Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Golly.
Last night I had a dream that featured my balancing on a tall pole holding my 6-year old daughter, discovering that her leg was made of balsa wood, seeing that her leg had burned and needed repair, looking for someone to fix it, meeting Jimmy Carter in the hallway and shaking his hand, trying to stop a rolling car with my hands and finally jumping in it to hit the brakes, worrying about the child I’d left behind, trying to get back to her, riding a bike down a street that turned into the ocean, mucking my way through dead fish, trying to climb a steep, grass-covered wall, and realizing that she had probably gone off with someone else.
I never have dreams that I remember. Never.
This was an adoption dream. I’m sure of it.
Maybe this signals a new period of not being repressed. All hell could break loose now.
Nobody Would Pick Us
On Facebook today, Adoption Resources of Wisconsin posted a link to a young couple’s adoption recruitment site. So I clicked on it, looked at their happy pictures and their essays about what good parents they’d be. They had an 800 number for pregnant women to call. They were advertising themselves basically.
I looked at their info and I wondered how long and hard they must have thought about how to look like they’d be great parents. They’d want to look happy, for sure. And financially secure. With a decent house. Fun-lovers. With a dog. I thought they looked nice. I could see them being my parents or my kids’ parents. They looked like a couple already checking out summer camps and breaking in their mini-van.
I can’t even fathom the amount of acting and stagecraft that would have had to go into our “ad.” We were mismatched as a couple, impulsive, and constantly contradicting each other. We couldn’t have been more different – in looks, values, backgrounds, the food we liked, our accents. Everything about us was enough off to be worrisome to someone looking for a good home for their baby. We had unstable and temporary written all over our foreheads and down the front of our shirts.
Nobody would have picked us.
When we had our home studies, we felt about as exposed as people can feel. Everything about our lives was fair game for questions. The biggest challenge, though, was just keeping a lid on ourselves – to not let the social worker get a full glimpse of the disarray. But these folks — with their beautiful photos and their website and the 800 number — they’ve put themselves right out there.
I really hope somebody picks them.
Just Another Weird Thing
Tomorrow morning, I’ll get up, go downstairs, and make a pot of coffee. I’ll ground beans out of this bag and, like I have dozens of times, I’ll look at the name Zeledon and like it. The name Zeledon. I like it. It’s the birth surname of one of my kids. Zeledon.
Every day, it’s the same. I make the coffee. I look at the name. And I wonder if my Zeledon is related to the coffee farmers.
And then I wonder if he looks at the name on the bag of coffee and wonders if he’s related to the coffee farmers. Oh, we kid about it. We all stand around in the kitchen and talk about how we should go back to Nicaragua and find his rich relatives. But what I wonder is — does he think about it, like I do, every day.
Is there a connection? Who are the coffee Zeledons? Is it just a coincidence or a sign? Is the coffee there to remind us or lead us somewhere? Or is it just coffee. Probably.
After all, there are Snyder Pretzels and that never led my husband anywhere.
It’s hard and not always worth the trouble to sort out what’s weird from what’s meaningful. Even harder to distinguish what would capture my preoccupation if I was an adopted person from what my kids actually worry about. I can’t be in their place or see the world through their eyes no matter how much I read or think or talk to them.
Which is fine. Because they have no idea I’m preoccupied with the coffee. And buy it even though I like Layton Avenue Market’s special blend better. It’s all about the name. Zeledon.
The Cousins
These are my kids’ cousins. Their parents are my in-laws. Not really. But it sure seems that way. Of all the things that we maybe did not so well as adoptive parents, we did one thing really right. Our community – the bunch of families who adopted kids from Rolando Carazo orphanage in Managua, Nicaragua, has stuck together….well, pretty much….we’ve lost some and sadly, because it’s often the families in the most hurt that disappear.
Every year, for the past 24 years, our family has hosted a 3 Kings celebration. And the Nicas come. Sometimes a lot, sometimes not so many. Everyone pretty much brings the same dishes to the potluck, we drink the same drinks, and we have a procession of kids down the stairs to the singing of We Three Kings. When they get downstairs, their shoes are filled with chococate and toy cars and whatever else is on after-Christmas sale. The kids love it — first our own kids and now our kids’ kids — and the night ends with tamale wrappers everywhere, kids racing through the kitchen, adults huddled in corners, and a million hugs – some so badly needed that we drive miles to get them.
I love my kids’ cousins. I am astonished that they are grown – that the babies that were adopted so long ago and lined up on a couch for picture-taking are now adults with beards and jobs and kids. I love it that these kids connect to each other, that they want their own kids to connect, and that they are loyal to our tradition of 3 Kings. I love it that my son, Nelson, can celebrate his birthday with his ‘cousin’ Moises.
And I love how beautiful Ligia, Addie, Becca, and Jhosy are.
And I love how there is a new generation of kids coming down the stairs, singing We Three Kings and looking for cool stuff in their shoes.
We all struggle and fuss our way through the year. The adoptive parents and the adopted kids. None of this is particularly easy.
But it is joyful – at least part of the time. Thank God.
Birthday Boy #1
Nelson Ernesto Bravo Snyder, born January 6, 1985, in Managua, Nicaragua, is 26 years old today. Our Sandinista baby. He’s here because of a chance conversation in the old Wales Wool Store on Downer Avenue when a friend mentioned she was going to a baptism of a child just adopted from Nicaragua which was followed by a crazy meeting with Sallie Pettit where we met her daughter Yami and other newly adopted kids, Moises Price-Neuman and his traveling buddy Mila Holcombe. And we learned that although the new Nicaraguan constitution banned adoptions of Nica kids to families in other countries, the Health and Social Services Ministry was looking for a few homes for kids with serious medical needs — needs that could be met with First World medicine but would doom them in Nicaragua. Sure – we said. We’re interested.
Then there was the phone call a few weeks later. We had just come up from Ottawa Park – sandy, wet. The old yellow wall phone in the kitchen rang. It was Sallie. “There’s an 18-month old boy with a hole in his heart. Will you take him?” Stunned, we told her we would have to talk about it. Ninety seconds later we called back. “Yes.”
What the hell is a hole in the heart? I asked a friend, Fred Tavill, a doctor who had practiced medicine in several third world countries in the 70’s….his response and the words that gave us the confidence to go forward: “If his heart problem was really bad, he’d be dead already in Nicaragua.”
So three months later, Howard went to Nicaragua to fetch our little brave baby. (The story is described in an earlier blog called Orphan Shoe.) He was very sick when he came here – thin, weak, very pale, almost gray. He had surgery 3 months after that and went on to have a healthy, active childhood, lettered in practically every sport, graduated from high school, and is now a weatherization specialist.
This is what he looks like now.
Raising Nelson has not been easy. If there was a Chronicles of Nelson, it would be several volumes, the reading of which would deter from parenthood all but the most determined person. A whole degree program could be developed using Nelson as the case study. Really. No joke.
But I will tell you this. There’s not a time when I’m not glad to see him walk through the door. He’s handsome and funny and loyal. He forgets bad arguments and knows how to crack a joke. He’s fearless and tough. He can put a dress on a Barbie doll for his daughter while talking on the phone and texting. Very skilled guy. And he loves us – which, I guess, is the real miracle here.
At the end of the day (and this isn’t the end of the story because I think the Chronicles of Nelson have a lot more chapters), we’re all lucky. The hole in his heart got fixed and so did ours. That’s pretty good.
Post Game Show
I wanted to wait a day or two to write about Christmas. Holidays for us – always, but especially the last few years – are a little touch and go. Somebody’s absent. Somebody’s a mess. People take turns. You know how some families draw names out of a hat for gifts? We kind of do that to see whose turn it is to be the fruitcake at Christmas.
Only kidding. We don’t do that. Fruitcake designation is totally random.
So because Norman Rockwell skipped our house and went next door to paint his perfect family Christmas, we’ve learned to adapt. We have expectations that are so low that the folks waiting in the funeral home basement for their turn upstairs would pass muster. If there are no sirens, flashing lights or bloodshed, we’re feeling pretty ok.
This Christmas, I would give an A-. A minus only because claiming perfection seems out of character. Here’s why it was so great.
- My kids figured out how to buy presents without borrowing money from me.
- Everyone showed up – well, everyone in Milwaukee, that is. No last minute disputes, flat tires, freeway pile-ups.
- On time. Get out, you’re saying. Yes, they were all on time.
- They laughed. A lot.
- There was a four-year old girl with bangs and pigtails.
- There was some pretty decent food. Thanks Mom (and Sam’s Club).
- We kept it short.
- There were no complicated toys that required DIY assembly.
- People were gracious and grateful.
- We lived in the moment.
Item #10. That’s the takeaway. Living in the moment. The hardest thing to achieve. The best way to live.
Say Again
My two boys started talking pretty late. For a couple of months after they came to the U.S. from Nicaragua, they didn’t even cry much. Mute little munchkins. Tip for adopters: if you adopt a child from an orphanage, they often don’t cry. This can trick you into thinking they’re so content they don’t need to cry but my theory is that they tried crying for a while and it wasn’t productive – as in nobody showed up to pick them up. Humans quit doing what doesn’t pay off, right? More theorizing — both had tons of ear infections in the orphanages. And so one school of thought was that they hadn’t heard enough language or not heard it well enough when they were babies to develop their speech properly.
Note: My little granddaughter didn’t utter a word to me until she was about 3 1/2 and I never thought twice about it, instead deciding that her silence was, in fact, a sign of her utter contentment in my care. 🙂
We were so worried about them not talking that we trucked them off to speech therapy- at UW-M, Curative, and St. Francis. Not sure what the rush was. At that point in our lives with our kids, we were all over issues like not talking, not walking, not picking things up with their little wee fingers. All of it. Everything had to be solved STAT!
Anyway, so when Joe, the younger of our two sons, finally started talking, he quickly developed the habit of repeating the last word in every sentence. Sentence. Yes, exactly like that. That. With a little pause in between. Between.
For a while, we weren’t sure we were hearing him right. But we were. Last word, every sentence. Twice.
Memory: In the car driving to Florida. It’s dark outside. The two boys are in the back playing with their little superhero action figures (remind me to tell you our little anti-sexism campaign…..Action figures are dolls. Dolls are action figures) and we pass a sign for a restaurant.
“We should go to Cracker Barrel. Barrel.”
We cured Joe of this little ticky thing (officially called echolia, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echolalia) before we were able to find a really good echolia therapist (thank God) by thinking it was so cute and funny that we all started talking that way.
Something in his little five-year consciousness decided that “Hey, that ain’t cool. They stole my thing.” It was as if he wouldn’t be caught dead talking the same way as his very uncool parents. So he stopped talking like that.
But we still do and I still think it’s hilarious. Hilarious.
Go Out and Come Back In Again
This month has been marked by a lot of coming and going. Various family members going off to collect themselves and returning with a clean shirt and a calmer frame of mind. This is both actual and metaphorical. By the end of November, we had gone through a lot of laundry.
I understand nothing in life if not fresh starts. As a parent, I’ve learned that leaving the door unlocked is often all I have to do.
The trick about this is having no expectations (other than the clean shirt). Kids show up — maybe after weeks or even months — and they sit down and have dinner. And then very often they leave – without answering questions, without explanation. They come and swish, like Zorro, they’re gone.
A psychologist would accuse me of compartmentalizing. How do we have our adult kids just show up to Hanukkah dinner when there is so much going on? How do we not get things resolved?
Here’s the answer — it’s not up to us to get things resolved. It’s up to us to be the tent in the wilderness where the lantern is shining through the canvas.
That’s our job – to be their tent. Grown-up children at the table, one next to the other – not so great latkes and pretty darn good brisket taking the edge off whatever tension and turmoil there might have been when they walked in. It’s Hanukkah and there’s light and we are all reminded.
Things could be worse. Right now, they’re okay. And even though it’s not really gold, Hanukkah gelt is very sweet, indeed. 
Greedy or Good?
Tonight I watched a news segment about a couple who had adopted a slew of kids after raising a bunch of birth children. The mom rattled off the stats: 2 two-year olds, 2 three-year olds, a six year-old, a seven-year old. I lost track. There might have been another one in there. The kids – all adorable – had been in the foster care system. The dad looked a little dazed but game….in a stunned kind of way.
The segment closed with the reporter saying they were planning on adopting more kids in the future. Duggars Redux. (The Duggars are those nice folks with 19 kids who have a baby every year, rain or shine. Worse. They go to restaurants where all the kids sit up straight with their hands folded in their laps. This was my problem — oh yes, not having enough kids!!)
So I understand this compulsion to adopt. I really do. When I went to Nicaragua to get my son Joe and later my daughter Jhosy, I felt like Velcro Mama. Honest to God, I rolled through that orphanage and kids stuck to me like a wool skirt on a dry winter day.
I remember sitting on the floor at the orphanage, kind of paying attention to Jhosy spelling out her name in my journal, but really watching a gorgeous little boy named Mario scooting around the room in a Baby Bouncer. I want that little boy, I thought. But quickly realized that adoption wasn’t the kind of thing where you could trade one kid for another. Oh, ah, I think I’ll take that one instead. Besides Jhosy was beautiful and friendly and I wouldn’t trade her ever. I’ll come back for the boy.
I didn’t go back for Mario. Someone else adopted him….but that’s another and really wonderful story.
Around the time we were adopting our kids, a couple with one birth child adopted 3 kids from Nicaragua and 3 from Milwaukee County AT THE SAME TIME. And for a while, she was the envy of everyone — tons o’ kids, rolling down the highway, big ol’ minivan, lots of juice boxes, merry, merry, merry. And then she wasn’t quite so envied….if you get my drift.
A few months ago, a young woman, who was adopted from Nicaragua by one of my dearest friends blurted out in reference to her family and ours, “I don’t know what you guys were thinking – adopting one kid after another. Didn’t you stop to think about what these kids had been through? That maybe each one needed to have his own time to adjust and be ok?”
And the answer was: No. I didn’t. I was delirious. Happy, blessed, and ignorant. Like those folks on TV. They’re thinking God chose them to do what they’re doing.
They’re probably right.
10 Reasons Why You Should Adopt A
Child. It’s National Adoption Month. Because a lot of what I write has a bit of an edge to it, people might think I’m cynical about adoption or disappointed or disillusioned. And they’d be right. But I also feel grateful, lucky and amazed. Same person, different days? Maybe.
The truth of the matter is that adoption isn’t for everyone but it’s for more people than you might think. In fact, it might be for you. This is a picture of me and my dog, Jak, a puppy my husband bought for me to celebrate my graduation but also, I really think, to take my mind off my growing grief about my infertility and how inaccessible and impossible adoption seemed for us at the time. We’d gotten shooed away from Lutheran Social Services because our mixed marriage (Christian-Jewish) made us ineligible to adopt from most countries. We were mortified and discouraged at the local adoption process — scared to death by the list of possible ‘conditions’ we were told we might encounter. (Remember this is a long time ago — things have changed for the better.)
We ended up adopting three kids from Nicaragua — in the most serendipitous way imaginable. But that’s another blog post.
So maybe you want to be a parent but haven’t figured it out. Here’s why you ought to look at adoption ….. of a child (well, maybe a dog, too).
1. Adoption is exciting. If life is a box of chocolates, adoption is a crate. You don’t know what you will get. There’s no predicting.
2. Adoption makes you happy right away. If you have been wrestling with infertility, you can put all that heartache away. If you’re stuck on how sad you are because you’re single and childless, presto chango. You decide to adopt. You will be immediately happy.
3. Adoption makes people think you are selfless. If you are like me, you are unlikely to ever be called selfless in any other situation. So that’s kind of cool.
4. Adoption gets you out of yourself. You have to think bigger, think smarter, be more aware, assume less, and listen more.
5. Adoption gives you purpose. Why? Because you are offering to become the parent to a child without a parent. Is there something more important than this?
6. Adoption reminds you that falling in love isn’t a once in a lifetime experience. It can happen over and over until you have all your bedrooms and more filled up.
7. Adoption cracks open your ethnocentrism. If you are white and your children are brown or black, you will feel the rage and indignity of racism for the first time in your life. You will understand 1000% more about the world than you did before.
8. Adoption gives you children who love you because you loved them when no one else did. It takes a while for them to realize this but they eventually do. They also learn that love without action is just words.
9. Adoption lets you blame genetics for stuff you don’t like. Birth parents don’t have this little trap door. And that’s kind of cool.
10. Adoption creates the family you’re yearning for. Creating a family through adoption is a stiff term for being open to chance and luck, believing in yourself and being ok, truly ok in your heart, with what life brings you.
Adoption could be for you. Think about it. Don’t be freaked out or scared or think you’re not good enough to be a parent to a kid without parents. You’re plenty good enough. Really. I know what I’m talking about.
Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
Recent Comments