Growing Family

Being an Advocate

This year there is a staff member at Small Sun's preschool who is in the habit of saying things like "you're so cute, I'm going to steal you and take you home with me" to the students. Small Sun told me about it a couple weeks ago and I thought "hm, that's not really cool" but let it go.

This week Small Sun told The Captain that he is afraid that Kim* is going to take him away from his family to go live with her. Today, leaving preschool, I overheard her say that again to Small Sun as we were leaving, but I didn't have an opportunity to speak with her.

At dinner tonight Small Sun brought it up again. I asked him if Kim is being funny or serious when she says that (in effort to gauge how he is perceiving it), and he said she is being funny. Then I asked him if he does or does not feel nice when she says it, and he was clear that he does NOT feel nice.

I asked him if he wanted some suggestions of how to get her to stop saying that, and he did. I offered some different phrases he could say, "I don't like it when you say that, please stop" or, "don't say that to me, please." He protested, "I said those things that you said to her already, but she just said it again!" I asked him if he would like to try again to tell her that he doesn't like it, or if he would want me to speak to her for him. He opted for me to speak to her.

I think it is important that we encourage our kids to solve their own problems, and that we provide them tools to do that successfully. I also think it is vital that our kids know that when they ask for our help, when they have a situation where they need us to advocate for them, that our answer is a clear "yes, I will advocate for you."

In this case, I know that the staff member is being affectionate and teasing. However, I don't need to convince Small Sun that he's wrong to take it personally because she doesn't mean anything by it, I need to convince him that his feelings of discomfort are valid and that I will help him work this out.

At the preschool's annual meeting, held tonight, this staff member was not present and so I wasn't able to approach her personally. Instead, I went to his teacher. Let me stop and say, I LOVE LOVE LOVE this preschool, and I LOVE Small Sun's lead teacher. Kudos to her that when I approached her with the situation, she didn't question him either. She queried "is this causing him discomfort?" and when I answered that it was, she said "I understand completely, and I'll take care of it right away." I didn't have to explain adoption loss and questioning permanency, she was clever enough to get there on her own. I SO appreciate that.

Small Sun came home with us from the hospital when he was four days old. He was with his mom until that transition. I don't think he can consciously remember that loss, but unconsciously it is a part of him. Age of placement has nothing to do with feelings of loss and abandonment. Small Sun has only questioned the permanence of his place in our family once or twice. This is definitely the first time I have seen him experience fear or anxiety over the issue.

As parents it is so important that we act out of empathy for our children, not just what is logical to us. I don't ever want Small Sun to keep things like pain surrounding adoption, racist teasing or experiencing racism, questions about first family, or anything like that, from me for fear of hurting me, or me not taking it seriously. I've heard so many accounts from adult adoptees where their parents just didn't get what was happening, and therefor didn't advocate for them. I hope Small Sun feels reassured that whatever it is that he's facing, I'll help him find his way through.

*A made-up name, of course.

Between fog and distinction

Remember The Cloud? Well I think it just wiggled. It hasn't started moving yet, but something's afoot.

Remember The Captain's desires for this next season? Well something big happened on that front this week. It's not really blog-able, which is why I'm being vague and blogging around the issue.

The thing about transition is, even if you know you can't anticipate what will happen next, you try. I have a whole list of next-season scenarios that I'd be ready to embrace. I have a number of locations I'd be interested in moving to. But, just like we thought it would, this opportunity has come totally from left field.

I'm not a sports person, and I don't know which sport "left field" comes from, but in my mind's eye I just see myself standing, oblivious, on a sport field (soccer? football? baseball?) when WHAM, I get hit in the head with the ball. That's about how left field is feeling for me right now. The whole star-halo around the comic book character image comes to mind.

This opportunity could be great, but it is not what I had imagined. This opportunity could be amazing for The Captain, but present major roadblocks to what I want next for our family. 

I'm not really sure what happens next in terms of us working out whether or not this change might be right for us. At the moment I am so homesick that I'm having trouble being objective. I've really been missing Nashville for awhile, and really missing my family.

I'm just trying to get quiet inside so I can hear whatever I need to hear next. I'll keep you posted, as best I can.

I lost my way

It was Saturday morning and I went for a walk by myself. I cut through a park and followed a paved trail under a bridge and into a green corridor. The paved path ended but there was a worn track in the grass so I followed it. I followed the path into woods where it grew narrower and I found myself swinging my arms in front of me to knock down the dewy spiderwebs suspended between the trees.

It wasn't that I was lost-lost. I just wasn't making progress anymore. I was using my energy looking for snakes and waving off webs instead of having the nice walk I'd imagined. So I turned around and retraced my steps back towards the sunlight, and the open green, and the paved path.

This week I realized that I had indeed, lost my way. The walls have been closing in around me. I've been angry with my children and having a miserable time. I forgot that love is action that may result in feelings, rather than the other way around.

I forgot that I get to choose what to draw out of our children; that I create the tone of the home. I forgot that I have a little baby and that I should be moving slowly. I forgot that a four and a half year old needs as many cuddles as a baby. I forgot to look into my childrens' eyes when I was talking to them, or when they were talking to me. I didn't want to look at them because I was busy imagining myself somewhere else with a quiet tea and a magazine and a clean house, or in a successful career with recognition, or in a bath in a gorgeous sun filled bathroom.

Schedules continue, and commitments must be kept - it is still the same life - but I've turned back towards the light and started walking. I feel less cobwebby already.

This is my last year with all of my children at home. The last time in Small Sun's whole life that he will be just a free little boy, catching lizards and building tents in the mornings. The last time Small Sun, Sprout, and Finch will all be home together, one wriggling, rolling, pile of laughs and giggles.

If I stay in the shadows of the woods, I'll miss it. Whatever I'm pining after is not worth it. It's not worth missing this magic.

Somehow along the way I got snagged. Fear got me. I began to cower and tremble within the confines of my choices. Now my vision is clearing, and I'm starting to growl away the fear. We build this life. We define the boundaries. They do not confine me. If I don't like them, I move them. Freedom starts in my heart and flows out into our lives.

I was lost. I'm finding my way out to someplace bigger than the trail I left before.

Hearing from God

After my "Eyes on the Cloud" entry, Mayhem Mama commented:

"How do you find the darn guide points? I feel like I'm constantly trying to rub my eyes clear so I can see the cloud or pillar that I know is supposed to be there."

I wanted to respond to that. For the first several years of writing here I didn't talk about my faith much. I didn't want to be pigeon-holed as a Christian blogger. At the moment, I don't care so much about what people assume about me. I'm too busy living my life to spend time on that.

My faith is a massive part of my life and at this point, to leave it out of my writing is just...dishonest. And, if you've been here for awhile, you know I crave honesty.

There are two parts to my answer for Mayhem Mama.

First, I think "finding the guide points" comes down to hearing from God, right? To me, the most essential bit in hearing from God is whether or not we believe that God speaks to us. Most Christians believe that God speaks to us through the Bible, and that's true. But I also believe that God speaks to me, personally. I think that He wants to talk to me and is talking to me. If I believe God will talk to me, I listen for what He might say. If you don't believe He talks, well then you don't listen, right? Easy enough.

Second, I think God can speak to us in so many different ways. People who grow up in the church have probably heard the "still small voice" description. I hear from God that way. Other ways I personally hear from God are that when I'm focused on hearing, I can close my eyes and watch images play like a movie. The images have meaning and communicate something to me. I might read something in the Bible that stands out to me. I might read or hear something where a certain part is almost highlighted, drawing my attention.

Most of the time when I hear from God, it's not from the Bible or "religious" books. Because, honestly, that's not where I spend most of my time reading. God just points stuff out to me everywhere. I think God can speak to each person in a million different ways, and if we are listening, we are likely to hear all kinds of things from God.

On the "Eyes on the Cloud" topic, the Lord reinforced that message to me again last night, at the movies.

The Captain and I went to see It's Complicated. I didn't go there to hear from God. That movie was so wrong, and so funny, and I just laughed and laughed. I really love houses and real estate and gardens, and design so I noticed a lot of details about the main character's home and property. It was a really beautiful house set in Southern California.

Part of the storyline is that the main character is planning an addition to her house. In the last scene (no spoilers here), it is raining and the contractors and heavy equipment are moving in to start the ground works for the addition. Suddenly -WHAM- I felt the Holy Spirit say "hey! pay attention!" and I almost said out loud "look, she's going to tear up her beautiful house and garden and it's going to get all muddy and wrecked...so that she can build something bigger and better for what's next in her life."

Like I said, I didn't go out to the movies looking for God to speak to me, but I left the movies almost dizzy with being smacked upside the head with the same message God has been speaking to me for weeks. Because I believe God speaks to me, I listened when I felt that nudge, and I'm just adding that to the other things I've heard from Him lately. It is not all hushed and holy. It is just life. God speaks to us in our regular lives. We can set aside special focused time just to listen to God, but we can also just hear from Him in the little things.

What do you think?

Adopting from Haiti

Talk about adopting from Haiti is flying thick and fast around the internet these days. There are such extremely disparate views, held strongly by different groups. I wanted to share a couple things that I've read that held truth for me. Ironically, two of these come from completely opposing paradigms, but both have value.

First, Tonggu Mama gives a good overview of why we need to be careful in our approach to the orphans (real or assumed) of Haiti. Hear, hear!

Next, the Adoptees of Color Roundtable issue a "Statement on Haiti". I don't want to give you information on this through my perspective. I just encourage you go to read it and be challenged by the voices of professional adults who are living the international/transracial adoption life, as well as making it their area of study and work. Really, go read it, now.

And lastly, from a completely different angle, from the perspective of people who approach adoption as something they feel moved by God to do, and pursue primarily in a prayerful way, there's Orphan's Matchbox. Here they're responding with some practical answers to all the people interested in adoption from Haiti, post-quake, but towards the end there are some really good suggestions of what to do if you're interested. I love that they bring up "preparing to parent children from 'hard places'". So much of the Christian pro-adoption movement really glosses over the real (and potentially life-long) physical/emotional/psychological challenges that adopted children may face. So kudos to them for encouraging people's hearts, but also being direct from the get-go about what adoption can entail.