Uncategorized « American Family

The Dark Decade, the Sweet Spot and Undesirable Number One

This week, M will turn nine. NINE. As in, half way to the end of my legal parenting responsibility for her. I know it is hard to believe, but I am not one of those parents who gets all verklempt about my babies growing up.

Except this time, I am. How can my baby be NINE? How can I be half way done having her in my house?

It was nearly 10 years ago that I got pregnant. I was not one of those glowy happy pregnant ladies. Again, I imagine you are all just shocked to hear this…. I was cranky and annoyed. I was also struggling with the unplannedness of my pregnancy and the many ways it destroyed life as I knew it at age 26.

As for the baby and toddler years, you can imagine how I felt about those. I think I was the original creator of the term “baby jail”. Babies and toddlers and preschoolers, Jesus, they are exhausting. The burden ensuring the survival of such small people chafed. They were like two little monkeys hanging on my every word and move. All I wanted was SPACE and FREEDOM and please God, QUIET.

I look at my friends who still have young babies and I thank my lucky stars we started earlier and now those baby days are long past. As happy as I was to have my lovely girls, I tend to think of those early years as the Dark Decade. Much of the time I was just holding on by the skin of my teeth.

But now, my little girls are not little. Next year, come hell or high water, L will be in kindergarten (though possibly only half day…I will spare you my sturm und drang about the possibility that she won’t get into the full day program). Suddenly, I have space and freedom and quiet. Or at least I have those things often enough that I don’t go bonkers.

And my girls are actually turning into little people. Pleasant little people who I actual enjoy having around.

I can also look ahead and see the writing on the wall. It won’t be long before my girls don’t really want to hang out with me any more. I know the time is coming when I will be Undesirable Number One.

I keep thinking about getting a job, but I always get hung up on missing their summer vacation. We had so much fun last year, I don’t want to miss a single minute of it.

Today, someone on Facebook mentioned being in the parenting sweet spot. I agree, that is where I am too.

These are the sweetest days of parenting for me. I can’t imagine it being better than this.

SDS

Ever since we moved in, we have had a problem with our garage. That problem’s name is Animals.

When we first took possession of the house, I spent an entire day shoveling a large trashcan full of poop out of every disgusting crevasse and corner. Then we disinfected and painted the whole thing. Then, I blocked off every opening that was big enough to permit raccoons* or squirrels to enter the garage. I even went as far as sprinkling some kind of coyote pee around the garage in an attempt to scare the squirrel away.

I thought the problem was solved. HAHAHAHA. My house laughs at my naivete.

The fucking squirrel is back. It has created a little back door entrance to it’s stupid nut storage facility in the garage soffit by chewing a small hole along the gutter. It drops down from the walnut tree on to the roof, then stores all it’s walnuts there.

I have had it with the animals in the garage, but I am also managing the kitchen remodel situation, so I set Mr. A to work on it. When I told him to take care of the squirrels was for him to call the pest control people. Instead, he has decided to take them on himself.

Mr. A has created what he calls the Squirrel Defense System (SDS). I admit, I have my doubts about the SDS. It involves the following:

Mothballs jammed into the soffit, supposedly to stink the squirrel out. Apparently the squirrel doesn’t mind the stink, but I think it smells TERRIBLE.
A strobe light that is intended to be so annoying the squirrel can’t sleep. Strangely, Mr. A chose to mount this in the middle of the garage where I have never, ever seen the squirrel sleeping. He has also mis-set the timer so it is blinking all day instead of at night. The squirrel does not seem to mind it at all.
A live trap baited with peanutbutter in a tunafish can.

I had the most hope for the trap. So far, we caught one chipmunk…twice. We also attracted a raccoon which stole the tuna fish can out of the trap without setting it off. Then, when Mr. A set the same trap up on the roof near the hole, the raccoon managed to climb onto the garage roof, rip off a number of gutter guard/screens and remove the tuna fish can before dropping the cage on the ground.

It does not appear that the squirrel has any interest in the trap. He does seem to be mocking our efforts though. Once we set the trap, he has been leaving us walnuts in very obvious places. He left one on the back porch steps. He left on right in the middle of the back patio. He left on on the front porch railing. He left on in the basement window well. Everywhere we go, there are very poorly hidden walnuts taunting us.

Last night, Mr. A moved the trap to the garage. This morning, I found the trap was sprung, but empty. It also had a huge pile of old walnut shells dumped right on top of it.

I swear, I heard the squirrel laughing.

*Is the plural of raccoon just raccoon? Because spellcheck is adamantly opposing that s on the end there

If you thought THAT was crossing the line…

Sorry, I would share these bon bons I am eating, but unfortunately I am neck deep in bullshit right here and can’t get up.

Seriously, I was letting it go, really I was, but then you had to go and call me sophisticated and said I have an air of superority.. Damn, sophisticated? I was shooting for sarcastic.

Before I go on, I know there are a lot of new readers here. Readers who are very very interested in the fact that we found our daughter’s birth family in China. I write about that. I spill my fucking guts here about how HARD it has been. And it is. It is really really hard. But if you want rainbows and butterflies, this blog is not for you. First of all, I am and have always been sarcastic and snarky.

Do you see that Kind Blog badge over there on my sidebar? No? It is because I don’t give a rat’s ass if you think I am a big old meanie.

This is the story of the most important thing I have ever done in my entire life: Giving our daughter access to the family she was ripped away from. Sharing our daughter with a family who lost their much-loved child. Embracing total strangers from another culture and making them a part of our family.

I am telling our story here because I know we are at the beginning of a long, long line of adoptive parents and Chinese adoptees who are going to be walking this same path. Our story is important and I sacrifice our privacy because people need to know that searching and reunion is no red-thread, rainbows and butterflies fairy tale.

I read all this adoptive parent bullshit and it makes me cringe. Should we light a candle to honor our daughter’s birthfamily on her birthday? How should we honor our child’s birthmother on Mother’s Day? Reading “I love you like Crazy Cakes” and idealizing this fantasy birth mother conveniently on the other side of the planet.

Honor my ass.

I have spent the last few days reading excuse after excuse about why people don’t want to search.

You can’t search because you have to fucking wash your kids’ socks? Please. Let me be there when you explain that to you adult child. I would love to show them the statlog of how many times you have clicked on my blog in the past 24 hours.

And how much time do you think searching took me? I think I averaged about one hour a MONTH total calling our translator, composing emails to our contacts, collecting documents. I spent some extra time googling stuff because I enjoy it and I am good at it, but I still do that now to help out other people who are searching. But the actual in the trenches searching, the time it took was negligible. The most dedicated searching adoptive mom I know is a single working mom with two (soon to be three) kids. If anyone doesn’t have time, SHE doesn’t have time.

The people who say they would search but can’t afford it? You can’t google? You can’t trade some english practice with a chinese speaker for some translation assistance? You can’t cut back on one soccer league season or a few dinners out to pay for a searcher? You found $20,000 to pay for an adoption when it was YOUR priority.

The way adoptive parents “listen to adult adoptees” when it suits their own agenda? Well, HERE is an adult adoptee who is calling these aparents on the shenanigans I have been reading for the next few days. Who is quoting her? And HERE is a comment from an adult adoptee (SangShil) saying she would trade the choice to search for any information about her birth family that could have been found when the trail was fresh.

I have seen adoptive parents break out in HIVES when I told them I was searching. I know families in reunion whose children’s friends’ adoptive parent will no longer let them play together because they don’t want their kids to know finding Chinese birth families are possible. You get squicky about searching and you think you can shelter your kids from the fact that it is possible? Well, you are fooling yourselves.

We are out here. We are coming to your FCC, your adoption playgroups, your kid’s classroom. Our kids will have pictures of their birth families on their 1st grade family trees. Your kids and my kids will go to Chinese heritage camp together. When you tell them you can’t search for their birth families in China, they will know you are lying. When you tell them you are too busy? They will know you really just didn’t want to be bothered.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some good reasons not to search. Reasons like “I don’t want to” or ” I am not ready” or “I can’t commit to maintaining a relationship on my child’s behalf.” And I swear to you, I DON’T WANT YOU TO SEARCH because I don’t answer to YOUR kids. I answer to MINE.

But giving these bullshit excuses? You denigrate the SACRED RESPONSIBILITY we have as adoptive parents to put our children’s best interests in front of our own convenience and desires. You insult the intelligence of adoptees who will see through these excuses and have to pretend they believe it was all about them. You dishonor the love both my daughter’s families have for her to struggle on this journey together.

Because you don’t have enough TIME? What the fuck ever.

The Dark Decade, the Sweet Spot and Undesirable Number One

SDS

If you thought THAT was crossing the line…

Brilliant Blogs

Friends and Neighbors

Categories