Joshua and I returned Monday from a three-day visit to his birthplace, Crescent City. We flew up from Santa Barbara and stayed with his former foster family—an exceptional family where he was nurtured and loved for 18 months prior to being placed with us at 28 months old.
Our weekend visit was prompted by Joshua. We’ve remained in touch with the Hemms and he repeatedly voiced an earnest desire to see them again. In one of those unexected life twists, the booking of the flights for a stay with the Hemms coincided with the news that Joshua had a biological half-brother we were unaware of in Crescent City’s foster care system. The timing of this news allowed us to arrange a first meeting between the brothers while we were there.
Joshua and I enjoyed three
pleasant days reacquainting ourselves with the Hemm family and Crescent City proper. Joshua "pet" leopard sharks and starfish at Ocean World aquarium, toured an Alaskan fishing trawler that was being retooled by the Hemm's son-in-law Dana, he proudly learned how to dig a hole with a real backhoe, and even took his first spin on a quad with the Hemm’s daughter, Sara. (Hint: click on photos to enlarge picture.)
Only seventeen months old, Joshua's half-brother, Jeffrey, stopped in to visit with his foster/adoptive mom on a crisp, cold Sunday morning at the Hemm house. He and Joshua giggled over peek-a-boo and quietly observed each other, not quite grasping the significance of the encounter. We took photographs to document the visit and pledged to remain in touch. But the entire experience naturally raised deeper questions for Joshua.
He began probing why he had to leave his foster family in the first place, why no-one knows where his birthmother is, and how he can have a “brother” that doesn’t live with him, but who shares the same birthmom? Even more surprising, he began remembering and voicing emotions and events that he experienced as a toddler in the house we stayed in.
Making sense of this is more than I would expect of an adult without some angst. All the more straining for a highly inquisitive Kindergartner.
It was little surprise, then, when after a long weekend spent on his best behavior, Josh waited until we were 10 minutes from home Monday night before completely falling apart in the car. Indeed, Joshua spent much of Tuesday wailing and crying. That is to say that we "heard" the grief buried beneath behaviors that manifested themselves as rudeness, irrational defiance, and unprovoked, spiraling anger.
The uncorked sadness within Joshua is at once startling and exhausting in its intensity. Yet, as a mother, instinct tells me it is necessary and healing for him to confront this pain and work through it as much as he can or is willing to. It may seem counterintuitive, because my first impulse would be to protect him from it; after all, he’s barely six years old. However, it’s evident there are triggers from his early history that zap his self confidence and elicit an immediate (and irrational) fight or flight response. The “fight” meaning out-of-control rages that last longer and are more intense than what is age appropriate, and the “flight” being a masterful ability to distract himself in myriad ways from “scary” emotions and needs.
It may be inconvenient and messy, but it’s good that Joshua’s needs BURST out the way they do. Addressing these is what families are about. To support him as he confronts preverbal feelings of loss, helplessness and anger is emotionally taxing, but it’s the best way we know how to love him.To me, in his most anguished moments, Joshua demonstrates a wellspring of courage that we would all do well to learn from.
Meanwhile, I lose count of how many times a day Jochen or I will abruptly inquire, "Where's Toby? Have you seen him?" It seems that no matter how much time we spend with him reading, playing, correcting and cuddling, the moment Toby is alone he stumbles into mischief, often unwittingly. On Wednesday, I caught him tearing a large hole in his second floor bedroom screen.
"What are you doing?!!!" This from me, in a shrill voice with hair standing on end. (Mostly due to the fact that not so long ago I discovered him trying to climb out of his second floor window onto the roof.)
"Making a door to let the nice bugs in for a visit," he responded cheerfully.
Then it dawned on me why he had been poking quarter-sized holes into many of our screens earlier in the week. As he kindly explained to me, “There are nice bees that wanna come in and play.”
He is undeniably creative in his three-year-old logic, but parenting him is like a game of hot potato.
Just today before work I heard the boys giggling in the bathroom and opened the door to find Toby holding the small cup he uses to rinse his mouth out while Joshua peed into it. After stopping abruptly when the door opened, both immediately denied any involvement in the incident and I was left holding a warm, full Children's Spaceship Dentist cup. I told them I didn't care who did it, they both knew it wasn't okay and both were participating. Then I separated the boys until breakfast and reminded them (once again) that we pee ONLY in the toilet.
As the day progressed, Toby managed to nab four raw eggs from the refrigerator and practiced breaking and "cooking" them on his bedroom floor during naptime. A few hours after receiving a timeout while Jochen cleaned up the gooey egg yolks, he peed behind the living room couch. An act which he promptly claimed Joshua urged him to do. And from the giggles Joshua could barely contain, this appeared to be true. Poor Jochen. Trying to keep Toby safe without quashing his need to learn through hands-on exploration is an unending exercise in disaster management.
And, truthfully, Jochen and I half the time are so stunned or exasperated or weary that we no longer have the energy to apply creative punishments to Toby's deeds. Even with both of us home focusing attention on the boys, Toby is quick as lightening. And the end result nearly always leads to something needing to be fixed or cleaned. This week Toby even managed to break his collarbone while playing on a friend's slide. This meant he was forced to slow down to accomodate the sling on his left arm. That lasted for about two hours. Then. much to our consternation, he was back to leaping on the livingroom furniture, tumbling, and wrestling with his brother. Indeed, his pediatrician was amazed when his collarbone healed in half the time normally alloted for such injuries. (Apparently his lack of caution allowed him to engage in his own form of physical therapy.)
When we find “lost” items have strayed under Toby’s bed or into his closet (the family nail clippers, a bright red apple, the bathroom soap dispenser, a pack of bubble gum, etc.); when Toby decides to take an entire tube of my liquid foundation and decorate all of the beds in the house with it (and his white carpet for good measure -- where it leaves a nice brown stain); when he cuts up Joshua's placemat at the kitchen table with scissors he's not supposed to have; when I catch him leaping five feet across the room from the top of his dresser to his toddler bed below; when he grabs Jochen's cookies out of the cupboard and hides under the recliner munching on a dozen of them at a time; when he colors with indelible marker all over the kitchen table and his Stokke chair; and when he finds a way to balance himself over the bathroom sink to leave a symmetrical pile of poop behind and later squeezes a perfectly good tube of bubble-gum-flavored Dora the Explorer toothpaste onto the bathroom sink area and over several Playmobil toys, what are we supposed to do? Except perhaps learn to value our furniture and floors less and continue to expect the unexpected?
We do keep hoping it's a phase. We admonish and gently remind Toby that good choices would be better. We reward him with stars and praise and trips to Baskin Robbins for good behavior. We pray that he'll make it through this stage alive. And we wonder if God knew what he was doing when he brought exuberant, risk-taking Toby to two sensible, rule-abiding parents?
Then Toby will do something utterly disarming, like two mornings ago when there was a garden-variety spider on my closet floor and he cautiously approached it.
I heard him reassuring the black creature, whispering, “It’s okay spider, you can come make webs in my room.” He waited and the spider only crept further away.
A long pause ensued as Toby stared at the spider, willing it to move closer.
I turned as Toby jumped up and blurted, “Mommy, I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m gonna go put on my Spiderman costume, so the spider will know I’m his Dad, and he won’t be scared.” With that he scurried out of the room to don his Spiderman mask and clothes.
It’s hard not to be grateful for Toby's undeniable spark, his generous spirit, and the mini-gymnast abilities that keep all 36 pounds of him safe.
Needless to say, Jochen and I learn more and more about ourselves as we parent Toby and Joshua. We slog through the difficult days and imagine the day when our family will emerge “all grown”, bulging at the seams with different needs, but thriving. We understand that parenting will always be an up and down ride. A sacred journey through God-inspired moments that are often pure frustration, and every once in a while a place of blissful balance. Along the way we encounter the unexpected gifts of grace, humility, and humor as we ourselves are shaped into better human beings.
Truthfully, I suppose we wouldn't want it any other way.
