That's Why She's the Big Sister

Evelyn: " Mama? Did I do the right thing today when Liam was being bad in my room and I threw him out and slammed the door?" (she didn't even wait for me to respond and just kept going) " I like slamming the door on him because he cries and when he cries I know he's thinking about the way he acted."


She did indeed toss him out, he was physically dragged from her room, dumped on the hall floor and then she slammed her door. Twice. In his face.
 He did cry, heart wrenching sobs that I could barely soothe.
But? It WAS kind of funny too.
I mean he shouldn't keep touching her cd's. Right? She's told him. "Alot of times a day for alot of days in a row now. Like googleplex times!"

Things are improving though. Last week when he got tossed out there were three or four doors slams, with his sippy cup, his green stuffed dinosaur and his socks being tossed out on top of him in between slams. Also you could hear this audible "humph!" with each slam. The crime last week was touching her books and dragging more than 2 off at a time.
I guess the Honeymoon is over.
Nothing left to do but laugh, because these two are a circus act, even when emotions are running high.

Let me tell you. After he's done crying? He walks up to her door and scratches on it like a dog until she lets him in, reluctantly. And when he sees that she is still aggravated? He laughs.
Personally I think he orchestrates the whole thing from start to finish.
Can he help it if she's such an easy target? No he can not.
Can she help it if she has control issues? No she can not.
Can I help it if I laugh? No I can not.

Waaaa! Waaaa! Waaaa!

Mama is sick with a bad cold. Like the kind of cold that used to kill people- shoot this one may do me in. I just keep getting worse and worse.
Papa is on duty. That means that there is only me and this virus and the kids in the house-for 24 hours. Lord help us all.
Liam has surgery tomorrow. Ev needs to be schooled. Everyone needs to eat.
I want to claw my face off.  The kids are bored.
The cat is bored and out of tuna.
The house is a wreck.
I think I will just go sit on the couch and mouth breathe and hope for a coma.
If the coma doesn't happen, I guess I will make lunch and feel sorry for myself for having to do it.
Come on coma!

Lament

One of her favorite movies is Kiki's Delivery Service, a Miyazaki film. In the movie, Kiki is a young witch who is able to use her broom and fly off on adventures. Ev stands for hours out in our yard hoping to catch just the right wind to ignite her own "flying magic"and lift her to the sky. This is what she looks like after she gives up for the day.

" I just can't figure out when my flying magic will come Mama. How long do you think it will take?"

Don't be too sad for her, she usually gets a conciliatory treat and a big hug and a "maybe tomorrow!"

I Heart Them

When I saw this picture I got all teared up. I am not sure of it's that she looks so big, or if it's because he is my true partner. Maybe it's because seeing them like this together is like a dream come true. Whatever the reason, I cried. It's like looking at your heart walking around out in the world. It's realizing all at once, in a huge emotional wave, that in all of the world, these two belong to me.

Should We or Shouldn't We

Adopt, that is.
I have read things online recently that send chills of fear up my spine. I hear some people calling for a halt on International Adoption and I have to wonder why. Why do they not want this type of adoption?

I am not only an adoptive mother but, my husband and I adopted Internationally, so I have a little (cough cough) experience in this area. I look at my children and the love I have for them blossoms in my heart and fills me with warm gratitude for being able to care for them and love them and watch them grow.
I am not blind to the fact that our family came at a price.
A big price, and quite frankly, I am not the one who shoulders that pain- they are. They were taken from their country of origin. They will most likely never have answers to the whys and hows of their journey to us, actually a better way to say that is, our journey to them. Because it's true, they had NO CHOICE in the matter. I will never be able to give them a true sense of Chinese Culture, the only thing I could possibly do to breach the gap between their identities is to ensure that they learn the language.
I read the blogs and articles written by other adoptive parents and I learn about how these children hurt. I read about children not wanting to be addressed by their Chinese name, " because no one loved the girl with that name", I read about night terrors and the ever present longing for knowledge of why and who and how come. I remember the deep nearly wordless memories of orphanage life that would tumble out of Evelyn's mouth. I read about kids who remember overheard conversations of their birth families planning their abandonment. And every time I read these things, my heart lurches and jumps and stops and I ache for these children. They have lost so much and yet, so much is expected of them.
I have to look at my kids and other kids and I have to see that they hurt and that I will never be able to understand just how much. Does this pain of separation mean that they should be denied the opportunity to be ensconced in a home with people who are just trying to make the best of a very bad and painful situation?
I don't think so. Maybe that's too easy for me to say.
But I do know that even knowing what I know now, I would do it all over again.
I would adopt these two and 22 more if I could. Because International Adoption is, in my eyes, the best of a bad situation. It's what we have.
My two children are running madly about the house right now, singing nonsense songs and I can not begin to fathom the emptiness we would ALL feel if they were still in China. Yes, they would have their native culture but would they have someone to love them everyday? I can make a pretty good guess that someone in China did love these two, but for whatever the reasons ( too numerous to recount here), the ones that gave them life were unable to keep them. I didn't step in. I didn't save these kids. I needed them, they needed somebody to do something. And so, there was the bandaid of adoption.
I would love it if things in the world were different. I would dance with joy if birth mothers had more support and resources. I want that to happen -globally, but until it does, should we stop trying to give permanent homes to the children that are left in the world with no ties, no permanence?
No, I don't think so.
I would much rather be here to help these kids with the pain that they have.
I see these kids being adopted and I look at the families and I think 'ok good, now lets give them some love and empowerment"
I do realize that I am still sort of focused on what I want and that these kids really have no choice in the matter, they are left, they are adopted and never once can they say " I do not WANT this"
When we get to the end of this ride together, I guess I will hear from the horse's mouth about what my children would have preferred. Until now, we just have to go with what we have. And love and heal and try our very best for these kids.
So I say we should.
Yes!
Adopt.

Backyard Hooligans

We spent all day out back today. Raking leaves and acorns, discussing various fairy behaviors, digging in dirt, riding bikes, eating chalk (guess who), chatting with the neighbors, pushing trucks, playing water carrier and various other activities. It was a nice day, topped off with some hot chocolate.

Deep

Ev has always been the kind of kid that's easy to underestimate. She has that diminutive body, that perfect face and this talk, talkitty , talk kind of personality. You can't call her bubbly, because she has a factory default setting of "stubborn to the nth degree" and really, the things she talks about aren't really shallow. It's just that there's all of this chatter and attention to outward details.
I am her mother and I kind of forget how deep she really is.
Then you have the way she watches movies, very Asberger's in fact. She will get caught up on the detail of a doorframe or something and ask incessantly about it while the movie is rolling along and you think she's missing everything. Except she isn't. You are because you have to answer her, but SHE isn't missing a thing.
Here is what I mean:
Star Wars.
She has watched this about 10 times. And each time we have lots of questions about Leia's hair, the guns, Chewbacca, things like that.
Then one day she and I were talking and I was saying something about selfishness. Not directed to her but I can't remember why we were talking about this, it was, more than likely prompted by her. So then she says, " Oh yeah! Like Luke"
 I say, " Yes. Wait. What?"
And then she says, " Oh you know like in Star Wars how Luke thinks only about himself at first but then he changes and gets better and not so annoying"
And with my jaw on the floor, I say, "Yes, exactly like that"

See what I mean? I didn't process that particular aspect to the story until I was old enough to read Joseph Campbell. cough cough

Then we watched a League of Their Own.
Two weeks later I lost my temper and yelled at her.
Thirty seconds after that I apologized. The she says "oh that's ok Mama I love you even though you are a yelling Mama. It's ok. I see that you are trying. Just like that man in the girl's baseball movie. Like how he was just trying to make himself better because he didn't like himself much. I see you sometimes do that kind of thing like,  (here's where she does this perfect Tom Hanks vibrating and talking through gritted teeth to maintain control impersonation).
I just looked at her, stunned.
I am telling you, had you watched that movie with her and listened to her questions and seen her fidgeting, you would have NEVER in a million years thought that she had grasped such a complex thing.

That's my girl.
Deep as they come.