One Week Down – Practical and Theological Meditations
Dear Family and Friends, Whew! Late last night marked one week home for us and our new family members. It’s been a week of highs and lows. Here on Saturday with all kids in bed, John and I are finally coming up for air.
We have been trying to grasp the organizational changes that have to take place as a result of going overnight from two children to five. We also are wrestling with the whole issue of how to integrate our two distinct family groups. Forming of bonds of attachment with our new children is key, but how to do this without our already-forever two feeling distanced or displaced will be one of the issues we will be facing.
Ruslan, Oksana, and Max have now finished the first week in their new Montessori school. We visited on Monday and stayed longer on Tuesday. On Wednesday and Thursday, Oksana and Max stayed until lunch while Ruslan stayed the whole day. It was a good experience and after their having been out of school for almost three weeks, I’m sure it was a relief for them to be back around other kids. It’s hard to be around grown-ups all the time!
Rus is picking up English by leaps and bounds. The teacher had him do a writing sample in Ukrainian and all of the other kids were fascinated. He has beautiful handwriting. He’s working pretty diligently on his alphabet and on math. He’s had two blue episodes this week (that I am aware of) . The first was at supper the other night when I mentioned something about Gorodyna. He became very downcast and went into his room. The second was this evening when he asked to go to the supermarket. This is something he and I did in Kyiv when we were there. I asked what he wanted and he motioned that he wanted to have a look around. It turned out that he was looking for a special battery that goes in a radio operated car that was John’s when he was younger. I am pretty sure it can only be at Radio Shack or some kind of specialty store. At any rate, it wasn’t there. We have a Radio Shack nearby so we zipped over there, but it was closed. From there we went by Barnes and Noble because I wanted to pick up a few thank you cards. He saw a few games and wanted me to buy them. I figured that he was trying to buy something, really anything, to make the feeling of deprivation go away. When we came home, he went straight to his room. Later in talking with John A. (husband), he said, “Well, he’s just going to have to adjust.” What I hear from adoptive parents in the know, is that adjustment takes the better part of a year. And, when it comes to that feeling of deprivation or cavitation, as my old friend Gerry Donovan called it, some of us never get over trying to fill ourselves full of stuff to make make up for the emptiness we feel.
It turns out that Ruslan is a terrific athelete. We will need to sign him up for our city soccer league.
I have read that keeping older adoptive kids extremely active is important. I can tell that our new three are accustomed to a good bit more physical activity than John and I are. This is yet another affirmation of why Americans are so overweight. We are so sedentary...at least, John and I have been. However, this is now changing rapidly. We’ve pulled out all of the bicycles and are wheeling around the neighborhood at least twice a day. We live next to a great state park which has good trails, so once everybody is bike-worthy we’ll be heading over there for longer rides. Our neighborhood is great for biking...very flat with lots of dead-ends and not much traffic. The challenge with all of the bicycles has been sorting out which bike will belong to whom and also how to store them. With the conversion of the garage into John’s work space, no more room for bikes! I’m contemplating a sort of lean-to arrangement against the back of the house.
Oksana seems to be rolling right along. She, too, had a sinking spell this week. One night we were sitting in the room that she and Ana now share. It had been Ana’s room for a good long time and although we had cleared out about 80% of the toys and accumulated stuff of a little girl’s life, for Oksana, it was overwhelming. She looked around and pointed, saying, “Ana’s, Ana’s, Ana’s.” My intuition was that it seemed that Ana had so much and she had so little. The “Stuff” issue again.
In the orphanage, few children had personal property. When we were there we saw a few older kids wearing headsets for walkmans and the like. Ruslan had a medal he had won for volleyball and Oksana had a small photo album from her trip to
Yes, we Americans are fat in so many ways. We are accustomed to having our “stuff” and what a heavy load it can become. As we live into the reactions of our new family members to the stuff of our present household, it brings into question how much we actually need. Our attic is crammed. I am seized by the impulse to clear out and clean out.
What? It’s not Lent yet, but this feels a bit like Lent. In a way, this is a kind of Lent. Practicing Christians recognize Lent as the time in the church year when we let God strip away parts of our lives that keep us from living as fully into life as we might. As kids, the discipline we embraced was “giving up something for Lent,” and filling up mite boxes with our pennies. As an adult, though, it’s a bit of a stretch from that to the kind of self-emptying that can help us make interior room in our lives.
The experience of bringing home our new family members is bit Lenten as well. The family that we formerly were is no more and that brings its own grief. We are no longer “just the four of us.” In some ways, that was pretty simple. Four people fit pretty easily into most cars and houses. The average American Family has 2.3 kids. (I guess the .3 would cover the pet animals <grin>.) But, four we are no more. Now we are seven. Aside from A.A. Milne, it’s a whole new world. So, something is having to die and the new thing that will be has not yet come fully into being. We are now full of sharp elbows, turf wariness, and potentially sour attitudes that will need to give way to the new thing. All of this brings back worrisome questions. What if our family does not achieve the kind of unity for which John and I hope and pray? What if there is a permanent rift between the two groups of children? These are things that we thought about when we were making the decision to pursue this adoption and now are coming back for a visit. We’ll try to stay aware, but will not be preoccupied by thoughts of what might be.
Max has had some good and bad moments this week. Ruslan said he was very quiet in Gorodyna and very noisy here. It’s true. He is saying “Wow!” a lot, but also really does not like to be told “no” about anything. Today, I had to say “Nyet” and took his hand and gave him a little pop. No pain, just a message. He crumbled into a ball on the floor, then jumped on his bed and started ripping the covers off. He began yelling furiously and probably calling me names. It’s a good thing I didn’t understand. I grabbed him and held on for the ride. He had a huge amount of anger for such a little body. I am guessing, that of all the sibs, that he was the most neglected. He’s five now and, we figure, he’s been in institutional care for at least two years. I am predicting that he will be the one who has the most difficulty. Finally, his anger subsided and then he wouldn’t let me go. It reminded me of the terrible two’s and three’s with John and Ana. Perhaps that’s where he has gotten stuck. So, we will work it through.
This past Friday we visited the International Adoption Clinic at our
It is my intention to continue to journal online. God willing, this will be of value to others. I know it will be to me.
Tomorrow we will visit our home church. I am looking forward to seeing all of the good souls there. I have missed them.
Pax et Bonum to all, Jennie