This Reminds Me

Archive for July, 2007

No, we’re not adopting again (did you hear that, Keith?)  But we did decide to assume sponsorship of a five-year-old boy in Muldova, “Ion” (John), through Children’s Emergency Relief International.

He’s a cutie.

Orphanage kids in Moldova have two sets of clothes – winter and summer. Their summer “camps” have no electricity or running water.

For $35, all six of us can go to What-A-Burger.  Or five of us can go to a matinee movie.  Or four of us can buy a new paperback.  Or three of us can go play arcade games.   Or two of us can each buy a new video.  Or one of us (and that one would be me) can get a pedicure.  Or….we can sponsor Ion each month, with half the money going to improve his standard of living now, and half going into savings for him pending his discharge at age 16.

Freinds at church serve a Moldovan mission each summer, and many are already sponsoring children.  We are absolutely confident of where our money is going.

One friend had spread dozens of sponsorable kids’ pictures on the counter Sunday.  LIttle girls.  Little boys.  Little girls with summer shaves that looked like little boys.  Familiar names.  Names of all consonants we had no idea how to pronounce.  Some kids as old as Lois and some younger than Julia.

So how do you pick?  Because to choose one means leaving the others.

I did what any wise, well-educated (and cowardly) adult woman would do – I backed off, and let the kids choose.  They wanted a boy, and with very little discussion and (surprisingly) no fighting, they selected Ion.

Julia is still a little mystified as to why we are not making him her brother.  “Why he no come home?”

Because – just like when we were in Children’s Home #47 – we choose one and left the others.

Keith and Lois are sitting at the breakfast table right now, devouring Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows with a side serving of bagels.

Keith – page 459; Lois – page 401.  She’s the faster reader, but he had a longer nap yesterday.  Yes, they bought two copies of the book.  Share?  Surely you jest.

The queued early Friday at Barnes & Noble to join a few thousand of their closest friends in a quest for….

This all-important reservation confirmation.  Think “Southwest” – without the peanuts.

Then it was back to Barnes and Noble at 7 p.m. last night, awaiting the midnight hour.  They each drank a “butter beer,” but passed on the soap-flavored Jelly Bellies.  Many of the early morning enthusiasts had morphed into They That Have No Lives, as evidenced by Lois’ photos:

Hooters

Sweet, sweet tats

Let a smile be your umbrella.

Keith’s cousin Hagrid

….you’ll never go back….

Making a spectacle of himself

If I only had a brain

The Grim Reader

Finally – Midnight!

So I think today I’ll ask Keith several questions, like, “So how about I buy myself a new Nikon?  And would it be okay if I spent next weekend at a spa?”  Because what I’ll get is a mumbled “Uh-huh.”  Surely I can work those into conversation while he tackles the last 325 pages.

Go Keith!  Go Lois!  Vote in the poll (left nav) – Who is finishing first?!

Keith and Lois are all hyped about the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Friday. They’ll be among the thousands haunting bookstores at midnight, anxious to purchase the 784-page final installment. Keith – echoing a personal philosophy with character enthusiasm – has changed the status line on his AT&T instant messenger to his favorite line from the series, It’s our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are – far more than our abilities. – Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

We’ve been talking about choices with Julia lately, as she’s been asking questions about her future. What she might be when she grows up. Might she go to college? Ride a motorcycle?  Visit Russia?  Have a dog? Marry? Have children?

Most homegrown kids in families like ours learn about choices and consequences from observation as well as experience. They see the neighbor kids packing up for college. They’re dragged to baptisms, weddings and funerals at church. They notice the extended bedtimes and broader privileges of older siblings. They know who gets first grade bibles, who goes to camp, who gets to drive, who gets to date, who gets to have Coke with meals. They understand the generational context of families. They know weekends, and school years, and precious parental vacation days. They know not only their place, but also the places of those younger, older and adjacent.

That knowledge is never overtly taught – it is covertly absorbed, like a familial osmosis.

A child institutionalized with kids all the same age and floating caregivers, however, shares none of those insights. There’s no path blazed before them. No touchpoints. No validations. No reassurances, or gentle corrections, or gleeful anticipations. So choices – and the future they influence – can be scary.

Julia has said she wants to stay a kid and live with Keith and me forever, preferably sleeping on an air mattress next to our bed. She wants Rachel and Lois at home, too….Hannah is still kind of up-in-the-air…..

Julia and Keith tonight – this is her favorite TV watching vantage point…

Naturally, Keith and I are happy she is attaching so well. It’s what we’ve worked toward – longed for – prayed for – all this time. But with these ropes of attachment dangle the strings of teaching her to how to let go – specifically, how to make good choices so when she leaves our home, she’s prepared to make a new one. And those good choices require a tremendous amount of absorbed knowledge.

Several times at the end of long, exasperating conversations heavily peppered with Julia’s “Why” questions, I’ve longed to pour a magic elixir down her throat that would impart seven years’ worth of absorbed knowledge. Stuff like:  The trash men come because we pay them.  Red/green/yellow lights keep us safe. The pool is closed on Tuesday so the swim team can practice. Jeans take a long time in the dryer. Heaven is not a place I can show you on the map.  I used to have a mother and a brother, and Aunt Judy has always been my sister.  Gas makes the car run.  We bathe every day, and only girls can see other girls in the bathroom.  We used to live in Houston, and that is why people hug us when we are there.

But that magic elixir exists only in a place like Hogwarts.

We muggles have to impart knowledge and encourage good choices without the benefit of elixirs, wands, spells or potions.

So tonight I remember one of my favorite Goblet of Fire quotes, also by Albus Dumbledore – You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.

Thanks, Professor.