Attachment is ... the Texas Two-Step?

It's circular, sweaty, requires alcohol.

Before I say anything about further about my "attachment theory," let me just share a story with you that will tell you something about me, so that it won't seem like I'm trying to share some kind of wonderful parenting theory as if I know anything about anything.  So, I am always coming up with ideas - some good, some bad - for various products or ads or marketing plans for McDonald's, let's say, but since I don't really have a job or an outlet for turning my ideas into reality, I plague everyone I know by talking about them.  About 6 years ago, I was visiting my old boss with Finn, and we were driving to go eat lunch, and I shared this really revolutionary idea with him.  I felt like it was one of my best ideas ever, and I had really put some time into thinking about it and why it would be such an advantageous product.  The idea, my friends, was the magnetic bumper sticker.  Without saying anything, my boss pulled into a parking lot, parked, got out of the car and went over to another car and lifted one of those Support Our Troops ribbon stickers off of that car and just held it up.  I was a little crestfallen that someone had already come up with my idea, but at least it was a really good idea, as evidenced by the demise of the bumper "sticker" market.  Another time, about a year ago, I was called a friend of mine to share another revolutionary idea, but it turned out that my idea was already in existence:  PayPal.  I had not come up with a catchy name yet.  Anyway, just letting you know that I realize I'm pretty out of it, and I don't keep up with things, so anything I "come to realize" has probably already been written about a million times, using better grammar and vocabulary.  Perhaps if I would actually read parenting material, instead of perezhilton.com, I would not have to learn all of these lessons the hard way.

Okay, so, attachment.  WTF?  Was this even a term 35 years ago?  I am pretty sure that my mother did not analyze her relative attachment to me and my brother as she waived goodbye to us with her tennis racquet and left us with the Spanish-speaking housekeeper.  However, as with so many other things that my mother seems to think that I have made up just to vex her and make her feel that she was a bad mother, such as putting babies to sleep on their backs, not giving them rice cereal when they are 2 weeks old, baby-proofing (not necessary back then due to the approved use of the play pen), we seem to be stuck with it.  Not to say that I don't get it or agree that it is desirable in the parent-child relationship.  I totally do.  It's just that I feel like it is yet another example of a very vague, yet lofty goal that we (I'm talking women) feel we need to reach before we could think of ourselves as "good mothers."  It's like a holy grail, especially with adopted children, that you might one day reach - the heavens open, lights dim ... Secure Attachment has been reached.

People lately have been asking me how the bonding or attachment "is going."  Well, I guess it's going great.  But then again, maybe it's not.  Because is there some kind of a test?  Can I get an outside opinion on whether this particular child is "securely attached" to me, to our family?  What would such a test look like?  Who would administer it?  The thing is, I'm starting to realize that attachment is a moving target, and what it looks like changes from day to day, sometimes minute to minute.  And I'm not just talking about with Ruby.  Finn, who just turned 7, is constantly testing our attachment.  He asked me when we were in Ethiopia if we would even have to take him to an orphanage if we couldn't take care of him.  When he gets extremely mad at me for punishing him for something, he says that he will stay in his bed forever, even if we move and a new family comes to live here.  And this is a child who was treated to the Cadillac version of attachment parenting as a firstborn whose parents dutifully read and followed all of Dr. Sears' A+ advice.  No "crying it out" for Baby Finn.  Never a moment when the breast was not available to the little angel.  He in fact did not sleep in his crib until he was two, so happy was he to nestle between mommy and daddy.  And yet he tests us, all the time.

Does this make me feel really crappy?  Yes.  Do I wonder how I will survive the teen years without excessive drinking (on my part)?  Yes.  However, it also reminds me that attachment is not a destination.  If I am still working on attachment issues with Finn, and can anticipate doing so for the rest of my life, can't Ruby and I have a little room to breathe?  I love her, and I know she loves us.  Some days I feel like she's been a part of our family forever, and other days I feel strange with her, like it's not real yet.  It's definitely a bumpy road for me, and I know it is for her too.  She had been going to bed so happily a week or so ago, just lying down and closing her eyes to sleep, and now the last several nights she shrieks and cries hysterically if we leave her in her room before she is asleep.  So we step back in our little dance.  Sometimes I watch her watching the boys with me, and I feel like she's learning how to act in our family.  If Gus comes and jumps on my lap to cuddle, she thinks she better do that too.  And we cuddle and tickle and love on each other and all feel happy and lovey.  But then we go out to dinner, and Ruby reaches out to be held by someone she has just met, and I feel a little sad.  It's just a crazy ride we get on when we have children, and they are ours forever.  That is such a long time, and there are so many little turns and stops along the way.  You might look back one day and remember a moment you didn't even pay attention to at the time and think, "that was really the best time."

So my theory turns out not to have much substance, much like my idea that Wal-Mart should build apartments on top of their stores and allow people to order things via a computer/dumb-waiter conveyance.  I don't have any research or practical advice, or really even a case study.  We've known Ruby for less than three months, so whatever I would say about attachment can be dismissed due to inexperience.  But, I am trying to turn off the thing where I am always keeping track, taking stock of the gains and losses as we move forward as a family.  I'm hoping that we will not end up on the parenting version of failblog.org (one of the best ways to kill time, by the way), and since there still is not a Nobel Prize in Mothering, I don't even have to worry about how I'm stacking up against anyone else in the field.  I'm just here, duct taping my children to me to keep us all attached and hoping for the best.