No Sedric, you are not adopted

I had the pleasure of witnessing a humorous interaction between my two Ethiopian born daughters and our African American neighbors the other day.  My husband and I purposely chose to live in the most ethnically diverse district in Portland, OR so our girls wouldn't feel out of place in more Caucasian communities...like the burbs.  The only issue we did not consider when making our exodus from the burbs was our biological son...our very white, German/Irish son.  In our neighborhood, Sedric is the only white boy for miles.  Sedric is vampiric white.  From certain angles, he seems translucent.  His hair is so white, it almost glows in the dark.  Sedric does not know he is white...and he does not know that he IS NOT ADOPTED, OR ETHIOPIAN like his big sisters.
A few weeks ago, while unloading groceries out of our van, the neighbor kids stopped by for the first time since we had moved into the neighborhood.  They looked at me, then looked and Peniel, then Rafe, then Sedric.  I could tell they were trying to put the pieces of our mosaic family together in their heads.  Finally, the oldest boy blurts out, "Are these your kids?"  I smiled and said yes.  Feeling more bold, he asks again (pointing at Peniel and Rafe), "Even these two?" I smiled again and said yes.  Before I could give them a few facts about our family, Peniel, my 5 yr old veteran talker, makes her presence known in the conversation.  She said, "I'm Peniel, I'm Ethiopian and I'm adopted because I'm really special, and my mom really wanted me.  (Pointing to Rafe) That's my sister Rafe, she is from Ethiopia and adopted and special too." Rafe then chimed in with her tiny 2 yr old voice, "yeah!" Then Peniel pointed to Sedric who was standing by her side like her shadow, "This is my brother Sedric, he isn't adopted...HE'S JUST A WHITE BOY."
Sedric is just a white boy...poor kid.  I still don't know how I will tell him when he is older that he isn't Ethiopian or adopted.  It will break his little white boy heart when I have to sit him down and have the "veil tearing" adoption talk with him, and somehow say to him, "No Sedric, you are not adopted." 

On a serious note, this interaction between our girls and the neighbors confirmed to me that both our girls have a very healthy understanding of adoption.  The moment Peniel began to explain to the neighbors her place in our family, my adoptive mom heart sighed a deep sigh of relief.  All the heart to hearts with my girls about adoption, about their adoptions, all the prayers I prayed that God would help their hearts to understand and to not suffer any wounds from my fumbling through the hard conversations, all the times I held them and cried with them through the pain of understanding...all of it was worth it to hear in her voice, that she knows she is loved. That she accepts her story.   I am so glad I never skirted around the conversations, but addressed them as they came up.  It was worth it.

If you are an adoptive parent, don't be afraid of saying the wrong things to your adoptive child when they ask you questions about their story.  Just speak from your heart, your love for them will help you find the right words.  Your child will respond more to the love in your voice and the love in your eyes during those hard conversations than the pain from the words you have to speak to them.  Truth without love brings damage, but TRUTH WITH LOVE HEALS. 


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Bathroom Entourage

Some people wish for bigger houses, nicer cars, more money...I used to be one of those people, before children.  Now, 3 kids deep into my life, I would settle for being able to walk into the bathroom BY MYSELF.
Everytime I need to use the bathroom, the following scenario comes into play with only small variations day to day to distinguish between each bathroom visit.

I enter the bathroom, dogs follow.
Little dog tries to hump big dog, I yell at him, he stops.
I close the door quietly, not wanting to attract the children's attention.
I sit down, I think to myself, "Its so quiet in here."
I smile at my dogs, they smile back at me.
I look at the walls for the first time in months, and realize there are hand prints everywhere;
I make a mental note to clean them when finished, knowing deep down I will never actually do it...EVER.  
I think about decorating...
I begin to...well, you know...   
Children begin fighting.
Somebody bites somebody.
Somebody Shanghai's a toy from somebody.
Somebody begins yelling at somebody because they are being too loud during cartoons.
Somebody realizes I am MIA.
ALL the somebodies begin looking for me...
I hold my breath, I tell the dogs to do the same...they don't...that's when they find us. 
Tiny fists begin pounding against the door.
Somebody throws their weight against the door.
Somebody tries to look through the key hole.
Somebody reaches their tiny hand under the door,
the dogs sniff the hand.
Somebody screams, "MAMA!!
I debate if I should answer...
but I do answer because I am a mom after all.
The oldest child throws the door open,
the two littlest kids fall in landing on the dogs and on my toes.
My toes begin to hurt.
Oldest kid leaves to finish her cartoon now that she has successfully dumped the two screaming somebodies on my doorstep.
Second littlest kid asks me, "what doing?"
The baby tries to climb on my bare lap, which I am trying to keep from happening.
Both kids are trying to to show me the bite marks from their siblings teeth, demanding justice.
I begin doling out judgements from my porcelain throne like King Solomon.
After a few moments of empty threats nothing changes, the littles are still fighting,
 and then snack bribery becomes a valid parenting tool...
Bribery ensures.
I offer a special, "desperate times/desperate measures" non organic snack bribe. 
Kids accept the NON ORGANIC snack bribe.
Kids begin forgiving each other and become best friends per the terms of the NON ORGANIC snack bribe agreement.
Kids finally leave the bathroom.
I sigh again.
Little dog begins humping big dog again.
I yell at little dog again, he stops again.
I finish up my delayed business.
I leave the bathroom nervous and un-relaxed.
I start planning tomorrows bathroom strategy in my head.
Little dog begins humping big dog, I yell at him, he stops.
Now repeat everyday for the next 4 years until youngest child is in kindergarten. 


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The Child who owns the World, but ONLY in Public

Have you ever had an experience with one of your children that caused the blood to drain from your face? The kind of experience that encourages you to strongly reconsider taking said kid out in public for fear of social ruin?  Well, for all of you who have been there...or are there...this is the tale of the kid, the granny, and the horrified mother...enjoy!

I love Costco.  Every trip to Costco is delightful for me.  There is something about buying in bulk that puts a smile on my face.  A few weeks back, I took my wild brood of 3 to Costco to restock on diapers, and toilet paper, and (of course) to buy a 5lb bag of M&Ms.  As always, we turned down the book isle to peruse children's books...Peniel takes this particular part of the Costco experience very seriously.  Its the only moment in any given shopping trip where she is honed in and focused.  Peniel is the kid who hangs off the side of the cart and hollers at people in a British accent as we roll on by...but not in the book isle, never in the book isle.  We were rapidly approaching the children's book section so Peniel jumped off the side of the cart and started walking down the isle brushing her hand along the stacks of books.  She stopped short of her destination, for there was a road block in the form of a silver haired woman looking at the book on the first stack of children's books, I assumed Peniel would just go around...I assumed wrong.  Peniel wedged her way in between the woman and the stack of books and put her hands on her hips, and started tapping one of her feet.  The woman looked down and said hello to my darling sweet Peniel...Peniel looked up, and in a voice that sounded a few octaves lower than her usual whimsical sing song voice she said, "GET. OUT. OF. MY. WAY"
It all happened so fast, so very fast.  It was like watching an avalanche.  I was mortified, frozen in horror.  I reached out and grabbed her and told her to apologize...as the bewildered older woman walked off, I wanted to yell out, "she didn't learn that from me!"  As the woman turned the corner and was gone, I gave Peniel the most serious whisper scolding I could muster...which means very little to a child who knows the power they wield in public places...I shopped a little faster that day, took fewer samples, and forgot to buy half the things I needed to buy...all because my child owned the world that shopping trip, and me, the pheasant, could do very little...but the moment we got home, the world was right again, mommy was queen...and rudeness is high treason in Mommy's Kingdom.


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To the Victor Goes the Snacks!

I have two girls, both adorable, and both 100% opposites.  Peniel is a huger, Rafe is a biter.  Peniel likes to be the boss, Rafe refuses to take orders.  Peniel is easily distracted, Rafe is not.  Peniel will befriend anyone free of charge, Rafe cannot be bought.  Peniel enjoys cartoons, Rafe enjoys stealing Peniel's snacks while pretending to watch cartoons...this list of differences goes on, but its the last example I want to expound upon.
Every day, after naps, the girls get a snack and a sippy cup.  Their snacks are identical, each has the same amount of crackers and same ounces of water.  One of my girls never questions the fairness of snack time...but the other...the middle child...the one who bites...eye balls both snacks to verify equal amounts.  Even still, she must have both snacks and both sippies otherwise, its unfair!  I am convinced that instead of sleeping during her nap time, she is strategizing with charts and graphs and running undercover-op drills in her room in preparation for:  THE SNACK TIME HEIST. 
Peniel loves her cartoons, she takes them very seriously, not one second is to be missed, even if an exploding bladder is a consequence.  Rafe understands this about her older sister, and every day exploits this characteristic.  Every day, I wonder how the snack time heist is going to go down because it changes...Rafe is smart and knows you cant trap a wolf the same way twice so she evolves her strategies daily.  Her most frequented approach goes something like this:  as soon as the cartoon theme music begins to play, she starts to dance and laugh, baiting her sister to join her...Peniel in unable to resist any moment that calls for dancing, so she joins in.  Before the theme music stops Rafe is MIA. As the cartoon begins, Peniel sits down forgetting that she left her snack and sippy on the table...Unfortunately for her, Rafe did not forget about the abandoned snacks and proceeds very quickly and quietly to collect them and eats them as fast as she can chew, sometimes choking herself in the process as she shovels fistful after fistful into her pie hole...she always leaves at least one cracker and some floaties in an almost drained sippy...this is her calling card.  If not for me, the mother, Peniel would never have a snack or anything to drink.  I now have to fill two snack cups and two sippies half full in anticipation of my sneaky bandit Rafe...when she is satisfied that she has won her battle against her cartoon mesmerized prey, she walks off, belly full and plays with her toys.  This is the time that I pull out Peniel's real snack and force her to eat and drink before Rafe gets wind of my under handing, counteracting, null and voiding her klepto ways. I love them both...that is why I let Rafe steal her sisters "decoy" snack, and why I keep a "real" snack for Peniel. 

Cartoons and Me

There must be something wrong with me...all day, I hear myself singing the theme music from my kids' cartoons...mainly the Backyardigans.  I guess just singing the music wouldn't be so bad considering their songs are extremely catchy and easy to remember...the problem for me, and now for my oldest daughter, is that I now know all the dance moves to the songs too!  Every time I hear the Backyardigans come on, its like I have a Pavlov's Dogs moment and singing/dancing is my conditioned response...its almost as if I blackout and have no control over myself until the music stops.  The only reason I am even remotely aware of my hypnotic state when said cartoon music begins is because when I start 'doing my thing' Peniel starts 'doing her thing' and yelling at me to stop!  Clearly,  the days of sanity have passed my by.  I will remember them fondly, but alas, a new day of insanity greets me every morning in the faces of my 3 smallish children...after fully partaking of sanity before kids and insanity after kids...I am not sure that sanity is all its cracked up to be.  Insanity is where I want to live...I like the neighborhood, its a place you can really grow some roots.

The Mass Exodus...to Target.

 There is nothing like having children. There is nothing like having to grocery shop with 3 small children.  Mayhem.  Today, we needed dog food and cat food, and I needed to get out of the house, so I made the executive decision to take my 3 yahoos to Target.  I felt like Moses leading the Israelites to the Promised Land...there was alot of squabbling, screaming, hair pulling, but we made it.  We must have been a sight.  I had Sedric in the sling kicking wildly, Rafe in the cart shrieking for the fun of it when we pass people, and Peniel hanging off the side of the cart yelling at people to get out of our way.  The funny thing is that I used to roll my eyes at moms like me...ironically, I am "that mom" now...you win universe!
Peniel is famous for being the "reach out and touch somebody" kid.  How many hilariously embarrassing moments I can remember where she would just randomly touch people in the isles. Today, it didnt happen, not because I successfully trained her out of this behavior, but because there arent too many people in Target at 9:30am.  Rafe is our shopping pooper.  The moment you get her in her car seat, she has to do business.  I am always without a clean diaper too, so we gag, we shop, we gag some more, then we go home.  Today, this didnt happen either!  ODD.  Two staples in my shopping headache scenario didnt happen...
Sedric is known as Mr. Spit-up, but not today!  ODD.  Any given shopping trip, I will be baptized in spit up, inhaling poopy diaper smells, and red faced from trying to corral my exuberant non cart riding child, BUT NOT TODAY! Today, I pass GO and collect my $200.  Today, I evaded the perfect storm...tomorrow may be a different story, but today I am enjoying my million dollar shopping moment.

Sticker Bandet Strikes Again!

When in doubt, apply a sticker. 

This is the code by which Peniel lives:

If little sister has taken one too many toys from big sisters over flowing "unsharable" basket...put princess stickers all over her face and hair, tell mom the cat did it...

If mom isn't looking...put princess stickers on the windows, tell her little sister did it...then watch mom struggle for hours to get them off the windows, all the while imagining another place to decorate.

After mom says, "no more princess stickers on the windows or your little sister!"  apply princess stickers to all the doors, present the masterpiece proudly to mom who is holding a screaming child on each hip, watch mom smile because mom knows (as well as smarty pants 3 year old knows) all doors where not mentioned in the above command.

Once all the princess stickers are properly applied around the house, and mom's fingers are numb and raw from scraping and peeling the devilish adhesive nightmares off inappropriate surfaces, find more stickers, perhaps the Mickey Mouse stickers and begin the process of applying them to little sister, windows, and doors because after all,  Mickey Mouse stickers are not princess stickers, and therefore the above rules do not apply to them.

So many stickers, so little time.