Measuring. Or, how to make yourself crazy in older child adoption...

Measuring.
We do it all the time.
I could go on a tear about how we as Americans do it, with everything, but that might be a whole 'nother post....and the point is that we do it consciously or unconsciously...ALL THE TIME.

But let's stay focused: as parents we measure...what? Everything, right? Right!
And no matter  how you became a parent, you still measure everything..right?
Hmmm.  Think maybe not? Well, consider:

My Chris, this pic makes me laugh...goofy baby pics, gotta love em.

If you are having a baby, by which I mean, you are pregnant and are gonna literally give birth to a child...from the very moment you find out you are pregnant, there you are: measuring.
You measure how many weeks along you are, you count the days since your last period, you count how many months ahead til your due date.  Then you go to the doctor and they too immediately start measuring: they measure your belly for the first time (and they will keep that up until it just alarms you) they measure your weight (again, this continues to a shocking gain - unless you tell them to 'quit that' as I did when I just couldn't take the numbers on that scale anymore).  They measure and they measure.  Thus, it's no surprise that you are unwittingly indoctrinated into this habit of measuring and by the time that baby pops out - or, if you're measuring, is pushed out after 21 hours of labor that felt like 45, taking what must be 3 years off  your life with the effort - you are measuring without even realizing you're doing it.  And of course, they whisk the baby away and do all sort of measuring with fancy names like APGAR and fill in fancy charts and graphs with the incessant measuring.

It doesn't end there, once you are home you measure the amount the baby sleeps or doesn't, how much they eat or don't, or if you're nursing, how often and how long, you measure their hair with your fingertips and count their toes again and again just to be sure they are all there and as cute as you remembered 5 minutes ago.  Then you start the next phase of measuring which is only slightly less number based: the developmental milestones.  As you can see, it just goes on and on and on, in one form or another...the rest of their measured little lives!

Now it's easy to think, "Aha, but I'm adopting, that doesn't even apply to me." 
Well, hang on Roy Rogers...sure it does.
Because if you're adopting an infant, well you get ALL the infant measuring from the moment of birth onward and then some.  Yeah, you're gonna get those APGARS and count those toes, don't think you'll skip that part.

Sweet Sarah

But you get the added perk, to make up for the personal belly measuring, of measuring Your. Entire. Life. in order to see if it measures up to the standards of your social worker, the agency, the judges, the police FBI feds government, even if it measures up to Homeland Security if you're adopting internationally.  Nope, you don't get a "pass" on measuring in the adoption lanes.
So yeah, you'll be measuring your weight after all, and your spouse's, your other kids, even your dog's weight (Think I'm kidding about the dog? Check out our dossier, I kid you not).  You'll measure your finances and traffic fines, your health and your fitness to parent, and on and on. Let's not even get started on measuring and counting the wait!
Finally, when that happy day comes and  you are holding that little one in your arms, well, you will sob with amazement and then you'll go right back to the measuring game like the rest of the parents.

But this post isn't about that, not really.....
This post is about the measuring done in a whole 'nother zone: the zone of Older Child Adoption.
In that world, that lane of family building, the measuring takes on all new meaning and form.

And, it's not good.

The measuring that is done in Older Child Adoption is not nearly so factual or innocuous.
This measuring is more insidious and unconscious and, frankly, is a big huge bear trap.

Because what they don't tell you in the adoption books is that we moms, we measure us. 
We measure ourselves against the first mom, against our ideas of what a perfect mom is supposed to be do or how they should appear (...again, like in the fashion ads, it's always the Benetton mom..but I don't have a stylist following me around every day..I know you thought I did, lots of folks make that mistake...but I don't). 
But even all that, that's not the worst of it.
The measuring that is killing us, we moms who have adopted older children, and/or children from the hard places, is the measuring of our feelings.
Our FEEEEEELINGS.
Hear that screeching just saying it? Yeah, my voice goes up an octave or two, on the hard days, when I even say that word out loud.
But taking our emotional temperature, checking in with our feelings (love, like, affection, annoyance, disdain, dislike) most of the time, is a trap.
I'm not saying never do it.
But I'm saying  you need to do it far, far, far less often that you think.

In fact, I would like to point out that I believe we moms, in this circumstance of Older Child Adoption, tend to take our emotional temperature...constantly.  I think we, without even realizing it, are always having it on our radar scroll, just like our own personal emotional CNN.  It's our ENN (Emotional News Network).

But this is one of the huge differences in older versus younger or infant adoption.
These feelings take longer, there is more to build to learn to absorb to work through...for all parties.
In older child adoption the primal human process of bonding is skewed and twisted all around.  The trauma that is inherent in older child adoption (and it is, always, to varying degrees) and/or the prior family experience all influence the new bonding, and it's efforts; what it looks like, how it plays, how it stalls, what form it eventually takes.
For all involved, all of it, every bit of it, takes time.  Unknowable, unmapped time.
These older children come to us as whole persons; with personalities and traits and hearts already formed and molded to a very very large degree. 
And so, if any or all of you are taking that emotional temperature, if you're measuring constantly or even daily (much less hourly or minutely)...you will lose your mind.   You're setting the stage for crazy.

So stop it.
Yup. Stop it.
Stop the measuring!
I might tattoo that, too, on my forehead so I can look at it every time I brush my teeth.
Stop the measuring!
Measuring implies a mark that must be reached.
There is no mark.
A dear friend told me, at the very start of this last adoption, "Don't take your emotional temperature every day.  Just don't."
She's right.
Another dear friend told me recently, "Stop being so hard on yourself and measuring to what you think it's supposed to be.  What if this, right now, is ALL it's supposed to be? This.  This IS good enough."

And I guess that's what I am still chewing on, hence this looong rambly post.
But I think we mom's, me, need permission to accept that we don't have to measure every moment, every day, every thing.  We can stop the ENN scroll bar.  We don't have to even know our emotional temperature.  We don't have to feel our emotional temperature.  Once more: Love is not about the feelings.
So, let's stop scanning our feeeeelinnngs.
And let's kick that bit of crazy right out of our days.
With older child adoption, we are here. We are in place.  We are doing it, all of it.

And that's good enough.
By any measure.

Tattoo You

Ok...me.

That's right, once again I have stepped into my own personal quicksand and emotional bear trap.
I was joking with a girlfriend that I need to tattoo this on my forehead, so I'll see it every single time I brush my teeth:

It's not about me.

Right here.  That's where it needs to go...

Yuh...see, because, it always so is, I make it so (Just like Jean Luc Picard! But not so elegantly. Not near....).  And, yeah, by posting I'm continuing the cycle..I know I know...you see how I get stuck?!
But I need to remember it, chant it, memorize, do homeschool copy work:

it's not about me its not about me its not about me its not about me it's not about me its not about me its not about me its not about me it's not about me its not about me its not about me its not about me it's not about me its not about me its not about me its not about me it's not about me its not about me its not about me its not about me it's not about me its not about me its not about me its not about me it's not about me its not about me its not about me its not about me it's not about me its not about me its not about me its not about me it's not about me its not about me its not about me its not about me...

Anyhow, you get the idea.  One of my favorite mama trauma bloggers had a post all too similar up like this, except hers really wasn't about her, it was about someone else who was terrific and a link to their post.  I am sure I've stolen it in some lesser form out of my tortured memory today....See, still, not good.  Go read her blog tho, if you want insight or profundity or just a breather from some of the tough time in parenting land....

Because, no, it's not about me.  So if it's not....why can't I step out of it all, parent more SIMPLY, take the breather that the concept offers...and stop the hard and hurt of it all on the bad days? Parent the behavior and not the emotions.
Why can't I just let go?
Simple huh?
Apparently...not so much.

Tattoos....looking better all the time.

Grief Box

 So, yesterday was another day of undefinable mood for our Marti.
And yes, many days with any teen girl are days of undefinable moody mood....but this one had a different tone.  Some of the clues, right away, that we were gonna have "one of those days" were that she got dressed in a gray sweater dress, despite temps starting in the 70's and said to rise into high 80's.  I told her that it was warm and gonna be hot, but there was no changing.  So, sweater dress it was.  Saturday also was a foreshadowing of the day; with double naps.  Naps are one of the ways that she copes and pulls in when she is blue (Not a terrible coping mechanism; quiet but oddly disconcerting).  Another, now classic, sign was that her hair was slicked back tight against her head; a sure sign of some dis-regulation and blue or black mood descending or already in. 

Seeing these signs, right at the start of the day were clues.  Tom and I went kind of automatically into mood-day mode and knew to let much slide, not make too many demands, make sure food was set out and available as soon as we got home from Mass and tried to keep to as standard a Sunday routine as possible.  Now, the day could'a gone way way south, and might have in months past.  This one was just very very quiet; with an obviously blue Marta.   She was aloof and yet shadowing us around too; which is this whole contradictory head-spinning quiet hard behavior; so I figured it was better to address it all head on instead of pretending that it was just a regular Sunday.

One of the tools that a dear friend has suggested to me is a "Grief Box." She came across this in one of her Hague training videos and mentioned it to me, weeks ago.  I finally went and watched the whole grief training video last week.  It is a good video, worth watching, especially if you are new to the older child adoption world or the world of grief in our children.    So, seeing as it was a Sunday afternoon, with time a plenty, I thought of the grief box.   

Now, I know, a lot of these sort of suggestions need to be done with a proper licensed therapist.  Well, we don't have one for Marta at this point; it's complicated tremendously by her lack of language and cognition.  So, with that, it was just us and we were winging it as usual (hopefully not to anyone's detriment - but really ya never really know in all this, flying blind and all). 

Anyhow, I sat and talked with Marta about her feeling sad.  I asked her if many days she feels sad and she agreed.  I asked her if she was "afraid she would forget the sad things?"  She agreed again.   I talked with her that sometimes when we have many things that are sad and hard it can feel like we have to hold on tight to them all, every day.  I acted it out, she nodded.  I said, "Would you like to make a box, a safe box to keep, that we could write down all the sad/hard things and put them in your box?  So you can keep them safe; not forget.  And if you wake up feeling sad, you can open the box and think about them, or show me? "  She said yes.

So we picked out a shoe box.  I pulled out a small pile of construction paper and helped her cover the box in the colors she picked out.  She wrote "Marta's Sad Box" on the top.  Then we sat and  made a list of the sad things she  holds onto, her losses (the one's she willing to try with this).  We talked about each one of them.  She talked, I listened.  Her list was what you'd expect from a child who lost her culture and family: parents, home, country.  One of her items surprised and yet, didn't at all: English.  Yes, english is one of her "sad's." Because it's hard.  And she can't speak it yet, not really.  And it's very hard to learn under the best of circumstances.  And she has that deck stacked against her.  But if it's a grief thing, it can go in the box.  It's her box, her pick.  I wrote each thing simply on a slip of paper, and she drew a picture of it on the back of the slip.  Then she put it in the box.  Then we closed the box up, lid on.  Then I told  her she can keep it in her room and we can talk about it or about anything at all, ever.  Hard, sad, angry, bad things, good things, old, new. 

She went to her room for a short bit, again.  I went in, after a little bit, and told her again, that she can talk to us, me, dad, about anything, any time.  That I was different than her first mom.  But that I loved her and have big ears to hear and will be here.  She hugged tight and smiled.  And last night, well, it was still a smiley good day sticker, not a "hard day" claimed.  Though I pointed out to her that in truth it was hard, and that was ok.  She shook her head and hugged us tight.

So, I'm wondering, have any of you, with kids from hard places or hard starts, have you used a "Grief Box" and has it helped you? If so, please leave a comment, tell me how it worked for you.  If not, have you used something else? Some of these "hards" are so very hard.  Especially without the language to process it all, how to you help your child to acknowledge it, process it, and move beyond it into a healthier place? I'd love to hear your ideas.

Marking the Days: Attachment Edition

Last week I wrote about being the Second Best Mom.
Part of that post pointed out how hurt I was by Marta's perception that EVERY day was hard with me, in one way or another. I mean, talk about massive "mom fail." As I considered all this however, and talked it over and through with dear coffeedoc....it became clear that we needed a way to mark that really, NOT every day was awful.
We have had, truly and real time, some or many good and happy days.

This is not to diminish the concept that every day IS hard in that I am not her first, adored, mom and thus it is INTRINSICALLY hard, more difficult...the building of this new relationship.
Because that concept is accurate and true and will be in play for, um, ever.
But I'm not sure if my daughter meant something as broad spectrum as that when she made a kind of rueful, "Oh well, that's the way it is" kind of face and told me that every day was hard with me. I think, I worry, that she was remembering every day as hard. Therein lies a problem

When we globalize (using terms like "always""never") any problem, as we, or I, am so wont to do, reflexively...then we are shooting ourselves - and whoever gets swept into that global memory vault - in the foot.
We are really kind of crippling that relationship.
At the very least we are seriously undermining it and any progress that is being attempted.

I don't want Marta, or me, to remember EVERY day as bad. Or hard.
Because they are not.
I tend to be a cynic and/or pessimist to some degree and I can EASILY zip right over there and rememer only the hard stuff too, so I 'get' this.
But it's a mistake.
I think it's our human nature to remember the bad, perhaps because it stands out glaring against the good. But that pondering gets all big and philosophical and is a whole 'nother post or series of them (And probably best done by someone far above my pay grade).

Therefore, in order to offset this tendency, dear Coffeedoc had his usual brainstorm and came up with the idea of Marking the Days.
I know, no surprise that, the man loves a spreedsheet and a system. He got a degree in engineering for pete's sake, no wonder, he can't help himself.
I, who got my degree in art, usually roll my eyes at his systematic tendencies because they come about as naturally to me as breathing underwater.
But this one, I was ready to hear, what with me being all broken and hurt and blue....

Thus we have, for the past week or so, been Marking our Days.
And I'm posting because it's helping, a little bit, so it's worth marking in it's own right.

Here's how we are doing it; both low tech and high (because that's appealing to the teen side).
Every night, right at bedtime, as Marta comes to me to say goodnight, I stop and say "Oh wait! We need to mark the day. Was today a hard day with mom or a good day with mom?"
And she, so far, has chuckled and said, "Good day."
And I have said, "Ok, here we pick 'green, good day,' Me too, 'green, good day with Marta.'"
And then I hit the green smiley face for each of us on the little Iphone app that Coffeedoc modified for me. And we get that satisfying "zing" sound. She smiles and hugs and goes off to bed. I tell her each night, if it was a "hard day" that's ok, we can pick the red sad face. So, far she has picked green happy face. I'm sure soon enough she will pick red sad face. {Now, the cynic in me is sure that as soon as I say we've had only good days so far, we're doomed to a bad one, right away....aw} Then in the morning, on our big ol' calendar (hub central) on the fridge, I draw a smiley face by her intitials and by mine in that block for that day. That's the low tech, luddite version; but also a constant freestanding visual.

Now all this may seem so simplistic and even stupid. And it IS simplistic, but it's not stupid at all. I think it's very smart (thank you tom).
Even the process of stopping and marking that day, at bedtime, is a theraputic thing to do.
It shows her that I'm paying attention, to it all and to her and to her perception of our time and interactions.
It shows her without telling her with words (that are hard to understand) that this is important to me too.
It shows her that I care that our days grow better and better.
It shows her without telling her that it's okay to have different days and that one day is just that: ONE day.
It shows her visually and behaviorally that it's easy to remember one small bad thing and forget all the good things.
It shows her, clearly, in electronic light plus inked calendar poster, that she really DOES have good days.
It shows her, I hope, that I know I'm not her first mom and that I understand it's hard for both of us and we are working on this together.
Our hope is that even this tiny little process can have some benefit.
Our hope for all this tracking is to be able to also have her be able to start tracking and seeing and feeling the healing in her heart and the grief by the building of a new good relationship with her new second mom.

Because second place can still be very good.
Second place can still be a place of happy goodness in and of itself.
So we are marking our days, hard good, red green: baby steps with smiley face stamps.

Competing mamas

There are so many layers to older child adoption.
Well, ok, there are so many layers to ANY kind of adoption.
One of the layers that is there in any kind of adoption is "The Mama Thing."
This whole mama thing is something that is SO obvious that it's so easy to brush past it, or through it, or ignore it, or presume you know it all.
It's especially easy to do that if your adoption seems to be one of the "simple" ones: of a tiny new infant, or one that has lost, to death, both parents, and so on.
But I want to remind you, because I think we all need reminding and I was reminded ALL too clearly this past weekend, that it is never simple.
Domestic adoption or International, newborn or older, relinquished, abandoned, orphaned; it's never simple.  
I repeat: It's NEVER simple.
And in so many ways and on so many levels it comes back to this; always the mama thing.

I know, another vague lead in. Forgive me, you should know by now I do stream of consciousness typing.  This is my cheap therapy and scrapbook, and  my very lifeline some times.  So, bear with me, this is all so tangled in my head and heart. I get glimmers of full grasp of it all and then, it floats just out of reach again.

Doesn't she just look like she was crowned mom of the year?

But, I think the bottom line is that we, as adoptive parents, often, unwillingly and unwittingly either step into or are placed into a "mama competition."
{Putting on my hazmat suit now, give me a minute to zip up.....}
What I mean by that is this: it is easy to somehow, unconsciously want to be "the BEST mama" for this new child (or older child).
That's all well and good, that impulse, that natural instinct.
God help us all if we don't have it.

But, the mirror trick and the trap is that all too often, again, unconsciously and/or unwittingly, that means that we somehow either place ourselves into a sort of weird unrecognized competition with the first mom, or the child does....or both. 
Now hold on, put those blowtorches on "pause," I am in NO way saying that we all don't do our darnedest to honor and remember those first mothers.  I KNOW we do. I know only very few who don't.
But I am saying that in our efforts to connect with this child, we can forget that they have this humungous truly unfathomable primary loss of their FIRST mom.  We can easily sorta forget the immeasurable depth of that loss in the day to day fluff and dross, because it is not ours.  That loss is not our own.  And really, frankly, if it's not about me, really, it's kinda hard to keep it on the front burner.  Because yeah, I am just precisely THAT selfish.
I can read and study, I can post and write, I can pray and talk and identify.
But my child(ren's) loss is not mine.
Only in the furthest reach is it even tangentially connected to me.  It it theirs.  Not mine.
Ever.
Not this one.
I cannot, ever, fully, experience or appreciate that loss the way the child does.
Because it is theirs and I can't fix it. 

But, in bringing this child into our home, our family, and our  hearts, we naturally want to be the best we can for this child.
But you know what it is so easy to forget and that we never should?
We/I will never be the BEST mom for this child.
Our very very BEST, my very very BEST, is second best, period.
I am the second best mom for five of my kids.
Just because I'm the one in place does not, in any way, mean that I'm the best mom for them.
Because I'm not.
I lost that competition ("Who's the best?") before it ever started, and that is right and proper and bottom line truth.

This was brought home to me this weekend, with my Marta.
My very best still isn't good enough, and can't be.
She told me so herself.  After fussing between us, miscued, misread, by both of us..in the after time...She told me, "Every day mom-hard."
Ow.  I mean....OW! I was bowled over, almost literally.
My type A, defensive self started instantly charting in my mind all the effort all the work, COUNTING the cost of bringing this child into my heart.  Stung, immediately I thought to start scouring my attachment books once again, find a therapist, set up appointments.  (Yes, this is why this post has to be labeled "all about me me me".....pathetic but there it is)
It was plain to me, though: Massive Mom Fail.
I cried, hurt and overwhelmed by the bigness of it.

But she is right.
Every day IS hard.  
For her, it MUST be.

I cannot give her what she had and lost. 
I cannot give her the life she had and loved and knew and grieves, with her first mom.
I cannot be what her first mom was to her.
I cannot look smell feel touch talk soothe sing discipline feed hug gaze or even sit with her, the same as her first mom. 
I can't be a mom of an only child, her.
All of her life with her first mom wasn't a picnic.  There were some ridiculously hard unspeakable things.  Those things may not even be known, or remembered in her grief, or fully understood by my daughter. 
Even so.
That life, the loss of that relationship and life is deeply, daily, still, grieved by my daughter.
And maybe it should be.
And I can't prescribe or know when that grieving should be done or if it ever will be.
As a dear friend and social worker tells me, the "idea of forgetting is scarier than being angry and being in pain."  

So, what's a mom, the SECOND mom, to do with that truth?
Well, THIS  mom, spent a hard emotional Sunday feeling like her insides  had been scraped out and feeling a bit despairing over it all. 

But, after much processing, praying, talking with Tom (Who, yeah, I was feeling kinda resentful about because he didn't have to measure up this way, or fail to, etc etc etc - why yes, I am that childish why are you surprised?), and to my dear best pal here who brought me coffee and sat sifting through my teary words of tired hurt.....I realize once again what I have known both in my head and heart for so many years:  I am not good enough.
My Type A self has to learn to live with that.  I had thought I had been learning that lesson for the last twelve years.  Oh, no, not at all.  
I will never measure up to the fantasy of the mother that wasn't known, nor will I measure up to the mother that is remembered and grieved.
Nor should I.
Each one of my kids has the inborn right to honor and revere and put that first mom on a pedestal. 

I am not competing with that first mom.
There is NO mama competition.
I am the second best mama for these kids.
I promised to love them with my whole heart, intellect, and ability, to give them safety, to raise them as best as possible to be the best person they can be. 
That's the bottom line.
It was never conditional based on their loving me back or thinking I was the bee's knee's.   
They never did promise to love me back; they weren't even asked their opinion.
So, I lost any "all that" crown before I ever started.

But in that loss, I think, I gain.
Because I learn, really, the hard painful lesson, again and again and again, to let go.
I learn to let go.
Because what is so hard to learn and really accept; is that they were never ours to begin with.
First they were their first mamas, but before that and ever, they are their own and God's.
I'm just a caretaker along the way.
An opinionated passionate fussy moody gal who stands in the kitchen, all-in, with open hands (on the good days). 
I can do that; with prayer and the help of my dear ones, and a whole lotta Grace....I will.

I'm second.
I'm so grateful for that.

Happy Sad. Mark the good.

I've had a few posts on "marking the good."
This is another.
I think it's important, for me personally, but also in general to mark the good.
When you're talking about older child adoption and/or working with kids from hard places or with hard needs, I think it's absolutely critical to mark the good.
Because if you don't you might just drown.
Marking the good is a lifeline.
It is a critical point of reference that must be indelibly inked in your consciousness, lest it flees from the mire.

That said, I want to mark the good.
This is one of those small but huge ones.  Most of these are really.  Because with these kids  you don't usually have the brass band events of good to let you know, "hey, this is a good one, this is progress, file it away."  You get these tiny fleeting moments that might even pass you by in the actual moment…until you think back on it and get that 'aha!"
I love an "aha!"

Anyhow, this is all to preface another tiny but huge good we've come to here in the coffeehouse, and with our Miss Marti.
We've just passed through the minefield commonly referred to as "The Christmas Holidays."
We managed to tiptoe through it fairly well, with only a few tripped landmines and a minor loss of limbs and scorching.  Overall, really, it was much more successful than we anticipated or hoped for.  (I still feel the need to kind of whisper that, just in case somehow it jinxes it.  I know, I'm Catholic, not supposed to fall for that kind of superstition…I told you this was tricky stuff…)  

But then, along came Christmas night:
We had done the vigil Mass. We had done the giddy hysteria of opening presents.

We had done the excess of birthday on top of the excess of Christmas.

 Finally, we were at that ebbing tide of the day: evening.  Everyone was tired, but a happy, sated tired.  The kids were roaming quietly, fooling with new toys or gadgets.  New pj's had been donned, dishes done.  My eldest, Chris did what he usually does and  made for the piano.  Tom joined him to sit and listen.  Marta quickly found her way to snuggle up next to dad.  I donned my goofy christmas pj's, in solidarity with the girls (and to show them that there is a certain wonderfulness in super soft flannel warm pj's despite the old fashioned print…. if not because of it).  I had tucked the small boys in, at last.  So I too, was beckoned down to listen to my son play and sing.  By this time, he had gone through his own choices of warm ups and tunes and he had begun taking requests.

Now, let me be clear..this is always a dicey time for me.  I love listening to my son play and sing more than I can say.  Truly. At this point however, it is a tough thing for me to do, as it  makes me cry…it pulls those tears from the depths of my inner heart.  They are so sweet, and bittersweet and just a salty mess.
I am careful, very careful, about my tears…if at all possible.
Because Marta has radar, or sonar, or whatever you'd like to call it.  But if she sees me crying she cries.
Every. Time.
And so, to even step into that room and sit, knowing that I couldn't stem the tears well..was an act of …I don't know. I'd like to say faith…but maybe it was sheer stupidity, or tired or resignation.  I don't remember.
But I did. I gave her a big smile when I came in.  She gave me one back and hugged her dad.
Dad made a few requests…..I could feel the tears pricking but busied myself looking at book spines.  Blinking hard and fast, head turned.  Marta was intent, watching Chris.  All good.
Then, she called out, "Chris.  Marta song, pleeeasseeeee!?"
Chris looked at me, looked at her, looked at dad.
He chuckled. Dad chuckled. I held my breath.
It had been a long day.
Tom nodded at me. It will be ok.  I gave him, "the look." You know that look, the one that says, "do you know what you're doing? It's been a long day and I went to sleep at four and woke at six and I don't know if I have the reserve to deal with any meltdown, really…?"
He nodded again.
So Chris played it.  It's this song:

That is Chris playing "All will be well," By Gabe Dixon.
It's the song we  used for our "passing court" video on blog. Marta considers it her song, she is QUITE proprietary about it.
And so he played it.  He gets better and better all the time.
I held my breath and closed my eyes.  Then I opened them and glanced her way.
Sure enough, she was crying.
She was rubbing her eyes and nose, mouth kind of grimaced.
I felt the tension immediately, in my gut, my neck.
She came over to  me, and climbed on my lap, spilling over it.
I hugged her and said, "You ok? It's ok."
And she said……wait for it…….."Ok mom. Happy Sad."
And she hugged me.

Happy sad.
These two emotions haven't been able to be pieced together by this young girl, since she came home.  There was no such thing as happy tears.  Tears  have only been sad. Ever. Even when I've tried to tell her and show her and she's seen me cry them at, oh, every birthday and holiday.  And tears and/or sad always have led to deep running grief.
But this Christmas, we got a gift.
And I'm marking it down.
Happy Sad.
She was crying, but happy. She knows what that song  means and she can feel that pang of deep happy that makes you cry.
She LOVES to have Chris sing and play that song.
She makes me turn it up if we hear it on the radio.
And this Christmas, in the quieting of the evening….she hit another marker.
Tears, happy tears.
"Happy Sad."
Healing goodness. Happy Sad.

Turn-keys: Christmas Edition

The christmas key {find it here}, who knew? Cool huh?

So, it's still Christmas.  Which means we are still celebrating, but we are still also working on sidestepping triggers and trying to craft a happy successful holiday.  Today many of my kids head back to school (just over half of them) and I'm reviewing our holiday break.
So I think it's time for an updated turn key post - holiday style.
For another link in a similar vein, go here, to the always wonderful and insightful Thankful Mom.  She inspires me always, and is a good online buddy.  I know we'd chat for days over coffee if only we lived closer!

Anyhow, so this Christmas we had a much better holiday than last year.  Which kind of blows my mind.  Because last  year was so very hard.  It was full of drama and trauma drama triggers and grief and rage and crying and all such things.  We should have expected it, I suppose.  But somehow, even as you are treading water in the new deep end of parenting with kids who have special needs and hard backgrounds...you (or I did) think that the  "magic of Christmas" will carry you through.  Um, not so much.  Instead, what happens is your discombobulated, hypervigilant, disregulated child(ren) only become more so.

All that is to say, this year, we went searching and thinking in advance for some keys to avoid some of those pitfalls.  We are getting slowly smarter, in that we don't expect hopes and wishes to carry us over bumpy ground.  This year we opened up our toolboxes and tried to think in advance.  We lowered our expectations and prayed like mad.  And guess what? We have had a much more successful Christmas holiday! I'm not saying it was perfect, because I'm not crazy or stupid.  But I'm saying, it was better.  I'm saying that we even had some real progress, for which I am terribly grateful.  We all are.  I'm saying, Christmas was full of some subtle but very big gifts.

There were a few keys, turn-keys if you will, to the progress.
One of the keys is a given, it is time.  Simply put, she has been home now 17 months and she has one Christmas under her belt.  It was not all new.  That is huge.  For a hypervigilant kid, to know precisely what is going to happen, when and how is absolutely critical.  It pains me to think how hard last year was for her, knowing her intense need for routine and fear of change.  This year, however, we had something to build on, and that allowed her to relax somewhat and even enjoy bits of the holiday that repeated from last year.  This year she had ornaments that were repeats from last year, and it tickled her to put each of them on the tree....just like the other kids.

Another holiday key was again the scheduling in advance.  We laid out the schedule in advance, the days were clearly marked and spelled out, so she knew exactly what to expect and when.  We had to go over it again and again, but that is standard and so we did.  It helped.  And we piggybacked it on the key of time, reminding her that we did it this way, the same, last year.

We did a lot of direct assignment of tasks.  Giving her tasks that contributed and helped her feel both part of the preparation and also productive.  Sitting around bored is a killer.  Tasks are good, if well considered.

We did a lot of checking in.  Checking in with her as the day(s) went on, with a word of encouragement or praise and a quick hug and smile with connected eyes.  Such simple things, so easy to forget and so critical to the ongoing mood regulation.

Perhaps the biggest best key this year was Christmas specific: gifts.  She got to give every one in the family a gift.  Sounds like an "of course, doh" kind of thing, right?
Not at all.
Stupidly, last year we were all just so overwhelmed by all the changes that we kind of gave a pass to the kids on giving gifts to each other, individually.
I mean, when you have eight kids, that adds up to a huge logistical nightmare of trekking to stores and buying and wrapping and sorting and oh my goodness I start to swoon just typing about it.......
In fact, this year I advocated with my husband for the large-family classic mode of drawing a name between the sibs, one name/one present.  He wisely enough thought about it and said, "No, I think they should all give gifts to each other."  At which point I promptly got a massive migraine.  Then he (again, wisely...he may be many things, but he's not stupid) said, "And I'll take them, I'll be in charge of it."  At which point I promptly gave him a big smooch.
Anyhow, being able to go and pick out a small gift for each member of the family...wrap it, put it under the tree, and then watch it being opened...was just a hugely important thing to her.  No surprise I suppose, it is the joy of giving.  And it enabled her to really participate in Christmas, for the first time in a way that she understood.

So this year, Marta got to get presents but also give them.  And that, perhaps, was the greatest turn-key under our tree this year.  It was the one all fancy, above, that helped us all have a much more relaxed and happy Christmas.  It was a tool and a key, yes, but even more so, it was a gift to us all - literally and figuratively.  It was a key to healing, which is the greatest gift, once again, that any of us can be given.
Attachment only comes, truly, with time and healing and I will gather any and every key I can find to unlock it and bring it closer.  Those keys, they are gifts of gold to me.  They are gifts of family.

Annnnd, Action!

Sounds like I've moved back to LA and am joining the throngs of movie director wannabe's, right?
Not so much. 

 {I fear if I did it would end up like a bizarro Luis Bunuel movie....}

This is a short bit on learning and living with kids; those from hard places and working on learning to live comfortably with new families in new places, but even those kids who are just in the normal hard places of teenager-hood or middle school... heck, really this works for any kid.

But this post isn't really about the kids at all.
It's about the mom, the me.
It's a long steep learning curve and a slippery one at that, for me.  I've been doing this parenting thing for over twenty-one years now...you might well presume I've got it down, pat.
Not so much.

Because I have some very bad habits and personality quirks, the kind that keep knocking  me back when I'm trying my darnedest to move forward.
This is one of the biggies.
I am a "reactor."
I am what we call around here a "high responder."
Yuh.  Me.
I bet you're surprised.
Ok, not so much, I know. 

This tendency of mine can be a very good thing when it's all about the high high's, the high fives, and the parties and the cheering successes.  It can be a very good thing when it's passion and caring and persevering with intensity, like when you are going to bat for your kid.
But it's not so good when you are responding, or reacting, to the other high responders in the house.
Because that is when you need to play against type, and you need to pull back and chill down, slow down.  And then, in that pause that you've just given yourself before you react without thinking, in response to whatever blowing....you get, you need, to act.

Action.
Deliberate, intentional action, is a much better choice, always, than reaction when you are talking about kids who have high responder natures, or buttons.
To act, instead of react, is key.
And if you're like me, you might, just maybe, tend to react in anticipation of the event.
Which of course makes it all doubly difficult.

I am trying, mindfully, {no, really honey, I am} to try to not anticipate, to only act after the fact, and then only to what is actually happening (rather than react to my expansive imagination on the multitude of possibles). 
Sounds really good, doesn't it?
Not so easy though, all this deliberateness.
It's the anticipation of the blow and the immediate visceral reaction that is the hardest to stem, actually.  When I know something is gonna trigger a blowout or a domino reaction snit and attitude, my stomach immediately knots up and my breathing changes.  It's my own trigger.  But I am working on slowing, stopping, and setting the anticipation aside.  Because it's unfair, it's a disservice to whichever child is in mind.  And I am forcing myself to wait, trying trying.  (Another weak skill.) To just wait to see if the anticipated fallout um, falls out...and only then, ONLY then, start dealing with it.  And then, deal with it in an intentional way, not an expanded way, but an intentional action of empathy and logical consequences.

Again, sounds really great, lofty even, huh?
Not so much.
It's a total work in progress.
But progess it is.
And progress I'm seeing, baby baby steps.
Because ya know what? Sometimes, my expectations are left wanting.  That fallout...it doesn't happen, or it is smaller than I imagined.  Not always, but maybe it's getting more of a chance to be so.  Because I'm not escalating it myself in advance.  Ouch. But, I'll take that hit, the ouch, mea culpa....if it means that we can have less drama overall.  Even mine, maybe.

Action.
Not reaction. Not anticipatory reaction.  Just action.  Deliberate.  On time.
What a concept. Awfully challenging.  But, what a concept.

I am her

So I have a jumble of thoughts crowding and pushing around my brain. A tangle of them, if you will.  Which means, once again, I have to type them to sort them out.  But they seem to have some measure of need to be brought to light and examined, here, in this forum; my blog. Maybe so that others can help me understand them more clearly, I'm not sure.  But, here goes and fair warning.

With several of my kids, but especially with my newest to the tribe, it can be hard to connect.  For me.  That doesn't make me proud, in fact in humbles me, embarrases me and shames me; it brings me quite literally to my knees.
I desire to connect.
I desire to feel that squooshy goodness of warm loving feelings, and fierce mama love towards them.
But all too often, many days, it's kind of, um, missing.  And it's all too easy to blame the kid.
This kid. That kid.  Her.
And it's all to easy to say, "She's difficult.  She's so needy.  She's attention seeking, again. She's/he's whining.  She's angry, again, over nothing."  I know, awful, isn't it?? And it's all too easy to harrumph and sigh and throw a quick roll of eyes as I march over to meet the need, once again, resenting this imposition on my activity, my attention, my time.  Me me me.  Yeah, it's not only you who noticed...me.  It's all about me.  Sigh.
But, in a whole 'nother way, that - densely - I am only just being willing to admit: it really is all about me once again.  And not in a good way, if there can EVER be a good way to that (No, there can't.  So in an even worse way).

Ack, see a jumble.  Sorry.  Stay with me.
You see, I realize that all the things that make me most crazed about this girl in particular, ok, any and or all of my kids....are the things that are JUST. LIKE. ME.
Doh.
I know, there's that old adage: "The things you hate most in another person, are your own worst habits." Or something like that, but that's the gist.
Gah.  I hate that!
Truth hurts, eh?

Yeh, this truth hurts....especially when you are trying to bond and grow into love with a young kid from hard places and trauma responses and survival skills.  Those ingrained behaviors that  you think are so foreign to you and your neat tidy family....maybe aren't so much, maybe aren't so foreign after all.  Those annoying behaviors might be just more intensified and or frequented mimics of the very things that you do too, or ok, I do too.
Sigh.
Ouch.
But, think about it.  That might be.
I'm thinking about it.
It is.

I am  her.
I am the same girl who wants to crawl up into my husband's lap after a tough day, and doesn't always like to share that attention.
I am the same girl who wants to make sure someone, maybe lots of someones, know if I'm in a bad mood.  Or very tired.  Or angry.
I am the same girl who wants to make sure the dad sees her hurt leg, and looks at it, and preferably kisses it and hugs her.
I am the same girl who wants to lean against someone if her head hurts.
I am the same girl who gets frustrated and sometimes snitty if she is misunderstood.
I am the same girl who wants to have what she likes for dinner, and will kind of eat less if she doesn't.
I am the same girl who needs a lot of sleep and if I don't get it, might just get frazzled the next day and sigh and fuss and roll her eyes at reasonable requests.
I am the same girl who can cry when just so frazzled, when it's too much and she's past the point of coping.
I am the same girl who can be hypervigilant, because she wants to control....everything.
I am the same girl who wants desperately to be understood, and to understand, especially when she isn't.

I might not use my skills for manipulation (which, if I say so myself, are rather impressive), so much anymore; but I'm older and I don't really need those skills because I'm in charge and call most of the shots.
I might be able to withstand most discomfort now, but I'm older and have learned that most things pass.
I might be able to tolerate annoying sounds or people, for a little longer anyhow, because I have loved them from babyhood.
I might be able to trust because I know these people intimately; through and through over so many years (Heck, I can know what they will do many times before they do).

So, this is all to say....it humbles me that the very one that I fuss about because I am slow to connect....she is me.  I am her.
I don't know whether this means I need to forgive myself for these traits, or her.  Or both of us.
Because I certainly want to be loved and believe I am lovable.
Isn't it only fair that she does and is too?

I can only guess that, once again, God gave me this child, this one, so that I can learn to love better.
And I pray, every day, to be able to love better, more truly, less selfishly.

God gives me extra lessons, because I am such a hard case, a slow learner, and my selfish heart needs to see the hard truth:  

I am not so loveable, so much of the time.
I am sure I make so many crazy, sorry Tom, kids.
But, if I claim that love....so can she.


Because I am her.
She is me.
She has the same stake, the same claim.
We gave it to her.
God gave it to her.
She deserves it as much as anyone, certainly as much as me.
I daresay more so.

Mark the good, belated redux

I've written before about "marking the good."
I think it's an important thing to do, and it's one I too often fail to do, either here in this forum or, truly, in my own chatter and mind.
It's oh so much too easy to only see or remember the bad, the hard, the challenge.
And, it's probably my inborn gripey moody nature to do so.

But I think it's worth trying to step over and beyond our complacent habits of being and doing...especially when it comes to being able to see the good that surrounds us.
Because, really, if we blink we might miss it.
Especially when you are talking about the good in older child adoption adjustment and/or kids with difficult needs or special needs and/or attachment and/or grief/trauma issues.
Just in that sentence alone, as you can see, the bad can easily sink the good.

So, I want to go on the record that over this last weekend of Thanksgiving holiday, we had some good. Some good to mark.
Some good to give hope - certainly to me, but also, maybe, to any other mom who is doing the day in day out work of adjusting and theraputic parenting and such.  This mom encourages me all the time in her blog, go see, she is of the same mind this week: mark the good, note the progress. I wish I lived closer to her and could hang out over coffee and shortbread cookies....

Anyhow, back to the good, noticing and marking...
These things weren't glaring or obvious trumpeted things.
As usual, they were subtle moments, or, more even, they were an absence of tough and a presence of um, kinda normal.
 Read that again, there was more time without drama.
There was a sort of calm coping. Or "undrama," if  you will.
Yes, I just made that word up, because somehow, it relates to the trauma drama that can be a pervasive silent ghostly but tangible enough cloudiness in a  house.  "Undrama" is the hoped for flip or even a passing by on a tricky weekend.

Anyhow, as I was saying, or want to say....this past weekend had much craziness built in to the festivities: guests, extra guests, boys home from college, no school, big cooking and house prep, schedules whacked out.

 (homey buffet, but it was the requested fav's of the college boys, so we ran with it...

because being HOME was the point of the weekend in many ways)

 I wrote about it here, and hoped that it some advance prep would help.
Well, it did!!
Not to say that everything was perfect or that this was the only reason, but overall, we had an ok, kinda normal level of behavior weekend.  Which, considering the potential, is amazing.
Amazing.
Now, we also worked hard on keeping coping methods in the forefront and this one child in particular on radar (though not solo on that radar, if you get my drift, there is managing multiple kids out the wazoo during weekends like this).

But here is what worked:
- staying tuned in to the 'weather' of mood and coping,
- redirecting her to a special given task of help if there was drifting into the dark mood,
- going for a walk - just her and dad and puppy to get some breathing time again (one of the trump cards that is usually a win and can almost always rescue a mood swing),
- checking in with a whisper and a hug and a "good job" with a wink,
- discussing in advance the nervous making parts,
- and allowing flight to a calmer safer quiet place (bedroom) if she was feeling overwhelmed.
Now, we don't use those words (flight, overwhelmed, etc) as we discuss and prep in advance, but we try to convey the feelings and actions to help in words she can understand.

 {As you can see, the presence of my Chris, her adored big bro, didn't hurt either.  Huge help.}

I put all these up there not to say, "Oh wow, we did great" but rather to say, "O wow, SHE did great!" These things made a difference.
The seventeen months' she's been home and safe have made a difference.
The seventeen months of working on these things have made a difference.
But these things, this weekend, they also made a difference.  It wasn't a heavenly light show with a choir kind of difference, but it was a weekend without a major screeching halt to deal with a trigger reaction.
And that, right there, is a bit of a a heavenly choir in my mind. 

So I want to mark the good. We had a good, great, exhausting, kinda normal Thanksgiving weekend.  And that is a world of good different from last year and it gives me hope for maybe, maybe, a better Christmas this year too.  It's progress.  I'll take it. 

{Two of M's other favorite people: dear sweet Leslie and her other adored big bro!}

I saw the good; I'm marking it.

Turn-key: Schedules (holiday edition)

I’ve written before a few times about the process of adjusting in adoption, especially with older child adoption.  I’ve talked about the idea of the turn key: one key that can turn the lock and you step right into a functioning enterprise (business, relationship, whatever).  As I stated before, adoption is NOTHING like that.  Ever. 

Yet, we, or I, fantasize about it all the time.

I wish I had a turn-key to adoption adjustment, really, really I do.

But I’m starting to get used to the idea that, I don’t, no one does.

As you embark on the process of an adoption, any adoption at all, those fantasies are rampant. 

Sure they get a little dull and bogged down by the cumbersome invasive excruciatingly slow process of adoption:  homestudies, background checks, financial and medical letters, references, duplicated certified stamped filed and stamped some more.

But even so, once you are through all that and you actually have the new family member, the child, home in the house…that’s when it all just gels, right? You’ve turned the key and stepped across the threshold to a brand new life!

Well, sort of anyhow.

This process of adjusting once you have a new child is what has me still and continually obsessing thoughtfully pondering about what makes it work and what doesn’t.

But this post, this series of posts, is about what has worked – for us.  I couldn’t begin to expand it further than our own wacky family; that would be wrong.  Because this is all only my own two pence.  But if I find something that consistently makes a difference, I want to throw it out there in case it might help smooth any path for anyone else.  Those stubbed toes on this sometimes-rocky path of adoption adjustment – they hurt!

So, with that long prelude, we come to this post. 

This post is about an important key to the adjustment in our house: schedules. 

Especially during the holiday season, schedules are critical.

They are a turn-key to unlocking a feeling of control and safety during a very uncertain time in a new family member’s life. 

They are, and I can’t say this quite strongly enough, a safety net. 

We have a big calendar on our fridge; one of the ones with large empty squares, plenty of room to write appointments, games, events.  Yes, it gets cluttered, especially as the month goes on.  Big family... Many in the house largely ignore it.  It is vital to me, to juggle everything.  The only person who looks at it as closely as me (actually, she examines it daily) is Marta.  It is a critical tool for her to keep her clued in to the daily routines.  Those predictable events are a safety net for her.  They provide a feeling of control and safety in a world that is not fully understood yet – not culturally, not with language, not with nuance or tradition.  

But this week, even that big monthly calendar isn’t cutting it.  This weekend was rocky; nervous anticipation of the holiday this week brought up bad behaviors and acting out.  Finally Sunday afternoon we were able to have a conversation about the nervousness of this week ahead: house-guests, shifting schedules, no school.  

 I decided to make Marta her own daily schedule, and asked her to help me.  We sat down with scratch paper (this doesn't have to be a fancy thing) and we blocked out each day, so she could see what would happen.  This helps her to anticipate the things that are the same, and to prepare for the shifts and things that are different.  It provides something for her to hold onto, again, it is a safety net.  

Imagine, if you will, how it might be if you didn't really know how things were going to work the next week, just that it would be quite different from the routine you've begun to know and understand....how would that make you feel? Now add on a lack of familiarity with the culture or the holiday traditions and the lack of language to learn it by talking about it.  Now add on a background of trauma and hurt,which brings up reactions that surprise everyone, even yourself,  and see if you don't get a bit stressed out.  I know I would.  I am stressed out a bit in anticipation of it and I am the Mom of the house!  

 So, we made the daily schedules.  One for each day this week.  We taped them up the the wall in the center hub of the house, the kitchen.  

She knows roughly (Not minute to minute, that would be TOO tight of a schedule and then  you would have fallout from that schedule not being met...this is a blocked out schedule) what is happening when this whole week.  She has already referred to it many times.

And I am hoping.
I am hoping this will help my daughter cope.

I am hoping this will help  my daughter move out of stress response into a softer place.

I am hoping this will help my daughter relax just enough to really be able to BE with the family and enjoy a bit more of this holiday.

I'm not expecting miracles.

But I'm hoping for another little babystep forward.

I'm hoping to turn the key and open the door to family and home, a new family and new home, just a little wider.  

So this is our turn-key of this week: schedules.  

Use this tool, this key, to help a hypervigilant child be able to see what is ahead and anticipate it.  Because that is empowering, that knowledge means safety.

And giving any child a sense of safety is one of the best keys in your pocket.  

Dancing with the Holidays: Attachment version

Matisse. I love his painting.

We are one week away from Thanksgiving, and the advent of um, Advent, and Christmas, and New Year’s; the whole Holiday Season.

We are looking down the barrel of fun of parties and guests and rich food and too much sugar and long talks and late nights and shiny presents and long Mass and extra cooking and cleaning and shopping and on and on.

That’s fun, right?

Well…yes, for the most part.

But even for many of us, it is so easy to get overwhelmed by it all.

How many calls, books, blogs, articles do we see read hear to SIMPLIFY the season?

I’m all for it, really I am.

Because if I can get overwhelmed, and I am a high energy multitasking mom who’s second nature is to live life on overdrive, keep it full to the brim, do something for pity’s sake….then how much easier is it for a kid? How easy is it for a kid from another world to get overwhelmed…especially if she or he is from some hard background or past events, and is still trying to assimilate into a large noisy culture, country, family?

Well, it’s not only easy; it’s part of what you, by which I mean, I, should be anticipating.

It’s practically part of the season; it’s the Holiday Dance.

Edvard Munch

And I don’t mean that in a snarky or mean way, I mean it in the “accept it because it’s gonna happen so prep for it and not let it trip you up" kind of way. Because I think if we, ok I, actually anticipate it, then I can approach those feelings in a much more productive, dare I say, “therapeutic” way?

I know from last year and from living with my newest daughter for sixteen months that any change in the daily routine, no matter how small, throws her. Those routines, no matter how mundane, are her safety net. Her developmental delays aggravate that fact; however they are not the sole source of her seasonal distress. It is the adjustment, the attachment, and the fact that all that takes a really long time. It takes years and years. We are really just baby steps into it all, just learning how to anticipate each other's steps and turns. Seems like we should be well fitted partners by now. But we are not. Even though it feels often like it should be all figured out and settled by now. But it’s not. It won’t be. It can’t be.

The holiday season takes the dance that we do - and are learning together - every day, and it spins it around in a disco ball kind of frenzy. It makes us all dizzy and while that can be fun and exciting for some of my kids and some days, mostly it makes my daughter either spin out of sorts or out of control or simply shut down from the too much of it all.

So our very careful crafting of the holiday season needs to figure out how to bring in those well loved traditions of the season and the faith and our family, to teach those steps to our new daughter, simply. Sometimes she just doesn’t wanna dance.
She doesn’t wanna see the new steps or shining lights.
She is still in process of grieving the old dances, or still too fearful to let go of her sense of self control and trust us enough to reach out and help us lead her into the new holiday dance and traditions and family ways.

So, I guess that’s where I want to start; with talking about standing on the edge of the dance floor, trying to coax my daughter (who doesn’t really like to dance, yet) out onto the floor. She can hold onto my hand, and her dad’s. We will try hard to anticipate the steps to this dance. We will simplify them.

Matisse, again. "The Dance." A favorite.

We will, I will, try to remember to brace and embrace her through the dance of this holiday season so that we can all come to enjoy the season and it’s richness in full. And maybe one of these years, when we are looking down the barrel of the holiday seasonal hoopla, we can all anticipate it with glee and deep smiles instead of fear and fretting.

Maybe I will be able to as well, if I can remember that I'm dancing not just with the holidays but with my daughter. And a one, and a two.....