Category Archives: The Adoption Process

November 10, 2013

Why this Life is Awesome

By AdoptiveBlackMom

I have several dear friends from high school with whom I’ve remained close over the years.  This year, many of us turned 40.  It’s one of those birthdays that seem to be a fork in the road where you either run to it or go kicking and screaming—Ok, the kicking and screaming might be a bit dramatic, but let’s just say that some folks are not excited about turning 40.

I could not wait to be 40.  I couldn’t wait.  I’ve been ready to be 40 for a couple of years. Why was I a 40 runner?  I enjoyed my 20s immensely.  There was a season in my life when I was footloose and fancy free; I went out and partied a lot.  I enjoyed the joys of tequila a lot.  I had a collection of little black dresses.  I met cute guys and danced until 4am on a Wednesday and was still in the office working before 9am!  Then life got really, really real in the 30s.  My ability to refresh and reboot between 4am and 9am started to wane.  I learned how great red wine and good quality food could be.  I transitioned to wanting to find a nice lounge on a Friday night rather than wanting to hit the club.  I morphed into a fun loving homebody; I’d done my partying.  Friends started getting cancer or having heart attacks; some died.  I struggled with my own serious health issues throughout the decade.  My parents started to show some age, and I began to worry about the need to help them make plans, especially when I had to start attending funerals and sending condolence cards to friends who lost their parents.  A couple of epic failed relationships crystalized some long term thoughts about relationships.

It was sometime in my 30s when I realized that I was really good and grown and dealing with life’s rigors.  The 40 plus crew also deal with life’s rigors but there seemed to be a bit more emotional freedom and less caring about what folks thought about how you chose to live your life.  I still cared way too much about what other people thought about my decisions for much of my 30s.   The day after I turned 40 it was like a switch flipped and I really didn’t care as much and sometimes I don’t care at all.

Something about that emotional freedom I started seeing just before 40 keyed me in on the time when I knew this would be the time to move into adoption and parenting.  This month, I’ve noted that the pre-40/pre-Hope chapter is really coming to a close and again, I feel like I’m running to the new chapter.  Sure, I’ve chuckled and raised a glass to the last unfettered happy hour, the last trip to my hometown without Hope, the last weekend of staying out to go to the movies or dinner or “the club” without the need for a babysitter.  For many of my friends they experienced the first wave of this parenting transition of the ‘lasts’ years ago while I was still running around like a wild horse from Chincoteague Island.  Several friends have celebrated these lasts with me with both joyous smiles and sometimes sad eyes because my “single girl, sex in the city,” ala Carrie Bradshaw, days are closing out.

Gawd, I haven’t been Carrie Bradshaw-like for about 7 or 8 years, though I like buying shoes.  And even Carrie started liking being home as the show dragged on.  Life’s adventure profile changed, just like mine is changing.  It isn’t sad.  It’s an evolution and while the transition can be…rough…it is transformative.  I have no regrets about my previous chapters; they were great, but <shrug> they are what they are now, great and sometimes not so great memories.

A friend and I went to what we thought was a hookah lounge after dinner and cupcakes last night and found that it was really a 20 something club.  This friend is becoming famous for dragging me into situations where I end up pondering my previous life chapters in cheeky ways.  Last night, a 24 year old cutie bought us a round of shots and asked me if I was scared of the shot.  Bless your heart (as we say in the South), no child, I’m not scared of this shot and took it down way easier than he took his down.  Knowing I could be his MTV Teen Mom made me giggle not because a young dude was chatting us up, but because the whole scene for me was so utterly ridiculous.  Young women teetering on heels trying to look a blend of young, but older and sophisticated, and apparently dancing just means grinding—there was a Miley Cyrus-VMA look-a-like out there twerking for her life with anyone she could back that thing up to on the dance floor.  I had on an Old Navy sweatshirt with some sequins, a pair of jeans and some shoes similar to clogs.   I watched the scene, remembered the days when I rolled out of the house in a tiny dress with spindly heels and no coat in 30 degree weather.  It was awesome at the time, but now I just want a vodka tonic and a couch.  And when the 20 somethings made it rain in the club with paper napkins, I puffed away on my blackberry hookah, laughed and thought I wouldn’t do my 20s or 30s again for anything, even knowing what I know now.   I also looked at my watch and grimaced; it was going on midnight, and I am not into the whole “turn up” phenomenon.  I was ready to turn in.

So, like I was eager to turn 40, I am eager to welcome Hope into my life.  Oh it’s going to be drama at a whole new level, but it’s ok.  This has been an amazing life and I have no doubt that the Hope chapters will be rich and colorful and that 20 years from now, I’ll look around and ponder my 40s and chuckle when a then 40 year old man sends me a glass of Cabernet because he likes my silver fox hair.  This has been one of the most challenging years of my life but also hands down the best year.  I’m so blessed to step into this next chapter; I don’t need to look back; I don’t care what people think.  This life is awesome; it’s not what I would’ve planned, but God’s plan for me has worked how pretty well.  I guess he’s good like that.  Ha!

Life can be only what you make it
When you’re feelin’ down
You should never fake it
Say what’s on your mind
And you’ll find in time
That all the negative energy
It would all cease

And you’ll be at peace with yourself
You won’t really need no one else
Except for the man up above
Because he’ll give you love
(My life, my life, my life, my life)
If you looked into my life

Take your time
Baby don’t you rush a thing
Don’t you know, I know
We all are struggling
I know it is hard but we will get by
And if you don’t believe in me
Just believe in He

‘Cause he’ll give you peace of mind, yes he will
And you’ll see the sunshine for real, yes you would
And you’ll get to free your mind
And things will turn out fine
Oh, I know that things will turn out fine
Yes they would, yes they would
(My life, my life, my life, my life in the sunshine)

                                    My Life by Mary J. Blige

7 Comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Other Stuff, The Transition

November 7, 2013

Room Decorating In Effect!

By AdoptiveBlackMom

Image

Oh yeah, y’all don’t want none of this room!  I put together Hope’s desk and matching chair today.  I love it! 🙂  I’m hoping to score some cool shelves to put up around the desk to augment workspace. I was so excited to include the little Oxacan dog I bought Hope last month in San Antonio during a business trip. 🙂  I also picked up a laptop prop that matched the room color.

Now to order those decals and the TV wall mount.  It’s coming along!

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in The Transition, Tween Parenting

November 7, 2013

Hope’s PINK Room

By AdoptiveBlackMom

That color right there in that short video is PINK. Yes, I’m yelling PINK. It is bright. It is cloying. It has purple undertones. It is bright. It is…very, very PINK.

Hope is going to love it.

Grammy fretted that her worst fear was that the pink was going to come out Pepto Bismal pink. I was not worried about that; I love color and have come to realize that there are shades worse than Pepto pink. This pink is bright, but in its own way charming.

It’s like the paint version of Hope. It’s sweet, yet sassy. Bold but sensitive (when accented). It’s feminine with a pop of bubble gum. It’s fun but deliberate in a way that says “I know what I want because I chose this bright arse, almost assaulting light fuchsia paint to put on the walls.”

I love it not because I like the color (truth be told I kinda hate it but it’s growing on me); I love it because Hope chose it, and it is the base of my decorating vision for her forever room (or at least it will probably be decorated this way for a couple of years. Hope stays, that paint is on borrowed time!).

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in The Transition, Tween Parenting

November 2, 2013

“Technically…”

By AdoptiveBlackMom

Very brief phone call with Hope tonight.  Foster family has taken in a new sibling group with some very little ones.  Hope was explaining who she was talking to on the phone to the 3 year old when she said:

“She’s adopting me, so she’s kind of my mom.  Well, technically, she’s my mom.”

My heart did back flips while I played it cool on the phone.  It was just a few short weeks ago when she said calling me mom was weird because she had never called anyone that before.  Now, she’s calling me that as a descriptor.  She hasn’t called me mom directly yet, but I have hope that she will, likely sooner rather than later.

What an unexpected delight after a crappy day of writing.  A day where a small flaw in the data rendered four hours of dissertation writing nearly useless.  Listening in on Hope telling someone that I’m her mom is the perfect ending to this day.

Love that kid!

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

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 24, 2013

Born for This

By AdoptiveBlackMom

So, today is better than yesterday and tomorrow will be better than today.  At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it right now.  Such a week of epic melt downs.  Sigh.   But I’m dragging myself through, dusting myself off and attempting to right myself.

Picture1I cannot continue walking around looking like this.  Mess.  Under-eye circles and bags.  My nose is red and my hair doesn’t even have its usual sassiness.

No bueno!

After my sad post from yesterday, I took yesterday afternoon off to go pick up some items for Hope’s room.  I enjoyed a fun happy hour with a classmate.  I allowed myself to sleep in.  Heck I even turned on the heat this morning.   I finally scheduled my mammogram and will spring extra for the snazzy 3-D scan (It’s October ladies, get yourselves checked out.).  I scheduled a meeting for Monday with my dissertation director to talk about survey question reliability coefficients.  I launched two major studies at work and finished the study protocol for a third.  I also finally submitted my request to telecommute two days a week until my dissertation is done.  I also added several items to Hope’s gift list after some momentary inspiration on a long commute into the office.

I managed to get a nice walk in at dusk, finally give The Furry One a bath and I made brussel sprouts and bacon for dinner.

I will watch tween (Vampire Diaries) and grown folks (Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal) TV; then I will talk to my Hope and I will sleep and I will rise and I will stay on my grind.

My good friend Dr. Beach redirected my dismay over Drake’s No New Friends and pointed me to All Me.  It a good hype song; I was made for this.

Despite feeling so very low this week, I have some great people in my life.  I’m blessed, even when I feel rotten.  I’m so happy that I get to surround Hope with so many amazing, loving, kind people.

I’m still feeling pretty crappy and I’m so glad tomorrow is Friday, but I was born to be Hope’s mom.

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October 22, 2013

No New Friends

By AdoptiveBlackMom

So apparently there’s a Drake song called No New Friends.  I tried to read the lyrics, and I came to the conclusion that yeah, apparently hip hop is dead.  Ick.  Just horrid.  Still the title is apropos for this post.

Hope is mad.  Her words, not mine.  Actually she’s furious and she’s scared.

I thought she was still mad about the detention/sentence fiasco from last week.  Sunday, she barely spoke to me.  Yesterday, after a little reassurance (receiving some pictures from our trip in the mail) she blurted out:

“I don’t want to move.”

I clicked off the TV in the background, and turned off the light so that I could really focus on what she was about to say.  I also took a deep breath so I could steal my nerves and hold back tears.

Hope explained that she didn’t want to leave her friends; she’d left so many friends with each previous move. “Sometimes I don’t make any new friends, and it’s sad.  I don’t want to leave anymore friends. I don’t want to move.”

Oy.

I told her I that I heard her, and I understand.  Intellectually I get it, but I never moved when I was a kid so I have zero frame of reference.  As an adult, I’ve moved to go to college but I’ve lived in the same city for now more than 20 years and have accumulated friends throughout that time.  I’ve had friends move away, but I never did.  On that core level, I can only imagine what a nightmare moving again must feel like to her.

Hope also explained that she was afraid of starting a new school where she didn’t know anything and where they are very probably working on things she’s not working.  She didn’t want to fail school on top of everything else.

Oh great, no new friends and performance anxiety.  I’d be pissed too.

I dropped her therapist an email this morning to let her know that Hope was pretty anxious about the move.  Within two hours we were setting up a two week trip to Virginia for Hope and me.  In fact, we’ll be dining on turkey and all the fixings while plotting and scheming for Black Friday next month.  That’s right: Hope is coming home for her first Thanksgiving.

Not only will she be able to have some time in what will eventually become our natural environment, but she will get to meet some family and do some sightseeing and shopping.  Most importantly, we will have a chance to visit the school she will attend in the New Year, get set up at the local recreational center, have an opportunity to create our own traditions and rhythms and just have some extended time to bond.

She’ll then get to go home for a couple of weeks before she heads back here for good.  Hopefully this will help.

I’m excited for us.  I’m feeling fortunate to be surrounded by a supportive agency and to work with a jurisdiction that is so responsive to our needs.  I never anticipated that my email would result in such an amazing development.

I hope she once here for more than just a few days that she realizes that she will have more family than she’s ever known and the basis for some good friendships to nurture when she returns in December.

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in The Transition

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

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