Talking, and more Talking

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*******

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

*********

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

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

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

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

Hibiscus Drives Us All Crazy

It's the middle of the afternoon, and I said we could have more birthday cake and presents if the kids could clear the table off.  No one started on that project, which seems like actual work, but Hibiscus found a piece of mostly-unused construction paper and made a birthday hat for Buttercup.  First of all she taped it into a cone shape, and when she put it on Buttercup's head the little girl started glowing with her unaccustomed special-ness.  Then she wanted to add a chin band, and Emerson helped her find materials and they all started singing "Happy Birthday" variations happily as they worked on the hat, while Buttercup fairly danced with pride.  Suddenly, Hibiscus decided it "wasn't good" and she ripped it apart and crumpled up the pieces, while the other children watched in shock and disappointment, and Buttercup's joyful little face melted away.

That's our Hibiscus!

Then she spent a while arguing, because I had already said I wasn't giving them any more paper or art supplies until the current mess had been cleaned up, but Hibiscus apparently felt that because she had made the mess even bigger while making all the other children upset, that she deserved an exception to the rule.  Which she didn't get, so she sulked.

Then she started cleaning one thing up, which is generally how it goes.  She wants to be helpful, but as soon as she starts she gets distracted or sees something new to get out.  In this case, she put some cheese from snack in the fridge, as I asked.  For some reason, Emerson was also near the fridge, and he pushed it shut, which Hibiscus thought was too rough, and she started scolding him.  One of our frequent scripts in this house is "who does Hibiscus need to worry about?" and the answer in "Hibiscus."  (In other words, stop bossing your brother and sister around!!!)  Hibiscus ignored me, and opened the fridge again and started fussing around with all the little bottles on the side, putting them in "perfect" order while telling Emerson how bad he was for messing them up.  I agreed that Emerson could have shut the door more gently, but thought there was no reason to stand there rearranging everything in the fridge meanwhile, so I told Hibiscus to get out of the fridge and Emerson to shut the door gently.  Twice.  Maybe three times.  Hibiscus said "I just doing this" and continued to adjust the bottles and then grabbed the door away from Emerson to shut it herself.  That falls under our Just One More criteria for a Sit, so she got one.  And she tried to sneak out of it when I wasn't looking, so she got a longer Sit.

Earlier today, I decided I would do just one little project that would make me feel better, so I had cleared off the couch.  It is the largest horizontal space in our main room, and it was totally heaped up with stuff.  Besides, then I could sit on the couch and do some work on the ipad while being kind of relaxed and drinking a cup of tea.  First of all I got mad at Emerson for climbing right on the newly-folded clothes I was arranging, and then the kids kept passing and dropping the extra parts from their projects on the nice clear couch.  After addressing each incident, I finally told the kids all to look at me, and to not put anything more on the couch today.  Period.

When I told Hibiscus she could come out of her Sit, she went straight over to the windowsill where Buttercup's birthday presents were sitting and picked up her most exciting new game.  I warned her that she better not be playing with her sister's new game without permission, and she said she wasn't.  Then she brought the toy bag over to the couch, and I said she had better not be putting anything on the couch, and she said she wasn't.  Buttercup was watching her lovely toy and her bossy sister with increasing worry.  Hibiscus then proceeded to take the toy that she wasn't playing with and dump the entire thing out on the couch that she wasn't putting things on.        


This is all in about the span of twenty minutes or so, but she is like this ALL.  DAY.  LONG.  She is constantly taking things from her brother and sister, which she is likely to break or just drop randomly in a different place.  She tells them what to do, and grabs things from Buttercup to do it for her and goads Emerson into getting upset, and then "reports" him for using his angry voice.  She ordinarily has a very good relationship with both siblings, although of course they have their little altercations, and they actually have a great deal of patience with her explosiveness.  One morning they were getting ready for school, Emerson and Hibiscus bumped into each other, and Hibiscus rounded on Emerson and screamed "DON'T BUMP ME LIKE DAT!!! DAT'S MY OWIE!!!"  I would have reprimanded her that it was an accident on both sides, and there was no call to scream, but luckily I am a little slow on getting between them.  Emerson turned and immediately apologized and asked to see her owie, and Hibiscus showed him her leg in that special aggrieved manner that young children reserve for small pains, and Emerson knelt down and admired it and sympathized, and then they both went on with their day quite calmly.

Buttercup is even more accustomed to being pushed around and adores every chance to be with her beloved sister, which is a little bit of a problem in itself and I am glad that she is gradually learning to stand up for herself.  Now in the last few weeks, Hibiscus is back to her early behavior in our house, when every time Buttercup says something she repeats it to the rest of the family, and every time Daddy or I address Buttercup, she answers quickly and loudly.  If we ask Buttercup to do something and she doesn't immediately jump into action -- which is pretty much always, because she is either going through a toddler-refusal, or just because she thinks things over carefully before beginning -- Hibiscus repeats it for her in Luganda, ordering her to do the thing in rapid-fire succession which simply confuses Buttercup, and then grabs the things out of her hands and starts to do it for her.

Or then there are times like this:  The morning after her birthday party, Buttercup wanted to look at her new book.  She sat in the middle of the floor to pore over it, and Hibiscus said "you want me to read it to you" and sat down next to her and took the book out of her hands.  Buttercup acquiesced because she likes spending time with her big sister.  But then a minute later I looked over, and Hibiscus is holding the book over Buttercup's head while Buttercup is reaching for it and starting to screech and sob.  Hibiscus saw me ready to interfere and protested "but she WANTS me to hold the book for her, Mama, she is wantin' me to do like dis!!"  Ah, no, my darling, I really think this is a misinterpretation of the situation!   Buttercup is becoming very capable of expressing her feelings about things -- not to mention understanding spoken English -- and yet Hibiscus will announce to the rest of us how Buttercup is feeling.  Which, coincidentally, always seems to be that Buttercup wants what Hibiscus wants, even at Buttercup's own expense.


But that's not the only thing she announces.  She tells me when my phone is ringing, or has the text-message sound.  If I don't come running immediately, she keeps telling me over and over, imitating the text-message sound.  She tells us when a Skype call is ringing.  She tells us when fire engines go by.  In fact, she informs everyone of every sound all day long, which I suppose could make her an excellent assistant if we were all deaf, but as it is she just makes us WISH we were deaf.

One day I asked her if she saw anything poking out of the side of my head, and that they were called ears, and since they were still in their usual place she might assume I could hear things on my own.  I tried to make a joke out of it, but I might have been too irritated to fully succeed.

But that's not all she says.  At the best of times, she is a talkative child, and there's nothing wrong with that.  As Daddy says, she gets a lot of practice in spoken English!  But when she's stressed or tired or excited or generally out of her precarious internal balance, she talks all the time.  And I do mean ALL the time.  One night I started counting to myself, mostly to give myself something to do other than run and scream, and I think the longest she ever went without talking was about three seconds -- and that was the exception.  Most of the time it is more like one or maybe two seconds; just long enough to hear what the next person might be talking about, so then she can tell them what they meant to say, or what she would say on the topic, or that they are wrong, or just because she was in the process of swallowing and was physically incapable of speech for a moment.  Only a moment, though, as she keeps talking through most of the eating process, even when no one can actually understand her because she is also shoveling food in at top speed.

I am a talkative person, as everyone knows.  My son has been a chatterbox since he could string words together, and does indeed have excellent speech for his age with all that practice, so I am used to talkative children.  And I'm the kind of person who doesn't mind some overlap in conversation, and with my good friends we will both be very talkative and sometimes be both talking at once, while also listening and one or the other pauses for a moment and then rejoins the story at an ebb in the other's conversation.  So, "talkative," I can handle.  I have experience.  You will have to trust me that Hibiscus is another category altogether.

So all through dinner, we have either a monologue or, if someone else gets a word in edgewise, she changes course and tells them what they meant to be saying.  We try to discuss conversation rules, but after a while it kind of puts everyone else in an exhausted coma, and no one else can think of anything to say anyways.  Then we get up from dinner, and she narrates what she is doing as she cleans up and gets ready for bed, along with telling everyone else what they should be doing, and of course every major or minor injury to body or soul she feels along the way... which are prolific, since she also is in her manic and awkward stage of the day.  Eventually we get to books.  As in, I read books out loud, and the children listen to them.  Except it goes something like this:

"Hedgie the hedgehog climbed --"
"Oooh, he is climbing, look he climb!!"
"--up to the hayloft ---"
"Mama mama mama, what a hayloft? What is dat one?"
"It's the top of the barn, see, right here.  -- the next morn ---"
"Look, dis one a bird!  Dere a bird in da sky here!"
"-ing to get a ---"
"One, two, tree, FIVE birds, YOU count Buttercup, one, two, no, you doing it WRONG I count da birds---"


I have my masters degree in education.  I know how valuable reading books is to young children, and that a significant part of the value is that it inspires conversations between adults and children.  The children get to explore and learn new vocabulary, and have practice talking about characters and counting objects and so forth, all with lots of interaction with their loving adult.  The conversation is an important part of the reading process.

Nevertheless, this is not what they meant.



I know in my head, that if it's been a hard couple weeks for all of us, it's probably been worst for Hibiscus.  She has by far the least internal regulation (even included Buttercup), so the move with all its change of routine has been the most difficult for her.  She has loved our guests, but they have come with more changes of routine and new personalities to figure out.  In the court room, she is the only one trying to balance complex relationships with both sides of people, and she's picking up all the emotions and understanding none of the logic.  She and Buttercup are more deeply disturbed by loving people having to leave (especially Daddy, but also Diane and it re-awakens how upset she is about Gramma and Bubba being gone), because they have more experience with loving adults leaving than loving adults coming back again.  So I understand.  It's enough to throw anyone off kilter, let alone a little girl who doesn't have much balance to begin with.

But lately, I've been pausing for a while at night to adjust her blankets and say a little prayer over her.  Because it's been easiest to love her when she's asleep.

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.                                  

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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...!

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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!

Missed Posts

I've been writing these out on iPad Notes, and some of them have disappeared into the lost internet world lately.  The first time I thought the kids were playing with the ipad and accidentally deleted some, but then an entire month's worth of Notes disappeared and I don't think the kids could have done it.  Fortunately, most of them were already published or emailed to me, but there were some that were just gone.  So I feel like I have shared these stories but you haven't actually had a chance to read them. I don't think I have the energy to entirely re-create them, but I'll try and sum up my thoughts.

**There was one that matched "Buttercup English" about "Hibiscus English," which is really REALLY too bad it was lost because it was things that she was saying and doing at that time that were funny, and I won't be able to remember.  The most noticeable part about Hibiscus English is that she substitutes "for" for every single preposition as well as every conjugation of "to be," as well as a couple other assorted words and her "um" kind of substitute.  (What was the linguistic title for an "um" word?)  This results in remarkable sentences which has "for" as almost every word.  When she first arrived, there were things like "mama, for Buttercup for come for crying for Emerson for Buttercup for hitting for come for no-ow."  This meant something along the lines of: "Mama, come, because Buttercup is crying because Emerson was hitting her, so please come now."

Except "with."  She says "and" instead of "with."  

And at the beginning she said "beating" instead of "hitting."  And whichever way it is, there is a lot of it.  She doesn't appear to believe in accidental bumps, and since wherever she goes a tornado of rough play surrounds her, everyone is always getting "beaten" in her world.  Sigh.

**There was one about why Hibiscus is so out of control and so angry.  That one was quite emotional to write, and I am quite sure that Hibiscus deleted it as soon as I left the room to help Buttercup go poop. 

I think that it is a combination of several things.  First of all, I think that she has been in "emergency mode" for so long, and repressed all her feelings that didn't help her get through the day.  When we came, I began giving her a safe emotional space and taking care of some of her troubles, and letting her feel sad or weak or little around me.  I think our relationship had progressed to the point where she could let down that emotional firewall, for the first time in a very long time, right about the point where she came to live with me.  Feeling all these huge feelings is probably even more surprising and awful for her, than it is for me.

And just when she came to live with me was another blow.  She had been imagining that for a long time, and then it turned out that she spent so much of her time being angry and sad.  That had to have been a huge disappointment.

In fact, I think she has been imagining a "new family" for a very long time, probably long before her actual birth family imploded.  It sounds like they never behaved the way families "should" behave, by the standards of her class and culture and situation in life.  I've heard of many children, struggling with abuse or neglect or pain, create a whole new family for themselves to dream about.  Hibiscus is highly imaginative, so she might have done that.  Whatever she dreamed of, I think it involved a very loving, tender mama, and no rules or work whatsoever. 

Then there are probably some subconscious things coming to the front.  Again, there was time for this to surface in the couple of months that we spent visiting and forming a relationship.  By the time she moved in with me, she had lost the impetus to try and impress me and try to be a "good girl" and fit in, because I had already proven that I was interested in her even when she was not feeling or being "good."

First of all, I think she felt the need to test the limits of this love, and the rules that I set out.  What would it take for me to send her back to the orphanage?  Is this really a mama through thick and thin, no matter what?  And I promised her that there is no hitting or beating in our family, and I will stop the children from hitting each other and I will never hit them.  There are times when she is so actively and obviously just TRYING to make me mad, and madder, and madder, that I think to myself "is she TRYING to make me decide to spank her?"  And then I realize that she probably is, and that the way I "win" is to hold to my promise of never hitting.  It calms me right down.  

(Although she's ended up getting badly hurt a few times when she attacks me, which makes me feel absolutely terrible.  She's large enough that her attack makes me have to actively defend myself, but enough smaller than me that just by weight alone, she ends up the worse off from her own force. And if you're thinking "what kind of parent gets in fights with their child?" just imagine a two-year-old throwing a fit because he wants to hold a knife or have another cookie or run in the street, and when Mama says no he tries running away and becoming a limp spaghetti and trying to climb the counter to grab the knife and cookie and when mom tries to take him down he hits and kicks and bites and spits and screams bloody murder  and whaps her with the knife and throws the cookie.  Now imagine that spirited toddler is almost 50 pounds and has long, strong arms and legs, and is fully coordinated, but has absolutely the same amount of self-control and awareness of consequences.)

And then secondly, perhaps she thinks of herself as a "bad child" and is working to prove it.  Her natural exuberance is not appreciated in Ugandan culture, and since it goes without saying that naughty children need a beating to keep them in line, she probably would have gotten in some trouble no matter how she was growing up.  But coupled with clearly not having anyone to teach her what she is SUPPOSED to do, she just has no chance at being culturally successful.  I don't know if there is a point where she felt loved and worthwhile in spite of her behavior, or if she always felt like love was conditional.

Furthermore, given the age she was when she lived with her birth family, she probably felt like a great deal of their problems were her fault.  Since there were a very large number of problems and disasters, if they were all the fault of one little girls she would certainly have to be very "bad."

So she might be trying to prove her "badness" in this new situation.  It's easier to be what you know how to be instead of starting something new (although I'm quite sure most of this behavior has never existed in her life before, because it simply wouldn't have been tolerated, at all).

Similarly, she might be trying to get into habits of behavior she had with her birth parents or other adults.  She might be actively trying to drive me crazy because that was a reaction she could get, driving someone crazy.  I'm naturally pretty unflappable, so she has to try really hard!

**And then naturally I had to lose a post about Buttercup.  I wrote that one just this week, about bonding.  Now that she has learned to trust me and that I will take care of her, I am a little worried that she is willing to extend that trust to the entire rest of the world.  The rest of Uganda is very happy to oblige.  It seems like every time I turn around someone has picked her up or she's in someone's lap or walking away from me holding someone's hand.  They are just trying to be helpful (okay, if you really want to be helpful, could you do something about one of the children who is actively being a pest, instead of "helping" me with the one who is totally calm?) and they can't imagine, culturally, what is wrong with touching or snuggling or holding a sweet baby.  But it's exactly the wrong thing for Buttercup at this point in her bonding development.  She needs to learn that the mother/parent/family relationship is unique and stronger than any other relationship.   So I think I need to keep her wrapped up more, instead of letting her down in public where people feel free to touch and hold her.

Fritz

Fritz

We have a book of Jan Brett's, "Fritz and the Beautiful Horses."  I find it beautifully illustrated and the words have a nice flow, but pretty much lacking in logic.  The citizens only let the most beautiful horses inside their city; Fritz is a fuzzy little pony but he is "gentle, sure-footed, and always willing to work;" Fritz eventually rescues the stranded children of the city when the beautiful but vain and high-spirited horses won't step in; Fritz is allowed in the city and all the children love him.  I think the lesson is supposed to be that there are more important things than beauty.

Hibiscus has been loving this book lately, but I think she has the lesson about backwards.  She praises and admires all the horses in their amazing Jan-Brett-y decorations and fancy saddles and clothes and braided manes and tails, and then she gets to the "silly horse" that she "no likes" and he "is dirty" and she is "going to 'eet 'eem" (hit him).  She continues to make fun of Fritz and praise the beautiful horses all through his brave and kind rescue scene.  However, on the last page he also gets a beautiful blanket, and then she likes him again.

I have tried to discuss with her that Fritz is nice ("no, dese ones nice, Fritz not nice") or that he's beautiful inside ("he not for beautiful, dese ones for beautiful") or that Fritz is kind ("him for diiiiir-ty") or any other combination of words that I can think of, but the message is clear: being good is all about having the best clothes.

Buttercup English

Now that Buttercup is talking, we hear lots of Lugandan words that we don't know, some Luganda words that we recognize, quite a few Lugandan words that we don't recognize but we actually do know, all peppered together with English bits and pieces, some of which sound like English.  She still has that adorable toddler habit of speaking each word or each tiny phrase with a complete stop afterwords, so everything sounds like many tiny sentences after each other.

"Mama, you see" is her preferred way of drawing my attention to things.  When we were in the national park, even after the older children got tired of looking up for each new scattering of buffalo or kob, Buttercup still said "mama, you see.... BAH-flo!" each time there was one out the window.  But lest one feel too proud of exposing her to the glories of spectacular animals, the entire way home she still kept pointing out the window and crying "mama, you see .... goat!"

When I see something, assuming it is not a buffalo, I should probably give it to her.  When "mama, you see, abananana" I am not supposed to merely admire it, I am supposed to put in in her mouth.

But much of the time, the things that "you see" are in Luganda, and I don't know whether or not I've seen them.  When out the window, I admire them anyway and she is satisfied, but she is less satisfied with the going-in-mouth you-sees.  I spent an entire day trying to figure out the Luganda word "macha," as in "mama, you see macha."  Finally, I realized it was amazzi, which means "water," and I know the word perfectly well.  (In fact, it was my first word I used to make myself understood when the person really didn't know English.)  "Macha" isn't a dialectical pronunciation, it's just two-year-old-ese.  

How do we give her a "tabu"?  Is it something at the table?  No, it's a book, "echitabo" (another Luganda word I know).  On the other hand, I had almost figured out the context for the new Luganda word something like "ayagoo," before I realized it was just repeating "here you go." 

Her sister speaks to her a great deal in English that she learns from school, and now she's hearing English all around her.  Buttercup still responds much more quickly to "jiangoo" than "come here," but the English words are starting to pepper in, just like we're starting to pepper in the Luganda words that she uses all the time.  Thus we have adorable phrases like "njiango... pot-tee.  Njiango... pot-tee," as she is headed to the bathroom.  (The "n" prefix is "I," jiango" is "go."  "Do you need to go potty?"  "I go potty.")

African English adds extra vowels to blunt and boring English words, to make it flow like Italian or Spanish.  The best example is the local word for our holy book... the Bayabuli.  Make sense?  Say it out loud.  Usually, for fluent speakers, they just add an extra -i or -o here or there at the ends of phrases or on important words, or where the English is just impossibly ugly, but Buttercup has taken this to it's full conclusion.  Single-syllable words do not exist.  It is food-oo and foot-sa and fish-a and going-y.  It's also elephant-y and 

Oh, and then there are the backwards words.  I remember quite a while how Buttercup liked to point out to me all the flowers, but now she points out the umbrellas.  Everywhere.  All the umbrellas on trees and shrubgs, and the vases full of nice umbrellas.  And we spent an entire boat trip learning to call the colorful creatures with wings "birds" instead of "fish."  Not that they were "birds" or "f

10 minutes (just 10)

10 minutes...

... in the life of the 3-child circus.

Trying to get dinner on the table.  Older children have some respect for the written and illustrated Getting Ready for Dinner Routine, and are proven capable of doing it.  I ask them to clear the table, in English and Luganda.  Hibiscus and Emerson are sliding around dramatically on the just-mopped floor (or was it when Buttercup had just peed but it hadn't been mopped yet?) and pretending to fall and landing on all fours with their bums in the air, and shrieking with the most hysterical laughter of which children are capable.  Which is quite very much hysterical.  Somewhere around a potential broken nose, I look over at Buttercup.  She is perched on a chair, moving things around on the table because that's what I said to do.  Her main effect is knocking over several glasses of water.  The floor is now even more wet and slippery.

Somehow we have gotten to the point of the bigger kids noticing the table, I forget exactly how.  Hibiscus starts getting the egico (spoons) and then Emerson has to get the egico and is ready to dive-bomb her midway to the table because he actually was planning all along to set out spoons.  I suggest he put out napkins.  Instead of finding it in the drawer, the silverware is on the drying rack and Daddy dries it to hand to Hibiscus.  One spoon lands in the mop bucket full of dirty water, which is standing at the ready because there is cause to mop the floor for about every ten minutes of child activity.  This is hysterical.  Hibiscus puts spoons on the table, because Emerson is distracted by piling up all the cushions on the couch and jumping on top of them.  Hibiscus realizes that she had laid a baby teddy bear for his nap on exactly the bottom cushion that he is piled on, and screams bloody murder and tries to pull him off the top of his precarious pile, and he starts to fight back desperately without understanding the slightest bit about the "baby" in question.  Meanwhile, Buttercup remembers that I've asked to put the napkins on the table, and goes over to get the napkin-and-important-stuff basket, which is large enough (and full enough) that all she manages is to upend the entire thing on the floor.

Hibiscus remembers the spoon in the mop bucket, which Daddy has just taken out and washed while she was involved in the Squashed Baby Drama.  She screams with laughter and dives over and starts flapping around in the dirty water, while Daddy tries to first of all convince her that the spoon is already removed, and secondly that she needs to wash her hands before returning to set the table.  She starts to cry because "me I have finished wash hands!"  Hibiscus crying usually means falling on anything available, such as people or the floor, and flopping around like a very large fish with skinny arms, which her parents know all about because they end up dragging her around by said skinny arms so she is not in the mop bucket or the middle of the street or falling off the stairs or bruising her brother.  Emerson has forgotten about the squashed baby, but still somehow it is Mama who fixes the napkin basket and puts them on the table.  Oh yes, because Emerson is busy being hysterical that there aren't enough of the pink cloth napkins for everyone, and he can't possibly use a paper napkin, like we used every day until I cut up a towel last week, if there are pink napkins extant.  Although of course, if he actually set the napkins out he could put them wherever he wanted.  Instead, he puts lego boxes on his feet, and Hibiscus attacks him because one of the lego boxes had originally had her legos in it.

Buttercup, valiantly following the example presented, is quietly diving head first into the mop bucket.