Does it really matter?

The word adoption is used interchangeably for the adding of a dog or a child to a family, for taking care of a highway by picking up the trash (adopt-a-highway) or enacting a piece of legislation. Over at Don’t We Look Alike, Luanne suggested a new word be created specifically for the adoption of a child to elevate it to a separate and distinct status.  I agree and here’s why.

I’ve heard it said too many times that adoptive families are overly sensitive about the words used when it comes to talking about adoption. The reason for this is simple. We’re trying to ensure our children feel secure in their families and that they belong. When adoption is used to describe things unrelated to human family formation it undermines the validity of the adoption of a child.

About four years ago we decided, due to intense pressure from the children, that we needed a dog. We went to the local humane society, made friends with a handsome fellow, brought him home and in less than two days discovered we had an animal who didn’t like my husband or any other man. We couldn’t keep him.

When we broke the news that he was going back to the animal shelter one of our children said “But we adopted him! It’s like you’re giving one of us back.”

So don’t tell me language doesn’t matter. Don’t tell me that adoptees don’t care. Don’t tell me that people know the difference and that it’s all a matter of context.

Still not sure what all the fuss is about? Here’s an illustration to help you understand.

5 easy steps to adopting a pet

1. Contact an adoption facilitator.

2. Start a homestudy, find a licensed adoption practitioner (social worker) who will interview you and deem you adequate enough to proceed through the bureaucratic approval process and do the following:

• meet with the social worker for approximately 15 hours
• approach 5 friends and family members to provide written references
• obtain local and RCMP police clearances
• demonstrate adequate financial resources
• demonstrate good health
• complete a provincially sanctioned, 27 hour adoption parenting preparation course
• obtain provincial approval to proceed with your adoption

3. Pay fees to adoption facilitator, social worker and other agencies involved in the process.

4. Wait, minimally one year and possibly never, for a match.

5. Congratulations! You receive your pet – maybe.

Photo credit: “This Mummy Loves” blog

Knitting in the register – with apologies to Charles Dickens

Yellow Gauntlets pattern-Weekly photo challenge

I’m no Madame Defarge. There’s no way on earth I could possibly devise a cipher that would allow me to keep track of misdemeanours in my knitting, yet that’s exactly what she did.

“Are you sure,” asked Jacques Two, of Defarge, “that no embarrassment can arise from our manner of keeping the register? Without doubt it is safe, for no one beyond ourselves can decipher it; but shall we always be able to decipher it—or, I ought to say, will she?

“Jacques,” returned Defarge, drawing himself up, “if madame my wife undertook to keep the register in her memory alone, she would not lose a word of it—not a syllable of it. Knitted, in her own stitches and her own symbols, it will always be as plain to her as the sun. Confide in Madame Defarge. It would be easier for the weakest poltroon that lives, to erase himself from existence, than to erase one letter of his name or crimes from the knitted register of Madame Defarge.”*

Knitting patterns frequently flummox me. Though I am beyond the beginner stage I often make mistakes in my projects because I have incorrectly read the squiggles and wiggles that form a written pattern and which look like Braille. Here’s an example of a simple necklace pattern I recently undertook. Then re-undertook. Then re-re-undertook again.

Row 1: (RS) Knit.

Row 2: K1, yf, *k5, slip 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th sts one at a time over 1st st and off needle, yf, repeat from * until last st, knit 1.

Row 3: P1. *[p1, yon, kB1] into next st, p1, repeat from * to end.

Row 4: K2, kB1, *k3, kB1, repeat from * until last 2 sts, k2.

R0w 5: Knit.

Row 6: K2tog to end.

Row 7: *P2tog, yo, repeat from * until 2 sts remain, p2tog.

Row 8: K2tog to end.

Row 9: Purl.

Row 10: Knit and loosely BO, do not cut yarn.

This is what it was supposed to look like.

Here’s how it turned out. It looks like it might fit around my dog’s neck rather than the friend I had intended to give it to.

Knitting does not come easily to me. Like parenting, it is reshaping my character and with practice I’m becoming a patient woman. This would undoubtedly cause my mother to snort in shock were she alive to witness her daughter’s transformation from an impatient, cranky child to a somewhat calmer, slightly sweeter tempered adult who knits.

At my request, mom made many valiant efforts to teach me to knit. She would pull her needles out like an archer selecting the best arrow, finding ones she thought would suit me. Looking into her stash, which was stored in an old, intricately carved camphorwood chest from China, I chose the brightest yarn I could find for my swatch.  It was a treasure chest filled with beautiful fibre jewels in all kinds of shapes and textures.

Opening the chest was to be surrounded in scent.  As I selected a gorgeous ball of wool for the lesson, I lifted it to my nose to inhale the distinctive fragrance. Every sweater she made for me was camphor infused.  When I was away at university, care packages from home would arrive at my boarding house far away on the opposite coast of Canada. Instantly I knew what was inside because I could smell it through the brown paper wrapped cardboard box.

My mother was an ace knitter. I still have several sweaters she made for me. They are garment heirlooms that have accompanied me throughout my life. The scent is no longer there but something better remains: the memories of the knitter and where the sweater and I have been. Is that a register? It may very well be.

*From A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Cherry tree

Reblogged from Menomama3's Blog:

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The back deck is my favourite place to relax. It's small and overlooks our postage stamp size back yard. It is surrounded by trees and sitting there on a warm summer evening I feel like I’m in a treehouse.

When my oldest was a baby we were given a cherry tree. Yes, it’s kind of a cliché but it was a thoughtful one because of the many gifts we were given leading up to her adoption it is the one that endures.

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The cherry tree is in full bloom. It is an annual reminder of the joy that came along with it 18 years ago.

Awks*

Anyone out there have teenagers or teenagers at heart in their lives? You may have noted the truncated lexicon of young folk these days. They like to shorten words hitherto I would have thought were unshortenable.  (That’s not a word either, but in the context of this brief note, who cares?)  For instance, I posted on Facebook about a fun evening I’d had with the hubster. A friend replied “Deets, please.” Huh? Deets? I thought deet was a toxic bug repellant but it’s not. Translated, it means “Details, please.”  Obvy, Menomama.

Then there’s the whole abbreviation thing. That is, the carrying of texting short-forms into spoken conversation. One of my kids likes to say “RN”. The first time she said it when I asked her to take out the garbage I thought she was expressing a career aspiration. “RN?” was her reply. Any guesses? Right now.   “Yup, RN”, I replied.

Awks is not the plural of a species of extinct bird (Yes, I know its spelled auks. Again, forgive me and my license with language). And no, you have not inadvertently wandered into the land of 23thorns for a detailed description of a strange lowveld creature. “Awks” is awkward. I feel quite awks about accepting an award or two bestowed upon me by a fellow blogger, Phoenix Flights, as they both require that I acknowledge bloggers I admire/follow/read. As the parent of three teens, working mom, knitter, and intermittent writer I have an embarrassing (wonder what the short form of that would be – emby?) admission. I don’t read a lot of other blogs. (Head hanging in shame.)

In my unfocussed meandering (mandy) I’ve come across blogging snobbery (snoggery or blobbery –take your pick) towards so-called blogger awards. These are sniggering folk who eschew what are termed “award chain letters”. Yeah, yeah. I know, they’re not REAL awards but they are lovely compliments and all compliments should be acknowledged (acked).

I thank with all my heart the funny, sometimes bitter, twisted, blunt, and depressive blogger Ms. Phoenix Flights for passing along two compliments in the form of the “Dragon’s Loyalty Award” and “Inspiring Blogger” award. Her profane, honest musings about her current state of affairs often affect me deeply and, ironically, make me LOL.

Thank you, Missus.

*Warning: This is a blogging insider post referring to the goings on in the labyrinthine vastness of blogdom. Further caution: It’s about random acts of blogging kindness.

Bed dread or diary of a sleep slut

There was a time when I was a champion sleeper. Narcoleptics knocked at my door to bask in my sleepy shadow. Insomniacs sought my counsel and sleep-deprived parents begged me for tips to soothe both them and their wakeful youngsters. I could sleep anywhere: standing up on a bus, driving in the car, or travelling in an airplane. I was a sleep master.

Then I became a parent to a child who refused to sleep. At bedtime she would hang on to her crib like an angry inmate and shake and wail and bang her bottle on the bars until one of her parents arrived to release her from the tiny prison. Songs were sung. Stories read. Bottle fed. Light dimmed.  Gentle, silent lifting into the crib and on touchdown – WAAAAAH!

From the age of 12 to 24 months sleep for all of us was in 2 hour segments interspersed with several adrenalin pumping wake up wails. Sleep deprivation was my depraved lover, always hovering close by, making me crazy, and clouding my brain. I desired nothing more than the consummation of bed and body in blissful slumber.

By the time baby was three years old we had a bedtime routine so complicated and lengthy that I gave up evening hobbies to settle the child. Songs continued and there was a set repertoire. If one was missed or sung out of order there was scolding like a regular patron in an Irish pub demanding his nightly version of “Black Velvet Band”.  Books were chosen, at least four. Disney tales with glorious images were among the favourites, Cinderella being the most favoured. I would nod out frequently and be jabbed in the ribs with a tiny, pointy index finger and a squeaky-voice commanding “Mommy! Wake up!” If Hypnos was feeling jolly, darling child would drift off halfway through book four. Then my task was to become a deboned human and snake-like slither off the bed, slide across the bedroom floor, carefully avoiding the squeaky floorboards and tiptoe downstairs.

I reckon it was seven years before I got a solid night sleep again. Just as I was getting back in my sleep groove along came menopause. Now the wake-up calls come in the form of heat, like someone is making a campfire under the bed.  If I was exercising and sweating as much as I do at night lying perfectly still, I’d be skinny. Anyone who sweats that much surely must be participating in vigorous sport, no?  No, apparently not.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling wicked, I cling to my sleeping husband who lies cooly beside me, unaware of his hot wife. I’m like a life size hot-water bottle diffusing heat to the cold and weary. I wish I felt that beneficent but really I just like to shock him awake so he can share the experience. For better or worse, right?

Weekly photo challenge: Up

When down is up

Hasn’t everyone dreamt about flying?  Freely soaring through the silent clouds.  Looking down on the world. The perfect and abstract world viewed from shivering height. Cares and worries absorbed into the vastness. There’s a reason heaven is up.

I’m getting ready to launch myself. The puddle is a portal to the sky and I’m going to dive into it.

1…

2…

3…

GO!

The "F" factor

Reblogged from Menomama3's Blog:

“Why did you adopt me you were already old?” our daughter asked one night at dinner. Thinking a moment before answering, I tried to understand what her question was really about. I asked what she thought younger parents would do that we weren’t doing. Middle child chimed in saying “Live longer, for one thing.” Everyone burst into laughter at her sharp wit.

Read more… 435 more words

A tale from the Menomama3 vault. Not much has changed except we're all a year older.