mama monday: change the world

I've made a shortlist of the worst things (that I can think of) to wait for:

1. Waiting for a method of public transportation, outside, when the weather resembles Voldemort's return to power.
2. Waiting for your turn at a government subsidized office when turns depend on complex letter/number system, like Bingo, and the letter/number system does not progress alphabetically nor chronologically.
3. Waiting in line at an amusement park for a ride that your peer group chose by democratic vote, wherein you were of the minority group, in the blistering sun, having eaten very little.

Waiting to get pregnant (to be pregnant? to turn pregnant?  to pregnacize?) is definitely up there and follows a strict mathematical increase of vexation whereby the axes are represented by "amount of time you are not pregnant" and "amount of time you've been thinking about being pregnant, including contemplations about, dreams about, poetry about, and blog postings about".

Unlike other experiences in waiting, however, I find that this one is difficult to explain.  In fact, other than disappointment, the waiting period is generally pleasant: life is good, I have a fantabulous husband who loves me to bits and makes me laugh, friends surround and support me, an amazing extended family, a great house, and many aspirations for the future.  Compared to examples 1, 2, and 3 above, the actual waiting process involved with parenthood is benign.  A baby would only be the addition to an already agreeable existence.

Simplistic, maybe, but also true.  So why not focus on what we have instead of what we're missing?

When Baby Gaz makes his/her debut and makes us parents in the process, will he/she want to hear that we were excitedly planning for his/her arrival while making the most out of every opportunity?  Or will he/she have an image of Mom and Dad weeping and complaining their way through the months before he/she was born?  I don't want whining to be a family trait.

Jon, new dad, wrote this in his blog just before the birth of his son, Noah:

...many of the characteristics, habits, mannerisms, modes of speech, and even culture that my son will learn are already in me.  The lifestyle of fatherhood began long, long ago (not too long ago, I’m only 25 here!) and continues to grow and deepen as I do. What I’m getting at is the effect my life has on my son’s life even before he is born.

I want to live life now in a way that positively affects my family to come.  If I want them to live in a world with less hatred, I'm going to start loving people more.  If I want them to live in a world of possibilities, I'm going to stop limiting myself.  If I want them to live in a world of hope, I'm going to cultivate it so they'll have a harvest of it when they're born.

I want to make my children proud.

---

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

(Mahatma Ghandi)

"Once you bring life into this world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world." (Elie Weisel)

I'm starting with the man in the mirror

I'm asking him to change his ways

And no message could have been any clearer

If you wanna make the world a better place

Take a look at yourself and then make that change

(Michael Jackson, Man In The Mirror)

wifersize wednesday: margot tenenbaum, a case study

I have a friend, Angela, who writes much better and wittier than I do and who recently became a mother. Long before Gabe (or "behbeh", as she fondly refers to him in her blog) appeared on the scene however, she and her husband were parents of the fostering sort.

I vaguely recall them giving updates on their application process (I was a young, wild, single 20-something at the time and like way more interested in cute shoes than I was in their life-altering decisions) and, then, what seemed like a few weeks later (I think it was years), they were attending our wedding with a child in tow. A foster child. He was adorable and, somehow, Angela and her husband looked more adorable with him. The girl I had attended university with, had perfected my writing craft with, and had made lewd jokes with, had turned into a foster mom.

Before we were married, Andrew mentioned that he had been inspired by a youth leader and his wife who adopted. At the time (and, to be honest, sometimes even now) the idea intimidated me. I had always dreamed of being a mother but via the regular, grow-an-embryo-in-my-uterus kind of way. Mothering someone else's child? Calling it my own? What if I didn't bond to him/her? Or, worse yet (especially in the case of fostering), what if I did?

I am still in awe of and inspired by couples such as Angela and her husband, that influential couple in Andrew's life, and Carlos and Catherine who in the process of adopting a boy. It makes me wonder: would I have it in me? I'm not sure what the "it" even is. Love? Endurance? Goodness?

I'd be worried that I'd duplicate the scene from The Royal Tenenbaums of Royal stating, "This is my adopted daughter, Margot Tenenbaum."

It's not a question we have to address any time soon, but it's a question that lingers. What are your thoughts, stories, and opinions on adoption/foster care?

"I would like to thank what this film is about for me which are the moms that take care of the babies and the children no matter where they come from."
- Sandra Bullock, 2010 Oscar acceptance speech for The Blind Side