I’m getting a lot of T Berry Brazelton’s Touchpoints second-hand from Jay, who’s loving these books. It’s fair to say we’ve both been shocked by the depth and intensity of our own stuff that’s coming up as we learn to parent these kids. The “Ghosts in the Nursery” are the remnants and afterimages of our…
It’s a simple request, that I come to again and again in this life. Can’t it always be like this? Can’t I hold onto this one lovely movement and keep everything just the same? That the answer is inevitably no does not sink in. We want what we want, no matter what logic and reality suggest….
We continue to settle in, test each other out, and find our patterns. It’s going well. But I need a break! Time for our week at family camp, which we’ve done with my godson for years. I’m excited to get out into the trees and ridiculous fun of tie-dye, campfire shows, and mess hall food….
There’s nothing like the sleepy, happy quiet that descends after all hell has broken loose, and things are restored. The crying stops, tempers calm down. You can hear small gusts of wind outside, the kids are asleep, and the last purple blue light makes everything through the window magical and gorgeous. Yes, we survived the…
I don’t know what I thought the “pushing, testing” stage would look like, but I didn’t think it would involve pushing the cat off the balcony. It did. Theory one: kids who’ve experienced rejection try to recreate it. Having lost a home they expect to lose this one too, and create situations that will help…
What a crazy system! I’m not sure I know a better way, but having “visits” and “overnights” and then taking the kids back to their current foster home just seems to upset them, and us. Change is hard, but now that it’s clear it’s going to go, my thought is we should just do it…
How do you explain the brutal and unexplainable? Can emotion, intuition, and love help us heal from things that should completely crush us? Those were some of my thoughts when, her first night here, our daughter-to-be burst into uncontrollable sobs, shrieking for the mother who’s abandoned & failed her. It was completely understandable: the girl’s…
The placement date was set, about 3 weeks away, and we are set to do our first overnight tonight. Hooray! Oh wait, the placement date needs to be moved up two weeks. They’re moving in next weekend, unless they’re not. And we’re going to be their forever family. Unless something weird happens in the legal…
I’ve been in a happy shock, as well as a whirling-dervish of childproofing and preparation. We’ve met our kids! It’s been a blur, but here are the high points. The same week we celebrated freedom from bondage at Passover and new life at Easter, we met the nearly-two-year-old boy and nearly-five-year-old girl who have been…
It feels like Spring, and I’m thinking about love. One thing I like about yoga is that there’s lots of talk about the human condition. It’s a little philosophy chat during your workout. Years ago a yoga teacher said “if you didn’t get your chin to your legs, it’s no big deal. If you did…
We have a tradition in my family. As nerdy, techy, competent guys, the men in my family like like to be right. Often this is useful, because we do tend to know a lot about how electricity, plumbing, and basic mechanics work. But I’ve been known to be sure about things that might be a tiny…
Unfortunately this week a placement we hoped (and had been told) was very likely to happen fell through, for unknown reasons. Hopefully it was because of something positive for the kids like a better placement. Weirdly, we will never know. Sadly, instead of having great news which I’ve been going crazy hiding under my hat, we’ve…
Is it amazing, or predictable? After giving up on anything happening during the holidays, we were asked if we’d take an infant. New year’s eve-eve, as we were leaving town for a few days away. The baby had to be picked up that day. We’d heard of these situations. One of us heads to Target…
While I’m sure I’ve tried everyone’s patience going over my angst and excitement waiting for kids (and I reserve the right to continue complaining as necessary), I feel it’s also important to keep a little perspective. These are good problems to have. Of course it’s silly to try and say one issue is harder or…
We’re experiencing the most frustrating disconnect between the urgency we feel reading about children in the foster care system and the response of the system to these kids. I really don’t think it’s any one person, as the social workers we’re working with clearly care about kids. Nobody gets into this work for the money…
Maybe the most surprising thing about our adoption journey has been how much being a gay couple seems to barely figured into it at all. Of course we don’t live in a perfect utopia, and our foster/adoption agency has made it clear that some social workers representing kids still won’t place with gay families. And there…
OK, I understand that training for adoption and foster parenting has to kick you in the gut a little, to weed out those who aren’t serious or prepared. But thinking back on our training earlier this year, I was not prepared for the grim, relentless focus on terrible situations and broken placements, violence, and trouble….
