Mama C and the Boys

Our New Blog Address: Unveiled.

2010-01-10T11:28:00.005-05:00

MamaCandtheBoys Second Edition.
Leaping to our new home.

Enter (click) here.

A big request to those of you who have been so generous as to include me on your
blogroll-can you please update to this address?
http://mamacandtheboys.com

A Retrospective

2010-01-09T19:16:00.003-05:00

Impossible to pick my favorites.
Good, the bad and the ugly?
(Behavior or parenting or both?)

Besides, that is why I am writing the book. So you don't have to scroll backwards in time to relive all your favorite Mama C mishaps.

This blog is my co-parent.
My witness.
My confessor.
My ally.

Building an audience has been like saying your are going to have a reunion and having new members of your extended family calling everyday to say; I'm there.

I'll repost this post at the new home, to build my roots there.

I spent the day getting a crash course in html, font kits, cascading style sheets (makes it sound so pretty) and patience thanks to my brother. He is also the one who taught me how to drive stick shift twenty-five years ago. This was easier on both of us. Chain Bridge Road up hill at rush hour in the rain in Washington, D.C. The man personifies patience.

Mama C and the Boys First Edition-Posts Of Note

1. Buy Paper Plates-the essay that started it all. Action in the form of flying slippers and my perceived not so eventual demise. One mom, two kids. Oh dear. (First published in SMC quarterly, effectively launching my professional writing career.)

2. For Posterity's Sake- I interview Sam. He tells you all you really need to know.

3. Living with an 18 year old. I decide to pull some from one daycare and back into another because he insisted. Blog as co-parent at end of day. Best part-listening to him turned out to be the right choice.

4. Divine. Convertible and sun glasses. Check it.

5. He's Got the Whole World. The rewards of listening to Sam (for those of you who like happy endings!)

6. Ghost Story. On birth parent's real and imagined. One of my favorites.

7-8-9. Rage and adoption and other light observations: Open Fist and You are not my real mom take one and two.

10. On a lighter side--some singing turkeys to close with.

Packing it up.

2010-01-08T18:55:00.005-05:00

Official unveiling of the new Mama C and the Boys home this Sunday.

A fare-the-well blogspot, you've seen us at our best list of my favorite posts from the last two years to be posted shortly.

Sam is busy preparing the dance floor in the new virtual playroom.

I have been honored this week with being featured on the blog of the aforementioned ultimate in adoption resources Adoption Mosaic, as a blog not to be missed. (See their shout out here.) You can also reread my now signature piece, Black Enough, featured as the poem of the week on the literary blog devoted to women writers of color- Color Online today. Huge appreciation and gratitude to both of these sites for their ongoing recognition, encouragement, and support of my voice and work.

I have been drafted for the post dinner soccer game between the polar bears and the tigers. Face painting Friday at school and Uncle's fabulous Friday Night rice and beans and frog gut guacamole has us all wound up!

Le Jour de Roi et des dot coms!

2010-01-08T06:19:00.004-05:00

The Islanders celebrating Le Jour De Roi.
Haiti on the left, Guadeloupe on the right.
E by way of her parents, me by way of my mother and maternal grandparents
claim our Jour de Roi-ness

The hats we used last year only fit our heads.
Sammy's rested at an angle, while Marcel's looked
more like a bracelet.

Uncle started from scratch.

Quiche Lorraine (also know as cheesy-pie for those
who would prefer to only eat cheese + pie)
and Eddie's Galllette des Roi.

King for the day?
We shared the title of the Gifter of the Magic
as we toasted a new blogdom about to be unveiled
with her design and help.

The song of the night; Mama's got a brand new Dot Com!

Official unveilling on Sunday.
Sneak previews for our loyal readers here.

Mama C's Manuscript, Marcel's Desert and Honeysmoke

2010-01-06T21:21:00.007-05:00

Today I received a slick, 168 page, indexed and bound copy of my manuscript. Well, a draft of it. I ordered this blog from inception to my Solstice post through the blog2book arm of Sharedbooks. I paid over $60.00 clams, and it was well worth every one. They lay it out in a very satisfying way, and include almost all the images (no rhyme or reason as to why a few were omitted). It looks like a book, smells like a book, and Sam just about bust a gut seeing it on the counter; "Mom your book is published already?"

How much do I love the fact that Sam knows the word published, and attaches it to me so freely?

I explained to him that it is a draft of the book that will be coming eventually.

"When? By my next birthday?" he asked.

So here it is: the beginning of the story of how Mama C becomes a published memoirist too. I am going to blog about the stages of turning my blog into a book. Of what I add, what I take out. Of how I write my proposal, and how I decide who to send it to. I'll attach rejection letters, and words of praise. I will chronicle the process here, so that I can document how it came to pass, and what I learned from the process so others can benefit, contribute, caution and support the odyssey. In my new blog I've already started a category called Mama C the Book to organize the trip there. I thought putting it out here to you, my faithfuls would hold me to it even more than my own thrill at the prospect has thus far.

+++

My review of Mike Tauber and Pamela's Singh's Blended Nation is enjoying a new home on the blog Honeysmoke as of this evening. I encourage you to check out her blog, as it has been a source of real inspiration to me of late, for content and format alike.

+++

Dry.
Completely.
Marcel.
All day.
While wearing big boy pants!
(As in underwear for the gleefully uninitiated in potty training.)

Translation: I am very nearly
the mother of two
non disposable undergarment wearing
children.

Translation: more money every month,
and my strolls down that aisle in the grocery store
will be limited to the occasional bottle of Pedialtye
from here on out.

Amen.

Odd ducks, Goats, Wise men, and the Anti-Racists Who Love Them

2010-01-04T20:29:00.004-05:00

Mom: Marcel you are an odd duck.

Marcel: No I'm not.

Mom: Yes dear you are an odd duck.

Marcel: No Mom I am not a duck!

( I happen to believe he knows what odd means, or else it is not so funny.)

+++

Marcel: Uh oh peh-tea-goat.

Mom: What's a peh tea goat?

Sam (my Marcel translator) : spaghetti-o Mom!

+++

While rinsing Sam's hair in the bath as he is laying back the length of the tub he says;

"Mom is this what it felt like when you washed my hair as a baby?"

"Yes," I say smiling slow across my face in a soft way. His smile mirrors mine as he replies;

"When you smile like that I remember being your baby too."

+++

Blog update: I am weighing a zillion options. I won't bore you with them here. My designer/art student/all things fresh and clean guru forbids me from revealing any more details until we work things out a bit more. I want your input. She insists that I wait.

+++

Incredible resource that I would challenge you all to read on Love Isn't Enough website on how to be an Anti Racist Ally. I have printed it out and put it by my bed because it feels that important to me. There is also a conversation after the post where one of my comments invites all sorts of responses. I felt attacked. I felt ashamed. Then I responded from my experience. The conversation that ensues could be another blog entry somewhere... One of the women who came to my "defense" has another transracial via adoption family blog that might be of interest to many here.

Growing Pains

2010-01-03T08:47:00.005-05:00

Like a child I am feeling the after effects of being exposed to CHANGE
and GROWTH last night. I am over tired, cranky and unsure of myself today.

As the old timers know, Mama C is looking at a new home for this blog.

With the help of the magnificent E we visited some a very promising spaces, and pictured where we'd put the kids room, my writer's desk and the like. The boys would have so much room to play there, and I could expand in all the directions I crave.

Then this morning, waking up in my comfy little Blogger bed, I hear myself asking, isn't this enough?

Sigh. Change is good I tell the kids all the time, allows us to grow, even if we're not sure of ourselves at first. Not all choices are the right choice. It is what we make of it that matters. Blah, blah, blah!

I promised myself and the kids I'd not be stuck to this keyboard today, on our last day of winter break. So I entreat your patience new friends, and loyal readers alike. A day to consider, and a day of play is what this hot diggety-digger mama and her boys need.

Gulp.

Teetering and Outgrown?

2010-01-02T07:05:00.008-05:00

When Sam sat on this teeter
totter. He proclaimed; "Mom this
is too small for me now."
I had to ask him, if perhaps he wasn't too big for it?

I am feeling same about this Blogger format.
Not that I am too big for it,
but perhaps the format is no longer the right one for my
blogger/writer aspirations.

This blog has been my life line this year especially.
What has emerged out of this year of writing here is:

1. The more I write, the more I write.

2. My mainly free verse style is most conducive to my voice on most topics.

3. Adoption, race, single parenting, transracial parenting, and reflection are the areas that feed this blog, and my thinking the most. But there are others too.

4. I have a book to publish, and it came in large part from this blog, and the first five years of my parenting. Sharing that process, and how I get there from here feels important too.

5. Sam's fifth birthday was a marker in ways for both of us I haven't begun to understand. So it feels like a natural launching point-and stopping point for the first book (single parent/choice parent parenting, open adoption, race, transracial family and all that means for starters)

6. You, the reader, are now part of my daily consciousness.

7. Inviting your comments/feedback in an easier way feels increasingly necessary to me.

So tonight Eddie, Sage and I are going to work together and look at what I am imagining, and where that might lead me. Uncle will have the boys, and we'll hole up in some cozy inspiring wifi environment and consider: Can I stay here, and use it differently? Do I need two blogs? Would another format meet my needs, and feel like the reader can navigate to areas of importance to them more easily? Hiring a twenty-two year old art student to set me up for my next blog chapter feels like an arrival all ready!

I am a Pisces. We have an amazing year ahead of us according to my favorite astrological report and the twelve year in the waiting return of Neptune apparently.

Stay tuned, and fear not. If we leap-you will be able to get there from here, and the two sites I have been assured will be able to link together in all sorts of ways.

If you have an opinion, or expertise you'd like to share on the matter please do.

If you see me not budging an inch, it is because those two fish are always swimming in opposite directions!

To following the right fish!

Mama C

A Decade in Review (in less then ten sentences).

2009-12-31T11:32:00.019-05:00

1999-Leave New York City for an island in Maine.

2000-Begin my teaching career.

2001-Organize first of five annual week long artists retreat on a lake with five amazing women.

2002-Buy my first home on the mainland.

2003-Decide to become a choice mom.

2004-Welcome Sam into my life.

2005-Publish my first piece in a magazine.

2006-Commit to being a writer as well as teacher and a mom.

2007-Welcome Marcel into our lives.

2008-Voted for a president who won!

2009-Put Mama C and the Boys on the map, published ten times.

Thank you to one an all for being part of this amazing decade.

* And thank you to Honeysmoke for the inspiration for this decade-in-review post and it's design:
http://www.honeysmoke.com/

The Language of Love

2009-12-30T14:31:00.007-05:00

I can't keep all this sweetness to myself.
Marcel woke our first morning home full of
joy and brotherly love.

Here he delights in the sounds and the mastery of his own instrumentation.

Consider this your New Year's Baby from MamaC.

It was either that or my big mug wishing you all a laughter filled
New Years. (One of my big goals, is more laughter-for me-of me-around me.)

They say VLOGGING is the new blogging.
I say reading is still something one enjoys doing on occasion.

I am in my "what will I manifest in 2010?" mode.

I have two days to myself, after eight days solid with the boys.
I started with a hot stone massage.
When you create space in the body, it's amazing
how much space opens up outside the body,
my magical masseuse/healer/visionary guru and dear friend Sage offered.

I left there seeing my manuscript writing itself,
a gym membership landing in my lap with the time to
use it, and the key to the perfect and affordable writer's studio
handed to me by March.

Then I imagined myself in a nourishing relationship.

I walked home slower then I have placed one foot in front of the other in years.

Adoption Mosaic--A Model for All

2009-12-29T07:57:00.002-05:00

The Adoption Mosaic newsletter is out, and ready to be downloaded. You can reach it and them through my link on the right under "Mama C in Print" as they included "Black Enough" in the Winter Edition! But as much as I am fond of self promotion, that is not why I am writing about them here. In their own words :

Adoption Mosaic is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization providing educational resources and ongoing support to all those whose lives are influenced by adoption. We provide pre-adoption support and post adoption support through adoption readiness trainings, transracial adoption workshops, adoptee and community movie nights, our adoption blog, book reviews, movie reviews and much much more.

Based in Portland, Oregon they are providing a model for what the adoption community should expect, demand, and commit to world wide in my humble opinion. I can't imagine how much more connected and supported I would feel if we had an events calendar like this to look forward to:

January 2010

January 3 - African-American Hair Care (part 1 0f 3)
January 12 - Movie Group – Adult adoptees only
January 23 & 24 - Adoption Readiness
January 23 - Strengthening Attachment with Your Child (Ages 6 and younger)
January 23 ~ Youth Activity Group – Parent Orientation
January 25 ~ Youth Activity Group – 6 week series begins (Grades 1 – 6)
January 17 -African-American Hair Care (part 2 0f 3)
January 30 ~ What & When: Talking with Your Child About Adoption
January 30 ~ Lifestory Books – Every Child Has a History
January 31 - African-American Hair Care (part 3 0f 3)

In addition to all of the above is their thought provoking blog, and resource rich quarterly newsletter. I feel as if A.M. is a constant affirmation to all of us in the adoption mosiac of what we should, could and can expect in the way of dialogue, community, connection, and education. With this kind of resource and think tank as a model it ups the anti and importance of the day to day work we are all doing already.

So check them out, spread the word, and offer them your feedback, praise and ideas! I have also noticed on one of their calendars of programs they have co-hosted in other cities as well. So don't let the location stop you, if you are an East Coaster for example.

Thank you to Tara Kim for introducing me to the organization, and for including my poem in their newsletter as well as a handout for their African-American Hair Care event!

Living Large

2009-12-28T22:55:00.003-05:00

I love this photo.

What a magnificent image of Sam at five, Sam and I.

We're home safe.

The boys were remarkable travelers.

Strangers were kind, help was abundant.

Uncle retrieved us from the airport

and had a feast waiting for the weary trio-

what a gift.

(In the car waiting for Uncle to put the suitcase

in as I buckle him in Sam announces;

Mom that was the best time-

I am so happy still!

I kiss his head and reply,

You couldn't have said anything to make me happier.)

Unpacking is one of my joys.

Reliving the week in folded pieces,

and play dough canisters tucked in winter boots.

Sam's birth mother's birthday present was waiting

on the kitchen table.

Transformer pajamas, two DVD's, and a five one dollar bills.

An envelope full of family pictures,

and the card.

"I love you very much, and I always will."

What a gift.

Of course to myself I am thinking;

you wouldn't have loved the way he

just tackled his little brother...

I want to text her immediately and thank her

and tell her that he loves the pajamas

(and not tell her they were a little small,

and how I am secretly OK with that, as if

somehow that shows that she is not

completely in sync with everything

about him, although

damn close) but I wait.

I need time to land too.

I notice the floor in dire need of a wash,

the draft blasting in from the window,

and the hole in my quilt that looks

even bigger somehow.

Sam asks if our toilet got lower

to the ground, as Marcel

runs around with the one stuffed animal

he managed not to bring with us

in his arms.

Everything is perfect in the homecoming

light.

Sam asks if he can eat in my lap.

Marcel wants to sit next to Uncle.

I can't believe how lovely the man next to Sam

was on the plane the entire way home.

We are all soft around the edges.

Lists start to write themselves;

thank you notes,

grading,

bank,

grocery,

call someone about this,

and ask someone about that,

and then I look at them

and all of us

and I relax-

because we made it home in one piece-

and we are all amazing and

this is enough.

Wisdom of the Ages

2009-12-28T07:43:00.000-05:00

When Marcel can't communicate his needs

he falls to the ground and gives in to the primal

release of frustration and anger.

Fists and feet pounding.

At forty-one I do the same thing, but instead of the floor

I take it out on myself through constant

internal doubt laden

comment and questioning.

I prefer the Marcel model.

As a highly verbal child with a relatively clued in Mama
he has less and less opportunity for
such dissolution into his emotional flooring.

As a highly verbal and communicative
woman/daughter/mother/sister/friend
it is remarkable how much I could learn from Marcel.

Houston We Have Landed

2009-12-26T08:46:00.002-05:00

He did it.
His first overnight a grand success.
Just spoke to the small voice, in the large boy.
Mommy where are you?
Have some breakfast young man. I am so proud of you.
OK.
And then call me when you are ready for me to come pick you up.
OK.

Thank you G & G for guiding him to the top of this star safely.
I am well rested, as Marcel calls it all;
Mommy I'm ready to see Sammy now.

To Nana last night I confess;
I didn't realize how hard it would be to let Sammy find his
independence.
She nods with understanding, having raised two boys too.

A night apart gave me needed light and lightness.
A night apart gave me the space to see
how much I have been dragging him in,
while he has been pulling away.

I can see the earth more clearly from the moon.

Air and Space

2009-12-25T20:44:00.003-05:00

We took to the air.
We conquered space.

Seat 12 A finds Sam alone with Mama and Marcel
behind, marvelling at how my almost five
has already claimed air travel as his own-
while I try to keep Houdini at two
from the call button, again.

Washington, D.C. landing at night
lights large on merrily lit lawns.
Keeping tired eyes wide
the entire ride to Nana's house we go.

Waking to birthday balloons
jelly donuts and the promise of a day
devoted to being high and five.

Birthdays are for adoptees either of epic import
or stuffed under the carpet hushed for another year
Sam falls under the first category:
airplane+bowling alley+pizza party meet the bill.

I can be an astronaut
as he places his flag in the new moon of his independence.
Tonight this explorer is on his first overnight
with Grampy and Grammy Bear-Bear and Blankie,
I'm here with the co-pilot and
Nana navigating a lift off of another direction.
Marcel lands so softly in my heart these days.

The territory that I am fogged in again is the familiar
ground of dissapointment unwrapped.
Being fourteen wrapped in forty-one.

Motherhood is a gravitational pull
though not always pulling me to the mother I want to be
in a yoga pose, sleep deprived on the warm carpet before
the waiting tree I promise myself
space to let this be enough-for once.

Unpaired and Prepared

2009-12-21T06:18:00.001-05:00

Solstice.
Incremental return to light.
A five year old on the horizon.
A packed suitcase and two copied birth
certificates on the ready.
Imminent flight.

Single Mother by Choice
or circumstance we are
Unpaired and prepared
for travel and arrival and
the getting there.
Daily.

Hats of to us at the holidays
ladies as we make it as big
or as small as they require.
Stoking the fire in the hearths
of our intentional
families.

Short haired with a vision.
On a mission to collect
the day in keystrokes.

Stronger at forty-one then at
forty. A soccer mom not becuase
I take them there, but because I join
them there on the basement floor
where I have the moves flying
by Sam scoring with precision
as Marcel yells GOAL Mommy!
Discovering alone while Uncle is away
the autonomy I need is not in the dishwater
or on the screen, but in the score
of 3 to O.

Every day an incremental
return to the light.

Hairless and Hepless living with Hip

2009-12-19T15:19:00.014-05:00

Music is Sam's passion.
For his birthday-an ipod nano shuffle
loaded with his twenty favorite songs
and a special decibel limiting head set.
(Who knew ear buds didn't fit little people's ears?
Thankfully I had him open this present a few
days before we got on the plane. Uncle saved the day
with a pre departure swing to the Apple store
with nephew to re-fit the nano's listening device.)
Now he spends hours moon walking in footy pajamas
to MJ, Madonna, Outkast, The Jackson Five,
Stevie Wonder, and Jack Johnson.

He earns an i-tune download every few days for
remarkable feats of Sam-ness.
He ballroom dances with his friends at school,
and leaves a gaggle of adults speechless.
He has never seen ballroom dancing,
but he appears to have been taking lessons for years.

I played the cello in middle school.
I saw Annie Lennox in concert before she was the Eurythmics.
I pressed my ear to the floor
that was my brother's ceiling downstairs
to fall asleep to Simon and Garfunkle, and Bonnie Rait.
I went to the bands my friends started in college.
I go to bands my friends started in middle age.
I haven't initiated a musical choice in my life.
I listen because I am invited to.

Living with this new generation musician
may or may not change this.

I am trying to invite musical intelligence into my life.

Like this morning-
sitting in the chair,
watching my hair fall to the ground,
(Pixie style? She asked.
I want it off. I said.)
I did not tense up when she began the conversation.
Of course I couldn't remember anything I listened to.
Doves, Ya Ya Ya's, Muse and Metric
are her current faves.

I write these down
in the little hard bound
blank book I keep in my pocket
for such occasions.
I have been carrying that
little book again.
This is a good sign.

It amuses her I think-
that I am curious what she listens to.

Last week I asked my 6-8th graders to tell me their top three songs.
I am compiling a list, suddenly curious
what my students are listening to.
I spent the afternoon watching their choices on You Tube.

Two words sum up the recurring themes: apocalypse and romance:

Yankee Daddy
Lady Gaga
Mario
New Boyz
Bad Boyz
Cupid
Beyonce
Rihanna
Justin Bieber and
and Lil Wayne

We do listen to Chopin before bed.
Jim gave me the CD when I asked him to get the boys
some good classical music next time
he was in his basement of freebies.
(For a non musical person, I am surrounded by DJ's,
musicians, composers and the like.)

Annie Lennox taught Lady Gaga everything she knows in my opinion.
Luckilly no one is ever going to ask me for my opinion.

History in the Texting Part II

2009-12-15T18:42:00.008-05:00

Around this time
each year there is a flurry of activity
in our communication.

At first it was letters.
Then it was calls.
Then emails.

Now, Sam's birth mother and I text each other.

Texting is short, less direct, and safe:
for both of us.

The flurry is attributed to Sam's birthday
and Christmas.

Both of these holidays are important to her, too.

The last flurry of texts:
shirt/pant/shoe size
if Sam had Monsters and Aliens, the movie.

(I google it quickly, read the preview
is it something I will be able to support?
The eighty-six foot tall blonde protagonist
scares me, but I say "no he doesn't" and reply.)

I ask what books her kids are reading.
What they are doing that interests them.

I warn her that what Sam picked out for her
was well, something she might not want to wear
out of the house.

OK, LOL she replies.

Will she choose to wear a gaudy
necklace out?
Will she explain who sent it?
Where does the ink to that story land?

It was five years ago that we all met in the hospital
room, twice. Then once in her house on our
way to the airport to say goodbye.

I felt loose with her this time.
Light even. So I venture into
new territory. Leave the familiar
warn down chips of the
polite, semi-formal well
establish path,
and venture to new ground;

It was five years ago
this week that I got the call
that you had chosen me.
We have been talking about
that a lot.

Send.

That was the hardest
thing ever.
There was so many people
2 go through.

Received.

I gasp.
I picture it-on her couch.
Her pregnant with a pile of profiles.
Mine in there somewhere.
Did mine stick out a little
with it's horizontal orientation?

Imagining her turning each page,
picturing a little version of
herself inserted into each family
portrait.

But, I can't imagine
the meaning
of hardest in that text.

I feel the gratitude that she shared this with me.
In a text, that I can save here.

(She chose me because I was the
most like her
I was told.)

We were both-
single.
She wanted to be a-
teacher.
She liked to read-
plays.

I did too.

Whoa. Sam and I like to
say that he helped you choose
me. I am so thrilled you
made the crazy choice you did.
He is my pride and joy.

Send.

Then I quickly follow with;

We love you so much.

Send.

I love you guys 2 :-]
Go to bed lol. It's
late over there.

Received.

Tears from the Royal Family: Ode to Ti & Naveen

2009-12-13T20:23:00.005-05:00

We were all crying at the end-for different reasons.

E the older was crying because as a twenty-one year old Haitian woman
seeing a gorgeous hard working brown skinned princess on the screen-
opened up so many years of not seeing herself up there.
With Marcel sleeping in her arms, she cries because these boys
who are her boys too-won't know what it's like
to be invisible in Disney's World.

E the younger was crying for the loss of Ray,
and all the sadness his passing opened up in her little
compassionate five year old soul. Her mother guiding
her to the gentle message there-of fireflies into stars everywhere.

Sam was crying, because movies do that.
Evoke. Even if he didn't know why.
Maybe crying at something so much larger then you
when you are almost five.

Shadow Man was so scary that
he hid behind his home made tiara-mask that he and little E
created for the event. His brown eyes seeing his brown eyes
through glitter lined holes, filtering the fear.

I was crying too.
Funny how never seeing yourself as a princess girl-
keeps you from yearning for a certain kind of charming.
Drawn more often to the shadow of a man.

Mama Odie tell us to dig a little deeper
to find what you need.
Ray's in love with the evening star,
and my sons can now be the president and the prince.

+++

Note: A more measured take on the film may follow.

Black and White

2009-12-11T20:41:00.002-05:00

This is an oddly perfect picture of us.

(And if you have the dubious distinction of being on our

holiday card mailing list, you'll get the hard copy

as soon as Snapfish says so.)

The best part was that I ushered us all on the floor

the other day for an inspired;

"Hey lets make our holiday card right now" moment

and it worked on one try.

I have a feeling 2010 is going to be the decade of making things

work like that more often, because my first forty years of trying

to be perfect did not yield much in the way of perfection.

It is the parts that were not what I intended

that have turned out the best.

I had another piece that you read here first accepted for publication

today-- the Shades of People book review-at Adoptive Families Magazine.)

That brings my number of pieces published or accepted for publication
to a total of nine this year, not including a podcast scheduled for
January or February on Mixed Chicks Chat. My goal was five.
Give yourselves credit readers for giving me the lift, the incentive,
and the feedback to keep at it.

Happy Hanukkah, Princess and the Frog Opening
in most of the country, and above all
Happy Eve of Anticipatory Motherhood to me.
December 12th, 2004 was when I got "the call".
Sam was born, and in my arms less than two weeks later.

Self Portrait by Sam

2009-12-10T06:37:00.003-05:00

This is why Brown Santa Man is getting him a camera.

He took this yesterday-after sledding.

He loved it-and asked me to post it.

Not just any camera--the Argus Bean-in green.

Not mentioning it here to promote it--but to warn you away

from those "my first camera" numbers by Playschool and the like.

According to this budding pho-tog you can't see a thing in those-

the screen looks like a muddy puddle-and what kid wants that?

Argus Bean clips on to anything, is water proof, indestructible,

and has rechargable batteries.

Breakthrough on Ice

2009-12-09T23:02:00.008-05:00

I slip on my green slippers with the pom poms and sneak into the kitchen to make the instant coffee.

It is a snow day. I am not full of joy for the day off. I wanted to go to work. This tells me that I am more off balance then I thought.

A few hours later I am sledding down a hill in a blizzard with Marcel in my lap pausing from the crying long enough

to holler in delight

and Sam holding onto the back of the sled

laughing his butt off.

We are there with a new friend and her daughter.

Soon we give in to the ice pellets on raw skin

and trudge back home to thaw with hot cocoa,
popcorn and ugly decorated cookies.

My new friend admires my home, my children.
Her daughter looks like I did as a girl, with her square jaw
and wispy bangs.
Girl energy in my house is balancing.
I realize I still long for that daughter too.

I remember the one I lost at thirteen weeks,
and the message on the machine identifying the tissue as female.
Her fantasy name: Dixie. Meryl Dixie Junior Girl Dale actually.

I like being reminded of her, and what it felt like to carry
all that girl knowing for that blip on the screen,
that then faded out.

If I wasn't a mom, I would have been in all day

longing for an opportunity to be outside sledding with

a superhero like Sam, and a loop like Marcel.

I would have had no idea how easy it was to stay inside alone,

and write.

Because to me then, that was a hard choice.

You Are Not My Real Mom, take two.

2009-12-08T22:15:00.006-05:00

The following is as verbatim a record of our conversation
after dinner tonight as I could reconstruct.

I've been here before, and had several hours of
(now discontinued for financial reasons) family therapy
to help me navigate it better each time.
It begins with Sam.
_______________

I want my real mom.

I am your real mom.

No, I want my real mom.
I want her to be here now.

You mean your birth mother?

No, I mean, my real mom.
She's my everyday mom, not you.

It feels really hard to not have her here doesn't it?

Yes!

I don't want to hurt your feelings.

OK.

But, I want to live with her now.

[As the wrecking ball heaves itself out of the debris
which was my heart, and gathers momentum
for the next hit, I breathe and remember that this is
all about him. I can do this. I can.]

That doesn't hurt my feelings, I say.
It makes me feel good inside that you are telling
Mommy what is in your heart.
I always want you to tell me what you need to.

You don't love me everyday.

Now that is crazy talk. Of course I do.
Why do you think that?

If you loved me everyday you wouldn't yell at me.

I wish I wouldn't yell.
And I wish you would listen
when I ask you the first three times.
And, I wish I wasn't so tired.
But you're right. Sometimes I do yell.
I love you even when I am yelling.

[At this point Sam gets off the stool he is sitting on,
and climbs into my lap, putting his head underneath
my chin, and against my neck.]

I am looking up at the letter he gave me
that he wrote at school today.
It is taped to the wall, all alone looking regal.

The first letter he ever wrote:

I U. I L U Mom. Sam. (L=love he tells me).

Sam, I know that you have so many feelings in your heart
for her. I love her too.

You do?

Of course. Without her there would be no you,
and no you and me.
I wouldn't be a mommy, you wouldn't be you.

I love her more then I love you.

It may feel like that sometimes.
But the thing about love
is you can love more then one person at a time.

Like I love you and Marcel and her?

Yes.

Can you hold me in front of the Christmas tree now?
I need a cuddle.

Me too.

Marcel needs a cuddle too! he screams.

***
A little back story:
Last night Sam's birth mother texted me to ask
what Sam wanted for his birthday which is approaching.
I had told him she had asked.
I had asked him what he wanted me to suggest.
We brainstormed, and I wrote her back.

Then this evening two of my friends-both adopted
were over for dinner.
Sam knows their stories.
He wanted to know why I wasn't adopted too.

***

If these conversations are this hard at four, imagine fourteen.

Weekend Vignettes-On the Lighter Side

2009-12-06T22:08:00.004-05:00

Marcel on seeing the significant snow fall upon waking;

Mom?! Who put all that play dough on the cars?

On our economics situation after I say I didn't get yogurt this week:

Sam: Are we poor?

Me: Not in the important things, like friendships, love, having our

health, a roof over our..

Sam: But Mom, yogurt is important.

On our way back from our monthly transracial family/potluck gathering:

Sam: Mom were you the only not brown skinned person there?

Me: Uhm, no, there was so and so there, why?

Sam: It's OK if you are the only one that looks like you,

because I have friends who look like me. And so can

you and Marcel.

Me: Thanks for that reassurance Sam.

Sam: But, maybe you should cut all his hair off next time so he

can look a little bit more like me.

Me: No! His hair is magnificent, and so is yours.

Sam: I am growing an Afro mom, so I can be in the Jackson 5.

Me: Marcel what are you playing with?

Marcel: Mom you know this is a train.

Me: Right.

Marcel: Not right mom. Say; Yupadoodle Mr. Noodle. OK?

+++

I lay down next to Marcel singing Summer Time for the fifth

time tonight, with Sam chiming in at the end from the top bunk

and I don't much mind how imperfect I am.
(Picture above is in the Nana's bed two summer's ago-
inspired by the topic--and who doesn't love a sleeping babies pic?)

At the end where the song goes;

Until that day nothing is going to harm you,

With your mama and ________________ standing by,
we insert the names of everyone in our lives who we love, cherish etc.
It is the closest thing to a family ritual we have!

We also edit the beginning --to the Single Parent friendly version:

Summertime where the living is easy-

fish are jumping and the cotton is high.

Your mama's rich and your mama's good looking..

Your mama's rich, and your uncle's funny/good/not looking...

+++

With the newly strung lights twinkling in the next room

reflected in Marcel's deeply conditioned and glistening hair,

Chopin by request (Jackson 5 not allowed at night night time)
tucking them both in softly around the edges

their deep breaths descending into sleep
I inhale our combined strength.

+++
A final Sunday request: What do you want to know?

I am soliciting feedback, or suggestions for blog topics.

Email me at: mamacandtheboys@gmail.com with anything

you'd like to see tackled here. I'm game.

I'm eager to know if there is anything you've always wondered

what my approach or take or experience with is or isn't.

Let's have it!

To more vignettes from the lighter side!

Have a great week, Mama C

Stella Luna Lands a Letdown

2009-12-05T14:40:00.008-05:00

Sitting in the auditorium I notice
first the lack of color around us.
One biracial father, one other adoptee.

Including my family, that makes four
out of say, three hundred.

My first response is not dread it's curiousity.
Why aren't there more, OK any families of color here?
Here being a public school auditorium just outside of town.
What is the cultural difference in entertainment value
that is of little or no interest to families of color here?

What is it about children's theater that holds no appeal?
Or was it how it was advertised? Or to whom?
Where could I go on a Saturday afternoon
and see another or other demographic?

Then when the play starts, the dread sets in.
All white cast of four from Toronto.
Two men, two women.
They sing, they dance, they exude.
They manipulate the puppets,
and they attempt to captivate the all white audience.

Then the content unfolds igniting the dread like a pile
of dried leaves, crackling and swirling around me.
An accidentally abandoned
baby fruit bat "adopted" by his bird friends is forced
to deny all that he knows
to survive in this new family's home.

He eats bugs instead of fruit,
Sleeps upright and by day so his new mother
doesn't kick him out.

She threatened once.

He calls himself clumsy, and flies away in shame.
Where he is happily reunited with his real mom.
Bye bye bird family.
My biological family has saved me now.

With Marcel on my lap laughing,
and Sam three seats away next to his friend
with a serious and distant look on his face.
What is his interpretation? How will I ever know?

To be a transracial adoptive parent is a constant
unending stream of messages that require
interpretation, mitigation, and action.

Like a fruit bat, I just want to hang upside down
sometimes and let that be enough.
Writing this blog, and knowing that my readers
can see me hanging here, is so very often
the enough that I need. Thank you.

It's not funny

2009-12-04T07:22:00.006-05:00

I woke up this morning

worried.

Am I too serious?

Will my kids be humorless?

Am I that mother?

Well I know I am that mother to some.

But I don't want to be the one all the other

kids avoid.

Uh Sam, we like you and all but your

mom? Well she keeps hounding us about making good choices, the importance of education, racial identity and self advocacy to name just a few. Man she can't let it go! We just want to chill and be with you.

Or:

No dear you can't go over there.

We love Marcel too, but his mom, is well

you know vegetarian, and kind of well serious.

Let's invite him over here, it'll be good for him.

The kid needs a break.

I mean aside from being two,

could this be why Marcel covers himself in paint?

Draws long blue lines on the wall with a permanent marker,

and hurls my shoes into the air while singing

"That's poppycock Mr. Noodle!"

Is this why Sam asks me to dress more like Madonna?

[Yes I showed him a Madonna video. OK, I'll

admit it, I showed him three, even four.

He liked the sound of her name.

Then he liked the sound of her music.

Last night he liked the appearance

of her thigh high boots.

Mom do you have boots like that?

Can Santa get you those?]

It's not funny.

I worry.

Is Sam's appreciation of Madonna OK?

(Uncle calls her a class act, and calms me that way.)

While taking the veggie lasagna out of the oven,

I think Class? Billie Holiday has class.

Well troubles too, but she had class!

Why isn't is he asking me to dress like her?

Last night when I grabbed the empty orange juice container

and pretended it was a mic while singing;

"If we took a holiday, took a time to celebrate.."

Both the boys screamed;

MOM DON'T DO THAT!

But, I protested; "It's my right to express myself!

Remember the Bill of Rights?"

And the holiday I was thinking about was Kwaanza

and we have so much to celebrate,

and the heft of the juice box

really does make it funny.

But they were too busy

singing; "ABC it's as easy as 123"

while sliding around the kitchen floor

in their socks pulled up over their footy

pajamas (more slide potential) to notice.

I guess they'll be OK.

Braggarts Beware

2009-12-02T22:30:00.005-05:00

Braggarts beware of open containers of paint

on newly bathed bodies-not for the faint

of heart, seeing full arms, torso, and head.

Slathered in less than sixty seconds in red

tempera, a thick chalk like paste.

Marcel didn't have a minute to waste

to decide what to color on when the easel is bare.

He walks into the room, smiling so wide as we stare.

Look Mommy! I paint my body all by myself.

Announces one very red and curly haired elf.

Bragging Rights in Blue

2009-12-02T06:40:00.003-05:00

I don't indulge
in this practice often
so forgive me when

I recount the following
with unabashed pride.
Which is probably more

revealing about my values
then the accomplishment itself
but lets not over think it

so. Two lollipops for a Monday
car ride home-offered to the buckled in
dynamic duo: one brown, one blue.

After trying to negotiate a peaceful
solution to simultaneous screams of BLUE.
I give up. Sam won first pick, and Marcel

lost. Without so much as a prompt from
me-Sam exhales as he delivers his own
deeply considered blue;

This is so hard for me, but
here Marcel you can have mine.
The exchange, the quiet, the amazed me.

A mile down the road Marcel delivers too;
Thank you so much Sammy for
letting me hold-on-and-have your blue.

The Blind Side-Movie Review

2009-11-29T08:29:00.006-05:00

Considering how precious my night outs are you know that I pick my entertainment carefully. I was curious about this movie because of a review that I read in Adoptive Families Magazine last month.

All of their claims about adoption friendly language and treatment of the issues was 100% accurate.

This is based on the book Blind Side by Michael Lewis. It is a true story about a young man, "Big Mike" taken into an initially informal foster care situation in Mississippi by a very wealthy and thoughtful family.

Among other things handled with care and insight was the depiction of Michael's biological mother and her inability to parent. The film painted her as troubled, and compassionate. I particularly appreciated the final nod to her at the conclusion of the film when Mike, who now goes by Michael, explains the root of his resiliency.

I went on YouTube to see interviews with the real characters in the story, and was impressed by how well Sandra Bullock was cast as the spit fire outspoken designer who finds herself

changed by Michael, and not the other way around.

All of the characters undergo subtle and meaningful shifts in the film as they each discover their own potential.

An amazing endorsement of foster care, formal or not, and what could happen if all of our non parented youth, had such an opportunity.

The Sosa Reaction/ A Girl Like Me (Video from 2005)

2009-11-28T16:29:00.019-05:00

This video (see below--I got carried away with the Sosa images) was posted on the Love Isn't Enough Website- in response to so many of the viewers not seeing a problem with Sammy Sosa's recent DRAMATIC intentional skin lightening. [My own musings here, are directly inspired from there: Love Isn't Enough (formerly Antiracist Parent) website. I always have trouble posting their link here, but the address is: http://loveisntenough.com ]

A high school student recreated research done as evidence for the Brown vs. Board of Education (1954) where children of color were asked to chose which baby doll was "better" or "nicer"-the brown one, or the white one.

In 2005, the results are not different then fifty years before:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqSFqnUFOns&feature=related

For the entire seven minute long documentary you can You Tube "A Girl Like Me".

I read on an adoptive parent focused web page where the white parent was told it was normal for her African American child to want to be white like them. What disturbed me was not that a child would want to look like her parents, but that the assumption that this is normal from a developmental perspective was not separated from the implications this has for the parents in terms of the child's identity formation. Wanting to be white is not normal, wanting to look like your parents is.

When my Sammy saw these two pictures, he looked at them very carefully and finally said; "That's weird."

When I asked him what was weird he said; "He looks white there." I did not recreate the experiment with Sam by asking which picture he liked better-because I found myself anxious to not leave him alone in that moment. So, I agreed that it was weird, and followed up that it made my heart sad that this man did not love the way he looked before. Sam and I then agreed that he looked better as a brown skinned Dominican man.

This also brings to mind Sammy's noticing that MJ wasn't brown when he died. I wonder now if he isn't thinking that brown skinned people turn white when they get sick! That you lose all your color and turn white.

*A special shout to KJ for bringing this conversation up this morning in terms of the daycare/what does a princess look like/can she have brown hair?/bring on Princess Tiana please!

I will not let

2009-11-28T08:06:00.012-05:00

the unpaid hospital bills interfere
with all that I manage so well financially-
like the mortgage, the childcare, the clothes that fit
growing bodies beautifully

the moments I lose patience and empty the refrigerator
on the floor to prove there are no more cheese sticks there
undermine all the times that I walk away and breathe
calling upon untapped reserves of calm

the fears of not spoiling them wrotten at the holidays
drown out my determination to maintain laughter, family, and
connection as the gifts the holidays afford-
time spent well is all they really want

the Will Not Lets wake me up tomorrow.
The Wills are a much easier troupe
to start a weekend with.
Will Write,
Will Laugh,
Will Cope,
Will Discover that
we have all that we need.

Black Friday

2009-11-27T10:16:00.008-05:00

We are beginning a new tradition here today.

Not an original one I imagine

but new to us.

Black Friday is going to be devoted to celebrating

all things that are black which is brown.

[Economics aside-explained simply to Sam as

when a store is doing well they say they are

in the black.]

Black Friday is going to be a day where we list

everyone we know who is some part black

and who has contributed to making the world as we know it

a better and browner place to be.

Sam came up with Michael Jackson as the first on his list.

To honor him we You Tubed him for half an hour.

The best most thought provoking find--the Jackson 5

on the Carol Burnett Show a long long time ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W62an6HrSww

Sam was laughing at her, while admiring the complementary colors

on their pant suits.

I was horrified picturing myself as Carol Burnett to their friends

a not so long time from now.

When I explained this new holiday to Sam,

to help me brainstorm other people we could

devote the day to his list was as follows;

Marcel, Me, and Uncle...

Should our list include people who do not have brown skin

but who feel like they do in a way to you?

Sam ponders this and says; Yes because that would include

you, and all the other people who love me too.

And Michael Jackson at the end of his life.

But not Santa because he is really not black.

I rattle off a few obvious additions to the list

all of which Sam heartily agrees to.

Sam's birth mother and father, Marcel's donor.

Obama, Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin,

Tiger Woods, Serena, and the new Disney Princess Tiana.

These being the most often occurring

and recent additions to the family lexicon.

If you're done Mom can I go now?

I nod and smile, as I jot it all down.

Waiting there watching me write Sam
the collaborator-son says,

Add this at the end mom;
Happy Black Day, and I love you.

Le Jour de Merci Donnant

2009-11-26T22:16:00.004-05:00

Marcel just woke up in this photo.

He is so smushy vulnerable cuddley then.

So often I picture them at thirteen and ten and feel wildly appreciative of moments like these. When they want to cuddle. When I am still the one who knows what I am talking about. When the outside world hasn't taken over as the giver of the truth. When a hurt is still curable with a kiss.

Yesterday when I was fixing lunch and the boys were watching the trees being pruned right outside the window, Sam looked at Marcel and said; "You know what Marcel?"

"What Sam?" his adoring companion asked.

"I really love you."

"I really love you too beautiful Sam."

I am writing more then I ever have, and it is still not enough.

I am making connections with something I can now call- my readers-something I dreamed about saying once. I go about my day as a writer who is observing, and not the observer who might write about this one day.

I feel more patience with them, and me.

I am thriving in my commitment to parent two children of color

with a hope born more deeply this day then the day before it-that my conscientiousness is purposeful. That my purpose is changing things for the better.

We are surrounded by so much love and support.

My eyes are closing as I write, but I couldn't go to sleep tonight without saying thank you for joining me here between the chaos and the consistency.

Book Review: Blended Nation

2009-11-24T22:20:00.001-05:00

Recently many of my readers here, have been contacting me by email to introduce themselves and share how their stories resonate with mine. "I look forward to all the ways in which you find a way to approach the intersection of race and parenting.." wrote a woman, who like myself is an adoptive parent of a child of color. That readers are writing to me is a source of great joy. That those of you who are writing continue to identify race, parenting, honesty, my voice and my experience as an adoptive parent as the reasons you return-emboldens and nourishes me.

The other night I became the audience member and reader to many of these same critical intersecting points on a much larger stage. Blended Nation: Portraits and Interviews of Mixed-Race America by Mike Tauber and Pamela Singh is a collective photographic and transcribed exploration of what it means to identify as mixed race in twenty-first century America. (You can see my earlier reference and the link to the NPR interview on this book under the November entry Blended Nation-Marcel Style.) As you may recall from a few weeks back, I was so struck by the short piece I heard on NPR with Mr. Tauber that I wrote to him to thank him for putting this work into the collective conversation and asked him if I could review and share his work here. He answered me within the day, and sent the book in two.

I was pulled in from the cover, and felt instantly as if I just arrived at a family reunion with hundreds of kindred voices that all welcomed me in-even when what they had to say was not easy to hear. Take for example the words of Timothy Meril. Adopted, Puerto Rican, and Iranian, and in middle school, his portrait exudes self assurances and self doubt simultaneously. The sepia tones reflect his skin and the bark of the tree-that I trust and hope he will one day be as strong as-and provide a lush container for his honesty; "I'm not black and I'm not white and I just try to fit in... My parents and family love me, but they don't understand all the issues I deal with." I feel a future Sammy and Marcel in his words, and in his world. And, I see our family over and over in the pages of this hefty, smooth, and visually stunning event. Interracial families, mixed race marriages, adoption, one part this and four parts that, and so many photos of radiant gorgeous people with curly black hair. Our family is the norm over and over again.

In last month's Adoptive Families Magazine, there was a story by a now grown woman, Deborah Jiang Stein, who used to pour over the photos in the National Geographic Magazine every month as a child desperate to find a picture of someone who looked like her. Her adoptive parents did not at the time have the background information necessary to help her discover what her ethnicity was (part Greek, Tiawanese-American, Latina and more). Her essay came to mind as I looked in the eyes of the confident LaTanya Spann who is black, white and Asian. LaTanya talks about her choice in college of joining either the Asian, white or black sorority, and her decision to join a Latina-founded multi-cultural sorority instead. The difference in options for her, and Ms. Stein are epic. The book offers this perspective, and all of the possibility that shift engendered by the younger generation presents. At the same time, you are invited in, to the work of the parents that came before them, and the struggles of the peers that have not found their way to her flushed out decision.

I see this book as a tool for Sammy, Marcel and I to have many necessary conversations in the future. When Eddie, our Haitian superhero former nanny and now weekly dinner guest rock star was here the other night she said, having Marcel as a brother is going to provide opportunities for Sammy that he wouldn't necessary have otherwise. And, having Sammy as a brother will do the same for Marcel. This book is offers me a little crystal ball moment into that map she sees ahead of them. The stories in the book, and the dare you to turn that page until you see my soul photos included should be the anchor text for all families who aim to parent children of any background fully in this century. It's like having extended family sitting on the couch who just showed up when you were at a loss for words and need their help to explain what it means to be human, today.

Say Uncle

2009-11-22T17:08:00.003-05:00

While they are downstairs playing soccer

after watching football and explaining endzones

and replays

I am stealing a moment of thanks.

Sam's eyes say it all really.

What more could I add?

He made those cupcakes today with Eddie

to honor the man who is Super Uncle Man.

Crab cakes, roasted brussel sprouts, quinois, and cupcakes are on the menu tonight.

Flavored with admiration, appreciation, joy, humor

and love for our downstairs Uncle.

Sailor Uncle.

Football watching Uncle.

Throw me on the couch Uncle.

He likes to play rough Uncle.

T.V. will rot your brain Uncle.

Motorcycle Diner Uncle.

Don't tell him that I had a bad day at school Uncle.

I may not have a dad, but I have an Uncle Uncle.

We love you.

Thank you for giving us this chance

to celebrate

all that you do

Uncle.

National Adoption Day

2009-11-21T11:16:00.008-05:00

Almost five years ago
I woke up at 2:45am and shot up in bed
as if someone had just banged a gong
an inch from my head.

Close.

Sam had just been born,
nearly a thousand miles away-

and less then two minutes
before.

Only I didn't know-know that then.

And yet, I knew it too.
I tell Sam his cries reached me all that way away.
And told me to wake up-since my motherhood
had been born today.

And a girl needs a few hours to get ready for that!

About three hours later, the other gong struck-
the phone.

Rang.

And that is when I answered the most important
phone call of my life-
at 5:30 am.

Hello?

Catherine, this is Beth from MAPS...

Yes?!?

The birth mother gave birth to a healthy and big baby two hours ago.
And she wants you to call her now.

Now? She wants to talk to me? She changed her mind about
having a closed adoption?

Yes.

OK. I have to scream now OK?

Yes.

(scream) How is he? How is she? Where are they?
What do I say? When can I go to him? Is he fine?
How big is he? Phone number? OK .
I have to make some calls and buy the airplane tickets
and...

Catherine?

Yes???

Take a deep breath. Go get a pen and paper.
Call me back in a few minutes OK?

And I did. And I still have the piece of notebook paper
with the number of the hospital,
and his weight, (8 lbs 15 oz.) and every little thing
I needed to know to get myself from that moment
to the one where my son would be in my arms.

I'll leave out the part about the storm system
forming over the great lakes, and the west coast,
and how they would collide over
every airport in the U.S. for the next thirty some hours.

I ran around the apartment and screamed a lot-
which is Sam's favorite part of this story.

Then I called her.

And she called him "Fatso" and sounded so beautiful
and tired and urgent. I could hear him whimpering
and as he likes to say, telling me to hurry
up and grab him up.
And all she wanted to know was
when I would arrive.

I can not begin to imagine the landscape of the
inside of her heart that she battled through to
make that request.

Our adoption journey began before this moment,
and continues into each keystroke here.
But for today, as I type and cry and type
I am thinking of all of you who are waiting for the call.

Maybe it is a real call.

Maybe a call in your heart to consider adoption.

Maybe it is a call towards foster parenting.

Maybe it is a call to heal a part of you, and
celebrate all of you.

Happy Adoption Day.

Friday Night Fly

2009-11-20T18:55:00.014-05:00

These days I feel like that actor in the movie The Fly.

At first it was just a hair or two poking out
in odd places.

Then he starts to notice
something has gone funny with his eyes.

His genes have fused with a common housefly.
He can not go back.
He is a changed man.

Like the scientist, I have fused with a black child,
a black woman, a black man, and been teleported here
in my new knowing, in my old body.

I used to wonder as a kid what I looked like to a fly.
A mosaic human form coming towards it's

compound eyes.

That’s what you have when you parent.

Magnified to nearly 360 degree vision
at all times
when you are also parenting a child of color.

as a must be as good as complex aka
see me as the uber mama single mother

On alert.

Afraid to miss anything.
A nuance.
A gesture.
A look.
or a looked over.

Ready to alight
on a misspoke word
and rewrite
the intention
of the old man at the store who calls
your child boy

knowing
there is nothing artificial
about the way that conjures up the ceramic
outstretched arms and white gloved
of the black faced stable hand
from the story you read in high school
and didn’t understand-

until your outspoken homosexual English teacher
explained to you
what being a bigot meant.

This is how I spend a few hours on a Friday night alone
unwinding from parent teacher conferences
staff meetings
pre school pot lucks and a
birthday party
all in the last three days-

I confide in you as I
try to unwrap my hairy
leg from
over my wing

and land.

Color Recognition 101

2009-11-17T20:52:00.008-05:00

It is the one color Sam can not identify.
Last October, spring and now.
This is the only color that escapes his otherwise
perfect
color recognition skills.
Brown.
I look at the assessment
and blink.
Parent teacher conference
in mid swing until:

Brown?

Numbers, no problem.
Ovals, triangles, squares
covered.
Motor skills off the charts.
Hand washing-
needs some attention.

Listening to messages is on the up and up,
and we're making great choices in how we
talk to our friends.

It's just, well the brown.

After bath tonight I asked him, what color I was wearing.

Brown he says.

And what color is your beautiful and deeply moisturized skin babe?

Black he says.

I see a creamy brown on your hands, and a creamy peach
on your palms I say, making little circles on his open hand
in mine.

No mom. I am black.

Like my eyebrows? I ask.

And mine he says.

So, then Sam, what does brown look like?

Like me-and you-and Marcel-don't argue with me mom.
I know what I am talking about.

Color identification skills, are clearly in the eye of the
beholder and the being held.

Tighter.

Map out for me what has happened
at just shy of five so that a richly deep brown skinned
child when asked to identify the color brown

says

I don't know what color that is.

Gobble never looked so good!

2009-11-16T21:05:00.005-05:00

From book reviews to poor quality shameless kid cuteness with a holiday theme. How much farther can I fall in your eyes dear reader? Since Sam spontaneously burst out into this little ditty over his night-night snack I couldn't resist the opportunity to tape it. He was so thrilled that I found the box with last year's Thanksgiving art relics he began to recite every song on the topic he could recall. I am so pleased I kept what looked to an untrained eye as simply a stuffed brown lunch bag with construction paper protrusions shaped like legs and a beak.

Tomorrow I have Sam's fall "parent conference" with his preschool teachers. This is happening the same week that I will host parent teacher conferences with my students and their parents. It is such a good reminder as a teacher, to be on the other side of the information receiving end. I have zero concerns about Sam's progress as a preschooler--let's hope I am not given any reason to rethink this. Was I trying to butter them up, by presenting Shades of People to his teachers this morning? Will I become that mom? They read the book four times in his class today, by the way. And all the kids loved it.

I am working on a poem about migration--their migration towards me in the middle of the night, and the early morning. The more I write here, the more I am writing in my head, upon waking, while doing dishes, exhaling. The energy and support the blog provides me, in this abstract way is intangible. I must say that I feel a connection with my readership, known and unknown that is so nourishing to me as a mother, a writer, an adoptive parent, and all the other nuances of me that are allowed to float almost effortlessly to the surface here. What a perfect post to focus on my gratitude: thank you.

If you are a returning reader, and would be willing to join the list of followers over there, I'd appreciate that. Or send me an email at mamacandtheboys@gmail.com and introduce yourself. It is such a boost for me to hear from folks who are enjoying the blog, the work I do, and the perspective I have on this life we're living.

Shades of People : Book Review

2009-11-14T14:40:00.017-05:00

How fitting with all my focus on shades this week that this book should come into my hands. Special thanks to Kirsten Cappy and Curious City for hosting the multicultural book fair where I came in contact with this book today.

***

Have you noticed that people come in many different shades? Not colors exactly, but shades. These are the opening words from the beaming photographic montage of preschool to early elementary aged faces on the pages of the luscious and diverse new children’s book by Shelley Rotner and Shelia Kelley. Like Karen Katz’s The Colors of Us, Rotner and Kelley succeed in presenting a fresh approach to the message that all children are remarkable, and that; “Our skin is just our covering, like wrapping paper.” When I first held this book in my hands bathed by the warm light from the pages of this "It's a Small World After All" like photographic celebration, I felt as if a void in our family's library had just been magically filled.

Page after page of dynamically arranged photographs present children of every background tenderly engaged with peers and blended family of all shades. The variety of the size and arrangement of the photos add to the allure. My personal favorites being the side by side museum like 10" x12" size portraits. All the photographs give our children a place to see themselves over and over again in charming sun drenched moments.

The minimal text is powerful in it’s brevity with lines like; “Even in the same family there can be many shades.” As a backdrop to that line is a spread of photographs showing blended families of all kinds that look like the pages of the Adoptive Families Magazine photo albums. All kids will see themselves here with dynamic confidence-whatever skin they are in!

I did not hesitate to buy a copy for my sons’ preschool for the spelled out message of inclusion, acceptance and diversity. There are so many teachable moments included-like the thoughtful photograph of a young African-American boy holding a paint brush creating a self portrait. Under his photo appears the line; “It’s hard to get the right shade when I paint." Shades of People is a living palette that all children can see themselves as the perfect shade of "gold", "almond", "tan" or "cream".

Having such an emotionally satisying visual and narrative experience the reader will not be surprised to discover that Kelley has a background spanning thirty years as a clinical psychologist, while Rotner published her photography in National Geographic Magazine and the like. This is a dynamic work that I trust will become a mainstay in the homes and schools of our blended families for years to come. In the words of a multi racial two year old and his brother while overlaying their hands on photos of the childrens hands in the sand on the end page; "I am there and there and there and there." Indeed.

A Mother of Another Color*

2009-11-13T06:29:00.008-05:00

If I am not a Black Mother
and I am not a mother to white children
does that make me grey?

Or would a Grey Mommy
connote a mother of a certain age range
that I may be approaching
in strands, but am not there yet.

A Mocha Mommy is a support group
for stay at home mothers of color
so that does not describe me either,
though it certainly describes an aspiration
to be at home all day and write about
the mocha mom in me.

Chameleon Mom
might be closer to the truth
with all the colors I wear
navigating from here-our blended family home
Out into the so-much-to-explain in the world out there.

Explain to the educator how
a mother
of a child of color surrounded in a room
of white teachers
may not feel as at ease
understood
or seen
as the well intentioned
intentional gathering might think
she should.

Explain to the manager of the grocery store
that although he may offer me
a hundred hair care options
it is my children's hair for whom I inquire.
Handing him the bottle of Mixed Chicks Shampoo**
I tell him that I would appreciate it if this product
could be carried too.
And not on an end cap, I add.
End cap feels like an afterthought to me- wouldn't you agree?

Explain the heaviness in my breath
as my morning feet slide
into the soft green slippers
with the semi mushed pom-poms.
That I have been turned inside out
from the birth of my first born son
grabbed up and into my arms
in a hospital in North Carolina
as I sat precariously on the edge of her bed
on the edge of instant motherhood
on the edge of other motherhood
on the edge of our son's thirty-six hour life

and shed.

My understanding
or lack there of.

Being a mother of any
color.

*Dedicated to Our E, who brought me much needed blog clarity and kudos last night. Thank you.

** Mixed Chicks hair products-link to come--check them out on the web

I am not a Black Mother

2009-11-11T06:30:00.011-05:00

The following is an attempt to give voice to a feeling I have been working out. It is not a manifesto. Far from it. It is more a reaction to an essay I read on the Love Isn't Enough blog (see below for the link to that blog--the essay is the one called "Aint I A Mommy" by Deesha Philyaw that appears a few down from my poem if you go to the "home" link there.) which talks about the inheritance black mothers share with each other.

A wildly informative and historically rich article that has me thinking about how parents of students of color might feel about having their children in schools where there are so few teachers of color.

And then of course I went in a zillion other directions in my head. Lots of questions. I ended up back where I wanted to start from: I want to be Michelle Obama in my next life. She got to be a guest on Sesame Street talking about gardening.

***

I'm not a black mother
but I'm the mother of two brown skinned children
will that make them less black because of me-
as if our colors blend together in an outcome pot.

Will that make them less black because of me
who doesn't share generations of oppressed cellular memory
who wears brown clothing almost exclusively as if
that will erase the oppressor link to my family genetically

Who wears brown clothing almost exclusively
Because of what I’m not-a mother not born of generations
of having to care for other people's children like it or not
like the woman who raised my mother as her own

Because of what I'm not as a mother of brown skinned children
going to accept or let their teachers and peers forget
my children see themselves on the pages at story time each day
and know the story about ignorance that already kept one friend away

My children put themselves in the story every single day
coached now to answer because I look like the president
when he was asked why he looked like the brownie in his friend’s lunch
I am not a black mother who would not have been taken by surprise

When asked why he looked like the brownie in his friend’s lunch
I break a little here seeing that confusion reflected in his eyes
then I imagine not too long from now
the seventy million people who identified as other on the 2000 census

Collectively surrounding my children with theirs
because of what we are determined to be
color aware aware aware and open as we can see
when what we're not won't matter so much

To you, them, or me.

Love Isn't Enough

2009-11-10T07:59:00.009-05:00

I want to call folks attention to this blog, about parenting and race, previously know as Antiracist Parent. They have a new name, and many articles, insights that will be of interest to many of my readers. And they just posted my piece "Crazy Hair Day" (you read it here first, and then in Hip Mama Magazine) on their blog! So check them out! The founder, Carmen Van Kerchove's bio is below.

The link will be posted under the publication links shortly. Meanwhile you can do a search of "Antiracist parent" to get connected to the site. Thanks.

About The Founder

Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of New Demographic, a diversity education firm. Her perspectives on race and diversity have been featured on CNN, MSNBC, NPR, USA Today, and The New York Times.

Blended Nation-Marcel Syle

2009-11-08T14:08:00.008-05:00

Part one of a three part series on multi-racial North Americans on NPR this morning caught my attention. Well what little of it there is to be caught during the morning on the weekend.

Between screeches, requests, whines and kerplunks I caught the interview with the authors of the book Blended Nation (see link below). This is the blurb form NPR's blog:

"The husband-and-wife team of photographer Mike Tauber and co-producer Pamela Singh were intrigued by the post-Sept. 11 climate of anxiety and racism. Years later, the election of a bi-racial president would bring the topic of racial identity to the forefront of national conversation. Tune into the series to learn more. On Sunday's show, Hansen will also speak with Cheryl Quintana Leader, one of the subjects in the book, who is part Caucasian, Mexican, and Aztec Indian. See more photos on Mike Tauber's Web site."

* Over 70 million people identified themselves as multiracial in the 2000 census.
* That number is growing
* This number is growing with the growing number of multi-racial marriages and the offspring of these marriages/partnerships.

All of this inspired the above photo of Marcel.

I imagine the book would be a great one for our family to look through and see people who look like us.

And people who don't, but who do at the same time.

***
Update: Review of the book to come soon. Mr. Tauber has graciously agreed to send me the book, so that I may review it here. He replied that; "There are several people in the book that are adopted by parents of another race." And he said how cute Marcel is.

He sent these updated links:

Not sure if you saw the updated NPR page: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120209980

Also, we were on the Today Show in late September: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/33056542#33056542

Family Day and then some

2009-11-07T21:11:00.010-05:00

Four years ago today
surrounded by our nearest and dearest
we filled the improvised chambers
of the probate court
at the Children's Museum
to hear Sam's-first-middle and last name
decreed with judicious officiousness.

Finally.
Finalized.
Same name.
Delivered.

Same name.
Yours.
Mine.
Ours in the eyes of the state.*

Looking down at your name all balanced out as it is-
On the Adoption Decree
one place where we now look so exactly alike.
Good thing type ink mostly comes in black.

To honor and remember
we went to the park the three of us.
And baby Dexter.
Marcel's baby doll-
the one I gave Sam
to help him get used to the idea
of an imminent Marcel
is now Marcel's my-baby-doll-Dexter
a reminder that family every day is about who we bring
into the fold
when we need them.

Who is there for us to love.

For dinner Sam came up with the menu:
baked beans and cake.
Then we invited upstairs Sarah and Jay,
and downstairs Uncle too.
For a potluck and a toast.
Sam invited one more friend who he thought
would want to celebrate impromptu.

Happy Adoption Month
to those who have cause to celebrate,
and to those who are rocking
their delicate and huge dreams in the wait.

* In the back drop of last week's Marriage Equality loss in Maine we acknowledge the privilege and meaning of a shared name. Co-adoption without the legal rights of marriage is just not the same. Discrimination is discrimination. Love is love.

Nothing Unusual About Us

2009-11-01T11:00:00.010-05:00

Whackadoozle Mom
Hand Me Down Lion
and Darth Maul Sammy
last night.

A holiday where skin color
blends in or is not immediately
obvious because of masks and the like
is strangely welcomed.

Even though we had to adjust Darth's coloring
in order to create the desired effect
it worked without much ado about why.

Even though the kids in the neighborhood
knew we were just visiting-
guests of Sam's adoring godmother and significant other
in surfer pink and wigged attire-
our combined freak show
blended right in.

Something we rarely
achieve the other three sixty four.

Something I never considered
as a young hobo-witch-or cat
knocking with anticipation at another
and another and another white
person's door.

Halloween Reccomendation

2009-10-31T09:33:00.007-04:00

Sam and I are watching a DVD called "Golden Blaze" which takes place in an almost all African American community, and has an AA protagonist and antagonist. The messages contained within include literary terms and rich vocabulary and language; "do you notice the irony here?" and "nature abhors a void" and uses techniques like flashback to tell a complex story.

The son "educates" the father on how to be a superhero, and the importance of school is one of many positive messages. Minor characters include Asian American female newscasters and other minority supporting actors.

I asked the folks at our local video store for any positive AA videos in the family section. I am sure it is flawed in some way, but I haven't found them yet.

Happy Halloween!

Here is the Wikipedia piece on it:

The Golden Blaze is an animated film released in 2005^[1] written by Archie Gips and directed by Bryon E. Carson. The feature, starring the voices of Blair Underwood and Michael Clarke Duncan, had a limited theatrical run making it the first flash animation ever to be released on the big screen. It also took top honors at the prestigious 2005 Giffoni International Film Festival. It was produced by Urban Entertainment and distributed by Warner Bros. Home Video.

Excercise

2009-10-30T21:02:00.005-04:00

I scored a goal.
No, a real one.
It was pretty too.
Even the Welsh gym teacher
responsible for the assist said so;
Sharp I believe was the word.

Students vs. Staff.
And my sixteen years of soccer
were good for a little muscle memory,
keen anticipation,
and an undeniable score.
Not to mention victory.

In the post game line up
slapping hands
in good game syncopation
and I am back in high school,
brash and invincible
in this breathless moment.

I thought parenthood would feel that way
no really, I did.

***
The three little ghosts we made out of cloth diapers,
newspapers, and wire
are bobbing
defiant over our front door
landing.

From the street
they are creepy and odd.
We made them after Sam asked why our street wasn't as fun
as his friend Emily's.

So we remedied that.

I go to bed each night hoping no one rips the ghosts down
in a drugged frenzy.
I imagine that Emily's neighbors don't have the same
ghost buster potential.

(I hope that the decorative ducklings
stolen from my bird bath
last week
that survived the summer safely
land in a lawn like Emily's
in their afterlife.
Having an urban garden is a constant
exercise in non attachment.)

***

What will I do with that hour we get tomorrow?
When will I really savor it?

Knead it between my fingers-
like warm dough
and squeeze it into a poem,
a paragraph, or a slice of promised apple pie.

history in the texting

2009-10-27T21:42:00.005-04:00

We have his school pictures-
and we were wondering
if you would like
8x10, 5x7, wallets or all
of the above

send

LOL I want them all!
I have new ones too of us
for you.

received

Pls send me your thoughts about
writing X (birth father's name here)*
should I try again
or wait?

send

I tried to contact him
and he never wrote back
don't waste your time...
well, I'd wait a while.

received

Sam will want to know him one day
pls let me know if your take on this
changes at any point?
Pictures in the mail soon

send

______________________________________

after almost five years
and we have reached this place
on the one inch screen of a cellphone
where our lives intersect
with ease
on occasion.

Sam being the larger intersection
the giant black point
on the graph
where birth mother
and adoptive mother
overlap

sometimes three times a year
sometimes more.

(I pick out the pictures that it is hardest to see
the giant tie
with the backwards tying.)
_____________________
* this is a reference to a prior discussion
between us, where she had asked for more time
to consider her response.
The larger back story here will be in the memoir
I am writing.

First Family First.

2009-10-24T22:52:00.005-04:00

Radiant. Historic. Breathtaking. Joyous. A family first.

Blah Blah Blah

2009-10-24T21:42:00.011-04:00

Feel overwhelmed in an
underwhelming way.

Post op blues+
Mothering fatigue+
Single parent burn out+
New England winter dread+
Five years of sleep deprivation+
adds up.

Guilt slithers at my ankles
questioning
the sanity in a choice
to parent alone

twice.

_________

Sam doesn't choose to listen to much these days.
His processor is on a
personal leave of absence.

Family therapist says this is all related
to my getting sick
and physically compromised
for a few weeks.

Supermom-unstoppable-pick up two boys
at once while cooking dinner-with one hand
and grocery shopping with the other
as she dribbles a soccer ball-
and paints her just repaired wall-
before writing the poem-
to the smell of the pie baking
and the second night time story being read
all with one eye on her homework-
the bills-and the calendar while
riding a horse sized chicken
to the moon-

is not getting out of bed today.

Imagine, the therapist says,
if you were told all your young life
that your mother
couldn't care for you the way she needed to
so she chose
to place you
with another mother...

Imagine then that mother can't
care for you the way she needs to
so she asks for help
for a few days
or a week
then two.

Imagine what this means to you

Mothers who can't care for you

disappear into a frame
on the book shelf.
________________

Weaned Marcel
when the medicines were too strong
and untested for transmission
through to a little healthy kidney
and beyond.

And, it was time.

And, we're both stumbling
to recover
our footing on that
one as he boroughs into my neck
for a cuddle
and squeezes my hand
as he cries to nurse.

I hold him tight,
folded back into his
grasp.
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Mama's right here.
shhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Her I am.
shhhhhhhh.
shhhhh.
shhhh.

Maybe all of this perceived
leaving is leaving
me perceiving
my own deep

grieving.

shhhhhhh
hhhhh
shhh.
hh
h.

___________

Slow Picking

2009-10-17T21:35:00.005-04:00

On the mend
Trying to take it slowly by choice.
This is not a strength of mine.
In fact I am miserable at it.

Put the "garden" (read 5' x 2.5' patch)
to bed for the fall/winter today,
the lettuce and tomato pots under the back stairs
and cut things back and under.

Pulled every article of clothing the family owns
out of it's drawer, nook and cranny-
onto the floor.
Giveaway, store, fold or toss.
Two hours. Done.
(Uncle and the boys were at soccer and the playground. I was in 5th gear for two hours strait.)
Winter, I'm ready.
Boots are labeled in the bag for school.
Socks are matched.
Coats in the wash.
Done.

Orchard for picking, hay riding
and laughter.
More today then in weeks for me
anyway.
Uncle had me cracking me up.

The boys feel my recovery
their ease is within reach like
those trees laden
with golden juicy de-lish.

Approached by an editor of an adoption related publication venue for permission to include "Black Enough" in their winter newsletter.
A friend of hers saw it in Hip Mama,
and brought it to her attention.
Imagining my words savored in a cafe
across the country?
Fuel for these ole digits to keep at it.

This is where you'll find me*

2009-10-17T21:18:00.003-04:00

This is where you'll find me
whenever I stop
wiping the counter and
folding the clothes or
mapping out the rest of the week
in yet another to do list, today.
And this is where you'll find me
when the papers are graded,
the dog hair swept up,
and the bills to be avoided just stay put-
so I can sit in the rocker and hold

you

in my imagination. Pushing off into next
month? Next year? When?
When will I find you here
in my arms-
wriggling, wiggling, drooling, crying, giggling, cooing,
and wondering just how
you arrived here
with me from wherever you may be now
in your birth mother's belly

listening to her muffled laughing or
singing or crying into you her hopes
for the little miraculous one you will grow up to be
away from her. Outside of that
unfathomable moment when you

arrive here

where I'm waiting
for you unfolding the baby clothes I've collected
in between the dreams I've collected,
and the future I've coveted
watching you crawl
then walk,
then run into this,
our room, our house calling "Mom"
always knowing that this is where you'll find me.

* posted here from my personal archives in honor of Kathy and Jeff and the
imminent arrival of their son Matthew any day now.

(Originally written in October 2004, weeks before Sam's birth mother chose me to be Sam's everyday mom. It is wild for me to retype this here, remembering all the feelings I had, complicated, raw, hopeful, sad, enormous feelings I had months before my parenthood began through the mosaic and miracle of adoption.)

Surgery and the Happy Ones on Picture Day

2009-10-12T22:02:00.008-04:00

When a nearly five year old
screams in your lap;
I don't want anybody cutting you under with a knife!
You wish it was just an idiomatic expression to blame.
How did he overhear that? I feel like a sloppy mom in pain now.

I explained that no one would.
That it was just going to be a little procedure
to make mommy better, soon.

When he handed me the dinner knife
this morning and asked me if I needed to take this one with me,
or did the doctor have another one,
I knew it was time to talk about this a little more.

Then he hurled his brother's toy across the room.
It was a toy his brother was playing with, alone.
A toy that was in his hand before Gargantua-Sam grabbed it from him.

In need of comfort anyone?
In my arms, still, I explain
how the doctor is going to help Mommy's
pain go away.
Gently, with a little tube, and a camera, and a
straw.
No knives, nothing to fear.
All of this whispered in his close and closed ear.

All of this while careful to hold close my own fear.

Marcel walks by holding my slipper.
Mommy's slipper is sad. Mommy's slipper has an owee.
He needs a little help too is my guess.

***

Pain meds not being conducive to parenting, or teaching
or blogging but have
meant Herculean Help in the form of our
amazing extended chosen family and Uncle.

It has been a rough two weeks.

***

I am home and comfortable after a surgical procedure.
Can I just leave it that?
Pain and medication free I write.
In my home, propped up in bed with pillows, water, and a little light.

The nurses should all be sainted
with their empathy, care, skillful calm, and compassion.
Can I just leave it at that?
The doctor's lack of good choices around patient care
might just merit a post of his own.
Unless I can just leave it at that.

flashback---
Alone in a hospital bed, wrapped only in dread.

(Breathe, breathe, breathe I can hear my neighbor Sarah saying
when I was in the ER three days ago wailing.)

Looking at their picture,
taken last year on Picture Day,
in my palm I exhale.

Sammy offered for me to take his (shredded disgusting lovie) blanket
with me. He did not offer again today-
Thank goodness-it wouldn't fit under this sterile pillow.
I breathe in all that empathetic four and three quarter year old goodness.

And tears are soothing.
Cry.

When the nurse asks you if you are alright sweetie?
Lie.

Yes, I am anxious. And yes, not having morning coffee
(who knew the lack of just one cup of instant could)
make me all knotted up.

Looking at the wall with the monitors and the Patient Rights
as the stiff johnny gives reluctantly under my non IV arm-
I twist and curl over
to whisper into my arm-
Let them find nothing.
Take the pain please.
Return me in health to these boys who I was meant to mother
for a long, long time.

And then a little longer, please.

***
When I came to, I asked for my phone.
I called their daycare as promised.

I had left his teachers a note-
Sammy is worried about me.
I will call him to reassure him that my visit to the doctor went well,
that when he sees me this afternoon I will be all better.
I will not be able to speak to him directly (or I will cry).
Please relay my message at the appropriate time.

They did.
I think we both felt better.

He did great at school-
picture day.
He chose the tie.
We cut it to make it fit.

He wanted to look good for me he told me tonight.
And mom you're going to love the one where I was kissing Marcel.
Its really going to make you cry-
your happy ones.
Your happy tears.

Iodine, Bread Crumbs, and Worry! Oh My.

2009-10-10T00:14:00.009-04:00

What was she thinking?
Throwing the routine upside like that?

That is what Sam must have been thinking tonight.

When I asked Uncle to do bath and get them to bed.
(Something about that iodine test today, mixing up with this week's overall discomfort turned my stomach into a cauldron of upset.)
I needed to lie down.
Read the New Yorker.
Breathe.
Instead of hang over a bath tub distended and snappy.

Reassured them with hugs,
sweet night night kisses and smiles.
Mommy's fine I just need to go night night first tonight.
How fun to have Uncle put you to bed?

Sam appeared fine with this at first.
The first three requests to sleep in my bed,
were handled with firm resolve.

But this one, at 11:45?
With the screams and the pleas.
With Marcel climbing over me awakened and afraid-
this was hard.

Uncle got Marcel to sleep-
as I cuddled with Sam in the blue chair
the external womb chair
the nothing can touch me here chair
the no matter what I am safe chair.

and I listened.

Like Grettle searching for crumbs to find her way,
our way home.
In the dark, afraid.

Last night in that chair he answered-
You know everything about me mommy.
When I asked him how things were going?
In a rare quiet Mommy-Sammy-Marcel-is-already-asleep moment.

Last night in that chair when asked if he could change
just one thing in the world he says;
I wouldn't be the only brown skinned boy in my preschool class-
if it were different it'd be better for me.
To which I could only agree and say thank you for telling me.
(Told his teachers,
and brought in books from home with everyone brown like me
for circle time too.)
Next year in kindergarten, it will be so different you'll see.
But mom, I don't want to wait that long.

Remember who looks just like you?
I know mom, Obama, and he is the president.
But he doesn't go to school with me.

Tonight I listened to his deep breaths
and his soft sobs
and I said that I was going to be fine
and all I meant when I asked Uncle to put him to bed
and to let me have some quiet time was that my body felt sad
and needed some time alone.

Oh.

This he understood.

The other ten ways I tried to explain it did not make sense.

and that did?

Huh.

He went right up the ladder to his bed, and to sleep.

Just like that.

Attachment? Adoption? Oedipal? Huh?

Worry? Frustration? Control? Huh?

The cat scan today with the iodine was meant to turn my insides into
a light board.
Reveal the mystery lodged back there in the right flank
that is refusing to move on, and let me be.
On Monday the doctors will decipher the clues
and tell me what's in store for that right flank and me.

Soccer game at nine thirty mom.

Time to put us all to bed-
the iodine
the bread crumbs
and the worry.

And I thought I had my bed to myself!

I'm just waiting on a stone...

2009-10-07T13:38:00.004-04:00

I love this picture of me.
I took it before I went to the doctor today because I felt relief-

knowing that I was going to get some answers today,
brought that twinkle to my eye.
I wanted to capture it.

I won't take the post appointment shot-
it would be the bleary eyed red one.

Not because of what they said,
but because of all the things that they can't say.

We can tell you that it is one of the above.

It may be this, that or the other thing.

We can tell you that we'll know better after this test.

We can't tell you when you can have this test.

We can tell you to relax.

We can't tell you how to do that.

I looked at that sweet young man,
who I seriously doubted was old enough to have a driver's license
let alone an MD anywhere near his name,
and I thought how proud his mother must be.

The not knowing when your pain is going to be resolved
is like parenting.

I am reasonably certain my children
will grow into compassionate,
well intentioned,
intelligent beings,
who respect themselves, and others.

I will hope that the decor of the principal's office
will not be something either of them will be able to recall with any certainty.
Law enforcement altercations will be as foreign to them,
as not calling me on the weekends from their college dorm room.
These are reasonable requests,
that will take years to be processed.

That I was informed it would take two to three weeks
to get in for a test that my doctor ordered; "STAT"
is an unreasonable reality to me.

What does one do with that?

Where two begin?

2009-10-05T09:18:00.006-04:00

Two is here.
Marcel navigated the journey with grace.
In that graceless way only a two year old can.

He insisted that he was five all day.
He ate donuts.
His nose the river ran faster than we could.
He loved his new Lego firetruck.
He didn't share.
He screamed a lot.
He jumps from the furniture.
His head.

In between the morning gathering with one little friend
and several big ones,
and the evening gathering with family extended
I made it to the ER for a kidney stone or two.
There I was in the same hospital where I delivered Marcel
two years before.
For a much shorter stay with much less to show for it when I left.
(Drink lots of fluid, takes lot of Advil. Wait.)
The free socks were old lady beige this time.
Pink when you are a new mom.
White after a miscarriage.

Home alone today
in a droopy silence.
Exhausted from the pain,
and the joy
and the eventuality
of the unspoken.

When Sam turned two my body was a lean plank,
my hair long,
my heart so full-at least that's what I see in the video
we all watched together the other day
to remind the big brother
how he was when he was two too-
and how much more he can do
now at nearly five.

Growing up is hard you know.
Especially when your little brother fits in to your spider man rain boots from the bag downstairs
the boots you didn't even know you ever had,
which makes it even harder to let someone else have them now.
Someone who has already opened one present today.
Enough already.

I look at that radiant woman
only two years into motherhood.
And I see someone so able,
beautiful and willing.

A woman who seems oddly foreign to me now.
Transformed by a pregnancy
and the loss of 4000 hours of sleep-
over five years.

She is the woman in the cubicle next to me
who I listen to all day, but we somehow never managed to connect.

No, she's right here,
underneath the kidney pain,
and the grief of letting go of the baby for the big boy now.
She's on the pages of the Hip Mama magazine
arriving today in the mail.
She's in between the pages of the new vegetarian cookbook
and on the underside of the magenta petals of the farm picked flowers Louise gave me last night
to celebrate me in the middle
of Marcel making it to two with so much graceless ease.

Poets with runny noses

2009-10-02T13:37:00.006-04:00

Home with two sick boys today.

Green, the operative word is green.
I'll spare you any more details.

On the way back from picking up party supplies at the store-
in an effort to pretend we are not that sick...
Marcel says;

The football with that man is in the happy sunlight
and the sun makes my body feel right.

Of course he was looking at a homeless man
holding something
football shaped in a brown bag--
but to Marcel-
pure light!

Before that he made blueberry lego muffins
for Duckie and "MarSammy" his baby doll.

He turns two on Sunday.

fair is fair (with Mama shoe flair)

2009-09-30T22:18:00.006-04:00

It's not fair when I:
rub his brother's back for longer than I rub his.
give Marcel a kiss first.
Cuddle with him longer.
Sleep in my own bed, alone.

It's not fair when I win at a board game,
in fact it feels like a complete breech to his nervous system if I do.

It's not fair that his brother's birthday comes first. It would help if he could get presents too. That would feel fair-er.

What is fair is the fair.
Rides by himself because he can.
Rides with his brother because his brother can't
alone.
A giant order of cotton candy for dinner, because
I said he could buy what he wanted
with the money he earned
sleeping in his bed five nights in a row.
Watching motorcycle snow mobiles lift into the air
over a giant pile of dirt,
and horses pulling riders in unison.

What is fair is asking for the toy trumpets to disappear
for the car ride home if they want to ever see them again.

All of this negotiating and rewarding
and noticing is making me very, very tired.

I suppose that's fair.

And on the 7th day...

2009-09-28T18:54:00.002-04:00

Just a quick update to tell you that the bunk beds
are a huge success.
Stats:
13/14 combined nights of sleep in the beds all night.
1 falling event to the ground from the bottom bed
1 self selected painting event with poster paints
23 pillow fights
0 regrets

Considering that I came in and rearranged their room, removed the only beds either of them remembered essentially, put an end to sleeping with mom, and turned two sleep times into one (Marcel used to go to bed 1/2 hour before Sam) this is an amazing report eh?

Edgy

2009-09-28T04:21:00.006-04:00

Without all the help that I am so accustomed to
my, our edges start to show.
Support is something I'm so good at-anticipating,
asking for, and lining up.
That this late September/ October breach to the system
has walloped me.
Left me here at 4:30 am wondering
Just where did everybody go?

Inventory:

One family moved across the country-
I counted on them for humor,
play dates, and advice.
Their loss is a low constant ache
that you cease to medicate.
A facebook wave, an address on an index card
I keep meaning to write.
We drive by your old house,
feelings of longing swirl around your driveway
with the leaves.

Then love swooped one away,
with a new career, and a house.
Changes we applaud and celebrate.
I know things will even out,
you assure me of that and how soon
we'll land back squarely on your plate.
Your tenderness and ease,
your patience, the way you make everything
great! is profound in it's absence as of late.

California.
For five weeks.
A cave it will take that long to find our way out of.
You are missed.

School started.
Senior year.
We miss the you living downstairs
the organic knowing that you are
always here.
Of course you are always.

Uncle's under pressure.
Work demands.
Time has new boundaries.
in this there needs to be some limits on nephew land.
Mom doesn't quite know where to land.
Trying not to mis-understand.

Our upstairs family
lured downstairs for homemade cookies and a check in.
Graduate school, and the new curriculum
were also at the table then.
I miss kick boxing, and
the long walks.
Dinner plans, and the mint we were going to
watch swirl around in the ice.
My kids taking over your home
while I wrote a story or
organized my life.

A relationship that was so reliable and easy
before one became two
This is a miss unlike the others.
It involves missing myself
as only I was with you.
Twenty plus years in the making.
There was no me the mom in the middle,
no elephants to tip toe over consistency and negotiation.
A larger miss, missed, missing.

And then there are the unanswered emails
and calls not because we are no longer important
or even desired company.
Things come up.
Family time takes precedence.
People do have other friends too.
Other friends have needs too.
Schedules just don't allow for impromptu
the way they used to.
I am as much to "blame" as you.

I remember the twenty-four people
crowding the room at Sammy's adoption-day celebration.
How the judge was noticeably moved by this single mother's
extended family.

And I don't have time to tell you all-
Until I wake up at 4:30am in this I miss-You-state.
and write about it in my BLOG
that I miss you.

And it is hard.

It is or was September after all.

Such a shift for everyone.

Or, an opportunity,
one could say to make new friends.
Create other kinds of support-
to follow up the calls to those two girls
from the high school looking for babysitting work.
Accept the offer for the cup of tea.
Call the friend of the friend who is a single mother too.

I did after all really enjoy the weekend-
at the soccer game alone.
The walk and roller blade in the rain to harvest
the harvested tomatoes at school.
The satisfaction of putting the boys down to bed
successfully twice.
And the visit that I finally arranged with the triplets in the park.
The two crock pot meals
that I thought were delicious anyway.

I can move beyond this inventory,
beyond the I miss you.

Hip Mama.... if only

2009-09-24T16:12:00.005-04:00

Even though two of my poems are included in this, the newest issue of Hip Mama, it is hard to feel hip in my tired old bones today.

But please CHECK OUT this issues, and BUY IT online www.hipmamazine.com or at your local bookstore and hip bodega. It is their creativity issue which makes me feel particularly HOT no matter what.

Bunk bed update: two nights in, and two nights out for Sam. Marcel has mastered the art of the lower bunk--as long as you never put covers on him, and remember the socks. As long as you rub his back, and not his head. As long as you sing the alphabet song, or Swing Low, but not Summertime. These are this weeks requirements.

Sam, well Sam needed to paint the bed apparently. Poster paint. Green. All over the bed, the floor, and Marcel's lamb. He said it was his, and he wanted to paint it. I was so flabbergasted I didn't even react. I just handed him the warm wash cloth and he got to work. This didn't improve things, made it worse actually. But, it allowed me time to go sit in the other room, and breathe.

I do a lot of that to avoid yelling.

It worked last night.

It's not even a pretty green either.

His logic; "Mom you said I could paint it." (What I said the night before was--Sure we can paint it some day--we'll go pick out paints together if you'd like. )

Translation: Mom, as I become wiser in the world, and can handle language like play dough I am going to explore some more limits with you. Are you ready?

Uncle took the boys to the park so that I could take a nap (Sam woke up four times last night to ask for reassurance that he was supposed to sleep in his bed )before a meeting I have to go to this evening.

Instead I run to the blog.

Because I had to tell you about the green paint, and the fact that the gentleman I have been dating for a few months is leaving town for the weekend to play the part of an invasive beetle to educate people at a country fair.

So this weekend I can say that I am dating a beetle, and it would be the truth.

In some circles that would seem incredibly hip.

Bon nuit*

2009-09-20T20:41:00.011-04:00

They are both sleeping.
Sam on the top, and Marcel on the bottom bunk.
The crib is in pieces against the wall in my room.
An era ends.

I sat against the wall on the cushion for ten minutes in the dark, with just the glow of the basketball night light to bathe them and me in this sweet passage together that we are making.

We read three stories.
A picture book with both on the bottom bunk.
A chapter book with Sam in his bed,
and Marcel in my lap.
Another picture book with Sam dozing off above,
Marcel next to me in the bottom.

By the third verse of Summertime,
Sam was snoring.
Marcel ten deep breaths behind.

I'm feeling so much success at this moment.
Two boys arriving so in tact here.
At almost five and nearly two.

And tonight I remember how deep was my longing
to have a child come into my life.
The longing never landed in an image of me there on the floor
looking up at the two of them sleeping
listening to their symphonic breathing
holding their emerging dreams in my heart.

(*This post dedicated to Uncle to whom this particular
milestone being realized is attributed to.)

Sam helping with the drilling (top). The boys testing the top bunk out (above) and one of my all time favorite pictures of me and Sam taped to his headboard in case he wakes in the middle of the night and needs to see me.

Donuts for Dinner, or You're not My Real Mom.

2009-09-19T06:17:00.011-04:00

He has been gone on an impromptu-post soccer game-
play date for several hours.
This in itself is new, and I am eager to hear how it went.
He is striking out in the world on his own,
dribbling down one field after another.

The doorbell rings, he bursts in, and before I can say hello-

You are not my real mom.

This he announces as he sits on the big blue chair,
the overstuffed cuddle chair,
the Marcel nursey-nigh-nigh chair,
the bedtime story chair.
the one we call safe when we are playing in the house.

Kneeling as I help him untie his show, and take a second to gather
my thoughts, and to hush my oh-no-he-didn't-just-say-that-feelings.

I am prepared to answer this, this time.
I have practiced this one.

Does it feel like that sometimes? I begin.
Does it sometimes feel like you have two real moms?
Me, your real everyday mom, who loves you
every moment of every day-
and your real birth mother who carried you in her tummy and
brought you into the world?

He sticks his fingers in his ears, and in a sing song-y voice;
I can't hear you. I can't hear you.

This was not in the version I practiced.
Which part is too much to hear?

I can wait, I say. I rub his knee, I grab his foot.
I can wait to tell you how much I love you, until you are ready.

He jerks away for a second to deliver; You're not my real mom.
When you die you are not going to be my mom any more.

Death, abandonment, and adoption related identity integration
and individualization on a Saturday afternoon.
Who isn't prepared for that?

I breathe. I picture myself back in the family therapist's office,
I give myself a moment.
I get up, and sit with him now.

He is waiting.

I am your real mom. I love you the way only a real mom does.
I will always be your real mom.
[Birth mother's name here] will always love you
and be your real birth mother.
Death will not change that.

He shifts away, and then looks right in my eyes-
which I realize is so rare-to tell me-ask me all at once;
But you can't talk to me when you die.

I take his hands, and gently squeeze, Not like we are taking now.
But, I will always be in your heart.
And when you need to talk to me, I believe that I will still hear you in a way.
I talk to my Godfather all the time ( Uncle Dick's picture hangs on the wall near us)
And although he can't talk back, I always feel better after I have said what I needed to.

How come I can't have a donut for dinner? Don't we have any left?

It is now safe to jump off the blue chair.

Of note...

2009-09-14T03:22:00.007-04:00

Stealing a few minutes at 3 a.m.
The beginning of the new school year is just like that.
The blog calls to me in a voice overshadowed
by the seventy or so other voices
that land every September in bold force into my orbit
with a volume I am never quite prepared for.

A stellar landing though.
With NASA like ease and precision
we managed to arrive in the school year
with nary a bump on Fall's solid ground.
The family was ready.
I take full credit for this one.

Of note: Sam's return to the barbershop
and my refusal to let him be cut
by anyone other then our barber
even though two seats sat open.
As far as barbershop etiquette goes
I can tell you that I stood about ten feet tall telling the owner
he'd like to wait.

Pause.

You were too rough on him last time.
You made him cry.
It took us a year to come back.

You could almost hear the lollipops in the basket saying;
No she didn't just tell him that.

Sam rested his forehead on my shoulder.

The other barbers looking from me to the owner with eyes wide and wider.

And then the most amazing thing,
besides me finding my mama bear in the middle of barbershop
where few mama bears even ever dare to go-
was his response-

kneeling down in front of us both
the man who keeps a baseball bat under his mirror that
is not meant for hitting leather
says I'm sorry Sam.
I didn't mean to upset you man.

Talk about rising to an occasion.

When we left
Sam says Mom I look good.
I like it there.

Oh yeah, how come?

I don't know

Is it because you look like everyone in there?

Yeah. And they cut my hair and it looks good.

I do too, I tell him.
But I didn't used to.

How come?

Because now I feel like they know me Sam, and don't mind it
when I come in the door too.
They like us both now, not just you.

Running for the playground, looking so good
despite the unruly mopped little brother running after him
I can tell Sam knows exactly what I mean.

***

Also of note-the Adoptive Families September/October issue
is now at the store(s).
Let me know how you liked it if you saw it.
Let me know if that is what brought you to this blog.
(See link to the right. And if you click on the "home"
button once you get there-you may eventually see the actual piece on line.)

Hip Mama Magazine-issue 44: Creativity
is carrying two poems
and a photo. Due out in a few weeks too.

Of note:
Sam's first official, uniformed, coached, and refereed soccer game
(and I use all the above terms as they are intended in the Under Six league)
was a definitive WIN to him.
And me, in my soccer mom debut.

I have that kid.
I have the one who scores three goals, in ten minutes.
I have the kid who knows which direction to dribble
and knows how to dribble.
I have the kid who makes the sport
look like butter melting on hot early September sweet corn.
Yes I am the mother of that kid.

And he has the mother who hollers, and claps,
and jumps a few inches form the ground when she does.
And he has the mother who directs him to thank the coach
after the game (so she can hear the coach say
in a British accent for added impact)
Lad, you are really switched on.
If you keep working this hard
you'll be really really good at this game.

I am the mother who sees herself at her son's gold medal ceremony-
a little prematurely.

***
Of note:
My remembering to find my way to yes
as the therapist suggested and what a remarkable difference it has made:

Sam: Can I have a popsicle?
Me: Yes, you can have one after dinner.
Sam returns to the train table.

What is unremarkable here-the conflict.

What is remarkable here-the lack of conflict.

That exchange used to take minutes.
I would say "No you can't have a popsicle it is dinner time."
and he would say...
Why can't I-It's not fair-Last week I-You said I-Just one please-At Grammy's I-Please-
I said please-My brother got one when he was sick...

Or something like that.

Now I don't engage in that.

And it took a week or so to get it right
to reset the stage for positive interaction
instead of the NO reaction.
And look at all the space it creates on the Sammy-Mommy scene.
We find so much more ease together in the YES.

***
Of note: I am dating still.
And when I asked him if it is daunting to date a woman
with two young kids
(who he met briefly once,
and for a long while we'll just leave it at that)
he said Yes, shouldn't it?
and But you are a package deal and I know that.
How Librarian a response.
(As in a Libra, albeit one who is very bookish and cute.)
The cast iron medley of roasted vegetables,
and apple fritter he cooked were notable too.
Flavored just so with lingering lines like;
Just so lucky to have met you.

Round and Round

2009-09-05T20:47:00.009-04:00

Hula Hoops hang in the air
around him like dancers in flight.
I can do three he claims, and he's right.

School began again-easier this time.
It is always easier.
I love watching them walk in my room on day one.
I love their faces revealing
the mystery the wonderment:
Who is this lady?
Is she nice?
Who are those kids all over her wall?
Are they her children?
Will I be seen by her too?

For Sam a promotion of sorts-he is the oldest preschooler there.
Marcel stepped up to "Toddler B" the youngest in his class. "I in new room Mommy with big kids too."

It's all new, it's all the same.
Practice.
We practice transitions.
We practice new beginnings.
We practice holding onto expectations, and then letting them go.
We practice so that we don't have to practice as much.

Summer is so big, takes up so much space at the four season table.
I'm not as beside myself as some, that she is finishing her desert.
She makes such a raucous with her plans, and little trips, long evenings, and her endless requests for ice cream, and photo opportunities.
Her laughter incessant.
She never goes to bed on time.

So, Fall can relax a little into her own,
now that summer's cleared her pit strewn plate.
Even if she comes back to say goodnight,
we can exhale a little as we shift and notice
the shimmer in Fall's auburn hair.

Caught

2009-08-31T09:42:00.008-04:00

With my sandal in the summer,
and my Mary Jane in the fall.

As a mother mama writer with sun drenched skin who makes time.

Who makes sand castles and cupcakes.

Who makes loons out of pigeons.

Who makes observations around the edges.

Who makes changes when it isn't working.

Who makes space for him to tell me when he just can't handle it.

Caught with a list of to-do's to do today for tomorrow
when it all begins again
And a summer to laze around in-in my head instead.

Caught myself last night resenting what he just couldn't handle
as I looked around the room of eight women gathered
for our End of Summer Salon
my poets, my writers, my playwrights, musicians, my artists, my friends-
my son there too, next to the other poems in my lap.
My little muse, my constant rough draft,
witnessing why the Moon is Always Female*
in a four and a half year old way.

Caught a holy mackerel on Monhegan, he told his teacher this morning.
Sam caught a big fish in the water his little brother added.

*The Moon is Always Female by Marge Piercy read at the Salon/Book Launch last night

Grabbed

2009-08-24T10:49:00.004-04:00

If I were a child, she said, I would want to hear how I was adored, and cherished, and grabbed up the moment my mother first laid eyes on me.

I listened carefully.

Retell the story, she said, and let him know that he was not placed in your arms gently.

I listened and recast the moment in my own memory--dispelling the doubt and the fear I had, replacing it with an image of an eager and brightly lit me, bursting into her room, and scooping him up, tight to my heart in a whirlwind with no doubt between us.

And I have.

Retold the story to Sam many times since I met with the therapist a few weeks ago.

And it seems to be grounding us both.

I have just ordered Holly Van Gulden's Learning the Dance of Attachment (http://www.danceofattachment.org/Books.html) at a friend/adoptive mother's strong suggestion. I will share my findings here, when I have read it.

To The Lighthouse

2009-08-24T04:59:00.005-04:00

To Marcel the lighthouse is big. To Marcel the world is a place to conquer. Language has erupted. He hears the word once, he practices it. Then, it is his.

When he saw this photo he remarked; Look! This is Mah-cell in front of a big big BIG lighthouse. Then Mah-cell fell down on the beach got wet and no eat Mah-cell acorn. In those sentences he recapped the walk we took together yesterday to Ned's Point in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts. He looked some more, and laughed out loud. Then, No Sammy stroller-walk, just Mommy and Marcel. His choice to tell me this reminds me--how rare and important our alone time-out in the world is too.

The narrative ended with; I saw a bunny too mom, and then the bunny went home, and so did the seahorse. The seahorse is a reference to Salty the 25 foot high seahorse that welcomes visitors to the town. He stayed awake just long enough to say goodbye to Salty as we drove home yesterday. Marcel's sense of time, relationship, and the order of things, is like the lighthouse-ever present and BIG.

At daycare I was too tired for tact, so I blurted out that he had essentially potty trained himself over the weekend--I go potty now please Mommy he called to me at four this morning. His diaper was dry. I obliged him with the diaper removal, and he took care of business. He spent the last three days, annoucning the like, and in most cases, following through with great success. The director responded beautifully as always-informing me that his teachers felt that he was ready to transistion to a new room a little ahead of schedule. This means a potty next to the room. This means a class of other potty training children. This means an end to the diaper era in a few months. This is a joyful thought.

Lists, Leaps, and Longshots Landing

2009-08-20T07:43:00.008-04:00

Summer is a list:
Fish off the pier, check
Pee in potty, check
Article in magazine, check

Summer is a leap:
Inches marked on a door frame
Sentences where words were
His anger is about feelings he can not articulate, yet

Summer is a long shot:
How about coffee? I'll be the one with a book in the corner
Submit your query to...
Honk if you believe in health care

Summer is a landing:
into brotherhood
into mother-writer and teacher
into this moment with a little less work

Sick is just what the doctor ordered

2009-08-13T14:16:00.003-04:00

His fever in almost a moot point.

It was bigger then him, this time.
Flattened him for three days.
He didn't eat for two.

I worried. I pampered. I called the doctor. I worried some more. I googled all those scary mommy sites. Menigitis? Can you move your neck? Will you please just touch your chin to your neck. It is important. I dabbed cool cloth on hot skin. I administered the medicine, and charted the times. I kissed his burning forehead, and squeezed his toes to make the head ache go away. I woke him at intervals with the water and the straw; "just a sip, sweetie, just a sip." Then I held him asleep in my arms. I remembered to smile, and to tell him how strong his body was, and that his body would take care of itself soon. It was only a flu.

But, it was also a gift.

A chance to return for a few days to that place
where I was pure Mom. Where he was pure mama's boy.

We both needed that.

There was no increasing awareness of his birthstory.
There was no anger or rage.
There was no conflict.
There was no doubt about who was what when.
There was just a mother helping her son recover, well.

I am an excellent mom when you are sick.
He is an excellent patient.

I was packing some things in a bag when
I felt his arm around my leg.

A gesture that took me by surprise
in it's innocence-
or by it's absence.

Can I have another cracker?

I am so happy he's better,
and so thankful that we shared this sick.

With an Open Fist

2009-08-09T19:00:00.015-04:00

My son's rage
is a fist curled tight
a foot stomped harder
a path carved by tears back
to a birth that was an end

before it was a beginning

It is common she said
for our children to experience rage
on a deeper level
to relive their loss in every loss

it is common she said
for our children to need more
reassurance that we are going
no where

We withstand their screams
deflect their arms raised
embrace their disintegration-
soothe their heart
and swim inside-beside
that pool of loss with them
to witness
what we can't touch

Sam arrived in my room
at midnight
and crawled into bed
with his eyes closed

Then he reached
underneath the pillow
in his sleep
to find my hand-
with his fist wide open

dedicated with gratitude to the six women gathered

Wild Blueberries and the Boys Who Love them

2009-08-06T21:50:00.006-04:00

On a little island
on a little lake
in another state

One day is all takes

Picking blues
kayaks for two
who don't need shoes

Sam at the wheel
determination carved in steel
Going growing real

One day is all it takes

Night nights to the loon
whispers settle soon
boyhood eclipse the moon

Magazine Debut!

2009-08-04T17:26:00.005-04:00

Here it is! The cover of the issue of Adoptive Families Magazine (September/October)that my article "True Love Times Two" appears in on page 23-the "Our Story" section. I am not certain if a link will appear to my story--but that is why we have book stores. It should be on the stands end of August. (I know it is available at Borders, and whatever the Borders equivalent is in the midwest, and west coast.) I am so pleased to have the piece here, and offer big thanks to Ariel Gore and The Wayward Writers for their editorial input! I will try to post a link on the right.

On Birth Certificates

2009-08-03T13:45:00.016-04:00

It was what you would call a feel good moment-typing your son's name into the on-line soccer registration form. The feel good moment that often accompanies a long awaited arrival.

We have arrived at the age where one is old enough to play soccer.Old enough to mind the coach and kick the ball.Old enough to run the lap in the same direction as the rest of the team. Old enough to feel so excited about the new pink (yes pink) laces for the almost new soccer shoes.

After filling out three pages of essential information, paying the fee, and pushing print, I arrived at the little line that gave me a jolt. "All new members are required to mail a copy of their birth certificate to...". Into the closet, into the flame retardant orange box, I am looking for that envelope that I sobbed into the first time I held it.

I smiled at the little post-it I forgot that I had left there. In beautiful, feminine print with red ink it says; "I hope you have a happy mother's day." Those words from the clerk, in the office in North Carolina who received and processed my request for Sam's birth certificate. The documents from the court hearing that terminated the alleged birth father's paternity rights were the final piece that had to line up in order for that certificate to be produced. And, without it, my petition to finalize Sam's adoption in Maine would not have happened. Her pink script is not indicative of all of our communications, but a testament to her choice to see the finish line for a little family in Maine.

In my hand, I am stunned by how I react to seeing my name on the line where the mother is. Of course I am his mother, now, and from the time that he was thirty-six hours old. But it is not a Mothering Certificate, it is a Certificate of Live Birth. And, having done one of those too--I know how much I deserved a certificate for that! One deserves an ocean liner of them for carrying the child and birthing it too. Her name should be there in addition to mine.. (Of course I know that this was intended originally to protect the birth mother's identity which is not something I am in a position to address here--I am strictly addressing my feelings as an adoptive mother to share the stage with the biological mother's identity.) It is not just semantics, it is the importance of that document from the act of registering a four year old for soccer or school, to getting a passport, or proving that you are who you are.

Unlike most adoptive parents, I managed to procure the original one. So Sam will have both. Records of both of his births. His biological birth, and his birth as my son. They are not mutually exclusive. So, I would like them to both appear on this one all important document.

His birth mother and I share in the joy of his life. We do this actively through letters, emails, and calls. He is who is he is because of her and because of me. I would rename it "Certificate of Live Birth and Parentage." Then, the document could be a constant testament to the triad of adoption.

If only the people at the soccer league knew how much thought has gone into that little photocopy that will arrive in their mailbox tomorrow.

In my back woods

2009-07-30T15:47:00.005-04:00

In my back woods
I was Nature Girl-
naming potato bugs
that I brought to their little desks made out of acorn tops
and pine cone bits
so I could call on them
at my potato bug school

In my back woods
I was seven-happy-and-eight too picking daffodils
swinging on vines
following the creek to the tunnel under the parkway

stopping before the waterfall down to the Potomac
stopping before Sasquatch got you-
or the naked man who they said
ran the woods at night-
or the teenagers who hid their pipes
in the roots of the giant dead over turned tree
in the red clay earth

In my back woods
I was Luke Skywalker
practicing for hours my powers
to make a stick levitate from the earth into my hand
with sheer will power
if I could channel the good side of The Force

(In my back woods
I was never Princess Leah
because my hair wouldn't roll around my head like that
it was too short
I looked more like Luke)

In my back woods
being alone and seeing a deer talk to a squirrel
or a fox sliding on the ice for fun
or the sun lick a red red berry
wasn't magical
it was just what happened there
when I was alone
not encumbered by all the things I know now
that would stop me cold
from venturing alone into the back woods.

Truck #54

2009-07-30T10:04:00.005-04:00

Mommy wake up!
Wakeupwakeupwakeup.

Marcel is pulling at my hand.

He has crawled out of his crib-
the side remains down now
with a chair next to it
so that his escape route is safe.

Because Marcel has places to go

Like out the basement door
and around to the front last week when I was upstairs making dinner and Uncle was in the next room

The very helpful and relieved police officer
(relieved to see the described child in distress
seated at the table eating carrots from a bowl with his truck)
informed me that it was time to get a new doorbell-
since the neighbors tried to tell me that he was out front with a ring
before they called 9-1-1.

Twice.

When Uncle realized Marcel was out front
and not with me
before I realized that he was not with Marc but out front
he came to the rescue
long before Portland's finest.

But nice to know the neighbors are watching
when Marcel is on the move.
(Even if they did tell the policeman it had been half an hour
when it was closer to six minutes tops that
Marcel was at the front door waiting to come in.)

SHHHHHHH
Come here. Come here. SHHHH.
He yells with his finger up to his mouth
and his little garbage truck in his hand-
because you wouldn't want to scare
it away!

Dragged by my index finger out of bed
I wait while Marcel lifts up the curtain to reveal:

Truck #54

RIGHT THERE MOMMY
LOOK!

And I did.
And the trash men did too.
And we all waved and said hello-and thank you for the hard work that you do
And they smiled at Marcel
and he smiled at them
and then smiled at my pajamas
and the drool on my chin
and I smiled at the giant #54 in clean white type against azure blue
my favorite number reminding me
Start the day-don't let the day
start you.

Pom poms, Pubs, and Possibility!

2009-07-22T10:35:00.008-04:00

Thanks to dear friends L&L and their brood for the indoctrination of the pom-pom jar. No sticker charts, no late night shopping for the promised reward, and everyone gets to play. Your total investment=.99c. Your reward is endless.

Buy a bag of pom-poms at the art store/dollar store. Put them in a clean glass recycled jar. Put another jar next to it. Introduce pom-pom concept to family like this:

Notice something stellar happening around you. Verbally acknowledge it; Pom-pom for clearing your plate without even being asked! Walk over to the pom-pom jar and take one from the full jar, and put it in the empty jar. Notice something else. Pom-pom for nice sharing Marcel!

Repeat pom-pom in jar step. Encourage everyone to notice pom-pom worthy acts.

Be particularly pleased when oldest son notices that you Did not yell at us all day! Pom-pom for not yelling mom! Let him place the pom-pom for mom's good choice(s!!) in the jar.

Fill up the jar with all of your families celebratory moments.

When someone has an idea about something fun they'd love to do reply like this; That's a great idea--how about go to Silly's for dinner when we fill up the pom pom jar? Smile when everyone yells; YEAH!

Catch: you have to do the thing. Like when you agree to RIDE THE DUCK when the jar is full, you really have to go, even though duck tickets are $24.00 for adults. (What is the Duck? Amphibious tour mobile. Half the tour on land, half around the harbor.)

Sam's favorite part about pom-poms is that you can throw them and no one minds.

Marcel's favorite-you can put them in your mouth and spit them out.

Mom's favorite=our good behavior runneth over!

Publication update: My article in Adoptive Families Magazine will be at bookstore near you at the end of August. They sent me the proof--and it looks marvelous. All the Borders will carry it, and just about any big bookstore you know of. Ask your local bookstore to carry it--it's an amazing resource every other month for the adoption community. And the folks there are doing good work, and are super easy to work with! I am working on a proposal for a more regular column.

The Lit Star Collective Anthology (with a forward by super star/ teacher / mentor Ariel Gore) is out, and looks dynamite. Reads well too! If you have the good fortune to be a member of my immediate family a copy is on the way to you. If not the link to purchase your own is on this site-over there somewhere. The collection is packed with fast reads from 15 plus talented writers. It will inspire your own writing, and amuse you. Please let me know what you think.

Two more pieces are being considered for two other anthologies, and just yesterday a cross your fingers it just may come true response from another editor about a series of poems to be published. Although she didn't commit, it looks hopeful. My goal was five publication acceptances in 2009. If all of these come through (and one more in an unknown zone at The Sun) that'll put me at six maybe seven this year. Pom pom for Mom for getting the work out there!

Possibility At another dear friends urging I have committed to "ten dates in July and August". And because I am not a frolic and blog kind of girl, I'm going to leave it at this: I take my commitments seriously. If my dating life is on the same trajectory as my publishing, 2009 will indeed be a year of multitudinous possibility.

2009-07-20T13:40:00.001-04:00

2009-07-18T07:47:00.000-04:00

Picture This

2009-07-17T06:57:00.005-04:00

The two of you in the sand side by side
on your tummies
watching your questions unfold
how a seagull takes flight
how a roller coaster doesn't

During the week you grew closer still
a brown hand in a browner hand at the water's edge
side by side on the mini motorcycle carousel
your bodies forming a perfect T
in the twin beds pushed together
asleep to meet again on the back of the seagull at the top of the roller coaster
in your dreams

Where-did-Sammy-go? is now one word-uttered this morning in deep sleep
Answered by Sammy's snores a reassuring tuck in around
the edges

It is in your brotherhood that I take most of my parenting comfort
It is there that I can relax into the something-done-well

Later you will help each other
navigate
all the places I didn't know where
or is it how
to take you-
as you head down the street
with all the other lanky looking for something to cure the boredom boys
holding the ball,
tall,
dark,
curly,
determined,
powerful.

Ode to Marcel

2009-07-10T08:03:00.005-04:00

How was I supposed to know-
that FEEEEEEEEEEET meant
you were not cold,
you did want a blanket,
you did not want your feet rubbed,
you wanted what at 4:38 am?

Do you want a pair of socks?
I ask in a frantic,
hair about to fall out kind of way.
"Yes" you reply in the sweetest of sweets
now you're back to bed,
and so are your cold
feet.

Midsummer Review

2009-07-07T20:27:00.005-04:00

I was more nervous than he was.

In the bag is your lunch, extra clothes, just in case for any reason you need them, and water. Promise mommy you will drink lots of water?

Mom, I know.

Listen to the coach. He has a lot to teach you.

Sometimes he will be talking a lot, but you still need to listen, OK?

Mom, I know.

It is not about scoring, it is about learning how to be a team member, and passing, and most importantly...

Mom, stop talking please.

Right.

Sam is enjoying soccer camp.
Coach says he's doing fine.
Playing well beyond his years.
He is the youngest one there-so he has choice.

Coach says he has plenty of talent-
you just have to stay on him.

This will be the story of Sam.

***

Marcel is speaking in sentences.

Demanding the world be delivered instantly
with more and more syllables.

Un-cle are two of his favorite sounds.

Sam is less and less out of reach-
as a playmate, an ally, a friend.
This subtle transformation
is a chrysalis emerging
turning this baby and this boy into
brothers in flight.

***
This Mom is landing into something
stronger.

It is open, willing, and certain.

It is a voice with good posture.

It is a flat of hand picked strawberries in the rain.

It is corners without shadows.

It is permission to sit in the front row.

It is time.

ghost story

2009-07-01T11:36:00.003-04:00

Mom there is a man creeping up right behind you
Sammy says to me after dinner the other night.
I turn around slowly
trying to pretend I am scared.
Noticing I am actually scared.
I get wide eyed and ask him
if he saw a ghost?
No and yes.

He is learning about ghosts.
They like the dark, not the light.
He asks me to talk like they do--make the wooo-wooo sound.
No, not like that! Like this, WOOOO WOOOO.
He wants to be afraid-
he doesn't want to be afraid.

He won't go into the little bathroom at night now
since he decided it was the perfect place for one.
This has resulted in several accidents.
I am planning on hosting a tea party
in the dark and inviting this ghost
so we can befriend it.
This will reduce the amount of laundry I have to do

His ghosts seem so small now
still wary of the light.

He doesn't have the ghost of his birth mother's
choice
to contend with yet.
The ghost of wondering what it would have been like
to have been raised by her,
to have been raised by the beautiful black woman
that shares your blood
and has your eyes
and all the what-else-ghosts
instead of me.

Or is she my ghost, still?

What about his birth father,
what will that ghost look like to Sam?
Will he be the kind that haunts him all of his life
from just behind the door to his identity
of himself as the man,
as the father one day?

Or will that be the ghost Sam meets head on
in his dreams,
or over the phone
when he asks him
how come he didn't want to be his daddy
when he could have been.

Alone time for Mama Duck

2009-06-22T10:53:00.006-04:00

We managed it quite well this time-that holiday. This year we called it; "The Day of Fatherly Love" when we honor and celebrate all the people who love us in a fatherly way.

We made them pancakes, and gave them gifts we made at
preschool. We called some,and joined others at a baseball game.

We reminded each other that we do just fine the way we are--in this family that doesn't have one.

We listed all the people who love us, and who we love, and forgot for the most part that we were any different then anyone else. We asked if Uncle was our dad. We asked if our birth father was our dad. We asked about little brother's who don't have a birth father, and what does a donor do? We went to the park when we had asked enough questions.

Then it was time to do the hair. Sunday is hair night. Sunday is tangles, owees, combs, buzzers and popsicles.

Sunday was late to bed, and long, deep sleeps. In my dream I was evacuated from a plane in a lake on a dark cold summer's night. A giant loon appeared, and guided our raft to shore. Lakes and loons are harbingers of creative activity. The plane crash that wasn't a crash? Need a few more days to work through that one...

Monday is rainy listening to snoring children as I drink my instant coffee and imagine all the possibility of a safe landing... Monday is me almost kicking my heels in the air as I leave the kids at school for a day all to myself. Monday is a reminder to do nothing, as hard as that can be for me. Monday is for not making plans.

Monday is playing in the dirt, gardening in the rain.

I am off work for the summer.

I have two healthy, communicative, loving, whimsical, crazy, adamant, beautiful children to enjoy, nurture, rediscover, adore.

I have a nearly complete memoir and several pieces of published and soon to be published pieces out there in the world. I have so much more to say.

Of course it was a giant loon.

Poised

2009-06-18T05:57:00.004-04:00

On the edge of summer time.
A watering can in one hand,
a bathing suit in the other.
The park concert schedule soaking under
the watermelon rinds on the counter.
After dinner park romps
in search of an ice cream truck and
a baseball game.

Poised on the edge of summer
when the wading pool, the playground
and picnics at the beach
tangled up in kite strings
are the closest thing we have to a plan-
a destination.

A foyer filled
with bike helmets,
baseball bats, and
boasts from boys
with dirt under their nails
and heroic intentions
to catch the ball and
dive my head under the water
this time.

Poised for summer with
seedlings to encourage
under the windows
to open
inviting in the soundtrack of
the season: from bees
brothers
and boom boxes
to come on in and make it official:

summertime and the living
is easy.

Look what the Yes brought in

2009-06-14T21:46:00.004-04:00

When the raindrops hit the little pond in the park, they leave giant bubbles in their wake. Tossing cheerios to the ducks in the rain with Sam and Marcel, I noticed those bubbles, hundreds upon hundred of them with a childlike awe. Then the mama duck with the couldn't-be- much -older-than-a-day-brood rounded the corner and I felt this crazy empathy with her. (I try not to count how many babies are there--so I don't have to grieve her loss when I come down the next day or so, and see that she has less.) I always shout out my congrats to her, for her success in the hatching department. I still can't believe I ever birthed one, and welcomed another-and here she is with seven or eight..

Uncle is here. He lives here. He shares meals here. He is right downstairs. He says "sure" when I ask if I can pop out to the store. I went grocery shopping alone. I took my time. I carefully considered which fruit would ripen sooner, but not too soon. I did not get irritated when the check out line was slow. I rather enjoyed looking at all the magazines that I would never ever read.

Uncle is here. He installs things, and removes others. He says things like an "antenna is a passive device.." and then he explains what that means. He lets the boys climb on him, and each play the recorder really loud at the same time downstairs while I cook dinner. I cook dinners that require things that are fresh to be cut up, baked, stirred, dressed and steamed. I set the table for four and notice that the t.v. has not been on all day. This is the fifth meal that has not come out of the freezer.

Uncle is here. He notices when Marcel speaks in more and more complex sentences, and grins when Sam turns a new phrase. When Sam eats all of the fish on his plate without being coaxed , I am not the first to say something. Uncle is gone for hours with the boys at the diner, and the park helping them burn off the chocolate chips in the pancakes, and the jam packages consumed for fun. I come back from kick boxing, and walk around my empty house imaging all the things I would ask Uncle to help me with if he were around. And he is.

How long is Uncle going to be here? Is Uncle living here now? Will Uncle be here tomorrow? Sam had a couple of very rough days at school last week--right about when Uncle's arrival became a reality. I am imaging that all of this could be pretty confusing to a four and a half year old in search of order, control, and mastery of all things related. You know where the ball is when you throw it against the wall and it comes back. Uncle living downstairs is far less predictable.

And finally a note about no. Or should I say, and on a positive note, a word about yes. I am noticing how often a no, need not necessarily be. Inviting the yes back into the morning, the afternoon, and the night. Yes we can stop at the playground, and yes you can have a piece of gum. Yes we can read another chapter, and yes you can wear your pajamas all day. Yes you can run in that puddle, and yes doesn't mean I am losing control of the world.

Foghorns and Gongs

2009-06-10T05:30:00.006-04:00

uncle's boat is miles from the coast
he's been three weeks
at sea.
his boxes are down stairs
where we'd like him to be
when is uncle going to live here mom?
eventually
and now
***

sitting across from the therapist
i describe sam:
social, active and athletically gifted
sensitive, stubborn and dramatic
he knows what he wants
and that is that

(god he sounds like me)

sitting across from the therapist
i answer the question
carefully
what brings you here?

a parenting check up.
an imbalance
a feeling at the end of the day
that Marcel gets all praise and kisses
as Sam gets NO NO NO
and perma-frowns for
near
misses

when a parent walks in the door
of a therapist's office as a
preventative measure
it must be like walking into the garage-asking
the mechanic what I can do to care for the car better,
in a way to avoid any
unnecessary wear and tear
to steer clear of a collision

walking home the words
sophisticated parenting
continue to ring sweetly

while the possibility that he is a lot like me
was more like a gong

Countdown

2009-06-05T05:57:00.004-04:00

The countdown began
last weekend
on a visit to the beach
in Mattapoisett.

Grammy, Grampy, Uncle, Cellie and Sam
and I together for Memorial Day
felt an awful lot like that time
of year when Saturdays
turn into more Saturdays...
When ice cream is a legitimate
dinner food
When sand from the beach
replaces sand from the salt truck
on the foyer floor
When taking the bike out for a ride
is just a part of the day
not a planned event.
When a baseball game
is easily
stumbled
upon
and yesterday's picnic sack
is unpacked to make room for today's...

We're not there quite yet
as the 5:00 am cupcake cooking
for today's Civil Rights's Extravaganza and Bake Sale
attests.

But close enough
that we are meeting
friends for frogging this afternoon
and signing Sam up for soccer camp
and strategizing on all the ways
to normalize father's day
when you don't have
one.

Close enough
when your 20 month old utters
Catch the ball, in his sleep
and your four and a half year old
reminds you that there
is never a reason to wear anything other than shorts
as he plays his guitar on the stoop
waiting for you to get your shorts on
to go to the sprinkler park
and don't forget your wallet mom
in case the ice cream/dinner truck
should magically
appear.

Summer's very very near.

solutions

2009-05-23T19:39:00.007-04:00

When crazy hair day is posted
as this weeks Friday activity
(last week was a picture of your pet,
the week prior a souvenir...)
you, the mother of the only
African-American child
in the preschool class
has the right to
pause
and consider
your approach.

Do you comment,
boycott,
suggest an alternative,
adapt
or educate?
You consider
each of the above
in three second
intervals
and land
on the combination
you are most familiar with:
adapt and educate

When your son's hair
does not invite
barrettes, gel, or braids
you have reason to consider
the value of
crazy hair day.

On the Thursday before
you mention to the teacher in your most
diplomatic
engaging
and cautiously insistent
voice that it would be appreciated if the class
could consider options for all kinds of hair
for success tomorrow.

Excuse me?

Well, crazy hair day can be a little
complicated for tight curly hair
like his.

A flash of realization washes over her face.

Oh my, I hadn't considered..

It's fine.
We'll figure it out.
They have hair sprays
you tell her, in pink and blue..

Your scour the shelves of the drug store
and explain to the manager
wearing the toupee
your predicament.
45 minutes later
as the groceries melt in the trunk
you find it,
the perfect solution
tucked behind the blush
and the tanning cream

***

Three days later and Sam still has
silver sparkle intergalactic eyeshadow
in his hair-
in five
long
Star Wars pilot Darth Vader
stripes.

It was a huge success.
and lasted longer then the braids,
the gel, the rubber bands and
all the other
Caucasian hair accoutrements.

Crazy.

Welcome Uncle

2009-05-21T17:35:00.003-04:00

Uncle Marc moved in
downstairs.
A new era, as short or long as it is-
has begun.

Exhaling.

Cooking dinner
packing for the trip
to Grampy and Grammy's
en famile
tomorrow-
including Uncle.

Contacted three counselors
today, researching
the possibility
that Sam and I need an outside
hand to guide us through
those
bigger
moments
that seem to knock us both
off of center
collectively.

Guided my students
through new poetic
landscapes this week

they are so proud
of the territories they have
claimed
conquered
jumped up and down
all
over

Exhaling
into all of the good choices
we are making

color me finished

2009-05-19T19:49:00.006-04:00

Last night was a celebration
today was frustration
laced with
humiliation and
shame.

That orange belt was taken away
from Sam
when he hit me in the face with his
karate attendance card
because he didnt want to
and i wanted him to

go to class

that's when they took his belt
without giving him a chance to
recover
uncover
discover

why a four year old hates karate so much

parenting on the fly, samantha called it
parenting in a panic i felt it

do i make him?
release him?
listen to his tears
when he screams;
i hate it-
i hate that it is so long
i can't sit so long

my son
needs
movement

i have learned to listen to sam
even when hundreds of years
of parenting wisdom
contradicts it

i have not learned how to handle being punched
outside of my home
when i said
no to a guitar lesson and a BBQ
because your behavior was so
rotten.

the parents who tried
to help sam,
and me
maneuver the tantrum
were so appreciated
the understanding smiles-
the outstretched hands

uncle arrived
at my tearful
beckoning

and rescued the afternoon
with a tennis
match
between them

samantha
returned the
breathless
call

and reassured
me that i
parented
well

alone
calmer they
left me

alone
to pack the lunches
and unpack
the indecision

graduate

2009-05-18T21:15:00.002-04:00

My little ninja
prior to receiving his
orange belt.

Pride is a many color thing

Tonight it was orange.

An orange belt
followed by orange cake.

He was surrounded
by family and friends as he
proudly recited his champion
creed.

Only Saturday?

2009-05-16T21:21:00.004-04:00

Kick boxed with Sarah
this morning while
Sam played goalie across town
with Uncle
and Marcel watched baseball
Helmet.
with Jay.

The farmer's market
for flowers.

Helmet. Helmet. Helmet.
and a nap.

I planted those flowers
while Sam watered them
with a pump action
squirt gun.
A few perennials.
Mostly annuals.
It's a source of so much joy
my 4x6 plot of possibility.
Even though
the bird bath never
has any
birds.

Then boredom
led to the box-
the cardboard box
from the two cases of diapers-
delivered

One box.
Two kids.
Several transformations including:
"A transformer that you ride in"
"A doughnut that you fly in"
"A tummy"
and then after they
"kicked it to get out"
"a soccer goal."

Helmet and Kick it and Ball and Obama
(Yes, it does sound like Mama)

In the car before dropping by our friends house
to deliver a get better melon
(you know how you draw a face on the outside
of the melon with markers and hand it to
the man who just got
home from the hospital because he had
a stroke and artery surgery
and tell him it is a get well melon, right?
OK so it was that or the pumpkin pie
that just came out of the oven.
Need I Say more?)

Before going in
I remind the child that
we are going to be great listeners
and quiet, and only stay long enough to deliver
our good wishes and a card.

He marches in,
hands off the melon,
forgets the man almost
died
and pounds out a few
songs on the piano instead.

In the car on the way home
he asks if he
is going to have a stroke too.

When he is satisfied with my answer
he says good-
because I want to have
three kids
and they will need me
to be their father
for a long, long, time.

Star Wars
popcorn
broccoli
talapia
and
pumpkin pie

goodnight
sparklers in the fog

Gratitude Day

2009-05-10T07:19:00.009-04:00

Mother's Day
is Gratitude Day

for our family
birth family
donor

for our friends

and caregivers

for moments of self directed play
and long cuddles on a Mommy-Sammy-Marcel day

for frozen pizza ready in ten
for all of you who say, Sure? When?

for "not once have I ever doubted my decision"
a birth mother's words delivered with precision

for the desire and ability to write
for this blog, and Adoptive Families* for bringing it to light

for Sam who made me a mother 4.5 years ago-December
and who will not let me forget to remember

that the day to day with him and Marcel
is the necessary potion for the everyday-is -Mother's-Day spell

*this week I received a reply from the editor at Adoptive Families Magazine that they are interested in publishing a piece I submitted. It looks very promising.

Big Words

2009-05-08T22:06:00.003-04:00

I hate you
he said.

(I had said no after all
No we can not go to the playground.)

I hate you,
and I don't love you too.

That was clear.

It hurt.

I thought I had eight more years before we had to navigate that one.

Then, in the car on the way home from
"baseball practice "
(aka t-ball introduction)
(which is next to the playground)
he informs me through
mouthfuls of pb&j
that the reason he yelled
(oh, and kicked me twice, and hit me in the head
with his mit)
was because he was hungry.
very, very, hungry.

As happy as I am that my son
connects his blood sugar
to his mood
I still could have done without it

that I hate you line
was still rubbing under my skin
pushing my heart
beats harder and closer
to the surface

later that night I realized
that the card we had written
to his birth mother
and mailed right before
practice might
have been more at play
then a missed opportunity to go down a slide backwards

Sam, it is OK to be angry and love her
all at once I say in a cuddle on the
big
blue
cuddle
chair

Would I be mad at
her because
she has three
kids and not
me growing up
with them too?

I hurt all over again,
but this time for him,
and for
her.

Yes, I think I would feel sad and mad
if I were you.
And I would love her
because she chose to bring us
together for everyday
and always too

Can we read a story now? he asks his
voice big and ready for something new

Yes, and Sam I love you.

I don't not love you anymore too mom.

***

recording it

2009-05-04T16:51:00.007-04:00

Sam's words to Marcel on Saturday (I was around the corner folding laundry so you know he meant it): Marcel, I think that I am falling in love with you.
Marcel: shriek- followed by Oh-my-gosh.

***

I've finished another piece to submit out there to the publication ether. This one is about a miscarriage. I work-shopped the piece, and it's as good as it's going to get. At the moment I have two pieces, no three, waiting for a yeah or nay, and one in the warm up circle. The regular out-go feels so important and impressive. Lots of great staff feedback from the reading on Thursday.

***
This morning one of my students met me for breakfast and memoir writing. It's an over due assignment he needs help with for another class. I brought the bagel, he brought the material. He lost a family member last year to gun violence. I challenged him to make notes about that over the weekend. He came in saying that he was at a funeral over the weekend and it brought up all sorts of memories that were too hard to talk about.

Then, he started talking. I just listened. Fifteen minutes later his memoir was essentially written. It was the first time that he spoke about his brother's death in such detail to me, and probably to anyone. I typed down everything he said, as I remembered it. He looked over it, and made some edits. The piece organized itself on the paper. It was such an amazing testament to the power of listening, recording, and memoir. He was at least eighty pounds lighter when he left my room that morning. He described the way he feels about everything around him as in a cloud that only he can see.

***

I am not reading enough. I am trying to write, and not allowing myself time to read. It doesn't work that way. Sam and I completed our first chapter book, Stuart Little. He can now listen without pictures. I had no idea how much joy reading longer books would bring me. My father used to read Alice in Wonderland to me from a little leather bound copy with the silk ribbon bookmark, that I always got to place in between the pages. I could not wait for the moment that I would hear his feet coming down the hallway towards my room. His gentle gait. making it's way to me. His enthusiastic reading, his determination to bring Alice's magic into my room.

***

When I woke up this morning I wondered if I am making a difference in the world. At all. What is the point of my being here. Blogging tonight has reminded me that I am . A is off with the kids in the park--her Monday gift to me. An hour to myself, to do this, and make dinner, and prepare the lunches, and not yell.

***

the audience...

2009-04-30T20:10:00.001-04:00

loved it.

i had an amazing reading.

wish you all had been there.

sammy was wide-eyed from the 6th row

marcel, as if on cue screeches MAMA in an otherwise silent room of over 300.

perfect.