When does this get easier?
Ever wonder when things are going to start to get easier for your child? When you’ll be able to go to a session with one of his therapists and not hold your breath throughout waiting for It. The moment when she says “Oscar is showing so much improvement in X, but we really need to start thinking about Y”. Where Y is a whole new disorder you’ve heard little of before (mostly because they may have mentioned it to you previously but you refused to believe that this could be an issue too). So you show the therapist to the door, feed your child, play a bit and put him to bed, and then sink onto your bed with your ever-present laptop to do some online research made possible by g00gle. What did parents do before g00gle anyway?
So, after reading about Y, you realize, yeah, she might be onto something, so you go to amaz0n and order a bunch of new books for you and the kid. You’ve been doing this long enough now that you don’t pop for the overnight delivery anymore. Free supersaver shipping it is. Nothing these books could offer you in the next couple days is so life-changing that you need to spend the extra $20. You make sure to add a few toys (educational, of course) to reassure yourself that all is well and everyone does this. We will eventually own every educational toy manufactured if this keeps up.
Y today was auditory processing disorder. Auditory processing occurs when your brain recognizes sounds around you and interprets them for you. The disorder? That’s when your brain misinterprets the sounds. Like when you ask your son to “come here” and he looks at you blankly for two minutes before moving toward you or “show me the car” and he shows you the cow because he only heard the hard C. The rest of the word just evaporated into the air.
All the while as you’re researching this you’re thinking when is he going to catch a break? When is something going to come easily to him? Seriously, he can hear the words but not understand their significance even when he’s paying attention and understands the meanings of the words themselves? How is it that there is this world full of disorders that you’ve never even thought of until you had a child? Why is it that the most basic processes are the most complicated to fix when they go awry? Why aren’t there disorders that can be “cured”? Can I really not find someone to fix “this”? Do we really so de-value those with cognitive challenges that there isn’t enough interest or funding to find the “cures” for these disorders?
And then you just realize that, while you’ll get a second a third opinion, of course, there is a good chance that what the therapist told you is accurate, and that your son may have spent the past two years not understanding a large chunk of what has been said to him or around him. And you realize that all those times when you were talking with him and he gave you the blank stare and you knew he didn’t understand what you were saying that he really didn’t understand what you were saying. That it wasn’t a fluke when he scored what he did on the receptive language tests. And you count the number of months before he’s supposed to start kindergarten and start to panic. Panic about kindergarten. And then you wonder whether maybe you should have kept those anti-anxiety meds your doctor gave you.
All this from a 45 minute “hour” of speech therapy. Three more sessions to look forward to this week alone.
Since this all seems a little dark and dreary, I thought I’d end with something a bit more upbeat. A potty-training Oscar riding his tricycle inside the house on a rainy day. Life isn’t all about cognitive challenges. Sometimes it’s about a boy riding a bike in nothing but a sweater, leg warmers and shoes.
Confession time
I’m coming clean. I’m a bad mom. Oscar is doing exceedingly well with this whole potty training thing. I really didn’t think he was ready – he cried the first few times Norma sat him on his little toilet and he was definitely not a fan. Let’s face it, though, I’m not the one at home during the day, so I don’t make this decision. Nanny Norma says he’s ready – he’s ready. So she started him on the naked potty training method, modified, and last week he spent the first half of each day pantless. Mixed results. This week, full days with no pants. Some improvement.
I got home last night and Norma was thrilled to tell me that Oscar was only then wearing his first diaper of the day (with only one accident all day). Not only that, but he can now say – clearly – “pee pee” and “poh poh”, although he has yet to tell us that he needs to using his words. He has, however, run to the little toilet when he needed to pee.
Why are these successes evidence that I’m a bad mom? They aren’t, really, in and of themselves, although some may think that the fact that I’m having Nanny Norma do this during the week instead of starting it myself on a long holiday weekend is. But, like I said, I would’ve been happier to leave this be for a few months (when it’s warmer (at least that’s been my excuse)). And that, my friends, is where the bad mommyhood begins.
Thing is, I’m not so ready for my little boy to grow up. He’s my baby. Sure, I’d love to hear him speak and am excited about upcoming milestones and having a child who can draw pictures that are more than scribbles and color inside the lines. I’m certainly not doing anything to impede any of those things. Far from it. I have, though, chosen not to potty train him. He’s 2 ½, so I don’t think I can be accused of waiting too long, but the fact remains that I chose not to start the process because I was not ready for him to grow up just yet. I am not ready to buy underwear for him. I am not ready to rush into a public bathroom with him or needing to stop on the side of the road for him to go to the bathroom. I am not ready to give up my moments with him on the changing table looking up at me and “talking” (even if he’s practically falling off the changing table since he’s so big). I’m also not ready to give up the convenience of diapers, although that is way at the back of my list of why I’m not thrilled about all of this.
You may be reading this thinking, well that’s not too bad, but wait. There’s more. Potty training is not the only area where I might be stunting my child’s progression. You know how we’re supposed to stop giving our kids bottles at some ridiculous age? One or two years old? Yeah, I pretty much ignored that completely. Not only ignored it, but I affirmatively lie to the pediatrician about it. Yes, friends, Oscar still drinks from a bottle. Not all day, but every single day. He mostly drinks from either his own glass or a sippy cup, but he gets his milk from a bottle at night. I did wean him off them a while ago, but for the few months when he was without his bottle, his personality changed. My new-found happy boy reverted into mean surly boy. Nanny Norma kept telling me that “Oscar need bottle”, which I knew was the case, but I knew about the horrors of tooth rot and all that nasty stuff we’re avoiding by not allowing the evil bottle, so I refused to give it to him. Then one day we were trying to take a nap, with Oscar desperately signing “milk” to me, and I went to give it to him in a sippy – he threw it on the floor and just started sobbing. That was it. I put the milk in a bottle and happy Oscar reemerged. I don’t know how long I’ll keep this up. This one isn’t as much for me (although you know there’s part of me that likes it because of the “baby” issue), but I actually think his bottle is more significant to him than simply being a means to funnel milk into his body. I don’t know if it’s because his bottle is the one constant he’s had his life – I’m sure it was the one and only thing he had in the orphanage that gave him any comfort, regardless of whether the formula was watered down. He certainly has clung to it since we became a family. I don’t think I’ll take it away until after Baby Etta comes home. I suspect if I did, he would just regress and want it even more when she arrives (if she’s using one). We’ll have to see. I know I’m not alone here, but I am amazed at the cultural taboo associated with this issue.
I’m sure there are many other ways in which I’m a bad mom, but these are the two biggest that I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to admit. I just figure that since I so infrequently update this blog anymore, my confession is going to fall on mostly deaf ears and my secret should be safe here 
.
Pre-adoption checklist
Ask a woman in the process of adopting what she’s doing during her wait and she will inevitably mention the checklist of items she would like to accomplish before child number X arrives home. I, of course, am absolutely the same. My checklist this time is nowhere similar to the one I had before Oscar came home. That one was cluttered with all kinds of parenting-related items. Ha. All of the first-time mom shopping, of course, but also a lot of reading on how to be a mom (very little of what I read, BTW, was truly applicable to my situation – those books sadly are not written with adoptive families in mind). I completed a lot of online seminars on adoption and parenting – attachment, etc. (these proved helpful only with respect to allowing me to recognize that we were having attachment issues; not much in the sense of how to survive them). Obsessed about the type of formula I would use. Would I try to breastfeed? Would I obtain another woman’s breast milk for Oscar (yes, Dad, I considered that). I cannot even comprehend how many hours I must have spent researching the type of bottles we would use. Moms to be, I’ll save you some time – these are awesome. even on marble floors.
I realize how silly much of that was now. Now, my list is almost single-minded in its focus. What can I do now to make my life easier then, with “then” being the horrendous period that will occur when Baby Etta arrives home. Don’t get me wrong, I’m super excited about adding her to our family. But as those of you who have adopted know, transitions can be rough. They can suck. And if this one is anything like Oscar’s . . . well, I’m not going to let myself go there, but I’m going to do whatever I can to prepare for some of it.
What’s on my checklist?
- lose some weight – DONE – this one was on the list for a few reasons – vanity (I didn’t want to be fat and ugly in our gotcha day pics), health (“they” say it’s unhealthy to carry extra weight) and sheer survival (if I”m going to chase after two kids, it would help to be lighter. and it is soooo much easier to run around with Oscar with 30+ pounds gone). wish I had done this sooner.
- de-clutter the house – very much still in process. my house is making me insane. I feel like we move the same stuff around time after time. I’m trying to do a major purge in the next few months – even getting rid of things that have been sacred to me before (e.g. books – I have a lot of sacred books, and a lot of stupid ones, too). we might be moving this summer and I would like to be able to do that a lot more efficiently than before. Oscar’s baby clothes (the ones that aren’t entirely too masculine for Etta) are fair game, too).
- fix my computers – I used to have two computers at home – my macbook air and a desktop imac. loved them. Oscar really loved them. so much that the laptop is freaking out and we came home from Mexico to a desktop with the gray screen of death. our VN pics are on the laptop and the last year’s photos are on the other one, so I have to get them fixed. OH – I even have another old computer at home (yes, another mac and yes, it died too) that used to have my photos from Russia and Africa on them but those were lost too. add that one to the list.
- figure out how to backup my computers – see above. I actually have one of those external drives. I just am not sure what I’m supposed to do to use it.
- figure out Oscar’s educational plan – for crying out loud, the child is 2 1/2, but apparently I’m way behind the curve on this. I have no idea where he’s going to go to pre-school and I didn’t even make an attempt to get him into the good ones in SF.
- figure out where we’re going to live – see above. with the lottery system in SF, I don’t think I want to stay in the city when Oscar goes to school. do I have to explain that I’m not going to pay for private school for two kids? as a result, we’ll need to move in the next few years. where? that is the question. somewhere in the area, but I can’t really decide until I have a clue what’s going to happen with my career, etc.
- get a better grasp on Oscar’s medical and developmental issues – actively engaged on this; I’m thinking this is not going to be “accomplished” at any point, but perhaps I can get us past the insane number of consultations we have on our list so I can deal with eliminating parasites, etc. when Etta joins us.
- attempt to get Oscar excited about his sister – right now the concept is simply foreign to him. once he has a picture, maybe things will make a bit more sense.
- knit “baby” blankets – yes, plural. that’s because when I started knitting one for Etta, I realized I had not done one for Oscar, so now I have two projects. any bets on how many will be finished anytime soon?
- potty train Oscar – this is underway now. Nanny Norma told Oscar on New Year’s Eve that “next year you potty train”. I didn’t realize that by “next year,” she meant the next day she came to work, but Oscar has been making friends with his toilet ever since. this is going to take months. many months.
- take advantage of our routine – to go out to lunch with some friends or get that massage I keep saying I’ll get. it’s not going to get any easier to slip away when there are two of them at home, is it?
- enjoy being the mom of one awesome kid – one of the hardest parts of deciding whether to add to our family was knowing that I would have to change the special relationship I have with Oscar, as an only child. I think it will work out for the best for all of us, but that doesn’t make it any less difficult.
That’s my list. See anything major I’m missing? Anything you wish you had done before child #X came home?
Sister
Oscar said “sister” today! It was more like “itur,” but it gets the job done. We were working on the sign for sister (there are two options; we use the one where you sign girl and then same). Oscar sort of touches his face and then puts his index fingers together (“same”) and while I was signing, I kept repeating “sister.” He picked right up on it as well! He now has over 20 words that he can say. He even repeated it on Skype for Grandma and Grandpa and they were able to understand him, too. The child is amazing.
The most pathetic gingerbread house ever
Yes, I am this far behind. I’m only now getting to post pictures of the saddest gingerbread house ever built. Oscar and I went to the Children’s Museum last month for their gingerbread extravaganza. I was completely psyched about it. Why? I have no idea. I had never built a gingerbread house before, but it seemed like it would be such a fun thing to do with a kid during the holidays. Um, wrong. At least, wrong with respect to my kid.
Turns out that it is possible for a 2 1/2 year old to excel at building gingerbread houses. There were a lot of them right there in front of us (although they all had two parents “helping”). It’s just not possible for mine to do so. I was okay with that possibility going into this gig; I figured he’d sit around eating the decorations and I’d build the house myself. Right . . . apparently Oscar had other plans.
Within seconds of putting our supplies on the table, Oscar had eaten not only a handful of candy, but a decent chunk of the gingerbread itself. I figured that was fine; I’d just work with what was left. Well, what was left after Oscar munched his way through the foundation, part of the roof, the chimney and a couple of the walls ended up being enough to produce this:
Yes, a Gingerbread Shack. I guess you could call it a Gingerbread Lean-to, if you’d prefer. Just needs some tarps for the sides. As you can see, even when it was fully “assembled,” Oscar was still hacking at it. I tried to slap more icing on it so we could at least cover it with all the candy we had lying around, but Oscar took the icing and just started trying to squirt it into his mouth. The ladies at the museum were so appalled by us (or the house – or a combination of both) that they told me that I didn’t have to put our name on our platform for when it went on display. I, of course, took this as some sort of affront to my family’s honor, and grabbed the marker and wrote our last name in big, bold letters. Maybe we’ll have better luck next Christmas. I can only imagine that this will be easier when Oscar is three and I also have Baby Etta in tow.
At least Oscar had fun the rest of the day at the museum . . .
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Etta’s Hats
Where I’ve Been
