Ouch

Like a lot of kids, especially with ADHD, J isn't very good at taking care of his things. I told him on Monday to put his soccer shin guards away after soccer practice. The next day they were still there. I told him again to put them up. He picked up both outer socks and one of the hard inserts but left the other. I told him later to put THAT one up. This morning he knew he had a game that started at 10. I had him getting ready a little after 9. By 9:40 he hadn't found ANY of the shin guard pieces. At about 10 he found the socks and one insert. By this time Cory, Ty, and I were all helping him look as well. I found it at 10:35 shoved behind the toy hamper in the playroom. By then the game was half over and he was crying because there was just no point in going. I hope he learned his lesson from it and tries harder to take care of his things. Otherwise...it just stinks.

In the Moment

Although I'm not sure how to put it into words, last night I was thinking that I feel like I've been living my life on hold so to speak. For a long time actually, but especially the last 5 years. I know that change is a part of life and even if things seem solid, life has a way of shaking things up. Even considering that, though, it seems like so much of my life is or has been in limbo. Were Cory and Tyler going to be and are J and L going to be my sons forever? Where and what is the right teaching job for me? Will we be staying here in the house we're in or will we be moving? I'd just like to feel some sense of permanence in our lives. A sense of general well being, with no big changes looming on the horizon. The unknowns (especially related to the boys' foster care cases)in our life, for some reason I can't quite put my finger on, make it harder for me to let the joys of our day to day life reach as deep as they should.

I wish I knew what to do about that, to find a way to truly just be in the here and now. I told myself last night that I need to start doing that but I'm not sure where to start. I don't want to let a moment of the boys' lives slip away without really enjoying it in the worry about what might happen. I suppose it starts with a choice so here's to living in the moment!

9/11

Where were you??? Remember...

The Name Game

As long as adoption exists so will the quandry of what to call the people involved. Today I read another complaint about the term birth mother. When I was new to adoption I used this term. To me it meant a mother who had placed her child for adoption, no insult intended. It was a frame of reference only, a way to distinguish between mothers in adoptive situations. I've since come to understand that many of those mothers were offended by the term, often citing that they felt it limited the importance of their role in their child(ren)'s life. Given what I know now about coercion and marketing in adoption I can respect their feelings on the matter. I've used the term in the past but as I said before as a frame of reference only. I've never used the term in reference to my sons' mothers in front of them. If I am speaking to them regarding their mom I SAY "your mom." They know who I mean and they know that I'm their mom too.

I've spoken about a little about this before but I felt the need to bring it up again. The reason is that while I can understand this mother's (whose blog I read today) reasons for NOT wanting to be called birth mother, it hurt that in the same blog post she called adoptive parents adopters. Then she wondered why we object to the term. I'd like to answer that here, although I am unconvinced she doesn't really already understand since it's basically the same reason they object to the term birthmother. I feel the term adopter does, and is meant to by at least some of the mothers who insist on using it, denigrate OUR roles in the lives of our children. I'm NOT an adopter. I adopted and now I'm a mother. It's as simple as that. And while I'm on the topic (a little bit at least)..."as born to" DOES exist. I've heard it said that no paper (meaning tpr) can change that and I AGREE totally with that. Time, good parenting, and love however CAN. It does this without severing the bond that the child will always have with his/her parents and their families. But it DOES exist. I would die for my boys, sacrifice anything that was mine to give. It's a mother's love for her sons. Plain and simple. Do they miss or cry for their mothers too? Yes. And I let them. I talk to them, look at pictures with them. I do what I can to acknowledge their loss and help them work through it. That's what a mother does no matter what her child is hurting about. So don't tell me (or my boys btw because they'd be the first to disagree with you) that I can't love them like they were born to me or that I'm not their mother.

It basically comes down to no one group's agenda is ever going to be heard, no change ever instituted in adoption as long as all we do is fling insults at each other and refuse to hear one another. It weakens every argument, every otherwise valid point of view. I'm tired of the insults and the pettiness. On all, yes ALL, sides. If you want to get justice for the violation of your rights in separating you from your baby, if you want your original records unsealed, or if you want reform in adoption it's time to grow up and focus on THAT. Stop taking your issues out on each other and either work together or at least learn to live and let live.