Every once in a while, there's a moment...something very ordinary...or maybe something completely unexpected...that is so magical and right that it fills you with such joy and awe that it takes your breath away.
At naptime on Saturday, Adam was reluctant to sleep, so rather than putting his in his crib, I let him lay down on a futon on the living room floor. I laid down with him and the dog joined us. We were all warm and sleepy, the dog curled up with her head in the crook of one of my arms, Adam snuggled into the other and I was so completely and perfectly happy and grateful that I almost cried.
How Old is Adam?
Friday, October 23, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Captain Courageous
"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do." - Eleanor Roosevelt
Adam is a fairly fearless child. There are pretty much only three things he is scared of -- Batman, Spiderman, and King Kong.
When he first came home, he was very afraid of sand and of grass. The fear of grass ended abruptly when he saw the swingset in my brother's yard and decided it was worth running over the grass to get to it. We went to Florida for Christmas three months after he came home and he wouldn't let his feet touch the sand, with or without shoes. The next summer, we went to the Aquarium at Coney Island. Before we went he talked about how he was going to walk on the sand to see the ocean. Once on the boardwalk, he steeled himself and stepped out onto the sand. He got about three steps before he screamed and called for me to pick him up. We went back to the boardwalk and he immediately wanted to try again. Mind you, I didn't push the idea of walking on the sand in any way -- this was all his own idea. He made three similar attempts before he gave up. Last Christmas, he was determined to walk on the sand and after a few stalled attempts, succeeded - with his shoes on. This summer the shoes came off and he walked from the Coney Island Boardwalk to the water and back. I was muchly impressed at how he took on this fear, faced it, and conquered it --all on his own.
Lately I've noticed that if he sees something that scares him on TV, after his initial reaction, he will ask me to rewind it and play it again. And again. And again. And again. Until it no longer scares him. How does he know to do this? And that it will work for him? I am in awe of this child.
Adam is a fairly fearless child. There are pretty much only three things he is scared of -- Batman, Spiderman, and King Kong.
When he first came home, he was very afraid of sand and of grass. The fear of grass ended abruptly when he saw the swingset in my brother's yard and decided it was worth running over the grass to get to it. We went to Florida for Christmas three months after he came home and he wouldn't let his feet touch the sand, with or without shoes. The next summer, we went to the Aquarium at Coney Island. Before we went he talked about how he was going to walk on the sand to see the ocean. Once on the boardwalk, he steeled himself and stepped out onto the sand. He got about three steps before he screamed and called for me to pick him up. We went back to the boardwalk and he immediately wanted to try again. Mind you, I didn't push the idea of walking on the sand in any way -- this was all his own idea. He made three similar attempts before he gave up. Last Christmas, he was determined to walk on the sand and after a few stalled attempts, succeeded - with his shoes on. This summer the shoes came off and he walked from the Coney Island Boardwalk to the water and back. I was muchly impressed at how he took on this fear, faced it, and conquered it --all on his own.
Lately I've noticed that if he sees something that scares him on TV, after his initial reaction, he will ask me to rewind it and play it again. And again. And again. And again. Until it no longer scares him. How does he know to do this? And that it will work for him? I am in awe of this child.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Quote of the week
Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way. -Martin Luther King Jr.
Dysfunction junction
When you come from a dysfunctional background, your judgement and perception of behaviors is often skewed. Behaviors that occurred as a matter of course in your life and that just seemed "normal" to you, not necessarily kind or nice, but not out of the norm. Its only when you start to have other comparative experiences, get to know the way other families behave that you (hopefully!) see it for what it is and break out of a pattern. For example, when I lived in Manhattan years ago, my father would drive up from Florida to visit his relatives in Rockland County (just north of NYC). He would never drive into Manhattan to pick me up, rather he would have me take the subway to the end of the line in the Bronx, stand on the cross-Bronx expressway, and pick me up on his way. I am embarrassed to say I didn't think twice about this. It was only when I mentioned it casually to someone who reacted with horror, that I stopped and really thought about it. Even then, I had to mention it to another person as sort of a test to see their reaction. Pretty much the same. I stopped standing on the highway. He still wouldn't pick me up, but I stopped standing on the highway.
So, years of therapy later, I have a little situation that gives me some pause, but not until later do I really react as I should have.
Over the summer my mother was up from Florida and wanted to visit her nephew. So we rented a car and drove upstate. Present were my cousin and his wife, his daughter, her husband and their two small children(my cousin is only about 9 years younger than my mother), and his deceased son's widow and her young daughter, and my cousin's sister-in-law. I hadn't seen them since about 2 months before Adam came home, at their son's wake and funeral.
The day was more pleasant than I thought it would be -- my cousin is a doctor, and very much into the ego thing of being a doctor. He's also a Marine, conservative, sexist -- well, we just don't have much in common. I tried to avoid spending much time with them as the whole family setup was very dysfunctional and uncomfortable for me. The wife drank heavily. There was some weird emotional triangle between my cousin, his wife, and the sister-in-law, who moved in with them when she was about 12 years old and is still there -- 25-30 years later. Just not comfortable.
The untimely death of their son, early 30s, seemingly completely healthy, with a wife and young baby, of a heart attack, has wrought some changes that made the situation much more tolerable. So, the day was pleasant, everyone was kind to Adam, but something nagged at me. They had never met Adam and asked not one question about him. Not one question about the adoption itself, the trip to Vietnam, how I had adjusted, how he had adjusted. Nothing. And it bothered me. I mentioned it to my mother, who got angry. She had never recognized the dysfunction of the whole situation, thought I focused too much on it. So I sort of let it go.
Last week, we were in the pediatrician's waiting room and Adam was playing with a younger baby. His mother asked me where he was from and when I told her Vietnam, asked me a million questions -- about adoption, about Vietnam, about how he was adjusting, about how I was adjusting, about how it was being a single mother....and it brought this summer visit to my mind. So, which situation was normal? Family not asking a single question about the single most important experience in my life or expressing much interest in my son? Or a total stranger asking me every question under the sun? I'm going with the kindness of strangers.
So, years of therapy later, I have a little situation that gives me some pause, but not until later do I really react as I should have.
Over the summer my mother was up from Florida and wanted to visit her nephew. So we rented a car and drove upstate. Present were my cousin and his wife, his daughter, her husband and their two small children(my cousin is only about 9 years younger than my mother), and his deceased son's widow and her young daughter, and my cousin's sister-in-law. I hadn't seen them since about 2 months before Adam came home, at their son's wake and funeral.
The day was more pleasant than I thought it would be -- my cousin is a doctor, and very much into the ego thing of being a doctor. He's also a Marine, conservative, sexist -- well, we just don't have much in common. I tried to avoid spending much time with them as the whole family setup was very dysfunctional and uncomfortable for me. The wife drank heavily. There was some weird emotional triangle between my cousin, his wife, and the sister-in-law, who moved in with them when she was about 12 years old and is still there -- 25-30 years later. Just not comfortable.
The untimely death of their son, early 30s, seemingly completely healthy, with a wife and young baby, of a heart attack, has wrought some changes that made the situation much more tolerable. So, the day was pleasant, everyone was kind to Adam, but something nagged at me. They had never met Adam and asked not one question about him. Not one question about the adoption itself, the trip to Vietnam, how I had adjusted, how he had adjusted. Nothing. And it bothered me. I mentioned it to my mother, who got angry. She had never recognized the dysfunction of the whole situation, thought I focused too much on it. So I sort of let it go.
Last week, we were in the pediatrician's waiting room and Adam was playing with a younger baby. His mother asked me where he was from and when I told her Vietnam, asked me a million questions -- about adoption, about Vietnam, about how he was adjusting, about how I was adjusting, about how it was being a single mother....and it brought this summer visit to my mind. So, which situation was normal? Family not asking a single question about the single most important experience in my life or expressing much interest in my son? Or a total stranger asking me every question under the sun? I'm going with the kindness of strangers.
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