{Cheese and Beans}

We had a final “official” meeting with our social worker this morning, and bade warewell to the amazing woman who has accompanied us along the journey from being prospective adopters to somewhat experienced parents.

If you are a recent reader of my blog, a little back story is probably required.

After two years fighting our way through the red tape, being repeatedly interviewed, and having every aspect of our life turned inside-out and upside-down, last February we became the adoptive parents of three little girls. Our big old empty house became a big old noisy, untidy, crazy house overnight.

In the early days the spectre of social workers was ever present – weekly visits of both our own and the children’s social workers became bi-weekly, monthly, and then stopped.

Today marked the very end of that withdrawal.

It feels quite odd.

As much as we yearned for independence from the meddling hand of the state in the early days, the increasingly infrequent visits by our social worker became the return of an old friend – somebody with perspective that remembered us before children.

She is now gone. We now stand alongside the variety of parents we have come to know through school, brownies, and work as equals; with no catch net. In some ways we are more fortunate than many; our exposure to the potential issues we may have had to confront caused us to become better informed about attachment, loss, and the behaviour of children.

Like all parents, we know our kids. We know real tears from fake, we know the sound of delight, the murmerings of disappointment, and the silence of fear.

There is, and will always be a part of our children that is not ours though; the time they spent with their birth family, and their various other siblings spread around the country. Who knows – perhaps our having dealt with that thought from day one will stand us in good stead when they one day fly the nest.

Our children are never really ”ours”, are they. From the moment they begin making decisions for themself, answering back, protesting, and manipulating us, they are very much their own person and we are just along for their ride.

At some point tomorrow morning we will pack ourselves and the children into the car and travel to London, where we will be staying over the weekend to witness the marriage of my cousin from San Francisco to the fantastic guy she met over here a couple of years ago. They now live in Marin, just north of the San Francisco Bay, but are “coming home” to tie the knot.

I say “coming home” because my cousin’s Dad is English, and her Mom’s family were English too – through various accidents of fate, they ended up in San Francisco in the late 1970s (it’s a great story that I will try and get my Uncle to tell one day – he was in the merchant navy and missed his ship – the girl he met the night before drove him hundreds of miles to catch it again).

It will be our children’s first chance to meet a lot of the extended family – my brother, his wife, several uncles and aunts, several of my cousins… In some ways I’m a little nervous for the children; over dinner this evening our eldest (8 years old) who has been excited all week about the wedding, suddenly piped up that she was scared. The girls are going to be “flower girls” at the wedding, and she is terrified that everybody will be watching her.

Wendy reassured her – “Don’t worry – everybody will be looking at the bride.”

“Why?”

“Because weddings are all about the girl really – it’s her big day, isn’t that right Dad?”

I added my two penneth – “Yep – blokes just go along with it all really” (I grinned)

Wendy kicked me under the table.

In reality, I too am nervous about tomorrow – hoping everybody will like the kids, and give them a little of their time. While it’s easy to forget the journey we have been on for the last few years, at times you do remember that the girls are far more insecure than other children; we defeat it most of the time by being there to catch them, or alongside them, holding their hands. This weekend will be the first time they have been thrust forward into trusted hands a little more on their own.

There will of course be family there who they have met – my parents (“Nan and Grandad at the seaside!”), my nephew, who our 5 year old idolised last summer and will do so again this summer. There will be the excitement of staying in a hotel for the first time ever tomorrow night. There will be the nerves of wearing the pristine white dresses flown in from America, along with new socks and never worn shoes for their walk behind the bride on Sunday…

We have been dreading getting through the last week with none of the girls face-planting, ripping their knees open, or otherwise injuring themselves ahead of the big day. Last weekend I recoiled in horror when our 4 year old arrived in the kitchen with what looked like a huge black eye… it was purple makeup.

It’s hard to believe a year has passed since we visited the foster carer’s house, and met the girls for the first time. A year of fun, stress, hard work, exasperation, elation, laughter, hilarity, tears, tantrums, paint, glitter, glue, and more pink than you can possibly imagine.

More than once over the past year while sat in meetings at work I have put a hand into a pocket and pulled out crayons or hair clips.

Our house is no longer quiet, tidy, or ordered. Our washing machine never stops. Our elderly cat has grown irritable and bad tempered (there’s only so much enforced love even a cat can withstand).

We have somehow survived our first year as a family. When carrying a screaming child along the high street, we are passed knowing glances from “experienced” parents. We smile when we see other parents doing likewise. We are repeatedly told by all around us that “you’re doing SO well!“, and yet we don’t feel like it sometimes.

There are moments when you wish you could go and sit in the coffee shop – but you don’t. There are moments when you want to shout “SHUT UP!” at the kids, but you don’t. There are also moments when the children snuggle up next to you for no other reason than to be with you – take your hand in the street, wrap their arms around your legs… call for you when unsure or upset. There are moments when excited shouts summon you to share in a victory – a new achievement, a painting from school (“Look – it’s you Daddy!“), a cake they made (and ate before they got home).

It all happens, every day, and we have slowly become used to it. When seperated from them throughout the school or working day, we look forward to their return – to share a few more hours of their young lives.

One day they will be grown up, and probably fight with us over some boy or other that we don’t approve of. Until that happens they are our girls, we are their world, and they are ours.

It’s been a while since I last wrote a proper blog post about “my life”, so perhaps a coffee break while sitting in London this morning is the perfect opportunity.

Main observations…

• Your children tend to become the focus of everything you do
• It’s easy for that focus to swamp everything else
• Everything else includes each other
• There will never be enough money, so don’t try to make enough

I fell foul of the last point above pretty dramatically. Working a day job, and then returning home to do freelance work pretty much excluded me from everything for a couple of months. Sure, the extra money was great, but it also meant that the last few hours of each day that I might have spent with my other half were not spent with her.

I also discovered that sitting in an office chair for something approaching 18 hours a day gives you pretty drastic back problems. Wii Bowling seems to have corrected that (stop laughing).

The kids are doing great – perhaps at the expense of myself and Wendy – but we are willing to make that sacrifice, and always will. The eldest is in year 3 at school now, and really starting to flourish. We knew we were doing something right when she started rebelling. Her tactics for staying up an extra ten minutes are really rather clever, and her bookish moments are clung to by Wendy, who often sees herself in her.

The middle girl is at school now (in “reception”), and doing wonderfully. She’s itching to learn to read and write, and we suspect may be the brightest by quite a long way. We are continually amazed at the speed she learns things. Unfortunately her obvious intellect also means she’s the most devious, naughty, and unruly. Our secret weapon against her claimed ignorance of why (insert child) is (insert distress) is a threat to throw her Peter Pan costume in the rubbish. She loves Peter seemingly more than life itself.

The youngest charms everybody who meets her – something to do with curly blonde hair, a distracted gaze, and the cheekiest grin in the known universe. We wonder if she is on the same planet much of the time. While playing with toys she always seems to be acting out disasters – we wonder just what she saw in her formative months. Her growing confidence with speech is exciting – new words are tried out nearly every day now, and letters that could not be said last week are flowing this week.

Myself and Wendy are doing okay. We are both tired pretty much all the time, and still catch each other during falling down moments. Everybody around us seems to think we are super-parents or something – including the majority of the social services, and those who have travelled the adoption journey with us. The reality is that we try perhaps too hard at times, and not hard enough at other times. We have not found a balance, and probably never will.

We plod on from day to day. We do our best. So far, our best seems to be good enough.

I just realised – it’s now been four months since the end of our two year odyssey through the various hurdles and high jumps of the social services system. Four months since little people invaded our house for the first time. Four months that seems like a very long time ago now.

The children have confounded our expectations – and if brutally honest, we have confounded our own.

While sitting in a panel to be rubber stamped to adopt children last winter, I came out with something that I thought rather clever at the time – and caused nods of heads and smiles among the various psychologists, doctors, policemen and care workers around the room – while reflecting about me becoming the primary source of income for our family, I said “the children will become my reason to get up on those mornings when you don’t want to”.

The clever line has become the truth. After being thrown back into London by my employer I willingly get up at 5:30 each morning to clear the kitchen, make a packed lunch for the eldest, and prepare the breakfast things before sneaking out to catch the early train into the city. I do it because I want to help my other half and our children in whatever way I can – and any thought of “can’t be bothered” doesn’t enter my head.

On weekend mornings I sneak into the girls bedrooms if they are still asleep and pull the curtains – flooding the rooms with light, and wrenching them from their dreams. They meet me with bleary eyed greetings of “Good morning Daddy!”, followed by hugs on the edge of their beds and huge grins.

The girls are three of six children from their birth family, and progress behind the scenes is slow and frustrating to bring them all back together. We have the youngest children – the elder brothers and sisters are spread across the country now. The worry of course is that our younger children will soon have no memory of their siblings – making their discovery all the more shattering when they are old enough to understand.

While the early weeks were spent bonding with the children (which went spectacularly well), recent weeks have been what seasoned parents might describe as “real life”. The day starts with brushing of teeth, getting dressed, having breakfast, and then gathering the troops for the walk to school.

Lunchtime usually dissolves into a battle of wits with middle daughter over what she has decided she doesn’t like today. She is being four years old with quite some determination. Meanwhile her younger sister is discovering how to be in a mood with you. She’s being three spectacularly well.

The eldest is in her second year of school now, and has fitted in beyond our wildest expectations. We have also thrown ourselves into school and parent life as you might expect – great hilarity was had when the Mums beat the Dads at the May fayre parents tug of war.

Dinner times are a time when I arrive home from work, and am greeted by the youngest throwing herself at me energetically, hyperventilating as she screams to everybody else that I am home. I am her favourite – and there’s nothing myself or Wendy can do about it. In the early weeks it upset Wend quite a bit – but then we discovered that she is the favourite of the middle one. The eldest seems to favour whichever of us hasn’t pulled her up recently.

Bedtimes give us an opportunity to do what all prospective parents look forward to – to read stories to children. I was reading Peter Pan to all three of them last night, and the gasps of shock when Mrs Darling accidentally shut Peter’s shadow in the window caused such a wide grin on my face that I had to stop reading for a moment.

Several people have asked recently “how are we coping?”. We are not coping – we are just getting on with every day life and ducking the slings and arrows as they are fired at us.

The best bit? The kids have not only started volunteering that they “like” us… they have begun using the L word.

It’s Sunday morning and I find myself surrounded by seemingly bionic children. They powered up at about 7:30am, and have not let up all morning so far. We are several hours into the marathon that each day has become, and I am filtering out the mayhem to write a blog post.

My brother in law came to visit yesterday and stayed overnight – he has rapidly become a favourite with the children. They look forward to his arrival, and make tentative steps towards climbing all over him each time he comes to visit. When we get a moment to step outside of our daily adventures and look back in – as we can when he is entertaining the children – it’s interesting to see the way the children build confidence with people they like – smiles turn into nudges, then sharing toys (usually several hundred cups of pretend tea), then rough and tumble.

While I was the clear favourite in the early weeks, Wendy has eclipsed me. We were told this would happen – through her “being there” through the school runs and sickness, the children run to her. Our early worries that the youngest wasn’t bonding with her new Mum were unfounded – she is now the unquestionable favourite, and is shadowed all day by her little charge who never stops talking.

Granted, the main topic of conversation at the moment with the youngest seems to be “that one!” (while pointing) without the rest of the sentence being communicated, but the smile that greets a questioning look tends to undo anybody.

So – last night my brother in law visited, and Wendy got to escape back into the grown up world for a few hours (othewise known as the local pub). Her brother’s visits have become a welcome break for whichever of us needs it most – a trip to the pub, followed by takeaway food and a movie. Judging by the lift in Wendy’s spirits on her return, it did the trick.

Last night’s movie choice was “The Assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford”. Strange movie. Unsettling. After an hour I was wondering if any story was going to unfold – but couldn’t stop watching it. Brad Pitt was his usual “12 Monkeys” self as Jesse James, and Casey Affleck was fantastically creepy as Robert Ford. It took me most of the movie to realise who the actor playing Charley Ford was (Sam Rockwell) – where I had seen him before. About an hour into the movie it suddenly came to me… Zaphod Beeblebrox.

I spent the rest of the movie expecting this 1880s gunslinger to sprout a second head and offer people Pan Galactic Gargleblasters to drink.

I’m setting my alarm for 5am tomorrow morning. I’ll leave the house at 6, and with a little luck (subject to the railway and taxi gods), I’ll arrive on-site sometime around 9am. Emergency hotel accommodation is being arranged just in case tomorrow goes badly.

If I do end up staying overnight, it will be the first time I have been away since the girls came to live with us, and the first time Wendy has had to cope single handed. Of course fate has decided that two of them are ill (and therefore on a hair trigger) at the moment.

At the time of writing we are minutes before dinner, and everybody should be in “tidy up” mode – except the youngest has taken it upon herself to start playing with things. I just heard some explosive crying following a threat to send her to bed if she didn’t help.

I foresee a very long phone call if I do end up sat in a hotel room tomorrow night.

The last time I stayed in a hotel with work I was armed with the Macbook – no such luxuries tomorrow. I’ll be travelling light – a change of shirt and socks, a book for the journey, and maybe the Nintendo DS.

Oh great. We just discovered one of the kids had an accident earlier and has been walking around in wet tights for the last hour. Fantastic. I’m due to go away, and the wheels are falling off our wagon at home.

A close blogging friend remarked earlier that I had not written much about the children recently, and that I should – that she enjoyed reading about our experiences and thoughts so far.

Where to start?

We are now coming up to two months in the care of little ones who we now think of very much as our own. We wake in the dead of night at the slightest sound – invariably murmering to each other “wait to see if she cries again”. We know each child’s cry. We know the difference between dreams and reality in the tone of their voice – the sound of real tears ejects us from bed without a second thought.

The household runs on rails – forged by us to make the day pass with a little less theatrics than would otherwise occur. I run the morning, the kitchen, and general orderliness of “things” – Mrs Beckett runs meals, bathtimes, and magic stuff to rub on grazes, cuts and bumps.

The eldest continues to test our resolve. Some days pass without incident – others are an endless stream of wanting things “now”, of playing us against each other, and of tantrums. A sticker chart has helped, but not much. As much as we would like to be positive parents, we find ourselves continually pulling her up – “don’t do that” versus “wouldn’t it be better if”.

The middle child is by turns the happiest, the most jealous, the craftiest, the greediest, and the most manipulative. Anything anybody else has is more interesting than anything she might have, and attempts to obtain said item are almost always worth a theatrical sulk (which may involve shouting “RIGHT THEN!” and stomping off at high speed to a quiet corner to crouch face down). We are becoming very good at ignoring that which we don’t want to see, and praising that which we do.

The youngest is playing catch-up from her early life – visibly so. A few weeks ago she was learning how to make new sounds. D became L. D also became N. She greeted me from work yesterday evening with an excited sprint across the living room, accompanied by streams of fully formed sentences. A corner has been turned somewhere in her head. The silent child we knew in the first days is now difficult to shut up.

The younger children continue to express frustration that we cannot understand everything they want to tell us. Their stream of consciousness is punctuated with half words, hilariously exaggerated inflection of pitch, and the most determined frowns I have ever seen while questioning everything.

Nothing escapes their young eyes. Five minutes ago I sat down at the dinner table, thinking I had got away with putting brown sauce on my cheese on toast. “Daddy has got sauce on his cheese”. Immediate. They can see inside sandwiches too.

Things have turned around. Where we once chose to move forward – choosing to try and make three little people “our children”, they are now the instigators of that. It has become their choice. They are excited to see us open their bedroom door on a morning, revel in falling asleep while we read to them, and compete to squeeze in next to us when watching movies.

We are a family.

While taking a break from the mayhem that tends to unfold throughout our house between 7am and 7pm each day, I thought it might be worth looking back at our first weeks as parents.

Life has changed out of all recognition. Any concept of personal space or time while in the house during the day (at least at the moment) has gone. While writing this, two of our children are running from room to room – apparently the youngest is a dragon of sorts, and roaring appropriately. This is normal.

As I have mentioned previously, being just “me and Wendy” seems like a very long time ago now… and that happened very quickly. It would be wrong to say we miss it, but we do each have our tired moments while dealing with the various daily activities – thankfully we know each other very well indeed, so tend to catch each other.

This morning has been the first one where I slept in – not tipping myself out of bed until 8am. Such extravagances are rare in our new life as parents.

The children’s attempts to bend us to their will are becoming both more obvious, and more humorous. I know we shouldn’t laugh when they are upset, but when they are obvious crocodile tears, or attempts to get their siblings into trouble, we can’t help but admire their first forays into deception and deceit.

The parenting books we were given for christmas by friends have not so much been a guide, as a validation that we are doing the right things already. The two years we spent reading, attending various courses and being grilled by social workers were not in vain.

Tomorrow marks a huge change in our routine so far – the eldest will start going to school. She has been growing slowly more difficult to deal with over the last week – asking for things now, and sulking if they don’t happen as requested (they never do – we make sure of it). She has spent quite a bit of time in her room the last few days reflecting on it while I walked away smiling.

Hopefully school will give her more structure, more direction, and fill her head more than we can at present. She really needs to spend lots of time with children of her own age now. She needs to win and lose friends – to learn the consequences of her actions.

The middle child has been the most insecure so far, and it has shown through her various mood swings, clinginess, and tears. She is a parrot, and everybody’s shadow. Whatever the others might have, she “wants” or “needs”. We have started to ignore “want” and “need” – to enforce “would like”, or “please may I have”, accompanied by “thankyou”. It’s slowly working – but depends on our constant re-enforcement.

The youngest is away with the fairies most of the time – and is also the most able to amuse herself. When faced with free time, we very much have to lead the older children – feeding them with ideas constantly. The youngest will quite happily find her own activities – although most of the time they seem to consist of getting things out and putting them away again without actually playing with them.

So far I privately think we’re doing quite well. How we make the transition to the school run over the coming days is another unknown though, so it will be interesting to see how that goes.

I will be going to visit work tomorrow for an hour – the first time I have been back since leaving in late February to begin our adoption journey. It’s going to be strange leaving the kids behind for the morning.

While I can totally understand the need to make plans for the projects I will work on when I “officially” return, it is nevertheless annoying that we couldn’t be left alone for our few weeks of bonding. I guess it’s one of the inevitable problems faced by small businesses – each person carries a tremendous amount of experience and skill that may not overlap with others. For the same reasons I have been asked to attend a meeting with a client in a couple of weeks time.

In some ways having to visit the office will be good – it will get the kids used to the idea that I will not be here – that I will go to work each day – only seeing them at breakfast time and for dinner each day during the week.

This evening was a bit of a nightmare. The middle child fell asleep this afternoon, and I let her sleep to give me a chance to tidy the house up while Wendy took the eldest to get registered at the doctors. In the middle of this the children’s social worker arrived too – so I let her sleep on.

The upshot of this was a small child waking up at about 9pm, and repeatedly trying to wake up her sleeping sisters. During her final attempt she crept out onto the landing, peered down the stairs straight into my face in the dark, and ran back to her bed. I went up, gave her a huge hug and whispered how late it was, try to get to sleep, and the other things you say to children who can’t sleep.

I’m wondering at what age they develop any consideration for others. If they had any it would make such episodes much easier to deal with.

While we have been surprised at just how well the children have survived their early life, little issues are starting to become obvious. They have never visited friends houses to play before – so have had no expected behaviour instilled in them. It became obvious very quickly that we need to be chaperone their every move when in public at the moment – both to provide guidance and to police them.

Funniest moment today? The middle child sitting on the toilet, calling her younger sibling to the bathroom – and when she arrived shouting at her to leave her alone. The second time she did it I arrived instead of her sister and had a few words with her about her behavior. Cue chin on chest, and very sorry looking little person sat on her throne.