From "The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide" by Gary Gygax:
THE EFFECT OF WISHES ON CHARACTER ABILITY SCORES
"It is quite usual for players to use wishes to increase their ability scores in desired areas, whatever the areas might be. It is strongly suggested that you place no restrictions on such use of wishes. However, at some point it must be made more difficult to go up in ability, or else many characters will eventually be running around with [the maximum ability to do everything]."
The elephant in the room, of course, is the fact that both of our kids will grow up and not have a mom.
This was a difficult thing for me. Not nearly as difficult as it will be for them, but nonetheless, a painful, philosophic hurdle that kept us from adopting for many years. I don't know how other gay parents handle the personal responsibility of denying a child one-half of a "conventional" nuclear family, but in our home, the discussion was not sidestepped by any means. It was agonized over.
I love my mom. She was in my childhood, and remains in my adulthood, the single most important and formative part of my life and my character. And the thought of denying a child the equivalent of that, quite frankly, took adoption off the table for Adam and I for many, many years. Call me old-fashioned. Call me politically incorrect or stubborn, but I believe that a child needs a mom, and loving as I am, I didn't want to be the person who removed that vital component from the equation by the nature of my very existence. Sue me, HRC. Revoke my membership. That's the kind of stuff I worry about.
Adam and I were discussing a curious realization the other day.
The fact that we're gay dads enters our minds...oh...about...zero times on a daily basis.
Seriously. Zero.
New dads, yes. Dads who are busy, struggling, and often essentially clueless, most definitely. Dads who are learning, dads who are staggering under the bulk of a crazy, frustrating County DFS system, sure, every day. Dads who are raising two special needs children and doing our best to navigate the minefield of textbooks, catch-up, and personal experience? Oh, yes...endlessly. Amen, and pass the ammunition.
But does the fact that we're two gay dads ever manifest itself as any cognizant, mindful priority? Do we wrap ourselves in a rainbow flag and see it even remotely as an important aspect of our children's upbringing? Ever?
God, no. We're just too damn busy being dads to worry for a second that we're gay ones.
Aside from some play dates with a very important Las Vegas group called "We Are Family," a network of moms/moms and dads/dads we occasionally foray with so our kids can see that other kids with same-sex parents are just as normal, fun, and splashy at a waterpark as they are, the whole "gay parenting issue" (whatever that might be), never really enters the picture at all. There's really no time for it. There are too many other adventures going on.
When I was a teenager, I played a game called D&D. That's Dungeons & Dragons, for those of you who weren't geeks. Adam played too. The game, was essentially, role playing story time. Adventures acted out. You and your merry band of friends, sitting around the comfort of the dorm room or the kitchen table, went "adventuring" in the form of a guided, interactive, storytelling journey that went on ad infinitum.
One of your friends was the "Dungeon Master." (Today, I have to put the title in "isn't that funny" quotation marks to distance my dignity from all the years when Dungeon Master, capital D, capital M, was an authentic force to be reckoned with). Your DM led you through caverns, forests, castles, dungeons. There were monsters, trolls, battles, and treasure. Potions, gold pieces, and yes, there be dragons.
You were an elf maybe. Or a halfling, or a human. You were a ranger, a fighter, a magic-user, or a druid. With a roll of the dice and a little bit of luck, you could be anyone, and as the narrative of the game progressed, so did your character. So did your skill.
But life, I've discovered of late, is not just a lucky roll of the twenty-sided die. (Yes, there actually was such a thing and I still have mine, may my eternal geekiness never again be questioned). In dungeons deep or happy forests, we may be a merry band of adventurers - me, Adam, J1 and J2 - but the narrative's not always as straight-forward and laid out on a neat map of graph paper like the game I nostalgically remember from my youth.
What D&D most certainly never prepared me for, was the beautiful, tumultuous character class those letters eventually came to mean in my life. Who would have thought back in 1985, when I was a half-elf ranger named "Xl," D&D would eventually come to mean something more authentically adventurous and astoundingly perplexing. Dad & Daddy.
Confession time. Adam and I both wanted to be "Daddy." Something about the tender diminutive of the extra "D-Y" on the end brought to mind bonus love, extra cuddliness, extra warmth. Of course, that was back before we got the kids and assumed cuddles and warmth were still on the table, straight out of the box.
We tried all sorts of "who will we be?" variations. "Daddy and Papa?" No, "Papa" sounded too grandfatherly. "Daddy and Aba?" Our Jewish friends suggested "Aba," the Hebrew word for Daddy, but knowing our Jewish-born kids were fresh off the boat from a three-year stint in the Land of Mormon Foster Care, "Aba" to them would have no meaning as an endearing word at all. Might as well call us "Daddy and Blah-Blah." (Which sometimes they do).
So, we settled for Dad and Daddy. Daddy and Dad. Seemed to roll off the tongue. Pretty good fit. And after much jockying for position, both of us wanting "Daddy," Adam, prince among men, decided to give it to me, because, number one, I'm the big old mushy softie in the family, and number two, that's just the kind of nice guy he is.
So, before the kids arrived, I was going to be "Daddy," and Adam was going to be "Dad." Done, signed, the ink was dry.
But the best laid plans of mice and men.
The kids nixed that one lickity-split. I outweigh Adam by the weight of a small pony, and because I'm bigger, more "solid" (again, my dignity-saving quotation marks) and I certainly have the capacity to yell a hell of a lot louder, it turns out I got to be plain old grouchy "Dad," and Adam got to be softer, gentler "Daddy." Damn the bad luck.
But really, it turns out it was 100% okay, because the first time they called me "Dad" in their sweet little voices, I melted on the spot. Dad I was, and Dad I'll forever be. From the first time I heard it, its resonance in my heart was perfectly in tune. "Dad" is who I unquestionably should be.
So...D&D. Dad and Daddy. Which means, if you Dungeon Masters are still paying attention, we still don't have a D/M. A Dad/Mom combination to fill our little nippers' lives with dual-gendered support.
Those of you who vote a little more on the red side of the curtain than I, will be pleased to hear when they dole out adoptive kids to two gay dads, they're at least very cautious during the interviews and paperwork to ask, repeatedly, "who will provide female role-modelship for the children?" As if to say, "listen, we're glad you're two nice men, and good luck with the whole fatherhood-times-two thing, but seriously, you better have a chick up your sleeve."
And God bless our family and friends, we have ever-present women aplenty.
These are the good, strong, remarkable women you want your children to emulate. The soft, nurturing, mothering forces you've always admired. The women you hope will never stop wrapping your children in their arms. A mother's love we can't provide. And we are blessed, learning, and letting go, hoping the envy in our hearts becomes the quiet joy of watching our children flourish in female care, knowing those hugs, kisses and cuddles on the couch from their abundant substitute-moms are exactly what they need now, and may we never discourage them from seeking more.
Mom, Mommy, Heidi, Jodi, Ingrid, Jenn, thank you. Dawn, Julie, Susie, Wendy, Aimee, Danielle, Sarah, Mariana, Marla -- all the beautiful, strong women our kids have already cuddled on the couch with -- our hearts are already full of gratitude for the roll you play, and will continue to play in their grand D&D adventure.
And to my sister Erin and my niece Jaime, who live now in Wisconsin, but decided this summer to be the ultimate frosting on our motherless cake -- thank you, most of all. We can't wait to have you in our lives, and in the lives of J1 and J2, when you move here to live with us in Las Vegas, just a few houses down the street, to provide daily, warm, mothering energy to two kids who will need it as they grow up. That's cool. That's family. Our four hearts are overjoyed knowing we'll see you both on November 7th.
To my own mom, Judy, who had Erin in her town and in her life, right beside her, for 39 years, and her granddaughter Jaime, her heart's treasure, for 18, you're perhaps the bravest of us all, Mom.
You're 71 years old now, and at a time in your life when you probably thought it would just be nice, comforting and fitting to have all your kids and grandkids right next to you, somehow you managed to find the courage and grace, at great pain to yourself, to say a difficult, geographical, hometown goodbye to the two people in the universe you hold the very dearest as they come out here to live with us.
It's hurt you immeasurably, but I love you so much, and I thank you. You're lending us the two people we need the most to start our new family, and it doesn't escape my attention for a moment what a courageous, selfless sacrifice that was for you, too. Every day, our gain is something that came at your expense, unanticipated and sad, but oh, how your grandbabies will be blessed for it, I promise you.
So. That's where we are folks.
D&D. Dad and Daddy.
Plenty of strong women already here, and reinforcements on the way. Good women, smart women, the kind of women you know will give your kids a good life, even when they're being raised by two gay dads, who very seldom think of themselves as two gay dads, except when they worry about not being moms.
When I was just a little girl,
I asked my mother, what will I be?
Will I be pretty? Will I be rich?
Here's what she said to me.
Que sera, sera
Whatever will be, will be.
The future's not ours to see.
Que sera, sera.
Thank you, Grandma Judy. See you soon, Aunt Erin and Aunt Jaime. We love you all very much and say this with the beautiful, hopeful confidence that comes with letting go and putting part of our children's lives in the helpful hands of the people who love us the most:
Our lives will be good.
And what will be, will be.
"Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be) c.1956 Jay Livingston and Ray Evans.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Kid of the Day
With a highly competitive pair of siblings on our hands -- and no kidding, when we say highly competitive, we're not whistling Dixie -- these kids were actually in therapy being treated for their powderkeg of competitive issues a full year before we got them -- we've had to do what we can, rather quickly, to get up to speed and tone down the battles.
I think I mentioned once before in this blog, J1 and J2's sibling rivalry runs circles around the usual slap-happy sib shit. J2 once got two more ice cubes in his restaurant drink than J1 did, and swear to God, WWIII broke out, tears, tantrums, live ammunition and everything.
So Adam, bless him, early on, came up with "kid of the day." Three or four days into their initial placement, we were already exhausted over the endless bickering and (no kidding) violent tantrums that happened everytime one of them beat the other one to the doorknob. Fighting over who got to actually enter the house first became, no exaggeration, blood sport.
So "Kid of the Day" was invented to hand off some rather mundane honors that nonetheless seem vitally important to their world-weary, security-starved 6-and-7-year-old brains. Silly as it seems, we've actually posted a monthly calendar, taped to the fridge, with each little white box clearly labeled "J1" or "J2," so the kids can easily look up who's got "Me First" rights for any particular day. It rotates. Justin one day, Justuce the next, and so on and so on, into infinity.
And with only constant exceptions, it works like a charm.
Kid of the day doesn't really get you much around here. Beverly used to say "that and 50 cents will get you a cup of coffee," and honestly, that's about all it's worth, even though (sorry, Beverlita) Starbucks wouldn't even meet you at the counter if you walked in with a pair of quarters these days.
But for what it's worth, kid of the day honors roughly include:
Getting carried downstairs first in the morning. I do pick up and carry the kids when I wake them up in the morning, and creepily doting as that may seem to more established moms and dads, I plan to do so for the foreseeable future. It's regressive, but it's part of our attachment therapy. It's also the only way I get sleepy halfhearted hugs before they're awake enough to hate me again.
Kid of the day also gets you, in no particularly fascinating order, first dibs out of the house, occasional TiVo control, the house key when we all come inside and the right to push the garage door button. Elevator buttons too, if God help you all, you ever meet us out in public.
You wouldn't think any of these honors are particularly vital or valuable, but God Almighty, you should see the fur fly when J1 opens a doorknob when J2 is kid of the day, or vice-versa. Simply put, hell hath no fury.
"She opened my door!!! I'm Kid of the Day!!!!!"
This sheer indignancy is screamed out at lung-popping, ear-bleeding volume, as if the very fabric of the universe is being single-handedly ripped apart at the seams by the pure, unadulterated evil of a sibling gone mad. When Kid of the Day's powers are usurped by Non-Kid of the Day, dogs howl, babies cry, and Adam and I hide under the kitchen table as seven kinds of shite break loose.
Clearly, Kid of the Day is far more important to them than to we mere mortals. In fact, I was thinking this morning, to them, it's almost prizeworthy and exciting in the classic game show sense.
"Tell us, Johnny. What do we have hiding behind the curtain for Kid of the Day?"
"I'll tell you, Ryan. Kid of the Day's fabulous star-studded adventure begins by being carried downstairs first!! (Tremendous studio audience applause). That's right, Justuce or Justin, your full-day, non-stop reign as Kid of the Day begins by being tenderly whispered out of a sweet sound sleep and carried downstairs to the couch where you will be given a pillow pet, a snuggy blanket, and a sippy cup full of Mott's Original Apple Juice a full sixty seconds before your sibling! (Audience "ooh's). That's Mott's, the leading producer of apple sauce and fruit juices for kids and adults. There's half a cup of fruit in every drink. Since 1842. Mott's Original Apple Juice. 100% juice. 100% yum!"
"And that's not all! The next exciting part of your Kid of the Day prize package is first dibs on the TiVo remote!! (Studio audience goes crazy once again). That's right, Justuce and Justin, one of you lucky winners will get to pick up the TiVo remote, push the button, and decide which show will start the morning!! The mystery crew from Scooby Doo? The sun coming up over Sesame Street? Or maybe...just maybe...twenty more minutes of the Disney Channel movie you had to shut off last night at bedtime??? You decide! The choice is yours!!! (Studio audience now out of their minds with applause). It all comes your way courtesy of your fabulous Kid of the Day TiVo remote!! That's TiVo, featuring the reinvented, reimagined TiVo Premiere. Record up to 4 shows at once and 75 hours of HD programing! Tivo! The one box that does it all!"
(Music changes into happy Carribbean island theme)...
"Next up, what Kid of the Day globetrotting journey would be complete without being first kid out of the house on the way to the car!! (Audience nearly shitting themselves in hysteria by this point!) Justuce or Justin, one of you lucky winners will actually get to put on your shoes, open the laundry room door, and step out into the garage a full two seconds before your sibling!! And guess what?? It's a mad dash to the same old car you ride in every day!! That's right kids, it's Daddy's 2005 Hyundai Elantra!!! (Studio audience now in complete, rabid frenzy!) You'll ride to school in two-liter, four-cylinder comfort, with automatic transmission and side curtain airbags, and only 88,000 miles on the odometer!! With Hyundai, fun is where you find it. That's Hyundai. New thinking. New possibilities."
(Music segues into tympani roll and dramatic build-up)...
"And Justuce and Justin, we've saved the best for last, because no Kid of the Day grand prize package would be complete without the absolute right and privilege of unlocking the door when we get home and pushing the garage door button to make the garage door come down!!!!! (Studio audience completely loses control. Riots break out. National Guard called in). You'll have to see it to believe it! Daddy will hand you his ring of keys, and if luck is on your side, you'll get to play with the door lock for a full 95 seconds before you finally get the door open and let us all in the fricking house! And even better...on your way inside...you'll get to push the big white garage door button, and just like it does every day...the garage door will actually come down!!!"
"This is one great trick that never grows old! It's the Chamberlain Whisper Drive One-Half Horsepower Garage Door Opener, and every time you hit the button, it goes up or down, depending on its current position!!! Justuce and Justin, you have to see it to believe it! Purchased at Home Depot and lovingly installed by Dad and Daddy's friend Dale Dobbe in 2002 for a couple of drinks and a buffet at Texas Station, this rugged beauty comes with two car remotes, manual keypad which now sticks on the first digit, and the fabulous, backlit, interior panel you'll touch with your finger, light up, and bring your slightly-dented family garage door down to a rousing and satisfying finish!!"
"This once-in-a-lifetime prize package is yours every other day, since we rotate kids, but it's all yours, Justuce or Justin, when you're the next, fabulous, incredibly lucky...Kid of the Day!!!!"
(Audience cheers, music swells to a finish, National Guard troops called off until 6am following morning).
Fabulous parting gifts for everyone involved, including our Kid of the Day home version. J2 had the honors today, so you can mark your calendars and play along at home. J1, lucky little darling, is up tomorrow.
Mazel tov, pumpkin. That and $3.59 will get you a Venti Latte.
I think I mentioned once before in this blog, J1 and J2's sibling rivalry runs circles around the usual slap-happy sib shit. J2 once got two more ice cubes in his restaurant drink than J1 did, and swear to God, WWIII broke out, tears, tantrums, live ammunition and everything.
So Adam, bless him, early on, came up with "kid of the day." Three or four days into their initial placement, we were already exhausted over the endless bickering and (no kidding) violent tantrums that happened everytime one of them beat the other one to the doorknob. Fighting over who got to actually enter the house first became, no exaggeration, blood sport.
So "Kid of the Day" was invented to hand off some rather mundane honors that nonetheless seem vitally important to their world-weary, security-starved 6-and-7-year-old brains. Silly as it seems, we've actually posted a monthly calendar, taped to the fridge, with each little white box clearly labeled "J1" or "J2," so the kids can easily look up who's got "Me First" rights for any particular day. It rotates. Justin one day, Justuce the next, and so on and so on, into infinity.
And with only constant exceptions, it works like a charm.
Kid of the day doesn't really get you much around here. Beverly used to say "that and 50 cents will get you a cup of coffee," and honestly, that's about all it's worth, even though (sorry, Beverlita) Starbucks wouldn't even meet you at the counter if you walked in with a pair of quarters these days.
But for what it's worth, kid of the day honors roughly include:
Getting carried downstairs first in the morning. I do pick up and carry the kids when I wake them up in the morning, and creepily doting as that may seem to more established moms and dads, I plan to do so for the foreseeable future. It's regressive, but it's part of our attachment therapy. It's also the only way I get sleepy halfhearted hugs before they're awake enough to hate me again.
Kid of the day also gets you, in no particularly fascinating order, first dibs out of the house, occasional TiVo control, the house key when we all come inside and the right to push the garage door button. Elevator buttons too, if God help you all, you ever meet us out in public.
You wouldn't think any of these honors are particularly vital or valuable, but God Almighty, you should see the fur fly when J1 opens a doorknob when J2 is kid of the day, or vice-versa. Simply put, hell hath no fury.
"She opened my door!!! I'm Kid of the Day!!!!!"
This sheer indignancy is screamed out at lung-popping, ear-bleeding volume, as if the very fabric of the universe is being single-handedly ripped apart at the seams by the pure, unadulterated evil of a sibling gone mad. When Kid of the Day's powers are usurped by Non-Kid of the Day, dogs howl, babies cry, and Adam and I hide under the kitchen table as seven kinds of shite break loose.
Clearly, Kid of the Day is far more important to them than to we mere mortals. In fact, I was thinking this morning, to them, it's almost prizeworthy and exciting in the classic game show sense.
"Tell us, Johnny. What do we have hiding behind the curtain for Kid of the Day?"
"I'll tell you, Ryan. Kid of the Day's fabulous star-studded adventure begins by being carried downstairs first!! (Tremendous studio audience applause). That's right, Justuce or Justin, your full-day, non-stop reign as Kid of the Day begins by being tenderly whispered out of a sweet sound sleep and carried downstairs to the couch where you will be given a pillow pet, a snuggy blanket, and a sippy cup full of Mott's Original Apple Juice a full sixty seconds before your sibling! (Audience "ooh's). That's Mott's, the leading producer of apple sauce and fruit juices for kids and adults. There's half a cup of fruit in every drink. Since 1842. Mott's Original Apple Juice. 100% juice. 100% yum!"
"And that's not all! The next exciting part of your Kid of the Day prize package is first dibs on the TiVo remote!! (Studio audience goes crazy once again). That's right, Justuce and Justin, one of you lucky winners will get to pick up the TiVo remote, push the button, and decide which show will start the morning!! The mystery crew from Scooby Doo? The sun coming up over Sesame Street? Or maybe...just maybe...twenty more minutes of the Disney Channel movie you had to shut off last night at bedtime??? You decide! The choice is yours!!! (Studio audience now out of their minds with applause). It all comes your way courtesy of your fabulous Kid of the Day TiVo remote!! That's TiVo, featuring the reinvented, reimagined TiVo Premiere. Record up to 4 shows at once and 75 hours of HD programing! Tivo! The one box that does it all!"
(Music changes into happy Carribbean island theme)...
"Next up, what Kid of the Day globetrotting journey would be complete without being first kid out of the house on the way to the car!! (Audience nearly shitting themselves in hysteria by this point!) Justuce or Justin, one of you lucky winners will actually get to put on your shoes, open the laundry room door, and step out into the garage a full two seconds before your sibling!! And guess what?? It's a mad dash to the same old car you ride in every day!! That's right kids, it's Daddy's 2005 Hyundai Elantra!!! (Studio audience now in complete, rabid frenzy!) You'll ride to school in two-liter, four-cylinder comfort, with automatic transmission and side curtain airbags, and only 88,000 miles on the odometer!! With Hyundai, fun is where you find it. That's Hyundai. New thinking. New possibilities."
(Music segues into tympani roll and dramatic build-up)...
"And Justuce and Justin, we've saved the best for last, because no Kid of the Day grand prize package would be complete without the absolute right and privilege of unlocking the door when we get home and pushing the garage door button to make the garage door come down!!!!! (Studio audience completely loses control. Riots break out. National Guard called in). You'll have to see it to believe it! Daddy will hand you his ring of keys, and if luck is on your side, you'll get to play with the door lock for a full 95 seconds before you finally get the door open and let us all in the fricking house! And even better...on your way inside...you'll get to push the big white garage door button, and just like it does every day...the garage door will actually come down!!!"
"This is one great trick that never grows old! It's the Chamberlain Whisper Drive One-Half Horsepower Garage Door Opener, and every time you hit the button, it goes up or down, depending on its current position!!! Justuce and Justin, you have to see it to believe it! Purchased at Home Depot and lovingly installed by Dad and Daddy's friend Dale Dobbe in 2002 for a couple of drinks and a buffet at Texas Station, this rugged beauty comes with two car remotes, manual keypad which now sticks on the first digit, and the fabulous, backlit, interior panel you'll touch with your finger, light up, and bring your slightly-dented family garage door down to a rousing and satisfying finish!!"
"This once-in-a-lifetime prize package is yours every other day, since we rotate kids, but it's all yours, Justuce or Justin, when you're the next, fabulous, incredibly lucky...Kid of the Day!!!!"
(Audience cheers, music swells to a finish, National Guard troops called off until 6am following morning).
Fabulous parting gifts for everyone involved, including our Kid of the Day home version. J2 had the honors today, so you can mark your calendars and play along at home. J1, lucky little darling, is up tomorrow.
Mazel tov, pumpkin. That and $3.59 will get you a Venti Latte.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Your Nothings Come Back
Spaulding: I want a hamburger. No, cheeseburger. I want a hot dog. I want a milkshake. I want potato chips...
Judge Smails: You'll get nothing and like it!
- John Barman and Ted Knight in "Caddyshack"
When I was 15 years old and dating Robin, I was so angry at her one day -- about what, I can't possibly remember -- she broke up with me, or I broke up with her -- the drama and passion of two teenagers in love is a frightful, nonsensical thing -- but I was so angry that day, I said out loud in front of her mother, "I hate her. I hate her so much right now."
And her mom Ruth, no stranger herself to strained relationships and painful journeys of the heart, took my hand in hers, and sighed and said, "Listen to me, the opposite of love isn't hate...the opposite of love is indifference." And that, in a nutshell, turned out to be the single most accurate description anyone has ever given me of what love is and what love isn't.
Our two adopted children do not yet love us. They don't exactly hate us, although out of principle, they did spend much of their first two months telling us they did, vehemently and insistently, until we took it off the table by making the words "I hate you," a disciplinary misstep in our house.
"Go ahead and feel it," my less-than-noble theory goes, "but none of us will survive this transition to new familyhood if we have to hear it out loud ten times a day." Healthy or not for their freedom of expression, nobody gets to say "I hate you" in our house anymore, and that's just the way it is. Hate your situation, but you're not going hate your dads. Not verbally anyway. That dog, children, just won't hunt. So suck it up and find a few new words to express your pain and your anger. In an early world of unteachable hurdles, at least we'll teach you that much.
And honestly, they don't really hate us. They're just adapting to a whole new rainstorm of shit from a world that's already pelted them with an umbrella load already. They like us well enough as friends and babysitters as long as they get exactly what they want and we bow to their every whim, which unfortunately, as parents, we can't do frequently. Other than that, all bets are off.
Now at the four month mark, J1 and J2 still have an ongoing and utter indifference to our existance as a whole. They've had lots of parents before, and they're duly unimpressed that we're next in line. We're no more "chosen" than a random couple on the street. No more "official" than a fart in the wind. That's how much substance we have. Glimmers of hope are present, but rare. On most days, they could clearly could care less if we love them or not, and they're certainly, vastly, unanimously uninterested in loving us back.
Geoffrey: I remember my third birthday. Not just pictures of the garden or the gifts, but who did what to whom and how it felt. My memory reaches back that far, and never once can I remember anything from you or Father warmer than indifference. Why is that?
Eleanor: I don't know.
Geoffrey: That was not an easy question for me and I don't deserve an easy answer.
Eleanor: There are times I think we loved none of our children.
Geoffrey: Still too easy, don't you think?
Eleanor: I'm weary and you want a simple answer and I haven't one.
- James Goldman, "The Lion in Winter"
Sometimes I worry that I feel like I don't love them either. I have to be very careful of how I phrase that, because someday they will inevitibly read this and wonder if I did. And the answer is yes, of course I did. I did and I do.
But as much as I love them, I equally loved the picture of who I thought they would be before they got here, and in a way, I'm already mourning for what our family didn't turn out to be.
"Parents have a mental picture of the "wished for" family. It may be vague or well-formed, but it exists. After a placement, the anticipation of the dream family is supplanted by committment to the real family. If parents unknowingly adopt a special needs child, grief follows. As these various feelings and thoughts are recognized, parents tend to move into a state of sadness, acknowledging the differences between their wishes for their child and their child's reality." - Deborah D. Gray, "Attaching in Adoption"
Of course Adam and I love them. We started loving them before they even met us, when they were just two names and two outdated snapshots on a Department of Family Services bio sheet. By the time they arrived in our home, Adam and I were so emotionally invested in the roller coaster worry of "getting or not getting" them, we wanted to cover and smother them with hugs, kisses, protection and open-armed joy on the first day we met them.
But even after four months and numerous textbook predictors, we had no idea how difficult love unreturned, coupled with a myriad of behavioral, neurological and psychological challenges, would actually be. On most days, it leaves us so emotionally drained and utterly, heartwrenchingly exhausted, it's all we can do to retreat to our bed at night and stare silently at the ceiling, each of us wrapped in our own blanket of grief, hoping to find one more ounce of energy to utter the few hopeful words that might conceivably comfort the other so we can wake up and start it all over the next day.
At hopeless times like these, it's hard to identify these children as even belonging to us. On the hardest days -- and there are many -- we feel like they can't possibly be ours. Like someone left us two very bad kids to babysit, and it's up to us to figure it out, and the real parents aren't ever coming back. We have to remind ourselves constantly that we are the real parents. And it's every bit as terrifying as it is joyful.
They remind us all the time that we're not their real dads. Don't think for a minute that turn of the biological screw escapes their arsenal. I'm amazed at the inherent ability of a six and seven-year-old to hurt us and and enjoy it. Their difficult lives have made already made them sophisticated masters of passing out pain, and whether they learned it by neglect or emulation, God help them, they do it very well. And for a long while at least, it's Adam and I who will have to pay the daily price for all the others who were collectively responsible for their mostly-missing childhood. Seven long years of other people's errors, and here it is, all for us. Turn the fan on high and toss in 365 days worth of dog turds. Times seven.
Exhausted in the midst of another scowling staredown last night, I turned to Justuce, who has recently been diagnosed with ODD, or Oppositional Defiant Disorder, yet another series of letters to Google, medicate and treat through therapy, and said to her, ""It must be so difficult to hate me this much all the time. It must take up so much of your energy. You really don't have to."
I continued in words way too grown-up for her to process, desperately hoping she might catch a glimmer of understanding, that I'm here and begging, trying so hard to reach her.
"All the sad things in your heart," I told her, "I know I can't take them all away. Nobody can. But I wish you could talk to me about them so we can try to make them not hurt so much. I promise I want to help you. I'll be the best dad I can and I'll give you so much love, but you have to come out and meet me. Talk to me about all the things that are hurting your heart. Help me help you."
And she looked at me blankly, scowled again and walked away.
Everything I need to say to her is too grown-up to say to a seven-year-old, and nobody's trained me to bring it down to her level. I need to tell her exactly what I just said, but I don't know how to do it yet in a way she'll connect to. And all of these wise old doctors and therapists and "professionals" of ours don't seem to have the language for it either.
"Parents may not understand the extent of the needs of their child until several months into the placement. By then, parents have often used all of their energy and reserves. Parents may have a reality-based perception that the quality of their lives has taken a sharp, downward turn. As parents get increasingly tired, it becomes more difficult to organize and make decisions that will benefit the family for the long haul." - Deborah D. Gray, "Attaching in Adoption"
I'm under no illusion that the addition of these two new children and their cornucopia of problems hasn't drained my reserves and completely altered my relationship with Adam in a fundamental and identity-changing way.
Where once I bragged that Adam and I never fought, never argued never shared a terse word, now I snap at him in front of houseguests when I find out Justin's three days of therapy has just turned into four. The effortless brotherhood we once so arrogantly, naively credited to the so-called strength of our own strong hearts has been replaced, diluted, called into question by the sheer exhaustion of parenting such frightfully difficult and uncaring children.
And I say that with no ill reflection on who they are, rather simply on where they are. They aren't yet ready to accept me and Adam as their parents, nor should anyone expect them to. But the fact that they haven't is still very painful. It's still demeaning to our hearts because we love them so much. We see them cuddling and cozy with everyone else but us and we feel so entirely unimportant, deflated, ridiculous and worn down. I used to spring out of bed in the morning with a smile on my lips and carpe diem in my heart. Now I wake up in the morning afraid of what each new day will bring. What new pressure or what new rejection.
Now I quietly take my little blue Zoloft, hoping it'll take the edge off the tears that will almost certainly be welling in my eyes, just below the surface, all day long. Four days out of the week, I'll reach for the Butalb my doctor prescribed to squelch the migraines that arrived, wrapped in a bow, not at all suprisingly coinciding with the exact placement date of the children. I didn't have these things before the children came, and now I do. And the fearful part of me is always thinking, "what's next?"
I want to say, "you can't imagine what it's like to work this hard and not be loved back by your children," but that would be arrogant. As sure as the day is long, a hundred of you parents out there with unruly teenagers feel the same way. Problem is, my unruly teenagers are only six and seven years old, and I didn't get the pre-school cuddling that led up to it. I have no "before" to fall back on. No wistful, "well, at least they loved me once." We hit the ground running with their built-in rejection. We prayed for them, but found out the hard way they sure as hell didn't pray for us.
I broke down crying talking to my friend Amy yesterday. She reads this blog and remembers the heartaches and challenges raising her own adopted son. We were talking about therapy and medication and how hard this all is just from a scheduling standpoint -- the enormity of trying to fit in all this special care with simple things like meals and playtime and showers and homework -- it all just seems like an impossible, ridiculous juggling act right now -- and I said, "Amy, it would be so much easier to do all this if they only just loved me a little. If they'd only just give me a glimmer of hope or throw me a bone."
And I broke down crying because (a) I feel it, and (b) I feel so selfish for feeling it.
They're just not ready to love us yet, plain and simple. It's not their job to do it and it's not in our best interest to expect it. I said to Adam yesterday, "We just have to face the reality of this. We have to do all of this, work this hard, even harder, and not expect any affection in return. For a long, long time." Note to moms and dads who plan on adopting older children. Knowing their rejection is perfectly normal doesn't make it any less likely to break your heart.
We watch Justuce and Justin happily and contentedly cuddle up to anyone but us, friends, family, people they've just met, and it fills me with such sad, complete envy, I imagine they're doing it just to spite me, and of course, they're not. They're just little kids and they just want to cuddle. They just don't want to do it with the two new pseudo-parents the State of Nevada stuck them with.
I wish it were us they were casually clinging to. We're glad they find arms to embrace them and give them shelter, because they need it so desperately, and for whatever developmental or transitional reasons, they clearly can't ask it of us yet. To love a child who needs to be loved in return, but to watch them, time after time, crawl into someone else's arms for comfort is a level of grief I never thought I'd know. "Here I am, pick me," my heart practically screams. But off they go to someone else's arms. And I have to watch it and smile, like the old Nat King Cole song, because it's fundamentally what they need the most. They just don't want it from me.
Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking
That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use in crying...
And I sound like a broken record, because I've written before about the pain of this unique, unrequited love, and even though I'm tired of listening to myself too, it doesn't ever stop hurting, so here it is again.
Eleanor: What's the matter, Richard?
Richard: Nothing.
Eleanor: It's a heavy thing, your nothing. When I write or send for you or speak or reach, your nothings come. Like stones.
- James Goldman, "The Lion in Winter"
I quote "The Lion in Winter" a lot more than I probably should. It's my favorite movie, perhaps because it so deliciously, perfectly captures the heart and soul of a dysfunctional family, and Adam and I have lived in plenty of those.
I stole it's line, "your nothings come," for a long-ago poem I wrote for my own dad, who was largely absent from my life, certainly from my childhood. He made up for it at the end when it was too late and he was dying, and I love him for that, but his inaccessbility when I was young and needed him is something it's taken me a lifetime to understand.
Ironic then, that the very same poem I wrote when I was 17 for the father who was never there should come back and haunt me so completely, desribing my new childrens' lack of affection for me and how unimportant it makes me feel.
Your nothings come back.
I call, I roar, I scream to you.
But you don't see me.
I'm invisible to you.
Transparent like water is,
I hope, I beg,
I whisper, please,
But only your nothings
Always your nothings
Come back.
Moms and dads who ever contemplate this journey, let me promise you something. You can prepare yourself for resistance. You can prepare yourself for difficulty. But unwantedness, indifference...those two things are the quintessential opposite of love, and they're very hard to swallow. How in the world do you ever prepare yourself for those?
Someday, I know, I will look back on these words and thank God we got past them.
But that doesn't help me today when I'm sad and I'm tired and I'm still here trying, and only their nothings, always their nothings, come back.
Judge Smails: You'll get nothing and like it!
- John Barman and Ted Knight in "Caddyshack"
When I was 15 years old and dating Robin, I was so angry at her one day -- about what, I can't possibly remember -- she broke up with me, or I broke up with her -- the drama and passion of two teenagers in love is a frightful, nonsensical thing -- but I was so angry that day, I said out loud in front of her mother, "I hate her. I hate her so much right now."
And her mom Ruth, no stranger herself to strained relationships and painful journeys of the heart, took my hand in hers, and sighed and said, "Listen to me, the opposite of love isn't hate...the opposite of love is indifference." And that, in a nutshell, turned out to be the single most accurate description anyone has ever given me of what love is and what love isn't.
Our two adopted children do not yet love us. They don't exactly hate us, although out of principle, they did spend much of their first two months telling us they did, vehemently and insistently, until we took it off the table by making the words "I hate you," a disciplinary misstep in our house.
"Go ahead and feel it," my less-than-noble theory goes, "but none of us will survive this transition to new familyhood if we have to hear it out loud ten times a day." Healthy or not for their freedom of expression, nobody gets to say "I hate you" in our house anymore, and that's just the way it is. Hate your situation, but you're not going hate your dads. Not verbally anyway. That dog, children, just won't hunt. So suck it up and find a few new words to express your pain and your anger. In an early world of unteachable hurdles, at least we'll teach you that much.
And honestly, they don't really hate us. They're just adapting to a whole new rainstorm of shit from a world that's already pelted them with an umbrella load already. They like us well enough as friends and babysitters as long as they get exactly what they want and we bow to their every whim, which unfortunately, as parents, we can't do frequently. Other than that, all bets are off.
Now at the four month mark, J1 and J2 still have an ongoing and utter indifference to our existance as a whole. They've had lots of parents before, and they're duly unimpressed that we're next in line. We're no more "chosen" than a random couple on the street. No more "official" than a fart in the wind. That's how much substance we have. Glimmers of hope are present, but rare. On most days, they could clearly could care less if we love them or not, and they're certainly, vastly, unanimously uninterested in loving us back.
Geoffrey: I remember my third birthday. Not just pictures of the garden or the gifts, but who did what to whom and how it felt. My memory reaches back that far, and never once can I remember anything from you or Father warmer than indifference. Why is that?
Eleanor: I don't know.
Geoffrey: That was not an easy question for me and I don't deserve an easy answer.
Eleanor: There are times I think we loved none of our children.
Geoffrey: Still too easy, don't you think?
Eleanor: I'm weary and you want a simple answer and I haven't one.
- James Goldman, "The Lion in Winter"
Sometimes I worry that I feel like I don't love them either. I have to be very careful of how I phrase that, because someday they will inevitibly read this and wonder if I did. And the answer is yes, of course I did. I did and I do.
But as much as I love them, I equally loved the picture of who I thought they would be before they got here, and in a way, I'm already mourning for what our family didn't turn out to be.
"Parents have a mental picture of the "wished for" family. It may be vague or well-formed, but it exists. After a placement, the anticipation of the dream family is supplanted by committment to the real family. If parents unknowingly adopt a special needs child, grief follows. As these various feelings and thoughts are recognized, parents tend to move into a state of sadness, acknowledging the differences between their wishes for their child and their child's reality." - Deborah D. Gray, "Attaching in Adoption"
Of course Adam and I love them. We started loving them before they even met us, when they were just two names and two outdated snapshots on a Department of Family Services bio sheet. By the time they arrived in our home, Adam and I were so emotionally invested in the roller coaster worry of "getting or not getting" them, we wanted to cover and smother them with hugs, kisses, protection and open-armed joy on the first day we met them.
But even after four months and numerous textbook predictors, we had no idea how difficult love unreturned, coupled with a myriad of behavioral, neurological and psychological challenges, would actually be. On most days, it leaves us so emotionally drained and utterly, heartwrenchingly exhausted, it's all we can do to retreat to our bed at night and stare silently at the ceiling, each of us wrapped in our own blanket of grief, hoping to find one more ounce of energy to utter the few hopeful words that might conceivably comfort the other so we can wake up and start it all over the next day.
At hopeless times like these, it's hard to identify these children as even belonging to us. On the hardest days -- and there are many -- we feel like they can't possibly be ours. Like someone left us two very bad kids to babysit, and it's up to us to figure it out, and the real parents aren't ever coming back. We have to remind ourselves constantly that we are the real parents. And it's every bit as terrifying as it is joyful.
They remind us all the time that we're not their real dads. Don't think for a minute that turn of the biological screw escapes their arsenal. I'm amazed at the inherent ability of a six and seven-year-old to hurt us and and enjoy it. Their difficult lives have made already made them sophisticated masters of passing out pain, and whether they learned it by neglect or emulation, God help them, they do it very well. And for a long while at least, it's Adam and I who will have to pay the daily price for all the others who were collectively responsible for their mostly-missing childhood. Seven long years of other people's errors, and here it is, all for us. Turn the fan on high and toss in 365 days worth of dog turds. Times seven.
Exhausted in the midst of another scowling staredown last night, I turned to Justuce, who has recently been diagnosed with ODD, or Oppositional Defiant Disorder, yet another series of letters to Google, medicate and treat through therapy, and said to her, ""It must be so difficult to hate me this much all the time. It must take up so much of your energy. You really don't have to."
I continued in words way too grown-up for her to process, desperately hoping she might catch a glimmer of understanding, that I'm here and begging, trying so hard to reach her.
"All the sad things in your heart," I told her, "I know I can't take them all away. Nobody can. But I wish you could talk to me about them so we can try to make them not hurt so much. I promise I want to help you. I'll be the best dad I can and I'll give you so much love, but you have to come out and meet me. Talk to me about all the things that are hurting your heart. Help me help you."
And she looked at me blankly, scowled again and walked away.
Everything I need to say to her is too grown-up to say to a seven-year-old, and nobody's trained me to bring it down to her level. I need to tell her exactly what I just said, but I don't know how to do it yet in a way she'll connect to. And all of these wise old doctors and therapists and "professionals" of ours don't seem to have the language for it either.
"Parents may not understand the extent of the needs of their child until several months into the placement. By then, parents have often used all of their energy and reserves. Parents may have a reality-based perception that the quality of their lives has taken a sharp, downward turn. As parents get increasingly tired, it becomes more difficult to organize and make decisions that will benefit the family for the long haul." - Deborah D. Gray, "Attaching in Adoption"
I'm under no illusion that the addition of these two new children and their cornucopia of problems hasn't drained my reserves and completely altered my relationship with Adam in a fundamental and identity-changing way.
Where once I bragged that Adam and I never fought, never argued never shared a terse word, now I snap at him in front of houseguests when I find out Justin's three days of therapy has just turned into four. The effortless brotherhood we once so arrogantly, naively credited to the so-called strength of our own strong hearts has been replaced, diluted, called into question by the sheer exhaustion of parenting such frightfully difficult and uncaring children.
And I say that with no ill reflection on who they are, rather simply on where they are. They aren't yet ready to accept me and Adam as their parents, nor should anyone expect them to. But the fact that they haven't is still very painful. It's still demeaning to our hearts because we love them so much. We see them cuddling and cozy with everyone else but us and we feel so entirely unimportant, deflated, ridiculous and worn down. I used to spring out of bed in the morning with a smile on my lips and carpe diem in my heart. Now I wake up in the morning afraid of what each new day will bring. What new pressure or what new rejection.
Now I quietly take my little blue Zoloft, hoping it'll take the edge off the tears that will almost certainly be welling in my eyes, just below the surface, all day long. Four days out of the week, I'll reach for the Butalb my doctor prescribed to squelch the migraines that arrived, wrapped in a bow, not at all suprisingly coinciding with the exact placement date of the children. I didn't have these things before the children came, and now I do. And the fearful part of me is always thinking, "what's next?"
I want to say, "you can't imagine what it's like to work this hard and not be loved back by your children," but that would be arrogant. As sure as the day is long, a hundred of you parents out there with unruly teenagers feel the same way. Problem is, my unruly teenagers are only six and seven years old, and I didn't get the pre-school cuddling that led up to it. I have no "before" to fall back on. No wistful, "well, at least they loved me once." We hit the ground running with their built-in rejection. We prayed for them, but found out the hard way they sure as hell didn't pray for us.
I broke down crying talking to my friend Amy yesterday. She reads this blog and remembers the heartaches and challenges raising her own adopted son. We were talking about therapy and medication and how hard this all is just from a scheduling standpoint -- the enormity of trying to fit in all this special care with simple things like meals and playtime and showers and homework -- it all just seems like an impossible, ridiculous juggling act right now -- and I said, "Amy, it would be so much easier to do all this if they only just loved me a little. If they'd only just give me a glimmer of hope or throw me a bone."
And I broke down crying because (a) I feel it, and (b) I feel so selfish for feeling it.
They're just not ready to love us yet, plain and simple. It's not their job to do it and it's not in our best interest to expect it. I said to Adam yesterday, "We just have to face the reality of this. We have to do all of this, work this hard, even harder, and not expect any affection in return. For a long, long time." Note to moms and dads who plan on adopting older children. Knowing their rejection is perfectly normal doesn't make it any less likely to break your heart.
We watch Justuce and Justin happily and contentedly cuddle up to anyone but us, friends, family, people they've just met, and it fills me with such sad, complete envy, I imagine they're doing it just to spite me, and of course, they're not. They're just little kids and they just want to cuddle. They just don't want to do it with the two new pseudo-parents the State of Nevada stuck them with.
I wish it were us they were casually clinging to. We're glad they find arms to embrace them and give them shelter, because they need it so desperately, and for whatever developmental or transitional reasons, they clearly can't ask it of us yet. To love a child who needs to be loved in return, but to watch them, time after time, crawl into someone else's arms for comfort is a level of grief I never thought I'd know. "Here I am, pick me," my heart practically screams. But off they go to someone else's arms. And I have to watch it and smile, like the old Nat King Cole song, because it's fundamentally what they need the most. They just don't want it from me.
Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking
That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use in crying...
And I sound like a broken record, because I've written before about the pain of this unique, unrequited love, and even though I'm tired of listening to myself too, it doesn't ever stop hurting, so here it is again.
Eleanor: What's the matter, Richard?
Richard: Nothing.
Eleanor: It's a heavy thing, your nothing. When I write or send for you or speak or reach, your nothings come. Like stones.
- James Goldman, "The Lion in Winter"
I quote "The Lion in Winter" a lot more than I probably should. It's my favorite movie, perhaps because it so deliciously, perfectly captures the heart and soul of a dysfunctional family, and Adam and I have lived in plenty of those.
I stole it's line, "your nothings come," for a long-ago poem I wrote for my own dad, who was largely absent from my life, certainly from my childhood. He made up for it at the end when it was too late and he was dying, and I love him for that, but his inaccessbility when I was young and needed him is something it's taken me a lifetime to understand.
Ironic then, that the very same poem I wrote when I was 17 for the father who was never there should come back and haunt me so completely, desribing my new childrens' lack of affection for me and how unimportant it makes me feel.
Your nothings come back.
I call, I roar, I scream to you.
But you don't see me.
I'm invisible to you.
Transparent like water is,
I hope, I beg,
I whisper, please,
But only your nothings
Always your nothings
Come back.
Moms and dads who ever contemplate this journey, let me promise you something. You can prepare yourself for resistance. You can prepare yourself for difficulty. But unwantedness, indifference...those two things are the quintessential opposite of love, and they're very hard to swallow. How in the world do you ever prepare yourself for those?
Someday, I know, I will look back on these words and thank God we got past them.
But that doesn't help me today when I'm sad and I'm tired and I'm still here trying, and only their nothings, always their nothings, come back.
Friday, October 5, 2012
May the Spirit of Larry Nelson Preserve and Defend Us
Adam's dad, God love him, before he passed away, could load a dishwasher like nobody's business.
You could invite 40 people over for dinner and throw a seven course meal, and after everything was over, Larry could find a way to load every single dish, cup, plate, bowl and serving utensil into a single dishwasher load.
Not that he ever manually did this himself, mind you. In my era, he just sort of stood there and cheered from the sidelines, offering very specific and corrective coaching should the actual loader start to sluff. "Not there. Here," he'd point out, and sure enough, if you knew what was good for you, you'd follow his geometry, and before you knew it, the water would be sloshing away on all 40 plates at a time. The man was a master.
So now, when I load the dishwasher, I actually invoke his name, quietly to myself, like a Catholic prayer. "May the spirit of Larry Nelson preserve and defend us." And then I go about the complicated business of trying to fit a day's worth of dishes into a single load. If I could muster up the original Latin, I think I'd try it that way, just for the additional mojo.
You'd think adding two new kids to the household, Adam and I would simply double the dish load. Basic math would seem to dictate where once there were two, now there are four. Two plates per meal would change into four. Four glasses per meal would replace our previous two.
As it turns out, nothing could be further from the truth.
Justin and Justuce use approximately 900 cups, glasses and plates a day. I'm almost sure of it. Somewhere in the hallowed halls of Oneida Flatware, there probably exists a laboratory testing department where a small team of dedicated employees actually dirty, for research purposes, more dishes per diem than J1 and J2. But if they do, it's not by much.
My kids can take their first sip of apple juice in one cup and end up draining the bottle nine cups later. I'm not sure why this is a requirement for their comfort, but the two of them and a bottle of Mott's is like lining up ducks in a shooting gallery.
And plates. God, don't get me going on their plates. I have absolutely no earthly clue what they stick on their plates or how it gets there. They eat the exact same food Adam and I eat, and ours rinse right off. I take a look at theirs after an average meal, and it's as if Marie Curie and Linus Pauling got together to resequence the molecular structure of protein.
And my stove. My beautiful, wonderful, once-perfect white stove.
Our friend Sarah came over to the house for dinner one night. This was 2011 B.C.E. (Before the Children's Era), and she took one look at my glistening white stovetop and said -- and I will remember this forever because it made me so proud -- she said to me, "Look how clean your stove is. I hate you."
Sarah, you will never have to worry about that again.
There are things on my stovetop now that defy science. Much of it is most certainly dried scrambled eggs mixed with Cholula hot sauce. The rest, I have no idea. All I know is, if 3M ever decides to upgrade Super Glue, I've got their first two formulators on standby with a dozen Grade A Large. We've moved way past scrub sponge, friends. We're now looking at chisel with an option on blowtorch.
Dishes, a mess. Stovetop, a mess. Countertop? I haven't seen it since June 8, 2012 and it's in no danger of returning.
Laundry is unending. Again, foolishly deceived by the math, I figured one load would turn into two, maybe even fewer because their clothes are so little. But I was wrong again on all counts. Justuce has so many costume changes during a typical day, we might as well be living backstage at a Bette Midler concert. Justin goes through underwear like a mildly incontinent sled dog marking his territory from one end of the Fruit of the Loom tundra to the other.
Things smell like pee that have absolutely no business smelling like pee.
Fortunately, neither of our kids are frequent bedwetters, but we have racked up a few minor accidents. Justuce woke up in a hotel with us once, claiming the wet hair from her shower before bed made her pajamas all wet. Justin, just last night woke me up at 3 a.m. saying, "Dad, I got my jammas all sweaty." The "sweat," no surprise, carried a definite whiff of bladder blend.
Which is fine. They're little, I'm big, they wet, I clean up, but it doesn't explain why other things smell like pee. Sheets I can understand. Pajamas and undies I can understand. But baseball caps? Seriously, I picked up a baseball cap from his floor a few days ago and it smelled like a healthy dose of Old Yeller. Not to overly ponder aerodynamics, but WTF, what kind of superhuman trajectory does a six-year-old need to piss on his own head? I have no idea, but I'm duly impressed.
So, that's where we stand on the new housekeeping chores. I jealously watch friends and family with their nannies and their maid service while I scrape dried boogers off the coffee table and wonder why the flush knob on the toilet never gets used. Seriously, after they poop, I think the flusher turns to molten lava or something, because I know they're not touching it with a ten foot pole.
"Life is too complicated not to be orderly."
- Martha Stewart in Harper's Bazaar
Unless of course you're trying to figure out how to rescue your once-perfect stovetop and wash the pee out of your son's baseball cap.
Sigh. Love you, Martha.
It's a good thing.
You could invite 40 people over for dinner and throw a seven course meal, and after everything was over, Larry could find a way to load every single dish, cup, plate, bowl and serving utensil into a single dishwasher load.
Not that he ever manually did this himself, mind you. In my era, he just sort of stood there and cheered from the sidelines, offering very specific and corrective coaching should the actual loader start to sluff. "Not there. Here," he'd point out, and sure enough, if you knew what was good for you, you'd follow his geometry, and before you knew it, the water would be sloshing away on all 40 plates at a time. The man was a master.
So now, when I load the dishwasher, I actually invoke his name, quietly to myself, like a Catholic prayer. "May the spirit of Larry Nelson preserve and defend us." And then I go about the complicated business of trying to fit a day's worth of dishes into a single load. If I could muster up the original Latin, I think I'd try it that way, just for the additional mojo.
You'd think adding two new kids to the household, Adam and I would simply double the dish load. Basic math would seem to dictate where once there were two, now there are four. Two plates per meal would change into four. Four glasses per meal would replace our previous two.
As it turns out, nothing could be further from the truth.
Justin and Justuce use approximately 900 cups, glasses and plates a day. I'm almost sure of it. Somewhere in the hallowed halls of Oneida Flatware, there probably exists a laboratory testing department where a small team of dedicated employees actually dirty, for research purposes, more dishes per diem than J1 and J2. But if they do, it's not by much.
My kids can take their first sip of apple juice in one cup and end up draining the bottle nine cups later. I'm not sure why this is a requirement for their comfort, but the two of them and a bottle of Mott's is like lining up ducks in a shooting gallery.
And plates. God, don't get me going on their plates. I have absolutely no earthly clue what they stick on their plates or how it gets there. They eat the exact same food Adam and I eat, and ours rinse right off. I take a look at theirs after an average meal, and it's as if Marie Curie and Linus Pauling got together to resequence the molecular structure of protein.
And my stove. My beautiful, wonderful, once-perfect white stove.
Our friend Sarah came over to the house for dinner one night. This was 2011 B.C.E. (Before the Children's Era), and she took one look at my glistening white stovetop and said -- and I will remember this forever because it made me so proud -- she said to me, "Look how clean your stove is. I hate you."
Sarah, you will never have to worry about that again.
There are things on my stovetop now that defy science. Much of it is most certainly dried scrambled eggs mixed with Cholula hot sauce. The rest, I have no idea. All I know is, if 3M ever decides to upgrade Super Glue, I've got their first two formulators on standby with a dozen Grade A Large. We've moved way past scrub sponge, friends. We're now looking at chisel with an option on blowtorch.
Dishes, a mess. Stovetop, a mess. Countertop? I haven't seen it since June 8, 2012 and it's in no danger of returning.
Laundry is unending. Again, foolishly deceived by the math, I figured one load would turn into two, maybe even fewer because their clothes are so little. But I was wrong again on all counts. Justuce has so many costume changes during a typical day, we might as well be living backstage at a Bette Midler concert. Justin goes through underwear like a mildly incontinent sled dog marking his territory from one end of the Fruit of the Loom tundra to the other.
Things smell like pee that have absolutely no business smelling like pee.
Fortunately, neither of our kids are frequent bedwetters, but we have racked up a few minor accidents. Justuce woke up in a hotel with us once, claiming the wet hair from her shower before bed made her pajamas all wet. Justin, just last night woke me up at 3 a.m. saying, "Dad, I got my jammas all sweaty." The "sweat," no surprise, carried a definite whiff of bladder blend.
Which is fine. They're little, I'm big, they wet, I clean up, but it doesn't explain why other things smell like pee. Sheets I can understand. Pajamas and undies I can understand. But baseball caps? Seriously, I picked up a baseball cap from his floor a few days ago and it smelled like a healthy dose of Old Yeller. Not to overly ponder aerodynamics, but WTF, what kind of superhuman trajectory does a six-year-old need to piss on his own head? I have no idea, but I'm duly impressed.
So, that's where we stand on the new housekeeping chores. I jealously watch friends and family with their nannies and their maid service while I scrape dried boogers off the coffee table and wonder why the flush knob on the toilet never gets used. Seriously, after they poop, I think the flusher turns to molten lava or something, because I know they're not touching it with a ten foot pole.
"Life is too complicated not to be orderly."
- Martha Stewart in Harper's Bazaar
Unless of course you're trying to figure out how to rescue your once-perfect stovetop and wash the pee out of your son's baseball cap.
Sigh. Love you, Martha.
It's a good thing.
Monday, October 1, 2012
That's How You Get
Scooby Dooby Doo, where are you?
We've got some work to do now.
I was cornered last month by a friend who gave me another version of the speech Adam and I hear all the time. We hear it, no kidding, about twice a month, particularly from friends a decade or more older than us. "Back in my day we didn't have ADHD and Sensory Processing Disorder. Kids just learned how to behave."
Bully for you.
Apparently the world just went indiscriminately crazy in my lifetime. Your implication, and correct me if I'm wrong, seems to be that parents today are so grossly unskilled and have such a cowardly, lackluster approach to punishment and discipline, we had to create a whole new subcategory of imaginary psychological and neurological illnesses so we can blame our children's misbehavior on anything but our own incompetence.
Your undertone seems to be, "Ryan, don't get so caught up in the terminology you're reading in all those bullshit books. You can just fix him with better parenting. Firmer parenting. The kind of parenting my parents would have doled out. Now that was some Grade-A kid control."
You know what? Put a sock in it.
If back in your day, kids just behaved, good for you. I'm glad you were there for the sounding of the trumpets and the birth of the universe. The world was perfect, and for a brief, beautiful, shiny moment in time, moms and dads could whallop the piss out of any problem that came their way. Clearly, your parents were much better at this than I am, and I heartily congratulate them.
There may have been a day when kids were behavioral gems, when ADHD and SPD never existed, and if anything remotely similar would have reared its ugly head, folks in your day would have taken one look at it, flexed their parental super muscles, and scared it back into a corner.
The problem with your theory is, children still had those things...we just didn't have a language for it. Children didn't "just behave" back in your day. They may have been taught to publically stand at attention out of retributional fear, but children still hurt and children still suffered. You could spank them, you could discipline them, you could lock them in their rooms, but some of them still weren't well. And we know that for a fact, because we know plenty of them as adults, and some of them still aren't well. Clearly not well.
So again, thank you for your opinions on Justin and how to fix him. Thank you for your wistful nostalgia about the long-gone glory days where we could have whipped him into shape in no time. Tell you what. If Stephen Hawking ever invents a time machine, I make you this promise. You and I will buy the first ticket, we'll hop in with Justin and we'll pop back to 1965, drop him off at your mom and dad's, and they can give him a whirl. Until then, leave the poor boy alone.
Justin and Justuce get gummy vitamins every morning. I pour them out of the bottle and spill them into my hand, telling the kids, "pick two." Justuce fastidiously picks a red and an orange. Justin thinks he's pulling a fast one on me. With magician-quick hands, he somehow manages to accurately palm three. Since a third morning gummy bear won't turn into much more than extra yellow pee, I let him get away with it. Every boy should think he's one-up on his dad once in a while and this is my way of letting him be one-up on me, which is nice, because...
Justuce receives infinitely more presents than Justin. Infinitely more hand-me-downs too. We're a family full of girl cousins over here. She's well positioned to receive the lion's share of some really cool stuff. She also has grandmas, aunts, uncles (and dads) who are far more used to shopping for little girls than little boys, and that's a hard habit to break. When things show up in the mail or in the trunk of the car, it's Justuce 10, Justin 2. It would be nice to report he's a six-year-old who patiently understands the iniquity, but boy, does he go bat shit. Gummy vitamins are the least I can do. He's finding his own payback, bless him.
Here's a funny one. We were playing Mario Kart last weekend and everytime I ran into a wall (on purpose, because I'm the kind of dad who's willing to throw a race for the sake of bonding), Justin gave me a proud glance and a cocky, "that's how you get."
That's how you get?
It took me three tries to realize he was saying, "that's what you get," as in, "that's what you get for trying to beat me," only he was substituting "how" for "what."
That's how you get. Priceless.
I like it when the kids switch out words. Justuce calls tomatoes potatoes. She likes eating the little organic cherry ones from Trader Joe's. And of course, the stuff that gooshes out of them when she bites them is potato juice. I love that so much I don't ever want to correct it.
Justin still calls his underwear "panties," for any of you who are still keeping score. Four months with us still hasn't changed his lifetime habit. In fact, I'm starting to give up changing him. I'm finding myself more and more calling them panties too.
"I'm starting to give up changing him." It's funny I should type that. I think a lot about changing or not changing Justin lately.
We're just on the verge of medicating him.
His ADHD screenings are done. We had to fill out a rating scale. His teacher had to fill out a rating scale. We faxed them both into his pediatrician and our appointment to review them is tomorrow. It's almost certain medication will be prescribed, a curious catch-22, since his county "care team" who are still very much in control of his medical life until our adoption is finalized, are virtually unanimous on the need to medicate him. To do so, however, will require a court order, a judge's signature, a couple of sacrificed virgins and a voodoo dance. It's no easy green light to medicate a ward of the county.
But medicate we will, and ten, eleven, twelve days from now, however long it takes the rusty wheels of county medical care to slowly crank their way down Justin's gullet, our boy will be well on his way to improved, different, or zombieland. Better living through chemistry? Time will tell.
I hope it doesn't change him too much. I love my wild little boy.
I don't want him hitting, pushing or banging down your walls, but I do want him to be Justin. And in a world full of people so eager to fix him, I sometimes feel like I'm the only one willing to slow down and celebrate him. He's such an amazing wonder. Bugs and all. And I feel like if I don't record him right now, the perfect way he is, tonight in my living room, before we put a single pill in him, none of us may remember who he really, truly was.
I'm really glad we're getting him help. I'm equally sad, worried for our own comfort, we're lining up to make his magic go away. What if we're taking away something really, really special that will never come again? His mojo. His uniqueness. His Justin-ness. I love him so much, I hate to be the one to force a change, especially one, when it's not driving me crazy, I so secretly admire.
Jack Kerouac said it this way:
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!"
You would definitely go "awww!" if you saw Justin. Like a fabulous roman candle, there is no stopping him. Before we start to fix him tomorrow, just take this one, beautiful blessing of a moment to sit here in my living room and enjoy him with me. He's watching "Holes" right now on the Disney Channel and rubbing his feet all over the TV screen. And I couldn't love him more.
He's my beautiful little Scooby who never stops, never slows down. My song and my celebration.
I wished on a star. And that's how I got.
And now may I always do what's right for him.
My funny, perfect little friend. Just as he is, right now, tonight.
My son.
We've got some work to do now.
I was cornered last month by a friend who gave me another version of the speech Adam and I hear all the time. We hear it, no kidding, about twice a month, particularly from friends a decade or more older than us. "Back in my day we didn't have ADHD and Sensory Processing Disorder. Kids just learned how to behave."
Bully for you.
Apparently the world just went indiscriminately crazy in my lifetime. Your implication, and correct me if I'm wrong, seems to be that parents today are so grossly unskilled and have such a cowardly, lackluster approach to punishment and discipline, we had to create a whole new subcategory of imaginary psychological and neurological illnesses so we can blame our children's misbehavior on anything but our own incompetence.
Your undertone seems to be, "Ryan, don't get so caught up in the terminology you're reading in all those bullshit books. You can just fix him with better parenting. Firmer parenting. The kind of parenting my parents would have doled out. Now that was some Grade-A kid control."
You know what? Put a sock in it.
If back in your day, kids just behaved, good for you. I'm glad you were there for the sounding of the trumpets and the birth of the universe. The world was perfect, and for a brief, beautiful, shiny moment in time, moms and dads could whallop the piss out of any problem that came their way. Clearly, your parents were much better at this than I am, and I heartily congratulate them.
There may have been a day when kids were behavioral gems, when ADHD and SPD never existed, and if anything remotely similar would have reared its ugly head, folks in your day would have taken one look at it, flexed their parental super muscles, and scared it back into a corner.
The problem with your theory is, children still had those things...we just didn't have a language for it. Children didn't "just behave" back in your day. They may have been taught to publically stand at attention out of retributional fear, but children still hurt and children still suffered. You could spank them, you could discipline them, you could lock them in their rooms, but some of them still weren't well. And we know that for a fact, because we know plenty of them as adults, and some of them still aren't well. Clearly not well.
So again, thank you for your opinions on Justin and how to fix him. Thank you for your wistful nostalgia about the long-gone glory days where we could have whipped him into shape in no time. Tell you what. If Stephen Hawking ever invents a time machine, I make you this promise. You and I will buy the first ticket, we'll hop in with Justin and we'll pop back to 1965, drop him off at your mom and dad's, and they can give him a whirl. Until then, leave the poor boy alone.
Justin and Justuce get gummy vitamins every morning. I pour them out of the bottle and spill them into my hand, telling the kids, "pick two." Justuce fastidiously picks a red and an orange. Justin thinks he's pulling a fast one on me. With magician-quick hands, he somehow manages to accurately palm three. Since a third morning gummy bear won't turn into much more than extra yellow pee, I let him get away with it. Every boy should think he's one-up on his dad once in a while and this is my way of letting him be one-up on me, which is nice, because...
Justuce receives infinitely more presents than Justin. Infinitely more hand-me-downs too. We're a family full of girl cousins over here. She's well positioned to receive the lion's share of some really cool stuff. She also has grandmas, aunts, uncles (and dads) who are far more used to shopping for little girls than little boys, and that's a hard habit to break. When things show up in the mail or in the trunk of the car, it's Justuce 10, Justin 2. It would be nice to report he's a six-year-old who patiently understands the iniquity, but boy, does he go bat shit. Gummy vitamins are the least I can do. He's finding his own payback, bless him.
Here's a funny one. We were playing Mario Kart last weekend and everytime I ran into a wall (on purpose, because I'm the kind of dad who's willing to throw a race for the sake of bonding), Justin gave me a proud glance and a cocky, "that's how you get."
That's how you get?
It took me three tries to realize he was saying, "that's what you get," as in, "that's what you get for trying to beat me," only he was substituting "how" for "what."
That's how you get. Priceless.
I like it when the kids switch out words. Justuce calls tomatoes potatoes. She likes eating the little organic cherry ones from Trader Joe's. And of course, the stuff that gooshes out of them when she bites them is potato juice. I love that so much I don't ever want to correct it.
Justin still calls his underwear "panties," for any of you who are still keeping score. Four months with us still hasn't changed his lifetime habit. In fact, I'm starting to give up changing him. I'm finding myself more and more calling them panties too.
"I'm starting to give up changing him." It's funny I should type that. I think a lot about changing or not changing Justin lately.
We're just on the verge of medicating him.
His ADHD screenings are done. We had to fill out a rating scale. His teacher had to fill out a rating scale. We faxed them both into his pediatrician and our appointment to review them is tomorrow. It's almost certain medication will be prescribed, a curious catch-22, since his county "care team" who are still very much in control of his medical life until our adoption is finalized, are virtually unanimous on the need to medicate him. To do so, however, will require a court order, a judge's signature, a couple of sacrificed virgins and a voodoo dance. It's no easy green light to medicate a ward of the county.
But medicate we will, and ten, eleven, twelve days from now, however long it takes the rusty wheels of county medical care to slowly crank their way down Justin's gullet, our boy will be well on his way to improved, different, or zombieland. Better living through chemistry? Time will tell.
I hope it doesn't change him too much. I love my wild little boy.
I don't want him hitting, pushing or banging down your walls, but I do want him to be Justin. And in a world full of people so eager to fix him, I sometimes feel like I'm the only one willing to slow down and celebrate him. He's such an amazing wonder. Bugs and all. And I feel like if I don't record him right now, the perfect way he is, tonight in my living room, before we put a single pill in him, none of us may remember who he really, truly was.
I'm really glad we're getting him help. I'm equally sad, worried for our own comfort, we're lining up to make his magic go away. What if we're taking away something really, really special that will never come again? His mojo. His uniqueness. His Justin-ness. I love him so much, I hate to be the one to force a change, especially one, when it's not driving me crazy, I so secretly admire.
Jack Kerouac said it this way:
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!"
You would definitely go "awww!" if you saw Justin. Like a fabulous roman candle, there is no stopping him. Before we start to fix him tomorrow, just take this one, beautiful blessing of a moment to sit here in my living room and enjoy him with me. He's watching "Holes" right now on the Disney Channel and rubbing his feet all over the TV screen. And I couldn't love him more.
He's my beautiful little Scooby who never stops, never slows down. My song and my celebration.
I wished on a star. And that's how I got.
And now may I always do what's right for him.
My funny, perfect little friend. Just as he is, right now, tonight.
My son.
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