Baby cries

     I was taking a hiatus.  I wanted to go the whole summer without blogging.
     Nobody likes a whiner.  And it's always the same old drama.  Dis-regulation.  Hypervigilance.  Lack of sleep.  Lying.  Blah. Blah. Blah.  Yada, yada, yada.
     Gonna spare you the gory details of summer share something beautiful instead.  One of those moments I will treasure in my mama heart forever.  THIS.

A nest next to MAMA!!!

       My E has had some especially tough nights.  Like newborn feeding kind of schedules.  We never, ever get angry at him.  I offer to snuggle him when he wakes us up but he always gets upset and resists it. He just wants our "help" when he changes into dry pants, bedding, etc.  Lately it has been goofy stuff like "I heard something naughty outside" or "I was just talking to myself a lot."  I know he is afraid of something but he won't or can't say what.  And I can't comfort or give him peace.
     Tonight we were pulling into the garage from running errands.  Etienne started to apologize for waking me up last night.  I told him no big deal, and then I asked him what I ask him every night.  Every. Single. Night.
"Maybe you are afraid or worried about something and you need me to help you pray about it."
     My E started sobbing.  It was the most real, genuine emotion I have seen from my son.  Deep in his heart kind of gut wrenching sobs.  Big, big tears.  Then he let me climb on to his booster seat.  I got to pick my great big boy up and rock him and he didn't push me or tense up. He just leaned into me and cried.

He told me that he is so afraid that his mom and dad will die without him someday.

He told me he is so afraid that he won't know how to drive a car or read a book or "pay for things."

He told me he is so afraid that he won't know how to tell the truth or respect people without us.

He told me that when his mom and dad die and go to be with Jesus, he wants to too.  

"Because, mom, why wouldn't I want to just be with you and dad and Jesus?"

Then I asked him if he would sleep with me and dad.  He finally, finally said yes.

Hospitable

Hospitality  

    It's funny how God reaches us, isn't it?  This morning I was reading through some scripture on hospitality.  The gift used to be peculiar to me; I didn't really appreciate how welcoming someone into your home could be considered a spiritual gift.  Since my hubs is always looking for a reason to smoke meat and our dining room table is the Imana Kids  HQ, we often have a few extra cars in the driveway or a guest sleeping over.  We dig it.  We're totally hospitable, all six of us.
    A good host has fresh towels out, ice tea chilled and kiddos that keep their clothes on while company is present, right?  Wrong.  This is not the same as hospitality.  This is entertaining.  If my desire is to practice hospitality in the biblical sense, it's not about how clean my bathroom is or whether the boys smell or not.  It's about serving His children.  All of them.  The ones that are easy to love and the ones that press our buttons.  We want to welcome others into our space because that's how God loves others.  He meets them where they're at and welcomes them in.
    Paul wrote a lot about others hosting him.  In one chapter alone, he references a girl named Lydia, a girl who tells fortunes and a prison guard, all of whom he goes on to dine and stay with after becoming baptized (Acts 16).  Strangers became family, just like that.

Being at Home

    What makes a house a home?  I think about how it feels whenever I go to my friend Nicole's house.  She's got lots of kids too and part of the reason I feel comfortable is that I know she gets what it's like to herd cats.  There's always a low level of chaos and that's okay.  In her space, I feel loved, safe and wanted.  I can't recall if she has fresh bath soap or whether there are dishes in her sink.  I know that when I'm there, I can let out a sigh of relief. I'm safe and I'm loved there.
     The Greek word hospitality is philoxenia, which means 'love of strangers'.  I know that Paul talked about showing hospitality to the poor and the brokenhearted, the tax collectors and prostitutes.  But I'm just gonna say it.  There are still many days when I look at my son, whom I know with all my being is my son, and he is so far away and distant and removed.  A stranger to me even though it brings me to tears to admit it.  I need to love that stranger better.  I need to show that stranger whatever I can to so that he can exhale that he is home.
     SO.  So just when I think I can't bend any further, God throws me this. How do I better make my baby boy feel that his family is his home?  What can I do so that he can rest well and have peace in our presence?  There are tangible solutions: empty his room of everything other than a bed, restart our rigid after school routine, eliminate activities.  But I also know that I need to check my own heart.  I gotta let go even more.  Part of being hospitable in a biblical sense is meeting the needs of those around you.  We go in these phases where we think we can jump back in to the rest of the world, doing the American run-around-be-too-busy drama.  What my son really needs is less of that and more of us.

Over and over again. And repeat.

    My kid also needs the kind of mercy and grace that I show my guests.  Instead of raising my voice as he (deliberately) defies me once again, I gotta press on with the kind mommy voice.  You know the one; the after the first-cup-of-coffee voice.  And keep that mommy voice going over and over and over again NOT EXPECTING to be reciprocated, however hard it may be.  Because I know in my heart of hearts that at the end of the day, if I am continuing to correct and discipline and correct and discipline my E, he's going to feel defeated and unaccepted, and ultimately, unloved.  Yuck.  I hate to let that settle. 

    I don't know why it's harder for me to feed the poor and show mercy to the brokenhearted then it is to show patience to my son.  But it is.  I gave up a long time ago into whatever I thought "normal" looked like.  Yet there is still this part of me that wants to change things I can't change; and that's the part of me holding my son back.  Come, Jesus, please come.  I want with all my being for my E to feel at home.  I want him to be able to climb onto my lap and fall asleep feeling safe and wanted and loved.  Home.

    

Tryin' for a snuggle

Hard stuff

     I haven't written much lately because I am just worn out.  We've had a lot of battles to fight.  Hard stuff with Imana Kids.  Hard stuff with our house that won't sell (and deciding to let that battle with the "renter" go).  Hard stuff with our jobs.  And a few weeks ago, hard stuff with my health.  Don't get me wrong; we know our cups run over with blessings.  But we could really use some good news.    
     Sometimes we try to control the hard stuff.  Do we do something, try to move forward, fix it?  Or do we try to rest in  Him?  I often wonder how to find the balance between being God's hands and feet but also being still.  Waiting on Him.  Our adoption has taught us over and over and over again that we have to wait on Him.  We don't have a choice; we can't quickly heal or erase the hurt that orphanage life imprints on a child's heart.  Only our heavenly Father can do that.
     Tonight Etienne was on his second meltdown of the day.  When he gets to spiraling, I've gotten to this place where I can physically separate me from myself...like I watch me in motion.  I think it is the only way that I can respond in an attachment way rather then being angry and mean.  Don't let me fool you, in my head I am screaming and it sometimes takes all my willpower not to swat him.  I made the mistake (again and again) of trying to hold him.  He pushed me away harder and looked panicked.

I said "E, stop, why are you pushing me like that?"  

He said "When I am mad I have to protect myself from you hurting me."

     Kick in the gut.  And the heart.  We've been loving him for almost 5 years. 5 freakin' years.  And still.  His gut instinct is to protect himself from me.  His mama.  Ugh.  This is hard stuff too.
     Do I overreact? Yup, been doing it for years.  Do I get emotional? Always.  Am I a yeller? Not usually, but more now than before I had 4 kids.  Do I hurt my kid?  Oh my.  I pray, no.  But hearing my boy say he has to protect himself from me makes me replay every ugly scenario we've lived.  And people wander why we haven't started spanking him "yet".  Is it my words? Am I mean? Am I over correcting and nagging and ugly?  Sigh.  
     So once again, I am resting. I am waiting.  Be still.  Psalm 46:10..."Be still and know that I am God.  I will be exalted among nations and in the earth."  I have got to let this one go.  I've been trying and trying to be hands and feet to my son but even my hands holding him aren't going to fix it all my son's wounds.   My son whose heart is on the mend.
     

Turning Away

  For 2014, our house has been talking a lot about repentance.  I really like this definition:

Repentance: to turn away, in both mind and heart, from oneself to God

 For my non-Christian loves, Webster's Dictionary defines it like this:

Repentance: 1. deep sorrow, compunction or contrition for a past sin, wrongdoing or the like.  2. regret for past action

     I think all of us would agree that it's really difficult to change a behavior if we just don't care.  Isn't that why I still drink Vanilla Dr Pepper?  I know it's the same reason my pregnant smokers still smoke. We just don't care enough to turn away from past mistakes.

     For Etienne, Ryan and I have really prayed through accepting how some things will always look or (dys)function.  We really don't want to spend our lives nagging and disciplining and running ragged because our son won't change.  Yet we know his loving, squishy heart and we desire for him to live in a way that allows others to see that heart too.  

     Forget the attachment models.  I'm tired.  I just want redemption in one area of our crazy life.  So we've been giving examples of repentance ("see the snot running down Zeke's face from his sobbing? He's sad that his ninja moves took out the plant"), of conviction when we are wrong ("This mama was wrong to freak out about pooping with the door open, it doesn't really matter, it's just gross.").  We've been working on memory verses in the bible.  And, more than anything, we've been specifically praying for Etienne to repent.  

     Friday night Etienne put a hole in the drywall in the bathroom.  Since he's done this a time or two before, Ryan has gotten fairly skilled at the patchwork and repair.  I can sand and paint.  But GEEZ WE JUST DON"T WANT TO SPEND OUR TIME AND MONEY DOING SO!!!!

     When E did the damage, I didn't lose my cool like i did in the above sentence.  I told him I was angry that he did something he's been asked by his parents not to do many, many times.  I made him clean up the immediate mess on the floor.  While he was sweeping the crumbles, he started crying.  Not his fake, manipulative whine but real snotty tears.  He began telling me how he knew dad would be upset when he got home.  I sent him to his room to pray and then I held him on my lap until Ryan got home.

     This is a big deal.  I realize my skeptics will speculate that he cried because he's afraid of his dad.  He's afraid of his dad being upset.  Any of you who know us know that Ryan doesn't raise his voice, we don't physically discipline E and I can count on one hand the times I have seen my man really, really mad.  I don't care about skeptics though.  I care that I saw and heard a little piece of repenting.  Whatever the root of the reason, it doesn't matter.  We start little and we grow these things big.

Baking Bread and stuff

     Etienne's been having some rough days (and nights).  My E has been home from the orphanage for over four years.  But every moment that he was lying in that cold metal crib, away from my arms, damage was done.  We are still reminded of it.  When he stares right through me and tells ridiculous, absurd lies.  At 3 AM, when he wakes us up because's he's taken his shirt off and undone his bed; my brain flashes back to a memory of rows and rows of cribs, all full but silent.  Our poor kiddo, he knows somewhere in his brain all the things he should not do, but he does them anyway.  His lack of self-control makes me sad, and truthfully, fearful of adolescence. The constant battles he fights, they suck.  It's ugly and it's not fair that everything is so hard for him.
     Honestly, it also infuriates me too.  Remember when you were chasing after your two year old all day, keeping them from hurting themselves and constantly finding a nice way to say "no"?  Yes, that.  There are days that I want to scream that he  is still not convinced of our love.
     The thing that helps is those ugly memories of his first home stop.  Thank you God that I can't forget.  Thank you God that You can make good out of the bad.  Thank you God that I today I found empathy with those memories.
     Trying to embrace the attachment thing, even though it makes me want to pull my hair out.  That means E stays by my side.  We decided we'd do some baking.  Molly made bread, E made banana bread and Zeke and I made sweet potato soup.  All at once.  Music blaring, flour flying, everyone talking at once and no one really listening.  It was a blast.  The only thing he broke was eggs.  Lots.  But no lies were told.  He smiled at me and I wasn't pushed away once.  We laughed that Molly's bread tasted like glue and rotten bananas are fun to squish.   We talked about birth moms and yeast and how the Oscars are stupid.  It was messy and loud and grand.

Birthday Boy

Today Ezekiel is 6.  I can't get emotional about it.  I just can't.  He's my baby.  Our last one.  Sniff.  He's also especially quirky and easily celebrated (most of the time).  If you don't know our Zeke, here's a few highlights of his character:

• For his birthday, he asked Ryan and I to sleep in his bed with him.
• The boy can't walk.  He runs, jumps, hops, skips or falls everywhere he goes. 
• Ezekiel's first six weeks home he cried.  If he wasn't crying, he screamed or he hollered.  It was awful.  His eyes were flat and lifeless.  Then, mid cry on Oct 23, 2009, he stopped, looked at me, smiled a goofy grin and reached for me.  He's been our "sparkly eyed smiley face," as Molly calls him, ever since.  It was such crystal clear evidence of God's grace.
• Ezekiel loves spicy anything.  For real.  A lot of children with sensory issues have somewhat subdued or delayed taste buds.  No joke, we are getting the kid a ghost pepper for his "Spicy Party" tomorrow and his cake has a jalapeno on it.
• Yesterday, Zeke got $5 in the mail.  He turned around and tried to give it to Molly for her Rwanda trip.  We stopped him.
• The boy repents.  Big, huge, silent tears.  It is beautiful and genuine.  
• We're still smitten.  Every single day I am so, so grateful that I get to be his mama.

First meeting.  Terrified little buddy with "mzungo" mama.

"Sparkly eyed smiley face"

This is actually a normal nightly tuck in.

Zeke: 47 lbs  Blake: 41 lbs

Wanted.

I asked Ezekiel how his day was.  He said (in his Barry White voice), arms crossed, scowling,

"Great until I got mad at my friend!"

It is really hard for Molly, Blake and me not to giggle when he gets angry.  It's that voice, it kills us every time.  Molly rubs his little dreads as we sit down to get the whole story about why Ezekiel got so mad.

"I was telling all my friends about how I have a birth ("berf") mom in Rwanda.  Then ___said I wasn't wanted by her!"

Ugh.  Another kick in the stomach. Knowing my Zeke-ee baby, I had to remain stoic and play off his reaction.  He gets really emotional ,or really not, depending on the weather.  I decided to hold my own gut wrenching inside for a moment.

"So I told him 'MY MOM STAYED UP ALL NIGHT LONG WORKING TO GET ME AND MY MOM WENT IN AN AIRPLANE FOR 2 DAYS TO GET ME!!  MY WHOLE FAMILY WENT TO BRING ME HOME!!!"

Oh sweet Zeke.  He's been listening.  All the nights that we tell him how much we wanted him. All the snuggles and stories of working extra hours, of waking up early to check our emails, of aching arms as I rocked in my chair, praying my boys home.  He was listening.  I am so grateful that my Zeke is confident in his place in this world.