Oh, yeah! After rejoicing with friends as they received official notice of their dossiers reaching China, we waited for ours. And waited. And waited.
Yesterday we received an email that China HAD indeed logged us in, on September 26th! They just didn't tell our agency.
Next step to Violet Xin Ni...the LOA!
10.13.2011
10.12.2011
Tears in the Rain
This afternoon, I got to learn
Again
Just how hard parenting adopted children can be.
Mia has formed a bad habit of complaining.
I’m sure it has something to do with asserting her independence after years of major compliance in our home since her adoption. I’m sure it also has something to do with just plain old sin.
Last week when Mia was at the hospital for her latest transfusion, we ordered dinner from the cafeteria, but finished the transfusion before it arrived. Miss M was a mess about leaving the unseen pasta. No amount of discussion was working so I offered to make mac and cheese at home VERY SOON.
Speed time to this afternoon. I’m getting things ready for dinner while making homemade chocolate chip cookies to give to a friend. Mia is my helper. But before long, the complaining began.
“I don’t like THOSE noodles.”
“Why can’t I have MORE chocolate chips?”
“How come Jo Jo gets the bowl and I get the beater?”
And on and on.
Finally, I reached my breaking point.
“Mia, I have heard enough complaining. You are done helping me in the kitchen right now. You must go outside and play. When you have a happy heart, you are welcome to come back in and try again.”
You would think I asked the child to walk through a blizzard barefoot. The sobbing. The absolute meltdown.
Her brothers were outside. She was not being sent out alone. She was being dismissed from my presence for being intolerable.
And what did she do?
She walked right out the back door, through our back fence, and up the hill behind our house. Out of sight. And right as she went out, her brothers came in the front door. I was busy making and baking and hustling to get everything done and it took me several minutes to find out what had happened. I sent a brother out after her, but it took a bit to get the boy clued in on what was happening.
By then it was raining. Softly, but raining.
Several minutes later, my husband appeared at the front door holding a sobbing Mia. He found her standing near the church behind our home, alone on a sidewalk, standing in the rain, and crying. Paralyzed and unable to move. The tears of defiance had changed to ones of utter sadness and pain. The kind of pain Mia finds no words to express. The same pain that we see at night. As her Baba held her, she sobbed, huge tears rolling down her cheeks, her shoulders shaking. Wordless when it often counts the most, she was unable to speak. Unable to share what was going on in her world. And so she remained in her daddy’s arms for awhile. Crying.
Our best guess is that she was absolutely overwhelmed with the emotions of the experience…mom saying she had had enough of a bad behavior and being dismissed from her presence…then finding herself alone…and unsure what to do…still mad at the world that she couldn’t have her way and then realizing what it had cost…and not feeling confident enough in our love to find her way back home. Or not really wanting to. Or a little bit of both. It was quite the symbolic place to be found really, halfway between our kitchen and her Baba’s office.
And that is why parenting a hurt child is so darn hard.
There are no easy answers. There are no easy parenting steps. There are so many unknowns about the past that affect behavior in the present. You can’t assume anything with an adopted child. Is she sure that you love her? Who knows! Sure that you will KEEP loving her? Who knows! Sure that you will even KEEP HER? Who knows!
Are children resilient? I hate that phrase. Can they play and look like others? Sure. But deep down, there are psychological wounds that only the Ultimate Physician can heal. And his timing? Now I’m the one who doesn’t know!
Does it scare me to parent a child with these needs? No. Does it break my heart? Yes. And it shows me just how much I need His Spirit in me to patiently help this flower bloom.
Mia, you are precious beyond words. No bad behavior will ever cause me to stop loving you. You have my heart forever.
Again
Just how hard parenting adopted children can be.
Mia has formed a bad habit of complaining.
I’m sure it has something to do with asserting her independence after years of major compliance in our home since her adoption. I’m sure it also has something to do with just plain old sin.
Last week when Mia was at the hospital for her latest transfusion, we ordered dinner from the cafeteria, but finished the transfusion before it arrived. Miss M was a mess about leaving the unseen pasta. No amount of discussion was working so I offered to make mac and cheese at home VERY SOON.
Speed time to this afternoon. I’m getting things ready for dinner while making homemade chocolate chip cookies to give to a friend. Mia is my helper. But before long, the complaining began.
“I don’t like THOSE noodles.”
“Why can’t I have MORE chocolate chips?”
“How come Jo Jo gets the bowl and I get the beater?”
And on and on.
Finally, I reached my breaking point.
“Mia, I have heard enough complaining. You are done helping me in the kitchen right now. You must go outside and play. When you have a happy heart, you are welcome to come back in and try again.”
You would think I asked the child to walk through a blizzard barefoot. The sobbing. The absolute meltdown.
Her brothers were outside. She was not being sent out alone. She was being dismissed from my presence for being intolerable.
And what did she do?
She walked right out the back door, through our back fence, and up the hill behind our house. Out of sight. And right as she went out, her brothers came in the front door. I was busy making and baking and hustling to get everything done and it took me several minutes to find out what had happened. I sent a brother out after her, but it took a bit to get the boy clued in on what was happening.
By then it was raining. Softly, but raining.
Several minutes later, my husband appeared at the front door holding a sobbing Mia. He found her standing near the church behind our home, alone on a sidewalk, standing in the rain, and crying. Paralyzed and unable to move. The tears of defiance had changed to ones of utter sadness and pain. The kind of pain Mia finds no words to express. The same pain that we see at night. As her Baba held her, she sobbed, huge tears rolling down her cheeks, her shoulders shaking. Wordless when it often counts the most, she was unable to speak. Unable to share what was going on in her world. And so she remained in her daddy’s arms for awhile. Crying.
Our best guess is that she was absolutely overwhelmed with the emotions of the experience…mom saying she had had enough of a bad behavior and being dismissed from her presence…then finding herself alone…and unsure what to do…still mad at the world that she couldn’t have her way and then realizing what it had cost…and not feeling confident enough in our love to find her way back home. Or not really wanting to. Or a little bit of both. It was quite the symbolic place to be found really, halfway between our kitchen and her Baba’s office.
And that is why parenting a hurt child is so darn hard.
There are no easy answers. There are no easy parenting steps. There are so many unknowns about the past that affect behavior in the present. You can’t assume anything with an adopted child. Is she sure that you love her? Who knows! Sure that you will KEEP loving her? Who knows! Sure that you will even KEEP HER? Who knows!
Are children resilient? I hate that phrase. Can they play and look like others? Sure. But deep down, there are psychological wounds that only the Ultimate Physician can heal. And his timing? Now I’m the one who doesn’t know!
Does it scare me to parent a child with these needs? No. Does it break my heart? Yes. And it shows me just how much I need His Spirit in me to patiently help this flower bloom.
Mia, you are precious beyond words. No bad behavior will ever cause me to stop loving you. You have my heart forever.
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