My first grand-story

My daughter has just written her first story.  She is six.

I love to go to school and doo work on my work plan! and I work very very very hard!  I always finish my work plan I learn new work every day.

By Fiona Hud[s]on

Mama is proud.

Growing good readers

I'm so proud of my kids.  Last night I went to a bi-monthly consignment sale where I usually stock up on a season's worth of clothes for my kids: great deals on brand names; MY mom would be proud.  My husband likes to peruse the toys at said sale, but he couldn't go with last night.  He had told my son that I might bring home some Thomas trains.  Alas, I didn't find any trains, but I did find a jackpot of Thomas paperbacks for $2.  When I got home with my tankard of loot, my kids descended on me before I could get through the door.  Toby stuck his head all the way in the plastic storage box I was carrying and saw one Thomas book on top.  This is what he squealed at first soprano decibel, "A Thomas book!  You got me a Thomas book!!!!"  He was thrilled.  My daughter spread all of the books on the floor and began reading them with Toby.  She was mostly making up the words to go with the pictures, which included rambling songs that she ad-libbed.  Then, Fiona called me into the room and said, "Mommy, listen!  I can read the whole book!" And she proceeded to read the entire book to me and Toby.

 My little readers.

These are my $2.50 finds!

Pathos

So, I was snuggling with my son last night as he fought sleep, reading the dramatic ending of Dan Savage's The Kid, when I started crying.  I do get emotionally invested in books, but usually all that amounts to is screaming at them, hurling them across the room, and occasionally clutching my heart.  Yes, the P & G commercials during the Olympics made me well up, but they also had string accompaniment.  Rarely, do books make me cry.

It was in the chapter The Logic of Open Adoption where I lost it.  The tension was mounting.  Dan and Terry were going to leave the hospital with their newborn, adopted baby . . . probably.  The "gutter punk" birth mom, Melissa, was growing more sullen as the impending hour drew near.  She had signed the papers terminating her parental rights, but she also spent more time holding and staring at the baby.  Dan and Terry were extremely sensitive to her, allowing as much time as she needed alone with the baby, but they also worried that she'd renege at the last minute, which she had every right to do in the state of Oregon.  The agency social worker mediated the transition "ceremony" where the guys gave Melissa an ID bracelet that they had engraved with the baby's birth name and date, as well as a photo album of hospital pics.  No one anticipated Melissa's gut-wrenching breakdown the moment the baby left the room.  The guys held it together until they reached their rental car and then sobbed.  Worried that the social worker's car might be parked near theirs, they hightailed it out of the hospital garage and then sobbed some more at their hotel.  Savage said he was so glad that they decided to do an open adoption because now he knew that when his son questioned whether or not his birth mom loved him, he could tell him, with full honesty, that she did.  Savage is a master at juxtaposing the irreverent with the poignant.  It never comes across as forced or smug.

My son was almost asleep, past the book-smacking, chattery tired phase he was in when I first put him down, so he didn't see the tears rolling down my cheeks.  And even though he had been an utter pain just half and hour prior, I felt very lucky to be laying there with him.

Worst Case Scenarios

After finishing Foreskin's Lament, I borrowed a copy of Dan Savage's adoption saga, The Kid.  My book club was reading it for last month and I needed to get caught up in time to discuss at least the first half of the book.

I love Dan Savage and have been a fan of his real sex/advice column, "Savage Love", since discovering it in my late 20s.  For those who aren't familiar, Savage is openly gay and hilariously confrontational, but in a loving way.  He's like your gay older brother who likes to give you the business.  The Kid documents his efforts at an open adoption with his partner Terry.  Savage and Terry are the only gay couple at the orientation for open adoption and they worry constantly about their chances for being picked by a birth mother to adopt her child.  Turns out, they had nothing to fear; they are picked within two weeks of starting the process!

If only it were that easy.  The birth mother who picks the couple is a 20-year-old "gutter punk" who has lived on the streets for two years and drank a lot of beer during the first four months of pregnancy.  She also tends to talk in monosyllable responses.  In an open adoption, the birth mother is involved in the child's life after adoption.  She can also can the whole adoption after the baby is born.  Savage is neurotic and weighs all of the unknown catastrophes that could befall him and Terry as they wait for the baby to be born: Fetal alcohol syndrome and the father ("Bacchus") showing up and claiming paternity, among other fears.  They take nothing for granted and do as the adoption agency suggests: they don't buy baby clothes no matter how many trips to Baby Gap they make, they don't decorate a nursery, they don't give the baby a name (even though they really want to), and NO BABY SHOWERS.  Savage considers all of the worst case scenarios, including fiery car crashes, as a type of insurance.  Sort of an anti-Fields of Dream concept: if I imagine it, it will not come.  In a hilarious example, Savage explains that when he witnesses a worst case scenario that he did NOT imagine, he gets very upset, such as happens in the film Titanic when the boat splits in two, flies into the air and crashes on the heads of the bobbing passengers.

I suffered a worst case scenario yesterday while in Chicago, where I've been for the past four days with the family.  While the husband was at a conference from Sunday through today, I took the kids to museums: The Field, The Adler Planetarium, The Aquarium (or rather, in the parlance of my 3-year-old, the Merquarium).  The first couple of times, we walked.  It was long.  The kids complained.  I had to carry the heavy toddler because I kept forgetting the stroller. Oh yeah, and it rained.  So yesterday I wised up and decided we'd take the free hotel shuttle to the planetarium and take the city bus back.  Simple.  I asked the concierge which bus to take, but failed to ask him which stop we'd need to get back to the hotel.  I figured, the bus said Michigan Ave. on the LED screen, our hotel was on Michigan, no problem, but when we didn't turn on Michigan I worried.  Okay, the bus driver is going parallel to Michigan and will circle around.  My son fell asleep on my lap.  My daughter sat beside me.  We passed 11th Street, then 9th, the Balboa.  Balboa?  What happened to 8th, where our hotel sat waiting for us?  I scanned the faces of passengers near us.  One man listened intently to his MP3 player and everyone else spoke Chinese.  I waited until a blonde woman crept back to the back of the bus and asked her for directions and she suggested we de-bus there and walk the four blocks south.  The bus was not going near our hotel.  So, I announced, "Kids we're getting off here," and Fiona dashed out of the back doors.  I struggled with my backpack and the dead weight of my sleeping son and got to the door just as it slammed in my face!  I saw my daughter looking small and alone in her winter coat and white hair bow, waiting for me on the sidewalk and started screaming and pounding on the door.  The bus erupted.  Everyone started screaming, "Let her off" and "Open the door!" but the jaded driver decided he'd just start heading to the next stop.  I pounded and screamed louder, harder.  Everyone yelled at the driver and the doors gave way.  I was on the sidewalk.  Fiona looked stunned, holding the hand of a stranger, a kind college student who took pity on us.  When I got up to them, the student handed Fiona to me and just said, "I can't believe that, I just can't believe that."  I thanked her profusely and grasped my daughter's hand.  We headed South to the hotel, shaken but together.

When I list the worst case scenarios that have come to fruition in my short parenting career, the CTA fiasco ranks right near the top:

1. Dog bites my 2 year old daughter under the eye and 5 hour ER visit proceeding said bite (including the part where they taped her hands in diapers so she wouldn't touch her face and flushed out the wound).

2. 6 month old daughter slides out of car seat and hits head on floor at Mexican restaurant and following ER visit (including the part where they strap my infant on a board and thrust her through an MRI).

3. Newborn son breathes in amniotic fluid and resides in the NIC-U for the first 24 hours of life.

4. Toddler son explores recycling bin and pulls out a bloody flap of a fingertip and the 5 hour trip to the ER (including the part where they strap his arm to a board and sew 5 stitches into his tiny finger).

5. This.

Dan Savage didn't know what he was heading into after the adoption.

The Once and Future Soccer Mom

My daughter, Fiona, went to her first soccer practice tonight and I don't know who suffered more: her or me.

Fiona is tiny for a five-year-old. Barely over 30 pounds. A light breeze could blow her into the next state. Seeing her lined up with the other 5 and 6 year olds, she looked so vulnerable. A good head shorter than the child on either side of her, she made faces at me on the sidelines to show she was staying positive. And I think she actually enjoyed the first 20 minutes or so of lining up and kicking. Then we divided into teams and the evening temperature began to sink into her bones.

I tried really hard to stay on my side of the field. Really. I meant to. But she was behind all of the other kids and the coach hadn't acknowledged her. I had to interrupt. "Sorry, coach, but are we on the right team?" Yep, we were and no apologies.

The soccer league I signed Fiona up for is a non-competitive league. No shouting from sidelines, no scores, everyone is rewarded with trophies and we all feel good about ourselves. Seems perfect for a 5-year-old who has never played team sports before. Then why, tell me please, were the boys on Fi's team wrestling one another and sporting their best aggressive stances and why, again - just asking - didn't the coach redirect their behavior? One child on the team is positively feral! Each child was asked to yell their name and kick the ball. Scary boy dropped to his knees and screamed, "E-LY-SIA," like he was Brando.

Then the confusion heightened. Coach sent the kids dribbling around the frigid field, each with their own ball. Fiona has maybe dribbled once or twice. By this time she already told me she was freezing. (I didn't dress her properly. Bad mommy. But the league website didn't give any direction about outerwear. It just said pants were fine, but shorts were preferable. I thought I was being conservative putting her in leggings!) Her hands were balled into her thin, pink jacket and her nose kept running. Once her ball rolled over a hill, I watched her quickly deflate. She couldn't get that dang ball up the hill. She kicked and it went further away from the rest of the team. I motioned to just pick it up and run to catch up. She picked it up, set it down, and kicked it further down the hill. One of us was near tears. Was it me?

Needless-to-say, we bailed. Fiona was shivering so hard, I just picked her up (and the ball, the team t-shirt, the list of games, my purse, oh yeah and my phone to call and repeatedly text my husband to get our toddler and head to the car) and stumbled across 3 fields back to the parking lot. In the car, under the team t-shirt and my quilted vest, with the heater on full blast, my girl defrosted and we listened to ABBA together. "Feeling stupid, feeling small. Wishing she had never come at all." Did she understand the lyrics, I wondered. Hope not. Of course, I could just be projecting my own terrible feelings about team, oh hell ANY, sports. I never played well and was always the kid practicing against the wall: tennis, volleyball, softball, bicycling (can you bicycle against a wall?).

Before we left for practice tonight, Fi asked me if she could call her preschool teacher, Mrs. Waldman, to tell her she was going to soccer practice. I convinced her to wait until tomorrow morning when she could fill her in on all of the details. I wonder if she will mention it now.