Attachment

Peaches has been with us over a month, now, but obviously, I'm still meeting people on an almost daily basis who haven't met her yet, or spoken to me since I got her. Inevitably, I get asked 'how is she settling in?' and 'how are you coping?' and 'how are the girls finding her?'. This is great, because these are the main three questions, the biggies, the crux of the matter.
That my replies to all three can honestly be positive, I am happy and grateful. But I must also be bland and saccharine, necessarily skirting issues which are not for public consumption, not giving too much detail, when all folk actually want is reassuring that the adoption is 'going well'.
Every prospective adoptive parent gets tutored about attachment disorder, and most do their own private research, drinking in the signs, memorising the minutiae, hoping that it won't happen to them. But, to my understanding, any child adopted over the age of six months (or otherwise experiencing an incident or disturbance regarding their primary carer) can experience problems with attachment (attachment disorder has to be formally diagnosed), resulting in significant to huge issues affecting family life.
Now to all intents and purposes, Peaches is 'settling in well'. She looks to me as her primary carer, and I suppose like many 11 month old babies, wants to be in my very close vicinity, likes to be held often and cries if I am out of her sight. She also is lively and bright, exploring whichever room she is in, responding to baby games like 'boo' and knocking bricks over, and giving loads of smiles, causing general merriment and joy. She's got good eye contact, and when it's just me and her at the end of the day and she is almost in bed, and I'm staring at her intently, absorbing her eagerly, loving the very smell of her, I feel like there could never be a problem in the world with this little scrap. But...
How do I know? I don't. You can never be complacent. Pasta is well and truly firmly attached, and I to her, but that doesn't mean it will happen with Peaches. A well-meaning social worker acquaintance from school had the 'how is she' conversation with me, and then proceeded to scare the living daylights out of me with casual comments about how all adoptive parents think their child is doing so well, because at first, 'she goes to anyone, she's so friendly', and 'she's so well-behaved'. 'You want tantrums, you want bad behaviour', she said. Not sure how much of this to take with a pinch of salt, really. I know what she means - we should all be looking out for The Signs, and not take anything for granted.
One effect this conversation had, though, was to make me think again about attachment issues with the adoptive children I know; there is at least one with diagnosed, and a couple with undiagnosed attachment disorders. I think adopted children should get a social worker for life. I know the new adoption act enables adoptive parents to be entitled to access a social work assessment if they feel there are issues with their child which have directly arisen from adoption, but that feels a bit weak.
Meanwhile, at Chocolate Towers, Peanut tried to put Peaches to bed for the first time, with me reading Pasta a story in the next room. She did a valiant job, almost succeeding in settling her, but not quite! She wanted that woman who had been putting her to bed for the past month, thanks very much!

Lesbian community?

Took Peaches today for her first visit to the largest park in _______shire (as Jane Austen would have it). Met youngest sister there for a picnic lunch, my nephew is Peaches' age, and the babies happily snotted and gnawed their way through bananas, baby rice cakes (crinkly packet more interesting) and lovingly prepared tofu and organic peas. The tofu and organic peas belonged to youngest sister, not me, as in my haste leaving the house I totally forgot the mashed leftovers earmarked for Peaches, and had to visit Vegan Paradise (our local wholefoods store) to purchase an expensive jar of pureed babyfood.
Youngest sister says we are ladies of leisure. To me, ladies are other people on buses ('mind the lady'). However, sitting there in the sun listening to the wind in the trees, replete, only having to get up every two minutes when Peaches crawled out of sight or towards something she intended to explore with her mouth, I certainly felt like I was doing exactly what I wanted to be doing.
Three other lesbians with children came into the park while we were there, prompting youngest sister to enquire whether I knew everyone in the park. It just felt good to be able to exchange news with these women, have that kind of normal interaction. At one point I realised that youngest sister, as a straight woman, was outnumbered. How many parks can you go in, and randomly get lesbians to outnumber straight women? I love where I live!
In Pasta's class alone, I know of three other kids apart from her who have lesbian mums. This is fantastic. In this city, teachers would be shot at dawn if they openly taught that homosexuality was wrong, but there are all kinds of ways they can promote heterosexuality as the norm, the accepted standard. Even an on-message lesbian teacher might inadvertently give a pro-hetero message to kids, having absorbed so much of it themselves. But in Pasta's class, that's a significant minority, one which can't be ignored. Kids who might get teased have got 3 other kids to use as an example of why they're not weird.
But those other 3 kids have all got 2 mums. As a single lesbian, I am invisible to all except those with finely-tuned gaydar.

Family Placement Worker visits

As Peanut spends half the week at her dad's, Very Lovely Family Placement Worker has not yet managed to catch up with her since we adopted Peaches three weeks ago, and so requested that Peanut be present when she called round this afternoon. It not being my usual day to have Peanut, I arranged that she could come home and then get the bus to her dad's later. I waited with Peaches outside school, and Pasta came out promptly with her class and teacher as usual, scanned the crowd of waiting parents for my ridiculous sunhat and came rushing over. Peanut, however, kept us waiting for a quarter of an hour, and sauntered out when and only when she had kept all the necessary social engagements between the classroom and the bottom of the stairs which only eleven year old girls understand and are privy to.
The girls' stomachs dictated that we stop off at the local baker's for the required carbohydrate fix, while 3 horrible old not-low-floor buses rumbled past (I will have to rant about this another time); luckily, we were able to catch a kneeler and arrive home at the allotted time for VLFPW's visit.
Peaches, on arrival, was found to have almost finished the apple she started shredding this morning, and needed a good dust down before we entered the house. A later inspection of her nappy would reveal several shreds of apple skin therein (which had not made the journey through her alimentary canal). I suppose the same thing must happen when she eats bread or rusks - a certain proportion finds its way into the far reaches of her underwear. How uncomfortable must that be, having crumbs in your knickers? No wonder babies sometimes cry for no apparent reason!
VLFPW came and sat at the table with us while we ate toast (yes, more carbohydrates). She asked Peanut how she was finding life with Peaches. Peanut was not quite monosyllabic, but I was a little taken aback at her apparent reticence. Yes, everything was fine, yes she loved having Peaches around, no, life was not the same any more, no, she did not have the same amount of attention from her mum, but yes, she would get used to this and it was also fine. I have to remember that when I was being assessed for this adoption, I was obliged to tell VLFPW that Peanut was less than enthusiastic about the whole endeavour. She, Peanut, had been 6 when we adopted Pasta, and she remembered what it felt like making the transition from adored only child to adored child who now had a usurper in her space at mum's house, and who, horror of horrors, was actually still there in her space even when she was at her dad's. Peanut initially remembered this trauma, and had thought that things were okay the way they were, and protested long and hard against me adopting again. Eventually, with much persuasion, explanation and working through, she was won over. I think today, her uncharacteristic reserve was influenced by her memory of how she felt then, and maybe the realisation that although she was wrong to have been so worried, maybe some of her fears may not have been totally unfounded.
Pasta spent the whole half hour of VLFPW's visit trying to make herself heard. She is used to this, as she has speech therapy for her difficulties with pronunciation and syntax (more on this too at a later date), but I think today was just ordinary rivalry for attention. She resorted to trying to show VLFPW how she could get Peaches to perform the whole repertoire of her tricks, which includes tongue clicking, raspberries, and simple mimicry.
Later on when Pasta and Peaches were in bed, Peanut phoned me from her dad's to say she felt like she was about to cry, and she didn't know why. She very rarely does this. (Now, nine years after I was separated from her for half the week, I am usually able to put my own feelings about not having her here always to one side; time does marvellous/sinister things.) She said she didn't feel tired, and couldn't get to sleep and she thought it was excitement about just having had a birthday! It's lovely that she phones me, and that we could talk about hormones and hot drinks, and warm baths with lavender, and reading 'til she falls asleep.
I wonder will she still phone me next year, the year after? Will she still phone me when she's at university, when she's abroad, when she's feeling like she might cry?
I don't want to know the answers, and I don't want to think about it.