Growing Family

Kids Grow Up

This week I happened upon The Glow .

The Glow is a glimpse into the world of inspiring and fashionable moms.
Here you’ll find their styling ideas, go-to gear, multitasking secrets, and enviable decor.

Lately I've been getting into design blogs, especially kid-themed design, or design that incorporates real-live children's needs into the plans. 

I also read What I Want You to Know: Why I Resent Mothers on Rage Against the Minivan. The woman writing in that piece talks about how mothers get special treatment and are part of a mommy-club that gains them "support and respect."

What do these two things have in common? 

Well, it is true that there is no shortage of lovely, glossy, mommy blogs showing gorgeous crafts and birthday parties, magazine spread worthy nurseries, and adorable toddler fashion. There is no shortage of adorableness.

But do you know what I don't see so much of? Kids.

Kids who have traded in chubby legs and first teeth grins for legs that grow so fast pants never fit, and gap-toothed smiles from first teeth lost. 

As a mother raising a black son, in America I heard so many parents talk about how their adorable black baby grew into a "threatening" black teenager, and the whiplash of society changing their stance in relation to their child. 

Two of my kids are clearly out of the cute stage. Behavior that would be fine in younger children becomes suddenly grating and unacceptable! when put on display by a (almost) 5 and 6 year old. They won't wear the great outfits I put together for them. They won't respect my keen eye for design in setting up their rooms. They insist on decorating with fistfuls of grass shoved into old plastic cups. 

My kids are definitely good looking. It's not that they are awkward or unattractive or that they have behavior problems. They're just turning into "big" kids. 

When I looked through The Glow I found feature after feature of yummy mummies with adorable babies in designer clothing, living in expensive NY apartments. I don't really see how that is relevant to my life.  I had some good laughs over some of the sage advice offered by mothers of six month old babies. Sure their experience is totally valid, yet their advice would be helpful to a person with a baby under...six months, but how does it help me?

Anyway, I just realized that for as many blogs as I read, and as much "support and respect" as there is for mothers, I need to find some more sites that feature school-age kids being their age. You know, sites with 500 songs about poop, recipes for back-yard concoctions of mud, snails, and bird poop, how-do guides for clashing styles, prints, AND colors in one amazing outfit, and sure-fire techniques for getting dog poop off of shoes. That sort of thing.

PS-Tips for how to referee fisticuffs between siblings while comforting a toddler who has just fallen down the stairs and an infant who is hysterically hungry would also be helpful. 

Skipping School

Today was the last day of third term. The school put on a musical this week with two matinees and two evening performances. The logistics of getting back and forth from school multiple times a day were exhausting. Last night as I got Small Sun ready for the evening performance he burst into near-hysterical tears. "I don't want to be in the show tonight! I've already done it too many times!"

This morning I let Small Sun decide if he wanted to go to school today or have a home day. Home Day! 

Baby's caseworker picked him up to take him on his regular Friday visit and we settled into a day of serious play. It was really good for my three kids to bond/fight/spend an entire uninterrupted day at home together. 

I let them watch a lot of tv. I let them play a lot of Wii. I also kicked them outside and they spent hours playing in several giant tupperware containers filled with water and bubbles. I took that time to potter around the yard pruning a lilly pilly, planting some basil, and installing a second compost container. 

Here we have this amazing new house and I hardly get to spend any present time in it. I am always cooking, cleaning, grabbing my keys and yanking sleeping babes out of their beds to roar off to school. Today I sat in several different places in the house and garden, letting my mind wander and imagine the possibilities. 

It's amazing how quickly our lives are stolen out from under us. My life contains such vast amounts of mundane necessity. Bottles made, nappies changed, bathrooms cleaned of the evidence of young boys shaky aim, meals shopped for, prepared, eaten and cleaned after again and again and again.

We needed a day where no one had to go anywhere. A day where we could follow the trail of imagination until it ran cold. A day to build an airplane out of sofa cushions and eat ice cream in mid-afternoon. 

I needed the break as much as the kids did. I was starting to feel that I might explode if I had to get into the car one.more.time.

Sometimes skipping school is the best thing to do.

 

Adoption in the Classroom

This week I received the Kindergarten News Topics for term four. There, in week two, is my first experience with a school assignment that just won't work for our family.

Bring in a baby photo of Mum and/or Dad and a baby photo of yourself (you can also bring in photos of your grandparents or other family members). Talk about features that you all have and decide who you look like: Mum, Dad, or both (or other relatives).

I imagine the "other family members" and "other relatives" might be the inclusive language intended for our family as our open adoption is very open in the classroom, but that still doesn't make the assignment workable for us. Here is the note I'm sending in to the teacher (who I adore).

Dear [Teacher],

I just wanted to touch base with you regarding the news topic for week two next term. While this topic will likely be a fun one for most students, it poses some trouble for adoptive families. 

For a child adopted into their family, not having a physical resemblance and shared features is often a source of sadness and pain. Children adopted into their families deal every day with not "fitting in", in their families. An assignment like this could possibly heighten that awareness.

While I can provide birth family photos to complete the assignments, I would ask you to reconsider the topic. What about a simple baby photo collage with some memories to describe?* Please let me know if I can be of help regarding this topic.

Thanks for ALL you do, we do appreciate having you as [Small Sun's] teacher!

Kohana

I am very thankful that his teacher is very enthusiastic about working towards optimal solutions for each child in the classroom and I don't think this will be an issue. I am also thankful that Small Sun is incredibly confident and even if the assignment doesn't get changed, I know he will be proud to stand up and talk about his two families, as he so often does on his own already. 

*I realize that my suggestion wouldn't work for many adoptive families who don't have baby photos and memories to describe, but it seemed an easy switch to execute and would solve the problem right in front of us, if not satisfying potential future problems. 

Certainty and Substance

Tonight I went out to dinner with some mums from one of the two playgroups we attend. I sat across from a mum of one of Small Sun's classmates. She confided that after three years of "extended holiday", they are moving back to their (Australian) home town. Part of it is job related, but mostly they just know it is time to go. As their parents are getting older, they recognize that time together with family is most important to them. They'll move at the change of the year.

While I know jealousy is not an emotion to be cultivated, I did feel envious listening to her conviction. When I imagine "the future", I don't really imagine it being here in Australia. I can see us staying here for about five more years, maybe, and then moving on. 

My friend tonight had a very clear "home" to return to and the centrally important people of her life are all conveniently grouped there. 

To be perfectly honest, when I am around people who have lived in one place their whole lives and have their family all around them, I simultaneously despise and envy them. I experience a kind of explosion of emotions, wishing I was like them, and being thankful that I'm not.

The fact that I have no "home" to return to makes me heartsick. The fact that when our parents start to age and have failing health, we will confront having them on multiple continents, makes me feel anxious. 

Before we moved Down Under, we were visiting with my brother and his family. I hatched a wild scheme to keep our children knowing each other. I planned that we would all take our kids back home to my parents for the month of June. They would run in the woods, play in the streams, and spend a month dreaming and fighting their way into cousindom.

I failed to take into account the opposite seasons and the holidays that don't align. Now my parents have off and moved to Canada, renting out the house I imagined being the one rock I could tie my roots to. 

This week we had a plan to talk to my mother, sister in law and my nieces in Tanzania. My brother was to Skype in from India, where he is working at the moment, and my dad from Canada. We bought a Skype Premium day pass. We planned our day around this phone call. 

When the magic moment came, no one was on Skype. Eventually my brother got on and said he tried to get in touch with my SIL to no avail. It ends up the internet was down at their house for several days. 

Tonight I was riding home in the car by myself with the music on so loud I couldn't hear anything else. No traffic, no wind, nothing. When you have young kids in the car you never get to really blow your eardrums. I blanketed myself with sound and cried over the steering wheel.

Living abroad, when you have a family you love and miss, is hard. Not being able to get in touch or stay in contact with people you love is hard. Not having a "home" to return to is hard. Not having a continent in common with any family member is hard.

My friend tonight had conviction. She had a plan. She had timing and clarity.

Sometimes I just feel lost in the feeling that my family has been spread like a puff of dandelion fluff on the wind, and we'll never be able to regroup, or cluster back together again.