October 2010 ~ To Tell The Truth

Sunday, October 31, 2010

I Forgot to Give This Post a Name!

Monday - I returned from work to discover CoCo had a bad case of baboon ass (diaper rash). Why haven’t I potty trained that baby already? She is not ready, wants nothing to do with the potty. I think we are getting closer to some forward progress though, because she has decided she wants nothing to do with wearing dirty diaper either. I am now living on high alert. If I am not careful, I find a bottomless messy baby who refuses to tell me where she hid the evidence. Tuesday – either it was uneventful or it was so traumatic I blocked it out, you choose. Wednesday - I had my BlogTalk Radio debut with Ms....

Sit Your Ass Down Already!

"For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time. The witness has forced himself to testify. For the youth of today, for the children who will be born tomorrow. He does not want his past to become their future." Elie Wiesel, Night, Preface to the New Translation (New York: Hill and Wang, c2006), page xv.The words of Elie Wiesel, the Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor stand as a testament to why we must never forget this dark period of human history. Recently I was told by someone I love and respect: You should just forget...

My Competition for Mom For The Year

I am feeling better about my chances thanks to this post: From Stark Raving Mad Momma Who Buys Their Kids Those Bratz Costumes? and this clip from The Talk. Sometimes I really wonder what people are thinking. A quick search of the Vancouver area popped up several actual gymnastics facilities that these moms could drop their kids off at rather than letting them get in a good work-out at their pole dancing class. Then go explore their inner slut out of the eyeshot of their kids. Maybe I have it all wrong, but I would see my kid swinging from a pole as a parental failure. Nothing says “Make me a grandma by 35” like signing your 10 year-old for pole dancing class! Oh well, I guess this way mommy can spend baby’s collage fund...

My BlogTalk Radio Debut

Click "Behind The Masks of Foster Youth" to listen Join Ms. E and ME on BlogTalk Radio listen to the archive anyti...

In an earlier post I touched on the subject of changing the names of adoptees, I was pointing out that this was tactic used by slave owners to strip the pride, identity and culture from their slaves. Linda (not my mother, Linda) talks more about her perspective here. My intolerance for name shenanigans goes back to when I was about 5 years-old and the family a cross the street changed their name form a very long polish name to a VERY nondescript name which was only four letters long.. (Not to be confused with being changed to a four letter word) Our families were very close, so close in fact that shortly after their respective...

Hope You Guess My Name

The whole changing adoptees names thing made me call my mom today to ask her if she is ok with me using her name(s) in my blog. Yeah, she says, I am your mother, and my names(s) are a matter of public record. She says she is not following my blog. She has read a couple of posts that my sister and cousins have posted on FB (my mother and are not “friends”), but she is not “following” it. That is probably for the best. She said she had to go through the same process years ago before she knew what a blog was; and even though she is not exactly happy about it, she realizes that it is my right talk / write about my experiences. Besides, if I write a book, she will get to go on all the talk-shows and tell her side of the story. (And won’t that be...

Don’t Look Now Mom But Your Issues Are Hanging Out

Not my arm For a change of pace one of my favorite work kids (rather than me) hurt her arm. (I do not think it is broken, but I was standing right next to her so I feel like crap about it.) Not my daughter I came home form work to discover that CoCo (2 1/2) had rubbed Bert’s Bee’s ointment all over her hair. After 3 washes with Dawn dish washing liquid she still looks like one of those birds rescued from the Golf Oil Disaster! But gee, her hair smells terrific. Not my Amélie Ammé informed me that “the reason you don’t let me spend the night at other people’s houses is because you love me too much,...

Say Your Name

Is it just me or does changing adoptee’s names remind anyone else of this scene in Roots? This week my friend Pam just signed up for FaceBook for the first time. (She gave me permission to blog about this story.) Yeah, I know, what took her so long? She and I were next-door neighbors. We discovered that each of us was in some form of foster care growing up we got together with three other people and had a support group for a while, until we all fell away. We were former foster kids after all. Anyway she had always known she had a younger sister (Sydney) who was given up for adoption. Her sister’s adoptive mother sent Pam a letter and a picture of her little sister after Pam’s mother was murdered. Apparently the adoptive mother had tried...

Sometimes You Open Your Mouth and the Truth Falls Out

Who else was in foster care? She asked. I could see him tense up. No he didn’t just say that, out loud, where anyone else but me could hear it. Oh yeah, dad, you did. And now I am wondering how you are going to get out of this one. Some times the truth slips out when you least expect it. We were at my fathers house for (shiva) a gathering of my father’s friends and extended family the day after my grandfather’s funeral, he was talking to me about the relationship I had with my grandfather. We were close grandpa Koffron and I, we were kindred spirits and we shared a different bond, the bond of foster care. (We...

Flying The Bird

I always say “I toss small children around for a living.” I think that is an excellent description of what I do. Although sometimes they are not so small, as a matter of fact some of the kids I coach are much bigger than I am. Everyday is interesting and the work is fast paced, dare I say most days it is fun to go to work, how many people can say that? Coaching has it’d draw backs though, mostly the pain. I am old. My neck, my shoulder, my back, my knees, I have golfers elbow in one elbow, tennis elbow in the other, and I don't do either. Once I get home and sit down, I will do...

Industrialized Education

RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms I got this from Christine at welcome to my brain. This is an excellent illustration of many of the reasons I am apprehensive about public education especially where my free-spirit Amélie is concerned. I was given a very hard time by some about my decision not to sent Amélie to kindergarten this year. I wish I would have had this to refer to during that time, but I am glad I have seen it now. Thank you Christine! ...

Mother’s Little Helper - Antipsychotics

Child’s Ordeal Shows Risks of Psychosis Drugs for Young On one level I find this article stunning, on another level not at all shocking. Some parents natural, foster or adopted have no idea what they are getting into as far how exhausting it is to raise children. Children are not cute little dolls who shower their parents with unconditional love and make them feel whole, in my experience they are quite the opposite. Kids are loud they run around and make messes and a lot of noise (which really sucks when mommy is hung over), and they take, and take. They take time, they take patience, they take attention and they take money. When their illusions about what kids will do for them are shattered they become disillusioned and they figure there must be something...

Where Are All Of The Foster Kids?

I am the new kid on the block so I may be missing something. I see adopters, adoptees, first moms, foster parents, but where are all of the foster kids? Who is speaking for us? Yes, I have found some Foster Care Alumni, but clearly not as many I would have expected or hoped to. Is it the shame that keeps us quiet? Our parents knew us, looked us in the eyes and decided we were not worth the effort. Is it the shame of knowing who your parents are and that they just couldn’t get it together enough to see us through? Is it the continuous rejection and reminders that we are not nearly as important...

In Defense Of My Mother

I don’t and won’t spend a lot of time defending either of my parents. For the most part I have witnessed very little regret or remorse from either party, they each feel equally justified and that the other one is to blame for our family going so terribly off track, my sister's running away and my time in the foster care system as a ward of the state. There were also us kids to blame, if we weren’t so god-damned needy everything would have been just fine. Well, we were kids, and being kids makes one very childish. I admit, if I would have just understood that their wants were more important then my needs their lives...

They Can't Miss What They Never Had

Amélie had her 5th birthday this weekend. I have a hang up about celebrating birthdays and holidays. My thoughts on birthdays go something like this “so, I was born, so were the other billions of people in the world and they are just as important as I am, and I just don’t have time to bake every one a cake. That just wouldn’t be fair.” I realize not every one feels that way. Don’t get me wrong the births of my kids were the best things that have ever happened to me. We do celebrate; mostly my husband drags me along no matter how much I protest. I really go out of my way to attempt to keep it low key. While...