Part Two

I promised to give you an account of the first 48 hours with the niños. Since then, we have lived what feels like a thousand lives. So I will try my best to recall the details.
To review, we drove home (to our airbnb) from the orphanage midday on Tuesday, November 6, with two sleeping children and two other nervous children. When we pulled up to the house, both of the littles were awake and saying, ¨La casa! La casa!¨ = ¨Home! Home!¨
Then began very hard times for the Bro6ans.

The agency rep who drove us home, helped us get all the kids out of the car. Then she said goodbye and drove away. At this time, Chad´s Spanish was very limited. Mine was basic but conversational. 
Chad unlocked the front door, and the tornado began. 
Despite the fact that we were told the kids would bring nothing with them from the orphanage, two IKEA-sized bags of toys had been sent with us. We had successfully hidden the candy, but they saw the bags of toys. And we did not have the sense to hide any of them right away. For the next six hours, which were only briefly interrupted by meals, the four older Brogans spent their time as follows:
chase niños around the house - there were many rooms
wrangle breakable, dangerous, or unsafe item from niños´ hands
find high shelf on which to quickly place item
chase niños to other room where they would grab a toy and pull it to pieces or scatter its parts like packing peanuts around the room
repeat.

At this point, Chad and I were practically strangers to them. They did not owe us any allegiance or obedience in their minds. And they are extremely street-smart. Years of living in survival mode will do that to you. Very quickly, they figured out that they could split up and run us ragged. We could not let our eyes off of them for one single second. I remember calling plays like a basketball coach.
¨Brent, you get the pencils from the table and take them to the office! Eirinn, shut the door to the laundry room! Chad, I´ve got Sara; you take Andres! He´s headed for the green bathroom!¨
Chad and I each took a niño to guard/follow/wrangle, sometimes tagging out and swapping niños during a dash through the hallway. Brent and Eirinn shimmied through the wakes the little left in each room, picking up stray objects or cleaning up messes. The damage these kids could do in a matter of seconds was astounding. And their energy was boundless. 
They also loved to play in water (still do). They figured out that if they could get to the soap in a bathroom (our house had four), we would have to let them wash their hands. So we tried to keep bathroom doors shut. After several days, when they clearly understood NOT to go in the bathroom, they still tried. If they managed to get soap on their hands, I made them leave it on there. They learned quickly not to do that any more. 
This chasing madness continued from the moment we entered the house until bedtime, which was its own battle. The only time Chad and I could sit down or pause was when one of the niños threw a fit or had a meltdown. This usually resulted from us telling them no, as in, ¨No, you cannot stand on the table,¨ or, ¨No, you cannot hang from the antique mirror.¨ These are not exaggerations, but actual accounts. They would also throw fits when we took things away from them, like the many heirloom vases and ceramics that adorned the low tables and shelves in the house.
In their defense, they had never seen or touched many of the things in the house. Even some of the toys sent with them were new.
About an hour or two after arriving home, the loads of candy made it through their systems. This produced diarrhea of epic smells and proportions. Thankfully, they had put Sara in a pull-up at the orphanage. They told us she was potty trained, but since the encuentro threw off her schedule, it was just a precaution. Well, guess who had not anticipated this and, therefore, did not have the needed supplies such as wipes and pull-ups? Us. We had to order those to be delivered because we could not leave the house in our current state of bedlam. Andres did not have any pull-ups, and we were assured he would not need them. Wrong. Every morning for that first week, little man unintentionally covered himself and his bed in pee and poop. I don´t say that to embarrass him, but rather to give you a full view of our distress. At first we thought all the potty issues were from the candy. They persisted for days, and we realized they were also from the trauma of the transition. Regression is typical during bonding and transitions. We are still working through some of these same issues at home. The bed messes weren´t intentional or defiant. We think he was so exhausted from the trauma and transitions of each day that his body did not receive the get-up-and-go-potty signals while he was asleep. That is one very bright and consistent spot in regards to the niños. Once they are asleep, they sleep all night. We have yet to be awakened in the middle of the night by one of the littles. What a blessing that is! 
Anyway, back to the first 48 hours...
To add hassle to our discontent, our stove was not working. We had to order our food to be delivered. This meant I had to disappear into a room, leaving Chad alone with the chaos, to place the order. This took a while because we had to use an app called Rappi, which is - of course - all in Spanish. And when the food arrived, the niños would run to the door and try to grab all of it. They are very strong despite their small size. And they HAD to be into EVERYTHING. If there was something to touch, smell, eat, grab, pull apart - you can bet they were all up on it. Sometimes it was even in an attempt to help or just be involved. And at the time, we lacked the language and relational equity to convince them that it was a bad idea for them to carry or touch something and that we weren´t just saying no to deny them.
In fact, the second day in the house, we had a moment straight out of a cheesy parenthood movie. Andres always wanted to be in the kitchen. He loves buttons, and where in the house has more buttons than the kitchen? Within five minutes of walking in the house, he and his sister both made a beeline for the gas stove and started turning all the knobs. So we banned them from the kitchen as well as we could. It only had a swinging door with no lock or knob. But the morning of the second day, he came into the kitchen with me while I was making breakfast. I had one of those moments where it was hard to know if I should enforce a rule or try to include him and bond with him. I chose bond. I let him stay in there while I prepared food. But I told him not to touch the buttons/knobs. I dumped a bunch of frozen strawberries in the blender. In the two seconds I spent turning to put the rest back in the freezer, he turned the knob on the blender. There was no lid. It was loud and startled me. Frozen strawberry bits flew everywhere. I turned it off then turned on him. I spoke sternly, wanting him to understand how dangerous that could have been. Then I sent him out of the kitchen immediately. He was very upset, and Chad had to hold him and calm him down. I came to talk to him and explained that from then on, he could not be in the kitchen with me. I asked if he understood, and he nodded.
But he just could not stand it when I went in to the kitchen to prepare food. [He attached strongly to me from the beginning and Sara attached to Chad. I don´t think I even got to hold her for the first five days.] Even when we ordered food, I still had to portion it out, get it on plates, make drinks, etc. There was a little window in the kitchen door. He would pull a chair up to the door and stand on it so he could see through the window (see picture). This might seem cute, but it drove me crazy. Every little thing I did - get a napkin, put a spoon on a plate, cut up chicken, would cause him to crack the door and yell, ¨Mama, vea!¨ = ¨Mom, look!¨ Like, literally every three seconds. It was so stressful. I hated it. I wanted to yell, ¨Yes, I see it! Iḿ the one doing it!¨
I was relieved when, during our last week in Bogota, his sister started fighting with him to be in the chair. That gave us an obvious excuse to say no more to pulling the chair up to the window.
Mealtime gave Chad and I chance to breathe. It still does. But during these first two days, the niños still had their survival game going during mealtime. They ate fast. At the orphanage, if you don´t finish before the plates are cleared, then you don´t finish. And there weren´t second helpings. So whatever we gave them, they inhaled. Then they asked for more, which we ignorantly gave them. They literally ate themselves sick. Sara would even hide food. She would stuff everything on her plate into her mouth until her cheeks bulged. Then, I discovered days later, she would put whatever was left in her fist and show me her empty plate so she could ask for more. She would wait till later to eat what was in her hand. An hour later, Chad would be rinsing poop out of her pants while I cleaned her up. It took a few days for them to believe that they had plenty of time to eat and that we wouldn´t take their plates away.
We also avoided screens (TV, iPad, etc.) during those first two days. (MISTAKE!)
We had been told by our social worker here that any habits or activities we started in-country would carry over or be expected at home. Well, screens are only allowed on the weekends here, so we didn´t think we should allow them during the day there. This meant every moment required us to invest our full attention and energy in the niños. Sadly, this meant that we had almost none left to give Eirinn and Brent. In our inexperience, we waited until the third day to reach out to our in-country reps and ask for help. It was then that they told us to turn on shows like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in Spanish as many times during the day as we needed to, which turned out to be about twice. They eased our guilt about letting Netflix babysit; we needed some sanity. They also told us to get pull-ups for Andres. It was miserable waking up each morning to a mess in the bed. He only had one pair of pajamas, two sets of sheets, and the laundry situation was not ideal. But beyond that, way more burdensome than that, was the fact that he woke up embarrassed and unsure each morning, and we could not scoop him up and hug him. We could not start the day by showing him physical affection and reassuring him of who we are because we had to get him cleaned off first. 
The psychologist at the orphanage is new and has no children. She had warned us against giving him pull-ups because he might regress and stop using the toilet. (I know, he wasn´t using it anyway. But still, she was the expert, so we heeded her advice.) Our in-country rep was like, ¨What? No way. I am ordering you some right now. You need all the help you can get.¨
Back to Mickey Mouse, here´s the thing. American kids are definitely addicted to screens, more so than anywhere else in the world except maybe Japan. Even with the time limits and restrictions we have at our house, if there is a screen in sight, our older kids get zombified.
Not so for the niños. First of all, they would only watch while sitting on our laps. And after a few minutes, they would turn around and nap in our arms. Secondly, unless they were very sleepy, they would only watch for a couple of minutes before returning to wreck-the-house mode. When we finally (days later) got to where they would sit on the couch with their siblings and watch Netflix on the iPad, Chad and I thought we could use that time to either clean or take a breath. But Andres only lasted five minutes even then, even if he had a snack! He´s a smart one. When he noticed that all the other kids were engaged, he saw the opportunity to get all the attention for himself - a luxury he was rarely afforded in the orphanage unless in a therapy session. So he would demand our attention and reaction through either positive or negative behavior.
Bedtime was our last hurdle each day. For the first two days, it was a battle. We were as gentle and patient as could be. Sara likes to sleep. So she would go to bed pretty easily. The only issue with her was that one of us had to lie down with her for a while and then stand guard outside her room. She would get up to see if anyone was there, sometimes more than once. The battle with Andres was one of fear and will. I would put him and Brent to bed at the same time because they shared a bed. We thought seeing his brother (aka, a stranger his age) lying down as well would reassure him. No such luck. He had a teddy bear to sleep with, which he hugged. And I would always sing to him in Spanish. We never closed their bedroom doors. We never did anything to make them feel cut off or separated from us. But, for whatever multitude of reasons, Andres always resisted going to bed. One night I had to stand beside the bed for a long time. He would move his legs toward the edge to try and get up. I never put my hands on him, but I would nudge his legs back onto the bed with my knees. And he would just cry and cry. Another night, he sat in my arms and cried. I explained, ¨You are safe in this bed. You are well in this bed.¨ But he would just say no over and over and cry and moan. That night, I just waited until he was calm and asked if he was ready to lie down. I didn´t lay him on his pillow until he said yes. Then I lay down with him for a long time. 
It was usually around 8:00 when all the kids were settled. By then, Chad and I were spent in every way: physical, mental, emotional. I would sit guard outside the rooms and check Facebook for a glimpse of home. I would read the Bible on my phone and pray. I would text my family or the agency reps for help or advice. Or I would take a shower and cry. Chad would wash dishes or update the budget or check the internet or shower. We were not avoiding each other. We just ended up in different places. We rarely had conversations. We could not talk while one of us was guarding the rooms because the niños would hear us. 
You know what we wouldn´t do? Eat.
Chad and I entered our own form of trauma-survival mode. We were never hungry. Even when we had enough time to sit and eat with the kids, we didn´t want to. Worst diet ever. If I were to show you a family picture we took on our second day in Colombia and a picture we took on our last day, you can see the ten-pound (maybe 15) difference in both of us. Chad´s jeans were falling off of him by the time we got home. In addition to our intermittent fasting, neither niño wanted to walk anywhere we went. So I carried Andres while Chad carried Sara.
We barely ate anything those first few days, and yet, we were never hungry. Neither of us slept through the night. The beds in Colombia feel like they are actually stuffed with straw. Besides the lack of comfort, the house was right on the street and very loud. We woke up throughout the night because we were never sure if a noise was just a house noise or if a niño was skulking around. Showers and bathroom usage had to be strategically planned and always announced. Even after we communicated some boundaries very clearly, and the kids understood, they still tested limits and disobeyed. They needed to see what we would do and how we would respond.
These were the hardest two days of my life. There were times when I told God I didn´t want this any more. There were times when I could not see the hope beyond the mire. Other times, Eirinn and I sat on my bed with the door closed and just wept together.
But God is good. He does not abandon nor forsake His people. This time of year, we celebrate how He came to us ages ago. We remember that He has promised to come back for us again. And we acknowledge that He is with us now and to the end of the age. God, my Father and Provider, sent me comfort in Colombia in the form of your prayers and encouraging words, my husband´s amazing strength and perseverance, and most powerfully, His word. 
So many verses brought me hope and peace during these long, woeful days. One that stands out is Psalm 18:28. For it is you who light my lamp; the Lord my God lightens my darkness.

Likewise, Psalm 116:4-9. Then I called on the name of the Lord: “O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul!”Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; our God is merciful. The Lord preserves the simple; when I was brought low, he saved me. Return, O my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling; I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.

We still have challenges each day. And each day, we make progress. In the next post, I can give you a play-by-play of the yellow jacket saga from earlier this week. I think we actually adopted at difficult ages. I can go into more detail on that in a later post. But with an infant or toddler, their mobility and independence are so limited. I am not saying adoption is ever easy. I am saying our niños are fast and strong with years of built-in survival tactics that dictate their actions even when their survival is not threatened. I am also saying that, even by the orphanage caretakers' standards, these are hyperactive kids. It does not take long for them to drain us.

I do want to add a couple of notes. First, the psychologist at the orphanage is new. I think we were the first family with whom she completed an adoption. Her advice and actions were very textbook. I don´t fault her at all for how she handled the situation. I think with more experience and once she has kids of her own, she might change her advice. :)
Also, we were well-trained by our agency. We had to read books and attend seminars on parenting special needs children, traumatized children, developmentally-delayed children, children from other cultures, parenting without traditional methods, parenting through attachment issues. There is a reason (besides money and paperwork) that the adoption processes take so long. Our agency was fantastic in all these and other respects. But that training, no matter when and how you get it, is universal, generic - like good advice. There was no way to know exactly how it would be or how the trauma would manifest until we were all together - us, our bio kids, and these particular children - trying to be a family. There was no way for them to know how two children who have never been outside of their orphanage would react to family life in a home. It is good for me to remember, for they make it easy to forget, the major life changes they have experienced in so short a time. They rode in cars, ate in restaurants, picked out their own clothes, walked to parks, saw dogs in real life, ate at a dining room table, picked flowers in a yard, rode a trolley to the top of a mountain, rode on an airplane - all NEW, strange experiences for them encountered with people they barely know who speak another language. And yet they smile when they wake up. They ask permission to unbuckle their seat belts. They share their new toys. 
They do all these ´little´ things that we took for granted before, that we have always just expected our biological children to do. These are big things. Their world is different, almost opposite, of what it was. 
That leads me to the other note I want to make. 
None of the madness and disobedience or boundary-testing I described in the paragraphs above or in my Facebook posts was malicious. These children aren´t terrible monsters or evil, spoiled kids. There were reasons for all of it. Please don´t read this post as an account of my children´s sins or shortcomings. They are remarkable and have adapted much better than I would in their place, as far as I can tell. Instead, read it as reality, as a momentary stop along our journey. 

At least once a day, I look around and ask if this is my life. 
And really, the answer is no. My identity is in Christ. He chose this life for me. I don´t know that I would choose it for myself. But I don´t have His infinite wisdom and goodness. 
I don´t know that I would do it all again. But I know it is what is best. Because it comes from Him.

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him! Matthew 7:11