It’s been a while! We’ve went out of town and came home sick sick sick. I think we’re finally on the mend, but we’ve had lots of things to catch up on. Blogging among them, I guess.
I love how happy Mr. M gets when we go to the park. I have never seen a person enjoy swinging like he does. My crazy, cute kiddo.
A few days ago I put M in his crib for a nap, and I heard him talking to himself for an unusually long time. He jabbered to himself for probably around twenty minutes! I peeked in on him during that time and saw that he had pulled himself to a sitting position. When he finally quieted down, I checked on him again only to find that he had folded right in half and was sound asleep! He just drooped right over in the middle of his discourse and was out like a light. I moved him to his back so he wouldn’t wake up all sore, but I just had to take a few pictures first (of course).
The Open Adoption Roundtable is a series of occasional writing prompts about open adoption. It’s designed to showcase of the diversity of thought and experience in the open adoption community. You don’t need to be listed at Open Adoption Bloggers to participate or even be in a traditional open adoption. If you’re thinking about openness in adoption, you have a place at the table. The prompts are meant to be starting points–please feel free to adapt or expand on them.
This months prompt: What Openness Means to Me
When we were first starting the approval process, I might have explained openness in terms of contact. That is typically how open adoption is defined, and it was how our caseworker first described it to us. But several months ago (after Nat came for a visit), I found myself tying to approach the subject of open adoption again, and grappling with the words to explain why I love our open adoption so much.
I have finally come to realize that, for me, openness is less about CONTACT and more about RELATIONSHIPS. We have practiced openness this way since M’s birth -- it’s just not the way I have always described it.
I think that openness in its best form is less about the photos or phone calls exchanged and more about the relationship being built. Of course the photos, videos, visits, phone calls, and texts are part of maintaining that relationship. But I kind of think of those things as the means, not the end.
I am just talking about what works best for our family here. I know many wonderful adoptive families that do not have an open relationship with their children’s birthparents. Sometimes there are issues of health/safety at stake. Sometimes birthparents don’t want to have an open relationship. There may be other issues of distance or other circumstances that make openness an impossibility. I think openness in adoption can be embraced in different ways. Maybe adoptive parents who are unable to have a relationship with birthparents can still encourage openness with their children by being willing to discuss adoption in their home. They can still express gratitude for the birthparents that brought that child into their lives, even if they are unable to have a relationship.
I can understand that sometimes open relationships are not always possible. What I cannot understand is when adoptive couples who have an “open” adoption by definition of contact, have a relationship with birthparents that is low on warmth.
I find it ironic and even worrisome when adoptive parents claim “openness,” but don’t have very open hearts. Who let fear, insecurity, or other obstacles stand in the way of keeping the promises they made to birthparents. Or maybe they do maintain scheduled contact, but do so reluctantly. That is NOT being open.
It is my personal opinion, that a child who was adopted will be more likely to thrive with parents who are confident in their role as parents, and are not threatened by the birthparents. Jealousy or possessiveness will not do anybody any good, and may very likely hurt the child.
How much better it would be for the child to know that his or her parents respect birthparents and appreciate the role they play in that child's life. In an ideal world, that child wouldn’t feel torn between the family that gave him life and the family that raised him. He would be able to freely love both of them.
And for the record, I think that most of those feelings of insecurity are unfounded. I have yet to meet a birthparent that is interested in usurping roles or butting in. For goodness sakes, your child’s birthparents trusted you with the most precious thing imaginable-- their child! Don’t you think you can trust them to support you in your role as parents? After all, they are the ones that even made your parenthood possible!
For me, openness is inclusive. It’s kind. It’s selfless. Hmmmmmm… sounds a lot like love doesn’t it?
For me, the very best thing that came out of our adoption experience besides our amazing little boy, was the beautiful relationship we have with his birthfamily. We love them because they love him.
How could there ever be too many people to love our little angel?
Oh man, this post was a kind of hard one because you know what comes after eleven months? TWELVE months! My baby is going to be a year old! I can’t believe it. Somehow I never quite expect that much time to slip by, and somehow it always does.
I am really kind of struggling with this (like more than I can even admit out loud). My sentimental heart just wants my baby to stay a baby forever.
But I am so proud of all the new things M has been learning and doing lately. And I love that he is in such a fun, interactive stage.
Cutie Pie is into EVERYTHING lately. I love it. For a while, before he had mastered crawling, he would get bored and was so unhappy because he couldn’t do all the things he wanted to do. We would tell people that we were excited for M to crawl, and often the response was that we should just be glad that he wasn’t mobile yet because it makes life harder. Now that M can finally get around a little bit, I can honestly say they were so wrong. M is a little happier now that he can be a man on the go and I am happier that he isn’t frustrated as much of the day. I am totally fine with letting him empty drawers and shelves all day because he is having fun. It is adorable to see him industriously unpacking.
M’s greatest obsession is still socks. He loves when we put them on, and he loves yanking them off. Often, he runs around the house with one sock on and one sock off.
His second greatest obsession is puppies. M LOVES puppies. His puppy books are his favorite. And he gets so excited he about can’t stand it when we see doggies going for car rides or out on walks. We have even been known to pop into a local pet store on occasion, just so M can look at the puppies.
(M was literally waving at the puppies and hollering with joy.)
Of course, Lizzy is still his favorite puppy in the universe and he spends most of his time crawling after her and trying to pull her fur.
M is kind of obsessed with looking at himself (be it in photos, videos, or his reflection), which is a cute attribute for a baby to have, but we hope he grows out of it by the time he’s a teenager :). M Bug loves flipping through his photo albums. And I really need to record him watching home videos of himself. He smiles so big and flaps his arms every time his face appears on the screen. It’s pretty cute. All of our mirrors have little finger prints on them. I kind of love it and don’t plan on washing them off anytime soon.
This past month, M has gotten very good at pulling himself to a stand, but he will only do so if he is holding on to me. I’ve tried to show him that he can pull himself to a stand in other places, but he is not interested. He is VERY attached to mama and doesn’t like it if I ever leave the room without him.
He continues to love the freedom his walker gives him, and M literally sprints up and down the hallway. M prefers to be standing for as much of the day as possible. He spends much of his time holding on to my hands so he can take tiny steps.
M loves to feed himself, and often wants to be the one to hold the spoon. When he is really excited about what he is eating, he will open and close his hands in and out of fists and shake them all around. He is very into pulling food out of his mouth. Not because he doesn’t like it, he just wants to look at what he’s eating for some strange reason. Silly kid.
He has started doing the funniest thing where he scissor kicks every time we pick him up. Not in an angry way, just an “I’m so happy to be alive I’m going to wiggle out of my skin” kind of way. He loves to kick those legs.
Fastest eleven months of my life, I tell you what.
We made this little video of our little mischief maker. I think it speaks for itself.
