May 2007

My face is flushed – bright pink – and it will now stay this way until somewhere around October when this damned heat goes away. Such is the tragedy of being fair-skinned and pudgy in this climate.

What’s that? You remember me whinging about how I was anxious for spring to come? And now you think I should shut up and be glad it’s not snowing?

Yes, yes, I was looking forward to warmer days and sunshine and flowers.. but NOT 30 DEGREE HEAT! IN MAY!

Coffee took pity on me this morning and we started up the air conditioner. The big ol’ hydro-sucking planet-killing air conditioner. The house is now cooling rapidly and the dogs are no longer staring at me as if begging for a razor to shave their fur.

(Daisy is, however, sulking that the solarium door is closed and she cannot go out into her own personal sauna. It’s over 100 degrees out there!)

But I am no longer melting. That’s the key point in this little anecdote. And I’m eating non-organic salad for lunch. SUCK ON THAT, EARTH.

I am not sure you are aware of this, but.. Tuesdays following a long weekend are exactly the same as MONDAYS.

And I HATE MONDAYS.

Perhaps I’d be more enthusiastic about the weekdays if they contained something inspiring and fun and enjoyable? Y’know, if they weren’t just one big downer at the end of several days’ worth of hijinx and hilarity with my husband?

Instead, today is going to be a big ol’ day of cleaning and tidying. Yargh. Laundry and dishwasher running and scrubbing down the bathroom and, if I’m feeling enthusiastic, I may just FURminate the dogs outside in the yard. The birds will be pleased to collect up THAT stuff for their nests, I’m sure – beagle fluff, in particular, is a premium product for nest building.

Here’s hoping that you’re having a good day, wherever you are. More later, perhaps.

A few days ago, I managed to get my grubby paws on a copy of the laws regarding beekeeping – specifically, the information about hive placement. I was saddened to learn that bees are definitely not an option for our yard – I had suspected it, but, well, that’s different from getting full-on confirmation, y’know?

So, my dreams of beekeeping have been squashed unless I can find someone very local with enough space to permit a hive AND who won’t mind me tramping through their property regularly to tend the bees.

I was feeling mopey. No bees.

But lately I’ve noticed a large population of bumblebees around our property. They are, of course, not the same as honeybees (in oh, so many ways) but they buzz and they’re beautiful and it’s quite enjoyable to watch them drunkenly fly around all the blossoms in the yard. It appears we have a bumblebee hive in our garden – definitely not a worry, given that they often have as few as 50 bees in them.

Still, it cheered me up to see them around.

Then, yesterday, we returned from the library and pulled into the driveway. Coffee parked right next to our cherry tree and.. whoah! the entire thing was covered in hundreds of bees. Honeybees AND bumblebees! Buzzing and pollenating and flitting around and way too busy to care about our presence, gaping at them from the pavement.

It appeared that the entire tree was alive with bees!

And if this happens every year, as I suspect it will, I am perfectly fine with not having a hive. Wow! BEES!

The very purpose of our life is happiness, the very motion of our lives is toward happiness. – His Holiness the Dalai Lama

In many ways, I lost myself a long time ago. Things popped up at inappropriate times and caused me to shift who I was and what I felt about things. I added coping mechanisms and dropped personality traits that I felt made me weaker. I changed. And while some crucial parts have popped up again in recent years, as life levels out, I often forget just what I was like many years ago.

This is part of why I am enjoying Facebook. I am talking to people who remember me at different points in my life – whether it’s childhood, high school or university (or later) and who remind me of things that happened. Mostly, they remind me of.. me. The person I have been over all these years and how I’ve changed from a child to an adult along the way.

In some cases, these memories bring out a negative perspective. One interaction left me feeling like I was 15 again and full of angst and teenage-bitch-ness. Another reminded me of how dorky and goofy I used to be, in a very good way, and how great it felt to be so free.

I can actually feel myself shifting, again, lately, and these reminders via “old friends” are quite powerful. I am remembering who I used to be, and why I stopped, and trying to bring the old me ‘back’ again. I am building on that and preparing for parenthood. Life is once again in flux, but this time it’s in a non-physical way. We are not moving or divorcing or dying – instead, there’s a different sort of shift taking place.

Life is a weird, weird thing.

The internet is weirder.

The air is full of the scent of lilacs – everywhere I went today, I caught a whiff of them. So very pretty, fresh and, well, spring-like. I was pretty certain that every lilac bush in the entire KW area was bursting forth with gigantic blooms.

It wasn’t until I was in the deli department of Sobey’s, still smelling lilacs, that I suspected something was up. Since when does lunch meat smell like.. flowers?

Oh. Right. I’m wearing lilac Demeter perfume. That would certainly explain things.

The other night, Coffee was irritating me while I tried to fix us a plate of nachos. I was carefully applying shredded cheese to the chips on the plate and he was poking at me and laughing and prodding at me and dancing away across the kitchen before returning to do it again.

Finally, after asking him repeatedly (while laughing) to PLEASE JUST STOP, I threw a handfull of shredded cheese at him.

Then, realizing what I had done, I quickly joked, “Ummm.. don’t tell the adoption worker that my method of handling distress is to throw food, ok?”

He laughed. We say that a lot: “Don’t tell the worker that I said…” “Don’t tell the worker that I did..” whenever we do something inappropriate.

The dogs, of course, found this approach to problem-solving very appealing and quickly snarfed down the cheese that hit the floor. Tails were wagging, ears were perked..

Observing their peaceful snacking and lack of stress about the raised voices, I then commented that this might be a good way to teach kids that fighting/arguing/discussing is not a bad thing.

The decision has been made that, whenever we have some sort of disagreement, we’ll throw CANDY at each other. The kids will come to associate arguments with sugar and they’ll forget about whatever trauma usually accompanied arguments in their previous lives.

I just can’t see how this could go wrong AT ALL. Uh uh.

Didja’ know that it’s a long weekend around these parts? It is! Our plans are very small and simple and involve geeky things and some outdoorsy things and sleeping late and eating sushi and visiting the library and oh, I am so excited about the whole thing.

Unrelatedly, what I really wanted yesterday was for my beloved husband to return home so I could leech onto him for a while. Once that was accomplished, the wantwantwant went away and life was grand again.

(Hello, PMS! Hello! I can seeeeee you!)

The other night at adoption class, there was mention of how kids can get really caught up in emotions that they don’t understand and that it’s very hard for them to get those emotions OUT of their system. They are prone to totally wild behaviours and idiotic activities. The best option is to help them find the right words, but sometimes they need to be given a physical outlet FIRST in order to calm them down enough to use words.

Then followed a discussion about how kids can be given various opportunities to get their yayas out – in appropriate ways. Ways that their parents are okay with them pursuing. Things that are not violent or abusive or self-destructive.

And one of those activities?

TRAMPOLINE! TRAMPOLINE! TRAMPOLINE!

Clearly it’s a sign from the Trampoline Goddess that I need to invest my energies into trampoline acquisition. It’s for THE KIDS, after all. We don’t want them to be unhappy, do we? We don’t want them to have emotions they cannot handle, do we? No?

We have a reasonably small yard, but I’m pretty sure I’m willing to sacrifice most of it to accomodate a gigantic bouncy surface! FOR THE KIDS.

Yes. The Kids.

Man, I love that we’re gonna’ have kids. Best! Excuse! Ever!

I want.. something. Something that I can’t seem to put my finger on.

It’s not a snack or a book or a nap or a dog or a clean pair of socks. Really, I have no clue. There’s just this big ol’ feeling of WANT in my gut that I can’t explain.

There’s nothing I want to buy, nothing I want to do, nothing I want to see – nothing that fills the wantwantwant.

Yargh.

Here’s something you may not know (and something I have hesitated to speak much about here): In Ontario, as a result of government mandate, ALL adoptions are “open” adoptions.

Whether you are adopting an infant, a toddler or a teenager, it is an open adoption. It is not a choice one has, if one wishes to adopt, and you must be fully prepared for what “open” really means.

(Stroppy emailed me about this recently and I lost that email somewhere and it popped into my mind during adoption training tonight that I had not, in fact, replied to her message.. Sorry ’bout that, AGAIN. *sigh*)

The child(ren) we adopt will obviously be old enough to realize they are adopted. They will likely have some, if not many, memories of their birth family, neighbourhood, friends and school. And it will be our job, as adoptive parents, to facillitate those memories. We will be expected to continue visiting with the parents, if it’s appropriate, to maintain contact with extended relatives (grandparents, for example) and to keep an open line of communication with those people.

When we first heard about this, the government mandating, we were rather concerned. The kids have been removed from a family due to negative experiences and we’re going to make sure they get to SEE these people regularly? We’re going to continue to foster an attachment to them?

Our discussions had always focused on our willingness to be open – we want to talk openly about adoption, about why we adopted, about why the child was placed in care – but we had not really given much consideration to how that would all come together. What would it look like and feel like?

The classes have been wonderful in alleviating most anxieties, but more importantly (for me, at least) the reading I’ve been doing on my own has really given me a huge amount of information about what continuity means to a child. The benefits of an open adoption far outweigh the scary parts – providing you’re prepared for and ready to accept the scary parts.

We know, for example, that if our child is permitted to visit their birth parent we can expect regressions and sadness and anger and all manner of negativity following said visit. We know that the parent may not be reliable and we’ll be expected to comfort the child after a disappointment. We know that there may be hostility toward us, the ‘new parents’ from the birth parents. Etc..etc..etc..

The agency, obviously, assists with all of these concerns. Visits and contact may take on different shapes – supervised, open, in-home, etc. It may be regular phone calls or an annual birthday visit. It will depend on the needs of the child and the needs of the parents and our needs, too.

But it is not avoidable. And the more I learn, the more I am glad about this.

The majority of people I know who were adopted do not know their birth parents (due to lack of information on file, requests for non-disclosure, or a general lack of urge to locate them). And each person has their own reason for searching (or not) and being sought (or not).

From my perspective as a potential adopter of “older children”, I would much rather have that parent visible and present to whatever extent is possible and then do my own damage control. It’s all about the child’s ability to understand, of course, but the openness really does appeal to me.

Do I worry that the birth mother may show up and abduct the child? I used to. I also used to worry about running into the parent at the grocery store (or movie theatre, or mall, or..) and I don’t anymore.

But it’s a strange thing to consider in the face of all the literature and experiences I’ve read or heard about first-hand. Children filling out forms and paperwork and getting court orders and hiring investigators to find out the simplest information about themselves. Their past, heritage, culture, family.. Our kids will know all of that. They will remember parts of it. We will encourage this.