I’ve heard it said that parenting is the toughest job; I’ve also heard that it takes a village to raise a child. Such statements are almost cliché in their commonness. It wasn’t until this past week that we came to see in an uncomfortably real way that these catch phrases have been born from nothing short of absolute truth. Parenting is indeed the hardest job on the planet; and yes, it does take a village to raise a child
Twila is tremendously tough lately. All those phenomenal attributes like questioning, challenging, speaking her mind and negotiating are looking a lot like arguing, complaining, wining and button-pushing. Our good ideas and creative solutions are not amounting to much these days.
We were in Boston for four days last week and though the weather was beautiful and the trip an overall success, I found that dealing with Twila’s ‘negotiations’ on the road was wont to leave me with wafer thin patience. And, as it turns out, Jada was teething.
It’s often in these trying weeks though that kind people come floating to the surface of our experience and these really rotten weeks are suddenly magnifying glasses for the compassion that still exists in the human experience.
The last day of our trip I took Twila and Jada to the Boston Commons to play on the swings. As Twila took off down the dusty cement path, on a sharp decline that jogged to the right, her feet skidded out from under her and she found herself sliding over gravely terrain on her knees and palms. It was bad road rash.
As we sat on a nearby bench, crying and comforting respectively, and as I assured her we did not need to go to the hospital while simultaneously searching out the nearest CVS on my blackberry, a kindly man approached and asked if we needed a Band-Aid. He could not have known just how badly we needed a Band-Aid. I have always had a hard time asking for help and accepting a strangers offer to shuffle through his briefcase to look for a tiny piece of first-aid would, in my mind, qualify as putting someone out. But having a crying baby slipping out of my Ergo and a panicked three-year-old with a bloody knee in a strange city with no car and no sense of where anything is was apparently the missing ingredient to my humility.
“Yes!” I very nearly screamed so that I would be heard over my wailing daughters. “Yes! I need a Band-Aid!”
After a fair amount of digging he produced two old and worn Band-Aids and I could have kissed him. Amazingly, that was all Twila needed to feel like the world would go on turning and within ten minutes we were playing happily on the playground.
But later that day, we were all tired from a long week and were trying to squeeze in one last swim in the hotel pool. Twila was wet and unwilling to leave a ball that a restaurant owner had given her; Jada was again slipping out of the Ergo and screaming bloody murder as I squatted to force Twila’s sticky legs into her tight pants. And just as my head was about to explode, a middle aged Hispanic woman came around the corner with a badge around her neck. But she was not from child services as I initially thought. She was just coming off a shift; apparently a member of the hospitality staff at the Residence Inn.
“What’s wrong?” she asked of the thrashing lump on my chest in a thick, Mexican accent.
I raised my eyebrows and shoulders in a universal, ‘I have no effing idea.’
“What’s the matter baby?” She asked again putting her facing inches from Jada’s as she thuwunked her back rhythmically so hard that I felt it in my chest.
Jada stopped crying and strained her neck around to see the woman’s face. They were nose to nose for a moment and Jada grinned her most charming grin.
“You make me so sad when you cry, yes, yes, that’s better, no cry.”
Then Jada’s head slammed on my chest and she was asleep.
“Okay,” I said in dazed confusion, “okay, I can do that…thank you.”
The woman smiled at me as she removed her hand, mine in its place, and continued down the hall.
I realized when I met my birthdaughter’s parents for the first time that there is something healing about the process of adoption and it’s not just finally welcoming a child into your home. There is beauty simply in needing each other.
So often lately it seems that we are growing further and further apart as humans. Like estranged family members we are forgetting how important it once was to rely on each other. Sometimes it’s not until things come crashing down that we realize we can’t, and shouldn’t, do it alone.
Whether its infertility, the loss of a job, an illness or death of a loved one, or just a fussy baby and a skinned knee; life seems to find a way to remind us that we can’t do it alone. Through the din of our struggle, compassion is magnified by ordinary people who are willing to sacrifice what they have so someone else can have more, make a tough choice for the benefit of someone else, or just stop when someone needs help.
Twila is tremendously tough lately. All those phenomenal attributes like questioning, challenging, speaking her mind and negotiating are looking a lot like arguing, complaining, wining and button-pushing. Our good ideas and creative solutions are not amounting to much these days.
We were in Boston for four days last week and though the weather was beautiful and the trip an overall success, I found that dealing with Twila’s ‘negotiations’ on the road was wont to leave me with wafer thin patience. And, as it turns out, Jada was teething.
It’s often in these trying weeks though that kind people come floating to the surface of our experience and these really rotten weeks are suddenly magnifying glasses for the compassion that still exists in the human experience.
The last day of our trip I took Twila and Jada to the Boston Commons to play on the swings. As Twila took off down the dusty cement path, on a sharp decline that jogged to the right, her feet skidded out from under her and she found herself sliding over gravely terrain on her knees and palms. It was bad road rash.
As we sat on a nearby bench, crying and comforting respectively, and as I assured her we did not need to go to the hospital while simultaneously searching out the nearest CVS on my blackberry, a kindly man approached and asked if we needed a Band-Aid. He could not have known just how badly we needed a Band-Aid. I have always had a hard time asking for help and accepting a strangers offer to shuffle through his briefcase to look for a tiny piece of first-aid would, in my mind, qualify as putting someone out. But having a crying baby slipping out of my Ergo and a panicked three-year-old with a bloody knee in a strange city with no car and no sense of where anything is was apparently the missing ingredient to my humility.
“Yes!” I very nearly screamed so that I would be heard over my wailing daughters. “Yes! I need a Band-Aid!”
After a fair amount of digging he produced two old and worn Band-Aids and I could have kissed him. Amazingly, that was all Twila needed to feel like the world would go on turning and within ten minutes we were playing happily on the playground.
But later that day, we were all tired from a long week and were trying to squeeze in one last swim in the hotel pool. Twila was wet and unwilling to leave a ball that a restaurant owner had given her; Jada was again slipping out of the Ergo and screaming bloody murder as I squatted to force Twila’s sticky legs into her tight pants. And just as my head was about to explode, a middle aged Hispanic woman came around the corner with a badge around her neck. But she was not from child services as I initially thought. She was just coming off a shift; apparently a member of the hospitality staff at the Residence Inn.
“What’s wrong?” she asked of the thrashing lump on my chest in a thick, Mexican accent.
I raised my eyebrows and shoulders in a universal, ‘I have no effing idea.’
“What’s the matter baby?” She asked again putting her facing inches from Jada’s as she thuwunked her back rhythmically so hard that I felt it in my chest.
Jada stopped crying and strained her neck around to see the woman’s face. They were nose to nose for a moment and Jada grinned her most charming grin.
“You make me so sad when you cry, yes, yes, that’s better, no cry.”
Then Jada’s head slammed on my chest and she was asleep.
“Okay,” I said in dazed confusion, “okay, I can do that…thank you.”
The woman smiled at me as she removed her hand, mine in its place, and continued down the hall.
I realized when I met my birthdaughter’s parents for the first time that there is something healing about the process of adoption and it’s not just finally welcoming a child into your home. There is beauty simply in needing each other.
So often lately it seems that we are growing further and further apart as humans. Like estranged family members we are forgetting how important it once was to rely on each other. Sometimes it’s not until things come crashing down that we realize we can’t, and shouldn’t, do it alone.
Whether its infertility, the loss of a job, an illness or death of a loved one, or just a fussy baby and a skinned knee; life seems to find a way to remind us that we can’t do it alone. Through the din of our struggle, compassion is magnified by ordinary people who are willing to sacrifice what they have so someone else can have more, make a tough choice for the benefit of someone else, or just stop when someone needs help.
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