Security and staying dry

So Miss Lissa has been doing really well with night time potty training.  Hardly any accidents, even when we went camping. (which amazed me)  But our bedtime situation is kind of wonky.  KC was starting out in his bed (which is at the bottom of my bed) and staying there for 1/2 to 3/4 of the night and then moving in to my bed.  Lissa was starting in her bed (next room over) and coming into my  bed at some point as well.  Which was all well and good--except that Lissa wakens earlier than KC. And when she is lying next to him, she pokes him awake.  By midweek he is definately showing the signs of not getting enough rest.

So I thought in my infinite parental wisdom that since he was staying in his bed most of the night, I should encourage Lissa to do the same in her bed.  She doesn't cuddle with me in bed.  Doesn't cuddle with KC.  Doesn't really like anyone to TOUCH her in bed. So I thought it was not a big deal. I thought maybe she was just coming in with me because KC had and that if he wasn't, she would not feel the need the do so. We talked briefly about us all staying in our own beds and I began leaving the gate between our two rooms closed.

And Lissa stayed quietly in her bed each night.  KC got more sleep in his bed.  I had acres of  a king sized bed to myself. After a couple nights, Lissa wet the bed.  Copiously.  Still slept in her bed but was awash when I went in to wake her up.  Clueless parent I thought she had just had a drink fairly close to bed (true) and was maybe extra tired (possible.) 

Except that over the ensuing few weeks, she began wetting the bed almost every night.  I am ashamed to say that it took me a while to make the connection between the fact she was in her bed alone now and maybe felt anxioius about this.  Mid way through last week I started letting her come back into my bed.  She has been dry ever since.

I felt bad for the wee miss.  She is so tall and so self possessed much of the time which perhaps make it easy to overlook the fact that she is still only 3 and needing reassurance in the big big world.  So for now I have not quite figured out a solution that allows KC to sleep longer but am mulling over naps--midday quiet reading times etc, because Lissa will be back in bed!

Spinning Wheels Just Gotta Slow Down!

Except this wheel in particular--the wheel of the year--won't.  Sigh.  I started seeing goldenrod about 3 weeks ago.  It is really early for that.  I have heard geese twice in the early morning.  Our home is near two waterways where the pre-migratory flights gather.  It is early.  Well at least early for my spirit. I am not ready to let go of long days and longer evenings--though even those are getting shorter as the shadows creep in.  Not just yet.

Shouldn't adopted children be more grateful?

I had an interesting conversation at work today.  Co-workers and I were sharing those typical parent tales of woe.  The high cost of a smile when it comes to the financing of braces.  The fact that one of the co-workers son's started college, dropped out and is now going to try it again, leaving his parents with decidedly mixed feelings and some expensive bills to pay. Another co-worker shared stories of trying to find a decent safe and not too pricey car for her daughter, now a first time driver. 

Added to the "war stories" was a bit of undercurrent of frustration on the parts of the parents sharing them.  They felt their children had no recognition of their sacrifices for their childrens betterment. The kids had no gratitude as one mom put it.  Then one person looked at me and said "but surely adopted children are more grateful."

I was floored and in my usual foot in mouth fashion said "Why?"    The answers ranged from me "giving them a better life" to "rescuing them" to a lot of stammering.  And just to be clear, this was not a conversation of a bunch of middle class white folk. We were a diverse group ethnically and socio-economically.

I said that I didn't think my kids were "grateful" for being adopted.  In reality at least one of the 4 probably wished very much that adoption had never had to be part of his life experience. That does not mean he doesn't love us, love his siblings or his new life.  But he LOST a life too and I was pretty sure there were lots of times he wanted that life back.

My eldest is "grateful" in a rather clinical way.  He is autistic and has studied his native land with the kind of perserveration that autistic people devote to a passion.  He determined when he was about in about 8th or 9th grade that he likely would not be alive had he remained in his native land.  He could see that the economic disadvantages he was laboring under combined with his autism were a recipe for disaster.  However, that doesn't mean he is grateful to me per se.  It is a very sort of emotionless assessment that he has made.

My two youngest don't have any frame of reference for this as yet. They understand adoption at its most basic level.  But I doubt that gratitude will be part of their equation either. In the stunned silence that followed this,  I tried to explain that by and large kids are not grateful.  They don't have the life experience to see what we give up and  put off so that they may have experiences they want or that we feel will be of benefit to them.  It means about as much to them as if we showed them the cost of buying organic green beans and touted the benefits of them.  My kids don't care about green beans!  They care about popsicles.  And they aren't even grateful for popsicles!  They just expect they will magically appear in the freezer for enjoyment on a hot summer day. 

I suspect that "gratitude" on the part of children, comes along when our children have children themselves.  That is when they will remember summer picnics, when the nights watching fireworks or sitting around a campfire in their youth are remembered and rejoiced in.  And that is what my goal is--joy enough to pay forward to the next generation.  You can keep the gratitude.

Fiona Calls

I didn't know if Fiona would call last night or not.  Jane was scheduled to be on vacation through this Tuesday and the following one so I thought we would likely lose our phone time.  Other staff seem less reliable in making sure the phone call happens and I have never been given a way to initiate a phone call on my end if they do  not call.  There is a phone plan that Fiona does with Jane before they call and the calls are on speaker phone so it is highly structured.

At any rate, Jane had a personal crisis and could not leave on vacation when she had planned so she went to the school and made the call with Fiona.  It was a really good call.  At last we seem to have worked through the hair thing which has consumed much of our phone time the past few weeks.  Last night she agreed to a specific set of products and I will get them and mail them out Saturday.  There is someone on staff who is familiar with proper care of black hair and she is more than willing to help Fiona. So hopefully that will solve things a bit.

We may not talk next week as Jane will hopefully really be on vacation --she works very hard and deserves a wonderful one--but I will hang here with the kids just in case someone does remember that she calls.  I never want Fiona to call and for there to not be someone here.

I am by nature , um pasty.  In this picture (taken in front of a cool sculpture yesterday, I am about as brown as I  get.  This is after many days out of doors.   However, to me, I look positively like a glowing summer sun goddess. (with really ugly shades!) 

However when my coworkers saw me after our camping trip they asked if I was ever going to tan.  I said I was.  They laughed.  Maybe that is why I like that teen vampire movie.  Next to that vampire dude, I AM positively a glowing sun goddess!

PS The sculpture is made entirely out of newspapers.  Doesn't it look like striated rock?

Pictures from our trip

My terribly shy children on the grounds of the sculpture museum!

One of Booker's pieces that was outdoors (and therefore could be photographed.)

My picture does not do it justice but we were on a rooftop terrace and with the

kids I was a wee bit distracted.  K had stayed inside and not come onto the

terrace as she does not like heights.

The magic of art

I am an art and music afficionado.  I have zero abilities in creating art or in creating music. My only artistic expression was dance for many years. (and maybe writing bad poetry in my angst filled teen years.)   But I looooooove both art and music and feel that they are essential to living. Or maybe if not living per se, to finding a way to express the things inside us.   I could live without TV. I could NEVER live without music for instance. 

Today we braved the heat and set off for a sculpture park and museum not too far from where we live.  I packed a picnic lunch as I am all about frugal and I know cafes at museums are not frugal.  The sculpture we were focussing the most on was by Booker and she creates the most amazing art out of all kinds of cut up tires.  Truly they don't really look like tires when she is done with them; they are amazing.  The outside exhibits are very tactile and the pefect intro for the kids as they can touch them

 This was cool as they wanted to see how the pieces were created.  There was also a musical sculpture that you could make the most gorgeous music on and KC spent the longest time there grooving out tunes.  When others stopped by and started playing as well, you could see him listen to their melody lines and incorporate the sounds into what he was doing. It was quite amazing.

After lunching al fresco, we went inside and toured those galleries.  These are "no touch" zones which might have been hard except that this museum had something cool.  Kits that kids could use to try sketching what they saw, scavenger hunts they could do, magnetic tiles they could create art with.  All 3 of my tribe  were so absorbed.  Kirsty and I  could just sit on a couch and relax in the a/c and marvel at it.  Rob really enjoys contemporary sculpture--the kind of thing that 3 different people could look at and each come away with 3different impressions of what it is.  He was copying on paper his favorite piece.  Lissa loved the tiles and also a tire rubbing activity. KC enjoyed all of it; he couldn't sample enough of it all.  He said he wished he could have met the artist and we spent some time talking about how looking at her work was in a way like having a conversation with her.

It was a great day, and probably the absolute best way we could have chosen to spend today.  This morning didn't start off spectacularly as Rob had some signficant issues with truth telling and family rules before really even getting up at 6:30.  But I am glad that instead of it being "all down hill from there" that this was a vehicle for him to get out some of his emotions in a constructive and healthy way. I am glad that Lissa was so engaged as well. She loved this art in a way that other art forms have not spoken to her before.  And I am glad that my wife had the energy to come with us--it was exciting for the kids that it wasn't just Ooma doing the field trip!