Category Archives: Dealing with the Past

August 10, 2014

The House of Melancholy

By AdoptiveBlackMom

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There is a sadness over Casa d’ABM this weekend. The Furry One is essentially near the end of life. His recent decline has been rapid and heartbreaking. I have had my beloved fur ball since he was 8 weeks old. He’s been my constant companion and unconditional love for a very long time. It is one of life’s tragedies that our animals do not share our lifespans. These are The Furry One’s last days, and I am a mess. Hope has been incredibly kind to me; I’ve wept many times the last few days.

The impending loss of our four-legged family member has brought about a sad shadow of past losses over this home. Hope has withdrawn into herself. When she engages, she does so with heaviness. After some prodding last night, she openly mourned how much she’s lost in the last few years: Her puppy, her dad, things from her old home with her dad, things from previous foster families. She didn’t cry, but she’s just so sad. She even confided that she asked that her room be painted pink in order to give me the impression that she was a girlie girl; she really wished she had been honest and asked for the room to be painted blue or purple. She’s not really a girlie girl at all.

I think I’ll see about having her room painted by year’s end. I won’t cater to every one of Hope’s whims, but there’s no sense in keeping a room that Hope’s pre-adoptive representative-self asked for when the real her is here now.

I feel like I’ve made a number of parenting mistakes in the midst of my grief this week. I do apologize to Hope when I can’t seem to get myself together. She worked very hard on her chores yesterday, even going for the bonus sweeping/vacuuming/mopping chore of the common areas in the house yesterday (It’s worth an extra $5). She did it on her own, and all I could do was snap about why she didn’t vacuum before she mopped. She was so sad; I didn’t praise her first. As a kid, I remembered being asked why I didn’t dust before vacuuming; I remember that I just didn’t know. It didn’t occur to me that I should do it in a particular order. It didn’t occur to Hope either. And like my mom years ago, I found myself trying to calmly explain the rationale about the order and praising her on her initiative and how great the mopped floor looked.

I wish I could do some lessons learned this week, but I really can’t see past the sadness. This will be our first major loss together. It hurts.

Today we will go have Sunday dinner with some friends; we will enjoy the sunlight and we will love one another and cuddle The Furry One.

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Dealing with the Past, Finalization Life

July 20, 2014

Sunday Fun Day

By AdoptiveBlackMom

I hope a time comes when Sundays really become fun days for me and Hope. She’s fine, but I think I get a preemptive start on the angst of getting back into the routine of the week day. I’m finding the routine, exhausting and rigid as it maybe, gives me something to look forward to and to gripe about for that matter. Saturdays I usually have activities for us to do which get us out of the house to do something engaging and fun. Sundays we have church and stuff that has to get done to make sure the week goes smoothly, aka Mom chores. I find myself getting cranky and sometimes oddly resentful that she continues to lounge about with no inkling of initiative to help. I’m guessing that has more to do with being 13 and less to do with being adopted.

Today I hit the Red Box, picked up a movie for her and am taking my weekly time out in my room, catching up on professional work and reflecting on the week. So, here’s what’s on my mind this week.

___________

Hope’s family…well, really I don’t know what to say. Hope’s family sent me a few things this week. They sent a few pictures of her and her dad when she was young, several pictures of her dad and grandmother and his funeral program. Once I had them in hand, I decided not to wait to tell Hope all that has happened in the background these last few weeks. She was shocked as I imagined. Her feelings about her family are complicated. We talked a bit about it then, but decided to really focus our therapy session on all the family stuff.

Turns out she was only about 10% happy they found us and about 90% pissed about why now, after everything she’s been through in the last five years. Oh my sweet girl was angry, but instead of lashing out she just broke down and cried and cried. She talked a lot, and she even talked about how much stronger she is now to use her words to articulate what she was feeling. She’s been holding so much in about her birth parents and it all came spilling out, so much anger and so much hurt. She is so happy to have the mementos of her dad; they are key to her healing. We both know that now. But whether she will really reach back to her father’s family? Well, she doesn’t seem to be terribly interested in doing that. I imagine this might change at some point, but for now seems like the immediate family crisis is over.

I was oh too happy to graciously let them know that it would likely be awhile before they heard from us. I’ll send them a virtual Christmas card if nothing has changed by then.

Hearing about foster care from a former foster kid is hard. Through blogging, I’ve been blessed to meet such wonderful folks who foster children. I’ve also kept in touch and bonded with Hope’s final foster family. But Hope’s experiences with foster care sound like an incredibly choppy sea. The foster family she was placed with after she came into custody left an indelible mark with her. Given her trauma, I have no idea whether she would have ever found them acceptable, but her view of how she was treated, how insensitive they were to her overwhelming grief, how she was treated compared to other foster children in the home…she’s still angry and still bitter. She calls the members of the family by name and remembers every perceived slight.

It doesn’t matter whether her memories are true or not, they are true for her. I try to be empathetic. She remembers this family and others like it more than she remembers the folks who were very kind towards her. She talks about those folks too, but her focus on the negative always brings her back to people who were, in her mind, less than kind and compassionate.

It’s hard. So much of her grief is also wrapped up in her foster care experiences, too. All of it is so entwined. I am trying to help her focus on the positive people who have been there throughout the process, but it really seems hard for her to turn things around to focus on those folks.

Therapy works. It really does, of course it feels like 1 good session for every 4-6 or even 8 crappy sessions. When you do get to that one session though, you realize that perhaps the other sessions were productive in subtle ways. I’m glad that I encouraged Hope to put a pin in all the family stuff until we could talk about it with Absurdly Hot Therapist. She was ready and clearly had thought about things in a way that made her really ready to talk.

Things poured out of her. We ended up going long because things were still just gushing out of her. Lots of emotional stuff. She was deliberate about word choice—for the first time she referred to her birth mother as her “birth mother.” She made a point of pointing to me and saying *this* is my mom. At one point me, Hope and AHT were all crying.

On the way to the car afterwards, she said, I’ve been waiting to let out that stuff for years.

Amen to that, Hope.

We then went and bought a small chocolate cake, because well, when you finally get some ish off your chest, you should celebrate and that means cake (with a side of fried chicken).

Prioritizing self-care is essential. I tried on suiting slacks this week and had an awful reality check. Ick.

Must. Prioritize. Self-care.

So, I joined a new 24 hour gym this week and am making a commitment to workout 30 hours during the next 30 days. That’s an hour a day. I’ve booked a long term relationship with the magic sitter for alternating Fridays and Saturdays until mid-October. My sitter service is working on finding someone for a weeknight as well so I can work late, take in a happy hour or just sit in my car for a couple of hours.

___________

This week I leave for my first lengthy business trip since Hope arrived. I’ve had a couple of overnights, but never 5 days away. I’m really nervous and excited. I’m hoping it all works out well.

 

6 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Dealing with the Past, Finalization Life, Lessons Learned

July 6, 2014

Mommy Time Out

By AdoptiveBlackMom

So, I came unhinged today. Totally hit the wall and had to give myself a time out.

Vacationing with kids, I’m realizing, is a bit stressful. Vacationing with Hope has added layers of anxiety and messiness. I admit to being keyed up most of the time, waiting for, anticipating something to flip our lids. After my threats to leave the mouse trap, honestly she was great, and we had an enjoyable time away. The bugs, while they frightened her, did not trigger a full on meltdown. Hurricane Arthur delayed us by about 6+ hours in getting home, but in the end, we took it all in stride. We headed down to fetch The Furry One and ended up coming home last night.

That’s it. Vacation over. Time to jump back into reality.

But at some point today, I realized that I’m just not okay. I slept late, and the circles under my eyes are lighter than they’ve been in a while. I had great plans to go to church, hit the Costco, maybe take Hope to the library and veg out on the couch for a while. Yeah, but none of that happened. Instead, I became irritable right after breakfast. I was cranky, blue, frustrated and just really should’ve went back to bed and pulled the covers back over my head.

The last few days one of Hope’s family members has just bombarded me with messages about all manner of things. I just haven’t responded. I couldn’t. It was just too much, too soon. One family member sends messages in the middle of the night, midday, whenever. There are pleas with phone numbers and email addresses. Shout outs that she’s praying for us. Did I know she had whatever medical condition? Didn’t I want to know why she couldn’t step in with Hope? The whole family is waiting for information. They are heartbroken, elated, impatient, waiting, oh respectful, but why the devil didn’t you hit me back yet on Facebook? Last night’s midnight message begged me to call the grandmother and there was a lengthy story to go with it. Her message also gave me a head’s up that there was family bickering going on about me and Hope. #jesusbeabrickwallofprivacysettings

I have dug deep into my empathy well and tried to imagine what it must be like to find your family member who was lost to you and now found. I don’t downplay what that must feel like. I know my own grandmothers’ hearts would have burst from joy had I been lost and somehow was found. I get the Amazing Grace and Prodigal Son analogies. There must be a joyfulness and a bit of frustration in understanding why I just won’t call and put Hope on the phone.

But their emergence from the depths has just really rocked my world. I have a pit in my stomach, and I get somewhat nauseous with every new development. I hate not telling Hope yet; I feel like I’m lying by omission, but I need time to get the support team up to speed; it’s a holiday weekend.  I am trying to figure out how to tell Hope, which I know will just be straight up, because that’s how we do. The family is supposed to send some of her father’s belongings; I kind of want to wait so that I have those things. I’m just trying to figure it all out. I’m beyond overwhelmed.

I’m also trying not to be afraid of the box of crazy that it feels like has just opened in the middle of a slightly more settled life with Hope. No really, I’m terrified. Seriously one week of Facebook messaging and I see folks not respecting boundaries and spilling the beans on family bickering…about us, no less. And it’s just so much, so much. I can’t even get a good cry. Ugh.

So, as we were off to church, Hope went into one of her attention seeking spells—the infamous “I have an ear infection and cannot swallow and am now dying” routine. These spells still burn my house to the ground; I used to be able to predict them, but now they just seem so random. I usually ignore them until she pivots to a more appropriate way of getting my attention. But today, already peeved and riled up by the Facebook drama, I pulled over and, just as dramatically as her spell came on, dramatically announced that we were going to Patient First to see about her ear, nose and throat.

“Oh, I’m not that sick,”Nah, girl, we’re still going because I’m fed up with the ruse. #overit

Two hours and thirty minutes later, I’m out of a co-pay, burned my cell battery down playing bubble poke while waiting for the doctor to tell us in about 7 minutes what I knew all along: not a dang thing is wrong with Hope, who then pivoted to a spasm story—her backup ruse—which was also quickly dismissed by the doctor.

I sat there all that time getting increasingly annoyed by everything. I was annoyed by all the messaging. I was annoyed by Hope’s collection of feigned illnesses that drive m up the effing wall. I was annoyed that the budget is tight this month and a co-pay wasn’t really planned for. I was annoyed that my diagnosis of “Kid with no physical maladies” was confirmed. I was annoyed by how long we had to wait. I was annoyed that we missed church and I really needed to throw myself in prayer on the altar. I was pissed about not going to Costco and the library. I was just pissed about everything in the world.

Oh I’d worked myself into quite the quiet lather.

And then, while sitting in the treatment room waiting for the doctor to discharge us, one of the aunts sent me a Facebook game invitation and all common sense and any shred of adulthood I might have once had went flying right out the window.

Really, lady? A Facebook game invite. Get off my damn Facebook page right now, dammit, lady. #getoffmylawn I had already put the whole lot of folks in a limited access group after friending me. For some reason it was that dang invite that just tipped me right over into emotional chaos. I block every game request I get from anyone. I hate those damn things.

And sadly, poor Hope was the one that just got iced out. She thought I was mad at her, especially after her faux illnesses were called out; I was annoyed but not mad at her and I told her so. I broke down into unexplainable tears on the drive home. She comforted me, and I told her she could watch a movie while I just retreated into my personal space to gather myself after sufficient guilt-tripping, self-loathing. #mommytimeout

I think I’ll get us to make brownies or cookies or something tonight. We need a bit of healing bonding. Sigh. I think I need the resumption of our routine tomorrow as much as she does. Here’s hoping tomorrow—with the Bey & Jay concert for me—will push us to better days.

6 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Dealing with the Past, Finalization Life

June 30, 2014

That Dang Facebook

By AdoptiveBlackMom

So, we’ve all read how social media can be a pain in the butt. It’s been blamed for the demise of countless relationships. Irresponsible posts have ruined friendships, busted up families. Heck, if we include blogging in the larger context of social media I have to own my own drama, with how I fell out with my own mother after expressing my anger and frustrations on this very blog.

Hope has a Facebook account. Now I wasn’t particularly a fan of this, but she already had one when she was placed with me. Her therapist encouraged me to allow her to continue using it to keep in touch with friends from back home. The truth is that she really is not really on it much; when she is on Facebook, she’s looking at Justin Bieber posts and absurd short videos of the latest dance moves.   I check her page regularly. I log on as her to check her private messages too.

A few days ago, I got a friend request from a complete stranger. Now usually I dismiss these quickly. I keep my privacy settings pretty high and rarely get such requests from folks without a mutual friend or acquaintance. For some reason I didn’t act on the request and just let it sit for a day or so. Last night I actually clicked it and reviewed the sender.

That dang Facebook. Damn if the sender wasn’t Hope’s paternal aunt. Sigh. Panic set in. I’ve never felt panicked before about Hope’s biological family.

A few weeks ago, I set out to search for them so that I would have information to share with her at some point. I want her to know about her family and to decide what kind of relationship she wants or doesn’t want. Her mother is out of the picture and her father is deceased. She was closer to the latter and I’ve always created a lot of space for her to talk about him. She wonders aloud about them ever so often. I’ve never felt threatened—emotionally or otherwise—by her biological family. But this all felt like an invasion of epic proportions.

I logged out and logged into Hope’s account to find that half a dozen paternal family members had sent friend requests and a couple of messages, including one from this aunt, were in her private “other” message box. The messages talked about how happy they were to find her and just kind of jumped into conversation like nothing happened.

I deleted the friend requests. I deleted the messages. Then I sat down for the first of a couple of sad cries.

I thought, I will take a day or two to figure out what to say to these folks. How do I protect Hope? How do I talk to her about this? How do I wrap my own brain around how these folks could reach out to her, send her messages without consulting me and most of all—WTH (W=Where) were they for the last 4 years when she was in foster care? And where were you when she had a failed kinship placement with one of y’all bamas a few years ago…talking ‘bout some, you wondered where she was and how she was doing? GTFOH!

I don’t know if I have the right to ask some of these questions of them, but dammit where were they when she was floating around?

I hate thinking about how I’m going to eventually talk to Hope about this; I will but I don’t know how right now. I rather talk to her about anything else under the sun.

I’ll take another awkward sex chat, Alex, for $2000.

Oh, and I do not want to talk to these people. At least I do not want to talk to these people right now. I owe them nothing, right? Oh, and for the record I don’t care what they think of me. That’s not a part of my freakout.

The rush of emotions is overwhelming. I am angry that they would send her messages directly and not even think they needed to come through me. I am scared that they will persist in trying to contact her without my ok. I am sad that I feel the need to protect Hope from her biological family. I am empty headed about what any kind of relationship might look light, never mind how long it will take to get there.

So, when I awoke from a nap earlier yesterday to find a direct message through Facebook from her aunt, I freaked out again. She thanked me for taking care of Hope, and she said how she’d looked for Hope for years. She then started telling me how she’d reached out to her on FB and gave me contact information to pass along to Hope.

This was one of the few times in my life when I had chest pains. I decided to use a life line and call my sister, who validated my emotional free fall.

I eventually wrote back to her. I explained that I saw her messages and all the family friend requests to Hope. I explained how upsetting this could be and why. I confirmed that Hope is entitled to relationship with her biological family, but that right now we need some more time. I asked her to cease contacting Hope directly and to kindly ask her other family members not to either. They can contact me and I will determine when and how their contact with Hope will happen. I promised to give her some updates from time to time.

She wrote back that she understood and would respect my wishes. But will the others? I feel like I might’ve started a game of Whack-a-Mole with folks just popping up.

I will broach this with Hope sometime this summer. I discuss it with our Absurdly Hot Therapist and see what he says about this.

I want her to have this family; but I don’t trust them. I don’t trust them at all and I don’t want them to hurt her or us. I didn’t really sign up for a forced open adoption; so this is all a shock. I’m glad that we are finalized and that I feel like I’ve got the papers to legally shape what happens next. That doesn’t really help the pit in my stomach but it’s a start.

11 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Dealing with the Past, Finalization Life

June 25, 2014

The Hugs and Kisses Bet

By AdoptiveBlackMom

It’s Hope’s birthday, and I’m practically doing the pee pee dance I’m so excited! I’ve been waiting for this day with almost as much anticipation as all of our other milestones. Hope is excited, but a bit anxious because whenever she’s asked what we were doing for her birthday, I’ve just said it was a surprise. I asked her numerous times what would she like…did she want anything special. She said she didn’t really know. So I set about, like the overzealous new parent that I am, to Blow. Her. Mind.

Lately I’ve been chatting with her about buying less “stuff” and focusing on more experiences so we can build some happy memories together. This has led to some reflective conversations about her father and her memories of him. She takes a lot of pride in telling me about her memories; sometimes I have to grit my teeth because some of the places she went or things she saw, she really shouldn’t have been taken there or seen those things. But, I try to not sully what are happy memories for her; I also try to give her the freedom to talk about how much she misses her dad. She told me last night that when she’s home, she thinks about him a lot. Grief is a beotch.

Hope also likes to talk about her experiences with me over the last few months and how much things have changed. I love these chats; even if it means that we muddle through tough memories. These chats usually involve me giving lots of hugs and kisses. She loves it; I love it; the Furry One loves it. She also knows that withholding hugs and kisses is one of my Achilles heels, and she routinely threatens after the love fest to cut me off, usually in a joking manner. In the last week, the hugs and kiss strikes have served as my punishment for various infractions. The threats and strikes are hollow—at most they last a few hours– and we typically settle into a puddle of laughter.

So, on the way to her first voice lesson last night, she decided that I should be punished because I was going to the Jay-Z/Bey concert in a few weeks and I wasn’t taking her. No hugs or kisses until after the concert. I said ok, well, just how mad are you? Interested in raising the stakes? I bet her that she wouldn’t make it that long without a hug from her mom. She egged me on and bet me $20 she could (#OhImtakinghermoney). I upped it to $30 and she upped it to $50 that she could withhold hugs and kisses until July 8th.

I knew I had this bet won before we even pinky-swore…which we indeed did! #shedontevenknow

She immediately started trying to renegotiate terms and finding end runs around the bet.

“Air kisses don’t count right?”

“Well, what if I get sick or I’m crying?”

“You can still try to kiss me right?

And on and on we went. Seems she really wants the contact as much as I do.

Miss thing was trying to weasel out of her bet, and our pinkies were barely disentangled. I told her she could do whatever she wanted because I knew I would get hugs and kisses, and I predicted that she wouldn’t hold out long.

“Do you know how long I’ve gone for periods without hugging a parent?” said Hope.

Oy, you just never know when or how the moments of trauma will resurface. I didn’t joke about that; just asked a few questions and reiterated that she could get a hug from me anytime she wanted one, morning, noon and night. She briefly talked about how many fosters she refused to hug during placements. She’s not kidding, if she really wants too, she could strike for long periods of time. I am comforted in knowing how much she wants hugs from me. I’m sad about how many hugs and kisses strikes there have probably been in her 13 years. It put her little strike threats into perspective for me.

So we enjoy the rest of our evening hi-fiving, thumb hugging and blowing air kisses, in accordance with the terms of our bet. After she went to bed, I began executing Plan “Blow Hope’s Mind.”

I wrapped the Katy Perry CD and gently placed it atop of her alarm clock. I hung the concert t-shirt on her bathroom mirror with a note, “You might want to build an outfit around this shirt.” I placed a birthday card with her concert ticket for TONIGHT’S Katy Perry show in her bathroom under her favorite lotion.

True to her word, she didn’t hug me on her way out this morning for the last day of school (yeah, we’re still in school around these parts). But she is excited about the concert tonight. Over breakfast, she told me a story of how a foster parent promised to take her to a concert but didn’t; how the house she was staying in was right behind the concert venue, how she could hear the girls screaming all evening at a concert she was missing.

Joy is often still tinged with sadness around these parts. It’s like she just can’t let herself really enjoy the moment because the blessings remind her of all the bad times.

I’m hopeful that I’ll still get a hug and kiss today. We’ve got lunch and cake and maybe pedicures later before the concert tonight.

Then there’s the second card…the one with the ticket to the Bruno Mars concert in a few weeks.   She loves Bruno Mars, loves him probably more than Bieber.

I’m glad we get to do things together, to create new memories together. I hope one day the happy times don’t get overshadowed by the sad history.

In the meantime, I’m looking for hugs and kisses tonight and the settling of this silly bet. #inittowinit

7 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Dealing with the Past, Finalization Life

June 3, 2014

Fear Still Rules the Day

By AdoptiveBlackMom

Up until last evening, I wasn’t sure that we would finalize this week. We had one document that required my signature and the signature of some higher up in CPS. My attorney confirmed the date yesterday. Friday is Gotcha Day.

I told Hope last week that we would be finalizing soon. But I was nervous to tell Hope that it was happening this coming Friday. It will all be official in three short days. I just didn’t know how she would react.

I told her over dinner. She sat there stunned. Then she changed the subject and pretended like I never said anything about it.

She does this sometimes in therapy too. She was just avoidant. I decided to just let it go.

But of course it can’t be the simple. It’s never that simple.

Twenty minutes later she picked a mini-battle over a myriad of little dinner-related things. And then there’s the blow-up, followed by the stomping to the room, followed by the concert of badly sung Justin Bieber covers (done for the express purpose of annoying me), door slamming, muttering and other self-soothing behaviors.

I let her be, interrupting her only to tell her to ready herself for bed and to refill her water bottle.

She was still grumpy when I came in to tuck her in, hesitating about whether she wanted me to read her a story.

Of course she wanted a story, and I deliberately chose a longer one to read last night just to be close to her a few minutes longer.

Then when I kissed her good night, she huffed and she puffed, and she screeched at me to close her closet door. Then she bid me goodnight back.

Fear is wicked.

She’s been through this adoption thing before. It never got this far, but someone else tried to tell her that it was forever. It wasn’t. She’s been through this before. It’s terrifying to think that something awful could happen before Friday that would cancel forever. So, the best option is to try to trigger the worst possible scenario before it can happen on its own.

Finalization, for all its celebratory notions, is also a reminder of things that she doesn’t want to be reminded of: all the reasons why she even needs to be adopted at all. And that sucks. It really, really sucks. And when stuff sucks, everything around here sucks, at least or a while. It doesn’t suck quite as long as it used to, but yeah, it sucks for a while. Attitudes, short tempers, tantrums and tears, push/pull behaviors, fight picking, and sometimes, mercifully, the silent treatment. I don’t really like the silent treatment when she retreats into her own little world, but honestly of the choices, it’s the one that is easiest for me to face and for me to overcome.

And even though somewhere in there she’s happy, maybe even ecstatic, it doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t matter that I’m planning a family party. It doesn’t matter that there will be cake. It doesn’t matter that she’s been practicing signing her new name for the last week and a half. None of that really matters.

All that matters is whether Friday is really going to happen. Hell, she’s having a daily meltdown at school and having the school staff call me daily to see whether I’m really picking her up or whether I’m going to be home if she takes the bus because she swears I’m going to abandon her.

This is happening every day. She was telling me that they were making her call. When I met with the staff today to discuss how the calls were heightening her anxiety, I realized that it had nothing to do with the school at all. She just wanted to know if I was going to be there.

Right now, all that matters is whether or not Friday is really going to happen. Will Friday be the beginning of forever?

Yeah, and after it happens, the all that will matter is what happens after Friday.

It’s a new chapter, and neither of us knows what the hell we’re doing or what to expect next.

It will be fine. We will muddle through. Someday we might even thrive. Hopefully, we will do more than survive. We will be fine.

But right now, we are a slave to Hope’s fear right up until the court’s declaration. Sadly, fear will still rule the next few days. I’m praying that the chains of fear will be broken before Friday.

This is my reality of getting me and Hope to permanence, and it continues to be the other side of happy.

11 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Dealing with the Past, Finalization Life, Post Placement, The Adoption Process, The Transition

May 11, 2014

Mother’s Day Musings

By AdoptiveBlackMom

It’s Mother’s Day; my first one. Hope and I just returned from my graduation trip where we had a great time, and I got the best gift ever. Throughout the ceremony, I saw my sweet girl snap-happy, clicking away with her digital camera. After the ceremony after I met up with Hope and my sisters, my daughter hugged me repeatedly and said, “I’m so proud of you.” I had to hold back tears. #shehadmeathello

I’m sure she’d never gone to a graduation before, certainly not one for a doctoral candidate #gobigorgohome, but she was delighted to see my name and dissertation title in the program, happy to take many pictures and jazzed to hear my name as I was hooded by the university president. It was the culmination of a long journey for me and I couldn’t have been blessed with a bigger cheerleader. I will always drop a tear thinking about the moment she told me she was proud of me. (It was super, super awesome special to have my sisters with me too, by the way.)

Yesterday was really my Mother’s Day. Today is just a do-over for me that includes the need to cram in some errands, a family therapy appointment and take-out for dinner (my present to myself for the day) before doing Hope’s hair for the week. #mothersworkisneverdone #apparentlyever

Our trip to Chicago triggered “better” times which always make it easier for me to say yes, to have patience, to just have fun with Hope. After the last few weeks, I needed us to hit a stride of “better.” I hope it lasts a while.

And yet, there’s something about days that honor parents that brings tinges of sadness for Hope and other kids like her. This weekend we touched on issues of curiosity about the wellbeing of her birth mother, grief about the loss of her dad, the good and bad parenting she experienced in her short life, and a chat about me as mom.

We navigated things well with lots of reassurance and lots of openness. We don’t sugar coat things in our home; her experience is her story and she remembers the good, the bad and the ugly. I learn something new, and often heartbreaking, every time we have one of these talks. I also know that these talks are evidence that we’re doing ok, maybe even better than ok.

I see my job as, in part, trying to help her remember that her birth parents loved her, but they just couldn’t take care of her for lots of different reasons. Bad things happened but it wasn’t her fault and while people have maligned her birth parents most of her time in the system, they are no threat to me and they are no longer a threat to her. It’s ok for her to remember the happy times and to be free to talk about them. It’s ok for her to talk about the bad times and to try to reconcile how all this history could involve the same people. It’s ok for me to try desperately to teach her that nothing was her fault, that she is now safe and loved, even during the times when she is being a real pain in the arse.

I’ve heard about the bitter sweetness of days like Mother’s Day for some adoptive parents. I couldn’t understand it before, but I get it now. There’s a celebration of us as mothers and fathers, but it’s laced with a sadness and grief about how our children ended up needing us in the first place.

So, with that, I’m glad that I had a great day of celebration yesterday, before the actual holiday that represents a bit of both joy and pain for me and Hope.  It really is a privilege to be Hope’s mom.

Happy Mother’s Day, whatever kind of mother you may be.  xoxo

MotherDayPrivilege

8 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Dealing with the Past, Lessons Learned, Other Stuff

April 17, 2014

Spring Break???

By AdoptiveBlackMom

I’m not exactly who spring break is a break for, but it doesn’t really seem to be a break for me. I know Hope is happy to be out of school but here it is pushing midnight heading into Thursday and I’m exhausted physically and emotionally. Hope and I have covered a lot of ground in the last few days and frankly, I’d appreciate acting like she does in our therapy sessions—avoidant.

Yeah…this.

lalahear

But alas, I’m the grown up and thus am in the position to actually be required to act as such on a semi-regular basis. So there’s the road trip to Philly.

“Is there anything here besides historical sites?” Hope says while standing waiting to go see the Liberty Bell.

Sigh. I found our spring break trip to the City of Brotherly Love an exercise in reminding me just how selfish I really enjoy being, but can’t actually be anymore. Oh and I’m petty too. It’s ok, admitting it is the first step to recovery.

Case in point: Hope had a hypothesis that Subway cheese steaks would taste better than an actual Philly cheese steak (on what planet??). So we skipped on over to a shop near our hotel that came highly recommended by the concierge. We get to the front of the line, and Hope chokes on her sub order: “Well, I don’t know what I want…how is it normally served?”

Dude taking our order is looking at me like, “For reals? It’s a cheese steak!”

After putzing back and forth for what seemed like an eternity of indecision but was really only about 45 seconds, I ordered two cheese steaks, one with onions and one without, since she managed to pantomime that she didn’t want onions. Once back at the hotel she, was insistent that she have half of my sandwich to taste test the difference between onions and non-onions. Wait…what??? But you didn’t want onions!?!?! I complied, but I seethed. I wanted my damn sandwich intact. I gave up the radio station. When we switched to my Google Play, I let her favorite song go on repeat. I listened to her read Teen Beat and learned about people who I didn’t know existed who were supposed to be famous. I endured Big Bad Wolf style huffing and puffing about seeing historical sites. Got dang, can I have my whole onion filled sandwich???

Apparently not, for half of my sautéed filled onion sandwich made its way over to her plate—where it lay untouched and eventually discarded.

UGH! Yeah, just ugh.  I wonder what will trigger a deeper level of selflessness in me and when…clearly it didn’t happen on this trip. I was really in my feelings about only having half of my delicious sandwich; Hope’s half was ok, just bland. Booo.

After a long drive home in a wicked spring monsoon, I was grouchy, tired, sore from stress and just really needed a hour of recharge in my room. An hour I didn’t get because she wanted to watch Believe (the Justin Bieber movie) on Amazon. Awesome. #notreally

By bedtime, I was a mess and totally botched a talking to about picking clothes off of the floor and putting them in the hamper. Not even sure why I picked that fight at that time. Things deteriorated fast, and in my head I saw the reproachful glare of our hot family therapist, who I telepathically told to kiss my ass in the moment, even as I KNEW I was botching this corrective action and going down in flames. #ifyourepissyandyouknowitclapyourhands,

Awesome. And this morning the saltiness simmered as we got ready for another road trip. We recovered.

Instead of bickering, we covered emotional sinkholes. After the giant eff up of the night before I was actually impressed by my ability to navigate confabs about the spiritual presence of her dad, the introduction of new extended family, fleeting memories of how her biological mom smelled, the loss of a puppy pre-foster care days, how foster parents didn’t keep their promises regarding countless things and on and on and on. There really seems to be no end to the emotional sinkholes, none. But I’m conscious that her ability to talk to me about this stuff is evidence of our growth. At the end of the day trip I was again, exhausted, and we spent the evening untangling a skein of yarn and putting it into a ball.

I swear this yarn thing is going to be my new adoption metaphor. Trying to help a kid untangle the mess around them and make sense of it by reorganizing it.

As we were going through the nightly ritual of twisting her hair before bed, I came across a letter she wrote to me during a fury filled moment this morning. It was a cogent, expletive filled essay on how to introduce new ideas and corrections to her—ie not in the way I had done the night before. It was impressive in its thoughtful argument and colorful use of language (I appreciate a well-placed, well-used curse word every now and again, though not from 12 year olds). I was somehow both amused and hurt when I flipped it over and read, “Yeah, I hope you read this you son of a b*tch!!!!!” scrawled in huge letters. In short, the gist of her letter had me dead to rights—it was good parenting advice for her. I’ll be sure to follow it in the future

So much ground we covered today.

But she was horrified because well, she wrote it more than 12 hours ago, and it hardly seemed relevant anymore. It was a coping strategy to deal with her anger. And well, was I snooping (if it’s in plain view, addressed to me as “Mom-B*tch” then I don’t consider it snooping)? She wouldn’t even show me her face to me this evening. And again, I felt sad for my sweet girl who struggles with her emotions. It must be so hard to feel so deeply and strongly and also feel like you’re dragging the world around with you. She actually refused to look at me anymore out of I dunno, shame? Embarrassment? Worry? Anger? I tried to soothe her. I told her that her advice was good, and I would follow it from here on out, but hey, um, could you not call me out my name?

Tomorrow the trampoline park, where I will pray I don’t break anything.

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Dealing with the Past, Post Placement, The Adoption Process, Tween Parenting

March 20, 2014

ReMoved

By AdoptiveBlackMom

I finally had a chance to watch this film.  I cried.  It is a haunting, yet beautifully done film on our kids.  It gives context to the push/pull that is very much a part of parenting these beautiful children.

Get into it.

4 Comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Dealing with the Past, Lessons Learned

March 5, 2014

The Dx

By AdoptiveBlackMom

Today has been a crappy day.

Family meeting with the social worker that was awful.  Therapy with the Absurdly Gorgeous Therapist (AGT), who I’ve now decided is only Really Handsome—this is a  disappointing, step down.  I am currently withstanding the Ice Maiden silent treatment from Hope after all this chatter about treatment and feelings today.   Like Hope, I’m raw from all this feelings talk too.

Since it’s been a schnitty day, and I’m anticipating World War 14 when dinner is served, I’ve taken a different tact for this post.

The Dx

There once was a girl named Hope

Who recently claimed “end of rope.”

Then the care team said, “RAD,”

And ABM was so sad.

Now they both need help learning to cope.

Sigh….

9 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Dealing with the Past, Post Placement

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