a thought, a prayer

Tragically a child died yesterday, he was not a child I was ever lucky enough to know well, I met him once or twice in passing, (he was friends with a dear friends children) but a beautiful young man he was. His name was Nicolas and after a long battle with cancer he died yesterday. A community of children is mourning his death and I hope that wherever you are you could say a prayer for his family and for his friends who are struggling to understand why it is that children have to die.

Blogging

It's odd this blogging thing. When it started I was in Asia, I was single, I was teaching, I was pretty carefree. Someone on the Knitty boards sent me to Brainylady because she was in Taipei and I was moving there. I thought blogging would be great and so I started. It was a travel blog of sorts with lots of teaching stuff and some ranting about living abroad. Occasionally there was knitting, not so much knitting but some. I started to meet some other bloggers and got involved with some swaps... it was fun since I was overseas and lonely and candy deprived. I discovered that bloggers came and went and that was just the way that it was. I met some people live and in person early on, I have met many more since and others I still only know virtually (that's enough links for me!). Not to mention all the local knitting pals who also blog.

It's hard to explain to people who don't blog what it is like to develop friendships virtually and then have them move into live and person friendships. Early on in the blog thing I found/met MamaCate, she had a friend blogging on her account, that friend lived in Ottawa, that friend wanted to go to Rhinebeck in the fall of 2005 and so did I. I called her, offered her and her daughter a ride and the rest is history. That friend has become one of the nearest and dearest that I have, she and her partner have bought a farm minutes away from ours and I am over the moon excited at the thought of them being that near by.

In a world where so many people live so far away from there families, building friendships that are like family has become very important. It is amazing to me that blogging has led to those relationships in my life. I have struggled lately with the whole blogging thing and talked about it a bit here but I have worked out for myself where the boundaries need to be for me and my family and decided that I am going to stick with it. After all it has led to great friendships and if that is the only reason I do then that is reason enough for me.

look at this

I'm here again, I think I have my groove back (even if I still don't really have a working K on my keyboard), it just took a awhile to find it and decided where on earth I was taking my blog.

So this morning I rolled myself out of bed at 7:05 ready to go make cookies for P to take to work with him ( he feeds kids cookies every Tuesday) and I walk down the stairs in house where everyone is still sleeping, I love it here in those moments, and the cold hits me like a wall. WTF, it should not be this cold in here. I wander over to the thermostat and it is a whopping 9.5 degrees in my house - lucky us since it is -25 or so outside 9.5 is almost balmy, right. So I start trouble shooting in an attempt to make the heat go on, even though what I really want is a cup of coffee. I changed the batteries, reprogrammed the time after changing the batteries, fiddled with the settings and still no luck! Grrr I really need coffee and I must make cookies. So I paused - breathed and decided there was nothing to do at 7:10, except, perhaps make coffee.

So coffee was brewing, cookies were baking and I came back upstairs to rouse the boys and fill P in on the status of the very cold house. We decided the furnace was indeed broken and that someone would have to be called, so I got the boys going, got the dogs out and started looking for a furnace guy. I like to do business with people we know and so I called last family that the boys lived with because he is a furnace guy, but he doesn't do oil... he knows someone though, can't find his number, he'll call back. It is now almost 8, boys are making a nuisance of themselves because the broken furnace has meant a change in our morning routine, after a change in our evening last night because P had to work late, and thus behaviour is not quite up to the norm, there was much silliness and arguing going on because I left them alone in the kitchen for 4 minutes while I tried to find someone to fix the furnace.

Buddy calls me back with the other Buddies number and I call him, we are a little far for him but given that he doesn't have any other calls today he'll come now. Great except that today is Family Literacy Day and Fudge's teacher asked me to come in and read to his class, so I had to call and reschedule that so I could be home for the furnace guy. Meanwhile the boys are continuing to drive me insane because I dared to do something other then give them my undivided attention. Calvin needs his Zoobat mask from Halloween so he can be his favourite book character for school and it can't be found anywhere. Do children ever learn that telling mom you need something 5 minutes before you need it is not a good plan? And that it most likely will not be found in the time provided.

The boys finally got ready, without the mask, and in Calvin's case almost without a lunch as they are responsible for packing their bags in the morning. I shoved them out the door with P, only to hear later that in the 10 minutes in takes to get to school Fudge hit Calvin and pitched a bit of a fit about not getting to listen to the CD he wanted because it is in my car, not Dad's.

Then I sat down with that coffee I had made earlier and waited for the very nice furnace man. He came, he cleaned an electrode, he charged me 160 bucks and he left. He was a very nice man but it took him 10 minutes and it cost me 160 bucks, all he used was screwdriver and a rag.

Amazing. I think I made the wrong career choice

Remember that you're perfect,

Remember that you're perfect, God makes no mistakes - Welcome to Wherever You Are by Bon Jovi

As I was looking through adoption blogs this morning I stumbled across one that is written by a girl who has Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD)* and writes a blog about adjusting to her adoptive family and her attempt to be a regular kid. She has one of those music players (I usually find them very annoying) but it was playing Bon Jovi and I could handle that so I left it on and sometimes listening to a song at just the right time makes all the difference.

Welcome to Wherever You Are sort of sums up the last 6 months of my life, well not just mine but ours as a family. Becoming a parent has been a struggle, a struggle that I can't even begin to explain on many levels. However the biggest challenge has been trying to teach Fudge and Calvin that this is the last stop on the train, that no matter what we are the forever family that everyone promised them for so long. That in itself creates issues for the kids and then when you add in the first 7 years of their lives it is no wonder that we are all struggling. But it is a good struggle and every now and then I step back and look at how things are going and gives me hope that we are all going to make it through.

It's hard though, these aren't regular kids and being their parent isn't the same as being the parent of kids who you have raised from birth ( adopted or bio) because so many adults have messed up with these ones. The boys have learned to care only about themselves ( and occasionally one another) because caring about other people means that you are going to be hurt when they leave you or make you leave. And the struggle to teach them to care extends beyond just family but to friends, schoolmates, pets and even possessions. And often what works one day to deal with rage, an argument or tantrum will not work the next - gotta be creative and consistent at all times.

All that being said it is where we are right now and in week we will be a different place and 6 months from now it will be different again. It's a good challenge.

* my kids don't have RAD but I found reading J.'s blogs fascinating, a bit like climbing inside Calvin's head some days and hearing it from his perspective.

me again

DSCF0232
Originally uploaded by bagknitter

Two things – this is a porcupine in our front yard and the K is not really working on my keyboard so you may notice it missing on occasion!

Things around here have settled into the organized chaos that I think is my life with children. We are getting back into routines after the chaos was that 6 weeks of Christmas (we celebrate twice). My parents came for Christmas 2.0 in January and then stayed for the boys baptism. It was a good visit and Fudge and Calvin really enjoyed having grandparents to spoil them and take them places that I would not normally go.

The rest of our life is busy but good and as I settle into routines, again this is one of the routines that I need to get back into. I was motivated to blog today because I heard some news yesterday from a dear friend and I was thrilled. Nevertheless, since she has not blogged about it yet and it is not my news to share I can’t really say anything. I was hoping perhaps she may have posted about but she hasn’t so I’ll keep my mouth shut for now (I do have a great post in my head about it when I can share it).

There is some knitting going on, a little (very little bit of spinning) some dreaming about the garden, some moving of furniture and reorganizing some spaces and a lot of laundry. It amazes me the amount of laundry that 2 small boys produce!

I’ll take some pictures of the knitting soon and be back.

PS - the boys have been here for 6 months today - amazing huh