Today's Delancey Place

I subscribe to a few daily email services of various types of information. Delancey Place is usually at least mildly interesting and sometimes fascinating. I thought today's entry was good, and want to share it with you. There is a link at the end to the Delancey Place home page, where you can find out more about it and subscribe if you'd like.

In today's excerpt--black and green tea:
"The earliest unambiguous reference to tea is from the first century BCE, some twenty-six centuries after Shen Nung's supposed discovery of tea. Having started out as an obscure medicinal and religious beverage, tea first seems to have become a domestic drink in China around this time. ...
"Tea is first mentioned [as an import from China] in European reports from the region in the 1550s. ... The first tea was green tea, the kind that had always been consumed by the Chinese. Black tea, which is made by allowing the newly picked green leaves to oxidize by leaving them overnight, only appeared during the Ming dynasty; its origins are a mystery. It came to be regarded by the Chinese as suitable only for consumption by foreigners and eventually dominated exports to Europe. Clueless as to the origins of tea, Europeans wrongly assumed green and black tea were two entirely different botanical species. ...
"Tea got its start [in England] when it became fashionable at the English court following the marriage in 1662 of Charles II to Catherine of Braganza, daughter of King John IV of Portugal. Her enormous dowry included the Portuguese trading posts of Tangier and Bombay, ... a fortune in gold, and a chest of tea. Catherine was a devoted tea drinker and brought the custom with her. ...
"It is not too much exaggeration to say that almost nobody in Britain drank tea at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and nearly everybody did at the end of it. Official imports grew from six tons in 1699 to eleven thousand tons a century later, and the price of a pound of tea was one-twentieth of the price at the beginning. ... [Consumption was actually greater than imports would indicate because of] the widespread practice of adulteration, the stretching of tea by mixing it with ash and willow leaves, sawdust, flowers, and more dubious substances--even sheep's dung, according to one account--often colored and disguised using chemical dyes. Tea was adulterated in one way or another at almost every stage along the chain from leaf to cup. ... Black tea became more popular, partly because it was more durable than green tea on long voyages, but also as a side effect of this adulteration. Many of the chemicals used to make fake green tea were poisonous, whereas black tea was safer, even when adulterated. As black tea started to displace the smoother, less bitter green tea, the addition of sugar and milk helped to make it more palatable."
Tom Standage, A History of the World in Six Glasses, Walker, Copyright 2005 by Tom Standage, pp. 178, 185-189.

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What's happening on the bus

As most of you know I drive a special needs school bus. There are two students in wheelchairs on my roster, and about half a dozen other kids with varying degrees of learning disabilities and behavior problems. Most of the special needs buses in our district have another adult on the bus to assist with the students. They are called bus monitors.

No, not that kind of monitor!

For most of the school year last year I had an elderly gentleman as my bus monitor. He and I got along just fine when it was just the two of us on the bus. I did not like the way he dealt with the children, though, and he would get into a screaming match with me in front of the students if I suggested to him that he should ease up on the kids. He was ridiculously strict. He was a grumpy old man. He left the bus toward the end of the year, sometime in April I think. Things went so much better after he left. I began to enjoy my job once I was on the bus alone (well, me and the students, of course)



The boss has been making some noises recently about placing another monitor on my bus. He and I have discussed it a few times over the past two years. He knows my preference, but he also knows I am flexible. A couple of weeks ago he brought it up again, and I told him I was fine without a monitor, but if he wanted or needed to assign a monitor, then that's OK, too.



So he did. Last week I got a new monitor. He's a fella just a couple years older than me, who loves kids and has a very friendly disposition. He was driving a bus, but had some health issues come up in December and can't drive for a while. The boss wanted to give him some work, so I have a new monitor. I thought about mentioning it on here last week, but just didn't want to yet.



He is much nicer to work with than the old grump. He's pleasant. He likes to work and has been sweeping the bus out regularly, which is nice (and something I don't do as often as I should).



But frankly I'd rather be alone. This guy talks too much. And just today he was telling me about Valentimes Day and the heat that escapes from a chimbly. Ugh. I can be kind of a snob when it comes to English usage, and I try to be patient and not get upset. This guy is sitting in the seat right behind me chattering away about all manner of things. Using poor grammar and usage and pronunciation. And he misuses the word "which." Which if he says it once more, a small part of my brain will begin to deteriorate. Which he was telling me about some car problems he's having. Which which which. Which Witch? At least he doesn't have any speech impediments, like just about every kid on the bus does.

Last Friday I casually mentioned that I had a few friends that I've meet online, and it came up in the conversation that many (most) of you are gay. I didn't purposely bring it up, and I forget now what the context was. But I was thinking it might be time to spring the "gay thing" on him. He took it pretty well. He's a good ol' boy, likes to hunt, and races cars on a dirt track. I wasn't sure how he would react to the information that I am involved with homosexuals and gay rights and all.

Today it came up in the conversation that there are two young gay men living in our house. We were able to have a reasonable discussion about that. He admitted he feels uncomfortable around someone he knows is gay, but doesn't have any specific gripes against homosexuality in general. I was able to tell him a few things that the general homophobic community doesn't know, like it isn't a choice, and homosexuals have a lot more similarities than differences with the general population. And that most of the problems gays and lesbians face today are a direct result of homophobia. I feel it was a good conversation. I am satisfied that I've said my peace.

But I still wish I was alone on the bus.

South Carolina makes progress in LGBT Civil Rights

Shocking, I know

Good news out of Columbia, South Carolina!

Columbia SC Passes Trans Rights Bill
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: March 5, 2008 - 5:00 pm ET
(Columbia, South Carolina) Columbia, South Carolina on Wednesday became the first municipality in the state to enact laws protecting gays and transgendereds.
City Council voted unanimously to pass the ordinances prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in housing and public accommodations.
“We have passed one of the most comprehensive bills in the country, in one of the most conservative states in the country," said C. Ray Drew, Executive Director of South Carolina Equality, which pressed for the laws. "South Carolina, and states like ours, represents the front lines of our battle for LGBT civil rights in this country.”
The legislation was introduced by council members Daniel Rickenmann and Tameika Isaac Devine. It passed with little debate.
"When we work together and respect each other, we can make Columbia an even better place to live,” Rickenmann and Isaac Devine said in a statement following the vote.
Columbia now joins two other cities in the Deep South that have passed comprehensive anti-discrimination ordinances: New Orleans and Atlanta.
Harriet Hancock, longtime activist and Board Member of the SC Gay and Lesbian Pride Movement, said, “These ordinances represent the single greatest advance in civil rights for the LGBT community in the history of our state.”
Hancock was the architect of a 1991 city ordinance prohibiting discrimination in city employment on the basis of sexual orientation.©365Gay.com 2008

International Women's Day

Fact of the Day
Today is International Women's Day. It is a celebration of the political, economic and social achievements of women around the world. This day is used for men to express their love and gratitude to the women around them. It is similar to St Valentine's Day but with a much more serious theme to highlight the struggles of women worldwide.

A brief history of my last 20 years book five

How we got here

Why we got here

What we're doing here

Book five

Now then, where were we? We had settled fairly well into the new ugly house in the conveniently located yet stifling neighborhood. By now both of the older kids are at the high school, Twitch a freshman and Light a junior. The young whipper-snappers were in 2^nd grade and not doing too well, but I don't want to talk about that.

Light was developing some good friendships and was excelling in school. This is what she's like, though. It comes easier for her than for my other kids. Everybody likes Light. She was involved with a few clubs at school and in the youth group at the large Baptist church just up the road from the high school.

One of her friends was a young man named C. Yup, that's our gay… I mean guy! He was very active at the church. He was a senior, as were most of Light's friends that year. For a while she had a bit of a crush on him.

Light and I have a very close relationship. We communicate well. Although we've had our share of differences and aggravations with one another, we share a lot of stuff with each other. I've always respected her opinions and most of her boundaries. I hold her trust, and she mine. If she tells me something in confidence, it goes no further.

She is like that, too. She listens well to others and doesn't betray a confidence. However, the lives of teenagers are a lot more complicated sometimes than a teenager is mature enough to handle. She had friends who were going through some tough stuff who would talk to her about it. If she felt like she needed a sympathetic but more mature perspective on something, she'd talk about it to me, yet without revealing the identity of the friend in need.

In late autumn she began to talk to me a little bit about "a friend" who was dealing with "a difficult situation." Mainly she was asking me to pray for this friend. I think also she wanted to express the concern just to have someone to share the burden with. She didn't tell me anything about the problem or who was struggling. But she brought it up every week or so. I sympathized, which was about all I could do of course.

There were a few of her friends who were dealing with various struggles. These are 15-19 year olds. It's a hard time in their lives. I knew, or suspected, who some of the kids might be. But there was one in particular she was especially concerned about. She finally told me that it was C, although she didn't say what the issue was, and swore me to secrecy. Not a problem. I didn't know him at the time. She had pointed him out to me in a crowd of kids at the church once, but I wouldn't have recognized him if he came up and punched me in the nose.

Over Christmas break, a few days before New Years Day, C came over to the house so he and Light could dye their hair. This was the first time I'd spoken to the boy. Superman and I were sitting on the sofa in the living room and the kids walked by on the way to the bathroom with their boxes of hair dye. C was giggling like a school girl. I turned to Superman and jokingly said "I wonder if he knows he's gay?"

Sure enough he was struggling with coming out. He had come out to Light I think before Christmas, and after school resumed he came out to more of the kids, expanding his confession to a wider circle of acquaintances. As many of you know, once the news gets out to so many people it takes on a life of its own. Pretty soon anyone who gave a damn knew that C thought he was gay. (That's the way most people perceived it, I think: he thought he was gay.) He got a lot of flack from most of the kids in the youth group and a big dump of grief from the youth group leader. Many of the kids at school only spoke to him to condemn him. There was a core group who stuck by him, Light of course being one of them.

And by this time I knew all about it. I sympathized with his grief but still held the view I'd learned in church about homosexuality. I thought it was a bad idea. Wrong, even. Though I didn't understand it very well, I wasn't willing to hate him for being gay. I still hardly knew him. We'd never talked, just the two of us. But Light had spoken so lovingly about him and his trials that I couldn't help but feel sympathy.

Meanwhile, back on the bus, I'd been taken off of the special needs route that I'd substituted on for most of the year. Another one of the drivers was going out on maternity leave and the boss needed me to take over her route. It was a regular route, and a rough one. Not the worst, but far from the best. I'm much better with the special needs students. This crowd was primarily from the old mill villages in town. The mills are almost all closed now, so the villages are populated with a wide variety of people. The houses are small and most of them were built in the first quarter of the 20^th century. In other words, cheap housing. A few of the areas are known for drug activity and other violence. These kids had a tough life, and they expressed it in their behavior.

One of the students on my bus was a very attractive, tall but slight boy with long hair and penetrating green eyes. His name was S. He usually sat directly behind my seat, mostly away from the tougher kids in the back of the bus. He talked to some of the girls but rarely to any other boys. I had my suspicions. J One day as the senior prom was approaching I heard him tell the girl in the next seat that he wanted to wear a dress to the prom; a green one that would set off his eyes. I listened intently. This guy was the source of some very interesting conversation!

The thing about S: he's pretty much never been in any closet. He's not flamboyantly obvious, but he speaks his mind and has a few telling affectations. He speaks with no shame about who or what he is. At 16 years old this was impressive. He had a toughness about it, though. A chip on the shoulder attitude as a defense against the bullies. He also had a big mouth without much control over what came out of it. He had been in some trouble and was now one of "the usual suspects" with the administration at school. I thought he was adorable.

C's trials were increasing, as one might expect. One day he got a call at home from another boy who called to ask him out. C wasn't a bit interested in this guy, so of course said "no." His mom asked who called, and C told her it was a guy from school who wanted to get together with him. Innocuous enough, right? Well, not surprisingly, C didn't have a large number of friends and didn't do a lot of socializing. His mom innocently suggested it might be nice to get together with a friend. Can you recognize this golden opportunity to come out to Mom? He was out to most everyone else, he knew his mom would find out soon from someone at church, so he took a deep breath and shook up his mama's world.

What happens next? What is him mom's reaction? When do I get to talk to him? How do he and S meet? Stay tuned.

A brief history of my last 20 years book four

How we got here

Why we got here

What we're doing here

Book four

That last bit ended with a spot of bad fortune. Stress out the wazoo; evicted from our home, a new job I wasn't sure I could handle, children struggling to survive in the jungle that is school, and a looming law suit. And to think I survived to live another year. Let's find out what happened!

Being the Mother that I am, my first thoughts were of how to make these large changes in our lives with the least amount of upheaval for the kids. School had just started, and the youngest three kids were enrolled in schools they had been in the year before. I didn't want to change that, so I felt it necessary to stay in the same school zones. We needed to move quickly, but wanted to buy our own place. Buying a home is not something one should do under time pressure! So we moved into an apartment.

It was small and icky. The apartment complex was just across the street from the day care where Diva and Twitch went after school, and only 1.5 blocks away from the middle school Twitch went to. The elementary school was just down the hill from the middle school, so that was very convenient. The complex itself, however, was nasty. Not the worst in the city, but pretty bad. We had a 3 bed, 1.5 bath unit. I left Twitch and Light with their own rooms, because that was how they lived in the big house. Diva and Sproing shared a room. Superman and I set our bed up in the living room. It was far from an ideal situation.

The house we left was 4000 square feet. It was older, needed significant updating, but was by golly big enough! The attic alone was probably as big as this tiny apartment we moved into. We had a yard sale to get rid of a bunch of stuff, rented a storage unit to store the excess, and squeezed the necessities into this apartment. There was barely any room to maneuver. Most of the apartment had a simple path to get from one space to the next.

I zoned out while we were there. The only thing I really remember about that time was my work and looking for a new home. When I was in the apartment I pretended to be elsewhere. My brain went into self preservation mode. I'm afraid I wasn't a very good wife or mother for those 6 months.

Work was going well, all things considered. I was able to substitute long-term on two different special-needs bus routes when two of the drivers had to be out following medical procedures. I got a taste for the special education system in the district, made friends and contacts with the teachers and some parents. That experience was the only real positive part of my job.

After Christmas break, however, I was assigned to a regular bus route. That was … educational. And really hard. My problem is that I'm too nice. The students, many of them, didn't respond to "nice." I got to know the kids and became fond of most of them, even the difficult ones. Sometimes especially the difficult ones. They have spunk that many easy-going kids lack.

Toward the end of November and into December Superman and I ramped up our house search. We had a few location requirements, but I didn't worry too much about keeping the kidlets in the same elementary school. I knew that if we made it half way through the school year they would be able to stay where they were for the remainder of that year. I did want to stay in the same high school zone, but since there are only 2 high schools in town and the one Light was in is bigger, that left us much real estate to chose from.

I'll tell you this about me. My second most important criteria for location was a short distance to Superman's workplace. If we're close to his work he can come home for lunch. Or, preferably, "lunch." With all the kids in school now, and my work hours leaving me free in the middle of the day, a mid-day twist of the sheets is a very good thing. A very very good thing. J

We put an offer on this house we're in now on New Years Eve. Closing was the end of February, if I recall, and we moved in the first of March. In truth I hate this house. It is way too common for me. It's a rectilinear brick ranch in a subdivision. The location works, though. The young'uns walk to school and it's less than 2 miles from Superman's work. And we were able to move away from the apartments, thank the greater powers!

Life proceeded to transpire. Summer came, the kids got out of school. All of a sudden they were home all the time again. It was easier when they were always home all the time. Once I got used to them being away for most of the day, it was hard to readjust to having them home all the time. By the end of the summer I was really glad for school to start!

And I went back to work. I have always thought of this job as a temporary position to fill my days and help with the bills. I have a love/hate relationship with the job. We will explore this further in later posts. Be warned.

This is now autumn 2005. Everyone is settling in, getting used to home, work, school. I was busy, in addition to work, as a leader in a Brownie Girl Scout troop for Diva. This was one of my "good mommy" activities. I'm glad I did it, but wouldn't do it again. It took a lot of time and especially a lot of emotional energy that I just didn't have to spare, frankly. With the experience of a dozen little girls running around a church classroom or a scout camp, plus dealing with a bus load of 25-50 kids of all ages, I came to realize I don't do well with large groups of children.

I've always liked children, theoretically. When I was younger I had much more patience and stamina for these tasks. I still like children, but in a more theoretical, less practical way. And definitely in smaller groups. Like one or two at a time. As I've grown older, my children-of-preference have matured. Now I am much more comfortable with older teens and young adults.

So of course the powers-that-be put that to the test. In the late winter, early spring of 2006, Light brought C into my life. Let's see how that happened…..

A brief history of my last 20 years book three

How we got here

Why we got here

What we're doing here

Book Three

When we last saw our heroine the horde of invaders had just left. She was standing amid the ruins with a shell-shocked look about her.

Have you seen the oft-Xeroxed quote that goes something like this?

As soon as the rush is over, I'm going to have a nervous breakdown...I owe it to myself, I worked for it, and nobody is going to deprive me of it!

That's sort of what happened. I didn't go all out crazy, but it was rough. It was springtime when they left for California, sometime in mid-March, actually, if I recall. I don't remember details about the next few months. Light could probably fill us in, but I doubt it matters much.

The next thing I recall is the beginning of the school year, mid August 2003. I enrolled Diva and Sproing in kindergarten. This was a big step for me, as I was still homeschooling Light and Twitch. It felt like I was giving up on myself. But I knew I couldn't continue to do justice to Light and Twitch's education with Thing One and Thing Two running rampant. Nor could I concentrate on their educational needs without ignoring Light and Twitch. So off to school they went. I was nervous about feeling relieved, but I did. J

School wasn't going well with the older two either. Light and I were looking into getting her started at the high school the following year, when she'd be a freshman. We learned that to enroll in high school directly from being homeschooled she'd need all manner of paper work and verification and assorted other bull shit red tape. But to enroll her in the middle school in the 8^th grade, and then have her graduate to high school was no big deal. By golly we did that! Twitch was restless and dissatisfied with homeschooling and desperately (thought he) wanted to go to Middle School. He was in 6^th grade at the time. Once we decided to send Light to school he wanted desperately to go too. We figured all this out sometime in late September or October, so we waited until the new semester began in January to send them to the middle school.

Twitch is a unique bird. Unique and Middle School do not mix. Oh, boy. He was so desperate to be like the other kids, to go to "real" school. I've been to middle/junior high school. It is hell. I knew nothing had changed significantly, but once he made up his mind there was no convincing him otherwise. I knew the only way for him to learn the horror that is middle school was to experience it for himself. This was so hard for me to do, because I knew my sweet naïve gentle boy was going to get the shock of his life. A mom hates to subject her child to that. He was totally unprepared, having never been in a traditional classroom in his life. But that was all we could do. That, and pray a lot. Which we did.

For the rest of that school year, from January to May I stayed home alone while all four kids were in school. It was bliss. I spent some time at the schools visiting classrooms, teachers, and generally being an involved parent. Especially with Twitch there were some issues that surfaced. He's ADHD and we'd just worked around his needs when at home. But classroom management is ever so much different from homeschooling, and he needed some intervention. I won't go into all that here, but suffice to say it took a lot of my energy.

Early in the summer of '04 I was toying with the idea of getting a "little job." I had in mind something part time, preferably flexible, that would allow me to be available as Mom for the kids, yet get me out of the house and bring in a bit of extra money. To that end I was perusing the classified ads in our newspaper. It was there I spotted notification that our school district was looking for bus drivers, training class to begin [near date], come to transportation office to apply. Cool! Driving a school bus! I've always wanted to drive a truck, and a school bus seemed the logical thing. So I followed through; went to the training, took the written test for my learner's permit, and spent long hot summer mornings in an un-air conditioned school bus driving or being driven around the county. I was finally ready for my road test to get the official Commercial Drivers' License. Drove that test; blew it away, baby! So all of a sudden I have a Class B CDL with passenger endorsement. And a job! And school starts in a week! Holy Shit! I need after school day care for my 1^st graders!!!

I got the kidlets enrolled in a local day care center where they would be picked up after school and taken to the center, fed a snack, and given opportunity to do homework. (It was beautiful in theory. The transportation from school to center worked well. Everything else was a bit sketchy. But everyone survived.) The older ones were properly supplied to begin a new year.

The first day of school was stressful, of course. The first day of work was OMG and Holy Shit not-what-I-naively-expected stressful. I wasn't actually driving yet, as there were no routes available at the time. I was riding on a route as a bus monitor. The boss put me on one of the toughest routes in the whole city. I wonder if he was trying to either scare me away or to see what I was made of. I'm still standin', as they say, so I guess I was made of tougher stock than either of us thought!! And I certainly learned a lot.

But back to the first day of school. We have established that there was mega-stress going on. But wait! There's more! When I got home I checked the mail. There was an envelope from our landlord which contained our official eviction notice. We had suspected that this might be in the works, but didn't know for sure, and didn't expect it so soon. My mind reeled. My knees gave way. I was not at peace. This was one of those days that will live in infamy as a Really Bad Day.

The house we were in was a rental. We'd gone into the deal as a rent-with-option-to-purchase. There were sloppy mistakes on both sides of the whole thing. One thing led to another, and the owner wanted to sell. We weren't in a position to purchase at that time, so we needed to move. It was a lot more complicated than that, and got really ugly. He threatened to sue, Superman bent over backwards to do what the landlord demanded, yet the $%&)# sued us anyway. A bad time was had by all. This was a slow and painful process that began the summer of 2004 and isn't quite finished even now. There are no "feel good" parts to that story. Another post for another time when I feel like reliving a trip through hell. Don't hold your breath. Kick the stress level up another notch. Exponentially.

What to do? Where to go? How best to adjust to this sudden upheaval in our lives? Stay tuned, citizens, for it does indeed get better. But for now this seems like a good place to stop.

(I thought I'd get to the end of the story in 3 easy installments, but it seems as though it will take at least one more. I had conveniently forgotten some of this heartache and underestimated the length of time/paragraphs it would take to bring us approximately up-to-date.)

Briefly

Tuesdays are typically busy days for me, and yesterday was no exception. To complicate matters I feel like I'm getting sick again. My chest it tight and my throat is getting sore. Superman is sick with this upper respiratory mess, too. He was home yesterday, and is taking a strong antibiotic which will hopefully knock out the bug that's been lingering in his system for a while.

I have an appointment to see the doc this morning, and another this afternoon to see my opthalmologist. My eyes have been feeling strange in the past few days. It might just be sinus pressure, or it might be the eyes themselves. Anyway, I'm seeing 2 different doctors today to ask about that.

I was very tired yesterday. When I got home from work Superman was lying down to rest, and he fell asleep shortly after I got home. I lay on the bed next to him and watched him fall asleep. It seemed like such a good idea. I got the kids situated (told them to eat some leftovers we have in the 'fridge and to put themselves to bed on time) then went to bed. It was about 5:00. I slept until 4:15 this morning. I haven't slept for 11 hours in a long time! It felt good. And upon waking I didn't feel any worse than I did yesterday. No better, but no worse.

I'm still working on book three of the saga. I hope to get it posted later today, unless I fall asleep again. We shall see. And yes, Patrick, there are 2 more additions to the family in book three.

Update:
I saw two doctors today. This morning I saw the family doc, who said I've got a sinus infection. I was in there a month ago for a sinus infection, and I suspect this is the same infection that didn't die out completely. And yes, I took ALL of my antibiotic. I think I was on Augmentin(sp?) But it's back again and I feel icky. After 11 hours of sleep last night I've been tired all day. I feel like I'm going through the day in a fog. My mind isn't *sharp* like it usually is. I'm making careless mistakes and missing obvious details. I get nervous about driving the bus when I'm like this. Anyway, the doctor prescribed a new, stronger antibiotic. (Levaquin 750mg if you're curious.) He says this ought to knock out the bug. I hope so! He also said the pressure I'm feeling in and around my eyes is probably from the sinuses and not the eyeballs themselves.

This afternoon I saw the eye doctor. They tested my vision, did their glaucoma test and stuff. He didn't dilate my eyes this time. He said we'd do that next year. OK by me! They did, however, update my prescription (slight change) and get me back into contacts. I wore contacts for a while maybe a year or two ago, then kinda' stopped. I don't remember why. But I wanted to start using them again. So I am typing this while looking through my contacts, not my glasses! OK, technically I'm looking through the reading glasses I need to use for close up vision, since the contacts only correct my distance vision. Let me tell ya', I look adorable in my little cheaters :-) I'll have to get a pic of this for you. The opthalmologist checked a few things concerning pain/pressure I've been having in my eyes for the last week, and didn't notice anything that might be a problem. He thinks it's probably the sinus infection. Although if it doesn't improve in a week or two I'm to go back.

I have a work excuse to stay home tomorrow, written by my wonderful friendly family doc. So I'm planning to sleep, sleep, drink lots of fluids, sleep, blog, sleep, blog, blog, sleep tomorrow.

A brief history of my last 20 years- Book two

How we got here

Why we got here

What we're doing here

Book Two

This is a continuation of the story told in book one. We left off after Twitch's birth, wanting more children and considering adoption:

When Twitch was about 3 years old we began the adoption process. We tried to adopt through South Carolina's foster care/ child protection system. That was a total fiasco that still upsets me. We wanted to adopt children of color since we were well aware of how difficult it can be to find homes for those children. We were willing to adopt somewhat older children, though I wanted a child/children younger than Twitch. Didn't want to upset the birth order, as it was. We were willing to adopt a sibling group, up to 3 children. I figured I could raise 5 kids, but 6 was pushing it a bit too far. But I was open to considering options on a case-by-case basis. And as the process dragged on, Twitch got older, so the age range we were considering got larger.

For whatever reason we got nowhere with the state. I don't know why for sure, but I suspect the various social workers involved with our case didn't want to place African American children in our Caucasian family. Yet there were many children, including a few sibling groups I was aware of who we wanted to adopt. My philosophy on trans-racial adoption is this: children probably do better in families of their same race. However it is better for a child to have a permanent home in a family of a different race than for him to flounder around in foster care all his life, never having a forever family of his own. I feel VERY strongly about this still.

We ended up finding our children through a private attorney. Private adoptions are a lot more expensive than adopting through the state foster system. Five to ten times more in some cases. The legal fees involved in adopting our two children put us in a financial tight spot that was totally unnecessary. Raising kids is expensive. To begin the parenting adventure with that big a monetary expense is really tough. It was worth it to have our children. I cannot put a price on that, or on them (for heaven's sake!!), and I have no regrets. I am, however, bitter about how the whole thing was done.

Now, to get us back on track, I'll tell you about the rest of the entourage. Or maybe I'll start with a bit more personal divulgement. (Evidently that is a word. Spell-check didn't flag it.) I never considered myself to be particularly gifted at hospitality. My house is and always has been in such chaos I'm embarrassed to invite anyone over. I'm always a bit unsure how to treat guests. Would you like a drink? Oh, I'm out of that. Let's see what I have to munch on… Cheerios is as good as it gets. And please don't ask to use the bathroom. It isn't quite clean enough to be on display.

There is another aspect to hospitality. I finally realized it was hospitality after I'd been practicing it for years. I don't have "guests" over. I invite strangers to live here.

A few years ago a family we know was moving back to town after having been gone for a year. He had tried to find work (he's in construction) with his brother in Idaho, and it didn't go as well as the brother had indicated it would. So they came back here with almost nothing except their 4 kids. Or was it 5 by then? Yes, it was 5 children when they came back. I had been there with her when she had her home birth to deliver the 5^th, shortly before they left for Idaho. (That was a fantastic experience, btw, but not a subject for this post.)

So we invited them to stay with us for a while until he started working and saved up enough to get a place of their own. At the time Diva and Sproing were 2 years old, and her kids ranged in age from 1 year old up to 7 or 8 years old, I can't remember exactly. Most of them were approximately 18 months apart.

We lived in a small rental house out in the country. It had a large lot, so there was a lot of room for the kids to run around outside. The kitchen was big, too. Everything else was small. It was an old farmhouse that had originally had 2 bedrooms and no bath. The bathroom was added at the other side of the bedrooms, with access doors from both rooms. In order to get to the bathroom one had to go through a bedroom. There was also a third bedroom off the side, accessible through the second bedroom. We were crowded in the house just with the 6 of us. So we added 7 more, just for fun. With my two youngest and her 3year old and almost 2 year old, we had four children being potty trained at the same time, with only one bathroom that had two doorways but broken sliding doors. There were curtains covering the doorways. Let me tell you, it was quite an adventure. It is mostly enjoyable to look back on. It was a lot more stressful and less enjoyable to live through.

We never had any specific arrangements, no distinct plans for a move out date or any kind of financial remuneration from them. They often bought a significant portion of the groceries and supplies like that. She and the older kids helped us keep the house sort of clean. She did a lot of babysitting for my kids, too. Light and Sproing weren't quite old enough to stay alone, and certainly not old enough to babysit the young siblings. But I was able to leave the house by myself quite often because she was there with all the kids. She handled that overwhelming menagerie better than I did. I'm much better with smaller groups of children. 9 kids under the age of 12 is ______________. (a) overwhelming, (b)ridiculous, (c) a baseball team, (d) all of the above.

We moved to a much larger old house in town while they lived with us. We fit into that house much better, and it had 3 bathrooms!!!! She also got pregnant again while they were here. They finally left the day after she gave birth to her 6^th child. (At home, in the bedroom in our basement.) It was a crazy time. I was a crazy lady. (Was? I hear you say)

Stay tuned for book three, in which we move again and become gay.

A brief history of my last 20 years

How we got here
Why we got here
What we’re doing here

Book One

Big Ass Belle posted a very personal account back in January on the 35th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v Wade decision that led to legal abortions in the US. I direct you there for her story, but say here that it really made me think.

I guess it begins with the essence of me. I don’t know how to put that into words, but I’ll try. I am a gentle soul. A peacemaker. Sympathetic to a fault. As long as I can remember I’ve been concerned about the welfare of others. Usually if I have something and someone else needs it, I’ll share or give it way. I draw the line at chocolate, though. I’m reluctant to share my chocolate.

The Christian faith appeals to my nature. The Bible teaches love, grace, compassion, and such. It also teaches judgment and condemnation, but as do all Christians I know, to some extent I just skim over those parts I don’t like. I have been a member of a church almost constantly since I was 13 years old.

One tends to pick up the ideas and philosophies of those with whom one associates. In my mid-twenties Superman and I joined a very conservative congregation. We had been somewhat conservative before that, but we became even more so in that church. As we have moved with his new jobs we joined churches of the same denomination and held firm to those ideologies.

I believe in the right to life. I have been against abortion for a long time, but recently have softened my stance there. I still don’t like the idea, but am no longer willing to dictate or judge someone else’s decision about it. But I still consider myself to be pro-life. Semantics is tricky with this subject, as it has been so politicized over the years. Can I claim to be pro-life but not anti-abortion? Tricky.

Beliefs come alive with action. I do what I can under the circumstances, but the point is that I do. This is passion. In the late 1980s when Superman and I first joined the church I was compelled to put action to my pro-life beliefs. He was at the very least supportive if not a driving force in this decision. I can’t recall exactly who decided or how it was done, but the outcome is that we worked with a local adoption agency as foster parents. This agency helped women in “crisis pregnancies” to make plans for their babies. Some women (and sometimes with their partners) chose to parent their children, others awarded custody of the child to a relative, and others chose to release the child for adoption.

We lived in Macon, Georgia. In those days the laws in Georgia allowed a 10 day grace period for parents to change their minds after signing the papers relinquishing parental rights. A child was considered to be in foster care for those ten days even if he was in the custody of the family who was to adopt him. Sometimes these young birth parents changed their minds, taking the baby back to raise themselves. You can imagine how traumatic that is for an adoptive family. The agency we worked with tried to put the babies in one of their foster homes rather than with an adoptive family for that waiting period.

Many of the clients were carrying minority or mixed race babies. Those are the little ones we cared for. These precious babies often have such vivacious personalities even in the first few weeks and months of life. It breaks my heart that it was (and still is) sometimes hard to find adoptive homes for these children.

We wanted to be parents, wanted to be responsible for our own children. Adoption was always a probable part of that plan, but we chose to try to have biological children first. I always said “Let’s have one, see how it goes, then decide what to do next.” I knew I didn’t want to have only one child, but beyond that I was open to many options. In 1989 I gave birth to Light. When she was about 8 or 9 months old we decided to try for another one. Twitch was born 19 months after Light, on Valentine’s Day 1991.

Pregnancy wasn’t nice to me. I didn’t have too much trouble physically; they weren’t high risk pregnancies from that perspective. The problem was with my hormone balance and the emotional turmoil I experienced. Part of the problem was that I was clinically depressed but undiagnosed, therefore untreated. After Twitch was born I suffered nasty post-partum depression that hung on for I don’t know how long. Years. Superman didn’t want me to go through any more pregnancies, and I suspect he didn’t want to suffer through another one of my pregnancies. He figured this out early. He scheduled a vasectomy before Twitch was even born, and had the procedure when Twitch was 3 weeks old.

Neither of us wanted to stop at only 2 children, though. As I mentioned, adoption was always something we’d planned to consider in the future. A major motivation for adoption was our pro-life belief. If we believe that unwanted pregnancies shouldn’t be terminated, we should be willing to want, to love the “unwanted” children. It makes perfect sense to me and always has. Frankly I have always felt that way, even when I was a young child myself. I remember figuring that out when I was about 12 or 13 years old, and wanting to someday adopt.

Stay tuned for Book Two, in which our family increases asexually (after a fashion)