Six Months Later and Ouchy Poop

It's amazing to think that we are coming up on the SIX MONTH anniversary of the Little Ladies being home with us as a Forever Family. Big Bear and Little Bear have brought inexplicable joy into our family as the children of our hearts. We have fallen in love with each other for what I hope will be a lifetime (teenage years will test this love affair I'm sure...potty training that involves peeing all over the new rug on the playroom floor in your Big Girl Pants also lacks something in the warm fuzzy department but love should be blind - and hold its nose - right?). The cliche here would be that time flies and in a way this is true. It's hard to even believe that we have been parents for half a year. It's also hard to believe that our lengthy adoption process is finally over (trying to get social security numbers is another story...) and that our girls are really ours at last. The other side of the story is that there have also certainly been days when time went by very S L O W L Y and we limped to the end of the day only to collapse in bed and do it all again a few hours later. My dear friend Christy just brought her 10 month old twins home from Ethiopia last week. She said to me after a few days of being back, "You didn't tell me how hard this was." And I reminded her that I did tell her. She is by nature cheerful and probably just opted to listen selectively when I fell into whine mode. I reminded her that I was sobbing at my dinner table the fourth night back in the US because things were really really really hard at first in that early jet-lagged adjustment period. However, that was a very short season and life isn't nearly so difficult now. Most of our time together as a family is really fun these days as we continue get to know each other better. Being a mom in general is hard though. And being an adoptive mom certainly adds its own challenges. It gets easier as you figure new things out and get enough of a handle on things to be able to really enjoy your children. Another friend said to me the other day "I just don't know how you've done it. By starting with a baby, at least you have time to ease into the process." I think she has a point but for everyone that tells me something like that, I tell them that this is all we know and all we have ever known. Our lives as parents have just always involved two toddlers and we have learned to adapt accordingly. Humans are amazingly adaptable when they have to be - when they are forced to be. It's also worth noting that to the adoptive mother, we look at birth mothers incredulously thinking "You pushed that kid out of WHERE?!" I guess we all just have to write our own stories.

The thing about adoption is that it permanently imposes a nontraditional story on your life. By choosing adoption, you choose to be nontraditional and that can be hard if part of you likes keeping a lower profile. Transracial adoption makes you stand out. Period. As you know, that's been one of my biggest struggles in the whole process - the attention from strangers. What's been interesting lately though is that God has been changing my heart and I have been seeing the fruit in that. I have been praying for more grace and compassion and praying that God would help me to stay connected to the Bigger Picture of why this all matters anyway. I have had several strangers approach me recently that asked me about our girls. What could have been brief encounters ended up being wonderful opportunities to help very interested families get on the path to begin exploring adoption as a option for their families. One woman in a pizza restaurant was in tears as Davis described to her how our girls are two of 4.5 millions orphans in Ethiopia alone. Those days make me glad that we are a "poster family" for adoption. We've taken to telling anyone who tells us how cute our girls are that if they think so, there are over 4 million more where they came from that would love to find homes! A dear friend that I didn't even know read this blog (I don't know who reads it these days given my sporadic postings of late) told me recently our story has moved her family to consider adoption. She told me, "I have done Christian ministry all over the world and I don't know how I missed this. I just didn't know there were so many orphans in the world." She articulated our exact experience when we began this journey. We just didn't know. But once we did know, we felt a great deal of responsibility to respond to our knowledge of God's heart and the state of things in the world today. The rest is history. Our faith mandated action and we are now a family of four.

In honor of our upcoming six month anniversary, I have to share a favorite recent story from potting training Big Bear. (By the way, trying to potty train one child while weaning the other one off of the bottle that she dearly loves is a really terrible idea even if it works well with your family's summer calendar - DO NOT GO THERE). We were at the airport a few weeks ago heading out of town for our first plane trip since the girls arrived home from Africa. When you are potty training, you go to the bathroom A LOT. During one of our airport restroom stops, I asked Junia, as I often do, who she wanted to go first - her or Mommy. She told me she wanted Mommy to go first. I was happy to oblige her since I really had to go. She then proceeded to say "Junia help Mommy." She came over and put her hands - or tried to put her hands - on my waist so she could hold me over the potty like I do for her. When she heard the familiar tinkle, she started exclaiming over and over in a loud voice "Good girl, Mommy! Good girl! No accident! Good girl, Mommy!" as she patted my dry undies and offered to help with wiping. I couldn't help but wonder what the woman in the next stall was thinking at that point! This was only topped by her then asking me - in the same loud voice - as she waited for me to finish if I was having an "ouchy poop" (another related story, perhaps for another time, involves learning what happens to a child who is allowed to eat too many bananas on a given day). I told her that no I did not actually need to poop and that I would go ahead and finish things up on my own so that she could have her turn. I have heard that being in the delivery room causes women to lose all sense of shame. I am finding that just being a mom in general - regardless of how you delivered your kids - seems to bring about regular opportunities for a wide array of opportunities for embarassment. Thanks, Big Bear!


This latest pic is taken with one of Junia's favorite people on earth - her Gammy. She is rocking another recent favorite - the cowboy boots that once belonged to her daddy! Davis' mom had saved these for 30 years and passed them on to be given new life again on the very thick feet of our eldest Ethiopian Princess. Talk about worlds colliding!