She told her teacher yesterday, “I knew kindergarten would be fun, but I didn’t know it would be this fun.” And then gave a little leap of joy.
That’s my girl!
Category: Other Page 111 of 181
Yeah….I would keep an eye on that one too, Lily.
Classic Josiah: Pants too big; mismatched socks.
See? I really am taller. We are not twins. Just to clear that up, since there has been some confusion!
Hmmm.
Okay.
How do I say this?
The beginning.
Do you remember how I said we fell in love with this little guy?
No? You don’t remember absolutely everything I write?
Well then. We did. Fall in love with him.
I guess we fell in love with lots of them. But this little guy? Well, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. And I found out that he is, indeed, available for adoption. So I started praying for a family for him.
But I never really thought it could be us. Because all along, all these years, I understood that social welfare only let you foster/adopt one child at a time.
But then, I ran into our lawyer. Introduced her to Lily. Chatted a bit, and on a whim, I asked her, “Does the law state that you can only foster one at a time?”
And she blew me away by saying No. She said that almost always, it’s the decision of the social workers to only allow one at a time. But it is not prohibited in the law. Just like the law does not limit the number of children a family can adopt–even though the social workers usually try to limit it to Two.
But as you know, over a year ago, the big kahuna at social welfare gave us permission to apply for Three. He is a very good guy. He is very pro-adoption.
So we prayed. And we thought.
We have always wanted four children. If we wait until Lily’s adoption is finalized to apply for a fourth, we won’t have time to complete it before our home assignment (two years from now). So that means that we won’t be able to apply again for three years. Meaning it could be four years until we get our fourth child.
We would rather not wait that long.
And there’s a little boy who is perfect for us, waiting for a family right now.
Now, don’t jump the gun here and get too excited. This is a long shot. Truly. In fact, I almost didn’t tell you about it because it really is a long shot. Getting permission to take this little boy (essentially, to foster two unrelated children at once), is almost unprecedented. There is no law preventing it. But that doesn’t mean it will happen.
But we decided to publicize this because the more people are praying, the better.
So, look at that little face, and pray. Please!
Gil and I went to social welfare last week. The person we wanted to see is traveling and won’t be back until November. So we will go again then. If he says yes, it would be a matter of months, not years, until we could bring the the little guy home.
Because, of course, our lives are not quite crazy enough yet.
I meant to introduce you to Sam a while ago, but considering that she moved in with us just three days before we brought home Lily….well, I’ve been a bit pre-occupied.
Sam is the student who is living with us this year. She is a junior and she is South African (yes, there are Africans of European decent, just as there are Americans of European decent) which means, of course, that she has a fabulous accent and insists on teaching my kids to say to-MAH-to.
Sam spent her childhood in Tanzania. We got to know her family well during our early years here, and then her parents were called to serve in a different country, where they’ve been for the past few years. There hasn’t been a good schooling option for Sam in that country, so they decided to send her back to HOPAC, which is where she has always felt most at home. But HOPAC is not a boarding school, so…..we offered to have her live with us. We had such a great experience with Maggie last year (who is settled now at Stanford, by the way), that we decided to do it again with another student.
And Sam has been a wonderful addition to our family. She entered into all our chaos with flexibility and a willingess to help however she could. She is our permanent baby-sitter and is another source of laughter and color in our house. And hopefully she likes us, considering that Gil is her Bible teacher and her soccer coach….so she can’t really get away from us!
How does a little girl become a daughter?
Is it because she grew in your womb?
Is it because of a name on a dotted line?
Is it a decision?
A feeling?
Because she looks like you?
I’ve read a lot about attachment and bonding. What’s interesting is that even though the experts emphasize how important it is, they don’t even really know what it is or where it comes from. Obviously it’s not all biological, judging from the atrocious behavior of some birthmothers. And the way that adoptive mothers would lay down their lives for a child not of their race, color, body.
I’ve never written about bonding here. And I know that’s because with my other two kids, I was extraordinarily insecure about it. I did not feel instant connection with my children. They felt like strangers at first; someone else’s kids. And that made me feel like something was wrong with me. I devotedly, dutifully took care of them….but it all felt very, very strange. But of course, when everyone says to you, “Oh, you must be so happy!” and “Aren’t you just so much in love?” I would smile and say, “Oh yes, yes, of course!” and wonder why it was so hard to actually feel that way. And when my children would reach for a stranger and hug her the same way they hugged me, I felt a knife go through me.
But it happened. I don’t even know when; there wasn’t an instant difference from one day to the next. I just knew that one day I looked back and knew I would lay my life down for these children; that I loved them more than life itself; that they were of my flesh, my heart, my soul. That their smiles made me happier than anything else.
So this time, with Lily, has been completely different for me. It’s not that I felt any different at first: She still felt like a stranger; I still had to fight feelings that she didn’t belong; taking care of her was a duty. And she was not very happy with me either. But I wasn’t stressed about it. I knew how to anticipate what I would feel….but I also knew that it would change.
And because I’ve been able to feel much more objective this time, it’s been so much more interesting to me to sit back and watch the attachment happen–in Lily, in my family, in myself. It’s such an amazing process. A child who once belonged to no one, now belonging to us. Us. And she’s realizing it, and we’re realizing it.
She was outside yesterday, and she fell and hurt herself. Barely hurt herself, of course, but she is a bit of a drama queen (what two-year-old isn’t?) and she screamed. But she screamed for me. “Mommy!”
Very good sign.
She runs and hugs Daddy and Grace when they come home. She comes to me when she wants food. She brings me my phone or my purse or my shoes….all the time, even when I don’t ask for them! And last night, for the first time, she said to me, “I want kiss.” Meaning, “I want to kiss you.” She wanted to give me a kiss.
And I wanted her to kiss me. Every day she gets cuter. I don’t know if that’s because she is changing or because I see her differently. Probably both. Her eyes gain more expression every day. Her excitement for life increases every day. She understands more, speaks more, dances more. It’s a beautiful thing to behold: A little girl becoming a daughter.
She still grabs on to any woman who comes through our door. But I just laugh. Old habits die hard. She’ll learn. I did.
