Treading water

We just got back from a visit with Shelley's parents (Nonna & Nonno to Gus) in Florida. Gus was in hog heaven because not only do they live on the beach and have a pool, but several of his cousins live very close so he got to play with them, and some even brought their DOGS! This kid could not have been more thrilled. The mommies were also really impressed with what an adaptable little guy we have - no problems with jetlag or being shuffled from place to place. (We on the other hand were wrecked from our red-eye flight. Thankfully Shelley's parents have plenty of coffee!)
Gus swam everyday, multiple times a day. He and Shelley go to swim lessons at the Y every Saturday, so the kid has some skills. Nonna and Nonno got him a little thin life jacket-y thing, and he was excited to have such independence in the pool. It was great to see him enjoying himself so much. He spent hours dog-paddling around and treading water.
Treading water never felt like very much fun to me. Sometimes, though, it's just what we have to do. Maintain. Currently, we're navigating how to do that in our relationship with G's birthmom. I say our relationship because at almost 20 months, Gus doesn't really have a relationship with her yet. Right now, all the relationshippin' falls fully on us. And sometimes, often, it feels like treading water. Like we are staying in the same damn place no matter how much effort we exert.
Don't get me wrong, we are committed to having an open adoption for many reasons, (some of them I've talked about here and here), and we want Gus to be able to have a relationship with his birthmom because she is just that, the person who gave him life and had to make a really hard choice. But none of this is black and white, and some of the reasons that she made that choice are also the same reasons that sometimes maintaining a relationship with her isn't the easiest thing in the world.
But I have to remind myself, relationships are often hard. Especially, let's be honest, with relatives. And that's what K is, she is related to us through Gus. It feels, currently, like there is a great chasm of grief between us. There are a lot of uncomfortable feelings from all of us churning around in there. Nobody wants to swim in it, with the exception of maybe Gus, he'd swim in anything. But the water is a little too deep and treacherous for him right now, I think. So our job is to teach him and support him and hone his skills so that he's prepared to confidently dive in at some point. Because even though the job of maintaining the relationship is ours right now, it is and always will be, about and for him.

Focus

I've been reading a lot of Glennon Melton lately. Love her. In my head I'm often as funny and profound as she is. In my head. (A lot goes on in this head of mine. But i digress.) Anyway, she has this concept of "happy-ish" that I love. You see, I'm just learning Happy. That is not to say that I have not had my share of happiness in my life - of course I have! But Happy and I are sometimes tentative friends. We know one another - enough to recognize each other across a crowded room, say - but sometimes, we're out of context and have a difficult time placing each other, remembering each other's names. Familiar but...not. 

My son on the other hand? He is intimately acquainted with Happy. Those guys are tight. BFFs. Blood brothers. Very rarely do you see one without the other. I love that. I'm also jealous as hell sometimes of being left out of the club. Why isn't Happy my best friend, too? When did we lose touch? Oh, right, I think it was right around the time that Hard moved to town. As in, life is sometimes hard, being a grown-up is hard, being a parent is pretty much always hard, maintaining a loving and authentic relationship with your spouse is hard times ten when you have a tiny human in the house... You get the picture.

But here's what I'm learning - from being a parent, from doing work on myself and practicing self-compassion, from reading freakin' children's books (!), from being a Human living life: Happy and Hard, they know each other. They, it turns out, can co-exist. In fact, especially when you are older, Happy doesn't mean as much without Hard. Almost everything is hard but that doesn't preclude happiness. Sometimes, Happy is Hard, but Hard can also be Happy. And really, Happy-ish is the ticket. Because that means that you know Happy. Sometimes Happy is around and sometimes she's not. But it's Oh. Kay.

I think, a lot of the time, it comes down to where you put your focus. That is what Gus is giving me. And, sure, it can be argued that perhaps he hasn't had a lot of hard so far in his life. (Except that being born is hard, and figuring out how to breathe is hard, and going through the loss of your birthparent is hard, and teething is hard, and wanting to be able to do things independently even when you can't is hard.) We all have hard. It looks different to each of us but we all have it. But Gus, Gus doesn't dwell on the hard. He just focuses on being happy. I know, it's likely not a conscious focus for him. And that's probably what makes me jealous. But it can be a conscious focus for me. I want to have a closer friendship with Happy. But Happy-ish will do, too. And more importantly, I want Gus and Happy to be besties for a long, long time. I also want him to know that Hard is not necessarily his enemy. It's all just Life.

see, it's about FOCUS. ok, and LOVE. and SILLY, too. but for consistency's sake, let's go with FOCUS.

Mirror, Mirror

Parenthood feels to me like a giant effin' mirror being thrust in my face all the time. I examine, and re-examine, and over-examine almost every decision I make during a day with Gus. I guess it's not totally fair to blame it all on the parenting. Some of it (okay a lot of it) is just me. But it does feel like decisions are more dire now. Before, if I forgot to eat or chose to eat badly, eh - it's only affecting me (and maybe Shelley cuz I'm supercrank when my blood sugar's low). But now, it's also affecting little dude. In multiple ways. There's cranky mom and also bad-model mom. I don't want to be grumpy with him for no reason. I also want him to learn to eat well. Anyway, you get the point.

The thing about mirrors, though, is that sometimes they can be distorted. Sometimes the glass is warpy or there's a crack that throws off the whole reflection. And, no matter how perfectly the reflection is coming through, it's also about what I choose to see when I look. I'm kind of a master at seeing all the wrinkles and flaws. But for Gus's sake, I need to get better at seeing the good stuff. I don't want him to necessarily experience the world in the way that I do. I want him to experience it in his own way. I want to be careful not to distort what he sees with my own warpy glass.

And, I am a mirror to him. I try to mirror back at him what I see on his face. If he's joyful or grieving or proud or whatever, I try to be attuned to that. I want him to feel felt and known. I want him to be as satisfied with the reflection of himself that he sees in me as he is with the one he sees in the mirror.

'Cause right now, he LOVES what he sees when he looks in a mirror. He smiles. He laughs. He leans forward and kisses his reflection. It is the cutest thing I've ever seen. And, I must confess, I'm freakin jealous! I wish I could look at my reflection and be that happy with it. I think, for his sake, I have to find a way.

The great thing, though, is that he's a little mirror, too. And the reflection I see of myself in his eyes blows me away! He doesn't care what I look like on the outside. He doesn't see all the flaws (inner and outer) that I do. All he seems to see is awesome. And needs met. And love. I'm sure as he gets older he will see things he doesn't particularly like. But that's okay too. All of what he sees is Mama.

Obstacles? I don't see any obstacles.

I've been thinking about obstacles while watching my son. He doesn't know what they are. Something is on the floor in your way? No matter, you crawl over it, force your way under it. There is a step, or a piece of furniture, or a cat in your path? Just keep going. If only it were that easy for the rest of us. One of his favorite games at the moment is to have Mama (me) crawl around behind him on the floor. He crawls a few feet, then stops and turns to make sure I'm following. I'm usually closer than he expects, I guess, and he bursts into peals of laughter, his right cheek dimple on full display. Then he takes off again. Usually under the dining room table and chairs. Despite the bruises on my knees and the pain in my wrists, I kind of love it. But I can't make my way through the chairs like he does, I have to move them. I can't fly across the floor with abandon - I need to move the toys and pots and pans. I choose to go around the cats.

Psychologically speaking, I feel like I come up against a lot of obstacles. Many I put there myself. (I'm working on this) Some were put there for me. Some, quite frankly, are put there by this kid - the one who seems so rarely hindered. I'm not necessarily complaining about this. It's all a learning opportunity - and on the days where I'm feeling okay and I've had enough quiet, introverted time to myself and I've eaten as often as I should, I dig learning opportunities. But obstacles are still hard. They trip us up. Make us falter in our stride. Change direction.

As much as I sometimes think, "How can I encourage him to continue to be blind to obstacles?" I ultimately think that would be doing him a disservice. Not everything should be easy. Learning opportunities are vital to growth. Changing direction is how we deal, how we stay alive, really. But I do hope that he will continue to be mostly unfazed by them, or at least that they won't throw him as far off his path as they sometimes do me. I want him to learn. To grow. To cope. And to get up and keep going if (and, most assuredly, when) he falls down. I hope I can foster in him an ability to meet his obstacles with less anxiety than I meet mine. I hope he will always be willing to try. If his personality now is any indication, I think (fingers crossed) it's a real possibility.

What do you mean I don't fit under here with this pack on my back?

Baggage

So, Shelley and I just got back from our "Last Hurrah - Sort of a Honeymoon - Adventure" to Ecuador and the Galapagos. It was amazing. Truly trip of a lifetime -wild kingdom - animals up close- Darwinian stuff. And of course now that we're back, we're tasked with one of my very least favorite things to do - unpacking our luggage.

So, of course, because I hate unpacking (not a big fan of packing either, I always say I want to just hop on a plane without anything and then buy what I need once I'm there, but that'll never actually happen) I'm procrastinating. Thinking about baggage rather than dealing with my own. Well, at least not the physical suitcases in front of me.

The emotional baggage is another story entirely. Since we've begun this adoption process, we've really done a lot of examination of our baggage. I know a lot of people can be resentful of the "intrusive" questions that are asked of pre-adoptive parents - the hoops we have to jump through that other folks don't. But as uncomfortable as it can be at times to have to take a really close look at our lives and think about how we want to be as parents, I'm really thankful for the process.

Am I saying it has prepared us to be phenomenal parents? Of course not!!! But in my mind there's absolutely no way that actually taking a long hard look at our own stuff can't help in the long run. And not necessarily just to be better parents, but to be overall better people in the world. That's the goal, anyway. As far as I'm concerned, though, it's a work in progress.