Growing Family

Homesick

I've felt the deep quietness for most of the week. I haven't wanted to talk to anyone, and have felt so withdrawn. This is unusual for me, as I am usually reaching out to everyone around me, trying to connect.

Yesterday I realized that I'd been feeling lonely. Kids are back at school this week after summer holidays and many of my friends with children are in the thick of that transition, and understandably busy. I've been craving Mexican food. Last night The Captain asked if I wanted to try to get together with friends tonight and I said yes, and that I wanted to eat Mexican food. He said something like "who should we have over to eat Mexican with?". An innocent enough question, no? I BURST out crying, completely overwhelmed with homesickness. All I could think was "I just want to hook up with some old friends at a good Mexican restaurant! I don't want to clean or cook or entertain, or work at getting to know someone!"

Pregnancy hormones? I blame everything on them. But I ended up crying until I went to sleep. I cried brushing my teeth. I woke up in the night feeling sad. I woke up sad this morning. The tears are pooled in my eyes, just barely contained.

With this move, I feel like I've helped the kids make the transition with confidence and success. They're established in a routine, they have new friends, Small Sun starts preschool this week, we have playdates and favorite outings. They have a full and happy life.

I, on the other hand, have not settled in as an individual. It is really hard to have all new friendships. With an old friend you know how much you can lean on them for support, how much explaining is necessary before telling about something you're going through, how solid the friendship is to handle the stresses of life. With new friendships you're still in the courting stage - making a good impression, trying to be known and understood, and not asking too much. On the lonely days I so miss my friends who would welcome me into their kitchens, kids in tow, for a cup of tea and an honest conversation. There is so much comfort in the longevity of a friendship, and I realize now how much I underestimated its importance.

I don't really know how to establish myself here. I'm looking for things to be involved in...but I haven't found anything that fits. So while our family is very settled here, I still feel pretty disconnected. I am not settled here. I am not established.

American Family wrote a post recently about her house. She said that when she imagines her dream house, the one she's living in isn't it. So, she'd like to stop investing energy and finances into a house that's not her future, and move on to the future, already! I think that same mindset is a real blockade in me settling in, in Sydney. Unless something changes, we have no clear way to adopt while we live here. Even as my belly is swelling with a baby I am VERY excited about, I see adoption in our future. And when I close my eyes and imagine the life I want, my parents are in it, my siblings are in it, and some treasured friends are in it. Granted, there's no way I can pick the magic U.S. city to have all those people near me, but living in Sydney pretty much excludes the possibility of spending lots of quality time with any of them.

So being here for short of a year, I can already see several large obstacles to this being our future, and like American Family, I am inclined to cut my losses and look for the real future that can facilitate my dreams. This isn't really logical. We're still firmly within the boundaries of The Plan- stay here for two years for a fun adventure before we need to focus on the kids' school, and evaluate what to do next at the end of two years. It must be the pregnancy hormones. Or maybe it's the Captain saying that he thinks we should stay at least 3-4 years.

The point is, I'm not "stuck in" here yet, and when I imagine our future it's not here. On the days when I miss Mexican food and my friends so much that I'm a walking water feature, it's hard to approach this logically (and I cry about Mexican food at least once a month, yes I do).

Inauguration Day

I woke up this morning and realized today is a new day. By the time we were up here in Sydney, the motorcade to the White House was in progress. I have been praying for Barack Obama, for protection, that he would enter into his Presidency healthy and whole. In the time between waking and seeing the news coverage I just prayed that the inauguration had gone successfully without any terror attempts, home-made or internationally conceived.

When I saw the footage of the President in the motorcade I began crying, so THANKFUL, so relieved, so amazed that it is actually happening.

I find it hard to relate to the people I know writhing in fear over the lives of the unborn as Obama takes office. I am deeply saddened by those who are crucifying Bush as he leaves office. For me today is about hope and courage in the face of fear.

I recently re-read a treasured favorite of mine: To Kill a Mockingbird. This statement of Atticus' moves me deeply, and captures the heart of the just:

"Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win."

My personality is such that I color within the lines, I accept explained limitations as fact, I adhere to expectations and the status quo. For me, today represents a million choices along the line of a life, where Barack Obama said "others may be limited, but I will not." I don't really know how to describe my admiration for the life that recognizes the limitations placed on it by country and culture, and then continues on in a self-determined trajectory. It gives me hope for myself and for my children and it challenges me.

As we watched the motorcade progress inch by inch, I explained the destination, the White House, and how The Obamas would live there during their term. Small Sun's response was "when I was Barack Obama, I lived in a blue house with my dad." How wonderful for our children that the grandeur of this moment is foundational in their memories as normal, and their horizons only open from here.

PS- I have a new feedreader, thanks to my Captain. I started catching up on blogs last night...only 1,078 to go! Sheesh.

The Captain is Right...Again

The Captain is always ready to recognize the kids being ready for the next thing, while I swear up and down that he's wrong. The most recent example of this unfolded this week.

For quite some time the Captain has been bugging me telling me that he thinks The Sprout is ready for toilet training. No, I say. No. no. no. And by no I mean two things: I don't think she's ready, and I don't currently have the energy to clean up accidents on the floor, the rug, and to wash lots of bedding and extra clothes.

He didn't budge when I showed him my degree, with its concentration in child development, and said snootily patiently, "I know the signs of readiness and she just not showing them yet. I'll let you know when she is." Well he was merciless persistent, and when he started talking to other people about it I decided to buy some panties and training pants for her, just to make him think I was considering it, even though I wasn't planning on doing anything with said potty training items for at least another month or two.

I was unpacking the goods from my shopping trip when he calls from the other room, "Sprout wants to wear her panties so I'm going to put them on her, okay?" "Okay" was not so much of a question as an "I dare you to interfere with me doing this." I patiently (I know, I'm so patient!) said, "well, she's not ready but you can try. When if it doesn't work we can just try again in a couple months." I decided it would be best if he saw for himself how not-ready she was. That would teach him.

Well, that was a week ago and The Sprout has had three accidents in a week of wearing panties (including naptimes and most outings). I'd heard of these miraculous, easy to train girl-children before, but she's only two and a little years old. And really, she wasn't showing any signs of readiness! But he was right all the same. He graciously told me, "I don't want to say 'I told you so', but I was TOTALLY right on this one."

What really hurts is that about two months ago he told me that Small Sun needed to go to bed in underwear. I protested at length saying "the sign of readiness is that he wakes up with a dry diaper. He is soaking a diaper every night! I'll let you know when he's ready." Well, you can probably guess how that one went, too.

So rather than hang my head in shame, I'm putting my Bachelors to use. I'm cutting it up into squares to put next to the potty. We ought to get some kind of use out of it, eh?

Summer!

Suddenly, it's summer. Like most older homes in Sydney, ours does not have AC. With the soaring temps and my own personal heater, I am sweltering!

I imagine it's hard for you all to get in the mood, wrapped up in your throw blankets with your hands wrapped around hot drinks, but try! For me! I need help!

I just went through two fall-winters in a row and I'm all out of practice with the whole summer thing. Right now I'm trying to figure out, what do we eat? Using the stove and oven in a house with no AC is just crazy. I know we can eat salad...but after salad, what do we eat then? Other kinds of salad? Use your imaginations to feel the sweat dripping down your backs - then tell me what to have for dinner. (And no, margarita is not a complete meal option.)

PS-My feadreader has been completely out of sorts for weeks now and I'm having trouble reading blogs. So if you find your blog completely absent of my comments, that's why. Drop me a hello so I can visit you, as the blogroll on my blog is hopelessly out of date and incomplete! Cheers!

In Africa...

Helping our kids understand adoption is like helping them understand other subjects that are complicated. They understand it a bit at a time. Sometimes I wonder how much is getting through?

Initially I only used adjectives when describing ethnic differences within and without our family. We talk about skin color and hair texture. Lately I've really been trying to help Small Sun understand what it means to be biracial. Barack Obama has helped us out a fair bit on that one!

I'm also working hard to explain the concept of ancestors, and heritage. We've been working on the difference between African Americans and Africans. Here in Sydney, we are more likely to interact with African and African-Australian families than with African American families. So I'm trying to help Small Sun understand that not everyone who has brown skin is African American (as he seems to believe), but that they might be Indian, Sri Lankan, or African (to take some examples from our circle of friends). In addition, we have African friends who are white.

I'm trying to help him understand that while African Americans have their ancestral roots in Africa, they are Americans. This is what he's coming up with that's keeping me laughing, and keeping me working at helping him get it all:

In Canberra we were in the hotel room with the curtains open. Suddenly Small Sun screams something with hysterical excitement. "What was that?", I ask the Captain. Small Sun was screaming "An African American" at near fever-pitch upon seeing a very dark-skinned man outside.* I agreed that the man might be AA, or that he might be from Africa and explained that some Africans have very, very dark skin like the man we saw.

A common phrase in our house is me telling the kids "that is from Holland, your Pappa's country", or "In Dutch, your Pappa's language..." Small Sun has taken to answering me with, "In Africa we say [insert some funny gibberish form of the word I've just told him]" or, "In Africa we do it like this (with an enactment of the "African way")". He has suddenly come to view himself as the authority on all things African.

We're not even trying to explain the difference between Africa the continent and the individual nations, except when we're talking about Omi going to Kenya or J from South Africa. Right now "Africa" is a big enough concept!

I think it's important to keep a sense of humor and to realize that no, he won't get it all at once. Bit by bit he'll come to understand his ethnicity and his adoption story. We'll just keep talking about it until he does!

*I think his extreme reaction was mostly due to the jumping on the beds and crazy-kid-excitement-over-a-hotel-room energy. It's not like he never sees people with brown skin, although I'm sure he doesn't see enough.