Two moments that melted my heart yesterday:
Running into Sasha in the hallway and watching Sasha and Little Bug smile and wordlessly link hands to walk outside. Watching them stare at each other with little smiles before waving goodbye. Hearing Little Bug talk about Sasha for the rest of the night. Knowing that Sasha might be gone from Little Bug's daily life, but his impact on my son's spirit is not.
and
Hearing my son calmly murmur "mama" in his sleep over and over again.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
1,000 Ways to Love You
Little Bro,Today we received close to 1,000 pictures and video of you. Pictures from when you were just 8 weeks old to pictures of you crawling and walking and now running.
Even though I am blessed to have many of these same pictures of your older brother, seeing your pictures now, before I have met you, has allowed me to feel like I know you in some way. I know what you look like smiling and sleeping and snotty and drooly and angry and tired and bored and amused and curious. I know how sure of your feet you are now, and how tentative you used to be. I know what your first baby smile looked like and how your voice sounded just as you were finding it. I know what you chose on your Tol, and I know how you only chose your item after a melt down, cuddles from Omma and Appa, and a bottle break.
I'll never be the same.
This wait is awful, and I think it was/is bound to get worse, but being able to share this history with you...having more pictures than day left waiting....it makes it so much more bearable, makes you so much more real. It makes the wait more unreal than you.
I feel so guilty that I got this blessing and others have not. I can't wrap my mind around how randomly lucky I am.
Seeing these pictures today also made me very sad. Not that I was missing these moments with you, but that these beautiful moments are temporary for this family who clearly loves you as a son with a passion that oozes from every film cell. It makes my heart hurt in a way I won't be able to sooth for the rest of my life.
Because I feel like I know them now, too.
As I sit here tonight with your big brother curled up against me, my heart is filled with thoughts of you and him and your families in Korea.
And my heart is so very full tonight.
Safety Kid
As a mama, I know I shouldn't be bummed that my small child is naturally fearful and skeptical of men wearing fake beards and red velvet suits while encouraging children to sit on his lap and tell him what goodies he can bring when he breaks into their homes at night and of knocking on random strangers' doors at night and asking them to give him candy.
But I am.
But I am.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Eye of the Tiger
Today is a day I have been dreading and preparing for during the last 2 years. Little Bug is set to lose all his therapists when he turns 3 next month and will be getting his services from our local school district (and we're lucky we had the foresight to move into a good district). I'm completely freaked about him losing his excellent ST and PT, but that is for a different day.
Today he gets evaluated by the schools for what services he qualifies for. Our hope and belief is that he should qualify for the excellent half day, language intensive preschool program where an ST and PT will see him during his time there. It's a good school, perfect for almost all his needs (minus the smaller focus on PT), and it fits with our schedule. He can do mornings there and they will bus him directly to his normal school for the afternoon.
However, based on his PT evaluation of 15-18 months (Little Bug is almost 3), as misleading as it is, they want to put him in this really intense one-on-one program for severely disabled children. I'm against that because I don't think that is what he needs, nor do I think removing his social and independent components would be beneficial. Plus, with the full day schedule (full school day, not full work day), we would have to pull him out completely from his normal school...and I would have to quit my job to be there in the mornings and afternoons.
If this is what he needed, I would be on board in a heartbeat. But as his mother, I know it is not. Last time I checked, the only one who has a PhD in Little Bug was me.
I've been going round and round with them because they only see this one number on his paperwork, not HIM. If they saw him, I know they would see he is not a child who needs these wonderful, but inappropriate resources. To help this process, Appa and I decided to set Little Bug up for complete success. We scheduled an early bedtime and canceled all his therapy today.
Because, did I mention, they scheduled the eval for smack dab in the middle of my schedule-oriented, sleep-loving child's nap time?
Of course, the best laid plans always go to hell. Little Bug was up from 11:30 pm to 3:30 am this morning. He spent most of it showing off his first real tune full song mastery ("Skip to My Lou"), but the fall out is he is going to this important eval with less than half the sleep he needs to function well and without a nap.
I did what I could to minimize the fall out. He is wearing his favorite train shirt and I have an entire bag of M&Ms to bribe him out of sleep and into some semblance of a decent mood. But the reality is that he doesn't do well on no sleep and this evaluation will not be his best foot forward.
Which is fine. I spoke to some of his trusted therapists today and they gave me some ammo to use if things start going in a direction we all know they shouldn't go. I'm prepared to get a little feisty if they take his sleepiness for apathy or inability.
They willingly tell you that their interest in therapy is focused on making sure the child can function in public school....not in life or society or in his best self. That's fine, too.
But my interest in therapy, my focus, is broader than that. This is my kid's life, the future of his therapy. Perhaps I won't have to advocate at all for Little Bug today. That would be awesome.
But I am preparing to, just in case. And they should prepare to because a mama bear hopped up on 2.5 bottles of DDP is nothing to shake a stick at.
Today he gets evaluated by the schools for what services he qualifies for. Our hope and belief is that he should qualify for the excellent half day, language intensive preschool program where an ST and PT will see him during his time there. It's a good school, perfect for almost all his needs (minus the smaller focus on PT), and it fits with our schedule. He can do mornings there and they will bus him directly to his normal school for the afternoon.
However, based on his PT evaluation of 15-18 months (Little Bug is almost 3), as misleading as it is, they want to put him in this really intense one-on-one program for severely disabled children. I'm against that because I don't think that is what he needs, nor do I think removing his social and independent components would be beneficial. Plus, with the full day schedule (full school day, not full work day), we would have to pull him out completely from his normal school...and I would have to quit my job to be there in the mornings and afternoons.
If this is what he needed, I would be on board in a heartbeat. But as his mother, I know it is not. Last time I checked, the only one who has a PhD in Little Bug was me.
I've been going round and round with them because they only see this one number on his paperwork, not HIM. If they saw him, I know they would see he is not a child who needs these wonderful, but inappropriate resources. To help this process, Appa and I decided to set Little Bug up for complete success. We scheduled an early bedtime and canceled all his therapy today.
Because, did I mention, they scheduled the eval for smack dab in the middle of my schedule-oriented, sleep-loving child's nap time?
Of course, the best laid plans always go to hell. Little Bug was up from 11:30 pm to 3:30 am this morning. He spent most of it showing off his first real tune full song mastery ("Skip to My Lou"), but the fall out is he is going to this important eval with less than half the sleep he needs to function well and without a nap.
I did what I could to minimize the fall out. He is wearing his favorite train shirt and I have an entire bag of M&Ms to bribe him out of sleep and into some semblance of a decent mood. But the reality is that he doesn't do well on no sleep and this evaluation will not be his best foot forward.
Which is fine. I spoke to some of his trusted therapists today and they gave me some ammo to use if things start going in a direction we all know they shouldn't go. I'm prepared to get a little feisty if they take his sleepiness for apathy or inability.
They willingly tell you that their interest in therapy is focused on making sure the child can function in public school....not in life or society or in his best self. That's fine, too.
But my interest in therapy, my focus, is broader than that. This is my kid's life, the future of his therapy. Perhaps I won't have to advocate at all for Little Bug today. That would be awesome.
But I am preparing to, just in case. And they should prepare to because a mama bear hopped up on 2.5 bottles of DDP is nothing to shake a stick at.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
One Lucky Mama
The last week (or couple of weeks) has been hard for me. I tried to keep it close to the vest, but really, I did a poor job of it. It has been exactly to the day 4 months since I last saw Little Bro's face. That was almost the entire time we waited for Little Bug. I was feeling unlucky and woe is me and all those other highly unproductive and unattractive feelings.
Today/last night Little Bro was scheduled to go in for a check up. We'd requested pictures and an update, more for my sanity than anything else. Although I knew it would take weeks, even months, for these things to get processed and translated (if they even agreed to our update request), I've been totally preoccupied today.
A little bit ago an e-mail popped up, and I opened it without even seeing who it was from. I made a very unladylike noise and did a full spin in my desk chair as I read that pictures.....LOTS and LOTS of pictures, not even from this check up but from earlier and from his foster mother, were on their way to me.
Unheard of quantities of pictures.
I don't deserve the kind of luck I have been getting with this adoption. I'd consider myself lucky with just a couple of sets of red throne pictures...no matter what they actually looked like. To keep getting blessed BIG TIME with connections to our son humbles me and makes me feel ridiculous for complaining at all.
Oh Little Bro, you're teaching me some huge lessons about hope and faith and expectations and silver linings. I'm already a different person because of your presence in my life.
Today/last night Little Bro was scheduled to go in for a check up. We'd requested pictures and an update, more for my sanity than anything else. Although I knew it would take weeks, even months, for these things to get processed and translated (if they even agreed to our update request), I've been totally preoccupied today.
A little bit ago an e-mail popped up, and I opened it without even seeing who it was from. I made a very unladylike noise and did a full spin in my desk chair as I read that pictures.....LOTS and LOTS of pictures, not even from this check up but from earlier and from his foster mother, were on their way to me.
Unheard of quantities of pictures.
I don't deserve the kind of luck I have been getting with this adoption. I'd consider myself lucky with just a couple of sets of red throne pictures...no matter what they actually looked like. To keep getting blessed BIG TIME with connections to our son humbles me and makes me feel ridiculous for complaining at all.
Oh Little Bro, you're teaching me some huge lessons about hope and faith and expectations and silver linings. I'm already a different person because of your presence in my life.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Good Night, Bee Bim Bop
After showing signs of being the only child on the face on the planet who doesn't love Good Night, Moon, Little Bug has finally discovered and fallen in love with the 60-year-old classic.
I'll admit, the book has grown on me, too.
Our favorite part of the book is the bowl full of mush...or as Little Bug calls it, "bee bim bop." Each time we get to a page with the bowl full of mush on it, he points to it and says "bye bye, bee bim bop." Sometimes he kisses the picture. Sometimes he makes pretend eating sounds. But it is always, ALWAYS "bee bim bop."
I hope he never learns to read the word "mush" and grows up reading it as "bee bim bop" to his children.
I'll admit, the book has grown on me, too.
Our favorite part of the book is the bowl full of mush...or as Little Bug calls it, "bee bim bop." Each time we get to a page with the bowl full of mush on it, he points to it and says "bye bye, bee bim bop." Sometimes he kisses the picture. Sometimes he makes pretend eating sounds. But it is always, ALWAYS "bee bim bop."
I hope he never learns to read the word "mush" and grows up reading it as "bee bim bop" to his children.
Monday, October 25, 2010
The Perks
One of the best perks about motherhood is the right and ability to dress your child up in ridiculous outfits and feel justified in attempting to force them to keep the costume on....and enjoy wearing it.You're dressed head to toe in Elmo, you might not think so, but you actually like it, I insist! Now, stand still and smile at my camera, damn it.
Motherhood is oh-so-fun sometimes!
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