Painting Chef – Cheaper Than Therapy

It was about the time I found myself bent over the sink in the bathroom at work, re-washing part of my hair because the oatmeal I’d just dropped in it was threatening to harden into glue and I’d only made things works and stickier and smear-ier by first trying to address the situation with only a paper towel that I started to wonder if I was really as grown up at 35 as maybe I should be.

Let’s be honest here. I’m trying to be a parent. And not just ANY parent. A foster parent. Which, if I think about and squint a little and turn my head just so, is kind of like a person who thinks they are a SUPER parent. I am decidedly NOT a super parent. Super parents have things like baby wipes. Because baby wipes clean everything. I’ve watched one of my super parent best friends clean up a puddle of bloody mary mix from white carpet using only a baby wipe. And I’m pretty sure she whipped up a batch of cupcakes with her spare hand at the same time because when you are armed with baby wipes, cleaning bloody mary mix out of white carpet is so mundane.

For the record… I was in the corner mainlining vodka and hyperventilating because the white carpet was on my in-laws’ boat.

Super parents have Neosporin for cuts and don’t have to have another adult bandage their knees when they cut themselves shaving or pull out their splinters. And they don’t cry when someone pours hydrogen peroxide on their boo-boos. Or… you know… call them boo-boos when there isn’t anyone under the age of 5 present.

Super parents have things like clean laundry. I am currently wearing the dress that was on the top of the pile of clothes I keep thrown over the footboard of my bead, a location Patrick has not-so-fondly dubbed my “satellite closet” because I overslept and only barely managed to remember to brush my teeth this morning. Said dress is also sporting a new oatmeal stain although I’m pretty sure my hair keeps it hidden.

Except that I’m not grown up enough to fix my hair that I refuse to cut into a more responsible length so it will undoubtedly end up piled on top of my head within the next hour. (UPDATE… yes. By the time I hit “publish”, my hair was, indeed, all up on top of my head.) Because I also noticed that I’m overdue for a haircut and the ends are looking a wee bit mangled. I briefly considered cutting the oatmeal out of my hair this morning for no other reason than maybe it would be the kick in the ass I needed to get said haircut.

Super parents deal with their laundry. There are clean clothes in my dryer. They have been there for a week. Sometimes I run the dryer again to try and de-wrinkle them but only so I can get one thing out and wear it. At this point, I’m thinking it would be easier to just wash them all again.

Also? My bra straps are killing me today. Why you may ask? Well. It was gorgeous outside yesterday so after Patrick and dined on our fine gourmet lunch of McDonald’s chicken wraps and sweet tea (at 2:00 in the afternoon because I forgot that lunch was a thing and was just so full from the doughnuts we’d had for breakfast) I pulled on my favorite strapless lounging dress (from my satellite closet) and plopped my happy ass down on the deck yesterday and sat outside in the glorious sunshine and read a book. For three hours. With no sunscreen. And I now have what I’m certain can only be referred to as the “Irresponsible person in a strapless dress with a kindle” tan. Notice the lack of “super parent” in that description.

My dinner beverage of choice is ginger ale and orange juice and I have actually turned down a glass of wine in favor of this.

I still get chin zits.

I ran my freshly charged cell phone battery all the way down Saturday morning playing Candy Crush while lying in bed and watching 90210.

I passed over the lovely and adult Nars lipstick for something with Hello Kitty on the tube this morning. But not until I got to work because I’m incapable of getting up in time to put on makeup at home.

On Friday morning, it was pouring the rain and when I took Archie outside before work, he peed on the front porch instead of getting his feet wet. I praised his ingenuity.

Oh sure, I’ll tell you we’re having fish tacos for dinner but in all honesty, they are beer batter fish sticks wrapped in a tortilla with maybe some cheese and sour cream. IF I remember to get tortillas. And there is a 40% chance that we will have macaroni and cheese with them. (actually… maybe this one makes me MORE prepared for parenthood…)

I can’t be trusted to make the adult decision on a regular basis. I will tell you this though… I married a man who both embraces that and trumps me when need be. I’m not sure I’m ready to be a mom, I’m not sure I’ll ever really be the adult. If I know it’s going to work in my favor, I have no qualms pulling out the pout or the mope.

It’s high time someone sat me down and said QUIT THAT SHIT. Because I’m CAPABLE of being the adult. I think this might be the worst part. I know the right things to do. I know what choices I should be making… it’s just that sometimes? I’d rather go get frozen yogurt at 10 pm in my pajamas.

The good news is that I married a guy who does floors, is well practiced at putting on band-aids and knows the right time to look at me and say… “Hey… maybe you want to put on pants before we leave the house?”

Two classes down. That’s 25% of the way through if you do those sorts of math things. Which I don’t. But I married an engineer so everything is math-y. Awesome.

I have some Thoughts so far. (And I’m trying so hard to keep some sort of journal about this process. I think it’s going to move so quickly that I’m afraid of forgetting something.)

First and foremost. I know we’ve all got emotional whiplash from my ever changing opinions on motherhood and parenting and being a parent and HOLY CAT CRAP LADY people have the babies every single day so just shut the hell up and move on. But… I kind of feel like I can exhale and just say “Yes. This. THIS is the way this is all supposed to happen for me. It makes sense.” Try as hard as I might have in the past, I just couldn’t really put my finger on why none of it seemed right until now. The fertility treatments (which… holy credit card bills and savings-drain batman… I sure as hell could have put THAT money to better use), the adoption chatter, the embryo adoption project… none of it felt right. I wasn’t behind it 100% and maybe I ended up sabotaging the effectiveness, I have no idea. But the contentment and the confidence I feel for fostering, I can’t explain it. Other to just say… Yes. This.

This past week we really learned exactly how the juvenile justice system and DCS (Department of Children’s Services… I actually have FOUR PAGES of acronyms to learn. For my next trick, I shall run NASA.) work together and what the process of placing children in foster care entails. The ultimate goal is reunification of families. I feel like I’ve come to a place where I can spit that out before anything else. And I get it, I really do. Everyone involved (a team that will include me and Patrick) wants the birth parents to address and remedy the situations that resulted in their children being removed from the home. But that is a process that involves a court approved “Permanency Plan” with a great deal of oversight by both social workers and the court.

But I think what surprised me the most about it is just how much contact there can, and SHOULD, be between birth parents and foster parents. I understand the reasoning behind and I get that staying in contact with the children is a good motivator for birth parents to keep on track and address their issues. I can’t lie though… it still scares me a little. For me it is a fear of safety. Do I want the person whose child is living with me to know where I live? Probably not. This is not a person who is going to be the president of my fan club. And I kind of live out where “nobody can hear you scream.”

I feel like an ass jumping to the worst possible conclusion but let’s be honest… we all do it, right? I mean, I’m certain that all this supervised visitation isn’t going to be happening in my living room or anything but is it really that difficult to have a friend follow someone home?

Ugh… do I just read too many books and watch too many Lifetime movies? Let’s say yes. And then just remember to be extra careful… right?

The main thing is this though… so far, so good. I’m still excited and encouraged and confident that this is our path.

When we first started our classes, I mentioned it on Facebook and Patrick got kind of upset with me about it. He had been under the impression that we were going to quietly do this but I have never done anything quietly. Then the most wonderful thing started happening. I started getting emails and texts and Facebook messages from people who were involved in the foster care system in one way or another and it was so wonderful. Hearing from people who had been there or who worked with foster children or foster parents in some capacity was so encouraging.

So I showed Patrick these emails and messages and was like… LOOK. THIS is why I don’t do things quietly. You may not need this sweetie, but I do. I had no idea that we knew so many people with so much knowledge about something that we are just learning. This is huge and helpful and we need to not ignore this.

And he got it. Or he just smiled and patted me sweetly on the head while seeking treatment for sprained eyeballs. I guess I’ll never know…

I dyed my hair red last night. Under the instruction and watchful eyes of Lindsey all the way in Texas, this Tennessee lamb became a redhead. (Country music reference! It was a country music reference! The only one you will ever get. Enjoy it and pass me some effing Nirvana so I can cleanse my soul.) I learned a couple of things…

1. Despite the best of intentions… red hair dye kind of makes your bathroom look like a murder scene.
2. Despite the best of intentions… red hair dye kind of finds its way into every nook and cranny in your ears everything, IN YOUR EVERYTHING.
3. It is damn near impossible to take a decent self portrait on your crappy camera phone in your house at night.

That said… here is an attempt with me and my office chair right this second…

It’s RED! In an auburn kind of way. It’s a VERY noticeable change. Even though nobody but my husband (who hid from the entire process in the living room yelling at the tv) has noticed. I’m okay with that because I work with a whole bunch of men. I doubt the would notice if I showed up with a pink Mohawk.

Not that I’ve ever considered it… I swear.

I’ve always done this though. I have to make one change when dealing with another. And tonight Patrick and I start our foster parenting classes. I’m terrified and excited and a million other things that I can’t even put my finger on. I so desperately WANT this to be the right path for us. I hope that this is the way for us to finally grow our family. We are already a family, me, Patrick and the four furry children who run our house and crowd our bed. But there is room for more and there are so many children who need a safe place and a warm hug and people on their side.

So as we start this… I guess I figured what the hell… maybe that safe and loving parent is a redhead. Right?

Welcome ladies and… gentleman! I see a gentleman!

(Name that movie and win my undying love)

Ahem… as I was saying… welcome. It’s time for the latest chapter in the never-ending saga of “Susannah and Patrick just want a baby, OMG universe why do you hate us so much?”

So. I tried. I tried so hard to get on board with embryo adoption. I tried and tried to rationalize to myself. To you. To myself again. And each time I failed. I can’t do it. As much as I want to be pregnant, I just can’t. I’m sure it has something to do with my VERY passionate and uncompromising pro-choice position and how that contrasts with the roots of the embryo adoption “thing” but something about it just… it doesn’t sit right with me. But I think there is more to it than that… Maybe I haven’t felt myself pulled towards adoption as a “mission” per say, but I don’t feel right choosing something that feels incredibly selfish and all about me-me-me when there are so many children who already exist in non-frozen form who NEED a home. Maybe they need our home.

At the same time, in my wildly over-thought navel-gazing manner, I’m terrified of adopting a child. Public, private, domestic, international, stork-kidnapping or cabbage patch-raiding. It all overwhelms me. The feeeelings keep me up at night and have even kept me from fully relaxing for my last few pedicures. So damn. Shit must be real.

We go back and forth. We change our minds daily. We plan expensive home renovations requiring loans and demolition and possible temporary relocation while the back of our house is missing only to scrap them when we decide that hey… maybe we should pay off the boat first. All as a distraction.

We try and tell ourselves that maybe it isn’t supposed to be our thing. Maybe we’re just meant to be the most kick ass aunt and uncle that ever aunt-ed and uncle-ed. We write the whole thing off, try and plan a vacation instead. And then we finally make a decision that, for the first time, doesn’t keep us both up at night whispering until 2 am. We are able to sit down and know that there is a plan and that it is finally something that feels like more than just a thought… it feels like… a calling? A mission?

I don’t know. Here is what I DO know.

In 2 weeks, Patrick and I will begin the process to be foster parents. We still hope to eventually adopt if the right situation comes along. But in the meantime, until that situation presents itself, we have a lot of love to give. We have a peaceful and healing home. We have puppies who want, more than anything, warm laps and lots of hugs. We have arms to hug, ears to listen and hearts to love. Whether we are in a child’s life for days, weeks, months, or hopefully, the rest of their lives, we can make a difference.

I don’t want to turn this into a “foster mommy” blog. I imagine that there are rules about that anyway. But as we go through the training, I will probably talk about that more than just about anything else (and let’s be honest… saying anything at all is few and far between in these parts lately). I’m nervous and I’m unsure of what to expect. But for the first time in a long, long time, I’m not scared. I feel like this is the right direction.

For the first time in quite a while, I don’t’ feel like I’m drowning in a fog with no clue which way is up. It’s like someone has grabbed my shoulders, turned me just slightly, and given me a gentle shove in a direction. So I’m grabbing Patrick’s hand and walking that way without looking back.

Shit. Let’s just be honest. I’m pointing in a direction and them jumping on his back because we all know that Patrick is the quiet, constant strength in this equation. Without him, without his love and patience and acceptance of whatever our future is supposed to be, I’d fall on my face every. damn. time.

There was a brief moment this afternoon where someone was trying to give me a baby. A little three month girl whose mother was overwhelmed and had made a very difficult decision to give her up for adoption. For a few minutes today, I thought it was possible that I could find a way to have a child soon…

And then I realized that I was in no way ready for adoption, we don’t even have a home study done. Of course, even if this woman was dying to give me her child, I would have had to say no. (This was all second hand and probably one of those things that would have ended up being a fiasco although I did, later on, learn that the child in question had gone to her adoptive home on Monday and information was just a little slow to travel… very unusual for the South, I assure you…) Reality. That bitch.

So as I’m sitting here in the aftermath of a VERY emotional couple of hours, I kind of had an epiphany… I’m dragging my feet because of the overall impending judgment of it all. Home study. Background checks. Letters to people I may never meet. Waiting and waiting and waiting.

I thought infertility treatments were going to be hard. I can tell you right now, that shit was a cakewalk compared to even THINKING about adoption. Infertility treatments depended on me and Patrick and a doctor. I didn’t have to plead my case to a third party. Or a fourth or a fifth. It was all step A then B then C and cross your fingers.

But now I am paralyzed with fear. I can’t even bring myself to READ the paperwork because the thought of opening up my life and my home and my marriage to the judgment of someone else renders me speechless. What are they looking for? What do they want to find? Am I going to look like the type of person who will buy shoes before diapers? Because I’m NOT… I’ve just… never had to make that decision.

I’ve fallen more times than I can remember. And no matter how hard I try, I can’t convince myself that it isn’t the falls they are looking for. They want to see how well I got up and how it changed me for the better. Because I DID get up. Every damn time. And I’m not perfect. But I like who I am… most of the time. I’m messy. I’m difficult. I’m sometimes selfish and I always take things too personally. But I did a lot of work to get here.

It’s just that, until now, I never feared it not being enough…