Celia... One Year Later

Today marks one full year since the day we first met Celia in a courthouse in Ohio.  She was so sweet and quiet, in fact she didn't speak at all for about 2 hours.  Part of this I'm sure was a combination of shock, and awe, nerves, confusion and wonderment, but we had also been told by her first family that she was a very quiet child.  We didn't hear a word out of her until after we left the parking lot of the courthouse and asked her if she wanted to go to McDonald's for lunch.

 What we found out later was that she had not been prepped AT ALL for what was about to happen to her.  I had sent pictures of our house, cats, the twins and us for her to see, none of which had been shown to her.  All she was told was that she was going to go live with another family.  That's it.  We also realized that in her first family the rules must have been pretty stringent (military family) because she associated being a "good girl" with being quiet.  All the time.

 Oh what a difference a year has made.  Quiet would be the last word in the galaxy one would use to describe this child.  She learned pretty quickly that in our family we do loud, we do mistakes, we do emotional, and all of it is ok.  Do I miss that sweet, quiet little lady at times...YOU BET...but I know now that she wasn't allowed to be her true self in her previous placement.  I feel good about the fact that she has bloomed with us.

In the beginning the twins adored their little sister and wanted to help her with everything.  They doted on her and were so sweet.  Yeah that's LONG gone!  As it should be I suppose.  They are real siblings now, they fight and argue over everything and the older two take any opportunity to boss little one around.  Although I have an older half-sister, we did not have the pleasure of growing up together, so the drama of sisterly interactions is all new to me.  With my little brother it was totally different, always physical, rough and tumble, no drama.  With sisters, from the intel I've gathered, it's all of the above PLUS a huge dose of manipulation and drama.  Deep breaths.

I can see both sides of their stories.  Little sisters are annoying.  In fact, I told Caroline she could keep a journal of times that she wants to punch Celia in the face (along with how many punches each infraction is worth of course) and once Celia turns 18 she can go for it.  I don't feel at all guilty about this seeing as Caroline can't keep track of anything for longer than 23 minutes so the odds that she's maintain and know the whereabouts of such a journal are astronomical.  Listen folks, don't judge, if we didn't laugh over here, we'd be crying...a lot.

So, yes, Celia has bloomed into what I can only surmise to be a more true version of herself.  That being said, it's NOT all butterflies and rainbows over here.  She is still hurting.  She is angry, and I can't blame her.  Although she just turned 5 years old, emotionally she is functioning more on the level of a 2 year old.  I think this is because she wasn't allowed or able to process the raw emotions that come with being adopted in the first place, as well as just being a pain the a$$ toddler in her previous family.  Now add onto all of that a tremendous, rational, fear of abandonment, and you've got a very emotional little girl.

Her attachment to me began immediately upon meeting her in the courthouse.  She came and sat in my lap right away when I motioned to her to see if she'd want to.  We sat for a while while I showed her all of the pictures I had hoped he had already seen of her new sisters, home and cats.  It seemed to me that she had been craving a motherly connection for years and since her first adoptive mom wasn't able to bond with her, she just had not had that in her life for the past 3 years.

Her attachment to Mike is still a work in progress.  You see, she adored her first adoptive father and he adored her.  He was devastated in the courtroom, while mom had no affect, zero, it was eerie.  I promise to write more about her disruption story soon which will give you a little better picture of the background here.  Because she felt so connected with this former father, you can tell she struggles with the question "if I let this new dad into my heart, am I betraying the old one?".  Of course most of her anger and feelings of betraying are directed at this old dad as well, who isn't around to take it, so Mike, the poor unfortunate soul, becomes the target of all of it.   She's come a long way in a year though and heart healing takes time.

I'm going to keep it very real here folks.  There have been many a day that the twins have finally started grasping the concept of sleeping in and Celia's up at the crack of dawn and I ask myself "Why did we do this?  Things with the twins were JUST started to get a bit easier!  Why'd we have to rock the boat?!"  Also, although I'm only 33 years old, my soul is much older.  I wasn't cut out to do this toddler thing.  Ain't nobody got time for that.  I prefer to be around those who are able to think rationally.

Of course I wouldn't change it for the world.  God has taken us on such a crazy roller coaster the past year.  It has taught us so much about listening to Him and His will and plans for our lives, even when it doesn't seem to make any sense to anyone else.  I can see this little girl's heart healing right before my eyes and it's all God's doing.  Beauty from ashes.

Eight--the Elusive Milestone Achieved!

We adopted our twins when they were 4 years old.  We were the fourth caregivers they had had in their short lives.  They had been through abuse, neglect, abandonment, hunger, violence and fear that I can't even imagine...I don't even want to.  They were, understandably, a mess.  A HOT MESS.  Those who knew us best back then know that we rarely left the house for that first year.  We were in full on crisis mode all the time.

Every book we read, and every professional we talked to, told us that it would take at least 4 years until we could expect them to have the same issues that their peers have, age appropriate issues.  It would take them as many years as they lived away from us to learn to trust us and to feel secure.  Back then this news left us feeling so overwhelmed.  Another 4 years of THIS.  How in the world would we survive?  How would they survive?  I had a lot of conversations with God about how I think he had made a mistake.  I couldn't DO this.  It was TOO HARD!  There wasn't really a light at the end of the tunnel.

If you have parented a typical four year old, you may be thinking "What are you complaining about?  You don't even have to deal with the terrible twos, or the toddler years!".  Well, guess what?  Our children didn't have the opportunity to be mischievous toddlers.  At that age they were in survival mode.  They didn't have toys, or people to throw tantrums to.  They had no one.  So that meant that, even though they were 4 chronologically, they very distinctively went through the terrible twos/threes during the first 6 months of being with us.  Imagine your toddler, throwing fits, trying to be independent, but having NO WAY to communicate with them.  Yeah, that's where we were!

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't all bad.  Despite the language barrier, we had dance parties, we played with each others hair, even Mike's, and we blew bubbles.  These things need no language.  They also picked up English at a warp speed.

But even an English speaking four year old doesn't have the words to express the anger, rage, sadness, grief and fear that these girls were experiencing.  This led to meltdowns that would last an hour sometimes.  Many times they would need to be restrained in order to keep them, and the rest of us, safe.  I never knew a preschooler could be so strong or so angry.  It was scary.

We decided to use this restraint time as an opportunity for bonding.  We were so physically close to them while we were holding them that we used this time to sing to them, express to them that everything was going to be ok, and to reassure them that NO MATTER WHAT they did, we were not going to get rid of them.  It's not that they thought we might give them away, they were certain of it, and they were determined that they were going to be the ones in charge of that.  They were going to be bad enough that we would quit on them.  They picked the wrong family.  We don't quit, we're too stubborn for that.

Another misconception is that if you adopt a four year old, or any older child, you get out of all of those sleepless nights.  WRONG!  Children from hard places tend to have serious issues with sleeping/dark.  One of our girls was terrified of the dark, while the other would have scary night terrors that would wake me from a dead sleep.

We were exhausted and the thought of keeping this up for the next FOUR YEARS was inconceivable!  Luckily for us, God threw us a bone and we were at a point of near normalcy about two and a half years in!  Near normalcy is all we are going to achieve as there are so many lasting effects of the crap they've been through, and well, our family is nowhere near what anyone would consider normal anyhow :)

So we made it, they are eight!  They are alive and we are alive!  Not only that but we were crazy brave enough to try this again.  God has used the last 4 years to draw both Mike and me so much closer to Him.  We saw how much we needed Him.  He revealed His plans for us so clearly that they could not be denied, and we learned to trust and follow Him.  It has been an amazingly wild ride and I can't wait to see where we are in another four years!

Praising God for a Splinter and Busted Knee

We have had 2 experiences in the last 2 weeks that have been true blessings in disguise.  

I’m sure you would be rejoicing and praising God for a trip to the ER and a splinter lodged in your child’s leg…right?  Stay with me here.

Only about a month after being home with us, Celia was at my mother in law’s house with us and thought it looked like fun to wrap her legs around Grammy’s wood banister and swing around.  This stunt resulted in a big splinter in her thigh.  The main problem with this was that she DID NOT trust us enough to let us remove it.  I was told that if we let her soak in a hot tub, put baking soda on it, (along with many other tips) it would work itself out.  I couldn’t afford to traumatize her in this crucial stage of our bonding, so against my better judgment, I left it in.

You have probably caught on by now that our lives are crazy.  Two weeks passed and I had forgotten about that splinter, she only brought it up after those 2 weeks had passed.  Now it hurt and the skin had healed over top of it.  CRAP!  I went online and searched for a solution that wouldn’t involve breaking the skin, but it wasn’t happening. 

 I had to weigh my options.  The only time we had taken her to the doctor she was terrified.  It was clear that a visit to the doctor’s office was some kind of a trigger for her, so that was out.  I couldn’t risk her fears of the doctor’s office being verified.  I put on my big girl panties, sat her on the kitchen table, put some orajel on the spot and went to work.  Mike sat next to her on one side with her sisters both on the other side.  Not once did we have to hold her down, she trusted me!  I kept taking breaks and kissing her and trying to calm her fears and tears with my words.  I finally made progress and pulled out the biggest splinter I had ever seen in my life!  

 

We all celebrated by eating ice cream (cause let’s be honest, ice cream makes everything better).  I was on a high that she LET me do that!  She didn’t even squirm.  When she said stop, I stopped.  When she was scared she held Mike’s hand.  Her sisters used words of encouragement and rubbed her back.  We not only got that huge splinter out, but we bonded through it!  It was beautiful!

Fast forward 2 weeks.  Apparently Caroline decided that it was time for her to get some one on one time (just kidding) so she bit it while playing tag and jacked up her knee pretty good.  I am one of those “just brush it off” kind of moms, but even I had to admit that it was bad.  So we packed up the healthy, grain free dinner that was nearly finished being prepared, went through the drive through at McDonald’s and headed to the ER.

The other 2 went to their Grammy’s house, so it was just Caroline and me, and I must admit, we had fun.  Yes, you heard that right, we had fun at the ER.  She enjoyed being in a wheelchair.  She got to watch Sam & Kat on Nickelodeon, which she isn’t allowed to watch at home on account of it being the most annoying show on television.  Plus we both agreed that she probably had the cutest doctor in the hospital.  

 

All was good though, the x-ray showed no break.  It was just a bad bruise.  This was only 2 days ago now and since then she has had a couple of episodes where she was in quite a bit of pain.  I’m still not sure if she’s in that much pain or if she has realized that she can get my full and undivided attention, but I have to assume the former.  She is learning that she is my priority, that if something is wrong with her I will drop everything to take care of her.  It has been a wonderful bonding experience for both of us.

When you have children from hard places, children who have been through a kind of hell that you or I could never imagine, the most important, and difficult, value to obtain is trust.  It takes years to undo the harm that other people have done to their young psyches.  It is for this reason I am grateful that God provides us opportunities like these to earn our children’s trust.  If you are an adoptive mama, look for opportunities to use unfortunate or unpleasant situations as a chance to bond.  Silver lining.

Trauma is a Tricky Thing...

“After all, when a stone is dropped into a pond, the water continues quivering even after the stone has sunk to the bottom.” ― Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha 

Charlotte had a counseling appointment scheduled this past Friday.  I called and asked if I could bring Caroline instead.  She hadn't been in a month, because she was doing so well, but she had really started acting out and I knew she needed to talk to Dr. Cynthia. 

When we got there I explained all of the changes that have occurred over the past 3 weeks in our family and how I really think this has affected Caroline.  From what I had observed I could only conclude that she was feeling left out, like she wasn't the "star" of the show anymore, and she was withdrawing.  Caroline has always had an affinity for playing the victim card.  It just came naturally to her after all she's been through in her young  life.  So she went back for an hour to talk.

When they came out the Dr. says "It has nothing to do with her new sister."  "Then what is going on with her?" I asked, surprised.  "It's about Brutus."

Let's rewind about 6 months for those of you who did not have the opportunity to meet our special Brutus and do not know the tragedy of how he left us.  Brutus was a kitten that was discovered with his litter in our church dumpster one Sunday morning after church.  The pastor had just done a message about James 1:27 (Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.) and making room for one more.  Although we already had 3 feline friends in our home, Mike, the rational one, said "let's take him home." 

He was only 3 weeks old and not old enough to be away from his mother, so we bottle fed him for a couple of weeks.  He spent most of his days those first few weeks living in a pack and play in my bedroom.  The twins, who had only been with us less than a year, adored this cat.  They helped take care of him and it was very therapeutic for teaching them empathy.  Brutus was a very special cat.  He let the girls do whatever they wanted with him.  He truly thought he was a human infant.  At that time I was doing in home daycare so Brutus would sleep in the bouncy seat or the swing, and hop up in the high chair for snack time.  He would let the girls push him around in their little shopping cart or the baby doll stroller.

He also loved going outside.  I have always had only indoor cats, but this cat would literally BOLT out the door whenever someone even opened it a crack.  For months we would all chase him, catch him and bring him inside.  Eventually though we realized that he would always come back and paw at the door when he wanted in.  So we let him have his outdoor adventures.

 
One day this past summer Brutus went out for his daily playtime.  We were all outside playing, I picked him up, snuggled him a little and let him back down to play.  He would follow the kids around outside and play with them.  We were out in the front yard when I heard Caroline scream a scream I had never heard before, and to this day it is burned into my memory.  He ran out into the street and was hit by a car, right in front of Caroline.  If that hadn't been bad enough, she went into the street...picked up his body...and carried up to the house screaming.  He was gone.  She had his blood all over her.  I took him from her and set him down in the grass.  I got her inside, washed her up and the three of us sat on the laundry room floor for an hour and cried.  I held them and just kept saying how sorry I was that this had happened to them.  I had lost my fair share of pets over my lifetime, but NEVER like this.

This cat was Caroline's best friend.  She was traumatized.  When we went to see her counselor she said that it was not developmentally appropriate for her to be able to go and pick him up like that.  Most adults (including myself) couldn't even have done that.  She said that just shows how much trauma she has already experienced in her little life.

I kept asking myself, why would God have this happen?  Why her? What were we to learn from this? Hadn't she been through enough?  From talking with both of the twins about their experiences in Ethiopia, it was apparent that she bore the brunt of the abuse in the orphanage, so why traumatize her all over again? To make it 10 times worse, she was convinced that his death was her fault, and I understood as I was feeling the same way.  Why didn't I put him inside when I was holding him?  It broke my heart.

Then someone from church pointed out to me that now she can experience trauma in a manner that is safe and healthy.  She can experience being surrounded by loving and supportive people who will help her heal from this.  This time she can learn how to cope.  So, we coped, as best we knew how.

She was a wreck for a couple of months.  We went to counseling, had visits from therapy dogs and adjusted her meds, all seemed to help.  We hadn't had any issues until...we got out the Christmas decorations.  There was Brutus' stocking.  That old wound broke wide open.  Being an internalizer I had no idea how much it was affecting her and how much she was still beating herself up over it.

I now realized that just because I have healed from the loss of Brutus, she had not.  We will need to keep revisiting this issue over and over again.  I won't always be able to predict what's going to trigger this trauma.  We have had a couple of nights since then where I have just held her as she sobs about her kitty.  We pray, hard.  I ask that God wrap His arms around this child and let her feel His peace.  I ask Him to help her trust His plans for her, especially when they don't make sense.  I ask Him to give Mike and me the patience and compassion to get her through this.

I have been fortunate enough in my privileged life not to have experienced anything even remotely like what this little child has been through already at the age of 7.  I have learned so much about trauma.  It's a tricky thing.  I don't know what will trigger it or when. I don't know if her heart will ever fully heal from these wounds.  All I know is that she hurts and there's not a whole lot I can do about it except love her and hope that's enough.