September, 2003: I had not planned to have boys

I had not planned to have boys.

When I was a little girl, I spent a fair amount of time playing with dolls, and acquired a new one each birthday and Christmas from ages four to about 10. Two dolls a year for six years is 12 dolls. They were all girls. Most had blond hair, blue eyes, wore pink and were very subdued. (Except Baby Thataway, who, powered by two D batteries in her bottom, could crawl indefinitely until she ran into a wall or refrigerator.)

I have one sister, Maureen, and no brothers. After school in the winter, Maureen and I would speak with distaste of boys who would take off their boots and run around the classroom in their tube socks. The boys’ socks were always too big, and a couple inches of sock would hang off the end of the their feet, soaking up the dirty melting snow from the classroom floor as they slid around. Some people can’t stand fingernails on a chalkboard. For my sister and me, it was gray, soggy, flapping tube socks.

When I babysat, I preferred the families that had all girls or mostly girls. I found little boys to be messy, loud and generally more trouble than the two dollars an hour I was being paid to take care of them.

So when I imagined myself someday as a mother, the children in my mind’s eye were always girls.

And now I have two boys.

At five and eight, my boys are in their prime in terms of little boyishness. Today, during church, Liam matter-of-factly pulled a piece of rope, a glow-in-the-dark frog and a dead cicada from his front pocket. When my boys run on grass, dirt or any soft surface, they feel compelled to slide, fall, tackle or dive. Keeping as much of their bodies in contact with as much of the earth as possible while simultaneously moving forward seems to be the goal. This leads to showers and baths involving heavy scrubbing of all bendable parts on each boy. Whenever they engage in pretend play, it’s never about going to the store or taking care of the house. Someone is always in crisis and needs to be immediately and loudly rescued by someone else who has special equipment, special powers or a combination of the two.

And I love it.

There is something about living with two little boys that is akin to living with lion cubs. You’re never exactly sure what’s going to happen next, and your furniture might get chewed along the way, but you never doubt that you’re living where the action is.

My friends who have girls about the same age as my boys say that already, they have dealt with cliques and long, involved stories of recess-time drama.

Jacob’s idea of a heart-to-heart talk, on the other hand, is to curl up in bed with me on a Saturday morning and give me a play-by-play of yesterday’s lunchtime football game. As someone who remembers her own share of recess-time drama and cliques, Jacob and Liam’s world of constant movement and fewer words is refreshing.

My sons’ unceasing drive to run, jump, throw and catch has awakened the latent athlete within me. If I want to spend time with my boys, it’s not going to be quietly stringing beads together for a craft project. I have developed a pretty good spiral by playing pass with Jacob, and Liam’s daring relationship with water has forced me off my towel and into lakes and pools before I even get to my magazine’s table of contents.

And now, eight solid years into my adventure with my little XY chromosomes, I have a girl. Teenasia, our foster daughter, will be two next month. She’s been with us since she was 15 months old, and while she has obviously been a girl that whole time, babies seem rather androgynous to me. Teenasia’s upcoming birthday makes me wonder about the girl aspect of her. Other than the obvious dresses and bows, so far, toddler Teenasia does not seem so different from toddler Liam.

But, if Bill and I should have the privilege of seeing Teenasia grow into a little girl, I wonder what differences we will see between her and our boys?

Strange as it sounds, I believe raising two boys will make me a better mother of a little girl. I already knew about doll buggies, four-square and friendship bracelets. But Jacob and Liam have brought me to the boys’ side of the playground. It’s rougher and sweatier, but just as fun. And I want to make sure I introduce any daughter of mine to this muddy, wild side of childhood.

A girl in our household — either Teenasia or another foster daughter — will have the advantage of a mom who has been a girl, but has spent the last decade with boys. And while I might play dolls with my daughter, because that is what I know from childhood, I will also teach her to punt a football, because that is what I know from parenthood.

I have to believe that the cliques and recess-time dramas that are part of being a girl will be easier to deal with if you can come home, run around with your brothers, and punt a football. And maybe, the mother-daughter relationship, so tumultuous during the pre-teen and teen years, would be a little easier after a game of one-on-one.

But there’s only so far I’ll go. We’ll keep the tube socks out of it.

May, 2003: My life looks nothing like a Mother's Day ad

My life looks nothing like a Mother’s Day ad.

This time of year, the newspaper is brimming with glossy pages from local department stores showcasing beautiful mothers interacting quietly and peacefully with their beautiful children. The ads are often muted photographs with pastel backgrounds. Children and mothers frolic — hair flowing, sundresses blowing — amid fields of flowers. Immaculate children beam up at their mothers adoringly. Mothers throw back their heads in ecstatic laughter at the sheer joy of simply being in the presence of their obviously gifted children. And the father (fit, tan and back from his day at work as the president of a multinational corporation) is always looking on happily, as he grills, wearing a crisp sport shirt and khaki shorts.

            I’m not sure what I expect out of these ads. Realism? A picture of my own grape jelly-stained sons and me with bags under my eyes and a stringy ponytail? After all, these advertisers are trying to sell a product, and do they really want to remind people, on Mother’s Day, of all days, what mothering is truly about?

            It is no secret that motherhood suffers from romanticized images. From the time we are little girls, we have been fed a notion of motherhood that is sweet and serene and wrapped in a pink satin bow. No one mentioned to me before I became a mother, that between my own lactating and newborn Jacob’s spit up, I would likely smell like sour milk by the end of each day.

            It’s not that I don’t believe motherhood is a beautiful thing. Motherhood is filled with moments of beauty and grace. But mothers are beautiful in the way marathon runners are beautiful. They are beautiful for their power and strength and endurance.

A mother is beautiful because of the pain and effort you see etched on her face when she is working her hardest. Indeed, you might not even see her during those moments she’s working her hardest, because it’s very dark at 3 in the morning, and no one is up except her and the feverish infant.

            The images of perfect mothers and the pressed and starched children that we see in ads may actually undermine the very motherhood that they are trying to celebrate. They show mothering at its easiest — when everyone is well-dressed and having fun.

            I have always felt that the most important work of mothering is done when my children are at their worst, rather than when they are at their best. It is easy to love and guide children when they are smiling and sitting quietly. (Quick, take a picture while you can!) It is much more difficult when they are tantruming or rolling their eyes or pounding on a sibling. Yet, it is how a mother handles these times that defines and shapes her child’s character.

            When Liam, now 5, was 3 ½, we went through a difficult time with him. Whenever something didn’t go his way, he would scream. No cookies before dinner. Long scream. Time to turn off the TV. Longer scream. And now let’s put on your pajamas. Scream within a scream. That very loud period of parenting, which lasted about three or four months, taught me that you never know what you’re going to be called upon to teach your child. Those months, we had to teach Liam not to scream. We did it by carrying the screaming, writhing Liam to his room for a time-out every time he screamed. Sometimes we had to hold the door shut. We were pretty successful, though, and today Liam seldom screams.

Teaching children to go from horrible to acceptable is not exactly the most rewarding type of teaching. Starting at acceptable and heading toward outstanding is a lot more fun. It’s also rare. As a mom, often you’re simply teaching someone how to be a civilized human being. You’re just trying to bring them up to neutral. And if for some reason you think that everyone else’s kids are perfect — that other mothers don’t need to teach their children which words aren’t allowed, or how to put their laundry in the hamper, or not to scream incessantly — you could feel pretty bad about your own situation. My friend Carol is currently trying to teach her toddler not to lick all flat surfaces. Again, just up to neutral.

Our church sometimes adds to the myth of perfect mother, perfect child. Statues and paintings of Mary — our ultimate role model — never show her in the midst of dealing with toddler Jesus in a meltdown. Yet, Jesus, arguably the best share-er of all time, once had to be taught to share himself. And Mary, perhaps exasperated after an afternoon of watching little John the Baptist and Jesus together while her cousin ran errands, was his likeliest teacher.

It can be tempting to pretend to be that perfect mom with the perfect kids in the ad; to pretend to be that serene Mother Mary. With the right outfit and a pasted-on smile, no one has to know that your six-year-old lies and your ten-year-old swears. But I believe that when we look at a child struggling with a particular behavior, we need to keep in mind that there are adults with that same problem (in Liam’s case, I thought of temper-losing grown-ups). And if we can help our child move beyond lying or cheating at 6 or 10 or 15, we have given that child a gift much greater than we would have if we pretended everything was just fine.

Glossy ads and marble statues aside, this Mother’s Day, may we honor all not-perfect mothers and our not-perfect children. May we honor the marathon which is motherhood — often exhausting and frustrating, yet somehow exhilarating. And when we see a struggling mother, may we offer her a sip of cool water and a moment of rest. And remind her how far she’s come.

April, 2003: Goodbye Luchita

We never left the honeymoon stage with our first foster daughter, Luchita. She wasn’t with us long enough. Luchita arrived the day after Jacob’s eighth birthday. He told me later that when he blew out his candles, he had wished that a foster child would come very soon. At the time of his birthday, we had been certified foster parents for a week and had missed several calls to take children. Social workers would call us for a placement when we weren’t home, leave a message, but then move on down the list of available foster parents who could handle emergency placements. Coming home to the broken dial tone of the voicemail was nerve-wracking.

“Hello, this is Kara, from Child Protective Services. We have Kevin, a two-year-old boy who needs placement tonight. Could you give us a call back?”

“We have a two-month old on a heart monitor and we’re wondering if you’d be open to that?”

“I know you’re only certified for one child, but we’re looking for a placement for twins.”

  They had always found someone by the time I called back.

But the day after Jacob’s birthday, we were home when the phone rang. Four children were being removed from a home because of neglect. They would drop the youngest off in an hour. Bill called his sister to ask if she’d pick up some diapers for us, and I ran around the house, frantically cleaning. Jacob whipped out his homework and got to work, so he wouldn’t miss any of the action when the baby came.

            The doorbell rang as I shoved the last pair of boots into the closet, and the boys rushed to open the door. A social worker stood there, holding a crying one-year-old. Luchita. Another social worker waved to us from the front seat of a minivan in our driveway where she sat with the other children.

            The first social worker handed the baby to me. Luchita was chubby and small for her age. Her two front teeth were chipped and I couldn’t tell if the red mark on the side of her face was a rash or a large red birthmark. I stroked her fine, wavy black hair as we sat down at the dining room table to fill out paperwork. Both my boys had still been bald at fourteen months and Luchita’s hair was already almost shoulder length. Long enough to put in a bow.  Luchita’s cries turned to soft whimpers, then subsided completely, and couldn’t help but note this was my easiest delivery. No contractions.

            After we completed the paperwork, the social worker handed us a small, ripped plastic bag.

            “This was all we could find for her,” she said. I pulled out a size-four sweatshirt. I looked at Luchita. She probably wore size 12 months, at the most.

Bill and I went outside so Luchita could say goodbye to her siblings. Her sisters and brother were crying in the backseat and I promised them we would take good care of Luchita. Just four, six and nine, how could they understand what was happening?

“I will rock her in a rocking chair, and I’ll give her good food, and I’ll change her diaper,” I told them. “We have a lot of toys that she can play with. We will make sure she’s happy.”  I didn’t know what else to say.

I wiped my eyes and Bill gave them a box of fruit snacks, a bag of cookies and some juice boxes.

“Shouldn’t we be taking them all?” he said to me, turning, so they couldn’t hear.

I imagined my own boys in the same situation, in a van with two strangers, being split up and sent to live with other strangers. Wouldn’t I want someone to take them both? But it was in thinking of my own boys that I told Bill no.

“I couldn’t do it well,” I said.

Luchita stayed with us two weeks and five days. We had been out of the toddler stage for a couple of years, now that Liam was four, and there was something sweet about the return to baby wipes and talcum powder. Friends responded to Luchita’s arrival with cards and gifts. A couple people made me meals, even as I protested. Luchita seemed to adapt to our family life with remarkable ease, except perhaps for fusing to me a bit too tightly, and not letting Bill hold her or even get too close. She would wave to him across the room, however. He waved back.  And though she became almost an appendage on my hip, and would only sleep if she were touching some part of me, she was not with us long enough for this to get tiresome. In the not-quite-three weeks we had her, my main concern was to somehow, with constant touch, make up for the lack of touch in her life so far.

The call to retrieve Luchita came suddenly.

“Luchita’s grandmother is taking all the kids,” the social worker said. “Will you be home tomorrow at 3:00 so I could pick her up?”

The day Luchita was to leave, I came home from dropping Liam off at school and found a gift bag inside the front door. Six darling spring outfits from a friend who hadn’t known Luchita was leaving today. I packed them with her other things.

The social worker came, a twenty-something woman with a cropped shirt, jeans and a pierced belly button. Her outfit bothered me. This baby was once again leaving a family she knew to go live with someone else. Whether or not Luchita knew it, this was an important day in her life, and somehow, I felt the social worker’s clothes didn’t respect this. Probably, I was angry, but didn’t know who to be angry at, so I was choosing the pierced navel.

I put Luchita in the social worker’s carseat with a graham cracker and a pacifier. I helped the social worker load all the clothes and toys Luchita had received as gifts into the trunk. I had remembered to pack the sweatshirt, too.  And then I said goodbye. I said goodbye to the daughter who wasn’t quite a daughter. To the daughter who was another mother’s daughter. I said goodbye to my easiest delivery so far, praying for her grandmother who she’d be delivered to next.

I love you, Luchita.

April, 2003: Welcome Teenasia

One of the first questions people ask when they meet Teenasia, our 17-month-old foster daughter is, “How long will she be with you?”

            It’s a natural question, and a good question, but it’s one I can’t answer. In our almost three months of being foster parents, one of the things my husband Bill and I have come to learn about the neglected or abused children who are part Milwaukee county’s foster care system is that the unknown is a fact of life. How long Teenasia stays in our home is dependent on her birth parents getting their lives back on track to the degree that they are able to care for their children. The attorneys and social workers in charge of Teenasia’s case can guess how long this might take, but they don’t like to, and the range of their guesses is so wide-- “anywhere from three weeks to a year”— that they are better off not making any prediction at all.

            So Teenasia is a part of our family for maybe the rest of this month, or maybe the rest of this year, or maybe even — and this would be unlikely — forever, if both her mother’s and father’s parental rights were to be terminated.

            We have a baby living with us and we don’t know how long she’ll stay. Everything is a reminder of the uncertainty of Teenasia’s situation. I look at the one-size-too-big shoes we received from a neighbor and wonder if Teenasia will still be with us when she fits into those shoes. I imagine her in a little summer dress, in a swimsuit, or on a family camping trip, without even knowing if she’ll still be with us when the winter jackets are finally put away.

            The uncertainty of Teenasia’s situation makes me realize how deeply we depend on what we perceive to be the duration of a relationship to know how to love someone or how much effort to give the relationship. When I talk with other women my age, we agree that it has become more difficult to make close friends as we tick toward the mid-thirty mark. We are so busy, and establishing a new friendship can be an exercise in risking precious time and emotional energy without a definite payoff. So we hold back unless we think the friendship has a chance of progressing and moving forward.

            The nature of foster parenting, however, is loving without regard to the future. And it’s a different kind of love than I’ve ever experienced before. From Teenasia’s perspective, it doesn’t matter whether she stays a month or a year. She just needs her toes kissed and her chubby cheeks stroked. She needs someone to cheer for her as she learns to walk and understand that she means banana when she shouts “’Nana!”  If she is clothed, diapered, fed and hugged regularly, she knows she is loved.

Teenasia, at 17 months, cannot understand the uncertainty of her future, and because of this, cannot be concerned about it. And by living so deeply in the present, she helps Bill and me do the same.

Teenasia has made me question the categories I put people into — stranger, acquaintance, close friend, family. If two months ago I didn’t even know Teenasia and now she is like a daughter to me, what potential might my other relationships hold, if only I gave them a chance? How many opportunities do I miss for loving others because I’m looking towards the future instead of living in the present?

Teenasia reminds me that Jesus’ command, “Love one another” does not carry with it the promise of a long-term relationship with the one being loved. “Love one another” is a command made with Jesus’ knowledge that when we love people, they flourish. When we love others, they have the opportunity to become, more fully, the people they were created to be. Love, in its purest state, always transforms. But it never guarantees we’ll have a tomorrow.

Teenasia came to us at age 15 months without shoes and barely able to stand. She had a double ear infection, a scalp infection and sores in her mouth. She had never slept in a crib before and woke every hour of each night. She did not smile for the first two days she was with our family.

Now, she walks well and delights us with her giggly, outgoing personality. Her infections and sores have cleared and she sleeps in her crib all night long. She is happy and content. And while I may never be able to answer the daily question of “How long will she be with you?” I am able to say that Teenasia has been loved every minute of the 9 weeks she’s been part of our family. And whether she leaves when she is 18 months old, or stays until she is 18 years, I know she will go out of our home stronger than she was when she came.

As I was working on this column, I had to put it aside to work on something else. I hit the “close” button of my document, titled simply “Teenasia,” and because I forgot to save, a message flashed on my screen.

“Do you want to save the changes you have made to ‘Teenasia’?” it asked.

I pressed yes.

Because I do want to save the changes.