Happy New Year!

I'm not going to bother making any resolutions for next year. I'd like to exercise more, learn how to dance the samba, volunteer more, study up on investments, do a bunch of craft and home improvement related stuff, start on a new degree, get a new certification, blah blah blah. Maybe I'll do a few of them... I'm keeping my expectations low, however.

We're ending this year in a pretty good mood. Our vacation in Hawaii really calmed everyone down.

Sunny has been a joy lately. I think I've figured out his cycle. He takes about a week to get adjusted to a major change in routine. During that time, he acts like a jerk, but by now, he's using to being out of school. He's spending a lot of time during the day playing with his legos (often by himself!) going on nature walks with Nana, running errands with dad, playing outdoors with friends.

In fact, he almost got a "no complaining all day" award yesterday. He messed it up shortly before bedtime by having a micro-fit when I told him it was time to take a shower. A micro-fit consists of loud wailing while hurling himself on the floor, and lasts about 15 seconds. In all his gym classes, he's learned how to jump up and safely hurl himself to the ground in the absolutely most dramatic fashion, but it would probably terrify a lot of parents if they saw it.

Shortly after Christmas I got some great footage of Sunny. He received some Ed Hardy temporary tattoos as a stocking stuffer, and we put a tattoo of a panther fighting a python on his chest, then he kept his shirt off and starting singing "We Will Rock You" while dancing vigorously in the kitchen. He was totally rocking out! I wish I could put it on Youtube but I'm too concerned about privacy. Instead, I'm going to hold on to the footage and email it to his future college roommates or something like that.

I hope everyone has a good New Year. I hope that next year will also see an improvement in the welfare of our city, state, country and planet, that the horrible killing in the Gaza strip will stop (please see this link and this link for ways to help) and that we'll get out of Iraq AND Afghanistan.

For our family, I hope that we'll get Sunny's baby brother soon. I'm going to give him a new blog name here: BB for Baby Brother. Sunny's grandmother told me that his mother's wish was for
BB to be raised by us, with his brother, if anything happened to her. Apparently the pregnancy had some serious complications, and his mother, in the delivery room, was worried about what would happen if she died... Sunny's grandmother said she was so concerned about getting those wishes on the record that after the death she went back to the hospital and spoke with the anesthesiologist and nurse that had been present when those words were said.

Lastly, I made a decision (which my husband is on board with) to try and get pregnant. I'd like to give it a shot while I still have good eggs and while my insurance still covers a few thousand dollars of fertility treatments. IVF is too invasive (and too expensive) but I'm willing to try cycles of IUI without major drugs. I definitely wouldn't want to have twins... getting three babies in one year would be too much to handle.

I'm not really conflicted about the decision. If it happens, it happens, and if I go next year without getting pregnant, that will almost certainly be my last try. I know balancing adopted and biological children adds an extra layer of complication, but families do it all the time. Sunny already has plenty of experience being a member of a large family with some bio children, some adopted children and some foster children, and I think he'd be a great big brother.

We'd probably get more stares as a family. With Sunny, I have never had anyone ask me if he was adopted. They just assume he's my biological child from a previous relationship with a black man. Sunny's eyes look superficially Asian, and like mine, are very prominent (not deep-set) but the shape is quite different if you look closely. However, all the rest of our facial features totally match up: full lips, mouth not very wide, high but not prominent cheekbones, bow-shaped eyebrows, medium nose bridge with soft nose shape, strong chin in a slightly rounded square shape.

BB looks a lot like Sunny, but BB's biological father is light-skinned, unlike Sunny's father. At his young age, BB looks white in terms of complexion, but I think his facial features are not going to look Caucasian. Like Sunny, he has very beautiful, large eyes that are shaped like teardrops laid on their side, with the rounded part toward the center of the face.

Then, if I have a birth child with my husband, they'd be three-quarters Polish/Irish/Anglic and one-quarter ethnic Japanese. My husband's round eyes (which are also very nice-looking eyes) will get thrown into the mix. Who knows, maybe it's possible all the kids will sort of look like each other.

I hate the stereotype "multiracial people are pretty" and I also don't believe in the naive cliche that all the problems of the world will be solved once we all interbreed and look like each other. With that disclaimer... I can tell Sunny is going to get a LOT of positive attention for his looks as he grows up. It's going to be interesting.

I also think he's going to be OK in the self-confidence area. He's naturally very confident. I remember many months ago he hinted that "dark skin" was something he "didn't like". But recently, he's been saying "cafe" is his favorite color. He loves that word that he learned in his Spanish class. It means "brown" in Spanish as well as "coffee". Hopefully, with the right reinforcement, he can keep his positive attitude about being a "cafe" color. I still try to shield him from hearing too many negative things about black people; recently I had to turn off NPR when they were discussing something about incarceration rates. I don't want him to live in a bubble, I just want to make sure he gets more positive messages than negative messages while he's still in this "absorb-everything" learning mode. I want him to have a space (part school, part neighborhood or friends) where blackness and African-American culture are just normal, unexceptional, not overwhelmed with messages about tragedy. We can't give him that as a nuclear family, but at least he has access to that space and moves through it every day.

Wrapping up... I know a lot of readers have been reading this blog for years. Remember when we got matched? Whether you're lurkers, commenters, current bloggers or mothballed bloggers, thanks for sticking around. Have a great new year, everyone. May your dreams come true!

Big Holiday Update Post

Our vacation was great.

It was a bit stressful being with Sunny 24/7 in my father's studio apartment. Luckily, the apartment does at least have a shoji divider, so we had 2-3 hours of semi-privacy every night after Sunny went to bed, which we mostly used to watch Season 2 of Prison Break on our portable DVD player. We ate a lot of great food, went to beaches every day and drove all over the island, although we couldn't afford any inter-island or boat trips.

Since Sunny was missing almost two weeks of school, he had a fair amount of make-up work, including a daily journal of at least four sentences per day. Getting him to do his work for an hour every night wasn't fun, but we didn't have any major homework blow-ups.

Sunny quickly learned how to make the shaka sign. There was a guy in the apartment building who kept running into us and saying to Sunny, "what up, li'l bruddah!" and Sunny just loved flashing the sign back at him. As usual, he was treated like a miniature rock star everywhere we went.

Sunny was a lot more interested in the ancient Hawaiian village than I thought he'd be. I tried my best to explain the difference between "people who live in Hawaii" and "Hawaiians". I told him that the Asian people he saw mostly came from Japan, the white people came from the mainland, the Hawaiians were already there before anyone else and got the raw deal, a lot of people were mixed ancestry, but everyone was an American.

I went to a very nice Jodo Shinshu service. The reverend had a thick Japanese accent and at first I thought the sermon would be rather impenetrable and arcane, but I was quite wrong. About halfway through, the reverend broke out the props -- a balloon and a sign reading "G.A.S." -- and used those to illustrate a point about joyful daily living and how we need to be filled with "good gas" not "bad gas". He had everyone laughing in the aisles.

It looks like Hawaii is in for a lot of pain due to the economy. The newspapers were full of dire statistics about hotel residency figures. I feel really bad for the people there. I used to work in the tourist industry... it's highly unstable, the jobs don't get a lot of respect and the tourists you depend on drive up your cost of living to the point that you can barely afford to live in your own home.

Sunny was not too bad on the three-leg airplane flights there and back. He didn't sleep very much, but kept occupied with his PSP.

We made a good adjustment back to Atlanta. It helped that we had a nice warm snap, and last week the temperature was in the 70s... hardly any colder than Hawaii.

The next time we go on vacation, we definitely need to do a combined trip with my mom and stepdad. It would be nice to have just one day to ourselves! By then, at the end of next year, I hope we'll have Sunny's brother as well. There's still no major update on that front. The biological father is refusing to get in contact. He's established paternity but isn't answering calls or showing up in court.

According to ASFA I imagine it could take 18 months to do a TPR if he consistently avoids every contact. If he or a relative doesn't want to parent, he needs to act. My worker tells me they are probably going to threaten him with paying child support if he doesn't move one way or the other, so that might cause a resolution.

Meanwhile, Sunny's baby brother is doing well with his foster family. We sent him a present: a little Hawaiian fleece robe. He's visited every week by his (and Sunny's) bio grandmother. I'm in regular contact with her now, and we'll give her a call tomorrow on Christmas Day.

Sunny misses his foster family a lot.

He had a blow-up last night that was probably related. It all started over the PSP (AKA the PCP). The PSP is going to be off limits for several weeks as a consequence. He pushed his dad, slammed doors and yelled a lot of things like "I hate you".

He was very, very sad afterwards. As he was crying in my lap, he said "I'm so dumb! I don't know why I said those things! I said all the good times we had together were ruined!"

"You didn't mean that, did you?"
"No!"
"Nothing could ruin the good times we have together. I know why you say things you don't mean, you say them to try and hurt us. And you wanted to hurt us because you're angry. It's okay to feel angry, it's just not okay to show it like that."

We talked about alternate ways to show anger. He already knows about taking a deep breath. When he can remember to do that, it helps. I also suggested a new one: going to his room, closing (not slamming) the door and yelling into a pillow.

I just realized his inability to be alone presents a real conflict with anger management. If you're angry, the fastest, easiest way to cope is to temporarily remove yourself from the person or situation causing the anger. But that route is closed to him. He moves away, but then snaps right back like a rubber band because he fears solitude so much.

I think without that problem, his tantrumming would not be a serious issue. He's actually more emotionally articulate than most children his age. I recently talked to another parent from our agency who's also having problems around this time (pretty much everyone is, which is why the agency holds a workshop on holiday coping) and unlike Sunny, his daughter doesn't say what's on her mind and who she misses and why she feels bad... she acts it out.

Sunny has already gotten a ridiculous amount of presents from one set of grandparents. He got multiple Transformers, Pokemon figures, remote controlled truck, air-rocket-launcher, slinkies and Hot Wheels. I wish they hadn't bought him so many toys. He loves getting them, but he plays with them for five minutes and then rarely uses them again. He just doesn't know how to play with toys by himself.

It's sad hearing about kids who come from foster homes with nothing but a trash bag. That's about the complete opposite of Sunny's experience. His foster family shipped us EIGHTEEN BOXES of his clothes and toys. We donated many of those toys, since he'd outgrown them. We just tell him that he needs space for new toys, so he needs to fill a box with the ones he doesn't want anymore so that other kids can play with them. He's always quick to do it and happy to help drop off the box.

We keep trying to downsize toys so his room can stay cleaner, but this Christmas is going to be a challenge. We were planning on having a small Christmas and de-emphasizing gifts, but grandparents got in the way. Also, it's his first Christmas with us...

He's getting about five presents from Santa. We've bought him a pair of inflatable swords that he can share with his friends, a flashlight that straps to your head (he loves flashlights), more Hot Wheels, a calculator, a hoodie with a flaming skull and guitars on it, a PSP game, Greatest Hits of Queen and Best of the Rockin' 70s CDs (he likes classic rock a LOT more than we do), a dinosaur sticker book and a chess set for beginners. On top of that there will be presents from two more sets of grandparents and foster family.

He's going to have to live without the PSP for a while, but we found him a great alternate game. It's at fantasticcontraption.com. Using a limited set of building blocks and the laws of physics -- gravity, friction, etc. -- you have to build contraptions to accomplish a simple task.

Right now, we severely limit any video games. I noticed even the educational ones were just encouraging button-mashing and shortened attention span, but this game looks like an exception. It's not too stimulating: simple shapes, slow motion, calming music. There's no time limit. You create a design, test it, then try to fix it when it fails, then test it again... failure isn't as emotional as in a life-based game like Super Mario Brothers. Sunny loves Fantastic Contraption, and he can keep his focus on it up to half an hour. I think it's helping stretch his attention span, so I don't mind if he plays it. He's solved it up through Level Five.

I hope everyone who reads here has a happy holiday season! Also, an extra thanks to Christine for commenting on my Racialicious post, because I think your perspective added a lot to the discussion.

I'll close on a negative note by mentioning one of the only things I HATE about Hawaii... the godawful Hawaiian Christmas reggae the radio stations there love to play. Hawaiian music, great; reggae, great; Christmas, great... but put all three together and you get a form of music guaranteed to make your brain bleed out your ears.

My Writing - Two Links

I'm back from vacation. It was awesome... I'll post some more on it later.

While I was gone, I had two thingies published.

One was a short comment on adoption, in the Minnesota Women's Press, in response to this story, A Feminist Lens on Adoption. It's not a very notable comment that would stand out for regular readers here, except for the fact that it's now printed on dead trees.

The second was a long piece on racist abuse, published at my favorite hangout, Racialicious.com. It's sort of a non-adoption-related expansion on one of my early posts at this blog, Handling Racism as a Child. It's got the unwieldy title of Getting Past the Bears: Racist Abuse in Middle School and the Formation of People of Color Consciousness. I wrote it as part of the Racialicious Things We Do to Each Other/Things We Do to Ourselves series.

I spent a long time working on the Bears post, and I'm pretty happy with it. The edits Latoya suggested were also a great help. I tried to produce something emotionally perturbing, yet measured and analytical, and I think I mainly succeeded. The comments to the post (100+) contain a lot of people sharing experiences very close to mine, or that intersect in interesting ways. I wish I had time to interact with the commenters more, but I was in the middle of the grueling three-flight trip back to Atlanta.

Sunny Journal Days 1-3

Here's my transcription of a journal Sunny is keeping for school assignment during vacation. It's good practice for his handwriting.

DAY ONE
I played in the ocean. Playing in the ocean made me happy. I saw a big sea turtle with my goggles. I made a friend.

DAY TWO
I crossed the hot springs. I got a taco. I went to a rocky beach. I played ping pong with my dad.

DAY THREE
I climbed up a volcano. I walked through a lava tube. I saw a beautiful bird. I am going to have a big fish for dinner.

Here's a picture Sunny took himself.

Worried about Atlanta

Jim Martin's loss to Saxby Chambliss was disappointing. I worked for the campaign, but I still had a feeling he was going to lose. The state of Georgia remains firmly in the control of Republicans who are strangling Atlanta... and local Democratic politicians are by and large a mediocre bunch. At least Hank Johnson and John Lewis are doing a good job, and I'm desperately hoping that Burrell Ellis is going to turn things around in Dekalb County after the embarrassing reign of Vernon Jones.

Georgia's unemployment rate is now higher than the national average. Our crime is rising too. It's been rising for a while, in part due to horrible police leadership, and the economic climate is only going to make it rise much faster. A pizza place near where I live just got robbed during dinner peak.

I've always been upbeat, overall, about where I live: Dekalb County, to the east of Atlanta, a large county with a higher population than quite a few states. Living here means I can afford a nice big solid house with a real yard. My commute time isn't bad. I have quick access to the best food from all over the world, and this is really crucial for my quality of life! My son's friends are also all over the map, and he sees lots of examples of successful African-American professionals.

The downside is the crime, and the bad schools. This area is all over the spectrum not just in race and ethnicity, but also in terms of income. There are lots of apartment buildings and residency hotels, especially around the Memorial Drive corridor, where something bad is always going down. I know people who live in these buildings, and they suffer the worst of it, of course. 95% of the residents are in working families, but since they have to work so incredibly hard, while they're out working their two or three jobs the other 5% runs around drug-dealing and shooting their guns and causing general nastiness. Rising unemployment is only going to make it worse for everyone.

As for the schools, there is one thing I know for sure: Sunny is NOT going to junior high school in any of the local public schools. I may write about this later but things are pretty dire. I'm in the same boat as many other people. My neighbor, for example, is gaming the system by using his sister's apartment as an official residency so that his son can go to a safer, better junior high. That's a very common tactic.

I am going to do what I can politically to try and improve the public school situation, but it's my responsibility to try and help fix things... not Sunny's. In the short term the situation is only going to get worse due to the recession and massive budget cuts, but in the long-term, I'm hoping an Obama administration, combined with better local leadership, may turn things around.

I don't have many alternatives for places to live. I need a big cheap city and I can't stand cold weather. The West Coast is still too expensive. I'm scared of Texas. Culturally, Miami and New Orleans are two places I'd consider. But Miami probably has worse traffic than Atlanta, the same crime, and is more expensive. New Orleans has worse crime and fewer jobs. Guy is even more picky than I am, too. He has never really lived away from Georgia and I think he'd be almost incapable of moving. As a final factor, my mother and stepfather moved halfway across America just to live next to us... so I don't think we'll be moving soon. Anyway, things are going to be tough all over for a few more years at the very least.

ETA: I can't believe I forgot to mention one huge advantage Atlanta has over New Orleans and Miami: the absence of killer hurricanes.

Third-Culture Kids in the Obama Administration

The below article is a bit Pollyanna-ish, but still fascinating. Maybe I should apply for a job at the Obama administration! It's just too cold up there in D.C., though.

When I read stuff about third-culture kids, I recognize a lot of traits I have myself. But I don't feel like embracing the term. It seems like it's most often applied to the children of upper-class parents and intellectuals, although it should really apply to a much broader group, including the children of just-plain immigrants who work in places like restaurants and construction zones. My upbringing was somewhere in the middle. I definitely didn't get an elite early education, although I eventually ended up at a good college.

I think the phrase "1.5gen" is something I can embrace more. Even though I'm only half of a 1.5gen... or perhaps the square root of one?

I do agree that with this kind of background, you end up with a thick skin because you get used to cultural rejection and being treated like an alien. It either completely screws you up or makes you very independent.

Obama's 'Third Culture' Team

Obama has packed his staff with so-called “Third Culture Kids”—people who grew up outside the U.S. New research suggests this group shares common psychological traits that could shape his administration.

John Quincy Adams lived in France, and young Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited Europe often enough to master French and German, but Barack Obama is the first modern American president to have spent some of his formative years outside the United States. It is a trait he shares with several appointees to the new administration: White House advisor Valerie Jarrett was a child in Tehran and London, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was raised in east Africa, India, Thailand, China and Japan as the son of a Ford Foundation executive, and National Security Advisor James L. Jones was raised in Paris. (Also, Bill Richardson, tipped as Secretary of Commerce, grew up in Mexico City.)

This is more than a trivial coincidence. So-called “Third Culture Kids”—and the adults they become”—share certain emotional and psychological traits that may exert great influence in the new administration. According to a body of sociological literature devoted to children who spend a portion of their developmental years outside their “passport country,” the classic profile of a “TCK” is someone with a global perspective who is socially adaptable and intellectually flexible. He or she is quick to think outside the box and can appreciate and reconcile different points of view. Beyond whatever diversity in background or appearance a TCK may bring to the party, there is a diversity of thought as well.

But TCKs can also feel rootless and detached. The great challenge for maturing Third Culture Kids is to forge a sense of personal and cultural identity from the various environments to which they been exposed. Barack Obama’s memoir, Dreams of My Father, could serve as a textbook in the TCK syllabus, a classic search for self-definition, described in living color. Obama’s colleagues on the Harvard Law Review were among the first to note both his exceptional skill at mediating among competing arguments and the aloofness that made his own views hard to discern. That cool manner of seeming “above it all” is also a classic feature of the Third Culture Kid.

The TCKs’ identity struggles can be painful and difficult. The literature documents addictive behaviors, troubled marriages and fitful careers. But meeting this challenge can become a TCK’s greatest strength. Learning to take the positive pieces from a variety of experiences and create a strong sense of “This is who I am, no matter where I am” gives a steadiness when the world around is in flux or chaos”—which helps explain “no-drama Obama.”

Among those of us who study Third Culture Kids (almost always because we are TCKs), it has been both gratifying and frustrating to watch “one of us” run for the White House. We began obsessively pointing out to each other the telltale signifiers of the TCK that so often went unremarked in the mainstream press.

“I laughed when I heard a commentator call Barack exotic and elitist,” says Lois Bushong, an American who grew up in Costa Rica and now works a therapist for internationally mobile families. “How exotic or elitist can it be to go home to visit your grandmother, even if she lives in Hawaii? She’s still your grandma. This TV guy seemed to forget that the world many see ‘exotic’ is simply home for TCKs.”

But we also despaired when his opponents denigrated the importance of Obama’s childhood in Indonesia and Hawaii. “How can they say his international childhood doesn’t count when it comes to foreign affairs?” sputtered my friend and colleague, Paulette Bethel. “That’s just crazy. Barack’s been negotiating between cultural worlds since the day of his birth. No one will have to teach him this skill. It’s already second nature to him!”

Bethel feels vindicated by the collection of strong personalities that Obama has invited into the new administration. “He’s lived with so many differences around him in his lifetime, they don’t threaten him anymore,” she says.

In 1984, Dr. Ted Ward, then a sociologist at Michigan State University, called TCKs “the prototype citizens of the future,” anticipating a time when a childhood lived in various cultures would be the norm rather than the exception. It seems that time is now.

And the characteristics derived from an expat childhood may be well suited to the challenges facing the new administration. The economic crisis, for one, demonstrates how interdependent world cultures have become, and its solution will undoubtedly require the unconventional thinking that comes more easily to a Third Culture Kid. Even though Tim Geithner is not an economist by training, he apparently demonstrated such a keen problem-solving skills in the financial arena that the stock market jumped 500 points on the news of his appointment. Returning to Japan as an adult and speaking the language he learned as a child have given him an unusually deep understanding of the global economy.

As TCKs, we have had the joy, and the challenge, of being raised in many places and cultures. Now we get to see whether the values of the TCK can be a force for good on the world stage.

Thanksgiving Contacts

We had a nice Thanksgiving. It was smaller than last year's, so it was a lot easier to cook for. My stepfather is off on a business trip, my uncle is staying away due to family drama, and so on and so forth. We did have two extra Obama staffers who showed up at the last minute.

Before Thanksgiving, I finally emailed Sunny's bio grandmother. I probably should have done it before, but I have a lot of conflicted feelings about her. After actually meeting her at the funeral, I have a much more positive impression than I originally did.

I imagine Sunny has conflicted feelings too. He loves her, and she made promises to him about taking care of him that she didn't keep. But he recently saw a picture of her and said he wanted to talk to her, so that's what we're doing. I don't think I'm ever going to be satisfied as to why she couldn't take care of him; however, the future is what's important here.

Sunny talked to her before Thanksgiving. She asked me what to get him for Christmas and I gave her a good idea, and we talked about visiting next year. We also talked about Sunny's baby brother. She has visits with him at their foster mom's. She told us again that it was Sunny's mother's wish that Sunny and his baby brother would grow up together if anything happened to her, and that hopefully, this would come to pass soon. I told her that I wanted to make sure Sunny and his brother always had a relationship with her. She has a lot of sad things going on in her life right now, so talking to Sunny was really important for her and cheered her up a lot.

Sunny's bio family and foster family have a fair amount of history together, although they're not related in any way. They even go to same family doctors.

Sunny also got to chat with his foster family on the webcam on Thanksgiving. He saw two foster cousins he really missed... they had a great time making funny faces and "peace out" signs at each other.

The other person I'd like to get in touch with eventually is Sunny's bio uncle. Sunny was so attached to him that he thought his uncle was his father; I've had to gently correct him about that several times. His uncle took care of Sunny for a while when Sunny was very young, and he wanted to adopt Sunny, but his father threatened to disown him if he did that, so he didn't. By the way, Sunny's maternal grandmother and grandfather have been divorced for a while, and his stepgrandmother was yet another relative who used to talk care of him.

Sunny's uncle hasn't made contact on his own through his mother, but I imagine he would like to talk to Sunny.

Charity and Finance

I thought I'd do a post about how I handle charitable giving, since I know it's a big topic this time of year. I'm actually really disorganized in some areas of my life, but when it comes to charitable giving, I run a tight ship.

I set aside 6% of my gross income for year-end charitable giving. I donate a bit more on top of that throughout the year, and that number doesn't count political campaign contributions. I used to feel terribly guilty not having any money to give to charities at the end of the year, until about six years ago, when I switched to an awesome system that lets me meet my goals with no pain.

Basically, I use direct deposit to withdraw 6% of my paycheck (and any bonus) and that 6% goes to a separate online savings account at ING Direct. It never hits my checking account and I don't include it in my budgeting.

At the end of the year, I line up all my charities, go to networkforgood.com and spend all the money in that account. I put the charges on my frequent flyer credit card, then pay it off immediately from the charity account, because that way I earn a lot of frequent flyer miles. Network For Good charges you a credit care processing fee which is also tax deductible. That means the charities don't have to pay processing fees, and they also don't have to expend money or labor to physically deposit the check. Network for Good also gives me a central record for my charitable tax deduction.

The way the system works, I don't have to agonize that I can't afford to give money. As long as we don't have a huge crisis, I can leave the money untouched and building up all year.

Here's the year-end list of charities I donate to. I've taken three or four off and added some more this year, but it's a lot like last year's list. Some guidelines:

1) I like legal defense funds because they help create lasting social change. However, I didn't donate to the NAACP this year because I'm not happy with their organizational effectiveness right now. I use Charity Navigator ratings and news stories to check that organizations are effective. Some organizations that don't have a perfect rating there -- like the Southern Poverty Law Center -- I'll donate to anyway because I'm very familiar with their work.

2) I like environmental organizations that work with local people to create sustainable conservation. For example, Wildlife Alliance has done a lot of stuff to try to stop Chinese people from eating threatened and endangered animals. They don't just say "stop it because white people think it's bad"; they sign on celebrities like Jackie Chan and Yao Ming who then try to persuade people using local media campaigns.

3) I try to use charitable donations to make amends for some of the horrible things my tax dollars have unwillingly helped cause. For example, giving to American Near East Refugee Aid.

• AHIMSA House, Inc.
• American Near East Refugee Aid
• Atlanta Community Food Bank, Inc.
• BUDDHIST CHURCHES OF AMERICA-ENDOW
• Center for Asian-American Media
• Center for Pan Asian Community Services, Inc.
• Children's Defense Fund
• CHRIS Kids, Inc.
• Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere, Inc. (CARE)
• DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS USA INC
• EcoLogic Development Fund
• Hands On Network
• HOSEA FEED THE HUNGRY AND HOMELESS PROGRAM INC
• International Rescue Committee, Inc.
• Japanese American Citizens League
• Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc.
• MADRE
• MEXICAN AMERICAN LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND
• Nature Conservancy, Inc.
• PACHAMAMA ALLIANCE
• Save the Children
• SEVA FOUNDATION
• Sierra Club Foundation
• Southern Center for Human Rights
• Southern Poverty Law Center, Inc.
• THE CORAL REEF ALLIANCE
• Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, Inc.
• United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta, Inc.
• Wildlife Alliance, Inc.
• World Wildlife Fund, Inc.

You Will Be Absolutely Disgusted With Me For Having This Problem

My problem is... what to do in Hawaii with a rambunctious kid?

We're going there on a 10-day vacation. It's going to be cheap. We've been accumulating frequent flyer miles via credit card offers throughout the year and just cashed them in for the airfare. We're staying at my dad's place; he'll be in Japan instead during that time. The biggest expense is going to be the subcompact rental car.

I love this area of Hawaii. Last year, we went on a similar trip, and Guy and I just spent most of the time cooking awesome seafood dinners, reading and going on short tours around the island. This year I plan on making a go at reading 2666. I can also attend a Jodo Shinshu service, which I'm really looking forward to.

But I don't think Sunny is going to be down with any reading-six-hours-a-day schedule. So we're bringing a laptop and a portable DVD player with us and lots of stuff for him to watch. We can go swimming every day for a few hours. But then what?

I've also been looking for some kind of local class or activity for kids so Sunny can have other kids to play with and we can get a few hours of privacy (it's a studio apartment so we'll all be sleeping in the same room).

I'm sure it's going to be absolutely great once we get there. It's just taking a lot more mental effort to plan out.

Sunny is really excited about seeing sea turtles, waterfalls and climbing up a volcano. It's going to be the first time he's ever seen the ocean.

The Obama People in the Basement

We've had some Obama staffers staying in our basement. It's a very nice basement, by the way, fully finished with its own bathroom and a separate entrance. We were thinking of finishing it up a bit more and renting it out, but we realized that's going to have to wait until after Sunny's adoption is finalized, or else any prospective tenant will have to take a drug test and send their fingerprints to the FBI.

The Obama staffers were sent to Georgia to work on the Jim Martin campaign. They sure work hard! One has been staying for almost a week, but I've only seen her once for about ten minutes. They don't get in until midnight, and they leave shortly after I've taken Sunny to school.

Sunny did very well this weekend. He watched a lot of his favorite shows on the computer yesterday -- Backyardigans and Transformers -- the ones I've been promising to get him. By the way, the new Transformers animated series looks awful. The one I grew up with in the 1980s was vastly superior. Sunny also had a fun exploration session with the kids in the neighborhood and practiced some soccer kicks.

He wet the bed last night -- the first time since starting the no diaper regimen. Guy had woken him up at 11PM, but Sunny wouldn't pee, and I explained that that's why he wet the bed.

He put his sheets in the washing machine, took a shower with very little complaining and says he is going to try harder tonight. He had a good attitude: a little disappointed that he wet the bed, but not devastated.

It's very difficult to wake him up to get him to the bathroom. One night, he kept on diving for the bed and I had to block him while Guy tackle-grabbed him from behind. I felt like we were playing rugby. Of course, he never remembers any of this stuff the next morning. We just have to be firm, get him to the bathroom and get him to count to ten slowly while trying to pee, which seems to work. So far, as long as we can do that, he's had dry nights.

A Milder Challenge

Sunny's behavior has improved a lot since returning to full dosage. He's still often pouty, of course, but no more meltdowns.

We're working on a new front this week: bedwetting.

We were so worried about his self-confidence in the beginning that we didn't want to focus on bedwetting at all. He wears pullups and he has two layers of sheet protectors. When he lived with his foster family, he had dry nights 50% of the time, and during his visit he also had 50%, but that soon changed to 100% wet once he moved in. We weren't giving him any positive or negative feedback about wetting, just making sure he threw away his diaper in the morning and then wiped with wet naps (he has his regular shower at night, not in the morning).

Since then, we've realized that lack of self-confidence is not one of his issues, and that taking a very hands-off approach to bedwetting is not getting us anywhere. Recently, I noticed that he's peed in his pullup even before going to bed! These modern-day diapers are so comfortable that there's very little motivation not to pee in them.

We had a talk with him a few days ago. We said we're all going on vacation soon. He might also want to go on a sleepover at some point. Maybe it's time to try going without a diaper. It's not going to work right away, but if he keeps trying, we know he can do it. He seemed to be very receptive to this message.

The new routine is that Sunny's not going to wear a diaper, and we're going to wake him up at 11PM to use the bathroom. If he wets the bed, in the morning he needs to put the sheet protector and maybe also the sheet in the washing machine, which is across from his bedroom. Then we'll have to shower him off and re-lotion. This is going to make the morning more difficult and we'll all have to get up a bit earlier.

He wet the bed last night, but it was only a very little bit. We'll see how it goes. I think he can do it. We were having a lot of problems with light daytime wetting several months ago, but that all cleared up when we really focused on it and talked a lot about how to make sure he made it to the bathroom on time. Nighttime wetting is going to be harder; we just have to be patient. The wet sheets should be a simple natural consequence against peeing in bed.

Sunny did a very nice thing the other day. I gave him some money to buy a book at his school book fair. He bought a book for himself, and then bought another book for a classmate who didn't have enough money. What a sweet kid!

This Terrifies Me

I've written a fair amount about mental illness, especially in regards to my cousin. I have a lot of interest in the subject. I wish there was not as much stigma attached, and I believe that the vast majority of people with mental illness do not endanger other people.

But I still have a visceral reaction of complete terror when I hear stories like this one. Oh man...

A Fort Carson soldier and war veteran charged in the murder and sexual assault of a woman in Colorado last month faces accusations that he also raped a 14-year-old girl and sexually assaulted a third woman, an internal Army document states.

The document, the Commander’s Report on the suspect, Specialist Robert H. Marko, also raises serious questions about his mental state during his time at Fort Carson beginning in late 2006 and whether he should have deployed to Iraq in 2007.

It was common knowledge among his commanding officers and fellow soldiers, the document states, that Specialist Marko, who is being held without bond, believed he was an “alien dinosaur-like creature, and that he would transform from his human form into his Black Raptor form on his 21st birthday — 13 Oct 08.”

About four years ago, when we lived in an apartment, my upstairs neighbor fell into the depths of schizophrenia plus alcoholism and threatened to sexually assault me. The police did not take me seriously in the beginning. I remember several days of fortifying myself with my family, watching the locked doors, dreading any knocks. Then he went completely off the deep end, stabbed himself, was apprehended in our parking and so on.... there's more to the story but it's not exciting at all, just horribly grim.

What struck me about the whole episode is how easy it is for people (like myself) to pretend nothing is wrong until it's too late and everything falls apart. In the case of a physical problem, if you see someone walking around with a massive untreated wound on their chest, you're likely to get involved. But with some severe mental illness, you try really hard not to see, not to hear, not to make eye contact, not to engage in any way. I mean, I think people with mental illness absolutely deserve privacy and independence and to be treated like the rational responsible adults that they usually are... but the extent to which serious signs can be ignored is really amazing.

After joining the Army, his “unusual beliefs” in his Black Raptor alter-ego resulted in his being referred for psychiatric evaluations three times. Ultimately, the beliefs came to be viewed by his mental health evaluators as a religion, of sorts, like Wicca.

The first evaluation took place during basic training. The second was at Fort Carson in November 2006, before Specialist Marko was deployed to Iraq in February 2007, when he was flagged for “symptoms of mental illness.” A psychiatrist diagnosed a “schizotypal personality disorder,” which “may or may not result in some ultimate functional incapacity in the military.”

Nevertheless, the psychiatrist cleared Specialist Marko for duty “without limitations, scheduled no follow-ups” and declared him “deployable.”

[...]

He told his superiors that he had joined the Army to “get combat experience — something that he viewed as important to his Black Raptor identity.”

Are all psychiatrists insane, or just the ones that work for the military?!?

It's Alright To Cry

I have a CD with some of the "Free to Be... You and Me" songs on it. The first time Sunny heard this song, he said, quite spontaneously, "Mom, this song could teach me something!"



It's all right to cry
Crying gets the sad out of you
It's all right to cry
It might make you feel better

Raindrops from your eyes
Washing all the mad out of you
Raindrops from your eyes
It's gonna make you feel better

It's all right to feel things
Though the feelings may be strange
Feelings are such real things
And they change and change and change

Sad 'n' grumpy, down in the dumpy
Snuggly, hugly, mean 'n' ugly
Sloppy, slappy, hoppy, happy
Change and change and change

It's all right to know
Feelings come and feelings go
It's all right to cry
It might make you feel better

{Spoken}
It's all right to cry, little boy
I know some big boys that cry too

A Little Humor

These last posts were so heavy I thought I'd lighten it up a bit.

This morning, as we left for school, I noticed Sunny's play shoes were looking pretty worn.

Me: "Looks like we need to buy you some new shoes."
Sunny: "Can we buy them at Target?"
Guy: "No, Target's too expensive. We'll get them at Payless."
Sunny: "Why is Target too expensive?"
Guy: "Because we're in an economic black hole."
Sunny: "Economic black hole, HAHAHAHAHA"
Guy: "Hey, that's not funny... (starts laughing too)"

It's great having a little kid around the house who always laughs at your jokes, even when you don't know you're making one.

My Cousin Has Taken a Turn for the Worse

My cousin (full back story here) has been doing really well. This Sunday she helped out with Sunny and seemed in a great mood.

Last night, she did not have dinner with us (and thus missed seeing Sunny's episode) because she had an "episode" at her friend's house. I don't want to go into any detail about it, but her episodes are not violent in any way or harmful to anyone except herself.

We could sort of see it coming. She'd been talking with her father. My mother and I have told her many times she has got to stop talking to her father.

There were some tickets for a sports team she really liked, playing in Atlanta. He was going with her brother (who doesn't care about sports) and an Industry buddy. Oh, but he just remembered she was a fan of that team. So did she want to go? He could tell the Industry buddy he was disinvited.

Typical evil manipulation. It might sound innocuous at first, but if you know him, it's all a scheme designed to make her feel like crap. First, that he didn't think enough of her to invite her in the first place... she was third in line behind his son and the Industry buddy (I happen to know this guy as well, and he's a total dickhead). Second, that he wanted to make her responsible for disinviting the Industry buddy. I doubt he would have even followed through with that promise, anyway. He's in love with playing power games and making his family jockey for positions in his favor.

One of her medications ran out recently, and since she's in between insurance, she has to pay out of pocket, then get reimbursed, but she didn't have the money. She asked her father for the money even though I begged her not to. He said he would pay, made her crawl for a bit, then forgot about the whole thing. My mother ended up loaning her the medication money.

It's hard for me to understand why my cousin still depends on him so much.

My mother says it's because their father -- our grandfather -- was such a very good and loving father. Everyone loved him and respected him and trusted him to do the right thing. And that my cousin thinks her own father should be the same way, but he's really the polar opposite.

But I never had a problem understanding that my father wasn't my grandfather. I realized from an early age that my father wasn't going to give me the emotional support I wanted from him, so I lowered my expectations. I tell my cousin she has to do the same, although her expectations need to go waaaaaay lower than I lowered mine. "You can have a relationship with your father later on when you get better, but right now, it's destroying you. You have got to stop talking to him. You have got to stop asking him for anything."

By the way, my cousin's mother is very sweet, very passive, very-Southern-very-lady, and long ago chose her husband over her children. My mother and I are friendly with her and, privately, have absolutely no respect for her.

My cousin is not a helpless victim in all this. She's made a lot of bad choices, especially in finances. When she moved in with my mother, we sat down together, I organized all her accounts, applied for a disability student loan deferment, told her to sell her car and cash in her 401(k), reallocated credit card limits, created a budget for her and forecast her disability income for several months in advance. She only followed about half of my written financial plan, and is badly in the hole now.

I can help her out but I can't live her life for her. On a few occasions when she starts getting depressed and talks about what a big disappointment she is to herself and everyone else, I just tell her to think about the future and work on the things that she can control and accommodate the things she can't control. Plan A didn't work? Go to Plan B. Plan B didn't work? Go to Plan C. I'd hoped to save her credit rating but that looks like it's impossible, so we need a different financial goal now.

I think the part of herself that's engaging in sabotage is the part that wants to be a princess. Princesses get everything they need financially handed to them, princesses get all the attention... all they have to do is submit to the arbitrary laws of some horrible narcissistic alpha male figure.

I'm so glad my mother is a feminist and raised me that way. This whole princess complex is inseparable from my cousin's mental illness. She screws up her finances, calls her dad for help she knows she's not going to get, he makes her crawl and rejects her, she has an episode.

Anyway, after the episode last night, she went for evaluation at the same institution that got her back on her feet. Of course they didn't admit her, because her insurance ran out. She'll be back at my mom's house later today.

The worst that could happen is that she kills herself. My mother has raised that possibility, although it's still unlikely. I'd be horribly upset, but I'd get over it. That sounds really callous, but I'm being honest. I know from experience that I'm tough in crisis situations. I've had a couple really traumatic incidents happen when I was younger, so terrible I have never even talked about them on this blog, and I know how I tend to react. I deal with them the way I have to deal with them.

What worried me now is how Sunny would react. He sees my cousin a couple times a week and really loves her.

I can't tell her "I'll kill you if you kill yourself because of how Sunny would feel" because that's just ridiculous. I know she already knows she has a lot of people that would be hurt.

There's not much we can do. I'm just going to keep offering the same advice without beating her over the head with it. I'll go over her finances again with her if she asks me to. I'm not going to ask her to babysit Sunny again (alone, that is). But I'm not going to cut them off, either.

Mixed Bag - Frightening Episode

Sunny did very well in school on Monday. Then Dad came home, and everything was great. However, we had a very disturbing episode at dinner.

While Guy unpacked, I took him to his tutor, who lives in Nana's neighborhood, and then we went over to Nana's house to have dinner.

At the end of dinner, Sunny pushed away his plate, said, "I'm outta here!" and got up. He wandered off about ten feet and then circled around.

That's totally unacceptable to do at the dinner table, and he knows that. He came back and sat down for a bit, but it was like something flipped in his mind. He became oppositional and verbally threatening. "I'm never coming to Nana's house again!" "I'm never talking to Mom again!" He started talking to himself, and when we asked him any questions, he told us to be quiet because he was busy talking to himself!

I didn't want to to cause another full-on meltdown right there, so we didn't do a time out. I just told him that because of his bad behavior at the table he lost the privilege of blowing out the candles after dinner, then we left.

In the car, he kept on backtalking. So I told him, "You really need to be honest about what you say. You can't just say angry words you don't mean. If you really want me not to to talk to you, I'll do that. We'll try it for this car ride back. I won't talk to you at all until we get back home."

He told me he didn't mean it. Then he called me a meanie, and said he wasn't ever going to talk to me again. He cried and was very upset for most of the ride back. He patted me on the shoulder a few times, and I patted him back and squeezed his hand, but I didn't say anything. He kept up a constant dialog with himself. At one point he sobbed, "I don't know why I'm doing this, I'm getting myself in trouble." Then he went back into "Mom is a meanie" mode for a few minutes.

When we got back home, I gave him a hug. He also got a hug from dad and a long talk about what just happened. He apologized.

Sunny said he missed his foster mom. Guy and I talked later, and I don't think that's what's behind all this. Sunny misses his foster mom a lot, and that's only natural. He's very expressive about that, he doesn't hide it in any way, and when he brings it up, we talk about it and offer to call her on the phone.

I tend to take Sunny at his word when he says "I don't know why I'm doing this."

My mother said she was very shocked at his behavior and had not seen anything like it before, especially the way he was talking to himself. It's almost as if there were two Sunnies. For example, at some points he was saying things like "leave me alone" or "don't talk to me" but he would move closer as he said "leave me alone", and he obviously wanted me to talk to him and got very upset when I didn't.

I think I handled it well in that I kept it from escalating. He got through the worst of it in the backseat of the car. I'm not sure if not talking to him was a good idea. But then again, if I had talked to him, it would probably have upset him just as much.

Afterwards, and then again in the morning, Sunny was his normal self again.

Maybe moving his medication half-dose to the morning helps him in school but hurts him at home.

We'll talk about this with the therapist. I'm up in the air as to how much of it is specifically adoption-related. He could be thinking that bad behavior might get him back to his foster family. But he seems pretty secure in his place in the family... and I tell him all the time that I love him no matter what his behavior. I know that "I'm going to push you away first because I'm scared you'll push me away" is a common theme but that just doesn't seem like it explains the episode, especially the strange dialog he was having. I do know that he was profoundly anxious, torn and confused during the episode.

Given what I know of Sunny's personality -- how expressive and articulate he is, how much he loves finding reasons for things -- it doesn't makes sense. Maybe this is something that no one has any control over, except on the chemical level.

I'm going back to reading about childhood bipolar. I said I was 99% sure he didn't have that, but now I feel more like 50/50. Maybe his medication was at the right dose, and now that it's at half strength, he's starting to have hypomanic episodes. If that's the case, he needs to go back on it, and soon. I want to talk to the therapist, and wait just a bit longer to see what develops.

We're also going to try putting him to bed at 8pm instead of 8:30, in case he needs more sleep.

ETA: I talked to our therapist. She told me it was probably a good idea not to talk to him in the car. Her take is that the episode was caused by too many emotions (from his complicated past) cycling back and forth. Sunny is good at expressing and naming his emotions, but if they come too fast, he loses that ability. She thinks the medication helps him handle those emotions, and supports putting him back on a full dose if necessary, until he grows up a little bit and gets more of an emotion vocabulary.

She also gave me a great specific recommendation: that we get a CD player for his room. He can choose which discs to play when he goes to bed and put them in himself. This will give him more control over his environment and help him practice how to calm himself down. I'm going to try that starting today.

We'll check in with her when we see her next weekend.

Home Stretch

Sunny still has a sore throat, but his energy level this morning seemed normal, so I took him to school.

This morning we averted a meltdown again. While I was preparing his breakfast and lunch I asked him to pause his dinosaur show so he could let our dog out, wait for him to finish peeing then let him back in again. This only takes a couple minutes and it's something he's used to doing when Guy's around.

Pouting and wailing ensued. I just went on cooking. Sunny walked into the kitchen and talked at my back...

"You're never nice to me! When I'm older, I'm going to a different house with different parents!"
"Well, I'm sorry you feel that way right now, but asking you to let the dog out is a very reasonable request."
"I disagree with that statement!"

That last one made me chuckle. I've told him to say "I disagree with that statement" as a politer way of saying "you're wrong," but he's really fallen in love with the phrase, and has been trying it out in all kinds of contexts.

I didn't get sucked into an argument with him; he walked away and let the dog out.

I think he's going to stop using the new "new parents" line once he realizes that it doesn't get results.

When he's not going into a pout or wanting to start a power struggle, Sunny has amazing manners. For example, in the car, I'd left a CD I bought for him running. I always listen to news and traffic reports in the morning, but I'd just forgotten to switch from the CD. He said, "Thank you Mom for playing my CD for me!"

Like a commenter noted on my last post, I know that Sunny is very strong-willed and is always going to be that way. It's an important point. I've known a lot of strong-willed people in my own family already, so I'm familiar with the type. It's not going to be easy raising him, but there are positives too. For example, I have a feeling that negative peer pressure won't be as much of a problem for us.

Guy will be back today... whoo hoo!

Much Better

Today was challenging, but went a lot better. I have another factor to add to the mix of medication decrease + dad gone: a possible cold.

I enlisted my cousin to help me out today, and that really worked out well. She has a ton of problems on her own plate, but she's always great with Sunny, has a wonderful sense of humor and can handle his moods. She's a take-charge, helping-out kind of person. Sometimes too much so... which is why she goes to Al-Anon meetings a gazillion times a week. But living with my mother and having short-term, limited responsibilities like taking care of Sunny for a few hours is really healthy for her and contributes to her recovery.

I was teaching Sunny and some other kids in the morning, and my cousin was our classroom helper. His behavior was not very good, so I really appreciated my cousin being there right next to him: she kept his behavior from interfering with the class so that I could focus on the logistics and the teaching. I've been teaching once every other week for a couple months now, and like his first grade teacher, I've also seen the change in behavior patterns and attention span. Of course he's not the only kid in that class who's difficult. The worst is a girl who shouldn't be in the class at all because she's too mature for her age. She acts like a bored teenager and always has a bad attitude about the activities. I wish we could put her in the next age up, since she would probably have a lot more fun that way.

Right at the end of class, after my cousin left, Sunny started really pushing buttons... I'd say, "kids, don't touch that furry cactus, you might get a spine stuck in your finger" and he'd run over and touch the cactus. I put my foot down and said that he knew that was bad behavior, and if he didn't stop it he wouldn't get any playground time. I was careful not to do anything else to escalate, like asking him to look me in the eyes.

He stopped acting up without any fuss at all. I think he just wanted to see where the boundary was.

He behaved well on the playground and didn't melt down when it was time to leave.

My cousin took care of him for three hours while I took a parenting break. I didn't goof off though... I used most of that time to do volunteer phone banking for the Jim Martin campaign. She did the rest of last week's homework with him, but for most of the time he actually just played at a friend's house (a neighbor of my mother). I love it when he goes over to see that friend, because her parents don't believe in video games either.

Afterwards, I was ready to take him home. Sunny got very upset and started crying and going into "mom's not being very nice to me" mode. He wanted to stay at Nana's house.

I was sitting at the foot of the stairs and I just told him very calmly that we couldn't stay, Nana was very busy, I wasn't going to move anywhere until he was ready to go. He sat in my lap and hugged me and cried some more. It seemed like he wasn't really mad about having to leave... it was something deeper, and he really needed to be held.

He lay there, and lay there, and went to sleep in my lap! It was really uncomfortable, but I kept holding him. About twenty minutes later, I carried him out to the car. I distracted him by talking about all the things we were going to do when we got home, and he was OK about getting into the car.

I have never seen Sunny take a single nap. He's not the napping kind.

Back home, we played a few games of Chutes & Ladders, then I cooked him dinner, and he ate his usual huge amount: as much as my portion, plus extra rice. Then he had fun helping me wash dishes and clean up. I congratulated him a lot for being a good helper.

Then we started watching Harry Potter. After about 40 minutes, he told me he was ready for bed. He said his throat was sore so I gave him a few teaspoons of heated honey. He got a lot of hugs, an extra hug for Dad not being there, and then went to bed quietly, with no angry meltdown at all the whole day.

I'd given him a lot of limited bedtime freedom of choice, like "do you want me to read you some Fantastic Four first, or should we call Dad first?

Throughout the day I also tried being proactive about disappointment. With most of his meltdowns this week, he had gotten into a pattern of asking me for something, hearing "no", then asking again and again and getting more and more frustrated and angry with each "no".

For example, he asked me if he could have candy after dinner tonight. I told him he couldn't. Then I asked him, "Later tonight, will you get mad if you ask again and I say no?" "No." I asked several variations of that question until he got irritated, then stopped. The irritation was a lot milder than the disappointment would have been later on. After dinner tonight, he didn't ask me for candy... bullet dodged.

I'm also not looking him in the eyes anymore when I tell him to do things or not to do things. I used to ask him to look at my eyes because of what someone told me in some parenting seminar. But I realize it's almost always counterproductive with Sunny, so I'm throwing that tip into the trash.

Thanks to everyone who commented on my last depressing post and added some perspective. I feel a lot better now.

My new worry is what to do if he's sick. Sunny never gets sick. Is it strange that he's been with us for six months and has never had any kind of cold or illness, except for one quickly-passing stomachache? This is new territory for me. I've already established a backup plan with my mother for what to do if he's too sick to go to school tomorrow, because I just can't miss a day at work during this time.

Falling asleep in my arms like that was strange... the needing holding part was understandable, but napping is so uncharacteristic of him. He also wanted to go to bed early tonight.

Political note: I'd just like to close with a vent about a woman I talked to today who voted for Obama but was undecided about whether or not to vote for Martin. Disregarding the fact that Chambliss is pure slime, splitting a ticket that way just doesn't make a single bit of sense. But she said she "wasn't going to vote for Martin just because Obama endorsed him".

I understand that a lot of people vote on personality instead of issue, but that way of thinking seems so alien to me. Why would an Obama supporter (especially one who was probably African-American) even consider voting for Chambliss, who represents a position on the issues completely opposite to the person you just voted for? It's like baking a cake, but at the last minute substituting a cup of salt for a cup of sugar. A cup of racist salt. Bizarre! I mean, a lot of Georgians split their tickets in the general election by voting for Martin but not for Obama, but that's somewhat more explainable.

Yet Another One -- I Feel Terrible

We had another meltdown. This one was the absolute worst because I saw how I could have easily stopped it.

Everything was going great. Sunny had just had his bath. Earlier, he'd asked for a mint, and I told him he could have one as long as his going-to-bed behavior was good. After this bath, I asked him to put his clothes in the hamper, put on his pajamas and brush his teeth. He asked if he could brush his teeth first. It's kind of cold, and we do things in a certain order at bedtime, so I told him that no, he really needed to put on his pajamas first.

(First mistake: I should have let it go).

He started yelling and stomping. I told him he had just lost his mint for good behavior (escalating: second mistake).

He ran up to me in the kitchen where I was, made a hitting motion at me and screamed "LEAVE ME ALONE!"

This really freaked me out. I suddenly had the idea that I couldn't leave him alone... he was acting this way because he needed me to hug and rock him (third mistake: I should have let him go and blow off steam for a bit). I followed him to his room. He tried to slam the door and I grabbed his arm to try to keep him from slamming the door (fourth mistake) and he kicked out at me.

I sat on his bed next to him for a bit, not saying anything, as he yelled and yelled and finally calmed down. The saddest thing he said was, "you're never nice and when I get older I'm going to walk to a different house".

After he calmed down, we worked it out. He apologized for losing control of his emotions and fake hitting me. I apologized for grabbing his arm. He said, "it's just that I miss (Foster Mom)". I tried to give him a lot of reassurance... we loved him no matter what, he could tell me what he felt, I was sad that all this happened but I wasn't mad at him. Then he needed a lot of hugging, and we went through the nightly ritual of explaining what we were going to do tomorrow and then the day after.

So I put him to sleep on a better note. Then I called my husband and we talked over it. Thank goodness he's going to be back from his trip in a couple days. I have got to pull it together and stop making these mistakes. I feel sick about it... and also feel like a terrible mom.

We decided to wait a week after Guy gets back, and if Sunny is still acting this volatile even when both of us are around, we're putting the medication back on full dose.

Another Meltdown

This morning, Sunny still had a few pages of his homework packet left to finish. We had a perfect storm condition.

1) Doing homework in the morning in a limited amount of time
2) Having me in particular asking him to do the homework
3) Doing a handwriting homework page
4) Dad being gone on his trip
5) No medication last night because we're switching to a dose in the morning instead

He yelled and cried and screamed and insulted ("Mom is mean and fat!") and threatened ("I'm never talking to Mom again because Mom is never nice to me!").

I know I'm neither mean nor am I overweight so the insults don't really bother me, but the whole situation just sucked.

He got a timeout. The further fallout is that he had to explain to his teacher that he didn't finish his homework because he chose to argue in the morning instead. He has lost his dessert privilege tonight and maybe tomorrow, unless he shows good behavior for the rest of today. He also needs to think about how to make up for insulting me, because he is not supposed to call people names when he gets frustrated. I also don't like him using "fat" as an insult but I'm not sure how to address that.

I have talked about this with my husband and mother before... I can't walk Sunny through his homework at all. It's just too emotionally charged for him. He has got to do it with Guy or someone else. We don't have these kinds of issues doing other stuff together.

Why Some Residency Restrictions on Sex Offenders can Backfire

I never thought about the issue of residency restrictions on sex offenders before reading this story, "Life in the Shadows." Like most everyone else, I thought sex offenders were scum who had to be kept away from children at all costs.

It's a bit more complicated than that.

In short, when she was 17, the woman from the story gave oral sex to a 15-year-old on school grounds. An insanely stupid teenage thing to do. But as a result, she ended up on the sex offender list. It's also very likely that her harsh punishment had something to do with the fact that she's white and the boy was black. Newly stringent laws on where sex offenders can live means that she can hardly live anywhere. She can't even go to college.

The article argues that strict residency restrictions 1) unduly punish people like that woman, who have almost no chance of offending again 2) drive worse sex offenders underground or off the radar so that they can't be tracked at all 3) do not protect children that much because only 10% of sexual abuse is committed by strangers.

The woman is facing eviction again today. I hope she wins her case and can finally begin her life.

Frustration and Medication

The most irritating thing in the world happened to me this morning.

I was driving a back route to get to work. As I was preparing to cross a railroad and make a left turn, I noticed two police cars with flashing lights at the gas station across from me.

I supposed they must have pulled someone over for speeding. No worries! I put on my left turn signal, then turned left.

One of the policemen walked in front of me and flagged me into the gas station.

"What did I do?"
"Didn't you see the sign there that says no left turn Monday through Friday 8 to 10AM?"
(Umm, of course not...)

As I waited for my ticket, I counted TWENTY OTHER CARS that carefully put on their left turn signals and did the EXACT SAME THING. I asked the policeman, "What's wrong with my car? Why did you pick ME? Why didn't you get any of those other people?" He just told me that he'd ticket all of them if he could. They were just ticketing to the gas station lot capacity (I wonder how the owner feels about that or if he's getting a cut somehow). I told him I was going to contest the ticket in court. The whole thing is nuts. I'm going to have to go back there and take photos from every angle showing how this supposed damn sign is impossible to notice.

In other news, I had a long talk with Sunny's teacher today. The news is not good. He's doing well academically only in areas that don't involve a lot of writing. Writing really frustrates him and it's almost impossible for him to focus on it. His handwriting has deteriorated in the last two weeks. His ability to not cause distractions during mat time has deteriorated. He has to sit on a chair away from the mat circle, and he has to have a sweater tied to that chair that he can manipulate with his hands. Otherwise he'll fidget and bump into other kids and roll around.

Several months ago, he was able to sit at the mat for fifteen minutes.

The teacher reminded me she now has twenty kids in her classroom and it's very hard sometimes because Sunny's episodes of emotional volatility take so much attention. He often gets frustrated, melts down and starts sobbing, and then a minute later runs over and hugs her and is instantly happy again.

We decided the next step was to move Sunny's daily medication dosage from night to morning, but keep it at the same amount. I know from his foster mom that his handwriting ability is very closely tied to his medication dosage.

The teacher knows my number one goal is to keep his medication as low as possible because the long-term side effects are so unknown.

I hope I don't have to raise it back again.

I also feel bad because I have not been able to do some of the stuff the therapist has advised us, like more art, and buying this certain recommended parenting book. We just haven't had time. We really need to make the time.

Nebraska Comment

This is a great comment from that thread I talked about yesterday. I'd really like to mark it here and think about it some more.

# with compassion says:
November 12th, 2008 at 12:44 am

I applaud this forum for the variety and thoughtfulness of opinions offered.

This particular law in Nebraska may need to be revised to accurately reflect its original intent to protect newborns and their mothers. However, the issue of desperate parents who see no other option than to give up their older children is not as isolated as we might wish to think, nor is it going away.

I am a mental health professional working in a state-funded program for teenagers who are beyond their parents' control and still living at home. At least once a week, I hear a parent say, "Have the state come get my child." It is ALWAYS startling to hear. Nearly all of these parents change their minds when they learn that they will face abandonment charges or risk losing their other children. Yet their real and daily struggle doesn’t go away.

In the best of circumstances, parents become actively engaged in treatment; with hard work, real change can be made and relief can be found. Yet too often, I see parents who are already exhausted and frustrated, hoping someone will simply "fix" their child. These are parents who know enough to ask for help and get their kid in a program, but who often turn down family therapy or fail to attend free parenting classes. Parental involvement in treatment is key to success. Some of these parents have physical ailments or mental health issues of their own. Some are single parents already working two jobs whose schedules make it difficult to do the work of family treatment, let alone monitor their child’s whereabouts and well-being. Now factor in that some have children who hit them, steal from them, run away, skip school, abuse drugs, bring strangers into their homes, or have innumerable other mental health or behavioral issues. These parents are demoralized, grief stricken and guilt stricken. Each family has its story and it is simply too easy to label "bad" parents and "bad" kids.

Now picture one of these kids getting pregnant…

A full solution would not just include effective laws, social programs and treatment, but also a reconsideration of how we as a society raise children. Even with treatment, struggling parents and children need extended family, friends, neighbors, and schools to take a real interest, and to offer support when one cannot do it alone. A frightened teen mom, a desperate parent of an out of control teen... how do we let this isolation occur? This is not just a matter for state agencies and law makers. It seems the best response would take place in multiple forums at multiple levels (legal, social, community, educational, family, individual, etc.), although the implementation is apparently not so simple.

I am left with the thought that we should not demonize others for their choices, shortcomings, struggles, or despair. I also agree that we have a society that dictates to everyone that they are supposed to parents yet often fails to address informed decision making about the responsibilities of parenting, or provide resources to those most in need. Sometimes even the best intentioned people find themselves in situations where there seem to be no options. Life does not always go according to plan. Do we alienate, leave it up to someone else, punish or help?

Another Veteran's Day Post

I first read about this at Angry Asian Man. What an incredible story!

For Veterans Day, CNN has a crazy story about four brothers who fought in World War II—two for the United States, two on the side of Japan: Veterans in focus: Brothers fighting brothers.

Safe Haven from a Non-Adoption Perspective

Here's a great discussion of Safe Haven (including Nebraska's variation) from a non-adoption perspective.

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2008/11/11/safe-haven/
Psych services are infamously unavailable to the under- and uninsured unless one is a ward of the state. And sometimes when a child becomes a ward of the state services are over-assigned, so families whose employers aren’t as flexible, who don’t have the money to subsidize sliding-scale services, and have existing priorities for other children in the family, find it exceedingly difficult to move toward a successful family reunion. Moreover, family services are starved for cash and their clients are made to feel ashamed for needing their services in the first place.

Should these laws be revised to remove eligibility for children of a certain age to be admitted by parents as wards of the state, or is it better that kids are safely leaving environments in which their parents feel unable to care for them?

I agree with the position that Safe Haven laws protecting anonymity are a sop to the most regressive elements of the adoption industry. Anonymity does not benefit abandoned children in any way. I totally disagree with it. But anonymity is not the only issue involved here, and it's almost beside the point when it comes to older children.

How should parents be punished for abandonment? The question isn't as easy as it sounds. Yes, ideally, they should be discouraged from abandonment by having services offered to them to help keep their children. But what if those services just aren't there, or can't help? You will eventually end up with some cases where parents forced to keep children will then abuse or neglect that child, and the child might end up in foster care anyway.

As some commenters have noted, people with money can abandon their children easily. They send them off to boarding school or residential treatment centers. The poor don't have that option.

A Veteran Issue

On this day I'd like to post a little bit about my stepfather's service.

He grew up in a very poor family, and many times, the only meat they ate was whatever he and his younger brother could shoot in the swamp. Their alcoholic father was pretty much useless in this regard. He grew up to be an amazing shot, because his life literally depended on it. Sometimes he'd see multiple cottonmouths (a poisonous and very aggressive snake, for those who don't know) swimming through the swamp towards him; he learned to pick them off with incredible precision.

He ran away from home at 15 and joined the merchant marines, then joined the Army during the Vietnam War. He was already a peace-loving hippie, but he didn't have any other way of making a living. They desperately wanted him to be a sniper. He bargained his way into being a medic. He never saw any military action; he spent the war stationed in South Korea, sewing up soldiers with non-critical wounds.

He had it easy. The stories he tells from that time involve wild parties, not bombings and ambushes.

Medics from that time used transfusion and vaccination processes that put them at high risk for contracting blood-borne diseases.

http://www.hcvadvocate.org/hcsp/articles/vietvet.html
Hepatitis C is a major problem in United States military veterans. In several studies of Veteran’s Affairs (VA) Medical Center patients, we find that 8-9% are positive for hepatitis C antibodies. Some VA Medical Centers had 10-20% of patients with hepatitis C antibodies.1,2 The highest rate of hepatitis C is found in the Vietnam era veterans.

Unfortunately, twenty years later, my stepfather began showing some symptoms and was diagnosed with Hep C. It's a strange disease... it can be asymptomatic for decades. It can also completely destroy your liver and kill you with very little warning. There is no reliable cure yet. I won't get too much into the details of Hepatitis C -- you can read more about it here -- but it has really hurt his quality of life in many different ways.

One of the first things I'm submitting to Change.gov, based on a form letter, is this request:

Dear President-Elect Obama:

I am writing to urge you to take a leadership role in the fight against the hepatitis C epidemic.

Hepatitis C is the most common blood-borne chronic viral infection in the United States. Once exposed, most individuals remain persistently infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV), with 70% developing chronic liver disease and its often life-threatening conditions. At least 4 million Americans currently have chronic hepatitis C, with 25,000 new infections occurring every year. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that the death rate from HCV-related liver disease will triple by the year 2019. No other disease burden is expected to increase as rapidly as that of hepatitis C in the coming decade.

Despite these staggering statistics, the federal government has not provided adequate funding or legislation to mount a comprehensive effort against the disease. Only $17 million is spent each year on viral hepatitis programs. This funding is not enough for states to provide testing, surveillance, prevention, and education services – let alone care and treatment for those in need.

My stepfather has lived with this disease for many years. He contracted it as a medic in the Vietnam War. He receives regular monitoring and treatment at a VA hospital, but his long-term future is frighteningly unknown.

I ask that you address this serious public health crisis in three ways:

-- Add language on your website about the hepatitis C epidemic and how you plan to address it.
-- Support a $50 million in Fiscal Year 2009 funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Viral Hepatitis Programs.
-- Support the "Hepatitis C Epidemic Control and Prevention Act," which would create a comprehensive effort by the federal government to address the epidemic.

Thank you for considering this request. I am counting on you, as our next President, to take leadership on this crucial issue.

Sincerely,
[atlasien]

And speaking of...

... Howard Dean, I just found out he'll be leaving as head of the DNC and hopefully moving on to even bigger and better things.

Here's a short tribute MP3. People made fun of him for this, but it all turned out right in the end. Hey YEAAAAAAARRRRGH!!!

"

Stop Me Before I Donate Again!

I just gave Obama another $50, blowing my carefully crafted budget for the month.

Yes, I know he already won. But this part of the email yanked open my purse strings:

The Democratic National Committee poured all of its resources into building our successful 50-state field program. And they played a crucial role in helping Barack win in unlikely states like North Carolina and Indiana. We even picked up an electoral vote in Nebraska.

The DNC took on considerable debt to make this happen.

Will you make a donation of $__ or more now to help the DNC pay for these efforts? You'll get a 2008 Victory T-shirt.

Not the T-shirt part (the official T-shirts are pretty boring) -- the 50-state part.

There are some Democrats I seriously dislike. One of them is Thomas Schaller, who had a media heyday in 2006 arguing that Democrats should give up the South. Another is Rahm Emanuel. Like many other lefty progressive Democrats, I think of Rahm Emanuel as sort of an Antichrist figure. It's really not that black and white, of course, but I do think he has been a very negative influence on the Democratic party. He's tied to the DLC and AIPAC, both organizations whose goals I disagree with, and he was very, very rude to Howard Dean.

After Obama hiring Emanuel to be his chief of staff, rumors started flying that the DNC was going to kill Dean's 50-state strategy. This latest email reassures me that Obama believes in the strategy, no matter what Emanuel's position is, and is going to give Dean his due. Good for Georgia, good for me.

Oddly enough, I was recently put in the position of defending Emanuel against a weird attack that questioned his loyalty to America because he'd served in the Israeli civil defense force and used to have dual citizenship. I argued very strongly that the accusation was anti-semitic and also personally insulting. I could have Japanese dual citizenship if I wanted to, and that doesn't mean I'm a potential traitor.

Post-Weekend Update

Sunny was very difficult this weekend. On Sunday morning, he showed some very bad sportsmanship and emotional volatility while playing a board game -- he called his Nana a cheater. The consequence was losing ALL games for the rest of the day, including the car-spotting game he's crazy about. The only time he wasn't difficult on Sunday was when we went on an outing (hiking up Stone Mountain) with two friends of his.

It was a lot of fun. I made my husband stop and buy a pack of sugar-free mints before we set out, and the mints worked like a charm to keep the kids safe and in line. "Don't run downhill like that, and I'll give you all one mint when we get to that tree over there." I know there's a lot of parenting experts out there would disapprove strongly... but bribery always gets results, so I love it.

The kids told the silliest knock-knock jokes on the way home.

"Knock knock." "Who's there?" "Chicken!" "Chicken who?" "CHICKEN I LOVE YOU!"

"Knock knock." "Who's there?" "Butt!" "Butt who?" "Butt Cheeks!"

"Knock knock." "Who's there?" "Butt!" "Butt who?" "Big fat butt with four butt cheeks and a banana split on top!"

Otherwise, though, Sunny was being a lot more clingy, oppositional, hyper and volatile than usual. I could barely even have him read at night, he would get so frustrated. Probably some of it was due to the changes in routine of last week. Ojiichan was here, the election was going on, and so forth. This week my dad just left for a while, and Guy will be out on a trip, so there'll be even more changes in routine.

On another note... I'm worried about Sunny's baby brother. I usually don't think about him much. I try not to. I have absolutely zero control over his situation at this point, that's why. But his foster mom recently told me he might have a certain medical condition that is very serious. She'll know more soon after some tests come back. It wouldn't affect our decision to adopt him if we can... but I feel really sad for the pain he may be experiencing now. He lost his mother when he was three weeks old, and he shouldn't have to suffer more.

Georgia Doctor Declares War on Employees

This is hilarious. Talk about class warfare.

WSAV.com
Dr. Karen Kim, the Pooler Pediatricts doctor who wrote a memo that went out to staff on Wednesday morning, declaring war on her employees, "Since slackers have declared war on me by electing evil incarnate as president and guaranteeing that our business will never again expand, I will respond by declaring my own war on slackers..." (you can read the first letter by clicking here) has resigned.

I've taken several classes on management, but they neglected to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of declaring war on your employees.

It reminds me of a restaurant job I had in college. One day, the Italian owner called us all into a special meeting. We sat around a round table, looking downwards. He silently glared at us for ten minutes. Then he suddenly banged his fists on the table and screamed, "WORKING WITH YOU PEOPLE I TELL YOU IS A NIGHTMARE! A NIIIIIGHHTMAAAARE!"

Morale failed to improve after the meeting.

The Next Steps

I'm coming down a bit from my political high.

I'm only now starting to get depressed about California's Prop 8 and the Arkansas "Screw Foster Kids" measure.

Arkansas Times: There are at any one time in Arkansas 3,700 kids needing foster care; there are only 1,000 eligible foster parents. Those who can't be placed in homes go to group homes or emergency shelters; many of those who are placed in foster care must make repeated moves because of a poor fit. Sixty percent of children in foster care in Arkansas are moved to three or more homes and some counties lack foster homes entirely, according to Jennifer Ferguson, deputy director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families.

Punishing gay people is a higher priority in Arkansas, just as protecting chickens is more important than gay rights in California.

I think we're on the right path now, but there's still a lot of work left to do.

OOOOOOBAAAAAMAAAAAAAA (celebration video)

We left Ojiichan to put Sunny to bed, then headed over to a sports bar in South Dekalb to watch the returns. I'd been there before for a voter registration meeting and knew it was big enough that we'd get a good space.

When we got there at 7:30pm, it was nearly empty, but it started filling up fast. My husband was rather unduly proud he was the only white guy there until I pointed out another one off in the corner.

I took some video, which turned out surprisingly well considering the low light setting and organ-massaging bass. The MC was hilarious. I didn't catch some of his best stuff on camera, like when he sang partisan messages on top of the choruses to Queen songs. I know that Obama is promising an end to partisan division, but the message hadn't reached the MC yet... at one point he asked if there were any McCain supporters in the audience, then threatened to set their hair on fire. All in good fun though!

Early in the night, a family with several young children ended up there... they'd just become homeless that night. The MC took up a collection for them, and they ended up with more several hundred dollars for temporary housing as well as four job offers.



The only low point was the agony of seeing Georgia called for McCain. What about all the work that we did? What the hell was wrong with Georgia, why did it tip so much more for McCain than the polls showed? Bradley effect? Arggh, I shouldn't even think about the Bradley effect, it's an evil term designed to drive Obama supporters crazy. And are we going to be stuck with that horrible Chambliss toad in the Senate?

I went to bed with that issue leaving a small stain on the overall tapestry of extraordinary happiness. This morning, my mother called me and told me that they hadn't counted the early voting in Georgia. As of Wednesday morning, the gap drastically narrowed. Martin still has a chance against Chambliss. YES!!!! Even if we lose Georgia, I'll know it was still a close race, and our efforts showed.