Two Adopt Two

Executive Function

2011-12-28T13:35:00.001-05:00

I think I'm the only person in my family with a functioning prefrontal cortex. *sigh*

This past November, I heard Dr. Adele Raade speak on executive function disorders. To use her metaphor, the prefrontal cortex of the human brain is like an orchestra conductor. It coordinates the complex music of all we do. When a child's growth is disrupted--for instance by adoption--the maturation of the prefrontal cortex is often disrupted too. A child with an immature or malfunctioning prefrontal cortex can seem disorganized, forgetful, or impulsive, to name a few traits.

These three traits describe both my kids. They also describe Peter.

K has the messiest room I have ever seen, with the possible exception of another girl her age also adopted as a toddler. This is not by preference: she finds it frustrating. She can't clean it. Whereas M can make groups of things and understand where to put them, K seems unable to see these relationships. (She can't synopsize a story, either.) She mashes dirty and clean clothes into her stuffed animal bin, tosses library books into her hamper, stuffs jewelry into any space it fits. While cleaning, she gets so overwhelmed that she will let herself be distracted by any object she encounters--and yes, distractibility is another sign of immature executive function. She has misplaced so many school assignments that I no longer allow her to do homework out of my sight, and even then there is no guarantee that her finished work won't get lost on the way to school.

Peter has the same issues.

M, on the other hand, sees clutter and can group things in order to prevent it. His challenges are forgetfulness and impulsiveness. This is a guy who stops chewing in mid-bite, takes 20-minute showers but forgets the soap, and puts his clothes on backwards when he gets them on at all. His teacher thinks he scored unusually low on his last academic assessment because he got distracted by the pretty patterns he could make with the little ovals. K has a great memory--usually for desserts--but M has honestly forgotten his own name. His first name.

Peter, same. Except for the name thing.

Adele Raade says that parents can help kids like this by "being the prefrontal cortex." Using cleverness and endless repetition, we help develop other parts of their brains to take over these tasks. For example, M being an auditory guy, I make up rhymes that we can chant to help him remember things. K loves numbers and patterns, so I help her clean her room by going around in a circle like a clock face.

With Peter? Still working on how to help him.

I enjoy using my creativity to help the people I love, but feeling that I'm the only person whose brain I can depend on really gets to me sometimes. Peter and I, being adults, have agreed to seek counseling together. (We like counseling.) But we've got a lot to learn to figure out how to help our kids. Fortunately, we're well enough connected that we have confidence that we will find what we need.

Permission from the Subjects

2011-12-27T12:57:00.000-05:00

Just thought I'd let you know: I asked K and M for their permission to keep this blog up and keep writing on it, and they delightly said YES. They have spefically asked that I include many of the stories I already written. They send their best wishes to other adopted children and hope that adoptive parents out there "do good learning."

Hard Fall, Hoping for Easier Winter

2011-12-27T11:47:00.000-05:00

My lack of posting here is a clue that fall was difficult for me. But I think winter will turn out to be easier.

The rundown:
-I got laid off from the research assistant job.
-My mom had back surgery. (Don't worry; she recovered beautifully.)
-We lost heat and power in our house for 4 days from a freak October snowstorm.
-I contracted h. pylori, the bacterium that causes ulcers, and had pain for three weeks.
-Therefore, I took antibiotics for two weeks, which caused diarrhea for three.
-Peter changed jobs and therefore his schedule.
-I contracted a cold which reawakened my asthma.

As you might guess, I've been extremely tired. Usually a gym rat, I've worked out only a handful of times since mid-October. Grocery shopping knocks me flat. I've spent my days doing only essential tasks, which sometimes include naps.

But things could be worse. Remember my pheumonia three years ago, when K was in kindergarten and M in preschool and I had only 8 child-free hours per week? That was worse.

The good news: This past weekend, I got to sleep late three mornings. My breathing is good most of the day now. It's school vacation, so the kids have no homework, which means I don't have to scramble to get them through it while managing their activities and putting dinner on the table. Best of all, Peter's getting home for most of dinner most of the time. This makes us all happy. So I think things are looking up.

Easier

2011-10-24T15:48:00.000-04:00

Yes. It's gotten easier.

If anyone you know is at their wits' end with toddlers or preschoolers, please let them know: parenting gets easier. I think even parents whose kids have special needs will find that the kids will eventually reach an age when less needs to be done for them, when they understand more, when the parents don't have to fear every minute for every breakable object in the house.

K and M are able to follow insructions now--even M, who has a history of not retaining them. They bathe themselves, brush their own teeth, gather their backpack items every morning for school. They've got friends who like having them over. They understand homework as a top priority and no longer fight about doing it.

What's hard now is managing all the things they do. In addition to nightly homework--and longer-term projects for 3rd-grader K--they have religious school, soccer (M), and sewing classes (K). Our rule is that you get to pick only one activity outside of religious school; unfortunately, M's soccer turned out to be three days a week. (We did not know this when we signed him up.) So I am driving a lot, freezing on the soccer field, cooking dinners early in the day to reheat immediately when we get home. Additionally, I have been hired as a one-day-a-week psychology research assistant, which is great, but planning for that one day when I can't be wife-and-mom is hard. I look forward to the end of soccer season in a few weeks.

Outside School: Year 5

2011-09-27T15:00:00.000-04:00

M and K show their exuberance in wanting to participate in every after-school activity that comes their way. We decided to limit them to one activity besides religious school. For this season, K chose sewing lessons and M chose soccer.

K the athlete? Sewing lessons? Oh, yes. She'd been begging for them since age 6. I tell people that she has put stitches in everything she owns and can get a needle into. She does my mending for me--badly, and she won't take instruction, but she enjoys it. Fortunately for our clothes and textiles, a local mom runs a sewing studio in which she gives children's classes. K is ecstatic every Tuesday because she gets to go. She's working on her first project, a machine-sewed pillowcase.

M's soccer is ridiculously time-consuming, but that's how soccer is where we live. He plays games Sunday afternoons, attends team practice Thursday nights at dusk, and does extra learning at a mixed-team-coed skills academy Mondays after school. It seems to me I am always sitting on the sidelines, swatting mosquitoes. M loves every minute, and I can see from his interactions with the other boys that he's found common ground with them, that--as Peter told me would happen--sport is providing him with more social skills. M has always been well-liked, but he's sometimes a little too weird for some boys: a little too imaginative, a little too clownish. On the soccer field, he's a good enough sportsman that he can drop the weirdness if he chooses. Understand: we don't want him to STOP the weirdness, just learn alternate ways to relate to his peers in case he needs to. Peter is a weird guy, but he knows how to behave conventionally if he must. That kind of skill.

And me? I am as usual doing too much. Providing support to the household by cooking and shopping and organizing and maintaining the computers and interacting with contractors and so on. Volunteering as the "Audio Consultant" for an online audio literary magazine. Serving on the board of our CSA. Editing our synagogue's literary magazine. New this year: training to be a research assistant for a local quality-of-life research foundation. And, oh yeah, writing the book I've been working on forever. And writing this blog.

School: Year 5

2011-09-27T14:41:00.000-04:00

K is now in third grade, M in second. And, my G-d, how they have grown. I joked yesterday that maybe the adoption agency gave us an upgrade.

Neither child argues when it's time for homework.
Both children can read independently (though M could use more practice aloud).
Both children wake up in time for school (M doesn't go back to sleep!).
Both children finish their morning chores so quickly that they have 20 minutes to play.
Both children are reasonable human beings at the end of the school day.
Neither child has yet broken his or her glasses.

I'm told that these years are the parenting "sweet spot" when one's children have the skills to be physically easy to care for but aren't yet caught up in the emotional difficulties of adolescence. I believe it. Peter and I are parenting now, I think, more to support their general growth than to teach them concepts like "this is how to behave in a family" and "we are a family forever."

"General growth"? What's that?

Academic: Making sure they understand that school is their job and they must take pride in it. They must do their best work with minimal adult help and take whatever consequences follow.

Para-academic: Helping them manage time (including letting them make bad choices), teaching them how to keep track of assignments and belongings (including letting some get lost or forgotten)

Physical: Keeping a strict and early bedtime, offering a variety of healthy food choices, providing lots of opportunity for physical activity, limiting screen time (TV & computer time), making sure they have at least some clothes they haven't outgrown since last week

Social: Making suggestions, when asked, about how to cope with difficult classmates, but not intervening; providing venues for social interaction outside school--some supervised, some not

Spiritual: Continuing to practice and discuss our religion, maintaining a presence at the synagogue, supporting religious schooling as much as secular

Emotional: Listening, cuddling, stopping whatever we're doing to make eye contact, giving spontaneous and heartfelt praise; meting out thoughtful discipline when needed

So far, it's a good year for M & K.

"Single" Married Parent

2011-08-16T15:34:00.000-04:00

No, our marriage is fine. But the kids couldn't get to sleep last night because they heard me yelling. They asked this morning whether we're going to "get unmarried." My answer: "Absolutely not."

I was yelling at Peter for letting yet another major household task fall through the cracks instead of telling me he couldn't handle it. His lack of delegation has been an issue for all ten years we've been together, and lately it's been worse. It's been worse for a good reason: he's been consumed by the process of securing the job he expects to move into. He has many ADD behaviors, though he's never been diagnosed; at present, he seems to have the typical hyperfocus. I have rarely complained about picking up the slack when he's dropped tasks without telling me, but last night my dam burst.

Why? He has let slide a home repair project that will probably involve taking out a kitchen window and rebuilding the ceiling above it and the floor below. We use the room daily. It cannot be shut off from the rest of the house. Since it's a repair of water damage, mold might be involved. Being asthmatic, I really wanted this repair to be made while the whether was warm enough for lots of ventilation. Being the mom, I also wanted it done over the summer, not during the school year. I had said as much to Peter. Several times. And he had promised to find and contact a specific contractor, the favorite of a very knowledgeable person. I suppose I could have stepped in and done it, but my experience has been that contractors prefer to talk to "the husband," at least at first. And Peter kept telling me he'd get to it "tomorrow." When he finally did--yesterday--all my anger about the situation came out.

FYI, I have taken on the next step in the project. And--yeah--the contractor isn't calling me back.

Managing gracefully when a spouse fumbles is a skill I guess all parents have to learn when they're parenting with a partner. Peter and I refuse to badmouth each other to our kids, but the kids can see when we're angry. Since Peter's the one who's most often home later than he says he will be, the one less familiar with household routine, the less methodical one, the more forgetful one, the kids more often see my anger with him than his with me. But they still adore him, so I guess I'm not giving too bad an impression. After all, I adore him too. Usually, I think of his ADD as a gift that keeps him in the "now" much better than my planning-and-remembering brain can manage. That gift enables him to make me--and the kids--feel deeply loved.

Do I resent spending so much of my energy planning and remembering for another adult when I'd like to use it, say, writing my book? Yeah. Do I know how to help M and K NOT grow up thinking their father is an absentminded professor or a buffoon? Not yet. But do I think the differences between Peter and me show our kids that people can learn to work together even though they get angry? Yeah. For adopted kids especially, we think this is a good family lesson.

Successes and Failures

2011-07-26T11:07:00.000-04:00

Peter has had success in his job search: he's interviewing for positions that he did not even know he was qualified for. Gotta love insightful recruiters. The good news is that some of the positions would put us on a much better financial footing than we currently are. The ones that don't pay as well would afford Peter more time, which he could spend either at home or moonlighting to earn more.

K has had success socially: she had her first sleepover. Last week we took our annual extended-family vacation in northern New England, and K slept over with my brother's family. Admittedly we were right next door, but even so it was a big deal. She did very well; felt only a little homesick; behaved nicely. This coming spring, K will have a 3rd-grade religious school retreat, so we want her to have a few sleepover experiences before then. We're glad her first one was happy. For the record, M (age 7) does not want to try sleepovers at all yet.

I have not had success. I have had, instead, three rejection letters since I last posted here, all for different pieces of writing. Okay. Try, try, again.

One Way To Cope

2011-07-26T10:57:00.000-04:00

We haven't heard from Mama A., the kids' Russian caregiver, since the first March we had them. She called our home with the assistance of her niece, who translated. Peter was home, so he took the call, and he neglected to get Mama A.'s phone number so we could call her back. Meanwhile, our letters go unanswered and our packages get returned. Our adoption agency has not been helpful, but we could be leaning on them harder, so that's our next tactic.

Meanwhile, K has decided that Mama A. is dead. "Why else would she not answer our letters?"

For Sale

2011-07-06T20:21:00.000-04:00

M drew a box around himself in the driveway and labeled it, "M-- for 1 bolr" (dollar). He stood in it grinning and asked me to take his picture. Then he drew another box labeled, "M-- tuken" (taken). He had me take his picture looking sad.

Then he asked me, "When you adopted me, how much did I cost?"

I did what any sensitive parent would do in such a situation. I stalled. I said, "What?"

He repeated the question.

I had actually thought about what I would say when (not if) the kids got around to asking. I told him what I tell every adult who is rude enough to ask me. "You didn't cost anything," I said. "You can't buy a person. What we paid for was the adoption agency's help in finding you. You were so far away that we couldn't do it ourselves."

He nodded, drawing a bull's-eye. Then he asked, "But how much?"

I was about to say, "I don't remember," when he clarified his question: "More than a googol dollars?

"No," I said. "Less than that. Just enough. But we would have paid everything we had to find you."

He hugged me, and that was that.

Why More Chores?

2011-07-01T16:37:00.000-04:00

Someone wrote to me asking this question in reference to the last post. I think it's a great question. I'll try to answer.

1. Because M and K have difficulty with school work. They have a hard time succeeding at most tasks that involve reading, and they don't seem to believe they've done well even when we praise them to the skies. Physical work is something they're both good at and find it easy to believe they do well. They can get jobs done and accept praise for this sort of work more easily than they can for school work.

2. Because, being adopted within their memories, they sometimes aren't sure they're part of the family. Doing work that helps all of us is invaluable for their sense of belonging.

3. Because they volunteer for every job we need to do. I'm not kidding. We can't let them help with everything, so we want to carve out jobs for which they alone are responsible.

Lest you worry that we intend to work our kids to exhaustion--don't. Growing up, I sometimes had enough chores to stifle my social life; we don't want to go that far. But we do want our kids to feel that they are an important part of a functioning team.

We do use physical labor as a disciplinary device, but gently, and we only assign jobs that really need doing. We say something like, "Honey, I love you, but it's been draining my energy that you keep spilling soup on the rug because you aren't sitting when you eat. You can give me back my energy by cleaning the kitchen rug before the end of the week." (We assign the chore but let the child choose when.) Usually, learning to do a new task thrills the child. Completing it and seeing what a difference it made are further thrills. Finally, the child loves it when the chore is done and the offense is forgotten.

Although my chore burden was sometimes heavy as a child, I don't recall resenting my chores except in one circumstance: when it seemed they didn't make a difference. For example, I couldn't stand vacuuming a room that already looked clean. Fortunately, our family is pretty messy. Any cleaning chores we assign really make the cleaner feel satisfied.

Chores

2011-06-22T10:01:00.009-04:00

Peter and I believe that all kids need to work around the house. We're also acquainted with the theory that adopted kids benefit from chores because having jobs that help the family increases their feeling of inclusion. The problem is, we're having trouble thinking of chores that will genuinely help but that aren't so critical that we'll suffer if they're forgotten or done badly.

K and M are already responsible for washing, dressing, and grooming themselves. They are expected to keep their beds more or less made and their rooms habitable. They put away their washed, folded laundry. They alternate setting and clearing the dinner table. They are each responsible for a room they use a lot: K their shared bath and M the "TV room" (playroom annex). ("Being responsible for" = keeping neat, including getting your sibling to put away his or her own things.) They are together responsible for the playroom. But we feel we need more.

When I was K's age (8), I vacuumed regularly and was taught to clean bathrooms. (Peter had none. We feel this explains a lot.) And yes, I had time to do these in addition to three-days-a-week Hebrew school and daily piano practice. I would like to assign both our kids similar chores, but we have a weekly cleaning service who take care of the critical jobs. And I do mean "critical": we're the type who have to wear surgical masks while dusting. We feel the kids are too young, and consistency too important, for us to cancel the cleaning service at this point. We think we'll reduce or cancel it when they're older. Likewise the lawn-mowing service. (And FYI, we use locally owned services that pay fair wages to their employees, who are legal immigrants.)

Given these facts, here are our ideas. The jobs we've thought of so far include:
-Setting and clearing the table.
-Sweeping the kitchen daily.
-Restocking the paper/tissue/paper towel supplies in bathrooms and kitchen.
-Watering plants.
-Cleaning marks off of walls. (Our cleaning service ignores them.)
-Cleaning up the yard. Would segue into keeping the garage neat.
-Taming the living room newspaper clutter by straightening them up and bagging them for recycling.
-Cleaning the "kids'" bathroom and vacuuming their most-used play areas between cleaning service visits--mostly for training purposes, but also because they really can get gross.
-Using a "chore wheel" or jar so nobody has the same chores all the time.

We will hold out a few things as paid work and/or disciplinary jobs ("You drained my energy by doing [x]; please help me get it back by doing [y] at a time of your choosing"):
-Cleaning out the fridges.
-Weeding.
-Washing the cars.
-Shoveling snow.
-Cleaning between outer and inner windows.
-Vacuuming with a special allergen dry-cleaner. (At present, the cleaning service and I handle this.)

What do you have your kids do? What did you have them do when they were 7 and 8? What did you do yourself?

Loophole

2011-06-21T11:50:00.000-04:00

M, who has a vivid imagination, has always been prone to nightmares. They haven't wakened him screaming or otherwise disrupted our family life, but he does prefer to sleep with the light on.

M's emotional baggage, like that of many orphanage-raised kids, includes a block that prevents him from asking adults for help during the night. We did train him to call out when he wet his bed, but he generally refrains from summoning us for any other reason despite our best efforts. He endures his nightmares alone.

I have frequent nightmares myself. My heart goes out to him.

Some months back, I suggested he start noticing when he was dreaming. (One of the ways I cope is to notice and wake myself.) So every time he reported a nightmare, I would ask, "Did you know you were having one?"

After a while, he began to say yes.

At that point, I suggested he either wake himself up or make something different happen in the dream.

Recently, he's begun reporting that he "ran away and hid from the bad guys" in his nightmares. Even better, sometimes he calls Peter in "to fight them" while he's hiding.

So yesterday he told me with a big grin on his face, "You know what, Mom? Last night I realized I was dreaming, and I decided to break a whole bunch of rules. I dreamed I snuck into the kitchen and stole some candy, then drove the car a hundred and fifty miles per hour!"

I was delighted to hear it. He's always asking about what will happen if he breaks rules. I didn't say so, but I had long hoped he'd figure out that dreams are a great place to carry out experiments that really ought not to happen in real life.

Damaged Relationship

2011-06-03T21:40:00.000-04:00

To illustrate what has happened to M's trust in this teacher, I give you the following.

The other day, M reported to me that some kids often shove him first thing in the morning, before the teacher steps into the classroom. "They're showing off their Star Wars watches and stuff, and when I want to see they push me out of the way really hard, and it hurts."

Once I got over my surprise that the kids were unsupervised, I asked whether he had told his teacher.

"No."

I asked, "Will you?"

He said, "No. I'm too embarrassed."

I asked why, and he couldn't explain. I thought for a minute, then asked, "If you had last year's teacher, would you be able to tell her?"

He happily said, "Oh, yes! I could tell her."

"And your teachers from preschool?"

"Yeah, Mom. Just not my teacher now."

There you have it.

I am not over my own anger enough to talk with M about the advantages of learning young to deal with difficult teachers. But that talk is right around the corner. Just let me finish punching this wall....

Fiction becomes Nonfiction

2011-06-03T21:33:00.001-04:00

M received a school assignment that disturbed him. "Write about what it would be like to visit cousins living in another country. You don't speak their language, so how do you talk to them? How do you tell them you want to play outside? When you're ready to leave, how do you tell them you had a good time?"

M is in first grade. Aside from the difficulty of the assignment for a child of this grade, M is in the unusual situation of having such a story be NONfiction. When he came here, he met cousins with whom he did not share a language. He had to communicate daily with preschool peers who didn't speak Russian. So how did he react when given this assignment? He refused to do it. He curled up in a little ball and rocked. He wouldn't say a word.

My last entry described how M's teacher doesn't seem to understand how trauma affects kids. The assignment I described above was given for a sensible reason--they'd been imagining visiting schoolchildren in Japan--but, geez, did she have to give the assignment worded that way?

Now, Peter and I don't want the world to adapt to our kids; we want our kids to learn to adapt to their world, which is not always friendly. So I really wasn't sure how to handle this assignment. But M's reaction and my disgust with the teacher's callousness made me decide to offer M an alternative assignment. After all, the teacher had once said that the real purpose of these at-home stories was simply to get the kids to love writing. M clearly didn't love writing about this topic, so I felt it was within my rights to allow him to choose another. When I told him this, he uncurled and started a draft of a story about a tiger meeting a mouse.

The following morning, I casually asked M and K at breakfast what it had been like to attend preschool without being able to speak much English. K said, "Fine. I just played with everybody." But M said, "Embarrassing. Some kids made fun of me."

I hadn't known that. I told him I was sorry that had happened and I gave him a hug.

That afternoon, I read the scary assignment to him again. I left out the part about visiting "cousins." He responded, "Mom, that's so easy! I can do that!"

"Great!" I said. He took out his favorite pencil and started to write. I asked, "Do you know why you couldn't do it yesterday?"

"Because it was too hard yesterday," he replied.

Must be nice to be 7, I thought. A hug from Mom can solve your problems.

By the way, the teacher's response to all this? "Overcoming difficulty is part of learning."

A Joke Taken The Wrong Way

2011-06-03T21:14:00.001-04:00

I never did write about what happened last week with that phone call from the assistant principal. That's because it has taken me all this past week to cool off.

Last Monday, as I was settling in to the Brazil book again, on the living room computer with the great big monitor with a mug of my favorite tea, feeling inspired and happy, the phone rang. It was the school. So I had to answer.

"Mrs. Blicher? It's Mrs. M-- [the assistant principal]. Ordinarily, I wouldn't have a student in my office for this reason, but...." and she proceeded to tell me the following:

Apparently M had met a classmate when they were passing on the way to the restroom. M had spied the girl and decided to make a joke he had made at home, which was to climb the stairs and claim he was going "on a field trip." We laughed at home, but this girl didn't get the joke. She returned to the classroom before M and reported it to the teacher. Upon M's return to the classroom, the teacher took M aside--in the hall, alone--and asked him what had happened. M said, "I went up the stairs."

"And what did you tell [this other student]?" asked the teacher.

M said, "I said I was going upstairs."

So the teacher sent him to the assistant principal for lying.

When M got to the assistant principal, she asked him what he'd told this classmate and his teacher. He answered, "I forgot."

So she gave him a consequence for lying to her, which was to miss recess.

After school, I asked M about the incident. I watched his pupils dilate and then return to normal size as he moved in and out of panic during the conversation. He did not report the "field trip" joke accurately, but he told me everything else. He did not deny anything. When I asked why he told the assistant principal he'd forgotten what his teacher told him, he said, "I didn't understand what [my teacher] said. I was too scared. But I was embarrassed to tell [the assistant principal]."

*sigh* We met with the assistant principal and M's teacher the following day. The teacher described M as "stiff, standing very straight, not wanting to speak" when she pulled him out of class to talk with him about the joke.

"That posture means he was terrified," I said. "And when he's terrified, his abilty to process spoken language goes out the window. Therefore, so does his memory of conversations. He was not lying when he said he forgot what you said." I felt amazed that she, educated in the behavior of children, would not have known this. I went on to repeat what M said about "not understanding" what the teacher said and being too embarrassed to say so even to the assistant principal, whom he likes.

So I explained for what felt like the hundredth time that M and his sister are not just adopted kids, but kids adopted "older." When the assistant principal interrupted me to point out how wonderful the school is about accepting and celebrating each student's heritage, I agreed that it is but continued, "Don't think of M-- as adopted at 2 years 9 months, okay? Think of him as TRAUMATIZED at age 2 years, 9 months. Imagine his parents died in a car crash or something. Recent research indicates..." I dusted off my psycho-neuro-linguistic vocabulary to explain how kids who have had the world yanked out from under them will panic in situations when kids who haven't will just get annoyed. "Check M--'s pupils the next time you pull him aside like that," I told his teacher. "If they're dilated, he's panicking. His front brain isn't working."

In front of Peter and me, the assistant principal proceeded to give the teacher a few instructions for dealing with M when he's frightened. "Let him calm down--touch his shoulder, talk softly, tell him you're not angry--and try again when his eyes return to normal," she said. I added that M might respond better if her face is at his eye-level. The teacher seemed willing to try.

The meeting ended amicably enough, but I feel worried. And grateful that the school year is ending soon so M can get out of this teacher's classroom.

The Book, FYI

2011-05-08T16:03:00.000-04:00

In case you're interested. Skip this entry if you want to read more about my kids.

The book-in-progress is about my experiences as a non-medical volunteer on a medical project that goes to the Amazon region of Brazil. Traveling by boat, sleeping in hammocks, braving deadly tropical diseases, all that stuff. I went the first time in 2002 because I'd just gotten engaged to Peter, who had long volunteered as faculty on the project: I didn't want him to think I was a wimp. At the end of that first trip, I knew I wanted to write a book, so I studied Portuguese and bought a waterproof laptop and returned twice more. I took the medical school pre-course. I learned to run the pharmacy at our field clinics, eventually working without a translator. I worked days as a pharmacist and sat up nights writing notes. I spent a month at a writers colony sorting and transcribing everything. Finally, I spent a year writing the book proposal with which I hoped to attract a literary agent who would then try to sell my idea to a publisher.

Two weeks after I finished the proposal, we got our adoption referral. It came six months earlier than we'd expected, and was for two preschoolers instead of one baby. So I shoved the proposal in a drawer and prepared for kamikaze parenthood.

It's been almost 4 and a half years since I became a mom, and I'm working again on the book. This is hard to do because, as anyone working on a large project will appreciate, I can't get my mind oriented to it in the time I have for it. Being the primary parent of two children consumes my time and energy. It doesn't help that Peter works 50-90 hours a week. Nor does being so short on cash that we can't pay for a lot of things that would save me time.

Anyway, I hope to write more entries here about managing a creative life while parenting. At very least, I hope my experiences will provide others with the valuable advice: "Don't try this at home!"

Happy Mothers Day

2011-05-08T15:23:00.000-04:00

You read that right. There is no apostrophe. I believe that kids like mine, who have multiple mothers, really shouldn't need to think about an apostrophe.

After being wakened this morning by M bouncing a ball outside our bedroom--and Peter not stopping him--I received cards from the family and then went to the gym. Peter did religious school duty. Following class, we all convened at the synagogue, where K's class, now second graders, received their very own prayerbooks with covers lovingly, secretly made by parents and personal blessings inscribed inside the front cover. Ours to K:

[American name]
[Hebrew name]
[Russian name]
No matter what name you use, always remember that you are known and loved by all of us and by God. May you go forward in life with a full and happy heart.

K loved the blessing, loved the book cover with birds and butterflies on it, loved being able to follow the English and Hebrew inside the book, loved the whole occasion. M, who kept complaining he was bored during the brief ceremony, later confessed to feeling jealous. Until we told him it'll be his turn next year.

The best Mothers Day gift I've received actually was given to me last weekend. I attended a writers conference, but that wasn't all. Peter and I spent every spare minute smoothing out the harsh words we'd traded the previous week, but that wasn't all either. It so happened that a panel of agents and editors trashed my pitch for the book I've been working on for the last nine years. I know such things happen to all writers, even those whose work eventually succeeds wildly. But I still felt just awful afterwards. When I came home for the night, the house was empty. No little feet ran to greet me; nobody leaped out of a corner to give me an "attack" hug. I felt so depressed that I dragged myself into the bedroom, lay down, and stared at a wall. The familiar demons of loneliness and worthlessness gnawed at me. I didn't even have the spunk to throw myself out a window.

Then the phone rang. It was Peter telling me he and the kids would be an hour later than planned on their way back from the zoo. He asked how I was, and I told him. He asked what I was doing, and I told him that, too. Then he had to hang up in order to drive.

Five minutes later, he called back. He was driving, but he'd settled into a long, straight road with perfect visibility and few other cars. "So how're you feeling now?" he asked. And he kept me company the entire drive home. My husband, too often physically and mentally absent from my life, was now emotionally present with me when I desperately needed him. Gently, with the compassion and perceptiveness for which I married him, he stayed with me until I felt ready to hang up.

At one point, he passed the phone to K in the back seat. (M was sleeping.) She asked, "Mom, when are you coming home?"

"I'm home right now, honey," I said. "I'm waiting for you."

She said, "YAY!"

I thought, My own personal cheering section.

When my family walked through the door ten minutes later and threw their arms around me, my demons fled. I thought, This is why I have a family. All the energy I expend for them? It comes back multiplied.

Made it to Thursday: Brief update

2011-05-05T15:36:00.000-04:00

The bad:
-having my book idea (9 years' work) trashed at the literary conference I attended over the weekend
-getting a call from the school's assistant principal about trouble with M

The good:
-feeling supported by my writing teachers and by Peter
-talking out the school trouble with said assistant principal and M's teacher
-talking out with Peter everything we fought about last week

Now:
-I am not feeling anywhere near as depressed as I was.

Still Here

2011-04-29T21:11:00.000-04:00

Thanks for making the contract with me. Sorry I didn't make it by sundown, though.

I've had a strenuous few days--just getting through them, I mean; nothing momentous happened here.

This afternoon before dinner, lost in my own psychic pain, I began worrying that I would not be able to function as a member of my family anymore. Then something wonderful happened: K came up the stairs and gave me a hug, just like always. And suddenly I was Mom, somebody I could recognize, an identity I have assumed in the years since my major depression. I know how to be Mom. When M came upstairs and asked whether he could give me a hug too, I said that there was honestly nothing I would like better.

It had never previously dawned on me that my children could bring me back when I feel lost.

Afterwards we had Shabbat dinner as usual, candles and blessings and all. A little while later, Peter and I shared the intimacy of--get this--combing out K's lice together. Yeah, it wasn't our favorite way of spending time together, but it gave me more faith that I'm not alone in all the work of parenting.

I feel relaxed and sleepy now, so off to bed I go. I'll check in again soon. I'm at a writers conference this weekend, from which I will either have time to write or none at all.

Weather Report: Storms

2011-04-27T13:05:00.000-04:00

I gave you the news in the last entry; now the weather. I am depressed. In the last 48h I have felt worse than I've felt in about 17 years.

Last night, I was astonished to find I wanted to inflict harm on myself. I used to work as a crisis counselor, and I have had these feelings before, so I knew what to do. I ascertained that I did not have a plan nor any intention of making one; then I paged Peter and my therapist and made a contract with both to keep myself safe, which I had no trouble keeping. I went through the motions of bedtime with the kids, who sensed something was wrong ("You used to have a big smile, Mom. Why is it upside-down?" asked M), then had a phone session with the therapist. Peter and I talked, too. I feel perfectly safe today; don't scan the headlines. Anyone observing me would think I look preoccupied, as though nursing some painful injury. I am. I feel there's a battle going on inside me, and I'm always winning, but it's still taking energy.

The bright side is that my pain is not coming out of nowhere. Peter and I are feeling the economic pinch, and our coping measures aren't enough, so I may have to take a job outside the home. Peter is much better situated to change jobs than I am to get a new one, so that's one of our conflicts. I will say I'm excited by the prospect of returning to the workforce, but I worry deeply about finding the time, given that most of our cost-saving measures have increased my by-hand labor load. It would be stupid for me to work at something that eats my writing time and pays only enough for someone else to do what I can't do at home. This year, with both kids in school full time and thriving, I have finally made progress on my writing and three fulfilling volunteer projects. I have sacrificed greatly to become a family woman and am finally seeing some return, and now I risk losing the little that nourishes me. Allow me to remind you that I planned to pursue a writing career, not be a parent. Allow me also to remind you that Peter works 50-90 hours per week. My nightmares lately have ranged from screaming in public, "IT'S TOO MUCH! I CAN'T DO IT!" to breaking up with Peter before the wedding.

Anyway, that's the cause in brief. As for how I'm coping....

1. I'm so distressed that my stomach is on the fritz. This is awfully rare. I'm eating tiny, bland meals and carrying snacks because my blood sugar has been tanking quickly. When it tanks, I feel ill and get mean--not good for parenting.

2. I've resumed strict sleep hygiene. I had to do this for two years in the 90's after a terrifying bout of insomnia left me with--honest--a terror of going to bed. The act of lying down to sleep would send me into a panic. What helped then was keeping an invariable bedtime and wake time, and not letting ANYTHING stimulating happen within an hour of bedtime--no phone calls, no TV, no computer, very little reading. (Sex wasn't really an issue at that point in my life). Peter now appreciates that I need to get to bed earlier than he does if I am to wake up at the same time. He also gets that, if I stay up too late, I am not going to be productive the next day and he will need to pick up the slack.

3. Touch helps when I hurt this much, so I'm hugging and holding hands a lot.

4. I'm keeping up with exercise.

5. I'm also trying to do some kind of work every day that I find rewarding--hence writing this blog.

6. I'm listening carefully to the angry part of myself that threatens to hurt me. I understand she's protecting some other part. I am moving gently and slowly through my day, one hour at a time, and changing my actions the moment I hear her say, "STOP."

I don't feel in any danger, but allow me to make a contract with you to write again sometime before sunset Friday to let you know how things are. Thanks.

Spring Is Here

2011-04-26T12:23:00.000-04:00

...and with it, head lice. K has them for the third time, having contracted them last year about this time and again over the summer. We know the drill now; the nuisance is just doing all that laundry. Since we discovered them during Passover, we do have a joke about it: we say they're our own personal plague.

K is great about the combing-out part, by the way, even when I pull her hair by accident.

The good news is that both kids are thriving in school, reading with enough fluency to find it fun, happy to koin their friends there every day. Their mental and physical health are great.

I had both kids to myself for nearly a week earlier this month, when Peter went to a professional conference across the country. I coped by paring down my own tasks to just the essentials and by making chore check-lists for the kids. The kids now have areas of the house that they are "in charge of" in addition to their own rooms. They have to make sure those areas are presentable, and they have the authority to get the rest of us to clean up our messes there.

Both kids had birthdays in March. M turned 8 and K turned 8. We decided that they're both mature enough to handle having an allowance, so we have started giving one. Each child has a piggybank divided into four sections: one each labeled Spend, Save, Invest, and Donate. We give four quarters per week, and one quarter goes into each section. In case you were wondering, K tends to spend hers, usually on trinkets from vending machines. M says he's saving his to buy the Lego Death Star kit.

I hope the homestretch to the end of the school year will be uneventful. I am looking for paying work, so I hope to be able to concentrate on that project.

Where is the Truth?

2011-03-18T11:52:00.000-04:00

M has not brought home any money this week. He has brought home the paper that he wrote with his teacher. It says, "I will not lie. I will take only money that is given to me by my parents. I will tell Mrs. D-- if I have a problem." I have been over these points with him a couple of times, and he has always seemed happy to do so.

The lying Mrs. D refers to is when M told me that he'd notified her about he transactions in the playground. Peter and I aren't sure whether to give M a consequence for this because we don't know that M meant he'd told her when he answered my question, "Did you tell a grown-up?" He might well have told a parent playground volunteer, who might easily have coped by keeping him close to her while continuing to chat with the other volunteers, forgetting that he'd said anything. We don't want M to believe that lying about things that happen at school is okay, but we don't want to be unfair, so we're still chewing on this problem. Meanwhile, we have agreed to sharpen the question to, "Did you tell Mrs. D--?"

The supposed perpetrator, for what it's worth, did not attend M's birthday party over the weekend, even though he was on the RSVP list. The parents did not contact us to explain. Nonetheless, we did what families do in our town when a child has to miss a party: we sent a goodie bag to school for him.

We have had no further word from the school about the incidents. However, we have learned from M that the supposed perpetrator used to see the reading specialist with him but stopped a few weeks ago. Peter reports that, while the two boys used to be in the same reading group, they were separated a while back. (He knows because he volunteers with the reading groups.) M's is the more advanced group, and M has less trouble reading than this other boy. M reports that the boy began bullying him only after they were split up. Our conjecture is that this boy is ashamed he's not reading as well as M; perhaps he has an older sibling or parent who bullies him. Why is he no longer seeing the specialist if he's having trouble? Well, it's possible that his parents are refusing the extra help. It happens. We think the boy is the family's first generation raised in this country, so it's possible than in their culture of origin, it's shameful to get help. We don't and can't know, and we don't wish to disrespect the family. We don't hold anything against the child, but we are going to request that the boys be split up in next year's class assignments.

Meanwhile, I have taken M to visit his therapist so she could evaluate his understanding of truth and fiction, past and present, and so on.

A word here about how we chose a therapist. We live 45-60 minutes from several therapists and therapy practices that focus on adoption issues, yet we are not seeing any of them. We have nothing against adoption-focused therapists; we simply know we'd be reluctant to make appointments with a therapist more than 20 minutes away. Our kids have long school days and early bedtimes, so we'd have to pull them out of school, and they're having enough trouble keeping up as it is. More importantly, our gut feeling is that, right now, most of what's going on with the kids is normal processing of adoption issues piled on top of normal processing of being in first and second grade. We have therefore found a therapist skilled in, but not focusing on, adoption issues. We will change therapists if the need arises.

The kids' therapist, whom I'll call C, is about a block from my own therapist, who recommended her. They work together, which Peter and I consider a plus. Both therapists have children in or graduated from our school system, which is also a plus.We saw her regularly last year for a few months to get the kids acquainted with her and with what one does in therapy. It so happens that I had brought them in to see her two weeks back when I posted about M's daydreaming and K's attention seeking, and C had asked to see them again this week. The kids, as always, looked forward to the appointments.

At M's turn, I went into the treatment room with him and described the incident in school. C watched M while I told the story; he was casually playing with some Legos. Then C dismissed me and spoke to M alone. She fetched me 40 minutes later with a big smile on her face. "I had a lot of fun with M--," she reported. "What a great imagination!" Before I could worry that M had fabricated something awful, C went on to tell me that M has a perfect grasp of truth and fiction and he understands what motivates people to tell lies: "To keep from getting in trouble." She also said that M's adoption and previous life in Russia are very alive for him right now--in other words, in his mind, he does have a house in Russia. She suggests, as I had thought, that M mentioned it in class simply because he wanted to be like the other kids by participating in the discussion. She has no concerns about his development in this respect. She does have concerns, however, about his being bullied, so she asked to see him again.

K, by the way, seemed to be in perfectly good shape.

So what's happening now? In school, all the adults who have M and this other boy at the same time are watching them carefully. M's teacher says she will pull M aside whenever he says something she thinks is untrue. I'm concerned that she'll try to tell him various details of his life aren't true, so we're still working on this part of the problem. At home, we now ask him every day about how things are between him and this other kid and whether anyone else has bullied him; we and his therapist are trying to give him strategies for coping. Peter and I are not surprised he's being bullied--after all, he has had plenty done to him in life already, so he's used to being a target. Helping him with bullies without lessening his self-esteem is a tricky dance, so I'm studying up. If you've got recommendations, please let me know.

Do Peter and I believe M's story that this kid paid him to keep quiet? More and more, yes. Still, when M isn't looking, I check his backpack and pockets for money and salable items, and I ask K who he talked to on the bus.

What is the Truth?

2011-03-15T12:45:00.004-04:00

Every day last week, M came home from school with money. It was never the same amount twice: it could be as little as 50 cents and as much as $5.00. And every day he had a different story about how he got it. "My friend J-- gave it to me." "I found it in the cafeteria." And so on.

Peter and I never believed any story about how he got it, but we didn't know how to find out the truth. Finally, on Thursday, when K poked holes in M's declaration that he had found the money on the bus, I couldn't stand it any more. I had previously reminded M that lying isn't allowed and things would go better for him if he told the truth than if he didn't. I asked, "Remember there was once someone who hit you and gave you money so you wouldn't tell anybody? Is that happening again?"

He said, "Yes."

M was reluctant to discuss the matter. He kept saying "I forget," which we are beginning to think means, "I don't want to talk about it." He did give me the other child's name and told me that that incidents were happening on the playground in an area where the playground monitor could not see.

Had he told his teacher?

He said, "Yes."

"Then why is it still happening?" I asked.

No answer.

I emailed his teacher then, describing the trouble and asking how Peter and I might help M, since M said he had already alerted her. She responded that he had told her nothing and that she would discuss the matter with the principal, the assistant principal, and the school counselor. And she did. The next day, she and the assistant principal met on Friday with M, then with the supposed perpetrator, then with the group of boys they usually play with.

The assistant principal called me immediately afterward. It seems that M did not tell the same story twice. He always spoke of the same perpetrator and the same time and the same place, but apparently he could not say how many times it had happened nor how much money he had gotten or--most importantly--whom he had told about it. The supposed perpetrator denied hitting M and denied carrying money. His family denied giving him money. The other boys said they had never seen anything happen. The assistant principal said that, in her 19 years of service, she had never before had an incident in which she couldn't discern the truth.

Peter and I spent the weekend exploring other ways M could have gotten money. We checked our wallets and charity boxes. We asked K for clues. After grilling M about scenarios in which he might have been proactive, such as stealing from a charity jar or selling his lunch, we began thinking he might be a victim. He is a spacey little guy, very cheerful and very beautiful, tending towards passivity. We imagined horrible things--a bigger kid paying him for the privilege of molesting him on the bus; someone paying him to humiliate himself. M denied all these, too. He stuck to the story that this one kid was hitting him and paying him not to squawk.

Had he told anyone?

"No," he said. "Not really. I was too embarrassed."

M's teacher, meanwhile, had expressed concern over the phone about what she perceived as M's inability to tell truth from fiction. "In class, someone mentioned that he had a house in Maine. M-- piped up and said, 'I have a house in Russia!' That's just not true."

I said politely, "Actually, in his mind it is. He was adopted from Russia within his memory, remember? He lived in an orphanage there for a long time. We have photos."

Long silence.

Peter and I informed M that he could not keep the money. He was not surprised. M said he was afraid to return the money where he had gotten it, so we had him donate it to the class charity yesterday morning. The teacher emailed us late last night. She had spoken with him in school about not lying, about not taking money that Peter and I haven't given him, and about not withholding information from her when he needs help.

We are grateful she's working so hard on the problem. Still, we can't help feeling that she has a different idea of what's going on than we do. Her email mentioned the expectation that a child of seven should be able to distinguish truth from fiction and right from wrong--and therefore, though she didn't say it, that M is not credible. In other words, because he lied about having a house in Russia, he's lying about some or all of how he got the money. We do not believe he's lying. We do believe he's got fuzzy concepts of time and money and honestly doesn't know how many days he was hit or how much money he got. We also believe he wants to tell his caregivers what they want to hear; so yes, he was lying when he said he'd told his teacher. But we are not angry with him and don't consider him untrustworthy.

We do, however, consider M a child with a history of trauma. Peter and I have therefore asked to call in the school counselor, ostensibly to help educate his teacher about how his traumas, which include abandonment, disrupted attachments, and adoption into a new language environment at age 2.9, may be affecting his learning. A child who is separated from his parents and then a beloved caregiver "because it's best" might well be cloudy for a while on what's right and wrong--and might have to test the rules to make sure he's safe. Similarly, a child who has not heard the nuances of English since birth might be delayed in acquiring subtle cues indicating fantasy, dreams, past tense, and the like. Current research even says that children may have brain development issues resulting from early extreme emotional stress. M has re-entered therapy outside of school, but we're hoping that the counselor might have a clue how to help him--and future kids like him--in the classroom. We're not optimistic, but we figure it couldn't hurt to ask.

We have the dread feeling that this incident isn't over yet.

Constant Contact

2011-03-01T12:28:00.000-05:00

Have I mentioned lately that sometimes I would like to duct-tape K's mouth shut?

It's not for the reason you might think: we actually don't have a whole lot of mother-daughter angst. I understand she is different from me, and she clearly admires and respects me. What I can't stand is that she talks all the time. If I am not directly interacting with her, she interrupts whatever I am doing until I make eye contact. I cannot hold a conversation with another human being without her interference.

I usually "reward" her interruptions by ignoring her. If she won't be ignored, than I tell her as tersely as possible to leave the room--without making eye-contact. She will usually make a racket in the next room, so I shut the door. I had to do this three times at breakfast this morning. It used to sink in after the first time. These days, it doesn't at all.

Why is she behaving like this? I have heard from other adoptive parents of girls: They become too big to be carried around, so they maintain a feeling of attachment by attracting their mother's attention constantly. When I ask her gently about it, K says: "If I stop talking, maybe you'll forget about me."

She does not behave this way in school. She is in second grade, a little social butterfly well liked by boys and girls.

She has been complaining lately of a "nothing" feeling in her stomach as well. I don't quite understand what she means, but she seems to find it comforting to report it to me. I felt all my emotions in my stomach when I was a kid, so I know how scared it might make her.

K is turning 8 soon, and yes, she knows what "birth" day means.

We visit the child psychologist shortly.

Little Space Shot

2011-03-01T12:09:00.000-05:00

M is going to turn 7 soon. He's in first grade, where he is as diligent and law-abiding a student as a boy his age can be. Yet he forgets to bring home the things in his cubby, or he puts them in other people's cubbies, or he can't find his lunchbox even though it's in his backpack, or he leaves his glasses on the bus, or...sigh. You see what I mean.

He didn't used to be this spacey. He has always needed to have clear instructions--I hold up my fingers for him and count his tasks in short phrases--but he has never needed as much repetition as he does now, nor has he ever lost so much stuff. His forgetfulness has gotten worse since the beginning of the school year. It's as if some part of his executive functioning is being taken over by alien beings.

At calm moments, I have asked him what he thinks is going on. Is he upset about something? Thinking about something else that gets in the way? His response: "I'm supposed to do something, and then all of a sudden I'm thinking about Star Wars." Further gentle questioning has revealed that, when he feels stressed, his favorite characters and scenes from Star Wars take over his little brain. Yep, it *is* alien beings.

Last year, M's kindergarten teacher mentioned once that M would sometimes have trouble remembering instructions; we ascertained that it was instructions given when she was tired or annoyed. We suggested she observe M at those times for signs of panic: stiff posture, enlarged pupils. The significance: kids who have experienced trauma will often jump to brain-wiping panic later in life much more easily than kids who haven't. There is much we don't know about M's pre-orphanage life. Maybe he had good reason to panic, and something about hearing angry adults re-awakens it.

Fast forward to this school year. M hasn't been seen to panic much, so Peter and I wonder whether this "Star Wars brain" problem is a replacement behavior that might be more adaptive: he can look like he's paying attention so nobody will get mad at him, yet he can tune out completely.

He has an appointment with our child psychologist. Meanwhile, I'm using a technique with him that I learned from my own therapist:

Me (noticing he's not focusing): "M--? Is the part of you that thinks about Star Wars bothering you right now?"
M: "Yeah."
Me: "Can you talk to it?"
M: (nods)
Me: "Can you please ask it to go play while you do your work? You can tell it to come back later when you're done."
M: "Okay, Mom." (Pauses briefly, then refocuses on whatever task he is supposed to do.)

Vacation?

2011-02-21T21:21:00.000-05:00

Just a brief rant: Peter and I decided it would be fun to spend school vacation as a family in the mountains, staying in a lodge, playing in the snow. We arrived a few hours ago after a half-day of "Are we there yet?" and, "How much more minutes?"

We are staying all in one room, which worked fine when we stayed here over the summer to do some hiking. Not so tonight. I am in the library typing this because neither child will stop giggling and I was about to lose my temper. Peter volunteered to stay with them. He has the patience of a rock, but when I return, I expect to find him seething.

Neither kid expressed any concerns about traveling. M sometimes says he's worried that we won't return home (a leftover from his adoption travel), but he assured us that he's not worried about a thing. He and K swear that the acting up of the last few days is the result of their staying up a bit later a couple of times--they're tired. Breaking from routine also throws them for a loop; we have to remind them that the usual rules still apply.

I miss the days when Peter and I could take off, just the two of us, for peaceful cross-country skiing at an inn somewhere.

Family of Differences

2011-02-08T10:37:00.000-05:00

K said, "I'm different from everyone else in the family. I have red hair."

Feeling different is common among kids at or approaching 8 years, especially if they were adopted.

We listened carefully, then I responded, "Well, I'm the only person in the family with brown eyes. I'm different too."

Peter said, "I'm the only one who's bald."

K said, "Oh, that's right!" She smiled, finally. Then she thought a minute and said, "And M-- is the only one in the family who's really annoying."

Mess

2011-02-02T15:45:00.000-05:00

Just thought I'd mention: as I type this, K & M are vacuuming up pellets of crumbled styrofoam all over the house. The styrofoam was packing material from an IKEA storage bench. M got the bright idea to crumble it into "snowflakes," which he dumped on his head, but he took care to do the crumbling and the dumping while standing on the flattened cardboard box, so nothing got on the floor. When he was joined by K, however, things went horribly wrong. There are now pellets in every room of the house except the master bedroom and our offices. Peter, who elected to stay home today for his safety, is supervising the clean-up while I take this little writing break.

Every parent has experienced messes like this. I just hate that we've had one snow day a week for weeks now. I feel trapped in a monkey cage.

Podcast URL

2011-01-31T14:27:00.001-05:00

Here is the link to my internet radio interview today: The New Toginet Radio - Recent Podcasts. My podcast is the one with today's date, 1/31/11. I feel like I sounded idiotic, but maybe everyone thinks that about what they say that they can't take back. :-)

Bumps in the Learning Curve

2011-01-30T17:20:00.000-05:00

I've been posting less often here both because I'm working on other writing projects and because my steep learning curve about parenting is no longer so steep. Still, however, there are bumps in that curve. For instance, the one I feel approaching.

K is going to turn eight years old in March, M seven. Eight is the rule-of-thumb age for realizing that adoption means someone relinquished you. With the brain growth of age seven and its resulting boost in analytical and abstract thought, adopted children often for the first time truly understand that, though their adoptive parents intend to keep them, their former parents--birth, foster, etc--gave them away. A sense of being unwanted often follows, sometimes with awful consequences. K has always started her emotional work a little early, so we have expected for a while that she would come to this realization. She may be doing so now.

About three weeks ago, K began reading more fluently than she ever had, and with beautiful expression. A couple of days after her first time reading with ease, she began making statements at bedtime such as, "I don't remember my birthmother" and "Don't die, Mom. I never got to be with you when I was a baby, so it wouldn't be fair if you died now." A couple of days after that, she started having trouble falling asleep. She swears she's not worried or thinking about anything, and we believe her: she's wonderful about verbalizing her troubles. However, she keeps asking me to sleep with her, stay with her in the room, or at least leave her something of mine to sleep with. I'm guessing she feels sad and doesn't know why, and she thinks that being with me will help her feel better.

I am an expert insomniac, so I am attacking the sleep trouble as its own issue, not badgering poor K with "Are you sure you're feeling okay? Really sure?" What's helped: having her read in her rocking chair rather than stay in bed if sleep doesn't come (prevents associating bed with anxiety); having her set up for this activity so that she relaxes by mentally preparing for a bad night. Peter and I have both given both kids some of our pajamas to sleep with. We don't check on them often, but when we do, we linger if necessary. We don't want either child to train us to visit them, but we want both kids to know we're available if there's real distress. It's a hard line to walk.

In addition to the insomnia, K is showing growth by telling me I'm wrong all the time. I'm told that this has nothing to do with adoption. ;-)

Internet Radio Show

2011-01-30T16:49:00.001-05:00

Hi, all. If you're interested in hearing me speak on some of the issues I've written about here, come listen to http://toginet.com/shows/adoptionjourneytomotherhood tomorrow (Monday 1/31). It's at 9 AM EST, and you can stream it. The show will be available as a podcast if you can't listen live.

(Thanks, victoria, for reminding me to list the day!)

God's Nose

2010-12-27T16:41:00.000-05:00

Last night, saying prayers before bed, M thanked God for each member of the family and rubbed noses with each of us as he said our name. Then he stood up and rubbed his nose in the air, saying, "This is God's nose. God has a fat nose, so I can reach."

K chided him, "That hurts God's feelings, saying God is fat!"

M explained, "God is so big that God HAS to have a fat nose."

Stuck at Home

2010-12-26T20:51:00.000-05:00

Going on Day #10. I have not had more than 90 consecutive child-free minutes since the Friday before this past one. K came down with strep and missed the first three days of school last week; winter vacation started on Thursday. Tomorrow will be a snow day for the vacation "camp" the kids are attending.

Am I stressed? Well, not really. After the first couple of days last week, I just sort of gave up. I've begun considering it a good day if I've gotten a shower. I have cooked from the freezer and with the crockpot, taken care of a few nagging household issues, and made sure to get a nap every day--sometimes with K sleeping beside me. The beginning of last week, while M was at school, were excellent bonding days for K and me. We spent a lot of time cuddling and looking into each other's eyes, which I think she needed. Of course, I made sure to spend as much "alone" time with M as possible so he wouldn't get too jealous.

K is feeling much better now. Tomorrow should be fun: I've got pie crust ready to roll out for apple pies; I have a paper-making craft kit that I've saved for an at-home day; I burned some audio CD's with children's stories on them; we've got our skis and snowshoes. I even have the fridges organized in such a way that we will have to open only one of them if the power goes out.

Peter, alas, must work tomorrow. I fear for his safety on the road.

Homework Load Follow-up

2010-12-14T12:11:00.000-05:00

We had conferences at the kids' school, and I am pleased to report the following:

1. Both kids have a great attitude towards school. They are always willing to try; they do their best; they work hard; they help others. The literacy specialist, who works with both kids, was kind enough to say, "What a pleasure to meet the parents of such nice kids!"

2. Both teachers and the literacy specialist are impressed by how well I work with the kids at home. K's teacher even asked me how I knew so much about teaching learners like them, and--after giving credit to my mother and mother-in-law--I told them about my graduate study in cognitive psychology and language acquisition. I must say, it was nice to get recognition for the education I haven't been using.

3. All the teachers say that the kids should do just fine, given the support they're getting at school, the support they're getting at home, and their own intelligence and enthusiasm.

4. K's teacher expressed genuine remorse at having to assign as much homework as she does. "It's the school district," she explained ruefully. "The standards are very high, so the kids get pushed hard early." I grew up in, and my mother taught in, an equally high-achieving district, so I know how the politics work. This admission from the teacher immediately changed my feeling about her. I no longer regard her as the enemy. Instead, I regard her as a cog in a large machine that may itself need more awareness of the children it serves. Having taught college students who often weren't ready for the curriculum I was required to teach, I feel compassion for her.

In the days and weeks since the conferences, I have felt more wholeheartedly able to assist the kids' learning. I have tried to make homework more fun for all of us, for instance by incorporating educational games that we can all play and by introducing classic comic strips to their reading. (They scream with delight over Calvin and Hobbes.) I am quick and subtle in cutting out work that I think unnecessary, for instance not reviewing all 50 "sight word" flash cards if only seven give M trouble. And I give a lot of praise, often saying, "I'll bet your teacher will be proud of you."

So far, so good.

Notes on Doing Homework with Kinesthetic Learners

2010-11-30T12:52:00.000-05:00

Well, with my kinesthetic learners. Yours may be different. I welcome your ideas.

By means of explanation: Some of us use our eyes the most to take in information, some our ears, and some the rest of our bodies. Cognitive psychology classifies us respectively as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners. I, for instance, am visual/auditory: I have an unusually vivid visual memory but it doesn't function well if I haven't got auditory stimulation too: I learn best by seeing and hearing simultaneously.

As long as we have known our kids, K has seemed to be our token "visual," noticing changes in her environment, navigating by landmarks, recalling colors. M, meanwhile, has always been an "ear guy," memorizing songs without even trying, alerting to bird calls, recalling heard music. Both kids have needed a physical aspect to their learning, K more than M: she's the one we always have to remind in a museum, "Look with your eyes!" (teacher-speak for Don't touch!). K told us years ago that she needs to move in order to think. M has to sit still in order to think, but he has a strong urge to build things.

As you may have read in my last entry, K has a ton of homework this year. M has less homework, but his is daily too. The last thing either child wants to do when they get home is sit and work. Work they must, but I do my best to save them from sitting. Here are some strategies that are working for us so far.

1. I lay out all the tasks for the session and let the kids choose the order. If I think they've chosen poorly, I might give them a reason for a different order--for instance, "Some children do their spelling words first so they'll know them when they do their reading. How does that sound to you?" But I let the order rest as much as possible with the kids. Allowing them the choice helps them feel a sense of control, which helps them fidget less simply because they resent the work less.

2. We keep the same routine after school every day, no matter where we are. Whether it's at the gymnastics studio or at home, the kids have a little full-body play time and a snack before homework. I set a timer so they know when to get down to work. I have had to ask Peter to increase the kids' lunches so they don't need to eat for 45 minutes when they get home, and I've found that the extra protein and fiber help level out their blood sugar, which helps them concentrate.

3. Except when we have to be out of the house, we work in the playroom. Our playroom is pretty big and well organized, and it contains two long, low tables cast off by our preschool. We use one table for work, the other for play. I stay at the work table. When I'm really ahead of the game, I set up the play table with manipulatives such as magnets or homemade silly putty; but even if I'm not, the kids can avail themselves of many other toys in the room during study breaks. I have deliberately NOT put school supplies on the work table so that the kids are forced to move around a little to gather them.

4. We take study breaks. It occurred to me during a recent triathlon swimming class that it might help our kids to study in intervals, just like athletes strengthen their bodies by working them in intervals. (Um, no, I'm not doing a tri. I just like the training.) Therefore, unless a child chooses to keep working, he or she gets play breaks between academic tasks. Taking breaks to play with manipulative or full-body toys helps the kids release frustration and gives them a chance to integrate what they've just learned.

5. We have rules for those play breaks posted on the wall above the work table. Making and posting the rules was the kids' idea, and it was a great one. The seven or eight rules include, "Play only with quiet toys" and "No making fun of the person working."

6. A working child may stand up, bounce on an exercise ball, put on music, fidget with an object in his or her hands, chew gum--whatever it takes to keep him or her working. If they don't know what, if anything, they need, I will introduce some ideas.

7. A working child gets three "I gotta" tickets per long task that allow him or her to leave the table: "I gotta" use the bathroom, sharpen my (already sharp) pencil, check the squirrels out the window. These tickets are yet another way of allowing the child the illusion of control. I got sick of K always jumping up to do something, so I use the tickets to incorporate her "I gottas" into our time without depriving her of all control. (I have only just implemented this idea. So far, so good.)

8. I reserve the right to come up with weird variations on the assigned tasks. For instance, instead of sitting down and tracing spelling words on the table as specified, my kids might follow my suggestion to lie on their backs on the floor and trace them on the ceiling with their toes, or they might write them with their fingers in a tray of flour.

9. I keep their work organized in binders, and the binders require frequent updating. I assign cutting, hole-punching, and other office-type busywork to the kids during their breaks. (I do the actual binder-loading right now because neither kid reads well enough to do it alone.)

10. We do some tasks before school, some after. K gets her Hebrew and math facts practice before school so we have just her English verbal stuff after; M gets his spelling before school. These tasks we do at the breakfast table, casually and quickly.

Managing homework with two kinesthetic not-quite-readers can be frustrating and time-consuming. I have to plan my day around it, making sure I've got dinner in the crockpot and enough energy to carry myself through it. But these ten tips really make the time easier for all of us. By the end of the session, we are still speaking to one another, and that's what matters most to me. After all, my kids have to work at attachment in addition to everything else, so I don't want my homework coaching to get in the way of our relationship. Interspersing work with play, my being in the room at all times, and my maintaining an encouraging demeanor helps the kids feel--I hope--that homework is just another of those good parts of family life.

Too Much Homework

2010-11-14T11:19:00.000-05:00

K has reading, spelling, dictation, writing, and 2 math items every night for homework. She's in second grade. I think this amount is excessive.

K came to English almost four years ago at the age of 3 years, 9 months. Verbal tasks are hard for her. She has been receiving reading support at school since last year, and I had her and M's vision tested this summer to make sure there were no issues with their simply seeing the page. (There were. Both kids are farsighted and now wear reading glasses.) Her difficulty, as far as we have been able to make out, is that she missed out on early English exposure. She can't spell worth a damn--that is, she can't predict what sounds follow what other ones based on patterns imprinted from her days in the womb. This issue is compounded by the fact that she seems to be a physical learner: she needs to move around in order to think hard. A student who wiggles when she's trying to spell something and spells it wrong anyway is hard for some teachers to understand. I am becoming convinced that this year's teacher is in that group.

My own background: As you know if you've been reading, I'm the daughter of a public school elementary grades teacher. I grew up in the era of the "open classroom," which meant that, for most of my schooling, I had individualized goals, I worked at my own pace, and I brought home whatever work I couldn't get done in class. Because my homework was self-assigned, and because I learned early how to manage my own time, I rarely had a huge homework burden, and I felt motivated to complete the work.

K is heartbreakingly motivated to do her school work. She cried at the end of school last summer because, as she put it, "I want to keep learning!" Her first grade teacher told us that she, of all the kids in the class, would be the one to pick up a book when she had a spare minute and struggle to read it. She and M will both work until they drop; they don't say "I don' wanna!" when I say, "It's time for homework."

So here's my difficulty: I don't think K ought to be doing this much work, but I don't want to appear as though I think her teacher is wrong. It is hard for me anyway to think a teacher is wrong--I had such good ones, including my mother--but that's my own issue. The one that most directly affects K is that I don't have confidence in her teacher but I don't want to show her this lack of confidence. I'm sure she sees it, which means I have to address it, but I don't know how. Stay tuned.

The Theft

2010-10-29T19:34:00.000-04:00

May this be the only entry I ever make with this title.

K will be very embarrassed that I am posting this. However, for the good of those who look to this blog to learn something, I am willing to keep this here for a little while. I think she will understand.

The week before last, M and K's elementary school had their annual fall book fair. A charity drive went along with the book fair; each classroom had a jar for collecting cash. One morning, K showed the teacher $6 that she said was her own and asked to buy a book with it. Two other girls also had money; the teacher sent all of them together. During lunch, while the kids were at the cafeteria, the teacher counted the fund in the jar and found $6 missing. She emailed me and the parents of the other two girls to find out where they'd gotten their money.

K and M don't yet have an allowance. Maybe we're too conservative, but we feel we'd like to wait until they quit playing with the money they already have. They throw it around, hide it, and lose it as if it were a toy. In preparation for an allowance, we do let them earn cash occasionally by doing certain chores, for instance pulling weeds ($.01/weed) and washing our cars ($1.00/car). With this, we have helped them open savings accounts and make their first couple of purchases. The playing has decreased, perhaps because they're starting to understand what money is for, so Peter and I will revisit the issue soon.

Anyway, the morning of the email was Peter's day off, so he had seen the kids off at the bus. If K had had money on her, he would have known. When I got the email, I called him at home and asked him to check the kids' stash, which had a total of $14 in it. (They are experimenting with pooling their funds. M counts it frequently and announces the total with pride.) The stash was not down $14. Peter emailed the teacher immediately, who reported that K had bought a toy with her cash--not a book, which was what she'd told the teacher. (This point will matter later.) When the students returned from lunch, the teacher announced to the class that the money was missing. She told us that K then stepped forward and offered to donate her change.

Fast-forward to K's arrival home. I rifle through both kids' backpacks as often as possible, preferably before school to dig out contraband toys and after school to dig out crumpled-up permission slips. Therefore, K didn't think anything out of the ordinary when I searched her backpack. I found the toy she'd bought and asked her where it came from. She said she didn't know. M piped up, "I saw those at the book fair! She must have bought it at the book fair."

She nodded.

I asked, "Where did you get the money?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Someone gave it to me. I found it in my backpack."

I decided to drop it until she and I could have some privacy: her lying led me to believe she knew that what she did was wrong and didn't want M to know. But I confiscated the toy. K didn't object.

Let me digress a moment about K's lying, She has been lying quite often lately to our secondary babysitter, a smart young woman filling in for Nancy, whom I'll call L. L has quite a bit of experience, but our kids seem to have figured out that, if they behave well for her, the wool can be pulled over her eyes. For example, K once convinced her that we march around the dinner table with lit candles on Shabbat eve. L, who is Jewish, believed her: "She looked so sincere when she said it!" Duh.

So. After the kids had their snack, Peter and I dismissed M to go play and sat down with K. As Peter held her close, we gently asked K again how she happened to have the money to buy the toy.

K named one of the other girls and said it was her idea to buy the toy.

Yes, but where had the money come from?

K looked scared. She said she felt scared and didn't want her teacher to know what she had done.

I explained that K's teacher had already told us about the missing money. "And she knows that people who are seven years old sometimes take things that don't belong to them."

K twisted her hands together and began to cry. "I'm one of them," she said. "The jar was open when I came in, and I took money from it."

Her courage amazed me, as it always does. Peter and I immediately praised her for telling the truth. We reminded her that we were still her parents and that we still loved her as much as always.

Still holding her, talking in gentle voices, we told K that what she had done was stealing, which is not allowed; and, worse, that the money was for a charity. Our family, like many Jewish families, gives tzedakah (charity) at least weekly, so K knows what it is. She cried harder. We told her that there would be consequences, both at home and and school.

K begged us not to tell anyone about the theft, but we said we'd have to tell her teacher and assured her she would not be angry. (The teacher had emailed asking us to tell K this.) We did agree, however, not to tell M. And yes, I'm aware that I'm breaking her confidence by writing about it here, but I hope you will appreciate K's courage, as I do, rather than condemn her.

The next several nights, I hardly slept.

I have never stolen anything. In fact, I have never committed any crimes, including smoking marijuana. As a teenager, I was so appalled by kids who broke the law that I had a hard time being tolerant even of close friends who were less square than I; to this day, I'm pretty sure some of my friends from that time are afraid to tell me about certain of their adventures. So imagine how I felt now that my daughter had stolen something. I didn't like her. I didn't want to be with her. Yet my instinct told me she needed me.

I did my best with K, which wasn't very good. I traded manicures with her, just the two of us. I forced myself to hold her and kiss her and call her "good girl." I told her I still thanked God that I got to be her forever mom. Yet inside, I loathed her.

The teacher, meanwhile, emailed us that it was not $6 that was missing, but $16. K's toy had cost $4. I searched the clothes she'd been wearing that day, but found nothing. I did not believe K had taken $16, and I said so. And I let the teacher know what K had said about the jar being open.

It wasn't until Peter and I taught the kids to clean bathrooms that K and I both began to feel a little resolution. We had been trying to come up with a consequence for lying, and decided that bathroom cleaning would be a great choice because they can do it unsupervised--and multiple times. Both kids had lied to their sitter L, so they cleaned some bathrooms. We said, "When you lie to someone, you make a mess. So now you're cleaning up a mess." As always, the kids were willing. They are great workers.

The teacher finally called a few days later, late at night, just as I was going to bed. She said she'd never previously had a theft in a classroom and had had to think about a proper consequence for K. The other parents had reported that their kids denied taking anything, but the teacher didn't think K had taken all $16. She was willing to let the mystery of the other $10 remain a mystery. Yes, she was aware the jar had been open; she didn't know why and didn't think she ever would. Her idea for a consequence was simply for K return the money to the librarians running the charity, and to apologize. She hadn't notified the principal and didn't want to.

I did not feel right about this consequence. Just a month or so earlier, when M dropped his pants twice, the assistant principal had both called a meeting with me and penalized M two recess periods. The pants-dropping was just a prank; K's crime, however, was a crime--and doubly a crime in my mind because she had stolen from a charity. While I didn't want K to be tortured for actions, I didn't want her to get a softer deterrent than M for a worse behavior. Meanwhile, I hated her for having stolen. Also meanwhile, I dearly wanted to scoop her up in my arms and comfort her.

I had one more emotion at that time which I am only beginning to sort out. I am the daughter of a brilliant and dedicated retired schoolteacher. I was raised seeing what teachers do and deeply respecting them. Yet here I was on the phone with a teacher who seemed uncertain what to do, and she had come to what I felt was a poor decision. I felt as though my desire to correct her decision was itself a crime.

While the teacher was waiting for me to agree with her consequence, I remembered that when Peter and I were in Russia adopting the kids, our translator had warned us, "Don't be soft with them just because they're orphans!" Adoption professionals have told us time and time again, "These kids are survivors. They made it to your care because they're tough. Don't go easy on them." And everyone knows those horrible news stories in which the thief or murderer or racketeer's life story includes the fact that they were adopted. Therefore, I set aside the parts of me that wanted to protect K and didn't want to correct a teacher and said, "I don't think that's enough."

I explained to the teacher about M's meetings with the principal and his missing recess. I also explained about wanting K never, ever to steal again. And I said, "I don't mean I want her to be embarrassed, but I think her consequence at least needs to be at parity with M--'s." The teacher reluctantly agreed.

The following day, K met with the assistant principal. She missed two recess periods, just like M did. K herself came up with the idea of returning the money, which she has done, accompanied by her teacher. We honored her request for privacy by having her take the money not from the stash she shares with M but from a family stash to which we contribute when someone has done something especially good: "When you steal," I told her, "you embarrass the whole family, so you will need to repay our whole family." K understood. She will do some special chores that Peter and I have yet to come up with.

K has told me spontaneously, "I love my consequences. They mean it's over." She has been fully willing to do whatever is required of her. And she says, "I am never going to do that again."

I believe her. But I also know how impulsive she can be, so it will be a while before I truly sleep well.

Presenting K, Part II

2010-10-29T16:55:00.000-04:00

Returning to the story of the presentation in K's classroom.

* * *

Once the "baby" was safely in the hands of the girl playing the foster mom, I resumed reading the book. At the appropriate point, I had the foster mom hand the baby off to me, since I was playing "forever mom," and we finished the book.

I took a few moments to summarize and troll for questions. The only questions the kids had at that point were for K, so I turned the floor over to her. She was beaming. She held up her five orphanage photos and explained who was in them, using the terms we had introduced: foster mom, forever mom, forever dad. Her classmates, enthralled, asked questions.

Kid: "Do you ever see your birthmom?"

K (turning to me for help): "Not often."

Me: "She lives very far away, so we're saving our pennies to pay for a trip in a couple of years."

Kid: "Do you and your brother have the same birth mother?"

K (grinning): "Yes!"

Kid: "Why couldn't your birth parents take care of children?"

K (echoing the story we've told her): "They didn't have enough money for everything children need."

Kid: "Is your mom sad?"

K: "Which one?"

Kid: "Your foster mom and your birth mom."

K: (blank look)

Teacher: "Her birth mom and foster mom are happy to know K-- has such a loving and kind forever family."

Me (thinking I'm better informed): "I imagine they feel both happy and sad. All parents love their children."

We ended there, and the kids got ready for recess right on time.

The teacher and the principal told me that this presentation ought to happen in every classroom. I agreed. I gave them all the materials I used and said I'd be willing to present in any class where no parent was available, if the adopted kids in the class were willing to have such a talk. I haven't heard anything in the weeks since, but I do know that a local adoption speaker I recommended has been contacted by someone in our school system.

K, meanwhile, has informed me that the found the presentation lots of fun.

Breaking More Rules Than We Want To Count

2010-10-23T20:11:00.000-04:00

I interrupt the entry in progress with the sad news that K seems to have stolen money from a classroom charity and used it to buy a toy down the hall at the school book fair. We are stunned. She has never stolen before. Stay tuned.

Presenting K, part I

2010-10-23T20:08:00.001-04:00

Recently, K was Student of the Week in her second grade class. She was supposed to bring in five photos of herself to post on the board for the week, in preparation for talking about herself on Friday. I was so grateful the teacher hadn't asked for baby pictures that I didn't react when K chose five photos from her days at the orphanage. So she popped them in an envelope and went off to school.

It was my mother who suggested, a couple days later, that K might benefit from my help in the classroom. "What if her classmates ask questions she can't answer?" she said. "What if some of the questions bring up strong feelings she has trouble dealing with?" She imagined--and I agreed--that some of the kids might be aware enough to ask, "Why did your real mother give you away?" or to say, "I don't believe you're from Russia 'cause you don't speak Russian." Good grandma. K has already reported that her friends don't believe she has three mothers: her birth parents, her Russian caregiver (Mama A.), and me.

I emailed the teacher first thing Thursday and offered either to be in the room for K's talk or to give a presentation on adoption to the class soon afterwards "so the other kids don't get scared that their parents will give them away." The teacher responded at 4 PM, "Can you do that presentation tomorrow at 11? Right before K--'s?" Not what I had suggested, but, well, okay.

I had eighteen hours before the presentation, most of which were taken up with childcare and sleep. The first place I went for help was an article in Adoptive Families magazine titled, How I Explained Adoption to the First Grade. The author, Amy Klatzkin, details her presentation to her daughter's class, including do's and don'ts for parents preparing their own talks. I found it invaluable.

So here's how it went. Beforehand, K and I had agreed that I should bring in her favorite baby doll as a demonstration aid. It's a beautiful, realistic doll dressed in Russian clothing. (I ordered it last Hanukkah from Precious Baby Doll.) I also packed the book How I Was Adopted by Joanna Cole. It's a first-person story of one fictional child's birth and adoption as an infant. When I arrived, I was taken aback to discover the principal had been invited! But I set up at the whiteboard at the front of the class, calling upon my years of college teaching to help me look as calm as I wished I felt.

I started by telling 20 charming seven-year-olds gathered at my feet that I usually talked about adoption with grown-ups, "but I'm nervous today because you guys are so much smarter." (One polite child thanked me.) I then assessed the knowledge in the room by asking "What do you know about the word 'adoption'? What does it mean?"

The answers appalled me. Almost every kid said that adoption is "when parents are too busy to take care of their children so they give them to someone else." In our town, a lot of families have nannies or au pairs; I wonder: do those children think they're adopted? The good news, however, was that no-one who answered said that adoption happens because of something the child did. So that's where I started. I said that adults can be unable to take care of children because of all kinds of adult problems, but it is never the child's fault.

Next, we brainstormed a list of everything we could think of that a baby or child needs. We wrote down everything from religious education to diapers. (Some of the kids got out of hand at the mention of diapers, and the teacher had to settle them down!) Then I added, "Bringing into the world"--that is, giving birth. I explained that being brought into the world is only one thing a child needs, that a parent is someone who can give a child everything else on the list even if they don't give birth, and that parents who give birth and parents who don't are real parents.

I now felt we had enough mutually understood terms to read the book. Before I began, however, I took volunteers to act out the parts of birth mother, birth father, foster mother, and "forever mother." K and a male friend played the birth parents; their baby was K's baby doll. Cole's book, like the vast majority of adoption books, does not mention foster care, but I wanted to include it because it's part of so many adoption stories, including K's.

Then I read the story. I stopped when it became clear that the baby, having been born, was going to be adopted. I introduced the concept of foster care by asking the class, "Where's the baby? She can't live with her birth parents, and her forever mom isn't ready for her yet, so where is she?" I welcomed the "foster mom" into the stage, and K handed off the baby to her. (K didn't want to, insisting that she had everything the baby needed, but when I sent her husband off to war, she decided to hand off.)

(To be continued....)

One Additional Note on the Last Entry

2010-09-25T16:46:00.000-04:00

I forgot to mention: Everyone who knows about kids has assured us that
penis-showing is normal behavior for first grade boys, socially
unacceptable though it is.

"If You Want Privacy, You Should Have Kept Your Pants Up"

2010-09-25T16:28:00.000-04:00

I said this to M Monday afternoon on the way to the car from an end-of-day meeting with the assistant principal. K was holding my other hand, and she was curious about why I had picked her up instead of letting her take the bus home. "I came in for M--," I explained, "so I couldn't get home fast enough to meet you at the bus."

She asked, "Why were you here for M--?"

He said, "Mom! Don't tell her!"

And that's when I said it. I couldn't stop myself.

Earlier, M had dropped his pants in class. He and two other boys in his first grade did it together when they were standing at the end of a line where the teacher couldn't see them. M pulled down the pants of one of the other boys. I don't know what happened to them, but when I arrived at school, only M was sitting outside the assistant principle's office.

This was a second offense for M. The first, uh, exposure had happened two weeks earlier on the bus home, when he had thought it would be funny to show his private parts to K and another girl. The assistant principal told us there wouldn't be a consequence at school for this first offense, but there would be for a second. Peter and I gave him a consequence at home anyway with the assistant principal's blessing: extra chores to "give back the energy [he] drained from us." Our humidifiers are now squeaky clean for the winter. We also let M know that our double-hung windows, which are full of yucky spider webs and dead bugs, would need cleaning "if a body part that is supposed to be private is shown in public again." So he had been warned.

At the time of yesterday's call, I was receiving acupuncture. (My depression's been bad lately, so I'm stepping up my self-care.) The acupuncturists, a husband-and-wife team with seven children, removed the needles right away so I could scoot to school.

The assistant principal presents in a way that I hope to: informal and friendly-looking but packing a wallop, someone whose authority comes naturally from the core. When we shook hands, I noticed neither of us had makeup on. She sat M and me down in her small, sunny office and asked M to tell me what had happened in school. His narrative failed to mention showing his penis to the class, so she and I exchanged glances and coached him to tell us. She proceeded to explain to him that the behavior was unacceptable and that, this being a second offense, he would now have the consequence of missing two days of recess: "You will come here to my office, and I will give you jobs to do." I chimed in that he would also get to clean two yucky windows at home, one for himself and one for the kid whose pants he had pulled down. She explained that a third offense would merit his being followed around by an adult at all times, "which is something we do only for little kids, not for big first graders like you." He sat calmly, listening and nodding.

The assistant principal and I then conferred privately. In response to my plea for advice, she suggested that M be made to wear pants that would be harder to take off. (This apparently helps her own four-year-old exhibitionist.) She thanked me for coming in so quickly, and I plucked the remaining three needles from my right ear. We parted, and I left the building with M and K, the latter having been dismissed from class because it was the end of the day. That was when M asked me not to tell K what had happened and I mouthed off at him.

I had a difficult afternoon. We had a 90-minute break before gymnastics class, and the kids needed a snack and time to do homework and change clothes. I needed a drink, or a dummy to punch, or airline tickets. Outwardly, I turned into Drill Sargent Mom, barking orders. Inside, I was shaking with anxiety and questions: Is this behavior sexual? Can a 6-year-old boy get off on exhibitionism? Is this disobedience the sign of an attachment problem? I watched gymnastics class without any of my usual pleasure.

Peter abandoned plans to work late and instead met us for dinner at the restaurant around the corner from the gymnastics studio. Munching on my turkey sandwich, I finally felt calm enough to ask the question that had been burning in my mind: "M--, why did you think it was a good idea to pull your pants down?'

He responded, "Well, Mom, first didn't think it was a good idea, but then R-- did it, so I thought it was okay." (R is not the kid's real initial, by the way.)

Peter and I exchanged glances. I felt relieved: M hadn't been behaving perversely in any sense of the word; he'd just been following bad orders. We knew about R. R had, a couple weeks earlier, given M money in exchange for M's silence about certain of R's misdeeds. We do not consider R to have superb judgment. I said the following gently to M: "Honey, everybody has to learn that their friends sometimes have bad ideas. Most people don't get to learn it until they're older, but you're lucky. You get to learn it now."

Peter and I went on, "You can tell R, or anyone else who asks you to do something bad, that you think it's a bad idea." We went on to give him ways he could say so. M caught on and did some spontaneous role-play with us. He seemed to have relaxed a little. When I then told him that we would require him to wear a belt to school--"to help [him] remember to think before pulling [his] pants down"--he nodded and pretended to pause in the middle of unbuckling: "I'm thinking in my brain, 'Wait! This is a bad idea!'" Now, with some tools in his peer-resistance toolbox, he sat up straighter and spoke with more animation than he had since I'd shown up at school.

I called the assistant principal the next day to tell her what we'd learned about R. She was quite interested and said that neither she nor the classroom teacher had been aware.

As I write this (the following Saturday), we have heard nothing since. Problem is, neither has M. The promised school consequence has not happened: nobody has intercepted M on the way to recess and walked him to the assistant principal's office. M is wondering why, and I don't know what to tell him. I called the assistant principal once, in M's presence, so he could hear me say, "M-- and I are sure there's a good reason, but we're just wondering what it is." Unfortunately, she wasn't there, so I had to say this to her voice mail.

M has, meanwhile, worked out his consequence at home by cleaning out our two most disgusting windows. He reports that at school he has had to say a few times, "Guys, I don't think that's a good idea" and, "Remember we got in trouble last time?" and that his words have persuaded the other kids to abandon a bad plan. He has kept his pants up. He has even become more modest at home. But he is puzzled about why he is not missing recess.

As for me? Anxiety is eating me alive. But that's another entry.

Transition to School

2010-09-21T11:28:00.000-04:00

K and M have adjusted to school this year more easily than we expected. K likes her 2nd grade teacher, and she has been able to articulate that she misses her first grade teacher. She and I have talked about the change, and she seems sanguine about it. Her behavior in school remains exemplary, though I must admit that the cynic in me believes it's not because she's free of mischief but because she knows it's best to have the caregiving adult--in this case the teacher--on her side. (I dread what will happen in middle school, when there will be less relationship with any single teacher.) She has reading homework every night. Perhaps another child could be trusted to read to herself for 20 minutes, but K's reading is still weak enough that we have her read aloud to us. Something good must have happened to her brain over the summer, because reading seems easier for her now than it did at the close of last year. She has also made terrific progress in taking dictation. We are pleased that she's showing good judgment about the friends she chooses, thinking more about the relationship than about what toys they have.

As for M: When the year began, we had in mind what M said earlier about being "grumpy" about the transition, but he hasn't been. He says he loves his teacher. He does his homework enthusiastically, or at least attentively. He, too, is reading, and he enjoys hearing K read aloud. M, however, is having some other issues. Have a look at the next entry.

The Ram

2010-08-06T17:05:00.000-04:00

K was born in the astrological sign of Aries (the Ram) in the Chinese year of the Ram. And it turns out she is indeed a little battering ram. I have gotten used to her butting me in greeting and running with her head down like a charging animal. What I can't get used to--what I constantly admire--is her head-first directness when it comes to asking questions about her adoption.

Remember when she was home about three weeks and asked me, "Stoh etta 'dopt'?" ("What is it, 'adopt'?") (Read about it here.) Ever since then, she's been asking me what's on her mind and I've been telling her the truth to the best of my ability. Here are some recent questions and, where necessary, my answers:

She: "Do we have baby pictures of me?"
I: We have pictures of when you were about three and a half, in Russia. And we have one picture of you when you first came to Mama A--, at almost two.

She: "I have three mommies, right? My birthmom and Mama A-- and you?"

She: "Are my birthparents dead?"
I: Not as far as we know. In fact, when you're older, you can look for them if you like.

She: "Can we go to Russia when I'm 10 and M- is 9?"
I: That year or a little later sounds good, yes.

She: "I won't be able to understand Mama A-- when we visit her, right? Because she speaks Russian and I don't?"

M remains pretty quiet about his curiosity; I like to think of our resident Pisces as a fish swimming along in K's wake. I try to open conversations with him just so he knows that his life story is a legal conversation topic.

Resisting Change

2010-08-06T16:42:00.000-04:00

Something we didn't expect: M, who loves investigating the outdoors, had a lousy time adjusting to an outdoor summer camp. His counsellors reported that he was having trouble listening, even to safety instructions, and that once or twice he hit another kid. M never hits anyone but K; this was quite unusual. He was brought to the camp behavior specialist.

When I took him aside one evening and asked why the bad behavior, he told me, "I'm grumpy because I wish it was last year's group." He and K attended this camp for the first time last year.

I reflected back, "You wish you were in last year's group?"

"Yes. I feel grumpy because I feel sad. I need a few days to get used to it."

I thought about that, then asked, "How do you think you'll feel about first grade?"

"Grumpy."

A little later it occurred to me to inquire, "Did you feel grumpy and sad when you came here from Russia because everything was different?"

He shouted, "YES!"

Now, I don't intend to report M's resistance to change as an adoption-specific issue--he may just be built that way. (I am!) But I thought I ought to mention, as a reminder to parents, that some of our kids might just hate change. If the kids experience the trauma of adoption, especially within their memories, they might hate change even more.

Going and Returning

2010-07-26T13:35:00.001-04:00

Our family took our annual one-week vacation last week, going to the same coastal town, staying in the same apartment, hanging out with the same extended family members that we always do. M & K love this trip and ask about it all year. I enjoyed it this year more than I have since becoming a parent, probably because the kids, now 6 and 7 years old, are able to participate in activities I find interesting. We went to the beach and a water park, saw a fun movie, ate at good restaurants; we didn't have to stop for naps or make sure there was a children's menu or carry a kid tired from walking. These were happy differences from our three other summer family trips to this same place.

We did, unfortunately, encounter two sad differences.

First: M had tons of trouble preparing for the trip. This year for the first time I made a packing list with the kids and gave them each their own copy on a clipboard. (They love clipboards, perhaps because so many adults in charge carry them.) K could read and count well enough to do her packing with little help from me. M, however, could not pack even when I helped him with every step. He didn't even want to be in the same room with the list.

"What's the matter, M--?" I asked him finally. "Usually you're so good at following directions."

He wouldn't look at me and said he didn't know.

I closed the door to his room and invited him into my lap. I asked, "Are you feeling something that makes it hard? Maybe more than one feeling?"

He wouldn't speak, but he nodded.

"Do you know what it is?"

Nod.

"Will you tell me?"

He said, "I'm afraid we're moving to another house."

I wasn't surprised. So I held him close and explained that we would be "visiting" the apartment we always stay in and that our entire family would be together. Later, I showed him photos of the place to help him remember, and over the next few meals I initiated discussion of memories of previous vacations--physical memories, like the height of the beds and the favorite foods. M behaved as though he were cheered by all this talk, but he didn't really seem happy until we arrived at the apartment and he saw it for himself. He enjoyed the vacation, but every day he asked me how long until we'd be going home.

Second: When our family travels, K usually cries the first night in the new bed. She says she misses our house; sometimes she says she misses Mama A. (her caregiver in the Russian orphanage). This past week, however, she did not cry. She and M had trouble settling down to sleep, but neither of them cried or even said they felt sad. Peter and I were surprised but wary. Turns out we were right to feel so: K held it together all through the vacation, but she fell apart our first night home. Wailing, she told us, "I miss my house in Russia! I miss my sisters!" (She means her foster sisters.) Apparently, coming home after a week of playing with her beloved cousins reminded her of coming to live with us. She was inconsolable, even by M, who can usually suss out a way to cheer her up. Finally, I got out a blank book she'd been drawing in and suggested she write or draw how she was feeling; after doing so, she said she felt much better.

Any adopted people or adoptive parents reading this: How do you or your kids react to vacation travel?

The Tissue Box From Hell

2010-07-13T16:00:00.002-04:00

I never did finish this entry. Sorry.

One weekend in late May, K gifted me with an empty tissue box decorated inside and out with the words I HATE MOM. The reason? I had assisted Peter in breaking up a failed attempt at a sleepover: she and M hadn't quieted down when they had the privilege of sharing the living room sleeper sofa, so we separated them. I took a reluctant K back to her room and tucked her in, and she gave me the box when I checked on her a little while later. Yes, that's right: the primary offender was Peter, but K blamed me. She usually doesn't mislay blame, so we knew something irregular was going on.

Finding it took time because I had to recover first: her statement hurt my feelings. It even brought out my scaredy-cat 7-year-old self who was bullied by smart, gorgeous girls like her. This was the first time I had ever reacted to her this way. Earlier in the week, K had written me a note (also after bedtime) saying the following (spelling corrected, since I don't have the note in front of me): "I know you are a good mom but I know you are nice but I want you to be nice like Papa." I lost a little sleep over it, but I felt pleased and a little amused that she used the formula I always use: loving words; good news first; "I"-statements. The tissue box, however, used none of these. She was feeling raw rage.

So how did Peter and I handle this gift, and how did we find the underlying issue?

1. I thanked K for the box. As casually as if she had just handed me a napkin I'd asked for.
2. After reading the message inside and out, I said, "Well, I still love you."
3. I lost most of a night's sleep.
4. Peter got up with the kids in the morning because I was still having trouble remembering that I was K's mother, not a frightened peer.
5. Once I got my bearings, I took K aside when we were both in a good mood.
6. When she explained that she wrote "hate"(a word we don't allow between family members) because she couldn't remember how to spell "I don't like," I didn't believe her. I didn't say so. I only told her that, though she expressed her real feelings the best she could, her choice of words hurt me. I then used our family's term: she "pushed me away."
7. I followed our family's formula and asked her to do a "fix" to draw me closer. I suggested that a good fix would be to make me something that showed her love for me. She's into crafts, so she liked that idea. She told me she would make me a painted clay pot the following day. (She did follow through.)
8. I then took her into my lap and asked why she'd been so angry with me lately. When she wasn't sure, I listed some reasons why "other kids might be mad at their moms this time of year." (Note that I didn't say they were my own opinions; I made sure to present these reasons less threateningly as data I'd gathered.) She stopped me at "Some kids are mad at their moms because they're actually mad at their teachers when they leave them at the end of the school year." I'd thought so--she'd even once recently called me by her teacher's name. Adopted kids often react this way to the end of school, feeling anger at the teachers for "abandoning" them like they'd previously been abandoned.
9. I refused to let her destroy the tissue box because I wanted to show it to my support group. When she persisted in begging for four days, I finally took photos of it and let her rip it up.
End of story.

A week later, K made me a box with the message, "I LOVE MOM." She was very proud to give it to me.

Getting Back To It

2010-07-12T11:33:00.002-04:00

Would you believe--Peter and I spent yesterday working on our budget and filing papers? We had hardly ever done these things since becoming parents. That was 3 and a half years ago.

Home Improv

2010-07-10T11:13:00.000-04:00

Our kids love to pretend. Most kids do anyway, but it is said that adopted kids often keep it up longer and do more of it than non-adopted kids. The theory is that they do it as a form of storytelling, in order to make sense of their discontinuous lives. All we know is that our kids do so much of it that we feel we're living in an improv troupe. Here are the current dominant scenes of our home theater.

M & K love to be us. They have imitated us since the day after we took custody, yelling "Para spat!" ("Time to sleep!") at bedtime. (Peter and I changed the bedtime routine considerably as a result.) They "make plans" over mugs of grain-coffee, shaking their heads and saying things like, "You know Sunday Monday Tuesday" and "That can't be right." M puts on my glasses and calls everybody "Sweetie." K puts on Peter's tie and a grave expression before going off to "work." Peter and I gauge how well we're managing our tempers by how long it's been since someone's pretended to be one of us giving a time-out.

M's personal favorite pretending premise has long been, "I'm a baby animal and you just found me." He was playing this with K when we first met them; he was "Kiska"--a kitten?--who followed her around on all fours. Now he's a baby squirrel who can talk and who likes to help around the house. "Baby Squirrel" interacts with me more than with K, though he will convince K to ask me whether we can keep him. He used to want me to be his mother animal of the same species, but not anymore, perhaps because he's become better able to distinguish between reality and fantasy, and also seeing as I have said a million times, "I'm your mom no matter what you are." When he isn't pretending to be a small animal in a new home, M pretends to be "a dad." He tenderly talks to and sleeps with his stuffed animals, patiently sorting out their arguments, once in a while putting one of them out of bed "because he wouldn't stop fighting." He takes them to school sometimes, explaining to them about the bus and what they're going to learn. He extends this gentle care to insects, animals, and younger children. When he's not us or a dad, he's a superhero or Star Wars character, like all his friends. But, unlike a lot of them, he fights fair in "battles" and always makes friends with the "enemy" when the fight is over.

K vacillates between pretending she's the adult in charge and pretending she's a newborn baby. Alone with M, or when she's with Peter, she'll be the teacher or mom--stern but sympathetic, getting the job done, helping where needed. Sometimes she's the doctor and will feel for fever, listen for heartbeat, make recommendations. Sometimes she's the waitress jotting down our order at lunch, telling us what food is and isn't available and bossing around M, who is trying "cook" it. With me, she's the baby. She has for months now pretended to be "born" from me. I have taught her to ask permission, since the ritual involves her putting her head under my shirt. Her hard head bumps out my belly like a pregnancy. I am supposed to say something like, "I can't wait for my beautiful baby to be born!" and then "push" her out. She emerges with her eyes closed but quickly "wakes up" and recognizes me as her mama. If I don't acknowledge her by naming her right away and telling her I'll be her mom forever, she will ask me who I am and where she is and will I be her mom. She will remain a baby through the rest of bedtime. She has been "born" every night for this entire school year.

Peter and I are glad to encourage these expressions of creativity and play along as much as we're able. We're accustomed to asking the baby squirrel to brush his teeth for acorns, and to telling the waitress we've had enough to eat, thank you, and asking her to join us for lunch. The other day, biking to a vacationing neighbor's to water their plants, the kids decided they were the Plant Rescue Squad and began screaming like sirens. What could I do? I brought up the rear and handed them the watering cans.

We hope the kids keep pretending for a long time because it gives us a window into their psyches.

Has It Been So Long?

2010-07-08T15:43:00.000-04:00

Man! I'm sorry about that. I am indeed keeping up this blog. It's just that I've had a hectic time of it and have been working on another writing project--the Brazil book I mentioned in my last post. I also got sick for the entire month of June, including losing my voice for the better part of a week, and it was bad timing because the end of school is full of parent-participation parties and I couldn't talk to anybody. I was too tired to do more than the bare minimum to get through a day; the little time I held my head up to write I had to devote to the Brazil book. Then, in these last two weeks, we lost:

-our coffee table

-our grill
-our hot water (which meant our chimney and oil burner needed servicing, not the water heater)
-our 27-year-old TV
-my car's brakes
-the operating system on my laptop

...and K caught head lice again. Let me tell you, it's bad timing to have a case of head lice in the same week you haven't got hot water. It 's also bad to have a broken grill when it's too hot to cook indoors, bad to have brake trouble before a long trip, and bad to lose a laptop when you have a writing assignment due. *sigh* We've solved every problem except the head lice (still working on it) and the broken OS (next month, maybe?).

What's not broken: our marriage, our family relationships. The kids came through the end of school with flying colors. After her bouts of hate mail to me, K got over her antipathy towards whomever she was mad at and was able to say goodbye to the school year right on time. M never lost his balance as badly as K did, but I think his having two sick-days at home with me helped. (Helped HIM, that is. I got no rest at all.) Peter and I have had lots of 1:1 time with each kid as well as family time all together--and I'd like to thank an insightful adopted teen I know for advising us to have plenty of family time at school's end to help with the annual grieving.

What's up for the summer? Well, the kids are going to their usual summer camp--first half with an emphasis on tennis, second half with an emphasis on arts. In the middle of the summer, we're taking our annual Maine vacation. Somewhere in there, the kids are spending two weeks at a nearby Audubon day camp. At summer's end, we hope to travel somewhere, or just hang out locally, as a family.

I hope to write soon about two subjects I've been contemplating a lot lately: kids' money and family decision-making. Stay tuned, and please don't give up on me.

Newsbreak

2010-05-24T13:58:00.001-04:00

For just a moment. Here's a link to my first publication since becoming a parent. It's a brief, brief audio excerpt from my memoir in progress about volunteering on a medical project in the Brazilian Amazon. It shows you what I'm trying to write in the midst of learning to be a parent:

http://drumlitmag.com

(Search for my name)

Beware The Ides of Father's Day

2010-05-20T15:25:00.000-04:00

This morning, in the car, I told my kids that Father's Day is coming up. This conversation followed.

K: "I wonder what I'm going to make for Papa."

M: "I know what I'm making!"

K: "A bomb?"

M: "Yeah!"

Me: (in disbelief) "Why?"

M: "I'm going to make something out of metal, then I'm going to put it on his head and blow it up!"

Me: (in disbelief) "Why?"

M: "Because I love him so much!"

Me: (in disbelief) "Why?"

M: "I'm going to make his head explode!"

K: "Wait, M--. I want to touch his mustache first."

Addendum to Last Entry (on fighting)

2010-05-20T12:21:00.000-04:00

Upon rereading the last entry, I realized that I haven't recently mentioned that M and K usually show great tenderness towards each other. They always have. They routinely save treats for each other, help each other with chores, confide in each other, come to each other's aid. We foster their affection by praising these behaviors and giving them more opportunities to show it--e.g. handing one of them something the other wants and asking him or her to give it; being "unable" to help one of them with a problem and encouraging the other to do so. I felt gratified the other day when K brought home an award from school and M, rather than showing jealousy, gave an ear-splitting cheer. Peter and I have confidence that K and M are the best of friends and will remain so.

We actually take heart that they're fighting because we feel it shows they trust us enough not to depend on each other entirely. When we hear them going at it in the next room, we grit our teeth and say to each other, "This is good....This is good...." Although they do fight a little even in calm times, it's when they go at it like a dog kennel that we start looking for a reason.

Fighting Like Mongooses

2010-05-19T16:41:00.000-04:00

K and M have been at it worse than we have ever seen. M uses his hands and teeth; K uses words. We cope in the following ways:
-By telling them: "Have a great fight. Over THERE."
-By giving them tools for mediation if they come to us for help.
-By meting out appropriate discipline if we directly witness unacceptable physical or verbal violence.
-By teaching them to vacuum, do laundry, and otherwise clean up the resulting messes.
-By teaching them remedial first aid.
-By teaching them (and modeling) a formula for apology that allows the perpetrator to see the damage through the victim's eyes and make mutually agreed-upon restitution.

It is draining work. I would rather lock each kid in his or her room for a few months. Or maybe just lock myself in my office. But we don't plan to stop them from fighting: we think they need to know how to do it, how to resolve conflicts, how to recover from "unfair" tactics, and the like. The hard part is figuring out where to draw the line: what's acceptable and what's not. On the one hand, we'd like them to learn what they can from being left alone. On the other, we don't want to spend more time than necessary in the local ER. And on yet another hand, we (I in particular) can't bear to see them hurting each other. I would like to become more laissez-faire as they get older, allowing them to fight more while giving them more opportunity to show affection for each other as well.

Why are they at each other? We can see a few reasons, First: M is catching up to K in reading and other skills and therefore feels he can challenge her "alpha" status, which she defends. Second: M's teacher mentioned casually to me one day that her entire class is fighting because "It always happens at the end of the year." She was about to tell me why, but--no kidding--she had to go break up a fight. M and K explained it by saying they're worried about going to a new class next year. Third--my own theory--is that, in addition to the other two causes, the fighting is a way of letting out anger at their teachers for "abandoning" them at year's end. Remember that adopted kids have particular issues with relationship transitions?

They've been trying to fight with me, too. I'll write about that ASAP.

They Think I Don't Want Them

2010-05-07T17:11:00.000-04:00

The other day, K and M told me they had called each other "stupid" (a forbidden word in our family) and that they didn't like themselves. Why? "Because you don't want us."

I thought, Oh, God. My ambivalence about parenting must show more than I realize.

I don't hit. I don't verbally abuse. I don't call names. During a good week, I yell maybe once, and that's only to get someone's attention. I try to remember to say they make me happy and that I love them. Yet here they are telling me they feel I don't want them. K even went so far as to say that she doesn't like me because I'm always grumpy.

I suppose that lately I have been distracted because I've been concentrating more on my writing. This means I am slower to smile when I see them; my smiles may look more forced because I'm annoyed about having to stop work; my body language indicates I feel burdened and weary of domestic life. I can't disguise these cues. I especially can't disguise them for these particular kids, who have had to become alert to the whims of adults who might or might not give them away. So what can I do?

The answer I keep coming up with is, "Be honest with them." I'm not sure how, but my therapist suggests I talk about the different parts of myself--for example, how one part loves parenting and another loves writing and the two parts don't always agree.

I had to have an emergency conversation about this idea this morning because I stupidly told M & K the other day that, before I became their mom, I hadn't wanted to have kids. What they heard was that I didn't want them, and they ran away from me. I had to chase them down, hold them close to me, and explain several times that I'd said I DIDN'T WANT KIDS in the past but I DO WANT KIDS now. I explained that I hadn't even wanted to get married, which they thought was silly. They finally got it once I made the analogy to turning down a new food before you've tried it, only to discover that you love it. And then we had to spend a half hour re-enacting several early scenes from our relationship (their idea) so I could show them how blessed I felt when I "found out you were my kids."

They have been obnoxious all week, before and since--speaking rudely to me, ignoring directions, fighting like mongooses. Testing me? Angry? Afraid but showing it as anger?

Character Note

2010-05-06T14:05:00.000-04:00

K spent quite a while writing the word NO on a piece of paper. She was able to fit it on there 21 times.

Dumb mom that I am, I asked her why.

She replied, "Because I don't want to."

"Don't want to what?"

She shrugged. Everything.

A Weekend at a Writers' Conference...

2010-05-03T10:21:00.001-04:00

...during which I felt liberated. Then, as the day drew to a close, I felt the shackles of parenthood again.

I am trying to write a book in addition to this blog. To keep myself working, I have a writers group, work with a writing buddy, and attend the occasional multi-week writing class. I get to model good homework behavior for the kids, which is great. Already, they seem to get that, the more they practice something, the more their skill will increase. And they understand "work before play."

What isn't great is that I don't get to think about my work as long as I need to. I can't stand having to stop what I'm doing to meet the kids at the bus, help them through homework and chores, get dinner on the table, get them showered and put to bed, get the kitchen set up for tomorrow. None of these tasks is stressful right now, not even when I'm the only adult on duty. But shifting from my "writer" identity into my "Mom" identity is as heart-wrenching as waking up too early from a marvelous dream.

I now realize that I feel anger about that shift, and I am not sure what to do with it. It's easy to talk with the kids about my feelings, 'cause they don't like making transitions either on somebody else's demand. I have a great opportunity here to model making transitions gracefully. Now I just have to figure out how. Any thoughts?

Brief Comment on News Item

2010-04-26T13:59:00.000-04:00

It's old news by now: the story of seven-year-old Artyem returned to Moscow 6 months post-adoption when his adoptive mother, Torry Ann Hansen, couldn't handle him anymore and didn't receive help even though sought it. I keep being asked how I feel about it. Here's my take.

1. I bleed for the boy.

2. Why the #@*($ was a single mom allowed to adopt a seven-year-old on the fetal alcohol spectrum? In Tennessee, where post-adoptive resources are scarce? How could her adoption agency and the Russian government think this situation would be okay?

I discussed the tragedy with my kids. It terrified them, of course. But they seemed relieved when I explained that we are a family forever and that, if we ever need help, there are many places right nearby where we can get it.

Three in a Row

2010-04-26T13:43:00.000-04:00

Good news first: The kids are doing well. If we take school performance as an an indicator of a child's overall health--because so many things have to be going right for a child to do well in school--then our kids are fine. Both are still receiving literacy support most days per week, of course, but they're both making great progress in reading. M is reading as of a few weeks ago. K is beginning to read with expression and fluency. K needs lots and lots of practice, but she needs no urging: her teacher reports that, of all the kids in the class, she's the one who will pick up a book when she has a spare minute. K says she loves to read. I especially enjoy watching K read to M. She sits on a chair, like a teacher, and has him sit on the floor or stand in front of her, which he does, spellbound. For M's part, he is sounding out words, memorizing sight words, and giving K a run for her money. Both kids are good classroom citizens and good friends to other kids.

Then the bad news: I suppose it's not really bad. It's just annoying. I am recovering from three incidents that I wish hadn't happened.

First, I sustained an eye injury on a day the kids were home from school. I had to drag them with me to an emergency ophthalmology appointment, which included hours of waiting in rooms with cool machines we weren't allowed to touch; then road flooding prevented us from getting home for a couple more hours. My eye still aching, I had the kids to myself all weekend while Peter worked. But I seem to have healed quickly; I'm fine.

Second: My primary laptop became seriously ill the following week. I thought it was simply having problems with the sleep sensor, but it turned out to be the motherboard. This happened days before the first night of a writing class I'm taking; I had to work long hours to recover the book I'm working on. I spent every possible minute picking the machine's brains of anything else I might need and finished in time for it to go kaput this morning. Meanwhile, I've been setting up a "hackintosh" Dell mini (Windows machine running Mac OS) for use in its place. In doing so, I have seen some issues in our household computer setup that need fixing. I am our household's IT staff, so it's taking much of my time.

Third: Last week, we discovered K has head lice. Oh, joy. Peter and I have traveled enough in developing countries not to be afraid of them, but we do hate doing loads and loads and loads of laundry. I am our household's laundry staff. I've been doing laundry when I haven't been vacuuming, combing K's hair, checking other family members for lice, or solving the computer problems.

Computer Adoption

2010-04-21T14:53:00.001-04:00

Just a thought: I am typing this on a Dell Mini with Mac OSX installed. Seems appropriate that I should be adopting a Dell into a family of Macintoshes.

So Glad It's Over

2010-04-05T14:27:00.000-04:00

March, that is. Two birthdays. Two birthday parties. Cleaning for Passover. The seder. Closed roads from all the rain. And, most recently, a three-day-weekend with no Peter, no Nancy, no daycare, and an eye injury. (Mine. I'm okay.)

The kids have been troupers! Yes, when they've been tired, their behavior has deteriorated, but so has mine. For the most part they've been kind and calm, helpful and cheerful. I feel so proud of them.

Is my anger diminished any? I suppose so, a little. I've been kind and calm, helpful and cheerful with the kids, maybe a little less so with Peter. Talking with him doesn't help me feel any less trapped, but it helps me remember why I chose to be and who I'm trapped with.

Managing Anger and Optimism

2010-03-24T10:13:00.000-04:00

I don't like taking time to moan and groan about myself, but I feel the need. Skip this entry if you don't want to read it.

I have had a hard time with anger lately. The reason is best explained by the bitter joke I've been telling: I'm realizing the full implications of having married an optimist. Of course, whatever the cause, it's up to me to handle my own emotional expression, and I've been having trouble.

The backstory: When Peter and I decided to adopt, it was only after he'd tried to convince me it was a good idea to raise a family and I'd tried to convince him it wasn't. Throughout our courtship we'd both felt ambivalent; we only polarized once we became engaged and shopped for a house. I was 39, he 43. His salary as an underpaid physician was double mine as an underpaid software quality assurance engineer; my software company was tanking; I had always intended to re-establish myself as a writer; therefore, if either of us was going to stop working to be home with the kids, it was going to be me. However, I had only recently returned to productive life after years of devastating depression and I was afraid that parenting would wreck me again.

Peter convinced me he'd cut back at work or find a job closer to home, and that we'd have enough money to pay other people to do certain jobs for us. He was wrong. He couldn't have predicted the bad economy, but he admits he was too optimistic about the amount of time he could spend at home. I, being the parent at home, fill in for him; and I compensate for money problems with my own labor.

In order to write, I need time and emotional space. It's taken me three years of parenting to figure out how to make time to write. But emotional space? When so much of my energy goes towards raising children as a nearly single parent and managing a home too big for one person to manage? I feel crushed by responsibility.

Peter and have talked and talked about the situation, but not much has changed because not much can. He hasn't changed jobs because he hasn't had time to do the groundwork, but even if he did, little would improve for us: He might have a shorter commute, for instance, but he'd have longer hours.

So I am in the process of giving up hope that I will ever not feel crushed. It doesn't help that both kids have their birthdays this month, that Passover is upon us with all its preparations, and that our sitter Nancy is on vacation until April 7. I feel angry. I try not to let it out at the kids, but they see it anyway--partly because they're kids and partly because of the lives they've already had. K is on the way out of 6 years old and M is on the way in, so both of them are wiggly as toddlers and defiant/changeable as teenagers. They piss me off. Lately I've been yelling, growling, shoving (just twice), and disciplining while angry (never a good idea). I feel terrible afterwards and worry even more. M runs away screaming if I even frown; he dreams of angry giants at night. K has taken to imitating me, which makes her teacher unhappy. When I hold my anger in, I eat--unless the stress makes my jaw pain so bad that I can't chew.

Well, I'd best get to the gym to work out my frustrations and to the chiropractor so I can chew again. My writers' group meets tomorrow night, but I have just used up the last of my prep time writing this entry. *sigh*

Thanks for reading.

Tactical Position

2010-03-22T14:36:00.002-04:00

M and K like to dress up as king and queen by wrapping themselves in blankets and letting them trail behind like royal robes. In a recent dress-up session, I overheard this:

K (to M): Husband! What are you doing?

M (standing up tall and shading his eyes): Looking for my armies.

(A few minutes pass; I hear small feet regally running around downstairs and the swish of blankets being dragged)

K: Husband! I found your armies!

M: Where?

K: They're in the playroom!

The Whole Story

2010-03-16T21:02:00.000-04:00

Yesterday K was in lousy form, probably because the "spring forward" time change has messed up her sleep. It took her forever to get through her spelling homework, which she starts on the day she receives it by typing the words on a computer. (The hunt-and-peck gestures help her learn in a physical enough way to aid her memory.) After she typed them all and printed them out, she studied them for a few minutes and said she was ready for me to test her. We do this to assess how many of the words she already knows and therefore doesn't need to study before the test at the end of the week.

She said she was ready, so I tested her, and she got only 7 right out of 13. Nothing I could say helped her feel okay about it. I tried, "Honey, making mistakes is part of learning." I tried, "Remember how you fell off your bike last week but you kept practicing and now you can ride it?" I tried, "Honey, you spoke only Russian until three years ago. Your brain has so much to learn that sometimes even you make mistakes." However, unusually inconsolable, she stomped out of the room crying and wouldn't speak to anyone for 45 minutes.

Right before dinner, while M was sweeping the floor (to "give me back some energy" for yelling at me a lot) I got her alone. I asked whether she knew why she was so upset. She turned a tearful face from me and said, "I want my baby blanket!"

Let me backtrack here. I have the soft yellow receiving blanket that my parents wrapped me in when I was born. K loves this blanket and wishes she had the one she imagines her birthparents had for her. Also, she has within this last week figured out that I was raised by the same woman who gave birth to me: I wasn't adopted.

Anyway, I thought she was going to talk about spelling, but she brought up the blanket. I forget how I responded--probably something like, "I know you wish you had it. Remember Papa and I said we'll give you a baby blanket if you'd like one?" and of course she still kept crying.

Then I had one of those intuitive moments that are truly a gift. I asked, "Do you feel you need to get your spelling right on the first try?"

She nodded yes.

I asked, "Do you think you need to get everything right on the first try?"

She nodded yes. Then she asked me, "How come you lived with your birthmom and birthdad and I don't?"

Bingo! I thought. I asked, "Do you think you live with Papa and me because you did something wrong?"

She began to cry in earnest, poor sweetie.

I had prepared for this moment, had read about it for at least four years. I swept her up and held her. And then:
-I explained that various beloved adopted friends had done nothing wrong and yet weren't being raised by birthparents. For example, so-and-so had been born in a country where most people don't have enough to eat, so he had to be adopted or he would have died.
-I asked whether she wanted to know more about her birthparents. So when she said yes,
-I told her a fuller version of her story than she'd ever heard. (Readers, I wish I could tell you, but I don't have her permission.)

The fuller story--the whole story of her life--made her throw back her head and wail, "It's so sad!" All I knew to do was hold her and agree with her. When she quieted, I pointed out the good parts--for instance, that Mama A. took care of her and now Peter and I were her mom and dad forever. She cheered up right away. But she still had questions to ask about her past, and I expect she will for a very long time.

M isn't interested in the story yet. When I offered to tell it to him, he said that all he wanted to know was why dinner burned on the stove while K and I were talking.

Carried Away By Writing

2010-03-12T08:23:00.001-05:00

A couple months back, M learned about question marks in school. When he came home, he gleefully punctuated his worksheet, his sister's worksheet, the kitchen table, and a couple of walls.

Today his thing was lower-case m's. After finishing his worksheet, he drew a flock of them all over it, all the while grinning and humming, "m...m...m..."

I think he gets the idea from me. When he cheats at tic-tac-toe, I draw crowds of o's running away from the game and all over the place on little stick legs. I think he cheats nowadays just so I will do it.

"I Did So Much Learning Today"

2010-03-09T10:48:00.000-05:00

K is sprinting over the hump that was blocking her from reading. Last night she read to me, almost without help, a book that used to stump her on the first line. She is fluently using a combination of strategies to tackle words she doesn't know, and her repertoire of sight words seems to increase by the day. Her spelling is improving too: for the first time, she's seeing patterns in the lists her teacher assigns every week.

She has also decided that it's time to learn to ride a bike without training wheels. This kid will yank out a baby tooth at the first sign of wiggle: she's a "get it done" kind of gal. Every one of the last few days, she's been outside practicing for as long as we've let her. I have showed her how to start pedaling and have ridden alongside her, but beyond that she doesn't want help. She's content to let her body get a feel for it. She has taken my advice to practice balancing without pedaling, but doesn't want me to take the pedals off. She's content to wobble and fall, very patient with herself. She'll learn.

K has an impatient nature. She wants to get everything right on the first try. I'm like that too. So it's been healing and fascinating for me to watch her this year learning how to learn. Peter and I try to model compassion for ourselves and each other when we screw up, and we always say that making mistakes is part of learning. I don't know whether any of what we say is helpful, but we are pleased to see K demonstrating enough patience to learn.

Last night when I put her to bed she said, "I did reading, spelling, and riding my bike. My brain is tired. I did so much learning today." As I write this, I feel grateful that she's able to learn so well right now. That means to me that her energy isn't bound up in emotional issues--she's at peace enough to do what a child is hard-wired to do, which is learn.

Ask A Silly Question

2010-03-08T20:37:00.002-05:00

I asked my kids, "How did you get to be so cute?"

M considered the question, then answered, "I took special medicine."

And K? "I took chemicals."

Update on Recent Troubles

2010-02-26T15:39:00.000-05:00

Here's what the therapist said.

1. About M's statement that he would not eat what I have cooked or touched: Neither the therapist nor we have any idea why he is becoming rigid about food right now. However, he seems to have stopped. I have been providing more variety at meals and inviting M to cook with me more, along with remaining calm and not forcing him to eat. These strategies are helping. At the last two dinners, for the first time in months, he tried new foods. He has also voluntarily returned to eating vegetables, now that he's experienced the results of a low-roughage diet for a couple of weeks.

2. About K's statement that she has "a hole in [her] heart": The therapist was as stunned as we were to hear this. I have been writing K love notes to carry around with her, and she is choosing not to carry them, explaining, "I already feel happy."

3. About M's recent fascination with knives and head-banging: The therapist says we can't know yet why this is happening, so our job as parents is to keep him safe and be vigilant. We are. We're also making sure to hold him and talk to him more, especially after we've gotten angry with him. We did find out that a bully in his class is bothering him again, for the first time in some weeks; the therapist says that the bullying might add fuel to whatever fire is burning.

I'll keep you posted.

"A Hole"

2010-02-24T09:59:00.000-05:00

The other day, K wrote me a note that read, "I wish that Mom and Dad get me more love."

I asked her what "more love" would mean.

She thought about it, then answered, "Ice cream and cookies."

Speaking as a nutrition-conscious parent, I answered, "We want to give you all the love you can hold. But ice cream and cookies? Papa and I feed you good growing food because we love you and want you to be healthy. If we gave you a lot of ice cream and cookies, we wouldn't be taking good care of you."

But she said, "Remember when we went out for ice cream on vacation last summer? I felt loved then."

I thought, She's talking about something beyond food. I asked, "Do you feel like there's something empty inside you?"

She nodded and pointed to her chest. "Right here. It feels like a hole in my heart."

I have heard several adopted adults say exactly these words, but never a child. I said carefully, "I know some people who were adopted who sometimes feel this way. It's okay. You can always talk to Papa and me about it, you know?"

She said yes. Then she said, "If I had a picture of you I could carry with me all day, it would help."

Postscript #1: I haven't had time to print her one, but I did inquire about whether a written note would do the job, and she happily said yes. Peter and I both wrote her love notes for school yesterday. But she didn't bother to bring them: "I feel happy now."

Postscript #2: When K and I repeated the conversation to Peter, she substituted "hugs and kisses" for "ice cream and cookies." Why?

Postscript #3: When I repeated the conversation to our sitter Nancy, adopted from foster care at age 3.5, she looked startled and said immediately, "I've felt that way all my life. It's why I overeat. I found out that holding a baby could help fill that hole, and I think that's why I became a nanny."

Postscript #4: I'm having visions of K becoming obese, having promiscuous sex, and getting pregnant very young.

Intending Harm?

2010-02-23T12:19:00.000-05:00

M has recently taken to banging his head against a table (gently) and smacking himself in the head. Because he bangs only when an adult is around that he's angry with, and he desists when we ignore him, I decided not to worry about it. I figured the behavior would extinguish if we didn't fuel it with attention.

Then, a few days ago, he got hold of a sharp knife and pointed it at his face. Even though he was grinning and he didn't resist when I grabbed it, my thoughts about the head-banging have changed. I now wonder whether he's doing it because he's angry, perhaps at something he can't change.

I know that boys who were adopted often experience anger at about this point in life, 5.5-6 years old. (Sister K, a year older, went through the equally typical depressive symptoms at this age.) I also know that most children, regardless of adoption status, experience tremendous growth now anyway, and it often results in behavioral issues. M has been throwing tantrums more lately than he has since he was three. But he has also become more aware of other people's needs and feelings and has been addressing them more. Is he really troubled by adoption? Or is he just growing?

Peter and I had always thought that K showed the greatest evidence of being stressed as a baby & young child because of her clinginess, attention-seeking, and obsession with abundance (of food, clothing, toys). But we're starting to think that whatever M experienced may have repercussions now that we just hadn't noticed. For example, we know he's got scarring in one ear from what looks like an untreated ear infection. Did he experience the attachment-destroying stress of unresolved pain as a baby? Was he neglected in other ways that might now or later affect his brain growth or emotional health? When Peter and I are in conflict with M, we have begun watching his pupils for dilation--an easy indicator of panic--because we've learned that early-stressed kids often go right into it rather than stopping at "annoyed" like other kids. I am cultivating an even calmer parenting demeanor than I previously had.

I'll talk to the therapist; at least she'll be able to give me advice about what to do if M wants to hurt himself for real. Additionally, although our family has always used therapeutic drawing, dancing, pretending, and other techniques for helping our kids express their feelings, we are going to give M a punching toy for his birthday in a couple of weeks so he'll have something safe to hit. Too bad he quit taekwondo.

A New Food Issue

2010-02-18T15:12:00.001-05:00

We called M "the protein vacuum" when we brought him home because he would eat two or three portions of the most protein-dense food available at any given meal. That reputation faded as his diet came more in line with what most well-nourished children eat, though it was perhaps a bit more varied: he loved salmon roe sushi and raw kale, too.

Then, the beginning of this year, M, now age 5, started to avoid new foods. He was starting kindergarten, so Peter and I figured that he had enough novelty in his life and was trying to stick with the familiar in whatever realms he could. He still ate a balanced diet; he just rejected anything he hadn't eaten before.

Well, his tastes have changed lately. He has been rejecting even most familiar foods. His limited repertoire has still been more nutritious than that of most of the "picky eaters" I know, but it has begun to bug me. It has become routine at every meal for him to get up out of his chair and gather the ingredients for a peanut butter and jam sandwich without even tasting whatever I have taken the trouble to cook.

I've been trying not to take it personally. After all, K didn't eat my cooking for quite some time after we brought the kids home; at that time, we figured it was because she was angry that I wasn't Mama A. She got over it. She is now eager to try everything I cook and will even help me cook a lot of it. However, this change in M has really caught me off-guard: he has always been the more "trouble-free" of my two little eaters.

The other night, trying not to show my exasperation, I asked him, "If I cooked something that you won't eat, and somebody else cooked the same thing, exactly the same way, so that it looked and smelled the same, would you eat the other person's food?"

Both kids answered, "Yes, Mom!"

I was not able to get a clear reason why.

The following night, he got up from the table to get a carrot from the fridge to accompany his pb & j. I got up with him and put my hand on the carrot so I could wash it for him. And he said, "Now I don't want it."

"What? Why not?"

"Because you touched it."

And that's all he would say.

I have no idea what's going on. Lately he's been dreamy and distracted, and he's been asking why we adopted him. He admits to thinking about his adoption a lot. We suspect that his food issues have to do with whatever deeper issue he's working on. But what is it?

And how should I react, as the chief cook in the house, and the only parent who eats with him on a regular basis? My concern is not about nourishing his body; it's about nourishing his heart. Depending upon what the issue is, it might or might not be a loving gesture to let M have his own set of foods and food rules apart from the family's.

I am going to consult with my adoptive parenting support group tonight. And we haven't yet had a real issue to bring to our children's therapist, but we do now.

What could be going on? I imagine it could be anything from being angry I'm not Mama A. to being angry that I haven't known him all his life.

Showers, A Little Too Unsupervised

2010-02-16T18:53:00.001-05:00

Okay, so M and K can NOT be left on their own yet for evening showers:
-K conditioned her lovely auburn hair with body lotion.
-M made a smiley face on the shower door with the bubble gum in his mouth.

Planting

2010-02-16T17:13:00.002-05:00

M and K just planted boxes of raisins in the deep snow to see whether
they will grow raisin-box trees in the spring.

K has also recently planted a pair of sunglasses.

Lesson

2010-02-11T16:50:00.001-05:00

M is Obi Wan Kenobi right now. He's teaching K "to be Princess Leia" by holding up a toy ladder like a karate board and having her whack it with an empty wrapping paper roll. She succeeds, sometimes en pointe. I just heard her say, "I have one more level to go and then I'll be a Jedi." You go, girl!

Trick Question

2010-02-08T14:40:00.003-05:00

Before bed the other night, all cuddled up with her fleece "flowers blanket" and the giant stuffed bear, K asked me, "Why did Mama A-- decide to have you adopt us?" (Mama A--, if you'll recall, is our children's foster mother in Russia.)

I refrained from answering, Because no other people on the planet were dumb enough to adopt a 2-year-old and a 3-year-old at the same time.

She hadn't asked this question before. I started by answering the way I always tell her life narrative: "Your birthparents loved you but couldn't take care of children, so Mama A--took care of you until Papa and I could come get you."

I had a feeling she'd ask again, and she did. I forget her exact words, but it was clear--as I'd expected--that my answer didn't satisfy her. She seemed to be wondering why Mama A. didn't keep her. So I gave her two more answers. One of them I'd previously given: "It is Mama A--'s job to love and take care of children whose parents can't come get them yet." The other I hadn't ever given, and I'd dreaded the day when I would need to: it concerns the fact that orphans are still second-class citizens in some parts of the world, including where our kids were born.

I hate chauvinism. I hate making generalizations about an entire country. Peter and I make conscious efforts in word and deed to drill into our kids that all cultural ways, religions, skin colors, etc are worthy. So it had been troubling us that we would one day have to explain that some cultures just don't value orphans.

What follows is paraphrased from every orphanage worker we met in Russia, including Mama A. herself. If I'd had a few more minutes to think about it, I might have come up with something better. "In some parts of the world, people think that children who don't live with their birthparents aren't as good as children who do--"

"But I am good!" K interrupted. (God bless her self-confidence.)

I said, "Of course you are. We think it doesn't matter who your birthparents are, but some people think it does."

"Like in Russia."

Sigh. "Yes. In Russia, most children who don't live with their birthparents can't go to good schools or grow up to be what they want to be. Mama A-- told us that, if you stayed in Russia, you probably would not get to have as good a life as you can have here with us. She loved you so much that she wanted you to grow up well, even though it meant you couldn't grow up with her."

I expected tears or confusion from K. (And from M, who had snuck into K's room.) Instead, she threw her arms around me and said, "You're my mommy now, forever." I hugged her and said yes, I am.

The trick part of the question? I didn't realize until later that Peter and I might do well to think of Mama A. as our kids' birthmother, not as their foster mother, as far as why-did-she-give-me-away questions are concerned. They seem to have no memory of their birth home, so all their questions of this nature are going to refer to the orphanage.

And it is a hard line to walk, teaching kids to love the country that gave them away. Anyone out there have an experience to share?

Treasures

2010-02-08T14:30:00.001-05:00

M drew a picture at school of "pirate treasure." In his treasure chest he put the following:
-necklaces
-pieces of gold
-Mom

A New Insight On Parenting With Depression

2010-02-04T14:14:00.005-05:00

An insight that's new to me, anyhow. I got it from a friend. Her 7-year-old daughter states that she fears her own bad behavior overstresses the adults responsible for her. (This girl suffers from multiple behavioral disorders.) My friend--her mother--happens to be clinically depressed. If I understood everything right, it seems that the girl feels responsible for her mother's depression.

This reasoning makes sense if you're a child. Something deep within you knows that you must depend on adults for survival, so you monitor their health, including their emotional health. If you see they're sad, or at very least not engaged with you, you try to cheer them up and make them aware of you. You try to solve their problems so they'll be capable of taking care of you.

I had long been aware that kids who are neglected, abused, or adopted within their memory keep especially close tabs on their grown-ups. It hadn't occurred to me that children of depressed parents would do the same.

My depression hasn't been especially bad since we adopted. Even at my worst, I've been able to take care of my basic needs and tend to the kids. I have learned to say, "I feel sad today, but not because of you. I just feel sad. I'll probably feel better later." My temper gets shorter; I have learned to apologize immediately for my outbursts and explain what's going on. Odd as it might sound, I wonder whether depression improves my parenting by giving me reason to keep tabs on my mood and take responsibility for my behavior.

School: A First Hot Button

2010-01-29T10:05:00.004-05:00

In many ways, it's easier for me to be a mom now than it was at first, three years ago when we brought K and M home from Russia. For example, communication is easier for me now that the kids and I all speak the same language; the kids need less hands-on physical help than they used to; I have established myself as someone worth pleasing, so they try to meet my expectations; I have learned ways to take care of myself amidst the daily scramble of parenting, so I'm less apt to do dumb things because I'm drained.

However, being a mom is harder for me in one significant way: the kids being school age, they now have the reasoning ability to get into trouble that really pushes my buttons. Parenting is harder for me because it's harder for me to stay detached.

By "detached" I don't mean "uncaring." I mean "able to let my kids own their own failures and successes." I find it easy to stay detached when K decides to carry instead of wear her coat in 0-degree weather; she'll either put it on or she won't. But I find it hard to stay detached when, as this morning, she tells me she doesn't want to study her spelling words because she doesn't care about today's test. (She does very badly on these tests unless she studies.) Dumbfounded, I spluttered, "Honey, school is your job! You have to treat it with respect!" K said, "Sorry, Mama," but--as I learned from my teaching years--being sorry is a far cry from studying.

K was very motivated last year in kindergarten. A couple reasons why she's less motivated this year might be that the tasks are harder and she's too impatient to keep at them; the teacher isn't connecting with her in some say; K's figured out that loving her teacher (=performing well) causes deep, old pain to surface when the school year ends.

I have never not cared about school. Peter has never not cared about school. We are going to need tons of coaching if this attitude of K's continues.

M still loves school, but he's a year behind K.

Stay tuned for more on this subject.

In the Kitchen

2009-12-22T15:18:00.003-05:00

I am a good, though utilitarian cook: i can make just about anything edible, though little of it would pass a food critic's muster. My usual method is to check the vegetable bins for whatever has been there longest and then concoct something out of it.

M and K love to be in the kitchen while I am cooking, sometimes hanging out and sometimes helping. Sometimes I set up M at the sink on a step-stool and give him utensils or vegetables to wash--remember, he was the one who played at the bathroom sink for hours when we first adopted him. K insists on helping me, and she enjoys measuring, so I set her up with spoons and cups, and I resign myself to a slightly overspiced or lumpy dish.

M and K had apparently cooked before we adopted them. The first time I baked cookies with them, maybe 2 or 3 months after we brought them home, they rolled up their sleeves and ran to wash their hands as soon as I took out the baking sheets. They explained that Mama A. had baked with them. K has also told me they made meatballs together. They did understand from the first that you have to wait for something to be ready once you put it in the oven or on the stove.

My own secrets for cooking with kids are, first, to do as much prep as possible before they help; and, second, to keep them busy. Because I cook with more than one child, to create a series of simultaneous tasks and to divide up single tasks so both kids can do them (e.g. dividing batter into two bowls for mixing).

I suppose my last advice for anyone wishing to cook with kids is to be ready to take over when they lose interest or get stuck on one particular operation. When I baked bread with M & K two weeks ago, they got so caught up in the kneading that I ended up having to do the rest of the steps myself.

Tools For Doing It Alone Efficiently

2009-12-09T19:14:00.008-05:00

If you've been reading a long time, you know I'm married to an amazing man who works long hours outside the home. I have it easier than the single parents and many of the partnered parents I know, so I try not to complain too much, but complain I do. Here are my challenges and some of the tools I use to meet them.

Peter's basic work week, including commute, is Monday through Thursday 7:15AM - 7:00PM, with the exception of one night when he gets home around 10:00 so he can catch up on paperwork at the office. He's a doctor, so he is on call one night a week. At those times, even if he doesn't have to see anyone at the hospital, he only looks like he's home: he's really not paying attention to anything but his pager. Because he might have to go in to the hospital, I can't count on his being able to stay home if I want to go out. As far as I'm concerned, he might as well be at the hospital.

In addition to his basic work week, Peter often has meetings before or after his office hours. The early morning ones are invariably when several household things have to happen at the crack of dawn, so I have to do them alone. Then there are the Fridays, supposedly his day off, when he often goes to the office for meetings or paperwork. And of course there are the weekends--averaging every 7th--when he is on call from 5 PM Friday to 8 AM Monday. He spends most of those weekends at the hospital. When he's home, he's on the phone.

Peter's average number of work hours is somewhere between 55 and 60, which is light for a doctor. The difficulty for me is the timing of them: he is either coming or going during the kids' transitions. Every day but Friday, he leaves as the kids are getting ready for breakfast. He is not a very routinized person, so he doesn't always leave at the same time or cross our paths in the same places. The lack of predictability fires up the kids. Every day but Friday, he misses dinner and makes it home just before the kids' bedtime--same problem. Most nights he brings home a box of charts to dictate, which he must do behind a closed door.

How do I manage with him gone so much? Two big answers: I make checklists for the kids. I use automated tools.

About the checklists: These I base on Microsoft Word templates . Right now, each kid has a "morning jobs" checklist on his or her bedroom door. I cold-laminated the lists on a home laminator so they can be checked off and erased every day. Each item is represented in words and pictures. We have used used similar checklists ever since we brought the kids home, because, being orphanage-raised, the kids were accustomed to routine. We also found it helpful to have pictures to represent what we couldn't communicate about in words. If anyone out there wants more information on how to make these checklists, let me know.

About the automated tools: These save my butt big-time. I have long known that lacking personnel, one must spend either more time or more money to get the same amount of work done. I have neither. So I save time without spending money by doing subscription-based shopping online at, for example, Amazon.com. Most of the moms I know spend hours driving around shopping; I do not.
To keep track of my other chores, I use a task list manager that syncs automatically from my iPhone: Remember The Milk. I set reminders for recurring tasks to save myself the time of re-entering them. I look forward to Peter's coming on board with this tool, but it's going to be a while. (He uses paper checklists, and he loses them.) Peter has, however, joined me in using Google Calendar, which we love because it syncs with iCal on our Macs. (Another time-saver: As our household IT staff, I set us up with Macs because they maintain themselves so well.)

Once in a while, I actually check how much time I am spending in each different arena of my life--sorta like watching one's caloric intake. To do this, I use a time-sheet called TSheets that automatically syncs from my iPhone.

It'd be ideal to have Peter around more. But I am pleased to be teaching the kids greater independence and using cheap or free tools to get tasks done.

Recovered from Thanksgiving

2009-12-09T19:00:00.000-05:00

It's been a challenging few weeks.

The kids's strep kept them home from school two of the three weekdays before Thanksgiving. They were maddeningly underfoot.

We had Thanksgiving dinner locally, not at our house, but I had to prepare food for it with the kids underfoot.

We had a second dinner the next day at our house with my in-laws: two lovely people with multiple food allergies. They brought turkey and cake. I made everything else. And of course we had major cleaning to do, what with the kids having been underfoot all week.

The following week--last week--Peter came down with strep. He'd been feeling unwell for some days prior and had been unable to pull his weight with the daily housework and child-wrangling, so I'd been doing more.

The middle of last week, I suddenly caught a stomach bug. It wrecked me for 12h and slowed me down for the following 72.

The following 72 hours, while I was still weak and slow, were an on-call weekend for Peter.

This week, Peter was out Monday night and Tuesday morning.

I hired Nancy to cover for me with the kids tonight so I could get out and write this. But I had to do grocery shopping and Hanukkah gift shopping before I could come into this nice quiet Starbucks.

Three Big Questions

2009-11-26T10:08:00.005-05:00

1. Not long ago K called me from downstairs: "MOM! MOM!" like she was on fire.

i ran downstairs to her room. "What? What?"

She was sitting on her floor contemplating a pair of panties. She pointed to the pattern. "Are these butterflies or puppies?"

2. This morning Peter and I were sitting at the kitchen table, actually face to face for the first time in two weeks, desperately trying to make a battle plan for the weekend. M was waving his hands and jumping around. "Excuse me? Excuse me?"

Wearily, we said, "Yes, M--?"

He asked, "When can we go parachuting?"

3. I asked M, quiet a long time in the back seat, "What are you thinking about?"

He replied, "I wonder what the moon tastes like."

Dizzy

2009-11-25T09:42:00.003-05:00

Both kids stayed home yesterday to let the antibiotic work. It's making them dizzy today, so I will reduce the dose by 25% tonight. (The pediatrician said I might have to do this.)

Speaking of dizziness, the other day K stunned me by saying she wanted to have a sleepover with her birthparents--"the people I lived with before Mama A--."

She had never mentioned them before. We had, of course, but she had never initiated a conversation about them. As far as we can tell, neither child can remember them. We have their names and last known address, and we have enough information about them to begin explaining why our kids don't live with them. But we haven't started searching for them, having been advised by our Russian friends not to do so. We have talked as a family about returning to Russia in a few years.

I had no idea what to say to K. I finally asked, "How do you think it would be?"

She said, "Fun," and changed the subject.

Then last night, K told me, "Sometimes I forget I'm home. i think I'm at Mama A--'s."

This was the first time I had heard this from her. I had no idea what to say, so I asked, "Why do you think this happens?"

"Because you look a little like her."

I thought about that. Mama A. was much older than I, and heavier. But her eyes looked like my mom's, so I guess they might have looked like mine, too. I said, "Do our eyes look similar?"

"You both have brown eyes. Yes."

Over this coming weekend, we will talk more.

Unstuck

2009-11-23T19:32:00.002-05:00

Well, sort of. I'm out of the house alone in a good environment for writing. I spent the day very much with the kids and got in only about 45 minutes of real writing. I had to quit when the screaming downstairs reached a volume that indicated someone was probably getting hurt, which meant I had to snap off the TV and hang out with them. While I'm glad that they spent so little time crashed in front of the tube, I'm annoyed that the rare time I was willing to use TV, it didn't work. (K refuses to play board games with M "because he cheats," and they weren't in a mood to cooperate on a building or art project.)

It turns out they both have strep. Neither had a fever today, and both had plenty of energy, which is why I didn't get much done. I am allergic to the antibiotics of choice for strep, so I had better not get it. I have explained to the kids that they must not kiss me on the mouth, feed me from their fingers, or cough on me. They seem to like the idea of protecting me, but only in theory.

They will probably need to stay home tomorrow. Both of them are sneezing and coughing; neither has much of an appetite. Besides, they will not have been on the antibiotic 24h until 3 PM tomorrow. Yes, I love them. Yes, I love protecting them and taking care of them. But I want to think and write without interruption, and if I don't get to the gym soon I will smack someone.

Stuck

2009-11-23T07:43:00.003-05:00

Both kids are sleeping late, thank G-d. They were up coughing during the night. K had a fever at bedtime, so she's not going to school today, and I am keeping M out because he has had a disgusting but fever-free cold for about a week and it's high time he either spiked a fever or got over it. I will take them to the pediatrician today for whatever tests she feels like doing, and I will put on a chicken soup and break out the popsicles. Poor sweeties.

And me? I'm screwed. I've been quiet here because I've been trying to get the first 20 pages of a book completed by--er--last week for a writing class. I'm thinning out the playroom and buying new toys for Hanukkah. I'm helping a single friend prepare for a child she's adopting from Ethiopia. I'm supposed to critique the first 60 pp of a friend's book. I'm supposed to prepare parts of two Thanksgiving dinners and host one. And I am instead stuck wiping noses and washing my hands a zillion times a day.

Sleep, my loves. Heal your little bodies and give me these last few moments of peace.

What have I learned, now, having parented for almost three years? In these circumstances, take care of myself first. Peter has learned it too. He knows I need support when someone's health fails, so he did extra work last night on the kitchen and laundry while i got ready for bed. I got eight-plus hours of sleep last night. I had a shower this morning before I sat down here. Nancy is out of town for Thanksgiving, but I have already called my mother to step in for a couple hours tomorrow afternoon so I can get out to the gym or a quiet writing space. (I will cover today alone because I don't want to expose anyone else to whatever is ailing the kids. If it's bacterial, they'll have been on antibiotics 24h by tomorrow afternoon.)(We'll forget for the moment that I am the only person in the family allergic to antibiotics, so I must not catch what they have. And I am the only asthmatic and have been wheezing.)

I plan to spend today at my laptop when I can and with the kids when i can't. I will make an appointment with the pediatrician ASAP. The kids might not want to do much besides lie in front of the television, and when they're sick like this we let them, seeing as they watch maybe 15 min/day of PBS the rest of the time. I think I will try moving my laptop to the playroom, which adjoins the TV room, so I can listen for coughing and boredom. If the kids need company but don't want to move, I will file papers in the TV room. (They will climb all over me if I sit on the couch, and I can't risk that.) I will make soup out of some chicken bones and put on an experimental crockpot borscht because we like borscht even though the kids don't. If i need exercise, I will rearrange the playroom or move some other furniture--pity we hired some local kids to rake our leaves. Peter left way early this morning so he can get home early tonight and I can go out to write or hit the gym. I am tempted to start prep on the Thanksgiving dishes, but I won't until we have a clearer prognosis on the kids' illness(es): I don't want to get stuck with 16 lbs of roasted root vegetables, 2 quarts of stuffing, and a gluten-free apple pie if I don't have to.

Wish me luck.

First Grade Help Desk

2009-11-10T15:00:00.003-05:00

I assisted in K's computer class today. I help 16 first-graders use 20 iMac computers.

There wasn't much I needed to do. Each kid was instructed to login using their first and last name, Google on the name of a specific website, and then play any word games they liked on the site. I helped a few kids find keys on the keyboard, and one boy needed to be told to use his nickname instead of his full name for the login, but otherwise all I did was stride around with my hands behind my back and wait for someone to look like they were stuck.

K behaved beautifully while I was there, which was a first. She hugged and kissed me when I arrived, then at my direction returned to her place and got on with her work. I made sure to stop by often and ask her about what she was doing. True to form, she was using context cues and trial-and-error--not reading--to figure out what to do with each game. I let her teachers torture her over the words, but I watched to see whether I could learn anything.

At the end of 30 minutes, it was time for the kids to logout and go to art class. I paced one side of the room and asked the kids whether they needed any help. Imagine my surprise and amusement when I saw K doing the same on the other side of the room, leaning over and assisting those who needed her!

M's Fears

2009-11-03T08:52:00.003-05:00

...came out all at once last night. I don't know why. He and K had both been behaving like circus animals all day. M has lately been exhibiting signs of anger, mostly by wrecking things other kids are building and taking K's stuff. Not major problems, I know, but he usually will desist once spoken to, and he's not desisting.

Anyway, when I put him to bed last night, he started to cry when I left the room. When i asked why, he told me he was scared to be alone. Then he drew me a picture with the following narrative. He would stop and then remember something else and add to it.

"Here's me and here's a mean guy breaking the door down and putting me in a bag and stealing me. I'm in the bag so you can't hear me screaming. He takes me away and shoots me and the police can't shoot him because he's too fast and I die and here's you crying; here's your tears. The policemen make a statue of me and everybody cries because I'm dead. And you make me alive again and we live happily ever after and then a bad guy comes and steals all your money and we don't have enough food."

A little while earlier, K had informed me that she'd been behaving badly all day because she didn't like me and didn't want me to be her mom. I felt kicked in the chest already. But I kept accepting M's fears: "Uh-huh. I see. Can you draw even more scary stuff? " I wanted to cry.

M has recurring fears of being stolen. When his drawing slowed down, I asked him, "Are you afraid someone will steal you because we took you away from Mama A--?" When he stared at me and nodded yes, I explained that it's the law that Peter and I are his parents forever, which means no-one is allowed to take him. He seemed comforted somewhat by this statement, but of course there's no calming anyone's fear of chaotic bad guys.

Eventually, when he'd run out of fears, M turned the paper over and drew our whole family having dinner at his favorite restaurant, a Japanese hibachi-style place where he loves to imitate the table chefs playing with knives and fire. When I asked whether I ought to take the paper with me to get the scary thoughts out of his room, he said yes and instructed me, "When you're angry, show the angry side. When you're happy, show the happy side."

("Angry"? We never discussed "angry." Hunh. I'll have to ask him about that.)

I drew him a big heart to place over his bed like a talisman. He loved it. He usually sleeps with a soft fleece sweater of mine and sometimes with a toy of K's.

Unlike home-grown kids, institution-raised kids don't know about waking their parents for dead-of-night problems. Sad as it sounds, there is often not enough staff at the institution to help them at night, so they learn to put themselves back to sleep. M will call us if he wets his bed, but that's it. He will tell us in the morning about his nightmares of being stolen and how he lay in bed afraid, but it won't occur to him to call out.

Therefore, last night I told M, "We're your mom and dad even at night. So if you're scared and you want to check that we're here to protect you, call us and we'll come."

"But what if you're sleeping too hard?"

"Come get us."

He looked genuinely puzzled. "Then what do I do?"

i said, "Well, first you can look at us sleeping and see if you feel better knowing we're in the house with you. If that doesn't help, just say, 'Mom, Dad, I'm scared,' and we'll help you. Okay?"

He said okay.

We expected him to test this system last night, but he didn't. Maybe just knowing it was in place helped him.

Achieved the Impossible This Morning

2009-11-01T10:02:00.002-05:00

I had enough sleep.
I had a shower.
I put on clothes that I like.
I groomed my eyebrows and nails.
I put on makeup and earrings.
Peter fed and is minding the kids.
I fixed the problem with our printer.
I am at my desk writing.
I even filed a bug report on software I'm trying out, since the company is interested in hearing from me.

It took only 2 years, 10 1/2 months for me to have a morning like this.

Of course, I am afraid of what I'll find when i leave my office....

Reading and Drama

2009-10-30T13:56:00.004-04:00

I got a call from the school a couple of days ago: Would we authorize them to assign K a reading tutor? "She clearly knows her letters," said the teacher, "but she won't sit still to read." We had noticed the same thing. I said yes. I also asked who the tutor would be was delighted that she's the literary specialist both our kids worked with in a pre-literacy class two years ago at their preschool/daycare. I used to wake them up from "quiet time" to see her, and this is why.

When I informed K, she asked the only question I hadn't prepared for: "Why me?" I answered with what teacher had told me, which in retrospect wasn't the best answer: "To help you not wiggle so much. You and Miss L-- will go to a quiet place where you can read together, just the two of you, so you won't have so much trouble focusing."

K has told me that "the best thing a person can do" is learn to read. She's been recognizing certain sight words for well over a year and writing little love notes to Peter and me. She loves being read to, will (finally) sit for book after book after book, remembers stories, talks about things that happens in them. She likes looking at dictionaries and field guides, where words make visual patterns. Until recently, she claimed she could read.

But get her to sit and practice reading with us? Might as well ask a howler monkey. She wiggles all over the place and tries to tickle us and otherwise distract us with cuteness and charm. When she does read, she's mainly reciting a sentence she's memorized, without even looking at the page. If asked to look, even at a single word so she can get the first letter, she says, "I give up."

The issue came to a head the other night when I actually picked her up and carried her to her room, kicking and screaming, to do her reading homework. She tried hard to read, I have to give her that. And I was very supportive of every effort she made. But after a few pages she made a mistake and screamed, "I AM SO BAD AT THIS!" and launched into a full-on tantrum.

If I hadn't had a screaming child in my arms, I would have cried. I had the irrational thought, This teacher is hurting my kid! I wanted to tell K, "Let's quit. Reading doesn't matter." She feels that I'm torturing her by making her read. I don't want to jeopardize my relationship with her because of schoolwork.

K was squirming away from me on the rug, screaming without words. I asked whether she knew was was wrong. She nodded yes. I asked whether she would tell me what it was. She shook her head no. I asked whether she wanted me to stay. She nodded yes. So I did. I said, "You are not bad at this. You are learning. You're used to getting everything right on the first try, but you're not able to do this so easily. Even if you really were bad at this, I'd still love you and still be your mom."

She screamed, "I KNOW THAT!"

I thought, Glad she does. Glad the problem isn't embarrassment. I gathered her into my lap. Of course, this was the night I had only ten more minutes to be with her--Nancy was coming shortly so I could go downtown for a class. I wished I could have asked her to shut off the tears and we'd deal with it tomorrow.

Suddenly K said, "I want to read the rest with Nancy."

She hadn't ever succeeded at this before, but I agreed, making a mental note to coach Nancy before I left. She's helped 11 grandchildren learn to read (#12 is still a baby), but I wanted to review K's teacher's recommendations with her. I let K run off to be with M, watching their first TV all week.

M tackled her. Uncharacteristically, K screamed and hit him. I immediately ordered M to stand back. When he asked why, I said, "Because K is having a tantrum and might hurt you. I'm protecting you." K ran to her room, and I let her know, as I always tell a child who has retreated, that she could choose when to come out.

She did a few minutes later and sat down next to M to watch PBS's Word Girl. Now that she was calm, I gathered her into my arms and said the following: "You are probably having trouble reading because you spoke Russian until you were 4. You're only 6 now. You had to learn English REALLY fast. Now you're also learning Spanish in school and Hebrew in religious school AND you're learning to read. That's a lot for anybody, even a kid like you. And it's not your fault. You didn't ask to grow up speaking Russian! You didn't ask to be adopted when you were almost 4! You have done so much learning that your brain is just working extra hard, that's all. Your teacher knows this, so she's asked Miss L-- to help you, and Papa and I try to help, too, because we love you and we know you want to read."

She turned her red face to me.

I said, "I wish I could make it easier for you."

She reached up and touched my cheek and said, "You don't have to, Mom."

At that point, Nancy rang the doorbell. I reviewed the teacher's guidelines with her, did my usual Nancy-will-take-care-of-you-because-Papa-and-I-love-you-but-can't-be-here-so-be-nice-to-her pep taik, and left for class.

When I got home, where was a note on K's breakfast place mat: "Good job on your reading last night! I'm so proud of you. Love, Nancy."

K read calmly and beautifully with Peter last night.

I wish I know what brought about the change. Did K just need to be heard? Just need to be told it wasn't her fault? Just need someone to witness her frustration?

First Therapy Visit

2009-10-30T13:03:00.003-04:00

Both in the same day: I brought the kids to visit a child therapist and I was offered reading tutoring for K. I'll write about the first in this entry.

So far, we have had no mental health issues that we haven't been able to deal with ourselves. You've read about all of them here. But one thing had been bothering us: K's recurrent phases of grief during which she seems to need more comfort than we can give her. She will weep at bedtime or wake up saying she's sad, and she will want to pretend she's a baby and have us carry her around. If she has any idea what's bothering her, she says she misses Mama A, her beloved Russian caregiver. I have written here about all this before. What brought us to seek therapy was my gut feeling that we have been throwing comfort into a black hole: she has a deep emptiness that is beyond our skill to teach her to cope with. Since we expect M to show signs of grief or anger sometime soon (again, as I have written here, it often happens once adopted kids are home long enough), we figured we might as well establish a relationship with a therapist skilled in handling adoption issues. If we don't need her now, we probably will.

If you are local to me and you need information on the person we found, please email me privately.

We visited this therapist, whom I'll call Carol, after school one day this week. I had met with her privately several weeks earlier to give her background on our family. When I told the kids we were going to see her, I spoke of her as a "feelings doctor." I had prepared them for months by telling them that I see a feelings doctor myself sometimes when I have feelings that I need help with. I had even given them the example that I was going to seek her help for all the yelling I had been doing. So when we talked about the visit the day before, they seemed quite calm about it and asked me simply, "What will we do there?" and "What does she look like?" I could answer both questions.

The visit was probably like any child therapy visit: we spent some time talking and some time playing games. K and M behaved the way they always do in a new environment, exploring it with their hands and bodies, testing to see whether our rules for behavior applied in this new space. I had a hard time deciding what behavior to require of the kids: was it okay to fool around with Slinkies while talking with Carol? Was it okay to wiggle and sit sideways in their chairs? I did insist that they keep the games on the shelves until playtime and that they quit touching the stuff on Carol's desk, but other behavior was rather a gray area for me. I kept asking Carol, "Is this okay with you?" and she kept giving me a noncommittal shrug. It made me think that she was evaluating how much I was willing to let them get away with.

The high spot of the afternoon was when K chased a Slinky down the stairs and let herself into the men's clothing store that is another tenant of the building. She was easy to extract. Thank Heaven she didn't let herself into the jewelry store!

We meet with her again this week, to continue establishing the relationship. The goal is to get the kids comfortable being with her while I wait elsewhere, and eventually to get them comfortable enough that they can meet with her separately. I feel we have a long way to go.

Still, the kids said afterwards that they liked her and were happy when I said we'd see her again. When she asked them how they felt during the session, they said, "Happy," and they looked it.

The Cast Came Off

2009-10-30T12:48:00.003-04:00

...on Monday. The X-rays say that K's arm has healed well. Having learned to do everything with her left, nondominant hand, she now appears to be ambidextrous. Stay tuned.

Longing to Protect Them

2009-10-23T15:02:00.003-04:00

I find myself sad about K and M these days at unexpected moments, sometimes even crying when I am alone. I'm aware that they're in elementary school now, which is the beginning of being up against a world that mostly doesn't understand adoption, in which teachers and friends sometimes behave as if they were enemies. A world in which schools assign family trees and babies always grow in "their mommy's" tummy and you can "adopt" a greyhound or a highway simply by spending money. We have to teach our innocent, open-hearted children to cope with a world that makes bad assumptions about adoptive families and asks rude questions about them when it acknowledges them at all.

I feel weary already, but I am rolling up my sleeves and putting on my armor--a lightweight armor of politeness: "Sorry, Teacher, but they have no baby pictures" and "Why do you ask 'How much did they cost'?" and "I'm her mother, sweetie. The word we use is 'birthmother." But behind the armor is a mother lion just waiting to be roused.

Ironic Good News

2009-10-22T20:51:00.002-04:00

Both kids have recently told me for the first time that they hate me & I'm mean to them. M even told me he draws pictures about how much he doesn't like me.

What I felt: Good attachment! I'm relieved they're not afraid I'll give them away if they tell me this.

What I said: "I understand. I wish my job were to make you happy all the time, but it isn't. I'm your mom. My job is to keep you safe, and that doesn't always mean making you happy. It's okay that you don't like me sometimes."

What I did: I cried. I didn't intend to, but I was exhausted, caring for the kids 24/7 during Peter's most recent on-call weekend and short on sleep. I told the kids I would be okay, of course. Still, K stroked my cheek and M brought me tissues, and for a moment we were friends again.

Car Mail

2009-10-22T20:44:00.004-04:00

A few weeks back, we accidentally received some of our rabbi's mail. (His family lives around the corner from us.) So I took the kids for a walk to return it. M had a toy car in his hand.

When we got to the mailbox, K put in the stack of mail. Then M put in the toy car. I asked him why. He explained, "Because the rabbi hasn't had a turn to play with it yet."

(When I explained this to the rabbi, we agreed it was "a loaner." He returned it last week via the same method.)

Rocks

2009-10-22T20:43:00.002-04:00

K saw coarse sand on the street and exclaimed, "Look, Mom! Little baby dirts!"

Then she looked up and asked me, "Do mommy rocks adopt baby rocks?"

M and Pumpkin

2009-10-18T17:46:00.002-04:00

This from two years ago. (Gosh, has it been that long?)

M saw me putting a halved pumpkin into the oven and asked: "When it come out, pumpkin have eyes?"

I said, "Er...no, but we can carve another one so it does, and give it a mouth, and--"

His face lit up, and he asked hopefully, "Pumpkin can talk?"

More on Returning to the Scene of the Crime

2009-10-06T09:48:00.003-04:00

This again from commenter Rosie:

"The fact that your kids are wanting to do puzzles that are more appropriate for 3-year-olds is not necessarily a bad thing....Them regressing to younger behaviors is quite understandable given their histories. I'd ask them questions to probe more about why they did want to play with those puzzles."

Agreed. We are very conservative about giving away "old" toys for this reason. But the kids had no explanation, when I asked them why the eagerness for these puzzles, beyond a shrug and "We like them." FYI, Peter and I plan to give a similar set to our kids at the next gift-giving occasion. We don't know why these puzzles matter, but they seem to matter a lot, and that's good enough for us. If we go through with the giving-away-a-new-toy-each plan, you can bet that any toys the kids really grieve for will be replaced with similar (not exact) toys in some graceful way, or perhaps we'll give the kids a chance to earn exact replacements.

Rosie continues: "Maybe that 'gifts-for-others bin' was too much of a temptation out in the open. IMHO, they shouldn't be punished for a tradesman's taking out (and perhaps forgetting to replace?) what should have been hidden out of sight and out of temptation's way.'

We agree. Too bad that the bin had been replaced--that is, re-hidden behind a closed door. The kids really had to work hard to get it out.

What startles us that that they took the puzzles in secret, when they thought Peter and I were sleeping, instead of asking us for them. Further, they violated the sanctity of a closed closet, which was a concept we'd instilled in them since bringing them home. We know they play in other homes where breaking in and stealing are--well--rewarded by a parent throwing up her hands and saying, "Oh, well, I guess you can have it." Ours is not one of those homes.

I could stop here, but let me mention that one unusual reason we are particularly strict about breaking & entering, stealing, and the like is that our kids know they're from Russia and are learning from popular culture that Americans regard Russians as thugs. I nearly fainted the other day when M told me, "I steal because it's in my nature." Yeah, okay, he comes from a part of the world where there is a lot of poverty and people sometimes break the law to get by. Yeah, okay, he might still be with his birthparents if they'd had enough to go around. Yeah, okay, he may have had to learn to steal as a little kid where resources were scarce. And yeah, okay, there are things in his & K's family history that make this incident particularly relevant. But we feel that one of our jobs is to teach our kids that their histories don't deprive them of choices for their future. We'd rather address "crimes" like this in our family than have them addressed by a jury. We know of several local teenagers adopted from Russia as preschoolers who now have police records. We want to try to prevent this result.

Same as in my response to Rosie: These are safe lessons now. They won't be later.

More on Money and Promises

2009-10-06T08:52:00.002-04:00

Commenter Rosie raises a good point that I would like to address.

Concerning K's concept of money:
"Does she know the meaning/value of money yet? If not, I don't see how she can be expected to understand how giving her "special number code" is going to cost her parents more money, and why that isn't a good thing for your family budget, and how on earth that relates to how many lunches she can buy per week."

My response: Yes, we know. That's why we don't present it that way. Mea culpa for not explaining further.

K, with memories of different kinds of scarcity in her pre-adoptive life, may have an even harder time understanding money than most by-birth kids her age. However, she has long understood "twice a week" on the calendar. She is generally good with numbers. She can "budget" her pancake syrup allotment to last all of breakfast. Nonetheless, the concept of money as something you earn, save, and spend may take her a while to comprehend in a way adequately free of emotional entanglement. For this reason, Peter and I present the lunch contract more as pertains to promises and much less as pertains to actually spending money. You'll note that our explanation to her hinges on a promise (of payment) that is ours to make, not hers.

The "twice a week" rule is a promise she and we agreed upon together. Peter and I are trust her to keep it but know there will be failures, especially because we know she gets impulsive with food. In fact, we hope she will. The reason is that we need for her to learn now, while it's safe, that her choices outside the home have consequences. We prefer an extra lunch now to a drinking binge later.

This is one of those instances where adoptive parenting and birth parenting differ. At risk of stating the obvious, a child who was adopted has had an adult break a contract with them; for this reason, they often have more difficulty than birth kids with contracts they make with adults. K is now 6, with normal cognitive function and good attachment. No mistakes she makes will cause harm. So now is the time to start work on that learning. The family budget has nothing to do with it. Sorry I didn't explain.

Sheet Music

2009-10-05T20:10:00.002-04:00

I found this on the piano this morning:

K "wrote" it. She informs me it's Mary Had A Little Lamb, and I am supposed to play it.