Family

When One Is Missing

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 2 Comments

This week my husband is out of town.  I travel frequently for work–well not frequently exactly, about 6 times a year.  I know the kids miss me when I am gone, but it isn’t until my husband travels for work that I realize the hole that is left when one of us is gone.  We are a unit.  Team Finley is how we refer to ourselves.  And we are that a team.  My husband is the perfect yin to my yang of parenting styles.  I am the enforcer and he is the laid back one–I am not laid back when it comes to parenting.  I try–but I am the stricter parent.

So, things are hard for me when Bill is gone.  I try to relax more and not be so strict–but it is really really hard.  Super hard.  Yesterday we did have a good day.  No one yelled (okay, I didn’t yell).  We watched a movie–The Nightmare Before Christmas which the kids loved.  I mean LOVED.

Then bedtime came.  We brushed our teeth and read stories.  Noah went to sleep easily as always, but Zoë not so much.  She cried for daddy.  It broke my heart.  I carried her down to my room and put her in my bed and she cried and cried and cried.  I didn’t handle it the best–but I did what I could.  She cried for daddy and I told her daddy wasn’t here and that when she was ready for me to lay with her I would.

So, she laid by herself in my bed and cried for daddy for about 45 minutes–it felt like an eternity.  She then called for me and said she was ready.  I laid with her and within minutes she was asleep.  It was an important moment for me–I can’t fix everything for them.  I want to, but I can’t.

This morning Noah wanted to know how many days until daddy comes home.  He wanted to play piano and I wasn’t teaching him right–like daddy. I do my best to fill his shoes (as he does mine when I am gone).  But we just get by.

There is a hole, one of us is missing.  We are a team and when one member is gone–the team doesn’t play it’s best.  It does what it needs to to get by—but it isn’t whole.

 

Happy Things

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / Leave a comment

With all the political rhetoric being quite nasty and the memories of 9/11 being broadcast, I am in need of some happy.  So, I am simply posting some pictures from our family vacation–I didn’t take nearly as many as I wanted to/should because with two little ones, I was often very busy swimming, etc chasing them around.  Our vacation was great and the kids had a good time hanging out with their uncles and grandma. Here’s a glimpse at our vacation.  The highlights included shelling, wave jumping an seeing the dolphins “play” in our boat’s wake.

A Father

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / Leave a comment

Today we celebrate fathers. I have a great dad and he is so much of the reason that I am who I am today. As I watch Noah and Zoë with their dad, my amazing husband, I know they are as lucky as I am to have a great dad. A Father’s influence is powerful.

Then I thin of their Ethiopian fathers. In adoption we talk about birthmother’s all the time and more often then not forget about birthfathers. I think much of that is due to the assumption that this men who helped make these children ate somehow uninvolved, uncaring, or unimportant. The birthmother carries the child, etc. In the case of adoption, we assume a lot about birthfathers.

Today I celebrate the amazing men who helped create the children that I am lucky enough to parent. I don’t know the stories of these men, but I choose to believe they were men who created these children were loving and caring and whose circumstances didn’t allow them to be able to parent together with the birthmothers.

I hope they know in their hearts how amazing their children are and how much we love them.

Today is a day for all fathers.

The Dangers of Blogging

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 5 Comments

Well it has finally happened.  This little space here of mine on the internet has caused a bit of a family scandal.  This post has caused a bit of a ruckus.   I have lived in this space for over 5 years, writing about all aspects of my life–the good, the bad, the embarrassing, and the ugly.  There are plenty of things I don’t blog about.  On principle and out of respect for my husband–I don’t blog about him personally or about the intimate details of our relationship.  I don’t write specifics about my family that aren’t commonly know facts or something I would feel comfortable saying to their face.

My family is not into this whole internet thing and my brothers have always thought and expressed how stupid they think blogging is.  I haven’t readily shared the link to my blog with family–not because I want to hide what I am writing, but because this space is mine and I’m going to write what I need to and some people don’t understand that.  This is my personal space–notice I did not say private–where I express my opinions, feelings, hopes and dreams for my kiddos, my perspective on problems, so on and so on.  This means that some people might be offended at my truth.

This post couldn’t be more innocuous.  It states simple facts–that are simple and straight forward–they are not judgements.  I don’t judge my parents because of the circumstances of my life.  They did the best they could–they were young parents and I can’t imagine raising kids at a young age and they stayed together for us as kids and they worked hard to make sure we had what we needed.  I got soccer trips and vacations, etc.  This post wasn’t about what my parents did or didn’t do; it was a post about what I did.  I will not feel bad celebrating my accomplishments.  Did my parents help me with photography school?  Yes.  Did I finish–no because I couldn’t afford it.  There are many things that my parents did–good and bad–that have made me the person I am today.  But I went back to school at 25–on my own.  I fought to raise the grades I had after getting kicked out of community college when I was 19.  I worked my ass off–going to school full-time and working full-time.  I pulled all-nighters writing papers and reading.  I bought my first computer.  These are things I did on my own and to say that doesn’t diminish the fact that my parents raised me.  It doesn’t change any of that.

There are a variety of reports–but only ~30% of PhD recipients are first-generation college students.  So out of every 100 PhD’s awarded approximately 30 or less are first-generation college students.  To get kicked out of community college (at 19) and to then persist on to a PhD is a very unlikely story.  The odds were stacked against me and I know that better than anyone.  But I fought for something I thought was immensely important.  I fought.  I borrowed and leveraged.  Maybe some would say it was foolish to borrow so much for an education.  Maybe some will say I would have been better off settling.  But I have ambitions and will follow them.  I did it to prove to myself that I could and because it is something I want.  I didn’t ask for help.  I did it on my own and I am not sorry for that.  Is that to say my parents weren’t factors?  Or my husband?  No–but they weren’t the ones doing the work.  It was me and no one can take that away from me.

This very well has cost me my relationship with one of my brothers.  That is something I will live with.  I don’t want or need someone in my life (family or not) who doesn’t respect me and judges me based on one blog post out of 905.  I will not be responsible for how others feel.  I am responsible for myself.  I considered just pulling the plug on this whole blog thing.  But no.  This is my space.  This is my life and I have nothing to hide and nothing to be ashamed of.  I’m sorry if there are some who think I do.