The help monster invaded our house about six months ago. At first I didn’t realize it had body snatched my four-year-old child. It started off so innocent, so sweet.

“Mommy, I helpa you.”

“What?”

Craig reached his arm out and pointed to the laundry I was stuffing into the washing machine.

“Oh, sure.” I handed him a few shirts I hadn’t tossed in yet. “Here you go.”

He grabbed them and shoved them up and over until they fell in. Before I could say thanks, he turned and grabbed an armful of towels off the floor.

“Wait …”

Craig stomped his foot. “Yeah, I helpa you.”

“Yes, but we’re not washing those right now.” I pointed to the laundry basket. “We’re washing these.”

“Ohhh.” He released the towels and reached for the clothes. “I do it.”

After the machine was full, I lifted Craig up to pour in the detergent and turn the knob.

The job took three times longer, but my mommy pride puffed out a 100 times bigger.

“You did such a good job. What a great helper you are.” I hugged him until he squirmed. “That was so nice of you. You’re such a GOOD helper.”

I didn’t know it yet, but I just pitched a snowball down a very steep hill.

Later that week

Craig roared and cried. He stomped his foot and said pwease.

“No, this is something mommy does by herself.” I tried to shut the bathroom door. He flailed and then shoved against it.

“Go play. I’ll be right out.”

“No, I helpa youuuuu.”

That was it. I was drawing the line. Hadn’t I already been incredibly inclusive?

I made sure he was included when we brought in groceries, loaded the dishwasher, vacuumed the house, watered the lawn, fed the dogs, set the table, read a book, answered the door, turned on the computer, checked the mail, made the bed, turned on the air, took out the trash and mowed the lawn.

When that wasn’t enough, I created things he could help me with. I’d drop paper on the floor so he could pick it up, I’d grab a rag and tell him to wipe off the fridge, or, when feeling devilish, I’d tell him
his dad needed help fixing things.

Once I even gave him a pad of sticky notes and told him I needed help pasting them to the wall. (Hey, it worked. … for about five minutes.)

I even let him hold my hand to help walk me down the hall.

But this … no way.

“Mommy is a big girl. She can go potty by herself. You wait out there.”

“Noooo.”

I maneuvered the door shut, only to find out the lock didn’t work. “Great.” Luckily the business seat was close enough I could hang on to the doorknob. “I’ll be right out.”

Craig responded in the way I imagined only a hellcat would after he tugged furiously to no avail. He screamed like a banshee and rolled around kicking on the floor. Holy bajeezus, was that my son out there? I opened the door.

It took him a few seconds to realize I was staring at him from my perched position. I think he was as shocked to see me, pants around my ankles, as I was to see him pounding the carpet.

It took but a moment for him to collect himself and victoriously enter the bathroom. He stood facing me with his cheeks flushed.

“Okay, fine, you can be in here.”

Craig sniffed a few times and then reached over, grabbed some toilet paper and handed it to me.

“See mommy, I helpa you.”

Sigh. I accepted his offering.

Help indeed.

Related posts:

1. It’s not what you say. It’s how you say it
2. Nothing says vacation like puke and laundry
3. There’s a whole lot of cussing going on

Note: Originally published in Adoptive Families Magazine, March 2005. Revived for Mother’s Day and this week’s Mother of Confusion newspaper blog-column.

Would he love me? This time last year, while waiting for my son to be born, I worried that he wouldn’t return my love. I was certain that when he was a toddler he would, but as a newborn? Would he sense my love for him as I pulled him close or would he strain to hear the song and sounds of his birth mother instead? Would he feel fear and heartbreak and have to keep it locked tight in his body, unable to communicate anything more than a cry?

I also wondered about myself and if I possessed a mother’s sense with this child who was not biologically mine. At night when the baby whimpered or cried, would it be his birth mother, fifty miles away, instinctively waking up to reach for him while I slept?

The month before he was born, the huge obstacle of grief blocked much of my joy. My husband didn’t understand why I experienced such negative emotions. We were supposed to be the happiest expectant parents on the planet. I had a difficult time explaining that my tears were for my unborn son’s mother.

Jimmy and I had tried to conceive off and on for the last ten years, since our son Jay was a toddler. It was a decade of waiting mournfully, hopefully, and of soul-crushing heartache. There were days I felt I couldn’t live through it and I should die; other times, I built up a wall and said, “Fine we’ll be a happy family of three.” But still, to be infertile was like mourning a child or children, in the sense of what could have been. I didn’t have memories of a sweet dimpled face and saucy laugh, only imaginations of all that was lost.

I felt as if I was trading my grief for my new son’s biological mother’s happiness. She was going to give me my dreams and I was going to give her nothing but empty arms. She wasn’t going to have to imagine, she’d know. She would be able to picture exactly how this baby of ours looked, smelled and felt. I could leave behind the pain that I had carried from infertility. It felt suddenly shallow compared to what I could imagine of her pain. She wouldn’t get a decade sentence; she’d have to carry her grief for life.

The Arrival

My youngest son was born on the first day of winter with stick-straight blond hair and flashy blue eyes. I stood in the back of the room and watched as he emerged, saw the doctor as he gripped his head with firm, gentle hands that twisted and tugged to pull the baby’s shoulders out. Upon his arrival, the baby cried soft and briefly; my cries were loud gulps. I remember his grandmother – who’d just met me that day — coming over and hugging me. We cried together.

“Do you want to cut the umbilical cord?” the grandmother said a minute later, relaying her daughter’s question to me.

It was unexpected. I’d not considered being the one to do this. It felt right, so I did. I knew then that I wasn’t cutting the baby’s link to his birth family. His biological mother placed him with us, a life and family she wanted for him, one she, at the time, couldn’t provide. She was a stronger mother than I, and with her trust and a few snips, I now had to be as equally strong to raise my son. We would all three always be connected in spirit, through him.

Ours is an open adoption. The farewells said the next day as my son’s birth mother was discharged weren’t to be the last. I realized by then I couldn’t stem her pain with my words. I knew I could no more truly understand her depth of emotions than others could understand what I felt with secondary infertility. My role in this triad was to be Craig’s mother. The only way I could help his biological mother was to raise him in a committed family environment and to love him as my own.

Later that night, with all of us tucked in safely at home, I woke up from a deep sleep and reached out instinctively for Craig. He had just started to fuss and was in my arms before the first cry of hunger. So much for that worry, I held him close and he turned his head to me, latched on to his bottle and I rocked us both back to sleep and momentary peace.

Related posts:

1. For the mother that’s about to rock, we salute you!