"My Russia"

It's arrived sooner than I ever expected: Russia.

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The scene: Bedtime, lights out, Daniil is lying in his striped pj's (with padded feet), tucked in under the covers in his little bed. We've just finished our good-night kisses and hugs. I lie in the big bed next to him, still fully dressed, expecting to sneak out of the room in a few minutes, once Danya falls asleep, to do the dishes and other evening chores.

Danya: Tommy said "My Russia." No, Danya's Russia.

Mama: Danya's Russia, not Tommy's?

Danya: Yes. (Pause) Mama Russia?
Mama: I went to Russia to find you.

Danya: I'm here!

Mama: I found you! That was the happiest day of my life.

Danya: I'm here! I found you!

Mama: We found each other. I'm the luckiest Mama in the world. I am your Mama forever and ever. And you are my son. Moy solnyshka.

Danya: Big hug. Squish me.

I lean down and over to Danya's bed. We embrace in a big bear hug.

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Tommy, as I recall, is an older boy in Daniil's class at the Montessori School who also was adopted from Russia. I'm going to email the teacher to get details. And I'm going to talk with other adoptive parents about ways they've discussed adoption with very young children. I figured this would come up at age 6 or 7. My boy's ahead of the curve in many ways.

Daniil's Progress Report

Last week we returned to the International Adoption Center at Tufts Floating Hospital for Children. We paid our first visit in late September, after Danya had been home one month. So this was a 3-month check-in. They redid some basic tests and here are the results. Note that Daniil is 3 years, 7 months old right now.

Gross motor: No concerns whatsoever about his gross motor skills. They only measure up to a 3-year-old level and he tops out here just fine.

Fine motor: Daniil's FM skills have advanced 10 months over the past 3. His little fingers are now working at a 4 year old level.

Cognition: Daniil's cognitive abilities have advanced 20 months over the past 3. He thinks at a 54 month old level, like a 4.5 year old

Receptive Language: Advanced by 6 months over the past 3. Danya understands English like that of a 3 year old (this places him 7 months behind)

Expressive Language: Advanced by 11 months over the past 3. He speaks like an average 3 year+3month year old (4 months behind)

The doctors told me that they have never seen cognitive and fine motor jumps like this. They also noted that Daniil's quick, agile mind, full of thoughts, coupled with his delay in language, is a potential set-up for major frustration. I do note this at times at home when Danya can’t tell me exactly what he needs/wants and resorts to pushing or hitting me. In response, I ask him to use his words, remind him that hands are not meant for hitting, and ask, “What do you need/want, Danya?”

4 months home. In a brand new country. A brand new culture. With a brand new Mama, the first in memory. Learning a brand new language from square one. Living in a big house. Sleeping in a room with only one other person, not 15. Testing Mama's limits. Trusting Mama's love. Discovering chocolate-chip ice cream, and cats as living creatures with claws, and the joys of riding on a tall man's shoulders, and going to school for the first time, and what it means to have your very own Pop and Baba and Papa (my dad)...

Bravo, Daniil! Roaring applause, standing ovation

Quiet

I continue on the theme of finding me/finding peace in the midst of single motherhood. I checked out a book for Daniil from the library titled The Quiet Book by Deborah Underwood and sweetly illustrated by Renata Liwska. So many lines of this book take me to that meditative place Karen Langley wrote of (blog entry 1/3/11, Help When You Need It). The book leads off: "There are many kinds of quiet:" A single line of text then appears on each page under a whimsical drawing. Here are some of the lines that "take me there," to a clear, quiet place. (Since you don't have the benefit of an actual book in your hands and the chance to turn actual pages, I suggest that you try pausing for 5 seconds or more after each line to allow it to sink in and have its way with you.)




There are many kinds of quiet:

First one awake quiet
Don't scare the robin quiet
Coloring in the lines quiet
Hide-and-seek quiet
Last one to get picked up from school quiet
Swimming underwater quiet
Pretending you're invisible quiet
Lollipop quiet
Right before you yell "surprise!" quiet
Making a wish quiet
Best friends don't need to talk quiet
* Right before the concert starts quiet
First snowfall quiet
Car ride at night quiet
Tucking in teddy quiet
Bedtime kiss quiet
Sound asleep quiet

*my favorite

Help When You Need It

This just in from my dear friend and counselor Karen Langley who is a serious student of A Course in Miracles (ACIM). I'd put out a call to her for support and insight on how to create more "me" time and here is her response.

Back in the day, I waited for my daughters' nap time and then dropped what I was doing and ran to the meditation pillow. Also, I had another mother who was working at home across the street from me and we would sometimes cover for each other. I agree that as a single parent it must be crazy hard.

Even now I forget to try this kinda simple thing. See if it helps: When Daniil's attention is on something else, close your eyes and remember meditating... rest in that remembrance for a few seconds and you might actually feel like you meditated when your attention returns to Daniil.

OR, remember sharing a moment of quiet peace with friends, or the laughter (usually at ourselves) with friends. Take as long as you can in that remembrance and you might feel that peace or laughter again.

OR, think of a color, or sound, or person, or painting, or a nature scene that centers you, or inspires you, etc. and let yourself go into that feeling.... Sometimes remembrance of what once worked/helped before brings about the same experience.

The brain is quite easy to trick. It really does not know if we are in that experience now or if we are remembering. This is kinda the reverse of 'being here now.'

Instead, be where a lovely moment happened (that you can bring to mind) and see if you can re-experience it now. This could be fun finding what works and what does not. This helps me a lot while waiting for doc. appts. or my grown-up daughter to show up when she is nearly always late, or even when my old sweet dog is taking her time doing her business and I am freezing outside. (I think of summer heat warming up my skin.)
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I say, 'whatever works.' We are already and always in The Love of God and often need to trick our brains into reminding us! It does not have to take a long meditation. In fact, ACIM says that a few moments of True Remembrance does more for us than a lifetime of meditation.

Renunciation 2

"Dying to one's life as it was." I came across this definition of "renunciation" while watching a PBS special on the life of the Buddha. It immediately resonated. Ah! That's it exactly. This is the process I'm undergoing as a new mom.

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Death of any kind is unnerving, to say the least, even one that results in enlightenment or transformation. I know from experience that this process of renunciation/transformation/resurrection would be much easier if I totally surrendered to it. But I keep holding out: there must be a way to hold onto the me I once knew--my routines, my creativity, so much of my self-care, alone time, even my very thinking patterns--mustn't there? It's proving fruitless. As I continue to cling to my past, I'm only causing myself more (psychic) suffering.

So it's time to figure out how to create the necessary conditions for "letting go." I recall a beautiful letting-go poem by e.e. cummings, one I memorized many years back:

let it go-the smashed word broken
open vow or the oath cracked length
wise-let it go it
was sworn to
lllllgo

let them go-the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers-you must let them go they
were born
lllllto go

let all go-the
big small
middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things-let all go
dear
lllllsso comes love

Okay, so I’ve got to trust that when I let go, love is there to catch me. This sounds really good, but, honestly, I'm still left resentful that I have to give up so much of what makes me "me" to be a mom.

Then I remember the work I did with a terrific therapist in Arlington, MA. Although Suzanne happened to be a practicing Buddhist, our work together consisted of doing something traditional Buddhism would not condone: we created overarching "frameworks" or constructed narratives that I could fall back on when I felt myself entering unknown territory in my life. For instance, she'd often remind me of the mythology of entering the underworld. It's a given: one can't see for a while. It takes time for one's eyes to adjust in the dark. It's also a given that as I keep walking I will indeed begin to see what needs to be seen. And not only that. I'll also be given necessary aid along the way. A helping hand from a stranger. Direction from a snake that, at first, appears to be an inert gray stick. Eventually, I will emerge up into the light, transformed, wiser for the journey and the trusting and the reliance on the natural order.
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I've decided to contact Suzanne again and ask her to help me create another useful narrative to help me chart this uncharted new- and single-mom territory that is putting my very fibre to the test. I'm hoping that her support, along with prayer and talking with lots of other parents about their experience, will ready me for complete surrender into motherhood.

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Perhaps I will soon get to the jumping-off point where I can say, wholeheartedly: "Yes" to this too, O Life, O Love, O Great and Blessed Unknown. Let my surrender into motherhood change and transform me as You would have me changed and transformed for the sake of service and the sake of Joy.

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Then again, maybe I'm making things way too complicated. Maybe all I need to do is go out and corral a big stable of able babysitters and then shell out the money to insure a set number of "Lisa" hours each week. I'll try both tacks and see what happens.