The Christmas Letter Out-takes

I was bemoaning on facebook the fact that it is a little on the difficult side to write a Christmas Letter (like I usually do) when you have had a year like we have had. How to write in 300 words or less to family and friends that only hear from us once a year that you had cancer, your grandma died, your husband lost his job, your dad is very sick and SURPRISE you have two new kids?

My (brilliant, amazing, talented and wonderful) friend Sherry wrote me this little poem. I thought I would share. It brought a smile to my face.

"Well it hasn't been the best year
Remember Grandma? She is no
longer here!
But two new kids added to the brood.
Too bad cancer put me in
a bad mood.
My husband, Shel, got sacked last summer.
Money was tight, so
that's a bummer.
My dad got sick, we hope he'll pull through.
In the mean
time, he feels pretty blue.
So as this horrible year winds to an end,
We
haven't got much good cheer to send.
If you have any extra joy or good will
to share,
Send it our way to show you care!
And if we survive 'til two
thousand and ten,
We will start off a fresh new year again!
We know in our
hearts it can only get better,
So tune in next year for a happy Christmas
Letter!

When Your Kids Get It

Tanner was born my first and only son and, of course, our oldest. He then became our third son and youngest, and finally became one of the middle sons of 4. Now he proudly takes on the title as the middle of six. Tanner is sweet and sensitive and very, very calm. He reads with a single minded obsession only matched by my own childhood. Tanner is passionate about injustice. He reads books about World War II and has taken an interest in understanding the Civil Rights Movement. He loves sports but extreme competition is not for him. He would rather let you win so you could all be friends at the end of the game.

He is also a very typical twelve year old boy. He can't find the socks on his feet or the shoes he left in the hallway. Brushing his teeth or his hair is a chore that his mother inflicts upon him. He tends to assume everyone else thinks like him.

One of the interesting parenting dynamics of being part of a multi racial family is teaching your caucasion children that their experience is often different than their own siblings. This is a very hard concept to fathom when you are young but slowly Tanner is beginning to understand. Tanner understands that noone ever asks him where he is from, but they do his brothers. He understands that on the ice he might get some trash talk from other players just like his brothers, but that it never crosses the line to talk that devalues his personhood, equal to everyone else on the ice.

Yesterday my 12 year old was playing games on miniclips, a weekend only privilege at our house and time that is coveted. Miniclips is a relatively kid friendly web site with lots of arcade style games that I have never had any sort of problem with. Tanner had been playing for a few minutes when he suddenly shut the computer off and walked away.

"Mom" he said, with a look of deep concern on his face, "I think that game I was playing was racist. I didn't know right away, but once I did I stopped" Making certain I knew he would never willingly participate in anything racist.

"WHY?" I asked, my mind jumping immediately to worst case scenarios.

Tanner went on to explain to me that the game (based on a Winter Olympic Theme) had various teams you could choose to play. The characters on all the teams but one were all white and all had positive names like "Champion" or "Challenger". The last team was made of a single black character and under his picture? OUTSIDER.

Yes. Racism. Sometimes its overt with name calling or spray painted slogans. Sometimes it's subtle like identifying anyone not white as an outsider. I was proud of Tanner for being able to recognize that. I am not sure alot of 12 year olds would.

Our Best Day is Their Worst

I knew that my highlighted quote from the article in the Plain and Valley Newspaper would generate some questions. Out of context, it appears to be very negative and I would like to give a bit of an explanation.

When I dreamt of being a parent, I always dreamt of being an adoptive parent. I planned and read and prepared. I dreamt of all the fun and wonderful things we would do together. I saw a future of snuggles and hugs and Christmas Mornings. I knew by watching friends and family that being a mother was one of the greatest joys in life. And truly, it is. When Tanner was born I discovered how much I truly did love being a mom. I love everything about it. I love the craziness, the tears, the diapers, the snuggles, the joy. Truly becoming a mother was the best, and most important day, of my life.

When I met Greg and Eric I was meeting my SONS. I got to be their MOTHER. I would get to raise them and love them and be loved by them. They were my dream come true. The children I had prayed for and hoped for and longed for. I would get to watch these amazing two little boys grow into amazing men. I would get to shape them and provide them countless opportunities. I would get to be their MOMMY. It was truly one of the very best days of my life.

Now, go read HERE

That is what that first day was like for my sons. Without the maturity of years and experience they had no idea that they would learn to love me. I was a stranger. I looked different, talked different and smelled different. They were losing EVERYTHING they knew. On top of that they were losing many things they had no idea about yet - their country, their connection to their community of birth, their culture. And I was the one doing it to them. Not their birth parents or their foster parents or a social worker or a nameless judge. ME. I was creating their very worst nightmare. I was taking them away from all they knew, loved or cared about. Just like every other child placed into the arms of a stranger.

At that time, on that day, what was my dream come true was their worst nightmare.

Of course there is more to the story in the life of a child than that first day and I fully realize and advocate that there were (and are) many, many very good reasons why adoption might be in the long term best interest of a child or baby, but at the heart of it, at the very beginning of it, adoption starts in enormous loss. I gained everything from becoming their mother, but on that day and at that point my sons lost everything that was important to their toddler selves.

The adults may know and understand why adopting our children is best, and why they will hopefully one day understand, but we also need to know that at that moment in time to the tiny newborn who can't find the only mother it knows or the scared toddler aching for a foster mom or orphanage caretaker, that we are the wrong mom. We are the enemy at the centre of the nightmare of loss and change they are enduring.

Understanding that fact opens our hearts and minds to let our children grieve, to push us to focus on attachment, to truly understand that our journey as parents is not our children's journey as adoptees. To hold to the knowledge that even though our family started in loss, and at times the journey together might be very hard, and sometimes sad and lonely, that it can still be a wonderful journey. We love our children and we are family too.

Drug Dealers Beware

Apparently my reputation as a Hockey Mom-Drug Dealer got out because last night someone decided that I apparently hid my stash in our 1997 Ford Escort. You know, the typical car of very SUCCESSFUL drug dealing mothers.

Apparently the stench of sour milk scared them off, but not before they broke a window, the dome light and smashed the steering column.

The investigating police officer, staring rather ironically at our vehicle, wondered aloud why we were targeted, considering the much nicer vehicles parked in the driveways around us.

I didn't tell her they were probably going for my Advil. Living the life of a dealer is dangerous. I guess I will have to give it up now. Shucks. It was a fun 24 hours.

Rumor-Ville

I walked into the dentist's office this morning with Miss Not so Tiny in one arm, Miss Precious in the other and Miss Curious wrapped around my leg. Quite a sight, I imagine. The receptionist at the office has been there as long as we have lived in the town and lives just up the road from us. In other words, she knows OF us, and knows the kids, but is not involved in the intimate details of our lives.

The conversation turned to what we have been up to in the last six months. She had heard of the cancer diagnosis and quickly turned the conversation to WHY I had cancer. I told her that we had no idea why I had cancer and I had no risk factors that we know of. There was a pause. A long pause.

"Oh", she said, "I heard you got cancer because you abused and over used Advil".

I swallowed. HARD. "No" I sort of calmly replied, "I have never abused any drugs. The issue with Advil is that after organ surgery you cannot take any medication like that"

"I guess it was just a rumor then" she said.

YES PEOPLE. IT IS JUST A RUMOR. A really, really stupid rumor at that. So whoever in town is telling people that I got cancer because I took too many Advil. Could you please stop? Thank You.

Oh the joys of living in a town where everyone THINKS they know your business, and they really do NOT.

Hello Saskatchewan and Manitoba

When we took the girls back to meet Shel's parents during the summer, we attended the Forget Music Festival which is hosted on their property. While we were there we were a rather conspicuous family among the mostly white rural community members, and I remember mentioning that I was worried about how our reception would be, considering our last really awful experience with racism had happened in small town Saskatchewan.

Certainly we were noticed, and part of that being noticed was being approached by a young reporter wanting to do a story on adoption. ***** Inserting disclaimer here: She approached me the morning we arrived. We had just driven through the night, two nights in a row with six kids (two of whom were BABIES) and I was surviving on very, very little sleep. ******

She was keen and naive and very, very interested in adopting from foster care because "kids need families" and she wanted another baby. As an experienced adoptive parent, you might know the "type" of whom I speak. The beauty of a "needy child" and the novelty of a multiracial family overshadows the reality of parenting a child who has experienced foster care. The reporter was thrilled to tell me that she and her husband had completed the home study process and were waiting for their life to settle down before they accepted a referral. Her children scampered around her as we did our interview. A baby, a 2 year old, a 4 year old and a 6 year old.

Yeah. That's what I thought too. Interestingly the article leads off with the fact that they were declined approval, for now.

So, admittedly, my attitude might have been a bit on the harsh side due to the lack of sleep and the very real "REALITY" of parenting that I had gone through over the last couple of travel days and usually I might have taken a bit of a softer approach to explain the needs of kids being adopted from the foster care system. But, alas, I didn't and I wasn't and the result is actually a pretty good article. There are a few parts I wish I could explain more, but overall it is an honest assessment of the attachment needs of kids coming into a family from a disrupted family.

There are some gross errors, the most glaring is that she described Miss Curious as being "quiet and well behaved". This has caused great laughter in our house because our dear Miss Curious is rather well known for being, well, CURIOUS. And a curious 18 month old? Definitely not the definition of quiet or obedience. But overall, I think you might enjoy the article. If not, I am sure you will let me know.

If you found the blog because of the article sandwiched between the advertisements for combines and oil rig workers on page 13, welcome. If you have any questions, ask. If I offended you, I am pleading sleep deprivation.

Oh and I my sister mentioned that I should probably provide this welcome to distract all the new readers who come to the blog and see that picture of my son with duct tape across his mouth. Some wonderful adoptive parent I am!

How Not to Parent 101

Duct Tape Might Be Silver

But Silence is Golden

*He did it to himself, but I can't say we all didn't enjoy the 35 seconds of quiet from the continually rapping, teasing, snarky comment making teenager :)

November 22

It was 1999 and the boys were 2,3 and 4. Greg and Eric had only been in our family since early September and our lives were full and overwhelming. We had packed up the kids to make the 6 hour drive to Vancouver for an early Christmas visit. The first chance to really show off the boys and let them spend some time with their grandparents and extended family.

The night of November 21st we took the kids, my sister and her husband, and my Nan and went on the Christmas Train. The next day was my Nan's 74th birthday and more than anything she enjoyed family time, and so did we. We took a picture that night, long since lost, but it is frozen in my memory. It was the last night of my childhood. Yes, I was already 25 and a mother of 3 who had been married for 5 years but when I think of pivotal moments in time, that night, posed with my sons in front of the train smiling with my family I thought that life was good. Only good.

The next morning we took the boys to Walmart to get their portrait done. Their first portrait as our sons. Eric looking off at the computer screen making a funny face, Greg looking sad and in shock, Tanner forgetting to smile. They were beautiful, my sons, and yet I could never put that picture on my wall. Our first family portrait. At that moment, at that very moment we were celebrating our new family, MY family, my foundation, my rock, the glue that held us together was shattering. The roads were icy and my aunt, my Nan's baby girl, my second mother, the slightly crazy woman who sneaked peeks at Christmas presents into her 40's, who made every get together a party, who ensured we always felt like a FAMILY, died. Her car slid into the ditch and over turned in water. While I was posing my boys and hoping they would smile for the camera, she died.

I didn't know it yet and we bundled up our kids and took them to a giant play centre to meet more family there. I was paged, and paged again, and paged a third time before I heard it. In this time before cell phones my family was frantic to track me down. There I stood surrounded by hundreds of screaming children, in a world full of play and fun, on a day we were celebrating my grandmother's birthday, our family splintered. "Aunty Carol died"

I left my sons with my husband and raced to be with my Nan. I only remember that she vomited and vomited again. The strongest woman I had ever seen. A woman who had survived so, so much had lost her daughter. On her birthday. God, it seemed, had a very cruel sense of humor. We went to my Aunt's home, our focus now only on her 11 year old daughter. Our precious and amazing blessing, our Ashley.

The years passed, but that moment, that birthday of my Nan's will never be forgotten. It changed us all. The absence of my aunt permeated every family event since. Our kids don't know this as they don't remember those years of when we were complete. My sister and I have tried to fill that gap. To be the glue that holds us all together, but there are cracks, and breaks and we reformed into a new shape that was different and sadder and infinitely lonelier.

Eventually dementia provided the gift of forgetting what her birthday really meant and we were able to simply celebrate her last birthday without all of us remembering that awful, horrid day.

Today my Nan would have been 84. When you look at these pictures maybe you just see a little old lady and my words fail to explain to you the woman she was. The integral part of every childhood memory I hold dear. How strong she was. How beautiful and gentle. How flawed and yet perfect. I miss her at a cellular level I could never explain.

And yet I know you know. So many have shared your own stories of the people in your lives that have made you who you are, that held your hand or read you a story or baked you cookies. Today I honor my aunt and my Nan. I miss you both.

Happy Birthday Nan. Give Aunty a hug for me.