This isn't a holiday post.

I wrote most of this last week.  I just wanted to finish and share it.

Ned, a curly haired 8th grader, has taken to stopping by my room at the beginning and end of each school day, just to say hi.  He doesn't linger to chat, but I notice the sudden increase in visits anyway.

Today during our advisory class, he wanders up to my desk.  "I don't really like the holidays," he comments, with a self-deprecating smile.  "I'm not with my parents, you know."

I do know this.  He lives with his grandmother and great-grandfather.  He's moved a lot.  I don't know any details.  I make an encouraging sound. 

"I haven't seen my dad in 8 years," he continues.

"That would be hard," I tell him.  "I almost had a fight break out in my class the other day, and it was between two kids who aren't living with their parents either.  I kind of figure it was more about that kind of holiday stress than anything else."

"Probably," he says.  The bell rings, and he leaves.  He comes back in at the beginning of lunch.  "I don't remember why I'm here!" he tells me.

"To say hi to your teacher," I say, half-jokingly.

"Oh yeah!" he responds.  "Hi!"  Then he heads to lunch.

Ned is the "easiest" of all my students dealing with trauma.  There's the girl who does no work and threatens to hit kids who mispronounce her name.  There are the two who almost had that fight--one with both parents in prison, the other with a dead dad, and a mom in prison.  There's the girl who sends me frequent notes telling me how nice I am, despite the fact that she interacts wtih me as little as possible during class.  She works hard every day, but clearly has trouble learning.   One of her notes told me about her unsafe birth family, then the death of her adopted mom.  The homeless girl hasn't been to school in quite awhile.  One time she asked if she could tell me a joke, then wrote the F word on my board as part of it. 

Ned does well in class, has friends, stays out of trouble.  But he still needs something.  He still feels the pain. 

So do my kids.  We are doing well.  I think they actually believe they are loved.  Oak doesn't always believe he deserves it, and Linden sometimes fears she'll lose the love if she does something wrong, but it's starting to sink in that they are loved.  They're even learning how to ask for and create connection when they feel shaky.  But the loss is still there.  Their childhood included things they are ashamed of now, lessons they wish they hadn't learned.  They have a birth-mom shaped hole inside of them, a deep absence and loss that my love can't erase. 

It's hard for me to know this doesn't go away.   I see this kid, who's a great kid.  He makes Batman jokes.  He explained the government shutdown to his class more succinctly than I could have.  He listens to music the other kids don't like, and is unfazed by their comments.  He is himself, all the way.  And his parents are missing it.  And he is missing them.  This is the stuff that's so hard to really grasp before adoption.  I know, absolutely, 100%, that my kids are better off with us than they were in the orphanage.  They were also, from a physical safety point of view, better off there than in their home of origin.  But even if everything goes right, if they are resilient, and we are therapeutic, and the day comes when they both believe that our love is unconditional--the loss is still there. 

The flip side is that Ned also shows me it's okay.  He feels loss and pain.  He is still learning and growing and caring for people.  He is leading his life.

Pain.

Hope.

Homework and Chores.

First, let me say that nobody around here, myself included, naturally gravitates towards those tasks.  At any given moment, there is disorder and dirt in various sections of the home, and we do not manage to do homework, or even 20 minutes of reading, every day. 

Still, sections of the house--and key things like underwear and spoons--get cleaned regularly.  The homework packets get done weekly, and if you average across the week, we more than meet the reading requirements.  All of this happens without any serious drama.  Occasional whining, sure.  But no tears or fights.  I've been around other families (and read enough parenting books and blogs) to know that we are lucky in this regard. 

This is how we make it work.  "Sure, you can borrow my iPad--once your chores are done."  "Yes, we'll have dessert--as soon as you've done your homework while you sister helps with dishes."

At first, it may sound like bribery, but it's actually a version of the "Yes, when..." statement our therapist taught us to make way back when we first met her.  Our kids get 15 minutes of screen time on weeknights and an hour on weekend days.  (Ignore the fact that we also let them watch movies on weekend mornings so we can sleep in.)  This is pretty much a given, although there are days where we are busy enough that we skip screen time--it's not something I prioritize as much as they do, oddly enough.  They also get dessert most nights.  That may not be a good thing, but I want dessert most nights, and it seems unfriendly to not share.  So it's not, "I'll give you candy if you do the dishes."  It's more like "Let's get our work done before we play." 


There have been times when the kids lost computer time or missed dessert because they didn't get their stuff done in time.  These are consequences that mean a lot to them, but (from an adult point of view) aren't remotely harmful to them.  I've remained calmly sympathetic as I moved into the bedtime routine.  Tomorrow is always another day--do your stuff tomorrow, and screen time and sweets will re-enter your life.  After the first time or two, they became philosophical.  "I guess I'll have to do two pages of homework tomorrow night, but at least I'll get dessert."  The routine of it helps, and the way we tie a less appealing routine to a more appealing one.  Nobody's getting picked on; this is just what we do. 

I suspect there are some other factors at play. Special one-on-one time is, I've read, meant to be child-led.  Still, if we each grab a wastepaper basket and carry it out, then each haul a bin to the curb, it weaves a subtle connection between us.  I wash, you dry, we wind up laughing and singing together.  I fold the clothes while you fold the flats.  I clean the kitchen while you practice reading aloud to me.  You stir the meat on the stove while I make sure your sister knows what she's supposed to do for her math assignment.  None of us are going to put "doing chores" on top of our fun list, but once we've started, it turns out we do have fun. 

Last Sunday I wouldn't help them clean their rooms.  About once a month, I take an active role, and really get things organized for/with them.  Otherwise, I just ask that they clear enough room for me to vacuum their floors.  They headed upstairs, and on the way, Oak said, "Hey, I'll help you clean your room if you help me clean mine." 

Bingo.  A chore shared is closer to fun. 

Meeting the Real Santa

Things are feeling very good on the home front right now.  So good that I'm going to risk jinxing it all by writing some of it down. 

Last weekend, the Winemaker had to work (wine tasting being a big Thanksgiving weekend tradition around here), and I made plans to meet a family of friends at a tree farm.  None of us wanted to get a tree yet, but they were advertising free train rides and petting farm animals and a gift shop that raises money for widows in the Ukraine, so we figured it would be fun and festive. 

As we pulled up, the kids suddenly started hollering.  "Santa!  It's Santa!  Santa's here!  Can we go see him?!?" 

Last year we kept meaning to take them to meet Santa, but it got to a point where it was going to be stressful to cram it in, so we just let it go.  We did talk a bit about how Santa sends friends to talk to kids in some places, and in other places, he himself shows up.  I don't know, it just sounded like a good ass-covering story to establish ahead of time, in case they got skeptical about a particular Santa they met.  We were going to take them to meet Santa this year, and suddenly, here he was. 

I felt bad that their dad wasn't there--and that they weren't dressed in anything photogenic--but there was no way I could deny them the right to go see Santa when he was RIGHT THERE, MOM.  So I said yes, once we found our friends and said hi, we could go see Santa.

"Is he real?"  they both demanded of me.  "Is he the real Santa?"  I told them I didn't know, because I hadn't even realized he would be here, but that he sure looked real to me. 

"I know!" exclaimed Oak.  "I'll pull on his beard and see if it comes off!" 

Oh dear.  Santa had a glossy, shiny, FALSE BEARD on.  I pointed out that this would be rude, and not appreciated by Santa, but Linden gleefully chimed in.  "Yeah! We can pull on his beard and see if he says 'ouch'."  I hoped they would forget their plan after taking the time to find our friends and their five kids, or at least get shy in the actual moment.

Once we were ready, we approached Santa.  He was sitting in a sleigh, and both kids slid in next to him.  Linden immediately asked him, "Do you work at the North Pole?" 

"I live at the North Pole," he replied. 

Both kids whirled around to look at me.  "Mom!  It's really him!  He's real!" they stage whispered to me. 

No beard pulling.  I heaved a sigh of relief, took pictures, and tried not to cry.  The kids thought it was fun, but I thought my heart might just explode with joy, seeing their excitement.  They've lost a lot of childhood.  I'm glad they have at least two years of belief in magic.

A Tip for Using Pinterest to Inspire, not Shame

I was going to say, "Here's the thing about Pinterest," but of course, it's not THE thing.  There are LOTS of things about Pinterest, some good and some bad.  But here's one thing I am figuring out.

If I like the idea, it's okay if my execution doesn't look like the pin.  I'm not talking "Pintrosoties," where the Rudolph cake winds up looking more like what comes out the back end of the reindeer than an actual reindeer.  I just mean it's okay that I don't have great handwriting or a color printer or the will to laminate things.  If a pin has a non-decorative function, it can be done plainly and still be successful. 

Last year, my first with children, I glommed onto the great idea all over Pinterest to have a book-a-day Advent program.  I called my sisters, both of whom have finished raising their kids, and they donated 25 holiday books they'd collected over the years.  One came over with a huge bag of gently used wrapping paper from past years, and we drank coffee and wrapped books while my husband took the kids roller skating.  Then each night in December we unwrapped a book to read.  My kids were still learning English, so some books were easier for them to follow than others, but picture books about the holidays are generally beautiful to look at, and if we got one that was too hard, we could always go back and re-read a few that were becoming favorites.  It was such a great way to introduce them to the culture of the holidays, it was literacy practice, it was family bonding. 

Naturally, I wanted to repeat it this year, which means it is now Hallowed Tradition.  But this year I didn't have time to bring in the troops to help prepare.  I thought about not wrapping the books, but unwrapping is a good deal of the fun.  So the other night I stayed up late and wrapped books.  The used wrapping paper I found was not as careful kept as that of my perfectionist sister.  Once I decided I didn't care about that, I also stopped caring about folding in the corners and creasing the seams.  The packages all look like they were wrapped by a blind man in a hurricane, working with material that happened to blow by.  Who cares?  Not my kids, who were thrilled to see the stack of packages, and ripped enthusiastically into the first one, welcoming it with cries of joy, as at a reunion with an old friend.  (Jan Brett's "Home for Christmas"; what a great start.) 

This year I wanted to add a piece.  You've seen the blogs and pins about Random Acts of Kindness?  Fun examples here and here.  So I came up with 25 "Kindnesses" (they weren't all random--I included "go on a walk with Mom," "Give Daddy a back rub" and "Write a card for grandpa") and printed them out.  Then I stuck them in a lunch sack.  Hey, it was a crisp, unused lunch sack.  Each night, one kid will pick the book to unwrap, and the other will pick the kindness card, something we can all do the next day.  The next night, we'll discuss how it went.  

Nice, yes?  Well, all the OTHER people on Pinterest had cute little cards and stickers to hand out when they surprised someone with their act, or at the very least, printed out their cards for their kids in red and green on cardstock paper.  And that is okay.  It's okay that there are people who can't do anything without making it visually appealing.  I'm related to several of those people.  But it's ALSO okay that I can ignore the visual stuff, and just focus on the idea.  

{I've since seen this pin, and for a minute I was all, "AAARRRGHH I must now glue each slip of paper onto colorful paper and then make a chain!" but then I came to my senses.}

There are areas where aesthetics are important to me, and I have often been accused of being crafty.  (Um.  I guess I'll let that stand as is.)  But form follows function, or so I've heard.  So I give myself--and you!--full permission to embrace "pin-worthy" activities that do not produce "pin-worthy" photos. 

Rainbow Toes

This morning (after the whole "All I Want for Christmas is Booze" thing), Linden was acting odd.  Listless.  Grumpy.  Resistant to being cheered up.  I took her temperature, and it was normal.  I brought her over to the couch to snuggle with me, and that seemed to help.  She asked me to read her a book, and we giggled our way through "Frog and Toad All Year," but then she slumped back down and didn't want to do anything else.  I said, "Are you just feeling blue today?"

"Yes."  You can always spot the relief in someone's eyes when you've spoken the truth they were masking.  "Holidays are  hard."

She didn't really want to talk about it, but it helped that we acknowledged it, and then she was able to ask me if I could just stick close to her for awhile.  We went up to her room and played with her stuffed animals.  I fed them all goldfish crackers.  She was a puppy, and did tricks for hers.  Then I remembered a stash of nail polish my sister dropped off after her grown daughter moved out.  I said, "Do you want to paint our nails?"

This is the result:

(Sorry; I have no idea why I have a weird scab on my foot right now.  Also, my feet are kind of deformed.   Ignore.)  I painted her toenails; she painted mine.  I did her fingernails next, then read to her while they dried. 

In the meantime, our "stuff it; don't talk about it" son was playing Legos with the Winemaker.  Thanksgiving, after all, isn't celebrated in either of the countries where he had other families, so it is easier for him than Christmas and Mother's Day.  He was attracted by the sound of story reading and came in to see what we were up to.

This is the result:

Aaaaaand that's really out of focus.  Again, my apologies.  Please note the orange splash on my finger.  (In all fairness, my right hand looks a lot like this when I apply nail polish myself.) 

He wouldn't let me put any on him, but he wanted to put some on me.  I am not a manicured girl by any means, but how could I say no?

I've only had a few pedicures in my day.  I really enjoyed them, but I'm too much of a cheapskate to indulge often.  This mani-pedi involved no warm foot baths, hot oil massages, or trim.  I didn't get to choose my own colors, and the execution is...enthusiastic.  Not only that, but here I am, reinforcing gender roles to my kids, not to mention introducing them to some truly nasty chemicals.  (Linden took a gigantic whiff of the nail polish remover--oops!) 

It was lovely.  The concentration on their sweet faces.  Their hands in mine.  The mutual caring.  The bright (BRIGHT--did you see that orange?!?) reminders Linden and I carry with us of the loving care we lavished on each other.  The elaborately casual way Oak checks to see if his work has chipped throughout the day. 

From there we rolled into an outing to the skate park, where instead of working on my laptop, as I intended, I spent the whole time watching, cheering, and photographing my kids.  By the time we got home to prep the potatoes for dinner, they were ready to dash out back to climb trees with the neighbor kids.  Half an hour later, when Linden came in to change, she announced, "Having all that Mommy time today really helped.  I feel  good now." 

Me too, sweet pea.  Me too.

Dear Santa

In the time-honored tradition of many greedy children in this wondrous land, I started today not by taking stock of my blessings, but by working on my Christmas wish list. 

(Full disclaimer, I actually started today by letting the kids pop in a movie and then cuddling back up to my husband, who is only off today before working the rest of this long weekend.  So that was more in the thankful mode.)

I've said for several years now, I don't really need more STUFF, and most of the stuff I do need is too expensive to ask others to buy for me, like a new roof, or a 4-door car for our family of four.  So this is what I came up with:

• kahlua
• vodka

This, combined with the garage full of wine, makes me sound like an alcoholic.  But I suspect true alcoholics just buy the alcohol themselves.  I splurge on all sorts of silly things, but it always makes me cringe to think of shelling out twenty bucks or more for liquor.  Still, I like to drink things besides wine sometimes.  For instance, as you might have guessed, White Russians.   The last time I bought these two items was three years ago, when my mom died.  You don't worry too much about expenses, or even alcoholism, when that happens.  Then just when that supply ran out, I went to last year's White Elephant party and scored a new bottle of vodka.  It's running low, and besides, it's citrus vodka, which is useless in the White Russian department.  Hence my list.

After much thought, I added a few more items to the list.

• suet (I love watching the bird feeder outside our kitchen window)
• a date night
• a family trip to the mountain this winter

This is why Christmas gifts for adults is silly.  I could pick up suet next time I'm at the grocery store, and really, it's up to the Winemaker and I to arrange (and pay for) the two outings.

My sisters will find something sweet and personal and possibly useless but nevertheless appreciated.  It's the in-laws who literally ask for a list.

I don't think I can give this list to them.

Suggestions?

Hiding out in my room. Only coming out if someone is bleeding or on fire.

It's 5:00 and four children are racing around my tiny house playing "Escape from the Pirate."  It involves a lot of shrieking.  

I can't believe it's only 5:00.  So far today we've hosted our social worker for our 18 month check-in, made mini catapults out of popsicle sticks and rubber bands, "experimented" with Halloween candy (mostly a matter of pouring different types of candy and sprinkles into water and seeing what color it changes into), finished two pages of math homework each, played soccer with dad, made those melty bead things with mom, used the rare appearance of the iron to have a short lesson in ironing napkins, played "tickle monster," invited the two neighbor kids over to see if we could learn how to finger knit,

and I'm done. 

But it's only 5:00. 



Send help.