Maybe
I spent most of yesterday doing all the daily mothering tasks while an ongoing narrative was scrolling through my head. I was waiting for a few free moments to materialize it into blog form. The title was going to be "OK Toddlers, You Win."
It was basically a woe-is-me monologue, where I defend how I can wonder and flirt with and try on the idea of adopting our little Miss and Mr, but I can't really follow through with it.
The reason is two fold- one, legally, we can't follow through with it because right now they are not "adoptable." Bio mom and Bio dad's rights have not be terminated and may not ever be, though the case heavily leans that way. Technically as foster parents it is heresy for us to be outright entertaining the idea of adopting because it insinuates we aren't being team players. The belief is that we would be way overstepping our role and undermining the case plan which almost automatically has family reunification as the number one goal. When kids are removed from their home and placed in foster care, bio parents enter the judicial system, which is an innocent until-proven-guilty situation.
In our case the bioparent's have some heavy evidence against them, but still haven't been proven guilty. My loop hole for self-permissivenss to entertain adoption is because the DHS supervisor, CASA worker, and bio mom's attorney have all straight up asked us if we would consider adopting. Looks like we are actually playing exactly like the other players on our team, it's the game that may be changing.
But secondly, and the most glaring reason I can't really entertain the idea of adopting the little two is because of all the reasons in my blogpost that never made it to print: "OK Toddlers, You Win."
The cliff notes version basically starts with the fact that our oldest son, Levi, was born in the fall of 2003. Cory and I had been married a short 17 months when we learned Levi would soon be surprising us with his arrival (or as he likes to call it, his "sneak attack.")
September of 2003 was the beginning of a glorious year. We had a baby- a chubby, beautiful, head turning, mostly-immobile, happy-happy-happy baby. And I must say that from the beginning Cory and I were pretty natural, laid-back parents. Well, aside from that one nervous phone call to the pediatrician when a sleeping Levi's eyes rolled into the back of his head and I witnessed just enough of the moment to catastrophize that it might be a seizure. You know, other than that, all was well. He was everything we could have hoped for and more- literally more- as he was born with an extra finger!
And then in September 2004, suddenly everything changed because with the passing of Levi's first birthday, my happy go lucky baby was now a toddler. And though toddlers bring so many moments of the purest of joys- they are also fit throwers & "mine" yellers, potty training failures & electrical outlet finders, carseat back archers & biters, dinner refusers & nap avoiders. I could go on, but the point is toddlers are adorably exhausting. Hallmark should really make it easier on their customers and sell cards for new parents in two packs: a congratulations one and a sympathy one. The first one reads "Congratulations on your new baby!!!" and a follow up card to mail a year later, "I'm sorry to hear you have a toddler."
Today is currently May 4, 2016 which means since the birthday party in September 2004, I have now been raising a toddler for the last eleven plus years. Not the same toddler of course, but because of how close our kids are in age, the second I get a toddler graduated to a mostly bearable preschooler, I have 1, 2, and even 3 toddlers at the same time coming at me like an assembly line that won't stop.
I wish I could show you a picture of our little two, because anyone with half an ounce of maternal-ness would see them and squeal, literally squeal, "Bring them to me! I want them." They are adorable. So stinkin adorable. We're talking dimples, tiny features, creamy dark skin, and eyes so striking you'd think I traced them with liner.
They are cuddly and well adjusted and actually pretty well behaved, but I am exhausted. The 11 years of raising toddlers that came before them have defeated me. 3-2-1 ding ding ding. No need to hold me to the wrestling mat and wait for an official count. I'm not fighting to get up off the mat, I can barely hoist myself out of bed in the mornings. The thought of adopting a newly turned 2 and 3 year old and wading through two more years of toddlerhood makes me see white- as in the white flag I am frantically waving.
Hear me out. We definitely still want to adopt. I've been scouring websites and sending emails to caseworkers in Arkansas, Texas, and Missouri asking about any available sibling sets of boys between the ages of 4 and 10. We've been using our little two's next court date at the end of June as our Gideon's fleece, "Lord if our boys are out there, bring them to us before July, because everyone on this case is asking if we will consider adopting little Miss and Mr. and we don't know if we can handle that." To illustrate our desperation, know that I even emailed a local caseworker asking if she would consider matching our family to a set of four brothers she was trying to place for adoption. Yes, that would have given us 10 kids- 10 boys... but that sounded easier than two more years of toddlers.
And then yesterday afternoon I got a text from Cory. "Bought you something. It's your next favorite book."
I stayed up into the wee hours of last night devouring When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi. Go get it now. It won't be hard to find. It's a New York Times Best Seller for a reason, as they put it "Finishing this book and then forgetting about it is not an option." It is an autobiography of a neurosurgeon as he faces his own terminal diagnosis and wrestles with the meaning of life. And I don't mean wrestles as in a Hollywood glamorized cinema event with a swelling score carrying the big moments through the screen. He wrestles in a very tangible way- in a genuine I'm-a-person and you-are-a-person, we are both living organisms and we will die. This is a story of someone acutely aware that their breath is actively and rapidly becoming just air. Breath sustains life, but air is just air. They are the same, but also they are not. It is equal parts science and philosophy. For a girl who is drawn to writing and honest human expression, but would also jump at the chance to wander through the cadavers at The Bodies exhibit for a third time, this book spoke to me. It is indeed my new favorite book.
It's a lot to take in- to think about your death and have it illuminate your life. I'm still processing through it all. As Dr Kalanithi pens on page 148-149, [experiencing life is a privilege and translating those experiences into language is what helps you understand your own life.] Which is exactly why I love blogging so much and why I was compelled to rearrange my schedule and carve out time today to write. This morning there was an urgency to it. I needed to be alone with my thoughts and write. It wasn't a kind of life and death urgency. It was an understanding-of-life urgency, which actually may be just as critical. I think Dr Kalanithi would agree with me here, what's the point of life if you don't understand what it means, why it matters, and what you are doing with yours. Something about the bold acceptance of mortality and grappling with and realizing your own death actually changes your life.
His penned words and probing questions, were not just a book for me, it was an experience. He started me on a mission. As he writes to his daughter, when you come to the "many moments in life where you must give an account, for yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world..." (pg 199). What then? Yes, what then? What do I want to be able to say?
I don't have my answer yet. But last night with all these huge questions swirling in my head I took a quick reading break to move a sleeping little Miss from our bedroom to her crib. And as I held her in my arms thinking about life and what my existence means to this world and wondering when June comes to pass, will my life matter anymore for this little girl I hold now? Will she forget me? As the years come and go, will the memories of the last 10 months fade for me too?
Or...Will I watch her blow out candles on her 4th birthday, the exhausting toddler years behind us? Will I walk her into her kindergarten class and chaperone her field trips? Will we paint fingernails and talk about boys? Will we fight about modest clothes and curfews? Will I watch Cory walk her down the aisle? Will I hold her baby and buy onesies that say "Grandma's favorite!"? And will she be at my bedside, and hold my hand, when it's my turn for breath to become air? Will she stand alongside her seven older brothers at my funeral and mourn a life that mattered to her?
Will we forget each other, or will we have one of the most sacred relationships this life can bring. Will I be her mother?
As I held her, I was overcome with an emotion that I didn't intend or manipulate. I whispered in her sleeping ears "I love you, Naomi." - the name we would give her if she becomes ours.
It was in the organic nature of that moment, and the way her name rolled off my tongue, that I thought to myself... maybe. Maybe I could do this again.
It was basically a woe-is-me monologue, where I defend how I can wonder and flirt with and try on the idea of adopting our little Miss and Mr, but I can't really follow through with it.
The reason is two fold- one, legally, we can't follow through with it because right now they are not "adoptable." Bio mom and Bio dad's rights have not be terminated and may not ever be, though the case heavily leans that way. Technically as foster parents it is heresy for us to be outright entertaining the idea of adopting because it insinuates we aren't being team players. The belief is that we would be way overstepping our role and undermining the case plan which almost automatically has family reunification as the number one goal. When kids are removed from their home and placed in foster care, bio parents enter the judicial system, which is an innocent until-proven-guilty situation.
In our case the bioparent's have some heavy evidence against them, but still haven't been proven guilty. My loop hole for self-permissivenss to entertain adoption is because the DHS supervisor, CASA worker, and bio mom's attorney have all straight up asked us if we would consider adopting. Looks like we are actually playing exactly like the other players on our team, it's the game that may be changing.
But secondly, and the most glaring reason I can't really entertain the idea of adopting the little two is because of all the reasons in my blogpost that never made it to print: "OK Toddlers, You Win."
The cliff notes version basically starts with the fact that our oldest son, Levi, was born in the fall of 2003. Cory and I had been married a short 17 months when we learned Levi would soon be surprising us with his arrival (or as he likes to call it, his "sneak attack.")
"Congratulations on your new baby!!"
September of 2003 was the beginning of a glorious year. We had a baby- a chubby, beautiful, head turning, mostly-immobile, happy-happy-happy baby. And I must say that from the beginning Cory and I were pretty natural, laid-back parents. Well, aside from that one nervous phone call to the pediatrician when a sleeping Levi's eyes rolled into the back of his head and I witnessed just enough of the moment to catastrophize that it might be a seizure. You know, other than that, all was well. He was everything we could have hoped for and more- literally more- as he was born with an extra finger!
And then in September 2004, suddenly everything changed because with the passing of Levi's first birthday, my happy go lucky baby was now a toddler. And though toddlers bring so many moments of the purest of joys- they are also fit throwers & "mine" yellers, potty training failures & electrical outlet finders, carseat back archers & biters, dinner refusers & nap avoiders. I could go on, but the point is toddlers are adorably exhausting. Hallmark should really make it easier on their customers and sell cards for new parents in two packs: a congratulations one and a sympathy one. The first one reads "Congratulations on your new baby!!!" and a follow up card to mail a year later, "I'm sorry to hear you have a toddler."
"I'm sorry to hear you have a toddler."
I wish I could show you a picture of our little two, because anyone with half an ounce of maternal-ness would see them and squeal, literally squeal, "Bring them to me! I want them." They are adorable. So stinkin adorable. We're talking dimples, tiny features, creamy dark skin, and eyes so striking you'd think I traced them with liner.
They are cuddly and well adjusted and actually pretty well behaved, but I am exhausted. The 11 years of raising toddlers that came before them have defeated me. 3-2-1 ding ding ding. No need to hold me to the wrestling mat and wait for an official count. I'm not fighting to get up off the mat, I can barely hoist myself out of bed in the mornings. The thought of adopting a newly turned 2 and 3 year old and wading through two more years of toddlerhood makes me see white- as in the white flag I am frantically waving.
Hear me out. We definitely still want to adopt. I've been scouring websites and sending emails to caseworkers in Arkansas, Texas, and Missouri asking about any available sibling sets of boys between the ages of 4 and 10. We've been using our little two's next court date at the end of June as our Gideon's fleece, "Lord if our boys are out there, bring them to us before July, because everyone on this case is asking if we will consider adopting little Miss and Mr. and we don't know if we can handle that." To illustrate our desperation, know that I even emailed a local caseworker asking if she would consider matching our family to a set of four brothers she was trying to place for adoption. Yes, that would have given us 10 kids- 10 boys... but that sounded easier than two more years of toddlers.
And then yesterday afternoon I got a text from Cory. "Bought you something. It's your next favorite book."
I stayed up into the wee hours of last night devouring When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi. Go get it now. It won't be hard to find. It's a New York Times Best Seller for a reason, as they put it "Finishing this book and then forgetting about it is not an option." It is an autobiography of a neurosurgeon as he faces his own terminal diagnosis and wrestles with the meaning of life. And I don't mean wrestles as in a Hollywood glamorized cinema event with a swelling score carrying the big moments through the screen. He wrestles in a very tangible way- in a genuine I'm-a-person and you-are-a-person, we are both living organisms and we will die. This is a story of someone acutely aware that their breath is actively and rapidly becoming just air. Breath sustains life, but air is just air. They are the same, but also they are not. It is equal parts science and philosophy. For a girl who is drawn to writing and honest human expression, but would also jump at the chance to wander through the cadavers at The Bodies exhibit for a third time, this book spoke to me. It is indeed my new favorite book.
It's a lot to take in- to think about your death and have it illuminate your life. I'm still processing through it all. As Dr Kalanithi pens on page 148-149, [experiencing life is a privilege and translating those experiences into language is what helps you understand your own life.] Which is exactly why I love blogging so much and why I was compelled to rearrange my schedule and carve out time today to write. This morning there was an urgency to it. I needed to be alone with my thoughts and write. It wasn't a kind of life and death urgency. It was an understanding-of-life urgency, which actually may be just as critical. I think Dr Kalanithi would agree with me here, what's the point of life if you don't understand what it means, why it matters, and what you are doing with yours. Something about the bold acceptance of mortality and grappling with and realizing your own death actually changes your life.
His penned words and probing questions, were not just a book for me, it was an experience. He started me on a mission. As he writes to his daughter, when you come to the "many moments in life where you must give an account, for yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world..." (pg 199). What then? Yes, what then? What do I want to be able to say?
I don't have my answer yet. But last night with all these huge questions swirling in my head I took a quick reading break to move a sleeping little Miss from our bedroom to her crib. And as I held her in my arms thinking about life and what my existence means to this world and wondering when June comes to pass, will my life matter anymore for this little girl I hold now? Will she forget me? As the years come and go, will the memories of the last 10 months fade for me too?
Or...Will I watch her blow out candles on her 4th birthday, the exhausting toddler years behind us? Will I walk her into her kindergarten class and chaperone her field trips? Will we paint fingernails and talk about boys? Will we fight about modest clothes and curfews? Will I watch Cory walk her down the aisle? Will I hold her baby and buy onesies that say "Grandma's favorite!"? And will she be at my bedside, and hold my hand, when it's my turn for breath to become air? Will she stand alongside her seven older brothers at my funeral and mourn a life that mattered to her?
Will we forget each other, or will we have one of the most sacred relationships this life can bring. Will I be her mother?
As I held her, I was overcome with an emotion that I didn't intend or manipulate. I whispered in her sleeping ears "I love you, Naomi." - the name we would give her if she becomes ours.
It was in the organic nature of that moment, and the way her name rolled off my tongue, that I thought to myself... maybe. Maybe I could do this again.
posted by Christina at
2:42 PM
1 Comments:
Beautiful! I just started a book called Love Does by Bob Goff. You may have already read it. As someone told him "you should write a book", Christina you should write a book, not just a blog. He is very, very unique , and Christina you fall into that category. You and Cory have been taking on so many challenges. May God bless you as you love your children. And your actions show it. Love does.
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