Wendy Jacobs, B.Sc., B.A. “The past is never fully gone. It is absorbed into the present and the future. It stays to shape what we are and what we do.” Sir William Deane, Inaugural Lingiari Lecture, Darwin, 22 August 1996 Separating mother and child at birth was the way adoption was practiced in Australia in the latter half of last century. We have heard from other speakers about current…
And the Hope Never Dies I tell myself not to expect anything. I know not to set myself up for disappointment, but still, it’s impossible to avoid. For years, my mother’s day routine has been to go out and get myself all my spring annuals and just spend the day gardening my fool self off. Then, starting off from the years of being a single mom to one little boy…
I have learned so much from being a parent. I have learned so much from being thrust into the reality of adoption. I have learned so much form my journey online. I have learned so much from the pain of life. My head has been spinning lately and my heart feels heavy. I haven’t been writing because I have been thinking too fast. Life keeps coming and I can’t find…
The Christmas before I turned twelve, my parents got me a dollhouse. Not just any dollhouse but they had it custom made by a local man for me. We had been looking for just the right house for quite a while. I don’t know how I got into it, but my mom and I went to quite a few places looking for a good dollhouse.. You know the serious collector…
Here it comes. I don’t know why I am surprised. It’s November. It’s National Adoption Awareness Month. Max’s Birthday is on Saturday. My due date for him was tomorrow November 12th. Into the Season of Max I roll.. Gotcha Gotcha Gotcha! I feel the big cranky coming on. Tuesday night when I found myself almost in tears over a pretty much a nothing conversation with Rye, I immediately thought “PMS?”,…
I find motherhood to be very repetitious. As in; you repeat the same things over and over again: Did you brush your teeth? Say thank you. Don’t touch that. Close the door. I know you know exactly what I mean. Our ongoing “issues” with Garin were fairly repetitive as well. The same things that caused problems years ago, were still bones of contention. Nothing got solved, it just morphed. Like…
Please, for your own Sanity, begin at Part 1. I have to say that right at the stroke of 13, you could actually see the difference and difficulty that hormones bring on to both budding teens and parents alike. I hardly expected it to be that drastic and true, but it was. Maybe I was hoping that all the horror stories I had heard were wrong, but they are not….
So I had eluded in my Adoption Denial post the trouble that been happening with Garin. I figure that it might be a good exercise in processing to write about the whole situation. Parenting teenagers is hard, I can tell you that. While Max has made it to the over 21 stage, not being the active everyday mom, I don’t have the same reference points with him at all. The…
So at 3 o’clock every afternoon, I walk down Wall Street to go pick up the kids from school. Today, being Wednesday, Scarlett gets dropped off at 4:20ish after Brownies, so I was looking forward to some quiet walking time with Tristan. Tristan is in Kindergarten, so his teacher brings the kids for release up to the audorium. Each of the three kindergarden classes have their own door and as…
I love the Holiday Season! OK, if Rye saw that I just typed this out he would be mocking me because going in to Christmas, I am a wreck. But now that it is over….whew.. gald it’s over! But what I do adore, is that it makes a certain son of mine crawl out of the woodwork! Yeah..got a call from the Max! Which was really funny as I had…
It’s kind of funny, considering that it is me, but I have been volunteering all over the place for Tristan’s and Scarlett’s school. The last week has been all about the PTA Holiday Gift Shoppe… Yup, running the holiday gift shoppe. Yup, the PTA. But, it’s been fun and I can do it one handed. And it’s good for all these kids, it’s good for the school, and people really…
So Thursday afternoon I sat at my kitchen table for about 2 hours and babbled on about adoption as I do with Jesse Smith, the Ulster Publishing reporter. It was actually quite enjoyable..Jesse being a cool mellow guy that he is..and, well, I am aways pretty happy talking about adoption. Anyhoo, he seemed pretty excited about it all, was going to do some more research, was happy it was a…
Bare with me becasue I think I am still trying to fiqure this out. After I wrote out last nights post, I was still thinking a bit about it all. Especially that conflicted feeling that I have…the thrill that Max and I do have this connection, yet coupled with the sadness that even for three seconds he felt out of place in his life. Now I have had internet “discussions”…
And the big question..Oh what do you do? Enter the adoption world.
But what was GREAT..is that here is person, with no ties to adoption..and she got it..right off the bat. I didn’t need to explain or defend or nothing. In fact, when she asked how old I was when I had Max…and I said 19, she said “Not so young, but young enough that other people could really influence what you did” BINGO!
I don’t really KNOW what I am doing, I just do it. I do what I have to do, I do what I want to do. I treasure those moments when all seems right in the world. Going out sometimes, or just all hanging on our bed..and it hits me..I have so much..look at us.