That Newborn Baby Cry

Recently I was in the grocery store checkout line and I heard it.  

That unmistakeable newborn baby cry.

From 3 lanes away!

The mama was checking out, a toddler-aged child in the cart, along with an infant carrier containing the wailing baby.

It's been a while since I've had a newborn in the house, but the sound of that cry is unmistakeable.  It is very different than the cry of a 2 year old or even a 6 month old.  You hear the cry of a very young baby and you cannot ignore it.  Literally the pitch, tone, whatever of that sound tells every fiber of your being to respond.  DO SOMETHING!

And it was an interesting scene to watch unfold that day in the grocery store since I'm a mama who keenly remembers being in that position of checking out with a crying baby.  A baby that has maybe made it through the entire grocery store trip peacefully asleep but has awakened just 5 minutes too soon before the groceries can be paid for, and is hungry and must be fed RIGHT NOW!  It was as if everyone in the store was tuned in to that baby.  The mother got the baby out of the carrier and was trying to cuddle the baby against her chest while also sliding her credit card through the card reader.  The sacker was wildly sacking the groceries in an attempt to allow the mom to leave the store as quick as possible.  The checker was digging through her drawer trying to find a sticker for the baby's big brother to keep him happy so he didn't demand any more of his mom's attention than the newborn and paying for groceries were already occupying.  A checker from another lane even ran over to provide the desired sticker! 

Humans are wired to attend to that sound, the sounds of a newborn baby's cry.

God made us that way!

He made us that way for a reason.  Because tiny babies are helpless and dependent on other humans to survive!

When a mama or a daddy respond to a baby's cries by picking it up or feeding it or changing it's diaper or speaking softly to it or singing to it or rocking it, that baby learns that the world hears her voice and her voice can be used to convey her needs.  She learns that she is important.  And that the world is good, people are good, because they attend to her needs.

( My 2nd child at only hours old.)

So, of course, God was so smart to wire into every baby this very unique cry so that other humans hear it and respond.

The only ways that a baby's cries are not going to be tended to are if the baby is in an overcrowded orphanage (in which case the babies stop crying after about 2 months because they learn their cries do not work) or the baby's caregiver is incapacitated by drugs, alcohol, or mental illness.

And what then?

If the baby survives, how does that neglect as an infant play out in their behaviors later in life?

And how do adoptive or foster mothers attempt to make up for all that was lost in infancy to heal that child?

Those are big questions I am not going to attempt to answer today, more on that later.  But, the beginning of finding those answers is realizing just how much a child has lost when they did not have an attentive caregiver as a baby.  The losses run deep!

I sometimes joke that at least I missed out on potty-training, getting our 4th child as a 3 year old through international adoption after having 3 biological children I did have to potty-train.  But, the truth is I'd give just about anything to have been able to be there for my Little Girl from the time she was an infant.  And there's not another adoptive mom I know that wouldn't say the same thing.  Those early months are so important!

For When You Don't Feel Like Scheduling the Family Portrait . . .

I should have done it weeks ago, set up a session with our photographer for our annual family pictures.  A younger, more energetic version of me, who had fewer children vowed we'd do this once a year every year while the kids were growing up.  But, now there is zero motivation to schedule it, plan everyone's outfits, and, of course, endure the 1 hour of torture that is getting my children to cooperate for photos!

But looking at this picture from 5 years ago, when my oldest children were 1, 3, and 5 years old, I'm really glad to have captured that moment in time!  It is so fleeting!  Those children are 6, 8, and 10 now.  They have changed so much since then!

As much as I love that picture, I haven't forgotten the reality that day.  The photographer was late (which was really unusual for her), the mosquitoes were terrible there in that little wood, my 3 year old had to go potty about 2 minutes into the photo shoot, the 5 year old got his clothes dirty sliding on his knees before the 1st picture was even taken, and there was a little gazebo that the 1 year old just wanted to run around over and over again instead of posing for pictures!

And still, I know it was worth it, every bit of wrangling those monkeys, to remember them just as they were.

Find more Wordful Wednesday here.

Reading Time

As part of his homework, my first grader is supposed to read to someone for 20 minutes each day.

Some days the reading time looks like this:

Him reading to us while my girls and I snap beans.

Multitasking works for me!

And this is way less shameful than the next day when I convinced him to read to me from his seat in the third row of the car while I drove the girls to dance class.  "Just read a little loud.  I can hear you."  Poor 3rd child!

There Is No Title

My 10 year old went off to camp this week with his entire 5th grade at school.  For 3 nights they stayed in cabins and do all sorts of outdoor activities.

So of course, I helped him pack with my favorite ZipLoc Bag method.  I'm hoping that in a cabin full of 10 year old boys my son was able to proudly own those ZipLoc bags of clothes without any shame!

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We've all missed him this week, even his younger siblings.  It's been interesting the different things his brother and sisters missed most while he was gone and the different ways his presence affects our home.  We will be glad to get him back this afternoon!

 

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I was thinking about how we all missed my son this week when the radio DJ shared an excerpt from Rick Warren's appearance on CNN this week.  Rick Warren wrote The Purpose Driven Life and sadly his grown-up son, Matthew, committed suicide a few months ago.  Rick Warren said, "I need the presence of God in my life more than I need the presence of Matthew."

What powerful statement!  It is true, but also so hard for most parents to say, especially one who has so recently lost a child!  

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When my 10 year returns from camp he may find his bed has already been given away!  The 6 year old who typically sleeps on the bottom bunk has been asking for a while when he would get to sleep on the top bunk.  I thought these 3 nights his big brother was away would be a great opportunity for Little Brother to fulfill his top-bunk sleeping dreams.  Well, Little Brother loves it and now there may be Battle of the Bunks this weekend at our house!

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 New this year, our elementary school is teaching spelling rules to kids in addition to spelling words.  My 8 year old came home talking about the "Floss Rule".  She was incredulous that I did not know the "Floss Rule".  She was like, "But Mom, you went to school!"

Learning along with my kids, I give you the "Floss rule":  "If a one syllable base word ends in the (f), (l) or (s) sound immediately after a short vowel, the (f) sound is spelled ff, the (l) sound is spelled ll, and the (s) sound is spelled ss.

Don't you just feel smarter now?

Happy Friday!

Find more Friday Fragments here.

Mixed Up

Today Little Girl (my 4 year old who was adopted from Ethiopia 21 months ago), and I were eating lunch together at home, left-over spaghetti.

She gobbled her spaghetti up and I started thinking about how much she liked spaghetti.

I told her we ate spaghetti with her in Ethiopia the very first week we had her.  "It was really spicy spaghetti,"  I remembered out loud, watching her face to see just how much she remembered about that first week we were together when she was three years old.

Then she said, "People in Ethiopia like spicy food."

Me:  "Yes, they do."

Little Girl:  "I like spicy food.  But I just got all mixed up."

Me: "Mixed up? What do you mean?" 

Little Girl:  "Yeah, I got mixed up with you when I came here.  You know because you have white skin and I have brown skin. We're mixed up."

Me (trying to understand what she was thinking and totally flowing with the concept that a conversation about spaghetti turned into a skin color discussion):  "So, we got mixed up when you left Ethiopia and came to America with us to be in our family?" 

Little girl:  "Yes, people from American have white skin and Ethiopians have brown skin like me."

Me: "Well, not all people who were born in American have white skin."

She agreed and pointed out a little boy in her class who has brown skin like she does. 

Then I asked, "So what do you think about being 'mixed up'?" 

She didn't understand, so I clarified, "Do you think it's bad or good being 'mixed up', or it doesn't really matter?" 

"It doesn't really matter," she said easily, cheerfully. 

And then she began jabbering about something else. . . 

We will have a lifetime of these conversations, she and I, sorting through the 'mixed up'. 

 Our mixed-up family

The Chicken That Was Not For Dinner

Here's one of my favorite pictures from our Dominican Republic mission trip a couple months ago:

That's my 8 year old daughter on the right, holding a chicken.  And the little boy is Felice.  We ate dinner at his house one night and Felice couldn't wait to show us the chickens in his backyard.  Felice is only two, but he had some serious chicken-catching skills!  It took him mere seconds to scoop one up even though they were running free in his backyard! 

We ate a traditional meal by candlelight because there was no electricity with Felice's mom and dad and Felice.  They are a sweet precious family and were such gracious hosts to us!  They had a much smaller house and drastically fewer things than most people we know here in America, yet they had more joy and faith than most people we know.

Find more Wordful Wednesday here.

When life hands you cups . . .

We have family Bible devotionals at least once a week with our 4 children who range in age from 10 to 4 years old.  I've found that as we read the Bible together and discuss important, heavy topics of life and faith, it's also important to have an element of fun!

So, I'm always looking for easy ideas (like things that need nearly zero advance prep) for fun activities we can do during this time.  

Because we hardly ever watch TV, I had no idea about the show Minute to Win It but recently I was somewhere where they had Minute to Win It games as an ice breaker activity and it occurred to me that the games would be great to add some fun to our family devotional time.  Sure enough,  the website for the show has some great game ideas!

A week ago we did a game of seeing who could stack the most small paper cups in one minute.  It was super fun and so easy to prep for as we already had the cups!  My kids loved it so much that even after the game time was over they entertained themselves building with the cups (which made me totally wonder why we even have toys)!

Do you have any good games your family plays together?

Find more Works for Me Wednesday here.