Why not to take your kids when you go bra shopping:

The whole family was along for the excursion. I wouldn't have taken them, honestly, but I'm crunched for time. When little bun started announcing loudly that we were there because I needed new bras, I must have looked a bit embarrassed. "It's okay," he said as loudly. "We all have them. Even boys. Well, nickles anyway. We all have nickles."
I was a bit relieved and much amused (it recalled his "peanut and two popsicles" days), and I thought he'd dropped it, but it was only a pause for correction.
"Not NICKLES," he said, smiling, to a whole new group of spectating shoppers. "I meant to say N*PPLES."

It wouldn't have been so bad if two days ago I hadn't overheard this conversation between a little girl and little bun, occassioned only by me entering the room (and apparently, her baby sister's behavior, a fact I learned later).

Litte girl: Did you really drink from your mom's b**bs?!
Little bun: Yeah.
Little girl: [Nervous giggling, like she'd just learned some scandalous secret]
Little bun: [Casually] Maybe I still do. I don't like to use cups. [Returns to play, watching sidelong with sparkling eyes for Little girl's reaction]

Please, don't google me for all the wrong reasons.

My kids are aging me (and I'm embarrassing them)

"Momma, do you get wrinklier all the time?"
"Yes, I suppose."
"I don't want you to. I want you to get the shot."
"The shot?"
"So you don't get wrinkly. It's embarrassing."
"Embarrassing? Everybody gets wrinkly. You'll get wrinkly someday, too."
"No I won't. I'm getting the shot."

Living in Paradox/Reverie

One more reason why Nicole is fantastic. Read it first, please. Then:

If someone else were to tease apart relinquishment and adoption, it would be really easy to break it down like this:

relinquishment: bad, loss
adoption: good, gain

And it would be satisfying as an aparent to say, yes, that's exactly it. My daughter's loss of her first mother had nothing to do with our adoption, so while her loss is sad our gain is tremendously happy and move on.

But that's not what Nicole is saying. It's far too complicated for that, she's far too honest. (Sorry -- I know we could all use an easy solution). What she says, instead, is that we've all got to learn to live with paradox, with the copresence of seemingly antithetical thoughts, emotions, truths at the same time. Some possible paradoxes: I love my aparents and am glad they raised me and I wish I had never lost my first family. I love my daughter's aparents and can acknowledge their capabilities as parents but I hate that I am not raising my child and believe that n.families are best suited to raising their children. Or my own: I love that I have my daughter in my life and I hate that she lost her first family. Or another of mine: We hope for another child and we hate the conditions that would make that possible. Notice that the operator is "and," conjoining the A and B of each sentence. It is not as if the bad is displaced by the good, or that the moments are divisible as we'd wish. They are always interpenetrating.

Joy's response does not contradict Nicole, but seeks to make clear that that too easy dichotomy at the top of my post is untenable. Joy's adoption analogy, presented less gracefully: She could live abroad, she could love living abroad, but she'd always be an expat -- forever. Her life with her son shows her the difference.

I see what she is saying, too, and yet I think we're all in some ways always in exile from one another's innermost being and that biological relationships only seem to offer a way to bridge that divide. What I mean is this: I think it's too easy to believe that I have a natural way with my son, some magical access to his emotional life, that we have understandings that are rooted in biology -- that I will never have with my daughter. In some ways this might be true: I "get" his obsessiveness immediately, without even having to speak about it (or do I map my childhood anxieties onto his unique ones?) I get that sparkle in his eye just before he makes trouble because it "runs in our family" (but my daughter "glimmers" too!) After a dangerous pregnancy and near-disasterous delivery, his history is marked in and on my body, and mine runs through his. My daughter's body is marked by a different history, its tracings in her inherited beauty and her round belly, now full with toddlerhood but still bearing the marks of early hunger. She is uprooted and also cultivated. Both/and, her being not alien but hybrid.

In the end, both my son and my daughter are beyond my comprehension, though I have infinite empathy for both. Their possibilities extend beyond what I can behold, what I can even imagine. That's both the sadness and supreme beauty of loving someone else, in particular of parenting, in afamilies or nfamilies. Just families. But I'm starting to wonder if I'm one of few who thinks like that, which I had thought was a given, who loves the mystery and enjoys the unfolding.

What Sartre said?

Little Bun asks, in his most serious seriousness, just before falling asleep: "What if when someone dies, he gets to heaven and finds out he's the only one there?"
And he frowns.

The Bloom Estate

When we unrolled the new rug -- purchased at 40% off on black Friday, sure to be stained by the next Friday -- ds asked if he could have it someday, "when [I'm] old." He thinks he and his wife would like to have it in their house. I told him that many of the things we have would be his someday.

Tonight as we decorated the Christmas tree (pictures coming) he unwrapped my Old World Christmas fruit ornaments with special care, knowing they're my favorites and remembering that I'd broken one two years ago. "Can these be mine someday? They're my favorites too." "Yes," I said, "Some of these will be yours, and some Miss I's," and after a pause I added "and some A's" (A being the imaginary name for an imaginary child, an idea being explored here at Chez Bloom). He turned from the tree, arms still in the air, sugar plum dangling from its hook. "I know I said I might want another baby, but I'm happy with things just the way they are."

Calculating little man. He said it wasn't about the ornaments, just about "our happiness," but it wasn't just the tree lights twinkling in his eyes.

I told him we wouldn't have to divide anything for a long time. First I'd keep everything at my house even after he'd moved to his own house, then I'd bring much of it with me when I moved in with his family. "Oh," he said seriously, almost flatly. "I didn't realize mothers would live with their grown children."

I said: "Of course, you'll have to ask your wife." I thought: I come with the rug.

Guilty as Charged

We need finer distinctions at Chez Bloom.
"I didn't do it" and "She did it" are tired, and they aren't adequate to the situations we find ourselves in (she might have poured the water on the floor, or written on Momma's work, but who gave her the idea? The tools?). Which is why ds now knows the meaning of "Accessory," "Accessory after the fact" and "Conspiracy to commit . . ."
Should I be proud that my five year old can plead no contest?

O-h N-o

My son can now read -- I mean, really read, not just read/remember Hop on Pop or More, More, More Said the Baby or anything Eric Carle.
This is very exciting, yes, except for one thing: He's wise to my tricks.
Today he realized that "Walter the Dog Who Passes Gas" is actually "Walter the Farting Dog." ("What's farting, Momma?" Bless his temporarily innocent little heart.)
Tomorrow I'll have to give up spelling over his head.

My daughter pointed to a word on a box and happily exclaimed "Aybeeceedees!" One of her 35 English words is the first four letters of the alphabet.

Goodbye to Youth (again)

Ah, vanity.

I hadn't had, or hadn't made, really, time to get my hair cut in a very long time. By the time I was ready to, I had almost enough hair to donate to Locks of Love. So I waited, and tonight I finally got my hair cut.

First it had to be gathered into two ponytails - one ponytail is enough for one wig, and I have a whole lot of hair. Ten inches had to be cut off, just above the elastic. This resulted in a need for layers. He did a great job, but it's going to take me a long time to get used to it, and by then it'll be long again. It's only hair. Still . . .

This morning my very pregnant gynecologist said this is even early for premature perimenopause (which could take ten-fifteen years to be overwith) and that we should consider premature ovarian failure. Since we aren't trying to have another pregnancy . . . she said this as if it wasn't at all startling or upsetting, just a functional issue, so I'm left thinking that it shouldn't be at all startling or upsetting. It's only ovaries . . .

Now that I think about it, maybe I shouldn't have done these two things in one day, my first baby's first day of kindergarten.

(Kindergarten is "wonderful!" "Better than preschool!" And at the end of the day, he wasn't ready to leave).

Now the Big Baby Blues

My big baby begins kindergarten in less than a week, and I am emotionally unprepared for that event. I cried the whole way through parent orientation, I will cry through the brunch, and I will cry uncontrollably next Monday. But hopefully in the car after drop-off.
Off to cry.

Potty Words

Miss I. had joined the potty line-up in Ethiopia, but hadn't successfully trained (she was 17 mos!)
But now she's been interested in using her potty chair here. Today she wanted to stay on it pretending to go for what seemed like forever, occassioning the following sentence from ds:
"Miss I., ca-ca or keum [stop] the po-po!"

Many Things

I don't have enough time to organize this post, but here's what's going on at Chez Bloom:
Miss I. slept through the night last night, awoke with the sunniest disposition, and was a joy for most of the day. She also napped for two hours, which gave me

Playtime with ds. We played the March of the Penguins-inspired board game he invented himself months ago. Journey to the ocean and back. Tomorrow we are going on a date - alone - to see Monster House. Reviews are great, though anyone with a child under five considers it frightening. Those with kids over five said the ending is satisfying and resolves those fears it generated. Words like archetypes and catharsis have been used

so I sent dh to the movies by himself tonight to preview it. He hated to sacrifice our time together, since it takes a lot of work to make that time (I work a ft job in pt hours - so guess which hours I try to cram it into?) but I really think he needed a date with himself, too. That fact is easy to overlook when I've been home all day with the kids and am ready to hand at least one over when he gets home. I should be using this time productively, to buy us another evening later

but I'm blogging and ruminating and thinking less seriously about what we will wear for family pictures tomorrow. In eighth grade we "pictured" our future lives in a collage. Mine included a career as writer and artist, a gazebo, a springer spaniel, and a curly-haired daughter (why I would ever have imagined that, considering my straight hair, I don't know) and son in a sailor suit. Dh always insisted "No sailor suits," long before the arrival of our actual children. But my mom got us great outfits for ds and I., navy and white stripes, and I'm struck by the similarity of my life to that picture - yes, of course, and more importantly, by the wonderful differences I could never have anticipated at 13. (Miss I.'s alone picture will be in a Chanel-inspired pink dress with black and white accents.)

and finally, in the most personally revealing post I've ever written (don't read if easily disgusted): I have ring worm on my arm and I can't get it off. I contracted it from my daughter's scalp. After failed attempts at topical treatment, we are both on oral medications for a long time.

And now I understand those tantrums: the humidity makes it a thousand times itchier. You know how when you have a blister you can think of nothing but your foot? This is worse. It makes you hateful, makes you plan dramatic ways of removing it or removing the arm.
The good news is, the oral meds have 100% cure rate - just doesn't say after how long.
Hope it doesn't show up in the family picture.
Because I have to tell you, that wasn't in my collage.

Miss Independence Day

We didn't really celebrate Independence Day (though we had a lovely day with my parents): This year July 4 is squished between work days. Ds has an ear infection. And no one in our house slept last night (ds's ear infection awoke him, Miss I. went ballistic when he tried to join us in bed, dh tried to rock I. back to sleep while I lay down with ds, only to be shoved out of bed and on to the floor and then to be asked sadly, "Momma, where did you go?!") And it's rainy here, as it is in 43 other states. So no celebration.

But today we didn't-celebrate with our newest family member (who was, despite our lack of festivity, decked out in star spangled pants). She's already become American in some not-so-good ways: "No." "Mine." Picky eating and refusing to eat from the spoon I've loaded with yogurt and choosing instead to dump it because hey, she can. Shock at Toys R Us (her huge non-blinking eyes and head all a-swivel cracked us up) quickly dissolved into a love of shiny plastic crap with noise and lights.

But it really struck us all day that she is here, with us, now, in America! and that while it only seems to my sleepless brain that I have been both snuggling this little girl and exhausted forever, it was only a little over two weeks ago that she got off a plane, got in line for Immigration and Naturalization with a sealed brown envelope from the US Embassy in Addis, and was on the road to becoming a US Citizen. And that struck us as insanely weird and funny and also wonderful.

Happy first Independence Day, Miss I! I promise we'll see fireworks next year.

****
Coming soon - a rehashing of the Italian/Ethiopian conflict in honor of and preparation for an upcoming family reunion. Now there's some fireworks.

Learning how to love and be loved

American family's most recent post breaks my heart. Because we have been there, and right now we are where she will be. We are parenting a child old enough to remember her losses (and they are many) and not old enough to be able to express them. And I can't really help her much.

Shortly before our referral but after we had expressed openness to an older infant/toddler, I was overwhelmed with the thought that I couldn't help her at all. I was obsessed with the fact that our daughter - as yet unnamed but certainly already born - was starving, suffering through the drought afflicting the south of Ethiopia. And it was a fact. Every day I had to find a way to reject, refuse, ignore my powerlessness to do anything about her pain. And I wondered, every day, if this was the day she would lose her family, everything and everyone she was only learning to love.

Now we are expecting Miss I., who lost her first family and just last week lost her nannies at the care center (wonderfully kind and loving, if overwhelmed by the number and needs of their charges) to know what to do with us. This is an impossible demand to make on a little person, and I am so sorry for it.

Incredibly, so far she seems to be working it out. At first she ate everything we offered as if there might not be enough, just as she soaked up our love as if there would soon be an end to it, cried as if her heart were breaking every time someone left the room and laughed heartily when that someone returned to her view.

Just four days later, she's already shaking her head and saying "no" to things and foods taking as many as ten steps away from me before running to squeeze my knees or demanding "up-ah," for reassurance that her exploration is safe, healthy, good. Sometimes she even turns the corner from one room to another and then just peeks back at me, to make sure I am there and watching her. These are milestones in our development.

She awoke in the middle of the night last night, and she rolled back and forth and laughed when I placed her in between me and dh (instead of replacing her in the cosleeper), as if laughter was the only way to express surprise and joy that she didn't have to choose one of us for comfort, that she had an abundance.

She tantrums when I put her down, and I whisper how I wish I could explain that this is it, that our family is the end of the road, that it is forever, that I will take care of her, but no words can communicate that to her. For now we will have to understand her surprise when we are still here, until we've been here so long that it isn't surprising. We'll worry about forever later.

This morning ds was feeling a little jealous. He later said, calmly, "I'm feeling sad and angry that you don't have as much time for me." But at the time, he was not so calm. "She doesn't love you," he said angrily.

"You're right," I answered. "She doesn't even know how --- yet." But she will.

----

Today my kids fought in the car. Dh seemed bothered by ds poking Miss I, and her "Nah!" and pointing to the spot he had poked her (the nonverbal form of the familiar "HE'S TOUCHING ME!"). I said "This is what you wanted!" and smiled.
"Yeah," he replied. "The American freaking dream."
And then he smiled slowly.
I have to say, two kids having normal kid fights in the back seat of the car really is a dream come true.

Meeting Miss I.

Sster's post on boomerific includes loving thoughts about the Bloom family (and praise for me, which makes me feel shy), and poses a kind of question (and Kohana's comment poses it more directly): How are meeting your child via adoption and meeting your child by birth alike, and how different? I only have the very personal and specific responses of myself and my husband to offer, but that's all anyone ever has . . .

When I was pregnant with ds, I didn't feel like there was a moment I really met him. (I've heard this isn't common - my sister's first babe was always a mystery) DS just grew into my awareness. At eight weeks, I had an exam for spotting. I "knew" a little bit about him then if I was to believe the very traditional Jamaican nurse, who insisted that the hyperemesis that had accounted for my prior hospital admission made it clear that he was "a very strong, robust boy." She confirmed what I had suspected, so I started talking to my son, whom I'd already been speaking to (and in those terms) with much more confidence. (Once, in my journal, I wrote, "Maybe you're a girl!" and used the name we had chosen in case. In every other entry, he's ds, by name).

I learned about him as he moved, as he grew, and I learned too much about him as my very intensely medically scrutinized pregnancy progressed. And when he was finally born (see entry May 4) my overwhelming feelings were relief and gratitude. But I was not surprised. Since then, I have been surprised by him so many times - by his intelligence, his intuitiveness, his spiritedness, his warmth, his temper, his humor.

I asked dh what it was like meeting I. for the first time. Their meeting, anticipated for two months (two years, really) was delayed a couple more hours by a mishap, which may have been a bit deflating. His first thought, he says, was "That's who you are." Her first thought was panic, and she cried and refused to look at him. Later, she threw shoes and a banana (skills she employs every couple hours). He gave her space, knowing we had the rest of our lives. And thankfully, we do.

My first feelings, when I saw dh, our dear friend, and my daughter come through the doors from customs were relief and gratitude. I cried, and I didn't know whether to run to them or wait for them to come beyond the gates. I was overwhelmingly thankful that they were safe and home. I loved my husband more than I'd ever loved him before. And I loved the little mystery he held asleep in his arms.

He says those are the feelings he had when he first met ds.

Like dh, I knew that we have forever to figure each other out, this mystery and me, but I am not blessed with his unending patience, so for me it's work to watch our lives unfold.

My son said "I'm so happy I feel sad" and he cried.

I had imagined what meeting them at the airport would be like. And in some ways, it was just like that. I knew I would be speechless, knew I would cry.

Miss I. herself missed her opportunity to say "Hi, Momma," as she had hoped (and as she had already done on the phone) but she's making up for it by chanting A-Momma, a-momma, a-momma in my ear, just as she sings Abbat A-dadda, Abbat A-dadda (Father-Daddy) quietly when dh is not in the room or when she needs him to help her fall asleep (a task for which the much-awaited Momma just will not suffice). I'm suprised by her beauty, her charm, her temper, her humor, her strength, her intense need to be held by me, to be told she is mine (however much adoption books had said this would be so).

I guess that's all to say that while the meetings are important parts of our stories, I'm learning that it's less about meetings than it is about being.

and we've only just begun to be.

Black and white and brown and pink

Ds was thinking today about the fact that I. will be the only brown person (so far) in our family. He loves that she will be brown. He thinks brown is beautiful. But he thinks it would have been easier for her if Daddy had been born brown, so we'd have two browns and two "white" (he says hesitantly, trying on someone else's word, before replacing it with the more intuitive "pink") people in our family.
It's been so interesting to see his thoughts about race, and what it means for I., evolve.

Cinco de Mayo

Five years ago tomorrow (since I'll be too busy at the fiesta to post):

All of the below has already happened now.

I make dh promise that on this child's fifth birthday party, we have a big party. I know we won't be able to afford a great first birthday party and besides, it's the first time I can imagine, in that moment, ever feeling safe again. DH agrees. He doesn't agree to the mariachi band (and we are not having one tomorrow). A little more time passes, and I begin to believe I'm not going to survive, even if ds does. It's probably the sleep deprivation.

A nurse realizes that they gave me that belated and ineffectual epidural without draining my bladder first. Later this will be called "poor service, good technical outcome," and I will hear medical staff discussing my "case," feeling lucky that we brought them "thank you" chocolates and not a law suit.

I finally deliver my son, almost in the hallway. I don't push, and we make it to a delivery room. The room is full. Pediatric rescusitation teams, fellow, resident, dh, me. I think about a dozen people. It's a big, cold room.

Two real pushes. His head is very misshapen, it has been so compressed for so long. I am so weak, I cannot feel my body and for this I am thankful. But I cannot see my son; they've taken him quickly and they've made no move to hand him to me. Then a "thumbs up" from the peds. I miss this, because I'm not wearing my glasses. Someone tells me. Dh accompanies ds to the nursery - I say, "Go, go," and I close my eyes.

I open them again in recovery, and my parents are there. My dad is holding my hand; he tells me he's seen my beautiful baby and that everything is okay. I slip away: I think I've died, but I know this is okay because my baby is okay, and I am profoundly grateful.

Imagine my surprise when I come around a little later. Everything afterwards feels a little like bonus.

Dear son, happy birthday. I could not imagine my life without you! Much much love, Momma.