Trying to Leave Uganda

We are on the plane.  And when the plane lands, it will be in America.  That is the only thing that is actually important, and it almost didn't happen.


We were supposed to leave the apartment at ten o'clock, for a 3:50 flight an hour's drive away.  Now, I admit that we probably wouldn't have actually driven out the gate at exactly ten, but I had built natural tardiness (even Ugandan-style tardiness) into my calculations.  I was putting the last things that we needed to take into the carry-on by ten, so after a few goodbyes and a few last last trips around the house we would have been ready by 10:30, and someone needing to change their shirt and someone else needing to poop, we probably would have actually been driving away by 10:45.

Instead, as I was putting the last things in my bag, the apartment manager showed up and announced that she wasn't letting me leave.  This manager has shown minimal actual management, and responded to about one of my texts, ever, so she had kind of slipped my mind.  I had emailed with the owner of the apartment a few days before, told him the exact date of my departure, agreed to pay through the 31st because that is what I had guessed earlier, that I would have a friend clear out for me, and discussed utility bills and my husband wiring the money.  The last I heard from him was "okay, that sounds good too," so I assumed that was taken care of.  It turns out that the manager hadn't gotten the message that we were moving and she was all in a tizzy.  I tried to explain the email conversation, but she "wasn't listening" to that.  It took a long time to get the owner on the phone, and turned out that the money hadn't been wired yet, and he was no longer "okay" and said we couldn't leave until he had the money in hand.  The manager had driven her car in so it blocked our car, and kept following me around declaring shrilly that she wouldn't let me drive out, she wouldn't open the gate for me, her boss would kill her, and why on earth had I not told her I was leaving, and she had to check for damages and had I broken this and where were all the cups, she had to check that everything was here.  Repeat.

All this, starting five minutes after we were supposed to drive away.  To begin our trip home.  Which we have been waiting all these months for.  At first I thought she was just being a little unreasonable, but it soon became apparent that she was convinced I was trying to sneak out without paying and was going to go to all possible lengths to keep us blocked in the compound until she held the cash in her hot little hand.

It hadn't even occurred to me that my husband hadn't paid.  I had given them the other's email address, and assumed they had communicated directly.  I guess my husband was busy with a million little details to get us ready to come home, and didn't realize how very, very important this one was.

Before this, the owner had seemed very reasonable.  I will give him this much credit; I had forgotten how absolutely distrustful everyone is in Uganda, for the very good reason that almost everyone else is out to cheat, sneak, and steal as much as they can get away with.  I come from a land where signing a contract is a promise, and when you have someone's bank information and passport numbers, you figure that you have some leverage over them.  I have learned how to be distrustful: to smile but not say yes; to keep my hands on my documents.  I guess I haven't finished learning how to be distrusted.

The problem was, there was no way to solve this cash-in-hand issue.  Absolutely none.  I called my husband immediately, but he is on a business trip so he's not home, and his cell phone went straight to voicemail.  You can't even wake someone up by calling voicemail over and over!  Even if he was aware of what was happening, he couldn't have wired money in the middle of the night.  Although I do think that the owner might have taken him more seriously than he did for me, and he might have been able to make some other kind of assurance.  I can only take a limited amount out of my bank account per day, so if I took it all out it wouldn't be enough to pay the two weeks' rent, and I couldn't get more for 24 hours.  Which is after our plane left, obviously.  Not to mention, I needed money to get to the plane!  (A lot of money, it turned out.  The airport was a hotbed for sneaking your money away.)

Our amazing friend Derrick once again saved the day.  He had showed up to get my keys, because he was going to clean out the house for me.  This was already a mutual blessing that I appreciate; that would be way too much to ask a friend in America to do for you.  But I had offered his family and his school everything we had left over, and from his perspective THAT was an amazing blessing, so it was a symbiotic relationship!  He immediately managed to calm down the shrill and repetitive manager and at least figure out what was going on.  Eventually, he agreed to write them a post-dated check.  We would wire the money to him, and then the manager could cash the check and have the money.  If we were as untrustworthy as they supposed, then he would be responsible for the amount -- which he surely didn't have, so he said with a wry smile that he would go to jail instead.

They accepted the offer, but the whole process took negotiating and time.  Derrick had to go back to his house and bring his checkbook.  The landlord in Kenya needed to be consulted, and the cell reception kept going out.  (That house must be just on the wrong side of a hill, because it the cell phone reception goes in and out constantly.)

We left at noon.  Two full hours after I had planned, and still more than an hour after the things-always-go-slowly departure time.  I had scheduled in lots of extra time, in case we needed to do something on the way to the airport, and then extra time in the airport.  All of it was gone.

Thank heavens, the traffic to Entebbe was not too bad.  And I realized we did have to stop.  My husband had emailed me an official power of attorney or permission form to travel with all three children.  I had a general power of attorney for conducting the girls' adoption, which mentioned traveling with them in passing, but it wasn't as clear as it could be, and it didn't mention Emerson.  Apparently it's easy to assume that one parent is taking a child away from official custody when they are crossing borders with the child without official permission.... especially when the parent is also doing something highly suspicious like trying to travel with children who are a different color from themselves.

I tried to stop and print it out.  It didn't work.  I couldn't get into my email, which is the problem with having a computer that remembers all your passwords all the time.  I keep having this problem, and then keep having to change the password.  It's actually worked the last few times, but I guess with all the stress and panic I just couldn't get it right, so yahoo shut my email down.

We drove on without the permission form.

Then there was the security check outside the airport, which is always kind of incomprehensible and takes too long.  Then there was getting our bags from the car to the departure area.  There is a nice road to the departures on the upper airport level, just like every other normal airport.  However, the road is closed.  You have to just push the luggage carts up the road.  Our driver and a porter were each pushing a cart, and the luggage kept slipping off and falling on the ground.

Then there was getting inside the airport, which of course is complicated in an incomprehensible way that is nothing like other airports.  It was also an excellent example of people enjoying the power of their petty positions, and using it to make up all kinds of new rules which they could enforce in a draconian manner.  (Which has kind of been our problem with the adoption process all along!)

First of all, there was paying the porters.  The porter who pushed our luggage up the hill wasn't allowed to go in the airport.  The guy who showed up wanted "only 20 thousand shilling."  The sum I had in mind was a generous 5 thousand.  To give some context, if a maid or a houseboy or a driver works for you most or all of the day, they can expect to earn about 10 thousand shilling.  Five thousand for half an hour of work truly is generous for Uganda.  The 20-thousand guy wasn't even interesting in bargaining at my starting point.  He probably guessed by my facial expression and the definitive way that I pronounced my sum that I wasn't actually on vacation, but knew what I was talking about, and slipped off to find a more guillable muzungo.  Another lady showed up who would work for ten.  Twice a reasonable rate, in a closed market, I was willing to accept.  (In general, I am willing to accept paying a little more than Ugandans for the same service.  I do understand that I -- and every other American who could ever end up in Uganda -- have a lot more resources than they do.  However, they need to keep their up-pricing in a reasonable range.)

She brought our luggage over to have it weighed.  The luggage-weigh-er told me that I would have to have some of the bags "wrapped" in plastic, like super-saran-wrap.  At a cost of 25 thousand per bag.  Then we went through the x-ray machine and dealt with the power-monger at the other end.  He went through my backpack in great detail, carefully examining every article that was not obviously food.  Yes, we had twelve pieces of luggage, not included small backpacks or purses for everyone, and he opened one of them so we could have twelve conversations about the items inside.  So it could have been worse -- he could have gone through all twelve bags like that, I supposed.  Except then I think someone would come and fire him, because no one could ever enter the airport.

I had brought a pair of small kids' scissors for projects on the plane.  The kind with two-inch blades and rounded tips.  Oh no, I could not possibly bring those on; put them in the other luggage.  In the extra two hours of pacing around the house, I realized that I could bring a knife to spread butter and cheese and things on our bread and muffins.  I had brought the most delicate and unserrated butter knife.  That knife could possibly do some damage to, say, a baby rat, if you whacked it just right.  Or an adult.... um, mosquito, if you found a mosquito who wanted to wait around for you to to poke it with a small butter knife.  The security guard gave me the most condescending look to tell me what an idiot I was for thinking I could bring anything that was related, linguistically at least, to a tool of danger and destruction.  I must have seemed improperly awed and repentant, because at this point his colleague piped up about how lucky I was that they warned me about these transgressions now, or later I would have just had to throw the offending items away.

Then he got to my water purifier.  In case you don't regularly use one -- which you should because they are very handy -- this is an object slightly wider than a pen, half of which is a plastic handle, and half of which is a long lightbulb that emits the right kind of UV rays to kill the bacteria and stuff in your water bottle.  All of which apparently makes it look like a weapon of mass destruction to busy-body security staff.

He spent a long time examining it, apparently looking for the part he could point to in order to make fun of me for trying to bring it on board.  Eventually he asked what it was.  I told him a water purifier and flashlight, because it is also a flashlight, and I figured that was a little more understandable.  He immediately started saying "oh, no, no."  It took a while to figure out what was so awful about a flashlight, and he eventually explained that starting fires is very bad.  Starting fires.  Luckily, it took me only a moment to realize that he didn't know the word "purifier," so was extracting the dangerous syllables.  I explained purification in a little more detail, but not a great deal of patience. He either realized what I meant, thought that his fire explanation wouldn't hold water (haha), or started to realize that it was pretty hard to argue that a glass pen was particularly dangerous, because he moved onto a new tack.

"Does it have batteries?" he demanded.  "It is electronic, it has batteries, and batteries are not allowed on the plane.  No batteries.  See, look here, it must be a battery here, to make go.  No batteries allowed.  Put in the checked bag."

See what I mean about making up your own rules?  The last thing I read was that battery items are not allowed in CHECKED luggage, which was part of why I was bothering to argue about it, because I didn't want it thrown away in the checked bag.  (Also, because it is useful.  Also, because the whole thing was just so stupid that he was making me stubborn.)  Think about what you bring on a plane: laptops, cameras, i-things.  Things with batteries.

So that argument was pretty fruitless for the guy, and besides, there was another bag with interesting things beckoning him from the other side.  He pulled out a black stick with buttons on it, and asked the (young, hip, jewellry-laden, black t-shirt, Ugandan) owner suspiciously "now what is THIS?" and the man replied with obvious frustration in his voice "it's just a (something) and a flashlight."  The two security checkers cut their eyes and me and said "this one is a brother to that mama there."

We moved our procession on.  Past the plastic-wrap machine, which actually cost 18 thousand (ridiculously high, but mysteriously 7 thousand less than what I had been told), because you have to check your bags before you can wrap them.  Then checking in, which was slow but relatively normal.  Then back to the plastic wrap machine.

And then the argument about the carseats.  I had carseats for both Emerson and Buttercup, and was told that I could not possibly take them on a plane, which was the entire point.  I have read this airline's car seat policy, admittedly not the last few days, but nothing jumped out at me that I couldn't bring a seat for a child.  I always have small children ride in a car seat on a plane, just like the FAA recommends.  Almost no one actually does it, though, and the airline personnel always seem a little annoyed that I actually follow through with their official recommendations.  Emerson arrived in Entebbe in a car sea, via the same airline.  I admit, I hadn't thought about how although he was the same exact size, he is technically a year older, and maybe 5-year-olds aren't allowed to ride in car seats.  So I would have given in gracefully for Emerson's seat, but the thought of trying to manage OVER TWENTY HOURS of airplane time with an illogical toddler who officially believes that it is her job to bounce all over unless she physically can't manage it, made me stick to my guns.

Of course, if they had told me, "stand here for 15 minutes or half an hour or so, while we wander away and find someone else who won't help you," I might have worried about getting through the rest of the airport.  But they kept acting like help was right around the corner.  And then "help" would arrive, with again such ridiculous arguments about made-up-on-the-spot policies, that I just couldn't go along with them.  That, and the 22 airplane hours ahead of me.  For instance, that only babies under two were allowed to use car seats on the plane; that is what carseats are for.  Dude.  Hello.  Babies under two DO NOT BUY seats on a plane; they sit on laps.  That is the distinction for babies under two.

After way too many ridiculous conversations, they let me take Buttercup's seat, but we had to go plastic wrap Emerson's.  I told them that they had better not charge me for checking it, and they agreed as a special favor since I was traveling with children to not charge me.  I am almost positive they were planning on charging me money up until that moment.  I promise, I used to have a very mild and friendly personality, but in Africa I have learned my "don't mess with me" voice.

Speaking of carseats, I had to use that voice to get it on this plane, too.  In the middle of the long and confusing boarding process, some flight attendants offered to take the seat for me.  Since they checked my boarding pass, I assumed they were putting it on the plane for me.  Several minutes later, an attendant returned and cheerfully told me I could get it in Seattle.  I told him that I had brought that seat in order to USE it, and he had sure as heck better get it back to me RIGHT NOW.      (Okay, I didn't use those words, but I did use that tone!)  He brought the car seat back.

However, I did not use that tone with the customs officer.  We finally managed to get all our luggage going in the correct direction and our hand items loaded on a cart, and went around the corner to customs.  Let me clarify, there is not the slightest reason for customs to be difficult for us.  We all have all the visas and documents that we need for our departure and destination countries, and aren't carrying anything we shouldn't, which I believe is more or less the job of the customs officials.  It would make sense that they would question why I have the girls with me, since our names don't match and our documents don't mention each other, so I wouldn't be at all insulted to be asked to produce the paperwork showing that I am their legal guardian.

But Ugandan customs officials seem to think that their job is to re-adjudicate our entire legal case.  I handed him out guardianship order (which states clearly that we are their only legal guardians), the judge's ruling (which explains the entire case in detail), and he read over both of them.  Very.  Carefully.  I also gave him a copy of Mark's passport and his power of attorney allowing me to travel with the girls.  Then he called someone else, and then asked me for more paperwork.  He needed copies of our passports, and visa photos of the girls, and half a dozen other things, mostly about my husband and I.  I had wondered if I needed anything else from our dossier -- which had just disappeared into the luggage hold a few minutes before -- but it hadn't ever occurred to anyone whom I had talked with that we would need visa photos.  I told him respectfully but firmly that we had not been told to bring those things.  He read a few more pages of our documents, and finally said that I just had to bring copies of our passports.  Despite holding the actual passport in his hand, of course.  So we went back into the luggage area, found someone from our airline, and asked her to make a copy.  She disappeared  cheerfully, and to my relief she actually did it.

By then there was a line at the customs counter.  When we saw our official again, this time he asked for the girls' birth certificates.  (Which are not relevant, because they had passports, which proves they had birth certificates that were already approved.)  But I had them, and handed a copy over.  He read them carefully, and asked some questions about their birth family situation.  Then he asked for releases from the birth parents.  (Which are not his business, since the judge has already rescinded their rights and given them to us.  Not to mention, she has looked for releases from the birth parents.  Which were also needed to get the visa, which was also right in front of him.)  But I handed him copies of those, too.  He read for a while longer.  Then he said that he needed to take a picture of me with Buttercup, so to take her out of the wrap.  After a long time more, I held up Hibiscus so he could take a picture of our faces together -- and of course at that moment, someone else came by with a question, which he answered with way too much back-and-forth for holding my big girl up at face level the whole time!

I am glad that he didn't give us any more of a hard time about leaving the country, since I know some families have problems with these self-appointed judge-and-juries.  But I really longed for that missing hour or two we had spent arguing with the apartment manager.  While we were standing there, we heard the warning for boarding for our flight, and then the boarding announcement.  Then we heard the final call.

And what were the children doing this whole time?  They could have been worse, but they could have been better.  There was a little too much wandering around an looking at things while I waited and argued in the luggage area, and then everyone got hungry.  By the time we got to customs, the older two were mostly quibbling with each other and complaining at me to make the other one stop doing things.  Buttercup watched quietly from the wrap for a while, but by customs she was ready to lean her way out and run away, but she knows that she can't actually escape the wrap and stays pretty calm.  Thank heavens for toddler-wearing!  I doubt my ability to hold a sane conversation with an arrogant and illogical customs official, while also trying to hold on to a toddler who is bent on running somewhere.  And I am not sure that the customs official would think that I had the best interests of the children in mind if I was clutching a child who was screaming to get away from me!

Luckily, the Entebbe airport only has about four gates, so we were able to speed-walk through it quickly.  Also, the children found speed-walking much more interesting than anything else so far, so they walked right along with me (except for Buttercup, who was wrapped up tight).  And also luckily, no one desperately had to pee.  When we got to our gate, the flight attendent said that actually boarding was closed, but it's okay, we can get on.  So we went through security and x-rays at the gate, and kept on going to our plane.  I hadn't even had a chance to tell the children about the seating arrangements, which was that we were sitting in two pairs, one behind the other, and I would be sitting with Buttercup.  So both of the older children had to throw a small fit about not getting to sit next to me, although the fit would have been much bigger if either of them had to deal with Buttercup's incessant demands and fussiness!

Once we were seated, we heard an announcement about a technical issue, that probably had delayed the plane long enough for us to get on, and then a little longer.  And then the plane started to move, and the children were all very excited.  And then we taxied faster and faster, until the plane took off.

And I looked my last looks, as Buttercup blithely chirped "bye-bye, Uganda! bye-bye, Uganda!"  We will be back, but it will never be the same.  The girls won't be Ugandan any more.  We will be travelers, not residents.  It will all be so different.

And frankly, on days like this, that sounds pretty good!

Goodnight, Uganda

Our last day has passed.

We were blessed to spend it with many friends, American and Ugandan, adults and children; which is a pretty good summary of our months here.  We spent the whole day at home, which I also appreciate.  I like this home.

I packed the suitcases.  This morning, I had everything organized, but nothing packed.  I guess I had organized well, because a few hours of up-and-down the stairs, conversation and gathering and folding, and it all got put away.  It wasn't as much stuff as I had thought it would be.  I got through all the "maybe" piles (except for some things I decided we didn't really want after all), and still had some spaces in some of the suitcases.  We have eight big suitcases, three little ones, and three backpacks.  The backpacks are finished yet.

I could have probably taken one fewer bag, but I wanted to bring some of the simple things from our lives here.  I think, when we go to remember this time, our strongest memories won't be about the Kampala monuments or the beautiful batik fabric.  It will be the bowls and plates we used every meal; the wooden candleholders; the tea cup I held in my hands so many times, every single day.  I think those will be the things that one day we will say, "remember, that was when we lived in Uganda."

I can't believe that our whole lives fit in those little squares.  Or all the things that make up a life.

Hibiscus is afraid she is going to forget.  She is afraid she will forget her friends, and how to be Ugandan.  She is excited to go, but I think that's what is inside her, pulling her back.  On the one hand, I think she will forget less than she worries that she will.  She won't forget her best friends at Montessori School.  But on the other hand, she will move on, and she doesn't realize that yet.  She will make new friends, and being parted from the old ones won't be a hole, it will be something hazy in the background behind the new joy.  And the new squabbles and games and curiosities of daily life.

My husband is collecting lots of warm clothes, for our little girls who think that 65 degrees is frigid and need to put on multiple layers.  I bought a babywearing coat, so I can wrap up Buttercup and put a coat around us both.  I think she will prefer to be held close; inside; protected by me from the outside world.  She will probably need to go back to doing some watching -- but never again as much as she needed to do six months ago.  My guess for her, is that as soon as she figures out that her new world is full of friends and love, she will blossom like her little shooting-star self.

As for Emerson, I think this is going to be harder than he realizes.  He thinks he's going back to his old life, which he views through vague and rosy-colored glasses, but his old life has changed, and he has changed even more.  I have tried to warn him of this in his prayers, by asking God to hold him through the hard times of transitioning back home.

And as for me?  I still don't know yet.

Buttercup Discusses Our Upcoming Trip

Buttercup has always loved pointing out airplanes.  I think the little kids used to watch for them in the orphanage, and then chant together "air-o-pen! air-o-pen!"  For a while she would look for them and think that Daddy or Gramma was inside, and wave to them.

The other day she and I were eating lunch and she heard her favorite, distant buzz: "Air-o-pen!"  But she knows who is going in an airplane now: "Air-o-pen!" she chirped happily.  "Bye-bye, Bu-cup-y!  Bye-bye, Mama!"  That's right, Buttercup and Mama are going in an airplane next!
***

Last night I broke out one of our going-on-an-airplane books, hoping we could have a good conversation about what to expect on the trip.  I am planning on reading one every night now, so hopefully the girls will have something familiar to look at.  And to discuss expectations, like that there will be a lot of waiting (somehow, that isn't covered very well in the books!) and to not talk with the police or customs officials if they are talking to mama.  And to uncover unexpected expectations.

Like Hibiscus declaring that she wasn't going to wear a seatbelt, she doesn't like seatbelts, and she's just going to sit like "dis."  Emerson replied with shock that she has to wear a seatbelt, it's the rule, and she said she wasn't.  "What will they do if I don't put on my seatbelt?" she kept asking as we went through various scenarios.  We finally got up to the part where the flight attendants would make her go off the plane if she fought with them and wouldn't do what she was told.  "I'll just go off the plane and get on the next one," she said with her usual confidence (and lack of logic).

Buttercup had not participated in the conversation up to this point, and was looking more and more worried.  "Me gonna, me will wear, I's gonna wear seatbelt," she finally told us.  I reassured her that that was a good choice and the flight attendants wouldn't make her go off the plane.  She immediately felt much better.
***

One morning we were trying to get ready for school, and the children were having various conversations in a kind of unconnected manner, as they usually do at that time of day, including our upcoming trip.  I try and get them started and then go downstairs to make them breakfast, which gives them some motivation to actually get finished dressing.  So I announced that I was leaving to go downstairs.

"Me wanna go wiv YOU-OU!!" cried Buttercup, quite worried.  But I wasn't sure what part of the conversation she was thinking of.

"You want to go with me downstairs, or you want to go with me to America?" I asked.

"Me wanna go wiv you A-MER-ica!  To-gedda!!" she cried.


Oh, my sweet girl.  You will go with me.  We will go together.  I have waited so, so, SO long, just exactly so you can go with me.

Together.

Finally.

January to January

It is the middle of January.  Exactly one year ago, I was in the throes of frustration, trying to pack for a trip to Uganda.  Today, I am in the throes of frustration, trying to pack to go back to America.  One entire year.  One way or another, Uganda has an entire year of my life.   There were a couple months there that weren't exactly in Uganda itself, when our match fell through the day we were supposed to leave, and we didn't leave yet.  But, the entire month of January I dedicated to Uganda, figuring out exactly what we would need, collecting portable toys and every kind of medicine.  At the end of the month I quit my job, closed up everything; closed that chapter of my life.  Even when we didn't get on the plane, the bags stayed packed, the job stayed quit, everything seemed foggy and temporary.  Now it is January, and I am packing again.

We have plane tickets for the 27th, which is next Monday.  Hold up your fingers: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday; a whole hand, five more days, as Emerson counted this morning.  So after months of uncertainty, I am suddenly busy making the actual plans to go home.  I'm contacting our Ugandan friends and the people who have helped us, to say goodbye.  I'm emailing people at home and confirming doctor's appointments and plane seating arrangements.  I'm going through a list of people who were in some state of "we'll do X when I get home," to let them know that I actually have a date to get home and to plan a time for X.  I'm hoping to answer questions and complete connections for other adoptive parents who can't be in Uganda yet.  I'm trying to wrap up all the details that might not wait another two weeks, once the real chaos begins.  I'm probably forgetting some important ones.  I'm trying to sort things into "Take Home" and "Maybe" and "Leave Here."

I'm trying to arrange the house.  I once wrote about how overwhelming it was for me to arrange packing for this trip to Uganda; now it's equally overwhelming to try and un-arrange it.  I have realized the problem is that I'm good at big-picture dreaming, and I'm a perfectionist about all the little details, but the medium-sized problems overwhelm me with where to start.  I can either make lists all day, or I can sit and sort out one thing perfectly, but deciding how to deconstruct an entire house -- and entire life -- makes me feel like I'm staring at a huge brick wall.

And it's an entire life.  The power is out right now, and the candle burned down until the candle holder lit on fire (because all the candle holders are unfinished wood), and I went to get a new candle. The new one was the second-to-last one in the box, and there was a whole new box of candles sitting underneath it, so we wouldn't run out.  There's extras of everything we use in the big cupboards, from powdered sugar (not so frequently) to oatmeal (we go through it fast).  My mother grew up in a small town in Vermont, and they only went shopping once or twice a month, so she knew how to keep a well-stocked pantry, and that's still the way I live today.  It's pretty frustrating to run out of candles during a power outage, or some irreplaceable food when you have three kids and no car, so I keep extras.  Because this is our house, and our pantry.  And our life.

It was never meant to be forever, but as the months went by, it turned into good enough.  This is our days, our food, our routine.  We wake up in the morning, can grab the toothbrushes on the sink by feel, get our clothes from our wardrobes where they are every day.  I make eggs or toast on school mornings with Buttercup on my back, and Emerson staggers around slowly and Hibiscus darts around randomly, but between the three of us we get their backpacks filled with snack, juice, and homework.  They go to school, and bring home stories about new teachers and favorite games and funny things.  Buttercup and I eat our breakfast after they leave, perhaps on the patio.  She plays around me while I work or socialize on the ipad, and meanwhile we sing little songs and name colors and have laughs and snuggles in between our independent work.  When we go out, we shop at the Cinderella market in Bbunga when we're on our way home, which we used to walk to, and I can always remember exactly what I will find on the shelves.  Or we get bread and cash and go to Uchimi supermarket in Kabalagala, which is in the same mall with the shoe store (children need a lot of shoes), and there's a bunch of used clothing shops nearby, as well as most other little things that we might need.  When we go into town, we get our groceries at Garden City mall, which starts with a koi pond that the kids always run over to, and one time had trombonists playing Christmas carols on plastic instruments in the entryway.  That's also where the big bookstore is, and the food-court overlooking the golf course, and the colorful playground on an upper story balcony, which by definition doesn't have any grass and way too much sun on hot days, but is the only free playground in our regular routine.  Now that we usually do our errands by car, we stop there fairly often.  And I can visualize the streets curving around that area, the side heading into the suburbs with some nice restaurants on grassy compounds, or heading out to Ntinda where we see the dancing, or becoming angular in the other direction as it heads into downtown Kampala.  I know all those streets too.

In other words, this is normal.  This is just how we live.  

I never imagined that more than a year would pass between packing and the final unpacking, which is still ahead of me.  I never imagined eight entire months in Kampala.  I trusted that this was where God wanted me, and although I have often felt crazy, I have never felt any question that I was doing the right thing.  It just turned out to be a very large right thing!

Larger in terms of time and effort, but larger in terms of meaning in our lives, as well.  When we were talking about adoption, people warned us that it wouldn't be easy; when we mentioned older-child adoption, they said it really wouldn't be easy.  And I thought, the things that are easy aren't the ones that are most worthwhile. Not to mention, anyone making a choice to be a parent because they think it's going to be easy should think about their choices a little bit harder!  We went through all those thoughts about adoption itself, but I didn't know I would go through them with my children's country.  This year hasn't been easy -- it is probably the hardest thing I have ever done.  But in the end, we have gained so much from Uganda.

I have hated it here sometimes.  I have hated my situation, I have hated the culture, I have hated the entire country.  And I think that's fair; I think you don't truly make something yours when you idealize it or insist on focusing on the positive (or just the negative, for that matter).  But I have also found things that touch my heart and my mind.  I have made friendships that will change my life.  I have had conversations that never would have been possible if I weren't living this life.  I have seen beneath the surface and felt things in my heart.

But what is probably stronger than all that, is that I have hated it, and I have kept on.  I have come to define myself as living in Uganda.  My frustration has changed from something that is directed outward, towards an "other," to being at something that I know that I am part of.  Maybe I have a terrible day with some things that are so Ugandan going wrong -- miscommunication, being cheated, cars breaking down, coughing from the dusty roads.  But I go back in my own home, I make what I like for dinner, I gather my children around me in bed and smell their clean hair as I read bedtime stories, and we relax and think about the stories (and our Bedtime Reading Rules; we always need reminders about those), and our bodies melt into each other and I know that we love each other and that even though things are going wrong, I am filling their emotional cups with love and contentment.  And that's Uganda too.  We're not retreating from the Uganda-ness, we're going to our own special corner of it.

And we've become a Ugandan-American family.  My blond son says "even me" instead of "me too," and a hundred other phrases without thinking about them.  When he does think about it, he can slip entirely into African English, and asks me to "you pooot me he-ah" to refill his cup ("you put me here," like "put it here for me").  When he doesn't think at all, he can follow basic conversation in Luganda.  The girls speak English with an African accent, but Buttercup's is mild, and their vocabulary is filled with American words, and sometimes they forget the Luganda ones.  The phrases even slip off my tongue, and we all can say or understand "sorry for paining you" as easily as "I'm sorry I hurt you."  Everyone talks about whether we need to go sou-sou, and wanting the omunyo to sprinkle on our food.  We dress in clothes that are like what Africans wear, but what Americans would buy.  We eat mangoes and matoke, yogurt and honey, roasted maize and bananas, chocolate chip cookies and cheese.  The girls like nutritional yeast on their rice as much as "soup," and Emerson eats "food and soup" at school as long they cut the tomatoes into very small pieces.  I walk more slowly and my conversation has more pauses than it used to.  The kids are learning two sets of manners, which does not confuse them at all, although using any manners whatsoever can be difficult.  And most of all, we all share dozens and hundred of memories of our world.  Our mutual world, that we all know.  We describe this person that we talked to, or the store we mean is the one near where all the goats are, or the time when Cinderella market had a Santa Claus outside and Hibiscus thought it was real.  And the girls even remind us of American memories, like that Emerson rode a horse on Uncle Mike's farm, and tell again about the time that Mama thought Bubba was going to eat her food and she put it in her mouth all at once.  All of it is swirled up together in what is our own family story.  Our family, that is now and always will be both Ugandan and American.

I have said that I want to go back home, and I do, and now I actually have plans to do it.  I look around myself, and first of all I can't imagine that I'll be leaving this; my cozy living room and the rocky red dirt roads and the smell of fires.  I'll be glad to be getting back to my husband and my dogs and my normal life, but it's going to be hard to leave.  How hard, I don't even know yet; I think it usually hits about two weeks after it's gone!  But I think Uganda and I have turned a corner; have made peace with each other; have become something together.

As I wrote that it seemed self-indulgent to imply that in any way I have changed a country, but as I think about it, I have.  Miss B said that I was the most patient family she had ever worked with, in an admiring superlative.  I was introducing myself to some other adoptive parent the other day, and when I mentioned how long I've been here she replied, "oh, you're the one who's been here for eight months; you've become an urban legend around here!"  I'm sure in all my conversation and support and suggestions I have somehow influenced the course of my children's small school.  Some of the conversations I have sought to learn more about Uganda have probably given someone a different insight.  And then the tiny things: I've lived in an area where there aren't many white people, there aren't many transracial families, there aren't many women on their own.  All these hundred of people who have stared at me, or laughed at me, or bargained with me, or gotten to know what kind of fruit I like to buy, or complimented or scolded the way I wrap my child; all these people have changed their perspectives in some small way.

As for me, the transformation came in the last few weeks.  Around Christmas I was feeling worn down to the bone, and I didn't know if I could make it any farther.  But I did, and I kept going, and I found things to smile about.  And then finally, the children got on the school bus and waved and drove away.  Buttercup and I ate breakfast on the patio, and the sun was a nice gentle golden color and everything was green.  And life seemed so normal, and content, and manageable.  I realized in that instant that I didn't actually hate Uganda, I hated having to run errands with three bored children on an interminable break from school.  As soon as our routine was back in place, we all became ourselves again, and settled into our normal life.

And now it's time to pack the suitcases, give the pantry away.  Decide what we care about and what we leave behind.  Another January, another getting ready to fly away from another chapter in my life.

It hasn't been an easy year.  There has been suffering over administrative difficulties of adoption; there has been suffering over becoming a family through adoption; there has been suffering about doing all that as a solo parent.  There has also been struggling with Uganda itself, and I have gone through periods of excitement, and frustration, and appreciation, and anger, and acceptance, and weariness, and jadedness.  And not thinking about it, just living my life.

Because this is our life that we are leaving.  We haven't been on hold for the last year, we have been living.  And these three children and I, we have made a life, we have made a family here in the hills above Lake Victoria.

We have made ourselves a home here in Uganda.  We started out by leasing an apartment, and noticing all the smells, and being charmed by the outdoor markets, and struggling with understanding the accent.  But the months have gone by, and the tears and the anger and the friendships.  All those details have faded into something normal, something that is part of ourselves.

We have earned ourselves a home.

Remembering Ndere

On Sunday, we went to the Ndere Dance Troupe yet again.  I have decided that it's too complicated of an outing to do with the children by myself, so we seem to have gotten to the point that whenever we have guests or get to know someone, we try and go back to Ndere.  This time we went with our American friends who are adopting Sorrel.  It is a wonderful performance, and each time it has been a little bit different.  Sometimes I wonder if it is worthwhile to go yet again, since it's an expensive and late evening out, but then I realize that if an African dance troupe came to Portland we would pay a great deal more for the tickets and probably drive up and stay in a hotel as well.  So we go back to Ndere.  The children absolutely love it, and children learn through repetition, so I think they are understanding it and making it their own in a deeper way each time we return.

This time, I was thinking back to all the other times we have gone, and how our family has grown and changed over the months.

✬ The first time we went was when Daddy was visiting in August.  We were still transitioning into being a family, and the older children were in such a state of chaos we decided we couldn't trust them for an evening out with other people.  We didn't want someone running away or laying on the ground and screaming for half an hour straight, both of which were common at the time.  So we just brought Buttercup, because we also felt like she was in a state of bonding that it wasn't okay to leave her behind.  However, the other children screamed absolutely bloody murder when we left, and we had to literally tear them off of us.  Being alone with Buttercup was kind of like being on a date!  She sat on my lap and in the wrap most of the evening, and we were delighted when she perked up and quietly tried to clap her hands.  She ate off our plates, which was her favorite thing.

When they invited the children to dance at the end, I walked down with her still in the wrap.  She did not want to get down, and watched everything with fascinated eyes, but in no way was willing or able to participate.  I would worry that she would be trampled by the other children if she were down on the ground, anyways, as she was quite unstable on her feet at that point.

✬ We brought all three children the next time, in October with my parents.  The concerns about Hibiscus laying on the floor screaming had faded away, but we were very glad to have an even number of adults to children.  We got there early and the children played on the jumping castle before the show.  It wasn't very well inflated, and we were a little worried that Buttercup was going to get squashed, but she was delighted to be with the big kids so we didn't tear her away.  The jumping made Hibiscus all sweaty, which drove her crazy, and she was suddenly itching and crying and hysterical.  Gramma helped wash her off in the bathroom sink to calm the crying, while I helped the other children potty.  It was an example of how even something like taking the children to the bathroom could suddenly turn into a situation that one adult couldn't manage!

The children loved the show and were fascinated.  I actually don't remember what they did during the almost four hours of dancing, except that it was really good to have dinner as a distraction.  They were interested, but didn't really know what to do with themselves while they were watching.  Dinner is one of the reasons I can't manage this event by myself, because they open the buffet an hour or so after the show starts, and someone has to go up and fill a plate and bring it back.  Someone who does not have three children along!  My father brought us all plates, and first of all Hibiscus started eating off a shared plate, and then he got another serving and she devoured that one, and then he invited her to try his fish and she dived into that plateful as well.  And when she finally had to go to the bathroom with Gramma, we quickly signaled the waiter to take everything away, because she would never relinquish any food voluntarily.

Buttercup spent some time in the wrap, but also wanted to run around.  All that running gave her an asthma attack, because she still wasn't very strong yet.  After a while, she was running up and down the terraced steps to keep busy, and suddenly we looked around and she wasn't there any more.  We fanned out and looked desperately in every direction, but didn't find her.  We all had time to get scared before she wandered back, after exploring under other people's tables, apparently, and she thought the whole thing was a great joke.  Then the older kids started to run around like crazy, and we thought they were done for the evening.  We actually had everything packed up and were in the hallway, but Hibiscus and Emerson got all teary and begged to stay for the rest of the performance and promised to be good.  They actually cared so much about the dancing that they managed to control themselves, and we were so proud of them for making it all the way through the rest of the performance.

When the children were invited up to dance, Buttercup and Emerson walked to the stage immediately and simply, because they were told to.  Hibiscus hid under the table.  There weren't many children at that performance, so it was an intimate little dance lesson.  Both children diligently followed the instructions, and Buttercup looked so tiny and adorable.  When the children were invited back again, Buttercup kept jumping around happily in the middle of the stage area.  I suggested to Emerson that he help remind her to come back, and he went out to her and very gently took her by the arm and brought her back to the table.  The emcee commented on what a little gentleman Emerson was; I don't think he knew that he was taking care of his little sister.

✬ The third time was in the middle of November, with "Mr Slinky," the director of our adoption agency in America.  (Hibiscus couldn't figure out how to deal with the consonants in his name, but she had learned the word "slinky" because we had one, so that is what he became!)  This time the children entered with confidence and remembered how to stay near our table.  By the second half of the program, they all were up and dancing along with most of the performance.  I reminded the older children to not go far from us, and they didn't.  I reminded them to keep an eye on Buttercup and not let her wander either, and they did.  She had one burst of run-around energy, and her siblings quickly caught her and returned her to the correct dancing arena.  Hibiscus tied her jacket around her waist to imitate the dancers' costumes, and then all the children danced like that.  They were so proud to tell Mr Slinky about their favorite dances and look forward to what happened next.  Buttercup and I shared a plate of food, and Hibiscus and Emerson shared another one.  There was no fighting or drama over the food.

This time, they expected the dancing, and had had a great deal of conversation about whether they were going to go up.  But that night they didn't include the children's dance, which was a great disappointment.  The whole audience is invited up to dance at the end, and they all went.  Buttercup was in my wrap, and I had to stay with Emerson because he was feeling kind of shy.  The crowd that intimidated Emerson made Hibiscus feel invisible and safe, and she danced with abandon and grace.

✬ We went again this weekend, with the family who is adopting Sorrel.  Like Mr Slinky, they were helpful as an extra adult presence, but they weren't really involved in helping with the details of my children.  It didn't even come up, because we don't need it any more.  We aren't having any crisis in the bathroom which one mother's hands can't take care of.  In fact, I even left some of the children at the table while I took others to the bathroom, and I think Hibiscus might have even gone by herself, and no one thought twice about it.  It is helpful to have the moral support, be able to get the dinner, and have someone to talk with Hibiscus.  She loved helping out with Sorrel, and they also let her take some pictures with their tablet camera, both of which duties she took enthusiastically and seriously.  Until she got into looking at all the other pictures and videos on the tablet; her focus is still fairly short-lived!  We shared two plates of dinner like the last time, but I needed to get Buttercup an extra dessert plate to put her portion on to.  She's a big girl now, and wants a plate of her own.  Hibiscus stopped eating when she was full, and although she kept nibbling, she didn't protest when the waiter came to clear the plates.

After eating, the children immediately stood up to dance along with the performers.  Emerson was even trying some of the hip-shaking moves, but whenever I glanced his way he became embarrassed and stopped.  Hibiscus was also more self-conscious than she had been before, until the very end, but Buttercup danced enthusiastically the whole time.  She is actually learning some of the moves.  She didn't spent any time at all in the wrap.  I didn't even remind anyone about staying close, because they all know not to run away.

When the children were invited up, Buttercup was practically on the stage already, and went bounding forward.  Emerson started to go, but then started to feel shy, so I encouraged him.  Hibiscus looked like she wanted to go, but she clung to me and refused.  She wailed at me to not drag her out, which I never would have done, but I could tell she was almost moving.  By then Emerson had gotten worried and started to come back, and then Buttercup was confused about why her brother and sister weren't coming and so she had started back to me as well.  (So different from when she stayed on stage after all the other children; now she was noticing the difference between what everyone else was doing and her own family was doing!)  So I kind of took Emerson's hand and went back out before he could leave the stage entirely, and Hibiscus stayed clinging to me, so we all made it out.  I didn't like going up on stage for these kinds of dances when I was a child, and I didn't like being the only adult out there.... but the things we put up with for our children!  I joined the circle and participated with all the calm enthusiasm I could muster.  I think Emerson still felt self-conscious and shy, but he made it through, and I hope he was proud of that; I really wouldn't want to push a child to go out there if it wasn't making them happy.  Buttercup danced enthusiastically and with the confidence of knowing the routine.  As soon as she got going, Hibiscus was as happy as a clam and so proud to show off everything she could do!


So that's our six months of family time, via the excellent Ndere Dance Troupe!

Laundry Drama

I thought you might be interested to know about what doing laundry is like right now.

We have a washing machine.  It takes somewhere around two to four hours to run a cycle.  No, I don't know why.  No, I can't make it go faster.  Then I have to take the clothes out of the washing machine and hang them on the lines in the yard, which is simple, but it is something to do.  Then I have to take them off the line and bring them upstairs, and then ideally I would fold them and put them away, but lacking that we can just get our wrinkled clothes from a big pile.

The washing machine doesn't work when the power is out.  The drying doesn't work when it's raining out.  I kind of expect it to rain at night.

The power likes to go out from mid-morning until late afternoon or dinner time.  I believe that the company deliberately turns it off to save power, not usually  that something goes wrong.  There would be some logic in this if, say, the power was out every Tuesday and Friday or something.  But no.  We will have an entire week with barely any power, and then it will go for a while completely on.  It is the long periods of no power that start to get difficult, because you can't just do things on the days that it is on, because the next day it's off too.

So the power is usually on first thing in the morning and at night.  Obviously, putting laundry in at night means that it sits in the washer all night, and if there are errands the next day, it sits there the whole day.  Then when I get home, it's too late to put the laundry out that day, so it sits again.

So starting laundry in the morning makes sense.  Except there isn't enough water in general in this house.  If I start laundry, it might use up all the water, and when I go to take a shower it only dribbles out, which does not actually turn into a shower.  So I don't want to start laundry until I've taken my shower for the morning.  Which does not give it the requisite four hours to finish before the power goes out.  Actually, come to think of it, I'm not sure there would ever be time to finish a laundry cycle on a power-out morning.  Of course, I don't know that it's a power-out morning until it happens, and sometimes it randomly comes back on again, too.

That leaves exactly no reasonable time for running the washing machine.  I try to tell myself that at least it's still easier than washing everything by hand, and apparently it is, because I could do that with the power is out, and I don't.

Then there is hanging out to dry.  If the weather is bad, that can take several days.  It shouldn't, because you are supposed to run out and bring your clothes off the line as soon as it starts to sprinkle, and then put them back up when it stops raining.  If you did that, you could probably get them dry almost every day.  But sometimes I'm out of the house, and sometimes I forget, and sometimes I decide they're already too wet to bother.  Of course, once they get rained on, they are significantly wetter than they were fresh out of the washing machine, and it's at least a day backwards in terms of progress.  There have also been way too many times when I have taken the clothes off the line, and then not had a chance to get around to putting them back up again, and they sit in a half-damp pile.  I am not sure which makes clothes mold faster, sitting in a half-damp pile or hanging on the line soaking wet.  Yes, clothes mold.

When it's not raining, there's sun.  That is great for drying clothes, but otherwise not great for clothes.  I have this nice idea that I will try and take the clothes off the line as soon as they are dry so they don't get all faded, but it rarely seems to work out that way.  Meanwhile, I just try and hang them right-side-out, so the stained sides are towards the sun.  I have some vague hopes that some of the stains might go away before the entire garment fades or disintegrates.

The children each go through approximately three changes of clothes a day.  This is not a problem like a little spot on their clothes; this is something like spilling most of their lunch down themselves, or peeing all over, or deciding to mop the floor and turning into a mop oneself.  That, and Hibiscus is apparently in a clothes-changing kind of phase, and is old enough to do it herself, so I have no idea why she goes through so many clothes.  In fact, I think mangoes are yummy and I ought to be enjoying their tropical availability, but between the strings in the teeth and the fact that all three children have to change after serving mangoes, I find myself avoiding them.  So the clothes-laundry piles up.

Now that we have the system explained, I will discuss what needs to get washed.

The kids go through approximately three changes of clothes apiece, each day.  Also, have I mentioned that Africa has ruined all our clothes?  Between the sun, the red dirt, general kid-messiness, tough washing machines and detergents, and just general hard use, almost everything we have used for several months is ruined.  Of all the clothes Emerson and I brought over in June, the only things that are still in decent shape are his Hanna Andersson shirts (which I find so impressive I'm even mentioning the brand name!).  I put on a shirt I thought was okay the other day, and noticed that the back has become see-through and a slightly sweatier colored than the original version.  As for the girls, some of their clothes haven't been used as long, so they're not in QUITE as terrible condition.  But Buttercup has outgrown everything, and Hibiscus could not be harder on her clothing if you set her in a room full of scissors and permanent markers and told her to go to town.

Then there are all the rags and towels and mess cloths.  I try to wash them on their own so they don't get ketchup and floor gook all over everything else.

I also wash the wraps on their own.  Except their problem is usually that dust has settled in, or perhaps some blobs of food have hardened, which means they need to be soaked.  The efficient washing machines don't have the ability to soak, so I have to do that beforehand.  However, our laundry basin/handwashing tub is the same basin and tub which the kids take their baths in, or have water play on the lawn, or whatever else we need some sort of basin or tub that isn't as dirty as a mop bucket.  So I have to find a time to start soaking them when no one is going to need to bathe for several hours, and when the washing machine is at a point that when someone does need to bathe and I suddenly need to move the soaking wraps, I can move them straight into an empty washer.  I need to mention that none of my wraps show any signs or stains, fading, or wear either.  The difference between high-quality and average/poor/made-in-China textiles is just spectacular!

Then there are things like shoes and hats and backpacks.  They need to be washed too, but don't go in the washing machine.  You are supposed to put shoes in a bucket and scrub them with a brush, and then hang their tongues out and leave them to dry in the sun.  Between the red dirt, the sweat, and the sun, absolutely everything gets dirty here.  Things that are once-a-season washing at home, like coats, are once-a-week washing here, if you want to look clean.  Or, as Hibiscus says, "if your --- is not clean, then you will smell bad and no one will want to be your friend."

Then there is ironing.  Luckily, we don't have much that needs to be ironed, but the things that need it, really need it.  The landlord never brought by an ironing board, so I use the dining room table.  Now then, ironing wraps on a table is less convienant than using a regular board, but with some reaching and fussing with the towel, it's manageable.  But table-ironing shirred little-girl dresses, or neatly tailored women's dress shirts, is simply an exercise in frustration!  So before I can iron, I need to clear off the table, move all the placemats and napkin baskets and eating things over, and wash the table off.  Obviously, this usually means that I end up scrubbing all the placemats, and the chairs that get sticky hands all over them, and the sides of the table where things dribble, and so on and so forth.  I also have to find a clean towel to put on top of the table.  Finally, the power has to be on.  That one can be easy to forget, but it's frustrating to do all the other steps and realize that the iron won't turn on!  Then you sit around hoping that the power will come back on before you have to serve dinner, in which case all the cleaning will revert to it's original state as soon as the children simply look at the table.


So, that is the story of my laundry.  There are solutions for everything, and it isn't that complicated if you are around the house and willing to spend time with your laundry during the perfect opportunity for completing that step of laundry.  However, I am usually gone for several hours a day, but at various times.  And I will confess, when I am home I do not always feel like communing with my laundry, even if that happens to be the ideal moment to move something around or start a load or whatever.  Which is probably why people in Uganda either live in large family groups, where some of the members can work and some of them can spend all day doing laundry; or that everyone middle-class has full-time maids.  Because even with a machine, doing laundry is apparently a full-time job!

Visa Appointment

The United States consul has declared that Buttercup and Hibiscus were deserted by their mother and abandoned by their father, and that therefore they have no parents and meet the official definition of orphans.  Thus, they will be able to immigrate to America with orphan relative visas.  We can pick up the visas and travel documents on Friday.


I should be jumping up and down for joy or wanting to go out and celebrate, but I'm just absolutely exhausted. I guess after all the thinking about it and worrying about it, and a very long afternoon with some very wild children and plenty of confusion, it's just over and I'm feeling leftover. I was debating whether to do something to celebrate for dinner, but I couldn't deal with the thought of taking the children anywhere else. But I didn't want to cook either. So I picked up roadside food: chapatis, roasted maize, and samosas, and we ate on the porch. And I keep thinking, now I can start planning on how I'm going to pack and what else we need to do before we leave.... I start to think and my brain just fuzzles out.  It's either too many details or too unreal.  After all these months and all these complications and all this waiting, I can't believe that it's over.  The paperwork, the time in Uganda, any of it.


Since the appointment wasn't until mid-afternoon, Buttercup and I had a calm morning at home, which was much appreciated.  The driver showed up around noon, and I tried to get dressed and make us all look pretty -- I even put on makeup and wore nice earrings!  I didn't know how formal we were supposed to be, but I always figure that it is better to err on the side of being a little bit too nice.  Besides, I figured that for once I was seeing another white person, and she would recognize white-person clean hair or white-person put-together face!

Then we picked the children up from school, which of course had all sorts of drama.  Emerson didn't want to go change his clothes by himself.  He didn't want to go with a teacher, he wanted to go with me, but I needed to talk with someone.  They hadn't had lunch yet; Hibiscus wanted some before we left.  I told her to eat quickly, and she inhaled an entire plateful before Emerson even made it to the changing room.  Buttercup wanted out of the car, and I told her she could go if she didn't get dirty; I turned around and she was crawling around in the dust, and then she wouldn't get back in the car when it was time to go.  And in the middle she threw a fit because I wouldn't let her eat lunch at school, since we had just left the lunch table at home, and she had eaten until she was ready to pop.  Once we were in the car, I had brought a snack for the kids, and while I wasn't looking Hibiscus (who just ate an entire lunch) gobbled up most of it while Emerson (who had eaten nothing) was barely munching his first one.  This came to my attention because Hibiscus started whining that her stomach hurt.  Which is what happens when you eat an entire plate of rich food, four hot dogs, and a banana in about ten minutes flat, and I told her I had no sympathy whatsoever, especially since Emerson was still hungry but all the food was in Hibiscus's bloated belly.  And so on and so forth: all the little dramas of having three children, and taking them out of their routine to do way too many boring errands.  But they were required to be at this one, so I stuffed them in pretty clothes and dragged them along.

Their teacher, Derrick, also came along, because I had asked if he knew someone who could come with us to help with the kids.  He was a lifesaver!  The children continued to be wild and crazy the entire time.  Not only did they not want to sit still (which I admit is not very fascinating), they were directly disobedient and defiant, like repeatedly running out of the area where we were allowed to wait, with the armed guard telling them to stay in the gate.  At some point, they have had capacity to allow themselves to be entertained with something non-ideal but fairly interesting, because they know that it is important.  Like driving in the car to safari or during the court date.  I am starting to think that all their positive social skills have disappeared during this month of school break-cum-paperwork errands.  They have all been especially scattered and difficult lately.


It was a bad place to not care about rules, because the US Embassy has enough rules and regulations to sink a small ship, or probably even a medium-large tanker.  Just walking through the gate to go into the compound is somewhere between annoying and impossible, depending on what documents you have in hand.  I suppose it is just as well that they do a security check fourteen different times (what could I manage to hide in my coin purse, really?), but what drives me crazy is the list of things that you're not allowed to bring inside.  I don't mind that some things are disallowed, but it is the list itself that bothers me.  It is about a page and a half, single spaced, with all these little things like "phone, ipod, laptop computer, cables, powder, cosmetics, nail clippers" and so on and so forth, for two pages.  So the first time I went through I carefully checked all the items on my list with the guard, who put them in a little box and gave me the key.  And then I went through the next security checkpoint, and they took all these other things out of my bag and told me to give them back.  Because, you see, an e-reader is not on the list, but what the list is ACTUALLY trying to say is "all types of electronics," so a Nook is not allowed.  We could skip about a page of listing and a great deal of confusion if they wrote that.  They also returned my small sunscreen bottle as "cosmetics," which it isn't, but I suppose the category they want is "liquids and creams," like the airlines.  So I think the list should be improved to describe categories instead of trying to name all the specific things that might fit into the categories!

One category they do list is all food and drink, so we had to leave our water bottles at the gate.  Last time I was there they had one of those office-style water-tanks, but this time the water had run out and the person who was supposed to bring a new tank naturally hadn't brought one, because this is Uganda and Ugandans do not hurry to get their work done.  Between the heat, the waiting, nerves, and talking, I wanted a drink of water so badly!  It is often those little things that color a whole experience, and I think whenever I remember our visa appointment I will immediately be thirsty.

As I wrote last night, we had this vague "all the families show up and we will try and get through the appointments," which didn't make much sense.  We got through the security complications somewhere around two o'clock, when we were supposed to show up.  I saw four or five families waiting in the outside waiting area of the immigration visa area as we arrived, but then several of them left.  I don't know why.  I don't know if they didn't have their paperwork, or were told to come back at a specific time, or what on earth happened.  I recognized several of them from other points on this long journey, including one mother who has been waiting at the same time as us ever since the passport office.  I hope they all are okay.

We were advised to go inside, and I think only one other family went before us, but they were the only ones still waiting.  I sat around and tried to help the kids do activities for a while, but then I didn't understand why the birth parents weren't there.  I had texted Miss B on the way over, and she had replied that everything was fine and they were coming.  She is usually very prompt for important dates, so by 2:30 I was worried.  After some discussion with the man at the desk (receptionist? guard? greeter?), it turned out that they were stuck waiting on the benches outside the Embassy gates.  So I went down to "confirm their identity" and bring them back with me, which involved leaving my visitor's badge as I left the immigration area, and then going through the entire process of entering the compound all over again.  But much more slowly, with two sick adults instead of three lively children (and someone from the orphanage helping liase for them).  I tried to enjoy my very slow walk up the sidewalk, and appreciate that I wasn't stuck in a room being nervous and trying to control three uncontrollable children.  But it's hard for me to walk slowly when I'm tense.

By the time I got back to the correct area, it was about our turn to go in.  I was told to come in with the children.  I had expected some kind of room where we would all sit down and perhaps be asked questions, but this was like going to a bank teller, but private.  I went in the little door marked "3" and stood at a counter, and the consul official sat behind the counter which was a desk for her, and there was a glass wall between us, and a slot underneath to pass papers back and forth.  The children came in with me, but immediately went insane and couldn't stop climbing on things (there was absolutely nothing to climb on but the trash basket and straight up the walls, so up they went), and complaining loudly and repeatedly that they couldn't see, and mama MAma MAMAAAA did you know my toe hurts? and so on.  The official said that if they would be more comfortable outside they could sit in the waiting area, and then they refused to leave, and Hibiscus and Emerson started crying that they didn't want to be away from me, while Buttercup entertained herself by opening and closing the door, and sometimes putting herself on opposite sides of it.  I was about ready to take them by their ears and deposit them anywhere far enough away that I could hear her voice on the other side of the glass, but luckily something happened, and Derrick grabbed their attention, and finally they left and stayed gone.  Things went much more smoothly then.

The goal of this interview is to confirm that the children meet the international definition of "orphan," which is complicated.  There are eight different ways that a child can be classified as an orphan, and it is possible to adopt a child in-country, that the country qualifies as needing adoption but the US does not qualify as being an orphan, and then they don't issue a visa.  (However, hopefully an honest lawyer would point out the problems at the beginning!)  I had no idea what the appointment would be like, but it went along well.  The official went over the paperwork with me and asked some little questions.  During the intake appointment, the intake person had told me to change a couple of things that didn't make sense to me, and the consul official told me to change them back.  I had to sign that I would get the girls fully vaccinated within 30 days of arriving in the U.S.  Interestingly enough, the consul official seemed to really respect that I had been here so long and knew the girls and their situation so well.  I was prepared for her to be very picky and very detail-oriented, which she was, but she seemed to acknowledge and respect that I knew the details, instead of doubting me.  She asked a couple of general questions, such as having me describe the girls' family situation, and she asked what I honestly thought of the orphanage, and what my impressions of the birth family was and why I thought they had relinquished the children.  The only hitch was that she wanted to see the original relinquishment forms that the parents had signed when the children came to Abato.  There have been about four more, more official forms that the parents have since signed, so the lawyer hadn't included those.  She said that I might have to make another appointment so she could see them.

Then I was excused, and found everyone waiting in the outside waiting area, which allowed the children to be even more chaotic than before.  After a few minutes, each of the birth parents was called in, and probably each spent ten minutes being interviewed (with an interpreter).  Then there was another pause and I was invited back in again.

The consul official explained what I wrote in the first sentence, about the official status of the parents, and why the girls are considered official orphans.  She said the parents had had a better than average understanding of what adoption means, and that the father was very clear and articulate about when and how and why he relinquished the children to Abato, so she wasn't worried about seeing the documents.  She gave me back all my paperwork except for the girls' passports, because they will put the visas in them.  Our "travel packet" will be ready at noon on Friday.

And that was it.  So, unless our luck holds and they manage to have a fire in the records room between now and Friday, or something like that, we will be completely done in 38 hours.  This is the last piece of paper between our family, and our home in Oregon.


As I have said, I just don't believe it yet.  I want to just go back into our regular routine, and I think about the things that need to get done tomorrow and how I'm going to manage them.  I suppose I will also start making lists of things that we need to do in Uganda, and figure out how I'm going to plan our time.  It will probably take about another two weeks to get everything ready, and also wait for airline tickets at a reasonable price.  Perhaps it will be difficult, still being here when I know that we have the documents to go.  But I think, as sick of living in Uganda as I am right now, I still will need some time to decompress and transition away.  It has been a long time.  For every little thing that I think about and irritates me, there are probably twenty little things that I take for granted and take care of calmly.

But that's all tomorrow.  Tonight, I'm exhausted.  And I'm hoping it's real.

Talking, and more Talking

After I wrote the post about Quiet Time, and friend commented that learning to quietly be by herself would certainly be worth it for Hibiscus later in life.  In fact, there are a lot of things that will be worth it for Hibiscus later in life, that are making me go gray and ragged to start working on teaching her right now.

Like talking.  I feel like ALL DAY LONG I am correcting Hibiscus for talking at the wrong time, sometimes with the gentleness of guiding her to greater wisdom, and sometimes with a great deal of exasperation.  But when I stopped to think about it, I am only correcting a few simple guidelines:
-don't talk when someone else is already talking
-don't talk with your mouth full
-don't make "noise," e.g., utter nonsense at a loud volume for no particular reason
-when it is "conversation time," if you have not heard anyone else's voice except your own for a long, long, time, then it is time to stop talking

Of course, there are subgroups to this.  "Don't talk when someone else is talking" includes "guessing what your brother is saying and finishing his sentences loudly," and also "when your mother is giving you instructions, stop talking so you can hear the instructions," which is closely related to "when you ask a question, then stop repeating the question in a louder voice, so that you can hear the answer, instead of then starting to repeat 'WHAT?'."   Not talking with your mouth full goes hand-in-hand with the other lesson, that it is not good manners to put your mouth up to the side of your bowl, shovel in food as fast as possible while spilling it all over the table and floor, and talk through the entire thing.  (How she even manages that without choking herself, I am not sure, but she is a pro!)  The original two statements we have been working on for a while, and the latter two have been added in more recently.  Gradually adding new requirements is either because I have reasonable expectations for her, or my disgust has just grown overwhelming!

However, these are really the only points we are working on.  I am not drilling her on grammar.  I am not expecting her to make sense all the time, I am not working on telling a story in the right order and naming the important people as you go along.  I am not focusing on conversational conventions.  But "don't talk when someone else is already talking" takes up OUR ENTIRE DAY in corrections.

I remind her gently.  I make it into a teasing joke (which she enjoys).  I point it out in the abstract third person.  And shake, rattle, and repeat, over and over.  I wonder why I am even bothering, but she tries to listen and is starting to learn the rules, although she can't follow them yet.  I ask questions like "what is wrong here?" and she answers things like "Emerson is already talking" or points to her mouth and chews faster.  I create Silent Times when no one is supposed to talk (especially at bedtime), except for me, and except to ask necessary things, to make the talking rules simpler.  She forgets about it 15 seconds later.  I give up and walk into another room; Emerson comes in crying that he's trying to say something and Hibiscus keeps interrupting.  I remind gently, I remind in an irritated voice.

And then I yell.  Yes, I do.  I swear, if Hibiscus cannot actually speed up my genetic hair process and make me go gray, she can manage to turn me into a yeller.  I am not proud of it, but it has been months alone in Africa and four weeks of school vacation and SHE HAS NOT STOPPED TALKING THE ENTIRE TIME.

Is it worth it?  That's the real question.  If it doesn't matter, I might as well save ourselves the strife and arguments of me correcting her seventy million times a day.  But I think it does matter.  I have yet to meet someone who really enjoys having someone else finish all their sentences for them, or feels a calm helpful mood descend on them when someone follows them around repeating the same question six times in a row without pausing to hear if there is an answer.  I think this is one of the social skills that Hibiscus NEEDS to learn.  Maybe I'm wrong; maybe it's just a stage or she only acts like this with her mother or something else.

In which case, then it really IS a social skill that she needs to learn.  Because her mother is an introvert and an internal processor, and I actually need a moment of silence in order to decide what I'm going to say and answer the question.  It can be a short moment, but it needs to exist.  I can handle being asked the same question six times in a row.  I'm a mom; it comes with the territory.  But it turns out, I can actually NOT handle four weeks straight of talking.  Loudly.

*******

I have also discovered one of the difficulties of teaching table manners, which is the one time of day when we try to have a conversation and other subtle things like that.  Table manners are, by definition, an interaction between people.  There is only one person at our table who is fully capable of holding a normal, interactive conversation, with listening to what the other person says, basing your response on what their reaction is, and staying on one topic at a time, until it is mutually enjoyable to all parties to discuss something different.  There is also only one person who is capable of passing dishes, and remembering to not run around without being excused, and for that matter, only one person who has the authority to do the excusing.  Therefore, modelling is not possible, so the only thing I can do is keep saying, "Hibiscus, finish chewing... Emerson, say "please pass" and don't reach over the table... Hibiscus, don't stand on your chair... Buttercup, stay at the table until you're done.... Hibiscus, I hear your brother's voice and your voice starting talking... Hibiscus, how do we sit properly?... Buttercup, that's stuffing your mouth... Emerson, will you please pass me a napkin?  Thank--- Hibiscus, my voice is talking -- thank you... Hibiscus, you are standing on your chair..." and so forth.  I must agree, it is not very scintillating conversation!  I am starting to think that they could pick some of this stuff up smoothly if they had some example to follow than two other little monkeys.

*********

Have you ever noticed how important pronouns are in the English language?  We can technically explain what they do, and how and when we switch between male and female, but I don't think we can explain how the proper pronoun changes the entire meaning.  When someone starts a sentence with a female name, but in the second or third clause uses "he," our minds immediately jump to insert a logical male into the story.  I can't tell you how many times lately I've said "but what was Emerson doing there?" and Hibiscus gives me a blank look, because she wasn't talking about Emerson at all, which was also why I was confused.  So I have decided that paying attention to the gender of our pronouns is our English Lesson Of The However-Long-It-Takes.

Maybe I shouldn't focus on English grammar, and assume that Hibiscus will just pick it up eventually.  Her English is expanding by leaps and bounds, and it would be logical to assume that her grammar will expand with it.  But this is not taking into account the Hibiscus-ness of Hibiscus, who in her first months here actively corrected both Emerson and I when we spoke English.  Not even corrected us on something that happens to be different to what it is in the African dialect, but just plain corrected things into Totally Random Hibiscus Language.  So when a mistake becomes persistent, I am not sure how quickly she will figure it out, or if she is trying to single-handedly change the entire language into something that makes more sense to her.  Meanwhile, when I'm listening to her with half of my ears while trying to figure something else out with half of my brain, I keep inserting imaginary people into her sentences to match the pronouns, which is confusing both of us.

It turns out she had no idea that "he" and "she" depended on the gender of the person in question, and obviously holds that concept in some disdain.  (She also had "Mister" and "Miss" backwards for several months, or maybe just random.)  Now, when I gently correct her by saying "what he is that?" or "is Buttercup a boy or a girl?" she corrects herself to the right gender, BUT THE WRONG TYPE OF PRONOUN.  Instead of reversing the gender, she reverses she and her, and he and him.  So we get: "Buttercup wanted more water, so I gave him a cup --" (wait, who did you give the cup to? a boy?) "is a girl... Buttercup wanted more water, so I gave SHE the cup..."  Every single time, the direct object and the subject switch places, but only when switched to the correct gender.

I can't think of how to explain that to her, so I'm hoping it goes away on its own!

Mid-January Update

It is the Tuesday of the middle week of January.  School finally started again yesterday, after an entire month's break, and Emerson and Hibiscus were on the bus at 7:40.  Somewhere around ten, I decided that maybe I didn't hate Uganda quite as much if I had a quiet house and the chance to get some exercise, and the thought of doing errands didn't make me feel like crying if I could just wear whatever child needed to go with me.  (Actually, I was just having the conversation with some other babywearing moms, that errands would be much better if we could logistically manage to wear the older ones, and just let the baby toddle around.  Babies can't get into nearly as much trouble as over-active school-aged children.)

Mid-morning, Buttercup and I went for a walk.  I decided that we didn't have to have a goal in mind, and we just went up and down the steep roads in our new neighborhood, seeing the scenery, looking out over Lake Victoria, and exploring whether or not the roads went through to the other roads that were directly in front of the road in question.  (In general, no; they all got to the wall of some compound or other and just stopped.)  We set off, and this is how our walk was going along:

Walk, walk, walk.  Look, look, look.
Buttercup: mm, mm.  Duck, hmm.
Walk, walk, walk.
Buttercup: Five little ducks... hm, hmm...
Mama: Would you like me to sing Five Little Ducks?
Buttercup: Yes!
Mama sings Five Little Ducks, once through, with Buttercup either listening or singing the same words, and the same music, at the same time.
Walk, walk, walk, walk, walk.
Buttercup: See da fow-ah, Mama?
Mama: Yes, I see a pretty red flower.
Buttercup: Petty red fow-ah.
Walk, walk, walk, walk, walk.
Walk, walk, walk, walk, walk.

Ah.  Happy introvert time!

After our walk, we had lunch, and got the downstairs of the house tidied and cleaned up.  Somehow, that has not happened in the entire month that we have lived in this house!  It is very refreshing.  Then the bus brought the kids home, and they all played outside while I finished ironing my wraps and blouses, which have been waiting around in wrinkly piles.  It was a wonderful day, even though the Embassy was supposed to call me with an appointment time and they didn't. Although it ended very tired, as my little band of monkeys got up to quite a bit of mama-exhausting-ness in their last few hours, and of course created a whole new big-issue problem to worry about.  I think I'm not bothering to worry about it yet, though.


Today, we had errands to do.  We actually went out with another adopting family whom we are getting to know, which meant that there were adult human beings to talk with me!  We stopped by the kids' school, which is in a new building, and got a tour and a lot of enthusiasm from our friend Derrick, who runs the school.  Then we all went to lunch together, and the company was exciting for both Buttercup and I.  For me, there was actual conversation, with people saying things and then not talking for a little while when someone else said something, and then basing their next comments on what they just heard the other person say.  Conversation is an amazing art.  Meanwhile, Buttercup was amazed to be the "big girl in town," with little one-year-old Sorrel watching her attentively and trying to bang on her arm.  She is used to being the baby and spending all her energy trying to keep up with bigger children, and being rebuffed half the time.  One could just see the wheels turning in her head as she tried to imagine getting to be in the other role!  I can't wait to get her home to America, where she can spend time with kids her own age, and do activities designed for little people.

We left our friends shopping there, and went into town to the lawyer's office and the post office.  It was by far my smoothest post office experience yet, except for the reason I was there: picking up a package that was mailed in SEPTEMBER.  I had given it up for lost when Miss B gave me the package slip a couple of days ago!

Then we got our friends, dropped them at home, picked the children up from school, checked on a horse-riding lesson, and went home, all with no calls from the Embassy.  But when I got home, I found an email.


Let me give a quick refresher course about what I expected; what the Embassy explained in their little class, which matched what the adoption agency told us, and the experience of other parents whom I have talked with.  You have the paperwork-intake appointment.  Then they give you the next appointment for a hearing, which is a specific time on Monday or Wednesday afternoons, and tell you who and what you need to bring with you, and any other details specific to your case.  Then you come with the children, any living birth parents, NO lawyers or adoption workers, and you go over your huge pile of paperwork and they acknowledge that the children are legal orphans, and two days later you get your exit paperwork.

And here is what happened.  They took the paperwork, didn't have any knowledge about my case in particular, said "we'll call you some time, like maybe Monday," and confirmed my phone number. They didn't call Monday.  They didn't call Tuesday.  They sent an email on Tuesday, telling us to be there Wednesday, but -- here comes the weird part -- it isn't an actual appointment for us, they are telling all the families to come at the same time on Wednesday afternoon, and they'll "get through as many as possible," but to be prepared for a long wait.  In other words, I need to collect my three crazy children, arrive at nap time and stay through The Witching Hour, sit around in a crowded room filled with other nervous parents and even more chaotic children, and possibly or possibly not have our hearing.  Meanwhile, we also need to collect the parents or possibly someone else, since we haven't heard details about whom or what we need to bring, who are at best sick and weak and tired, and at worse delirious or missing entirely, and they also need to sit around all afternoon and maybe we will have an appointment and maybe we won't.  Doesn't that sound wonderful?

It remains to hope that the last two phrases of the original description remain valid.  I will not complain about sitting around if we walk out with a promise of paperwork, so I shouldn't be complaining ahead of time.  But I can't actually believe that it is going to happen!  Especially now that the children are back at school, it seems like we are back in our cheerful little holding pattern, and will remain circling for an unidentified period.

So that's the update!  We'll see what I am able to write tomorrow!

Potty Drama

So, besides Hibiscus in general and Uganda in general, do you know what else is driving me crazy?  "Potty training."  I put that in quotations not because I have the modern ideas that "training" is too harsh a word and want to call it something gentle like "potty learning."  No, it is because there is no training or learning to be done whatsoever.  Buttercup, like all my other children, is completely capable of putting her effluence in the toilet: she knows how to signal when she needs to go, she knows how to pull down her pants, she knows how to walk to the potty, she knows how to call me, and she EVEN knows how to hold it -- really well.  She is an excellent hold-it-er.  So there is not much education involved.  Within a month of being in our household, she was very dependable at going on the potty whenever she needed to.

Unless she decides not to.  All I can figure is that sometimes it doesn't seem worth her time or effort, and she cheerfully just pees all over herself and walks around in it.

At the orphanage, that's what the younger children did, and they were always sitting in pee.  The slightly older ones went on the lawn, and as they got really organized (yeah right!) they went in the dark little outdoor bathroom.  At that point, Buttercup just wet herself all the time, and for all I know, she may have done that in her previous life, although I kind of suspect not, given how quickly she started using the potty appropriately and proudly.  So maybe this is a leftover from the who-cares orphanage life.

But I'm sick of it!  Maybe if she were my only child, I would have the time and energy to empathize with the difficulties in her life that have led her to pee all over herself and not care.  Maybe if she were my oldest child, I would be so proud of watching her progress towards dryness that I would be happy to hold her hand down that rocky road.  Who knows; maybe I am just not a very potty-patient mother.  But with all the other chaos in my current life, I am out of patience with children who are perfectly capable of waiting and peeing in the potty, and yet choose not to.

This afternoon we had the following conversation.  I was washing dishes, and she was playing with a towel in the kitchen near me.  She was singing, but out of the blue said, "I don' need go sou-sou" (which is the local word that we have ended up using).  She doesn't speak very clearly, so I asked "do you need to go sou-sou?" -- no -- "do you need to go potty?"  She looked up at me and widened her eyes and went "NOOO-OH" in that "du-uh" voice that is particularly annoying to parents.  So I put down my dish and dried my hands and flipped up her dress and felt her undies -- no surprise here, they were wet.  I said we were going to the potty, and she did the duh/no again and tried to run away from me.  I grabbed her and started to carry her to the bathroom, and she kicked and fought me, and then I slipped in the giant puddle of pee and we both fell on the floor.

I was mad.

Maybe I'm a bad mom.  We're not supposed to get mad at our kids for having potty accidents.  That's what punitive parents do, and then it makes kids afraid of going potty, or shameful about themselves, or have some whole Freudian complex or something.  But it's maddening.  Even when you can understand why, it's maddening.  It's frustrating enough when the little one is playing with the bigger ones, and you know that they didn't want to leave the game and missing out on something is such a huge disaster at that age; you can kind of understand, as you try and teach a new logic.  But when the child is half-bored and standing by herself on your just-mopped floor, and still doesn't bother to walk the dozen steps to the bathroom or speak to the mother a few feet away, and just pees all over, it's REALLY maddening.

Which happened not twenty minutes later.  20 minutes after a giant screaming fit because she said she didn't need to go potty, and I said she needed to sit on it anyways, and she peed in the potty, and after the screaming was done we talked about not peeing in our undies any more.  Actually, I hadn't even changed her into new undies yet, she was just standing there, and I noticed there was liquid running down her legs.  I hadn't changed her into new undies because she is going through all three children's undies like wildfire, after the difficulties with getting the laundry clean in the first place.  We are living the simple life here; I just do not have the logistics to deal with six clothing changes a day!  (A couple of those are for meals and mud, too!)


This is a discussion without a point, or maybe just without an ending.  I don't have a practical solution, and I have tried a bunch of them:  Alternating with peeing on the floor multiple times in an afternoon, she will go for long periods holding it appropriate amounts of time, so I doubt it's something physical.  She usually has good capacity, so putting her on the potty every 30 minutes doesn't help; she just cries "sou-sous no come!" and they don't, and it's even more crying on the potty.  I praise her like mad whenever she goes successfully.  We talk about what it feels like to hold it and what it feels like to pee.  We put on special clothes that she doesn't want to wet.  The big kids scold her -- that's not mother-enforced, but it's natural peer pressure.  I have calmly had her clean it up and change herself.  None of it seems to matter; she still just randomly pees all over things half the time, and then switches over to being totally dependable.  Some parents' philosophy would say that she's just not ready yet and to put her back into diapers, and she encourages this idea.  However, she is THREE YEARS OLD (in a culture where children are diaper-free as young toddlers) AND she has successfully and consistently gone in the potty for MONTHS.  I feel like going back to diapers is just allowing this state of mind... whether it is laziness for pottying properly, or a disrespect of self to sit around stinky and disgusting.  I understand that it probably came from the orphanage, and it doesn't mean she's a bad girl or lazy, but the attitude needs to be left behind at the orphanage.  My personal instinct is that putting her in diapers full-time would be subconsciously agreeing that she's too lazy or incompetent or dirty to use the potty like a regular little girl.


Or maybe I just need to wait out her behavior, and change my own reaction to it.  Maybe I just need to stop allowing myself to be frustrated when she pees on things, and just pretend I'm parenting a baby again.  Or just turn my brain off and hum a song while I plop her little bum on the toilet and change her clothes.  Easier said than done!


So I don't have the answers right now.  I write this, so maybe in a few months I can look back and remember that this was a challenge that we overcame.  Or maybe I won't be able to believe that I got so upset by something so minor and not even about me.  Or maybe so other parents can read this and feel like they're not the only one getting mad about potty accidents.  Or maybe to comment on the little details, the not-even-worth-mentioning problems with being an abandoned child and living a life like Buttercup's.