Blogging
I need to figure out how to pause and maybe download this blog. I am thinking of setting up a new one.
depressed mom
After all the stress of working in a new school and trying to figure out how to do things again (when teaching is really not what I want to do anymore), it seems like I would be flying high with relief that school is over. Instead I barely want to get out of bed.
I guess all the adrenaline of school is gone now. Now I am back to being alone with a two-year-old needing/ wanting my time. I also still dealing with grief of losing my Diva after nearly fourteen years.
It’s probably a good thing that Miss Fuss is still going to daycare. At her center, I’d possibly lose her spot if I unenrolled her for the six weeks or so. They have a four day option but by going part-time I’d lose the public service discount; so I would actually only save $10 a week. So I am keeping her a full-time student but will decide when we are going to do other things. I want to take her to the zoo, to the science museum, maybe the Aquarium a couple of hours away. But I hate doing these things alone. But that is what I have been since we moved back almost 18 months ago. None of the people who claimed to be so excited for me to move back have bothered coming around. So I guess I need to try to get over my discomfort with going places alone.
I have things I need to do- paperwork about student loans, paperwork from when Miss Fuss was in the hospital with RSV, organization of stuff from the moves still. But it is really hard to do any of them. I know I need to do it, but..
I am still on my meds, but I still feel so incredibly blah and tearful- of course some of that could also be hormones: my rather weird period started this week.
I am still snappy and impatient with Fuss (and Furboy). I apologize to her, but I don’t want her to have all the negatives of being the child of a chronically depressed person.
I really need to get moving, but I am finding it hard to care…. 😦
Oh, and I spent my 47th birthday alone with a two-year-old this weekend. I bought myself flowers and most people seemed to find that great. 😦 I really wanted someone to want to be with us…. to celebrate me.
An open-adoption dance
Not too long ago, I was complaining about an interaction with my daughter’s birthmom. A wise friend of mine told me that I am now and forever part of a triad- my daughter, her birthmother, and me. Even as a part of me hated seeing that- much less acknowledging it- it is something I needed to hear.
When I was approached about adopting the baby of an extended family member, I only saw the good. My child would be able to know his or her birth family and not have so many questions about where she came from.
Then when I met the paternal side of the family, I believed it important that Miss Fuss see people who looked like her.
So I was thinking completely of the benefits. I never contemplated how complicated it could become.
I never thought about Miss Fuss’s half-brother or the fact that the four-year-old would be told she was his sissy. I never thought that her bio-mom would put “from Mommy” on the Christmas gift for her first Christmas.
I pictured Miss Fuss having “extra grandparents.” I did not really think about how her birth parents fit into the formula. I am Mom and I fully plan on her knowing about her birth parents. I just never thought about what terms they would have in out relationship dictionary. Somehow I think in my ignorance I thought that just knowing where and how she was would be mostly enough. Birthmom is mid-20s, immature, and already not raising her first child. Biodad is young and immature. Then he starts complaining that I am referring to her as my daughter on FB. He said that it reminds him that he never really had a choice. I never knew he had had any doubts or other plans and told him so. I didn’t meet him until after Fuss’s birth.
After two years, things are still complicated. I am glad that the adoption is finalized. Yes, I try to respect her birth parents, but I no longer worry about tap dancing around them. If they want to get upset at me, that is their issue- not mine. The last time I heard from her birthmom was when Fuss was in the hospital in December. She wanted me to reassure her that everything was going to be okay. At that point (when Fuss had been hospitalized for days), I told her that yes, it was scary. I made a point to say that Fuss was going to be okay, but I did not have the emotional energy to coddle her. She could be scared, but I was the mom in the hospital room seeing the baby I had raised since she was two days old lying there on breathing machines.
Most of the interactions with the birthfamily are through FB now. When Fuss’s great grandfather died a few months ago, we went to spend time with the family and honor this special man. I am trying to figure out how to see everyone before school is out, but scheduling is a nightmare. Neither side of her birthfamily understands why that side is not more important than anyone else. They all also seem to not understand that she is only two and has a schedule which doesn’t always fit in with their schedules.
I will always honor Miss Fuss’s birth families. I try to stay respectful in my interactions. I will let Fuss make her own decisions about them someday. But sometimes this crazy dance can make life complicated.
Ponderings
Like most parents I worry about how I affect Miss Fuss. I grew up with a severely depressed (if not bipolar) mom. While I do not know how my early development, I do know that my pretty severe anxiety stems at least in part from my mom and the chaos of our home. Yes, there is definitely a biological component, but I know I was influenced by my mom.
So I worry that my own treated/ medicated bipolar depression 2 and severe anxiety affect my own little one. Is that why she still isn’t talking as much (or in sentences) or as clearly as I would like? I talked to her almost constantly when she was tiny. Even now I feel like I talk with her lots. Yes, there are evenings after being at work all day when I no longer want to talk or do much interacting.
Because I know so little about child development, have no local friends with small children, and was always trying to do things quickly, there are things which I either have not taught her or didn’t allow her to develop the skills. She can help with shirts and jackets. She fights with socks but can mostly put on shoes. She can do very little with pants though. How does one teach a child to dress herself?
She is playful, funny, smart. She can climb almost anything. Yet, I feel like there are skills “missing.” I want to do right by her and give her a better life than her birth family could have given her. I also want to give her a better life than I had. But can I?
Bifocals & Baby 