Court Date, Take 2

As we filed into the courtroom this afternoon, we passed another adoptive family on their way out.  Apparently not aware that we make a habit of hanging out in Family Court, on his way past the father murmured to me, "don't worry, she's nice."  I thought that well, some people must have a more straightforward situation than ours, because "nice" would have been about the last word that would pop into my mind to describe our last encounter with this judge!

Today our court session went more or less like one would imagine it should have gone the first time.  There was no interrogation session of the mother, as she swayed vaguely with either drunkenness or pain, and gave increasingly confusing and conflicted answers while staring off somewhere in the middle distance.  The probation officer had his ID card and his report written up, and the judge only asked if he had done one thing that he hadn't actually completed, instead of him standing there with his head hanging like a naughty schoolboy.  The judge did not need to demand multiple times "I am looking for the truth -- the TRUTH -- and I expect to hear it."  Nor did she repeat "you can tell I am already not happy about this situation."  And most importantly of all, the courtroom was not invaded with extra people who weren't on the lawyers' lists, saying such inflammatory things that they inspired almost everyone else in the room to stand up and start shouting.

In fact, this time the judge actually smiled.  Multiple times, especially at the children doing funny little child-like things.  Buttercup was sitting on my lap, and when I gave her one of her favorite song books, she started cheerfully singing about five little ducks in her piercing little chirping voice. I don't imagine that the judge gets serenaded very often!

This time our group was much smaller.  Miss B from the Babies' Home arrived with one aunt and a grandmother, who were the ones who have been somewhat involved in the children's welfare from the beginning.  The only hitch was that the father had gone to the clinic in the morning and then they couldn't find him there, but he made his way to the courthouse on his own and showed up a while after everyone else.  We came with our five-person family, and the children's teacher, Derrek.  The Probation Officer arrived on his own, and the lawyer had gotten a copy of his report earlier in the day.  Along with our lawyer and her assistant, that was our entire group.  The birth mother was not there, nor were a number of other relatives, nor the Local Council Official.  The disturbing aunties did not even bother to show up to clarify their position.

The judge started off my taking Mark's and my testimony.  It was a little confusing giving it, because we didn't know how much she was going to ask.  Afterwords, I was a little frustrated that I hadn't even gotten into talking about one whole area, because I hadn't realized that she was finished with me.  She started by asking Mark some logistical questions about his income and whether I had pressured him into agreeing to this adoption, and then she was pretty much done with him.  She didn't ask him anything about the girls or his relationship with them, although I'm sure she noticed that they spent most of the (very long) hearing vying for position on his lap.

The judge asked me why I wanted more children when I already had one and might have more.  With hindsight, I guess this is kind of the basic question of "why did you choose to adopt?" but the wording kind of threw me, and I was just thinking that it was an awfully strange question in a country with a birthrate of seven children per mother!  Why would I NOT want three instead of one?  She asked me some details about my stay here, and then I had said something about learning about them in the last few months, and she asked me what I had learned.  I spoke about their personalities shining through, and then described how passive and withdrawn Buttercup had been at the beginning, and the long slow process of her starting to trust me, and how lively she was now.  I mentioned that Hibiscus had opened up and told me stories about her former life, and the judge asked "like what."  I had written up a document of all her stories, and I felt a little hesitant to go into them in front of Hibiscus and her father right there, but I just dived in and gave an overview.  I mentioned something about giving the children beer, even baby Buttercup, and Buttercup was sitting on my lap and she suddenly piped up and said "me no likey giving baby Buttercup be-eer."  I repeated this for the judge, and Buttercup repeated it too, and everyone smiled.  (Maybe not the father; he was sitting behind me and I was not trying to meet his eyes at that point anyways!)  But then the judge moved on to asking the teacher about Hibiscus's progress, and I never got around to talking about Hibiscus's difficulties and the improvements she has made.

The teacher got to talk about Hibiscus making progress and what was important about her being successful at his school, and was asked whether she could manage in a village school that the relatives could pay for, or in a school in America.  He talked a lot about the importance of love in education, and that their philosophy is education with love, and how much Hibiscus needs love and encouragement in order to thrive.  I think we all understand that most Ugandan schools don't have a lot of love getting thrown around, but he said that he had heard that our American school was quite loving.

Emerson had been inspired by Hibiscus's little written testimony, and wanted to write up a statement of his own.  The judge smiled at the notebook page, and called him up to stand next to her and read it to him.  It created a much calmer and warmer atmosphere to have the children speaking to her while they were next to her at her desk, instead of speaking from the tables in the big room.  Emerson stood up there by himself and read her his whole paper out loud, and then answered a couple of questions, looking very adorable in a British-school-child-like.  He was clearly nervous but made it through everything with his usual charm and aplomb.

Then Hibiscus was supposed to come up and talk about her testimony.  She was shy and embarrassed, and needed me to come with her to "help her with the words."  She didn't manage to say much at all, but she buried her head in my tummy a lot, and whispered that I was her mommy and she wanted to go America, which I think got her central point across!

Buttercup said to me that she didn't want to go up, and the judge didn't expect her to.  But in the middle of something else, while chairs were being moved around or someone else was talking, she remembered her little speech, and suddenly waved her hands around pointing as she said "dis one my mama, dis one my daddy, dis one my brother."  I don't think anyone besides me noticed, though!

The birth father and auntie were called upon to describe the family meeting, which they did in Luganda.  I think there was a letter from the LC1 chairman, who moderated, but the judge wanted it written up in a more official format from the lawyers.


By the end of the afternoon, it seemed like things had gone smoothly and the judge was pretty much intending to write us the guardianship orders.  Which is really really good and sets my heart at ease, although it will be even more at ease when I see them in real life signed and stamped in triplicate!

However, she mentioned that there are a great many cases to go through right now -- unsurprisingly, since court has basically not been moving for six months or so -- and that maybe she would be able to have them written up by December 19th.  It is still November right now.  Not only is that date an awfully long and lonely time away, it obviously scuttles any chances we would have of getting home by the holidays.  No one seems to care where we spend Christmas, but the judge did listen to our concerns about our visas running out.  Mark has a powerful friend through business networks, who has managed to get Emerson and I several extensions on our passports, for a full seven months which is longer than what we could normally get.  But the final one runs out at the end of December, and then we will have to leave the country in order to get new Ugandan visas.

That means me, on a bus to Kenya with three confused and crazy kids.

The judge asked who I had to help out with the children.  I think many well-to-do Ugandans keep housekeepers or nannies, but we don't.  It's just me, alone.  My husband leaves tomorrow and I'm going to be a-looooone again!!!  I think I managed to not start wailing in the middle of Family Court!

The judge said she would try to write out her report sooner, but she needs to have a few more papers and be able to look over things thoroughly.  And we all thanked her and left.



So tonight, I feel fairly confident that we can talk about Buttercup and Hibiscus's future life in America -- which luckily they never quite figured out was in doubt for a while.  We can hope and pray for the guardianship papers to come out quickly.  After we have those, we can apply to the Ugandan passport office to get passports for the girls... if they're not closed for the holidays already.  After we have passports, we can apply for American visas... if by that point THEY are not closed for the holidays!  So maybe, possibly, barely, we will make it home to be a family of five in 2013.

Or maybe not.  But one of these days, I think we will be.

Court Date Tomorrow, Part 2

Hopefully it will go more smoothly! I want to make my girls some promises when I kiss away their fears at night.

****the next morning****

This time, our court time is mid-afternoon, so we get to have a quiet morning at home to prepare. Or at least, that's the idea. We decided not to send the kids to school, because school is really pretty exhausting and we didn't want them to feel exhausted on top of everything else. Thus again, the supposed quiet morning at home.

What do we really have?

We had a sweet moment at 6:45 when Buttercup came into our bedroom with a little hopeful smile on her face, and quietly snuggled in between her parents for a while... instead of what she usually does, which is to play increasingly vigorously until she wakes everyone else up. Hibiscus slept a whole half hour further and woke up naturally, instead of getting poked by her little sister, which I would think would improve her feelings for the day.

Then we had giant meltdowns from Emerson. He saw markers (which were hidden away at the old house, but somehow visible here) and wanted to color with them. He whined and whined at me until I told him the discussion was over and ignored him, which made him mad. He thought Hibiscus was getting too much Daddy-time and he wanted his Daddy-time RIGHT NOW THIS SECOND. (With markers, of course.)  Then he didn't want to get dressed.  Then Hibiscus was very being very helpful -- if somewhat over-enthusiastic -- in getting breakfast ready with me, and Emerson wanted to do the exact job she was doing and not the job he was supposed to do.  Then he had to spend a while having a Sit in the bedroom, which involved a lot of screaming.  We made it through breakfast with a very nice Skype call from an auntie back home.  After breakfast, more screaming.  They didn't want to get dressed.  Hibiscus wanted to wear socks outside.  They disagreed about how to play Chutes and Ladders.  The plan is that the kids will play outside and get their wiggles out and free time in, while Daddy and I do the boring things, but the kids did not want to go outside.  They're tired, it's too hot, it's too boring, there's nothing to do, they don't like playing.  Really?  You don't like PLAYING?  Good grief.

It's probably nerves about the court date, or general unsettledness about being off our routine.  But it is not making for a peaceful morning at home.

Meanwhile, I've made some calls, written up our Family Sit Policy, organized clothes, and made lists.  Time to get packing.



The kids keep talking about what is going to happen next: Going to the zoo tomorrow.  Spending next Thanksgiving with Gramcy.  Going on the airplane.  Going to Waldorf School.  Playing with the dogs, Doney and Monaghan.  Taking swimming lessons at the Y.  Getting new pretty dresses (because both girls have grown an entire size in the last few months, and are bursting out of their clothes).

Oh, how I pray our "next" is coming.  And I pray we're taking the first step towards "next" today.

Happy Thanksgiving

I understand that somewhere in the world, people are gathering with their families and eating turkey and getting ready to go shopping for great deals, at stores which don't pay 54% import tax on everything on their shelves.  I am not really missing the Thanksgiving-ness, probably because I never picked apples and got out my sweaters and watched the mums come out and trimmed back the roses; in my heart it's still gotta be about August 23rd or so.  I haven't had the energy to try and prepare a fake thanksgiving kind of thing, but we let the kids take the day off school, which we are spending at the swimming pool at the Speke Resort.  Once we finally got out the door.

The days keep passing on by.  Tomorrow is our rescheduled court date, so it's good that is getting closer.  The next day Mark leaves, which I am not glad is getting closer.  I wanted somewhere to enjoy his trip more.  How do you enjoy being with a person?  How do you treasure every moment with someone?

We form different relationships with different people, and maybe with some long-distance friends we have a long-distance pattern, or we have something special we always do together, or we know how to sit down and have heart-to-heart chats at every opportunity.  But that's not the relationship I have with my own husband.  Maybe it was ten years ago, when our relationship was fresh and exciting.

Now we're good at being silent together.  We're good at seeing what needs doing and setting ourselves to doing what we each do best.  We're good at sitting down to dinner, and I get things from the kitchen and he keeps the kids engaged.  We're good at talking over the things that come to our mind or bother us during the day or that we are thinking about, when it comes to our minds.  We're good at working on our separate projects, and tossing out a comment now and then, or sharing an irony we notice.  We're good at splitting bedtime up.  We're good at sleeping with our backs together, like a solid support through the darkest night.

But I guess we're not good at "making the most" of a few days' time together.  Which right now is weighing on my heart, but I also feel resentful, like we SHOULDN"T have to be good at it.  We're not meant to spend a few special days together, we have a relationship that's built to go the distance.  I couldn't spend my whole life with someone if we sat down to serious talks every moment, but I can spend my whole life with someone who is good at being silent with me.  I feel like a six-day trip with my husband is like asking a Volvo to run with the Miatas.

(And the car metaphor is in his honor, since I would never even think of car brands if he weren't around!  And I'm going to have to ask him which brand to use, actually.)

But.... I will be thankful on this Thanksgiving.  I am so thankful that we can celebrate this day as a family of five, although it would be a little easier to feel that thanks all the way down to my toes if we had a little more paperwork that meant the girls were safe in our family forever.

We spent the whole afternoon at the pool, and I love watching my children play.  They express the essence of their personalities in those moments.  Hibiscus, who has been on constant overdrive since the move and all the other disruptions, calmed down into the focus of playing and moving in the water.  By the end of the day her wild energy had been burned down to the point where she was sitting with me and her sweetness and loving heart and desire to listen and connect were right there on the surface, instead of buried under these layers of chaos that are so difficult on parents -- and everyone else, including herself.

I got the girls showered, and as we waited in the golden afternoon light, Buttercup calm in the wrap, Hibiscus sitting next to me on a pool chair: she wanted to watch some "beautiful birds," and made up a conversation for the ring-necked doves in a funny little dove-voice.  They were sisters in her mind, which I thought was an image of a central relationship in her mind (if one were bigger, it would be mama and baby, obviously!).  She was leaning on me, and then when I got out the brush she wanted to do my hair, and she waited for me to take the barrettes out and then gently and lovingly brushed my hair.  When we were ready to go, her eyes were quickly on our faces, figuring out what we wanted so she could be the best helper.  She chose to carry a heavy bag, and only released it when she realized she couldn't carry it and hold both parents' hands, which was even more important to her little heart.  Her desire to please and connect and be praised and love-love-loved is so strong and powerful, and sometimes my heart breaks for her, because her usual behavior is constantly cutting off that connection she craves so deeply.  And not only craves, but she is gifted at creating that connection -- when she isn't busy cutting it apart again.

I look forward to the next phase in our relationship, when we're not just in this constantly chaotic "what is a family, am I going to be here in the morning, how to not hit" phase.  When we can search deeper into her own self, and find the "off" button for some of her chaos.  Or Mark pointed out, we don't even need to turn it all the way off; if she could move from, say, eleven down to seven, we could all live with it.  Noise and enthusiasm make for happy kids even if the parents are a little tired; children who smash their heads into things, and as they crash their way through life whenever they careen off another body they think that person is trying to purposefully hurt them, are not happy themselves and their parents are not able to be happy with them.

Meanwhile, tonight we dared eat dinner at the resort to celebrate Thanksgiving, on the veranda overlooking a little decorative lake  We had Indian food, not turkey.  There was significant difficulty with the "stay in your seat and don't fall in the pond" rule; it was like solving a puzzle to keep all the food and drinks where the children couldn't spill them (one inch of water at a time!); and both girls started crying hysterically when the party next door set off fireworks.  As Mark pointed out, it would have been a lot more relaxing with drinks (more than an inch deep!) in our hands and significantly fewer children!  But I think it makes a statement about our family that we're taking our kids to a fancy restaurant at all:  We are saying that we think our children are beautiful and they're worth it.  We are saying that we're willing to teach them what they need to know to be successful in society.  We are saying that it's a special day and our time is most special when it's all together.

And Mark and I are saying that we're up for an adventure.  Which is something we are good at doing together!

Hibiscus's Testimony

Today I will step into Hibiscus's shoes for a little while.  I have been thinking about her stories in order to prepare her for facing the court again in a few days.  Several of our allies have pointed out that it is Children's Court, and the most important voice is that of the children, and therefore how important it is for the children to find their voice and say what is important to them.  Hibiscus is terrified of having to say something in court again.  I think partly the judge's interrogatory manner confused her (she says she understands the judge wasn't angry at her, though), and partly she sensed the fear and animosity in the room, and partly it is very upsetting for her to have to say (or even think) negative things about her former life when her birth parents are right in the room with her. 

So to prepare, we have talked about a few simple things that she can say.  And we worked together and wrote up her own testimony.  I helped with the spelling and wrote a few of the words, but the whole page is her own declaration.  It was a very big project for a girl who could hardly write her name a few months ago -- when I was looking through my paperwork I found a letter of recommendation that she had doodled on the back while suffering through a boring meeting.  Her writing has improved years' worth at American Montessori!  (So has Emerson's, actually.)

We have also been trying to practice something for all three children to say.  Hibiscus is nervous, but can remember a few of the things off her paper.  Emerson wants to say something to the judge, but he isn't sure of what to say.  And Buttercup is happily practicing her lines: "Dis one my daddy.  Dis one my mama."  And she points to each of us in turn.


So here is Hibiscus's written testimony, and here are a few of the stories I collected for a document  I can present with her representation of life in her birth family's home.  I am cautious of her privacy, so I am telling the more benign stories that she tells casually.

Another story is about Buttercup. Both girls are absolutely terrified of dogs and cats, and Hibiscus explains why. This story has also been told several times. Hibiscus acts out the story, and Buttercup participates and seems to agree. "Baby Buttercup was sitting here, like this. (puts Buttercup on a cushion in the middle of the room) The dogs are coming up! Many, many dogs, they are coming to baby Buttercup. (puts toy animals and bowls around in a circle, to demonstrate dogs circling Buttercup on her pillow) They go like this. (she pretends to be a dog and growls at Buttercup) We are very very scared, the dogs, they might kill baby Buttercup, she might even die! We are very scared. Then ---- (name I don't recognize), she come and grab baby Buttercup like this. (lift Buttercup up by the armpits and swoops her away) She run, run, run with Buttercup, and the dogs don't get baby Buttercup." Who was the person? "She, she a friend." Is she a child like you, or a grown-up? "She big, big like this. (lifts hand to indicate very tall)"

About her life in general:
Did you go to school every day? (she is confused) Every day in a row, did you go to school, like you do now, or only sometimes? "Oh, is sometimes. Is not like now, I go every every day now."

I asked once if her mama went away. She was a little confused by the question, and answered: "No, is my daddy who is going away. He go 'way very very long time. He go 'way long times, and is no food to eat. My sister and me, we is very very hungry. My daddy goes 'way and we is very very VERY VEEERY hungry, no food 'till daddy comes back. Is gone and we very hungry."

She is very frightened of bugs and especially rats. It took her weeks to believe that we didn't have any rats in her home, and the rats were not going to come in the night and bite her toes. She talked about this very frequently when she first was living with us. She would search for rats, and jump down to show us the places where the rats bit her toes and her fingers. One time she started talking about the rats biting her fingers, and Buttercup looked and her own fingers and started to cry.

"I 'membering, when it is night-time, dark dark DAAARK night, even the stars are out, our house it is dark, and it is just my sisters and me. Buttercup, and me, we are all alone. Our daddy is not there, our mama is not there. Our mama, she goes walkin' about, that what our daddy say, she walkin' about, she walkin' about for long times, no is home. And our daddy is gone too, house is very very dark." What did you do then? "We cried. We is all crying."

Some Good News

Just a short update with some positive news....

First of all: Look who's here!  

With a second court date and all the delays, Mark decided to cancel some meetings and fly out of his trade show straight to us.  I couldn't believe it until I had my arms around him again!  He arrived late Saturday night and leaves next Saturday night.  I have never been one for ruining time together with worrying about time apart, but this time it is really bothering me.  It feels so natural to have him here and be able to talk with him and do things together, and yet I know our time together is just a brief blip and soon I will be back to all-by-my-lonesome.  So I'm trying hard not to worry about it, but failing!  And I wish I felt livelier and we were doing wonderful things for his time here, but I'm still absolutely exhausted, and there still is not much of anything to do.  Or rather, there's not much to do that fits between the school schedule and the nap schedule and the darn Kampala traffic.  

Yesterday, which was Sunday, we had a mild day and took a walk around our new neighborhood in the afternoon.  Buttercup fell asleep just before we got back, and I laid her down on her bed.  The older kids were supposed to rest, too, but Hibiscus was getting whinier and wilder and stubborn-er.  Before she went totally nuts, Daddy offered to read her books in the other bedroom, and they went in and snuggled under the covers with a big pile of books, and were asleep the next time I checked on them.  Meanwhile, Emerson and I played a little game in the living room.  What an amazing concept -- handling difficult behavior by giving the kids extra positive attention, instead of just helplessly demanding that they do things!  What a difference and extra pair of loving arms makes!

Next the bit of bad news: our second court date, which was scheduled a week from the first on (on Tuesday) has been rescheduled.  For Friday.  So we have to wait longer to have things with the crazy aunties resolved, AND it means all the rest of the paperwork is also pushed back... now almost two full weeks from the original hope.  Now (if everything goes well) it really is a race of hoping that everything will get done before the Christmas holidays start and our visas run out at the end of December.  But worst of all, it's a Friday afternoon date, and if there is any more tiny delay, we will run out of Mark's visit... and the whole point was that he cancelled things and raced over here for the court date.  So that makes me frustrated.

But the family had their meeting that the judge ordered yesterday, and apparently it went..... "well" seems like an awfully positive word to use.  The LC1 Chairman came to mediate.  (The Local Councils are the most immediate form of government in Uganda, and are very important in cases like these.  We have had officials from three different Local Councils involved in this case, and this LC1 gave very important and illuminating testimony at the first hearing.)  I spoke with the lawyer on the phone today and we will meet with her tomorrow.  Phone conversations are always so difficult here -- I can manage to understand one or two words out of three!  But the gist of it seemed to be that the father said he would commit suicide if the aunties did not stop objecting to the adoption, until finally someone or other (aunties themselves? other family members? not sure yet) thought that it was pretty unreasonable that someone would have to commit suicide in order to make his own decision about his own children, so the aunties had no choice but to back down.  Um, well, that's one way to reach family consensus!  

So hopefully we can get to understand what happened a little better tomorrow, speaking with the lawyer directly.  There is also paperwork that the LC1 made up from the meeting, which will be signed (or something like that).  So I think this means that the worst probability of the aunties' case being successful is over, although who knows what will actually happen in court.

Further Thoughts on Courtroom Drama

I meant to unpack the house this morning and write this post in the afternoon, but it's so difficult to do, that somehow I have been writing other things all afternoon instead.  I hope that my readers aren't trying to learn a lot about the process of adoption in Uganda, because although I think about the things that are going wrong all day long, I find it hard to face them front-on enough to write about them.  This time around, every time I lay down to sleep or am waiting for something or do mindless chores, my mind goes straight back to what I want to say to the judges and the disapproving aunties.  I get no rest from it, yet it's strangely hard to actually stop and talk about it.

I wrote about what happened at court on that evening, but here are some more thoughts that have developed with time, both from myself and other people's perspectives.

People keep telling me not to worry, and that the aunties were too late and too insincere and too obviously lying, and that they won't get their way.  Miss B, the orphanage director, says she thinks the judge already has her mind made up.  (She also says she has never yet seen relatives come in to block a case at the eleventh hour like this!)  Diane tells me that anyone in their right mind knows what is best for the girls, and obviously the judge is sensible, so we're going to be okay.  The lawyer, Rebecca, keeps telling me that everything will be all right and not to be worried.  She said it on her own behalf, and said she talked with the jiajia and the auntie who have been supportive all along, and says that they say not to worry as well.

But I can't help but worry.  I see the logic in what they say, and agree that the crazy aunties have a slim chance.  But even a slim chance is too much for my babies.  They came from a house of pain -- of neglect and abuse and fear and hunger and selfishness and uncertainty.  I have held them as the walls of pain start to crack and shudder, and seen the eyes of two little children looking out of their two little prisons, fearful but hopeful of joining the real world.  What if the crazy aunties convince some of the supportive relatives?  What if they manage to come up with a plan that sounds reasonable on the outside?  What if the judge decides that the family's right to the children is stronger than their own childish choice?  What if the judge decides to let them try it out?  What if.... and I can't even write what would happen next.  I can't do it.


If the judge knows what is right for the children and assesses that the aunties are crazy, why would she even give them a week's chance to work out a solution?  Rebecca's theory is that they will make even more trouble another way, which is why she didn't prevent them from coming into court.  I suppose the reasoning, is that if the judge granted the adoption and then the aunties took their version of events to the street or to the press, it could look really bad: "We live in the village, so far away!  We love our nieces so much!  We never knew they were in an orphanage!  We heard they had a sponsor, but we never dreamed they would leave Uganda!  We rushed to the courtroom to save them, and bloodied our poor hands beating down the door, but they wouldn't hear us!  Now the poor girls will never know their culture or their family!  Adoption is evil!"  So instead, the theory goes, the judge gave them enough rope to hang themselves.  She asked the pointed questions -- "how much money did you give the family? how often? would you let them live in your house? then where would they live? would you pay for the school fees?" -- and then told them to go make peace in their family and find a solution.  The theory is that they won't be able to find a solution, and in fact they have very little interest in actually finding a solution, and their argument will deflate.

(Other notes: It seems like they are lying in other ways as well.  In the pre-court hallway-arguments, the aunties told Diane and I that they lived so far away they had no idea what was happening, but they told the judge they lived nearby.  They said they are the girls' father's sisters (i.e. biological aunts), but it seems likely that they are actually more distantly related.  They said they visit their brother every week, which doesn't jive with either the part about being so far away nor the part about having no idea what is going on with the children.  One of them also makes a big deal about being a pastor's wife and thus also a good Christian, which is perhaps more a matter of opinion than an absolute lie...)

African families have never-ending amounts of relatives, but in this case, very few of them have actually been involved in the girls' lives.  Even some of the relatives who have taken an interest in the family and done something on their behalf, the girls don't actually know in person.  All of the relatives whom they have managed to find in three family searches have been very positive about the girls being adopted, and several of them have just-so-happened to bump into us on the streets of Bbunga and thank me passionately.  The relatives have said over and over, in many different ways, in their comments when we meet, in the affidavits the lawyers helped them prepare, in their testimony in court: "we have tried and we have failed.  We have failed the girls utterly.  But we want them to have a good life!"

But what if their resolve is worn down from a week of arguing?  What if the aunties find more uninvolved relatives and dribble poisonous untruths in their ears?  What if they come up with a new plan that sounds reasonable on the surface?

I want to clarify that I absolutely support the rights of the birth family to their children.  The relatives also wanted the child back with our previous match with Rehema, and although we worried that the mother was being pressured, we wouldn't have dreamed of trying to convince her to change her mind.  What is so galling in this case is that the aunties have never taken any interest in the children and don't seem to be planning on taking much interest in them.  Even their logic sounds so selfish!  They say "they will be taken away from Uganda for eighteen years and they won't remember their culture or me."  Remember you?  Seriously?  First of all, they don't have any idea who you are right now, because you have never paid any attention or visited them.  Secondly, how can you possibly imagine that not being remembered is worth taking away everything that they are being offered in a new family?

And what are we offering?  Obviously, on the surface it is a much better life, with plenty of toys and clothes and space in a big van.  In fact, that's kind of ridiculously better, and I kind of cringe at how children are taken so far out of the world they know when they are adopted.  But we offer something much, much more: we have a loving and stable home for them.  Because the way they are now, the girls will never be able to succeed at any type of life -- even just living in the slums of Kampala -- without someone who is willing to spend a lot of time and energy to help them out of the emotional prisons they are in.


The best case scenario would be that the aunties just slink away with their tails between their legs and don't even show up to court next week.  The next best case might be that they are still raving, but everyone else is calm and firm.  But what if there is no "best" at all?  What if they have a plan that sounds reasonable?  I guess I will just have to be ready to argue that the family is in such bad shape there is no way to salvage it, at least in time for these childhoods.  I need to argue it until the judge can't ignore it any longer.  I need to write down all the stories that Hibiscus has told me about the abuse and accidents and pain.  I need to write down all the ways the children were socially incompetent when they arrived here, and how much work is left to do.  Because social incompetence closes all the doors, absolutely all of the last ones that might have had a crack left after the limited education and general poverty have done their share.  So I need to write it all out, because after what I have seen and heard and held in my arms in these last months, I honestly believe to the bottom of my soul there is no way these children can be in this family and be safe or healthy.  So far, people in the courtroom have alluded to the problems, but I have to be ready to face it head-on, and define exactly how ugly it is.  And hopefully not in front of the children themselves, but there might be no choice.

I can't stop planning it in my mind.  I keep running through the horrors Hibiscus has narrated, both dramatically and off-hand, so I don't forget to include anything.  I keep running through what I might need to say, and having to imagine talking about the abuse in front of the abuser and the abused -- and all the people who ignored it.

But so far, I can't bring myself to write it.  But I tell those girls I love them every day.  And for their part, when they see me in pictures or the mirror, they say calmly and confidently "dis one, dis my Mama."

Another Evening in the Monkey-House

This last week, our dinners have been along the lines of grilled cheese toast (until we ran out of bread), oatmeal, and cereal.  Seriously.  I've tried to throw in some apple or carrot sticks or something, but it's been very far from cooking proper food.  Tonight I was still tired, but thought I could step my mom-game up at least a notch or two.  Our new house has a rice cooker, so I put rice and lentils in that, and then actually went to all the trouble of making a vegetable sauce.  The gate-keeper at these apartments seems to grow a giant garden of mostly Swiss chard, and he generously gave us a large serving.  Hibiscus loves "greens," so I set about making a pot of greens in tomato sauce to serve with our rice.  I know that Emerson won't eat it, but both the girls are very excited about a proper dinner of "food and soup" and looked eagerly into the cooking pot.

While the kids were playing outside after school, Emerson and Hibiscus came running up to me with a branch of something that looked kind of like rosemary, but wasn't, and said that Hibiscus liked to eat it and would I cook it, and you're supposed to take the leaves off it and cook it.  I kind of brushed them off, and reminded them not to pick the plants.  It got dropped on the floor and abandoned for more interesting pursuits.

Then it was time to clean up before dinner.  Oh, what a long and painful process!  As you probably know by now, I do a lot of parenting-by-routine.  Waldorfians call it "rhythm instead of discipline," but I think of discipline as disciple-ship and not necessarily negative.  But I try to set up a strong and absolutely consistent routine, and it helps a lot to contain the internal chaos of my kids.  Any child benefits from consistent expectations, but Emerson and Hibiscus have very little internal regulation, so the external part makes a big difference, and it will eventual teach them self-regulation as well.

Dinnertime chores in a basket.  They took turns drawing them, to make it exactly clear who is supposed to do what, and even in what order.

And do you know what that means?  The last week has been chaos.  The new house does not yet have a routine, and the kids can't figure out how to find themselves in it.  Normally they are like pinballs shooting off the walls by dinnertime, but at least pinballs with an occasional purpose, and they really actually manage to get the table cleared and set almost every night.  But now?  Hibiscus has a vague memory of "clear Mama's stuff," so she picks up my computer keyboard and wanders around the house with it, opening and closing it, for minutes.  I tell her where to put it down, but it's in the kitchen instead of the bedroom like the last house, which she can't articulate to herself but she refuses to put it there and dissolves into wailing when I try and take it from her before she breaks it.  Emerson brings a piece of trash to the bin, but he has to spend time remembering where the trash is, so then on his way back he starts doing a balancing beam act on the broom instead.  And this table looks somehow much more messy than the last table, so both of them feel like the job of clearing it is impossible.

Somewhere in the middle of all the human pinballing, someone found the random herb on the floor and asked me to put it in the food.  I said we weren't going to put it in the food, and reminded them of the correct job.  I'd finished the sauce, which was just simmering, so I stepped into the bedroom to take care of something.  Emerson came running in eagerly, telling me that Hibiscus fixed the plant and now we get to eat it for dinner!  I went back to the stove, with Buttercup peering out of the wrap over my shoulder, and found little rosemary-like leaves all over the top of my simmering sauce.  I did not really feeling like adding a strange bitter herb to my sauce, and picked as many of them out as I could, while trying to direct the wild table-clearing-not-really, but many of the leaves were stuck in the other stuff in the pot.

This is a mess.  Don't step on that.  Don't drop that on the floor.  Please get the spoons.  And then I had a sudden suspicion.

I went over and asked Hibiscus if she actually knew what the plant was, and had eaten it before.  She wouldn't look at me.  I asked her again.  I took her hands.  I made her look at me.  Finally she shook her head; she had no idea what it was.  We had mixed a mysterious ornamental plant into our dinner.

I told her to come over to the stove with me, and she wouldn't.  I reminded her that I had never hurt her, and I wasn't going to now, and I took her hand and led her over.  I picked up the pot with one hand and held her fast with the other, and took her with me while I went outside and dumped the whole soup in the garbage.  I told her we couldn't eat plants when we didn't know what they were, because they could make us very sick, and I thanked her for admitting she didn't know what it was, so now we wouldn't be sick.  But we didn't have sauce.  She was devastated, and crumpled in a corner of the kitchen and wouldn't get up.

I served the rice and lentils.  Plain.  I put a little tomato paste in our bowls, hoping it would add at least a few vitamins or something.  I wasn't going to put any in Emerson's, but he insisted that he wanted some -- until he tried it, and then he told me that I had ruined his entire dinner and he was mad at me.  I added some nutritional yeast, but not on Hibiscus's.  I told her that since she had ruined the sauce, she didn't get any new sauce.  Then Buttercup tried hers and asked for cheese, which I didn't think was a bad idea because it was pretty miserably boring.  I didn't give cheese to either Emerson or Hibiscus, because they were both involved in the sauce-ruining, although I'm pretty sure Hibiscus was the ring-leader.  It seemed pretty reasonable to me: you disobey direct instructions to not put something in the sauce, thus ruining the sauce: you don't eat sauce.  Or sauce substitute.

Speaking of which, Hibiscus defended that she'd put the plant in the food because "Emerson told me to."  Emerson has also tried to get out of things because "Hibiscus told me to."  This appears to be a Möbius strip of excuses for doing things that they know are stupid!  And when I told them that it was stupid, they said that they would report me to their teacher for calling them stupid.  I said that I didn't call them stupid, and they were smart children, but sometimes smart people do stupid things.  And this was one of them.  In fact, I think a good criteria for deciding whether or not something is a stupid thing to do, is if you plan on telling your mother that your sibling told you to do it!

Hibiscus sulked in her corner while we all sat down to eat, but she has enough experience with me to know that sulking wasn't going to get her tummy full, so she came over and cleared the things left at her place and sat down with us.  We all sang the blessing, and she refused to sing with us, and said "now I do it myself" and sang quietly by herself after we all were done.  The strange ways that children decide to punish their parents!

By bedtime, and two helping of boring rice-and-lentils later, Hibiscus was in a much better mood, and got herself ready quite well.  She asked to pick out a book.  Normally each child picks a book and we read three (Buttercup's book, then Hibiscus's, then Emerson's), but if it is after 8 o'clock we only have time for one book and I pick it.  I told her she could pick something, and she picked the Madeline compilation.  Emerson had stayed in the kitchen to clear and wipe off the table, which was also admirable, so he was the last one ready.  I noted that it was after 8, and said since they both had been good we could compromise, and Hibiscus had picked the book and Emerson could pick the story.

Oh my goodness, this was so not acceptable!  Total hissy fit that Emerson had any say in what was going on.  Hibiscus refused to even get into bed with us and listen to the book, and then she wouldn't even get into bed for blessings.  She finally crawled into her place as I was leaving the room, I think because she knew that otherwise I was going to plop her there myself (and I would have).  The things kids think of!  As though refusing to listen to the book was going to break my heart and leave her victorious!

At least she didn't scream!  I can see in so many ways that she has come a long way in the last couple of months.  She got herself out of her sulking fit twice, she knew when I said that I was going to do something that I was really going to do it and reacted accordingly, and she didn't scream at the top of her lungs or break things deliberately.  But we have a long way still to go.  First of all, in being able to plan her actions and think before she does something, whether it's putting random stuff in the pot or trying to balance upsidedown on a barstool.  But also because she feels like everything is a personal insult to her, even if it is natural consequences or an accident or just totally random.  That makes little issues a lot more painful than they might otherwise be.  She spent a lot of time punishing her own self tonight.

And I wish I weren't using my frustrated voice so much!  Maybe next time I should just tell them to do the table, and go into my room and shut the door for ten minutes, and then just come out and eat.  I'll let you know how that goes!

Wraps Are Chocolate

It's been a long week.  Someone is stealing from my home, and I've been incredibly anxious, not to mention afraid to leave the house lest it happen again.

And last night something fun happened: I bought a new wrap.  But not just any wrap.  There is this new company called Pavo, and they use historic mills, and the wraps are really beautiful and they are supposed to have amazing wrapping qualities.  But there's not many of them, and when they offer a new style it is sold out in minutes.  And then people who don't love the wrap can trade it, or turn around and sell it for several times the original price.  I'm not about to pay hundreds of dollars for a wrap, so it's a matter of waiting and being in the right place at the right time.  Pavo released a new style that was sold out within about two minutes, but then some other people listed the wraps they already had.  And I saw one that I really liked, in my favorite size, for about the same as retail, only a couple minutes after the owner had put up the post, so I managed to buy it.  It was very exciting!

Why does it matter?  With so much else going on in life, and so many important issues, why do I care about buying yet another pretty wrap?  As I was lying in bed (and lying and lying there, not sleeping, because the worries had come back), it came to me: wraps are like chocolate.  Or maybe wine or artisinal beer or whatever it is that one personally really likes.

You wouldn't eat a chunk of a Hershey's bar with peanuts, and say "that is the best thing I've ever tasted," and then just buy Hershey's with peanuts for the rest of your entire life. (Okay, some people would.  A couple.  But not most of us.)  We like to sample different kinds, and sometimes we're in the mood for something dark and sometimes for something sweet; maybe you eat your childhood favorite on a sad, blue day; maybe you like to pick out something new at the grocery store to reward yourself for making it through the trip; maybe you're intrigued by chocolate with sea salt or nibs or cayenne (and maybe it turns out you hate the cocoa nibs!); or maybe you stick to the "snacks" aisle and are drawn in by white chocolate Kit Kats or the newest offering from Mars; and when you're on the San Francisco pier you go and sample Ghiridelli.  Everyone I know buys special chocolate eggs at Easter and santas at Christmas and eats the ones that come in the heart-shaped box at Valentine's or Mother's Day, depending on your time of life.  So why eat all those chocolates instead of just Hershey's with peanuts every time?

But the joy of chocolate isn't just about choosing a new kind of chocolate, just like the oenophiles I know aren't wine lovers because they love looking at a wine list.  The joy is because you really like the whole experience of chocolate, especially the part where you eat it.  But once you know how much you love to eat chocolate, it is also a pleasure to contemplate eating it, and to walk into a chocolatier and imagine which one you would most like to eat, and even to look at the chocolates you have saved in your cupboard and know you will get to eat them.  And that wine list might not be the height of glory for the oenophile, but it becomes a wonderful part of enjoying the wines.

Wrapping is a visceral experience, like eating or drinking something special.  There is the abstract part, of reading about wraps and seeing pictures and deciding what you would like to try out, and then the excitement of trying to trade for exactly what you had in mind.  Then the real-life part each day, when you think about what you want at the moment, and select the wrap from your stash.  Then you need to find the middle marker in order to place the carry correctly, so you unfurl the whole thing in your hands, the colors swooping open and the fabric rippling under your fingers; it might still have the scent of drying in the fresh air or soft milky bodies.  Then you hold the little person you love, and move the fabric around in different ways, feeling it under your fingers and moving over your bare arms.  Then, for minutes or for hours, you feel the pressure and the texture against your body, and you see the sweeping tails in the corner of your eyes, and maybe adjust the passes or wipe your face with the extra fabric.  Even the acts of washing and folding and ironing the wraps have joy in them, perhaps when you remember a special time you wore that wrap, or perhaps as a chance to examine the design more closely, or perhaps just as quiet sensory moment.

And then, wrapping itself is a little meditation.  I am not very successful at the "real" meditation where you sit quietly and clear your mind, but I appreciate activities that clear the mind to be aware of one thing.  The act of wrapping is both familiar and repetitive, but at the same time must be done carefully and thoughtfully enough to not allow the mind to wander.  I can talk with my children easily, but I don't end up thinking about unrelated things.  It's a little pause in the day.  It connects so many different parts of the brain and the soul: the relationship with your child, the tactile sensation in your hands, muscle memory, and the proprioceptive sense of where objects are around your body, and on and on, depending on the wrap and the moment and the child.  Sometimes the sunshine is warm on our bodies or sometimes my toddler is singing to me.

I rarely eat chocolate during the day.  I save it until the evening, when the children are finally asleep.  I pile up pillows -- and wraps! -- and lean back on the couch with a cup of tea and a couple squares of chocolate.  It is a precious time, and I savor every sip and every bite.  As a mother of three young and needy children, I don't get many moments to sit quietly; not many moments to relax and be in the moment.

But I have my wraps.  Those are the moments I get to savor throughout the day, and savor together with my children.

So I bought myself something beautiful.  And I'm enjoying the beautiful things that I have.

A Week of Unwritten Stories

It is Friday.  Last Tuesday, I figured out that my cleaning lady was the one robbing me blind.  On Wednesday and Thursday, I tried to search for advice, considered moving, and tried to trick Miss S into thinking that I still didn't know her sneakiness.  On Friday, I decided to move, but the one place I looked at wasn't really sure if they would be ready to move into, so I spent the whole day looking at more apartments.  On Saturday morning, I packed up everything and dumped it into the new place, and the stealing drama got even more dramatic, but I am too much of a storyteller to let you know the punchline without telling the whole story!  On Saturday afternoon, we picked up our friend Diane from the airport -- the kind of magical friend whom we had never met in person.  We connected because she is hoping to adopt Hosta, whom I have been helping out at the orphanage, and I decided to go out on a limb and invite her to stay with us and she decided to go out on a limb and say yes.  We ended up being the kind of mutual blessing to each other and our children, that we felt like was ordained to happen.  Then on Saturday evening (yes, still Saturday!) we met with the orphanage director here, picked up Hosta for the rest of the weekend (!!!), and met with the program director from the U.S. hours before we had to catch a plane home.  On Sunday.... it's hard to even remember what happened on Sunday!  We had four kids in various stages of excitement and wildness, and we managed to put a few things in the cupboards from my very hasty move.  On Monday, the older three all went back to their schools, and Diane and Buttercup and I ran errands downtown, including meeting with the lawyer and picking up a month's worth of packages that Miss B had somehow forgotten to tell me about.  The post office was not quite as dramatic as last time, but it was still not a simple trip!  On Tuesday was the court date, which I have written about, and an incredibly long day.  On Wednesday, Diane and Buttercup and Hosta and I went to Hosta's village to meet with some officials there, which is also a whole story in its own right, and I will simply say that poor Emerson and Hibiscus ended up spending fourteen hours at school because we were stuck there, but we got some incredibly important things done.  Fourteen hours later.  So on Thursday we let the kids stay home from school and tried to do something a little bit fun before dropping Diane off at the airport, and then the kids came home and played in the yard.  With their new shiny plastic junk, because what is a better way to thank kids for surviving fourteen hour days than letting them pick out shiny plastic junk from the toy aisle? Then we had to bring Hosta back to the orphanage.  There were a lot of tears that day.

And today is Friday again!  What an incredibly long week!  There are at least two or three long stories I need to write, but today I am being dedicated and working at actually unpacking our house.  Or rather, the kids have been great at the unpacking and distributing, and I have been working at putting things away!  If today were Monday and I had a week of Buttercup-only days ahead of me, I would have felt like I made good progress,

but as it is, I'm kind of discouraged because today is actually the end of the week.  At least I got three loads of laundry washed while the power was on, and my washing machine has a child lock so I don't have to worry about buttons getting pushed all the time, and it plays a song when I start it and to tell me it's done.  A singing washing machine.  It's time to be grateful for the small things!

It Did Not Go As Planned

Random aunties.  That was the problem, and it's a big problem, although hopefully not an unsurmountable one.

We waited for our court time in the morning.  After a long wait, the judge said she was going to attend a funeral and to come back in the afternoon, but then she agreed to take the testimony of a couple of people who couldn't wait until afternoon.  She was blunt and asked hard questions, but she seemed to be fair and want what was best for the children.

We took the kids to a mall for lunch and some play time, and finally had to drag them away to return to court, which wasn't anybody's idea of a good time.  But it turned out to be worse.  When we got back to the waiting-hallway (not even really a waiting room), a couple of extra aunties had arrived.  And they "did not feel good about" the children going to America.  They were arguing with the two jiajias (grandmother-ish people; I think these were technically great-aunts) and the aunties; they were practically fighting with the father, they were fussing at the lawyer, and then they came over and lectured at Diane and I.  The other jiajias and aunties have actually been working to support the children, first of all when they were with their birth family, then they took them into their own homes, and when they couldn't care for them they found a babies' home to take over their care; and now they are delighted that the children will be cared for properly in a new family.  These aunties just showed up and declared how much they loved the children and they would miss them too much if they went to America.

So when we went back into court, the judge wanted to hear about the new people.  She took testimony from various relatives, starting with the father, who despite his illness and weakness stood up strong and tall to explain that he was here in court to allow his children to have a better life, and he absolutely stood by his decision to support having them adopted into our family.

In the end, the judge didn't seem to buy into their story, but she did give them some extra time.  The first set of aunties and jiajias continued to support the adoption, and this new set didn't, and there are a few more that continue to be missing in action, so she gave them a week to get together and work it out.  Court will reconvene in a week.

She asked the aunties questions like whether they were willing to take the girls into their home (no) or whether they would keep paying their school fees at their current school (no) or what exactly specifically they would do.  They said they were not rich, but they would do what they could.  She asked Hibiscus to identify all the people in the room she knew, which made her feel scared, but finally she managed to walk around the room and touch them if I followed and held her hand.  She identified her father accurately and without hesitation.  She found one jiajia and one auntie, when pressed, very hesitantly.  And then the judge asked where her teacher was, and she dived right over to him, with almost a smile.  Finally, when it seemed like we were leaving, I specifically asked to speak to the judge, as she had not spoken to me at all.

I said that from my perspective, it wasn't about money.  I would not have come to Uganda to adopt a child from a happy, loving family that just didn't have enough money; I would have worked to find them social services instead.  I said what I observed was that the children had not been taken care of.  They were uneducated and unmanageable and behind.  It was about taking care of the children.

The children's teacher had come as a witness for our family, to talk about how well Hibiscus was doing in school or something like that, but in the new situation he changed tacks.  He talked about the importance of education, that Hibiscus had been far behind, and that what the children needed wasn't a few thousand shillings for school fees and someone to pay for a maid, they needed love and they needed attention and they needed someone to care for them one-on-one.  And they needed love.  He spoke very clearly and strongly and eloquently.

Miss B, the orphanage director, surprised me by also speaking passionately and clearly, since she is often quiet and passive.  Not only did she describe investigating the girls' home situation (twice) and not hearing from these aunties, she gave voice to silent concerns about their current veracity.  She pointed out that they had to ask the girls' names when they came over to talk to them earlier, and that they said they visited their brother (the father) every week, and yet they didn't know how sick his partner was or that the girls were in an orphanage or under foster care, so she doubted that their story was true.

The judge reiterated several times that we needed to find the best solution for the children, and that they need to be given proper care.  She didn't want the family fighting, so she told them to speak amongst themselves, have a family meeting, and they had a week to work out a solution, or she would make a decision on behalf of the children.



And as for me, and as for now.... I haven't yet stepped into my "parent coming to adopt" shoes, or maybe I walked past them months ago now.  I suppose I should be freaking out about logistics or what is going to happen next, or sad that we didn't just have the court case finished in the morning at the proper time before these troublemakers showed up, or upset about our coming-home time frame being all ruined.

But the shoes I'm in are just my plain old "mom" shoes.  Because I'm the only mom these girls know right now.  (At another moment this morning during the birth mother's testimony, the judge asked Hibiscus to point to her mother.  She leaned on my lap a long time, confused about what to do, while the judge encouraged her to point to whoever she called "mama" and I finally whispered it was okay to point to me, and she did.  Then the judge asked if she had another mama, and she was overcome by shyness but pointed to the birth mother, whom she recognizes.  The judge asked her name.  She didn't know and couldn't remember.  The judge asked her my name, and she said it right away.)  They came home with me tonight, and they snuggle their faces into my arm for comfort after a long and difficult day, and they ask me questions and they trust the answers.  And as a mom, I'm just affronted that these ladies came along to express all this concern and "love" for these girls, that gets in the way of us being a family and actually loving each other.

So where were you when Hibiscus screamed every night until she threw up?

So where were you when Buttercup developed her terror of anyone holding a stick?

So where were you when Hibiscus threw a fit in the middle of downtown and was laying in the street... or the other time she did that, or the next one?

So where were you when Buttercup was waking up several times a night, every night, just needing to be held and comforted... because she had never had a chance to be comforted as a baby?

So where were you when Hibiscus was supposedly learning her manners and cultural mores, so that as a child of six she managed to insult and affront every single Ugandan adult within moments of meeting them?

So where were you when Buttercup was dramatically underweight and showing all the obvious signs of malnutrition?

So whereare you when Hibiscus is sobbing her guts out with sadness and fear, or when Buttercup's eyes go bleary and blank with the memories she can't bear to face?


Because I can tell you where I was.  I was right there with my girls.

New House

Last week continued with more complications from the stealing, so we (meaning me, myself and I, I guess!) decided to move.  We now live in a different house in a different neighborhood.  There hasn't been time to write much, but I wanted to post quickly that we are feeling much safer in our new place.  I'll come back and update this later with something actually about the house!

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We live across the main Ggaba Road in a different neighborhood, which is more upscale and much less convenient to public transportation.  There is a small trading center just around the corner, and when I thought about it, I realized that between Buttercup's nap schedule and the kids' school schedule, I don't actually go far from home very often any more.  Once a week I can either manage the double-minibus trip to town, or just hire a car.  The house is kind of an actual house instead of a tiny apartment -- as in, we actually have multiple rooms!  An archway seperates the dining/living area from the kitchen/breakfast nook area.  AND there are TWO bedroom and TWO bathrooms!  The two bedrooms are not useful in the traditional sense, as none of my children would consent to sleeping with walls between themselves and their siblings and mother, but I'm sure we'll find a use for it.  Like for guests.  And putting toys in the closet.  As for the two bathrooms... well, one of them is a nice, large, reasonable size, which I am going to enjoy to the utmost, because the previous bathroom was tiny and had rough edges, and our bathroom at home is not small but it is not reasonably set up.  When you are trying to coordinate several bedtime activities for several children, it's nice to be able to turn around without drawing blood!  (Which actually happened, several times!)  And the second bathroom... when we're engaged in said nighttime chaos and Hibiscus needs to poop, as she always does, I am happy to be able to send her and her stinks to another room!  Although the smaller bathroom faces directly down the hallway out the front door, which is a little bit of a problem.  As any mother of small children can recognize, I am not used to closing the door behind me!

The breakfast nook is problematic because it is specially set up for children to fall off the stools, probably bringing down several baskets of stuff with them.  If I ever get the counter cleared off in the first place, I can use it for extra kitchen storage, because the kitchen doesn't have much.  At all.  And under the breakfast nook counter is -- guess what! -- a power converter.  So when the power is out, we still have power!  At least, some power.  The heavy-duty things aren't hooked up to it, so we can't do laundry, use the electric stove, the tea kettle, or the iron.  Instead, we have two propane tanks with burners on the top of them to cook with, which is kind of annoying.  I am used to ONLY having a stove work when the power is out!  In further power news, the most obvious and convenient outlets don't seem to work dependably, so I keep plugging things in at night only to find them uncharged in the morning -- but they work often enough to make me keep trying!

And the couch, instead of being big and squashy and ugly, is a pillows-on-wood-frame kind of couch and much more attractive.  But I haven't found a good way to sit on it and type, which is very frustrating.  In the evening when the kids are in bed, it's such a treat to take out the ipad and check and see how everyone on the other side of the world is doing.  And I do NOT want to do it at the kitchen table, sorry!

And the washing machine has a child lock button, and it plays music when it's done washing.  And we have a whole separate freezer, which is nice and large, but the fridge is TINY and I don't know how I'm going to feed three children from it!  And the clotheslines in back are all for us, so I don't have to be irritated with the way other people hang their clothes that takes up more line than necessary.  And they provided plenty of extra linen, which is nice (and would have been nicer if I hadn't had to buy plenty of extras already), but it took up half the cabinet space.  And tablecloths.  With three children who don't know where their bodies end, the last thing I need is tablecloths!

The view out the front gate

Court date tomorrow!

Our court hearing for guardianship is tomorrow morning.  We've been waiting so very long for this moment, I am kind of stunned that it is finally here!

Another prospective adoptive parent and friend is here for a few days.  Her presence has been such a blessing!  We did errands all day today.  I am exhausted.  The kids are still off-kilter from the move, and Hibiscus can't stop talking.  Ever.

Grilled cheese and yogurt for dinner.  It still took an hour or so to prepare with all the other interruptions, and by "prepare" I mean the kids were able to eat, but I was still standing in the kitchen.  Thank God for another adult in the house!  She is now dipping three little monkeys in the bath with a great deal more patience than I could manage.

I need to assemble paperwork, and outfits, and snacks and toys, and somehow make myself look clean and presentable too.  And put captions in our photo book.  First thing in the morning we will pile in our car and go to pick up several other people who know our family and can testify on our behalf, while Miss B from the orphanage gathers all the various birth family members who will testify that they haven't and couldn't take care of the girls.  This being Uganda, I have a great deal of doubt about everyone being in the right place at the right time!

Our official time is 10 am, but because of various other things the judge might decide to hear our case early.  I have very little idea about what will actually happen!  Here I go with my preparations!

Our Afternoon

For the first part of our walk home, Hibiscus and Emerson were quick-marching in a little row, one behind the other, chanting "poom-bah! poom-bah! poom-bah!"  They swerved into each driveway and alley we passed, pretending that they were going to leave me and go down that way, and then swerved back again, one right behind the other.  When we walked along a stone gutter, they marched straight down the middle of the water.  I love watching how connected they are and how joyful their play can be.

Of course, an hour later at home, they couldn't stop sniping at each other.  Lately, Hibiscus has been being unbearably bossy, and also somehow is always holding someone else's toy/food/craft/random bit of fluff that "she didn't kno-ooow" was theirs; and Emerson has started screeching and whining whenever he doesn't get his way; and they both are using pinches and pushes and shoulder butts.  I am trying really hard to not get involved in their little arguments -- until they draw blood, which actually happened yesterday.  Hibiscus pushed Emerson down on a stone ledge, I think because he wanted to help bring in laundry and she didn't want him touching something-or-other, and he got a big scrape on his back.  Once genuine hurt is inflicted, I do take sides, on the no-drawing-blood side (which always happens to be on one -- no, two, since there are three children -- directions).  Whatever happens beforehand doesn't matter; they need to learn to stop themselves before getting that rough.  Ahem.  She needs to stop her self.

So today, they were just bickering, and they wouldn't stop, so I separated them.  Emerson stayed in the living room and Hibiscus in the bedroom, because that's where they each do their "quiet time" (eg. not exactly nap time).  I explained that it wasn't a punishment, I was just giving them some alone time.  Hibiscus howled like a banshee.  Apparently the only thing worse than being around her brother was being away from her brother!

In the late afternoon, our probation officer came and visited.  We have been playing phone tag for a couple weeks now, and I thought as long as I had a chance to see him I would ask his opinion about this new crisis.  He was very thoughtful, and pretty much his advice concurred with the other advice I have gotten.  Then I told him we had decided to apply for guardianship, and oh by the way our court date is Tuesday, and can he please come?  He said he would be there, and is there anything else he can do to help out?  I never would have imagined hearing those words a few months ago!

I wanted a calm conversation, so I tempted the children with playing iPad in the other room.  They were easily bribed!  However, they still kept popping in to ask questions and ask me to fix things, and of course "Buttercup touched my game! she is disTURBing me!"  Still, we managed to have a pretty reasonable conversation.  And Hibiscus told me in the evening that she is in a happy mood, because today she got to play iPad!

By the time he left, we were late for dinner and had no way of cooking anyways.  Our cooking gas ran out at breakfast, and then it turns out the hot water heater in the bathroom isn't turning on either. I managed to find cold things to eat for breakfast and lunch, which isn't as easy as it sounds because most "cupboard" items spoil so quickly here, almost everything goes in the fridge and needs heating back up again, or is totally dried and needs cooking.

So I gathered them up and we went into Ggaba to see what we could find.  So I ended up feeding my kids fried street food for dinner... I'll pretend it was a little adventure, instead of just a mama-fail.  Kind of like going to the fair or something.

So we ate chapatis and chips and kabobs and roasted bananas and popcorn and samosas.  In case you didn't know, samosas (often pronounced sambusa here, which amuses me) are triangles of dough folded around something and deep fried.  Because there is already dough, it is reasonable to contain meat or vegetables or something.  These samosas were filled with.... rice.  Yes, that would be carbs, with carbs, and a good side of pure fat, with a little bit of extra oil.  Welcome to Africa!

The kids loved everything.  Buttercup took on her food with her serious demeanor, although amazingly enough she applied herself most vigorously to the banana and kabob, which are kind of remotely healthy.  Emerson even deigned to eat a samosa, seeing that it had nothing healthy touching it.  And Hibiscus.... Hibiscus ate like a backhoe.  She plowed through her serving.  She inhaled my extra sausage.  She gobbled up seconds.  She asked Buttercup if she could have her uneaten kabob, as her chomping teeth simultaneously came flying towards the meat, and Buttercup screeched at her.  She absorbed thirds just by looking at them, and asked for more.  I suggested she sit quietly and listen to see if her body was full, and she screeched at me.  By then we were leaving the table, and she asked and finished the ends from my sausage, and finally got Buttercup's leftover kabob.  And then all the rest of us were in the next room, and the magnetic force of not-being-alone finally dragged her away from the table.

Cold baths.  They didn't have to wash hair.

Usual bedtime illogic, like Hibiscus jumping out of the bath and standing in the door to the bedroom, and ignoring me several times when I asked her to dry off and put on clothes, but then when Emerson came in she screeched "I don't want you be lookin' at my poochoo-poochoo!  You no be lookin' at my poochoo-poochoo!" as though he were some kind of pervert coming along for the view, and not merely entering his own bedroom.

Can you guess what poochoo-poochoo means?  I hear it about five hundred thousand times a day. Emerson and Hibiscus will just sit there and say "poochoo-poochoo" to each other and giggle hysterically.  Another one came home today, which is "bada-bada" and apparently is an uncouth way to refer to the rear side, behind the poochoo-poochoo, and is best delivered with a name, such as "bada-bada-Abudul-ah."  Then the other child says "ooh, you said bada-bada-Abudul-ah, I'm gonna report you!" and the first child accuses the second child of saying it in that sentence, and so forth.  They are incredibly fun names to say; much better than anything we've managed in English.

And we actually managed to calm down and read books.  Reading books is magical.  And the children told me about something that happened in school.  Esther couldn't read her book properly, even though she is seven years old and thus ought to be able to, so the teacher invited the children to take off her clothes so they could put a diaper on her like a baby.

I was just flabbergasted and horrified, and I told them so.  I think both children had accepted the teacher's logic and instructions at the time, because they are so used to listening to the teacher, but that this time they both felt deep inside like this wasn't very good.  Which is probably why I didn't hear about it until bedtime, because it felt so not-good to them.  Not to mention, Hibiscus is almost seven and can't read a blessed thing either, because no one has taught her how.  Good grief.  I can understand why Hibiscus complains that she doesn't like this teacher to lead her class, she prefers Uncle Derrick.

Luckily we still had prayers and blessings ahead of us to end the evening on a good note.  I even managed to convince Hibiscus to stop talking long enough to actually say the blessings!

I do love my little family.

Home

I want to go home.

As in, right now, I want to go home.  There is too much going wrong around me, and I feel too small and too worn out.  More things went wrong yesterday while the kids were at school, and as I was walking to get them, I was so glad to be able to look forward to holding their little hands in mine.  And I couldn't help planning more.

I'm going to walk in the hot sun on the dusty roads to the little school, and know that they are safe and we're all together.  One lean, strong, little hand on one side; one softer, square, little hand on the other, and a little body solid on my back.

We'll go home.  I'll get out some snacks.  I'll take the suitcases from under the bed, where I use them to organize and store things.  I'll just dump a couple of them out in a pile, maybe on the girls' bed.  I'll put them, open and empty, on my bed.  Then I'll go around the apartment and take what is important; I think I can take the time to fold it properly.  When I've got everything I care about, I'll just leave the rest.  They won't fit in their shorts and playdresses next summer, anyways.  I will pack our paperwork carefully.  I'll take a little more care with our small suitcases, activities and change of clothes and toothbrushes, so we have enough to make it through the long trip.  I'll let the older kids go to work, and if they think something is important, they can put it in.  I don't care if we take colored paper and leave behind the expensive toys.  I'll probably need to wear Buttercup, though.

I'll call our driver, and make a quick supper.  Probably noodles.  Everyone likes noodles, and they only need to boil for 12 minutes.

I'll tell the driver to go the airport.  I will just leave the keys on the counter.  We can stop at the ATM on the way.

There has to be a plane going somewhere, some time.  And all the connection hub cities have connections to everywhere.  I'll let the kids play ipad in the airport waiting room.  We can wait.

And at some point, when we have to go through some gate, and we only have two passports for four people?  Maybe I can keep Buttercup on my back, and put paper bags on her feet and a giant puppet on her head; or I can cut out the part of the backpack that is next to my back and put the rest over her -- I bet she can tuck her feet in.  Hibiscus is kind of long but folds up really small; she climbs in suitcases all the time.  I'm sure she can fit; it's only for a few minutes.

Or, maybe I will just take that customs official by the shoulders, and look into his eyes, and say They are my babies, and we are going HOME, and don't you dare stop us.  And I will just take those warm little hands and we will all keep walking.

Betrayal

Someone has been stealing from me.  The house has not been broken into, so it is someone that I have trusted.  I don't know who it is, and I have hesitated to write about this lest I cast suspicion on someone who is not the thief.  So, I will clarify that there are a lot of possibilities, and I am not going to add any more details.  I have been doing a lot of work to figure out how it is happening, and I can't figure anything out, so I am left with a vague feeling of distrusting everyone.

Someone is stealing money.  A lot of money.  This is a cash-only society, and the nearest ATM is still a long way away, so I get out a bunch of cash about once a week, although I sometimes go more often and store it when I know a certain expense is coming up.  It has happened several times, and the first couple incidents I wasn't sure if it was my own mis-remembering, but then a couple more incidents have involved a very large amount of money.  Very large even by American standards, let along Ugandan ones.  I thought I had figured out what was going on and accounted for it, but then it just happened again.

As I said, I'm not going to go into any more details about what is happening, but I am going to try and talk about how I personally have been doing.  I feel like I need to write about this, because it has colored so much of my feelings and actions over the last few weeks.  A little while ago, I wrote about how owning the strengths of my personality helped me get through the rough times, but part of exploring ourselves is also owning the dark sides.  I admit that a tragedy like this has brought out my dark sides.

(And for the word "tragedy," I don't think that simply having money taken is a tragedy; we can still eat at the end of the day.  But I do think that having my trust shaken in just about everyone around me, in a country which I am trying to adapt to and at a time when I am already struggling to focus on the positive, is not an exaggeration of "tragedy".)

I'm going to talk about this in terms of my Enneagram type, because that's what I've been thinking about lately, but not to imply that other types would not mind being robbed!

I think part of the problem is that we 9's are unsuspicious.  Someone else might have been paranoid about money from the beginning, and other more worried personalities would probably have figured it out earlier than I did.  I know I'm bad a worrying about logical things, so at home I make rules for myself like "always lock the car door when I get out," even if I'm in the middle of an empty field and not going out of sight of the car.  I'm afraid that if I start to decide that I don't need to lock the car, I'll decide that too often. And 9's like to float through life, and we tend to be detail-oriented about things we care about and let go of details we don't care about, so I kept my money out of sight but didn't make a big deal about securing it or keeping track of exactly how much there was.

9's seek internal and external peace, and we tend to want to find that at least partially by creating a peaceful oasis in our home.  In this chaotic and extroverted African society, my own calm home has been a vital element of maintaining my sanity.  To have the sanctity of my home violated is a really big deal.  Just a really really big deal.

And I've probably dealt with it in the negative 9 way.  I've started getting worried, and going around and around the same thoughts helplessly.  So to escape that cycle, I just bury myself in something else, anything else... except it's pretty much bound to be something unproductive!  It's already been hard for me to be productive around here, with all the practical limitations on me, so with some internal blocks as well I really do make it all the way over to "lazy."  But I just don't have enough energy to get up and do anything else!  My house is an absolute mess right now, for several different reasons (which include but are not actually limited to three small being who inhabit it), and I have just let it be messy around me all day long -- actually, it's probably been several days now.  I know that the messy house is making things worse, but that is somehow not helping me actually do anything about it.

And I also don't have any energy left to to deal with the kids with their internal and external kid-chaos getting home at the end of the day.  I find myself getting frustrated way too quickly when Buttercup pees herself and doesn't tell me, or Emerson starts screaming possessively about his precious stuff, and Hibiscus -- oh my goodness, Hibiscus is just a giant bundle of chaos.  Swinging heavy objects violently and randomly, strange precarious acts on stairs, putting bizarre and delicate objects on her head, and everything at high speed and high volume.  Ideally, my peaceful 9-ness would help balance her out, and she would naturally gravitate a little more towards the middle.  Instead, it has been feeling like she just shatters through whatever was left of my internal peace, leaving behind great gaping holes of non-mother-li-ness.

Why don't I have any energy left?

We read a new little book the other night, about a girl who is excused from doing all the family chores but no one does work for her, either.  I had a strong suspicion from just the first page that it would contain a useful moral for my children!  (We have a Little Miss "Dat not my mess, I no for clean dat one!" at family chore time.)  But not only did the girl in the book decide that it was no fun to have to do all her own jobs, and it makes a family to do chores together, but she also got bored with nothing to do.  Her mother told her that "doing nothing makes you feel like doing nothing."  That could be part of my problem.

But it feels like it's more than that.  This morning, I didn't clean the house, but I did count money and decide where to put my lockbox and my keys and so on and so forth.  I really think that felt like several hours of hard labor, except I didn't have anything to show for it at the end.  On the days when I spent time with my parents, or even our American visitor "Mr Slinky," I didn't feel this leaden exhaustion at night; even on the long days I went to bed more calm instead of drained.  If having conversation and friendly human interaction is in some way fulfilling and energizing, it's just absolutely the opposite to have to look at the people around me and feel defensive and boxed in.  I don't have "best friends" here, but I have people around me with whom I have pleasant interactions and smiles; now everyone in my compound is a potential sneak and thief.

I don't have natural internal walls.  I don't dislike people; I don't distrust people.  Unlike many other types, 9's don't define themselves as strongly by the company they keep; they keep all sorts of company, and see the value in all sorts of people.

But I am one step past being able to forgive, forget, and move on.  I did that once, and then I got robbed again.  (And possibly one more time, although I'm hoping that was just an accounting error... although how I could possibly miscount my money is a little beyond me at this point; la la la la la.....)  Or maybe I'm one step before being able to forgive, forget and move on... I need to be out of here.  The vague feelings of un-safety that have been hovering at the edges of my mental vision have come swooping into center ground: I am not safe.  Someone I thought I knew has been betraying me, repeatedly.  Stealing money is far from the worst thing that could happen to me, I know very well.  But if someone can do that, what else bad could happen?  All the warnings I have gotten from so many directions -- other travelers, locals, friends, random people on the street, ex-pats living here, gossips and worrywarts -- suddenly loom large and real.

Very large.  I am a woman alone in a faraway country where I don't know the language, the customs; where I am spectacularly conspicuous.  I constantly have children with me who are not biologically my own, in a culture which doesn't understand adoption but is full of stories about stealing children for witchcraft.  Ugh.  I just can't write any more about it.

And I don't even have my dogs.  Beloved and territory-defending dogs are a good talisman against feeling afraid in your home!  Or, lacking that, an off-kiilter 9 can curl up with them at night, and feel their silky ears and hear their soft sighs of sleepy contentment, and feel a little bit of centered-ness returning to her.  Those happy-dog sighs!  I forgot how rejuvinating it was to feel like I am making another being so happy.  Even when I'm a terrible mother, my dogs are quick to forgive any sin for a nice good cuddle.

So, that is my emotional story of the last couple of weeks.  I can see the problem, but I don't see a solution that can restore my lost sense of safety.  I can see my own weakness, but I can't figure out the way back on to the road to strength.