Our Ugandan Adoption: Learning curve

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Our Learning Curve

I have tried to make the blog more about my trip, and less about our first days with Little Benny Michael. It would be amiss if I failed to make note of my difficulty in controlling my emotions during these first few days. I can normally put on a good front, without having to just shut down emotionally, in order to hide what is going on. But I have had to shut down, force myself to be emotionless about things, in order to handle them with the appearance of humility. I have tried to blog more about the trip itself, and less about him, but so many people ask for details and information, and in order to be completely honest, and not surprise people when we return, I thought I would share some details from different events and let you be the judge.

For instance, while we were at a luncheon, after Sunday’s Mass, he has hot and tired, hungry and bored. He wanted to be out playing, and suddenly, he had just had it, so we let him out of his chair thinking that because there was no room indoors, I could show him the chickens out the window, and see if he wanted to go outside. When I was holding him up to see out the window, he grabbed hold of the bars, with a death grip and started climbing the bars to the top of the window, and I am left grabbing him by his ankles with one hand and his stomach with my other hand while he is screaming in front of all of the dignitaries. And of course none of the dignitaries knew that he could not speak, so suddenly there was a flurry of conversation among people in the dining room, and then it followed us outside where hundreds of people were watching this muzingo woman chase after this “village animal” child. (Yes, that was overheard.)

Why doesn’t he answer me? He is so rude. Why does he scream? He needs to be disciplined. Why won’t he speak? He is a stupid village Afrikaan. You just need to go get a stick and beat him. Why did people let him get this way? Why didn’t they teach him to speak and converse with him? He must be spoiled. Why didn’t he get sent to a deaf village? Why can’t he sign? Why has nobody do anything before? You ruined him. He must be an idiot.

Oh, it hurt my heart, but it was also very frustrating. I am not one to just sit there and say nothing, but I had to. These are important people to the parish, and although Father told them that we were adopting Michael, I am sure that nobody said, “By the way, he has had the baseline in terms of care and teaching and socialization up to this point. He cannot speak because nobody spoke to him when he was born. He hears every word you say in Llugandan, and a good portion of what you say in English, so watch your dang mouths before I shut them for you.” I wanted to jump up and defend. I wanted to yell back. I wanted to be mad at Benny Michael for not proving them wrong then and there. But it was not his fault.

I know better. I am a mother of 5 dear sweet children, and here I am in Uganda, with no back up plan, who put herself in an impossible situation with a child she cannot communicate with. I did not ask enough questions before we got to Mass, like “Where is the exit, how long is it, where can he go to take a nap, etc?” I was unprepared, did not demand to have the keys to the car so I could go and get waters and his snacks. I have no idea who to drive his car, or which million dirt roads it takes to get home, so at 2, I should have had a plan for getting him lunch and a nap, but I sat there and let him get tired and hot and hungry. (We did give him a protein bar, but when you are up on the altar, in front of the whole hot and hungry parish and 30 hungry underfed children we felt uncomfortable doing more.) Had someone told me that I was going to sit on an altar for almost 6 hours with Anna, I would have said, “I am bringing X,Y, and Z. She will need A & B, and I can expect X to happen at this time, so we are leaving, but will be back.” I failed to protect, and that sucks, and I paid the price, although Benny will never understand or remember this at all.

Another example? I bought a bunch of toys to bring – little people, zoo animals, race cars, color books, a football, a stuffed dog and stuffed bear. So, he scarcely acknowledges them the first few days. Then we go to Maria’s little apartment and I drop off a bunch of baby stuff that I bought her, and Michael sees the rattles and teethers and baby toys, and that is all he wants to play with – he loves them. The box said 18 months and up.

He cannot feed himself with a spoon or fork, just uses his hands, so luckily I brought little plastic dishes and silverware and we have been working on it every day, at every meal. And when I plate is put down in front of him, he just starts smacking it and grabbing food off, but in just a few shorts days, he has learned to wait, and is slowly learning the sign of the cross. How, may you ask, does he not know how to make the sign of the cross if he has been brought up at the Delta with a priest? He is learning now. I took away the cups that he drank out of the first day we met him because he would soak himself in ¾ of it, and in return, he has a sippy cup until he learns to control the speed at which the cup goes to his mouth, and the angle at which he should hold the cup.

He spent the first few days hitting me every chance he got if he did not like something. Or he would just straight up ignore what I was saying if Paul was anywhere near. He started getting time outs and his hand smacked back and that has stopped completely – it took two times, and it was over. He understands consequences to his actions, but nobody has ever disciplined him or told him no and meant it.

I was cutting strips of paper for Arthur’s school, and Michael was grabbing handfuls and running away and rolling them into long sticks and shoving them up his nose and then licking them. It took several times of me taking them away to get them to stop going up his nose, but he rolled maybe 30 different strips.

He shoves everything in his mouth. He tries to eat straw wrappers at the restaurants, he tried to put my scissors in his mouth, he ate the nose off of the dog the first night he had it. He chews on the edges of tables and chairs, chewed the strap of my backpack until it was drenched, ate the backs of all of his crayons while he was coloring, and tried three times to swallow my mini holy water bottles whole. I literally had to grab his cheeks behind the assorted items to get them from being swallowed and force them out of his mouth. All I can envision is the 1 million legos we have being removed from his stomach and intestines 1 by 1.

At the school today, children were working in classrooms, and we were interviewing people, and getting tours, and I could not even try to control where Michael went or what he did (within reason) because again, I was setting myself and him up for failure. Could I discipline him in a way he understood where we were at? No. So I could decide to get frustrated and yell and take out my frustration on him, or I could sit and enjoy the presentation and the school, and work harder on preparing him and myself for situations like this.

When I changed his poopy diaper today, (yes he still wears diapers), he stuck his hand in it and then licked his hand. It happened so fast that I almost got physically ill.

And the whole time that he is learning his boundaries and having fun, and being his crazy happy go lucky self, he is smiling and laughing and just so joyful.

People might see a 3 ½ year old, but what we really have is a very strong and powerful 18 month old, who absorbs everything he sees. Imagine the follow up movie to Jungle Book – when Mowgli gets brought home, back into a family and into a village. Our movie would be just that – Mowgli learning to fit in. It is necessary to Benny Michael to learn societal norms, he needs to learn how to behave, and how to express his needs, and communicate, and obey. We knew going in that these were the realities we would face, but that does not make it easy and the answers can be slow in coming. However, he now lets me put his seatbelt on without screaming and kicking and trying to climb out of it. And hey, we have been together less than a week. Some progress will come quickly, and sometimes we will fall 5 steps back. For now, I will take what I can get.

Pray for our communication and for peace and understanding in the hearts of the people we encounter as we gear up to head back to Kampala in the next few days.

Notes from my prayer journal: The whole trip is a prayer. I have always felt confident that I am doing what the Lord has asked of me, “Go and adopt Benny Michael.” Boom, done. But now, as I sit here and each day draws to a close, I wonder if I am strong enough to do all that is required of me now. Sure I can fill out applications for adoption, go to meetings, read educational material. I have 5 children, I feel they are awesome and amazing and I adore them. I like doing what God wants me to do maybe 50% of the time, and the rest of the time I feel as though I can do it even though it hurts. But after reviewing the battles we face with connecting with a child, and conforming him to a family structure and family life, I am beginning to worry that I just might not be capable. I know that He wants me to do this, and because He is asking me to, then I must be able to, but it all seems daunting. I could walk out, right now, and go home back to my safe and comfortable life, and skip out on this hassle all together. He gives us free will to do just that – so I guess I just have to acknowledge that this is going to be really painful either way and focus on the peace that doing His will, will provide me.

“But my eyes are fixed on you, O Sovereign Lord; in You I take refuge – do not give me over to death.”

- Psalm 141:8

Soundtrack song of the day: I’ll Be – Edwin McCain