November 17, 2011

This would be Isaiah with a pull-up on his head and his backpack!

Playing with play dough the other day.
This was from the night Jason worked late. Yes, I let the boys put the chair and stool on the table (but I made them sit)! Clearly, they were loving it!
This is what I can usually find the girls doing. It is really fun to see their creativity expanding - using blocks, train tracks, etc. with their dolls. Isaiah does a good job of being with them but not bothering them (unlike their other brother!).
The night I let them jump on the couch!
From this past Saturday with Zoe Mujinga when she wasn't feeling well.

November 17, 2011

First, I’ll try to clarify some things that a friend (who reads my blog from all the way on the other side of the earth and adopted from there) asked about. I totally lose track of what I say on here and my brain is only at about half capacity so it is no surprise that there are some confusing details!

We have decided to keep the girls home all day and not send them to school, even for ½ days. They need to learn to trust us and to submit to us as their authority. Here is what my friend (who I met from another friend’s blog) shared with us that helped give us more insight/wisdom about keeping the girls home:

“An attachment-challenged child, if we define it biblically, has a few things going on: they have a broken/crushed spirit and a rebellious will - which makes sense if we look at what they've been through and how they've learned to cope. They are hurt and like a hurt animal tend to lash out to protect themselves. They have also had to fend for themselves and don't want anyone telling them what to do or how to do it - that would mean they would have to trust (and they don't - yet) . . . You are trying to "FLIP" this crazy-seeming child from a broken spirit to an upright spirit and from a rebellious will to a submitted will. I think Empowered To Connect's principles are really helpful in encouraging both of these things. You have got to have HIGH NURTURE (to heal the broken spirit) and HIGH STRUCTURE (to bring the will into submission). If you only parent with high structure, they will withdraw and rage internally but never really heal from the pain. If you only parent with high nurture, and you overindulge, idolize, and let the child to themselves even a little, they will not learn to trust - they will just get better and better at manipulation yet still won't really trust b/c THEY are still really in control. At least, this is what we have seen.”

Holy cow, what great wisdom from parents who have adopted nine children (many of them older) from hard places (and seen many more families do the same)! This wisdom (and more in her email) helped remind us that God’s Word is still the final authority on parenting and kids - from hard places or not - since we are believers in Christ. It took her email to help me realize (DUH! HELLO!) that we still have to expect obedience (the high structure part) even though they have come from hard places because that is what God commands us as parents to do. When the kids have trouble – due to trauma from their past – obeying, then you use the ETC principles to help (give choices, try to give a yes if you can, etc.). Just sharing out loud how I have been processing this. It is still a little confusing to me how the ETC principles (especially allowing them to have some control) work while still expecting obedience from our kids. Little by little we are learning but it has been a roller coaster figuring out what is best/right.

So, that was a very long explanation of why it is important for us to have the girls home all day . . . to work on these things. Academics will come but if the girls are not emotionally healthy and if they don’t trust us, academics will be of little value. Plus, they are still learning things everyday, so I am not worried about them not learning things.

My friend’s second question was about the girls’ ages. Here is the full story: When we first started the adoption process, we had a willingness in our hearts for older kids but everyone we talked to said to adopt them younger because there are fewer issues to deal with, etc.. So, on paper, we said we wanted two girls between 3 & 5 years old. Our first referral was a picture of Muad, saying she was 5 ½ years old. Ahh - just over our “range.” We prayed and talked and I remember very clearly right after I finished taking a shower that night the Holy Spirit said to me, “does the Bible say adopt orphans – especially those cute, little toddlers who have less issues?” Clearly the answer is no and that is what God used to give me peace to say yes to the 5 ½ year old girl. I don’t remember how Jason experienced God’s leading in it (I am certainly not trying to make anyone feel bad for adopting toddlers – we adopted one! I’m just sharing the facts of what happened J). I had been praying since we started the process that our girls would somehow be friends in the orphanage. I told God a number of times that I knew it was a lot to ask, but since He tells us to ask Him, I asked. The day after we said YES to Muad, our agency sent us a picture of a girl who was six years old and good friends with Muad. Her name was Mujinga. Since I had been praying that the girls would be friends, God made this decision extremely clear to us to say YES. Had I not prayed that I don’t know that we would have said yes since our original preferences were younger. But here is the thing . . . Every family’s adoption process is very different but one thing is the same: God makes it clear each step of the way what you should do. It might not be clear initially, but He is faithful to lead you and this is how He led us to say yes to 5.5 and 6 year old girls, although our initial preferences were younger. After the second set of pictures we got of the girls, I wrote the agency because it was very clear that Muad was older than 5.5. They wrote back and said, “she is seven.” So, we were then adopting 6 & 7 year old girls. A year passed before the girls came home, making them 7 & 8 years old. About six weeks ago we got one last set of pictures of the kids and Muad looked a lot older than any of her previous pictures. At that point, I guessed she was 9 or 10. Now that they are home, we are fairly certain the younger one is about 9 and the older one 11. For our girls’ sakes if/when they ever read this, we have absolutely no regrets in adopting our girls. No regrets! But, it has been something Jason and I have had to process through – and we will continue to have to process through. Their ages are much different than what we expected - much like I am sure we, and life here, is much different than they expected. We fully trust in God’s sovereignty and know He led us to adopt these girls and we trust Him for the plans He has for their lives and us as we parent them. This truth comes to mind:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

(Isaiah 55:8-9)

I am resting as I type this in the truth that God knows what is best for us to a degree far beyond my comprehension.

Onto today . . .

Abram went with Jill and Jaida Paullus this morning at 8:40a because I had to take Claire Muad (and the other two) to the eye doctor at 11:00a. It was nice to have the morning with just the three kids. Claire Muad has been complaining that the bright sunlight and lights hurt her eyes. Having one less child with me was very helpful, but it was still a crazy adventure taking all three to an eye doctor. The doctor didn’t find anything wrong – I’m guessing it is just something she’ll have to adjust to.

Muad told me last night and this morning that she wanted to shampoo her hair today after the doctor (it took a long time to understand what she was saying and now I know I still didn’t really understand). When we left the doctor office, I realized the girls were saying they wanted to go to the store to buy some shampoo. Great! We all high-fived because we finally understood each other. J Or, so I thought. I needed to go to Target for a few things so we went there. I took them to the ethnic shampoo aisle but that was not what they wanted. I was puzzled. They saw a picture on an advertisement of a woman with long STRAIGHT black hair and pointed to it. Ah-hah! She wanted to buy whatever you buy to relax/straighten her hair. My heart sunk because I knew she does not like her hair and is wanting it to be different to be “better.” I have heard that as black girls get older, they want straight hair. UGH! I hate that I can’t help her with this beauty/self-esteem/heart issue. All I could do was say, “sorry” and shake my head no. I don’t know much about the relaxing process but I know it is very involved and is just not what we need to be doing right now. She quickly understood. I think it would be like me asking Jason if I could spend $100 to get my hair done. I pretty much already know the answer to that! She responded like she knew what my response would be, too.

Everyone is resting again this afternoon – yay! The girls were not happy about it so I tried to deal with those attitudes. Very difficult without language. This morning the girls and I played a game my friend Karen told me they played after they adopted their older girls. You roll a dice and get the number of pennies for the number on the dice. Once you get 10 pennies, you trade them in for a dime and once you get 10 dimes, you trade them in for a dollar bill. Whoever gets the dollar (or 2 dollars in our case) wins. It was a great game for them (and I let Isaiah roll my dice so he could be involved, too) – it let them practice counting and start learning about money. They wanted to take the money to go buy an ice cream cone (they would hold up the dimes/dollar and pretend like they were licking an ice cream cone!). Sorry, kids, not today.

When I went in to get the girls from playing late this afternoon to set the table I got some really bad attitudes and a really disrespectful behavior from one. It hurt my heart. But writing this helps me remember that my girls’ hearts are hurt way more than they can probably ever hurt mine. This is so hard to keep in mind in the moment (which again, is why writing this is so helpful . . . I probably wouldn’t have replayed that scenario in my head and thought about that).

After rest time Muad was in tears. I pulled up the facial expression chart someone sent me (thanks!) on my computer and took it to her. She pointed to the “frustrated” picture and then said, “hair.” I thought she was probably very upset about her hair. She asked to call Mama Rachel (who speaks Lingala) which was a good idea and I learned that she thought her former hair style was not done tight enough and it didn’t last long enough. So, we are now trying to figure out what to do about this dilemma. Everytime the girls have sang, “Savior, He can move the mountains” (from Mighty to Save) tonight, I have told Jesus that Muad’s hair needing done is a mountain that we need Him to move for us. The dilemma is that as the mom it is important for me to care for her in this way. But, I know she is not going to be happy about the way I will do her hair for awhile before I have more practice. So, you can pray for us as we seek God for how to handle this.

In random news, I realize tonight that the girls treat the boys WAYYYYY better than they used to even a week ago. Praise God for that. And I am loving hearing Isaiah begin to say things in English. It is so darn cute. I wish you could hear him. He can say all the basics: “yes, please, mom,” “no thank you,” “out please mom,” etc. I tow the line on making him use his words (teaching him he has a voice). He and Abram also have little chores – taking their plates to the sink, moving the chairs away from the table so the girls can sweep and taking the dirty cloth napkins to the dirty clothes hamper. Isaiah does the cutest African thing when he wants to show me something (often pointing out something Abram is doing that Isaiah doesn’t approve of!) . . .he uses his whole hand, palm up to point. I think to me it seems like such an adult gesture that it just cracks us up when he does it. I’ll have to try to take a picture of it sometime.

Last night I called my sister about something silly while I was making dinner. It was crazy and loud in my house but I still talked to her for awhile. It made both of our days to just be able to talk about life. She said she misses not being able to just stop by my house. We used to see each other multiple times a week but that is not possible right now and it is hard. I miss her and I miss her kids. I miss my friends. My mom misses Abram terribly and that about kills me. Just being honest here. Back in college I did the “Experiencing God” study and there is one thing that I remember from it more than anything else:

“Obedience to God is not only costly to you; it is costly to those around you.”

I did not expect that we would be “staying away” from family and close friends as long as we are going to have to - for the foreseeable future – until the girls’ attachments and trust are solid (or at least starting to be solid). It is going to take a lot longer with older kids, we’re learning (1-2 years). And although this season of keeping to ourselves for the sake of our children is going to be much longer than we anticipated, it is still just a season. It is still just a season . . . Just repeating it to burn it into my brain. And this season will allow “normal” life to be much more normal than if our kids don’t get the healing and attachment that they need.