The Blessing

This and That

I just thought that some of these brainstorming ideas for words that begin with "E" are funny because ony my kids would think of them.  I don't think most seven or eight year olds would come up with "Ethiopia" but in our house, that one is pretty obvious.  Josiah obviously volunteered the "engineer" idea along with "eggplant", which he pointed out that he is allergic to (he is!).

what?  Who doesn't do their homeschooling dressed like this?  Are you saying she's overdressed?

I had a spice party a while back and the unexpected fun of it was when the boxes of spices were delivered, they were packed with these great big sheets of paper that were the perfect size for tracing the kids on and then letting them add their clothes and facial features.  The boxes also were great.  The kids wrapped all the boxes with wrapping paper and made them into cars and doll beds and all kinds of things.  It turned the day into more of a craft/imaginary play day which was great!

This is why I keep face paints in my purse.  That way, when you get stuck having too many appointments in one day and the kids get tired of waiting rooms, you can lighten the mood and add a little fun.  My artistic skills are vast.  He had a red heart on his other cheek and Gracelyn had kitty whiskers.  I know how impressed you all are!

I love our backyard skating rink (put up by my dad - thanks dad even though you don't read my blog maybe someone will tell you I said thanks!) so much!  I am enjoying it much more this year than last.  Last year, the kids were younger and needed more help in getting ready.  This year, most of them still need me to tie their skates but they can at least put their own snow pants on and this winter has been milder overall than last so it has gotten more use.  This is one of only two things I will miss about winter - the other being Gracelyn being able to breathe, which is obviously number one by a very large margin but I still will miss the rink!   

Believe your eyes!

 
Yes!  That is me in a picture!  That is me doing an activity!  Those are real skates on my feet!  I had to get Mark to take a picture to document this for future evidence!  (in truth I wasn't planning on going skating.  I was just going with Mark and the kids to Millenium Place to watch them skate but Eliana thought she had forgotten her skates at home so we paid for three rentals and then she found her skates and I didn't want to waste the money so I used her rental for me) 

This is Sedaya but if I had given Mark the camera ten minutes earlier, you would see a picture of me pushing the pushy thing because initially when I told Mark that I was nervous about skating, he said that I could just use one of those pushy things and that two weeks earlier, he had been there and there were lots of adults pushing them.  He lied.  There were not other adults pushing them!  At least not the day we were there.  So I skated without it after a few minutes even though I am not athletic and the last time I remember skating was in this guy Phil's backyard in the 10th or 11th grade.

Gracelyn's pretty good on the skates and can do a few little spins and stick her leg out like this.

Elijah loves pretty much every sport and skating is no exception!

Jonah is a great skater and with being in hockey this year has only gotten better and better.

There's a reason for the helmet!!!

Elijah and I dancing (or him keeping me up, same general idea!)

  

More Hair

The girls' braids were done by Mandi...aren't they cute?  The picture of Eliana shows off her newly lost bottom front teeth also.

it's hard to see because of the dark background but this is just a simple bun in Sedaya's hair and is one of her favorite styles

simple bun in Gracelyn's hair

five twists in Sedaya's hair...I found the knobby hair things at Wal-Mart and they reminded me of when I was a kid and I really think it makes this super simple style a bit cuter   

Book Review Seven

"The Associate" by John Grisham

I have read most of John Grisham books and always found them to be a decent read but hadn't given much thought to him as a serious author until I read "The Painted House" a number of years back.  That book has received very mixed reviews and I find that it's one of those, you either love it or you hate it books and I loved it!  I can see where some of his fans who were used to him writing legal thrillers might have been caught off guard by the lack of lawyers anywhere in the book but I just thought it was a brilliant read and it changed how I saw him an a writer. 

In "The Associate", I thought there were great moments and then some that were not so great.  One example would be in character development.  One of the secondary characters, what I might even call a background character, Pastor Manny was described in such a way that I could picture him as clearly as though he were someone that I were speaking to but I found that the main character of the book remained a bit of a mystery.  I didn't really understand his motivation at times and felt like there was a lack of depth to him.  The writing for the most part was great, the plot was at times unpredictable (which for me is a good thing), and the story kept me interesting once I got about a third of the way through the book.  It also didn't end in a way I could have predicted and though I found the end annoying, I guess I would rather be annoyed than have known all along how it would end or read some kind of "Hollywood ending" so I'll take annoying.

My biggest complaint about the book is that it was reminiscent for me of another John Grisham, "The Firm".  There were a lot of similarities in the beginning, to the point where I actually was second guessing whether I had read the book before or not but I will say that about a third of the way through, all similarities ended and it began its own journey and by halfway through, I had forgotten any links that were in my head prior.  Overall, not a bad book, and there is no denying that John Grisham has talent, though this one will certainly not win him any prizes.

Life in the Country

This is a moose.  It is in our yard.  It hung out here all day.  The snowmobile whizzing by before the kids realized that it was a moose they had just driven by did not even make him blink.  My kids spent most of the rest of the day inside, needless to say.  The picture does not really show to scale how big he was because I was standing on the deck when I took the picture and after some of the stories I have heard about some crazy moose, I didn't want to get any closer to get a better shot!!!  But he was huge!

Drama Girl

As we have always suspected, Eliana may have a future in acting.  This is how I found her while the kids were re-enacting scenes from Snow White.  Notice the apple with a bite out of it laying beside her!!!

Josiah plus a BONUS...hilarious story!

Josiah turned eight on the weekend...this was his cake, simple, as this year we are taking a sabbatical from birthday parties and simplifying as much as I can.  They get to choose their birthday supper and they get a cake or cupcakes that cannot take me more than half and hour to decorate (in the past, I have been known to decorate cakes for three or four hours - that was in my pre- seven children days!).  Josiah's birthday supper request was bacon, spaghetti and meat balls, corn on the cob, eggs, orange pop, and a cake with rainbow colors.  I think it was my mom (or maybe Mark) who convinced him that eggs might be better to have another day - thanks to whoever it was because that saved me some work!!!  He had a great day though - the night before, Mandi took him to an Oil Kings hockey game and that day, he went out with my mom and then my parents and Mark's parents came over for the birthday supper.

My now eight year old son is an interesting boy, not your usual eight year old in many ways.  I have some pictures and stories about what he is like (and as I type this, he is upstairs vacuuming his room because he finds the vaccuum cleaner fascinating and begs me to use it often). 

This is Josiah posing proudly with a pop can robot that he made.  He also recently made a light bulb winder up thingy (can you tell from my description how scientific-minded I am?!) but I don't have a photo yet.  He loves to assemble things and more often, to take things apart because he loves to figure out how things work.  In fact, his favorite book for the past year or two is this super thick book entitled "How Things Work".  He has read and reread every word more times than I can count and can tell you how most any engine works or gadgets etc.

This is Josiah reading the instructions that came with the new toilet seat and cover.  He is helping Mark to install it but I was in the next room and I tell you that there were times where it seemed like it was the other way around!!!  He loves to "fix" things.  Again, at this point, that mostly involves taking things apart with the tools he got for Christmas (what other kid asks for tools instead of toys?!) but he has actually fixed a few things and has helped Mark do some little repairs around the house.  I think he will be a handy guy to have around in a few years!

This is him at Karate.  All the action shots had other kids in the background and I don't like to post other people's kids on-line without their permission so this is all I can share.  Josiah really struggles with co-ordination but we hope that encouraging him to do things like this will help that.  He enjoys going.

 I have no picture to go with the story that I think is hilarious (maybe I should have included in the title that maybe not all people will find this funny but I do - humor gets me through sometimes so I need to find the funny in everything!) but here is the story...

A few weeks ago, I was woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of my cell phone ringing.  It rang a long time and thinking it might be some kind of emergency, I groggily came downstairs to answer it.  About halfway down, I finally woke up enough to realize that the ringtone that was playing had to mean that either our home phone was calling me or Mark's cell phone was.  When I answered my phone, the person on the other end hang up but not before I saw the caller ID say it was Mark's phone calling, strange since he had been asleep upstairs beside me.  I went back upstairs and ran into Josiah in the hallway.  He pretended to look sleepy and said, "just going pee mom".  I was skeptical but continued on to my room to check Mark's night table where his cell is always plugged in at night.  It was missing!!!  I wonder who the culprit could be?!?  Mark went and recovered said cell phone from Josiah's room, "sorry dad, I was just playing BrickBreaker" and returned.  He checked the history and found that I had not been the only phone call.  All at around 4:30 a.m., Josiah had called my sister-in-law, Mark's brother, and I.  Mark and I went back to sleep but not before commenting to each other that it was a really good thing that Josiah hadn't called any of Mark's clients.

The next morning when Mark tried to use his Blackberry, he could not because a password had been set.  He was not impressed and demanded that Josiah tell him what the password was.  The answer did soften his anger a bit..."dad I love you" was the password Josiah had put in!!!  Anyway, a little later that morning, Mark decided that he should probably check his outgoing e-mails on the off chance that Josiah was able to figure out how to send one.  It turns out that Josiah had sent two e-mails after 4:30 in the morning.  Both had gone to the same girl, a new client of Mark's whom he had just started working with a day or two prior.  Mark had only had a few phone calls back and forth with her and an e-mail or two but knew that she was a young single girl.  So what did the e-mail say that this young single female new client of Mark's received in the middle of the night??? 

"I love you" !!!!!   

Our Olympics

We were studying the Olympics in homeschool the past few weeks and one day had our own Olympics to make learning a bit more fun (I should also mention that never have I been able to justify as much "school related" t.v. as in the past few weeks!!!) and to show the kids first hand some of the things that happen such as medals ceremonies and such. 

These stuffed animals are ones that the kids dressed up to be our mascots and then we had a Parade around the house with the mascots as our Opening Ceremonies. 

And the hopping race is off!!!  You may notice that Elijah is not in this picture.  Prior to this, we had had a backwards crawl and a wheelbarrow race.  Elijah (aka Mr. Competitive) was not able to handle his not coming in first in those races and was having a lay on the floor meltdown screaming and kicking at my side while I took this picture!  When we realized that he wasn't going to get to participate at all if he kept having tantrums, and therefore would get less medals, he did try to keep his freaking out a bit more under control and did get to participate in the other activities, though not without some more tears and near meltdowns. 

What would an Olympics be without an egg and spoon race?!  They did get to eat their hard boiled eggs afterward for a protein boost. 

I love the look on Eliana's face in this pic!

What I love about this one is Elijah and Josiah cheering Sedaya on in the background even though she is half a rink behind Eliana!  Such encouraging big brothers!

and they're off!  The eight year olds race for skating gold!  The results were a surprising tie between Elijah and Gracelyn after Josiah has a disappointing fall.

The most talked about and giggled about event at our Olympics (and the final event) was the barefoot snow race (don't leave me nasty comments about what a cruel mom I am - my kids go out barefoot every time my back is turned anyway!).  They had so much fun with this one.

Part of the menu for the day included these figure skating hot dog men...not that nutricious but lots of fun!

After the presentation of medals including extras like most sportsmanlike (Elijah did not win this one!!!), we sang a loud and exhuberant version of "Oh Canada"!  Here are some more medal ceremony pics:

 
Elijah's five medals did help to ease the sting of them not all being first-place wins but in talking about the Olympics to anyone since then, he is quick to point out that Josiah won six medals to his five!

I originally was going to make a podium replica but decided instead to relax and watch American Idol and Olympics the night before while cutting carrots and fruit for the snacks and the kids didn't notice the lack of podium so I think it was a good call!  Overall, the day was super fun and it's always good to change it up a bit once in awhile.  The kids really got into it and still talk about it so well worth the effort.  For those that want to do it yourself, the medals are from the Dollar Store, right now, you can buy Olympics cookies from Pillsbury that you just bake up in the oven and there are lots of coloring pages and printable Olympics activities that you can find on-line. 

Book Review Six

"Still Alice" by Lisa Genova

This is the first time I have ever bought a book in the grocery store check-out line but it paid off!  I bought it to throw in my purse because I knew I had a lot of upcoming appointments for the kids and thought I could read it in waiting rooms which I did but near the end, I was reading it at home because I couldn't put it down.  I don't know if I would say I love the book or hated the book.  It was about a woman who is diagnosed with early on-set Alzheimer's at the age of 50 and it was really well written and so interesting but it was also terrible because it had me absolutely convinced that I have Alzheimer's!  My memory has gotten really bad over the years, so much so that it has scared me at times.  I am a fairly intelligent person and used to pride myself on having an excellent memory but after about child number four, it went away and I have never been able to remember where I put it!  So here is the funny true story of me reading this book...by a quarter of the way through the book, I am convinced that I have some form of degenerative dementia such as Alzheimer's and because the book is highlighting it for me, I am noticing my memory slip ups more than usual.  I start to wonder if it is possible that you can start having symptoms in your 20s.  I start thinking about the times when I have gone upstairs only to forget why I went there or the times I've left home without my purse or cell phone or attempted to leave without my shoes or my keys!  Then in the last quarter of the book when I am in the can't-put-it-down phase, I am making Chili while I read. (sidenote here...for those who have wondered how I manage to read a book a week, I read while I brush my teeth, I read while I comb my hair, while I load the dishwasher, while I wait at appointments, and while I cook.  I use whatever is handy, a make-up case, a can of tomatoes, a ladle, to hold the book open and I read!)

So I am making Chili while I read the book about early on-set Alzheimer's and I realize at one point that I have forgotten to add the onions.  I chide myself and rectify the mistake, putting the book aside for a few minutes to quickly chop the onions as I have learned that reading and sharp knives do not make the best companions.  I add the onions, continue stirring and pick the book up again.  Later in my recipe, I absently open a can of tomato soup to add and am about to pour it into the chili when I notice out of the corner of my eye that it is not red but white and realize that I had opened a can of mushroom soup instead (a mistake that worked out well for the kids as I had to then make that into hashbrown casserole for the next morning since it was open already!)!  So now I am laughing at myself because I have forgotten the onions and nearly added mushroom soup to my Chili, all while reading a book about Alzheimer's!  If I had a better memory, I would tell you more about this book that I just finished a week ago, but I seem to have forgotten much of it already!!!  Okay just kidding on that one!  It's a very good book and seemed to be a realistic accounting of what it would be like to be living with this terrible condition.

Every Time I Breathe

Rules: 

1.  Put your I-pod, ITunes, Windows Media Player etc. on shuffle

2. For each question press the Next button to get your answer.

3. You must write that song no matter how silly it sounds (there were a few that I was tempted to cheat on!)

4. Tag at least 10 friends.

5. Have fun!

If someone says "are you okay?", you say:  Testify to Love (Wynonna)  - actually not a bad answer if you know the song

How Would You Describe Yourself?  Baby Baby (Amy Grant) - huh?

What do you like in a guy/girl?  Collide (Howie Day) - again, huh?

How do you feel today?  Bette Davis Eyes (Jesse Langseth) - well yep I take out my Bette Davis Eyes whenever I can!

What is your life's purpose?  Who Am I (Casting Crowns) - pretty great answer especially if you stick a question mark behind it!!!

What's your motto?  Baby One More Time (Britney Spears) - not so much!!! (unless you're referring to adoption and then maybe it fits!)

What do your friends think of you?  Killing Me Softly With His Song (The Fugees) - I sure hope not!

What do your parents think of you?  Alone (Heart)

What do you think about very often?  Slow Fade (Casting Crowns) - I try not to spend too much time thinking about it but they're right.  you have to watch out for that slow fade.

What is 2 + 2?  Wonderful World (James Morrison) - well in my wonderful world, 2+2 does not always equal 4

What do you think of your best friend?  Walking on Sunshine (Katrina and the Waves) - sure why not?

What is your life story?  Anyway (Martina McBride) - I would love to think that this really is my life story... maybe when it's all over, it will be.  love the lyrics to this song and sometimes try to live by them

What do you want to be when you grown up?  You're Beautiful (James Blunt) - yeah I wouldn't mind being beautiful when I grow up but I think there are better things I could aspire to be

What do you think when you see the person you like?  He Is (Mark Schultz) - if we're talking about God then yep, this pretty much sums it up!

What will you dance to at your wedding?  The Next Time I Fall (Peter Cetera with Amy Grant) - hey pretty cool that a love song came up, hey?!

What will they play at your funeral?  Risk (Paul Brandt) - Again, love the lyrics and I hope that something like this may someday apply to me

What is your hobby/interest?  If I Had A Million Dollars (Barenaked Ladies) - ha!  what an interesting hobby!

What is your biggest fear?  Why Can't I? (Liz Phair) - hmmm...maybe if you just take the title and not the whole song...interesting

What is your biggest secret?  Bubbly (Colibie Caillat) - nope!

What do you want right now?  Better is One Day (Kutless) - well it's a great place to be

What do you think of your friends?  Mad About You (Belinda Carlisle) - in a purely platonic way, yes!

What will you post this as?  Every Time I Breathe (Big Daddy Weave)

10 people to tag...I tag everyone!  But I tag some of you specifically to get your minds off of other things like waiting or sleeplessness or sickness so:

Ruth, Shelley, Denise, Sherri, Rana, Justine, Karen, Debbie, Rhonda, and Laura - go to it!!!

Attachment and Exhaustion Part 7

This will be my last post with this title, mostly because I am getting sick of typing that title with my sticky "x" key but I will keep updating Elijah and Sedaya's progress on attachment and adjustment from time to time.

Another little hint I thought of that I forgot to include in my last post which goes along with the post about being sure to respond to their needs is that on the advice of the play therapist (and really, it's just common sense I guess), I have been packing snacks for Elijah everywhere we go.  That way, if he tells me that he is hungry or thirsty, I am responding to his need right away instead of telling him that he can eat when we get home or when we get to the next stop or whatever.  When I first started this (which I must say is a giant pain in the butt because it requires me to be organized and think ahead which are not strengths of mine but the habit is starting to kick in now), Elijah would gobble down all of what I had brought right away and I would have to stop at a convenience store and try to find healthy snacks there (not so easy) or dash into the grocery store but now that he is figuring out that there will always be food and as he is learning to trust that I can meet this need for him, he is starting to eat just a bit and save the rest for later.  This morning, the sandwich I had brought with us to play therapy went halfway there before he even asked me for something to eat and then he ate less than half before putting the rest back in the bag and then a few hours later, he ate most of the rest of it.

For this seventh installment of this series, I thought it would be good to talk about another one of those not-often discussed aspect of adoption and that is the pain and rejection that many adopted kids feel no matter how young they were adopted and no matter what the circumstances that led to their adoption.  My friend Denise gave me a little booklet a while ago and she recently wrote a great post about it.  I plan to sit down with it again and really start implementing the prayer suggestions.  The booklet is called New Life For Your Adopted Child and it is written by Paula Sandford.  I really suggest that you go over and read Denise's post because she says it so much better than I could but I do think that all adopted children (or even adults who were adopted as children), whether those kids are adopted at one day old or at seven years old, need to know that they are loved and wanted.  I'll just leave you with a powerful example of one of the prayer suggestions from the book:

We say in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ...You are a privilege, not a burden; a joy and a delight, not an intrusion; you belong. You are a treasure just because you are, and not for what you can do. You are one of Father God's children.

 

 

Attachment and Exhaustion Part 6

Before I start on this long post, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has left comments on these posts.  The decision about whether or not to share the harder aspects of our latest adoption was a difficult one but with some of the comments that I have gotten, I know that it was the right one.  And of course, as with any posts, it is always an encouragement to keep writing if you know there are people actually reading!

The big thing when adopting, especially when adopting older children is attachment.  When we got Josiah at six months old seven and a half years ago, he already had attachment disorder and we worked hard to help him.  We did attachment therapy for three months and it was thoroughly exhausting.  At the time, our boys were 7 and 5 and Gracelyn was eight months old so we got tired but thankfully, Mark was working from home at the time and really stepped in to help, taking over most of Gracelyn's care and even getting up at night with her so that I could get up at night with Josiah who was suffering from frequent night terrors.  Also, attachment therapy with a baby is very different than with an older child but it did give us a bit of background in this area as at the time, we had educated ourselves as much as we could with reading anything I could get my hands on, attending seminars and taking courses.  The knowledge has been helpful but also scary because this time, when we realized that there was a problem, we knew how much hard work it would take to fix it and I wasn't that thrilled about the prospect.

We realized probably two months in that Elijah wasn't attaching the way that we would have liked to have seen.  There were really obvious signs like the fact that he was hugging strangers and dissociating and then there were more subtle signs too like the lack of eye contact and excessive tantrumming.  I was concerned enough to talk to his Pediatrician, an International Adoption Doctor about my observations and she put in a referral for a therapist.  We finally got in to see the Play Therapist the first week of January and on her recommendation, we started full-on attachment therapy.  So what that looks like is that Elijah and I go to see her once a week for at least an hour session and she targets certain concerns and from that gives us "homework" for the rest of the week.  It also means that we have had to revert to very strict rules around who can take care of Elijah.  When our babysitter is coming to watch the kids because one of them has an appointment that I need to take them to, it means that Elijah comes too.  He goes everywhere I go with the only exception being if he is with Mark (on Mark's birthday, he did go to my mom's house for supper but other than that, he has been with either Mark or I every second since the beginning of January) and even sleeps in our room.  He likes sleeping there and it gives me the chance to give him an extra long tuck-in because when he was sharing a room with Josiah, that time would always get interrupted.  I am doing a lot of very pointed activities with him for the attachment, right now, many of them are designed to promote eye contact.  He cannot maintain real eye contact with me for even a few seconds but the one second here and there that we are getting is progress and I'll take progress where I can get it!  It makes him so uncomfortable so I try to keep it really light-hearted and even joke with him a bit when he looks away...I laugh and say, "you can do it.  I know you can do it."  His response when things are uncomfortable for him is to laugh and to cover his face so he is pretty giggly these days with the amount I have been working on this!  I am getting a lot of my strategies from a book called "Parenting the Hurt Child...Helping Adoptive Families Heal and Grow".  It's a book I would recommend but only for those whose kids are struggling or have been through trauma as it does not apply otherwise.  It even has lists in there including one with ideas to promote eye contact in a fun way such as playing Peek-a-boo (yes even with an older child - he loves it!) or applying face paint.

One challenge of doing attachment therapy when you have many other kids is that it is hard to strike a balance between giving enough to the child who really needs it and not creating resentment among the other kids.  Elijah is not being disciplined the same way the other kids are at the moment.  We are really choosing our battles with him and he is allowed to get away with a lot more than they are because right now, that's what he needs to be able to move forward and for us to create a positive, healthy relationship with him but if the other kids notice, then it becomes a problem.  He also gets more sweets than they do but I try to make this less obvious by mainly giving his treats at times when it's just he and I.  I do think kids need good nutrition but sweets trigger a part in the brain that is responsible for the happy feelings (that's my very simple explanation of what is a more complex scientific one!) and so for now, he gets some sugary type stuff more often than the other kids do.  And of course, Elijah is getting way more "mommy time" than anyone else is and for the most part, anyone else who is getting "mommy time" has to share it with Elijah.  Last week, Jonah had a late evening hockey practice and I took him (Mark usually takes him - I do not like to watch hockey when my little boy is getting body-checked by huge players the size of grown men) and took Mackenzie with me so while Jonah played, Mackenzie and I could have some time together and since Elijah was in bed already and Mark was home if he did wake up, I could have that one-on-one time.  So the attachment therapy has made the other kids have to sacrifice as well.

BUT...it is working.  That's the good news that sometimes feels like the bad news!!!  The reason it sometimes feels like the bad news is that as Elijah allows himself to become more attached to us, to trust us, it scares him and he tries to push away again.  Also, it is bringing his emotions closer to the surface so he is having disproportionate responses to things.  If someone touches his paper, he may just start to sob and sink down to the floor, his body wracked with heart-wrenching cries and this may last for twenty minutes or longer, at times with him being inconsolable.  Or if someone brushes past him, he may get into a rage and start screaming or he may have a huge tantrum at nothing and then when something bigger happens, show very little response.  This is all from him trying to sort through his feelings from the past and not knowing how to articulate them.  So when he is sobbing because someone touched his paper, perhaps his tears are for the day that his birthdad died or the day he lost his brother.  It is so hard to see and yet, this is something he has to work through.  It is also very important that we respond to each one of his reactions to the level that he is feeling it.  This means that we can't say to him, "he just touched your paper...suck it up and get over it!".  We have to hold him, comfort him, reassure him.  This response is very important to the attachment process because he is demonstrating to us a need that he has and he needs us to show him that we can meet those needs.  This also means that if he gets so much as a papercut, I respond as if I were caring for him after major surgery!!!  Some people would think that this will create a "wimpy kid" or "cry baby" but actually studies have shown that the opposite is true.  If we respond when our kids are hurt and they create healthy attachments by having their needs met, they will actually overreact less over time. 

I may have mentioned this months ago but my memory is not so good so if I am repeating myself, just skim over!  When Elijah first got here, he would hide if he got hurt.  One time, he fell off his bike and hurt himself and a couple of the other kids came in to tell me that he was hurt.  When I went outside, I found him hiding half under the deck, crouched in the fetal position, crying silently.  For months, he would not even tell me when he was hurt.  One day, he had a stomach ache and it took me hours to figure out what was wrong with him.  In early January, he came to me with a minor scratch on his hand and I treated him to some first class medical treatment and compassion!!!  That one little thing was a big victory for us on the attachment road.

We have had other victories as well.  He used to only say "I love you" in response to us saying it to him but in the last month, he has been spontaneously saying "I love you mommy" or "I love you daddy" at the most unexpected times!  It's like he just gets overcome with it and has to let it out and when he does, he usually comes over and gives me a giant hug, burying his head in my stomach and holding on tight for a minute or longer.  So he is showing signs of improvement and we know that it is working but it is exhausting for me.  It is 24/7, especially with him even being in our room and it is intense with all the emotion and having to respond quickly and wholly to his every need and fit in the extra things with him to promote attachment.  I can feel myself nearing burn-out but am trying to stay above the line.  The break scrapbooking was so needed and so wonderful but is starting to feel a bit like a distant memory now that I have been back for more than a week.  This past Sunday at church, a little boy threw up all over the floor mats that all the kids were playing on and I panicked.  I grabbed all my kids' coats and told them all to come with me (the Service was not over yet) and took them out and was about to put them in the van.  Mark (who had come in a separate vehicle because he had a meeting to go to after) came up to me and asked me what I was doing and I told him that I feel like I am just hanging on by a thread right now and if all seven of my kids get the pukey flu, that thread will break.  When I was watching that boy throw up, I had visions of myself up at 2 a.m. putting puked on sheets in the laundry and I knew that I just did not have it in me to do it.  This stuff with Elijah is taking up so much of my energy right now that anything extra feels overwhelming.  So, yep, we are getting through and yep, we are seeing progress and yep, we are exhausted and yep, we are a long way from being done.  The main school of thought when it comes to attachment therapy is that you need to do one month for every year that your child was in Institutional care or for each of their moves or for...so if we take a cautious approach, then we are looking at another five months of this.  Since I am only two months in and feeling like I am "holding on by a thread", that doesn't bode well for the future however, I am an optimist for the most part so I like to think that my life will get much easier when Spring is here and the kids can spend more time outside and hockey and soccer are over and other activities are winding down and then in Summer when I don't have to feel guilt for feeling like I'm not homeschooling enough so I think things will get easier.  It is also easier now that I can see some positive results.  I need to focus on leaning more on God though because I know that is how I will really get through.

Elijah is such a likeable boy and that makes all of this easier too.  That, and if I keep in mind that these behaviours are not something he is doing TO me but a reaction to something that was done to him or to the different things that have happened to him.  This little boy has had to endure more in his first seven years than many will in a lifetime and I am happy that God spared his life and brought him through to this point and I look forward to what plans He has in store for my son.

Attachment and Exhaustion Part 5

I know that this is supposed to be my day for a book review but I have scheduled it to post next Monday so that I can finally get this series done.  I will have one to post each day until I get through this attachment, adjustment topic so just hang with me.  When I'm done, I have the best pictures and stories to post of the kids!

If you are in this world of International Adoption or older child adoption, you have probably come across the expression "mommy shopping" before.  I had too but thought, "oh, that will never happen to me.  I will explain so well to my new children that I am their new mom and I will be their mom forever that this will not be an issue for us."  Yeah, right!!!  I was naive.  When we first came home from Ethiopia, both kids would hug anything with legs.  The lack of attachment was really driven home for me the day that Elijah hugged the water delivery man!   With Sedaya, this showing affection to strangers problem gradually went away for the most part although we have been seeing it come back a bit in the past three weeks or so but with Elijah, he really did not seem to differentiate between us and others.  When we first started seeing the play therapist, there was a day when she initiated a discussion about hugging and who it was appropriate to hug.  When asked if it was okay to hug "that lady" (her pointing at a random stranger), he said yes.  Then when asked whether it was better to hug Mommy or "that lady", he pondered for a very long time (heart is in my throat at this point) before finally admitting, "I don't know".  At this point, he had been home with us for five months plus the weeks we were together in Ethiopia.  I was shocked and it was hard for me not to feel like I was failing when he still wasn't attaching to me after so long.  After that, we taught him that for now, it is only okay to hug family and give him reminders before we go out about who is family and who is not and who he can hug and who he can just shake hands with.  I think right now, he is only getting it on a head level, as in, he doesn't yet understand why it's not okay to hug just anyone but he does seem to be showing a lot more affection towards us and I think there are changes happening...slowly.

When we first came back from Ethiopia, if either of the kids referred to their birth parents, they would talk about them using their first names.  We tried to call them by the Amharic words for "mom" and "dad" but they did not seem to relate to that as well so we went with their first names too.  I know now that when we first came home, they both were "mommy shopping" and would happily have gone home with any new person who seemed nice or looked pretty or whatever.  They did not understand that we were their new parents.  To put this into perspective that is easier to understand, when we met them, they were facing their fourth move in less than six months.  They were losing another set of temporary caregivers to come with us, complete strangers (and white strangers who spoke a foreign language at that!) so it's easy to see why they thought of us as temporary too.  In this area, I believe we are finally making some progress with Elijah.  I'm not sure when exactly the moment was where it clicked for him who we were but up until then, I think that he thought "mom" and "dad" were just other names for us and wasn't making the connection of that being the English word for female parent and male parent and then one day, he clued in and started referring to his birthmom as his Mommy in Ethiopia and his birthdad as his Dad in Ethiopia when he would share stories of his time there.  It was a big step really because it showed that he understood the concept that we are like them, his parents.  But with that, also comes the fear for him that he could lose us too.  It is impossible to explain in a way that he would believe at this point that in Canada, parents don't die as often as they do in Ethiopia, that we will probably live a very long life and not leave him.

This brings up the whole permanency thing.  Because of his many moves in such a short period of time and even more caregivers in that time, he does not understand the concept of "forever".  We can tell him that we are his family forever until the cows come home (a very long time since we don't even have cows) but he has never experienced a family that doesn't leave him in one way or another so our words mean nothing.  I have talked to him lots about the future, trying to reassure him that he will be here next Christmas (and the next and the next) or when he is taller than me (he thinks that one is especially funny!) but it is not sinking in for him fully yet.  I tell him often that I will always be his Mommy and that he will be my son forever.  Recently, he and I talked about it again and I asked him if I would still be his Mommy and he would still live here when he was 9 and he *giggled, covered his face, and said "yes".  Then I asked the same for when he was 12 and he said "yes" and then 14, and he asked "like Mackenzie?" and when I agreed, he said "yes" but as soon as I went higher than that, he didn't know and even with me telling him that he would be, he was unconvinced.  I think that because he can see that Mackenzie is still here and he is 14, that gives him a bit of assurance but beyond that, he is unsure.  So we are still working on settling that insecurity for him.  It will take time, probably years for that to go away and for him to fully believe in a forever family.

*whenever Elijah is nervous, he giggles and covers his face and this is especially true for when we are discussing things that make him feel at all vulnerable

Attachment and Exhaustion Part 4

A curious difference in our kids is the way that they reacted to losing Ethiopia.  For Sedaya, it was like she looked at it more as gaining Canada and for Elijah more losing his home country (very understandable, a huge loss).  When we first came home, Sedaya would say things like "Etiopia no good" and "tenish eat Etiopia" ("little eat Ethiopia" in reference to their lack of food when they were there) and "Canada good" or "Sedaya I love you Canada".  Although her instant love for Canada and all things that were part of her new life were great, it was sad to see the other side of it...her rejection of anything that represented her life before here.  When we would look at pictures of us in Ethiopia with the kids, she would point out "Sedaya, Mommy, Daddy, Auntie Deanne, Elijah" but would say that it was not in Ethiopia.  If we told her that it was, she would cry and say "no Ethiopia".  I don't know if she was afraid of going back there or just wanted to forget that life had existed so that she could adapt in this one but it was sad to watch.  She also wanted nothing to do with her Ethiopian name and to this day, our other kids know that if they want to bug her, all they have to do is say that name and she will have a complete meltdown.  We kept it as her middle name but even if we say it as her middle name, she cries so for now, we don't say it out loud in front of her.  I am so glad that we kept it for her in case she wants to use it someday though.  Fast forward to now and Sedaya seems to have adapted to accept that both countries are a part of who she is.  She loves listening to Amharic music and still speaks some words in Amharic that she does know in English because she knows that we know those ones and have adopted those words into our family language.  She enjoys looking at the pictures of us in Ethiopia and will point things out to us.  She is starting to open up about what life was like there for her and I think has come to a healthy place of no longer only seeing the bad things about her country of birth.  She beams when we talk about how beautiful it was there.

When we first came home, I think Elijah thought about and missed Ethiopia all the time.  He seemed to not want to be here and was only happy doing things that were familiar to him like eating Ethiopian food, hearing Amharic, and running around outside.  The only Canadian thing he loved was his bike!!!  He hated our food, was very resistant to learning English, and generally seemed to be wishing that he was back in Ethiopia (again, not that I blame him...I am just explaining how the two of them coped differently).  He would often have a blank look on his face and I would know that his mind was back in Ethiopia.  Then in about November, he seemed to become more accepting of all things "Canada" and even started making strides in learning English.  But by December, it was like he had started rejecting Ethiopia (I think that for both kids, they didn't know how to accept one country without rejecting the other or perhaps they struggled with feelings of disloyalty).  He no longer wanted to hear his Ethiopian name, not even as a middle name and at Christmas when I bought them an Amharic kids music CD, he pretended that he didn't know any of the songs, though it was quite obvious by the look on his face which ones he recognized and which he didn't and Sedaya was singing along to some of them and dancing and the music just upset him.  After a time, he just disassociated and went off into his own little world to cope until we shut of the CD.  He stopped wanting to eat injera and would not talk about Ethiopia at all.  But he seems to slowly be coming around on it.  One of the big breakthroughs actually came on the was to one of his play therapy appointments.  It was of course just he and I in the van so I had decided to bring along the Amharic for kids CD and play it.  Even before we got to the van, he was in a foul mood because he had wanted to watch tv (tv had become a major escape tool for him and we were struggling with him wanting to watch it non-stop, with us always having a huge fight to turn it off... in our house, the kids get limited tv so him constantly turning it on and planting himself in front of it 5 seconds after I had turned it off and told him "no more tv" and then him having a major meltdown that lasted anywhere from ten minutes to TWO HOURS if I shut it off again was causing big problems).  So since he was grouchy anyway (crying and glaring at me), I popped the CD in the player and turned up the volume and I did my best imitation of traditional Ethiopian dancing as I drove!  He glared at me and cried harder and I just smiled and kept looking like I was enjoying the music and not hearing him.  I did tell him that when he was ready to talk, I would listen.  After a bit, he stopped crying and looked out the window and seemed to disassociate for a bit but I was watching his face very closely and by the time the CD had gone through once (it's a long drive), I had perfected which ones I thought were his favorites from little micro expressions I had seen so after that, I just played the same three or four songs over and over.  Every so often, I would ask if he knew this song or that song (when I could tell he did) and he would say "no".  I even tried to sing along here and there, though I am sure I butchered the words (and perhaps the melody!) and after a long while, he said to me, "I know this one" and smiled.  (Of course I said nothing to the effect that he had already denied knowing that same song twice before!!!)  By the time we arrived at his appointment, he was cheerful and there was a bounce in his step.  On the way home, he told me about some of the songs "about a ummmm, coyote (actually it's a hyena but he didn't know the English word for hyena and coyote was the closest animal he could think of) who chase the kids".  In the song, you can clearly hear the parts where the kids run away (it kind of has a 'what time is it Mr. Wolf' sound with the back and forth between the hyena and the kids) and there he started laughing each time he heard it and sometimes was even singing along!  When we got home, we had to just pick up the other kids, drive our babysitter home, and go to pick Jonah up.  Once the other kids got in the van, he asked me if we could play the coyote song for them and thankfully, the other kids loved it and laughed hysterically and asked me to play it over and over.  Elijah looked so proud and now the Amharic songs have become a regular part of our travels.  That same month, he also was refusing to say the Amharic word for anything.  Even if he couldn't think of the English word and knew that I knew the Amharic word, he would refuse to say it but now, he is slowly starting to accept a few Amharic words again.  I know that it's important for him also to know the English words for things because other people in Canada won't understand his language otherwise but I don't want him to completely reject his past either.  Now that he is allowing some Ethiopian things back in his life, he has also opened up more and begun to share with us stories of his life in the village he is from.  So far, it has only been three stories and they are more anecdotal than personal but it is progress and we are happy that he is beginning to open up.

My hope is that someday, both kids are able to identify themselves as being both Ethiopian and Canadian and they will have found a balance that they are comfortable with.  I know that this will take many years to get to but I do feel like we are starting to see a bit more understanding and acceptance about this from them already so I feel encouraged about that.

P.S.  Came home from the scrapbook retreat feeling very refreshed and much less overwhelmed.  None of my circumstances have changed but it was a great break and as I stared at the pictures of my seven blessings and listened to uplifting music on my I-pod and did some thinking and praying, my attitude about the circumstances changed.  And it was good in other ways too...I completed 114 pages, started and completed our Disneyworld album and started another album that begins the day Elijah and Sedaya came home, went to two Yoga/Stretch classes and one Workshop and has some laughs with my friends Holly and Stacey.  I also got the best reception when I walked in the door coming home, especially from Elijah, who almost knocked me over with his hug and then didn't let go of me for over twenty minutes.  He also was so excited to look through the album.  I think it's really special for he and Sedaya to see themselves in our family's albums.  I think it helps cement their place in our family.

Quick Break

For those who have come to read the next segment in the "Attachment and Exhaustion" series, the next post will be on Tuesday as I am going scrapbooking this weekend - YEAH!  I can't wait!  I have all my stuff super organized and have set a high goal for myself - 100 pages so I don't expect that I will sleep much but I so need the break and to get something done that stays done when I am finished.

Just for fun, here is a picture of my youngest girls in their matching pyjamas:

Attachment and Exhaustion Part 3

I guess this section could really be titles "seven kids is more work than five - who knew?".  Many may laugh at me for not realizing this beforehand but here is why it has come as such a shock to me:

When we first applied to adopt from Ethiopia, we had five children but until a few weeks before, we had actually been caring for six children for the past year and a half because we were still foster parents and we had a long-term placement who had been with us since before Eliana was born so at the time of adding one more, I knew that I could handle taking care of six children because I had already done it (more than once as there were also other times during our fostering days when we had six children - the craziest being when we had six children ages seven and under with four of them in diapers) so going to six of our own children was not going to be a big deal.  When we changed our referral request to siblings, I was scared, as I had never taken care of seven children before, except the odd weekend here or there, and didn't feel competent to do it but as we were so busy with the five kids, I did feel a bit like "with five, what's two more?!".  I can now answer that question and the answer is...

-two more is a LOT more laundry

-a lot more cooking as we never even seem to have leftovers to use for next day lunches now and Elijah eats a lot

-a longer bedtime routine with two more to tuck in and some sharing rooms so not going to sleep as well as they used to and waking each other up most days at the crack of dawn (we haven't figured out which one of the little girls is the early bird but one is waking the other and then Eliana and Sedaya either fight or sing or scream or talk until all the kids upstairs are awake and this often starts before 7 a.m.)

-less family meals as we have more sports activities in the evenings and less time together

-more errands and appointments (about double what we had before) as we sort through funguses, parasites, major dental work, and now adding weekly play therapy to the calendar

-more fighting among the kids, two more to help with basic care, two more to shower, to style hair on (this one is a big time sucker with Sedaya especially), to get ready when we go out (Sedaya is still on what is known as "Ethiopian time" so she takes forever to get ready to go out the door), to clean up after, etc.

-homeschooling is way harder, both in that I am just too busy to do it enough and in that I now have added a boy who is just learning English and our alphabet and a girl who is not ready to do even little preschool things to I have to find ways to amuse her while I work with the other kids

-taking five grocery shopping or to the mall seems like a breeze when I look back on it now because two of those five were my older kids so really, it was just three where now Mackenzie is in school so when we go out, I have one older kid to be an extra set of eyes and five little ones running around

-I am not a person who likes to do things half-way and right now it feels as though I have so much to do that none of it is getting done well and that is so hard for me because it makes me feel like a failure

-and probably the biggest one is that Mark and I have always been really big on making sure that each of the kids gets one-on-one time and so now we are having to be very creative to make that happen.  We also both struggle with guilt for it not happening as often as we want it to.  Jonah has been asking me to take him on a date to his favorite restaurant (Red Lobster - he loves crab) for weeks now and I have not been able to find a way to do it, mostly because he has hockey almost every night and on the weekends when Mark would have been here to watch the other kids.  This week, I looked at all the angles and determined that it was still not going to be possible and finally talked to Jonah about being able to do it but having to bring some of the other kids with us or he could wait until hockey season is over and we could go then.  He chose going tonight when Mackenzie will be at Cadets and Gracey and Josiah will be at karate which still means that three other kids will be accompanying us so it won't really be a date at all (but he will get to eat crab).  Mark sometimes takes one of the kids to work with him so that he can have one-on-one time with them - we are so blessed that he has a job where he can do this but the past week he has been too busy at work to be able to bring the next one in the rotation.  Sometimes we will let one stay up late so that they get that time with us or I will bring one with me to an appointment and for now, that is having to count as date time.  But a huge kink in this priority of ours is that we are now doing attachment therapy with Elijah so he has to be with either Mark or I and we cannot leave him so where before, I could have had our babysitter come so that I could take Jonah on a midday date, now Elijah would have to come too. So in our "new normal", we are still trying to find a way to make it work so that our guilt is not there.  In deciding to have a big family, it was very important to us that we make sure that we gt to know each of the kids really well as individuals and made time for them so that they felt treasured and didn't have to sacrifice in order for us to have this many kids.  Our theory was that if we did this purposefully, our kids may actually get more one-on-one time than many of the kids in two or three child families because we were aware of the need for it and making it part of our mission to give them a special relationship with us.  Right now, it feels as if we are failing in that purpose. 

***late add on:

-I can no longer talk on the phone.  You know how when you get on the phone, all kids turn on you and start either fighting, screaming, whining, or asking you relentlessly for things that you normally would say no to but they know they have a better shot of getting a yes when you are trying to keep them quiet?  Well, times that by five little ones and two older ones (the older ones follow me around if I am on the phone, writing me notes asking if they can go on the computer and such) and you'll have an idea of why I can really not have phone conversations anymore so now on top of all the other stresses, I feel like I am not able to be a good friend anymore as I don't make calls, most of the time don't even return calls and presently have no outgoing e-mail so can't even communicate that way.  It also contributes to me feeling isolated.  And playdates are not really happening anymore either (although yesterday I got to have an unexpected, unplanned playdate at my friend Sarah's house and it was so nice to be able to catch up and have some adult conversation while she braved my kids playing in her house).  So this whole seven kids thing is taking a toll on friendships too (not to mention that some people just think you have lost your mind once you have more than five or six kids and distance themselves anyway!).

Attachment and Exhaustion Part 2

After much thought, I have decided that this will not be a 2 part post, but many more than that.  I will try to post at least one a day so that it flows.

To understand a bit more about what we as a family have been going through since picking up the kids, I think I need to explain a bit about our expectations going in.  We had two birth children and had already adopted three children in basically foster-to-adopt situations.  We had had those three since they were babies (the girls since newborn and Josiah since six months old and he had attachment issues and we had worked with him extensively when he first arrived).  Of our three adopted children, two have Special Needs so when we considered adopting again, we took this into consideration when deciding to adopt from Ethiopia.  I had always wanted to adopt Internationally and Africa was pulling at my heart.  I grew up in the era of the drought and subsequent famine in the sub-Sahara and was literally told to finish my food because there were starving children in Ethiopia.  I grew up in the time of "We Are the World" and television plugs for World Vision - side story here - perhaps my mom should have known that I would choose a life less ordinary - when I was about ten or eleven years old, I was home by myself and a World Vision ad came on and I was just sick with grief.  By the time my mom got home, I had phoned and sponsored a child (I guess back then, they didn't check to make you were 18!).  I seem to remember my mom wasn't totally impressed with me for adding another bill but when I told her that I would pay for it with my allowance, she softened (I think she ended up paying for it after the first month though).  Our sponsor child was a little boy from South Accra, Ghana. 

For us to adopt another child or two from within Canada would have been super easy for us.  It would have been free and taken almost no time.  We could have called up our foster agency, told them what age and sex we would like, siblings or a single child and we could have been placed with a child or siblings within days or weeks who we likely would have been able to adopt.  But the odds of that child having Special Needs would be considerable, especially the odds of them having FASD (that's Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder for those who don't know - the odds of a child adopted from within the foster care program suffering from FASD are in the range of 80%) and we felt that since two of our children already have neurodevelopmental disorders, it would be smart of us not to add another who has a high likelihood of a neurodevelopmental disorder as well.  But another big concern for us was that when adopting older kids from within Canada, a fair amount of them have suffered abuse, either physical, sexual, or extreme neglect (let's face it, they are not in the foster care system for no reason) and although those children deserve loving forever homes, we were afraid that if we adopted a child who had suffered any of those types of abuses, they may perpetrate on our other children or just have behaviours that were too difficult to manage.

When we first decided to adopt from Ethiopia, we applied for a baby girl.  We thought that since we had three boys and two girls, another girl would finish off the family perfectly.  Six kids is always the number I had in mind, a large family but a nice even number and enough seats in our van.  Well, have you ever heard the expression, "if you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans?"  A baby girl may have fit perfectly into MY plan but that is not what God had in store for us.  I think I have already outlined in previous posts how it is that God changed our minds and we came to apply for siblings, at first specifying that one be a boy and one be a girl and that at least one be under a year old, and then deciding to fully trust God and just opening our referral request to "any siblings".  One of the things that helped me feel more comfortable with our decision was all the research and anecdotal accounts I had read about older children adopted from Ethiopia and how well they had adjusted and attached.  It was rare to hear of even small difficulties and because children are quite valued in Ethiopia, there were no reports of horrid institutional care received like in some Eastern European countries, no abuse prior to that, no FASD, no autism.  Another thing that played into our decision was reading the book "There Is No Me Without You".  Ironically, there are a few stories in there about kids who are abused or who have a hard time adjusting but they were the minority and when I read those stories, I would think to myself "but that won't happen to us".  I think maybe I thought that since we were being obedient to what God was calling us to do or because we had already gone through an adoption-related trauma when we lost the first little girl that we were hoping to adopt after having her for 19 months and so somehow that almost meant that God owed us (no, it was not easy to admit that publicly just now!) and that our adoption would go smoothly and our kids would adjust quickly and beautifully.

Again, I want to walk the fine line here of helping others and not revealing too much so I will just say that my kids were in that minority of children.  They have suffered abuse and trauma and we are now dealing with the effects of that.  They are not perpetrating on our other kids (beyond the normal sibling fighting that is) but Elijah in particular is having to work through some issues and also work through some feelings of helplessness at not being able to protect his little sister.  It is tough.  I feel angry and sad.  Sometimes, I feel angry that even though we were obedient and took the harder road that God was leading us down, that road was made even more challenging when our adoption agency went bankrupt and we had to fly to Ethiopia suddenly (and in the expensive season no less!) and were not prepared practically, emotionally, or financially and with the reality that our children were not "easy" children.  Some days, I feel so sad to know all that my precious children have gone through and helpless to have not been there to protect them.  As a mother, I just want to "fix" it, to erase the pain they have suffered.  As a human being, I question why any child has to suffer.

But I also know even in the worst moments, during the most hellish tantrums or holding them while they wail, that these were the children that God planned for our family.  He chose us for them and them for us and I believe that He knew what He was doing.  I don't often feel qualified or up to the task and some days, all I can do is pray and other days, I don't even have the words or strength to do that but on a logical level, I know that God has been preparing us for this.  We were foster parents for eight years.  During that time, we had some kids who were really hurting and we learned a lot about how to help them through that.  We didn't always do everything perfectly but we tried to help them heal.  We had to take many courses during those years and because I actually like learning, I chose to even take extra courses, attend seminars, and devour books that were relevant so all that knowledge was stored away and we can occasionally pull from that.  When we were in Ethiopia and the kids tantrummed the way they did, we knew that what we were seeing was actually what is called a "rage", not a tantrum and we knew this because we had seen rages before.  Don't misunderstand me here - we still felt ill-equipped and totally in over our heads but we were better equipped than some may have been.  More than once when we were still in Ethiopia in what had become a nightmare, Mark and I spoke about the fact that these children had come to us and that even though we wished that things were different, we were thankful that they had come to us and not to someone else because can you imagine if one of the first-time parents who had come to pick up their kids in Ethiopia had encountered what we had?!  As awful as it was for us, at least we had lots of special needs/ hurting child experience and somewhere in the back of our minds we knew that someday it would hopefully get better.

I also want to say on this topic that one of the reasons I am finally sharing some of this is because before we went to pick the kids up, someone shared honestly with me and there were minutes in Ethiopia where her words are what I clung to.  Almost all of the other stories I had heard about people picking their kids up were so positive and if she had not shared with me her reality, I don't think I would have made it because there were moments there that I thought that I must be the worst mother in the world for this to be happening (I know from a logical perspective, I had just met the kids so their behaviours shouldn't reflect on my parenting but at the time, I felt like they did and it was embarrassing and ugly and horrible).  Very shortly after we got our referral of the kids, I spoke on the phone to an adoptive mom who had recently returned from picking up her child in Ethiopia.  To honor their privacy, I will just say that it was an older child in the same general age range as our children.  It's really interesting how that night that we spoke, the purpose of the call was for me to get information that would be helpful to us when we travelled to pick up the kids, things like packing lists, what medication to bring for donations, where to eat, where to stay, general travel tips, that kind of thing but now I see that God had other purposes for that call.  This mom shared with me some of their difficult experiences in picking up their child and how all did not go so well.  She was very open with me and though I appreciated it at the time, I never realized its significance until we were there and her words came to me more than once and comforted me, helping me to not feel so alone, encouraging me that things would get better.  That phone call almost never happened because at the time, I thought we still had many months before it would be our turn to travel and thought that perhaps I should contact this mom closer to our travel date so that things would be fresh in my mind but God knew that our timeline was not the timeline that would play out so He planned that call for then.  I am grateful for her story.  (by the way, her child is doing wonderfully now and that child's issues were very different from our kids' issues but just having someone paint for me a not-so-rosy picture was so helpful)

So to sum up this part of our family's story, we were very unprepared for what awaited us on this adoption journey and things have not gone according to our "plan" and "schedule" but I do believe that God has great things in store for us and for our children but am admitting that this has also been a journey where there were aspects of my faith that have been tested.  Pretty much as soon as we made the decision to adopt siblings instead of just one little baby like we had originally planned, I used the following quote as my encouragement when the doubts would creep in:

"God does not call the qualified, He qualifies the called."

That quote was even on my adoption countdown ticker and I tried hard to believe it when I got scared about being the mother of seven, five adopted, two with special needs, two not initially able to speak the same language as me.  Now I am being called to actually live that quote, to really allow God to work this out.  I am not at the place yet where I am qualified or even feel like I will get there.  I am still in the "one day at a time", "one minute at a time" place but I am very quickly realizing that I am going to have to learn to rely more on God and less on myself and giving up that false sense of control is a struggle for me.  The last six months have been lonely and scary and there have been times where I have wondered if we are capable of success in this as a family but there have been many glimpses of hope and now that I am looking to God more, I am seeing the hope more and believing that this will be a story of triumph for us and for my children, the children that God has chosen for us and will qualify us to raise.

Attachment and Exhaustion

I have been avoiding writing this post because it will be difficult to keep it under a million words, it is not easy to talk about, I wanted for the story to have a good conclusion before I told it, and I sometimes am not sure how to balance helping others in their adoption journeys by sharing my experiences and protecting the privacy of my kids but by not sharing this part of our adoption here, I feel a bit like a fraud and have been inspired by Rana to be honest.

Our time in Ethiopia picking up Elijah and Sedaya did not go well.  I will probably get into more detail when more time has passed between then and present day but will say a few things now to lay a bit of background.  Generally in adoption, there is a bit of what's commonly referred to as a honeymoon period when the child is first with you, mostly because they don't know you and well, are frankly afraid of you.  Although during the honeymoon period, you don't get to know your child's actual personality, it is still an important part of the process for the parent, as it gives you the opportunity to have an initial positive experience and thus, when the rough waters inevitably hit, you can know that there will be another calm because you have seen it and therefore, can believe in it.  We did not get a honeymoon with either of our kids.  We were kicked, scratched, slapped, punched, and spit on daily during the time that we were in Ethiopia.  Nothing could have prepared me for the length and severity of the tantrums they had either, including things like Sedaya pushing her plate and anything else within reach off the table in restaurants, screaming for hours at a time, and laying themselves down on the floor and refusing to let us pick them up, fighting with all they had if we tried.  By the time we landed back in Alberta after three days, two hotels, and four plane rides, we were already overwhelmed and exhausted.  During those travel days, I could not even allow myself to think about the fact that we had another five kids at home waiting for us and that Mark would be back at work immediately and I would have to find a way to take care of all seven of them by myself when in Ethiopia, we were hardly able to manage and we had three adults (Mark's sister was with us) and only two kids.  When the thoughts would creep in, I would fight the tears with everything I had because I knew that if I allowed myself to start crying, I might never stop and it might be me lying on the floor screaming, refusing to get up!

As soon as our last plane landed and our new kids were able to meet our other kids (the ones whose names and pictures they had memorized from the albums we had made them that became what seemed the only thing that calmed them when in Ethiopia), the screaming angry kids were gone.  (I have come to realize now that what we saw in Ethiopia was an acute fear response, not anger but at the time, I would have said anger.)  By the time we got to our house, the seven of them were playing and laughing in the backyard.  That night, I tucked them into their new beds and they woke up in good moods, excited about their new siblings and their new home, mostly the yard.  In the weeks after coming home, Sedaya had two or three of what we call "Ethiopia tantrums" and hasn't had one since.  That's not to say that she doesn't have tantrums now, but they are what would be considered "normal", not the rage (or terror) she had in Africa.  Elijah did not have them daily like he did there but he did continue to have them here and there and it was difficult to manage and still supervise the other kids.  About a month in (or maybe it was two weeks in or maybe two months, that time is a big blur for me), Elijah hit another stage.  I should take a moment here and explain that the model of kids being moved to a new family like this goes something like Honeymoon, then Testing, then Depression, then Acceptance.  The older the kids are, the longer the stages last and the more likely they are to cycle through the stages more than once before reaching Acceptance.  In fact, in some children or teens, that stage may never be reached.  So like I said before, our kids did not honeymoon (unless you count the few hours that Mark visited them at the Transition Home) and I think all can agree that they were very good at the Testing phase but it was when Elijah hit Depression that this got really tough on me. 

I had been worried when we adopted older kids that perhaps it would take me a long time to bond with them, to really feel like they were my kids and was prepared to just "fake it 'til ya make it" kind of thing if the love wasn't there in the beginning but for me, it just was.  It was so much easier than I thought it would be to feel that way towards them (yes, even when they were spitting at me!).  I know that it's not that way for everyone who adopts older kids and I think a big part of the reason is the adoption agency bankruptcy.  When that was announced so suddenly and our lives got turned upside down and we thought that we could lose them, that their very lives could be in danger, my mommy-mode kicked into hyperdrive and by the time we had survived that harrowing journey back to Canada together, the love I felt for both of them was strong and protective so when Elijah hit his Depression, it hurt.  It hurt to see him sad and not be able to help him.  I felt so helpless and it was made worse by the fact that I could barely speak his language so I couldn't use my words to comfort him and he couldn't use his words to explain to me how he was feeling.   I would hold him and rock him while he sobbed, telling him that everything was going to be okay and that I loved him and would take care of him and that someday, the pain would stop, knowing all the while that he couldn't comprehend the words I was using.  The only thing worse than feeling helpless was that I also knew that he had so much to be sad about and my heart broke for him.  This wasn't even like first crush rejection kind of pain, this was lost my family, my country, my food, my language, and everything familiar kind of pain and I couldn't fix it for him.  I tried to comfort him in the ways I knew how, finding people who spoke Amharic to translate for us, feeding him Ethiopian food, rocking him, holding him, singing to him but he was so sad.  He cried, he hardly ate, he slept a lot, he rarely smiled, he didn't even have any fight in him to bug his sister during that time.  It was so hard to see him suffering.  And then one day, Depression was gone and Testing was back and really, that first tantrum after the Depression was a welcome one.

Okay so now I haven't even gotten to the whole Attachment thing which is what this is supposed to be about and already it is too long so I will have to make this part 1 and will write part 2 to post in a few days as I know that after four or five paragraphs, people start skimming or stop reading altogether and besides that, it is after 1:30 in the morning and my kids will be waking me up in a few precious hours so I must sleep.  In the next segment, I will cover Attachment and also then the word Exhaustion will make more sense too.

Book Review Six

"Divine Nobodies" by Jim Palmer

I had actually started this book over a year ago and never finished (not generally a good sign) but when I happened upon it while tidying up one day, did have a faint recollection of it being moderately interesting so I decided to give it another shot.  I skimmed through what I had already read and delved in to what was new to me.  I did not get something out of every chapter but there were enough that peaked my interest to make the book a worthwhile read.  I'm not sure that I like his writing style but I do like that there were chapters, ideas, concepts that had me pondering long after I had set the book down and I like that in a read.  This was one of those books that has you examining how you view things and what you believe.  I didn't agree with his point of view all the time but that's part of what makes it interesting.  The idea I liked the best was the title idea, that "divine nobodies", the mechanic helping you with your car, the waitress at the coffee shop can often teach you more about God and true Christianity than a pastor can.

P.S.  Today is Mark's birthday and we are going out for supper just the two of us!  (of course to accomplish this, I have to first leave some of the kids with our awesome babysitter Mandi, take Elijah for his root canal and crown, then drop him off at my mom's office, meanwhile, Mark will be picking Mackenzie up from school, taking him to work with him, then dropping Mackenzie off at his job at McDonald's, then we will go out for supper together to the Keg because that is where we have a Gift Certificate from Christmas for, then pick Elijah up at my mom's house, pick Mackenzie up at McDonald's, come home and one of us will have to drive Mandi home!)  But it will be worth it to get to have adult conversation and have someone else do the cooking!!!

Sheep

A few weeks ago, we went to a homeschool club activity about sheep and wool.  The five younger kids really enjoyed it.  Jonah didn't really participate but now finds himself having to write a research report on sheep and wool so I think the next time we go to a hands-on demonstration, he will choose that method of learning!  Anyway, though the kids found it interesting, I found it a little gross.  No offense to sheep herders or sheep fans out there but at the very beginning, they passed out knucklebones (yes, actual bones) and talked about how in ancient times, there were games that were played with these similar to dice games of today and then the kids got to practice throwing the knucklebones like dice.  That was all a bit gross for me but made grosser when one of the kids came running over to me, shoved their hands in my face and said "my hands smell disgusting now" (and they did)!  I also was a bit glad that I am allergic to wool and couldn't touch it when it was pulled from bags in various stages of processing, including the initial "this is still pretty stinky and hasn't been washed yet" stage!

"baaaa"
the kids were taught to sheer sheep and had to take turns being the sheep
They made little sheep out of real wool and pipe cleaners