Playing Hookie

So we are only in the last week of September and I am already done doing this whole school-real-schedule-everyday thing.  No really.  My calendar is so full up that when I try to make a play date I have to change the date 3 times before my brain can come up with a two hour window in my overwhelming schedule.

Listen to this:
Monday: Speech, mommy-and-me class, therapy, Swim class
Tuesday: preschool, Sports camp
Wednesday: Speech, mommy-and-me class, kid class, dance class, swim class (i hate wednesdays)
Thursday: Preschool, swim
Friday: Drive mom up the wall because we are all so exhausted from the week.

And forget tying to fit in anything that looks remotely like it might have to do with me for a moment.  Forget that I still have trainings, and events to plan, and emails to send, and maybe a phone call every blue moon.  Or forbid, a mommy night out?!  Thats usually the first thing that gets cut from my schedule.

Me time?  What's that?

How many kids do I have?  And how old are they?  Yeah.  The oldest?  Not even 4!  So how the heck did I manage to get myself into this crazy schedule?  And the thing that really bugs me is the fact that I can't really cut anything out.  Well, I mean I can.  But the things I want to cut out, we really need.  Like Speech... and therapy.

Why is it that the real stuff is the most frustrating?  I don't know about you but I really hate getting up early.  I mean really.  (except, of course, if we are getting up really early so that we can get to Disney World at a decent hour, because everyone knows that the best time to do the kingdom is as early in the morning as possible and if you only have a weekend then you should be getting your drowsy childrens in the car no later then 5am... I wanna go to Disney World.  But I digress. )  And the worse thing about getting up early is that my kids hate it just as much as I do.  Except the boy.  He's up at 6 like clockwork everyday.

I could get up early for that!

But today we are playing hookie and it's a quarter to nine and my youngest is still sleeping.  Not to mention that the other two only got up 20 minutes ago!  Yeah, that never happens on a Saturday.  But I realized something as my alarm was going off at 6 (i.e. my son) and my daughter was still snoring away through the noise,  some times the best thing to do is to do nothing.

Don't do anything!  Just throw caution to the wind and relax!  Forget your schedule, forget the projects.  Just have a day to play hookie.  There is already so many responsibilities on your children these days that if we don't teach them to give themselves a break they won't and then they will turn into these stressed out-overworked-overachievers that have a meltdown every time they see a B on their report card...  I never understood those people.

Two B's?!  Death!

....

Ok! Fine!  In actuality, the reason we are staying home today is because if I had to get up early one more time just so I could spend the first 45 minutes of my day fighting with my kids to do everything from going to the bathroom to brushing their hair I would be very likely to have a nervous break down.

And that, I really don't have time for!

Antenella

Family of Five

I am lucky enough to have three adorable children!  Blessed, really, if we wanted to split hairs about it. One of the unfortunate side effects of having beautiful children is that everyone in a fifty mile radius wants to touch or talk to your child.  I'm sure all of you have this same problem since all your children are just as equally beautiful.

Most of the time the interaction is limited and mostly from a distance.  It usually goes something like this: "Aww, how adorable!" or maybe I'm lucky enough to even get a coy little wave from an elderly women.  For the most part the interactions are pretty tame.

Then you get the crazies that make it their job to touch your finally-well-after-having-three-weeks-of-a-snotty-nose child, on every area that isn't covered by clothes.  They want to touch their feet and their thighs and their hands.  I guess they didn't get the memo that kids put everything in their mouths.  Including their hands!

In reality, I don't mind.  I mean honestly, all I can think of when those little old ladies touch my kids hands in how they are probably going to die from some whooping cough that my precious baby angels are living as hosts for.

How cute!  Now you have dysentery! 

But what has been really interesting is how the interactions have changed since adding a third child.  Forget the fact that she looks nothing like my other children.  I've already talked about the fact that complete strangers say and ask me anything when it comes to adopting.  One of my favorites that I forgot to mention, Is when people tell me about how great it is that I wanted to adopt and that their friends-sisters-cousins-newphew twice removed adopted a baby and when that baby got older... he killed them in their sleep!

...

That's nice.  Some families get to look forward to their kids going to collage or getting married or landing that fulfilling job.  Not me!  The mother of an adopted child.  I get to look forward to waking from a restful sleep with a knife in my chest.  Oh, the rapture!  But I digress.

Getting back to the point at hand (which I'm not really sure I have) in which the comments of strangers have gone from enduring with a tinge of creepy to just down right rude.

It's not too many kids.  See, they all fit!  ok, nobody grow.

I have three kids.  Three kids is not really a lot of kids.  I see tons of families that have at least three kids.  In fact, I know a family that has five kids and they seem pretty normal.  So I don't know why people look at my three kids and say things like, and I quote:

"Wow, that's a lot of babies."
"Are those all yours?"
"Looks like you got stuck babysitting all the kids today."

or my personal favorite, coming from a little blue haired lady who you would just assume had 16 kids herself...

"So, you've closed up shop, right?"

To which I answered, "Oh, sure.  We've decided to outsource."

What?  I'm her mom.  I can say what I want!

She just kind of stood their glassy eyed for a minute.  I kinda hoped she was having a heart attack but alas, she recovered.

What the heck!  Who says that?  The other three I could kind of understand.  I mean, I kinda do look like a babysitter with my eclectic grouping of children.  But to ask me to close up shop?  This means that you know that all the children where mine and that I looked like I might have another at any moment.

One of these things is not like the other.

I'm sorry!  Is my joy for bringing children into the world effecting your ability to buy your preparation H?  I thought not.  You don't see me getting all upset about you still being alive and you saying things like:  "So, You're going to die soon, right?"

No, no of course I would never say that.  But people think it's totally ok to say things like that to me.  Three kids.  It's just three kids!  I'm not a glorified basketball team, I'm a family of five!  Five is very normal.  Average even.  Three is the new two kids with a white picket fence and a dog.

Although, I keep trying to convince my husband that a family of six is just crazy.

Antenella

Baby Mine

Since adopting my youngest child I have been asked every question under the sun.  Anything from is she adopted, (um... hello, she's black as night.  What do you think?) to how much she cost. (I got her for a really great deal at the used baby lot on Military and 10th ave.  A little wear and tear but over all, a great deal!)  Even though a lot of these questions can come across as prying or just down right rude, I love them!

I have absolutely no fear of any question anyone can throw at me.  Mostly because I love to talk and nothing is better then talking about how awesome or frustrating my kids are.  Also, it helps me realize how far we've come.

Being a women I like to think I'm pretty good at multi-tasking but because I spend so much time constantly doing things, I rarely get a chance to look at my progress.  Being asked all these questions over and over again gives me a certain type of benchmark of how far we have progressed.  Plus, I think when I talk.  I'm pretty sure I get more out of conversation with myself then with anyone else.

One of my favorite questions is: how can you love a child that isn't your own.  (Yes, people have asked me this)  This is an easy one for me but the answer makes other people a bit uncomfortable.  They can't tell if I'm joking or not.  I just tell them that it was never a question of if I would love them since I couldn't stand either one of my kids when they were born but I like them now!

I know that sounds really harsh and it's not entirely true but I really want to get across the importance or the unimportance of feeling an instant connection.  Since this question really only comes up if the person asking it is contemplating adoption.  I am a huge believer in adoption and I feel like my story is such a successful one that It would be selfish of me to not be completely open with all the in's and out's of bringing a new person into your home and calling it family.

I have come to realize that people who adopt, especially if it's there first, have a hard time understanding what to expect emotionally from bringing home a baby no matter the age.  Sometimes this isn't a problem at all and all the anticipation has been a better exercise in bonding then any pregnancy could ever do.  But I feel that most of the time parents can feel guilty because they don't have those warm fuzzy's as soon as they hold that baby in their arms.

I can tell you in full confidence that this has nothing to do with the child being adopted.  I have two biological children of my own and as much as I hoped and prayed and anticipated being their mother when they were born I realized, I didn't know anything about them!  In fact, my son was such a difficult baby that I just down right didn't like him sometimes.  But I loved him.

Why did I love him when all he did was scream for 9 months?  Because I chose to.  Because love isn't the warm gushy feeling, the butterflies, the heart-drop.  Love is a Choice.

Just like when you decided to love your spouse in sickness and in health. (What they should have asked is if you will love them if they don't ever do a load of laundry or when they sit in the middle of a destroyed playroom without picking up a thing.  But I digress.)  You make a choice.  Is it easy?  Hell, no!  But it's worth it.

So this in a nutshell has been my answer.  How do you know you will love a child that isn't yours.  Because I choose to.  Do I like her sometimes?  No.  Especially, when she wakes up at 3 in the morning screaming just long enough so she can wake up the other kids then falls out again.  But that doesn't make her any less my child.

So, yeah.  I can love a child that isn't my own.  But what I didn't expect was how much I would love her.  When I was asked recently about our adoption my answer kind of changed.  (This is what I mean about my conversation with complete strangers acting as a mapping of my parenting journey)  This women wanted to adopt since losing her own child and she just wasn't sure how it would be for her and her husband and without thinking this is what I said:

I always knew I could love a child that wasn't my own biologically but I never expected how much I feel she is my own.  I don't know why but I truly believe that she is my child.  For whatever reason God thought it would be best that she was born from another womb but there is no way that she is not my flesh and blood.  She was meant for us as if she was born from my own body.  I will never know or understand God's plan but I know that she is mine and was meant for my family.

Wow...  Did I just say that?  Is that true?

...

Yes.  Yes it is.

But how could it not be.  How do you feed and cloth a child, love on them, hold them when they cry, catch them when they fall, read to them, play dolls with them, wrestle with them, cuddle them when they're tired, teach them words like momma and dada, and then have them use them?  How could you not love a child?



Love is the act of it.  Love is a choice.  Is it easy? Hell, no!  But it's worth it.

Antenella