Cocooning Our Beautiful Butterfly

One early morning you awake to your cell phone ringing.  (Why didn't you silence it?  Why is someone actually *calling* you?  Quandaries for a fully conscious mind.)  Your longtime friend/mentor is on the line saying, "TODAY'S THE DAY!  It's finally trip time!" Hmmm, alright.  You have a vague recollection of him mentioning a trip in the past, but honestly you've been friends for awhile and he says lots of things and you don't always pay attention.  So when he shows up at your doorstep 15 minutes later, before you've finished your morning coffee (Rude!), you are surprised and a little annoyed.  He's always bossy, but today it's next level bossy.  With a "No time for questions," he hustles you outside and into the back seat of some stranger's souped-up sports car -not the most sensible method of travel in your opinion- and slides in behind you.  The driver revs up and the car speeds off, your mentor casually chattering about the trip and your traveling companions, while you focus on keeping the small amount of coffee you actually got into your stomach to STAY THERE.  Sure, this is normal.  But listen, however strange the outing, you fully trust your spontaneous friend to keep you safe.  It's easiest just to go along with his ideas.  After either 30 minutes or 3 hours, time is funny when you're nauseated, the vehicle screeches to a stop in front of ......the biggest building you've ever seen.  Your friend hops out of the car and nonchalantly starts toward this modern structure like he's heading into a McDonalds, so you lean into him and walk inside.  The building's interior seems to be completely made of windows and doors and winding hallways and different rooms, but he navigates this maze deftly as if he's done it many times before.  Finally he knocks on one of the many doors and it opens to reveal -he whispers to remind you- your travel buddies!  Okay.  You were already skeptical about proceeding with the trip despite the excitement of your mentor.  But now, after seeing your "buddies," you are hardcore convinced the whole thing is a bad idea.  These people (?) are straight up from another planet.  They communicate with your friend in an unintelligible jumble of sound, which -to his credit- he pretends to understand, giving you a chance to eyeball them more fully.  Their translucent skin is OVERLY VISIBLE: Poorly chosen clothing exposes their pigment drained arms AND legs, begging the question, "Why aren't they covering that mess up?  Do they not have the sun in their world?  Could I go blind from seeing their appendages?"  The whole room has absorbed their odd, unfamiliar scent.  Worst of all, they keep staring at you with big watery eyes and toothy smiles like you are on the menu for dinner.  Obviously you are going nowhere with these weirdos.  However the smallest alien gives you a chocolate, so you decide to stick around long enough to finish the candy.  You don't want to be impolite.  When you finish the chocolate, you glance back towards your mentor to give him the "let's get outta here" look but he isn't there.  He.Isn't.THERE.  You make towards the door, but the martians block it and say some of their sounds at you.  The littlest one holds out another candy.  Um, you don't want candy, you want your friend.  You pivot around, wild-eyed, looking for other exits.  Did he leave you here?  He would never do that, would he?  You ask over and over if they would let you go to him.  They nod their watery eyes at you and attempt to hold you.  To hug you?!?  Nope, nope, nope.  Hours are spent in this back and forth: Them trying to bribe and distract you with sweets or games; you pleading for your mentor and then being prevented from going out the door to find him.  The tears start falling in earnest.  How could this possibly be the exciting trip your mentor promised?

What you've just experienced is either a gentler version of the first 15 minutes of any Liam Neeson movie (no throat punches in my adaptation!) -OR- a depiction of a typical "Gotcha day" from the perspective of the adopted child.

So yes, we love Wren.  We 100% know we are family.  SHE, however, has no forged connection to us.  She has no concept of (what we consider) a traditional family unit or a home environment.  

By the time Rangila meets us, she will have already encountered a laundry-list of brand new/out of the ordinary activities from her typical day at the orphanage.  (And we all know how much 3 year olds love change):

• Car rides.  She has probably been in a vehicle only a handful of times in her little life.  We were cautioned to bring children's dramamine....and an absorbent towel.
• White people.  On our best days, the Gross family could rightly be described as pale.  Can you imagine how jarring that could be for a small human who has never witnessed it before?  We will look different from almost anyone she has ever met.  And she will have to remain with US, the peculiar out-of-place ones, while coming to and from appointments with professional adult people that look and sound like her.  Sounds like a great trade.
• A different language.  Communication will be a challenge.  Sure she "knows" some basic English as we "know" some basic Bengali, but -under these pressured circumstances- ain't nobody winning a Rosetta Stone language learner award.  Thank goodness we will have an in-country guide staying in the hotel with us to help navigate the language barrier.
• Running water-In tubs or toilets.  If you are used to getting a basin bath, an industrial bathtub is going to look (and sound!) like Niagara Falls to you.  Not to mention the cold flushing monster that you have to sit on top of (???) without falling into its whirlpool of death! 
• An environment where adults outnumber -or equal- the amount of kids.  Wren is used to friend overload.  All kids, all the time.  Not sure that the daily Gross couch and quiet reading time is going to be her jam right away.  The closest we get to the noise and bustle of her orphanage is when Pearl our dog gets the zoomies!  Quite an adjustment for the princess.

I could go on, but hopefully you get it.  Bringing an adopted son or daughter home is NOT the same as bringing a newborn home.  A newborn that is biologically predisposed to find comfort IN you.  Rangila is not a blank slate for us to write on.  She is a person with experiences, thoughts, opinions, and her fair share of coping methods already in place.  We don't want to erase that, but instead to compliment and add onto her original worldview through consistent nurturing and familial love.  Hence, cocooning.

Cocooning is a fancy adoption word for staying at home with your kid.  As you wouldn't wave your newborn around in public during flu season (or -let's say- A PANDEMIC), so you wouldn't with an adopted child.  They need to adjust to you and you to them.  We'll be reclaiming some of the precious bonding we didn't get to have in Rangila's baby phase.  You can imagine how the process could be hindered/interrupted if a new set of white adults shows up to the house everyday.  Wren might wonder if she has to go home with these aliens now, just as she was getting used to the other pale ones.  Or what if -in the beginning weeks- we needed a break, so we brought her to stay with grandparents?  And then left and closed the door behind us.  Considering her recent trauma of being removed from everything -and everyone- that comprised normal life, this could sent her back into full blown panic mode.  Because she doesn't know we're coming back.  She's been left somewhere before.  This is what we have to establish with our girl: That WE are her home now.  That WE will always be here.  That WE will come for her no matter what.  This is family.

When we come home with Wren in mid-April, we KNOW you wanna meet her.  We get it.  She's amazing and adorable and every one of the things.  But you're gonna have to give us space, give her space.  We can't laser the idea of family straight to Rangila's brain from thin air; we have to deliberately nurture and develop and love the concept into her over time.  So, cocooning.  And eventually, we will emerge from home -a stronger and more beautiful unit- to stretch our wings.  To fly wherever we want.  Because, finally finally finally, we'll have all the time in the world.

Rangila Lynne, Our rainbow daughter- the most beautiful butterfly