One of the things one we have acquired through the adoption process, in addition to two new daughters, is a social worker. Case worker sounds nicer, but in my mind I always use the more ominous sounding term. Even though my eldest daughter is about to become one, the word still strikes fear in my freedom loving, homeschooling heart. This morning as I stumbled into the kitchen in search of morning coffee I began a mental list of things I would never want the SW to see.
1. Three empty wine bottles on the kitchen table at 7 AM.
2. What I was wearing when a child climbed into my bed at 4 AM.
3. The outfits my new daughters choose most every morning. I try to edit their clothing before we go out in public, butI don't always remember.
4. My kitchen floor, an hour after it has been swept for the fifth time today. I'm not kidding.
5. The pile of laundry in my bathroom.
6. The number of hard-boiled eggs, bananas and oranges we consume every day. The resulting compost pile on the kitchen counter.
7. How slowly our computer is running since our new daughters have pressed every button and flipped every switch in sight.
8. The way the girls shreiked when they saw their older brother with coconut halves taped under his shirt.
9.The four large lizards we are babysitting for the rest of the semeste
10. The candy I bribed the girls with at the hospital blood lab.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
"Clothes, Mum!"
G got up the other morning with a grumpy face and a demeanor to match. As soon as I came out in the hallway she met me, frowning and muttering, "Clothes, Mum, clothes." She was still wearing her pajama shirt though she had changed her pants; She was clearly unhappy about something.
She led me into her room and opened her middle drawer - the one with the tiny little colored shirt taped on the front, and swept the back of her hand dismissively across the pile of clean shirts - there were probably at least a dozen. "No, Mum," she grumbled, then more insistently, "Clothes!"
At first I tried to interest her in one of the shirts, lifting off the top ones to see if there might be one hidden beneath that was more acceptable, but she continued frowning and whining and writhing about until her little sister entered the room, dressed in a summer outfit I'd picked up on a whim at Walmart yesterday. Then I realized she wanted to wear the matching outfit I'd bought for her.
I stifled a sigh, thinking of how many choices she had, she who just three weeks ago owned nothing. (A friend who adopted at the same time told me she'd acutally been asked by someone if her child came with clothes or was he naked!) G did not come home naked, but she did come wearing one of the many outfits I had brought to Ethiopia for her, since all the clothing in the orphanage was communally owned. Today she had a dresser full of clothing, most of it much more appropriate than the summery, sleeveless shirt she wanted on this 35 degree March morning.
It's hard to blame her - she's just a child. She even had the grace to thank me when I produced the outfit she was looking for from the corner where it had been dropped the night before. But I couldn't help thinking about my own frequent grunbling over the contents of the drawers God has filled for me. Like G, I have nothing outside His gifts to me, but I am so often discontent with the choices I have. I want someone else's talents, someone else's job, someone else's looks, someone else's life. Although I know that "godliness with contentment is great gain," I often don't choose to be content.
I have a restless heart. I don't know if I inherited it with my DNA - my dad changed jobs often and I have heard my mother described as restless - or if I inherited it from Adam, who also was not content with the choices he was given in Eden. Even as I hope to teach my daughters gratitude and contentment, I hope to train my own heart to be more content with what I have received from my good Father.
She led me into her room and opened her middle drawer - the one with the tiny little colored shirt taped on the front, and swept the back of her hand dismissively across the pile of clean shirts - there were probably at least a dozen. "No, Mum," she grumbled, then more insistently, "Clothes!"
At first I tried to interest her in one of the shirts, lifting off the top ones to see if there might be one hidden beneath that was more acceptable, but she continued frowning and whining and writhing about until her little sister entered the room, dressed in a summer outfit I'd picked up on a whim at Walmart yesterday. Then I realized she wanted to wear the matching outfit I'd bought for her.
I stifled a sigh, thinking of how many choices she had, she who just three weeks ago owned nothing. (A friend who adopted at the same time told me she'd acutally been asked by someone if her child came with clothes or was he naked!) G did not come home naked, but she did come wearing one of the many outfits I had brought to Ethiopia for her, since all the clothing in the orphanage was communally owned. Today she had a dresser full of clothing, most of it much more appropriate than the summery, sleeveless shirt she wanted on this 35 degree March morning.
It's hard to blame her - she's just a child. She even had the grace to thank me when I produced the outfit she was looking for from the corner where it had been dropped the night before. But I couldn't help thinking about my own frequent grunbling over the contents of the drawers God has filled for me. Like G, I have nothing outside His gifts to me, but I am so often discontent with the choices I have. I want someone else's talents, someone else's job, someone else's looks, someone else's life. Although I know that "godliness with contentment is great gain," I often don't choose to be content.
I have a restless heart. I don't know if I inherited it with my DNA - my dad changed jobs often and I have heard my mother described as restless - or if I inherited it from Adam, who also was not content with the choices he was given in Eden. Even as I hope to teach my daughters gratitude and contentment, I hope to train my own heart to be more content with what I have received from my good Father.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
A Moment in Time
I am sitting in the dark in a rocking chair next to a bunkbed. Across the room an old mantel still presides over a closed-up fireplace, one of five in our house that feed into a massive central chimney. Our home is built in a style called center-chimney colonial, common in 18th century northern New England. The blond wood bunkbed came from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, purchased from a missionary family who used it for their own children but decided not to move it home at the end of theirten year stay in Asia. They were moving back to the states while we were moving to Malaysia, so we bought some of their furniture and adopted their cat. We used the beds for two years there, and decided we would ship them home to the US when we returned. The children sleeping in the bunkbed were born in Woliso, Ethiopia. We brought them home with us just two weeks ago. The rocking chair belonged to my mother-in-law from Ohio.
I am amazed at how much diverse history and culture have come together in this one, small room. The builders of this house may have never heard of Ethiopia or Malaysia, the Malaysian craftsmen who made the bed and dressers have probably never seen a house that looks like this one. The Ethiopian mother of the children sleeping (actually not sleeping) in the bed has never lived in a house with running water or electricity, has never seen snow or imagined central heat. The children have no notion of the age of the house; they probably think every house in America has big, drafty windows with 24 panes of glass and splintery stairs that creak. The whole combination is bizarre.
But it is all part of a grand plan. The house was built to serve many purposes; one of them,unbeknownst to the craftsmen who built it,was to shelter our family 200 years after the foundation was laid in ancient granite. The used furniture ad on the internet served to provide us not only with bunkbeds, but with a friendship that now extends to the Middle East. When we brought the bunkbed home with us just three years ago we had no idea that we'd be putting two little African girls to sleep in it. My mother-in-law passed away less than two years ago, without ever knowing about the granddaughters who would be rocked to sleep in her lovely, caned chair. The pattern is a mystery to me, I who am merely a thread in a complex design that spans centuries and cultures, encompassing people and places and objects and time. Still, it comforts me as I sit here in the dark, to know an Intention greater and wiser than my own is at work in this room.
I am amazed at how much diverse history and culture have come together in this one, small room. The builders of this house may have never heard of Ethiopia or Malaysia, the Malaysian craftsmen who made the bed and dressers have probably never seen a house that looks like this one. The Ethiopian mother of the children sleeping (actually not sleeping) in the bed has never lived in a house with running water or electricity, has never seen snow or imagined central heat. The children have no notion of the age of the house; they probably think every house in America has big, drafty windows with 24 panes of glass and splintery stairs that creak. The whole combination is bizarre.
But it is all part of a grand plan. The house was built to serve many purposes; one of them,unbeknownst to the craftsmen who built it,was to shelter our family 200 years after the foundation was laid in ancient granite. The used furniture ad on the internet served to provide us not only with bunkbeds, but with a friendship that now extends to the Middle East. When we brought the bunkbed home with us just three years ago we had no idea that we'd be putting two little African girls to sleep in it. My mother-in-law passed away less than two years ago, without ever knowing about the granddaughters who would be rocked to sleep in her lovely, caned chair. The pattern is a mystery to me, I who am merely a thread in a complex design that spans centuries and cultures, encompassing people and places and objects and time. Still, it comforts me as I sit here in the dark, to know an Intention greater and wiser than my own is at work in this room.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Night and Day
Tomorrow marks two weeks home with G and A. This time two weeks ago we were somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. I can't remember much of anything about last week, but today was a really good day, in stark contrast to last evening. The girls were awake late last night - we had gone over to their cousins' house for dinner about 5:30. We didn't leave till 7:30 after two hours of horsing around with 14 year old J and then just racing around while the grownups drank coffee and attempted conversation. By the time we got into the driveway G was stormy and stubborn and refused to leave the car unless I carried her. Since I was already carrying her sister, this was not an entirely reasonable request. To top it off, the dog had pushed open the backdoor while we were gone and run away, so K had to head out immediately to hunt him down, while I tried to get the two little ones up to bed.
I probably should not admit to this online, but when I finally carried G into the house, moaning loudly like some kind of miserable ambulance, I smacked her bottom and told her she'd better cut it out. I have never been much of a spanker, and I signed a solemn vow that I would never use corporal punishment on my adopted children, but my ancient mommy instincts were just too strong. As soon as I did it, I felt like a criminal. My first thought was that she didn't speak enough English to report me, but I remembered how good she is at miming things, and how easy to mime "angry Mommy striking helpless child" would be. Then, too, as she howled in my ear, I just knew she'd learn how to say "child abuse" before the social worker's next visit.
I decided to skip the toothbrushng and carried her straight upstairs to bed, howling and writhing the whole way. She usually sleeps in the bottom bunk with A, and I put them in bed together at first. G's wails became louder and angrier as the minutes wore on, and her mouth was right next to her sister's ear, so I moved A to the top bunk. I sat in the rocking chair beside the bed, trying to look as if I couldn't hear anything, and she bellowed as loudly as she could. The only time I spoke was to warn her she'd better not throw up when she began interspersing her yelling with threatening gagging noises. I felt heartless, yet strangely calm - I guess that's how heartless feels. Finally I picked her up and rocked her until she slowly calmed down. The wails became a little softer, she actually stopped for breath in between. Eventually she stopped crying and I laid her back in the bottom bunk. A was still awake up above, watching the drama with big, round eyes. I asked her if she'd like to move back to bed with G, never thinking she might say no, but she did. The injustice of the elder child being made to sleep in the lower bunk was just too much for her sister, who turned on the sirens again while stiffening her back and sitting bolt upright on her pillow. "How long, Oh Lord," I silently prayed, trying not to invoke an imprecatory Psalm as well.
Finally I gave in. Pretending it was all my idea, I asked her if she would like to sleep on the top bunk, as well. She was all smiles and clambered up immediately. Almost two hours later the two of them were still awake, laughing and giggling, singing songs in Amharic as well as several choruses of "Are You Sleeping, Brother John." I have no idea where they learned that. Although the sounds wafting down through the ceiling grate were happy ones, I dreaded what the next day would be like when the effects of sleep-deprivation kicked in. So, today was a wonderful surprise.
I probably should not admit to this online, but when I finally carried G into the house, moaning loudly like some kind of miserable ambulance, I smacked her bottom and told her she'd better cut it out. I have never been much of a spanker, and I signed a solemn vow that I would never use corporal punishment on my adopted children, but my ancient mommy instincts were just too strong. As soon as I did it, I felt like a criminal. My first thought was that she didn't speak enough English to report me, but I remembered how good she is at miming things, and how easy to mime "angry Mommy striking helpless child" would be. Then, too, as she howled in my ear, I just knew she'd learn how to say "child abuse" before the social worker's next visit.
I decided to skip the toothbrushng and carried her straight upstairs to bed, howling and writhing the whole way. She usually sleeps in the bottom bunk with A, and I put them in bed together at first. G's wails became louder and angrier as the minutes wore on, and her mouth was right next to her sister's ear, so I moved A to the top bunk. I sat in the rocking chair beside the bed, trying to look as if I couldn't hear anything, and she bellowed as loudly as she could. The only time I spoke was to warn her she'd better not throw up when she began interspersing her yelling with threatening gagging noises. I felt heartless, yet strangely calm - I guess that's how heartless feels. Finally I picked her up and rocked her until she slowly calmed down. The wails became a little softer, she actually stopped for breath in between. Eventually she stopped crying and I laid her back in the bottom bunk. A was still awake up above, watching the drama with big, round eyes. I asked her if she'd like to move back to bed with G, never thinking she might say no, but she did. The injustice of the elder child being made to sleep in the lower bunk was just too much for her sister, who turned on the sirens again while stiffening her back and sitting bolt upright on her pillow. "How long, Oh Lord," I silently prayed, trying not to invoke an imprecatory Psalm as well.
Finally I gave in. Pretending it was all my idea, I asked her if she would like to sleep on the top bunk, as well. She was all smiles and clambered up immediately. Almost two hours later the two of them were still awake, laughing and giggling, singing songs in Amharic as well as several choruses of "Are You Sleeping, Brother John." I have no idea where they learned that. Although the sounds wafting down through the ceiling grate were happy ones, I dreaded what the next day would be like when the effects of sleep-deprivation kicked in. So, today was a wonderful surprise.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
You Are Here
My niece sent us a sweet homemade card congratulating us on the adoption of our two youngest daughters. The cover of the card was a collage of paper cutouts, one of which was a circle with the words "You Are Here," like the ones you find on maps at rest stops along the highway. It was probably appropriate for a significant moment in our lives - a moment which changes everything, but it made me long for something more.
Whenever I have consulted one of those all-knowing maps which mysteriously seem to intuit where I am standing at the very moment I look at the map, whether it be at a late night rest stop on an all night trip, or in a multi-level mall in a huge Asian city, it has been able to tell me what I needed to know. On a trip, the map has told me both how far I have come, and how far I have yet to go. At the mall it has enabled me get my bearings and to figure out what direction I should turn to get to my destination, be it the taxi stop, the washroom or a particular store.
This time the circle told me only that I am indeed here, wherever that is. There was no map attached to the smart circle, no labels to suggest where "here" is in relation to anything else. Nothing to orient me in time or space or experience. I'm just here.
So, here I am, surrounded by my contemporaries whose children are mostly grown and on their own. Many have grandchildren, most have college students or graduates, a few have high schoolers, almost none have children who have not yet learned to read. Here I am, trying to divide my time and attention between young adults who still need my love and interest and time, and teenagers who need rides to sports and social events and a mother who has time to arrange for drivers' ed and SAT prep. Between a ten year old who has been displaced from her position as cherished baby of the family and two little foreigners who chatter away in a language I don't understand, and cling to me like their lives depend on it. Here I am, in a very strange place with no road map and no directions.
Here I am at 6 o'clock in the morning when a little dark person in a sleeper with the feet cut off wanders sleepily into my bedroom and climbs into bed beside me, smiling into my puffy, tired eyes. Here I am at six-thirty putting off making my precious coffee so I can serve chai and dabo and muz and betacan to two hungry, insistent children who must eat before they can do anything else. Here I am, slipping away for an hour with my last-born child so we can actually exchange five uninterrupted words, we two who have always had time for each other and finished each others sentences. Here I am, feeling guilty about asking my older daughter to start dinner yet again, because I have to referee the cranky, late-afternoon interactions of two little girls who cannot be reasoned with because they don't understand the words "gentle" and "later" and "tomorrow" and "exhausted." I am definitely Here.
Though the orange circle on the card was not attached to a map, I do have an old, familiar map which I have not pulled out as often lately as I wish to, but I've consulted it enough over the years to remember much of what it says. I hope that I am somewhere near Isaiah 58:10 these days, the place which reads, "if you spend ourselves 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." That's the place I was aiming for when I began this trip. If I'm not there yet, I hope I'm getting closer. For now, all I know is that I'm here.
Whenever I have consulted one of those all-knowing maps which mysteriously seem to intuit where I am standing at the very moment I look at the map, whether it be at a late night rest stop on an all night trip, or in a multi-level mall in a huge Asian city, it has been able to tell me what I needed to know. On a trip, the map has told me both how far I have come, and how far I have yet to go. At the mall it has enabled me get my bearings and to figure out what direction I should turn to get to my destination, be it the taxi stop, the washroom or a particular store.
This time the circle told me only that I am indeed here, wherever that is. There was no map attached to the smart circle, no labels to suggest where "here" is in relation to anything else. Nothing to orient me in time or space or experience. I'm just here.
So, here I am, surrounded by my contemporaries whose children are mostly grown and on their own. Many have grandchildren, most have college students or graduates, a few have high schoolers, almost none have children who have not yet learned to read. Here I am, trying to divide my time and attention between young adults who still need my love and interest and time, and teenagers who need rides to sports and social events and a mother who has time to arrange for drivers' ed and SAT prep. Between a ten year old who has been displaced from her position as cherished baby of the family and two little foreigners who chatter away in a language I don't understand, and cling to me like their lives depend on it. Here I am, in a very strange place with no road map and no directions.
Here I am at 6 o'clock in the morning when a little dark person in a sleeper with the feet cut off wanders sleepily into my bedroom and climbs into bed beside me, smiling into my puffy, tired eyes. Here I am at six-thirty putting off making my precious coffee so I can serve chai and dabo and muz and betacan to two hungry, insistent children who must eat before they can do anything else. Here I am, slipping away for an hour with my last-born child so we can actually exchange five uninterrupted words, we two who have always had time for each other and finished each others sentences. Here I am, feeling guilty about asking my older daughter to start dinner yet again, because I have to referee the cranky, late-afternoon interactions of two little girls who cannot be reasoned with because they don't understand the words "gentle" and "later" and "tomorrow" and "exhausted." I am definitely Here.
Though the orange circle on the card was not attached to a map, I do have an old, familiar map which I have not pulled out as often lately as I wish to, but I've consulted it enough over the years to remember much of what it says. I hope that I am somewhere near Isaiah 58:10 these days, the place which reads, "if you spend ourselves 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." That's the place I was aiming for when I began this trip. If I'm not there yet, I hope I'm getting closer. For now, all I know is that I'm here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)