Category Archives: Lessons Learned

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

May 5, 2014

The Struggle is Real

By AdoptiveBlackMom

Last week was challenging. It was challenging on so many levels. I’ve been snarfing up bad foods since Friday evening and I’d really kind of broken out of rudderless emotional eating in recent weeks. I must toss the rest of the Easter candy, I knew no good would come from having this mess in the house. I’m chocolate-wasted right this minute. But I digress…

There were some revelations that I’m still wrestling with on this Monday evening. I learned some new things that hurt. I continue to mourn old things that still are incredibly painful. I wrestle with the anxiety associated with…just everything. I rarely cried last week, which I’m not sure is a sign of some newfound pool of strength or just being so overwhelmed that I just can’t manage to wring out some tears. I’m not depressed (thank you anti-depressants) I’m just sad and wondering when will we get to the next stretch of better. So here’s the week’s recap.

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­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Parenting a child who has experienced trauma is just…ugh…hard. I know, I know, this is not new news. But it just bears repeating over and over and over again.

It’s either feast for famine. And while some of these challenges look normal, peel back the layers and just listen to some of the things the neglected child will tell you. She’ll over plate food because she’s worried there won’t be enough or any more for in case she gets hungry, but saying something that sets off her alarms will mean none of it gets consumed. She will say she’s not worthy of being loved. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is ever her fault because well to admit fault means that you might get shipped away, even though that’s kind of what you think you want (see below). The kid will read your body language and facial expressions for filth—you can hide nothing, not anything, not even a slow blink.

Consequences for undesirable behavior are only met with more defiance because, as Hope told me on Friday, when you’re not used to having nice things or being treated nicely, then having those things removed as a behavioral consequence is neither a punishment nor a motivator for behavioral change. It’s just a state of being. She never thought she would have those things or even deserved those things anyway [note, these are different from desiring these things, which she does]. The removal of these things which she desires just returns her to a state that she understands and accepts—having nothing.

A song, a drive past a cemetery, a passing bumble bee can trigger huge, sustained emotional reactions from somewhere deep inside.

I’ve come to think of her emotions on a circular continuum with no end, all underpinned by fear. The fear is so extraordinary and so deep that facing it seems impossible but not living with it is not possible either, so the option is to go with what you know and that’s living under constant fear that consumes everything in its wake.   It is hard to watch and live with; it seems so irrational and rational all the same. It’s hard to reassure that the fears are no longer warranted. It’s just hard in ways that I can’t really articulate.

Hope is waiting for me to give up. It was sad to hear her talk about how she has resigned herself to live with me, but she really believes that she’ll get sent back. She had a failed placement before, so she knows that it happens. She’s waiting for it to happen; it’s hard for her to believe that it won’t happen and that I’ll keep her. She doesn’t understand why I would want to. It’s not just that she’s testing me to see if I’ll cave, there’s a part of her that really wants me to cave so she can go back to what she knows. She doesn’t know how to live in a home with unconditional love. I wrote several weeks ago that she doesn’t know how to be happy. I realize now that she doesn’t know how to live without severe dysfunction; she has the skills to survive in that situation. But to live in a “functional” (I use the term loosely because we are all a bit dysfunctional) home? Well, she just doesn’t know how to live in that. She doesn’t have the skills for it. So there’s a part of her that is just committed to either causing the dysfunction that she understands and can survive in or just causing me to just roll over and give her back.

Reconciling this is hard for me.

It’s hard to feel like you’re doing anything right when everything seems to be going so wrong. Intellectually I know that we’re pushing forward. Going back to read my own posts shows me we’re moving forward. But being in the thick of things requires a level of vigilant consciousness that the world is not actually ending (as I constantly tell Hope that the world is not ending) takes a lot out of you. You just have keep reminding yourself not to get sucked into the emotional crap that’s being spun all around. It’s like mud wrestling in emotions all the time, but without the sexy wet t-shirt contest. It’s hard to not feel like a failure, even when you know you’re not failing. I’m sure most parents, no matter how they came to parenthood replay episodes at night, thinking about how they might have/should have done them differently, so that’s not unusual, but I’m finding that imposter syndrome: Parenting edition, is real y’all. It’s so real and it’s so serious.

I’ve got more parenting books than I can stand to read. I’ve binged purchased books. I’ve binge checked out books from the library. I’ve got regular parenting books, parenting the troubled child books, Christian parenting books, howl at the moon parenting books. Books for parents who are right handed with auto-kinesthetic dyslexia [that would be me, but no the book isn’t helpful]. Books for adoptive parents, black parenting books, books written by other parents, shrinks, pastors, social workers, educators, adoptees, other adopters…Tiger mom, single mom, black mom parenting books. Parenting without a father books.

If my Kindle app was an actual library of physical books, I think someone might call up Hoarders and recommend me for an episode. It’s all so absurd.

I know there isn’t a holy grail for parenting the adopted child, but sigh…I wish there was. Better yet, I wish there was a cliff notes version or just put it in a Powerpoint. I bought two new books today. I will skim them tonight.

I’ve read 5 books since I finished my dissertation on March 27th. Three were delicious, trashy beachy kind of reads. The other two were parenting books. I’ve done about half a dozen devotional reading plans. I’m sure I’ll binge devotional read this month too.

And there are still so many gaps. I find it’s not really about “knowing” kids; it’s about trying to figure out what’s going to work with your kid. It’s not about normal when normal is often only surface deep, and there’s a HAM (hot arse mess) just under the surface, it’s really just all about dealing with the HAM itself.

And yet tomorrow, I know I’ll be on the library’s website and Amazon continuing, to look for the elusive, key to everything text that doesn’t exist.

And then you get a sort of validation that maybe she’s reading something besides the non-existent poker face. After only earning half of what she normally gets in allowance last week, Hope is ALL over that chore spreadsheet so she can get the big money this week. She commented how she likes how I keep butter sitting out on the counter so it’s always soft and spreadable (thanks to all my Brit friends for that tidbit, it really doesn’t go bad!). She insists on wearing her natural hair because I wear mine. Tonight she copied something I do with my PJs and she asked how many times could she use the same towel when bathing because I shower morning and night she couldn’t figure out why I didn’t run out of towels. When she cleaned her room yesterday, she threw away two bags of trash that included papers of hers. She never throws anything away. Something about throwing away her papers is meaningful, she’s able to let somethings go. She asked me to read her a bedtime story tonight. My inside voice was like, “For reals? Bye Felicia.” Fortunately, my good sense kicked in and I rooted around on her shelf to find her Daddy Goose book that her father gave her. She told me how much she loved the book even though her father never read it to her. So I read her a story, and she giggled and laughed and wanted to see the pictures. And my daughter who is now several inches taller than me was tickled because at 12 someone finally read her a bedtime story. I’ll be reading one every night.

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So that’s the word, Big Bird. We are surviving. She nervous about heading to Chicago this weekend for my graduation, but we’re going to have a good time. I love her. I love her madly, even when she is annoying the hell out of me. I love her. And we will get up tomorrow to do it all over again.

14 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Lessons Learned, Post Placement

April 28, 2014

Getting There

By AdoptiveBlackMom

Yesterday was our monthly visit with the social worker. I really do like her a lot; she’s so supportive and encouraging. While I will be glad to finalize my adoption of Hope; I will kind of miss my check-ins with Ms. E. She’s been a nice, unbiased, non-familial attached person for me to check in with and actually ask for advice from rather than just getting unsolicited advice. While thinking about our visit, I was able to really give some thought to the goings-on of the last couple of weeks. I haven’t done a recap in a while, so here goes.

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Respite and self-care: Where have you been all my life?? To everyone who told me to find a way to take a break to just take a breath and get my bearings; thank you. You were right. After interviewing half a dozen people I wouldn’t leave a houseplant with, I finally decided to use the sitter service that I got a Living Social deal on a month ago. Last week I got myself a sitter for Friday and Saturday and wouldn’t you know it, I’m a new woman. Now I talked incessantly about my kid while I was out, but I didn’t call once to check in and I felt free. We tried two sitters, one who was a late 20s and in grad school and another early 20s undergraduate student. Turns out the younger of the two was a hit with us and we’ll be requesting her on a regular basis, because yeah, I need a break sometimes. The investment was worth every penny.   I came home feeling like a new woman, and after Hope got over the anxiety, she found that it wasn’t so bad since I came home in a good mood.

People do strange things when they know you’re adopting. So, Hope’s teachers know that this is a pre-adoption placement. They have been kind and helpful and understanding. And then things got weird on the field trip. Suddenly, I had no name other than “Hope’s Mom.” No really, while introducing the chaperones to the 140 kids in the auditorium, I literally got introduced as Hope’s Mom, with no name of my own. Every other parent got introduced as Mr. or Ms. Smith/Jones/Rodriguez/Jenkins and 70% of the time their kids’ last name was different. It was almost as if this was some attempt to make sure Hope and I were bound together publicly. It was weird and awkward and well, just kind a weird. Hope was completely nonplussed; she has not called me by my given name in months, so to her, that kinda is my name.

Hope tends to be pretty transparent about being adopted. I try to follow her lead and not disclose unless she has. I’m sure the other parents thought I was a bit weird too. Clearly some of their kids had shared with them that Hope was from the West Coast, but she or they must not have shared that her move was a part of an adoption. In making small talk, I was asked how I was adapting to the East Coast and DC area. Ummmm….Hmmmmmm. Yeah, “It’s lovely here.” “Rough winter.” I’ve lived here forever, and Hope’s adjustment has been…big. Yep….a big adjustment….

I have developed the “Mom” look!!! Holy shizzle! I have successfully managed to master the look that mothers give their kids who are cutting up. You know, the looks that say, “You betta get it together!!” This is huge. I had to use the look while chaperoning my first field trip this week. Before we even got on the bus, I had to snatch Hope up and get her together because she attempted a smart mouthed neck roll in front her little friends in the group. Um, no girl. Midway during the trip she attempted a modest break bad moment and all it took was a LOOK! Hot damn, momma is cooking with grease now.

I need to tackle my anxiety/frustration/anger about being judged. I had an unfortunate run-in this week with someone very close to me because of a comment that felt judgy. The truth of the matter is a lot of things feel judgy these days; I’m hyper-sensitive, and it’s really my thing like 78.8713% of the time. It’s hard (especially for this overachiever) to take critical commentary about something you’re working so hard on and for and is complete and utter mayhem on the inside. It’s easy to become angry and resentful and just all around pissy. You withdraw and the circle of confidants gets smaller and smaller until you really are just confiding into the folks you’re paying to make this thing happen. It’s a vicious cycle because then the less people see, know and/or hear about, the more they come to believe that, well, your little adoptive family must be getting along like gangbusters, while secretly, you lie in bed alone nightly watching the ceiling fan spin, while crying and knocking over the red wine glass you had delicately placed next to you.

Oh, that hasn’t happened to you? My bad.

(Yes, I know that bio parents are probably also watching ceiling fans and knocking over wine glasses in bed too.)

I read an article on the Tiny Buddha this week called “Transforming your Relationships by Assuming Best Intentions.”  Ahh, this article was a bit of church and one that I will take to heart in all of my relationships. There are far fewer people in the world who care enough to wish you harm and failure than those who wish wholeness and love for you. People who don’t care about you actually don’t care about you, and they typically don’t even care enough to comment.   I have people who care about me, and it’s silly to continue to rationalize that they are out to get me. Now, changing this mindset will likely take some doing on my part but I need this transformation for myself and my daughter more than anything.

People are going to say some really unhelpful, sometimes less than constructive things; my challenge is to charge it to the head and not the heart.

Hope is starting to really try on her new identity as my daughter. I already mentioned that she calls me Mom and sees me as Mom, but it’s interesting as we approach finalization to hear the questions that she has. I told her yesterday that I had hired an attorney and that we were heading to finalization in June. She was delighted and said something like, finally I will stay here forever. It was a great response and then the questions started, like, “Will I still be from WA or does that all get erased?” I fielded all her questions and then she asked when would we get her passport and when could we go to the Bahamas; a trip that would require her to show her passport with her new name.

Of course the trying on of this identity also comes with a side of trying me, which is delightfully, annoyingly normal. Amazing how normal can also be painful, but whatever. The girl refuses to understand that there are consequences, positive and negative, to every action. And in three short months the sense of entitlement has rooted itself surprisingly strong. We are at the beginning of a tech blackout since rules have been broken and attitudes have been slung. Sigh…

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Overall, things are better. I’m hopeful; I know that we’ll be fine. Things are still very hard; there are moments of anxiety and nail biting and anxiety words and withdrawal and spouts of anger. It still can be overwhelming, but it’s ok. I can see the growth and I know it will continue if I just stay the course.

In the meantime she is punishing me by yelling, screaming and sporadically playing a harmonica. While $10 noise cancelling headsets are not quite as effective as Beats by Dre, they get the job done when coupled with a glass of wine, a pre-dinner brownie and a music playlist. I love her, but I know she’s not ready to be consoled or comforted.

And that’s ok.  We’ll get there.

7 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Lessons Learned, Post Placement, Tween Parenting

April 23, 2014

Three Months Deep

By AdoptiveBlackMom

Yesterday, Hope and I celebrated 3 months post-placement, and by celebrate I mean we dined out at a pizza buffet and I let her watch a Netflix movie on my tablet—in her room. Yeah, admittedly Netflix’ing in her room with an HDMI cord is my new reward system that rewards us both! #giftsthatkeepgiving #alonetime

These last couple of weeks have been rough for me. I know they’ve been rough for Hope too. They weren’t the roughest weeks we’ve endured during the last 90 days, but I struggled with issues in our relationship, in my relationship with family members, and at work. I was losing the capacity to have much patience; I was snippy. I parented in ways that I’m not particularly proud of sometimes. I got cussed out. I wanted to cuss out a whole mess of folks. I got things tossed at me. I got hurtful notes. Hope huffed and puffed like the Big Bad Wolf at least once daily. I felt like everyone had an opinion or “helpful” word that they were oh to happy to share when I really just wanted to crawl in a hole and cry, then maybe sleep. There were days when as much as I wanted to be honest with some folks in my life, the truth about the emotional mayhem going on at Casa de ABM was just too much to share. I came to believe that some folks just wouldn’t believe it anyway. The decisions that needed to be made to protect us were at times painful and offensive to others, but critical to helping us press forward. Some days, most probably, I was my own worst enemy as I was plagued with self-doubt, self-criticism, sentiments of failure and worthlessness. It’s been a weary couple of weeks.

It was nothing but grace that got us through the last 90 days, especially since these last few weeks weren’t even the worst of it.

It certainly hasn’t been all rough. There were days, even a couple of weeks when we finally settled into our routine and I would breathe silently each night with a smile, “Yeah, that’s what’s up.” There have been friends and family who’ve checked in on us; patiently given us space or just allowed me to vent, cry and fall apart on the phone, by text, by skype, by email, over coffee. There’ve been fellow bloggers and other adoptive parents who have let me know that all of this messiness is normal, or at least normal for us, as we help our children get settled and begin healing.   I’ve had a lot of positive support and encouragement from my agency and my social worker; the encouraging words helped keep me going on some hitsay days. #piglatin

I saw grace in those moments too.

Then Tuesday, on the eve of our month-a-versary and in the middle of family therapy, I saw Hope through a different lens and consequently saw us through a new lens too. Yesterday, Hope finally decided to participate in our therapy session. Actually she dominated it. She prattled nervously, but made conversation, shared dark things, things that I didn’t know, things I knew all too well and things that just surprised me. As I sat and listened, making eye contact with our shrink and my daughter, I thought, well *now* we’re getting somewhere. Hot therapist would make eye contact back with a subtle nod, “Yeah, we are getting somewhere!”

At one point Hope brought up something from the Easter sermon at church, applied it to the topic of the moment in an appropriate but hilarious way. I nearly cried; I did audibly gasp. I remember the second week when she whined about having to go to church and now she talking about what she learned and what it means. She smiled when she saw my reaction. I learned about how a woman who briefly was in her life years ago reached out to her on social media and how she rebuffed her attempts to connect, saying I have a great mom now, I don’t want you around, and I don’t like how you treated me. I heard her coming into a self-awareness that wasn’t there three months ago. I heard the grip of fear loosening in her life. I heard her trust in me. I heard her making plans for her life here. It was so beautiful to see my girl’s progress in a 50 minute session.

On the way home, I got stung by some kind of insect and Hope sprang into action, insisting that she take care of me. She made me tea, prepped an ice bath for my swollen hand, got the Benadryl and put it in one of the Dixie cups that I use to dole out medications. Then she fixed herself a cup of tea and sat with me, timing how long my hand was in the ice bath and fetching a second dose of antihistamine for me an hour later. Hope clucked about whether or not I needed to go to Patient First and if she needed to get our neighbor to come help. It was a little sting and yes, my hand was swollen like the dickens but after 20 minutes I knew I wasn’t going to die and besides I have some epi-pens in the house. But her care and concern was so earnest, so genuine that I let her fret over me for nearly two hours while we snuggled on the couch watching Swamp People.

It was a beautiful way to spend an hour on our 89th day together. It was us turning another corner together.

Hope is my daughter. I am hers, and she is mine. And it’s kind of cool to think, hey, I had a hand in getting her to this emotional space that allows her to be a bit more tolerant of therapeutic treatment of emotional grief and trauma. Monday night had me high-fiving the Holy Homeboy during my evening prayer. Good stuff.

Her social worker told me to today that they were moving forward to get the adoption finalized. Hope will be mine forever before her birthday in June.

I cling to moments like these. It’s hard for some people to understand that regressive behaviors are a part of the very normal, yet painful process for us. I know that we will continue to wrestle with things. If our pattern holds true, then the shoe will drop by week’s end. Maybe we’ll start a new pattern, who knows. I know that the grief that pervades her life continues to crush a part of her spirit even as she can say that living with me and being my daughter is a good thing. There’s still a strong need to test it by sabotage. She grieves the life she should’ve had with her parents; she’s angry that they failed her, that they didn’t put her first. The nicer I am to her, the more it hurts her some days because she knows that this should all be happening with her biological parents, but it never did, and it never will. It’s hard for a young girl to bear that reality in the face of a new life. She is starting to show gratitude, not for being adopted but just because she’s beginning to appreciate the kindness shown to her. Most people won’t get the subtle distinction, just assuming that our add-water-and-stir family should gel easily because we’re all so happy to be here. The path to permanency for my daughter sucked arse big time. No child should endure what she has.

And yet we are such a different pair than we were 3 months ago. She told me she doesn’t even remember her first two weeks here. It was an overwhelming blur. She remembers my birthday about two weeks after she arrived, but it happened to be on Super Bowl Sunday and it was hard to forget that! It’s like not remembering what happened when you were a toddler; emotionally, she was starting all over again. I can see how she was so overwhelmed now. I was overwhelmed too.

I look forward to seeing where this year takes us. We have grown so much over the last three months. We have so much more growing to do as we continue on our journey.

Onward and upward.

12 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Lessons Learned, Post Placement, The Adoption Process

April 20, 2014

The Importance of Traditions

By AdoptiveBlackMom

Happy Easter.

As we wrap up spring break and, mercifully, get back to our routine I wanted to spend a bit of time talking about the importance of traditions for me and Hope. We’ve now had Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s Day (not really a major holiday but I made a big deal out of it) and Easter together, spread out across visits and placement. Through these holidays I’ve come to learn more about what Hope has experienced and what she hasn’t in terms of holiday traditions. I’ve also come to learn what kinds of traditions she’s yearned for her in short life.

My traditions are new to her; no way around it. Some of those traditions, those with lots of family interaction, for example, cause her quite a bit of anxiety. There are lots of “why do we have to…;” to which I reply, “because we just do, always have.” She usually falls in line and ends up having a positive experience.

Leading up to Easter I started planting seeds about dressing up in new clothes for Easter. My girl says she hates dresses, but the two I’ve managed to get her in have required a crowbar to get her out of—oh and all the preening! J  We stumbled upon a dress several weeks ago and finally got some shoes yesterday. She may only wear the dress and the shoes once; some may think that doing this with a 12 year old is silly or an overemphasizing the more material aspects of Easter. But for Hope, this is her first Easter with me, but bigger than that, it is her first Easter, according to her, getting an Easter outfit and an Easter basket.

By the time I was Hope’s age, I was no longer getting Easter baskets. I usually still got a new dress for church, but my family downplayed the candy and pretty clothes narrative in favor of greater emphasis on the resurrection. That’s cool, that is the point, right? But there is something delightful about having those child years that included waking up to an Easter basket and pretty new clothes to go celebrate Jesus (if that’s what you believe). There’s an innocence associated with it.

Hope didn’t have that. A few foster families attempted to create that experience for her, but my lovely girl was in such a state that she really doesn’t remember; she barely remembers last Easter. This week she told to me that she’d never had an Easter basket (ever!). I’m not certain this is entirely true, but she believes it. I dare you to convince her otherwise. So does it really matter whether it’s true? Nope, sure doesn’t. The reality is that Hope wasn’t in a stable environment where she was taken to go sit on a dingy bunny’s lap at the mall for an overpriced picture or woke up to a sparkly basket at the foot of the bed or got to put on a new dress and shoes purchased for the express purpose of looking pretty at Easter.

Listening to Hope share a history that had none of these experiences was hard. These are things I take for granted in my own life. They are embedded pieces of my family life that are a part of what made my family a family and what made me feel safe. Imagine for a minute not having some of the trappings of tradition; the thought of not having them made me realize how important those things were structurally to what I understood to be my childhood.

So, this morning I was up driving around looking for white tights—her insistence, not mine— and assembling an Easter basket. She was so excited about her basket! She loved it.

easterbasket

Hope was jazzed about the Glow in the Dark Silly Putty!

She dressed up for church, putting on her white tights that made her look like a freakishly tall 5 year-old. The tights are now my metaphor for her emotional age. I tried to get her to go bare legged or to let me buy some “soft brown” pantyhose, but, no she insisted on white tights. #shrugok #nudedoesntworkforus

She pulled out her “good” jewelry for the occasion and slipped on her new shoes. She put on the sparkly headband. #jewelsforjesus

She wriggled and fidgeted until neighbors and parishioners told her how beautiful she was in her Easter garb. We’ve been home for over an hour, and she still hasn’t changed. Hope insists she hates dresses, but just manage to get her in one and you’ll be hard pressed to get her to change out of it. She is deep in a tomboy phase fashion-wise, but my lovely girl likes pretty things.

I can’t say that I expected to make such a big deal out of Easter, but it became clear that it was important in creating scaffolding for our long term relationship. Hope needs traditions to help her settle in and know that this is real and this is family.

I’m off to go bake a ham and make a few other holiday dishes for Easter dinner.

Have a blessed day for He is risen.

7 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Lessons Learned, Post Placement

April 13, 2014

Putting the Poison Pen Down…

By AdoptiveBlackMom

When I started this adoption journey things were really, really different in my life. I was coming off of an “OMG, I’m not going to die” high after contending with a serious medical issue. I was still working on my doctoral coursework. I had gotten a new boss who I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to be productive with. I had been thinking about adoption for years, but I didn’t really talk about it much to people other than to say, “One day I plan to adopt.”

Then one day came and I started moving on my plan.

It appeared to come out of the blue for a lot of people around me. Despite my transparency in this space it wasn’t something I had talked about a lot. Many people just assumed it was an ill-conceived, knee jerk reaction to some of the upheaval in my life and not a strategic move on a long simmering plan. There were times when I got really uncomfortable questions—I still do—about why I chose to adopt and how I planned for it all to work out.

My very first post on the blog and the About ABM page gets into some of the reasons why. As for the how, well, how do other would-be parents plan for it all to work out? They don’t plan, they just do, alongside a huge dose of faith, and take steps for it to work out, somehow, someway. You just do it.

When I started the blog last summer I thought the journey, and the story of the journey, would be different.   I knew it would have challenges and be challenging. I thought I would write about the things I write about, maybe some other things, but I did think it would be different than the story it has evolved into. On some naïve level I thought it would look like this:

sound of music

Um, but with Black people and probably no singing. There would be kids and family and all the stuff this image evokes. Ok, not really running in a field on the side of a mountain either, but you get my drift.

But this journey really has me feeling like this:

:Model Fall

Like somehow I am ready to do something kind of cool (faking it), but fall completely flat on my face, over and over and over again. I suffer from imposter syndrome something terrible. I try to write about what I’m experiencing and what I’m learning on this journey doing something I’ve never done before and I’m not sure I will do again (I am pretty sure I’m a part of the one and done crowd).

The range of emotions and reactions to things have covered more emotional territory than I knew existed. There have been incredible highs and lows that were ridiculously dangerous for me and some of the people around me. There have been disappointments, so many…long before the blog and up until this very day. There have been joys celebrated with others and joys celebrated alone.

This space is supposed to be about all of that.   But it was supposed to be different. Somewhere along the way fear and disappointments surrounding my adoption journey crushed me. It’s been devastating at times. I’m not sure when it happened; I’m not even sure how. Sometimes on this journey, the hits just keep coming and it hard to keep track of what’s really happening.  But I wrote about it. I wrote about the disappointment, sadness and grief in great detail. I wrote about what I learned from it, some of those lessons were better than others. I poured a lot of it out on this blog, in part because I felt so isolated and because I wasn’t getting the type of support I thought I would or should get from people close to me. On some level it made me really, really angry and bitter. Grief is really a beotch, but so is pride. I focused most of my angst on one person, for lots of reasons—most of which don’t hold up under close scrutiny—that seem absurd in the light of day. There is no excuse other than desperately poor judgment entangled with stress and depression. All of that turned this space into something different than what was intended. The space turned into my own slam book of all the little and big perceived slights and abuses on my journey. And adoption journeys are full of tender feelings, fear of failure and judgment and all around messiness, so that leads to lots of writing inspiration.

In recent months, my blog became a place for a poison pen and a public airing of all my mom’s perceived shortcomings. And well, that’s unforgiveable because she’s really a wonderful human being and a fantastic mom; moreover it’s been a recipe for only exacerbating the damage that’s already been done.  She’s long told me that hurt people, hurt people.  quite true.  The slams shouldn’t have happened; they shouldn’t have happened repeatedly, and I regret it. I can’t say I’m over all of the drama (hardly), and I will not apologize for what I felt and even continue to feel (still painfully raw), but I regret that I shaped a public image of my mom that is woefully incomplete, and I regret that I did that in this space or even at all.

My mother is an amazing woman. She is loving and caring and generous. I know the she loves me deeply. She’s been a wonderful mom, and while I have to parent Hope differently, she has created a wonderful template. Whatever I think she’s done; I know in my heart came/comes from a good, pure place.  She’s hardly out to get me.  I also realize that these sentences do her no justice compared to all the things I’ve written before, but trust me, she is such a lovely soul and you would be lucky to know her and blessed to be related to her. I owe her a lifetime of apologies for being a petulant kid and a colossal ass.

So with that, I am adding another promise to not talk about my family on this blog anymore; certainly not in the way that I have up until today. I’ll still talk about this journey, honestly and transparently, and other things of interest and relevance. But it’s time to put my big girl drawers on and own up to my own ish, practice discretion and attempt to navigate some challenging terrain privately.

To those closest to me, I’m sorry.

5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Lessons Learned

April 6, 2014

A Stormy Week and a Weepy Mom

By AdoptiveBlackMom

Ugh. So the last few days I’ve really struggled. I mean really struggled with Hope. Honestly she’s been fine; I just haven’t. Therapy was rough on Friday, mainly because while I’ve been enjoying the routine and the joy of motherhood the last few weeks; the reality is that I’m not sure how much of it is real. Hope has a way of shutting down or acting out in therapy that rattles me somewhere deep inside. It makes me not trust myself to pick up on how she’s really feeling. It makes me realize how desperately I need respite time away from her that isn’t just me going to work. It just cascades from there…I have learned things this week, but these things feel much darker than in recent weeks.   I’m feeling navy blue and off my game at the moment. I hate feeling like this week’s recap is a slam post about my daughter, but I try to be really transparent about what I’m going through when blogging and well…it is what it is.

storm_____________

I need respite time. So I’m in the process of interviewing caregivers to help out with my little family. Hope is a handful and she exhausts me mentally, physically and emotionally. When stuff goes left, I hit the wall hard and I need a break. My level of resiliency is not what it should be; a horrible afternoon can send me spinning in the wrong direction for several days. I honestly have no earthly idea how I’ve gotten through the last couple of months other than divine assistance. I’m tired…worn out. The need for respite is also a constant reminder that while I have a village of folks who are loving and supportive, the one person I want in my corner is just not there.

I continue to struggle with my own emotions and reactions to Grammy’s visit nearly a month later. I know I have family and friends that read this blog and probably think I’m running my mom down in ways likeI feel she’s done to me recently. The truth is that I’ve concluded I am overwhelmed by grief about the crumbling of this relationship. I’m devastated to conclude that after months of planting seeds of doubt concerning my ability to single parent a kid with a traumatic history that she was the first person to actually cut and run. It hurts to have friends’ parents call me and check on me and offer encouragement while my phone sits silent, waiting for my mother to call. I’m resentful about feeling like I need to swallow the disappointment and anger because I still want Hope to have some relationship with her Grammy and Grandpa. I worry about whether fostering what feels like such a dangerous relationship with my mom is even in her best interest.

So I am deeply grieving the unmet expectations and the perceived abandonment.

I feel like a hypocrite. So I gave a lecture at Iowa State this week. It felt good to get out and flex a bit professionally since I’ve been behind on just about everything in the office for going on 3 months now. The lecture was good and well received. I felt sharp. During the Q&A after my lecture someone asked me a question about success in diversity work on campus, and I found myself talking about the need to have reasonable expectations and different definitions for success.

I often tell a story about a program one of my organizational members launched with a partner institution. Three years into the program the partnership yielded fruit; the secondary partner was delighted that it only took three years; my member was frustrated because it took three years to get this one “fruit” from the partnership. The member took their toys and left the partnership. The point of the vignette is that the partners never agreed on what success would look like to cement the partnership.

Playing that script in my head during a three mile walk this morning led me to believe that I have a skewed perception of what success will look like for me and Hope. Oh sure I know I want to see her be well/better adjusted, safe, secure, fully functional, emotionally age appropriate etc, etc…but what do I see as success for our relationship? Hmmmm. Can I describe what success looks like for me and Hope? Not exactly; not in concrete terms. Everyone says we’re doing really well, but what does that mean? How can I counsel folks on defining success and expectations when my house is such an effing wreck?

Hope gets on my damn nerves like 60% of the time.  My sister was telling me about a comedy show she recently went to, and the comedian joked that he loved his daughter the most when she was asleep. Yeah….that. Ok, the percentage of nerve rattling ebbs and flows, but I’d have to say on a big picture evaluation, 60% sounds about right.

Hope wants to live in a world of absolutes, one of those absolutes being that she wants to be right 100% of the time even on the ridiculously, absurd things she tends to say. She only wears X brand of jeans and utterly refuses to consider any other jeans. She still occasionally breeches the sanctuary of my bedroom without asking. She eavesdrops like a mug, so I’m trapped in my house with no privacy. She whines constantly about phantom aches and pains for attention. She’s gotten comfortable enough to start lying and being manipulative. This week she decided she wasn’t going to go on a class field trip; she sprang the permission slip on me on Friday morning, 10 minutes before she needed to catch the bus. Her manipulation game is crazy weak though; girlfriend needs to call me after studying the Art of War and Machiavelli’s The Prince in a few years. She was furious that I allowed her to miss the bus while I informed her she was taking that damn $2 and that signed slip AND this completed chaperone form ‘cause WE were going to Lake Accotink in a few weeks. Her plan B? To just not turn the forms in to her teacher—I literally could see the plan forming through her forehead. ABM’s end game? Preemptively email her teacher that she has her forms and $2.

It seems that my early rising patterns are rubbing off on her. Initially I complained about her ability to sleep to 11 or 12, but when she strolled into the kitchen this morning at 8:49am, I cursed under my breath because the couple of quiet hours in the house I’ve come to relish on the weekends, being pseudo alone, evaporated into thin air.   She wanted a hug and to whine about something and cereal and…whatever.

I love her madly, but she gets on my damn nerves. I feel some shame about that because I feel like adoptive parents are held on this pedestal where we are supposed to love our kids and marvel that they manage to poop every day after their arrival. Oh well, I guess I fail at staying on that stupid pedestal; I spike her water with miralax so I know she poops, but I can’t say I care or clap about it.

It’s hard living with someone who isn’t capable of even asking if you’re ok. This is an off-shoot of the expectations issue, and I know that to some extent it’s really not fair for me to expect Hope to care much about me. I also hear that the level of narcissism exhibited by tweens and teens is stunning. But it would be so nice just once for Hope to ask, “Hey mom, are you ok? How are you?” Living without that kind of compassion or empathy is hard, especially without a partner in the house with me to offer it from somewhere else. It’s just hard minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day knowing I have to just be ok with possibly not hearing it anytime soon…maybe even never. I don’t know if we’ll get there; maybe we will, but for now, it really hurts. I know I’m not supposed to take it personally; I know I’m supposed to disassociate these behaviors, but ugh.

I am depressed. I’ve been here before. I’ve been a tough adoption soldier these 10 weeks or so, but I have more than the blues. This is something else. My eyes are exhausted from leaking tears. I mean I can only manage a good hard cry every week or so, but other times, my eyes just leak tears. Hope notices sometimes and other times I think she pretends not to notice. It’s time for me to visit doc and look into better living with chemistry. I was aware of this dark cloud sliding over my head, but despite several weeks of really wrestling with these clouds, I know I just can’t shake it by myself.

_____________

So, that’s where I am this week. I’ve got to finish working with the dissertation editor, and I’ve got an education module I’m behind on (again) and then tomorrow is picture day for Hope, so there’s hair to do tonight.   Sigh…Ok week, let’s get on with it.

17 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Lessons Learned, Post Placement

March 30, 2014

Turning Corners

By AdoptiveBlackMom

So we’re sliding into week three of really lovely, relatively easy times with me and Hope. This respite from drama is so deeply appreciated that I can barely articulate how wonderful it feels. I cling to this time because I know that at any time the shoe can drop and we can be back in stormy times again. But for now, I’m grateful and basking in the light of mommyhood, family time and the ease of life. So, after such a monumental week for me, I’m happy to think about what happened, what didn’t happen and what was learned. Yep, time for the weekly recap!
————-

Watching my kid learn to let go and be a kid is a beautiful thing. Hope’s early years had her really being a caretaker for one of her parents; the experience robbed her of her childhood in so many ways. I find that she really has trouble sometimes learning to get in her lane (the kid lane) and stay there. There are times when she really thinks she is the boss of me. Um, no ma’am. Sit your $5 fanny down before I make change.

In recent weeks, especially since the Great Grammy Visit of March 2014, I’ve really limited her TV/movie watching to cartoons and encouraged all around goofiness. She’s dived into it, and I’ve watched her enjoy all of it immensely. She’s thrived with the restrictions. She’s eager to just not have to worry about ish that she’s really just too young to worry about. She’s learning to trust that I got it, and I’m learning to believe that I got this. too

Earning perks is better for Hope than all out punishments. Hope struggles with negative consequences. You want to really set her off after she’s already pissed, tell her you’re taking tablet time or some other thing that she inherently believes she is entitled to. Girlfriend will lose her ish in 15 seconds flat. Oh I still have to do that sometimes, but I’ve found that “big gets” acquired through earning is a much better way to get her to learn appropriate behavior.

Last week, Hope failed to earn her house key because she insisted that some school kid’s intel on the after school program was better than mine. She quickly realized that momma knows what’s up and you’d better be where I told you to be if you expect to show me that you’re responsible enough for a key. She was salty.

This week she gets her extraordinarily coveted cell phone. She managed to avoid earning the five points that would have prevented cell phone acquisition. She knows that there will be significant restrictions on this phone (so many in fact that I can’t imagine it’s going to be much fun having it), but she’s so proud to have earned it. I’m proud of her too.

Hope is beginning to trust me, like really, really trust me. She tells me things. She tells me how she feels. Sometimes I have to prompt her, but I’m getting better at reading her tells that I can inquire sooner and offer her comfort or safety or whatever it is that she needs to let me in. She looks for me in the house (Lawd, can’t even go to the bathroom by my damn self sometimes); she calls out for me. She asks me what I think.

I’m trusting her a little more too. She asks so many random questions sometimes that my stock answer has become, “I don’t know.” The more she lets me in the more I respond with the answer I really want to say without fear that I’m going to hit a trip wire and send up hurtling right into crazy time.

The amount of self-sacrifice necessary to be a parent and to specifically be a single adoptive parent is starting to get easier. It is really hard though sometimes. Sometimes I really just want to be alone; I’ve had a lot of years alone. I miss my solitude, a lot actually. I miss not having to wait on someone else to get ready to go anywhere and my ability to just pick up and do as I please. I miss sitting down to watch a rated R movie at 7pm on a Tuesday night because I just want to and I needn’t concern myself with exposing a kid to something like that—we’ve watched like 5 G or PG rated flicks this weekend; I really need a cuss word in my life right about now. No really, I do—filth, flarn, filth.  I miss being able to just have some pretzels and a cocktail for dinner because I am too lazy to fix real food. I miss cooking real mac and cheese because Hope actually prefers Velveeta shells and cheese (ick). #wheretheydothat? I miss having time, much less disposable funds, to just go buy myself something random. And yes, <hanging head in shame> I am annoyed that she now wants to keep my favorite headband for her hair. Sigh…I’ve been reduced to coveting my own ish from my 12 year old daughter. It was a loan (in my mind) dammit.

And despite all of that, I found myself on the way to work a few days this week grinning, just grinning because my heart was so full of love for this kid. The fact that my eyebrows look like fuzzy caterpillars didn’t bother me one bit. I really need to get them waxed this week; I can’t go on like this. But watching her heal, watching her learn to trust me and to begin to be happy is so achingly beautiful that if necessary I’ll go on looking like Sasquatch, if necessary (I guess).

Hope has an inner girly girl. Hope rocks hard with the tomboy front, but the truth is that there’s an inner girly girl peeking around the bend. Last month she preened hard in her cute little mint green dress at her godparents’ wedding. Now it’s all about the sparkly stuff. Yesterday at Charming Charlie’s she picked out a tangerine colored dress that she’ll wear for Easter. And then she had to look at all the sparkly stuff.

Hope tried on a tiara. #pagingDisneyprincesses

Ok, we *both* tried them on! But you see mine is bigger right? #queenbee

Ok, we *both* tried them on! But you see mine is bigger right? #queenbee

 

And yes, she seems to have it in her mind that my favorite dressy headband belongs exclusively on her head.

I haven’t gotten her out of those gawd-awful sneakers, but I can see it’s only a matter of time before she’ll be asking for a pair of ballet flats.
——————————
Hope and I cross new terrain this week as I begin traveling again for work. I know she’s anxious about it, but I’ve done a lot to try to soothe her and prepare her. She’s vocal about the fact that she doesn’t like that I have to go away sometimes, and I do wonder what this quick trip might trigger for her. Time will tell, I guess. I’m about to start interviewing for additional caregiver help for us this week as well. I’m optimistic!  And I’m even ready if stuff goes left this week. It’s all a part of the process, a part of the journey.

 

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Lessons Learned, Post Placement

March 23, 2014

Just a Few Days Before the Defense

By AdoptiveBlackMom

Last night I finished my dissertation defense draft and my presentation for Thursday!  Hot dang it, I’m nearly done.  It was a great day, though I haven’t had a lot of sleep thanks to the need to finish up and get these materials out the door and to my committee and program directors.  Hope and I hit the National Zoo this weekend with her godmother for a lovely, sunny, fun loving day.   Monday we had a snow day and yesterday it was 70 degrees—go figure.   So, time to get into my introspective weekend posts about what the devil I learned this week.

Hope is really feeling some kind of way about Grammy.  It hasn’t been what she’s said exactly—other than a request not to see Grammy anytime soon—but rather it’s just all the little emotional boxes that it opened during the week.  The last two days of the visit were hard, and I can tell that some trauma resurfaced.  The desire to have a loving, accepting Grammy weighed on Hope more than I understood.  This week has been filled with a burning desire to find out whether her paternal grandmother is still alive and if she could see her.  So great is her need that over dinner one night Hope asked all sorts of questions about Ancestry.com and whether her bio-grammy needed to be a member in order for her to find her.  Poor baby wants her bio-grammy, no doubt because it is a connection to her dad, but also because she doesn’t think this new Grammy thing is going to work out.

I am still feeling some kind of way about Grammy, too.  We had a civilized chat today.  I don’t know where we go from here next, but I’m wary and I’ve got to protect my kid.  Grammy just wasn’t ready and the whole thing freaked her out.  That’s all well and good, but the fall out was just too much for all of us.  I imagine it to be  taste of the abandonment and rejection Hope has repeatedly experienced.  I believe this is the Holy Homeboy’s way of teaching me empathy; I really do wish he would take a different tact, but whatever.

We can’t go back but we can go forward, with more emotional guardrails, limited quality time and lots of prayer.  I’m serious about learning to practice grace.

Mimi is right; there is a lot of dissonance around how we were raised and how we must raise our kids.  Don’t know who fellow blogger Melodi is?  Go check out this new mom’s blog and peep her new discussions about reconciling the way she and hubby are raising Nana versus how they were raised.  It’s especially easy to say what you’re going to do when you have kids when you don’t have any; and especially so when you’re single like me—I don’t have to consult with anyone on any dang thing (except the host of social workers, but that’s a temporal issue)!  It’s a whole other box of bricks when you have a bundle of joy who didn’t spring from your loins and has unique issues that require a wholly different style of parenting.  It’s a bit jarring.  It also reminds you that things didn’t turn out the way you thought, even though they are great in their own way.  It’s just different, not bad, just different and well, different can be hard.   I’m sure it also triggers some Grands issues as they see you not following the models that they laid out for you.

Hope really does have to learn how to be happy.  We had a visit with a new health care provider this week and during in-take the nurse asked about depression.  Hope said, well of course I’m depressed!!  Duh.  I learned later that while she was happy about being adopted and she cared for me a lot, even loved me, anybody could’ve adopted her and she just wouldn’t be happy like she thought she would be.  She has to adapt and she has to learn to trust that this is real, and she has to just let go long enough to believe that she will be safe enough to try to be happy.  It is hard to wrap your head around a kid not knowing and trusting to be happy.  It’s also hard for outsiders to wrap their heads around why the adopted child can’t just flip the switch after placement and be happy and — an even bigger, more challenging concept—be grateful.

I’ve written before about how Hope doesn’t need to be grateful; and even I’m guilty sometimes in my parenting of thinking, “Really girl?  After all the bending over backwards I did this week for you, you can’t say thanks after I went out of my way and picked up another bag of your favorite lime Tostidos??”  It’s hard watching her in this space and it’s hard sometimes living in this space, unable to trust the life around her enough to just let go and enjoy it.  I can see that some days are much better than others; sometimes I see that her happiness and contentment are truly moment to moment concepts.  Down mood triggers can be anywhere and everywhere.  It really just takes time and healing.

Hope is still on the come up.   So this week after much probing and prompting about where to go out to eat, Hope finally said she wanted to go to the Old Country Buffet (OCB).  <gag>  ABM does not do buffeterias; call me bougie and I’ll say that’s my name.  #jesusbeasneezeguard  I just hate the OCB.  Now don’t get me wrong; I loved that place as a kid, and I even rocked the hell out of that buffet when I was in college.  But when Hope asked to go to the OCB, I silently started praying…And when the heck did a trip for two to the OCB cost $30????  Anyhoo, I found the salad bar better than expected and dug in.  Hope filled her plate with all kinds of fare and after a few bites proclaimed 1) that the OCB was not the right place; it must be another buffet (Does this mean we have to go to another one?), 2)her rationale was because the food wasn’t all that good 3) she liked some of the other restaurants we’d enjoyed since her arrival.  Training the palate is a slow process, but we’re making progress! At least I don’t need to go to the OCB anymore.  Praise the Lord.

Hope and The Furry One seem to have a modest truce.  There’s cuddling and snuggling and belly rubs.  I don’t know what’s going on, but something’s up.

That’s it folks.  In four days I defend my dissertation and shift gears to focus on the administrative tasks of finalizing things.  I’m actually too tired to be so excited, but I am excited.  I’m taking the little lady to dinner that evening to celebrate.  It’s going to be an awesome week!

10 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Lessons Learned, Post Placement

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

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