29 April 2006
it's the moon and stars
Snapshot:
One and Two are still sleeping, as befits their exalted status as teen and almost-teen.
Three is sitting at the "study table" in the corner of the family room, reading a Captain Underpants book which she is holding up with one hand. In the other hand she's holding a piece of paper which sometimes comes perilously close to Five's eye. The paper is helping him refrain from peeking at the Braille book he's reading. Braille is hard, and this book has huge print, which he can read, and pictures, which could also help. But he has Goals, and so he's manfully plowing through each page before peeking.
Four is playing Gameboy on the little red couch.
Six is strumming tunelessly (but not in his mind) on the junior guitar which was one of Five's birthday presents but which he (Five) is generously letting him (Six) play. He is on his second song, "Walls and doors, bad guys again, walls and doors, bad guys again" (repeat 6,000 times). His first song of the day was "It's the moon and stars, it's the moon and stars, it's the moon and stars" (repeat 10,000 times).
It's a wonderful Saturday morning here on my little planet.
One and Two are still sleeping, as befits their exalted status as teen and almost-teen.
Three is sitting at the "study table" in the corner of the family room, reading a Captain Underpants book which she is holding up with one hand. In the other hand she's holding a piece of paper which sometimes comes perilously close to Five's eye. The paper is helping him refrain from peeking at the Braille book he's reading. Braille is hard, and this book has huge print, which he can read, and pictures, which could also help. But he has Goals, and so he's manfully plowing through each page before peeking.
Four is playing Gameboy on the little red couch.
Six is strumming tunelessly (but not in his mind) on the junior guitar which was one of Five's birthday presents but which he (Five) is generously letting him (Six) play. He is on his second song, "Walls and doors, bad guys again, walls and doors, bad guys again" (repeat 6,000 times). His first song of the day was "It's the moon and stars, it's the moon and stars, it's the moon and stars" (repeat 10,000 times).
It's a wonderful Saturday morning here on my little planet.
rock hearted lady
Once upon a time, there was an old lady with a rock for a heart.
A tiny, shriveled up, nasty little rock for a heart.
She wants to have her walk around the neighborhood without having her eyes assaulted by any signs of life. The toys in the front yard offend her. "Don't you ever pick up that trash?" The sounds of jubilant playing outrage her. She's even chastised me for the barking of the across-the-street neighbor's dog.
She insists, insists, that we must be a "foster home," and an illegal one at that. She will not hear polite responses, neutral contradiction, or barely controlled outraged refusals to engage. She did get offended when the answer to her repeated question "How many of them are really yours--how many are in your family?" was "How many are in your family?" Shocked when the tables were turned, she spat, "Well! That's just rude!"
Transnational, transracial, adoptive parenting means that you make many decisions, daily, about how to manage the great unwashed. (Okay, she probably washes--but her mouth could use a little soap too, frankly.) Most of the time the intrusive or ugly questions or comments are at least partly grounded in ignorance. We in the adoption community forget that everybody else may not know the "proper" lingo--e.g., we don't call the children we birthed ourselves our "real" children and the children we adopt our "adopted" children. We call them all "our children," because that's what they are. Heck, I'm sometimes surprised when someone asks me where one or some of 'em were adopted from--I'm thinking, "Heyyyyy, wait a minute.....how did she know that they were adopted?" and then I remember that the different races might be a tiny clue. I just plain forget--I don't see their differences without focusing on it. So sometimes I answer awkwardly phrased questions with an assumption of good intentions.
Ahhhhh, but not the little rock-hearted lady. She's annoyed that this neighborhood of three and four bedroom homes has been invaded by--gasp!--actual messy noisy non-rock children (I can only assume she's not going around confronting the owners of lawn statuary, but I wouldn't put it past her). She wants the neighborhood to look like a retirement home, or a resort, or a graveyard when she totters along on her morning walk. She is going to complain about what she assumes is our "unlicensed foster home" (which is, of course, not terribly veiled code for--"Horrors! There are black children in my field of vision!") to the Homeowner's Association.
Bring it on. Mama's pissed.
A tiny, shriveled up, nasty little rock for a heart.
She wants to have her walk around the neighborhood without having her eyes assaulted by any signs of life. The toys in the front yard offend her. "Don't you ever pick up that trash?" The sounds of jubilant playing outrage her. She's even chastised me for the barking of the across-the-street neighbor's dog.
She insists, insists, that we must be a "foster home," and an illegal one at that. She will not hear polite responses, neutral contradiction, or barely controlled outraged refusals to engage. She did get offended when the answer to her repeated question "How many of them are really yours--how many are in your family?" was "How many are in your family?" Shocked when the tables were turned, she spat, "Well! That's just rude!"
Transnational, transracial, adoptive parenting means that you make many decisions, daily, about how to manage the great unwashed. (Okay, she probably washes--but her mouth could use a little soap too, frankly.) Most of the time the intrusive or ugly questions or comments are at least partly grounded in ignorance. We in the adoption community forget that everybody else may not know the "proper" lingo--e.g., we don't call the children we birthed ourselves our "real" children and the children we adopt our "adopted" children. We call them all "our children," because that's what they are. Heck, I'm sometimes surprised when someone asks me where one or some of 'em were adopted from--I'm thinking, "Heyyyyy, wait a minute.....how did she know that they were adopted?" and then I remember that the different races might be a tiny clue. I just plain forget--I don't see their differences without focusing on it. So sometimes I answer awkwardly phrased questions with an assumption of good intentions.
Ahhhhh, but not the little rock-hearted lady. She's annoyed that this neighborhood of three and four bedroom homes has been invaded by--gasp!--actual messy noisy non-rock children (I can only assume she's not going around confronting the owners of lawn statuary, but I wouldn't put it past her). She wants the neighborhood to look like a retirement home, or a resort, or a graveyard when she totters along on her morning walk. She is going to complain about what she assumes is our "unlicensed foster home" (which is, of course, not terribly veiled code for--"Horrors! There are black children in my field of vision!") to the Homeowner's Association.
Bring it on. Mama's pissed.
