A Season for Quiet

It's cool and has been raining all morning.  The children are in school -- all three of them.  The house is quiet, but I put on the classical radio and the tea kettle is starting to gurgle and boil.  Autumn is here.

When I lived in Africa, there was so much that I was able to learn about and take into my self-hood that I never would have experienced here.  I can still close my inner eyes and feel that certain heat of the equatorial sun; feel the air that is full of red dust, and always infused with scents and smells.  And while I lived in Africa, there was a pain inside from missing what I have always known, what has gone into the making of me for so many years.  The pain of missing my husband, my dogs, and my friends, was sharper and more towards the outside of my being.  The pain of missing the air, the green, the peacefulness of gray, was deep inside, in the places you don't even fully realize you are existing.  And the strongest of all those pains was that of missing seasons.  And as much as I wished I were home to appreciate the snowy pictures my local friends posted on Facebook, the worst seasonal pain was missing autumn.

So perhaps that means autumn is my favorite season, although I think actually my favorite part about seasons is how they change.  As someone who has been either a student, a teacher, or a mother of students, for all of my life, fall also feels like the beginning of the new year to me.  And fall means fresh apples, and I really like apples -- the entire experience of apples.  Living in Africa, I also learned that I have very deep feelings about apples.  At any rate, between all these different aspects, school has started, the weather is changing, and the apples are ripe on the trees.... and I feel like a new door has opened in my life and our family's lives.

Part of that new door is our new adventures in school.  Buttercup has started school for the first time, and is attending mixed-age kindergarten with Sunflower three mornings a week.  Sunflower has the same schedule at Waldorf school as he has had for (at least part of) the last three years, but we are also starting a more deliberate home-schooling pattern, and he is deeply invested in that work.  And part of that door is opening something within me.  I have determined to celebrate the autumn by preserving so much of its beautiful produce into something we can enjoy all year long; and I have made a schedule where I can preserve some time for the things that nurture me as a human being.  Part of which is that I will come back and write this blog on a regular basis, which allows me to create something, and also gives me time to reflect and contemplate on my daily thoughts and experiences as a mother.  Furthermore, I think that these writings have touched people in different ways.  I have heard that people feel closer to my family, that they have new understanding about adoption or emotional special needs, or new ideas for their own parenting, or a more realistic expectation about living abroad or in Uganda, or simply have the time and space to appreciate standing in someone else's shoes.  So perhaps these writings are part of "the work God has given (me) to do," as we pray every Sunday after communion.  Thank you for sharing if you have found this writing to be meaningful to you, and I will now work to continue it.

We have now been home almost exactly eight months, which coincidentally is the same amount of time that we lived in Uganda.  I feel like most of that time has been some kind of dream state, or transition period -- in my inner world, as well as the outer one.  There has been so much in this outer world to get "done," and yet it has seemed impossible to do it.  I have taken care of the children, and kept up with the necessary basics, but I have not been a "do-er" for the last eight months.  I know both my husband and my mother have been frustrated with me or worried about me at times.  Although I occasionally have been frustrated with myself, there has been a certain necessary depth to the feeling of floating through life.

Part of it, I know, is habit.  At home, I have always had projects and things I'm involved in, and like many people of my class and generation, I am usually over-committed.  But in Uganda, what I really learned to do was wait.  Ugandans are experts at waiting, and perhaps there is something in that particular, sultry equatorial air that lends itself to slowness of body and quietness of mind.  The simple chores of existence -- buying groceries, doing laundry, bathing -- took up so much mental and physical energy there was not enough left to think of larger projects.  And of course, the children themselves took up everything that was left, and more!  Yes, there were long periods when I was simply sitting... writing or reading or something else  But even then, I think my internal energy, something about my soul, was required to throw over our household, keep our fragile lives intertwined.  The children's chaotic energy required a balance of quiet and calm to hold them together.  If you could have seen into the room, it would have seemed like I was doing nothing or wasting time, and yet my internal energy was deeply engaged.

And then when one gets home from almost a year of learning to wait, and listen, and be quiet, one can't just jump back into being active all the time.  When every evening after the children are in bed, one restores their soul by enjoying the absolute quiet of the house, it's hard to switch to rejuvenating oneself by talking.  Maybe an extrovert would have relished it, but I have always been introverted, and spending almost eight entire months with never ever having an open and emotional conversation (except for a few brief visits), strengthened the introversion and self-sufficiency within me.  Once home, I appreciated so much being able to connect with the people I love, but the daily availability of connection seemed almost too much.  By the end of the day, it felt like I was out of spoken words and didn't know where to find them to chat with my husband.  When my mother visited, it was like I didn't remember how to be together and interact with an adult all day long.  I had to ease into it from the inside, which looked like quiet or passivity from the outside

I haven't been depressed, although all this quietness seems like depression.  I have never been more deeply and fully grateful for what my life is filled with, and never has it been easier to feel like my life itself is a prayer of thanksgiving and joy.  But on the surface, I have run out of energy quickly.  It has been easier to be calm and passive.  Unlike my husband and mother, this hasn't bothered me.  I have felt like this, too, was a season.  Perhaps a season of re-learning what energy and activity is, or perhaps a season where I knew that stillness was what my children needed the most.  When I have plenty of "quiet time" alongside them, instead of folding the sheets and mowing the lawn, I do have a lot more energy left for the giant and improbable meltdown that pops up later that afternoon.  They have needed my reserves of energy, and creating an actual balance has not looked balanced.

And now, the season has just seemed to pass away from me.  I have a schedule for the children and myself, and it feels good to get out and DO the next thing.  I've been doing homeschool with Sunflower, and deeply enjoying the chance to work intimately together with him.  It's been easy and enjoyable to get out for a walk with the dogs in the woods almost every day, even when I need to bring children along with us.  After I put the children in bed, instead of feeling completely depleted and unable to stand, I've enjoyed working on fruit or canning in the evening, and other nights I've gotten housecleaning done.  I've also given myself a rhythm for kitchen work and house work, and our house suddenly feels manageable now.  I have not girded my loins and forced myself to be different; it feels like the door has opened and we have simply passed into a new place.  As the seasons change and the apples ripen, so suddenly we are ripe for something new.

It feels to me like the children are ripe to their new phase of life, as well.  Well-meaning friends suggest how "the transition" of moving or new siblings might be so hard on them, but they have not been here for every day of the last eight months in Uganda and eight months in Eugene, as I have.  I am feeling like we are finally out of transitioning, that this is real life.  What is bubbling out of them isn't in response to all the transitioning, it's what has been bubbling all along below the transitions.  When they're tired or angry or whiney as they get used to their new school schedule, it isn't because it's a new language or their home routine isn't what they expect or everything is new.  It's because everything else no longer requires their extra energy, and they are simply responding to starting a new school year which is harder than they wish it would be.  When Sunflower and Hibiscus are so deeply involved in their play they don't notice the passage of time, their words and actions tumbling over each other as they create a world that only they see; and then minutes later they irritate each other so much that they both end up screaming until they turn red.... it's no longer because they're getting used to each other as siblings.  It's because they ARE siblings.  We are off and running, and this is the path we are on.


"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven."  When God made me, He made me capable of action and activity, but He did not make me an active person.  He made me a person capable of deep calm and quiet.  Which I admit freely can lead to a messy house, but I also believe that it's a powerful and meaningful gift, and as I have grown into myself I have learned to appreciate and value my own inner gifts.  And I believe that by giving this gift to me, He is also giving the gift of peace, of a quiet space of acceptance, of an aura of freedom from anxiety; into my home, for my husband and children.  The last few months apparently my energy has been needed for quiet.  Now it is time for a new purpose under heaven, and our season can change to more energy and activity on top of the quiet.

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.

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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!

Potty Drama

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

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

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

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

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

I was mad.

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

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


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


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


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

Return Trip

It was the water bottle that did me in.  You know how, in modern airports, you can't bring your water through security, you have to pour it all out and get new water in the terminal to bring on the plane?  Well, it's like in Africa, they have to be as modern as other airports, but they have to twist things around to make themselves unique, and in the process they defeat the entire point but they are still stubborn and bureaucratic about it, and just stand there staring at your repeating their stupid rules.  In this case, no one cared about water going into the airport, at either the preliminary security station nor the main security check where you would expect a security check.  But at the last minute, when you are walking into the pre-boarding area at the gate, there is an extra security gate, with no signs or information or anything, but they tell you to throw away your water.  Which means no water whatsoever in the plane.  As though the water they are selling in the terminal is loaded with whatever bombs people can make out of water, or for that matter, that they want people wandering around with those water-bombs in the airport terminal at all.  I protested, and the guy brought over his superior, who repeated the same words mildly and stared vaguely behind my ear, which is the African way of having a passive argument.  I said "what am I supposed to do?" which is the African arguing way of not letting them be passive any more, but they didn't take the bait and just kept staring.  They brought over a third person to be unhelpful, though.  After a while, one of them said that if the water had a seal, it would be okay, which as far as I could tell he made up on the spot to appear agreeable, although of course it could be airport policy -- who knows, as the airport policy is not posted any where.  The water bottle in question had about four sips taken out of it and had cost me 160 Kenyan shillings, and of course we wouldn't have taken four sips if we had known about this so-called airport policy.  I pointed out that other airports all over the world do not randomly take your water away when you are boarding the plane.  One of the guards said calmly that they were not any other airport, and they did not follow any other policy, they were Boma Jaipa airport (or whatever the name is) and that is their policy.  Obviously, duh!  (Those last were not technically words, but very clear.)

I am generally an incredibly non-confrontational person.  As in, if I even think about saying something rude, I start to cry and have to go away in private and think about it the rest of the afternoon.  I'm losing it in Africa, I really am -- my sanity or my Type 9-ness, I'm not sure which.  Although less healthy Type 9's are known for being passive aggressive, and maybe that includes violently throwing your water bottle at the trash can as you walk away.  I didn't actually throw it at a human being, which would be more on the aggressive side.  Actually, come to think of it, it probably IS passive aggressive, because that is what they are experts at around here, and they all expertly ignored me.


The trip back to Uganda technically went smoothly.  There were no lines to check in or go through security, we found our gate, the flight was on time and the bathrooms functioning, I got American dollars for the Ugandan visas, I found a toy that I had promised Emerson for good-shopping-behavior in the terminal, I even had time to get a couple Kenyan souvenirs.  (It takes some searching to find Kenyan souvenirs that are not exactly the same things as Ugandan souvenirs, except maybe there is a different country name painted on it.  In fact, the terminal was full of general east-African souvenirs with every possible East African country name painted on it, just in case you wanted to feel specific to a whole bunch of places.)  Most importantly, the Ugandan customs official laughed and joked with Emerson, and didn't make any kind of fuss about putting the new stamps in our passports.  This was quite a concern, because not only have I heard a lot of airport-official horror stories by this point, the customs official on the way out did not like all my visa extensions, and delayed me for quite some time even thought I was just trying to LEAVE the country.  It is quite certain that she would not have let me back in.  So the trip went smoothly.

But I was so tired.  I actually got more sleep in Kenya than I usually do at home, so there was no physical reason to feel so exhausted, but it was one of those days when I felt like everything was through a fog and my limbs were moving in syrup.  I think it was the fact of returning to Uganda.  The closer we got, the more tired I became, just in anticipation.


The few days in Kenya were such a treat.  Of course it was nice to not have to worry about fixing meals or doing laundry or worrying about paperwork, but the vacation-y-ness wasn't the main thing.  It was so rejuvenating to see something new and think about something new and do something new!  With three children in the suburbs, I am so confined.  I am either at home, doing the same-ol' at home things, or I am doing necessary errands... and with all the children out of school, those errands are gut-wrenchingly tiring and stressful.  It was so nice mentally to think about different shaped buildings, and how the history of the two countries had created such different realities in such geographical proximity, and listen to cheesy stories about elephants, knowing that I had absolutely no connection to the elephants and I wasn't going to come back again or show it to someone else or where I would stand next time, and basically just have NOTHING TO DO with the stupid elephants except to stand there and watch them.  That was refreshing.

And it was refreshing to be a one-child mama again.  It's more than just the number of children, it's that Emerson and I have a rhythm, we understand each other.  There is no question that I have spent more time alone with Emerson than anyone else in the world, since I was his age and spending that much time with my own mother.  (Three weeks older than he is now, my sister was born and that intimacy changed into something new, too.)  Going around Nairobi together was familiar like going around Kampala was a few months ago, a routine that we knew, the excitement and exploration that we remembered, and that we both enjoy.  But there are years of memories like that; Emerson and I have done a lot of traveling alone together.  So it was like settling in with an old friend, to be with my son the way I remembered being with my son.  It was a treat.  But more than that, it was fine; it was normal; it was enough.


The pilot forgot to ask my opinion, but as far as I was concerned, that plane could have kept on flying.  We could have gone right over east Africa and headed back home.  There was nothing I needed to stop for in Uganda; nothing that was so important that I wanted to head down into this morass again.

Almost as often as people try and convince me that the baby I'm carrying isn't actually my baby, they tell me what a saint I am for helping out other people's babies.  That's not true either; people adopt for selfish reasons: they want to dress a girl in pretty clothes or play baseball with a boy or show that they are a unique and open-minded family, whatever it is.  I feel like my decision to adopt has some selfless and loving reasons in it, but it certainly has a lot of selfishness too.


Going back to Kampala this December was not selfish.  I sat there, content with my son and the special bond we shared, and I thought that there wasn't anything in Uganda that would make me, personally, more happy than NOT being in Uganda any more.


And of course, the plane went on, and we got off, and we're back in our apartment in Konge, and I know that's the right decision to make and I wouldn't make a different one.  That was the feeling of a moment, not of a lifetime.  So we went back home, and the girls didn't want to look at me, and our routine was all broken up, and we were all tired, so it was a really exhausting afternoon and evening and they were all crazy difficult, and I yelled at them, more than once.  I never used to yell, never ever.  It wasn't self control, I never felt like yelling.  I felt like walking away when things (and children) got too frustrating -- and I still do, for that matter, but apparently months of not being able to walk away for even a moment has uncovered the yelling-part of me.  My toolbox of parenting ideas has apparently tipped over and everything has fallen out... and don't you dare give me suggestions, or I'll probably end up yelling at you, too!  The only thing left seems to be to imagine the plane flying off, off and away over Africa, leaving it behind.... But no matter how I felt, I have made too many promises to the girls to even acutualy consider not fulfilling my promises to them, and coming back as soon as possible.   I wouldn't really leave.
         

But I want to stop feeling so angry.  And I really want to get out of here.
 

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.

Administrative Update, 1 Nov.

I just looked and realized my last update was in September.  A lot of nothing has happened since then.  We got some very important news just before leaving on our safari trip that I didn't manage to update on here, and then while my parents were here we figured out some more.  (PS. The best part of this post is the end.  Make sure to keep reading!)

I wrote this on 2nd October:

"The next update in the Legal volume of You Can't Make This Stuff Up:

I was wrong, our case is apparently not being held up by looking for the mother's 79th signature. They filed the case in court anyways, planning on getting the signatures. The case is held up.... 

.....because there are no judges hearing cases. How many? None. The judge left over from the previous session is not hearing these cases any more. A new judge is stepping up but is not set up yet. And the judge who has been hearing cases, and asked for all this additional paperwork, is not accepting new cases because she is GOING ON LEAVE. Because she's been on the job a month already. All of the other new Family Court judges have not yet actually started working in Family Court.

So, we wait."

And we waited and waited and waited.  Everything was ready but we pretty much waited all of September and October for the Ugandan court system to do anything at all.  For families who apply for a court date in more auspicious times, they can be assigned a judge within days and might get a date only a few days after that.  I know someone in this program who got her court date within two days of filing!  But we have waited.

The good news: we have been assigned a judge and a court date!  The bad news... it was still a month out.  But days pass, and it is getting closer.  I begged and begged my lawyer to expidite our case for all kinds of reasons, and she says she begged the judge, who still refused to hear our case before she left on leave, but assigned us a hearing the day after she got back.  As far as I know, no one else (in our program) who has been waiting for a court date has gotten one, so it is a lot waiting but it is better progress than we would get sitting home with our fingers crossed.

The date is November 19th.  The judge is fair and interested in the best welfare of the children and knowing that the prospective parents are dedicated to caring for them, which means that our fostering them should count highly in our favor.  Which one might think would be automatic, but apparently not with some judges.  She also apparently is prompt, and holds court on the day she assigns instead of deciding to go to a conference or something else instead, and writes her reports promptly.  One doesn't actually get a guardianship order on the court date; one has to wait for the judge to write out her decision and the order.  And apparently "promptly" means only a week or so of waiting!  Waiting, waiting, waiting!

We had a moment of hopefulness amongst all our waiting, when we found out we could apply for the girls' passports as foster parents.  They need Ugandan passports, and then US visas.  Apparently people high-up in the Ugandan passport office don't like foreigners being able to take Ugandan children out of the country, and sometimes passive-agressively just don't bother to process the legally ordered passports.  Our lawyer has apparently found ways to get around this and get her clients' passports produced, but it will take a week of waiting at best and potentially could cause more delays.  So being able to wait for the passports while we wait for the court date would be a really good thing.

But we took Hibiscus out of school to go in for our passport interview on Monday morning, and when we met at the lawyer's office she sadly informed us that we couldn't apply for passports after all.  They had given us an appointment as FOSTER parents, but then found out that we were WHITE foster parents and changed their minds.  We have to have the guardianship order in order to apply for passports.

After we have the Ugandan passports, we can apply for the US visas, which can also be a difficult step.  Again, they can delay in assigning an appointment, or they can just be difficult about details of the case.  If they don't find it "clearly approvable" then they send it to Nairobi for an investigation, which would take months.

At least now there is something to do to get ready for the upcoming appointments.  We should bring in anyone who can testify to our relationship and support of the girls, so I have been asking Hibiscus's teacher and our family friends to accompany us.  I can collect letters from some other people, like our doctor and the administrator at the school where I have supported the orphanage children.  We should also bring the local council officials and hopefully the Probation Officer, so we went back to cultivating our friendship with him, hoping that he will see we have good reasons to not stay for another three years (um, 2.75) and apply directly for adoption.

We are trying to get our senators to write to the Embassy so we get our US visa appointment directly instead of waiting forever.  We have personal connections to a senator or two in our home state, and my father has more connections to senators in his home state.  He worried about how many letters we need and "overdoing" it, but I am coming to the conclusion that there is no overdoing it when it comes to this country!  They like official letters.  Especially in triplicate, with nice shiny stamps.

We had letters of recommendation written for us for the Probation Officer this summer, which would work, but I figure we might as well get them re-written with a new date and to the proper person.  In communication with our priest (which also sounds nice and shiny and authoritative in this country), she asked whether to include the girls' legal names, and for that matter, what they were, since she assumed they weren't Buttercup and Hibiscus.  My flower family, and our flower-child-style hometown inspired the following glowing letter of recommendation:

"Dear Madam Registrar of the High Court of XYZ:

This is, like, totally the perfect OurTown recommendation letter to whatever mamby pamby in charge is going to finalize things and make it legal and stuff.  The Flowers totally rock the house.  Buttercup and Hibiscus are going to be the coolest kids in the whole town.  They’ll fit right in with Momma Flower and Papa Appleseed.  My name from the government is the Rev. Mrs. Abagail Doni, but you can call me by my inner spirit name which is Petunia.  At St. Catherine's, I follow the spirit path with the children so their souls remain open to the essence of the Great Above.  

Mrs. Flower has been an excellent caregiver here at St. Catherine's and in her community of OurTown.  They are regular attenders at Saturday Market and own their own chickens.  They walk dogs in all sorts of weather and go into the forest multiple times a week.  They can identify mushrooms and eight different types of snail and probably own walking sticks.  She is an excellent mother to her son Emerson Chysthansemum and is way into the babywearing movement which means she pretty much rules the mom roost.  

Both Mrs. Flower and her husband, Mark Flower, are well respected members of our community.    They own multiple items in fleece and always dress their child in the requisite number of appropriate layers.  They even wear rainboots on rainy days.  I’m pretty sure they don’t smoke pot.  

In short, The Flower Family is going to be awesome, so stop hassling them, Man, and just sign your I’s and t’s where you need them, and we’ll all say Adios.  Ya good?  I’m good.   

Sincerely,

The Rev. and Most Elegant Mrs. Abigail Dandelion Cumulonimbus Cloud Doni"

Actually, I'm not sure the Ugandans would be so impressed by priests if they knew they could act like that!  Although a nice shiny seal would probably solve all their doubts... if rendered in triplicate....

Our First Outing

I brought the girls home almost three months ago, so it seems a little funny to be talking about our FIRST outing.  But yesterday was the very first time that I went out beyond walking distance with all three children, and no one else.

We did a lot of outings during Daddy's visit, partly because we wanted to do things with him, and partly because we hadn't realized yet what a bad idea it was!  Actually, at the phase they were in then, it seemed like keeping them busy was a pretty good idea.  We had Hibiscus laying in the middle of a major street screaming and thrashing; another day she tried to escape me in the middle of downtown and I grabbed her and she howled and acted like I had broken her arm; another day Daddy was taking Buttercup potty while I waited with the other kids in a busy restaurant, and Emerson dived into the crowds to decide to go with Daddy without telling anyone or finding Daddy on the way.  By the time he left, my husband made me promise to not take the three kids out by myself, because I couldn't actually keep them all safe.  I was too tired to want to bother, anyways.

The first week, I did take them out a couple times, but in a hired car, and we invited the ten-year-old neighbor boy along too, since it was school break.  He wasn't exactly a strong disciplinary presence, but children naturally act better in front of a slightly older (and well-behaved) child, and he could help me carry things, and technically he could catch a run-away if necessary.  And he thought doing errands with our family was a better deal than sitting around the apartment with nothing to do whatsoever!

Since they started school, that's all they've done.  I've taken them to our local market a couple of times, but I haven't even done that very often.  I can do my errands with the wrap-able child during school hours, and they're pretty much too tired by the end of the day to do much more. 

By the time my parents arrived, everyone was in a very different place than they were two months before.  The girls had gotten used to our routine, trusted me, and could communicate successfully; Emerson had gotten used to the girls and didn't feel like he had to act out to get his share of attention.  I was hoping that when we went on outings with the grandparents, they would get practice in behaving well -- okay, behaving "kind of manageably" -- in public, while we still had extra hands in case disaster struck.  We could also practice basic family skills the girls had never had a chance to learn, like "we go into a different place but we still belong together, and we use the same general rules, and then we come home together and life goes on normally."  And "when we go out we're not going to leave you behind and disappear."  And we did have a number of outings, large and small, and they went amazingly smoothly.  I wish Daddy could see us now!

So this is our first weekend on our own for a while, and I thought that maybe we're coming far enough along that we could try going somewhere.  After all, one of these days we're going to have to leave the house and get on an airplane and not see anything or anyone familiar for 40 hours or so!  We might want to start smaller!  On Friday walking home from school we talked about what we might want to do.  Emerson voted for going back to the craft market (more toys!) and Hibiscus wanted to go "on the boat" again.  

Saturday morning the kids were playing happily, but rather chaotically, and I was tempted to skip the outing, or at least postpone it to the next day.  But then I got a call around 11 from the woman who has been helping us with the logistics of getting visa extensions.  I'd agreed to pick up the passports on Monday, but she wanted to meet me and give them to me today.  Could I be in Kabalagala, at our usual meeting place, by noon?  Um, no, there is no way I could be anywhere in an hour, but we agreed to aim for 12:30.  

When it was time to get ready to go, all the children were running around kind of wildly, but Hibiscus was being downright difficult.  She lay on the bed and sulked and wouldn't do anything I asked.  A lot of this routine is actually familiar from going to school and outings with grandparents, so there wasn't any reason to be so confused.  As I have said, my parenting discipline is based around routine, and the awareness that I can't force them to do something, but I can limit what else happens until they do it.  So I told her that I wanted to have a fun outing with all of my children, but if she wouldn't get ready, she could stay with our Kenyan neighbors. Which is safe, but not very entertaining.  She perked up and said she would bring iPad, and I said she would NOT.  Then she mostly sat around and wailed, and said she would stay in our apartment all by herself.  I also said she would NOT, my children do not ever stay by themselves.  

I think it is a testament that I do not ask too much for my children to do in chores, because although our routines (bedtime, dinner, getting out the door) CAN take an hour or so, if the kids suddenly decide there is a reason to hurry, they can get it all done in just a couple minutes.  So a couple bursts of industry got Hibiscus ready to go out, but then she started sulking and refusing to put on her shoes, insisting again that she was going to stay home alone.  I looked her right in the eye and said I would put her shoes in her pack and drag her out the gate if I had to, but she was going to go with us, and we would all have more fun if she decided to walk properly.

She put on her shoes and backpack and stomped along.  You must be careful to not mis-interpret this as any kind of compliance; it is based soley on performing enough tests to realize that I actually will drag her out and lock the door.  And also on enough tests to realize that it's not going to be very fun.  Speaking of which, I'm only about 120 pounds, so I think I'm not big enough to adopt any 11-year-olds!

(To put it another way, I couldn't make her put on her shoes, and I couldn't make her walk, and I didn't tell her I would; but I removed the option of being by herself.)

I think there was something more going on, emotionally, for her than just not feeling like going potty and re-filling her water bottle.  I think there was something that was making her upset and resistant to going out with us.  Maybe she knows that she is safe in our family and our family environment but felt like her security would ebb when we left our usual routine; maybe she remembered throwing screaming fits on the street and felt like she was going back to that territory.  I tried to give her the option to open up about something else ("are you scared something bad will happen when we go out?") but she didn't have anything to say, I think because she is not very much in touch with herself or her feelings.  That will be work we haven't started yet!

In a perfect world, maybe I wouldn't have two other wild kids running around, and we would have a flexible destination to get to.  But as it was, picking up our passports properly was not something I was willing to sacrifice for a conversation that wasn't going anywhere, so I drew the hard line, told her to get ready, and ignored her histrionics.  I figured that going out and finding out first-hand that nothing bad happened might be the best answer for her anyways.  This child is an experiential learner, to put it mildly!

As soon as we got out the gate, everything was fine.  There was plenty to do and see, and we were back in the normal routine of walking through the village.  Thanks to Gramma and Bubba's visit, we even had familiarity with getting into the minibus taxis.  This was a big issue for a while, because the little girl who previously didn't have enough money for food, let alone bus fare, had decided that she was WAY too fancy for public transportation, and insisted she wouldn't go anywhere unless we hired a private car.  She even knew that she had to share a seat with Emerson, and not to stick her head and belongings out the window.

We were running late, and we got a slow taxi.  Some of them just drive down the road and pick up and drop off passengers; some of them stop at every little junction and call out to everyone walking by to see if they want to get on, and drive partway down little streets to see if there were any potential passengers.  This was the most avaricious taxi I have encountered, because it was fishing for extra passengers even when all the seats were already full!  It is illegal here to carry more than the licensed number of passengers, and there are enough traffic checks that not only do most taxi conductors follow the rules, unless it's rush hour most passengers will refuse to get on a taxi without a proper available seat.  So it took a really long time to get from our end of the line, to Kabalagala near the city-end of the line.  

We got off and walked the short distance to the complex where we had arranged to meet.  This sounds small but is actually a big adventure.  The taxis will stop just about anywhere, not just at regular stops, so we were let off within a few yards of our destination, but there were no sidewalks or anything at this point, just a deep gutter and a grassy hill on the other side.  I needed to wrap Buttercup, which meant that both my hands would be occupied for a few moments.  I thought about letting her walk so I didn't have to stop, but Buttercup on the ground takes a lot of hands for longer than the time it takes to wrap her, so I wrapped her and then had enough hands for all the walking children.  They are getting so wise that no one dived into traffic while waiting!

Our contact had been waiting for us.  She handed me the passports, squeezed the children's cheeks and kissed mine, and drove off.  Now the fun can begin -- or something!

We had met at the pastry shop where I usually go with Buttercup on ATM-and-shopping days.  (In fact, this was the person who had introduced me to the pastry shop and the place to buy bread.)  I thought we could have a nice little treat for lunch, so we found a table OUTside, and the children paraded in to pick something out.  The children were allowed to get their toys out of their backpacks while we waited for our order to come out, which since it is just pastry it never takes very long, but little children can get into mischief very quickly!  

I always make the older children pack and carry their own packs, with water, entertainment, and anything else they might need.  I help remind them what to put in it, but then they are responsible for what they have -- or don't have.  Emerson had brought along the giant, hardback Madeline compilation, which he wanted to read out loud, but only to himself, which miffed Buttercup and made Hibiscus sulky.  Since Emerson had a giant hardback books, Hibiscus had to grab one too.  However, hers was even more complicated, and her reading skills are about at "cat."  (Literally.  She sounded out "cat" earlier that morning, which I think was her first totally independent word!)  She had this general idea that I was going to read it to her, which I wasn't, because with three children in a restaurant, Mama cannot focus her attention on any one thing like that!  She somehow convinced Emerson that he wanted to trade books, which went smoothly, but "cat" didn't help Hibiscus read Madeline either, and now Emerson couldn't read his book either.  He had the story that he really wanted to know, but it started with two pages of solid words with no pictures and he felt overwhelmed.  I told him I would help him if he started, and he actually read most of the first paragraph with me reading a couple words and cheerleading.  Independently, so I could keep one eye on the girls.  Once Hibiscus gets to this stage of reading ability she will be unstoppable, but Emerson is of a much more fearful character, and he's so worried about doing badly that it's very hard for him to start anything that looks difficult.  So I was very proud of him for starting in on the dense-looking text!  Meanwhile, Buttercup was climbing on and off her chair, asking for "hep me, Mama" to do one thing or another, and I was trying to convince Hibiscus to not swing off the balcony, or at least not let Buttercup follow her and just plain fall off the balcony.

Luckily our food came quickly.  I indulged the children and ordered a pot of hot chocolate for them to share, which they discovered they liked so much at Budongo Forest with Bubba!  Then we had the issue of sharing things.  I let each of the children pick out one or two items, but didn't order an even number, and divided everything into three or four portions.  There was a little bit of shock for someone, that she didn't get a portion of everyone else's food AND get to keep the whole amount of HER selection!

However, there was a little problem with the food.  Emerson started right in on his treats, although naturally he didn't want any of the quiche I had ordered.  Buttercup has also learned that we get yummy things here, and reached right for her favorites.  Hibiscus was excited in theory, but then realized something shocking: none of this was bread, or "food and soup." Thus, it was not edible.  Everything in the quiche was things that she likes, but they were mixed together differently, so she wouldn't eat it.  One or two of the other things eventually made it down, but mostly she nibbled and pushed her food around.  And drank the chocolate!

In the middle of the meal, she announced that she had to poop.  No, she announced that she "need go POOP right now, Mama, I need to POOP!  POO-OOOOOP!!!"  This is an example of behavior that's kind of cute, or at least forgivable, in a toddler, but restaurant diners really do not want to hear about from the elementary school crowd!  It is also an example of how one adult has a really difficult time on an outing -- or even one competent person at all; I let the 10-year-old stay at the table with some children while I took someone else to the bathroom.  After several escalating arguments about whether a bathroom trip could be postponed ("I don' wanna POOP IN MY UNDIES, Mama!"), I sighed sadly at my nice hot tea, convinced all the children to put their pastries down, gathered up the things I didn't feel safe leaving at the table, and we traipsed all the way across the courtyard to the building with the bathrooms in it.

The bathroom had two stalls in it.  I had needed to pee since before we even arrived, so I took Buttercup into the larger stall and told Hibiscus to use the other one, because I knew it would be a long time before anyone else would get a turn with a poop en route.  But she refused to be in a stall by herself, and Emerson refused to go in with her, preferring to follow us.  I told her that we could talk to each other the whole time and we were all together, but she just stood in her stall and whined.  Again, I know there are emotional issues of being alone going on here, but when you have three children with full bladders, what are you going to do?!  So we all went potty and wiped and washed our hands and looked in the bowl full of rose petals and experimented with the soap and dried our hands and made faces in the mirror, before I could reach a pause with the younger children.  Then we all stood in the main part of the bathroom with the door open, and watched Hibiscus poop.  

She had been in the stall the whole time, but didn't pull her pants down until she had plenty of company.  One might note that if she managed to hold it that long within inches of the potty, she could have possibly done the same thing in the cafe while Mama got to drink her tea while it was hot!

Then we traipsed our troupe back across the parking lot to the cafe.  Hibiscus trailed behind, and then proudly showed me a pretty card that she had found.  I marched her back to put it back (my budding kleptomaniac!) and the other children managed to not fall in the fountain in the meanwhile.  Buttercup was on her own two feet, which meant that it was impossible to do anything quickly, and it seemed too difficult to make her walk back to the other building and back again.  Walking in new places is novel enough that she pretty much follows along with us, but as soon as it seems boring -- like going back and forth -- she would rather be the toddler who escapes to more interesting environs.  She was too shy to run off two months ago when Daddy was here, but she is my top escape artist now!

On the way back from returning the card, Hibiscus reached out to pick a flower, and I told her she wasn't allowed to pick the flowers, they were not ours, and this was her warning for an X if she picked another flower.  She protested that Emerson had a flower, which I hadn't seen, but I told him that he shouldn't pick any flowers either, and it was his warning for an X too.  Hibiscus promptly picked a flower.  The fact of Emerson's having a flower and her not having any was just unbearable to her!  But since I had already given her a warning, that meant she now had her X.  (Three X's mean a lost privilege.)  Emerson didn't, because he obeyed me once he heard the no-flowers verdict.  However, once we got back to our lunch table, he told me that he would take an X for his flower-picking, too, and now they both have an X.  Both my children are scrupulously dedicated to exact fairness and equality, kindergarten version!

We finished our lunch.  We packed up our things.  And we headed to our next adventure: the MIDDLE of the courtyard.  In the outdoor restaurant are, they have a small thatched structure with two tire swings hanging down in the middle, over a patch of sand.  This is about as close to a playground you get in Uganda!  One day we will surely have some wonderful playground adventures, because the kids were totally entertained for another hour or two.  They played on the tire swings, on their own swing, all together, and two at a time.  They played in the sand and covered their legs with giant mountains.  And then another batch of children came by and climbed the structure itself and hung from the beams inside the roof, and as soon as they left my children let out their inner monkey and started up the beams.  

Buttercup usually takes a nap and she didn't have one, so she was a little fussy.  Hibiscus was feeling sulky, so for a while she was on her own swing while the other two shared.  I was really proud of Emerson's developing big-brother-ness as he swung slowly and made sure she was properly seated before he swung around, even though it was interspersed with telling her she was too slow and to go away.  (I think that's pretty normal too!)  Then Hibiscus told Buttercup to come on to her swing with her, but it also shows how they are developing as a threesome, because although Buttercup visited her sister, she chose to leave her and go back to Emerson's because he was being more gentle and considerate.  It used to be that Buttercup would side with Hibiscus no matter what, and no matter how mean Hibiscus acted to her.  There were a couple funny-sad moments, like when Buttercup slipped into the middle of the tire and got afraid of the movement of the swing all around her.  But she was jumping up and down and screaming, and it was her jumping that kept spinning the swing around!

The monkeys going up the beams was quite telling.  Hibiscus was in the roof almost immediately.  Emerson tried to climb the pole, and it was too slippery for him to make much progress, and the act of slipping was scary to him, so instead of trying harder he kept losing whatever progress he had made.  Needless to say, little Buttercup did not get anywhere at all, but she kept ahold of the bottoms of the poles and trying to make the same gestures that her siblings did.  

Finally, after a lot of fruitless imitation, she discovered that she was just the right size to play a really fun game with the low horizontal support pole at the bottom, where she would put her tummy on it, flip forward, put her hands down and walk on her hands forward until her tummy and legs went over the pole and came off the other side.  She first did this onto the grass side, which was great fun, but then going the opposite direction she got a face full of sand, and cried.  Typical of this little girl's dedication, however, after she got wiped off, she went back and did the same thing over and over and over and OVER, until it was time to leave, and figured out how to keep her eyes out of the sand.  She can really find things that are challenging to her and play in her own way when she lets herself.  She still needs a lot more practice and confidence in her own ability to find joy, instead of of just imitating whatever any other child is doing, whether or not she can do or enjoy that activity.

Both the younger children wanted me to help them climb the beams.  I told them that I thought as high as they could climb was a safe height, but I eventually relented and let Emerson use my knee.  I said I wouldn't help give him a boost or anything, but if he could use one extra foothold to do the climbing himself, I'd let him have that.  He was still kind of worried, but after a couple tries he made it up into the roof beams.  I also stood near and kept my hand near him for the first couple ups and downs, but didn't actually help him.  He went up and down a bunch of times, while I helped less and less, and gradually gained confidence in himself.  I am proud of him, and I think this is an instance where having a sister with a different personality was a big help to him.  He wanted to get up into the beams like the other group of kids did, and (except for short arms) had the skills to get there, but his fears got in the way.  I think he would have given up on his own.  But with his sister perched up there calling to him, he really REALLY wanted to get up there, and started to believe he could.

Hibiscus wanted me to boost Buttercup up, too.  I explained, with great repetition, how I thought each child was safe at the level to which she could climb independently, and I was not going to lift Buttercup up if she couldn't climb on her own.  I think Hibiscus is starting to listen to me, because not only did she stop scolding me to make Buttercup stop crying by lifting her up, I even convinced her to not jump down and lift Buttercup herself.  (It's slow progress though; this morning she went in to the other room and gave Buttercup something I had told them explicitly she wasn't supposed to have.)  Both girls have trouble realizing that Buttercup is her own individual person, and Hibiscus has trouble realizing that everyone does not like and dislike the same things that she herself does.  So she splashes water into Emerson's face, which she likes but terrifies him, and puts blankets on Buttercup who is already hot.  The house-climbing example seemed to be a manageable one; maybe even Hibiscus could figure out that balancing ten feet in the air was not a good location for a clumsy two-year-old, or maybe she reasoned that she would have more fun if she didn't have to worry about her sister.  Which is a healthy development in their relationship as well; six-year-olds should feel free to challenge themselves in their play, and leave their baby sisters with their parents sometimes.

Meanwhile, Hibiscus also spent a fair amount of time wandering around the courtyard.  She looked in the flower pots, sat at all the chairs at the other tables, peered intently at what other people were eating and doing, and oversaw the gardener.  She was good about staying in the general courtyard, which had clearly defined edges.  But she found the decorative fountain nearby, and a couple times after playing in the sand she announced that she was "going to wash hands" as she went by.  The fountain was the type that was built to look like a small pond in the rocks, maybe 8 feet in diameter, edged with natural rocks, with a tall centerpiece that gently sprayed water.  At about her third visit, the other children got curious and followed her, and things immediately got a LOT more fun.  Emerson balanced around the outer edge, to where he could get his arms in the fountain part, and announced that he was "taking a shower," which is REALLY FUNNY to kindergarten-ish-aged kids, because when you are taking a shower you are NAKED and people can see your BUM!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!  This inspired Hibiscus to more wild feats as well, and then she noticed that her hair had sand in it, so she kneeled on the edge and vigorously splashed water on her head, the way African people bathe.

Another disadvantage of being a solo adult is that you cannot simultaneously remove three children from a decorative fountain which they think is a swimming pool.  They had never seen (or in Emerson's case couldn't remember) a decorative fountain, so they figured this must be either a bath or placed for their swimming pleasure.   And Hibiscus does not yet believe in anything that exists for purely enjoyment; she spent the first few weeks at our apartment trying to see what was edible on every single plant in the flower garden.

Luckily, this is Africa, where they are not so picky about things, and more importantly, it was late afternoon, when hardly anyone was around the restaurant anyways.  Because while I was trying to stop the older children from their high jinx, we turned around to find Buttercup all ready to dive all the way into the fountain.  She had been sitting on one of the rocks with her feet in the water, as she likes to do at the pool, and she had worked up the courage to splash all the way in.  I grabbed her just in time.  She was soaked up nearly to the waist, tennis shoes included!

Soon after it was time to pack up and go.  I told them five more minutes, and Hibiscus shouted "NO!  Six minutes!"  I agreed.  It's such a pleasant change to argue time with children who don't fully understand their numbers yet!

I got them to go by saying we would be like Llama Llama, who first does shopping and then a treat.  Saying "Llama Lllama, stop all this llama drama!" and then putting all their names in for Llama, got us all the way across the parking lot.  "Drama" is a very entertaining word, apparently.  However, we got through our (very, very short) shopping trip without any Llama Drama or Hibiscus Drama or Emerson Drama or Buttercup Drama or anything.  Not that Buttercup had much chance of drama, since her shoes were out of commission and being the wrap with no nap made her so sleepy she could hardly even wiggle, let alone put up a lively argument for all the things I should buy in the grocery store.  Although I forgot the hot chocolate, which I had actually intended to get for them!

We had apples on the mini-bus for our "treat," which got us all the way home.  Hibiscus is my only fast eater, and she is currently missing such a large number of teeth that it's a wonder she can make any progress on an apple at all!  

And that was our outing!  Except for the beginning, it was quite successful.  Although I don't think we'll be heading any time soon to any fancy restaurants, or in fact pretty much anywhere that people like to have general silence, or not hear about other people's bowel movement, or mind a gaggle of children in their decorative fountains.