House of Cards

Why do we do it?  Why do we love to build a house of cards.  Here is Q with his very first.  He is celebrating.  If you don't have a six year old boy in your life you may not recognize it but six year old boys often need to get upside down in order to celebrate.  I do not know why this is.  My son is a mystery to me.  

I am posting this quickly, late at night because of a sweet note that Julie left asking if I'm OK.  Hmmm.  I am OK yes.  I am also, well I don't know know but there is a general hurricane of longing going on around us isn't there?  I'm caught up in it too, to the point of speechlessness (or writers block.)

The good news: I got a job.  I lost my job on November 15th.  I knew it was coming and so in September we put a hold on our adoption paperwork.  Horrible.  Horrible.  Horrible.  But still I know I'm so very very very lucky.  I have Q.  I have been at my new job for 4 weeks.  20 people interviewed for my position.  10 were put through to the top level of interviews.  3 of us came back several times.  And then they chose me.  I keep thinking of the 19 others who interviewed.  It's very tough out there in Manhattan these days and while I usually think I'm one in a million these days I know the odds are much much different.  I am so humbled by my good fortune I try not even to think of it.  I feel, in a word, quilty.  I know I shouldn't but there you go.

Meanwhile our social worker was laid off and we will have to do some of our home study over.  We have had so many twists and turns on this journey.  But I have been in contact with our agency and we are coming off of hold and will be pulling all the paperwork together in the next few weeks.  

I now ride the train to work (which beats the heck out of driving 120 miles a day like I was before) and I have lots of time to think.  All that I think about is my youngest child's mother.  I cannot help thinking of what she is going through right now.  That is if she is still alive.  We are hoping to bring home a child between 3 and 5 years old.  They are alive, living, breathing and loving.  They are wrapped (please God) in someone's arms as they fall asleep and they are loved.  Someone sings them lullabies.  And their mother?  What of she?  Is she trying to hold her family together?  Is she still doing OK and unaware that she will one day have to let go of her little one's hand?  I cannot stop thinking of her.  I feel as though I am walking toward her, slowly and while I know of her she knows nothing of me.  And for every step I struggle to make always in a forward motion no matter how small she takes a step too but her steps are not of her making.  Forward she walks toward me because of what?  Politics?  Poverty?  Disease?  Fate?  I suffer and I know I should.  If I'm not willing to bear this longing with at least an ounce of grace then I am not worthy of her.  She suffers but what does it do for her?  I am overwhelmed by my love for her.  One day she will take that final step with her little one's hand in hers and then she will have to let go.  She will need a faith that is difficult for me to comprehend.  I am of course imagining that she is alive.  I do not know why.  I suppose because I want that for my youngest child.  I do not want my child to lose his or her mother.  Not to death.  I want the possibility of life.  I want the promise.  One day, we could go back.  One day the country will be healthier.  This will be just an interlude, the thing that brought us, family, together.  We will go back with photos and diplomas and we will have coffee and sing and dance and laugh and cry and cry and cry.

I know.  I know.  It's a house of cards.  Fascinated, I am unable to stop building them.

Thank you Julie for asking.  Now please everyone that reads this post - please pray Julie's and Evelyn's babies on home!  I need some baby photos and they need some children.

And to all of you with your babies and children home - please keep posting photos.  I know I speak for so many when I say they keep me going.

kisses and hugs for everyone on this journey. 

"One Day/Day One" Washington, January 20th, 2009

Y and my mom drove to Washington yesterday to be with the millions of others who simply could not stay away.  I am so happy and so proud of the two of them.  They do not have tickets to anything (although my mother tried her hardest to procure tickets to something - anything) but that did not deter them.  They simply had to be there on that hollowed ground.  

My mom and dad arrived from Chicago on Friday Afternoon and today, dad, Q and I went to the Natural History Museum in NYC.  My dad's first time there.  It was special as the three of us rarely get time together, but my mind was fixated on mom and Y.  What must it be like to be in Washington now?  

I am blessed to have these two in my lives.  These  souls for whom freedom and justice and equality mean so much that they must travel down together to stand in the cold just to feel the change in the air.  They are those people.  

Tomorrow I will leave home at 6:30 AM and not get home till about 8:00 PM.  I will try to do my best at my new job while I try not to worry too much about my dad getting Q through his day.  Poor little Q, crying off and on for his dad.  I will say many prayers throughout the day that mom and Y have the day of their dreams.

But more than all of these thoughts I will reflect in whatever free moments I have on all the lives lost in the struggle.  From Dr.King and Malcolm X to the many, many nameless to history (but not to their families) victims of hatred and bigotry.  I do hope there is a freedom land somewhere and I hope the inhabitants can see what my mom and Y will see.  If they can I doubt there will be tears of any kind.  There have been enough tears.  Tuesday is a day for rejoicing.

As the t-shirt says "One Day/ Day One..."

The Mind of a Six Year Old

When Q was about 9 months old our pediatrician ordered a brain scan to 'just make sure' his sudden leap in head circumference was nothing to worry about.  We would go have the scan and that would be that.  A few days after the scan she called us to say that the technician found an 'abnormality' and that she was referring us to a pediatric neurologist.  I remember thinking that once he was born I literally thought I was done with all of the specialists.  So the scan is sent to the neurologist and we set up an appointment to see her.  It happened that my mother was visiting and so we all went; Y, me, Q and my mom.  The neurologist was very nice, almost peppy when we first entered the office.  We sat Q on the rug and she observed him for a few short minutes while we talked.  She was friendly and chit chatty and we were all stretched nerves.  And then she put the scans up onto her light board and there was pictures of sliced sections of Q's brain.  At that moment I almost lost it.  Brain imagery should never involve your family is my opinion.  There were dozens of small images and she started at the first one and pointed out all the different parts of his brain and gave us her opinion on EACH SCAN.   When she was about 3/4's of the way through the images my mother leaned over and whispered that if anything was wrong she would have gotten to the point by now.  And at the moment I realized he was fine.  I suddenly realized that if you are a pediatric neurologist you probably spend a lot of your time giving parents really bad news and that when you only had good news to share you might want to really go into what you love about a healthy brain.  She was in her element.  He did have an abnormality that she had seen in other Irish American children (my mother blurted out - "are you about to blame the grandmother?!" to which she said, laughingly, "well - yes!" and that abnormality did lead to a 'growth spurt' of the head at around this age.  

So there we were;  parents of a healthy baby with a really big head.  Not bad.  We were handed the brain scans to keep and told we could refer back to them if he ever had an injury that he needed another brain scan.  I'll be happy never to refer back to them.  I would like to be able to look at them and read other things however.  The how and the why of a six year old little boy who is now not our little mimic but his very own real person with likes and dislikes all his own.  A wonderful stew of our influence, his biology and the crazy bunch of experiences he's had in his 6 years.  

Lacking any information from the scans I've begun to look at his bedroom for the clues.  His room is for the most part his to do with as he wishes (except for painting black to look like the night sky - we have to save something for his messed up adolescence.)  Gone are the days of his sweet nursery where I made all the design choices.  No more Babar, no more plush toys of the cat n the fiddle, no more night lights.  Now it's all Q.  And I love it more now than ever before. However, I do wish I had taken a photo of his room when we had the scan done.  His room as it looked when I thought I knew him and had ideas about who he might turn into.  Ha!  How silly.  And so I am recording his room at 6 years old.  Q's favorite things now.  

Q's Room, 6 years and counting;

Monkey Water Skiing; pulled from magazine and taped to wall next to bed

Stuffed Animals - Everywhere!!!  

His Sticker Table:  He painted it red and now covers it with stickers he likes

Dancing Men Paper Chain his aunt made him

Books, books, books.  Recent quote: 

"When I can finally read, all my toys are going to be books!"

Lion puppet bought on one of many frequent visits to China Town.

Floor Puzzle

Not a floor puzzle but on the floor because it's Pokemon.

More Floor Puzzles

Lego models EVERYWHERE!

Joke books and boxes of rocks and crystals

His hat rack - cowboy hats, football helmets and everything in between.

Dream Catcher his aunt gave him when he was having nightmares.

It worked!

Poster his Papa Lou sent him.

Sports posters ripped out of magazines and taped haphazardly around his room.

His binoculars that must be within reach at all times

His third birthday invitation, signed by Reggie Jackson and framed

the souvenir he bought himself at the American Indian Museum: a box of Indian Masks.

His first writing hung on his wall per his request.  

"Mom, how do you spell "Revolutionary War?"

More sports posters

His pet fish Ice Cream

His 4th birthday - Skateboarding party decorations 

The planets hanging above his bed.

The planets stuck on the wall behind his bed

His bed - with some of the animals he

 'HAS TO' have in order to fall asleep.

Love, Loss and Root Beer

Last year, one evening while we were finishing up dinner Q said to his father, "Dad, how do you feel about fish?"  

"I like it.  It's delicious!"  Replied my husband.

"Nooooo, I mean PET fish Dad!"  

So started the conversation that led to our adventures in animal husbandry.  Or fish husbandry.  It has been a marvel to me how complicated this has been our exploits in creating a living environment for these fish.  If I wrote it all down it would be good for an entire television sitcom season.  Perhaps one day I will and that will be our ticket to the big time.  Today, however is not the day.  What I want to say today is that Q and I have become very attached to our wee aquatic friends.  We have two tanks, one in his bedroom ( a single Beta Male fish with truly beautiful red body and fins) and one tank in our dining room which up until yesterday contained three Cardinal Tetras and one velvety blue female Tetra name Potato Chip (red beta is French Fries and the three little ones are something like Ice Cream, Root Beer and Bubble Gum.)  Yesterday, Potato Chip died.  She died while he was in school - thank goodness since it was not pretty - she was gasping and doing a combat crawl across the bottom of the tank.  I scooped her up and got her out of the tank before he came home last night and because he had a friend over for a play date he never noticed.  

And so this morning after breakfast, I put him on my lap and told him that his little fish died yesterday.  His eyes opened large and he turned to look into the tank and then fell against me and cried and cried.  If it had been one of the little three schooling fish I doubt that would have been the reaction but this was beautiful blue Potato Chip who was the star of the tank.  Full of vigor and wiggle and always swimming in and out of the various rocks and things we gave her, she was fun to watch and we often commented on her antics as we ate our meals.  

"I'm mad at God Mom" was his first response.  

"I wish I could do something to help you sweetie, I know it's hard."

"I want Root Beer" was his second response.  Which was not a request for another pet fish but rather for the soda.  A week ago, he had talked me into ordering root beer for lunch while we were out having pizza and I gave in which is not something I typically do but I was in my first just lost my job haze and he ended up with a huge bottle of root beer in front of him.  I asked for a glass, poured him his root beer and then took the rest home.  Since then we have not been around at a time I think soda is an option (which is basically only lunch.)  And he has been talking about that root beer for a week.

I looked at him and was still about to say no not for breakfast when he popped off my lap, ran into the kitchen, open the refrigerator with his usual heave ho style and grabbed the bottle of root beer from the door.  I wish I could say he swiftly opened the bottle and downed the stuff but he struggled with cap and was not able to get it off.

I got up from my chair and took the bottle, unscrewed the cap and poured him a small shot of root beer which when I handed it to him he downed in two or three swigs.  Had it been Saturday morning I would have let him drink the entire thing, but I felt his teacher did not need a grieving 6 year old on a sugar high.  With pop music coming from the radio, dinner and breakfast dishes pile up high in our little 1940's alley kitchen and the scent of coffee and banana bread wrapped around us we stood there in the kitchen for a moment looking at each other.  Out the kitchen window I spotted a blue fleck and had Q quickly stand up on a chair and pointed out our Blue Bird friend hopping up and down the branches of our neighbors towering pine tree.  We didn't say anything just watched him for a moment.  He was almost nearly the same color as our little fish.  Q looked at me, smiled and then gave me a big hug.  "I'm taller than you" he said as he let go of me and I grabbed him took him off the chair and said to him as he escaped my tickling hands "Not yet you aren't baby, not yet."

Alice Walker's An Open Letter to Barack Obama

Extraordinary as always. Alice Walker. Required reading. Period.

http://www.theroot.com/id/48726

Enjoy!

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.

We are the ones we've been waiting for.

We are the change that we seek.

Barack Obama

November 4th, 2008, 6:30 AM Polling Place

Yes. We brought a camera.

Before

the before picture.
Us. February. 2008.

Raising a Super Hero

These past few weeks have been challenging. I work in the financial field. In New York. Nuf said.

Meanwhile, these past few weeks have been glorious. To watch a wee preschooler turn into a young boy "I am not a little boy!" And this past week I realized he is correct. He is not a little boy. He is a boy. The painting above was done by our dear friend Rick Price. Q is 2 1/2 years old in the painting. When I asked Rick to paint Q's portrait I was thinking of the classic portrait. We had a baby blue sweater with a peter pan color that Q never wore but that I loved. However, I believe in letting the artist follow his instincts so when Rick asked what I was thinking I left it to him. "I'm thinking, Spiderman" said Rick. Rick worked at our local cafe and almost on a daily basis Q and I would stroll in, me wearing exaustion with as much grace as I could muster (Q is not a sleeper) and Q wearing - almost every day - his spiderman costume. He was not allowed to wear it the two days he was at daycare (against the rules) but every other day he had it on. Q wasn't pretending anything in those days, he WAS spiderman. You can see it in this portrait, can't you? Spiderman going over his accomplishments at the end of a long day. Relishing the fame. And he was/is famous. "Hey" casual passerbys would say "it's Spiderman. Nice to see you!" And Q would nod usually. Sometimes give a small wave with his little hand. Those little hands in the portrait, Rick got the hands perfectly. They are Q's hands. No one elses.

After Spiderman there was Batman. Same thing - about a year. One day soon I'll write about our adventures out in costume. Those days were magical. I often think about the fact that I am not raising a boy, I am raising a man. Well, lately I have begun to think I am raising a super hero.

We are conservative people. So during challenging times, we pull back a bit and prepare ourselves for anything. Last year Q took drum lessons until the summer. We were going to take the summer off and start in the fall again. He was excited. In truth we have the money. And some to spare. But like I said, we are conservative and so we are slowing down on some of our 'wants' in order to never have to worry about our needs. I explained to Q that while we did have the money we thought it best to keep it. Things are uncertain and that we could practise the drum at home in the meantime. He smiled at me and said OK. "I think that is smart mom."

Meanwhile he has been actively petitioning for a new pet (we have 5 fish in two tanks) which are his responsibility and now he wants a guinnie pig. We had pretty much said it was a possibility for Christmas. But last week we decided again that while we had the cash, we didn't feel it was a great example for Q that during uncertain times we take on more responsibility with bringing another, living, breathing, eating animal in our home. And so I sat him down and said exactly that. Not in any kind of heavy way at all, in fact hopefully with a happiness about it. I explained that we liked to live simply in general but especially now. I said the reason that we did was so that our worries were always very small and that we never had anything bigger to think about than maybe are we eating too much dessert? Or what color are we going to paint the bedroom? Simple stuff. Again, he looked at me and said "OK, I understand. We'll have a new pet one day." Yes, we will. And we hugged. And I was amazed.

A few days ago, I came home from work and we were getting ready to read stories. He was sitting in his rocker and said "I'm just going to rock for a moment and think. You can sit on the bed and talk to me if you like." "OK" I said and I sat down on his bed. We talked for a couple of minutes and then he said "I think you are a great Mom." Wow. It's the best thing in the world. Then he got up from his chair and got into bed and told me to sit forward a little bit. I did and I felt his little hands rubbing my shoulders. Although rubbing is too strong a word because in reality his touch was so gentle I could barely feel it. "Q, are you giving me a massage?" "Yes, I know you've had a hard day." About one minute later he got down and went into the bathroom and came back with an absolutely soaking wet warm washcloth." He had me rest my head on a pillow and put the cloth on my forehead (his father does this for him if Q says he has a headache.) While I layed there he rubbed my feet for a minute. "There, do you feel more relaxed?" Yes, I told him but did he think I wasn't relaxed? Do I look when I come home like I'm not relaxed. "No, you look happy" he said (whew - I was beginning to get worried.) "I just thought that after a long day you could use a little extra relaxation."

Obviously, we have been giving Q massages since he was a baby. He is a wound up kind of guy and it always helped him go to sleep. And now this week I see we were giving him more than a massage. We were teaching him how to take care of the ones he loves. And what else is a super hero but someone who knows how to look inside the heart of the people they love and respond with kindness and love.

Are we raising a superhero? I think our little superhero is raising us.

Turning Six

We have said good bye to 5 and are now onto 6. It's different. It's been a bit different for a month or so. He's more him and less us. He's adding to the conversation. He mimics less but still asks and asks and asks. He wants to know now. The weekend started with presents and fun and ended in the woods on a lake. Cold but with the sweet wood smoke autumn air at a memorial hootenanny for a friend's father. And in between a party at home with 10 or so little boys (and one little girl) running around inside and out living completely in the moment and happy. The little girl, 5 years old asked if she could play the violin and so right after the Happy Birthday song and while we all devoured our cupcakes she played her violin. It's wonderful. And yet all the while I am thinking - 'Five is gone? That's it? How? Where did it go? No. I'm not ready. I want it back. Now. I'm not kidding.'

And yet I cannot deny that I love 6 already. Love that he is becoming more of himself. Love that he is adding to the conversation. Love what he remembers and how he's stretching his independence. Love that he is trying to figure out where we end and he starts. I love it, I do. I just want more. And when he blew out the candles on his birthday cookie (yes, cookie) I made a wish with him. I wished that every child turning 6, every child all over the world who turns from 5 to 6 and all the children younger and older than that too would know the happiness and love and security that Q has already known. And while I wished for something I knew was not yet possible I prayed that God might give me the knowledge and strength to help make it so.