Adoption Picnic

This weekend we went on a special picnic.  Our kids are adopted, you see, and this is the first time we’ve had an organized picnic with all of the maternal birth family.  We’ve seen them all from time to time at various events where our paths have crossed over the years.  We’ve never made it a secret that our children were adopted, nor have we kept it a secret who this birth family is. 

Adoption is very dear to my heart.  We have adoptions of various kinds in our family.  My brother is adopted with a closed adoption, as they all were, years ago.  He has now adopted his step-children.  We have two adopted children in an open adoption. (Same birth mother) Ours isn’t a wide open adoption, we've exchanged letters and pictures and a few visits, but not very much.  I was thinking today that they have behaved perfectly as a birth family, just the right amount of contact. We couldn’t have had a better experience.

It isn’t easy giving a baby up for adoption. It has to be on of the hardest thing a young woman can ever do. Those that think teen moms are making life easier for themselves are wrong. I’m sure they think about that baby they’ve given away.  The openness of letters and pictures must help, as they can see how they change as they grow.  I really admire those young women who can give up something so much a part of themselves to someone else, knowing they no longer will have control over that life. I know these things. My daughter had a baby while still in high school. She made the decision to keep her baby.  We encouraged her to look into adoption, remembering what her birthmother had done for us. There were many people who have said to us “how can you even THINK of giving that precious life to someone else”.  I can think of it because, that is how I received two of my children.  I can think of it, because I believe children need a two parent home.  I can think of it, because there are couples out there wanting a baby of their very own.  I love my grandson.  I love to have him in my house.  I love him enough to know he and his mother needed to live with us, because he needed a stable home, even if it wasn’t parents.  I love him enough that if my daughter had decided to give him up for adoption, I would have let him go.

I hope we too, have made the experience a good one for the birth family.  I’ve never felt threatened by the kids' birth family or my kids knowing just who that “other family” is.  All kids at sometime or another are going to express the wish that we aren’t their parents, and that we never had been.  That happens to most parents, adoptive or not.  We’ve had these children since they were a few days old and what we have given them no one else can take away.  

Here is a link about an adoption story.  It also tells her story about searching for her birth parents.  In it is something everyone touched by adoption can enjoy.   http://growup318.com/igrewinhertummy/

Now It's My Turn

Last weekend, I was the company.  My family and I visited my folks for one last visit before some of my family moved across the country.  Since starting this blog I am more aware of my actions and how I behaved at my folks.  When I was first married and even when I had young children, I could find a lot of ways to stay out of the kitchen.  It was mostly I didn't like to do the work, and I was TIRED in those days.  I remember visiting my grandparents, and mom and all the aunts would be working away in the kitchen at meal times, cooking and cleaning up, and the kids were usually as far away as they could get.  I supposed someday it would be my turn.  My turn has come, and strangely enough I don't mind it.  I wonder if it is because I know I won't have my mother with me forever (we are all getting older and it is happening way too fast), or if it is just that I just do it since I'm supposed to be a big girl and big girls help out.  Big girls don't let someone else do everything for them.  And they don't let their mothers, who might be great-grandparents now, do it all either. It was nice.  We cooked, and I cleaned counters and dishes as I went.  I saw things that needed to be done and did them.  No complaining, no fussing. (inside or out), just see the job, find the job and do it.
This attitude has been coming on for a few years, but I'm recognizing the fact today that I'm there. I'm working in my mother's kitchen and enjoying it. I never wanted to do housework for so many years, and part of it is I would rather do something that I like to do instead of something that will promote someone else's happiness and the happiness of my home. That idea is really just selfishness, "I don't want to work so I won't, I just want to have fun." I try to have the attitude around home, 'do the tidying up and cleaning first then play'.  I do find I have less time to play, but I'm enjoying my tidying up so that is part of the fun.  I don't spend all my time cleaning either, and I would spend less if I could focus on the jobs more effectively. It's one of the things I'm working on.  Even a little bit done is better than nothing.

Working at Home

My daughter and family were visiting overnight yesterday.  They live close enough to visit fairly often. When they called I was just trying to plan a bigger supper for my son's friends, and then just added them too, since the original supper planned for three wasn't going to work for nine.  I am really thankful I have plenty of hamburger in the freezer and I bought buns earlier in the day.  Nothing like a quick and easy supper of grilled hamburgers to feed a lot of hungry people.  Earlier in my life, I very likely would have left the kitchen in a huge mess because I was tired.  But, I'm learning not to live like that anymore.  It helps when my kids are company, because then I act a little more like they are company too, and clean up the kitchen. I like to wake up to clean dishes and a fairly tidy house.  In fact, I actually felt anxious about not having a chance to get everything cleaned up while they were here!  There is a time to spend all the time cleaning and a time to spend enjoying your family. It's not like I worry so much about getting things cleaned up right away on regular days.  That is the goal, but it doesn't happen EVERY time. I puttered around getting the most important things done, told the anxious feeling to go take a hike, and spent some time following after my grandson and chatting with my daughter and husband. When they left, I relaxed instead of getting right on the cleaning up which is against the rules I'm trying to follow.  The next day, instead of waiting until the very last minute, like I used to do, I did get started in good time to have the kitchen clean and supper waiting when my husband came home.  It was a good one, too, steak.

Getting Started

First let it be known that I am basically a nice person. I make sure my family has clean clothes (sometimes I slip up), good food (according to my husband, my kids don't like much of anything I do right now), and a clean house (not always a tidy one).  I believe in good values, honesty, integrity, virtue, purity, kindness, etc. I like people and I like to do things for them.  But, I'm not a finished product yet.  The sad part of all this is that I'm in my mid 40's and I'm just now getting it together.  I've spent most of my life with an underlying unhappiness that is my own doing.  I'm not grabbing life to the fullest with both hands.  I'm spending too much time worrying about what others think, too much time thinking of why I feel the way I do, and not enough time loving the people around me and doing things for them.  

I wrote in my journal a year ago hoping to see more progress this year, and there is progress just not as much as I hoped, but going in the right direction. 

I started a new journal in May of 2010 to write down my thoughts so I could really see what I am, what's bothering me, and what I can do to make me a happier person.  A happier person is a nicer person to everyone. This must be about 6 months after I found flylady.

Fly lady has had a profound influence on my life.  I don't follow her plan exactly, because I resist having a written routine to do the same things every day. Rebellion just seems to rise up inside me when I see it, so I've  incorporated some of her ideas, very slowly so I'm doing nice housekeeping things by habit, not with a list breathing down my neck.  I read her emails, and they really do help, so that when I'm wandering around the house getting things done, I hear "do it now", "make it easier on yourself", "a little in better than nothing", "set your timer for 15, 7, 5, or even 2 minutes, and focus on doing something".  Oh, flylady isn't for everyone, but it helps me see that just doing housework in a timely manner not only blesses my family, it blesses me. So, then I do those things mentioned in the first paragraph, and I'm learning to like to do them.  

Here's that first journal entry:

"I usually journal so that it wouldn't matter who reads my stuff, but this time I hope this journal will show my own journey to happiness.  I'm not really unhappy, but I'm not as happy as I could be because I don't treat my husband as nicely as I should   The other thing is I eat too much.  I eat when I'm bored, depressed, unhappy, sick or anxious. I'm hoping by writing these things down, I can change or fix them. I need to live my life with (new grandson at home 24/7) in it, not fighting the fact that he's there and I can't get anything done.  I need to work with my problems not fight them. 

I haven't made as much progress as I wish I had since then, and I'm ready for more. My grandson is out of the house now, living with his mother and her husband.  I sit less, and do more.  Sometimes I even do my work before I play.  Most of the time I start early on supper for my family.  I tidy up most days early in the morning, if I didn't do it before bed.  I check my calendar for today's plans.   I write them on a dry erase board so everyone knows. I do laundry as needed and don't let it pile up, (Now the folding and putting away is put off sometimes).  I try to have my dishes done and my sink cleaned out before I go to bed.  I wipe up my bathroom every other day.  I don't step over things, I put them away.  I exercise or work in the flower garden.  And I like it. I have more energy, and I'm happier. Oh, this isn't to say these things happen perfectly every day.  Some days I'm just too tired to care about anything, or too lazy, or too something.  But, it's getting to be 5 days out of seven, and I feel better/happier when I've accomplished something that benefits my family.  

It ISN'T all about me. It's about what I can do for my family first, then I'll see what I can do for some others outside of it.