are we family?

I got a "family" request on Facebook the other day from Paulie, Tagg's baby-daddy. I'm sure a lot of people would be shocked that we are Facebook-friends at all, but we are. And it's good. Don't get me wrong, when the first "friend" request came it was scary. In I was like...uh, no. It's my Facebook world. Really? Accept? Deny? Is there any winning move here? So we went with the trust thing and became Facebook friends. Leap of faith. That's what it's all about.

Sometimes it was a little too much, too easy to get caught up in their being-young lives. But it was good because it let us know that they were actually doing all of the things that choosing adoption was supposed to let them do - football games, dances, parties, graduation, picking colleges, first jobs, all the good stuff. And, frankly, it's sometimes the best way to keep in touch with them. Blogging ain't always that easy, but you can Facebook from anywhere - short and sweet, with photos? Easy.

So a few days ago, I get this family request from Paulie. And the only drop-downs I could choose to confirm him as "family" were like: father, brother, son, uncle, nephew, grandfather...Not even an "other" option. Huh. What to do now?

So I Facebook Paulie:

Hey you! got your family request - which I LOVE, don't know why that makes me feel good but it does. Really a lot. Oddly enough they make me put down a relationship, me and you, from a drop-down menu. So what do you want? Nephew, cousin, father in law (ha ha)? Weird, right?

And he responds:

yea im not sure what to put ether haha oh well just put what comes first 

It just seemed weird. We are, for all intents and purposes, family. But we're not the kind of family that fits in a drop-down menu. So I waffled all week about what to put, because somehow it means something how you categorize that relationship. Cousin is different than brother. Nephew is different than uncle. And I just don't know because those labels don't fit our world or our family relationship.

And now the request has disappeared. Ultimately, I don't really care whether Facebook recognizes us as a family. I do. And Paulie does. And that's what really matters.

damn you iPhone

Of all the things I thought might blow up our adoption – this fragile, verbal commitment between you and a virtual stranger who is practically just a child herself – my cell phone service was not on the list. Not even way down there at the bottom. At the top of the list? We’d say something uncool, stupid, or hokey. We’d root for the wrong sports teams, go to the wrong church, like the wrong foods, enjoy the wrong music, movie and TV shows, drive the wrong car, wear the wrong clothes, have the wrong jobs, the wrong family, the wrong hobbies, fail the home study because there was a little dust on the bookshelf and we forgot to clean the glass doors in the back, and worst of all, pick the wrong name for the baby. The baby would scream every time I held her at the hospital, or wouldn’t take a bottle from me, or I’d do something unbelievably stupid like put the diaper on her head (that did not actually happen, although sometimes at 2 in the morning you really think it might).

Needless to say, my paranoia was running a little high during the whole entire process, especially those last few days at the hospital and yet, never ever did I think my cell service would be the thing that almost cost us our family.

I’m not going to pretend like I’m the world’s greatest cell phone person. I’m a little challenged. I never seem to know where it is, I don’t always answer when it rings if I don’t know the number, I often have it on mute when I didn’t mean to…and frankly, I’m kind of okay with that. I’m one of those old fashioned people who prefers to have face to face conversations with people and thinks that my phone is for my convenience not necessarily everyone elses. So I get it. I can be a frustrating other-end-of-the-call person. The weekend Sloane was born was not – I swear - that weekend for me.

That weekend the call came early, at like 5am and the second it rang I knew what was up. We were on the phone on and off for the whole 2-ish hour drive, with sporadic rural cell service instigating a lot of “Can you hear me now?” moments right up until just before and after Sloane’s birth, which we missed by about 15 minutes. Crazy.

Fast forward three days later after we’ve had this incredibly unbelievable bonding moment with Sloane, her birth parents (Bella and Jacob), and their friends and family. As we packed her into the car for the drive home, we promised we’d call or text when we got home and promised for the ump-teenth time that we’d be in touch. Hugs, tears, shock…and off we went, trying to absorb the reality that this perfect little baby girl was really ours. Unlike most Utah adoptions which can be finalized any time 24 hours after the birth and are virtually irreversible, ours had a little more flux. Sloane’s baby daddy is half Native American so the law requires that we all wait two weeks before the final relinquishment signing happens. So we were kind of on a test run. A legally required emotionally petrifying test run as parents.

Sloane on her first car ride home. So itty bitty!
Where are her hands?!

As soon as we arrived at Scott’s parents’ house 2 hours later, I sent a text message to Bella letting her know we were safe and sound and thinking of them, put my phone in my purse and dove headfirst into being a new mom helping Tagg adjust to the reality of being a big brother and basking in the glow of our good fortune. Who in the world is lucky enough to have these beautiful children and their amazing birth parents melding into the already fabulous families we already have? No one. Nothing is this utterly perfect.

The next day I was driving to meet my sister to introduce her to baby Sloane, and my phone starts ringing. In the trunk. In the new diaper bag. Can’t stop. So I’ll get it when I get there, I think. Bad idea. It was Bella and I missed it. I called back as soon as I pulled in but it was already too late. She hadn’t gotten the text from the night before (bad service at the grandparents’ house and I hadn’t noticed the error message) and then the 20 minute delay answering call #2? Bad news. Pretty soon I was getting calls from our adoption coordinator letting me know they were rethinking their decision. We were about to lose our baby. That is the worst call ever. EVER.

I knew almost immediately that the issue wasn’t the missed call. It was the trust. They trusted us with their baby. They trusted our promise to keep them in the loop and stay open with them. They trusted that we would text them when we got home. And thanks to AT&T’s shitty service, we didn’t. Bye-bye, trust. So I spent the next few days proving them wrong. Re-instilling that trust. Re-assuring that we were committed to the open adoption vision we’d all talked about. But also understanding that we all make mistakes and sometimes phones don’t get answered or meetings just don’t work out for longer than you’d think and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean we’re going AWOL or anything. Any of us. It just means that our relationship is evolving and someday, if we’re lucky, we’ll be a that place where you see someone after a few years and it’s like they’re still your best friend from high school with the talking and the sharing and the jokes. You have to establish that trust base to make open adoptions work because they are scary. Maybe one of the scariest things you’ll ever do. But you have to bet big to win big, and in the world of open adoption that means a lot of being scared. And a lot of blind faith. And a lot of trust. And definitely some luck. But no matter what, the risk is more than worth the reward.

This post was inspired by the Open Adoption Roundtable topic of the day - in honor of Halloween: Write about open adoption and being scared. Read other posts here. http://www.productionnotreproduction.com/2011/10/open-adoption-roundtable-31.html

reasons i hate halloween, part two...

So, here we go again. Halloween. Blech.

See, I'm trying.

About a month ago, I started asking Tagg what he wants to be for Halloween. "I want to be Tagg." "I'm just a boy." "NO COSTUME!!!" This goes on for weeks and then one day, the answer is "I want to be a funny bat." Woo-hoo! An actual costume! But wait. What the hell is a funny bat? I look it up online and there's nothing. Apparently he is the first kid in history to request a funny bat costume. 

I can't convince Tagg that any of the Batman costumes are "funny bats" so I'm screwed. Maybe he'll go back to just wanting to be Tagg. He did seem mildly interested in a skeleton costume that showed up on the search so I'm thinking that might, just might be a back-up plan. 

And then one day, he walks in and says, "Mom, I want to be a scuba diver." What?! Great, but what?! Where did THAT come from? So I Google it. In case your kid ever asks for a scuba diver costume, there is no such thing. You can either buy real scuba gear for a bazillion dollars or you can try to fashion one from household-type items in a real artsy-craftsy, do-it-yourself moment. That's the route we took.

Looks so cute right? And easy.
Not so much.

I sent my dad on a Home Depot, craft-store treasure hunt for the gear while I scoured the city's sporting good stores and retail outlets for a cheap-ish diving mask and flippers. (Impossible to find, apparently, once fall sets in). Then we had my mom distract the kids with frosting and decorating Halloween cookies while me and dad spent two hours making air cartridges and the holster out of netting, spray paint, velcro and duct tape (silver spray paint does NOT stick to 2-liter bottles, by the way) and finally, it was kind of okay. Not great but functional. 

So I put our masterpiece on the counter. The next morning Sloane had 30 seconds of unsupervised time and bam! completely trashed the fruits of our labor. She had a piece of velcro in her mouth and duct tape on her head when I found her. Not good.

"Scuba gear de-constructed." - By Sloane

So, back to the great costume search. I ended up ordering the stupid skeleton costume. 20 bucks plus 20 bucks in rush shipping. Really? Really.

Kinda cool, right? IF you can get your kid to wear
the mask and the gloves AND the foot things. Which I cannot.

New costume idea? Skeleton Scuba Steve. A mish-mash of the skeleton costume (he'll only wear the body suit, no mask or gloves) and the scuba outfit (no canisters or air tank, and no scuba mask but tie-dye swim-lesson goggles are okay, flippers but only if they're taped to his feet so they don't trip him). And oddly enough, it kind of works. 

That's an outfit, right?

So after bribing Tagg to get in his new costume with the help of epic-amounts-of-candy-potential bribery, and wrangling Sloane into her sparkly Tinkerbell outfit, off we went to trick-or-treating round 1 at my office. Sloane was not happy. Tagg was not happy. But one candy bar later, they were both down with the magic of Halloween. Sugar.

A Halloween Miracle. In spite of a chocolate bar and a red sucker,
Sloane's darling outfit survived for round 2 of trick or treating.

Cousins It.

"You got any contraband candy under there?"

Trick or treating this year consisted of 20 minutes of pictures, 6 houses of trick-or-treating (after Tagg stripped off the scuba half of his outfit and insisted on riding his scooter from house to house), hauling home half their body weight in candy, beer treats for the adults at our lovely neighbor's house, and then answering the door for about two-dozen trick-or-treaters while we played jumping games with glow-sticks in a completely dark living room.

Hilarious.

Fairy in motion. Some things never change!

I may have to revise my "hate" verdict on Halloween. It's growing on me.

Cute, right? I think we're cute. Even if it
does take suckers to get the kids to sit still for pictures,
and Scott and I just dressed up as parents.

flashback: reasons i hate halloween

Halloween has never been my favorite holiday.  I don't always dig getting dressed up, probably because I can't ever come up with a good costume idea. And I don't really like the whole spooky death, get scared, creepy vibe. And a pillow case chuck full of candy is just too much for me. So it's a general so-so on Halloween. But this year was just so, much, worse. Here's how it's going down by costume #:

ONE and TWO:  I ordered two overpriced kid costumes - a monster and a dinosaur,  one was too big, one was too small

Sloane as a little monster?
Obviously she didn't buy it!

THREE and FOUR: Back-up plan was running to the store last-minute and they are out of EVERYTHING, a couple of princess outfits and the dumb stuff left and of course not even those are the right sizes

FIVE & SIX: And we're back to online shopping but now we are shipping new costumes overnight which = the ungodly cost of the costume PLUS 40 bucks in expedited shipping PLUS a hope and a prayer that they get here in time while mentally working on back-up costumes in case they don't arrive. Can you really put a baby in a sheet and call him a ghost? 

Me and Christi...that is a real safety pin in her nose.

SEVEN: Had to make a work costume (roller derby) 

Natalie, Lindsay & me with our 80s gear and our medal. Lindsay rocked the thong unitard, on a 3 mile walk back to the car, through Provo. Very cool.

EIGHT: Had to make a half-marathon costume (running the Halloween Half as 80s workout chicks)

Zombie eyes...excellent! And I forgot costume #11
donated by Christi, the little black ki

NINE: Had to make a party costume for me (lost-sock fairy...I don't know, I had a dress, bought a wig and actually sewed and it was still kind of dumb) and, finally,

TEN: Helped Scott find and order his Evel Keneval costume while also custom decorating the helmet. With tape. 

That's TEN F-ING COSTUMES in ONE year, for a family of four where two don't really like Halloween and the other two don't really get it. Where the hell is the candy, hmmm?

Funny thing? Tagg decided they should be Monsters because that was his current favorite movie but when we put his monster costume (after a bit of cajoling, mind you) it was way, way too small. So, not so funny. Now he wants to be Nemo - no, mommy, I no cowboy, I no puppy, I no (insert whatever noun, character, etc. you like here). I NEMO! So now we have a Nemo costume and a 6-mo old Squirt (the little turtle) costume are on their way, hopefully arriving before Halloween. 

Luckily (I think) Tagg now loves candy and cookies, especially this gift box from Nana and Papa so he'll really dig the whole trick or treating concept this year. He'll also be on a sugar high for the next month but I guess that's okay.

This was our ivy patch making the summer to fall transition...on Sunday. Pretty, yeah?

On Wednesday morning, we woke up to this...all white. What the...!?!?! Tagg stood at the window and said, "Mommy, it not Christmas. It not." No joke, son, no joke.

Okay, I really might like Halloween. Just a little bit...

weird stuff you say

Sometimes when you're an adoptive parent, you say stupid shit. I did that at the airport the other day. I was in the little kid play area and the kids were exploring what I'm sure were germ infested blocks, balls and cars along with a couple of other children. One was a little African-American boy a little older than Sloane. His mom was on the bench next to me, tall, blonde, pretty white, kind of granola and a little older than me. Her husband came by to get her coffee order and he was pretty white too. So in my judgmental, stereo-typey head I put two and two together and figure they must be adoptive parents too.

I was making small talk about how old her kids were and she was amazed that Tagg was only 3. Like really blown away that he was only 6 months older than her son given the 6 inch height difference. "His dad must be really tall." Obviously she had noted that I am a shrimp and had some familiarity with genetics so she immediately assumed my husband is an NBA player. So I say, "He is." thinking of Paulie who is in fact tall. And then, for some unknown reason, I start to say, "So is his birth mom" but then I realize I can't say that because she doesn't know that my kids are adopted and it's rude to assume that hers are and, honestly, is it any of her business that he's adopted and his birth mom is an amazon queen? Can't his dad just be tall? So, what comes out of my mouth as I'm going on the fly is, "So is his...mom."

What?! Nooooooo!!!!! Why did I say that?! Of all the incredibly awkward things to say...just shut up! Shut! Up! The words were still hanging in the air in one of those cartoon bubbles where my face looks stricken and awkward, when Tagg comes running up to me and says, "Mommy, mommy! Can I play with that truck."

Well, shit. Now she thinks Tagg has two mommies. And a daddy. Or that I am a complete whack job which at this point might be closer to the truth. Needless to say, she packed up her kids and left shortly after that little exchange. Before her coffee even arrived. I'd love to read her blog post about the encounter with the weird height-obsessed lady at the airport.

I guess maybe this is a portent of things to come. More awkward conversations, situations, implications. Maybe I'll get better at it. Or maybe I'll be the one to leave in search of a coffee escape.

well-traveled shoes

My running shoes have a lot of miles on them. Airline miles, that is. I pack those suckers in my suitcase on every trip, even the trips where I know I've only got a couple of jam-packed days. And most of the time, that's right where they stay. Safely ensconced in my bag while I hit the snooze button a couple of times or mosey past the gym on my wait to meet people for dinner, trying not to make contact with the empty treadmills.

I don't know what my problem is. The few times I've actually made it out the door of the hotel to run on a trip, I really really love it. But most of the time my mild paranoia of getting lost and ending up in a "bad part of town" becomes a great excuse to skip the healthy exercise and head for happy hour. I guess the good news is that I haven't given up all hope of exercising while I'm on the road. If I can't find more running buddies than drinking buddies, I guess I have to make the mental shift on my own. It would be nice if the frequent flier miles me and my shoes are racking up were on the pavement.

i ate pig face

Go ahead, insert joke here! I spent the weekend in Chicago with a couple of girlfriends and we happened across a restaurant called The Girl & The Goat - chef/owner is Stephanie Izard, a Top Chef winner. I LOVE Top Chef. Love it, love it, love it. And the season Stephanie won was the infamous Richard Blaise Chokes season. So when we found out that we might be able to get into her restaurant, we were in the cab and on our way!

The place was cool. Packed. We snuck into a spot in the bar at the community table and dug in. Goat Empanadas. Roasted Beets. And...Pig Face. Yep. That's the actual name of the entree. Pig Face. How can you not order that?! Besides there were a lot of tongue and belly entrees, so Pig Face sounded relatively safe. And it was good! Kind of like fancy bacon with a fried egg on top. But way better than that.

If I look a little scared it's because I am!
It's a PIG FACE!

I loved the whole experience. And even though the bill was like a gazillion dollars, it was worth every penny. And I stole the menu. I'm going to start a collection so I can remember the amazing meals with amazing people. And so I can prove that I was once cool enough to eat something called Pig Face!