Back To School…..

So…… I have spent days running around for all the school supplies listed for my kids. I have a 5 year old boy, he’s headed for kindergarten. I have an 8 year old girl, she is headed for 3rd grade. Between the two of them there is a bucket full of supplies. But the supplies are not really my concern. I know that they will have every single thing on that list. The list is so easy in some ways.

It’s the other list I worry about, the unpublished one. The list of expectations for my kids that I don’t know about, or maybe I have an idea about, but the kids will be blindsided by. I have intimate knowledge of the list on some levels, because I teach and have been doing so for a long time. You would think I know the secret. The truth is I don’t. I am not being an over anxious helicopter mom. I worry.

I worry that my son will hug everyone, and not understand that some kids aren’t comfortable with that. He will take it personally. He will think that someone doesn’t like him. He won’t understand that it’s about personal space and boundaries.

I worry that my daughter will hear her teacher say that she is not paying attention, unfocused, or distracted. I KNOW my daughter will be all those things. She has ADHD, she does struggle with all of those things. When she hears them though, she thinks the teacher doesn’t like her, isn’t her friend, or likes the other kids better.

In second grade, her teacher told me she was “unmotivated.” I still get teary, sad, and Mama Bear angry every time I consider that. I want to growl and lash out. There is nothing “unmotivated” about her. The struggle is capturing her enthusiasm for the task you are presenting to her. It is possible that the task she is completely engaged in, is inside her head.

There are many unspoken items on the unpublished list:

Brands of clothing, sneakers and supplies.
Acceptable reactions to other kids.
Participation in athletics, groups, and activities. Yes as early at Kindergarten. Even parent’s activities count.
Location of your house, size of it, and your occupation.
How involved you can be in school activities.
What is packed in the lunch bag, or if you are buying lunch.
Keep in Mind that snacking is a serious business, there will be written rules for this. Don’t mess up, your kids will tell you all about it.
The bus—-what your kids say, do, and who they sit with.

The pressure is excruciating. This is a really small list with very little embellishment. I can’t tell you how many awkward situations I have felt or even created unknowingly.

I have found with my daughter that talking to her about everything in a relaxed way is the most enlightening. Both my kids like to “unload” in three places. The first place is the car, I can’t believe the things they will tell me when they are riding along back there enjoying the scenery. The second place is the kitchen, peeling potatoes inspires a conversation for everyone at our house. The final place, and probably most revealing, is when we are doing our night time ritual, they are tucked and snuggled, and all the days wonderings escape their lips.

I don’t know what they will face on any given day, but I try to give them opportunities to share with me. I have concerns, I do sometimes channel my own version of “crazy Mom.” I admit it. I want my kids to be safe and healthy at school, physically and emotionally. I don’t care which parts of the unwritten list they get, understand, or miss, as long as they are safe and healthy.

“Unbiological Mom”

Unbiological is not a word. It’s a prefix attached to biological. Biological means that there are shared cells when we are talking about parenting. I don’t share any cells with my kids. I do share everything else.

I started out as a teacher, and after a very long day, my wise husband thought that we would make fantastic foster parents. He was standing on the porch when I got home, and said, “What do you think about being a foster parent?”

“Have you lost your mind?” I asked, swiftly rounding the front of my car with three very heavy school bags.

A few days later I found myself in a classroom with other couples learning to be foster parents. As we learned, we grew as a couple. We struggled through some concepts and breezed through others. We learned a lot about each other and explored what we believed.

I struggled with a name for myself to start this blog. The prefix “un” is negative. I am not negative, I don’t think I have ever been described as negative. However, biology is the one characteristic of motherhood I haven’t experienced. We will explore the reactions of the biological moms to the “un” biological moms in a different post, I promise!

I thought a lot about what I wanted to share, and how I wanted to bring something to those who go about parenting in a different way, and in our case may struggle, feel like you’re the only one going through stuff, and yet find a way. There is hope in each child who can be hugged, nurtured, loved, and safe. One of the most profound things I learned through our journey, is that there are so many kids out there who can’t handle a hug, don’t trust nurturing, refuse to believe they are worthy of love, and have never been safe. Another profound and shocking piece of information is those kids live in our communities. They are our neighbors.

With the thought that we don’t know who any of them are, at any given time, isn’t it worth it….. to share a smile with the kids who cross your path? Please, hug your own a little tighter and count the blessings, even after a long day, even if you wait till they are asleep!

Photo by Andreas Wohlfahrt from Pexels

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

This is my very first blog. It is an exciting time with the anticipation of a new journey. There are so many topics that I plan to address here, including parenting without a biological connection to our kids. Families come in all shapes and sizes and are growing and changing every day. I have learned so many things from kids, I find them to be more genuine than adults any day of the week.

Most of the wisdom as a parent, I have gained from my own amazing parents, who were able to make it look like such an easy job. I have often asked my Mother why and or how she made it look so easy. She replies with similar responses every time we discuss it. She wants to know what gave me that idea.

Our kids are a reflection of us, I do often sound like my mother, therefore I know this as my truth. I do cringe occasionally when I hear some of the things my children say, when they sound exactly like me………

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

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