Before we become parents we tend to have some idea of the kind of parent we would like to be. I know that before and during our adoption process I used to watch the way other parents handled situations with their children and wonder how I would have dealt with them. The problem with having these preconceived notions is that things very rarely go the way you plan.
Author: Then We Were Four
Calming the Storm
Patience. It isn’t necessarily a quality I would attribute to myself. Not without some internal effort at least. I can sit and stare at a problem on my computer, methodically looking through hundreds of lines of code, attempting to identify a bug and fix it. It can take seconds, minutes, hours, or sometimes days to do that. I can do this where others may not. This is where my patience holds. I do not have patience with people, at least I never thought so, but occasionally I surprise myself. When patience is the last thing on my mind, but is
Where’s the Positivity?
Sometimes we concentrate too much on the negatives, some call this pessimism, others realism. We shout when we want to change something, but stay silent when things are good. It is seen everywhere including with adopters. I am guilty of this. I have written many posts detailing the bad time we had during our matching process, and although I have attempted to keep my posts balanced I’m not sure I have always managed to accomplish this. During our approval process we met only two social workers who we felt didn’t do their jobs to the best of their ability. Who didn’t do what
Choices
Living with two toddlers has taught us how important the ability to choose for yourself is. How it is not nice to have someone else dictate to you how your life is going to play out. Even at the young age of 2 children are capable of making decisions about their lives. They may not be informed decisions, or even the ones in their own best interests, but they are capable of making them. In fact, in our family at least, it is usually the removal of the ability to make these decisions that lead to the inevitable tantrum, or
Younger is Better?
One of the first things you are asked when you are applying to become an adopter is: What age and how many children do you want to adopt? It usually has the caveat that what you say now is not set in stone and that you can change your mind later.
Harry Potter and the Early Childhood Trauma
Ok, so it’s a cumbersome title for a blog post. Especially one that isn’t written by J.K. Rowling, but bear with me. We recently went to watch Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Palace Theatre in London, and while I cannot say too much about it (#keepthesecrets) I will say I thoroughly enjoyed the story and the acting. It’s worth seeing for the scene changes alone! What I’ll concentrate on is something that surprised me while we were waiting for the play to begin. I was flicking through the Programme which we had purchased at the entrance, and
Toddlers in the City
No, unfortunately this isn’t a story about four toddlers rampaging through the city with exploits about their love lives and careers. We only have two of them after all and clearly they’re not old enough to have careers yet (or love lives for that matter).
THAT Question – Adoption Style
There is always a question that parents dread their children asking. You like to think you have prepared yourself to give an age appropriate answer, but they always manage to add a follow up you aren’t prepared for.
Christmas – Take 2
For many of us Christmas is a time of joy, a time for family, a time for giving and a time of unity. For others of us it is a time of stress, a time of emotional dysregulation and a time of disruption.
The Nowhere Child
This is a slight deviation from the sort of writing I usually do. It was inspired by something my eldest son said when he was playing. He had created himself a cave with a yoga mat that he usually uses for doing rolls and other such things. When we asked him about it he said his cave was ‘nowhere’ and he was there because of some sea monsters. I’ve mixed that concept in with some of what we know of his history. The monsters are here, they’re coming for me. I cannot find help, as nowhere is safe. The shouting begins,
