Happy New Year~

We were asleep by 10, so the new year must have gone on without us...

2012 was a good year. I was still feeling tugs to get our little family to Russia. I was still motivated enough to write to the new director, and still pulled just hard enough to search international companies that may somehow have a position for me.
The end of the year pretty much closed that door for us. Prior to last week, I never feared being in Russia. I never even thought about the safety of my family if we were to go there..But now, the thought that the climate is so anti-adoption makes me wonder if my girlz would be safe while in Russia. I mean honestly, could the officials come in and take them? Could they claim I am a bad mother and file charges to take my precious 2 into custody?  Gladly we won't ever know. Because as for now, we won't be going to Russia any time soon. Not even for a visit.

The happiness of our own holidays washed away the horror of the Sandy Hook tragedy for a few days. Now that we are winding down the festivities, I have begun to think about those poor families who had to struggle through a holiday without their babies. And although I can hardly imagine, I can get close enough to their pain to cry a little bit..

I have been busier and on the road much more than I care to be this year. If there was a chance to work closer to home, I will look into it. I haven't been successful at transferring as of yet, but I will continue to try during trans fair this year.


As I have written before, I ended a friendship with an adoptive mom that I was very close to. It took months to get to that point, and although it was almost impossible to end such a close friendship, it was vital to my family. It doesn't really matter the "why" of it all..What matters is that it frees up my time to be a centered mom without anything but my own family to worry about.  I still lend advice and a listening ear to the peripheral players of that story, but it is on a very occasional basis. Nothing has changed in that story. It is still a hot mess of selfish pride and endless messes that never seem to be cleaned up. More than anything, I wish that my former friend would make the necessary changes to stop the hurt she is inflicting on her children. Sometimes being a hot mess is so damaging to children that they have no sense of how to be relaxed children. I was stuck in a youtube hole looking for ways to be settled with my current job and how to stop "searching." I worry that this might impact my girlz and that they will think they should always want something "else." In my searching I found this episode of Dr. Phil. It really made me think of what divorce does to a family. But more, it made me think "is it more important to be right? or to fix a situation?"

I have always said that what happens in a divorce affects children through adulthood.

My parents divorce was painful, but my appreciation for how they handled it can't be measured. There were no judges, no court orders. My parents left our life as similar as it could be prior to the divorce. My dad made sure that we could financially make it through college. And both parents did everything in their power to give my sister and I a sense of security. They put me into counseling after a drinking binge, and then they did the one thing that ROCKED my world. THEY TEAMED up to parent me during the time of my drinking. They sat together, and spoke together, and I couldn't see through their wall of strength. I was pissed, because at that time I needed to see a sliver of a break in their bond. In order to act like a complete maniac I needed one of my parents to feel guilty enough to let me have my 16 year old way. BUT NOPE. And that saved my life.

My mom and dad both had difficult childhoods. But for very different reasons. Mom was raised in a very well off home with an abusive crazy father and a mother who loved the money enough to stick with him. My dad is one of 8 who were so poor, that they little Green Kids, were sent to live with other family members. My dad was lucky enough to be sent to live with his older sister and they did a great job of raising him. He was taught farm work, and he could see the rewards of that hard work. My dad learned about tobacco farming, watermelon/cantaloupe/honeydew farming, and livestock farming. These skills have served him well throughout his life. But more importantly, he learned a work ethic. A farmers work ethic is boundless. Somehow magically, all of the Green sons turned out to be great attentive fathers. I think it was due to their absent father, but that's another story.

My mom learned to be strong in the face of tyrants. She learned to be strong and tough and not take bullshit when she didn't have to. Sadly, it also taught her a decision making process that was quick and firm. (Secretly, I think that if my parents were struggling in this day and age, they would have had more options of help and a possible different outcome)

Anyhoo, my parents some how handled their divorce with one thing in mind. Getting my sister and I through high school and college. That was it.

And that is where I fear for my former dear friend. I honestly don't think there is a shared goal. The ex just wants them away from her, and her goal is to get them closer. So instead of being proactive on one singular goal, they both tend to work for their own greater good. The ex holds all the cards as the children are with him, and the children have too much information. That sense of security has been taken from them, and they work from a place of chaos in one home, and slight over control in the other.

I ended my friendship in the spring of last year and have worried about the children ever since. But there is no place for me to directly contribute ideas and concerns. So I have to do the one thing I don't usually do, I have to let others make their own decisions, and make their mistakes along the way. I just wish it was different.

But it's not.