Cathartic journaling of an adoptive mom.
Latest Posts
-
Independence
At age five, jackie stubbornly practices her independence. She has a lot of freedom, though at times I consciously keep pulling back, as I hear myself nagging about this and that. A while ago she started taking our dog for the morning walk through the neighborhood. There she was, at 7 am, skipping on the…
-
Next stop: Fall
I wrote of faith, and as I got worried and impatient I wondered if my talk is empty. What of this tension between belief and action oriented trait. There is no exact recipe for a faithful walk. We adapt, we grow and we utter like David: “search my heart, Lord and straighten my steps.” I…
-
Clarity of mind
I have seldom been this confused about what to do next. A topic that has haunted me for over a month is clarity of mind, or lack there of. Busy body work only kept me away from quenching my spiritual thirst and from soothing my mind, from building my strength and spreading my wings like…
-
Obliviousness
This long awaited Spring, showered with tears, more than cleansing refreshing rain. It’s a cold end of March, with temperatures oscillating around freezing at dawn. Today I felt moved to text the jurist who helped us finalize the adoption at the courthouse with Jackie, 2.5 years ago. The social workers hadn’t been much help this year…
-
The good old days
My eyes are burning. Conrad took Jackie for a walk to give me a few moments of peace. It’s Monday and I’m exhausted. I’m trying to read a good book but I can’t. This morning I scrubbed the bathrooms and washed the windows while Conrad took Jackie to kindergarten, along with another kindergarten friend and…
-
An exercise of silence
Silence comes natural to me. Though the freedom to say nothing at all becomes a luxury in the age of instant connection and social media. Subconsciously I felt I owe the world an update. Yet I had nothing to say. So I said nothing. The more comfortable the embrace of silence became, the more I…
-
Practical skills
Miss J had 11 lei she carried around for a while in her handmade green leather wallet. On Monday she couldn’t buy anything from the three stores she visited with daddy. Not enough money? – you just don’t buy anything. Today she bought a candy from the grocery store and pants from a children’s store.…
-
Book reading to kids in elementary school
Last Fall I started to volunteer once a week, at a Day Center. I usually do math homework with 5th to 8th graders. Preteens and early teens. I frankly started to love it early on, but even more so as I get to know them better. The other day, they couldn’t wrap their mind…
-
O mamă pentru un copil
M-am bălăcit în autocompătimire, care a devenit mai intensă cu timpul. Odată ce mi-a sunat ceasul matern, fără o rezoluție evidentă la orizont, m-am simțit blocată și deznădăjduită. Ceva ce părea că ar trebui să fie așa de ușor, care li se întamplă tuturor, de ce nu mi se putea întampla mie? Ziua Mamei era…
-
A mother to a child
I wallowed in self-pity. It gradually became more intense. Once my maternal clock started ticking, with no apparent resolution in sight, I felt hopeless and stuck. Something so seemingly easy, so abundant, why couldn’t it happen to me? Mother’s Day was hard. Hard because I didn’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, but I wanted…
-
Ambitious & teachable
Never underestimate the ambition of an adoptee. Once they have taken a hold of a steady lifeline, even after they adapt to the good & predictable life, for better or worse they never loose that resilience, that keen awareness, the determination to survive, and to succeed. Yesterday Jackie got evaluated by four professionals to see…
-
Parenting with an audience
“Do you ever yell at your kids?” I ask a good friend. “I do. But I yell mostly at home, in private.” She responds with disarming honesty which I love. When I see my parenting from from a far away perspective, it looks clever, funny and balanced. Except I often feel it’s not. For the…
