The Antidote

Christmas 2014

Dear Esneider,

I think you are so brave to come to a new country, with a new language and new family.  I can’t wait until you learn English even better so that we can fully know what you are thinking.  I can tell that you are a creative, imaginative, passionate person.  It still seems like a dream to have you with us.  We prayed and planned and wanted you for so long and now you are finally here, sharing our lives with us!

I can see already that you are going to become a noble man, working to please God in the same way you try so hard with us.  We are so glad to have you as part of our family.  Things may be a little different than you expected, but we can tell you this:  Matthew will be a good friend for you.  He is loyal, imaginative and noble.  You are very different from him in some ways, but that can be an asset on any team.  Our family is like a team that works together and encourages each other to be his best. 

Older sisters aren’t always home, but when they are, they can be a lot of fun!  Mom and Dad wish we could just have fun and  play more often, but God has given us the very important job of teaching you the lessons that He wants you to learn.  We will always try to do what God says in the Bible because we are ultimately accountable to him.  He loves you as we do.  He gives us families to show us a picture of his love for us.  When we learn to love and obey in a family, we can better love and obey God our father when we become adults.  We are so thankful for you.  I hope that you will soon know how much we love you and that you can trust us to do what is best for you.  We will continue to ask God to help us in parenting you. We thank God for bringing you into our family.  We are so proud of you and how well you are doing.   I love you, Mom

(translated for him by older sister and Google.  Wanted to make sure this one was accurate.)

Whew!

Well, I apologize for not posting for so long.  Two reasons:  I am really just that busy and tired AND it’s tough to decide what to post and what to keep private.  We have experienced many surprises in our journey of adoption. The first of which is that our little boy does not have as many special needs as we expected.  He has ADHD and he is an older adopted child.  As I suspected, his other delays have mostly resolved.  They say children from an orphanage are about 2 years behind, but NOT SO in our case.  He is right on track and ahead of the game on some ways.  He has learned the basics as well as academics pretty quickly. 

At first, as Jeff says, it was a little like having a toddler in a 9 year old body.  The language barrier, the house safety and personal boundary issues, the pet rules, were all the same as we have taught our toddlers.  As much as I resented the term language barrier, I surrender and use it now because it is in fact a barrier.  My flippant catch phrase was always, “It’s not Swahili, it’s Spanish—comprendo?”   Conversational Spanish and even Adoptive Family Spanish—not a problem.  Trying to articulate the complexity of the values and ideas that need to be presented and understood—big challenge.  Thank God for Google Translate.

We have struggled most with the twinning issue.  We are committed to making our situation work, with God’s help, but I would not recommend twinning to anyone considering it.  Our boys are six months apart.  Because of their opposite personalities, we have seen a lot of jealousy on the part of the new one.  Everyone suspects the opposite, but because of Matthew’s nature and special needs, he really has been prepared to share his toys, his parents, his help, everything with a new brother for many months.  Unfortunately, the new brother is not able to share as readily.  I didn’t realize what an issue ownership can produce. Also, with Matthew's needs, we were advised to either get a waiting child because so much information is available about them, or do a hosting/fostering situation first.  This is excellent advice and I pass it on. 

Our new guy has many struggles, but overall, each day is an improvement.  And to follow my previous car analogy, when we do hit a bump in the road, we are at first surprised and then reminded of what a rough road he has had.  We made it through Christmas with only 2 meltdowns.  And thanks to Jen Hatmaker’s post on living with people that sabotage big days, I had a letter prepared to reinforce the fact that we love him and want him and understand his efforts and are so proud of him. (see next/previous post to read the letter--"the Antidote"). I didn’t get ahead of putting the ornaments on the tree, though.  I have never made 5 keepsake ornaments so quickly in all my life as I did the day we decorated the tree and I realized he didn’t have any. 

I am thankful I am homeschooling the boys.  We are intentional about giving them time apart and giving individual attention to each boy.  Spending the day with the boys helps with bonding and keeping consistency.  The social worker suggested sending our new one to school if the relationship between the boys didn’t improve, but we have decided to keep them both home for now.  We will reevaluate each year as we did with the girls.

We are in or near the language bubble phase with older adopted children where they have forgotten about half of their native language and only know about half of their new language.  We have been diligent about being around our bilingual friends and letting him watch videos in both languages, but it is still happening.  It is extra bad because he thinks he understands what we mean, but many times he doesn’t fully understand it correctly and in his defensiveness, everything is taken personally. 

We are still trying to figure out what is situational, what is personality, what is cultural and what is just plain having 2 boys in the house! Some days are downright frightening and some days are just as I imagined when we were dreaming and planning this whole deal.  I hope that anyone reading this feels free to contact me with any specific questions.  I would be more than happy to share from our experience. (celebr8yourlife2@yahoo.com)

The most important thing I can share is to shower them often with acceptance, love, affirmation, and a vision for their bright future.  I have found that to be the answer to most situations have arisen so far.  I will not continue to post because I don’t know how much to share.  I forget about the deep shame that can be associated with adoption since we are coming at it from the desiring, pursuing, choosing side of the situation.  I will wait until I can ask Esneider for permission to share things.