Hallelujah!

I have a few aquaintances that have recently adopted children from Haiti & also from the foster care system. I decided to look up their blogs and "catch up" on their lives a little bit. Reading their blogs was manna from heaven for my heart and soul. I finally felt like I wasn't alone and that I wasn't imagining all of this stuff. You see, adopting, while very exciting, is STRESSFUL!!! No one can argue with that. However, once you get into the details of adding new members to your family (and you to their family)-it gets a little bit sticky. People don't really want to know the details-they just expect you to be perfect and do it. Others paint us as saints. Most try to compare it to their parenting process of their own biological kids. Pretty much everyone who reads this blog has not adopted-so bear with me (this is absolutely not a post to put you down or make you feel bad-remember that!). As "prospective adoptive parents", you start to feel a little bit (actually, A LOT) crazy. You spend months and months learning to love children who didn't come from your womb-kids who don't want you to love them and don't want to love you. Eventually, yes, they will want us to love them & will want to love us but that comes later, much, much later. The crazy feeling comes due to the attachment issues. Most children have a wonderful attachment experience starting in the womb-they are cared for, fed, kept safe, etc. Obviously, children in the foster care system did not have that wonderful start. Kids are brilliant and they learn quickly what they need to do to "survive". Control issues become center stage-if you can control your environment then you can pretty much guarantee your survival. Unfortunately, those control issues don't just go away when placed in (what we believe is) a safe, loving home. I feel crazy because I have to "fight" with my kids to use the bathroom, put on shoes, sweatshirts, what plate we are going to use, etc. Now I know a lot of you are saying, "well-my kids do that, kids do that". Yeah-kids do that-Noah & Isaac do that. But....average, stable kids know when to say when. If it is a choice between having the exact plate they want & not eating the meal-they are able to rationalize out that the plate doesn't really matter. Isaac is the definition of strong willed, so I know strong willed. Hear me well-I don't want robots, I don't want stepford children. I just am tired of fighting over things that don't matter. But I have to fight-because if I don't the kids will never need me, they will never begin to trust me, they will never attach to me. I have to help them learn to trust adults-learn to trust us. However, as I said above-kids are the masters of doing what they need to do to survive. So-this is where the really crazy feelings start-they are perfect ANGELS when anyone else is around. We have all watched those sitcoms where the family is yelling and screaming at each other & then the doorbell rings. When the person enters the house they don't find chaos, they find a perfect-looking family sitting together having a love fest. Yeah-I feel like that is my life when anyone comes over. I don't necessarily try to hide what is going on-it just all seems to vanish before my eyes. Then when the company leaves-the chaos restarts! The behavior change is so radical-so much so that friends, teachers, church-goers, etc tell us over and over how WONDERFUL they are & how LUCKY we are to have them in our lives. We had one person tell us that Brian was perfect & could we believe how lucky we were and if we weren't going to pursue adoption to let her know because she would love the chance to raise him. ARGHHH....what do you say to that??? Well, actually what I said was no child is perfect, yes we are lucky, blessed actually, and that we were in fact, adopting Brian but on those days that he wasn't behaving "perfectly" that I would be glad to let her babysit. Oh the look on her face was priceless! We are so blessed to have Brian, Jasmine, and Shamie-and we love them (control issues and all). I feel like I spend half my time explaining that the kids are not perfect and the other half advocating for their needs. Reading those blogs just further helps me understand that I need other people. I am not crazy-what we are going through is real. I choices we make are based on the fact that we know these kids better than anyone else in the whole world. We are not mean, controlling parents. Ahh....it feels good to be normal again. But I now realize more than ever that I need a break, I need to be around others going through this, I need to keep perspective, I need to keep my eyes, heart, and mind focused on Jesus.