Tag Archives: African American Parenting

I Hope – Part 1

I hope:

  • That the trauma monsters stop chasing us.
  • That Hope is freed from her fears of the past.
  • That we are freed from depression.
  • That our hot tempers cool with time.
  • That our patience grows.
  • That Hope grows up to be confident, self-assured and well adjusted.
  • That the next round of music lessons aren’t audibly painful.
  • That Hope grows to like some kind of physical activity.
  • That one day I won’t be shocked by all the movies that have adoption sub-themes.
  • That I will feel caught up with work, life and parenting one day.
  • That bio-aunt stops sending me chain emails…boundaries, people, boundaries. #icant #noreally #icant
  • I’ll get back to hitting happy hour with some some frequency in the next 5 years.
  • That I’ll be ready for another fur baby next year sometime.
  • That I can pull off a trip abroad next spring for us.
  • That one day I won’t have to ask if the bed has been made or the room has been tidied.
  • That one day she won’t be afraid of so many things.
  • That one day I’ll have a husband.
  • That I am able to model healthy relationships for Hope.
  • That her math skills will improve.
  • That we continue to have therapeutic breakthroughs.
  • That I won’t have to hide my favorite food forever.
  • That I find a spirit of sharing.
  • That my faith continues to grow.
  • That I can meet my first weight loss goal by year’s end.

I Marvel – Part 4

I marvel:

  • That Hope talks all through the movies, asking me questions as though I know what is going to happen next.
  • At how many movies have adoption sub-themes.
  • At how easily she will talk about all that she’s lost.
  • At how hard it is for Hope to have a positive view of the world.
  • At how she has segregated people by race and behavior in ways that upset me.
  • At how she has parlayed what she’s seen in terms of relationships into some really effed up views on gender roles and behaviors.
  • At how deep grief goes.
  • That she eventually comes clean with all her shenanigans.
  • That we have deep moments where we really talk.
  • That I can tell when she’s got a new crush (so friggin obvious).
  • That we have the most amazing and hilarious girl talk moments.
  • That I’m getting better at problem solving.
  • That I finally did volume production of frozen crockpot meals (this development was overdue).
  • That now that a spate of anger has passed the more affordable eye glass frames at Costco look appealing to her.
  • That we’re *still* talking about the teen foolishness that went down last month (it’s really a crucible for us).
  • That she’s into a groove with the nannies.
  • At how joy and pain can still reside so closely.
  • At how much I miss The Furry One.
  • At how I’ve kept the new hermit crabs- Beyonce and Jay-Z Crabbers alive for almost 3 weeks.
  • At how I dropped a couple of pounds this week.
  • At how this squat challenge I’m doing isn’t so bad now that I’m halfway through it.
  • At the stuff I still need to get Hope to prep for the winter weather.
  • At how excited I am to prep for fall break and spring break next year.
  • At how excited I am to start planning our trip to Bougieville (Martha’s Vineyard) next summer.
  • At how a tiny bit of weekend rest can cure some of what ails you.

 


I Marvel – Part 3

I marvel:

  • That I still sometimes take her anger personally.
  • That I haven’t duct taped the door to her room shut when it’s dirty.
  • When we cycle through dark periods; they always surprise me.
  • That Hope has embraced a sense of middle class kid entitlement so quickly <side eye>.
  • At how kind and generous she can be even as she pushes me away.
  • At how many triggers to rages and shut downs there are.
  • At how exhausted such episodes make me.
  • At how my reactions to the rages and shut downs have changed.
  • At how many times in one day I can say “I don’t know.”
  • That my reasons for saying “I don’t know “ range from not really knowing to praying the exhausting conversation ends soon.
  • At how hard single parenting can be.
  • That I appreciate the lack of need to consult on parental decision making.
  • That I can’t seem to get to bed before 11pm because I need to wind down a bit after Hope goes to bed.
  • At how all of a sudden Hope isn’t mad that I signed her up for drama activities during her free periods.
  • At how she has come to enjoy our church.
  • At how she is finally interested in going to the church youth group.
  • At how she wants to volunteer.
  • At how many food wrappers I recently found under her bed.
  • At how I still hide my special foods.
  • At how rough the transition from being a singleton to a single mom is.
  • At how different this experience is than I imagined.

 


I Marvel – Part 2

I marvel:

  • That 13 years ago, today on 9/11, I know exactly where I was and what I was doing for an entire 24 hour period, but what was going on in Hope’s life at 3 months old is a complete mystery.
  • At how Hope has evolved from exclusively wearing jeans and tees to leggings, tunics and *gasp* the occasional dress.
  • That we both have heard The Furry One’s barks, nails clicking on the floor and have seen his shadow since he passed away. We only both admitted it and had a good cry this week. (Yep, we are believers!)
  • At how routines make drama lessen and even disappear.
  • At how not reacting to drama somestimes helps to lessen it.
  • That Hope loves Absurdly Hot Therapist now.
  • That my Hope is such a boss at surviving.
  • That Hope is more resilient than me.
  • At how fortunate we are to have locked in two great part time nannies. Both have day jobs as child therapists and one is pursuing a PhD in child psych with emphasis in PTSD. Can we say #jackpot?
  • That I don’t hear stories that start with, “When I was 8…” as much anymore; Hope is moving past her trauma.
  • That my new Fitbit says I am getting 100% sleep efficiency. Clearly the thing is a piece of crap…#notreally
  • At how my faith has grown this year.
  • At the dumb ish 13 year olds are want to do.
  • That I fell in love this year.

I Marvel – Part 1

I marvel:

  • At how it’s been about a year since Hope even knew I existed and how now she wouldn’t dream of calling me anything but “Momma.”
  • That I finished my dissertation on time.
  • At how quickly she bounces back from a setback now.
  • At how our conflicts have changed.
  • That she can accept some responsibility for her behaviors now.
  • At how effective hypnotherapy can be.
  • At how we have defied the first psychiatrist’s horrible predictions about Hope’s prognosis.
  • That I have found my inner momma bear.
  • That despite adopting an older child I got to briefly experience some aspects of younger child rearing because we needed to address some developmental delays.
  • At how each month brings a new developmental challenge that we muddle through.
  • At how marginalized she has felt because of race, class, family status.
  • At how dismissive she has become of members of her biological family.
  • That I haven’t taken every electronic away for more extended periods because they prevent personal engagement and hinder emotional development.
  • That she doesn’t want me at the bus stop at all anymore.

I Cut My Hair

That’s right. I big chopped this week after almost three years of growing out my hair. I’m now rocking a nice contoured curly fro that maintained much of the length on the crown and cropped the sides and back down to about an inch of hair. I debuted my cut on the most recent episode of Add Water and Stir (see what I did there with the shameless podcast plug?)

It’s rather dramatic. I needed dramatic. I needed a change.

Years ago I read an interview that Lenny Kravitz (YUMMERS!) did shortly after he cut his dreads; he said cutting his hair was a kind of emotional release. He was able to let “stuff” bound up in his hair go and make a clean emotional slate.

Yassssss!

Yassssss!

Yeah, given I’m down with just about anything that my boo Lenny could ever possibly utter, I never forgot that little gem. I thought about it a lot over the years.

In fact, before going natural, I kept my hair cut short. I rocked a pixie cut for years. Loved it. It was easy and framed my face well.

But when I went natural so much of the discussions swirling around were and are about length achievement. Shoulder length, bra strap length, boob length, waist length. Length, length, length. So, even though I’m not really a follower by nature, I set about to let my hair grow out and see what happened.

At three years it was shoulder length when I blew it out, which was rare. #lazynaturals #aintgottimeforallthat

It took forever to dry; I had to wash and set my style before 9pm if I had a hope of being able to take twists down.

And then Hope came.

Hahah, getting to washing and styling by 9pm became a pipe dream. Then the shedding started. Gobs of hair. I tried tea rinses. I tried some protective styling (which really isn’t my thing). Then it started breaking.

Stress is such a b*tch; I swear the stress of just being was just wearing my hair out. (My body too; I’ve gained weight and don’t get me started on the emotional eating). My hair was becoming another problem to fret about, and there was a lot of emotion caught up in it. The negative changes seemed to put me on a path to think I was failing at caring for and growing out my hair. Since I think I fail at a lot of things these days, this just was added to the list.

It didn’t occur to me to cut my hair because I wanted to nurture Hope’s confidence in wearing her natural hair. I wanted her to embrace it. It was something we had in common—growing our natural hair and embracing its beauty.

But things really changed during the last month or so. Hope, always needing to win at something developed this absurd competitive streak about our hair journey.

“I think my hair might be longer than yours this week.”

“It’s not, but it’s not a competition. It’s just hair.”

“But I want long hair and I think that will make it beautiful.”

“Your hair is already beautiful. If we keep your hair healthy then your hair will grow long, but length won’t make it beautiful. It’s already beautiful.”

She wasn’t buying it. And I was getting tired of having this same conversation each week.

So, last week I started searching for the perfect cut. I settled on a few pictures, called up my old hairdresser at the Hair Cuttery and rolled in after work one day this week.

Chop, chop, snip, snip.

My head is lighter and I feel like I let some emotional energy go. I feel good. It dries faster, the curls are popping and I am wondering what took me so long to just go whack it off. I needed a change and I needed short hair in my life.

My boo Lenny was so right, but how could he ever be wrong??? #heyboohey

Hope, meh, is not really feeling it, but she is happy she’s now definitively winning the length war that I’ve walked away from.

I plan to get another shape up in 8 weeks. I’m keeping it short. I’m glad that I did something dramatic for myself. And today, I’m going to splurge and pick up a FitBit or comparable little overpriced activity tool. I need to get healthy and take better care of myself. The emotional overwhelm of the last 7 months shows on my waistline badly. So that’s the next task of change that I am committing to, right now, today.

#TreatYoSelf


Filling Holes

Today I went up for prayer at the altar during church. Nearly every week I do, and someone prays a prayer that gives me hope. Today I asked for prayer as a single mom struggling to figure out the coming weeks’ schedules in the absence of support I thought I would have when I started this journey. This weekend I found myself stressing about a major scheduling snafu that’s coming up in the next few weeks. I know I can get it covered but will that coverage be what’s best for Hope? Also, this is just the first business trip of the fall. I’m overwhelmed, and recent appeals for help were declined. I’m sad and, well, a bit scared about how things will come together.

I didn’t share the whole drama with the person at the altar, but my prayer partner prayed that our holes be filled and that our needs be met. Somehow it will be ok. This feels like another huge test of faith and frankly, I’m angry that the tests just don’t ever seem to let up. Still I was hopeful after this prayer.

Sundays are so difficult around here though that by sundown Hope and I are experiencing the routine meltdown that stresses me out and makes me wonder how I managed to have much hope that day in the first place. This Sunday was no different.

As I sit, sip a rosé and eat left over chocolate frosting from the freezer, I wonder how much of our Sunday meltdown routine do I trigger? I know I get cranky. Is it because she utterly refuses to do anything asked that frustrates me so or is it just me picking at insignificant things? Is it because she’s freaking out about the start of a new week? I imagine it’s all of it. I try to just let some things go; I even practice letting go in my head. I’m getting better at it, but in the moment it’s just…every button that can be pushed does get pushed.

Hope and I tried to have a game night tonight; we were both really trying to have fun, and we were both utterly miserable. We eventually just gave up; we don’t know who won the Game of Life tonight. I suppose there is much hope in us just trying to play right?

I don’t know how many of our emotional, spiritual and/or support holes got filled today; it feels like whatever was poured in, spilled right out. Anyway, here’s a couple of lessons from the week before I totally get chocolate wasted and switch from wine to rum because tomorrow is a holiday.

___________________

Teenagers have messy rooms. I know, I know, this should not be a real lesson.   Listen, I’m not a neat freak. I’m not. On the last Add Water and Stir podcast I talked about the state of my house during my home study, weeks before I defended my dissertation proposal—it was a semi-messy pile of papers that I took care to square up the corners and put in 18,000 pretty cardboard boxes from Ikea. Our home looks lived in.

Well, everything but her room looks lived in. Her room looks like a cyclone hit it, and this is causing me so much dissonance about the state of my house. It’s stressing me out. I thought I was a packrat, but I hold no candle to my little hoarder. I understand why she does it, but I also recognize that part of this is just run of the mill teen-esque laziness. That ish is driving me crazy. At least I don’t let her eat any wet or moist foods in her room—dry goods only so maybe there’s a chance for that sty after all.

Parents have meltdowns too. Also not news, but I’m trying to figure out how to be more gentle with myself and my own expectations of me, of Hope, of our relationship. My sense is that some of my emotional upheaval is rooted in an expectation misalignment. Did I harbor some deep seated notions that post-finalization, post-13th birthday that Hope would somehow get her ish together? I don’t know. Maybe. If I did/do, then no wonder I’m pissed all the time and why she continues to speak so poorly about herself when I’m pissy.

Goodness we need a schedule and we need it stat.

I really worry about money. We are in good shape, but I feel like I’m hemorrhaging cash these days. Home repairs, back to school shopping, hypnotist visits and co-pays…it just doesn’t end. Tuesday I’ve got a handy man coming to fix stuff in the house. We will have lots of things fixed but is it all worth the few hundred dollars for someone else to fix this stuff? Yeah, it is, but I still fret. I don’t understand how folks in this area finance more than one kid—I just don’t. I would lose my mind.

I bought myself a pair of shoes recently. I really need some new things for work, but I sense that I will wait until things are nearly threadbare before I do any substantive shopping.

I’m currently over saying everything is mine. I know this is temporary. I can feel the Selfish ABM lurking underneath the surface; even though she has regular respite. Life is just getting on my nerves right now, and I find myself fanaticizing about an alternative version of my life. Oh well. I’m still here. But my compelling need to hide cereal and be crazy seems to have passed. This is a good thing I guess. Bring on the start of school. T-minus 2 days.

___________________

So, I’m out. Stay tuned for an announcement about a special episode of Add Water this week. We’re going to dig into important stuff around race and adoption this week.


Negative Energy

Can I just say that I cannot wait until school starts? I might do cartwheels to the bus stop. This month has emotionally exhausted me. We need routine, and we need it bad.

The last month has been filled with a lot of bickering. Admittedly my patience in the midst of loss has been absurdly short. I was already tender and ouchie. Add to that Hope’s anxiety about returning to a school she says she hated and all sorts of adolescent drama and you’ve got a powder keg house. We can go from 0 to 60 faster than a sports car. It’s not been pretty. We really should be calling the fire house regularly because we can burn this joint down.

I hate admitting it because it makes me feel like a bad parent and certainly not a therapeutic parent. I’m kinda filled with shame at how just downright furious I feel 80% of the time.

During this period, I’ve noticed Hope absorbing and reflecting lots of negative energy.

evil-queen-mirror-o

Her self-esteem is already low, so whenever there are moments of angst, conflict, correction or whatever she sucks all that up and spits it out either with venom at me or with self-loathing. There is never a moment of bright, airy light. It’s always so negative. And whether it’s venom directed at me or her own self-loathing it sucks for both of us. It’s. Just. Awful.

I do a lot of affirmations with her. I work hard to shine some light and positivity on her—“Hope you’re smart, you’re funny, you’re lovely, you can do this….” It’s almost always deflected.

There are moments when she swings to the other end of the continuum. It’s during these moments that she can’t take correction because she is absolutely, unequivocally correct in all things. The need to be the “right” one is so strong that her very identity is wrapped in that rightness. When presented with evidence to the contrary there’s just rage. She rages a lot. The world isn’t really as she knows it; it’s dynamic and what was right yesterday may not be right tomorrow. That upsets her greatly.

I don’t deal with that well. Oh, I get the underlying need to be right; I have issues with wanting/needing to be right. But my identity isn’t defined by it. I see how this negatively impacts her ability to learn; she’s right and you are wrong so you couldn’t possibly teach her anything.

I am really worried about how she will do school this year. During the last couple of weeks I’ve been giving her worksheets for her weaker subjects so that she can get some practice. I’m heartbroken to find how far behind she is on foundational concepts she should’ve learned in 3rd or 4th grade. She missed so much school over the years, moved around so much that she was never even exposed to the material, much less learned it. And yet those few academic compliments she’s received from caring teachers on her journey are clung to with vice grips.

Trying to help her wrestle with academic shortcomings is hard. At the end of the day, Dr. ABM is just another dumb parent who has no effing idea what she’s talking about, according to Hope. The ego check isn’t the thing for me; the fact that she shuts herself off for growth and learning is the thing. Being smart is her shining beacon in an otherwise dark, dank self-worth. Anything that she might interpret as questioning her all-knowingness is to be crushed.

I worry about school this year. And I’m not sure what to do.

phoebe-sad-o

And everything else is out of whack too. It’s hard being 13, man! It’s hard being the mom of a 13 year old, man! It’s just hard around these parts.

This week we’ve navigated revealing more abuse that wasn’t in any of the disclosure documents, dumb adolescent ish, shopping for a birthday card for her bio-grandmother when all the granny cards are all lovely dovey and well, it ain’t that kinda party around here. Schedule changes, foot dragging, temper tantrums (mine and hers) and just dark, icky messiness that has made the house feel so negative that once a day I have to step out on the balcony just to step into the light.

I feel like I’m shadow boxing some kind of fighter that is straight kicking my ass. I’m almost on the defensive as soon as I get up in the morning. I try not to raise my voice. I try to just be quiet sometimes to just avoid escalating things. How we practice civility during the day would be very upsetting to the Nobel Committee because there are no peace prizes in the making around these parts.

I feel like I’m suffocating from the negative energy. It’s just negative energy in negative space.

I’m ready for school to start next week.

This post has been added to the Adoption Social’s #WASO link up.


Messy Life

I’ve been trying to get back into writing now for more than a week. I haven’t struggled to write like this in a while. It certainly isn’t because I haven’t had things to write about; I guess I have just been so blue and overwhelmed that I could only manage to start and stop and start over again. I’m also in the midst of a huge writing period at work and that’s exhausting me in ways I knew it would but still find surprising. I’ve been dog paddling the last week or two. It didn’t feel like I was making progress; in fact it felt like Hope and I were sinking a bit. My “lesson” posts really do help me to gain some perspective at times; so I know it’s important for me to do them.

____

Raising a teenager is messy. I often get a sympathetic pat on the back when folks hear that I adopted a tween, now teenager. I usually just smile and nod. It’s weeks like this when I get a clue about the downright foolishness that folks mean. Teenagers do dumb ish. It really is astounding. They do dumb crap even when they know you’re looking, watching and monitoring. I remember some of the dumb crap I did back in the day, but fortunately my adolescent years were rather low tech, so there was really but so much I could get into. Today, these kids just don’t even realize that all this technology leaves breadcrumbs right to their foolishness.

Your parent-snoop game must be strong. Yeah, I low jack errrthang. And even the things that I haven’t figured out how to low jack, Hope thinks I have and usually that’s enough of a deterrent. And then I just go back and just peruse and read every keystroke or finger swipe. I’m sure there will come a time when I really do have to give Hope some privacy, but she keeps demonstrating that she can’t handle privacy, so she has little. Teenagers do dumb ish. Sigh.

Grief is also messy. I’m finally starting to feel like myself again. I received The Furry One’s ashes this weekend, and I sobbed. I still sleep with one of his toys (it’s been laundered). And TV shows with puppies make me cry.

But my crankiness is subsiding. I finally broke down and stopped hiding a box of cereal that I didn’t want to share, just bought some more cereal and decided to be grateful Hope wants to eat crunchy raisin bran rather than Lucky Charms. Yes, I’m still being a bit petty. I can’t help it. #dontjudgme

There is a lot of anger in grief. I get why kids of trauma rage so much. I never noticed how much anger resided in grief. I just never realized it until this last week.

I realize it now.

You’re apt to say things you don’t mean. You’re less likely to be gracious. You actually don’t want to be gracious at all. You just feel like you can’t find your way out of the dark maze.

It’s messy. But I’m starting to push through to the light again. Realizing I hadn’t had respite in a while and getting a couple of free evenings has helped immensely.

Nearly 8 months in and the transition is still hard. Hope still hates new experiences; they scare her. She would never say that; she can be prideful. Not as many things are new, but lots of things still are. We haven’t been together a full year. We went to a new place for a fancy brunch today; she shut down. Our brunch companion remarked, “I see dollar signs just flying away” because the brunch was pretty expensive. Yeah, well, given that we didn’t use the Six Flag tickets from last week, and I shelled out a few hundred for hypnotherapy this week, this pricey brunch was just a drop for what was a financial hemorrhage of a week. It was a new experience and she was overwhelmed. The fact that she accidentally revealed some dumb ish she did during the week didn’t help matters.

Trust is so hard to build and so easy to lose. This isn’t new, but we’re dealing with hard trust issues around these parts these days. I don’t trust her right now, and she doesn’t trust me. We were doing so well and we will recover, but right now, neither of us seems to be budging an inch. It’s interesting; the trust breeches on her part are typical dumb, teen stuff; the trust breeches on my part are that I don’t give her a pass because, well, she thinks she deserves one. #girlbye We’ve got some backtracking to do around here. Loving her through things helps; when I withdraw she sinks; but this teen thing is a beast yo. There’s lots of reprogramming, trust building, attachment building…it’s just a lot going on.

It’s getting harder to quantify what issues are just teen stuff and what issues are adoption/trauma stuff. This makes life interesting, but I’m glad we’re in this space. I can’t always tell the difference which means we’ve hit a better blend ratio. I used to be able to say things like 60/40 trauma stuff. Now I’m not as sure. That’s kinda cool.

Single parenting is hard. I thought things would be a bit different with the availability of different kinds of support. Those support structures aren’t there so I’m having to artificially create them. It’s tough, but I’m managing. It is hard to not have a partner who can tag me out so I can just take some time. It’s hard. I’m doing it, but it’s hard. I’m grateful for other kinds of resources that I’m learning to use and learning to leverage.

Hypnotism can work. We’ve had one visit so far to tackle the bug phobia. OMG—saw bugs and she didn’t windmill and freak out. We have another visit for fine tuning in a few weeks. The relief already experienced is earth shattering. Yay!

________

That’s it. This is the last week before school and I’m counting down the days until we can get back to a routine. I’ve got a ton of work to do, but will be taking a few days off to celebrate the end of summer this week. Hopefully fun times ahead.


The Furry One

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