India is going through a phase where she is obsessed with getting married. She talks about it all the time. We were at the park last week and a bridal party was there shooting pictures, and she started scrambling up the rocks trying to join them in the picture. She was very mad when I cut her mission short before she reached them. The other day she came out with a ballet dress and a tutu over her head, and told me that she was ready to go get married.
I'm not sure where all this is coming from, but I blame the Robin Hood movie, which is one of her favorites.
She has also been talking - daily - about who she is going to marry. For a long time it was Jafta or Kembe. After many discussions about why that would not be possible, she set her sights on Gavin, a little boy in her class. She talks about marrying Gavin all the time, and how she wants him to marry her. Jafta likes to remind her that Gavin may not want to do this, and about how she needs to be "like, a little past a teenager. Like, 44 or something."
Ahem.
Anyways, this week something horrible happened. She told Gavin her plans, and apparently Gavin rejected her proposal. She came home devastated. But she also came home with a new insult in her tool belt.
Every time someone hurts her feels at school, she processes her anger by coming home and hurling the insult at me. I can always tell what is happening at school by the things she parrots back to me in frustration. I have been the not-so-lucky recipient of her experiments with reciprocating meanness many times since she started school. Some of her standards include "you're not my friend anymore" and the ever popular "you're a poopy head". She is also a fan of the sticking out of the tongue and the sing-song nanny nanny boo boo, which always cuts like a knife.
Thanks to Gavin's rebuff, she has a new tool in her toolbelt. Here she is at the park, just after I informed her it was time to go home and take her nap.
Oh snap.
(I hope you caught that huff at the end.)
(And yeah. That's my baby's bottle laying in the sand. Keepin' it classy.)
She has yelled some variation of "You're not gonna marry me!" or "I'm not gonna marry you!" at me, Mark, Jafta, or Kembe about 20 times since the Gavin episode. We comfort ourselves with the fact that she doesn't really mean it, she's just displacing her anger and re-enacting her displaced hurt on a nearby projective object. Or something.
I have had some serious heart-to-hearts with her about how there are other fish in the sea, and how lucky a boy would be to marry her, and how she has plenty of time to figure out who she will marry. But hell hath no fury like a preschooler scorned.
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People often ask me how Kembe is doing with learning English. I have been absolutely amazed with his progress. He has picked it up so fast. About a month ago, he stopped speaking Creole altogether. (Of course it was right about the time that we were starting to feel comfortable with it). I started noticing that when I would ask him a question in Creole, he would answer it in English. I even noticed that when he was playing alone and "voicing" his toys, that they were talking in English, too. He's still learning, of course, but he is one determined kid, and he obviously wants to be English-speaking. He's very talkative and would like to rattle off long paragraphs at the speed of his siblings, so sometimes he just repeats the phrases he knows, with different intonations, until it is the equivalent length of a little conversation.
"At preschool, playing with Benjamin, I play basketball. And basketball with Benjamin. At preschool? Basketball. I like basketball"
The other day, I tried to get him to talk to me in Creole, and he refused. I'm thrilled that he has picked up English so fast, but I'm also a little sad that he is losing his Creole. I thought we might continue learning together, and end up a bilingual family. But it's gotten to the point where if I used a Creole phrase, he will correct me with the English words he knows.
The Creole has become my fall-back if he's not listening. It has become the parenting equivalent of using the dreaded middle name.
"Kemba, it's time to eat, come sit down. Sit down and eat. CHITA AK MANJE!"
Jafta, on the other hand, takes glee in learning Creole phrases. But like a typical big brother, he also takes glee in getting a rise out of Kembe, and talking in Creole is a sure way to do that. For example, tonight, when he repeatedly told Kembe it was "tan pou dòmi", to which Kembe shouted, "No, it's SLEEPY TIME! Not domi-time". As if they were fighting over an invisible line in the backseat. (Remember that? No? Just me with my sister?)
So, just to wrap up: Kembe has denounced his native tongue, I now use Creole as a disciplinary technique, and Jafta uses it as a way to annoy his brother.
Somehow I don't recall this being what the international adoption book recommended.
"Appease your rage with edification, do not love without reason and objective in mind. For many, the minivan is an affordable land yacht. Save your passion for all, even those you think are lost beyond the pale."
It started when Mark dropped Jafta off at school. He’s been complaining about one of his classmates being mean to him. He comes home talking about it quite a bit – saying that he’s getting hit and kicked and made fun of. Jafta can be dramatic and overly sensitive, and he can also be antagonistic, so we weren’t sure how much of this to believe. We talked to the teacher about it, and she basically indicated that this boy acts this way towards everyone, has discipline issues, etc. But when Mark dropped him off he stood and observed. He watched Jafta walk out to the playground, and then watched this little boy run up and slug Jafta in the stomach. And then he watched Jafta walk away dejected and play by himself. We have parent-teacher conferences coming up, and I know I need to address how they are handling this. We also need to have some big talks with Jafta about being more assertive without being aggressive. Not sure how to do that.
As we were discussing this at lunch, India chimed in with some news of her own. Some girls in her class have been saying that India isn’t really Kembe’s sister. So, in addition to the bullying, I get to bring up this issue in the parent teacher conference. I don’t want to be the problematic mom. But I also need to communicate that the kids in her class might need some sensitivity training. Not sure how to do that.
This afternoon we got a letter from Jafta’s birthmom. While I think open adoption is usually the best route, we don’t have a traditional open adoption arrangement. Jafta's birthmom did not want him to be adopted. He was in the fostercare before he came to us. We write letters and send pictures, and we’ve asked her to do the same. Even that level of openness is more than what social services recommended, but I felt those ties were important. However, she doesn’t write often. She hasn’t written in over a year. When her letter arrived yesterday, I was hopeful that it would be something nice I could read to Jafta. It wasn’t. It was a letter in which she accused us of stealing her child, and denied her own wrongdoings in leading to his removal. We had nothing to do with Jafta’s removal or the court’s decision . . . but the details aren’t important. What is significant and discouraging about the correspondence is that she didn’t once ask about Jafta, or relay any message to him. A page full of bitterness, and not one kind word that I could read to him. What a sad legacy for him. I’m not even sure if I should keep the letter. Mark thinks we should – so he can read it when he is older and understand her character in the event that he decides to make contact with her as an adult. I’m not so sure. When it arrived, I impulsively told Jafta that it was a letter from his birthmom, and then I made up the words that I thought a child would want to hear from their first mom. I don’t know why I did that. I just want him to feel love from his birthmom. I need to figure out how to do it without lying for her. Not sure how to do that.
And Kembe. Dear Kembe. It really is two steps forward, one step back with him. Only some days, more like five steps back. His personality the polar opposite of Jafta – assertive and aggressive and parental, even with me. I am struggling with patience, especially with his attitude. Sometimes he is cute and darling, other times he just plain yells at me. He scolds me, rolls his eyes at me, bosses me around, and otherwise acts as if I am a child and he is the parent. It is a difficult dynamic. I need to figure out how to teach him to respect me, without having him be in trouble all the livelong day. Because today, based on his behavior, he could have been in one long time-out pretty much the entire day. Not sure how to do that.
It was a depressing day. But after dinner, we turned on some old hip-hop and had a little dance party in the kitchen. We know how to do that.
My friend Tara has been writing a detailed account of the days following the earthquake. I've been meaning to do this, too, in an attempt to process the whole event. I actually have little scraps of journal entries in word documents that I never posted because most of the time the internet was down. There was something therapeutic for me to sit and write things out, though, and I've yet to try to piece it together into something coherent enough to post. I'm not quite ready. But reading Tara's accounts brought back so many memories - even things I had kind of shoved aside. I think she hits the nail on the head when she talks about the "disassociation" we were all feeling in the days after the quake. She also talked about how sick Karis was - she was throwing up everything she ate during that first 24 hour period. It was terrifying - and I literally wiped it out of my memory until Tara wrote about it.
Anyways, go and read Tara's posts. She writes so well about the experience and really captures what those first few days were like. Her posts are here and here.
Haiti still needs help. You should also go and read this, to understand why people are not getting the help that they need. If you are looking for a place to give and want to make sure your donation gets directly to people in need, I always recommend Heartline Haiti. They have literally converted the boys' former home into a field hospital, and also continue to offer women a safe place to deliver babies and receive care and instruction for their newborns. You can read about the work they are doing at their blog.
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ack by popular demand (and by popular demand, I mean two people asked about it). In case you forgot, the purpose of Keeping It Real is as follows:
I am reminded often that blogging has become a medium for us to present our "best selves": from detailing homemade crafts to posting stunning photos of our kids, a blog can become a show-and-tell for moms that glosses over the hard parts with good lighting and soft filters. I love reading blogs and feeling inspired - really I do - but I sometimes wonder how all of this is setting up our expectations for the daily grind of motherhood. So I've decided to host my own linkup/blog carnival/McLinky/what-have-you. And instead of asking you to link back to your best recipe or your cute homemade birthday party invites or your adorable handmade . . . I'm gonna ask you to link back to a post where you are keeping it real. Maybe you've had poop flung at you from the tires of your son's bike, or dropped raw egg on your shoe, or flashed the audience of a circus while nursing, or spilled a drink down your pants at your child's birthday. Or maybe it's just me.
But something tells that, while the specifics may vary, we've all been there.
I absolutely loved reading through all the links last time - thank you so much to all of you who played along!
For my own confession this time around, I'd like to highlight some of the technical challenges that I live with on a daily basis. First of all, my phone. Not even sure where to start with this one. I started using a Palm Pilot back in the 90's, when it was considered to be an up-and-coming gadget. (Don't judge me. So did you). I was first in line when Palm started making a phone combo. The problem is, I have never converted. My Palm has all my work contacts, my friends' addresses, my schedules and birthdays, and I am just way too intimated to switch to another phone. EVEN THOUGH I KNOW THEY ARE BETTER. Also, my carrier doesn't even make Palm phones. So I keep buying used Palm phones on ebay, and they keep breaking. (Or I drop them in water. Same diff). Currently, I have one semi-working phone, that often powers off in the middle of conversations. But it doesn't charge the battery. So every night I pull the battery out of the (semi) working phone and pop it into an older model that no longer works at all, except to charge the battery. Classy? You betcha.
And then there is the state of my card reader.
Our family television has white lines that cover half the screen. The DVD player breaks every couple of months and we have one techy friend who graciously fixes it for us. The rest of the time we plug in the kid's portable DVD player.
Also, my photo-editing software? Microsoft Paint. The one that comes free with the computer. That's all I know how to use.
(Let's not talk about how long it took me to convert to itunes).
Nevertheless, I've been playing around with my cutting-edge graphics stuff, trying to come up with a new button for this little series. I really wanted to capture the perfect shot of Karis, mid-meltdown. Which means that I've pulled out the camera and taken a picture of her every time she's cried. Here are a few of my favorites:
I think these were nice, but they didn't capture the full two-barrel snot cry as well as this one did:
And why are her lips so red, you may be asking? Oh, that's because she likes to eat magic markers. And I find her (or Kembe finds her) huddle in a corner eating a magic marker every day. Since we're keeping it real, let me also confess that she has often gotten through several colors by the time she is discovered.
All right, your turn. Let us in on some of your real moments. It can be a new blog post or one you've written in the past. (Doesn't have to be about technology, just has to be honest). The final button is below, if you wanna grab it for your own post.
Oh, and how could I leave you without some stunning photos of my St. Patrick's day creation?
Just after Karis was born, my friend Heather sent me a little homemade gift for our family. I've never even met her in person, which made it all the more generous. Heather is one of my co-writers at Mama Manifesto, and has her own gorgeous and creative blog at Cookie Mondays, Ice Cream Sundays. She made an adorable set of letter shirts for my kids, and sent it to me over the summer. When I opened the shirts and saw the fourth shirt, with a K, I cried. It meant so much to me that she acknowledged that I had four kids, even though one was still living in Haiti.
Now that I have all four kids together, I love putting them in their matching shirts. They are all laid out for tomorrow because we have a doctor appointment for all four kids. That's right . . . ALL FOUR. Kembe's test came back positive for some intestinal parasites, and after finding out we were given strict instructions to make sure he did not take baths with other children since it is contagious. Um . . . oops. Too late. So I will be begging the doctor to treat all four kids without making me collect any more samples. I just don't think I can do that for three more kids.
Here's hoping that tomorrow I leave that office with four little prescriptions, and not a bag full of tiny collection vials.
Mark and I bought our house about seven years ago. It's a very old house, and not many repairs had been made since it was built, so we've had a fair share of problems. One of those issues was the main sewage line in our front yard. Tree roots had intertwined around the pipe, and were growing and blocking the passage of water. Every couple of months, this sewer line would get so backed up that our toilets and showers would start draining slowly. Eventually, they would start backing up. The whole house would stink. We had a plumber come out and diagnose the problem the first time it happened. He could snake the drain out to the main line for about $250. Or we could repair the main line completely and permanently, for $5000.
Repairing the main line seemed like an impossible expense. So for several years, instead of dealing with the issue, we lived in crisis management mode. We ignored the problem until things got really bad, and then every 3-6 months we would get desperate enough to call a plumber to snake the drain again.
After about three years of this, we realized that paying to fix the problem was the right thing to do. It seemed like an insane amount of money at the time. We didn't have the money. We didn't want to spend the money. But we knew we needed to fix the root of the problem, because not fixing it would be more expensive in the long run.
Because sometimes, you have to spend money in the short-term to save money in the long-term. Especially when there are problems that are making you sick.
Today the healthcare reform bill passed, and there is legitimate concern over how much money it will cost. However, I believe that despite it's initial cost, is still the right thing to do. According to predictions, my tax bracket won't actually be affected. But I say this with all sincerity: if I did have to pay a couple percentage points to assure that all Americans have access to adequate healthcare? That would be just fine with me. Living in a wealthy country where a person can be dropped from their insurance for being sick - this is inhumane.
(The bipartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that healthcare reform will cut the nation's deficit by more than a trillion dollars over 20 years . A great article explaining how it can achieve that reduction of national debt is here.)Tweet
I've been thinking a lot lately about the paradox of choice - the idea that when people have more choices, it actually leads to greater anxiety. Kembe's homecoming from Haiti has caused me to analyze many of the ways we live life here in America. I am not one of those people who subscribes to the idea that internationally adopted children are "lucky" because they now get to grow up in America. I think that children benefit from life in a family instead of an institution, but I really believe that there are pros and cons to every culture. I am aware of some of the benefits he gets from living in America - certainly education, safety, and privilege being at the forefront. But I am also humble enough to think through some of the parts of our lifestyle that might be less than ideal.
I am often introspective about the contrast between our family life and his life at the orphanage, and one of the things that stands out is the amount of choices we have here. I'm not always sure this is a good thing. At the orphanage, life was very predictable. The nannies didn't have to make a lot of choices. They wore scrubs every day, and had few distractions from caring for the children. The kids had a set schedule each day. They weren't going to Disneyland or running errands. But they were content.
I'm really wondering about how to simplify our life. I'm starting to wonder how the reduction of choices might affect our family in positive ways. What if we had less clothing? What if we went fewer places? What if we drastically pared down our meals, our errands, our toys, our activities?
I don't have any answers or big revelations yet. But it's what I'm chewing on today. That, and some orange Tic-Tacs.
Speaking of choices, Kembe chose his own outfit today. Board shorts, plaid shirt, beanie, sandals. I think he is looking like a Southern California kid!
I feel like we are spinning our wheels these days. There is still so much uncertainty as to how to finalize Kembe's adoption. After several weeks of seemingly endless phone calls and forms, I did at least get the beloved state health insurance card in the mail. When it arrived, I held it up like the father held up Simba in the beginning of the Lion King movie. I might have sung a little operatic "Aaaaahhhhhh!!" I was a little excited. A lack of health insurance is all fun and games, until it happens to you.
Now, we are left with the task of trying to adopt him in the US, and trying to immigrate him to the US. Two distinctly unrelated processes, both of which I am hoping to do without an attorney. I filed our adoption application with our local courthouse, who may have been, collectively, the most rude and unhelpful group of people ever gather in one office. They refused to answer any of my questions because it might be giving out legal advice.
"Where do I find the top sheet for turning in these forms?"
"I'm sorry, we can't give out legal advice"
"How late are you open tomorrow?"
"I'm sorry, we can't give out legal advice"
"Can I use this pen?"
"I'm sorry, we can't give out legal advice"
Good times. Fortunately we seem to be making a little headway there, and have figured out that we need a post-placement visit and we should (hopefully) be good to go. But don't quote me on that. I can't give out legal advice.
USCIS remains supremely unhelpful. Phone calls to their number usually take you through a 30 minute labyrinth of unhelpful automated messages, after which you hear a dial tone and realize that the call has ended. Every time I have finally gotten through to someone, I am told that they are still working on what the process will be for Haitian children. I did learn that we had to take Kembe for an immigration medical exam. This had to be performed by a civil surgeon, and of course none of the doctors at the free clinic where he has been seen are civil surgeons. And of course they don't accept his shiny new state medical card. So yesterday morning Mark drove him all the way down to Laguna, to another free clinic that has a civil surgeon, only to be told that they refused to see him because we do not have any papers from a US court saying we are his guardians.
Another wasted morning.
As someone who likes efficiency and getting things done, and as someone with an extremely limited amount of time on her hands, I can't tell you how infuriating this stuff is. And really, this is only the tip of the iceburg. I just don't feel like actually writing out all of the annoying interchanges and phone calls and wasted trips we've had over the last few weeks. Except I will tell you that at one point, our family was kicked out of the Orange County family courthouse, because the line to file papers was about two hours long, and the line wrapped around the open doors of a courtoom so that our kids could be heard during the proceedings. So apparently the next time we have to go up there, we will have to leave the kids at home. Note to self: DO NOT BRING FAMILY TO FAMILY COURT.
We keep getting all these wonderful emails about teleconferences and books and medical needs and counseling opportunities for parents of Haitian children who were "traumatized by the earthquake". I would like to take this opportunity to tell the DHHS, CDC, Joint Council on Adoption, PEAR, and any other entity concerned about these kids: give us a straightforward adoption process, so that we can stop spending our time on this crap and actually focus on the needs of our kids. The best thing we can give these kids right now is parents who completely exhausted by this administrative and political nightmare. I hate how distracted this is making me. I hate that as I look at our calendar, any family time we have in the next two weeks will likely be spend filing papers or driving to the courthouse or at a doctor's office.
Wah. Can you tell we are ready for this part to be over?
On a more positive note, I am absolutely thrilled that daylight saving time is here. Yes, it stinks to lose an hour of sleep for one night. But I absolutely love the longer days, and the fact that my kids can play outdoors in the evening. I am looking forward to establishing our post-dinner family walks again. Oh, and Kembe will no longer be rolling the neighborhood on the princess bike, now that he's got his very own Mongoose. Now, if only I can get India out of her chariot/stroller and onto that princess bike.
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I got a Stuff White People Like flip calendar for Christmas. I am enjoying it very much. This was last night's entry:
The Daily Show/Colbert makes up a duo that is held in such high regard by white people that to criticize it would be the equivalent of setting the pope on fire in Italy in 1822. It just isn’t done, in fact it isn’t even considered!
White people love to make fun of politics, especially right wing politics. It’s a pretty easy target and makes for some decent humor, but white people are actually starting to believe that these two shows are becoming legitimate news sources.
“Oh, I don’t watch the news,” they will say. “I watch the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. You know, studies show that viewers of those shows are more educated than people who watch Fox News or CNN.”
White women all consider John Stewart to be the most perfect man on the planet. This is not a debate, it is law.
I can neither confirm not deny the truth of that statement.
I can tell you that my sister read the whole Stuff White People Like book and believed it to be written exclusively about me. (There is even a chapter on hating people who wear Ed Hardy. Yes. This book IS about me).
I don't actually believe this book or blog represents all white people, but I do think it makes some funny commentary on a certain demographic of caucasian folks. I'm having fun identifying with it, and I'm even feel a little pride in my whiteness as I read the things, both silly and serious and mortifying, that we white people like.
And yes. I did just say "pride in my whiteness". Let me explain.
As I've tried to dive deeper into racial equality and what that all means, I've actually noticed three things that hinder racial tolerance from white people. I really have no research to back this up. Other than being white for a long time, and being around a lot of other white people.
The first things I notice is defensiveness. We feel very defensive in discussions of race, because oftentimes the only time we unpack what it means to be "white" is in reference to racism. We don't have a healthy self-esteem or even an identity in regards to our own race - and therefore we move into a posture of avoiding blame instead of assuming responsibility. This is what people with low self-esteem do in relationships. It's the reason why improving self-esteem is the first step in counseling an abuser. Better self-esteem and a sense of healthy identity leads to a great ability to empathize with others.
The second thing I notice is that white people assume that white is not a culture (or worse, that white is just "normal"). Even the word "ethnic" refers to someone being non-white . . . as if white is the absence of ethnicity. We are unable to identify our specific cultural habits because they are so pervasive - so instead of owning our whiteness as a culture, we view it as "just the way things are." And then we expect everyone else to assimilate to our cultural norms that we don't even recognize as our own culture.
This leads me to my third observation, which is that white people feel threatened by the cultural expressions of others. Because we don't get our own culture, we get resentful when others celebrate their own. This is the reason people get perturbed when there is a Mexican fiesta at their child's school. It's the reason people whine about why we have black history month. It's the reason people ask a question like, when is it gonna be OUR day? (spoiler alert: if you live in America, it's EVERY DAY).
All that to say, I have a theory. I think that if white people start to understand what it means to be white, that they will actually relate to people of color with less defensiveness. If we celebrate what we like about our culture, we don't need to feel threatened by celebrating the culture of another. If we understand the negative aspects of our culture and we commit to making changes, then we don't have to feel defensive in owning the history of oppression that is also inherent with being white.
Now, is all of that going to happen by reading Stuff White People Like? No. But it might be a baby step in looking into what makes white culture unique. And then, we might dig a little deeper and read Stuff White People Do. Okay, some heavier stuff there. Then we might take a deep breath and dive into Peggy McIntosh's famous essay on white privilege (because we're getting more comfortable with ourselves, and we can acknowledge the concept of white privilege without self-loathing, right?) Then we might even be ready to read Tim Wise's White Like Me, at which point it becomes abundantly clear that this "white" thing is shaping us, and the world around us, in powerful ways.
And then we celebrate our affinity for Jon Stewart and Banana Republic and Whole Foods, while at the same time having enough humility to be mindful of the ways our white privilege might come into play.
Like when we write this blog post using the first-person plural, creating the narrative that our readers are also white and not considering how this might alienate/annoy any non-white readers.
Uh-huh.
And then we keep trudging along in this imperfect journey . . .
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In all of the adoption books we read in preparation for Kembe's homecoming, the experts described a honeymoon period, which would be followed by a period of limit-testing and acting out.
We had a wonderful first couple of weeks. Oh my word, it was lovely. Kembe was happy and exuberant most of the time. He and his siblings got along so well. He was sad on occasion, but he just cuddled into us, so it was cute and endearing. We were trying to minimize his transition trauma, so we were letting a lot of behaviors slide. It was pretty blissful, but I knew it wouldn't last.
After a few weeks of "choosing our battles", (and by "choosing our battles" I mean "letting him do whatever he wanted") we realized it was time to lay down the rules on a few things.
i.e.: No, you cannot sleep with the plastic knife from dinner No, you cannot play soccer/football in the living room No, you cannot bite Jafta because you want his toy No, you cannot take a tiny bite out of every apple in the apple bowl before deciding on a banana No, you cannot write on the walls with crayons No, you cannot carry your baby sister around the house like a football
In retrospect, it's hard to know if we should have tightened the reigns sooner. We wanted to be gentle with him at first. But I will tell you that after the first few weeks of honeymoon, Kembe was very, very disappointed to discover that he was not going to be in charge of this house. We had a serious battle of Who's The Boss going on for a couple weeks.
Kembe reacted very dramatically to our discipline once we started it, regardless of how minor the request. His response to not getting his way was consistent, and it was loud. We call it the frozen wail. (Not to be confused with the frozen whale). He stands very still, with a frozen expression, and wails at the top of his lungs. Loudly. For a very, very long time.
The first few times, I must admit, we gave in with whatever he wanted just to get him to quiet down. But then we started realizing that he saw this wailing as a currency: he who cries loudest, wins. We started to hold our ground, but we would try to sooth the crying by holding him, comforting him, talking to him softly, etc. After a while we noticed that he started looking almost a little bored with the crying. There would sometimes be a lull when he seemed to be reconsidering, before he would pick it up again. We noticed that if we gave him a funny look, he would even laugh in the middle of it and then start again. We noticed that if he got distracted by a sibling or an activity, the wailing immediately stopped. Still, it felt wrong to just totally ignore a crying kid. So we went through some very difficult weeks where Kembe was very volatile, and there were many long outbursts over not getting his way. It made it hard to leave the house, because we never knew when it would start. We were exhausted by it, the other kids were exhausted by it, and he seemed exhausted too. The charming, silly kid who came home seemed to have been replaced by an angry, unhappy little boy, who did not seem to like us very much.
We explained the whole situation to the therapist we saw, who helped us to see that giving affection and attention to the wailing might be perpetuating the behavior. She gave us permission to stop coddling him when he was upset over not getting his way. We still comfort him when he is sad or hurt or just wanting affection. But we stopped comforting him when he started wailing over a toy or a request to clean.
We also started ignoring the behavior. If he started the wailing, we just left the room. We acted like we didn't even hear it - even though sometimes it was really, really grating. And amazingly, within a few days, the wailing decreased. When he realized it didn't get him anything, he stopped. And oh, the peace that came with that.
We've gotten pretty good at recognizing when he's getting ready to do the wail. Sometimes we will preemptively leave the room when we see him take that frozen stance, and invariably if we peek back in, we can watch him decide to move on and do something else. We've gotten pretty good at wail-averting, and it's been a couple weeks since he's gone into a big, dramatic frozen wailfest.
A couple days ago, I had a friend over and Kembe was sad about having to take turns with a toy. I was out of his line of sight, and he started the wail in front of my friend, who was so caught off guard by his sad demeanor and loud cries that she started to let him bypass the other child's turn. But I walked up and shot him a look - a look that can best be described as a "what you talkin' bout, Willis?" look. And he smiled like he knew he'd been busted. . . and moved on. He's a smart one.
He is understanding more and more that while we love him, we are also in charge. And he is also understanding that no amount of crying is gonna change that. So we've inched just a little closer back to our honeymoon existence. We are watching him relax within our boundaries and the understanding of his place in our family, and we are seeing that silly, happy kid re-emerge. There are still tough days, but there are even more better days. And somehow, through the rough patches, we seem to have emerged with a stronger family bond. We've all been a little ugly to each other - and yet we're all still here. And really, isn't that what family is all about?
Now all I have to do is get him to fall into a tv-induced coma for the 30 minutes that Diego is on. (And to stop calling the soccer ball a football.) Then our family indoctrination will be complete.
We had a great night at church tonight. Mike was speaking on poverty. He referenced the Glenn Beck call for Christians to run from churches promoting social justice (the one that got me hot and bothered last week). He talked about how completely opposite this is from the Jesus we see in scripture. And then, he "went rogue".
He encouraged people who felt that they had an excess, to think about giving. He encouraged people who have skills that they could donate, to meet up and make a list of what they could do. He then asked people who had a serious need to gather and talk about what their needs were, to see about matching them with people there who could help.
Is this socialism? Is this social justice? Who cares. It's what Jesus taught. I'm so glad to be a part of a church that does not abandon clear passages on justice and poverty because it better fits some political ideology. I was moved and proud to be a part of our church tonight.
"If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide you always." (Isa. 58:9-11).
Chapter 3827 in Kristen's series entitled "OMG These Kids Are Growing Up So Fast"
(India's first haircut)
Totally sad, but totally necessary due to the tantrums after every bath when we had to comb it.
I had her sit in the high chair. I cut it myself. I tried to remember watching my mom do it.
Goodbye, cute ringlets of blonde.
Goodbye, baby curls.
Hello, shorter 'do and easier brushing.
When I told India I was going to cut her hair, she asked me to cut it just like Kembe's. So I put it into two-strand twists all over her head. It's her new favorite style.
They are total twinsies now, don't you think? (That's India on the left, in case you couldn't tell).
The following is a piece that ran on NPR last week about the orphan situation in Haiti. I thought this was an even piece showing the complexity of the problem, and revealing the disparity between UNICEF ideology and application. They also allowed someone to speak that is rarely given a voice in this discourse: the affected orphan. Read to the end . . . it's heartbreaking, and there are no easy solutions.
March 9, 2010 Debbie Elliot
Haiti is a country of children. Half the population is under 18 years old. And since the earthquake, it seems kids are everywhere — carrying water buckets, pushing wheelbarrows full of rubble, flying kites and playing with toy cars amid the tents that are now homes.
There also are many children who are alone, orphaned since the Jan. 12 quake that killed more than 200,000.
In a park near the airport road in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, a group of teenage boys are huddled around a radio, listening to Creole rap music. They are not related, but have formed a brotherhood in the disaster. Five of them are living in the park without shelter — or adult supervision.
“After the earthquake, all of us came here to sleep,” 16-year-old Luckson explains through a translator.
Their homes and neighborhoods collapsed in the earthquake. “All my family died,” Luckson says.
Jean, also 16, can’t find his family. “Me, I heard they are somewhere, but I don’t know the place,” he says.
The boys do odd jobs to earn money, like fixing cars that break down on their way to the airport. They share food and try to survive with what little they have, washing out the same clothes they’ve been wearing since the earthquake.
UNICEF estimates that more than 20,000 children lost their parents in the quake and its aftermath. Relatives or neighbors are caring for many of these children. Others, such as the boys in the park, are fending for themselves.
Humanitarian groups are working to track the separated children and reunite families when possible. The children’s names are entered into a searchable database with information about where they used to live and whether they have relatives in the countryside.
Registering Children, Reuniting Families
Late on a recent Friday afternoon, a team of social workers came to register the teenage boys living the park. The workers took photographs and promised to return Monday morning to take them to an orphanage, where they would be cared for and would be able to resume their studies until caregivers can be found.
UNICEF officials say they have registered more than 300 children so far and reunited about a dozen families. It takes detective work, says Marie de la Soudiere, coordinator of UNICEF’s program for separated children in Haiti.
Until caregivers are located, the agency tries to place kids temporarily in orphanages or designated child-safe tents in the spontaneous camps where earthquake victims have settled. Soudiere says there is danger in the chaos of disaster.
“You can take children [who] are lost, and nobody will even find you,” says Soudiere. And you can take advantage of desperate parents “who don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, because their lack of knowledge that aid is coming … then they just say, ‘Take my child,’ ” she says.
Even before the earthquake, Haiti had more than 300,000 orphans. Destitute parents gave up some, and in the worst cases, handed the children over to wealthy families as servants, known asrestaveks in Creole.
Since the earthquake, the government has tightened its watch on child trafficking and temporarily halted adoptions, a move supported by key humanitarian groups.
“No one has the right to take a child out of this country,” says Caryl Stern, president and CEO of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. She says good intentions don’t always result in what’s best for a child.
“You hear frequently in the States, especially, ‘Well, but we can provide for them so much better.’ Where do you draw that line then? So this summer, when it’s really hot and the kids in the ghetto or neighborhoods where they don’t have air conditioning, are we going to pluck those kids and take them to parents who have air conditioning because they can provide for them better?” she asks.
“No one has the right to decide where a child should be except that child’s family,” Stern says.
No Safety Net For Families
But some say the crackdown on adoptions is misplaced.
“In a perfect world … I would love to see international adoption stopped,” says Dixie Bickel, who runs the orphanage God’s Littlest Angels, about 45 minutes outside of Port-au-Prince. “I would love to see Haitians take in and adopt a child without making it a slave in their home,” she says.
Bickel is an American nurse who has lived in Haiti since 1991. There are about 60 children staying at the orphanage now, mostly infants and toddlers she has taken in from other orphanages that were destroyed by the earthquake.
Bickel is frustrated by what she sees as hostility toward orphanages like hers.
“Nobody says a thing because mothers give up their kids in the U.S., because we know they can’t take care of their kids,” she says. “But in Haiti, it’s made to look like it’s an illegal trafficking situation because the mother says, ‘I would rather give up my baby than see it die in my arms.’ ”
Bickel says that until the cultural system in Haiti changes to support families with children, institutions like hers are crucial.
Some U.S. senators, including Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu, believe the influx of international aid after the earthquake provides an opportunity to build a modern child welfare system in Haiti.
“The problem is there’s no safety net of support services in Haiti,” Landrieu says. “And it causes many parents to want to or to be forced to or encouraged to abandon their children.”
For now, UNICEF’s Soudiere says her agency is trying to get emergency assistance to families in crisis.
“If it’s a bit of food and a tent so be it, because it’s criminal that money should be spent on a child in an orphanage, separated from the family, where a quarter of that amount of money could maintain that child at home,” she says.
Shattered Hopes
On Monday morning, the teenage boys living in the Port-au-Prince park are up early, backpacks on, waiting for the social workers to return for them.
“It makes me so happy that I have a chance today,” sings 15-year-old Steve. He says the group wanted to get back to school so they will have a future.
“Me, what I would like is every one of us to have something to do,” he says. “Like if this one could be an engineer, this one could be a doctor, it would be great.”
But something is amiss. Two of the boys do not show up. Over the weekend, they left with foreigners offering food and money. The others didn’t have details, but think they went to a hotel downtown. They are surprised their “brothers” did not return to meet the social workers.
The social workers arrive late, and with bad news. The orphanage won’t take the boys because they are too old. The plan now is to give the boys a tent in one of the settlement camps throughout the city.
The smile fades from Luckson’s face. He doesn’t like the idea.
“We will always stay [here] until we find someone [who] is not lying so they can help us really,” Luckson says.
He sits down on one of the brick garden walls that has been his home since the earthquake. In his pocket is a folded piece of notebook paper, with a poem neatly written in English:
My name is Luckson I’m sixteen years old My mother and father’s dead I don’t have no one to help me I don’t have nobody in haiti My sister and my brother’s dead I’m sleep in the street I don’t have no one to take care me Please lets me go whith you I need adoption. Please help me.
It's been intersesting watching Kembe adjust to the culture here. There are many, many things that translate. One of my favorites is our bedtime routine. In the orphanage, they always read a story out of the children's bible, sand songs, and said prayers. We do the same thing here. I think it is a big comfort for him.
We also have a trampoline, and jumping on the trampoline was his favorite thing to to in Haiti. He spends a lot of time out there with his siblings, laughing and jumping (and showing them up with his flips and stunts).
Other things have not translated so well. We like taking the kids for ice cream. He thinks it's disgusting. I think frozen anything is pretty foreign to him. I have never seen a kid throw a fit over the proclamation "let's go for ice cream!" But that's exactly what happens in our house.
He also hates watching tv. He yells at me whenever I turn it on. My kids don't watch a ton of tv, but it is definitely something in our house that serves a purpose. (And that purpose is me taking a shower in the morning). I've been working really hard to warm him up to watching tv. Never thought I would be saying that . . . I'm training a kid to watch tv. But seriously. Mommy needs a shower.
He's perfectly content to ride a princess bike, or walk around in princess shoes. But for some reason, a pink sippy cup is where he draws the line. He will NOT TOUCH a pink sippy cup. But he's cool with the pink bike with pom poms.
He thinks gloves are awesome. He thinks harmonicas are the coolest thing ever. He doesn't like the carousel. He loves India's bedazzled flip-flops but refused to wear jeans for the first two weeks. He is totally freaked out by the blender. He loves Mexican food, but won't touch potatoes. He will eat a chicken bone cleaner than most adults. He is obsessed with all things camouflage - he got a pair of pants that were camoflauge and he refused to take them off for about a week. I think I finally figured out what that was about:
I am a little uncomfortable with calling myself an "earthquake survivor". When I got back from Haiti, I had my little 15 minutes of fame as all the local news channels clamored to get an interview with the "local Orange County woman who survived the earthquake". It all seemed very overdramatic to me - but I realize (sadly) that people tend to be more interested in a story about someone they identify with. I did the interviews, most of them on my first full day home, because I wanted to use the attention to talk about humanitarian parole. As I saw the stories later, I chuckled at the little liberties they took to make it sound more dramatic, and I rolled my eyes at the descriptor of "earthquake survivor". It doesn't seem a fitting title for someone who doesn't even live in Haiti, for someone who came out unscathed, from someone who took a plane home to a normal life and an intact home.
At the same time, my feelings about the earthquake have been extremely intense. My first month home, I spent hours glued to the television, watching the footage of the devastation in Haiti. If I wasn't watching tv, I was reading stories online. I saw statistics that 1 in 13 people in Port-Au-Prince died that day. And the more I saw of the far-reaching effects of this earthquake, the more unglued I became.
I think we have all struggled with the "why" questions of this disaster. Why Haiti? Why so much loss? Why so much sorrow? Why to a people who have already struggled so much?
In my darker moments - and these have been frequent - I have also struggled with the injustices of survival. Why did I survive this earthquake? Why was I in a structurally sound building? Why did I not struggle with finding food or water in the following days? Why did I get to drive to an embassy and be flown away from the rattling aftershocks? Why did I get to arrive home to balloons and family and friends, while others were still missing loved ones and fighting to survive?
The answer to all of those questions - the irrefutable, undeniable answer - is privilege.
It's not because I am a better person, or have more of God's favor, or because I was more resourceful or more resilient than anyone else. Not by a longshot. Suggestions that God was protecting me . . . those make my stomach churn. Was he not protecting them? All 230,000 of them?
During the last two months, I have watched the news from Haiti in complete horror. I know that we all have - and I've struggled to figure out what a healthy reaction to devastation should be. Is there such a thing? I'm not sure . . . but I know that my thoughts and feelings were frequently not healthy. They have been obsessive and morbid and self-punishing. My fixation was motivated by terror and guilt instead of compassion. I was regularly having panic attacks watching CNN . . . and yet I couldn't not watch.
And then Kembe came home. This should have been a joyous occasion. In many ways, it was. But there was this gnawing realization that his early homecoming was a result of this awful tragedy. How do I celebrate that? Two weeks prior to his homecoming, I sat in a hotel room in Orlando with other adoptive moms, all of us lamenting and commiserating about the length of our adoption process. Never in our wildest dreams would we imagine that our kids would come home in such a short time, AT THE SAME TIME, on the same plane. If someone told us that then, we would have jumped for joy. Instead, their homecoming was somber and stressful. When people have talked about his early homecoming as an answered prayer, I wince.
Of course I am thrilled he is home, but the circumstances have made for a rocky start. For him, for me, for all of us.
I finally saw my doctor a few weeks ago, to talk about my anxiety since the earthquake. As he questioned me to try to get to the source of my anxiety, he asked about what was going on in my life personally that was so troubling. Some current stressors? Something tangible?
And as I sobbed in his office, all I manage to blurt out was that I couldn't fathom the amount of dead people lying under concrete. And thrown in mass graves. And so many amputees. And people living in tents. And still feeling aftershocks. And HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO JUST GO ON WITH MY LIFE WHEN THIS IS A REALITY IN OUR WORLD?
And really. How am I? (Apparently with a generous bottle of Ativan).
I went to church last Sunday for the first time since the earthquake. For me, this is often a space where I can finally get in touch with the spiritual issues that I suppress as I try to keep up with my kids. As the worship songs played over me, I was overcome with emotion for the people of Haiti - for their grief, their pain, their unspeakable sorrow.
I am not a survivor, in their sense of the word. But I feel a connection to their grief in a way that is making it difficult for me to experience any joy right now. I am still trying to figure out how to go on with my life here, as they continue to struggle there. It's a helpless feeling, this survivor guilt.
I don't really think the latest Glen Beck quote needs any editorial from me. (Though I'm probably going to give it. Once my blood pressure returns to a manageable level).
"I'm begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"
I was asked to speak at my very first blogging conference this year. It's the Casual Blogger's Conference (code for "those of us not making a ton of money off this thing"). (Also code for "girl's weekend"). (You should come!)
I'm excited but also getting a wee bit nervous. The topic of the panel I am on is "Blogging Your Faith: How to Incorporate Spirituality". I am starting to panic a bit (as I am prone to do) about whether or not I even know how to do this. I am spiritual -yes - but I often feel very conflicted about how to communicate that on my blog. I never want to alienate people, and I realize that I have readers who don't share my views.
I am also very aware that some of my views on things political and social don't always line up with the traditional Christian camp. I am a Christian, and while I am morally conservative, I am politically liberal, and always striving for tolerance. Because I feel Jesus is often maligned by the very people professing to be Christians, I to tend to take a critical view of mainstream Christianity - a fact that often mortifies my mom. When you add all of these elements together, I think the only thing I can be confident of when blogging about faith is that I am sure to offend everyone at one time or another.
I have to confess that I even feel a little ill-equipped to write about faith, much less speak about writing about faith. I can think of so many bloggers that are very upfront about their Christianity, like Kelly and Amanda and Angie. They seem to have an easier time incorporating their Christianity in their writing, and write so eloquently about their faith . . . but then I wonder how this is received by people who don't share their views. At the same time, I really enjoy some faith writing by people who hold very different spiritual views than mine, like Liz or Cecily or Loralee. And then I am a columnist at CoversantLife, a blog devoted to faith and culture, where I am often astounded by the way people write about their spiritual life in relevant ways.
I seem to live in this tension of wanting to talk about my faith, but not wanting my "Christianese" to leave non-Christians screaming and running for the hills. (Or clicking that X button up there on the right, anyway. THE HORRORS). In my self-important moments, I fancy myself as being some sort of ambassador for a kinder, gentler, more Jesus-like Christianity. A little more love, inclusion, and social justice. A little less intolerance, judgment, and Rush Limbaugh. On other days, I think maybe my "don't jam it down their throats" mentality is just a convenient excuse to avoid my own ambivalence.
So, I'm very curious. If you are a regular blog reader, here or elsewhere, how do you view people writing about their faith? Does it turn you off? Draw you in? Offend you? Encourage you? In your opinion, how is faith and spirituality incorporated most effectively in writing for a diverse audience?
(And yes, this is me trying to get you to write my speaking material for me. Thanks in advance, people. I don't know what the heck I'm doing).
The kids had a book fair at school tonight. Each class was given different instructions for how to dress. India and Kembe's class were supposed to dress like pirates. This was kind of a hard sell for Kembe, since he has no clue what a pirate is. So I made the obvious choice for mothers trying to introduce their Haitian children to pirate culture: I showed him a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. He was sold.
Jafta, on the other hand, was not so easy to convince. His class instructions were to come dressed as his favorite book character. He had seen a copy of the Captain Underpants book in the Book Fair pamplet they sent home, and was dead set that this was his costume of choice. We've visited this before, but again, this is the Captain Underpants costume he fashioned for himself:
After a long and heated discussion about why wearing his underwear and a cape to school would not be appropriate, he finally settled on doing to school dressed as a knight. But only if he could take his sword.
Here are my three swashbuckling heroes, ready for the school book fair:
Now, take a guess what happens two seconds after this shot:
Kisses were administered, admonishments made, and the sword was left at home for the night.
Kembe takes his role as "helper" very seriously. Sometimes I have a hard time believing this kid is the same age as India, because he acts like such a little adult. One of his favorite pastimes is sweeping. I promise - he does this of his own will. And he is remarkably good at it. My other two kids like to pretend to sweep - they sort of push the broom around and then call it a day. Kembe is serious about it. He edges in from the corners and even uses the dustpan. And then he grabs the swiffer.
Here he is on one of his secret playdates with Ryder, where he has somehow managed to talk Ryder into being his assistant. After they swept the house, Kembe ordered Ryder outside, where they swept the leaves off the trampoline. A job I've never even thought of doing.
He has also taken it upon himself to be my little babysitter for Karis. These two have the cutest interaction - they absolutely adore each other. BUT - he is also very keen on scolding her when she decides to get into something that she shouldn't. Which is pretty much every second of the day.
Karis's new favorite pastime is sneaking over to my purse and emptying the contents. She isn't very stealth about it, though, because she then decides to scream and hold the objects she finds above her head. I call this her "exultation". But Kembe has a sharp eye, and he just loves busting her and ripping her newfound toys out of her hands.
After a long and heated discussion about why wearing his underwear and a cape to school would not be appropriate, he finally settled on doing to school dressed as a knight. But only if he could take his sword.
