Saturday, January 23, 2010

intro to adoption

The only tradition from my mom's family that I cared to carry on was the fact that all of the women in her family had their first child at the age of 25. So my plan was to learn about adoption and to adopt my first child at the age of 25.

Now, there was no husband in my world, no one on the horizon, and I guess while that seemed important to anyone else I told of my plan to adopt, it never really was a thought to me. I kind of had my life laid out. I was going to be a director of a child care center, and I would adopt my first child when I was 25... if a man entered my life and could fit that timeline GREAT, but if not, he would find me eventually and would enter my life and the life of my son----the one blessing I found in the fact that I was going to adopt was that I could try to adopt a son rather than a daughter.

I was kind of a tom boy, and really enjoyed the rough tumble play of boys, I loved watching them building with blocks, and playing ball, and basically just didnt understand why girls played with things like barbie dolls. So to me the consolation prize to adopting a child, was that maybe my odds were a little better that I would adopt a son rather than a daughter at least for my first child.

So I set off on the path of adoption- after having my home studied, obtaining references on why I would be a good mom, and finding an adoption agency that would work with me, life was on track to meet my timeline!

quick intro to me

In addition to being a single mom, cause there has to be more to me than that right? I am also a nursery school director. I have known forever that I wanted to work with children. My entire life, since the age of 12 I have worked in child care. Kids seem to "get" me, and I guess people would say I understand them too.

I have known forever that I wanted to be a mom and that my life would center around children. Actually I guess the fact that I would eventually adopt my children, came at around the same age as the time that I knew that my life work would be with children. Between the ages of 15-21 I had my ovaries removed a little at a time due to huge ovarian cysts. Throughout those lovely young adult years, it seemed like God was playing his first joke on me....it is pretty cruel and unusual as a teenage girl to have to wrestle with grown up things like talking to doctors about ovaries.....On top of that to deal with the reality that I was going to lose the ability to have my own children, seemed like a horrible joke!

Thankfully, when I was well enough I would go to work after school and play with the kids, watch them riding bikes, swing on the swings, and play hide and seek. I quickly came to realize that if I was able to love the kids at work, and care for them, that I would also be able to adopt children and love them as my own....so at the age of 21 the final remaining piece of my left ovary was removed and from that moment on all the time I had put into recovery now went into me trying to figure out how adoption works!

Explaining the Blog title

There comes a point in time where as a single mom you have just dealt with enough dirty diapers, enough accidents, basically ENOUGH POO! One might think when I tell them that my kids are 8, 6 and 3 that I should be at that point...but sadly, while my youngest has been toilet trained for almost 6 months, he is still the only one that is consistently trained and reliable.

My 8 year old was trained or so I thought from October through December, then maybe because of the new year, or maybe because he wanted to try a new detergent, or maybe just because, suddenly it was January 2010 and we were back to having accidents and hiding dirty underwear.

As for my 6 year old, if only they made a stand up toilet that you could poop in, he might be closer to being trained. However, he still has not mastered the art of pooping in a toilet, so as long as he has a pull up on around 4:00 everyday he poops and then gets cleaned up. During December school vacation, I thought, hell if we just USE the TOILET everyday around 4 he should be trainable! Apparently, what that leads to is one HELL of a case of constipation in a little man who is well known for being a control freak.

So basically, the long and short of it is, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em... when you have dealt with crap for as long as I have, and as often as I have.....it just seemed fitting to include that in the blog title!