Saturday morning

It's early Saturday morning and I'm sitting in Starbucks with my love, waiting for the mechanic to put on snow tires. I couldn't sleep last night. Probably worrying about the process of putting on snow tires,  dumb I know. I can't help my worries. I worry about everything. Even on this mild Saturday morning with the snow melting. 

Saturdays used to be my favourite day of the week when I was a kid. I would wake up early and watch tv. That show where they dumped green goop on peoples heads. Anyway. My mom would call me for ballet class and we would head out along the danforth.  I loved ballet class. Even though I was a terrible dancer. My mom never let me forget that I wasn't very good. But I danced with all my heart, which made up for my lack of grace and beauty. 

After ballet we would go to a greasy spoon and order vanilla cokes and vanilla danish. My mom would order fries with gravy which I thought was disgusting but I've since grown to love. 

As I grew older and my inability to dance resulted in no more ballet lessons, Saturday morning became grocery shopping day.  I would go with my mom early in the morning to loblaws. After shopping we would either go to the zellers restaurant or to mcdonalds. We would share a meal. And at zellers we would have to hide behind a post so no one saw us, my mom is a bit of a snob ... Ok, not just a bit of a snob. After our brunch we would go to the library where I would sneakily borrow slightly veiled lesbian themed books. 

I loved those Saturday mornings. These days I sleep through them. But not today. 

Today I am enjoying the early morning as I write at Starbucks sipping an earl grey tea. 

I should mention that despite my lack of coordination and grace, after I left ballet I took jazz and tap and musical theatre dance classes until I was 19. I loved the feeling of moving my body, even knowing that I had no talent. I loved to dance. 

I still love to watch dance. My best friend Gigi was a dancer, a good one. A beautiful dancer. I just lack the talent in that area.  

I'm sure you are thinking that I am being hard on myself. But I assure you I am not. Have you ever seen the Alistor sims version of a Christmas carol? Well at the end he dances the polka. Badly. My mom once told me I polka like him with my legs flailing around. And one year my ballet teacher held me back and I had to dance a second year with the level fours while all my friends moved on to level five. And she held me back from doing the exams. That was embarrassing. I think that was my last year of ballet.  At least dancing it, not watching it. 

But back to Saturdays ... 

... It's nice to be up and about instead of lying in bed pretending to be asleep. Or trying to sleep. Or drifting in an out of sleep. 

After I gave up ballet, I started taking piano lessons on Saturdays after errands. That was yet another endeavour that I didn't fully commit to. I rarely practiced and when I did I wasn't focused. So I never got to be any good. My life is full of half-assed attempts. Flute, violin, drums, piano. I gave up on all of them. 

Recently, on a Saturday, I had coffee with my piano teacher, whom I hadn't seen in twenty-three years. It was actually really nice to get to know her as a person instead of as my crazy piano teacher. 

I first saw the ballet when I was three. It was the nutcracker. And I fell in love with dance and with the story and with the character Clara, I wanted to be Clara and I wanted to be a dancer. That Christmas all I wanted was to be able to dance around the tree like Clara did in the ballet. 

My dad is many things.  He and I don't get along. He pushes my buttons and drives me absolutely insane. He is stingy and grumpy and full of advice. But he also is very proud of me and when I was growing up he would do anything for me. Now it's a chore if I ask for help. But that Christmas he wanted to make my dream come true ... So ... He nailed nails in the walls and the floor and used fishing line to tie the tree in place so that I could dance around it like Clara. I don't remember dancing, but I remember the tree. And I remember the trouble he went to in order to make that happen for me. 

I want to be that for my children. I want to do all that I can to make their dreams come true. Even if that means putting holes in the floor just so that they can dance around the tree. 

I saw the nutcracker a few years ago and they have changed it up. Modernized it. And there was no dancing around the tree. I was very disappointed. 

... Funny ... It's Saturday morning and my mom is texting me from her errands asking me if I need anything. I guess some things change and some things stay the same. 

I hope you have (or had) a glorious Saturday morning. 

Be kind to yourself, 

Xoxo

...

adoption

“Because now I know what I have been waiting for. I know exactly why the other processes didn't work. I know I was supposed to wait for this little girl.” ― Nia Vardalos

Adoption: the legal transfer of parental rights and obligations from birth parents to adoptive parents.

Dear readers,

DP and I are in the adoption screening process. I call it a process, but a better word might be interrogation … ordeal … trial … tribulation … inquiry … tribunal …

“There are times when the adoption process is exhausting and painful and makes you want to scream. But, I am told, so does childbirth.” ― Scott Simon

The process to become declared “adoption ready” is 

long, 

                 invasive, 

                                  emotional,

 intense, 

                         and a lot of work.

It begins with paperwork. 

Piles and piles of paperwork. 

Questionnaires about our lives, and personal habits, and our relationship. 

Intrusive questions.

Then there is the course. Parenting Resource Information Development and Education (PRIDE). 3 hours a week for 9 weeks. With topics like abuse and neglect and the effects on children. With homework each week that is evaluated by the instructors and then sent to the social worker who is doing the safe home study.

The safe home study.

“Despite the reams of paperwork, obstacles worthy of a horse show, and a wait that can rival an elephant's gestation, adoption feels no different on the inside.” ― Scott Simon

A social worker comes to your home and asks you a million questions to get to know you. And needs copies of everything you can think of from your birth certificate, to your taxes, to your life, car, and home insurance policies. This is followed by 3 or 4 more interviews by the social worker who wants to know everything about your life. And finishes up with an inspection of your house looking for things like working smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, and a fire extinguisher. As well as things like furniture secured to the wall and a map of all the fire escape plans for each floor of your house.

And that is just the logistics of the process.

“Even though you weren't born to us, you grew in our hearts. We will be forever connected because love is what makes a family.” ― Deanna Kahler

What goes through your mind while you jump through hoop after hoop is wtf? You think about all those children out there, born to parents who don’t want them, who neglect and abuse them, who mistreat them, and who don’t cherish every moment with them. And you think about how unfair it is that those “parents” were able to just get pregnant and have children and not care for them and we have to go through all of this to get on a list.

So how do I get up every morning and do the next step? Jump through the next hoop? How do I sit through 3 hours of a course I resent having to take?

“Anyone who ever wondered how much they could love a child who did not spring from their own loins, know this: it is the same. The feeling of love is so profound, it's incredible and surprising.” ― Nia Vardalos

How do i keep my hope alive?

I think about the fact that out there in the world right now, somewhere in this city, there is a baby … my baby … s/he was born to parents who are not his/hers. s/he is in care, in a foster home, waiting for us to find her/him. Our baby is out there, and every night I think about our baby and wonder what her/his favourite toy is, and what song s/he likes to be sung. What does s/he like to eat?  And I send warm, loving thoughts, out into the universe to find their way to our baby who we are waiting for. 

out there is the baby that will make me a mother. maybe i am already a mother to him/her. i already love her/him ... s/he just hasn't met us yet. 

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

...