12 Years in 2 Months...Please!

As I have said before I only chronicle a small portion of what we face everyday. Most people will read this and read into my statement some exaggeration - I assure you it is not. We are surrounded by a loving, caring church community who often ask "how are things going". I often pause for a moment because usually I can only remember some of yesterday and today. Our days are filled with minefield tip-toeing and a tow truck mentality (constantly trying to pull broken, beat up kids into yesterday). From 7am until 9pm we are constantly moving - from 9pm to 12am we are spending time defragmenting our minds and rehearsing the day to make sure most things were not left behind. Anyway, on to my post.

Here is a caution or warning for all of you who are still in the process of adopting - 12 years in 2 months...please!

Last night Caleb asked me if I would buy him a calculator. I asked him why? He said that he could use it at school.
I told him he was in 3rd grade and didn't need a calculator.
He told me that some kids in school use calculators.
I told him they were lazy.
He told me that a calculator would be an "erdata" (a help).
I told him that they would make HIM lazy.
I also told him that he was and Ethiopian and Ethiopians are hard workers so no calculators for him.
He told me that he was now American and needed a calculator.
I grew weary of the conversation and told him "No calculator, finished!"
And then he pulled his secret, manipulating little weapon, "Emma has a calculator!"
Ahhh, there we go - he had me, or so he thought.
Emma's calculator is a toy and she doesn't use it at school.
Well if Emma has a calculator then so should Noah, Josiah, and Caleb.
You can share Emma's calculator when she is not using it, now I am finished with this conversation - go to bed.

He pouted and marched off to bed, probably more sore that he lost a battle with me.


For context sake, our conversation is not as nearly as smooth as that. We stumble over words, make hand motions, I try to throw a little Amharic his way, we use pictures...it is a very time consuming, but important conversation. Now with any of my English speaking children I would have said no, you don't need one until later in school now go to bed...the conversation would have been finished. But the boys have no context with us and they are faced with almost unsurmountable challenges, so patience and reasoning come into play.

The point of my little post is to let you know that your children may want everything that they normally would have accumulated over the span of their lives if they had lived in America...especially if you already have children with belongings. The calculator was bought at the dollar store with money that was given to the girls for a birthday last year. The jeweled giraffe was given by Grandmommy, the used Game boy was given by a cousin in Georgia last year, their umpteen pairs of shoes have been collected by a clothing swap and some of them they can no longer even wear, the dolls have been collected over 8 years, and so on and so on. But they expect to have it all, now if you don't mind.

We were warned that this would happen beforehand so we cleaned out a lot of what the girls have collected over the years. To be honest it was way past time to do it and we offloaded a ton of junk...I mean stuff. Jennifer has gone through their belongings once again and downsized even more. I walked through their room last night and quite honestly it could be emptied out one more time.

It is a tightrope - you most definitely DO NOT want to give your adopted children lot's of stuff when they first arrive home. But you also have to realize that you are going to cause yourself heartache and your adopted children jealousy if you swing one way or another. So climb up here with us on the tightrope and start committing some "contentment" verses to memory. While you are doing that, feel free to start decluttering, dejunking, and simply simplifying YOUR life so that you will be prepared to help them transition a little better.