Are you thinking of adopting?

Before we adopted I always wanted to know "what are we signing up for?" and "what are we about to have to deal with?" Well, for those of you about to embark on your own adoption journey, here are the tough truths that we are dealing with, even though for the most part we are a big happy family. Everyone's journey and experience are different, but here is our story. 

1.  Even though on paper our little girl didn't really have any apparent or official 'special needs', we realized right away that she has learning and developmental delays and handicaps. For 7 years she was in a fairly nice foster home that seemed to take care of her needs, but it seems like there wasn't a lot of interaction or learning going on. The synapses between her right and left brain, her ability to reason and have common sense, and her short term memory were definitely underutilized. A lot of the developmental stages that we saw in our biological son at age 2-4 started to materialize with our 7 year old daughter when we brought her home from Hungary. We've had to go through stages of years 2-6 in the past two years, sort of fast forwarding through them. Now she is age 9, but mentally it's like dealing with a child who is a few years younger. My optimistic hope is that she keeps fast forwarding and developing past these limitations. We continue to homeschool, which I think has been great for her - one on one attention and customized learning have been wonderful. We have gone through preschool curriculum and are now almost through 2nd grade (two years behind her peers, if she was in normal school). 

2. I always imagined adopting an older child, and bringing them home to give them 'a better life' than they may have had before, and seeing how appreciative they were. This definitely is not what happened with us. Any visions of saintly parenthood are dashed whenever we ask her to do schoolwork or chores, or anything 'hard' and she whines that in Hungary she never had to do school. Or chores. Or anything. (with a sassy look). AND she misses all her dozens and dozens of toys that her room was filled with, and is pouty when we are at a store and won't buy her everything she wants. "In Hungary I had all the toys I wanted." she says. Well, that's about all she had....but we aren't the type of family to spoil or lavish our kids with a bunch of 'stuff' so she lives with the feeling of being deprived, when before she thought she had so much more.  (She does have her own room filled with toys and games now, but that feeling never leaves her). 

3. How long does it take to 'attach'? Well, for years we worked ourselves up to loving the idea of meeting our new child for the first time, and much like being pregnant for 9 months you love the 'idea' of this new person before you even meet them. So the first time we saw her when we visited her foster home in Hungary our hearts attached to this little person already, and we chose to love her. 

Now, the actual fuzzy magnetic feeling of 'love' is sort of a different thing...and while with our biological son we have all of the history and bonding in our past from his infancy that gave us this unfailing bond that gives me a warm feeling when he hugs me, and I always want to cuddle him. With our daughter, meeting her for the first time when she was 7, we missed all that history and bonding. We've had to sort of force the affection, because we know it's important to build bonding, and have come to the point where she is comfortable hugging (standing near us while we hug her, and sometimes sort of touching us with her arms). She told us that she never had any affection before she met us, so it's still kind of weird for her. But she says she likes it - so we keep doing it for practice. 

It's very difficult to love someone, and pour everything into, someone who is not appreciative of what you are doing, and constantly is ungrateful. Well, that could almost sound like any child....but this is different. Blank stares, unreciprocated hugs, never apologizing, no verbalization that she likes to be around us, and rude demands for her immediate needs. We've just had to buck up, and show her love anyway. How else is she going to learn what it means to love, and how much God loves her? It's hard. Really hard. But we choose to love her anyway, and she is worth it. 

4. How will my biological son get along with her? This is one that we have been blown away by - how well they always get along. From the first time we met her, our son has been simply smitten by her. He has taken her under his wing, and still continues to do so every day. He has never been jealous of her, and he says that he just loves having a little cute sister. They play so well together, and don't fight for attention or toys. 

5. The biggest thing I struggled with when we started exploring adoption was "How in the world are we going to afford this?" We felt like God was leading us to adopt, so we just obeyed and prayed for Him to provide. We used our savings, sold stuff to earn money, had fundraisers, asked our church for help, asked relatives and friends on facebook to contribute, took out a home equity loan....and still were short of the $40K it ended up costing. Right up until THE DAY BEFORE we left on the plane to fly to Hungary we were $3400 short. We desperately prayed for God to somehow provide, because to us it seemed utterly impossible. Well, that day, I got a call from some organization and they told me that they had been praying, and they felt like God was leading them to send us $3400 by wire that day. Yes, God provided every penny we needed, down to the penny. In His time, not ours. We just obeyed, God provided. He does that!

We've gotten so many messages from people about to embark on their own adoption journey, many from Hungary (some who will be staying at our exact apartment that we stayed at!) and I love hearing from you. I love sharing tips and advice, and helping to answer questions...please feel free to message us! 

2 years as a family of 4!

July marks 2 years since we officially became a family of 4, after we brought our daughter home from Hungary. We have seen her change so much since then, we've had some great times as a family, yet we still have our struggles. Here are some of the highlights of fun times from the past year:

First winter in Texas - I think we had 4 hours of snow, until it was completely melted. :)  We enjoyed it while we could, making snow angels and a snowman, and eating it with chocolate syrup.  She really likes playing in the snow and copying her brother.

First Trip Roller Skating - one day when we were perusing a thrift store, little girl saw a pair of roller skates and asked me what they were. I showed her, and she thought it was the coolest idea ever to have rolly things on your feet. She used her own $9 that she had been saving up to buy them, and EVERY DAY after that she spent about 20 minutes in the garage practicing with them. Her coordination is still a little rough so it took a couple of weeks to figure it out, but before long we heard her holler "Look at me! I'm rollerskating!" 

So as a reward for taking the initiative to learn by herself, we took the kids to a roller rink for the first time. This was super fun for about the first 20 minutes, then their feet started to hurt and we go this classic shot of whiny faces. Ha...we had fun though. 

Spring in the Blue Bonnets - We were learning in school about the Texas symbols (bird, animal, flower, flag, etc.) and we learned that the state flower is the Blue Bonnet. It just so happened in April that nearby is the Blue Bonnet festival so we drove there for the day. We romped in the flowers which covered the ground for miles and miles, and walked around a fun little art festival. There was a driving tour that took you around the countryside to all of the Blue Bonnet patches. We loved enjoying natures beauty together.

St. Patrick's Day fun - After learning about the history of the holiday, and how St. Patrick really was a missionary in Ireland, we did some fun dressing up and treasure hunting. I gave them leprechaun binoculars and special glasses there were supposed to help see them, and they went around the yard finding leprechaun nuggets (green baking soda balls with coins inside) that they dissolved in vinegar. 

Fun family outings - The Sprinkles cupcake ATM was the highlight of my day...we've also visited the zoo, and gone out for lobster. I dressed up my lobster because he looked like he was glaring at me, I thought he needed a hat. 

 Six Flags over Texas was a day of discovery - little girl really came out of her shy shell and started being more brave than her brother when it came to rides. She loved the roller coasters! She is a little adrenaline junky, like her dad. Next time we go I know those two will be riding all the big rides, and the boy and I will be chilling on the smaller ones. She said "I want more roller coasters!!"

Swimming fishies - swimming with some of our best friends. The kiddos just love swimming, and are just like little fish. Two years ago our little girl wouldn't even walk into the pool because she was afraid of it, but now she's swimming like a little fish. 

Trip to the farm - Gramma and Grampa had the kids for a couple weeks this summer. It was a great bonding time, a time to learn about hard work and earning a little spending money, learning how to change the oil on a Semi truck, and repair a Combine, and learn about crops. Little girl had a little cowgirl brought out of her with a new hat at the rodeo, and they got to ride in the semi with grampa. Great memories! 

 After two years she has melded into a part of our family, and most of the time I forget that we've only known her for 2 years. She is coming out of her shell and her personality is starting to shine, and we are happy as a family - so glad that God blessed us with our new addition!

A year in review...

 

Wow, how quickly a year passes! We just celebrated Gianna's 9th birthday (her second birthday as a Harrington). A LOT has happened in the past year...here we go!

We relocated to another state back in April 2014 due to a job opportunity...spent a few months in a tiny apartment trying to find a house. Adjusting to the new job, a new state, trying to make friends, finding a church, getting school set up again, finding homeschool activities has consumed us and I literally haven't been on my computer for a year! **One good thing about moving was that now we ALL have a new start, in a new place where we don't know anyone. I actually think that was a good thing for Gianna, where before we were all in our comfort zone and she was the only one in unfamiliar territory. Now we're all in the same boat and can start over together.

Gianna and Avery are still best of friends, it is so cute watching our biological son and adopted daughter (age 9, a Harrington since 2013) get along so well all the time. They are constantly together, and he is always showing her new things and teaching her how to do things. 

The fun thing is that she has integrated into our family so well, no one can tell she is adopted. Everyone tells us she looks so much like my husband. And his personality has rubbed off on her so she's cracking jokes like him now too. Too cute. 

Christmas 2014 was a mix of loneliness for all our old friends, and a special treat with my parents visiting us (a very rare treat!) for the week. They love both kids so much, and we had a great time playing board games, driving around and looking at Christmas lights, and eating...and eating...we like to eat!

Christmas morning was fun, it was our second Christmas with Gianna, and this year she understood more and we could teach her more about our traditions (singing Christmas carols, reading our Christmas books together, watching classic movies, decorating the tree and talking about memories for each ornament, hiding the pickle in the tree, the advent calendar...) And she could tell us more this year about what she remembered from her first 7 Christmases in Hungary (getting lots of toys for presents, eating Turo-Rudi candy a lot). She tells us she likes all the fun traditions she is learning.

Teaching his sister chess...although she isn't quite to the point where she understands and remembers each move, she catches on to the simple ones just fine. We still are helping her through some developmental delays, but she is making fantastic progress. 
 

Her first time on a large animal of any kind, Texas longhorn! Took a little coaxing, but she was brave and got on as long as I stood beside her.

Silly girl...she thinks she loves coffee and asks for it all the time. But it's actually hot chocolate, and sometimes I sneak just a tiny bit of coffee in it. One day I actually let her sip my black coffee, and she realized it really wasn't coffee she liked. :)

It took about a year, but she is finally finding her creative side. She gets ideas from big brother, and then makes her own fishing poles, satchels from boxes, and calls gramma on her play phone that she made out of cardboard. She is always so proud of what she makes, always bringing stuff to us to show us what she did. She loves the praise!

New glasses! Her eyesight was very bad when we adopted her, so we got her glasses right away. When we moved to Texas and saw a new Dr. he adjusted her prescription even more and she says she can see "way better! I can read the letters on the wall!" Wow. Seeing for the first time really, that's cool. We have to have her wear a patch over one eye for about an hour a day to help correct a lazy eye... I crocheted a purple one with a flower for her to wear.

 Daddy is teaching her how to play the bass guitar. Dexterity is another thing that she struggled with a lot, so we deliberately work on tiny motor skills and she is making great progress.

 Her other gramma and grampa came to town too, and the trip to Sam's was fun too. She loves helping at the grocery store.

 School is in session 5 days a week at home. She is learning to read finally, and we are getting to addition and subtraction, money, time, and fractions. The learning curve is starting to go up...although we always struggle with memory and have to go over things many many times before they stick.

 A rare snow day in TX. They sure do love the snow, and begged me to cover them with snow. "It's warm in here!" they said. Sure, warm in the snow...ok. She tells us about how she used to play in the snow in Hungary, so she really likes it.

 Another deliberate plan to help her overcome fears. With limited experience, we took for granted that every kid likes to play around and be adventurous...but she was very timid. We have been helping her be brave, going up escalators, asking people for things, jumping from rock to rock, and now...AT LAST! This is her first brave task that she did all by herself. She crawled up and said "look daddy! I can do it!"

 Homeschool art class, learning pastel painting for the first time. We fell in love with it, and bought the video series and now we do weekly art projects as a family at home. We do acrylic painting, pastels, pencil drawings, sculptures, etc. We all love it!

 Field trip to the wildlife park. Another practice at bravery, petting unusual animals. We saw lemurs, monkeys, and all sorts of fun things.

 I share these "struggles" with you in case you are in your own adoption journey, reading this blog. I believe there are always struggles you will deal with when you adopt, whether it is a baby, or an older child as in our case (at age 7). It's harder raising her than it is to raise our biological child. It takes extra patience, extra time, extra money for medical purposes...but it's nothing that we can't handle and are sort of just getting used to. It's an honor to be useful in her life, to enrich her mind, and to be her parents. When we see her reach new milestones, and hear her tell us how proud she is of herself, and see how much progress she is making...it's all worth it. And now, a year and a half later, she actually initiates hugs. Happy day.