Tag Archives: Adoption Lessons

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.

______________________________________________

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­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.

______________________________________________

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 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

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 9, 2014

Still So Much to Learn

By AdoptiveBlackMom

The last few days have been nearly dream-like.  I’ve loved on Hope hard and just focused on allowing her to just be.  We watched movies; we shopped; she talked and I listened.  I learned…a lot.  So this brings me to my weekly recap of what I’m learning on this journey.

Hope is a kid and despite all the parentification she’s experienced, she wants to be a kid.  My daughter is two inches taller than me and has a shoe size that’s significantly bigger than mine.  My little girl could easily pass for older than her 12 years…that is until she opens her mouth and kiddie words start spilling out.  It’s easy to forget her age and aspects of her naiveté and to have unreasonable expectations of her when I have to tilt my head slightly up to talk to her.

But as I learn to let her be the kid she is and hasn’t had a chance to be, I find that she just blossoms overnight.  We’ve been consumed with boobs lately, triggering the need to go bra shopping.  Trying not to giggle when I’m having Beavis and Butthead flashbacks (boobies, heh heh heh, bobbies!) as she jumps her long legs around and grabs her boobs like she just discovered them is to see her comfortable, trusting and enjoying herself.  She’s really delightful.

Emotional growth requires a lot of patience and energy, but boy is the payoff worth it.   Hope and I have been stretched beyond what I personally thought was my own hard limit recently; apparently I was wrong.  Last night, after an epic trip to the mall for some shopping, Hope was reflective about her life.  She started to share things before we even left the mall, like how the last time we went shopping she was jealous about having to share the attention of a favorite cousin with said cousin’s friend.  She admitted how she felt about it and why it triggered a meltdown.  It was insightful.

On the way home she started telling me about her life and specific experiences.  There’s something about talking in the car, when we can’t really have a lot of eye contact because I’m driving that makes it safe to talk.  She told me more details about her bio-parents, what she knew, what she didn’t know, what she’d seen, what had happened.  When we got home she was still talking, so I just put the car in neutral and let her keep talking.  She was poised, thoughtful, and reflective.  At times I could hear how she was still trying to reconcile some of the more painful experiences with our talks about God’s love for everyone.

There was a sudden emotional maturity that I saw in her that made me so proud.   I reassured her that I would take care of her and that she was safe now.  It’s hard to remember how much work she has to put into this adoption thing and into getting healthy. Sometimes I can’t see that work; it’s been really hard to see her put in work these last couple of weeks.  Last night I saw all of the work she’s put in for the last few months, likely the last few years.  She amazed me.

I almost want to schedule a road trip so we have hours to talk.  All in due time.

Modeling desired behaviors works.  I’d seen hints of this lesson since she arrived, but I see Hope watching me and wanting to emulate me.  #whoknew?

During the last couple of weeks I’ve had her therapist, my therapist, my agency, my social worker, my friends and my new in-home parenting coach tell me I needed to carve out time for me to take care of myself.  So, for Lent I decided that I would work out in the living room everyday.  I told Hope that I would commandeer the living room for 30-40 minutes every evening and she would need to watch TV in her room or she could read or something in the living room with me.  I didn’t invite her to workout with me.    I’ve been working out since she’s been here, but with all of the schedule snafus it’s been inconsistent, but she knows I work out and that it’s important to me.  My Lenten commitment has upped the ante.

While I’m puffing away, she’s asking questions and offering commentary:  Why do I need to work out?  Oh it relieves stress?  Will it help me with my TMJ?  Core muscles make your back hurt less?  Cardio strengthens your lungs so your asthma is manageable in the spring?  Hmmm.

Today she did the warm up with me.  This from the girl who would have a tele-transporter in the house to get from the bedroom to the dining room if she could.

She’s also wants to take out her braids and embrace her natural hair.   This fab blown out fro of mine pushed her over the edge today.

BlownFro

Three weeks with the braids and $200 later, we’ll probably take them out in another week or so, so she can get her twist out on.

Sometimes you don’t get answers.    Nope, you just don’t get them.

I mentioned last week that my favorite book of the Good Book is Job.  Seriously, I just love the book of Job.  Job wasn’t patient, Job was pissed, really, really pissed and wanted God to tell him why all that crap happened to him.  He wanted to know why???  God was all like, “Um, and just who do you think you are talking to?  I mean, I love you little dude, but um, no, you are not the boss of me and I ain’t gotta answer none of your questions.  Stand down.”  #ABMBibleStories

Grandpa came to visit today, and like we have many times, we discussed Job. Grandpa reminded me that God never really does answer Job.  Job has to reconcile this with his faith and righteousness and just move on.

I kicked this around after Grandpa left today.  Admittedly, I was rather peeved with the Holy Homeboy in recent weeks.  I prayed and prayed and prayed.  He delivered but I just was pissed to even find Hope and I in this crisis at all.  Why???  Well there are certainly terrestrial reasons that explain why we suffered a crisis; but I wasn’t trying to hear any rationale about spiritual reasons.  Turns out God wasn’t trying to give me any anyway.  #dealwithit #shrug

And that’s the topline for this week.  Up next, Grammy comes for a four day stay, because you know, when I go in, I go hard.  Should be nothing short of revelational. #atouchofsarcasm  No really, I need help with drop offs and pick ups this week because of a big meeting, and well, Grammy’s been itching to be in the crib and in the mix.   Despite all of our drama I love my mom dearly, but I’d be sho-nuff lying if I didn’t expect (and delight) to see her a bit worn the heck out by Saturday evening; cause Hope is sure to be all the way live by then.

I defend my dissertation in 18 days.  #letsdothis  When I explained what the defense meant to Hope yesterday, she proceeded to announce to passersby in the store that her mom was going to be a doctor while hugging me and pointing.

And *that* is a moment that I’ll treasure forever.

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

March 2, 2014

In the Midst…

By AdoptiveBlackMom

I have just completed the last chapter of my dissertation.  And I did it during and immediately following one of the biggest, messiest crises of my life.  I’m telling you, my Holy Homeboy ain’t stunting on your “Woe is me, my life sucks,” kind of moments—he’s there to help you

Get.

It.

Done.

It is the only explanation for my ability to function during the last two weeks, much less finish up with the major writing.  Truth be told, I just want to lay in my bed for a few extra weeks  hours, which will occur tomorrow what with another DC area snowstorm scheduled to start at O-dark-30 tomorrow morning.  #sickofwinter

So, here’s my recap of this week’s life lessons and observations.

Hard times don’t last, but tough people do (with lots of help).  Cliché, right? It’s true.  Hope and I are settling back into our routine after a dramatic two week episode that saw the need for mental health interventions, a belligerent social worker who kept suggesting that I broke the kid, fall outs with Grammy that managed to include the word “failure,” tears, more tears, stress eating,  full on emotional meltdowns, phone calls, texts, instant messages from kind friends who dragged my emo butt through the muck and mire back to sanity, and one special person who managed to strap me to the couch for a day of rest on an emotional island.  Somewhere along the way I pushed out a few work projects and got this dissertation draft done.  I think I can really do this.

Resilience is a blessing.  As much as trauma is long lasting and contagious, our ability to bounce back from “stuff” is nothing short of amazing.  I had to do some really, crazy, “never thought I’d be here, but here I am” stuff during the last two weeks.  Hope experienced some schnitt that I wish wasn’t necessary on the path to jelling our little family.  I thought she would punish me (she still might); I thought I would lose her.  I thought about every possible catastrophic outcome.  And yet, in the end, here we are sitting watching some stupid kid movie on Netflix, soaking up some together time.  Occasionally, she gets up to just give me a hug.  I didn’t know if we would have this a week ago, but here we are.  Oh, I know that we will have drama in the future, but we will survive.  We will prevail.  We will be happy.

Some people really are just bullies. Never in my life would I have imagined picking up a phone call from Hope’s social worker to hear her just yelling into the phone, upset about all that was going on.  Where do they do that?  Does that strategy work?  WTH!!??!!

After getting a couple of those calls when the woman had been updated with all the available information on the status of our crisis, I finally had to just check her.  You know, the kind of check that comes in quiet but informs your adversary that you ain’t here for their foolishness one more got-dern minute.  I gathered her up quick and got us on the same page.  I know she was trying to do her job, and apparently some folks just accept her behavior as being passionate about the kids.  Um, no.  You can be passionate without steamrolling over people.  No ma’am, you can just stop that madness right, damn now.   #nothavingit  #trymeonemoginandsee

Your capacity feels tiny, but it really is limitless.  There were moments when I wondered whether I could do any of this.  There were moments when I felt just paralyzed by what felt like a lot of emotional chaos.  There were things that had to be done, calls to make, emails to follow up on, specialists to chase down, social workers to call.  I went to work.  I stayed up late writing.  I was and am exhausted.  And somehow I just kept going.  At least once an hour I thought I should just stop.  I doubted myself.  I doubted my commitment to Hope.  I raged at God; wasn’t it supposed to be a little easier than this?  Just a little?  Did you really have to flex and show me you could save us?  #ialreadybelieveddang

And yet every day, I got up and I did as much as I could.  I muddled through it.  Some moments were prettier than others and there are now stacks of papers and crap that I will consider stabbing someone if they dare touch said stack or move it.  I don’t know how I managed, but I did.  I’m too tired to think I’m a superhero, but damn if I don’t feel like I should go buy a t-shirt with a cape.  Once I get some rest, I might go climb the Himalayas or something, you know because apparently I can.  When tested, you can do so much more than you thought.

Everyone’s life is messy.   A year or two ago, I came across an article on Yahoo about how Facebook was making people depressed because they were comparing their lives against all the happy faced pictures that all their friends were posting on Facebook.

Well, really, who’s going to post all the crap pics?  You know the one where your eyes are closed, the selfie you took after you wedged yourself in that outfit in the dressing room, the vacation picture that seemed innocent enough until some a-hole in your group posted it tagged you and now you feel like a killer whale in a bathing suit?  Yeah, those pics.
Our public lives are carefully crafted, and while it looks great, it’s a big farce.  Everyone has at least one hot buttered mess that they are wrestling with on the daily.   As I shared the details of the recent drama, lovely people in my inner circle confided their stuff too.  On some level, misery does love company, but only because it can be humanizing, validating, and well, in a moment of brutal honesty, you feel some hope that someone’s mess may sound as bad or worse than yours.  Sometimes it just helpful to know that you aren’t struggling alone.  Everyone has it bad.

Sometimes you need drugs.  Yeah, sometimes I’d love a nice herbal or to just pray my way through stuff, but sometimes you just need drugs.  And it’s ok to make the choice and damn the people who shame you and tell you that your kid needs to take karate or that you just need to exercise more.  They don’t know schnitt about what you’re experiencing.

New drugs were introduced into our lives recently.   I was worried; I still worry.  I don’t want Hope on drugs forever and ever, but a week and a half in, I can see that this drug will provide us with the headspace to work on emotional coping skills and adjustment struggles.  The social worker gave me hell about this particular drug, but you know what, she’s never actually lived with Hope.  In a shared living environment, I’m seeing what Hope really struggles with and I’m working to get her what she needs to ensure her long term success.  Mama knows. This short term relationship with drugs is a good thing for us and again, if you disagree, just move it along.

It’s late and I’m exhausted.  And well, I just finished writing my dissertation, ok?  This is it for tonight.  I’m hopeful and optimistic that we will continue to heal and grow.  We survived because we’re survivors.

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

February 23, 2014

First Adoption Crisis In Progress

By AdoptiveBlackMom

This past week has been nothing short of exhausting.  I’m grateful for my friends and some family and many fellow bloggers who have offered support.  I am not alone.  It makes me sad that so many families slug through these trauma-induced swamplands, but it is helpful to the spirit to know that I’m not alone.

So, here’s what I’ve come to know this week:

This “Sandwich Generation” mess is a bitch.   So sandwich generations are the folks who are sons and daughters of living parents and who are parents themselves.  In this midst of this mind-blowing crisis with Hope, Grammy has been absent.   Honestly, I want my mommy, and she’s not out there.  She did share that she had a passion for kids like Hope, but she didn’t say she had a passion for me.  She did say that she didn’t agree with my decisions regarding Hope.  She raised questions about my ability to raise Hope as a single parent.  While I sit at the bedside of a kid who is presently telling me she hates me 100 times a day, I also sit and wonder what I did to deserve this Grammy freeze out.  I feel like I’m catching it from all sides.  My life is filled with gray at the moment when I prefer the definitiveness of black and white, so I’m inclined to just tell Grammy to kick rocks and go play in traffic.  Sigh, but that probably doesn’t meet the WWJD standard now does it?

I am resentful about the need to be the bigger person.  I’m pissed about feeling like I need to act like an adult.  I’m annoyed as all get out that Grammy has failed to be the person I’ve built her up to be.  At church this morning I went to the altar to ask for special prayer for me and Hope.  The sermon had been about relationships that provide refuge in times of trouble. #messagefromGod The parishioner who prayed with me this morning asked, among other things, that all members of the family strive to act appropriately, as Jesus would, during this crisis.

Well, dang. So convicted…

Fall down 7 times, and keep getting up.

So, I will continue to pray that the relationship with Grammy be restored and that we both act as one another’s refuge.  In order to do this, I’ve got to let this pissed-off’dness go.  #notreallyready

Yeah, I’m going to have to ask to be delivered from this anger and hurt and ushered into a space of forgiveness.

Something tells me I’m going to have to pray *that* prayer repeatedly. #lowSouthernBaptisthum #shadysideeye

Anger and hurt deliverance prayers for everyone!!  In dissecting this mess with Grammy, it’s not lost on me that Hope and I share a lot of parallels.  Like Hope, I’m struggling with all the new expectations, the new roles, the fear, the anger when expectations are not met; only I’m feeling this mess towards my own mother.  So prayers are going up that my Hope also be delivered from the anger and hurt she feels after so many years of disappointment.

Friends are everything.  Old ones and new ones…You learn who your friends are on this journey.  Your closest circle knows the most or as much as you are willing to share; they peep through the window and then they extend their hand, a handkerchief, a hug.  They are compassionate.  Even when they don’t know what to say, the empathy that rolls off of them gives you something to hold on to.   I was telling a new friend this week about my love of the book of Job; I find it to be a fascinating expose on man’s relationship with God.  My friend, who was trying to convince me to just allow some folks to care for me this week, chastised me by saying, “Well you know, Job’s friends weren’t really schnitt, but they showed up.  Let me show up for you.”

That was too deep, and my sassy “I got this” façade came crumbling down.  And I’m better for it.

I’m also delighted that my Holy Homeboy has seen fit to begin a new season with an old friend who was my bestest bestie until a stupid falling out nearly a decade ago.  A week before this crisis started, we ran into each other at the local Costco.  I’ve missed her so much that we later both admitting to crying after the interaction as we continued to shop in Costco.  Her reintroduction into my life has been a special blessing.

Adoption drama needs its own version of Google Translate.  It’s incredibly hard to spend time with someone who just says they hate you over and over again.  Absurdly Gorgeous Therapist (AGT) called me to check in and reiterated that new adoptive parents must bear the brunt of all the anger of trauma and lost these kids feel.  Yeah, dude, I know.  But that ish is whack.  Yeah, there, I said it.  It totally sucks arse to sit and just be the whipping post.  Oh, and let me not to forget to mention her boundary pushing efforts to be just generally rude and obnoxious. I think we should have a google translate app for every crappy moment.

Kid says: “I hate you!  I wish I’d never come here!  I wish you would just go away and die.”

Google Translation: “I’m not sure how to love or be happy, but you’re nice and kind and I have no frigging idea how to take that.   Please don’t stop being kind to me and for God’s sake, don’t leave me!”

Yeah…adoptive parents need that app and we need it yesterday.

Encouraging Turnarounds Lurk about.  Yesterday Hope said she would stop speaking to me forever.  I calmly replied that that might be kind of hard living in the house together, especially since she needs me for stuff.  Why not think about the things she might need to talk to me about…she started making a list and inside I smiled because it was one effing long list.  She needs me.  When she was done I said, sounds like we might have to talk a lot.  Today, she talked and played with me; ever so often she would announce, “I’m still mad at you. I still hate you.”  I just replied, “I know.”  She let me hug her for the first time in 5 days.  That’s got to be some kind of progress right?

Stress is the devil.  So remember when I said detangling Hope’s hair last week was like pulling out a yeti?  Yeah, well, I’m so stressed that my hair is now shedding like yocks of hair.  I swear I harvested a guinea pig out of my head this weekend.  Sigh…

I’ve cooked for the first part of the week and am really going to try to stay hydrated and rested.  I actually got a zit this weekend!?!?!  Zits at 41 are no bueno.  I need to find a happy place stat.  Today was all about hair and skin conditioning.

I have writers’ block.  I estimate that I only have about 10 pages left to write on my dissertation.  Needless to say, I’ve been distracted.   I cannot continue to dwell on this dang chapter; I need that cognitive energy for other things.   I pushed out a page today, but I need to pick up the pace.

The Furry One just likes to go pee in Hope’s room.   Yeah, he just does.  I’m going to go buy a Bissell Green Machine, and we’re going to have to learn to keep Hope’s door closed when she’s out and about.  My old dog is just an old dog, doing old dog things, I guess.   I still love him.  #shrug

So, that’s this week’s lesson recap.  This too shall pass; I know it will cycle back.  I’ll be more prepared next time.  I’m hopeful that this week, Hope and I can make progress, that we can get back to a little piece of our version of normal.  I hope my face doesn’t break out and my hair stays put.  I hope for more friend bonding, less dog messes to clean up and a completed dissertation.

Amen.

5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Dealing with the Past, Lessons Learned, Post Placement

February 14, 2014

Three Weeks Post-Placement

By AdoptiveBlackMom

It’s Friday and things are better.  Today is the second snow day this week and I’m wondering will the kids get any summer break around these parts.

Hope was delighted by the snow day; she’s a hard core nester/homebody.  She never got dressed, never bathed (I let it go for yesterday), and just was happy as a clam.

I was still sick with a racking cough.  I still have the racking cough, actually; I imagine it will be with me for a week or so.  I was kind of miserable.  I gave her lots of tablet time, made her practice her sax (Hey, it actually sounds like music now!) and lay in bed.  I fretted bit about how the house felt filthy to me, how I just wanted to sleep unencumbered and how I needed to go dig the car out so that it wasn’t so bad when the second storm hit later in the day.

I started to think about what I’m learning during this process.  I have been blogging more about my emotions in the moment and straying from the learning part.  It’s just been so overwhelming. So here goes my current list of observations and learned gems.

  • I know we’re improving even if it feels like walking across hot coals in hell.  She comes to me, she wants to be with me, and she gets frustrated when I say no but she is increasingly less likely to push me on things.  She’s never again asked to be taken back to WA.
  • There is a difference in when she decides to be straight up oppositional and when she is just being a typical annoying teen.  My dissertation research is, in part, about how personal values shape viewpoints on a particular issue.  There is a personal value called “face” that really is much like the desire to protect and preserve our public identities.  Anything that threatens what Hope perceives to be as personal identity space she digs in and digs in hard.  So teacher notes invade a space in which she is constructing her public persona.  School incidents are particularly threatening to how she sees herself and she will go down swinging to preserve her “face.”

Typical annoying teen stuff, she’s more likely to come to me later and tell me that her feelings were hurt by something I said or did—like when I told her “Fine, don’t wear your coat in 22 degree weather when you have a sinus infection.  Catch pneumonia <shrug>.”  Later she politely told me that hurt her feelings because she could die from pneumonia and surely I didn’t want her to die.  (I reminded her, no I didn’t want her to die, which is why I insisted on the damn coat #girlbye!)  Glad this dissertation is worth something more to me.

  • There so many things, like boundaries, that she wasn’t taught and must learn.  My biggest peeve is her traipsing into my room.  Yesterday she got into my bed.  Yeah, yeah, snuggling and all that, whatever.  I am desperate for some sanctuary and personal space, and my bedroom is IT.  I still tiptoe into my parents’ room back home.  Bedrooms are sacred space for me.  And despite several polite conversations, she just traipses in whenever she gets ready.  She’s walked in on me in my bathroom, getting dressed, you name it.  Drives me nuts and when I say something it’s all, “You don’t want me in your room,” with lots of attitude.  Yeah, you’re right, I don’t.  There I admit it.  It’s the only safe space I have.

While doing a puzzle in the living room yesterday during the storm, I also realized that she didn’t really know how to work on a puzzle with someone else.  She sucks up the table space by leaning all the way over such that her hands hang over my side of the table and will actually pick up pieces I am working on.  I had to take several breaks because it was almost invasive in a way that ruined the experience for me.  Yesterday was not the day to teach more about personal space, but clearly that’s something I need to work on with her.

  • There is a kindness of spirit in her.  She has made me tea every day that I’ve been sick.  She knows her skills of caring for me are limited so she focuses on what she can do.  At her core, she is such a sweetie.
  • A trip to the veterinarian determined that The Furry One is in the very early stages of kidney failure.  At 14 and 3 months, it is a normal sign of old age.  Given his overall health though, the vet confirmed that yeah, the rug pee fiasco of last week was indeed an declaration of war.  He’s actually engaging Hope more appropriately this week.  Had he been sicker I would’ve asked the vet to duct tape and paperclip this dog together, I’m way to unstable to lose The Furry One right now.  That would send me right on over the edge.
  • The weather is effing up my best efforts to get us on a consistent schedule.  I mean really, I can’t win for losing!  Two days off this week.  No band practice.  I’m increasingly behind at work.  It’s all a mess, I tell you.  And I know that the scheduling thing is going to be the way to glory for us.  I really need to have a talk with Mother Nature.
  • Prayer works.  Hope and I pray together twice a day.  She is responsible for one of the prayers.  I notice how her prayers have changed over the weeks.  The things she prays about are changing, she prays for our family.  She prays for The Furry One even though he peed on her rug.  She prays that she’ll have a better day at school.  I can’t honestly say that I’m deep in meditation when she’s praying because I’m trying to tune into what she’s saying and maybe not saying.  But her prayers are changing and I’m encouraged by that.
  • Hope is finally getting the concept of salvation.  She told me early on that she had been saved twice but it didn’t work; it didn’t “take” because she is so bad.  Lots of distilled theological conversations up in Casa de ABM.   She’s now talking about baptism and salvation and such.  She had a mini-meltdown this week when contemplating a lost family member and whether they were in heaven or hell; she didn’t know if they were saved.  It was a heartbreaking moment, but it revealed a few things to me:  She’s thinking about our talks, she’s applying those discussions, and she’s still grappling with grief.  I was sad for her, but I was also happy to know that I’m getting through that tough candy shell of hers.
  • She enjoys a little decadence, like we all do.  She gets excited to try new things, do things with me that foster families had previously promised but didn’t do and is thoughtful about each experience as it bonds us.  I’m the one who’s following through, who’s showing her something more.  She appreciates that.  One night a week is pizza night; during previous weeks we got take out.  This week I needed a fabric napkin experience as a Maslow’s Hierarchy element in my life (I loathe fast food) so I decided we would go out to eat.  She was almost overwhelmed by the local restaurant; she relished having a small appetizer and dessert.  She was tickled by the whole experience.  I was getting terribly ill during the dinner but I found such pleasure in watching her take it all in.
  • I had no idea 12 year old asked so many why questions.  Oh. My. God.  Why?  Why?  Why?  Why to random stuff that I’ve never heard about that happened when she was 8?  Why to random stuff that happened last week?  Why to something that happened on a random show she watched but I didn’t?  I thought in going with an older kid, I would bypass a lot of the “why” stuff.  No, not really.  I can see how stunted in some areas she maybe.  She wasn’t in environments when she could ask why; she is now.  I can see that I’ve created a safe space for her to do that.  I’m increasingly comfortable with say, “Sweetie, I don’t know.  Can we Google it?”  By the 18th time I try to recite that without sounding annoyed and exasperated.

So, it’s Friday, one of the days when I can be a bit more reflective.  Hope is still snoozing and I’ve tidied the house, taken out the trash, opened a window and let some cool air in to air out the sickie germs, and written this here post.  If I hurry, I probably can get to the grocery store to pick up a few things and GASP—get some Starbucks and some Valentine’s chocolates that I don’t have to share!!!  OMG, OMG so exciting!!

OMG—Hallelujah!  Peace out!

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

January 28, 2014

Learning to Say Yes (Sometimes)

By AdoptiveBlackMom

So, my local county is not particularly friendly to those of us who are creating families across state lines.  We could not register for school yesterday because, despite my legwork, we hit a major roadblock yesterday.  Apparently when a child from outside of the Commonwealth is placed in my county, the county wants a blood oath that if this adoption thing doesn’t work out that I will reimburse the county for her public school education.

Yeah.  I call bull-hitsay.

So offended.

Had I lived in a car or been otherwise undocumented, we might’ve had an easier path.

But no.  I live in one of the most affluent counties in the country, and they have no desire to support adoptive families without nickel and diming us about public school tuition until finalization.   My county supervisor will be hearing from me and it won’t be pretty.

The good news is that we are registering this afternoon and Hope is going to school tomorrow.

Hang on; I need a moment of delicious silence to contemplate this.

Ahhhhh.

With the few hours of school related respite I’m counting on, I’m also going to try to wrap my head around learning to say yes to Hope on some things.

Helping her learn expectations for our home has actually gone reasonably well, but while we were unpacking her boxes that arrived and discussing the purchase of some new shoes for an upcoming event she shut me down before I could reply to a request for a shoe with a low heel.  I hadn’t even had the chance to hesitate, but I suppose my brow must’ve furrowed in a way that suggested I was going to say no eventually.  #nonverbalfail

“You never let me do anything!”

Now this, of course, is not true and was likely an incredibly normal outburst for a tween.  But it led to 45 minutes of sulking followed by a hidden controlled cry for me.  I have had to say no to a number of things but I usually give choices to redirect a no to a “here are your options.”  Sometimes I need to just say yes, especially to the small stuff. Truth be told, I immediately thought a cute tiny wedge or kitten heel would look great on her and suit our purposes, but I never got a chance to say anything.

So this got me to thinking, how can I create some scenarios in which I say yes, if for no other reason than to reinforce that I can say yes, as much as I say no.

So, today we’ll look at some shoes on Zappo’s, and eventually I will say yes to a pair.

I will say yes to ice cream today after school registration.

I will say yes to Wii gaming.  (I will later nurse the bruises that all those arms and legs banging into me because she can barely control her body.  Turns out Wii is a contact sport.)

I will say yes to a trip to the trampoline park this weekend.

My girl just needs to hear yes a few times.

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

November 29, 2013

Day 7: Top Seven

By AdoptiveBlackMom

During the course of writing this post, things hit an upswing.  I’m not where I want to be emotionally, but I’m better than where I was.

We survived Thanksgiving with only a few wounds, though I think mine seem worse than hers.  I cooked the family turkey.  We only ate about half of it, so I brought it back home.  I dropped it in the hallway right at the door to my condo.  I cried and cried and Hope stepped up and comforted me.  Nice, especially since she had been a holy terror most of the day.

Today, she’s been with me 7 days.  So here are my observations, lessons, journey-woman musings.  Oh and in honor of the number of completion, there are 7.

7.  It’s hard not to take her behaviors personally.

Ok, I need something much harder than this tough candy shell, because it’s not going to protect my feelings at all.  She says really mean things within minutes of any extension of kindness.  And it’s always my fault.  She’s quick to remind me how sensitive she is, but there is rarely a hint of compassion for me.  I mean, I’ve seen it, but wow… it was triggered by my dropping a turkey and crying in the hallway.

I know as the grown up that I’m supposed to keep it together, but dang, I’m pretty sensitive too.  It’s just me, Hope and the Furry One up in this house, and you know what?  Ish really got real the last couple of days.  I know that it’s probably a good sign, but I really have been hurt the last couple of days, just really hurt.  I need to develop whatever emotional armor I need to raise this kid with a quickness, otherwise I’ll be crying myself to sleep for a good while yet.

As I write this, I’m trying to recover from a personal meltdown. Yeah, she’s raising a racket in her room, while supposedly doing homework.  I know its self soothing behaviors; I know I should go comfort her in some way.  But I just don’t have it in me right at this moment.  Maybe in 30 minutes; maybe 40…

6. Jedi mind tricks and “call your bluffs” work.

Thanksgiving dinner was a challenge, what with an attention-starved, hunger striking tween in play.  The family was on high alert to be gentle and give her space.  I was prepared to take her home to protect her from being overwhelmed.  What actually happened was that she acted like a first class brat at various intervals when she didn’t feel she was the pedestal hogging center of attention, because to hear her tell it, “Everyone always loves me and always wants to be around me.”  With a big rowdy family everyone gets bits of attention here and there.  Dinner is a chaotic, laughter-filled food fest with a dozen people or more talking at the same time.  No one is the center of attention, though had she joined us for dinner, she might’ve been.   Instead the hunger strike persisted.

Having attempted many attention grabbing hunger strikes in my teen years, only to be comforted by one Auntie who was trying not to undermine me in this scenario, I told her we would head home in a specified amount of time (soon) and it was too bad she wasn’t hungry since there was so much good food around.  She was upstairs in a flash.

Today while shopping with the favorite cousin and the cousin’s friend, my attention seeker’s pedestal was not high enough, so a faux, but oh so dramatic, spontaneous ear ache/infection came on.  She whined that she wanted to go home.  So I made arrangements for the cousin and friend to stay at the mall, and announced our immediate departure.  It was like she touched the hem of Jesus’ garment — instantaneous healing, since she hadn’t played out her deadly ear infection scam as including leaving the presence of two supa-fly 16 year olds.

And home we went, despite all protestations of healing.

Boom.

5. She’s manipulative, and she knows it clap your hands.  Clap, clap.

On the way home she said, “It is sad that I get sick whenever we are about to do something you want to do.”  Yeah, the next mall stop was Old Navy, where she knew I’d wanted to go all day.  Her sudden, life threatening ear infection (that also affected the very ability to swallow) killed that trip.

Oh the shade of it all.  If you could’ve seen the side eye I gave this tween in my head!  My Lord, my Lord…smh.

And yeah, the illnesses only strike when its something I have initiated or expressed an interest in doing.

She catches stomach aches, ear aches, foot cramps, you name it, she gets it.  I’m surprised she hasn’t claimed a flesh eating disease yet.  I shared this with one of my cousins this morning.  We are a robust family, but almost all of us has a serious, chronic ailment that could usher us out of here. MDs are like family around these parts.  Keep on playing, Hope, and you’ll be at my GI doc’s office scheduling an endoscopy to see what’s really going on in your tummy with all these stomach aches.

I know that it’s about anxiety (10-20%) and attention-seeking (80-90%), but she is so shady about it.

4. Hope is so tall that its easy to forget she’s only 12, and emotionally more like 9 or 10….

…until she opens her mouth and says something so ridiculous.  It’s exhausting following her because she is all over the place. Part of it is age, part stunted development.  She can go from trying to act older down to a 5 year old within the same sentence.  When she’s happy she giggles and the little girl within emerges–she’s charming and adorable.   But then there’s all this other stuff.  She looks young in the face but she’s tall and developed and well, it’s sometimes hard to remember, she’s only 12, has been to hell and back and I need to lower expectations for behaviors.

I’m really conscious of this when we are out and about because I see the higher/older expectations people have of her.  It’s tough being so tall at such a young age.

3. Tweens are kinda (really) obnoxious.

Holy cow.  I already knew tweens were obnoxious, but most of the tweens I know or have known, I’ve known since they were infants.  It’s off-putting when your new tween seems to think you only moved to civilization to adopt her.

“Ugh, your cable is bad.  You really need to get the kind of cable we have back home.  This tv doesn’t get any real channels.”

“Nope, the cable isn’t bad.  The cable in your room is intentionally bad since you don’t need access to some of those other channels. The cable is great in the other parts of the house.”

“Have you heard of Robin Thicke?  He’s a singer; his CD is really good.  You should get it.  Do they sell here?”

“Robin Thicke has been around since you were an angel on the gatepost of heaven.  Yeah, I have his CD; I have all of his CDs.  Virginia is not like living on the moon, though Amazon Prime might deliver there.”

“This condo-hotel you have isn’t all that good.  We should rent a new place.” (The condo building has experienced some untimely water issues this week.)

“I live here.  I own this space.  It’s not a hotel.  We are not renting a new place.  Stuff happens and you deal.”

And if I hear Gaga’s Applause one more time, I’m going to lose it.  I finally had to school her on lyrics while at the mall since she insisted on giving a concert of the song, over and frigging over.  There’s a line in the song where Gaga talks about being a Koons (the art dude), but Hope kept screeching what sounded like Koonts, which in turn sounded like a gross mispronunciation of a gross c*nt.

Honestly it was hilarious, but I finally had to ask her to stop singing that line.

Yeah, obnoxious, but sometimes funny.

3. This happened:  Another mom discussion.

So after the drama that was Thanksgiving  dinner with the family and before I accidentally dumped the turkey in the hallway in front of my condo door, Hope once again broached the issue of what to call me.  She’s been grappling with this for a couple of months now.  She says calling me mom is weird.  She does everything but call me mom.  She describes me as mom; she tells her friends I’m her mom.   I’m her mom.

But I get why she struggles with this.  She hasn’t had a mom.  She says its weird to call me that.  In the last 24 hours she has regressed to call me by Foster Mom’s name, so I know it’s really weighing on her.  I’m reassuring her that it is ok with me; I’m ok with not having the title even if I would love to have it.  The fact that she’s given me that title with everyone else is enough for me.

I do hope it happens, though.

1. Hope told me she loved me.  

In the midst of what feels like one of the upper, not quite so hot, rings of hell this week, Hope said she loved me.  Even in my frustration and tears, it was shocking and sweet and wonderful.  It is ironic that it comes during the most challenging time, but I guess that’s the point.  I’m doing ok by her.  She knows I’m here to stay. It will eventually get better, even if I know it will get worse before it does.

Oh, hello obscenely full tumbler glass of blush vinho verde, how you doin’ tonight???

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

fromcavewalls.wordpress.com/

The Journey Home

K E Garland

INSPIRATIONAL KWOTES, STORIES, and IMAGES

werdbrew

Riddle from the Middle

real life with a side of snark

Dmy Inspires

Changing The World, With My Story...

Learning to Mama

Never perfect, always learning.

Times of Resistance

The Boeskool

Jesus, Politics, and Bathroom Humor...

Erica Roman Blog

I write so that my healing may bring healing to others.

My Mind on Paper

The Inspired Writing of Kevin D. Hofmann

Maleika Robinson

My Wonderfully Unexpected Journey

When Life Grabbed Me By The Ears

The Scriblerians

imashleymi.wordpress.com/

things are glam in mommyhood

Adoptee Support Advocates

dearadoptionblog.wordpress.com/

wearefamily

an adoption support community

Fighting for Answers

Tales From an Adoption Journey

Transracialeyes

Because of course race and culture matter.

SJW - Stuck in the Middle

The Life of Biracial Transracial Adoptee