Mom Guilt

For the past 3 weeks I've been in poker dealer school. It's 4 hours a day for 6 weeks, so not super intensive, except for the parts of my brain that do things like math. I'm actually really enjoying it. Except for the part where I'm away from my kids for 6 hours a day. 

Namely, this kid:

The big one I still get to drop off and pick up from school everyday, so I just miss him like I always do when he goes to school. But I'm not used to being away from my littlest little. It's not ALL bad, but it's not great.

Basically, all the time that I had to do things with him is gone. Now as soon as I get home, I throw little man in the carseat, we go pick up big brother, go home and have dinner, and then brother has some sort of evening event- basketball game, practice, or church stuff, always lasting well after E's bedtime. Sometimes I can get a grandparent or babysitter to put E to bed and sit at the house until I get home, but sometimes little man is just up until 9. When I have someone else put E to bed I feel even more guilty about not being there. Even with my "1 sport rule" I still feel like we're constantly on the move. (1 sport rule is just that- my kid will participate in exactly one sport at a time. He's got church stuff and from time to time we have family therapy, so I'm not carting him to extra practices and games every night of the week. I LOVE team sports for him, he loves team sports, I just don't believe in overprogramming my 12 year old.)

I AM NOT COMPLAINING. I know I have it so good. It's just been so different these past few weeks, that the Mommy Guilt has been relentless. 

Ty and I usually get some time together at least a few days a week after E goes to bed. But E? He gets almost no time right now. He's not happy about it and neither am I. (He's so unhappy that he's been up frequently every night and the solution is mommy's bed. But that's a different post entirely....)

So after telling the Mommy Guilt to take a hike, I carved out some time to just hang out with my kids and let them do their thing. These days, their thing is playing outside. E runs around with a flat basketball and occasionally throws it at me. We watch the airplanes that take off and land from the small airport nearby. Ty plays with the neighbor kids in the circle. I sit on the curb, breathe fresh air, and take it all in- instead of standing in my kitchen cooking dinner. It's really rather glorious. 

I have been feeding my kids dinner, I've just been simplifying it. They're totally willing to eat things like sandwiches for dinner if it means they get to play outside for an hour. 

Didn't quite make it! 

Pictures arrived!

Every good and perfect gift comes from above...James 1:17

Wouldn't you know that 3 business days after I faxed our adoption paperwork to Ty's old school, his ORIGINAL SCHOOL PICTURE CARD ARRIVED IN THE MAIL?????

Cindy, you have made my year. Thank you.

Here's my baby in kindergarten! Isn't he just the CUTEST???????

The best part? Ty was over the moon to see his school pictures. He just held the page and stared at it for a solid 20 minutes. Oh my heart. 

Kids who are adopted, especially at an older age, often struggle with their identity. Their roots can feel shallow. Even with memories of their biological family, they're not sure who they were. They often do not feel connected. 

Think about this. Most people in our culture roll their eyes and groan when their parents tell embarrassing stories of their childhood or pull out old photo albums. But think about the flip side. What if you never heard those stories, never saw those pictures? Ever? That would leave a lot of questions as to where you came from and who you are. It's grounding to know that any family gathering things could get mighty embarrassing, mighty quick.

So when my not so little boy got his hands on old pictures of himself, he got to feel his roots grow deeper. 

It makes my heart get all squeezy. 

Priceless pictures

This is our very first family picture, taken after first meeting Tyrell and spending about an hour with him.

This is where our story as a family begins. We each have a prologue, Jerry and I, and Tyrell. But this is when our settings met and our stories became one story together.

Tyrell was 9 when we met. Which means he had 9 years of life and struggles before I got to hug him, kiss him, laugh at his jokes, hang his masterpieces on the fridge, and tuck him in bed each night.

It is an assumption that whatever documentation you are given prior to adoption (various court documents, behavioral profiles, occasional medical charts, etc.) is all you will ever get about your child. I felt blessed that we got Tyrell's medical charts from when he was born, so I can tell you how many weeks gestation he was, and what his height, weight, and time of birth were. :) I was able to use that information to make a birth announcement to frame and hang on the wall. Because wouldn't I do that for any child of mine? YES I WOULD, WITH PLEASURE!

There are some things that you just have to grieve and move on from when you adopt. I wasn't there when Ty was born. I didn't count his toes, or cry out of desperation when he screamed for hours due to colick (I'm assuming...). I wasn't there for his first words, or his first haircut, or his first day of school. And I have the lack of pictures to prove that I obviously was not there. I don't even know if anyone took pictures or if anybody even cared. I will probably never know. And that hurts. So does knowing what I do know of those first 9 years.

Buuuuuut....did you know that public schools keep a picture card in a student's cumulative folder? Did you know that children start kindergarten at age 5, which is 4 years before Tyrell was mine?

Each year one original wallet sized picture is added to their picture card, showing what they looked like each year of school. When/if a students transfers from their original school district, the cumulative folder is photocopied in its entirety and the copies are sent to the new school in the district the child now attends. And being that Tyrell attended the school I taught at during his first year in our school district, I HAVE SEEN THE KINDERGARTEN TYRELL! Yes, it's true. And he was even more adorable than you are imagining.

When I had access to his cumulative folder, a) things were incredibly rough and we were working on surviving, b) of course I totally cried when I saw his photocopied school pictures, and c) I called and asked a teacher at his previous school to sneak me the original picture card. But that teacher never actually did retrieve the picture card. You know, people get busy and things fell by the wayside. The picture card was the thing that fell by the wayside. Life keeps moving along.

For the last 2 years I've been wishing I had Ty's early school photos. I also have no contacts at the previous school/district because people have moved on. And I've been a little busy, to say the least.

But yesterday? I don't know what welled up inside of me, but I decided to GET. THOSE. PICTURES! So I called the old school in the old district, pleaded my case, was transferred a few times, and finally ended up being told that the policy was the picture card remained intact with the original cumulative folder until after such time that the student graduates from high school, at which time it is destroyed. Maybe I could leave my name and address and they could put a note to send it to me. In 2019. Say whaaaat??? I had been very nice and respectful until that point. And then I went for the jugular: "Ma'am, all I want are some pictures of my son. My pictures start at age 9. What if you had no pictures of your child for the first 9 years of their life?" She took my name and number and told me she'd call the downtown office to see what could be done. :)

Today I had a voicemail from the woman I spoke to yesterday. She said she had talked to the chief of data entry/control (or something like that) and neither of them could come up with a reason that I couldn't have the original picture card. (!!!!!)

Breathe in, breathe out.

I don't know whether to laugh/cry/holler/wail/dance or sit contently breathing, feeling grace fill me up.

I didn't get any lost time back. But it kinda feels like I did.

I am calling this lady first thing in the morning, and then I'm going to buy one of those school days picture frames, with a spot for a picture from kindergarten-12th grade.