Growing Family

Hands

Sorry so Quiet

You haven't heard even as much as a whisper from me lately. I'm sorry about that. We've been working through a crisis that I won't be blogging about, but needless to say, it has taken all our energy of late. I think I'll be back to writing some soon.

In the meantime, I'm still working on cloth diapering. I ordered some bumGenius all in ones. I only got two for each kiddo so it's hard to really get an idea of how many we need - how they handle poosplosions, etc. Does anyone know if the bumGenius 2.0 needs a cover? It would be nice if I could use the same size on both kiddos.

After I go to the grocery store (we're gnawing on stale pasta and canned water chestnuts here) and get some Dawn I'll keep trying to wash those fuzzibunz clean. It would be so great if I could get those working. They fit both kids, and there's enough to really get us started.

Sometimes, when life is overwhelming, you need a diversion. Trying to contain baby poo is mine.

Happy Pictures:

Small Sun wearing The Sprout's sunglasses

Carrying his baby in my hotsling

Oooh, That Smarts

I gave cloth diapers another go around this weekend. If you remember, I have two new fuzzi bunz that I like. The rest of my diapers I bought used from a lady who runs an online diaper store. They were her child's. There are a bunch of fuzzi bunz and a variety of diapers with covers.

After the last fiasco I decided to perform a test. I took a cup of water and poured it slowly on the open fuzzi bunz diaper to see what would happen. Oh. my. goodness. Did that lady know she was selling me completely useless diapers? The water shot off the diaper like it would off glass! The surface was completely impenetrable.

I went to the Internet to find solutions for diapers with clogged pores (or the fabric equivalent) and set about washing them...again. In the meantime I put a diaper with a cover on Small Sun. After just that diaper he was breaking out in stinging red diaper rash. I put on a disposable for his nap. Then, another cloth diaper. By the end of the day the rash was really starting. I had to put ointment on him and then, of course, I couldn't use the good fuzzi bunz for fear of ruining them.

So, round two was a flop as well. One one hand I want to go and buy a bunch of top rate cloth diapers, in hopes that new ones with work and we will be successful. On the other hand I'm ready to throw in the liner and call it quits.

Ditching on a Saturday

This morning we got up eagerly (well, at least we got up after the 4th night in a row with interrupted sleep) to go to my parent's house for a special pancake breakfast. My parents were in Canada for a bit and my mom is leaving for Africa next week so we made plans to spend a fun Saturday out at their house in the woods. Excitement began to fill the air when we saw the snow outside. Pancakes and snow play - it looked like the beginning of a great day.

The roads were clear up until about halfway to my parent's. Then, we hit an icy hill where we had to have some speed to make it up. We made it up just fine, but after cresting the hill we were confronted with a long line of cars driving/stopping/and sliding down the hill. Because we had some speed and they were all stopped, we had to try to stop too.

Don't you hate the feeling of sliding on ice? Everything is in slow motion. You can't tell how fast you're going, you begin the slide to the shoulder, you're praying that you'll get some traction there, you leave the pavement, you're in the ditch still sliding, then crunch - a stone culvert stops the slow motion slide and there you are - stuck in the ditch. Even though it is completely different, stories of the Kim family start flashing through my mind. I wonder if I'll have to breast feed Small Sun. I wonder if we'll have to get out of the car and scale the cliffs on the side of the road to get the kids out of the car that is in the path of other sliding drivers.

It hardly ever snows here in Nashville so we are ill prepared, both in infrastructure and driving experience, when it does. The Captain knows how to drive in snow. Unfortunately, all the people trying to brake their way down a steep hill, bumper to bumper, did not.

Eventually we got out of the ditch and canceled AAA who couldn't find our location on their maps anyway. Unsure of the damage to the car or the condition of the country roads ahead, we turned around.

To stem the disappointment, we stopped and ate at the Loveless Cafe and like so many people before us, we tried to drown our sorrows in fluffy biscuits and sweet tea. Here we are in front of the cafe, and here is the visible damage to the car. Who knows what happened underneath.

The solution to Sydney's race riots

Remember the race riots in Sydney last year? Well check  this out.

Haven't I Been Here Before?

It was just a couple months ago that I enrolled Small Sun in his Playschool program, after much deliberation. Today I re-enrolled him, after even more deliberation.

Yesterday I went and visited a daycare program near my house that someone had recommended to me. I was enthused that the staff and the students were African American. I was unenthused that they were in a dark, old building with substandard equipment, layout, and materials. In her last ditch effort to try to win me into the program, the director (who was at least 30 years my senior and called me ma'am) told me that their program was "cleaner than most". To add insult to injury, the program was ridiculously expensive. Given, children go there for 11 hour days, as opposed to our current 9:30-2:30 program. Sigh.

Why is it that I have only three options: ghetto day care of various ethnic mixes, good day care or preschool/playschool that is 99% white, wonderful preschool/playschool that is diverse ethnically/socioeconomically and according to abilities but CRAZY expensive.

I don't know, they're all mixing together. Here's what I do know: I don't want a daycare program. I want a playschool/preschool learning center. I'm a stay at home mom, I don't need to leave my child from 6:30 am to 5:30 pm. I just want one or two days a week where he can interact with other kids and learn while I run errands.

I found a program that looks awesome but Small Sun won't be old enough to start in August/September and by the time he is old enough, we're likely to be moving to Australia soon after.

At his current program I have him enrolled on a day where there will be one other African American in his class. But I am not 100% confident in the new teacher. On one occasion she mixed up Small Sun with another AA boy in the class. It was the first time she met me so it could be a simple mistake. Or, (sinister thought) she can't tell two non-white children apart? 

When I talk about my struggle to find the right program, my white friends pat me on the back and say "well it's great that you even think about these things." My life is about thinking about these things. There's just a lot of distance between what I think and imagine for my son, and what we actually have.

For Carrie

On Life with 2 under 2:

Kohana: "one of these days we should have sex"

The Captain: "I'll have my people call your people."

End of Conversation.

If You're the Praying Type

Or even if you're not, send positive thoughts towards the family Cindy mentions in "Another Prayer Request". Pray Pray Pray

Napping is for Sissies

So this week both Small Sun and the Sprout have been fighting their naps. Saturdays are always topsy turvy to begin with because we tend to spend more time out and about and disrupt the normal nap schedule.

Well this morning Small Sun protested for a long time, and played for a long time (amost 2 hours) before all became quiet in his room. We had lunch plans that couldn't easily be changed so we went to open his door to let the sounds in the house rouse him from sleep.

We were incredulous to find him huddled on the rug by his door, holding his blankie, with his bum in the air, sound asleep, without any pants! I would post a picture if there weren't any creeps! We could also see, upon closer inspection, that he had a dirty diaper, which we began to smell as we lingered over the sleeping beauty.

The lengths children will go to, trying to stay up and not miss a single exciting detail!

I [don't] Believe in Adoption

As long as I can remember I've wanted to become mother to children in need of mothering.

I've been into adoption for a long time. I believed in it long before I knew much about it. The more I learn, the less confident I am.

I thought adoption was as simple as child needs mother, mother provided via adoption. Lately I toss and turn at night, wracked with confusion and inner dissonance between what I'm reading and what I believe.

Here's what I'm currently hearing from the sources I read:

Adoptees are hurt to the core by the experience of losing their first mother. Whether they realize it or not, they are incomplete, wounded, and adrift. Even if they say they're happy and adjusted, that is only a surface emotion, floating above a world of pain.

Parents who place children for adoption are living with unimaginable pain and  "getting  by" is as good as it will ever get.

White people, adopting children of color, domestically and internationally are (still) waging cultural genocide, and acting out another scene in white aggression and annihilation of non-Eurocentric culture.

Adopting because you want a child is selfish.

Adopting because you want to help a child in need is false altruism and yet another situation where the privileged benefit from the plight of the destitute.

What it comes down to, in what I am reading, is that a child should never be separated from their first parent, a child should never be adopted, and adoption is never as good enough as an intact family. And I agree.

Enter REALITY:

Wars makes orphans
Disease makes orphans
Abuse disrupts families
Problems in our societies disrupt families, or prevent families from being formed
Not all children are able to stay in their original families

So what then? What do we do with all of the literature that says this doesn't work and we shouldn't be doing it?

You see, to me, those are the facts. But, my beliefs tell me something different, something contrary. I  believe:

God puts the lonely ones into families
Each child should have a family
If a family isn't available to a child in their bloodline-neighborhood-state-country-continent, you just keep looking until a good one shows up.
We should fight for justice
We should fight for equality
Whatever any individual needs, God is able to provide
Whatever wounds exist can be healed

I feel like I am on the rack, being pulled between two paradigms. I was reading a book about Mother Theresa's life and faith and it talked about recognizing the difference between a society where evaluations are made based on science and fact, and a life lived based on faith and hope. It is because I have a foot in each reality that I [don't] Believe in Adoption.

Should I adopt?

Not when it can be avoided and as often as I am able.