Growing Family

Choosing Adoption

It wasn't until recently that I heard the term "choice adoptions" in reference to people who choose adoption as the way to build their family in the absence of infertility or other challenges to traditional family building. That is, for choice adopters, building a family through adoption is always part of Plan A, rather than a decision that comes about as a result of exploring and deciding against other family-building options, or exhausting other possibilities.

The Captain and I fall firmly within this group of people. We were talking adoption even before we were married, and it was clear that our family would include adoption and foster care. To be honest, I don't know if I would have considered marrying someone who was not on board with adoption, as I have wanted to adopt children my whole life.

When it came down to actually bringing children into our family, The Captain wanted to have a biological child first and I wanted to adopt first. There was no question we had always planned on doing both, we just disagreed about the order. Eventually we came to a compromise: we would try to get pregnant for a year, and if the year passed with no pregnancy, then we would adopt. I did get pregnant in that year, and lost the baby early on. I was excited to be pregnant and I grieved the loss deeply. Then, when the year ended, we turned to adoption, as planned.

I am glad that we found a compromise that allowed both of us to work through some things before we became parents, and I really am sad that we lost the baby we did. However, it has always really meant a lot to me that our first child came to us through adoption.

I imagine that many parents are like us; they choose to have multiple children because they so enjoy the experience with the first, or second... And I also imagine that many other parents feel about their first child like I do, that the first child kind of hangs the moon for us. Do we ever forget those first months of rocky love where are are stretched beyond our limits, yet giddy with delight? And while I don't think we do it in a negative way, I think we can tend to compare our following children to the experience with the first child. When did the first start crawling? walking? talking? potty train? They set the mark, not in terms of success or failure, but in the way they shape our parenting experiences.

Each time we add a child to the family, there is a fear of upsetting the wonderful utopia that we currently have (I'm speaking in general here, we all know parenting is not a daily state of utopia!). Over the years I have heard multiple stories that grieve my heart. Stories where there was an established family with settled biological children, who then decided to adopt, often an older child. The family goes into turmoil when the child they adopted, who has often experienced significant trauma, disrupts the wonderful life the family had previously. The absolute worst is when the child (adopted) receives blame for "ruining" the family. I think these situations could be moderated with proper pre and post-adoption education, support, and counseling, but I have not often seen those kinds of extended services available.

My point is, I am so thankful that we adopted Small Sun first. While we experience difficulties and challenges parenting him, they are always in the context of my desire fulfilled. I wanted to adopt, I wanted to do it first. I want him. I love him. I am completely overwhelmed with how incredible he is. I consider myself to be so privileged to get to be the mother that is raising him. It absolutely blows my mind.

On the days when adoption stuff is hard, and when trans-racial parenting is hard, I am so thankful that I got to adopt first. I can imagine myself parenting a biological child and then adopting, and saying on the hard adoption days "I didn't have to do this for my biological child. They didn't require this extra effort."

Adopting first puts a barrier between myself and negativity. Adoptive parenting IS hard and does have challenges. I didn't really hear that before becoming a mother through adoption, myself. I feel so blessed to have adoptive parenting as my first experience, and then all of the joys of pregnancy, childbirth, and biological parenting added to my first joy.

Catching Up

You know that feeling with blogging, where you're so far behind in what you'd like to be writing, that you don't really know where to start? I feel like I've consistently been in that rut for months now! I have an adoption post that I'm trying to get out, but instead all you all are hearing is about our daily goings on. And while I know that my friends and fam don't mind reading that...well, there ARE other readers to think about. At least there were...hm.

We spent Christmas morning alone as a family. First presents, then a pancake breakfast, followed by more presents. I was awake before the kids, waiting eagerly to hear Small Sun squeal in delight when he saw the presents beneath the tree. Instead I heard his little feet pad pad pad to the kitchen as usual, where he opened the fridge to see if we'd left his milk ready for him (which we do when we're on the ball). Then, pad pad pad to our bedroom, "mommy, I want my milk" he said, with no mention of the presents!

We spend Christmas dinner with another American family and several other Americans they had invited. It was an eclectic group of people, but we clung together around our traditional dinner, doing our best to nurture the spirit of Christmas on a sunny summer day. I only cried once, upon sitting down to a pancake breakfast for four instead of the usual 10+.

The next day we sped off to Canberra, the capital of Australia, to join some good friends who had invited us to spend Boxing Day with their family. We stayed in a hotel and the kids had SO much fun in the swimming "pooh", as they say. Then, when we went to our friend's house for dinner, we saw our first herd of kangaroos in the wild. I don't know who was more excited, me or the kids!

Then, on Saturday, we spent the whole day in Canberra seeing Questacon, a museum with an excellent section for children under six years old, driving to the top of Mount Ainsley, and visiting Parliament House where we saw the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Now it's back to a couple days of cleaning up the mess and catching up on the laundry before The Captain gets off for New Year's and we have several more free days to go to the beach and have fun together.

The highlight of the week for me, is that on Wednesday we are going as a family to find out the gender of the baby. I spent about two days considering not finding out...but who am I kidding?

Going to Canberra wet my appetite for really starting to explore Australia. The Captain and I have discussed the fact that we've hardly left Sydney, and I've hardly seen Sydney itself. My life hear runs a pretty small circle, as many stay-at-home moms can attest anywhere around the world. If we were to move back (or away) now, I really don't feel like I have a handle on Australia at all. The people, the topography, the language, it is all still very foreign to me. I feel like I want to just take off and start traveling.

Next month Small Sun starts preschool. That is a big deal to me and it feels like it will change everything. It is the beginning of the school years that I don't quite know how to process, never having gone to school myself. I know each new phase is wonderful and all that, but when I look at him and realize that in just a few short weeks, I don't see him for the better part of two days a week, it just kills me! I start crying just thinking about it! But that's not so unusual these days. The pregnant crying is carrying on in full force. Unabated sobbing over every little thing!

I am so looking forward to this new baby joining our family. I'm not ready for the birth and all of the trepidation and concern I have surrounding it, but ready for the little person. I'm finally starting to dream little baby dreams. I'm sure that's not unrelated to the increased movement I feel in my womb, the flutters and pressing.

In Canberra the kids were tired and I told them "don't worry, we'll go home and sleep in our own beds!", and in my mind I saw our little house in Nashville, snug and safe and perfect. Sometimes when I wake up in the night I don't know where I am, or where I live. My life is kind of like that right now - the past is full of beautiful memories, but we wouldn't be able to re-insert ourselves into that same past life. Yet this life is still not quite comfortable. It is like a pair of shoes that is too big; it knocks and flops when you try to move in it.

So as 2008 flutters her eyes in the moments before sleep, I am both reminiscent and eager, homesick and nesting, shaken and finding my footing.

Thanksgiving Day Poem

Dancers
November 27, 2008

You can't always tell who the dancers are
Bodies release the sleek tautness of training
Bodies surrender to child-bearing, forever changed.

But the evidence is there in the movement
In the fingers as they hang
In the curve of the neck - strong.

If you could look in the windows of a former dancer,
Some days you would see
Her children over breakfast gazing

At long arms like swan necks
Reflected in the photo frames.
At the torso releasing to the call of music.

The old dancer stiff and heavy, whose body still holds grace-
Like a spring that needs release.

Even if the kitchen is the stage and
The children the audience.

Chit and Chat

I am now 18 weeks along with this little bub, as they say here. It was around this time that I really turned the corner with the Sprout and the pattern is continuing. For about a week I've really been feeling myself (albeit a heavier, gruntier self) and eating normal food again. For the most part the aversions are subsiding, and the vomiting is a rare occurence rather than steady like clockwork. Thank God!

Even though the weather is steadily warming and we're entering the season of salads and fresh things, I have been cooking a lot. I think I am making up for the months of eating non-cooked, bland food. Tonight I made a delicious (if I may say so) quiche. Whoever thinks that eating a vegetarian diet means a bland diet, come to my kitchen on a good day! Here's what's left of our dinner:

Unfortunately for me, I'm a vegetarian who's not crazy about the taste (and texture) of eggs and tofu. So straight egg quiche is not my favorite. This is what I did - homemade crust (yum), carmelized onions and zuccini, spinach, shredded carrot, milk, eggs, cottage cheese (upping the protein content however I can), parmesan, and shredded herbed cheese, salt/pepper. Speaking as one delirious on food, it was amazing. We ate it with quartered cherry tomatoes sprinkled with sea salt, basil from the garden, olive oil and vinegar. Small Sun kept saying "I like quiche!".

In other news, the Christmas shopping trip went well. I left the kids with the Captain and went to a huge shopping mall armed with a list. I planned on exiting and re-entering the parking garage after 3 hours, when the free time ran out. I got stuck in traffic in the garage and missed the meter by one minute. So, I re-parked and decided I would shop for one more hour, paying only 7$ in parking.

Upon re-entering the mall I realized I was hungry and exhausted. I sat down in the food court and ate a big plate of Indian curry (navratan korma and dahl) and drank a mango lassi before hitting Toys 'R Us. An hour and a half (14$ in parking) later, I was on my way home. I swung by a roadside guy selling boxes of mangos, cherries, and peaches for amazing prices. We have been binging on fruit ever since.

It was a couple days before I realized that I had bought Small Sun a pink scooter and the wrong size shoes for The Sprout. So, I'll have to go back, and I'm not really sure when I can do that. We are pretty booked up with Christmas parties, breakfasts, church extravaganzas, block parties, etc.

We were invited to go down to Canberra on Boxing Day to spend two days with friends. Then, in January, we are going up to Jarvis Bay to go camping with a large group of people from church. I'm really excited to be getting out of the house, and out of Sydney to see new things. Not too sure how sleeping on the ground in a tent in summer heat and five months pregnant will work out, but hey, I'll try it. It's not like I'll be 8 or 9 months pregnent, right?

So, things are generally happy these days. Still homesick and lonily here and there, but much better than before. The tree is artificial and that's a bummer, but if I squint my eyes, the tree goes soft and the lights twinkle just as beautifully as on a real tree.

Nine sleeps until Christmas!

PS- C in C - They do have fabric softener here, but even the best softener can't make laundry from the line fluffy! It just slightly de-crunchifies it.

Blogworthy? You Betcha!

We got a used dryer off of Freecyle.

It is a chilly rainy day and I just pulled warm, soft, fluffy, fragrant clothes from the dryer. We ran out of soft clothes months ago! Just think what it will do to the towels that currently stand up on their own! They're so stiff we don't even need a towel rack! Maybe I should look for one on Freecyle!

Just had to share my fabric-softener induced giddiness.

Finding Vision

In this new season of my life I find myself often unhappy and dissatisfied. I left behind the things I was involved in outside of mothering, the things that gave me energy, vision, and drew on my creativity. Here, I find I am constantly thinking about myself, and what I wish I could do and how unfulfilled I feel.

The obvious answer would be to go get involved in something, right? I am looking for something, yet the obstacles of schedules, childcare, and the fact that I'm a ballooning pregnant girl who will soon be a way-busy mom of three under four makes any outside commitment seem completely impractical.

This morning I was thinking about the blog of a family living in Haiti. They are missionaries there and they are involved with a clinic or center that does education and health care outreach to mothers. The work they are doing is something I care so deeply about. I really miss being involved in programs that make a difference in women and children's lives when they are facing domestic abuse, poverty, and other challenges.

On Sunday our pastor said something in his message that keeps coming back to me. He asked "have you ever wondered how people who have a ton going on already seem to be the ones that are reliable to ask to take on more, but the people who don't have much going on seem to stay that way?" The family living in Haiti has seven children. Yea, you heard me, seven. We also want to have a large family.

Because I am so passionate about the impact of the early years in children's development and future success, I am committed to keeping mothering as my first priority until our children are in school. And with our plans for a large family, waiting until our children are in school seems a long way off. I am starting to wonder if there is some way I can do more? Can I mother the way I want AND find a way to contribute to causes I feel passionate about? Can I find the internal resources in myself to do both?

Really, I think the answer to my current discontent is not more me-time in the form of shopping, spa time, etc, even though I so crave that right now. I think the real problem is lack of vision for what I'm doing right now as a mother, and what else I can be doing as a woman with my gifts and talents.

Prov. 29:18, "Where there is no vision, the people perish;... "

I feel like I'm perishing on a fairly consistent basis these days, but I'm just starting to awaken to the fact that the solution might be more responsibility, not less.

Sinterklaas!

Every year I am super-excited about Christmas and The Captain comes along for the ride. This year I asked him to rate his excitement about Christmas verses his excitement about Sinterklaas. He explained to me that Sinterklaas is what all of his childhood holiday memories are of, and what he misses. So, I decided to make a real effort to create an authentic Sinterklaas celebration this year, and to try to invest more time in this as one of our family traditions.

I was busy for about a week, preparing. Of course, like any holiday celebration, hours of work burn up in consumption of minutes, but I am pleased with my efforts and the results.

We celebrated with some lovely friends here, who also celebrate their Dutch heritage. In fact, we went with them to a nearby (45 minutes away) "Holland House" where we were able to stock up on everything we needed! So, here are the results.

Working on two tutus, one for Sprout, and one for a friend.

The meal: Erwtensoep (Pea Soup) which is the traditional thing to have, along with bread and Edam cheese. For dessert, in addition to tons of snoepjes (sweets - thanks Dutch family and friends for sending them!), The Captain made griesmeel (a kind of firm pudding) and gluhwijn (spiced wine, made by my friend).

Here's a close-up of the soup which is more tasty than it is photogenic. Trust me.

It's a lot more than just peas. There's sausage, bacon, and ham chops so it's right off the menu for vegetarians like myself. In addition, you'll find celeriac (new to me), carrots, leek, parsley and celery leaves.

I made two Suprisen (presents wrapped in interesting/creative ways).

For Small Sun:

Lightening McQueen

And for The Sprout:

 

A strawberry.

We listened to Sinterklaas liedjes (songs), thanks Oma! Ate way too many sweets, opened presents from Holland, and had a wonderful time together. I think our first real effort was a success and also left room to grow for next year. :)

The Captain even wrote me a Sinterklaas poem, delivered in a fashion magazine (a favorite indulgence of mine). So, all in all, I'd say we did pretty well! A big huge thanks to Oma and L&E for supplying us with so many treats to help us celebrate.