Six Days

In 6 days we're moving. Our post institutional kids who are in the only home they have ever known, are having problems. Some were bounced from one horrible institution to even worse places, suffering severe neglect and abuse at every one. One was in 3 institutions and two homes by the time we adopted him at age 10. Some have not yet recovered from being ripped from their home countries, language, smells, people, and everything else.

There are a lot of language barriers. All of the adopted kids are non-verbal and communicate using broken ASL, since none ever developed a first language. We don't know exactly what they understand since the cannot relay it back to us. We're reading lots of books, with lots of pictures about moving and packing. We look at pictures of the new house, talking about who will sleep in which room. We drive past the new house near every day (sorry to the sellers who I'm sure feel as if they're being stalked!) talking about the day we will move there, sleep there, cook dinner there. But, with each box and item placed in the POD, the anxiety level increases. One is doing a lot more scratching and acting out, and isn't sleeping well. Another hides in the basement therapy room, refusing to join the family for anything. Who can blame him when he's already lost one adoptive family and has only been here one year? Another spends most of her time moaning and rocking, her noise level increasing a little more every day. One who grinds his teeth non stop so badly that his gums have now started bleeding.

But I think how things would have looked if we moved one year ago, when I originally wanted to. (My timing is always off!) It could have been so much worse, but back in February we went on a family road trip, and the kids learned that although we were temporary nomads, we stuck together. My very good friend said something profound and her words have stuck with me.

When I think about you all away together and know as a family how important that is, it just makes me smile. For each of those kids to know that this is their group, these are the people who love you and have your back, with all the other people who have been in and out, etc, etc, etc, it just makes me happy.

And so we continue to put out small fires of anxiety here and there, and attempt to maintain our regular daily schedules. In just a few more days the kids will see our family's possessions emerge from the POD, they will watch me put their beds together and replace their bedding. All together. I will make a dinner and we will eat around our new table. It will take awhile to adjust, but I hope it doesn't take long for each of them to feel it again. Us. All in a different home, and still a family.