Tag Archives: Milo

Adoption, Children, Family

I’m Not a Super Dad

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The last day to pre-order Addition by Adoption is tomorrow. If you don’t order it by tomorrow, you’ll have to wait for the official launch on May 11. The book has received a lot of press in the past week—OK, “press” meaning friends and contacts blogging and tweeting about the book. But they’ve had a lot of nice things to say. It’s enough to make your head swell. So it’s time to pop that bubble: I’m not a super dad.

I’ve found that the biggest challenge of adoption and raising kids in general is just the day to day. There are day-to-day challenges and difficulties that you have to rise up and face every day. Those challenges can wear you down pretty quickly if you’re not careful.

For whatever reason I woke up on the wrong side of the bed Saturday and I had no patience. That wouldn’t be so awful, but Milo woke up on the wrong side of his crib and he’d been screaming all morning. Not a good combination.

Finding ways to deal with those kinds of frustrations is crucial. On Saturday Milo and I had to take a break from each other. My wife and I frequently have times where one of us needs to ‘run away,’ and I that’s what I needed Saturday.

It’s stuff like trying to get work done and your daughter won’t stop asking if Sesame Street is on. At first it’s cute, then it’s annoying and then it’s like poking a tiger with a stick at the zoo. The other day Lexi did that so often I told her if she asked me one more time she couldn’t watch it. So she asked if it was time for Milo to take a nap, which happens to be the same time Sesame Street is on. Sneaky. Very sneaky.

Adoption certainly has its own unique challenges and issues you need to recognize (and in some cases very serious issues), but it’s really just parenting. More complicated parenting, yeah, but it’s still parenting. And parenting is pretty complicated and hard and stressful and challenging. Did I mention I had no patience on Saturday?

That’s one thing I like about the book—it’s honest. The book includes these moments of frustration. Sometimes you need an afternoon of TV and snacks and no kids to regain some sanity (at least one review expressed relief at sharing that sentiment). Any parent who doesn’t get frustrated by their kids and need a break once and while is either lying or a saint. It’s not the kids’ fault, it’s not your fault, it’s just how life is.

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God, Church & Stuff, U2

Easter & MLK

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I love church on Easter Sunday. It’s a party. The music rocks harder. People dance. Everybody comes in smiling. And after six weeks of a quiet, somber end to church,  we get to say Alleluia again.

Last year Milo banished us to the cry room and Lexi threw a fit when we went up for communion. This year Milo seemed to want to sing in the choir, even though we don’t have a choir. Lexi did fine at communion, pausing to lean Pinky against the kneeler before she stood at the communion rail. After church I didn’t have much time to talk to anyone because Milo made a beeline for the door and we spent a while playing in the grass.

This year the sermon closed with a reading of John Updike’s “Seven Stanzas at Easter.” I’d never heard it before and find Updike to be very hit or miss, but this was good. The poem focused on the importance of Christ’s bodily ressurrection—that Jesus literally came back from the dead. Updike focus more on the reality of it, but a few lines reminded me of the very Buffy the Vampire Slayer nature of the ressurrection. The grave was empty. The body was gone. And he was walking around. Not all putrified zombie corpse, but whole and restored. That’s crazy. And that’s the point. From Updike:

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door. …

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

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Children

Milo Goes Mobile

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Milo has very quickly become mobile. Nothing in the house is safe. Not even the Christmas tree, which has very nearly come down.

Lately he’s been counter cruising and extending his reach even higher as he comes closer and closer to walking. The other day we redirected those energies toward something less destructive with some walkers and riding toys.

So today Milo was pushing Lexi on the riding trike. Pushing her right into the kitchen table. And yes, the camera was rolling:

Adoption, Children

We’re All Adopted: Overcoming the Stigma

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I came across this reflection on the stigma surrounding adoption. It’s pretty heart-breaking. The writer, an adoptee herself and an adoptive mother, talks to kids about adoption a lot.

Here’s what 10-year-old “Sam” said when she asked him what he thought it meant to be adopted:

“Well, being adopted is when the kids that nobody wants are put into an orphanage and then if the kid is really good, someone rich will pick them and buy them to have in their family.”

Ouch.

She writes about five themes that continually come up about adopted children:

  1. Adopted children are unwanted.
  2. Adopted children can become more desirable when they exhibit good behavior, i.e. being the perfect child.
  3. Adopted children are thought of as a commodity; they are a good that is exchanged in a transaction typically received by someone considered rich or well-to-do.
  4. Adopted children are disposable; their permanence in their adoptive family is always conditional.
  5. Adopted children deserve pity, because they are the kids who no one wants.

That’s even more heart-breaking. Help me in overcoming, shattering and in any way possible breaking these myths about adopted children. Kids (and all of us) need to hear the truth.

Continue reading We’re All Adopted: Overcoming the Stigma →

Family, Personal Pics

Family Photo Shoot

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Hendricks Family Photo ShootWay back in June we did a family photo shoot with Barbara O’Brien at her White Robin Farm in Wisconsin. It was a beautiful drive out there (I think I missed a turn and took a longer, more scenic detour) and we had a lot of fun doing a relaxed, non-studio family photo shoot. And I finally got around to posting the pictures: Check ’em out.

When we pulled up and got out of the car Lexi was all excited about the few cats milling about the yard. Then Barbara started calling the cats and they just started pouring out of the barn. She has at least 25 cats, and most of them came when she started calling.

In addition to the cats, Lexi chased the chickens, fed the horses and held a baby duck (she also manhandled the kittens and baby chicks). We got to run around, have some fun and the whole time Barbara took lots of pictures.

We highly recommend it.

Adoption, Movies

Adoption is not Horror

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You may have heard about a creepy new horror flick from Warner Bros. called Orphan. I’m not a fan of horror flicks in general, but this one seemed kind of dumb and insensitive. Really? An adopted child is going to be your psycho villain?

I’m not off the wall outraged at this. Just because Jason wears a hockey mask in Friday the 13th doesn’t mean hockey players should be up in arms. But still. When you take an innocent child, even worse an orphan, with no parents to love and protect them, and make that unprotected group the center of your evil plot line… well, that may not be evil itself, but it’s not doing orphans any good.

Tom Davis is encouraging people to respond to this film with their own stories of how orphans have changed their lives. Stories to counter the creepy trailer where parents adopt a child only to discover how scary that kid can be and how their family becomes threatened from an adopted child (the movie’s tagline: “There’s something wrong with Esther”). I’m trying not to take that personally and realize it’s just a movie, but yikes. Sheesh, let’s promote some misconcpetions about adoption, shall we?

Tom launched the Orphans Deserve Better campaign where you can share your stories of how orphans have changed your life (like  this one from a mother of three). They have a much better tagline: “There’s something wrong with millions of children having no family.” I love that this is all about a positive response. Let’s not rag on Warner Bros. (I’ve yet to see the word boycott thrown around), instead let’s focus on the positive.

I love it. You can’t read anything I do online without realizing how Milo has changed my life. My favorite story might be the way Milo and Lexi go to sleep. They share a room and at first we thought they’d wake each other up and it’d be a horrible mess. But Milo actually goes to sleep better when Lexi stands at his crib and talks to him, the two laughing and giggling, sometimes shrieking, long after bedtime. It lasts half an hour, sometimes 45 minutes, and then the two drift off to sleep. The strict parent in me wants to step in and yell and tell them to go to sleep, but they do eventually, so I let it go. Milo seems to sleep better this way. The same thing is starting to happen in the morning when they wake up. I haven’t heard Milo crying in the morning for a few days now. Instead it’s all giggles. That’s awesome. (Right now Lexi is repeating “Eth-io-pia!” and Milo is laughing.)

And if you want further proof of how a child can change your life, look no further than the Palmer family, who uprooted their four children to move from Oklahoma to Uganda to finalize the adoption of the newest member of their family. They have an incredible story. Just recently they shared the tragic story of a child recently adopted by a Uganda family who soon died in a terrible accident. It’s a heart-breaking story. But beneath the pain and horror (there’s a real horror story for you) there is a measure of hope. That child, Jonathan, was loved. Even though his life was cut horribly short, he died with a family.

Twin Cities

Enjoying the Como Park Lily Pond

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Last week I stopped off at Como Park with Milo for a quick walk. I spent most of my time at the Lily Pond, a place that has neither a pond nor lilies. It’s just a 100-year-old empty concrete pond with an old concrete and stone bridge. It’s kind of forgotten among Como Park’s other attractions. I think I enjoy it so much because it has that abandoned feel and hints at something older that’s been lost as the surrounding park has changed around it. I feel history at that bridge in a way I don’t at other old places.

A while back I hung out at the Lily Pond with Lexi, so it seemed appropriate to do it with Milo this time around.

Lexi on the Bridge
July 23, 2007

Kevin & Milo @ the Lily Pond
June 2, 2009

Children

Surviving the First Week

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Abby went back to work on Monday and we’ve now survived our first week back to “normal.”

In some ways it was great. I actually managed to accomplish some things. I kept up with the minimal amount of work I have right now (and actually had a few leads come in for more work). I even managed to do a little cleaning and reorganizing (with two kids I think we’re always going to be reorganizing something).

In some ways it was not so great. Like when Lexi peed on the bathroom rug while I was giving Milo a bath (if that wasn’t enough, the washing machine then ate the rug—I think it’s time to put the rug out of its misery). Or when Abby was late getting home from school and Milo had been screaming on and off for an hour and wouldn’t take a nap and Lexi started screaming and then Speak had a seizure (Speak’s OK, he’s had them before and there’s not much we can do about it—consequences of a small, pet store dog). Those moments were less than fun.

I keep trying to tell myself that I don’t have to actually accomplish anything during the day (keeping the kids alive and fed is an accomplishment in and of itself), but that doesn’t jive with my responsibility-driven nature. I also keep trying to summon patience I don’t naturally have. With a wailing 6-month-old and a 3-year-old who refuses to listen, I need a deep well of patience.

But overall we did manage to survive. So that’s good.

Daily Grind, Family

Back to “Normal”

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Tomorrow Abby heads back to work and I get to tackle a 3-year-old and a 6-month-old on my own. It’s a return to normal, if you can call that normal. I’m not really ready for being double-teamed, but I guess you never are. Sometimes I wonder how parents manage to stay home with multiple kids, but I guess people do it all the time. I never understand how single parents do it.

Fortunately there are only about five weeks left of school and then Abby’s off for the summer. It’s an early summer vacation this year, and for that we’re thankful.

All this handling of children seems so natural and easy, like a normal rhythm of life that just happens. At least it seems that way until you actually do it and realize there’s nothing easy about it.

There’s a great temptation to just do what’s easy with children. To take the path of least resistance. I’m great at giving in to that temptation.

What? You don’t want to wear pants? Meh, whatever—we’re not leaving the house.

What? You want to watch Sesame Street every day? OK.

What? You’re throwing a fit? Just go to your room because I don’t want to deal with you.

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Adoption, Children, Health

Taking Milo to the Doctor

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Today we dropped Lexi off at a friend’s house and took Milo to the University of Minnesota’s Pediatric Clinic to see a Specialist in International Adoption. That means we took him to his first doctor in the U.S.

We left the parking garage and walked through the long underground tunnel (which inexplicably comes out on the second floor), eventually arriving at the Pediatric Clinic. We avoided getting lost in the campus’ labyrinth, which reminded me why I went to a small school (though ironically, I don’t think I ever consciously decided I wanted to attend a small school).

The high point was perhaps handing over a yogurt container to the receptionist that contained a sample of Milo’s poop. I believe it was blueberry (the yogurt container, that is). We had to collect a stool sample at home and bring it in. It’s kind of like show and tell, but not really. It wasn’t just plopped into the old yogurt container either, it was inside a Ziplock bag. But let’s just say those things aren’t exactly as air-tight as advertised. That yogurt container gave off a distinct odor when I pulled it out of the bag and set it on the counter. And it wasn’t residual blueberry.

Anyway, we eventually had our appointment and several doctors and specialists told us how beautiful Milo is. Not just handsome—beautiful. Despite my lack of any sports-related skills, Milo will at least be raised confident enough in his manhood to be called beautiful.

Continue reading Taking Milo to the Doctor →