Spring rains = worms

I had such a great time with the boys all to myself this weekend. It rained on Friday night and early in the day Saturday, but by Saturday afternoon it had stopped and we were ready to get out to burn a bit of energy.

Several exciting things;

• The little man can now reach the pedals on the tricycle and actually pedals! He can generally steer, but if we are trying to go quickly, I take the back handle and guide.
• The life order is established, the Big boy leads, the Little man follows. If the big boy stops, the little man stops. The little man has been instructed that he is to follow. The little man seems happy with the arrangement for now.
  
• Spring has sprung and the boys now know the difference between daffodils and crocuses, but really just like finding the colors.
• Worms still come out when it rains. You can still pick them up with a stick. They are still worthy of saving (moving them from the sidewalk to the safety of the grass). And I still rule on the icky factor of being the first one willing to touch with my fingers to show them that it won't hurt. However, I did stop short of showing the boys you could rip it in two and both ends live.
  

Trust

You really don't know how much trust there is in a relationship until you have to rely on each other.

Today I took DS1 ice skating. It was 63 glorious degrees and I had promised him that I would take him skating before the end of winter (which is Friday), if the weather gave us a day in which we wouldn't freeze. Today was the day.

I had never been skating on ice that was covered by a half inch of water before, but that is where I learned to trust myself. To show him it wasn't bad, I did a few laps with him just watching. Did he have any problem picking me out of the crowd, you might wonder? No. We were the ONLY ones there! I guess all the other mommies got the skating out of their system much earlier in the winter and chose to hit the playground on such a glorious day. But we were also at the unknown skating rink in NYC.

I write this knowing I will offend some, maybe many. First we all tend to gather with our own kind - moms with moms, dads with dads, hippies with hippies, old people with old people, and yes, frankly it would be naive to think that we don't gather by ethnic commonality. NYC is classic in that; there is the Russian enclave in Brighton beach, there is Spanish Harlem separate for "just" Harlem, there is Chinatown, and there is the artsy Upper West Side vs. the old money Upper East Side. All this preamble to tell you I'm not a racist pig, I just know the hoods. I also like mixing it up and not staying only in my hood.

And the unknown ice skating rink in NYC is in Central Park. No not Wollman Rink, down at 60th street, where one adult plus one child, with skate rental costs almost $30, and then you get suckered into the $5/cup hot chocolate, etc. We went uptown. Up to 108th street, where the two of us and our skates only cost $20. Where there is not hot chocolate choice. Up where I heard a grandma shout at her kid, "If you keep doing that your going to get a butt whipping!" And you know why I love this city, because I can go there.

Well, with no one on the ice, we could do anything. Yes, he trusted me enough to hold my hand and try. With no one to stop us, although he did tell me he thought I would get in trouble, I took a great big orange warning cone onto the ice, had him hold on and pushed him around at a good speed. We sat and took off our skate as a hip looking Latino kid (male, 20 something) took the ice and amazed us with spins and a few jumps. Frankly I think a great male role model with which to end the day!

When we went to leave he was glowing with pride of having gave it a go, even if he wasn't "skating". He wants us to go again, liking us having "mommie alone time". I was glowing for another reason. I knew he was scared, but he trusted me, held my hand and gave it a go!

The ebb and flow of love

Sometimes it is just too hard to admit to where I am. Then I realize I need to admit it. I tell someone. And then very quickly my world changes.

I'd been thinking about writing on the flow of love for a couple weeks. It, the flow of feelings, is not consistent. When you think and examine your love for another human being, it scary to recognize that it ebbs and flows. There may be a base, or a belief that love is always there, but there are moments when you are heavily in love, not romantic love, and other moments where you need a flashlight to find the warm spots.

In the last few weeks I've had fewer comments about the littlest man in my life. Frankly, he was just riding a nerve for me and love, to be polite, was not immense. This was a significant disappointment to me. In just the weeks prior, I had been feeling immense love and deep conection with him. Then all of a sudden, out of the blue, with no sparking moment, the warmth dried up.

At a birthday party two weekends ago, I ran into an adoption mom, and she asked, "How's it going?" I hesitated, but then I honestly told her, "A few weeks ago I was on cloud nine after a not so great adjustment period. I thought the self-questioning was behind me. Now I'm rather down as I'm back to not feeling as great of love, back to questioning why we are together." Without a hesitation, without a blink, she responded, "Yeah, it goes that way. It will return."

What simple words, yet it freed me. COMPLETELY. I was worried that I'm the worst adoption mom on the planet. I love the kid, but it ebbs and flows. When it ebbs I worry that it is gone forever; our closest moments have passed. This is when I can't seem to bring myself to write about it. But then I find myself giggling with him again, the love/warmth just starts to perk up again. And I know, things are better; not that they were ever truly terrible, its just the stuff the mind wanders through. It is good to know there is no singular path to loving a child. It is good to know I'm not the only one who questions whether they love their child or not.

I often wonder what is an "adoption" issue vs. just a "mother/parenting" issue. Before we adopted I never questioned whether I loved my biological son. Frankly, I still very seldom do. With him there is just a bond, unbreakable, that whether I love him or not, he is mine and we move forward. Accordingly there has been no imputes to stop and think, "do I love him? Is he ok with me, or would he have been better off with another family?" However, when you add someone to your life by choice, i.e., marriage or adoption, I think I'm more prone to examine my choice in the matter, and frankly I regularly question is this a choice I should keep, or do I need to alter my perspective.

My husband is a beautiful, somewhat tolerant man, that makes me laugh. Is that enough? After 10 years you'd think I'd know by now. What I do know is that the love in our relationship ebbs and flows. It depends on what I'm going through, what he is going through, how we are handling it together or not. But we've thrown our lot in together and keep thinking forward on those lines, and we conquer. There is always love, its just where on the pendulum swing are we? I should learn from this first lesson and apply it to the adoption. I'm just realizing that now, nine months in.

With my beautiful little China man, there is love. And yes it ebbs and flows. Because I made a choice to seek him out, I think about how things would be without him. And what would life like look like for him without me. Depending where I am on the pendulum swing of love colors my view of these parallel fantasy lives that never happened and are never going to be uncovered. But he is mine, I am his. We are in this together and there is no breaking the bond. But it is different than the relationship I have with my biological son. It is not different love, just different circumstances.

I will thank that adoption mom at the next birthday party. Being willing to put my fears in words and share was hard. Having someone to tell was a God send. Her offering support and reality was grace.

Silliness

Today was a silly day. DS2 kept saying/doing the most amusing stuff.

First, we were talking about something and he asked, "Is it as big as a monster?" To which I replied, "As big as a good sized monster". "As big as a bad sized monster?" was the next question.

Then in the tub the boys had blue paint/soap. They were making hand prints on the side of the tub when DS2 said, "Look we made hand paws".

These silly things make me laugh. They also make me hungry for DS2 to start talking. However, he gets his points in as silly too. Today the boys were marching around the house making funny noises, kind of chanting behind one another. DS2 was so happy to participate, so happy to have his older brother boss him around and include him in the game.

So nothing big, just sharing our silliness.

Ideal Days

Today was generally ideal.  It could have gone better, but that would have been asking too much!

First, today is the fish market day in St. Maartin.  We took the boys and they got to see real beautiful fish, even if they are dead.  DS1 liked the exercise of which head goes with which fillet.  We picked up beautiful Mahi Mahi steaks which we cooked on the grill this evening.

This morning we made it to the zip-lines for DS1 and mommie bonding time.  With DS2 on board, I frankly get  a lot less time with DS1.  It was great. For the first 3 lines, he was scared.  They were rope ladders and climbing.  But by the fourth he had the swing of things and was really having fun.  By the fourth we were more significantly off the ground and I was starting to wonder why I thought this would be good at all!

In the afternoon we went to my husband's favorite beach, which made him happy.  It is a good beach when there is no wind and today there was none.  There were nice people sitting around us, and none of the other families minded when DS2 stole their beach toys.  DS1 tried to pee on the back of DH lounge chair, which I thought was taking laziness to a new level.  The waiters we knew from years past, which was awesome, but also made me jealous of that young unattached life style.

The boys now have the post beach bathing routine down.  DS2 had a major melt down over a juice box.  Partially my fault, but also his.  I decided I wasn't going to give it to him unless he indicated through word or gesture.  He can nod his head yes and sign drink.  But he didn't want to.  I don't think he'll talk unless I stop just handing him things, so I asked, "do you want a juice box?" DS1 said yes and took it.  DS2 stared at me.  I said tell me yes or no.  He stared.  Juice box went back in fridge.  Battle ensued.  In the end I put him in the tub with no juice box.  But when it was time to come out of the tub, he was willing to say no the first time and yes the second.  so I may feel like a meanie some times, but I think I'm dealing with a very old curmudgeon. 

Dinner was nice, out on the patio.  The new question from DS1 is "where did object X come from?"  So fish from the ocean, juice box from the factory, salad from a plant, etc.  No spotting of the tail-less lizard today, but overall a very nice day. But we did discover the island has a zoo with a bat cave, so we may check that out tomorrow.