tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20758584608674839772023-11-16T16:08:19.261+00:00my fascinating lifeClaudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.comBlogger377125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-56198533988159574592014-12-24T20:35:00.003+00:002014-12-24T20:40:16.240+00:00Near and Far<br />
Here's what Christmas was like when I was a child in Australia: presents in the morning around our family Christmas tree, then over to our grandparents' house to spend the day with extended family. We would eat too much food (obviously) and get overexcited and have a fantastic time with our cousins. Every year when I was small my Grandma would give us a new swimming costume and we would pull it on gleefully after lunch and spend the afternoon in the pool.<br />
<br />
These are my memories, anyway. The only drama I can really recall was how painful it was waiting after lunch for an hour before we were allowed to go in the water. In my memory, I'm perpetually something like eight years old and the day stretches out, clear and perfect. My Grandma had gift-giving superpowers and she would always pile us with a ton of things that we didn't know we needed but were completely fabulous. She gave me a ginormous stuffed toucan, one year, along with the swimming costume and no doubt an entire armful of other things that she bought throughout the year because she thought I would like them. I did like them, of course. She did this for all of us, all of her grandchildren, and we absolutely loved it. Any time anybody talks about how children don't need lots of presents and how it's a terrible mistake to load them with stuff they don't need, I think about my Grandma and I know that they are wrong. It was one of the (many) ways she showed us her love, and she did a great job of it.<br />
<br />
I wish I could say that I still have the stuffed toucan, but I don't. I mean, who needs a stuffed toucan, right?<br />
<br />
Here's what Christmas is like now that I'm an adult in England: well, nothing like any of that above. We always spend it with J's family, because they are here and so are we. So I'm an entire hemisphere away from my family of origin, every year. I've been folded into someone else's family, someone else's traditions. And while they're nice, they don't feel like mine.<br />
<br />
Also it's cold.<br />
<br />
Of course there are good things about being here at this time of year. Number one, it's my home now, number two, husband children etcetera, number three winter and Christmas really do go well together. And I find that I forget that some things that feel normal now weren't always part of my Christmas. Bacon-wrapped mini sausages, for example. Yumorama! Why doesn't everybody eat those <i>every day? </i>Cinnamon-scented anything. Love it! Smells like Christmas. And mulled wine, too. <i>Didn't we always do that in Australia? </i>I wonder. No, it turns out, and that was a terrible mistake, because <a href="http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/recipe/jamie-s-mulled-wine/" target="_blank">mulled wine is more delicious than I can possibly explain, and makes winter bearable.</a><br />
<br />
But some things still feel weird. Every year, here, after a gigantic lunch of turkey and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-30586619" target="_blank">brussels sprouts</a> (let's not talk about brussels sprouts - who decided <i>they </i>were a good Christmas tradition?) Jay's family all sit around for a while then reconvene around the table to have cake for tea. And I'm all <i>why are we eating cake for tea? I did the weird mini cabbages and the trifle and so on but I do not want to eat cake for dinner. </i>It just doesn't feel right. But I <i>do</i> it of course, because I'm a guest and hello<i>:</i> <i>manners</i>.<br />
<br />
But sometimes, I want to be back in Australia, with the hot weather and the swimming and my own cake-free family Christmas so badly that it feels like a physical pain. Instead I'm here, belonging, but sometimes not quite belonging, still, after fifteen years.<br />
<br />
This year, I asked J's mum what I could bring to her house for Christmas. I was thinking maybe a side dish, but no. <i>Cake, </i>she said. <i>Bring some cake for tea. </i><br />
<br />
Now, it doesn't take much to trigger an existential immigrant crisis in me at any time of year, but December is particularly bad. The cake request definitely brought one on. It kind of summed up every reason that I wanted to be somewhere else, half a world away, wearing a bikini and making summery pina coladas rather than stupid cake. (My family don't actually drink. But I do. So there would be pina coladas if <i>I</i> was there, right? And the bikini is there because in this fantasy I'm tanned and also much thinner). These existential immigrant crises don't happen too often, but when they happen, they really happen. I think that loving me means accepting that once a year (okay, at least once a year) I'm going to totally lose my shizzle over the fact that I'm so far away from my family.<br />
<br />
So today it was time to bake a cake, and I was having my crisis. I had no idea what to bake and then thought - <i>I know, I'll make my mother's honey gingerbread loaf. That will make me feel better, if it doesn't make me feel much much worse. </i>I know honey gingerbread doesn't sound that delicious, but believe me, it totally is. We used to eat this all the time, pretty much every time we had visitors, but I hadn't thought about it for years.<br />
<br />
I called my mum. <i>Can I have that recipe? </i>I asked, and she said yes, of course, and told me that it had actually been Grandma's recipe, which I hadn't known. <i>Don't forget to line the tin, </i>she told me. <i>If you don't line the tin, you'll lose half the cake when you take it out. Also, it's really hard to tell when it's actually cooked, because the batter is so dark. And that reminds me, don't burn it. It's very easy to burn. And sometimes it overflows the tin. You should definitely do a test batch before you serve it to anybody else. It's very, very easy to mess it up. Now that I come to think of it, it's not a very good recipe. </i><br />
<br />
In my memory, I was basically raised on this stuff, and I don't remember my mother ever messing up a batch. Maybe what she meant was that it would be easy for <i>me </i>to mess it up, and hey, that much is probably true.<br />
<br />
Jay took the children to the park so that I could get on with the baking. I downloaded the recipe she emailed me and strangely, it didn't look familiar at all. It's hilariously minimalist (bake until cooked? Thanks!) and I don't feel any of the recognition I expected. Surely I made this as a child when we had guests over? On the other hand, maybe not; I wasn't a very helpful child.<br />
<br />
I mixed it all together, everything still feeling unfamiliar. Why was there boiling water? I certainly didn't remember that. Even the way of putting it together felt wrong - Australian recipes, like American, use cup measures and I'm now totally used to baking by weight. <i>Don't tell me to lightly pack a half cup of brown sugar, just give me the weight! Why can't everybody just buy a pair of scales? It's so much simpler. </i>But I measured out my cups and as the ingredients combined in the final step, the smell of ground ginger and hot honey smacked me in the face and suddenly there I was, eight years old, my mother making it in the kitchen and the three of us kids hanging around to lick the bowl. Or maybe it would have been my sister making the cake because she <i>was</i> a helpful child. Either way, that was it, this incredibly familiar and nostalgic smell, delicious and painful and happy and sad all in one.<br />
<br />
<i>Why am I making this on my own? </i> I asked myself. My own children were coiled tight with excitement today and were in no fit state to have a mummy-and-me baking session, so that's not what I meant. But why aren't I going to share this with someone else who has memories of eating it as a child? Why can't I do anything with someone who was with me as a child? I put the cake in the oven and my stomach hurt with an intense other-side-of-the-world missing that I can only describe as loneliness. <br />
<br />
This is what people don't tell you about a happy childhood: it puts a lot of pressure on your adulthood.<br />
<br />
Thing is, I'm under no illusions about what it would be like if I was really back there. My grandmother is no longer alive, and everyone who still is alive is getting old and going crazy, myself included, obviously. It would be hot (way too hot) on Christmas day and I'd be complaining about that, and I wouldn't be in the pool, I'd be in the kitchen. And anyway, that pool is no longer in the family - my grandfather sold the family house after my grandmother died, and he now lives alone on the fifth floor of a retirement complex. Not quite the same.<br />
<br />
Perhaps I don't really miss a place. Maybe what I really miss is a time. Maybe what I really want is to be eight years old again, for someone else to be in charge and only to have to worry about what I'm going to do to fill the sixty minutes between turkey and swimming.<br />
<br />
I had forgotten how intensely wonderful this cake smells as it's baking. It's got a much more powerful aroma than I remember and the spicy ginger and sugar really do smell like Christmas. My mother never baked this at Christmas but suddenly it smells so appropriate and right for this time of year, here, in a cold climate. The postman comes the door and he's never really spoken to me before but he asks <i>What are you baking? That smells amazing! </i>And I tell him that it's honey gingerbread, and add, unnecessarily, that it's my mother's recipe. <i>It smells great, </i>he says again. <i>Merry Christmas! </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
The children come home and Blue - who pretty much hates all food - says <i>what is that yummy smell? It smells like I really want to taste it! </i><br />
<br />
In that instant I decide that I am going to make this every year from now.<br />
<br />
And maybe this is it. Maybe this is how we start our own traditions. Maybe I really will make this every Christmas from here on, and my own daughter in law will have to remember to be polite about that awful cake her husband likes so much.<br />
<br />
Or maybe I won't, and we'll have to think of something else.<br />
<br />
The cake turned out perfectly, by the way. I made two batches, cooked them for different amounts of time (by accident) and they were both perfectly moist in the middle, spicy and sweet and a little bit caramelised on the outside. I remembered what my mother used to do, before she got into eating healthily, and spread each slice with a smear of salty butter. Despite the spice, both children loved it and it tasted exactly the same as I remember from twenty years ago, and thirty. <br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Yb4-qEEpLO3DLZKBZ8b7GN3iBfvE1ddauZ0sk8GE_TL47_8V16IrnSZ5kbNWzRZKF8qFRmuq-Ij7rlv7ExLFYJQJcKZakNmEIuY_NSkWdqjvjKGbRkpdSwBb2QmArquj37YPhaw13-EG/s1600/10403523_817052271688345_8057148909974154133_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Yb4-qEEpLO3DLZKBZ8b7GN3iBfvE1ddauZ0sk8GE_TL47_8V16IrnSZ5kbNWzRZKF8qFRmuq-Ij7rlv7ExLFYJQJcKZakNmEIuY_NSkWdqjvjKGbRkpdSwBb2QmArquj37YPhaw13-EG/s1600/10403523_817052271688345_8057148909974154133_n.jpg" height="640" width="360" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">doesn't look like much, but smells like what heaven must smell like</td></tr>
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<br />
And of course, then I realised - maybe as time goes on, I <i>will</i> get to share this with people who remember eating this as children. As my children. It doesn't make the pain of being far away from my family go away, but I think it's going to have to do.<br />
<br />
<br />
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*************</div>
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<br />
<br />
In case you ever want your house to smell like an expensive bakery, here's the recipe.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>HONEY GINGERBREAD</b><br />
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">½ cup <span class="il">honey</span> (or mixture of <span class="il">honey</span> and golden syrup)</span><u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">½ cup boiling water</span><u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">½ cup lightly packed brown sugar</span><u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">1 cup plain flour</span><u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">½ cup S.R. Flour</span><u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">1 tsp bicarbonate of soda</span><u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">3 heaped tsps ground <span class="il">gingerbread</span></span><u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">125g (4oz) butter</span><span style="font-size: 12.7272720336914px;"><u></u><u></u></span></div>
<div align="center" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.7272720336914px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">****************************</span></span><u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Grease a loaf tin, and line with paper.</span><u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Preheat oven to moderate.</span><u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Mix <span class="il">honey</span> and boiling water in large bowl.</span><u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Mix in sifted dry ingredients.</span><u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Melt the butter and beat into the mixture.</span><u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Bake in moderate oven until cooked (seems to take 50-60 minutes).</span><u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Test with a skewer.</span><u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Turn out on a wire rack to cool.</span></div>
Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-13122224360642548862014-11-17T23:05:00.001+00:002014-11-17T23:05:06.999+00:00HelpSo after calling our adoption agency and asking for some help, we've been plugging into some local post-adoption support. We've been having some assessment sessions with an attachment-focused therapist, and getting regular calls from a social worker.<br />
<br />
"Do you want to come along to a twelve-week attachment parenting course?" she asked me. And I didn't want to- of course I didn't - but I said yes anyway, because I'm starting to suspect that we're on some kind of List Of Troubled Families, and people on that list need to take all the help that's offered to them, right? You know, just in case it ever comes up in court.<br />
<br />
I'm joking.<br />
<br />
(I'm not entirely joking).<br />
<br />
Anyway. It's not that I don't think attachment parenting is important. I do, of course, and that's why I've already read a ton about it, talked a lot about it, used a lot of the techniques. I don't do it perfectly, of course, but I do know the basics and then some. So does Jay. "We don't need to go on a <i>course," </i>I said. "It's not that we don't know this stuff. It's just..."<br />
<br />
Just what? Was it really just that I thought I already knew it all? No, it wasn't that. I sat there on the first night of the twelve, brittle with tension, staring at the leaders and wanting to be anywhere else. Fifteen of us sat around a table, drinking tea from an urn and eating supermarket cookies. The leaders - let's call them Anne and Brenda - ran through the list of what we would cover during the course and yep, that was all stuff we had heard before. Brain development. Connection. Trauma. Attunement. Etcetera.<br />
<br />
We started talking. Even at the start, in the first session, I could tell that A and B were full of ideas, but the ideas made me kind of angry. I could barely even hear what they were saying without my subconscious leaping up and objecting.<br />
<br />
<i>Make sure your child has had enough food</i> / That's difficult if he won't eat<br />
<i>Make sure your child is getting enough sleep</i> / He already gets plenty of sleep. That's not the problem.<br />
<i>Don't overschedule your child</i> / is three meals a day overscheduling? Because otherwise we're golden<br />
<i>Try reducing conflict</i> / I'm not the one who is neurologically addicted to conflict.<br />
<i>Try being more playful and joking around</i> / Is THAT a joke?<br />
<br />
I got mad when they mentioned stuff we were already doing - because I already knew it didn't work - and I got mad when they mentioned stuff that we weren't doing - because how could I possibly, possibly do anything more than I was doing ?<br />
<br />
It felt to me like I was walking into that room with my arms already full, already carrying more than I could manage. You know, things like <i>my son is five and I can't go to the bathroom alone, </i>things like <i>he needs two hundred percent of me and I'm empty, </i>things like <i>what is wrong with me? Why can't I manage, </i>and the related <i>they made me go on a freaking parenting course</i>.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">it's really amazing what a talented artiste I am. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
And then, they were trying to hand me bright ideas, shiny new tools for fixing our situation. But it just felt like more things to carry.<br />
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And I couldn't carry any more things. So I let the bright ideas bounce off me instead. Not because they were no good, but because I couldn't, psychically- in fact, almost physically - let anything else in. The last few months - okay, years - have felt like a test of endurance - a marathon. Except the finish line keeps on getting moved, or something - this mixed metaphor is getting a little confusing - and the only way to keep going is to keep on giving <i>everything </i>in a way that I really didn't know was possible. <i>Your stress levels are in the clinical zone, </i>said the psychologist a few weeks ago and I thought <i>well, duh. </i></div>
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This is why I didn't want to even think about the new tools. After all, it's not like I'm not trying. I'm giving this thing everything I have. I'm carrying as much as I possibly can. </div>
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And so I felt <i>Do not give me any more things. I cannot possibly carry any more things. I am already carrying all of the things. </i></div>
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But we continued to go to the course, of course, because we liked A and B, and the other couples were nice too, and we'd said we would and we still think we're on the List Of Troubled Families. </div>
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We got homework, and it was <i>do something nice just for yourself. </i>So I went to see the Rembrandt exhibition at the National Gallery and it was fantastic. </div>
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I felt a little lighter for doing it. I appreciated the push. And the more sessions we went to, the more I realised that these people really knew what they were talking about. They weren't trying to give us advice in a vacuum. And the other people around the table were going through things that were similar to what we were facing. </div>
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And after a few more sessions, I found that I was willing - and able - to take on some of the new ideas. It wasn't that these ideas were any better than the ones they told me first - in fact, many of them were exactly the same - but something important had happened. Without ever being explicit about it, A and B (and the group) had managed to take away some of the things I had been carrying. After some time talking and thinking and brainstorming and sharing and workshopping, it was as if they had said <i>here, let me take that away from you. </i></div>
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And of course, once I lost some of my big bundle of Things, I found I had some space in my hands. Space to try picking up some new tools and trying some new things. Things like trying different ways to be playful, like trying different language for conflict resolution, for implementing new structures in the deadly hours between 4 and 7pm. </div>
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We all need help sometimes. </div>
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And if you are the helpee - well, learning to be the helpee is not easy, especially when it's being an official helpee like we are right now. The hardest thing for me, maybe - I had to trust these people before I could hand them any of my stuff. They were probably willing to take it off me at the door, but I couldn't see it. If you are carrying around all of the things, it's very difficult to think straight, sometimes. All the blood that your arms are using to carry things takes away what your brain could really use, and that can make a person panicky or prickly. Or maybe that's just me. </div>
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I'm glad I trusted them. They have been trustworthy, and I'm extremely grateful. </div>
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I think there's some stuff I want to remember here next time I'm the helper, too. </div>
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If you're the helper, sometimes new tools are not the first thing that people need, no matter how shiny and wonderful they are, no matter how many things they would fix. Especially if it's family stuff. That mother is a<i> person</i>, not just the Family Fixing Mechanic. Sometimes, you have to take away some of what they are already carrying before they can even pick up that tool. And people who aren't willing to do that probably aren't going to be any help at all. </div>
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(Sidebar 1 - sometimes it's enough to just notice that they are carrying it. I find that when someone says <i>that looks heavy </i>I already feel like things are a little lighter). </div>
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(Sidebar 2 - On reflection, I think, actually, this is why drive-by advice is So. Very. Annoying, especially if you are in crisis mode. Giving advice without offering to carry any of the things that the person is already carrying is like someone has coming along and saying "Catch!" and tossing an armload of stuff at someone who already has their arms full. It doesn't matter how great the stuff is; I can't catch it. Which is just another way of saying that there's no point telling someone how to improve their life if you aren't already busy being their friend). </div>
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That's it, really. </div>
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I I've been gone for a while, and I intended to write about some of what we've actually been learning, about some of the help we've actually been getting. But I could never quite do it,and I think it's because I had to learn some of this stuff first. </div>
Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-81509341517824619432014-09-09T19:32:00.000+01:002014-09-09T19:32:32.574+01:00Breaking NewsSo this happened today.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAHWPuUJn2Q-1CGYwxyMBkeX7eBZMYSaM0GRHcks5iIZPVD5HLiTMwvgl1zYl-FXkVvRq3zghgKVnkAGUE7q2nQ4NaSSjshnX_3M18y9QEV3nP6e9x82UAcgODMGnQRNNk6JvgcCuwem-h/s1600/20140909-DSC_0817.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAHWPuUJn2Q-1CGYwxyMBkeX7eBZMYSaM0GRHcks5iIZPVD5HLiTMwvgl1zYl-FXkVvRq3zghgKVnkAGUE7q2nQ4NaSSjshnX_3M18y9QEV3nP6e9x82UAcgODMGnQRNNk6JvgcCuwem-h/s1600/20140909-DSC_0817.jpg" height="640" width="428" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We are taking this very seriously</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3N2SVwYuRWm7NJrT8Uu8YdavzQ61t-n_csvoeep_e-C8LeidgtxMA0KO-uaWHtzUewnfUf6ILL8tpkWVGq0wufxQoB1fDlhc3NJcX5wWGu-PAejRXVghAW1xLrc5jB9WN7vcQIFsmPtj4/s1600/20140909-DSC_0824.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3N2SVwYuRWm7NJrT8Uu8YdavzQ61t-n_csvoeep_e-C8LeidgtxMA0KO-uaWHtzUewnfUf6ILL8tpkWVGq0wufxQoB1fDlhc3NJcX5wWGu-PAejRXVghAW1xLrc5jB9WN7vcQIFsmPtj4/s1600/20140909-DSC_0824.jpg" height="640" width="402" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Although we are still pretty freakin' pleased with ourselves</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMLARhtiyRWSiInkDh3XY20EqsZLZAJTbqdW7If4c26hyphenhyphenuAQZwDRrdJY85b77KQ5LUQP_UpQgYmO23i2eXcXD0TLJCWLSJav3Kzgo6k5OZhKOYKnGGjxq4pajO99eHFyS-n4gF28xzRdVD/s1600/20140909-DSC_0825.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMLARhtiyRWSiInkDh3XY20EqsZLZAJTbqdW7If4c26hyphenhyphenuAQZwDRrdJY85b77KQ5LUQP_UpQgYmO23i2eXcXD0TLJCWLSJav3Kzgo6k5OZhKOYKnGGjxq4pajO99eHFyS-n4gF28xzRdVD/s1600/20140909-DSC_0825.jpg" height="640" width="428" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">but possibly not quite as pleased as Mummy. </td></tr>
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<br /><br />Honestly, it just seems like yesterday they were like this: <div>
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<br /><br />Oh, that's right, NO IT DOESN'T. (Although of course it does, sort of). </div>
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Seriously, though, did you ever see a cuter pair head off to school? No, you didn't. You did not. What you can't see is that they also insisted on taking matching Frozen lunchboxes (of course). It was adorable. Although after I took these photos, we got in the car and Blue asked me "Mummy, what does <i>adorable </i>mean?" so I may have overused that word a little bit today. But what could make me happier than <strike>a day on my own</strike> sending two excited, totally ready children to school in <i>matching uniforms? </i>Nothing, that's what. </div>
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Pink told me yesterday that "When I go to school, Mummy, do you realise you are going to have to do ALL of the jobs around the house?" I managed not to say HAHAHAHAHAHA in her face, which took a great deal of self control. When she asked me about it again this afternoon, I told her that so far, I'm coping fine.</div>
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Apparently the day went well and they coped fine too. Afterwards they totally crashed, in every way, which was not a problem because I was expecting it, it was totally normal and reasonable and<i> I'd had five hours of silence to prepare. </i>They were in bed by 6.30 and asleep by 6.35, which officially makes this the <i>best day ever. </i></div>
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In other breaking news, I found out this afternoon, after school, that apparently the cat sat <i>on</i> the mat, <i>whilst wearing a hat. </i>Who knew, right? I'm extremely lucky to five-year-olds to tell me these things. If a dog gets stuck in a bog and finds a log, I'll be sure to let you all know. In the meantime: CHAMPAGNE. </div>
Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-49752226791992977032014-09-07T00:44:00.002+01:002014-09-07T00:45:29.649+01:00A note from the edge of the trench<br />
(I tried to add a photo to this post but for some reason I can't.)<br />
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“How was your summer?" people have been asking me, and I say "awful," because I've decided to stop lying about stuff like that. I'm finding that this is not a socially acceptable answer. The correct answer is "great," of course, although "fun" is also permitted. Summer is meant to be a time when you enjoy yourself, whether you frinking well want to or not.<br />
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I, however, am on my fourth week of medication for what turns out to be a multi-antibiotic-resistant infection. That has not been fun. Some people have told me that at least I live in a country where I have access to medicine! Yes, I know. However, neither good access to medication - nor even free healthcare, which I also have - technically makes summer fun.<br />
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The real issue, of course, is that I've been looking after two children, one of whom is currently highly dysregulated. Doing that while well is a challenge, and doing it recently has felt impossible. Even before I got sick things felt really hard. I’m not going to rehash all of that again; just take my word for it.<br />
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We've been parenting these twins for (almost) the last five years. Apart from the first year, when I was home full time, Jay and I have shared the childcare and the working – him working three days per week, and me working two, and both of us caring for the children on our other days. We haven’t had any daycare or preschool or any of the sort of help that might have kept me – and Jay – a little bit closer to sanity. (Given our time again, would we do it the same way? Probably, although maybe not, and I’d happily discuss our choices over a coffee with you sometime. The point is that this has been what we’ve been doing, week in and week out, year in, year out).<br />
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But on Monday they go to school. SCHOOL. For five and a half hours every day.<br />
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If parenting little kids is being in the trenches, I feel like I’m standing on the very edge of this particular one, about to run over the top into – well, who knows what. Another trench, almost certainly, with its own troubles and joys and (for me, undoubtedly) reasons to complain.<br />
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But standing here, on the edge of this trench, this is what I want to say. This is what I want to remind myself of, when I’m older, when the children are no longer cute and I think it was so fun when they were small.<br />
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It is not always fun, I promise. <br />
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*****<br />
On the morning of Wednesday, my last day on my own with the children, we had to go to town to buy school uniforms. I should have bought them a month ago, I guess, but I like to live on the edge. They were excited – they’ve been asking about their uniforms for months – and as we walked along the path to the railway station Blue began to bounce and before long he was skipping, properly skipping with joy, like a baby lamb. It was adorable and my heart nearly beat out of my chest as I thought how many more days like this? None. Except every weekend and all of the school holidays, I guess, but this is the last time they will be solely mine, before their lives are taken up with teachers and friends and all the other shrapnel that comes with growing up. I have adored seeing them change from tiny babies into healthy, strong kids who can skip (both of them) and click (just him) and make up songs (mostly her) and do all the other things a pair of just-five-year-olds should be able to do. I’m so proud of who they are, of what they are becoming.<br />
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So yes, of course sometimes it’s really fun, or at least heart-warming, which sort of looks like fun from a distance.<br />
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****<br />
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But recently, a friend who is quite a lot older than me said to me “How are you? At the moment, you always seem really… frazzled.” I said that might be true, and she asked why. I said that I was struggling with the children. We were having a hard time, I said, and I was feeling exhausted and discouraged. (By the way, for those of you who don’t go to church, ‘discouraged’ is Christian code for ‘I want to stab somebody with a fork’). She asked me why I was discouraged, and I said that I was finding it really hard that I was getting no respite from the children, none at all. We’d looked into a few things over summer but they had all fallen through and I’d reached the point where I was too tired to even keep looking. I was feeling a bit emotional, talking about it, and said that at times like these, I really feel the distance from my family. I said I wished they were closer; that I could trade childcare with my sister; that I could phone my mother on a bad day and demand that she drive over immediately. “I’m really struggling,” I said. “I’m finding things very hard and I need more support.” <br />
“Oh, right,” she said. “Being a long way from your family must be tough. I can see why you’re finding that hard.”<br />
And that was it. But I didn't want sympathy. I wanted her to say “So how could I help you?” or, much better, skip the chit chat and just say “So can I take the kids for the morning on Tuesday?”<br />
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I think she had forgotten what it is like to be in the trenches.<br />
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I think a lot of people forget what it is like, actually, how when you’re in the middle of it sometimes you really can’t see out the other side. I try not to tell other people what they should do, generally, but I’m going to make an exception here. Older women – empty nesters – retirees – I wish you would step up. I wish you would step up and help those of us who are struggling with our young children. We’re not hard to find, I promise. Take our kids for an afternoon. Do it often, if you can bear to. <br />
Once you've got them, do whatever you like with them – stick them in front of the TV for four hours if you want to, or let them play with power tools. Feed them all the refined sugar they can fit in their sticky little hands. That’s fine. Just help. Lots of us don’t have anyone we can really count on to do that and sometimes it makes it really hard to breathe. The adorable moments don't erase the difficult days.<br />
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****<br />
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So we went to buy their school uniforms. One of the really great things that's happened recently is that Blue's eating - a huge, huge issue around here - has suddenly got easier. He's eating sausages, now, and fish, oddly enough, and he no longer cries when he sees an egg. Mealtimes still aren't easy but that pressure has eased a little. He has even eased up on his lunch restrictions. For years (seriously, years) he would only eat raspberry jam sandwiches on white bread with the crusts cut off. Now, he will happily eat raspberry jam sandwiches on white bread with the crusts still on, and he's even broadened his horizons to try a croissant for lunch once when we were out, and a cheese sandwich another time. This is a really good thing, because the uniform shopping was taking longer than I expected and they were really needing lunch. How wonderful, I thought, that I can now take these kids out for a simple meal if we get stuck. This could never have happened a year ago. And I said "Kids, I think we're all getting hungry. Let's go and get a sandwich at Starbucks."<br />
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Cue howling from the boy. We back and forthed a little - I thought it was because he wanted cake, not a sandwich, and I said that he could still get a cake if he liked, and then he lifted up his voice and said "But lunch in a cafe is a new thing and I DO NOT LIKE NEW THINGS!"<br />
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Well, score one for self-awareness, I guess, but zero for actually getting any food into him. One step forward, two steps back.<br />
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And yes, I do know that school is a new thing.<br />
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*****<br />
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Yet it’s kind of embarrassing to admit just how fervently I’ve been looking forward to them starting school. I’ve got a to-do list as long as my arm, with everything on it from organising five years’ worth of photos to editing my novel to finally getting that pesky smear test done. Every time I see the doctor (which is a lot recently) there’s obviously some kind of flag on my record which makes them say “So when are you going to come for your test, Mrs Chapman?” and I gesture at the children, who are always with me, and say “Really?” and they say “Uh, okay, I can see your point. So when do they start school?” and I say “September!” and then the doctor says “So I’ll see you then,” and I say “I can’t wait!” and they give me a funny look, and as I walk out I realise that they thought I was talking about the smear test.<br />
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But honestly, the thought of some time on my own is almost more than I can bear. A few nights ago, I dreamed that I died suddenly (and hopefully painlessly). I'm not sure how it all happened, but I could see all my friends and relatives clustered, crying, around my hospital bed. One of them was wailing and said “I can’t believe she died now! It’s so unfair!” and another one said “I know! JUST AS HER CHILDREN WERE ABOUT TO START SCHOOL!” In my dream, it’s obvious THAT was the real tragedy.<br />
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I’m not making that up, I promise.<br />
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*******<br />
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We were walking through uniform-shop number eleven (it felt like) when a little girl lurched towards us. She was about twelve months old, I think, and just walking. She was dimply and curly and unbelievably cute. I saw her coming straight at us and laughed at the adorableness of it all. Blue, who was holding my hand, pulled my arm sharply towards him and said MUMMY! YOU MUST STOP LAUGHING AT THAT BABY!<br />
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I had forgotten. For ten seconds, I had forgotten that he would feel threatened and angry if I smiled at another child.<br />
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******<br />
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Probably, this explains the fighting, or at least some of it. If I had to pick one reason why I need a break, not that anybody has ever asked me to do that, I would say it's definitely the fighting. I've never really written much about the fighting that goes on in our house because it's too hard to put the awfulness into words. It started when they were about thirteen months old and I have no idea when it's going to end. These days, there are moments when they aren't fighting each other but when they are tired or bored and I leave the room, they start immediately. He is the main instigator, but she is hardly innocent. Right now he has bite marks on his tiny little torso from where she actually tore his flesh a few weeks ago. I know that lots of kids fight, but this is pathological. I know a few other boy-girl twins who do the same thing, including one adult pair who apparently came out of the womb clawing at each other and now, aged, forty, are still doing it. Managing this is... unspeakably hard. When they are with other kids, the two of them make a great team, but when it's just the two of them, the twin-unit turns inward and attempts to devour itself.<br />
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I'd try to solve this by having lots of visitors come and play, but Blue gets hugely upset and threatened when we have people to our house. He just cannot understand why, when they have come to see us, it really is absolutely necessary that I talk to them. We've had a few good friends over recently - people he really likes - but he still spends the spent the first hour (at least) saying MUMMY! STOP TALKING TO THESE PEOPLE!<br />
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Mostly it just seems easier to deal with the fighting.<br />
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Recently I've instituted 'fighting fifty', whereby every time they fight they have to go and sit in opposite corners and count to fifty. Then they have to apologise to each other, and then they have to apologise to me. It does help, somewhat, because it gives them a bit of cooling off time in between bouts, and also, since they have to do it so often, it's really excellent for their numeracy. Silver linings, folks, silver linings.<br />
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*****<br />
So we were heading home, jam-sandwich-ward, from our uniform excursion, and as we approached the railway bridge - a route I walk pretty much every day - I saw a white woman pushing brown-skinned baby boy-girl twins in a pram. I've never seen that before in our town - except for me, obviously - and it was the strangest, strongest feeling of deja vu. She was clearly a little bit lost - looking around, trying to get her bearings - and I stopped and asked if I could help her find her way. Good citizen, yes, but mostly I just wanted to see it was real. It felt so very, very odd that I would see this for the first time ever on the last day of this phase of my life. It was as if destiny was giving me the chance to hand on the baton of adorable tiny transracial twin-mother-dom to this stranger.<br />
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She thanked me for stopping, and told me where she wanted to go. I pointed her in the right direction, and then she looked at my two children and smiled. "Are they twins?" she asked, and I said "Yes. How old are yours?" and she told me they were fourteen months. "Does it get easier?" she asked, and I said "No," because I've decided to stop lying to people about that one, too. She laughed nervously, and said "really? We're only just keeping our heads above water." <br />
I felt bad. "Well, are yours fighters?" I asked. "Mine are fighters, and that's what's made it difficult." I looked at my two, one of whom had the other in a headlock.<br />
She relaxed. "Oh no, not really," she said. "Mine are really close. When our boy cries, she crawls over and wipes his tears away."<br />
It was my turn to laugh nervously. "That's great," I said, as I prised my children apart. We said goodbye. No baton for you, lady, I thought, as I walked away. You and I clearly have nothing in common.<br />
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*****<br />
<br />
That's the strangest thing about parenthood, isn't it. Having kids is this near-universal experience, but my experience of it and yours can still be worlds apart. Some friends of mine seem to be nowhere near breaking point while I feel like my rubber band is about to snap. And who knows? Is my rubber band not stretchy enough, or is it just being stretched further than theirs? I have one friend who complained about how hard motherhood was because her two year old (then an only child) 'couldn't entertain herself for more than twenty minutes at a time.' I don't think she knew the meaning of being stretched. But then other friends of mine happily manage a minivan full of children with significant challenges and I know that if I was stretched that far, I would definitely break.<br />
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I guess what I mean is just because you and I both have children doesn't mean that we have any idea what it is like to have each other's children.<br />
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****<br />
Later that day Blue got stuck in a tree. Actually, he wasn't stuck, he just refused to come down. He was on a teeny tiny twig that was bending badly, even under his tiny weight. I asked him to come down and he refused and I couldn't reach him to lift him down. He was high and he was defiant and that is a toxic combination.<br />
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The defiance terrifies me. When he's angry, he has no sense of danger. I'm pretty relaxed about letting my kids do stuff, but I don't let them scoot on the road with trucks and I don't let them run away down a road where I can't see them and I don't let them fall from fifteen feet, either. They are so precious, and when they won't come when I say You. Need. To. Come. Here. Now. in my scary voice it makes me absolutely furious. After I got him down from the tree he had a tantrum all the way home and I was so mad about the tree and the tantrum and the danger (there was real danger) and the onlookers (because yes, there were onlookers) that I just couldn't form a coherent sentence. I have to have five minutes on my own before I can talk to you about this I said, because I really did, and as I sat in the bathroom and did some deep breathing I kept thinking if one more person tells me to enjoy these fleeting days I will have to kill them.<br />
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I calmed down, he apologised and order was restored. But I was exhausted and in that moment it wasn’t a day I was upset about, it was every bad day. This was our last day of this phase of our lives and I wanted it to be good. Not perfect, but good.<br />
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It wasn’t good.<br />
<br />
When I write all of this down, none of it seems like a big deal at all. If I would only be better organised, and bring his sandwiches, if I would only remember to make him the focus of my attention, if I could only be calmer and more patient, things wouldn’t be hard. Life was easy then, I can hear myself saying. I don’t know why I didn’t just enjoy it more.<br />
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But these days are hard, and I want to remember that.<br />
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Between finishing this post and publishing it, I’ve just checked my email, and it turns out I was wrong about something.<br />
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School doesn’t start on Monday after all. It starts on Tuesday.<br />
<br />Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-23822107412068413862014-08-26T15:32:00.000+01:002014-08-26T15:32:58.107+01:00TENTomorrow, Jay and I will have been married for ten years. Ten years! I could write something meaningful - or attempt to write something meaningful - about marriage and love and family, but I'm far too tired for that. Instead I'll give you this Spot-The-Difference: Jay-And-Claudia-Have-Been-Married-For-A-Decade-Edition. <div>
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Can you tell what's changed? Just in case you need a little help: </div>
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I could never, ever have guessed what the last decade would hold. I can't imagine what might happen in the decade ahead. But - excuse me while I get sentimental for a moment - there is nobody on earth I would rather have with me through all this - for better; for worse. Here's to the next ten, baby. </div>
Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-58872755665468474662014-08-01T00:48:00.000+01:002014-08-01T01:01:51.230+01:00For the first time ever, and somewhat against my better judgement<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial;">For the first time ever, and somewhat against my better judgement, I'm going to post and respond to a comment I got yesterday. H</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">ere is the comment and then here are the things that I wanted to say.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial;"> </span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><b>But no boundaries, let the kid get away with murder, claiming you've somehow acquired "secondary trauma" from the horrors of parenting kids you spent years and years and countless thousands if dollars to acquire from overseas?</b></span></i></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">As opposed to actually setting boundaries + dealing with it you've managed to pathologise your kid's behavior.</span><br style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">And other upper middle class white women with no backbone and expensive foreign kids praise you for your "bravery"? </span><br style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">It might just be worth doing a quick google search regarding folks who TRULY survived trauma (worse than letting their bratty kid get away with murder) and came out the other side without need of "post adoption therapists". You know, Holocost survivors. Folks who escaped civil wars. Military vets. Folks who don't have the luxury of falling apart -- with the expectation that others exist to help put you back together! </span></b></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Thing the zeroth: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">I'm not actually particularly upset or offended by this comment. I already knew that some people thought this way, so I'm going to use this as a chance to respond frankly to a very, errr, frank comment. So. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><b>Thing the first:</b> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">My kids have boundaries; a ton of boundaries actually. I totally laughed my head off at the idea that my kids might not have boundaries. There are so many boundaries in our house that it might as well be an atlas. I'm far from a perfect parent, but believe me, we have boundaries. Also, to the best of my knowledge, my kids have not yet tried to murder anybody. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Okay, that one was easy. Next. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><b>Thing the second: </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">It's interesting that you see a contradiction between spending years and years in the adoption process and then struggling post-adoption. You're not alone! It's funny (except, obviously, not) how commonly the 'you picked this, so shut up' attitude surfaces in talking about the hard parts of adoption. </span><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Are only the parents who got there biologically allowed to struggle with parenting? Because that doesn't seem like it makes sense to me, not at all. Parenting my kids is not 'horror', no way, but it is pretty tough sometimes and that isn't m</span><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">agically untrue because the adoption process was also tough. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Seriously, I hate it when people expect adopted kids to 'shut up and be grateful'. Family is hard, right? And sometimes it's harder for families who weren't formed the easy way. So it doesn't make any sense to just expect adoptive parents to shut up and be grateful either. Okay, moving on. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><b>Thing the third: </b></span></div>
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I totally agree that pathologising kids' behaviour is not cool. In fact, that's the very question I kept asking myself for months- <i>are we just pathologising this? </i>That's probably one of the reasons why it took us quite a while to seek any kind of professional help. I hated the idea of getting some kind of unnecessary label on my kid. Nobody (okay, almost nobody) wants to get their kids a diagnosis that they don't need, or isn't warranted. We went to seek help after getting opinions from people like teachers and nurses and a speech pathologist - <i>yep, </i>they all said, <i>you should definitely get some support. </i>So we did - that's not pathologising. </div>
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And hey - there's plenty of shame out there for those of us who need to get help for our kids - totally inappropriate shame, in my opinion. Maybe, sometimes, there are parents who are looking for 'help' when what they actually need is a kick in the pants. But I don't think that's me and Jay, and I don't think that's the majority of people who find themselves asking for post-adoption support. After all, I kind of hated being scrutinised when we were in the middle of our homestudy; there is no way on earth I would voluntarily put myself back through that kind of thing if I didn't think it was something that would really help our precious kids. It was a big deal to swallow my pride and go there, to say <i>hey, we could benefit from some outside help</i>. I would hate to think that other people who need help would come up against attitudes like this and feel shamed into putting the phone back down and not making that call. Pathologising is not cool, but shaming people is not cool either, just so you know. </div>
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<b>Thing the fourth: </b></div>
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I totally take your point about me and my upper middle class white friends reinforcing each other's choices. In fact, I think that's one of the biggest things that those of us in these kind of situations need to be really, really wary of. After all, if I decided that what my kids really needed was chicken therapy, or trapeze therapy, I'm sure I'd be able to find a group of women, somewhere, who would applaud my choices and suck me into spending hours on whether bantam hens are more or less therapeutic than fancy ornamentals.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: small;">(I'd say go for the ornamentals, wouldn't you? These upper middle class white chickens could totally kick trauma in the butt). </span></span></td></tr>
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I am aware that the internet is not the only - and probably should not be the primary - source of information on how to parent kids from hard places. That's why I think that getting help - or at least advice - from professionals is actually a really <i>good </i>idea, if you think you might need it. Diagnosing our own kids at home is probably not an entirely brilliant plan, and while I value (more than I can say) the support I get from my friends on the internet, a facebook group is no substitute for six years of training in clinical psychology. Although it <i>is </i>a lot cheaper. </div>
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While I'm on this topic, I've been thinking a lot recently about how the whole 'adoption trauma' thing is such a very closed system, if that is the right word. You know - a 'theory of everything'. I've been thinking about the way that it really can be used to explain absolutely everything, and if we aren't careful it's definitely a risk that we as parents can miss the wood for the trees occasionally. As in - sometimes it's trauma, sometimes it's a bad night's sleep. (And then sometimes it's a bad nights' sleep BECAUSE of trauma anxiety and then which one is the chicken and which one is the egg in that little situation, hmmmm?) </div>
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I've been thinking about this because I've been connecting a lot with friends - real life friends- who have kids with various special needs, and when they describe some of the behaviour challenges they face, I think <i>I could totally come up with a trauma explanation for that behaviour. </i>Even though, obviously, that's not the issue in their case. We definitely do need to be careful that we don't see the world so much through one lens that we ignore all the other factors. There are more lenses than just trauma that all sorts of parents use to explain / modify behaviour, obviously - some parents get very focused on nutrition / lifestyle / food dyes, some people focus on sleep, some on exercise, some on particular types of schooling. Some people (not naming any names, cough cough) think everything comes down to how the parents parent. And once you are committed to one 'thing' as your explanation for everything, it's very easy to forget that there are other factors at play too. </div>
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Just so you're aware, I haven't forgotten. Have you? </div>
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<b>Thing the fifth: </b></div>
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I'm going to pass on over the 'no backbone' thing, because seriously, whatever, and I'm trying to talk about this like adults. Same goes for the bit about not having the luxury of falling apart. I have a job and two kids and no childcare. Believe me, I don't have that luxury either. So let's move on. </div>
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<b>Thing the sixth: </b></div>
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Here's the biggie, I think. All that stuff about what constitutes 'real trauma.' Well, you know what? Life is not the pain olympics. Not even a little bit. I'm not saying that what my kids have experienced is as bad as the holocaust - obviously it's not - but it's not nothing, either. I don't talk about details here because woah - privacy - but believe me, it's not nothing. </div>
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I guess what I mean is: If you had, say a broken ankle, and I had a broken leg, then my broken leg wouldn't stop your broken ankle being real. And if you were saying <i>hey! I have a broken ankle, and it really hurts!</i> I hope that nobody would say to you <i>I spit upon your broken ankle. Don't talk to me about broken ankles when Claudia over there has a broken leg. That's what a REAL broken bone looks like, lady. </i>What I hope they would say is this: <i>so sorry about your broken ankle. I know it's not the same thing, but my friend Claudia had a broken leg once. Maybe she has some good tips for walking on crutches. Want me to put you in touch? </i>And I would totally share my tips with you because hey, pain is pain, whichever one of us is suffering the most. </div>
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<b>On a related note, thing the seventh (and finalth): </b></div>
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You sound really angry and upset, and I'm sorry if anything that I've written makes you feel that way. (Although something else I read recently makes me think that you're leaving this comment for more people than just me). I don't know what your background is - but I'm guessing that this kind of anger at someone you don't know is probably because you're hurting in some way. I'm sorry about that, but even when you're hurting, it's not okay to be mean. (See? Boundaries). </div>
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The internet is a funny place, right? Sometimes it seems like everyone is crazy. But it can be wonderful, too, so let's keep it that way. I really am sorry if anything I've written makes you sad. But in the future, I'd be grateful if you could extend a little compassion to people whose struggles are different from yours. Goodness knows there's little enough to go around, most days. Here, I'll give you a little of mine - in fact, I think I just did. And next time you want to say something unkind to someone, perhaps you can take it out of your pocket and give a little back. </div>
Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-32950470696307787232014-07-03T16:05:00.002+01:002014-07-03T16:05:10.162+01:00Mapping the Exits<br />
So we went to see the social worker. Two of them, actually, and they were really nice. <i>I know what you mean </i>they kept on saying, while making sympathetic noises. Also <i>That sounds exhausting, </i>(and yes, it is, thanks for noticing).<br />
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We talked a bit about parenting strategies - what we could do, what we have done, what we might try. They asked us about all kinds of things, and the words just fell and fell out of me. Usually when I talk about parenting I hedge everything around with disclaimers about how much I love my children, but this time I didn't, really. I didn't feel like I had to apologise to these people for finding things tough, sometimes- these people are in post-adoption support; I presume they already know that adoption can be tough. So let's skip the chit-chat about the cuteness, shall we? Jay talked as well, of course, but not as much as me because the attachment complications we face in our family are very much concentrated along the mother-son axis.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKT2ol4zzlgHhxZDyBYc489-jA7q8iKLRbtmAuZkwST1wn6UNCvAOqUgvAsqHDUVWCRMQKHIKHWPdnFKWe-qkdO5FkFUafv8_QR8vjYoXCncvffJWdACGTTAeBDcx2tIifWVGikS2IoWuj/s1600/20140517-CMC_5448.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKT2ol4zzlgHhxZDyBYc489-jA7q8iKLRbtmAuZkwST1wn6UNCvAOqUgvAsqHDUVWCRMQKHIKHWPdnFKWe-qkdO5FkFUafv8_QR8vjYoXCncvffJWdACGTTAeBDcx2tIifWVGikS2IoWuj/s1600/20140517-CMC_5448.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">mother and son</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I talked about how bad I feel, sometimes, when I realise that my focus on Blue - my need to coach him through the simplest things, sometimes - affects how I parent Pink. <i>Do you love Blue more than me, Mummy? </i>she asked me, after one particularly hard morning. Her voice was matter-of-fact. <i>Of course not, </i>I said, trying not to sound as horrified as I felt. <i>I adore both of you. </i>(This happens to be true). <i>Then why do you always cuddle him so much? </i>she asked. <i>Because his attachment issues manifest themselves in physical clinginess, </i>I might have said, but didn't, of course. Instead I said <i>well, Blue needs a lot of cuddles, honey. </i>She looked at me and said, still matter-of-fact, <i>But mummy, so do I. </i>When she said that, I felt all the air rush out of me. <i>I know you do, honey, </i>I said, and I gave her a hug right then, but of course in ten minutes time I was dealing with him again.<br />
<br />
<i>And has all of this affected your marriage? </i>asked the older social worker, and Jay said <i>no </i> at exactly the same time that I said <i>yes. </i>Make of that what you will. I feel like it has - it must have - affected our marriage, because it affects everything else in life. I feel so profoundly exhausted so much of the time. I have no energy to cook creative meals and light candles for some kind of date night - I just want to sit on the sofa and watch <i>Veronica Mars.</i> I find that I am completely unable to separate out what is normal parental exhaustion (surely, everyone feels this way) from the exhaustion that comes from managing our particular circumstances (nobody else can possibly feel this way, surely?) <br />
<br />
I talked and talked. I talked and talked about how my son reacts to certain stimuli - how it seems that his reactions to some things are way outside of what those things warrant. I talked about how I'm trying to work out which things do what, trying to work out how I can manage those reactions. <i>I read this thing </i>I kept on saying <i>and it made me wonder if - </i>there's so much to wonder about. Why the really good days, why the really bad days? What are the uncommon denominators? I have no idea. The hitting seems to have stopped; for now, at least. I'm beyond relieved, but I have no idea how it happened so I wouldn't know how to make it stop again if it were to re-start. So much to read, so much to think about, and still, sometimes, when things go wrong, no freaking clue what to do.<br />
<br />
(Have I mentioned that I love my son? Really, I love and adore my son).<br />
<br />
The social worker interrupted my flow of words. <i>You said you've done a lot of reading, </i>she said. I nodded. <i>Have you done any reading about secondary trauma? </i>I hadn't. She wrote something down. <i>The way you're describing your own behaviour, </i>she said, <i>it sounds like what you're describing is some hypervigilance. It sounds like your own reactions have become fine tuned so that you are always waiting for something to go wrong, always unable to relax. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Have you ever played pinball, dear reader? I haven't, but I've seen other people doing it and that moment for me was like when someone makes that perfect shot in pinball. Her words arced into my brain and then bounced for what felt like forever, hitting piece after piece and connecting a whole head full of dots that I didn't even know were there. <i>One thousand points, </i>I should have told her, <i>you have earned an extra life. </i>I didn't say anything though, because I was too busy feeling stunned. We finished the meeting and went home and I haven't been able to stop thinking about what she said. Hypervigilance and secondary trauma. In <i>me. </i><br />
<br />
Honestly, I don't really know why this has shaken me up so much, but it really has. I thought I had bought into the whole 'attachment is a family issue' thing, but I guess I hadn't. I guess I really was thinking of myself as a person outside this difficult situation, a person who was trying to deal with it (not always very well) but a person who was fundamentally the same person she was before she found herself in it. I'm not sure that's true any more. And the more I think about it, the more I think that there is nothing secondary about this trauma. Secondary trauma is something that caregivers experience when they have to process the pain of what their loved one has experienced. But if I'm traumatised, I honestly don't think it's through dealing with what he is suffering; I'm traumatised because of what I've experienced <i>myself </i>in this situation. Dealing with the fighting, the drama, the constant push-pull, the difficulties and the neediness - I've spent the last years on constant high alert and waiting for something to go wrong. It suppose all of this has short-circuited something in my brain. Feels about right, to be honest.<br />
<br />
We see hypervigilance in our children and we understand why it's happening but we want it to stop. I have to say, it's been a profoundly humbling experience for me to see that it's happening in my own brain too. Now that she's said it, I see it all the time. I don't want to go places, I dont' want to do things because I'm worried that we're going to have a meltdown or an explosion. And when we do go places and something goes wrong, I catastrophise <i>immediately. This is the worst meltdown in the history of forever. I can't cope with this. The rest of the day is going to be ruined. Now that this is happened he isn't going to eat. If he doesn't eat he won't sleep. Tomorrow is going to be ruined too. We need to leave immediately. Right, let's go, let's go NOW please honey. Where is the nearest exit? </i>It seems that, even when things are actually going fine, I'm always getting ahead of myself. I'm always mapping the exits.<br />
<br />
Does this hypervigilance make me a better parent? Absolutely not, obviously. I've developed it as a coping mechanism, but right now it makes me <i>less </i>able to deal with stressful situations, <i>less </i>able to accurately assess risk, <i>less </i>able to think creatively to solve problems when the do occur. I'm trying to be conscious about this. I'm trying to at least talk to myself in a positive way - <i>what's the worst that can happen? - </i>was something I was using for a while, but actually, sometimes the answer to that question is pretty traumatising in itself. Ha.<br />
<br />
It doesn't make me a better parent, but I don't think it makes me a worse person, either. The same way that we can acknowledge - hopefully without judgement - that our kids' brains have reacted to what they have experienced, I think I have to acknowledge the same thing about myself. I'm still trying to work through how to deal with this.<br />
<br />
So what does all this mean? Heck, I don't know. I just found her observation incredibly perceptive - if painful - and I thought it might apply to more people than me. A friend of mine was talking about something similar just yesterday and it made me wonder.<br />
<br />
Feel familiar to anybody else?Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-74184752528622817242014-06-16T09:40:00.000+01:002014-06-16T09:40:14.983+01:00The House Is QuietThe house is quiet. For the first time ever, my kids have gone off to do a day of school on their own, leaving me at home. It's going to happen once a week for the rest of the term. This means that I have some time to myself - guilt free, no-strings-attached, not calling in any favours, not owing anybody anything, not relying on babysitters - time to myself for the first time in five years.<br />
<br />
Five years.<br />
<br />
I'm confused.<br />
<br />
Why is nobody yelling at me?<br />
<br />
And I thought <i>I could blog about that. I could blog about how strange this is, how quiet the house is, how I feel this strange mix of elation and guilt, how this strange day makes me feel some gut-squeezing grief about the children growing up, and how this strange day makes me feel some other heart-clenching grief about how their time at home wasn't the wall-to-wall halcyon haze of happiness that I assumed it would be and how I'm never going to get a do-over on that now, how a part of me feels unmoored by this sudden gaping chasm of time, how part of me feels 'oh no, now people are going to start expecting me to achieve stuff and I don't have any excuses anymore', and how that makes me realise that I must be sort of addicted to the martyrdom of never having my own time, even though I didn't realise it, how part of me feels like great, I can finally get my novel edited, how part of me feels like great, I can finally do that netflix binge, how part of me feels like great, I guess I'd better clean up this stinking cesspit I've been calling a house, how all of me realises that I've forgotten what to do with proper down time, don't I have somewhere to go, don't I have somewhere to be, don't I have a body part to wipe, doesn't somebody need me right now? How can nobody need me? I'm here. Don't you need me? Who am I if nobody needs me? </i><br />
<br />
So I thought <i>yeah, I could blog about that. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
And then I thought <i>or I could go to Starbucks and read a book. </i><br />
<br />
I can smell the coffee already.<br />
<br />
I win today; I'm calling it. Score one for mental health; zero for stupid pointless mother-angst.<br />
<br />
Make mine a caramel macchiato.Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-23149310091980928972014-06-02T14:38:00.002+01:002014-06-02T14:38:47.076+01:00We've been away <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggHFv6D5s5wwMoi8Se-4LXVe3tzsqXLoC4tumISXYmFr4K7wcDG2KoU8VyNvMUq5YqjLIkn7LTg0QJBzM9Jpaeb6VmChULxR3BbPT62KnY7bntUlXC4cGa3SqXZ6SAv3LwXvuaqK1ZX4D2/s1600/20140521-CMC_5503.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggHFv6D5s5wwMoi8Se-4LXVe3tzsqXLoC4tumISXYmFr4K7wcDG2KoU8VyNvMUq5YqjLIkn7LTg0QJBzM9Jpaeb6VmChULxR3BbPT62KnY7bntUlXC4cGa3SqXZ6SAv3LwXvuaqK1ZX4D2/s1600/20140521-CMC_5503.jpg" height="422" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">thanks, aunty L, for the superhero outfit. </td></tr>
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<br />
.... and I'm about to go away again (on my OWN. Can you imagine it? I can't. I've checked in, but I still can't believe I'm really flying without children). I'll be back soon, I promise.Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-16219735943520468862014-05-06T21:12:00.000+01:002014-05-06T21:12:18.271+01:00Icy Family Feud Ends In Court <i>I'll post about seeing the social worker as soon as I can get my head around the meeting we had - hopefully tomorrow or the day after. Today, a vision of my future, if my children had their way. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">MOTHER LOSES COURT HEARING AS CHILDREN REFUSE TO 'LET IT GO'</span><br />
<br />
A Berkshire mother of two was today sentenced after losing a landmark hearing regarding her children's access to the film <i>Frozen. </i><br />
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After sentencing, a tearful Mrs Chapman told the waiting media, "This has all been a terrible misunderstanding. I didn't realise that it was actually The Law that children had to be allowed to watch <i>Frozen</i> at least once per day. Now that I know this, my behaviour will change. I'm going to go home and put this right."<br />
<br />
Her sentence included a commitment to learn all the songs on her ukulele - even the boring ones - and play them for impromptu karaoke sessions whenever her children ask. Judge Menzel, presiding, said that her sentencing specifies that "This really does mean <i>whenever </i>she is asked, even if it is nearly bedtime." In addition, the family laptop will be repurposed to show the film on an infinite loop, and Claudia, 34, will wear her hair in mandatory braids every day for the next year, 'just like Ana'.<br />
<br />
Neighbours reported that tensions had been growing in the Chapman household for some time. When interviewed, Pink Chapman (who asked that we refer to her by her preferred name of Elsa) said "It was obvious to everyone that something wasn't right with how our mother was treating us. It's not like she <i>couldn't </i>show us the film; we could see the DVD on the shelf. The problem was that she was restricting access, and children need to watch this film daily. Everybody knows that. Now that she has signed a contract and her probation officer will be checking the house regularly, I'm hopeful that we can all put this episode behind us".<br />
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Her brother Blue agreed. "She was only letting us watch it while we were having our hair done, and that just wasn't enough," he said. "It's true that we did watch it four times in one week when it arrived, but that was while she was learning to do cornrows and there was a lot of inconsistent behaviour relating to that, anyway. Four times in one week turned out to be the best it ever got, and that's why we had to get the authorities involved".<br />
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When asked why they had decided to litigate, rather than seek a more informal resolution, he said "Elsa and I love our mother, but there are some things that need to be taken seriously. We called for help, and I'm just grateful that help came in time."<br />
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A spokesperson for Berkshire child services said, "We are very pleased with the outcome of this ruling. Obviously, we are working towards a situation where all children have unrestricted access to <i>Frozen </i>at all times, but until that day comes, we think the current one-viewing-per-day laws are adequate, and we are glad they are being properly enforced."<br />
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When asked to comment, the children's father, Jay Chapman, said "I have no opinion to give. This whole situation has nothing to do with me; that's why I go to work."<br />
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The family have asked for privacy at this difficult time.Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-34538705653854147962014-05-01T21:47:00.000+01:002014-05-01T21:47:43.089+01:00So I Called The Adoption Agency AgainLast Tuesday, I called the adoption agency who did our assessment back in 2008. Was that really six years ago? I suppose it was, and I haven't slept properly since. (And I guess that would explain why I recently got told off by a makeup guy in Selfridges for looking like something he found underneath his shoe. I wanted to buy some foundation, but after 'working' on me for a little while, he sighed and said <i>people come here and they expect that a new foundation is going to work some kind of magic. But really, there's nothing foundation can do for you if you have open pores, and fine lines, and an oily T-zone. You don't need a different foundation, you need to take better care of your skin. </i>I was so shocked by his honesty that I bought the foundation. Now that I have it home, I realise that my skin might be terrible - okay, it is - but his foundation isn't all that either. <i>Never trust a man who wears more bronzer than you do,</i> is probably the moral of that story).<br />
<br />
Anyway. I didn't call them to schedule another homestudy. I asked to speak to their post-adoption support team (miraculously, they <i>have </i>a post-adoption support team) and told them, as neutrally as I could <i>please help us. Things are really difficult around here and we need some help. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>What do you mean by difficult? </i>the social worker asked, and I told her about what had happened that day - a huge tantrum out of nowhere that I couldn't do anything - anything - to stop - and about how that had come in the middle of a really good period and I feel like the Jekyll / Hyde thing going on around here means that I'm living in fear of my child, in some awful way, and I told her about the hitting and the mood swings and the attachment stuff. <i>What kind of attachment stuff? </i>she asked, and I thought for a minute and said how, if I want to shower (and I do want to shower) I have to choose between using the TV as a babysitter or having a small child stare at me from his seat on the closed lid of toilet, just making sure I don't climb into the plumbing and escape, even though I have showered every morning for four and a half years and every single time, I've come back out of the bathroom, still there, still me and still his mother. <br />
<br />
All of this come out in a rush. And I kept saying <i>this probably sounds silly </i>and she would reply <i>no, don't apologise </i>and every second sentence of mine was <i>I need to say that I love my son so much, I love him so much. I just wish he didn't need to stare at him while I'm soaping. </i><br />
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I didn't say that some days I do want to climb into the plumbing and escape, although I'm pretty sure she knew.<br />
<i><br /></i>
I do love my son so much. More than words can possibly say.<br />
<br />
On Friday, the social worker called me back to schedule a meeting with her and me and Jay. She barely said hello before I start talking, and told her - <i>I realised that I forgot to tell you about the spinning. </i>She said <i>do you mean physically spinning? </i>and I said <i>yes </i>and she said <i>oh. </i>Then she said <i>I think I know the kind of thing you mean </i>which was like a rush of oxygen to me because it wasn't just <i>well, boys are like that </i>which I've heard too many times to count. <i> </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>I love my son so much, </i>I told her again. She didn't say anything, which was a shame, because I wanted her to say <i>he sounds amazing. You are so lucky to have such a wonderful son. </i>Because I am lucky, and everybody should know that. He is hilarious and wonderful and so, so affectionate. I adore him.<br />
<br />
I suppose this is the main reason it has taken me so long to call and ask for help. I feel like hitting up post adoption support services is saying <i>our family is falling apart, </i>is saying <i>this adoption was a terrible mistake </i>when the truth is, honestly, I love my son so much. (And my daughter, just for the record).<br />
<br />
And who wants to be the family who is calling post-adoption support, four and a half years after placement? Nobody, that's who. It just feels kind of dumb. And I've talked to a few people about some of my concerns, but so many people saying <i>that's what boys are like / he'll grow out of it / he's so good every time I see him </i>that I thought maybe I was going crazy. They convinced me that I shouldn't call. And I feel kind of mad at the people who told me those things, because I probably should have called last year, but the truth is, it wasn't their job to decide whether or not my son (and our family) needed some extra support. We're the parents; it's <i>our</i> job. We should have started ignoring them sooner. I got a big push from my sister - an early childhood teacher - who told me <i>I've seen a lot of kids and what you're describing is not normal. You should definitely go and ask somebody for some help. </i>Of course, that made me kind of mad at <i>her - </i>isn't this just a phase? Aren't all boys like this? Are you saying there's something wrong with my precious boy? How dare you!!<br />
<br />
And even after this conversation, I still didn't call.<br />
<br />
I talked to a friend who is a nurse. She said <i>yeah, you should probably call somebody. </i>I didn't.<br />
<br />
And at that point, I realised the other reasons why I really didn't want to call. It's not just that I don't want to believe there's something wrong with my son (although I don't) it's that what I really feared was that they would tell us - me and Jay - there was something wrong with <i>us. </i>After all, I can list the things that my son struggles with but there's a far, far longer list of things I struggle with, things like the yelling and the inconsistency and the amount of TV that they watch and the amount of pasta that they eat and the fact that I filmed one of them hitting the other one, rather than intervening, just so I could ask Jay's opinion about it later, and the fact that they rarely bathe and the fact that sometimes I do want to crawl into the plumbing and escape and the fact that I never bothered to teach them to draw and the fact that we are always, always late and the fact that I get so angry sometimes when he hits me that my vision blurs and that by the end of each day I know I should be chasing them playfully upstairs but instead I'm checking my phone for a text from my husband to say that he's on his way home and he never is, he never is and that's why we never eat meals together as a family either.<br />
<br />
All of this sits inside me, weighing on my stomach like a stone. It sucks all of my oxygen away.<br />
<br />
Who wants to be the mother who need to call post-adoption support, four and a half years after placement? I feel like hitting up post-adoption services is like saying <i>our family is falling apart, this adoption was a terrible mistake, you never should have let an awful mother like me get these precious, perfect children. </i><br />
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This sounds over-dramatic, I know, but believe me - when you have children who are showing, errrrm, <i>challenging behaviours, </i>the world does not make you feel like a good mother. The screaming, falling-down tantrum from a child who is too old to be having a screaming, falling-down tantrum does not garner much public sympathy. Sometimes I can feel the thought bubbles floating above people's heads - <i>why doesn't she just - that child should be - mothers these days - why is she letting that child - </i>I know they are thinking these things, because sometimes they say them to my face. Parenting, for me, is a constant exercise in humility. Before I had kids, if I'd seen children behaving the way mine sometimes do, I would <i>definitely </i>have assumed it was the parents' fault. So I can't really be shocked when people assume it is mine.<br />
<br />
Is it mine? I don't think it's mine. And this was the decision I had to reach, honestly, before I could pick up the phone and dial. I had to come to a point where I could say <i>I am a good enough mother to ask for help. </i>Although of course, I still fear that they are going to listen to what we have to say, peer at us over their glasses and say <i>I've diagnosed the problem, Mr and Mrs Chapman, and here it is: you have no parenting skills. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
I think where I got stuck was this: I couldn't see any outcome other than <i>you are defective parents </i>or <i>you have a defective child. </i><br />
<br />
But I love my son so much. He is wonderful, and I know that what we have together is pretty wonderful too, most of the time. I just want some help in knowing how I can be better at helping him, because honestly, he does need some help, and that means we do too. <br />
<br />
Now, I'm hoping for a third outcome, although I have no idea what that might look like.<br />
<br />
The first meeting is tomorrow. Please let this be a start.Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com54tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-37701687790061354872014-04-13T22:18:00.000+01:002014-04-13T22:18:14.981+01:00I Just Have Two Things To SayThe last few weeks, I've pretty much been off social media altogether. It makes me feel weird, being so disconnected, and then I think <i>shouldn't that be the weird thing, that I feel the need to be on social media all the time? </i>It wasn't a deliberate detox (I'm not that organised) it's just that things got kind of hairy around here for a while and even I couldn't argue that getting up to date with my feedly feed was my number one, topmost, pressingest priority. <br />
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It's been kind of good, though. I've been wondering lately about deliberately cutting myself off from the internet for, say, a day a week. I was thinking that i could call it <i>Media Free Monday. </i>And then I thought <i>I should write about that on my blog, and see who else wants to get involved. </i>And then I exploded in a puff of irony. So anyway, I never quite did get around to doing that, but these last few weeks (novel month, followed by the aforementioned hairiness) have been an interesting experiment in living like it's the nineties - no web 2.0. In summary, if you're interested, living without social media hasn't killed me and it's probably saved a lot of time but it has been pretty annoying. (And that's as far as that particular social experiment will ever go in my house).<br />
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The hairiness I mentioned isn't anything interesting, by the way - I'm not pregnant, nobody has been arrested and the kids are fine. It's just been more health stuff, mainly for Jay. Did I mention that he needed to have a nerve blocking injection for his back? Well, he did, around the last day of novel month, and it's helping his back a lot (we think) but for the first time in his life he's been having what seem like migraines - unbearable headaches with nausea, dizziness etc. Apparently that can be a side effect of an injection in your spine - who knew? Not us, that's for sure, probably because the clinic never got around to sending us any information leaflets about the procedure. But anyway, the headaches seem a lot better over the last few days and our world seems to be tilting back towards 'manageable'. I want to write 'normal' but a few people have reminded me lately that there is no such thing as normal - what we think of as 'normal' is actually everything going well, everything going according to plan, and let's face it, that's the opposite of normal.<br />
<br />
It struck me this week (I'm a very, very slow learner) that Jay's ongoing health concerns are a proper Thing in our lives now. It's like an annoying family member, or an incontinent pet - <i>don't know how to live with it; can't make it go away.</i> It's why I've been quiet here, I realised - this isn't a My Husband Has Chronic Pain Issues blog, and that's been the biggest thing going on in my life. In some ways, the 'when will this end'-ness of this all reminds me of our wait to become parents, but with one extremely large difference - it's easy to talk about, and it's no kind of secret. Everyone we know knows what is going on and is very sympathetic. People have cooked us meals. (Not <i>dozens, </i>but <i>some</i>). People have offered to babysit for doctors' appointments. And really, this understanding and support makes the whole experience so totally different. It's difficult, but it's not humiliating; it's not alienating us from our friends.<br />
<br />
(Although of course I realise Jay may feel differently about this. If so, he can write about it on his own blog).<br />
<br />
(Just to be clear, he doesn't have a blog).<br />
<br />
(Not that I know about, anyway). <br />
<br />
So, that was the first thing I wanted to say.<br />
<br />
Here's the second thing: Novel month. Novel month was great. I mean, it was <i>really, really, great. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
If you have ever looked at your life - with your work, your kids and all your other responsibilities - and thought <i>what my existence needs is another insanely demanding job - </i>then you should definitely, definitely do novel month. Writing 50,000 words in 31 days is a crazy, stupid endeavour and that's why it is so stupendously great. If you have sort of vaguely always wanted to write a book, but never been sure if you could do it, then this is how you find out. It is <i> so many words, so quickly </i>that there is absolutely no room for self doubt or procrastination. You have to just <i>do </i>it and that is amazingly, incredibly freeing. No opportunities to think <i>oh, maybe this is stupid </i>because there's just no<i> time</i> to think that. There's no time to do anything except think and type, and some days there's really only time to type.<br />
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I had no idea how different it would feel from writing Hypothetical Future Baby - it was a totally different experience. Writing the first draft of a memoir took me 18 months, and felt like this:<br />
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<br />
<br />
whereas writing a novel in a month felt like this:<br />
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<br />
in other words, FUN. I was terrified of writing fiction, but in the end it felt a lot more familiar than I expected it to, undoubtedly because I 'recognised' so many of the writing conventions. A few times, I thought 'oh, I know how to do this bit' and it's because I'd read I'd read 'that bit' so many times, in so many other books. I'd never written an arrest scene, but I'd read enough to have a general idea how it should go, and that sort of thing helped a lot. Fiction is nothing short of everyday magic, and it was brilliantly fun to do a little bit myself.<br />
<br />
Having said that it was fun, it was also hard hard work. I kept thinking that I just had to crest the next hill (ten thousand words, then twenty five, then forty) and it would stop feeling like work, but it never did. It always felt like work. Was it Hemingway who said that the cure for writers' block is to apply the seat of your pants to the seat of your chair? If it was, he was right. Every day when I sat down and opened up my file, it took effort (lots of effort) and at the end of the whole process I was completely spent and exhausted. I got sick straight afterwards, and that's probably no coincidence. I think that because creative things <i>can</i> be fun, it's easy to expect that they <i>should </i>be fun, but there's a whole lot of typing and wrist strain that go with the few-and-far-between moments of <i>oooh, nice sentence, Claudia. </i><br />
<br />
Paradoxically, I would say the whole thing was both less impossible than I thought it would be, and also much harder than I thought it would be. I think the other women I was writing with would agree. (And if you do this one day, by the way, and I totally think you should, you absolutely need other people to do it with you. It makes all the difference).<br />
<br />
I haven't read mine back yet. We're all going to read our own after forty days. And hey, it may be terrible (oh, please, let it not be terrible) but even if it is, I can always say that I got it done, and that I got to see these words:<br />
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and that makes the whole thing worthwhile. </div>
Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-426977720940056802014-03-27T22:01:00.001+00:002014-03-27T22:01:22.512+00:00I Just Have One Thing To SayAnd that thing is:<br />
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<br />
<br />
Yes, that's a shot of the bottom of my screen saying that I have written 42,694 words of a novel this month. I need to get to 50,000 words. 4 days to go.<br />
<br />
I'm behind with <i>everything. </i>Especially emails, because emails require typing and if I have access to a keyboard I'm chained to <i>Squeaky Clean: a story about friendship, love and ....laundry.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>(I just made that strapline up, right now, as I was typing. It's pretty awful, but that's okay. That's the spirit of Novel Month). </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Anyway, I'd better get back to it. Nadine is about to try to get her parents back together. (Come on, Kenneth and Yewanda. I'm sure you two still love each other. You've got about 1500 words to sort yourselves out or your relationship is toast).<br />
<br />
I think what I'm trying to say is: I'm not dead. But my arms may be about to fall off.<br />
<br />
See you in April!Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-4115992354927234832014-02-27T21:46:00.001+00:002014-02-27T21:46:36.074+00:00In Summary<div>
<div>
Things have been complicated around here lately, so I'm summarising. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Last Monday, I took our children to stay with their grandparents for two nights so that I could go to work while Jay was too incapacitated to care for the children. I got back home after an incredibly long rainy drive on the M4 and Jay said <i>Claudia, I don't want to worry you, but I'm going to tell you something that's going to worry you. </i>He told me, and it did worry me. It was also pretty gross, so I'm going to refrain from posting the specifics all over the entire internet, but two paramedics and an ambulance ride later, he spent that night in hospital. </div>
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I got home from the ward at 3.30am, and I did not end up working on Tuesday. Instead, I went to pick Jay up. He called me from his bed - once at 7.30am (needing details of medication), once at 8.30 (by accident) and then at 9.30, to tell me he was being cleared for discharge. Could I come to get him? <i>I thought you were getting a cab home, </i>I said, blurry and still half-asleep. <i>I can't get a cab, </i>he told me. <i>I'm far, far too stinky for a cab. </i></div>
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<i>Oh, well that's fine then. </i>I said. <i>I can't wait. </i></div>
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<br /></div>
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By Wednesday his pain was pretty well controlled and he'd begun to wean himself off some of the more psychotropic medication. I quite liked the side effects of some of it - he was quite sincere and sweet for a few days there, sort of like finally having a spaniel. I thought it was him just being really grateful to me for me being such an awesome wife while he was ill, but nope, turns out it was the drugs. He remembers<i> nothing</i> from the time he was on that stuff, which is awkward now because he <i>did </i>agree to me booking tickets to the States for a week in June on my own, even if he doesn't remember it now. (He <i>did. </i>I swear). </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Then Monday morning, we went to see the spinal specialist. He said Jay is probably going to need surgery, but he's not quite sure <i>which </i>surgery exactly. Recommended an MRI, which Jay had first thing this morning. <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Sidebar - MRI in three days? How freakishly amazing is private health insurance!? We've only just found out that Jay has it through work and while I kind of disapprove of it in principle, it turns out to be pretty spectacular in practice). </span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So yesterday morning, Blue accidentally locked himself in our hallway, possibly (okay definitely) due to some angry door slamming (by <i>him</i>, okay? By him!) He was there for an hour, screaming, while I called locksmiths and wiggled screwdrivers frantically into the latch mechanism. By the time he got out, he was catatonic with rage and shock and to be frank, I wasn't much better. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Today I've begun to incubate a truly spectacular head cold. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Tomorrow we have to go back to the spinal specialist for his opinion on the MRI and his recommendations about surgery. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
I feel like I could sleep for a thousand years. </div>
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<br /></div>
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But Saturday? </div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Saturday is March 1st so I'm starting a novel. </span></div>
</div>
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<br /></div>
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Don't worry, I know this is a spectacularly bad idea. Writing a novel in a month was <i>already </i> bad idea when I decided to do it a few weeks ago. <i>Is this the dumbest idea I've ever had? </i>I wondered. But with everything that's happened lately (and everything that is still going to happen) I can definitively say <i>yes, this is the dumbest idea I've ever had. </i></div>
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<br /></div>
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And yet! February has really stunk. I kind of suspect that March is going to stink just as much, but I'm doing the novel thing anyway. After all, I can't stop the stinky stuff happening, but when I look back to March 2014, I don't just want to remember discombobulation, cranky kids, a limping husband and the looming possibility of surgery. I want to remember <i>oh yeah, that was the month I wrote a really bad novel. </i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
<i>(obviously, all bets are off if Jay's surgery actually has to happen in March. I think novelling through that would cross me over from 'unstoppable to 'in serious denial about priorities' )</i>I'm probably not going to blog much while it's happening - although I can't promise I won't be updating with breaking news like <strike>word counts</strike> <strike>requests for help with naming characters</strike> outcome of consultations with the spinal specialist. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
<b>It's not too late to join in - let me know on facebook if possible and I'll add you to a group where we can<strike> kick each others' butts into gear when we get lazy </strike>mutually encourage one another. </b>I'm really interested to see what genre people are writing in. Personally, my secret weakness as a reader is girly romantic comedy so that's what I'm doing. Here's my first sentence: </div>
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<i>Afterwards, Martha thought that it had probably been a bad idea to kiss her thesis adviser. </i></div>
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See? Girly and trashy! (Spoiler - he does NOT kiss her back). I'm not allowed to write any more until we start on Saturday. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Now - tell me... what surname goes well with Martha? </div>
Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-36366970664938938552014-02-13T22:58:00.000+00:002014-02-13T22:58:56.501+00:00Love Is Like A Human Heart<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzienz_xP8DufPLSwx_MrNWM2JckL_uip7pFnt88HIaxiwq8FoiJBpnFEWPHzP3wPuNV3_H0jPyaLNOGpKVZWxWEwMIwIQhpApHYTg-_hLR1wc9eZKlk7_jmSdc9bGd674HApioDF274LF/s1600/heart.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzienz_xP8DufPLSwx_MrNWM2JckL_uip7pFnt88HIaxiwq8FoiJBpnFEWPHzP3wPuNV3_H0jPyaLNOGpKVZWxWEwMIwIQhpApHYTg-_hLR1wc9eZKlk7_jmSdc9bGd674HApioDF274LF/s1600/heart.png" height="296" width="320" /></a><br />
Yesterday, first thing, there were paramedics in my bedroom. Jay's back has been flaring up a bit this week and and then yesterday he woke up in paralysing pain, completely unable to move. "Should I call somebody?" I said, expecting a curt "no" from the man who hates to admit he is ever unwell, hates ever to make any sort of fuss. Instead, he groaned "yes, of course you should call somebody," and I did - I called NHS direct, who asked me questions and then sent the ambulance.<br />
<br />
A few days ago Jay and I were talking about whether or not he should be quitting his job to renovate a house. Now, fewer than 72 hours later, I was calling a friend, asking him to come straight away, throwing some clothes on my unshowered body and packing a bag of needful things for the hospital. <br />
<br />
It turns out we didn't need to go to the hospital - not at that point, anyway. The paramedics gave him an injection of - I dunno, something - and told me how to arrange for a prescription of some stronger painkillers. We ended up at the hospital later that day for an X-ray, though, and I helped him into his hospital gown and wondered at how quickly his strong body had deteriorated.<br />
<br />
The X-ray didn't find anything, which pretty much just means there's no fracture. He'll need an MRI and a ton of other stuff, of course. His GP, horrified by what she saw, tried to get the spinal surgeon to see him urgently but it didn't work, although it was gratifying to see a doctor so visibly shocked by his condition. It makes me feel a lot less guilty for how badly I'm coping with this whole situation. Most of us assume that, no matter how flaky we ordinarily are, we'd suddenly sort ourselves out if there was a real crisis. I'm sorry to report that this is not true - as I had feared, I'm <i>terrible</i> in a crisis. Yesterday I spent all day dropping things and panicking; I even got Jay's date of birth wrong when speaking to the paramedics. I also spent far too much time focusing on the fact that I hadn't been able to shower and berating the children for their troll-like behaviour. <i>This is not helping! </i>I screeched, repeatedly.<i> Mummy needs to help Daddy! Stop biting each other and watch the television! </i>It turns out they are terrible in a crisis too, but that is probably forgivable because unlike me <i>they are four. </i><br />
<br />
I'm glad to say that Jay is much more comfortable at the moment, largely because he's off his face on very high doses of drugs. It seems the short term immediate crisis has passed, and now we need to think about what happens next. He will see the spinal specialist next Friday. Hopefully this will mean proper medical imaging and a proper plan of action. I never thought I'd be pleased for my husband to have an appointment to have surgery on his back but right now it would be a huge relief.<br />
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The next week, at least, is going to be tough. I realised, when I finally sat down on Wednesday night, that Friday was Valentines' Day. I'll be honest, this made me feel a little bit sorry for myself - this Valentines' Day, I think I can guarantee there won't be much romance from my semi-paralysed, drug-addled husband. I know it's a stupid day in any case and frankly he hates it but I usually give him a card anyway, just to watch him squirm. I haven't had a chance to buy one this year. I won't be making anything special for dinner, and there won't be any wine because I already drank it all.<br />
<br />
Oh, Valentines' Day, you evil fiend. Did you ever make anybody happier? My little girl is just waking up to the presence of romance in the world. She saw some pairs figure skating on television and described it to me like this: <i>Mummy, there was a man and a lady and they were doing ice sliding and I think they really, really wanted to get married. </i>And then she smiled, embarrassed. She will be a sucker for Valentines' Day, just like I was. Am.<br />
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I don't want to tell her yet that love is not really like figure skating.<br />
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Love is helping my thirty-five-year-old husband walk down a hospital corridor, bent double, and love is stealing a wheelchair so he doesn't have to walk back.<br />
Love is having ten minutes of down time, and being desperate to rest but drawing up a drug chart for him instead. <br />
Love is a sincere <i>Thank You </i>from a husband who hates, hates, hates to be needy.<br />
Love is the friend who comes over at seven am to look after two anxious, acting-out children.<br />
Love is taking my boy on my lap and singing to him when I would rather do anything but, and love is the hug he gives me when he sees me crying.<br />
Love is the online grocery order, the meal in the oven, the text that says <i>I'm praying for you, </i>the friend who watches my children at her house and then sends me home with dinner.<br />
Love is even the kindness I give myself as I step into the shower, finally, choosing not to dwell on my failings but instead letting myself enjoy the respite, letting the water wash away my sorrow and my worry, at least for now.<br />
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Love is nothing like romance. Love is not made of red cardboard. Love is not a heart covered in sequins and glitter, pretty but disposable. Love is like a real human heart, messy and bloody and powerful.<br />
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This Valentines' Day, I may be short on romance but I realise that I am surrounded by love. Wherever and whoever you are, may you find love this Valentines' Day too - even in the most unexpected of places.<br />
Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-35442784927830688212014-02-10T16:12:00.003+00:002014-02-10T16:28:05.428+00:00The Next ThingThank you so so much for all your very thoughtful comments on my last post. I've been pondering all of them and, since I agree heartily with what each and every one of you wrote, no matter how diametrically opposed, I'm now even more confused. Since I wrote last, Jay has put an offer in on a house (which he didn't get, because someone else offered more). He then went to an auction, ready to bid his heart out on any one of eight houses that were suitable (and he didn't get any of them, because another guy bought ALL of them) and now he's kind of licking his wounds.<br />
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I'm not quite sure what's going to happen next.<br />
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Also,<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26111598" target="_blank"> this</a> is happening right now in my part of England- it's been raining constantly (and I do mean constantly) since well before Christmas, and at the moment the end of our street is kind of falling into the river Thames. We've bought sandbags. The park opposite (on the other side of the river) is basically a lake - the sand under the play equipment is completely submerged and the base of the slide is completely underwater, which is fun. If it weren't for all the toxins that live in floodwater (and the impossibility of actually <i>getting </i>to said park, due to the flooding) it sure would be a cheap way to take the kids for their first ever experience of watersliding. Oh yeah, also if it wasn't winter. And if it would ever stop raining long enough to want to go anywhere. And if my children could be trusted not to lick any strange objects they find floating the floodwaters. What is it with licking, I ask? My children will lick <i>anything </i>at the moment. Please, please somebody tell me they will grow out of it.<br />
<br />
What with one thing and another, it feels like a strange time in our family life. The big project at work that I was bracing myself for got cancelled. Outside my window, the rain continues to fall. Inside my windows, it feels like things are frantically busy around me. Jay has been on the computer in the Lady Room constantly (CONSTANTLY!) trying to research all this property stuff. I've been trying to come to terms with what I think about it all, trying not to get cranky at him for hogging what was supposed to be <i>my </i>space in our house (did I ever end up blogging about my Lady Room?), trying not to nag him about finishing off the projects I want done around here before he skits off to do an entire other house (the bedroom lights, please, honey? From last year? And the bathroom sliding shelf that you designed but never built?) and sort of wishing that he could suddenly discover that actually, he really <i>does</i>love his current job after all and feeling like whiny privileged scum for even having these choices to make. And then I just feel frustrated because actually, it doesn't feel like <i>my </i>choice at all. I guess that's why there's no 'I' in 'Marriage'. (Oh, hang on...)<br />
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Anyway.<br />
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All that to say - Jay has been hogging my computer because of his preoccupation with his project. I've told him that he can have it for the rest of February, but come March 1st, it's going to be <i>mine </i>for 31 days, for <i>my </i>project<i>. </i>Want to know more? I'll give you a hint:<br />
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<br />
All this crankiness and career crisis-ness is getting me down. I need to get my head in a different space, and this seems as good an idea as any. I'll write more about this later, but basically the idea is zero to rough draft in a month, starting with a blank piece of paper and ending with 50,000 words, repetitive strain injury and a huge sense of accomplishment. People all over the world do this every November, but that month stinks for me so I'm trying March instead.<br />
<br />
I've never written any fiction, and this <i>terrifies </i>me. But in a good way. I think.<br />
<br />
More details later, but it would be a ton more fun if there are other people along for the ride.... anybody else want in?Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-37622139312379462502014-01-24T15:41:00.001+00:002014-02-24T07:27:09.450+00:00(Pre) Occupation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've been completely preoccupied over here. There's a very simple reason - Jay has become totally focused on quitting his job and finding a gross old house to renovate.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">I know. </span><br />
<br />
Is he insane? Maybe. The probability gets higher when I include the fact that he currently has a slipped disc. You know - in his back. I can't help thinking that a fully-functional back would be helpful if he's about to embark on a career of manual labor.<br />
<br />
But he wants to do this <i>so badly. </i>Personally, I can't imagine wanting to spend my days hammering and gluing, but he does. I mean he really <i>really </i>does. He doesn't want to make a ton of money, he just wants to do a good job and make enough profit to pay for his own labor.<br />
<br />
But ugh, who can forget what happened in 2008? And I'm extremely financially risk averse, and always was even before that happened. All those Victorian novels I read as a teenager, probably - too much Dickens has given me a morbid fear of Debtors' Prison, even though I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist anymore. The thought of any kind of self-employment has always terrified me. What would we do if we had to pay our gas bill and there was no money at the end of the month to pay it? I have no idea. <i> </i>(I'm aware how privileged this all sounds, by the way. Please don't hate me for admitting that money is a very useful thing to have). My big fears are silly, I think - we wouldn't risk any money that we couldn't afford -worst case scenario- to lose. Obviously nobody goes into one of these projects planning to lose money, but we wouldn't be out on the street if we did. I don't think so, anyway.<br />
<br />
So should he stay or should he go? Here's the pro/con list.<br />
<br />
Things I hate about his current job:<br />
<ul>
<li>All his friends have left for other companies;</li>
<li>It's a ninety minute commute each way;</li>
<li>It makes him miserable. That's definitely my least favourite part. </li>
</ul>
<ul></ul>
<br />
<div>
Things I like about his current job:</div>
<ul>
<li>He wears a suit, and he looks super cute in a suit;</li>
<li>They pay him. That's definitely my favourite part. </li>
</ul>
<br />
I hate that he is miserable at work. Right now I really love my job, and I wish he could have the same experience. I so want him to do something he loves with his life, and he really does love anything to do with houses and building - also, he's really good at it. I'm trying so hard to be a supportive wife, but right now I'm not entirely sure what that looks like.<br />
<br />
The housing market seems to be moving again - right now, we can just afford to do this. If it moves too much further, we won't be able to (at least not without a lot more risk). This is probably his last chance to do the thing he's always dreamed of. I should say yes, right?<br />
<br />
But what if his back flares up really badly? What if something happens and I lose my job? And even if none of that occurs, how will we survive for the length of this project without his income? When I first moved to the UK I lived on a tiny student stipend for years, and I know I can do it - eat nothing but dried beans and canned tomatoes - but frankly I also know it's freaking annoying and I'd rather not do it again if I can avoid it. I like the security - the <i>easiness - </i>of knowing I can buy a latte without having to save for it. Jay assures me that he's done the sums and it would all work but <i>what if he's wrong?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Did I mention that my job is part-time?<br />
<br />
I hate the risk, but what about what it would mean for him to spend (even more) years in a job he hates? I've always assumed that's just <i>what you do</i>, because hey, the kids gotta be fed, but what if it's not? Is my hesitation prudence, or is it just selfishness because I'm not the one who has to go into an office and do stuff I don't want to do?<br />
<br />
Should I be the voice of encouragement or the voice of reason? I mean, I'm not going to forbid him to do it, but if the house he's looking at now doesn't work out, should I be scouring the real estate pages for the next one or just saying a silent prayer of thanks? What would you do in this situation - not what you think <i>sounds </i>like the right thing (that's follow your dreams, right??) but what would you actually do?<br />
<br />
Curious minds want to know.Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-57509824164124122932014-01-09T17:07:00.002+00:002014-01-09T17:07:37.622+00:00Mirror<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
My son and I have almost nothing in common except large heads, asthma and a shared love of music. My daughter, on the other hand - different story.<br />
<br />
<i>She's just like you, </i>said a friend at church. <i>She's so...... verbal. </i><br />
<i>Ummm, okay, </i>I said, thinking <i>it's nice of her to do the whole 'you're so alike' thing, but it's really not necessary. We don't have to be alike to be a family. Hmmmph. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Then a few days later, Pink and I had a stand-up fight about angels (don't ask). <i>Why am I having an actual fight with a four-year-old? </i>I asked Jay, and he said <i>because neither of you can admit that you're wrong. </i>(This was a dumb thing for him to say - surely I didn't <i>have</i> to admit that I was wrong, because <i>she </i>was wrong. That should have been obvious).<br />
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<br />
Later: <i>She doesn't like to go with the flow, does she? </i>said Jay. <i>She's very contrary. She kind of reminds me of... you. </i><br />
<i>What do you mean</i>? I asked. <i>Watch, </i>he said.<br />
<br />
Over lunch, Blue asked me <i>Mummy, is it fun being a grown up? </i>and I said <i>Well, some of the time it's fun, Blue. It's good to eat as much chocolate as you want sometimes without anybody stopping you, and it's good to know how to drive. But being a grown up means working, too, and sometimes it means that you have to do things that you don't want to do. </i><br />
He looked sad, and said <i>Oh. I not like doing things I don't want to do.</i> and I agreed - <i>That's right, Blue. Nobody likes doing things they don't want to do. </i><br />
Pink scowled at us both and said <i> That's not TRUE! I LOVE doing things I don't want to do. </i>And then she started to cry, clearly because nobody understands how complicated she is.<br />
<br />
Also. Blue was talking to me a few days ago about what it would be like being inside a shark (he'd been watching the Octonauts again). <i>Would it be smelly? (yes it would be smelly). Would it be scary? (yes it would be scary). Would it be dark? (yes it would be dark). </i>Then he told me that he did not think it would be very much fun to be inside a shark. I said that I agreed, that I didn't think anybody really wanted to go inside a shark. Then Pink, who I didn't even realise was listening, roared <i>I do. I want to LIVE INSIDE A SHARK FOREVER! </i><br />
<br />
Of course you do, Pink.<br />
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<br />
My mother observed : <i>she does find it hard when other people get things she wants, doesn't she? </i><br />
She didn't have to say that I'm like this too, because I know I am and I hate it about myself. And she knows me well enough to know that I know.<br />
<br />
Over dinner on Sunday, I told them that a friend of theirs was about to start school*. <i>It's so exciting! </i>I said. <i>When you go to school on Tuesday, Jillian will be there! </i><br />
And Blue said <i>Hooray! Jillian is my best friend! </i>(Right now, he has a lot of best friends). Pink said <i>Why is she at school? </i>and I said <i>Because she has turned five </i>and she, of course, wailed with unhappiness. <i>Why is SHE five? </i>she asked. <i>Why aren't I five? </i><br />
And I said <i>ummmm, because she was born before you, Pink </i>and she cried and cried, refused to eat any more food in protest, and yelled I WILL NEVER, EVER, BE FIVE!!! It transpired later that this is, obviously, Jillian's fault.<br />
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<br />
Another fun moment with my girl recently:<br />
<br />
Me: <i>High five, Pink. Good job answering that question. You could not be more right! </i><br />
Her: YES I COULD! I COULD BE MORE RIGHT!<br />
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I really have no words for that.<br />
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<br />
She's stubborn, and annoying, and she can't bear to be wrong. She thinks she knows everything, she will fight about <i>anything </i>and does not let facts get in the way of a good argument. In other words, she really is <i>just like me. </i>It's kind of unbearable. <i>Am I really this difficult to live with? </i>I asked Jay, and he whispered <i>Yes, my sweetheart, you are, </i>except actually he didn't say that with words, he just laughed like a maniac and nodded his head.<br />
<br />
My mother adores my girl, but she finds it hilarious that I have to parent her. <i>She really is the only child I've ever met who is as stubborn as you were, </i>she told me. <i>Then I guess we're a perfect match, </i>I said, and she just laughed, probably because she's actually come out the other side of parenting <strike>Pink</strike> I mean me. I asked her for tips and she just said <i>Prayer. Lots of prayer. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
I knew we weren't getting a blank slate when we adopted, but I really, <i>really </i>didn't think I'd be getting a mirror. Adoption has all kind of unknowns, but I thought there were a few things I did know. Surely the one thing you're <i>not </i>getting yourself into, when you adopt, is that weird situation where you see yourself and all your flaws reflected in your children. Surely the one thing you can guarantee is that your children will be bratty and annoying in new and unique ways - ways that your family has never seen before?<br />
<br />
Apparently not.<br />
<br />
You have been warned.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">totally, totally, totally worthi t. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*Oh yeah, I never followed up on the school thing, did I? Our kids are enrolled at a new, small - read, <i>tiny, </i>Christian school that Jay and I are helping to set up. Bet you didn't see THAT coming - well, neither did I. We both volunteer there one morning a week, and the kids go along when we do. I'm currently the music teacher, which is so hilarious that I cannot even begin to tell you. </span>Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-50111537031882803102013-12-24T21:42:00.002+00:002013-12-24T21:42:40.319+00:00No Crib For A BearWell, it seems that once again this is not the year for a serious post about the meaning of Christmas.<br />
Instead, here is 35 seconds of my children singing, because unless you're their grandmother I doubt you can take any more:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/CVkKhsX3DIQ" width="420"></iframe>
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May all your bears have cribs - not just at Christmas, but tonight and every night, and may nobody tell you you're doing it wrong. I think you're doing a fine job.<br />
<br />
Merry Christmas to all - it's been lovely spending this year with you.<br />
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<br />Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-22655293010480654202013-12-09T23:52:00.001+00:002013-12-09T23:52:13.170+00:00In Which I Cannot Find A Snappy Title For A Post Where I Try To Gather My Thoughts About Parenting Children From Hard Places Who Often Display Harder-Than-Average Behaviours, Which May Or May Not Be Due To The Aforementioned Hard Things They Have Experienced (But On Balance, Probably Are, At Least Partially)<div style="text-align: left;">
Lately, a few people in the adoption-o-sphere have written really interesting posts about the realities of parenting kids with trauma. I've wanted to add my two cents to this topic, but I haven't until now because it's taken me this long to scrape my thoughts together. (This is why I stink at twitter, incidentally. #TooSlow). </div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
1.</div>
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Looking around me, I do think that children who have been adopted are more likely than average to be ...<i>intense </i>kids. Did I want to believe this before we adopted? Probably not. Does it matter what I believed? Not really. The thing is, before you're talking about a real kid, you're just talking averages and likelihoods and risks and none of that is particularly meaningful, in the long run. A child who has been in institutional care might be, say, 45% more likely than an 'average' child to struggle with clinical anxiety, but when we adopt we are adopting only one data point, and how the rest of the bell curve looks quickly becomes kind of irrelevant. (By the way, I'm a bit of a data nerd - thinking about this stuff is what I do for a living - so referring to my kids as 'data points' is a sign of love. Honestly). </div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
2.</div>
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After all, child's behaviour is due to a complex soup of how tired they are, how hungry they are, their age and stage, their proximity to something that they want and can't have, their general state of health, how annoyed they are because of something you just said they couldn't do, how annoyed they are because of something you told them that they <i>do </i>have to do, whether they have just been hit/ pinched / poked by a sibling and what phase of the moon it is.</div>
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3.</div>
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The irony here, of course, is that kids from hard places often have a really hard time learning to regulate their eating and sleeping. So yeah, there's that too. I think this is why it's hard to get a real grip on how much adoption has affected my kids lives. I know my kids have been through some pretty hard stuff in their little lives, but that is nowhere near the only thing that defines them. If they are intense kids - and believe me, they are intense kids - who says that has anything to do with what they've been through? Maybe <i>this</i> is because she's a girl. Maybe <i>that</i> is because he's a boy. Maybe all the rest of it is because they are twins. </div>
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4. </div>
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Statistically speaking - forgive me - this is actually where things get kind of interesting. The data is complex both horizontally and vertically - horizontally, lots of kids are adopted, and that affects all of them in different ways - vertically, each of those children is the sum of a whole lot of things that make them who they are, of which their adoption and pre-adoption experiences are only a part. Add to <i>this </i>the fact that nearly everybody doing research into adoption has got some kind of agenda to push, and it is pretty freaking close to impossible to draw any conclusions without hedging everything around with a thousand caveats. <i>On average. On the whole. In some cases. Anecdotally. In most cases. Occasionally. Often. </i> However, I'm about to write down some of my thoughts about it all anyway. Clearly, your mileage may vary. I'm not going to type all of the disclaimers (<b>just my observations, I get all of my information off the internet, Pink and Blue are my first kids, I'm typing this quickly, I'm not a sociologist or a social worker</b>) every time, so I've put them in bold just so that you remember that I did type them once). </div>
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Anyway, here are All My Thoughts, Except For The Ones I've Already Typed Above. I'm going to start with something I do know for sure: </div>
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5.</div>
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The effects of trauma and deprivation on the brain are real. Scientists have done brain scans and proved it. I have nothing more to say on this point. </div>
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6.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Oh, who am I kidding? That last part isn't true. Okay, here goes: I think that there can be a level of hypocrisy about this from society when our kids display really challenging behaviours. On the one hand <i>That's totally normal! He'll grow out of it! </i>but on the other - </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
7.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Call it loss, call it trauma, call it whatever you want, but the stuff our kids have been through is the kind of stuff that other kids have nightmares about. Why are people reluctant to believe that waking up one day to find that your mother is gone would have a deep and lasting effect on a child? That, together with one or more of deprivation, neglect, loss of other significant caregivers, fetal malnutrition, childhood malnutrition, maternal post-natal depression, extreme maternal stress, and all the other stuff that makes its way into out of our kids' lives and onto their paperwork - we know that all of this things have harmful effects on babies who remain in parental care - we have laws and programs and interventions to stop them happening - why on <i>earth </i>would they have any less of an effect on children who are later adopted? </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
8.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I completely agree with <a href="http://www.blogher.com/frame.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fscoopingitup.blogspot.com%2F2013%2F11%2Fa-spark.html&_back=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogher.com%2Fnode%2F798380%2Fbhpn" target="_blank">Staci </a>that the other parents I identify with most often have kids on the autistic spectrum. There are not very many other people who understand the whole noise sensitivity thing, for starters - that it's not just a <i>preference</i>, it's a life-or-death, climb the walls, anxious-about-it-for-days <i>phobia. </i>Last year, before I reallyreally realised this, we stupidly joined Jay's family on an everybody-together-won't-this-be-fun Christmas outing to the theatre. As soon as the amplified music started, so did the panic. I thought it would go away; I thought Unspecified Child would relax eventually, but boy howdy was I wrong about that. This year there have been several other similar noise-freakout incidents - one at a wedding, super funly, which the other guests aren't going to forget anytime soon. The very <i>thought </i>of loud noise now sends said child into a total, all-my-logic-circuits-have-shut-down tailspin. This is not normal childhood stuff. I'm not quite sure exactly what it is, but it's certainly not normal.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
9. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
This year, we said no to the theatre. I decided that I'm not paying fifty pounds for my child to go into wild-eyed mental lockdown; I can get that at home for free. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
10. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Don't even let me start on what happened the one time we tried to go to the movies. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
11. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
One thing's for sure, and I know this is related: I always see an increase in difficult (read: impossible) behaviours and anxious behaviours at the same time. The days that start with panicky <i>hold me hold me hold me </i>in the morning are far more likely than most to end with hitting and punching in the evening.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
12. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
A few days ago my boy totally lost in, a really scary sort of way, for reasons that aren't the point of this story. I had no idea what to do, and I silently said to myself <i>This child is out of control. </i>And I realised that this was true, but not in the way I originally meant it. This child is out of control in the same way that I am currently out of milk - it's gone. It's all used up. This child has run out of control. He has a finite supply, and for now it's all gone. If I don't like this, I need to be the one to change what's happening because right now he literally cannot help himself.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
13. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I know that every child is probably like this occasionally, but for other kids (okay, mine) it's a regular pattern. That's not the same thing, and it's really frustrating when some people tell me that it is, that this is normal. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
14. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
This is not normal. I promise. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
15. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I've made this point before, in countless other posts, but I'm going to make it again - I always feel nervous about talking about the difficult sides of parenting my kids, especially as they specifically relate to adoption, because I don't want to do it in a way that would make it sound like they are anything other than unutterably precious; unutterably dear. I'm speaking very frankly because I assume that I'm speaking to people who love kids like mine, and who wonder if they are the only ones thinking <i>is this just us? </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
16. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It's not just you, I promise. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
17.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Sometimes when we are out, Blue starts to perform for strangers. He sings, he dances, he bats his beautiful eyelashes. Whoever his audience is can't get enough - when he does this, it's <i>adorable. </i>Then the audience members look at my worried face and think <i>why can't that woman see what an adorable little boy she has? </i>Thing is, I can totally see how adorable he is, but I also know that this is act one in the "Blue Has A Raging Meltdown In Public" show. It starts with cute performing, followed by an interval of dizzy craziness, then an interlude of anxious clinging and then the curtain finally falls on inconsolable screaming. This show is not getting very good reviews from the critics. This behaviour pattern is described with frightening accuracy in Patty Cogan's <i>Parenting Your Internationally Adopted Child, </i>and I don't know whether I'm more comforted or terrified by the fact that there are thousands of other kids out there dancing their hearts out for strangers in their doctor's waiting room. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
18. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
He is an awesome singer and dancer. If we can break the dizzy-clinging-screaming cycle, I'm pretty sure he's going to make us rich. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
19. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Seeing the anxiety, though, breaks my heart. I wish I could fix it. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
20. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I wonder, sometimes, whether too many of us labour under a delusion that there is some kind of magical THING - post adoption services, better parent education, better institutional care, therapy - that would make all of this go away, if only we could find it. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
21. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I wish that was true - and if it was, I wish someone would tell me what it was - but I don't think it is. I'm automatically wary of anybody who thinks that they have the <i>only </i>way to help us help our kids, who people who think that whatever they are doing (or selling) is The Answer. I think that there is a huge appeal in finding The Answer, but I don't really think that it's out there. Kids are different, parents are different and every day is different. This kind of thing is way too hard, way too complicated, to know for sure that everybody who isn't doing it <i>your</i> way is doing it wrong. Surely? </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
22. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
There is a person whose job it is to go into bat for my kids, to get them what they need, pay for it and then do it again the next day - the problem is,that person is me and most days, I'm bone-tired. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
23. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Sometimes, my kids are horrible to me (and to each other) for reasons that have nothing at all to do with adoption. Sometimes they're just plain crazy. Of course. But if I've decided that my kid fits in a box (the trauma box, the anxiety box, the sensory integration challenges box, or the however-we-want-to-label-it-box) sometimes it's easy to forget that there are lots of bits to my child that do not belong in that box. What I mean is: our child may genuinely have serious issues with attachment and anxiety, but that doesn't mean that they can't <i>also </i>just be a disgusting little snot-nosed brat some of the time, just like every single other child on the planet. There is nothing that explains all of our children's behaviours - no diagnosis, no experience, no label, no category. Sometimes kids - all kids - really are just feral. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-NtEbGOqEBVK-M2avwq-e7zyBwz60ML16VsO9Gp6XlT8hrK9Uc5ro9PrdnElqKUULVlOqccv_NF7Qslo1KyDyH9R3ZD0Ub8bjYtuctQjpKnihBsarxc4PLck7xwWErUXZF60dcPlrtFOX/s1600/20130928-DSC_0801.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-NtEbGOqEBVK-M2avwq-e7zyBwz60ML16VsO9Gp6XlT8hrK9Uc5ro9PrdnElqKUULVlOqccv_NF7Qslo1KyDyH9R3ZD0Ub8bjYtuctQjpKnihBsarxc4PLck7xwWErUXZF60dcPlrtFOX/s1600/20130928-DSC_0801.jpg" height="425" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I don't think this was about trauma. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
24. </div>
<span style="text-align: center;">I'm not going to lie -there are some times when I find myself thinking</span><span style="text-align: center;"> </span><i style="text-align: center;">what have I let myself in for? </i><span style="text-align: center;">But I would probably have thought that even if my kids were perfect angels, because having children really cuts into my</span><span style="text-align: center;"> </span><i style="text-align: center;">Project Runway </i><span style="text-align: center;">watching time. </span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
25. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I love my feral kids. I love them so much. But sometimes they make me so angry that I want to spit. I was talking to a friend at work about finding a parenting / work balance. We were talking about the things that are easier about work; the things that are easier about home. And I said <i>The best thing about being at work is that I am pretty certain that nobody is going to make me lose my temper at work; not even once. </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
26. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
My children both struggle with anxiety and anger and control more than the average child, and one more than the other. I have to remind myself, daily, hourly, that they really do need extra help, extra patience, extra not-sweating-the-small-stuff. However, I don't really think that I get to decide that other people are going to make allowances for my kid. If my kid is horrible to someone <i>else - </i>or someone else's kid - I can guarantee that person isn't going to care how much time my child spent in institutional care. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
27. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I'm always looking for reasons that this is all a phase. If it's not a phase, then either there's something wrong with my parenting or there's something wrong with my child. I don't like either of those options.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
28. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Honestly, I no longer think this is phase.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
29. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I'm pretty sure that, <i>on average</i>, becoming a parent the normal way would have been easier. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
30. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Of course, easier doesn't mean <i>better. </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
31. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
However, it also doesn't mean worse. People who have 'easy', 'neurotypical', 'normal' kids don't deserve any less oxygen than me. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
32. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I have a general rule that I think applies to intensive parenting just as much as it applies to the rest of life: <i>when you think one or two people are against you, you may well be right. If you think the whole world is against you, the problem is probably you. </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
33. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
By which I mean - parenting difficult kids is really, really difficult, no two ways about it, and sometimes you might need to butt heads with people who are really dumb about the stuff you need to do to help your kids, the choices you need to make. But if talking to <i>everybody </i>about parenting makes you want to reach for the firearms, it's time to check your own head. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
34. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
And I think that it's important (really, really important) to remember that other people have difficult kids too. I am not imagining that my kids take extra work, extra love; If others tell me the same thing, I have to give them the same grace and assume that they are not imagining it either, no matter what their family story is. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
35.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Those would probably be great people to have as friends. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
36. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
However, I do think that, <i>on average, </i>parenting adopted kids is harder. Sorry, Claudia-in-the-past. I think that we as adoptive families are more likely than other families to have the Really Big struggles, to feel totally, <i>totally</i> out of our depth with each other, to realise that our lives might look pretty different from how we pictured them when our babies were small. This way of parenting is not for the faint of heart. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
37. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
This way of parenting is not for the faint of heart. But then, neither is any kind of parenting. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
38. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Neither is living, for that matter. </div>
Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com40tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-7946572714527654012013-11-29T19:24:00.000+00:002013-11-29T19:24:53.248+00:00Proof... that my children are still cute. <div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Finally! Some photos that were not taken on my phone.<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiEFmFyi7z_n1WIJw-GXi2unMlSMtPwKuyIPBVZ8lIiHFFjQrqkLYJcviukUr4kTwPx8OY8GBnkDXihbChhRLyM5jBOxKoNyxBmZKksIJNGZsAOoBcp8aO3c95Bv7Elp8DQ-Db9ymuDsmY/s1600/20130204-DSC_0068.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiEFmFyi7z_n1WIJw-GXi2unMlSMtPwKuyIPBVZ8lIiHFFjQrqkLYJcviukUr4kTwPx8OY8GBnkDXihbChhRLyM5jBOxKoNyxBmZKksIJNGZsAOoBcp8aO3c95Bv7Elp8DQ-Db9ymuDsmY/s1600/20130204-DSC_0068.jpg" height="640" width="425" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Moments like this are basically why I wanted to be a parent. It's 11am on aTuesday, and she's wearing her pyjamas, a gold medal and a box on her head. Because of course she is. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkwJ7LYwkJU0aBnL8cROv6LBnXOZNLelXzP8Zp0B7iWvMige4EMozVNxmMK-dGJ8-nz-GvxWE84q9sTefM7GK7iEkAo8yINj250pFhh4lY_JhSW9TybIKmcd_X8oTH8Y2UXhyphenhyphen10BXYsV8U/s1600/20130606-DSC_0245.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkwJ7LYwkJU0aBnL8cROv6LBnXOZNLelXzP8Zp0B7iWvMige4EMozVNxmMK-dGJ8-nz-GvxWE84q9sTefM7GK7iEkAo8yINj250pFhh4lY_JhSW9TybIKmcd_X8oTH8Y2UXhyphenhyphen10BXYsV8U/s1600/20130606-DSC_0245.jpg" height="400" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Also moments like this. They went through a brief period of being obsessed with 'wotzing'. It was hilarious. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZP_RgvducoJ7760OCPZ0DelKVuRhHWvT1tbKSY6bW3pZBeiujDSjLbJnioRb5gIPHg88_CsP2oe86Q_G3TbqMFsHvST3DbOJjVEJ_AvZ_ZwyeCK6jWT54L5TM6w5c5k1J9NXyGZlyYYUm/s1600/20130606-DSC_0256.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZP_RgvducoJ7760OCPZ0DelKVuRhHWvT1tbKSY6bW3pZBeiujDSjLbJnioRb5gIPHg88_CsP2oe86Q_G3TbqMFsHvST3DbOJjVEJ_AvZ_ZwyeCK6jWT54L5TM6w5c5k1J9NXyGZlyYYUm/s1600/20130606-DSC_0256.jpg" height="428" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the picture I look at when I'm reminding myself that actually, my children are not totally devoid of empathy. They are giving their toys medicine to help them feel better. And thank goodness for that.<br /><br /><br />At the end of September, two of our good friends got married. Pink and Blue were flowergirl and flowerboy. I possibly may have begged shamelessly for this to be the case; I'm admitting to nothing. I also volunteered to do the photos, which was, frankly, dumb. For future reference - Mother Of The Flower Children is ENOUGH to do on one day. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAiGsMUE6AA3z62AebAx-ZskGIuG7WsSkrAY6KTaZo-YrW8FtTTXQnc9Kpw1Nck_vsVj7qBegCprcEkyCXZBZUZj-PwGf6qcObcMSIaK3X9tQYl_6w0TiANvMYpfljVjJfJFDrQsBaPEKn/s1600/20130928-DSC_0366.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAiGsMUE6AA3z62AebAx-ZskGIuG7WsSkrAY6KTaZo-YrW8FtTTXQnc9Kpw1Nck_vsVj7qBegCprcEkyCXZBZUZj-PwGf6qcObcMSIaK3X9tQYl_6w0TiANvMYpfljVjJfJFDrQsBaPEKn/s1600/20130928-DSC_0366.jpg" height="640" width="428" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I only had to take about fourteen leaving-the-house shots to get one where they are both semi-smiling. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLr7oNp0PkZ2McTk2l5NZ_lErXQsUncfjDeDHH5fpuGVYPbEsB4FSPGcHIhiOrwZfoMxqgq67PfVbeBQV6RMTZgsmWa6p2tlKyJvJ-wFhCKF7GVLs-tfNv-5rLtDE27S37Es_afguR-1UK/s1600/20130928-DSC_0467.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLr7oNp0PkZ2McTk2l5NZ_lErXQsUncfjDeDHH5fpuGVYPbEsB4FSPGcHIhiOrwZfoMxqgq67PfVbeBQV6RMTZgsmWa6p2tlKyJvJ-wFhCKF7GVLs-tfNv-5rLtDE27S37Es_afguR-1UK/s1600/20130928-DSC_0467.jpg" height="400" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">So big / still so little. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5D81TSow9yIYFzWGi4CjvG5Yaba6wSrPsUS3Eq9k69I4vkrCT12bYn-0dDMGxOe5HPkiiZsdoOY-6YFcRpnWu2hG8_MLs2NS5ZMxAixqUil2iAQOhGvzeHYcwefJuT5T4ZAO8jhX-Zpt2/s1600/20130928-DSC_0779.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5D81TSow9yIYFzWGi4CjvG5Yaba6wSrPsUS3Eq9k69I4vkrCT12bYn-0dDMGxOe5HPkiiZsdoOY-6YFcRpnWu2hG8_MLs2NS5ZMxAixqUil2iAQOhGvzeHYcwefJuT5T4ZAO8jhX-Zpt2/s1600/20130928-DSC_0779.jpg" height="640" width="428" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13.333333969116211px;">Face? What face? This is my everyday face.<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_8As1srvoW_K7OBLBEuWiY3Na1kQzRByR44bIlDjotiN3uOde_IZN3wzFy9OMFtDhc1g-uGQGQXBN-D04rJB4fsXpor65DNUtbYTFUunmI5Lkwh4_36XwkwG5SdxFjN_lSXh2cgat_34r/s1600/20130928-DSC_0815.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_8As1srvoW_K7OBLBEuWiY3Na1kQzRByR44bIlDjotiN3uOde_IZN3wzFy9OMFtDhc1g-uGQGQXBN-D04rJB4fsXpor65DNUtbYTFUunmI5Lkwh4_36XwkwG5SdxFjN_lSXh2cgat_34r/s1600/20130928-DSC_0815.jpg" height="428" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In fact, we should probably both be models. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr36LLEz1nyDgGvZn21EL8s_fTiBeYYQR7wIbeO-p74Q3ZNP_L_QUm8uwII9FqLqVudgTHsXt_ceIUcxMqhoS2IRxNHWq4Yjm-QUGK1ha-HkBfeMbnpFWSSzLX_uoxf-ZwRTU3CJrZca-O/s1600/20130928-DSC_0888.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr36LLEz1nyDgGvZn21EL8s_fTiBeYYQR7wIbeO-p74Q3ZNP_L_QUm8uwII9FqLqVudgTHsXt_ceIUcxMqhoS2IRxNHWq4Yjm-QUGK1ha-HkBfeMbnpFWSSzLX_uoxf-ZwRTU3CJrZca-O/s1600/20130928-DSC_0888.jpg" height="267" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13.333333969116211px;">Control your emotions, Pink. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7mXkPXP9WEfPk-CsQLqmfGilopWkwhvdSUmO-RMCIhnWA2Y9j2PSHQc8fSwAHwMu6t76AsuFk2WDRhOAp7N3wqMIYoieKSa1i38Bp5IDSc-QZlVj9In5mk2w-2yyelZz8IJgnsdfiM3qb/s1600/20130928-DSC_0889.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7mXkPXP9WEfPk-CsQLqmfGilopWkwhvdSUmO-RMCIhnWA2Y9j2PSHQc8fSwAHwMu6t76AsuFk2WDRhOAp7N3wqMIYoieKSa1i38Bp5IDSc-QZlVj9In5mk2w-2yyelZz8IJgnsdfiM3qb/s1600/20130928-DSC_0889.jpg" height="267" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13.333333969116211px;">No, really. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgughYb0LwJVtj34NI_oKqO36BlpGJ9lIeKH29wYHKtTKDCxrJl291X1MUTRRhQWFX1G-KNCHcTuCndrdgrQaIkMlZsxUfXNsvXxRpyHKZLXFjGVc6vr2SXhMA0HykWySKGpzVjImTQ6fMc/s1600/20130928-DSC_0893.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgughYb0LwJVtj34NI_oKqO36BlpGJ9lIeKH29wYHKtTKDCxrJl291X1MUTRRhQWFX1G-KNCHcTuCndrdgrQaIkMlZsxUfXNsvXxRpyHKZLXFjGVc6vr2SXhMA0HykWySKGpzVjImTQ6fMc/s1600/20130928-DSC_0893.jpg" height="267" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13.333333969116211px;">Control them. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhJdWP1tTIrP4GSLf9EiWOEG9azdEqLxwsq85Po8AfjpCZi7ZEGTxIzO4vRrEz3My7uv_v7WOp-B5TFSm0KypH630EDBeP2U4D6kfXS7pUCDyY01Z4af3oDEp_KZH4fmmFZ630EeIXZhqt/s1600/20130928-DSC_0819.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhJdWP1tTIrP4GSLf9EiWOEG9azdEqLxwsq85Po8AfjpCZi7ZEGTxIzO4vRrEz3My7uv_v7WOp-B5TFSm0KypH630EDBeP2U4D6kfXS7pUCDyY01Z4af3oDEp_KZH4fmmFZ630EeIXZhqt/s1600/20130928-DSC_0819.jpg" height="267" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There's a reason that kissing should be left until we are much, much older. And then not with each other. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4eH9T8kdZ2xQUlyw6e4tY9zhJGNDYLxuPxiti9zKpGvIzLevRRSXO4iPv5VJuSwe_O4b_lVis-SW19_hLXkEnqETBFFEq7bC6TkM17zoHzMRJf3h9t4KhQ6yNuZP62-K9s9U6kgo3Hc00/s1600/20130928-DSC_0791.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4eH9T8kdZ2xQUlyw6e4tY9zhJGNDYLxuPxiti9zKpGvIzLevRRSXO4iPv5VJuSwe_O4b_lVis-SW19_hLXkEnqETBFFEq7bC6TkM17zoHzMRJf3h9t4KhQ6yNuZP62-K9s9U6kgo3Hc00/s1600/20130928-DSC_0791.jpg" height="425" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13.333333969116211px;">This is probably my favourite photo of them all day. It's just a shame the lady they are snuggling is not me. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB3C6pPu59_oWSnJxREubhyL1V6Bn1Q5TRzqfSA49tYrzJh5-wWJcFVR1Hme99WytRxXLz4mem8qz4ykczzZNySTH2llS9vmQwD577-8_WZplk3MyTMzlTFVa6YO5uS4c55s4DAHIjQDDr/s1600/20130928-DSC_0827.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB3C6pPu59_oWSnJxREubhyL1V6Bn1Q5TRzqfSA49tYrzJh5-wWJcFVR1Hme99WytRxXLz4mem8qz4ykczzZNySTH2llS9vmQwD577-8_WZplk3MyTMzlTFVa6YO5uS4c55s4DAHIjQDDr/s1600/20130928-DSC_0827.jpg" height="428" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My choices are this one, where they are clearly thinking <i>we could not possibly be more bored, Mummy</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVohMyUtJRhIPG5GF-hFuSCCYIWzDcpaI5MIRKu__qYCA1kxUbvVzIrFQs3KQcoP8CLDNcj-AKmylssZ5OTV3tEgDBJQ1fho4n7yz5MrZnVLr5km6BhKWxCRSA3vvFGKY-f-ry_o3BF1aE/s1600/20130928-DSC_0836.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVohMyUtJRhIPG5GF-hFuSCCYIWzDcpaI5MIRKu__qYCA1kxUbvVzIrFQs3KQcoP8CLDNcj-AKmylssZ5OTV3tEgDBJQ1fho4n7yz5MrZnVLr5km6BhKWxCRSA3vvFGKY-f-ry_o3BF1aE/s1600/20130928-DSC_0836.jpg" height="428" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Or this one, where I appear to be part hammerhead shark. Oh well. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBrLMCgv-28UW7GxpFizu90mhupMn5KOp44IAFDFWvmQmtjw86sFPpU6XOjBarwLM6Wv9fEUylv9TGfp12odo59_x1cVBltrxev3T6PxA3hA_fr7bcvbj5cCyYVoCSSTLBhm-zlqnzm9rc/s1600/20130928-DSC_0853.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBrLMCgv-28UW7GxpFizu90mhupMn5KOp44IAFDFWvmQmtjw86sFPpU6XOjBarwLM6Wv9fEUylv9TGfp12odo59_x1cVBltrxev3T6PxA3hA_fr7bcvbj5cCyYVoCSSTLBhm-zlqnzm9rc/s1600/20130928-DSC_0853.jpg" height="400" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pink is going through a phase of being really, really into weddings. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1lGc7MrF2-wpUqkGhDISVwtB-ozObulDZOlQSqEtrd5craW_bf-EMh_wLRl5WYTaYLMl2ChZcojj68d5zKe9fzG1I3-uKhU1YwFOKxiT8Uc6Ckll23kmfhSqeYqnOpuPWfMK4qMpmoyJS/s1600/20130928-DSC_0854.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1lGc7MrF2-wpUqkGhDISVwtB-ozObulDZOlQSqEtrd5craW_bf-EMh_wLRl5WYTaYLMl2ChZcojj68d5zKe9fzG1I3-uKhU1YwFOKxiT8Uc6Ckll23kmfhSqeYqnOpuPWfMK4qMpmoyJS/s1600/20130928-DSC_0854.jpg" height="320" width="214" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm sure the whole 'flowergirl' experience is part of the reason, of course, </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0GCiyNfrixtoouOSxy43Xdry7v38Jyyn_YPOAkk29mnGQFaOyOgCRGvtIHKIaD3h2LsO_zueIpspHoClg-wzj4AskI5eJGyPXXqZwNsBZjk_LtaEdp3hAmZD9gGiFQeyxibD7R-Y6wiL-/s1600/20130928-DSC_0861.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0GCiyNfrixtoouOSxy43Xdry7v38Jyyn_YPOAkk29mnGQFaOyOgCRGvtIHKIaD3h2LsO_zueIpspHoClg-wzj4AskI5eJGyPXXqZwNsBZjk_LtaEdp3hAmZD9gGiFQeyxibD7R-Y6wiL-/s1600/20130928-DSC_0861.jpg" height="320" width="214" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">but a few days ago, she was doing something random like eating her dinner when she looked up at me, sighed, and out of the blue said <i>Oh mummy, I am going to be SUCH a beautiful bride. </i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpFHzZ0DrwAXt0dMFueLRWaMnEc2entmbe9mj5M69pRnufgdb2wmLp-S9Es7XlCscW8HKfpfbY-PiaTTzT86_wCqgQHUbFipS3b4eq9zw_apYHQDyeDmF8Xt6ldPRmH5JskYNPzf_2GpN1/s1600/20130928-DSC_0862.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpFHzZ0DrwAXt0dMFueLRWaMnEc2entmbe9mj5M69pRnufgdb2wmLp-S9Es7XlCscW8HKfpfbY-PiaTTzT86_wCqgQHUbFipS3b4eq9zw_apYHQDyeDmF8Xt6ldPRmH5JskYNPzf_2GpN1/s1600/20130928-DSC_0862.jpg" height="320" width="214" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And I just had to say <i>Yes, Pink, I think you probably will'.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLOs0Y5W0gjbsGe1_UwfQQrU_vC6GwAHRa9WeZMOacVHsGOwdHZ5qWLdR_2cAtFlyrIOE02h9RM8GShlq4ac6baTbIPLlbIVD1Q6OKNFJWvsNlRYdihxTfdUWljD-WY8KqJ-psM2vencGZ/s1600/20130928-DSC_0869.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLOs0Y5W0gjbsGe1_UwfQQrU_vC6GwAHRa9WeZMOacVHsGOwdHZ5qWLdR_2cAtFlyrIOE02h9RM8GShlq4ac6baTbIPLlbIVD1Q6OKNFJWvsNlRYdihxTfdUWljD-WY8KqJ-psM2vencGZ/s1600/20130928-DSC_0869.jpg" height="428" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another day though - also at random - she looked at me and said <i>Mummy, I do not think that I am very keen on getting married. </i>And we talked about how she doesn't have to get married, and not everybody gets married, and she should only get married if she really, really wants to. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmcyvLytdYm9Fe7Q7frMaRh8S9WSkRkeil1vRTVCcMWbfMbSmfwbGrqkeKD6NL7fxVLONBKEulM9XFZpgDt1Tdsj35dglAe_6_kkdA0j3zKoGfORaSRSZt9ya19hX_ap7mKQpyAbn5DfuO/s1600/20130928-DSC_0884.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmcyvLytdYm9Fe7Q7frMaRh8S9WSkRkeil1vRTVCcMWbfMbSmfwbGrqkeKD6NL7fxVLONBKEulM9XFZpgDt1Tdsj35dglAe_6_kkdA0j3zKoGfORaSRSZt9ya19hX_ap7mKQpyAbn5DfuO/s1600/20130928-DSC_0884.jpg" height="428" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And she paused for a while and then said <i>I just think that I want to live with Blue for all of the days. </i></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVxqPaoKVImQNqXG5HvzKvT1I18iswvSllHSD9UK570Bf04TGIMo4-x4z9IXiosBuCm0LZYVgV9i8NNFnOPXGakkXzdBL4hy3lSYCM9wdRBq62CSz-Rg2UtzgbgmKKSMCvduxHW85jv8Hj/s1600/20130928-DSC_0895.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVxqPaoKVImQNqXG5HvzKvT1I18iswvSllHSD9UK570Bf04TGIMo4-x4z9IXiosBuCm0LZYVgV9i8NNFnOPXGakkXzdBL4hy3lSYCM9wdRBq62CSz-Rg2UtzgbgmKKSMCvduxHW85jv8Hj/s1600/20130928-DSC_0895.jpg" height="640" width="428" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpsvd0PAl7qLcwP6S186IGVOzuJDK6YS7o9eenra8Mmt3cLLJfxKVyhgr6zppC8mdKBzUbxUZ_TGqra6Jb6PKgJePSdpFeFbJDRgXgwEh-PH4b8qCrJC4hBHUBNe0kXgCewLeAgI3INe2o/s1600/20130928-DSC_0898.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpsvd0PAl7qLcwP6S186IGVOzuJDK6YS7o9eenra8Mmt3cLLJfxKVyhgr6zppC8mdKBzUbxUZ_TGqra6Jb6PKgJePSdpFeFbJDRgXgwEh-PH4b8qCrJC4hBHUBNe0kXgCewLeAgI3INe2o/s1600/20130928-DSC_0898.jpg" height="428" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjasIM8o_E_-vygZVxwHfxtKEVyo0hDtx7qI6yGVgm_1NmwuYzB_BPrYaCZxmLijqIGbCQmhmH7-3-7w3xXuMc61bRlvHZ8kBtzGIAmR8mL31y3ro0iXuwOUSipgVEtwWvN078Ab8Rf7zYs/s1600/20130928-DSC_0923.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjasIM8o_E_-vygZVxwHfxtKEVyo0hDtx7qI6yGVgm_1NmwuYzB_BPrYaCZxmLijqIGbCQmhmH7-3-7w3xXuMc61bRlvHZ8kBtzGIAmR8mL31y3ro0iXuwOUSipgVEtwWvN078Ab8Rf7zYs/s1600/20130928-DSC_0923.jpg" height="262" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And if every day was like this, who could blame her? </td></tr>
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Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-10584315095755767352013-11-19T18:37:00.001+00:002013-11-19T18:37:30.569+00:00On Hurled Insults<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial;">If you've been reading this blog for a while, you probably know that I like to make sweeping generalisations. Or, to put it another way, I </span><i style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;">never </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial;">do </span><i style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;">anything </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial;">other than make sweeping generalisations </span><i style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;">all of the time. </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial;">With that in mind: </span><br />
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I just cannot stand the way my children are so consistently negative about everything, <i>always. </i></div>
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Is this really true? I don't know, but it feels true. I remember reading something once - I can't remember where I read it, but it said something like* <i>negative feedback makes ten times as much of an impression on your brain as positive feedback. </i>The idea is that you aren't supposed to say anything negative to someone until you've said at least ten positive things. I'm pretty sure that my children did not get that memo. Instead: </div>
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On being asked to set the table, one of my children cries and said <i>Why do I have to ALWAYS set the table for ALL of the days? </i>as if I'm running some kind of table-setting child-labour sweatshop. All day, it's <i>Yuck, I hate soup / I don't like that place / I don't like these people / You are telling me off! **/ I do'nt like to do that / I don't want to read / DO IT FASTER!/ She is hitting me / He is biting me /I hate potatoes / I do not love you / You forgot the cups, Mummy / I hate bread / </i>and so on. (And on and on and on).<i>***</i></div>
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One of my children hisses like a snake when they are angry; the other screeches like a cat , and right now it's like living in a zoo. Nothing I can do is right, and it's is getting me down. It feels like there is a lot of drama in our house at the moment, a lot of drama and anger radiating at me from approximately the level of my elbows. Often it's anger about things I have no control over (the weather; how long it takes the laptop to fire up) and I feel battered and bruised. </div>
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It drives me crazy, and my job, of course, is to do the opposite of be crazy. Instead: </div>
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<i>That's very good hopping / I can see you running / What fast running! / You are so gentle with the cat / I love to listen to you sing / You are growing every day / Well done for being kind to your sister. </i> So much positive feedback. It's everything short of <i>I love the way you breathe, honey.</i> (And I do love the way they breathe, especially when they are asleep). There are so many lovely things about them. There are so many positive things to say. </div>
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The problem is that they are going through a stage of often not being very <i>nice****. </i> </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtxquDomVrExrNwEm6ff270f2frdfB3n8i7VmYdMZsPqsKicMoRsUBqmo05ZhBbRwFTss80OGCHZgngE9ox0T53ShjWtQTjIuU9asqQTcT_s_BZmRxSQKB-fiJ6Q8tCtUpy9fMEqojAQnE/s1600/CameraZOOM-20131010173641897.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtxquDomVrExrNwEm6ff270f2frdfB3n8i7VmYdMZsPqsKicMoRsUBqmo05ZhBbRwFTss80OGCHZgngE9ox0T53ShjWtQTjIuU9asqQTcT_s_BZmRxSQKB-fiJ6Q8tCtUpy9fMEqojAQnE/s1600/CameraZOOM-20131010173641897.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">we have no idea what she is talking about! We are freaking adorable!</td></tr>
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I was making their breakfast this morning and Blue was losing his little tiny mind at me about something trivial. He was hissing at me (okay, he's the snake) and I felt this massive surge of anger well up within me. <i>How dare you </i>I thought. <i>You want me to be kind to you and I've just got nothing left. You've used it all up. You've sucked it all away. You're awful to me - you insult me, you hit me, you yell at me, you bite me and you still need me to love you. You hurl insults at me, and expect kindness in return. </i></div>
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And then I realised exactly what I'd unconsciously quoted - <span style="background-color: #fdfeff; color: #001320; font-family: Trebuchet, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;">When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats.</span><span style="background-color: #fdfeff; color: #001320; font-family: Trebuchet, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;"><i> </i>(<span style="font-size: x-small;">That's the apostle Peter, talking about Jesus in 1 Peter 2</span>). What I was really thinking, when I was angry with my son, was <i>stop expecting me to act like Jesus. </i></span></div>
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I am not very good at being like Jesus. </div>
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Here's why I don't always like being a mother very much: they need me to be like Jesus, for <i>all of the days. </i>I cant' do it, of course - I need grace upon grace upon grace. Fortunately, I know a person who's giving that out for free*****. </div>
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One good thing about this parenting gig - it sure does keep you <i>humble. </i></div>
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***********</div>
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Next episode will be cute pictures, I promise.</div>
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************</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*Pretty sure that's the standard format for references now. It's 2013, people! </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">**I wasn't.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">***If I had a dollar for every time I've said <i>Let's try that again with respect!, </i>a la Karyn Purvis, <i> </i>I'd have, well, an awful lot of money - although it turns out it's pretty hard to direct a child to say 'I don't love you' with respect. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">***** I love them to the moon and back, obviously, but surely I'm not the only one who feels this way about my kids sometimes? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*****That's Jesus again, in case you were wondering. </span></div>
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Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-72025304753704041092013-11-11T15:40:00.000+00:002013-11-11T15:40:18.881+00:00Hard ThanksThings have been hard around here, and I find myself sitting at my desk chair, not quite knowing where to start with it all. There's one question that keeps going around and around in my mind, and that's <i>when do you know for sure that your child is going to need ..more...than the other kids their age? At what point do you accept that you're going to spend their whole school career having 'special meetings' with their teachers? </i><br />
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It's one thing to wonder, and another thing to know. At some point you look at them and say 'okay, this isn't normal anymore'. I think I've just reached this point with my dear little boy, and it's hurting. Please don't tell me everything is going to be okay, because either I will want to scratch your eyes out or I will cry, and I hate crying, and I bet you would hate having your eyes scratched out too.<br />
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I don't really have the words to write about any of that properly yet, so how about I just tell you a story instead; something that happened last week. This is where it happened: </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You should all move here. It's super pretty. Not. </td></tr>
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Pink, Blue and I were walking to the park. Not a great morning- I can't remember why, but I'd lay money on someone refusing to get dressed and someone else feeling aggrieved about the colour of their toothbrush, probably. We'd finally made it out the door, on time, (miraculously) and were scurrying along when Pink fell over. She started screeching, and I turned to comfort her. As I knelt next to her, she screamed <i>my pony ball, my pony ball </i>and I realised that she wasn't yelling because she was hurt, she was yelling because the off-brand not-quite-my-little-pony ball she had been carrying was rolling towards the road. </div>
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I turned around to see the ball and instead I saw Blue chasing it, ready to dive headfirst into four busy lanes of traffic. </div>
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This is maybe the first time that I have really felt time <i>freeze</i>, as I saw him running towards that road and I sprinted - far faster than I knew I could - to stop him. Later I looked back and saw that my handbag had been thrown onto the pavement and was sitting there upside down, the DSLR inside somehow unbroken. I have no memory of sloughing it off but I must have, same as I must have shoved Pink back to the ground to stop her following me. </div>
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I caught him, just. <i> </i> This left the ball in the middle of the road, and Blue screaming <i>the pony ball, mummy, let me go, I need to get the pony ball </i>while I screamed <i>stop, get back, get back! </i> He tried to wrest himself free of my grip and throw himself back towards the hurtling traffic. </div>
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I had no idea what to do. In the end, after checking for a space in the cars, <i>I </i>ran into the road to get the pony ball, accompanied by the wailing of children who aren't worried about my safety but worried I might not be quick enough to save their toy. Once I had it back, they were nearly calm enough to listen to me yell at them. (Normally, I try not to yell, but if they run on the road I am going to yell at them as loudly as I can manage. Yelling is scary and evil, etc, but if they run on the road, I want them to be <i>terrified</i><i>. </i>I want them to associate that action with every sort of fear and bad emotion they can muster, because however much it is it will never be enough). </div>
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<i>If the ball gets squished, we will get a new ball, </i>I yelled. <i> If Blue gets squished, we cannot get a new Blue. </i>Pink kept on crying. <i>We can't get a new pony ball! </i>She wailed. <i>There was only one pony ball at the shop! </i>Was there? I have no idea. How can she even be thinking about the pony ball? Her brother nearly got run over. But he was crying too. <i>The pony ball nearly got squiiiiiished!, </i>he said again, and couldn't quite believe I wasn't really entering into his sadness. They cried and cried. I cried and cried too, not just because of the near miss but because he would clearly do it again, given the chance.<br />
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They have no idea how fragile their little bodies are; no idea how much more precious they are than a plastic ball. They chase after the wrong things, even when it could destroy them. Sort of reminds me of someone else I know.</div>
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The whole thing was horrible. A man came out of a cafe and asked me if I was okay, and I said <i>yes</i> but this was a lie. By the time I got to the park I was a mess, and I keep thinking about what nearly happened and how terrifying it was. Yet in the middle of everything that is hard right now, this was a sharp reminder that, in an instant, everything could change. In a way, it reminds me just how <i>idyllic </i>everything is right now, at least on paper, even when it doesn't quite feel that way. </div>
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In an instant, everything could change. But that day, they didn't. And I'm thankful. I am thankful for red traffic lights that held the cars just feet away from the part of the road my boy was trying to run onto. And I'm thankful for the newly-widened pavement that gave me extra inches to grab the hood of his jacket and tackle him to the ground. Most of all, of course, I'm thankful for these two precious, complicated, difficult, awful, wonderful kids that I still - after four years - get to call mine. </div>
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Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-4964138857479050232013-10-29T22:30:00.001+00:002013-10-29T22:30:05.782+00:00AWOL<p dir=ltr>Very occasionally - every few years or so - I get terrible headaches that stay for weeks and won't leave, no matter what I do. I'm just coming out the back end of one of these episodes now (I'm also in Barcelona, but that's a different story). </p>
<p dir=ltr>As soon as I can look at a computer monitor without wincing in pain, I'll blog again. And then I'll delete this short and inconsequential post. <br></p>
Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075858460867483977.post-63733674038983804912013-10-16T22:32:00.002+01:002013-10-16T22:32:26.211+01:00On Cellphones And JudgementI use my phone too much when I'm looking after my kids; I know it. If it beeps at me, I lunge for it. It's like a compulsion. I need to get over that.<br />
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What would I miss if I didn't have it with me? What would I miss if I left the thing alone rather than jumping for it as soon as it calls me? I wouldn't know that I could get 15% off winter coats at Banana Republic; coats I have no intention of buying. I might miss an <i>incredibly urgent </i>letter from my alumni association. Shock news: they want my money. I would miss knowing that a grand total of 8 people 'liked' my status on facebook. How would I ever cope?<br />
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Like everyone else, I have to fight the 'switch on and switch off' temptation of the phone in my pocket. Too often, actually, it's the phone in my hand. I don't really need to check for the price of silver wire on ebay <i>right now</i>, or read every single review of every single Barcelona guide book on amazon, or try to find the perfect rose gold shoes* whatever other compulsive activity I'm doing in order to block out whatever it is I'm trying to avoid.<br />
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On the other hand.<br />
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I know there's nothing important going on, but sometimes I just want something <i>other</i> than the thing that is happening. Is that really so awful? Sometimes there is a limit to the number of diet cokes I can drink during a 45 minute dinner marathon, and I want to look at pictures of tropical beaches and pretend I'm sitting under a baking sun rather than being yelled at by four-year-olds in the dim and grisly suburbs. Looking after kids is really, really <i>boring </i>sometimes, you know?** Boring and difficult; the worst combination. When I'm at my job, I always say that I can do boring or I can do difficult, but not together or I'm going to make mistakes***. Parenthood has proved me right about that many times over.<br />
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When the babies were small, sometimes I would put them in the stroller and take them for an outing, and while we were walking I would put my ipod in and listen to music. At first I felt guilty, and used to hide the headphones under my hair, but actually it was great - they got to watch the trees, see the sights, and I got to enjoy something grown up. I do not think any permanent damage was done by me not leaning over the top of their seats and saying 'Oh look, a <i>birdie!</i>' every twenty seconds. I listened to a lot of <a href="http://www.brokenbells.com/" target="_blank">Broken Bells </a>at that time in my life; even now I can't hear any of their songs without being transported back to the river path near our house, pacing my way across the bridge, feeling that intense happy-sadness that comes with new motherhood and marking the hours until naptime.<br />
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That ipod technique doesn't fly around here any more. There's still a lot of music in my life, but it's mostly Mary Poppins and frankly, more often than not, that's what I'm trying to mentally escape <i>from. </i>And so I find myself on my phone. <i> </i><br />
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<i>Am I doing this too much? </i>Well, probably. <i>Is it hurting my kids? Shouldn't I be stimulating their young minds more? </i>Well, I don't know, but I think probably not. Personally, I think that if I'm the kind of mother who stops to wonder whether my child is getting enough stimulation, then my child is doing <i>fine. </i>Never before in the history of mankind have children been so thought-about, so played-with, had so much attention paid to them. Children do not need to be watched and adored every moment of the day. And I don't know what mothers did to distract themselves before cellphones were invented, but I'm sure they did something. (Maybe they cleaned the house. Imagine that!)<br />
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Kids give so much negative feedback, so much of the time (<i>I won't / I didn't / I can't / I don't want to</i>) that it's positively <i>thrilling, </i>at times, to know that there might be a tiny adult somewhere, inside my phone, who is going to say something encouraging to me, send me a nice email, do something that will make me laugh or maybe just give me ten seconds of respite so I don't yell. I need encouragement through my day, and often the place I get the most is through my phone. I don't think this is anything to be sneezed at.<br />
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(Sometimes I actually use my phone to take pictures of my kids, so there's that, too. <i>Hey, look, I was already holding it! What a coincidence</i>).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2CbPKRJ_IeHjA6Vhj6xaUyf59LUkfxWoXc98BLvJReN8qzmBmarqdg4oh09C9pMrWSNc6sEej8YUG3a32UazTPT3dBQp37JWaJxoCh2Bd-HCpGoSpYMGExXZKKPEidQOU2q1Y74ThKHX5/s1600/CameraZOOM-20131015125004859.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2CbPKRJ_IeHjA6Vhj6xaUyf59LUkfxWoXc98BLvJReN8qzmBmarqdg4oh09C9pMrWSNc6sEej8YUG3a32UazTPT3dBQp37JWaJxoCh2Bd-HCpGoSpYMGExXZKKPEidQOU2q1Y74ThKHX5/s1600/CameraZOOM-20131015125004859.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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And yet I've read and heard a few people saying some pretty judgy things about mothers who spend too much time on their phones, and it bothers me. I don't disagree that probably, lots of us could do a better job to get the balance right between boredom, engagement and distraction (I talked about pushing kids through the boredom barrier recently, and I'm all too aware that sometimes I use my phone as a way to avoid pushing through my own). However, this attitude always, always makes me uncomfortable, and not (just) because it makes me feel guilty.<br />
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I don't know. I think that most mothers who I see idly thumbing on their phones are probably bored; bored and tired and wondering how much longer they have to stay at the swings until they can legitimately claim it's time for dinner. And if you think they shouldn't be bored and tired, if you would prefer to see them engaging their children more actively, I have a solution - offer to babysit and give that mother a bit of time to herself. Yes, that's right - walk up to her and say '<i>hey there, mama, you look like you could do with a break. How about I push that swing for you while you take an hour or so to read a book in that coffee shop?</i>'<br />
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Is this too weird? Is it impossible? Would nobody ever, ever, do it, because they would seem like some kind of crazy kidnapper, offering to look after a stranger's children? Well, maybe this is right, but my opinion is: <i>if we don't know a person well enough to offer to babysit her kids, we don't know her well enough to judge the fact that she is on her cellphone.</i><br />
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Perhaps we should, instead, try this. No crazy kidnapping involved. Every time someone judges a mother for being on her phone, they should be forced, by law, to shout something distracting and encouraging at her. After all, if we don't like the fact that this woman is going to her phone for encouragement, for emotional sustenance, if we think she should be getting that from real relationships, well, we should be willing to be that real person. And maybe we should all try it. Next time you feel tempted to shake your head at someone, instead do this: walk past and say '<i>you are doing such a good job' </i>or '<i>those kids obviously love you so much, I can tell by the way they smile at you'</i> or any one of the many things we find it easy enough to type on facebook but rarely say in real life or, if that's too uncomfortable, I dunno, just hand them a really funny picture of a cat.<br />
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Maybe this cellphone addiction so many of us have really is a sign that society is disintegrating around us, like people say. Maybe it's reason to worry. Maybe it's an epidemic. But if it's an epidemic of anything, I think it's an epidemic of loneliness rather than laziness, and we can all do something about that.<br />
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I think what I'm trying to say is this: don't be the judgement. Be the encouragement instead. Free babysitting or friendly shouting; that's your choices. But from here on out: no judgement. Shout something nice at a stranger on her cellphone today.<br />
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I dare you.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*Found 'em! And what is it about Autumn/Winter 2013? Suddenly I'm all about rose gold <i>everything.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>**</i>And if you don't know that yet, I genuinely apologise if this post is annoying. <i> </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">**Employee of the year, obviously. </span>Claudiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352341442556433375noreply@blogger.com13