Another bittersweet aspect of fostering Mara has been watching her get attached to Mike, and vice versa. She is definitely Daddy's Girl. Mike cannot walk into the room we are in when he gets home from work unless he is ready to pick her up and hold her. He has to sneak into his bathroom and unload his pockets, sort through the mail, et cetera quietly before announcing that he is home. If she hears him and he does not pick her up instantly, she wails and will.not.stop.crying.until.he.comes.to.her.
She almost all-ways prefers him, and she lets me know in no uncertain terms that she wants Daddy to carry her/wear her/put her to sleep and not me (she pushes my face or refuses to look at or listen to me and says "dah-dee, dah-dee, dah-dee"). She has even perfected a sign for "hold me" that just melts your heart with its sweetness! She holds both of her arms out and squeezes them together with a slight tilt of her head and a pouty face that says, "Please hold me!" It is absolutely irresistible!
But the worst part is if Mike leaves the room and doesn't take her with him. She becomes hysterical if he doesn't return to the room or come and get her pretty quickly. This is when she cries the silent cry, when she is crying so hard that she is actually not making any sound at all for a while. It is so hard to watch, and especially hard to ignore. We assure her that Mike is coming back, but she is beside herself until he does. Even her brothers cannot take the place of "Dah-dee".
Now I know what Mike has been going through all of these years with the boys preferring me. It was a natural outgrowth of breastfeeding, and I thought they would grow out of it over time, but they still prefer me at bedtime and when they are injured/sick/upset/worried. I have actually prayed and wished that one of them would prefer their dad over me so I could catch a break-- especially when we are all ill or I am really stressed out-- and still it hasn't happened yet. But Mara has a clear preference for Mike, and I have to say it's a relief! I'm not one of those mothers who desperately need to be needed by my children to feel valued, and I encourage interdependence in my kids. I also really really really need time to myself to maintain my equilibrium, and with three kids that's a challenge. I stay up too late on the nights when Mike has Mara just to have time to read or write.
That's another thing: Mike and I now take turns taking care of Mara at night and it has made having a baby half as easy. I can get by being sleep deprived for just one night, especially knowing I will make up for it the very next night. Plus we both enjoy the sacred quiet of giving her a bottle and rocking her back to sleep at night, and neither of us want to miss out on the experience. Mike tells people he never knew how hard it was to take care of a baby! With breastfeeding, he never missed a night of sleep. I co-slept with both of our bio babies and managed to meet their nighttime needs without having to wake him (except when the occasional intestinal bug involved copious vomiting and we ran out of clean sheets). Now he knows the agony of only getting four hours of broken sleep with a teething baby, and how hard the next day of work can be. It's tough when you're an at-home parent and the older kids are relentless the next day, but I can't imagine driving in rush-hour traffic and being at a desk all day running on fumes. At least at home I can lay on the floor while reading to the kids, or even nap with Mara if I engage the boys in an activity that will hold their interest for an hour.
It helps me, too, that Mara loves to go to the store with Mike (something that they do almost every day as we have become quite European with our every-other-day trips to the supermarket) because I know she's happy when she's with him, wherever they might go, and I get a little break from her. She likes to nap with him, too (I have a hard time napping during the day) and sometimes it's the only way to get her to nap during the day, especially on weekends when everyone else is obviously not taking a nap and doing something fun. Mike gladly wears Mara in his batik print Moby Wrap (it almost looks like camouflage) for her naps at the lake or the zoo, and he even wears her in a backpack style carrier with a shade canopy whenever he mows the lawn! She never refuses her daddy, and he is a cure-all for anything that ails her.
This past weekend I went to an all-day class for foster parents ("Helping Kids Cope with Grief and Loss") and I didn't worry about Mara a bit. When Liam and Seamus were babies I probably wouldn't have even gone to a day-long class-- and if I had, I would have called home to check and see how they were doing every hour on the hour. But with Mara, I knew she was happy with Mike so it didn't even occur to me to call until I was on my way home. She didn't seem to mind being separated from me at all, and maybe even enjoyed the break from me (as I did the time away from ALL of the kids). I've vowed to get more days away like that one, because I think the kids need time with Mike without me around to interfere or make plans for them (and I DEFINITELY need a break from the nonstop work of parenting three busy kiddoes).
I worry so much about what it would be like if Mara was reunified with Linda and would not have a strong father figure in her life. In fact, I worry about how she would most likely have the polar opposite of a strong father figure: an uncommitted, possibly violent man with whom her mother sleeps who may emotionally, physically and/or sexually abuse her. I really try not to think about that too much but it's one of the many cornerstones of a fulfilling family that I know would be sorely missing in that other reality. Perhaps that is why Mara is so fiercely attached to Mike; a positive fatherly relationship is precisely the one she was missing that led to her abuse and coming to live with us. Let's just hope her family stays this way and she gets to be Daddy's Girl for a lifetime. I can live with Mike being wrapped around her littlest finger instead of mine. I'm not even that jealous of their bond. In fact, it makes me love him that much more to see how tender he is with Mara-- how he protects her and wants to give his little princess the very best in life; while she looks up to him with true love in her eyes and probably thinks he could pull a star down out of the night sky for her if she asked for it.
I believe that love and respect from her father is extremely important to the developing self-worth of a girl, and that it is the bedrock for all of her future relationships with men. I pray that, no matter what happens, Mara will always remember what it felt like to be loved and protected by Mike and that she will seek out that out for herself in the future.
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