Did You Hear What I Said?

Sometimes (or a lot of times) we don't hear what a person said. I don't mean that he/she didn't speak loudly enough or some other noise kept us from hearing clearly. I mean they say something and by the time it makes it through all of our "stuff", our past experiences, our hurts, our fears, we hear something different. Maybe someone says "I can't meet you for dinner" or "I can't come to your party". We may hear "You aren't a priority so I'm not meeting your for dinner" or so on. We've all got our "stuff" that we filter every experience through. That's just what our pasts do for us--a special gift if you will.
That explains my James. He's got a small past that's a big ole whopping past and he filters all of these new experience through that past. It's all he knows right now. We can mature and grow and begin to understand that we can't filter new experiences through our old ones. We can't think that no one is trustworthy just because someone close to us in our past wasn't trustworthy. Make sense?
Life in our home as been interesting these past three and half months. James has made incredible advancements and is doing incredibly well considering.
Yet, until today there hadn't been a day that felt really good, like we were really getting somewhere with this whole grafting our family together thing. There had been snippets of good, like our trip to Florida. There was a whole lot of good during those seven days, but no day with extended periods of feeling like things were getting somewhere.

You see this face doesn't always look like this. Most of the day it's crinkled up and big ole tears are coming out of those gigantic eyeballs. I felt like a hamster in a cage running really fast, but never going anywhere really. I'd crawl into bed at night and think through all the ways I failed that day. (Not a happy way to end your days.)

I'd ponder and wonder why James wasn't learning that there were boundaries and rules established out of love. Not that I thought he'd "get it" immediately, but I couldn't understand the tenacity of his fight against them. Why after three and half months did he go back to the dvd player, even though every time before he'd been redirected or put in time out. I even thought perhaps he was incapable of understanding and maybe never really would, but then I'd watch him manipulate a stranger in public with his grin or his coy looks until they gave him something he wanted and then he's change his expression and stop interacting with them. I knew he could get it, but something was off.

Our house has been a relatively peaceful place. It's something I strive for. I want my husband and children to want to be home and not to dread it. It's not always an extremely neat place or beautifully decorated, but it's been theirs. This all changed when James came home. 

There was no peace. There were tears and screams, from James and John Owen (and maybe me, too). 

Stuff didn't get done because I was refereeing or training or correcting or cleaning up some new mess.

Those faces are the faces I wanted to see during the day at home--smiling faces. We visited our International Adoption Pediatrician again last week. During the visit we discussed James' lack of language acquisition. He is behind as are all children adopted internationally. Most progress and get on target within six months of being in the states or within the year. James of course had severely stopped up ears. It's been one month since he had tubes put in and his hearing improved so drastically, yet he has a vocabulary of...wait for it...3-5 words. Of course language is a huge part of our issue at home. He signs for us for his basic needs like food, drink, please, but that's it. 

The rest of the time it's a big mystery if he understands what I'm saying or not. He is a man of many sounds and noises, but few words. He come to us saying "bye" and "nona". Only twice has he called me "mama". Most of the time he'll call anyone "nona" and points to himself if you ask him where mama is. (This is somewhat comical.) I know he'll pick these things up. I know he'll get it eventually. He's a smart boy.

Saturday and Sunday I went to bed desperately needing a peaceful house again, praying that God would give me wisdom and help me know how to help my boy. I didn't want to keep going to bed defeated and tired and just plain ole grumpy because I'd spent my whole day fussing at John Owen or correcting James.

And then this morning as the morning began like all the others had with John Owen playing with something and James trying to get whatever John Owen has, John Owen yelling and calling for me and me trying to get James to play with his own toys, I had a revelation. It came out sheer desperation and frustration and it was a beautiful gem that changed our day.

I got out the pack-n-play, set it up in the family room, put James' toys in it and plopped him in it. I expected tears and screams and a big ole fit (he can throw a mean one). But instead I got peace, sweet blissful, beautiful peace. James played happily with his toys confined to his little space and John Owen played beside the pack-n-play with his toys.

It changed everything about our day. As I reflected upon why it would make a difference, I thought about how James spent the first part of his life in a little room and though he's made leaps and bounds, I don't think he can handle a lot of open space. Maybe he just needed the comfort and even protection of his own space to free him up to play. 

You see James interprets everything through his past experiences and they weren't so good. It's funny it took me so long to figure out he needed even tighter boundaries to make him feel safe enough to just play, but I'm thankful for the wisdom that God imparted to me today. I'm thankful for the peace today.