Momma said it….or at least somebody’s momma did. There will be days like this.
We haven’t had a bad day or anything. I would say our day today was pretty normal. We are continuing to learn what challenges we will face both with the children as we work to instill in them spiritual things, values, morality, right thinking/acting, & so much more, and with our new family dynamics. We are doing the best we can and know how to do with our limited experience. Amy and I often think of how grateful we are for the friends in our lives who have blazed the trail of adoption ahead of us and the wisdom, encouragement, and love they continue to show.

One funny dynamic happens with our youngest (A). Well, it’s funny from an interesting perspective, not an LOL perspective. In one moment she will be very affectionate and engaging – at least for her. She’s definitely an introvert and takes a while to warm up to people (All my friends/family at home, please remember this when you meet her!). She has a cute laugh and is very loving when she is comfortable….but she’s got a major stubborn streak. So, one moment or day she’ll be very engaged and loving, and then the next she will scowl at you as if you are the last person on earth she wants to be around. Last night momma was the best thing in the history of her young life. Then this morning she refused to give momma a hug and would barely even look at her! Then, a while later, she crawled in her lap and hugged on her for five minutes.
Curiouser and curiouser.

This is VERY minor (I just heard all the adoption folks who have dealt with much worse roll their eyes!) and we understand this. But it got me thinking about some things. We have read stories like this before we came to Poland, as we prepared for this process. Many of the stories we read were tragic and much more traumatic on both the child and the parents. We are well aware we have very limited knowledge at this stage of our new life. I do not want you to think I believe we have it all figured out or know exactly what we’re doing. We certainly don’t. But there are a few things, seven to be exact, I’ve really been thinking about and Amy and I have been talking about, as this process has unfolded before us. I thought I’d share them with you.

1. Check Your Expectations At the Airport
Everyone wants the fairy-tale adoption story. You know the one where the child(ren) see you pull up to the foster house and begin jumping up and down with excitement. The car stops and you begin to get out. They run to you, throw their arms around you and profusely thank you for coming to change their life! I’m sure this has happened somewhere, but I seriously doubt it’s the norm.
Or the one where the family instantly gels as a cohesive unit. All the children get along and have all kinds of things in common. No one gets on each others nerves; no one has dysfunction evident in their lives; no one experiences withdrawal, grief, or culture shock; everyone believes in what your’e doing….etc, etc, etc. Oh, and the unicorn is tied to the rainbow in the back yard.
The best thing you can do as an adoptive family, is check your expectations at the airport. The expectations of what will happen those first few weeks will most likely not happen. You will have challenges AND victories you never thought of before. You’ll have things thrown your way for which you were not looking. NOTHING in life ever happens the exact way we have planned it out in our head, so check your expectations at airport.
Instead, take it day by day, as it comes. Don’t get thrown off course by the hard or scary or frustrating things. Trust God through the things which happen exactly like you pictured and the things which don’t. You’ll have many more of those, so learning how to trust God through the unexpected is best discovered in the early stages of adoption, long before your feet reach the soil of the adoptive country.

2. Round & Round & Round
What I described above about our youngest is much more the norm. There will be days you feel like you made huge progress. The kids show affection. They listen. They obey. They take a bath. They are just kids and you breathe a sigh of relief. But then you take a few steps back. They wet the bed, they can’t tell you what’s wrong because they don’t even know, major tantrum eruption, you have a day or two where you just can’t get on the same page. Everything feels like it’s falling apart. Then, it all changes again and things begin to look up. I’m no expert, but I think this is normal.
I mean, think about it. Their entire world has just been flipped upside down. All of the sudden these strangers show up, hug and kiss them, tell them they love them, and they’re supposed to call them “mommy” & “daddy.” Then, they’re uprooted from whatever “normal” has been and whatever routine they have established and are asked to learn brand new things very quickly. This is hard on any child.
Our best defense for this is patience and grace. It’s easy to get frustrated or angry because you’ve shown them sixty-three times where to put their laundry, but it won’t help. They need grace. You need to maintain your sanity. I say choose both!

3. Your Child(rens) EMOTIONAL Age Probably Doesn’t Match Their CHRONOLOGICAL AGE
I think it was in our Hague adoption training where the facilitators mentioned the statistic orphans are one month behind for every three months they’ve spent in less than optimal care. This means if your child is three years old and has been in an orphanage their entire life, they’re not three years old. More like two years old, and they act like it! Doesn’t that explain A LOT??
Even if your child is in foster care….is that “optimal”? Well, it’s probably better than an orphanage (depending on the foster home), but I’m not sure we could qualify that as 100% optimal. Please, if you’re a foster parent, take no offense to that statement. I’m just saying living in a foster home isn’t the same as living in a forever home. That is hardly debatable.
So, chronologically our children are 9, 6, 5, and 3. But much more likely (and we think their behavior, emotional capacity, etc lends enormous credibility to this) they are 7, 5, 4, and 2. The younger aren’t quite as far behind as they’ve had less time in less than optimal care.
The good news is you WILL catch them up. But it will take time. I can’t remember the exact statistics on this, but it’s something like the same amount of time in reverse. So it takes three months in optimal care to make up one month of less than. I’m not 100% on these numbers as I’m going from memory. Bottom line, keep in mind the children’s chronological age likely doesn’t match the age at which they are processing life. This is an important fact for family and friends of adoptive kiddos to remember when they return home.

4. Less Than Optimal
It’s called this for a reason. Minimally, orphans were given up by their birth parents for a myriad of reasons we shall never know. In the worse case, the children lived with their parent(s) for a while but then at some point removed from the home. In this case, the trauma is two fold. First, what was happening at that home which caused it to be a dangerous environment for the children to be removed? Secondly, regardless of the answer to the first question, the child will be traumatized because of being removed from the only family they’ve ever known – even if that family was destructive. Every orphan has wounds….even if they cannot articulate what those wounds may be. This issue is what makes caring for orphans both difficult and critical. Less than optimal means exactly what it says and it needs to be kept in mind. They’ve spent a lot more time in this kind of care than the excellent care you’re providing. They neither know how to process this nor even exist within it. Don’t let this throw you….just stay the course.

5. It Won’t Always Be This Way
Oh, for the love of all things that are Polish keep this in mind!! While you’re in the adoptive country everything seems to compound into frustration. I’ve written before about all the conveniences we American’s take for granted often absent while in country. Couple this with the two-steps forward and three-steps back scenario, and you have a recipe for explosiveness. If you’re not careful, these little frustrations become major issues and can drive wedges between you and the people you care most in the world about. I know this seems crazy, but after doing marriage counseling for fifteen years, I can tell you it’s rarely the major issue providing the wedge in a marriage, but the compounding of small, insignificant annoyances.
IT WON’T ALWAYS BE THIS WAY!
You will go home.
You will again sleep in your bed.
You will get to eat at Taco Bell again (though today our craving was Five Guys)
You will help facilitate the healing of your children’s lives. Scars will remain, but healing will come.
You will get to (or have to) go back to work, life, friends & family.
You will settle in to a new normal and full bonding will happen.
There will be fewer and fewer days of regression.
I was texting with my mom tonight. She texted essentially what sums this section up: “It will be interesting to look back a year from now and see what God and consistent love will do!”
So true, mother….so true.

6. Resist the Temptation to Compare
I think this one is huge. There are always people who seem to have had an easier time OR people who are having a much harder time. One of the most detrimental things you can do is compare your experience with someone else’s. Gleaning insight from those who’ve gone before you is a worthwhile and important thing to do. But comparing your experience to theirs is not helpful.
Instead, embrace what God has put before you….including the warts, lice, lack of clothing, scabies, fear, and whatever else the children may bring with them.
Remember, they also come with beauty, innocence, curiosity, wonder, and hope.
Embracing the children and whatever they bring is key to living in faith and trusting God. If you’re always comparing your situation to what He has done in/through others, you will have a miserable existence. Trust God is giving you exactly what He’s appointed for you and your family….and for that child. He most assuredly chose you for them….but He also, just as much, chose them for you. Embrace it.

7. Today is NOT Tomorrow
His MERCIES are NEW EVERY morning! Whatever today has been – good and bad – leave it in today. He will give you the mercy and grace you need to face tomorrow, whatever it may bring. It may be harder than today. It may be more joyful than today. It may be lavished with victory or burning with setback. Regardless, His mercy is apportioned for you to face whatever may come. So rest easy…..Jesus said not to worry about it. Each day has enough trouble of it’s own.

This time you spend early in the adoption process called “bonding” has one purpose as far as I can tell: Trust. We want to build solid lines of trust. Why? Because in a couple short weeks, we get to go home. And while the part of our family who made the first jump across the pond is looking forward to familiar and comfortable things, for our newest additions, this will just be another season of turmoil as we start over finding our new normal. Hopefully, we will have built enough trust and will be able to keep these thoughts in mind to have good days…..lots and lots of good days.

The times they are a changing.
I bet every generation has uttered these words or something similar as the world before them advances and changes right before their eyes. Bob Dylan even had a hit song by this very name. Every parent, at some point, realizes the world in which their children grow up will be (or more likely already is) vastly different than their own. All of us know this is the normal progression of human history, but we still find time to complain the “good ‘ol days” are long gone.

I think I was fortunate in some aspects of my upbringing. The house to which my mom and dad brought me home from the hospital was the same house in which I had my 10th birthday party. In fact nearly all of the major milestones of my life happened around Winding Waters Lane…..It’s where I parked my first car (an ’84 Chevy Cavalier, mind you); and the same house which hosted my graduation open house and Amy and my wedding shower. In fact, it wasn’t until just a few years ago my parents finally decided to downsize and sold the old homestead. That house, on Christiana Creek, was an important and consistent part of my life for 25+ years. It was home.

Home, though, isn’t just a house. It’s the people with which you share life. You see, I also grew up with predictable family functions – like the Christmas Eve gathering at my Clifton grandparents, and the New Years day shindig on the Carlson side. I knew where my aunts and uncles lived and actually grew up spending time with my cousins. Lots of time. I remember our family celebrating big days together, shedding lots of tears on the hard days-and we had some, and all in all sharing life together. I spent as much time at my grandparents homes as I did my own, especially in the summer. And who could forget how good my sister was at cheating at Old Maid (OK, maybe that was me!) on long road trips with my mom and grandparents. My life, for the most part, was stable, comfortable, consistent, and secure. I always knew my parents were there, my sister was just across the hall and if I was scared, on a good night, I could sneak into her bed past my dad in the living room, until he wised up to my sneakyness.

I’ll never forget the first time I went to college. Those first few months are the hardest and I was REALLY homesick by the time Fall Break rolled around. I’m pretty sure I made it from Springfield, MO to Elkhart, IN in around 8 hours; 600 miles in 8 hours. I knew everything would be OK once I pulled into that long gravel driveway.
I guess I’m saying I always knew my way home.

Nowadays it’s not this way. Our lives are so convoluted and chaotic many people don’t know if they’re coming or going. Life is crazy, without consistency, and without the deep sense of family I experienced as a child. Generally speaking anyway. People are isolated, forced to deal with good and bad alone far too often. Amy and I have always tried, and often unsuccessfully, to give our children the same sense of home with which I grew up. Chloe has known only three houses in her life, which is far less than her momma had known at her age. Isaac has only known one. We have worked hard to shield ourselves from the craziness, over-scheduled, and indulgent lifestyles our society seems to portray as normal – and many line up to prove them right. Though I cannot say we have never ventured into those expectations, I can say we haven’t gotten stuck there either. But this has required NOT doing some things everyone else was doing (can you imagine actually saying “no”!?!?!?!). I hope our children will say they were allowed to be kids – to ride their bike, play with the neighbors, and have sleepovers. That they loved the impromptu slip ‘n slides, picnics on the hill, and spur of the moment trips to the park. That someday when they’re raising their own children, they will look with (mostly) fondness on their childhood; that it was safe, and pure, and lovely. And when they think about it, they feel like they’ve come back home.

See home is more than a place. It’s more than a set of rooms set on a foundation. It’s more than a place to get your mail. Home is where your family gathers. Home is where you go when you need to celebrate or when you need to mourn. Home is where you go when you’re lonely, when you’re hurting, when you need to see familiar people or get a lick from the family dog. Home is where the proverbial heart is. Truly.

My biological children, and even Amy and I, have been saying the old “I want to go home” complaint. I think, while we love Poland, we long to be in that place where our family is (I use that term, not to indicate blood relations, but those with whom one does life), to be around our things, to drive the tractor, play with Char Char (our dog), and even just be able to go to Meijer for a couple of hours. We want to go home.

But then I think about our Polish kiddos. Have they ever had any of this? Where is home to them? What brings those feelings of familiarity and hope and that everything is going to be OK? Who celebrated good days with them and mourned the bad ones? We want to go home, but they’ve never really had a home to which to go! The home they came into from the hospital? That wasn’t a good place. Two separate foster homes in two years. While stable, they refer to their caregivers as “aunt” and “uncle”. This is not home, at least to me.

I don’t feel guilty over how we feel versus how they may feel. I know they’re excited to come to our home and be in our family. I’ve asked each of them numerous times. They are looking forward to the bunkbeds we have for them. They’re pumped about our giant yard. They’re even looking forward to being a part of our church. And of course they’re very excited to go to Disney World very soon!

But I know they have no idea the culture shock they’re about to experience. I know they have not thought about the soon to be necessity of learning a new language, just to survive. I know they have not quantified the possibility they may never again return to Poland, and even if they do, they are not likely to drive with fondness around their old stomping grounds in the same way I do Elkhart whenever I visit. I know the hill we are about to climb together will be high, steep, and challenging.

But I also know they will be safe with us. Their little hearts will all-the-way heal from whatever trauma they’ve experienced. Some scars may remain but healing will be total. I know they will experience the love of a very affectionate daddy and the patient kindness of an amazing mommy. I know they will sleep warm in the winter and eat popsicles in the summer to cool down. I know they will have Christmas sleepovers at Nana’s house, eating far too many cookies while I polish off the box of Mojos from Martin’s. I know they will soon know the love of a family of believers, what it’s like to truly have friends who will walk with you, and teachers who will pray for you every day of your life. I know they’re about to experience what’s it like to have a home…..

And I know, after this, they’ll always be able to find their way back.

There are many highs and lows in the adoption process. We probably had a dozen celebratory dinners and I gnawed through three bottles of antacids. The highs are often very high and the lows often very low. I would say, though, after our first trip, we were trying to get back so fast by expediting our I-800 paperwork, nearly all the emotion was put on hold as we worked through the final “business” issues to clear the way to Poland. Once we left, all the emotions and excitement came flooding in. When we boarded that Lufthansa plane as six knowing we were coming back as ten, our emotions came flooding back. Welcome to the highest of highs in the adoption process!

We had already met the children, so while this was totally exhilarating, it wasn’t full of the emotions we felt the very first time. This time, I would describe it as relief…like coming home to your children after a ten day business trip. Glad to be united again. I certainly don’t want to minimize how we felt. That first week was full of family firsts – first meals, first night, first walk to town, first discipline, first caring for a scraped knee, and much more. Our hearts were getting fuller by the minute as each day of that first week passed. Then the calendar turned back to Monday. A new week.
I cannot understate this:  The adrenaline wore off. Welcome to, not the lowest of lows…welcome to LIFE.

I mean it’s inevitable, right? One cannot live on top of the mountain forever. Eventually, even the best of climbers has to come down to reality. We always want to stay on the mountain top. It’s beautiful there. Sure the air is thin and we could die of altitude sickness, but my goodness, look at those views!! It’s amazing. But have you ever noticed nothing grows on the mountain top? I mean on REAL mountains. Great to visit, but life can’t exist for very long. As slow as the climb to the top seems to have been, the descent is 100 times faster. We have to get back to life!
For us, this happened about 8 days in. Poland requires a 45 day trip (or so). We will be in-country 46 days, leaving on day 47. That’s a LONG TIME to be away from home, from familiar things, familiar people; a long time to be stuck in a bit of an alternative universe. The descent to reality was very fast. I feel like we’re in the valley now (this is not a bad place) so I thought I’d take this post and write about what some of you coming behind us might expect on your alpine descent.

1. You’re Going to Get Homesick – This is just a reality of living a month+ abroad. You have to understand you likely won’t have the conveniences of your own kitchen, bathroom, laundry facilities, and vehicle. At first it’s quaint and charming. “Oh look, honey, we get to hang our clothes to dry on the clothesline!” Such a mountain-top type statement. By day ten you are thinking about buying a dryer at Tesco just so you can get the laundry to a manageable pile!! Also, I’ve never washed so many kiddie cups in my life. By hand. I love my dishwasher. I may hug it the longest when we get home. Definitely longer than the dog! Now, you will likely not end up with eight children like us, but nonetheless, dishwashers and dryers are a bit of a luxury in Eastern Europe. Oh, and we’re literally stuck here. We can’t go anywhere because we don’t have a vehicle. If it’s not walkable, we’re not going without shelling out hundreds of zloty (thank God for a good exchange rate!! 100 PLN is about $28) to make it happen! I’m not complaining here. I’ve made my peace. I’m just warning you…..Expect to miss home, if not for the people, for the conveniences we take for granted in our everyday lives.

2. Your Kids are Going to Test You – All of them. Yep, even the ones you took with you across the pond. Everyone is learning a new normal. Everyone is trying to figure out where they belong in this new family dynamic. We actually have a biological four year old which tests most of the limits anyway. But it’s almost like all of our children are four again. Pushing the boundaries, whining about little things, finding their place. It’s just part of the valley. This is a difficult thing for all of the children. They’re going to try and figure out where they fit. I’m happy to say, at least for our biological children, they hit the wall and bounced back a couple days later. But the adoptive children have a longer road. They’re learning new dynamics, new expectations, new norms. We don’t do whining in our family. We don’t cry every time you fall on your boodle. We rub some dirt on it and move on. Adoptive kids don’t likely have this mechanism in them – well, at least ours don’t. We’ve had tears over some pretty trivial things, in my book. To get past this hurdle in the valley, you need copious amounts of patience and endurance. Amy and I have determined we can’t expect the same things out of our adoptive children yet we expect out of our biological children. They just don’t have the ability yet. It will come through patience and training, but patience starts with us. Your kids are gonna test you. Be ready.

3. Talking to Your Children Takes A Lot Longer – Google translator. Get it. For your phone and any other device you have. It will take MUCH longer to have a conversation of any type with your adoptive child(ren) unless they are older and have learned English – or you speak fluent Polish. This sounds like a bad thing, but here’s what I’ve noticed. We parents often speak, correct, solve, expound, or pontificate so fast, we have not often thought about what we say before it flies out of our mouth. Having to translate really makes you slow down and think about communicating. How often do you say something to your child or spouse but don’t really communicate with them. We think nothing of it and move on. maybe the message was delivered, maybe not. This is not an option when you are working with a computer translator – especially in correction, instruction, or communicating love/approval. It’s long and difficult, but the slow moments of communication it produces are priceless. Slow down and let it take longer. Where else do you have to be? (most of us should apply this principle in our real lives as well!)

4. There is LIFE in the Valley! More bonding, true bonding has happened since we hit the wall, descended the mountain, and landed in the valley than all the previous time combined. I think we are often afraid of the valleys of life. They are foreboding, confusing at times, and then there’s that whole “valley of the shadow of death” thing. But truthfully, without the valley, you and I would never grow – not as spiritual beings, not as parents, not as spouses, not as people. The valley is hard; the undergrowth is thick, and the mosquitoes are relentless. But the fruit is so sweet, the water is fresh, the life blooming all around us is amazing, and God is with us. The undergrowth makes us slow down and pay attention. The difficult terrain causes us to watch where we step so we don’t tread on those we love. The mosquitoes….they’re just there to throw you off. The enemy would rather you spend your time swatting at little bugs than realize the wonderful life with which God has surrounded you. Don’t be distracted by the dishes, or the lack of a dishwasher or dryer, or the fact you can’t even go to McDonald’s if you wanted. Focus on the LIFE God is producing in your heart, the hearts of your children, and frankly, anyone else with which you may come in contact. There’s life in the valley.

Like William Wallace said (at least Mel Gibson’s version), “All men die, but very few ever really live.”

SO LIVE!!!