Man v Child (or, the honeymoon’s over)

This woman is not to be trusted.

I’m not sure which night it was that I texted my parents to thank them. It was early on, maybe even the first weekend. I knew I had to tell them how much I appreciated their hard work raising my two sisters and me, and by the way thanks for not screwing it all up. Dad wrote back, “Now you know.” Boy, do we ever. My husband and I are outnumbered, out-energized and occasionally outwitted by our precious new brood. There were nights early in the game I was sure I couldn’t go on. My body hurt and I was delirious from lack of sleep. The changes and the responsibility overwhelmed me; I dreamt at night of snakes coming out of the walls. I became certain we were being hypnotized by the lullaby on the baby monitor; something akin to the way the slot machines sound when they’re all going at the same time. Delays in foster subsidies for the kids’ daycare and day-to-day needs have added financial strain to the already overwhelming stress of such a huge transition. One night last week our 5yo girl threw a fit that lasted four and a half hours. There is so much I now know about parenting that I never did, never could before.

I get why some parents talk about poop on Facebook. I don’t want to read it, and I’m not gonna write it, but I get it. I understand why parents often seem so angry with their kids in public, even when the child doesn’t seem to be doing anything wrong. I know why parents rarely go out, and why they had never seen any of the movies I was talking about all the time. Now when I hear it said that being a stay-at-home mom – and even more amazing, a single parent – is the hardest job in the world, I actually believe it. I know what it’s like to look at a sleeping child in awe and to feel pride in a child’s accomplishments. I get why parents can’t wait for school to start again, why grandparents are invaluable, summer camp a necessity. I see how messing up the daily routine means the whole family suffers for it later. After almost a month as a mom of three I felt like a Navy Seal who made it through training camp. And then I went back to work.

As foster parents we don’t get any family leave to adjust to parenthood; FMLA only applies if/when they’re adopted. So the first day of school for our kids was the first day of school for me as well. It wrecked me that I could not go with them as they headed off for the first time, in uniforms and with new backpacks, our 5yo girl and 4yo boy to kindergarten and pre-K respectively. My husband sent text updates, photos and videos to keep me in the loop. For the first time in four years of teaching, the middle-schoolers filing into my classroom did not seem like my babies; I had my own kids to worry about. And worrying is one thing I do well. Luckily as foster parents we catch a break here and there, and our kiddos can adapt better than some others, so there was no crying and clinging at class time. They braved their new school like they have everything else they’ve encountered so far. We celebrated the success, their efforts and all of the preparation that paid off, and enjoyed the evening we spent back together.

What happened a week earlier paints an entirely different picture. The Friday before I was to report to teacher in-service, my Dad was scheduled for surgery to remove his gall bladder. He was on my mind all morning and no matter how much I wanted to I couldn’t be there, as I had to be at home with the kids while my husband was at work. On the same day, my husband was in an accident in my car on his way home. I had the kids and his car, because for now it’s the only one that holds three car seats. I got the call, told the kids we were the “rescue team,” and we quickly piled up to go get Daddy off the side of the road. He wasn’t hurt, thank God, but my car suffered some pretty extensive damage. The driver that hit him admitted fault and was insured – another lucky break – so we got a rental and hoped we were headed for brighter days. But at school the following Monday my phone started buzzing during faculty meetings with the new principal. It turned out that our insurance company had dumped my car outside the locked gate of a shady collision center and it was broken into over the weekend. They needed me to come out right away to assess the damage and theft and file a second claim on the vehicle. I was on the phone with them all morning, sneaking off to the hallway or restroom, and listened in horror as their customer service incompetence reached appalling new heights.

On my lunch break as I sped to the godforsaken car place I knew I was on thin ice. Surviving on iced coffee and my own determination I had just barely made it to my first day back at work. After a weekend of childcare, Dad’s surgery and my husband’s accident I didn’t have anything left for this. I was at a breaking point. When I got back to the school parking lot after photographing my ransacked car and its broken locks and windows, I couldn’t get out of the rental truck. The insurance companies, hers and ours, were still calling nonstop. I was supposed to take over with the kids in a few hours (my mom and a friend entertained them that day), after an afternoon professional development session about lord knows what. I never made it back in the building.

I never made it because I called my Dad and asked if I could come over to their house and go to sleep. He didn’t require any further explanation, just said, “Come get some rest.” When I got there, he gave me a piece of chocolate cake. I slept for hours. The kids never knew what happened that day; they just thought mom worked really late. I felt like a failure, too weak to handle what comes when life rears its ugly head. Until I realized that having a dad to call when you’re out of options is what this whole thing ­– adopting our foster children – is all about. Perhaps someday, when one of our punkins is at his or her wit’s end, she’ll make that call and we’ll be there on the other end of the line, saying come on home.