groundspeed

D and D Family Farms

This is our last produce box of our CSA season.

(CSA = Community Supported Agriculture.)

Ok sometimes we were a little over our head with the amount of eggplant we got, but I can now make eggplant parmesan and baba ganoush without referring to a recipe. My kids like (LIKE!) cabbage and brussel sprouts. I have not only learned of the existance of things like broccoli rabe and watermelon radishes, but I can now cook them too. 

If you are in St. Lucie or Martin County or heck, even Indian River and north Pam Beach, and you haven't been over to D and D farms and tasted of its bounty, then you are missing out.

Here is the final email we recieved from the farm.  I am so excited to know we'll be able to get eggs and berries next year!  

 

Dear All,

This week will be our last week of the CSA for this season. We hope you have all enjoyed this program, and thank you all for your patience as we go through our learning curve of this program. We are always trying to come up with new ways to improve our service and would definitely appreciate any feed back you would like to give, as well as any special requests as to types of vegetable for the new season.

Unfortunately due to the very slow growth of our blueberry, raspberry and BlackBerry plants we were not able to provide any this season although it looks like we will be able to around Easter of next year, (that is when they are producing berries). We thank you for your support this year, it has helped us achieve a lot, including getting additional fruit trees planted, such as peaches, apples, mangoes and avocados. These are small trees and will take a few years to start producing in any quantity, but you have to start somewhere.

In the last month we got a grant approved by the Dept of Agg, for a hoop house, which will allow us to now grow things in a controlled environment over the summer. We have also purchased a 200 foot hoop house which is being put up right now, and will house our airponic, and hydroponic growing systems that will be functioning in the next month. This will allow us to produce, 100% certifiable organic produce on an immediate basis which we will be having during the summer. If you are interested in this let us know and we will let you know when the produce is available. 

we value you as customers, and again appreciate your support, with out it we would not be able to survive the season during the current economy. Due to this we are offering special discounts to those of you that would like to sign up for the new season. If you sign up by June 30 and pay in full you get a 25% discount off the full season. There are also special discounts for those that are on subscription and easy ways to pay. Go on line to www.danddfarms.com  for full details. 

As a further service to our CSA members, we are offering you the first priority on Free Range, Cage Free Farm Fresh eggs, all produced within 7 days of delivery. These are not part of the CSA but are additional, but are available to you first before sold to our other customers. Let us know on this when you sign up if you would like to be put down to reserve eggs on a weekly basis. There will be a limit of 4 Doz per customer.

We hope to see you all again next season as returning customers, let us know one way or the other as soon as possible, even if you don't sign up right away, as we offered a two week trial on Groupon, which had an overwhelming response. Based on the response we are sure we will sell out our shares rather rapidly once they have been made available to our Groupon customers. who are also going to be offered early sign up discounts. remember space is limited in the CSA.

If any of you would like to refer friends, call us or email us for a referral code. You will get a 10% credit usable towards your CSA or produce from the Farm. Refer 10 friends for the CSA and yours is free.

Some of you have attended our Easter Celebration, and following in its tradition with a fall festival, including, G-rated haunted house for kids, games activities, a more teenage, adult haunted hay ride, pumpkin patch, sunflower maze, BBQ, bounce house, face painting etc. And then for Halloween, we may also be doing a special market with family friendly vendors, so that you have a nice safe environment to bring the kids to go trick or treating.

We will be doing a winter wonderland, for the holiday with Santa workshop, Santa Clause, festive hayrides, hot chocolate, face painting, and much more, as well as hosting our first annual Foster Children's Christmas party, where those in foster care can come and get a little more love and support from caring individuals in our community.  Did you know there are over 1000, children in Foster care at any given time in Saint Lucie, Martin and Palm Beach counties. We'll keep you posted as plans develop.

Hope you all have a wonderful summer. 

Thank you again,

Dean and Tania Bruschi Owners D and D Family Farms

Marcus, Fanny, Brian and Brooke, Grandpa Phil, Christina, Walter, "D and D Family Farms" Family

I quickly hit reply and thanked them for a great season of produce. I also volunteered my help if they needed it for their Foster Kids Christmas party.

What a fantastic part of our community.

Oh, and if you sign up for the next CSA season, and it's your first season, consider this post a referral and mention me so I can get the discount! :-)

 

Today. Now. That's all there is.

I worry about this boy. He has fragile X. I have no idea how well he will advance cognitively. How much his emerging anxieties will impair him. How much support he will need through this life.

But I know that he will walk into a wedding reception happily carrying a boardbook, fully expecting someone to come read to His Cuteness. I know that he can tell me every animal in Polar Bear Polar Bear What Do You Hear? (Never mind that the leopard is just a kitty.) I know that he knows all his basic body parts, so we're getting more specific these days. (Toby point to your eyebrow! Toby, where's your ankle?) I know that he is beginning to clue in to color words. The other day he pointed to something in a book and declared it purple, and it was in fact purple! I know that his speach therapist is worried ECI will want to cut down on his speach therapy if she shows them a recent evaluation because he is scoring too close to age appropriate on her tests.

Today. Now. He is my primary joy.

I worry about this boy. I mean, just look at hime. Crazy. He has ADHD. His biological background is sketchy. When he's bad, he's very, very bad. He likes to pretend to be the bad guy after watching movies. This boy has caused me to adopt Mad Eye Moody's mantra CONSTANT VIGILENCE as my mommy mantra.

And yet everyone loves him. The look of worry on his face after his daddy's recent surgery was priceless. Mr Clever picks up on everything. When I ask him to remind me to do something he always remembers. He is fearless. Sunday night for dinner he asked for a THIRD serving of fish. He will be five in about six weeks and he is more than ready for his Kung Fu Panda birthday party.  

Today. Now. He is my greatest entertainment.

Oh goodness do I worry about this boy. I tell him to look over the chapter we read the night before. I tell him the questions I'm going to ask about the chapter so he knows what to look for. I go and put his littlest brother to bed and this is what I come back to...

Homework takes... forever. His reading comprehension is terrible. I am often saying that when communicating with Kaden, one must "Pop bubble, then speak." I have been musing over the possibility of an audio processing disorder. His biological background is a mystery. 

And yet, where he's not a deep thinker, in terms of direct instruction he is a great learner. I think he's gotten a 100% on every single spelling test so far (as in K through 2). He is sweet and caring and only two weeks into life at a new school he was chosen as Leader of the Week. He's got the most beautiful olive skin and big brown eyes. He's developing a mean throwing arm on the baseball field and assisted in three consecutive outs at his last game.

Today. Now. He is my best hugger.

I'm reflecting on worries, potential, and all things parenting because of these Notes from a Dragon Mom. I posted it to facebook, but I wanted to post it again here. 

We have our problems, but NOTHING we face compares to that of parents whose children are terminally ill.  

"Parenting, I’ve come to understand, is about loving my child today. Now. In fact, for any parent, anywhere, that’s all there is."

What a perspective.

6 Years with Kaden

This boys adoption is so spectacular that every year on its anniversary there are fireworks!

With all the hoopla surrounding my mother-in-law's birthday party I totally forgot that it was Kaden's Officially Ours Day (Oo Day as we say). But then in the evening when Kaden was running around with sparklers, I just had a vision of other 4ths where he was running around with sparklers and I remembered why that was especially special. Right as the thought came to my brain, I yelled out, "It's Kaden's Oo Day!"  

When we get home today we'll pull out his "baby" album (starting with our Russian trips and going through his 2nd birthday) and let him pick a special dinner. (I'll go ahead and place a bet for spaghetti.)

Six years ago Kevin, Kaden and I were in Russia. It feels like a lifetime ago. I can remember how frantic Kaden became every time he saw food and how frantic I felt whenever I couldn't get it to him fast enough.  I remember his army crawl in our Moscow hotel room to any and every object - everything was a new curiosity.  I remember how he loved splashing with the shower head in the hotel bath tub, the very beginning of his love of all things water fun. I remember worrying about how he'd react to our lab, Gus. Had he ever even touched a dog? And being relieved and then joy-filled seeing how excited Kaden was when he saw Gus for the first time. It was as though he was thinking, I hit the jackpot! I got a family WITH A DOG!!! I remember how sadly skinny he was, weighing so little he wasn't even on the American charts for his age. But how quickly I fattened him up - 80th percentile eight months later at his two year appointment! I remember doctor appointment after doctor appointment. A blood draw to see what vaccines he'd had. Blood draws for other things. An MRI because they'd told us in Russia that he had a deviated septum. He didn't. This was just the very beginning of our attempts at solving Kaden's "Darth Vader" breathing issues. Off to the ENT we went. Then his almost-died-during-surgery during a "routine" adenoidectomy. Oh yes, Kaden did a banner job breaking us into parenthood.

And it all began July 4th, 2005 when we walked out of the Volgograd City Baby Orphanage, his scrawny legs dangling from the baby Bjorn. He faced front, seeing for the first time his city, a city Kevin and I knew better than he. 16 months old. That's when, that's where it all began.

Blue's FIRST OO Day!!!

Oh sure he looks all cute and serious here but we all know Blue is the, how do I put this nicely? unpredictable one.  I came across a new blog this week and read this old post and thought uh huh, yup, I understand all too well...

But as crazy as he makes me, I am so grateful for him in our family.  Today marks one year of Blue being "Officially Ours."  (That's why we call it OO day.) A year ago today we were in a Tyler courtroom, a courtroom which had become all too familiar, but we were finally there in celebration, to finalize Blue's adoption. (More about that day in this old post.) He's been with us since he was 11 months old but he's only legally been a Stratton for the past 12.   

We love you, Blue.  You're a little brother, a big brother, a super cuddler, a candy stealer, a terrible obeyer, a great walking companion (peddling furiously on your little bike), a happy learner and happier repeater (sometimes good, sometimes not so good), a Mickey Mouse lover, and you swear June from Little Einsteins is your girlfriend. Rotten stinker and crazy cute.  For better or worse we're keepin' ya. Happy OO Day, Blue!

Getting Started with Adoption

November is National Adoption Month!  Last November we celebrated the best possible way - by adopting! The focus of this month is to raise awareness for adoptions of children and youth in foster care, but, to my way of thinking, any emphasis on adoption will do. And maybe you missed some of my older posts (here, here and here) but I'm all about emphasizing adoption on this blog these days.  

There are three common ways to adopt:

1. Domestic Adoption – adopting a child (usually a newborn infant) through a private agency or adoption attorney
2. International Adoption – adopting a child from another country
3. Foster Adoption – adopting a child who, after time spent in the foster care system, is not able to be returned to his biological family and needs a forever family.

When Kevin and I first decided to adopt we only considered domestic and international because we honestly didn’t know anything about foster adoption options. We ruled out domestic adoption because we weren’t, at that time, comfortable with open adoptions.  Long gone are the days of secret adoptions where kids never find out they were adopted or find out later in life and have their sense of identity shaken – and thank goodness!  All kids should be taught that there are many ways to enter a family.  Look at Moses.  Look at Jesus!  And adopted kids certainly should know and celebrate this part of their special story.  We knew and believed all that, but we just weren’t sure how a birth mother would fit into the whole picture.  If she wanted an annual Christmas card with an updated picture?  Sure, no problem, but what if she wanted annual visits or some other involvement in our lives? We just weren’t up for that then.  (Now it wouldn’t bother us.)  So we decided on international adoption where, the need is great and in most cases, the children have been abandoned.  

Once we decided on international adoption we had to look into what countries had an international adoption relationship with the U.S.  My research was done on the internet and most of it came from adoption agency websites.  As we looked at the different programs I gleaned information that helped us eliminate countries.  (Romania had recently closed to international adoption.  Poland had a very small program.  We weren’t yet old enough to adopt from China.)  These agencies also had information seminars and in August of 2005 Kevin and I left Wilmington, NC at 5am to get to Charlotte, NC in time hear a presentation about Christian World Adoption.  A little after noon that same day, we were seated in an Olive Garden for lunch, the agency decision behind us.  By the end of that lunch we’d concluded on their Russia program.  We knew we wanted to adopt a boy and we knew we wanted to get started.  (Originally the plan had been to simply collect information in 2005, get started in 2006.)  Here is the original post about that time: http://stratsadopt.blogspot.com/2004/09/deciding-to-adopt.html

If you choose International Adoption your first and second steps are to choose country and agency (these decisions go hand in hand as some agencies only work with certain countries).  Then you will need to decide age, gender, and how many children you want to adopt.  (It’s cheaper if you adopt more than one child at a time. For countries that involve travel you will only have the cost of that trip once and many fees, such as your agency fees should only have to be paid one time even if it’s for two kids.)

And then the paperwork begins!  For us, our first paperwork step was simply signing our agency’s contract.  Essentially we had to agree that we would pay them a lot of money but, because of the volatile nature of intercountry adoptions, things might not work out we understand that no, there would be no refund.  And we had to have witnesses! So we threw a dinner party were we ate and signed - a joyful kick-off to what would inevitably be a bumpy road. But that road eventually led us to The City Baby Orphanage in Volgograd, Russia: (Maybe that's what the sign says?)

And this little boy:


After the contracts are signed you’ll start on your Home Study.  After the Home Study, documents required by the country of choice…  Don’t worry, your agency will have a big, long checklist.

For those of you who have adopted internationally, what have I left out?  Or how did the beginning of this process vary for you?

Why Not Adopt?

Um, so this is that soap-box post I previously warned you about...

There are ample reason not to adopt, but I think the majority of Christian families who don’t adopt or become foster parents don't because it doesn’t occur to them or because if it does occur to them it seems too.. hard? inconvenient? expensive? (Yup, I'm singling out Christian families on this one. It's the only group I have a right to pick on.) If a couple can have kids biologically, or if other medical concerns don’t stand in the way, why bother with adoption, right?  And I know the Bible tells us to be fruitful and multiply but with a global population of almost 6.9 billion can we all agree that this mission has been accomplished?  So can we also agree that the Biblical mandate need not really be on our list for reasons to birth a kid?  BUT we also know that pure religion is to look after orphans…

So why not adopt? (Because personally I don't think it's too hard, inconvenient, or expensive for God.)

To adopt or foster parent is to step off the American Dream trajectory of marriage, house, fence, 2.3 kids, theme park or cruise ship vacations, automatic draft set up to add money to the kiddos’ college plan and our 401ks or IRAs, retirement to a beach house where we can sit on the front porch and watch grandbabies play in the sand. These are all great things.  Things that some of us feel entitled to. 

Word hard.  Prosper.  Pay tithe, but after that, what’s mine is mine, right? 

I will never forget one of our foster parent training classes where we had to throw out slang terms for genitalia and watch our instructor write them on the white board in front of us all in an effort to A. desensitize us to the language a foster child might bring into our home and B. to make sure we all knew what the heck he/she might be talking about!  At these same classes we were warned about tempers, aggression and given ideas for talking down escalating tempers, redirecting aggression. We were asked how we’d feel about Little Johnny dropping an F bomb in his preschool Sunday school class, or better yet teaching that word to our own Little Sally or Henry.  Oh yes, signing up to foster parent is stepping off the trajectory. It’s saying what’s mine is yours, Foster Son and if you destroy it, I understand that it’s not the State’s responsibility to reimburse my losses.  (Woo-hoo!)

Those were just the training class scenarios.  When we become foster parents and started talking to other foster parents the stories got even more uh, interesting? Colorful? Sad?  Yes, all of those things.

Why would anyone want to step into that mess?

Because messes can be beautiful. 

Because when we are selfless and sacrificing we are most like Jesus. 

Because we have to acknowledge that our desire for the perfect family is idolatry when it stands in the way of an imperfect family that God may want for you.  Because the upbringing of the kids who may already be living in our home being just-so is not the ultimate goal especially if it is at the expense of other kids being prostituted, shaken, burned, left in filth, neglected for days at a time without food and left to forage in their home which, by the way, isn't a home but a storage unit… (Yup, thinking about a specific story on that one). 

When we realize that clinging to one dream, one vision of family, could mean the perpetuation of these things happening to thousands of children (between 9 and 10 thousand kids removed from their homes each year just in the state of Florida), maybe, just maybe it’s time to loosen our stubborn grip on our culture’s idyllic family picture.  And maybe it’s time to loosen that grip on our stuff (that we don't want broken or that we want to still be able to afford to buy) and even our kids who will have to take this bumpy journey with us.  (Because, believe it or not, if God calls you to adopt or foster, he can take care of your kids.)

Loosening our grip on these things is not committing to anything.  It’s simply letting go and asking, what if?  Should we be considering adoption?  It may mean acknowledging that when you started your family you never asked God about His vision for your family.  Maybe when you finally ask this, He’ll talk to you about cutting back on the sports/dance whirlwind to free up time to serve your community together as a family, maybe He’ll show a vision of peace that involves less slamming doors and yelling and then you can get started on how to achieve that, or maybe (and here's the one I'm rooting for!) He’ll tell you that it’s time to add to your family again through adoption.  

Is foster parenting or adoption the only way to help orphans?  Nope.  But it’s the way I’m most interested in talking about right now.  It’s the way I want the next generation of parents to be so mindful of that adoption is not an after-though but a priority. (If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard, “Well maybe after I have ‘my own’ kids…”)  How incredible would it be if the next generation of parents, when deciding to have kids, prays, “Alright God... biological?  Adoption? What’s the plan?” That the next generation of parents would recognize that international adoption is expensive so instead of spending that wedding gift money on a plasma TV they invest it in a short term CD reserved for adoption costs.  They would know that international adoption involves travel so it might be a better idea to adopt before ever trying to get pregnant. After all, traveling with young kids or traveling while arranging for young kids to stay home can be very hard.

See? Look?  Without kids in tow, a February Russia trip to meet orphans is totally doable:

(That would be Kevin by a fountain near the Volga River)

And my hope for the next generation of parents is that they learn these things not from Angelina Jolie, Madonna or Sheryl Crow but rather from their church family because adoption will have grown so common in church culture.  Can't you hear the conversations in the church hallways? You mean now that the Jones' are empty nesters they aren't taking up golf, but have started foster parent training?  You mean now that the Peterson's have all their kids in school, Mrs. P isn't going back to work, but is starting paperwork to adopt from the Ukraine?  Did you hear that the Smith's are expecting?  A four year old boy and his 6 year old sister through the foster/adopt program!  Who's that with the Green's? Their newest daughter from China!

(A girl can dream.)

Our Adoption Journeys

I'm hoping to do a series of posts on adoption.  Due to some bad naps from Toby (I need that time!) and a sudden devotion on my part to a new book series, I'm going a little slower on this than originally planned, but I decided to start off with a quick recap of our own adoption experiences for those who may have missed those stories:

When I was younger I imagined that I would someday have enough kids for a basketball team, mostly adopted, and probably representing different races.  This was long before Angelina Jolie and Bradd Pitt were making adoption cool and I’m sure I wasn’t even aware of Mia Farrow’s adopted clan.  I think the desire for an abundance of kiddos was my inner emotional pendulum wanting something vastly different from my mostly only child experience.  (I say mostly because I do have half siblings, but for most of my childhood and all my middle/high school years, I was the only kid in the house.) As for wanting to adopt and the openness to other races, I think this grew from my faith. 

When I got older I realized I had another reason to want to adopt.  I had bad genes.  In November 2001, due to a family history, I did genetic testing and discovered that I am a Fragile X carrier. I had a fifty percent chance of passing on the full mutation of Fragile X to my child.  When it came time to have kids I was not ready to deal with the Fragile X issue.  Also, I knew that if we already had a child (with or without special needs) it would be more difficult to do all the travel required for international adoption, the only area of adoption I was considering at the time. I had very mixed feelings about getting pregnant but I was sure I wanted to adopt, so we pursued adoption and chose to adopt from Russia. 

In July of 2005 we brought home Kaden, a ridiculously skinny (not even on the American percentile charts!), Darth Vader breathing (oh the medical journal on which we were about to embark!) yet adorable l6-month-old boy. 

During this process I had friends pregnant with their first kids.  In fact, one of my showers was hosted by a friend great with child.  There’s a picture from that shower with me and all the others there who were “expecting.”  Let’s just say I had the best figure!  Pregnant friends, friends holding and experiencing all things newborn – these things did not bother me.  I was happy for them, and I wasn’t really a baby person, so I didn’t envy their traditional journey into parenthood.  I was too caught up in the struggles and frustrations and delays of our journey. (If I envied anything it was their set, 9 month timeline!) As weeks and then months slipped by with no court date in Russia to go get our kid, I spent days on the phone trying to find answers, but then suddenly we had a court date and a whirlwind of travel plans ensued.  And then we were three. 

Shortly after we brought Kaden home friends from our church became foster parents and we found ourselves growing interested in opening our home in this way as well.  But then we moved to Texas and we had to get settled there and it wasn’t until September of 2007 when we finally received our certification to become foster parents.  For reasons I’ll save for another post we didn’t get placed on the “emergency call list” until November.    On November 8^th we got a call for an African American baby girl severely affected by shaken baby syndrome.  Woah!  Wait.  Was I up for this, after all?  But then the phone rang again and they had been able to place the girl with her twin sister (who’d already found placement).  The phone range again: Caucasian male, 11 months old.  Within a few hours of this call, an eczema covered, cigarette smelling baby (and all his cigarette smelling stuff) in too-small Christmas pajamas was happily crawling around our play area, while I, dazed and confused, signed intake paper after intake paper after intake paper...

His stuff got sent to the garage, he got a bath, and, eventually, creams that cleared up his skin. He kept us up for four straight nights just SCREAMING, only able to sleep if firmly planted on one of our chests (preferably Kevin’s - he was much more agitated if held by a woman).  And although the nights got (a little) better the poor little guy had entered a family with all their holiday travel plans intact making worse the chaos of his transition. It took three months before the dust started to settle and we felt like we might all just survive Blue and Blue might just survive us.   By summer I began to realize there was no way I was giving him back.  After a year it was clear we were heading to court.

In April of 2009 we did go to court, a 6 day jury trial, which we chose to enter as parties.  We didn’t have to.  The state was fighting for the same thing we were fighting for – termination of parental rights of both birthmother and father and our right to full, adoptive custody.  BUT, without entering as parties we would be kept out of the courtroom by the defense who would inevitably “invoke the rule,” and by then, Blue was MY son, and there was NO WAY I was going to sit OUTSIDE as his fate unraveled.  Most expensive front row seat I ever purchased, but worth every penny especially when, on day one, it looked as though the state was totally going to blow the case.  We couldn’t have been more grateful for having our own attorney.  (And yes, my dad paid for this, but if that had not been an option we had been discussing busting into the 401K.  Whatever it took…) We had to pray and bite our fingernails through the appeal period but miracles DO happen, no appeals were filed, and by November 2009, two years after he’d come into our lives, Blue was legally our son. 

Two vastly different journeys with a few too many bumps on their roads.  Both were financially draining and emotionally exhausting.   

 We don’t regret any of it.

 We wouldn’t go back and change a thing. 

 If we feel God call us to, we’ll do it all again.  

"Dima," the first of our two Russia trips, February 2005.

With the judge at Blue's adoption hearing, November 2009.

Considering Adoption

A close friend is in the process of having her 4th child.  It's a boy and they already know his name.  (This could be anybody's news right?)  It could, until I add, he is ten years old and currently lives in St. Petersburg, Russia.

This friend has two biological kiddos who are younger then their newest son and an adopted daughter (from America) who is older. 

I love my friends family.  Not because her husband is our Edward Jones rep.  Not because when we lived in Longview we had anytime access to their pool.  (Although these are good things!)  I love this family because they seek God's picture of what their family should look like.  They do not take for granted what their family should be based upon American cultural norms.  

And this friend, who has a passion for adoption sent me a link, and I proceeded to post this link on facebook, and this link generated a lot of discussion and got reposted a few more times.

I want to keep this adoption discussion going.  In the works are some blogs about:
*Why YOU (whoever you are) should consider adopting. (Expect some soap-boxing in this one, and some David Platt-esque American church criticism.  If that's a problem, maybe skip this blog next week.)
*Saying "No." The two hardest decisions Kevin and I have ever made and what you can still do even if you say "No" to adopting.
*Adoption options and how to get started.   
*Any other adoption related ideas that may get generated as I get started on those...

In the meantime, I'd like to leave you with some weekend adoption reading/viewing:

Reality is a Weighty Thing

Civil Forum on Orphans and Adoption

James 1:27 and the Church
 
Get reading.  Get Considering.  Get Praying. 

Oo Day

Five years ago today I officially became a mom.  Five years ago today we left the Volgograd City Baby Orphanage with a 16 month old who didn't even weigh twenty pounds.  He was a shy boy, always bringing his hand up to his eyes if the situation proved too overwhelming. 

The pounds quickly packed on and the hand gesture fell away as Dima transformed into Kaden, a smiling boy known for his easy-going, good-natured attitude.

The benefits of having an easy-going kid are not lost on me.  I know that I can sign Kaden up for anything and I never have to worry that he'll be hesitant to leave my side or that he'll not want to go back the next day. Last week he attended a camp.  He didn't know anyone there, but he didn't care.  Kaden considers anyone he meets a friend.  

Kaden is incredible with Toby.  If Toby is near a wall or piece of furniture, Kaden's hand immediately pops up to guard Toby's head.  I love this natural instinct in him. These days Kaden also loves to play with Blue, but this affection took awhile. For the entire first year Blue was with us, if we had offered to send him back I think Kaden would have readily agreed. Now they are growing into each other's best friend. Especially when they're outside, they can just play and play and play... which is helpful when I need to mow and mow and mow...

But for every area he has progressed he has an area where he has a long way to go.

Kaden still struggles with language.  He relies on smiles and shrugs to do a lot of his communicating.  He mumbles when he is unsure of himself which is often.  There is no ease, no automaticity, and his sentences are clunky, his word choice often wrong. 

Along with speech his comprehension seems lacking.  As I dropped him off for camp on Friday, his last day, I asked if he would miss anyone. "Miss?' he repeated as if he had no idea what that meant.  This is a word/concept I'd expect a 6 year old to know.  

After seeing Toy Story I asked Kaden what parts of the movie he liked best. He talked about when the TV fell on Buzz.  I pointed out that this was scary but then a good thing happened!  What happened?  He couldn't tell me.  Ok, what else did he like?  He liked the monkey, "with the things" and then Kaden motioned the monkey's cymbals coming together.  I talked about the scene where the slinky dog and Woody tape up the monkey and asked why they had to do that.  He had no idea.  Images strike him. Physical comedy appeals to him, but story line and plot are still very much over his head.

And this worries me.  

Kaden is a people pleaser but this translates into being a good learner, after all he wants to make his teachers happy. So in spite of what a mentioned above he does well in school.  But I wonder if his abilities, if they don't start catching up, will begin to hinder him.  I had a dream that Kaden failed kindergarten.  When I told Kevin about it we ended up having a conversation about how we won't be surprised if he starts struggling in school and we have to have him repeat a grade in his early elementary years.  We'd never talked about this but in our first conversation on the topic we were in quick agreement.  We know our son.

He likes everything but doesn't seem passionate about anything.  (Except eating.)  Not even any particular toys.  After seeing Toy Story 3 I asked if he loved a toy the way Andy loved Woody. At first he didn't understand this question, (a lot of things have to be explained to Kaden multiple ways and even then I never quite know what he "gets") but he offered up a toy, a toy he never plays with, a red guitar we sent to Oma's but recently retrieved so he could use it as a prop for a dress up day at camp. I haven't seen him touch it since it's been back in the house, and I'm sure he only said it because it's the first thing that came to mind.  While other boys his age are getting passionate about lego sets or collecting all of something (action figures, monster trucks) he has yet to show a particular interest in anything.  

We don't have a Wii and I don't let him get on the computer hardly ever, mostly because then I know Blue will want to as well and that's a hassle, but I do suspect Kaden would like to be a computer nerd if given half the chance.  Computer time is often his favorite at school and when I do make the effort to set him up playing a game on the home PC, he loves it.  Our plan is to strip the PC down and then set it up where he can easily play games, run learning programs, and even get into webkinz.  Hopefully that is right around the corner and we'll see a new area where Kaden can flourish.  Even a sedentary one - I'll take it if acts interested and learns new skills.

Growth. Delays. Health struggles. Diet concerns. These have been the themes of Kaden's first five years. I think we're past the health concerns.  I hope in the next five years we come to a better understanding of what foods he doesn't do well with (maybe it's both diary and wheat?!).  And I hope we find things that engage his brain, give him something worth talking about!  I really want to be watch him open up verbally. 

Five Oo Days.  Five years where Kaden has been "Officially Ours."  He has stretched me.  He has shown me areas in myself I do not like, but he has also taught me how to be a mom.  We don't do presents, but we traditionally watch the video we made of our trip to Russia, so I'll be pulling that out.  

Kaden and his little bubbas - taken yesterday. 

Happy 4th ofJuly.  Happy birthday to Kevin's Mom.  And perhaps most importantly, in our family at least, happy Oo Day to Kaden.

That Tennessee Nurse and All My Thoughts Thereafter

About a month ago when I read about Torry Hansen, the Tennessee nurse who sent her adopted son on a plane back to Russia, what bothered me as much as how she treated her son was what she did to the already tenuous state of Russian international adoptions.  I didn't follow it closely but I knew it was safe to assume that Russia would put an immediate halt to in-process adoptions. And they did.

Adoptions disrupt. It's a sad reality but it happens and there are ways to do it correctly. Even if Hansen was at her wit's end, it's hard for me to believe that a woman who was still savvy enough to hire a Russian escort for her son (once he arrived in Russia, he made the international flight alone), wasn't capable of finding a better, kinder alternative for a son she'd previously committed to parent.  If other parents had discovered this Montana ranch, why hadn't she?  If other parents can discuss these things with their caseworkers, take Reactive Attachment Disorder seminars, and seek support for difficult placements why couldn't she?

In the letter Hansen sent with the boy she wrote, "I was lied to and misled by the Russian Orphanage workers and director regarding his mental stability and other issues..." Seriously?  Yes and we were told that Kaden had a deviated septum and all sorts of medical gobblygook that meant nothing whatsoever. When we got him stateside we took him to the doctor and began the very expensive process of figuring out Kaden's true medical problems and set to work fixing them.  (Haven't you heard the great adenoid surgery debacle story of December 2005 - it's fabulous...)  Did we send Russia a bill because they'd misled us about Kaden's medical history.  Uh, no, we did not.  

What we sent to Russia were our post-placement reports filled with stories of all we were doing for Kaden attached to all the required colored copies of photos of our growing boy.  We did this for years not because if we didn't we could have lost our son, but because it helped ensure Russia will continue to allow foreign adoptions.  Doing post placement reports helps enable more kids to get out of those orphanages.  With the color copies, the apostilles, and the shipping it cost me around $30 a report, and I think I had to do them five times.  Thank you, Torry Hansen, for undoing all of my efforts and all of the efforts of thousands of other families.  We'll all be sending you a bill for $150.

Unless her American adoption agency blatantly lied to her, I cannot imagine Hansen didn't have some idea that the son she was going to adopt, a son who did not speak her language, who had been institutionalized, whose birth mother was a known alcoholic (so who knows about her drinking practices back during pregnancy), was going to have some bumps in his transition process into her family.  And indeed, perhaps his issues proved too much. Maybe she got in over her head.  I don't fault her for the disruption, but the manner of the disruption was deplorable.

And that's a ridiculously long segue into some news I received from the agency we used for Kaden's adoption. Russia has reopened adoptions.

From an email:

CWA is delighted to once again offer the opportunity to adopt from Russia. Based on the current process, we feel this is a good time to accept new families to begin their adoption of a boy of any age, of a girl age 5 years and older, or of siblings age 1-10 years old. For sibling groups families need to be open to bringing children home up to 10 years old. The realistic youngest age at referral for a boy is 11-12 months and up. The realistic age at referral for a girl is 5 years and older.

You can read complete information about CWA's Russia Adoption Program here:
http://www.cwa.org/russia-adoption.htm 

Therefore, we are once again accepting applications for Russia from families wanting a boy of any age or a girl age 5 or older. We are also accepting applications from families wanting to adopt siblings age 1-10 years old.

So. That’s the current status of Russian adoptions.  And there’s my two cents on the Hansen story.

But what’s REALLY bothered me since that whole thing is this Slate piece.  The author sympathizes with Hansen and I can accept that.  She works to shed light on how complicated it is to bring home a child you are supposed to love, but then reality strikes and this little person you'd fantasized snuggling over bedtime stories with and pushing on the playground swing is actually this rage-filled tyrant who doesn't want anything to do with you.  I appreciate that perspective because adoptive parents-to-be need to hear it.  What I can't handle is how pessimistic she remains about the whole process.  She writes, "The problem is that the harm has already been done. Even the best adoption parent is just the clean-up crew." 

EXCUSE ME?!

I am not JUST the clean-up crew.  This line really, really, really bothers me.  Like, to where I've fantasized about meeting this author, KJ Dell'Antonia, at a party and she's wearing a light color and I've got a glass of red wine and Oops!  Well, oh well.  I mean, you're so good at being the clean-up crew.  Go to town...

But the odds of that scenario are just so minute! Instead, I internet stalked her and she has a blog and she wrote this follow-up post which has such a different tone and some lovely lines, that I've begrudgingly developed a fuller picture.  See:

...because I DID read the books and I DID think about what we were doing and I DID think I was prepared-that she was really screaming about being taken away from everything she'd ever known and loved-she knows, in short, that there were moments when all she needed was comfort and I put her down and I walked away. Those were most emphatically not some loving moments.

And she knows that I don't do that anymore.    

So what I think is that that's part of our story.

What Dell'Antonia is addressing here is the fact that most readers of the Slate piece were appalled to think that her daughter would someday read her words entitled, I Did Not Love My Adopted Child.  I guess all those people are just nicer than me because I was just too busy being offended to worry about her daughter. The Slate piece WITH her blog serving as a companion manage to create a more satisfying bottom line - adoption can suck, but do it anyway.  That, I can get behind.  But if adoption can suck, and even if adoptive parents aren't JUST the clean-up crew but still are, in SOME aspects, the clean-up crew, why adopt?

Maybe before she adopted Torry Hansen was always considered to be a really nice person, but then, becoming an adoptive mother of a child she could not handle pushed her over the edge and suddenly, for about a week this past April, she was everybody's favorite person to hate.  (And I do mean EVERYBODY, because this was international news.)  Why would anyone risk that?! 

A few weeks ago I was at lunch with a friend and she asked me if I would do anything different in terms of how we added to our family.  She was mostly talking about Blue because I think this particular friend is scared of Blue's hellion antics and she marvels how I let him in my house much less read him bedtime stories and let him give me sloppy wet kisses at night.  I said my only regret was that I hated being at Blue's trial at the start of my 9th month of pregnancy with Toby.  I could have used a little more breathing room between all that.  It was hard to go from the stress of trial to the stress of my first newborn but my 3rd kid.  Crazy hard.  And I just wish I could have had some more friggin' downtime! 

I know my answer surprised her.  She knows I bemoan how different Kaden and I are.  How difficult his follower, people-pleaser personality is for me to parent.  Add to that his continued language issues so I STILL feel like I don't really KNOW my son.  Kaden is often hard for me to enjoy.  She knows that.  And Blue. Blue is Blue and he makes my scream and shout and pop blood vessels and think about kicking walls.  (I've never kicked a wall.)  She knows that too.  And Toby. Toby is very often the best and worst part of my day. Toby's diagnosis still overwhelms me.  Toby's smile and giggles are currently my favorite thing in the whole world, but he's also the reason I'm tired all the time and so dang crabby and irritable, so although I love him, 87% of the time I don't particularly like myself, and of course I'm acutely aware of how interconnected that all is, TOBY. 

But at the end of the day, if Kaden struggles with language his whole life and one day I look at my 30 year-old-son and I think, I still don't know you, well, I'm still glad we got him out of that orphanage, fattened him up, got his adenoids and tonsils out, taught him about loving Jesus, the Gators, good food, and more.  And I know it's a 50/50 shot Blue will either be in prison or The President but either way he's mine and I wouldn't have it any other way.  Ditto for Toby no matter where his symptoms take us or science doesn't.

And I don't say that because I'm committed to being their clean-up crew.  I say that because I'm committed to seeing them into the stages of their lives when they understand their first year or so and figure out how it is part of them but certainly not the sum of them.

I know I'm late to the table for this Hansen/Russian adoption discussion, but really there is no end to the fact that we all need to be discussing that adoption is hard but more of us have to do it.  Kids need homes. Messy kids who require lots of clean-up need homes.  But I promise, unlike the picture Dell'Antonia paints in the slate piece (but not her blog) it's not just about the clean up.  

Yesterday, Blue, Toby and I were out and about at lunchtime and I did something I NEVER do.  I let Blue pick our lunch stop and therefor ended up lunching at McDonald's.  (Or Old McDonald's as Blue stubbornly calls it.) As we ate, I know the table next to us was delighting in the cuteness that is Toby and at down times the lady at the register maintained a conversation via hand waving with Blue.  Then we played outside.  I sat at the base of the plaything and Blue bolted up then yelled down, "I'm in my spaceship.  It's punching you!" And sure enough the spaceship thing really did look like a boxing glove and I marveled yet again how that boy notices EVERYTHING.  Meanwhile Toby was crawling over me and pulling up on other things he could reach.  He'd crawl in and out of the shadows and you could SEE his thoughts, why is it so hot to touch there but not here? And in that moment (in McDonald's of all places!) I really loved my life. 

And this morning I attended a kindergartner's Young Authors Party where the class read their books to an audience of their peers and a few parents. And I heard Kaden read his story, "A boy and a dog."  It goes like this:
There was a boy at the park.
There was a dog there also.
They played together.
They had fun at the park.

Does it bother this MFA fiction grad that my son missed the class assigned task of adding conflict to his story? No. 

My Russian born son wrote a conflict-free story that is absolutely true to the experiences of his life now.  It was a joy to hear.  

You have to get through the messes to get to the joys.  That's parenting, regardless of the adoption aspect.