Well, Look at You

/ kensrobin / 2 Comments

You’re still here!

Let’s see if I can sum up the last 2 months . . .

We have now been home from the Congo for 10 months. Our kids are both now speaking in sentences, with Palmer completely comprehensible. Addie speaks with enthusiasm, although we’re never quite sure about what.

Addie finished educational testing. She now qualifies for speech and occupational therapy and will get an IEP. They say that they are still a little baffled by her because she has mastered more advanced skills for which she doesn’t have the basics. (She can hop on one leg for over a minute, but she cannot stand on one leg. This sort of thing happens academically too.) She has completely caught up with her gross motor skills. If you had seen her try to run or climb stairs in the first month she was home, you realize how miraculous this is. We hope to make similar progress in other areas, but it’s beginning to look like Addie is always going to need some extra help.

Palmer finished out the school year with a top award from the school: The Triple A Achiever for the overall school — academics, attitude, and attendance. He won a huge giant green frog stuffed animal. He still is behind his classmates, but his teacher recognized that his effort to try to catch up was remarkable. The first day after school ended, he begged to continue to work on schoolwork. So we’re working through some online learning programs with both of them, and have enrolled them both in a summer academic enrichment camp. Today was their first day, and they loved it.

Part of me wrestles with how much the kids have to do and work at. Not only the last year of school, when they both skipped a grade, but the 6 and 8 years prior to that when no one introduced them to numbers, or read them bedtime stories, or made sure their toys weren’t tainted with lead. They didn’t get the benefit of learning the language they are being educated in until they got to America. There are a million snuggly, enriched, carefully crafted moments that our kids missed out on. They have to make up for lost time. They have told us so many stories that make me shudder — and they don’t even know that all kids didn’t grow up the way they did. So sometimes they struggle with sitting still, or recognizing social cues, or trusting us as parents. I’m thankful for all the people in their lives who give them the extra grace that they missed out on the first 6 and 8 years of their lives.

I’ve now received my third injection of Xolair. I still have the same yucky cough, but my fever is better. My cough almost went away in the last few weeks, and then I had a bad weekend and it’s back. They say I should start noticing a difference in how I feel after month 3. I’m still waiting for the $10,000 worth of treatment to kick in. Most of the time, I feel okay. Some of the time I feel plain awful, and I still get random infections. Case in point: on Addie’s 7th birthday, I woke up with a raging case of bacterial conjunctivitis. I’ve never seen anything like it. My eye was swollen shut and goopy, fever, nausea, vomiting. But a little girl only turns 7 once. (Well, actually that might not be the case for Addie, ahem.) Anyway, so I pretended to be well for an hour that evening  because I didn’t have the energy to actually make any food, and we went to a dark Rainforest Café Restaurant and ordered the VOLCANO! for dessert. On the way back to the car, Addie asked me why my eye was gross. Because I like to do things really special for your birthday, Addie, like get a facially mutilating infection and appear in public. Isn’t that what every 7 year old girl wants for her birthday?

Addie and Palmer were presented for dedication in church at the end of April. While we’ve always recognized them as God’s children, we had to wait for a time for our kids to trust us enough to allow us to present them in front of the church. Given some of the things they have experienced in the past, this was pretty scary for them, but they did great! My parents flew out from Oregon, and my Aunt Nettie came down from Kentucky, making it all the more special.

Both kids played Upward soccer this spring and both did very well. Addie was quite good, in spite of the fact that she really only learned to run less than a year ago. Palmer excels at soccer, and now that he actually comprehends the rules of the game, he has been able to combine his skills with strategy and is a force to be reckoned with on the field.

Somewhere in the midst of all of this academic testing, award-winning, injection-receiving, relatives- having-in, soccer-playing, and infection-getting, I was promoted to the Director of our PA Program. I still have mixed emotions about this. On the one hand, what an honor! On the other hand, I’m drowning in work. We’ve had three and a half administrative faculty leave this year due to illness, retirement, family issues, etc. and I have a enormous task of taking on much of their jobs, delegating when I can, but most of it just has to be done by me. In the past fourish weeks, I have filmed a baccalaureate video, redesigned and edited the student handbook, coordinating a hooding ceremony, said good-bye to two employees, hired a new faculty member, helped coordinate our program’s first ever-indoor graduation because the outdoor one got rained out, took 11 students to an awesome conference in Atlanta about serving the poor through healthcare and debriefed them, written a magazine article, reworked our ACLS/PALS courses with a new team of instructors from out-of-state, conducted a two day orientation for new PA students who just started classes last week and managed the process of getting them started in a new Program, took part in alumni board meeting, negotiated a new position for our Program and the clinic for which I hope to be hiring soon, helped work on a neighborhood restoration project, staff a 12 week class exclusively with guest lecturers and an overseeing adjunct, continued to see patients in the clinic, negotiated several contracts for student software purchases, finished putting together and submitting a 116 page accreditation document with 28 supporting documents, and many other things that fill the spaces in between. And we are just getting started on the busiest time of year. Things are hard now, but they are going to be oh so good when we can catch up, adjust to the changes, and move forward with confidence that this is exactly what God had in mind. I know it seems a little crazy — to me too– but God has spoken to me about not wasting a vision, and how many examples scripture holds of God calling the weak and unsure so that only He would be glorified. I’m excited to see where God is leading. And slightly overwhelmed.

Ken just finished up his second year of Upward Sports. Last year, Ken worked 5 nights a week. This year, he worked 4. That’s in addition to working Saturdays and Sundays. Trying to balance that much work on the part of both of us has been exhausting. Ken and I almost never have a day off together, and barely have any evenings together. Those projects like: cleaning the basement, taking the kids to a museum as a family, sorting the junk mail, visiting friends who live out of town, or spending a day lounging in pajamas never happen. Add to the equation two new kids with some very unique needs, my illness and work challenges, and we are just . . . broken. It’s hard enough to do everything if both of us had “normal” jobs, but with nearly opposite schedules we needed a change. As God-honoring as both our jobs are, I don’t believe that God is honored when our fragile family is being stretched so thin. Yes, our kids are resilient, but haven’t they also had to deal with more then their fair share already? So Ken asked to take a salary cut and go part-time. And fortunately, the church said yes. It was a very painful — and costly — decision. Honestly, had it been me (the wife) going part-time, I don’t think it would have been as controversial, but I have benefits and salary that could absorb Ken going part-time. The opposite wasn’t true. We needed a new plan to make our family function more healthfully. So we’re tightening our belts and giving Ken working part-time a try.

So that’s the latest from our family, and a bit of an explanation of why we’ve been silent. I haven’t had a Saturday off since April, and my evenings have been packed as well, and I’m just starting a new semester. I hope that one day, things will slow down for us, but for now, we are continuing to trust in God’s guidance for our lives personally, and as a family.

Here are some photo highlights from the last 2 months . . .

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Stuck in the Middle

/ kensrobin / 2 Comments

When I last left off, I was diagnosed with two immune problems: too many allergy antibodies, and not enough infection-fighting antibodies. We decided to address the allergy antibodies first and hold off on treating the infection-fighting antibodies. It was made clear by my nurse practitioner that my lack of infection-fighting antibodies is more correlated with stress than most people. The more stress, the fewer antibodies I produce. It is very important for my immune system to reduce stress as much as possible, and I would possibly be able to avoid having antibody infusions or injections.

Stress reduction in order to live. No problem. Especially with two children adopted from Africa in the last year, and a husband who works four nights a week and all day Saturdays and Sundays, in addition to me working full-time. Still, it was manageable.

Then my boss resigned. Not the one that was diagnosed with the brain tumor, the interim boss after that. He’s giving plenty of notice, and is definitely being helpful, but it’s become clear that I need to step up my responsibility at work in a very short period of time. There is no one else in place at this point that can do it. But I’m still pretty sick.

Stress reduction in order to live. Now it’s a problem.

So I went back to my allergist/immunologist physician and did nothing short of beg for IgG antibody replacement. It was really rather pitiful, actually. But in my perspective, I’m somewhat begging for my life and my job, which are both pretty important to me. I cannot stop my children from bringing home viruses and bacteria from school. I cannot quit my job. The only variable is giving a boost to my immune system.

He said no.

Now, in his defense, he has never seen me sick because I only see the NP when I’m sick because he’s booked months in advance. And in his mind, because I was about to get anti-IgE Xolair, he didn’t want to do two immune therapies at once.

He told me, “You just need to work on reducing stress in your life.”

I kind of wanted to punch him in the face. With the love of the Lord. And maybe call down some fire and brimstone. And tear up the $600 bill he’s going to send me for that sound advice. And mail him the pieces.

Too far?

This week, I finally got my first injection of Xolair, which will reduce my ability to have an allergic reaction, although it takes several months to really see the benefits. It’s a two hour process to get the injection and then you have to see a medical provider afterwards, all the while having lots of vitals taken, peak flows measured, and a nurse giving you the stinky fish eye across the room because Xolair has a surprising side effect of causing anaphylaxis. I felt a little yucky and had some blood pressure issues, but I lived.

So three hours after my Xolair injection, I met back up with the NP who has been seeing me. I blabbered on about all I’ve been through, and the changes in my responsibilities that have occurred since we last talked. She believes I should start IgG and wants to start the approval process. She has seen me really really sick. I have scared her on numerous occasions. After all, no one is more stubborn about asking for medical help than a medical provider themselves. She is going to talk to her supervising physician (my doctor) and see if she can get him to change his mind.

Meanwhile, I start my third month of running a fever. I start my seventh month of having a productive cough. I wash my hands even more obsessively than before. I avoid crowded places with coughing people and perfume.

And I wait, stuck in the middle between two medical providers and what they believe will make me well.

Fun with Flatulence

/ kensrobin / 3 Comments

I blame the spelling list.

It all started about a month ago with the list of words Palmer brought home for the week, which included “art,” and “farm,” and “barn.”

Rather than just having Palmer write out the words, we’ve tried encouraging him to think through how to spell words. We find that he is very good at thinking through sounds and spelling them. He’s actually much better at spelling than reading. Considering he didn’t even know what a letter was 7 months ago, we are more than pleased.

Sometimes, we throw in similar words to his spelling words to see if he can use the same principles to spell new words.

With words like art and farm, what was the next natural word selection?

Fart!

Sure enough, he spelled it perfectly. We all had a good laugh about that. I am so proud that my son can spell fart.

Today, the issue of flatulence arose again (ahem, Addie), and we revisited the spelling. Sure enough, Palmer can still spell it.

Then I remembered someone telling me about a funny book about a flatulent dog, and I had to find it.

Tonight at bedtime, we introduced the kids to “Walter, the Farting Dog.” What could be more entertaining for a 6 and 8 year old? Palmer laughed so hard, I thought he was going to cry, choke, or pee. Maybe even all three at the same time. This is why I am thankful for my medical training.

We finished the night with some juicy zerberts to the cheek, and again, the kids were in stitches.

My friend, Angie, alerted me on Facebook that there is also a Walter the Farting Dog stuffed animal that makes real farting noises. Nothing says “Easter basket” like candy and a farting dog, don’t you think?

Who knew flatulence could be so fun?

Hunting Practice

/ kensrobin / 5 Comments

The notice came on Friday: Palmer needs to bring 24 filled eggs to school for an Easter egg hunt this week.

I supposed that this would probably be the best time to introduce the kids to American Easter.

Of course, they already know about Jesus rising from the dead and the Biblical side of Easter, but it’s now time to cover the other side of Easter: the eggs, bunny, basket side of Easter.

I asked the kids if they celebrated Easter in the Congo — when Jesus rose from the dead. Addie said yes. Palmer said no. This is a typical answer to “when you were in the Congo” questions.

I could not send our kids into one of the most important kid-to-kid battles for candy and toys without sufficient preparation and practice. This is a definite early-bird-gets-the-worm skirmish. I had images in my brain of our children standing at an Easter egg hunt, baskets in hand, confused with other kids finding eggs, toys, candy before our kids having any idea what they are to do. This should not happen to our children. We have to make up for all the years of experience their competitors will have!

So today, we set up an Easter egg hunt for them in the back yard, with empty eggs. After all, finding out that Easter eggs contain candy and toys may simply be too much for them to handle at one time. Then we set out the rules:

1. There are 25 eggs in the back yard. There will be zero eggs in the back yard before snack time. Hint hint.

2. Use the bag to your advantage to keep your hands free to pick up more eggs.

3. No pushing, shoving, or stealing of the eggs of siblings.

4. Do not follow another sibling. You will find more eggs if you use your own eyes and hands.

5. The goal is to find the most eggs.

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The kids had a great time. One child was distinctly more strategic and successful. The other sibling may have occasionally forgotten why she went outside. The outside hunt was followed by two in the living room, one in their bedroom, and another one outside.

I then revealed that they were going to be hunting for eggs at school and at church with other children.

Minds. Blown.

They are so excited! It’s fun to introduce American traditions to kids who haven’t had the chance to experience them, and yet are old enough to understand and enjoy what’s going on. Just wait until they find out that there are treasures inside those eggs! I anticipate some serious squeals of joy.

The kids have been trained and are ready. They know the rules. They have strategies. And if at the next Easter egg hunt, you see the Jewett children doing pre-hunt stretches, you’ll know why.

 

Third World Kids in a First World Family

/ kensrobin / 2 Comments

Adoption of older children is always challenging. Adopting older children from another culture results in some frankly bizarre situations. Lately, our kids came home with a very exciting story about how at school, they were told to put their heads down and put their hands over their heads. “It was a tomato drill!” they exclaimed.

Much of our children’s history is still a mystery to us. Stories are slowly coming, but the difference between truth and fiction is hard to discern, especially knowing their deep desire to protect their past. The clouded memories of childhood are fading quickly into a mixture of wishful thinking of how things should have been and denial of what really happened.

What were they like as infants? Where did that scar come from? How can they come with the same history and have such different capabilities, nutritional status, and memories? What happened to them before they landed at the doorstep of an orphanage in Kinshasa?

We will likely never really know.

As we’ve been getting to know our kids from a completely different culture, I’ve appreciated that there are so many wonderful things that their culture has instilled in them. There’s always a fear of taking a child out of another culture that they will lose some important sense of self, the values of their culture, etc. But at the same time, leaving children in orphanages in third world countries just for the sake of “maintaining their culture” is hardly the answer either. There must be a careful balance of maintaining the best parts of their culture with the nurturing only a family can provide.

Here are some of the things I appreciate and want to preserve about my children’s culture:

1. Their appreciation for “real” food. When given a choice between a french fry and fresh fruit, the kids will typically pick fresh fruit every time. They LOVE water and milk. They never leave the table without drinking every drop. Every grain of rice is cleaned off a plate. Meat– and especially fish–is a real treat.  They didn’t really like candy very much when they came to America — they much preferred meat or bread. We didn’t offer them candy often, but they would refuse it more often than not. This is in stark contrast to what happens today in their new American lives. Almost every day, they come home with candy or candy-like treats. Do I take candy from my children? Heavens, yes! We didn’t even participate in Halloween, and we didn’t give them candy for Christmas or Valentine’s day, but we still have a never-ended supply of candy in a jar on our counter that we’ve confiscated from them. We find bags of candy stashed away in their toy drawers, in their backpacks, and stuffed around their car seats. They actually do like candy now, and I feel like the Candy Police trying to preserve their appreciation for real foods.  It seems like Americans give candy to kids for every occasion, and especially as a reward for good behavior. We should not wonder why children are developing Type II diabetes. We started giving it to them when sugar replaced love and praise.

2. Their lack of dependence on technology. Our kids do not play video games. Out of a moment of desperation, Ken showed Palmer how to play Angry Birds shortly before Christmas, and it became immediately apparent that video games were not a good thing for our kids. The addictive and absorptive nature of technology was unhealthy and unnecessary.

While there are some very good learning apps, I’m sure, I teach the first generation to be raised on technology-dependent education, and I can see the pitfalls. There have been some very interesting studies about how technology-dependent learners can learn more, but they think less. They can memorize lots of bits of information, but truly struggle when trying to put it all together. They have never had a college lecture without Powerpoint, so they have a hard time teaching themselves capture significant information, draw diagrams, pull information out of textbooks. But this is how real-life critical-thinking occurs. It’s not linear and spoon-fed.

I want my kids to learn to read real books, have real conversations, play board games, make forts in the living room, ride bicycles, and play hide and seek. They have an amazing ability to entertain themselves without technology “stuff.” I like that their culture has given them imaginations and a strong desire for physical exercise every day. To introduce them to the “stuff” of the technological world seems contradictory to what we are trying to accomplish in establishing bonds as a family. They haven’t had technology before, so they do not have a sense of what they are missing. And I’m thankful for that. They will have plenty of time to gain computer skills. Wii controller skills are even further down on the list.

3. Their dependence on God to provide. This one probably scares me the most. Let’s be honest, in our culture, we don’t “need” God much. We know where our next 7 days worth of food are coming from. Even the homeless and jobless population in our city can get 3 free meals a day, 7 days a week. Contrast this to the culture where our kids come from where parents and children alternated days eating. That’s right. Not everyone could eat every day, so they switched off. Kids eat one day, parents eat the next. And not three meals a day. One meal every other day. This was NORMAL for the culture. Their homes were collections of refuse strapped together that would hopefully keep the rain out. Every drop of water was a gift. Clean water was a treasure. Running water, unimaginable. Shoes were worn until they disintegrated. They slept in the same clothes they played in. They shared a bed with 5 other children. They sang worship songs without a full band and coordinating Powerpoint with reflective backgrounds.

We bought our kids some $2.95 shoes at Children’s Place a couple of weeks ago, and Palmer brought them home, looked in his closet and said, “Mommy, I have too many shoes.” So together, we chose shoes from his closet that he could give to children who don’t have any.  Oh, how I always want him to remind me that we have more than enough.

In our culture, I think we often have to create need for God because we have so much. Too much. I continually find myself asking: what am I doing that would be impossible to do without reliance upon God? I always want there to be an immediate answer. In America, during the season of Lent, we identify with our Lord’s suffering by giving up things like fast food, forks, and Facebook. Our children come from a culture where dependence on God doesn’t have to be so manufactured.

4. Their love for work. They love to spread mulch. Cleaning the bathroom? Better than watching cartoons. They bicker over who gets to vacuum. There is crying if one child gets to do a chore, but the other does not have a comparable one to do. Sometimes I run out of chores for them to do. I know that child labor is a real problem in the Congo, but that very strong work ethic is amazing. I’m very torn about this. They know the satisfaction of working until their muscles are sore and they collapse into sleep out of exhaustion rather than boredom. They are much better behaved when they are busily productive in the life of our family.

And no, you may not borrow them to clean your house.

At first, I wanted to undo much of what our kids had experienced: too much deprivation, too much work, not enough fun. But I’ve come to realize that they are in some ways very blessed to have had the experiences that they have had. They appreciate good food, because they know what it is like to be hungry. They like to work, because they have been too malnourished to have the energy. They know what it’s like to praise God out of poverty rather than excess. They value trust because they know how much it hurts when promises are broken.

I worry that giving them the excesses of American culture will promote spiritual poverty.

My children are living Beatitudes. They are beauty from ashes. They are resilient in ways that they shouldn’t have to be. They have brought just as much to our family as we have brought to theirs. And we are thankful for the culture they carry with them and how they teach us more about Him every day. Thank you, Lord, for bringing Third World Kids into our First World Family.

Palmer did this matching game all by himself!

Palmer did this matching game all by himself!

Addie practiced writing her numbers. She's getting good!

Addie practiced writing her numbers. She’s getting good!

Where in the World Have I Been?

/ kensrobin / 6 Comments

If you read this blog for the crazy kid stories or adoption info, this is not your post. If you know me and have been wondering where in the world I have been, well, this post is for you.

I got sick less than 2 weeks after coming home from Africa. Fevers of 101+ for a couple of weeks. Then the cough started. Then the cough developed into pneumonia. Then I never really recovered from the pneumonia. Then I got strep. Then I couldn’t breathe. I almost got well over Christmas break, but when the new semester started, I started seeing sick patients in the clinic. My kids were coming home from school with the 12 colds/year that most elementary kids have. The fevers came back with a vengeance, which I’ve had for over 2 weeks now. Then I got horrible flu-like symptoms. Then I got strep. Then I got a respiratory fungal infection.  Now I REALLY can’t breathe.

I have not had a single week in which I’ve been well for 6 months. I am on antibiotics, antifungals, steroids, nebulizers, nutritional supplements, and on and on and on. This is particularly vexing because steroids make fungal infections worse, but I cannot breathe without the steroids, which make the fungal infection worse. I cannot breathe well enough to have a conversation. My muscles in my chest and back HURT from trying to breathe. I feel like my face is going to explode. I can feel my pulse in my teeth.

The clinic that has seen this all go down is actually my asthma clinic. They began to wonder in December why I could not get well. Mostly because I was asking them why I couldn’t get well. Not only are they an asthma clinic, they are an immunology clinic, so this was very reasonable for me to ask. I think if you see me sick every 6 months, it’s easy to not hear the “I’ve been sick the entire six months.” My white count is always elevated but never very impressive. I feel worse than my bloodwork looks. Always.

So in December, we started testing out my immune system, and found that though I’m sick a lot, and have had pneumonia a lot, I’m not immune to all but one strain of pneumonia. So they vaccinated me against pneumonia. But meanwhile, my allergy antibodies (IgE) were very high, even in the middle of winter with nothing blooming (yet).

Currently, I am on most classes of medications known to mankind, but I still can’t get well. In the middle of the night last night, I was sleeping on the couch (sitting up) and our dog, Holly, ran in and woke up Ken and brought him to me. I was having trouble breathing. Now unfortunately, she thinks the cure for not breathing is laying on my chest, but she was right about me not breathing. Nor could I quite wake up to realize I was not breathing well. Ken got me a nebulizer and got my lungs going again, but I realized when I am relying on my dog to wake me when I’m not breathing, I may need some additional medical attention. Holly continued pawing at my chest and whining until I called Vanderbilt. And my NPs cell phone.

My NP agreed to see me this afternoon. (Praise the Lord she had given me her cell phone number.) Sure enough, I’m sick and having trouble breathing. After emergency treatment, I am now breathing well enough to still need emergency treatment. The treatment helps, but when my breathing is this bad, my best is still considered an emergency.

She went over my lab results with me, which in hindsight make a lot of sense. I have an IgG (infection fighting antibody) deficiency. I did not mount an immune response to the vaccine I got in December. This is why I cannot get well when I get sick. She noticed a pattern that when I get sick, I don’t just get a little sick. I get really sick, but my white blood cell count doesn’t respond, so it makes it look sorta like I’m not really sick. I just hover at nonwellness for a long time.

The other issue is that my IgE antibodies are elevated, which means my asthma is crazy out of control and my body treats every insult to my lungs like my lungs are trying to kill me. They are actually being fairly successful at that right now.

So we’ve decided to try immunotherapy: suppressing my IgE and giving me IgG. Because my lungs are going to kill me more than the infection, we’re going to do the IgE supression therapy first. I signed over my life today, which is apparently necessary to get this treatment. I just have to wait for insurance to approve it.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

It’s $2000/month, so I really can’t afford to just start it without them approving it. Which usually means a battle waged between a nonmedical provider behind a desk in Watchkatoochie, Wyoming versus the medical staff at Vanderbilt. I’ll still have the $5000 deductible to contend with but being disabled is a whole lot more expensive. Once the deductible is met, then I’ll be able to afford the IgG therapy, if insurance will approve that too. Let’s hope the Watchkatoochians are feeling favorably toward me this time of year.

In the mean time, I’ve switched antibiotics, antifungals, nebulizers, and increased my steroids today. I’m too sick to be in the hospital with a deficient immune system.

So that’s where I am: tucked in bed, with my nebulizer on one side, and my asthma-sniffing dog on the other. I’m thankful for a Nurse Pracitioner who wondered enough why I’m not well to actually do something about it, instead of just scratch her head and wish me well. I’m also thankful that there’s at least a proposed answer and hope that one day I may join the walking and working well again.

Congratulations Palmer!

/ kensrobin / 4 Comments

IMG_1494

Palmer brought home school awards today for being on the Principal’s list, and for being a Triple A Achiever: Academics, Attendance, and Attitude. I know that every award a child receives is special, but given where we were six months ago, I consider this nearly miraculous. He “aged” 3 years, entered school in a different language, skipped a grade, and is getting all A’s while having a great attitude. Thank you, Lord, for blessing us with such a special boy!  Congratulations Palmer!

Six Months Home

/ kensrobin / 6 Comments

It’s hard to believe that so many months have passed since our incredible journey to the Congo and back with our children. We barely got out of the country with both kids, and arrived on American soil exactly six months ago today.

There are so many things that are so much different from six months ago: our kids are speaking (mostly) English, the daily Palmer-tantrums are gone, the incessant Addie-belches are gone, we know that they are significantly older than they were alleged to be, and the incredible fear that resulted in bizarre behavior has relaxed as our kids are learning to trust us, and maybe even love us.

I knew one of the hardest things about adoption is awaiting love to be returned. One thing I didn’t anticipate was how hard it would be for me to love them in the first place. Oh, I had adored every picture, memorizing every crumb on Addie’s face, every time Palmer lost a tooth, every flash of a smile. But truthfully, I only loved the idea of them — the idea of rescuing two orphans from a miserable plight, the chance to introduce them to Jesus, the chance to live out the Gospel in such a tangible way.

Suddenly I had to transition from admiring two pictures to raising two children.

I didn’t realize how hard it would be to love two children who really only loved each other, who weren’t interested in communicating with me or being affectionate, who bristled at my touch and glared at me with hateful eyes.

“Do you not know how hard we worked to adopt you? Do you not know the expense, the hours of praying, the paperwork, the torment of just trying to bring you home?”

No, they do not. We were some strangers who suddenly and mysteriously entered their lives in the Congo, carried them away from everyone they ever knew, and planted them in a country where they are the minority, no one else speaks their language, and forced them into school that is much beyond their capability.

“Adoption is the only trauma in the world where the victims are expected by the whole of society to be grateful.” — Reverend Keith C. Griffith

It’s a wonder we’ve survived at all.

But this is the awesome nature of living out the Gospel. The Incarnation was not a pretty process either. Sometimes we tend to want the glory of the resurrection without the suffering of the cross, but we cannot experience the fullness of the Gospel without each.

As we wait for our children to return our affection, and accept themselves as part of our family, I can only recall what my Savior did for me, and wonder how many times He has waited patiently, crying out, “Do you not know the torment I went through just to bring you home?” How many times do I still bristle at His touch, or only love what I have here-and-now more than eternity? Meanwhile, He is inviting me to a deeper and more rich relationship where I see His Kingdom through His eyes instead of my own.

The more I know adoption, and the more I reflect on spiritual things, the more I realize that the model of the Incarnation — dwelling INTO suffering, not standing outside of it, is the key to knowing more of the heart and mind of Christ. I cannot stand outside of our children’s lives and merely wish them well or pray about them. No, I must whisper admist the tantrums, wade through impossible homework, wrestle through language barriers, and wipe the snotty noses of these children. My children. They will never know that I love them otherwise.

If we’re not intentionally wading into the suffering of others — the poor, the widows, orphans, the trafficked, the enslaved, the foreigners — how will they ever know our love, and ultimately, God’s love? This is the heart of the Incarnation, and the incarnational life: intentionally loving, even when it means that the mess of others splashes onto us.

And I do love them. I adore Palmer’s wit, his funny faces, his wild and adventurous spirit, his disciplined nature, and his tender heart. I adore Addie’s genuine giggle, her willingness to help at any task, her happy spirit, the way she plays with my fingers during prayer time, and her insistence that even the worst of times can be survived with a wistful sigh and the bat of an eyelash. My love for my children is love not born out of labor and delivery in the physical realm, but in the spiritual realm.

I cannot love them because they look like me. I love them because they look like Him.

There are no shortcuts to the glory of the resurrection. And even though incarnational living has been exceptionally painful at times, I’ve experienced God in an entirely new way in the last six months.

What could be more magnificent than that?

Palmer reading a bedtime story tonight.

Palmer reading a bedtime story tonight.

Where The Time Has Gone

/ kensrobin / 2 Comments

School has been back in full swing for several weeks now, as has our spring semester schedule. Here’s a peek:

  • Monday evenings: Ken is at Upward, I have the kids
  • Tuesday evenings: Ken is at Upward with the kids
  • Wednesday evenings: Dinner with the college students, and the kids
  • Thursday evenings: everyone at home
  • Friday evenings: Family fun night out or church activities.
  • Saturday evenings: Ken and I go out for “sanity preservation”
  • Sunday evenings: Family at church

Yes, church activities are at least 4 nights a week. We’ve discovered that the kids function best with lots of sleep. After all, their brains are working HARD. Bedtime is 7:00 p.m., which is broken several nights a week because of church activities.

The kids are participating in Upward, not as much because we care about sports, but so they can see their dad. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t see Ken on Saturdays really at all, and would miss him on Monday, Tuesday, and still have to share him on Wednesday.

Palmer continues to do well at school, but it’s just a lot to learn a language and skip a grade. Imagine sending your kids to boarding school in Germany and asking them to skip a grade at the same time. Tough stuff. We’ve been afraid that we are setting him up for failure. Thursday is our only night at home, but he usually has 2 hours of homework on Thursday night. This week, after his book reading, his reading comprehension worksheet, his math worksheet, Ken said, “Okay, now it’s time to study for your spelling test,” Palmer burst into tears.

I wrote a note to Palmer’s teacher and she sent back a lovely email, and talked about adjusting his expectations. She confirmed what we know: that he is “super smart.” He WILL catch up, but perhaps we need to try to do it at a little slower pace. Since he skipped the second half of Kindergarten, he’s expected to be working with concepts that he was never introduced to. For instance, he is supposed to do double digit subtraction, but he never made it to subtraction in the first place. This is why homework takes forever, and requires our 100% participation.

So we are reworking Palmer’s academic expectations to cause less frustration. He does LOVE school, and it’s hard for him not to be the smartest in the class because he works way harder than other kids. He really is in an unfair situation, through no fault of his own, but he is trying SO hard!

Addie has reacted to the pressure differently. We had an S-team meeting this week with her teacher, the school psychologist, the speech pathologist, the guidance counselor, and the principal. Addie has started refusing to do work, taking her clothes off at school and pretending she doesn’t know how to put them on (even though she dresses herself every morning), doing very poor work, and not living up to behavioral expectations. The teacher let us know this week that the honeymoon period is over, and she is acting out in many ways. And true to form, she has started wetting her pants intentionally again. Not at school, just while she is with Ken and me. Lucky us.

Addie has been a mystery all of us because her behavior is contradictory and unpredictable. She behaves perfectly well for strangers, but once you are no longer a stranger, it changes. She does struggle with fine motor skills, so we know she has some physical deficiencies, but her intelligence has been difficult to assess. At home, she has no problem counting objects. At school, she not only doesn’t count, she doesn’t know her numbers. This makes the math that she is expected to do at school impossible.

All of this is common for kids from traumatic backgrounds, and comes as no huge surprise, but is nonetheless frustrating to everyone involved. Adding to the pressure is the policy of Metro Nashville Public Schools that she HAS to go to first grade next year, so the gap her in her performance will continue to grow.

She needs help. We need help. She works on homework for the same time period that Palmer does. Every evening, she is expected to correct assignments that she didn’t do correctly at school, review letters, numbers, and sounds, practice cutting and coloring, review sight words, read two books with a parent, and on and on. Again 100% participation from parents for up to 2 hours a day.

The school has been hesitant to have Addie undergo testing because she is a Kindergartener, she doesn’t speak English other than single words and a very occasional sentence, and she has a traumatic past. But they cannot give her any extra help without testing her. And if they are going to diagnose her as being delayed, it has to occur before she turns age 7, which is this spring. Still they don’t want to “label” her.

Finally, I blurted out, “Label her! At least that will give us some help. Labels can be undone.” The S-team agreed.

So testing of Addie is going to begin shortly. She is going to receive some unfortunate diagnoses, but it will give her increased access to services that will help her instead of leaving her floundering in a class, but forced to move forward. And her teacher will no longer have to handle Addie, plus 18 others.

Addie has been through unfathomable trauma, and she is still figuring out how to handle that grief. If she can be busy enough, naughty enough, or giggle enough, she doesn’t have to face it. For the first time ever, she is with a family who is in this with her for the long haul, and rather than this being comforting, it is frightening. When will we abandon her? When will we send her away? Will we still love her if she does nothing we tell her to do? These are all questions she has to answer in her own mind. To be expected to learn to read, do math, color in the lines, and sit still is difficult with all of that going on inside. To not have the language to process it with us makes it even harder, which is why we are insistent that she learn English so we can help her heal.

For me, this semester has added additional responsibility related to my former boss’s sudden retirement in the fall. I’ve always worked 40-50 hours per week in the spring and fall, and 60-80 in the summer. This semester, I have been given additional responsibilities in the University Clinic on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, seeing faculty, staff, students and their families. I’ve tried to compensate for this by going in an hour early and working through lunch. Still, I’m already falling behind, and still trying to figure out how to get home in time to manage dinner, homework, and bedtime routine by 7:00 p.m. especially given our already packed evening schedule and the profound emotional and academic needs of our children. Ken does the lion’s share of just about everything between the time he picks up the kids from school at 3:00 and when he has to leave most evenings at 5:00 p.m.

This weekend, Palmer has had the flu, and I’m afraid Addie probably isn’t far behind, so we have quarantined the kids. I have been sick since October with a nasty productive cough. Still. We have laid on the couch for two days, and as miserable as we all feel, it has been glorious. No pressure, no learning, just relaxing together. Indeed, we need more time just like this. Minus the flu, of course.