So a lot’s happened on the family front since last week…

I spent about two and a half hours on the phone with my uncle Friday night, followed by a good four hours with my aunt on Saturday and another hour(ish) on Sunday. Mostly we were catching up with each other on what’s happened in the last thirty-four or so years, and each other’s families and children. I can’t remember what day or hour into conversation that my aunt and I talked about my biological father and where to go with all that.. but she wanted to let me know that he was going to be in PHX over Thanksgiving, thinking it might be more comfortable for me, if he and I were to meet, if it were on my turf, so to speak. She’s a smart lady, my auntie.

So I asked the question that had been on my mind since the first contact. Since she had asked if it was OK with me to tell him she’d found me, should I assume that this is information he wants to know? He wasn’t the one to come looking for me, and he hadn’t had any more children, so I couldn’t help wondering if this was something he’d welcome. So my aunt and I had a pretty candid discussion, and she admitted that he’s not one who deals well with emotion, and tends to withdraw from any kind of intense emotional situations. Based on the things I mentioned already and just kinda putting together this and that from various conversations, I’d already gotten that impression. My aunt had suggested telling him and giving him my number and letting him take the next step. I told her I was OK with her telling him that she’d gotten in touch with me, but asked her to leave it at that.  If he asked about or expressed an interest in contacting me, she could give him my number, but I didn’t want him to feel at all pressured by any expectations, hers or mine, real or perceived.I have a dad, and he’s awesome. I’d like to get to know [bio dad], but I don’t want anything that he can’t give freely.

Sunday I got a voice mail from my aunt, to let me know she’d spoken with [bio dad]. She was pretty excited, because she’d expected kind of a non-reaction at first, but that he’d been very interested, asked a lot of questions, and seemed almost excited. She said she thought he’d call, but wasn’t sure when. I was thinking in my mind, that he’d probably call the following weekend. I know it took me from Tuesday to Friday night to really get to a point where I could wrap my head around everything to string two sentences together and have anything resembling an intelligent conversation.

But [bio dad] surprised us both, and called me the next evening. He was visibly audibly nervous and clearly way out of his comfort zone. He introduced himself by name and I said hello… he asked how I was, I asked how he was, and he laughed shakily and said,

Scared.

It made the conversation a lot easier for me, that’s for sure. Shoot, I was just incredibly nervous. But I understood how he must have felt. 

He told me right up front at the beginning of the conversation that he’s not real good with people or emotions, and if he said or did anything that I felt crossed the line or upset me to please let him know. I told him that was fair, and not to worry… I’m not one who’s known for holding back her feelings. If you make me mad, there will be no doubt in your mind.

We had a nice conversation, though there was a real awkward moment when he asked me if my children were mulatto, and I had to explain that was a socially acceptable term about a hundred years ago, but today most people consider it a racial slur. He took that pretty well, didn’t get defensive and go for a derail, reworded his question, and then told me that a couple of the other grandkids in the family are multiracial. I got the feeling he was trying to make a connection with me somehow. It was a little misguided, but not ill intentioned, and I don’t think I’ve ever had the “that thing you said was racist” conversation go so well.

He brought up that he would be in PHX for the holiday, and asked if he could buy me a cup of coffee, and I told him I’d really like that. So in addition to that reunion, my uncle Joe and his wife Debbie are driving up on Saturday to have breakfast with us and spend some time together. Two weeks after that, coincidentally my birthday weekend, my aunt Joyce will be in town and we’ll be getting together for dinner.

I am going to mail these Quick Beaders to Becky Boop.

She’s been waiting on them for a LOOONG time.

I bought them in May.

Sometimes I really suck in the friend department…

I’m glad she loves me anyway.

"Big Fat Head"

Dr 2nd Grade,

Could you please speak with the boy who sits behind Daija about this? Its such a struggle for my girls to maintain a healthy self esteem and racial identity. This isn’t the first time Daija has complained that someone in class made her feel bad about her hair, But its the first time she’s begged me to straighten it…

“Even if it burns me, I promise not to cry.”

I’m pretty upset by this, and so is she.

Crock-Pot® Smart-Pot® Slow Cooker

OK, so I’ve amused people to no end by my habit of referring to my blackberry as my crackberry… so I couldn’t resist the title for a blog about my new toy. I invested in a new crock pot today… I have one, but it has a couple limitations, the biggest being that I’m away from the house for 9-10 hours during the week, and it’s a manual crock pot and always cooks most things in 6-8. Secondly, it’s 4 quarts, and there are a couple great looking recipes that feed 7-8 people (which means I could stretch it to two meals for the curly crew or leftovers for my lunch).  So my new purchase is 6 qts, with a locking lid and a timer with auto off feature… I can start the crock pot with the timer on the low end of the recommended cooking time, then it will switch to warm. If it isn’t quite done when I get home, I can just pop that sucker on high while the kids & I make salads, set the table, etc.

Make it Fast, Cook it Slow: The Big Book of Everyday Slow Cooking

Earlier this week, Amazon.com delivered my new cookbook. I looked through it Friday night and was happy to see that my faith in Becky Boop was not misplaced… I have never seen a cookbook that had so many recipes that I was excited to make. Even better, many of them required little or no chopping or preparing. Saturday morning I had a little chit chat with the spawn about how much fast food we won’t be eating anymore. I figured I’d get their buy-in a great deal faster if they had some ownership. I had each of the kids pick out a dinner recipe from the new book of spells. Last night we had Halle’s pick, Sweet & Spicy Salmon, which was good, but a little chewy. I think I cooked it a little too long… that recipe is definitely one that leans towards the lower end of the cooking time range. Daija chose Sweet & Spicy Chicken Wings, which we’ll be having for dinner tonight, and Tyler chose Chicken Pot Pie for Wednesday. I have the fixings for Crockpot Cowboy Stew and Chicken Tacos to fill in the rest of the week that we’re not eating some version of Turkey.

I may never use another pot or pan. I’ll be honest, when I was standing and looking at the frozen turkeys, I wondered if they make crock pots big enough to cook a turkey in.

Today will not be a day of rest for me, since I’ll be doing all the things I didn’t get done while I was on the phone for the better part of Friday night and Saturday. But it will be a thankful day…

Today I am grateful for the internets and for Facebook.

They brought me  two aunts, four uncles, eight cousins, and two second cousins.

That’s a lotta family to get on a random Tuesday evening.

So I’m about to turn 18 for the second time (this means I’m almost 36), so I really didn’t see this message coming:

Looking for my niece!

Joyce – November 17 at 7:38pm
I am looking for my niece her name is Cynthia Sheela Whitmore, birthdate is [the month & year of my birth] her mothers name is Caryn. Please let me know if you are her?

And I was like… wow. Don’t think there’s much chance of there being another Cyndi Whitmore out there born the same month & year as I, with a middle name of Sheelah and a mother by the name of Caryn (yeah, the unique spellings are a long tradition in my family).

Cyndi – November 17 at 7:52pm
that’s all me! How old are you? I used to have some pictures, and I think you may have been in one of them… I’m having a hard time placing my age or any of the names from the pictures but Joyce seems familiar
Sent via Facebook Mobile

Joyce – November 18 at 8:41am
I was 12 when you were born. You and your mom lived with us until you were about six months old and I only saw one other time very briefly after that, so if you have a picture it would have been when you were a small infant. I am so excited to find you. Would it be alright if I let [bio dad] know?

And another wow. Up until that point, I literally hadn’t known whether he was still alive. And knowing only what my mother had told me, I didn’t feel ready for that step. I thought it over throughout the day, and responded later that evening while I was waiting for volleyball tryouts to get started, asking if she would mind not saying anything quite yet, explaining I’d like it if she and I could talk first, so I could ask a few questions. She graciously agreed, and the conversation continued…

Joyce – November 18 at 6:40pm
[snipped]I know you don’t remember me, but, I do remember you and you have always been in my thoughts and have a special place in my heart.

Cyndi – November 18 at 6:55pm
More details when I’m not on a crackberry but I’ve always felt a connection with you (err, your picture).. Does [bio dad] have other children? Where does he live? Where do you live?
Sent via Facebook Mobile

I learned that my biological father does not have any other biological children and that he is still living in northern AZ… and that in addition to this aunt living in Massecheusettes, I have an aunt in Phoenix, cousins in Scottsdale, two uncles in the Flagstaff area and one in Tucson.

Later that evening, I was able to chat with my aunt for about an hour. I confided that even though I hadn’t ever felt like I was missing a father, I’d wondered about [bio dad] and about siblings & extended family… and that some small part of me had hoped that someone would have wanted me enough to find me, and that if they did, they’d be proud of what they found.

Joyce
oh you have no idea, when I just told [an uncle] earlier, he was shocked and so happy. He barely could wait for me to send you the friend request fast enough, he said he’s been praying to find you for years.

I got a message on Facebook shortly after I’d accepted the friend request from my Uncle Joe. He thinks it’s fantastic that Joyce found me, said he and his wife would love to meet me, gave me his phone number, saying if I could call, that would be great.

I once was lost… « curlykidz.

So a couple weeks ago I was invited to be a contributing blogger for multiracial families at The Next Family. My contributions will actually start waaaay back in 1999 when I first started blogging, so readers can kinda follow along with our family story. So, if you happen to have missed the last ten years of my wit, wisdom, and sheer brilliance… by all means, hustle on over there and subscribe to the RSS feed.

What is The Next Family?

The Next Family is a diverse community where modern families meet. It is the start of an on-going open minded and sincere dialog between urbanite families, adoptive families, in vitro parents, interracial families, same sex parents, single parents and so on. It is a way to remind people that the Next Generation of families already exists in larger numbers than the old model of a “family unit”.

The Next Family is the foundation of future families.

As you navigate through our site, please start the dialog with us by offering input as to the ways today’s Modern Families aren’t being served. Let us know what products you wish you had access to or cool stuff you would like to be created just for your “Next Family”.

This site will have resources available and answers to those tough questions you are asked about your own family or the family around the corner from you. The tough questions are asked, and the answers will be as diverse as our community.

We look forward to hearing your stories, and meeting your family!

You can check out my introduction at The Next Family — A Diverse Community For Modern Families.

Mommy, Cyndi, Daddy

So this isn’t something that usually comes up unless some brave soul tries to navigate my family tree, but I am (legally) adopted… sort of. The adoption itself was legal, so that’s not the sort of part. The adoption papers, from what I recall, show that both my parents adopted me, but my mother is my biological mother; my legal father is her second husband. 

Yeah, it’s complicated. 

Now, I’ve learned over the years that anything my mother tells me is more likely than not to be extremely slanted with enough spin to be a tilt-a-whirl ride at the World’s Fair… but this is the story as it was told to me.

 My mother married my biological father, who was in the military, when they were very young (she was 19 when I was born). According to Mom, he abused drugs (she of course was just a recreational user, which was to be expected since it was 70’s) and became physically abusive. She told me that she left him after he turned his abuse on me. She alleges that he threw me across the room, and I hit the wall before sliding into my crib. She rushed to my defense; he broke both her wrists, and then refused to let her seek medical treatment. Eventually he either left the premises or passed out, and she put me in my stroller and went to the base hospital. I couldn’t have been much more than a year old at the time. She married the man I call daddy around the time I turned three. Supposedly, when I was five years old my biological father agreed to relinquish custody so my stepfather could adopt me. My last name was changed to Neuberger, and a revised birth certificate was issued listing my mother with her maiden and (2nd) married name and her 2nd husband as my father.  

 When I started high school, I decided I wanted to change my name back to Whitmore. Although I did have a strained relationship with my dad (due partly to teen angst but mostly to the tilt-a-whirl of my parents’ divorce), this was primarily driven by teasing I endured as a child that lingered on into high school. Having a last name that sounds anything like “new” when you’re in a military family and constantly the “new” kid is bad enough, but having a last name that inevitably led to me being dubbed the New Booger was torture. I was a cheerleader in a town small enough that they’d announce us by name before performances, and it always made me cringe. I didn’t want to go out into the grown up world of job applications constantly having to explain how to pronounce it or carrying the painful memories I associated with it. My grandparents were willing to foot the bill, but my mother was resistant. I dug in my heels and when I ordered my class ring sophomore year, I had my birth name inscribed on the inside. Eventually it became clear to her that I wasn’t buying any of the nonsense she was trying to derail me with, and that this change would happen… it could either happen with her consent then or it would happen when I turned 18… She eventually relented, and the name change was done the summer before my junior year. The attorney inquired whether I wanted the adoption reversed, but I declined. I would be moving to AZ to live with my grandparents and get residency the summer before my senior year, so college tuition wouldn’t be as expensive. I wondered if I had any siblings, and considered trying to find my biological father. My mother gave me my original birth certificate, a copy of the adoption paperwork, the last known city of residence for my father & his family, as well as a bunch of old pictures from when she and my biological father were first married, which included pictures of a grandmother and numerous aunts & uncles, and a cousin.

After moving to AZ and away from her influence, I developed a much stronger relationship with my daddy (adoptive father) and realized more fully how manipulative and deceptive my mother could be. I figured she probably made it difficult, if not impossible, for my biological father to have any relationship with me. I thought again about finding him, but it just wasn’t that important to me. I strongly considered doing so again when I was pregnant with my first child, if for no other reason than to have a complete medical history… but the need just wasn’t that great. Over the years was occasionally run his name through people finders or social networking sites… would usually come across some potential leads, but was never willing to shell out money to get additional information. I guess I felt that he had given me up, and he would find me if he really wanted to… it wouldn’t be difficult since I was using his name. I think by my mid 20’s I had little to no expectations that I would ever know him, but I wasn’t particularly troubled by that. I have a daddy, and he’s not perfect by any means, but I’ve never doubted that he loved me and considered me his in every way (except maybe during that teen angst period I mentioned).

…but now am found « curlykidz.

Folks, I want to talk with parents – mothers or fathers – who feel basically comfortable with their teenager(s) being on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace, etc. There are lots of parents who feel pretty passionately about watching over their teenagers in one way or another – by “friending” them, keeping their passwords, and just flat-out telling them they can’t be on these sites. These are not the parents I hope to talk with. If you are aware that your teenager is on these sites (or at least one of them), and you pretty much trust your teenager and do not intervene, I’d love to talk with you.

Please e-mail me (karen.rayne@gmail.com) or leave a comment here (http://karenrayne.com/2009/11/17/parents-and-teens-and-social-networking/)…

Please feel free to post this request anywhere you feel would be appropriate.

via Parents who are comfortable with their teenager on social networking sites | Adolescent Sexuality by Dr. Karen Rayne.