5 For Hope

The One With A Twist

We gave M3's hair a break last week and tried many of the new headbands that I've been collecting for awhile.

I found some great sellers on etsy.com and one had headbands and the super sweet turtle clip that is on the side of M3's head in this photo (but you can't quite see).  Not sure if we'll wear it to school tomorrow, but it's definitely something we could put in for church or somewhere else that Mom can keep an eye on it and retrieve it should it jump ship.

Today, I knew we should do something, but I'm still a little faint of heart after our second attempt at flat twists did not go as smoothly as the first.  I had seen coils in natural hair in kids and adults alike and wondered how hard it would be to do.  I had read that you could do them with a comb, but you could also do tem with your fingers.

Sounds intricate, I thought.

Then, I watched some tutorial videos on YouTube and thought, "Hm.  I've actually done that to M3's hair before and not really on purpose, so maybe I could give it a whirl and see how it goes."

It went swimmingly.  Took barely any time and I could literally do a coil with each hand when I started moving along the process. 

M3 was happy enough to sit and later stand (so I could reach the very back at the bottom) while munching on Cheez-Its and watching Noggin. 

She likes to lean on me and hug me a lot while we're doing her hair so it can be a little interesting trying to hold on to sections while she is twisting around in her seat without warning.

I'm hopeful that the new sleep cap we bought her will keep her coils from completely coming undone overnight.  We'll see. 

While it's super simple to do, I don't really think I'd have the time in the morning to redo a whole head's worth.  But, I could probably figure out a way to resurrect certain areas without her missing the school bus.

I even showed my husband how to do it so that if he wants to take over hair styling duty while I'm out of town next weekend, he can.  I'm betting he'll ask me to re-do this style the night before I leave town if it lasts through tonight's slumber.

In other news, we had our six-month post-placement meeting with our social worker yesterday.  We were very honest with her and she has alread provided us with the names and numbers of three families who have adopted internationally more than once and who are thriving after doing so.  We definitely don't fall in that category, but we are looking to build a support network of adoptive families and it would be great if those families were local like these ones are.  She is also looking into other services for us, like respite care, so that we can try to break the cycle we're currently experiencing.  That would be amazing.

We are also in contact with our International Adoption Clinic's staff to schedule the "I've been here for six months" appointment.  It will likely be in the middle of November as will parent-teacher conferences.  I'm already working on an ulcer for both appointments, thank you very much.  But, I'm also looking forward to seeing the psychologist at the adoption clinic and seeing what kinds of things weekly appointments might be able to help M3 with--we know everything takes time, but the sooner we start, the sooner we may turn our first corner.

I can't believe in a couple days it will be seven months since we returned from Ethiopia.  The time has flown and dragged all at once.  Still looking forward to a time when things are a little more even keeled and the roles of a 'normal' family are comfortable ones for all of us to be in once again.  I really hope that the services we are looking to take advantage of will break this perpetual chain of frustration and angst on all our parts.  It would be a huge relief.

 

The Six Month Milestone

On the one hand, I wish I'd have written this post when we actually hit the six-month milestone.  On the other, I'm glad I didn't because it would be sitting here mocking me and any reader who happened upon it.  We reached our six month home mark on October 2.  So, it's just been six months and change, but as we've learned over the past few months, a week or two can make a huge difference.

I'm not sure how other parents feel about their adoption experiences.  I know what I read on their websites, but I also am becoming more adept at reading between the lines, so I don't always buy the rosy-glassed vision on the surface.  I do know that nearly every book I read or expert we talked to said that doing any type of assessment or evaluation on how you're doing prior to the six-month mark is an exercise in futility.  Fair enough.  I'm an assessor/evaluator/obsessive-compulsive/always measuring train wreck of an individual, though.  So any time I freaked out about anything in my new role as "Mom to an older internationally adopted child", I would calm myself slightly by saying, "It's only been x months.  Relax.  No need to freak until after the six-month mark."

But, truth be told, some moms I know more personally than those books' authors and adoption experts say it's been a year or more for them and it's still not all that noticeably different.  I suppose I could push my estimates out to the spring and fend off my feelings of wondering what in the world we're doing most days and dreading, even on the good days, that the other shoe is going to drop and we're going to be entertaining more worries, concerns and frustrations in the coming days.

To me, it was like we were handed a map six months ago.  We're familiar with maps.  We had studied about this map, taken classes about what the map would be like and prepared for our journey with the map as best we could.  We felt pretty confident that our previous experiences with maps would keep us from becoming completely and totally lost.

We were wrong.

We received a map and although it seemed strangely familiar, it really isn't at all.  So, we set out.  Trudging uphill, on ice, and we'd reach the crest of the hill only to slide to the bottom and have to start again.  Sometimes we slid so far we were "dropped for a loss" and had an even longer haul than we'd had when we originally started.  And, there has been more than once when we were walking down the street, thinking we knew exactly where we were going...feeling like we were accomplished travelers...only to realize we'd been lured into a not-so-safe part of town. 

The past three days have been like this map scenario for me.  For so much of this journey, it's two steps forward, six steps back and you know it when it's happening.  But, every so often, the smooth stretch lasts long enough that you start to release your white-knuckled hold on every single aspect of every single thing that goes on inside and outside your house.  And no matter how many times you tell yourself you won't, you do.  You start to become optimistic...like, hey...I think we've turned a corner.  NOT that the journey is complete and you can fold that map and put it in the scrapbook and look at it as a fond memory, but that you're done traveling down that street and you can head to a different part of the map.

I really thought we'd retired certain stops on the street we've been trudging up and sliding down since we arrived home in April.  I thought, perhaps, we'd reached a point where the most evident indicators that M3 is testing us and our attachment would be retired for new or more subtle behavior.  Over the past three days, though, we've hit all the landmarks on that street that I'd rather just not visit anymore.

Been there.  Done that.  Bought the t-shirt.  Sent the postcard. 

But, here we are again.  And, like the rubberband snapping back, we're at Square Zero in many important ways.  What I wouldn't give to land in Square Three or even Square Two.  Heck,  Square One is attractive some days.  But, nope.  Square Zero has a well-worn spot waiting for our bottoms to land and hard.

And, I find myself forcing a smile, faking optimism and praying when I go to bed that I'll wake up ready to truly take on the challenge of what has popped up again rather than wishing to stay in bed and pull the covers over my head until...well, until further notice.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is for those who are grappling with reaching the 6-month milestone--it isn't such a milestone after all.  It's simply another month in a lifelong journey you decided to take.  I suppose it's a good thing that I don't have to refold my stupid map all the time given that I stink at that.  Might as well just leave it open because we're going to be on these same, familiar streets for a long time, I bet.

Maybe the 9-month mark will be better and we'll have less time on this street I've grown so tired of and we'll have moved into a sunnier neighborhood on our map.  Until then, we'll just have to keep our heads down and our feet moving forward--because that's what you do.

More Hair Fun

Not satisfied with our foray into pony beads and snaps, the resident hair stylist of Fort W. decided to try her hand at something else.  This hair style comes about a week or two later than we would have liked, but an unfortunate injury to a left index finger caused by an errant filing cabinet drawer made the idea of holding, twisting and banding hair a less than appealing prospect.