So, I promised myself I would sit down and start writing again when the little guy started JK this year. It is now November. I’m not sure how that happened. Anyway, as I was about to start a post, I happened across this post, which I apparently never finished or posted. From over a year ago. So, without further ado, here is the lost post of July 2018:
We celebrated our “familiversary” the other day. Of course, there were cupcakes. Not homemade ones like I wanted to do because sometimes I just do not plan my time well (like scheduling a PAP smear when I need to be making cupcakes. Oops.). Still, we had fun singing happy birthday to ourselves and watching the little guy get cupcake all over his face. I had also somehow managed to get a photobook put together and ordered in time for it to arrive on the exact right day (pure luck), so we had a visual account to look at of our first year together as a family, and the kids got homemade stuffed animals a friend sent to welcome them to our family. It was nice.
When I think of the year that has passed, so much of it seems a blur. I try to remember how strange it felt to suddenly have two children and realize I had no idea what I was doing, and it seems so far away, and yet, I still feel like such a new mom. And really, we are still new parents. Our family is one year old, and although we have learned so much in this year, we are acutely aware that we don’t know what we don’t know.
I try not to spend much time thinking on the things I wish I had done differently, but sometimes, they sneak up on me (like – did you know you can stay with your child in schoolyard on the first day of school? I didn’t. She marched in there like she was ready to befriend the whole damn place, and I let her. Now, I know she must have been so anxious, and I wasn’t there because I thought I wasn’t allowed to be.). Which of those things have made a deep impression on their young minds? Which are the ones they will be telling their therapists about when they are old enough to comprehend how my screw-ups have affected them?
So, instead, I try to focus on what I think we have done “right” so far. We have had some successes, and overall, we are definitely starting to feel like a family.
We know that we hit the jackpot with these kids. They are lovely little humans who love life and want to be loved. They even seem to want to be loved by us, and that is no small thing. Kids who have to change families for any reason can be quite legitimately reticent to seek and give love in their new families, and we know of parents who are giving their all in loving kids who are actively trying to push them away, and I can only imagine how exhausting that must be. We always speak of helping the kids attach to the parents, but we sometimes forget that parents need to feel attached to the kids, too, and parenting some hurt kids must feel like deciding to hug a cactus and keep hugging it no matter how much it hurts. Attachment is not a one way street, and for most people, it is not a ‘love at first sight’ experience.
I wish I could say that my heart warms to those stories where people speak of seeing their children for the first time and just ‘knowing’ that that child was theirs, but it doesn’t. There was no choir singing in my head when I first met my children. There was terrifying silence. I looked at their faces and saw their fear and hope, and I immediately felt inadequate. I had no idea how to help these little strangers feel safe and secure with me. I didn’t want to come on too strong, but I didn’t want to be aloof either. I wish I had gotten down to their level and said something simple and heartfelt like, “I am so happy to meet you”, but I honestly have no idea what I said. I think I stood there smiling awkwardly while John broke the ice with some dad jokes (he wasted no time getting into those, I tell you).
Look at that – I came back to a regret despite my wanting to avoid them. OK, let me list a few of the things that we did and still do that I think helped us over this year. Time for some heartening bullets:
- Letting their foster mom take the lead on transition-related planning. Other than a few developmentally-and-situationally appropriate night terrors from the little guy, the kids have been good sleepers the whole year, and I know that has to do with being able to transfer the security that had been built for them in the foster home to our home
- Scheduling the day around food. We implemented a fairly regimented schedule of feeding even before the kids moved in – breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, and dinner, and we always sat down together to eat at those times. I also made sure to always have emergency snacks in my purse (Fruit-to-gos and protein bars), so the kids could quickly rely on being fed. Our daughter later told us that the one thing she worried about before meeting us was, “are these people going to feed me?”, so I am very glad that we put effort into that. This schedule also had the benefit of breaking the day into activity periods. During my days of overwhelm, I often found myself thinking, “I just have to make it until snack time/lunch/dinner/bed”, and since one of those was never far away, it always seemed doable.
- Speaking of bed, we also started bedtime routines. We did the same thing for each kid – bath, teeth, story, song, sleep – and that repetition provided comfort, and allowed us to nurture them. Over time, our daughter requested more of cuddle at bedtime, and even the independent toddler started to accept more contact at bedtime.
- Ensuring that we were the only ones providing personal care and feeding for the first six months. We even implemented a “you get hugs from Mommy and Daddy” rule for a while, and we have since expanded it to a few trusted adults, but I really believe that setting up these boundaries has made a difference.
- Restricting screen time. We have not set a daily or weekly limit, but we often go days without any screen time. For much of the year, we only allowed a show or two at a time, and we always watched anything with the children. Now, we are a bit more lax, and have to admit to using the screen as a child-minding device from time to time (the kids will sit together without fighting for at least one full episode of Paw Patrol or Daniel Tiger, and sometimes I just need that). I do allow our daughter to play a couple of educational games or watch Storyline Online on the tablet or computer from time to time, but we have been fortunate in being able to keep this from becoming a daily need. We have found that because of the stimulating effect that screen time has on the kids, we have to balance the short-term benefit of some calm time on the couch with the inevitable energy surge that follows, and sometimes, it just isn’t worth it.
- Singing a lot of children’s songs. Singing together feels very connecting, and the kids love it. In addition to getting a lullaby every night, we often sang during family walks and on car trips. John even made up a song (plagiarizing a children’s tune, but he gets credit nonetheless) that we sing after bathtime while they are rolled in a towel and rocked in our arms, and it was a brilliant way to help the kids experience that feeling of being rocked by us (since we didn’t get to rock them when they were babies, we look for ways to recreate some of the key baby bonding moments).
- Using a toddler-carrier to carry the little guy when I could. I still need to do more of that.
- Keeping our daughter home from school once a week as an attachment day. This gave her a break from school and gave us both a chance to reconnect mid-week. One of my greatest struggles is finding a way to give both children the one-on-one attention that they desperately need. We were very fortunate that a friend was able to have the little guy over for a couple of hours on those days, and being able to focus my attention on our daughter often made a dramatic difference to how our week was going.
- Setting up family traditions. Before dinner, we each share one thing we are grateful for that day. We do family movie night every Sunday, and we eat pizza while watching the movie (we usually use naan bread as pizza crusts and we top as we like – the kids usually get sauce and cheese. Mine always has olives because pizza without olives feels like a waste somehow). We take turns choosing the movie (this allows us to mitigate the princess factor), and it has proven to be a comforting tradition. We also recently instituted Saturday sundaes (much to John’s chagrin) partially because our daughter tends to feel deprived by how few sugary treats we allow, so I was hoping that knowing there would be one major indulgence every week would help her accept the lack of treats the rest of the week (also, I really love sundaes). I think it is working, but the debate on that one is still alive.
Honestly, though, I have spent much of this year feeling quite overwhelmed and grouchy. I may have mentioned this before, but I turned out to be a much bitchier mom than I thought I would be. Normally, I am a fairly quiet mild-mannered person, but when it comes to parenting, I can be a fire-breathing dragon. I’m working on taming that fire.
Veggies and Dirt 