Let's Try This Again -- HOUSE!!!

Many of you may have seen my Facebook status that we had an urgent prayer request a few weeks ago on a Tuesday night about the [first] house we had an offer on in San Antonio.  What happened?  Well, as my realtor called at 6pm to confirm that the appraisal was being ordered, he asked me, "You do know that this home is in a flood plain, don't you?"

Um, no. 

The disclosure filed by the seller did not state that it was in a flood plain and the realtor didn't tell us that it was, even when we asked about it repeatedly since the home backs to a greenbelt and has a rain culvert right next-door.  I wish it didn't get 2 weeks into the buying process to figure this out.  I'll also say that the selling agent lived right next door to the property and she didn't even disclose the flood plain on her listing.  Hmmmm.

After living in Nebraska and witnessing the Nebraska/Iowa flood of 2011 and then watching my family in Minnesota experience "total losses" this year with the catastrophic Duluth flooding, I just couldn't go forward with a home in a flood plain.  I couldn't.

NE/IA flooding 2011

NE/IA flooding 2011

Duluth, MN flooding 2012 - this is Jay Cooke State Park close to where my grandparent's home was.

Duluth, MN flooding 2012

The very next day, I looked at 80 more houses online as we put the purchase of "Flood Plain House" on hold.  Jay drove by a few of the homes I liked online while he was in San Antonio for work.  He called later and told me to go ahead and schedule appointments because he found the neighborhoods desirable, and on Thursday I packed up the kids and we drove down to look at almost 8 or 9 more houses while Jay worked.

I don't recommend looking at houses with 3 children and no husband.  At one point, all 3 children were in tears at the same time.  Oh, please.

We now have officially let go of "Flood Plain House," have received our earnest money back (thanks for praying for that, those of you who knew) and have put an offer on another home.  Since our bank already has all of our paperwork on file, we should still be able to get in before October is up.  It will be the first week of November at the latest.

The home is in a great neighborhood with a much nicer feel to it than the first home.  It's actually a little bit hilly, which I love!  Any rain water will run right past us and keep going down!  Hard to believe this house was actually a bit cheaper than "flood plain house."  This house offers 5 bedroom too!  On the main level of the house is a HUGE master bedroom with a private master bath and huge walk-in closet.  This will actually be our guest room and great for Jay's dad when he visits due to his declining health.  The eat-in kitchen is a bit smaller than I'd like and it doesn't have the walk-in pantry that I loved in the previous house.  But I'll make due and I'll figure out where to store all my appliances.  There is one main living/dining room on the main level and a half bath too.

Upstairs has 4 bedrooms.  The upstairs master is smaller than the main floor master, but not by much and it's just fine for us.  I like being close to my kids in the middle of the night when they are young.  We may eventually want the space of the downstairs master when the kids are older.  We'll see.  The upstairs master bath is a touch smaller than the lower master bath, but not by much either.  They both have double sinks and tub/shower and toilet and huge walk-in closets.  The kids rooms are very large!  The boys will have plenty of room for their bunk beds and dressers and toys [the ones too small for Lauren] to boot.  Jay will take the smallest upstairs bedroom as his office since he'll be doing quite a bit of work from home.  All that rooms needs is a ceiling fan (all the other rooms have one).  Hopefully we can score a nice desk and file cabinets on Craig's List or garage sales.  The laundry room is also upstairs like the first house.  Still not sure I'll like it because it means kenneling the dogs in the kitchen downstairs instead of in a mudroom which I prefer, but I'll get used to it.  The upstairs also has a loft which will be big enough for our sectional, the kids toys and a home school area.  The carpets are all pristine, walls a nice beige that will never have to be painted (and I don't intend to, much to the surprise of my friends who know how much I LOVE color).  The fixtures are all nicely updated with no older brass finishes.  Nothing in this house needs to be done.  Maybe, just maybe in the future we could rip out carpet and put in hardwood, but not for quite a few years, and only for resale.  The backyard could use a shed for tools since the garage is only a 2-car, but we can do that later.  Landscaping is great!  It's just move in and be home.  HOME!!!!  We didn't have that with the "flood plain house" (required paint and a lot of work in the bare backyard).

And the best part?  The backyard has a pool!  Our realtor thinks the pool was a negative feature for the home because it was on the market for 97 days.  For us, with our kids in the hot Texas climate, the pool was a perk!  The boys are so excited.  This momma-fish is quite excited too.  Now to learn how to care for it myself so I don't have to call a professional.  How can we home school in the pool?  I'll find a way!

Lest you think we are going crazy with a 5 bedroom home with a pool after losing 2 jobs and completing an international adoption, remember that this is Texas, folks.  This house is in the "starter home" price range.  Insane, right?  It is tens of thousands cheaper than our first home in Chicago that we bought as newlyweds 11 years ago, working in ministry and it's also cheaper than our second home in Nebraska.  Housing is just so insanely cheap down here and that's why Jay wanted to try living here until we have our feet underneath ourselves again as he builds a business.  Once his business becomes successful, we'll have more options to move elsewhere if we desire to be closer to family again.  For now, we kind of wanted to start all over, be conservative and have the smallest mortgage possible.  We've never been over our heads with our mortgages in the past, but after everything we've been through and how all of you have helped us adopt and then bring home our daughter while unemployed, we vow to pay it forward and give generously when we are able.  To whom much is given, much is required.  We know that full well and we want our lives to reflect that.  That means a "starter home" is the best place for us for now.

While house hunting this time, I didn't take my camera with me because it was a last-minute, unexpected trip early in the morning with 3 kids with massive bed-head.  For now, enjoy a few outside shots from the listing.  The original interior pictures showed the home lived in (it's now vacant) and I don't want to post pictures of someone else's furniture, so hopefully these will do for now.  If I have to run back to San Antonio for any reason between now and closing, I'll see if I can get in to take more pictures of it vacant.

Prayers appreciated that we don't lose this one and that we can move in before Halloween!

In comparison to "Flood Plain House," this one has a much nicer, more elegant feel to both home and neighborhood.

"Can we have a pool, dad?  Can we have a pool, dad?  Can we have a pool, dad?"

The pool was a selling feature for us here in the hot Texas climate.  And with it being so nicely done with a beautiful deck and nice landscaping, we love it for our fish kids!

Wrestling

Be prepared for the real side of adoption; the ugly side, the sad side.

We may never really know the truth about our daughter's first 22 months on this earth before I met her face to face.  Her birthdate is at best, an estimate based on her dental development.  But I do know that she was relinquished at the gate of the orphanage around a month and a half after she was born.  I know that she was in an older orphanage, but at some point, her town opened a brand new, beautiful orphanage and all the kids and caregivers were rehoused there.  The pictures we have in the scrapbook I was given on Gotcha Day show a beautiful, clean building with play rooms, classrooms, toddler rooms with cribs, et cetera.

A view of her bandaged leg in the orphanage.

While facilities may be nice and pristine, the care may not be as spotless, in our eyes.  After we received our referral and were matched with L, we were so anxious to receive more current photos of her.  When we received those treasured photos, I quickly noticed what appeared to be a bandage on L's left ankle.  Her feet fit into identical shoes, but the ankle and lower leg clearly looked different from her right.  I inquired about it and weeks later, my agency heard from China that L was healthy and had sustained no injuries, there was no cause for alarm about her leg.

Not too long after that, a friend also adopting from China posted a picture of her waiting daughter on her blog with a tether around her ankle.  My eyes were opened to the fact that some orphanages around the world tether children to cribs, chairs, toilets and the like.  It's not just something you read about in the news and wonder if it's really a half-truth.  It happens.  It's unthinkable, isn't it?  But it happens.  I looked back at the picture of L and her bandaging on her leg.  Could that have been some sort of protection to her skin for times when she had been tethered to her bed or was it indeed a bandage concealing a hidden scar, bodily harm caused by being tied to some immovable object?  I may never know the answer.

L's ankles today.  Notice the purple scars, especially on her right leg.

Upon coming home with L, I certainly noticed marks on her right ankle, not the one bandaged in the picture.  She has faint lines on her left ankle and deep lines on her right.  Wanting to put the idea of tethering out of my mind, I put my hopes into the thought that maybe the lines on L's ankles are amniotic bands.  In reality, there is a chance that they are scars from being tethered.  Pediatricians can guess, but we may never know the truth.

We've found additional reason to believe L was tethered to her crib.  Lately we've been dealing with L's RMD - Rhythmic Movement Disorder - when she sleeps.  She'll lay there in her crib and will kick a foot to soothe herself into slumber.  She didn't do this until after she had been home for a few months and it has forced us to put her to sleep upstairs in her own room rather than sleeping in our room for bonding's sake.  Her RMD would keep us up at night.  Guess which foot she kicks?  The right one - the one with the deep scar.  It is, perhaps, just a little bit of a glimpse into her past.

However last week brought more disturbing behavior from my daughter.  I witnessed something fascinating, but in a heart wrenching sort of way.

I was doing school with my boys on Thursday morning.  C was in the back bedroom reading his history book and I set E up at the dining room table doing his handwriting activities while I quickly looked over the home inspection report that had just come into my email box.  I moved into the living room to read the report while L played in front of me.  She was lying in a pile of couch cushions and pillows that had been left by my boys from their most recent fort building spree.  L was laying on top of it all and was making a strange noise.  I can best describe it as a third fake, a third angry or frustrated, and a third sad or upset.  Needless to say, it was a strange sound, one I'd never heard from her before.  I looked up from my iPad to see what was bugging her.  She was on her back, on top of all the cushions, with a light blanket over her midsection.  Her head, arms and legs were all uncovered and free.  She was not pinned or trapped in the slightest.

Let me interrupt this story by saying that L dislikes blankets.  In China she was indifferent to them.  Once home, she simply didn't want one.  I'd lay one across her at bedtime and I'd later find it on the floor outside her crib.  She never cried over them but she'd toss them out once I left the room.  I quickly stopped even offering one.  We recently had a cool day here in Texas.  I didn't want to turn the furnace on, but it wasn't cold enough for a thick blanket sleeper for L to wear at bedtime either.  I laid L down in her crib and pulled a baby blanket out of the drawer behind me.  She screamed an enormous fit at the sight of it.  This was a whole new reaction entirely.  It was not a battle I was going to fight with a tired 2 year old at bedtime.  If she was fine without a blanket, I'd fold it up and lay it back in the drawer.  No need for drama.  Case closed.

So, watching L with this blanket in the living room was curious.  She'd lay on her back, blanket hardly covering her, she'd kick and wrestle it with this angry, yet sad, fake cry.  Not even 5 seconds later she'd roll onto her belly, out from under the blanket, looking almost like a cat that had just pounced on a mouse, and she'd immediately stop her fussing.  Five seconds later, she'd roll back onto her back and then reach and pull the blanket back over her belly; her arms, legs and head still free and unencumbered.  A few seconds of odd fussing again, then roll back over and stop fussing.  Then onto her back again with fussing repeated, then roll to her stomach without a sound further.  You get the picture.  Over and over and over again she'd wrestle with this blanket for a good 5-7 minutes while I silently watched this odd drama from the couch.  She was acting something out.

I wrote to my adoption community on Facebook and without offering my inference first, one friend in particular confirmed my unspoken suspicions.  She knew of some orphanages in China where children are bound in blankets and then strapped to their cribs.  And this wasn't her educated guess.  She had seen it with her own eyes and had even taken a picture.  In an instant, L's drama in the living room brought to light the idea that she was most likely bound in blankets and tied to her crib, unable to move freely.  It would also explain some raw skin L had on her waistline when I got her in China.  Thankfully, those lines went away with love and care and lots of baby lotion which she loved!  Her little act on the living room floor was acting out her anger and sadness over being trapped in her metal crib.  And rolling over onto her belly and being out from under the blanket was her escape.  She was wrestling for her freedom - freedom that she didn't have in China, freedom that she does have here.

We're not naive enough to believe that these practices don't exist.  We went into our adoption knowing that some orphanages, not all orphanages in our world, may use these practices.  Our required adoption training referenced it.  But we never imagined our daughter may have witnessed it herself.  This is tough!  So tough, it brings me to tears.  I would guess that the average person like me wouldn't understand how a 2 year old can have the memory, the recall of the traumatic events in her short little life.  But my daughter is proof.  She remembers and she's wrestling with her sad past and her happy present.  It's a heartbreaking reality.  No child should have to endure what my daughter may have endured.

Rest assured that my sweet girl is happy and has adjusted very well.  This was just a very rare, eye opening incident.  The rest of her day was happy and uneventful and the days that have followed since have been without incident.  But I'm just so thankful that L is now free with us here at home, yet I seek your prayers for the healing of her body, mind and spirit and that she can move on, free from the weight of her past, free to embrace her freedom and the love we desire to pour into her life.

I know God will do amazing things through my daughter and her story - her whole story.  I trust Him.


PS...  You don't read many stories like this online because many people don't talk openly about it.  I do not write this to blast my daughter's home country for their actions because this happens in other countries too.  Without China, we wouldn't have a daughter.  We love her culture and we will raise her to honor her rich heritage.  Its our utmost privilege to raise one of China's beautiful, precious daughters.  And I certainly do not want to open any of this up for debate or human rights discussions.  I'm not even opening up the comments section on this post.  This is simply our story.  It's just what we are dealing with now and I am choosing to speak out with the hopes that this might reach another family struggling with similar concerns so they would know they are most certainly not alone.

4 Months

Our Quiet Tiger, Miss L, has been home for 4 months.  Just a quick update on how she is doing.

Happy girl!

Overall, she's doing great!  She is happy and adjusted.  She doesn't appear to be grieving her life back in the orphanage in Shaanxi.  It's a thing of the past.  She likes to laugh and loves being tickled.  She's quick to come give me a hug and a kiss.  She loves her daddy now, despite wanting nothing to do with him when we first came home.  She gets along well with her biggest brother C, but she is still jealous over her other big brother Super E.  She loves the dogs, the guinea pig and all the stray cats and deer running through the condo complex.  She still loves to sing.

She loves her daddy!

We continue to battle food issues.  While she doesn't always sit and stare at me in the kitchen while I'm preparing food as much (she still does it, just to an ever so slightly less degree), she will still scavenge and scrounge after a meal for any scraps that might have fallen on the floor.  Mmmm... floor food.  Ick!  She'll still cry after eating a full meal if the food is all gone.  For a time, I was allowing her to eat as much as she wanted, whenever she wanted, at the advice of adoption physicians who specialize in food issues.  I saw my daughter balloon up virtually overnight and it really didn't sit well with me.  She could seriously eat a whole box of Cheerios and then come wailing to me for more.  I was told that it would be okay if she became obese in the short term as she's learning to deal with food.  But when on this blessed earth is it ever okay to become obese?  As a mom who admittedly and embarrassingly needs to lose a good 30 pounds, I couldn't watch my daughter become large enough to outgrow her 2T clothes when she's a healthy height and weight on the Asian Growth Charts.  So, I carefully monitor how much she eats and I offer healthy meals and snacks.

Not happy the meal is over.

Thankfully, her hives are a thing of the past, having linked them not to food but to the pool here at my mother-in-law's condo.  She doesn't react to any other pool we have visited.  Just this one.  So, we've kept her out and no more nasty hives!

Swimming at Aunt Patti's pool where her skin does NOT break out in hives!

Although she is doing so well, she is so defiant.  Let me retype that.  She is SO DEFIANT!  You can tell me, "Hey Brooke, she's 2.  She's supposed to be defiant," but you haven't seen this girl.  Everything out of her mouth is no.

"Don't kick the dog."

"No."

"Don't hit dad's computer."

"No."

"Don't play with electric cords."

"No."

"Don't take dirty laundry out of the hamper."

"No."

"Don't touch the remotes."

"No."

I can try to put a positive spin on things and tell her all the things she is allowed to do and it goes something like this:

"Go play with toys."

"No."

"Let's play chase with your brothers."

"No."

"Give daddy a kiss."

"No."

"Let's change your diaper."

"No."

"You can have a banana after your nap."

"No."

This girl does not know how to say "yes."  We started disciplining pretty early after she was home.  She has become one with the naughty step and some days she just seems to prefer it there.  If she's interrupting while I'm home schooling the boys, I'll tell her to go play with toys.  You know her answer.  I'll give her the option of playing with toys right next to us or coloring in her high chair or to go sit on the naughty step all by herself and she'll put herself on the step.  Every time.

She loves her big brother C and he's pretty smitten too.

And it's not just "no."  It's also refusing to listen and follow directions.  This week alone, she has come into the kitchen while I was taking dinner out of the hot oven and she walked towards me with her hands out, ready to touch the oven or the hot dish.  I said, "No!  Danger!  Hot!"  She backed up a few feet and then came right back at me again with hands outstretched as I was closing the oven door.  Same thing with the computer.  I was on it this afternoon right after lunch and before her nap time and she reached out to touch the computer (this is off limits to her and always has been).  I told her, "no touch" and she gave me one look and then whacked it before I could grab her hand.  Oh, she is naughty and she is giving me a run for my money!  Most days I really, honestly wonder if she'll ever learn.  She thinks she has control and she is refusing to give up.  Well, you and I know that she won't win.  I just hope she learns sooner than later for everyone's sanity!  Thankfully, I'm not alone in this venture.  My amazing adoption "family" group also reports similar stories in their households.  It's good to have people to vent to when you know that they fully understand because they have also adopted.

Her hair is getting just about long enough to pin back into a small clip and she's learning to tolerate "pretties" too.  It always looks best when her hair is wet, immediately after her bath.  But once it dries, the short hairs tend to slip themselves out and the clip is history.  Another inch or so and hopefully they'll really stay in.

Getting used to "pretties" in her hair.

She is now sleeping upstairs in her room here at the condo and no longer in our room for bonding's sake.  I can't wait to see how she reacts to her own room in our future house!  She still HATES blankets though and lately will scream if I pull one out of the drawer on a cool night.  Not sure what the hysterics are about.  It's not a battle I'm willing to fight, so if she doesn't want any blankets in her crib at night, that's less laundry for me to do during the week.  I know my friend Hilary's daughter doesn't care for blankets.  Anyone else out there?  Why does she freak out over them?

Home for 4 months!

It's been rough, I'm not going to lie.  Most days I feel like I'm drowning.  Our family circumstances are still crazy and time is running out for us here at my mother-in-law's condo.  My boys are begging for their belongings still in storage in Nebraska.  I'm longing for a place to call home.  Jay needs to be in his region for his 10 hour a day job and not commuting 3 hours a day to boot.  Please keep us in your prayers for all our general life stuff to iron out and for Miss L to lose the naughty, control-freak behavior and also to overcome her food issues.  Somewhere around 6-8 months home, adopted children tend to start showing their true personalities.  So, I'm excited to see what the next few months will bring.