It's Been a While!

It's been months since my last update so I actually doubt if anyone is even checking this blog much after my lengthy absence.  My last post just happened to coincide with some fairly sudden significant life changes, namely that I was offered a job as a 1st/2nd grade teacher.  This is my first year teaching and I also have another part time mentoring job on the side.  I'm still occasionally doing portraits for friends when I can as well.  All that is to say, I've been extremely busy these past months!  In fact, I still am extremely busy and it's unlikely that I'm going to be jumping back into blogging regularly any time soon.

Still - the holidays are upon us and that always brings out my sentimental side.  I just ordered our family Christmas cards and that made me think of last Christmas when Shutterfly did their big "free photo card" promotion for bloggers.   At that time, I was blogging like mad.  There are no free photo cards this year, but (how wonderful it is to say!) that's OK because greeting cards actually fit into our budget this year.   

Additionally, we are speaking at the adoption agency again tomorrow and that always makes me think of blogging and the many stories I've related to...families I've connected with through this outlet.  Blogging is so powerful and I do miss it.  I think that some part of me will always be a blogger, even if I end up dropping that ball for the time being.  I need to take some time to let things settle in my life and then figure out what parts of my personal life can fit where.  As thrilled as I am to have found a teaching job (they are frighteningly scarce in my state,) it's still been a whirlwind that has left me in survival mode for the past several months.

I am exhausted and overwhelmed but happy and productive too.  I guess that's about the gist of things!  I hope all my fellow bloggers out there are doing well and I wish you all a happy holiday season!  


 
           

   

    

5x7 Folded Card

Bold Bright Joy Christmas Card

Seasons greetings with personalized Christmas cards from Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

To Blog or Not to Blog...

...that is the question! 

There was a time when I would've said blogging was in me - as in something I had to do, something about which I had no choice.  I'm no longer sure that's the case but I do still enjoy blogging, when I have the time.  I've been thinking about it a lot lately and I'm not sure exactly where to go with my blogging.  I love that I have so many followers, and I love (even more) the valuable connections I've made through this blog but...where should I go from here?

That's where you come in...

A fellow adoptive mom and good friend of mine, (see what I mean about the valuable connections I've made through blogging!) Wendy recently wrote a post and I've decided to follow her lead. 

If you read my blog...

Can you take a moment to leave me a comment and tell me a bit about yourself?  How did you find my blog and what has kept you interested in it?  Did you adopt or do you have plans to do so?  What other connections do you have to adoption?  Is there anything you would like me to write about or write more/less about?    

Thanks for the feedback!

 
           

   

  

When the Baby is Having a Baby...

That's right folks, the baby of our family, my little sister, is pregnant!!  I've known for quite some time but haven't really been prepared to share until now.  I am very happy for her as I know the journey to this place was less than easy.  While we definitely had a shared camaraderie in our experiences of infertility, I am so happy that her trip down that road has taken a different turn.  I love that our family is still growing, and I am so excited that my sister will get to experience the awesome ride of motherhood along with us now.

I had an incredibly special experience a couple of weeks ago.  I got to go to her prenatal doctor's appointment.  We heard the baby's heartbeat (nice and strong at 138-142) for a couple of minutes.  It was, quite simply, amazing.  I never got to experience that with my own son (and I am genuinely okay with that) but because of my sisters, I have been able to have small glimpses of what it's like to grow a baby inside your own body.  I'm so thankful to both of them for letting me experience, vicariously, some of the special moments that infertility tried to take away.  I felt very similarly when my older sister let me feel one of her contractions as she was beginning to go into labor with my now two-year-old niece.  All of the children in my life are extremely special to me and I love that our family is so close that I can be a part of their lives even before they are born. 

It's so odd for me, for the baby of our family to be pregnant.  She's always been the one we all looked out for.  Not that we don't/won't do that now but she's doing this thing - this amazing thing that's so much bigger than all of us, and that I've never done.  Pregnancy and preparation for motherhood requires her to be very much grown up and it's such a strange, yet beautiful thing for me to watch.  I love my family and my sisters more than words can possibly express.  This is an exciting time for all of us and I am so very thankful for the many blessings we have.

 
           

   

  

Reverse Terminology

I had an interesting experience at the lake a couple weeks back.  I was talking to a friend about his wife's adult-adoptee relationship with her birth family.  He was saying how she and her birth mother are extremely close and talk on the phone almost every day.  How they love to spend time together now that they've been reunited.  It was making me feel kind of melancholy--just thinking about our son and how he may likely never have that experience.  Plus, if I'm being honest, I was also thinking about the adoptive mom and what her feelings would be about her grown daughter having such a close relationship with her birth mom.  Then, in what was an interesting reversal of terms, my friend said, "Of course she's still really close to her real parents too--you know, the ones who raised her."  I thought it was kind of funny that he used the words, "real parents" to describe adoptive parents since there is such a stigma about that in the adoption world.  Oftentimes strangers will ask, unwittingly, about our son's "real parents."  I want to (and sometimes do) point out that we are right here--as real as can be, living life with our son day in and day out.  They don't really mean anything by incorrectly using the term "real parents," they just want to know our story and don't really know how to ask.  I do keep that in mind when such conversations arise, but I also think it's appropriate to do a little PAL (positive adoption language) education sometimes too.

Two Weeks Can Change a Child's Life

I received an email recently introducing me to the Fresh Air Fund.  If you've never heard of this, click on the link in this post or on my sidebar and find out more.  You'll be glad you did.  The Fresh Air Fund was created to help make a profound difference in the lives of inner city kids by giving them the gift of exactly that, fresh air.

The fund is still in need of host families for this summer but even if that's not something you can commit to right now, maybe you can help by donating funds or, like me, by simply spreading the word to others who may be able to help.  If you watch even one of the video clips posted on the fresh air site, I think you'll agree that two weeks really can make a difference!

Talking About Adoption

With a very verbal little man in our midst, it's become more important for me to get adoption on his radar screen. I've always used the word casually around him and tried to pepper our conversations with things like, "The day we adopted you was the best day of our whole lives." We look at his baby book together and he shouts, "doption day!" every time we come to that page but I've been thinking lately that we need more. It seems important to at least begin talking about this aspect of our lives and how we became a family more, now that he's beginning to ask questions and attempting to make some sense of the world. I do want him to lead the conversations and discussions we have as the years unfold; however, I also want him to know that adoption is a safe subject in our household and that he can always ask any questions that come to mind. According to an article I read last week, openly talking about adoption now, while he's young and still forming a framework with which to view the world is one key way to make that happen.

So we've been reading the book, "I Wished for You" by Marianne Richmond a lot, and I try to tell him our (similar though still unique) story in simple terms too.  My good friend and fellow adoptive mama, Debbie has made several books for her little girl including their special story.  I know they have been good conversation starters for Debbie and other members of her family, and I'm thinking I'd like to do the same sometime soon. The thing is, like all parenting, this is all a learning process and I'm figuring it out as we go along.  It's sort of like an added dimension to his normal growth and development.  An added thing I have to consider as he gets older and picks up more of what we say and do.  All I know for sure is that I want our son to just know that he was adopted and that he had a special (though not better or worse) way of joining our family.



 
           

   

  

We Need Your Vote!

Vote for us in the Parents Cover Contest! Our Beautiful Boy: Charlie is in the running to become a weekly Reader's Choice Winner! One winner will be chosen as a finalist at the Professional Cover Shoot! Vote now at http://photos.parents.com!" Thanks!!
 
                    

P.S. You can vote once ever day until the contest ends on July 3, 2011. You can also vote mote than once by using any additional email addresses you have.

Three "B" Words

We've been devoting a lot of time and energy to three little words in our house lately, all of which begin with the letter "b." 

Big Boy Bed!

I've posted about this before, here and here regarding the issues with our little man and sleep.  He is an amazing, wonderful, smart, funny, sweet little boy but sleep - or rather independent sleep - has always been somewhat problematic in our household.  He wants to be where we (and the action) are, period.  He sleeps beautifully, with us.  It's been a big challenge for me.  On one hand, I want him to sleep all night in his own room, but on the other hand, I have a lot of trouble with letting him CIO.  I used to be a believer in CIO but then I read (maybe too much?) about attachment issues in adoption and I decided, unequivocally, that I want to do everything I can to help, rather than hinder that process in our lives.  Some part of me still thinks we should just do CIO for two weeks and be done with it but, as I shared in my previous posts, that is excruciating for me.  Our son is a strong willed little person and I have a (very large) soft spot for him!   

In any case, this problem has ebbed and flowed in our lives since we became parents.  He has always slept better when being held and he needed to be swaddled well past the six month mark, in order to get good sleep.  During the latter part of my first semester of student teaching last fall, I basically gave up and started letting him sleep in our bed.  Until that point, I had been trying to get him to sleep in his own room but, inevitably, one of us (usually my dear, sweet husband) would cave in and the little one would end up in our bed at some point during the night, usually on the earlier end.  There came a point when I was simply too tired and I decided it was not an issue I was going to expend my energy on any longer.  I'm a little ashamed to admit that I literally just gave up but it's the truth.  Besides, some parts of the arrangement we had going were nice.  With being so busy, I wasn't spending as much time with the little boy as usual so it was nice to have that extra cuddle time with him.  

Buuuuut then it started affecting our marriage. We were irritable with each other & just not connecting the way we once had.  It came to mind that some of the issues were stemming from our little bedroom invader.  I'm not even talking about the private aspects of marriage here, although that was a factor too.  The hardest part was that our  simple cuddling/together time where we could reconnect with each other as mutual adults who share a partnership and love for an amazing little boy was nonexistent. For a time there, I felt that each of us had a great relationship with our son, but that our relationship with each other was taking a big back seat to our child.  Heck, not even a back seat...more like a dangling from the tail pipe by a thread position.  Not good.  
 
So, that left only one option, do something about it.  After some discussion, and yes, I'll admit it, even some arguing, we agreed that we had to tackle the bedtime issue.  Michael works two jobs so I found that I was often the one trying to fix it all.  Once I finally had the necessary conversation with Michael that we had to tackle the issue together as a team, things got much better. We still have our own unique nuances and ways of dealing with our son but we are a united front & Charlie is responding to that.  I made/am making a big deal about us getting and staying on the same page because that was definitely a factor in letting this issue get out of hand.  To tell the truth, we are just now coming out of that phase, and we're still learning how to get it right.  We are both working hard to make sure our son's bedtime is routine, routine, routine.   So far...it seems to be working, mostly. 

About two weeks ago, we took the side rail off his crib, made a big production of getting him new sheets and a pillow, read stories about bed time (in which I overemphasized kids sleeping in their OWN beds.) Now we start the bedtime process by around 7:30 most nights.  We sit in his rocking chair while we read two stories, (sometimes with a perusal of his baby book thrown in too,) and sing three songs.  He gets in bed & I tuck him in and he...usually...goes to sleep.  Or I should say, he's starting to go to sleep.  We started this new routine two weeks ago and we are just now breaking through to where the rhythm is setting in and we are getting less resistance.  We had some rough nights there where it was taking him, literally, hours to fall asleep.  Then I got a little smarter and started leaving the room.  Sometimes he will try to get up and follow me, at which point I firmly tell him to get back into bed.  I say, "Mommy loves you very much but it's time to go to bed now."  He will ask us why he has to sleep in his own bed & I explicitly tell him, "Because Mommy & Daddy need Mommy & Daddy time; Charlie needs Charlie time."   Sometimes he shakes his head repeatedly as he says, "No not a want to seep in YaYa own bed want to seep in mommy/daddy own bed."  But, on some level, I think he's getting it.   The consistency and repetition is helping. 

I'll be honest and tell you that he still ends up making his way into our room by around 4:00 a.m. most mornings; however, I think the resolution of that will be phase two of this operation.  For now, we're getting some much-needed time for us, he's sleeping better (if not perfectly,) and we are all feeling much happier now that we've resumed our efforts at dealing with the issues head on, together.  It is taking, and will take time.  This will probably be something with which we will struggle for several years.  It is a learning process for all of us, and we are far from perfect.  I think the important thing, which is the thing on which we are actually making headway, is to be able to strike a balance between meeting our son's needs and letting those needs govern our entire lives, even our marriage.  I actually think he feels safer and more secure when there are some firm limits put into place, and when we have some expectations of him that are clearly identified, such as, "Charlie sleeps in his own bed because he's a big boy and big boys sleep in their own beds."  


For now...we are getting there, one day at a time.  I figured I should share some of what we've been doing/dealing with because I know there are others out there who struggle with some of these same issues.  Getting enough, high quality sleep is so important, it affects every aspect of our lives.  And yet, it's one of the things that is changed most profoundly when we become parents.  We all deal with it on some level but when you have a child for whom sleep is problematic, the issues are tenfold.  Here's to many peaceful nights ahead!   

 
           

   

  

 

Spaghetti Arms & Meatball Hugs

And just like that...the two-year-old shows his sunny side again.  Last night while we were sitting at dinner, he literally had my face in his hands and was giving me kiss after kiss, right on the lips.  It was the sweetest thing ever.  Well, that is unless you count our recent game invention of "spaghetti arms & meatball hugs." 

He has such sweet, skinny little arms that I started saying, "Give me spaghetti arms" when I wanted a hug because I love the way his arms feel as they wrap around my neck.  Smart little chap that he is, he turned our new game from "spaghetti arms" into meatball hug.  Now he will run up with his arms stretched out wide, wrap his adorable spaghetti arms around my neck and smush his cheek up against mine as he is saying, "meeebaaaa huuuuuug" over and over.

Now that, friends, for sure, is the cutest. thing. ever.  Ahhh the joys of toddler-hood!   



 
           

   

  

Flying Toys & a Fat Lip

Well here we are again - and this time I feel even less like I know what I'm doing in this world of raising a very spirited, sweet, strong-willed little BOY.  In this post I talked about how I'm trying to figure it all out when it comes to disciplining our son.  That was almost exactly two months ago and let's just say...we are still learning.  

In fact, this past Saturday can be summed up as one big, fat learning curve when it comes to the behavior of our child.  He perplexes me because he is so quick to change between emotions.  He will literally be happy one minute, then frustrated to the point of anger the next.  What to do with that anger is the big challenge at the moment.  He's having difficulty learning how to share and take turns without throwing toys, pulling/pushing, or grabbing.  Some part of me gets it because, let's face it, sharing is not a natural human desire.  Even we adults want what is ours most of the time.  If it weren't for our parents and siblings enforcing these social niceties onto us as youngsters, we might not choose to share either.  Heck, I know some adults who still do refuse to share, even if they were taught that they should.       

None of that really matters though because we want our child to learn how to share, and to have manners and be a polite young man.  Those things are extremely important to us as his parents so we will keep on fighting the good fight until the lesson sinks in.  Helping him learn  how to effectively express his anger is much harder than they make it sound in the books or in articles I've read online.  I've tried showing him how to hit the couch pillows, or to give me a hug instead of throwing toys. Michael has tried teaching him how to give a high five when what he really wants to do is hit.  Sometimes it works but usually only after he has already reacted in the negative way that we are trying to avoid.  I realize he's young yet and maybe all this needs is more time and more consistency on our part but I will tell you what...this phase of him testing every limit and sometimes outright refusing to cooperate is exhausting.  Exhausting & physically painful, too.  

On Saturday night, he had already had two time-outs for throwing toys but we were at a house party and there wasn't a good place for me to put him that was away from everyone but not scary for him.  The third time he got mad resulted in a fat lip for yours truly.  You can see it if you look closely at the photo to to the right.  When the piece of wooden train track went zinging into my lip, it was pretty shocking.  I got rather mad at the little dude but hopefully I handled the situation at least reasonably well.  I made him sit down between my feet for a minute, then I took him to the mirror and showed him my lip. I said, "Look Charlie, you did that when you threw your toy, that really hurt Mommy." At that point he looked a little sheepish & said, "No not a do dat" & looked away. Then I took him to Michael & walked away.       

I've been reviewing the evening over and over in my head.  It's so, so hard to be that parent...the one whose kid is out of control.  There were a lot of kids there & they were all getting tired.  Charlie himself, was tired after an afternoon birthday party & this evening house party, but still...there are only so many justifications and excuses that can be made for the kind of behavior he was exhibiting.  One fellow mom did make me feel a lot better with the following statement:

"I've had several kids with this type of personality and our job as parents isn't to "squash" it, but to "mold" it. These stubborn, angry kids are the kids who will be our future leaders. It's okay to get angry...we have to teach them that how they react to that anger is what is important."

She at least made me feel like I'm somewhat on the right track with trying to help Charlie learn how to be mad, instead of just spanking or whatever.  I know spanking is a controversial topic & it's not one I intent to delve into here but I just don't see how hitting him could possibly convey the strong, positive message we want to send him.  For the time being, I guess we'll just keep on keeping on & keep on reminding our little boy of the things we feel are important& the values we want him to embrace.  

 
           

   

  

Adoption Institute

How did I get to this point in our adoption journey without knowing about this web site?  I was listening to a recent NPR Talk of the Nation story about transracial adoption and they had the author of this web site on the show as a resource person.  Very interesting.  I'm still perusing but wanted to share for those of you who might find it useful!

 
           

   

Negative Connotations

A couple times in the past week-and-a-half or so, I have literally cringed as I've heard the following statements:

"No, no don't eat the brown ones, those are yucky,"

"The green ones need water, if they don't get water they will shrivel up and turn brown like the other ones."

And from "My Many Colored Days"" a beloved children's book by Dr. Seuss:  "Some days, of course, feel sort of brown.  Then I feel slow and low, low down." 

As the mother of a beautiful, brown boy, these things have raised questions for me.  What am I supposed to do when our son starts making connections about the color of his skin and the negative connotations associated with that color?  Frankly, they are everywhere once you start noticing them.  Brown and black both have some very strongly negative associations.  In our daily dealings with our little one, we do (and have always) incorporated as many positive connotations surrounding these colors as we can.  For example, I will say, "Look at that beautiful, brown belly...I'm gonna' give it some kisses!" when I'm changing  his diaper, amongst other things.  But he is at a critical age right now.  He is listening and picking up on everything we (and others) say as he tries to make meaningful connections about our world. 

I don't think he has been harmed by any of these negative statements...yet.  It's a tough realization for me that there will come a time when I won't be able to protect him from the flaws of our society, and from the things other people say.  I've read "My Many Colored Days" hundreds of times over the years but only recently did I give any serious thought to the brown page.

I'm not even really sure where to go with this, it's just one my mind and something I need to think about more.  There are some obvious things we can do, like make sure positive associations are made and reinforced whenever possible, especially within his everyday environments.  Still though, this is one of those things that sort of caught me off guard.  It simply wasn't something I ever had any reason to think about before.  Now it is and I don't quite know what to think...