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!