Road Trip, part 2

So after we got Daniel's Certificate of Citizenship and took a few photos, we left Pittsburgh.  This was easier said than done, since our internet directions sent us down some small and not well signed streets.  But eventually we made it to the highway and started our drive to D.C.  All three driving days of our trip were marked by beautiful weather and lovely scenery, but this was the day where we saw the most fall leaves.

We stopped at a gas station part-way.  I remember this stop for two incidents.  One was that a group of men eating in the little cafeteria section were making me feel vaguely uncomfortable by watching me.  I was trying to think, with just a little irritation, why in the world they were staring, when it occurred to me that it just might be because Daniel and I were speaking in Chinese!  Ha.  It surprised me that I noticed, though; sometime between my childhood in Thailand, when I hated being stared at, and when Tim and I went to live in China as adults, I just stopped paying attention.  Daniel is pretty oblivious too, because he can't see very far.  But Esther does notice, and doesn't like it.  She also gets prickly when total strangers come up to us to gush about how beautiful she is.  Anyway, the other memorable incident from that stop is that Esther, rejoicing in being allowed to wear a pull-up for the first time in several months, decided she was not going to sit on the toilet, and showed her determination by writhing, kicking, arguing, and laying dark plans to cut my head off.  Not fun to be having a major confrontation with your child in a public restroom!

The rest of the drive was, thankfully, pleasant, and we arrived at our friends' house mid-afternoon.  After just a little shyness, Esther started having a great time with her good friend A, who is just a few months older than she is.  Eventually she and he and his mom and I ended up outside playing with balls and riding toys.  Daniel had been dinking around on the computer in the living room, but, never one to enjoy solitary pursuits, he found his way outside, too.  First he wanted to ride A's training bike; then, when I refused to let him (for fear he exceeded the weight limit!), he settled for borrowing some tools and adjusting the training wheels so that the bike would work better for the little kids.  Then he pulled out A's little sister L's old toddler riding toy (the kind you push with your feet) and (with permission from our friend) started zooming down the gentle slope of their cul-de-sac like a wild thing, over and over.  Esther got into the fun on a Big Wheel tricycle, and they played that game for a very long time.  The weather was balmy, and it was such a pleasant way to spend an afternoon after a long drive!

As evening approached, we gathered everybody up and set out to join our old Friday-night Chinese fellowship.  Daniel was, at first, not happy about going.  I think part of it was that he was more tired and stressed from the trip so far than I realized.  But part of it was that culturally, when you visit someone, you stay with them, so he thought we were being weird and rude by going off to do our own thing.  So he spent a good part of our hour-long drive complaining, with occasional breaks to admire the city lights, the traffic, and the smell of the air.  (He is a real city boy!)  Once we got to Grace Fellowship and Daniel realized that our Chinese friends were, in fact, Chinese--as in, everyone was from China and everyone was speaking Chinese--he warmed up rapidly to being there. 

One interesting incident happened early on.  A man spoke to Daniel in English, and Daniel asked (with a suggestion of irritation) why he hadn't used Chinese.  The man responded that he had heard Daniel speaking Chinese and thought he spoke Chinese like someone who is used to speaking English.  Of course, Daniel still barely speaks English!  But it made me wonder if he has been mirroring my stilted Chinese and is starting to sound less like a native speaker after all our hours of conversation together.  He has told me that he already feels like he is losing some of his Chinese, which surprised me given that that is mostly what he speaks!

Over dinner, Daniel happily chatted with our table companions and scolded me a little for using English with them rather than Chinese.  (However, I think that one of their goals was to practice English, so I kept right on speaking English for the most part.)  I realized that my Chinese has gotten not only much faster since Daniel has been in our family, but also better.  I understood more of the language that was happening around me (as opposed to what was being directed to me) than I ever have before, and also had my first-ever experience of a situation where, given a conversation partner who could speak both languages (but English not well), there were times when it was easier for me to say something in Chinese than to figure out how to say it in English in a way my partner would understand!

After the dinner there was a time of worship for the whole group, and it did my heart good to see Daniel so engaged!  He couldn't read the words of the song that were being projected onto the screen upfront, so he went up on his own initiative to look at the words on the computer screen, and participated in the singing.  One of the music leaders let Daniel play her tambourine for the last song, which he did with a good will and a reasonable sense of rhythm.  After the singing, Simon, the leader, introduced the day's memory verse: Romans 3:23.  Daniel was obviously tracking with him as he explained it, and even interjected a comment or two.  (And a couple of times since that night, Daniel has recited it for me, including the reference!)

A few days earlier, Simon had asked me if Tim and I, as former members of the fellowship (where we used to lead the English group) would be willing to share with the group about our trip to China to adopt Daniel.  I asked Simon if I could speak in English and have someone translate, partly because I knew there would be people there who would have a hard time understanding the English, but mostly because I wanted Daniel to know what I was saying.  I had told Daniel what we were going to do and he said that was okay.  So I began sharing, with Simon translating.  I talked about how we had wanted to adopt another child from China, but didn't think we had the time or the money to do it last year.  I told about the amazing circumstances of our learning about Daniel's existence at a time when we weren't even "looking" for a child from China, about how hard we prayed to discern God's will, and about how God led us to commit to adopting Daniel.  I shared about paperwork that got done more quickly than is normally possible.  And I shared how much we wondered about what Daniel would be like, and what it would be like to have him as part of our family.  Now we can see so many ways that he fits into our family, but we didn't have any of that information prior to meeting him.  We had no way of knowing that we were the right family for Daniel and that he was the right child for us, but, I said, God knew!  And while the things God calls us to are not always easy, they are always worth doing.  Much of this story was new to Daniel, as it was beyond my vocabulary in Chinese.  I could see him looking happier and happier as I talked and Simon translated, especially when I got to the part about him being just the right child for our family.  :-)  

After I shared, Simon was just gearing up to have everybody pray for us when Daniel said to me that he wanted to say something, too.  So I conveyed that to Simon, and he was happy to let Daniel have the microphone.  Daniel stood up and said more-or-less the following:

It's very xinfu [remember that word?  It means something like warm, happy, and authentic] to have a family.  My Dad and Mom have taken me to be their own child.  Whatever problem I have, whether it's small or big, they take care of it like I'm their own child.  I wish every child could have a family.  Some kids who look for a family and never find one grow up to have some problems.  My Mom really loves me.  Sometimes I do some things or say some words that aren't good, and she teaches me how to do things the right way.  She really loves me and she is really patient with me.

I had noticed a few teary eyes by the time I concluded my bit of the talk, but there were quite a few more after Daniel spoke, including mine!  It was good to know that when he is being serious (and not in a snit about something!), that that is how he feels.  And oh, how I join him in wishing that every child could have a family!

Afterwards, Simon had everyone lay hands on us and pray for us.  Unfortunately, Tim and taken Esther outside to play (she was not handling the stimulation very well) and missed the whole thing!  I hadn't called him when I talked because he already knows the story, but I would have if I had known that Daniel was going to talk!

We had been going to leave as soon as the fellowship divided into small groups for study, but Tim got a phone call about that time from a special friend of ours who has helped us in a number of ways during this adoption (and is the main reason I kept my Chinese up the last few years!  I had no idea how thankful I was going to be for that!) saying that she would be there soon.  So we went into the kids' room and chatted with a couple of other friends while we waited for her. 

When our friend arrived, Daniel poured out into her ear all kinds of thoughts and feelings that he had apparently been saving up.  He started out by asking her to ask me how well I think I know him.  I responded that I really didn't know, because I think it takes several years of being with a person to know whether you are really seeing them as they are or whether you are just seeing what they are letting you see.  He seemed to find that answer satisfactory.  Then he went to great pains to have her explain to me the role that fighting played in his life at the orphanage.  He said that he fought a lot, with all kinds of different people, and that sometimes the group of boys that he lived with would get into fights for no more compelling reason than that they had just been told they would have an exciting activity the next day and they needed to let off steam.  His goal seemed to be to get me to understand just what an achievement it has been for him not to get into a single fight, either with Esther or at school, during the time he has been with us.  I wonder also if he was doing a little pre-emptive damage control to make sure we won't be too disappointed if he loses control of his temper at some point!  One he had covered that subject, he devoted a very long time to complaining about Esther, and how she will hit him or kick him or step on him if she thinks I'm not looking and she can get away with it.  This has been a tough issue for us, because she is at that age where she will lie through her teeth if anyone accuses her of doing anything wrong, so we get into a he-said, she-said.  But even though we know she is likely to be the one at fault, I don't want to make a policy of taking his word over hers because if she should ever be hurt by someone (whether him or someone else), I don't want her to believe that it's not worth telling us because we won't believe her.  But on the other hand, I can understand why Daniel might feel that we're playing favorites!  And it is so hard to prevent--they can both be in the same room with me, but if I happen to be looking in a different direction when the altercation starts, I really don't know who did what to whom.  We didn't reach any resolution on the Esther issue, but Daniel vented for a while and then we reached the point where we really had to go before Esther got any more tired.  So we headed back to our friends' house and feel into bed, after making plans to meet our Chinese friend for lunch and more conversation the next day.

What makes you feel loved?

A little background information:  When Tim and I talk about "love languages," we are referring to a book (now a series of books) by Gary Chapman.  He theorizes that each of us is innately inclined to give and receive love in a certain way, and we are most likely to feel loved when others demonstrate their love for us according to our main "love language(s)."  He identifies five "love languages," which are: time spent together, affirming words, physical touch, gift-giving, and acts of service.

So the other day we were discussing the way that Daniel frequently hangs off of me, and Tim said (only somewhat sarcastically), "Do you think touch could be his love language?"  I agreed that that is very probable (although there may be other dynamics going on as well).  And then while I was on the subject of love languages, I realized that acts of service seem to be important to Daniel as well.  Again, I don't think it's the only dynamic going on here.  Helping people out--which Daniel loves to do!--allows him to be competent, no small matter as he's adjusting to a new family, language, culture, and--oh, yeah--adolescence.  And having me do things for him that a mother would normally do for a much smaller child allows him to experience "growing up" in our family, which he very much wishes he could have done.  But a couple of incidents recently stand out to me.

Back in the early fall, I had bought five or six long-sleeved shirts for Daniel.  I didn't want to overbuy, since I don't know how much he will grow this year.  And at the time he was only changing his clothes every two to three days, so I thought the number of shirts I had bought would be more than enough.  But now that he has discovered the joys of a morning bath, he is changing clothes at least once a day, and if I don't keep a close eye on my laundry schedule, we are in danger of running out!  And on one particular evening, I discovered that Daniel had no clean long-sleeved shirts.  T-shirts, yes.  Sweatshirts, yes.  But nothing that would be just right for the next day's weather.  So, shortly before bedtime, I headed downstairs to start a load of laundry.  It was a nuisance, but nuisances come along with the territory when you're a parent.  So I didn't think much of it, but when I told Daniel that I was doing laundry so that he would have the right kind of shirt to wear the next day, he looked super happy and told me "thank you."  And it occurred to me that before he became part of our family, he probably wore whatever happened to be available when he got up, even if it was not quite the right weight or size or style.  (He has told me--when I asked--that in the orphanage the kids didn't have individual wardrobes; they all shared a pool of clothes, and he didn't like it because some of the kids didn't keep the clothes clean.)  So it seemed to mean a lot to Daniel that I would do extra work just so that he could wear a just-right shirt.

This thought was reinforced the next day when, without being asked, Daniel finished loading up the dishwasher, ran a load of dishes, and then put them all away.  This is a chore that he will do when requested, but I know he doesn't enjoy it.  And when I thanked him, he said, "Because I love you."

Road Trip, part I

Oh! My! Goodness!  (to quote Daniel)  I am so far behind on blogging!  I haven't even finished writing about our China trip yet, and I don't think I've devoted a single post to our fun summer activities (unless you count enrolling Daniel in school as a fun summer activity).  Nor have I managed to share much of what I've been learning about raising and older internationally adopted teenager.  Somehow, there is always something else that needs to be done.  I still have hopes of getting to those posts sometime, but I really want to write about our road trip last earlier this month before I forget all the details.

This whole road trip started because Daniel had his fourteenth birthday in China.  You see, when we adopted Esther, she became an American citizen upon going through immigration at our port of entry to the U.S., and some while later we got her certificate of citizenship in the mail.  Easy.  Daniel also became a U.S. citizen upon arrival, but instead of getting his C of C in the mail, we got a letter from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services informing us that because our child was over fourteen at the time of immigration, he had to come in person to swear an oath of renunciation and loyalty to the United States and to sign his name on his C of C.  And apparently the closest place we could do this at was Pittsburgh!  I knew from another mother-of-teens' blog that there was no way around this, so we didn't bother fighting it.  However, it would have made an incredibly loooong and stressful (what if we got stuck behind an accident and missed our appointment?) trip to get there and back in one day.  So we picked a time when Tim had a couple of  free days and just pulled Daniel out of school.  The deal was somewhat sweetened by knowing that Daniel's former orphanage roommate, adopted four and a half years earlier, lived near Pittsburgh.  So we planned to drive up on Thursday, get the boys together Thursday after school, and have Daniel's citizenship appointment on Friday morning.  At first we thought we might go on to DC before coming home, then we got in our car accident and weren't sure if we were going at all, and then we bought a long-talked-of second vehicle while we waited for our car to be fixed, and resurrected the DC trip at the very last minute.

We bought our car on a Wednesday morning.  On Wednesday afternoon, Daniel helped put gas in it and it overflowed.  On Wednesday evening, the "check engine" light went on.  So on Thursday morning, instead of helping pack for the trip, Tim took the car back to the place we had bought it from and got their help in checking out the "check engine" light.  Everyone concluded it was probably a gas sensor reacting to the previous day's overflow, and we could drive the car on a long trip without (too much) fear of being left stranded by the side of the highway.  So Tim came home and we finally got started a couple of hours later than planned.  About two and a half hours into the trip, already running late for our rendevous with Daniel's old roommate, I realized that I had not brought the printout of our appointment letter that I had so carefully set aside several days earlier...nor the original letter telling us to report to Pittsburgh...nor Daniel's Chinese passport with the immigrant visa in it that proved he was supposed to be getting his certificate of citizenship and--oh yeah--is the only form of government-issued ID that we have for him.  I thought I could reprint the appointment letter if I could just get a hold of Daniel's A-number (the number which identified him as an immigrant).  That still left several reasons that the USCIS officer could decline to process us, if they were feeling picky.  But if we turned around and went back for the documents that would not leave any time for Daniel to get together with his friend, besides adding five hours of driving to our day.  So we decided to push on to Pittsburgh and hope for the best.

We arrived at our hotel and I started getting on the internet while Tim and company unloaded the car.  A phone call to our (always helpful!) adoption agency (WACAP) yielded Daniel's A-number, though not the photocopy of his immigrant visa that I had been hoping I had sent them.  (I remember copying it, but apparently it was for something else.)  So I re-generated our appointment letter and left it up on the computer until such a time as we could print it, the hotel not having facilities for printing.  Meanwhile T and his dad arrived.  T has forgotten much of his Chinese, and at first did not seem inclined to talk at all.  Since the plan was for him to hang out with us for the evening while his parents took siblings to their activities, I was not quite sure how we were going to manage with two silent boys!  However, I had had Daniel bring some pictures from the orphanage to show his friend, and they connected over those while I finished up a few things on the computer.  Then we headed out to a hamburger place, finding out only after we had started to order that T is a vegetarian!  Oops.  At first conversation was a little awkward.  Part of the time the boys tried to talk to each other, periodically asking me for translation help, and when they weren't talking, Tim or I tried to engage T in conversation.  But as the evening went on, T and Daniel started talking more and more independently.  (I think a good bit of T's Chinese must have returned to him, since they were getting along just fine in conversation by the last hour of our time together.)  After dinner we headed out to a store to print our appointment letter, only to have T offer that we could go back to his house and print it on his computer.  So we did that.  After a while, Tim took Esther back to the hotel to sleep.  Daniel and T and I continued hanging out at T's house for another hour or so, and then T's dad drove us back to the hotel.  I found it really interesting to talk with his dad, and find out that some of Daniel's quirky habits are ones that T also had when first adopted. Daniel found it really interesting to compare notes with T on allowances (T's is bigger) and household technology (T has a laptop and an ipod!).  Daniel said to me (while trying to suppress an ornery little grin), "T's household is so xinfu.  I wish our household was this xinfu."  (I'm using the Chinese word here because xinfu doesn't seem to have an exact English equivalent.  I've read/heard it variously translated as "warm," "happy," and "authentic.")  Seeing the grin, I asked him what made T's family so xinfu.  Turns out that if you really want an authentic, warm, happy home, you need a laptop and an ipod!  Ha.

So, the next morning we got up super early, gave ourselves three times as much time as the driving directions recommended to get to our appointment, breezed through the first few miles and thought we were going to be early, crawled along in rush-hour traffic for the next few miles and thought we were going to be late, and finally arrived at the office just in time.  In order to get in we had to show adult IDs but not Daniel's (phew!).  When our name was called for the appointment, I explained the situation.  The officer asked if he could see the letter instructing us to make this appointment.  Umm, oops, forgot to bring it.  Well, then could he see Daniel's green card?  Daniel doesn't have a green card, as he is actually a citizen already, but I could have shown you his immigrant visa...except, oops, I forgot to bring that too.  I offered Daniel's A-number (or maybe the officer asked), and he thought he could find Daniel's file with that.  (Thank you, God, and kind officer!)  So after only a little delay, Daniel got to sign his certificate of citizenship (good thing he knows how to write his name in English!).  Then it was time for him to take the oath.  Although we were the only people in the large room, our officer had Daniel come up to the front podium and stand by the flag.  He had to solemnly promise: (1) to support the Constitution of the United States; (2) to renounce and abjure absolutely and entirely all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which the applicant was before a subject or citizen; (3) to support and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; (4) to bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and (5) (A) to bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law, or (B) to perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law, or (C) to perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law.  The oath, of course, was in English.  But there are some words in there (abjure? potentate?) that I'm quite confident Daniel does not know in Chinese, nor would most 14-year-old native speakers of English know them in English.  The officer asked me to translate.  Woo-hoo!  My translation went something like this: "I will help the rules of the United States.  If I was the citizen of another country in the past, I am not a citizen of that country anymore, only a citizen of the United States.  I will always help the United States and not other countries.  [I had explained to Daniel before the oath that as long as there was not a conflict of loyalties, he could help other countries as well, but the United States now had to come first.]  I will always be loyal to the United States.  If the rules of the United States tell me to be in the United States army, I will be in the United States army.  If the rules of the United States tell me to help the United States army, I will help the United States army.  If the rules of the United States tell me to do work to help the United States, I will do work to help the United States."  Thankfully, Daniel was not  asked to repeat the words in English, just to raise his right hand, listen to the officer reading the English and to my mangled translation, and then at the end say "I do."  Then the officer gave Daniel a mini U.S. flag and congratulations.  (It did not seem that there was any standard procedure for administering the oath to a non-English-speaking adoptee, but that it was up to the officer's discretion.)  Daniel had been a little nonplussed about renouncing his loyalty to China when I first explained it to him, but he seemed to be fine with taking the oath.  (And I pray he will not run into a conflict of loyalty between his two countries!)  Esther was quite envious of his flag, so the officer found one for her too.  And after another wait for (I assume) paperwork to be completed, we were handed Daniel's certificate of citizenship and we were on our way!

eye exam

Daniel had his long-awaited ophthalmologist exam today.  He had a good attitude throughout the long drive there and back (we had to go to another city), testing, and waiting.  He did tell me, when he was asked to read progressively smaller lines of print, that he was tired and it was making his head hurt.  And right now he is taking a nap, so apparently he wasn't kidding!  They dilated his eyes, so although we had been planning on sending him in to school when we got back, we decided it wasn't worth it.

So, his vision: 20/250 uncorrected, slight refractive error in the right eye, significant astigmatism.  (Most of his vision issues are due to his retina being underdeveloped because of his lack of pigment; the refractive error and astigmatism only contribute modestly.)  We got a surprise, though: he has a cataract in his left eye!  Once the doctor pointed it out to me, I could see it clearly.  (Of course, his eyes were dilated at the time.)  If I remember her explanation correctly, she said it is a type of cataract that tends to form around a small, congenital defect in the very back of the lens.  Since his eye has not turned to one side, as it might from long compensation for a blind spot, she is hopeful that the cataract has not been there very long (she says this kind can grow quite suddenly) and that once it is removed, his eyes can go back to functioning as they did pre-cataract.  Of course we have very little medical history for him; the only thing we have is his pre-adoption exam, done when he was age ten, which lists the vision in his left and right eyes as "normal."  His vision has never been normal, but I hope that at least means they looked in his eyes and didn't see anything amiss at the time.  (Then again, another older child from his orphanage came with medical records that were almost certainly falsified to make her medical condition look less serious than it was.)

At the evaluation, we got to talk to several different professionals, and Daniel got to try out some nifty vision aides.  He came home with a monocular (kind of like a short telescope) and a dome magnifier.  He is also on a list to try out some more high-tech (and expensive) equipment in his school; that equipment will be owned by his school district, but will be very useful to him for things like seeing the board (which he currently can't do, even from the front row).  Once the official report is given to his school district, they will start the process of getting him an IEP for vision.  Meanwhile, we have been given the name and phone number of a doctor an hour away who can deal with his cataract.  I'm not sure what all cataract surgery on a teenager entails, but once that is all taken care of, then we can start to think about correcting those parts of his vision that are correctable.  One of my big concerns going into this evaluation was eye protection.  He does not, not, not like wearing glasses.  I have not pushed daily sunglasses yet, partly because I wanted to prioritize my energy into pushing sunscreen and toothbrushing, and partly because I wasn't sure whether the tinted lenses made it harder for him to see details even as they protected his eyes from UV damage.  (Since his irises are less pigmented than those of a person without albinism, his retinas are particularly vulnerable to damage.)  So, this evaluation became my "due date" for figuring out eye protection.  I talked the issue over with several of the professionals there, several people experimented with putting sunglasses on him, and the consensus is that he is a good candidate for tinted contact lenses.  His facial shape is such that most glasses are uncomfortable for him, not just because they are an unfamiliar sensation, but because they are truly an awkward fit.  Add to that the fact that sunglasses are forbidden at his middle school (except for medical reasons, but what teenager wants to stand out?), and that he doesn't really get why he should wear them (after all, he hasn't been wearing them for fourteen years, and he hasn't seen any negative consequences), and it would just be too easy for him to take them off and neglect to put them back on again.  He will likely think contact lenses are uncomfortable too, at first, but at least once they're in, you don't have to do anything more about them until bedtime.  And that way we can improve his visual acuity a little bit while at the same time keeping out those dangerous UV rays.  However, that is several months down the road.  First up, IEP and cataracts, goody for us!  Not.  But we're thankful to be in a position to get him the medical care and practical help that will give him the very best use of the eyesight he has.