grrlTravels

In Search Of: The Elusive 3-Hour Nap

Nap time is a peaceful time in a house with one child. The child lays down and goes to sleep. Quietness prevails. Work gets accomplished--perhaps you pick up the toys, clothes, diapers, etc that are strewn about the house. If you are feeling energetic, perhaps you even clean a little, dusting or washing dishes or if you are feeling particularly ambitious scrubbing grape juice stains out of the carpet and furniture. Perhaps you have some work to do in your home office. Perhaps you spend the time blogging.

Whatever your plans, the length of an afternoon nap is highly variable and subject to change at a moment's notice. There are always circumstances which arise to change the nap's length, and these variables are too numerous to account for. Therefore, the clock starts ticking as soon as the child lays down, and there is a certain sensation of pressure which begins to build at that moment. How much time do I really have? How much can I get done? Do I have time to do something "fun", or should I just buckle down and get to work?

For myself, I have decided that E. should take a 3-hour nap. That is our daily goal. Don't ask me where I came up with 3 hours, except that I guess I've heard a parent or two say something along the lines that their child occasionally will take a 3 hour nap. Three hours seems perfect to me--time to wash dishes, pick up the house, get the mail, read email and perhaps cruise around to a blog or two.

The problem is that E. hasn't really agreed to the program, and actually has no concept of time, especially when he is sleeping, so he is completely unaware of my 3-hour nap plan. This doesn't stop me. Every day I lay him down, give him his "Guy", say, "good night I love you take a nice nap I'll see you when it's time to get up go to sleep." And then I hurry downstairs and plan on having 3 hours to myself to actually get something done.

THE REALITY
Denial
I am working busily away, or blogging or trying to sleep when I hear "thump.". I casually glance at the clock. 3:21. E. went to bed at 1:30 as usual, so I know that the "thump." wasn't him. Quick mental calculations which are harder than they should be, due to the parenting of a toddler. It hasn't even been 2 hours yet. Must have been something hitting the roof of the house or something. What a strange noise. Ignore aforementioned noise and go back to work/blogging/sleeping.

Anger
"thump." again. Realize that it probably is E., even though it is only 3:27 and not yet two hours and this is the shortest nap on record. Think about what could possibly have caused my lovely child to wake up having slept not even two hours. Recall loud truck going by outside. Curse truck driver. Remember hearing kids on bikes ride by and realize that they were actually talking to each other. Outside. In the middle of the day. Not being quiet. Have bad feelings in heart about neighborhood children who can be that inconsiderate.

Bargaining
Hope that E. will magically fall back to sleep if I am quiet enough. Commence tiptoeing around the house. Do not open an cabinets, drawers, refrigerator, or anything that might make a noise if closed suddenly. Turn off washing machine. Remember not to sit in the squeaky desk chair. Try to breathe quietly.

Denial
Believe that E. has returned to sleep. Say a small prayer of thanks, and sit very quietly on the couch, not making noise. Try not to listen, but hear "thump." and decide that the cats are jumping off the bed again.

Anger
Get mad at cats for making so much noise in the middle of the day. "thump." "thump." "thump." Get mad at traffic, distant police cars, birds, gravel in driveway, loud air conditioning unit, squeaky desk chairs in general.

Depression
Realize that it is hopeless. Everything that hasn't been accomplished yet will not get done today. Feel like the house is dirty, dirty, horribly dirty, and not only dirty but messy too. Dirty and messy and sticky. And too small.

Acceptance
Take a deep breath. Turn the washer back on, flush the toilet 3 times in a row just because, and head upstairs. Open door to see E. laying in crib smiling at me. Wonder why I even wanted him to sleep any longer, because for the past 2 hours and 3 and 1/2 minutes I have really been missing him. Begin playing the "Are You OK?" game and actually enjoy it.

And now for a little whine

Dear Home Study Adoption Agency:

Thanks for performing our home study. We were very pleased with the results.

However, we were just wondering if you realize how important the finalized document is to us? That every minute that passes by, it feels like our daughter is enduring another minute in the orphanage that perhaps she doesn't need to. That while our home study papers are shuffling from desk to desk, our daughter is being born, abandoned and living in overcrowded conditions with no one to really love her for her sweet self.

Perhaps now that you are aware, you could work on shuffling the papers a little faster, moving things along a little quicker. I'm sure that you can't imagine her pleading little scared eyes like we can, and you don't probably long to touch her beautiful hair either. But we are on the clock, and WE WANT OUR BABY.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and any updates will be devoured eagerly.
(Gratuitous smiley faces to show no hard feelings...)
Thanks,
K. and A.

You know what I have to say? To borrow a phrase from Charles Schultz and Snoopy, and also from Hong Kong Phooey:

"Phooey."

Waking from a nap

I am a napper from way back. I enjoy taking a nice long nap on a Saturday afternoon when there is nothing else pressing. I transformed this into an art form while I was pregnant. Then it was napping every day, most of the day if truth be told. Gestation was tiring for me.

The main problem with napping is that you have to get up eventually (unless you are blue and the napping is a form of self expression). I always have trouble waking up and dragging myself out of bed. There isn't that much longer to the day by that point, just 4 or 5 or 6 hours--why get up? Dinner in bed, tv in bed, reading in bed, it can all be done in bed. Sometimes it's going to be so hard to get up that the nap is cancelled before it even begins.

E. is a charming child in many ways. He's a good sleeper and wakes up like a dream, something his mother greatly appreciates in him. We had this lovely little ritual for getting up from his nap, and unfortunately it's gotten a bit out of control.

It all started innocently enough. He has a little ball that he keeps in his crib with the other "guys"--it's soft and filled with foam and seems to fit perfectly into the "stuffed animal" category, notwithstanding that it isn't entirely an animal. So one day he sat in his crib and threw the ball to me a few times. I fetched it and threw it back to him by tossing it in the crib since he can't catch very well. The game of "Catch in the Crib" was born. The next day it was a few more throws, until it took E. about half an hour to get up from his nap. I didn't mind--he was so pleasant, having such fun, and babbling away just like we were having a conversation. Besides, how many mothers don't need to while away the hours between waking up from the nap and daddy returning to the nest.

And then one tragic day the game changed. Instead of throwing the ball, E. threw his "Guy", the stuffed animal that he sleeps with. I made a fuss, "Oh, are you ok? Is everything ok? Are your arms ok? Are you legs ok? Everything ok?" and tossed him back in the crib. From that point onward the nice game of "Catch in the Crib" was lost to me, and instead I am left with the game of "Are You OK?" in which I talk shrilly and search for more interesting things to say than repeating myself approximately 100 times in row. Alas, I miss that sweet, sweet game of catch. I absolutely hate the awful, annoying game of "Are You OK?" Waking up from naps has become tedious, and I find myself tempting E. with diversions--"There's juice downstairs. Juice and snacks. And then we can go outside and if you will just let me stop playing this game I'll say yes when you ask for that tattoo in 6th grade. Can we just STOP?"

Just reminding you (as if you need reminding) to appreciate the cute little things, because sometimes they are more fleeting than you can believe. And you're left with something as truly awful as "Are You OK?" and waking up from a nap, your's or someone else's, is labor intensive once again.

My type too...

I just have to comment on and link to this post on Brooklyn Mama's BLOG: My type. It was very validating for me, and I'm a person who needs validation from others, alas. (I'm working on that, but for now, validation is good.)

I spend most of my day following E. around the house/yard. Sometimes we stay inside all day, when he feels like playing in the playroom with his toys. Sometimes we go out on a long walk in which we actually make it about 4 houses down the street. We both get excited when we see a dog or schoolbus these days.

Sometimes the days pass slowly. Sometimes the time flies by. Sometimes I just feel my brain atrophying, but then I see E.'s smile when I go up to get him up from him nap and I don't care. If it's all just noodles up there by the time I get him in school, I'll just have to deal. Sometimes I miss work and grownups and feelings of accomplishment. Sometimes I realize how lucky I really am and wish for these days not to end.

E. is a late bloomer. He's not interested in talking right now, though we believe he has the tools. But my little buddy crawled late-ish, walked late-ish, and is in no hurry about talking. You know what? I don't mind. He's got his own interests, is forming a great little personality, and generally enjoys himself whatever is going on. I plan my days around him, try to limit long boring car rides (you know, longer than 15 minutes or so), long boring shopping trips, all sorts of important grown up sort of stuff that is just so much staring at the carpet for E.

I struggle to find time for myself, to have outlets which can be crammed into the empty bits of the day, to really not get bored out of my mind. But he is worth the grueling numbingness of the days, the onslaught of stinkers, the personal space invasions, the clinging leg tantrums, the stickiness.

So, Brooklyn Mama, I thank you for the validation. We too are sitting at home, reading the "Big Truck Book" for the gazillionth time, racing our cars on the rug and pretending to eat grotesque plastic food before we head out on another walk. We'd love to run into you, but we don't live in New York (although we'd like to someday).

Let's get this show on the road

Well, I read the family assessment sent by the social worker. She really did a good job. One little mistake and that was it. It's quite strange to read about your life from the point of view of an outsider, written in careful prose intended for government workers who don't even speak the same language as you. I wonder about some of the terms and references.

For example, what would the following mean to you, if you were a Chinese diplomat trudging through another mound of paper to place another infant girl with an American family:

An extra-curricular activity E. participates in is Gymboree.

The first floor contains an office, kitchen, lodge room, living room, enclosed porch, and a bathroom. (A lodge room?, you may think to yourself.)

Anyway, apart from wondering what this all will mean to the lucky Chinese official who gets to read our dossier, M. did a lovely job. She made us sound much more normal, together, and motivated than we really are. I can only think that's a good thing!

Apropos of nothing, I'm off to finally do the water test on our well. For those of you who have a life and don't live near us and have managed not to hear about the "1,000 year flood" we had a big flood in our NJ neighborhood almost 2 weeks ago. In our little community, mostly everyone has well water. (Not thrilling for me, but yes we have our own well.) When it floods and the water is over your well, potentially contaminating it, you must have it tested. So we haven't really been using our water for the past 12 days. The good thing about this is that we have been eating out a LOT. Also, we were blessed with no damage to this house. So we really can't complain, although living without "good water" can get old really fast. So off to test the well and in a few days, perhaps life will return more to normal.

Embracing another culture

Life is all about balance. Finding your balance each day is a challenge, but not impossible, at least not some days. There was an interesting article in the New York Times which brings this to mind. (I'm really not just babbling, although I do enjoy it sometimes.)

The article is titled "Close Encounters With a Home Barely Known," and it talks about adding items to your house from the birth country of your child. This is not a difficult concept for us. We like to travel, we like to buy art and tchotchkes to bring home with us, and we like to have them in the house to remind us of the places we've been. (Does tchotchkes sound better than tacky souveniers?) We have the ugliest little ceramic "statue" of some owls that our friends bought for us as an amusing Welcome to Bangladesh gift. But the owls are out, because they are a reminder of a really great trip, and also because they are so ugly they bring a smile to my face every time I see them.

I am really excited to go shopping in China. I've already decided to try to think of what I might want and make a list so that we are not shopping totally randomly. I love textiles and paintings, and I know we will buy those. I am looking forward to adding China into our fledgling International mix of stuff at the house.

The article does make a couple of good points. Don't put all of the Chinese stuff in your child's room and leave the rest of the house untouched. Don't overdo it--you aren't a Chinese family, so you don't need to pretend to be one. (Thank heavens for that. How many Chinese people live in log cabins?) Don't put all of the stuff away the second your child goes to college--embrace the culture and cultural identity as a large part of your life, as well as the life of your child.

I like the following quote a lot:

"I never liked the color red, dark woods, the old wooden beds or the blue and white pottery before. Now I love it all. I have a big bowl of Chinese ceramic balls, silk paintings in Emma's room and blue and white pottery. I think part of me feels Chinese because of her."
Dr. Andrea Colton, Boca Raton, Fl

I can see feeling part Chinese because of our daughter. I can't wait. I already have two middle names, having kept my maiden name, but perhaps I'll need a Chinese middle name, just like my daughter, or a nickname or something. We'll see what that will be.

Finding the right balance of Chinese and American and who knows what else will not be trivial. I think the line will shift over time and through the various stages of our daughter's life. But the right balance will also be another piece in the puzzle for our child, helping her to understand and love all of the cultures in her life. There's just one last thing that concerns me. The last line of the article is truly upsetting:

"Failing that, there are always posters of Britney Spears."

Now that's a culture I'm going to have trouble with!

One Small step for man,

One giant step for K. and A. Good news today. We got our home study back for our review!! K. and I are too tired to read it tonight, but it's here. I'm psyched. We will have that reviewed by the end of the weekend and back to the SW on Monday. I don't know what the next step is, whether our review is the final one or if it still needs to go to our agency. But this is progress!

I'm quite curious to read it and see what it says. From what I've read on other blogs there could be some errors in it--just curious to see what those might be. And then I am ready to send it on its way.

And I didn't even have to write the pseudo-polite note with all of the smiley faces! Yeah!

I do love rice...

Sometimes I ask myself, "Why China?" It's a pertinent question, and one that I think was asked in the home study, if I remember correctly. The reason I ask myself this question is because I really don't remember making the decision at any specific point.

Here we are, two new parents, totally sleep deprived and very traumatized by the labor and delivery. E. had nothing on us.

K: So I don't think E. should be an only child.
A: Me either. I think only children tend to be lonely. I think he should have at least one sibling.
[Relatively comfortable silence]
A: By they way, don't look at me even for a second. That pregnancy, labor and delivery was a bit much, and I'm not doing it again, ever.
K: I wasn't looking at you, I wouldn't ask you to do that again, and if you said you wanted to I'd fight you on it. Why don't we just adopt?
A: Ok. China?
K: Ok.

So I wonder what it is that draws me to our daughter in China. I have always felt an admiration for the Chinese people and culture. But that's not to say I don't admire the peoples and cultures of other international places. I do.

I do know that there is less of an incidence of pregnant woman using drugs and having STDs in China. The system is complicated, but once you get through the home study I think pretty much a sure thing. The orphanages seems less terrible than they are in some other places, although I think they are still pretty terrible.

I don't know what the stock answers are to this question, if they exist, so that isn't helping me at all.

I do have a particular fondness for rice. In one of the adoption books I read, the woman tells how everyone in their group was so tired of rice by the end of the trip. They ended up going out for "American food" as I recall and everyone was so relieved and happy. (I am not in any way disparaging this book. It was a really good book and the author was really honest about everything, including the rice incident. I enjoyed the book very much.) But I do remember thinking, "Tired of rice??? How can that be?"

An Aside: As a person who has eaten "pizza" in Bangladesh, I know what "American" food abroad is like. You have to be really desperate to eat it and enjoy it. You can ask my cousin about the authentic pizza in Bangladesh, and how desperate she was to have it, and how g-o-o-d it was...

In retrospect, it just doesn't seem like it was ever a decision, at least consciously. We just kind of knew that we wanted to adopt, knew that we wanted a daughter, and then it was just China. At the very least I am very much looking forward to the 2 weeks of rice.

I am not...

...one of those people who walk up to strangers in the mall and strike up a conversation. I don't think I am particularly unfriendly, but I personally do not always enjoy making small talk with complete strangers and so I don't make the assumption that they want to make small talk with me. K. thinks I'm pretty interesting I guess, but I don't assume that I am.

That said, I do have the urge to walk up to every single person that I see who looks as if they have an internationally adopted child and talk to them. I have the urge Every Single Time. I am sure that some of these children are not even adopted--that their parents are a multiracial couple (however you say that in correct PC terms) and that I would make a fool of myself. Two of my own cousins have beautiful biracial natural born children. However, the urge is still there and it's strong. Like a super duper extra strength heavy duty URGE to talk to these people. Sometimes I stand completely still in the middle of a crowded place (mall, grocery store, park) and say to myself,

"Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't talk to those people. They most likely do not want to talk to you about their child. You are probably the 8 millionth person to come up and strike up a conversation about nothing with them on the off chance that they will give you an opening to say, 'We are in the process of adopting from China right now...' Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't talk to those people..."

I am sure that half of the time I am staring quite ruding at the nice people who are nicely minding their own business with their beautiful children.

Ah well, I guess I just want to talk about it because I am excited about it and that's normal. But I am trying my best to talk about it appropriately, and not inappropriately. That's why this BLOG is so nice. I can talk about it all I want without a moment's guilt or hesitation. And if I do talk about it inappropriately or ramble on at length, well no one's keeping you here. But thanks for stopping by anyway.

Think ZENNNNNNNNN.....

The social worker just called about the all important home study. Thanks for the update, MB. Appreciate the call. No it wasn't good news, actually. We are still in limbo. Yes, HS limbo. She may have the changes/corrections made by the end of the week. Honestly, I think we may hold the record for "Taking the Longest to Complete Your Homestudy". And the award goes to....(drumroll please)....K. and A.! Thank you, thank you so much. You're really too kind. It was nothing.

So at least she called and I didn't have to call her. I appreciate the comment from Marla regarding the "just checking in with smiley faces" emails, because that was going to be my tact exactly. "Hi, MB, not bothering you at all, just wondering about the status of THE VERY, VERY IMPORTANT HOME STUDY DOCUMENT WHICH IS SITTING ON YOUR DESK AND WE REALLY NEED..." (add cute smiley face here to show that you aren't angry, just checking up)

Ok, it's Monday and we'll just hunker down until Friday and then maybe I will send the above message. ("Hunker" is in the dictionary--I just looked it up. Just wanted you to know.) I think I'll practice my smiley faces in the mean time. Choose just the right one, you know??

:-)

Girl stuff

Today I got in the mail a very sweet gift for my baby girl. It's a blanket that my friend and I had been admiring. It looks similar to "redwork", a type of embroidery that I really like. It's a great, thoughtful gift. (Thanks, H., I love it!)

Which brings to mind the other things that I have wanted to buy for my daughter. From time to time I have thought about buying her things, either specifically or in general. But I haven't bought her anything. Why, I wonder to myself? I'm not sure.

It's not a superstitious thing. I don't feel like bringing girl things into the house will "jinx" me or anything like that. From what I understand, adopting from China is pretty straightforward. I have no reason to believe that we will be denied a child.

I don't know what it is. I think about her, wonder if she is born, and wonder what we will name her. But I guess it's a whole other step to integrate her into our lives and our house physically. I haven't begun that process yet. For one reason because she is pretty far off in the future still. We won't have her until next summer most likely, and that's if things keep going on track and we don't get bogged down.

Another difficulty. I would probably buy her clothes, except I really have no idea how old she will be and what size. I know that she will probably be small for her age. And that's about it. I wouldn't buy infant things, and then when I look at dresses that are say 2T, I think, "It will be quite a while before she is in that I believe."

Well, anyway, she's got an item in the house now. Perhaps she will just keep adding things now that she's gotten her foot in the door. I certainly hope so!

One bad habit...

I have this bad habit of trying to express my personality through my clothing. I have this inner belief that if I dress hip, then I am hip. If I dress funky, I am funky. I think this started in high school (or junior high or somewhere in those formative years) when I was Very Preppy. It identified me. In fact, I was voted Most Preppy in my high school year book and that was a proud day for me. (not now, back then. Now it's embarrassing to admit it.)

Now in reality I am a 38 year old mother of a 20 month old son who is not particularly funky or hip. But I guess I want to be and keep thinking that the clothes will get me there. But the frustrating part is that I can't really find funky or hip clothes even when I look for them. (If I was Really hip, I would know where to find the hip clothes because hip people know these things intuitively. That's why they are hip in the first place.)

So I have all of these clothes that I keep buying and don't know what to do with because they aren't really me. I keep giving them to Goodwill (after an appropriate period of trying to make myself wear them). I think Goodwill and Purple Heart and the American Vets and all of those people really love me right now, with my bags of possibly hip clothes that I don't wear.

All that to say that I am now obsessed with finding "Asian inspired clothing". Anything that looks remotely Chinese (but probably not authetically Chinese, more like what I like to call "hip Chinese") is good with me right now. I have trouble finding the stuff. I guess it's my little misguided way of starting to transform myself into a hip, funky, not-really-hip-or-funky mother of a Chinese daughter. I just hope that she can express her personality correctly and not try to find herself in clothes.

I'm just anxious

I have to say that some days I'm just anxious to meet my daughter. To know her name and finally say it aloud, to see a tiny, blurry picture of her, to get the tiniest scrap of information. I feel like that today. Not that I am anywhere even close to ANY of that information. No, we are still stuck in Home Study Limbo, waiting for the document so that we can read it and correct it so that it can be sent to the adoption agency who can read it and make changes to it so that it can be finalized and sent to the INS (I don't care today what the new name is. It's still the INS to me.).

Ok, I'm a little tired of waiting for the Home Study document and a little tired of limbo. Limbo sucks. Moving forward, progress, accomplishment, those are all good things. I've got too much limbo in my life right now and not enough movement.

But she's out there and she's worth it and so I'll just sit here in limbo. Rhymes with bimbo and Jimbo. Let's concentrate on the fun aspects of limbo: "A West Indian dance in which the dancers keep bending over backward and passing under a pole that is lowered slightly each time." Let's embrace limbo.

Limbo. Sigh...

Adoptions here, adoptions there

We have been surrounded by adoptions lately. I know that tends to happen with anything. You buy a new car and all of the sudden it seems that every third car on the road is your car, in the exact same color. You choose a unique name for your new baby and all of the sudden the name is everywhere. (Trust me on this one!) You learn about something you've never heard of before (vitamins, exercise technique, heavy machinery, it doesn't really matter what), and in the next week you hear about that exact same thing 4 more times!

I know that I am much more aware and sensitized to adoption these days, but really it's just everywhere in my life. And I love it.

E. and I got to spend some good quality time with my beautiful adopted niece and nephew last week. (We were busy, so no Blogging.) It's always fun to be with them.

Then on the Fourth of July we were at a neighborly gathering next door. Our next-door neighbor said something like, "Adopted kids really have it terrible," or something like that. K. had been talking with the grownups about our adoption while I was following E. around the yard. K. just looked at him and said, "Ok," meaning, "I don't really agree with you but I'm not going to fight about it in front of all of these people." Then our neighbor said, "No they don't. I was just kidding. I'm adopted." Well, I was really surprised. We had never known that he was adopted and he hadn't chosen to tell us until that moment.

His kids are just finishing with college, and so his was an old school, closed adoption. He said that the worst thing really is that there is no medical history, which in this day and age I know is quite frustrating. He also said that he never wanted to contact his birth parents. I know every story is different. But this is a nice little story told by a very kind and generous man who lives next door to us. It was touching and made me happy deep down inside. Thanks for sharing, W. It meant a lot to us.