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Walking on Broken Glass

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“What did you learn at school today?” I asked as we walked home, hand in hand.

“We learnt about willow plates” Bubbles replied.

“What’s a willow plate?” I ask, curious.

But uh oh, I’ve stood on a shard of something I didn’t see coming.

“I WAS TELLING YOU….  ARGGHH” (she pulls out of my hand, angry, defiant, stomping) “WHY DON’T YOU LISTEN? …” (her breath is fast, her heart pounding “I FEEL LIKE…”

Glass Where I Least Expect It

There are times when I anticipate an outburst. The bits that she finds tough – pretty much any time when life isn’t her favourite movie with bow-wrapped gifts and so many sweets it must be Halloween.  When screen time is up (even if it’s teatime and its her favourite meal), or she is asked to do something she doesn’t want to such as (her latest parent-induced horror) Brush. Her. Hair.

Those I can prepare myself for, hiding my good mood and optimistic outlook into a secret corner of my soul, so that I can bring it out later, still smiling.

But it’s the WTF? moments that I struggle with the most. When I am skipping along, snuggling under a blanket of pretence that our family is fine and dandy and that this is just a normal day.

I Know It’s Not About Me

My mind, my brain, rationalises these outbursts. It reminds me that this is not about me, it’s not an attack on me, it’s not because I have done or said something wrong.

And yet I still feel like a bad mother for not avoiding these incidents (by being psychic?)

And no, it’s not about her either. She is doing what her brain has been programmed to do. She crosses into fight response at the click of a neuron. She doesn’t mean to do it, she has no control over it, and even though I know all these things, I feel like somehow this is my fault.

Just another flavour of parenting guilt.

Things I Don’t Do

There are some things I know (through experience and research) will only make things worse:

  • talking to her
  • cuddling/ touching her

That is not to say I won’t talk to her about it later, but right now, she needs space and time to calm down (without my ever asking her to calm down because that provokes escalation).

The Glass Stings

This week her outburst triggered something new in me. It reminded me of my first marriage, of living with someone who was unpredictable and at times abusive.

That feeling of living on a knife-edge, of walking over a minefield, never knowing when I might say or do the wrong thing to tip him into a rage or a sulk or worse.

My daughter never lashes out physically (and I nearly typed “yet” because that is the fear inside me, that there is worse to come). At the moment, her outbursts are vocal – screaming anger as she rages at the world.

I never realised until today, that one of the barriers to my parenting Bubbles effectively is the way that her behaviour stirs up those echoes of the past (things I thought I had left firmly in the past).

This Is My Choice

And I feel guilty for even suggesting a hint of a comparison with a spoilt grown-up who should have known better.

For starters – I love my daughter dearly.

When she is calm, her loving kindness is as infinite as the sky. She will wrap her arms around me, stroke my back and fill me with love until I burst. She is bright, loving, helpful, loves books, is creative, inventive, sings, dances and more.

I chose her nearly five years ago, based on scant information. And even knowing what I know now, having experienced how her traumatic early experiences have affected her, I would chose her again.

Because sometimes being a parent you are cast as Bruce Willis in Die Hard. and you’re going to have to wrap your bare feet in a tee-shirt and walk over that broken glass, because it’s the only way out.

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Hell Yes – Adoption UK Conference

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Being an adopter, being a parent can be a lonely business, as you struggle with the change in your identity, battle for the right support for your children and immerse yourself in learning about parenting, trauma and attachment. Yet I was still nervous at attending my first Adoption UK Conference this weekend. I had no idea what to expect…

Four Hundred Fold

The room was packed with around 400 adopters, educators and social workers, in what can only be described as cosy seating, but we smiled as we bumped arms and legs. The speakers were incredible, knowledgeable, inspiring and more. And every so often they would tap directly into the mood of the room, and be rewarded with a simultaneous groan, sigh or laugh from 400 people, like a warm hug of shared experience.

When Nicki Campbell told of people asking if he’d ever searched for his ‘real’ mum, the room rolled its eyes and tutted, murmuring our assent as Nicky corrected their language, stating that his (adoptive) mum is his real mum.

When Daniela Shanley’s (of Beech Lodge School) slide said “Can I have a word?” we groaned, and felt that blushing embarrassment as she described the walk of shame.

The experience of the people in that room, their struggles to be heard, their fight for support for their children, their desire for their children to be given the same chances in life, just being part of that crowd of warrior woman and men was an inspiring and uplifting experience.

A Little Bit In Love

Amongst a host of incredible speakers, all of whom blew me away with their insights, their research, their experience, their passion and more, there were three that stood out on Saturday.

First was Sue Armstrong Brown, the new CEO of Adoption UK. Despite almost disappearing behind the lectern, her voice and passion carried straight to my heart and I fell in love with her a little bit.

She argued that “adoption needs its champions to be heard” and that instead of just improving the current (flawed) system, we needed to create one that reflects modern adoption, one that is fit for purpose.

She wove in shocking statistics from Adoption UK’s research (summarised in this infographic) whilst never once admitting defeat or feeling bowed by the challenges ahead.  Whilst adopted children are 20 times more likely to be permanently excluded from school, her mood and tone was one of a fight that we will win.

All Behaviour

Then Daniela Shanley blew me away with her dedication to providing a school to suit her child, even if that meant she had to build it herself after being told “this school is not for your son, and there is no school for your son.”

She connected with all the parents who have ever been told that their child is naughty, difficult, disobedient and more. She challenged us to look at adopted pupils in a new way, through different eyes rather than judging and excluding them using inflexible and rigid policies about journals or swearing that are not the right fit for their needs.

If you are thinking “we can’t do that” then look at her school’s behavioural policy (based on Dan Hughes PACE approach) or email it to your child’s school to show them just what can be done to support adopted children whilst maintaining standards.

This quote sums up her ethos:

All behaviour is communication, even when they are kicking the sh*t out of a filing cabinet.

If only all teachers and schools looked at pupils holistically, investigated the triggers that led to a situation, and were more curious about what the child was trying to express before they lent so heavily on policy, judgement, isolation and exclusion.

From Head to Adopter

And finally, I have to mention Stuart Guest, head of Colebourne Primary School in Birmingham. The only man (after my husband of course, better put that in) who made me want to move my life to Brum lock-stock and barrel just for my kids to attend his enlightened school. He introduced his children thus:

These are eleven, seven and four…  we were never very hot on names

How I laughed throughout this presentation. His entire persona of friendly dad, come headteacher, come hater of baths gave him a humanity that I fell for. Never mind thinking constantly “going to use that one” in reaction to the simple, practical tips that he and his wife use daily.

These three speakers stole my heart in different ways that day.

#tissuetribe

The final session of the conference was emotional and unforgettable. Four young adoptees (age 16 to 21) shared their stories and experiences of school. Their prepared answers to questions about how they felt about school, bullying, whether or not they reached their full potential was not easy to listen to, but it highlighted just WHY the changes are so necessary.

Midway through a clear response, a quiver started, C’s words started to stumble and catch, and she turned to her mother for comfort, shaking her head as she couldn’t continue. And every heart in the place reached out to her, felt for her, was there with her, as we recognised the tough times that some of us also experienced in school or that our children are experiencing today.

It was soggiest of the tissuetribe moments. I was overcome by the struggle, the truth of their school lives, and overwhelming desire to be part of the force for change, to be part of the tidal wave that would change the experience of adoptees in the future.

Hell Yes

But it wasn’t just the speakers who inspired. I bumped into a friend of mine (I sometimes forget she also adopted) and stupidly asked her with surprise “what are you doing here?”!  I caught up with some of the lovely adoption twitterati (although their flower/ trainer/ sunset profile pictures don’t make it easy to recognise them, and I ignored a few for which I am sorry), and chatted with many others in snippets or more.

It was hard to wrench myself from the warm enveloping hug of being with a tribe of understanding. As I sat on the train home, I summed up the day with my final tweet:

Today was my first conference – would I recommend it? Hell yes!

The conference was a clarion call to adoption warriors from all parts of society. Adopters, adoptees, teachers, heads, virtual heads, governors, parents, pupils, local authorities, agencies, post adoption support and Adoption UK to work together to create an educational system where all looked after or previously looked after children get the support and help they need to reach their potential.

Joining The Battle Hymn

In the few days since the conference, I have heard phrases and ideas echo through my mind. I have thought about how best to support my children, their teachers and school. I have implemented new approaches and tools at home, with more ideas to be instilled when I get the time to read the slides again. I had a talk with Bubbles about her recent anxiety (chewing through cardigans) that cemented our bond, then used that conversation for a meeting with Bubbles’ teacher, which went well.

I am not the mother I was when I arrived on Friday night, I feel engaged, supported and inspired in a whole new way.

Adopters need a voice.  Adoptees need a voice.  And with the help of Adoption UK and other organisations, all these voices will be heard, and not just in a superficial “that’s nice” way, but in a deeply, heartfelt way such that change happens, such that systems and education evolve. Because the future of these young lives depend on it.  The schools and teachers must educate themselves, such that their policies and procedures embrace adoptees and include them, recognise their specific challenges, steering away from the teeth-gnashing “all children do that” denial of the uniqueness of their early experiences, and help them achieve their potential.

We all deserve to the best version of ourselves. 

I became a warrior that day.

Singing the battle hymn of the adoptive mother.

At the conference, I became part of a choir – four hundred voices chanting in unison, raising our voices to the heavens, to Parliament, to whomever will listen, to the media and more, until the current educational approach to adopted children looks as dated as hitting children with a ruler in Victorian England.

It’s time for change. Will you join the choir and have your voice heard.

I am in. Bring it on.

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Siblings Are Sophie’s Choice

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As I walk away with Nibbles, a hollow feeling invades me. It starts small, in an ignorable way, but with every step it grows, louder and more insistent until it’s almost painful.

What Have I Done?

It is the first day of the new term and as capable and organised as I am, I cannot physically be in two places at once. Yet Bubbles starts at junior school today, Nibbles is at infant school and the schools are half a mile apart.

I have abandoned Bubbles in the playground with the hurried consent of another mum.

Abandoned

I have let my “never be late” religion (if you’ve read the book, you’ll know) override the sort of mum I want to be to Bubbles.

I want to be stood with her.  I want to hold her hand and look into her eyes and embed the “it will be okay” thought that sits on the tip of my tongue (perhaps I need to hear that more than she does).

My legs feel like lead. As if every step towards Nibbles being on-time is a betrayal of my daughter. As if I am putting him first, that his needs are more important, demonstrating a blatant form of (blasphemy coming) “favouritism”.

I want to turn back. My gut screams “turn back” in order to untwist the knots within it. I almost turn back. Not just once, but a few strides later, then again as I wrestle with the blisters between my actions and my conscience. I tell Nibbles that I have made the wrong choice, but he reminds me “we don’t want to be late” and I heed his palliative words.

With one of me, and two of them, I cannot be there for both of them at every single event.

Sophie’s Choice

I remember when we’d first adopted the children, and Andy had gone back to work.  Whenever we left the house, I’d be faced with impossible choices, created by the unsafe limbo between the car seats and the shopping trolley, or the car seats and the front door.

I would unbuckle my strap, and get out of the driver’s door.  And open the door nearest the pavement and ask myself – who do I unstrap first?

  • In the car seat, strapped in tight, they were safe and secure.
  • In the hallway, they were safe(ish) and secure.
  • In between those places, in the seconds it took to unload the shopping or their sibling, they were at the mercy of some child-snatcher (or their birth family) who might swoop down the second my back was turned and steal them

Which One Would I Pick?

Whichever child I picked, what did that say about me?

For one would be held tight in the loving arms of their mother and the other one left abandoned in the car, with the door open, the car unlocked, vulnerable and defenceless.

Did I pick Nibbles because at least Bubbles could scream loudly and kick up a fuss that I could understand?  Or because he was youngest?

Or did I pick Bubbles because she was more confident on her feet and could be left to toddle up the path on her own, so I could look after Nibbles who needed me more, whilst effectively abandoning a two-year-old to a solid stone walk-of-death?

The Choice Haunted Me EveryWhere

  • Which child to pick out of the bath first, whilst leaving the other to drown?
  • Which child’s nappy to change first, when they sychronised their poo-xplosions, thus leaving the other child swimming in their own filth?
  • Which child to carry to the safety of the car whilst the other walked out, unsupervised, in front of a two-tonne lorry?
  • Which child’s plate of food to pass first whilst delaying the other for a few seconds of screaming, bawling, “I am starving” distress?
  • Which child to run to first if they played piley-on in the park and both hurt themselves, whilst trying in vain to wrap myself around both and “there there” them in equal measure?
  • If both screamed in different rooms at the same time, who did I run to first?

And everytime I chose I would ask myself if I had chosen that child too often already, if they had already won the “favourite” crown from their sibling, if Bubbles had picked up on the disparity with her observation of every minute detail of my barely adequate parenting.

Like she did with “maybe”. Informing me one day that it never meant “yes” and it always meant “no” and I knew then that she would pick up on every single thing I said and did.

Why is it so hard?

I Denied My Needs As Her Mum

Yet was it really Bubbles that needed me on her first day at school?  I worried she might get upset, that she might be scared, that she might need me. And I let those fears gnaw at me all day after I failed to turn back.

She was smiling and happy at the end of the day, excitedly sharing her day, liking her new teacher (because she rides an electric bike to school) and delighted with her lunchboxes with notes from mummy saying “I love you, have fun xx” and a host of (nutritious) food she loves.

Maybe I’m not ready to let her go. To let her grow up. To let her not need me anymore.

The truth is that I wanted to be stood beside my little girl. To be there for her. To squeeze her hand and let her know that she mattered to me more than a late mark. I am ashamed now of my order of precedent – that an unblemished record of zero late marks made to choose to leave her on that first day.

I will never have that chance again. To be there with her, to stand alongside her proudly as her mum.

I feel bad because I denied what I truly wanted to do. I wanted to turn back. I wanted to recognise my mistake and act on it. To show her (and him) that when I make mistakes, I mend them. But I didn’t.

Why?

Because I didn’t want the grown-ups, who had already seen me leave, watch me come back, as if Bubbles isn’t strong and brave enough to be left alone.  I worried more that the mums and days would think of me if I turned around than what my daughter thought of me. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Never Again

If I had that day again, I would go back. Even just for a few seconds. Just until I was certain she was okay, to let her make the decision, to let her grow at her own pace.

When I get that feeling that I’ve chosen badly, or wish something was different, I will do what I can, as soon as I can to change that decision and mend it. There and then. I will show my children that I am fallible, human, that I don’t know everything and don’t always get things right, and I will show them how to change their mind and learn. Regardless of what anyone else thinks or says or mumbles to others under their breath.

For I didn’t deny her needs that day.  I denied mine.

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I Came Out Of Your Mouth Mummy

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In the year or so that the children had been living with us, we had taken lots of opportunities to talk about being adopted, what being fostered meant and where they came from – what is known as “lifestory” work.

An Organic Process

It turns out that there are lots of times when you can chat through what is happening and use it to reiterate and help embed their understanding of their lifestory.  Without making a massive song and dance about it.

  • It’s Bubbles’ birthday. How old are you now?  How many birthday’s have you had now then? Can you remember what you did last year and who you were with?
  • Christmas. It snowed last year, when you were with Ken and Mary – do you remember building a snowman? What presents did you get? Shall we see if we can find any photos of Christmases you have had in the past?

Whenever they expressed an interest in their lifestory books, or the ones we gave them to introduce ourselves (post matching and before introductions), or the ones that Mary made about their time with their foster family we would go through them and look at the photos and answer any questions they had.

When I asked Bubbles about her lifestory, she replied confidently that she used to live with [BM and BD], then with Ken and Mary, now she lives with us.  I would feel glad that she understood what is a complex sequence when you are just a young child and by asking an open question, I could correct any errors that had crept in.

Sometimes, she would ask me questions about her birth family and foster family, and I would answer as best I knew.  We started simple and built up depth as she got older.

But Just Because Bubbles Understood…

I imagined that because Bubbles was clued up on her lifestory, that somehow Nibbles would be too.  He seemed to understand the various characters involved and even if he had no real memory of Ken and Mary, the way Bubbles did.

I presumed, naively as it turned out, that he was similarly well versed in his lifestory. Then one day, we are walking to pre-school to collect Bubbles and he blurts out something that bursts my bubble.

“I came out of your mouth, mummy”

I stop in my tracks.  A smile spreads across my face as I imagine a very wide mouth and then I shudder a bit at the thought of the aftertaste.

“No you didn’t sweetheart” I reply.  Then I wonder which bit of ignorance to tackle first.

“Babies don’t come out of ladies’ mouths, Nibbles, they come out from their tummies” I say, without explaining the exact exit route in much detail as I segue straight onto point two. “And you didn’t grow in my tummy, you grew in [BM’s] tummy.”

And of course, there followed an organic lifestory lesson, where I clarified just how all these names and people fitted into his short lifespan and how they would fit in his future.

It’s Not Just About The Books

Many adopters are given lifestory books by their social workers, and they can be useful in those early days, when adopters are finding their feet as parents, as a prompt. I have sat down with my children and read these lifestory books through with them, and they like them mostly because the books are about them.

But for me, the best lifestory opportunities arise in everyday conversation.  When we are going to visit Grandma and Bubbles adds “she’s your mummy, mummy” and then we have a quick chat about the mummies in their life.

When you first adopt children, getting lifestory work right can feel like a big deal. How do you broach the subject? What do you say? What do you hold back until they are older? How often do you read their books? I remember feeling afraid of getting the lifestory bit wrong and affecting our relationship further down the line.  But I needn’t have worried.

Lifestory work happens all the time (not every single day, but frequently).  And the more we, as adopters, can relax about their history, the more our children can relax about it too and see it as no biggie.

When we make it just part of their story, it’s just history.  Like where you lived when you were one, or the houses you have lived in.  It becomes a part of who they are and where they have come from.  It isn’t a big deal, it isn’t something to be afraid of, it is just pieces of a jigsaw.

And I guess it is working.  Because last year, Bubbles asked to take a photo of Ken and Mary into school for Show and Tell, and talk about who they are and being adopted.

I couldn’t have been prouder.

How do you use every day prompts to remind your children of their lifestory?

 

 

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I Am Not Her Best Friend

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The school door opens, the kids trot out and my eyes search the stream for the faces that I love. It makes me smile the way their faces light up as I collect them from school.  My son beams and runs towards me, then slows down with feigned indifference just before he reaches me, and I scoop him up into my arms despite his pretence at not caring.

Then my daughter comes out.  Her smile illuminates up her face and she says “mummy!” as if I have been away, as if I haven’t been there every day for three years.  I get hugs, kisses before the predictable question: “what’s for tea?”

As we potter home, his hand in mine, they gush and stammer over their day at school, at the jobs or tasks they have ticked off, the stickers they have earned, the new grazes or plasters on their knees and the classmates who said or did nasty things.

Best Friends

“I invited Annabel to my birthday” announces my daughter.  A birthday that is still just a date in the diary and has no plan or booking or venue.  I don’t “woah” her or “hold on” or “what birthday?” for I have learnt that these invitations are as fickle as their love of their fidget spinner.

These invitations are scattered like sprinkles on a cake, and then taken away seconds later. They’re playground shorthand for “today I like you, but tomorrow I might not.”  I can barely keep up with the every changing nature of who is in and not invited.

My son’s list is pretty constant.  He has a little entourage of nice boys that he likes and plays with and he knows whether they have a spinner, how many Lego cards they have and their favourite superhero.  No-one too loud, too brash, too physical, no-one who bites or spits or hits.

It is my daughter’s list that saddens my soul.

They Were Inseparable

In pre-school and her first year full-time, Bubbles had a best friend, Izzy.  They were the youngest in the year (born a few days apart), both small for their age and they stuck together like dried on Weetabix on a cereal bowl.  They did everything together and since Izzy’s mum was fun, we had plenty of playdates.

Then before Year One, her best friend left to be home-schooled.

I thought it would be okay.  That  Bubbles would quickly make new friends.  Upgrade her friendship with Izzy 2.0.  But despite my hopes, things haven’t turned out like that.

One day she is best friends with Jessy, but the next she is mean.  She flits from friendship to friendship, and I don’t know if I am overreacting, or if she is over exaggerating when she says she has no friends.  But my heart goes out to her.

I love my little girl so much.  She is inventive, creative, playful, fun and I want the world to love her too.  When she comes home and says that “Mary wouldn’t let me play with her today” or “Rhianna stole my friends” or “Chloe insists that I am always the baby when we play, I don’t want to be the baby” I feel so helpless.

I wrap my arms around her and tell her that she is loved, that she is amazing, that if only her school mates could see what I see. I want to tell her that it doesn’t matter but I know that it does.

I was lonely at school, bullied at times, lost and afraid. I wanted friends more than anything in the whole world and when she shares that no-one played with her today, I imagine her sat, lonely, on her own in the corner, perhaps in the shade of a tree, wondering why she is alone.

I remember how that felt.  How empty and confused I was by their rejection of me. What was wrong with me?  I used to ask myself. I played on my own, but it’s not the same as playing with a friend who gets you.

Bubbles hasn’t found a friend like Izzy.  Someone who adores her and is adored in return.  Two years on and she still asks to visit Izzy, loves Izzy to the moon and back, talks about her with that wistful love in her voice.

There is no Izzy 2.0.

Why Can’t They See?

Bubbles is loving and compassionate, inventive and perhaps a little silly sometimes, but then she’s only six.

I am so confused.  I don’t know what to do, or say to make her popular – I don’t even want her to be popular, I just want her to have one solid friend –  or how to mend my own heart that yearns for her to be happy and loved.  I remember so well the aching loneliness of not having friends and yet I cannot save her from it.

I cannot be her best friend in the playground. I cannot fight that battle alongside her.

My lovely, kind, thoughtful, creative, compassionate girl is lonely and I don’t know what to do to make things right.

 

 

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Confessions of An Average Mum

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Why did I do it? I clicked on a link to a Huffington Post article today about parenting and there it was – a long list of stuff that I don’t do for my kids. A bucket of guilt to pour over my head like an Ice Bucket challenge as I cringe and wonder why I am so rubbish as a mum.

I am fed up of guilt.  Fed up of feeling not good enough.  Fed up of the subtle and insidious comparison that comes for free when you become a parent.

Parenting Is Not A Competition

On Bubbles’ third birthday, just a few months after we adopted them, we invited a few other adoptive families for a birthday party since we didn’t know anyone else with kids.

As the children ate/ demolished/ inhaled their finger food, the grown-ups chatted.  I got drawn into seemingly innocent conversations about bedtimes or nappies or mealtimes that became surprisingly competitive.

“I just turn to Charlie, ask him to go to sleep and he naps, even in the car.”  Charlie’s parent then demonstrates this never-going-to-be-on BGT talent.  I was at a loss to know how to respond.  “Um.  Good for Charlie?”

“Julia is amazing, she will eat everything from olives to cauliflower”

And whilst I wish ours were so easy to feed, I am equally unsure how to respond to this, without getting all defensive.

What has happened to us?

A few months ago we were sharing stories of miscarriages and infertility and bonding over our shared tragedies and now I seem to be defending the children we adopted in a game of one-up-child-ship that I wasn’t expecting to be the entertainment at a children’s party.

Should I admit that there were times when I didn’t wash the bedding or towels for weeks, until I winced from the smell when I got into bed, because I was so tired?  Or that I even Googled “how infrequently can I wash bedding” only to find zero articles to inform my lazy laundry habit.

And in typing that truth, getting that admission off my chest, I feel a need to confess, to slough off all the guilt that I carry with me, to admit to all the…

Ways I Am Not Perfect As A Mum

  1. I don’t keep every single painting, sock puppet, toilet roll and sellotape structure that my kids make to create a shrine to their non-stop creativity.  I regularly chuck stuff in the bin to save my house being overwhelmed by pipe-cleaner and egg box models.
  2. I haven’t lovingly pasted the last four years of “worth keeping” drawings and stuff into a scrapbook with dates, washi tape and photos for them to treasure when they are sufficiently old enough to reminisce about their childhood rather than yawn in teenage boredom with it.
  3. By Friday I am all out of caring about homemade organic meals and open a tin, because I made something homemade on Monday and Tuesday, fed them sandwiches on Wednesday, found leftovers in the freezer to serve with jacket potatoes on Thursday and reckon I have banked enough nutrition in them the last four days to serve spaghetti hoops by the end of the school week.
  4. I roll my eyes at my partner and despite our promises never to undermine each other in front of the children, I sometimes butt into his showdowns with the kids because I can’t bear to hear all that noise and arrogantly assume he is doing it wrong.
  5. I refuse to go to the shops, buy ingredients, bake a gluten-free cake, carry it to school wrapped in cling-film, then buy my own cake at the Bake Sale to raise money for the PTA.  I say “I’d rather just give them the money” but then I don’t do that either.
  6. A few weeks ago, I couldn’t be bothered to motivate and help my kids with their homework, which coincided with discovering that it was optional and let them play all weekend instead.
  7. I would rather my kids were on their tablets non-stop for five hours on a long journey than hear them ask “are we nearly there yet” one more bleeding time.
  8. I avoid organising play dates for my kids, because I don’t want to deal with the extra dimension of chaos (he won’t play with me, she hit me, I don’t like her, I want to go home) and watch another kid refuse to eat peas.
  9. I send my kids to school in uniform that has Pollock-inspired pen splodges all over it, because I refuse to buy a new top just for them to draw over and I have yet to discover a magical way of removing it using a strange cocktail of ice-cream and Yak urine.
  10. I feed my kids the cheap milk chocolate and keep the good stuff (dark, 70% cocoa and above) for me, hidden away in my secret place.

In My Defence

And in case you read this list and call in a child protection, perhaps I should fess up to the other stuff that creates our family.

We read them stories every night.

I walk them to school everyday on time, for reading before class starts.  I ask them about what they did in school, praise their learning and cry when they win prizes in assembly.

I feed them – sometimes with wholesome balanced meals and sometimes with cake and crisps.

I encourage them to play, to think, to share, to treat each other with respect (we’re still working on that), giving them more responsibility as they grow.

I expect them to participate, to play their part in the family – putting their plates in the dishwasher, sorting out the laundry, putting their clothes away, drying up, laying the table. They moan but I don’t give in.

I feed their minds and souls whenever I can, even if I have to ask Siri for the answer.

I tell them how amazing they are, I praise them when they are lovely and kind.

And more than anything else, I love them.  I tell them I love them.  I hug them.

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What I Wish I’d Known BEFORE I Adopted

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Dear Prospective Adopter

I remember being where you are now – the heady excitement of what is to come, the giddy nerves of the all-important Panel, the heart-melting magic of Matching. It is one fabulous adventure.

When I took my children home I was over the moon and under prepared.  If only I had known then what I know now, those first few weeks would have been easier and more joyful – which is the aim of this blog.

May it help you through the first unsettling months when it’s weird and your life feels unreal and you’re not yourself and keep wondering why won’t they just eat their tea/ sleep/ stop screaming/ love me?

1. GREAT SLEEP IS YOUR TOP TRUMP

The children are important.

But they need a parent who is confident, capable and can access all their brain.  And that only happens if you’ve had enough sleep. A half-asleep, over-caffeinated parent with the emotional stability of dynamite is destined to create a day where you end up blubbing “that could’ve gone better” as you scrape pizza off the ceiling and tears off your chin.

Grab sleep greedily and without apology whenever and wherever you can.

  • Your child is napping?  Nap.
  • Your child is in bed – go to bed early.  7.30pm early if you need to (I did).
  • Your child is watching TV?  Snooze on the sofa.
  • You keep waking up in the night?  Use earplugs if you need to.
  • You can’t get back to sleep once woken?  Put your partner on night-duty.

Get as much sleep as you need to wake happy and raring to go.

Sleep is more important than ironing, hoovering, tidying, watching your favourite TV shows, mowing the lawn, answering emails, cleaning the bath, painting your nails, shaving or going on Facebook to let people know you are still alive.

The best mum or dad you can be is a well slept one.

2.  YOU ARE NOT ALONE

God bless Twitter.

I was a bit “meh” about twitter until I discovered the adoption and fostering twitterati (thanks to @First4Adoption).  If you are struggling with any aspect of parenting, adoption, Panel, Matching, Introductions, food fussiness, sleep or potty training, there is someone who will help on twitter.

Open an account – with some vague name like “adopter73.” No-one will ever know who you are (and your social worker can relax). Then load twitter onto your phone, follow a few people (I’m @emmalgsutton, check out who I follow and follow the ones whose posts you like) and join in.

Just recently a brand new adopter, on day 2 of her forever family asked if it was normal for her children to “feels like little strangers”.

The Twitterati replied that it was normal for them to feel like strangers and that love takes time. Maybe that helped her sleep at night, maybe it just took a worry away, maybe she could then step back and think “that is totally normal, we are going to be fine”.

  • If you want to know what to feed a fussy child – ask twitter
  • If you are having a bad day – tell twitter, we’ll sympathise and send hugs
  • If you want to know if continued contact with foster carers can work – ask twitter
  • If you feel like something is out of kilter  – tell twitter and we’ll share our experiences

Sound off, ask for support when you are feeling low, share your concerns, your worries, your hopes, your dreams and build a community of people who know what you are going through.

I only wish I had found them four years ago when I started my forever family, they would have made my life so much easier.

With Twitter, you don’t have to do this on your own.

3. LOVE IS NOT LIKE MAKING A CUPPA

Loving your child isn’t as quick as making a cup of tea. Your family appears “ready-made” when the children come home for good, yet love takes longer to blossom.

As giddy as I was about dating my husband (way back then), it took months for us to truly fall in love, and it will take time for you to love your child/ren. There’s no timetable. There’s no rush.

My daughter loved my husband and rejected me for a while. Despite my confident assertion at Panel that we would ‘deal with any one-parent attachment issues as they arose’, it still had me crying in the morning when she shouted at me to get out of her bedroom.

  • You might love one of your children first. That’s okay. The love will come.
  • Your partner might fall in love before or after you do.  Still okay.
  • Your children might love one parent before the other.  That’s normal too.
  • With two parents and two children, one day you will all love each other to bits, but it won’t happen on the same day nor overnight.

Let love grow.

4.  WHAT YOU SEE IS NOT WHAT YOU GET

During Introductions, the children played contentedly on their own. They were content, happy and only approached their foster carers Ken and Mary when they needed help or food.  They pottered around the house and we shadowed their move from one area to another. They read, played in the sandpit, chatted to us, not all that bothered whether or not we joined in. They were independent, confident, outgoing.

Yet children we’d seen in their video and at the foster carers’ house were not the children who moved into our house.

They became dependent, cautious and stuck to us like chewing gum to hair. They whined and Nibbles went ballistic when we said No, spinning around on the floor like a Catherine-Wheel whilst Andy and I stared at each other in awe and shock.

The move changed our children.  And we hadn’t expected it.  I naively presumed that we could transfer the children from the video to our home.  But they needed more reassurance, more attention, more of us than they had ever needed during Introductions and that took some getting used to.

It took months before Nibbles and Bubbles were like the children we saw in their video.

5. ONE THING AT A TIME

It is all to easy to try to create a perfect family from the moment they move in. Don’t.

I tried to be the best possible parent I could be – with homemade cakes, delicious and nutritious meals made from fresh ingredients, lots of playing together with stickers and playdough and trips to the library and park, with little TV, no shortcuts, no giving in, clear boundaries, walking places without using the pram, whilst constantly battling the influx of toys into every crevice of my house (and even once in my bra).  All from Day One. I made myself miserable.

Choose happy over everything: laughter over tidiness, bouncing on their bed over fears of them falling off, messy fun over tidy boredom, reading over ironing, cuddles over clean clothes.

  • So what if you feed them spaghetti hoops for every teatime for a week or a month?  In ten year’s time will that have caused any long-term damage?
  • So what if you let them watch TV for an hour every morning so you can shower without an audience?  Yes I know you don’t want to set a precedent (I can’t tell you how many times I worried about that), but is it really setting them up for a life of crime?
  • So what if they don’t have a bath for a week because you don’t have the right bubble bath?They might pong a bit, but baby wipes work wonders and do you really want to fight that battle just before bedtime?

Don’t let reporters in the Daily Mail stoke your guilt about feeding them fish fingers and drinking wine of an evening. Do what needs to be done and leave the rest until you have got this bit sussed.

Build your family one solid foundation at a time, and start with love and laughter.

Go for happy.  And that includes YOU.

YOU MATTER

It’s easy to focus on the children when they turn up in your family.  How can you not, when you’ve waited this long to become a mum or a dad?  Yet when we forget about ourselves, when we let our own needs slide, then we are doing our family a disservice.

Sleep, food, laughter and love. Those things matter far more than how much you spend on a pram, or how tidy your house is, or if your ironing gets done.

Make your life simple.  Make it easy to be happy.  Make your kids and yourself smile, as often as you can.

What do you wish you’d known before you adopted?  Comment below and they might make it into “what I wish I’d known… part two”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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You’re My Mummy

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I gaze down at the tiny girl, almost swamped by her own curly hair and feel her fingers wound around my forefinger like a boa constrictor.  She peers up at me, her eyes twinkling with wonder.

Just as I’m about to make some bland small talk about a leaf or something…

“You’re my mummy” she says, her eyes locked unwaveringly on mine; a huge grin spreading across her face like the sun rising over the horizon,

I nod gently as tears of joy spring to my eyes. Speechless.

A Wish Come True

She’d wanted a mummy and here I am; her wish come true.

For the last week, she has looked at our photos and watched the video we sent every tea time. She knows who I am.

I can’t quite believe it (I might be in shock).

You’re My Mummy

Maybe she reads the doubt etched on my face.  Or maybe she is so thrilled that once is not enough.

“You’re mummy, you’re my mummy, you’re my Mummy”

Overnight I’ve become a mummy to two children.  Children I met just ten minutes ago. Despite all the preparation, the interviews, the training, the gradual disclosure of information since matching, I don’t feel like her mummy, I feel like a fraud.

“You’re my mummy”

How long will it be, before I feel like her mummy, until you could cut me in two and see Mummy painted inside like Blackpool through rock?

How long was it before you felt like their mummy?

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Dear Children On Our Fourth Birthday

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Dear Nibbles and Bubbles,

How can I forget the day we finally laid you down to sleep, in cots built months ago that had lain achingly empty?  You’d bounced in them but tonight you would sleep in them for the first time.

A Forever Family  At Last

You watched TV in your PJs then we carried you upstairs. Daddy gave Nibbles his bottle, we kissed your foreheads, turned out the light, slipped out your door and stood in the hall, smiling and pulling silent faces as we waited…

You slept.

Daddy and I grinned at each other and tiptoed downstairs, desperate not to wake you.

We Had Made It

After all the disappointments and struggles, finally we were a family. We could barely believe that we’d made it, that we were now parents, that you were our children.  It didn’t seem real.

How tiny, how precious you were, marvellous in every detail.  Yet we were a little frightened by what we had done.  We had no idea how to be parents. There’d be time to work it out.

Except there wasn’t because two hours later Nibbles woke, cried, screamed and we tried everything: soothing, stroking, cooing, milk, rocking, jigging, hugging, more milk until Nibbles, you found a spot, half-way down the stairs in Daddy’s arms and finally gave into how very tired you were.

A New World

Those first few months, learning how to be your mummy, were the hardest months of my life. I had to learn everything, from how to read to you, play with you, praise you, hold you without dropping you, feed you, cook the right foods, prepare your bottles, bathe you, change your nappies, recognise that John Wayne walk before your nappy burst and get you dressed as your wriggled and writhed. I had to learn to cope with too little sleep and keep an ever watchful eye on you in case you fell, tripped, slipped, choked or ran into the road.

I kept waking up bleary eyed, putting one faltering step in front of the other as a Goldilocks mum: sometimes too hot, sometimes too cold and sometimes, miraculously, just right.

But as exhausting as it was adopting you is the best thing I’ve ever done.

It Goes So Fast

There’s been so much change in these four years:  you started mostly helpless and dependent on us, toddling, muttering words that were difficult to understand (chibley? what’s a chibley?), needing help with everything. I ached from lifting you so much, until my lifting-and-carry-little-angels muscles developed (not the technical term).

Now look at you.  Two amazingly independent, loving children with strong wills and personalities that shine. You love school and reading, you populate imaginary landscapes with dragons, superheroes and princesses in stories you build as you play.  You do your bit around the house, getting breakfast ready and helping sort out and fold the laundry, always keen to mend things (even Daddy’s motorbike) by bashing it with a hammer.

Moments To Make Me Glow

The last four years have been packed with firsts, for all of us.  From that first unsteady walk up the road, where you sat down and I nearly tripped over you and I hadn’t a clue what to do, until you could walk to nursery (with stops), then a few miles, and last year when you climbed up a mountain in the Lake District, aged just five and four.

Do you remember how you learned to twist your socks on so they sat just right?  Trying again and again for weeks, as I patiently helped and advised you (‘stop splaying your toes’), occasionally helping (aka doing it for you) when you found it too frustrating or time/ my patience ran out.

Until one day, without fanfare or ceremony, there was no struggle, no tears, no huffed “CAN’T”s and we forgot how hard it is to wrestle a sock on and moved onto the next skill to master.

When you get it right, when the socks slides on, when you reach the end of a long walk, when your letters are neat and perfect, when you read a whole sentence without stumbling, the look on your face makes me melt.  I am so proud of you both, for all that you have achieved already in your short lives (#glowmo).

Firsts and Lasts

Remember Bubbles, last summer when Daddy and I were busy disagreeing how best to help you learn to ride your bike and you simply powered off and did it all by yourself, silencing our debate? I cheered, high-fived, hugged you, shed a tear and then filmed it again.  I couldn’t have been prouder if you’d just won the Tour de France.

This week Nibbles, you proudly raced in to declare that you were ‘dry again!’ and I delighted in the your reaction and praised you for being so grown up, and we threw your last nappy away to great fanfare with party poppers.  And how now you’re getting dressed every morning, fending off my offers of help with an insistent “I can do it by my own“.

So Much More..

Our lives are sprinkled with more, more shouting sometimes, but lots, lots more laughter. There are giggles, tickles and silliness (and yes, sometimes that silliness drives us bonkers) with your homemade jokes and pranks.

Every day you say things that delight us and make us laugh, like at the wildlife park this weekend, when Nibbles asked:

  • “Can we see the cannibals, mummy?”
  • “Do you mean the camels?”
  • “Yes, the caramels, let’s go”

And who can remember our first trip to the zoo when Nibbles asked if he could see ogres?  How can I not swoon slightly at these surreal and imaginative conversations we have, that I note down and laugh at for months or years to come?

Our BC and AC Life

When you came into our lives, when you completed our family, things changed more than I might ever have imagined.  It was not ‘just us, with two kids’.  Because in adding two children, ‘us’ changed forever.

Yesterday I swam.  Grown-up swimming.  Up and down, up and down.  Quiet, peaceful.  I could hear my breath, the water, my thoughts.

But it wasn’t much fun.

Not like when we go to the pool: when it’s a chaotic, noisy, crowded adventure. When we giggle and jump waves and splash, and queue for our turn down the slide, then scoot down at breakneck speed until we are breathless with delight and need another pee.  For all the noise and chaos, I prefer life as a mad, giggling, frustrating adventure that reminds me what its like to feel truly and breathlessly alive.

I Love Being Your Mummy

Being your mummy is the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.  Utterly unpredictable. Iced with an unconditional love for you both that takes bring frequent tears to my eyes.

Being your mummy is a rollercoaster that whips my hair, flushes my cheeks and leaves me struggling to keep up, but I wouldn’t give it up for all the Prosecco in Italy.

Being your mummy has been so much more than I ever expected.

Nibbles and Bubbles, here’s to all the adventures ahead. Here’s to the tears of pride that will fall, to the smiles we will share, the jokes that make us laugh and groan, to the hugs and kisses, the scraped knees and the broken hearts. Here’s to helping you grow and letting you go, to the firsts and lasts yet to come. Here’s to more unforgettable memories. Here’s to more laughter, more love, more joy.

Thank you for being my amazing, adorable, incredible children.

I love you, so much.

Your Mummy

(the woman previously known as Emma)

pass the tissues.

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I Am Not The Mum I Thought I’d Be

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As I sit on the loo, my teeth grinding with frustration, my head shaking at what I’ve become, my ears shrink from the sounds wafting up from downstairs.  Her sister is consoling him, hugging him, there-there-ing him.  She asks tenderly ‘what’s wrong?’ and his answer puts my head in my hands.

‘Mummy made me cry’

This morning, after a director’s-cut-extended-version of the normal ‘hurry-up’ mantra that increases in urgency and volume, today I reached decibels even my neighbours would have heard, the pent-up frustration of chivying two children into shoes and coats boiling over like milk on the hob.  Yet had I overheard someone else remonstrating so manically, I would’ve raised my eyebrow and muttered ‘how could anyone could be so melodramatic about getting to school on time?’

What Has Got Into Me?

I am not proud of myself.  My head hangs in weary shame as I go downstairs and apologise – I aim for unreservedly but am unable to resist saying that I wouldn’t have needed to shout if only he’d have hurried up in the first place.  Humble is not my middle name.

I used to be fun, mischievous, curious, creative and fun (again).  Yet recently I’ve become a shadow of my former self – a grey-washed version devoid of fun or cheeriness or that joie-de-vivre that surprised and annoyed colleagues who fervently believed that being at work and singing in corridors were mutually exclusive.

Who Am I?

I am not the mum I thought I’d be. Not the mum I dreamed I’d be. Not the mum I told the adoption agency I would be.

I naively thought that being intelligent, organised, a bit of a neat-freak, a creative problem solver and – let’s not forget – fun would magically make me into an awesome mum.  The sort of mum who never-shouts, breaks spontaneously into a chorus of ‘she’ll be coming around the mountain’ in the checkout queue, has a permanent powder-puff of flour on her nose from all that hilarious baking, hilarious-fun-mum that has other mothers jabbing their fingers down their throat in jealousy.

I am not even close.  And that hurts.

I can’t help feeling a bit of a failure as a mum – all because I judge myself against an unrealistic ideal of SuperMum.

Why Am I Not The Mum I Dreamed Of Being?

  1. I am tired.  When I wrote about the skipping-through-the-meadow fantasy of forever family life, I hadn’t bargained on being this tired all the time.  I’ve never experienced such a protracted period of dead-in-my-slippers tiredness, so I failed to predict  the impact of this on my personality.  Turns out, mega-tired Emma has little reserves left for being some let’s-make-a-tree-house-now-fairy-cakes mummy.
  2. I am tired.  I can’t remember the last time I woke up in the morning and felt refreshed – that kind of jump-out-of-bed-and-annoy-your-still-asleep husband as you fling open the curtains, declare “Hello World, You Gorgeous Thing, I’m He-ere”, then gleefully sing in the shower as I prepare myself for a day of gadding about, laughing, pottering, walking and more.  Instead, the kids cry my eyelids open, or the alarm shatters my dreams, I fight the impulse to take a baseball bat to the alarm and crawl back under the duvet whilst hanging a sign on the door telling my family that I am on strike.
  3. I am tired.   I feel like a bomb disposal expert whose scissors are hovering over blue and red wires, the music winding to fever pitch as I go to either save the world or get blown to smithereens whilst screaming “should’ve cut the red one.”  When they are awake, my vigilance-o-meter is constantly in the ‘danger’ zone, alert for sharp corners, their siblings biting their ear off or snatching the toy they weren’t interested in two seconds ago, hot stuff, cold stuff, things they can climb onto and hence fall off, other people (all assigned potential kidnapper status), coughs, coughs that are choking, shouting,  that eerie lack of shouting that indicates mischief of YouTube fame and any noise that is out of the ordinary (which is every single thing in this surreal experience of becoming a family overnight).  And at night, it’s not as if I can simply fall into a pit of dreams only to wake in the morning.  Every thump wakes me up as my ears strain to discover if they’ve fallen out of bed… wait… no cries?  Just them thwacking their mattress with their leg then.  False alarm.  But since you’re awake (says my brain) why don’t we plan what you can make for tea a week next Friday, or better style, analyse all the ways you failed to be a great mum yesterday? Argghhhh!
  4. I am tired.  There are so many tiny things to cram into every day, things that take up little time individually, but like writing a Christmas card, when you pile them all together into a single day, they take your will to live and wring it through a mangle, until the tasks takes on epic proportions that deserve a Nordic song, and you wish you could put it off until the last day of posting, but you can’t because tomorrow there will be another enormous list to complete.  If I drank it, I’d just want a cup of tea that doesn’t go cold before I even get a sip.
  5. I am tired.  My children are emotional – their life is a rollercoaster of extremes but who knew I had tickets to ride alongside?  When they scream and cry from pain, injustice, or that minuscule sprig of cauliflower on their plate with which I am clearly hell-bent on poisoning them, I wish I could watch them with  disinterest and distance.  Like shrugging with confusion at how anyone in the audience thought that weak pun deserved anything more than a wry smile during a bad sitcom.  It’s not as if I get to join in the laughter and giggles, for my adrenaline response seems to think that when they scream I need to remain stressed for at least another 3 hours, or until the kids kick off again, whichever is soonest, so that even their giggles fail to penetrate the taught muscles of my nervous system.

No wonder I am grumpy.

The Anti-Grumpy (aka Sleep) Plan

There is of course a solution to all this.  I go to bed at 7.30pm and catch up on some sleep – which is the night they wake up every forty-five minutes, coughing their little lungs inside out, until they are so pumped full of Calpol I wonder if they will ever wake up.

But I am nothing if not persistent, so the next night I put my ear plugs in, go to bed at 7.45pm and tell my husband in no uncertain terms that tonight he is on coughing-Calpol duty.

I am not promising that tomorrow I will wake up and be the mum of my dreams, but maybe, with a following wind, a decent breakfast and without anyone being sick or wetting themselves before we’ve even made it to school, I won’t make my son cry.

SuperMum?  Gah

Is it just me who shouts and struggles and feels like I am not good enough?

Share your experiences of your struggles against the ridiculous ideology of the “supermum” in the comments below…

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