Our adventures to Heritage Camp

If you have read our blog at all, you know we have two sons.  One who is Chinese and one who is Kazak.  Fortunately, it is relatively easy to find events throughout the year that provide our family with cultural enrichment activities for our son from China.  But, when you have a child from Kazakhstan and live in the deep south, the opportunities for Kazak events are few and far between (I am also fairly certain this is the case throughout the USA.) 

With that in mind we were fortunate to find a great group of people through Kazapalooza, which is a wonderful event with several hundred families that get together for a weekend of fun once a year.  It has been such a wonderful lifeline to others with a shared experience and a time to just be a "normal" family for a weekend.  This year, however, we had a major conflict with Kazapalooza, and our only other normalizing experience for the year which was the Land Party, hosted by our closest friends in Alabama. 

This left me in a dilemma... How do I make space for Kazak culture.  By chance a fellow Kazak mom told me about a wonderful opportunity called REECA Heritage Camp.  For details you can check out their website http://www.heritagecamps.org/what-we-do/the-camps/reeca.html. 

When I looked up the program I knew it was going to be a great fit for our family. A week in the Rocky Mountains staying in a yurt with lots of other adoptive families.  We were in.  Fortunately our boys are 6 now and they were ready to embark on the world of road trips John and Karon style.  I have learned through our encounters on this trip, that few families of young kids travel the way we do.  I would say our style of road tripping has the following themes:

1. Brown signs are cause for detours.

2. We pick a destination then find the small road to get there.

1. This is a time to take all those people who said "come stay with me if you are ever in town" up on their offer.

1. Yes, we camp, in a tent, on the ground....the kids think this is the only way.

1. When our boys ask, "where are we going today?" and we say "West" it is because that is the only definitive decision we have made, the rest is left up to chance.

1. We brake for rivers and have an accessible swim/river box for impromptu river exploration.  This is the last trip that we leave the raft at home.  I see Kayaks in the very near future.

1. Our boys find it normal that their parents whip out the Colman stove at rest stops to make coffee and/or lunch.

1. And of course it would not be a road trip without starting off each day with the making of a loaf of PB&J. 

But anyway...Our goal this year was REECA, and I must say it lived up to our hopes.  The boys spent their day at camp with wonderful cultural programs about their birth countries, holidays, songs and crafts, and art therapy programs.  The middle school and high school kids got to do awesome stuff that was geared towards their age groups.  And as parents, we had options of adoption related workshops we could attend while our kids were at camp. 

I've Moved

Sorry Mom, if you are still following this blog, there is no need for alarm.  We have not physically moved, but instead I have moved to a new blog. 

As April is now here, I am getting ready to write my 6 year post placement report for Emerson, I am realizing that we are moving into a new developmental stage of life as a family.  Thus, I too, am moving into a different stage of life with what I can do, what my passions are, and how I can contribute to the future of my family and the larger world. 

With all of that said, I feel like my blog focusing on our adoption has run its course.  No, we are not completely normal or mainstream now, but I am pretty sure that is not adoption related but the fact that we are crazy.  Emerson has his set of issues that we will always be working with.  Isaac now emotional swings like a pendulum, but the swings are within a manageable range.  They have trained us as parents well.  Maybe one day we will be able to train them. 

So where have I moved my voice to?  I have started a new blog entitled http://backyardlearning.blogspot.com .  The premise of the blog is my passion for teaching and empowering others through learning experiences.  I have loads of lessons, activities, labs and home school curriculum that can be found there along with my rants and reflections about the state of the world (have no fear for those of you who enjoyed that about this blog, my filter is still wounded.) 

As I venture into this project I would love to still have the support of this amazing adoptive community and please feel free to share this blog with those you know who you think would find it interesting or useful. 

The Wilderness of the Brain

It is winter, and during winter, I teach my students about the human body.  Within the unit, I teach about the brain and how it works and how we acquire knowledge.  I often compare our newborn brains to a forest.  I say over and over again that the size of our brain is not as important as the paths that we build to lead us through the wilderness of our brain. 

I talk about how the places we go to most frequently in our brains are like interstates and the places we only go to once (or very infrequently) are like bushwhacking through the forest.  I talk about how it is not so great to have a bunch of buildings without the ability to get to them.  We discuss how as teens, they begin synaptic pruning to weed out the side roads that the brain does not deem necessary.  A chaotic but necessary quieting of all the information they have taken in so far.

With all this said, I am a lover of the wilderness and inelegance. Thus it has gotten me to thinking.  I must say, this year I have had a bit of an existential crisis as an educator, parent and homeschooling.  I love watching the mind grow and expand in function, problem solving, and innovation.  Yet, I despise noise, and facts, just for facts and noise sake.  I like peaceful and elegant. 

What does this mean then in regards to how we build roads into our brain.  A wilderness, no road area, is probably not the best.  But, on the flip side a criss cross of millions of pathways, roads, sidewalks, and interstates, is probably not the ideal either. 

So now, I am led to think about why we need wilderness and how we utilize civilization.  Wilderness provides clean water, clean air, natural resources, that when harvested sustainably, provide support for the society.  Wilderness provides a reprieve from the chaos of society.  It provides a template for much of modern inventions.  It provides a home for "the other" forms of life not so welcomed in day to day human life. 

So as a teacher and mother, how do I responsibly develop roads into such a pristine place. My students come to me as middle schoolers with a chaotic system of trails, roads, sidewalks leading inefficiently around the woods of their brain.  Do I make thousands of factual trails that a student's mind might go down one time for a test, only to have the trail grow over as soon as they never go down that path again.  Do I drill information in so that they have a super highway of basic facts.  Or, do I spend my time giving them the materials to build their roads, like curiosity, problem solving, experiences, passion... 

I am not naive enough to think it must be one or the other.  Kids do need to know basic math facts, grammar rules, basics about the human body, historical events, how the world works.  Yet, should facts be the focus, or the how to learn be the focus? 

The question I am left with is, how do I create an educational experience for my students that improves their knowledge and at the same time respects the wilderness of the brain and the quiet spaces that allow refuge from the constant hum of civilization?

Happy Valenties Day PTSD Style

It was simple... or so it seemed.  One child was unkind to another.  There was a consequence issued, a privilege lost.  No anger, no shame, just no movie time, because of a poor choice. 

The reaction was disproporte, to say the least. 

First, and swiftly, came the rage.
Like a wolf being penned against his will. 
Howling, thrashing, throwing, kicking. 
The intent to hurt anyone who dared come near.
physicaly, emotionaly...

The energy of the rage is too intense to last long, so the tone changed to sorrowful cries.  Not those of an 6 year old, but of an infant.  In sound, tone, desperation and primal. 

We got home, out of the car, the cries continued. 

We are in the rocking chair, one hour, two hours.  The cries become sobs. To talk is pointless.  He is not really there.  His eyes are barely open, but they look through me, not at me.  Words mean nothing to him in this stage.  He has gone back to a time where he did not hear, and was not spoken to.

We rock.  I kiss his head, I pray for him to find peace, I feel anger towards those who neglected him allowing the deep scars in his brain that refuse to heal. 

We rock, he sucks his thumb and flinches when I wipe the tears from his face.  I do it anyway.  I want to believe that maybe I can be with him during the flashbacks, then I can insert myself into his past somehow and rewrite his tragic beginnings. 

I feel desperate, hopeless.  Will he be OK? 

I tell my self, it has not happened in a while.  It is better than it was.  That is progress right?  Regardless, in the moment it feels just like it did the first time I saw him go into a PTSD state of mind.

The biggest difference, is now, we have years together.  There is intense love.  There is part of me that could not live without this son of mine.  My love is unconditional.  So on this Valentines day, that has lacked the fanfare of romanticism and holiday school parities, tonight I found myself sitting for hours, with love, with my love. 

Trying desperately to heal a child who's love void, has wounded him deeply
I hope with all of my heart he knows he is loved, and that someday his hurt will not be so great. 

I am sorry my little man that we did not find you sooner.  We searched for three years and we just could not find you.  We have loved you since we opened our hearts to finding you.  Regardless, I am sorry for so many years of you crying without someone coming to sit in the rocking chair with you and kiss you on the head. 

So my greatest gift was being present, with my present from the world. 

On Reason and Passion

There is a chapter in the book The Prophet the explores the balance of reason and passion in our life.  To summarise it basically states that life is like a sail boat and our passion is the wind in our sails and our reason is the rudder.  Without one, the other is a bit useless. 

I bring this up, because I feel like I am in a stage of my life where I am just hanging on in survival mode.  My sails are up, and if wind happens to fall into them, I hold on for deal life to the rudder and sail half hardly until the wind dies down.  Repeating this process over and over again. 

My life used to be filled with passion and reason that I intentionally sought out.  I sought out beautiful places to see, wilderness to explore, children to parent, lessons to inspire.  Now, though, I feel like I am constantly in search of an eddie on a circular river that starts on Monday and ends on Sunday.  The current seems to fast, but at the same time routine, mundane, like I am going through the motions of a well rehearsed play rather than living my life and actively making my dreams a reality. 

Right now, I can not even say I have had the energy or where with all to be brave enough to dream.  I consider a good day where Emerson does not meltdown, or Isaac does not regress, or John does not get worked up over some new issue.  It feels so avoidest (f that is even a word.) 

So there, I have named the reason for my withdraw from the world.  I am in prevention of damage mode.  But, my heart knows that this is not why I am here on this Earth.  Yes, survival is a worthwhile goal, but it should be on the list, not just the list.  Ultimately, I am passionate about my students, my family, my garden, and yet I am so very tired by the end of the day with just managing the ins and outs of day to day life, that I feel as though there is nothing left of me to branch out of this circular current of survival. 

Maybe I should be thankful, but unfortunately I just feel shallow, uninteresting and lost.  Maybe also I am just in a reset part of my life where I am bobbing while adjusting my sails, waiting for wind, while looking at the map to know where to steer. 

Searching for a lost chicken in the dark

The other night I found myself wondering around the woods with a flashlight searching.  For what you might ask?  Some things tangible and somethings not quite reachable.  Ultimately what brought me out from my cozy spot in front of the fire place, was the concern over the final chicken count in the coop.  See, now we are back up to 11 chickens.  We recently acquired 10 new ones, and for the most part they have been given a very limited area to explore.   This, supposedly, helps them grow attached to their roost and nest, so they will come back at night.  It just so happens though, that several of them managed to escape during the day.  I saw this as I was playing with the boys.  I watched them explore tentatively for a while, before I also noticed our resident hawk was also watching his dinner wonder into the woods. 

So, I did what any good chicken owner would do.  I grabbed some scratch, put it in a can, and shook it.  They came running, I put them back in the coop.  Job done.  Or so I thought. 

See, counting to 11 should not be that hard.  But we have one chicken that is a hold over from the previous flock.  While she spend almost a year as an only chicken, she now has 10 roommates, and let's just say she is not so thrilled about it.  We have (now had) one really big roust that was big enough for all the birds.  But, when any of the new birds come near it she goes on a hen pecking tissy.  Needless to say, counting moving birds that are viciously being pecked is not as easy as one might think. 

I took the boys to dinner, not thinking anything of the chickens, until I went to turn on their heat lamp and saw them all resting on their newly built roost (thanks John for keeping peace in the hen house.)  The only problem is there were only 10.  Counted again.  Yup one was missing. 

Logically this lead us to begin our search for either a bird in a tree or feathers.  There is something about searching for a lost animal on a cold night that makes you think about the dreams, troubles, wishes, relationships in your life in a different way.  At the moment of searching I could not help but feel as though I had let the bird down.  I am her human, just like I am in charge of my boys (all three of them), or of my students, or of the finances.  It began to feel all to overwhelming of a task.  I had seen the predator.  It was there.  I did what I should have done, but not good enough.

I feel the same in life.  I am with my boys, but in an exhausted warn out state.  I make just enough to keep our heads above water, I teach my students just enough, but constantly feel rushed wishing I could give them the depth they so crave.  Then there is the whole being married thing.  Oh, I need to find time and love and energy for him too?  Is it good enough to just save 10/11ths of the birds?  It sure didn't feel like that was an OK option going to bed that night.  After looking for an hour I did not find the bird, but I also did not find the carnage either.  One thing I do know (please don't ask how) is that chickens have a lot a feathers.  They do not just disappear. 

The next morning I awoke anxious to get out in the daylight and just find out what happened.  If I found feathers, I would at least know.  But, when I made my way out towards the coop, low and behold she had flown back into the fenced in area and was squawking away at her flock inside the coop.  She had made it safely through the night, and managed to get back to the best place she could have been all on her own. 

What is the moral?  For me it is that life is going to take care of itself.  Yes, a lot of people depend on me, and they deserve the best I have got.  Fortunately we had a safe place for her to go and she made it there unharmed.  I hope the same will hold true for all of the other things in my little world.