This is the end of this journal. There will be no more updates posted here. I will post general updates from time to very long time on my other blog, but this one is finished. It will be left up until my husband finds that it has served it's period of usefulness to us, and then will be transferred to a document that will be linked to my other blog.
Thank you for reading and continuting to stop by, looking for updates. We appreciate your support and prayers as we continue the letting-go process.
I'm down on my knees again tonight I'm hoping this prayer will turn out right See there is a boy that needs Your help I've done all that I can do myself His mother is tired I'm sure You can understnad Each night as he sleeps She goes in to hold his hand And she tries not to cry As the tears fill her eyes
CHORUS: Can You hear me? Am I getting through tonight? Can You see him? Can You make him feel all right? If You can hear me Let me take his place somehow See, he's not just anyone He's my son
Sometimes late at night I watch him sleep I dream of the boy he'd like to be I try to be strong and see him through But God who he needs right now is You Let him grow old Live life without this fear What would I be Living without him here He's so tired and he's scared Let him know that You're there
CHORUS
Can You hear me? Can You see him? Please don't leave him He's my son
My friend, Brandy, wrote this for me. I wanted it saved for Jumoke. I think he will need to know how much God loves him specifically and specially. Thank you for writing this out for me, Brandy, and thank you for being my friend and praying with me and for us.
I have prayed for Jumoke and Umeme's family for a L O N G time. I know that I believe in my heart that Jumoke has a HUGE part to play in the Lords Kingdom. It will be a battle, but I know the Lord has plans for Jumoke.
I had called Umeme a few weeks back and let her know I was praying for her, Tim and Jumoke and that I felt a HUGE burden to call her and tell her that the Lord laid on my heart that they were doing the right thing.
Well, my house was in utter chaos. The noise level was at a climatic high since it was bed time here on the east coast. Matt was on duty and I had no one to help calm the Gleason masses. The urging was deep and so I called. The house was suddenly silent and well, Umeme and I were able to talk and make sense of what we were saying without yelling at anyone in our households. It was incredible!
I have continued to lift up this situation and then about 5 days ago or so Umeme called me and said, Lets pray together. So we were one with the Spirit thousands of miles apart.
I felt rejuvenate and Umeme,I tell you the Lord is continuing to do a mighty mighty work here. Thank you Jesus!
The day after we prayed I was running around doing errands and I stopped at Good Steward Books. I saw a lady from church that I just talked to for the first time in my 2 years of my going there, 2 Sundays ago.
I said, Hi Katy! She said, Hi, Brandy and we were just fellowshipping in the parking lot. The conversation heads into how the Lord is so awesome and answers our prayers and needs in such awesome ways.
I was just praising the Lord. I said to her, Just last night a friend and I prayed over the phone about some of our issues and how it was just a wonderful and sweet time of prayer.
I then said, My friend is in the midst of a disrupted adoption. She said, Really, I am sorry to hear this (Katy has adopted 2 children) I have read a book and I never knew why I read the chapter on disrupted adoptions but I think it must be for your friend. The book is called, Raising Adopted Children.
I said, Thank you! I will tell her. She is missing Jumoke and feeling very saddened.
Katy got this amazed look on her face and said, You know I had this dream last night and I dont know why, but I told my husband and daughters about it. In my dream I was grieving for this adopted child and his family. I mean, just weeping and crying for them and praying for them. I know this dream did not mean I was to adopt anymore children, but it was for someone else.
I still had not made the connection.
I nodded politely.
She said, The thing is this boys name was Jumoke. (This lady said Jumoke's real name)
OK now the Lord has my attention. REALLY?!?! I said.
She asked me, Was this boy older like 7 or 8.
Yes. I said, He is.
She has this far away look and then says, Well, in my dream this little boys name is Jumoke and he is 7ish and he was a little black boy.
By this point I am just PRAISING GOD! I said, YOU ARE KIDDING ME!
She says, No I am not kidding. This was so vivid and I wondered WHY I was praying and crying in my dream. I now know. I was praying for this family and the boy Jumoke.
It was AMAZING! Here was this woman I had not met until 2 weeks ago and if I had not spoken to her I would have never said much more than hi in passing this day. YET God in his providence PREORDAINED this meeting!
It reaffirms to me that God hears and calls His saints to pray even when we dont know why or who we are praying for!
I, of course, called Umeme as soon as I could and related this to her! WITH tears of joy and praise to the Lord!
BTW Umeme, I can affirm her credibility to you today even more. In Sunday School this am someone said, When I need prayer I call Katy Franke. She is a true prayer warrior for the Lord.
This is the end of Jumoke's story...for us. There will be no more updates that I'm aware of, since part of losing Jumoke is that we will have no contact with him for a very long time. If he is adopted by someone we know, then we will have the privilege of watching him grow up. But it will no longer be my privilege to record his growing. That honor will belong to his mother.
A few weeks ago we put a site meter on this blog. Over the weeks, we've seen that many people in our nation and around the world...across the United States, Canada, The United Kingdom, Australia, and Singapore.....were reading regularly and, we hoped, praying. Every town, state, and country that was listed on our site meter became more than just names of places...they became representatives of people who are friends and who might just be praying for us.
To all of you, thank you. Thank you for your emails, cards, and phone calls that encouraged us and taught us things we didn't know before. Thank you for reading. For hoping with us. And for maybe crying with us. And for sure, thank you for praying for us.
Some day, if things go well with Jumoke, I want to be able to give him this journal. Maybe an edited version. Maybe just the whole thing the way it is. I want him to know what a terribly difficult choice this was for us and how torn we were. And how much we love him.
I turned off the comment option on this blog sometime back. Today I'm opening it back up. I'll save the comments along with the blog entries. I'd like to remember who our friends were during this difficult time. I'd like Jumoke to know that folks were praying and reading and thinking of him...and us.
I don't know how much more I will use this blog. Perhaps to record memories when I need to. I don't want to use it as a place to purge my emotions when the moments of missing Jumoke become overwhelming...and there will be little left after today other than that.
Thank you for reading and for walking with us and praying for us. And you moms of radishes that emailed me and called me: You will never know the enormous encouragement you have been to me. It was you that the Lord used to keep my head above water when I began to give up and slip below the surface. It was your words and your sharing of your lives that convinced me I wasn't mad.
From Tim: Right or wrong, the hardest part of this whole thing has been telling people the things you know about your boy and having people say back to you "Yeah but...". My hope is that God will reveal Truth to Jumoke's new parents, whether they recieve it from us or not. I say that, not to be vindicated, but because I am concerned, based on my perception of people's responses, that Jumoke's condition will be ignored and he will not be healed as God wills him to be. And that's my desire for Jumoke...that he will be whole.
As happens every year, around Jumoke's birthday in February, Jumoke went into an ugly slide. Every spring had been more difficult than the rest of the year, each spring nastier than the one before. But still, I wasn't really looking at this from the point of view that we might have a damaged child.
Tim, however, was looking at it from exactly that point of view.
It was odd. Jumoke rarely messed with Tim. When Tim was home, Jumoke's behavior was much better. Everyone in the family recieved "pay back" from Jumoke when we crossed him, but Tim hardly ever did. As a matter of fact, until the very end a few weeks ago, I don't remember Tim every getting "pay back".
Yet it was Tim who said consistently, "There's something wrong here. That boy knows exactly what he's doing."
We watched Jumoke go into his slide, and remembered the other springs. We prepared ourselves for days on end with no good days. We thought we were ready to take this spring on and do much better than we had with the previous springs.
But Jumoke was older. And meaner. And craftier.
By the middle of February, I was beginning to wonder how we would hold on till the end of spring.
The straw that began the breaking of the proverbial camel's back was the night we heard Ouseman crying and begging from his bedroom for Jumoke to please stop, please stop!
Tim and I rushed in there to find Ouseman in the upper bunk crying hysterically. Ouseman is 11 years old. He doesn't cry often and when he does, it's quietly. He's a private person when it comes to the more negative emotions, and he won't even share them with Tim. Because I've sworn absolute secrecy and because I've told him that's what moms are for, he shares his stuff with me. But I know he keeps a lot more stuff back than he shares.
So when we saw him so hysterical, we were very concerned. He was crying so hard we couldn't get out of him what happened. Whatever it was, it was just words. Jumoke had been laying there quietly tormenting Ouseman with words.
What really disturbed both of us was the utter lack of concern on Jumoke's face. He didn't look like he was concerned about getting in trouble or concerned that Ouseman was so upset or concerned about anything. He looked like a kid laying on his side with his head propped on his hand, watching television.
Tim took Jumoke out of the room and I stayed to talk to Ouseman. I asked Ouseman why he didn't come and get us when Jumoke wouldn't stop. Ouseman's words changed everything.
"I've come to tell you or daddy what he does to me. And you talk to him or get on to him. But he just waits till you aren't looking and starts it up again. I know you can't make him stop so I just stopped asking you for help."
That was it for me.
I didn't care anymore if Tim was right or wrong about Jumoke. I didn't care if Jumoke was just a naughty Tom Sawyer or a disturbed child. I didn't care of Jumoke was good for a whole half of every year.
Our son did not trust us to keep him safe.
I was through.
After much discussion, we started sending Jumoke to his Nana's house during the week while Tim worked. Jumoke came home on the weekends. For a while that seemed to help give some peace, but it wasn't long till the weekends began to be as terrible as the weeks used to be.
We found that with Jumoke gone, that Anne quit asking to go to Nana's house all the time. She quit crying and being so moody.
Matthew began coming out of his room more and chatting with us again.
Isaac very very slowly started to be happy again. He still cried more that a 6 year old should, but we noticed it was less often.
Maria was the biggest surprise. It seemed overnight that she went from a clingy, whiny, obnoxious child to the sweet singing dancing little girl we remembered from a very long time ago.
As I saw these things, I was torn. I could see that Jumoke was indeed affecting all of our home, not just me. I noticed that I was relaxing more and more. I began to trace patterns, and noticed that the anxiety attacks started happening 6 months after the boys arrived.
Things weren't looking good. Tho we had lived with Jumoke for four years, looking back I could see that we hadn't really lived. I couldn't pinpoint one single thing that made living with Jumoke so difficult. It was more of a being "on" 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The children's stress probably came a lot from the general stress of Jumoke's disobedience and malice, but also partly from his secretive treatment of them. And sadly, of Tim and I not getting entirely on board with their complaints.
It was as the spring went on that we placed more pieces together into the puzzle. The pieces had always been there, but we had never seen them as parts of a whole. We saw each piece as a whole unto itself.
The rest of the story is in the beginning of this blog.
I know Tim would like me to record specific instances, but that is so difficult for me to do. When I write down specific instances, they become puzzle pieces that aren't puzzle pieces at all...but rather they look like just a whole by themselves. That doesn't make sense, I know.
The only folks we've talked to that seem to know what we are saying is an attachment therapist in our area, a woman from Nancy Thomas' attachment disorder organization, and moms and dads of kids with attachment disorder.
Believe it or not, even with all that under my belt, I still don't know what I believe about Jumoke.
But I do know this. My children are healthier and safer without him here. And so am I.
Do I miss him?
Not today. I'm still too tired. It's all still too raw. Even tho my kids are changing back for the better, I still see stuff there that needs to heal up.
Do I care what happens to him?
Absolutely. Even tho I've given up the chance to be part of his future, I care about his future the same as I care about the future of each of these children in my home.
As I thought over this short, superficial story of our last four years with Jumoke, I realized that all the little stories and all the odd and defiant behaviors, even the malice and hate and anger...these things alone weren't what made the years so difficult. Any child with a strong personality and a strong will can do things like Jumoke and even resist being trained out of the behaviors.
The thing that made it so impossible was that Jumoke never learned to love us. None of us. When a child doesn't love you or trust you, then the situation becomes impossible. There is no logical point from which to parent him or reach him. And that creates a hopeless situation.
Hope deferred makes a heart sick.
Love covers a lot of junk. You can put up with all kinds of dysfunction and brokenness if there is love.
When love is not part of a relationship, all the rules change. And Tim and I just weren't familiar with rules that didn't start and end in love.
The plain truth is that Jumoke's heart never belonged to us. He didn't know how to give us his heart. We didn't know how to woo his heart.
The uncle with whom Jumoke was staying called us with some disturbing news. He did ask Jumoke why he didn't want to go home. Jumoke told him. Not straight out. Jumoke had never talked at ease with adults. Well, not normally. Sometimes he'd break thru and have an interesting conversation. But most of the time, he'd pause for long moments and say "I don't know" a lot.
He did this with his uncle as well. But the uncle patiently drew him out.
Perhaps Jumoke was just trying to think of things to say. Maybe he didn't really intend to cause trouble. That was certainly what I thought after talking to the uncle. I could not believe a seven year old boy could come up with that stuff like he did. There had to be some strange mistake.
The uncle told us that Jumoke had told him of many instances where we had mistreated Jumoke. "Mistreated" being the nice way to say "abused".
Almost everything Jumoke told had a grain of truth in it, but the grain of truth could in no way be interpreted as abuse. It was the way that Jumoke shared the "truth" that inferred abuse.
For example, we have a laughing joke that Tim started. I said I wanted all of our children to live with us forever. Daddy said, "No way! I want 'em out of here when they turn 18!" I argued like a lawyer to keep my children, and finally Tim would compromise, and say, "OK. The girls can stay. But the boys must go!"
It was all in fun, and all the children laughed. Including Jumoke.
But he told his uncle that one of the reasons he didn't want to go home was because his daddy didn't want him living there anymore.
Later we asked Jumoke why he said that. He referred to the conversation I just wrote about. We told him that his uncle thought he meant that his daddy didn't want just him, Jumoke, living at the house right now. He was unconcerned. His uncle didn't ask him to expound, so he had felt no need to expound.
Another disturbing thing he said was that he didn't want to go home because his mommy gives him bloody lips.
I was shocked beyond belief! Three and a half years ago, when Jumoke had first come home, he was into biting people. Most moms have to deal with this with toddlers, and like most other moms, I use my first two fingers to tap little mouths that bite. I'm an experienced mom. I know the difference between a tap and a smack. I know how to gentle tap and get the child's attention without hurting them.
However, Jumoke has the large, swollen lips common to some Africans. The skin on his lips didn't take kindly to being tapped, and the first couple times I did it, the top of his bottom lip would split a bit. The tiny bit of blood concerned me, and of course, I quickly decided we would have to go another route to stop the biting.
But that had been when he first arrived! I was surprised he even remembered it. And that he used it to say that he was scared to come home now implied that I was doing something far worse currently.
There were other things as well along the same lines. When questioned at home, Jumoke in every instance went back and told us the situation surrounding his accusation. He was accurate in his memories, and in every case, the situation was shown from his perspective to not be abusive at all.
But why did he present it to his uncle in a manner that implied abuse or at least a scary situation when he knew for a fact that no such thing existed?
He didn't even try to keep up the pretense with us. His attitude was that his uncle didn't ask further, so he gave no further explanations that would have enlightened his uncle.
We did not understand at all. Tim had for some time been insisting that Jumoke knew exactly what he was doing, even when he got that blank look on his face and began wringing his hands. We were split on this thing...Tim believing Jumoke was doing things on purpose and with malice and cunning, me believing he was way too young to be able to do things like that on purpose.
But after this one, even tho I could see with my own eyes that Jumoke knew that what he told his uncle was deceptive, I still couldn't fathom why he would do it.
We became concerned when the aunt and uncle told us that, while they did not believe that we abused Jumoke, they did believe that from Jumoke's perspective, he felt abused. These were relatives, and we knew we were being given the benefit of the doubt. But to not be believed that the boy was outright deceiving them...well, that was a bit scary.
We decided that we needed help. Tim was concerned that this thing was going to get out of hand. All we needed was for Jumoke to get really angry with us and tell someone we were doing something we weren't, and then who knew what could happen? We'd heard horror stories, and wanted to believe that it couldn't happen to us, but we felt it wise to get help and have some back-up.
We called PLAN, the adoption agency we had adopted the boys through. A fellow named Don met with us and a child psychologist and we talked about Jumoke. Tim had called the meeting in order to get help to avoid a disruption. I just wanted to find out what was going on with Jumoke so we could reach him and start having a normal life again. I was still in denial that anything could possibly be wrong outside of what we could do to change ourselves.
We stayed in touch with the psychologist over the summer. She asked us to look for cycles in his behaviour, and gave a few other suggestions. Tim kept wanting to go back and meet with her again. I wanted to forget the whole thing. Jumoke seemed to be doing better over the summer. We had some bad days, but were also having just as many good days. I didn't so much discourage Tim from pursuing help, but I didn't encourage him either. The busyness of the summer helped to cover over the mess of the preceding spring.
His behaviour continued to be equally good and bad. But the bad was getting worse. He wasn't hiding some things from me anymore. He was getting more malicious and more sneaky. He was hiding matches and lighters and starting small fires out in the yard. He was tormenting the older boys till the boys were crying and shaking. He still wouldn't obey the slightest request. He wouldn't say no or stand up to me. He'd just walk away and find something else to do. Or if told to be quiet in bed, he'd be quiet for five minutes then start up again. Or if told to stay out of the road, would stay out of the road while we were watching and go onto the road when we weren't. When confronted with his disobedience, he often declared we hadn't told him any such thing. I wondered if I were going crazy. Why would he lie like that? Maybe I wasn't telling him the things he said he wasn't hearing. I was terribly confused, but still would not believe the boy was anything other than a normal boy who was a bit of a difficult Tom Sawyer.
Things were starting to disappear. Not a lot of things. But suspicious things. Jumoke would get mad at me, and one of a pair of earrings would disappear. Jumoke would get mad at Isaac and a model that Isaac had made would disappear.
Jumoke quit playing with Isaac except to get him alone and quietly taunt him or to set him up to hurt him. Isaac began crying a lot. Not just in connection to Jumoke but in connection with everything. He went from a happy little man to a crying, whining boy.
During the fall, we had some good day where Jumoke would do his chores and get along quite well. But like I said, the bad days were getting unbearable. Even on Jumoke's good days, my muscles were tense and I felt on edge, waiting for the bad days. Isaac continued to get worse, crying more and more often over smaller and smaller things. Maria became more clingy and whiny and followed me around like a puppy dog. She clung to strangers and was acting very immature for an almost 8 year old. Ouseman was withdrawing from us. Anne was spending more and more time at her Nana's house, trying to find some quiet and peace. Matthew was disappearing more and more with books and projects behind closed doors.
But I was too busy with Jumoke and the baby to give more than a cursory notice to the other children. I knew things weren't right, but instead of looking at the forest, I just looked at each tree. Instead of noticing that my children were withdrawing from the family or regressing into immaturity, I just saw that each of my children were going through a "stage". I was way too busy trying to keep Jumoke under control to do anything for any of the other children, even if I knew what to do.
The first two years were difficult, but only because we were trying to figure the little man out. We knew he was different from the other children. We just didn't know how he was different. We thought perhaps it was that our other children were more cerebral, and Jumoke was more physical. But that didn't make sense really. Tim is a very physical, athletic person. Surely he would be able to understand if that was the case.
One thing we noticed in the first two years was that Ouseman gradually let go of Liberia. Jumoke did not. He often talked about going back to Liberia, even though he had quickly lost most of his real memories about Liberia.
We also noticed a few other things. Jumoke's response to any negative situation was always anger....anger at someone other than himself. He never took responsibility for anything. It was always someone else's fault. If he hurt Isaac and Isaac told me, then he was angry with Isaac for telling on him. If I then disciplined him for hurting Isaac, he was angry with me for disciplining him.
If he couldn't ride his bike because he wouldn't follow the rules, he was angry at me for taking his bike. If he had to go to bed early because he disobeyed, he was angry with the person that sent him to bed.
We never once saw remorse for anything he had done. That was cause for concern.
We never once saw him volutarily take responsibility for a wrong done.
We saw him deal with situations only with anger.
We knew he wasn't bonded to us the way that Ouseman was, but we took responsibility for that entirely. We were sure that we just hadn't been able to reach him.
The third year started with less hope than the previous two years. We'd tried all we knew to do. We'd called everyone we knew who had adopted from Liberia, as well as other places. We'd talked to every excellent parent we respected. There were no more phone calls to make.
We'd read everything we could get our hands on. At one point, a friend of mine emailed me a list of traits she said were traits of a child with attachment disorder. I read the traits, and Jumoke fit none of them really. It was much, much later that I discovered that the list I had somehow linked to was actually a list of symptoms for the oppositional child.
We headed into the third year without spirit. He was 6 years old. Still very young and impressionable in our book. He had taught himself to read the year before, so that year I started him full time in school with the other children. He did quite well. As long as I was in the room with him. If I walked out, he quit working and started messing with other kids. It wasn't long before school became all about Jumoke...or he was in the corner so I could school the other kids.
I found that the only way I could spend time with the other children was to have Jumoke sitting on a chair with a book, in the corner, or laying on his bed. He became more and more isolated from the other children.
Neither Tim nor I was comfortable with this solution, so we were still constantly trying other things. Sometimes we'd just throw our hands up and say "Forget it!" and remove all the controls and start Jumoke all over again with a clean slate. It wasn't long before the house was in chaos again and Jumoke always by my side or sitting by himself.
I found out I was pregnant, and spent the rest of the third year growing a baby. It was a fairly easy pregnancy, except that at about month 6 we found out that the baby might have something wrong with him. We decided not to pursue a complete diagnosis at that time, and finished up the pregnancy not knowing. The baby was born healthy.
Because I was an older mom, the pregnancy was a bit tiring for me. All I could do was be pregnant and take care of Jumoke. Everything else fell to the wayside. The children were still doing ok...they are good kids, and Tim is a good dad. We were still maintaining tho Mom was pretty much out of things.
Both of the boys lied like crazy when they first came to our house. Our niece and nephew, also adopted from Liberia, lied too. As a matter of fact, all the parents told us their Liberian children lied a lot. Because of this, we weren't concerned, and just patiently and consistently trained them to tell the truth.
Within a year, we could pretty much count on Ouseman to tell the truth.
Jumoke still lied about anything and everything. But you know, he was only five years old.
At six years old, we hadn't made any headway on the lying. But he was still young. We thought it odd that our older child who had been more entrenched in the culture could learn to tell the truth and our younger couldn't. But there's no telling about people. Everyone is unique, and this issue might be something unique about Jumoke.
He continued to wet the bed and we continued to find potty in odd places from time to time. But this issue was cut in half, so we actually felt like we had gone somewhere with it.
He was still tearing up his clothing, and every time he found a pair of scissors, something was destroyed. He was still breaking things that belonged to others, but he was also breaking everything that belonged to him. His toy bin was always empty no matter how prosperous Christmas or his birthday had been. It was always his bike that was left behind the back tire of my van. After the second bike, we just let him have old used bikes, till the fourth year when we decided to get him a great bike and see if we had made any progress. He left our house with the bike whole, but well used.
The third year ended with a bang. The spring was very difficult. He would not obey us in anything unless we forced him. The children were struggling with him, talking about his mean smile or his mean laugh or that he was doing things to purposely make them mad. We did not believe them. We had never seen a mean smile or a mean laugh, and we were thinking that the children were dropping blame on Jumoke because he was different.
But even that was confusing us. Even the most honest and careful of our children were saying these things. Tho we never saw any evidence of the things the children complained about, it went hard with us to believe that all of them were telling the same untruths about Jumoke.
I began walking quietly. I caught Jumoke red handed doing many things, which when I confronted him, he would lie. Even when I proved he was lying, he would continue lying.
I did end up walking in on Jumoke during a mean smile or a mean laugh. It was indeed as terrible as the kids had been telling me. It was indeed very mean, intended to make the children cry or angry. He never did it in front of Tim or I, but after it was discovered, we could often hear the mean laugh from another room and know that a child would soon be coming to us for help. Or look in the rear view mirror and see the mean smile and know there was trouble brewing...and that the instant Jumoke caught our eyes, his face would be wiped clean and blank.
Disturbing. But what did it mean?
As I said, the spring was difficult. In May, Tim took a business trip. He had often taken business trips in our marriage, and it seemed that as our children grew older, the trips were harder on me. We really needed Daddy home with us. I just assumed that things were getting harder because of...something. It never occurred to me to compare the times Tim was home with the times that Tim was gone in regards to Jumoke's bad behaviors.
This trip was worse than the other trips. I'd never quite been able to pinpoint that Jumoke was worse when Tim was gone, but this trip, Jumoke didn't hide his stuff. He was outfront with it. I had my hands full trying to keep the lid on things at home. He was naughty and causing trouble and tripping me up every step.
The final straw was a few days before Tim was due home. We were getting things ready for us to go out to get something to eat and then head over to Nana's. I was busy getting the children ready and dressing the baby. I went into the living room and picked up the car seat...only to find the straps tied into intricate knots.
I knew this had been done just moments before because I'd had one of the kids bring the car seat in from the bedroom and the straps were fine then. We'd all been out of the room, except for Jumoke, who was no where to be found at the moment.
I was very angry. I'd reached the end of my rope. Such a silly thing to get angry over, many would say. I would say so too. But when it is the thousandth such thing in less than a week, it doesn't take much.
Jumoke admitted that he did indeed tie the knots and he didn't know why and looked at me with innocent, frightened eyes. I was getting to know those eyes and what those looks meant. That particular look meant "You are so mean to me and I'm so scared and I don't understand this whole situation." I also knew this particular look was false. That the instant I confronted him with his misbehaviour, the weak, sad look on his face would turn to seething anger and he would spit words at me through his teeth.
I felt my anger rise until I saw white flashes at the corners of my eyes.
My anger frightened me.
I am not an angry person. Of course, I get angry, but anger isn't a natural emotion to me. I've never been comfortable with it. And this particular anger scared the bejeebies out of me.
I kept my distance from Jumoke, made my children something to eat from the kitchen, and asked my mom to come sit with us a while. I sank into a panic attack, which she sat with me thru, and then I moved on over into a muck-puddle of discouragement and depression. I was a horrible person to be a mother...being that angry meant that I should not parent. Forget that I had never been that angry ever in the last 24 years of parenting. That moment really took it out of me.
After that, Jumoke was never left at home with me alone while Tim was away overnight. Looking back over the years, we had realized that Jumoke was always much worse when Tim was away. So we found respite care every time Tim left for even one night.
We also realized that we needed to clear our heads about the situation. We needed some time to really look at this child and figure out what to do. We asked some relatives to take him for a couple weeks so we could have a breather.
It was a lovely two weeks. The children kept talking at first about how quiet the house was without Jumoke, and how they didn't even miss him, and wasn't that odd? Tim and I didn't miss him much either. We were just tired, and glad to have some peace.
He was doing well with the relatives, his behavior seeming very normal to them.
So we were good on all fronts. Peace at home while Jumoke was having a great time on a vacation and the family actually enjoying him.
We were ready to try again when the two weeks were up. But Jumoke's uncle told us that Jumoke seemed conflicted about coming home. Thinking this was interesting, and hoping maybe to get some insight into Jumoke, I asked the uncle to ask Jumoke why he wasn't really wanting to come home if Jumoke brought it up again.
The second year was more stressful than the first year. It started out with our 6 year old daughter needing surgery to take out her tonsils. She had been very sick with a hurting tummy and not able to gain much weight since she was two years old. The doctors could find nothing wrong with her though.
The summer before she had a bout with mononucleosis, which caused her already swollen tonsils to swell even larger. Soon she was suffering severe breathing issues at night to the point that I could hear her stop breathing from my bedroom. I started sleeping with her so that I could turn her over to get her breathing again.
For some reason her pediatrician didn't feel it was serious enough remove her tonsils. After a few months of not sleeping much, and with the anxiety being an issue, Tim decided to approach a surgeon in the city and demand the tonsils be removed.
They were removed.
Dawn began improving immediately. She began gaining weight and learned to ride a bike. Before her surgery, she was always fussy and crying and couldn't play for very long at a time. The new little girl was outside for hours, and learning to be friends with her siblings.
This was a very good thing.
We moved home to the valley. I started schooling Ouseman, thinking that he had adjusted enough culturally to begin. We started in pre-Kindergarten. We both worked hard, but couldn't get past the basics, recognizing numbers or letters. After much very hard work, he learned to write the first three letters in his name 3 months later.
We took him to an ophthamologist soon after he came home. We were told that though the slits he looked thru were tiny, that he could indeed see well.
After almost a year of working with him and making no progress, I took him to a different eye doctor. The doctor said he couldn't complete the exam because Ouseman's eyes were so scratched up from his lashes growing inward. He said that Ouseman was pretty much blind.
Ouseman had eye surgery to open his lids. Within a month, he was reading! All the lessons had come back to him, and with sight, he just raced ahead.
We also had the very large hernia in his tummy removed soon after.
Then we had tonsil surgery for our youngest daughter, whose tonsils had swollen till they were causing the same apnea problems as her older sister.
The anxiety attacks continued even after we moved home, but I assumed it was because of the stress of all the surgeries and the changes they brought about.
Life was still about Jumoke, tho I tried to keep pouring into my other children as well. When we were going thru a stressful time such as one of the surgeries, or when I was spending a lot of time teaching Ouseman to read, or anything to where I wasn't 100% available to care for Jumoke, he would begin to run wild, destroying and hurting and wreaking havoc.
Both Tim and I worked hard to find solutions outside the box to reach Jumoke. We tried everything that every parent who adopted from Liberia suggested to us. We would feel a little success, think we were seeing some real change, and then Jumoke would just learn to walk around whatever we were doing and go back to doing as he pleased.
Ouseman loved to work. Our niece and nephew, also adopted from Liberia when they were 3, loved to work. Jumoke hated to work. He would never do a chore unless I was right with him. As soon as I turned my back, he would stop.
It was that way with everything. As long as I was physically present, Jumoke would comply. As soon as I turned my head, he would stop complying. So I became his constant companion.
We were beginning to get comments from family members about Jumoke not being treated like the other kids. We tried to explain that we tried treating him like the other kids, but it was like he didn't want that. People would say it's obvious that he isn't grafted into your family or that he feels isolated. We'd try to explain that we were doing our utmost to include him and bring him in, but we just hadn't found a way.
Our parenting practices were being strongly doubted. Certainly our love for Jumoke was doubted.
We were beginning to doubt it ourselves.
We were constantly evaluating ourselves and examining ourselves, our hearts and our parenting style. Every once in a while, Tim would tire of our lack of success and tell me once again that he felt that Jumoke belonged in another family. I always knew in my heart that if we just tried hard enough, we could reach the boy.
The second year ended much as the first year did: we hadn't gained any ground with Jumoke. All that we had gained was the knowledge that if we kept him near us and kept firm consistent control on him, that we could keep him from hurting people and damaging things. The only things at this point that he was damaging were his bed things and his own toys and the occasional toy that someone left out. He still refused to obey unless we were standing right over him.
But at least we had learned to put a lid on the worst behaviours.
Within six months, Ouseman had begun to adjust. He was still wailing a number of times a week, either because he was disciplined or because he missed his home in Liberia. He still wouldn't allow me to hold him while he was wailing, but I still insisted.
But he was responding to our love and training and discipline. He was trying to talk like the other kids, working on his accent. That made me sad because I loved his accent, and had finally begun to understand him. But it was important to him to be like the other kids.
He had adjusted to the milk in his diet, and had quit the projectile vomiting. He quit running around naked and actually became quite modest. He used the toilet properly and learned to clean himself properly. He was very hard on his clothes, but loved looking nice, so tried hard to quit tearing holes in everything. He even gave up his quest for the green coat, listening to me when I explained about sharing and being grateful for what God gave us and not coveting that which belonged to others.
He quit peeling wallpaper and quit writing on walls. He went to bed with the other kids and stayed there till morning. He quit wetting the bed, which told me he was starting to get over the trauma of the adoption. And he started yelling at Jumoke to obey me, their mama.
One time, a few months after the boys came home, we took them out to dinner at Izzy's, a pizza buffet style restaurant, perfect for feeding a small army of kids. The children were all chattering, the restaurant was loud, but over every other noise, I could hear Ouseman's loud voice and huge laugh.
I didn't want to embarass Ouseman, so I just mentioned quietly to Tim that the kids were being a little loud and maybe we should ask them to quiet down.
Ouseman overheard me. He stood up in his chair, this tiny eight year old, and waving a fork, he began yelling in his thick accent, "Quiet, ever'body! You buggin' my mama! Quiet, you chil'ren! You hurtin' my mama's ear!"
Oh my word. I was mortified and laughing so hard that I couldn't pull him down. Tim just stared, mouth agape, unable to make his body move to put this little man back in his chair. The children laughed and rolled in their chairs. Matthew climbed under the table in embarassment. Everyone in the restaurant turned to watch this little orator in amusment. Ouseman just stood there, unimpeded, yelling for all to hear: "Quiet! Now! You hurtin' my mama's ear!"
Tim and I reached out at the same time and pulled him back into his chair. By this time we were all laughing, but embarassed as well. We finished eating and beat a hasty retreat.
The boys both had little respect or liking for me when they first came to our house. It was a lovely thing watching Ouseman's love and respect for me bud and bloom. It took a long time. It was actually over a year later that I felt confident that I had his respect as well as his love. But the journey had been so worth it.
Jumoke was another story entirely. He continued to run naked whenever he could. When he found that I didn't like it, he started shutting the bedroom door and talking Isaac (3) into undressing and wrestling. Isaac became pretty unmodest, and both of them began laughing at and joking about body parts.
Because we are a pretty modest family, I was uncomfortable with that, so started dressing Isaac separately. When Jumoke continued, bothering the older boys with it, I finally had Jumoke dress separately in the bathroom.
Jumoke continued going potty everywhere for a long time. At night, he wore pull ups. But often in the morning, his pull ups and jammies would be dry but his bed and pillow soaked. I didn't understand. Could he be waking in the night and getting confused and thinking he was in the bathroom while still in bed?
I just continued cleaning up the potty. At least the messy from wiping seemed to be under control.
Jumoke was still destroying walls. I was still painting over his messes.
He took to picking paint off the walls and beds and furniture.
He destroyed his clothes. It sometimes looked like he did it on purpose, but I didn't believe it was on purpose. He was only four years old. He just needed time. I'd patiently explain that he shouldn't dig pencils into his shoes and i put up all the scissors so he would quit cutting the sheets and blankets and clothing and stuffed toys.
His manners at the table seemed to improve. But we found that as soon as we left the room, food would be flying, he'd be grossing people out by doing things with chewed up food, standing on the table.
He was only four tho. We had plenty of time to reach him.
He was destroying everything that belonged to anyone else that he could touch. Breaking the boys' wooden guns, tearing up dolls, taking apart trucks and cars. Nothing was safe. We started making each child responsible for their own toys instead of having them all bunched together like we had, and gave each child a huge bin of their own to keep their things in.
But the destruction continued. So did people getting hurt. But it was always on accident, so I wasn't too concerned.
At the end of their first 6 months home, Tim moved us to the city. I am very much not a city person. City traffic and noise scares me. But this was only for a year, and I figured I could do anything for a year.
The day before we were supposed to leave, I experienced a severe pain in my chest that would not go away. My husband had left already for the city; we were to follow later. My brother rushed me into the hospital, where I stayed for four days while they checked out my heart. My husband came home from the city from his first week at his new job to be with me and the kids.
My heart checked out just fine. We had no idea what had happened.
We moved to the city, into a tiny neighborhood with excellent homeschooling neighbors. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. But I was still tense and nervous all the time. I couldn't figure out why. I just couldn't relax, even tho I loved the particular piece of the city that we settled in.
Ouseman continued to graft into our family. Jumoke did ok, but we just couldn't get him to behave. We tried all manner of discipline, but nothing worked. Tim was on the phone with other parents who adopted from Liberia, picking their brains for information that would help us understand Jumoke.
He was so cute! But so disobedient. And he had these strange things he did that we couldn't train him out of.
I was on all the time with Jumoke, but I still didn't mind. He was only a little guy, and I knew that it had been a terrible thing for him to be ripped from everything that was familiar to him. Ouseman was doing very well, but Ouseman was a lot older than Jumoke.
Every day came to be about Jumoke. My other kids were really good kids, so they occupied themselves constructively while I took care of Jumoke. He was often in fights or arguments with someone, breaking and tearing things, doing exactly what he was told not to do.
I was still in patient mode. I still believed he just needed more time.
A couple months after we moved to the city, we were going to church one Sunday. The church was huge! Thousands of people attended. I was used to churches with only 100 people. But I loved the teaching at this church, and this was the church Tim had attended when he was in college in this town, so this is where we went.
This one Sunday tho, we were just getting ready to sit down. I felt my heart beating hard and my face flush and I felt dizzy and faint. I told Tim we needed to leave.
As we walked out of the church, I felt worse and worse. I knew I was going to die. I asked Tim to get me to a hospital immediately. He looked very concerned, but confused. He said I looked just fine. But he took me anyway.
After we got there, they put me on a cot, gave me some kind of pill, and within minutes, I felt much better. Tim gave them information and they got on the phone to talk to the hospital I had been in a couple months before when we had suspected I had a heart condition.
I was feeling much better, and so when Tim said he was going to take the kids back to church and they'd be back after the service, I didn't think it odd and told him go ahead. I fell asleep and slept for two hours. The staff let me sleep since the emergency room was empty except for me.
Upon waking, a doctor came to talk to me. They could find nothing wrong with me. However, after putting together the symptoms from my last hospital stay with this emergency visit, he was fairly sure I was suffering from panic attacks, and he wanted me to go see my doctor.
I'd never heard of anything so ridiculous. I didn't know what was going on, but it certainly wasn't anything so...wimpish!
The next few months went by in a haze. The odd feeling I had in the church returned again and again, more and more often. Soon my days were a haze of fear that something bad was happening, that maybe I was dying. I didn't say too much to Tim because I didn't want to concern him.
My days continued to be filled with trying to reach Jumoke and love on him. My other children were pretty much on their own. I fed them three times a day, bathed them, tried to school them, but mostly they took care of themselves, and played often with the sweet neighbor kids. Their mother became a good and constant friend of mine. She helped with the kids often. I wanted to tell her that I wasn't always so scatterbrained and useless, but I didn't know how.
After 6 months of this, my husband grew convinced that Jumoke's constant needs were wearing me down. He came home one night to be sitting incapacitated on the couch, holding my little ones close, letting Jumoke run and do as he pleased. He asked me, and I told him things weren't ok. They hadn't been ok for a long time.
But I told him I was sure it was living in the city. Tim was sure it was Jumoke. Again he said that he thought Jumoke should live with a different family. Again, I fell apart. I just knew everything would be ok with Jumoke if we just gave it time.
We began to prepare for the children and I to move back home. Tim would stay in the city during the week, and drive home to be with us on the weekends. It would only be for six months. I was sure we could make it work, especially if I could get out of the city and away from this irrational fear.
Not too long before we moved home, I took the kids in the van along with my sweet neighbor and her children somewhere. Wendy is really the epitome of sweet. She isn't the sweet that exists only in front of other people...she has a gentle, tender, loving heart. Almost too good to be true. She was an excellent friend to me, and all of my children loved her and trusted her.
I left her and the children in the van while I ran into someplace. When I came back out, everyone in the van was very quiet. I asked Wendy what was going on. She said that Jumoke was kicking people, and when she asked him to stop, he spat in her face.
I was devastated. I thought we had finally trained him out of spitting at people. And that he spat at WENDY! The most gentle woman I had ever met!
When I looked back at him, he just glared at me.
Everything changed in that moment. I began to see what my husband saw. But I still didn't want to give up. Jumoke was only five years old. We had plenty of time to work with him, and I had plenty of love to give him.
But I began to believe it wasn't going to be as easy as I thought it would be.
The first months were challenging. Mostly because Ouseman was such a big stinker. Jumoke was a quiet little man, who wasn't against joining in the fun Ouseman started.
They weren't familiar with our food, but since we ate rice with every evening meal, they filled up on that. They didn't understand the vegetables, but Ouseman tried each with a sense of adventure. He ended up liking every food we served. Jumoke did not like vegetables. He only wanted chicken and rice. He was only 4, so I had him sitting beside me at the table, and gently introduced just a bite of each new food at each meal.
Ouseman had an intolerance to dairy foods. I found out later that this isn't unusual among African people. But at the time, I had no idea why he was projectile vomiting oatmeal every time I served it.
One of the funniest stories the children like to remember is the first time I served the boys grapes. Since Jumoke was little and since he was sitting right next to me, I made him try a half a grape. He backed up, his eyes wild, but I told him to open wide, and I got that grape in there. After feeling it on his tongue, he liked it and asked for more.
I stood up with a grape in my hand to give to Ouseman. He saw me coming with that eyeball, and he jumped from the table, screaming at the top of his lungs, running from the room with his hands waving over his head. The children and Tim burst out laughing, and I ran after Ouseman, assuring him I wasn't going to make him try it like I did Jumoke. He was a big boy. He could try it or not.
He stopped finally, and decided maybe he would just lick it. Hey! That wasn't an eyeball. He crunched down on the grape and asked for more.
Every night, I'd put a pull-up and some jammies on Jumoke, put the other children to bed, and settle into the rocker to put Jumoke to sleep. He laid against me as a nursing baby would, and his hands would do the same as a nursing babe's hands. I was fairly sure that he must have been just lately weaned. I knew that in some third world countries the children are nursed much later than we would nurse our own. It broke my heart for this baby.
We would rock and rock, and I would sing him every song I could remember. Every night I watched his large eyes grow heavier and heavier, until finally they shut and his heavy breathing assured me he was asleep. I'd carry him to his bed and tuck him in, kiss his forehead, and pray for him.
I was so glad to have him.
We had many doctor appointments at first. The boys needed to be checked out for many things, including parasites. At first I took the boys together, leaving the other children with a family member.
Jumoke submitted to the doctor passively, but Ouseman was a stinker. Yelling and fighting against anything unfamiliar, wailing at having his blood taken, chattering loud and long in his unfamiliar accent to anyone who would listen...this boy took some patience.
I finally had to start taking the boys one at a time, however. Ouseman was having great fun with me, and I was tiring of it. Every time we'd get in a parking lot, Ouseman would start to run from me. I'd reach out and grab his arm, and then he'd start yelling, "Run, Jumoke, run!"
Jumoke would run off, laughing with glee. I'd be left dragging a laughing Ouseman while trying to go fast enough to catch the laughing Jumoke. Sometimes I had to let go of Ouseman in order to speed up to catch Jumoke, and then Ouseman would run off the other way.
We were more fun to watch than a three ring circus.
And I was not amused.
The doctor's report came back on the boys. Both were completely healthy. However, Jumoke had the Hepatitis C virus. We didn't know what that meant, so we spent a lot of time calling people and reading up on it.
Hepatitis C is a virus that can attack the liver. Some children that are born with it never have the virus come alive in their bodies...they just carry it. Like AIDS, it can only be transferred by blood or semen.
I was ok with that. We'd have to be careful during tooth losing time with Jumoke. And he'd have to have his own fingernail clippers, and later, be careful never to use anyone else's razor. But those were easy things to manage.
We had some folks at church begin to avoid us tho. Hep C sounds scarier than it is. Telling folks that it is very difficult to transfer the disease domestically did nothing to ease their minds. I lost my mother's helper, and we felt a bit isolated. I really thought with time all of it would be resolved. And within a year, it was.
The boys had been with us almost a month when Tim told me quietly that he didn't believe that Jumoke belonged with us.
I was aghast! Terrified! I objected vehemently. Why would God send him to us just to take him away? That didn't make sense. Being a mother, and being a woman who knows all things, I was sure that Tim was reacting to the Hep C diagnosis. I was sure he just needed some time to study it more and get more comfortable with it.
Even when Tim told me it wasn't the Hep C thing, I knew he didn't know his own mind like I knew his mind. I was not going to lose this baby. I loved him. I couldn't lose him. It would all work out all right.
Tim loves me. He saw me fall apart when he mentioned that perhaps we adopted Jumoke for another family. He didn't mention it again. At least, not for a long time.
We were settling in. Ouseman wailed about three or four times a week. He missed his mother who was still living. He would wail on and on and on for hours. He wouldn't let me comfort him, but I'd hold him against his will anyway.
The boys went potty anywhere they were standing when they felt the need. I trained them to use the toilet, but anything could be a toilet...the washing machine, the dishwasher, the refrigerator. Even so, if they were standing in the hallway when they needed to go potty, they would pull down their pants and potty against the wall.
When wiping themselves, they were unsure how to clean themselves, and if any got on their hands, they would wipe it on the bathrooms walls.
My stomach wasn't very strong before I got the boys. After the meal time projectile vomiting, many times daily cleaning the bathroom walls, and wiping up potty all over the house, my stomach had a chance to strengthen.
Ouseman slowly but surely began to understand. Jumoke simply couldn't. He was only four years old, so I was patient. I knew it might take him some time. It was encouraging that Ouseman was catching on tho.
Both the boys had a great time the first week peeling of the brand new wallpaper I'd put up in their room just before they came home. I explained to them, as I glued up the pieces again, what a pretty picture it was and how nice it would be to keep it up. Ouseman agreed and quit peeling. Jumoke continued to peel till almost all the lower part of the wallpaper around his bed was gone. He was only four.
I took down the wallpaper and painted the room. Jumoke found other rooms with wallpaper, and began to peel them as well. Plus he found the painted area around his bed a perfect canvas for artwork with pens and crayons he found around the house.
Try as I might, I couldn't convince the little man to leave the walls alone. So I took down all the wallpaper in the house, painted all the walls an antique white, and bought two extra gallons of paint to cover Jumoke's artwork every couple weeks.
The boys both had similar issues when they first came. They fought with each other violently, and were violent with the other children as well. We were able to bring Ouseman down fairly quickly, within a couple months. But Jumoke continued with the chopping, hitting, kicking, and biting. He tried it a few times with Tim and I, but Tim reacted swiftly and terribly, and nipped that in the bud.
Jumoke spat on people when they tried to get him to do other than he wanted. He broke things constantly, finding other's things and just...breaking them. He was quieter than Ouseman, but he was making a constant quiet noise...a white noise. He wanted to be like Isaac, our two year old, and be put into diapers and be fed with a bottle. When I told him no, he was a big boy, he didn't like Isaac for a long time. Not until Isaac was out of diapers and had finished with his bottle would Jumoke be nice to him. Thankfully, Isaac was finished with all that within a few months of the boys arriving.
I wasn't terribly concerned about anything Jumoke was doing. I wasn't bothered by our inability to get thru to Jumoke or our inability to train him in anything. After all, Jumoke was only four years old and this was an entirely new culture. He wasn't as old as Ouseman...Ouseman was able to compare things and adjust.
Jumoke was just a baby, really. My baby. And I felt confident that as he aged, we'd be able to do better with him. Give it a year, I told myself, and the little man would be just like the rest of the kids. Just the way that Ouseman was slowly becoming like the rest of the kids. Still himself, still Ouseman, but relaxed and open and enjoying his life.
The first week the boys were home was wild. Our other 5 children were delighted with these miniature people. Both boys were the same size as our two year old.
Ouseman was loud and funny and crazy wild. The boys could understand us perfectly, but their heavy accented English was very difficult for us. Ouseman wanted to always be the center of attention. Tim couldn't go anywhere or do anything without Ouseman. If he told Ouseman no, he couldn't go, Ouseman would grab onto his leg and beg and beg. He wouldn't be told no.
Jumoke was fairly quiet, taking things in. He was wild as well, but in a different way. It seemed to me that Ouseman was always getting Jumoke riled up into some trouble. If I could just get Ouseman on my side, I felt I'd have both boys.
I barely began to know the boys when a week after they arrived, I received a phone call that my dad was dying. Tim and I talked it over and we agreed I should be there. I packed up and left with my sister and my mom to make the trip up north. I planned to stay until it was over.
It was a privilege to be with him the last three days of his life. The nurses were kind and made up two cots in his room, so my sister and I could sleep there with him. My other siblings and my mom stayed in a hotel nearby.
I spent all my time at the home with my dad. My family brought me meals, and I would take short walks outside from time to time.
However, Tim was having quite a time of it at home. The boys were more than a handful for two adults, let alone one defenseless man. The birth children were a big help, but he wanted his wife. He called me frequently, not wanting to make me come home, but making it clear that he was out of his league and wanted me back as soon as I could.
After my dad was gone, we headed home. We had the funeral to plan, and because my house is so large, we would be hosting some of the relatives coming up for the funeral, as well as the get together after the funeral.
I was pretty stressed.
We bought brand new dress up clothes for the boys. Oh, they loved their little button up shirts and slacks and the cute vests. They strutted around like little peacocks. My children were treating them like little princes and brand new toys at the same time.
The funeral went well. But I was overwhelmed. At the get together afterward, Ouseman was outside with the other children and came running pell mell into the house. He'd never seen a glass door before, so just assumed he was running thru an empty space. He slammed full body into the window, then bounced off and onto his back onto the concrete patio floor.
He wailed and wailed in pain and fear. I picked him up and carried him into his room. I rocked him and tried to hold him close, but he kept pulling away from me. I held him close anyway, whispering words of love and comfort. It went on for almost an hour.
Finally he was calm enough for us to try again. We went out to the living area, and I don't know what happened, but Jumoke started wailing outside. I went to get him and carried him into his room as well. I rocked him and petted him and whispered words of comfort to him, and he clung to me, wailing and wailing.
What a difference between the boys! Ouseman would hardly let me near him. Jumoke clutched me and wailed into my chest.
I was not able to comfort Jumoke tho. The wailing went on and on, and everytime I started to put him away from me, the wailing increased in intensity. We were well past an hour of crying. I didn't know what to do.
I finally left him on the bed and went to find Tim. I asked Tim if he would go be with Jumoke for a bit, but Tim said to let him cry. He thought Jumoke was tired and would cry himself to sleep.
I heard the crying subside just then, and walked in to see if he were ok. He was standing there, hugging my cousin, his face wet with tears, but definitely feeling better.
My cousin was a bit angry at me for leaving this crying orphan, so new to this country and home, alone in a room. I tried to explain, but my explanation fell flat. I looked cruel and unkind. I felt cruel and unkind.
And how had she been able to comfort this child that had been so comfortless this last couple hours? She apparently had something I did not. I felt horrible.
I was glad when everyone left to go home to their various states and homes. I was feeling very vulnerable, and wanted to start to get to know these boys well so that we could get on with life and graft them into our family. I knew it was going to be a wonderful adventure, and I was totally up to the challenge.
We had gotten off to a bad start. But things were going to start getting better very soon. I just knew it.
Our adoption of Ouseman, aged 7, and Jumoke, aged 4, was finally complete. Tim was flying to Baltimore to pick the boys up. We weren't allowed to fly into Liberia because the civil war had erupted into more violence, so the pastor in charge of the ACFI orphanage was flying our boys and three other boys out of Liberia to get them to their families.
Pastor Kofi came off the plane with Ouseman holding one hand and Jumoke holding his other. He saw Tim, whom he knew because they had spent a weekend together with one other man on a retreat recently, and he marched the boys up to him.
"They're all yours now!" he said, with some meaning and a small laugh.
Tim laughed too, but was a bit nervous as well. There was some relief in Pastor Kofi's laugh that meant more than just "good luck".
The other families meeting the other boys had some helium balloons, and they gave one each to Ouseman and Jumoke. The boys were delighted. Jumoke played and played with his balloon, till suddenly it POPPED! He erupted into a loud wail, and then he caught sight of Ouseman's balloon.
Tim still tells this story as though it happened just a few minutes ago. He said that Jumoke's eyes got wide and wild, and he toddled stiff legged toward Ouseman, his little arms outstretched toward Ouseman's balloon. Ouseman knew what was coming...he hadn't lived with his cousin, and because they lived in different villages, had seen him only infrequently, but he had just spent three weeks in an orphanage with him. He knew what was in Jumoke's mind.
But Tim didn't.
Jumoke was wailing, and began walking in a stiff Frankenstein type gait, his little arms reaching for Ouseman's balloon. And when he got that balloon in his hands, he dug his nails into it and popped it.
And then he stopped wailing. Everything was fine now.
Tim didn't know what to make of it. Who would? When he told me about it later, he was flabbergasted. I just thought Jumoke was a little boy who didn't understand balloons.
Pastor Kofi handed off the boys' little black bag with their possessions in it, and Tim left to go to the hotel room he had rented for the night. They would be getting up at 2 a.m. to catch their flight home. He was hoping for a little sleep before they flew out.
He called me from the room, and told me the boys were just wild! Running all over, touching things, jumping on things. Sounded normal to me. Two boys from a third world country being put in a room with running water and light switches and telephones and real beds...I imagine that I would be happily crazy too, and I was 42 years old.
We tried to get them to talk to me on the phone, but I was just a voice of an operator to them. But I got to hear their sweet little accents, and my heart swelled up with love. I couldn't wait to see my little men.
Tim finally got Ouseman settled down. He laid him on the floor with some blankets, and as soon as Ouseman's head touched the pillow, he was out. Tim was trying to get Jumoke settled, but Jumoke was just too wired up. When Tim wasn't looking, Jumoke toddled over to Ouseman, took a look to make sure he was asleep, then drew back a foot and kicked him hard in the head.
Oh my. I couldn't find a cute slant on that one.
Tim finally got Jumoke to sleep. He laid Jumoke on the floor next to the bed and, sitting on the bed, held Jumoke's foot while he sang softly to him. They slept for a few hours, and then it was time to be up and at the airport.
Ouseman started the trouble. Turned out that Ouseman did not like flying at all. When he realized they were getting back on a plane, he began what my brother calls "The Liberian Wail". It's deep and loud and lasts forever. Even hours.
Jumoke was wild, constantly trying to get away from Tim. Tim had his hands full with a wailing Ouseman and Jumoke trying to escape.
The lady at the ticket counter told Tim he needed to get Ouseman calmed down or they couldn't allow him on the plane.
Stress and lack of sleep and fear of being stranded in an airport with two wailing boys caused Tim to snap. "Are you telling me that if I can't make this boy that I don't even know quit crying, you are going to strand me in Baltimore?! With them?!"
"Yes, sir."
Tim called me. It was 4 a.m. at our house. All he said was, "Pray!"
I did. And I called a few other folks whom I knew wouldn't mind being wakened, and I posted to my friends at the Haven: "Pray!"
A woman who worked for U.S. Air saw the situation, and went into a little store there in the airport. She came out with some little bags of snacks and handed them to the boys. Food! Ouseman quit crying and Jumoke quit trying to run away Tim was able to get on the plane with both of them intact and fairly quiet.
Ouseman slept the whole way across the country. But not Jumoke. He would begin wailing if Tim sat him down. Jumoke was wild and screaming every time Tim tried to put him in his seatbelt. He had to be sitting chest to chest with Tim, or the whole plane would know about it. Tim was willing. Tim was tired. There was that moment, however, when Tim's chest began to feel warm...and wet...
When I saw them coming down the ramp from the plane, Tim had a very tiny little boy with tiny slits for eyes by one hand, and a beautiful, handsome little tiny boy on his shoulders. The boy on his shoulders was dressed only in pants...no shirt, no shoes. He had wet everything else Tim had brought for him.
Tim looked at me with relief in his eyes. "Here," he said, as he handed the boys off to me.
I don't remember much of Jumoke at the airport He seemed a very quiet toddler like person. Ouseman started a tug of war with me over the coats. I had a green one and a red one. Both the boys were the same size, so it didn't matter who got what coat, but Ouseman decided that both coats belonged to him. And apparently it didn't matter that I was an adult and a mom-type person; he was going to get both coats from me and Jumoke could just deal with it.
I could just see that this Ouseman boy was going to be a challenge for us, and I was going to settle it right now. I didn't care that my relatives and a number of strangers were looking on. I was Mom, and I was used to having my way.
So was Ouseman.
I love the memory of the two of us tugging at the coats, and Ouseman's determination matching mine. Tim had to finally step in, and the battle was a draw. But Ouseman tried for months to reclaim the green coat I gave to Jumoke. Why is it one of my favorite memories? Maybe because it's the first memory I have of this little man who has stolen my heart.
We drove the two hours home, with Ouseman sitting toward the front, chattering on and on in his accent that was too thick for us to understand. Jumoke sat in the far back in a car seat, with me right beside him. He was so lovely to look at. I couldn't quit looking at him. My heart burst with the same feeling I had when I brought home a new baby. I reached up to take his little hand in mine. He looked at me blankly, but didn't take his hand away. We drove the whole two hours holding hands.
I was in love. I didn't know what I was going to do with that Ouseman boy. I could see I had my work cut out for me there.
But I was in love with this little man in the car seat beside me, his large, thickly lashed eyes looking so sad, his perfect nose and wide mouth creating lovely African features, his fingers and toes so absolutely perfect.
I've recieved a number of emails from some of the people who read this blog saying that they are praying for us and Jumoke. Please continue to pray for us. Even after I finish my time writing in this blog, there will be a number of months that our family and that Jumoke will need continued prayer. As the Lord brings us to mind, please cover us with prayer.
Please pray for tomorrow. On Wednesday at 1:00, we will be taking Jumoke to PLAN and releasing him into their care. We will be telling Jumoke that he will be leaving our family and that PLAN will find him another family. Please pray that the Lord gives us the right words. Please pray that for my sake and Tim's sake, that this doesn't become one of Jumoke's "shows", but rather that it be handled with grace and dignity worthy of the sorrow of the situation. We know that he probably won't miss us as people, but he very well might have a strong reaction to losing the only place he's known as home. On the other hand, he might be very excited to be able to leave.
Please pray for his foster family, who will be taking him on for 2 months. They are people that Jumoke knows, and when he finds out who they are, he will be happy. This creates a bit of a difficult situation, because his grieving process will be delayed for some time while he enjoys being at these folks house. Please pray that the Lord gives them wisdom regarding Jumoke and that the younger children in their home would be protected.
Please pray for Don from PLAN. Don will be the one to be the objective party letting Jumoke know that he will never be coming back to our house. That no matter how he behaves, the option to come back to his old home is closed. Please pray blessings on this man, who has been an objective guide and even friend during this process of trying to work thru and see thru all the junk.
Please pray for the folks at PLAN who will decide where Jumoke will be placed permanently, that the Lord will give them wisdom and that Jumoke will be placed with the exact right family who can reach him and work with him. The foster family is interested in being this family for Jumoke...pray for them in this as well.
Please pray for my extended family as they grapple with this and try to understand. This decision is very painful and personal for some of them. The aunts and uncles, the cousins, especially the Nana. My heart cries that I am the one that has made a decision that is causing them this pain and confusion.
Please pray for Jumoke's future family. Our hope in all of this is that Jumoke will be healthy and bond closely with a family, that he will be a part of a loving unit of people. That his life will be about more than just getting food and having a place to sleep and kids to play with.
And of course, please pray for us. For our children at home. For our older married children. For Tim and I. That joy would be restored in our home. That life would return to us. Right now we are flat. We slip thru the hours of each day unremarkably. We seem to have forgotten how to live. Please pray for us.
We will never be the same.
But maybe what we were wasn't so hot to begin with. Maybe being with Jumoke for four years was just what was needed for us to become "something more".
Please pray that the Father raises "something more" out of this situatuion.
Mondays are always hard here. They are the first day of the week that Tim isn't home.
Today is no different. Jumoke woke up hating everything. Mostly me. He is angry with me, but doesn't know why. He thinks it is because I don't let him do what the other kids do, but he isn't sure. I explained again...because I always feel like I need to...that it's better for him to not be in trouble all the time so I need to keep him close to me. Didn't he like not being in trouble a lot? Yes, he liked not being in trouble, but he hated having to be near me all the time.
Sad catch 22. For both of us.
But that is life with Jumoke.
He doesn't like it at this house. He doesn't like it at Nana's house. He doesn't like it anywhere.
Not anywhere? I asked. Isn't there anyplace you feel happy?
Only Liberia, he says.
But you don't even remember Liberia, I tell him (again and again). It's a dream in your mind, a place you make up. What you think you remember isn't real. In reality, Liberia is a very scary place for a little boy.
Good words from a loving mother that a child trusts. Hateful words from a woman you don't recognise as "mother".
When will I ever learn that words mean nothing to Jumoke other than a way to get what he wants?
I am not the mother for this boy. Love in words, encouragement, building up, challenging...all I do is encompassed in words and touch. The wrong kind of mother for Jumoke.
Tim made a decision. He is calling today to get the ball rolling toward disruption. I had hoped to wait for a diagnosis, but for reasons best understood by men protecting their homes, Tim has chosen to forgo that route.
Please pray for Jumoke's future foster family, with whom he will be with for 2 months. And pray for the Lord to bring Jumoke and the exact right family for him together. If Jumoke does indeed have attachment disorder, he only has a very few, like maybe 2, years left before he crosses the line into the age where very few children can be healed up. He needs a family who can minister to him in a very real way.
At the risk of sounding like a nosey body you are being too nice to [Jumoke]. He should never ever ever ever ever ever be alone, especially with animals or those smaller than himself. You are giving him too much freedom and he can not handle it. It is like putting a 2yo in the front yard by himself and asking him to stay out of the street when his ball goes there.
Perhaps you misunderstood the level of supervision that goes on here and that is needed for [Jumoke]. Perhaps you are in denial. I am telling you that for JUMOKE (this is not about the other kids being safe) for him to *feel* safe you need to watch him. All the talking and explaining isnt going to get you anywhere. It is purely an instinct/impulse thing. There is no forethought. Just like a baby who sticks his hands in his cereal. He means no harm at that moment, he just does it. If you gave your 2yo a sharp knife and said Hey this is very sharp but I need you to hold it and not cut yourself. There would be some trepidation and fear in that child. You are telling Jumoke Hey go where I cant control you and behave. He is going to be so nervous and unsure of himself. He WILL mess up and misbehave.
It is great that Jumoke is exhibiting some remorse but just remember that he is older and craftier now. [Kids with attachment issues] quickly switch gears and learn how to manipulate in different ways. It may be very true that he has remorse. I know even my [RAD son] will tear up when corrected. He says the right words but sometimes I see the anger or embarrassment there more than regret. I just want to encourage you to not go easy on him just because you feel that he feels sorry enough. His remorse does not mean that he will do anything differently the next time. He needs a consequence or he will see your neglect of him as just not caring enough to deal with him.
The times that I have told my kids that they must be within eye sight of me at all times have been the best times with them. I explained that they are not being safe and so I will be keeping them safe until they can do it themselves. There may be some pouting but it is short lived and in reality they are SO relieved that I am taking control of an out of control area in their lives. They are staying out of trouble because I watch their every move so we are both happy. They are happy because they are on my good side and I am happy because I am not pulling my hair out disciplining all day.
Here is a good example. [Daughter] will get out of bed every night and wander the halls and wake people up and just generally make mischief. So I put her in the closet. It is a big walk in closet that could easily fit 2 twin beds. She has slept on the floor in there for probably 2 years. About every 6 months I allow her to try to sleep on a bed in the bedroom. Every time I mention it she CRIES and asks me to sleep in the closet. The first two times I thought she enjoyed the novelty of it so I made her sleep on a bed. Sure enough several nights later she was up roaming. After 2 weeks of spankings and increased wanderings I put her back in the closet. Last night I told her again to try a bed. She got teary eyed and said I dont want to sleep in a bed. So we allow her to continue to sleep in the closet. She LIKES that we have set up a way that she can stay out of trouble. I am their conscience until they grow one. Jumoke will grow one eventually but until then you need to be making decisions for him.
-[Karen]
The names in the above letter have been changed or deleted at the writer's request. But she gave me permission to post this letter on this blog. Tim and I really appreciate all of "Karen's" input...but this letter especially opened our eyes to Jumoke's perspective of feeling safe and cared for. This particular letter was in response to the entry below about Jumoke "confessing" to hurting babies a lot of times.
One of the issues we've always had is that in order to keep some control in our house, we've had to make Jumoke's world quite small, for his sake as well as ours. But he resents being "different" from the other kids. We were never able to find a way to balance this. If we gave him the freedoms the other children have, like playing in the front yard without adult supervision or riding bikes on our dead end road or even small things like dressing in his bedroom or, as mentioned before, playing with toys on his bed, then soon we had a situation that involved disobedience, vengeance, anger, and someone being hurt.
Today is Saturday. Jumoke is staying at his Nana's house since Tim is involved with the Boy Scout Camporee. As noted before, Jumoke can't be here when Tim is away at night.
Jumoke must stay in bed at Nana's till he hears the clock chime 8 times. This morning, the clock chimed 8 times. He got out of bed whistling and got dressed. Nana got out of bed and saw Jumoke coming in from outside. She asked what he was doing outside, and he said, "I was doing my chores."
Jumoke finished his chores and finished up a job Nana had given him the day before. All of this being asked to do so. He did it on his own. After he was thru, he presented himself to Nana and said, "I'm ready for breakfast now."
We've seen a few days like this. Like maybe five days in four years. They are very very nice.
Nana told me they were going to spend the day gardening, and Jumoke seemed satisfied with that.
Nana has recieved some flack for how she treats Jumoke at her house. She has him in her sight nearly every moment. She has his time very scheduled. If she gives him a job and he takes 5 hours to do a half hour job, that's just fine with her. She doesn't usually have things that need to be accomplished for herself, so she's able to sit patiently while he messes around or goofs off or huffs & puffs & glares to show her he is not happy with her. It's his time he's wasting, not hers.
Jumoke's environment is very controlled at Nana's. He can come from our house furious out of his head with someone, and within a half hour at her house, his fury is gone as well as the agitation and hyperactivity. There is no one there to "pay back" except Nana, and Nana doesn't seem to care if she is getting "paid back".
The first couple weeks earlier this year with Nana were indeed difficult for Nana. We recieved some phone calls: "What do you do about this?" Things got dark for her. But she brought it before the Father and stayed there till she recieved peace again. And then she began setting up Jumoke's days the way she felt the Father wanted her to do.
From the outside, it looks like she's being way too controlling and cold toward the boy. But from one who has lived with his antics for four years, I love seeing him calm and submitting to well-placed boundries. Being at Nana's house is very very good for Jumoke.
Life at Nana's house gives credence to Karen's letter.
Last night I asked Ouseman, Isaac, and Jumoke to carry in the groceries for me while I put the groceries away. It's a big job, because we are a big family and that means lots of groceries.
I was busy putting away groceries, and all of a sudden I realized I was finished...but all the groceries weren't in. So I walked out to the van and saw the three boys were busy messing around. I got onto them and told them to get busy. Ouseman said "I'm sorry" and got busy. Isaac looked sad that I had scolded them and sadly got down from the van to begin to help. Jumoke started walking in the house with nothing in his hand. I turned him around and told him to carry in the groceries. He went back and picked up a tiny bundle and started walking toward the door. I turned him back around and told him again to bring in the groceries. Angrily, he grabbed a bag and brought it in the house.
We had sandwiches for dinner, and while I was making sandwiches, I asked Jumoke why he had done that. He told me it was to annoy me because he was mad that I scolded him.
He ate his sandwich and then sat quietly in his place for a long while. I finally asked him if he wanted another sandwich. He said, very pleasantly, "Yes, please."
"Why is it, Jumoke," I said, "that the same boy who wants to annoy his mother because she scolded him for doing wrong has such beautiful manners?"
He just stared at me.
"You know, a lot of people tell me what beautiful manners you have. It makes me so proud when people tell me that. And they are right. You do have lovely manners."
"Really?" Jumoke said. "People say that to you?"
"Yes," I said. "Many people."
His face erupted into a smile, a wonderful reprieve from his sullenness. He was so pleased that people thought good things of him and that the people told his mama good things about him.
This morning I walked into my room to get something, and Jumoke was on his bed, playing with his twist-n-shout.
"You looked worried when I came into the room," I said.
"Well, I was. Kinda," he said.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because I thought you would get me in trouble for playing in bed," he said.
"And why would you get in trouble for playing in bed?"
"I don't know," he said.
"Would it be because daddy and I have told you that you are never to play in bed?" I asked.
"Ye-e-e-s," he said slowly.
We had a little conversation, in which he told me that he doesn't think it's fair that we let the other children play with toys on their beds but we don't let him. I explained, again, for the millionth time it felt like, that the other children could play on their beds with toys because when we ask them to put the toys away, they do. But when we ask Jumoke to put away his toys, he says "Yes, Mom", and then waits till I walk away and gets the toys out to play again.
Since he doesn't want to obey on this thing, we don't want him getting in trouble all the time, so to make it easier on him, we tell him he may *never* play with toys on his bed. That way he doesn't have to worry about getting in trouble all the time, and we don't worry about it either.
"I still don't think it's fair," he said.
"If you have no intention at all of obeying when I tell you to put your toys away, then you have shown me I can't trust you to do as I ask. When I ask something of you, it's for your good, not for your bad. Since you won't help yourself by obeying, we will help you by not allowing that privilege till you are old enough to be able to handle that privilege."
"But the other kids get to do it."
"The other kids have shown that they will do as we ask. You have shown that you will do whatever you can to continue doing as you want."
He glared. Talking never helps. But I always hope.
I went out to the gazebo to have a cup of coffee. I was so sad. The same old sadness. Why can't we get thru to him? I'm so concerned about his future.
While I was sitting out there thinking about it, I thought of Charles Taylor and Hitler. These men also loved the accolades and praises of other people. They also thought the moral and legal laws were fine for other people, but didn't apply to them. They did as they pleased to get what they want. If you disagreed with them, then your life was in mortal danger.
He's only 8, but my heart constricts with fear with the similarities I see. I feel so heavy with discouragement and depressed with how little we've done to train him toward loving good.
This will be my prayer for Jumoke for the rest of his life. For his new family. That they will be able to penetrate that wall he has set up and show him the value of good and obeying God's rules and his country's laws. That he will learn to love that which is good and put aside his own wants in favor of obeying God and serving others.
It's been a nice couple days. So nice that I started feeling like a monster again for not understanding this sweet little man better and for not trying harder.
If anyone out there owns Lake Superior or Disneyland or Mexico and you are looking for a buyer, I'm the woman to talk to.
I'm not the one getting the pay back this time, tho I should be. It was my own stupid fault for making a very dumb decision. Jumoke had been struggling all afternoon. And then at bedtime, I said that Ouseman could sleep on the floor in our bedroom. One of the boys was pretty ill with a high fever, so I told the other two boys to sleep elsewhere.
I guess Jumoke didn't think it was a good idea to him to share our room with anyone else besides Jumoke and Tim and I. Or maybe it was just because of THE ORIGINAL REASON HE WAS PUT IN THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE! Ya think?
He went for Ouseman. Ouseman has a fairly good grip on things since we told him a bit about what was going on, so instead of buying into it, came to get me. Like the sad, sad woman that I am, I started asking Jumoke questions. Which was such a nice lead in for some smart mouthing in a respectful way and letting me know that if people don't like what he does while he's in his mom and dad's room, then they can just leave his mom and dad's room.
I am not a quick learner, obviously, but I've learned a few things in the last few weeks myself. My blood was beginning to boil, which meant I didn't belong in this particular scene. So I called Daddy. Who dealt with it. And we were glad to hear things were quiet afterward..
While Jumoke was quietly unplugging Daddy's alarm clock and various other things to "pay him back".
Sigh.
So Jumoke goes to visit a relative tomorrow while Tim is at work. Tim will drop him off in the morning on his way out and will pick Jumoke up on his way back in. At the relative's house, things are very controlled and Jumoke is watched 100% of the time since he's the only child there. He says he doesn't like it there, but he gets very calm...the agitation leaves as well as his hyperactive "watching" and planning. It's a good short term reprieve for him.
I wasn't going to record this. It just seemed too sad and...just too sad. But it seems very important as well. And certainly, I would want Jumoke's therapist and his next family to be aware. Not just of the possibilities of problems...but the condition of his heart. He can be very very difficult on his worse days. But he has a tender heart. Rarely seen. But it's in there.
Yesterday he was playing out back alone. Later in the day, I found a large tuft of white hair, obviously part of our Australian Shepherd's mane. I called Jumoke out and asked him if he had been too rough with Brave. At first, he looked around wildly, saying what??, like he had no clue what I was talking about. Which told me he did know exactly what I'm talking about.
I really don't want to give details right now. It's too sad for me. He did pull hair out of the dog. The dog yelped, and he stopped. He said he didn't think about it hurting the dog, so he didn't feel badly. But when we started talking, his eyes welled up with tears.
Jumoke doesn't cry much. Only when he's in BIG trouble and confronted by Tim or when he's hurt.
However, when we confronted him about hurting Alex's 2 year old last week, he did cry. Like his heart would break. We weren't sure if he was putting on or not, so we just withheld judgment and dealt with the situation.
I was pretty sure he was not putting on last night about the dog. My heart just broke for him. We talked about how he doesn't really think about how the animals feel when he hurts them.
I asked him if something was bothering him, since he never hurt a child or animal before, aside from the chickens.
He started crying and told me he had hurt babies before. I told him he had never hurt Abe. He said he did once. That he was trying to hug Abe, and Abe was shaking his head back and forth and trying to get away from Jumoke, so Jumoke just let him go and he fell back into the wall.
I told him that sounded like an accident, unless he knew that Abe was going to hit the wall, and he did it anyway. He said he knew Abe would hit. I asked him why he didn't come tell me what was going on but he said he didn't want me to know. I asked how he felt when the babies were hurt by him, and he said he didn't feel anything. Until I said that I knew or until he told me about Abe. Then he said he was so sad. And he started just bawling.
I hugged him, and we talked about being rough and when it's ok to be rough. He said he knows the difference...that's it's ok to be rough when he's wrestling with the boys but not with babies or animals.
I told him I didn't think he should be upset. He shouldn't have pinched Kyla, and he should have been more careful with Abe, but it was just two times and I could try to help him when he's around babies. He started crying hard and said that he hurts babies a lot. I told him two times is not a lot in my book. He told me he hurt other babies a lot. I asked him who, and he told me two names.
I didn't know what to do. He was crying so hard. I knew his heart was breaking. I had given him every way out that I could think of but he apparently wanted to tell it all. I was also aware that he could be taking me on a ride, but his rides never included tears or confessions before, so I doubted it.
I didn't ask what he did to those two babies. There were no unexplained injuries that I had ever heard of, so I was pretty certain that the "hurting" was a result of being too rough and impulsive. I was said he didn't let an adult know. But all of these babies, including Kyla, continued to like him. None of them were afraid of him.
I hugged him and told him that I thought it would be a good thing if he had a friend with him when he plays with babies and animals for a while. Just ask someone to be with him so that he doesn't have to worry about being too rough. He said, adamently, that he would rather never play with the babies again that ask someone to be with him while he's playing with them.
He said he didn't want to talk about it anymore. He went to his room and threw his huge, still-packed suitcase. He was angry and hurting.
Tim came home and talked with him. A little more gruffly than I, but Tim saw the same thing. A very hurting, very sad heart. Tim said to me later that it was good to see that Jumoke had a conscience because we sure hadn't seen any sign of it before today.
But he really does love the babies and he does love animals. Unless he's messing with our heads (and I do not think he is), this thing has been bothering him for some time.
He's in a good cycle now. I'm hoping things stay good. I'm not sure what to do with this. Should I ignore it and move ahead? Try to talk to him so I can inform and comfort him? Make some rules and let him know about the rules? Let him know I'm telling others about the rules?
My instinct is to just move on. Keep my eye on him. But on the surface, let this go. He's got so much that is difficult in his life, that I hate to push on this particular button. It seems to hurt him so much.
Just here to reassure a couple friends that today went very well. Everyone is in bed, and the day ended as well as it started.
Either the bribe worked or Jumoke is going into one of his good cycles.
Tim and I laid in bed tonight whispering about the good cycles. Jumoke is such a neat kid that usually by the 2nd day of regular boy stuff, we forget about the bad weeks we had just sludged thru. Kind of like forgetting about the pain of labor.
This good day came at just the right time. We both felt our hearts starting to fall in love again, which with Jumoke is a fairly short trip for us, and had to ask ourselves if what we are doing is the right thing. I'm so glad today was so good...we needed it in order to look at this thing realistically.
We did. We are continuing down the same road.
We were remembering tonight that for almost the entire first two years that Jumoke was here that we had no good days. Every day was frought with tensions and tug-of-wars for control and somebody (usually me) getting "paid back".
But then, a little more than 18 months after he first came home, we had a few days in a row of a whole different child! It was wonderful! I was thrilled. Oh, I liked that little boy.
Then it all crashed. It took a long time, but we did see another time that lasted a few days. Over the next couple years, the few days turned into a week or 2 weeks or, once, 3 weeks.
Last year was the easiest in some ways because we had a schedule that went kind of like 1 or 2 weeks off, then 1 or 2 weeks on, with a great glorious 3 weeks off in the fall.
But along with the increasing days of being "normal", we also saw increased sophistication in how Jumoke dealt out his revenge, in how he enjoyed his malice, disturbing things like that. He started the longer cycles with a bang last year: accusing us to someone else of abusing him. Each of the bad cycles got worse, till this spring we just couldn't take any more.
The good cycles were longer. It should have counted for something. The bad cycles were more severe. Labor was getting harder to forget. Then this spring....three and a half months without a single good day.
When we are in a good cycle, it means the world is perfect and the sun shines 24 hours a day. I'm hoping this is the beginning of a good cycle for Jumoke. He is more relaxed and open during the good days.
But we are going forward with this. It's the right thing to do.
We have no shame. Well, as far as being regular parents to Jumoke, we have no shame.
We agreed to bribe him. We need to keep him calm till June 15 so we can get a diagnosis. I don't know if we can come up with a bribe a day, because after he gets something he thinks is really cool, it loses it's "coolness" pretty quickly. But at least we have a bribe for today.
For today, I'm fairly sure it is handled. He's always had an earlier bedtime than the other children because we needed him calmed and hopefully sleeping before the other boys went to their room to go to bed. Otherwise, every night erupted into fights or tears.
He's hated this.
We've tried to walk with him and train him so that we could get rid of this particular boundry, but he told us straight up that he doesn't want to earn this privilege. He preferred we just give it to him.
Of course, we were not going to just hand him something that he would use to harm the boys and drive people even more crazy.
But a couple weeks ago, we moved his bed and stuff into our bedroom. So the reason for the early bedtime is no longer applicable. Sooo....now we can use the gift of a later bedtime as a bribe or motivator or grace or whatever.
Yes, we've considered that he might see this as him winning and us losing. The truth is, we've all been losing for four years now. At this point, we must choose our battles carefully, and try to get to June 15 with him still under our legal care and with all of us in one piece.
We've come to a few conclusions about last week. The first being that there is greater potential for unhealthy thinking and behaviours living inside Jumoke than we had previously thought. Controlling the boy was not helping him. It kept things from getting worse on the surface, but that's all.
The lid on the pot and all that.
Last week Jumoke had the boundries in his life lifted. The home had a fun laid back atmosphere and he took advantage of it.
For whatever reason, Tim has some sort of authority in Jumoke's life. He can keep Jumoke somewhat contained in ways that no one else can, including myself. Tim isn't able to help him overcome his issues, but Jumoke has a respect for something about Tim that makes him listen at least when Tim is present. If Tim is gone (vacation, business trip, daily work), and Jumoke acts out.
So those are my superficial thoughts regarding why things went so haywire so quickly last week.
It should not be taken lightly, however, that Alex asked a number of friends to pray that Jumoke would act out at their house at some point in the 30 days so they could know if they could handle the boy permanently. I could not join in that prayer. I knew she needed to know, but that was something I could not pray. However, she and many others did...and the Father heard. It was His mercy on her family I suppose. How awful if it turned out the agency considered them and gave him to them and then *later*, after adoption, they saw all the things they could not handle.
I remember over the last four years the many times Tim and I tried to figure out what we were doing wrong and tried different methods of parenting.
At a couple points, we wondered if our lifestyle was too stifling for Jumoke. Our other children seemed to thrive on the structure and expectations. But maybe we were stunting Jumoke's creative way of seeing things. So we lifted the boundries. Allowed him great freedom. Watched for him to bloom under different circumstances.
We only did it twice. We ended up in horrible situations with Jumoke. Lift the boundries, and he would run fast and furious for the horizon, destroying everything in his path.
Well, that didn't work.
We did the baby nurturing thing. Rocking him to sleep. Dressing him. Putting his daily lotion on him so that he could feel our gentle touch. Treating him tenderly as we would a precocious toddler, but still allowing him to be a 6 year old in his play.
He soaked it up for a while, loving the attention. We really thought we were getting through to him. But then after a few weeks he rejected the process completely.
We thought maybe we didn't do it well enough, maybe didn't respect his boyhood while treating him like a baby. So we tried again when he was 7 years old, trying to respect his age while comforting the baby in him. It was gladly recieved and enjoyed for a while, but again, he tired of it and pushed us away, rejecting the process completely.
We tried making sure he had enough physical exercise, enough sleep, changing his diet, working on his self-esteem, encouraging and praising the tiniest of successes and ignoring all but the greatest infractions. Tim and I were just remembering when we talked to a man who had a son who seemed like Jumoke. The man just kept loving him and being there, holding him tightly when things got out of control. We respect that man and decided that was what Jumoke needed. Maybe we just did it wrong.
The only thing that has made a difference is keeping firm control on his freedoms, and that only makes a superficial difference. Nothing changes inside him.
Tim has been reading a lot on reactive attachment disorders and talking to professionals, gleaning hints and ideas from them. I'm usually the one to do the reading and the research in our house. But Tim has taken the lead on this one.
He said today that if he could work from home, being always present, he knows we could work with Jumoke and reach him. I'm confident that if we didn't have the needs of the "normal" children to meet that we could work with and reach Jumoke.
I believe that we are the couple to do this job.
But Tim doesn't work from home and neither of us can see a way that he can. And we do have 7 other precious, fun, intelligent, loving children in our house.
Here you go... I had more comment, but just pared it down to the facts.
Days 1 & 2:
-scratched Sara while acting like a Cheetah
-knocked down Linnea's towers continuously
-chased Kyla growing like a Cheetah
-stretched out his legs during Trey's turn on trampoline (in order to trip him, I think)
-acted like he was going to pour red Gatorade all over car
-refused to help with chores
-smacked me hard on the bum, then said "I couldn't help myself, I had to."
-making loud, repetitive noises
-hiding
-scaring the kids
-teased dogs, especially the one he knows is timid and may nip
-went to give me a hug, and then scratched my arms deeply down each side
Days 3-6
-helped himself to a video after we went to bed and after I asked him to leave the TV alone
-consistently refused to do the smallest tasks
-climbed in my bed while I was still asleep (twice)
-tried to climb in bed between Nick and I, early a.m.
-sung, or screamed at the top of his lungs repeatedly. Does not stop when asked
-took my book and ran with it, couldn't "remember" where he put it
-knew he was riding Trey's new bike, and purposefully rammed it into the driveway, laughed (almost gleefully) when I asked him to be gentle
-acted like he was stuck in the baby swing at the park, I checked things out and saw that he was NOT stuck. He was being very funny, so I just tried to take him out with his help. He kept pushing against me, when I would get him part way out he would purposefully slide back in. Then he starts crying hysterically, totally out of the blue. I pulled him out, without his help, and he runs off wailing. He hid under a blanket the rest of our time at the park.
-grabs my food (special crackers) while he is eating his own food, and after being told not to
-he was very angry with me all day after speaking to his Mom. He would slam doors, and hold the doors so the little kids couldn't get in.
-looked confused and surprised when I asked him to behave himself in our home, and quit locking the kids out
-told Sara to stop talking twice, when she didn't he told her he was going to "crush her head til it bleeds"
-has picked up Ginger (Pug) after repeatedly told not to. Hugs her very hard, lays on her body
-walks by Sophie (Shepherd-mix) and says "STOP!" to her every time, even tho he's been asked not to. Teases her, even tho he knows she does not trust him
-stood on TOP of the piano
-banged on piano after being asked to stop repeatedly
-threw Lego's across the van, hard
-scratched Kyla's neck in the van, under the pretense of "tickling"
-pinched Kyla's leg in the van (I saw thru rear view mirror, I *did* move him to another seat)
-was told not to get on the computer about 6-7 times, and every time I came back he was on the computer playing a game
-took chicken from the fridge right after breakfast, while being told not to touch
-ran behind Kyla and scared her
Basically, I cannot leave him alone. I cannot get him to do ANYTHING. I cannot trust him with the children, or the animals. Obviously my feelings have changed, and I am GREATLY saddened that we do not find it possible for us to help him. I wish we all knew what happened to him before he was 4, I wish I knew how to help him :o(.
Alex was in big trouble. She had told Jumoke's mother about his disobedience and abuse, and Jumoke was plenty angry with her. She was going to pay.
I warned Alex. I'd payed often enough that I had a pretty good idea of what she would run into. I hung up the phone, hoping against hope that Alex could handle it and that we wouldn't hear from them till that night after Jumoke was in bed.
I got a phone call from Alex a couple hours later.
They had packed a picnic lunch and were riding bikes to the park. The only bike Jumoke's size was the brand new bike of Alex's 6 year old. The six year old wasn't very happy that he had to ride his old bike, but Alex convinced him that this was the nice thing to do for a visiting friend.
Jumoke paid back the kindness with rough treatment of the bike, riding it then leaping off and letting it crash and slide along the ground. Alex spoke with him, telling him if he couldn't treat someone else's property with respect, he could just walk to the park.
He smiled at her and hopped on the bike.
I had tried to explain "the smile" to Alex before, but it was difficult to understand unless you experience it. It comes at innappropriate times, when he is being scolded or when he is telling about bad things he does or when he has done something very naughty and has been caught. The smile on a normal child is gleeful, the smile of Christmas morning and the carnival at the fair, eyes dancing, full of life and hope and wonderful joy.
But it's an eerie thing to see when it's the smile applied to a situation where someone has been hurt or the child is being scolded for misbehaviour.
The smile gave her the willies like it does me.
They went on to the park, Jumoke riding the bike like a regular boy. The picnic went well, until Jumoke demanded that Alex help him out of a swing. She told him he was a big boy and could get out himself and to come and eat. There was a bit of bantering, then all of a sudden Jumoke broke into tears, sobbing his heart out, begging her to help him.
Frustrated but not sure what to do, Alex went to help him. She lifted him up and he fell back into the swing. She lifted him again, telling him he *could* do it himself, but when she got him free of the swing except for his feet, he began screaming out in pain. She looked to make sure nothing could be hurting him and asked her older girls to check, and they could see nothing. But he continued to scream at the top of his lungs, "You're hurting me! You're hurting me!"
She set him down on his feet on the ground and told him he was just fine and he could join them for food as soon as he quit screaming and crying. He grabbed a blanket and walked about 20 feet away from the rest of the kids, sobbing his eyes out. He covered his whole body with the blanket and cried loud and long.
Alex and the kids ignored him. Soon, however, the 5 year old girl went over to touch the blanket and ask Jumoke if he were ok. He yanked the blanket from his head and screamed at her, "Just leave me alone! Leave me alone!"
After they finished eating, Alex told Jumoke to come along. At first she wasn't sure he would comply, but he finally climbed out of the blanket, put his helmet on, and rode the bike home with the family.
The afternoon did not get better. I felt badly when Alex called, but didn't know how to help them. She was feeling some of the symptoms she has when her blood pressure is getting too high, and I was concerned. I told her if it didn't get better, we would come to get Jumoke.
He did as he pleased that afternoon. He got into the refrigerator between meals and ate what he wanted. When asked by the older girls if his mother allowed him to do that, he lied and said, "Sure". When Alex told him that he was not allowed to get food without asking, he simply wiped his mouth and walked away with an unconcerned air. She knew he would be back in the fridge when he felt hungry again. She felt helpless.
He had taken liberties with the computer and television, turning on the tv after the family were all in bed, getting on the computer any time he pleased. Alex put her foot down and said, "No more computer." So he went into the computer room where Alex's 9 year old daughter was playing on the computer. Snow has Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and is slightly retarded and very vulnerable. Alex walked in to see Jumoke sitting on a chair behind Snow with Snow's head wedged in his crotch, his legs squeezing her head as he watched her play the computer game. Because of Snow's tendency to not be aware of abnormal situations and because of her extremely high tolerance to pain, she continued to play as tho she were sitting in the room by herself.
One thing after another. Jumoke gave no one a break.
For Tim and I, as well as Walt and Alex, the straw that broke the camel's back was when their tiny 5 year old daughter came to them, upset, and told them, "Jumoke told me to be quiet or he's going to crush my head until I bleed."
We made plans for Tim to meet Walt half way and bring the boy home Sunday night. As the hours moved forward, so did the plans to bring him home. Both men ended up leaving Saturday early afternoon instead of Sunday evening.
Jumoke needed to be home under his daddy's authority.
The trip with Walt was annoying. Jumoke talked back and argued. When Tim asked Walt how the trip went, Walt let him know. We had told Jumoke a few weeks ago that there would be no more secrets. The adults in his life would be communicating so that they could help him not hurt himself or others.
Tim called Jumoke over and told him he needed to apologize to Uncle Walt. Jumoke knew immediately what Tim was talking about and without help, apologized for talking back and arguing. I found that a great thing! I've never ever one single time seen Jumoke take responsibility for any wrong. He's always felt he was the victim.
Tim's view is that when confronted with two adults of the men type, Jumoke wisely decided it would not be a fun thing to try to mess with them and pretend he was confused and ignorant.
Jumoke has been subdued and obedient since arriving home. He told us that he had had a good time at Uncle Walt and Aunt Alex's house. He fully expected to go back as soon as Mother's Day was over. He obeyed the whole time except for a couple very little things. They liked being with him a lot.
OK
Tim sat him down, gave him a piece of paper, and Jumoke spent the morning before church writing a list of things that he needed to apologize to Aunt Alex for. He couldn't think of a single thing. So I started to list them for him. He cried. He growled. He sighed. He glared.
Apologizing will not change his heart. We know that. But it is doing the right thing. In our home, a child makes a wrong right, even if their heart is not in it, simply because it is the right thing to do. With our other children, by the time they were 4, this became an ingrained habit.
Perhaps it will become an ingrained habit with Jumoke someday. Regardless, that's how this family handles it when they wrong people. Jumoke is one of us. For today at least. So he will do as the this family does. For today at least.
He's plenty angry, and wanting to take it out on me. But Tim is keeping him right at his side. Tomorrow should be interesting. But Tim said that if Jumoke lashes out at me in a way I can't handle, we cannot wait for a family or diagnosis. He must leave.
I'm hoping I can handle whatever it is he hands out tomorrow. I really do want him to be diagnosed before he leaves. I want him to start his journey to wellness as soon as possible, and that won't happen if the next family doesn't know Jumoke and what he is capable of.
Tim and I had, with practice, learned to control the worst of Jumoke's behaviours. Our hope was that after the behaviours had been controlled, that they had disappeared. Jumoke's week at Walt and Alex's house showed us that we had only put a lid on the boiling pot. We were able to keep everyting inside the pot, but we hadn't changed the stuff inside the pot at all.
Going to Walt and Alex's house was, in essence, taking the lid off the pot. We were disheartened and frustrated to hear of things he was putting the family through, mostly because it showed us that we had not really taught him anything.
I had asked Alex at the beginning of the week to not mention me or Tim or anyone in the family to Jumoke. If Jumoke wanted to talk about us, yay! If he wanted to call us, yay! But I asked Alex not to initiate any communicatoin about us or to offer for him to call us. We had told him he could call us day or night, anytime he wanted to.
I knew he wouldn't call at all. I also knew he wouldn't miss us and talk about us. But there was a small hope that I was wrong.
I was not.
As far as Jumoke knew, Mom and Dad were completely out of the picture. By Friday morning, Alex was wearing down and asked me how she could make him do the basics of what she asked of him. I had to sadly tell her I didn't know. The control we exercised came from 4 years of trial and error and growth. Other than keeping him right by her side and instructing him how to do each tiny thing and not letting him out of her sight, we didn't know of anyway she could start to get him to do as she said. She has seven other children. Giving her days over to Jumoke were just as distasteful as having him do as he please with her and her household.
I am very familiar with that particular catch-22.
I was very concerned about his continuing to hurt Alex. I was grateful he wasn't hurting the children, but actually, I was shocked that he had the nerve to hurt a mature adult. He smacked her hard in the bottom, and when she reacted in shock, told her "I just couldn't help myself." He jumped on her body with his body when she was sitting down or standing up. She picked him up once to hug him, and when she was lowering him, he dug his fingernails into her arms and scratched her deeply. He would sit next to her on the couch and dig his toenails into her legs, scratching her.
She hated to consider that he was physically abusing her. After all, he was only an 8 year old boy. But she was becoming weary of watching out for her body day after day.
No, he has not harmed me physically since the first year. And then he was a smaller, four-year-old boy. I had hoped that hurting adults was a thing of the past. Apparently, without his daddy's oversight, it is still very much a part of his thinking process.
I was also very concerned about his lack of respect for Alex. She could ask of him the simplest things, and he would just turn and walk away. He also refused to obey me, but with consistent team work, sometimes involving Tim driving 30 minutes one way from work and often involving me standing right by Jumoke every minute of the day, we had come to an uneasy place where he would generally follow Tim's instructions when Tim wasn't present. It was always a fight, but we had days where Jumoke would do his chores or obey with less of a fight.
Lastly, I was concerned about the climbing into bed with the adults thing. Our children often climb into our bed in the morning hours before wake up time. It's a nice warm cuddle time. However, Jumoke has never participated in this. Partly because we had to train him to stay in his bed till we woke up because of the havoc he wreaked in the house when up on his own. But partly because he just wasn't interested.
To climb into bed with adults that he personally has no intimate or affectionate relationship with was concerning to me. I didn't know what it was about the thing that bothered me, but it seemed very un-Jumoke like, and not knowing what was in his mind bothered me. It boded ill to me.
There were other things he was doing that were un-Jumoke like, and of course, he was exhibiting the same behaviours we saw consistently here at home. But it was the things that we would not have characterized Jumoke by that caused us the greatest concern.
Alex and Walt were saying that they wanted to see this month of respite through, but they were feeling the tension. They were getting weary. Their children were beginning to act tired.
I decided to chat with Jumoke, asking about his week, doing the basic mother thing with her boy while her boy is gone off somewhere..."I love you. I miss you. How are you doing? What fun things did you do?"
And then I addressed some of the issues I was concerned about. I told Jumoke that I did not want him to hurt Aunt Alex again. That if he hurt her body again, that Uncle Walt would pack him up and bring him down to Daddy and he would have to deal with Daddy about how he was treating Aunt Alex. I told him as well that we expected him to join in and help with the chores and that he must quit ignoring Aunt Alex when she told him to leave the television alone or get off the computer.
I did not address the bed thing because I didn't see it as a disobedience issue. There were many areas of disobedience that I did not address as well. I basically wanted Jumoke to know that Aunt Alex and Uncle Walt were keeping communication lines open with Mom and Dad and that we were aware of his behaviour and it was not acceptable to us. Because of our ability to control him (somewhat), my hope was that he would back off just a bit and give Alex some room to breathe.
I got Alex back on the phone to tell her that he would either back off and start calming down or he would explode all over her house, depending on how he took my words. Before I could speak, I heard a door slam and Alex said, "My word! What did you say to him? He's furious!"
I apologized. I had a pretty good idea how the day would go. So I warned her and gave her some tips for surviving it. I could tell by her voice that she was rising to the challenge. After all, this woman has a lot of experience dealing with hurting, raging children successfully. Walt and Alex had pretty much decided they could not adopt Jumoke, but the door hadn't been closed entirely. There might still be hope.
By that evening, the hope had completely died. They were pretty sure they couldn't last even thru the weekend. Tim knew he needed to get Jumoke out of there. "Good friends shouldn't do this kind of thing to each other," he said, referring to subjecting Walt's family to our child.
Jumoke was supposed to stay a month with our friends for respite for us. They were also wanting to see how he did with their family because they were one of two famlies who were considering the possibility of adopting him after the disruption.
He didn't even last a full week.
My friend, Alex, has given me permission to share frankly about their week with Jumoke. She and her husband are willing to talk to therapists or folks for PLAN or anyone else connected with Jumoke. You can reach them by emailing me.
Walt and Alex are experienced parents. Their oldest child is 14. They have 7 children, 2 birth children and 5 children adopted from the domestic foster system. All of their adopted children came from severe situations, seeing far more awful things than the average adult. Walt and Alex have been very successful at helping these children over the rough bumps so that they can bond with a family and live the normal, happy life every child should have. We felt Jumoke would do very well at their house this month.
Tim and I run a fairly tight ship. We are not heavily scheduled people, but we do stick by a routine that is much the same day in and day out, year after year. We have fairly structured chores and high academic standards for our children. We probably aren't as strict as a lot of folks, but I don't think we could at all be characterized as "laid back". Structured and firm would probably describe us.
Walt and Alex are very laid back. They unschool their children, and because of the special emotional needs of their adopted children, they've learned to let a lot of things just run off like water off a duck's back. They have high standards for their children's behaviours, but find creative ways for helping their children achieve those standards. In case it might look like they don't have backbone, let me tell you, they have plenty! Tho they are laid back folks, they've had to handle some very difficult moments and hours and days with some of their children, and they can go toe to toe with an raging child if they need to.
Alex and I are close friends. She has been listening to me tell about Jumoke for four years. Because of their respect for Tim and I, and because of our parenting reputation with them, they believed us when we said Jumoke was hard. However, they sincerely thought that it was more a matter of parenting styles, that perhaps Jumoke just wasn't a "match" for our family. They believed we were doing the best that we could, but they thought they might have what it took to make a positive difference in this little man's life.
The first couple days with Walt and Alex were pretty good. Jumoke acted like a pretty naughty kid, which is kind of surprising for a normal kid. Usually a kid would be on their best behaviour the first few days in a friend's house. But still, the behaviours were nothing more than annoying.
Alex sent me a list of the things Jumoke was doing, and asked me, "Are these the kind of behaviours you've been talking about?" I told her that tho the behaviours were naughty and annoying, they were non-issues at our house compared to the larger things. She asked what the bigger stuff was, and, as usual, I had a hard time explaining. Because when you write the hard stuff down on paper, most folks rightly assume what a normal child's motivations are for doing each individual thing. That in no way explains Jumoke, his motivation, nor the havoc he wreaks on the people in his home.
Alex was a bit frustrated. She saw some annoying things but nothing that she thought should cause a disruption of adoption or the devastation of a home such as I had described.
By Wednesday, the winds began to change. Jumoke was hurting Alex physically, hitting her, scratching her, jumping on her. He was slyly messing with the animals to hurt them and in small ways hurting the little girl. She felt like she still had some control over his actions tho by telling him not to do things or moving him to a different area.
By Thursday, things had escalated a little more. Jumoke had climbed into her bed first thing in the morning before everyone was up. She allowed her children to crawl into bed with her, but was surprised and uncomfortable with an 8 year old who was not her own child just hopping into bed without asking or even hesitating.
There were other behaviours that were making her uncomfortable, and she began to get tired from being "on" all of her waking hours. Jumoke would not do anything she asked of him. No chores. He wouldn't stay off the computer. Nothing. He just did as he pleased. (I will be adding Alex's lists of what happened each day to a post, but as usual, seeing it in writing looks so tame compared to living with it...there is an added tension when you understand that he's controlling the situation...and when it is continuous, all day long, every day.)
We talked and she told Tim what was happening. She and Walt had come to the conclusion that they probably could not adopt Jumoke because already the behaviours were wearing her and the children down. And she had no control over him and wasn't sure how to get control over him. This from an experienced mom of some very troubled children from the system.
The next morning, the dam broke and the next 24 hours at Alex's house were almost more than she could handle.
This child would not fly on the plane with Tim on the way to our home from LIberia unless he was laying chest to chest with Tim on the plane seat.
That same child curled up into my lap every night in a nursing position, pushing his body into mine, while I rocked him to sleep.
That same child almost always accepts a hug, unless he's very angry, which seems normal enough to me.
That same child plays with joyful and wonderful abandon every time his body is in water...having a bad day with Jumoke? Take him to the pool and let water surround his body.
That same little boy runs with such great joy on his face and freedom in his body during the warm summer evenings as if there is not enough room in his little body to contain the joy that surrounds him.
That same little boy loves the quiet, private moments when, his head on my lap, a book in my hands, no one else around...I read to him alone before he goes to sleep.
It seems that with each bundle of hours that go by, I begin to see things more clearly.
It doesn't really matter what kind of behaviours Jumoke has.
It doesn't really matter what we've done that failed or succeeded with training those behaviours.
It isn't about Jumoke being naughty or mean.
It isn't about whether we loved him enough or not.
The whole point is that he has been with us for four years and he has not attached to us.
That's the whole point.
My friend who has adopted 5 children was talking with me the other day. We were discussing some of his behaviours, and for the most part, the behaviours were familiar to her. Her own 5 had responded in many of the same ways when she first adopted them.
She asked me if Ouseman had ever had issues similar to Jumoke's. I said yes, he had some of the same things going on. But the behaviours began disappearing after a couple months and were gone entirely before the first year was up.
It isn't the behaviours. It's that the behaviours continue. Which I assume is because he could not attach himself to us, trust us, give himself over to our care. And each year the behaviours are manifested in more sophisticated ways. Each year they get more ingrained into his way of thinking.
The behaviours are a symptom. The problem is that he hasn't attached to this family. For whatever reason.
My friend's children and my other adopted son had issues...but they disappeared (completely or to some degree) when the children began trusting their new parents and learning to love them.
Jumoke has never had that in his life in America. Maybe he's never had it.
Yesterday I received my package from Nancy Thomas' organization. It had a number of books we ordered on RAD. One is a wonderful little handbook that has a different idea on each page to help your child heal up. Exercises. Not just for RAD kids.
I liked that book.
The other books sent me spinning. Especially Nancy Thomas' book...not a biography so much, tho it covers her life as well. But stories about the children she took in and was able to help.
I had no idea.
I had no idea that such evil existed.
I'd heard about it. I knew that very terrible things happened. But when I read something, I become a part of whatever I'm reading, whether it's technical or fiction or historical.
I could not bear becoming part of the stories, including Nancy's, that I read.
As I tried to read each book, I found myself shaken, and one by one, they went back in the box before I could get even a third of the way through.
I called my friend who has Jumoke right now. She's adopted 5 chlidren out of the foster system. None of them have RAD, but the places they came from were just as horrendous as many of the stories I had been reading.
I told her I was sending her the books. I couldn't keep them here. I couldn't read them. I knew she would be able to garner good from them.
I found myself erecting a thick wall of impenetrable stone. The wall had no doors. I could not see over the top of it because it was so high. It stretched to the horizon on either side of me, so there was no going around it. The words written on the wall said, "Jumoke could not have lived with this kind of torment. I will not allow it. I will not accept it."
Even if he is not RAD, something is wrong, and there is a reason for that something being wrong, and my mind cannot concieve nor accept that my son went through something as horrible as the stories I read.
There are many heroes in this world. And the men and women who take these children out of their horrendous circumstances and give them a home and help them heal up from all that has been damaged are among the greatest of these heroes.
I've adopted. I've taken two little boys out of a war torn country where they were starving and given them food. But I'm no hero.
Jesus said that anyone can love those who love them back.
What is exceptional is loving the unlovely. Loving those who hate you.
I am humbled. I don't even know if I have the courage to ask the Lord to make me different. I see myself in a whole different light.
I'm grateful, so grateful, deeply grateful, that the Father loves me even in this pitiable state. And that He's given me people to love me, even though they see me for what I am.
I want the same gift for Jumoke.
Pray for the real heroes today. Thank God for them. Here's some names....Nicole, Traci Ann, Connie, Pat, Katie, Katie, Margaret, Tia. These are the names that leapt into my mind, but they are only a tiny, tiny portion of the great list of heroes who sacrifice to rescue the souls and minds of children. I didn't list the husband's names, but the husbands are right there with them.
Pray for them today. And join me in thanking the Father for these remarkable, living examples of His great sacrifice.
First off, about Jumoke. He is doing well. I'm so proud of him. He has this one issue in his life that he does not have any control over, and it embarasses him if people know about it. I told him that Aunt N knew about it, and that many of her children had had the same issue, so he shouldn't worry about what she thinks. I suggested that maybe he would feel more comfortable about it if he talked with her up front.
I never suspected he would take my suggestion seriously, but he did. And they made a plan together for him. I know that he will sleep easier tonight knowing that this is settled between the two of them.
He's apparently being the life of the party. I'm glad he's enjoying himself. And that they are enjoying him.
My friend, Alex, wrote to me and asked if a certain list of behaviors were some of the problems I was having. The list was basically a list of things an annoying boy would do when he's having a bad day. Like repeatedly knocking down the towers a vulnerable child is building, pretending he is going to trip people on a trampoline, acting like he's going to dump red juice on a carpet. Just naughty boy stuff.
There was one thing I was shocked at tho. He hit Alex really hard on the bottom. He has not hit me. We have affectionate pats on the body when we pass by someone in our family, but he has never taken part in that. That he smacked her shocked me. That he smacked her bottom blew me away. That he hit her really hard was hard for me to comprehend.
But other than that one thing, he was just behaving like an unpleasant 8 year old boy. Nothing overly difficult.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
It was a lovely day. Sure, it was nice because I know that I don't have to worry about the stress of the Chinese Water Torture Jumoke style for a few weeks. I was able to begin to really relax.
But more than that, I saw the kids relax. They just naturally fell back into doing the kinds of things they really enjoy...creating things, studying, reading, thinking. It was so nice watching them. I realized it had been a long time since they knew they could do that without being interrupted by some explosion or disruption. Even when Jumoke was staying during the week with our relative, there were phone calls sometimes that were stressful. And the days between the weekends were spent gearing up for the next weekend.
I hate telling the truth about this part. How terrible to feel a sense of relief in connection with the absence of a person. Any person. And that it's a child makes it even worse.
All people are worthwhile. All are precious. Every one means something huge to God. To feel relief at the absence of that person...even if it is really just the absence of the behaviours...seems very wrong to me.
But this is something I need to get a grip on. I believe that if I can just separate Jumoke from his behaviours, I will be in a better place to love him and pray for him. Unfortunately, I know very little about him in the last 4 years that is separate from his behaviours.
But we do have the good, real memories, like about Jumoke in water and the times when the behaviours cycle down and he seems just like a regular boy and how much so many people just enjoy him and how he has learned so much academically on his own and listening to him read to himself and...
....my favorite photo in my mind. He is 5. Isaac is 3.5. They are both exactly the same size. Jumoke is wearing red shorts, Isaac is wearing blue shorts. No shoes. No shirts. And they are sitting on the picnic table together, shoulder to shoulder, arm to arm, thigh to thigh. One a deep warm brown, the other a light fresh peach. Their little heads, shaved for the hot summer months, are bent together while they talk quietly, while they swing their legs back and forth, back and forth, for a long time on a too warm summer afternoon.
I love that photo. I stared at the boys for a long time so that I would be sure to keep that image in my mind.
That photo helps me a bit to separate Jumoke from his behaviours.
" *Parental dreams of love and understanding solving all problems are quickly dashed.
*Frustration of the parents to receive reciprocal loving and bonding
*Venting of hatred towards the mother, who sometimes suffers emotional breakdown or post traumatic stress syndrome (anxiety attacks? panic disorder?)
*Apparent close bond to the father.
*Schools, churches, friends, and relatives become critical of parents
*The family becomes controlled by the antics of the child, withdrawing the family from normal social functions (to a smaller degree because Tim would not allow it, but certainly we didn't have the freedom to participate as a whole family or as a normal family)
*Siblings are targeted and threatened.
*Family pets are targeted and endangered (the rooster helped with this and the cat grew up and moved outside, so we don't see much of this anymore...long story. As far as we know, he never messed with the guinea pigs, gerbils, or gekko)
*Normal times of closeness such as Christmas become outbursts of reactive anger
*Automatic parenting does not work. There is no logical point of reference.
*Parents appear to be hostile and/or angry
**Needing to control their environment, the AD child will quickly target the Mother as the one who has to be broken. This is because the mother is the one who instills discipline on a daily level, and ensures that chores and work is performed to standard. It may also be because, "a mother" was the one who let them down in the past, and they target the mother in a sense of pay-back.
Father's are charmed into believing that this child is innocent of all accusations, and if the father allows any benefit of doubt to creep in, the child will work that against the rest of the family. Quite often the child will exhibit a "Dr. Jekyl, and Mr. Hyde," disassociation between the family and the father in order to control, and if necessary, split-up the family."
This is why Jumoke is there at our friends' house and not here at his home. This is what I need to focus on for the next few weeks. Well, not this in particular...my focus has to be getting us back to "normal". But this will help me to focus on what is real at our house.
The above is 100% correct in what our family has become.
Well, I don't know for sure about that last one. I guess I'd have to ask those who interact with us. Certainly there were times that we appeared to be hostile or angry to other people because of how we had to handle Jumoke. If it's appearing hostile and angry, then yes. If it's being hostile and angry, then I don't know. I sure did feel hostile and angry at times.
Please pray for our friends who are keeping Jumoke this month. The mother is apprehensive but excited as well, I think. I'm hoping two opposite things...maybe three.
That Jumoke will show his stuff right away in a big way and that the family will be able to handle it alright.
That Jumoke has nothing to show because we let small things grow too big in our minds. (Even as I type that, I think "Wow, Umeme! You are the most stubborn person I've ever met when it comes to facing a truth you don't want to face!" Still...)
That Jumoke goes easy on the family because he "matches" their family better than he "matches" ours.
Please pray for me/us as well as I/we begin to separate our hearts a bit from Jumoke and I/we begin to learn to live without the tension and disruptions during the next few weeks.
And pray for Jumoke. I don't think he cares enough about anyone here to need to separate his heart, but this is the only place that he remembers as "home". I don't care what kind of issues you have, home is a grand place, and it's horrifically hard losing that sense of home.
"A tiny piece of advice: You and Tim should make your decision based on what you hear God saying and then get your confirmation, affirmation and support from him. This is such a hard decision. Most people will never understand because they have never raised a broken child, and so are bound to disagree with you. Geez, at any given moment you disagree with you. That's why you need to hear from Him and stand on His word alone. Kind of like what Noah had to do."
"And, Lord willing, imagine what a reunion it will be someday on the other side of Glory - when NONE of these issues afflict [Jumoke] any longer. No tears then. No black suitcases needed."
Jumoke leaves today to spend some weeks with family friends.
He is very excited.
He got a new suitcase...a great big black one...and he's so thrilled that he can't think straight. If I knew a big black suitcase would make him so happy, I would have bought him one ages ago.
He's all packed. We are copying his birth certificate in case they take trips and medical card and signing things saying our friends can do this and our friends can do that.
The other children quit grieving the instant we told them that we were going to try our hardest to get Jumoke into a family that we knew so we could still see him. That seemed to solve all loss issues for every single one of them. I guess they needed to know that we, their parents, still wanted Jumoke in our life. The fear and sadness are gone. So the kids are able to be excited for Jumoke's grand vacation trip with him.
I planned a special dinner, with a number of dishes that are Jumoke's favorite. He commented on the large variety of food that I was serving, and I told him I wanted to make sure he filled up on his favorite foods before he left. He informed me that he didn't like anything I was serving, except maybe the shrimp salad.
I allowed him to fill his plate however he wanted, which was a treat because I usually serve him since he will gorge till he is sick otherwise. He took very little, and none of the shrimp salad. Except for his rudeness, I would have thought maybe he was too excited to eat.
He left the room when we were serving ice cream in waffle bowls. I wasn't hurt. I had a feeling he was enjoying this moment. I'm sure it was payback for something. But the other kids were hurt and confused.
I'm smiling and quipping and chatting thru a tight head. How exciting that this might be the beginning of a life of health and healing for Jumoke. But....
...always "but"...
It's ok. We are all going to be ok. Jumoke is going to be more than ok. That's the end of the story. I keep looking at the end of the story because this particular chapter is pretty hard to read.
Later that evening, I heard from Tim as they started home after dropping Jumoke off. Jumoke was still using food to try to punish us for something. I'm fairly sure I know what, but one cannot be absolutely sure of anything where Jumoke is concerned.
Tim bought Jumoke and the other kids fries and burgers at McDonalds. Jumokes loves loves loves McDonalds. But he told Tim he didn't want any fries, and sullenly wolfed down his burger. He found he was still hungry after the burger, and told Tim he changed his mind and wanted the fries. Tim told him no, that Jumoke had already refused the fries, and they now belonged to Daddy.
My husband has been saying to me, too frequently lately, "You are all over the map with this thing. I can't keep up with what you are thinking and feeling."
Yesterday, my friend Amy wrote to me, and said, "You sound conflicted." Her very kind way of saying "You are all over the map with this thing."
I sincerely believe, and tell people whenever they are in a tough place: emotions lie. They are not indicators of truth, but rather reactions to circumstances. Do not believe your emotions. Believe facts.
So I thought thru out the night and decided I need to list the facts. Things I know for sure, as well as I can know anything. My mom has taught me since I was a little girl that if I got confused about God or anything I thought He was saying or if I got confused about what I should do and how I should follow Him, I should go back to the things I know are true about Him and start from there.
That's good advice for everything.
So...just the facts.
Fact: Jumoke is not attached to our family. He has bonded himself to this home and the people who live here because it is all he knows. It's all he remembers. He feels some measure of safety here because it is familiar. But he had not attached to me or Daddy or the children.
Fact: Something isn't right with Jumoke. The list in an entry further down of the things we've seen in him on a consistent basis are not part of a healthy child's personality...the vengeance, lack of empathy, lack of remorse, etc. Something somewhere is wrong.
Fact: Our home is Jumoke centered and that is not healthy. If a home is going to be centered on one person, that person should be God. To have a home centered on any one human being is not healthy for anyone in the family, not the person, not the other individuals in a family.
Fact: I'm seriously preoccupied with helping/changing/surviving/living with Jumoke. (Changed the word "obsessed" to "preoccupied" on further consideration. In the last few weeks, I have been obsessed with this I believe. But before that, for the 4 previous years, it would be more accurate to say that I was preoccupied. Obsession is too strong a word for where I was for most of the 4 years we have had Jumoke.) From about 3 months into the adoption, my eyes are constantly on Jumoke, my thoughts almost constantly are on Jumoke. I sometimes talk to other folks and call them Jumoke's name instead of their own. This is a very bad place for a mother and wife to be. This is not Jumoke's fault. It is mine. His needs as well as his particular pleasures in snagging me on a daily basis have made him the center of my life. Very very bad for my other children. I deleted many of them, but my other blog had many more stories of Jumoke than of all of my other children put together. Now this is a real reason for feeling guilty.
Fact: I cannot raise Jumoke well at this point and raise my other children in the nurturing, loving environment they deserve right now. Whether it's because I'm obsessed with Jumoke or because he makes sure he is the center of everything or because my other children are verging on unhealthy or because we don't have the education or tools or because I'm just a weenie, this one is a fact that cannot be overlooked. I cannot physically, mentally, or emotionally do it. At this time.
Fact: Tim is not willing to spend all of our energies...or even a great deal of our energy...on an emotionally damaged child while we are raising other small children. This is new knowledge to me. I did not know it before last night. I was excited about making contact with Jumoke yesterday and asked him if he didn't think that was a positive thing. He said no. He said he didn't care whether it was Jumoke or another child, whether it was now or 4 years ago...that when he said we weren't set up for an emotionally damaged child he meant it. Maybe when our children are much older or grown. But he said that he does not see this as possible for us right now. Wow.
Fact: Jumoke needs a home where he can attach.
Fact: We have been given an option of fostering Jumoke out for a year or two while we heal up and learn to help him.
Fact: Tim is willing to look at it, but still feels that disruption is best for Jumoke and us.
Fact: I said I would follow Tim's clear thinking on this one.
Fact: I'm not as strong nor as smart as I thought I was.
Fact: God loves me and Tim and Jumoke and the other children and my hurting relatives and friends with a compassion that I can simply not understand the depth of.
FACT: GOD IS FAITHFUL AND GOOD. This story is going to have a beautiful ending. No one can convince me otherwise. I know this in the very hidden depths of my heart, even when I am so emotionally distraught I cannot think, I know this.
It could be that Jumoke is just a difficult, needy child. And if he were born to me out of my own body, loved and nurtured as all of my babies have been at my own hand, that he would still be needy and difficult. Some people just have difficult temperaments. And their mothers have a hard time. And they grow up to be remarkable people.
It could be that we are the enemy. That he sees us as the people who *took* him from his Mommy and all that was familiar. And that if he gave in and loved us and became truly one of us, that he would see that as disloyal to his love for his mother and his country. So he must keep his distance, and the only way to do that is with anger and hate and aloofness. (In that case, another family who would then be considered neutral would feel like a relief and a blessing to him. We've tried for a long time to convince him we are not the enemy. If this is the case, he simply won't believe us.)
It could be that he is the kind of child that cannot be part of a crowd, a large family. Maybe he gets overstimulated and overwhelmed with all the stuff going on all the time, and it pushes his nerves over the edge so he does stuff he wouldn't normally do under quieter and calmer circumstance. He does like it better when all the kids are gone and he has had to stay home with me because he got into trouble so couldn't go. He's told me before he wishes it were just Dad and me and Timothy and Jumoke...just us four.
It could be PTSD (post traumatic stress syndrome). That would explain the cyclic nature of his behaviour. Isn't that easier to deal with than RAD? Not that I'm looking for an easier way, tho I am. Ugh. I'm such a weenie. But it *could* be something like PTSD. It kind of looks like it.
It could be that this was just a really bad "match" between adopted child and adopted family. I've thought about that sometimes. He's so athletic and...different...from the rest of us. We like doing outdoors things, and some of us even have athletic abilities, but we are mostly just really home centered and cerebral, all of us including the non-readers spending a lot of time each day burying our noses in books and studying and creating things.
How can a child so talented be so messed up. He taught himself *all by himself* to read. He's excellent at his school stuff. He's has an amazing talent in that he expresses himself so well in writing. Very unusual for an 8 year old boy. His brain appears to me to verge on genius. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe he's a genius and can't live by the normal rules that the rest of us average peons do with fair ease.
I *do* know that God knows exactly what's going on . And when the time is right or whatever is right, He's going to tell me...if it's any of my business, that is.
Jumoke had gone potty on my bedroom floor. He came to me in a panic saying that he had but he didn't know how it happened. I decided this was a battle I wasn't willing to fight at the moment, so just told him we'd deal with it later, but needed to clean it up now.
A few hours later we were getting ready to go to town to do some shopping. The other children were out in the van waiting, so I had a private talk with Jumoke.
"I don't care how it happened that you went potty on my floor, but it won't happen again. It makes my room smell bad and I don't want to sleep in a smelly room. If it happens again, we will have to move your bed out of our room and keep our room off limits to you," I said.
We had moved his mattress into our room a few days before to get him out of the boys' room. Almost all of the tormenting of the boys was happening in their room. We thought if he were sleeping in our room and had his stuff in our room that we could cut down greatly on the impact of the other boys.
He was thrilled about sleeping in our room. We did not have enough room in our house for him to have his own room without having him sleep clear at the other end of the house, and that wasn't acceptable to us for a number of reasons. Threatening to remove him from our room upset him.
"I don't know how it happened. I told you!" he said. "I think when I wet my bed last night it dripped onto the floor."
The size and location of the puddle made it clear that that could not have been the case.
"I don't care how it happened," I said. "I don't care if you are guilty or innocent, if you did it purposely or accidentally. If it happens again, you will not be sleeping in our room," I said.
"Yes, Mom," he said.
"Are you upset?" I asked.
"Not really," he said.
"Good," I said. "That's how things should be discussed. Lay it out, everyone understands, no one gets mad, everyone moves on."
I gave him a half-hug and we walked out to the van together. He seemed chipper and calm.
I didn't even get the car started before he began.
"How long am I going to be at Aunt Alex's?" he asked.
"About 1 month," I said.
"One month!" he said, like he was surprised.
"Yes. But you already knew that. I told you that yesterday, and asked if you were ok with that. If you were a little scared. And you told me that you were fine with it," I said.
"I didn't know how long a month was," he said.
"Yes, you did. I told you how many days and that we would see you in June when we met at the beachhouse."
"I don't think you should send me."
"Why not? You were very excited to go yesterday."
"I'm not today."
"Well, you already said yes, and I told Aunt Alex, so you are going to go."
"I changed my mind."
"I haven't changed mine. And we are not going to be rude to Aunt Alex and tell her no after we told her yes."
"You could call her and tell her no."
"I'm not going to. You want me to be rude to Aunt Nicole?"
All of this going on in a light, kind of bantering conversation.
"Yes," Jumoke said.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because I just changed my mind," he said.
By this time, we had arrived at the store and I turned around to look at him. He had that excited grin on his face and I realized I'd just been taken again.
"Look," I said, calmly but firmly, "You are going to Aunt Alex's house for a month. You can kick, scream, cry, pinch, or bite all the way to the car, but I am going to buckle you in the car and Daddy is going to take you to Aunt Alex's house."
"You would really put me in the car if I was doing all that?"
"Absolutely. Now get out of the van. We are going into the store."
The other children headed off to the toy aisle. Jumoke isn't allowed to go with them because he will not obey me if he isn't right under my nose. He tried to bring up the subject of going to Aunt Alex's a couple more times, but I brushed it off.
"You're going. Period. Now what do you think about this blue for the placemats?"
"You're going. Can you reach that basket for me?"
"You're going. Put this in the basket there."
He finally became quiet for a few moments while we were in the office supplies aisle. The out of the blue:
"Why can't I have the deoderant Aunt A and Uncle S gave me?"
"What deoderant?"
"The deoderant they gave me when I was at their house last summer."
"Daddy and I don't think you need deoderant. You were only 7."
"I want it back."
"You can't have it back."
"Why?"
"We threw it away."
"What?!"
"We told you that you didn't need it then. Why act so surprised."
"Uncle S let's N'anel have some and he's younger than me."
"Uncle S is N'anel's father and makes good decisions for N'anel. Daddy is your father and makes good decisions for you."
"I can't believe you threw it away! You should get me another one to replace it."
"No."
He continued to chatter about the deoderant. I caught on. We had switched from Aunt Alex to the deoderant since I wasn't giving him appropriate feedback about Aunt Alex. The conversation continued for a bit more, with his arguing and my consistent "No" with no elaboration on my part.
Finally I tired of it. I wanted it to stop. We had reached the luggage area where we were going to buy a very large suitcase for Jumoke to pack his things in. He was so excited to have a suitcase of his very own.
"Look. I'm not discussing this further and neither are you. If you want to continue discussing things I've already told you no about, I will buy you this fine pink Cinderella suitcase. If you want to be quiet and trust my decisions, then you can trust me to pick out a big, fine manly black suitcase. What will it be?"
He was quiet for a moment, thinking. He glared at me. Then he relented. We bought the large black suitcase, and I heard no more from him.
I felt so good that I hadn't let him get to me and that probably for the first time in four years, I had "won" in Jumoke's eyes. I had proven that I was indeed in control of the situation and I could be trusted...even if it were just for 5 minutes.
When we got home, I told Tim about the conversation, and Tim took Jumoke to task for treating his mother that way.
Jumoke was furious with me for telling, tho I had told Jumoke that there would be no more secrets, that all the adults in his life would be privy to the same information.
He refused to talk to me for the rest of the evening, and reverted to his constant "What" or mumbles when he had to reply. He said he didn't remember a number of things that I thought for sure he should remember since they were things we had talked about in the last few days. He said that I said many things that I knew he himself had said. I was getting confused.
Which finally clued me in.
"Do you not want to talk to me?" I asked.
"No," he said.
"Are you tired?" I asked.
"No," he said.
"You just want me to leave?" I asked. We were having a bedtime chat.
"Yes," he said.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because I don't trust you anymore. You told Daddy," he said.
"Yes, I did. Remember, I said there would be no more secrets kept from the adults in your life? I meant it."
We adopted Jumoke and Ouseman thru PLAN...Plan Loving Adoptions Now. They have been a wonderful agency to work with.
When we knew that something was desperately wrong...either with us or with Jumoke or both combined...we went back to PLAN to see if they could help us unravel things.
They were right on it. Don, our PLAN guy, met with us at their office with a child psychologist. We talked for a very long time. The child psychologist asked at that time if I thought it might be RAD, and because of the mistake I mentioned in an entry waaaay down there on this blog, I told her no.
After that, Tim called Don often for help. Don was *always* available to us, even tho he had a full plate of work with adoption in process. His heart and interest was to make sure that these adoptive families worked as well as putting adoptees into homes.
He came to our house...took time out of his busy schedule and traveled 2 hours one way...to visit with us and help us try to figure this stuff out.
If he had not been willing to be involved with us, we would never have been able to figure out this RAD stuff. Yes, he wrote the letter about community discipline and putting Jumoke in school and all the kids in sports. But it must be remembered that I had uncatagorically stated that Jumoke did not at all match up with the RAD list of symptoms.
It was that letter that Don sent us stating a plan of action that pushed us over the edge from "Something seems wrong here" to "This is a desperate situation because we instinctively know that this stuff will make life here at home a greater hell than it has ever been."
It was from the moment that we recieved that letter that my own heart was revealed to me as a beaten, bloody thing that was no longer mother heart but the heart of a caretaker. It was the beginning of both Tim and I crying out for help and being willing to look anywhere, do anything, to try to resolve this thing. It was that letter that made us open to things we would never have been open to before...including the reality (as opposed to just talk) of disrupting this adoption and the reality of RAD being a possibility.
I remember that little part in the homestudy where you check off the things you do not want your child to have?
We only had a couple. RAD was at the top of the list of things that scared the bejeebies out of us. We would never have been willing to admit what Jumoke was without the desperation that we felt when we saw that Jumoke was not normal enough to handle Don's suggestions.
And, oddly enough, we were encouraged by Don's letter....after some days had passed. We did not think we could deal with RAD on any level. Well, if this is RAD, we did it for four years. And we didn't do it well, but we actually helped Jumoke a little bit, at least kept him from getting worse.
Don's willingness to give of his time and work with us has been a tremendous blessing. His involvement with us led us directly to the place where we could hear and accept what was going on.
Life has changed in another way in the last few days. In a good way.
For the last four years Tim and I have been beating ourselves up for our parenting. Even tho we have 8 other beautiful, kind, responsive, forgiving *fun* people we are raising/have raised, this one child gave severe doubt to us about our ability to parent well.
That's gone.
After talking to Bandy from Nancy Thomas' organization yesterday, we realize that our parenting has kept Jumoke from getting worse.
We have no tolerance for lying. Jumoke lied rather than tell the truth. But that seems to have gotten much better since last fall. He has a lot more candor. Bandy was even surprised by it. That's a great thing for a RAD child.
We have no tolerance for children trying to kill other children. Laugh if you want, but this was a real thing when Jumoke came home. Of course, we told ourselves that he was only 4 and he wasn't *really* trying to damage anyone else, it was just his culture, blah blah blah. But that no tolerance thing helped us to train Jumoke into a place of no violent physical aggression, and that still pretty much remains the case. Another plus for a RAD child.
And to my husband's constant irritation, I talk about feelings all the time. I start training my babies as soon as they are old enough to understand what their feelings are..."How do you feel right now? OK. That feeling is called sad. We all feel sad sometimes. This is what people do when they are sad."
When Jumoke came to us and didn't know ever how he felt, I began training him like I do our 3 year olds. It was just a natural thing with me.
Turns out that needing to understand and even *find* emotions other than rage is very important to a RAD child. He can identify all four basic emotions: glad, sad, scared, mad. He is mostly scared he says...scared of getting in trouble and someone making him stop...then mostly mad, then a little bit glad, and hardly ever but sometimes sad.
At least he recognizes emotions and can name them.
And to give Tim credit so that no one thinks he's a big meanie (which, oh! he is not), he said to me yesterday, "I was wrong. You did well. I'm glad you didn't stop doing that just because it annoyed me."
So we find that not only did we not make him worse, but with boundries and our own natural strengths, we have been able to maybe help him heal a little bit...without even knowing what we were dealing with.
In the last week, my life...my family's life...maybe even Jumoke's life...has completely been derailed and set on a different track.
A week ago I began the shift from seeing myself as Jumoke's attached, loving mother to realizing that the truth is that I've become...been becoming for the last two years....Jumoke's concerned caretaker.
Within the last three days, we've begun understanding that we might be dealing with a child who is handicapped in his mind and emotions.
And in the last 24 hours, we have slowly realized that our lives will never again be the same, no matter what choices we've made...or make.
Tim spent some time on the phone with a lady named Bandy from Nancy Thomas' organization. He was so blown away by all the information that he asked her to speak to me.
There is no diagnosis. No formal diagnosis.
But Jumoke so clearly and classically fits the RAD bill that we can no longer hope that we are mistaken.
At one point, I asked Bandy if there was a possibility that we were making all this up, that Jumoke was just a regular boy that we couldn't handle and we were trying to make ourselves more comfortable by trying to make him fit some disorder bill.
She was gentle, but her words of experience shut the door tightly on that hope.
I asked her if maybe we were wrong and it was some other thing that might be easier to deal with and live with.
Again she was gentle, but asked me if there is a marked change in behaviour when my husband is home as opposed to when he was gone. I told her the difference was like night and day. That when my husband was gone, we had to find another place for Jumoke to stay during my husband's trips. That weekend were *much* easier than weekdays.
Bandy told me that this thing is the one thing that is unique to RAD that none of the other disorders had.
I ran this way, I ran that way, trying to find a different door to go thru, desperate to find some other route than the one that was offered.
There was nothing but this.
I had a chat with Jumoke yesterday before I took him to Nana's house for the week. It's what I do best...talking, asking questions, listening, learning about my children. I asked him what I thought would be hard questions about taking people's things and hiding them when he was mad at them. He started grinning and couldn't stop. I had been missing one earring from each of two sets of my favorite earrings (My favorite things next to books are dangly earrings...I just get such pleasure out of them...silly, but true), and I asked him if he knew where they were. He definitely told me no, but was grinning crazily the whole time, grinning while we were talking about hard stuff, just really enjoying the talk.
I asked him why he was grinnng if he didn't take the earrings, and later why he was grinning since we were talking about hard stuff, and he said, "I don't know, Mom. I really want to stop grinning, really bad, but I can't."
It was eerie. But from what I'm learning about RAD, eerie is what he wanted it to be.
I told him "No more secrets. Nana and Daddy are going to know everything I know. Matthew is going to know that you take his stuff when you are mad at him. Ouseman is going to know that you tease and hurt him because you like it. No more secrets."
He just grinned crazily and said ok.
Bandy told me that under no circumstances should I ever allow him to be alone with the baby or with the more vulnerable children in our home. That broke my heart. It was our one hope, his loving the babies.
I talked with the other children yesterday. Maybe I should not have. But they have no idea why their stuff keeps getting canceled, why our lives have been so upside down, especially lately.
Jumoke gets worse every spring. We know this. But each spring, he is one year older and more sophisticated than the spring before. We've been barely able to hang on this spring. Last spring, I told my husband, "Well, at least we know it can't get any worse than this." Boy, was I wrong.
Anyway, I just told the children what I knew, and then sat back and let them cry and be angry and one of them even said that we couldn't be good parents if we couldn't find a way to keep Jumoke here and why would God send Jumoke to our house if He didn't mean to keep Jumoke here? I let her question and cry, because her questions were exactly my questions and accusations against myself over the last 2 years. I want to explain, and I will, but it will come later when her emotions are calmed down.
Ouseman tho was a little bit funny. I had to laugh, and laughing in that dark hour felt good. He began to cry and said, "I don't think I could live with Jumoke not being here." After a few moments, he was perky again with the thoughts of the torments and brokenness in our home being gone, and said, "I think I can do this. I would *love* it!" Then a few moments later crying and "I don't want to do this" and then later perky "Yes! This would be good for me!"
In the space of 1/2 hour, Ouseman covered the up and down emotions that my husband and I had been experiencing the last few years.
I told the children everything I knew because I want them to begin now getting used to the fact that things are not what we all thought they were. I told them that God might help us keep Jumoke here, but that God might also ask us to let Jumoke go for Jumoke's sake and for our sake. Daddy and I didn't know which it would be, but we needed to be prepared for either.
Either way would be hard. The children began to see that.
We talked a little about how things would not be getting better soon, and might even get a bit worse once Jumoke started therapy. All of this to get a realistic view of life with Jumoke in our home.
The children began to appreciate that having Jumoke stay would be as difficult as having Jumoke go.
We will never be the same.
Somehow I have GOT to find that place that says....
You give and take away,
You give and take away,
My heart will choose to say
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Huh. There has to be a good reason that this song has been in my head and in my heart constantly for the last two years.
Since this is an up kind of day, it might be a good time to record some of the more disturbing conversations I've had with Jamoke.
We had had a very hard few days with Jamoke. And our insides were pretty torn up by all that we were learning...and not accepting very well. So I was taking Jamoke's to stay at Nana's house for 24 hours to give us all a breather. Besides, my husband was going away on a Scouting trip with Ouseman, and Jamoke is really, really awful when Tim is out of town.
As we drove over to Nana's, just the two of us, I asked Jamoke if it made him sad when he was mean to someone and they started crying or yelling for him to stop.
"Not really," he said.
"Well, how do you feel when Ouseman starts crying or Matthew starts yelling when you are being mean to them?" I asked.
"Will you be mad at me?" he asked.
"Never. When we talk like this, I want to hear what you really think and I would never ever be mad at what you say, as long as it really is what you think."
"I kind of like it," he said.
"What do you mean? You kind of like what?" I asked.
"I kind of like it when they start crying and get all mad. It's kind of fun. But I do stop sometimes when they ask me to."
"What about when you don't stop. Like when Ouseman is crying and begging you to stop and you laugh at him and keep being mean to him? Or when Matthew is angry to almost crying and so frustrated that he starts shaking? How do you feel when they want you to stop but you don't?"
"Well," he said, "those times it is so much fun I just don't want it to stop."
"For most people, that kind of thing makes them feel sad. Do you feel sad even a little bit" I asked.
"Yes," he said. "I feel sad when they tell on me and you and Dad make me stop. No. I don't feel sad. It makes me kind of mad," he said.
"Why does it make you mad? What makes you mad? That they told? Or that we make you stop?" I asked.
"Both," he said.
The conversation ended there. I didn't have the stomach to continue.
Things are feeling a bit better this morning. Partly...well, in large part, because of the links that some of you have sent us. Wow! We are not unusual. We are not bad parents. Jumoke is not a "bad" boy (as in "bad seed"...we were getting kind of scared and letting mythical thinking take over...you know, those scary stories written years ago).
Here are a couple of the links that we found most helpful and encouraging. I'm posting them here as kind of a "favorites" place. But mostly because I'd like them all together in one place in case we need to show a therapist or counselor what we have been learning.
Thank you, Christine, for this one. Families By Design was a huge relief. There are a number of great articles in here, including one about moms and healing. Apparently with a RAD child, it is the mother that he is most abusive toward. Wonderful! At least if that is so, I'm not overreacting to my son's niggling, underhanded ways of trying to make me feel insane. It's normal! Yay! I'm normal!
There's also a great list of things to do for RAD kids. A lot of things we've already done wrong. But some things we've been doing well. And no matter that we are walking the road that says this won't end the way I want it to. We can be working with Jamoke until the end gets here.
Lots and lots of good things here.
This is one that my friend, Kim, sent us. It's a lot of information from the parents perspective. Again, very encouraging. We are very much like a number of other parents with a child with RAD. Whoo hoo! RadKid.org
And Addmama sent us so many really great links. We are going to subscribe to Natthan. Even if Jumoke doesn't end up living here anymore, it is such a relief to find out that we are normal people living under abnormal circumstances.
April 30, 2005...This is my first new post in this new blog. The other posts are things I've been digging up or transferring from my other blog. But I think it's all stuff written in the last week. I'm pretty sure I haven't dug any deeper than that.
"Strange, how God leads. Plants seeds that might lay dormant for a long time. Works in ways we don't understand."
My friend, Kim, said that. It's been tickling my mind since I read it. I think it's something I want to grab hold of, but I can't find a handhold yet. It feels like it's an important thing to know.
Everyday...more layers revealed...the onion smell makes my eyes smart...
I've been so sleepy, and I suspect that is partly because of the emotional impact of everything in the last week. Knowing what I know, but refusing to look at it. I've been pretty low the last couple days, crying a few times, which is a big deal because I don't actually cry much. Maybe wet eyes or a tear here and there, but I don't usually really cry. My husband watched me cry for a while with curiousity yesterday. If I hadn't been so sad, I would have laughed. Who could blame him? I mean, it's a fairly rare thing and it must have looked interesting, all the wet and red scrunched face and blowing my nose. Like I said, I would have laughed if it hadn't been a sad moment.
Today I was talking to a friend, and feeling low. And kept feeling low all thru our talk. And then she asked just the right question..."Are you going to tell people not to adopt from Liberia then?"
"No," I said. "No. Absolutely not. Because, well, think about it. If Jumoke has RAD, he had it long before he came here, and maybe his actions and attitudes were so hard on that family on top of living in the midst of war and not having any food, that sending him to the orphanage in the hopes that maybe an American family could help him get better was a good thing to them...as well as a relief for that family. And things haven't been so great for Jumoke here because he hasn't attached and spends his life feeling miserable and making everyone else miserable, but at least he has a bed and food and clothing and he gets schooled. That's more than he had over there. And if he hadn't come here, I wouldn't have learned all the hard ugly things I've learned, which have been really pretty good for me. God was merciful to all of us...me, our family, Jumoke, Jumoke's family."
It was like a warm ointment flowing over me. Being grateful is so healing. In those moments when I said those words I hadn't really thought of before, I was grateful to God for His mercies and quit looking at the hard stuff, and wow, it was wonderful. Like the old aching tooth analogy...the best part of an aching tooth is when it stops aching.
So now what?
I'm preparing my heart to lose Jumoke, unless God provides a miracle.
Some of my concern (regarding community discipline) is how Jumoke likes for other people to suffer when he's feeling badly. The adoption guy, Don, saw that as part of how Jumoke sees himself, and somehow thinks that this will short circuit the self pity cycle, which should help with Jumoke's abuse cycle toward his family as well.
I had many questions for Don. Below is the letter I just wrote him. I won't send it till tomorrow, because my emotions are still running quite high and I need to re-read the letter to make sure I still mean all that I said after I calm down. It's mostly asking him to explain himself better.
"Dear Don,
Thank you for the information you sent. We received it today, and found everything quite thorough. My husband has not yet found a counselor to work with Jumoke and/or us. We are trying to keep that a priority.
I am writing at this time in reference to your responses to a journal entry that my husband sent you; the one that I wrote.
If nothing else, my heart has been revealed toward Jumoke. It doesn't look very good. My first response to some of the things you wrote was intense anger and resentment. After some time, the emotions quieted a bit, and I have been able to look at the situation a little more clearly. I do have some questions so that I can better understand your referrals, your ideas for dealing with Jumoke.
You spoke of community discipline and community consequences. This frustrates me quite a bit. Partly because the children and I have missed out on so much...even peaceful days...because of how Jumoke responds to nearly all situations here at home. Partly because I'm afraid I see him as being quite pleased that other people would suffer for his actions. Perhaps this is an exaggerated response from a weary mother. I hope so.
But the question remains: how serious am I about grafting Jumoke into our family? How desperate am I to avoid dissolution?
Aside from the pretty negative emotions, I'm very serious and pretty desperate.
So tho it goes against everything inside of me, I'm willing to try this thing.
But I keep running into mental roadblocks. I need some more concrete examples, since this type of parenting is not something I've seen modeled.
First, do we do this with all of the children? I mean, if Anne disobeys by going out front without asking permission, then all of the children are restricted from going out front for a week with her? If Matthew throws his stuff on the floor, we all do jumping jacks (or whatever...I'm not thrilled with the jumping jacks either) while he picks up the floor? If Jumoke throws food at the table, then everyone eats peanut butter sandwiches off of paper plates for the next meal?
If it includes everyone, then that would certainly turn our home upside down for a few months while we change gears and learn this new way.
Some more specific situations:
Another one: Jumoke and Isaac throw down their coats and take off their shoes anywhere in the house. His daddy has said that if we see their stuff laying around, we must take it and put it in a box set aside for this purpose until the boy can earn them back. Isaac might lose one pair of shoes at a time, but he's very careful not to lose his second pair of shoes.Jumoke however doesn't mind losing shoes until he needs them. Which is right before we go out the door to movie night or dinner out or to visit relatives. He doesn't care much about earning them back until that moment, even with reminders.
OK. Do we all stay home with Jumoke? Our practice has been that he goes to Nana's or one parent stays home with him.
We tell all the children that no unkind teasing is allowed. Jumoke teases Ouseman until Ouseman cries. I call everyone in the living room and tell them that...what? We will all be pulling weeds together because one of us was unkind. So we all pull weeds together. And Jumoke snickers and grins at the kids because he got them in trouble. How would I handle that? Is this where I would hug him and ask him how he feels right then about the kids and why he thinks it's funny to him?
Have you seen this done? I mean, where a family switches gears when the children are older? How is the resentment of the older children handled? I'm assuming that if we do the same thing when each child disobeys that should take care of some of it, but when the majority of trouble is caused by Jumoke, it wouldn't take the children long to figure it out. Does the resentment just kind of magically turn into cooperative solution solving? Does the child respond positively fairly soon so that the exercise of community discipline becomes a family team effort instead of a family frustration?
Are there books or websites I can read about this to help me get a better handle on it?
I am praying about my heart condition toward Jumoke. My husband is praying for me as well. We kept Jumoke this week to see how things would be, and it is evident that these problems only happen when my husband is not home. When my husband is here, Jumoke is maybe naughtier than most boys, but he's not mean or manipulative or controlling to the unbearable point he is when my husband is not here.
The problem lies with me somehow. And that means the solution lies with me...somehow. And I'm not very happy about it. But like I said, we are praying. And God has changed my heart before. I'm sure He will again. And until that change takes place or begins, I want to garner all the information I can to help me help Jumoke. Understanding leads to forgiveness which leads to much love.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and thank your for taking the time to help our family.
With warm regards,
*******************************************
I did not send this letter. We decided that we simply could not do community discipline. While it might have helped Jumoke on some level, it would have been devastating to Ouseman, who has bonded well but is still fragile.
We recieved the letter today from Don, the guy from PLAN, who was making up a list of things for us to do with Jumoke.
One of the things he suggested was putting all of the children into sports because Jumoke needed to be in sports (they are finding that this is a good release and has positive impact on many children from Liberia who are struggling). He didn't think Jumoke should recieve special treatment, and tho he understood our hesitation to become a "sports family", he strongly encouraged us to consider this.
It kind of angered me. Not because we might be doing something we really don't want to do...we would do that for *any* of our kids if they were having problems and we thought it would seriously help them. What angered me was more time doing something I can't stand because Jumoke alone "needs" it. I feel like I've spent 4 years pouring into this boy to the point of neglecting some of my other children, and taking this step just frustrates me.
I'm well aware that this shows the condition of my heart and it isn't very pretty at all. But do you ever get to the point where you just want to say "So my heart is ugly! So what? I don't care! I'll just live with an ugly heart then!"
OK. Onto the hardest part of the letter.
Don said that Jumoke being isolated is very bad for Jumoke. We need to go to extremes to draw him in. For example, Jumoke cannot play out in the front yard because he will not obey the rules. He runs into the road,does dangerous things, goes into others' yards without permission, and will not obey Matthew if Matthew is in charge. So Jumoke must play in the backyard only (it's a *very* large back yard). However, Don's concern is that the other children go out front and play at times, and that leaves Jumoke alone.
His answer? Community discipline. If Jumoke can't play in the front yard, no one can play in the front yard. Here. I'll let you read his words:
"Jumoke will not fully understand consequences if he is always the object of correction. Thisis a time when you may need to apply the community principle. In this principle, you address the community {all the children) and instruct them pertaining to daily events. Yes,you can all go outside, however you can not leave the front yard. Perhaps one of the girls walks across the street to visit with neighbors. The conseuence is that everyone comes into the house or perhaps no dessert. This includes Mom and Dad. Another cexample is a clearly defined lie. Jumoke saidhe picked up his clothes and he did not. Everybody does jumping jacks including mom and dad. you will need to be creative but not extremely harsh. Comunity consequences must be at the level that all members of the community can participate. Ask for a volunteer to do jumping jacks while Jumoke picks up his room or have the group select someone. You might volunteer yourself. The the others can count while Jumoke is picking up his room. This may encourage him to hurry and will also be an encouragement to whomever is doing the jumping jacks. This will help all th cihldren to understand that consequences have a rippple effects on a family. After such a discipline take a moment with the children and ask how it made them feel. The ask what can they do to help each other in order to correct the behaviour. Tell them how important they are and how much you love them. This is also a time for hugs of forgiveness. After community discipline and discussion, always have the children give each other a hug and include yourself. This wll help build closeness. One important factor is to never idetify one child as being the source of community discipline. This means that Jumoke will be allowed to get away with some things. Many times the lie that one escapes from haunts them more than the one they have been caught in.
In regards to Jumoke being sent to the back yard to play while the other children are allowed to play in the front. This may be reinforcing Jumoke's negative feeling about himself and increasinghis level of isolation. If Jumoke is required to play in the back becausd of behaviour or trust issues, then all the children need to play in the back yard. When the other children complain, have the children corporately develop a solution that would allow them and Jumoke to play out front. In th beginning Jumoke may appear to the children as the problem but his role in the familyunit wille ventually become part of the solution to consequences as he and the others learn that wrong behaviour hurts self and others and getting even in not the solution."
Sorry about any typos. I had to type from his sheet of paper and don't have time to correct because Timothy needs me.
Anyway, I see this next year as intensely about Jumoke. Which I suppose shouldn't be a big deal, because a hurting child needs help. These are just two of the time consuming, Jumoke-centered things that Don feels we should do to graft him into our family. I see the value of both in a way.
But frankly, I'm tired of it. Jumoke's had four years of intense parenting from us, to the neglect of other things like I said earlier. Reading this pile of papers which asks for more intensity for a longer period of time just makes me want to cry. And my resentment against this situation is at an all time high. I know. That's really ugly. He's only 8.
But I want our life back!
I feel like I keep standing there with the door open and saying, "Well? In or out? Choose." And he won't choose so I have to keep standing at the door, and meanwhile there are other children who are in who are waiting for me to come away from the doorway and spend some intense time with them.
This may be it. If God doesn't change my angry resentful heart, it may be that Jumoke will have to go to another home, just because *I* would be bad for him. And disrupting an adoption is a very painful and expensive procedure for everyone involved.
. I need to love and it seems like there's none left in there. I need to go the extra mile, and my legs wobble and ache with the thought. I need to be more than I am, but there is just so much me to be had. I really need God. I have nothing left tonight.
Charles Taylor was the past "President" of Liberia. Like many leaders before him, he took over the country during a coup. He was born in Liberia, spent some time in the states in Los Angeles, and then went back and took over the country.
He bled the people dry of resources for his own personal gain. He certainly wasn't alone in this, but he was the leader. It's because of him that my boys' fathers died, and it's because of his greedy grasping for all that is good in that country that it became so poor. Of course, he didn't mind that the country was ravaged by war on top of the poverty...as long as he got what he wanted.
The Liberians cried out for help for *years*. Finally, President Bush stepped in and told Taylor to step down. Taylor, of course, would not. So Bush sent some Marines to Liberia, and then informed Taylor that the Marines were on the way, and that if he did not leave the country, then the U.S. would be coming in to make him leave.
He left.
There has been some recent news about him, but I am still unclear as to what the story is. I'll have to go look it up. I don't think he would dare re-enter Liberia while Bush is in office. If Bush leaves and a liberal is elected, then I wouldn't be surprised if Taylor tried to instigate another coup.
In all the 4 years and 1 month that we've had Jumoke, we have found not one single way to motivate him to change his behaviour. Nothing. Nada.
I've been talking to him a lot this last 48 hours...since I got that letter and realized I had nothing left to give him or this situation.
So today we are talking and this is how it went. I'm going to share a couple things afterward (one sad, one incredibly good, both about Jumoke).
"Jumoke, do you realize that when you act like you don't know what's going on and that you are confused and that your mom and dad are mean to you, do you realize that people that don't know you well do actually feel badly for you?"
"How did you know?" he asked, his jaw dropped.
"Because we live with you. We know you," I said.
"You never said anything," he said.
"I know," I said. "I didn't think I needed to until it occurred to me today that you might not realize what you are making them think about YOU when you do that."
"I don't understand," he said.
"You are trying to get people to feel badly for you and think Mom and Dad are mean to you and that the kids are mean to you, right?" I asked.
He had the grace to look embarassed. "I guess."
"OK. Well, what you are doing does work, because people often talk to Daddy and I about how hard we are on you and that we are expecting too much of you. But did you know that almost every time someone says something to us, that they also say that it's obvious that you think like a 3 year old and we shouldn't expect 8 year old behaviour from you."
"What?!" He was shocked beyond belief.
"Yep." I said. "Daddy and Nana and I know that you are very bright, and we even know that in many ways you are smarter than kids much older than you. But the people you trick into thinking you are a sad boy think that way because they think that your brain can only work like a 3 year old."
Peter looked like he was trying not to cry. "Does Amanda think I act like a 3 year old."
"Well, actually Amanda doesn't. We told her that you were very bright and that you only do that stuff to trick people, and she believed us, so no...Amanda doesn't think that about you," I said.
He looked very relieved. Then concerned again.
"What about Uncle Dado?" he asked.
"I'm afraid so."
"Uncle and Aunt?"
"Yes. At least that's what they've said to me."
Jumoke went thru a list of people that he was concerned about, and more than half of the people had expressed concerns about his mental capacity or comprehension levels.
Jumoke was horrified.
It was interesting to notice that after that talk, Jumoke was much more straightforward when he talked to us, not stuttering or wringing his hands, not looking around for an answer, lost the blank look and the slack jaw.
This was *horrible* news for him.
Just yesterday when we were doing school, he could not do his math. Every problem he asked for help with involved a problem that was +1. I knew he was messing with me, trying to get me to spend all our school time with him. I got frustrated, but calmly told him that if he couldn't remember his +1s that I wouldn't have a problem putting him back into the kindergarten book.
"Oh! Wait. I *think* I remember. Let me try again."
He did the rest of his math just fine.
Jumoke has a huge issue with appearing to be a baby or immature. I didn't realize that until our talk today. I don't know what I'm going to do with it, if anything.
********************************************
Another conversation:
"Jumoke, if everyone in this family went outside, and there was a big bad man and he was going to throw a rock at one of us, but we had to decide who, who would you think he should throw it at."
"I don't care," he said. "As long as it wasn't me."
"OK. What about if you and our baby and the other babies (cousins, aged 2 and 3) were out front and the same thing happened."
His face blanched but he almost shouted, "Me!"
"Why do you not care if it's everyone in the family, but you care if it's the babies?" I asked.
"Because they are so small," he said, his eyes tearing and overflowing. "It would hurt them too bad."
I've never ever seen him put anyone before himself. This is the first time. It puzzles me. But in spite of being puzzled, I'm grateful to see something besides anger coming from him.
I am going to start having him help more in Timothy's care...with me right there every moment. And see if he can help to babysit the babies with an adult. I'm sure my sibllings would allow it. I want to work with this as much as possible to bring out positive successful interaction with *someone*. The babies are an excellent beginning.
