Last night we picked up Kiddo pretty late, so she had to basically come in and get ready for bed. Tiny was all wound up that Kiddo had arrived so by the time we had lights out both kids were still wound for sound.
I went into our bedroom and watched the last episode of Unorthodox (sooooo good!) and shut the door so didn’t hear anything further from their room. Seth went downstairs but kept hearing things like little thumping feet on the floor above. And giggling. And laughter.
So he went back upstairs and peered through the cracks in the door (shhhh, the kids don’t yet realize we can see through the closed door!) and saw Kiddo flailing around on the top bunk starkers except for undies (she’d gone to bed clothed) and popping something into her mouth. So he opened the door and asked what was in her mouth. “Gum,” was the answer. He held out his hand and Kiddo guiltily swept a candy pile out from under her pillow and handed it to him. Seth asked if she’d given some to Tiny and the answer was a guilty “yeaaaaah.” Tiny responded by chewing. He then held out his hand again for Kiddo to spit out the gum, but “gulp,” she swallowed it.
Seth came into our bedroom and closed the door behind him with hands full of candy and burst out laughing then described the scene to me. My reaction, between laughs? At least Kiddo was sharing! It’s a sign they were getting along!
Seth went back downstairs and I watched more of my show. Perhaps 20 minutes later Seth was back in the doorway of our bedroom, laughing again. “What now?” I asked. The two kids were still thick as thieves in there apparently. Kiddo had complained loudly enough to be heard over the baby monitor that Tiny kept saying her name over and over, so Seth had gone back up to check on things. This time he found Kiddo hanging over the top bunk talking to Tiny, still starkers, and Tiny giggling uncontrollably in the bottom bunk.
This time Seth bravely asked Kiddo why she was mostly naked, because really, it’s a good question. She replied “My girl parts got hot. You wouldn’t understand. You’re a guy.” He managed not to laugh long enough to give them a stern warning that it was time for sleep, and hastened from the room before the laughter got the best of him.
Things finally got quiet in there around 9:00, two full hours after bedtime, and after about 3 more visits from Seth. I figured (prayed) they would sleep in in the morning. I got up at my usual time of 5:30 and was chilling happily downstairs when 6:15 rolled around and suddenly I had two groggy kids staring at me. So much for sleeping in! They got up an hour earlier than usual! And so much for my morning solitude…
You need a room with a bed, a closet, and a dresser. That’s what the agency looks for and that’s how we started out. We had two room that had those basic accoutrements.
However, once you’ve been doing this gig for a while you start to accumulate stuff.
We started off with two twin beds.
Five years later we now also have two cribs, two toddler beds, and two pack and plays. The ones that are not in use are stashed haphazardly in our attic, frames, mattresses, and all. None of those, however, are useful for our new transition to having a teen (I hope!) and putting toddler and big kid in a room together, aside from one of the twin beds.
And the clothing? My God, the clothing. And the shoes.
When kids arrive, the county typically provides a voucher for clothing for the child. But any kid who’s been with us for a while has outgrown stuff that we’ve bought for them, and I always buy more than the vouchers cover anyway because the stores we can use the vouchers at have limited selections.
All the clothing that has been outgrown or donated to us is now in our attic in diaper boxes, all organized and waiting to be needed. And we do use it pretty regularly. Each time we get an emergency placement, we make sure that the child goes onto their next foster home with a few changes of clothing so that the next foster parents have some time before they have to go out with a voucher to get more clothing for them. (Emergency placements typically come in a onesie or a dress that’s two sizes too big, and with a pair of often out-of-season pjs the county has contributed. That’s it.) Plus, our own kids grow into sizes that we have stored up in the attic.
The hideous wall of kids clothing. It’s two layers deep at the bottom and spills over into adjoining cabinets too.
It’s all useful and organized but there’s no getting around the fact that we have an entire wall of our attic eave closets stuffed to the gills with diaper boxes of clothing. People often ask us if our kids need clothing but the little ones never really do because we’ve got so much stashed away.
Plus we have baby bottles up there in the attic because right now we don’t need them. And infant toys. And the basement has baby bath tubs and walkers that we don’t need right now.
Honestly, the amount of stuff we have is preposterous. And yet, we found ourselves needing MORE stuff now that we are opening up for a teenager and combining toddler and big kid into one room. How we didn’t have All The Things I don’t know, but we didn’t.
Seth and I have been on a major home clean out kick lately. We both can have some hoarding tendencies and we have been fighting them hard. During one of our quarantines, we went through room by room and got rid of a tremendous amount of stuff by throwing it away or donating it to various places. But there’s so much stuff that is related to foster care that we can’t get rid of because we will need it again. It’s a bit maddening honestly.
I wouldn’t mind so much if the attic were just storage. But it’s not. It’s also: my meditation nook, the home for two of our weirdest cats who refuse to come out of the attic, my sewing space, my fabric storage space, my art supplies storage space, and most importantly, my freaking home office. And my home office looks terrible as the background in video conferences because it’s so cluttered.
Not too bad aside from the cat scratching tree…Perpetually messy looking shelves behind meMy attic sidekick, Sneakers. She’s always next to me on my papers. She sets her chin on my wrist while I type and purrs until she gets all snotty and starts blowing nose bubbles. It’s disgusting. And she yowls constantly during video court hearings. And I love her.
I’m sure you are all familiar with the starfish story. There are lots of versions of the it. Here’s one I like:
One day, an old man was walking along a beach that was littered with thousands of starfish that had been washed ashore by the high tide during a storm. As he walked he came upon a young girl who was eagerly throwing the starfish back into the ocean, one by one.
Puzzled, the man looked at the girl and asked what she was doing. Without looking up from her task, the girl simply replied, “I’m saving these starfish, Sir”.
The old man chuckled aloud, “There are thousands of starfish and only one of you. What difference can you make?”
The girl picked up a starfish, looked at it briefly before gently tossing it into the water, and turning to the man, said, “I made a difference to that one!”
-Adapted from The Star Thrower by Loren Eiseley.
I think about this story all the time, and I have a penchant for starfish jewelry because of it.
I confess I often worry that by being a foster parent, I am complicit in a broken system that harms so many kids, and am helping to perpetuate it. I am part of the system, whether I like it or not. After all, the system only functions if it has homes to send kids to, so I am helping it function. And while I do my best to do right by the kids who come through my home, and our kids do thrive as much as they can given their pasts, I am not making big changes to the institution as a whole and wish I were. Should I be using my energy to lobby State government and the county legislature instead? Should I create a charity that benefits youth aging out of the foster care system instead? Sometimes I wonder about the options. I know I’m doing something I am good at but I am good at lots of things and could use my skills in other ways.
All I can hope is that I am the girl throwing starfish back into the water one by one, and not part of the (foster care system) storm that washed them all onto the beach in the first place.
I love the toddler years. I know there are people who think I’m nuts but what the body and brain are capable of in those years is remarkable and I love witnessing it.
For example, I’ve got a kid who will nibble and pick at food for three days, eating a couple bites at dinner and a few bites of a snack here and there, but not enough to sustain a bird. Then suddenly, she’ll sit down at lunch one day, eat an entire can of SpaghettiOs and 3/4 of a banana.
Like, where does it all GO? Her stomach must have shrunk over the previous few days but it all goes in there somehow. I swear this must be the origin of the “hollow leg” saying because it does seem like she must have shoveled it into a pocket or something.
I also love this phenomenon: She’ll get wicked cranky for a week, needing extra sleep and just being generally a miserable little whiny dissatisfied beast. We’ll say to each other something like “Lordie, I think she’s become a threenager several months early!”
Then one morning she’ll wake up and suddenly be speaking in full sentences while we look at each other incredulously. And then when dressing her I’ll find she grew an inch seemingly overnight. All in the legs. So the entire bottom half of her wardrobe suddenly doesn’t fit.
Toddler bodies and brains are incredible.
They’re also incredible in their ability to enjoy endless repetition. End. Less. We have now watched Frozen and Frozen II countless times. When we aren’t watching them we are listening to the soundtracks. Or talking about how Anna and Elsa are sisters. And how I’m Olaf and Tiny is Anna (I always argue that I’m Anna).
And then there’s the reading material. Bless Seth for his patience because he has read these two bedtime books about 400 times and there’s no end in sight.
Tiny’s brain is delighted with each book each time. No sign of fatigue yet. How?! Incredible.
Learning how to roll with foster care’s ups and downs is… well honestly not completely possible. I don’t think anyone can do it perfectly and if they can then I suspect they aren’t in foster care for the right reasons.
When Kiddo had been with us for about a year, we were told by her case worker that she would likely be going home to live with her Daddy at the next court date. That was the county’s plan. Dad had a stable apartment and job, a bedroom set up for Kiddo, and had been to every visit on time. He’d completed parenting classes. He’d done all the things the county had asked him to do. We had started having Kiddo spend Friday nights at his house and those overnights seemed to be going well. It looked like everything was on target.
So, wanting to prepare Kiddo for what was coming, we sat Kiddo down and talked about it. She was suuuuper excited to live with her Daddy, and together we bought totes and worked on packing up her toys and clothes assuming she would be moving right after court.
Well, the court date came. And Kiddo’s attorney bothered to read the file finally while waiting for the court case to be called, walked into the courtroom, and when asked for her input, announced that she wanted Dad to do a mental health evaluation and a drug screening before Kiddo went home. She had never mentioned this in previous court dates or called the county attorney ahead of time so these things could be done. She just finally asked for them when Kiddo’s things were packed and she was stoked to go live with her Daddy.
Kiddo and Seth snorgled together watching The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
We had the task of going home and talking to Kiddo about what had happened and telling her she wasn’t going home quite yet. Kiddo literally lived out of her Rubbermaid bins for weeks afterward, and refused to unpack. I don’t blame her. The kid was heartbroken.
Kiddo finally went to go live with her Daddy six months later, at the next court date.
I learned a lot from that incident. I never pack a child’s things ahead of court any more no matter how sure it looks that a child will be going home. I haven’t had older kids who ask when they’re going home since Kiddo but even little ones understand a great deal and deserve to be prepared in advance of monumental changes in their lives. But frankly it’s not really possible to keep kids prepared because it’s all about uncertainty.
A Gronckle in a basket
The uncertainty works in reverse as well. When we had Gronckle, the caseworker had identified a relative that he thought Gronckle should go home too. Gronckle’s attorney however had grave doubts about the suitability of the home and had a laundry list of things he wanted the relative to do before any return was considered. Having experienced the situation with Kiddo, I felt relatively sure that we had more time with Gronckle before he would be going to a relative, if he would go at all. So we walked into court one December morning, the county made its case, Gronckle’s attorney made his case, and the judge disregarded everything Gronckle’s attorney had to say. Ultimately, the judge ruled that the child was going to live with the relative he’d met once in his life the next day despite Gronckle’s attorney’s strenuous objections which he insisted on having read into the record.
I remember leaving the court room feeling like I had been turned into rubber. I wasn’t ready to lose Gronckle and had major major major reservations about the suitability of the relative. But it was done. There was nothing else we could do. I called into work and took the day off and went home and packed up Gronckle’s things. I had no choice.
Mouse
With Mouse, we met her parents when we picked Mouse up at the hospital that first day. They seemed like competent functional people. We’ve never been 100% certain Mouse should have even been in foster care – a doctor made a call and the system responded and it is what it is. We knew from day 1 that Mouse was going home.
Until one court date when the parents didn’t show up and the Judge told us to get an adoption attorney. Not kidding.
Thank god by then we had had Kiddo and Gronckle and knew to take everything with a grain of salt. It still got our hopes up but every time we felt those hopes we tried ruthlessly to quash them because we knew in our hearts that Mouse should go home. But it’s just another example of the way Court for foster kids can toy with your emotions and mess with your head.
I now approach court dates with great trepidation. You never know what will happen at them. I had gotten a feel for the different family court judges and at one point felt somewhat comfortable guessing which way they would rule, but we just had elections and there are all new judges now so I’m in the dark again. I’ve gotten better at polling the case worker and child’s attorney in advance to find out what they will be asking the judge for so I have more information going into court but it still feels like a bit of a free for all at times. We just have to live with it.
I can say that what I have learned as a foster parent deeply informs my practice as an attorney for the child. I am aware of what is going on in my cases long before court dates and try my best to communicate my position to the other attorneys in advance. I’m a work in progress but I don’t want to do what Kiddo’s attorney did, ever. Last minute surprises suck for all parties, especially for the kids. And after all, isn’t this supposed to be all about them?!
Everyone who reads this blog should know by now that I love being a foster parent. It’s not just something I do. It’s who I am.
We didn’t become foster parents until I was almost 40. Do I regret not having become foster parents sooner? Yes, yes I do. I sometimes think about all of the kids we could have known if we had started sooner. I wish we had.
But then again, the only reason we took Kiddo and Brother as a placement is because we were new and inexperienced and didn’t realize what we were getting ourselves into with them. Now, I would meet Brother as he was back then, and know immediately that he was beyond the scope of anything we could handle. And if we hadn’t met Kiddo and taken her as a placement? My heart breaks at the thought. I can’t imagine my life without having her as my “1st born” so to speak. So perhaps things worked out for the best.
I also think I needed a bunch of child free years in order to work through some of my own issues, and get my career going, and get some fun out of the way first. So probably it all worked out right.
The problem with not having started as a foster parent until almost 40 is that I’m getting older with each successive year (damnit, I haven’t figured out how to stop that yet!) and at some point we will be too old to keep up with toddlers. We are a foster to adopt home, which means that if a child who lives with us becomes freed for adoption we would most likely adopt them. I don’t want to be 80 at my child’s high school graduation. So there’s a limit as to how long will be able to do this. Kids need parents long after they turn 18 and I need to be around for any kids we might happen to adopt.
The teen we have been meeting with who may potentially live here is legally freed for adoption, but at 16 it would be entirely up to her whether she wants to be adopted or not. That’s the way it should be. Adoption should never be forced on a teen who doesn’t want it. After all, she had a first family and may just want to stop there. I’m curious how things will play out. We don’t even know if she will decide to live here yet, and if she does, whether she would ever want to be adopted. Even if she doesn’t want to be, we are happy to be her “forever family” so that she always has a place to go and people to support her.
So how much longer will we be foster parents? Seth is thinking about going into pediatric ICU as a nurse, or else labor and delivery. If he chooses PICU, it’s going to be incredibly emotionally taxing work and he is going to lose kids he grows close to. We both worry about whether he will burn out and be unable to keep loving and losing kids as a foster parent. I worry so much about that happening because I need to be a foster parent. I am absolutely not ready to be done with fostering yet. How long that will be the case for me I don’t know. I just know that right now being a foster parent is who I am and I’m not ready to quit.
Neither Seth nor I ever felt the drive to reproduce. Heaven only knows why we are wired that way, but we both are.
For me, a big part of it is the environment. I couldn’t bear to bring a child into this world and give him or her the legacy of a dying planet. That has been in my mind for many, many years. Since high school. Every time I thought about that I felt such an oppressive wave of guilt and sadness that I couldn’t get past it.
Then in my 30s I developed some medical issues that require me to take daily medications that are not compatible with pregnancy. Then I started taking antidepressants too, and I couldn’t see my way to going off my needed medications for pregnancy.
There was also the fact that the short period of time when I took oral contraceptives, I turned *evil*. Just ask Seth. It struck fear in his heart about what I’d be like when pregnant. HA!
Altogether, those factors led us to pursue Seth getting a vasectomy in his 30s and it’s not a decision we have ever regretted. It was hard for Seth to find a doctor who would even do a vasectomy on him that young when he hadn’t yet had children! That irritated both of us. I’m sure it would have been even worse if I’d wanted to get my tubes tied instead.
So how did we go from wanting to be childless to a life swimming in lots of kids?
I’ve mentioned before that Seth and I had always wanted to be foster parents. It’s legit something we talked about within the first weeks of our relationship. Just because I didn’t want to bring kids into the world didn’t mean I was anti-kids, just sure I didn’t want to birth any. Even so, there were long periods of time when I swore we would just be DINKs (Dual Income No Kids) and enjoy adult life.
But the world is a harsh place for someone as sensitive as I am, and for long periods of time I’ve felt overwhelmed and lost in all the grief and sadness and evil in the world. I remember discovering Glennon Doyle during a period of deep depression and reading one of her blog posts. One of her posts (I’m sorry, I can’t find it to link it here for the life of me) talked about how she was such a sensitive person that the only way she could leave addiction behind and come back to the world was to change the world. I felt that way intensely – the only way I could crawl out of depression and come back into the world was if I was going to use all my efforts and energies toward making the world a better place.
And that’s when I came back to the idea of foster parenting. I couldn’t change the whole world. I’m not a Glennon. But I could change a kid’s entire world, one or two kids at a time. And that was something. Something tangible and real, and something that would tax me. I needed to give of myself to the point where I could not give any more and then I would feel like at least I was giving all that I could toward making the world a better place.
So I brought up the old conversation about foster parenting “some day” and told Seth I thought perhaps the time was now. At first he said he wasn’t ready because we were still working on the house and wanted to “finish” redoing it before we took in kids. And we were both so busy with full time jobs at that point that it was hard to see how we could do it. But I pointed out that no time had yet felt “right” for it and I was convinced no time ever would – something would always be the one more thing we wanted to get done first – so we should just… dive in. To my delight and joy, Seth agreed.
When we began foster parenting our intent was just to foster. We filled out paperwork for adoption because we knew we didn’t want to disrupt a child’s life if they’d lived with us for a couple of years and then their parents’ rights were terminated. I’d never want to then say to a child “it’s been great knowing you but we don’t want to have you with us forever.” Adoption, though, wasn’t our goal. Being a soft safe place for kids to land when their worlds fell apart was our goal.
That said, that has shifted for me since we began this journey. It’s so hard for every kid we’ve loved to leave. Part of me wants a child to stay forever. But then, when I actually love an individual child I want what’s best for that child, which is to go home if at all possible. So I wind up feeling like a bad person for wanting a kid to have to stay with us forever because that means they would experience tremendous grief and loss about losing their first family for good. It’s something I wrestle with daily.
As much as I say I want to adopt a child someday, I am really struggling around Tiny’s future right now.
It’s unclear whether she will get to go home or not. Ultimately the decision on whether she goes home is not up to us. Not even a little bit. But I’m living with the uncertainty and worrying because that’s what I do.
When I’ve thought of adopting kids out of foster care I’ve always assumed it would be a cut and dry case where it was clear a child could not go back home. Unfortunately life isn’t black and white ever. Darnit. This is the grayest of cases.
How could we raise a child who has been separated from her culture and language and the family whom she loves? It’s a monumentally daunting idea. I know it happens but transracial adoption is a tricky thing. At some point she would likely feel she had lost a lot of her identity by being adopted out of her culture. And how could she cope with being separated from her siblings and her Mom?
I don’t want to lose this child I love so much but far more than that I want what is best for her. What’s best for her is going home… but it’s unclear if that is going to happen.
Morally I think we are tasked with seeing if there are additional things we can do to support her Mom to see if a return is possible. But that too is a daunting task because there are language and cultural and technological barriers to communicating with Tiny’s Mom. I know I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t try to do *something* but again, what that something is is a bit unclear, especially during a pandemic. Can we provide enough support to her family to make return happen and make it safe for the long term? I just don’t know.
I’ve been YouTubing lots of videos by adoptees and talking with adopted friends to find out how they feel about their adoptions and what things adoptive families can do to help kids feel ok about their situation. The adoptee experience varies so widely it’s incredible. Some adoptees literally wish they had been aborted rather than adopted. That just hurts my heart so much. Others are pretty comfortable with their experiences and happy for their loving adoptive families. And literally everything in between.
I’ve gathered a few things so far that are themes among transracial adoptees, in no particular order:
Talk About Race. Make it a daily conversation in the household. Make it clear it’s an open topic of discussion and hold space for the adoptee to bring up questions and talk about their experiences.
Talk about the adoption and make it clear the adoptee can have Big Feelings about adoption that aren’t warm and fuzzy. Hold space for their grief and loss and sadness and anger and let them feel it without burdening them with your own feelings of sadness that they feel the way they do.
Don’t “celebrate” the adoption in any way that makes the adoptee feel like they should be all happy about it.
Do everything possible to help kids understand and experience the culture they’ve been separated from. Cook the foods, provide opportunities to learn the language, provide opportunities to be a part of community cultural events, provide mentors, etc.
Provide opportunities for the adoptee to spend time with other adoptees so they have peers they can relate to. Interestingly, summer camps are apparently a great way to do this, especially if you can find one that is related to their culture of origin.
And perhaps most importantly, where possible, keep it an open adoption where there is still connection with the first family. Studies show that open adoptions tend to lead to better outcomes. As one YouTube adoptive parent put it: “People think that they own kids but I don’t believe that. We’re here to steward children. More love isn’t hurting anyone… you [have to be] humble enough to hear your child call someone else Mom or Dad.”
Here’s the video the quote comes from. Be prepared with tissues.
Whether it’s Tiny or another child, I need to be prepared to do my absolute best for an adopted child in case it ever happens. I’ll keep reading blogs and watching videos and seeking out the voices of adoptees to know what I can do to help an adopted child should we ever adopt.
Were you adopted? Are there things I got wrong in my list? Are there things I should add to my list? Please feel free to comment below if you would like! I want a longer bullet list of things we should do to help a child adopted out of foster care. Bring on the hard work! I’m ready for it.
Also, here are just a few other videos featuring the voices of adoptees:
By request, I’m going to tell the story of how Seth and I met and a bit more about our history. And I’m making Seth add his own commentary, against his will and better judgment.
After I graduated from Colby College, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I had worked in financial aid when I was an undergrad so college admissions seemed like an obvious choice. After a month of being back home with my parents I accepted a job in admissions at St Lawrence University in Canton, NY.
I worked there for a year and a half with this lady named Sara before I met her brother. I had seen him once before when he’d come to the admissions office, and I remember thinking he was cute and seemed like a sweet brother. One frozen December day, Sara and another admissions counselor went around the office rounding up people to go to a formal ball at the Remington Museum in Ogdensburg. Formal events were rare in the North County, and in college for that matter, but they’d been common during my year abroad at Oxford University and I’d missed them. I readily agreed to attend. I had my old Oxford formal attire still, which involved a slinky black satin dress, chunky heels, and a feather boa.
We gathered at the other counselor’s house that evening, and as we went to load up the cars to carpool up to Ogdensburg, Sara’s brother Seth drove up in a his little red BMW 318is and asked if anyone wanted to ride with him. I took one look at that sweet little ride and immediately volunteered.
Seth: I didn’t want to go to the event because I was afraid it would be like a prom for grown ups. I figured it would be stupid. And I didn’t want to get dressed up. I only went to the event because Sara told me Holly was going. I’d been harassing Sara for Holly’s phone number for months but she wouldn’t give it to me.
I don’t remember the drive, but I remember getting out of the car at the museum and commenting that I needed a moment before we went in because my garter had let go of my stocking. I remember his looking at me for a long moment when I said it.
Seth: I don’t entirely remember what went through my head at that moment but I generally remember thinking it was a good thing Holly was relaxed enough about something like that to say it out loud. It was a sign she felt comfortable with me, which made me happy. I also felt it was a good sign she would hike up her dress and fix her garter in the middle of the parking lot and didn’t get prissy about it.
The night is a bit of a blur honestly but I remember having a great time. There was heavy flirting, and I remember being surprised and thrilled that he returned my attentions. Frankly we got on like a house afire and didn’t run out of things to talk about for even a second. Toward the end of the evening, the topic came around to ice skating, and Seth asked if anyone wanted to go skating the following day. I love skating, and agreed in a heartbeat. I was surprised I was the only one who volunteered.
The next day Seth picked me up in that sweet, sweet ride, and we went to brunch, then went ice skating. I remember coming out to him at the skating rink while lacing up my skates, thinking I wanted to get it out of the way in the beginning because I saw relationship potential, but if he was going to have an issue with my also being attracted to women, I wanted to know up front. He was utterly unfazed.
Seth: When she came out to me I was like “well that’s cool.” It’s not unusual for people to tell me important things about themselves and I just was glad she felt comfortable telling me. And I figured she was more open minded than your average bear. The women I had dated up to that point were too wrapped up in being who they thought someone wanted them to be to be brave enough to announce something like that to me.
I think we spent every day together for the next month. We just talked and listened to music (he had good taste) and went for long drives and watched movies and just in general became fast friends.
But nothing happened. I wasn’t sure what his reticence meant. There was heavy flirting, but nothing more.
Seth: I didn’t kiss her because I didn’t trust my own judgement. I’d come out of a relationship with a cocaine addict who should have had her kids taken away by CPS who threatened to have me beat up when I broke up with her. My thought process was “clearly I’ve failed in every relationship I’ve had in some catastrophic way, so maybe I should start a relationship very differently than I did in the past. Maybe I should try starting a relationship where I ask questions first and f*** later, rather than the reverse.
Seth lived about a block from my house but after hanging out at his place late each night he’d always walk me home. Finally I just grabbed his coat by the lapels one evening and laid one on him. He kissed back. Quite nicely I might add! I remember closing the door to my house behind me and leaning my back against it and sighing in excitement and relief and sheer smittenness.
Seth: I just walked home and was like “well, that happened!” Honestly if she hadn’t kissed me it could have been another month or more before I made a move. That’s how much I trusted myself. I was having a blast with this girl and was not going to screw it up by rushing things.
I remember spending the New Year with him – it was Y2K – and even though I’d only known Seth for a month, I knew that if the world was going to end in an apocalyptic technological meltdown, I wanted to be with Seth for it. That was a bit of a let down. The Y2K part, not the relationship part!
When my lease was up in June, I gave up my adorable first apartment and we moved in together with Seth’s cat into this crappy basement apartment in a building with no foundation, and infested with mice and rats. Hooo boy was it a winner! Ha! At least the cat loved the endless rodent hunting.
Around the same time I met Seth I had started to apply to law schools and got accepted to some top tier schools. I chose Cornell because they gave me a scholarship, but I wasn’t ready to leave Seth or move far away with him yet. So I postponed law school for a year to stay with Seth and keep working for my amazing boss at St Lawrence for another year. I really did love that job. Cornell agreed to hold my admission and scholarship for a year.
By the time that year was up, Seth was ready to follow me to Ithaca. It was a HUGE ask of him because he was manager of a bike shop in Canton and loved that job, and would have trouble finding good work in Ithaca. His family was in the North Country too but his parents were moving around the same time to Charlotte NC. Follow me he did.
Seth: Following Holly was a brave and daring thing, especially for me. I had two options: move to Charlotte with my parents or follow Holly to Cornell. I never considered staying in the North Country. I loved the bike shop but I knew I needed to leave. I needed something more. The adult in me recognized I should get more experience in life. At that point I was way past the longest relationship I’d ever had so I thought there was really good potential for this relationship. Charlotte would have been the end of it. So I went to Ithaca.
We’d been in Ithaca for about a year and a half, and had our first dog, when Seth proposed. We’re both kids at heart and loved Legos, so I had gotten us a Lego Advent Calendar that year. I remember his waking me up early one Saturday morning, which was unusual, and asking me to open that day on the Advent Calendar. Pre-coffee, I duly opened the day, and sat staring and blinking at a satin ring box and a gorgeous green gold diamond ring from our favorite jeweler, Micky Roof. It took long ticking seconds for the gears in my brain to catch up and realize what was happening!
Seth: I knew she was going to say yes but I wanted the whole thing to go as planned so I was very nervous. I was very proud of my sneakiness in breaking into the advent calendar. I’d melted the hot glue that sealed it with a hot saucepan and carefully slid out the box to take out the gift for the day and slid in the ring box. Then heated the saucepan again to reseal it.
We decided to have a small actual wedding rather than elope because we figured his mother would hate me forever if we eloped. Ha! Ah well. She’s never liked me much regardless of our having a wedding for her. If I had to do it again I’d get the same dress (I loooooved my dress – my mother-in-law didn’t) and elope and have a vacation instead of a wedding.
The day itself was quirky really. Some of the key guests arrived nearly an hour late (they’re Austins. It’s a thing). They hadn’t turned on heat in the chapel yet (it was mid October) and it was about 55 in there. The instruments of the musicians who came to play a commissioned piece for us were so cold they were out of tune. One of my bridesmaids (with whom I no longer speak – I got rid of her toxicity a number of years ago now) was in a sulk all day and barely smiled for photos. One of the guests who was a friend of Seth’s turned out to be terribly jealous I was marrying him and smashed cake in his face and then puked out the front door of the venue because she was so wasted. The woman who ran the B&B where we had our reception was… odd… and turned up in a lot of photos. The man we borrowed an antique car for the day from turned out to be a bit of an asshat.
Seth: Oh god. The day started off raining. And then yeah. People were late. I remember my groomsman giving me grief about “who organized this thing” because it was chaos. But when you add my uncle and his family and my sisters to the mix, all bets are off. It still blows my mind they didn’t turn the heat on in the chapel. And then there was Jeannette. She was drunk when we got to the reception. And then in classic style of my life it’s my wedding day and my reception and I have to leave in the middle of my reception to return the car to this asshole who decided he needed his car back immediately despite telling us to take our time. It’s not like he gave me a Ferrari 430. It was a 1970s diesel Mercedes. It was barely a classic car. But we powered through.
But on the other hand it was a really lovely ceremony in Sage Chapel at Cornell and you couldn’t get a more beautiful spot for a wedding than that. I to this day still adore the Micky Roof rings we got. And we did have family and my friends there – from law school, from my year abroad, and from high school – whose presence I really cherished. And most importantly, WE GOT MARRIED!
About 10 years after our first Remington Museum Gala, Seth and I went back to it again. We traveled up there from Syracuse. While we were there we told the director of the museum and some other folks that we had met there 10 years earlier and word got around the event. We wound up being sort of celebrities at the event for a few more successive years, and our story was even published in a North County newspaper at one point. Sadly, they stopped having the formal ball in December and now have a more laid-back harvest event each September that we haven’t been to. It’s just not quite the same. But we have a lot of beautiful photos and memories of that Remington Museum Gala.
We’ve now been together for 21 years and married for 17. We’ve had a few bumps in the road along the way where we’ve grown apart and had to work hard to get back to the camaraderie and companionship we love. Therapy – a recurring theme in this blog – has helped a few times. We drive each other bananas in a few ways. My ADHD makes Seth nuuuuuts and my depression has at times been quite cumbersome when it’s been active. And Seth sometimes bottles things up and refuses to talk about them and builds up resentments, or he has a “the grass is always greener” approach to commitment that can be problematic. We are a work in progress like every other relationship ever. Covid has taken a toll in that we haven’t had date nights and can’t safely schedule them, so romance has been on the back burner a bit. But that said, we also survived 14 days in quarantine and got along great while spending the time cleaning, which I don’t think most couples could do.
Seth: I think that pretty well sums things up. I think it’s good for people to see things aren’t perfect so they know they’re not alone. People sometimes look at other couples and think everything is perfect so it’s good to pull back the curtain and show some warts too. Shit sucks sometimes and we’re real human beings and we get mad at each other like any other couple.
But I love the man from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else, especially on this crazy foster parenting ride we are on. Seth is an amazing father. He’s still sexy and funny and loving and still has (mostly) good taste in music.
Seth: What’s wrong with my taste in music?
Me: You blew a set of speakers on Celine Dion.
Seth: That’s good music! And your taste in TV shows is extremely questionable.
Me: HA! Ok I agree with you there. I watch some absolute crap… but “Hoarders” inspires me to clean.
Seth: Dr Phil???!
Me: Hahaha! Ok, you’ve really kind of got me there.
Kiddo has been with us for 5+ years, which means she’s been here for all the other foster kids we’ve had. In fact, she’s been here when we picked up Mouse and PB&J from the hospital and got dragged along for the ride. It’s really weird to have a placement arrive and not have Kiddo happen to be here with us at the time.
So how do the kids get along? Is Kiddo a good big sibling?
For the most part yes. But she’s a 9 year old with a lot of behavioral challenges so it’s mostly good, peppered with a bit of my saying her name in exasperation and reminding her, for example, that Tiny is only two years old and needs to be treated accordingly.
Kiddo loves Tiny and they get along really really well much of the time, so long as Tiny is in the mood to be bossed around. Kiddo loved Mouse too. And absolutely adored Gronckle – who lived with us while Kiddo did – who would happily roughhouse with her and could hold his own. Those two would get into fits of wrestling and shrieking laughter that would rattle the house. They broke an antique lamp and a variety of other things playing. And while I miss the lamp I was mostly just happy they loved each other so much.
Kiddo and Gronckle
Kiddo refers to the kids as her sisters and brothers a lot of the time. But not Jelly. Oooooh Lordie did she hate Jelly! She liked PB but Jelly got on Kiddo’s nerves like nothing on earth. Jelly was extremely “spicy” and autonomous. She had Attitude with a capital A. She never really bonded with Seth and me and I think Kiddo sensed that. She also could not be bossed around and Kiddo didn’t like that. Kiddo would play with PB and tell Jelly off and tell her she didn’t like her. Jelly was unfazed.
We did try to convince Kiddo to be nicer to Jelly but never pushed her to “like” Jelly. Personalities being what they are, there was no hope of that. Moreover I want to respect Kiddo’s right to decide who she does and doesn’t like or love. We are very conscientious about never telling Kiddo she has to “love” anybody because love is a complex thing even when abuse and neglect are not involved. We don’t tell her she “has to” love her Daddy or her grandmothers or anybody else. All we tried to do was teach Kiddo to be as fair to Jelly as possible and not antagonize her and we left it at that.
Our being active foster parents is hard on Kiddo. On the one hand she really enjoys having other kids to play with at our house. But it’s hard for Kiddo, just like it’s hard for us, when kids she loves go home. We talk a lot about the kids who have been with us because Kiddo seems to need that. I told her when I’d run into Mouse’s mom and could report that Mouse was doing well, and Kiddo seemed to like hearing that news.
Kiddo and her Mouse
It’s also hard for Kiddo to anticipate other kids coming to our house in the future. She has announced at various times that she’s not willing to share her room with anyone other than Tiny, and also that she’ll share her room only if we have another littler girl (which would be the case regardless).
Kiddo is also anxious about the potential teenager and has said that she “won’t call her her sister” like she does Tiny. I told her that’s quite ok. She’s also asked if she can go into her old room to use the desk when the teen arrives and I told her she’ll have to negotiate that with the teen. She gave me a big dramatic sigh and said “it’s not like I’m going to go in there when she’s naked or anything.” I had to suppress a laugh. And bought Kiddo a lap desk for good measure.
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