Vindauga

Strange Days

I've evolved over the last 6 (7 ? 8 ?) years I've been reading and writing about adoption on the internet. It's a weird place to be. I'm happy I've grown emotionally and intellectually, but it puts real life in a weird place. I'm not longer the person who says "Oh my god, adoption is wonderful." Open adoption has still been one of the most profound and best experiences of my life, but I now have a more complicated picture. I can't have a 10 minute conversation anymore explaining adoption because there are so many qualifiers I have to add to every statement.

Mallory and I have been on these adoption panels for years, Noelle was on a couple with me too. I love telling our story, but it's not the same as it used to be. For one thing "our" story includes eight people as major characters, and numerous secondary relationships- siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles. So while it used to feel like sharing a portion Mallory, Noelle's and my life, it now seems I want to always make sure I say something on behalf of all the people who aren't in the room. Also, Mal's an adult. Her experience will no longer be filtered through my eyes and words. Noelle is no longer the 21 year old who always agrees with me. She is a wonderful mother to all three of her girls, not just a birthmother to mine. She has triumphs, joys, and regrets that I will never know.

The additionally weirdness? The secular non-profit agency we adopted through closed last year. The board decided it wasn't financially viable anymore. Our social workers have retired. The two Mallory and I have worked with the last decade have moved to a Christian agency. When I read that the first time my eyes rolled and stomach dropped. I didn't want to be on panels for an agency that had teddy bear clip art and bible verses on its literature. But they called and Bert said yes. This whole MSW program is bringing out the advocate in him.

So I prepped him. I made him memorize Ethica's URL. I talked to him about the difference between a birth mother and expectant mother. I told him to stand up for birth parents in case no one else did. I had no idea what this panel would be like.

He did a stellar job. He told these prospective adoptive parents to honor their promises because they were making a "sacred covenant" with their children's other parents. He told them women considering adoption were prospective parents, just like them, no more, no less. They were parents for life, no matter what semantics we use to play otherwise. He made the social workers and birth moms cry. He did what I could not. He talked to people and tried to open their hearts, minds, and eyes that I had decided were beyond reaching. I felt like it was not only not worth my time, but maybe advocating adoption in a way I'm now uneasy about. Bert took it and made it revolutionary in the way that I no longer had in me.

See, I'm not the only one who has evolved.

Three

1) Things I wish I had

• Perfect vision.
• The ability to understand technology and programs easily.
• This couch. Three reasons I won't get it ? Money (well, duh), the fact that it's linen and I have more pets and children than hands (not a good combo with white linen), and I really don't need a new couch. I've been haunting thrift and second-hand stores looking for new furniture. It's leaking over into looking at real new furniture. Nothing will come of it.

2) Lessons I've learned about parenting

• Your kids don't remember the ridiculous amount of stuff you do when they are young. I was telling my children how I really felt like we were better parents when they were little and took them to parks, went on bike rides, read to them all the time, played pretend games with them. Their response ? " We did all that ? "  My advice to you with young progeny is to tell them you did that stuff, but really set them in front of Barney with a mac-and-cheese IV drip and live your life. They won't know any different.
• That you don't know PMS until you are on the other side of it with a teenager. No wonder my mother drank.
• Don't stress yourself out about your kid's education from pre-school to college. Seriously. I've mindfucked am I doing the right thing about school so much I should have a degree in it. Your kid is going to be fine, sometimes their educational opportunities are above average, sometimes not so much. In the end, I think it's more your kid's motivation and interest that really matters in school. I'm happy my kids went to a wonderful elementary and junior high school, but I'm not sure if they'd gone to an "okay" one it would've changed their lives. Same goes with high school and college. I'm going to start having more faith in my kids than worrying about the school.

3) Ways being  a working parent is different.

• This year Mas wants to be Harry Potter. Now, in the interest of frugality, I've spent years making costumes, searching store to store looking for the best price for this piece of a costume or that, borrowing pieces. This year was different. I walked itno the Halloween store, found a great costume for easily 3 times more than I ever spend on a costume and went "fuck it" and put it in the cart. I told Bert my time was worth so much because of I have so little of it now and I didn't care if it was cheaper somewhere else. I was done and he had a costume he loved. Of course picking him up from a play date, another mother had to tell me that it was less money at such and such store and even that was too expensive, and she told her kid he couldn't be Harry Potter. I smiled and thought,  "you didn't hear a damn thing I said, did you?"
• I am consciously making time to see a couple of friends every week. My extended family has breakfast every Sunday. I think making the same type of commitment to my friends is what I need because time is so crazy. Seeing friends used to be part of my parenting. My kids are too big and I work too many hours for that to be true anymore.
• I get a lot more done. Laundry is finished in one day. The kitchen is cleaned in twenty minutes, because I know there will be no "later" to be found. Dinner is actually more important than ever before, the food isn't as good, but I'm really proud that we started the "we eat together" every night rule a long, long time ago.

Damn, it's a long time.

Twenty-four years ago today B and I met. Twenty three years and 362 days ago we moved in together. We've pretty much been together ever since.

Yes, that's right, we met on Saturday, and I was living at his place on Tuesday. Hey, I'm not a slut, it was the third date. Nice girls wait til third date. Really nice girls start talking babies and marriage and scaring the shit out of the boy who just thinks it might be a roll in the hay. But by Thanksgiving, he knew too. Or pretended to know, so I'd stick around. Come June, he put a ring on it.

The night we met, one of my employees (I ran a salon then) was having a party. I was told I was welcome to come, but I wasn't her boss or anyone else's at the party, so I'd best ignore the goings that wouldn't meet the approval of the big boss.

She had a single male friend she thought I would like. I was sitting at a table talking to him when B came by and asked if anyone wanted a beer. I told him yes and said "anything but Coors." He turned and looked at me and said "You've got good politics." I stood up, walked away from the guy I was supposed to meet to continue the conversation with the one I was really supposed to meet. We talked and drank til 4 a.m.  We tried on wigs. We were photographed. We laughed. I drove him home and he ran in his house and wrote my number on a piece of newspaper.

The next day I called my mom and said I was going to marry him. He called that day and said the so smooth line "so, you wanna hang out ? "

We've been hanging out ever since.

Home

We've moved,  we're now calling somewhere else "home." Well, that's not quite true. We still pretty much refer to different abodes as "old house" and "new house."  However, I'm convinced that "home" will spring from someone's lips shortly.

Last Saturday night, the landlord moved the last of her stuff out and gave us the keys. B, Rory, Mal and I came over with a few things and cleaned and surveyed the new homestead. The kitchen has (or rather had) wallpaper that just wasn't my taste. The landlord had been gracious enough to say "do anything cosmetic you want." So, I'd been here 20 minutes and the most offensive of the wallpaper was gone. I'm finishing the rest this weekend. Or next. Soon.

Moving a huge house's stuff into a really large house is a task. It's like squeezing into that size 9.5 sandal when your feet are really 10's. Your heel hangs out the back a bit. We're so lucky to find a place this big at this price, but there are still concessions when you've got 6 people and all of the things that it takes to make them feel adequate through materialism.

The first concession is that Mal has no bedroom. She has a closet. It's a big closet, but it's still a closet. She has begun referring to it as "my Harry Potter closet." She leaves for school in 16 days. Gulp. Not that I'm counting, or trying to turn back the clock or really am in denial because if I think about it, it's 15.

The house is chaos. First, there are boxes everywhere. Some full, some empty, some that's contents should've been sent to St. Vincents. I keep trying to find little bits of serenity, like setting up the kitchen and having it clean. However, the move has not transformed the children into magical fairies who clean up after themselves, so it's chaos too.

Last night, I insisted we set up the deck so I would have one place that didn't make me feel in flux. It looks good except for the fact that I now have one deck and used to have three. There is a lot of stuff that will have to go somewhere else. Says the spoiled whiny woman with first world problems.

Anyway, we are here. I should write something about leaving behind the door where I'd mark my kid's heights for the last 7 years. It wasn't as painful as I had anticipated. Last time we left a door frame the same way in a previous house. The new owner told me she was not going to paint over it, but add her kid's to it. That made me smile. That won't happen in the old house. The people are older and do not have children. They will likely paint over it right away. Which is fine. Last night when B and I walked through it, it was empty, clean and echoey - not our house at all. 

We're moving on in more ways than one.

Catch Up

So, it appears we have sold the house (knock virtual wood).  We still have to get through appraisal and closing, but all systems point to go.

It hasn't been easy. We sold in 30 days exactly, which is great for this market. However, we made significant adjustments to price. We alternate between happy, sad, relieved and pissed off. In the end, we've achieved our goal. We're moving before school starts again.

We've found a great (really great) rental, with a wonderful landlord who is treating us so great I can't believe it. It's a fresh start I feared we wouldn't get. Kinda shocked we're this lucky.

Bert is preparing for school to start at the end of August.

We're enjoying the last days before we take Mal to school next month.

Mas went to sleep away camp and LOVED it.

Rory is working and receiving not only a paycheck, but a plethora of kudos for her bosses and customers alike. She has hilarious stories and she needs to start a blog, but you know fired at 16 for talking about work on the internet seems like a bad way to start your career life.

Lin? Well Lin is bored as hell, because we planned nothing for her to do but be bored this summer. Mission accomplished.

Me? Well, I've had some blogger meet-ups. I've read a book or two. I've been trying to figure out how to get our groove back.

In the end, it looks like we will be okay.