Abort Mission!!

Hayden and I had a talk a few days ago about peeing and pooping in the potty. He nodded, excitedly received the new Elmo underwear I bought him and since then has, every time the urge strikes, gone to the potty, sat down, gotten everything in the potty, wiped himself and then disposed of everything and washed his hands.

Did you believe me? Even for a second?

Unclear why the urge to potty train struck last week while I was pseudo single parenting (poor Jeremy was working overnight and therefor sleeping during the day when he wasn't grumping around the kitchen for something to eat which of course we don't have because that would make me *good* at this whole keeping house thing) but strike it did.


Supplies were procured, pottys were established upstairs and down, requisite trip to the store to pick out "new special underwear" was made. (I always feel a little hesitant to say "big boy" anything to him - "big boy underwear", "big boy bed", "can you be a big boy for me and do x" - I think I'm worried it will give him some kind of "I am a big baby" complex if he doesn't do what I am trying to get him to... tangent. sorry.)

So we proceeded, spending a LOT of time with the god damn potty reading books, etc. We ate a chocolate chip every time success was had. I would say by the end of the week we were maybe 3 for 4 in terms of how often the pee pee made it into the potty. In terms of poop, our stats were markedly worse. But the thing that made me decide to throw in the towel and return to diapers was that my son could have cared less if his underwear was wet or, and it seemed to me especially, if it was filled with poop. SICK!! He seems relatively aware that he needed to pee or poop but this awareness did not spur a "mama, poop" or send him scuttling off to find the potty. He just went for it, denied it if asked, and proceeded to play as if his underwear was not filled with monster turds.

And I SWEAR this is a boy thing. There are lots of girls his age who are potty trained and seem to have completed the task with insight, intelligence, and in touch with their bodyness. At the least girls seem to have less tolerance for underwear filled with urine. What can I say, we are the superior sex. Sorry Hayden - I love you very much, but it's true.

Watch - now our daughter won't be potty trained until she's 6!

So we're back in diapers and everyone is much happier for it. Except, of course, the landfills.....

So sorry Quaker School

I went to Quaker School from seventh grade on. If it wasn't for my Quaker School, and specifically one amazing teacher, it is quite possible I would not have graduated from high school and quite probable that I would not have gone on to college. I am not particularly religious - with a Jewish dad who doesn't believe in God and a mom who tells tales of scary Catholic school we celebrate Hanukkah, Passover and Easter (only because H is so cute looking for those eggs!). I do go to Quaker meeting every once in awhile and while I am not well versed in Quaker beliefs I do know and mostly buy in to their whole non-violence spheel. Yesterday I would have told you I am raising a son who will not have guns, will not play violent video games (or any video games, if I have anything to do with it), who will understand that violence is one person hurting another and that goes against what we "in this family" believe is right or good.

Now, let me descend from my high horse and confess that I took H to see Kung Foo Panda - his first movie ever. Damn you IMDB! I read the parent reviews and they mentioned that there is "some fighting" but went on to promise that there was more to the movie, and that the violence wasn't graphic and was, to quote them, "silly". I dragged my wonderful friend and her 2 2-year-olds with me (so sorry - am hanging my head in mommy shame..), forked out for tickets and popcorn, and settled down to watch.

All I have to say to those who said this was a "young kid friendly movie" is CHA! As if!!

It was 2 hours of people karate chopping each other. There was no blood, but there was lots of hitting, kicking, some sword play as well as flaming daggers. Swweeet. It was everything I want to keep H away from - loud, overwhelming, desensitizing - he loved it. THEN, we left the theater and while waiting in line to get an ice cream he started running back and forth in front of the counter going "hi-YA" and "chop" and flinging his arms around in the air. holey crap - that is MY kid doing that?! He loved it. The whole thing. The loud, the big, the shopping, the panda getting hit in the balls, (do pandas have balls? I guess they must...) couldn't get enough.

Yeah yeah yeah, I know I (probably) haven't scarred him for life, that lots of kids who have never had a toy gun (or been to Kung Foo Panda) still play with pretend guns, that I watched mov ies like Dumbo and Cinderella that have equally upsetting story lines and morals, blah blah blah. I still feel like with that movie I wittingly exposed my son to a lot of things that are scary, overwhelming, and (in my opinion) not so great about the world we live in.

On the other hand, it was 2 hours of air conditioned entertainment and all I had to do was sit there and repete "Panda is OK" over and over...

Urination

What did the UN say to Israel in 1947?

Kidding.

There's a new pool by our house- it's pretty impressive. Big water slide, "lazy river" (which is anything but when you're with a 2 year old who insists "let go mama! I swimmmm!!!" and then sinks like a rock only to be wisked down stream below the legs of teenagers in various states of flirtation who are increadibly slow to respond to my cries that they are stepping on my son) and a toddler area. Sweet. Off we went yesterday to the pool to meet some friends.

We got out of the car (ok, the mini van that I should be embarassed to own but love and yes totally understand when people give me the finger) and H is wearing his swim trunks. No swim diaper. We are standing in line and my friend, who is a few people in front of me, points down and H is now standing in a puddle. We are in the middle of the parking lot because the line is snaking out(well, crocodiling accross, snaking would imply that it is moving..) from the shaded, "form line here" area through the black tar topped parking lot. The woman in front of me gives me a "gross - do something!" look and then turns back to her pefectly behaved children. It's hot, pee is gross, especially someone else's pee, I get it. But what did she want me to do? Mop up the pee from the parking lot? I think not. Repreimand H for peeing? Another no.

I assume it is becoming clear that I do not understand the diaper v. swim diaper v. swim suit which will catch things etiqute with non potty trained children. H's suit has this netting thing which will (and has) catch anything of substance before it is released into the pool, but obviouslly lets the pee through. I just assume when I get into a public pool that there are people peeing in it. Seems like it comes with the territory. Do swin diapers actually contain the pee? I thought they were just a gimmick by pampers.... I do understand how it can be disturbing to have little toddler turds floating around and want, by all means, to contain my sons....

Deep, I know.

Referral gone wrong

We got the call! I thought it would never come, I felt a little nauseous, I opened the email attachment while on the phone with our social worker and my husband, conference called in at work, and saw her – our baby! She was absolutely beautiful and I felt something I wasn’t expecting – love. I really think that’s what it was – I felt like she was a part of our family. I had visions of watching her grow – not visions of a generic child but of this baby, whose sleeping face I examined on my screen for hours. The lips: plump and poutty. The ears that stuck out slightly just like my husbands. The long, lean limbs splayed out in sleep. The beautiful hair which in it’s patchy nature belied hardships she had already survived in her first 3 months that my son would never have to know.
Not that I didn’t think I would love this child eventually. I just thought it would take time. I thought the first time I held her she might feel like a stranger. I thought I might spend the time between referral and travel living my life as I had before, instead of spending a significant portion of each waking day thinking about her, yearning to hold her, counting the days until we would travel. My response to the pictures took me by surprise.
We got the referral on a Wednesday. Thursday morning our agency called to tell us that the doctor who visits the foster care center every week had raised some concerns about our baby’s hearing and recommended that she see an audiologist. The audiologist concurred with the first doctor – she does not babble, she does not turn towards loud or sudden sounds. A third nod of agreement from the staff at the foster home – she does seem to sleep through things that wake all the other kids up, she doesn’t respond to voices or noises as the other babies her age do.
In the US we have the technology to test newborn hearing. It involves sticking a device in their ear and electrodes on their heads that measure weather sound is being conducted through the ear canal and weather that sound is being relayed properly to the brain. (I think. Don’t quote me on it). Such machines do not exist in Ethiopia. Via a friend I managed to get in touch with the medical directors for both the Peace Corps and the US Embassy who both confirmed that such technology was absent in country.
Jeremy and I had requested a healthy infant girl (I know, join the club – that is a whole different discussion about ethics and personal choices). That is exactly what we may have been referred. Or this beautiful baby may be profoundly deaf. Looking at the statistics, chances are that she has a problem conducting sound. Such problems are almost always correctable. There would however be no way to know what, if anything, was wrong with this little girls hearing until we brought her back to the US as our daughter. As soon as that reality settled into my brain I knew, in the saddest, darkest, most selfish and self interested part of my heart that I would not be able to bring this baby.
If we adopted a seemingly healthy baby who turned out, after we brought them home, to have a special need, I have no doubt that we would love and care for them to the best of our ability for as long as they needed it. I am not, however, capable of volunteering to care for a special needs child – of knowingly entering in to the agreement, even if it is only a possibility.
I know this is the right decision for the family I have right now – Jeremy, Hayden and me. I also know that our adoption agency will care for this little girl until they find a family for which she is a good fit. But more than either of those things I know that I feel like a horrid, selfish bitch. I said “no thank you” to a NINE POUND BABY – a helpless, nine pound baby who I could have helped. I have spent the majority of my working adult life with humanitarian organizations working to protect women and children from exploitation and disease – how is it that I can do that for general populations, for people I don’t know, and yet I couldn’t do it for this one baby to whom I am forever connected, who literally could have been my child?

So, why exactly are you adopting?

Good question.

I got pregnant fast. A little too fast –if anyone tells you that you have to wait a few months once you go off the pill before your body can conceive DON’T believe them. Use birth control. Really.
I write this not to make light of our good fortune or to belittle anyone's fertility struggles but because I think the fact that we got pregnant so easily added to people's surprise when we announced we were planning to adopt instead of conceive a second baby.

It's hard for me to articulate the reasons I wanted to adopt a baby. I will not speak for Jeremy here because he has his own motivations and concerns and frankly I was, at the beginning, much more gung ho on the adoption thing then he was - a topic for another time.

Before this stay at home gig, I spent most of my career working in South East Asia and Sub Sarahan Africa. I've seen a lot of kids in a lot of dire circumstances, from refugee camps to HIV clinics to their parent's funerals. The idea that "there are children out there who need homes" is more concrete when you can picture the twelve year old in Kigali who is raising her five siblings, or the ten year old in Monrovia who is sleeping with Peacekeepers in order to gain access to food for her family.

On an entirely selfish note, I had a difficult pregnancy and a horrid birth experience which did not leave me eager to do it all again. The fact that I am so in love with my son, that staying home with him and watching him grow has been so unexpectedly and astounding fulfilling and joyful makes me eager to have more children.

Combine these factors with an interest in other people and cultures, race and social structure, and the fact that I think Jeremy and I are not half bad at this parenting thing with my belief (which has wavered during the adoption process at times) that I can love with intensity a child who I raise regardless of biological ties and voila.

I realize this explanation is not necessarily a "good one". I realize it has colonialist overtones. (Undertones?) Do I think I can give this child a better life than the one they would have were they not taken away from their home? Do I think spending tens of thousands of dollars to bring this child home when the same money would make it possible for her family to raise and provide for her and many others makes sense? Is ethical? Moral? Do I think the idea of well off american white people raising poor black ethiopian's babies is ok? Yes, no, I don't know, no...

International adoption seems, thus far, an ethically dubious potentially detrimental enterprise which we are moving into with as much care sensitivity and love as possible. It is also how we have chosen to build our family and when I think about *our* daughter, the baby we will bring home, love, raise, and tackle all this issues with, the "big picture" questions seem to fade away and everything feels as it should. Is that ok? Does that make me ethically dubious? Would I know if I was?

Do Over!

Right. Since last post: decided not to move to NC, stopped process of buying and selling house, got referral for beautiful baby, found out about unexpected circumstances around baby's health, emotional anguish and multiple conversations with physicians, adoption agency, and friends, turned down referral and are back to waiting, but with a heavier heart this time.

Phew.

Moving on - My son is in love with his father and things I suck. At first it was just a preference - "Hayden, do you want mama or papa to put you to bed?" "Papa". Sweet. It was a good deal for me and Jeremy enjoyed being the preferred parent for more or less the first time since Hayden was born. Now I am starting to feel like H actually dislikes me - I get all the whining, the hitting, the bossing, and Jeremy gets hugs and giggles.

This morning when J was at work and H was being really, really annoying I made him a tent (ie, sheet over dining room table) and suggested that if he didn't want to be around me he go play in his tent. He did - for almost an hour. This should have been a blissful break but instead I felt guilty and sad and mean all at the same time. Bummer. I remember when I was little and my parents would fight I would always take my moms side. I usually had no idea what they were fighting about or who was right or wrong, but I perceived my father as a bully and my mother as the victim who needed my protection. Is Hayden going to see me that way?? Am I going to be the "bully" and J the one who can do no wrong, even when he does? What does this mean for adolescence? For when the baby comes home? Do I suck? As bad as the SATC movie?

I miss the days when I could do no wrong, when Hayden believed I could fix whatever problems he had, from an owie to a broken toy to a dead squirrel. The worst part is that instead of enjoying this "respite" from always having to be the primary caretaker I am wasting my time, ALONE, on a Sunday afternoon blogging about it. Re donkerous. Really.