Unrequited Love

He lets me feed him breakfast, lunch, supper, and snacks.  He comes and finds me if he has lost a toy or if he wants his shoes put on.  He enjoys the routines of getting ready, taking a bath, and going to bed.  He looks into my eyes, laughs at my silly antics, and plays with me if I play by him.  But he does not seek out my affection, miss me, run to me, or cherish me.  Because I am a babysitter, someone who can trust with the basic stuff but not with his heart.

And that is the battle in adoption, well, in all parenting:  the battle for the heart.  This adoption has been my easiest and my hardest all at the same time.  The trip itself was hard.  The little boy who grieved for a week was hard. 

But now that we are home, he's pretty easy.  He doesn't fuss a lot.  He is very capable of independent play, of falling asleep on his own.  He is pretty clear that he doesn't really want too much help with eating or drinking.

 I know what you're thinking.  That sounds great!  So much easier than a baby.  And it is.  Way easier than my other two who clung to at us, who wanted to be carried everywhere, who were not all that independent, who almost always craved affection.  But in a lot of ways, that also makes it hard.  It is a concious choice to parent him with what he needs versus parenting him with what he appears to need.  The appearance is that he's fairly self sufficient and requires only minimal help from us.  But the reality is he stills sees us in a caregiver role not a "my mama and papa are the most precious things in the world!" to me role.  He chooses us because he has no choice not because he desires us.  It is a thinly veiled tolerance, based in a trust that thankfully his foster family grounded him, a trust that says "I can count on others to meet my needs."  But it is not a love affair.  There is no romance, no swooning, no heart beat that says "I need you with all my being."

It will come.  It's like most cases of falling in love.  It doesn't happen overnight.  It's wooing and pursuing.  But sometimes the pursuit is hard.  Sometimes this mama wishes she didn't have to pursue, that it just happened on its own, without my instigating and insisting. 

Believing 1 Corinthians 13 to be my prayer today, for myself not for him...

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
(The Message)

Puppy Love

As I said before, Zeke is in love with our Basset Hound, Bo.  We arrived home at 2 a.m. on Saturday night and pretty much went straight into our bedroom with him and went to sleep.  When I woke back up around 7 a.m. that same morning, I headed out into the open area that is our kitchen, living, and dining room combined.  My mom, grandma, Kenson, Conleigh, Aunt Sheree, and 3 cousins soon followed.  The dog heard all the noise and of course whined to be let out.  So out he came.  About 15 minutes later, Zeke came toddling out and beelined for the dog.  His face lit up and he started babbling "Woo, woo!" which is his version of "woof."  He spent the next 30 minutes adoring the dog, from his tail to his paws and ears to his dog bed.  And the adoration has not stopped.  The word "Bo" is the first English word he says consistently.  If the dog is out on the patio, wanting to be let in, Zeke lets us know.  In the mornings, if the dog is still in his kennel downstairs, Zeke points at the dog bed and wants to know where he is.  I'm kind of wondering if he perhaps had a dog.  He actually tried to feed Bo on his first day home which to me seems like something only someone who had a dog might try to do. 

First morning home

Zeke loves to sit in the dog bed, with or without the dog.

Zeke loves to lay down on the floor with Bo.  The other day, Zeke actually covered the dog up with a blanket because he was sleeping.  The dog was unimpressed.

Few Pics from the First Few Days

Yes, he's sitting in the dog bed.  He loves the dog...and the bed.

What I Can Do Myself

God is looking for people through whom He can do the impossible ~ what a pity that we plan only the things we can do by ourselves. ~ AW Tozer

A fitting quote for me as we welcome a new little boy to our home. For the first time in years, I have found myself thinking maybe 3 will be the magic number where we stop. For some reason I had always thought 4 or maybe more. But this time around, things have felt different. Two weeks away from my kids was HARD. Being just about the only Americans in a vast Chinese city was completely isolating. A grey landscape that seemed dark and a bit desolate seemed depressing. A little boy who rejected us and whose presence was going to change everything seemed overwhelming. Mind you, I knew at the time that all of it was temporary, that things would get better. But the Monday night, after we picked up Zeke, I was not doing well. The straw that broke the camel's back was thinking we would not have Internet access to Skype and Facebook with our kids, family, and friends. I woke up around 3 a.m. and cried until about 7. I wanted to get online and ask people to pray for me but I was afraid of using the computer in case we couldn't find an adapter for our power cord. I was afraid to be without a way to contact my kids. If it had been my first adoption, I probably would have wanted to give up and go home.

Now we're 2 weeks past that point. My prickly pear of a little boy is slowly letting go of his need for control; he's making more eye contact and craving affection in small doses. I am home with my kids although I definitely cried when I hugged each of them for the first time. I am still sleep deprivived but things seem much more manageable. And adoption number 4, while never a sure thing, doesn't seem like something I could never do.

God is at work in the impossible, the improbable, and the downright uncomfortable. So thankful that He sees beyond my plans and continually nudges me towards the plans He has made.

 

Hits and Misses

Misses
A very literal take:  our flight from Hong Kong to Chicago.  We sat on the tarmac in China for an hour and then made it into Hong Kong about 5 minutes before that flight was departing.  Long story short, it was a fiasco.  20 people or so missed the flight, most of them people with young children.  They were able to get our luggage off the original plane and reroute it to our new destinations but refused to hold the plane for the 20 or so minutes it would have taken us to get on board.  We got vouchers for lunch and were told we would be informed at 1:00 how we would get home.  At 1:30, people started getting antsy as no one from the airline had said anything.  People started going up to the ticket desk and noticing the paperwork that was lying around.  Someone realized that they were booked on a flight that left at 2.  Mind you, it is 1:30 and they have not be instructed about what gate to be at or anything. Ten minutes pass and the ticketing officials take a small group off to meet the 2:00 flight.  D and I were left with two other people from the original group, two men who were flying together.  Mr. Salmon was dressed in salmon, hence the name, and was hot from the get go.  He continued to be a jerk pretty much the entire rest of the time and actually ripped up his boarding pass because they reticketed him in a seat that was not an aisle seat.  We flew out of Hong Kong at 4 to Los Angeles.  Mr. Salmon ended up on our flight, in the bulkhead with lots of leg room, in an aisle seat.  Our 3 tickets were not together at all and no one wanted to really fix it (not the ticket counter or the gate personal) so we had to have the stewardess try to find us seats together.  The flight was not full but no one wanted to give up their seats because the only available seats were middle seats so all we could manage was 2 seats together with Zeke on our laps.  For about 12 hours.  Fun times.  We flew the rest of the way LA to Denver then into Omaha and arrived at a bit after midnight.  We ended up having to do security 4 times.  More fun times.  None of our flights had us sitting together so every flight we had to ask at the gate then ask a stewardess to try to put us together.  And the last fight had Zeke in an exit row with me which was a no go. 

Hits
Thank heavens our luggage all made it to where it was supposed to be, including our stroller which we really needed at LA and Denver.  We had checked it in China because we were afraid if we gate checked it, it would slow us down when we got off the plane in Hong Kong if we had to wait for it.  We knew we had a tight connection and didn't want the stroller to slow us down.  Our plan was to pick it back up in Chicago when we picked up our other checked baggage at customs but then keep the stroller with us for the other flights.  When we arrived in LA and claimed our checked baggage, our stroller was no where to be found.  The attendant basically told us we were going to have to wait until we arrived back in Omaha to file a claim.  Not what I wanted to hear, espcially since we had been rerouted.  But just as he was saying that, it showed up.  Praise the Lord because we had to get to the United Terminal in LA which was basically as far as way as possible from customs.  No stroller would have been awful.

Zeke really did pretty good considering that he didn't get a lot of sleep and that it was a crazy day.  We were not "those people" with the crying, screaming, poopy baby.

A few people (really very few) looked at us with a two year old and were extra kind.  Like the man who let me cut in front of him in the pretty long bathroom line on the international flight.  And someone else who let us board ahead of him instead of us going to the end of another long line.  Most people, especially on the international flight, were just very worried about themselves.  And the flight attendents were not all that worried about us.

Loved flying into Denver and seeing Cinch jeans and cowboy boots.  Definitely a Midwest crowd with Midwest smiles and personalities.

When we originally left, we had planned for several friends from church, my mom, my aunt, my cousins, my kids, and friends whom were babysitting our car to be at the airport.  When our flights got rerouted, I didn't think anyone would be there to meet us nor did I expect it.  When I called my mom from LA, I was overjoyed to find out that she and my grandma and cousin were planning to be there.  (They had dropped my brother off for a flight to Chicago earlier that night so they were already in Omha.)  And when I talked to my friend, Heather, who was in charge of calling my "change of plans" list, she said our church friends were planning to come as well since they were going to be in Gretna watching their grandkids.  And my friend, Beth, who was babysitting our vehicle at her house in Omaha, was also there with her husband.  While I didn't "need" their presence, I really did "need" their presence.

Getting home at 2 a.m. was not high on my list but I loved coming home to a full house as my aunt and cousins had stayed at home to watch my kids.  I peeked in on my sleeping kids and showed Zeke the kids but didn't wake them.  But Conleigh woke up to voices around 2:30 and stumbled out.  And Kenson woke up around 4 when he heard me fumbling with my laptop because I couldn't sleep.  Love seeing their faces and being home with them.  And I loved waking up (after a brief two hour nap) to a full house, even if it was chaotic.

Consulate Appointment; Catch you on the Flip Side!

Our time in China is winding down and oddly enough, I'm not itching to leave.  (Now, I am definitely ready to be at home but I am not feeling desparate about it.)  Today we finished up the last part of our paperwork here:  processing Zeke's visa.  The adoption paperwork was finalized in his province so this is the last piece we need in order to get into the US with Zeke.  The appointment was held at the US Consulate in Guangzhou.  For those of you with Haitian ties, it's definitely different than the Consulate in Haiti.  It was more like they had the floor of an office building versus the polished marble mansion of the Consulate in Port Au Prince.  It was pretty loud and crowded as probably ten other families had appointments at roughly the same time as us.  The worker in charge of adoption paperworks greeted all families and explained a bit about the immigration process.  Then the other workers started calling family names to come up to different cubicles to finish the paperwork.  We were actually the first family called.  Our guide will go back tomorrow to the consulate to pick up Zeke's Chinese passport which will have his US visa affixed to a page on the inside. 

That means Thursday will be a free day for us.  I think we are planning to catch a taxi and go to Shaiman Island.  Shaiman Island used to be where most adoptive families stayed because the medical appointments for visa processing were held there.  But the office there relocated and then one of the major hotels on the island closed for rennovation so many families choose to stay elsewhere.  We're going to head over just to see what is there and maybe shop.  It will help break up a long day of hotel room lounging. 

Then Friday morning we will be headed to the airport.  We will be headed to Hong Kong to catch a flight to Chicago and then home.  Our turn around in Hong Kong is pretty tight (like 50 minutes) but there are other adoptive families on the same flight so I'm hoping that will help ensure we get on it even if we are not there as early as we would normally be.

Newest American citizen, signing out...well newest as of Friday afternoon once we land in Chicago.

Six Banyan Temple and Yuntai Park

Tuesday, we spent a couple hours sight seeing in Guangzhou.  I can't say that the sites we went to were anything all that fantastic but going out beat spending the afternoon in a small hotel room with a two year old.  (Pretty much anything beats that.)  The Six Banyan Temple was another Buddhist monestary/temple.  It was basically the same thing as the first temple we saw:  maybe 20-30 Chinese lighting incense and praying with tall Buddhas surrounded by offerings.   This one was a bit different in that it had a tall pagoda structure in the center which, until the modern era, was the tallest building in Guangzhou.  Also, as we were entering, there was a display set up with assorted offerings (peanuts, apples, candy, etc.).  Zeke pointed at it and said "I want" in Mandarin.  The woman who was in charge of the enterance heard him and gave him two pieces of candy and an apple.  Our guide explained that many adoptive families come to this temple and that following Budhist customs, eating the offerings can be seen as a way to ensure good luck.


Pagoda structure from the temple; it was very tall so it was hard to even get a picture that captured it.
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 We also toured Yuntai Park.  The park contained several fountains, a huge variety of plants (cosmos, impatients, roses, boxwoods, and an assortment of tropical plants), and a greenhouse which housed more plants (a huge swath of orchids, a cactus garden, and more tropical plants). 

Working clock constructed from live flowers

 

Love the red lanterns hanging from the trees

Path leading through the rose garden