Growing Family

Off you go then

So I don't know if I'll post while we're in Holland. We will be spending much of our time staying with some wonderful friends there who are both mega-geeks. That is, they're both in the computer industry. By the way, that's where The Captain's brains are. He's a programmer and a darn good one too. Anyway, I'll have lots of tech support but we'll see how we're doing in the sleep department and go from there. :)

I have been running around today amassing lots of stuff that will supposedly make our trip better. Granola bars, baby snacks, new panties. Anyway, all I have left to do (I think) is pack. I've been putting that off all day. :) So, I'm going to get to it now. I wish you all a good week and I'll return with pictures and hopefully humorous anecdotes. ;)

Sand Spitting on Windowpanes

So my husband, The Captain, is Dutch. To clarify, he is not technically a captain, he's simply the captain of our family and I think that's a bold and courageous position to take up every day. But as I was saying, he hails from the small land of windmills, dairy products beyond your wildest imaginings, and proclaimed open mindedness while bums are pinching creases into chairs. I love Holland. We lived there when we first got married (almost six years ago) and The Captain was finishing his undergrad degree. We lived in a snug apartment in a building called De Schelp (The Shell) in Zandvoort. Zandvoort is a classy beach town due west of Amsterdam. The North Sea is brown and green and freezing cold. The Germans come in the summer and dig holes in the sand and sit in them all day drinking beer. Families come to the beach with their children and their dogs. They don't come like Americans with buckets of beach supplies and sun tents and boom boxes. They walk there, or take the train. So they strip the kids down to their undies or less (the adults do much the same) and the children run wild with the strong wind whipping their blond hair about their faces and the salty spray crusting their bodies. I love Holland.

One of the best things about living in Zandvoort, or anywhere on the North Sea coast is the storms. They blow in with fury and last for days. Our little apartment was ground floor, on a hill, next to the dunes. One of my favorite memories is the way the wind would whip sand against our windowpanes and the rain would be driving sideways. Sometimes the storms scared me, they were so strange and alien. I am a southern girl used to rocking thunder, wild lightening and tornadoes. These were howling gales that screamed around the rooftops and beat against the doors.

I was so excited because they've been having sea storms in the last week or two and the forecast for next week looked like I might get to enjoy one. However I checked again today and now it looks like we'll just get to partake in Holland's usual snoggy rain that falls from a gray sky and chills your bones, summertime or not. We used to have an old Jetta where the back windows didn't quite close and the rain seeped into puddles in the back floorboard. When you braked you could hear it slosh around and sometimes mushrooms began to grow. This time we've rented some perfectly normal economy car. Even so you're always walking in Holland so I'm sure I'll get my share of the skin soaking drizzle. However, when you get home from being out and about in the bad weather, the houses are well built. The door closes behind you with a firm thud and you are enveloped in a warm atmosphere created by hundred of years of politeness and propriety. We drink tea, we talk for hours, we exchange gifts in every home, we are comforted by a culture that has been enduring through wars and oppression. I can't wait to be there. And who knows, we may get a good storm yet.

Diving for the Covers

I enjoy writing when I'm melancholy. This isn't really such a good thing because I end up with a lot of writing that sounds like bellyaching. :) But it's just so cathartic to let these negative feelings dribble out so they don't poison me or anyone else.

I'm SO tired. Small Sun is napping and I feel like wrapping up in my down comforter and shutting out the world. Instead I'm here reading blogs and web boards and listening to Dave Matthews 'Some Devil' (which  incubates the melancholy). I feel like there's no good reason for me to be tired. There was a poem I loved in high school called "Not Waving But Drowning" by Stevie Smith. I always found it so heartbreaking that the misinterpretation of someone's actions by others could result in such a catastrophe. In a VERY SMALL way I feel a bit like that right now. Like I've been cautiously telling people that I'm having a hard time but no one's really hearing me...hearing me would make all the difference right now. So, to you, my imaginary audience, this is how I'm doing: I'm not connecting with this pregnancy. I feel really bad about it. I assume things will change when I start really feeling better. I'm afraid that I'm going to feel sick in one way or another for the whole time. People keep telling me that I'll feel better soon and I'd really like to know that's true. It's just that throwing up every day (and then some) for about ten weeks straight just kind of messes with your logic. Logic isn't what's guiding me when I stagger out of the bathroom in the morning, trying to beam love and enthusiasm at my son while my husband is going out the door to work. Logic isn't cutting it. I am so tired!

I'm also sad that I've heard the "adopt and you'll get pregnant" statement about three zillion times lately. My pediatrician even told me this morning. I can handle it because it doesn't sting me personally, but every time I hear it with the ears of my friends who CAN'T get pregnant. I know the pain that statement can bring for people and I want to shake the people who keep saying it and say "what if you don't have a uterus? what if you've dealt with the heartbreak of infertility for ten years and done everything imaginable to get pregnant?"

Two years ago when we were trying to get pregnant I remember thinking that I didn't care if I had a horrible pregnancy, I just wanted to have a baby. Now I feel so shallow because my pregnancy has not been fun, but it hasn't been horrible; yet I find myself thinking "I really don't know if I would ever want to do this again". Like with pre-parenting judgments I made, I used to judge women who said they wanted to adopt because they really didn't like being pregnant. I thought "suck it up". Well now it's me thinking that and I'm sitting under the judgment that I passed on others. :)

Is this all coming out to be a bunch of blather? If so that's okay. It will only serve to illustrate my point that I am really tired...or have I said that already?

We are going to Holland on Saturday and I'm pretty stressed about that. Ten hours of travel time with a baby (on our laps), then a seven hour time difference and sleep schedules all disrupted. Then there's the cultural differences. In Holland you don't just "make yourself at home" in someone's house. That's a little complicated since toddlers seem to make themselves at home anywhere they feel like it. :) So, I'm taking any and all recommendations on international travel with babies. I've checked, our airlines doesn't have a bassinet seat.

You know, all this writing is stimulating my logical thinking. I must be so tired because over the course of the next weeks the avocado sized sprout is tripling in size. My body is manufacturing a human. That really counts for something doesn't it? One last gripe before I go smother myself in the covers: I saw the photos of myself from my cousin's wedding...I would have cried if my family wasn't standing around. I had no neck, no waist, and some very uncomplimentary clothing choices. I had worked on my outfit so carefully, trying to manage this growing body that looks more fat than pregnant. I always dreamed of myself as the sporty pregnant girl, round belly sitting atop toned legs...what happened? Okay, I go to sleep now!

Firsts and Seconds

News of the day: Second step and first McDonalds French Fry (stealthily stolen from another child at playgroup). Oh, and The Sprout is now the size of an avacado. I love avacados!

Real Life Parenting

Before I became a parent, back when I was getting a degree in child development and interacting with other people's kids, I formulated all sorts of lofty notions of what I would and wouldn't do as a parent. One of the things I remember thinking is that I would take the extra time and effort to let my child get messy and explore things. So what if it took longer to clean up the high chair, I would let them smear yogurt all over their little selves to their heart's content.

Small Sun is sitting on the floor with a bowl of raisins leaving little wrinkly piles around himself. That's about the wildest, most uncontained food experience he's had in awhile. My former resolutions have not come to be. The thing I didn't know back then was that parents are TIRED. And parents don't have just that one lovely interactive playtime. The kid makes that mess in the high chair three times a day and every time you've got to clean it up! Not to mention the fact that you can't be washing yogurt out of a biracial child's hair every second. With his 5+ inches of hair and its tendency to dry out it's a little more complicated than sponging down a baldy baby.

So how do you balance all of those wonderful exploratory experiences and also keep your house from turning into a showpiece of finger painted wall art and applesauce finishes on the hardwood floors? I'm just much less willing to expend the effort to clean up those kinds of messes than I thought. I think the answer is THE OUTDOORS. I can't wait till we get some consistently decent weather here and I can turn Small Sun loose in the backyard. There I don't mind if he strips naked and rolls in the dirt...that is, as long as he doesn't damage my flower beds.

Our Adoption Language

Adoption is a journey. In the beginning you don't know a lot about it except what you've heard from other people and seen on Lifetime movies. This can be good and bad. :) Adoption has it's own set of terms and phrases that you probably wouldn't hear or use in other circumstances. To make things more complicated, different families use different terms to refer to their adoption experience. Lately I've felt like people are fumbling to know how to talk to me about our adoption. They want to say the right thing but they don't know how. My desire is to be gracious and help people gain confidence discussing adoption. Toward that end here is a little guide to our family's language and some things specific to our adoption. If you feel like I'm being picky, try listening to the language from a child's perspective. How does it sound to a child who doesn't have the ability to understand the core of a question, but takes things very literally.

Our Own Kids. Since announcing our pregnancy we've received a lot of questions about how we feel about having our own child. I know exactly what you mean. You are asking how I feel about having a child that comes from my body, that is my flesh and blood, that is biologically linked to me. To answer your question, I am excited! Small Sun is also our own child. He is as much ours as The Sprout is. May I suggest saying "how do you feel about birthing a child, or having a biological child, or being pregnant after adopting."

Everyone gets pregnant after they adopt. I know many people who have compelling stories that seem to prove this thought. Statistically, (for couples adopting because of infertility) this is untrue. Also keep in mind that many people adopt because of reasons unrelated to the inability to conceive and bear children. I have been surprised how many people have felt at liberty to ask us why we adopted in the first place - did we not know we could get pregnant? I digress...not all people who adopt are infertile, and those that are don't often get pregnant after they adopt.

Small Son's Real Mom. I take no offense to people calling Small Son's First Mom his Real Mom. She is just as real as I am. Adoptive families use the terms "biological mom, birth mom, first mom" or her name. We say First Mom. Even though he's too young to carry on a conversation we talk to Small Son about his First Mom by name. We tell him all about her. She is an important part of our lives, even if we don't have physical contact with her.

Can his parents change their minds? No. Our adoption is final. We are Small Son's parents. Each state has different ways to reach this decision but after the adoption is finalized (and no fraud has taken place) the adoptive parents are the permanent parents.

It's Small Son's Story. If you've asked the details about Small Son's First Mother and why she placed him for adoption I may have told you "that is Small Son and his mother's personal story and until he is old enough to know it himself we are choosing to keep it in the family." I hope this doesn't hurt your feelings. It's seldom appropriate to ask a woman who has just given birth how she got pregnant, whether or not she is ready and able to care for her child, what her relationship to the father is, whether or not she drinks and does drugs, how old she is and if she is young if she really thinks it's a good idea to parent. I have been asked many of these thing's about Small Son's First Mother (if she was a teenager, if she was a drug addict, if she just didn't want her baby). Small Son's First Mother is a loving and caring mother who felt that adoption was the best parenting choice she could make for Small Son when he was born. We respect that.  Please don't be hurt if we don't tell you much more.

I know that it's hard to ask about something when you don't know the right way to go about it. Don't worry, I will both answer your question (if it is appropriate) and gently let you know the way we talk about it in our family. It's a process for us too!

I'm "Sailing to Philadelphia"

I love Mark Knopfler. And I used to love packing for a trip. It was so much fun to think about what I'd need and what I'd wear and whether or not I should bring books AND art supplies. These days I have to think about how much formula my baby drinks in a weekend, how many diapers he goes through. Then the numbers are off because he drinks more in the airport when I'm trying to keep him calm with bottles at takeoff and landing. Oh yea, and I'm packing for my The Captain because he's busy working, making the money to pay for the trip. I don't like packing anymore.

I also used to like going to the airport. Don't get me wrong, I still do. It's just so much less romantic to wave someone off at the metal detector. There's no more craning your head, taking in last views of your loved one as they hit the curve in the walkway into the plane. Now we just throw all that aside and meet each other outside of baggage claim.

Maybe my attitude is negative because it's 7:30 am and I have yet to pack for the three of us, hem two pairs of pants for the wedding we're going to, and go to the mail store to send a package to Small Son's first mom. I woke up with that stress juice running through my neck and shoulders.

Have I mentioned that this wedding that we're going to is going to be FUN!? I really am looking forward to that. There's a family reunion involved and I'll explain more about that later. My sister will be there, joining us from her New England life. All in all, this is going to be a good trip. I just need to get packing!

Small Sun's First Step

This morning Small Sun (our little boy) started standing up with great confidence and excitement. He's only stood on his own for small seconds up till now so I was very excited. Tonight, after dinner, The Captain and I were coaxing him to walk back and forth between us, hoping we would get him to take a step on his own. He was in The Captain's hands when he caught his reflection in the stove door. He got so excited and began smiling and clowning around. Then it happened. He let go of The Captain's hand and took a step to the stove to pound on the door and smile at...himself. :) So in the end it wasn't love for mother or father, or special treat that coaxed him to step, it was the inspiring vision of his smiling face. Honestly, that's what I'm running on these days too - that toothy grin that inspires me to be a great mom when I feel like so much less.

Tips for Surviving a Queasy Night

1. At all times have a clean bucket, tissues, a glass of fresh water, and something to hold your hair back by the bed.
2. Eat something before you go to bed. I suggest ice cream, lots of ice cream.
3. Retire early. And remember, for a pregnant girl 8:30 is a late night!
4. Lie on your back, propped on several pillows in efforts to keep angry stomach juice down in your stomach and not running wild up and down your esophagus.
5. Get up to pee in the night so that in the morning you can buy a little time.
6. Prop a pillow between yourself and partner, if partner seems intent on killing you with perfectly normal night breath.
7. Know how to breathe to avoid disaster - in through the nose, out through the mouth.
8. Move slowly, that is unless you begin to vomit ,in which case get your head over that bucket asap!
9. Rest...enjoy this beautiful experience of motherhood. (Ahhhhh, what?)
10. Don't think for a moment that these tips will keep you from throwing up...they'll just prolong the inevitable and hopefully you'll get some sleep. I recommend having a bucket by the toilet in the bathroom. We women are great at multitasking.

Maiden Voyage

I used to write alot. Then, I met the man in my life and the things I used to process with pen and paper I began to process with him. I still wrote, but less. Then, after several years of peaceful togetherness, we adopted our first child. Now, the only things I write are anecdotes in his baby book, desperately trying to not let these precious days slip from memory. I have less time to talk to The Captain (hubby extraordinaire) and my thoughts are getting jumbled inside. I wonder, if I don't make time to write for myself, with my pen and paper, will I write for a perceived audience? This is what we will find out.

I used to laugh at the quandries I heard moms trying to work out. "How do I take a shower by myself? How do I get out on a date?" Now I am filling up on humble pie as I realize the answers I came up with in my head are not so easily executed. Of course not all my jumbled thoughts are about such mundane issues. Right now I'm wondering how our growing family will affect all of us. We'll soon be parents with children of two ethnicities, one produced from my own body and one entrusted to us by a wonderful mother, not ready to parent. Together with The Captain  I have a house of two nations, with two languages spoken. How do we impart both? How do I consume goods responsibly without contributing to oppression? How do I love my friends and family well, contributing to their wholeness and success? And the question of utmost importance: How the heck do I stop puking every day? These are the things flying around my mind.

So, if any of this catches your eye, please follow along. Ultimately I hope this gets me writing again.