Peanut has brought up her birthparents off and on for the past 6 months. She usually says she misses her "foster parents"...Big Girl had foster parents, so that is what she thinks is in China. We have been explaining to her that she had a nanny in the SWI, and a birth mom and a birth dad.
She's expressed before that she misses them. And it hasn't gone much further than that.
Last night, she wasn't feeling great, and was out of sorts at dinner. For some reason, out of the blue, she brought up foster parents again, so we got into the discussion. We were having the normal discussion...you had a birth mom and dad, for some reason which we don't know why they couldn't take care of ANY kid...you know, the whole thing.
It was all going ok. We were good...having a good discussion. We were talking about the differences between the two girls' stories etc. All good open honest age appropriate discussion all around.
All of a sudden, Peanut starts to SOB. Big, giant, chest heaving sobs. I reach over to her and rub her arm, and ask what is wrong...what is she thinking about?
She heaves about 3-4 more giant sobs. Then stops. Dead. She meets my eyes in the strongest beautiful chocolate colored stare I've ever gotten from her:
"But...but...but...Mama...they LEFT me! They left me ALONE. I was a baby. Babies aren't supposed to be alone."
And then as she didn't move, and the biggest, roundest tears I have ever seen came rolling (even worse) silently out of her eyes as she just stared at me with knit eyebrows. For about a minute, but it felt like an eternity. Pure unadulterated pain was etched across her face.
Then the sobs racked her body again and she collapsed into a puddle of sorrow.
_______________________________
I've read the books. I've read the adoption boards. I've talked to older adoptees, and talked to friends about their kids when they hit these realizations.
And I can attest straight out that NOTHING...absolutely nothing in this world, can prepare you for the moment you see your child realize that they were abandoned helpless and alone. For that moment that they realize that their birth parents, for whatever reason, were not able (or didn't want to) make whatever sacrifice that would keep their babies with them. The realization that an adult...worse...their parent...failed them. Even if the parent couldn't help it...and these days I believe that more and more cases the parents could have done something to alleviate it, to our children, the parents failed them. They left them, helpless.
Gawd, what a horrible feeling for anyone to shoulder...and for a 4.75 year old to have that knowledge? To extrapoloate that themselves? No child should ever have to go thru that.
She was much more vigilant today at our CNY playgroup celebration. A lot more calls for us to both be within close proximity to the arts table or such.
Peanut's heart seemed to die a little bit last night.
So did mine.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Monday, January 9, 2012
A New Year
Ironic that I use this blog to air out the clutter in my brain, but when it gets really cluttered and overwhelming, I stop writing. I close up my brain, I close up myself, I hunker down, do what I have to do, and really THINK about it all later. I do that here IRL too...I talk after the fact. Something my constantly questioning older daughter does not do well with. She needs to take my emotional temperature about 50 times a day, which sometimes gets very old. I remind myself though that she cares, that we haven't had to fight any of those battles.
2012 has already become a year I did not expect back around that once a year day where you get reminded that time marches on and you are headed towards the dirt at some point...the ironic celebration of your birth when your reminded via Hallmark about your (apparently imminent) death. August had me reevaluating my job, our house, myself. I had made some vows to myself, some of them to be content/ride out certain things.
And I'm about 2 lightyears from all that, just from August!
My Dad moved out West. About 18 months ago he up and sold the company. There's no acrimony between Dad and I, but he's a totally unsentimental/utterly Vulcan kinda guy. Anyways I knew this was coming...they bought the AZ Palace at about the same time as he sold the company. And of course, new management has put our whole company into a tailspin. It's not like how it was. It was a tight knit family...one I never sought out before - wanted a big company (or the government way back when) where one could function in anonimity or fly as high as they wanted. Didn't want that personal crap that came with small companies. Got sucked in when I graduated, thought I'd stay a year until the economy improved...been there 15 years now. And I loved it. You might have had someone come up to you and say "What the hell did you do with this?!" and I liked it that way. No bullshit. No target markers. No extraneous crap. Sit down, do your job, do it YOUR way, as we were all unique in our talents, and move on. Have some pizza lunches, bbq out back, do stupid shit together if we had a slow moment and it was all good. Then the Bigger Company came. We're underutilized. We're marginalized. Attitude is in the crapper. I'm coasting. Doing my job. And I hate it. If I had to be in the office, I'd have a knife to my own throat.
I got offered the idea of changing careers. It sounds wonderful. Why haven't I jumped? Well...the first is that their is a schmuck there too. One I hope is gone soon. That'd make it easier. But it's also scary. I have max flexibility, I can write my own life for right now still day to day (there is no future though), at this place...but once my Dad retires in 3.5 more years, what little shreds of what is good here will be gone, if there's even any left by then.
And that gets me back to Dad. In typical Dad fashion, we saw him on Turkey Day. He said we'd be talking before he left 10 days later. We did. About work. Now mind you, he lived about 3 minutes away. He saw my kids as much as the Grandparents in FL. I spoke with him 2 days before he left...about my step-mom dropping off the sports car. And then I realized he was gone. Yeah, it's only a 4 hour plane ride away. But he didn't say good bye to me. To his 2 granddaughters. To anyone at the office. Just left, like it didn't matter.
And that sucked. That hurt. That made me angry. And it hurt my kids. And it drove all the way into my heart, way down in the corner, the one that still holds the hurt from being left by him when I was 3, to live the life he wanted. And even though he kept talking about when he was going, it kept moving backwards, and he's ALWAYS lived by me, and poof he's gone.
And gone on his terms...again.
I know, Daddy issues. Sadly, Daddy issues feed into work issues and that together is a decent part of my life.
Moving on...
I tell you, the men in my life I driving me crazy.
There was a boy. I saw him, back when we were paperchasing for Big Girl. Still weren't DTC yet. Thought many nights to myself, if we didn't have her, I'd talk husband into a boy. He was the age that husband wanted...but we were in love and in process for our girl. Moot idea.
Then I noticed, amazingly, he was still waiting. That was now Fall of 2010.
Then we came home with Big Girl...Christmas. New Years. Husband's Bday.
Noticed he was still waiting. Could not believe it.
Summer of 2011. He was still waiting. Why? Why would such a perfect little boy still wait? Just cause he has a penis? Seriously? Minor needs, beautiful eyes, supposedly in a pretty good care situation. He didn't appear on any advocacy board, nowhere. He was forgotten on the shared list since middle of 2009. I asked for updates from our agency. They went to work on it. I threw out the line to my husband.
He would not bite. No way in hell.
I threw down, demanded a discussion. He closed up. OK. Not my best move.
Asked again for updates...just got little feel good stuff, a few pics, nothing concrete.
Now it's Fall of 2011. Ask again. Husband digs in again. Ask again about those damn updates. Somewhere I've gotten my heart invested in this. Decide to lay it all down.
I spent over a week getting all the financials of the house. Then amazingly I got an update from the SWI. An open and honest one.
He said no. I knew he would. He always does...knee jerk husband of mine. I mourned. It was over.
Three days later, husband got home from work while I was in the shower. When I turned it off, he was standing on the other side of the door. Head bowed, hands in pockets. "You know, you are right. I always say no right away. And I shouldn't do that. With the girls...or with you. I know how much xxxx means to you. And you are right, there is no reason we can't do it. When you are married, you follow each other's dreams sometimes."
I looked at him and said that we couldn't do it just cause I wanted it. It wasn't fair to him. He paused..."He is darn cute...he reminds me of Peanut. He has a good personality for our family. I see it. I just didn't want to. And the SWI started talking...now I know they aren't hiding anything. They seemed like they were hiding things. His file was so old." That...for my husband, is huge. All of it.
I waited another week. Asked him again and again...gauged his every reaction to see if it was really what he wanted. In the end, he finally got fed up with me..."Will you please send LOI already so we can go get our son?" First time he used that word. And I sent it an hour later.
So now, here we are, the beginning of January...I'm hating my job, but making money and that's the important part, still haven't decided if we should move or not, and I'm waiting for my son. Yin and Yang. That's life. More good then bad and call yourself lucky. And I am...
My girls, every day, ask when they get to go get Squish. They are overjoyed. He's 6.5, and my husband is right...he's got eyes that are going to make every girl's heart skip about 20 beats.
2012 has already become a year I did not expect back around that once a year day where you get reminded that time marches on and you are headed towards the dirt at some point...the ironic celebration of your birth when your reminded via Hallmark about your (apparently imminent) death. August had me reevaluating my job, our house, myself. I had made some vows to myself, some of them to be content/ride out certain things.
And I'm about 2 lightyears from all that, just from August!
My Dad moved out West. About 18 months ago he up and sold the company. There's no acrimony between Dad and I, but he's a totally unsentimental/utterly Vulcan kinda guy. Anyways I knew this was coming...they bought the AZ Palace at about the same time as he sold the company. And of course, new management has put our whole company into a tailspin. It's not like how it was. It was a tight knit family...one I never sought out before - wanted a big company (or the government way back when) where one could function in anonimity or fly as high as they wanted. Didn't want that personal crap that came with small companies. Got sucked in when I graduated, thought I'd stay a year until the economy improved...been there 15 years now. And I loved it. You might have had someone come up to you and say "What the hell did you do with this?!" and I liked it that way. No bullshit. No target markers. No extraneous crap. Sit down, do your job, do it YOUR way, as we were all unique in our talents, and move on. Have some pizza lunches, bbq out back, do stupid shit together if we had a slow moment and it was all good. Then the Bigger Company came. We're underutilized. We're marginalized. Attitude is in the crapper. I'm coasting. Doing my job. And I hate it. If I had to be in the office, I'd have a knife to my own throat.
I got offered the idea of changing careers. It sounds wonderful. Why haven't I jumped? Well...the first is that their is a schmuck there too. One I hope is gone soon. That'd make it easier. But it's also scary. I have max flexibility, I can write my own life for right now still day to day (there is no future though), at this place...but once my Dad retires in 3.5 more years, what little shreds of what is good here will be gone, if there's even any left by then.
And that gets me back to Dad. In typical Dad fashion, we saw him on Turkey Day. He said we'd be talking before he left 10 days later. We did. About work. Now mind you, he lived about 3 minutes away. He saw my kids as much as the Grandparents in FL. I spoke with him 2 days before he left...about my step-mom dropping off the sports car. And then I realized he was gone. Yeah, it's only a 4 hour plane ride away. But he didn't say good bye to me. To his 2 granddaughters. To anyone at the office. Just left, like it didn't matter.
And that sucked. That hurt. That made me angry. And it hurt my kids. And it drove all the way into my heart, way down in the corner, the one that still holds the hurt from being left by him when I was 3, to live the life he wanted. And even though he kept talking about when he was going, it kept moving backwards, and he's ALWAYS lived by me, and poof he's gone.
And gone on his terms...again.
I know, Daddy issues. Sadly, Daddy issues feed into work issues and that together is a decent part of my life.
Moving on...
I tell you, the men in my life I driving me crazy.
There was a boy. I saw him, back when we were paperchasing for Big Girl. Still weren't DTC yet. Thought many nights to myself, if we didn't have her, I'd talk husband into a boy. He was the age that husband wanted...but we were in love and in process for our girl. Moot idea.
Then I noticed, amazingly, he was still waiting. That was now Fall of 2010.
Then we came home with Big Girl...Christmas. New Years. Husband's Bday.
Noticed he was still waiting. Could not believe it.
Summer of 2011. He was still waiting. Why? Why would such a perfect little boy still wait? Just cause he has a penis? Seriously? Minor needs, beautiful eyes, supposedly in a pretty good care situation. He didn't appear on any advocacy board, nowhere. He was forgotten on the shared list since middle of 2009. I asked for updates from our agency. They went to work on it. I threw out the line to my husband.
He would not bite. No way in hell.
I threw down, demanded a discussion. He closed up. OK. Not my best move.
Asked again for updates...just got little feel good stuff, a few pics, nothing concrete.
Now it's Fall of 2011. Ask again. Husband digs in again. Ask again about those damn updates. Somewhere I've gotten my heart invested in this. Decide to lay it all down.
I spent over a week getting all the financials of the house. Then amazingly I got an update from the SWI. An open and honest one.
He said no. I knew he would. He always does...knee jerk husband of mine. I mourned. It was over.
Three days later, husband got home from work while I was in the shower. When I turned it off, he was standing on the other side of the door. Head bowed, hands in pockets. "You know, you are right. I always say no right away. And I shouldn't do that. With the girls...or with you. I know how much xxxx means to you. And you are right, there is no reason we can't do it. When you are married, you follow each other's dreams sometimes."
I looked at him and said that we couldn't do it just cause I wanted it. It wasn't fair to him. He paused..."He is darn cute...he reminds me of Peanut. He has a good personality for our family. I see it. I just didn't want to. And the SWI started talking...now I know they aren't hiding anything. They seemed like they were hiding things. His file was so old." That...for my husband, is huge. All of it.
I waited another week. Asked him again and again...gauged his every reaction to see if it was really what he wanted. In the end, he finally got fed up with me..."Will you please send LOI already so we can go get our son?" First time he used that word. And I sent it an hour later.
So now, here we are, the beginning of January...I'm hating my job, but making money and that's the important part, still haven't decided if we should move or not, and I'm waiting for my son. Yin and Yang. That's life. More good then bad and call yourself lucky. And I am...
My girls, every day, ask when they get to go get Squish. They are overjoyed. He's 6.5, and my husband is right...he's got eyes that are going to make every girl's heart skip about 20 beats.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)