Category Archives: a good life

a good life, acceptance, Child care

Growth Is Meant To Be Slow

We talk about O's difficulty following directions. When everyone else follows directions to stop pulling...
We talk about O’s difficulty following directions. When everyone else follows directions to stop pulling…

We spend so much time wishing for growth.  When we are young, our desire to grow leads us to say things like “I’m eight and a half.”  Somewhere along the way, we stop wishing to grow older and wish for other growth like in our bank accounts or biceps.  For those of us who have a chronic illness, we wish for growth in knowledge of how best to care for our illnesses.

Lord knows as parents we wish our kids would grow out of some things.  I keep hoping O will grow out of his instant rejection of any directions.  I will enjoy it when K grows out of the need for diapers.  I will love if A grows out of her anxiety, and if not the cause at least the behaviors of picking herself to the point of constantly needing band aids.

Still, maybe this is simply us as parents forgetting to just enjoy the process.  We should laugh when our eight-year-old can squeeze himself into the Halloween costume he wore as a three-year old.  We should probably marvel when K at almost four years old is in the 0.05th percentile for height, meaning in an average group of 10,000 children her age, four will be shorter than her.

It seems we grow them small in our house. This is O in the tigger costume he wore for Halloween when he was three. Both he and A wore this costume as babies. This year is K's turn.
It seems we grow them small in our house. This is O in the Tigger costume he wore for Halloween when he was three. Both he and A wore this costume as babies. This year is K’s turn.

We should probably even take the time to enjoy the innocence which leads K to want to share her most treasured possession with her mom (J).  Seeing her do this reminds me of a speaker I once heard telling parents to treasure everything their child gives them.  It may not be a new car, but the odds are it is everything they are capable of giving.  I think J realizing this is why she is smiling even as a gross wet pacifier is put in her mouth.  I need to remember to enjoy the journey, even if parts of it seem to drag.  For even if the hard parts outnumber the great moments, they do nothing to diminish the best parts of living.

K shared the item which meant most to her with a playful J.
K shared the item which meant most to her with a playful J.
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a good life, acceptance, fostering and adoption family impact, insomnia, kids' self definition, parenting, psychological impact of adoption, raising kids, self confidence, self esteem, sense of family

Acceptance of Self in Adoption

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“Do what you can when you can until you can’t.  Then rest easy knowing the haggard look of the man in the mirror has been well earned.”

It’s funny because these are words I tell myself all the time when I look in the mirror and try to accept the parts of me I wish were air brushed away.  Most of the time, I think I accept a reasonably accurate view of myself.  Still, I do all of this with years growing up knowing who I am.  I know my parents, and I recognize them in so many parts of how I live.  I know where I got my protestant work ethic, and I recognize the roots of my ever questioning of assumptions.  I see the roots of my drive.

For my children, I suspect this will always be harder.  While they may come to accept themselves, I have no illusion it will be as easy for them.  For example, every few months we have a conversation with O after he says his birth parents are dead.  We do not know this and have no way to find out.  Still, it is touching when he releases a balloon into the sky for his “dead” parents or grandparents to let them know he is thinking of them.

Every now and then we have one of those humorous moments when we are hit over the head with our kids’ efforts to define their place/group in society.  This week’s moment was a dinner conversation between A (oldest daughter) and J (my wife):

“Mom, am I half-African and half-American?”
J: “No”.
A: “Then why do they call me African-American?”

I can only hope A comes to realize she is all American and all African-American over time along with everything else that she uses to define herself.  Her definition is hers to make.  Maybe with acceptance, she will no longer obsessively pick at her hands.  Maybe then, she will find peaceful sleep at the end of her insomnia.  Sadly, such a day seems so far away.

 

If you said this was a picture of a girl at bed time who will take 3 more hours to go to sleep, then you win the prize. At least her new dog has learned her role in the night is to jump in bed and try to teach A how to sleep.
If you said this was a picture of a girl at bed time who will take 3 more hours to go to sleep, then you win the prize. At least her new dog has learned her role in the night is to jump in bed and try to teach A how to sleep.

 

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