Legoes and Lunacy

Here's a rant for you about how old and broken down I am: I have been out of my Effexor for 2 days because the pharmacy decided they had to order it for me. I also was at home today with my 5 year old son. This is my day when I am feeling a bit emotionally edgy:
1. Jacob pitched a giant, GIANT fit about his shoes, because he wanted to wear the socks that are still in the laundry, not these other socks. FYI, there would be more of these socks available if he didn't leave the dirty socks everywhere for the dog to chew on and destroy and sometimes eat entirely.
2. Had to take Jacob to an audiology appointment for the school district because Jacob has an IEP. We were late because of the fit about the socks and shoes. The socks and shoes got put on/taken off and thrown in the car about three times. Grrr. Jacob has totally perfect hearing, but I have to have a long conversation about his IEP anyway, even though he is only Speech Only and no longer developmentally delayed. Woman is not listening to me. 
3. We went to feed the ducks at the park and it rained on us.
4. After getting perturbed at me for not being available when he asked, Tony is not available to have lunch with us.
5. Go to the post office. Don't have enough paper to wrap the book I am trying to mail. Have to buy a thing even though I had already printed the postage at home.
6. Take Jacob to Marshalls for more socks, but they don't have the EXACT ones he wants, so no new socks or shoes for him. We did, however, find a SpiderMan watch. Cool.
7. Take watch out of package, and the battery is dead.
8. Go to nearby jewelry store to get the battery replaced. Kid is all over the store, trying to go behind counters and open stuff he has no business opening. Grrr. 
9. Put on watch. Jacob now gives me the minute by minute update on where the big and little hands are. My eyelid starts to twitch.
10. We go get lunch. My contact lens, despite putting drops in my eyes, starts to freak out during the meal. Jacob makes the world's largest burp at the table, causing a grown man nearby to remark on it.
11. Go home and I am dying for a nap. Kiddo, not so much. He decides to go play with his legoes. He comes in every two minutes to ask me to find the one itty-bitty piece that will be the lynchpin of the tractor he is trying to make. Then the labradoodle vomits up a whole child's sock on the bedroom floor. I have a headache. I tell Jacob I am going to have a short bath before I look for the lego.
12. Kiddo now decides that he needs to actually watch me take a bath and make editorial comments about my body. Great. Yes, I do know that parts of me stick up out of the water. I stick my head under the water, but I can still hear him talking. I come up just in time for him to ask me about the legoes again. He has lined them up on the edge of the tub, pointing out that he needs another one like THIS one, right here.
13. I get out of the tub. I realize that playing with These things is NOT as I remember. Now there a billion teeny-tiny strangely shaped bits that have to be arranged exactly according to the diagram, or it is all wrong. I have a headache, trifocal glasses, and am a quart low on serotonin reuptake inhibitor.
14. I spend the next 35 minutes finding all the little itty-bitty lego bits and then painstakingly building the lego tractor and farmhouse. Little Guy watches, but doesn't help much. Unless by helping, you mean trying to jam his Captain America Lego Guy into the house, knocking some of it down, which must be rebuilt.
15. Dog flops down on the pile of blocks, and must be moved while not disturbing the Lego city. 
16. Hubby comes home, and I am ready to die. Not bad for a day off, huh?

Living Passionately

Image by Paula Scarletta


When I am in good form, and working at the top of my game, I strive always to live passionately. Of course, lately, I have been stunned into silence and even illness by the drama and baggage and heavy feelings surrounding the return of Little A and the short stay of Baby B.

As I sit here drinking water and taking antibiotics and trying to recover from the total shock to my system, I am noticing how down  and low-vibrating this situation has made me feel. I have had zero energy for writing or for making other kinds of art. That spiraled down into a total creative void and finally physical wear and tear. It was like my body just totally went on strike to get me to notice that I had started to live my life in a way that was not going to be consistent with my happiness.

Of course I know that having kids will put a damper on your energy. Especially my kids, because they come from backgrounds that mean they have certain special needs in the parenting department. Well, A does. J has made such progress and I have bonded with him such that he seems easy and the relationship is pretty relaxed most of the time.

I am nowhere near my usual energy level at the moment, but it has forced me to use my time for contemplation. It is going to take me a little bit to rebuild my strength. While I do that I am going to try to remain focused on what really matters, and that is being true to who I really am. Too often I allow the people in the county building tell me how to parent. The fact is that I am a slightly peculiar person and my kids enjoy me more if I can go with it and just be myself.

I'm happier when I am entertaining friends, experiencing and making art, supporting the artists I know, dancing, being in nature, and helping other people. It raises my energy level to do those things. It brings me down to do paperwork, do things out of obligation rather than by choice, and spending time in places that are filled with negative energy and negative people.

I'm not really sure how long we are going to have Little A this time. Things seem pretty uncertain at the moment. But if I am going to enjoy her in her good moments, I need to have enough energy to be awake for it. Little by little, I need to raise the bar for myself and follow those passions where they lead.

Sinking In

Image: Little J finding the light at the end of the tunnel. It isn't even a train this time.

Okay, so I had to create a new tag for my blog today. I can't believe I had never used it before: Happy.

That just shows how much I have been holding my breath the last few years. It occurred to me earlier today that Little J will be with us at Christmas for sure.  I have been so wrapped up in his legal concerns lately that I have not been able to think, with emotional safety, about the future. Just thinking about preparing a nice Christmas for him made me super happy.

Usually I am not super into that holiday. When we were going through infertility treatments there were too many Christmases that came and went without a child to share them with. The holidays became this loaded issue for me. Last year I didn't even decorate or put up a tree. I just couldn't do it. Now I have a new house and a new kid. I think I am going to dream of sugarplums tonight.

What the heck is a sugarplum, anyway?

He sees London, He sees France...

Little J sees my underpants!

Since I am on a small "maternity leave" with Little J and Tony is still working daily, the two of us are together constantly. It is great for bonding and murder on any kind of privacy. He follows me everywhere, which is fine because that is better than wandering the house and getting into trouble. He even follows me to the bathroom. *sigh* I guess I have to let him because if I go in alone, he'll be unsupervised and will also pound on the door and demand to come in.

So for now I guess I have a bathroom attendant. He hands me toilet paper and washes hands with me. He is very interested in my toilet progress, since so far he only uses his potty as a step stool to get up to the sink.

We have funny conversations in the bathroom. Since he is just now learning to talk, he is master of the obvious and asks me if I am going potty. You bet kiddo, and someday you will do this too.

Is it a little wrong to look forward to going back to work so I can use the toilet alone? Oh yeah, I am a nurse now, so I don't get to use the toilet because I am so busy!

Being a Mother

Image: Gustav Klimt: Mother and Child, 1905

Being a mother is a big deal. Not that it shouldn't be, because it is just about the hardest thing there is to do. There are about as many kinds of mothers as there are children to parent. I'm going to be a foster mother again very soon, and that brings up all sorts of feelings. Bear with me while I sort them out in writing.

Yes, being a mother is a big deal. Our culture idolizes mothers to the point where it is generally accepted that being a parent is by default just better than not being one. It is assumed that until you have had a child, you are incapable of feeling or expressing unconditional love or deep empathy or protectiveness for other people. Women who are unable for whatever reason to give birth or choose to not have children are creatures to be pitied.

I'm pretty sure being pitied is one of the worst feelings there is. Being pitied when you have suffered a great loss such as losing a child is so dis-empowering. For as long as people pity you, you are pitiful, no?

We have pictures of Little A all over our house, reminders of when we were her proud parents. She was a beautiful daughter and adding Little J to our family will not make me stop missing her or wondering how she is doing with her family.

I have been not-a-mother yet, a foster mother, a former mother, and now a foster mother-to-be again. While being a mother (and I was that in almost every sense to Little A) taught me many things about myself, it didn't make me better than anyone else. I am proud to say that I already knew about love and empathy before she became part of our family. I am a purposeful person and examine myself and my motives on a regular basis, so there was no big a-ha moment there.

It is a little hard for me, around holidays like Mothers' Day, to not feel a little annoyed at the cult of the Mother around me. That in-club that I have both been included and excluded from. It is a rite of passage to be a parent, and it is almost like I am not considered fully a woman unless I am a frazzled mother.

But having a functioning uterus doesn't make you a woman any more than having a functioning appendix does. All sorts of people have babies that have neither the coping skills nor the interest to parent. As a foster parent, I see that side of it and just can't wrap my head around it.

I will say that I have known people who have suffered illness and loss and personal tragedy, and not one of them would trade places with me for a million dollars. I carry my loss of Little A like a piece of secret shame, even though I lost her due to no wrongdoing of my own, but to a court system that places a higher value on her biological mother's rights than to what was clearly making Little A happy and healthy. I can't tell that story out loud without being like a black raincloud that brings unwanted sadness to anyone who hears it. So most of the time I just gloss over it, or say nothing at all, even though to do so makes me feel like less of a mother, like it was all a dream that ended badly. I'm like the mother that other mothers must not touch for fear of my bad luck rubbing off. I honestly try hard not to touch pregnant women, just in case.

In a few hours I get to meet the little boy who will hopefully be my forever son one day. He is his own person and is not coming into my life to heal my hurts, but to have his own soothed. He has his own issues and cannot bear the burden of my anxiety. I have to teach him that I can be trusted to provide comfort, as if he were a newborn. Today I will start slow, like a first date, hoping for love but not letting a show of it overwhelm. I cannot merely claim him and expect him to fall into my arms in gratitude. In fact, at first, he may reject me for moving him away from his current foster mother or the even more distant figment of the woman he never sees but who gave birth to him.

Being a Mother is a big deal, but not in the ways popular culture would have you believe. It means being a whole person and showing a child how to rise above pain and still have an open heart. It means accepting a child as a person with flaws like any other. And ultimately, it means eventually saying goodbye to that child, hopefully because you have successfully raised them to adulthood and not some other, sadder reason. It means becoming an archetype in the life of another person, expanding beyond yourself into mythic proportions before you even have your morning coffee. It means dead-lifting cars and making healing food that, if you are lucky, will be remembered long after you are ash in the wind.

The Buzz: It's a Boy!

The news on the Ferrante Family front is that we are taking another Flex Family placement of a 2 year old boy. He's not a newborn baby, but he'll be our "baby". For the purposes of the interwebs, I will call him "Little J". His privacy is very important, so I will not be discussing the finer points of the reasons he came into foster care other than to say that it was because of neglect, which has given him a few special needs for which he is receiving therapy services. I also, alas, will not be posting pictures of him on my facebook page or my blog, at least until his legal status is more secure.

Being a Flex family means that we take him as a foster child, and are able to adopt him if that is the way his case plan goes. This is what we did with Little A, and we all know that we ended up on the losing end of that particular gamble. It is scary to venture into this arena again, but with great risk there is potential for great reward, or so I explain to my frazzled nerves.

It's like we are on the county's radar at the moment, because now that we are committed to Little J, we are getting calls for all kinds of situations. I got a phone call yesterday to see if we could take an emergency placement of a 12 month old baby girl. That tugged hard on my heart strings, but we want to take time to get Little J moved in and settled and bonded before we go adding more kids to the family.

If this post sounds all somber and serious, don't let that fool you. I am super freaking excited about it. We are meeting him next week, and will move him in in about a week or two. I'm buying paint for his room today. I know I will feel much more ready after we get things put together in there.

After having a super girly girl for two years, I am now trying to figure out how to raise a son. I have my own ideas, but I am open to suggestion as to what cultural touchstones are important for raising a boy to be freethinking and sort of hip and unconventional. Does he need comic books in his life, which ones? Are ninja movies essential? Any really good books? I'm shaping a person here, and I want him to be someone you can stand to hang out with. I don't want to raise him to be pretentious, but to have discerning tastes.

Oh me and my lofty ideas. A month from now all I will want is some sleep! ;)

Be More Real

Image :  http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/120708/be-more-confident.gif

One of the things I am trying to do with my life, assuming my life is a canvas for art, is to be authentic. What that means from day to day varies, but it mostly has to do with ridding myself of the desire to compare myself with other people and just be myself.

I don't know if that sounds easy or not, but who I am is a constant work-in-progress. I set lofty goals for myself. I work hard. I am my own worst critic. In spite of that, I need to be more real.

When I get into trouble is when I try to be what my perception of a societal role should be. When I try to be what I think a "good wife" or "good mother" or even "good artist", I fall into a trap of trying to be what is expected, rather than taking the time to think about what that means to me. Does it matter if I put honest effort into something that ultimately is not natural to who I am? Doing that just leads to feeling like a failure.

Example: When I was Little A's mom, I did a lot of things with her. I wanted to be a good mom, because I loved her and also because some measure of my self image was wrapped up in that. I kept beating myself up because some of the things about parenting I wasn't so jazzed about, and I felt like if I was a "good mom" I would naturally enjoy them more. For instance, I dreaded bath time. Not mine, hers. I felt like if I was a good mom I would enjoy bathing my child. I would laugh through getting splashed with soapy water, I would be good-natured about getting that slippery kiddo to wash her hair. Tony was way better at it. Frankly I didn't enjoy it.

I also, for some odd reason. didn't enjoy playing on the floor as much as Tony did. Little A always wanted me to play with toys with her on the floor, and I did it, but I also had to make dinner and do laundry, so those moments often felt conflicted for me.

What I did enjoy were the afternoon tea times we had together, when we would have snacks and listen to music (often Mozart), and we would do drawings and color together. We had lovely closeness in those moments. Is that somehow less valuable than playing with a commercially ubiquitous plastic doll with her? I don't think so.

But when we had to reunify Little A with her biological mother, the first thing I noticed was that she played with Little A on the floor a lot. And even though I had my shit together in a lot of ways, I felt some harsh self-judgment feelings. I was glad for Little A that she would get that play time like she wanted, but after she was gone, I missed those more contemplative moments making fridge art the most. I missed most what came most naturally to me.

Little kids and friends and artistic audiences can smell it when you are not giving full commitment to the moment. I got up and read some of my poetry at an open mic recently (my first attempt at such a thing). I was nervous and unable to fully commit and I think as a result I got a tepid response. I had also chosen to read some stuff that I thought would have a broader appeal and be less about my inner persona. In retrospect, I think that was a wrong choice, based on what I thought a "good poet" would read. I made my selections based on what I thought were good representations of my work, instead of pieces that revealed something visceral and real about myself. If (or when) I decide to do it again, I need to not be afraid to show what is real about me. I need to bleed a bit, be a bit more raw. It is scary to do, because what if is isn't accepted? What if it makes people laugh?

But for me to be able to be satisfied with it after the fact, I need to experience being real with other people watching, even if that means I am not understood by everyone. Playing it safe will do me no good. Doing what others expect or worse, what I think others expect, will only prove that I can be superficial and concerned with the opinions of others. I don't even think that kind of art would ultimately resonate with anyone. It might be pretty, but ultimately forgettable.

I don't want to be forgettable. I don't want to blend in. I don't want to be "whatever is in these quotation marks", but the real thing. Even though it takes more energy and involves more risks, I want to be, as much as possible, more real.

Lost Mitten

My house is full of evidence that up until Friday I was a mom. Just little things here and there, art on the fridge, stray puzzle pieces under the sofa, and silky blonde hairs in the bathtub drain. We are still in the process of cleaning the house after moving our foster daughter. There is this stray mitten that I guess I need to throw out, because I never found the mate to it so I could send it with the rest of her stuff.

It is just a little purple mitten. So small. By next winter she probably would have outgrown that pair anyway. But my eyes keep gravitating to it, and it would probably be healthier for my well being to toss it out or put it away, rather than picturing the soft little hand that belongs in it. The hand that fit so well in mine.

Better to discard it lest I do something crazy like sew it on the inside of my coat, so it can lie over my heart, secretly where nobody will see it. Because the rest of the world will become accustomed to my childlessness so much faster than I will. They won't have to think about her every day and wonder how she is doing, worry about whether she is happy. Worry about the unseasonably cold mornings and if she has something to keep her hands warm.

I have an empty mitten, and she has a cold hand. That is how I see it. She hasn't even been gone long enough to miss me, or notice that she isn't coming back. She'll figure it out in her way and probably get the reasons for it all wrong. I am sad for myself, but even more I worry for her. I just want her to be happy.

The county would gladly fill our empty bedroom with another child if we wanted them to. But there is just no way I could take that on right now for lots of reasons, so we are waiting. Need to heal. Need to get through nursing school. I feel like I need to conquer the world a bit and get my confidence back and get out from under the watchful eyes of the gaggle of social workers that in the end don't do any of the heavy lifting that foster parents do.

I don't know how long I will keep this mitten. I guess until I don't need it anymore. Maybe I need the proof that while I had her, I took good care of her.

Bend, but don't Break

I am sorta half decent at yoga, but being emotionally flexible is a bit more challenging.

I’m bending into some unlikely and highly uncomfortable shapes these days. I’m angry. I’m full of sorrow. I’m hurting.

Bending. Bending over backwards and twisting sideways and sometimes inside out. Last night entailed very little sleep, because when Little A can’t sleep, neither can anyone else. But it is understandable because last night we had to tell her that she is moving on Friday. Tomorrow. We told her kindly, somberly, and truthfully. She took it ok, which just means to me that she doesn’t fully understand it.

And the things she says these days! Tearful proclamations that announce her fear of abandonment by us. A fear, I am sorry to say, we are going to have to validate against our will. I wish I could repeat them here, if only to get the plaintive voice out of my head and on paper. Out of my body where it drains me.

I did tell her that this wasn’t our choice. I told her that I will love her forever. I told her that every time she sees the moon in the daytime, smiling at her, that she should remember that I love her. I hope she remembers.

In the meantime my whole body aches. My heart is utterly shattered. If I didn’t know for a fact that my symptoms were a result of extreme stress, I would think I had cancer or some other serious illness. I feel like I am dying. I feel broken.

Little A, you have been a wonderful daughter. I will never have another like you if I live a million more lives after this one.


Image credit:
http://www.pbase.com/britestar/image/66583996

Confidentiality

I hate having secrets.

I mean, I don't mind keeping other people's confidences, but I hate having things about myself that I can't share with the world. Not things I am ashamed of, but things I can't say because I am prohibited by laws governing confidentiality.

There are so many things I wish I could say about my experience as a foster parent. About the frustrations of dealing with an overtaxed system that can only give partial justice to anyone. The truth is that everyone gets hurt in some way when a child gets taken into foster care. But the worst part of it for me is the various gag orders that seem to prevent me from working for reform. Honestly, I wouldn't know where to begin.

I can't discuss the particulars of the case I am involved in, or talk about the experiences of other children in foster care that I know. I can't address the endless court delays that stand in the way between children in limbo and some kind of permanence.

It is a very helpless feeling to watch the machinations of the lawyers, the judges, and the various interested parties struggle over their disparate needs with regard to a child who is too small to voice her own opinion in a legally meaningful way.

As for my own needs, they have no place in this process. That I continue to be permanently altered by this experience seems moot. I wish I could tell you. I wish I could spray paint on a giant wall for all to see how many fears this stirs in me. How much pain I quietly swallow so that I can show a calm face to a little girl who just needs to focus on preschool and her continued resistance to eating vegetables.

Some days it is easier than others. But there are days when I want to scream. I want to scream at all the people involved with this. This isn't my fault. I didn't create this situation. I just agreed to help, to shelter a child who needed a home while her life gets sort of sorted out for her. That I have fallen in love with her and she with me isn't anyone's fault either. That I would do anything in this world to protect her would be natural in any other circumstance. But my maternal instincts do not dictate public policy and they never will.

I wish I could tell you all of it. But it is probably a good thing that I can't. This post is depressing enough. I want to lighten it. I want to give you a Hollywood happy ending so badly, but I can't. And this is just ONE child out of the hundreds in foster care in my county alone. I want to make it okay for you to be involved in my story, because then maybe I can make it okay for the amazing and beautiful little girl this affects. I want it to be okay for me, too.

Parenting: The Straight Poop

Normally I don't talk much about my parenting. For so many years (a decade plus), I had been actively longing for a child, so once I got one I figured I would just count my blessings and keep quiet. I had wanted to be a mother ever since I could remember. I did tons of babysitting as soon as I was old enough, and as a foster parent I even received dozens of hours of actual training about parenting. I had read about attachment theory. We baby-proofed our house. In short, I felt prepared.

Hah!

Once our (then 2 1/2 year old) bundle of joy moved in, I found out just how unprepared we were. Now, maybe some of that has to do with the fact that Little A is a foster child and came to us with certain special needs. But I have talked to friends and family with new babies and I am finding the experiences at least a little similar.

There are some things that have been unexpected and some suspicions I had about parenting that were confirmed. Since today marks the one year since we met Little A for the first time, I thought I would share a few. I'm still keeping A's details confidential, but this more about parenting in general.

• The Culture Shock: Even with lots of advance preparation, being suddenly responsible for the safety of a small person who would surely lick the light socket without your eagle eye on them at all times is jarring. It is something that drains you even when the little one is sleeping. Getting used to that is hard. So much harder than anyone ever told me.
  
• The "Mommy Club": And to a certain extent, the "daddy club". I always suspected that becoming a parent was a rite of passage, and that parents had a sort of clique that I was missing out on when I was not a parent. That part really is true. I find I bond pretty easily with and am accepted by other mothers very readily. It is trippy. Now that I am a parent, I can see how "clueless" some people without children can be. Not everyone, mind, but some people just say lame things, usually that begin with "Why don't you just...?". Those comments always make parents roll their eyes at each other behind your back.
• Feeling OLD: Maybe this one just is because I AM old. But I notice that my friends who are childless, or child-free by choice, seem so much younger in attitude to me. They still can run away for the weekend or off to the movies on the spur of the moment. I have to meticulously plan everything. That and even Little A, at 3 1/2, already talks to me sometimes like I am terminally uncool. That is a little hard on the ego.
• Everything takes so much longer: Oh my gosh, going anywhere becomes an exercise in "how much of a pain in the ass is this gonna be?" math. And babies and kids always have so much dang STUFF. Holy hell. And most of it lives in my handbag when she gets tired of carrying it. Nothing like going out to dinner for once with my husband only to find out that there is a squirmy, squishy rubber gecko in my purse.
• The bodily functions: Having kids is really messy business. There is nothing that shows a mother's love more than not freaking out when a kid barfs in your hair. You know you love them when all you care about is making them comfortable again. I wish I could tell you that it stops at barf. Every body fluid you can imagine and a few combinations you would rather not imagine WILL come out of your kid. On you, on your furniture, your carpet, and even on your pets. Buy a carpet cleaner now if you are even contemplating having a kid. And for god's sake, wash your hands like there is no tomorrow, all the time.
  
• The cooties: When you send your kid to day care or school for the first time, prepare to be sick (yourself, your spouse, and your kid) for about six months. Oh, the humanity. I am talking "kill me now" levels of sick. Colds and flu and coughs and vomiting for endless months. I started thinking I would never, ever be well again. And parenting while ill is no picnic. Your patience goes right out the window.
• The Love: Ok, people did tell me that I would love Little A. But articulating the depth of feeling there is very difficult. It goes aginst reason, really. In a lot of ways, becoming a parent has matured me in good ways that involve a deeper compassion for all people. I'm a better person for having her in my life, no doubt.
  
• The Killing Urge: It is hard to explain how you can adore someone to the depth of your soul and still get frustrated with them to the point where you have to remove yourself from the room or you are sure something bad will happen. This is one of those things that parents understand that non-parents just don't get. Even if you are the most abiding, patient soul in the world, your kid will test your limits. It is kinda their job.
• Feeling like a failure: Because I am a foster parent, my parenting is actually supervised to a degree by a number of "specialists". I am gratified to hear from social workers and therapists that I am not just a good mom, but a great mom in their opinion. That's nice. I still feel like a total failure sometimes. The thing is is that every parent feels this way, and apparently we were all sworn to secrecy about it.
• The Uber-Parents: Or as I like to call them, Assholes. There are always driver-driver, overacheiving parents who read all the latest theories and buy all the funky developmental toys that will look at whatever you are doing and sneer. They are jerks. They were probably jerks before they became parents. You only know them now because they are parents like you are and it is all about the "Mommy Club". Whatever.
• Feeling like a genius: On the flipside of feeling like a failure is the feeling you get when your kid masters something they have been trying and trying so hard to learn. Parental pride is like heroin. It feels great when they do something that will prepare them to be productive adults one day. All because of you. Yay!
• Tiny kisses and that first real hug: Totally priceless. Having the love and trust of a child is a lot of responsibility, but the reward of having that little one say "I love you mom" just makes your heart jump out of your chest and dance for joy. It is pretty damn good stuff. Sorry if that sounds sappy, but it is true nonetheless.

So, have a kid if you want. Don't say I didn't warn you. :)

Secrets and Other Confidential Things

Well.

The stories I could tell, just about today, if only I were permitted to.

I'm having an interesting life lately. It is just that most of the stuff that is happening to me is going on behind the scenes and I am either prohibited from sharing it due to privacy laws or out of a sense of my own shame.

This week the big life lesson is about controlling my temper in moments where it would be totally understandable to melt down.

I knew in advance that this was going to be a stressful week. My school calendar tells me that this week and next are going to be challenging. What I didn't count on was the personal life stuff that apparently just can't wait.

This is my adding insult to injury week.

Insult because communication breakdowns are causing MAJOR misunderstandings. Mercury goes direct on the 15th after a period of retrograde. Mercury in retrograde is a good time to lay low and connect in non confrontational ways with people from the past. It is not the time to try and settle any new business. Usually I like to keep track of things like Mercury retrogrades, but this one snuck up on me and I think it is fair to say that it has been an unmitigated disaster. I have had some very difficult conversations this week, and today is only Tuesday.

I have gotten a new and not so flattering nickname from a fellow student at school. Apparently, I am "Band Camp Girl", because I talk too much about my employment experiences about the VA. Crap. My experience is that once a person has decided I talk "too much", there is no fixing that, even I were silent the rest of the year. It bothered me enough that I went to my professor and asked her directly if I participate too much in her lectures. She looked at me like I was a crazy person and said that if that ever happened, she would let me know. I think my query amused her, actually. That might have been a first for her.

Really, when people tell me that I talk too much, that just makes me feel like what I have to say is of no value to them. That hurts, but what are you gonna do?

Luckily for me, I am making some decent and lovely new friends out of the people who listen long enough to hear that there is a cogent point in there somewhere. I even meditated before the test with Christy. We were so happy to have been assigned to work together on the midterm that we fell into each other's arms with relief. She's a peach, and seems to get where I am coming from on a holistic level.

Injury because I had to hold it together after Little A pitched a major tantrum and ended up slapping me really hard in the face today.

Um, yeah. And this is directly after I had finished my skills lab midterm (dunno how I did yet). I was still reeling from a long and stressful day at school, and my kid had to sock me right in the gob. Nice. I had to give myself a time out to deal with that one. I didn't lose my temper with her, although I am not sure how. My mother has new found respect for me as a parent, because I told her what happened and she figures that if I had done something like that when I was a kid, she woulda just killed me.

Yes, Little A got discipline for that. She was in trouble for sure. But there is no spanking at our house. I don't think I could spank this child even if I were not prohibited by law. She's too sensitive. Today is just one of those days when I have to breathe a sigh of relief that my daughter is now sleeping. She always looks so angelic when she is sleeping.

I'm going to go curl up in a ball on the couch now. If you love me, please say so.

Heavy Blogging Could Lead To Dancing

I have to wonder what got into me this month. I have never blogged so many posts in one month before! Sorry if you had trouble keeping up with all the posts and my mercurial mood swings. Here's the wrap-up and what's new:

From the looks of things, August is going to be equally hectic and filled with adventures. Just how I like it. :) I'm plotting a couple of trips out of town, since I generally am pretty valley-bound during the winter months. I'm going to get to the Bay Area to see my mom and hopefully to catch John P. for dinner and social lubricant in S.F. Once school starts I am going to be prettly buckled in, but if I make some good memories this summer, then I can remember them when I am shoveling snow in my driveway.

My life is never boring. It is a never-ending roller coaster. Sometimes that is fun and sometimes it makes me wanna puke, but I like it overall. I'm a little too intense for some people. I only get really irritated when I try to compare my life to others or behave too conventionally. I am happiest when things are in motion and opportunities for art-making are abundant.

Things are unfolding and changing and in flux a lot right now. Probably because I am excited about school starting, but I am almost optimistic about things. It will be a big load off to stop going to the office for a while and just focus on my education. School will doubtless contain its own set of stressors, but I generally excel in academic settings.

Things with Little A are pretty good, despite the ongoing legal issues. She is thriving and growing like crazy. I am really proud of the progress she is making, especially with her speech. I can actually have real little conversations with her now. Of course, she shines with beauty to me. I love her so much. It blows my mind how something (and by this I mean parenting in general) can be so frustrating and tiring and yet this little person is such a joy much of the time. In between the laundry and the power struggles over eating vegetables, there are little moments of such exquisite tenderness that I treasure above everything.

Tony and I were talking last night about how our long, fruitless struggle with infertility brought us to a place where we were able to be there for a child we otherwise would never have had. While we still both bear deep emotional scars from that experience, Little A is so precious and really needs us. I really admire him as a father. He is so playful and patient and affectionate with her. It is achingly sweet to witness. I always knew he would be an amazing dad, because children just gravitate toward him.

That's all the news that is fit to print. The unfit to print news will take a couple of cocktails to pry out of me. Please feel willing to try. :)

Here's a Thought

Call me a busybody if you want, but I am going to take a moment to tell you how to raise your kids. This isn't directed at anybody in particular, but we aren't even into the hot part of summer, and kids are already dying in hot cars. That shit pisses me off no end. When I look at our struggles to add children to our family, the fact that others can just give birth and then neglect or abuse those kids just blows the top of my head off. As a foster parent, I have to be held to much higher standards than biological parents. I'm no parenting expert, but how hard can it be to take a baby out of the car seat when it is 90 degrees outside?

So, jackass parents everywhere, here's your free lesson:

1. Don't leave your kid in a car with the windows rolled up. Not even for "just a minute". The temperatures in that car will soar way above the air outside in minutes. Your little one can NOT deal with that kind of heat. If your baby dies because you are too stupid or selfish to take them out of the car seat, I and legions of others will wish painful retribution on you, in this life and the next. You will totally deserve it if bad things happen to you.
2. Do you figure that your drug abuse problems don't affect your kids? Think again.
3. Don't leave your kid unattended in a store/public pool/meth lab. Take care of your own kid and make sure they don't steal/drown/take a contact hit.
4. Fireworks are not great "toys".
5. Cheetos are not in the vegetable food group.
6. Neither is Mountain Dew.
7. Take an Infant/Child CPR class. Seriously. Even if you mess up any of the above, you might be able to save a life.
8. Mullet hairstyles became classified as child abuse around 1992. Ditto the rat-tail and the Dorothy Hammill bowl-haircut.
9. Dora the Explorer is not your babysitter.
10. Smile at your kid every once in a while.

Got more? Add on!

Could you suffer in silence, please?

I have secrets now. I guess everybody does. Only these secrets are ones I would rather unburden myself about, but can't because of confidentiality constraints. But if I had no scruples at all and felt like risking my entire life's destruction, I could tell some tales, boy howdy.

Right now there are hundreds of thousands of children in Foster Care in the U.S. I don't have current figures, and almost don't want to look them up. It is just too grim. What I do know is that the courts are set up so strange that navigating the issues that Little A has just about make me insane, and we are far from being done with it.

With all the kids that are in foster care, there is a really desperate need for more foster parents to care for them. But would I ever recommend that a friend do this? Probably not. Not unless I was really mad at that friend and wanted to see them suffer. There is no court advocate for foster parents' interests. If you are lucky, your goals and the county's coincide. Right now that seems to be the case with us, but that could always change and we could be asked to do things we would rather not do.

I have heard horror stories about foster parents being abused or their opinions discounted outright. Who would sign up for that? It almost has to be a calling, and many of the people I have met have had some kind of faith community that supported then during the rough patches. Alas, I don't really have that, but it would be handy to think that God has a plan on days when it seems that the earthly forces at work are confused and delayed and at cross-purposes.

I tried to guard my heart, but I'm totally attached to this little kid. It took about an hour and I was already sunk. She really deserves no less, but it makes it so much harder for me to maintain my professional demeanor and face the still viable possibility that she could be reunified with her family of origin. That is supposed to be a good thing, and can be if the family can get it together. Currently that is not her legal plan, but that could change pretty easily.

In the meantime, I have to love her like I will never lose her. I'm not brave or noble. I love her fiercely. I have never had so much of my future on the line. If we lose her we go back to being childless, which seems impossible now that we have integrated her laughter, her tears, and even her laundry into our lives. Even picturing her bedroom empty for more than ten seconds makes me physically ill.

In any case, my life is being forever altered on a daily basis, and I have to keep my mouth shut about it. The petty little details and things that annoy me and even the things that make all of this worth it are all under the table. I hope I can talk about it openly someday, because holding it in sometimes really hurts. I worry, and in the vacuum of my own head, the echo chamber gets a little out of hand.

So, should you be a foster parent? May is Foster Parent Awareness month. I can't answer whether anyone else should do this. All I know is that as long as we are all contractually obligated to do whatever we do in silent forbearance, the media makes up whatever they want. All people hear are the horror stories about "those kind" of foster parents. You know the ones: they grab headlines for further abusing the delicate lives in their care. They eat steak and give the kids hot dogs. The dress the kids poorly. They end up representing all of us, because the good foster parents are the silent ones. We are the invisible parents (or ersatz babysitters on the bad days) that care for some wonderful kids whose parents have made some less-than-beneficial choices.

I'm a foster parent, and this isn't my story. My story is in the details, in the small gestures, in the way Little A feels about me when I give her reasons to trust me. Trust me, it is a pretty good story sometimes. Maybe someday, if she still has me in her life, she can tell you. I can only hope in the meantime that I am giving her the means to tell it with a measure of pride.

I'm ok, you're imaginary

In a funny way, I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of Little A's first imaginary friend. I want to have that in common with her. When I was a little girl, my mother tells me that I was often deep in conversation with mine, but that she now cannot remember what his name was. I don't even know if she knew he was male, but that is my sense of it.

The most imaginative play A engages in is when she gets into conversations on her play cell phone. They sound like very businesslike exchanges. When will she invite that person over to play? I'll even make the tea cookies.

Dora the Codependent Explorer

Not surprisingly, Little A loves Dora. Like LOVES her. I find myself watching a fair amount of that pint-sized, monkey-befriending, backpack-wearing, Swiper-outsmarting, Spanish-speaking, big-head-having kid. It is a bizarre show. A loves it, but I have some complaints:

1. Dora always commits to help someone before roping the audience in. One presumes that all the kids watching want to help Dora on her adventures. But it seems funny to me that Dora will say "We'll help you!" and then turns to my kid and says "Will you help?" then she pauses for the answer and then says "Great!" If I met a person like that in real life, I don't think I would always be down for that. Bossy, you know? Maybe she shouldn't commit to things she can't do on her own. Just sayin'.

2. The voices. The sound of the voices on this show makes my ears bleed. And why does the Map sound like an Urban Jewish stereotype to me? No criticism, really. I'm sure he's a mensch, even if he does send little children to places like "crocodile lake".

3. The stars. They added these in the later seasons. What is the point of that, exactly? Feh.

/end rant

The Abuse Excuse

In short, there isn't one.

Should it be right, even if it is to an extent understandable, for a person who was abused in youth to become an abuser? One could argue that is all they know, but life is about choice.

When I was young, I was the victim of some pretty serious verbal and emotional abuse at the hands of people who came into my parents' lives after the divorce. I was the child and they were the grownups, but I always felt I should have done better getting over it. Funny how I should have a feeling of shame when I admit that.

Being told that you are useless or that you are crazy or bad hurts just as much as being kicked in the guts. It is abuse, straight up. There is just no excuse for abusing anybody, especially a defenseless child.

Of course, invariably these people had grown up in households where verbal/physical abuse was common. They were small people acting big when they tried to tell me how worthless I was. Was that supposed to be "discipline"? Or, because they found me unsettling for some reason, did they feel at ease to just let the stinging words fly?

The sad part is how I may have gone into overdrive to prove them wrong. On one hand, that's great, because I am tenacious when pursuing a goal. On the other hand, I fear failure so much that I sometimes feel like a shark who has to keep swimming to live and never rests. I have to push, push, push all the time and have a hard time being content with my life as it is. Taking pride in the small things I do right is very hard for me.

But now that I am a parent, I can see that I have made choices to not yell at and degrade the child in my care. I make choices to be loving and supportive. I look at how small and fragile she is and can't imagine ever saying that kind of stuff to her. It would break her to bits for me to express anger to her. It would be wrong, and I just wouldn't do it. I count to ten and try again, but I won't yell. My instinct is to protect her in every way I can.

I was little like that once, and I was a pretty cute kid, too. How anybody got me confused with a punching bag is beyond me.

I'm grateful to this beautiful child for showing me the good consequences of choosing to be kind. I'm not worthless, I have good stuff to give.

Is it jealousy?

I sometimes have feelings that make little sense. Then at other times, they make sense in context, but cause me so much shame I just pretend they don't make sense.

I hate to admit this even to myself, but I am harboring a burgeoning jealousy of A's biological parents. They have almost infinitely more rights than I do at this point, and I am just annoyed by that. I would not ever trade my life for theirs, but they do have something I will never have. Even if they lose their rights, they are still A's mother and father.

I will never get to be A's only mom, no matter what happens. There will always be a line, however tenuous, that connects her to these other people, other families. She's connected to people with pasts and human mistakes and roads I wouldn't dare travel. Someday she will have perspective on that, I can only hope.

I can hope to give her good skills for life, but I can't give her my genes, my laugh, or any of the good things in my own heritage. I feel bad for the strange way we have to graft her into the family tree. As much as I love her as if she were my own flesh, her history diverges from mine in strange ways and travels back through unknown destinations.

I love her, but she isn't all the way mine yet. There is always the chance that the courts will make a drastic reversal and I could lose her forever, and I would never know what happened to her. I'm jealous that I have to face that fear through no fault of my own. I'm a good parent to A, but I'm not blood, and blood trumps a lot. It doesn't matter how good of a person I am or how good my intentions are. It is going to turn out how it turns out, and I have to wait and see if I get to be a real, legal mom.

What I need

As a 39 year old new mother, it is pretty safe to say that I have special needs. Combining new parent insomnia with peri-menopausal symptoms and graying hair would be enough to drive anyone batty. Trying to smear differrent creams on my nascent crow's feet and potty training a recalcitrant toddler just don't go together. How am I supposed to conduct my midlife crisis properly under these conditions?

People who care about my already delicate mental health keep asking me what I need. Other than a pile of cash and about 6 more hours of waking life and 12 more hours of sleep, I never know what to say. So here is my semi-serious list of things I need. Some are practical and some are more existential.

1. Dinner. I know as a former chef, everyone thinks I have the nightly dinner thing all wrapped up. Not so. I need a freezer full of casseroles or recipes of stuff to put into my crockpot or something. What A needs right now is me spending time with her, not me shooing her out of the kitchen so I can prepare some gourmet thing she probably won't eat anyway.

2. A cocktail. Or more specifically, the stars-in-alignment situation where I have a babysitter and friends that want to go out on the same night. I'd also like to have that cocktail in a bar that is not choked with smoke. Gah. Reno is so backwards on the chain-smoking bar thing. It is so gross.

3. A time turner. Yeah, I know they are only in the Potterverse, but I just want time to read a dang novel in peace. Or write one. Or whatever. Other Potter-related things I need: A spell that can give me shiny, bouncy hair.

4. A clean house. I just can't seem to get anywhere close to pre-child levels of housekeeping. I try, but again, A needs my attention more than the dust bunnies do.

5. A fine romance. Tony who? My poor husband I are still adjusting to the lack of privacy/lack of babysitters/lack of conversations that don't involve toddler issues. I miss him.

6. A massage. Or ten massages.

7. A jogging stroller or bike trailer that will convey my almost 40 pound kid. I always wondered why people don't just let their kids walk. Then I tried to cross a mall parking lot with mine, and it took forever! I don't need a stroller for the mall, but I need to get some fresh air and exercise. I can't burn calories at the rate that A can stroll, even if she runs beside me.

8. Cognitive Therapy. This is to control the negative self talk that makes me feel like a failure even though I do all the things I do. I need a therapist like that guy in the Metellica movie "Some Kind of Monster", only without the Cosby sweaters and vampiric hanging-on. Realistically, cognitve therapy costs about $85 an hour, not counting babysitting.

9. A room of my own. Or whatever it was that Virginia Woolfe says I need to be a writer of any small measure of success. I need to get in a groove so that I can still write things other than this blog. I'm mostly talking to myself here anyway. Hello? (listens for echo)

10. A good tailor. Seriously. Tony needs some pants hemmed and I just plain suck at sewing.

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