Fright Night

OK, I'm just going to come out and admit it. I am a Halloween party pooper. I wasn't very good at it with my oldest (special thanks to our church at the time for hosting a costume party alternative), and now that I get a second chance I find that I'm still not good at it. I have tried to jump in on the fun, I really have. I like costumes and costume parties and playing dress up - this summer Paul and I played Captain America and Super Mom (my own made up superhero) regularly, and in seventh grade Sam won the Disney day spirit week award for her rendition of the Mad Hatter. I like candy, if not for my kids then for me. I like my neighbors. There are so many things to like about this "holiday".

But I just cannot. I CANNOT.

I tried. I really did. We took Paul trick-or-treating through the zoo, with its fun characters, animals (although most were inside for the evening), candy and cutely costumed kids. He walked the entire time (hoorah, anxiety free!) and enjoyed getting candy, but overall seemed to think the entire thing was rather bizarre. We also skipped Saturday soccer for the neighborhood costume parade. Ditto above on the walking, candy and bizzareness.

Our Transformer - more than meets the eye!

According to the Chicago Tribune, those who opt out of the harmless fun of this day are lame, lame, lame. Whatever. Let me tell you what I hate about the harmless fun of this day:

• Becoming the candy police. When people give my kids candy, they have the mistaken belief that it is THEIR candy to eat whenever and wherever they want. "Gimme my candy!" We're working on a few things over here that have to do with who's the boss, showing respect and self-control, and I don't appreciate a 40 pound bag of candy attempting to usurp my authority.
• The craziness of candy. Candy contains food dye, sugar, its evil twin high fructose corn syrup and preservatives. Research shows no conclusive evidence that these substances CAUSE spazz-outedness. HOWEVER, several studies (as well as our own personal experience) indicate a close and personal relationship between candy and craziness. Paul tolerates sugar and processed foods much less effectively than his has-obviously-built-up-a-tolerance older sister. Do we need any more crazy in our house? No, no we do not.
• The ethical dilemma of chocolate. I cannot even tell you how much angst Hershey kisses cause me. Because I love Hershey kisses. And yet there is a significant amount of research that indicates that children are working in forced labor conditions on the cocoa farms that supply most American chocolate manufacturers. Somewhere in the Ivory Coast a destitute family sold their child to a cocoa farm trafficker where that child will work fourteen hours a day in return for a cup of rice just so I can enjoy a candy bar. I CANNOT EVEN BEAR IT! So we buy chocolate believed to be slavery free. But what about the Nestle crunch that ends up in the trick-or-treat bag? Can I eat it and NOT be haunted by the images of pain on a little brown face?
• Sensory overload. Trick-or-treat at the zoo and the neighborhood parade offered about as much sensory input as Paul (and I) can handle. Kids from hard places struggle with sensory overload, and the sights, smells, sounds, scariness and general mayhem of Halloween put their systems on full alert. In order to heal, to attach, to grow, my guy needs simplicity and familiarity, Dr. Karen Purvis says so. How can I listen to her gentle, soothing, authoritative voice without wanting to give everything that I am and everything that I have to nurturing my child's need for simplicity, safety, nurture?
• The very real trauma of death. Several weeks ago my daughter's leopard gecko died tragically and unexpectedly. We buried sweet baby Norbert. Subsequent bedtime conversations with my son processed Norbert's death, his burial, what would happen to Norbert's body, and what would happen to Norbert's soul. (Theology 101 - lizards who love Jesus go to Heaven. The end.) But not only did we process Norbert's death. Because my son spent formative years in a place where death is a frequent visitor, we also processed the deaths of a couple of his agemates. What happened to their bodies? What happened to their souls? Did they go up (heaven) or down (hell)? It was actually very therapeutic. Until our NEIGHBOR put SKELETONS in her YARD! And also a Devil. And also the specter of Death. Suddenly nighttime conversations returned to the lizard - would his bones pop up in the yard?; and his friends - would their bones pop out of the ground? Why didn't they stay in heaven? Was the devil gonna get 'em and take 'em down? Harmless fun? Not so much.

So, lame or not, we're opting out. We're skipping trick-or-treat. Instead we told Paul that our Halloween tradition is to eat dinner in the basement, complete with fair trade chocolate and organic suckers (deliciously sweet but preservative and dye free), then we're going to play games and watch a movie. He seemed skeptical as this didn't sound exactly like his friends' rendition of the holiday, but at the same time thinks that sounds pretty fun. A movie on a school night? Wahoo!

Some day maybe we'll start a new tradition and serve others on Halloween night. But this year we're aiming for family simplicity, nurture and fun.

So Many Mommies

Translator's note: The Sesotho word for Mom is M'e (pronounced may).

It started with Trent on the phone as Paul was getting ready for bed. "Who dat?" Paul asked.

"It's Grandma," I replied.

"Who Grandma?"

(Now, there is something you must know about Paul, and perhaps about other English language learners and/or cross-cultural kids and/or boys. Some things he has to witness only once to master. (Buying a hot dog at a concession stand, for instance. It took only one experience for him learn to pull two "paper monies" from his chore bank, march confidently to the complete stranger at the concession stand, and request in perfectly clear English, "Hot dog an' bun an' ketchup, please.") Other things we have worked on every day for five solid months, yet they remain a puzzle. (Such as the letter U. Just this morning he showed me the paper filled with letter U's that he had worked on yesterday. "What letter is that?" I asked. He stared at it doubtfully. "It's in your name," I supplied helpfully. "A!" he declared confidently. "Um, no." "P-A-U-L," he whispered, reviewing the letters in his name. "P?" "No, it's not a P!" "U?" "Yes! U!") So, does he know who Grandma is? YES, he knows who Grandma is!)

"Grandma is Daddy's mommy,"I said.

"Daddy has a M'e?!?" he asked incredulously. Pause, then, "You's have a M'e?"

"Yes, Nana is my M'e."

"Nana is you's M'e?!? You's have a M'e?!?"

"Yes, I have a M'e. Nana is my M'e." (I cannot even tell you how many times I repeat myself. I am a broken record player, saying the same things over and over and over again.)

Now, being as this was bedtime, and theoretically time for sleep, Paul felt the need to discuss this revelation more in depth. He proceeded to list EVERY SINGLE friend he had in America and ask if they all had a mommy. Then he wanted to know if their mommy had a mommy. Yes, they all had mommies and, so far as I knew, their mommies all still had mommies.

"Why dey so many mommies in America?"

Why, indeed. That one caught me a little off-guard. Was he ready for the discussion of the unparalleled blessings of our middle class American existence - clean water, adequate and nutritious food, jobs, public education, social service programs for those in need, relative freedom from violence and war, health care?

But then he launched into a list of those children he remembered from MIS who got 'em new mommies and daddies. "...den Palamang get 'em new mommy and daddy when you meet me MIS," he finished, snuggling into me. "Who get 'em next new mommy and daddy?" he asked.

"Well, I don't know..." I supplied lamely, thinking of all those precious little brown faces coupled with illness and poverty coupled with changes in the Lesotho adoption process coupled with serious debate about African intercountry adoption in general.

But he continued, "Big boys and big girls, too? Dey get 'em new mommies, too?"

"Oh, well..." I knew the grim futures faced by those who age out. I'd seen them on the streets, threadworn and hungry, scrounging for a few loti in exchange for guarding the cars in the church parking lot. I also knew whom he was thinking. At MIS the big boys and girls often care for the littles, and Paul had pointed out in pictures one particular big boy who was his abuti, his brother figure. "We can pray that God will find them ALL new mommies and daddies."

"And Retselise and his ausi, too?" he asked, twirling my hair.

"Yes," I choked. Oh, God, this is so hard. "Them, too."

With that assurance Paul fell fast asleep, hand still clutched in my hair. And I was left to disentangle the blessings of so many mommies in America with the tragedy of too few mommies somewhere else.

To sponsor an unadoptable orphan, literally to become his or her family around the world, visit Make Way Partners in Sudan or Help One Now in Haiti.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Paul had been home about six weeks when he tried his first Famous Amos chocolate chip cookie. It wasn't that we were deliberately keeping cookies from him (yes we were), it's just that he really seemed to prefer strawberries and oranges. (That's our story and we're sticking to it.) Anyway, he took a bite of the cookie, looked at me wonderingly, took another bite, then said, "Paul liken dis!"

Midway through the bag he suddenly pointed at a chocolate chip then at his skin. "Mum! Paul is dis." Then he pointed to the cookie part and my skin. "Mama is dis." He grinned. "Match. Cookie match."

I worried about Paul being the only (so far) black child in a white family. (He's still not sure what color to call us. Yellow? White? Pink? Cookie-color seems the most satisfactory to him thus far.) Would this make attachment more difficult, his realization that he didn't look like the rest of us tall, pale people? I read the books and the adult-adoptee blogs and talked to dozens of people, but each child and each family is unique - there's nothing quite like going through it to learn how it's gonna feel going through it.

Sam's the cookie baker at our house, but I remember that when making chocolate chip cookies, the chocolate chips must be folded carefully in to the batter. Adoption isn't a beat and bake process, there are a lot of days and months of slow, gentle folding. We have to adapt our lives, our schedules, in a patient rhythm to match the needs of the child, working him into the batter in a way that blends him into the family while retaining his own unique character.

Paul latched on to us shortly after meeting us, but it was an attachment born of desperation - that of someone clinging to the only available life raft in an unknown and unpredictable ocean. He was the chocolate chip perched unsteadily atop our family cookie. People often said, when seeing him wrapped barnacle-like around my neck, "Wow. He really attached quickly, didn't he?" But it wasn't attachment. It was anxiety. "We're working on it," I'd reply, cuddling - and trying not to buckle under - the 50 pound strain.

But yesterday I walked into the school cafeteria. "Paul! There's your mom!" several of the children yelled. (His Kindergarten classmates  readily accept that he's chocolate chip and I'm cookie; they know that families are made in many ways and colors.) Paul looked up. "Mum!" he exclaimed. He flashed his dazzling smile. He wrapped his red-splotched-chapel-shirted arms around my neck and gave me a big kiss, then he let go and returned to animated conversation with his friends. And I savored that ketchup-hinted taste of our chocolate chip cookie family.

So I didn't have a good chocolate chip cookie picture.
But this s'more picture is really cute and the analogy still applies.
And FYI - I prefer to be the golden graham cracker, not the freakishly white marshmallow. Thanks.