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.

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.

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.

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!

Six

6 months ago today we made the decision to adopt Little Bro.

In comparison, 6 months from the day we said yes to Little Bug's referral, I was just going back to work after finishing my maternity leave, our moratorium on house guests had been lifted, and I was so comfortable with my son that I was posting his constipation face pictures on our family blog.

The fact that I actively went back to my family blog to verify this information is slightly pathetic.

Honestly, although I have (really) bad days, the wait isn't killing me. Resigning myself from the beginning that the wait will be overly long has oddly helped tremendously....it allows me feel like I have some control over this process....like I CHOSE to endure this wait. Having Little Bug home takes the sting off the wait. I can't go sit morosely in an empty nursery and pout. I don't fixate on mothers in the grocery story, creepily stalking them with my eyes.

Although realistically we're going to be waiting 14-15 months from the moment we said "yes" to bring our son home, and as I type that I acknowledge how ridiculous that is, I don't feel so miserable as I look forward.

Instead I'll just say:

"Here's to the next 6 weeks, 6 months, and 6 years, Little Bro. I love that you are in my life."

More than Words

Last week we finally sent Little Bug's birth mother a letter; or rather, we sent Little Bug's birth mother's file a letter. We were told that if the agency could contact her, they will. Whether she goes to get the letter is her choice, and one we won't know anything about unless she chooses to contact us.

We've sent pictures for her file before, and even written other letters, but none of those letters ever made it over to her file. I'm pretty ashamed of that. Knowing representatives from our Korean agency were in town, we recently sat down to pen and send a letter they would take back with them.

There will never be enough words to express our measure of gratitude and heartbreak for the decision she made, so we kept that to the point and heart felt. Besides, I tried to put myself in her shoes; if I got a letter from the parents of my child almost 3 years after I last laid eyes no him, their feelings would not be what I wanted to focus on.

If it was me, I would want to soak up every word about my boy, every detail I could glean. I'd want to know him.

So we wrote paragraph after paragraph about Little Bug. We wrote about his laugh and social nature. We wrote about his favorite foods and the things he refuses to eat. We wrote about his love of music and dancing. We wrote about his raggies and love for "choo choos." We wrote about his height and weight and his impish need to turn all the lights in our house on and off...just because he can.

We wanted her to have something tangible to hold onto.

I have this hope that perhaps the little details will give her something to anchor her to him. When she sees Elmo or Phung Phungie she can connect with him on some level. She can strip away one tiny bit amount of the unknown.

We also wrote about his spirit. I don't believe she knows that he has any special needs, and we debated mentioning it at all, but ultimately we wanted her to know what a fighter her son is...a trait I truly believe he must have gotten from her. We want her to be proud of him.

And I sent 30+ pictures. Screw the 7-10 pictures they suggest. I know they won't throw the other 25 away. I included candids with genuine smiles and posed pictures with obligatory smiles. I included pictures that reinforced his personality: happy, joyful, silly, loving, sweet, calm, and determined. I included family pictures and picture with Appa and I interacting with him. I included pictures of our daily lives: picnics to the botanical gardens, vacations, camping, celebrations, and down time.

I hope she looks at the pictures and is happy to see him happy.

We also asked for contact. We offered to receive letters or even visit her when we go to Seoul. I have no idea if anything will ever come from that, but I wanted to make sure there was no doubt in her mind that if she wanted contact, we wanted it, too.

She is the mother of our son, of course we do.

And even if she isn't able to contact us or even access the letters and pictures we will continue to send, someday Little Bug might go back to Korea and open her file. And he'll not only see proof of our love for him and the woman who gave him life, but he'll see our absolute, unwavering faith in her love for him.

Misery Loves Company

Last night was horrible.

Little Bug woke up at 10:30 pm and proceeded to be awake until 4:30 am. Most of the time he was babbling or singing or kissing my shoulder and begging to be "up on mama," things that would melt my heart during any other time of day.

I struggle with these nights. Beyond sleep deprivation, my patience is very low and I often have mama moments I'm not proud of. I raise my voice sternly, I don't always count to 10, etc. I'm not the mama I want to be on these nights.

Last night was worse because Little Bug has suddenly developed this belligerent toddler attitude...he willfully disobeys, sticks his tongue out in response to direction, and LAUGHS at me when he is scolded.

My mom once told me a story about a time when she spanked me, and I turned and looked her in the eye and laughed. She had to lock herself in her room until she could calm down because her other option was to become a mama she didn't want to be.

Last night, the scene, substituting the spanking for stern words, repeated itself. Little Bug snapped my last thread by hitting me in the face and then laughing about it. I put him in his bedroom and baby gated him in to let him cry himself into exhaustion. We did this horrible cycle for a while.

The next few hours were not pleasant, most likely for anyone in our neighborhood.

This morning I was 20 minutes late getting out of the house, only to hit freak traffic and construction that added a solid 40 minutes to my 7 minute drive (I take locals, for Pete's sake!) . Little Bug was late for breakfast. I won't even begin to go into how late I was for work.

The whole time I was trying to keep a positive attitude on the morning. I made sure to smile and sing to Little Bug, forgiving him even when I wasn't particularly feeling like it. I breezed into work with an air of "let's do this awesome day," even though I was secretly trying to invent ways to call in sick. I even took a moment to marvel at some of my favorite fall wild flowers.

But yeah, today was blowing.

Almost immediately I connected with two of my Internet-turned-real-life friends who have it much harder than I do in the sleep department. I felt bad complaining about my one-off night, but my wise friend noted that "misery loves company."

And it's true. Because after commiserating a bit with them and having some morning chatter with other mama friends, I was feeling much more myself and willing to face the day with a positive attitude.

And two DDPs and a Red Bull, but the friends have helped a lot, too.