Anna 2.0 (or maybe 2.1)

Call it midlife crisis. Call it adopting three Liberian kids. Call it being a mom of five. Call it self-discovery.

I broke. Ladies and Gents, I broke. The recurring feeling was that of a shattered windshield held together simply by whatever thin sheet runs obscurely through the middle. A complete shattering. A thousand rough-edged pieces held together by who knows what.

But here is the interesting thing, I broke BEFORE the adoption.

Three years ago as this Liberian adoption journey was in its inception, we also decided to once again move across the country. Our youngest was nearly one and I was finally sleeping through the night and had newly regained control of my hormones. I was happy in my life and friends and family. But this is when I broke. This didn't seem like much. A move across the country to a place I'd lived before and loved. An adoption that wasn't even fully fleshed out. Two medium rocks thrown at my windshield and I shattered.

And then the kids did come and it was like that broken glass was ground down into dust.

Three years I've been living in this broken and ground state. Little by little the wind blowing away at the glass dust. I was blowing away into nothingness...a whisper on the wind not to be found or seen.

This blog, though, isn't about the shattering because there is no words for that. You know it. You already feel those shattered parts of your own life.

This blog is about rising as a phoenix out of the ashes. It is about the broken pottery ground down to be reused by the potter.

I want to say that I have finally gotten to a point of healing in my life. I'd like to say that the hard parts are over and I'm returning to my old self. I want to go back to the old Anna. I want desperately to put those windshield pieces back together in this amazing puzzle. I can do that with enough time, right?

I've been trying to put those pieces in their spots...move back to Albuquerque? get in shape? go back to teaching? get rid of these kids? make my house neat? read more Bible? travel to new sites? buy new clothes? counseling? marriage conferences? pretend harder?

Finally after three years, I feel ready to re-emerge. Almost to be born again.  I did some self-discovery using some personality type testing and exploring and I felt like I was getting an understanding of how those pieces might fit together again. It was showing me parts of me I'd forgotten or didn't previously understand. My heart swelled ready and armed with these new discoveries. Ready to be Anna again. Not mom. Not wife. Not homemaker. Not churchgoer. Not ___________ but Anna. I felt invigorated and excited.

I was expressing to some friends how excited I am about this re-emerging of Anna when when friend sagely but simply stated, "But it will be more like an Anna 2.0 won't it."

I felt derailed. No! I don't want a 2.0; I want ME back!

But the thought wouldn't leave me alone. 2.0.....2.0......2.0.....

It took me a full month to even be open to the idea. Once I creaked that possibility the tiniest bit open in my mind, in rushed the truths God has been crushing me for. That's right. He has been crushing me for these truths.

Ezekial 26:36 "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you." He is giving me a new one. I had the words wrong. I wanted to be "redone," "re-emerged," "rediscovered," "refurbished," "reborn," but God was saying he wants to get rid of the old and make me new. 

We all know that no amount of work, no matter how skilled or patient I am with puzzles, will fix that broken windshield. But the phoenix rises from the ashes. He must die and be dust before he can rise again. An old pot must be ground to perfect grit to be used in making a new pot. 

Glass is also the perfect recyclable. Glass can be ground down and melted again and again and again into a new shape. Unlike most recyclables, glass does not degenerate or lose integrity when it is crushed and shaped again. There is a part of me that is a "re" word-I am the same elemental make-up after all- but my dust is being made into something new. Parts of me have blown away. I can never be Anna 1.0 again because some of this dross has blown away.

1 Corinthians 13:12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

I see Anna 2.0 only dimly. Maybe three years ago I could have been made new but I didn't want to see at all, not even dimly. I wanted to be something that was and not something that can be or will be. I clung, and still do at times, to the desperate familiarity and comfort of Anna 1.0. 

The image and feeling I had of being a shattered windshield held together by an invisible plastic sheeting was viscerally painful. But God arose in me the desire for new life to refuse to continue to be blown away. And 2.0 has some serious flaws but the glass will be melted, the edges smoothed.  I can trust God with the process because I have been fully known. He knows who I was and he knows who I will be.

Instant Parents: the review you asked for...

I've had several people say to me, "You have to see the movie Instant Parents." They say it with this enthusiasm that suggests I am going to be enlightened or keel over laughing or that somehow they gained a privileged view into my day. We did see it and probably with more enthusiasm and interest than many of you.

Some aspects of those statements are true. I did laugh. A lot.
I loved this movie and it was much needed.
But, I also hated this movie and it pissed me off.

First, I feel that even though you know this because most of you know me, there are some serious differences between my experience and that depicted in the show (based as I understand it on a true family).  Our older kids are adopted out of an orphanage and not a foster system which are both equally horrible places for children in some cases but present very different issues. Our older children are also from a foreign country which adds the cultural clash that is so difficult to maneuver. Finally, we already had two younger children in the home whose presences creates safety concerns and a horrible division of us (our original family) vs. you (the newer children).

Second, it is in me as the sinful person that I am to vent and tell you all the "awful" things these kids put me through so that you might pity me or rescue me or understand me or not judge me or create some you-are-amazing-and-these-kids-are-miserable-so-just-get-rid-of-them-and-go-back-to-your-easier-life scenario. In the end though, there is a stop in me that won't let me air their dirty laundry so instead I'll air mine.

Down to a review.

I loved this movie. I laughed at the truth of it. I've said some many of those words and done so many of those things. It was accurate. Too accurate. I felt sick in my heart to see myself up there on the screen saying, "Oh, did that hurt? Too bad" or "I guess our life will just basically suck from now on." I was mad that people laughed at how painful it was to watch these parents struggle. It's so funny to watch her wrestle a Barbie out of her hands in a store until I see myself wrestling my adopted child to the ground neither in control of myself or this child. I felt like the audience was laughing at me and I didn't feel very humorous when I shut the door on my injured child to cry it out for the next 45 minutes while I ate a tub of icing.

But, I did love this movie!
I loved the way it reminded me that these kids are hurt. Desperately in need of hope and stability. The movie did a fantastic job of showing the dejectedness of the kids' positions. The repercussions of a blighted childhood. I can't fathom what was taken from adoptive/foster kids of this age range. What devastations have happened in their homes to take them away and yet the absolute love and devotion they have for their mothers or fathers that harmed them. I've seen it as a teacher: kids living in their cars while their parents lock them out of the house for weeks, girls showering their mothers after they come home drunk and high, kids with no food but X-Box's. My foreign adoption experience has been different. There is seemingly no connection to anyone. No one has ever bonded with them and we are just another caregiver in the cache of caregivers and housemothers that they use for survival.
There were only two areas of the movie I felt were inaccurate. The first one connected to this idea of "mommy" and "daddy" and how excited they were to hear it. For my older adopted kids it is a title not a connection. I'm mom but so is their birth-mom and so are the housemothers and so are their orphanage sponsors and so are the adoptive parents who didn't follow through. Most of the foster parents that I have encountered have a similar experience with children that call whoever mom or dad. No reason to get excited about them calling you something that means nothing to them.

I love that this movie ends in hope. I love that it ends in hurt people coming together to do the work necessary to heal as best as they can and become a family. However, the second area of the movie that just pissed me off was the ending. In college, I had a professor who commented that no story is a person's life. That statement resonated with me because I understood that whatever story I am looking at is just a segment of their struggles and victories. It is a snapshot of an unusual event or life-altering occasion. And I get that with this movie. They had to wrap this movie up with a happy ending full of hope and a future with smiles and joy. But, my story hasn't ended yet and it certainly didn't end in pretty dresses and remarkable love at the end of one year. Listen, it's not that my story won't end in pretty dresses and remarkable love, its that there is so much more to go. We have so much more pain to overcome and some much more left to hope for. It goads me to think that for some people it could be so easy. But it infuriates me to feel like people are given this false sense of success and beauty in such a short period. It gives false expectations and makes me feel like failure.

Like they did, I did get a new house out of this deal but it isn't all neat and shiny with lovely windows that represent beauty and hope. It is probably a house like yours full of painful objects to step on in the middle of the night, ripped screen doors, and dirty underwear which you have no idea how it arrived where it is at. Maybe too, your home like ours contains fighting siblings and yelling parents. Mixed in, though, are starting to be sounds of growth and connection. (By the way, if any of you have any walls or cabinets to knock down, I can only imagine how wonderfully therapeutic that could be for me. I'll bring the sledgehammer.)

I love the community connection. I wish, wish, wish, I had the support group sessions that was portrayed in Instant Family. I've met those couples. I've talked with the parents of those kids. The stereotypes are hilarious! Funny enough to warrant that exclamation mark. By far this was my favorite part of the movie- everyone so different and yet the same. Kids and parents alike with hopes and dreams and struggles and joys and fears and a solidarity that comes with understanding or compassion or whatever it is that bonds people together who are in similar struggles. The community has been my lifeline. And to the credit of our local community, we, unlike many we have met, have couples who still dare to invite us to their homes or events. But for many of our comrades-in-arms so to speak, they are shunned, left out, or condemned for their parenting decisions or family sizes or trauma that their families bring with them and set at the table. After all, the noise level we bring alone is truly deafening and often remarked upon at restaurants, doctor's offices, schools, homes, church foyers, playgrounds, birthday parties.... I need you, though! My kids need you. I'll bring earplugs, but don't push us away...take a chance on us.

I loved this movie. Go see it. Even better, go laugh at it.
I hated this movie because it is my unresolved pain out there for you to laugh at.

I'd much rather you laugh and begin to understand than turn away.

Adoption at a Year

One year ago, I was in Africa with the adoption papers newly signed and piles of paperwork to complete before we came home. It would still be three weeks until we were back on American soil beginning the hard work of becoming a healthy family.

This last year has been the hardest year of my life. Adoption is hard. It is a beautiful, ugly, soul-ripping, healing, confusing, enlightening, angering, life-giving time. There is not one feeling whose counterpart I haven't felt in the subsequent 24 hours.

We almost didn't make it. Truth.
There are times still when we don't want to make it. Truth.
I've never been a worse person. Truth.

Between this blog and the last one, I've written a variety of blogs that can't express our journey or shouldn't be shared because they are the product of a damaged person. But, I'm finding my way home to a healthy heart (notice the -ing on finding indicating progress not completion).

For the first few months I hung to the word hope. I felt it was my anchor through the chaos. Life was chaos just think seven virtual strangers living in a home together then add three traumatized kids, parents learning to balance five kids, and two toddlers whose whole world just became a tossed salad when they don't even like veggies. I mean how do you even do laundry for seven people?! But I held on to the fact that there was hope.

Around month seven, I lost my grip on hope and I sunk deep into the waters. I was helped to the surface by friends who endured tearful, complaining phone calls; friends who took our children; my husband whose arm is sore from holding me up; a college student with three horses; a trip away to visit family; and the body of Christ in the form of multiple women's groups who made meals, prayed, and hugged me when they didn't even know why.

At month 10, (October, people, that wasn't that long ago...) we decided to get a kitten and a puppy at the same time. It was too much. The kids were absolutely crazy and the animals were crazy. I broke in half. Split down the middle. I cried from the moment the kids went to school until the moment they came home. I didn't have the energy to get out of the shower. I slept on the floor in a heap. I hid it, of course. Something had to go and it wasn't going to be the new animals...

And there, at month 10, when nothing was left, I got a new word: Immanuel.
God with us.

It's a word for where I was.
It's a word for where I am.
It's a word for where I am headed.

I can't use words to explain my Immanuel. I can't use them because I can't even fully understand it myself. I just know I am not alone. He is present and active and has been the whole time. And you know what else, Immanuel doesn't mean God with ME it means God with US.

My whole family.
He is with Shiloh when she wants to be held and can't be.
He is with Addison when she needs security in a scary world.
He is with Kumba as she finds herself different from her classmates.
He is with Kai as his knowledge is growing faster than his ability to understand.
He is with Gifty when she navigates learning about emotions that she has never been allowed to use.
He is with Jason as he maintains leadership and stability.
He is with me when five kids all want my attention at the same time and I'm making dinner and the puppy is peeing on the floor and the laundry just buzzed and the phone is ringing...all at the same time.
He is with them when I am not.

He is here. He is with me. He brings peace in the chaos.  He even sends someone to bring cinnamon rolls on the same day you thought you were going to get to make some and couldn't.

He knows. He is Immanuel.

Part 2 of this blog.

One year(ish) update.

Gifty has grown the most. Probably because of her age, she has seemingly suffered the most trauma. And, who can tell what is being 12 and what is being traumatized. She is learning about emotions and how to handle them appropriately. She is also learning so much in school. Because her schooling was so inconsistent, she is probably three years behind in learning knowledge. But, she is a hard worker and wants to do well and so she is doing well. She has also grown tremendously in her physical stature growing nearly 5 inches since coming to America...I blame it on the increase in proteins and veggies. She has also started playing the trombone in school.

Kai's sweet nature just continues to blossom. He has also grown like a weed with also close to 5 inches and 3 shoe sizes. He loves to be outside mostly riding his bike and playing with the puppy. His curiosity never ends and he is learning how to phrase the questions to get across what he really wants to know. We are going to have to tell him the truth about Santa soon because his questions are just too smart. 

Kumba is a typical kid through and through. She is silly, scatter brained, playful and intimate. I haven't had a chance to check her height but I do know her pants are way too short! Kumba wants to be quiet and intimate. She prefers to play alone with Addison or to have me read her a book while she snuggles. Don't get me wrong, she is full of energy and causes plenty of kid-like mayhem, but if the other kids are busy she doesn't miss a moment to have that one-on-one that she must have craved in the orphanage. 

Addison is a ray of sunshine and still just as girly as they come. Kindergarten is a snap for her and we have already had to find ways to challenge her quick thinking mind. She is starting to create her own "plays" and creates costumes to fit whatever character persona she wants to try on. She has really blossomed in her compassion towards others and her ability to communicate needs and kindness. She has shown curiosity about Jesus and heaven but her long-term plan for now is to turn six and then stay that way forever while she lives with us. A good plan, I think.

Shiloh has the biggest heart and a gentle manner-most of the time because she is three after all. She absolutely loves preschool where she gets to be social and active. Just in the last couple of months she has developed her creative play and imagination muscles and they are going strong. She is either dressed up as a ballerina or wearing her halloween cat costume.

Hope

It is difficult when writing a blog on adoption and family to remember that these kids need their privacy too. At least for a while as we work out some difficult behaviors and learn to be a family. And, so, the things that I some times feel like I should be writing about need to stay quiet and intimate just within our walls for now. However, today I was asked the question what does gift of adoption mean to you. And the answers came surprisingly quickly.

The gift of adoption really means the gift of hope. And hope gives us a reason to live. There are moments when this just seems too hard...this adoption, this parenting, this culture change, this trauma. But, then we take a deep breath or 20 and remember that we have hope that one day these children will be successful. There is hope that they will be healthy. There is hope that they will give back to others. There is hope that they can find comfort in their sorrows. There is hope that our family can bring healing to one another.

Just a couple of days ago we were picking up Addison, our five year old, from preschool. While I was inside signing her out, Gifty and Kai were devising a song. When we got back in the car, they counted to three and began singing a love song to her. The lyrics were a simple, "A-ddi, we love you," but the there was clapping, seat dancing, and rhythm and volume changes. Shiloh loved the song and laughed the biggest belly laugh that two year olds can laugh. Every time they stopped for a breath, Shiloh would count one-two-three and they would start over. Then they started signing it for every member of the family in turn..."Shi-loh, we love you...Mom-my, we love you...Dad-dy, we love you...Kum-ba, we love you." I can still hear the rhythmic chant in my mind or as they say in their heart. They sang for probably 20 minutes with everyone full of love, joy, acceptance, and freedom. In this moment, I breathed in fresh healthy air and exhaled all the toxins knowing that this adoption will be a power for hope in all of our lives.

Here are other glimmers of hope:
Kai brought home a paper about mom being his hero because I help him when he is hurt.
Gifty loves to stay in the bath until her toes get wrinkly because she has never seen that before.
Kumba kisses me on the shoulder when she doesn't think I'm watching.
Addison wraps her legs over Gifty's when we are watching a show.
Shiloh gets pushed around in her tricycle by Kai.
Kumba changes Shiloh's soiled pants while she is potty training.
Gifty gives up her apple to Addi because it is the last one.
Kai does a chore for Gifty so that she can relax.
Gifty brushes and puts Addison's hair in a bun each morning before school.
Kumba "reads" Shiloh books.
Kai and Gifty are constantly laughing at Dad's dinner time jokes.
They love broccoli, peas, and carrots...never having a vegetable before in their life!

When all things feel lost, I remember that God gives us hope and hope heals.

Personality Shines

When things get tough, the tough get positive.

Here are some beautiful ideas about each kid to help you see what a joy our life is despite the difficulties it can present.

Gifty: She loves to sing. She sings all the time...in the car, in the playroom, on her bike, at school, in the shower, at breakfast. She is sensitive to others in distress and I often see her trying to comfort Shiloh and is often holding Addison when she is crying. Gifty loves to be goofy and has a huge smile. She has made friends easily at school and has charmed her ELL teacher to bits. Gifty has discovered that she can ask to sit on my lap and loves it even though she is 11. She likes to play with hair and be creative. She is always drawing things for Addi and Shiloh. Even though she is far behind in school, she tries the hardest and doesn't give up when things get difficult. Gifty is confident.

Kai: He is infinitely curious and always asking questions. His kindness knows no bounds and he is tenderhearted especially towards Shiloh and Baxter. He shares anything and will often give up something he wants because Shiloh wants it, such as, computer time or time on his bike to instead push her on her tricycle. He has the best smile and he means it when he smiles. He absolutely loves to ride his bicycle. Kai is a bit of a perfectionist and does everything to his very best effort. Every night he wants to pray for the boys in the orphanage. He will try anything and hardly every complains about things that he doesn't like

Kumba: She is the goof of the group and the secretly loud one. She presents as shy and quiet but is boisterous and loud when she is comfortable. She is in the discovery and play stage of her life. Addi and her are often found sneaking in play time when every one else is asleep. Those two are becoming best of friends. This girl has the wiggles all day and sleeps like a rock at night. I just love the way deep, dark brown eyes find a sparkle when I look her in the eye. Kumba lacks any fashion sense but looks darn cute anyway and always wears one pair of knee high, sparkly boots.

Addison: She is full of love and can't wait to tell you. I hear her all day telling one of the girl's how much she loves them. She has always been a snuggly one and now has a bigger pool of snugglers to cozy up next to on the couch, and she frequently finds her way into our bed in the middle of the night. Addi is also in that play stage of her life and doesn't go anywhere without a toy of some sort. She is ever the princess and her fashion is a constant reflection of her flare. Her imagination is soaring and it is best expressed outside in the hot, cold, wet, or snowy. She loves to be on her bike, play in the mud, climb on rocks and go for walks. And, I just love that she still says "lello" instead of yellow.

Shiloh: She is a budding flower. While she was not at all cuddly as a child, she has turned into a first class snuggler. She wants to always be held, rocked, patted, hand held, back rubbed, etc... She still wants to be Baby Grace Doggie and even acts out the part. Shiloh has a huge heart and cries in sad parts of a movie and always asking the kids if they are okay if they are crying. She is uber polite always saying "Clease" and "Thank you" in a superficially high voice.  She copies everything her big sisters do and is heartbroken when she isn't big enough to do something they do. Maybe because Kai babies her, but she has a soft spot for him.

Baxter: My oldest "son" has gone deaf and loves it. He sleeps all day, gets back scratches, and is my ever present shadow. He has suddenly become obedient and easy going.

The Noise

Baxter has gone deaf just in time. At nearly age 13, he has always been a nervous dog and definitely always a momma’s boy. He has never cared for people in general and now his house is full of banging drums, dancing children, and lots of running and yelling. This was some kind of divine gift to our dog to go deaf while I was in Africa and just before his house erupted in chaos. Now he can sleep peacefully while the children thunder around him. 

If only Jason and I had the same gift…kidding, of course. But in all honesty the gentle, quiet spirit that used to be a mark of our house has flipped upside down. Our new kids seem unsettled in the quiet and look for ways to create noise. Much of the noise is fun and beautiful: Gifty is always singing, Kai is always asking questions, Kumba is playing on some noise-maker, Addi is constantly laughing or demanding a sibling to see something, and even Shiloh has joined in with the pounding of her feet running up and down-up and down-up and down the hallways in play.

Truth be told, there is also much strain in this new noise. Even the good noises, the happy, joyful noises can be a strain. A level of stress that we have never met with. Wailing, pouting, crying, and fighting over adjusting to new rules and expectations or exhaustion from the constant learning and activity level or, with five kids, a battle for attention. Very literally, I hear the constant cadence of “mom, mom, mom, mom, mom…” in my restless sleep. Many moments I long for the deaf, gentle peace that Baxter attains amid the chaos.

Can I just say…yes, I think I will…this is HARD.

Adoption is made out to be some sort of glorified family with graceful and strong parents and brave, adaptive children. A perfect picture of God’s design for his family. There are lovely pictures with happy, well-adjusted children with their smiling parents and the bright sun shining on them creating the ideal of joy and hope. (Coming soon to a family near you…and I will say that are stunning pictures and it was joyful.) But, inside the house the kids aren’t the only ones crying and frustrated with all the newness. 

The hardest part for me, a quiet person by nature, is the noise. There is never a time to collect my thoughts before some noise, good or bad, is interrupting my thoughts.

Here is what I love, though. There really is hope. And when their is hope there is love, strength, patience, peace, joy, kindness…sound familiar?

And then there is that word “long-suffering”, or in some versions “patience”, stuck in there. And I wonder how long we need to strive. And he answers, “run as if you aim to win.” But that doesn’t seem like an answer because there is no finish line, no mark I see in the future with a ribbon to be cut and a medal to be won. I already feel out of breath and my legs are already aching and I don’t know how much further I have to go. So, then Jesus looks at me (I love that part because he doesn’t just say this but he looks at me when he says it!), “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Then, I sigh, and get out of bed because today holds the promise that this adoption is good even when it is hard.

As I walk down the hallway to the beginnings of little and not-so-little noises coming from the kid’s room, I nudge Baxter from his silent sleep because, truthfully, I think he likes Kai more than me now and I know he wouldn’t want to miss a chance to get scratched. 

I've always thought I was

Dear Lord,

I’ve always thought I was patient, but thank you for teaching me more.

I’ve always thought I was empathetic, but thank you for teaching me how blind I am to suffering.

I’ve always thought I was joyful, but thank you for showing me that my joy was contingent on my ease.

I’ve always thought I was kind, but thank you that now I see my kindness was conditional upon their returned kindness or respect.

I’ve always thought I was loyal, but thank you for showing me how my loyalty has wavered in my stress.

I’ve always thought I was giving, but thank you for showing me that I have never given from my want.

I’ve always thought I was helpful, but thank you for showing me that was only true when it was convenient for me.

I’ve always thought I was self-sufficient, but thank you for showing me that I need the body of Christ.

I’ve always thought I was strong, but thank you for showing me the benefits of weakness.

I’ve always thought I was brave, but thank you for giving me a chance to know it.

I’ve always thought I was insignificant, but thank you for giving me a battle to champion.

I’ve always thought I was unimportant, but thank you for showing me where my importance actually lies.

Love you, Anna