Category Archives: post adoption

six months today

Posted on by February 27, 2013

Six months ago at this moment, I was unconscious from the intoxicated stupification that can only be induced by an 11-hour jet lag. We flew the victory lap over Europe, over the Arctic Circle, and over the moon with our newly redeemed son and daughter. At the airport we hugged our kids, hugged our friends, somehow drove all the way home, and promptly put everyone to bed at 6 pm so we could collapse with dignity instead of being peeled off the kitchen floor by our 12-year-old.

I’ve been slowly coming to ever since. The fog is lifting and the sun is shining and I almost never feel like I just got whacked by the freezer door…except for the other day when I did get whacked by the freezer door…anyway, I usually feel pretty good lately.

We have two little girls who have both decided that going potty on the potty is a pretty great thing. I have gone for daaaaaays without changing a stinky diaper and this victory alone makes me less tentative of getting out of bed in the morning.

We have a little boy who has not had an “askident” for weeks. He often grins and announces, “No wadder…no askident!” before bedtime and we are overjoyed that he now understands the relationship between clear water going into the body and yellow water coming out of it. This was a huge relief to us because for a while it looked like he was going to start having accidents on purpose just for the joy of showering afterward every time he could pull it off.

We have a big boy who is learning to read and play the piano beautifully. He turns seven very soon and continues to be the bigger-and-wiser-though-still-slightly-younger brother to Andrey and Reagan. He has navigated the weirdness wonderfully and I love his fluffy red head.

                                     

We have a big girl who gets her little sisters dressed in the morning and even helps them make their beds. She is also playing the piano beautifully and composing her own music. Her freehand, wavy staff thrills me.

 We have a biggest boy who is learning geometry in sixth grade that I never learned in tenth (fascinating stuff!) and reading Lord of the Rings and Plutarch. I thought I had lost him in Costco last week and he reassured me that no harm could come to him because, don’t you know, he had his knife. Well, that’s a relief. (!)

There are still many unknowns and surprises. The other day I found Reagan with a magnet stuck to her head – one of those 3/4 inch building kit magnets that come with a ton of ball bearings; they’re strong little suckers. Sticking right up out of the side of her head. My first thought was, “Oh, Jesus!!!” and then (I’ll be honest) “Well, that explains a lot…” I was calmly trying to figure out whether I should call the doctor or our attorney in Bulgaria first. And then I realized it was stuck to her barrette.

Happy anniversary to us. We’ve been home, all eight of us, all together, for good, for ever, for six months.

I think we’re going to make it.

2 am breather

Posted on by February 8, 2018

In the middle of the night, in the middle of a cold, I am awake and not breathing.

I love to breathe. It’s probably my most favorite thing in the world…I love it even more than sleeping. But I really love them both so much that I really enjoy doing them at the same time. Every night, for hours on end…

But at 2am, not breathing puts a kink in the works and I finally stop tossing and turning and waiting for gravity to clear sinuses and give up. Out of bed, finding tissues, filling the humidifier, and going to the kitchen to grab a fresh glass of water…and on the way down the stairs something catches the corner of my eye, through the window, and stops me.

photo source

The sky is green, and moving. And He says, Go to the window and sit down with Me. I want to talk to you.

I briefly protest – Don’t You know it’s 2am and I have six kids and I’ve been sick for five days? And He says, Yes. Go sit down and rest with Me. Catch your breath.

So we sit down, and we rest. I look out the window, watching the sky move, and start to breathe again. He listens to me rattle on about all the overwhelming-ness, all the family stuff, the internal issues with kids and adjusting, and the external stuff with family and friends and ministry, oh my. We are in a season of tumult and uproar and we’ve had more than one life-changing phone call in the past few weeks, and there is heartache and chaos outside.

I tell Him, Wave to me if You’re still listening, and the sky lights up. He’s right there. And He talks to me, and there is peace inside, and I know I’m only getting a few hours of sleep but there is a deeper kind of rest that is happening and it heals me, too.

He says, That person you love, that you thought felt badly toward you, that disparaged you? He doesn’t feel badly toward you. He feels badly about himself, and he needs your prayer desperately.

He says, That person who accused you…give that to me. It’s okay. You are not thinking too highly of yourself, You are thinking highly of Me. Someday they will understand that.

He says, Those days that feel messy and off-track, with cat puke and poopy diapers and broken dishes and temper tantrums – those are days that remind you that you are in a war. You chose obedience over sterility. Wars are messy, and must only be entered into with a great mission in focus. Remember your great mission.

After a while, I went to bed and woke up tired and tackled a new day anyway. There were messes and multiple bodily fluids, and there was one day last week when Reagan broke three dishes before we got one of those phone calls.

who stills the roaring of the seas, 

the roaring of their waves,
the tumult of the peoples,
so that those who dwell at the ends of the earth 
are in awe of Your signs. 
You make the going out of the morning
 and the evening to shout with joy.

 

 Psalm 65:7-8
 

 

Today, we’ve been home for six weeks. We’ve noticed that most people don’t really understand what’s really going on here, and I’ve had a hard time keeping track of who we’ve explained certain things to. But we are slowly coming out of our hermitage and finally (!) had friends over for the first time last week. Twelve at the table, and moms and dads and a baby in the living room.

Yes, that makes thirteen kids altogether. Yes, this is only two families. Yes, we have our own football team; No, it’s none of your business if any of us are “done,” and Yes, we know how this happens:Paperwork, and lots of it. Although the, um, *cough* organic way is more fun and usually much quicker.


 Today was the first time we went as a family to another friends’ house. We are watching our kids closely to see how they do with other people – how they interact with them, how they approach them, and how they look for attention from them. We are not allowing them to hug other adults (would you allow your kids to hug people who are perfect strangers to them?) and we are asking our friends not to pick them up, snuggle them, hold their hands, etc.

I know, it’s counter-intuitive; we all want to love them and make up for lost time. But they need to understand that love and affection comes from Mama and Daddy and not from every random adult they come into contact with. Boundaries are hard and fast. Mama and Daddy are not replaceable, we are here to stay, and you are stuck with us. For good, forever.

Because of this, we are not having babysitters or childcare for months to come, and we’re missing out on some big events that we would normally go to. Banquets and fundraisers are out, weekly classes or small groups will have to wait for next year, and I’m pretty sure that seeing The Hobbit in theater is out of the question (sob!).

Loved ones, well-meaning ones, tell us how glad they are that we are home and all together and done with this process. Somehow we have this impression that adoption ends at the airport and everything after is rosy and romantic and enchanting. Yes, and they come with a free unicorn, too, remember?

It is hard. It is not like having a baby, having twins, or adding two of your friends’ kids to your family.It is like adding thirty kids to your family, and constantly trying to figure out which two are showing up at any given time. It is like feeding eight new kids. It is learning to give a consistent love to someone who returns it with a finicky love. It is the battle to protect everyone and still allow freedom to grow and move. It is a war zone, and some days it really looks like it, too.

It’s messy stuff…but He is the first one to enter the battle, and He already won. What a deal.

 He breathes on us to do things all the time – big things like adoption, small things like sitting down with Him at 2am. He breathes on us to do things that are understood by some and misunderstood by others. The civilian details are not so important. If He is breathing on you to do something, go. Sit down and talk to Him. He has incredible things to say. And if you ask Him to wave…I think He will.

finding normal in a loud kind of quiet

Posted on by September 6, 2013


We’ve been home for two weeks. We’ve had Andrey and Reagan for just over three. We are all well, we are all healthy, we are achieving more of our old kind of normal every week as we hunker down hermit-style in a loud kind of quiet.



There have been a lot of hard things. One of them was the fear that we would never achieve normal again, after days of being on high alert with two new children whose needs threatened to flip everything in our home and lifestyle upside down. We hear the phrase “new normal” a lot, and there is something to that – but that also can mean a loss of the wonderful and non-negotiable things of the old normal, and that’s not acceptable. So we have clung to many of our “old normal” things in effort to establish with Andrey and Reagan that this is the way we do things. 



We read together, often. Usually I read to the kids during lunch (or dinner) and then eat on my own later. We pray at meals and bedtime, every night. Kids pray too. Little kids (or those that don’t speak English yet) are led in prayer. It’s just what we do, and what we must keep on doing. We are clinging to normal and teaching it to them, too.



We share and ask nicely and don’t respond well to demands. Neither Andrey or Reagan even recognized the Bulgarian word for “please” and we’ve heard a lot of “eeshkam  _____” (I want fill-in-the-blank: a bath, a snack, breakfast, more, etc). They are both learning to replace this with the phrase “May I please…” and that magical words are not just those found on new birth certificates and court decrees.



They didn’t know better. They’re not trying to be rude, and it’s not their fault that manners are not taught in orphanages full of dozens or hundreds of children. It is irritating and yes, it grates on me, but remembering this is important. 



We get a lot of questions and comments about Reagan. For the record, depending on what particular issue we’re discussing (gross motor skills, fine motor skills, communication, potty training, self-control, etc) she is currently at a level of a 1-3 year old. And for the record, yes, we knew most of this. She will be seven in November. 



It is not her fault that she lived in an orphanage until she was six and a half years old, is the size of a four year old, and acts like a two year old. It is not her fault that it has taken us weeks to understand what we should really expect from her. Our doctor agrees with us that her delays are probably entirely due to trauma and neglect, and will be overcome as she is loved into our family. To be honest, this is small comfort when we are dealing with poopy underwear for the fourth time in 24 hours, but it is on our mind and we remember it in mercy toward her.



They both have some food issues that seem to be diminishing a little already. Andrey is sometimes done eating after thirds now, instead of fourths or fifths, and Reagan is learning that food is not instant and that throwing a temper tantrum will not bring it to her any quicker. Showing her that there is a process of preparing food has helped a lot. We show her the runny cornbread batter, the frozen container of soup or chili, and the act of spreading peanut butter on bread, and panic seems to ensue less often. 



Our other kids are doing amazing with all of this. They are super-helpful both in being good examples and also in maintaining normal. We play, we read, we goof off, we do chores, we have teatime, we pray, we dig in the dirt, we build stuff, we dress up, we have bedtime. They enforce routines for all of us.

They teach Andrey and Reagan constantly, and we learn by observing. Last week Iree and Afton initiated a game of Duck Duck Goose with their younger siblings. It took the term “ugly-beautiful” to a new level of “hilarious-heartbreaking” as Reagan screamed in panic and terror over being “ducked” gently on the head by Iree as she went around the circle.



With two weeks at home under our belt, I think we are pretty much over the jet lag. The standard rule of thumb for jet lag is one day of recovery for every hour of time difference, and Bulgaria is eleven hours ahead of Alaska.

There are a few quirks to this rule, though, and you can figure your true recovery time by playing Jet Lag Chutes and Ladders. For example, if you have kids traveling with you, you should add a couple of extra days per child to that recovery. Subtract a day for every three pre-made meals that are waiting in your freezer for when you get home. If you are female and experience a significant part of your monthly cycle while traveling, add about two days of recovery. Add an additional two days for any other female reproductive life change.  Subtract two or three days if you are willing to double or triple your caffeine intake accordingly.



In the high alert, desperate-for-normal phase of the last few weeks, when every moment felt burdened with more needs than could be possibly met, He told me this: 

In this moment, you only need to be doing what needs done in this moment. Not what needs to be done later today or tomorrow or next week, but just this very second. Not cleaning, not reading, not blogging, not answering the phone or checking the mail. Just do what I am telling you right now.

And often, He was telling me to sleep, or go to the bathroom. By myself, even.

Patience. These things will get done. We have time.



In the moments of frustration, anger, or fear, He said this:

Just say My words. Listen to My songs. Tell them you love them..and just keep saying it.  

Piece by piece, the lines will get filled in. She will learn. She has time.

I only had one magnet left to put her picture up with, and when I read it, I knew He was smiling at me.

Or laughing. I’m okay with that, too.