Easter Stress

Yikes!

I invited four other single moms and their kids over to our house for Easter. And three of them might actually come! What the heck was I thinking!?!

So, I was thinking I could bake a ham. I like ham. My kids like ham. Ham is easy to make. And doesn’t take as long as a turkey. I think. Maybe the other moms could bring a side dish or two, maybe a dessert. Except I enjoy making desserts. Also, and I may say more about this in another post later, I’ve decided it’s time K learned to cook some. So last week I gave her a cooking magazine that had just come and told her to pick something to make and we would do it. Which we did! We made a two-layer strawberry white cake, which came out pretty well. Of course I did all the hard work (including cleaning up!) but it’s all about introductions at this point, right?

Anyway, I guess the menu itself should mostly take care of itself, if everyone brings something. If the three other moms come there will be three six-year olds, a five year old and a three year old. I sold it by saying we would have an egg hunt. I’m definitely all for this, but one of the mom’s said it sounded like so much fun. Um, we’ll just hide jelly beans or Hershey’s Kisses or egg shaped chocolate hopefully outside if the weather cooperates, inside if it doesn’t. Not that big a deal, right? Is there something else I should be doing for an egg hunt?

Then there is the matter of where to actually eat. I have a “bar” in my kitchen, which is where the three of us eat our meals. No room for anyone else there. Because we do not use the dining room, I recently turned it into a play/craft room for the girls, which means it is a DISASTER!

I’m not a formal person. I’m not even an Easter person. But it would be nice to put on a nice-ish lunch for my friends. Even though I know they will not care one bit about all this – it’s still a necessary stress step I must somehow go through.

OK!

Patience Rewarded

Last week a co-worker I rarely see IM’d me to say he was leaving the company and moving to the west coast. He wanted me to meet his wife so we talked about various days/times/ways for us to get together. Originally I was going to drive into the city with my girls on Sunday to meet them, but then an hour or so later he said they had too much to do with the move and could I do something during the week. Well, I TOTALLY understand that (5 moves in 5 years – yes, I do know how much work it is). So, we decided that I would work from the city today, and we’d meet for lunch.

So I dropped the girls off at school, and started the hour-plus long drive into the city. Keep in mind, I’m doing this during my own work hours. I got in there, settled myself into an empty conference room to do some work and attend a meeting. Then it was time to leave to meet S & L. S called me on my cell phone for a change in location, since they were running behind. I hopped on the T to go two stops down, and stood in front of the Au Bon Pain he had given as a meeting spot. There was a man begging for change with a Starbucks coffee cup pacing in front of Au Bon Pain as well, and he was the type who likes to chat up everyone who walks by. Not something I’m interested in. Time kept marching, I kept checking my Blackberry for calls from him, and even dealt with a few work emails while I waited. And waited. And thought “Oh, this is really a mistake. I should have said I couldn’t make it – I have too much work to do. Yes, I know it’s my last chance to meet his wife before they leave the area, but sheesh….” Truth be told, I was getting annoyed. Highly annoyed. Even the beggar picked up on it because he said to me, “Waiting for someone, huh? Well don’t chew their head off when they get here!” I moved away….

Finally, they showed up! Forty-five minutes after the agreed upon meeting time though! Let me cut to the chase – I LOVED L – she was sweet and delightful. I see why S wanted us to meet. I am honestly sad they are moving away because I feel she is someone I could be friends with. She loves the Patriots (and as a newcomer to the USA this is saying something!), loves to read (even gave me some book tips) and to cook. It would have been great to have an authentic Indian meal cooked by her (which they said was their original plan), but who knows when we could have/would have found time for that.

Just saying – my annoyance flew out the window moments after meeting up with them – the wait was long, but I was well rewarded. And I still got most of my work done for the day!

Here’s to her health

Good health is nothing to sneeze, err, cough at.

This is being drilled home to me in a big way right now, as I listen to B cough upstairs in her bed. She has had a progressively horrendous cough for about a month now – mostly at night, though it’s starting creeping into waking hours. We’re on our 3rd different treatment in a week. The doc seems to think it’s an “allergic” cough, so she got a nebulizer treatment of albuterol during this morning’s office visit, and we got to take home our very own nebulizer to do it twice a day at home too. And during dinner and the bedtime routine she’s been doing much better. But within 30 minutes of lights out, the coughing and struggling for breath started, and an hour later I’ve already been up twice. I’m not even sure I’m fully describing how bad this cough is to the doctor, although to her credit she seems to be doing everything and is definitely taking me seriously. Listening to your kid suffer, and being mostly powerless to help is hard. It sucks, actually. And because the worst of it is at night, none of us are getting much sleep, which is making me for one, very cranky.

Here’s hoping the coughing tonight is just getting the gunk in there stirred up to be done with it, and not a new manifestation of it all. I’d promise to never take good health for granted again, but I know I wouldn’t keep it – though right now I would do just about anything for one full night of sleep – for all three of us!

Happy Anniversary, K

Yesterday was my oldest daughter’s anniversary – we have been a family for exactly five years. I started out by calling this day “Gotcha Day”, which is a common term in adoption circles. But after listening to what many adult adoptees have to say about the term, I made a decision to stop using it. I mostly use “Family Day” to describe the day, but now that I have a second daughter, this seems somehow false. K was the one who started calling it an anniversary, and maybe that’s the best – it is the anniversary of the day we met, and it’s hers, and mine too. Later this year when we celebrate the first anniversary of the day my youngest daughter joined the family it will be her anniversary, and mine and K’s too. But of course we all celebrate them together.

We watched the video of the trip to China after dinner, which also includes photos and snippets of film from the next three years or so. K had what she calls “stick-up hair” when I first met her, and it’s now shoulder-length (with frequent cuts!). She’s grown in so many ways – I told her I wish her birth mother could see what a beautiful, sweet, smart, funny, wonderful person she’s turning into. K was sad to think her birthmother won’t recognize her without the stick-up hair. I didn’t mention that she likely never saw even that, as she had not lived with her for a little over a year when I adopted her. But I suggested she could write her a letter or draw her a picture and we could keep them if she ever wants to try to find her. My heart does break when I think of her — a mother without her child who probably has no idea whether her child is even alive, let alone where she is or how she is. We can only hope that someday the avenues will open and K can find her if she wants.

We celebrate a happy day every March 24th. Even though that date has no relation to my daughter’s birthmother, it is still a reminder, to me at least, that my gain was first the result of someone else’s loss.

I Want in!

OK,  so I’ve been reading various blogs now for about a year, as well as sporadically keeping my own. I kept one daily while in China adopting my youngest daughter last year, but once we got home I sorta let it fall by the wayside. Since then I’ve become an active lurker (is that an oxymoron?) on quite a few blogs, most of which I’ll probably add to my blogroll, if they aren’t there already.

But it seems as if most of the blogs I read regularly have more or less a theme – I read blogs that are about parenting, or about adoptive parenting, or about being an adoptee, or being a birth parent, or the effects of racism in this country. I am passionately interested in all these subjects (hence the reason I’m such an active reader of blogs on these topics of course!). And yet, I don’t feel I can or should identify with any of them. My life is very full as a single parent to two children adopted internationally and transracially, and that’s for sure fodder for lots of blog posts! But I’m also an avid fan of several TV shows, have a full time job that is mostly boring to outsiders, but which might feed a few posts now and then, and my relationship with my family of origin is full of tension. All very different things, and I can’t imagine leaving them out.

So, I’m drawing a line in the sand. Gonna start to try to post regulary – let’s start with an average of 4-5 times per week, and see if we can get to daily. It will mostly be for me, as a way to exercise my writing skills, mostly. And to explore my life. My parenting posts will be for my kids to read when they’re older to see how completely adorable and/or annoying they were at any given moment!

Off and running – I’m in!!