Blessed

I know I often talk about the struggles that we face. Let’s face it, being a single parent is hard work. Being a single parent to an active boy is even harder. While he is used to my work schedule if I pick him up even 30 minutes later from daycare it will be a rough evening and even a rough night on some occasions. I admit, I struggle with this sometimes. I really like my “me” time. I crave it actually and I need several hours each night or I struggle to sleep. I like the quietness of the house and I like to be able to sit on the couch and pet my cat (which I never see during Duc hours).

But sometimes there are blessings where you don’t see them. I have a child that wants to be with me all the time. I have a son that thinks I’m awesome and he tells strangers that “my mama is funny!”. I have a son that still wants to cuddle despite the distractions of toys and Thomas the Train on the brain. I have a child that enjoys not only picking out his own clothes each morning, but picking mine out as well (yes, the boy has good taste, but he seems particularly driven to my boobylicious shirts. In his own words, “I like boobies”).

Today I had a shit-tastic day at work…after several already this week. I’m physically and emotionally spent. When we got home tonight, we took our shoes and coats off and I fell into the closest seat. Duc climbed up in my lap and began looking at our videos on my iPod. And for 30 blissful minutes I slept and held my baby while listening to the sounds of his laughter on the video. Even after dinner he didn’t insist on rough housing or throwing a ball through the house or beg me to build his train set once again. He laid down next to me and we watched a little TV together. I marveled at the sweetest of this child next to me and understood why people refer to him as an “old soul”. I love that he has a naughty little grin and he will do something over and over again if it made me laugh just one time. And even if he won’t sleep in the twin bed I built him, he lays in it every night while we hold hands in the dark and talk.

I love that he loves Vietnam and that every time he sees a palm tree he excitedly yells “VIETNAM!”. While I don’t love that he goes though the trash cans, I love that I find surprises. Sometimes in my purse (which explains why it weighs 15 lbs.) or coat pocket or other places. Today I reached into my pants pocket and pulled out this:

Yes, that is a bottle top from Seagrams wine cooler I drank last night. He found it this morning and begged to be able to take it to daycare. When I refused he must have snuck it into my pocket because it was a treasure worth keeping.

I love that he has become such a little man. He holds doors open for people, is so sweet and delicate with little girls and asks me when he will finally have a sister.

Yes, yes, yes I love this boy.

Hello, my name is…

Despite my apparent inability to blog, I think about it often. I find writing is cathartic for my soul even if no one reads and no one responds (although it is always good to have feedback!).

From my previous posts you know life has been challenging lately. I feel a bit bad for not updating you on Duc’s nee-nee/sleep situation, but I am happy to say it has improved. I think I needed to get far enough distance between living it and writing about it. Despite my assertions that I am not superstitious, I still find myself crossing my fingers and trying not to jinx myself.

The night following my last post I talked to Mom. Every woman wants to believe she will be a better mother than her’s was. You think you will find the patience that your mother lacked. You promise yourself you will never say “because I said so” and especially as adoptive parents you think you will never get tired of hearing your child chant “MOM!” at high volume. You tell yourself that you know everything about your child—more than any other living soul on this planet (a fact that saddens me and empowers me to make better decisions). As an adoptive parent you educate yourself on attachment issues and can spot those times when your child struggles.

I’ll be honest, hearing Duc scream and cry for hours on end simultaneously tears my heart out and makes me want to scream at him in frustration. I finally shared this with my mother. I didn’t want to admit that I was failing. Failing him and failing my sanity. I didn’t want to admit I was over my head, at the end of my rope and feeling up a creek sans paddle. She gently reminded me that I always have Duc’s abandonment issues in mind and that whether or not it was intentional, Duc was playing me. She couldn’t be right, could she? I excused him and explained “you don’t understand. you don’t hear his panicked cries or see she tear soaked face. His anxiety is real”

But my mother has been a mother for 30 some years. She has counseled hundreds of children in the last 15 years of her career and most recently began working with children and families in the foster care system (among other things). I couldn’t deny the fact that she knows children and their psychology.

That night I tucked Duc into my bed with my mom’s instructions rolling through my head. I assured Duc that I wasn’t going anywhere. I told him I would hold his hand for a few minutes and then I would return to the living room to work on laundry. I told him that I would not be returning to the room no matter how much he screamed and that I would only come back when I went to bed. His response made me cry later:

D: Mommy, go to work?

M: I’m not going to work. I’m going to work on laundry just down the hall.

D: You not going bye-bye?

M: No, honey, I’m not going bye-bye. Did you think I was going to work and leaving you alone?

D: Yeah, mommy. I thought you leave me.

Wow, I had no idea. Once I assured him that I was most definitely NOT leaving he quieted down and slept fine.

We still struggle from time to time with sleep now that he doesn’t have his nee-nee to pacify him. He has had to learn to rely more on me for comfort and to learn how to self soothe. And at times I realize he is trying to manipulate me—maybe not intentionally, and maybe not related to adoption. Every person was born with the ability to manipulate. It is what carries on our species and what drives our self preservation—whether it is our corporeal being or our mental being. We are given the tools from birth that allow us to get our needs met.

I’m just glad to have my happy boy back (and to be able to sleep in my bed alone).

Blue Nee-Nee II

B so nicely inquired this week about how things have been since the blue nee-nee went bye-bye. In short, it sucks. The actual weaning process was surprisingly easily and fast. Nee-nee disappeared on Christmas Day after Duc hadn’t used it all day (no nap=no nee-nee). He fell asleep in the car shortly after leaving my parent’s house and he didn’t miss it. Or so I thought. At 1:30 AM he woke up screaming and crying. He was inconsolable and nothing I did helped. Finally around 6 am he dozed for a while before getting up around 7:30. For the next few days he inquired about blue nee-nee and asked that I search for it. Ever the dutiful mother I promised to do my best.

What I didn’t realize at the time was the extent that he relied on his pacifier. That was his comfort when even I could not help. Friends used to marvel at the ease in which I was able to get him to bed. Essentially I held him and rocked him for a few minutes with the pacifier, put him down and didn’t hear a peep out of him. Now it feels like January 2009 when we first arrived home from Vietnam. Weekend naps are almost non-existent. It is nothing for him to scream and whine and cry during his two hour nap period. Duc is the kind of child that REALLY needs a nap—sometimes two. Without naps he becomes destructive and more than a little mean and at his size he is force to be reckoned with.

It’s been three weeks today since I took nee-nee away and still we struggle. In the last two nights I have slept about three hours per night because Duc is sleeping in my bed. He sleeps in my bed even when I am not in bed with him. We have never been a co-sleeping family so this is a struggle for me.

I will be the first to admit that I don’t like change. I think because I am at an age in my life that so little changes it always astounds me that he is changing each and every day. How is that possible? I am struggling to learn that my parenting has to change to match his physical and emotional growth. I think I deluded myself into thinking that because he has been so advanced in his physical development and what he can do that his emotional growth would be slower. I have found that isn’t the case. On Christmas Eve we were driving to my parent’s house and he started wailing in the back seat. I asked him what was wrong and he replied, “I’m mad at you, Mommy”.

“Why are you mad at me, Duc?”

“Because.”

“Honey, ‘because’ is not a good enough reason. If you are mad at me you need to tell me why.”

“Because you won’t pick up my toy and give it to me.”

He tells me when he is happy, when is mad and when he is sad. Sometimes he isn’t able to verbalize why he feels these emotions, only that he feels them.

And so my parenting is adjusting. He needs me more now that he can’t rely on nee-nee. More time. More hugs and kisses. More time sitting next to him while he plays with his choo choos. More me. But I’ll be honest with you, I’m exhausted.

Blue Nee-Nee

This is Duc’s nee-nee, or as he calls it, “The Blue Nee-Nee”. I purchased a package of mutlcolored nee-nees at the beginning of the year and swore to myself that I wouldn’t buy another. Not for this child at least.

As this year marched forward I began to feel pressure from other mommies, family, the internet, parenting magazines to wean him from the nee-nee. At times he shows readiness. We stopped using it during the day. Daycare doesn’t give it to him during naptime so he is used to napping without it (although I always gave it to him at home since I just realized recently that the nee-nee in his cubby at daycare is dust covered {yes, I am that kind of observant parent}). He began forgetting it for car trips where I often held it ‘just in case’. Yesterday he was so excited about all the great gifts he got he forgot to eat, forgot to nap and even forgot about nee-nee. He fell asleep in the first mile after I left my parent’s house and nee-nee fell from his grasp. When I carried him into bed from the car last night he quietly cried out for nee-nee, but quickly rolled over and forgot about it.

This was my chance. I hid it. I even placed his nee-nee someplace hard for me to remember and difficult for me reach.

As I crawling into bed last night I realized one thing.

I’m not ready.

I’m not ready for Duc to be a big boy. I’m not ready to take away his off switch—the one thing that quiets him down when we are in the grocery store and he starts wailing half way through our shopping. I’m not ready to take away the one thing that puts him into sleepyland within minutes. When I see his nee-nee I think of our first days together. I offered him his first nee-nee on the short trip from the orphanage to the location of his G&R. It was love at first sight.

Within the next few weeks Duc will be sleeping in a big boy bed. His very own twin size bed. Potty training is surely not far behind. I’m just not ready for him to be a big boy. But he is. I’ve watched him grow—first in photos and then every day with my own eyes. He is no longer my baby. He is a big boy that doesn’t need to rely on a nee-nee.

So long, nee-nee, and thanks for the memories. We will both miss you.

Christmas 2010

Four years ago I sat across from my mother at a restaurant and as she caught a glimpse of me looking at the menu with my bangs pinned away with a barrette she said, “Wow, you look so much like my mother right now.”

I’m not sure I can adequately express how that comment made me feel. In one sense I was happy to know that I resembled my beloved grandmother and that something of her lives on, but the prevailing thought I had is “I will never look at my children and be able to say that.”. It was such a sad, bittersweet moment for me and I realized at that time I had to grieve that loss. I told myself that my child(ren) would have other other traits. Perhaps s/he would be musical like my mother and sister. Maybe s/he would would be able to draw like my mother or command a room’s attention like my father. I let go of ever thinking my children would look like my family.

Today my mom was flipping through the photo calendar that I made for my dad. She came to the photo below (taken nearly a year ago) and said, “Wow, he looks so much like my mother in this photo.” And there is was—the memory of that meal my mother and I shared four years ago. And she was right—he certainly looked like her. The way he is holding his mouth, the impish little smile—my much loved grandma.

Long before Duc entered my life I let go of hoping my children would resemble me. In the two years since he entered my life people have commented how much he looked like me (and most times I think it is crap that non-APs tell APs to help legitimize adoption in their eyes). But along the way there have been little things that made me sit back and laugh at God’s sense of humor. But for this day I was just happy to know that something of my grandma lived on.

December 16, 2008

This time of year is always special for me since it is the time I met and adopted Duc. I know it was difficult for my mother to be away from family for the Holidays, but I have to admit, I wouldn’t have it any other way. For me, I finally had a family and it didn’t matter to me where I was as long as we were together.

My maternity leave started on Monday, December 15th and like this December 15th a winter storm moved in. Michael picked me up and drove me to my sister’s house since she lived closest to the airport. The roads were slick and I wasn’t sure what I was more nervous about—the drive, the massive change that was occurring in my life, or worrying that the weather would keep us from leaving for Vietnam.

I slept on my sister’s couch that night. Well, I attempted to sleep. I was checking my watch every 30 minutes waiting to get up and finally gave up around 3:30 am. The photo above was taken while we waited to board our flight. I cried as I hugged my sister which mirrored our return as well. I had no sleep, but I was downright giddy.

Two years ago at this time I was somewhere over the ocean en route to S. Korea. I still remember the excitement as we landed in Seoul knowing we were that much closer. I remember the most minute detail. I remember how well I slept—nearly the entire trip between home and Vietnam. For the first time in two years I slept soundly. The end of the wait was almost over.

Even now it seems unfathomable that two years have passed. I remember so acutely the stress of waiting. The anguish as I learned we were delayed. How worried I was for Duc. And here I am. A mom for two years. Where did the time go?

One of these is not like the others

Duc helped Oma redecorate the Nativity. I didn’t bother correcting it because I kind of like it. What do you think?