Poison Control

Today I got to call poison control.  Luckily, the number was right on the toothpaste tube.

Buttercup is in this awful phase where she gets really really tired and grumpy, but half the time she can't (won't?) nap.  She has been so unpleasant for the last day and a half (since she hit nap time yesterday, and didn't take one) that as soon as she started laying on the table ("more snack please now!") and rubbing her eyes, I put her up on my back.  I really thought she would fall asleep.  She didn't.  I kept her there for an hour and a half anyways, hoping that at least getting some rest for her body would help her find some mental equilibrium.

I finally put her down after everyone was home from school, and they were playing in the bedroom.  I poked my head in a couple of times, and it seemed like a normal, happy game of "we're on an airplane."

Then the older two came out, and we were working on something.  I cannot even remember what it was, but it was something that they needed.  And at first I was thinking "good thing Buttercup isn't in the middle of this, because she would want to do it but just get in the way, and I'm glad that I can explain it at bigger-kid level."  Then I started noticing in the back of my head that it had been quiet on the Buttercup-front for a little bit too long.

I found her in the bathroom, standing on the stool with the water running in the sink.  So far, no surprise; I've caught her making a big, happy mess with pouring water in and around the bathroom sink before.  But what has she got in her hand?  A toothbrush.  In fact, to be specific, her brother's toothbrush.  And what is she doing with it?  Rubbing it on the bar of soap.  Yum!

As I took that away from her, I noticed the tube of toothpaste lying next to the sink.  It's Tom's of Maine kid toothpaste, and it has a flip-up top, but the whole top was kind of loosely screwed on in a suspicious manner.

Buttercup told me, "I go-ed sou-sou.  By MY seff.  And I washed. MY hands!  See, I washing dem." (That emphasis and stop at "my" is her usual phrasing.)
"And you brushed your teeth?" I suggested.
"Yes, an I buss.  MY teef!"

This was obviously a fairly incomplete description of the situation.

I tried to get her to describe if she ate the toothpaste straight out of the tube or put it on her toothbrush (or Emerson's toothbrush, as the case may be) over and over.  She just said yes to both, which might have mean she did both, or she might have just felt agreeable.  She was in a pretty good mood, as she was not only having fun but feeling virtuous for completing all these chores without assistance. When I used gestures, she made it perfectly clear that she thought sucking straight from the tube was a great idea, and yes she would have some more now!

Meanwhile, I was testing the tube to see how much was left.  It was still more than half full, I guessed, but it had been a new tube very recently.  The directions on the back said "call poison control if more than the usual amount used for brushing is swallowed," along with a description of the tiny amount that is supposed to be used for brushing.  Pea-sized, I think; I actually use more like a lentil.  I figured that somewhere around half a tube was more than pea-sized.  I didn't really think she was in grave danger, but I figured that I ought to call the number.  If, of course, I could manage to fight off all the children running around my legs and demanding my immediate attention.  And crying, because someone needed a nap, and instead, had had her beautiful soap-scrubber and water attraction removed.

Did you know Tom's of Maine has it's own, personal, poison control number?  Apparently it does, and that is who I reached.  There were a few preliminary questions about names and ages and so forth.

And that is when Hibiscus got the idea that I was "calling the police on Buttercup!"  At first she was frightened, but I told her I wasn't and to go away, and she kind of believed me but by then thought it was a really exciting idea, so she got all whispery and told her younger siblings about her new theory.

By the time I got off the phone, they were all waiting on tenterhooks for the police car to show up and take Buttercup away.  I explained -- perhaps without a good deal of patience left -- that I didn't call the police, and police don't arrest 3-year-olds anyways, but if you eat toothpaste it can make you very, very sick, so don't anyone do that again.

The poison control woman said that it wasn't that much, and at most Buttercup would have an upset stomach.  But I'm sure that if Hibiscus got the idea in her head to eat toothpaste, she would be much more efficient at it, and probably go through about four tubes in the time it usually takes her to pee.  So I wanted to make it very clear that this was a very bad idea, because generally they are all passionate about trying out each other's bad ideas.  As though, "if it was enough fun to make it worth trying for so-and-so, then I better try it too..."  So I sensed a toothpaste-eating explosion on my hands if not dealt with sternly!

Hibiscus quickly made the switch from police to "am-BOO-lance," and started looking out the window for one of those.  Buttercup started to cry.  Hibiscus danced in circles around her, saying "you're going to get SHOTS, you're going to have to get so many SHO-OTS!!" which quickly turned the crying into downright hysteria.

I picked up Buttercup and said that no one is getting any shots, and an ambulance isn't coming, and Buttercup isn't very sick right now, but no one was EVER to eat ANY toothpaste again.  I don't know about Hibiscus, who was probably enjoying creating drama more than actually believing it all herself, but I think the juxtaposition of "eating toothpaste" and "lots of shots" scared the younger two off of playing with the toothpaste for life!

I said that there were no doctors and no shots today, but Buttercup was supposed to drink a glass of milk.


Buttercup drank that milk with a dedication and singularity of purpose that was admirable to see.

Snow Snow Snow!!!

Snow days!!  Hibiscus couldn't wait to see snow, and has been praying about longing to go skiing for several months now.  ("Dear God, I want to get to America to see Daddy and Gramma and go skiing.")  We didn't expect that her wish would be granted so quickly!  Yesterday morning Emerson burst into our bedroom saying, "Daddy, I peeked out my window, and I saw the bush, and after the bush it was white!"  At first Daddy thought he was exaggerating, but a confirmation glance indeed found a dusting of snow.  The excitement reverberated off the walls.  Literally.  Mark keeps finding all the pictures askew!

There wasn't very much, so I thought it was a nice compromise: Hibiscus got to see her first snow, but school wouldn't be cancelled and I could have my regularly scheduled day.  Before I got up, Mark checked the school's status, and indeed, school was still scheduled.  Like any child, Hibiscus complained about this, but not much because she was too busy running outside and tasting the snow!

Emerson was right along with me hoping for school to be in session.  Hibiscus is in first grade all the mornings in the week (Waldorf first-graders don't have afternoon school), but Emerson is still enrolled in only three mornings of kindergarten.  We are planning on doing homeschool on the other two mornings, and this was the first Thursday and thus the first day of homeschool.  Emerson was super duper excited about starting homeschool, and was all ready to sit down at a desk and do some lessons.  Except we don't have a desk for him, so I was trying to convince him that he could do homeschool at the kitchen table, and he had finally agreed that he would get a desk for first grade.

While I was getting ready in the bathroom, Hibiscus was nearby, and in the distance we heard Daddy answer the phone.  I was asking why she wouldn't want to go to school, because then she got to see her friends, which did pique my little extravert's attention: but snow still won out.  Then Daddy came in to tell us that that was the phone tree, and school had actually been cancelled.

"Yay!" cried Hibiscus, jumping up and down with great delight.  "I'm glad there's no school, 'cause it's really important that I stay home all day so I can see the snow all day long, and see what it does."
"There's snow at school, too," I pointed out.  My little girl froze in shock, and then her little face fell.
"I wanna go to SCHOO-OOOL!" she wailed.  Snow AND friends was apparently an unbeatable combination!


It's been a snowy winter by Willamette Valley standards.  We usually get a dusting of snow a few times in a winter, but they had a big snow in December (which we missed while our Ugandan cold spell involved not kicking off the blanket at night), and then we have just had more snow.  Yesterday the dusting turned into flurries and accumulated some real snow, and it stayed all night and then kept snowing all day today.  By the end of the day we had about eight inches of powder, which definitely makes it into the top two or three snows I've seen in my ten years in Oregon!

This might be the time to point out that I grew up in Alaska.  I spent Halloweens with a snowsuit under my costume, and months with skis on my feet.  Oregonians love to complain about the cold weather, snow, and icy roads, but I just plain love it.  I love seasons, and I love anything that seems like genuine winter.  Whenever people mentioned that I was missing all the cold weather being over in Uganda, I think they thought that I had the lucky side, but as far as I was concerned, it was just rubbing salt in the wound!  The pictures of the December snowstorm made me at least as crazy with longing as they did for Hibiscus!


The first day of snow was just plain chaotic.  Hibiscus was so excited she didn't know what to do with herself, which has a way of making everyone else not know what to do with themselves, either.  We had a playdate scheduled, and my friend and her young children came over, which meant that eventually we had FIVE little awkward snowsuited bodies tumbling around and crying when they fell down.  That was kind of the way the whole day went.  The kids had a wonderful amount of fun as soon as they went out in the snow, and then everything turned horrible before we parents could even blink, and everyone was back inside again.

Part of the problem is that certain children have not yet figured out that warm clothes keep them warm.  This is not limited to snow, but it is exacerbated by it.  The day before, Emerson and Hibiscus had dived out the door into "outdoor play time," past my offers of rain pants and mittens.  "It's not very cold any more, Mama!" they yelled as they streaked by.  It was indeed warmer than it had been that morning, so I let them go.  Minutes later they were back inside and complaining that they were frozen, which had nothing to do with refusing to put their layers on!

Hibiscus apparently found that certain articles of clothing inhibited her pure enjoyment of the snow, so the morning play-time was taken up by trips to the back door to announce that she was shivering.
"Where is your hat?" I would ask.
"I don't know," she'd reply.  (Turns out it was frozen to a concrete block in the back yard.)
"Where are your mittens?" I would ask.
"Over dere, on da table."
"Why is your coat unzipped?"
Surprised look down at her coat, which was waving open in the breeze.
"Go get your mittens, shake them out and put them on, put on this hat, and --- here, your coat in zipped and --- here, your hood is up.  Now you won't be cold any more.  Go and play."

I think we had three outings into the backyard, none of which lasted more than twenty minutes at the most.  I happen to believe that children need to spend a decent portion of their lives outside, and nature (and a big backyard!) was one of the things I missed the most in Uganda.  It snows for months in Alaska, so we wear boots and snowsuits.  It rains for months in Oregon, so we wear slightly different boots and rain gear.  Five-minute playtimes because you don't dress properly do not fly very well with this mama!



I personally did not find that a very impressive way to spend one of the few days of snow in the entire year, but luckily we did better today.  Mark had finally finished getting chains on the van to try and drive through up the driveway and off to work, when he heard that there was so VERY much snow that everyone who had made it to work was heading home again.  In my mind, a snow day for the whole family is a whole different kettle of fish than one that just means that mama has extra children for more hours!

The children talked about skiing yesterday, and by the end of the day there was enough that little skis could probably have something to slide on in the field.  Big puffy flakes kept coming down all day, and by afternoon there was enough for a genuine ski outing.  I think this is the first time I have ever been able to go for a proper ski out my back door!


Mark pulled everyone's skis out of the garage.  Unfortunately, that meant "everyone who already had skis," since we had only arrived from an equatorial country eight days earlier and had not yet had a chance to go ski shopping.  Or even snowsuit shopping, for that matter, although rain pants had been at the top of the priority list, so everyone had some outdoor pants, and friends have sent plenty of warm jackets.  Emerson still fits into what he wore last year, since he has been growing at the rate of a crocodile.  (Did you know that crocodiles grow extremely slowly, since they have a very slow metabolism?  That's why they sit around sunning themselves all the time, too.  These are the things you learn while living in a non-skiing kind of climate.)  Buttercup can wear the things that Emerson used a couple years ago, and of course Mark and I have our own things.  This leave Hibiscus off by her lonely self with no exciting snow gear.  Of course she was very upset about that, but she kept very busy and happy in the snow anyways.

Getting everyone dressed took the first half of the afternoon.  I figured that if children kept taking off their outer warm bits of clothing, at least we could make them wear more things on the inside, which they couldn't access to remove and leave here and there across the field.  So we found non-cotton undershirts and long johns for everyone, and chased them up and down the house while they found other interesting things to do and declared that they weren't cold and didn't need them.  Well of course you don't; the heater is set to 68 degrees, because this is INSIDE the house.

By the time we got outside, I figured that we had better go somewhere, so that going right back in the door was not a viable option.  We headed out across our fields, through the neighbor's field, and onto the roads going to the nearby school, which has a playground, which I thought would make a good destination.  There was so much snow and so little traffic that the roads were like smooth-but-lightly-fluffy groomed ski trails.  I can't ever remember seeing the roads covered with snow in the afternoon!



I was so proud of my two little skiers!  We have made a point of taking Emerson skiing several times a winter since he was a toddler, believing that cross-country skiing is one of those skills best learned when you are too young to realize you are learning anything.  Every year he has been assimilating the feelings a little bit more, and even after the whole year passing, he soon found his cross-country legs again.  He got frustrated trying to get through the fields, with the puffy snow and the little slopes and tussocks of grass, but went much more quickly and happily on the road.  The way up was a gradual slope, and we went back down together.  I held his hand and kept him moving, and he kept his balance right along with me, even when the downhill got more distinct.  When we got back to the flatter part, he skied on his own again.  He had had so much fun going quickly that he tried to keep doing it, and managed to get some slide-and-glide into his steps.  If you have ever been an experienced skier along with little children, you know that they tend to just plod along on those potentially magical instruments, so a little bit of slide-and-glide was a wonderful development as far as I was concerned!


Buttercup was on skis for the first time, and in snow for the first time, and in a snow suit for the second time, and had only been in America for nine days altogether.  And she took it all in stride, and decided to learn to ski.  Buttercup has this amazing intent concentration that is just wonderful to watch.  (Especially after watching her older sister bounce from one thing to another for two days without cease!)  It took a very long time to get the first fifty yards or so, also involving problems with mittens and bindings, but then she started to figure out what was going on.  I kept reminding her to keep her toes going straight, or looking right at Daddy, or in the tracks, and she would intently try to find her ski-tips and put them somewhere.  Other than that, I tried to just let her figure out how her body worked in this new way.  For a while she was trying to pick up her feet and walk, but then she figured out how to push her feet along instead.  All plod and no glide, of course, but she was skiing!  She didn't want me to hold her hand or help her, but she wanted me to stay close, so I oozed along behind her through the fields.

She looked so tiny and so determined!  She seems so much smaller in the wide open, white expanse, than she had in Uganda.  Even in her puffy clothes.  That coat is only an 18-month size; she's just such a little bitty bit of a girl!  But so full of self-determination.  Emerson had certainly never skied for so long or so well when he was that age, a few toddlers would make it through the first rash of falls and snow down the coat, and decide to keep going.

At first, every time she would fall or something would happen, she would just wail and wail.  I would pick her up and brush her off and try to fix whatever might be bothering her, and try to convince her to use some words to tell me exactly what the problem was.  About the third time through, she told me "finger! finger cold!" and I immediately addressed the problem with her mitten.  And remarkably enough, she took the lesson completely to heart and switched to using words instead of crying.  As she got more tired, she would start to forget, but with a reminder she tried really hard to find the words, and barely needed to cry any more.  I was impressed, and I could see the amount of self-control it took to try and contain her sobs long enough to describe a problem in this new world she doesn't even understand yet.


As for Hibiscus, she didn't have any skis, but she seemed to have as many problems as either of the children who did!  She kept falling down and crying that she couldn't get up.  Now when you have skis stuck to your feet, they do tend to slip out from under you, and then they really get in the way when you try and get up again.  (Ski poles aren't for beginners, and they're not necessary if you know how to ski, so we don't use them.)  However, exactly how Hibiscus managed to keep falling off her feet and not being able to find them again, I am not sure.  But Mark and I stayed plenty busy skiing back and forth and pulling children up off the ground!  Hibiscus also alternated between wailing that she was cold, she was freezing, ah ah ah ah ah cold cold COLD, and then diving onto the ground and doing something like crawling through the snow while throwing large bundles of it up into the air.  So I don't think she was really too cold!  I think it was more that whenever she felt a dot of coldness, say if a mitten started to come off or a snowflake landed on her cheek, it was so surprising it was unbearable.  Actually, given her level of hysteria for those events, I think we kept her really pretty warm!


We didn't make it to the school yet before we decided that we needed to turn around.  We switched some mittens (I only have two pairs of good mittens, which is not sufficient), shook the snow off everyone, and put Buttercup in the wrap.  She didn't want to stop skiing, and she wanted to go "on da swing," but she was the only one who had the patience for skiing another few hundred yards!  In fact, she kept skiing on after we all had stopped, but then started to cry when I wasn't next to her, and turned around.  I had gotten myself a wonderful coming-home present of a coat that unzips and has a pouch for a little head to come out of, so I can wrap Buttercup and keep her under my coat.  That got her warm and toasty right away.  Hibiscus was another story, and she cried most of the way home... and then dived into the snow, and put Buttercup's skis on her hands, and crawled around in circles in the yard until we all got inside.


By the time we got in, the snow was suddenly turning kind of wet, and while we ate dinner it rained.  The moonlight is still glistening white, but I think that might have been the end of our Ugandan girls' first snow adventure!

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!

My Children Are Butterflies

On Sunday, the children spent all afternoon outside, playing on their own.  This was how their day wound up.  I was told to come look, and I took some pictures.  They went around and around and around the courtyard, sometimes together and sometimes veering away on their own.  Sometiwmes Buttercup followed, and sometimes she got stuck and came back to me.  When their wings got tangled, Hibiscus carefully and lovingly re-arranged them, so they could all fly together again.

  When I posted them for some friends, I was amazed at the strength of the response, and how this touched so many people, including many who said they had tears in their eyes.  The picture is captioned by someone who was able to sum up the beauty and the majesty of the moment.  The butterflies are their own description.

"That they are flying away from you with the very fabric you used to hold them close, give them love, and make them strong makes me cry. Sometimes children at play perfectly reflect the face of God if we have eyes to see..."

Some Thoughts on Beginning School

Some Thought on the First Day of School

Whew!!!  I'm so relieved and happy to put Hibiscus and Emerson on the bus to school, and walk back down the lane with just one little Buttercup on my back!

We found a school that I actually feel pretty good about, The American Montessori School.  It's not very American and only kind of Montessori, but at least they are creative beyond rote-based learning, repetition, copy work, and beatings for misbehavior in a classroom of 30 children.  Daddy and I had this idea of wanting our kids to experience a different kind of education, and get to know neighborhood children, but the more I have watched this the more uncomfortable I felt about sending our sensitive, volatile, dramatic kids to a school like that.  Best of all, this school has 20 students and four teachers.  I think some individual attention is a need right now.  Oh, and a high wall around the perimeter.  Given that both children declare that they are going to run away, that's a big bonus!

They have been DREADING going to school.  I have literally had hours of tears on the subject, as well as threats and violence.  I tell them they don't have to worry about it, because Mama and Daddy have already made the decision for them.  And Mama and Daddy don't have to worry about it, because formal schooling is so important we would not be able to present ourselves as proper foster parents without sending our kids to school.  So off they go.

So sending them to school is not something I've waffled about, but I do feel a little bad about being so darn HAPPY to see them go.  Describing the tears at the bus stop, a relative asked me "and did Mama have a few tears too?"  Um, no.  Not at all.  

(First of all, getting backpacks packed, bodies dressed, everyone down the road, and then trying to stuff them into a car when they don't want to go, is not the kind of thing to make me sentimental.  Actually, bluntly, I don't think I'm very sentimental at all.)

I'm a home-schooling type of person, or at least I want to think of myself that way.  I absolutely love teaching, and I love even more watching children learn.  I have so many ideas for helping children understand, but even more, I like watching them explore and figure things out.  I know that I can't practically homeschool right now, but if that's really the type of person I am, shouldn't I be disappointed to have two of my (still very young) children gone for most of the day, five days a week?  If I really am loving being a mama of three, why would I want to be free of two of them?

I've been thinking about this.  First of all, I'm not HOME.  At home, we have so many options and choices to keep busy in a productive way.  If we're feeling traditional-school-y and need to learn to read, we can buy reading materials and go to the library and set up a pretend store and count out the money, and work our way through excellent and carefully selected books.  If we're feeling Waldorf-ian, they can follow me out into the garden and help me bake bread and make yogurt and train the dogs, and I can send them into the field or the woods to see what they can see and collect and discuss.  If we were more Montessori-an, I could pull out different boxes of manipulatives or browse the stores or on-line to find just the right thing, and we could do a different amazing craft project every day to explore color and texture and nature.  When they are feeling social, they could choose a gymnastics class or swimming or art or scouting.  When they are feeling wild, those activities would get their wiggles out, and we could walk to the park every day, or just let them loose in the woods.  If we wanted to be un-school-y, they could explore the world and we could go to the library to find books to answer their questions and visit farms and zoos and science museums and art museums or whatever caught their fancy, and we could watch the ocean and drive to the desert to read our books about the desert and play with the old settlers' tools.

And here, what can we do?  They can either come with me to run errands (where children are inevitably expected to behave normally, which is a little beyond my brood), or they can play around the apartment.  Our selection of toys is not bad, books are reasonable (but if they really like a subject we can't find another book about it), but the outside is pretty boring.  And outside is where children thrive!  Thank goodness we have a yard, but not only is there not anything in the way of bicycles or sand boxes, it is so carefully groomed that there is not even much in the way of sticks or stones or dirt or places to hide or leaves to collect or anything.  And nothing to plant, and no animals. Animals and children provide a great deal of mutual joy and education.  

There are no parks.  There are some fields, mostly pounded down to the dirt, and either connected to a school and/or full of boys playing soccer.  Still nothing to do, and if I let my little non-conformists near a bunch of soccer players, there would be a lot of tears in no time.

We can get to one swimming pool via public transportation, but it's an expensive outing.  Every other place I've heard of for children we would have to drive to, which means hiring a car for the day.  The only playground-type equipment are at malls, which is not exactly being out in nature, or easy to access.  Most of them have a charge to enter, which makes it not worthwhile for a short time.

And, the children's areas seem to be packed with brightly colored equipment, children all over the place, and maybe even loud music pounding through, or a giant screen with older boys playing flashing video games. If you know about sensory procession issues, you might have heard about "seeker" behavior, which means someone who craves action, noise, speed, lights -- and they can't process any of it, and they go absolutely bananas.  Yes, that would be my children.  

So, there is nothing for children to DO.  I don't think children need to be doing all the time, and I want them to learn to have downtime and entertain themselves.  But kids tend to do that better when there is some contrast.  They have had a couple really good days around the house, when they have moved naturally and happily from one creative game to another, playing "house" and piling up baskets and eating their lunch outside and calling each other "mommy" and "daddy" and "baby," and then wanting to do some art together and reading books to each other.  They have their rhythm, and when they're in it, I just try not to interrupt.  But I notice those days come after we have been busy for a few days.  After another day of not-much, they start to pick fights with each other, and their play turns into ripping-apart-the-shrubbery and throwing-everything-in-the-living-room-to-the-other-side-of-the-living-room.  

And then, there is Buttercup.  Buttercup needs some one-on-one time.  Okay, they all need it, but right now, Buttercup needs it the most.  I think it's not so much because she's the littlest, although little ones always needs more attention, but just because she is naturally quiet and mild, and the others are naturally.... I think "hurricane" would be a good word, although other types of natural forces would also work!  They are wonderful, dynamic, creative, passionate personalities, but Hibiscus and Emerson are always intense and needy.  I think at any age, and I think even if she had had a normal background, Buttercup would just dance to a different drummer -- or maybe a flute player.

Right now, she needs to bond with me, and she needs to realize that she is valuable and her needs can be fulfilled.  She just can't do that with two loud and dramatic siblings always on center stage.  The screaming really bothers her.  She gets kicked over when someone is mad, and left by herself in the middle of the yard when they get busy playing.

This is only our third day together, and already it has been so neat to really start to see Buttercup being Buttercup.  She's learning to play something she wants to play.  She's learning to not always be looking for another child to follow around.  She's learning she can ask me for things and get them.  She can take all the time she wants eating and say "you see yogurt, yum yum" for every single bite.  She can think about what she wants to say and have a chance to say it. She can speak in her little chirpy voice and be heard.  She can spend hours and hours either on my lap or holding my hand or on my back or working on "squishing" the laundry in the tub next to me.  She can neatly wipe all the bits of yogurt of her chin and the smudge on her arm, without having someone else upend a glass of water all over her.  She can throw a normal two-year-old fit about not getting another cookie, and solve it herself thirty seconds later by finding a balloon, without having someone else throw an even bigger fit about how mean mama is and try to grab the cookies to give Buttercup more, but end up throwing them across the room and be sent to a "sit" where she screams for half an hour, and meanwhile someone else starts throwing his own fit about his cookie not being as big as someone else's cookie, and why won't you listen to me describe the the cookie factory I'm going to build?

 It's a wonderful gift to have busy and loving siblings, and Buttercup absolutely loves it and loves them and loves being the local baby, but everyone needs a chance to be themselves, too.  And every child really, really needs a special relationship with their mother.  I think that's why babies are so very needy, so they build it; we have to start in a different place.  

I hope one day, we'll be able to balance all those needs.  I hope one day, I'll be able to be Buttercup's mama without being forced to send the other kids away for the whole day.  (Not that we might not choose to send them to school for other valuable reasons, but I hate the only-way-to-manage feeling.)  I hope one day, I'll be able to fill the kids' need to explore with their need for safe and quiet space.  I hope one day, they're able to control their "seeker" behavior enough to be safe in a busy environment.  

But right now, we're living THIS one day at a time, not living for the distant one day.  So today, I read a bunch of books while Buttercup snuggled on my lap, and then she protested going up on my back but fell asleep right away, and I didn't have to worry about someone screaming or cannon-balling me and waking her up, and then she told me she was hungry.  And when she finishes her yogurt and bananas, we're going to take a walk and bring those big kids home.  And they've been busy singing new songs and making new friends and playing in the sand box, and doing something.

So off we go!

We Might Have a 2-Year-Old in the House

When I met her three months ago, Buttercup was reserved to the point of being completely passive.  She let other kids grab her toys.  She listened to adults speaking to her, but usually didn't respond and never answered with words.  She spoke only in a whisper, and only to her sister.  She cried only under great duress, and then ceased almost immediately.  She was almost bald, peed in her pants and then sat in the dirt, and her face was not expressive.

I wrote in one of my first posts that I would just wear her for a few months and see what happened, and that's has kind of been the case.  At the beginning, she was so uninterested in engaging, and her sister was so very interested in engaging with me, and her now-brother was so defensive of my time, that probably the most meaningful thing I did was just pop her in the ring sling so her body was next to mine as I went around and tried to avert chaos among all the other orphanage children.  She neither sought out being carried nor avoided it, and she did not actually cuddle me.  She spent the time (on my left side, which is near the heart and apparently scientifically proven to be a special place for bonding -- but is also the natural place for a right-handed mother to place her baby, especially when she needs to do things with her hands) sitting there staring at me.  The first thing she was brave enough to bother to touch was the gold-ish sling rings, which she fingered very carefully and solemnly.  She watched the older girls fiddle with my hair, and then stared at it hanging down near her, but she didn't touch it until I moved her fingers up to it.  Then she solemnly and quietly explored the strange, bright texture for some time.

It took two or three weeks before she spoke to me, when we were walking outside with her in the sling.  I kept trying to talk to her, even though she was so expressionless, and she got the idea that I like flowers (which I do).  The whole walk, she would suddenly say in her tiny voice "fow-ah" and I would agree and praise her.  It also took that long before she let her body relax against me.  Once when I arrived at the orphanage she had just been badly knocked over and was crying disconsolately, and I immediately went over and put her on my lap and she soothed a little.  I tipped her head to rest on my chest, and she let it stay there.  That was the first thing that was close to a cuddle.  It took more than another month until she reached out for me.

I do believe touch is magical, and that children's need for it is incredibly deep.  I think she needed to feel safe and listened to, but I think most of all she needed to be held and held and held.  I think she had all her babyhood need for touch just stored up and waiting, a deep hole that we just need to take the time to fill.  Once she started to be able to count on this basic nurture, even though at the time I could only hold her for a few minutes or an hour, and not even every day, her actual human-ness started to emerge.  Still at this point she is spending hours every day wrapped on me or in the sling, and significantly more time sitting on my lap and just being carried back and forth. 

By the time she moved in with us, Daddy arrived, and our relationship was almost at the three-month stage.  A charming and happy personality was starting to emerge.  She laughed and loved pony-knee games, she was highly adorable when she copies every little action we make, she was admirable when she tries to do little chores around the house.  When I took the older kids out on a morning errand, she sat next to Daddy and ate breakfast and chattered away in Luganda the entire time.   Besides, she's clean and no longer peeing all over herself, growing hair, smiling, and generally adorable.  I was mentioning how wrapping Buttercup helped me to bond with her, and Mark, surprised, answered "actually, I think she's pretty easy to bond with."  Well yes, I suppose this version of Buttercup is pretty easy!

Now we're coming up on a month of living together, and what have we now?

I think it might be a two-year-old.  Almost.

Instead of watching quietly and carefully copying me stack the stacking cups, she takes the bag and shakes it in delight, watching the little pieces fly all over the room.  Instead of thinking that "in the bag" is the best game ever (in fact, it was almost the only thing I could get her to do at first), she turns around and refuses to help when it comes time to put it all away.  She is realizing that she has opinions -- a great number of them, in fact.  She has even found her preferred method of expressing them: shrieking loudly and flipping her body over backwards while turning into a limp strand of spaghetti.  I'm sure she has not had much chance to practice the screaming spaghetti act, but she's really a natural at it.  Although I'm sure an American toddler could probably show her a few more tricks to keep up her sleeve!

Now she screams possessively when her big brother or sister grab her toys away from her.  (Hard on the ears, but good progress, and a good lesson for them.)  When she hurts herself, she starts to cry and runs towards me for a snuggle and a kiss.  In fact, she's getting so good at this interaction, that  when she just banged her fingers a little bit, she fussed a little bit and held her hand out for kisses; she trusted that she could use a smaller request for a smaller owie and that I would still respond to her.  She likes to throw toys, and then throws a fit when I take them away.  She wants to grab randomly at everything around dinner time, and screams and thrashes when I limit her freedom by putting her in the wrap.  (Then she snuggles in and enjoys her good view of all the action, and singing songs together.)  She likes to climb up on everything she sees, and falls off of half of it.  She wants to do everything her big brother and sister do, and her mother has to pick her up and bring her back inside where she won't fall down the stone steps and off the railings, and then she screams and flails, and attempts to sneak out the door as soon as mama's back is turned.

Does this sound kind of like a two-year-old you know?  But she still isn't quite.

I don't think she really knows how to play, or to engage herself naturally in any way.  Encouraging independent play, and thus independent thought, in my children has always been very important to me.  Unlike many American children, she doesn't expect to be entertained, but she doesn't do anything else, either.  Imitating adults, especially doing household tasks, and throwing things, seems to be about the natural limit of what she has explored.  In the last few days, the older children have started playing well together, so I've been letting them run around together.  But a lot of the time, they are playing wildly outside, and neither of them are able to be aware of how to protect her from hurting herself, or not to run off at full tilt towards the other side of the building, leaving her confused and alone. Or, they are playing something that the local toddler doesn't understand and messes up, and Hibiscus calls "mama, take for Buttercup."  (I think it's a positive development that she wants to play independently of her sister and trust me to take over Buttercup's care.)  So Buttercup has been left inside to play with me while I am doing something.  I try to get out a toy and start her playing with it, but she usually just ends up wandering around.  She is content to sit on my lap and watch me do whatever I'm doing, even though typing on the computer or reading something is surely not actually interesting for a toddler.  Maybe she holds something and kind of bangs it up and down.  It's not real play.

She also doesn't seem to know how to engage herself in coloring.  She did it with the older kids a few times, so I know she technically understands that she holds the crayon in her hand and scrapes it around the paper, and she actually has asked for "coloring" a few times.  But once she has the crayons she picks them up and puts them down, and then after a little bit starts to throw them.  Similarly, she has started to play with a toy for a minute or two, but then distracts herself and wanders away.  I have seen her focused on something for an extended time, so I know she is capable of it, but it's like she doesn't know how or why to turn that part of her brain on.  Maybe she just needs more snuggling and learning about safety and love before she's ready for thinking and playing and creating.

As I said, I want my kids to develop the ability to play and think independently, so partly I philosophically don't want to be on the floor providing entertainment by sorting wooden fruit or having stuffed animals wave to each other or something.  I've read that sometimes you have to teach children with deprived backgrounds how to play, but I'm also not sure there's a reason to do it myself.  After all, she lives with some of the world's experts on play: kindergarteners.  They are providing excellent natural examples all day long, and I don't think I could improve on it by deliberately acting in a way that isn't natural to me.  Besides, whether or not it's an admirable reason, when the older kids are occupied and the little one is calm, I am tempted to just get something done -- or just do not much at all, as the case may be.

She also doesn't really know how to ask for things.  So far, she's developing the ability and desire to say "no," but rarely to request.  I'm not sure if she doesn't technically know how to ask (she can use the words, but how to frame a request), or she doesn't know she is allowed to want things, or she simply doesn't know what she wants.  

Actually, as I have been writing this, she has been engaging in some of the first genuine and age-appropriate play that I've seen.  She's sitting next to me at the table, and she found some lego wheelbarrows from the basket the older kids had out earlier.  She wheeled them back and forth, and we gradually added a few little things to put in the wheelbarrows, and another little vehicle.  She took the wheels off and had me put them on again.  She wanted a little man and handed me another little lego man, and we had them say "hello" back and forth a dozen times and moved onto "how are you." She bounced them up and down facing each other.  She put things in and out of the wheelbarrows and named their colors (incorrectly) and counted them (randomly).  It is toddler repetitive and in-and-out play, not preschool imaginitive play, but that's normal and she initiated it and stayed involved in it for a long time.  I was near her and she liked interacting with me, but it came about naturally and she was the real initiator.  (It's not that I have some weird idea about never playing with my children at all, but that I don't want them to both depend on me to for ideas, and to get the impression from me that there are "right" ways to play.)  Maybe the instinctual good-ness of this kind of natural play led to other natural interactions, like how when I took a picture and put the camera away, she asked me to bring it back.  In Luganda, which I understood, by the way!  And then she started saying "my Daddy," and I found and showed her a picture of Daddy.  Oh, how her face glowed with smiles!  Then I got out a book with family pictures and she flipped back and forth and she pointed to pictures and said "Daddy" and "dog," and I agreed.  That's quite a lot of asking for interacting and receiving it and coming up with ideas and discussing them.

Maybe we've got a new version of Buttercup on the way!