Attachment and Disorder

Before we began the adoption process, I don't think I'd ever heard the phrase Attachment Disorder, and if I did, I surely didn't pay any attention to it. In the adoption/fostering context, Attachment Disorder is the inability for a child to have a normal bond (attachment) with a caretaker. 

I may be exaggerating, but I feel like the phrase came up in every single adoption meeting, interview, and prep class we attended. It was drilled into us that we would likely be adopting a child who suffered from the disorder, since we'd be adopting domestically, through the social work system. Between this, being told we'd probably be adopting a kid with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and my being talked to in a way that made me feel I would not be a capable parent, there were many a day that I wasn't sure this was something I wanted to go through with.

Add to this, my sense of order in how things work in my world, and I didn't come off as the most enthusiastic potential adopter. 

When you're an adult who's not around kids much, you kind of do things a certain way - you don't notice that you have a bottle sitting at the edge of a table, you keep things where you want, you can listen to podcasts without being interrupted. You have a certain order to your life that a kid doesn't really fit into. Whenever we would have a kid visit, I would worry that they would break something, or do something to our walls, or floors, or carpet. I like my things orderly.

The thought of attachment issues and losing order in our flat scared the hell out of me when it looked like we were going to be matched up with a child. It scared me even more when we were matched with the child, and even more when we met one of the child's foster parents, and even more when we met the child, and even more with each day of the transition process of moving the child from the foster carers to us. 

We were told we were lucky. The kid we were matched with had lived with one foster family since birth and had a birth mother who didn't drink alcohol. This was very good, everyone said, but it didn't make me feel much better.

The night before we moved the kid into our place for good, I barely slept. On the 1.5 hour drive to the foster carers, I kept thinking it would be kind of nice if the roads got so blocked so that we'd have to turn around and go back home. Of course, this didn't happen and we were at the foster carers at the set time and brought the kid home.

At some point during the transition process I was talking to a social worker. I said I didn't see how this kid, who had lived with one foster family since birth, would possibly attach to us, random strangers who just showed up a few days earlier. The social worker said she was sure everything would be fine and I would be amazed at how well, and quickly, a kid who is attached to one family can attach to another. I smiled, acted like I believed her (I didn't) and didn't push any further on the issue.

I was very wrong.

The kid follows Lauren around like a puppy dog (me, not so much), plays with us like we've been around forever, and didn't just appear a couple of weeks ago. It's unbelievable, and almost a little scary how well the kid has attached to us, and how quickly we've become a family.

Last night, as I was cleaning up rice off the table (plates mean nothing to this kid), and the floor, and the chair the kid was sitting in, and finding random grains of rice all over the rest of the kitchen, I had to admit that I had lost my battle with the order of things in our flat, and my life. Things are now out of reach of toddler-sized hands, I'm waking up at times I only used to when I had an early morning flight, and all my pens have gone missing.

While we still have a way to go, I have to say that it's impressive how in less than one week, we have gone from where we were to where we are. We are well on our way to reaching a strong sense of attachment, which is an amazing thing. Our flat is starting to have a strong sense of disorder, which I'm not so amazed by, but will learn to live with.

Say 'ta'

I'm still very much American in the way I talk. 

Unless I take the time to think about what I'm saying, I still use phrases like 'parking lot' and 'trash can'; I tend to say 'thank you' instead of 'cheers' or 'ta'; I catch myself pronouncing tomatoes and basil the way an American would (tow-may-tow and bay-sil, instead of tow-maa-tow and baa-sil). I pronounce strawberry with the 'e' and almost never say 'hiya' or 'wee'.

My world is about to change.

We are in the process of adopting a toddler (it won't be legal for many months to come, but that's another story). This kid has spent 19 months with a Scottish foster family and just moved in with us. At that age, growing up in a Scottish home, phrases like 'trash can' might as well be 'schloog fleig' as far as the kid is concerned. 

As American as I may sound, I want to keep the kid up with Scottish terms, so I'm finding myself telling the kid to put rubbish in the bin, asking if the kid wants any 'bluebries' and when I give the kid a grape and say 'what do you say?', I don't want to hear 'thank you', I want to hear 'ta'.

This wee child is going to change my world in ways I hadn't really thought much about.

Toes, Socks, and Genes

In terms of our physical build, I don't think my dad and I have a lot in common. I have broader shoulders than he does, he has thicker calves than I do. I'm about 1 cm taller than him but he can reach a good 3-4cm higher than I can - I don't know if this means I have stumpy limbs, or he's built like a gorilla (I jokingly say the latter).

In 2005, Lauren and I were in Ghana (you can read about our entire trip here). At one point on the trip, we were with my mother, in her hometown, the town where my parents got married. While there, we visited the guy who was the best man at my parents' wedding. One of the the first things he said to me was 'Ah, Kodwo, I can see you have your father's toes'. Needless to say, this was quite the odd comment to hear so soon into conversation.

It was an impressive thing to say right off for several reasons.

1. How in the world did he remember what my dad's toes looked like? Who pays attention to that sort of thing?

2. Why would my toes be one of the first things he noticed? Who pays attention to that sort of thing?

3. He was exactly right.

I do have my dad's toes and they're kind of annoying.

My toes point up. This is hard to explain, but the base of my big toenail is about 1/2 cm closer to the ground than the tip of the toenail, and I keep my toenails pretty short. I think my dad's toes point up even more than mine do (though I'm not sure) and his toenails are definitely not shorter than mine. This causes problems.

For me, every pair of socks I own will get a hole formed by my left or right big toenail long before any other holes form in the sock - I don't think I've ever had a pair of socks get a hole in the heel, for example. I then swap socks, and soon enough, there are holes on both sides of the top of the sock. 

The worst case is like the socks I noticed today that both had a hole in the exact same place (the top right of both socks), which means I have a hole that the big left toe pokes out of, regardless of which sock I put on which foot. 

I decided to just wear the socks today, with plans to toss them out. I like to wear flip flops around the house and at some point during the evening I looked down and saw this...

As I looked down, thinking about the sock I was about to throw out, my dad, my genes, I thought about the kid we're about to adopt. I've always wanted to adopt a kid, and we're in the final stages of the process now. I looked down at my toe sticking out of my sock and thought two things. First, this kid will never be able to write a blog like this; about the odd gene their dad may have given them. Then I also thought, this kid will never have to write a blog about the odd gene their dad gave them. 

I've never liked the phrase 'blood is thicker than water'. Last time I checked, water has nothing to do with family or friends, but love does. Love is more powerful than blood, people have spilt blood for love. And so even though a blog like this will never have to be written in this child's future, hopefully there will be other blogs; better blogs than this one; about the odd father that loved this child.

The Oscars

I realize I've been ranking the Best Picture Oscars since 2006 (I think I skipped a year or two though).

I thought 2013 was a good year for movies. It wasn't 1939 or 1994 by any means, but it was a good year.

For the first time since the Oscars expanded the number of Best Pictures from 5 to whatever it is now (I think it's now between 5 and 10), I genuinely liked all the nominees. This made it a bit difficult to rank them, but I'll give it a go.

I've found in recent years, maybe from listening to more film criticism podcasts than I used to, or maybe with age, story seems to mean more to me that it did in the past. While I can admire spectacle, the story carries more weight for me this year than it has in the past, and that will be seen in my rankings below. I'll go from worst to first here, and should note this is not how I think things will pan out (I actually think my #2 film will win best picture), but how I feel about the movies after seeing them and having some time to reflect.

9. Dallas Buyers Club - There was something about this film that just didn't click with me. I thought the performances by Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto were both amazing (I think Leto should win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar) but I don't know what it was. Pacing, possibly? Or maybe I wasn't sucked in the story as much as I would have thought? Who knows. One thing that did bother me during the movie was the time stamps. There were time stamps through out. 'Day 1', 'Day 27', etc. then it would say something like '6 months later' then at the end went back to using days. That's a minor thing, but the lack of consistency bothered me (and Lauren, who also brought it up). Also, when they say '6 months later' is that 6 months from Day 1 or 6 months from what ever Day we were on? Again, a minor thing, but it did bug me. Lauren mentioned after seeing the film, that it was good but she didn't think she would remember it in a year. Ultimately, that's why it's my number 9; I'm not going to remember this film as a film, only for the performances.

8. The Wolf of Wall Street - Long movies (over 2.5 hours) bother me. There have been many a film that I would have liked better if they were only a bit shorter. This film squarely falls in that category. I thought Leonardo DiCaprio was great (I don't think he'll ever be able to give as good as a performance as he did in What's Eating Gilbert Grape, but this was pretty damn good). The story was good, but there were some sequences that just went on for way to long for my taste. I was listening to a podcast where a guy who loved the movie was talking about the over 20-minute long sequence where two of the characters get high. He thought that amount of time was needed to get the point across; I remember looking at my watch during that sequence for the first time, wondering how much more of this we were going to see. It was the only film on the list where I checked the time during the film. I thought it was a great story, I thought the performances were really good, I just kind of wished that Martin Scorsese could have chopped off 30-45 minutes off the film. It would have been higher on my list if he had done that.

7. American Hustle - This is a fun movie. It's a performers' movie and the performances were great. A little over the top but not so much that they got annoying. What bothered me about this movie was I felt like it was giving off the air of being bigger, or more important, than it actually is. I felt like it was trying to be Goodfellas lite, and it just wasn't. I think it might a David O. Russell (the director) thing because I kind of had similar feelings about Silver Linings Playbook (a movie I liked significantly less than American Hustle). I feel like I'm putting down the film, but like I said, story has become more important to me as of late and what makes this movie good is not the story, but the characters. In the end, what they're saying didn't really matter to me but the way they said it, did.

6. Philomena - This movie caught me off guard. It opened months before the Oscar nominations were announced and I never even considered seeing it. It looked like a small, British, movie that wouldn't get much respect in the US, and therefore not get a nomination. I guess I was wrong. I was also caught off guard by how much I would like it. Going in, I was sure it was a movie I would not think much of, and I know there are a group of people who think it's a good movie, but not Best Picture worthy. I can't say I disagree with that statement; except for Judi Dench, it doesn't have the components that typically make up a Best Picture nominee. I think it also suffered from its advertising. From the trailers I saw, it looked more like a comedy than it actually is. It is a very touching movie, and that it's based on a true story makes it that much more touching. I liked it a lot more than than I thought I would and I'm hoping that the nomination will give more people (like me) the chance to see it.

5. Gravity - There is talk that this might win best picture. Gravity is possibly the most visually stunning movie I've ever seen, but the story is what brought it down a few notches for me. It gets a lot of points for being as short as it is (like I said earlier, I don't like long movies), but I felt like the characters were too simple, and that stuff was added that felt like it was being added for the sake of being added. There is a story line of the main character having gone through a serious loss back on earth but that didn't really add anything for me. It didn't make the story more compelling so it felt like it was added to pull the heartstrings, which I don't think need pulling in a movie about people lost in space - that's pulling the heartstrings enough. I also didn't like the George Clooney character. No one would be that calm in the situation they were in. I felt like it was George being George, calm, cool, and always under control. That being said, I do think Alfonso Cuarón should win Best Director. If Ang Lee can win for Life of Pie, Cuarón better win for Gravity.

4. Nebraska - I heard someone say that if some no-name director had directed Nebraska, and not Alexander Payne, there is no way it would have been nominated for an Oscar. I don't doubt that. The thing is, there was a no-name director who directed a movie that didn't get a Best Picture Oscar nomination back in 1999, when he directed Election. That director was this director, who has now made a name for himself. Election is my favorite Alexander Payne movie, and if you haven't seen it, you should. Nebraska, is my second favorite movie from him. I wasn't a fan of The Descendants at all, and didn't like Sideways as much as everyone else did. What I liked about this movie is what I liked about Election - the characters. Even though I've talked about story in this post, for me, it doesn't matter so much what the story is in Nebraska, but the people involved in it. I liked the side characters more so than the two main characters. The extreme side characters I liked even more. This movie grew on me the more I thought about it and I like it more now much more than I did when I walked out of it in December. I don't think this movie will win any major Oscars, but I do think it's the kind of movie, like Election, that I will remember scenes from, 15 years after it was released.

3. Captain Phillips - This was the first of the Best Picture nominees that I saw, and it really struck a chord with me. I don't know what it was, but it just really stuck with me. I was shocked - shocked - that Tom Hanks did not get a best actor nomination (even if he did have a bad New England accent). Last year, I posted my favorite scene from a movie. This year, my scene of the year is from this film. Alas, I can't post it because it's the very last scene in the movie, and I don't want to be a spoiler. One performance that I very much thought was impressive, but I'm hearing no critics talk about, is that of the 2nd hijacker. Barkhad Abdi, who plays the lead hijacker is nominated for Best Supporting Actor, rightfully so, but no one seems to be talking about the performance of Barkhad Abdirahman, who plays 2nd hijacker. The 2nd hijacker was the scarier of the two, in my opinion, and required a great deal more rage from the actor, which I thought he did a great job with. Yes, the lead hijacker needed to be more subtle, but I just kept waiting for the 2nd guy to go off (and he did a few times). I wish his performance was more recognized. I also thought Paul Greengrass was the perfect director for this movie. The unsteady camerawork he likes to use fit so well with the situation and the story, both of which were constantly in an unsteady state. I know this is not getting much love as a frontrunner, but I thought it was a great movie.

2. 12 Years a Slave - This film lost point for something that was entirely my doing; I read the book shortly before seeing it, so there was no element of surprise or suspense for me. This film does a great job of putting the viewer in the place of the main character, so it's best seen not knowing what is about to happen, because then you can relate to the actor much more. I didn't have that luxury, so I was a bit disappointed in myself for reading the book beforehand. That being said, it is a remarkable story and a remarkable film. I thought the performances were all great, but I think that of Sarah Paulson has somehow got lost in the nomination season. Her character comes off as loving and kind but also extremely evil. Like Barkhand Abdirahman, I do wish her performance would have gotten a bit more attention. This is a difficult film to watch and not one I would want to watch again because of this. But sometimes, the films you can't watch again are the ones that stay with you and stand the test of time.

1. Her - I loved Her. It hit all the right notes for me - the story, the directing, the music, the setting, the costumes, and Joaquin Phoenix. I think it must be very difficult to act against no one, especially when you're supposed to be showing tenderness, and I thought he did a great job. I'm also a Spike Jonze fan, back to when he directed this Weezer music video (although, I have to admit, I didn't really like Where the Wild Things Are). I just thought it was a very well put-together movie. On the surface, it's a very simple movie, but there was so many small details (like that none of the men wear belts) that may go unnoticed, but that add so much to the sense that we aren't quite in the normal universe of today, but some slightly fictional universe of the not-too-distant future. I've heard people say it reminded them of (500) Days of Summer, and I don't disagree with that. I liked that movie a great deal too, so maybe it's just that I like that type of movie, or I like Joaquin Phoenix, or I like Spike Jonze. Whatever it is, as soon as the credits started, I leaned over to Lauren and whispered 'Best movie of the year'. Several weeks after seeing it, I still feel the same way.

So that's my summary of the Best Picture nominees. This is the first time in a while where I saw all movies in a theater, and saw them with time to reflect, so I'm happy with my ranking, though I don't see any way that Her will win best picture.