On The Brink

My girl's going to be in sixth grade tomorrow.  Middle school. 

Let's just sit with that one for a few moments, shall we?

.....

.....

.....

Sorry, I had to breathe into a paper bag...was hyperventilating there for a second.

When I went to middle school, I had to wear my sister's hand me downs (not that there is anything wrong with hand me downs, but when your sister had to wear "the wrong" kind of clothes, and you get to wear them four years later, things are bound to start off badly.  I also still had my ugly ass glasses...and the lamest haircut known to man, woman, child and poodle.  Sigh. 

I think back to those horrible years and then I look at Madelyn with her long, brown hair, face full of cute freckles, eyelashes that which even Snufflelupagus would be jealous...and I'm happy.  But what's even better?  She's happy.  She's everything that I wanted to be...and that means the world.

Does that make me sound shallow?  I don't mean to sound that way.  I just mean that I always wanted to be one of the "cool kids"..and I don't mean one of the cheerleaders or jocks...I mean that I wanted to be confident.  I wasn't...Madelyn is.  It's pretty awesome to watch her grow. 

My a-mother called me on the way home from work...this is how THAT went:

Me:  Hello?

AMom:  Hi!  Just calling to see what time the kids are getting on the buses tomorrow? 

Me:  Well, Maddie catches the bus at 6:50 and Chase's bus comes at 8:10. 

AMom:  Wow, Maddie has to leave early, huh?  Well, do you mind if I come over and take pictures of them getting on the bus?

Me:  (short pause)  Ummmm, so, I don't think Chase would mind if you took a picture of him getting on the bus but I doubt Maddie is going to want us to snap a photo of her leaving for middle school..(nervous laugh).

AMom:  (long pause)  Oh...OH..right!  Well, how about I come earlier and we can take some pictures in the driveway?

Me:  (huge sigh of relief)  Sounds good..we can have coffee after Maddie leaves, while we wait for Chase's bus.

AMom:  Great!  See you then!

Dodged THAT bullet.  Sheesh. 

And yes, I'll post the pictures tomorrow for you all. *wink*

Way Off Topic Part Two: A Hairy Situation

Lol, so I was thinking yesterday after writing about Chase's attempt to be Mary Poppins on his bike with the umbrella and realized that I couldn't let you all think that he's the only one with an embarassing story..

A few years ago, on a different blog, I'd written about Madelyn and her own moment in the spotlight.  I've copied and pasted that post for you here.  Promise to get back to writing about the adoption stuff, but I'm a little lazy tired. ;)

Posted on November 18, 2008:

I had a traumatic night last night…no, really…Madelyn came upstairs to the living room to tell me good night. I looked up from the purse I'm making and gasped! She had given herself BANGS (very short bangs) on ONE SIDE OF HER HEAD!!!



"Madelyn Grace! What happened to your hair?!?!?"


"Nothing…what do you mean??"


"You CUT your hair???"


"NO!!"


"Go in the bathroom, look at yourself and then come back and tell me what you did…" She scurries off to the bathroom and it's very quiet for a few minutes.


"I don't know what happened Mom!!" This being said from the safety of the bathroom door.


"Madelyn…you need to tell me the truth."


"FINE! I cut it!!" Sobbing she ran to her room…irritated, I called her back.


"Madelyn, I'm not mad that you cut your hair..although, the smarter thing to do would have been to ask me to bring you to the hairdressers. I'm mad that you didn't tell me the truth when I asked for it." More sobbing ensued.


"Madelyn…where are the scissors?" More scurrying to her bedroom…she'd used child safety scissors.


"Madelyn…WHERE is the HAIR?" More scurrying to her bedroom…she hands me a clump of her beautiful hair. I pointed at the kitchen wastebasket. She took off for the safety of her room.


At this point, Steven came upstairs to find out what was going on…I told him and he immediately started laughing.


"Stop laughing! She's embarassed as it is…" Now I was giggling…the horror of the situation had given way to amusement.


We went down to her room and Maddie was still crying…I sat on the edge of her bed.


"It's okay honey…do you understand that Mummy was more upset that you lied about it?" Head nod. "I'll help you fix your hair for school in the morning, okay?" Double head nod.


Fast forward to this morning…she came in the bathroom for me to help comb over her hair and fasten it with a barrette…I looked at her face and said….


"MADELYN, what happened to your EYE?" As if the poor kid isn't traumatized enough…she's got Conjunctivitis. At least this will give me more time to figure out how to fix her hair, right??

It had turned out that she didn't have conjunctivitis..her eyes were just swollen from crying so hard. 

It still makes me giggle, even a year and a half later..

Whew. (Probably TMI..Lol)

My little girl is growing up…she's going to be entering the double digit state at the end of May and I've started talking to her about the "changes" her little girl body will be going through soon. So scary!!! I started out by having her read "Are You There God? It's Me Margaret" by Judy Blume..which was a nice segway into a long car ride/talk about the book and what it means for her. She was completely mortified..lol. Like in a "Please just turn up the radio Mum…I don't want to talk about it…" sort of mortified way. Poor girl..hahaha.


The thing is, I never had those talks with my amother. I think she just threw a medical book at me and told me to read it. My asister had already been through getting her period and all that stuff four years prior and I'm pretty sure she had just thrown the same book at my sister, hoping that she (and I) wouldn’t have any questions.

A few months ago, I was talking to my natural mom about it…and she said, "For Cate's (my natural sister) tenth birthday, I put together a "Big Girl Basket" and put all sorts of body lotions, deodrants, shaving cream, razors…pads, tampons..etc. etc. in it….". Hearing that really brought home the fact that my upbringing was so different than what it might have been. You just didn't talk about such things in my house…sex was definitely not a topic that was discussed..ever..except in the context of "only sluts have sex before marriage". Funny, by that definition, both my asister and I ended up being sluts in the eyes of our parents in spite of the fear of God we had instilled into our hearts and souls.

The other day, Madelyn wrote me an email before bed (using my computer, right in front of me..lol) and then literally ran into her room to avoid starting a conversation. This is how the email exchange went:


From: xxxxxxx
To: xxxxxxxxxxx@aol.com
Sent: Tue, Mar 23, 2010 9:01 pm
Subject: ummmmm hi

Hey Mum......I love u. How are you.......I uh I don't know
I wanna wear a bra.Please don't discuss it now.........I'm sorry.I don't have to .......bye


OMG. So I calmed myself down (I admit I was laughing really hard)…and replied:


On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 9:35 PM, wrote:


Hi Mad...I love you too :) We'll discuss it another day then sweetheart, okay? No worries..we'll know when it's time to go shopping...


Love,
Mum

I was pretty proud of myself for the way I responded…and then the next day, I got this:

From: xxxxxxx >
To: xxxxxxxxxxx@aol.com
Sent: Wed, Mar 24, 2010 7:48 pm
Subject: Re: ummmmm hi


Ummmm......ok.....I really am sorry that it was so sudden.....I just sorta felt like it was time....Love you more than you know

Love Madelyn ps....is it almost time?


So, this weekend, I brought her to the store and we walked in…me striding purposefully towards the girls' section, she following behind me asking what we were getting. I didn't answer her, just kept walking right over to the girls' bras. She said, "Now??? We're doing this now???"…lol…

She picked out some cute sports bra type garments and handed them to me very quickly so she wouldn't be seen carrying them and avoided eye contact with anyone and everyone in the store, including me, until we left.

Turns out three of her friends have gotten them in recent weeks and she wanted to wear one too. My boyfriend chortled in amusement when I told him what we'd gotten…"But Honey, she doesn't NEED one yet…". I said, "That's not the point. She WANTS to wear one..and I'm not going to be like my mother and pretend that such things don’t need special attention." He shut up fairly quickly after that. Smart man.

A-F-F-I-L-I-A-T-I-O-N

I wish with all my heart that Affiliation started with an "O"..because that's the only letter that my sweet girl missed.  She beat out 26 out of 33 kids tonight..and I told her over and over (as I held my sobbing girl) that I wouldn't be any less proud if she'd been first out of the competition.

I got a good picture after she'd stopped crying at home...

Annnnd...a not so good picture before we'd even left the house...

Lol..but that one doesn't even compare to THIS ONE from last year...

"Buzzz..." Goes The Bee

Heading out of work soon to screw home and get ready for Madelyn's big night! She received first place in her class spelling bee and tonight, she and about 30 other kids are competing in her elementary school's competition. I think she's really nervous, but I know she'll do great :) I'm rushing to the store to pick up flowers and a "So proud of you Sweetheart" card for my girl.

I've got butterflies in my stomach and it's not even ME that's going to be onstage tonight!! Will update later with the results!

Enough is Enough

I have a crap ton of work that I need to be doing right now…and zero motivation to be doing any of it. I'm getting a cold, sitting at my desk with a fever and just want to cry.


I'm super emotional…for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is the fact that (Warning: If there are any guys in my reading audience, the following will probably constitute as TMI) I just got my period after four months of nothing. Sigh. I guess I'm glad that it finally showed up, but my hormones and emotions have been going haywire lately and it's just all very overwhelming.

My darling daughter decided Saturday that instead of cleaning her room before going to see Cirque de Soleil with my boyfriend's dad, stepmom and stepniece that she'd take a pen and carve random designs into the top of her antique dresser. Found it last night when we were pulling our Christmas stuff out of the attic. Just am at a loss as to how to handle her. She's a great kid, don't get me wrong, but that just threw me right the hell over the edge.

I'm at the point that I feel like boxing up everything in her room except for her clothes and putting them away until she can learn how to respect what she has, and respect us.
Anyone have any suggestions?

My a-sister called me the other day asking what to get the kids for Christmas and mentioned that our mom had called her, worried about me. Amom knows that I'm in therapy, but not why… I told her that I was okay…that I was just working through some stuff..but I think that I might try and get up the courage to talk to my sister about what's been going on.  Definitely not before Christmas though. We just put up the tree and the other decorations and I'm trying desperately to get into the holiday spirit and talking about the abuse and everything else would just send my emotions plummeting.