Parenting

She sees us as part of her whole …

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manipulative-fraction-circle-whole-outline

During this school year our second grader had a project related to social studies that included finding out your families ancestry.  She had worked on this project speaking with both her birth mother’s family and her birth father.  We learned from both sides she shared similar ancestry like being Scottish, Norwegian, Belgium and more.

Recently she and I were discussing what to have for dinner and the conversation turned into what you may eat if you are Chinese, Chinese food; Mexican, Mexican food; Irish, Irish food; etc.  I then explained that that may be true when living in your home country but you don’t have to be that ethnicity to eat that type of food.

Her response was well I eat Italian food and I’m Italian.  I looked at her thinking how I can respond to her as technically she is not Italian but I am.  I asked her if she remembered her school project from earlier this year and what we had learned about her ancestry.  She told me yes she remembered but that SHE IS Italian because I am.

I sit here today thinking about this conversation and being glad that our daughter knows where she comes from from the relationships we have with her birth families. It tells me she is not split on who her family is. She is confident in that she belongs to ALL of our families and we are all a part of her wholeness.

do you celebrate your child’s family day?

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This is a question I see come up often in the different groups I am part of on the internet. Some refer to it as “Gotcha Day” while others like ours call it “Family Day”.

What is family day you ask? For us it is the anniversary of the day we sat before a family judge in court and officially became a legal family. Although both of our girls were entrusted to us at birth, there is a time period during post-placement that you are assisted with social worker visits to ensure all is going well and then the final report and documents are drawn up that will be presented in court. Here in California the timeline is about 6-9 months for the post-placement visits. For our second daughter it was shorter as we had adopted only 2 years before.

We received a court date for our local county family court and on that day friends & family joined us for each of our daughter’s finalization hearings. We pledged before the judge our love and care for our daughter as we had to their birth parents.

Our first daughter’s birth father himself is an adoptee. He was interested in how we would recognize our court date when it came. He shared how much he liked having his family celebrate and recognize his family day. We knew from his positive experience that this was something we would do as well.

Now that our girls are 7 and 5 years old, they like the recognition and celebration of their family day. We allow them to choose the way they want to celebrate. Usually a dinner out or something fun to do.

Our girls like to see the pictures that were taken with us and the family judge that presided over our hearing.

It is a reminder to all of us that this is how our family was formed. As I sit here today we are reminded that it is our youngest daughter’s family day. In May we will celebrate our older daughter’s day as well.

Do you celebrate or recognize Family Day within your own family?

my week off all hormones …

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Yes mid-life motherhood takes on a variety of forms. This last week my doctor wanted to run blood tests to see where I am in the menopausal cycle. I turned 50 in November so it seemed like the right thing to do since I’ve been on hormones for the last 4 years for all the peri-menopausal symptoms that have been plaguing me.

In advance I posted a facebook message to all my family and friends who see this “I apologize in advance for any shortcomings and irritability on my part this coming week. Preparing for some blood work which required to stop hormones I’m on, probably not the best week to do this with my husband going to be out of town, but alls well, hopefully the next hormone protocol will be even better when all is said and done!”

A week ago Friday was my first day off, not a bad day as my body still had hormones coursing through my body. But that was the last good day. The next was a headachy day and then onto the migraine as the hormones seeped out of my body. After the migraine started so did the blues which were not helped by the rainy weather. Overnight waking with insomnia, night sweats and the whole shebang! All I wanted to do was curl up in my bed with the covers up, but as a mom with a 7- and 5-year-old that was not going to happen.

Add that the week we (my doctor and I) chose to come off hormones was a business travel week for my husband. Yes I would be alone parenting with no break for this week which may not have been the best timing.

The headache pretty much continued for the week (possibly stress induced as well as no hormones) and my insomnia returned. Luckily with school and extra curricular activities for both girls the week breezed by.

The results of my blood test show that I am still peri-menopausal so back to the regime that helped me keep the active symptoms away.

It was not the easiest week because of the physical symptoms but I am glad I did it when I did to learn what next treatment protocol would be needed on my journey in my 50s!

when adding a dog is like an open adoption …

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hanging with Cody in our yard

Our family recently lost a dog to canine cancer. We didn’t have plans to add back a second dog right away but somehow a week later I found a dog “Pepper”on a rescue website that seemed like the right fit for us. Her story is that her first family felt they weren’t giving her the attention and such she needed. Her “mom” worked 12-13 hour days and her children were grown and no one else was home for the dog when she worked. So on this site she was trying to find her dog a family that could give her more attention with children and another dog for her to have.

We emailed and talked on the phone explaining who we were, what our family was like and why we wanted a second dog. Also explaining that we have two daughters through open adoption and if she would like we could keep her updated on the dogs life with us. She agreed that that would help her.

For our girls, we explained that the first family wasn’t able to give this dog everything they wanted for her. We talked about how we had some of these things that they were looking for and that we would like to adopt their dog if they chose us. I also explained like we have an ongoing relationship with their families, we would keep in touch with “Pepper’s” first family through pictures and updates. They really understood that and were happy to know that we would be sharing that information.

Our girls ages 7-1/2 & 5-1/2 years old understood the concept of adopting the dog and keeping in touch with her first family since we were getting our new dog from her first family and not a shelter. It only demonstrated IMHO a story not unlike theirs that they know all too well and having ongoing relationships with their families keeping in touch with our new dog’s family felt right to them and all of us.

We were chosen to be Pepper’s family and as promised we have started sharing photos and updates as she settles into our family with our other dog, our girls and us. We have an open adoption for our dog now too!