I can write 'happy', too!

On Sunday, Elfy and I decided to join the Unitarian Universalist church that we've been attending with the kids on and off for the past year or so. We attended a class about membership and the history of the denomination along with four other great women, and then were formally welcomed into the congregation this past weekend.

Something I never thought about before coming out was what the difference is between being 'tolerated' and being 'accepted'. In theory, I would have argued in favor of acceptance, and I probably would have had very strong opinions about it, but they would not have been based on true experience.

Since coming out, I have experienced both.

Being 'tolerated' means that someone will put up with your presence in their home, family, space, etc. but they won't invest in you. They won't ask how you're really doing. They do not take any real interest in your life outside of where it intersects with theirs. They will attach rules or standards or expectations to how you should behave in their presence. If you are struggling with anything, they will assign the blame for your struggles to whatever path you have chosen with which they disagree.

Being 'accepted' is the opposite. It means that someone will not judge you. They will not attach rules or standards or expectations about how you are to behave in their presence. They will not only 'allow' you to be you, and respect you for it, but they will also embrace who you are, invest in you, and genuinely care about your struggles, joys, and general well-being. They are curious about and interested in you.

This UU church is not my first. However, it is the first place where I have felt genuinely accepted, welcomed and embraced as a whole person, just as I am. My children are taught in the Sunday school that they come from the most important kind of family there is - the kind that shows them unconditional love. And we are surrounded by other families, some of which look something like ours, and all of which are accepting and embracing of ours.

This journey of life is hard. I am finding it especially challenging as part of this not-so-typical blended family. And moments like yesterday, where we were welcomed into a larger group just as we are, make it all worth while.

What do you do when you just know something isn't right?

And the child you just know it isn't right with, isn't yours? Not in any legal sense, anyway.

Ever since I met Stella, I've suspected that she wasn't quite where she should be developmentally. In the cognitive sense. Even when I met her for the first time (which was under circumstances of terrible stress, imposed by her mother), she seemed... behind. But it was hard to put my finger on it.

I met her when she had just turned four years old. She's small for her age. Height-wise, she's on target, but weight-wise, she's very low. What's amazing to me is that she has consistently, since toddler-hood, according to Elfy, eaten whatever you give her. (Having two obscenely picky eater boys, this is fascinating to me.) However, she only eats a few bites (usually), and then just isn't interested in eating again for a while.

She was never read to (again, according to Elfy) until she came to our house. It just wasn't something that Elfy and Floja did. Neither of them had been raised that way, so they didn't pass it down. So when she experienced our nightly book time as a family, she couldn't get enough! I began to think it was simply a matter of her not having been read to, or exposed to much 'educational' stuff.

So we got out the toddler puzzles - the alphabet, numbers 1-10, colors and shapes, etc. She liked fitting them back into place, but didn't seem to have any memory of them from one time to the next (whether it was the same weekend, or two weeks apart), and she didn't seem to be associating the items together. It was more like a rote experience, in my observation.

I started to wonder if there might be something more going on.

Stella's birthday is in mid-December, so she didn't qualify for going to Kindergarten until this school year. So in the fall of 2009, she qualified for Head Start, and would have really benefited from it (who wouldn't, honestly??), but for reasons that remain a mystery to us, Floja decided that she would be better off remaining in the home daycare facility full time. Even the daycare provider recommended that she go to Head Start. Floja used some sort of excuse about the bus schedule interfering with her work schedule, and that because Elfy left her (a year prior to this), she was now unable to trust anyone to help her take care of the children. Apparently, her own mother and others in her family that have helped with all three of her children throughout all of their lives were suddenly not an option.

Are you getting my sarcasm here? But I digress.

So throughout last school year, Stella was in home daycare. She would have problems on a fairly regular basis with keeping her hands to herself, and/or being mean to other kids. We noticed that she would have trouble focusing on an activity (no matter what it was) for very long - most of the time, not long enough to finish the activity. She would not sit in front of the TV for more than a few minutes at a time (not that that is so bad! just not very typical), she would want Elfy to color with her, then not be able to finish the picture they were working on together, etc.

The preschool teach that Jimmy had at the time, who is also a friend, agreed to come to our house and do some informal assessment for us of Stella. I was particularly concerned that no matter how much we worked with her (and we worked with her a lot), she could not remember the names of colors. At age four. Her speech was also not developed as well as the children in Jimmy's preschool class, who were all a full year (and some, even more) younger than her.

The teacher came to our house and interacted with Stella informally at the chalkboard, and noticed that she could match colors together correctly (i.e. it was not color blindness), but that she couldn't seem to name them. She sat down with us and gave us a copy of an assessment form (some five pages) that she uses in the preschool to assess development.

I noticed as I went through it that there were several areas of cognitive, speech and social development that were just a little 'off' with Stella for her age. They were more appropriate for what was considered 'average' for children a year or so younger than her.

I started talking to Elfy about having her evaluated more formally. My concern was that a critical window was closing in her young development where early intervention and support might really benefit her the most.

But...

Elfy doesn't have any sort of guardian relationship with Stella. There is no formal, documented relationship between them at all. We tried about a year ago to establish a formal relationship through creating a document that we could all agree upon, sign with an attorney and have noterized - just to give Elfy (and me) some sort of legal relationship with Stella, but Floja's response was a flat denial. In fact, she was so angered by the request that my name be put on Stella's daycare card as someone authorized to pick her up and drop her off, that she ended up pulling her away from us for nearly three months.

But I digress.

My point is that I have thought for more than a year now that Stella REALLY needs to be evaluated by a professional. But because we can't have it done (legally or formally), and there is so much animosity with her mother, we're at a loss.

So now she's in Kindergarten. At the first parent/teacher conferences in November, she scored waaaaay below the range of where she's 'supposed' to be at this point. The teacher recommended having her start attending an after-school session a couple of days a week to receive extra help and attention on learning her letters, numbers, counting and colors. If she made any other recommendations to have her more formally evaluated for cognitive developmental delay, we don't know about it. We weren't invited to attend the conferences.

Stella has also started having more social problems. She has hit, kicked or antagonized other kids in her class so often that there's a note taped to her desk that says, "I will keep my hands and my feet to myself." UG takes her to school every morning, and makes her recite it out loud. Nice.

She's become increasingly antagonistic towards Jimmy, our younger son. She and Max get along like best friends most of the time, but she is downright mean to Jimmy more often than not. And recently, there have been a few occasions on which Max has stood up to her and gotten angry at her for being mean to him or to Jimmy, or because she just won't play nicely with them.

Stella has gotten very good at copying what she sees. She can copy just about any word that you put in front of her. But ask her what the letters are, and most of the time, she doesn't know. She's gotten better on colors, but when you ask her what color something is, she looks to the side, says, "Ummmm...." and then answers. To me, that looks like a clear sign that she's not making the connection like most of us do. There's a disconnect.

I feel so very helpless! I am terrified that she's going to fall between the cracks of the system. She's going to struggle mightily through school, just barely getting by. Elfy and I are both worried that she's going to have so little self-confidence and self-respect if she continues on this path that she'll wind up a pregnant teenager, or worse, take her own life.

So this is a post where I'm asking - pleading - for your help. If you have any suggestions, ideas, or directions in which you can point us, I'm listening. And thanks for listening to me.

Ah, Family...

Elfy has been out to her family for more than 15 years. Before me, she was in an 11-year relationship that produced a child into this family.

But from watching her family, you'd think they had just figured out that she's gay.

I know this will seem a little petty and possibly self-indulgent, but if you can't get away with that on your own blog, where can you? So you've been warned.

Elfy chooses not to have much of a virtual life. She barely checks email at this point (and that means about once every couple of weeks), and does not have a Facebook or any other social media profile. She's quite competent with the computer, but just doesn't spend much time on it.

I, on the other hand, am her extreme opposite in this manner. I practically live in front of the computer these days, have three active email accounts, and maintain a fairly high online profile, including have well over 300 'friends' on Facebook.

Back when we got together, I already had a FB profile but Elfy's ex, Floja, did not. A few months after we'd been together, and I'd been 'friended' by Elfy's mom, sister, brother, aunts and a couple of cousins, Floja got onto FB and asked to also be all of their 'friends'. Elfy's mom came to me and asked if I was alright with her accepting Floja's friend request. She said she wanted to check with me first out of respect for my feelings and not being sure how it would impact me if she was her friend. She also mentioned that she wanted to be able to keep up with Floja's kids, and that this was her main motivation. Frankly, I didn't like it. But I didn't think it would be a big deal, and I felt like it really wasn't my place to tell my sweetheart's mom with whom she could be associating, so I thanked her for her consideration, and said that it was fine with me.

Since then, there's been a deterioration, shall we say, of the relationships with Elfy's sister and brother, primarily. And their spouses. Here is what they have said to us, nearly verbatim:

"Please don't be affectionate in front of our kids. We don't want to have to answer any questions." (from brother and his wife)

"I don't agree with your lifestyle. I think it's wrong. But I love my sister, so I will tolerate you because I don't want to lose her." (from sister)

Nothing like feeling the love.

In addition to these comments, over time, Floja and UG (Ugly Girlfriend - and not because of her face) have both 'friended' the siblings and spouses and cousins (mom is no longer on FB at all), and used their access to part of my profile information (through being 'friends of friends') against us in arguments. I've since changed my privacy settings.

I have, at various moments, felt as though I were the offending party in a situation with one of the siblings, and have attempted conversations with her sister to remedy both the situation and the relationship. I have been overtly ignored. There is clearly no desire to mend anything there.

I 'de-friended' all of the siblings, spouses and cousins.

With her brother and his wife, we've talked more openly about the 'distance' that they have sensed from us, and they wondered why we weren't friends anymore on FB. When I told them that it had caused problems for us with Floja and UG because of not realizing that they could see some of my stuff, I had decided to defriend them all. Their reaction? "Oh. We get that. Okay then."

You may be thinking, "Wow, this really is pretty petty, Ellen..." In which case I would ask you - what if you felt you couldn't be 'friends' with some member of your family on FB because they had chosen to be 'friends' with your or your spouse's ex? Would you feel alienated from your own family? Would you feel like they were choosing sides, and not with you? Would you feel like perhaps their loyalties were a little misplaced?

Well, that's how Elfy and I feel about it. And it hurts. And I wish that were all there were to it.

In the month of December, we held a birthday party for Stella which was boycotted quietly by sister's husband, and brother and wife didn't get Stella a gift or even a card.

Later in the month, we were called by her mom to come for sister's birthday a few days before Christmas. We sent sister a text that day wishing her happy birthday ('thanks' was the reply). We showed up that night only to find out that sister had called everyone except us to cancel the dinner due to her sick child. Now, everyone gets sick kids - no complaint that the party was canceled. But why didn't we get the same call?

We found out that same evening that a very young cousin, who was expecting a baby in early February, had gotten very seriously ill and had delivered the baby by emergency C-section. Both she and the baby nearly lost their lives in the process - it was very touch-and-go for a few days. Sister put herself in charge of calling everyone. Except us.

This is the same sister that was so nasty on Christmas Day (read previous post).

It just keeps piling up.

OK, I promise the next post will not be so bitter.

Holidays. Always a little bit of heaven and a little bit of hell.

Read the post, then click on "comment" to respond.

We have no legal rights to Stella. Elfy was there from inception, but because we live in the great state of Michigan, she was not allowed to put her name on the birth certificate (Floja birthed Stella). However, Elfy has always been Stella's primary parent, so when they split up, it was, and continues to be, very difficult for both Elfy and Stella to be apart.

Because Elfy is who she is, she began paying child support to Floja for Stella from the moment she walked out the door. She began by paying a huge amount, and then over time, lowered it to what the courts would actually have awarded Floja had there been some legal intervention. She pays it every week (because she gets paid every week), and through an automated account, so she is never late and it is never varied.

However, in spite of Floja's repeated proclamations to Elfy that they are both equal parents, it is often made clear to us that one parent has the responsibilities, and the other has the rights. I'll let you guess who is who. More about that in another post. Or seven.

Around Thanksgiving, Floja asked Elfy what our plans were for celebrating Christmas with Stella. Elfy works midnights and Floja works days. At the same plant. Nice, huh? The point here being that they have the same holiday schedule. In this case, it was a four-day weekend for Christmas, and a four-day weekend for New Year's.

We expressed an interest in having Stella for New Year's weekend. Our motivation was two-fold - first, to be completely honest, we wouldn't have the boys with us over the Christmas weekend. They were going to Chicago to be with their dad. Second, Elfy knew that Floja would never give up Christmas morning with Stella, and she didn't think it was fair to Stella to have to be with us for two days, then go home to her mom's house late Christmas Eve night, then hurry up and open presents with her mom on Christmas morning, only to have to leave them all and rush back over to our house. In short, she didn't want to split the holiday.

So we express an interest in New Year's weekend, Thursday to Sunday. We are informed that actually, Floja plans to visit her girlfriend's family in Ohio that weekend, and that Stella's 'presence has been requested'. Translation = UG's family (Ugly Girlfriend - and that would be a commentary on her personality more than her looks) wants to give Stella presents, and wants Stella to be there to show gratitude.

We reply that while this is nice, Elfy is Stella's parent, and we respectfully request one of the holiday weekends with her. In full. With no interruptions and back-and-forths. Floja replies that she'll have to see what she can work out, and will let us know.

Weeks go by. Nothing is said. Elfy waits at work on a few occasions to try and talk to Floja, who appears to be avoiding her. The date creeps closer. Family members of ours are asking when we'll get together to celebrate with the kids. We have to keep telling them we don't know yet.

The plant decides to shut down for the week between Christmas and New Year, meaning that Elfy and Floja are both off for that full week.

The boys leave for Chicago. It's now two days before Christmas. Still nothing has been said. Elfy is reluctant to call her because she's tired of continuously feeling like she's begging for time with her own child. She wants to wait for Floja. I am getting nervous. Based on past Floja behavior, it is a very real possibility in my mind that she won't call. The holidays will come and go, and we just won't get to see Stella at all. And beyond just not getting to see Stella, Floja will paint the picture for everyone she can get to listen (including some people in Elfy's family) that we just didn't care enough to call her, so she assumed we didn't want to see Stella. She's done worse in the past.

On Christmas Eve, as Elfy and I are driving to my parents' house for dinner, she decides to call Floja and find out what's going on. Floja says that she'll be taking Stella with her to Ohio the follow Thursday morning through Sunday. Period. But that we can pick her up Christmas Day (Saturday) in the afternoon, and keep her until Thursday morning if we want to.

So here's the catch. Elfy's family gathers on Christmas Day for a big family dinner and opening presents. It's a tradition that Floja herself participated in for several years, so she knows the drill. But we won't get the boys back until Tuesday. With all the insanity of preparation for Christmas, Sunday and Monday are our only days to spend together relaxing. Without kids.

(OK - side note. Now, I realize that it may sound a little selfish to some. But think about it from my perspective for a second. Elfy and I are, in effect, newlyweds that have never been without kids around us. Not that we're allowed to get married legally, but we are still a fairly new couple. And when we got together, we had an instant family. My two boys live with us full time, and Stella comes over 2-3 weekends per month. So our time alone has, from the beginning, been a very precious commodity. And the kids are at very needy ages - 4, 6 and 7. And we're not big TV parents. We may be reluctant and whiny about our responsibilities at times, but we do take them pretty seriously.)

So in effect, we are faced with the choice of having Stella for basically four-and-a-half days and giving up our time alone (which, by the way, was our only Christmas present to each other this year). Or... get her on Tuesday when we go to get the boys, and only have her for two days.

I held my breath and let Elfy decide, and she decided to pick Stella up on Tuesday morning. I breathed a guilty sigh of relief.

We arrive at her parents' house on Christmas Day, childless. Her sister walks in and, true to form, neglects to say hello or 'Merry Christmas', but just skips straight to, "Where's Stella?"

"With her mom", replies Elfy.

"Well, she told me that you could have her as of this afternoon." she shoots back, her voice full of accusation. The other siblings and their mom are now looking at us, too. My heart rate has shot up.

"Well, she says a lot of things", I blurt out, somewhat calmly, even though my voice is shaking underneath.

Her sister snorts and walks away, muttering something about "Well, she said she could have come here, if you'd wanted her..." I am now furious and ready to fight. Elfy takes my hand and looks me steadily in the eyes. "Not worth it", she mouths.

We go into the back bedroom under the guise of wrapping a last-minute present. Instead, I fume and hiss angrily, and my sweet Elfy cries. Sometimes I really hate her sister.

We feel the judgment for the rest of the day, with absolutely no interest in understanding our very complicated situation with all of it's layers of emotion and decisions and turmoil and angst.

Instead, we leave before anyone else, having sat apart from all but the youngest brother and his girlfriend - the 'other' non-married-with-child couple in the family. The only ones who seem to hold no judgment over us - only love. We return to our cozy, child-less house, and curl up to take refuge in each others arms.