Merry Maids

I’m a rotten mother. The stress that has been pressing down on me from all the craziness with the county has started oozing out of my pores. My patience level is non-existent and the children are feeling the brunt of my malaise. On Sunday, I sat down a moment when the kids were napping and fell asleep. The morning had been frustrating, it seemed the more I cleaned the more messes I had to clean up. I would barely get done with one task when a new one would appear, or sometimes I couldn’t complete one task until taking care of an issue first. I couldn’t make breakfast until I washed some dishes because no one washed the dishes the day before (I was washing dishes when the adoption case worker came over and never got back to finish them). After breakfast, while I was washing more dishes (we really could use a dishwasher!), Chica Marie fell in a puddle of dog pee and I had to stop to clean it up. And so went the day. So, when Love Bug startled me from my nap by screaming in my face that he wanted juice, my reaction was not pleasant. I shoved him off of me and screamed at him. Not my finest moment by far. And, sadly, it took me more than a few minutes to make up to him with a cuddle and cup of juice. I felt so guilty about it the rest of the day.

 

Given all that has happened with the county, I feel an added pressure to be super-mom. It’s like I have to work to prove myself every single day or Chica Marie will be whisked away to her grandmothers. I have to make sure the house is perfectly spotless, which if you live with a toddler, you know is impossible, let alone the furry roommates who add to the mess. I have to be sure I stay on top of all of the school stuff and report appropriate things to the therapy and teaching staff. I have to balance my work schedule with the various appointments for all three kids plus myself. I have to make sure we do enough fun family things that can be written about in reports (and because we like doing them and would do them otherwise, it just seems important to have things to report). I have to make healthy meals the people will eat, or at least the majority of the people (Primero pretty much lives off of Cup of Soup and canned spaghetti not matter what I make). I work a full-time job outside of the home, so I don’t have many hours during the week, even less when you add in all the therapy and other appointments we have – like trainings. I’m supposed to find time for myself. I need to spend time alone with each child. And, I have all the chores – the laundry, dishes, sweeping, vacuuming, dusting, washing, wiping, mopping, scrubbing, rearranging, picking up, putting away.

 

I’m tired. I knew motherhood wasn’t easy, but so much of my time is spent cleaning up after the little darlings that I hardly get time to spend with them, unless snarling at them to not walk on my freshly washed floor counts. It’s maddening! I want to be the mom who lets the kids finger paint and help me bake cookies and never wince at the mess they are making because it’s just one. more. thing. I have to clean. I grew up on a farm. We were very messy kids. Playing in mud was literally our summer past time. So, how did I become this neurotic maniac who cringes at every crumb the kids drop? Maybe it’s because I feel like the maid, constantly cleaning up from one mess to another. Maybe I could use some help? I’ve taught Chica Marie to sweep the floor and wipe up messes, but sometimes her cleaning help only equates more of a mess for me. I wish I could just let it all go, and maybe I will after the adoption, but most of the time I’m hoping the multitude of professionals traipsing through our house can’t feel whatever is crunching on the floor through their shoes.

 

I’ve contemplated saving up and have a Merry Maids service come clean the house once a month to give me a break, but I know me. If I do that, it means I will pre-clean before they get there because I won’t want them to know the levels of slovenly depravity in which we live. So, that kind of defeats the purpose. Still, it might be worth it to get the things done I am forever trying to get around to. I suppose things might be easier if I had a partner, but I didn’t really find it to be true when I was married. I would need to be married to a second me in order to truly unclench and relax a bit because my real issue is that my standards are too high. My home will never be featured in Better Homes and Gardens, but shhh don't tell my inner perfectionist!

 

What works best is for us to be busy on the weekends, to be out of the house and therefore my inner perfectionist doesn’t have to grumpily stomp around the messy house with a sourpuss face. It’s not possible for us to be out and about all the time, but when we can, we really should be out. This cuts the hours of time I have to dedicate to cleaning and lessens the frustrations I feel about the house not meeting my standards. It would also help to not feel like my house is being judged every time a professional comes over, but this too shall pass.

 

 

Separate Yet Equal

Chica Marie’s adoption is currently on hold. I’m not sure what exactly will cause the county to feel ready to proceed, but I know her adoption is currently postponed. When we had the big meeting, the GAL was opposed to finalizing Love Bug’s adoption without his sister. The GAL said this would crush Chica Marie and I tend to agree. But, on the other hand, they (the county/GAL) cannot allow the tumultuous circumstances with Chica Marie to hold up the adoption of Love Bug because that isn’t fair to him. We are very much stuck between a rock and a hard place because there is no easy answer. The CHOR adoption case worker has proposed finalizing Love Bug’s adoption on the DL (down low) and then celebrating both of their adoptions when Chica Marie is adopted. This only works if no one breathes a word to Chica Marie about Love Bug’s adoption. Which means not telling Mini Momma, it would seem. I see so many more pitfalls to this plan than I see positives. The one great positive the adoption case worker mentioned was no longer having to worry about grandma taking Love Bug – she couldn’t do that if he was adopted. While I can voice an opinion and of course I could down-right not agree to adopt Love Bug without his sister, I do so at my own peril. The vision I had of all three siblings being adopted on the same day in one big, happy ceremony has evaporated into ether. At best, I can hope for a subdued adoption for Love Bug and a mock celebratory one for Chica Marie. The only lasting solace I have is knowing, at that point, it would all be over.

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Get My Goat

One of the things that really got my goat was the GAL’s near demonization of Primero. She stated that every time she has seen Chica Marie (which, keep in mind, has been twice at court) she is told how mean Primero is to Chica Marie. In fact, when we had court in the spring, Chica Maire reported that Primero hit her, thus spurring the GAL into making a call. My guess is she called the child line to report abuse because the county case worker talked to me about it. I was utterly flabbergasted at the time. The only thing I could think of was how they pillow fight and she keeps at him until he makes her cry. I know of no other instances where Primero “hit” her. The GAL wanted me to explain why Chica Marie would say such things about him. Um, how about the fact that she calls anyone mean who won’t let her have her way? Or maybe, she calls him mean because he won’t let her do the things he does? Because there is a major age difference. Primero is not mean to Chica Marie. He might get exasperated with her, but never mean.

 

When the Mobile Therapist was over last week and we were dealing with the massive melt-down, Primero popped up in the middle of things. His presence was calming to Chica Marie. He stopped what he was doing and spent time with her, hugging her, holding her hands, talking gently to her. She lapped up his attention, seeking his advice and his big brother wisdom. Oh how I wish the GAL could have seen them together! He was calm and gentle with her, trying to help her out of the behavioral whirlwind she was in. It worked, albeit temporarily, but it did work. She calmed down and almost re-engaged. I accidentally triggered her again just after Primero left to take a shower.

 

Last night Chica Marie was out-of-control. Once again, it was Primero’s calmness that helped soothe her so she could eat something for dinner. He was not mean, he was trying to get her to calm down. The night after Chica Marie heard from her sister that their grandmother was considering adopting her, it was Primero who talked matter-of-factly to her about what that would actually mean. He got down to her level, looked her in the eyes and explained how it would be different living with Grandma instead of in our home. She stood and listened to him, in a way she would not have listened to me saying the same things.

 

It hurts my heart to think the GAL, who has never even met Primero, would have such unfavorable thoughts about him. Her distaste for my son was evident in how she spoke about him and how she didn’t believe my incredulous reaction to her accusations. She wanted to use it as an excuse to block the adoption, to move Chica Marie to her grandmothers. Fortunately for us, the CHOR case worker was equally incredulous, citing many times seeing Primero in the big brother role, as a helper and role model. As far as I’m concerned, the GAL can go blow smoke. Her judgments are wrong. And it would be despicable of her to continue pushing Primero under the bus as part of her agenda to get Chica Marie with the grandmothers. I’m so glad the GAL is leaving. May the new one bring a better frame of mind to this case!

Control Your Reactions

“You cannot control what other people do, but you can control your reactions to them.”  This pretty much sums up how things have been going between me and the little ones grandmother. I really, naively, thought an honest conversation would clear the air. I, perhaps stupidly, thought we had a different kind of relationship than I’ve recently discovered we do. I thought we were getting somewhere, the summer sibling picnic, the frank conversation I had with her after the August meeting, our ability to contact one another for visits without county/foster agency staff involvement. Sadly, I was wrong. We have next to nothing. Certainly, she doesn’t have the same respect for me that I had for her.

 

I had been planning on calling her sometime last week, but I got sick and lost my voice and didn’t think croaking in her ear would be the best way to converse. Earlier this week, she text me, asking to set up a visit. We agreed on this coming weekend. She wanted an overnight visit and I said, due to the behaviors Chica Marie has been having ever since her sister spilled the beans, I felt it was best to keep the visit to one day only, to give her time to recuperate for school. Grandma expressed she was unaware. The next day she text me back stating she spoke with Mini Momma and confirmed that Mini Momma had shared something with Chica Marie but that it was something she didn’t know for sure. Besides, the county case worker suggested they broach the subject with Mini Momma, assuming things went in that direction. She said Mini Momma was sorry that Chica Marie was upset. Um? She also said Mini Momma had plans for this coming weekend and could we do the 28^th instead?   

 

At this point I decided to just jump in. Why keep dancing around the issue? So I said I was sorry the county case worker had gotten the wrong impression but my dedication to Chica Marie had never wavered. I expressed how I had wished we could have talked about things before they got to that point. The only thing I was asking for was help. For Chica Marie. I let her know we have plans for the 28^th.  Her next response was when I started getting angry. She said she didn’t want to talk about things because she thought it was something between me and the county – we needed to work it out. She mentioned they were in the background as support (Support for who? Not for us…) and she felt her wife’s credentials would be beneficial for her grandchild. Why would she send her grandchild to a strange place with strangers? She asked for dates we were available and ended the text stating “so we can get the kids together, it 100% about them right?” with a smiley face. And you wonder why I wanted to TALK?! My response was that I was following the recommendations of the professionals and that I didn’t want Chica Marie going anywhere either. I gave her some dates, she chose one and we agreed upon it, thus ending our correspondence.   

 

The entire exchange left me feeling so angry, so unheard, so belittled. I will continue working with Grandma because I have to, because it’s what the county wants. And, because I know how important biological connection is for adopted children, I will continue working with Grandma even beyond adoption. But, we don’t need to be friends. I would like that, it’s what I was hoping for ultimately, but this whole thing has been so damaging. I don’t want to send the kids off to see her. I don’t want to invite her into our lives. She doesn’t want to try to understand me, so I don’t feel I need to try to understand her. I’ve gone through some hard things with Primero’s birth family. And, because of it, I felt a shift in how I interact with them. I don’t try as hard anymore. I don’t feel the need. We are still amicable, but we wouldn’t ever spend time together without Primero being present. It’s sad, but I don’t know how to keep the door open, keep getting hurt, and keep coming back for more. I feel like that’s the route I’ll be taking with Grandma. I had had high hopes things with her would be easier, different, more genuine. But, all that has happened recently has proven me wrong. The relationship will be there for the children, always. But, I’ll be taking an outsider stance.  

Train Trip

I feel a need to record some of the nice, fun things that have been happening in our lives, in contrast to all of the really hard stuff. I don’t want to think everything is always doom and gloom. Last weekend I took the little ones to a small, quaint town up in the coal region, called Jim Thorpe. They were hosting a Fall Festival but the thing drawing us there was the train rides because Love Bug has recently developed a train obsession. I had been hoping to get a train ride from near our town to the event, but the tickets sold out. So, we drove the 90 minutes there. It was a fairly pleasant ride, although Love Bug had an accident the moment we got to town. Fortunately, I had a change of clothes along for him. His car seat mostly dried by the time we ended our day and it was promptly disseminated to be cleaned. It’s the glamorous side of the mom life.

 

The day was cloudy and while the sun never really made an appearance, it was not cold and dreary. I wanted to ride the 10:30 train but we only got there at 10:30 and had to settle for the 1:20 train. This left us ample time to wander around, buy junk food for the kids and tour a local church. We toured the church to get away from the kittens a rescue was trying to rehome outside the church. The kids were mostly interested in the elevator, one of the oldest operating elevators in the country. It was super-cool, being a cage elevator with heavy iron doors, but I found the church itself to be magnificent. It was hewed into the hill it sat on, some of the inside walls showing the rock outcropping foundation of the building. The stained glass windows were made by Tiffany, the actual man and were stunning. Pocket doors with old lead glass, gorgeous architecture in the two chapels with several stories of a unique layout with exquisite details and expert care. I could have spent the day just wandering around the church! The children, alas, were less-interested in the workmanship and once they rode the elevator to all available floors, they remembered the kittens outside and thus ended our tour abruptly. Fortunately for me, the horse and carriage ride was passing by the church and it offered ample distraction for us to leave kitten and melt-down free. Love Bug, who has eschewed holding my hand since forever, almost got hit by a car because he wasn’t listening to me, but disaster was averted by a fast moving mama and slow moving car. Love Bug kicked me for my troubles. Still, we managed only a mini melt-down, flinging himself to the ground, before we were able to carry on.

 

I tried slowing our progress but there was only so much staring at old things the kids could take and we didn’t walk far enough away, so we ended up back at the train station with ample time to wait for our train. Love Bug was tired and I tried cuddling him to sleep, but the noise and excitement was too much for him. Finally, we were able to board our train. It was a two hour trip out to the Hometown High Bridge. I was grateful to be sitting down because I had a raging head cold and all the chasing and walking and talking and cajoling left me utterly exhausted. Not gonna lie, I nodded off a tad on the ride back. The High Bridge, as the name suggests, is a very tall bridge over a gorge filled with trees and a creek cutting down the middle. I tried to take pictures showing just how high up we were but they didn’t do the experience justice. After our train ride we grabbed some snacks for the ride home, which the kids gobbled down before zonking out in their car seats.

 

The best part of the day was when I finally took my much needed, long anticipated soaking bubble bath. Both the kids were in bed so I could bathe undisturbed and it was glorious. We have an old, large claw foot tub that just begs for someone to slip into the welcoming waters. I lounged in the hot soapy water until it turned cold and my skin puckered into a prune. It was definitely a well-earned bubble bath and it did help me to feel more human. My cold has slowly been abating, although my voice has not yet returned. Maybe I just need another luxurious soak in the bubble bath?

Infertility Collateral Damage

A few weekends ago my mom, Chica Marie and I went on a chocolate walk in a neighboring county. It’s a pretty popular event, so I had bought tickets in July and surprised my mom for her birthday. I had been to the chocolate walk a few years ago and my mom has wanted to go ever since, but, as life sometimes does, things happened and she was too sick or injured to go. Until this year, that is. On our 40 minute drive to the town Chica Marie informed my mom that I have a boyfriend. She had just discovered this herself the weekend prior when Primero was picking me up at a local winery after we imbibed a wine tasting and whole bottle of our favorite to celebrate my birthday. It was really big news for her, having seen us kiss good-bye, so I’m not surprised she told my mom. I wished I had been able to do it, but once the cat was out of the bag, it really wasn’t a big deal. I gave my mom some information and she said she was glad I had someone to do adult things with – she meant going out and having a wine tasting, but I chuckled at the double entendre.

 

It was an unseasonably warm day for our chocolate walk and we did a lot of walking, traversing the entire town and covering well over 2 miles from 10 am until about 3:30 pm. We stopped for lunch, after munching on chocolate goodies all morning, and somehow my mom and I got onto the topic of the natural herbs the practitioner recommended I take to help with my hormonal issues. As she has expressed in the past, my mom said she didn’t think I tried long enough with my ex. Inwardly I sighed. Outwardly I pushed back, declaring that we did try for almost 4 years and that generally it doesn’t take more than a year for a healthy young couple to conceive. She pshawed my remarks and insisted had we stayed together and tried longer things might have gone differently. I said it was a moot point and that my age was going to start being a factor now that I’m older than 35 and that seemed to quiet her complaints. I know she thinks I would be like her and since it took her 5 years to get pregnant with me, then it would take me just as long. I also know she wishes I could have babies as much as I wish I could, but it hurts nonetheless. And, it doubly hurts to think my mom doesn’t think I tried hard enough when it felt to me like I did what I could with the resources we had available. I have come to realize, in the collateral damage of infertility, I can’t get everyone to understand and be ok with the way things played out. I also know, I cannot live in the could of, should of world. The if only’s would drown me, the might have’s slay my heart. The possibilities look endless to those not in the trenches. I tried 6 rounds of Clomid, with the hot flashes, the headaches, the hormonal upheaval, the life-altering dizzy spells. I endured a painful hysterosalpingogram my doctor didn’t think I needed but my mom thought would be a good idea. I was given a diagnosis after multiple vials of blood, lab tests, and my first ultrasound. If my insurance had covered even a fraction of the treatment, I would have gone further. But, having to pay such a handsome sum out-of-pocket was simply not possible. And so, we stopped. I prayed fervently for a miracle, but one just never came. I have mostly made peace with my lot as is. I just wish my mother could do the same.

Sweet Sweet Fantasy Baby

A friend of mine at work caught me off guard one evening as I was leaving work. She said she had thought of me because her niece was having a baby she couldn’t parent. She was trying to find a family member to adopt her daughter, but had not been successful. My friend explained they thought a cousin who lost twins might take the baby, but she didn’t. My friend didn’t feel she was in a stable enough situation to take on raising an infant. I told her it was sweet of her to think of me and that I wished them all the best in this trying time. She later reported the baby was placed with a waiting couple over an hour away. Out-of-the blue my friend sent me a picture of this precious, beautiful baby and it threw me for a loop. I know she is trying to process this and I might be the only person she knows who has adopted a child, but I find it just a little inappropriate and slightly painful. It’s not as if I would even entertain adopting this baby for a whole host of reasons, but just the mere mention of it made me envision a tiny baby in our home again. I think if my friend had just made mention of it and let it at that, I wouldn’t be writing about it, but she took it a step further. She made it real by sending me a picture of the baby. Again, I think she might feel like she can’t share this with anyone else and I’m not angry about it, just mildly perplexed. The picture looks like one of those newborn photo shoots, so I’m guessing it was shared by the new adoptive parents. My friend made sure to mention they had until this coming week to change their mind. The timing of this interaction couldn’t have been worse, given all that has been going on with Chica Marie. To not emotionally unravel over this, I’ve envisioned the delighted adoptive parents and the opposing bereft mother; the sweet and bitter of adoption. And, I’m hoping my friend has gotten this all out of her system now because I have zero extra emotional energy to devote to such fantastical dalliances.

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