reality

Judd has been with us for three months now, though we began the adoption process much earlier. Throughout 2010, adoption seemed imaginary to us—Are we really about to have another kid in our house? Is there really a kid on the other side of the paperwork? Is this for real? Well, Judd is here. Judd is very real. And reality is setting in.

People keep asking how we are doing. Really doing. So I wanted to write a bit about the day-to-day reality of adoption.

Overall, Judd couldn’t be better. He is healthy, happy, and very busy. He still eats his weight in finger foods daily. He loves his brothers and loves to play. And he is pretty sure he is in charge of the house. He’s doing well.

Judd is also a mischievous little boy. He dismantles anything he touches with scientific precision. He climbs on the table, throws toys down the stairs, and is both the smallest and loudest member of our family. We have invested in cabinet locks. Judd hunts for stray crayons and knows how to use them to maximize destruction. Just today he ripped three pages out of a library book and broke a calculator in half, somehow. The nickname Genghis is ringing truer every day.

Don’t get me wrong. We are still very thankful to have this little guy here. And he is as funny and playful and cute as can be (ah yes, God’s wisdom in making naughty kids cute). But man, it’s been a shock to the rhythm we hadn’t realized we had found. Life as normal ain’t what it used to be.

To be honest, Judd is probably doing better than I am, which is an amazing thing to say. Think about what this little guy has been through his brief two years: abandoned likely on his birthday, orphanage life (two words that can’t do 19 months justice), a couple surgeries, given to strangers who toted him to another hemisphere, etc. And he’s doing great. His parents are the ones in shock. What’s wrong with this picture? Well, maybe I am.

I can too easily forget that Judd acts the way he does is because he’s never had a parent before. He is demanding because he had to be to survive in an orphanage. No wonder he yells before meals. No wonder he freaks when he thinks we are leaving without him. Still, it gets dang old quick to be yelled at a dozen times a day, but I understand why he does it. That’s the reality of adoption.

Judd is partly mischievous because he’s lived in a padded childcare room without a parent to teach and train him. He is also naughty because I think that’s just they way it is—and because he is smarter than me, which isn’t fair. Once again, his behavior both drives us crazy and makes us more thankful he is here. 

They call this kind of stuff orphanage behavior, which is a sad term when you think about it. These behaviors are in no way reasons we wish we hadn’t adopted; they are many of the reasons we adopted. He acts this way because he needed a mommy and daddy. He is here because God had planned for that mommy and daddy to be us.

So yes, adoption is beautiful. It is an amazing picture of the Gospel and God adopting children who were far from him. But our spiritual adoption wasn’t easy and wasn’t cheap. Judd's adoption isn’t easy or cheap or simple either. Of course, nothing that is worth doing is.