T.I.N.K

We are TINKs again. Not the Disney fairy in green or any other green fairy for that matter. WE are back to being Two Incomes, No Kids people. This is the story of how we have returned to being TINKs. After 6 months of being in our home London moved out in March. It was a much quieter event than we imaged. There were few tears, but no yelling, no questions, no pleading – just silence.

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We did a pretty good job considering we had never been parents. Considering we were only twice her age. Considering we were not told the whole back story or even the entire current situation. Considering she had more than 13 YEARS of inadequate programming. We did a great job setting boundaries. We did a pretty good job explaining those boundaries and why they existed. We even steadfastly held London to the consequences of her actions even when she whined or complained that they were unfair.

When we said yes to 14 year old London coming into our home we knew we would be challenged and we knew we were getting in over our heads. MANY people were kind enough to tell us that.  The first couple months lulled us into false hope. It was actually not too hard. Yeah rearranging our work schedules and making the daily drive to and from school was not super fun, but a lot of other times were. We said over and over again that teenagers might just be better than babies – they sleep through the night, they can take care of their own hygiene (well maybe with some reminding), and hey, this one could even prepare a simple meal. This child was even old enough to share the responsibilities of some chores – like the much disliked kitty-litter-box-clean-out task.

Other than the drama that naturally surrounded court dates and visits with the bio-mom and the surprising number of doctors visits for a healthy 14 year old, the first three months were pretty easy. London did ballet and soccer, we went on a family vacation to Disney World, and we successfully navigated Christmases with all three of our families. We were really starting to enjoy this whole family thing. At Disney World Kelly rocked the mom bag complete with park maps, bottled water, hair ties, and snacks. Scott was honing his ability to embarrass London with loud embarrassing statements or questions. And it felt like things were starting to gel.

Starting second semester of her eighth grade year, London reached the point where she had been in this school longer than she had been in any of her previous 13 schools. A couple weeks into school she was suspended for fighting. There were consequences laid down and we lived through 3 days of suspension and 2 weeks of grounding. Then a few weeks later, after being reprimanded at school for being disrespectful to a teacher, London skipped class with a couple other kids. She was suspended from school for a week. London was back to school for 2 weeks exactly when she was found taking drugs on school grounds. This earned her expulsion from the public school system entirely.

We thought we handled the fight pretty well. We were told we handled the skipping school drama with aplomb. We talked a lot with London about her choices and what they communicated to us. With her actions she was communicating that she could not function within our family. That she could not hold up her end of our growing relationship. After all, you cannot have a healthy relationship with someone you can’t trust. After she ran away one Saturday we found that we could not trust her out of our sight, even at home. We were learning that she could not be trusted at school unless she was under the direct supervision of an adult, even then she was disruptive and rude. Ultimately our talking was just air and the consequences we laid down were not doing their job. London was escalating her acting out and becoming more and more disrespectful at home and school.

We ultimately decided that she did not respect us and would probably never follow our rules. We came to the conclusion that London was very good at adapting to meet a situation and was able to match the tone of the people around her when she wanted. That’s why our first 3 months went so smoothly. She was a very good apologizer and when she was in a good mood she was really fun to be with. These are skills that help her survive the foster care system, but make her extremely difficult to actually live with, because she used them as tools to get her way.

 After much prayer and many tears we decided that it was time for London to move on to a more experienced home. We even suggested something like a group home that would insulate her from the pressures of normal life and remove her from some of the drama of cute boys, mean girls, and tempting drugs.

In the end, the foster agency did not take our suggestion. London was moved from our home to another foster home, but with more experienced foster parents. Or so we were told. Since we are no longer her foster parents we have no reason to receive updates about her or how she is doing.

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It’s been about 2 months now and we have returned to being just Scott and Kelly again: TINK. The first couple weeks were pretty quiet around our house. We didn’t realize how much of our thoughts had been filled with London – what to feed her, what could we teach her, how could we let her know she was loved, how could we help her feel normal? We have now returned to our own lives again. We have taken a getaway weekend and we watch rated-R movies again. We have enjoyed being kid free, but we still talk about her fairly often. We still find things she would think are funny or things we want to show her.

People ask how we are; they seem to expect us to be depressed. In some ways we feel relieved. In some ways disappointed that we could not be what this kid needed.

We’ve taken a break for a while from the foster care system. We haven’t decided yet if we will give it another try. We’ll let you know.

Country Bear Jamboree

We are now 7 weeks in. We are getting to the point where we are ironing out ALL the logistics. And I never knew how many things there were to schedule. When and where doctors, counselor, mother and social worker visits occur. What time we need to get up to be on time to school. Who picks London up from school on which days. Who is going to be at which soccer game. Who is going to bring the camera and dinner to the soccer game. Even defining the words we use around the house. When I say “your hoodie is in your laundry basket,” I mean the clean laundry basket, not the dirty clothes basket. I never realized it but there is a distinction in my mind between the two baskets. Something doesn’t become “laundry” until it is clean. Until then it is “dirty clothes.”

We are realizing the differences in our cultures. We didn’t realize that public school in TN was so vastly different from the private schools we attended just down the street. Did you know at the beginning of a basket ball season they have a Jamboree. That’s a gathering of several teams to play several games at one time to kick off the season. I thought only Boy Scouts and bears had jamborees. Who knew? Did you know that middle school has a homecoming dance? Did you know that Doritos are their own food group? Me neither.  Did you realize that there are gangs? In middle school? Apparently so.

She is realizing that not all cookies come from a Pillsbury tube and not all waffles come from a box in the freezer. She is learning that sodas have LOTS of sugar and Scott and Kelly don’t really eat a lot of kid food, like macaroni and cheese or beef jerky or even PopTarts. 

We are trying to figure out how to shelter her from all the pressures and bad influences coming at her. Unhealthy food, movies, music, TV, magazines, kids at her school, her mom’s opinion all support her doubts about herself. We are trying to introduce her to good music and media. We are trying to reiterate everyday that she is enough, just the way she is. 

Sometimes she tells us we are “so mean,” but we just grin and know that someday she will appreciate the boundaries.  Other times she can’t sit close enough to me on the sofa and she asks me to play with her hair.  You can tell she just needs love and attention.

We’ve gotten little feedback from her except the occasional “I love you too” or sheepish grin.  But we have gotten feedback from both our agency and DCS (Department of Children’s Services) that we are doing a good job. They seem pleasantly surprised that we have gone so long without a blowup of some kind. We are hoping it doesn’t happen, but won’t be surprised if there is some kind of event. We don’t know what  or when it will be, but we have a plan for when it happens, if it happens.

We are realizing that the occasional emotional outbursts are not really about the situation at hand. They are many times symptoms of deeper issues. She is sometimes reminded by current events that we don’t witness of memories or bad experiences that we were not part of. It takes time and some tears to get to the root of an issue. We can’t imagine the pain and hurt she has seen, so sometimes it takes us by surprise when she is extra sensitive to seeing a homeless person or seeing a fight at school. It beautiful to know she is still sensitive and caring. But it is scary and intimidating to think she worries it may be her turn next.

Our goals are to, first, make her feel as secure and safe as possible, second, to help her live up to her potential, and third, EAT MORE VEGETABLES.  I think we are off to a good start!

 -K

The Myth of the Fixer-Upper

In high school and college, I was equally amused and frustrated by girl who dated known "bad boys" with the hope that their love would be so strong that the "bad boy" would change his ways.  I was not a "bad boy" by any stretch of the imagination, often living (against in my will) in the Friend Zone.  I would tell them, I would try to warn them, "they're not going to change."

No-one would listen to me and a few months later, they could concede I was right -- the must frustrating instance being also including the explanation, "he's just the kind of boy you have to date.  You're the kind of guy a girl marries.  He's the kind of guy a girl dates."  It is the single most memorable back-handed compliment I have ever received.  I will cherish/loathe it forever.

I bring all this up because there's a boy that London likes.  For the sake of anonymity, we'll call him Zitty McPimple.  Apparently, Zitty McPimple is ever-so dreamy and a known player.  He's had an on-again, off-again relationship with a different girl at school.  They're currently in their off-again relationship status (as of Tuesday, methinks).  Yesterday, he told London "I love you."  Today he said, "I think you and I should go together."  London's conflicted.  Zitty is super dreamy and the entire eighth grade class thinks they should be together.  But, as previously stated, he's a known player.  London knows this and doesn't really like but, she reasons, "maybe I can change him."

The sentence that used to frustrate and amuse me now terrifies me.  I've seen too many girls and women return to abusive relationships thinking their man had changed or that they could change them and I just don't want London to be one of those statistics.  London knows, from her own life story, that a person can't change if they don't want to.  She knows she can't change him.  But yet there's that look in her eye that says, "but maybe . . ."  I've thrown this question out to the world for fifteen years and no-one has ever been able to answer it, but here I go again:

Why do girls think they can change boys?  Why do women think they can change men?

And, because of this new special place I find myself in:

How do I communicate to her that his boy has no desire to change?  Why would he want to?  He's bouncing from cute girl to cute girl.  He has no reason to change.

I know.  I know.  This is one of those things she's going to have to learn for herself.  I'm a big believer in learning lessons for one's self.  But what is it about having two X chromosomes that makes a person think they can change or fix anything that has a Y chromosome?  And why, if you have a certain standard or idea of what the perfect man would be, wouldn't you pursue that?

A frustrated father wants to know.

Detention!

Kelly called it.  The first week -- maybe the first full day -- that London was with us, Kelly said "six weeks in, we're going to have trouble.  It will be her way of testing us.  She's going to want to see if we'll still love her even if she gets in trouble."

She was alerted to this phenomenon by the very excellent Foster Parenting Podcast.  It's a podcast we can't recommend enough.  It's put on by a couple who, like us, have decided to share their experiences as they foster and adopt children needing a home.  We discovered them fairly early in our adoption process and they have served as inspiration and an encouragement throughout this entire process for us.    Their trials, tribulations, and guarded transparency have emboldened us to be equally transparent with our own trials and tribulations -- in hopes that we might encourage others going through the same things we're going through.  It's been a comfort to us to know we're not alone and we want to make sure that you, too, know that you're not alone.

Sorry.  That was a bit of a tangent.  But it was because of that podcast, as well as other outside reading, that we were completely unsurprised when London called and said she was being sent to detention.  London was super-worried and stressed out.  She was supposed to serve her detention at the same time she was supposed to be playing her first soccer game (did we mention she made the soccer team?  She made the soccer team!).

I called the school to find out what had happened.  Her teacher, a cantankerous woman who sounded like she was in sixties, made no effort to hide the fact that she has given up on London's particular section of science.  To quote her verbatim, "I'm done with them.  They think because this is the last period of the day they can goof off."*  I asked what London, specifically, had done to warrant detention.  "She's been turning in incomplete work and she wasn't paying attention when I showed them the video they were supposed to be watching and the handbook -- and the Vice Principal -- says I can use detention to get a student's attention to help improve their behavior."

Two very important things needed to happen:  (1)  We needed to let London know that even she had gotten in trouble, we still loved her.  (2)  We needed to not undermine the authority of the teacher.

I drove down to the school a little early that day so I could catch London in between school and soccer practice.  I brought her a sweet tea from Sonic, which immediately seemed to ease her foul mood.  We talked things over a bit.  I told her I had found out we could reschedule her detention, so she wouldn't have to miss her game -- and that I had already begun that process.  "Could you get me out of detention?" she asked hopefully.  I shook my head.  "I talked to your teacher.  It sounds like you've earned it."  She grumbled a bit under her breath but didn't disagree.  After soccer, Kelly asked her what she was going to do to make sure this didn't happen again.  And together, led by London, we formulated a plan to overcome the tired and cantankerous science teacher, improve her grade in science, and generally stay out of detention in the future.

I doubt this cry for help was pre-meditated.  But I don't believe the timing of it was coincidental.  It was exactly at the six week mark.  She's had such a history of bouncing from house to house, it only makes sense that she would test the length and breadth of our patience and love.  But hopefully now she realizes that while she may frustrate or worry or even anger us, none of those will actually displace or replace our love for her or our determination to make her a success.


* It's important to note that this is the same science teacher who elected to show her class Short Circuit to teach them about robots and The Little Mermaid to teach them about . . . life under the sea?

Not As Deep As You Might Think

The #1 conversation starter in the past two weeks has been, "how's it feel to be thrown in the deep end?"  And I can understand why people would assume that's the way it would feel.  When we first got the call and were told that "there is a thirteen year-old girl who needs a home tonight," I was undoubtedly daunted.  But then she arrived and now people either don't believe me or don't know how to respond when I say, "not that bad," and by "not that bad," I mean "this feels like the shallow end, not the deep end."

London sleeps through the night.  We don't even have to make her go to bed.  She heads to bed as soon as she can't keep her eyes open -- or when we bore her with a third Daily Show in a row.  Even better, if we ignore her, she'll sleep right in.  If and when she wakes up before us, she pulls out a book or quietly opens Netflix.

Which is in stark contrast to what our friends went through when their little ones came home from the hospital -- which is really what makes it feel like got the easy end of the deal.  She dresses herself.  She's potty-trained.  She has a full vocabulary and knows how to express her ideas and her needs.  Any problem we have can be addressed with a rational conversation.  We can have legitimately deep and meaningful conversations.  We're going to dance class.  We can share and enjoy the same TV shows, movies, music, and books.  And, maybe most importantly of all, she makes a mean pitcher of sweet tea.

There is a trade-off, of course.  We still don't know what it's like to hear our little one's first word.  We haven't been able to film her first steps.  We weren't able to ease into or mentally prepare for interest in the opposite sex (or, more accurately, the opposite sex's interest).  Every day, I can't help but worry -- even just a little bit -- about all the boys peacocking around at her school.  She's come home three times already talking about fights.

And there's still the not-knowing.  Parental rights for London have not been terminated.  We don't actually know if they will be.  We'll find out in a couple of months.  I have faith they will be, as London's mother has a history of . . . well, being a customer of Walter White.  But there's no security yet.  No matter what we do or what plans we make, there's still a certain sense that our foundation is fairly thin ice.

But, and this is the part where people stop believing me again, it honestly doesn't feel like the deep end.  We're in the pool, to be sure.  But it only feels like we're waist-deep in the water that could potentially drown us.  It's not that there's not danger or things to worry about -- people have drowned in less and if we have to remind her one more time to put sunscreen on . . . -- but it's fine.  More than fine, it's fun.

-S

I See London, I See Disney

It's so strange the way life plays out.  "Strange" is the best word for it, really, but I don't mean that in a negative way at all.  I mean strange as in "unexpected" or "unpredictable" or "exciting" or "funny" or "not at all in the way I would have ever imagined it."  You know, strange.

Tuesday night we got a call.  It was about 9:30.  We had just come back from dinner with the Norths.  Kelly was sitting down to do her homework and I was sitting down to get more writing done.  The phone rang.  It was Omni.  "We have a thirteen year-old girl and she needs a home tonight."

Omni had called us before, telling us about ten and eleven year olds who needed foster care.  Our response was always the same:  "I'm sorry, but we're not prepared for that.  We're looking for a child who is five years old or younger."  Writing that sentence feels awful.  We always felt awful turning children away, but we've never had children before.  We wanted to have the closest thing to a natural experience as we could.  We have spent the past couple of years preparing for a baby.  But there was something different about this call.

Kelly hung up the phone and we discussed it.  At first I was wondering why we were discussing it.  Thirteen is well out of our "five or under" range.  But as Kelly started sharing London's story, there was a tickling in the back of my brain.  Call it the still-small voice or call it my spider sense, but there was something about this story and this child I couldn't ignore either.  We called Omni back.  We had a few more questions.  Listening to more of London's story, Kelly looked over at me with a silent, "what do you think?"  I nodded back, "let's do this."

London showed up thirty minutes later.  She was with two Omni coordinators and a trash bag full of her clothes.  While that was the first time we met her, we didn't really get to meet her till the next day.  The people from Omni talked for so long, London was asleep in her bed before we got to say two words to her.

Since then, we've gotten to play and talk and get to know each other.  London is one of the sweetest girls I've ever met.  The glimpses into her past infuriate me.  Knowing she's been in foster care for two years saddens me, as I would have loved to have brought her into this home two years ago, and give her two more years of love and stability than she's had.

We've only had her for four full days, but we're already making plans for the future.  She wants to take dance lessons.  She wants to be a veterinarian.  We're saving every five and ten dollar bill we find for a trip to Disney.  She's never been and really, really wants to go.  She also wants to go to New York, but for that "we'll have to save every ten and twenty we find, that's a whole lot more expensive!"

And Kelly and I already know we're going to do everything to make her dreams come true.  Today's her 14th birthday.  We have a pool party planned.  Tonight we'll introduce her to Doctor Who, tomorrow we'll finish preparing her for school and Monday she goes back to 8th grade.

No-one ever imagines the strange.  Everyone imagines the traditional.  Go back in time to any point in my life and ask me about the family I would eventually have, and I never would have plotted something like this.  But now that I'm here, I wouldn't change a dot of it.

Here's to all the strange, strange years to come!

-S

We Are Not Alone (the Perks of a Rabid Fandom)

Kelly and I are, among other things, Whovians.  You probably have a Whovian in your life.  You'll know them by their insistence that "bow ties are cool," their use of words like "timey-wimey," "allons-y," or "fantastic."  They may own a mile-long scarf.  They may have a bumper sticker alleging "my other ride is a TARDIS."  If you are looking for a fun fandom to be a part of, look no further than the fandom of Doctor Who.

Fandoms can be a tricky thing.  I was a fan of Star Wars, for example, before it was cool (and then subsequently uncool again).  Star Wars fans have a complicated, love-hate relationship with that which they obsess over.  As much as they love everything George Lucas gave them, they hate everything he continues to give them (this is a broad stroke statement that doesn't describe every fan, but the fandom as a whole).  It can be a very frustrating fandom to be a part of.

Enter The Doctor.  If you know nothing about Doctor Who, it's a show that is celebrating it's 50th anniversary in 2013.  It's a fantastic British sci-fi show about an enigmatic time-traveller called The Doctor who uses his ability to travel all of time and space to leave things better than he found them.  As you can imagine, it's a show that can be daunting to get into -- it's been on for fifty years (more or less).

Enter The Whovians.  Doctor Who fans know how intimidating getting into the show can be.  But they know how rewarding it is being a Whovian that each and every one of them has their own recommended way of getting into the show.  They're a patient lot, who are more than willing to hold your hand and answer all your questions until you're addicted and running off on your own adventures with The Doctor.  That's not to say they don't bicker.  Every fandom has its arguments.  But in the case of Doctor Who, most of the arguments come down to being a clash of preferences.  Most of the time, everyone walks away still happy, still friends, and still hoping the TARDIS shows up in the back yard.  I believe this is because of the intelligence lying beneath most episodes of Doctor Who.

Doctor Who is a show about something.  It's easy to dismiss it as a silly sci-fi with lots of unnecessary running about, silly monsters, and implausible story lines.  At first glance, that's all it really is.  But then you notice the Daleks are a thinly veiled critique of fascism, and the Cybermen are a condemnation of mindless conformity and . . . oh my goodness . . . these are all metaphors!  Well, not all of them.  Some are just men in silly suits.  But even those Freak of the Week episodes are still filled with characters grounded in a relate-able reality that will often leave you with a few questions for you to ponder about your own life.  If you find yourself on a Doctor Who message board or swapping favorite stories with a fellow Whovian, it's not at all uncommon for someone to bring up how a particular episode, or a particular character, helped them through a particularly tough time.

Take Amy and Rory -- the Eleventh Doctor's current companions -- for example.  They've had a rocky relationship since we first met them.  But they've also had an endearing and enduring relationship.  Collectively, as a fandom, we're rooting for them just as much as we're rooting for The Doctor.  This most recent episode, well . . .

Amy drops the very large bomb in Rory's lap (as well as the audience's lap) that she's incapable of having children.  I was not expecting that.  I don't expect other people, especially people who have been in the TARDIS, to have any idea of what it's like to be me.  Yet here are these two fictitious characters crying and fighting and using words that have been used by me and people I know who have also fought and cried over the exact same thing.  It hit me right in the back of the throat.  The room started to blur and I was suddenly very glad I was watching the episode by myself.  The moment passed and I loved the show all the more.

Enter The Whovians.  I was not alone with all of these feelings.  Megan Lavey-Heaton, co-author of the webcomic Namesake, shared a glimpse into her and her husband's struggle with infertility.  You can read the whole blog post here (which also serves as a review of the Doctor Who episode, "Asylum of the Daleks").  But I had to share a couple of exceprts here because the post was so refreshingly honest that my heart broke as I was being encouraged and reminded that, indeed, we are not alone.

Infertility is a horrible, horrible beast. There are days that you’re perfectly fine, that you can go “I’m OK with this. I’ve got a wonderful career and a husband who loves me and medical science that can do a lot. I’m under 35, I can do this.”

Then there are other days when you hate yourself. When you feel that your husband, who moved across an ocean for you, could do much better. You want kids, and he wants kids. But what you’re trying isn’t working. You go to the doctor. The drugs aren’t working. There’s more drugs you can take. Expensive procedures, but where do you draw the line? And even though you can and do live an fantastic life, surrounded by love, opportunities to travel and a fulfilling career, you feel like a failure — especially when you’re surrounded by a culture and social media that rubs it in your face. It is so hard to go on places like Facebook and see hundreds of photos of your peer’s newborn babies.

You’re also in mourning, dealing with this. You have to go through the grieving process, even if you never planned on having kids. 

Different people react in different ways.

Amy is so much a mirror of the Doctor emotionally. No wonder they get along so well. Amy handled the infertility issue in a way that was in-character for her and that mirroring of the Doctor. They both run away so much until forced to confront themselves by a catalyst: River for the Doctor and Rory for Amy. Then they act and grow. When you look at Amy now and the Amy we met in “The Eleventh Hour,” it’s such a brilliant story of growth. Amy then acted in such a selfish manner in running away. Now, she’s grown to where she loves Rory so damn much that she is willing to sacrifice everything for him to be happy. And that is gorgeous — and all Moffat.

The "Moffat" she refers to in that last sentence is the show's incorrigible show-runner, Steven Moffat.  He delights in our pain and torture and we love him for it.

The fact that Steven Moffat was willing to approach this topic in a show that could just be about its special effects and its quippy, banter-filled scripts meant so much to me.  It gave courage to people.  For some, it was a "if Amy and Rory can figure this out, so can I" moment.  For others, it provided catharsis.  For others yet, it provided a time and place to talk about something they might not have -- and I think that's important.

It's important to know we are not alone.

-S