thoughts about home

We have now been home with Brennan for a little over a week.  We are very thankful that he seems to be fitting in so very well to our family.  He really likes Marleigh a lot, and he does well with Ben and Madelyn.  I think they pose a little more of a "threat" to him because he has to share toys/attention etc. with them more than with Marleigh.  He also seems to be bonding very well so far with Scott and me.  He seems to prefer me, but we expected that based upon the fact that he had only ever known female caregivers at the orphanage.
Brennan has learned very quickly to LOVE playing with toy trains.  He hooks them all together and sends them chugging around all over the house.  He will keep them on the track sometimes, but he really just likes to watch them chug along and then crash into our feet, the cabinets, other toys.  When we first arrived home he was hoarding the toys that he liked.  He would fill up my plastic laundry basket with toys and push it along with him wherever he was going in the house.  He also would fill plastic buckets with some of the smaller toys to carry around.  Thankfully, as he saw that the toys weren't going to disappear that behavior has pretty much stopped.  The other lesson he is learning is to share and not to scream in Cantonese at your brother/sister when they are playing near your toys.  The sharing has been difficult and has elicited a few tears.  I know those are hard lessons for little people to learn...especially little people who have most likely always had to fight for their toys.

Oh for the love of toy trains!

We have decided it is more fun to use the basket as a toy than for hoarding toys!

We are also very thankful that Brennan is a seemingly good eater.  He will at least try whatever I have prepared for a meal.  Yesterday he liked the idea of pumpkin white bean chili, but in reality two bites was enough for him.  A few things I have learned very quickly:  I must always have boiled eggs available, he loves corn on the cob, and he isn't too keen on the milk here in the States.  Brennan is eating at least one hard boiled egg a day...and some days he will eat three!  He knows I am keeping them in the fridge for him, so he will get my hand, pull me to the fridge, reach up for me to hold him and reach in the bowl to get the egg.  He even has gotten the hang of peeling the shell off!  As I said, our biggest food "issue" at this point is milk.  He loved these little milk boxes while we were in Ch*na, but I obviously can't find them here.  I have tried regular milk from the carton poured into a cup, regular milk in a "juice box" type container, Horizon vanilla milk in the "milk box", and Gerber graduates strawberry milk boxes.  So far we've had the most success with the vanilla milk but even that wasn't overwhelming success.  If milk is our only food issue, though, I'll take it because I can get him to eat yogurt for some calcium consumption.  He truly has been so good to eat most everything offered from oatmeal pancakes to blueberry waffles to cheese quesadillas to ravioli; all things that must seem a bit odd to his Chinese taste buds.
I have also learned that with 3 kids ages 4.5, 3.5, and 20 months everything is an event!  We have been trying to get outside as much as possible partly because the kids love to be outside and partly because they get into mischief if we stay inside too long.  Getting the three of them dressed to get out of the house has now become seemingly an Olympic sport.  Yesterday morning it only took 30 minutes and I wasn't sweating by the time they were all dressed, so I declared that success at this point!  We have been checking out all the different playgrounds around our side of town too.  Brennan loves the slide; that is for sure his favorite.  The swings not so much.  We have made progress from the first time he was screaming and crying bloody murder on our back yard swing, but we have to take it very slow and his tolerance level is at about 2 minutes and done.  It has been very interesting for me to see the difference in muscle control/coordination between the 3 little kids as well.  Madelyn and Ben are both "like a little muscle" compared to Brennan.  They can pull/push themselves on the different playground equipment.  They also have fairly coordinated steps around on the different equipment.  Brennan is unsurprisingly not at the same level with his muscle tone and coordination.  For example, we have a swinging bridge on our neighborhood playground.  When Brennan approached the bridge to cross it to get to the slides, he sat down on the edge to slide his bottom over and stand up on the bridge (as opposed to stepping down like the other kids do), and when he stood up and realized the bridge moved, the look on his face was total fear!  I quickly grabbed his hand, but it was obvious he didn't have experience being on something like that little "swinging bridge".  I just am so happy and thankful, though, that God has placed Brennan into our family for us to share these types of experiences whereby his muscle tone/coordination/spatial awareness will certainly grow and develop in time.

Learning to drive the Mustang.

All in all, I would say yes we have some orphanage related issues with Brennan.  There is self-soothing behavior, there is a little "self-destructive" behavior when he gets angry/frustrated, and he certainly is not on the developmental level of a typical 4.5 year old.  I think given time these things will improve, though.  From all accounts I think what we are dealing with is mild in the grand scheme of things.  The orphanage Brennan was at did a good job with the resources they had of helping him learn to use his little hand and of giving him some basic educational foundations in his preschool.  For that we are extremely grateful.  And by God's grace, we can build and grow upon the foundations we have.  I am so excited and humbled to be witness to the "growth harvest" God brings forth in Brennan's life!    

We have discovered the Spinbrush...and regular oral hygiene.

    

The arrival

As I look around the house early this morning, there are about nine million things that I see that I need to do. We still are unpacking the suitcases, Brennan has discovered ALL the toys and has left piles of them around the house for us, there are dirty dishes, and the floors could really use a good mopping.  It is so nice to be back home, though...and with our new son!  All those "chores" will keep long enough for me to put in writing my memories of our "gotcha day".

We arrived to the Garden Hotel where we would be staying 11 of our 14 days out of the country on the afternoon of Saturday, October 6th.  Our gotcha day was scheduled for the afternoon of Monday, October 8th, but we wanted to make sure we got to Guangzhou and settled prior to Monday.  It was nice that there were 4 other Lifeline families there as well with a combined 4 kids around Marleigh's age from those other families.  Those kids had a great time playing at the pool together on Sunday afternoon before the "big" day!

Needless to say, I hardly slept on Sunday night, and it wasn't due to jet lag!  I was so nervous about getting Brennan the next day.  I was nervous about the "trauma" he was going to experience on gotcha day; how would he handle it and how would he "handle" us as his new family?  I was nervous about his level of hearing, and how we would all be able to communicate together with the language barrier.  I also became very nervous thinking about how this was going to really change our current family dynamic.  Of course I had thought through all these things a million times before, but the full weight of what was about to take place was really pressing on me in the wee hours of the morning that Monday morning.  All I could do was lay in the bed and pray...and it truly was one of those "groaning of the Spirit" kind of prayers.  I had some words to pray, and then all that would come was "please God, please God".  No doubt He knew the cries of my heart that I couldn't even really verbalize at that moment.

Fast forward to around 11am on Monday morning.  We met with our wonderful, wonderful guides Rebecca and Miko.  They had updates on the children for each of the families.  It was like a little "get to know your child right before you meet your child".  They gave us all the recent physical, developmental, social, and educational information about our little boy.  Rebecca, who has a leadership role with the Maoming orphanage partnership on the Ch*na side of things, kept saying "I know your boy, and he is so smart."  That honestly made me feel really happy.  After this meeting I ran back to our hotel room and quickly made Marleigh, Scott, and myself a PB&J sandwich before we left for the Civil Affairs office.

One the bus on the way to the Civil Affairs office, all the families were talking among ourselves about who was going to take pictures/videos for each other.  Thinking back on those conversations now makes me laugh because as soon as we arrived to the office all sense of organization and planning went right out the window!  We were given paperwork to review for our adoption certificate, and then we were quickly ushered to the other side of the room where our children began to appear from behind a red curtain.  Brennan came out last, and he was smiling...at first.  He looked at me like he recognized me from the pictures we had sent.  He also let me pick him up.  I kissed him and he threw his head back and giggled.  Then he reached back for the caregiver who had led him out from behind that red curtain.  When he realized that I wasn't going to give him back and that she was gone (at least from his sight), the flood gate broke.  He began to cry and cry and cry.  Even though we walked back to the other side of the room, he was pointing and saying "mama" for her.  Nothing we had in the little bag for him would make him happy.  He didn't want a toy car or a Doodle Pro or candy.  He wanted what was familiar; the woman who had helped in caring for him for the past 4.5 years.  I understood, and it made me so sad for him.  I immediately went into "momma mode" though.  I just quietly sat and rocked him, holding him against me and wiping his tears and his little nose.  The only thing he would accept from me was a couple sips from a water bottle.

The first picture of Brennan with us; we got a smile in the first moments.

Then he realized his caregiver had left.  He is looking for her.

He was so sad.  I cannot even imagine what he was thinking at this  point.

As I continued to try to comfort him, Scott was called into an office to meet with the orphanage director and the caregiver who had traveled with Brennan that day.  It was basically an opportunity to ask any other questions we had about him and to hear from them any insight that would be helpful to know.  They told Scott that Brennan was a very sensitive little boy and that he was a slow eater.  They said if we would be patient and give him time he would eat a lot.  In the meantime, I realized that Brennan had completely fallen asleep on me out in the other room.  I wasn't sure at that time if it was exhaustion or a coping mechanism.  Now I think he was just really, really tired from traveling 4-5 hours that morning to meet us.  It was soon time to leave the Civil Affairs office, and I got really concerned about him falling asleep there and waking up somewhere else.  Thankfully, he woke up right as we were getting on the elevator.

Right before we got on the elevator.  Marleigh was happy to finally have her brother!

Our guides then took us all to a store called Jusco to get grocery items for our kids.  I decided to take Brennan in the store in the hopes he might see things he liked and point them out to us.  Not so much!  I think he was mostly overwhelmed...imagine Target on Black Friday.  That was what it seemed like inside the store!  We did manage to get some milk boxes, some rice crackers, and some yogurt for him.  Then we headed back to the hotel.

Scott went to a Chinese restaurant across the street to get fried rice, noodles, and congee at the suggestion of the guides.  Brennan wouldn't really eat that food very well, though.  He ended up eating yogurt, Pringles, and a milk box for his dinner.  Oh well, nutrition wasn't exactly the top priority at that moment.  He gradually seemed to warm up to us a bit through the evening, and at around 9:30pm I took him to bed.  Brennan and I laid down together and looked through some books we had sent him for his birthday back in March, and the next thing I knew he was fast asleep!  I was amazed by how quickly he just shut his eyes and went to sleep.

Fast asleep!

Monday, October 8th has changed our lives for sure.  Although Brennan was not happy at first, he has gradually come around.  We certainly have a lot more bonding/attachment to do with him, and we have some medical issues to work through.  All that stuff pales in comparison to the blessings and sanctification lessons this little guy has brought and continues to bring to us.  We are so thankful that God had this little guy planned for us all along, and that He moved us to step out in faith to add Brennan James to our family.

Looking back before we move forward

I am going to try to make this short and sweet.  Anyone who really knows me well just laughed at that prospect.  This is the last blog post I'll make from this side of the Pacific.  We leave Wednesday morning at 10 am to head towards Ch*na to get our Brennan (we'll spend a couple days in Hong Kong before we arrive in Ch*na).  I can hardly believe we are so close.  In some ways the past 11 months seem so long and in some ways they have been a blur.  I think I have the 3 other little ones to thank for that blur part :)
I have been thinking so much over the past few days about how the Lord has so graciously brought all this together.  This time last year I had no idea who Annie, the lady who was advocating for our Brennan, was.  Now I know her pretty well, and I thank God for how he has used her to help build our family.  He also used a lady named Angie who was an "advocate cohort" along with Annie.  I actually first saw Brennan's picture on Angie's blog, but Annie pretty quickly came into the picture as well.  They are both wonderful friends who are burdened for orphans.
I also am just awestruck by the kindness of the Lord in leading us to Lifeline Children's Services.  I cannot even begin to say enough good things about how fabulous they have been through this process.  They were actually praying, as a staff, for families to be moved to want to adopt some of the little boys that were available, and our Brennan was one of those precious boys.  How cool is that?  I have met several of the various staff from Lifeline, and they have commented that they remember praying for Brennan.  It makes me smile every time :)
As a result of this adoption, I also have been drawn into a local group of adoptive families I might not have otherwise gotten to know.  It's always wonderful to have new friends, but it will be even more beneficial for the kids to have friends like them: adopted into a forever family or the biological child with siblings who were adopted into the family.  Both of those "statuses" are special, God-given gifts.  I hope Scott and I can help our all children steward their gift well for the glory of the One who ordained their "status" to ultimately be rooted in Him.

So, off we go to add another precious little guy to our brood.  It is exciting and nerve-racking all at the same time!  We are praying that God would bless us and Brennan by helping him to receive us with joy that he has this thing called a family, the beginnings of love for us, and the beginnings of trust in us.  We also pray for wisdom of how to best meet Brennan's needs by helping him understand how to live in a family.  It would be an honor to us if you might pray the same thing on our behalf!