Monday Everyday

orphan fact sheet

In orphanages it's Monday Everyday.
Those who believe international or interracial adoption is a form of cultural genocide have never seen inside orphanages; have never shown up unannounced, without an entourage of officials and cameras and bags of crackers and milk. I wonder how orphanages they've seen instill culture, and if that culture has anything to do with the culture of the birth country?

I've learned about special needs, how to feed multiple babies quickly, how to clean it up, diaper them, wipe their faces, lay them down for a nap and begin with the feeding and hygiene rituals all over again in another room. I've learned that coloring is messy and the mobile kids steal crayons, so they can't be left behind for poor Ling to color when I've left. I've learned that gifts disappear when I leave, and so does the holiday celebration.  I've learned that the caregivers are too tired to sing traditional songs and teach traditional dances, that no one has a budget for party dresses and hair bows. Culture rarely happens over shift work.

I've learned firsthand from my little orphan, who is one no more, how little she knew about her beautiful land, and rich culture. She knew nothing of Chinese New Year or Dragon Boat Festival or when she should eat dumplings, or our favorite date-filled zongzi 粽子.  She had not tasted the most famous dish from her hometown, Yangzhou chao fan 扬州炒饭 (fried rice).

She did know how to queue, and lay still while being tied to a crib, that it was easiest to be fed from a spoon, and not to feed herself, that she shouldn't make messes...

Culture is a part of the family. It is a mother and father who care about the next generation who instill culture, who celebrate achievements and who take a moment out of life to talk about the meaning behind a day. Culture is the collective memory of a group of people celebrating life and hope.

There are amazing foster homes where life is celebrated, like Little Flower, Star Fish Foster Home, New Day Foster Home, Blue Sky Healing Home, and many others...but for so many an orphanage is just like a school. Only the goal is not learning and nurturing minds and molding hearts, but surviving. And survival is all that gets done. Please check out this movie about all those who are still Stuck and how you can work to help. To help give a child culture, whether it is yours or their own. To help make less Mondays for more orphans.

See Current International Policy for insight into policies that are curbing international adoptions around the world

It's so not Northern China!

Little Number 4 at a beach in Indonesia

We have experienced a lot since the last post. And I even forgot how to blog, where my blog was and who follows it. But I've been inspired to begin again. A different part of the planet, a different lifestyle and a different family. Beginning again.
For starters, we live in Singapore, and contrary to what the check-in lady at DIA believes, Singapore is not part of China. The Chinese here want to make that clear. The country is off the southern tip of Malaysia, a long ways from China and 1 degree north of the equator. Living here is breathtaking and stifling in many ways.
I have learned to deal with hordes of ants creeping their way across my floor, become grateful for the gecko I know is lurking behind a picture frame and waiting for me to leave so he can eat the ants. I have learned to live with constant rain and ensuing mould. I have learned (most importantly) to add u to many words, see 'mould'.
I have lived through the longest drought in Singapore since the mid 1800's and prayed for rain. I'm done praying now.
I have wondered with the taxi drivers and neighbors where in the world MH370 went and considered that people living somewhere down the street were in that plane and are not found.
I have learned to live very far from home. No more of those neat and clean 12 hour flights to Chicago, no. Now it is a 2-day affair to get home. I have learned to call Singapore, 'home'...much like 600,000 other expats in a city-country overrun with foreigners like me.  I have learned to live around white people again, and even learned to understand the Chinese around here, well sometimes, some dialects. The pinyin still bothers me, and the characters confound me.
I have learned how to take kids to the beach and how to have a swimming pool at my disposal. I have learned how to stop and smell the flowers and other amazing scents in the forest behind my house. I've learned to pay exorbitant rent prices and not gulp for air every time. I've learned how to keep things from moulding, but not before I lost a leather purse that I kind of liked and a few other bags and blankets. I've learned babysitters are much more expensive than a full-time maid, so I've learned to train a maid.  That is harder than it sounds...we spent some months in utter frustration and confusion, as I'm sure she did too. It's working now though, and I have time to blog again!
We also gave birth to a baby. A family long past baby things, and baby sounds, and baby nights welcomed a baby almost one year ago and he has been good. He has helped us to experience a kinder side of living and taken the edge off our days and shaved some of the sleep off our nights. But he is good. His joy is unstoppable, his adoration unending, and his zeal unquenchable.  Here are a few fun pics from life in the (almost) Southern hemisphere.

Little Number 5

Marina Bay Sands, the iconic Singapore resort

Colin loves to explore the jungle in our backyard

An intense sensory experience everywhere I look

Life goes on

Yes, we are learning how to deal with a defect that brings added challenges to life and overwhelmed me a few times in the last few weeks. Yes, we are living ten thousand miles apart and most of our communique happens in texts and twitter-sized bits. Yes, the kids are still sad about leaving China and not sure whether they should be excited or nervous about starting all over in Singapore...knowing so recently how that felt. Yes, we just adopted a new child who is not a baby and who is learning with us what our family is like, and we are learning with her what she is like in our family and kids don't really have that objective of a view of it all some days (okay, to be honest neither do I)Yes, one of our family members only speaks one of our languages, and we're all having to brush up on that pretty quick, and sometimes it's hard to learn Chinese fast enough to yell at your little sister (thank God!) Yes, we sometimes just give into the strangeness and rebel, but really it's become normal pretty quick and considering how much Amelia has had to adjust to our family and all the nuances she has to learn everyday to keep from clamming up and shutting down I'd say we're getting right up there close to the normal bar. And if I was me and my kids were talking to me about how they are so weird and our family is so abnormal I would lecture them about how we don't try to be normal and no one is normal and blah, blah, blah, 'cause they don't believe a word of it anyway. So, I remind myself through this post that actually, normal isn't what we're after, so I can quit trying to define my life by that and start defining it by the creativity of a Creator who is anything but normal! Below, our family and their cousins, and grandma...yeah, maybe Drew's right, maybe they aren't that normal:)

Packing for a Stranger

Yuan Yuan 2009

Yuan Yuan 2007

Yuan Yuan 2010

Pictured are three precious pictures from an amazing orphanage who has documented the years we missed!

Just two weeks until we get to pick up Amelia. I'm beginning to worry about the plane ride already. So I spend my nerves packing. What do I pack for a child I do not know? Does she like dresses or pants? Does she like dolls or Legos? Will she want to wear her own familiar clothes? Will she let me help her bathe, and dress, or will she have been expected to do this on her own? How do I best express my motherhood through these choices? When all my children are so well-known by me I know how to pack. We've been doing lots of packing; living in Denver on our way to and from everywhere else, which will continue--thanks Rendy and Andy for always mopping for us:)  I knew to pack swim stuff as it is a sport all three children agree on. Passionately. Always. Swimming works. But Drew doesn't feel great without his squishy goggles and a shirt to swim in. If I forget to pack pajamas no one cares, but if I left out an abundance of socks for Drew or a pair of flip-flops for Cora, life would not be quite as full.
Spoiled. I guess Drew would call it that. But actually, it's my right and my love to know my children. A right and a love I think God could say a lot about. And so I wonder in the dark as I pack and repack a suitcase for our fourth child, who will be 5 so soon, and has had so many others packing for her for so long, but never me.

Amelia's newest pictures

My Boys...wow!

A picture from her orphanage, along with an explanation of her name which means a complete circle. The director wrote and said that she was named this because when she came to the orphanage she was in such a bad condition physically and that her health was so precarious that their wish for her was that she would be able to make it physically and hopefully even find a loving family. What a beautiful, caring orphanage she was blessed to be in. They also said that her surgeries have been done by China's best surgeons in the field in Shanghai's Children's Hospital. What an amazing story...Doctors here who reviewed her file said that if they didn't have video they would not have believed that the girl on paper could be the girl in the pictures. Someone is taking special care of her. Thank you!

 

New Picture of Yuan Yuan!

A wonderful lady who had the chance to visit Yuan Yuan's orphanage in April shared this pic--and a heart-warming smile which is a wonderful addition to our little collection of pictures and forms that define our little girl for now! Doesn't she look comfortable in that smile. So glad she's had enough experience at joy that she knows how to do that! Praying for your child's safety when you've never met them and you've never seen where they are is so, so hard!

Craziness and Chaos

Alex, Andrew, Colin, Drew & Sky

Chaos brings cousins, or was it the other way around?

Either way, and yes it went both ways the last month was different to say the least. The tragedy of Japan brought this family a special gift: The Dyer family, Michael excluded got to come visit, as refugees, but still it felt like a vacation to us:) And so we packed in as many fun things as we could, the Dunns were even gracious enough to adopt two new children in celebration of the event and it has been fun getting to know them. I'm going to share some pics of Kate and William's Wedding tea with all of the girl cousins, a welcoming party for Burtukin and Almaz, and an Easter photo session in the park...Enjoy.

Princess Reagan

 

Andrew & Cora

Kristine and her friend from University

Amy and Kristine

Princess Party

Grandma Sell at the tea party

Almaz and Reagan

Princesses

Olivia

Almaz and Burtukin

Colin & Sky

And that's how we spent April!