What are Sisters Made Of?

Everytime someone asks me if Cami and Delilah are sisters, I cringe a little inside. I cringe because I know what they are really asking and I know what they will say when I answer, "Yes, these two are sisters".

They will then want to know if they are REALLY sisters.

Deep Sigh. Sometimes I just say yes and move on. I don't feel I owe the world a genetic background check just because they are curious. Sometimes the trail of questions jumps the track and people want to know if my girls are twins. They aren't the same age or the same size, but I find people generally don't look much further than the fact that they are Chinese. That is not enough to make them twins.

Most of the time I try to keep these encounters short and as sweet as possible, guarding first the feelings and comfort of my children, and then the questioning adults. There is no reason my girls unknown family tree needs to be brought out and examined just because someone who thinks all Chinese people look alike has some time to kill.

Recently I started thinking about the sisterhood of my two youngest girls. What people usually don't know is that not only are they sisters to each other, but there are actually four sisters in our family, along with one brother. All these relationships are unique and usually they go unnoticed and unquestioned.

The relationship drawing the most interest seems to be the youngest duo dancing a tango to their own music, making it up as they go along. Watching their dance has been one more unexpected fringe benefit to adoption. It's been one more chance witness a miracle unfolding in front of me! I'm thankful to be their mom with a front row seat.

When siblings are born into a family, they come as small helpless babies that might make noise, but they don't move around alot. For Cami, gaining Delilah as a sister was a sudden jolt into the reality of having a noisy and fast moving person taking up lots of her space, touching all her things, and claiming her most treasured possessions.......her mom and dad! Cami was 3 and Delilah was 2 years old on that hot, steamy afternoon in the Galactic Peace hotel in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia when Delilah limped into our life like a colorful, somewhat frightening, sometimes magical character in a fairytale. (The limp was a surprise. She had been in a bike accident just days before we arrived. Her foot was caught in the spokes and it was by the Grace of God that she suffered no worse harm) If you've been in China or seen the traffic, you know the lives of the bike riders are constantly at risk!

Below is a photo Cami, Delilah, and mom and dad, taken just a few minutes after we met our newest daughter.

And a bit later, this classic photo shows that Cami might be just a little stressed. The poor child she is playing with is our guide's precious little girl. How do you like this for an adoption poster-child? LOL! Can't you just feel the love!

Anyway, my point of writing is to describe the sister relationship and how it evolved. Cami had been well prepared for her little sister coming home. At least I thought she had been prepared. Look back, it's striking to remember she was only three years old and had heard her first word in English only about a year earlier. I will never know what she really expected.

Yet somehow both girls had an instinct for becoming sisters.

Becoming sisters is wearing matching pajamas and brushing your teeth while making faces in the mirror.

Becoming sisters is sitting side by side on a bus, unable to speak the same language, holding hands instead.

Becoming sisters is sharing mom's lap, sharing a bowl of noodles and a bottle of water.

Becoming sisters is sharing sleep and bubble baths and a stroller.

To be fair, it was not all rainbows and unicorns during those first weeks. Without language, toddler girls pull out rather primitive means of settling their differences.

We went to a family cookout soon after coming home from China and one of the little cousins later told her mom she could tell which girl was which. She said, "Delilah has the black eye and Cami has the scratches on her throat". Please see Exhibit A posted below!

But still, they held hands. They identified as sisters, as one of a pair, of part of something special. Before our second adoption, I spoke with an attachment therapist and she gave me a couple incredibly helpful bits of advice:

She said, "Treat the girls as one unit. Bathe them together, feed them together....if you kiss one, immediately kiss the other". The therapist indicated that both girls would be watching (very closely) to make sure they were equally loved.

And then she told me, "Never leave them alone with each other".

These words were the most practical and helpful advice I received while planning our adoption.

The weeks rolled into months and our life shifted and changed and we were molded into something entirely new. We were also beaten and pounded, by work, by exhaustion, and we stayed in survival mode for a very long time. We were, and we remain, a work in progress.

We were and we are also becoming........something new..... 

Cami was not always pleased with her little sister. Cami keeps her world in order. Delilah was like a hurricane.

One amazing quality Delilah brought to life was imagination. We didn't realize how little pretending Cami had been doing until Delilah burst on the scene..... part princess, part power ranger, and always in costume!

True, authentic, and healing play began even before the scratches and bruises had healed. And everyday now they play from morning to night. Playing is a good way to become sisters.

Since we were treating them as a unit, for the first six months or so, the girls were not separated. I remember the first time I took only one of them out. Delilah had an eye appointment and I let Cami stay home with her big sister. I had not given much thought to how significant this separation was for them. It was touching to see them come back together after that hour apart and hug and kiss as if they had not seen each other in years. And they still react the same way, even today, after every separation.

Not only are they sisters, but they realize they were not always sisters, and I like to think they have some awareness of the huge and beautiful forces that moved mountains and more in order to bring them together.

As I watch them playing now, rolling out play dough cookies for the Queen's birthday, I am in awe of their communion, the way they fit together, perfect puzzle pieces, in spite of, or because of all the ways they are different.

I don't claim to know how it all happened, but there is something I know to be true.

These girls became sisters. And it was more than a coincident, the way we have all ended up altogether.

Faces of Special Needs Adoption

I belong to a yahoo group that advocates for children in China who are waiting for a family to call their own. These children are considered to have "special needs".

In an attempt to remove some of the stigma and fear surrounding the special needs label, real families have been asked to write a blog post to share the secret!

Do you know the secret?

Once the secret is out, my hope is more families will look beyond the scary sounding medical terms and see the precious child who WILL amaze you if given a chance to live up to his or her potential.

The secret is..... these are children first and foremost. They are so much more than the sum of their medical needs. And they will thrive with the love and care of a family.

We have adopted twice through China's Special Needs program.

Cami was born cleft affected. Her lip surgery was performed by a female craniofacial surgeon at a large medical center thanks to a grant from Love Without Boundaries.

We were with her for her palate repair and though she most likely will need one more surgery, braces, and speech therapy for a while longer, these needs are not out of the range of normal for any child born today.

Cami is a smart and active little girl who loves to draw and go to gymnastics.

When we planned to adopt a second time through the China Special Needs program, we surprised ourselves by falling in love with a little girl who had a need I had always been afraid of.

Delilah was born with a form of spina bifida. She had surgery in Shanghai, thanks to China Care.

The neurosurgeon who follows her here in the US said "the surgery was textbook perfect" and exactly what he would have done.

Delilah has no effects from the special need label she was given. She runs and jumps and plays. Her special need is now basically a SCAR on her back.

If you have adopted a child who was considered special needs, I hope you will also blog about it and show the world the face of your child.

Special Needs children make great SISTERS!




and Great Little Mamas in Training!



And like all children, they carry themselves with mystery and majestic beauty. They know the secret...... They know the truth is they are SPECIAL and their needs are as special as they are!

For Crying Out Loud

Lately I find myself saying, "it's not always like this" and immediately hearing a little voice in my head speaking up and saying, "um, yeah, it kinda pretty much IS like this".

I realize it is significant that I'm trying to convince so many people that the level of noise and chaos they have suddenly encountered when near me, or my home, is something out of the ordinary for us, when the truth is, I can't escape the truth revealed by the sheer number of times I find myself making the statement.

It is my well-delivered explanation line to the neighbors, grandparents, Fed-ex man, anyone who calls me on the phone, and the older children who assure me they are within the danger zone of suffering a nervous breakdown. How can a teenager possibly get enough sleep to be healthy when sounds that put the haunted mansion to shame start up at the break of light every day!

I have realized my little girls do not have inside voices. They have one voice, and it is often too loud for use even in the great outdoors. How many people have to tell their children to be a little quieter when playing outside?

But still there is a difference in their loud playful voice and their loud wails of displeasure. These wails are the noises that often start early in the morning. And I regret to admit I haven't been able to prevent the wailing. It can be caused by many things. For Delilah, if she is not the first person to get to the potty, then the seat is too warm, and don't you know that you can't expect her to pee while sitting on a too warm seat. She likes her seat cool. Princess complex anyone?

Yet I have learned to deal with the general noises over nothing, even before coffee in the morning. What disturbs me are the rages. Yes, my girls still have rages. They are deep, primitive things that take us all back further than we want to go on any given day.

They come out of nowhere lead us to nowhere. They are just suddenly there, like a rainstorm unexpected.

Cami has a mantra that she repeats while crying loudly. It is usually, "Mama, I want to tell you something", a sentence she repeats over and over while she cries inconsolably. And she never tells me the "something". Some days I can see a rage on the horizon and I know that no matter what I do to change the weather, it will come. This clue tells me the storm is coming from inside of Cami, rather than a reaction to things in her environment.

Delilah is often triggered by being reprimanded or not allowed to do something she wants to do. She is more physical, bringing full force kicking and flailing which prevent me from getting too close to her until she wears herself down.

So I wait it out. I've learned not to say, "It's okay" in the seemingly harmless way we placate our babies. Because Cami told me No, it is NOT okay, and she is right. So I mostly sit quietly. Or I whisper "You are safe. Mommy is here. I will always love you". I can't be sure my words are heard. Maybe I say the words for me as much as for them.

Eventually, and often the eventually is a long time coming......eventually, I am able to touch, then hold and comfort them, and chase the the demons of rage out the door, or under the rug, or wherever they hide.

I don't read about such things on other blogs. And I often feel I'm the only parent spending so much time sitting by a screaming child who wants to lash out or bang her head on the floor. And yes, this is the same child who just posed for the lovely photos yesterday.

In terms of parenting (though it's really not about me) these incidents might be dealt with better if they were few and far between. But lately I feel battered. Rages take me to a place of extreme patience.......patience stores I had no idea I even had. They are button pushing extravaganzas and I have to remember not to react in ways not productive to healing. I have learned to sit without speaking, which is a far cry from growing up in a time where the tag line was "if you don't stop crying I'll give you something to cry about". (Trust me, I've had to choke back that line many times). I've learned what nerves of steel really means and I will come closer to have those in my lifetime than their counterpart.....the "buns of steele".

Yet sitting in the foyer while one child lies crying on the floor, another child wants to sit on my head, and the last light of day feathers through the small windows on the sides of our front door, I sometimes feel so alone. Adjusting the ice pack on my thigh where I didn't dodge a strong kick, and wiping away tears, I can get dangerously close to thinking it must be me. What am I doing wrong?

Other blogs show me families who have incredibly organized color-coded-for-each- child lives, homemade Chinese food, and children who help run a cottage business. That's why I decided to write about the other side. The dark side of loving someone who may still think, on some level, that you kidnapped them.

It is clear my children are living with pain. I feel helpless to stop it. I feel guilty to speak of it. But it seems to come with the territory of trauma, institution, and adoption. I hope it is a season. When all the tears are cried and all the anger spent, will we have been elevated?

I like to think we are being molded and I tell myself we are not alone.

If you happen to meet us on a loud and stormy day, I will probably say to you that it is not always like this........ and you will believe me and smile......and remember that I'm thinking to myself, "it's not always like this.....sometimes it is worse".

Valentine's Day

We spent Valentine's Day morning at the park with some dear friends. From the moment their older son and Delilah met, it was true love. Although they don't see each other very often, they still talk about getting married. Delilah wants to look for a wedding gown (which she calls a "marry dress") on Ebay, and Aiden notices the wedding cakes at the grocery store and requests chocolate flowers.

For now, it is pure, innocent, sweet, and heavenly young love. A relationship without complication. And Delilah could not have been more impressed when her friend brought her potted red tulips. How Romantic!

And there is just something special about the look on a girl's face when she has just been given flowers!

It was a fun time for everyone to play together.

Notice the lunatic driver in the car below. The beauty queens in back are very brave!!!!

Until the next time our paths cross, we'll carry happy memories of our day together........

The Sensory Box

Recently I put together a Sensory Box for Cami and Delilah. My hope was to begin to empower them with a tangible tool they could use to help themselves when the world around them felt too overwhelming.

I imagined they could reach for their sensory box instead of ........ pulling my hair, kicking wildly, or falling out in the floor in a heap of helpless sensory overload.

I will add other pieces to the box in the future, but I started it with several items of texture and movement, in hopes this sensory input could could peacefully replace the sensory overload they were feeling in a particular moment. Some of the toys light up or can be molded, giving their little brains something specific to focus on and begin to calm down.

The girls love their little boxes and I would love to hear ideas of other items I could include if you have knowledge in this area.

Something I was not prepared for was the hilarious conversation surrounding these boxes. Yesterday, D was having to wait for me a few minutes while I finished the dishes before we could start on a project I had promised them.

So the two girls are sitting at the table. D says, "I think I'll get my Sensory Box".

C says, "Are you getting ready to have a meltdown, Nan?" (Nan and Cam are their sister names for each other)

Cam continues, "Nan, Nan, are you going to have a meltdown"? NAAAAAAAANNNNNNNN, ARE YOU HAVING A MELTDOWN? IS THAT WHY YOU NEED YOUR BOXXXXXXX?

Still no response from Nan who is quietly playing with the items in her box.

Cam yells, "MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM, I THINK NAN IS GOING TO HAVE A MELTDOWNNNNNNNN".

Hmmmmmm, me thinks someone else needs to get their sensory box and climb inside it....LOL

And then I had a funny vision of Cam and Nan as 70 year old women and Cam saying, "Nan, are you getting ready to have a meltdown? NAAAAAAAAANNNNNN........ANSWER ME"!

So it was really funny in the moment. Maybe you have to need a sensory box to understand. By the way......my laptop is my sensory box..... you just gotta understand.....I need it often. LOL

Welcome to my new Blog!