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!

On the Subject of Sacrifice

Tonight we read Tomie de Paola's Legend of the Bluebonnet, in which The People are experiencing drought and famine.  The shaman reports that the Great Spirit needs the people to sacrifice their most important possession, and all the adults go to bed justifying that what is special to them is certainly not special enough to the Great Spirit.  But the little girl leaves her bed in the night, knowing that the beloved doll that her parents and grandparents had made for her before they died was surely the most important possession, and she sacrifices it in a fire and spreads the ashes.

The children were deeply drawn into the story, with its musical language and quiet pictures.  (Okay, the language was more musical before Hibiscus joined us and started asking questions constantly, which made it a little hard to hear.)

At the end we talked about giving something up.  Emerson readily admitted that his legos were his most important possession, and Hibiscus immediately chimed that her legos were too.  I suggested that they were important to Emerson, but they weren't the thing that Hibiscus cared about the very most.  She sat mulling that over while I asked Emerson whether he would be able to throw them into a fire.  He thought about it, and obviously wished that he would, but his whole body curled up as he thought and he whispered no, he couldn't.  I asked, even if there was no food to eat and your family was sick and hungry?  (I felt like we didn't need to talk about the dying part.)  He thought about his legos and shook his head no, still curled up, wincing away from the possibility.

"No food?" Hibiscus asked, who had apparently missed that central point so far.  She had been thinking about all the wonderful THINGS in her life, but the idea of no food shocked her out of her reverie.  "I would give up all my nice new fings and I would throw ev'ry-fing in the fire if my family had no food," she said frankly.

I praised her for being unselfish, and tried to compliment her the same way the girl in the story had been honored, but it turned out she had missed that part too.  (The problem with asking so many questions is that you don't actually hear much of the story, apparently.)


But it makes me a little sad inside.  I hurt for her, that she knows so very distinctly how terrible it is to have no food.  She knows how hard it is to not have anything, and she clings to each toy and article of clothing and bit of ribbon and special, pretty, mismatched fork in the apartment's drawer.  Hibiscus is nothing if not blunt, and I'm sure the thought of throwing all her nice new things in the fire was very real to her -- and nothing to the specter of hunger.

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!

Mama Manages to be a Big Girl, plus Monday Post Script

These last couple weeks have been the perfect storm of little things, designed to take a tired, frazzled mother and wear her down to the very end.  I have not managed to hold out.  When I came here, I put the whole trip in God's hands and could find that inner peace again, even when things got difficult.  I guess I am finding that works better for large problems than small ones!  It just seems like it is one thing after another, each perfectly manageable on their own, but each taking some of my energy, and ending up requiring more energy than I possibly can summon.  

There was Hibiscus's fall, and then I got a cold, and then Emerson got sick and his asthma flared up in the middle of the night and he was home from school.  And my fall.  And I didn't really get better, and Emerson didn't really got better, and Buttercup got sick, and Hibiscus got really grumpy about cleaning her wound every day.

And I kept having trouble with my internet, which after spending a day chasing down answers on the phone, it became obvious that someone random was using my internet data -- as in, ALL my internet data, and I had to keep buying more.  I had to go to the store downtown to reset my account, but I'll have to go to their main office to resolve the whole issue.

And Buttercup woke in the night with croup, and in the morning looking bleary, and I cancelled everything for a couple days to avoid spreading the croup.

And a package finally arrived with some practical hot-weather wraps that I ordered from Europe a month ago, but the post office decided that since there were THREE wraps then obviously I am a business selling wraps, and they charged taxes accordingly.  Apparently they don't want anyone doing business in this country, because the taxes are about 60% of the total cost of the wraps, which is really really way too high.  So I'll need to get the paper from Miss B (who owns the PO box) and go downtown to the post office and argue with them.  The whole thing is preposterous, because everyone laughs at me with my long European style wraps instead of the short, normal, African ones, and anyone no one here could afford to pay those prices, especially with 60% VAT, never mind adding on profit if I actually were a business!

And I've continued to be sick, and Buttercup has continued to be sick, and Emerson is only very slowly getting better, and Hibiscus is trying really hard to be sick too.  She was taking antibiotics for her wound when we all got sick, and I am guessing that helped push it away for her.  So we've all been to the doctor this week, and then I went back the next day for more tests, which ends up taking most of the day.  I don't have anything they can figure out, but I have a couple minor, recurring infections popping back up; ones I know how to treat, but are an extra annoyance.

With three kind of sick children, it is pretty much guaranteed that someone will have trouble falling asleep, and someone will wake up in the middle of the night coughing or peeing or crying, and someone different will be feeling perfectly fine and bounce out of bed at 6 am.  

Just in case I happened to take a moment to remember that we are actually here for the purpose of legally adopting two children, it turns out that there is bad news in that direction too.  Our case is filed, but there are no judges hearing cases.  So it's sitting there, doing nothing, and all our time dealing with tropical rainy-season illnesses is not actively getting us any closer to actually leaving the tropics.

Speaking of the rainy season, it's still hot on most days, but it also has a period of an hour or so when it pours cats and dogs, usually sideways.  About 22.5 hours a day, this doesn't matter, but there is one hour when I have to walk to pick the kids up from school and walk home again.  That's always an interesting gamble.  Also, it seems like on most days we either have power out for most of the day, or the water is out.  The last two days have been neither: two days ago, our gas tank for the stove ran out, and yesterday, the water came out brown.  Gotta keep things exciting.

(And lest I seem too impatient with these country-wide problems, our whole apartment building has back-up power, except for our little apartment.)

AND, there are even a couple of disasters which I don't want to write about publicly!  Imagine that!  One of those has totally taken over our day today.

Did I mention that I'm kind of sick?  And one of the problems is my tummy feeling off, so I haven't been eating that much.  Which isn't a big problem when you're sick for a day or two, but after two weeks, I think not eating much is contributing to my lack of energy.  Our cleaning lady even said "you used to be fat, but now every day you are getting smaller and smaller."  (Which I find highly amusing on several counts, actually!)

So, this would be a good time for the kids to be well-behaved, or at least... kind of tired and lethargic or something.  Right?  Not reality, I'm sure you will be surprised to hear.

Buttercup is busy exploring her toddlerhood, which appears to involve a lot of screaming and defiance.  There's suddenly been a rash of getting things removed, as she's warned to not throw toys and then looks at me and throws the toy, or to not play with her food and carefully drops lumps of it on the floor.  The most noticeable development, however, is the screaming.  Not any words, just high-pitched and loud whenever she doesn't get what she wants.  Such as after the thrown toy and smooshed food are removed.  Or when she plays with knives or cell phones, or has to divide treats with her brother and sister, or has to leave the sand box at their school.  Or when she thinks it's time for a chapati, but the neighbors have not finished making chapatis yet.  SCREEEEEEEEAAAAAAMMMMM!!!!

I'm glad she's coming out of her shell, and I just rejoice to see an actual personality emerging from the shell-shocked, passive child I met this June.  But can't she manage to be a "good girl" by Ugandan standards for just a few more weeks?

Emerson is doing okay.  He's a lot less explosive and emotional than he has been for most of his 4-year-old year, which I genuinely appreciate.  Maybe it's being sick, but he's still going from "can I have this please?" to "noOOOOOooooo I WAAAAAaaaaant it nooooOOOOOWWWW!!!" in about 1.2 seconds flat.  And baths!  If he would just get in the bath when he needs to get in the bath, and consent to having his hair washed when it's dirty, my life (that is, my bedtime routine!) would get so much easier!  This is one of those struggles that I have a little bit of trouble seeing the point of, given that when the debate is Emerson vs. Mama in Whether It Is Actually Bathtime, the score is currently at Mama: 1003 vs Emerson: 0.  Um, can we just do it and get on with life now?

And Hibiscus.  My dear Hibiscus.  

On Monday after school she was just plain rude.  Also, it was somewhere around there that we came up with a new Family Policy, which is Teeth Will Be Brushed in Order From Youngest To Oldest, No More Arguing.  Which of course meant that Hibiscus had to spend the week dashing to get ready and sit on the toilet and call "I'm ready, mommy!" to try and circumvent the new rule.  The next night we added another layer to the rule, which was And Baths Will Happen From Oldest To Youngest, In Opposite Order Of Teeth Brushing.  You would think that might make her happy, but she sulked about that one too, and kept trying to insist that it was actually Emerson's turn.  (Buttercup doesn't take baths at night, she takes them when I do when the kids are in school, although if I leave her and turn my back, she will just climb right in to whatever bath is available.)

On Tuesday after school, she was rude, and after various warnings and short Sits, she hit me, so she had to go into the bedroom for a 10 minute Sit in her bed.  After quite a struggle, she decided she would stay in the bedroom, but she would spend her time on MY bed, not hers.  I was trying to make dinner and deal with other meltdowns, so I didn't want to physically force her into her bed as long as she wasn't bothering anyone, but I told her she couldn't come out until she had spent 10 minutes in the correct place.  So naturally, she sat in my bed and the bathroom until it was time to put dinner on the table.  I reminded her every few minutes that she would miss dinner if she didn't get her Sit finished, so she finally started it during dinner-time routine, and needless to say, didn't get to sit down with everyone and sing the blessing, and was very upset.  And Emerson had to clear and set the table by himself.

Now I will just take this opportunity to say, I don't really CARE which bed she spends her Sit in.  I hate nitpicking and fighting battles like this.  She was quiet and content, and that was what was important to me.  But my instinct is that in order to keep us all in order, I have to be absolutely clear and inflexible.  When she gets destructive to herself and other people, she has to calm down in her bed.  That's reasonable.  She doesn't get to change around some of my directions in order to suit herself; little children don't need that much power in this family.

Again, I could be wrong.  Some parenting philosophies suggest that by giving children choice in the things that don't matter to you, they'll be more willing to follow your directions in other things.  So maybe by saying "choose your quiet time calm-down spot," she would stay there.  But my feeling is just that Hibiscus and Emerson are Absolutely Black and White kinds of children.  If they get to choose where to have the calm-down time, next they'll be figuring out what else they get to be in control of.  The point is, once they have demonstrated being totally out of control, like hitting people, they don't get any more choices.  I make them, and my decision is one's own personal bed.  Actually, she has a little bit of choice, because I say they can read in bed, so she can pick any of the books on the bedside table, or play with dolls or something quietly in bed, but not go across the room to pick out more things.  That's what I consider an appropriate child-level decision at that point. 

Then on Wednesday, the kids were playing outside and Emerson came running in, eyes wild, to tell me that Hibiscus had gone outside the gate.  Our apartment is completely walled in, and has a caretaker/guard 24 hours a day, so they are pretty safe playing outside even when I can't directly see them.  Luckily, Emerson is at that literal-minded, rule-enforcing kind of age, and he rushes to tell me whenever he sees anyone else breaking the rules (as does Hibiscus, for that matter).  I don't know how far up the road the guard would have let her travel, as he was there, but I snatched her up and put her in her bed until dinner.  I said going out the gate without permission was a No Second Chances kind of rule, and I updated our Family Policies to reflect that!

The other thing about sending her to bed until dinner?  She actually does really well there.  By the end of the school day, she's exhausted and manic, but she actually calms down and will read and sing to herself for long periods of time.  Having her audience of siblings removed takes away most of her desire for showing off, and I'm sure that choosing what to do with no outside pressure or imitation is very healthy for her.  I wish she would take that rest time without being forced, and thus becoming resentful towards me!

Thursday we did an errand after school, so it was a even-shorter afternoon, and she managed to not get into trouble.  I think.  Except for general rudeness.

It was somewhere around here that half the lights in our house just plain stopped working, whether or not the power is on, including the light by the dinner table and all the lights in the bedroom.  This means we have to put on pajamas and read books by candlelight, since the kids have also broken our one portable light.  Can you imagine how many arguments we can get into about the candles?

Friday..... you know, I started writing this on Saturday morning, when I actually remembered Friday evening, but now it's Monday and I have forgotten the specifics of the day.  It went something like this.... I thought about accepting the neighbors' invitation to dinner, but realized that it wouldn't be served until the time my children were usually falling asleep, and they just could not physically and emotionally manage that, so we would go eat lentil soup in our own house.  That was not a popular decision with the lilliputian crowd.  

Hibiscus was rude.  Buttercup screamed.  Emerson stormed.  Hibiscus had terrible table manners, and I had to keep threatening to take away her plate and she'd immediately reform until she thought I wasn't looking (or just plain forgot; "do not eat avocado with your feet" is a new concept around here).  Buttercup imitated the terrible table manners.  Hibiscus was more rude.  I had to take away both their plates.  Hibiscus was rude.  Buttercup screamed.  Emerson went on and on about how good he was being.  Hibiscus was rude.  Time for bed.  Hibiscus refused to do any of the normal things she was supposed to do.  Emerson wouldn't get in the bath, and then wouldn't wash his hair.  Buttercup screamed.  In the 45 seconds it takes me to wrap up Buttercup and put her out of mischeif-potential, the other kids got water all over the bathroom.  Hibiscus was rude.  Hibiscus was rude and uncooperative to the point I said I wasn't going to help her brush her teeth, she had to do it herself.  She wouldn't do anything.  I started reading books without her.  She sulked and finished up.

And I don't even remember what the last incident was.  She hasn't been screaming at me until she vomits at bedtime for quite a while, so it was something slightly different.  I think she kept picking up other books and "reading" them rather loudly while I was trying to read to the other children, or maybe she was singing, or maybe it was some other kind of noise.  But eventually I told her she was too loud and she had lost the privledge of being with everyone else and bothering them, and I picked her up by the elbows and put her on the stairs from the bedroom to the bathroom.  She started to scream, but I warned her that she was going into the other room if she did that.  I'm wondering how out-of-control her behavior actually is, because it turns out she can usually stop when the alternative is going in the other room!  So she sat on the stairs and sulked.

And I finished the last book and tucked the other children in and said their blessings.  I say each blessing individually, snuggled up next to their little bodies, and I thank God for the strengths of that child and praise them for the good I saw in them that day, talk about understanding the struggles they have had (Emerson usually wants to talk back and forth with me, but Hibiscus just lets me tell God about how hard I know her day must have been), and pray for the kind of person I want them to grow into -- a specific example of using their natural powers for good, like Hibiscus's determination; or balancing out what they need, like strength and confidence in her individuality for Buttercup; or an adult manifestation of childish virtues, like Emerson taking care of his little sister.  I also pray for myself and that God will help me be a good mother for that child, again using specifics from the day.  I hope the children hear the message that I know that I'm not perfect and I am working and praying to improve myself, even as a mother and an adult.  So, no matter how awful our day has been, I try to end on that loving, thankful, and forward-looking note.  Although I still have to do the children in a specific order!

After everyone else was finished and had their turn, I invited Hibiscus to come back into bed.  She ignored me.  I did the last tucking in and smoothing down, and invited her again.  She still ignored me.

This is a long chapter, but do you remember the beginning?  About the internet pirates, and being unable to get my package, and being sick, and everyone else being sick, and not being able to sleep through the night, and the paperwork getting stalled out, and still being sick?

I was so tempted to say "goodnight, Hibiscus," and walk out of the room.  I stood there, almost doing it.

But I was a big girl.  I went over and took her hand, and she wouldn't look at me, but she stood up and walked with me, and lay back down in bed.  I tucked the blanket around her.  I snuggled up next to her, even though I was so frustrated I really just wanted to slap her.  I stroked her hair, even though she's been rejecting my caresses by telling me it hurts whenever I touch her hair.  And I said her blessing, and I thanked God for her life, and I thanked God for bringing her into our family.

**************

And that was what I planned to write when I started this post on Saturday morning.  And then Saturday got worse, it got way way worse, and it was all Hibiscus.  She did some things that went from "this is really annoying" into "this is affecting lives," that I'm going to protect her privacy by not writing about.  With some space to consider it, I know in my head that it's not out of the realm of normal for a child of her age and her background, and I can't expect her to behave better than her life so far has prepared her to behave.  I think that her overall actions have shown that she wants desperately to be in a loving parent-daughter relationship, she just doesn't know how to do it, or doesn't trust herself enough yet.  She also is learning and gradually changing her behavior, and I can tell she's listening to me.  And most of all, she's a little bitty girl!  She's only six years old.  She has so much time to grow and change.

But meanwhile, I'm all alone by myself.  I have no one to advise me.  No one to take the kids for an hour if I'm exhausted.  No chance to get an extra hour of sleep on Saturday morning.  When she's getting sassy to me, there's no one to invite her over for a game of Crazy 8's and get her thinking of something else; it just escalates.  And with three children, and school taking up most of the day (and all Hibiscus's energy), I don't even have a chance to play bonding games or do Wilburger's brushing technique or have conversations about her birth parents and why she is living with me.  I can keep them clean and fed and enrolled in school, and that's about it.  I feel like treading water is the most I can hope for, and meanwhile she's caught in the rip tide off by herself.

And this weekend, I had had it.  Some people read these posts and praise me for my patience or super-mom-ness.  I'm not that spectacular, I'm just a naturally calm person, who doesn't show much of my emotions, including being upset or angry.  But I finally reached the end of my rope.  This weekend, I actually yelled at the children.  Multiple times.  I don't think I have ever raised my voice beyond snippy and irritated with my family -- not because I'm a saint, but because I'm not a yeller.  Well, I did it.  And I was so mad at Hibiscus in a deep way, that everything she did irritated me and I blamed her for everything.  I just couldn't stop.  And it spilled over onto the other children... I got mad at Buttercup for wetting her pants and at Emerson for telling me about Hibiscus hitting him, which are stupid, stupid things to punish a child for!  I just wanted them all away from me! 

So I tried to not say anything at all.  They went outside to play after lunch, and I let them have cookies and I didn't make them come take a nap.  If they weren't bothering me and we weren't fighting, I didn't care.  But it didn't really help; I was just as irritated with them, and blaming with Hibiscus, when they came back in.

And once they were in bed, no one was even on Skype, so I couldn't have even have a conversation.  So I thought about wraps and what my favorite colors were.  And I didn't feel like I could ever come back to writing this, at least without changing the name, because I felt like I had lost any claim to rising above anything.

And now it's Monday, and I'm trying to start the week fresh.  I think I'm not very sick any more, and I'm going to hire a car and try and get a bunch of errands done tomorrow.  I was going to do a couple things today, but Buttercup was extra tired from missing her nap yesterday, which turned out to be just as well since it started to pour -- and I have a little chance to think.  The children are back in school, and Buttercup is snuggled on my back, sleeping in a soft woolie wrap.  And my parents are coming on Friday!  I've come back to try and write about the week, and that made me think about this awful weekend.

And I realized, that I wasn't quite as bad as I felt I was.  Maybe I wasn't always acting like a big girl, but at least a medium-sized one.  The children were actually fed and bathed and got their homework done, which is more than some families manage (as Hibiscus and Buttercup can attest with their lives).  I managed to stop talking instead of saying some of the mean things I wanted to say.  I didn't hit or spank or slap anyone.  

And I still said all three blessings every night.  I thanked God for each of these children.

Another day

It would be possible for parents to have a worse day than ours yesterday.  Hearing that your child were gravely injured but not knowing exactly how or where, and getting stuck in a traffic jam while you are trying to get to them in a hospital -- that comes to mind.  

Ours merely involved three business-y appointments with three over-excited children; being stuck in a broken-down car; going to pick the essential paper we had been told would certainly be ready "tomorrow," and finding out that "tomorrow" actually meant "some vague time in the future, unless it isn't"; and copious amounts of vomit.  This is in addition to the current daily norms of violent sibling rivalry, continuous inability to communicate in the same language as our children, and about fifty tear-storms a day.  Most of the tears come from one particular child, but the reasons are varied.  

Tears are good.  They mean that there is emotional processing going on, instead of just bottling everything up.  Currently, we have violent tears and wails for every teeny tiny hurt and pain, violent tears and wails whenever a sibling accidentally or purposefully does anything that could be construed as negative, violent tears and wails any time there is any disappointment, violent tears and wails if she thinks about eating and is does not have food in her mouth, and most of all, extremely violent tears and wails any time her parents don't do what she wants.  Since she is concurrently engaged in scientifically proving exactly how she can or cannot make her parents do what she wants or stop doing what she wants at any given moment, this last cause of tears is pretty much constant.

For instance, her scientific observation has produced the hypothesis that her mother wants her to eat her food at the table.  This hypothesis is supported by understanding most of the English words that her mother uses to talk about food and table, as well as the fact that her mother can also explain the concept in her own native language.  So, this obviously begs the following questions: can she eat her bread while wandering around the room? No.  Can she eat her pancake on the couch? No.  Can she eat her carrot in bed? No.  The results are inconclusive, and currently the theory needs to be tested approximately twelve times a day in order to be able to reach any dependable results.

Actually, there are a great many things in daily life which do not go exactly the way that might suit Hibiscus the very best at that particular moment.  To determine exactly how she can make everyone, especially the all-important parents, do exactly what she wants, she is trying every variation of noise, collapsing, pathos, hitting, assorted other violence, and anything else that might come to mind at that moment.  Of course, violence of action and emotion just breeds greater violence of emotion, and this usually leads to extended writhing and crying with no particular object in mind.

Combine all this with a long day of appointments, and just imagine the result.  I had thought that we would have the chance to see some cultural sites, which would involve looking around and running around, but we kept having just enough time between having to be in the next place, to have to much time to do nothing but not nearly enough time to do anything at all.  Once we actually drove to the potential fun location, and left without entering so we wouldn't be late.  Of course, this is also way too much stimulation for children who have possibly not gone beyond a few buildings and a few blocks in their lives, and no one has ever entered into any kind of study of manners with these kids.

So, on the positive side, no one ended up in the hospital.  Evidence is growing every day for Buttercup's increasing attachment.  And Mark met the people he had to meet, and he has excellent grace and social skills while his children are busy hitting each other with leather elephants.  And we had a pleasant lunch, for the portion of the experience that there was food on the table and headed into the children's mouths.  There was a significant downturn once the food was consumed.  Also luckily, only two of the three children are fast enough to actually escape the building when a parent is actively running after them.  On a definite positive note, we arrived home with the same number of family members that left home in the morning.  And sometimes the sibling rivalry takes the positive turn of informing parents of dangerous and forbidden activities, although the sibling usually sees this as reason to follow with the crying and hitting and then more crying part.

When I am not trying to focus on the positive..... wow, the vomit part was pretty overpowering.....