My Jerry Maguire Moment "Who's With Me?!"

I have spent the better part of this blog's existence talking about my son but I have never talked about what I do for a living, which is an assistant professor of physical education. Some of you are like, "What? Dr. of P.E. or if you are east coast, Dr. of gym class? Yes, Dr. of PE and No, NOT Dr. of gym class. Gym is a place, not a class. I teach students how to teach students to become physically literate for a lifetime and I love it.  But sometimes I have a really thankless job. I feel like a car salesman, trying to sell my students on the importance  planning developmentally appropriate and educative lesson plans that do not include kick/mat ball, dodgeball of any kind, one full class sized game of softball, soccer, etc. After all, how much activity time (or learning) really is involved in a 15 vs 15 game of softball? Believe it or not, many of them have the same reaction to me being a Dr. of PE that you may have had, "Really? you got your PhD in PE? That's a thing? I mean, I can teach PE, I took it for 12 years in public school and I'm good at sports, what more do I need to know?"

On campus, I am kind of known as a hard ass, not because I like torturing my students for the sake of being a hard ass, but because I was a PE teacher for 10 years and in my 10 years I saw a lot of poor teaching. I am not exempt. I admit, I got sucked into the occasional roll out the ball days.  But looking back, by and large, I worked my butt off trying to provide my students with real life authentic experiences meant to inspire them to become physically active and to advocate for physical activity in the community and their families. Our profession is dying because too many teachers let the lessons they learned in undergrad fall by the way-side and slip into desperately poor practices in the gym (place--as in classroom). As long as the kids are "busy, happy, and good" (Placek, 1980), that is all administrators ever cared about and so that is what the profession did.

I'm not sure if anyone has noticed, but the times, they are a changing and we have to get on the bus or we will be the ones left behind. PE teachers are regularly asked to integrate Common Core into their lessons without sacrificing physical activity time, but even this isn't a new concept. When I got my first job back in 1997, one of the first questions I was asked in the interview was "How would I integrate reading and writing into my PE classes?" Do I think we should be teaching reading and writing? I don't think it is our job to stop teaching our content and teach English by any means, because we have too big of a job to do to take on that role, besides, we are not trained to do this. BUT why can't we support the classroom teachers? If we do it right, we won't be sacrificing physical activity, in fact, student learning may actually go up because students will be doing more than playing a game that they haven't adequately been taught to play. They will be analyzing their peers skill development, tacical decision-making, and using critical thinking skills when trying to figure out what the best strategy is take when they are in that triple threat position. The thing is, my students don't believe me that they will be held accountable for all of this. If teachers are implementing these strategies that can also be used as formative and/or summative assessments, physical educators will have the documentation needed to prove their students are learning because they have evidence through these assessments.

Today's pre-service teachers, on the other hand,  truly believe they will be able to do what their teachers did and get tenure (if there is even any tenure by the time they get a job). With NY State's teacher evaluation protocol Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) I have seen and talked to many veteran teachers who are very skilled at their job struggle to reach the "effective" rating because they started teaching before all of this Common Core was even a thing. They were never trained in it, so as a result, they have their students sitting and reading books during class thinking this is what their principals want.

This summer I have had the opportunity to talk to administrators, principals and superintendents, and they are looking at this new generation of PE teachers to make a difference, not by doing what has always been done, but to be the leader, the new blood in the department that will train their new colleagues on how to integrate common core and how to regularly reflect on their lessons to continually improve. Just this week, on the first day of classes, I told my students this and they looked at me, like "really?" But on the bright side, for the first time since I have been teaching in higher ed, these students actually looked like they believed me! The tide might be turning, just a bit. My car salesman schtick might actually be convincing them to work hard and plan appropriately. Ok, this isn't too likely, but my Cause got a little help from a new alumni who sent me an email letting me know that she just got hired for her first teaching job, a mere 3-4 days before the start of the school year. Yes, her email said I helped her to become a better teacher (thank you for the compliment) and that she was able to blow them away in the interview but the thing that stood out was how impressed the committee was by the detail of her student teaching lesson plans and what we require of our students.

For the first time, I learned that my words have not been falling on deaf ears, that students do really listen and care. And no, I don't really believe I am a car salesman trying to sell a lemon. I truly believe in what I am doing. I wouldn't have gone back to school and moved my family all over the country working on my graduate degrees if I didn't believe in it. Anyway, her email brightened my day and I felt compelled to send it out to our majors, not to toot my own horn, but to show that while we professors do contribute to their overall development as teachers, it is ultimately their work ethic, professionalism, and desire to make a difference in the lives of their students that will ultimately get them the job they are looking for. And maybe, just maybe, we do know what we are talking about!

I do have to admit, it was nice being thanked for the job I am doing and it's also nice to know, that I won't have to don the requisite plaid suit and sleazy toothpick to make my point!



Actually, I pretty much noticed just now that this just may be my Jerry Maguire Moment, my memo mission statement of what I believe my career to be. So here I am, gathering up my belongings (figuratively of course, because right now, I'm still in bed), scooping up the gold fish and proclaiming, "Who's With Me?!"

Post Launch Report: Tears, Hugs, and Cockroaches

Well, I survived Marat's send off, not without many, many tears. Yesterday was a hard day letting go of my only son. It was harder than I thought it would be, after all, I had worked so hard to bring him home that I really didn't want to let him go but I knew that I had to. It is interesting, this past month, I have been calling James by his given name Marat a lot more. I know he prefers James because it helps him feel like he is more a part of our American culture, but I have always liked his name, Marat, because it is unique and it is part of what makes him, him. Anyway, I digress. Leading up to his departure, I made sure to get as many hugs as possible this past week by making a new family rule: Any time I asked for a hug, he had to hug me, no arguments, no protests. And the hug would last as long as I wanted it to last and he had to hug me back until I let go. Surprisingly, he didn't complain and gladly hugged me every time I asked. Sure he pretended he couldn't breathe and faked passing out a few times, but it was so comforting to be able to hug him as much as I wanted this past week. When he got on the bus, he immediately called me and we talked a few minutes and I knew the bus would pull out soon, so I told him, "I think you need to get off the bus and give your mom one more hug." He jumped right off the bus and we held on for what seemed forever and not long enough at the same time. Within a minute of reboarding, the bus was pulling out of the lot and he was gone.
We texted for the next half hour or so as I went to work and the next hour or so, it became apparent that the reality was hitting him and he was crying on the bus. The next few hours took way too long as he made his way to his new home, but we skyped last night and it looked like he was settling in pretty easily.

So today I went out to the mailbox and found a present. But before I give it way, I need to give you some back story. When we were on our family vacation earlier this summer, we stayed with my good friend Misti from doctoral school. She has known James since our first days in Greeley and has always been a good friend to him, almost too good of a friend because when he wrecked her car, she was like, "meh, these things happen." I had to have a heart to heart with her that wrecking a car without having permission driving it or a license to drive it just "doesn't happen" and that his life as he knew it at the time was about to end. Anyway, I digress again. So Misti and James decided it would be fun to scare the crap out of his moms by sneaking a plastic cockroach on our shoulder at different times. They were completely proud of the fact that I almost had a heart attack--I SO don't like pranks that make me jump out of my skin. When we left Misti's house, she gave him his very own plastic cockroach. So, back to the present. When I went out to the mailbox this afternoon when I got home, I found this in the newspaper tube:

Misti would be so proud, but so disappointed that I did not jump out of my skin for the first time in my life. Instead, I smiled and poked it with my phone just to make sure that it really was his cockroach and then brought it in the house. I think I may slip it into his bed when he comes home to visit. Misti would be so proud!

T-Minus 8 hours Until Launch...

Well, it finally seems to be here, the night before the big move but then I am reminded that he will be back in three weeks for his dermatologist appointment. Yes, I will see him monthly until he is done with this round of medication, but it still doesn't make it any easier. Most families have a full 18 years with their kids before they send them off in the world, that's more than enough time to get good and sick of them and then have all sorts of conflicted feelings when they finally do leave akin "is it bad that I am excited they are moving out?"  But with me, it's different. Sure I go through those bouts of secret joy at the thought of a lower food bill, but then I feel cheated. Cheated that I only had 11 years of what has been the most rewarding life I never could have imagined.

When I adopted Marat, I hoped it would work out. I had heard horror stories of kids with Failure to Thrive, Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) and I hoped I would not have to live through that. Medically, he was diagnosed with Failure to Thrive, though within a few years, he actually made it onto the growth charts, a reason to celebrate! He started growing, learning English, making friends, charming the daylights off of every one he met, and blessing my life from the moment I first laid eyes on his picture, 10 months before I met him.

We went out to dinner tonight to Marat's favorite Thai restaurant and ate more than we should, but then there is that promise of lower grocery bills in just a couple of weeks so I am okay with it. I should have used that time to talk to him, to ask him what he was looking forward to, what he hoped to accomplish in the next year or two, but mostly I just sat quietly thinking about the first time he had Thai food and how I recognized at that time that my food bill was about to explode.

Once we got home, I followed him down to his basement bedroom and helped him pack for what would be his last night as a full time resident of the basement (God willing) and I looked around the room at his photos of childhood friends, trophies earned and not so earned (gotta love the entitlement generation--trophies for everybody!) and then I saw it. His first American toy. A battery operated Spiderman on a quad. He would play with that thing for hours and drive me nuts! When we first arrived home in America after the adoption, we stayed at my Mom's house for the night before our drive back to Coos Bay the next afternoon. She was so excited about being a new grandma, that she said that she would be right back and that she had to go to the store. This meant that she would be gone at least 2-3 hours. When she returned (2 hours later), her arms were full with toys and gifts--something I honestly did not expect given her lukewarm reception to the news that I intended to adopt a child.  She was somewhat skeptical of the whole situation, not in a bad way, but she simply voiced all the fears that I held deep inside and never acknowledged out loud. But here she was welcoming her new grandson into the family the best possible way she knew how. By buying the loudest, most obnoxious toy that could only be interpreted as Karma making its first visit upon my sleep-deprived self! She also bought him new pajamas (which he wore until he was 12 years old and the pajama pants had no choice but to be called shorts because he had grown so much) and a pup tent and sleeping bag. I set up his tent in the doorway of the bedroom so he could see me just a few feet away. He laid down on top of his sleeping bag and looked paralyzed, like he seriously did not know how to act or feel or know what to do. He clearly had never experienced anything like this in the orphanage and I am sure he had no idea of what was going on.

First night in America, Marat wasn't sure what to do in the tent.

The roles have certainly reversed. That first night, there were lots of tears for Marat, fear of living in a new country, with a new mom, and the unknown. I stayed up all night consoling him and trying to put him at ease. This last night, 11 years later, there are tears again,but this time it is me shedding those tears. And I am expressing the fears for him, of him living in a new city, new friends, and venturing out in the unknown. As much as I am making this about me, I am heartend by the picture we took tonight. I received it in a text message as I was writing this blog post. He sees that I am sad and unsure and now he is the one doing the consoling.\ It said, "Here you go guys if u guys miss me u can look at this pic. Love you"  Gone is the uncertanty of the boy in that first picture, how to act, how to behave in a strange new land. Instead, it is clear that he is excited but most importantly confident and ready to take that next step!

"If you miss me, look at this pic."

T Minus 9 Days Until Launch: Unexpected Blessings

It is hard to believe that 11 years ago tonight I was struggling to sleep and fighting off a migraine headache as I prepared to become a first time mom through international adoption. I remember waking up in the morning after getting like 2.5 hours of sleep, wondering "Is this what it will be like from now on? Sheer exhaustion? I'm not even officially a mom yet!" And then I went to court and became a mom.

When I was in Kazakhstan, I took many pictures of my son and other children in his group and I was able to share those with the waiting parents back home so they could see their little ones were healthy. I had the opportunity to get a photo or two of my son from parents who traveled before me and I wanted to do the same for others. So I sent photos to the waiting parents to help calm the stress of their own adoption processes.

Well, now as my son is ready to launch on his own and enter the Job Corps, I have spent much of the past week reflecting on our lives and how blessed I have been to have other wonderful adoptive parents to lean on. Unfortunately, we moved a number of times over the years and I lost touch with many of them, so I did a little online stalking investigating, and searched for those parents I had lost track of. It was really cool to find a couple of them and send out friend requests in an effort to reconnect. But what happened next was pretty amazing.

I received a friend request from a parent whom I had only met through our yahoo listserv and after I accepted it, I was able to see her photos. She had posted an album full of pictures that were taken at the Doestky Dom (orphanage) two years prior to my son's adoption. As I looked at the pictures, memories of my own trip came flooding back and then I saw him. My son! There were a handful of pictures that my son appeared in that I had never seen. They had been taken a 1-2 years before I even knew about him, but there he was in the middle of photos that she took of her kids as she prepared to bring her children home.

Tomorrow is our family day (gotcha day--I've never been a fan of that term). We have been a family for 11 years and what a blessing it is to look back on his life before we were a family. We will celebrate our Family Day next weekend with a traditional Kazakh feast as we usually do, but this year it is a little more special--not only because my son will be leaving home but because I got to see a glimpse of my son's life before we were a family. I sometimes forget that there are eight years of history missing from our lives. Eight years of missed birthdays, holidays, lost teeth...Seeing these pictures helped to fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle that is Marat's life. I am so thankful for the adoptive community, I never would have made it through the adoption process without the wisdom and insight of those who traveled before me. Even though our kids are growing up and leaving home, going to college and moving on, we share a bond through our children that can never be broken.

Marat is behind the boy who is looking at the camera. He seems to be paying attention to what ever is going on.

So kids loved jumping in front of the camera and it should be no surprise that my son would photo-bomb his buddy.

Here he is sitting on a "dad's" lap. I knew it was him as soon as I saw this picture. Marat used to suck his fingers and clearly, they were getting ready to go in his mouth. It was a habit that took him a good year or two to break after he came home.

I almost missed him in this picture--but I saw him the second time through on the pictures. He is on the very right of the photo. This was taken Christmas Day, 2001. I did not even begin considering adoption until October, 2002. 

Marat (James) is sitting on the lap next to his best friend. She got adopted 1 1/2 years before Marat but coincidentally lived only an hour from us in Oregon.

Is It Bad That I Take Pictures of My Son Asleep In The Car?

I suppose I am like most parents, snapping photos of their kids in an effort to document every moment of their life. When I was growing up, I had one photo album of all of my childhood pictures. One. Now with smartpones and social media, it is possible to capture even the most mundane life experiences. I have managed to not only fill up numerous facebook albums but also a half of an external hard drive following my son's every step. And I know I am not alone. Admit it. Parents out there love their kids and love to take pictures of their kids. It's not a bad thing, but looking back at all of the folders of saved images on my hard drive, it's pretty easy to figure out why my son stopped smiling in middle school. How many photos can I possibly take of one kid? Not only did he stop smiling for picutres, but he started really showing that middle school attitude. Put simply, taking his picture stopped being fun--I still did it, but it wasn't nearly as fun as when he readily hammed it up for the camera.

Enter the sleeping boy picture. There is something innocent about kids sleeping in the car that I love. Maybe it's that finally, there is some quiet, there isn't any teen drama, or the excitement of reaching the desitination was just too exhausting to think about and finally there's some peace and quiet in the back seat. More than likely, it's a combination of all of these, but whatever it is, I love it. There really is nothing quite like watching your kids sleep. And I'm not talking about standing above them while they sleep in their rooms or anything creepy, it's just peaceful. So this blog is dedicated to all of the road trips we've taken over the years and those moments when you look up into the rearview mirror to see that peaceful sweet, sometimes, drooling face.

I guess I started taking these pictures in 2006-ish and I always would try to get at least one picture on road trips if I could manage it without killing anyone. I know I have more pictures somewhere, but this is a pretty good documentation of the past 7-8 years. The last picture was taken just this summer on our way back from Michigan. He joined the US Navy Sea Cadet Corps and I can thank them for getting him good and tired once a month as well as getting him to cut his hair!

T-Minus 14 Days Until Launch...

The past two years have felt like a two-year long countdown to a rocket launch. It all started when my son turned 18 last year during his junior year. I was overcome with the realization that the days as a full-time mom were numbered. His senior year would begin and days would continue to fly by just as they had in the previous 10 years since I had been chosen to be his mom.

 Our story began in October, 2002, when I realized that my life was passing me by. I had wanted to adopt a child ever since I went to Russia and the Ukraine on a short term missions trip in February 1992. I saw countless orphans, babies, toddlers, school-aged children, and teenagers who had nobody to call their family. Somehow I knew that I would return to adopt a child and begin my family. As the years went by, I got more and more involved in my career and spent every waking hour teaching and coaching other people's children. It was a drizzly fall Saturday morning when I realized that my life would change forever. My girls varsity soccer team and I were conducting soccer clinic for local grade school kids, grades 1-3. As I was supervising the mayhem and secretly wishing that parents would not send their kids to these clinics unmedicated, a little girl came up to me and grabbed my hand and told me that she had to go to the bathroom. As I walked her over to the porta-potty, I looked around the field and thought, "150 kids here and not a single one of them is mine." It wasn't one of those "Thank Goodness, they aren't mine" type of thoughts, but more like a "holy crap" moment that I imagined officially started my biological clock ticking. Loudly.

As soon as the clinic ended and all kids were accounted for, I went home to try to make sense of that feeling I was having. It was so unfamiliar and new. I had NEVER felt like this before. A few hours later I realized that 10 years before I made that promise that I would return to Russia or the Ukraine to adopt a child. Was this what the feeling was about? Could this even be possible? Did I even have my life together enough to be able to raise a child, to be a parent? So I did what anybody would do in this situation, I googled it. Well, I don't think I used google because it was 2002 and I am pretty sure it was still new, but I did an internet search nonetheless. I started looking up international adoption so I could at least answer the very basic question, was I, in the court's eyes, qualified to become a parent? It seemed so odd to start a family this way--to be told whether or not I met the criteria. Because really, isn't the only qualification needed to start a family a working backseat of a car and someone of the opposite sex? Anyway, the more I read, the more I realized, that I was grown up enough to do this. I had been teaching for six years and had a stable income and life. So I proceeded to explore specific agencies that worked out of Oregon so I knew that there would be as little red tape as possible. It was going to be hard enough to deal with international laws, much less interstate regulations. I was clueless and I wanted to know that the process would be as painless as possible.

I must have been on the internet at least six hours when I came across Tree of Life Adoption Agency's website. They were based out of Portland and seemed to work with the former Soviet countries regularly so I thought I was on the right track. I read about each country's regulations and quickly realized that adopting out of Russia or the Ukraine would be difficult because both countries required two trips, one for the court appearance and one a few months later to pick up the child. As a teacher, I knew I could not afford to make two trips. So I began looking at other countries, some of whom I never even heard of. As I continued reading, I noticed on the navigation bar on the lefthand of the page, there were photolistings of available children. Seriously? Could it be as simple as looking at pictures, reading a short biography, and saying, "I want that one?" Regulations have long since changed and now the photolistings are only made available to individuals who have been approved to be parents. But to answer my own question, "Yes, it really was as simple as that." Most of the pictures on the photolistings were of children in the country of Kazakhstan. I seriously had to look it up on the map, as I had no clue where it was. I discoverd that it was a former Soviet country and had gained their independence in 1995. I decided to check it out.

I really didn't know where to start. My family is flooded with boys. I am the only girl in a family with three brothers, at the time, they all had had only boys, my cousins all had boys, and of all of my cousins, there were only 3-4 girls! So I thought, maybe a girl? I am sooo not girly-girl, but maybe I could parent a girl. So I looked at girls first. I knew I could not afford to bring home an infant (daycare would cost me a fortune) and I really wanted to the child to understand what was going on, so a toddler was out. So I thought it would be best to find a school-aged child, between 6-10 years old. So I was looking at photos of girls between 6 and 10 years old. I found one girl who who I thought could definitely be a possibility but then I thought about her being the only girl among all of her cousins and I started to reconsider the possibility of getting girl. I know how hard it was for me to grow up and all boys--It was like "Lord of the Flies" trying to survive and I wouldn't want my daughter growing up like that. So, I started looking at the photolisting of available boys. There were a couple of possibilities as I scrolled through the page and took mental notes of certain boys, but once I came across a picture of a boy in a green soccer warm up with a twinkle in his eye and a mischievious little smile, I knew. Not just like, "Hey how about this one!" but I knew deep in my gut that I was looking at my son. I can't explain the feeling, my life was instantly consumed with his image and the little narrative that accompanied his picture. I called my mom and told her what I was thinking and the story about what happened at the soccer field and I am pretty sure she thought I was crazy, but she could tell I was 100% serious. She told me not to get too attached (too late for that) and to check it out, but not to be too disappointed if it didn't work. I then called my best friend and told her to log onto the website and look at this picture. She was excited and was completely supportive and could see why I was so drawn in by this boy.

Left: How could you not fall in love this face?
(Marat, age 5)

The next day, I woke up and I was still thinking about the boy in the green warmup. I decided to email the adoption agency and find out if he was still available. About an hour later I received a reply from one of the board members of the agency notifying me that he was available for adoption and that since he is an older child, some of the fees would be reduced since the chances for a child older than age 2 finding their forever home decrease 80%. I was pretty encouraged and surprised that I even received a reply on a Sunday afternoon. I phoned the adoption agency the next day and by week's end, I had learned his name, Marat. One thing led to another and by the end of October, I had officially been approved to be Marat's mom! Over the course of the next seven months, I prepared to bring home my son. I was given a travel date of late May. I was excited to be able to travel to the country of Kazakhstan and learn all about the culture. I wanted to learn as much as possible so I could keep Marat's heritage alive for him so he could still feel connected somehow. I read books on international adoption, attachment issues such as Reactive Attachment Disorder, and met with other adoptive parents who also adopted through Tree of Life and had traveled to the same orphanage to adopt their children. I learned survival Russian and Kazakh and did the best I could to learn as much his language as possible. My initial travel date came and went and I was still at home waiting. It was another two months before I would get approval to travel and finally board the plane to bring my son home. It was a month filled with a lifetime of memories and a time in my life I will cherish forever.

Every August I relive those moments in my mind and we celebrate our adoption day. Other international adoptive families call it "gotcha day" but I've never been a fan of that name. I like to call it what it is, Family Day, because we celebrate the day we became a family. August 18 is our Family Day and we celebrate with a true Kazakh meal: alma-ata plov (citrus based rice pilaf), lamb shishlyk, samsa, and Marat's favorite, baursak. The food prep for family day usually begins two days in advance, but the feast is simply amazing! Our Family Day celebrations up until four years ago were small, just the two of us or a few close friends, but Family Day since then celebrates our exapanded family--my wife Karen and her daughter Kodie. Our family doubled in size in 2011 and now Karen and I work together to cook all of the Kazakh favorites and we try to celebrate with an open house with any friends and family who can make it. As I remember back to my time in Kazakhstan and how I was counting the days until my trip and ultimately bringing my son home, I find myself counting down again, but this time to send Marat, now known as James (his choice), out into the world on his own. I have been incredibly blessed to be chosen as his mom.

The past 11 years have flown by and while there have been many challenges, I wouldn't change a thing. There was a time during James' middle school years where I thought for sure one of us would end up dead or in jail. It during this time that he decided to go by James rather than his birth name Marat. His name was just one more reminder for him that he was different from the other kids.  It was an explosive time in his life and I earned every one of my gray hairs but we made it through and our relationship survived. I still wonder if I did enough for him. Doctoral school came at a tremendous cost to my ability to be home and spend time with him. But for all intents and purposes, he is a great young man and who has his head screwed on straight, so I am eternally grateful to have the life we have today.

When I was in Kazakhstan I tried to send daily email updates to my friends and family and when I returned, I printed them all out so I could look back and remember those first moments of motherhood. This week, I found them and have been reading through them. My dad suggested I post them so others could see how our family came to be, so I scanned them and have attached it to this blog. I still can't beieve that I have two more weeks with my son but I am genuinely excited to see how our relationship will change and grow as move forward into this next phase of our lives. So if you would like to read the journal, click on the link below.

                                                                                             

Above: James (June, 2006)
Right: James (August, 2014)











Treadwell Family Adoption Journal