid again. Apparently I’ve got an inner 12-year old who holds grudges.
I’ve always identified with the Friedman side of my family because I am a Friedman (in name) and because I look like a Friedman (in stoutness). Also I more strongly identify with my Jewish heritage, which is my dad’s side of the family. Finally we lived in California for awhile, where much of the Friedman family lives, and so when I was a kid for three halcyon years, we felt very Friedman-ish.
But once we left California and once my grandparents died, we had no real contact with that Friedman side. None. My dad’s brother came out a couple of times but the extended family? No contact. This was before the internet age, of course, and casual relationships were harder to maintain.
In my late teens, the whole Friedman family mystique kind of took hold. It’s when I took (and failed) Russian. It’s when I first started thinking about identifying as Jewish and learning more about Judaism. It’s when I knew I’d never change my last name if I got married. It’s also (early college) when I quit talking to my dad. Coincidence? I think not.
I had this idea that there was some place I belonged without question and that when I found this place my life would start to make sense. I was eighteen, searching for myself and desperately seeking guidance on the journey. And like many kids my age, I was looking for those answers in my family tree.
So I was/am miserable about missing the Friedman family reunion not just because it reminds me of how much I don’t have as far as those extended family ties but also because I realized I had this very quiet, very childish inner dream that they were all missing ME like I was missing THEM. Like they were all sitting around going, “There’s a place in our heart that is just so Dawn-shaped but where is Dawn?”
It’s funny how those childish dreams just keep on powering our emotions even when we’re not aware of them.
But what made me identify this was thinking about how adoptees in reunion are sometimes disappointed and I thought about how family ties can matter to us in a way that is different than how they play out practically and what would I tell an adoptee who was trying to find herself in old photographs and failing as often as she’s succeeding? I would tell her — they’re your family no matter what and you can take what you need but you also have to accept the limits of the reality of your relationships. Which is what I’m working on for myself. (And as an aside, I am of course thinking about Madison and her family ties and her losses and feeling grateful — dare I say it — for this hard-earned empathy so I can help her if her struggles are similar.)
I told my sister (my full sister, Erica, who is also pretty devastated about Friedman family reunions that don’t seem to miss us as much as we miss them) that I was going to try disengaging my fantasy. I was going to try interrupting it. I was going to try to say, “Yes, that’s where I got my Russian peasant physique but it’s not where I’m going to find all of my answers.”
I wondered to myself, why so much with the Friedmans? What about my mom’s side of the family, which is rife with passionate, smart, hard-working heroines and which has been so much more welcoming and so much more available? And the answer is — because my mom was there; I didn’t have to yearn for her. I could take her (and her ancestors) for granted. They were already mine. But the Friedmans — I lost them when I lost my dad.
I will always have lost my dad. I can’t help that. Even he can’t help that. We can’t fix the way back when. I can, however, heal some of the hurts by adjusting my point of view and letting go of daydreams I didn’t know I was holding onto. Only I’m not so hot at it right this very minute so I’m still not up to calling my dad. (Especially because he is totally impatient with this stuff — I think it’s the guilt, which he covers with exasperation because I do think he feels guilty and really, he ought to although I’m not sure if it does any of us much good. I’m just still mad enough to want him to feel lousy, too.)
Who knew that growing up could be so painful four decades into this living thing???
