Nora Brings Down the House!

Every day I need to write down the hilarious sayings from my little Colombian princess.  Here are a few from this week.

Me: (asking my dad) Do you know why the flags are at half mass?

Dad: No.

Nora: Maybe they’re broken.

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Nora: Mom, do you shrink when you are a grandma?

Me: Yes, you get a little bit shorter.

Nora: I’m going to be a mini grandma!

*******

We were all riding in the truck pacing for my son on his bicycle (who rides behind the truck to practice going faster with drafting.) We went down the same stretch of road twice and then Nora said, “We should let him go first this time!”

*******

Riding in the back seat of the truck with the windows down, Nora yells, “I can’t breathe. The air is in my face!”

*******

Nora: Mom, do you know how to dance like a princess?

Me: I don’t think so.

Nora: All you do is point your toes and make your arms go like this (slowly puts her arms out)…. but you also need a prince.

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A really loud motorcycle went by our car and Nora put her hand to her chest and lamented, “I think that broke my heart!”

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Nora helped me make a salad from a bag kit.  She mixed it all up and then asked me, “Do you want me to put on the drussian?”   (I think that might be Russian dressing???)

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Nora caught a whiff of her sweaty brothers after street hockey and said to her sister, “Boys stink!”  Larisa said, “Girls stink too.”  To which she flabbergastedly replied, “REALLY?  I did not know that!”

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Her bedtime prayers make me want to giggle.  She tells God that she hopes he has a good day.  She thanks him for the food and then explains to him that she knows it’s not time to eat but she is thankful we have food.  She often says, “Thank you God for me.”  I love it!

The Worst Adoptive Mama on the Planet

Quietness and darkness have enveloped our home.  Only because it’s 4:35 a.m.  Our house is rarely quiet, rarely dark and rarely active at this time of the morning.  It has been one week since my car accident that has driven me to sleep on the couch (I couldn’t even THINK of climbing stairs for the first four days home).  And as much as I love sleeping with my husband, I love sleeping …. without fearing that he will kick my battered legs, bump my aching arms, yank the sheets against my seatbelt bruises on my neck or snore and make me crabby.  I’m starting to understand why my grandparents had separate rooms.  (Don’t worry, Honey, I’ll come back upstairs eventually.)  Aching arms woke me up in these wee hours… and it’s not time for the wonder drugs yet.  The fact that I can wait it out gives me hope that I’m not completely addicted to pain killers. Even in weariness, I have some level of self control.

My six year old habitual pastime of reading adoption blogs is still a passion of my soul.  It always will be.  Reading about a young couple tonight faced with infertility who have chosen a child in Ethiopia makes my adoptive mama heart beat with glee.  Another baby will have a mama.  Another daddy will cry tears of joy.  Another child will be placed by God and the nightmares might just fade a wee bit, making life a better place.  A safer place.

As an adoptive mama, I have had the normal adoptive mama fears that I am the worst adoptive mama on the planet.  I have cut off the Colombian princess from sugar at times, even sending her to bed with no cake!  Imagine!!!  I have sent her to her room when I couldn’t think of answering one more question about heaven.  I have not taken her to Disneyland.  I won’t buy her cute clothes just because they are cute, when her stuffed closet has more than enough.  I am sure I have been caught on surveillance tapes more than a dozen times in the Walmart parking lot saying, “We are not here to buy anything for you today.”  And I’ve wondered if she was in a different home, would she be granted more stuff and have more privileges.  I have expressed this self-doubt to other mamas and one in particular has told me again and again, “You are the perfect mama God chose for your girl.  She is in the right home.  You are the right mama. You are loving her just the way she needs to be loved.”  And it does my heart good for about three minutes and then the doubts return.

The before mentioned car accident was actually a glimpse into my “good adoptive mama” side that I needed to see.  The crash happened in the blink of an eye.  The air bags exploded.  Stinky smoke filled the van. And all I could think to do was jump out of my door which only opened half way to get to my nine-year-old baby in the seat behind me.  We hugged each other and balled our eyes out together.  She was not hurt.  I quickly realized that my legs were not fine and I was needing to sit back down.  Yes, the metal hitting metal sounds were ghastly and hurt our ears, but I believe what scared her the most was hearing me cry for the first time.  The ugly cry with snorts and uncontrollable guttural sounds. She kept reaching up and touching my shoulders in the front seat. Through the tears and pain, we bonded at a deeper level.

On my girl scout sash of life, I feel like I earned my “Unconditional Adoptive Mama Love” badge.  And my bruised body is a mere side effect of the stamp of approval on my heart.

Daddy’s Being Sly

Yesterday we went shopping at Goodwill because it was 50% off day! Whooo Hoooo!  I mean, really.  If you’re going to buy other people’s junk, you might as well go on the day when it is half off.  No, we didn’t pre-shop the sale on Friday night.  We didn’t even line up at 8:30 a.m.  We have relaxed a bit.  We waited until the LONG lines of the morning rush had slightly diminished before we hit the store for the goods.

As I was perusing the women’s clothing for Lands End, Anne Taylor and Coldwater Creek labels, Rick and Nora, the nine-year-old Colombian princess, were in the toy aisle.  Nora spotted a paper doll set that had a gazillion outfits for the three dollies and a Nancy Drew video game, both to die for.  EAch was marked $2, so they would be only one dollar!  Knowing that Daddy would probably make her pay for them with her own hard-earned money, she decided to work him.  “Daddy, if I pay for one will you pay for the other?”  And I’m sure she batted her long eyelashes and flashed her dimples at the weak man.  Of course he agreed, so she dug four quarters out of her wallet and handed them over to him, quite pleased with her negotiating skills.

We reconnoitered at the check-out and made it painlessly through the line.  On the way to the car, Nora confronted her father, “Dad, I gave you the money for my doll set but you did not use the quarters to pay for it.  My quarters are still in your pocket.”  This is called hyper-vigilant, which means that she is VERY aware of ALL that is going on around her at ALL times.  From what I’ve read, it is common with adoptive children.  Patiently Rick explained that he had her quarters but he paid with bills from his wallet.  She responded, “I know…… can I please have my money back?”  Oh did we howl.  We tried to explain it over and over but there was no comprendo on her part AT ALL.  She still thinks daddy pulled one over on her!

Good times at Goodwill!

The Coming Conundrum

This photo showed up today on facebook… and I shared it on my wall, like 29,368 other people did. Being an adoptive mama, I have mixed feelings about this on several levels.

For this beautiful 22-year-old woman I pray that she gets a glimpse of her birth-parents for no other reason than looking in the face of someone she is related to by blood.  That connection cannot be replaced, other than by having her own children. It would also be a treasure for her to learn of family history, possible siblings and birth grandparents, aunts and uncles.  In a peaches-and-cream-everything-always-turns-up-roses life this could be the start of a beautiful family expanding experience.  But I don’t know one single family where life has turned up roses and there aren’t real life sad situations to deal with.

However, there are the birthparents and their current lives to consider.  What if they never told ANYONE about the daughter they had when they were in the middle of high school?  What if the birth-father doesn’t even know!? There are many reasons for choosing an adoptive plan for a child and many more reasons for requesting it be a closed adoption.  I understand closure is desired by some who are adopted, but through this possible re-connecting are two separate lives who have moved on from the 22-year-old monumental decision they made to give life, love her to pieces, and make a better plan for her life than they could provide.  If found, they have the choice to embrace their long-lost daughter, or protect those around them and hurt their “secret” daughter again.

Because of our Colombian princess’s situation in her homeland, we do have quite a bit of information about her birth-parents.  Most likely, we could find them with a bit of sleuthing, thanks to the healthcare system in Colombia.  However, Colombian law holds all adoption records as confidential for 30 years.  THIRTY YEARS!  Good grief!  So it is unlikely that our girl will have anyone looking for her. It will be up to us.  Colombian law states that “every adopted person has the right to know about his/her origin and the character of its family links.  The parents (of an adopted minor) will decide on the moment and conditions in which it will not cause the minor harm to know such information.”  THAT is the conundrum.  No matter the circumstances of an adoption plan being made, there is the possibility of a real sense of abandonment for the child, and when has abandonment ever not caused harm?

I still believe in, support and love adoption with my whole being.  Yet someday we will face the heartfelt question, “Can we try to find my birth-parents?”  One day at a time.  One day at a time.

My Heart is STILL in Colombia!

It’s true.  We have been home from Cali, Colombia for 23 months with our little Colombian princess.  The adoption journey has had bumps and twists that we didn’t expect, but it has been so wonderful and rewarding.

Tomorrow is GOTCHA DAY number two!

TWO YEARS!!!  Hard to believe it has gone by so fast.  Sometimes our month in Colombia seems like forever ago… and sometimes it seems like last week.  I miss the lush greenness of Cali, the vast array of mystery fruits that were scrumptiously yummy, the glimpses of the Andes when the fog lifted, the bamboo forest we drove by to our villa, the coconut ice cream bars, the afternoon rain showers, the neighborhood boys who would come and ask,  “Is Austin Rick’s son?”, the sweet smell of the flowers, arepas filled white cheese, the stickiness of the night air and the pee-po pee-po LOUD evening serenade of the coqui frogs.

People often ask “Why Colombia?”  Quite a few factors lead us to the beautiful and tropical South American country.

1.) My husband, Rick, went to Valledupar, Colombia for a summer to build a church when he was 17-years-old.  He grew to love the warm-hearted people and the countryside teeming with unknown vegetation, never imagining that he would return to meet his daughter twenty-something years later.

2.) We have three bio kids who do not look like Rick AT ALL.  Ok, one does a little, but I was expecting little chubby, black-haired Indian babies when I married a Cree Indian.  Didn’t happen.  The Irish and Finnish genes dominated and we got two blonde-haired, blue-eyed kids and another slightly darker. So, when we had chosen an adoption agency, I looked through the pages for the countries they worked in….   I held up the two pages and announced to Rick, “El Salvador and Colombia are where the kids look like you.“  “Colombia,” he replied.  And it was a done deal.

3.) Not that I was anywhere near proficient, but I thoroughly enjoyed taking Spanish… back in the day.  Larisa also had Spanish courses and was mastering her second language quite nicely.  So a country in South America seemed familiar… somehow.  (Not distant in my mind, like, say, Kazakhstan… or China.) I related to Ellie from the movie UP…. her dream was to visit South America.  She tore pictures right out of a library book of the fascinating country.

I am as American as you could get.  I LOVE my country… the anthem brings me to tears.  Studying and teaching the history of our great land is a deep passion of mine.  But I have to say that my heart beats in thirds… a third for the USA, a third for Canada, where I spent my college years and the first 10 years of marriage, and now a third for Colombia where I fell in love with my daughter’s people and homeland.  My heart is still in Colombia. <3

From Wonder Mama to Blunder Mama

With the arrival of our Colombian princess’s second GOTCHA DAY next Sunday, memories of that time in our lives have been frequent, heart warming and still alarming in some cases.

November 25, 2010 the day we received Nora, is alive and well in my memory banks.  The morning began with my first Spanglish lesson of ordering breakfast from the kitchen in the hotel where we had arrived just seven short hours previously.  Translated from my lame Spanish back to lame English for your enjoyment….my order: “Eggs.  Milk.  Five people.  Juice.  Cooked bread.(toast)  Coffee.”  The kind person on the phone kept asking me questions and I had NO idea what they were saying.  I repeated my eight word order several times.  Surprisingly, we did get everything we asked for, plus hot cocoa, arepas, jam, honey and some fruit!

On our drive home from ICBF (Colombian social services), we were all jolted beyond belief in the traffic, on the steep hills and due to the driving style of our guide.  Thankfully we only had a 20 minute ride or we would have all been losing our breakfast.

Being the prepared official mother of four children, when Nora started looking woozy, I grabbed a gallon zip lock bag from my purse and she used it well.  Just a teeny bit of mama pride surfaced as I had anticipated the problem and solved it in the nick of time.  We also learned at that moment that she had been fed chocolate cake for breakfast.  LOTS of chocolate cake.

My mama pride dissolved into nothingness that same evening when we tucked Nora in for the night.  We all kissed her, Larisa brushed out her nine tiny braids before she was wrapped in her cozy new jammies and ready for beddy-bye.  My sweet husband has done the tucking-in for all of the kids’ lives.  He is such a thoughtful dad and spends time talking with them and listening to how their day went.  The kids love their Daddy time as much as I love my freedom time.  Rick went to put her in her bed in the second bedroom of our “apartment”.  I could hear him singing and talking to his new little daughter whom he couldn’t understand… nor could he speak a lick of Spanish.

About six or seven minutes into this familiar TO US ritual, I realized for the first time Nora was alone with this strange man whom she was to call Daddy.  The information we had about her past was sketchy, but it dawned on me that she could be terrified of my sweet, kind-hearted husband…. just because he is male.

As quickly as my little fingers could type into Google translate, I wrote the sentences “Your Papi loves you.  He will never hurt you.  He will always protect you and take care of you.  He is a very nice man.  He has never hurt anyone.  You don’t have to ever be scared of him.  He loves you.”  I unplugged the computer and rushed into the room where, as I suspected, she was clinging to the far edge of her bed with wide fearful eyes.  My heart broke… once more.  How stupid of us!  I read the sentences of love and assurance to her in Spanish and I visibly saw her relax and sink into the pillow with relief.

I went from Wonder Mama with the barf bag to Blunder Mama with the scary husband…. all in 11 hours!  I had a lot to learn…. and the learning curve was quite steep two years back.  Thank God for Google translate!

“Watch and Learn”

This is the new one liner our little Colombian princess is repeating… and repeating … and repeating.  “Watch and learn!”  We’re not sure where it came from? (Austin?)

Just another few factoids of folly from her today as well:  We have friends who are Anglo-Saxon (do they still call us white folk Anglo-Saxon?), with 2 bio kids and four adopted kids, one of whom is from Korea.  Nora asked me today if their family does “Gotchya Day”.  “I’m not sure if they do, but they would have a lot if they did!” and I named the four adopted kids.  Nora was astonished that the 13-year-old from Korea (in the family of 7 other white people) was adopted.  She amazes me sometimes.

Later this afternoon, I witnessed her parade to and from the bathroom and her bedroom…. a few too many times for normal wear and tear.  The following conversation followed.

Me:  “Nora, what are you doing?”

N:  “Playing”

Me: “What are you playing?”

N:  “I made some food for my dolls.”  Carrying a little sauce pan to the bathroom again.

Me:  “What did you make for them?”

N:  “Soup.”

Me:  “What is in the soup?”

N:  “Water.”

I looked into the pot…. it was a milky white substance with chunks.

Me:  “What else did you put in the soup?”

N:  “Paper and glue.”

Me:  “Where in the world did you get that idea?”

N:  “From George.”

Me:  “Who is George?”

N:  “That little monkey.”

(Curious George!!!!)

Me:  “Don’t EVER do anything that George does!”

:o)

 

After ALL These Years….

After all these years, I have finally figured something out.  Please don’t hold your breath too long waiting in anticipation for this monumental, earth-shattering news.  The back-story first.

With two bathrooms upstairs and a newly acquired princess from Colombia in December 2010, I decided that she could brush her teeth and bathe in the master bathroom, so as to leave more room for her three siblings.  How nice of me.  I’m the nice mom, remember?  I figured it wouldn’t be that much of a hassle due to her usually preening at different hours than her father and me.  Fast-forward four months to me being completely grossed out by the blobby toothpaste all over the cap and drawer where the Crest is kept.

The gross-out feeling is mutual between my new daughter and me.  She is grossed out that hair is stuck in my hairbrush.  I am grossed out by dried, globby toothpaste on the cap and in the drawer.  Deciding not to mention the blue blobs, I got myself a brand spankin’ new tube of Crest ONLY for personal use, and cleared a spot in my medicine cabinet for MY toothpaste where it would remain clean and blob-free.

NOTHING gets past her big brown eyes!  NOTHING!  She asked me THE NEXT DAY, “Why do you have toothpaste up there on the shelf now?”

In a sweet voice (because I’m the nice mom) I replied, “It’s because someone left toothpaste on that tube in the drawer and I don’t want to touch it.”

Her response made me burst out laughing, “Maybe DAD left the toothpaste all over the cap!”  Hahahaha!

Her father and I have been sharing the same tube of toothpaste for 23 years.  If you are a germaphobe, I’m sorry that you now look down your sanitized nose at us.  We are what we are.  So, YES there were new clumps of toothpaste.  YES, the Colombian princess was the culprit…. but not the culprit willing to admit to the messiness.

So what did I figure out after all these years?  My husband is a very neat toothpaste user, for which I am thankful.   I would not be harboring these thankful thoughts if it weren’t for our Colombian Princess joining the family.  :o)  One more blessing of adoption.

 

Nine-Year-Old Tales

I bring to you today MORE Nora-isms.  Our beautiful little Colombian princess says PRICELESS tidbits daily!  They bring joy to my heart and a smile to my face…. and often a giggle to my lips.

1.)  Nora, to her 7-year-old cousin, Luke, “Hey, my friend’s dad has a truck just like that one!”

Luke, “Which one, the Dodge?”

Nora, “No, the blue one.”  (Same truck!  hahahaha!)

2.)  When we just had Christmas in July with family friends, Nora opened the fantastic purple girl’s Lego car from the Friends collection and was THRILLED!  When asked how much she liked it she replied, “A million!“

3.)  Tonight at the dinner table Nora said, “I was looking out the window and I think that giant white rat, Stuart Little, is out there watching us.  I think he is saying, ‘That is a nice family!’  Mom, we should adopt him.”

4.)  Nora:  Mom, did you just say anniversary?

Me:  No, I said birthday.  Do you know what an anniversary is?

Nora:  Yea, it’s a big party with rocking and roll.  (She experienced our 25th Anniversary party!)

5.)  Nora tells me her dreams often…. her latest one:  “Mom, I had a dream that you were down in the ground and we pulled you out and you had no legs but you were still alive.  ……..  Do you like that?”

6.)  “Mom, I’m going to ask God when I go up heaven why we have dreams.  Dreams are awkward.”

 

Nora-isms: Skills of Language Acquisition

Until our Colombian princess learns how words are spelled, she will continue to pronounce them the way she hears them, which is not always clearly nor correctly.  It may be contributed also to our lazy speech or the rapid-fire delivery we occasionally use.  It makes me laugh.  Have a glimpse into our kitchen this afternoon:

Nora: Mom, will you paint with me tomorrow?

Me: Sure, I will paint with you.

Nora: What is taint?

Me: I don’t know what taint is.

Nora: You just said taint.

Me: No, I said paint.

Nora: Oh, ok.  What does taint mean?

Me: (thinking that I don’t want to explain a tainted woman) Nothing really.

Nora: Isn’t that where you put the gas in the van?

Me: No, that is TANK.

Nora: Oh, I thought it was taint.

And so our lives go on as she learns to carefully pronounce words in English.  I distinctly remember the Colombians laughing at my Spanish.  I’m sure I had some doozies as well.  Later today she asked if I wanted to watch a movie with her. Sure. 

Nora:  How about Robin Hoove?

Me: What?

Nora: Robin Hoove…. you know with the wolf and the chicken.

Me: Oh!  You mean Robin Hood, and he’s a fox.

Nora: Hey, just like my book I read Sox the Fox!

Me: Yep! 

Nora: Can we start Robin Hoove now?

Her words make me laugh over and over again.  And the word Congratulations has lots of syllables.  Too many to remember sometimes. 

Later I asked her to pause the movie so we could eat dinner.  She replied, “Yes, man.” 

Me: What?

Nora: Yes, man.  I learned that on a Focus on a Famly story.  The boy kept saying “Yes, man” to his mom.  She said it was good matters. (manners……)

Me: It is actually, “Yes, Ma’am.”

Nora: What is?

Me: Yes, Man is supposed to be Yes Ma’am.

Nora: Oh.  I wondered why he was calling him mom a man.

And later again, we were in my bedroom looking for matches to sterilize a needle….

Nora: Did you look under the covers?

Me: No, why would I keep matches under the covers?

Nora: I seen them there before.

Me: YOU DID?  (Reflecting back 15 years ago when Larisa tried burning the house down by lighting matches in our bed!) Who’s bed were they in?

Nora: What do you mean bed?

Me: You know what a bed is.

Nora: Why would you keep matches in a bed?

Me: That’s what I want to know.   (She stares at me like I’m stupid.)

Nora: (Exasperated) Look under the covers in your bathroom…. I seen the matches there.

AHA!  Cupboards = covers.  Good grief!

The English language is a beast.