attachment Archives - Page 14 of 18 - Shannon Guerra at Copperlight Wood

offering chocolate: the business of redemption

Posted on January 24, 2014 by ShannonJanuary 27, 2023

Well, friends, it’s been a year since we showed you what we really look like. It’s time for an update. We’re a year older and wiser. We have matured.

offering chocolate: the business of redemption (copperlight wood)

Just kidding.

We have our third (out of four) post-adoption home visit coming up, and we had to whip up a fast family photo again for Spaghettia. Last time we were professional and had “real” pictures taken. These ones, of course, are fake.

offering chocolate: the business of redemption (copperlight wood)

This is me, every morning before Vin goes to work, with my very best “Noooo! Don’t leave meeee!” expression.

offering chocolate: the business of redemption (copperlight wood)

Reagan is clearly the only normal one among us.

offering chocolate: the business of redemption (copperlight wood)

How are we doing? It is up and down, forward and backward…I think that’s the same answer we’ve given for the last 18 months. It’s still hard. Progress is measured in micro-steps. We still deal with diapers and purposeful misplacement of bodily fluids and manipulation/disobedience that borders on levels of insanity.

We’ve learned that both of our adopted children are actually terrified of (and resistant to) many forms of success, celebration, and achievement (not super uncommon with kids who have similar backgrounds of trauma, neglect, and abandonment) and often regress instantly and violently after a victory. It makes things like school, potty training, holidays, and, uh, waking hours difficult.

offering chocolate: the business of redemption (copperlight wood)

Birthdays, too. Today was our Andrey’s birthday. We had presents wrapped and an awesome, low-key dinner planned. Just us. And yet…

No bueno. Misbehavior followed misbehavior, poor choice after poor choice, and he sabotaged his special day at every opportunity to turn it around. It’s been Proverbs 26:11 almost daily for the last several months, and his much-anticipated birthday was no exception. It was pretty rough, both to watch and experience.

Last year I wrote this about our Reagan:

She is rejecting us to keep from being rejected first by us, but she doesn’t realize that. She chooses to stay in a cage with no food and water, though the door is wide open. She is like an abused woman who has been in a bad relationship for too long, but refuses to break it off because freedom and healing are just too foreign and frightening.

And it still happens with Reagan, and it’s the same but different with Andrey. We offer chocolate – love, belonging, fun times – and he refuses it, only to go back to maggoty gruel.

It breaks my heart, over and over. His birthday should have been so fun. We want to celebrate his life with him. Holy hormonal weeping, Batman.

We notice the raised eyebrows when people don’t understand the level of trauma they came from, and don’t understand the boundaries we have to place because of the amount of healing they need (No, I’m sorry…you still can’t dote on them, pat them on the head, or give them presents. We ask adults to “kindly ignore” them as much as possible so their attention and attachment will be for us, their parents…more on this in a future post). It hurts when people ask, “You’re still dealing with that?” as though it were our fault (I know this isn’t how the question is intended, it is just how it feels on our end), and surely Andrey and Reagan should be delightfully law-abiding citizens after being in a loving home for 18 months, despite the fact that they were neglected and abused for almost seven years.

And I want to say this in as loving a manner as I can muster: Friends and family, please don’t rush us. Man, we want this way more than you do. We hoped it would be easier. Of course we hoped attachment wouldn’t be an issue. We knew it was likely, though.

There’s this annoying little reality/theory/fact/whatever out there that says for every year your adopted child was in an institution, that is how many years it may likely take him or her to heal. I did the math, and thought…By then, Mattie will be 18. He might be moving out of the house by the time our house feels normal again.

And then I thought about binging on ice cream and moving to a convent and how bad it hurts when mascara gets in your eyes when you’re sobbing. I thought of other things not fit to print. And also how I’m married, and not Catholic, and the nuns probably wouldn’t take me anyway.

And I thought of how He feels when He offers a new beginning, and we reject Him over and over. The book of Hosea is all too real to us now…we know what it is to love and to be shunned, to pray and cry and offer redemption to people who persist in choices that hurt them and us.

I myself taught Israel how to walk, leading him along by the hand.
But he doesn’t know or even care that it was I who took care of him.
I led Israel along with my ropes of kindness and love.
I lifted the yoke from his neck, and I myself stooped to feed him.

– Hosea 11:3-4

These kids are hurting, and we are often hurting, too. They came from awful circumstances, and they sometimes cope with that by creating chaos around them. Adoption always starts with grief, and, ready or not, adoptive parents choose to live it out with them.

It’s lonely, but so common – just not talked about openly very often for many reasons. We don’t want to dissuade people from adoption. We don’t want to be judged by the ignorant. And we don’t want advice from armchair quarterbacks who confuse watching an episode of Ellen or Nightline with authoritative experience in early childhood psychology and attachment disorder.

We want to be nice. Usually.

Whoops.

I know we’re not really alone. There are some great perspectives here and here and here. And here, too.

One of these years (hopefully before our oldest is eighteen) Andrey will take the chocolate we offer him daily – love, belonging, fun times – and stop going back to maggoty gruel. He will seek out and enjoy victory. He’ll be the same person at home that he is in public. The quick insta-grin he gives the camera in the midst of a sulking fit will actually be a genuine smile, instead of a mask that covers anxiety and anger.

He will be older, and wiser. Hopefully before he is eighteen, too.

We love him and long for his victory. The daily decision-making of how best to deal with each new spin is frustrating, but we have great hope. We intimately know how God brings people out of mucky history and into joyful relationship with Him, despite our initial lack of cooperation…despite a past that was no picnic.

He’s in the business of redemption, and it’s messy.

offering chocolate: the business of redemption (copperlight wood)

So…our house wasn’t meant to be normal.

offering chocolate: the business of redemption (copperlight wood)

It was meant to have lots of chocolate.

a love that grows

Posted on November 22, 2013 by ShannonNovember 22, 2013

Dear Reagan,

You turned eight years old today. You had little idea what it meant, and you didn’t know what you wanted for cake or presents. You knew you got extra hugs and smiles today.

You came to us full of fear and hurts and hunger and unknowns. I would lean in, you would lean away. You were wary, untrusting, hesitant.

You were afraid of stairs, of playdoh, of not being fed. You panicked at the smell of food that was not right in front of you. You were afraid of us, especially of me.

You walked with a lurch and flapped your arms when you were excited. You still flap a little, but so much less. You would eat orange peels, apple cores, and watermelon rinds. Crumbs on the floor and food on someone else’s plate was fair game if you got to it before we did. You ate a few crayons. You only tried eating an eraser once.

You can wait for food now. You know that there’s a process to making it that you had never seen before. You know it will come to you as soon as it’s ready.

You play now. You love to play with buttons and cars, and you look at books quietly on the couch every day. You like…cookbooks.

Now you can run. You dress yourself, you make your bed, you fold clothes, and you even refuse food to push us away sometimes…but at least that means that you obviously aren’t afraid of us starving you anymore.

You used to be hot and cold, swinging from one extreme to the other in your affection and rejection of us. You would cling aggressively one day, and shove us away the next. Now you are…well, definitely not lukewarm. You’ve leveled out to warm and cool. It’s progress, and we’ll take it.

You are learning to speak. You are learning to give and maintain eye contact to those who love you. You are learning letters, colors, shapes, and you can count to eight. You know how much four is. You know that you were seven yesterday, and that you are now eight. Whatever that means.

But you don’t know that we prayed for you when you were a toddler. I’m so sorry it took us so long to find you. You don’t know that we saw you, found you, and chose you when you were five. That we waited and prayed and cried for you until we got to meet you when you were six, and that we brought you home months later when you were pushing seven.

You don’t know very much about the years before that. We don’t, either.

a love that grows: a letter from an adoptive mama to her daughter (Copperlight Wood)

We have a few pictures of you as a toddler, but they are undated. We can only guess how old you were in them. We have paperwork that mentions inaccurate diagnoses that are both more and less severe than the truth of what you are healing through.

a love that grows: a letter from an adoptive mama to her daughter (Copperlight Wood)

You almost never flinch anymore when I reach toward you. In the middle of the night, when you’re asleep and I tuck you in one more time before I go to bed, your arm doesn’t fly up in fear anymore to cover your face and head. I’m so sorry you ever had to do that, and that you ever felt like you had to do that here.

You are healing. You are growing and learning and we are seeing more and more of the real you, and you shine.

You are brave. You are strong. You are gentle and curious and tender and joyful.

You are growing in wisdom and stature, just as the One who redeemed you did when He was young.

You have a mighty future. We are so honored to be in it.

With a love that grows and prays for your mountains to move,

Mama

the letters go everywhere

Posted on October 18, 2013 by ShannonOctober 18, 2013

Chamberlain is learning to write. I can’t express to you the joy I feel in watching little lines waver on paper to become faintly recognizable in these early efforts.

She is on the barstool on one side of the counter while I am doing dishes on the other side in the kitchen, and her handwriting book is laid out in front of her. She asks me how to spell her name and I slowly recite it for her while Sophie chews the alphabet magnets off the fridge (she’s a little quirky like that), sending letters everywhere.

the letters go everywhere (Copperlight Wood)

She holds up her work to show me, and her letters are everywhere, too, all over the page. She has taken the creative interpretation approach to writing, completely disregarding the guide line after the word NAME that was intended to buoy it. By sounding the letters out from left to right in order of nearest proximity, her cheerfully printed name reads…

CHMABERNAIL.

Not too shabby for a four year old with eleven letters in her first name.

Over at the table, Afton’s been testing his accuracy in simple addition, and he brings me his practice sheet to be checked. I scan it quickly while picking up letter magnets that Sophie has strewn all over the floor, and everything looks good except for one problem at the bottom.

“What does this say? Three plus six equals…backwards P?”

He grins. “It’s a nine…” He knows that I know that. He also knows that I know he can write it better.

I think I have these two, and their older two siblings, figured out. We work through tweaking every year to fit different needs, but overall I know what to expect and how they should be doing in any given area.

But Andrey and Reagan? Those guys are moving targets. They’re nearly impossible to assess using any inside-the-box strategy.

They know most letters, they know some numbers, and they know colors. They know many of the things on a preschool-kindergarten checklist…until you ask them.

I point to an L and put on a huge smile, because learning letters is exciting! “Andrey, do you know what that is?”

Andrey looks, shakes his head, and puts on his best pity-party frown. “I dunno.”

He might be telling the truth, except for the fact that the last two weeks have been brought to us by the letter L and we’ve had it on the wall since September.

Well, fine. Next kid: “Reagan, what’s this?”

I know she knows it. She knows all of the letters frontwards and backwards, only occasionally stumbling over an obscure Q or W. But she just saw what Andrey did, and she’s going to try it, too.

Blank stare. “I dunno.”

In a heroic effort, I refrain from violently and repeatedly slamming my head into the nearest wall…and instead quietly move on to Chamberlain. They don’t know it, but I’m not teaching letters anymore.

“Cham, what’s this?”

“An L.” Duh, Mom.

“Great job! Hey…which sticker do you want?” Because learning letters is exciting!!

The I Dunno’s blank expressions quickly change. That was not the reaction they were expecting – learned helplessness is usually met with extra attention, not indifference. But one of them is learning that those coveted stickers come to those who are honest…and the other is learning to follow a better example.

It feels like a win for today, but it never feels like enough. Reagan will be eight soon, and I know she is capable of so much more. Some days it seems like we are getting the loose ends tied together only to have them cut apart with scissors the next time we go out in public.

They should be learning shapes. We should paint more often. I should read more intentionally to them. I should teach them more about animals. I should email that person about the occupational therapist they mentioned. I should go to sleep before 2 am.

Those letters – the ones that spell should – go everywhere.

Sophie has pulled the magnets and artwork off the fridge again and I rearrange the papers higher. I am thinking about what I should be doing better. I know that in my own way, I make backwards Ps that are supposed to be nines, also.

Between cooking and bathing and laundry and cleaning, it never feels like it’s enough. The day is spent in knitting little hearts together and by bedtime everything feels unraveled. Mama feels frayed and frazzled. I feel like I am chasing legos and if I don’t focus, my letters go everywhere and make no sense at all.

Just feed them and love them, He says. They are learning and healing in that.

It is enough.

When you feel like it’s not, that’s only because you are completely disregarding the guideline that was intended to buoy you. Each day is an enduring triumph, accomplishing My purpose.

The work of your day is everlasting, steadfastly working out the purpose I’ve set out for it. It’s not fraying, unraveling tomorrow, like dishes that will need to be washed again after the next meal.

I know you’re learning. Your letters go everywhere because you are actually trying. I’m watching your efforts with joy…the same way you watch Chamberlain.

I can’t express to you the joy I feel in watching little lines waver on paper to become faintly recognizable in these early efforts.

*This is day eighteen of the Wait and Listen series. The other posts are here.

Shannon Guerra at Copperlight Wood

living deep + wide

Category Archives: attachment

offering chocolate: the business of redemption

a love that grows

the letters go everywhere