Weekend with Dr. Neufeld.

This man is a genius! I spent all day Saturday and Sunday at his "Working With Our Kids When They Get Stuck" work shop.

My head is spinning with information that I will not even try to relay on here, as I don't want to get it wrong. I just purchased his book Hold on to Your Kids that will hopefully help me piece it all together.

His lecture was very interesting, entertaining, and enlightening. I highly recommend seeing him if he is in your area and picking up his book!

His work shop gave me greater insight to who I am as a person/parent, my children, and things that I could/should be doing differently.

I realize that I am a Alpha by default, being the oldest of 6 kids and having to take on a role of a co-parent and confident to my Mother when my parents divorced when I was 10. I realize that I have had to struggle with not feeling supported or looked after. Apparently, it is much easier to look after your children, when you feel like you are being looked after. IE - You need support. I realize that I have sought/found this in my partners rather than my parents, which doesn't work so well when he is in need of support from me.

I also have a better understanding of stress, cortisol, and how it is affecting my sleep and my cognitive function.. it certainly explains why I have difficulty figuring out a tip in a restaurant and making change, considering I have a major in finance and work with numbers! (which has been a huge struggle lately!) My friend and I -who is also suffering from similar side affects, (only from a concussion) were a hot mess this weekend... getting to and from the conference, lunch money and trying to retain the info. lol. Funny enough...we also both struggle with 'tip of the tongue syndrom' ... losing our words, which makes for an interesting conversation... but at least comfortable for us to sound like idiots to one another. Ha. I can laugh... because I know the end of the line is Kenya, which is just around the corner. Yes, this adoption is stressful, but it is the accumulative of some heavy business stressors, recent deaths, looking after ailing parents, etc... that eventually build up to more than one person can bare. Being in Kenya will eliminate one of our largest stressors  (our current business)... which will allow more room in my over flowing cup to deal with those that remain. Dan and I both need this time in Kenya for many reasons, as I see him struggling with his overfloweth cup as well.

I learned that I could be more indulgent to Muffin's sensitivities... sympathize with her more instead of taking the 'suck it up' approach. Did you know that there is a strong correlation to sensitive (and autism - the most sensitive child) and difficult births and or c-sections? My little Muffin had a very difficult time being birthed, and she is a sensitive child - which makes her so understanding and sympathetic of others, but also means that she can get her feelings hurt more easily. I look forward to giving her more of me emotionally, physically and every other way to help shield her heart.

I realized that my little man has a difficult time expressing his emotions. He has not said "I love you", for as long as I can remember, or "I'm scared", or "I'm sad" etc.... He 'wears' these emotions... but does not speak them. I don't know why I never took notice of this, probably because he is very emotionally grounded - in the sense that he is very affectionate, loving, nurturing etc. For the past couple days, I have worked with giving him more of my self - tighter hugs, longer cuddles and I have made sure to verbalize my feelings more with him. The first night all he could give me was a "Good love"... which meant Good night/ Love you, but last night I got a "Love you to moon and back", after I said, "Love you to the moon". I thought some outer space talk may encourage him! ;) It's important to ensure that we allow our boys to show emotion, have tears, fears etc., so that is something we will be working on facilitating.

On the side of adoption, I really got a chance to understand the roots of attachment. As I have been reading about adoption and attachment for a long time, I had the tools. I understood to get eye contact, to hand to mouth feed, to play, to hold.. and to allow scenarios happen that allow the adopted child to get their tears out, but I didn't fully understand why it is so important, and how their development depends on it.

I love self reflection... growing, learning and adding parenting tools to my tool box!

Dr. Neufeld also has DVD's, CD's etc... that you can order or perhaps borrow from your library or rent from your local movie store if reading is not your thing, as well as online courses!! I highly recommend that all parents, and even grandparents... check his stuff out! My weekend was worth every penny!

Ugh.

Muffin had a sleep over on the weekend. At some point during the evening this conversation took place.

(They were playing Barbies, and she noticed a black Barbie that Muffin had stored in the corner, saving it for Zahra.)

Showing enough cleavage? Wardrobe malfunction. I'm not a huge Barbie fan... But I finally gave in when Muffin was 7. After all, I played with them as a child... and it didn't do that much damage!

Girl: "Can we open that?"

Muffin: "No, we are saving it."

Girl: "Why?"

Muffin: "Because it's for Zahra."

Girl: "She's an ugly Barbie."

Muffin: "Why do you think it's ugly?"

Girl: "Because she's black."

Muffin.... speechless

Girl: "Wait. Is Zahra gonna be black?"

Muffin: "Yes, she's African."

Girl: "Oh."

End of conversation.

I am new to this journey, and learning my way through it. I don't have all the answers. Together Muffin and I spoke about why she may have said this, and what responses she could have given. We decided that the one she felt most comfortable with is asking her why she thinks black is ugly, and then following up by leading as an example and saying that she thinks people of all colour are beautiful.

What is the response that came to my mind first? "How would you feel if someone told you that you were ugly because you are white?"
This is what would have come out of my mouth... yup. I realize this is a hostile response, and perhaps not the best. At least, Muffin didn't think it was very nice.

As time goes on, I am sure we will get better at developing appropriate responses. I don't want them to feel like they are full time advocates, guardians, or teachers, but I do want them to learn how to respond in these situations to encourage the other person to think and feel... hopefully to eliminate any further inappropriate comments.

This is the beginning of a learning process for our children.

By affiliation, they will be witness to how cruel people can be.

They wouldn't otherwise have any idea how intolerant people can be, or the prejudices that exist.

Their white privilege would have protected them from all that.

I am happy that they will have this insight.

I am sad that they will have to feel hurt, and disappointment from people they care about.

I am sad that it will cause them distress to know that others may think less of their baby sister because of her skin colour. 

But, I couldn't ask for any more loving, caring, understanding children for Zahra to look up to as her older siblings. 

The 9 yr old Muffin

Yes, it's official. She's old. Where did the time go?

I just cannot believe that it was nine years ago that I gave birth to her and became a Mom for the first time.

Anyway, not to get all sappy on you, after all there is enough of that on this here adoption blog!!

Muffin has always wanted a surprise party, so this year we decided to pull one off. It went off without a hitch, she was so surprised!! Check it out!

She said it was the best party she's ever had. Pretty good considering that it was thrown together last minute!

The kids painted flower pots and planted them with flowers to take home, they played Ryley Trivia, Hot Potato (which they all loved!!), had a scavenger hunt, face painting, in addition to jumping on the trampoline. It was full on - I wish I would have made the party longer, as we ran out of time!!

I made an ice cream cake, that seemed to be a hit. I didn't get a chance to try it. (Which is best anyway.)

This is all that remained.

One of the best things about Muffin's birthday is that she had decided she wanted to ask for donations for her sponsor child (Margaret) in Kenya in lieu of gifts. We had a backpack to fill to take to Margaret when we are in Kenya. She lives a couple hours outside of Nairobi. The girls were so generous, that we not only filled the back pack, but have plenty extra to hand out to Margaret's siblings, or village children!! We encourage our children to collect donations for a cause of their choice every second birthday. I am so proud of Muffin though to not only come up with this all on her own, but she whole hearted wanted to, and was very excited to do so! She didn't ask once if she would get a present for herself.... which of course she did. ;) She was so happy at the end of the night, going through all of the donated items and thinking of how much joy they would bring Margaret - a fellow nine year old, across the globe, that she has never met. Brings tears to my eyes... I know we must be doing something right! Bless her heart and the wonderful little woman she is blossoming into!