O Christmas Trauma, O Christmas Trauma

Tis' the season.

Ack.

Any of you parents out there with squirrelly kids are like:

For whatever reason, this year has been more tricky for us than in times past. We have gone through a lot of changes in the last few months and I know that hasn't helped, but, daggum it, I didn't expect those changes to screw things up as much as they have. Ha.

Daniel has gotten his second referral of the school year. Both were totally deserved.

This morning at the Christmas program at church, his eyes were darting all over the place. I could see them from clear in the back. When the program was over I had him sit on my lap so that I could apply pressure to his chest, which really did help him re-center and have a better day, but after over an hour of sitting there, my arms felt like limp noodles.

Garth and I were sitting in the living room a couple of nights ago after the kids were in bed and we really could chuckle about how far we have come.

Daniel has come SO VERY FAR, but there are just going to be times in his life that he is going to struggle.

We can call it PTSD, or whatever string of letters that you would like, but ultimately we have to live with it and no matter what is causing it, it stinks.

And as much as it stinks for us, it stinks for him more. He has verbalized that his brain is feeling bad right now and he hates it.

It's especially hard now, because it is the time of year where we are around more people and busy with more things (it is a self-feeding cycle). I totally hate making excuses for my ten year old's unpleasant behavior, and I am SO SORRY if he is rude to you. Please understand if I ask you not to give him a superhero toy, I am not trying to be mean or steal his fun. If I ask you not to give him lots of attention when he is acting silly don't think I don't love him or delight in him, because I do. With ever fiber, I do love and delight in him and I want him to have fun, but I KNOW my son enough to know that is not what he needs in the moment.

These days will pass and he will settle back down. It's always a cycle. In the meantime, give us a spot of grace.

Hospitality: Revisited

I love "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" by Dr. Suess.

I am not sure why I exactly love it, but every year it resonates with me. Some years it is because I am a total Grinch and I love the illustrations of his face as his wicked thoughts on how to spoil Christmas go through his mind. I am sure that the image of the long-suffering Max with a stick tied to his head has something to do with it, too, but I think for myself and for most connoisseurs, it comes down to this quote:

“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”

So, I bet you are wondering what this has to do with hospitality...

Here it is!

Many times we have this idea that hospitality has to come with packages, boxes or bags! The daunting task of "entertaining" our guests keeps us from inviting them in the first place.

Here is the truth: there are people who want a comfy couch to sit on or snooze on after lunch. There are people who simply want to watch a movie of their choosing, or have access to a stove to make a meal.

Entertainment is something that anyone can buy, but home is a gift.

Moral of the story: don't geek yourself out about hosting people, worrying about how to entertain them. Invite them into your home and into your life. Show them where the food is, where the bathrooms are and how to work the showers, and leave the rest to happy chance.

Don't bog yourself down with "process" and "ministry." And for goodness sake, don't be a bean counter.

Be you.
Give yourself.
Be present.
Laugh.
Mess up.

These are the things that form the lasting memories and the precious connections.

Blood Whistles and Poop of Love: Life in an ESL home

(Grandma and Grandpa, Mom and Dad, if you are reading this, don't read the title and think you raised me wrong)

If you have been reading along for awhile, you know that our home is a home that hosts many different languages.

In the day to day stuff, it is no big deal. I mean, we can't play a good game of Balderdash or Scattergories, but life is good, and in my opinion, we communicate pretty well.

But my opinion is not always reality.

Far too often feelings are hurt and decisions are made based on a failure to communicate.

Let's face it, even in the most homogeneous of environments, people can struggle with effective communication.

We all speak a different language based on our history. Garth comes from a Deaf home. English was not his first language, ASL was. His family also had some pretty unique dynamics that have colored the way that he has learned to deal with communication. I bring my upbringing where 'flibilee' is a word and crick is what's over behind the neighbor's house.

People that stay with us not only bring their language; they bring their culture, their faith, their hurts and disappointments, and their prejudices. For better or worse.

Communication can be bumpy and laughable at best and devastating at worst.

One of the laughable moments was last night when Grace was trying to explain to Daniel what the blue things were in his arms.

"Those are veins."

"Dey are not veins. I have blood whistles!"

It took me a second. Haha.

But it makes perfect sense! He is taking a word that he hears and fitting it into the context he understands.

When he first came home he LOVED the song "Proof of Your Love" by Casting Crowns. He would bellow along, making a joyful noise. (He is totally tone deaf, but what he lacks in gifting, he makes up for in volume).

After a few weeks, I started really listening. It wasn't his accent. No. He was singing "Poop of Your Love" instead of "PROOF."

I asked him if he knew what "proof" meant. Of course he didn't. But he knew what poop meant.

Ay yi yi.

Just In Case You Have Ever Been Under The Illusion That We Have It All Together...

Remember that day when the dryer broke and you tried to fix it and got your favorite pair of unmentionables stuck in the dryer, which then broke it even worse? (Not to mention, left the above-mentioned unmentionables in shreds).

And then you were running late to pick up your kid's TUBERCULOSIS medication from the Health Department and you get a call from the school that one of your kids has LICE!

...And you have NO dryer.

...And your kid has consumption!

...And your other kid has lice.

No, Sweet Readers, this is not a Little House on the Prairie re-write; this was my day yesterday.

And all of those things that were going on were punctuated with copious tears.

Today is a new day. A day that I am enjoying the scent of laundry dried outside. A day that ALL the sheets are getting washed.

There is always something to be thankful for. Always.

Itchy Scars

When I was fifteen I was hit by a car. My elbow went through the windshield and I spent the next year and a half being pieced back together.

I have my arm today thanks to a great doctor's humble spirit and knowledge of his limitations.

When it first happened, it shaped my entire world. Everything was demarcated by "before the accident" and "after the accident." I was pulled into a whirlpool of PTSD and a profound sense of loss. At the time, it was a gigantic tragedy.

Through the years, I have dealt with those initial feelings like you would play whack-a-mole. Even today, there are times that I can feel deeply grieved when I think about the accident.

I have been blessed with some wonderful counselors, and some not so wonderful counselors, along the way.

The first guy that I saw, when I was absolutely crippled by panic, told me that I needed to think about the worst case scenario and then picture how I would handle it...and poof! I should feel better because now I know how to handle anything.

Ha. Wrong! What that metastasized into was me frantically running scenarios for every situation: always having an escape route, being hyper-vigilant. It turned into an obsession over the years.

I was blessed with two therapists that were familiar with PTSD and they really finally helped me flush so much of that out.

What I am left with, today, is a weather-telling arm.

My forearm aches when weather systems are coming in. A deep bone ache that no amount of Advil seems to touch or rubbing seems to help. My hand feels weak and I stretch and stretch, trying to release the tension.

That is when the weather changes, so not all the time.

What can happen at any given moment and is not triggered by anything, is the nerve itching.

Ok. This is super weird.

Sometimes my arm itches. But wait, does it? Oh, yes. It does.

Must. Scratch. Itch.

Makes. No. Difference.

I could claw the skin off and the itch would remain. There is literally NO WAY to scratch that itch.

This morning as I was walking the kids to school, God used that itchy scar to show me something.

Here it is:

When we are wounded, we heal. But we have scars.

And those scars? They affect the way things work. I mean, I can feel you touching my arm, but it just doesn't feel right. 

But, HEY! I am not bleeding!

Good as new!?

Sometimes I think so!

Sometimes the scars work just like the skin would have; keeping my blood in and my muscle covered.

It's faded to where you can hardly see it anymore!

And then... it starts itching. And I know that it is healed, but that this is just going to be the way it is all of my life. That, no matter how pale the scar gets, it is still there.

Its very presence testifying to the brokenness that was thrust upon my life.

When I feel frustrated about the ebb and flow that undoubtedly come with parenting a child from hard places, I need to remember my 18-year-old itchy scar.

Yep.

Daniel gets to stay in his class.

I am very happy about that. It has come at a bit of a relational cost, I am afraid, but things have a way of smoothing out and I need to know and embrace the fact that I shouldn't be so worried about what other people think about me, especially in a situation like this one.

Isn't it ironic how we are worried about people thinking badly of us when we aren't thinking the best of them either?

Years ago, something happened at a family event and one of Garth's cousins had some very sage words: "He had the right to do the thing and you have the right to feel angry about it."

Why do we try and control our feelings and the feelings of our children to such a degree that we don't embrace them for what they are?  A natural response to a situation. We get irritated when someone doesn't respond the way that we envision. We lecture our children not to feel a certain way. We cajole our loved ones when they are feeling bad.

We drop bombshells on one another and then get irritated when someone is hurt.

Feelings are natural! They are NOTHING! I cannot control my feelings! I cannot control my children's feelings! I don't think any of us can (or should?!) get rid of that initial rush of emotion that we have at the moment. That is OK.

When we try to staunch feelings or try to dictate how a person should feel in a situation, we are grooming our tribe to be inauthentic. We are rearing them to question themselves over every little thing. We are raising children who will grow up into insecure adults.

Feelings should be validated. Not squashed.

Feelings shouldn't be wallowed in, either.

Well-managed feelings are things that you acknowledge, determine whether or not they are reasonable and then go from there into action.

I think the older I get and the more trials that I go through, the less time I have to worry about everyone else's opinions of me.

I have fought hard for Daniel.

I have traveled with my knees crammed into the seat in front of me, over oceans and continents. I have ridden on Soviet-era trains with the door locked on my compartment to keep out robbers. I have peed in a filthy hole in the floor. I have walked miles over broken sidewalks. I have spent the night wrestling with a feral child much like Jacob wrestled the angel and I, too, have come away changed. I have learned comfort and corrective phrases in a language not my own so that I could whisper those words over and over to calm a panicked child. I have prayed. I have cried. I have paid. I have gone to so many doctors appointments that words that would have scared me before make me chuckle now.

I have carried three children close to my heart and birthed them under bright lights through happy tears, and that experience empowered me to realize what my body was capable of; what my body was designed to do.

The processes of adoption and  of grafting a child into my family have taught me what my heart was capable of; what my heart was designed to do. The process of "birthing" my blue-eyed Daniel into this life that he now lives has made me into someone so much more than I was before. And through these struggles, he becomes more and more of my child.

When he is frustrated, his eyes search mine for the answers.

When he didn't want to change teachers and I told him I would fight for him, he trusted me.

When he opened his yap and said things that gave people the wrong idea, I made no excuses. Think what they will. We are a team.

Occasionally someone will verbalize that they can't imagine loving an adopted child like "their own" child. Tell me, how could I have labored any harder? How could I have spent any more tears?

No. I won't feel bad about Daniel being able to stay in his class.

Goosfraba

Have you ever been in a rage?

I am not talking about anger or seething or grumpiness.

The kind of RAGE where you see red?

I have had that happen maybe three or four times in my whole life.

One of those times was two weeks ago. I promise, if I had had a hatchet in my hands, there would have been a wake of destruction behind me. A pile of grey kindling where a house once stood. (Let me be clear, my situation was in no way related to school stuff).

With most of us, when that happens, we feel bad for a day or two. We try, in our head, to argue better, to come up with the right response that would stop the other person in their tracks. We plot fabulous revenge scenarios. And after a few days pass, we begin to let go. We chalk up the behavior of the other person to craziness or whatever makes us feel better, and we move on. (Although we may have some lingering retribution fantasies). We decide how, or if, we will interact with them in the future.

What if you couldn't let go? What if you were so full of anger and impotence and you had to see the person every day?

This is what Daniel is experiencing right now, so I'll tell you what will happen: the anger will rear its head over every little thing. Every straw will be the straw.

Daniel has a lot of frustration right now due to some situations at school, and it has definitely been a set back for him.

I have to remind myself of the ebb and flow of dealing with the yuck that he has come from. It just kind of stinks that there are still yucky situations happening.

The situation with the boy at the school isn't really improving. The school is wanting to separate the boys. I totally agree. It makes me really sad that the separation, seemingly, will cost Daniel the teacher that he loves.

Fight

So. 

This happened.

This was not an accident or a "boys-will-be-boys" type of moment.

This was bullying.

A you-bugged-me-so-I-am-going-to-rip-these-off-your-face-and-break-them-ha-ha moment. And oh by the way, I am going to wrap my little hands around your neck and squeeze.

Now, I know that Daniel can be a button pusher. I just really hope he learns to not do that anymore.

I am really sad and angry. Daniel said he felt the same way.

I was proud that he didn't fight back. 

Until I heard that he is going to have consequences for fighting because of his "provoking."

Daggum.

Now I am struggling. We have worked and taught Daniel to be gentle. To not fight. To not punch. Now I am kind of regretting it. 

One of my favorite aspects of who Daniel is is the ferocity. The stubborn loyalty. The fight. The boldness.

This brought out my mama bear in a whole new way.

I pray for wisdom and backbone. This isn't Daniel's fight alone. Even if he was in anyway wrong, he is MY CHILD and this was NOT OK.

And the. next. time. this happens, Daniel has my full support to own his crazy and SMASH.

School: Round Three

School is off to a good start.

Grace is in middle school! How did that even happen?

Claire and Daniel are in 3rd grade this year.

Wyatt is in 2nd. 

Last year Daniel did a 1st / 2nd split. It was what he needed to begin trying to catch up. I am so blown away when I think back to the child that he was two years ago!

Two years ago! That's right! He has been home for TWO years now. It is amazing to me to realize how far he has come in terms of growth. God is definitely in the business of binding broken hearts and building families.

I praise God for the work that He has done in my heart through bringing Daniel into our family. Some of the things that we deal with are not things that I ever envisioned for my life, but it is LIFE. You just do what you have to do and the more you do it, the more you realize it isn't a big deal. You learn to find the treasure in all of your children's hearts. There are the obvious gifts and then the hidden ones. The obvious tend to change with the season, but the hidden gifts seem to be the ones that God has planted and nurtured like a precious seed. Those seeds are the ones that root down deep and then flourish, given the proper nourishment.

May we all search for the seeds that God has planted within ourselves and others and upon finding those seeds, may we cherish and care for them in order to allow them to reach their full potential.

Slipping through my fingers

I think that too many times, we parents parent with the end game in mind. As in, "Please don't let my child grow up and still wear his Superman shorts pulled up to his chest." Or more seriously, "What will my child do with his life? How will he turn out?"

I really struggle with that. Being in the moment is something that I often have to force myself to do. If you have read many of my posts I think my impatience is a common theme. Ha.

The danger with parenting the end game is that you can miss the beauty of the here and now. Any enjoyment can be soured by worry or conjecture.

There was a video flying around the adoption circles a few weeks back and it related to RAD (reactive attachment disorder). I watched about half of it and turned it off. Honestly, the guy's voice grated on me, to say nothing of the content. I should know better than to put things like that into my head. My head, specifically, because I think for some people it is a validation and a comfort to have an idea of what is going on in their child's mind, but for me it just makes me a hypochondriac, not for myself, but for my kid; watching every symptom, giving a WebMD worthy diagnoses. Instead of just being in the moment and dealing with the behaviors as they come.

Years ago I worked in a hospital here in town. I had a trainer with me for six weeks and he would coach me through everything. He was a great guy and we had great philosophical discussions while we walked down long, fluorescent lit hallways. One of the things I struggled with in training was wanting people to like me. Let's face it, if someone's learning to draw blood on your arm, it isn't abnormal to not like them. But someone not liking me could wreck my entire day. It didn't matter that they knew nothing about me to form an opinion except for the fact that I woke them up at 4 a.m. to draw vials of blood, it would wreck me. Once I verbalized my fear about someone not liking me and the trainer responded "Why do you even care?"

Why? I know it isn't logical to let someone else's opinion (especially someone who barely knows you) impact your feelings about yourself or others, but, in true Type A, first-born fashion I want people to like me. To praise me.

This extends to I want people to like my children. To praise my children.

And when they don't? I obsess.

It is a problem, I know.

I think that bringing Daniel into our home has made me have to deal with this more head-on than I have had to in the past. Because some people aren't very positive about things. Some people hear that he was adopted at the age of eight from an Eastern European orphanage and their opinions are set in stone.

I literally had someone tell me that Daniel needed to learn that actions have consequences. Example: Do a bad thing = do extra chores AND people don't like you. I totally agree that is something that children need to learn. Then she went on to paint a very bleak, institutionalized future for him if I didn't pound that concept into him.

Why would someone who had extremely limited contact with him even say something like that to me? Does she think we aren't teaching him things?

Do I give a rip what she thinks?

I can envision many possible futures for all my children. I pray that they love God, that they pick faithful, Godly spouses and have nice families of their own someday and that at the end of their lives they are surrounded by people who love them, who will care for them and honor them.

But right now? I want to be in the moment and enjoy the daily wonders of having my children. They really do grow too quickly. Grace will be in middle school next year. Slipping through my fingers, for sure. This is my declaration that I won't worry about those things because they will come soon enough, but these little, precious people will grow up too quick and this time will be gone and I don't want to look back on it and think that I spoke anything but victory into their futures.

Quick update

So. I totally know it has been a crazy, long time since I last wrote.

If you could look at my back page for my blog, you would see many starts to many different ideas, but they never would flow and so there they sit.

The way that I write my blog is that I sit down and type. And if nothing worthwhile comes, I stop.

Things have been going great around here. Maybe that is why I haven't written anything. Last year we had definitely bumpy times around Daniel's birthday. This year was bumpy, but not as bad, and I think that is the benefit of giving yourself time before you analyze things. Time gives you a perspective that the moment never can. We have a solid year under our belt and are two and a half months away from having two years.

I think the thing that surprises me about coming up on this anniversary is that things are still so new sometimes. I mean, it's not like having a two year old that you have been able to watch God shaping from day one, so from time to time he will say something or do something and I will just be in awe at where that came from. The last almost two years have been like watching a flower blossom because you think that it is beautiful at every stage, from when it is the tight bud to when it starts to open, but the more it opens, the more aspects you can enjoy; the fragrance, the multitude of petals, the variation of colors. It is awesome to watch. (And I don't mean the Californian "awesome, dude," I mean an awesome awareness of God's work).

We have had an extra kid staying with us. He has been here since mid-December. His name is Raheem and he is from Saudi Arabia. It has been a total blast! We eat Arabic food, which is drool worthy. We laugh. Raheem especially loves Daniel, because Daniel is such a tough kid who loves to roughhouse. I think having Raheem come has cemented Daniel into our family in a new way, because Daniel is no longer the new guy.

We celebrated Daniel's birthday on Saturday. We had a fun time. He decided that morning that he wanted a cake with his face on it.

From My Journal Dated 10/2013

Dear Friend,

You said in a Facebook post that you loved my son. That post have have taken a moment to send off, but touched my heart in a lasting way. A mama, weary of rejection, cried tears at the kitchen sink after checking her phone and seeing that she wasn't really alone. And although rejection has been the theme of a young soul's journey on earth up to this point, that change is afoot thanks to love.

Dear Sweet Friend who I Lean on for Prayer Support,

You are a soul mother to me with your wisdom and your healing communication with God. Knowing you are praying over us gives me faith to face what may come. Faith to believe God is working it out.

Dear Song Leader,

Thank you for the songs you chose today. The reminder of why we choose to love was so timely. Because somedays that is exactly what this redeeming kind of love comes down to. A choice. "I will love because You loved me."

Dear Church Half a World Away,

Knowing our Sunday communion is communing not only with our Savior, but with our spiritual family as well. Blessings to you for your support and encouragement.

Love,
Crystal