On Matching.

Here's Lily and I in our matching blue and white

This morning I heard Daniel shout to his dad, "I wanna wear our matching outfits today!"  (I didn't hear Andrew groan, but I'm sure he did.)

Daniel is going through a phase right now. He wants to "match us" and, of course, is frustrated that he can't. He'll never have the straight hair of his dad, or our pale skin.  Part of this, I'm sure, is that he has already absorbed the "black/brown is worse, pale/white is better" that's in the air we breathe here in America. A bigger part is that, just like all young children, he wants to look like mommy and daddy. Lily is in this stage too- but as a 2 year old. She likes to clomp around in my shoes and put on my necklaces.

We've had many conversations about matching, Daniel and I. We've talked about how he looks like his beautiful family in Ethiopia, and how even though our skin and hair are different, we are alike in other ways. We all like pizza, we like to do things together, we speak the same language (now).  One of the ways that he's latched on to is that we can dress alike.  Yup, my 6 year old wants us all to wear matching outfits. In public. Sigh.

Which is why I found myself in the GAP the other night, purchasing matching sweatshirts for all 4 of us. I also got some similar plaid shirts for the guys.  Lily already has so many clothes that I'm sure I can put together coordinating outfits easily, as I did accidentally before we took the photo above.

So if you see my family walking about in matching outfits, please try not to point and laugh. We're working on attachment and family identity!

Thanks.

"You're Not My Mom!"

and other hilarious things my son says...

When I was little, I used to threaten to run away. One afternoon, I did. Well, sort of.  I hid in the hallway of our building.  But my poor parents thought I'd really run away, because I'd opened one of the doors and left it ajar, making it seem as if I'd headed down the city streets.  I sat on the steps outside our doorway, listening to the increasingly frantic, angry calls of my parents.  (Sorry Mom and Dad!)  Eventually, I relented and came inside, still clutching my hastily packed blankie and doll.  I have no memory of why I "ran away".  Probably I was forced to eat broccoli or some other horrible thing.

"I'm going to run away! You'll never see me again, and then you'll be sorry!" was what I screamed in my family's face when I was really, really fed up with their parenting.

My son yells, "You're not my parents!" or "I want to go to Ethiopia!"

You are probably thinking, wow, that must make you feel so hurt and rejected!  Actually, the first time he said it, Andrew and I were proud. Aw, we thought, he's reached an adoption milestone! It was just a few weeks after we'd been home.  And to us, it signaled that Daniel was secure enough in his new family that he could challenge us.  Just as I didn't really want to run away, Daniel doesn't really think we are not his parents.  He does want to go to Ethiopia, but just to visit. (So we do we, but that's another post.)

All children try to manipulate their parents. Adopted kids just have a slightly different store of verbal weapons to work with.   "You're not my real mom," is a classic one.  Aim straight for the heart; right into the guilty, self-conscious anxiety hiding inside us adoptive mommies.  But we were fore-armed! We'd read all the literature, the blogs, the memoirs.  We expected that volly, and we countered with "We've got a whole file of papers that say we are. Now finish that brocolli."

Sometimes, we say "Are you missing Ethiopia right now?"

Sometimes, we say "Are you angry about something?"

Sometimes, we say "Do you need a hug?"

But usually, we say "Yes I am. Now let's finish that homework."

I don't remember if I was punished for "running away." I'm certain that just hearing the frantic calls of my parents and seeing their relieved faces when I emerged from my hiding spot was enough to make me re-think my strategy. Whatever grievance or complaint I had went away once I'd realized that they'd missed me, that they loved me beyond measure.  When Daniel yells, "I want to go back to Ethiopia!" he is testing us.  Do we love him beyond measure? Will we flinch at all? Do we have the same doubts that creep into his mind?

No flinching.  No doubting.  And yes, we love you beyond measure.

Post Placement Reports: An Honor or a Headache?

"Let's keep in touch, ok?"

One of the quirky things about being an adoptive parent in the Ethiopian program are the Yearly Post Placement Reports. (Capitalized because that is how many of us think of them... as a Big Thing We Need to Do Every Year.)  The Ethiopian government requests and files these, and makes them available for birth families (or so we are told by our agency). They are essentially a progress report on the children; and they should be done every year until the child is 18.

I just finished our first one. One down. 16 more to go. Sigh.  It was supposed to be mailed out in July, on our year anniversary.  I started it in July, well, I started thinking about in July, but it took me the whole summer to complete.  One down, 16 more to go.

There must be an easier way.

Since I'm sure the Ethiopian embassy has more important things to do, it is unlikely that a government representative will be knocking on our door next summer or any summer after that, demanding to know why our post placement report isn't done. The onus is completely on us. And if there is even the slimmest of chances that their Ethiopian father or their older siblings will read the reports and see the photos attached, we'll keep sending them.  But I've got to make it less of a summer long project, or we'll never make it through 16 more.

Here's a couple of ideas I thought of to make next year's Post Placement Report less onerous. If you have any suggestions, please comment and share!

1. I made a template of the report outline on our computer. That way, I don't have to go digging around for our agency's file every year.  I can also review what I wrote in previous reports. The report outline is pretty simple: height, weight, health issues, attachment, relationships, development, and cultural connection. The cultural connection is the tough one. I can't write "We eat injera once a week!" for the next 16 years. So this will push me to find ever more creative ways to teach them about their Ethiopian heritage.

2. Photo Organization! (This is project for my life in general- we have 10,000 photos on our computer right now, pretty loosely organized. I am overwhelmed.) We need to send 4 photos of each child with the reports.  The photos need to be good ones, of course and also: kids have to be fully dressed, no costumes, no silly faces, no animals or weird props, and no identifying markers (like a school t-shirt or a street sign in the background).  I set up a folder in our i-photo library for each child, and when we take a photo that fulfills the requirements, I'll just drop it in.  Hopefully by the end of the year, we've got at least 4 good ones ready to be printed.

3. Timing. Summer is a good time for me to have an extra project to complete, since I'm not working full time. But, April is when they have their annual birthday check-ups, so I'll have their latest measurements.  Next year I may complete their post placement reports around their birthdays.  Then I can get the photos developed (including some nice ones of them in their birthday finest) and there is a chance that the whole thing will actually be in the mail by July.

We'll see what next year brings.

Looking towards the future...