A Mom Like Me

Have you ever had an experience so powerful that it defines you? Has it literally shaped who you’ve become? Where a person, place or event has become engrained into your very soul?

During a heart to heart with my friend Sarah this weekend, it became incredibly clear just what one of my most defining moments is.

In July 2003 I traveled with World Vision’s Destination Life Change program to Romania, where I spent one month caring for abandoned infants in an orphanage.

This was at once the most difficult and the most rewarding thing I have ever done.

An excerpt from my travelblog on travelpod.com:

This task is so much harder than I had ever anticipated. Logically, I knew it would be difficult, but there was no way I could have known what it would do to my heart. The most difficult part of being here in seeing the daily life of these babies. To the caregivers, working there is just that – a job. The babies are often treated as objects, there are few soft, gentle touches, just quick, task oriented ones. Diapers are changed twice a day, so consequently most are wet for most of the day. It is not that the children are mistreated per se – they are physically very well taken care of for the most part. Emotionally and psychologically however, it is a different story.

The babies are in their cribs all day, and they belong to no one. If they are one of the lucky chosen ones, they will spend an hour in the play room in the morning. If not, it is 24 hours a day of seeing the world through the metal bars of a crib. No child has any possession of his own and each is known only by the piece of masking tape on the end of each bed, displaying the name of the child. The children do not get to go outside, nor do they get a breath of fresh air from an open window. The reason being that the Romanians believe that they will get a “draft” and get sick. Babies cry from their cribs with nothing to comfort them. No soft toys are allowed in the bedrooms because they cannot be washed should they fall on the floor. A few may be given rattles to play with, but it is pretty hard to snuggle plastic.

I have really broken down sobbing a few times, hurting so badly for these perfect, tiny little people. I’ve had to really start concentrating on the little things that will make a difference in each child’s day. Each hug I give, each smile I receive, and each laugh that I evoke are moments that would not have occurred had I not been there. I, along with the other two volunteers, have gone out and bought stacks of diapers so we now change them regularly. At least now they can be a little more comfortable! It is so hard when all I want to do is save them all!

…. (After returning home I wrote:) The babies in the orphanage have left imprints on my heart that I know will never fade. I have cried so many tears since I’ve returned, relaying my tales of daily life for the tiny, innocent people who exist and experience life through the metal bars of a crib. I’ve cried for the lack of attention and stimulation. I’ve cried because some of them don’t even have names. I’ve cried because it is so rare that loving arms hold them. I’ve cried because I remember them reaching out to me. And I’ve cried because I love each of them so much.

(To read the full blog, click here)

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Phew. I am crying again reliving those memories.

I truly loved those sixty babies who rarely let out a sound because they knew no one was listening.  And when they did cry, it didn’t matter anyway.  This was the ultimate ‘cry it out.’

And this is why I can’t let my children cry.

Because even though my heart burst with love for those babies, even though I made it my mission every day to be sure that I snuggled each and every one…. I couldn’t save them. I came home with a wounded heart and empty hands.

So every night now my baby is rocked to sleep. And at bedtime my boys are sung  to and told that “I love them to the moon and back.” Because I couldn’t save those Romanian babies, but God help me, I am going to save my own in every way I know how.

I just want my children to know with every thread of their being, that they are cherished and loved.. to the the moon and back.

Just another piece of who I am.

My big boy is growing up.

Since he was about 4 weeks old, the little guy has been quite addicted to his soother. I must admit, there were times when Luc and I depended on the darn thing just as much as he did. With the third birthday come and gone, we all had to face the terrible truth: it was time to say goodbye to the soother.

I had been preparing Tristan for this inevitable end of an era for months. He knew that when he was three, he would be a big boy and wouldn’t need his soother anymore. There were vague references to the soother fairy and little babies needing soothers that big boys had grown out of. A friend of mine also told me of the soothers at their house “popping” (adults read: being cut) because the user had simply grown too big. A soother just can’t sustain that sort of big boy sucking.

Sure enough, once he turned three, soothers mysteriously began popping around our house. The first time one popped, Tristan picked up said soother and inserted it into his mouth, all the while I sat there with bated breath, waiting for an emotional reaction.

Nothing.

Nothing?

Nothing. No reaction whatsoever. I was floored.

We continued on with bedtime routine, snuggling in for a story. Suddenly, about five minutes into the book, Tristan pulled the soother out, stared at it with gaping mouth and said, “Mommy! It popped!”

I looked down intently, shock and concern plastered onto my face. (Seriously, it was most definitely an Oscar performance!)

“Wow, Buddy,” I replied. “I guess you are getting too big for soothers!  You popped it!”

He literally tossed the defective pacifier aside and quickly found another one on his floor.

“You’ll have to be careful,” I warned him. “That one might pop too.”

Not wanting to scar the child, a few days passed before another popping incident occurred.  Systematically, one by one, each soother met it’s demise. Each one was discarded over the side of the bed and an intact one was popped in his mouth secconds later. Having a finite number of soothers in his room, this charade could only last so long.

I am happy to say that the last soother popped without much incident. A couple of tears on the second night with an emphatic “But Mommy, I don’t want to be big!” (I know, heartbreaking right?!) and that was the last of it.

So proud of my big big boy, I did have a silver lining in store for him. We gathered up all of those old, destroyed soothers and tossed them into a shoe box for collection by the Soother Fairy. You know the one -she collects soothers from all the kids who’ve grown too big to use them anymore and she takes them to all the new little babies. We placed that shoebox on our front step before bed, and went to sleep in anticipation of what she might leave us in return for our generous donation.

An excited little boy awoke the next morning to a shoe box overflowing with dinosaur stickers and other paraphanalia. However did she know what items would make him so happy? Ahhh, that soother fairy. She’s one smart lady.

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And the milestones keep coming. Tristan was reasonably consistent with peeing on the potty, but I needed something to take him to that next level. Something to propel him to the washroom even if he was in the middle of lining up all 100 of his dinosaurs in a neat row, or “camping” in the blanket fort. Enter the supercool sticker chart and the amazing dinosaur stickers kept in the bathroom that can *only* be accessed by peeing in the potty. The kid is so over the moon to put two ( I said one; the savvy little negotiator upped the ante) stickers on that piece of paper, he’s in there peeing all the time. And he totally “halves” his pees…. like he’ll go but not completely empty his bladder so that as soon as he finishes sticking his TWO stickers up, he climbs back on top of that little Diego seat, effectively dribbles again, and earns two more stickers.  The kid knows how to play the game!

Going number two, well that one’s been eluding us. He was saving everything up for nap time so that he could do his business in the comfort of a diaper. Being sooooo over changing a preschooler’s diaper, I knew I had to find the most amazing motivator if I was going to get this done quickly. Having no idea what I was looking for, but trusting that I would know it when I saw it, I headed off to Scholar’s Choice with a mission to find the ultimate reward. Stickers just wouldn’t be good enough. And I found it. There it was, sitting all neatly packaged in cellophane at the back of the store: a dinosaur bulletin board kit. Twelve large cardboard dinosaurs, waiting to be punched out and hung to his wall. I paid for my purchase and drove excitedly home to showcase the bribe, er, I mean reward. Tristan was beside himself with excitement. Where he saw the coolest 12 “big dinosaur stickers” ever, I saw 12 poops on the potty.

And did they work?

Hell ya! Like a charm.

Daily for a week now,  Tristan has been independently making his way to the potty, doing his business, flushing the toilet, and choosing his reward.  The whole nine yards. And I couldn’t be more proud.