Oh No They Ditn’t…

Ok, where do I start?  The mind boggles.  I mean, who thought this was actually funny and even decided to put this on a t-shirt?  At urban outfitters, executives probably sat down in a meeting and someone brought in a sample of this shirt and there was probably an easy consensus that they should sell this shirt. 

Now, I love snark as much as the next girl.  I like dry humor and wicked jokes.  Heck, I  even love making fun of Madonna and her keeping up with the Jolie-Pitts.   But this…this…shirt (and I use this word loosely because I don’t think it could be more a more hideous piece of clothing.  Bad font.  Acid yellow??)  This ridiculous shirt is where we are, culturally speaking, when it comes to adoption.  Go ahead, adopt!  You know you want to.  All the cool people are doing it. 

The cool people are doing it.  (No, I’m not talking about myself.)  I keep reading articles about other celebrities considering international adoption.  Jessica Simpson is quoted as having said “I want to adopt, and I plan to adopt before I have my own kids”.  ( “Own kids” We all love that expression don’t we? ) Renee Zellweger and Penelope Cruz are quoted in various articles on their desires to adopt. 

The kids have become things.   New purse, new baby….gotta have it. 

So, the people at urban outfitters didn’t really do anything other than point out what’s  really going on.  It’s bad.  It’s a really, really bad shirt.

Spring Has Sprung

And everything is growing so beautifully. We’ve started seeing all the bounty of spring at our local farmers’ markets. Saturday there were English peas and garlic greens and we made a salad tonight of ‘little gems’ lettuce and arugula. We grilled lamb and served it with my homemade ‘rice a roni’ which Zannie says is really rice and pasta and “…so we should call it rasta”. For dessert, we made a giant, sweet biscuit and slathered on whipped cream and beautiful, local strawberries. It was all delicious. We each ate a slice and then quickly scurried over to the neighbors and gave them the rest.

So, without further ado, here is evidence of our feast and bonus material too! One picture of my African Violet which has gone crazy this year.

Vote for me!

Personal Politics are Messy

Lately with Allison Quets behind bars and the story below regarding baby Evelyn and her mother Stephanie Bennett, I’m once again finding myself stewing and, frankly, feeling quite stuck regarding adoption. How did we get here? It’s all so ugly. But, I know how we got here. I know full well. Because of the high demand of healthy, white children for the childless who want to adopt. And just the other day I was wondering how we adoptive parent bloggers (me…) can forge better relationships with first mother bloggers. Maybe that’s asking too much right now. I was having a “Doves Flying Over Rainbows While Everyone Holds Hands In A Circle” kind of moment.

But you know, sometimes I have to whack my own silly head to remind myself that it’s not all about me. But it kind of is. I’ll back up.

My doves & rainbow moments are more frequent lately and I seem absolutely hell-bent on making everyone like everyone in the adoption world. Oh, and everybody better like ME especially. I mean, I’m reading the blogs, commenting and supporting. I’m shouting “you GO grrrl” to everyone’s feelings. And, I really mean everything I write. It’s just that for me, as an almost adoptive parent and adult adoptee (in an 18 year old reunion that started off iffy and parts of it became painful and parts of it ended) I just SO want the validation too. Oh, and if I get more than just one wish…I am kind of over having to be so grateful too. It’s exhausting. I mean, as a mom, no, I’ll never ever stop being grateful. That’s the price of admission. But the grateful adoptee in me is definitely running amok in my head. I really, really wanted the first moms who blog to pat me on the head and give me the approval that I never got in reunion with my own first mother. There. That makes me feel like crap about myself.

I emailed a couple of adoptive parents who have blogs and whose parenting, stances and writings I admire. I asked them how they handle it when others see them as “part of the machine” as I put it. How do they respond to those who accuse them of nothing short of the two situations I started this post with? When I started to write back to one of the women today, I got it. Because what I’m really insecure about is my own stuff. And my own stuff is completely void of any rainbows. Or doves for that matter. I haven’t spoken with my first mother in over ten years and hardly a day goes by that I don’t think of her and feel the space that is left that only she can occupy. So, I was dancing as fast as I could in my shiny shoes for people who don’t know me so that I could bring back one solitary ounce of my mother. Even if it was just for a moment. I know that now. Here’s what I wrote:

“I keep wondering why it means so much to me, or why it bothers me so much that we all can’t agree. I think it has to be some of my adoptee stuff. First, I have always wanted to just be accepted and not be criticized for anything. But, it only just occured to me that there is this whole persistent issue of being grateful. I am exhausted from having the gratitude message being shoved down my throat as an adoptee and so I guess I’m unwilling to do it now as an adoptive parent. I am grateful. I don’t think we have to be at such odds with each other in the adoption world.”

So, I thought of things about my mother that I haven’t thought about in a long time. Like, how I just wanted to feel ok about myself when I was around her, but never did. How I wanted to put adoption aside sometimes so that we could just get to someplace that was real and meaningful. We got there sometimes. But, reunion is hard and that’s a whole other post.

So, I’m getting over myself. It’s slow work but I have a lot to chew on. I’m just going to keep writing what I know is true for me and really work on the needing stuff from others, especially in bloggyland. There’s a lot I can’t fix. But, I can ask you all to sign the petition for baby Evelyn. I can ask you to check out Ethica and the other institutions on my blogroll that deal with ethics in adoption. And I can stop silently asking all the first mothers to “Like me!….really like me!” I can remind myself that I don’t have to try and be all things to all people. I can do that because it is the right thing to do.

Ethics Gone awry….Ethics Gone Completely

New Pictures!

I got to downloading some pictures from our trip. You can see them here.

Or, you can click at right on my blogroll where it says “Our Dossier Pictures”

She Grows!

We got an update from our coordinator today. Little miss Isabel has been going to town on the premie formula we brought over and has gained nearly 1.5 pounds in one month. Can I get a ‘Yee haaa’?! That brought much relief to us here at Casa Izzy.

Another totally sweet thing they told me is regarding the little book of photos we put together that stays with her in her crib. Her caregiver shows her our picture every day and she smiles when she sees it.

Every.
Single.
Time.

I felt myself getting refueled by the news. I literally felt the story give me levity and I could breathe in a way that I haven’t since returning home from Kyrgyzstan. I had been worried that she had forgotton us or much more importantly, she liked us and then was feeling like, “Hey…where’d they go? I was getting used to them” So, that she smiles did a world of good to ease the worry. I am officially going to stop whining now about this wait in between trips. Keep me honest, ok?

Kyrgyz felt and other handicrafts

I’m finally getting around to posting some of the beautiful things I was able to purchase while in Kyrgyzstan. We had time in the afternoons to go looking at the Zum shopping area and I would buy all manner of little ornaments. They are truly wonderful to look at. The expressions on the faces and the stitching is very good.

We bought a Shyrdak which is a traditional Kyrgyz felt rug. I bought it for the colors as I love oranges and reds not really remembering that I had these pillows. I love how it all looks together.

While the Zum was a fun place to visit and shop, it was nothing compared to the bazaar we visited. I really wanted to go to the Osh bazaar but were literally laughed at when I said this. They said, “you’re American….why would you want our poorly made things?” Anyway, on the way to Tokmok one morning, our coordinator pulled over and said that we were going to this place that had something I’d mentioned I really wanted to find. They had it! A Chekich. It’s a bread stamp for the naan that’s made here. A woman had them for sale in her stall hanging on a string. She had five. I bought them all! I love how they look and I’m glad that I’ll always have it so that I’m able to teach myself to make real Kyrgyz naan.

So, those were really my only purchases. For the next trip I want to buy some of the books I saw that depict the countryside of Kyrgyzstan. There are also a lot of silk things to buy, but really I am so drawn to the felt. It is dyed naturally so the colors are soft and earthy.

Happy Easter!

Would you like a side of rage with your issues?

Maybe it’s because I just hate this waiting period between the two trips. Maybe it’s because part of me is selfish. Maybe it’s because part of me still hates that there is a need for adoption in the world. Maybe part of me can’t believe that I’m bringing a little person into our family who will be carrying around some of the pain I’ve been carrying around my whole life and that terrifies me. Maybe it’s because that when I’ve written about adoption here on this blog, I’ve been editing my voice so carefully so as to not step on anyone, especially first moms and other adoptees. But I’ll tell you…I just can’t do it anymore. I’m exhausted and pissed off too. I know, I know, it shouldn’t matter one iota what someone else says or thinks about what I’m doing. Old habits die hard and I’ve been trying not to rock the boat in my life for as long as I can remember and pretty much not done a good job at it. So, hang on….choppy waters ahead.

I do a lot of reading on others’ blogs. I send and receive a lot of email and it’s been really enlightening, informative and entertaining. Where it gets dicey is the topic of adoption reform and peoples’ opinions on How the World Should Be. Adoption brings up a lot of opinions, usually very bold, broad-sweeping opinions. I used to do that too. And I share more in common with the active adoption reformers than what we don’t share. But somehow, in some ways, in the adoption reform world out there in the blogosphere, apparantly I suck. Yeah, it’s my blog and I’ll delete if I want to…delete if I want to…
I get some nasty feedback. So, I just want to say, “People, you are barking up the wrong tree.” I am not the enemy. And, ok…I’ll just come right out and say what I truly believe. There will always be some level of need for adoption, for poverty and sexism and tragedy will never be eradicated from our planet. So all of you out there who are totally and completely against adoption and think it’s wrong and horrible, I say, “People, you are barking up the wrong tree.” And what I mean when I say this is, it’s just not enough to talk about how much we hate something or think something is wrong. That’s easy. Yeah, I get to say that because I’ve been through it. I’m in the small, select group of someone who is adopted and who is also adopting. So, let’s put that anger to work. Let’s do what we can to help the people of the world to keep their families together. Write letters of support to the agencies I have listed on my blogroll so that adoption can go forward in an ethical manner. Let’s contribute to organizations like Heifer International which helps communities in third world nations to help themselves out of poverty. Put down your pitchforks against all adoptive parents because generalizing and vilifying isn’t helping and it isn’t the answer.

Even with my ‘careful’ voice in this blog, I have managed to get some judgemental responses and emails. I am asking you to take some time to read what I have written in the archives, read about who I am, ask me some questions and then judge me. Let’s engage in constructive feedback instead of black and white statements and forget the insults. But I’ll say right here that for all of my own angry adoption reform past, I’m so glad I’ve softened. I’m grateful to be able to see the grey areas. I’m happy to say that I feel so proud of what we are doing as a family. I feel so lucky too. I’m beginning to feel overly protective as well, which might account for this post. Let’s use our angery as a force for good ok? And, for anyone who wrote me something hateful or stupid, I forgive you.

As you were.