Greenwood Avenue: Where the Wild thing is.

The night Anna wore her dragon suit and made mischief of one kind and another her Papa called her “WILD THING!” and Anna said “I’LL EAT YOU UP!” so she was sent to bed without eating anything.

It was a gift from a former student, and for a long time, it hung in her play area ignored except for Halloween and when she was bored with her other gowns. Last night, she donned the pink dragon suit and spent much of the night growling and pretending to scratch and claw at the air. While we are happy that she is comfortable being both the princess and the dragon during playtime, we were NOT happy with her behavior as the night wore on. We convinced her to change out of the costume and she did for dinner, but the mentality stuck with her and affected her behavior as we tried to eat. The battles that we face each night with the kids start around 4:30 as they both want a snack and our undivided attention while we are working on transitioning from work and getting dinner ready ourselves. If we stop and play or snuggle, or watch TV with them, then dinner is delayed, and the evening gets longer and longer. But if we don’t give them %100, then the attention grabbing behavior starts. So we try to strike a balance and I have actually become pretty adept at creating meals that can be reheated while I focus on the kids, but that’s not always the case.

Last night, after a day at home doing errands, Anna’s behavior was escalating to eleven on the naughty dial. She was out of her routine because of the snow day plus she didn’t take a nap, a nasty combination for sure. A few time outs and stern warnings didn’t change her behavior at the table, so after outlining the consequences, going immediately to her room for the night, she tested us once again.

She should know better. She lives with two teachers.

If you test us, you will fail.

So after the warnings and then some farting around with her green beans, she was whisked upstairs, not passing GO, not collecting $200.

Straight to bed.

And, before you call protective services, she did eat; she just didn’t finish her meal all the way and definitely no dessert. But once up in her room, she saw a moment to escape and darted, no, FLEW downstairs to hide. This is the kid who can take 20 minutes to go down the steps in the morning when she doesn’t want to do something. She was down in a flash with her 40-something Papa in hot pursuit (no really, at this point, I was sweating). This time, I put her on the ground and straddled her so I could get her PJ’s on. I guess watching all that WWF finally paid off. And, again, before you dial protective services, I was NOT sitting on her. But at this point, she was completely out of control and beyond any kind of reason. I got her dressed and put her into bed and then the screaming started. She loves an audience, but when you leave, she knows that the show is over and reality sets in. I was serious about my threat; I was serious about her going to bed if she continued to act up at the table and I followed through with it. If I had just ignored her, I would have failed her test. While there are some battles to pick, dinner time is not one that we are willing to concede.

So this morning, I opened her door and woke her up asking if she was going to be my best girl today. She hugged me and said, “Papa… yes!” and then went back under the covers to wait for Eli to come in and wake her up (it’s their thing, don’t ask). I asked her at breakfast if she was going to be better than she was last night at dinner and she looked at me with a questioning whatchootalkin’about Willis face. Apparently, last night was last night and she is ready to move on, and so am I. It’s hard to focus on the fun times with kids when stuff like this happens, but kids have incredibly short and forgiving memories.

Perhaps we should follow their lead.

Follow me!

We are almost at 60 followers for the blog! You can do me and the blog a favor by suggesting to your friends and family that they follow along as well. Also, if you are involved in any LGBT groups or organizations, please send them this link. The more the merrier!


When Tod and I were first considering adopting, we went to the Internetz and found a treasure trove of information from blogs and the like. We wanted to return the help by creating this blog as a way to share our experiences with other potential parents.

We hope you like what you read and will consider sharing it with those in your life. And, as a favor to your blog-meister… how did you all hear about this blog? Do me a favor and chime in with a comment and let me know how you found out about us.

Thanks!

Tom

A great post from a great friend... read and share!

State must recognize committed same-sex couples
Jackson Citizen Patriot

Cynthia Landrum 

With Valentine's Day right around the corner, our thoughts naturally go to the subject of love. Many loving couples will get engaged or married to celebrate their commitment. But there are a lot of loving couples in our community who cannot celebrate in this way because of our state's limitations on same-sex marriage.
Many of the same-sex couples that I know are in relationships that have lasted longer than my marriage. These couples are raising children. They own houses together; they are an asset to our community. They are in every significant way like my husband and me, except under the law.

The majority of Americans now believe in something we call "civil unions," and are willing to give same-sex couples the same rights that we give to heterosexual couples. For some, however, the sticking point comes with calling this "marriage." In many countries, civil marriage and religious marriage are separate. It's because of our combination of the two that this is such a contentious issue. For example, as a minister, I perform a state function when I sign marriage licenses. In many other countries, religious ceremonies have no legal function.

Civil marriage or civil union is a civil right. And if we gave the same rights to civil union that we give to civil marriage, there really wouldn't be a problem with calling it "union." But doing so is logistically impossible, with differing state and international laws. And these same-sex partnerships really are marriages in every meaningful way. The same-sex couples I know have marriages that are every bit as real, loving, committed and important as the marriages of the heterosexuals in our community. And there is in no way that these loving relationships threaten the institution of marriage. If marriage as an institution is threatened, it is by those who take it casually, which is done by heterosexuals all the time. None of the same-sex couples I know take the issue of marriage casually at all.

Religious marriage, on the other hand, is a sacrament of the church or other religious institution. Since we have separation of church and state, religious beliefs should have no bearing on civil marriage. People often mistakenly believe that if we legalize civil marriage for same-sex couples, then ministers who object will be forced to perform those marriages. This is simply not true. A minister can refuse to perform any marriage, for any reason, but particularly when he or she has religious objections. Several years ago, when I was a minister in Massachusetts, I signed a vow saying that I wouldn't sign any marriage licenses until the state allowed me to sign them for same-sex couples as well. Happily, I was able to sign some of those licenses before I left the state to come home to Michigan.
 
I would expect that if same-sex marriages were legalized, many ministers might similarly refuse to be agents of the state when they believe the state's actions are wrong. This is one of the privileges of freedom of religion, and I respect their right to not perform same-sex marriage. Likewise, I am proud to stand on the side of love on this issue and perform same-sex marriages in our community, whether the state recognizes them or not. Marriage is a bond of love, a sacred trust between two people. Any couple taking this vow seriously and able to make this commitment to each other deserves the legal benefits of marriage. As a community and state, we need to stand on the side of love.


— The Rev. Cynthia Landrum is minister of the Universalist Unitarian Church of East Liberty.

S N O W D A Y ! ! ! !

We got hammered last night for sure, with snow that is. The college actually closed early, dropping all the evening classes. This was both good and bad, as we didn't have class last Tuesday night due to a day of workshops. While it is good to be home with the family, I have students who will now be three weeks behind.


The college rarely closes, in the ten years I have been there, we have closed three times, two for weather and one on September 11, 2001. I had a conversation with a student about how she had to drive so far in this shitty weather and she asked, "what does it take to get this college to close?" I mentioned A LOT of snow and a terrorist attack.



She didn't look happy.



So today will be spent hanging out with the family, and possibly heading out to the Casacades to hit the slopes with Miss Anna. If the cable holds out, we'll catch up on TV and play the Wii. Life is good.

Mizz'N My Kidz!

We were picked by Anna’s Mom to raise her for a variety of reasons, which are for the most part none of your business. We have an open adoption and we see Anna’s Mom Hillary and her family (including Anna’s sister) on a regular basis. We use Facebook and share pictures through Flickr so our relationship is both cyber and real. Anna is okay with that even asking if we are going to “Skype” with the Grandparents or getting in front of the computer to record a message to send her Mom or sister. So our open adoption is pretty transparent on all accounts. We do not know who Anna’s biological father is and we will probably never know. With Eli however, the situation is much different. Eli was taken away from his birth-parents because they weren’t taking care of him and he became very ill under their (non)care. Thankfully, a young family member realized something was horribly wrong with him and took him to the hospital, which is where the state stepped in and removed him from his parent’s care.


I had a chance to read Eli’s file, a thick book full of both the good and the bad. The first few months of his life were the bad part, but once the little guy got well, things began to improve thanks to the remarkable care he received in foster care. I took a paper and pen to the meeting with the social worker at the beginning stages of the adoption, as I wanted to find out as much as I could about him. APGAR scores and other key birth factors were a mystery to us (but not my Mom, a retired OB/GYN nurse, who encouraged me to get what I could), but as I pored through his records, I also stumbled on his birth-parent’s names. I was going to quickly write them down, but the social worker saw what page I was on and chimed in, “oh, that’s so and so’s deposition, and here you’ll find so and so’s court record.” What I thought was to be secret was suddenly out in the open. The social worker saw me scribbling notes and asked if I wanted a copy of all this. “Sure,” I responded, not knowing if I was even allowed to view these rather disturbing documents. Within a few moments, I was able to know more about Eli and his family than I ever really wanted to know. The social worker remarked that I needed to know all this, so I could understand where my future son had come from.

So now Eli’s adoption is final, and questions are coming up. The social worker asked us for a recent picture, as Eli’s father has requested one. We didn’t have to comply, but we did. She also asked us about what kind of relationship, if any, we wanted to have with his birth-parents. We knew when we first started the process that an open adoption was what we wanted, but we had no idea that this kind of situation would ever exist. His parents didn’t have a choice; he was taken away from them to ensure his health and safety. This was a criminal case, cut and dried. We have had many discussions about this, together and with the former foster Mom. She reports that neither parent is a threat, but she reminded us that when they abused and neglected their son, they lost all rights to him.

I did what many of our adoptive family friends have done, and call it unethical or just plain nosey, but I looked up Eli’s birthparents on Facebook. Since his bio-Dad is rather transient, he doesn’t have an account, however, his bio-Mom is settled and has an account. I didn’t friend her, don’t worry, but I did find out that we have some friends in common from my years teaching at Columbia Central. I scanned through what I could find on her account and found wall postings like this:

• Juzt Got Out Of Jail..Mizz'N My Kidz!

• Mizz'N Hym! Wish'N I Could Tell Hym How I Really Feel!

• Shit Is Not Goin Rite...I Still Love Hym And Alwayz Will..Need To Write Hym...Need To Find Out How He Is Doing! I Mizz The Way He Could Brighten My Day...It's Almost Been 1 Year!

• Thank God Christmas Is Over! I hated It! Mizz'n My Babiez! Wish'N I Could Tell Him How I Really Feel...{So Confused}

Comments such as “Juzt got out of jail” send a pretty big red flag, but the comments that she made regarding wanting to write him tell me that there is some remorse and that she would like to try and make good. She lost her rights to Eli, but that doesn’t mean she can’t keep in touch from a distance. Right now, that seems like a good idea.

Enjoy it

To those of you who have kids the traditional way, enjoy your heterosexual privilege. Enjoy knowing that because you are married, your spouse has full custody of your child should anything happen to you. Enjoy knowing that you don’t have to go to great legal expense to make sure that the child you call your own will not be taken away from you because the voters in the state you live in decided that marriage should only be between a man and woman.


And to those of you heterosexuals who have adopted. Enjoy knowing that because you are married, your spouse has full custody of your child should anything happen to you. Enjoy knowing that you don’t have to go to great legal expense to make sure that the child you call your own will not be taken away from you because the voters in the state you live in decided that marriage should only be between a man and woman.

Enjoy.

catching up

An update for you all:


We’re still here, we’re still plugging along. The sugar rush of the holidays is over, and we’re settling in to the routine of winter in Michigan. Classes started up for me again last week with two new sections, a figure drawing class (which I have not taught in 10 years) and an art history class at our Adrian, MI campus. This means that I am teaching five days a week this semester. While some of you may start to play the little violin at this point and offer no sympathy, teaching isn’t the only thing I do. I run the department, I mentor my faculty, I work on committee stuff and the loss of this day is going to be tough.

Some people have commented in the past that Tod and I make parenting look easy and effortless, and I often wondered where that came from. Perhaps it was because I had time during the day on Friday to do errands for the house or had time to plan out the week ahead; those days are gone, for now at least. The class in Adrian requires an hour drive each way and by the time I get home, and do the work for the class, it’s time to get the kids. We’ll see how this pans out this semester. Because of our negotiations with the college’s board last November/December, changes had to be made regarding staffing, and this is one of the reasons why I have such a big course load this semester, as I have exhausted the available faculty able to teach these courses. There is a plus side to all this however, the pay will rock. While my sanity does come first, it will be nice to have some extra cash coming in. I can also teach a reduced load this summer and spend some time catching up, or, if things are good on campus, I might even take the summer off. We’ll see.

On a brighter note: Eli’s adoption is final tomorrow at 2 pm. We have a big party planned with tons of folks stopping by to welcome this great young man into our family. Hard to believe it’s been six months already.