snippets...

Just in case you thought we'd forgotten! We did so much these last 10 weeks--oral surgery & fittings for a new partial, wedding calligraphy for 380+ invites (some twice!), a baby shower for my sister (in SC!), three (count them) 6-hour-one-way trips to SC, the Christmas parade, preschool, umm--Christmas (with its 400 cards)!, and then the odd backed-into car, busted waste pipe spewing sewage beneath the house, etc. Really, it's been quite calm (for not having medication)!

YoYo is our delight. Yesterday I woke from our afternoon nap when he patted my face gently & murmured, "So cute...so cute." Delicious boy! He got his Grandma when he asked to pray over lunch and proceeded to give thanks for "YeYe and NaiNai coming to my house to see me." He is so very sweet & deliberate. It is hard for me sometimes to remember his timid places, and that he likes to come to new people slowly and without fanfare.

Every time we turned around, it seemed, he begged us to sing "Silent Night" so he could make up a dance to it. He delighted in turning on the Christmas tree lights. He was so very careful each time he opened a present. He offered guests photos of himself (how he got a hold of them remains a mystery) or even ornaments from our tree, and he was so happy to decorate cookies on Christmas Eve.

We played in the leaves on Thanksgiving...


We went to the Franklin Christmas Parade with friends...


We spent time playing dress-up...


And did I mention we made cookies?

The only disappointment seemed to be when we headed to SC for the shower. YoYo made the cutest gingerbread (graham cracker) house in preschool, and he wanted to take it to show Nana and Papa. I forgot and left it in the kitchen, and as we rolled into Chesnee just shy of midnight, I heard his tiny voice pipe up, "Oh, no, Mama! I forgot my gingerbread house! I wanted to give it to Nana and Papa for a surprise!" I had no idea that was his plan. Sweetest little bear.

Fu Xia

I haven't posted in a while-I didn't realize anyone was still reading the blog til I got some "Hey you!" emails-sorry ;) I'll start anew with a Christmas wish.

I've said it many times, but YoYo's foster home--defies everything you've heard of Chinese orphanages. The children don’t share beds, the food is so good, the play area is well-organized, education is offered no matter the challenges. I am thankful Tian Yo lived his first years there. When we left, his ayis gave us four books with photos and letters in Chinese to be shared when he is older. Their love is the reason he is such a happy child.

The ayis now are trying to find a home for Fu Xia, their oldest charge. Born with arthogryposis and clubbed feet, Fu Xia was sent to an orphanage for severely mentally handicapped children. When a group from Blue Sky encountered him, they swept him up quickly. He was six. He’d never seen school or TV. Now eight, he attends school and has an incredible command of English. He’s a talented artist, working with brushes designed for his tightly arched hands, and his paintings grace the walls in large frames.

Fu Xia is such a strong personality, we were at the home hours before I realized he was rolling across the floor to get around. That blew my mind--I was the kid secretly terrified of children with physical challenges, watching the Jerry Lewis telethon with my Grandmother in quiet horror--but here was this boy, exuberant boy!, and he leapt into my heart before I could count his challenges. He laughs that his wheelchair is slow. He flung himself upstairs to give us a tour, proudly showing us his room. He wheels along the alley outside with children clinging to him; he's their big brother. When the volunteers were out, Fu Xia translated for us. Once I found him perched on a stool, carefully folding dumplings for the Cook. He is remarkable.

For several reasons, we're not currently eligible to adopt Fu Xia. My hope is to help him find parents. He is precious. In those first days with Tian Yo, Fu Xia asked us many questions, hiding his eyes when we left because we would not be taking him home. I grieve to remember when he told me, softly but matter-of-factly, “You have not come for me.” He broke my heart. I hope somewhere that a mother is not too afraid to love. I hope someone will come for him. I don’t know if his condition is treatable or correctable or manageable, but none of that matters because he is a child who needs a mother and father.

It has been nearly a month since I posted, and I hope you can forgive me for not offering fresh news of YoYo’s conquests. I am asking you instead for prayer and hope for this little one, and for information if you have seen him on any agency’s Waiting Child list. My Christmas wish, dare I breathe it, is to help this boy find a home.

This Kid

I have to admit it, I've had a hard time posting. It's hard to know what to write or how to talk about the settling in of a daily rhythm when the events which led up to it were so incredible. Everything I carry now as I look at this little boy, from kissing his toes to knitting my first little boy hat to feeling his tiny hand pat my face as he murmurs, "I love my girl," seems like the treasures that are stored up in any mother's heart. They are no less precious, but they're a different thing from the journey that brought us here. It's probably entirely ungrateful of my heart, but I find myself reluctant to blubber Momminess everywhere, as though it would tarnish this incredible thing that has happened. I have a lot to learn, I think.

We still exist in this world where our son has a life that played out before we came along. There are photos in so many places of him, some even in distress in hospital, that I don't know of and will never see. I don't feel unsafe in that; instead, it reminds me that we are so blessed to be part of such a larger image of God's love for one small child.

Shane jokes that YoYo is Bono--but there is still that rock-star like feeling sometimes. I staffed a booth in October for Shaohannah's Hope at a Steven Curtis Chapman concert. When we approached the table at the beginning of the evening, my Mom poked me. "Hey, that's YoYo." Sure enough, he was the poster child on the tabletop "November is Adoption Awareness Month" display, clutching his pink dog and looking upwards with Precious Moments eyes. Mom, in the Most Proud Grandparent in the World mode, told every single person--and I mean that--who that little boy on the poster was. This kid! Who has that happen to them?

Then yesterday, we collected our mail and found a catalog from the adoption agency. As many negative things as we experienced with them, I still have to say in fairness that their sponsorship program for orphans with special needs helped give YoYo lifesaving medicine and daily supplies. We opened the catalog, which highlights sponsorship information for several countries...and found a full-length YoYo, his two-year-old hands clutching a Christmas ornament, his feet snuggled in footed pj's capped with panda faces. They weren't soliciting funds on his behalf, mind you, it just so happens that he's the most beautiful child in the world, and who else would make such a convincing case that all children are precious?

Of course he laughed at it. He has no idea that there's anything unusual about his photo being on random pieces of mail or news video links. Why wouldn't he see himself on TV or in other people's posters? It doesn't seem to be a fixation-he doesn't constantly ask to see pictures of himself-so perhaps I won't obsess over that for now.

But he is adorable. And yesterday, in the greatest of all gifts in the world, he proudly gave me his first hand-turkey at preschool. I am such a lucky girl.



P.S. That toothless grin? We had oral surgery the day before Halloween (tragic!), and it turns out he had a LOT of infected teeth. We're getting "new teeth" in a few days, but moments like this make me think twice-so cute!

Anniversary

This is difficult to put into words. One year and two days ago, our agency called at 11 am to say that we had been matched with Tian Yo if we still wished to adopt him. I collapsed to the floor in tears, staying there long after the call was ended, the receiver on the floor. I was undone.

The night before had been sleepless. By the time gray light streaked the wet sky, I was convinced we would have to say no if we were matched with this little one. In the two weeks since seeing his profile, our lives had changed. I filled four notebooks with everything I could find about Tian Yo's challenges, from exstophy to colostomy to single kidney to spina bifida. My silly penchant for endless research was finally validated. And there was no way we could do it, we concluded. Medical supplies, surgeries, more money than teachers can hope for. What were we thinking to even request this little boy? I prayed he would never know how we failed him, that he'd never know he was rejected because his body's betrayal had scared people. I tried to imagine when and how he might find parents, or if he would go unrequested so long he would finally be ineligible for adoption. What would he do? Where would he go?

And then the craziest thing happened. The phone rang at 9 am. It was Dr. John Gearhart, the pediatric urologist who operated on Tian Yo just months before we learned of him. T, Tian Yo's tireless advocate, had sent Dr. G. YoYo's story when the constant reflux of fluid into his kidney endangered his life. The Dr. replied that he would waive his fees to correct Tian Yo's condition if the foster home could raise the money for hospital stay and travel. They did it, and Dr. G. saved Tian Yo's life. Now this surgeon, perhaps the best in the world in his field, was calling me about this little boy. He said, "There is a reason Tian Yo was born with this, and there's a reason he came here, and you and your husband are part of that story." No naming of God, but indeed words of Shalom.

And then came the call. Yes we will bring him home, yes we will love him forever, yes we will...

I drove to school weeping to tell Shane, playing one song again and again. When I first heard U2's "When You Look at the World," I wept. For three years, I had not been able to hear it without crying. There was something in it of a love larger than I had, without sympathy, empathy, pity, and I could not imagine being able to know it. But now, this was changing, too.

When you look at the world
What is it that you see?
People find all kinds of things
That bring them to their knees...

...When there's all kinds of chaos
And everyone is walking lame
You don't even blink now do you
Don't even look away...

...I can't wait any longer
I can't wait til I'm stronger
I can't wait any longer
To see what you see
When you look at the world.

For years, I cried, wondering how someone could love freely enough to gaze steadily into the eyes of a broken human. Death, age, blood, disability, leprosy, maimed torn life that I could not fix, how could anyone not blink? What could it be to love like that?

It could be Tian Yo-Heaven Protect, Heaven Bless. Welcome home, little one. I love you.

tag!

Well, Chelsea did it-she totally surprised me, and boy was it a welcome one. Thanks to Chelsea Gour, over at gourfamilyadoption.blogspot.com, for the challenge. I don't know how to link a blog, but I'll sure try. As for the random facts...well, you really shouldn't be surprised.

Fact 1: I had an album on Word Records. Really. I do a mean NYC accent, so I was hired as a Rosie O'Donnell impersonator for a kids' Christmas album called, "The MK Christmas Special." (MK=Missionary Kids) They even asked me to sing-haven't gotten any other offers...yet.

Fact 2: I set my classroom on fire in 5th grade-I didn't mean to. I was isolated for talking too much (imagine!), and when I got my work finished before everyone else, I pulled the wire from a spiral notebook and stuck it in an outlet to see what would happen. Turns out, it set the carpet on fire.

Fact 3: I demonstrated/taught a pilates routine for pelvic support to an ob/gyn and her assistant the day before they opened the first women's post-natal care clinic in Northern Iraq.

Fact 4: One of my life goals is to win a ribbon at our county fair for my chocolate pound cake, peach preserves, or both. Dear Aunt Betty, I am coming to get you. Dear Grandmother, I am converting your recipes from cups to grams in the pursuit of America's Test Kitchen precision.

Fact 5: Long story, but when I was 8, I played drums for the first time in the home studio of Artimus Pyle, then drummer for Lynyrd Skynyrd-he let me try out his drum kit and my Dad feared we'd be in a world of trouble if I broke anything, but Mr. Pyle said, "It's OK, man, let her do her thing."

Fact 6: I took a weekend Pre-Raphaelite painting class at the Tate Gallery, London. Can we just live there, please?

Fact 7: I ran numbers for a bookie...when I was six.


Ok, that was fun! So here's my tags-go girls!

http://kat.eleven33.com/
http://www.erin-eje.blogspot.com/ (also see www.erinelizabethjones.com for her thinking-ful art)
http://shouston.blogspot.com/

shuffling hope

It's hard to imagine that time could pass as swiftly as it has since my last post. This kid, he keeps me on my toes.

Turns out, he had an MRI, buried in some of the records from Johns Hopkins-ones I didn't see-and there was no evidence of spina bifida. Oh tired quiet wonderful deep joyful praise. Let me just rest in that for a bit.

This week alone, we have traveled to a GI doctor to discuss prognosis, an ENT for a followup to last month's visit, and a pediatrician for a physical and permission to have anesthesia for the Oct. 31 oral surgery. The GI visit was great-that's where we learned the spina bifida news. The ENT visit, not so great. YoYo had really dirty ears (let's all pause for a moment and recognize that I am using very gentle language to describe the condition of my boy's inner ears), and it has taken 3 weeks of nightly administration of very strong eardrops (bedtime + 5 fizzy drops in each ear + suctioning < fun) to get those ears clean without damaging eardrums. One clean ear is fine, the other isn't. Too early to say whether he is or will be deaf in one ear--we'll just have to wait until April, apparently. Boy am I glad for that spina bifida news.

We went to preschool for the first time today-scoped one out, actually, hoping to hear more Monday from them-and the little Prince grabbed hold of the rope with the rest of the kids in the class, waved and called, "See you later, Mama!" before jauntily marching out to the playground. I was so proud-and relieved-that he feels safe.

I forget, sometimes, that YoYo's wounds are hard for some to see. I have been so utterly plunged in up to my eyes with his care that it wasn't until today, at preschool, that I realized I must make his path smooth by helping those who will assume his care in my stead at school or elsewhere. How to anticipate the needs and uncertainty of others....

It's strange, but it seems that looking out for that fearful glance, the pause that may stop a person's tongue from voicing their fear of my son, their faintness at seeing him for the first time, and speaking to it gently, finding the person inside and behind that moment, is as much a way of loving Tian Yo as hugging him tightly. I wish I'd thought further, sooner. I felt suddenly such a need to limit his exposure and even his knowledge of it. When and how can a mother choose to help her child feel beautiful and unafraid and loved, and how can she make him brave for the future, and how can she teach him compassion for others?

With hope that shuffles from one day's good report to the next day's uncertainty-it shuffles, but it stays, and it dances, but is still. With love for the boy who races his car down the slide, who makes me Lego chairs, who takes my picture with tireless glee, who offers me his last pretzel without reservation, who jumps with newfound energy at 9:30 P blessed M. I help him most when I can meet him as he is, a sweet child who wants me to play and build with him, until even I forget the catheters and pouches and cleaners and medicines.

time

I was looking at Chelsea Gour's great blog last night, and I realized it's been 3 weeks since I wrote. Fear not, gentle reader, this implies no lack of action on my part--in fact, there's been a lot of action in the Caudill household. A quick update...

YoYo is speaking almost entirely in English, although we still use limited Chinese. We don't want him to lose that language. We've enjoyed playdates and are looking for a way to do preschool. I've been emailing with the families completing adoptions of his buddies! And we traveled to SC for a few days.

We've visited a TON of doctors. A checkup at the pediatrician was good, although he sent us to an ENT. YoYo has hard wax in his ears, so the ENT visit ended with him strapped to a board and screaming while the doctor recommended ear drops & a return visit. Our first trip to the dentist was bad--we were swiftly sent to a pediatric dentist with the recommendation that "sleepy juice" should be involved (for YoYo, not me). Then the pediatric dentist took a looksee at YoYo's awful teeth and cheerfully outlined a $ 4500 plan to cap and fill them while he's under anesthesia so they can last long enough to fall out naturally in a couple of years.

Then, there was the first Sunday School. Honestly, I was just hoping to see if he was ready for a classroom, and Sunday School comes in a small dose--a little over an hour. He clammed up at first, then was a totally new man when the prospect of graham crackers emerged. Does that count as revival? The class headed to the playground briefly, and suddenly Mr. "I'm not making eye contact with anyone here" was on top of the tallest slide, arms in the air, yelling, "Everybody look at me! Mama, YoYo is all the way up here and EVERYBODY else is down there." So, great-he speaks English well enough to reveal that he's a megalomaniac.

Oh yes. We had our 6 month post adoption visit with our agency. What? We've only been home 4 months now, you say? Well, that's true. Our agency is downsizing and is closing ALL regional branches in the nation, leaving only its headquarters open. Our branch director was thoughtful enough to make a plan for our third/final post placement visit, turning our file over to another agency. We'll have to pay the difference in fees, as that agency's present cost for post placement stuff is higher than the fee we paid upfront to our agency last February. In the middle of closing the branch that she thought she'd be working with for the rest of her career, the regional director was kind enough to move our 2nd post placement visit forward so we wouldn't have to pay extra for it and would get taken care of in a timely manner. There have been some moments of mercy with our agency, as bad as it has been at other times, and I am so thankful that this was one of them.

The waiting parents are not so lucky. They had a chatgroup that was moderated by our agency. As regional offices began to close, it seemed each region was left to make its own exit plan. So far, our regional director did the best job of communicating and caring for clients. Other regions sent emails to partial lists of people, leaving many waiting parents to find the news via chatgroup. The panic that ensued was predictable, as was the anger. The same program director who was deaf to my fears last November when I drove to St. Louis first reprimanded these parents for their posts, even calling some at home to scold them for causing "anxiety" for others online. A few days ago, the agency closed the chatgroup with a reminder of the contract parents had signed with them--parents should not abuse or be disrespectful toward agency employees, the letter said, referencing parents' mean, selfish spirits in their complaints and negativity towards staff in the chatgroup. The letter went on to remind (threaten?) folks that if clients didn't uphold their end of the contract, the relationship could be terminated at the AGENCY'S DISCRETION. Oh, yes, you read that correctly. The agency director even went so far as to tout that staff members prayed collectively every morning for God's will to be done. I hate when that gets all weaponized.

Ah well, that's enough for the moment. You chew on that, while I go put papers together to prove to our insurance carrier that YoYo is our son. And then I have to give Vanderbilt some spending money. And then I have to see if the translation of our adoption certificate is finished. I'll come back. You know it.

ps-I love this kid-he's so amazing. I'm not even smart enough to keep up with him, but I'll run as hard as I can!