Posts Tagged ‘adoptive families’

Week 2

Monday, March 23rd, 2020

I’ve been calling our situation here “homeschooling,” but “remote learning” is more accurate. Because at this point my kids are 17 and 15. Their work and study habits have been in place for a long time. If we don’t backslide too much, I’ll count that as a victory.

Of the the many jobs I’ve held over my lifetime, one of the most educational was teaching at a public high school in San Diego. My first full-time year, I taught American and British literature to 165 students in 9th and 12th grades. And let me tell you, I was overwhelmed.

There was so much information to transmit, and I didn’t feel experienced or capable enough to transmit it. Yes, I had a degree in English and had earned a California teaching credential. But what did I, a rank amateur, know about controlling classrooms filled with energetic, headstrong teenagers? Absolutely nothing.

Then one day, another teacher said something I never forgot: “If order is maintained, learning will occur.”

That’s the plan for this week.

Maintain a degree of order—what that looks like for us: get out of bed, eat breakfast, log in to classwork–and learning will occur. Not all learning, but some. Enough.

We’ll see how it goes.

Upside # 1: What’s great about order is that you get to break free of it. Once the job is done, of course. Here we are in the kitchen dancing to Jai Ho with Charlie.

Upside # 2: Charlie.

Stay safe, everyone. Xo

 

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Corona

Wednesday, March 18th, 2020

I found this photo of me at our rented house in Antigua last summer. The world is so different now. Everything from before seems quaint and naive. My daily excursions to the artisan market. My crazy affection for handmade plastic baskets. Our carefree visits to restaurants and museums. Today, we’re grateful to breathe fresh air.

From March 16:

Day 1 of homeschooling and sheltering in place. Day 1 of many days to come. The school district said 2 weeks, but we’re anticipating much more time than that.

Upside # 1: We’ve discovered Downton Abbey. Which everyone in the world has watched, except us. Omg, every night, the joy!
Upside # 2: We’re all healthy, so far. That’s a big one, and we’ll take it.

From March 17:

Day 2 of homeschooling and sheltering in place. Our planned schedule of kids waking up at 8 and starting “school” by 9 are, shall we say, subject to change. Especially since it’s noon and one of our teenagers has only now gotten out of bed. Reminding myself: Flexibility in all things will be key.

How do we even try to keep life normal for our children? When they only want to see their friends and socialize. The latest news report is that schools will remain closed until the Fall. We’re not even through the first week.

What choice do we have, what control?

This will be an adventure.

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New Year 2020

Sunday, January 5th, 2020

Happy New Year, friends! This year, I’m going to try hard to follow my own advice, which is “Parent the child you have.” I don’t know where I first heard these words, but as soon as I did, I knew they were gold. Or gold for me.

The idea to parent the child I have has been allowing me to step back, take a breath, and pause before speaking or acting. To not impose on someone else my preconceived idea of the “way things should be.”

One of the greatest mysteries and most intense joys of adoption has been discovering who my children are. Who they must be. Who they will be.

My children are not me. They are some of me, sometimes. But mostly, they are themselves. I love and try to guide them. I catch them when they fall. I witness their unfolding. ❤️

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15

Tuesday, November 26th, 2019

Smart, funny, creative, kind, exuberant. Mateo is 15!

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Antigua summer 2019

Thursday, November 14th, 2019

When is Guatemala not on my mind? Never, probably. Scrolling through my phone, I found these photos from Summer 2019, all from Antigua. xoxo

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Love Never Quits by Gina Heumann

Thursday, September 5th, 2019

I love reading memoirs about adopting from Guatemala, so when I saw my friend Gina Heumann post on FB about a book she’d written, I bought it immediately. Love Never Quits tells the story of Gina and her husband, the two boys they adopted from Guatemala, and the challenges they faced and overcame as a family. The younger boy suffered early trauma which manifested as behavior diagnosed by mental health professionals as Reactive Attachment Disorder. But this diagnosis did not come quickly. Gina tried for years to find help for her son, until, finally, she did.

The biggest takeaway for me in reading the book was how little is understood about adoption by mental health professionals, still, after so many years. And by adoption, I mean being relinquished by your mother; possibly living with multiple caregivers, in an orphanage, or on the street; and/or possibly being neglected or abused before landing in a secure, loving home; and, after all that, being required to adjust–as a young, frightened child–to an entirely new life. Reading the book also reminded me how ill-prepared *we* were as adoptive parents: how no one told us what we might face, how alone and misunderstood we would feel while facing it, and how difficult it was to find trained professionals qualified to counsel and guide us.

I met Gina Heumann at Heritage Camp for Adoptive Families (something else many of us do in our attempts to build bonds with our children) and was impressed with her dynamism and energy. Brava to her for writing about her family’s struggles and how they overcame them. May Gina’s story deepen the understanding of adoption’s complexity.

For more information about Gina Heumann, visit her website.

 

 

 

 

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Our front door

Friday, August 30th, 2019

Every summer when we visit Antigua, Guatemala, I make Olivia pose with me at the door of the charming little house where we lived together while waiting for her adoption to be finalized, back in 2003. Here we are in August 2019. Mateo snapped the picture. xoxo

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Mateo graduates

Tuesday, June 11th, 2019

Last week, our dear Mateo graduated from St. Hilary 8th grade. We’re proud of our kind, funny, curious, creative, and bright son, and the splendid young man he is becoming. On to high school with Olivia!

 

 

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Our annual party

Wednesday, May 22nd, 2019


I channeled my Rockette mother as I struck a pose and greeted guests at our annual party for adoptive families with children born in Guatemala. I love this day that brings us together to catch up, connect, laugh and cry. How blessed I am to be part of our community.

The party was Sunday, which meant Costco run Saturday. Once again, I was that frantic woman pushing two carts through the aisles and ordering cake. The Guatemalan flag is light blue and white; hence the color choice.

Cheers!

 

 

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Three Identical Strangers documentary

Saturday, February 9th, 2019

Mateo and I watched the 2018 documentary, “Three Identical Strangers,” last night. (Yes, the film finally came on DVD to our local library, because, as Mateo claims, we’re the only family in the country who doesn’t have Netflix.)

Wow. If you haven’t yet seen it, you must.

You probably know the rough outline—three identical triplets separated at birth, adopted to families in the greater New York area by the Louise Wise adoption agency. They find one another through pure chance at age 19, when two of the boys attend the same college and everybody calls one by his brother’s name.

I hesitate to say more, because the movie is full of surprises. Just when you think “Unbelievable!,” something more outrageous happens.

One small observation: The film focuses, rightfully and effectively, on the profound repercussions of being separated at birth. The practice is wrong, period. The boys continue to pay a heavy price. What the film overlooks is the repercussion felt by any and every child who is placed for adoption, the answer to the question, “Why did she give me up?”

The boys’ relationship with their birth mother is mentioned only once, in a short scene, when the brothers describe finding her name in New York Public Library records and meeting for a drink. Their mother was a high school student when she got pregnant, and for reasons not explained—Social pressure of the times? College looming on the horizon? Lack of family support to care for three babies?—she placed the boys for adoption.

I kept wanting the boys or their parents, spouses, extended family, or the psychologists involved in the boys’ case—many people are interviewed—to at least acknowledge this first, deep, primary loss. But everyone is so focused on the horror of the triplets’ separation that the core “hard thing” of adoption—being separated from your mother—isn’t even named. It’s completely overlooked. And, no matter what the circumstance or reason why, and no matter how loving and supportive an adoptive family is, being separated from your mother is a loss that never goes away.

Still, “Three Identical Strangers” is a provocative, engaging, important documentary. Mateo and I recommend it.

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