Baby, Write This Down

Baby, write this down, take a little note
To remind you in case you didn't know
Tell yourself I love you and I don't want you to go
Write this down

Take my words, read 'em every day
Keep 'em close by, don't you let 'em fade away
So you'll remember what I forgot to say
Baby, write this down
-George Strait

 As the memories of my second year of adoption weave in and out of this journal, I find myself left with so many unfinished writings, I don't know what to do with them. They're things that want to be blogs, but they're not quite big enough to stand on their own two feet.

The "draft" feature of this column is always astoundingly full of snippets and paragraphs and slices of life that never fully come to fruition...things that seem incredibly important as I write them down, but they never find life as finished essays, which is probably for the best, since they're all so random. Then again, aren't we all.

I think I rarely finish most of these snippets because this experience itself is simply so profound that half the time, my inefficient vocalizations along the way barely do it justice. I'm grateful for your compliments when you tell me you've read this and enjoyed it, but believe me, if I could somehow uncork and record the true magic all this is, I'd be writing you four times a day. Writing about this experience and having this experience is a night and day difference. Like my friend Pratibha used to say, "like holding a candle up to the sun."

I've waited for the things below to gel into something  profound (or at the very least, full-length) because they seemed so important when I scratched them down. But a few months later, here they still are, unfinished ramblings, aging away like fine (or not-so-fine) wine, yours for the sipping. They're not full bottles, but they come from the heart. I put them here for safe keeping. Short and unfinished as they are, I didn't want to lose them.

Enjoy it While You Can

It occurred to me the other day as the new school year begins and we were all in full closet-cleaning mode here on Bonnie Castle Way, Justin's little boyhood is coming to an end. Not his whole boyhood, heavens no, we've got ages to go on that one (I say with a wink), but his little boyhood. 

I was surprised as he helped me clean out his closet, how many of his clothes were not necessarily too small...they were just suddenly deemed too preposterously uncool to wear anymore.

Just like Justice traded in her Hello Kitty comforter for Justin Bieber (and P.S., try staring at that growingly wearisome face every morning on your daughter's bed)...and her Tinkerbell sticker earrings from the dollar store for real-live dangly pierced ones from Claire's at the mall, Justin too is giving up the trappings of his too-short little boyhood.

I've been told Spider-Man has got to go. No shirts with superheroes anymore, period. He'll still gladly play Lego Batman on the Wii, but keep it off his t-shirts, thank you, because it's way too uncool. No more Pixar shirts either. God forbid, Mater from Cars and Buzz Lightyear made him physically shudder when we found them at the bottom of his shirt drawer. He's growing up, and he won't be Toy'ed with.

I thought of that as I was picking his underwear off the floor (again). I smiled sort of wistfully as one retrospectively does when we turn life into literature, and I dropped them in his hamper thinking, "I'm really going to miss this." At a certain point, he won't want to have Superman and Skylanders on his underwear anymore, and that'll be sad, because it'll mark the definite end of his littleness. It won't be the end of his childhood, but it will be the end of his little boyhood, and that time's just as precious.

You Made Me Love You

You made me love you
I didn't want to do it
I didn't want to do it
You made me want you

And all the time you knew it
I guess you always knew it

For lots of gay men, the whole world is a Judy Garland song. Over-the-top and let's put on a show. The wistful one above, "Dear Mr. Gable," is the one that plays most often in the soundtrack of my mind as Justice really does begin to love us with genuine attachment, whether she wants to admit it or not.

She came to us in stages. First, not at all. Then resentfully. Then cautiously. And now, more openly. Fearlessly. Naturally.

And I'm happy for us, of course. But I'm even more happy for her.

Adopted children are world-weary by the time they're seven. The world is an unsure and cynical place. They can love and be loved, but in the background, a message plays.

"I've loved like this, but I've lost it before."

"I wish I could trust this to last."

"It feels good to be loved, but this too could pass."

You and I look at life's difficulties and say, "this too shall pass." Adopted children look at life's beauty and say, "this too could pass."

It's tragic that any child has to feel that. It's beautiful beyond words to try to fix it.

I'm happy for us -- but mostly I'm joyful for Justice -- because a jaded little girl has learned how to love again.

She's rusty, but she's getting good at it.

I Am Here to Learn

Let go, or be dragged. - Zen Proverb

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. - Lao Tzu

Way back when we started this journal, I talked about having to let go of the fantasy we had before we adopted. Like most other adoptive parents, we came to the table with a fully-formed fantasy of what our family would be, how our children would act, how we'd efficiently -- not effortlessly, but at least efficiently -- parent them through each difficulty.

Which turned out to be 99% bullshit, of course. Like we could line up the problems in an alphabetical list and tick them off the clipboard. "Delusional" comes into play very heavily before you adopt. After reality kicks you in the nuts four or five hundred times in the first year, you learn to erase the picture and start over.

Your family will be what your family will be. It will set its own course. It will become what its supposed to become.

If your family is a ship with a rudder, you're very lucky. Mine is a paper kite. And the wind comes from an oscillating fan on Red Bull.

Sometimes ridiculously mixed metaphors are the only things that come close to describing it with even a hint of accuracy.

I've had to learn to adjust my expectations for paper kites, especially when it comes to the childrens' anger. There's always plenty of it, seeded deep in their souls in dark places I can't quite get to yet, and when they give it to me, I have to be very careful not to give it back.

If someone behaves negatively towards you, it helps to remember that he or she is a human being like you and to distinguish between an action and the person who does it. If counter measures are needed to prevent someone doing harm, it's always better to do it with a calm rather than an agitated mind. If you act out of anger, the best part of your brain fails to function. Remember, compassion is not a sign of weakness. - The Dalai Lama

Hello, Dalai. I'm turning the facts above into My New Seven Truths, because I need them.

1. Compassion is not a sign of weakness.
2. Not even in parenting.
3. Stop being angry when they are.
4. They're little, you're not. Don't follow their tantrums with one of your own.
5. Let go of what you think your family should be.
6. Just let it happen.
7. Fly more kites.

Through the Long Night With You

I quote Billy Joel a lot because I like him.

I had every album. Then when I started driving, I had every cassette. Then when cassettes went the way of the dinosaurs, I had every CD. And now that CD futures are sketchy at best, Billy Joel lives on in my world in a bunch of sound files. When those go belly-up, I don't know what I'll do. Inject him directly into my veins, I guess.

Here's a Billy Joel song that makes me think of my kids.

I quote song lyrics a lot here, but sometimes there's just no commentary to attach to it. Sometimes it just rings simple and true, all by itself.

The warm tears
The bad dreams
The soft trembling shoulders
The old fears
But I'm here
Through the long night with you
 
No, I didn't start it
You're broken hearted
From a long, long time ago
Oh, the way you hold me
Is all that I need to know

All you past sins
Are sins past
You should be sleeping
And it's so late
But I'll wait
Through the long night with you
 
Take Us Home, George Strait

So ends my unfinished "drafts" pile. My inbox is empty and my work here is done for the day.

You can find a chisel, I can find a stone
Folks will be reading these words, long after were gone
Oh I love you and I don't want you to go
Baby write this down

More half-baked drafts and Sunday morning incompleness is inevitably on the way.

Some days I'm too busy finishing what I started to finish what I started.

"Write This Down" by Dana Hunt & Kent Robbins from the George Strait album "Always Never the Same," c.1999 MCA Nashville. "You Made Me Love You" by Joe McCarthy & James V. Monaco, c.1913, "Dear Mr. Gable" version c.1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. "Through the Long Night" by Billy Joel, c.1980 Columbia Records

Point of Reference

Baby, baby
When I touch you like this
And when I hold you like that
It's so hard to believe
But it's all coming back to me now

My dad loved to work and he loved his friends. The rest of it -- fatherhood, husbandry -- he tried. In his heart, he wanted to be good at it, but sometimes flaws run deep. His essential failing was the fact he felt that all those who loved him owed him endless leeway. He thought because he brought home the income, everything else should be a free pass. He thought we owed him tolerance, support and respect for any neglectful, crazy or heartless thing he did. He thought it was his due.

My dad wasn't wired for monogamy. He wasn't wired for sobriety. He tried both from time to time and mostly failed. He liked Coors Light and he liked Seagram's 7. In the wintertime, he mixed brandy slushes in plastic paint cups from the hardware store because they held more. In any era, his corny, over-the-top humor was the life of every tavern. He loved his drinking buddies and some were like brothers. He liked flirting with women. And he'd follow either of them wherever they led.

For me, for Mom, for Erin, for Karen and her kids, we wanted more. We kept waiting for his perfection to arrive. He was a good man and his heart was in the right place. The raw material was there, we just couldn't raise him up to our ideal. We wanted him to be Superman, but the truth is, he was just a guy.

He wasn't bad. This isn't an indictment. He was just a kind, distracted alcoholic, and we've all made our peace with that through the years. He was a genuinely good guy. Really. As for the whole family man thing, he just didn't have the skills to pull it off. In later years, when cancer came, he got so much better at it....cancer, of course, being life's great irony. It helps you become who you always wanted to be, and just when you get good at it, it takes you away.

My dad was fun and funny and he made people laugh. His answering machine, like a Ray Stevens comedy song, often started with a long, drawn-out "there I was..." that was guaranteed to keep you riveted to the phone. Even now, I can hear his booming baritone, slightly slurred, giggling at his own silliness, as his over-the-top drama and run-on sentences rolled out like gold...

"I'm sorry I can't come to the phone, but there I was, sitting in the living room minding my own business, and I heard a noise up on the roof. I said to myself, "Self? That sounds like a noise up on the roof," so I ran out to the shop to get the ladder and my trusty 12-gauge I've had since I was a little bitty baby, and first of all, I couldn't find the ladder, because somebody didn't put it back where it's supposed to be, but that's a story for a different day and I know you don't have much time, so I grabbed a little step stool I keep in the corner, the one I use when I need to reach up and get the Scrabble board from the top of the closet, because most nights, that's just what I do, sit here with Pam and read the Bible and play Scrabble, but by that time, the noise on the roof was getting louder, and I said to myself, "Self? I do believe that noise is getting louder," and I have to admit, I was pretty dang scared by this time, so I stopped on the porch and sat down and had a Silver Bullet or two, just to steady my nerves, and then I carefully crept around back to the side of the house where somebody forgot to mow the grass again, but that's another story, and I know you're in a hurry..."

Those outgoing messages of my dad's could go on forever, and they did. I timed that one, and it was five-and-a-half minutes long. Four minutes on why he couldn't answer your call, because he fell off the roof investigating a noise, and another minute and a half explaining how he was now in Theda Clark Regional Medical Center in Neenah, and if you wanted him to return your call, you'd have to wait until spring, because he'd be on a ventilator until then.

That was my dad. He lived in a world where nothing had to be serious and life was but a dream.

And many loved him for that.

And many were left wanting more.

# # #

In parenting, I think most of us try daily to make up for the inadequacies of our parents. I think it's only natural, we run in the door and make a mad dash of it, like Bob Cratchit coming in late to the office... 

The clock struck nine. No Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank.

His hat was off, before he opened the door; his comforter too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock.

I think that's what I've been doing with Justice and Justin...trying to overtake nine o'clock. Not just trying to avoid my own dad's failings, but not wanting to repeat their dad's failings, too. Most of us are trying to make up for one person's lifetime of poor paternal performance. Adam and I are trying to make up for two.

I think of that often in the middle of the night when Justice crawls into bed with us after a bad dream. It's the only time she'll let me hold her and cuddle her, and brush the hair out of her eyes, and softly stroke her hair and give her the gentle forehead kisses and safety and comfort every dad longs to give.

And as I stroke her hair and tell her she's safe, it comes to me with perfect clarity in the middle of the night, I only have one shot at this and I need to do it right, because when she grows up and finds a love of her own, the person who makes her feel safest will do this too, and it will make her feel the most loved, because it will remind her of me.

Dad is a point of reference for all little girls, and that love is either complete or incomplete. It's what women search for all their lives. And some men, too.

There's great responsibility in that honor.

And it's sad that so many dads are pillars for their friends, dependable on the job, but when it comes to the rest of it, the family part that should matter the most, they're too tired to give any more, and they're just not up to the challenge.

Like my dad, who I loved with all my heart. Who left me wanting more.

If you forgive me all this
If I forgive you all that
We forgive and forget
And it's all coming back to me

I finished crying in the instant that you left
And I can't remember where or when or how
And I banished every memory you and I had ever made

But when you touch me like this
And you hold me like that
I just have to admit
That it's all coming back to me now

Having children reminds me how much fathers live in sons and daughters. And in every relationship they'll ever have as grown-ups, Adam and I will be their point of reference.

As I go through my days making wishes about who I hope they can be for me, I stop and remind myself how important it is that I set the bar high and never stop providing what is essential and right for them.

"It's All Coming Back to Me Now," c.1989 Jim Steinman. From the Celine Dion album "Falling Into You," Columbia, Epic Records.

Game On

Justice hates to lose at Trivial Pursuit. Hates it, hates it, hates it.

Hates it so much, in fact, that if her brother gets one answer right -- just one before she does -- out comes the pout, out comes the growl, the tears, the ferocity, the wish-you-were-dead dragon eyes -- and the game is over.

Justice is having a harder time with good sportsmanship than Justin. Neither one of them are aces at it by any means, but Justin is making really good progress. Justice is not. Not yet anyway. Believe me, it's on my bucket list.

Don't get me wrong. The kids are best friends and they play together beautifully...as long as the game doesn't involve actual winning or losing. Justin's getting a handle on it now. In a year, fifteen months, he's come to the conclusion that somebody always wins at Space Checkers, Skippy, and it ain't always him. He's making his peace with that fact, and the world isn't ending. His sister, however, is holding out for miracles.

We played another game yesterday -- one of those dreadful picture bingo games with the wobbly spinner and the red cover squares and the infinite respins hoping for a winner, and the game was in a dead heat. They each had one square left to go. I was sure it was going to be bitter pandemonium when one lost and one won -- that would be par for the course -- but I was pleasantly surprised when Justin took his loss in stride. When Justice spun and the arrow hit the lucky slot she was waiting for, I winced and offered my usual "wanna keep playing for second place?" to placate the loser, but Justin just shrugged and smiled and said, "That's okay, she can win." Taking the loss and getting on with it, so we had time to play another game was more important to him than winning.

That's huge in this house. Huge progress. Huge growth.

Buoyed by my ever-illogical optimism, I launched us into an immediate follow-up with Trivial Pursuit Jr., and we weren't two minutes into the game as noted above, before Justice, fresh on the heels of her bingo victory -- two freaking minutes ago! -- was already pouting, hostile and ready to tantrum because her brother guessed a knuckle sandwich is something you'd likely get from (c) the school bully, and not (a) your best bud, or (b) your pet dog.

Christ on crutches, as Lee Trinrud used to say. When does it end?

Justice loves to play games. She asks to play games. She just doesn't like to lose. Not ever. Not even a little bit. Which, I've got to tell you, makes it a real pain-in-the-ass to play with her.

Now at 8, her complete inability to lose graciously is a very unattractive quality, but not entirely without understanding. I have to stop myself frequently and remind myself she's just a kid. In the grand scheme of emotional maturity, it barely makes sense to tell her to act her age, because, well, she is acting her age. Kids don't like to lose. She's not a rarity. I get it.

But there's a tad more at play, and I'll steal it right out of the brilliantly funny book on sibling bickering called "Mom, Jason's Breathing on Me." Here's the heart of the problem. This answer has Justice written all over it, and it's as wise as any I've ever heard:

"Known to all parents, yet somehow not recognized as a basic fact of human existence is that we all -- kids and adults -- have two distinct and separate modes of operating, really two distinct selves. One is an at-home and with-immediate-family version of us that just wants to relax, to unwind, to be nurtured, wants what it wants now, has minimal self-control, and will tolerate zero stress. It is the regressed version of our kids and of us. I call it the baby self. But there is another side that operates at a completely different and higher level of functioning. It is the part of us and our kids that goes out into the world, has patience, has self-control, is willing to delay gratification in order to work toward a goal, and can and will tolerate stress. I call this the mature self."

I've suspected this for some time now, particularly during the past year's sometimes-at-odds, big-picture communications with Justice's first grade teacher, who sang her praises to the rooftops and couldn't understand why we would want to address her allegedly-challenging behavior, much less medicate her. To Mrs. Teacher, Justice was a flawless beacon of perfect behavior in the classroom. The words were never said, but we could see it in her eyes every time she talked to us about behavior or medication issues...are you guys nuts??

But what she and other teachers fail to understand is, sometimes the kids you consider to be your best-behaved students are, plain and simple, just giving you the full content of their mature tank, and once that tank runs out, there's nothing left but the baby self to come home to the parents. From 8 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon, you get Justice at her best. But that's her per diem. That's all she has to give. She holds it in, and then, like letting out a deep breath coming up from underwater, Adam and I get her explosion, her expulsion of everything else. Don't get me wrong, Mrs. Teacher. I'm glad she was a peach in your classroom, but walk a mile in my shoes and you'll see really quickly when the final bell rings, we get stuck with little Linda Blair from The Exorcist.

So, baby-self and mature-self...not just a concept for I wish teachers everywhere would consider more seriously when they doubt parents' sanity, but definitely a dicey dichotomy when it comes to breaking out a deck of Uno cards here at home.

The lessons are important, so they continue:

1. Sportsmanship matters.
2. Life has winners AND losers.
3. You will sometimes be one and sometimes the other.
4. That's just how it works.
5. Learn to deal with it now as a child, or you will never be able to deal with it as an adult.

I think all kids need to learn those five things. I think we are failing miserably in our collective, parental and educational framework to teach those lessons. No wonder kids go meltdown manic when they lose. We've created a bizarro alternate universe where they don't have to anymore. Where parents and teachers, loving peace and quiet above everything else, came up with an entire new world designed around every child wins...all the time, which if you ask me, is a coddled concept that's bat shit crazy with a Capital C.

It's a world where Justice still thinks she can win anything. Where "her way or the highway" has gone on way too long and has not been dealt with very well for the past eight years, much of my own 15-month tenure included.

Her oppositional defiant disorder still rages. Granted, she is much more settled, much more comfortable here. She climbs into bed with me in the middle of the night and happily cuddles into my arms with a sigh and a snore. She won't do it in her waking world yet. She'd flat-out die before she'd show me affection in broad daylight. But when the night is long and the monsters are in the closet, mine are the arms she turns to, and I'm thrilled to offer them. As Clevon Little said as the old lady knocked on his window and gave him the pie in Blazing Saddles, "I'm quickly becoming an underground sensation in this town."

Love and comfort are not the issues anymore. Her problem has been, and still remains, basic compliance.

Hope springs eternal I suppose, and Justice still believes every argument, every procedure, every damn parental point of order is hers to win. From no more snacks if you don't eat dinner to pick up the mess you just made, everything -- and Lord almighty, I mean everything -- is still a fight. The mature-self you see when Justice is out in public is nothing at all like the baby-self who unleashes her furious, unending desire to be the one in charge here at home.

"The baby-self wants what it wants now, has minimal self-control, and will tolerate zero stress."

Oy vey, that's our pumpkin in a nutshell. Winning at games or winning over us, Justice does not like to come in second. She detests it with every fiber.

Miss Hannah, our family therapist, who cleverly recognizes not just the kids' disobedience issues, but the skittish hesitancy toward more in-your-face strictness from newbie dads, encourages us at nearly every turn to be firmer.

"You're promoting their attachment beautifully," she told us. "You've done more to encourage healthy attachment than any other parents I've ever seen. You are great at this. They are attaching to both of you just fine. That earns you huge leeway when it comes to being stricter with them. Use it."

In my mind, Miss Hannah talks in italics a lot.

So yeah, she's absolutely right, and God bless her for pointing it out. Stuff like that is not basic instinct to new parents of adopted older kids. Our default setting is "make them love us." It is not "make them respect us." It has taken great practice to make that approach with Justice our new default setting. We are not hard-asses by nature -- not at all -- and it's weird sometimes to have to be.

But there is great pleasure in seeing it start to work.

When Justice first got here, she thought she could beat us 100% of the time. And there were many days when she did, bless her.

Now it's a crankier, more cynical pair of parents who come to her door when it's ding-dong, bullshit calling, and the poor girl is starting to realize it. There's a confused but dawning look of wonder on her face when she realizes she's not in charge anymore, and I don't half mind putting it there.

Consistently not letting her have her way is beginning, blessedly, to wear her down. She still has her tantrums. I don't think we'll see the end of those babies anytime soon, but they've lost their luster. The critics aren't impressed anymore and she knows she's playing to an empty house. She still launches into defiance over the silliest, dumbest little things, but I think even she is starting to understand the futility of her performance. Like a train running out of steam, there's a certain je-ne-sais-quoi-what's-the-point to her drama these days, and she knows it.

Half Broke Horses. Thank you, Jeannette Walls, for such a great book title. I think of it all the time when Justice rears up on me. I'd like to brand it on her arm with a Sharpie marker. Keep it up, kiddo, and good luck. You're half broke now, and I guarantee, I'll take you the rest of the way. Saddle up.

I say this with love, not anger. I say it with the comedy, snarkiness, bravado and overblown machismo that makes good journal reading. In real life, it happens with a little more finesse. She's just eight after all. A worldly, cranky, pain-in-the-ass eight, but still just eight. And we do love her insanely. More than I ever thought possible.

But now she's less of a migraine, and more of a curiosity as I hone my skills. I'm already very good at loving, but I'm taking a new delight in parenting. Yes, you will think I'm an asshole today, and I'm completely cool with that. It took me fifteen months to get here, but I get it now. If your kids aren't pissed at you once a day because you didn't let them have their way over some minor kid nonsense, bwaaaappp, game over. You just bought it at the buzzer.

That's the score from our house, anyway. Justice shoots wildly from half-court every chance she gets, still hoping to sink one, but so far, no swish. We have her tears, we have her anger, we love her fiercely and we try again.

What this has to do with losing board games to her brother, I have no idea. But I know they're related. And if I can teach one lesson, I can teach the other.

Teaching someone who has already lost so much there's an honest importance in losing with dignity and losing with grace is a long and difficult lesson. But it's one worth teaching her.

I love you, Justice Reisman.

Deal the cards.

"Mom, Jason's Breathing on Me: The Solution to Sibling Bickering" by Anthony E. Wolf, Ph.D. c.2003 Ballantine Books

My Grandma is Cotton Candy

All three of my kids' grandmothers, at one time or another, in one degree or another, have echoed to me the same, longing, needful theme that weaves in and out of this journal in my own words and my own experience...that great, empty, pondering dilemma we all face when we love Justice and Justin...their nearly-constant lack of displayed reciprocation. The grandmothers and Adam and I call this by its own special catch phrase, sometimes delivered humorously, sometimes spoken with legitimate sadness. "Oh, sure. They'll hug everybody but me."

Clinically speaking, it's a fascinating observation. On one hand, the fact that they won't easily offer hugs and instinctual displays of affection to the people who love them the most drips with sad and frustrating irony. On the other hand, it's perfectly understandable in the lost, found, "who's here to stay and who's not" self-preservation of their psyche. I think if you and I didn't have permanent parents nailed down until we were six, seven or eight, we'd be a little wary of offering too much automatic affection to the next set of "loving" arms that may or may not be there the next day, or the next year, or the next parental era.

I think in their world, they count their blessings but cover their bases. Trust but verify, Reagan used to say about the Soviets.

"We'd like to cozy up to you, Grandma, but until we're just a little more comfortable with the great, complicated math of our ever-changing parental (and grandparental) trajectory, arm's length is all you're going to get. We've had parents before. We've had grandparents. And some of them vanished." That's a daunting hurdle for a seven-year-old to jump. In their world, hugging is vulnerability. Trusting gets you hurt. Sometimes the leap of faith to love again is enormous.

J1 & J2 have four people they call "Grandma," in any of its preferred variations.

They have "Mom-Mom," their biological, maternal grandmother; a person who would not normally come with the package in a closed adoption, but through the easy transparency of Facebook and the tight, know-it-all close-knittedness of our small Las Vegas Jewish community, was a person who easily identified us as "the guys who were adopting her grandkids," even before they came to live here.

There's "Mama," Adam's mom, who also lives here in Las Vegas, but like "Mom-Mom" above, far enough away from our house in a different part of town where visiting easily and regularly is not a quick, spontaneous hop in the car, but more of a "figure this out and plan for a day" scenario. Lovely women both, but in a world where homework reigns and bedtime comes at 7:30, visiting either of them after school or day camp in the midst of ongoing therapy, lots of friends and play dates (thank goodness), and all the other first-grade, second-grade hullabaloo requires a circle on the calendar and the logistical organization of an advance team.

There's "Grandma Judy," my mom, who lives the farthest away, clocking in at 1,700 miles back in Wisconsin. The kids visited her once in her home state and she's been out here twice since the adoption, once for our wedding, once for an extended winter getaway, so quite naturally in her book, when she can be with us, the kids do get her in more concentrated doses, but week by week throughout the year, she definitely gets the short end of the stick when it comes to available face time.

And there's also "Grandma Kayzee," who ironically, is probably the grandma we here at home base think of least and our kids think of most. She has been all but marginalized into the non-existent "past-is-past" history of our grown-up, collective, post-adoptive minds, but ironically, she's still probably the 1 out of 4 our kids most easily identify as "Grandma." We'd all do well to remember that. She was their live-in grandmother in foster care from ages 3 to 7, the time when memories most easily solidify. The fact that they had her so long and lost her so easily is probably another one of those "arms length" factors they feel instinctively as they learn to trust and depend (or re-depend) on their three emerging or re-emerging grandmothers.

In other words, Grandma's Three, if they're not quick to hug you and kiss you, or run into your arms, I know your plight, I feel your pain, but it's nothing unique you can claim as your own. It's the same casual dismissal Adam and I have faced ourselves for 14 months. In the great emotional-neediness of our newly-combined lives, there's a hard but necessary pecking order. The kids come first because their needs are enormous and all-encompassing, and all the rest of us line up for diddly. On even the best day, you take what you can get and you smile. You watch them hug others, effortlessly and easily, and no offense, but you sort of have to suck it up and move on. Your love for them is endless and pure. Their love for you is cautious and new.

Adam and I survive their slights and casual dismissals on a daily basis, so when you tell us out loud it makes you sad that the kids won't hug you as easily as they hug others, believe me fully, I'd change it if I could, but for now, it's all they are able to do, and you have to be patient, and with no doubt at all, you are empathetically understood in a way you can't imagine.

It's hard to teach adopted children to love and trust again. Whether it's love for parents or love for grandmothers, no one gets a Fast Pass in the Disney line. Their hugs for you will come with patience. Their love for you will come with time.

And even with that gentle admonishment laid aside, I find myself living in a beautifully-realized paradox. It's up to me, as a not-yet-fully-trusted father, to teach my children how to love and trust their grandmothers.

How magical it will be for them if someday, without hesitation, they forget the pain and forget the past and once again open themselves up to the delicious lifelong luxury of running and jumping into the arms that will always hold them the closest.

Because by any definition, that's what grandmas are put on our earth to do.

# # #

Dear Justice and Justin,

The older I get, and the more I appreciate the stories of people's lives being far more interesting and compelling than my own, the more I realize what an opportunity I missed by never sitting down with my Grandma Hannah and asking her to tell me the stories of her life the way I'd ask her now.

 

Because of that, my memories of my grandma are beautifully perfect the way cotton candy is; sticky and special and sweet to my senses, but with no real substance, the way I'd want her to talk to me today. It's a shame she died while the only person who fascinated me was me. 

 

That was my loss to be sure, because I could have had full, memorable, melt-in-the-mouth memories for the ages, but cotton candy is all I found time for.

 

Not that it makes her any less perfect. When I remember my Grandma Hannah now, the stories themselves are spun in fragility; delicious, fleeting nibbles of life, on the tip of my tongue, but gone just as quickly as fatherhood and life continue to consume me. It's hard to find time to remember how much she loved me. And I don't know. Maybe that's the way it's supposed to be. Maybe that's what makes her memory - when I do stop to remember her - so continually treasured.

 

And I guess that's why I wish you could find it within yourselves to emerge like butterflies and love your own amazing collection of grandmas just a little bit more and a little more easily. I understand the road you've traveled and I don't want to rush you, but on the other hand, opportunities to live and love truly are time-dependent, and the fully-loved little grandson who still resides in my soul remembers how special this was and doesn't want you to miss any of it. "These are the days to remember," Billy Joel said in a song once. "And they will not last forever." So, soak them up, my children. All of this, everything they offer you, never comes again.

 

If I go back as far as I can, really push my memory into almost magic, I can remember being not much more than knee high, looking up, eager in anticipation, watching my Grandma Hannah making me bread and butter with sugar on top. To her, that was a perfectly nutritious lunch for a child, in a time and an era when restaurants still let you pour your sugar from a big glass jar on the table with a hole on top and a saltine cracker inside to keep it from clumping. I remember my grandma mixing her own cream-and-sugar coffee at a level of sweetness that stunned even children. Waterfalls of sugar. Endless cascades.

 

I remember the cozy comfort of my grandma's bedroom on Pine Street, where the air was always sleepy and dozy with eucalyptus and menthol, where Vicks and crumpled Kleenex lined her bedside table. There was no night light in my grandma's bedroom. It was just me and her and the pitch dark moon. Dogs might bark, thunder might rattle, but everything was perfect. I was safe and scared at the same time, and it was my favorite place to be. 

 

Cuddled up to her for warmth and security, I remember her low, dramatic tone as we laid there I'm the dark on Pine Street, me at six and she still young, making her nearest grandson and most frequent sleepover guest giggle in the night with "Where was Moses when the lights went out?" Her drawn-out answer to her own funny question, coming immediately after, like a ghostly moan..."In--the--dar-r-r-r-k!"

 

I remember walking hand in hand to Central Lanes, pancakes at Earl's, darts at the C.Q., and the two of us alone, me all of 8, watching Richard Nixon resign the presidency and giving us the peace sign goodbye from the TV in her living room before he got in his helicopter and flew away from Pine Street for good.

 

I remember "rambunctious" and "heavenly days!" and words and phrases that were especially hers. "Sakes alive" and "go outside" and "I'm not asleep, I'm just resting my eyes."

 

When Auntie Erin was born, I remember it took her the whole first week to quit telling people Grandma Judy named her Urrin. She had a hard time wrapping her tongue around that one. You would have thought E-R-I-N was the most rare and elusive new spelling in the universe. But with a little practice and a grandmother's love, she got it.

 

I watched her in different times at different houses be a grandma for the ages, first for me and your Uncle Smedley back when he was still just Todd, then for all the rest of my cousins...Jenny and Sara (who shared her with Auntie Erin when she was little), then Adam and Andy at the apartment over Aunt Barbie's, and then finally for Darcie and Courtney.

 

I remember being older then and even more full of myself, but still having the half ounce of wisdom I needed to stop and watch them when I could, as Grandma Hannah came to the end years of living on her own, still active and happy with a room full of Barbie dolls and a fridge full of Kool-Aid, making Courtney and Darcie laugh like so many of us before them, not watching them with envy, but taking a rare, reflective moment in the self-centered whirlwind of my early adulthood, to truly notice and appreciate the luck those two girls shared, catching Grandma Hannah at the end of an era.

 

To the two of you, Justice and Justin, I'd say what I'd say to anybody when it comes to grandmas. I wish I had mine back again. I wish she'd lasted longer. My life became infinitely richer and evermore blessed with the happy memories I have of Hannah and Gussie, Elsie and Ellen, Stella and Marie, the great grandmothers of my life.

 

So if yours are still here -- and thank goodness they are -- enjoy them as much as you can. Learn how to hug them and love them without fear. They are the rocks of your history, but beautifully, strangely, they are still just cotton candy...incredibly sweet, fragile and fastly consumed, gone in a heartbeat while the music's still playing on the midway.

 

So, open up your arms and hug a little more.

 

Treasure her while you can...that sweet, fleeting heartbeat called Grandma.

 

Courage

It takes a special kind of courage to come and live in a new home. Here's a look back at two brave children who did. "The Glory of Love" by Benny Hill was written in 1936 and is performed here by Bette Midler from the 1988 movie "Beaches."

Stay

"I know it's late, I know you're weary.
I know your plans don't include me.
Still here we are, both of us lonely,
Longing for shelter from all that we see.
Why should we worry? No one will care, girl.
Look at the stars, so far away.
We've got tonight. Who needs tomorrow?
We've got tonight, babe.
Why don't you stay?"

When Justice has a bad dream and climbs into bed with us at night, she is a perfect, snuggly little angel; a teddy bear who fits so perfectly into the hollow of my arm, I can feel at an instant she was born to be here. She goes right back to sleep, comforted, held, at peace.

When Justin has a bad dream and climbs into bed with us at night, it's like going ten rounds with the TNA wrestling lineup on Spike TV. He flips, he flops, he twists in different directions. I'd say with only a small measure of exaggeration, Justin burns more calories during a typical night's sleep than the backup dancers in a Madonna concert. If the U.S. Gymnastics team ever comes up a guy short, trust me, Justin's on deck.

Speaking of which, we took the kids to their first gymnastics class last weekend.

We did this because people kept watching them dance, and they kept saying to us, "you do have them enrolled in gymnastics classes, right?" The guilt finally got to us. Wherever we go, once the music turns on, they both break into such joyous, uninhibited mastery of movement, people just assume they go to dance classes, or take gymnastics, or both.

Justin's graceful one-handed cartwheels at a recent dance night with friends had people's jaws dropping, literally. The kid can flip himself upside down and land with the grace of an angel on a pinhead. This is the same kid that walks headfirst into trees. Go figure.

So, off we went to Gymcats, where they spent a lovely Saturday morning, flipping, swinging, bouncing and somersaulting. Both of them took to it naturally. Ducks in a pond. When it came time to leave, the coach actually held Justin back when he let the other kids go, so he could talk to us privately after the class.

"How long has he been taking gymnastics classes?" he asked us.

"He hasn't," Adam said. "This is his first one."

"His first one?" the coach asked incredulously, scratching his head.

"First one," Adam said, beaming, already picturing future Olympic glory.

"His floor is very strong," the coach said. "He's very good at this."

Our buttons were bursting, obviously, and we learned a new word. His floor. His floor is very strong. Take that, occupational therapists. My kid has strong floor.

So, there they were. Our two little swinging monkeys, happily adapting to their new world, full of laughter and joy and increasing moments of magic. It feels like our family is moving full speed ahead, with the troublesome, contentious moments of our first difficult months together far behind us. Now we just have the problems all you regular parents have. Brush your teeth. Make your bed. Don't talk back. Eat your dinner.

Which is why, in the midst of our growing, comforting bubble of normality, it surprised us when the kids' therapist, Hannah, told us last week:

"Justice expressed some fear in her session today that she still might have to leave here. She's still not sure she can trust that it's permanent."

You could have knocked us over with a feather. Poor kid. She really still believes that?

"She still worries sometimes that this might not be forever. That you might change your mind and she might have to start over again somewhere else."

Wow. That hadn't even occurred to us.

Our minds were so committed to loving her from Day One, and her personality is so strong, so independent, so utterly in-your-face defiant at times, it's hard for us to picture her 13 months later as anything but certain that she's stuck with us. But it turns out that's not the case. Once in doubt, always in doubt. She's still that fragile little girl, just a child, still hurting from a lifetime of uncertainty, never knowing where her next home is, or when she'll have to leave, never quite sure if she'll truly belong in one place forever.

It's something to think about as that tiny little hand shakes me awake at two in the morning saying, "I had a bad dream." As she crawls into bed for a protective snuggle from a dad and a daddy who are trying to make it right again, I realize how important it is that we rededicate ourselves to healing her.

I hear that old Bob Seger song, and it takes on new meaning, as if Justice is singing the words to us:

"Deep in my soul, I've been so lonely.
All of my hopes, fading away.
I've longed for love, like everyone else does.
I know I'll keep searching, even after today."

And I have to wonder, as a father, when will her searching end? She won't doubt my love. Give us a few more years, and she'll know that when it comes to me and Adam, our love for her is automatic and eternal. Unshakeable. "I'm like the rocks at Stonehenge," Eleanor tells Henry in The Lion in Winter, "Nothing knocks me down." 

But where will her other searching take her? Will her need and doubt and early losses create a woman who grows up unsure if she's wanted in every home and in every relationship? Who fears abandonment is just around the corner and she's not worthy of her own happiness? That's what the books say might happen to her. Probably will happen to her, if Adam and I can't fix it.

It's our job to make sure she learns stability, certainty, and confidence in the love around her before she leaves this nest. It's not just our job to love her, I suddenly realize. It's our job to teach her she is loved with permanence. That she is worthy of forever.

"Here's what you should do," Miss Hannah told us. "Speak to her in the future tense as much as possible. Ask her about things she'll do in the future, and include yourselves in the scenario."

So, that's what we've been doing this week. Little comments all week long, to let her know we envision a future with her, not without her. That no one is letting her go. Not this time.

"Justice," I smile as I sit on the floor by the coffee table, painting her fingernails, one of the true joys of fatherhood. "Are you still going to let me paint your nails when you're sixteen?"

"Yes," she smiles.

"Are you still going to let me paint your fingernails when you're twenty?"

"Yes."

She seems comforted by that, so that's how we do it now. Little by little, convincing her that this home has endurance. There's no more leaving. No more uncertainty.

My message to Justice, at eight, is simple and important: I will be here for you at nine, and ten, and forever. Little girl, when bad dreams find you, climb into my comforting arms, because this is your home now.

It's here, it's forever, and you never have to go away from the love you feel. Not ever again.

"We've got tonight. Who needs tomorrow?
Let's make it last. Let's find a way.
Turn out the light. Come take my hand now.
We've got tonight, babe.
Why don't you stay?"

 "We've Got Tonight" by Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band, c.1978 Capitol Records.

Happy Anniversary, Baby, Got You On My Mind

Isn't it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different?
-C.S. Lewis

My house (as it is on every typical Saturday) is a red hot mess.

I took a quick iPhone camera inventory of the evidence of mass destruction before I came slinking back upstairs, coffee cup in hand, to sit here, type to you, and avoid cleaning it up.

Reviewing the camera roll inventory, I see:

• three stacks of thank you cards Justin still hasn't filled out for his birthday gifts.
• about five scattered flash drives containing anybody's guess.
• an equal number of TV, VCR, Wii, Tivo and Roku remotes...if nothing else, we are a well-wired family.
• far too many scattered wrappers from those delicious chocolate coated granola bars they sell at Trader Joe's, which should be outlawed by reason of sheer calorie count alone.
• one sleeping bag, one beanbag chair, and four pillows per child, all bunched up in a giant pile on the living room floor. That's how they slept last night; somehow buried in the midst of all that, and all power to them, because they didn't wake us up until 7:45 a.m., a veritable vacation in our book.
• a deck of well-worn sight word cards.
• a pair of pink Barbie doll bicycle gloves.
• a purple kippah left over from somebody's bar mitzvah, mazel tov.
• a bunch of packages of some horrible candy called "Juicy Drop Taffy," which, if my horrified observation is accurate, is eaten by squirting said taffy with a super-sour gel pen full of juice and eating said pieces of jaw-clenching bitterness in a solitary gulp. How do they do it, I wonder, as I quickly leave the room and hide, leaving toothpaste duties to Adam.
• two Green Bay Packer bracelets, half a box of crayons and two Kindles on the coffee table with enough sticky fingerprints on the screens to start a new layer of mantle, crust or outer core.
• a counter I can't even see anymore, because it's buried under homework folders, a recently de-virus'ed laptop (welcome back, old friend!), and a bag of something that are either hair scrunchies or things Justice uses to bunch up her long t-shirts in the back (or both).
• the usual assortment of socks, underwear and other dirty clothes that prove without a doubt a seven-year-old boy lives here.
• and, in a rare moment of peace, a used copy of "The Garden of Emuna," a book on faith that just arrived from the Amazon used bookstore because, truly, even when you kick back, settle down in the reading chair and get your God on, it never hurts to ask for a discount.

It has been one year, exactly 365 days today, since the kids moved in. Our house has never been messier. Our lives have never been richer.

I've been listening over and over to a song - a prayer - a blessing of gratitude - on one of the kids' Jewish music CD's that came in the mail. (God bless a really cool place called the PJ Library, which sends Jewish kids free books and music CD's, once a month, for keeps, forever).

The song I've been listening to over and over is by a guy named Todd Herzog who is an amazing singer-songwriter. He has a website of his own, and you should go check him out. Todd took a well-known blessing from the Jewish prayer service, the Shehechiyanu blessing, the prayer we use to thank God for sustaining our lives so we can experience times and moments of great joy.

At this special hour in our lives
We take the time to recognize
The things that we have seen and done
In this moment shared by everyone
Our hearts are filled with gratitude
Our sense of purpose is renewed
And words of blessing roll off of our tongues...

Shehechianu, viki'imanu
Va'hi'gianu, la'azman hazeh...

"Thank you, God," it says, "for granting us life, sustaining us, and allowing us to reach this occasion."

My friend Starrla, somewhere in Houston right now, is making us a video of this song, full of pictures of me and Adam and the kids, chronicling our first amazing year together, in the way that only her considerable video montaging skills would dare to attempt. I'll post it here when she finishes it, but don't hold your breath for a quickie. Poor woman, I sent her about eight million pictures and told her to pick her favorites, so it could take generations just to narrow down the playlist.

Anyway, while we wait for the clip and the inevitable heartwarming boxes of Kleenex it'll undoubtedly use up, I sit here listening to Todd Herzog's song and think how truly appropriate it's been to our first year:

Through challenges we've overcome
Our many dreams have merged as one
This life we have created
Is both precious and appreciated
We thank you, God, for blessing us
Sustaining us when times were tough
Allowing us to reach this sacred day...

I can't even listen to that verse without crying over how true it is.

It has been such a magnificent, enormous year. Complex and beautiful and drop-dead exhausting, and yet here we are, 12 months later, first anniversary in hand, and we're a family.

Justice's new birth certificate came in the mail yesterday. The courts seal the old one after an adoption and a new one is issued. I'm listed as the mom, in case you're wondering. Nevada's Department of Vital Records was prompt with the paperwork, but their forms haven't caught up to the world of 2013 yet. That's okay. They will someday, and Justice will have a cool, antiquated, silly novelty to hold onto. Something that'll make all her friends' jaws drop open when they see it, and make them go, "Seriously? The world did that back then? Listed one guy as the mom because they didn't recognize the full humanity of two dads yet?" Someday, that'll all be just plain silliness. Like the signs that used to tell black folks to drink at different water fountains.

Justin's birth certificate isn't here yet. He was born in Pennsylvania, and Lord only knows what that red state will do with our information. I'm not sure what we're expecting, but I'm sure it'll be a corker.


But,
Shehechianu, viki'imanu
Va'hi'gianu, la'azman hazeh...
here we are.

And without sounding like a hip-hop star scoring a Grammy, I'd be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to Hashem (which is a polite and Jewish way of saying "God," which we sometimes spell "G-d," for equally respectful reasons). I'm not sure God and emunah (which means "faith") were the only factors at work in this highly challenging, incredibly rewarding first year with the kids -- there were a whole lot of plain old common human beings who threw blood, sweat and tears into this endeavor as well -- but faith in something above human limits, more often than not, also came into play -- and continues to do so -- as we hold on dearly to both our strong foundations and our houses of cards, knowing no matter what, solid or fragile, things are still heading in a good and right direction.

"It's different now, isn't it?" Rick Hollander said to me after Friday night services a couple weeks ago. I was walking outside, coming back from the car, and I just caught Rick and Donna leaving for the parking lot.

"Yeah," I admitted, "it really is."

"They've come so far from where they started," he said. "And that's all you guys."

"Us and them," I told him. "We've all come far."

Us, them, faith, emunah. Allowing us to reach this sacred day.

I wonder if anybody knows how grateful I still am? Grateful to my friends and my family and to God for all of this.

There's another blessing I found Friday night in our prayer book, and I bookmarked it so I'd remember to write it down here when I wrote about this incredible year and our first anniversary:

Even if our mouths were full of song as the sea,
and our tongues full of joy in countless waves,
and our lips full of praise as wide as the sky's expanse,
and were our eyes to shine like sun and moon;
if our hands were spread out like heaven's eagles
and our feet swift like young deer,
we could never thank you adequately, God,
or bless your name for a ten-thousandth of the times
you granted favors to our ancestors and to us.

That's how grateful I am for everything that's happened this year. For all we have grown. To be given this chance, these kids, this life.

365 days and my house is a mess. My living room's trashed and I may never see my kitchen counter again. And all I can do is look at it and smile, because I am so blessed. And I am so happy.

Happy anniversary, kids. Here's to our second year which begins today.

Daddy and I wouldn't trade it for anything else in the world.