Growing Family

Missing Transitions

One of the things I've found to trigger the most home-sickness, living as an eXpat, is my friends "back home" going through life changes, and not being there to witness them. My friend Wendy has a new baby at her house. She has made the gallant leap from 2 children to three, and I am not there to watch her do it. We were in a women's group together when she was pregnant with her second and I got to watch her belly grow week after week until she was nursing a yummy newborn. That newborn grew into my children's friend. I'm sure I'll meet this new baby at some point, and know her through Wendy's blog, but I won't be in her life.

One of my very best friends just moved to DC for graduate school. We've been close friends since high school and I've always tracked her from a distance as she moved to California and China. So while I am used to the long distance relationship with her, knowing that I won't get to visit her in DC bums me out.

Another friend announced this morning that she is moving to Germany. We were never close, but the dispersion of my "group back home" is hard. Then there's Tara who is selling her house and moving to a new one, leaving the old one, which I have fond memories of, behind.

The idea that everything is just as I left it, and that I could slip back into my previous place and routine, is a comfort, and a coping mechanism. Even though I know that is not real or possible, being confronted with the evidence otherwise gives me pangs.

I am very thankful that this week, I have a lot of social engagements to help me feel solidified and connected here. I had two very lonely weeks recently, with little connect here, and few contacts from "home", so this is a welcome relief. It helps that yesterday a new acquaintance invited herself over and stayed for hours, chatting eagerly. Being bold to extend my friendship to others, but shy to receive friendship from them, I am thankful to her inserting herself into my home and life and carving out a little cozy place. She did the work that is hard for me to do. I'm thankful to be going out tonight with her and some other new friends.

Bit by bit this is becoming a home. And as my ties to "back home" loosen, rearrange, and change shape, I am so grateful to be forming new ties here. Otherwise I'd just be floating in the space between past and present, not quite left, not quite arrived. Change is hard for someone infinitely comforted by routine and normalcy!

300th Post of This and That

Small Sun is obsessed with the color brown. It's all he wants to draw, color, and paint with. Whenever we get out the art supplies he's asking "where's the brown? I want the brown!" Other than having identified himself as brown and us as "white", he hasn't made any observations about the skin color of others. However, he often points out when people have curly hair. Most of the time, he notices people who look multi-ethnic and says "they have curly hair, like me!" For example, that's what he said about this Old Navy Ad.

We have turned the corner on orneriness! I won! Sometimes, that battle for self-discipline and patience, that allows me to maintain my calm in the face of double-whine, is the hardest battle I have to face. I find myself physically exhausted at night, completely worn out from the energy it took to not-yell, not answer with sarcasm, not alienate, not punish. I was laughing with some moms at playgroup this week. We were hypothesizing what would happen in the work place if a colleague treated you the way our children do. Of course legal recourse would be available to you if your boss or colleague taunted you, smeared snot on you, threw food on the floor, yelled at you, peed on your rug, woke you up at night, hit you, bit you, and otherwise drove you mad. Yet we manage all that and more from our pre-schoolers, and try to do it with a soft voice and a gentle hand.

I am mobile again, after being without a car for several weeks. Our Audi A4 wagon turned out to be a total lemon. It is sitting in the driveway, along with our Subaru Forester, garnishing NO CALLS from our add in the paper. Shucks. Pray we can sell it for something. I commented to The Captain, "boy this Subaru feels really roomy!". He replied, "well that's what you get if you buy a big box." And that's what the '01 Forester is, a box on wheels. Not pretty, but very reliable, which is what we need right now.

The Sprout is learning new words every day. Today she started saying "All Day" as we read a book that has that phrase at the end of each page. Many of her words are unintelligible, but she is eager to speak and is repeating lots of new words. She seems so tiny and babyish, when Small Sun seemed so grown up at this age. Hearing her use new words just makes me beam with pride.

I am buying all of the kid's summer clothes at the end of summer sales online, then having my mom bring them when she and my dad visit in September. The reversal of seasons works out really well for me in that regard. If any of my real life friends want to send stuff to me, mom and dad are coming August 31st.

I'm getting ready to host our first party here. The Captain is turning 29 and I can't believe that after (almost) 4 months, we already have a crowd coming to celebrate. Tomorrow I have a birthday party with the kids, then a baby shower, before hearing Jim Wallis speak at our church in the evening. It's good to start to have a bit of a crowded schedule, now and then. The Captain and I are both starting to feel a bit more enmeshed in our various groups, and that's a good feeling.

Okay, maybe it hasn't been that interesting of a post, but it's what is happening with me this week. Just a few tidbits to record in my 300th post. I wonder if I am surprised that I have this much to say? 300 conversations started...with myself at least!

P.S. I'm reading The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, And the Collision of Two Cultures. Anne Fadiman is brilliant and this book is so incredible. I'm crying. It's horrible. But Ms. Fadiman's wielding of the broad and complicated subject matter is meticulous and direct. How she communicates massive amounts of information, while maintaining fluidity in tone, is beyond me. More thoughts when I've finished it.

Parenting Peanut-Butter Head

There was supposed to be a picture illustrating the title of my post, but upon closer inspection of the camera, there was no memory card in it when I took the picture. So, use your imagination to see my daughter in her booster seat at lunch time, with full on peanut butter rubbed generously in her hair. I think she must have opened her sandwich and given herself a scalp massage while I went to get her sippy cup.

That feeling of why I oughta coupled with the even incantations in my head "stay cool girl, play it cool" pretty much sums up the parenting experience I've been having for the last week or two.

Historically, my children have gracefully taken turns going through challenging seasons, so as to not overwhelm me with massive developmental phase shifts, responding to life changes, shifting sleep schedules TIMES 2 type madness. Lately, they have not been so kind.

Yesterday I was trying to wrangle both kids into their coats and shoes to go to the post office. It took us two hours of morning preamble to get to the front door. That's where the melt-down began. It all started with a jacket. An innocent jacket. In the hands of a three year old, a jacket is not innocent at all, it is an evil, conniving beast intent on thwarting his every attempt to get.his.arm.in.the.hole! After significant flailing (we have enough flailing happening here that I have developed a carefully calibrated scale) which resulted in me being hit in the face with said jacket, then the Sprout receiving the same fate, and my several attempts to help him BREATHE.STOP.CALM.DOWN, which resulted in MORE flailing, yelling, and screaming, I ordered him "TO YOUR ROOM!", exasperated. It was during this time that the phone started ringing, and it was both my parents on speaker to talk to the kids. Small Sun was screaming in defiance from his room. Sprout was crying from the jacket to the face, and then for some other reason.

My days have been filled from morning to eve with "no!" and "Nee!" (Sprout prefers to defy me in Dutch), sarcasm, escapes, vandalism to home property, constant whining, tantrums, well you get the picture.

Makes me want to bang my head on the desk just writing about it.

Anyway, I haven't had much to say lately and I think that might be because my every last drop of energy it being greedily slurped up by these pushy preschoolers. I spend all my down time either passed out in a nearly comatose state, or desperately trying to think up a PLAN to rid our house of this behavior.

I'm pretty sure I know why we're seeing this behavior (hubby working extra, change of schedule due to school holidays, too much time indoors due to cold weather and loss of a car, time spent with cheeky peers, and really, just boundary shoving for the fun of it). And, I am being consistent in my responses. My love is filled with logic and they are smacking up against it over and over and over again. You think it would get old. I figure they have another couple days to keep this up, but they can't continue indefinitely. Having your privileges removed, yourself removed from the fun, spending massive amounts of time on the thinking chair, etc, only entertains for a while before they realize "all this whining and fighting isn't worth it, mom's gonna win." And that's actually a relief for everyone involved.

So, if you think of me, send a prayer my way. I'm gonna pull through this, and my kids will thank me for the tough love, but right now I'm pretty worn down. Okay, I'm off for a nap. I've got to conserve my strength as I'm on full-day duty today, since the Captain has a thing after work. I just hope that big chunk of chocolate I gulped down to calm my nerves won't interfere with my nap plans. ;)

Rememberings

Lately, without intention, I have been remembering my pregnancies with vivid intensity. Perhaps it is because of the dream I had, shortly after the meeting with the immigration attorney. In the dream I was in transition, the scary intense part of labor, that is unlike anything I have ever experienced before or since. The feeling is so other-worldly that I have never been able to re-create it in my mind.  Since plunging into it, in my dream, the feeling has come back several times, and I have remembered birthing my daughter with greater clarity than I have since the experience occurred, 21 months ago.

Then, today, I am remembering my first pregnancy. The one that ended early on, in a painful miscarriage. I am remembering being in the airplane bathroom, an hour from Schiphol airport, soaked in blood and panicked with grief. I am remembering staying at my husband's relative's house, excusing myself from a large family dinner, to sit on the toilet and lose my baby, spending hours in bed sobbing, and in pain. I remember feeling so empty, like there was a vacuum inside where the life had been, sucking all the color out of me.

Having children, bearing children, and raising children is intense. Most of the time here I focus on the intensity of my adoption experience, but these last few days, my experiences with carrying life in my body are often on my mind.

Continuing Education

Shannon, of Peter's Cross Station, has an excellent resource post up. She has compiled her must-read list for (white) parents raising Black children. She writes:

I don't think most of the Transracial Adoption Books are all that great. And when you tell me that people have to start somewhere, and these books are good introductions, I will disagree in the strongest terms. Because books that give you tips for handling public curiosity, or tips on styling a Black child's hair are not the places to start. They are the last details, not the beginning steps.

I couldn't agree with her more. Of course we need to know how to respond to public interest, and we need to know how to care for our children's hair. Those are real needs. However, I think it would so benefit potential adopters to understand, more fully, the multitude of factors that work together in contributing to the situation that has made adoption a consideration or necessity for the child they hope to adopt. That includes history, cultural influences, economics, so many things that are never mentioned at all in most books you are encouraged or required to read to "prepare" you to adopt transracially.

I really feel like adoption systems do such a disservice to adopters and adoptees, by requiring so little in the way of education and preparedness for engaging in a transracial adoption. I consider myself to be a little bit hardcore, when it comes to my devotion as a transracial parent, yet I am only familiar with a few titles on Shannon's list! I am doing my best, going to the bookstore and buying everything I can find on the Black experience in America. For me, it's really been like grabbing in the dark, hoping I am reading things that are educating me well, hoping that I am listening to authoritative voices (recognizing there is no one "Black experience"). For this reason, I so appreciate Shannon's list and will apply myself to working through it. It is daunting, yes, but I am thankful to have a guide on the journey.

He is SO Three

Today Small Sun voiced two noteworthy observations/questions.

This morning, in our bed, with the four of us snuggling, Small Sun said "I'm brown! And Pappa, you're white. And mommy's white. And Sprouty's white!"

Who told him that people with my skin tone are "white"? I didn't.

And this evening, during the bedtime wind-down, Small Sun asks The Captain, "are you Jesus? Are you Pappa Jesus?"

This boy has got a lot on his mind.

So do I.

Hijacked Seasons and Holiday Pathos

Over Independence Day I was going to write about being here while all my family made the annual pilgrimage to northern Michigan to spend the holiday in the most beautiful of all the world's woods. My heart is so connected to that experience, one I've cherished from girlhood on. The week is spent playing on the water, riding ridiculous 70s banana seat bikes with my sister: the bikes we've been riding since we were old enough to travel on two wheels.

In northern Michigan I am surrounded by family in every direction. Start walking through the woods and you'll run into a cabin owned by a first, second, third and on cousin. These people always felt a bit foreign to me. They are true Michiganders, or for those who have migrated, Michiganders at heart. They are IRISH, IRISH, IRISH Catholics. Doctors, writers, priests, mathematicians, sales people, models, lawyers, teachers, all gathering around the bond-fire, beer in hand, admiring the great grand children. I love it there. I am a leaf that is forever angled to the cool filtered sunlight of a northern Michigan afternoon.

Oddly enough, I didn't think much about being "Up North", as we call it. Instead I was thinking about being in Pennsylvania, which is where the other half of my family roosts. I felt drawn to the giant farmhouse, hundreds of years old, with the well under the front steps, and the cellar full of veggies, and the garden all gone limp under frost and thaw. It's not the right time to go to Pennsylvania. We do that for Thanksgiving. We go with hats and coats and scarves and mittens. We stand shivering while wholesome cousins run about out of doors, with no sweaters but rosy cheeks.

This season-swapping has got me all mixed up. We've had a cold week here (50s and 60s). With the wind coming off of the water, and no central heat, it has been c-o-l-d. We ventured out twice yesterday and I bundled the children up from top to toe, trying to shield them from the biting wind. So, naturally, in such temperatures, Pennsylvania, Thanksgiving, seems most logical.

I find that I am craving Holiday food. I am thinking of the recipes we cook for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don't generally like the winter, but I love the building expectation of two long trips, nearly back to back, for Thanksgiving, then Christmas, with New Years like the cherry on top of a fantastic holiday season. The holidays, with the friends, family, meaning, food, music, and decorations, are what make the winter bearable...and even enjoyable.

I don't quite know what to do with this winter here. There is nothing building. There is no mid-winter explosion of joy. There is no reason to get down my biggest bowls, and thumb through the books that have recipes for special occasions. Instead we're just cold, cold, cold, wondering when it will end.

I wonder if we should make up a mid-winter holiday, just to boost our spirits and maintain a connection for our children? Something that reminds us that  cold=exciting? Not Christmas in July, although that would the the perfect time to have a cold Christmas here, but maybe something like Growing Family's Mid-Winter Spectacular. Or, as The Captain suggested, Festivus.

Please inundate me with your ideas!

Playground Revelation

After taking the children for hair cuts (the Sprout's first in-chair, professional bangs and bob hair cut), we stopped at the park for a bit of a play before heading home for lunch and naps. There before me was a mom that could be nothing else but 100% American, fresh off the plane. You might wonder what gave her away? It was her clothes. Long sleeved white shirt, North Face style vest, and white sneakers, set off by a smooth blond bob cut, with a wide headband. You couldn't miss the ginormous diamond ring and earrings. That's a look that always throws me off. The "I could be camping", combined with "my jewelry is worth more than your house" look.

It wasn't until I noticed that her daughter had the same Target shoes as the Sprout, and that she had a clear American accent that I went over to say hi. After introducing myself as a fellow American, I asked if she had been in Sydney long. She responded in that "what day is it", kind of way, that she has been here since Friday.

The last three months of my life flashed before my eyes!

Talking to her was a revelation for me. I have come so far. I can remember, clearly, just a matter of months ago, where I was killing time out of the house at the same playground. She told me what neighborhood she lived in, waving vaguely, not quite knowing where it was, herself. I remember that too! I gave her my number and told her to call me with ANY questions or if she just needed to get out of the house with her daughter. I SO empathize for her in those first few, crazy, emotional, shifting weeks.

It's hard for me to believe that only three months in, my house is starting to feel normal, I have a routine, we do stuff, we have friends, I know where to go to do all the stuff my current life requires, I drive on the left side of the road, and I take the bus into the city. Standing, talking to this woman, so bewildered and upside down, I felt so amazed that I am already feeling right-side-up.

It really is crazy.

Glimpses

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Speaking Up

I have two family members, through marriage, that have different cultural backgrounds than I. A brother-in-law whose family is Italian, and a sister-in-law who is Korean-American. I am always conscious of the remarks people make (be they positive or negative) about blacks or Africans, because my child shares those ethnic and cultural roots. I am less attuned to the comments made about other groups, though I feel I am always sensitive to racialized or stereotypical or racist comments.

Today I found myself "outing" myself as part of a multi-cultural extended family when I was in the company of some people who were talking freely about both the (strong and distinct) Italian community and neighborhoods, and the Korean neighborhoods, here in Sydney. The comments weren't fully racist, but they were stereotypical. When I purposefully yet casually mentioned that I have Korean family members, the speaker looked startled and said "oh really?" The speaker was a teenager so I understand this his social skills are still developing. When he started going on about the inter-ethnic African on African violence happening in the neighborhoods in Perth (his hometown), his aunt, my recent acquaintance, started to reel him in and told him to be careful with what he said.

It was a strange situation. I found most of what they were saying to be borderline inappropriate. However, within Australian propriety, the young man must have crossed a line that his aunt recognized, yet I didn't. Or perhaps she stopped him because the statements touched on my son's heritage and she knows that he is a biracial black American? Both people were connected to the Italian community themselves, so I assumed that the statements they made about Italians are culturally appropriate.

This move is providing such a unique opportunity to sit back, zip my mouth, and suspend judgment. It is fascinating (and tiring) to re-evaluate every conversation and innuendo as having different ascribed meaning here. The trickle-down affect is hitting every part of my life.

For example, cloth diapers. Back home, cloth diapering was an environmentally conscious choice. Here, where there is a water crisis, and we are just allowed to wash our cars again, but still can't spray down our patios, cloth diapering is not an environmentally conscious choice. Here they make landfills into parkland, growing native plants, and installing playgrounds.

Anyway, back to my initial thought, it's not every day that I communicate my status as part of a multi-cultural family, aside from my immediate family unit. Doing so today was interesting, but I am still looking for the social queues that other people can so easily read.