Traveling and Muffins

By: Wendy Rhein

I am traveling for my day job this week, which means my life job suffers. Maybe “suffers” is the wrong word – my life job, raising two boys and living with an aging parent who needs some help, gets the hiccups. I am more comfortable with that: gets the hiccups.

I have found the equation that works: Days out of town = days of preparation for going out of town.

As a single mother, I’m grateful that I don’t have to travel weekly, as many people do, for their jobs. When I was lucky enough to have more than one job offer a couple of years ago, the infrequency of travel was one of my key decision points. And, I’m incredibly grateful that my mother is able to stay with my boys while I’m away. I honestly don’t know what I’d do otherwise. She does the best she can with them and they have the consistency of having her there, like they do every day. And as long as I plan everything out and deal with the details, there are few, if any, tears.

It is all about the math. Away for three days/two nights? That’s three dinners that need to be prepared and frozen, or at least all the elements placed together in the fridge and labeled in the cabinet. Don’t forget to get the colander off the high shelf because my mother can’t reach above her head any more to get things down. Miss that step and expect to hear that dinner for three nights was scrambled eggs and toast. If I am only gone one overnight, I can pack two lunches in the pre-dawn hours for that day and the next without guaranteeing it will go stale. How many snack packs of carrots can I pack in advance? Six seems to be the limit before my son wrinkles his nose at them. Are there enough chicken apple sausages for Sam because that’s all he wants for lunch on the days he’s not in daycare. Don’t mess with the sausages. If I make 2 dozen morning glory muffins before I go, that’s enough for breakfasts and after school snacks for 3-4 days for all involved.

Are there enough clean clothes for everyone? Diapers? Is there an extra gallon of milk just in case? I find myself mentally scanning the calendar a week before I leave for field trips, apartment maintenance schedules, Mom’s doctor’s visits and half days at school. I’ve been known to make a midnight run to the store before a 4:00 AM alarm for extra toilet paper and sandwich bread. My mom struggles in the cold and wet weather that this time of year brings so I need to be sure that as many outside trips as possible can be avoided. This time, because I have a Friday night red-eye home with a very early Saturday arrival, I also booked our favorite babysitter to meet the bus on Friday and take the boys to the park, order in pizza and give my mother a break. Two days and two nights of child care are pretty much the limit without outside reinforcements.

I can sleep on planes very easily, generally out of sheer exhaustion and adrenaline let-down. By the time I’ve navigated getting dressed in the dark without waking anyone, left love notes for everyone including the cat (because it was loudly noted last trip that the cat was sad I did not leave him a love note so I better come home right away and kiss the cat) and lugged my pre-packed luggage out the door, fought traffic, and navigated the airport, my day is half done. Just getting to the departure gate is a trip in itself.

Some say I should relish this time away. The chance to sleep a full night or eat in a restaurant without a kids’ menu. I admit that I do like the chance to drink a cup of coffee in the morning before it grows cold. But mainly I miss my family. I feel like less than who I am without their hugs and small faces inches from mine. By the end of a day away, I itch to go back where I belong.

Here is the recipe for the Morning Glory muffins that my family inhales. Based on a recipe from King Arthur flour, I’ve made some changes. They are sweet and moist and full of mother-approved nutritional goodness. I may not be there, but the muffins are, and for a day or so, that works.

Morning Glory Muffins
Makes 24-30 depending on your desired muffin top (the muffin’s, not yours, though I suppose there is a cause-effect relationship here)

1/2 cup yellow raisins
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups grated carrots
1 large apple, grated (I leave the skin on and pick a tart apple like a Granny Smith)
2/3 cup sweetened shredded coconut
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
1/3 cup wheat germ (shhhh… don’t tell them. Or omit it, it’s optional)
3 large eggs
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with liners.

Cover the raisins with hot water in a small bowl and set them aside to soak. In a mixing bowl combine the dry ingredients (flour, spices, sugar, baking soda and salt) and set aside. In a separate bowl, combine all the wet ingredients and the nuts. Whisk those together to thoroughly combine and break up the eggs. Add to the flour mixture, and stir until evenly moistened. Drain the raisins and stir them in. Divide the batter among the muffin cups, almost to the top.

Bake for 25 to 28 minutes, until nicely domed and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven, let cool for 5 minutes in their pan on a rack, then turn out of pans to finish cooling.

Is it Really a Racial Thing?

By: Wendy Rhein

Because of a blog I wrote a few weeks ago about talking to my 6 ½-year-old son about racism, I had a great conversation this week with his best buddy’s mom. Here are two little boys (they would both puff out their chests and tell me they are NOT little!), both biracial, who intend to become the President of the United States and the head of the Secret Service so they can work together when they are old. Old, like when they are their parents’ ages.

So, I had the good fortune this week to talk to this great kid’s mother about this very fine line we tread as mothers of biracial kids: wanting them to be aware of racism and other people’s bigotries, while also not planting the seed that any bad behavior or injustice is racially motivated.

I want my kids to be aware that racism exists and is often displayed in the most back-handed, cruel, and mean-spirited of ways. It is this kind of racism that eats away at the soul and passion of people. It could be any ism I suppose. It is belittling, causes you to question and feel judged, for being different, or other. I want them to know so that as they grow they can point it out, literally point, at the person or situation and say “ah, I see that. I see that that really isn’t about ME as a person but about that person’s narrow-mindedness,” and then not take it personally. On the other hand, I also want them to be aware of it so they can fight against those injustices and again, point them out and bring them into the light so that they become shameful and unacceptable instead of quietly endured and tolerated.

Not that I have high expectations or anything…

But on the other hand, I want to balance it with the very real idea that mean-spirited actions, cruel and back-handed comments are not always about race. Someone ignoring you in a store? An older woman crosses the street when she sees a couple of teenagers coming her way? A teacher says she didn’t expect you to do well on that math test? Not necessarily a black thing. I don’t want to put a chip on his shoulder, that’s not my goal as his mother, and I want to be sure to knock it off if he develops one of his own. Be responsible for your own actions, your own choices. Recognize that while yes, there are racist people out there and he will certainly come upon them, as we do now, there are also people who are just having a bad day. Or are generally unhappy and mean. It isn’t all about you, baby. You’re the center of my world, but not the world of the cashier at Safeway.

So as a mother, how do I impress these very heady ideas on a young child, giving him the space and support to stand up for himself and what he believes while simultaneously allowing him to be a kid, see good in other people, and not think that other people’s crap is about him personally? I keep talking. I keep making mistakes. I ask him what he thinks. It is a daily balance for me.  I probably think about it more often than I need to.  And I know for a fact I talk about it more often than makes some of my friends comfortable.   That mama bear thing comes out in a way that can make others uneasy but hey, these are my kids and for me this is a very real parenting issue. I am incredibly thankful for the friends and a forum to share stories and concerns.   Maybe we need a club.  One that serves wine.

On the Day You Were Born ….

By: Wendy Rhein

I was sitting at my desk, talking to a colleague about what a big week it was going to be – Sam was due to be born later in the week – when I got the call from his birth mother. She was at a routine appointment and was advised to go to the hospital for an immediate c-section. She needed a ride. Could I pick her up?

I leapt out of the chair, grabbed my keys, hugged my colleague and ran out the door. I can’t even remember if I told my supervisor. Not that it would have mattered. Everyone knew I was adopting, everyone in our small community knew that there was a little boy on the way.

We got to the hospital and went through all the check-in procedures. I was familiar with the layout because she and I had done pre-registration the week before. I was vibrating with nerves and excitement, again not sure what my role was, since she was there alone. Her mother would arrive later after arranging care for her 2-year-old daughter. Several hours later, after her mother and sister arrived, she was wheeled away for the c-section. I went to the family room to wait. I prayed, a lot, that she wouldn’t change her mind when she saw his little face. That she wouldn’t change her mind with her mother’s voice in her ear. That he would be ok and healthy. That she hadn’t been lying about drugs and alcohol during the pregnancy. I prayed that I would find the strength and resources to raise two little boys on my own. I prayed. A lot.

Two hours later her mother came out and told me that Sam was born, a healthy baby boy. I made a tearful promise to her that I would take good care of him, that I knew she wasn’t in favor of the adoption, but I was so grateful to her and their family for giving me the privilege of being in his life. She just glared at me, and asked for a ride home.

Never one to miss an opportunity for efficiencies, I willingly drove her home so we would have a few minutes to talk. She asked me about my family, were they ok with raising a black child. (Of course they are, they’re elated.) She asked about my elder son, was he ok with sharing his mother. (Of course he is, he’s elated.) How was I going to work full time with a newborn? (I’m consulting, I can take him with me and also work from home. It’s all been arranged.) By the time she left the car, I felt her defenses drop a little, maybe she was accepting the idea; maybe she was just tired.

I ran home, changed out of the suit I had worn to work earlier in the day, a day that seemed now like a universe ago. I didn’t know what the night was going to hold, but I knew I was going to hold my new son. Time was now being divided into Before-Sam and With-Sam.

When I got back to the hospital, M (Sam’s birth mother) was very upset. They wanted her to breastfeed and she didn’t want to. She did not want the baby rooming-in and the nurses kept trying to bring him to her. They weren’t nice, she said.  They didn’t get it.  I became her advocate – calling the lawyer, calling the hospital social worker. Reminding her that there was an adoption plan in place and they needed to respect her wishes. Once that was understood and they backed off, she went back to texting her boyfriend and I went off to find my son. Once at the nursery, they dug through her chart to find the adoption plan, verified my identity, and finally, buzzed the security door open.   No one knew what to do with me. They promoted rooming-in; they didn’t have rockers or chairs. So they wheeled his little incubator over to the nurses’ station, gave me a swivel office chair, and there I sat, holding Sam, for the next 20 hours.

We got to know each other in that first day of his life – he had his mother’s nose, he didn’t like to be put down, he did not like to be swaddled but rather wanted to keep one hand over his eyes (a trick he still does today when he’s grouchy).

I managed to read a whole book in a day, nodding off a few times between feedings and changings, all while sitting in that uncomfortable swivel chair. I held him, turning the pages with one hand, texting family and friends with one hand, sending pictures of his beautiful face with one hand.  I was not allowed to take him out of the nursery and no one was allowed in.  It was just us.

The next day preceded much the same. M came down to the nursery to see him once, and sat in my chair to hold him briefly. I have a picture of the two of them. My heart contracted at the sight, my prayers continuing. Please, don’t change your mind. Please.

The evening of the second day in the hospital, it was sleeting and cold outside. The lawyer arrived to do the final consents and get all the documents signed. We were going home. I was exhausted and overwhelmed and incredibly hopeful that we had gotten this far. I waited in the nursery, Sam next to me in his little “leave the hospital” outfit and huge bag of baby stuff from the nurses who had, it turned out, been very kind to me in the 48 hours since his birth. I could not wait to get him home to meet his brother and grandmother, to start our newly expanded family life.

After about 30 minutes of waiting, my attorney knocked on the glass door to the nursery and I came bounding out, expecting to be sent on our way.  She brought me to M’s room. M was sobbing. I sat down and the attorney explained to me that M had been lying about the birth father. Not only did she know who it most likely was, but she had told him months before that she was pregnant and wanted to have an adoption plan for the baby. He had told her then that if the baby was his, and there was still some doubt, that he would oppose the adoption. He couldn’t care for the child, but maybe his mother could. M didn’t want that, so she lied. She had told us and signed an affidavit that said that she didn’t know how to find him, didn’t know his last name, and had met him casually. In reality, they had had a relationship, her mother and his mother were friends.  Her mother had called the man’s mother that afternoon to try and stop the adoption.  Didn’t they want the baby?   M’s mother had burst into the hospital room just as the documents were being signed, brought all of the lies to light, and then tried to go to the nursery and take Sam from me. She was stopped by hospital security.

I sat, my head falling into my hands at the foot of M’s bed. I cried. She cried. She told me she wasn’t taking him home, that if I didn’t then he would go to Children’s Services. Her mother had also told her earlier in the day that they were being evicted so she didn’t have a place to go home to herself, let alone with a baby.  She wouldn’t.  She couldn’t.

This can’t be what is supposed to happen. This can’t be the life he is supposed to have.

My attorney and I went into the hall and she quietly advised me to walk away. If this man was in fact Sam’s father, and his family could make him follow through and sign all the appropriate papers (the family having no legal standing on their own), then no judge would separate father and son, regardless of this guy’s criminal background or his other children or his lack of employment or education. Walk away, she said. If he doesn’t follow through, and it is unlikely, you can get Sam back from Children Services in a month or so. Go home, she said.

My mind was reeling. Go home? Without him? How? How would I explain this to Nathan, who knew that his little brother had been born? I quickly called my mother and my sister. I sobbed to my sister, how can I possibly leave him, alone? I’m the only person he’s seen, the only one who has held him for more than a brief touch. Leave him?

From the outset of this process, many years before, the goal had always been to be a parent, to provide a child with a family and a life. In that moment, I had to decide if those were just words or if I meant it. If I was willing to risk losing him in order to provide him with the best care I could. If I was willing to put myself and Nathan through the real possibility of losing him in a day, a week, or worse, a month. It was too late for me, I was already in love with him, but Nathan hadn’t met him yet. Would it be better to bring him home, let us love him and care for him, and then let him go? or walk away because it was “better” for me?

In my core, there wasn’t a choice. He was my son. I would love him forever and care for him for as long as time and circumstances allowed.

I was taking him home.

Velcro Mom

By: Wendy Rhein

If I were a superhero, I would be Velcro Mom. Who can leap over piles of laundry in a single bound (with a child hanging off her arm)? And debone a turkey with one hand (while the other is filling a sippy cup)? And who can type 60 words a minute – with one hand while blowing bubbles with the other?

It’s Velcro Mom!

I can’t remember when I last was able to spend a whole day of mundane tasks with both hands. I’m sure it happened, maybe four years ago, but I haven’t slept more than 6 hours in a row in two years so I can’t remember. I’d like to think I have but who the hell really knows.

My boys both want a lot of me right now, and they’re not willing to settle for my intellectual banter or pithy definitions to newly acquired words like “hot” or “disintegrate.” As a single mom, I don’t share this need for contact and hugs with another parent so I’m outnumbered. A zone defense instead of man to man. The younger one is in a mini-me stage with his big brother so if Nathan sits on my lap, Sam wants to sit on my lap. And not just on my lap but exactly where his brother is currently sitting. If Nathan is holding my hand, Sam wants to hold that same hand. You can see where this is going. And it doesn’t end well. I am mastering the art of “sharing Mama” which allows for both kids to be touching me at the same time. After a little while Nathan gets bored and will peel off but Sam wants to stick to me like, well, Velcro.

Literally as I type this, Sam is on my lap and I’m typing around him, struggling to read the screen over and around his head as he bobs and weaves, giggling, thinking we are playing a game. Nathan is at my feet, or actually ON my feet, under the desk.

I admit that there are days, normally late on Sunday afternoons during a long weekend, when I actually look forward to going to work where no one will tug on me. I love my kids, but I think my arms are two different lengths now, one to reach a 6-year-old, one longer to reach a 2-year-old. I wonder if I can put singlehanded multitasking on a resume.

I know the day is coming when I will get my two hands back to work together on the simple things – like cooking dinner or buttoning a shirt. I will be grateful for the physical independence and freedom. And I know that there will come a day when I will make the same face Sam does when I tell him no, he can’t sit in the shower with me, when I want to hug or kiss my boys in the carpool lane and they jump from the car before I can touch them. I will want to remind them of the days when they couldn’t get enough of me and they’ll roll their eyes and snicker. I will keep sharing my hands and arms and lap with them for as long as they will have me, and remind myself of these days when they walk away on their own.

Teach Your Children Well

By: Wendy Rhein

I’ve been struggling with writing this all day. I have drafted more first, second, and seventh paragraphs than I care to admit and trashed them all. The truth is, my kid and many other kids I know were hurting last week and it infuriates me.

Last week I heard and endured several painful stories about how children interact and label each other. In my own life, and in the lives of no less than three friends in just seven days, I find myself thinking much too much about how kids treat those they consider different.

In one case, an older child, along for a playdate with a little one, felt the need to tell my friend’s child that not only was she adopted, but that her birth parents couldn’t take care of her and she was ‘given up’ so she would have a better life.

And then again, a young girl adopted by a single mom who sometimes joins her precocious daughter for lunch at school.  Last week the mom was dismayed that children at a shared lunch room repeatedly asked her daughter why she doesn’t have a daddy, why she looks different from her mom, and told her that her “real” mom didn’t want her so she came to live here.  Those are some pretty heady ideas for five-year-olds to come up with on their own.

Then there is the young teenage daughter of two wonderful dads who came home from the bus stop when she should have been on the bus heading to school. Through the tears and blood smudges, she told her stay-at-home dad about the teasing she endures daily about her “queer dads” and how on that particular day she had had enough. She said she knew better than to go to school having beaten the crap out of another girl in their neighborhood. She knew that she, not the offensive and mean-spirited girl, would be the one suspended.

And finally in my own family. This past week my first grader was studying Martin Luther King, Jr. and one of the boys in his class said that all King did was make white people and black people fight. He went on to say that King was just a troublemaker.

As a child of an African American father and Caucasian mother, Nathan sometimes questions his racial identity and I have left the label, if one is necessary, to come from him and not me. I tell him he is the best of both of us, that naming his color is not as important as remembering that he is more than white, more than black. He’s his own person.

I was so angry that this little 6 or 7-year-old child in my son’s public school classroom had that kind of power to cast doubt and darkness over the meaning of Dr. King’s work that I launched into an intensely personal and political conversation with Nathan. He learned what “racist” means, that even now people who will judge him, his brother, and many others by the color of their skin and not the content of their character; and we talked about the power of words to change the way people think. I was exhausted. We drifted in and out of different elements of the conversation for hours. I tried to balance his maturity and his age, what he was capable of absorbing and not wanting to scare him or worry him. He’s a thinker, a dweller, and he likes to have a lot of information once he latches on to a topic. But he is six. Just six!

After the lights were out for the night and the last tuck in and good night kisses were shared, he asked me if I knew people who thought that white people should stay with white people and black people with black people. I told him the truth, that yes, I have known those people. He was quiet for a little while. Then he said that if they had their way, we wouldn’t be a family. Not him, not Sam, not me. And that would be awful. Thank God they don’t, I told him.

I imagine that my friends whose stories I mentioned had similar, exhausting, and draining conversations with their kids this week. And I imagine that they all kissed their children goodnight, closed the bedroom doors, and then cried quietly for a while, trying to not wake our dearly loved children in rooms nearby. Hoping and praying that we said or did the right thing. And wondering how much therapy was going to cost us a few years down the road.

What amazes me is that we nontraditional families outnumber the traditional families with 2 parents of 2 genders and biological children. The tradition is no longer the norm. And yet these old ideas about what makes a family and the need to justify how we became a family and why our family is made up of a variety of colors and genders are playground and lunch room conversations among the under 10 set.

These ideas come from somewhere closer to home than a television show or movie. Some kids seem to need to separate “like me” and “others” into separate circles, and the like me circle is increasingly shrinking for those kids. I implore their parents and grandparents to open their own minds and circles so as to not close their children’s.

The Depth of the Wanting

By: Wendy Rhein

I never had a baby shower for Sam. In the few short weeks leading up to his birth, it felt like a jinx to even consider it. I shook with restraint as I unpacked Nathan’s old baby clothes and washed a handful of receiving blankets. I covertly read up on formula and daydreamed about names. Each of the pre-birth preparations that should have, could have, been filled with such joyful expectation had to be put into check. He wasn’t my baby yet. Anything could still happen. The birth mother could change her mind. It was impossible to not be excited, but I had to remind myself daily that while the pregnancy was ending for her, my journey to becoming Sam’s mother was far from over.

Sam’s birthmother and I spoke every few days during those last 4 weeks of her pregnancy, just a few short weeks after first learning of the possibility of him. We texted and chatted on the phone in sometimes easy, almost sisterly conversations about pregnancy pains, hopes for our existing children, what we were making for dinner that night. Sometimes I checked in after a few quiet days, a breezy “hey how are things” chat to reassure myself that she still wanted to move forward with the adoption plan. The underlying current of those more stilted conversations: do you still like me? Still want me to raise your child? Because I really, really want to.

There are the things that people don’t tell you about open adoption. It takes you back to that awkward dance in middle school when you so badly want to be the one chosen, so badly want to be liked enough to be picked as the favored partner. You create a veneer of calm and nonchalance. You know you can’t show your true self, terrified that if you do, the depth of the abyss of your want will scare the other person off. Open adoption is like that. Please like me. Please give me the biggest gift that anyone can ever give me. Please.

In the weeks leading up to Sam’s birth, his birthmother invited me to an ultrasound appointment. I picked her up at her apartment and drove her to the doctor. When I arrived, I had obviously walked into an argument between her and her mother. She vented during the 20-minute ride to the office about her mother being against the adoption, against me. I was a single woman with a child. She was a single woman with a child. If I could take on raising a second child, why couldn’t she? I was a white woman who was going to raise her black grandson, what was her daughter thinking?

At the time, I remember driving and trying to not panic. What is my role here? She was speaking to me like a friend but speaking of me at the same time. What can I say, what should I say, without sounding like I would say anything to ensure that in the end I am the one to walk out of the hospital with this little baby? But in reality that was exactly the cornerstone of our whole relationship and we both knew it. I genuinely felt for her, as she sat railing and crying, in my car already equipped with 2 car seats. She wanted so much more for her life at 28 than what she had. She had thought she would be more like me, she said. She had thought that she would be a fashion designer by now, would have finished college, and high school. She wouldn’t be supporting herself, her daughter, and her mother on the child support she received for her first child and public assistance. She had dreamed of such a different life. Like yours, she said. But with a man around.

Yes, I said, I wanted that too. It just hasn’t worked out that way yet.

She wanted to get her GED and raise her daughter in their own apartment. She had even scoped out some daycare options. After the pregnancy, she believed, things would be different. She’d have her life back. After the pregnancy, she would get back what she had put on hold for the last 9 months.

I hope you’re ready, she said, because I’m not buying a single diaper. I’m not taking him home. I need my life back and I know I can’t raise two children, not now. I hope you’re ready, she said as we walked into the ultrasound appointment, her composure regained, her head held high.

I’m ready, I said. Let’s go.

2012 Reflections and Intentions

By Wendy Rhein

I don’t do resolutions. I don’t like the idea of setting myself up to fail by creating some bubbly-induced grandiose goals that are based on pure fantasy and some 11:58pm longing to be someone I’m not. I do, however, believe in reflection and intention.

As any psychologist or self-help reader can tell you, the idea of intention is to put out into the universe the positive energy and words – actual words – for what you want. You speak your intentions in the present tense, making them current and real, and you use precise verbs and nouns. You are not trying or wanting, you ARE.

Reflections are easy. We reflect on things all the time. The problem I find is that they often come out as regrets or unfulfilled desires. At the end of the year I like to reflect on things I learned about myself, about my world, that changed my perceptions or how I operate in the world.

So, as this year ends, I am offering some of my reflections and intentions for what has passed and what is coming. Try it. It is much more fun than promising for the 8th year in a row to lose the same 15 pounds or that you’ll try to be a better communicator.

Reflections – things I learned in 2011.

1. I don’t have to be married to my job to be happy in my life.

2. Elmo is really a 50-something black man with an incredible imagination and vocal range. Compare the visuals of man and muppet. If he can find that red and fuzzy iconic character inside of himself, what can I find in myself?

3. While I was taking cooking classes, something I had always wanted to do and finally did in 2011, I was more creative, more centered, and more focused in all other areas of my life. All of which went away again when the classes were over. There is a lesson there.

4. It is much harder to make friends as a grown up than it was in grade school.

5. Judgments made about me and my family are other people’s problems, not mine.

Intentions for 2012

1. I am writing every day, fiction or non-fiction. Every day.

2. I am taking 4 more cooking classes or series of classes, one each season.

3. I am taking a trip with my best friend of 20 + years, no kids, no spouses.

4. I am dating again, focusing on a life partner and not a dinner date. I welcome dating as an adventure and not a painful blight on 40+ singletons.

5. Oh, and I am 15 pounds lighter and a much better communicator.

An Interview with Wendy Rhein

Interview with Wendy Rhein by The Next Family

The Next Family is pleased to welcome one of our newer writers, Wendy Rhein. Wendy’s heartfelt stories of being a single mom raising two little ones, in a home that includes her own mother, often come with an added bonus: a recipe for one of her favorite meals. Please feel to ask Wendy more in the comments section.

TNF: How has it been blogging for TNF?

I’ve been blogging for TNF for just a few months and I have loved it. The experience of writing in itself is cathartic, but moreso it is the opportunity to share my family and our experiences with others that I know are living in similar situations. I hope they find some solace and some humor and a compatriot in the struggles of the sandwich generation in my blogs.

TNF: How is your family like every other family and how is it different?

In many, many ways my family is the same as others. Two busy and precocious kids, a working parent, urban living. I’m a room mom in the first grade, we go to birthday parties at those inflatable bouncey houses, lead the Cub Scout den, struggle to find a trusted child care provider, change diapers and grocery shop at 9pm on a Saturday night. Other people live like that, right? We are different for as many reasons as we are the same: we are a multi-racial family with one parent and one grandparent. I am one of thousands of 40-ish adults who has combined households with aging parents who have some capacity to help with the kids but who need some help of their own as well. We are three generations in a three bedroom apartment and we have our share of culture and generational fissures and fractures.

TNF: Did your family accept you and your lifestyle? If yes, explain and if not explain what you have done to help them to accept your decisions and your lifestyle.

Acceptance is interesting because it isn’t like they really had a choice. I know I shocked a few people by becoming a single mother by choice, and then when I wanted to have a second child and told members of my family, mainly by phone, I was often greeted with an initial silence. There were a lot of questions and concerns, some more delicately posed than others. One relative did say to me, when discussing having a second child, “can’t you just get married first this time?” I had to laugh because the comment really was meant with love, even though it came across with some desperation. I explained that my family was about much more than a husband, it was about raising children, being a mother, and that I didn’t want to marry someone just for the sake of having a piece of paper and a sperm donor. I have more respect for marriage than that. It was never brought up again. The core people in my life supported me, helped me think through the issues and challenges, and held my hand when Sam’s adoption challenge was going on. They have always validated my family as a unit regardless of its composition.

TNF: How do you juggle the work at home with your jobs?

The juggle, the dance of balancing work, a family and a life. It has always been about priorities, which sadly means that I come last most of the time. I fully admit that I have taken jobs that required less travel and therefore offered less advancement in order to be home for dinner with my boys every night. I will surely miss out financially in the long run but I don’t regret my choices. A job is a job, but my kids will only be young for a short time. My mother will only be with us for a few more years. I sleep less than I used to. I cook a lot over the weekends and then prepare the next day’s dinner after putting the kids to bed. I pack lunches and backpacks the night before. I have let go of the idea of a clean house every day. I haven’t bought new clothes for myself in a couple of years – why bother when they are going to get sidewalk chalk or drool all over them? But even with the madness of managing working and this home life I have found that I thrive under pressure, and that I need mini pick-me-ups, which for me often happen in the silence of a 20-minute car ride on the way to work or in a early morning phone call to a friend, or in the daily texts and emails with my sister. I am vowing in the coming year to be better about caring for myself and carving out a few more hours a week for me.

TNF: What lessons do you feel are the most important to teach children in this day and age? Are there any lessons they, or perhaps we as parents should unlearn?

There are many lessons that kids today (those KIDS today!) should learn. I fear that the art of imagination and the art of play are getting lost in video games and on-demand television. I want my sons to be able to make a playdate out of anything around them – a stick, a bag of balls, a card board box. I want them to have that freedom to invent and create. As a parent I have to carve out that time deliberately for free-minded playing, away from screens. I also think they need to learn independence and responsibility. That not every task you are asked to do around the house is rewarded with money or a toy or an excursion – some things we do just because we are part of a family and everyone in the family does their share to keep the family moving forward. Granted those things need to be age-appropriate, but if my 2-year-old can take his dishes to the sink after each meal, a 12-year-old can, too. One of the biggest challenges for me as a parent, is letting go of control. My family works for me, and works for my kids and mother, partially because I am a list-making fiend who has her finger on the pulse of household activities and needs. I need to learn to let go more, to let them explore and try and be kids as much and as long as they can be. As parents we also need to stop comparing to other families and to other lifestyles and recognize that our families and lives don’t have to be perfect, and don’t have to be what others are or have, in order to be just right for us.

TNF: Any words of wisdom to pass on to our readers?

Words of wisdom – if you want to be a parent, be a parent. Be a parent with all your soul and never apologize for it. It doesn’t matter if you’re gay or straight, coupled or single, have all the money or all the answers, if you know in your core that you want to raise kids then make it happen. I was blessed to have one child biologically and one child through adoption. I would do both again in a heartbeat, and just might some day. Don’t let others talk you out of what you need in your life to feel complete just because it may make them uncomfortable.

Thank you, Wendy, for sharing with us. We look forward to learning more about you and your family…and what you’re makin’ for dinner!

Life-Changing Lunch in Late December

By: Wendy Rhein

Late December means many things to many people. School vacations. Christmas. Hanukkah. I add my birthday to that list of late December milestones. It is such a hectic and time-blazing time of year that sometimes the very idea of ONE MORE THING is enough to set us into an all out family bickerfest or a tearful jag of Lifetime movies and an entire Tuesday spent on the couch.

But two years ago I added that ONE MORE THING to the December milestones that forever changed my life.

Two years ago this week I met my son’s birth mother.

I learned of Sam because of Facebook. It’s true. It is an urban myth of adoption but I can honestly say a friend posted a prayer request for a friend of hers who had a sister in need of an adoption plan for a child to be born a few short weeks later. I “happened” to be online at the time of the posting and contacted her immediately. By this time in my life, I had been trying for a second child by most means I could explore: failed IUIs with donor sperm, international adoption and then just weeks before this fateful day, finally getting my approval to adopt from the foster care system. I had my mind wrapped around the idea of an older child, a child much in need of support and a forever family. A girl child, maybe around 10. But then there was this post. This post about an African American yet-to-be-born boy.

The night M, my son’s birth mother, called me I was trying to not think about the possibilities of becoming a mom to a newborn. It was too much to hope for. I had put Nathan to bed, and was sitting at my kitchen table when she called. I didn’t know what she wanted to know about me and I don’t think she really knew what to ask. We chatted for a few minutes, I told her about myself, what I did for a living, how much I wanted another child. She told me what she wanted out of her life and what she wanted for her 2-year-old daughter who lived with her and her mother. After about 20 minutes of mindless chatter and dancing around a gigantic baby elephant in the room she said to me, “So, are you ready for a baby in 6 weeks? Because I’m not bringing him home.”

And I said yes.

Our first meet was 2 weeks later. I drove to her apartment and met M, her daughter, and her mother. She was tall and graceful, even when 8 months pregnant. She could still carry her 2-year-old on her hip. She had a bright smile. For a 27-year-old, she was emotionally very young, coming across more like a teenager. I was terrified to meet her. In our phone calls she had assured me she was healthy, drug and alcohol free, and going to all her medical appointments. But I had heard so many horror stories about domestic adoptions that I knew to not believe everything I heard. As I walked into their apartment, I looked for tell tale signs of alarm and found none. The alarm would come much later.

We had planned on lunch, just the two of us. Once I was there, M asked if I could drop her mother at the mall where we would eat, and could we take her daughter along for lunch. Of course I agreed. It was like a first date – I really wanted to impress these people with my maturity, my manners, my sense of self. But how do you convince someone over a TGI Fridays lunch special that you will be the best parent for their child?

M’s mother didn’t like me. She refused to speak to me, but did accept the ride to the mall. I tried to engage her in conversation, but she just glared at me. I later learned that she did not agree with the adoption plan and could not fathom how her daughter could “give up” her child, her first son. She was angry and ashamed of her daughter. It had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with this unquenchable loss she was experiencing.

We, M, her daughter, and me, sat in TGI Fridays and had a strangely honest lunch. Her daughter sat on my lap and sucked away at a sippy cup and chicken fingers. M was grateful for the chance to eat with both hands, something I could understand as a fellow single mother to a young child. She told me about her family, her siblings, the father she had lost. She told me how she dreamed of going to college but she was blocked by the need to get a GED first. I told her about my family, about my life as a single mom and what steps I had gone through to add another child to my life. We talked about the lawyer and the process and what the next steps would be. I didn’t know how to convey how wildly I wanted this baby. I didn’t want to sway so far on that pendulum to seem so nonchalant that the whole thing felt like a business transaction either. I didn’t know what chord to strike.

After lunch I watched her wedge her body out of the booth and waddle to the car. I knew that feeling. I knew that physical exhaustion of just moving in those last weeks of pregnancy. I envied her, envied that she was experiencing it when I had so deeply longed for that. One more time. Just one more time.

I drove her to the grocery store and waited in the car with the little girl, who had fallen asleep in my son’s car seat and was snoring. (Under local laws, I could not buy her groceries, pay rent, or offer any other kind of financial support or it could be viewed as coercion.)

At their apartment, I carried her daughter inside as she slept and drooled on my shoulder. M was tired and ready for a nap herself and bid me a quick goodbye. I walked away not knowing if I had passed the test. Was it even a test? Did she like me? Did she need to like me? Was M having similar lunches with similarly desperate couples or singles that wanted to open their hearts to her unborn child? I went home, thinking of it like a job interview. If she likes me, she will call. If I’m the right one, there will be a second meeting. Don’t get invested, it is too soon.

The next day she texted me with the date and time of her next doctor’s appointment, an ultrasound. I should come, she said, to see my son.

A Family Road Trip

By: Wendy Rhein

Christmas week is upon us – a season of love, family, joy and togetherness. Translation – 10 days of complete family togetherness. That’s a lot of days of nonstop togetherness. A lot. This year I’m taking that togetherness to the next level – driving 1,300 miles in a week with my 71-year-old mother, my 6 ½-year-old and my 2-year-old. Yep. That’s right. A family holiday road trip! Given our cast of characters, who needs Chevy Chase?

As we prepare for two very long (10+ hours) days in the car, everyone has their set of priorities. The boys need their laptop dvd players charged and ready to go with their own flip cases of painstakingly selected movies – Alvin and the Chipmunks for Nate, Sesame Street for Sam. They both need headphones (did I mention Alvin and the Chipmunks??) and they both need a special pillow or blanket to snuggle. Both having these same things may seem redundant, extravagant even, but if the little one doesn’t have exactly what the elder one has, mayhem and chaos ensue and frankly, I can’t deal with the drama while I’m driving 80 miles an hour down I-95 trying to get us there. Both kids need re-stocked travel bags – that backpack of treats, a new coloring book and crayons, a new car or other tchotchke that can be handed out when the “I’m boooreed, are we THERE yet?” starts.

The boys and I recently did a 7 hour ride for Thanksgiving and everyone survived unscathed, so I am confident we can do this one too. But things change when you alter the personality dynamics of the car and our dynamics are dramatically different when adding my mother. She is simultaneously excited and nervous about the long ride. This will be the first time she has left our new city since we moved in 18 months ago. A conversation last night went like this:

“I can’t wait until we go! I haven’t spent a night out of this apartment since we moved.”

“That’s true, unless you count those 5 weeks you were at the hospital and then the rehab center after your surgery this summer, Mom.”

“Oh. What? Oh, that’s right. I forgot. But that shouldn’t count.”

“Right, it shouldn’t count. This is better than a hospital bed.”

“I’ve already decided I’m not taking my blood pressure medicine while we’re traveling.”

“What? No, you have to. Driving 10 hours with two small kids would make anyone want to take blood pressure meds. Take it. I may want to take it.”

“No, then we’ll have to stop for a bathroom every two hours and I know you hate to stop. I will be fine. Really. If I have to spend the next day in bed, then I will do that.”

That’s not how I envisioned starting our vacation but I have learned when to stop talking and when to argue. At least I like to think I have.

“No, Mom, take the meds. It isn’t good to skip a day and if we have to stop, we stop. I’ll survive.”

“I know you, Wendy, and I know you want to drive all the way in one day and get there and be done, so we don’t need to stop. It is only 10 hours. We can do that.”

“Thank you Mom, but can we stop if I need to? I am going to need to stop sometimes just to scream.”

“Sure honey, whatever you want.”

So as we venture out on our holiday of family togetherness (that will surely involve a few scream breaks for me) we wish you all a good holiday with your own families and friends, filled with laughter and screams of joy.

In case you need one last holiday cookie batch for an office party or neighborhood gathering or even just to eat one handed while you finish wrapping gifts or lighting candles, here is a new family favorite: Christmas Biscotti!

Wendy’s Christmas Biscotti
Makes about 18, depending on how thick you cut them. Easy to double the batch

2T butter, softened
3/4c sugar
2 eggs
2t almond extract
1 2/3c flour
1/2t salt
2t baking powder
3/4c dried cranberries or dried tart cherries
3/4c unsalted pistachios

Preheat the oven to 350. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a mixing bowl, blend the butter, sugar, eggs, and almond extract until smooth. Add the dry ingredients (not fruit or nuts) until the dough is well blended. By hand, stir in the nuts and fruit. You don’t want to use the mixer or the nuts will be crushed. Once the dough is mixed, make two logs on the parchment paper, about 3 inches wide and an inch thick. (Cover your hands with a bit of water or butter to help shape the logs without walking away with half the dough stuck to your fingers.) Bake the logs at 350 for about 20-25 minutes, until the dough is a light golden brown and set. Remove from the oven and let cool for 30 minutes. Using a serrated knife, cut the baked logs into slices about ½ to ¾ inch thick and lay them on their sides. Reduce heat in the oven to 250 and bake the sliced cookies for 40-45 minutes, turning them over halfway through so they can brown evenly. You can serve them up just like this, or you can make them fancy by melting some white or dark chocolate or both, and either dipping the cooled cookies into the chocolate, or drizzling the chocolate over the cookies. This is another reason why the parchment paper comes in handy – much less to clean up if you go the chocolate drizzle route.

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