Annie's Way in 10 Minutes

I got Annie's Shells and White Cheddar, which is mac and cheese in a box, to help me through the busy nights.  We got back today at only ten minutes until dinner time, which is kind of a disaster for the circadian rhythm of my household.  But luckily, the box promises "Annie's Way in 10 Minutes."  I assume these products are marketed in large part to parents and families, so it is a little confusing that apparently no one at the company has ever actually made mac and cheese and timed the real process.

The ten minutes is the time it takes the pasta to cook, and then make the cheese sauce.  Of course, they don't include the time it takes for the water to boil.  You can try to get around that by putting a pan on to boil while you are still getting children and gear into the house from the car.

The pot starts boiling at some point, and maybe that is the countdown they intended to indicate.  The 10 minutes apparently doesn't include reminding your children to put all their outdoor stuff back in their cubbies, or when they have to get their things from the car but are afraid to go alone, but all the children actually have to go, which should mean mom can be cooking, but somehow the little one is crying about being left behind and mom is helping her put boots on instead of salting the pasta water.  Then they come back, and the water is still boiling, and the 10 minutes do not include the part about the big ones complaining about wet feet, or explaining which chore one child must do, which involves mom being on the other side of the house, and then when you were going to go and actually put the pasta in the water, the little one is crying and getting underfoot, so you might as well wrap her on your back, because you're going to need to do it sooner or later anyways.

Putting the pasta in the water starts the 10 minutes, I believe.  One can add frozen peas and bits of cooked chicken from another night, which makes a more interesting and nutritious meal without actually adding to the 10 minutes, because you can do it while the pasta is cooking.  And with one child on mom's back, one child peacefully putting laundry away in his room (or something, but he was quiet and the laundry vanished), and the other child keeping up a running monologue as she folds paper bags, the pasta can cook in peace.  It is supposed to cook for 8-10 minutes.

By then, the children have finished their chores and are supposed to set the table.  If your pasta took 8 minutes, now you can spend two more minutes melting butter and milk and adding the cheese powder.  It does not include telling your daughter to stop playing with a yoyo and put out the plates, or your son to stop flapping his arms like a bird.  The table didn't need wiping, but the daughter insists on wiping it because she usually does, which means she needs to yell at her brother for trying to put something on the table, because now he's decided to stop flapping his wings and set the table.  The cheese sauce doesn't take very long, but by now the pasta is getting cold, so you put it all in the pan on low heat.  The 10 minutes apparently doesn't include telling the mid-table-wipe child four more times to stop playing with the yoyo.  Or unwrapping the small child to take her to the potty, which you can't do quickly because she yells "I'm not done!  I'm POOO-oooping!"  So you have to go back out, tell the children to put the yoyo down, stop playing, and possibly some of these instructions are delivered in a louder-than-average voice.  And stir the pasta which is sitting on the stove.  The argument about who is supposed to put the plates on the table does not actually take any of the cook's time, although possibly her energy.  The time it takes to wipe a poopy bottom is not included in the 10 minutes, except by now one of the children has become dedicated to the task at hand and has followed you into the bathroom saying "but what do I dooo-ooo! how do I set the taaaa-ble! what do I doo-ooo!" and you keep telling him to do what he does every night.  And when you go to pull up the little one's pants, it turns out she wasn't really standing up, and the sudden change in waistband elevation pulls her flat over onto her nose, and she starts screaming.

The 10 minutes does not include checking for bloody noses, while trying to answer "what do I dooo-ooo!" and tell someone else to put the yoyo down.  The yoyo-ing child's usual jobs are all things that are waiting on the yoyo-er, while the dedicated-to-working-or-yelling child has to wait for something else to happen (like: setting out cups; serving everyone water), so the cook has to spend her time telling the yoyo-er that she is forfeiting the chance to do her job if she doesn't actually do it, which she doesn't, so her brother eagerly dives at the plates with great earnestness, and the smugness that comes from being the one who is being better behaved at that moment.  The cook needs to stir the pasta again, but she can't serve it because she's still comforting the non-bloody nose, and hoping that being buckled in her booster seat will get the cryer thinking about something besides her nose.  The 10 minutes do not include the amount of time for a post-yoyo-ing child to throw a giant fit because she did not get to put the plates out, and the warming pasta needs stirring again.

The 10 minutes do not include the time necessary to locate everyone cups and lids, which invariably fall under everything else.  And the middle-of-the-table-setter is now really busy doing all his sister's jobs as fast as possible while she sulks, so it takes a while to get a coaster for the pasta pot, which is pretty hot by now.

I am not sure whether the 10 minutes are supposed to include the time while the cook slowly serves out pasta, and tries to keep it away from the littlest one, while the two older ones elbow each other out of the way to do the remaining chores as fast as possible, which includes delays like one child opening the silverware drawer, running off to something else, and the other child banging it shut again.  And debates whether it is meant to be a personal insult to be given the less attractive fork.

And in this secular country, they probably did not include the singing of grace as part of the 10 minutes, although it keeps food out of the children's bellies for a little while longer.



Come to think of it, maybe boxed mac and cheese is supposed to be marketed to college students.

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!

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.

Kenya, Day 2

This time, we hired a car for the day, and head out with a goal in mind: animals.  Animals are a big deal in Africa, and Nairobi's theme seems to be "animals you can touch."  We started with a baby elephant sanctuary where the elephants were fed and played right in front of us, and then some friendly ones were invited to walk around the perimeter and we could touch and interact with them.  We also went to a giraffe sanctuary where you could feed the giraffes right out of your hand, and decided we were too tired for the crocodile farm, where apparently you can hold baby crocodiles.  Um, sometimes wild animals are supposed to be wild!  The elephant orphanage seemed like a really neat place with a genuine mission and philosophy.  They bring in baby elephants too young to survive on their own, keep them until they're old enough in this area, and then have two more camps in a national park.  The elephants gradually go out into the wild from these camps, and keep returning at night for as long as they need to, until eventually they are accepted into a herd and stay wild -- a process that takes 5-10 years, depending on the individual!  So while they are in the orphanage, they become accustomed to humans in many ways, but at the same time they are trying to keep them prepared to go back to being wild elephants one day.  It was pretty amazing.

As for the giraffe sanctuary, I was less sure about a mission, other than "giraffes are really neat, and if people get to touch them, then they will like giraffes better," or something like that.  We spent most of our time on the wilderness trails, which we really enjoyed.  It was neat to see the natural dry-land forest of the area.

In the middle, we had lunch in a mall.  We had pasta and cappuccino (at least one of us did; the other one had three sips of strawberry smoothie), and had another quick chance to go shopping.  My clothes are getting all worn out, and I'm looking forward to doing the last adoption errands not looking like a bag lady!  I thought this was a nice outfit, which is good because it was about the only thing in the entire store that wasn't awful on me.  The kind of colors which suit a quiet, Soft-Summer blond, are not exactly the ones that are widely stocked in Africa!

Then we went back to the hotel.  The idea was that we would take a shower and go out for an early dinner, but the hot water ran out during Emerson's bath-ish thing.  It turned out that they didn't have the power on for the hot water, so we had to wait for it to heat up.  Goodbye, early dinner!  I was feeling frustrated and irritated, but at the same time, some quiet time in the hotel was probably good for us.  Emerson intently played legos on the hotel bed, of course.  It seems so much easier traveling with one child than three, that I forget that I still need to take things at child-pace.

I was half tempted to skip the nice dinner, but I decided we would go after all.  I selected a place that the guidebook had been a historical start-and-end fine dinner for Kenyan safaris.  There was a sign behind our table commemorating 50 years of operation, from some time in the 1950's!  A nice dinner turned out to be just what we needed to wrap up our little trip.  We had some delicious food, the waiters were a combination of western-level competence, and African-style friendliness, and it was a calm way to end the day and the trip.



The picture captions have more about the specific events of the day.  Go halfway through the album, to the sleeping boy, to see the second day.
Kenya pictures

Pictures from Kenya

Our first day....

We spent a long time over breakfast, due to the presence of legos.  A new lego set will do that to a boy!  Then we went out walking, which was fine for a while, but Emerson wanted a more directed activity.  I offered up things to see downtown, eating lunch, or museums: the National Museum, Train Museum, or Snake Museum.  I thought the trains would be a shoe-in, but Emerson thought about it and set his heart on the National Museum.  "I don't want to just see a museum with one thing, like snakes or trains," he told me.  "Then what if I get tired of looking at snakes or trains?  I want to go to a museum with lots of different things, and then we can go and see different parts of the museum."  He even eschewed lunch in favor of heading over to see many new things.  So to the National Museum we went, and it lived up to his hopes.  It had many different galleries, including modern art, culture, animals, skulls, and outside areas including a circle garden, flowing (but not large) botanical gardens, and other small specific gardens.  We also had lunch.

Then we took another cab to a big mall.  I was hoping to get some of the shopping in for things that are difficult to find in Uganda.  Indeed, I found a new charger for the iPads in an actual Apple store, a soft measuring tape longer than 20 inches in an actual fabric store, and some new clothes.  That took a while, of course, but I hope I have something kind of wearable and respectable now.  I think our clothes are getting to be in as bad of shape as the locals, which I don't mind wearing to go buy bananas, but I'm beginning to feel a little silly going to the lawyer's office like that!

The specific stories are written on each photo:
Pictures in Kenya

Chapati Night

Tonight I tried my hand at chapatis. It should be interesting, seeing that my "recipe" from the people who have "showed" me how to make them, goes something like this:

Woman standing by bowl of dough: "You put the flour, and the things in. You just make it like this, the normal way. It's just flour, and the other things."

When Emerson asked our Kenyan neighbor to write down what to do to make them so I could do it at home, she laughed uproariously, and told the story for months.

From observation, it seems to be pretty much a basic yeast dough, and I know how to fry them.  So I made a yeast dough, and I fried them.  The children really like chapatis.  They really, really like them.  I don't know if I made them up the "proper" way, but I made the dough light and the chapatis small and thin, so it wasn't like an entire brick hitting your stomach after you plough your way through the whole thing.  So they probably weren't proper chapatis after all; I have a habit of changing things so I like them better, until they aren't what they even started out to be!

But the children still liked them, apparently enough to explode.  They were served leftover bean soup and a chapati, and they had to finish the soup to get another chapati.  (Another benefit of small, thin, chapatis; you can bribe your children to finish their dinners because they can actually eat two!)

Dinner:
Me: I ate my soup, and then had two chapatis with butter and cinnamon sugar.  I really find chapatis too plain to eat on their own, and too dense for dipping in soup.

Hibiscus: Ate her chapati dipped in soup, tried to take another, re-heard the rule, and gobbled up the rest of the soup.  "My stomach tell me, it really like for eat hot food," she told me happily. Then she had her second chapati, which had happened to puff like a pita bread.  Inspired, she put a piece of broccoli inside.  Then she thought about what I had done, and put cinnamon sugar on the top.  Chapati, broccoli, and sugar?  Oh well; she was happy.

Emerson: Ate his chapati, worked diligently on his beans for a while.  I agreed that he had eaten enough, and that I had given him too large a serving, and he had a second chapati with cinnamon sugar.

Buttercup: Ate her chapati, with perhaps a bite of soup out of curiosity.  Took a second chapati.  I put it back and told her to eat her soup first.  She waited until I had glanced away, and reached out for the chapati again.  I only sit about eight inches away from her, so I did actually notice.  This repeated about two more times.  Her brother and sister started in on the soup-chapati rule.  "Me no likey eat soup," she said, and pushed her bowl away.  Everyone reminded her that there were no chapatis then.  She sat quietly and did nothing whatsoever for a long time.  Then I got up to get something.  I heard protests from the older children, and came back to find a napkin neatly covering the soup and a chapati on Buttercup's plate, while she sat with round, innocent eyes.  Amazingly enough, the soup still existed, even underneath the napkin.  I removed the chapati.  She told me she was all done soup and was no eat-y soup, and I suggested that I could get her ready for bed then.  That idea went over like a ton of bricks.  We had several more discussions about being all done soup meant being all done dinner ("no, me eat chapati now"), and she finally agreed that she was eating soup.  And didn't.  And didn't, and didn't, and didn't.  Everyone else was finishing, and I got up to run the first bath.  And I came back to find another chapati on Buttercup's plate, but her siblings weren't yelling.  I looked in her bowl and it was amazingly clean.  She said it was all in her tummy, and the other agreed.  Since they are very literal in their interpretation of the rules -- especially since they had followed the rules themselves -- I accepted it as fact.  When push came to shove, it was an amazingly fast devouring of the soup.

End of Dinner:
Me: I finished my chapatis, cleared my plate, put dishes away, helped with buttering and serving, and glanced at my email while the children ate.  And ate and ate and ate.

Hibiscus: Ate her broccoli and sugar chapati with appropriate exactitude and much discussion and compliments.  This child really enjoys her food!  When the meal starts, she eats at about the rate of your average starving Rottweiler, so by the time she is fiddling around I know she is getting full.  She was even talking about being full, but when I looked over I see her about to tuck into a third chapati.  I took it away.  She screeched and screamed like I was starving her to death.  We talked about two chapatis and a giant bowl of soup being enough for a small child, and that we could have more chapatis in the morning, and that she was actually full.  She pointed out her giant taut belly poking out of her shirt as evidence of the last point, but still thought she needed more.  I ended up carrying her to the bath; "you can pry chapatis out of my cold dead hands" seems to be her motto.

During bedtime, she kept complaining about how painfully full her belly was and that she could hardly move.  Then she engaged on a genuine stream of worry that her belly was going to explode in the middle of the night and there would be blood all over.  And THIS is why I DO pry the food out of your hands, my dear child.

Emerson: Finished his chapati with cinnamon sugar.  Asked if he could finish all his beans and then eat another chapati.  I suggested that he was actually full and it was bedtime.  It turns out he was also painfully full, and melted into a pile that could not walk to the potty because its tummy was too full.  At least he only does this on chapati nights.

Buttercup: Barely even ate part of the hard-earned second chapati.  First of all, everyone was leaving the table.  "Mama, go dere.  Go do more computer," she ordered me.  Apparently mama checking email on the other side of the room was an acceptable alternative to being left alone!  That, and she was full.  Sometimes, when Buttercup is full, she actually gets tired of eating food.

Final Argument:
All children this age are concerned with fairness, but Hibiscus takes this to an extreme, and she is always convinced that someone is taking advantage of her.  Tonight, she was fixated on the third chapati, and convinced that I had gotten a third chapati and she wasn't allowed one.  Sometimes I actually do allow myself to eat more food than I serve to her, given that I am about twice her size, although usually we eat about the same amount at meals.  But on this occasion I had also had two chapatis, I had just eaten them in a different order so I had eaten two in a row.  She was willing to argue the point to the death that I had actually had three.  I didn't care, other than I didn't want her to feel hurt and unloved over my taking away her third chapati, which was the way she was tending.  We discussed the order of my chapati-eating several times.  Emerson chimed in that I had eaten exactly two, just like everyone, he remembered.  Hisbiscus's final sally: "Mama, I am sitting right here, and I am right here next to you, and I SEE you eat three, I SEE you, I am right NEXT to you.  I am not lying!"  I observed that I was even closer to myself than she was, but there is no way to convince someone when they won't be convinced.  I just said she was only making her own self sad by worrying about something like that.  Although actually, it makes me kind of sad too.

Encore:
There are chapatis left for breakfast in the morning.  And I tossed the rest of the batter in a loaf pan, and it seems to also make a very reasonable bread.  Which I think I would prefer to eat... and I promise to stop before my stomach explodes and bleeds all over!

Buttercup's Day Out (at the mall)

Buttercup suggests all the time now that I get out her car seat so we can go exciting places. That is, she says something like "Mama? Car seat? Getting car seat, we go? Yassim-y come, car seat?"  I am glad she has formed such a positive impression of her carseat.

First of all we went to the grocery store and got the boring shopping out of the way. Then I asked her what we should do next, go to the bookstore or get some lunch. I was very surprised when she said "go look, books." So we went and looked at books.

When we came out of the bookstore, there was a big display of artificial Christmas trees out front. Buttercup contemplated them very seriously. I found all the decorations a bit jarring, myself. There is something very winter-y about Christmas decorations, even if the locals are too tropical to even realize the arctic references. There was no nod to the local environment to them; all evergreens, holly, and fake snow.

The food court at the mall has a bunch of little restaurants around the edges, and seating in the middle overlooking the golf course.  Which so far sounds like American food courts, except the restaurants are full service.  Which means as soon as you come in ten or twenty different waiters come flocking around waving their menus at you, hoping that you will think that you sit down and order from the menu that is handed to you.  This time I knew I wanted Indian, so I sent the others away and the gave up quite quickly.  On me, that is. I took the Indian food menu, and then was handed several more.  "What do you want for the baby?" they asked me.  "Here, chicken and chips for the little one," said several chicken and chips servers.  "This one has food, very nice for children," I was told, with a menu open to chips.  It took a great deal of energy to send them away. Apparently they thought that a child would starve if I only had an Indian food menu.  I have a strong suspicion that there are many Indian children who do not subsist off chicken and chips.

We ate our paneer tikka masala very happily.  And then we shared a cup of English tea even more happily.  In my cup I poured mostly tea with a little bit of hot milk, and in Buttercup's I poured mostly hot milk with a little bit of tea, and we are all very satisfied.

After lunch we went out to the playground area.  Here Buttercup attempted to play by herself.  This was quite shocking to her, as her previous experience with playgrounds has been to follow around someone bigger, and either do what she is told or be scared of doing what she is told.  But at any rate, the equipment was very hot, and she wasn't that interested.  I was trying to use the mall wifi to catch up on email, since it was out on my side of town.  So we went to a slightly-covered sitting area indoors with giant potted plants, which the bigger kids liked to climb around on, so I could finish my internet things.  Buttercup sat on a sitting-cube next to me and happily colored and did not climb on and off anything at all.  She really is quite different from her older siblings, when she has the opportunity.

Then she went back up on my back, and we got some bread, and drove back to school to get her brother and sister.  She was very happy in her car seat again, and very pleased about going to school.  Hibiscus wouldn't pick up her backpack and follow us, so Buttercup wore her backpack, and was even more pleased with herself.

Rainy Morning

Yesterday the power and the water were both on all day, so I managed to get four loads of laundry done.  To do multiple loads takes being home all day, since the ordinary wash cycle that gets the clothes clean takes well over two hours, although there is also a short cycle that gets the clothes simply less-dirty.  A confluence of all those things doesn't happen every day, so our dirty laundry was building up.  And now it is all out on the line, where it got rained on all night long, and it being rained on yet.  This is not actually improving the what-to-wear situation.


I planned on not just sitting at my computer, and thus taking a walk first thing after breakfast.  That plan is also scuttled by the rain.  Taking a walk with nowhere particular to go and nothing particular to see and no particular ambience is uninspiring enough.  Doing it in ankle-deep mud while trucks bellow down the middle of the road and spray puddles everywhere...  If it ever seemed like a good idea, it does not today, when we haven't got any clothes to change into!


I have had the clever idea of serving the kids hot chocolate in the mornings.  They liked it so much at Budongo Forest, and I figured then they would get some milk, with its protein and fat, to help balance out the kids' usual toast-only breakfast.  The girls were used to drinking tea, which I make with seconds of my tea bag and mostly milk, but although they all ask for tea Buttercup is the only one who actually drinks it.  So the hot chocolate was my next attempt at adding some dairy to their breakfasts and their day.

Then I realized that most parents probably just give their children a glass of milk.  That seems to be a fairly standard childhood beverage.  I don't' know if my brood would drink that; I personally hate milk so much that it has not yet occurred to me to try!


Except the hot chocolate experiment is about to be vastly curtailed.  The children seem to want to spend most of their breakfast time stirring the dang things, and even when I didn't provide any stir-ers this morning I found Emerson re-appropriating the butter knife.  And Hibiscus has spilled her entire cup both mornings in a row, after a great deal of contemplating and stirring and wiggling and so forth.  But she's going to be mad at me when I point out that she has spilled it so consistently that she won't get any more, because the first morning she simply booby trapped it so effectively that I was the one to actually pull the trigger on the poor cup.  She was fiddling with anything and everything on the table (instead of eating before the bus comes, which is my idea).  She had moved over a plastic bag, and for some reason the cup was invisibly sitting on part of it and she was fiddling with the other part.  I told her twice to put the bag down, and she ignored me, so I took it away from her, which of course pulled the other part out from under her cup.  How mean of me!  This morning I don't know what she was doing, but I know that she was very proud of wearing a very cute outfit with a brand new shirt and pants from Auntie Becca, and she looked graceful and American and very pleased with herself.  And then she dumped hot chocolate all over everything, with plenty left over for the chair cushions and table as well.

And the Buttercup spilled her hot chocolate, too.  At least she had the consideration to drink most of it first.  She didn't like the part with the little bubbles and flecks of chocolate powder; I think she thought it looked like a bug.  I stirred it and made it all go away, but she still viewed the drink with great suspician.  I wouldn't "fix" it any more (I didn't see anything to fix) and I wouldn't give her a kitchen full of tools to fix it herself (and dribble it everywhere), so finally she glared and gave it a little toss over onto Emerson's used breakfast plate.  Needless to say, when you give a quarter-full cup a little toss, it gets hot chocolate everywhere.


Except on Hibiscus's shirt, because she had insisted on wearing it to school.  Which is just as well, because none of her other shirts are dry anyways.

Another Evening in the Monkey-House

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our Afternoon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I do love my little family.

Buttercup-isms, v.4.3 ("stubborn")

Okay, apparently Buttercup is taking on two+ years of demanding toddler independence all at once, without the 2+ years of building toddler skills.  I am about ready to pull my hair out.

"No likey!" to everything, especially any kind of healthy food.  She knows how to properly treat books, but she's suddenly trying out ripping them, folding them, and dropping them in puddles of water.  The puddles of water are because she is deliberately spilling everything I give her to drink, and then demanding refills 400 times in a row.  (She doesn't get them.)  She wants to dress herself, but can't do any better than putting both legs in one side of the pants, and then screams bloody murder when I try to help, even though I really am helping and not doing it for her.  She suddenly needs to wipe herself, which (needless to say) involves little bits of toilet paper all over the bathroom floor, filled to the top of the bowl, and a suspiciously stinky rear end.                                  

*********

Potty time.  Oh, the endless issues of parenting a toddler and going potty!

Buttercup just relieved herself in her underwear in the orphanage, and didn't even seem to be aware of the mess.  (As did most of the middle-sized children; the babies got the limited stash of diapers and the older ones knew how to pull their pants down and pee in the grass.)  Within a couple weeks of being home with us, she was magically potty-trained, and went in the potty whenever I took her.  I don't know if she was formerly potty-trained and abandoned it in the stress of being in the orphanage, or if she was simply ready and her intense desire to be like her siblings did the rest.  After another couple of weeks, she started telling me when she needed to go potty.  I still put her in diapers at night and on outings when I don't want to handle a pee accident if we can't get to a bathroom, but even most of those times she stays dry.  She has been very dependable for weeks.

Now, suddenly she's going back to having multiple accidents in a day, and not even telling me after she has wet herself.  It is getting really frustrating, and I tell her not to pee her panties like a little baby, or she'll be stinky and the big kids won't want to play with her.  Which is true, and appeals to her desire to be like the big kids.  Maybe it's being harsh, but I figure any of her former adults would have just spanked her.  And it's really annoying to deal with pee on top of everything else, when the pee-er in question has fully proven that they are capable of putting the pee where it belongs, so maybe I am not at my parenting best.

In the last day or two, we have suddenly had a dramatic turn-around.  She wants to pee, all the time.  She needs to poop, all the time.  This wouldn't be such a big deal without the accompanying wiping issue: she wants to wiper herself, so if I help her on the potty and run out of the room to deal with something else, instead of calling me she'll attack the toilet paper herself.  And if I hide/move the toilet paper, she'll call me back in, and then we'll have a conversation like this:

Buttercup: Me poo-poo-ling.

Mama (seeing and hearing no poo poo in progress): Good poo-poo in the potty.  Are you done?

Buttercup: Me poo-poo-ling.

Mama: Are you ready for wipe?

Buttercup: Looky, me poo-poo-ling.

Mama sees nothing in the potty and no evidence of anything forthcoming: Let's wipe you up. (and does so)

Buttercup, as Mama starts to take her off the potty: No no no, me needs to go poo-poo!  Is more poo-poo coming!  Is poo-poo!

Mama: Okay, call me when you're all done poo-pool

The conversation is repeated a minute or two later.  And for every bit of pee and every toot, all day long.

********

It's nap time, but Buttercup would way rather run outside and play with the big kids.  She escapes several times during the potty-and-new-underpants process, but I finally catch her in a wrap.  She sobs and sobs, although she's too tired to throw a good fit.  I put her up and adjust the wrap very carefully, because I know it will be a long carry and I want us both to be comfortable.  She calms down quickly and lays snuggled against my neck, looking pretty content.  She usually is once she gets up.

I show her herself in the mirror and give her a little pat.  "Isn't that nice?" I ask.

"No likey NICE," she answers, sulkily.

I get the point!

*********

Mama: Are you ready for lunch?

Buttercup: Yes, me want-y lunch.  Me want-y eat.

Mama: We're going to have rice for lunch.

Buttercup: Me no likey rice!

Mama: Would you like some eggs?

Buttercup: Me no likey eggs.  Me no likey eggs... tomorrow.  No likey eggs, tomorrow.

(I think she is trying to say yesterday, when she is right that she did not eat her eggs!)

Mama: What do you like?

Buttercup: Me no likey rice!  Me no likey eggs!

Mama: What do you want to eat?

Buttercup: Me no likey rice!

Mama, since further suggestions are not making any progress, goes back to the original plan, especially since Buttercup always eats the following dish: I think we're going to have rice anyways.

Buttercup: Give me... toast!

Mama: We just had toast for breakfast.  We're not going to have toast again.  

 Buttercup: Give me toast!  Me no likey eggs tomorrow!

Buttercup, watching Mama get up to fix things: Me no likey rice!  Me no likey rice!

Mama: Well, you can "no likey" things till the cows come home, but sometimes we have to eat what there is to eat.

Buttercup: Me no likey... cows!

(P.S. She is busily and happily eating her bowl of rice.)

***********

Buttercup's English is rapidly improving, and now when she hears a new word, instead of just being confused, she guesses that it is actually another word that she knows.

This morning, I asked her (rhetorically) if she was adept at something, and she answer "me no likey NAP!"

We were in the bathroom at our western-style pastry shop, complete with relaxing music.  Norah Jones came through the speakers.  I asked Buttercup "listen! do you know that music?" since I often put this on during their bedtime.  Buttercup is incredibly musically attuned, and often can sing a song passably well after hearing it only once, and actually remembers music better than her older (and also musically attuned) older siblings.  So I was sure she would know the song, and sure enough, her whole body stiffened in attention as she listened.  But then she became distracted by whatever mischief she had been thinking of, so to help her calm down I brought her attention back to the music.

"Can you sing with it?" I asked, although of course that's a challenge.  This was the song where the most noticeable phrase is "but we're so-ooo, far apart..."  Buttercup waited for the moment when that phrase is just getting ready, and then burst out in her full voice, in perfect rhythm and admirable pitch: "we're so-ooo, far a-poo-poo...!"

I'm sure that was Norah Jones's first version, aren't you?  The one her editor vetoed?  If not, I can suggest she put out a toddler volume right away...!

**********

Buttercup has been stuffing her mouth ridiculously full lately, especially with soft foods like banana and pancake.  She chokes herself several times a day.  (Former near-starvation coupled with toddler-style exploring makes for a lot of food issues around here!)  She looks up so blankly while I try to tell her to not make her mouth so full, and I haven't been sure what vocabulary to use to clarify what the problem is; eg. that I don't want to take her food away, I just want her to slow down.  I naturally use "stuffing your mouth" but have tried to come up with simpler words as well, especially because she looks at me so blankly.

By which, I am forgetting how children learn words that are relevant to themselves, not words with the fewest syllables in them.  Buttercup demonstrated perfectly well that she not only knows the word "stuffing," but she also knows when to use it and it's level of being unacceptable.  Emerson finished up his lunch and was clearing his plate, and maybe was a little over-enthusiastic to get to his after-lunch game.  Buttercup spied his cheeks, and started jumping up and down to get my attention, screaming "Em-son STUFFING!  Look, Em-son mouf, Em-son STUFFING, he STUFFING!!!"

********

Speaking of stuffing, last night Buttercup had an accident that ended her dinner.  As I'm sure all parents know, when children are hungry and presented with a plate of food they like, they are pretty attentive to putting the food into their tummies.  Once the tummies start getting full, all sorts of other activities start working their way into dinner-time.  In this case, Buttercup kept reaching across the table to grab more carrot sticks, instead of eating her egg.  I was starting to clear up and get things prepared for bedtime (another benefit of two parents is that one of them can set a good example by staying calmly at the table, but as soon as the kids get up they are on full manic-wild mode, so I have to get bedtime ready to suck them in).  I had warned Buttercup multiple times not to stand in her chair and not to put her tummy on the table, but I wasn't hovering at that exact moment.

There is suddenly a crash and a cry.  Buttercup had reached diagonally for the carrots until she was laying on the edge of the table, which she then fell off.  

The fall was a problem, but so was her mouth.  As she fell, bits of barely-chewed carrot spurted everywhere with the impact, but when I picked her up to comfort her, her mouth was too full to cry, so I had her spit out her mouthful on the table, so a big mouthful of half-chewed-up carrots came out.  But then she started to half-choke with her crying, so I leaned her over with her face down and patted her back, and a third mouthful of mostly-chewed carrots came out.  A few seconds later, the crying guttered out hysterically, and I leaned her over and thumped her back harder, and another good-sized serving of carrots came out. She was too shocked to cry for a minute, but was clearly breathing, so I gave her some water and she swallowed the rest.  

That is somewhere above FOUR Buttercup-large-mouthfuls of carrot that she was chewing on, while still reaching for more carrot to push on top!