Paradox

There's the astounding paradox of having to slowly let go and hold on tight at the same time.  I see my girls at gymnastics, hugging their newfound friend, heads turned in a circle, like a flock of birds chattering about the latest 6 year old news.  I can't hear what they say, but I see their body language.  It seems like they're comfortable, smiling easily, eager to be a part of a small, burgeoning friendship.  I watch from the side where the parents line up, some engrossed in laptops, or books, or conversations.  This has been me many times.  But I'm glad I get to watch my girls tonight.  Allie's arms are stronger than I thought as she wrestles the rope to climb up, inch - slip - struggle - slip - inch.  

I want to suspend time, I can't suspend time.  I want them to stay small, but my whole objective is to raise them so they can be happy adults.  

I have a feeling that much of my role will be smiling from the sideline.  "Are you watching??" Allie calls to me as she runs to the drinking fountain.  

Am I watching?  Oh my gosh, yes.  I am wat

What is an important life lesson you have learned?

     I needed to start writing again.  My heart needed a place to feel safe, to open-up, to explore, and to feel me again - using my talents in a way that feeds my soul.  To avoid the tantalizing pull of "Netflix and chill," I am putting together a journaling group.  Whomever wants to write can pull up a prompt and dive in to whatever it means to them.  But my commitment is to myself only:  I will write honestly, with my heart first.

So, what is an important life lesson I have learned?  

On a day like today, I am learning to enjoy.  That's it.   Nothing beyond the mark.  I just enjoyed the day, without the validating pat on the back of productivity or the acts of service that nudge me off the couch.  I just enjoyed the day, comprised mostly of pushing back Ava's hair, assessing the intensity of her fever by  judging the warmth of her body on my chest, and enjoying the guilty pleasure of rocking her, hot and weak as she is, because the warm weight of her body keeps me warm too.  I looked out the window today and saw a dusting of snow for the first time this season. The girls traipsed to church with a snow hat, mixed-matched gloves, pants under their autumn dresses, and heavy, winter boots.  It delighted me in a way that might horrify other moms, I suppose.  Their hair hadn't been brushed, and the random, unnecessary-ness of their outfits might make others strip them of all that is charming.  But I enjoyed their over-the-top outfits so thoroughly.  We came home and chose pumpkin snack bars for "Sweet Treat Sunday," flour puffs arising from Allie's vigorous mixing and Ava splayed on pillows on the kitchen linoleum.  The normal irritation of children's criss-crossing limbs in high-traffic areas was swept away by a good mood, as undeserved as the pleasant, pumpkin smell in the kitchen.  I didn't force-swallow the maxim, "Enjoy it, they grow up too quickly..." Enjoyment was just in the air, we breathed it in in simple, happy breaths as easy as anger, anxiety or worry are inhaled and expelled on other days.  We ate off a menu of simple pleasures: card games, tickles, chasing, and hide-and-seek.  The lesson today was leaning into the cuddles, to linger my nose in their hair, to indulge - when the banquet is set before you.   

I decided too to tell them how babies are made.  A man's penis is inserted inside a woman's vagina and a seed is inserted that grows in a uterus, and comes back through the vagina as a baby.  Easy peasy (for now).  This was in response to Allie's scripture she picked out today to read in Primary.  She wanted one on Adam and Eve.  I chose "Adam is that men might be, and men are that they might have joy."  I didn't like that women had been edited out of the foundation of the world, so I added women back in by altering the scripture, "Adam and Eve are that men and women might be, and men and women are that they might have joy."  When I read it to Allie, she thought it ended, "men and women are that they might have babies."  :)

A letter from your mom about your mom

My dear Allie,

I want to tell you about your biological mom.  I want you to know how much she loved you.  I want to share with you the moments I was able to glimpse:

• Once I saw her hold you up - way up - over her head as she looked up at you and smiled, oh she smiled!  No doubt you were smiling too, maybe cackling your two-toothed grin.  So happy to fly like an airplane above your mom's head.

I can say that she too is your mom.  I said "mom," referring to Sara, one day as I handed you over to her at the visitation center.  "You can go to your mom," I said.  She is your first mom, or your birth or biological mom, but like all mothers - and like me, she loves you.  How wonderful to have so much love.  Let me tell you more about her.  

• Around 10 months old, you weren't crawling yet.  You could reach through your waist and stretch out your arms and, by golly, you got most anything you set your sights upon...but it wasn't through crawling.  I told Sara this one day before Christmas.  She said she could get you crawling, and she did!  She set you on the ground, gave you an incentive - a block, I think - and with her behind and me out in front, you moved on all fours!  We moved the block further, changed directions, and stayed on the ground to cheer you.  I remember thinking, "Here we are, two women who love this little girl so much."  It was as if the noise of the world quieted, or outside movement froze, and there were just two women in a room who both loved this little girl, so much.    

• You would crawl near her feet and over her well-worn shoes.  Your mom was a fashion diva in a lot of ways.  Once she came to the visitation center with bright blue, sparkly eye shadow on.  It was shocking but in a really beautiful way.  She had half her hair pulled back in a pony tail and she reminded me of a cute rockin' girl from the 80s.  She was very pretty.  High cheekbones (she says there was some Native American in her), slender, deep, moody eyes.  Pretty smooth, alabaster skin.  
• She really did know tricks with babies.  Like, she gave me the greatest tip to try to make anything a game and the kids will go along with it.  When you didn't want to change your diaper, I tried to make it a game.  

A child born to another woman

"A child born to another woman calls me mom. The depth of the tragedy and the magnitude of the privilege are not lost on me." - Jody Landers.

The Depth of the Tragedy

I didn't know how to cut a baby's nails.  I was afraid I would snip her finger tips off.  Sara knew exactly how to cut them and could even do it in the light of day (I had read that it was best to sneak into the nursery at night when the baby couldn't protest).  On the floor, in the visitation center, in the light of a late afternoon, Sara showed me how to start cutting at one side of the nail, and then peel off the rest of it.  When I did it later, I realized she was right: it was as easy as ripping a page of wet paper.  Allie squirmed but didn't cry.  After Sara finished, she told me, "You're going to have to learn to do this yourself now."  She was relinquishing the mundane, ordinary, everyday details of being a mother.  She was giving them to me, teaching me how, by example, to do the things she wouldn't be able to do in the future, but that she knew would need to be done.  

To know the minutiae of motherhood but to not be able to practice what you've learned is to have suffered a tremendous tragedy.  I sometimes wonder to myself and others, "What would Sara have been like if she hadn't been abused, beaten, and taken advantage of?"  These are things that happened to her - and are tragedies enough - but they have prevented her from mothering her children too.  I will never understand that pain.  

The Magnitude of the Privilege

Allie took her first independent steps today!  I was cheering from behind.  I like to think those cheers - my high-pitched, sing-songy, familiar peeps of approval - were motivation and energy and excitement to her.  Maybe she thought, "My mom thinks I can do this!"  Of course I did and I squealed as she lurched toward the iron-wrought gate with those first tentative, shaky steps.  We were in the vegetable garden.  I had just lured her to my side with a small, red strawberry - picked right off the vine!  She soon had a strawberry in each hand and was still grabbing at more.  To be able to share garden strawberries, it felt like I was literally introducing her to the delightfulness of life.  Soft light, private garden (it's a secret one too, given that the nest of rabbits haven't yet found it), giggles, laughter, and heart-bursting love.  She calls me Mommy.  It is a privilege that knows no end.   

I am mom.  I feel like mom. I say "mommy" with ease now - well, at least with more ease than I used to.  But I am still *foster* mom and yesterday the judge ruled that "research shows that moms should have more time with their children."  So, the way everyone else heard it was that Sara - the biological mom - should have more with Allie.  The way I heard it and the way it felt was that Sara was taking Allie away from her mom.  Her mom mom.  Me.  One more hour where I hand my daughter over to Sara.

And let's talk about Sara, shall we?  Some days my heart cries in heartache for her.  The system failed her long before I got involved, long before any of her kids were born or even ended up in care.  Sara was a foster child herself.  Whenever she talks about her childhood, she is emphatic that is was horrifying and I believe her.  At our family case meeting, she collapsed into tears when we brought up the option of consent-to-adopt.  "It's hard" is always what she says.  Yes, yes yes, it IS hard.  Unspeakably, undeniably, crushingly hard.  But we were almost whispering fervently because we care, "Sara, it's your only good option."  If she proceeds with termination, the case is closed and she would not see her children again.  If she consents to adopt, we can negotiate an open adoption.  I thought she was convinced at the family case meeting of consenting to adopt.  Wanda would pay for a trip each year      

Motherhood

I am enchanted with the PBS series Call the Midwife.  Every time a baby is born in that show - every episode, really - my eyes fill up with tears.  It moves me.  The mothers, the babies, the anguish, the relief, the miracle.  I wonder if I could do it, give birth, that is, and think that I probably could although I probably never will.

But I am a mother.

I recognize that now and am becoming more comfortable with saying it.  I am a mom!  My little Allie Allie Alligator is my baby girl.  At first, it felt strange thinking of myself as a mom or even hearing others say it.  The title, placed on me, felt like trying on a stiff evening gown.  I thought the word "mom" would feel like a nice comfortable sweater, but I think with time it becomes just that.  Acting as a mom, though, it is wonderful.  Who would have ever thought?  But I think sometimes that I'm a natural.  It just feels like our home and hearts and minds are ripe and ready and so caring for our little Allie feels so fun.

Of course, at first, she cried a lot.  Tight fists, raised in the air shaking.  I couldn't figure out her schedule.  I really, really wanted someone to tell me what her schedule was supposed to be.  What time to eat?  How many ounces?  What time should she nap?  How long?  I really didn't know and I felt desperate for the answers.  But the answer is, I have come to find out, that you figure it out.  And I did.  Little by little, you just figure it out.  The way she rubs her eyes or yawns or starts, out of the blue, to communicate with her cries that she's ready.

She's just amazing too!  She has all of these tricks.  I was never that impressed with other children's ability to grow, but to see it up close and personal, it really is...amazing.  Oh the things she's learned!  I remember how she sucked in air/gasped - I thought she was choking a lot, but it was just her latest trick!  Blowing air with her lips...leading to spitting out any food she doesn't like (she's obsessed with bananas).  Giggling as we give her raspberries on her little round belly.  Heh-heh-heh-ing.  Oh, and lifting herself up and down with her little legs.  And she just starting independently saying "ba ba bah" and even doing that when she's fussy.  Oh, it's like this little conversation she's having.  It's just amazing, really amazing!!!

Let me tell you how it warms my heart the way Obed interacts with her.  It's pure love.  He adores her.  We adore her.  She really does bring so much joy to our life.  So many pure moments of sweetness, of catching ourselves laughing or smiling or looking at her with warmth and love.  We are a family.

Witnessing trust

One of my cherished memories is when we were giving a bath to a little one and he got scared and started to cry. We spoke to him like we always do, letting him know that everything was okay. He stopped crying. It blew me away that he trusted us to, in his little way, bravely move forward. It makes me want to cry just thinking about it.  I was a witness to how his little trust muscles were working - to trust us!  We were the object of his trust.  It blew me away.  It still does. 

I also remember when we Becky first rushed up to us at church, to tell us the story of how she picked us - from faces on an adoption profile - to be his adoptive parents.  It was a rush of joy, of emotion, or trying to move my mind fast enough to capture and register every marvelous and heart-bursting thing she was saying.  In the middle of the dizzying emotion and with tears in my eyes, I asked if I could hold Dean.  I was asking if I could hold my son!  She held him out and I took him in and - and it had been years since I had held a baby and so I was a little scared that he would cry or I would hold him awkwardly, giving away my secret that I had always fumbled babies in the past and really didn't know anything about being a mother - but his light body bobbed for a minute in my arms and then his head fell into my neck and rested there.  Warm and soft and right.  

That smart little one!!  He was giving me a sign.  He was communicating with the sweetest and most potent of tools, letting me know that I was okay.  That he wanted me as much as I wanted him.  That he would let me in to his little world.  

What a gift.