Category Archives: Lessons Learned

November 25, 2013

Day Two: Top Five

By AdoptiveBlackMom

The top five things I realized today, Day 2 with Hope.

5. Hope is on the come up.

What, pray tell is the come up, you ask?  It’s when your socio-economic status rises or “comes up.”  I live a comfortable life.  I’m not rich and I dang sure am not wealthy.  I’m comfortable, and Hope will be comfortable.   But Hope thinks I’m rich, a notion I must disabuse her of, and that by adoption, she’s rich.  We’re e traveling a path where she asks for things because she’s testing me and because she wants to show off to her friends back home.

We endured an hour long power struggle during an outing today when she complained either that I wouldn’t buy her anything or that I wouldn’t buy her the things she really wanted.  Hope chose gaudy stuff that was either reminiscent of a rap video (think Run DMC chains) or the biggest bottle available of Justin Bieber’s Girlfriend perfume, even though she admitted she doesn’t really like to wear fragrance.    These things represent a level of affluence for her.  At one point, before attempting to stomp off in a huff, she said what was she supposed to tell her friends back in Washington?

Sigh…We will gently sort this out over time.

4. You haven’t lived until a 12 year old tries to convince you that the 13 year old she’s crushing has a hot body.

No, really this was the highlight of my day.  Had I known I could be having this kind of conversation with my daughter I might have had/adopted kids years ago.  So she’s telling me about some little boy she is digging, and she goes on to describe him and then stops short.  We’ve had these kinds of chats recently about boys; I’m careful not to overreact to her crush confabs.  We’ve been building some trust currency during these chats about boys so she’s increasingly forthcoming.

When she stopped, I probed.  “So…what is it?  He’s cute, pretty eyes, curly hair…Are light skinned brothas back in style?” She giggled and replied, “You’re close but not really…” “Oh, so we’re talking about his body, ok.  Spill the deets.”  “OMG when he takes his shirt off…(ABM’s internal alarm goes off:  when the hell have you been privy to seeing him disrobe???)…his chest….”   Oh, ok, so he’s got a nice body at 13???  Really?  “Yeah, he doesn’t look his age, he looks a little older.”

What, his birdcage chest looks 15?

Girl, bye!!!

Seriously, these conversations are both hilarious and enlightening.  I know that Hope will need vigilant supervision, but she can crush all she wants as long as she tells me.   I was only a little older than her when I fantasized that I was going to have Ralph Tresvant’s (New Edition) baby one day.

3. My girl misses her dad Every. Single. Day.

I’ve often told friends and family that I believe grief to be a horribly destructive emotion.  It’s such an amalgamation of so many other messy emotions—sadness, hurt, anger, loss…It’s just wicked.  I’ve heard stories about Hope’s dad that didn’t paint him in a very good light.  He’s gone now, but Hope has him up on an incredible pedestal.   He was her primary parent, and she adored him.  And then he was gone.  And people said bad things about him and said to get over it.  She hasn’t.  It’s going to take more time and a lot more maturity to get her to a place where she can really handle that loss in a healthy way.  She talks about him a lot, and I’m ok with that.  He isn’t a threat to me.  I don’t intend to try to make her stop missing him or to totally rewrite the history she’s constructed to help her remember him.  It is what it is.  It will take her time to get there.  Her grief makes me sad though.

2.  I know that she really doesn’t want to be pack leader, sulking notwithstanding.

For the most part, Hope is good about how we are constructing boundaries for her.   Since she’s out of school, we have designated school time.  There’s tablet time, which thanks to a nifty app shuts ish down!  We had an epic negotiation session over brunch about chores, allowance and behavioral expectations.  In short, Hope was happy with the boundaries as long as they were laid out, some things were negotiated and the consequences—both positive and negative–were clear.

That was fine until I the screen time app kicked her out of a game and she didn’t win her last game of solitaire before screen time expired and I ixnay’d hooking her DS to the house wifi.  And let me tell you, her sulking stomp game is strong.   The screen time combos sent her into a pout spiral on the couch.  She argued that she had not won one game of solitaire yet; I replied, well maybe tomorrow will fare better.  And she went all, “Mr. Gorbachev , tear down that wall” on me.  <blank stare>

Again, girl, bye.

She nearly went apoplectic when I said she would have to earn my trust in her on the internet post placement to get wifi access to the internet on her DS.  Internet access will be a relatively new thing for her, and I’m not interested seeing it abused.  Also, I know she is young and not too discerning about folks so she needs a heavy hand around the access issue.  Even if and when I said yes, I’d have to set it up to change the password daily in order for both of us to really make it work.

Whatever the scenario and ensuing meltdown, Hope longs to feel safe and secure.  She needs to know I care and that our extended family cares.  Being the boss is hard work that she really doesn’t want to do.  She wants to be a kid.  I’ll let her flex from time to time, but Mom’s the boss with ultimate veto power.  She don’t want none of this responsibility, not really.

1. I am so a morning person and Hope is not.  I know I will be the one to do the primary adapting.

And it’s ok.  No, really it is.  Change is good.  Reframing productivity and success is good.  There shouldn’t be any sob stories for my lost productivity or any whining about why Hope doesn’t like mornings.  Besides, did you really think I didn’t think my life would get turned upside down?

We are creatures of habit and preference.  Mine happen to be early to rise and conquer the world.  Hers happen to be rise around midday and world domination can wait until evening.  She is at her most active and most productive between the hours of 4 and 7pm.  I see it and I feel it. It is exhausting since I start winding down around 2pm; I am most productive between 5-10am.  But this is how she’s wired.

Some days I will learn to sit down more and some days she will be up with the proverbial chickens.  I’ll still get my before dawn workouts in and my morning quiet, reflection time.  I hope to get some writing done tomorrow morning before she gets up.  I look forward to adapting to a more lively afternoon life, when normally I’m winding down.  It’s really all good.

Oh there’s so much more I could write.  Stay tuned for an interesting hair focused post as she emotionally toys with wearing her hair out when she moves here permanently.  Just two days and seeing me with my hair and so many naturalistas walking around the DC area, and she’s thinking.   It’s good stuff.

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November 1, 2013

Grammy for the Win

By AdoptiveBlackMom

Amazing how a week and a half makes a difference in this life.  Honestly, it is a testament to how much emotional upheaval is involved in this life change; the emotional swings are ridiculous.  I may not be hormonal from pregnancy, but I figure I’m just as emotional as any pregnant lady.

So, as I wait for the ICPC, prep for Hope’s upcoming 16 day visit, and plan for my adoption shower, new information is emerging about my daughter.  It is tough reading about what she’s been through.  During our visit a few weeks ago, Hope shared things that I hadn’t been told at that point.  I kept my negative reactions to a minimum because I didn’t want to do or say anything that would be perceived as rejection by Hope.  But I’ve stewed inside.

I’ve been angry that someone could treat a child the way Hope was treated.  I have vigilante fantasies about slowly hurting the people who have hurt her. Hey, just being honest, here.   I’m heartbroken that she’s struggled so much to cope and learn skills to deal with her trauma, loss and grief.  I feel guilty because I’m peeved that some of these details weren’t shared with me before hand or were just characterized quite differently; I hate that somewhere in the emotional swirl that I feel like I was duped.  It wouldn’t have made any difference in knowing that Hope and I were a match; I’ve known she was the one nearly from the first time I saw her picture.  I just wish that agency folks could be more transparent sometimes.

I have a lot of self-doubt about whether I can be the type of parent that I aspire to be.  I have confidence that I can draw on being a little older, a little wiser and a decent skill-tool box to be a good parent.  I’m relieved that even though much of this path seems so lonely—like echo in the darkness at Luray Caverns lonely—that I do have a loving family and friends who are eager to support me.  Even and especially the same Grammy last week that I wanted to banish to a remote island somewhere.

About a month ago I wrote a little bit about practicing grace during this transition.  It’s hard; it’s really hard because everything feels so important, so dramatic, so difficult, so deeply personal and so very emotional, and this is true for the very high, happy times and the heartbreaking, low times.  It takes a lot of deep reaching to consistently practice grace, and some days I simply fall short because I’ve just run out of capacity.

And this is where Grammy swoops in with her super cape this morning.  We’ve been trading emails for the last day or so about Hope, her visit, the registry and just stuff.  We’ve been pretty tender with each other since our fallout last week—we know that new, much needed barriers were created, but it’s almost like we still aren’t sure where those barriers are yet.  That’s probably because they are still in flux and the lines will move again over time.  This is the way of mothers and daughters sometimes, and the irony that Hope and I will likely soon be like this is not lost on me.  Anyhoo, I told her that I was just so angry and hurt reading about Hope’s history in these new documents and trying to think of strategies that will help Hope and me get through the transition.

Grammy writes back:

Hope will be a journey of the heart for all of us… I’m already praying mightily for the breaking of the familial curses in her family.  My uncle always prayed for a blessing over our family for the generations to come, not just those in his time, but those to come and that applies even to the adopted.  And how do I know that?  I’m adopted into God’s family.

I’m a believer, though sometimes the tenor of conversations about faith in the adoption community feel odd to me, maybe because they are often wrapped in a conservatism that I reject.  You can best believe I’ve spent a lot of knee time with God this year, and I know that my favorite associate pastor at my church probably thinks I should book an appointment at altar call on Sundays, given how many times I’ve sought her out to pray me through this dissertation and adoption.  But it was something about Grammy’s relating Hope’s adoption to our adoption into the kingdom that resonated with me and brought me great comfort today.

Hope and I will be ok; we’ll muddle through.  My family is blessed, and my own little family will be blessed. I imagine that the blessing will come with all the skills I need (I’ll still need to learn to use them) with a heaping side of grace.  God adopted me; I’ll be just fine.

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October 30, 2013

And Stuff

By AdoptiveBlackMom

I’m on the phone with Hope last night, and she’s singing her favorite songs to me.  I love this kid!  She’s always reading something to me or singing to me.  I know when she does that, that’s she’s locked in; it’s one of the ways we bond.   Tonight she’s serving up a Justin Bieber concert.

And if I ever see Justin Bieber, I’m punching that little punk in the face and the gut.  Does this dude really have my kid singing about BJs on this song Hold Tight?  What in the H-E-double hockey sticks is going on??

Picture it:

Hope:  [Singing away, she’s got a nice voice by the way.]

ABM: [Furiously, googling song lyrics so I can read along and get a better sense of what Bieber is singing about]

Hope:  Ok, I’m done.

ABM:  Hope that was awesome!  But, er, um, those lyrics…they are a bit naughty don’t you think?

Hope:  [Exasperated] What do you mean?  I mean, all of his songs are about love.

ABM:  Well while you were singing, I looked up the lyrics so I could follow along.

Hope:  You looked up the lyrics?

ABM:   Yeah, I do that.  So, what do you think this song is about?

Hope:  He’s talking about kissing in this song…and stuff.

Yeah, it’s that “and stuff” that has me wanting to limit her musical exploration to instrumental jazz and gospel forever.   Nevertheless, we had a brief discussion about music, lyrics “and stuff.”  It went ok, even if it was a wee bit awkward; I just didn’t want to miss this opportunity to start talking about some important topics.

Bieber clearly thinks we missed the naughtiness of the lyrics, saying, “I am a hopeless romantic so when I love someone, I never want to let them go. This song is about the rush you get when you have that feeling. No matter how hard you try, you can’t let that person go. You just want to hold on as tight as you can. I tried to capture that with this one.”

Yeah, ok Biebs…Ok, I see you.

i see you gif photo: i see you tumblr_ljo9axQmug1qgira5o1_500-1.gif

I’ve been around the block more than a few times.  I love good lyricists, and I love reading lyrics.  I like to pick them apart, figuring out what they mean, how artists put the words over music, how the lyrics stand alone.  Not all lyrics are poetry; some lyrics are just a bunch of crap strung together.  These lyrics are actually clever; just hidden enough but hardly hidden at all.

If Hope wasn’t signing them over and over, and wasn’t proclaiming Hold Tight as her new favorite song, then I probably could see the lyrics through a different lens. The lyrics aren’t poetry, but they are clever in riding the line that allows Bieber to deny alternative meanings.

The upside of this new Bieber vendetta of mine is realizing that music will likely be a gateway for us to talk about all kinds of things, including sex “and stuff.”  That’s a very good thing.  I like that she keeps a song book and carefully transcribes lyrics.  I look forward to nurturing a love of lyrics derived from creative writing that results in really good poetry over music.

In the meantime I need to go look up lyrics for all these little teen singers to see what’s going on in that world.  Fun times ahead.

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October 28, 2013

Tricks & Treats

By AdoptiveBlackMom

This weekend the internet began to light up with Halloween foolery.  It’s that time of year again…the time of year when silly folks seem to think that dressing up in blackface or caricatures of various races and cultures for Halloween somehow becomes cool and acceptable because, you know, it’s a holiday.

Every got-dang year… same ish, different year.

But this year is different; I’m the new parent of a 12 year old, Black daughter.  I’m also Black.  We’re Black (just in case that isn’t clear from the blog title).  And now I have the responsibility of teaching my young, impressionable daughter that such depictions of people who look like us aren’t ok.  That cosigning friends’ and acquaintances’ desire to fetishize us is not ok either.  It isn’t just not ok; it’s some bull-hitsay.

I often tell people that I am proud to be an American, that I love this country and that it’s my favorite racist country.  I could list a bunch of other countries where I’m sure the racism would be worst.   But I was born here, and I live here and I’m so proud to be an American.

My proud, natural born citizenship notwithstanding, there’s some ish that really annoys the hell out of me about this country.  Among my issues:  the cavalier attitude with which we sweep issues of race under the carpet.  The kind of discourse that we don’t have, nay, can’t seem to have, despite being in a “post-racial” era that features a Black president.  The kind of place where my kid’s, friends’ parents may not teach them that spray browning their skin like Julianne Hough (See her OITNB fiasco) or dressing up as a Nazi officer, or plopping on a sombrero and carrying a can of refried beans to the Halloween party is all offensive.  Yeah, it’s offensive; not trying to hear any excuses.   These are just a few of the things that really furrow my brow.

So, now the challenge is helping my daughter to be comfortable in her deep brown skin and her coily, kinky hair and to walk proudly in her identity and her heritage and to not stand by and allow herself or people like her to be mocked and demeaned for the sake of some snickers bars for a trumped up holiday.

I would love to protect Hope from such things.  But I know that I can’t afford to not coach her on what seem to still be the rules of maneuvering through this life in this skin.

I’m not digging Halloween this year.

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Lessons Learned, Other Stuff

October 23, 2013

Controlled Cry Breaks

By AdoptiveBlackMom

While reveling in the knowledge that Hope is coming to visit in a month, Grammy triggered a meltdown. This sandwich generation stuff is some mess; I’ll tell you that.

I sent off a happy email to my immediate family about Hope being in town for Thanksgiving.  I knew Grammy would hit the roof since she’s traveling to see my younger sister, Sister M, for the holiday.  She called and wailed about how she was going to miss it, and she wanted to come on this day and that day and she could stay three days and do stuff and on and on and blah and blah and blah!

Whoooooooaaaaa!  Stop Grammy.  Slow your roll.

All I could think of was No.  No.  No.  No.  No.  No.  Did I say no?  Did you hear me say no?  No, you can’t stay 3 days, and heck no you can’t stay here.

No.

And then the tears started on both sides.  I was so overwhelmed.  She was firing off questions that I either didn’t have an answer for or didn’t want to answer, and she just was out of control.  And my inability and unwillingness to answer some questions somehow got twisted around to make me feel like an inadequate mom.

Then she announced that I had two people to consider: the tween and the senior.

I grew a small backbone and replied, no I only have to look out for the tween; she is the highest priority.  Grammy, you are not the priority.  You are not a priority right now.  I love you but you are not the priority.  You are grown and can take care of yourself.

Sobbing.  Gnashing of teeth.

Grammy is so excited, so excited.  I’m so excited that she’s excited.  But I need a chill pill.  In the middle of the busy workday I was clearing my schedule for a two week vacation that will be great, but will not be restful, fielding text messages about a bridesmaid’s dress that I didn’t know about but that I need to go order in two weeks, feeling like crap because this week is turning out to be not dissertation productive, having a consulting opportunity fall in my lap that I know I can’t take because I’m stretched too thin as it is, scheduling painting quotes, and responding to sweet emails from friends and family who want to know what to get Hope as welcome gift… Grammy’s hissy fit about not being welcome to visit Hope in the first 24 hours of her arrival was too damn much for me to deal with.

And the answer was still no.

Holy hell.

The security shields went up, and I got snappy.  Then I felt guilty.  Then I apologized, because well, Grammy is my mom.  I adore my mom; I can’t disrespect my mom.  I want her to be excited, but I need someone to actually care about me at this very moment.

I am falling apart.   This week I feel like I’m barely functioning.  My emotions can run the gamut in the span of about 15 minutes.  I’m exhausted.  I’m getting over a sinus infection.  I feel like I can’t seem to do anything right and in the midst of all the joy, all the happiness, all the hulabaloo, only a handful of people are asking me how I’m doing, I mean, really doing and managing and coping.  The truth is that this week is not so great. People care and want to be so helpful, but I’m feeling like very few folks are looking past all the excitement and seeing me in what is really feeling like an incredibly fragile state.

Much like Hope, the emotion that I feel at the center of all of this is anger.  I’m angry about melting down.  I’m angry about not being productive.  I’m angry that this sinus infection is still bugging me.  I’m angry that I keep forgetting to schedule my mammogram.  I’m angry that The Furry One still needs a bath and I can’t manage to muster the energy to do it.  I’m angry that as a fixer I can’t fix one damn thing that’s going on right now.  I’m angry that Hope’s angry (that’s a doozy right there).  I’m angry that work is so demanding at the moment.  I’m angry that my dissertation director hasn’t emailed me back about the 10 pages I sent him nearly 3 weeks ago.  I’m angry that one of my dissertation subjects now thinks we’re buddies and keeps calling me on my cell phone.  I’m angry that the paint quotes are all pushing $600 for one measly room.  I’m angry that the stress has triggered a physical pain response that exhausts me more than all the other crap in this stupid paragraph.

I feel like the most productive thing I’ve managed to do this week is cry for about 2-3 minutes of every hour that I’m awake. Yeah, I’ve got the controlled cry (feel it, cry it out, wipe tears, get back to the grind) down to a science. I have no idea why I even bother with makeup in the morning.  I do at least wear waterproof mascara.

It is one of the happiest times of my life, and I am literally furious 98% of the time.   Oh there’s a bunch of other emotions in there too, but if I had to characterize the emotions by color, I’m seeing shades of red most of the time.  It almost feels primal.

After the second Grammy/ABM meltdown of the day, I told my mom, I don’t need Grammy right now.  I need my mommy.  I need a hug.  A there, there it’s going to be ok.  I need a chicken casserole, and a pedicure.  I need a day without questions that ultimately make me feel like an invisible, but somehow still schnitty, new parent. I need a day to watch Netflix and drink cocoa in my PJs.  I need some nurturing.  I need someone to plan things for me for the next couple of weeks so I can collect myself.  I need someone to ask me how I’m doing and really, really mean it and not judge me when I say I’m really, really not doing ok.

Maybe she heard me.  Probably not.  My attitude and outlook is not the best this week.

Sigh.

Time for a controlled cry break, a shower and some coffee.  Time to get this hump day going.

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October 16, 2013

Kicking it Old School

By AdoptiveBlackMom

The afternoon I was scheduled to take Hope back to her foster family, I went to the bathroom and silently cried.  It was so hard to leave her; I felt like a piece of my heart was being ripped out.  I just wanted to put her in my large duffel bag and steal her home with me.

Hope had a lot of emotions as well.  She was sad that I was leaving, but the reality that she would be moving in a few months hit her pretty hard as well.  She talked about leaving her friends and having to get all these phone numbers so she could keep in touch with them.  I could hear the emotion and almost feel it rolling off of her.  How could she not be happy about getting a permanent home, but how awful it was that she had to leave everything behind to move so far away to have that home?  I tried to be as gentle with her as I could.

We talked about her room.  Hope was finally ready to pick out paint and other details from the book I made her.  She had utterly refused to look at it with any seriousness until we were about to leave.  Hope decided that she would rather have a hermit crab named Jordan rather than a fish (Sorry Dr. Beach!).   Purple bubble dot decals and an understated chandelier were other style choices.   We had a long discussion about Justin Bieber bedding.  I successfully negotiated down to a Bieber throw pillow and blanket.  I managed to start a gift wish list for her on Amazon for an upcoming tween shower.

Hope’s foster mom is a sweet lady and when I dropped her off we took about an hour or so to talk about Hope.  It was helpful to get a better idea of what she’s like on a day to day basis, which behaviors were really “acting” over the weekend, how she’s doing in therapy, medication adjustments, this boy situation…it was just a treasure trove of information that just isn’t really in “the file.”  I know that I’ll be calling on her periodically during our transition.  Hope is quite fond of her and it’s clear that the feeling is mutual.

We said our goodbyes; my heart sank and I headed back to the city to comfort myself with some speed shopping and a bottle of wine (it was cheaper than going somewhere and ordering a few glasses, besides I was dry all weekend long).

Yesterday I traveled back to the East Coast.  Checking messages after touching down in Atlanta and booking to the next leg, I got a voicemail from Hope’s foster folks saying that my girl had gone off in school that day, earning herself two lunch detentions and two after school detentions.  Hope’s rationale: “I’m leaving in a few months so I’m going to check out now, and act a natural fool!  Deuces!”   Foster Mom wanted me to be involved with developing the consequences for her behavior.

Here we go!  It’s on like popcorn.

But exactly how does one exact some form of punishment 3,000 miles away?  Punishment that won’t be too heavy, but not too light, age appropriate but not crossing wires with her caretakers on the ground?

Fortunately, I had a couple of hours to consider my first “mommy delivers consequences” move.

Now when I was Hope’s age, around 6th or 7th grade, I had a bit of a motor mouth problem.  I had a kind, thoughtful teacher, Mr. Smith aka  Smitty, who sent me to the corner to sit between two file cabinets to write or to an after school detention on a few occasions.  It was the only period in my life where I really acted up in school, and my parents nearly lost their shiz!  Smitty, who was probably in his 60s then, told my dad that I was just flexing and testing boundaries.  He told Dad at a parent-teacher conference one time to just be patient with me—definitely give me consequences—but be patient with me.  My dad often tells me that story, and how this older man, old enough to be my Dad’s dad at the time, had helped him be a better parent.  Well Smitty’s advice lives on.

I decided to take a page from Smitty’s consequences book and kick it old school.  Hope will be writing sentences for me.  I can’t make her do it in a corner between to filing cabinets, but with Foster Mom’s help, I can mimic important bits of the experience in this age that relies too much on technology to make everything too easy.   No cutting and pasting around these parts.

Oh yeah, long hand sentences, 500 for each detention, totaling 2000.  Foster Folks don’t have a computer.  Nope, these can’t be done during your detention or at the after school program.  These will be done in your room on ruled paper (if memory serves that paper has about 52 lines on it per side or some such number), and they will be mailed to me before next week.  She will have to apologize to her teachers and ask for a short note from them acknowledging that she did so; these will also be mailed with the sentences.  And sweet Hope will be paying for that .46 stamp out of her own little meager funds.   And let me just say that my Hope counts her pennies; she will not like giving up nearly half a dollar (a girl after my own heart, that one!).  This will be on top of the grounding that Foster Folks have instituted.

I’d been considering how to motivate acceptable behavior for months.  I’d been focused on how to handle things after she got home; not realizing that this weekend had me really stepping into parenting with some training wheels.  So, I’ll be introducing some of those ideas as well.  So, I plan to outline that acceptable behavior will result in earning extra cool elements in her new room.  Less acceptable behavior will result in the room’s coolness being halted.  I don’t want to take away things that are earned but I want her to think about ways to behaviorally save up for those elements that she’s said she would really love in her new room.

Hope will continue to challenge me in ways that I didn’t challenge my own parents.  Like my Dad, I’m going to have to learn how to be patient with her.  I never had to deal with the things she’s endured, and I still managed to make my parents stretch at this age.  Smitty and my folks had some creative and useful ways of delivering consequences.  In some ways they seem old fashioned now, but they are useful tools that I can use with some updated twists.    We’ll see how this goes.

Have I mentioned that I miss her?

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October 14, 2013

You Gone Learn Today

By AdoptiveBlackMom

This evening while stealing away from Hope for a few minutes to get bottled water out of the car, I called Grammy to apologize for my tween self.   It took 4 days for this kid to break me.   Grammy howled, as she rightfully should.

I’d just come off of a ridiculous episode going to pick up movies from the Red Box for me and Hope.  We slept in this morning and headed to a late brunch where Hope ordered the grossest thing on the menu, decided that she hated it and nibbled from my plate after I took pity on her.  After brunch we both took naps, watched cartoons (none of which made any sense to me, and I’m convinced that Cartoon Network is partly responsible for the dumbing down of America) and picked out some movies to watch this evening.

She picked a movie, and I picked a movie.  Then we walked to the store together to pick up them up.  That’s when things jumped off.

“I told you to reserve Identity Thief!!  Why are we getting this movie?”  Hope was full of ATTITUDE.  Where did that come from?

“What?  We never even looked at Identity Thief.  It never even came up.  Nope, you said you wanted to see this movie (some random spring break themed movie). “

“No I didn’t.  I want the other movie. Now! Put that one back and get the other one.”  More attitude, including a neck roll, an eye roll and some base in her tween voice.

Say what now?  Day four of a nice bonding experience, and Hope has begun the adolescent tripping.  Deep in my bones, I know that the whole incident is probably a good thing: you know boundary exploration, how we respond to each other in a confrontation, all that normal parenting stuff.

But, aw, heck naw.

What you aren’t going to do is serve me all kinds of attitude, in public (or private for that matter) and think that I’m not checking for you.  It’s not about being right; it’s about understanding our roles, and how we will talk to each other, especially when we are upset.

Little girl, you fittin’ to learn today.

“You did not pick Identity Thief.  You chose this movie.  We WILL watch this movie.   I listened to you closely.  You pointed to this movie.  We clicked on it, read the description and you said, and I quote, “Yeah, let’s get that one.”  Now maybe next time we can get the other movie, provided you actually choose it during the selection process.  But let me be clear, the choices available to you will also be dependent on less attitude from you—verbal and non-verbal.  I adore you, but please don’t mistake me for a punk because I love you so much.”

Hope’s face when from shock to stone cold shut-down in about 30 seconds.   The transition to cold-shoulder sulking was swift.  I asked if she wanted to pick up dinner from the hot bar.  Mumbled no.  I asked if she wanted a Coke.  Another mumbled no.  Starbucks frappe?  Nope.   She finally, after much coaxing, settled on a juice drink, and we walked back to the hotel in silence.

I was a mixture of surprise, exasperation, and “did I go too far?”  I was reminded that this is the kind of stuff that makes you a parent.  You’ll get it right sometimes, other times you’ll stumble.  You just try and hope that you don’t screw up too badly and that your kid gets the point.  I didn’t care about the movie so much as the attitudinal response to her perceiving that she didn’t get her way.

So, that’s how I found myself in the parking lot carrying several bottles of water with my mom laughing at me from 3,000 miles away.

Shortly after I returned from my water run, Hope initiated conversation again, and we moved on like it never happened.  She asked me to help her with an origami box, and we talked about hair.  Later when she brought up again how “I” made a mistake at the Red Box, I reminded her how it really went down and declared that line of conversation closed.   She raised her eyebrows like, “For reals?” and I laid my one eyebrow raise on her with the confirmation that yeah, “For reals, conversation closed.”

We then watched the selected movie, enjoyed it and followed up by reading our book aloud until she went to bed.  I got a hug and kiss good-night and all is well in ABM’s world.  Crisis averted, for now.

I love this kid.

6 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Lessons Learned, The Transition

October 13, 2013

When Life Gets Real…

By AdoptiveBlackMom

“You’re not going to want me anymore after we’re together for like a month.”  ~ Hope

Oh good grief, here we go.  I’ve read the books on loss and abandonment.  I get it.  I do, but wow.  Sitting in the middle of this conversation was hard for both of us.  I love that my Hope is so transparent and forthcoming, but this stuff just kind of comes out and catches you off-guard.

Hope’s rationale was that a fun weekend together isn’t real, and that when real life starts after she comes to live with me, school, work and other stuff would be real.  It would be different, and I wouldn’t want her.   She said this was better than just jumping onto all of that stuff, but she was worried.

So, in some ways she’s right.  This weekend is very artificial.  It is an extended date for an arranged relationship.  We won’t be going to the museum, the great wheel or the Cheesecake Factory every day after we start our new lives together.  It will be different and likely weird for both of us.  It’s bound to get tense sometimes.  But I don’t ever plan on sending her back.

So, eventually after hearing her explanation, I replied, “You’re right that it will be different, but I don’t plan to send you back.  How do you know you won’t want me anymore?”

“Well…I don’t know.  I know I’ll want you.”

“Good.  Sometimes I don’t know how I know either, but I know I want you.  I just know.  We will work together at being a family, and we will be ok together.”

Overall, we’re bonding just fine, I think.  We have moments of light discipline, but we talk about why there is a need for it.   Today in order to just be a little more real, we’ll do brunch and lay low most of the day.  We started reading our huge novel out loud last night and watched cartoons for a while.  I have a day and a half left with her; less is more at this point.

Hope will give me great big challenges.  Some aspects of how she moves through the world seem to suggest she’s more like a 5 year old, while others clue me in on the fact that she wishes she was older like 16 or so.  We spent an hour at the touch pools in the aquarium as she touched everything she could, like a little kid (she was the biggest kid at the touch pools most of the time).  She has moments of hyperactivity that are somewhat exhausting.  Other times when she’s just a tad withdrawn, and I have to make a decision to draw her out a bit or let her be.

I hope she will have a chance to visit me before she moves, but funding seems to be an issue, so I may return to have a short weekend with her.  I think we’ll be talking every day from here on out, so we can try to hold this bond together and strengthen it.

Still learning:

  • Gift shops are the devil.  Seriously, Living Sand for $20?
  • Our sweet teeth are a problem.  We will have focus on less processed sugar and making yummy treats at home.
  • We look the part!  A cashier at lunch commented on us as a mother/daughter pair.  It caught both of us off guard, but then we smiled.
  • I am exhausted.  The quiet this morning is great, but I think I’m going to roll over and snooze a bit more.
  • My rough origami skills have improved modestly.  Origami is definitely not one of my talent gifts so I’ll stay in my lane on that.  It’s been a nice way to spend some time together.
  • I love this kid, but this isn’t going to be easy.  This isn’t a new lesson, but I am getting constant reinforcement of this lesson this weekend.  It really is stepping into a new purpose.

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Lessons Learned, The Transition

October 12, 2013

Needed: An Origami Coach

By AdoptiveBlackMom

Image

This dreadful jet lag had me up at 4:30 local time this morning.  I’m starting to wonder if this great coffee city has enough java to keep me powered during this visit. Despite the fact that I know I’ll pay for it later, I’m relishing in the quiet solitude of the morning.  I adore the kid that’s sleeping in the next room, but good Lord I am tired.

Hope is a chatterbox.  Now this is the point where some of my friends and family who follow my blog run off to get tissues to dab their eyes because the belly laughs they are enjoying have become just too much for them.  Yeah, the irony is not lost on this wordy girl that Hope is chattier than I ever have been in my life, and that’s saying something.  My God, I can’t even know how many people I must’ve exhausted in this lifetime.

I love her voice and am amused by her conversations, but I am admitting on this here blog, that I did not fight to go back to sleep this morning because the solitude was so enticing.   I’ve read enough Facebook statuses to know I should not feel guilty about being up before dawn, just soaking in the quiet.

Ok, I’m also trying to upload the last batch of dissertation interviews for transcription on this slow arse internet at this hotel.  I got the first batch back, and my dissertation director is reading an early draft of my quantitative analysis this weekend.  The dissertation grind just doesn’t let up.

Anyhoo, yesterday Hope and I did a few tourist trap outings and a little shopping.  We ran across this little Japanese store at the mall that had all kinds of interesting goodies.  Hope loves origami.  I suck at origami.  I bought us a bunch of paper and a few books.  The beginner book makes me feel so very lame; my ego is suffering something terrible here.  I did manage to make a cute frog who does hop; it was my greatest origami achievement yesterday.  All the while I was grunting over pretty paper, Hope made a fortune teller, some cool pinwheel thing, and a bunch of other cool little contraptions.

I learned more about my daughter yesterday.  She’s at the age when a cute boy crossing the street results in a moment of complete and utter distraction, much like when a hunting dog sees a much sought-after squirrel.  Never take her into one of those brain teaser stores if you want to spend the next hour doing something else, because it is not going to be a short walk through.  She ignores you when she doesn’t want to do something.  She hates waste, not because she’s a conservationist at heart but because she’s had so little that she had to save what she had and ration it.  She admits to being a bit disruptive in school; where do folks learn all this “You have to respect me before I respect you” foolishness.  No little girl, get in your lane.  I sense having more than one conversation at a school conference on this subject in my future.   She has a strong need to be right [family and friends just hush!].  She is surprisingly honest about her life and what she thinks about things up until this point.  I’ve learned about things that were never in her profile but seem pretty stinking important in my quest to be a good, thoughtful and sensitive parent.

Over dinner last night at one of the special places she requested, she had a moment.  She sighed and said, “I call you ABM, but I feel like I want to call you something else.”

Hmmm, ok, I’m thinking this conversation just got serious, as I nosh on this tasteless Spaghetti Factory pasta without benefit of a red wine accoutrement.  I was so proud when she announced at the end of the meal that she was not impressed; the girl likes good food and this wasn’t really good at all.   I know; I digress.

“Ok, so what do you think you want to call me?”

“I don’t know…” She wrinkled her face up and said, “Mom?  But maybe not, because that sounds so weird… I don’t know.  I’ve never called anyone that before.”

Wait, is she mulling over calling me Mom?   Holy bat-poop!  That’s pretty awesome!  OMG…ABM, think fast, think fast and whatever you do, don’t cry.   I really could’ve used a glass of cabernet right then.

“Well, Hope you can keep calling me ABM until you figure out what you’d like to call me.  Mom sounds nice, but you’ll know if and when that’s what you want to call me when you’re ready.  I figure one day you’ll just call me something and it will stick and we’ll both be ok with it.  And it will be cool, ok?”

“Ok.”

Hey where’d that come from?  I think I did ok.  Earlier in the day we discussed a nickname for her.  The beginnings of our names are similar, and her nickname is actually a sweet name my granny used to call me.  Interestingly, it was not really chosen by us, but more confirmed.  Someone earlier in her life also called her by this pet name and it brought back pleasant memories; she was delighted that I shared the pet name, so it seemed like a great fit.  No doubt my mom, Grammy, will put this down as more proof that Hope is supposed to be my kid.

Ok, so here are my highlight lessons of the day!

  • I really suck at origami, I mean really suck.  I’ve mis-folded countless pieces of pretty paper in the last day.
  • Never buy an umbrella at a tourist trap.   Twenty-five dollars for an umbrella…I know better, but ugh, the rain was so heavy.
  • My cute new trench coat makes me look like a small tan whale.  Will be counting calories and making time to get my fanny to the gym on the regular when I get back to town.  I miss my pre-grad school curves.  I can’t even say this is baby weight, unless I just name my dissertation and call it another kid.  The PhD-15.
  • The parenting 5-countdown thing really does work.  I had to use it several times yesterday.  By the third time I had it down pat, and she was more compliant with the desired behavior.  Good times.
  • Hope has a potty mouth, that I’m sure is reserved for school and not the grownups who surround her.   She does enough “kiddie cursing” (heck, dang, etc) for me to know that the unfiltered version is probably like a Lil’ Wayne song in the school halls.  I know, because I like bad words (thank you George Carlin), but we’ll be tapping down on all of that and boosting more appropriate vocabulary as time drags on.
  • I’m super blessed in more ways than I ever understood.  I’m grateful for parents who were able to provide me with such great upbringing and foundational life experiences.  I adored them before, but now I know that parenting and doing your best on that journey is truly a life’s work.

Now, I’m going to snooze a bit.  We’re Skyping Grammy and Gramps in a couple of hours,  and I want to savor this morning a little longer.

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

October 8, 2013

Security Blankets

By AdoptiveBlackMom

I usually take beach vacations that require a couple of swimsuits, a few sarongs, some flip-flops and sunscreen. Vacationing in Seattle for a week requires a decidedly different sort of attire.  Jeans and t-shirts are probably best, right?  I hardly ever wear pants, much less jeans.  I have a closet full of dresses and skirts.  I like them.  They make me feel extra girly.  They also hide a multitude of body sins that seem especially sinful at this time in my life when dragging my weary bones to the gym at 5am is way more challenging than it was a few years ago.

When I booked my tickets to go to see Hope two weeks ago, I pondered what I would/should wear to see my daughter for the first time.  Heck, I haven’t spent this much time fretting over what to wear on what is similar to a first date in decades.   I knew I used my girly dresses to hide my body, but I didn’t realize how much or rather I haven’t been able to admit it until this week.

I’ve long struggled with body issues, but I thought I had come to a place of acceptance, especially this year.  I’ve been too busy to worry about size and shape.  I have a nice sense of style; I pick clothes that fit and flatter.  With everything going on, I try to eat well, get some sleep, and press on.  This year has been the first time in probably 10 years that I’ve not been overly concerned about my body.  I’ve just been too busy.   It’s actually been a freeing relief for this gal who was held in the grips of an eating disorder for quite a few years.

Getting ready to go see Hope has made me take a breath from the swirling of work, school and even the totality of the adoption process.  Gosh, insecurity is a b*tch.  In the first real inhale/exhale sequence, Insecurity showed up right away, and she’s got me shook about what to wear and what my choice of what to wear to this meeting will say about me.  I want to seem approachable, warm, loving and cool…to a 12 year old.  Oh and I don’t want to seem fat or dowdy.  I mean I’m not fat or dowdy, but eh…you get the picture.  Good–friggin-grief; am I really having a mini-meltdown about whether to pack dresses that I just realized are a sort of security blanket?  Jeesch, guess I have something to talk to my therapist about later this month.  Awesome.

I want to embrace this body, and because even if she doesn’t care, I want Hope to see me embrace this body.  I want her to embrace her body and develop a good, healthy sense of self.  I tripped over a nugget last week when she revealed that she’d been bullied about being too skinny.  Well, I’ve never had that problem, and I can’t say that I was ever bullied by my weight actually, but I do know I want to model a healthy body image for Hope.  I want her to feel good about herself; I’m going to have to feel good about myself in order to help her learn that lesson.

So, yeah, jeans and t-shirts it is.  Thank heavens I got around to buying a couple of pairs of jeans over the Labor Day holiday, and I’ve picked up a couple of cute tops to give me a relaxed, yet put together look.   Oh I’ll pack a casual dress or two, as well.  A girl needs a security blanket every now and then, and old habits die hard.

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Lessons Learned, Support Group, The Adoption Process, The Transition

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