A funny thing happened to me recently - I was thrust into my Utopia when I least expected it and wasn’t prepared for it. And it was meant to happen exactly that way because no other way would I have appreciated it and recognized it like I have.

I’ve spent most of the last 10 years with a vision of exactly what kind of life I wanted if I could design that life myself. I know it’s good to have goals and dreaming is ok too but the problem is that all this dreaming distracted me from reality and also I’m not very patient. I like to make this happen NOW. Later might never come. I was so busy dreaming about what I didn’t have that I failed to enjoy what I did have. Which was a lot. That said, I’m not sure I could have ever truly enjoyed it because all of ::that:: isn’t who I am, it isn’t what I want and it doesn’t make happiness magically appear.

The day that Tony called to tell me he lost his job was the first day of my Utopia. I hated that job - oh how I hated that job - with a passion that had a life of its own. I hated how they treated my husband from day one: if we weren’t already unemployed and desperate for ANY job, there is no way he would have taken that job. But as it were, we WERE desperate (and of course they knew that) and so it was better than nothing. It was meant to be temporary until he could find something more well-suited for our family but it turned out to be both more temporary and more long-lasting than expected. The Job will not be missed.

I could sum up the life lessons I’ve learned in the last few years with a number of cliches about how life is how we live it and not how much money we have. Those are the kinds of things that are easy to proclaim when you have no money but for a long time I felt this sort of mismatch with our life and my inner joy. I often - OFTEN - thought back on a time in life that Dalton fondly refers to as the “frozen pizza rolls” days where our total annual income was $9000. We were broker than broke for a family of 4 but damn I was happy. And I was a good Mom - a really GOOD Mom. And I was healthy in ways that I haven’t really resembled in years. Of course we tend to idealize the past, I know it wasn’t my Utopia but the point is that I have always felt a certain joy about being free from the social encumbrances that come with money. One of those biggest encumbrances, for the vast majority of people, is that your time is no longer your own. You have no freedom, no flexibility, no opportunities for illness, exhaustion or just time off to enjoy life. You are owned by those who pay you. Where is the joy in that?!

I think one of the things that instantly attracted me to Vietnam was that the people had so little but were overfull with joy. I wanted that. That is my Utopia.

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t want to live on $9000/year. There are things that ARE important to me that DO cost money: my home, our cars, my children’s extra curricular activities. But there are also things that are so important to me that I have now that I didn’t have two weeks ago: namely, my husband’s presence. I love having him here, my kids love having him here, he loves to be here. I love being able to go to the zoo at 10am on a weekday, as a family. I love being able to travel, even if it means sleeping in a tent to afford it. I love being able to get up and take a walk…..alone. Plus I am also spoiled: I love it when my husband brings me passion tea lemonades at lunchtime and tells me to go take a nap in the middle of the day and catch up on last night’s tv that I was way too exhausted to stay awake through. I love that he can sit outside and work while the kids swim in the pool and if he gets hot, he can jump in too. I love, most of all, seeing my husband working hard on things that truly matter, achieving things that he would have and could have never achieved had he been stuck in the cubicle hell and being validated for his talents instead of recriminated for them.

Tony has worked from home in the past and it was nice but not like this. I didn’t have the appreciation I do now. I took for granted almost all of the perks. Once things changed I made those sorts of deals you made with yourself, God, whomever. I said “If I ever get the chance again, I will be a better wife, a better mother, I will use the time to take better care of myself.” So that’s why the very first thing I did on the very first morning after Tony lost his job was to wake up and go out walking. I bartered for more time and I won, I was going to make good on my promise. Granted it has only been about 10 days but I think we both spend time daily reflecting and appreciating what we have gained from this loss. I feel so blessed, so privileged. And that was something I most definitely never really *felt* before.

And one final note on personal growth. I’m such a control freak, especially about money and finances. I would not ordinarily say this is a bad thing but it is not always a good thing. I think when you are so hung up with making things perfect, you lose your perspective. You lose relativity about what perfection really is. You forget that Life truly really honestly does just Go On whether you are in control and everything is perfect or not. And you can hang on for the ride and have faith and trust in those you love and in life itself or you can freak the hell out and try to make sense of it all and try to make it all fixed yesterday. You can probably guess which one of those two scenarios I resembled 10 days ago and which I really feel I am today.

Inner peace is the key: if you have inner peace, the external problems do not affect your deep sense of peace and tranquility. In that state of mind you can deal with situations with calmness and reason, while keeping your inner happiness. That is very important. Without this inner peace, no matter how comfortable your life is materially, you may still be worried, disturbed or unhappy because of circumstances.
- Dahli Lama

One of the bad habits I’m trying very hard to break is the whole “We’re broke” sob story. First of all, broke is relative and its insulting to say we are broke after having visited Vietnam and seen what little even monetarily wealthy people have. Second, we are rich in ways that aren’t reflected in our bank account and at the moment, those riches feel like Utopia. I feel like I won the lotto. I found my inner peace.

Let me tell you right off the bat that I am not an attachment expert; I am not an adoption expert. What I am is an expert on MY kids. Because I, like so many before and after me, intended on adopting a baby AYAP (as young as possible for those who don’t know the ‘lingo’), I hadn’t done more than some very basic skimming of the toddler attachment in adoption books. Also I was already a practicing attachment parent so I figured what more did I need to know? Basically what I’m saying is that my kid has taught me a lot but I have no idea how what I’m saying here compares or reflects what is advised or expressed in The Books. So take it for what it’s worth.

Attachment does not have a finish line but rather is an endless journey that ebbs and flows.

I’ve been having a really hard time writing these posts lately. I’ve tried and probably written 5000 words on the topic but none of them have properly encapsulated my experiences. Today I was meditating on the issue of attachment, looking for the missing piece of the puzzle I needed to properly express my thoughts when the above thought entered my mind.

So often you hear internationally adopting parents proclaim, before their feet even hit US soil, that “attachment is great” or “we are well bonded already”. If parents are being very aware, however, and very honest with themselves they will admit that attachment this early on is just not possible. Some children will cling to their adoptive parents in an attempt to make a safe connection with ANYONE but this shouldn’t be confused with true attachment which is a journey, not something with an end point. If you ever say or think “We are done! We are attached!” you need to look closer. Attachment, as a process, will ebb and flow even with biological children. Think about the natural DEtachment that happens during the teen years. Think about your own relationship with your parents – it probably doesn’t look quite the same as it looked when you were 2 (at least I hope not!). Attachment is a journey and how it looks today may not be how it looks next year. I think if you open yourself up to the journey through attachment (instead of to attachment), you are more likely to be aware of weaknesses, strengths and changes and more willing to bend to them or accept them, when appropriate. Or at least I would have been.

It took me a full 16 months to get to the level of attachment I current possess with Addison. She was 6 months old when we met her. She was a searcher which made us feel immediately loved and made her feel, on the very most fundamental survival level, safe and secure. She was easy to know and it, combined with my own instincts, made it easy to know what she really needed and how her personality was really meant to manifest itself. It is only recently, after 16 months of patiently waiting and trying different things, that I have finally seen these needs manifest.

If you had asked me when we left Vietnam if I felt that Addison was attached to us, I think I would have said yes. She wasn’t grieving; she was sleeping, eating and happy. She was even nursing, she let us hold her and she laughed for us and played with us and looked in our eyes. But the thing is she never grieved. She played with anyone. She was a searcher, she looked into anyone’s eyes. She let us meet her needs and so long as she was surviving, she was happy. She had no coping mechanisms to deal with grief, pain, sadness, hunger, exhaustion, illness, etc. So she was either quiet and reserved or happy. To us this felt like attachment but it wasn’t. I mentioned before that it took a long time for her to learn to express negative emotions at all. All of that was part of the on-going attachment process.

Through her first year it was just not 100% there. She was still more or less indiscriminate about her affection. She wasn’t likely to climb into my lap and never asked me to pick her up. She was resistant to me soothing her to sleep; she was resistant to sharing her sleep space with anyone. She even called other people Mom. Of course she was still happy as a lark. But I knew – I just knew – that this wasn’t really her. There was still healing and growth that had to happen.

And sometime in the last 2-3 months it finally just clicked and true attachment really started to happen. Suddenly she needed me in ways that went well beyond survival. She needed me to sooth her tears away (tears!), kiss her owies, and hold her just because. She asks me to pick her up and hold her or carry her. She now needs to feel not just safe but important to me. She developed comfort rituals that involved direct skin contact with her Daddy or I. She stopped calling me Mommy and Mom and started calling me Mama again. She no longer runs to others indiscriminately but sticks close to me and interacted from a more healthy distance. She turns our face to look into her eyes and tells us she loves us, spontaneously. I wish I could say what finally worked, what changed. I have lots of theories but no real answers.

And lest you think this sounds a whole lot like insecurity and regression, let’s talk about that for a minute. Regression is a natural and normal part of the early part of the attachment journey. Regression is also not something Addison was interested in. There were some points we were unbending to – we fed her every single bottle she ever took, we carried her when possible, we rocked her to sleep almost every nap and bedtime. But if you’ve followed my blog for awhile you will know that Addison is naturally driven, extroverted and independent. Regardless of those personality traits, I have always intuitively felt that she was not ready for the big independent steps she wanted to take, that she still had work to be done as a baby that she had not yet done. Now I am finally seeing the manifestation of that. She is still outgoing, she is still very friendly and loves to play with other kids, she still goes off and plays by herself at home. She is not clingy, she is not insecurely needy. She is just….healthy.

I know that the work has just begun, though. To say “we are attached” would be to dismiss the great ebb and flow of human relationships. I can say we are more attached than we had ever been before, for sure. I can say that for the first time in 18 months I can see my daughter’s true potential, her true capacity for love and affection and it is pretty awesome to see after KNOWING it was there for so long and just not being able to coax it out.

I also don’t believe Addison’s attachment is unusual or that she ever had an “attachment problem”. I think that for adoptive parents to believe that a child who has lost not only their first mother whose womb they knew, whose heartbeat they were in sync with, whose sounds and smells were their world for 9 whole months (or more) but then to lose yet another familiar environment most often with loving nannies whose sounds and sights are familiar, smells that are familiar without serious effect regardless of the temperament of the baby is extremely naive. The human spirit is amazing and has the capacity to rebound from these losses but not without much time, much work and much love.

At 24 months old Addison’s spirit has rebounded and now we continue on this attachment journey together.

Friday we went to the park. Snakes were caught, some big, some small. None venomous….this time. Whew. Little did I know this would be the least of my concerns. Friday night I made note of a bug bite on Teegan’s leg that was swollen. It wasn’t bothering him so I didn’t feel too concerned. He tends to be overly allergic to mosquitoes so I assumed it was just his usual mosquito reaction.

Saturday, the bite had doubled in size. Into the ER we went, with thoughts of black widows or worse, brown recluses, on my mind. No, it was just a bite, they assured me. I think this was supposed to be reassuring but all I could think of was that if his body reacted this way to a simple bug bite, how might it react to venom? I do know that all bug reactions aren’t made the same. Right below the mystery bite was a red ant bite. Some people have serious reactions to those and, go figure, Teegan’s was fairly typical. We were sent on our way with oral steroids but told it would resolve on its own either way so we held off on the steroids.

Saturday night I watched as it grew bigger and bigger and bigger and basically took over his leg between ankle and knee. I have to admit I was totally freaked out. Finally a dose of oral Bendaryl (which we have now been instructed to give whenEVER he is bit by any bug) stopped the growth and it has been slowly shrinking since then. Today it’s about the size of a half dollar or a little bigger - about 3 times smaller than it was at its largest.

I have given some serious thought to allergy testing and allergy shots. Teegan has been bit by red ants and stung by bees and wasps without effect. It only seems to be the mosquitoes that are the problem and it seems like it’s getting worse. Google tells me he probably has Skeeter Syndrome but it can really only be diagnosed with allergy tests. Unfortunately Teegan is phobic to needles like I am phobic to dentists. I think he even scared the hell out of the ER when we came in just because he was so totally panic-stricken at the thought of needing to give blood or get a shot that he couldn’t settle. It was awful. So for now, we’ll stick with the Benadryl or Zyrtec this summer along with B1 which I have heard makes one less yummy to mosquitoes. We’ll see.

Sunday Dalton was out at The Hill* with his friends when I called him home. Its a long bike ride home. He sped down the hill, coasting along, when at the bottom he realized the chain on his bike had come off and he wiped out. Can I just say right now that this is why I rest so much easier when BOTH my big kids are out together? And also why BOTH my kids will have cell phones on them at all times when they are away from home. All that said, he fixed his bike and came home just fine. He didn’t need to call me, he didn’t need Teegan. But it freaked me out anyway.

Today its raining. Pouring. The old man is snoring. I really REALLY needed this rain break. All the excitement of the Great Outdoors comes with lots of risks and some days I handle those risks better than others. Today I just want to wrap my boys up and keep them safe forever. Of course I know I can’t and I won’t but I still want to.  I know a lot of people are worried about child predators but to me, the bigger child predators are venomous snakes, spiders whose bite can necrotize human flesh and cars that can hit my kids and leave them for dead at the side of the road.

* the hill is a sidewalk on a very steep hill that the kids meet on to ride down, for fun. Doesn’t every neighborhood have a hill?