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

Umeme's God Story from OHIO

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.

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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 Lord’s 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, “Let’s 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 don’t 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 don’t 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.

dissolution  adoption  disruption   RAD  attachment disorder  reactive attachment disorder

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.

Do I love him?

More than I can possibly say with words.

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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.

Boy! Did I ask for trouble!

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.

March 2002

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.