The Things You Do For Love

My husband married me under the delusion that I am athletic.  Unfortunately for him, my coordination is terrible, my reflexes are terrible and my eyesight is terrible.  I have no training in any sport except swimming and the only reason I took up swimming is because it requires no talent and it’s impossible to get hurt.  Hear me out.  You just swim back and forth, repeating same motions over and over again for two hours daily, hoping that at some point you can swim in a straight line faster than the other guy.  For this, I was qualified.  There’s NO planning necessary, no strategy, no quick thinking needed as flaming “soft” balls were whipped toward my face. Plus, you can't fall.  Swimming was a good choice for me.

To be fair; the reason my husband was deluded was because I appear athletic.  Parts of my gene pool are made entirely of knuckle-dragging mesomorphs and when we met, I had been swimming for years --"strong as an ox and twice as smart," as my father liked to point out.  Since most of our dating was done long-distance, I really didn't have time to prove that I had no athletic potential. 

The result was that during our first few years of marriage, Bill kept trying to discover some sort of sport we could play together. The first month in, he signed us up to play on a community co-ed softball team.  Bear in mind,  people who have passion for baseball will coach little league as adults.  People who have an obsession with baseball will keep playing long after high school, convinced that if they practice hard enough, their team will make the Amateur Softball Association Playoffs where they will be recognized for their talent and finally get recruited to the minor leagues.  

You might think Bill clued in, when I disclosed that I had never owned a pair of cleats, that softball was a bad fit for me.  Instead, it was just an excuse to buy new equipment: special pants, a new left-handed glove, glove oil, cleats, my own aluminum bat, a batting glove and sixteen brand new softballs.  Nevertheless, I was a liability.  They put me in right field, at the bottom of the lineup and by the end of the season, my social position was lower than tobacco juice.  

After that it was mountain bikes: equipment included helmets, special gloves, new bikes (with Shimano components!), toe things for the pedals, and a book of trails.  I did OK on the paved paths, but I could never really keep up with him on the dirt trails.  He finally found some guys to bike with (Thank You Father) and I was able to give up my strategy of repeatedly sabotaging my own bike chain. 

Next: roller blades: equipment included knee pads, elbow pads, wrist pads, helmets, and two new pairs of in line skates.  Bill is so talented, he would literally skate circles around me -backward.  Meanwhile, I'd be jerking around like an epileptic, with my arms out in every direction at once, just trying to stay vertical.  Never mind forward motion.  It would have been embarrassing, but I had the distinction of being RIGHT on this.  Plus we usually searched out deserted parking lots, so I had no audience. 

Eventually, Bill started to get discouraged.  He went through a few half-hearted stages; there was the lacross phase (sticks, a very hard rubber ball and I’ve heard that more experienced players use helmets) a 5K road race that I finished well after the DJ/announcer turned off the microphone and was onto his second beer (I am not making this up), one dismal attempt at tennis (he actually managed to squeeze in a racquet purchase here), another equally dismal attempt at golfing (too expensive), and then, (thanks be to God), I got pregnant.  How many women are grateful for pregnancy because it means their bodies will catch a break?  Bill cut his losses and took up rose gardening while I hid all the sports equipment in the attic and buried myself under a pile of small children.  

I think he forgot about me, which was really OK.  I hadn't acquired a hefty bruise in years, and we were actually co-existing quite amiably.  Until… twenty years later, when he suddenly remembered that I can swim.

In August of 2009, Bill bought a road bike, and not just any bike, but a Fuji Roubaix.  I don’t know what that means really, but I know it was expensive.   To his credit, Bill rode long and hard and seemed to have found something that he really loved.  He is also very good at it.  

So, if you are a man and you are good at something, the next thing to do is compete and prove you are better than the other guy.  The problem is, there are no “bike only” races in our area.  Bill’s only choice was to do triathlons.  Since he didn’t like to swim or run, he did relays.  Some of his co-workers were willing to swim and run while Bill did the biking.  Everyone was happy until his swimming co-worker dropped out.  Let me remind you; I married an engineer.  They’re not exactly extroverts.  Bill was out of friends.  I was his only choice.  

The first race he roped me into was the summer of 2010, an “International Distance;”  1500 meter swim,  40 kilometer bike and 10 kilometer run.  I had two months to prepare for what amounted to a 1 mile swim.   I really had no interest in swimming for a mile in a public lake surrounded by actual athletes.  I started out pretty grumpy.  But then, in the midst of all my grumbling, a huge blessing.  None of the local indoor pools were affordable and the outdoor pools did not open for lap swimming until June.  I had to train at a local lake.  

I found one that was ½ mile from end to end.  If I swam out and back, I’d have a mile.  The best time to go was in the evening.  So my husband (who couldn’t complain because this was his idea), got two of our kids in a canoe and our oldest two in kayaks and we started my training.  I’d swim the length of the lake and they would keep the boats on either side of me.  Despite the lost evenings, the opaque, green water, the snakes, the duck poop, and River Monsters Amazon Flesheaters commercials that ran the entire month, …I really loved it.  We went two or three times a week, just as the sun was setting over the trees and every time I breathed, I’d get a glimpse of the sunset, or trees, or my kids laughing and playing in their boats.

Two weeks before the race, I took my two oldest boys to Boy Scout camp.  The first night I found the scout leader in charge of their lake.  The only time I could train was 6:30 am, before breakfast, but he was willing to kayak next to me if I was fool enough to swim.  Before I swam as the sun was setting, now I swam as the sun was rising.  

Complain as I might, I look back on those morning swims and think that God, for some reason, was showering me with undeserved blessings.  I was up at the crack of dawn.  I changed alone in my dark tent and walked barefoot down a leaf strewn path to the pond, just as the morning light was starting to filter through the trees.  

The lifeguard was there to meet me every day that week and we generally got right to work.  This lake was smaller, so I had to do three laps (loops) to make 1 mile, but the water was perfect. There was always a light fog just off the surface that I broke as I jumped in.  I can still remember the feeling of jumping into that still, warm water on those quiet mornings.  I really loved it.  By the end of the week, my lifeguard figured I had about a 30 minute mile.  

On the day of the race, I was feeling reasonably confident until my competition started to trickle onto the beach.  Suddenly I was surrounded by underwear models, well below my age and out of my league.  They gave us all different colored caps and we were split into groups according to our gender and age.  All the women over 40 got a blue cap, except for me.  My cap was green.  Just my luck, relay teams were grouped in with the men over 40.  How Rude!  I was one of two women in my group.  The other woman was half my age and twice my size.  My competition flew past me and after a few minutes, all the caps, which had started out so nicely divided, were all mixed together.  I started out in a sea of green bathing caps and ended up in a sea of sour skittles. I was one of the last skittles to float to shore.  I came out of the water into the transition area almost alone and told Bill how sorry I was for being so slow.  He just said, “more people to pass," gave me a huge smile, then took the ankle bracelet with our timer chip and ran with his bike out the chute.  

Bill and Casey were among the fastest biker/runners, and I was among the slowest swimmers.  Despite the fact that I was shooting for 30 minutes and I finished in 28:08.  This is what is so bewildering.  I actually did WELL, yet I was still comparatively slow.  We finished 1^st, 2^nd, or 3^rd place out of all the relay teams.  I really can’t remember, but I know we had to stay after for the “ceremony.”  God Forbid that we miss out on the inscribed mug/goblet/trivet.  ….Overall, I placed in the bottom third. 

After one year and well over 3,000 miles on his first bike, Bill upgraded in August of 2010 to a Fuji D6.  The bike itself looks like a space ship and when Bill rides, it looks like a space ship with a growth. And, If I thought the old bike was expensive, that is because I was ignorant about how much a bike freak can spend.  The only reason I don’t complain is because he realized after my dismal swim time that he could probably do at least as well on his own.  He resolved to race alone and I was off the hook once again.  

From September to November/December 2010, we were in Ukraine finalizing the adoptions.  As soon as we got home, Bill was training again in earnest.  Sometime during that spring, Bill started hinting about me racing as well.  This was just about the same time I started getting hit with various muscle strains and over exertions from carrying Ruslan all over the place.  I was making regular visits to the chiropractor.  I had a rib that kept pinching and sending shooting pains down my arm. I kept having neck problems. Every morning when I woke up, I felt like a diesel engine had parked on my chest over night.  I was getting less and less fit and feeling more and more aged when Bill took the plunge and registered me, alone, for a sprint triathlon.  After all, it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission.  He’d already spent the $50 and he knew I was too cheap to waste it.

Once again, we were out buying equipment.  Besides a bunch of biking stuff he’d bought me earlier, he bought a whole slew of NEW equipment.  Starting with an ipod, nifty ipod holder, headphones, new running shoes, a watch with a GPS system (in case I don’t know how far and fast I run/bike every time) AND, a heart monitor that you wear around your chest that syncs with the watch.  I geared up and went out for my first run in about twenty years. I felt great running off the front porch.  I was also feeling fine as I crossed the front yard.  I made it to the end of the block and I was dead.  There is a subdivision entrance a half mile from our house.  I walked the rest of the way and turned around.  Luckily, I’d forgotten to start the watch timer/GPS.  The whole trip took about 20 minutes, so Bill thought I had gone about 3 ½ miles.  I didn’t see any reason to set him straight.

There is a stop sign exactly one mile from our house. It took me about two weeks to work up to trotting the whole distance.  I started joggging out and back without stopping (two miles total) after about a month.  Bill continued under the delusion that I was athletic.  Finally after passing me in his truck one day, Bill rigged me up with the heart monitor and watch and pressed the "start" button HIMSELF.  I ran my best to the stop sign and back.  It took me 22 minutes.  I was running 11 minute miles.  No one could claim I wasn't trying.  My pulse was 180.  Bill put the watch next to the computer (the information transfers wirelessly), tapped the watch a few times, looked at the data again, tapped a few more times and finally said in disbelief, “Are you? ...Are you really that slow?”

The watch is never wrong.  It was time to get serious.  I worked myself up to a three mile run without stopping.  I didn’t feel it was right to leave the kids too long to go biking, so I started a little six mile loop in my neighborhood.  This was hard work as far as I was concerned.  It was uphill both ways.  I got my runs down to a 10 minute mile (far from respectable, but better than 11).  

The week before the race, I caught a cold and kept coughing up yellow-green phlegm.  To make matters worse, Bill decided we should go on vacation.  I spent the week lying around, eating excellent food, coughing mucus and making half-hearted attempts at training  A few days before the race, I tried to do a three mile run and I couldn’t even finish.  I walked about half way home.  Bill, STILL under the delusion that I’m athletic, took an afternoon to practice “transitions.”

The morning of the race, Bill was on cloud nine. He actually brought a video camera to film me “racing.”  I would have objected strongly, but I was busy coughing up buckets of green mucus.  The only small consolation was that this was a “sprint” distance (300 meter swim, 20k bike and 5k run), so the people I was competing against were too well adjusted to look like underwear models.  It was a pool swim, so I told the people behind me to just tap my feet if they needed to pass me and I’d let them go at the next flip turn.  THREE of them passed me.  I felt OK on the bike, but by the time I hit the run, I was DYING.  I practically crawled across the finish line, shook hands with a man handing out plastic necklaces, crawled over to a patch of grass and fell asleep.  We didn't stay for the "ceremony."  Bill, no longer convinced that I was going to place in my age group, finally threw me over his shoulder and hauled me to the car with his tail between his legs.  We haven’t watched the video.  

The next morning, he was online checking the race statistics before I even woke up.  I came in second place in my age group—out of two women.  We should have stayed for the ceremony.  I could have taken home a plastic trophy that said "Second Place: Women 45 to 50 Years Old."  this might sound acceptable written on a plastic trophy but the truth is that with the ages ...it's just not all that encouraging.  By the way; ...Overall, I placed in the bottom third.  

Now that I had "potential to place," Bill found another race at the end of August. He registered both of us, kind of like a long anticipated (dreaded) date.  I got my run up to four miles, three times a week.   I found a ten mile bike loop.  I swam at our local pool all summer.  I took daily multivitamins.  On race day, I felt great. My stats were just as dismal as ever.  Bill finished 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in his age group.   I really can't remember, but I know we had to stay after for the "ceremony."  He won a painting of the race site, with an inscription. .  …Overall, I placed in the bottom third.  

During the fall of 2011, I stopped communicating with Bill entirely.  This did not help. The first day that registration opened for 2012, he registered me for three triathlons, paid in full.  He also convinced me to see a “personal trainer.” Her name is Nicole.  She seemed normal, until she mentioned that she was training for a marathon and her goal was 3 hours 15 minutes.  

After a few weeks, Bill talked me into attending his strength training classes with her husband, Adam ….weekly  The zinger from Adam came when he mentioned offhand that he had an injury that he was dealing with so he, “shortened his run to six miles."  I'd never even THOUGHT about running six miles before. 

You might think that I am being manipulated here and you would be right.  You have to understand; my husband is extremely charming.  He has this trusting, gentle arm squeeze, hopeful smile routine that I have a really hard time resisting.  Plus, it’s the way he phrases things. He doesn’t say, “do you want to come torture yourself with me at the local gym?”  Oh no.  He says things like this, “You could come to Adam’s class with me on Mondays (establish eye contact).  It’s just for an hour and we could drive over together (gentle arm squeeze).  It would be so much more fun if you came along (hopeful half-smile).”  

How does one say, “No” to this?  
   
I wish I knew. 

Since there is no escape, I figured I might as well go all out.  I tried harder.  I started biking 15 mile loops.  I started doing “bricks” –bike and then run after that, so your legs feel like bricks.  I found a swim coach and took “masters” lessons twice a week.  I actually got my run up to six miles.  AND, at the end of those six miles, I wasn’t dying.  I won’t say I was enjoying myself, but I had NEVER run six miles before.  At 46, I set a new personal record …sort of (I won’t be telling you how long it took, but it was close to Nicole’s marathon time).  I also realized that I hadn’t been to the chiropractor in almost a year.  I felt like one of the geriatrics in “Cocoon” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoon_%28film%29).  The diesel engine was no longer parking on my chest overnight.  I was hopping out of bed faster in the morning.  I could pick up Ruslan and Will with no problem.  Perhaps there was benefit to this exercise stuff? 

My most recent race was in March.  This was another sprint distance (400 meter swim, 20 k bike and 5 k run).  It was also the first race of 2012 so all the underwear models were out again.  NO matter.  I was training about three times the distance I was when this all started.  I was also attending the swim classes twice a week, strength training classes twice a week, and running farther than ever before.  Plus, I was there with my husband, again (we're bonding).  I took twenty minutes longer than him, so after his race was over, he had a drink, a snack, and a short nap, then he met me for the last half of my run.  

Bill finished 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in his age group.   I really don't care, but I know we had to stay after for the "ceremony."   He won a (nother) useful trivet.  …Overall, I placed in the bottom third. 

The Poet's Corner

When I was a teenager, I snuck some books out of my grandmother’s house.  They were old and musty, kept in a damp basement cupboard and I knew if they stayed much longer, they would be ruined.  My grandmother was clearly not interested in reading them, so I took them.  It was just as well. After she died, my uncles took anything that was not jewelry and put it on the steps of their family factories (yes). My mom was able to salvage some furniture and dishes, but if I had not ventured into bold faced thievery, they would have been lost to me. 

Anyway, one book was “A Little Treasury of Modern Poetry.”   I read it because it was old and because it was my grandmothers, NOT because I had any interest in poetry.  However, there was a quote in the introduction that, for the first time, helped me to understand and appreciate poetry.  It is by W.H. Auden who wrote,  “When we read Kipling, we can usually say, ‘that is just how I feel.’  Of course, there is nothing wrong with that, but when we read a great poet, we can say, ‘I never realized before, what I felt.’”  It’s one of those quotes that has stayed with me after reading it just once and changed the way I approached the things I read (which from that point on included poetry).

So last year, just after we got back from adopting Ruslan, I reconnected with some old friends who were with me in Ukraine over twenty years ago.  Someday, I’ll write about that first trip to Ukraine.  It was so much fun.  There were eight of us.  We were all young and single, just out of college with no responsibilities and hardly a care in the world.  It was a blast.  Every day was full of things to laugh about.  Anyway, one of my fond memories of that first trip is jumping off a bridge in Keiv with my friend Colin.  While we were there for the adoption in 2010, I found the very same bridge and took a few pictures.  I wrote a little bit about this in the November 7, 2010 post.  When we got back to the states, I sent the pictures to Colin, just to say, “Hi.”  It was so great to hear from him again!  We don’t really keep in touch, but he’s one of those friends that I want to keep track of, just so I can glance over, make sure all is well and enjoy thinking of him thriving.  Unfortunately, he is not thriving.  His wife has some form of recurring cancer and when I got in touch with him, they were in the middle of another recurrence. 

This is so wrong.  His wife is young, beautiful and witty and they had been dealing with this cancer for years.  I started following their Caring Bridge posts and was relieved when they stopped posting over the summer.  In this case, no news was good news.  All through the fall and winter I’d check in occasionally, just to make sure that all was well.  When I saw they hadn’t posted, I knew that she was still in remission, healing, and I could think of them together, in love and enjoying life. 

Well, a few days ago, they posted.  She was having stomach pains over the weekend and they went in for testing on Monday.  They posted on Tuesday that the cancer had returned and on Thursday morning, they had a CT scan to assess the damage.  There is a place on Caring Bridge where you can sign their “guestbook” and they wrote about how much they appreciated hearing from their friends.  So, I read back over the posts.  Most of them were sweet, sincere, encouraging posts full of Bible verses, prayers and love for Colin and his wife.  Like a Kipling poem, they expressed just what I was feeling.  Then I came across a post from one of their best friends, who simply wrote, “SHIT!!  CANCER STINKS!  GOD DAMN FUCKING DISEASE!”  which just sent me into a tail spin.  I didn’t realize it, but THAT is what I’m really thinking.   THAT is the post that hit the nail on the head.  I’m not sure it was all that encouraging, but it was definitely loving and definitely accurate.  I feel so furious and so helpless, knowing that people I love are in pain and I can do exactly nothing.  I HATE this.  I HATE it.  Of course I pray for them and of course I know that God loves us all and hurts with us and answers our prayers, but sometimes, it’s just not all that encouraging to pray to a silent God who seems to be playing Whack-a-Mole with my friends lives. 

There was nothing to do but revert to my favorite coping mechanisms: wandering through the house in a bewildered daze and then running away.  I am usually crying about my friend Maryann (lost her husband in May), so it’s not like crying and running is anything new here.  I suspect everyone within a six mile radius of my house must know me as the “wailing runner.”   Just this past weekend, Maryann took off her wedding ring.  She decided to have a ceremony, so she got some friends together and read the poem that Bruce read to her when they got engaged.  “How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.  If you know the poem, you know the last line, “I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.”  Bruce had read this to her when he gave her the ring, so, she read it again now that she was taking the ring off.  Then she put it in a music box that plays “their song” to keep it safe.  She bought herself another ring, to wear on a different finger.  I agreed with her decision to take off the ring because she said she was ready and because I know she is more at peace, having taken that next step.  As for me, I just felt it was one more step away from where I wanted life to be.

That was over the weekend.  Tuesday Colin posted that the cancer had returned.  Wednesday was the 21^st again, which makes ten months since Bruce died.  Thursday morning, Colin posted that his wife was going in for more testing.  After my run, I checked back on Caring Bridge.  Colin had posted the testing results from a CT scan.  The cancer has spread.  It is inoperable and if the emergency chemo doesn’t work, his wife may only have weeks to live.

There was no time to react.  I had to go to get my kids.  Thursday afternoons, Ruslan and Will have horse therapy, Reilly has eye therapy and that evening was “Pirate Night” at school.  You will be happy to know that every school that gets Federal Title One grant money for reading is required to budget a few “reading nights” for their special needs kids and their families.  Thanks to your tax dollars, everyone is invited!  They usually have a story, related activities, a free book for each kid and dinner for everyone.  …Thanks for the pizza. 

The older boys stayed home and Bill and I took the younger kids.  On this night, it was Reilly, Sharon, Ruslan and Will.  Just my luck, the teachers had planned a pirate treasure hunt.  They split the kids into small groups and gave them all a treasure map.  As soon as they read the first clue, all the kids ran out of the cafeteria and toward the gym.  Bill took Sharon and Will while Reilly and I planned to stay with Ruslan.  Right away, I could see that we were in trouble.  Ruslan was in his walker.  By the time the other kids made it to the gym and were looking for their second clue, Ruslan was not even half way there and feeling horribly left out.  He didn’t cry though.  He’s been getting much braver and more self-reliant lately and he actually told me, “I want to walk ‘by himself,’ like the other kids.”  I said, “Great Job!” and praised him up and down, but there was no way he was going to be able to keep up.  I told him to, “Keep Going!” and then ran off to try to find something, anything, to get him mobile.  His wheel chair was locked in his classroom, so we were running through the halls, trying every door knob and looking for some sort of an office chair with wheels.  I finally found one in the copy room, raced it back toward the gym and ran into our group of kids racing toward the library.  By this time, Ruslan was realizing that he was tragically behind and was ready for the ride.  We put him in the office chair and for the rest of the treasure hunt, Reilly wheeled him around with the other kids so he was able to hear the clues and get the treasure.  It was really cute, but it was also really tragic. 

When we are at home, there is so much going on that I don’t always notice Ruslan’s disability.  The space is small, so Ruslan is usually right in with the crowd.  He can also use his walker or sort of “cruise” along the furniture, to get from place to place.  However, seeing him in a crowd, trying to keep up and comparing him with all the able-bodied kids his age can just hit me really hard sometimes.  He is SO disabled.  It’s not just that he can’t walk.  His torso is really weak.  He couldn’t even keep himself in the chair.  We had to put him in it facing backwards, so he could hold the chair-back to keep himself up with his arms.  Plus, his arms are twisted.  His thumbs point down and he can’t get his palms together, so he had to hold the chair pretty awkwardly.  It’s not pretty.   To make matters worse, Ruslan is actually becoming more pleasant.  We have REALLY cracked down on his discipline, so he is no longer whining and complaining all the time.  He’s actually been trying to contribute, taking some pride in the fact that he can be helpful, and even showing empathy for others.  In short, he’s easier to be around, which makes him easier to love. 

With everything from the week, Maryann’s ring, Colin’s wife, my child gleefully sitting in the “wheel” chair and surrounded by so many other able bodied kiddos, I realized I was about to lose it.  I found a storage closet by the cafeteria and had quick cry in between clues to the art room and the backstage of the theater.  I’m afraid I was in a foul mood.  Fear not.  I am not going to lose my faith.  I don’t want to become a Thoreau quoting Agnostic or a meditating Buddhist.  I’ve memorized plenty of Bible verses and I get it that when Peter asked,  “Lord, where else would we go?” he knew there was no where else to find answers that lead to Real Life.  It’s not that the Bible is inadequate, it’s just that it’s futuristic.  I get the promise of heaven, but I happen to be living here on earth, HERE…NOW. 

I made it out in time to help all the kids choose their free book.  Then there was dinner.  We got pizza and drinks for all the kids, got Ruslan into his special Tripp Trapp chair, strapped in his torso so he didn’t lean over, strapped in his feet so he can use them to sit up “straight,” wheeled him to the table, then we all sat down.  Ruslan LOVES to pray at dinner time, so he reminded us that we needed to pray.  As I wrote, Ruslan’s arms are twisted, so it takes him some effort to get his palms together to pray, he has to hold them up about face level, but he can do it.  We all bowed our heads and put our hands together while Ruslan prayed over our dinner.  This is what he prayed; he said, “Thank you God, for this food and thank You that someday my body will be perfect in heaven and thank You that someday I’ll be able to walk in heaven.  In Jesus name, Amen.”  Then he looked up at me, smiling from ear to ear, as though all the world was full of goodness and his only job was to sit back and try to keep track of all God’s blessings.

I smiled back at Ruslan and told him that he did a great job praying.   He nodded and smiled at me again.  Then he took up the pizza in both of his twisted little hands and took a bite.  I made sure all the kids had their drinks open and told them I was going to get more napkins.   

Then, I went back to the closet. 

Who Are You? And What Have You Done With My Husband?

My husband and I go about decision making in two separate and distinct ways.  With big decisions, I (and I’m not saying this is right or wrong here, it just is)…I tend to go with my gut, trusting God to work out the details.  You might think this is contrary to my habitual penny-pinching and you would be right.  With the little decisions, like how to spend pennies, I am very careful (this might have something to do with how high I can count).  But with big stuff, if I really think I’m doing the right thing, obstacles are insignificant.  

My husband, on the other hand, has no problem frivolously squandering our pennies on things like Chick-Fil-A vanilla milkshakes (admittedly tasty, but hardly worth the price).  However with big decisions, he gets out a calculator, makes a spreadsheet with all our income/expenses, pros/cons and our 1, 5, and 10 year projected financial/familial outlook in varying economic climates and then, after much box checking and Excell-cell filling, he makes a decision. 

This works out well because ONE of us is always worried.  I worry about expenses under $500 and he worries about expenses over $500. Using this system, we’ve been more or less happily married for over twenty years. 

The first time I talked to my husband about adopting, we already had three small children.  My kids were born eighteen months apart.  My oldest was just over three years old, my middle child was 21 months and our daughter was three months old.  One of our friends sent me an e-mail about a boy in an orphanage in Costa Rica who desperately wanted to be adopted.  When I saw the e-mail, I thought to myself, “surely we can find a home for this boy.”   We knew plenty of childless couples.  It never occurred to me that any of them would say, “No.”  But, all of them did.  A few weeks later, I took a print out of the e-mail to my husband and after he read it, I listed all the couples I had approached about adopting him, finishing with, “Um...so, I think we should get him.”   Bill got out his calculator and made up some spreadsheets while I started on the I600A.

It was many months later, when we woke our children (then aged 4 ½, 3 and 18 months) at 4am one morning and hauled three car seats, five suitcases and 10 hours of snack food into an airplane bound for Costa Rica, that I started wondering if I had really thought this through.  No matter.  We came back with all our children, all our limbs and a charming ten year old Costa Rican boy to boot. 

A few years later, through an act of God, we got some extra cash.  When the money hit our checking account, I believe my husband actually glowed.  His eyes glazed over and he sat down with me at the kitchen table, settled in front of his computer and opened the spreadsheets. Then he talked about paying down the mortgage, or getting a boat, or an old convertible to fix up with the boys, or a motorcycle etc.  I let him go on for a while, and then (since the spreadsheets were already made) I told him that I really wanted to use the money to adopt a special needs child from China.    ....WHAM!   He sat there for a minute in stunned silence, then he looked up at the ceiling and let out a teeny, tiny whimper, then he was quiet again and messed with his hair a little bit and then he finally looked over at me and said, “All right.”  And that was that.   Isn’t he wonderful?  I went to a web page of special needs children up for adoption and found a beautiful girl named #$#%@#%. A year later she was ours.    

I’ve already written about asking him to get Ruslan and Will (see post from 12/1/2011).   Things seemed to be getting a little harder each time, but we were still consistent in our roles with me coming up with the idea and Bill, after careful consideration and some resistance, finally agreeing. 

We now have seven children under our belts and six under our roof.  The system is working fine, but unfortunately, something has happened to my husband and this time, he is NOT playing by the rules.  I started planting the adoption seeds sometime in November.  According to our most recent schedule, I thought it was going to take him several months to come around to the idea, with us finally deciding sometime in April.  But it didn’t happen that way.  He started asking me about finding more kids within the same week.  He actually seemed enthusiastic about the whole thing.  He asked me off and on all through November, December and into January even though during all that time, he had not made a single spreadsheet.

To make matters worse,  the first week in January, he looked up from his computers one day and said, “Are you free tomorrow morning?  I thought we could go to Ford and put some money down on a new van.”

“Ok,”  I said, and with entirely justified hesitation.  Then I added, “Have you made a spreadsheet?” 
 And, this is what he said to me, he said, “No.  But it doesn’t matter.  We can’t fit eight kids in our car, so we have to get a van.  Besides, I’d rather get a new car now, before the one we have breaks down.”
So, I said, “yes, but what about the spreadsheet?”  But, I think we were done communicating by then, because I can’t remember what he said after that.

The next day, we were in a small cubicle at the Ford motor company politely debating.  You see, once we sat down, Bill actually asked for prices on a 15 passenger van.  So, despite the smiling man in the blue starched shirt with the FORD name tag sitting across from us,  I said to Bill, “Precious Husband, I really think a twelve passenger van will have plenty of room.”   But he said to me, “Oh No, Dearly Beloved Wife, while I have great respect for your opinion and it always, only brings me joy to see you happy, I must tell you that I think we should get the 15 passenger van.”   So, I made sure that we had good eye contact and I said again with considerable force, “Dear Husband, we only need eight seats right now and even if we get two more children, we’ll only need ten.  So, the twelve passenger van should be Plenty Big Enough.”  He actually responded by smiling at me and said, “Trust me, we’ll be able to fill it.  I think we are going to need the room.”   So I sat there for a minute in stunned silence, then looked up at the ceiling and let out a teeny tiny whimper, then I was quiet again and messed with my hair a little bit, and then I finally looked over at him and said, “All right.”

I asked him on the way home about how many kids he wanted to adopt and he said to me, “I don’t know.”  So then I said, “I really think after these two girls, we’ll probably be done.  Right?”  But he smiled again, which was starting to get annoying, and said, “Maybe,” which caused me to feel somewhat worried.  So, then, just to change the subject, I asked whether he had made any spreadsheets lately, but he still hadn’t made one.  He actually said to me, “I’m tired of worrying about it.  God will provide.  He’s always provided for us before.  Why would this time be any different?” 

This was obviously way too much for any woman to endure.  I quickly glanced around the car to ensure that the smiling Ford man wasn't still with us and then said to him, “Look.... this is totally wrong.  ONE of us HAS to worry!  It is YOUR JOB to worry about our large purchases.  If you don’t get on that computer and make yourself a spreadsheet today, then I am going to be compelled to try and we both know how THAT is going to turn out!!”  This did not seem to trouble him one bit.  According to him, spreadsheets can be deleted with little or no traces of their existence left on one’s computer.

This was back in January.  In the meantime, we signed a contract with Great Wall Adoptions to get two more girls from China.  We can’t post photos yet, but I will as soon as we are allowed.  Bill did finally sit down with me one evening and we made up a spreadsheet.  However, this was at MY request.  So, the results were obviously going to be jinxed.  With a new van and two adoptions coming up this year, the little cell on the bottom left kept coming up red.  Bill is not bothered by this.  I’m not bothered by this either, of course, but I am bothered by him.  After all, it’s not my job to worry about these things.  It’s HIS job. 

The van arrived last week.  It is light blue, 15 passengers, complete with the clunky sliding door and extra large side mirrors.  We named her Roseanne.  There was some debate about whether she would fit into our garage.  The van is 20 feet, the garage is 21 feet.   We were all wondering whether the garage door would close without incident, but everything was fine….until yesterday.  Bill drove the van to Ford to get some work done and on the way into the garage, he scraped it along the roof.  It seems that, rather than worrying about length, we should have been worrying about height. Without six kids and/or about a half tank of gas in the thing, it is too high to fit in the garage.  There are now two scratches along the top, both about ten inches long, that we are going to have to take care of somehow.

Apparently, this is how things are going to be around here for a while, because Bill, who is usually a total and complete car-neat freak, does not seem concerned about this either.  He just bought some sort of touch-up kit and actually plans to paint over the scratches himself.  Nor does he see the cause-effect pattern inherent in this most recent event.  However, I am sure the car would not be scratched if he had simply kept to our unwritten marital agreement and made the spreadsheets before we purchased it. 

 

Letting It Go....

Things have been better with Ruslan.  I was going to write a post about his general progress, but just writing about his emotional state has taken so long, I’ll get to the rest later. 

In the fall, when I posted about our problems with Ruslan, another mom told me that her Ukranian daughter had been diagnosed with PTSD and was on Zoloft.  I am well aware of the wonders of medication, since I’ve seen Zoloft, Valium and Seroquel at work on different occasions in my little world.  We strongly considered meds, but since Ruslan had been showing steady improvement (and since the local pediatric psychiatrists do not take our insurance and their therapy is $215 per session) we decided that it might be better to wait.  

Besides, I’ve taken friends and family to therapy over the years and seen how helpful it can be, maybe meds wouldn’t be necessary??  I was discussing therapy with a psychiatrist once, trying to understand how/why therapy helps with something like PTSD.  He finally said to me, “The bottom line is that if a person endures trauma, for some reason they are much better off if they are able to face it and almost re-live it by talking it out, but the key to therapy is that they are re-living it in a safe place.”  He said more than that, but that was the gist of his point.  

Luckily, Ruslan loves to talk so after that PTSD connection, I thought I would try to get him to talk about Ukraine.  I told him one night that if he has a memory about Ukraine, I wanted him to talk to me about it because I want to know about his life there.  I expected him to talk about his surgery, since what could be more traumatic than waking up from tendon-lengthening surgery, in a cast and with no pain medication?  Instead, he immediately started to talk about a particular care giver in the orphanage that he didn’t like.  He said she used to hit him on the bottoms of his feet and pull his hair.  This sounded traumatic enough to me but the memory didn’t seem to phase him, he was really matter of fact about it.  So, I asked him if anything else happened and he started to cry and said she locked him in a closet.  That, apparently, is where the bulk of the trauma lay.  He cried for a good long time and kept telling me over and over again that she locked him in a closet.  

Now, before you get too down on Ukranians, it’s only fair to note that, um,  ….I understand.  While I would obviously NEVER lock any child in any closet for any reason, there have been times in the past year that similar ideas have crossed my mind.  Mentally/Emotionally disturbed children are fantastically annoying and at times I have put Ruslan in his bedroom and closed the door, just because I knew I needed to get away from him or I would explode.  Ruslan didn’t have his own room in Ukraine so, I'm not sure if there were all that many convenient places to let him scream things out.  While again, locking a child in a closet in inexcusable on every level, I do understand the necessity of getting away from him at certain points.  

Anyway, back to America.  I had pulled Ruslan onto my lap when he started crying/screaming and I was hugging him tight, thinking that if he just got his crying out, things would be OK.  Well, he cried for a good long time and it was getting rough.  Ruslan gets really tight when he cries and he screams LOUDLY.  Since his body is so stiff, his mouth ends up right at your ear, unless you completely turn him away from you, which is not very comforting.  Well, he kept screaming, “They lock me in a closet! They lock me in a closet!”  So, I quieted him down enough to tell him, “Ruslan, you are not in Ukraine any more.  You are home and everyone loves you here and we would never, never lock you in a closet.”  Now, I thought that was pretty good, but believe me, it was useless.  He quieted down for maybe three seconds and then he went right back into his mantra, still crying, still tight and still very, very angry.  

I wasn’t sure what to do because rather than creating a safe environment that would lead to the ultimate cure-all like the good doctor said, I was in a situation that was getting worse and worse by the minute.  I had the incredible foresight to start this conversation at bedtime, so all the other kids were upstairs, well within ear shot.  They were starting to peek their heads into the room, one by one, trying to figure out what was going on.  I was thinking that I might have to put him down and just let him cry it out and wondering if the rest of the family was going to have PTSD by the end of this when finally, Ruslan changed his mantra and went from, “They lock me in a closet! They lock me in a closet!” to, “WHY MOM?  WHY THEY DO THAT?  WHY? WHY?”  

I finally stumbled on what he needed to hear and told him, “Ruslan, it was WRONG of them to lock you in a closet.”  He actually stopped crying when I said this, and looked at me with full attention, so I went on and said, “It was very wrong of them to lock you or any other child in a closet and I’m SO SORRY that happened to you.  If Mommy or Daddy had been there, we would have done everything we could to stop it and we would have told those people in Ukraine that it is wrong to lock children in a closet and that they should say, ‘Sorry Ruslan,’ for the way that they treated you.”  Thank God, that was the last of the crying.  His body relaxed (more or less), he put his head against my shoulder and let out a deep sigh.

 

Once again, I came to see a little more of the jumbled emotional mass that resides inside my boy.  He was sad and angry, but he wasn’t really sure that his feelings were valid.  Since he wasn’t sure whether he deserved the abuse or was suffering injustice, I suspect he was feeling the anguish of both.  

He took a few minutes to process the whole thing and interpret it on an eight year old level (Daddy, the good guy, comes rushing into the orphanage and beats up all the care-givers and tells them, “NO, NO!  You say, ‘SORRY Ruslan!’”) and we went through a few key points over again, but after a few minutes, he was visibly lighter and I felt we had made progress.  

For several weeks over the fall, that was our drill.  We discussed his memories from the orphanage, his biological parents, his surgery, his Cerebral Palsy, his small size, his walker and on and on to infinity.  After that first day, we fell into a pattern and I got the clue that what he really needed to hear was: what happened was wrong (or very sad), he is right to feel angry or sad about it, Mommy is so sorry that these things happened, God put Ruslan in a safe place now and Mommy and Daddy are here to help/protect Ruslan.  We seem to have to get through all five points before he will really relax and let things go, but to everyone’s relief,  it is possible for him to get there.  

At first it was every few days, then once a week, then twice a month and by Christmas, he had gotten enough of it out that he could reasonably function.  I say this because at some point about mid-December I sent him to time out and rather than screaming in protest and then crying in frustration, he simply went.  He crawled over to the time out chair, sat down and when the egg timer was done, he told me what he did wrong, apologized, and then went back to his toys.  …Glory be to God in the Highest and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men!

We had a few rough days over Christmas, but with travelling, no routine and almost daily excitement/stimulation, we were expecting a few bumps.  Now that we are back into our routine, everyone can see progress.  

I finally got the ultimate affirmation yesterday, January 25, 2012 from Reilly, my eleven year old.  Whenever things were really falling apart with Ruslan or Will, she would often ask me, “Mom, will our family ever be normal again?”  This broke my heart.  I used to tell her, “Yes, our family will be normal again. We’re just going through some changes,” etc.  But, sometime around mid-summer, I decided we’d better face the truth.  I finally told her, “No, our family will probably not ever be the same as it was before we got Will and Ruslan, but that doesn’t mean it will be terrible.  It’s just different.” Then we talked about the changes that happened in our family and how it was worth it to have the boys.  It took a few minutes during that conversation for her to really grasp what I was saying and that life would still be OK, but she did get it, and she hasn’t asked me that question again, probably because the answer was now more depressing than the question.  

However, last night our family had a reasonably enjoyable dinner.  Everyone was chatting amiably, Ruslan did not talk every ten seconds, Bill did not lose his temper with Ruslan for talking every ten seconds, I did not glare at Bill for losing his temper, and the dishes of vegetables did not morph into a fatted ox (see Proverbs 15:17).   

Toward the end of dinner, Reilly said in front of everyone, “Mom, you were wrong about our family.”  So, I gave her my standard answer.  “Don’t be silly.  I am never wrong.”  Reilly, God bless her, smiled and said, “You said our family would never be normal again.  But we are back to normal now.  You were wrong Mom.”  

Of course, my immediate thought was that this hardly matters, since we are about to screw everything all up again anyway, and adopt two more girls, I’m certain to come out right in the end.  But, I let it go. 

* Proverbs 15:17  Better is a dish of vegetables where love is, than a fattened ox served with hatred.  

I Thought If I Came Here, It Would Stop

So, my friend Maryann lost her husband (Bruce) in May.  Over the summer, I started hatching a plan to get her away from home for the holidays.  I spent a considerable amount of effort convincing her to spend Thanksgiving with us at a beach house in North Carolina.  Most of the effort lied in keeping my mouth shut and letting her make the decision on her own, but it was effort all the same.  In the end, she came. 

I was so relieved.  I’m always glad to have her company because she’s really nice to be around, but also relieved, because then I didn’t have to think about her at home, alone, on a holiday.  When I think she’s in pain, I have an irrational urge to hover over her like a panther and mercilessly shred anyone who gets within five feet.  This is totally unjustified, since she’s a competent adult, but it’s still there.  So, we spent Thanksgiving at the beach house where I was able to indiscreetly hover and no one was the wiser.  It was perfect.  It’s always beautiful there and totally NOT Thanksgiving-like, which is exactly what we needed. 

We were in Corolla, NC.
You can drive out on the beach anytime you like and see wild horses.

This is the view from our deck. 

This is the local lighthouse.

You can climb the lighthouse for a small fee (that becomes a large fee when multiplied by all the friends, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins).  This is looking up the stairwell. 

This is all the kids, except Ruslan who wanted to stay home with his grandma.  Since, more than likely, I would have been the one to carry him up those stairs, I didn't press the issue. 

Talk all you want about great men who lead armies, rule wall street, change the world through their innovative thinking and exploit their good looks to sell Cornflakes.  MY HUSBAND opened a Monopoly game on Thanksgiving Day, managed to rotate 11 restless children past GO and emerged hours later, having accomplished a the impossible—a tear free, TV free morning in a house full of friends and relatives. ....Be still my heart.

Anyway, once I saw that Thanksgiving was going well, I started planting the seeds about getting away for Christmas.  We ended up at a ski resort, a perfectly rational Christmas plan, unless the resort is south of the Mason-Dixon.  I’m a Yankee, and let me tell you, no one even THOUGHT about skiing in my hometown unless the weather was AT LEAST below 30 and no one went with enthusiasm unless it was below 20.   Our first full day there, the high at our ski resort was 45 degrees.  They had made “snow” the night before and they had two lifts open, but I was skeptical.  On the plus side, the place was empty, on the minus side, we were looking at skiing on snow cones.  In the end, Bill stayed back with our three youngest, while Maryann and I took the six older kids to ski on the slushy ice.

The boys all got snowboards and the girls got skis.  Reilly, my eleven year old, cried and wailed all the way down her first run, telling me she hated it.  Halfway down the second run, she caught on and I didn’t see her for the rest of the day.  When it was time to go, I stood at the end of the run near the lift entrance where she could see me.  She headed straight for me and about ten feet out, I thought she was going to plow right into my knees, but she did a perfect “S” curve and parallel parked two inches from my nose.  If there had been anything similar to snow that day, she would have sprayed it in my face.

Matt and Paul were a different story. Have I mentioned that all the boys got snowboards?  Paul, being a little smaller and more coordinated, was able to catch on OK.  Matt, my oldest, didn’t take to it well at all.   He’s 14 years old, but he hit a growth spurt and is now in size 17 clothes (with a size 14 butt, but that’s a different post).  He spent most of the day on his teeny tiny butt.  A few years ago, this would have sent him into a tizzy, but, now that he’s older, it all came out in fierce, targeted sarcasm.  As we were going up the ski lift together, he went into considerably long streams of incidents where I clearly wronged him and usually ended with, “and now you’ve got me going down an ice-covered mountain strapped to a tid-bit of stick!”  I finally told him to stop complaining or I would use his college fund to finance a visit to the spa. 

About five hours in, Paul fell and hurt his wrist.  I had been itching to try out those snow boards all morning, so I decided this was my chance.  I got him some ice, made sure he was reasonably comfortable, convinced him that he was too injured to board any further and strapped on his clunky boots.  Snowboarding is one of those sports that looks possible, until you get strapped in and then you realize what insanity it is.  Matt went up the lift with me to “help.”  As I was ignoring his instructions, I took a moment to take in the skiers (rather than the scenery) and noticed that there were no other females on snowboards.  Then I noticed that, of the boys on boards, there were very few people over twenty and only one who looked over thirty.  Putting these two observations together I realized there were NO OTHER middle aged women on snowboards!  Could there be a reason for this? 

I started thinking about those V8 commercials on TV where people have white rectangles over their heads indicating how many servings of vegetables they’ve had each day.  Only, the rectangles I imagined had numbers designating the skiers/snowboarders IQ, or labels like, “too old for this,”  “about to face-plant,” and “Aaaahhhh!!.” 

We got to the end of the lift and I wiped out on the downramp.  The rectangle over my sons head changed from, “annoyed” to “dreams come true” while mine started streaming obscenities.  On a snowboard, there is no way to move your feet.  If you are at all used to keeping yourself balanced with your legs, you have some adjustments to make.  At first, I was making it OK.  I’d go a few feet and then fall before I really got any momentum going.  The trick was to fall on your fists, not your wrist or butt, which (legend told) is much more painful, especially on ICE.   Unfortunately, I started getting better and working up some momentum and distance in between falls.  In fact, I have to say, in  defense of my own skill, that I did make it down the first half of the hill in reasonable form.  I even had enough control to look around a little more and notice that a lot of my fellow boarders were made up largely of adolescent boys with somewhat blank, “1000 yard stare” expressions (and appropriately empty boxes over their heads).  I asked Matt (who was, it’s only fair to note, behind me) whether that was a function or a prerequisite to snowboarding, but he didn’t seem to hear.  His rectangle was back to “annoyed” and mine was “acquiring 1000 yard stare” (this is foreshadowing).  As I was pondering this, I was getting better and better, with more and more momentum and then suddenly, I hit a little rise and I was airborne. 

My feet went straight up, right in front of me, my arms went out to my sides, I hovered in mid air just long enough to think to myself, “This is bad, very, very  --WHAM!!   I landed right on my tailbone, on the ice.  I’m 46, so it’s been several years since I landed on my tailbone.  It’s just as painful as I remember.  It took me a few seconds to get my bearings again.  When I was coherent enough, I hit on the realization that the 1000 yard stare is not necessarily a requirement to snowboarding, since it will inevitably come with time.  Normally, in one of my past lives, I would have jumped right up and kept on going down the hill (Death Before Defeat!), but as a testament to my age, my sanity or my ability to be taught, I caught on that the rectangle over my head was now flashing, “OSTEOPOROSIS.” 

I unstrapped my snowboard and walked down the rest of the hill with my son sliding down beside me, just out of arms length, serenading me with taunts.  I finally made it back to a bench and after a short rest, I went to find Paul and fight him for the ice pack.  I ended up sitting on a pile of “snow” and walking around as though I was keeping a cantaloupe between my knees for the rest of the weekend. 

The next day was Christmas.  We opened presents, had a huge breakfast, observed the kids fighting, and settled down to unlimited TV for the morning.  Then Bill, who had his fill of small children for the week, took the older kids to see a violent movie while Maryann and I took the younger, more well adjusted kids ice skating.  If I hadn’t bruised my tailbone, I would have gone on the ice with them all, but I was terrified of falling again and losing my cantaloupe.  This was probably better in the end.  I shoved Ruslan, walker and all, out on the ice and immediately, someone came over and offered to help him and someone else helped with Will.  They had a blast.  Everyone was great with them.   

Unfortunately, this is when everything suddenly hit me all at once.  I don’t know if it was Ruslan, screaming with glee out on the ice, or Maryann and her kids, sort of drifting through the holiday, everyone missing Bruce, or the fact that my tailbone was KILLING me… whatever it was, I started to cry.  I hate public crying.  I did everything I could to stop it.  I prayed.  I bit my lip.  I gritted my teeth and I tried to think about Oreos.  Nevertheless, tears were just streaming down my face. 

I know I was obvious because middle aged women started coming over to me, putting their hands on my shoulder and telling me  how cute Ruslan was, what an inspiration it was to see him on the ice, how brave and happy he looked in his walker, how lucky I was to be his mother, and etc.  I didn’t want to tell the truth and say, “Actually, he’s usually a pain in the ass and I’m crying about the pain in MY ass,” so I just kept my mouth shut, nodded sweetly and stayed as far away from Maryann as possible until I could pull my pathetic self together.

After dinner, Bill offered to watch the kids so Maryann and I could go out.  We thought about going to the hot tubs, but if we did, I knew we’d just end up talking about Bruce and crying (again).  Maryann hadn’t been to a movie theater since Bruce died so we decided to see a movie.  Maryann said she could handle anything but a sappy romance.  I was with her there.  So, we ended up seeing, “We Bought a Zoo,” about a dad who, ironically enough, loses his wife and buys a zoo.  Unfortunately, it is well done, well written and well acted.  Whoever wrote that script …they get it.  Do not see this movie without at least 50 tissues in your pockets, especially if you’re with your friend who has just lost her husband.

About half way through the movie, when everything is falling apart; the zoo is in trouble, the son is rebelling, the tiger dies, the dad is just in agony over his missing wife, and everyone in the audience realizes that 20^th Century Fox is passing our souls through a cheese grater, Matt Damon (the dad) rather unexpectedly blurts out, “I thought if I came here, it would stop.”   I knew exactly what he was talking about.  If it seems like we were running scared over the holidays, that is because we were.  By design, it was nothing like Christmas.  We weren’t at home, we didn’t read the Christmas story, we didn’t have the Jesus birthday cake, no one freaked out over the evening meal, I didn’t over eat.  For the adults, it was more something we were trying to get through or past.  I want to write that God took away the pain of loss and that there is a balm in Gilead, but that’s not the way it is. There are some things that are just too hard to face head on and yet, no matter how hard or fast or far you run, it just. doesn’t. stop.    

Five Mesmerized Children, Four Cups of Vegetables, Omega-Three Fatty Acids, Two Competent Adults and One Word Sentences

A few days ago, I was late with dinner.  I know I was late, because I passed Will as I was coming up from the basement with some frozen chicken.  He was on the way down the stairs (he follows me everywhere), and I was on the way back up.  I noticed that he was carrying the red cup we use to measure dry dog food.  Sure enough, it was half full and when I asked him to open his mouth, he smiled and turned his head.  I gave those little chipmunk cheeks a squeeze and found a stash of about ten Pedigree dog food chunks that he was storing for the winter.  I realized my starving child was snacking on dog food. 

I can’t remember if I took the cup away right then, but I’m darned sure I didn’t scoop the soggy kibbles out of his cheeks.  I went back upstairs and checked the bag instead.  It said things like, “100% Complete and Balanced Nutrition!” and “Advanced Anti-Oxidant Formula with high levels of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids to help support joint health.”  It also listed whole wheat as the first ingredient, chicken as the second and no sugar, which is more than I can say for Chocolate Teddy Grahams.  I figured he was safe.  I actually did a little cost comparison later on and   …Oh, sorry. I digress.

For the record, I did eventually take away the red cup and put away the dog food.  Then I put the chicken in the microwave to thaw, and went upstairs to talk to Bill. 

“I have an announcement.” 

(tap, tap, tap on the keyboard…)  “Yes?” 

“Every day around dinner time, I want you to come downstairs and just hang with us.”
(tap, tap, tap on keyboard….pinky taps Enter….instant results….) "Oh?"
...“You’ll have to leave the computer to do this.  Then you’ll need to walk down the stairs, into the living room and actually talk with some of the smaller humans who live with us.  There won’t be any computers involved and you will be required to communicate verbally."
(silence.  Tap, tap, tap) "Mmmm."
"…Am I getting through?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t want to ask too much, but at some point during the evening, I’d also like you to use complete sentences, the kind with both a subject and a verb.” 

(tap, tap, tap, Enter)  “….Ok.”

I left the room.  Apparently, I’d penetrated the great wall, because a few minutes later, Bill came downstairs.  He did the customary glance toward the living room (five children and a dog piled in front of Timmy Turner), glance toward the kitchen (your basic mess), weighed the lesser of many evils, and started to load the dishwasher. 

Will was sitting next to me on the butcher block island while I cut vegetables.  I've eventually figured out that it’s easier to have him next to me on the counter than tripping over him on the floor.  The microwave beeped.  I lifted Will off the counter, took the chicken out of the microwave, put it on the counter next to the sink and realized I needed to wait until Bill was done with the dishes before I could rinse it off.  I cut a few more vegetables, threw the waste in the trash, saw that Bill was closing the door to the dishwasher, and went to get my chicken.

My chicken was gone.

I asked Bill, “where is my chicken?” 

He said, “hmmm?.”

“I put it on the counter next to you.  Where is it?”

And then Bill said, “I don’t know where the chicken is. ...It was on the counter. …What did you do with it?”  As if I knew where the chicken was and I was just asking him to make conversation.

We both glanced along the kitchen counter tops, saw that the chicken was gone and went to look for the dog.  However, the dog was on the couch, comfortably nestled between two mesmerized children.  She did not look guilty.  It also happened to be pouring rain outside. Starving as she is, I didn’t think that the dog would brave all that rain just for some chicken, especially when there were dried chicken kibbles waiting for her in the red cup. 

That left the children.  They are not above hiding things from me if the urge arrives.  They’ve hidden my keys enough times to warrant interest, but not dead fowl.  I asked each of them in turn if they had taken my chicken and they all replied, “no” with appropriately bored expressions.  Then I asked, "Does ANYONE around here communicate with more than one word?"  Someone said, "no."

I went back to the kitchen.
There was Will.  I said, “Will, did you take mommy’s chicken?

Will smiled and yelled, “YES!”

“Ok, what did you do with it?”

Will smiled again, threw his hands up in the air and said, “I  ATE  IT!”

What does one do with this?  Bill and I started tearing the house apart, looking for the chicken.  It couldn’t have vaporized.  It had to be somewhere.  At first, I was just concerned about dinner.  I hadn’t been shopping in a while and that was the last of the meat, so if we didn’t have chicken, we were looking at dried beans, which take a while to prepare.  Then, as time progressed, I started to really wonder where the chicken might be and realized that in a few days, a dead chicken might REALLY SMELL.  I had a mouse die once under my kitchen cabinets and it was AWFUL.

We started in the kitchen and made bigger and bigger circles looking up and down, trying to think where WE might go if WE were a dead chicken.  After about ten minutes, I started to doubt myself.  Did I really take the chicken up from the basement?  I went back down to check the freezer.  No chicken.  Then I thought, “perhaps I absentmindedly took it upstairs? I went upstairs and went through all the bedrooms and the bathrooms.  I even dug through the laundry. 

Meanwhile, Will was following me around the house and screaming, “I TOOK IT!! I TOOK THE CHICKEN!”  But every time I asked him where it was, he threw his hands up in the air and said, “IN MY TUMMY!”  then he flashed me his huge smile.  Bill was looking all over the place and when the chicken didn’t turn up, he actually asked me, “Are you losing your mind?” as if this was my fault.   So I said, “LOOK, you saw me put the chicken down next to the sink.  I walked away.  YOU are the last person seen with the chicken, therefore, YOU are the person-of-interest here.  What did you do with my chicken?"

I also thought that perhaps I like him better when he limits himself to those one word sentences.

We finally decided to send Bill to the store and brace ourselves for the dead chicken smell that was bound to greet us in a few days.  As Bill was walking toward the garage, he passed the dog cage.  We have a wooden dog cage that is designed to look like an end table.  It’s really cute and the kids love to play in there.  Will spends a lot of his time gathering things for his personal museum.  Sure enough, Bill glanced inside and there was the chicken. 

I asked Will if he had put the chicken in the dog cage?  He gave me his biggest smile, threw his hands up in the air and said, “YES!! I TOOK IT!  I TOOK THE CHICKEN!”  When I asked him “Why did you take mommy’s chicken?”  He smiled and said, “Because.”   

Have I Mentioned That Two of My Boys Have CP?

I began writing this post to justify a coveted CP “button” on my blog.  But, then I realized that, unbelievably,  I've never written the story of our “decision” to adopt Ruslan and Will.   (and, of course, the cool CP button is not appearing on my post. ...sigh...anyway...)

I first heard about Ruslan from my friend Amy.  She has a web site full of special needs children in Ukraine who are waiting for families.  (http://ukraineadopt.com/waiting-children.html) She posted about a boy, Sergey, who was in an institution.  By the time I heard about him, he was six years old and had been tied to his bed for a year; no school, no therapy, no movement, no bathroom (they just wipe up after him)… nothing.   He was kept half dressed and left on a vinyl mattress all day and all night.   He had developed Scoliosis from lying on his side all the time.  He also had rickets and had lost a lot of his mental ability.  He couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk and no longer even responded to his name.  At the time, we already had five kids at home and our oldest was starting to become a  handful.  We finally decided that Sergey was so involved, we really couldn’t handle him.  So, we said, “no.”  

In the end, God took care of it.  Sergey was adopted by another family in NC.  However, the damn had already burst.  Before I heard about Sergey, I knew that there were orphanages in the world, I already had two adopted kids, but I had NO IDEA that there were children who were tied to their bed 24/7.   ….Now I knew. 

About a year later, Amy contacted me about Ruslan, who had CP and was headed for the same institution.  I wrote down all I could about him and took the information to my husband.  He said, (and I'm quoting him directly here) he said, “No. No Way.  Not a chance.”  I took this as a “Let’s think about it,” and told Amy we were interested.  A few days later, I got a call from Sandy, who had met Ruslan in Ukraine and could give me first hand information about him.  After talking with her for a few minutes, I took the phone to Bill who would NOT even TALK with her on the phone!!  It was a little embarrassing, to have to tell Sandy that my husband REFUSED to even TALK with her.  I started to think that maybe I had mis-read him and I needed a new strategy.  So, I started to pray.  To make a long story short, the next time I asked my husband about Ruslan, God had done such a number on his heart that my husband actually, TOOK HIS HANDS OFF HIS KEYBOARD, looked me in the eye, and said to me, “I guess as long as we’re going over there, we might as well get two, right?” 

I LOVE that!!  Two years and several thousand dollars later, we are now the proud parents of Will (six years old) and Ruslan (eight years old) both from Ukraine, both with CP, both the size of five year olds, and both physically challenged, mentally delayed and emotionally disturbed. 

First Will, who is so much easier to write about.  He turned six a few weeks ago.  He has Ataxic CP  (the floppy kind).  He can walk and really can do just about anything physically, but he falls a lot and he has low muscle tone.  My guess is that he also has FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome) and he’s microcephalic.  Besides the therapies, the only way his CP really affects our family life at the moment is that he needs to hold someone’s hand when he walks.  He’s charming enough that this is not a problem.  He has four eager siblings who line up to help him wherever we go. 

My other CP son is Ruslan.  He is eight and has Spastic CP (the tight kind).  His official diagnosis is Spastic Diplegia (below the hips) but his arms are SO TIGHT that I think he could easily fall into the Spastic Quadriplegia category.  His CP is more of an issue.  When he came here, he could not hold himself up on his legs.  Even with a walker, he was pretty much using his arm strength to stay up and dragging his legs.  He can now walk with a walker, using his legs for support, but he has no balance.  My personal hunch is that this is about as good as things are going to get, but we’ll keep trying.   Also, when he came, he could barely hold a pencil and was totally dependent on his caregivers for EVERYTHING.  He can now take care of all his personal needs (wash and dress himself, play by himself, feed himself etc.) and last night before bed, he was writing his letters on a wide ruled sheet of paper and keeping them within the lines.  

 It’s been amazing to watch his progress.  Because of this, we bend over backward to get him to do as much as he can independently.  It takes a lot of time and half the people in my county think I am a tyrant.  However, I am OK with this.  I’m in the habit of telling the “helpful” people in my local Wal Mart, “Thank you, but unless you want to follow him around for the rest of his life, you’re not really helping.” 

Both boys get PT and OT at school and they both get extra PT and horse therapy after school twice a week.   I stretch Ruslan every morning for about 30 minutes and he sometimes needs help with transitions.  We haul his walker and wheelchair on the bike rack on the back of our Ford and we don't do anything quickly.  It's not pretty, but really, the most surprising thing about the CP is that, as far as their PHYSICAL disability is concerned, once you embrace it and fit it into your routine, it’s usually not a big deal.

The mental and emotional baggage they came with….that’s a different story.  

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