Today I got a new comment left on that post from “bestfriendsgirl” in response to one of the points made by one of the parents on that Forever Parents post.

The comment says:

Oh, but you are wrong, Violet. Adoption is very much a state of being, very much who one is. It is the filter through which all my life experiences pass. It has been with me from the moment I was taken away from my birthmother and will be until the moment I cease to be alive. No matter how much one loves one’s adoptive parents, no matter how good one had it growing up, the void is still there … the longing for the bond that was broken, for what was taken away. One may have been too young to vocalize, but not too young to realize what has happened . One carries it forever. You may believe you are your son’s mother in every way that matters. But we adoptees have a history, a heritage and a story that has nothing to do with our adoptive parents. And it matters, too.

Obviously this comment pertains to something that I didn’t say – just copied – and I don’t agree with all of the statements. But I believe adoption is different for each person, each family, and each child. It’s important that all of those viewpoints be considered and noted and recognized as valid.

While I did reply to the comment on that particular post, I want to reiterate my feelings here.

The “catch” with adoptive parenting, and in our case the adoptive parenting of ‘older’ kids, is that you know there will always be someone else standing in the shadows. In our case, there’s a mother who did not choose to “give” her kids to us and who, I like to imagine, misses them very much and wishes the outcome had been different.

That shadow person is one of the major reasons why a lot of people don’t consider adopting older kids. The knowledge that the child may never view you as their “mother” or “father” and will always see you as “that person who adopted me” can be hard to swallow for someone who wants a “traditional” family.

In our case, we’ve got the best and worst of both worlds – at least, as far as an adoptive parent could imagine things.

We have our ten year old son who very much misses his biological mother, remembers many good things about her and is always happy to talk about her and the experiences they had together as a family. I believe, though I could be wrong, that he will never come to consider me as his “mother” in the ultimate sense of the word. He will always have some level of internal conflict about loyalties and love and all those other points. This is something he will likely struggle with for a long time.

If he ever stops calling me “Violet” and calls me “Mom” on occasions other than when he ‘slips’, I’ll be stunned.

Having said that, we didn’t become adoptive parents in the hopes of erasing some kid(s) memory of the past. We did not adopt kids so we could pretend they were ours from birth or biologically related to us. His struggles are painful, of course, but we do our best to help him understand the why and how of being in our family.

Does it break my heart that he had to go through some shit earlier in life? Of course. I don’t think any child should ever feel conflicted about love for any reason.

But I love him very, very much – as much as I could imagine ever loving a biological child – but that doesn’t mean I’ll ever forget that he was adopted. That he has a past. That the love he feels for me is not the same as what I feel for him in the purest sense of the word “love”. To me, he is the only oldest child I have ever had, ever will have, ever will know. I am not his only mother.

We have our (almost eight year old) son who has mostly negative memories of his biological mother. His stories are a mix of questions, fabrication and goodness. He is giddy to have a mother in his life, full-time, who is dedicated to him. He struggles with the extremely positive memories that his older brother has and he struggles with loyalty and he struggles with what to even CALL his biological mother. He seeks my reassurance on this – is it okay to talk about her? is it okay if he calls her “mom”? – and I reassure him to the best of my ability.

And I love him very, very much. And I encourage his older brother to tell him stories, to show him photos, to give him good things to remember and hold on to. But, even then, I can’t change his memories or make them different because.. I wasn’t a part of them. They belong to him and only him. Not even to his brothers.

Then we have our youngest – four years old – who has no memory of his biological parents whatsoever. He has no curiosity about them, or about adoption, or about anything relating to his past. He remember his foster mother and misses her instead. In theory, he’s an ideal adoptive kid in that he will likely grow up to truly consider me his mom.

Still, I talk about his biological mother and about how she loved him and he sees pictures and hears his brothers talk about the past. And I will never try to deny his adoption, his previous life, his previous family. Again, despite his lack of memory, it is HIS past.

Is it hard to know that I am being compared to another mother? Of course. How could it not be?

Is it hard to maintain a postive perspective on that other mother when you have a sheet of “wrongs” that’s been handed to you by an agency? Yes and no. Yes, in that I wish our kids had some sort of story-book upbringing. No, in that it only takes a few moments of conversation with Older One for me to know how important it is that I never, ever EVER negate his positive experience with ugliness.

And that’s hard, too. All three kids need to know the truth – because it is their past – but it needs to be presented in an age-appropriate, healthy way. It can never sound like I’m trying to make them turn against their mother, or that I’m trying to “one-up” her, or that I’m trying to make myself seem “all that and a bag of chips” in comparison.

I’ve done some horrible things in my life, made some major mistakes, but in my case it all worked out. A lot of that was luck, good support systems, and making the right crucial decisions. The kids need to know that, too.

At some point we’ll sit them down and talk to them about how they came into care, what went wrong, and the string of events that led to parental rights being terminated. The kids will then need to draw their own conclusions. And we, as adoptive parents, will need to be very careful not to let our own feelings come into the picture lest we taint their perceptions even the slightest.

But Coffee and I will never – ever, never, EVER – deny their past. We will never deny the impact all of those events and situations and circumstances has or may have on our kids. And we will never try to claim any part of that past because, quite simply, we were not and are not a part of it.

Perhaps I’m feeling sensitive about this tonight because Oldest One and I had a big ol’ blow out fight this evening about something ridiculous (to be written about in another post, tomorrow) and, as we made up, we sat and looked through a photo album featuring photos of a freshly born Little One and images of Oldest One at around 5 years old.

We paged through shot after shot of a happy, healthy, gorgeous (and pregnant at times) biological mother. And Oldest One remarked, “I miss her.”

And part of me thought, “Oh god, he misses her because I’m a terrible mother who just yelled at him for X and Y.” and part of me thought, “Of COURSE he misses her.” and part of me remembered that I will never be his “real” mother and another part of me thought, “Yeah, go ahead, remember only the GOOD stuff about her while I’m stuck dealing with your shit!” and another part thought.. well, you see?

It is not linear.

What I said was, “I bet you DO miss her. And I bet she misses you, too.”

And he said, “At least she’s still alive, right?”

Then he snuggled up to me, flipped some more pages of the album, laughed at some of his brothers’ photos and I thanked him for sharing all of it with me. He hugged me.

So yes, I am aware that I am not The Boys mother and that a void exists and always will. That I cannot fill that void.

But I’m still going to do the very best I can for them – forever. Because they happen to be MY KIDS. My only kids.

We’ve been trying to pin him down on what, exactly, he’d like to DO for his birthday and, similarly, what he’d like to GET for his birthday.

This is the sort of conversation that ends up being pushed off for another attempt at a later date because…

So far he’s identified one thing that he’d like as a gift (which we mentioned to his Aunt and she’s planning to look for one) and.. the other things have been noted as, “That thing I saw? Remember?” and “That gun thing! THE GUN THING!” or “That thing from Zehrs!” (the grocery store? we’re pretty sure he means Zellers.)

Then he noted that he REALLY REALLY wants “Robosapien” which is ONLY $200 and will totally be destroyed by the first dog that sees it lurching around the house. I think we’ll be passing on this option.

As for what he’d like to DO, he’s insisted that swimming would be great (yay!) but that he isn’t sure whether he wants to invite just Milhouse, Milhouse and a friend, or everyone he’s ever known. Possibly his whole class? Or maybe just this girl he knows?

He also asked if it was possible for his brothers to NOT be a part of his party. We told him that was possible, yes, since it’s HIS birthday – but that would also mean one of the parents would have to stay home with those other kids. He’s pondering it.

Every attempt to discuss this upcoming event has led him to tell us a story about “the time I had a birthday party and no one came” and “the time I had a birthday and I got a monkey” and “the time I had a birthday party and I invited all of [Older One]‘s friends instead of my own” and.. on and on.

Yesterday Oldest One said, “Gee, maybe you could have a BOUNCY CASTLE in the yard!” and I noted that it wasn’t really a viable option for February in Southern Ontario. He made his fake-sympathy face and said, “Awwww, poor [Middle One] you’ll never get a bouncy castle on your birthday FOR AS LONG AS YOU LIVE!” before he laughed himself out of the room.

All joking aside, I’m quite thrilled that he’s turning eight years old if only because it means we’ll only have ONE kid in a car booster seat and everyone in the back will have more elbow-room. I’ll totally miss seeing Coffee in the middle of every day, though, since I won’t need to swing by his office after picking Little One up from school.

Tonight we’ll talk about the whole “birthday event” thing again and see what else his pointy little head has come up with for the celebration. I wonder if I can convince him that a pony would be a good plan?

Me:Eeenie, meenie, miney, MO.. Catch..

Little One: NO! YOU WRONG! Eee Meee Homo! HOMO! HOMO! MO! MO! HOMO! THAT ONE!

Me: I’m not sure that’s how it goes..

Little One: HO-MO! HO! MO! HO! MO!

Me: Okay then.

Sick kids, sick me, sick Coffee.. plenty of snot and sore throats and whiny noises (okay, mostly from me) and tears and early bedtimes and asthma inhalers and.. all the rest.

So we’re all alive, and have been to the doctor, and we’re all sorta’ kinda’ on the mend.

But you’ll have to wait for a new blog post for a bit longer. I’m pretty sure this one doesn’t count…

And waited.

And when 4pm passed and the hockey-playing kids were still being assholes (pardon me) and scaring the beejezus out of Little One (who can barely stand on his skates) Middle One and Oldest One became quite disheartened that they wouldn’t be able to skate. I assured them that, oh yes, they WOULD be skating.

I then started making very pointed (and loud) comments about the time to the passing jackasses.

When that didn’t work, I called out to the kids to ask if they were “planning to stop now that it was past 4pm.” The sign clearly stated that the hours from 4-6:30pm were for “recreational skate” and specifically noted that hockey was forbidden in the interest of not letting the little kids get injured.

And then, when the kids got snitty with me, I put my foot down (literally) on their puck and informed them that we had a little person with us who wanted to skate, following the clearly posted rules, and that they needed to STEP OFF THE GODDAMNED ICE.

Maybe I was a little calmer. Not much.

But when the one older kid got really snarky and informed ME that he didn’t HAVE to follow the rules, I just about grabbed him by his little mesh hockey face-mask and beat him with his own stick.

(Seriously. I have no idea what the hell has gotten into me.)

Instead of putting the smack down, I took out my digital camera and began to “document” the scene for the administrators of the school who would, without question, recognize the asshole child.

Granted, I’m quite certain that they’re not overly concerned with the whole dealio but, whatever, MY KIDS WANTED TO SKATE AND NONE OF THEM CAN SKATE WELL AND HAVING PUCKS WHIZZING PAST THEIR HEADS MADE IT WORSE AND..

NOBODY FUCKS WITH MY KIDS.

(No, really, I have NO IDEA what I was doing there.)

Said child promptly began freaking out and shouting, “NO! DON’T TAKE MY PICTURE!” when I informed him what I intended to do with it. Then he started talking smack again.

So I took a few more pictures.

One kid – a decent, kind child – asked if, perhaps, we could share the ice even though the sign said “no hockey”. He proposed that the hockey playing kids (4 of them) would take one half of the rink and we could have the other. I agreed to this as a decent resolution because, duh, if the puck isn’t near MY KIDS I am not inclined to beat on children.

Oldest One thanked Coffee and I profusely for helping him get space to skate. He then proceeded to skate like a maniac and get better at it with each passing second that he could actually CONCENTRATE on the skating and not the jackass other kids.

I swear to god, I’ve lost my mind.

(But I’m not even slightly embarrassed about it.)

The older kids’ school has an outdoor rink that’s flooded and maintained by a collection of parents (hopefully I can be one of them next year) and all three of The Boys are thrilled at the idea of using it on weekends and after school and the like.

Hundreds and hundreds of dollars later, we emerged with everything we needed and a.. “toy for Mom”.

My “toy” is a Method O-Mop for the dining room floor so I can clean it of all the crap the kids throw down with each meal. I’ve wanted one for a while now and the fact that I found it at Canadian Tire made me giddy.

The kids were skipping around with their skates and I was trying to stop myself from making out with a mop in a dark corner. This is what my life has come to.

Relatedly – when all three kids are in public with Coffee and I, I’m pretty sure we’re serving as a really good endorsement for birth control. It’s my form of community service.

As we walked, Milhouse remarked that it was a very long distance and were we there yet? and how much longer? and I started to get an idea of what I was in for in the coming hours.

Later, the kids mentioned to me that Milhouse normally takes a taxi to school – though he lives even closer to it than we do. Let’s just say that my kids better not get any ideas because their allowance does not stretch anywhere NEAR to the point of them affording them that kind of ‘luxury’ and unless their legs actually fall off of their bodies I’ll be dragging them on that daily walk.

*ahem*

As we approached home, Milhouse began asserting that he and Middle One would be “going sledding right away!” and Middle One kept saying, “Nah, I don’t want to.” I gently prodded Middle One and whispered that it wouldn’t kill him to take his friend over to the hill for a while after we all ate a snack.

Milhouse refused to take off his snowpants because he was totally determined to get to the hill ASAP. Middle One kept saying things like, “Oh, you can go on your own! I’ll stay home. I don’t want to go sledding.”

In the end, they went sledding for about 20 seconds.

Arriving back, Milhouse spent much of his time inspecting our house and declaring it “HUGE!” (which is amusing in and of itself) and then told me that my kids are “SPOILED!” because we buy large jugs of bottled water and place them on a dispenser.

(We do this because I do not believe children should drink chlorine or have fluoride in their water. You can argue this with me for days and I will not change my mind so, hey, let’s just agree to disagree, ok?)

For much of the evening, Middle One would assert that he didn’t want to do whatever Milhouse did and, instead, felt it would be okay if, as I mentioned, Milhouse went off on his own to sled or check out his room or wander aimlessly around our (gigantic) house or, y’know, checked out the neighbourhood or something.

Oldest One and I both reminded him (repeatedly) that guests generally aren’t left to their own devices for more than a few minutes. He seemed suspicious of this advice.

Milhouse was curious about many of our family routines – from “Pizza and Movie Nights” on Friday (tradition) to whether or not I let the kids drink pop every day (no) to when, exactly, the kids would be allowed to call me ‘Mom’ (any time they like – it’s just Oldest One who prefers Violet or “Vio-Mom”) and, of course, the infamous ‘cage’ question.

He also asserted that we could have a brand new “special day” of the week that we’d call “Milhouse Day” and it would feature him as part of the family.

Then he invited all of us – including me and Coffee – to his birthday which is in a few months.

And then he attempted to invite himself along to our swimming-outing tonight and to Sunday ice skate shopping and, oh hell, maybe he could just move in forever and be our fourth kid?

At one point he grabbed Oldest One, asked if he could call him by a derivative of his actual name, asserted that Oldest One was now HIS big brother too, and then hugged him like his life depended on it.

Oldest One, with a dry tone, looked at me and remarked, “Hey, remember Chubby Huggs from the Get Fuzzy comics?” and caused me to laugh rather appreciatively because, my god, the kid IS just like that.

I pried Milhouse off of Oldest One.

In the course of a few hours, Milhouse tackled Middle One, groined him a few times, begged (literally, “I’ll do ANYTHING! Pleeeeeeeeeeease!”) for attention, made about 800 Mii characters on the Wii (one for each of his, apparently very large, family), shoved Little One, insisted that the pizza we made was actually delivered (it wasn’t, but it WAS “Delissio” so that cracked me up) and totally drove me up the wall.

Add in the constant sniffling and his repeated, “I’m allergic to..” and his VERY VERY LOUD VOICE.. and I was thrilled when Coffee came home so I could go and hide in the office for a while.

Happily, for the adults at least, Milhouse cannot sleep over at our house (due to those aforementioned allergies-to-everything) and thus all extended visits will involve Middle One at HIS house. And the kids are not yet old enough to walk to each other’s homes without parent escorts or a car ride (in the freezing cold weather) so there’s no chance of The ‘House showing up at random moments.

I am not a fan of Milhouse in the slightest – but, thankfully, he’s not MY best friend. And if Middle One is happy and the friendship is healthy, I’m not going to complain to HIM. Just you…

Here are the rules:

1. The first title on this page is the name of your band.
2. The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.
3. The third picture on this page will be your album cover.

You then take the photo and add your band name and the album title to it, then post your picture. (And be sure to give credit!)

Let me introduce you to my new band – Platinum Disambiguation – and their newest album “You Weather Your Tomorrows”.

Image: jarellan
(Totally gorgeous image, too, so I’m glad that’s what came up randomly..)
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