Book Review: Pictures Of Hollis Woods

 A Mom's Job, Adoption, Moments with Mita, NaBloPoMo, Parenting, Reading Challenge  1 Response »
Jun 222012
 

Pictures of Hollis Woods is a Newberry Honor Book written by Patricia Reilly Giff.  I found out about this book when Mita brought it to me to see how many stamps she would get for reading it.  Remember I do summer stamps for the kids to earn media time and gift cards to keep them off the TV and to encourage some mind movements!  She had gotten it at school. I hade no idea what it was about and asked her. She said it was good. That was about all the description I got from her, but taking her 12-year-old moodiness in stride I was just happy I didn’t get an eye roll!

So I read it. It only took an afternoon, but the book made an impact on me, like books about foster kids often do.  A quick summary:  Hollis Woods was abandoned an hour old in NYC and lived her life from foster home to foster home. She often ran away, she felt worthless, but her saving grace was her talent for art. 

Seeing inside the mind of a child who has suffered from not having a family is tough.  This may be a fictional story, but it could very well be a real one thousands of times over.  Children without someone to love them often feel like they are nothing but trouble in the world. My heart breaks.

When we decided to adopt, I first called our local children’s services. I received bad information, and I have sometimes wondered if I had pushed harder or asked on another day how might our adoption journey would have been.  Of course the past is the past and I’m in love with my family so it really doesn’t matter. Though I really want people to have good information when seeking adoption.  Working through the foster system isn’t easy, but people do it. Kids do find homes, parents do find children.

A bit of a spoiler here in that Hollis does find a home.  She learns that families are not perfect, so she doesn’t have to be perfect either.  A sweet message.

I recommend this book for fourth grade and up.  My goal is to ask Mita a bit more about the book.  I’m not even sure if she sees a correlation between her and Hollis as they do have different stories.   I do hope she gets the overriding message that the love of a family is deserved by everyone.

 Posted by Amanda at 10:09 am  Tagged with: , , ,

Adoption and School Projects

 A Mom's Job, Adoption, Ethiopia, Family, Family Pictures, Moments with Enu, Parenting  3 Responses »
Jan 262012
 

Enu came home yesterday all excited about the time line project assigned to her class. She has to have at least 3 pictures and 5 events on her timeline including birth and present day.

I honestly don’t remember Mita doing this assignment last year, but I do remember Meg doing it. This makes me wonder if it was assigned to Mita and she didn’t make a big deal about it or if she kept the assignment on the down-low because it was a big deal to her.  Hmm. I must go through the projects I kept from last year and see if I can find it.

Back to yesterday.  I told Enu that I would have to get on the computer and order prints as we are a digital family and I rarely have extra prints hanging around.  We discussed what pictures she wanted and what her events on the time line were going to be:

1- Birth in Ethiopia – She wanted a baby picture of her and her dad that we have.

2- Mom dying when she was 3.

So when she mentioned this I gently said,”Honey, if you put this down people are going to ask you about it.”  She shrugged and said that it was fine.

3- Adoption and movie to the USA.

4- Disneyworld for the first time.

5- Being at 4th grader.

I am planning on supporting her wishes, but I am also going to have a back up picture in case she changes her mind at the last-minute. I will also let her teacher know what is coming so she isn’t put on the spot.

I applaud her for being truthful and authentic in her project. I admire her strength for acknowledging what she has done through. I am so worried that this may trigger something and she will have a bad experience at school.  I’m running this by Hubby to see what he thinks.

I think this will also be a lesson-learner for the other kids in the class.  Not everyone has an all-happy timeline to share, even 9 year olds.  That said I hate that my children seem to be the models for adoption and diversity at school as that is a lot of pressure on a kid.  If anyone out there has traveled this path I would love some advice!

 Posted by Amanda at 10:05 am  Tagged with: , , , ,

Book Review: No Biking In The House Without A Helmet

 Adoption, Books I Have Read, Reading Challenge, Reviews  No Responses »
Jan 102012
 

After participating in last year’s Adoption Reading Challenge, I was delighted to know that Jenna is hosting one for 2012 as well! I knew immediately that my first adoption themed book would be No Biking in the House Without A Helmet by Melissa Fay Greene.  I have been wanting to read this book since I heard it came out, I just needed a kick in the pants to get started.

Before I start with my review I have to tell you that Melissa Fay Greene is a part of my adoption story.  It was her article in Good Housekeeping that I read sometime in 2004 (while pregnant with Elle) that I fell in love with Ethiopia and got my dormant adoption feelings going again.  It was also her book There Is No Me Without You that tugged at our hearts so dearly when we were doing the paper chase in 2006 and 2007.  It must be said that in tough times she has been blamed for this!  After reading her newest book, I know she doesn’t think ill of us for those blaming thoughts.   No Biking In The House provides some back story to my situation.  We used the same agency, so reading about Layla House and AAI, well it’s like reading a prequel.

Greene does a nice job in combining this biography of how her family of eleven came to be with anecdotes of daily life with her children.  As a fellow  mom who adopted after having biological kids and who twinned  two of her kids, I could really relate in some of her stories, thoughts and fears.

This book is a must read for large families and adoptive families and for families who dream of becoming large and adoptive. All mothers can relate to this story just with the hilarity that motherhood can be at times.  I loved reading how her bio kids and adoptive kids became closer, how she maintained her Ethiopian children’s heritage and languages and found the biological mother for her Bulgarian son.   She bulks against have a group home effect, and in that I can totally relate. There have been times that I feel I am the maid in a bed and breakfast.  Families have to work at being families sometimes, and that is okay. She gets International Adoption for what it is. Not a solution for poverty, but a way to build a family for parents who want to parent a child who has no family that can care for them.

The feelings that ran through me while reading No Biking In The House Without A Helmet, ranged from sadness, joy and knowing to jealously.  Yes, I said Jealously.  When reading about Helen’s disobedience over a can of Coke and how it led to an hour-long holding her violent little body I could wholeheartedly relate. I’ve been there, many, many times.  When she ended that story with “That was the only tantrum we ever had out of Helen.”  I was envious.  One time!  I’ve been spit on, bitten, kicked, pinched and hit so many times that we do not do the “holding therapy” anymore. They are just to big.  Her bout with post-adoption depression resonated in me as well.  It’s not all roses and rainbows, those first few months.

I am also acutely aware that we do not live in a diverse, metro area as she does in Atlanta.  She was able to hire an Ethiopian babysitter who spoke Amharic to her kids and could make Ethiopian food. Her town also offers many different schooling and recreation opportunities that my rural town doesn’t offer.  I wonder how my lack of access to these things have effected my girls and if that could have made the difference with some of our issues.

Melissa Fay Greene has written a thoughtful, funny and lovely book that speaks of the truths of adoption while not being to heavy of a read.  Go and read this book and laugh out-loud!

 

 Posted by Amanda at 1:10 pm  Tagged with: , ,

Meeting My Girls – Overthinking Version

 A Mom's Job, Adoption, Moments with Enu, Moments with Mita, NaBloPoMo  3 Responses »
Nov 042011
 

The first picture I ever saw of my girls.

A recent post on BlogHer inspired me to write about meeting my daughters for the first time.

I remember Meg being put in my arms shortly after giving birth to her. I said “I know you now. I know you now.”  I was in awe that I was finally seeing my daughter face to face after carrying her for those many months.  I didn’t even know if she was a boy or a girl, I just knew I loved her and that she would be perfect and that I would be the perfect mom.  I had such high expectations for us. Well, after twelve years neither of us have proved to be perfect, but I really know her now. Every freckle, every scar, every pre-teen look she gives me. I know who she is.

It was pretty much the same when Elle was born. Though I knew she was a girl and I knew neither of us would be perfect. I felt enormous love and thanksgiving when she was born.  I was an experienced parent who knew that it would go fast and that we would make it through just fine.  My expectations weren’t as high, I just wanted to enjoy her.

I first saw Mita and Enu’s pictures in January 2008. I was so overjoyed to have a referral. I was so happy to see their faces.  I was so ready to put the love I already felt to two little faces. I got to read school reports and health reports. I had put personalities to them just by their pictures. I bought them clothes and dreamed about meeting them.

Then we were there.  The director took us to their classroom and brought them out to us. They were so small, so scared but happy.  I now know they were happy because they had been told this was a happy thing. They really didn’t have a clue what was going on, the concept was just to big.  Mita has told me when they were introduced to us as mom and dad she thought they had painted her Ethiopian dad peach!

The hugged us, held my hand, showed us the bunk they shared and their personal belongings.  Enu handed me something that I will be forever grateful for. She handed me family pictures.  Baby pictures, pictures of them growing up with their mom, dad and grandparents.  This album has allowed me to talk about what they looked like as a baby, it has let them see how loved they were by their parents. It is a true miracle that many international adoptees don’t have.

So there I was hugging two little girls who were strangers to me, but not.  I felt relief, happiness and a bit of now what? They knew very little English, I knew even less Amharic and yet we were a family. They looked at me, I looked at them. We were in a bit of limbo at that time I now realize.

One of the things that sticks out in my mind most is that Mita was sucking on the seatbelt buckle in the taxi. I was so grossed out, but didn’t want one of my first actions to be a correction. So I let her suck it (not wear it mind you!).  I would have never let Meg or Elle have done that, but I knew them. I still didn’t know Mita.  This is not a bad thing to admit.  Adoption is different from giving birth, adopting older kids is way different from giving birth.  They had an entire six and eight years of life that I didn’t experience with them.

Much like the birth of Meg, I had a lot of expectations for Mita and Enu, but I had learned that expectations can change and that can be a good thing. Much like with the birth of Elle I was ready to live in the moment.

What is different is that I don’t know where every scar has come from. I don’t know when their first steps were taken or when they started getting teeth.  I have no idea what the birth stats are or even the correct date of birth.  This things don’t really sadden me as an adoptive mom as I know that their Ethiopian mom and dad got to see these moments and from the pictures, I know they enjoyed these moments. What does make me sad is that if the girls decide to have kids of their own, we won’t be able to compare when things happened.

After three and a half years, I can say that I know my girls. I just don’t know everything.  I never will.

These last seven hundred words cannot give you a great picture of what happened during that day visually, but it does show what was going through my mind.  As this is NoPloPoMo and I am to stretch my writing, I am going to attempt to write this post again, but make it more about the actual meeting. We will see how that goes!

 

 

 

 Posted by Amanda at 5:56 am  Tagged with: , ,

What I Forget That They Cannot

 A Mom's Job, Adoption, Family, School Issues  4 Responses »
Aug 262011
 

School is starting.  There are a lot of posts, articles and back to school advice flying around the blogosphere right now.  I wrote a little snippet myself the other day on not being ready for school just yet.

Then open house for Mita was last Monday.  Fifth grade.  Same school, same principle, same PE teacher, same art teacher…different classroom teachers.  Three different classroom teachers.  Three different teachers to say “Hi, I’m Mita’s mom.”  Then the double take.  Oh. I forgot. We don’t match.

I forget.  Mita and Enu can never forget for they are on the other end. They are the ones who stick out in every room they walk into.  I did that to them. I knowingly brought them home into a 99.99% white community.  I thought love would conquer all, that we would travel for diversity, move eventually to a more diverse community.  We could do all of those things and love like no other, but we will never match and they will always get the double take.

How do they handle it?  Like kids do.  A smirk to me or a covert rolling of the eyes, sometimes a glare (to me, not the teacher).  We talk about it.  They shrug it off, I know it still bothers them.

The double take is a reflex, it will always happen.  If you find yourself doing the double take with a multi-racial family, it’s okay. Just don’t stare and ask if they have any real children!  Please and thank  you!

 

 Posted by Amanda at 8:59 am  Tagged with: , ,

Grief Has No Check List

 A Mom's Job, Adoption, Breastfeeding, Grief  1 Response »
Jun 022011
 

I recently participated in an online breastfeeding conference. It is a  great way to get my educational hours  I need for nursing and Lactation without having to travel.  One of the things I really like about it is that while I am learning about breastfeeding, I am also learning about other health dynamics, techniques and concepts that challenge me to think in different ways.

It may sound surprising, but my work as a Lactation Consultant has helped me become a better adoptive parent. I have learned more about attachment and bonding through breastfeeding my own kids and helping other parents than I have from adoption books or seminars.  Breastfeeding brings out the basic needs that humans desire: Connection (love, commitment, relationship) and nurturing (food, shelter, protection).  The adoption triad (birth parents, child, adoptive parents) revolve around these needs as well.

At my conference this year, I listened to a lecture entitled Grief and the Lactating Mother. I admit that this was one of the last sessions I listened to as I knew the content would be heavy.  It was of course, but it was so poignant and so deep and she touched on so many aspects of grief that I realized I wasn’t listening as a lactation consultant anymore. I was listening as a mom of traumatized kids.

Two things stood out to me:

1) Grief doesn’t end or come to a resolution.  We have to stop going through the Kubler-Ross five steps of grieving as a checklist and more as a guide. There is Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance but they may present at different times, go in a different order or you may skip one.  For example you may reach the acceptance stage of your grief and a new experience or trigger will send you back to Anger or Denial.

2) We (as LCs or as adoptive parents) cannot make the grief better or make it go away.  We have to acknowledge it and validate the person grieving, and let them grieve as they  need to.

Both of those stopped me in my tracks.  I cannot stand the thought that Mita and Enu will never heal from their trauma. I want it to get better.  Of course, we go through counseling and work on coping techniques and I talk the therapeutic talk but deep down, I still want to fix it  and I cannot.

The thought of every birthday, graduation, wedding, a child’s birth, etc will possibly bring a wave of fresh grief to them is very difficult me me to accept.  I see the progress they are making though and  I have hope that while the grief will always be there, they will be able to handle it and that it will change to a dull ache and not searing pain.

Heavy subject matter for the first week of summer, I know, but there are so many people grieving right now that I know I just thought I would share the rumbling thoughts in my head.

Clip Art Credit

 Posted by Amanda at 4:20 pm  Tagged with: , ,

Book Review: “The Girls Who Went Away”

 Adoption, Books I Have Read, Reading Challenge, Reviews  1 Response »
Mar 222011
 

It may seem like I am on a roll in my adoption book challenge and I guess I am, if not by choice, by the fact the library  had the last two books in and sent to me at the same time! I hate waiting on books, so I wanted to read these while I had them.  I do have to say that back-to-back non-fiction adoption books can be a bit heavy and I have promised my self some time off the heavy reading for a while. I need some fluff – mind numbing fluff! 

The title of this book says so much, The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade .  Written by Ann Fessler, and adoptee, this book’s heart-wrenching stories and startling facts make it a difficult book to read at times.  The book was published in 2006, so it is fairly recent and very much tells a story that one of your (or my) own family members could have lived through.

I have  listened to my mom talk of having to wear skirts to school because pants on girls where not allowed or how my mother-in-law was on a basketball team that organized themselves becauses schools didn’t have athletics for girls.  These stories make me shake my head. So much has changed in just a few decades it really is like two different worlds in many ways.

Fessler points out that it was the post WWII years of conformity that brought about this time of adoptoin coersion.  I don’t even know if coersion is the right word as deceit and unlawfulness was the normal to unwed mothers and there children were basically stolen from them. I’m sure that not all adoptions were this way, but after reading this book you cannot help but see the similarities of the stories.  So many girls were told that their baby was going to a new family of a “Doctor and stay at home mom” or were asked “Do you want your child to be called a bastard on the playground?”. As one birth-mother said in the book, it was as if they had a script on how to get a pregnant woman to give up her baby.

I am not surprised that the parents of the pregnant women were upset. I do find it reprehensible that so many went way passed upset and were just plain mean and cruel to their own daughters and grandchildren.  Socital pressure was that strong? Unbelievable.  This again reaffirms to me that there has never been a time of  “good old days” that people look fondly at.

Hearing these stories from birth mothers and adoptees reinforcess how imperative it is that there is more openness with adoption.  If not fully open adoptions, medical histories, photos, letters and for heaven sake OPEN RECORDS. 

 It is 2011 the age of  at our fingertips is mind whirling and yet there are people who have been told they have no right to find out who and where they came from. If more people would just stop and think about this issue, I dare to say that  records wouldn’t be closed anymore. It just makes sense.

While the numbers of “girls” who disappear for an unplanned pregnancy have diminished, there is still a lot of ethical problems with adoption.  You don’t have to look hard to find articles of pregancy distress centers working with adoption agencies or authority figures telling pregnant moms that their baby deserves better. As sick as it sounds adoption is big business and when there is big business there seems to be a flourish of ethical issues.

It is imperative that adoptions are ethical. I have heard so many comments of how adoption is to complicated, that adoptive parents have to wait to long, that if a child needs a home she should have it now and not have to wait for paperwork.  I have personally felt all of those things during my adoption process, but I can honestly say that knowing that my adoption was ethical is so comforting to me now.  If there had been any doubt in my mind that my girls’ family was coerced, paid, bribed or even worse my conscience would forever be marked.

If you know of a family member or friend who has had a “quiet” adoption in her past I encourage you to read this book, try and see the experience she is having and be a very good friend to her. This is also an informative book for all members of the adoption triad.

 Posted by Amanda at 8:02 pm  Tagged with: ,

Book Review: All The Broken Pieces

 Adoption, Books I Have Read, Reading Challenge  4 Responses »
Jan 142011
 

The superintendent of schools called me at 5am this morning.  It was a recorded message saying that (yet again) school is on a two-hour delay.  Sometimes I can go back to sleep after this familiar call. Today I could not.  So I picked up the book I was going to start reading today anyway and took a bath.  I did not know that this would be the best way to read this particular book.  Not necessarily the bath, but the quiet house and reading it all in one setting.  No interruptions.

All The Broken Pieces by Anne E. Burg is written in verse.  A new way of reading for me and I adored it.  Short, sweet verses without all the flowery language that can bog a story down sometimes.  This adoption themed book is the first of my adoption books I am reading this year in the Adoption Reading Challenge hosted by Jenna at Chronicles of Munckinland.  I found this book by looking for adoption books on Amazon and thought I would try it as the adoption theme is about Operation Babylift  .  Some see as Operation Babylift as the beginning of international adoption in the USA.

The perspective of the book is from a twelve-year-old child, Matt, who was fathered by an American solder who “married” a Vietnamese woman and never returned after his tour of duty.  His first mother put him on a Babylift helicopter when he was ten.  The raw feelings this child has really helped me with understanding what Mita and Enu have gone through. Different circumstances, sure, but they all have lost a mother, a father, a country, a language.

What resonated with me is how Matt saw things. When his adoptive mom and dad showered him with love and what they thought was understanding, he saw it as conditional. He strives to be a very good child, so they don’t send him away.  This is common with children who have been adopted. They either strive to be the “perfect” child or they rebel and act out.  It was as if he kept waiting for them to send him away.

Do my girls still feel that way? What goes through their minds? Like Matt, they don’t talk about Ethiopia much or their feelings about the adoption, but when they do the floodgates open and I get a better perspective of what is in their mind and hearts.

While reading I felt good and refreshed with a new sense of commitment to listen to my girls, to try and understand better, to offer more opportunities for them to open up.

After reading this book I am starting to doubt my parenting. I resent how perfect Matt’s adoptive parents were. They never lost their patience.  I must remind myself,  yet again, that parenting if never easy and people are never perfect but consistent love and affection does will in the end make a difference.

The characters are a bit stereotypical with the sacrificial first mom, the irresponsible birth father, the saving adoptive parents; but because it is written in simple verse and can be read in one setting, these stereotypes  did not annoy me.  In the end it is just about the child, his feelings, his journey not the parents’ journey.

The story covers the themes of loss, culture, cancer and death, as well as prejudice and hate. It is worth the read for everyone, not just the adoption world.

Have you read this book? If so what did you think about it?

Also, any recommendations on other books written is verse would be welcomed. I love it!

 Posted by Amanda at 8:20 am  Tagged with: ,

My Book Challenges of 2011

 Adoption, It's all about me!, Mom's Free Time, Reading Challenge  6 Responses »
Jan 032011
 

I love to read. You all know that.  I am almost always out of books due to my lack of library trips and my ability to read super fast (a curse really). I  have also never done a reading challenge, but they look like fun… so this year I thought that participating in a challenge (or two) might keep me up on the books while being fun getting to meet other bloggers and readers alike. 

The first challenge I am doing it being hosted by Firemom over at The Chronicles Of Munchkin Land. The theme is adoption. I have decided to participate in level two, which consists of 3 fiction/3 non-fiction books about adoption.  All people in the adoption triad (birthparents, adoptive parents and adoptees) are encouraged to participate and of course anyone who is not in the adoption world is more than welcome to join up as well.  I decided to do this challenge because 1)Firemom is my friend 2) I am an adoptive mom who realizes that adoption is a process.  I need to keep learning so we can all grow together 3) I’ve stayed away from adoption books/mags/stories for a while because I was tired of talking/reading about it. I was on adoption overload.  I do realize that it is time to start learning again.

The second challenge is to read the classics. I get on a classic kick every once in a while as I feel a bit under-educated on the subject.  I normally read one or two and forget my goals. When I found a classic reading challenge over at The Deranged Book Lovers  Blog I was very excited. This should keep me on track.  My first pick is a salute to my Twilight obsession, I am reading Dracula!

I have even assigned book topics to my new organization calendar (see New Year’s Resolutions post) so that I will rotate themes and stay on track.  I’m so amazing and organized this first week in January.  It is sure to last.  Really. I mean it this time. It will happen. I will become a maven of organizational skills and techniques. I am now rambling about my daydreams.

So there are my book goals for 2011. I am sure to continue to read the literary fluff that entertains me so (easy reading is such a stress reliever.)  I ‘m also going to keep track of all of the books I read in 2011.  I’ve never done it before but I was inspired by momoutnumbered.

Do you have any reading goals for the year?  If not, look around the web and you may just find one that suits you.

 Posted by Amanda at 8:00 am  Tagged with: , , ,

Father’s Day Is A Coming!

 Adoption, daddy  No Responses »
Jun 172010
 

This Sunday is Father’s Day. That one special day for dads where they get a ton of things they either really love or sooooo don’t need.

This year Hubby will get several “don’t need” items, one “cute” item and I still haven’t figured out the really “Love” item yet. I still have time?  Right. Nothing is clicking for me.  I have been looking for weeks now so I haven’t waited until the last minute I swear.  I just know that Hubby doesn’t want something  just to have something.Hmmmmm.  He may just get a card from me this year.  If you all have any suggestions let me know! Please!

One thing I know he will enjoy is a Wendy’s Frosty!  Remember to get out to Wendy’s on Sunday and buy a Frosty.  Fifty cents from every Frosty goes to The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.  This foundation is great at helping get foster kids forever homes.  They were also helpful with information for our adoption and provided me with the resources to encourage Genesis (the hospital I used to work for and Hubby still does) to provide adoption assistance for employees.  So if you are Tweeting or FaceBooking this weekend use the #TreatItForward phrase for Wendy’s to donate more money to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. 

Last year I posted about how great my Hubby was. He still is this year. I am taking it year by year!LOL.  Seriously, Hubby is the best Husband and Daddy for this family and we so appreciate and love him! He hikes, bikes and wrestles with the kids, works hard for our family and goes above and beyond every day for us! Thanks honey!

Hubby and my brother herding the kids at King's Island last weekend.

Hubby helping Elle get ready for her first Tooth Fairy visit!

I’ll let you know if I figured out that one special gift I ‘m having problems with!  I know for sure that I need more pictures of him with the girls….I cannot find any great, recent pictures of him.

Photo Credit:  Mandy W .  2010
 Posted by Amanda at 2:56 pm  Tagged with: ,
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