I have a love hate relationship with technology. Sure, there are many conveniences for which I am eternally grateful: Indoor plumbing, automobiles, online bill pay, our aforementioned clothes dryer, email, toilet paper, and our microwave.

Microwaves are incredibly convenient tools in our lives. They reheat our food, soften frozen butter very quickly, thaw our meat and bread from frozen, cook vegetables, and much more. Invented in 1945, and made commercially available for the first time in America in 1946, today, one would be hard pressed to find a home without a microwave. They are fast and convenient, providing simple and quick solutions to your cooking prep problems, just don’t stand too close to one while in operation!   🙂

Microwaves are excellent at reheating food….but, other than bacon, a regular microwave won’t produce the lusciousness of a grilled piece of BBQ chicken, or the carmelization of a tender filet, the succulence of an oven roasted, salt encrusted potato, or the fall off the bone deliciousness of a rack of ribs. It’s fast and convenient, but it just can’t produce real, edible results for high quality cooking.

Like the idea of the have-it-right-now microwave, we live in a want-it-now culture. If we want something, typically, we just run out and get it. Most of us enjoy marvelous amenities in our lives never before afforded to so many people on the planet in all of human history. For the most part, whatever you need and most of what you want, can be purchased at a store within a reasonable driving distance from your home. It’s quick. It’s convenient. It’s cheap.

But QUALITY is rarely quick, convenient, or cheap. Quality takes time. Quality is difficult to achieve, and quality most assuredly costs more.
Quality is more like a crock-pot.

Now I love cooking in our crock-pot, or maybe you’re more comfortable with the term, slow-cooker. Either way, this device is a wonderful way to get quality food, and a lot of of it. Invented by a Jewish immigrant in the 1940s, the Crock-Pot was originally designed as a Sabbath-loving food device families could use so they didn’t have to break the Sabbath by doing work (cooking). In the 1970s, the inventor sold this concept to Rival Manufacturing Company and the rest is history.

We make all kinds of things in our Crock-Pot: Stews, soups, Honey Chicken, Chicken Parmesan, roasts, ribs, beans, buffalo chicken cheese dip, tacos, casseroles, desserts, etc, etc, etc. It’s always delicious….but it’s not quick. Time, patience, the right combination of ingredients, and progress, a little at a time, are the hallmarks of good Crock-Pot cooking!

Amy and I have concluded adoption is the same way.

Adoption is Crock-Pot not a Microwave.
From the moment you sign up to adopt a child, whether you’re waiting for a referral or you have identified a waiting child, it’s going to take time. For us, we went to court five days before the one year mark of first identifying the children on a waiting child website. This is pretty typical for children waiting on a family to find them. For those adopting and waiting for a child to match with them, the wait can be even longer. We were ready to receive the children into our family long before they actually came into our family. Waiting is frustrating (I’ve written much about it on this blog!). It’s like the Crock-Pot…..the smells begin to fill the house and you think, “It’s ready! I can’t wait to dive it!” but the timer says it’s only halfway through. You can almost taste the goodness waiting in that pot….but it’s not yet. That’s how this part of the waiting feels. You can smell it. You know it’s coming. But you have to wait until the full process is complete.

Finally the moment comes! You pop open the lid and give it a stir. The lusciousness of the food permeates your senses and you steal a bite. Oh what bliss!! The day we walked out of court, with a decree stating these children were ours, was one of the six or seven best days of our lives (matched only by the birthdays of our bio kids, our wedding day, without which none of this would be happening, and the days we met Jesus)! We were thrilled to land in Indy on July 11th and be back on our home turf. Like the day we walked into our home for the first time as a family of 10…and many other lid-popping days where the aroma of this wonderful thing of which we are a part filled our lives. There’s just nothing like that first look…and smell.

But then you get into life. You parent. You correct. You encourage. You find out stuff you wish you never knew but you need to know so you can heal old wounds. There are days you’re so angry over what others have done to these wonderful children – why their family couldn’t get it together for their sake; why the foster system didn’t serve them better; why it took so long to get them home. Those wounds and learned behaviors and old habits aren’t addressed quickly. It takes time. It takes patience. It takes care. And more than anything, it takes mettle. You better buck up, my friend, before you bring this child or those children into your life. It isn’t what you thought it would be when all the ingredients started cooking in the pot. It’s much harder than you thought. Much more emotionally trying. Much more draining. Much more challenging and much, much slower. We have battled for the spirit of one child, while trying to get another one not to lie to us. Our kids are so scared of…well…everything right now. Full of uncertainty and apprehension. The emotions we have felt through this new change is multiplied many times in their little hearts.
It took three weeks for Judah to initiate affection towards Amy.
It took a couple of buckets of tears to emotionally deal with what felt like rejection from another and we haven’t fully conquered this “control” issue even yet.
I’ve talked my bio kids off more cliffs in six weeks than the previous six years.
We are still (and will for a long time) be dealing with the residual affects of our children losing their birth family. Even though it was a train wreck, it’s still a loss for them.
We are still (and will for a long time) dealing with the fact our children have never truly had parents. They don’t know how to trust, how to be vulnerable, how to fully love and receive unconditional love. They’ve never been lovingly corrected or disciplined. They’ve never had anyone tell them they couldn’t have something and explain why. They’ve never been in a place they knew was permanent and could just be them. Heck, they’ve never even had a birthday party…….

All of that and more affects them. Helping them overcome those liabilities and begin to heal from whatever wounds are in there is not a “microwave moment”…..it’s much more like a Crock-Pot. We have to let it simmer. We have to be patient. As my favorite TV chef would say, our patience will be rewarded.

Because we will win. I have zero doubt. God is helping us and EVERY SINGLE DAY there is progress. We’ve just learned to be patient and not expect immediate gratification. We’ve learned to celebrate the little victories (i.e. “She talked to me when I was asking her about ____ and didn’t shut down!!! Yay!!!!”). We’ve learned to hold on to the good and let go of the pain and rejection we have sometimes felt…it’s really difficult not to take that kind of stuff personally. But I must believe our difficulty doesn’t compare to what they have faced in their young lives. I don’t know when we will win, but I know we will. God is STILL working in and through all things in this journey. He’s just showing us adoption is a Crock-Pot; raising children is a Crock-Pot; LIFE is a Crock-Pot.

The very best meals gotta simmer a while.

I realize it has been just over a month since we have blogged. This has not been on purpose, specifically, but at the same time, we have waited to see what the first few weeks home would bring our family. I mean our desire with this blog is to encourage other families to both adopt themselves, but also to glean insight and thoughts on the process of, pitfalls of, power of, and promise of adoption. We sincerely hope we are helping some of you in these areas.

We arrived home on July 11th to some wonderful friends waiting for us at the airport. After 17 hours of travel, the kids were pretty pooped and overwhelmed by the crowd who had come to greet them. I think they could not comprehend how so many people could love them who had never met them. That is a pretty powerful phenomenon. Any parent has experienced this, loving their children long before they first hold them in their arms. We are grateful for the hundreds of people who’ve believed with us for these children and loved them from a distance just like we have.

American Citizens @ JFK in New York

But now we are home. Home is NOT Poland. I have my Yukon back (I may have cried at her site and hugged her. She deserves a name, now). We have our dryer and a washing machine which will hold more than three pairs of jeans. We are thankful for some of the comforts we enjoy! People ask us all the time how things are going. I’m never quite sure how to answer that…..I have nothing to compare our experience to besides those we know and love who’ve gone before us and been gracious enough to share their journey. Ultimately, though, everyone’s adoption journey is unique to them….ours is still unfolding.

First, the adventure has definitely worn off. Of all of us. We are all trying to find the new normal. Our oldest four have had the most difficulty with this (one is adopted in that group). Their emotions are high, they understand what is happening, and that things will never again be what they were three months ago. Dealing with change isn’t easy. Our oldest daughter, particularly, has wrestled. Previously, she was our only girl and my only princess. Now she shares that with three other sisters. She shares her room, her space (she’s a bit of an alone-time seeker like her dad), her dolls, and her closet. What she’s discovered is her sisters don’t exactly have the same definition of “clean” as she does. This has caused some friction. We have been encouraging much grace and patience.

Our nine year old daughter (adopted) is finding her place. She’s the oldest of the adopted bunch and she’s a girl….so those two oldest girls, both used to being the oldest, both used to being in charge, both bull-headed and strong willed, have had some battles. Nothing brutal, just, what I would consider, normal brooding and space-defining; jockeying to find their position in the family again. The little girls are oblivious to all of this and are normal five and three year old knuckleheads. Chloe and Abby, often knuckleheads themselves, will find their way, and they are.

The boys have dealt with some jealousy, I think, of sharing mommy and daddy with their brothers and sisters. Not unlike how a toddler might feel when a new baby is brought home from the hospital. I don’t think the boys would articulate what they feel as jealousy, but we think there’s a little bit of that going on. Overall, the boys are getting along splendidly, though our ten year old wants his own room back – mostly because his brothers don’t exactly clean their messes up. Judah, our six year old adopted son, has integrated nicely and is VERY thankful for brothers, though he’s not trying very hard to learn English. I think this will come.

Since our oldest children have had the hardest time adjusting at home, we have tried to maintain open dialogue and quality time with them so they can express how they feel, often through my daughter’s tears. She loves her sisters and is glad they are here, so she has some guilt over how she sometimes feels about non-essentials. She’s also eleven and hormones are beginning to express themselves! Patience, time, copious amounts of grace, and refusing to “rescue” the adoptive children from sharing responsibility is helping a lot. I think in six months or a year we will all have adjusted and will find our new family rhythm again. But….it very well may take that long….

We are trying to keep in mind, our children are children. We shouldn’t be surprised the five year old acts like a five year old. When you combine this fact with the issues of our adoptive children’s past and the fact they have never truly been parented, you end up

The Underpants Actors

with challenges we never faced with our biological children. For instance: pouting to get your way. We nipped that one in our biological children when they were toddlers, before they could talk back! But NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE has ever nipped that one in our adoptive kids – especially in the girls. So the two younger will pout to try and get us to give them what they want. It has been an uphill battle, but i think Amy and I are helping them understand we’re not moved by their stuck out lip and a few tears. We’ve seen it all before! The problem comes when this is not dealt with at a younger age. We end up with a nine year old whose pouting to get her way at age five or six, has turned into full out manipulation to get her way or blame her sister(s) for something. This will be a harder mountain to climb and a common survival tactic of older adoptive children, but we believe consistent parenting will ease this over time. It’s already helping. My goodness how far we’ve come in just over two months with them!!

There’s the word…..consistency. Look, VERY FEW adoptive children has any amount of consistent discipline, parenting, reasoning, etc to help them grow as a person. All of

The Princesses

them have received sub-par care for a portion of their life, and most of them have received marginally better care in an orphanage or foster system. Virtually NONE OF THEM have actually been parented. I think it’s because people feel sorry for the past they have suffered. I get that. But honestly, feeling sorry for them, and because of that, giving in to their every whim, makes the parenting job of their forever family much more difficult. On a side note, I guess this issue isn’t reserved for orphans only. As a pastor I see MANY children whose parents are failing to provide the discipline and consistency the child needs. The result of a lack of parenting at a young age is a selfish, manipulative, arrogant, and entitled brat at an older age. The lack of consistent parenting in my generation is killing us as a people. If the tide doesn’t turn, I shudder to think what we’ll be left with in twenty or thirty years. I mean congress is bad enough now, right? We must be better parents.

Back to the family…..if you’re bringing internationally adopted children into your home, try and prepare them for the differences in routine, atmosphere, food, and weather. My kids have been astounded at the humidity we have in Indiana. I hate it too, but living here all my life, I’m sort of used to it. These kids are from Northern Poland, on the Baltic

The Brothers Knucklehead

Sea where there is zero humidity and a hot day is 75. We’ve had two of them nearly pass out because of overheating! Food is an issue for many adoptive kids. Abby has been the greatest challenge with this. She hates Cheeze-Itz….but she loves Goldfish Crackers. We tried to explain to her they’re virtually the same thing, but she didn’t believe us!! We’ve been consistent with her trying all the new foods. At first she was very obstinate and stubborn. I think she sat at the breakfast table for an hour and half one morning because she refused to eat her Raisin Bran. With eight kids, you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit!! It’s our motto. My encouragement would be to maintain consistency and don’t indulge the manipulative pouty-ness employed to get something different. If you do, you better be prepared to be a short order cook!

It’s definitely still an adventure and challenge, but in a different way. There’s no more paperwork (for now); we don’t wait on pins and needles for an email with fresh information; and we don’t constantly day-dream about the day we will get to all be under the same roof….all of this has been accomplished! The challenges are just different now. Thankfully, we’ve not had behavioral issues, fits of rage, nighttime issues, or things like this. My heart goes out to those of you who have dealt with much more heartbreaking and difficult children than mine have so far demonstrated themselves to be. I trust the Lord will walk walk with you as you trust Him and believe in His plan for all of you.

After all….this whole adoption thing was His idea, right?