The Games We Play

I find raising a gaggle of kids to be deeply satisfying, but there are plenty of things about it that I could do without – like brushing the teeth of younger kids. This is just one of the mundane chores that CrazyMom and I don’t feel particularly drawn to. Because of this, there is a little game we play. Here are the rules:

1) If it legitimately appears to be your turn to brush a child’s teeth, you can’t pass the buck.

2) It is your turn if subtle circumstances indicate that it would make “more sense” for you to do it rather than the other parent.

3) It is legal to manipulate such subtle circumstances, but only in ways so that the children will not notice. Of course, the spouse should notice, otherwise it is not much of a game.

Here are a few examples of how we play the game.

CrazyMom and I are running the boys through the bathtub and K.D. is waiting for his turn. I go over and begin to shampoo Little Foot’s hair. Just when the suds reach a maximum and are all over my hands, I say, “Hey, K.D.! Why don’t you brush your teeth while you are waiting?” K.D. notices I am busy and so he asks CrazyMom to help him brush his teeth. CrazyMom gives me one of those furrowed-brow-you-are-so-pathetic looks, but just for a moment so as not to violate rule #3.

And don’t think that it is just me that does the manipulating. When I get done with breakfast and head upstairs to brush my teeth, CrazyMom will say to K.D., “Why don’t you run upstairs with dad and brush your teeth?” She wins the game here because it makes “more sense” for me to brush his teeth if I am going to brush mine anyway.

I just showed this post to CrazyMom and she said there is no game and I am just trying to get out of brushing K.D.’s teeth. No wonder she has been giving me all of those furrowed-brow-you-are-so-pathetic looks whenever I would win the game. Here I just thought she was a poor sport.

Jesus Loves What?!?

“What is this word, dad? It says Jesus Loves . . . something. I can’t read the last word,” said Little Foot.

I was in the car with Little Foot and F.G. on the way back home from Out-Of-Our-Way Christian Bookstore. Little Foot was trying to read the words on his new $9.99+Tax-Jesus-Loves-Something water bottle that he just bought with his own money.

I admit that I did not really care what the water bottle said and was more interested in getting home. My mood was already slightly fowl since I was running an errand that I did not want to run. Before we started home schooling, CrazyMom would run errands during the day. Now errands get done in the evening and I can’t quite figure out how to get out of doing them.

Little Foot persisted and finally F.G. decided to try to help out, but she could not read the word either.

Meanwhile I was reflecting on how Out-Of-Our-Way Christian Bookstore had caused me to be on this errand. CrazyMom had taken the six kids to their store so F.G. could buy a Bible. F.G. really wanted a Bible with a buckle and found one in her favorite color – orange. But when Out-Of-Our-Way Christian Bookstore imprinted her name on it, they messed it up. Too bad it was the only Orange-Buckle Bible in the store and too bad that F.G. would no longer settle for any one of 1,000 other Bibles in the store. So a return trip was needed to pick up the Special-Order-Orange-Buckle Bible.

Now over half way home from Out-Of-Our-Way Christian Bookstore, the water bottle finally made it up to me and I read it out loud.

“Jesus Loves Kimberly”

My son had just purchased a $9.99+Tax-Jesus-Loves-Kimberly water bottle. The slightly fowl mood in the car went quickly downhill. Knowing that I had fulfilled my fatherly duties by taking two kids to Out-Of-Our-Way Christian Bookstore where they could get what they wanted and knowing further that my car was not going to turn around to go back to the store, I began crisis management.

“Little Foot, what we can do here is this. We will take the $9.99+Tax-Jesus-Loves-Kimberly water bottle home and next time that CrazyMom goes to Out-Of-Our-Way Christian Bookstore she can trade it in for a $9.99+Tax-Jesus-Loves-Little-Foot water bottle,” I said trying to sound comforting, reassuring, and firm all at the same time.

Tears were coming.

“Are you with me here? We can trade it in for another one next time mom goes to Out-Of-Our-Way Christian Bookstore. She was there at Christmas and now again in September. I am sure she will be back before next Christmas.”

The tears arrived.

I got off the highway and completed two left turns in traffic to get back on the highway going the other way.

When we got back to Out-Of-Our-Way Christian Bookstore, the two girls behind the counter and a lady making a purchase thought the incident was “cute” and “funny”. We went back to the rack with all of the $9.99+Tax-Jesus-Loves-Somebody water bottles and had to look at every water bottle before we could be sure that they did not have one with Little Foot’s name on it. Fortunately, there was a generic “I Love Jesus” water bottle.

Clearly CrazyMom would have cared what the words were on the bottle and read them before setting out for home and avoided this whole mess. Clearly the moral of the story is that I am unqualified to run errands. Now if I can just convince CrazyMom.

Who are these kids?

The children we have in our home now are completely different than the ones we brought home from Ethiopia. Now I can see how CrazyMom and I were a little irrational during the child selection process. When we were pouring over a photo list of kids, we assumed that the expression captured in the photo reflected in some way the personality of the child. Then when CrazyMom and I saw a 20 second video clip of our children, it felt like we knew them. F.G. was soft spoken and shy; K.D. was nonverbal and mischievous.

Well, we were wrong. We did not know we were wrong when we picked up the kids in Ethiopia because they were still like they were in the short video clip. But half a year in America has changed all of that.

It reminds me of the age old debate of nature vs. nurture. I can’t tell for sure if our kids’ personalities have changed or if their true personalities are now emerging. Either way, F.G. is clearly not soft spoken and shy and K.D. can talk your ear off.

Another thing that has either changed or emerged is that both F.G. and K.D. are real jokesters. On a trip this summer CrazyMom and I were helping manage the food line at my sister’s house as nine kids went through. After the kids were taken care of, the adults went through and got their plates of food. As we finally settled into some chairs outside ready to enjoy our first bite of food, K.D. came busting out of the house yelling.

“Mom! Mom! Me spilled my food!”

CrazyMom groaned and began to set her plate down when K.D. laughed, said, “Just kidding!” and disappeared back inside.

We were shocked. It was the first of what has now become normal behavior.

Then the other day CrazyMom sent F.G. down to the basement to get some potatoes. F.G. came back and said she could not find them. CrazyMom explained again, very carefully, where the potatoes were. A few moments later F.G. was back unable to find the potatoes. A little annoyed, CrazyMom set off to get them herself and as she started down the stairs she found the bowl of potatoes concealed a few steps down. F.G. thought it was so funny that she got a bad case of the Uncontrollable Giggles.

The lesson is obvious. You can’t really know the personality of a child from a 1” by 1.5” photo and a 20 second video clip. It is only later, under a different set of circumstances that one gets to discover who a child really is.

A New Marriage Low Point

CrazyMom and I have reached a new low point in our marriage.

I wanted to ask CrazyMom if she had remembered to take F.G. to the doctor that day. Since she had missed several appointments lately, I thought I had better follow up on this one.

Entering the kitchen I found CrazyMom cooking dinner and answering the question of a child. Behind that child was another child politely waiting to ask CrazyMom a question. Behind that child was a third child politely waiting to ask CrazyMom a question.

As much as I wanted to ditch in line, I knew it was not the example I should set. Instead, I went back to the office and sent CrazyMom an email.

When I checked my email later, sure enough, there was a response from CrazyMom. Turns out she had not taken F.G. to the doctor because she had cancelled the appointment.

While it was great to get my question answered, an internet relationship is not what I am hoping for. We will certainly have to continue to find ways to connect with each other in the real world.

Hair

One nice thing for dads living in America is that there are pretty low expectations for us in caring for the hair of our daughters. If I do my girls' hair and it is done poorly, others smile and are impressed that I tried. I am even seen as a great modern day dad. If my wife does a great job with the girls' hair, nobody is impressed since she is doing what moms ought to do.

Well, I have on occasion fancied myself as a modern day dad and I have, on occasion, done my girls hair. I can do pony tails, mostly symmetric pig tails, Laura Ingles braids, and the easy headband.

Then came F.G. There is no way I can do anything with her hair. Now that her hair has grown out some, she wants things done to it. It involves gels, oils, rubber bands, stretchy thingies, and a whole host of other materials that I don't work with. But above all, her hair requires skills that are far beyond my capacities.

The good news for F.G. is that CrazyMom is here. CrazyMom braided F.G.'s hair the other day for the first time. I don't know how she did it without taking a class, but she did. I tried to braid a patch and F.G. let me know in no uncertain terms that she would not need my services anymore.

It is a good thing I still have my day job.

One Lost Toy

As I was putting the boys to bed tonight, K.D. lay on his top bunk blankly gazing at the floor littered with toys. I had run out of gumption for the day and could not muster the energy to have the boys pick up their room before bed.

"Daddy, in Ethiopia I have only one toy," K.D. said without looking up from the toys.

"Only one toy? What was it?" I asked.

"It was small car. And I looked and looked and could not find it."

Building a Hovercraft

I was standing in my classroom at the end of last school year when I saw some students out on a playground trying to demonstrate a hovercraft that they had made. At that moment I knew I had to make a hovercraft this summer.

Well, I go back to work tomorrow so on Saturday I decided to drop my chore list and spend the day making a hovercraft with the kids. The entire time I had no idea if it would actually work or not so there was suspense right up to the moment when we tried it out.

The only sad thing about the whole event was how many times my kids came up to me and with all sincerity thanked me for making a hovercraft with them. Their gratefulness seemed to testify that I have been working a little too hard this summer on my to-do lists and not hard enough at carving out time with my kids.

That being said, Saturday was a fantastic time-with-Dad day and the fact that the hovercraft worked so well was a real treat. Here are some video clips of the hovercraft in action.

Kids wanting more kids

Before we adopted, some people in our lives were concerned about the impact on our birth kids from bringing new kids into our home. What would the kids think? Won't they have less of our attention? Might they not be resentful?

We have been fortunate that none of this has been true for us. Our kids are young enough that they really love to play and having more kids around just makes most games better. Lately our kids have been playing freeze tag after supper. Freeze tag works with six kids. Our kids also really like to play a version of capture the flag where you can freeze people. This game does not work with six kids and they only get to play when at least two neighbors show up. So last night they decided to lobby for a more permanent solution – having us adopt more kids.

Miss Bookworm thinks we ought to adopt four more kids, but this time we should get two older boys and two younger girls to mix things up. Buddy thinks two more would be good – a virtual twin for him and Miss Bookworm since Ed and Little Foot essentially got twins last time. Ed likes this plan as well. F.G. is neutral on the age/gender, but thinks more kids are a good idea. Little Foot has really enjoyed practicing his parenting skills on K.D. and prefers having more kids for him to parent rather than having more kids to parent him.

This is not the first time this has come up either. Every time we have guests with kids in our home our kids talk about how great it would be if we could adopt our visitors. After our friends leave and we take the leaves out of the table, the next time we sit down for a meal the kids will say, "Our family seems so small now" and they start asking about adopting again.

Our kids think of adoption like an extended play date. Play dates are a blast, therefore adoption is a long term blast. Life through the eyes of a child is so simple – more kids = more fun.

Pickles

Our birth kids are crazy for dill pickles. If you were to throw a single dill pickle in the middle of the dinner table, you would get a reaction similar to throwing a piece of meat into a tank of starving piranha. When F.G. first came to America, she saw how much our kids clamored for dill pickles and decided to try one. I wish I had a picture of the expression on her face when she put it into her mouth. It was clear that this was not ever going to be a food F.G. would tolerate.

I heard that when you are introducing a new food to a child, you should offer it to them about 30 times before you decide that they don't like it. CrazyMom and I certainly found this effect to be true with Ethiopian food. The first few times we tried it we did not care for it too much, then we were neutral on it, and now we enjoy it.

Tonight, towards the end of supper F.G. was clamoring for us to open up the one gallon jar of dill pickles we had – for dessert. To get an idea about how big these pickles were, the side of a jar said one serving was 1/5 of a pickle. F.G. along with our four birth kids each happily munched a whole one down.

Now, if we can just get K.D. to like anything other than pizza, mac and cheese and ice cream, we will be all set.

Learning English

When CrazyMom and I would talk to people about adopting older children from Ethiopia, it would eventually occur to them that the kids might not speak English.

"So, do the children speak English?"

"No. They speak their mother tongue and a little Amharic, the national language," we would reply.

For those who were already feeling a little overwhelmed by the whole idea, this was the last straw. We were now officially filed away in the admirable-but-misguided-friend file.

Well, learning English has not been that bad. Here is what we have experienced so far.

In the first few weeks, some things were tough and some things were surprisingly easy. It really helped to have other kids in the home so that F.G. and K.D. could just watch them. One of the first nights back, I walked into the family room and said, "OK everybody, time to go upstairs to take a bath." All of our birth kids took off to run upstairs for baths and F.G. and K.D. followed as well. Pretty easy.

There were also times in the first few weeks when we were desperate to communicate with them. They had something to say, something that was more significant than baths, mealtime, or getting dressed and the Amharic dictionary was not working for us. Pretty tough.

Within about two months the receptive language was so high for the kids that someone coming into our home would see them functioning just like our other kids. Their expressive language was at the point where they could communicate quite a bit, but it would definitely give away that they were learning English.

Their language was at the point where acquiring more language skills for daily life was no longer urgent, just important. With all that was going on, it was easy for CrazyMom and me to let natural daily life be their teacher rather than specifically working on English with them.

So we purchased the computer software Rosetta Stone for English. The kids work on this every day and it helps us to see gaps in their English that we might not otherwise notice. This gives us lots to talk about. Like the differences/similarities for the words girl, young woman, mom, lady, old woman, grandma, and grandmother.

There are some hurdles, however -- like getting Little Foot to speak English to K.D. When the kids first came from Ethiopia, there was a lot of talk like "me hungry" or "me go outside." Little Foot became enamored with this type of speech and still speaks this way to K.D. "Me done," he will say to K.D. when he is done brushing his teeth and it is K.D.'s turn. In fact, Little Foot now uses the word "me" so much I don't know how may years it will be before we will get K.D. to use the word "I".

Other than that, things are going great. It is a little too early to tell whether or not F.G. will retain an accent but it appears K.D. will not.

And by the way, K.D. has already picked up the selective English skill.

"Do you want to go out for some ice cream?" I will ask.

"Yes! Me love ice cream," he will respond.

"Can you carry this to the kitchen?" I will ask.

"Kitchen? What is this? Me don't know kitchen."