Are You Glad You Chose Me? Talking about adoption.

"Are you glad you chose me?"

Did you hear that?
That little gasp of air? It was the sound of my heart. Breaking.

Lucy is six. She's in first grade. She knows that she is adopted - we have never hidden the fact. When she started asking questions, we answered them. At first, she was a little confused, and was somehow under the impression that we had gotten her at the mall. But we cleared that up, and we had - I thought - a solid story. The party line we were going to stick with. Everything she needed to know all rolled up into one simple sentence.

"Mommy's belly is broken, so another lady grew you for me - isn't that wonderful?"

Over-simplified? Sure. SHE'S A KID. My belly is broken. Another woman did grow her. And she is mine. Anyone who has ever met her will tell you - she is ALL mine. A clone if every there was one. Her teachers sit back and watch the results of nature v.s. nurture. Mannerisms, sass, enthusiasm, and a serious flare for the dramatic all point to me as her parent.

Case in point: Last week she climbed into bed with me at 7am and said "Mama, I just can't decide. Should I use an accent in the play today, or not. Because I *do* have an accent you know."

Oh honey, I'll just bet you do. You got those from ME.

However, last week Sam veered off the party line in response to some of Lucy's questions. Because let's be honest: the man seriously cannot handle the hot seat when it comes to our kids.

Now, to his credit, he was getting a bunch of ground-breaking questions last week. On Friday he admitted to Max that there was no Santa Claus. This was a significant departure from our standard response to the question "Is there really a Santa Claus?" Our agreed upon answer was supposed to be "Do you like what Santa Claus brings you? Then don't ruin a good thing by asking a bunch of questions. If there is no Santa, Santa can't bring presents. You dig?" But Sam was tired of the lies and half-truths. And frankly, he didn't want to buy the gift Max was going to ask Santa for this year. So he caved.

The next day, when Lucy started to ask some pointed questions about where - exactly - she came from, Sam was already worn down from the Santa Claus fiasco - he was basically a broken man by the time his sweet little pumpkin started digging around for her genealogy. He totally fell apart under pressure.

Under the pressure of a six year old asking a simple question.

He is not witness-stand material, and would never tolerate cross-examination, as evidenced by the following conversation:

"Daddy, where did you get me?"

"We got you at the hospital."

"Who gave me to you?"

"The nurse."

"But where did I come from?"

"Well, this nice lady grew you in her belly, but she couldn't take care of you so she asked us to be your parents and-"

"LUCY I NEED YOU IN HERE RIGHT NOW SO I CAN BRAID YOUR HAIR." I had to interrupt. Sorry, but I had to. I am not her mother because someone couldn't take care of her, or wasn't ready to be a parent right now. I am her mother because I am her MOTHER. But she is a smart cookie, and she was not so easily distracted. I really couldn't blame her when she tried to continue to the conversation in my room while I braided her hair.

"Mommy, are you glad you chose me?"

"I didn't choose you, sweetheart. No one chooses their children. Children are a gift. You are my daughter. Can you imagine it any other way?"

She was quiet for a minute. Then she broke into a gap-toothed grin. Because she also has my teeth. (Sorry about that, sweetheart.) "That would be ridiculous. OF COURSE you're my mama."

"Yup, I'm your mama and you're my girl. My amazing beautiful girl. And you are just like me in every way."

"Well......" she paused. I raised an eyebrow. "Well, mama, I am almost like you in every way."

"How are you not like me?"

"DUH. I don't have gray hair."

Such a smart ass. That's my girl.

The Best Day of My Life

I have, in the past few months, really agonized over my son's place in the world. School, friends, family - it seemed like everything has been such a struggle for him. I kept telling myself that it was going to be OK. That he just hadn't found his spot. That eventually, he would find more people who knew and understood and loved him and recognized him for the great, amazing, generous and loving soul that he is. Have I mentioned his eyes?

When people describe eyes as "the windows to the soul" they are talking about these eyes.

And over the past few months, these eyes were sad. The whole boy was sad. He was lonesome and confused and frustrated and sad. And I have been trying to hold him up, to help him find his way, find his place in this big crazy world, because I am his mama, and that is my most important job.

And then this week, three things happened. First we got another rejection letter from a local private school - one we had hoped he would be attending next year. One that, in retrospect, clearly, definitely, absolutely wasn't the right place for him. (Because how could you say no to those eyes? Are you made of stone????)

But really, that letter was the best thing that could have happened to me. It was as though someone had taken me by the shoulders and looked me square in the eyes and said what my friends had been murmuring for a few months but which I had refused to hear until now. "This is not the right place for your boy. Find a place that is right for HIM - not one that looks right on paper, not a school that is right for you, find the one that is right for HIM." And that voice - my little mama voice in the back of my head, that had heard the whispered gentle coaxing of my friends - that little voice put her hands on her hips and hauled up her big girl panties and said at the top of her very powerful lungs "Stop fiddling around. Get serious. This is YOUR BOY and he NEEDS YOU TO HELP HIM."

So I listened to the voices - the ones both real and imagined, and that mama voice I really should listen to more carefully anyway.

And I pulled up MY big girl panties and put my hands on my hips and I said "I know just the place." And I took my sad, brokenhearted little boy and I put him in the car and I drove him out to the far reaches of the island where the wild ocean meets the cliffs and the grasses blow in the breeze and the trees whisper and the birds sing and the children play in the garden and I said "Here. This is your place. It may not be my place, but I know in my heart it is yours." And he looked at me with such hope, such trust, and he hugged me hard and he took his little sister's hand - the one who seems like she could just float along happily anywhere we set her but who really only wants to be with her brother - and they walked into a big sunny room filled with children and sat down on the rug at the feet of a teacher with golden hair and a sweet voice.

And I left them there, with these children and these people who had greeted them with open arms and big smiles and bare feet and a warm welcome. And I turned and walked away.

Six hours later I returned, to find them disheveled and muddy and grinning from ear to ear, clutching papers and tumbling over each other to tell me stories about their day and Max ran right at me across the yard and swept me up in a huge hug and looked me right in the eyes and said "Mom, it was the best day of my life." And I have to say, that this was more important, more thrilling, more affirming then any acceptance letter would have been.

So that was the second thing.

And then that night, I read something on The Bloggess that just......explained it all. Explained my broken little boy who was so sad and now was miraculously so full of joy that it was spilling out of every pore.

A special note to every single person reading this who thinks that they are alone or different or forever broken…you are not. You are part of a special tribe that you just haven’t found yet and we need you. All the best people are broken. Keep fighting until you find your place. It does exist. I promise.

My boy, he found his tribe yesterday. And this morning, with a trembling hand, I emptied my savings account to pay the tuition to ensure that my beautiful wonderful lovely boy will be loved and cared for and nurtured and encouraged and protected from some things in this world that I am just not ready to accept myownself, and certainly don't want for him. He may not be a baby anymore, but he is still my baby, and he is still a little boy, and he deserves to hang on to that for just a little longer. Starting now. Max is officially enrolled, and attended his first day today. The second best day of his life, he says. Homeschooling is over, he has found a place - his place - in the world.

And next year, when she is old enough, my sweet baby girl will join her beloved brother, my great big boy, at the school in the field by the ocean, with the gardens and the barefooted children and the jungle all around.

You, know I feel the same way

Last night I had to resort to the working mom's cafeteria: McDonalds.

We don't go that often, really. It's still considered a *very* special treat around here. So last night, when I got Lucy buckled up and headed down the hill to drop her off at gymnastics before I started my shift, I didn't tell her right away what I had in mind for dinner.

"Hey Luce, you want a burger?"

"IWANTABURGERIWANTABURGERILOVEBURGERSIWANTABURGER"

and a few minutes later it dawns on her......

"Mama, WHERE are we going to get a burger?" Oh, the twinkle in her eye. She sees where we are headed, and she knows, and yet doesn't dare to dream.....

"Hm, where should we go?"

"MCDONALDSMCDONALDSMCDONALDS"

"Are you *sure* you want McDonalds?"

"YESSSSSSSSSSS'

So we go to McDonalds, and I get her a burger and oh my god you would think I just gave her the world. She's hlding it oh so tenderly, taking big bites and "mmm mmm mmm"-ing. I am rolling my eyes.

"Lucy, can you take it down a  few notches, there?"

"Sorry mom, but you know McDonalds. It's DAMN GOOD."

"LUCY!"

"Sorry mom, don't worry, it's not as good as your burgers."

Well, at least she's got that straight.............

this latest obsession is O.K. with me

My son is obsessed with washing dishes and loading the dishwasher. He just tried it out for the first time this morning, and the kid has been washing every dirty dish since breakfast.

I love my life today.

I say "today" because, realistically, he may get bored with it by dinner time. But for now I don't have to wash dishes and that is awesome.

He is positively giddy - he's having so much fun that - when he ran out of dirty dishes - he began taking the clean dishes out of the drying rack and re-washing them "for practice". He is waiting with breathless anticipation for the dishwasher to be full, so that he can put in the dishtab and press the start button. Every half hour, he opens the front of the dishwasher and checks to see if it has reached maximum capacity.

I think this is why people have children.

In the meantime, I am lying on the sofa enjoying being unemployed for another 3 hours. Very exciting stuff. A lady of leisure, I am.

I just wanted some peace and quiet.

Note: This post was scheduled to publish later, and instead it published right away, and ended up in people's feeds. As we all know from my last post, I have no idea what I am doing, even with Blogger, which was designed for people who don't know what the hell they're doing. And yet, it still confounds me. I have no idea why it published, and no way to fix it, so I pulled the post till I could put it up manually.....LATER. But of course, THIS post is the one post that all of the sudden everyone loved and wanted to comment on. WTF?

So, back by popular demand -

Yeah, I should have been mopping the floors. Absolutely. It's been raining for weeks, the floors are filthy, and I should be cleaning them now that the kids are in bed. I know that, and yet.....I just wanted some peace and quiet. And some ice cream. I like ice cream with my peace and my quiet.

Don't judge me.

The kids were finally asleep. I had a documentary cued up on Netflix. I went to the kitchen for ice cream. Spoon, bowl, cookies and cream...it was all coming together. I dig into the carton, get a nice big scoop and oooooh look how many pieces of cookies are in that one ! "Good job" I think to myself. "That is a lovely scoop of ice cream, if I do say so myself." And right about then - right at that moment when I was admiring my lovely scoop of ice cream, it came loose from the ice cream in the carton and went flying. Onto the filthy dirty floor.

Fuck.

So I bend over, of course, and pick up that scoop of ice cream, and throw it in my bowl and stare at the hair that is now stuck to the side of this formerly epic scoop of deliciousness.

It will still be delicious. I just need to remove that hair. Oh, and the mud. There seems to be some mud, there, On the side. Where it hit the filthy dirty floor. Ah well, a little dirt won't hurt me.

"What are you doing Mama?"

Shit. Small voice. Little people are coming out of their rooms and I can see my dreams of a quiet night with a documentary melting right along with my hairy, muddy scoop of ice cream.

She comes around the corner and steps squarely into the small puddle of ice cream there. From where my formerly perfect scoop of ice cream landed when I threw it on the filthy dirty floor by accident.

"Oh, I stepped in something."

Shit. Fuck. This is not going well.

"What are you eating, Mama? Is that ice cream? MY ice cream? Why are you eating MY ice cream that I picked out? You picked out ice cream for you, and I picked out ice cream for me, and you are eating MY ice cream. Why aren't you eating YOUR ice cream?"

Because I ate that ice cream last night, I thnk to myself. But I don't say it. I do the natural thing. The only thing I could do.

"Daddy ate all my ice cream, honey."

So we clean up the floor and change pajamas, and use the potty one more time and I promise to buy her more ice cream and then she climbs back in bed and I return to my bowl of what used to be the most perfect scoop of ice cream in the whole world and is now just a puddle of melted ice cream, with some hair and mud swirled in it.

Netflix is frozen, my internet explorer has stopped working, I have to restart the computer and now I am wishing I had just eaten a cookie and mopped the god damned floor like I had originally planned.

Instead, I eat the entire can of whipped cream - sprayed directly into my mouth - and pass out on the bed with the New York Times magazine. Because all I really wanted was a little peace and quiet.

I woke up in a parallel universe, and I like this one better

This morning, I heard some hushed whispering from the kitchen. No urgent or threatening tones, so I took my time getting out of bed. IF they needed me, trust me - they would have been standing rightnext to my head prodding me and pointing at each other and layering one report of misconduct on top of another.

Eventually, I dragged myself out of bed. As I wandered into the kitchen tying my bathrobe shut and rubbing my eyes, I stopped and backed up a few steps. Lucy was standing on the toilet, brushing her teeth.

"Honey, did you already eat breakfast?"
"Yep" she said as she squirted the mandated pea-size dallop of toothpaste onto her brush. "Max made me some cereal."

I continued on to the kitchen, where Max was busily wiping off the kitchen counter.
"Good morning Mom ! I made Lucy and me each some oatmeal, and our lunches are already packed...I made peanut butter and jelly - I got frustrated because I couldn't find the jelly at first, but then I found it and I made the sandwiches and then I also packed some strawberries."

Wait. WHAT? I looked around the kitchen. The dishes were in the sink - rinsed. The canister of oatmeal was put away. The living room was still relatively clean.

"Wow Max, that is AWESOME. Thanks man !"

"No problem it was easy, and I wanted to let you sleep."

So this is where I shook my head back and forth to clear the cobwebs because obviously SOMETHING had transpired in the last 12 hours. When my child went to bed last night, he had to be reminded to use the bathroom and brush his teeth. The entire area of the kitchen where he had eaten dinner was littered with crumbs, scraps of meat, napkins and a puddle of milk. His dirty clothes had somehow been left in the middle of the hallway. Snips of paper from an abandoned art project were scattered across the coffee table and floor. He had been unable to get himself a glass of water and had requested refills and dessert be served to him, with an attitude that was more "patron of a Zagat-rated restaurant" rather then "kid eating beef kabobs at our kitchen counter."

And yet this morning, somehow, he prepared breakfast for two using the microwave, and then cleaned up after himself. He got dressed in something that was both appropriate and clean, and had sent his sister to use the bathroom while he picked out an outfit for her to wear as well. The dogs were fed, and lunches were packed complete with napkins and ice packs, fruit in small tupperwares, water bottles filled.

I am sitting on the couch right now, wondering what he's got planned for dinner. I have no idea what's going on, but if this is my new reality I will officially declare myself a successful parent and start writing a parenting book tomorrow. However, I remain highly suspicious - because really, the boy has thus far been incapable of remembering to flush the toilet after taking a dump. So until THAT happens, the jury is out.

In which I am incredibly thankful that I decided to pull the rug out of the living room before I went to bed

Last night, we stayed up late, moving the living room rug to our bedroom. The weather has been so cold that bare floors are just not an option anymore, so we decided to get a new rug for the living room, and use the current living room rug in our room to try to keep it slightly warmer then the outdoor temperature. Not much, just something. Just a nod to the fact that we actually had walls and floors and windows and a roof and all of that good stuff. Things that really should keep the room vaguely warmer then, say, the driveway. It seemed to do the trick. So after getting the rug moved, and furntiure repositioned in our room, we decided to leave the living room dismantled until we brought home a new rug the next day. Exhausted, we collapsed into bed, in our new slightly warmer bedroom. It was thrilling.

At about 3:30 we heard "the voice"

The little voice, from the side of the bed. Quavering. "Daddy? Mama?" (sob, cough cough gag) "My froat hurts."

Oh dear.

We both got out of bed, and went running in different directions. One to examine the sore throat, one in search of Motrin. Parenting is never more of a team sport then during a middle-of-the-night illness.

With Motrin found and throat examined, Lucy snuggled up on the sofa and watched "Suite Life on Deck" (which led to some significant gagging - on my part.) About an hour later, she sat up. "Mama, I have to go to the bathroom, can you pause the movie?" As I leaned forward to hit the pause button, I heard a cough and a splash. And suddenly my right foot was warm. And it dawned on me - more slowly then it should have - that Lucy was standing there throwing up. No warning, no hesitation, no run for the bathroom. She calmly stood up, opened her mouth, and let 'er rip.

I grabbed the quilt and held it under her chin, murmering soothing things to her like "It's OK." and "My goodness sweetie!" and, after a few minutes, "Sam. Hey, SAM! SAMI I NEED YOU NOW." Poor Sami came staggering out of the bedroom trying to hold his robe closed, and got a good idea of what was going on. He headed for the kitchen trashcan, and in the rush to get it, he slid, sideways, skidding on one hip across the wood floor until he came to a stop lying on his side, with his head under a barstool, still clutching his robe around himself.

Lucy did not pause, did not look up from the Job At Hand, which was, apparently, to empty the contents of her stomach onto my floor.

I held the quilt steady and glanced up. "What the hell are you doing" I snapped, as though he was trying out some new choreography. "Would you get up and stop fucking around?"

"I SLIPPED" Sami protested, as he scrambled to his feet and made another attempt to get to the trashcan.

He raced towards us, holding the can out in front of him like he was passing off a baton in a relay race. I traded him one wadded up quilt, and smoothly switched to holding the bin in front of Lucy, who was still totally calm, and totally puking.

He headed for the bathroom to dump the quilt in the shower. I followed with Lucy, who had stopped hurling and was now full of wonder at the turn of events.

"I got puke on my jammies." she announced.

"Sure did!" I replied cheerfully.

"My tummy feels MUCH better now."

"I am so glad sweetheart. Let's get those jammies off, OK?"

So we took off the jammies and washed hands and Sami found clean jammies and while she finished washng up Sami and I started spraying every surface in the house with Lysol. Because clearly, Lysol was in order.

As we wiped and scrubbed and sprayed and rinsed, Lucy slowly got dressed, and waited patiently for the all clear. I dried the floor and got the movie going again. I brought a clean blanket. Sami got back in bed. I lay down on the couch in the now-freezing living room with a cold (oh so cold) wooden floor.

At 8am, I woke up and surveyed the scene. Lucy, still awake, now joined by Max. The laptop battery had run out, so they were both just sitting there quietly, Lucy giving Max the blow by blow recap of the evening's excitement. I called the doctor and we headed to town, got her checked out complete with chest x-ray and stickers for being a good patient. We bought a new rug to put down in the living room and returned home in the rain. I am going to go grab a nap now, though I must admit I am still wary of hearing a meek voice and a muffled cough in the distance, through my sleepy haze. But god knows I am not letting her into bed with me, man. I have fallen for that one before. Besides, I have a new rug in there.

Next stop, Crazytown

Today, Max was looking at his quarters. He has the complete set from each state, I think. And he just LOVES to look at them. And count them. And talk about them endlessly. Oh, he loves money. He loves to get it, he loves to spend it, he loves to think about things to buy, and how much money he needs to squirrel away to buy the things he wants......

So today, he was looking at his quarters. He was particularly taken with the Vermont quarter.
"Look Dad, it's the Vermont quarter ! You were born in Vermont !"

"No, I wasn't. I was born in Massachusetts."

"Oh. MOM was born in Vermont."

"No, man, mom was born in Connecticut."

"Oh. Was LUCY born in Vermont ?"

"Dude. Are you serious ? Lucy was born HERE. On Maui. Don't you REMEMBER ?"

"Oh. Right."

"Hey, Max. Where were YOU born ?"

And that is when Lucy had had JUST ABOUT ENOUGH. From the TV room her sweet little voice echoed down the hall:

"CRAZYTOWN!"

Girlfriend, you have NO IDEA.

Home again, Home again, jiggety jig

We are home.

That night - that very scary night in Atlanta - I turned off the computer and climbed in bed next to Lucy, who was upset and needing a cuddle.

She sat up in that shabby motel room, with the highway roaring by outside and the rain pouring down, and the toilet dripping and the weird cigarette smell permeating everything, and leaned over my face as I lay there and said "Mommy, the best thing about today was being with you."