subtitled: Sometimes I have no idea how to express myself (on the topic of adoption, in particular today).
JD and I met another American family at the playground last week, and today we went over to their apartment to ask them all sorts of random questions about living and parenting in La-la-land.
When we met this family at the playground the mother was absent but I had my suspicions that both children were adopted from their physical features. I never want to be the person who asks whether someone's children were adopted, especially since the children were plenty old enough to understand the conversation. However, I am very interested in adoption and how families are formed and I find that sometimes we connect better with families in similar situations when we open up about our own struggles (which is to say that JD and I look very young and I could easily imagine an older infertile couple wanting nothing to do with us as they imagine just how easy everything must be at our age). So rather apropos of nothing I made some slight remark in recounting where we were from and how long we'd been in NYC that our fusspot was a beautiful souvenir from our fertility clinic down South.
This immediately opened up a conversation in which the father talked about deciding against pursuing IF treatments and moving straight to adoption and the struggles of an international adoption from La-la-land and being older parents, etc. And it also allowed me to talk about how interested I am in adoption (I really do hope to adopt a special needs child in the future when we are better established, regardless of whether we are able to have more biological children). So here's the question, is there any other way to start such a conversation without randomly throwing out that our fusspot was made in an IF clinic (and that can really lead to the misperception that we did IVF, which we did not)?
Ms. J recommended asking quietly if I could contact someone later and reading the comments on Rebekkah's post about rude questions people ask about squeaker both gave me the sense that this is never an appropriate topic to bring up until the adoptive family makes it clear that they want to talk about it. I certainly don't want to make some trite comment about them looking so 'natural' or 'happy' together (which they obviously did). But in our case today this family was very happy to talk about their experiences and their daughter was quite interested in watching me breastfeed and talking about how she plans to 'take a plane to get a baby' and have a 'baby in her tummy' when she gets older. And I also got the sense that they might have been less interested in meeting up with us and talking about childrearing in La-la-land if they did not at least feel that we were entirely supportive of their family's choices (there were some details along the way that I could imagine might instigate judgment from other people). I understand not wanting to invite strangers into your home unless you have a good idea that they are not going to say something awful in front of your children, so how do I share my interests/"support" without being the one to bring up the topic? Or how do I do so appropriately? Maybe the clearest analogy I can come up with is that looking at JD and my profile (nice young kosher religious family with a baby from NYC) you might have no idea whether we are interested in becoming friends with a gay couple and short of saying something explicit it would be easy for someone to get the wrong impression and not bother talking to us, etc. (and we most definitely are - especially if you live in La-la-land and share our obsession with good laundry detergent or the myriad other fascinating topics I post about).
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I have no advice about adoption, but was reading your previous post and can offer a little help. I almost wrote before and can tell you that we did not really do purees either and skipped commercial baby foods altogether. I made all my baby food with my kids and teething biscuits are very easy to make. You take a bread of your choice and cut it into about a two inch slice then put them on a cookie rack or metal pan on the oven on a very low heat for several hours while it dries out very slowly. You can do this by trial and error, finding which textures your fusspot likes the best, but I used to used french bread that was day old and that had already been sliced and allowed to air dry. Then cool on the counter on a wire rack and store in a glass jar or breadbox.
As for veggies, I tended to steam a small amount of whatever vegetable that I was eating and the mash it with my fork. If you have leftovers you can freeze in an ice cube tray and defrost for later. If you get desperate, you can internet order food from Amazon and other vendors and have some delivered. But rice, barley and other dried grains etc you can order from the states as well as dried fruits and you can rehydrate, internet order if you prefer organic. Or you can use fresh fruit, it is very easy to make any type of pureed fruit, just cut it up, add a small amount of water and set to simmer on the stove. Let cool and serve. I found commercial ones filled with sugar and salts etc, so I made my own and then just froze the leftovers. Or you can do what I did and figure that if a vegetable is slightly steamed and can be mashed with a fork for a sort of soft texture then it can be gummed by the fusspot and is safe to be put it into her mouth. I had a great pediatrican years ago, who exclusively breastfed her kids and taught me that when kids begin to put foods into their mouths when we are eating then they are ready to start finger foods, so she encouraged her patients to skip the whole pureed food route if her breastfeed patients were healthy and growing. We did that and at about 7 months noticed that our daughter was reaching for my food when sitting on my lap while I was eating, so each meal time we would set her up in her chair or she would sit in our lap with a selection of our foods and gum on whatever we were eating, without any pressure. We also have severe allergies in our family, so we avoided trying more than one new food at a time, nuts, etc, milk and anything we did not want her to have, but felt comfortable with her having veggies, a bread, a plain fruit that she could hold like a banana. Of course it was very messy and she did go to daycare, so I would pack her food, as like you I did not want her eating nuggets etc, but she really did not eat foods until she could feed herself.
We were thought of as odd, but I have to say that I did this with all of my kids and even though I struggle with my weight due to PCOS, none of my kids do and I wonder if this is part of the reason why. Even my daughter with terrible PCOS is not overweight, but no one was forced to eat until they were stuffed, nor was any meal an ordeal, it was always, sort of a laid back kind of thing. Very much as you are doing, being led by the needs of your child.
Email me if I can help in any way.
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