Life with Four Kiddos

For some reason I can't get used to blogging again. It's not as fun as it used to be for me. There's so much that we are dealing with that I can't talk about in an open forum. I feel the need to stay away from blogging. That too is also hard because it helps me to get things down on print, it's an outlet for me. I am not great at writing but I really enjoy it. Also, before, I was recording our day to day journey so my girls would know in their adoption blogs that we really loved them from the moment we decided to adopt them. This blog is purely for me and whomever is interested in learning about our journey. I guess what I'm trying to say is, it was more important to record my thoughts and our day to day journey when it was for them specifically.

In the past couple of weeks, we have found out some new details about KateLin's orphanage and I wanted to work through them on this blog. I can't tell you in the months and months of waiting for her how my heart grieved that she was in China and I couldn't provide for her as her Mom. I was really close to depression, it hurt and burdened my heart so badly. I would look at her pictures and see this withdrawn child, never a smile on her little face. She was shy, introverted and looked like she had had little to no stimulation. A orphanage sister came home to her family in the last few months. We call the girls and boys who resided in the orphanage with KateLin her sister's and brother's. We have been in contact and share pictures with several of her orphanage sisters, through emails and facebook. We want them to stay in touch over the years because we think roots are important and that they share similar beginnings. LilyRose, Faith, Georgia and KateLin all were from Yangzhou, Jiangsu, China. We have photos of them together in the orphanage. This other little girl I mentioned above has come home more recently and is older. She is having a really hard time with attachment and bonding. KateLin's journey of attachment was difficult, but she couldn't really verbalize all she had to endure prior to being adopted. This little girl calls the crib the 'black cage'. Now, nothing about that is EASY for me to take. A cage for a human is not a nice place to have to be placed ever. I had noticed in the pictures of KateLin that she was tied to the crib. I guess in my mind I assumed it was so she wouldn't try to get out. Now, I can't say that I'm so sure about that assumption. KateLin would not smile for us freely for a few days after we got her. She would try her best not to smile. I got smiles on the second day with tickles and some serious coaxing. If you know her now, you know she offers smiles for nearly anyone she comes in contact with. With lots of love, good food and consistency she has genuinely flourished into a really adapted little girl. We are experiencing some whininess, that I fully believe is more of an adoption behavior than not. She whines excessively for what she wants, feels slighted if anyone gets something she doesn't...even when she clearly got the better of the things being offered. We talk to her alot about her whininess and she gets reprimanded accordingly. I have to wonder if all this isn't because of the needs not met during those first two years of life. I can't help but think so now that this other little girl has labeled the crib as such. Clearly, KateLin was not stimulated, she was not shown love consistently and she her needs could not have been met like they should have been. Just as we will never fully know the details of her early life, we will never know how much of this is adoption related and how much is just her little personality. The 'black crib' label terrorizes me to no end. I will also wonder if my heart was so very burdened in those days because she was in such turmoil. A Mother's heart is just connected to her babies even across 7000 miles of distance.

It still burdens my heart that any child is still there maybe even enduring those same circumstances. I have visited that orphanage and my life will never be the same because of that visit. I will advocate for all those children that don't have voices for the rest of my life. I can't save them all but I can make a difference to my two and maybe a handfull more. I am thankful for that visit because if we had not gone back with KateLin, Georgia would have never been able to follow Lance around and we would have never decided to adopt again from China. We would not have our Caragan.

Caragan continues to learn English and is doing great. She is able to share more about her past with us and it was not all sunshine and roses...but since she's older and more sensitive to what's going on around her, I will not share those details here. I will say that she appreciates her life here with us. She likes to wash clothes since she doesn't have to do it manually and with cold water even in the winter. She really likes doing laundry, with a washing machine and dryer, it's not her chore, per say, but she will volunteer to help. One thing that really made me think that she mentioned the other day was she didn't understand why we wanted to adopt an older child and didn't want a baby. Of course we went into this long drawn out discussion with her about our choices and how with the boys and KateLin we had experienced the baby phases and really were not interested in doing that again. We also told her about Georgia and how she followed her Daddy around at the orphanage that day that we visited. We explained how we were drawn to her in particular because our agency had named her Hope. She started to understand the whole picture and I think she came away knowing we wanted her just as much as the other three kids. With each of my kids, I tell them we loved them so much that we felt we had enough love to share with another.

I can't imagine life without any one of them. I think they all thrive because of the other children. I don't think they go lacking because of the number of kids in our family. Logan and Christian love their sisters and Caragan and KateLin love their brothers. As I type this KateLin is chasing Christian in circles around the house, and Logan and Caragan are starting supper. Caragan loves to cook, she is teaching her brother. Not everyone would choose a life with four kiddos, and I can appreciate that, but for us...it's just one adventure after another. I wouldn't change my crazy life for anything. It's not always easy, but so very worth it.