Holiday blur!

I blinked and it was Thanksgiving!  I guess it just feels that way.  Life is so busy and I am always trying to soak up every minute of it.  It was a wonderful day.  A day filled with joy, laughter, family and friends.  As usual, there was lots to prepare.  Our gatherings are so large we don't fit in our dining room any more.  There is a large table there but squish 13 plus people around it and no one can move.  So we move all the furniture out of the living room, bring in banquet tables and rental chairs and find it accommodates all who come much better. 

I was sad that my older kids cousin N was not able to come this year due to transportation difficulties.  Even the younger kids missed seeing her--though I think in that case it was primarily because her daughter is around KC's age and they are very good friends. 

Food was delish, the table looked pretty and managed to combine things from all the various families whether it was in the food choices or the flatware, or the salt cellars that were my great grandparents.  KC got to watch the Macy's parade with his Aunt Lynne.  Their tradition was snowed out last year and they had to resort to watching in their separate locations and texting as they saw the floats go by.  He was happy that this year, it was "normal."

Friday morning found us decorating for Yule.  I had gathered all the harvest decor the night before so that we could jump into decorating right away. I knew it was something the kids would want to do first thing and I was not wrong.

Our house is a sprawly old victorian.  It can and does get a lot of decorating. We are still not quite done but things are looking festive and it does not look overblown.  One would think it might if you saw how many totes of decorations came from the attic, but really it gets spread over so many rooms that it is really pretty.  Rob still likes to put the tree together for us and helped the littles and I decorate it.  K focusses on the outside.  Chet pretty much stays in his room till we are done and then he likes to help ferry the boxes back to the attic and vacuum up the floors.  The littles flit here and there and bring me items for the displays and decorate the little trees in their bedrooms.  Christmas is still magical to them and it still is to me for that matter. I love the music, the sparkles, the memories.

Saturday we had our usual errands, went to our church craft fair,  and then spent the afternoon with friends at the local roller rink.  These friends used to live right next door to us and the kids so very much miss their best buds.  So for 4 hours we skated and chatted and had a blast.

Sunday we drove up to Maine to see my mom.  She has some health issues right now and will be having a cardiac test tomorrow at the hospital up there.  If things are not good they will likely do an immediate stint.  We brought her favorite soups and canned fruits so she will not have to worry about food as she rests from whatever is done, reading material and music. And of course just being there with our love and laughter helped her greatly. When we got home, Lissa marched in our town's holiday parade and tree lighting ceremony. 

Compared to the rest of December, this was a relaxing weekend!

My little mermaid

Lissa is nearing conclusion of her swim lesson sessions and today the instructor did evaluations.  It is very possible that if Lissa was continuing to the next session that she would move up a level.  She started in September and can now swim the length of the pool doing the crawl.  The rhythmic breathing is not perfect but it is pretty darn good.  She can float. She can go the length of the pool with both backstrokes.  She has the arms and the kick for breast stroke but they have not combined them as yet.  Oh and she can do a lovely dive from a kneeling position.  I was really impressed as this is a child who could really only swim underwater and dog paddle above water when we started.  Her strokes are fluid and so pretty to watch.

All my kids swim but by far, she has a natural grace for it.  Chet always flailed about and only looks calm in the water when he has burned off sufficient energy to stop treating the water as his adversary.  Rob swims well but with a grim athleticism. He has never enjoyed water and did it only because I required it and it showed.  KC swims with a bit of timidity. He is graceful but he hasn't got the stamina and fears that.  Lissa though. She really drew everyone's attention in the pool today.

I know they would like her to go up a level but she gets so cold after class that we are skipping winter sessions and may return in the spring.

Slumber Party Weekend

Lissa has been gone all weekend!  At 8, she is the youngest of my kids to do this.  Rob had overnights at friends houses at that age, and went to away camp when he was a couple years older.  But at 8 he was still not doing a weekend away.  Lissa is in her second year of Scouting and this is a Brownie event.  I pick her up in about an hour and I can't wait to hear how things have gone for her.

Lissa is a fascinating mix of fashionista diva and nature girl.  She wanted to go on this campout because she would be with her friends.  She literally counted down the days to it. But she also spoke with great sarcasm about how it was not really a campout.  They are in a heated building with flush plumbing and a kitchen.  They have a mattress albeit on the floor.  It is like a giant slumber party really not a campout.  And my girl totally knows the difference.

I pointed out that some kids don't get to camp the way we do and for them it would be an introduction to that. Also it might be cold or bad weather.  At which point she reminded me that we camped in May with snow on the ground in a tent.  Yup, we did darling, but I doubt that your friends have the experience and equipment for that.We have camped in rain more times than I can count.  And in reality, Lissa can be a significant help setting up a tent, so she just gave me the look.  You know that look.  It says you are a silly parent who can't see that this is lame!

To add insult to injury they were not having a campfire because the Scout leader said this was her first campout with the kids and she wanted to introduce that when they camp again in May.  Lissa can help get a fire going too, so I am wondering what they will have done this weekend that will meet her standards of what camping is.  It should be enlightening!

Growing ,growing, strong!

This is one of my new favorite pictures. Back when the leaves were green and still on the trees, my wife managed to snap a shot with all the kids together.This one is my present screen saver and I adore it.  I love the glee that is in their eyes. As they have increasingly grown and stretched their wings, there are fewer times that we and they are all together. But when the team is together, it is joyful. I am grateful for that.  I am also grateful that most of them are well grounded enough to really stretch and experience new things.

Rob is loving his new job.  Between his restaurant job, and his school work, and his cleaning job with my wife, I feel like I need an appointment to see him.  In reality I DO have an appointment to see him as I pick him up from the train most nghts.  Then we race across town to his job!  But it is worth it to see him growing in confidence, and to see him making connections that will help him as he increasingly steps out into the wider world on his own.

KC also is blossoming.  He adores a monthly boys book group that our local library holds.  It started with only about 5 kids going and now has more than doubled in size.  KC has been in it from the start, thrilled that finally there was a group which focussed on the literature that boys specifically like in these pre teen years.  This week when I picked him up, the librarian took me aside and said she wanted me to know what a leader he was. That he was kind and inclusive and always had great ideas that the group benefited from  Thinking back to how timid my guy once was, I can only shake my head and smile. Blooming indeed.

Lissa has always been assertive.  I have few worries that she will make her desires and needs known! She is quick to access a situation and equally quick to participate in it.   But her growth has been in becoming more empathetic and also in improving her abilities with the written word.

Fiona too is growing. We have moments of clarity and times when she understands and appreciates parental concern, pretty evenly balanced against the times she does not understand it at all.  Overall a better ratio for her than in the past, so I'll take that.

Chet has been doing better at taking social cues of late.  I am hoping this is going to continue.  It has been hard to convince him that societal norms are not something we need to rail against.  It does not make us mindless drones etc.  He is very happy that church has started again and this is always a good vehicle for showing him a variety of social connections.

As the kids have gotten older, my wife and I are rediscovering time that is just for us.  We have had adult times this fall with glasses of wine sipped while sitting in front of the little portable fire pit.  We are able to take morning walks together sans the kids.  (even sans dog since he is such a lazy pooch!)  It has been good to rediscover that facet of our relationship as well.

FAMILY

Last week Rob and Fiona's cousin messaged me and said that she was starting a business and was looking for my help. She is becoming a travelling stylist and wants to specialize in doing hair for black  kids in group homes, or foster or adoptive placements.  She wanted to know if there were contacts I could point her towards to get some clients.  I was happy to be asked. I think this is a GREAT idea and I will help any way I can.

I know how many hours I spent on you tube learning how to do Lissa's hair. And there are still many things I am not facile with, but I make it my business to keep learning.  There are people who don't want, or perhaps can't invest that amount of time and effort into learning the hair care. This does not mean that those kids that they are caring for or parenting don't deserve to have hair they are proud of and feel well groomed.

I got right on it and N messaged me tonight that she all ready had her first client from a contact that I sent her.  OK so that made me pretty happy for her.  Here's what made me pretty happy for me. . . N posted on FB about her new business and how excited she was about her first new client.  Someone asked her how she got started and she said . . . "I reached out to a family member."

It is not a secret that I have worked hard on first family relationships.  I have written before that adoption means families grow by more than the child(ren) who are now mine.  They are also sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, cousins,and those family members have a place in their lives and in mine.  I love them. I care about them. We are in pretty frequent contact. It wasn't easy.  All of us reached and grew past places of comfort and made new paths and connections together.  We share holidays, celebrate milestones, and at the end of the day--we are family.

It Takes a Village

That is a familiar phrase--we've all heard it. And for a long time I was sort of a quiet scoffer at it.  I felt like I had no village helping me raise my kids.  My mom lives so far away that she has never been a nana who did sleep overs or watched the kids while my wife and I had a dinner out.  As a matter of fact, I have no babysitter on tap as watching the littles would mean also knowing how to deal with my autistic 30 year old son.  Those are two radically different skill sets.  And after all, I chose to have this family--wasn't it on me to take care of them?

Yet I was thinking the other night that the concept that we are doing this alone is false.  Not only false but laughable.  Rob just started a new job last night in his chosen field.  He got the job in part because of his personality and qualifications but also because my friend and neighbor is good friends with the manager of the restaurant.  Getting him to work from the train will be my personal logistical nightmare, but getting the job lead?  That was someone from our village.

Monday night is a perfect storm of committments at our house.   KC and Lissa both have dance.  Lissa has Girl Scouts as well.  Rob needs a pick up at the train.  My friend needs a ride for her daughter to and from the dance school so she can take her young son to sensory therapy. I am able to help my friend. The Scout leader helps me by giving Lissa a ride to the Scout meeting after dance. (her grand daughter dances with Lissa.)  My wife gets Rob at the trains station, allowing me to run my friends daughter home after she and KC finish their classes.  A village, encirling me, encircling my friend.

At church, my oldest needs some special help to avoid being disruptive to the service.  He would vastly prefer not to sit with me--having the small independence of sitting elsewhere is very important to him.  A kind, autistically savvy woman in our congregation has made it her mission to be Chet's seat buddy, cuing him as needed and helping vastly with his feelings of self worth and independence.  Yes, a village.  And I will celebrate mine and not take if for granted any longer!

Black Lives Matter

I feel lucky when I know people who can say with far more eloquence than I  why the phrase "all lives matter" bothers me so much.  Yes. All lives matter. But we are talking about the lives that are minimized, jeopardized and flat out ended daily in ways that "all other" lives are not.  It is a worry for me as a mom of kids of color.  I send my strong handsome young teen off to the Big City for college with a smile on my face and worry in my heart.  I watch my phone for the text that he is ready for me to pick up at the train.  I worry that the natural "immortal" feeling that teens have (and yes, I remember feeling that way too) could translate into a situation far more dangerous to him than any of mine were to me.

I worry that I have not prepared him adequately enough for being black in a world that does not see him the same way it sees me.  I know that to some extent my presence over the years has lent him an inadvertent corner of the white privilege blanket.  He isn't likely to be accused of shoplifting if he is standing with his white mom.  The same is not necessarily true if he is hanging out with skater pals in the big city.  This is not to say we have not had some issues; there have been. But by and large, the world has been pretty kind to him.

I am lucky that I have friends of color because my white friends don't see what I worry about.  They think "black lives matter" is obvious and that "all lives matter" is more reverential to life and speaks to inclusiveness. My efforts to explain are dismissed. "But YOUR son is so friendly and polite; nothing would happen  to Rob"  I hope with every facet of my being they are right. Statistics say other things though.

But a 12 year old playing in a park is not exactly a huge threat. Yet he was shot and killed without a word.  My Rob is kind and smart and handsome. He also works out and hangs out with kids who skateboard and may look "sketchy" to a certain segment of the population.  They will not see his smile. They will see his strength, his blackness, an implication of a threat that does not exist.If a 12 year old at play can be gunned down, what about strong 19 year olds?

Family members who love my kids have told me my worries are meaningless. That because I brought my kids up "right" I don't have to worry.  They seriously think all the other instances are a result of bad parenting?  Rendered speechless, I grew silent about the subject on line. And I grew angry at myself because if I as my kids parent can be rendered voiceless and powerless, how must so many other parents feel.  Parents who have lost children and who have found their children vilified in the media, their home lives and values questioned.

So, yes people. BLACK lives matter.  And please. Go read Kevin Hoffman at www.mymindonpaper.wordpress.com  Because he says it all with much great clarity than I do.