Folk Music & Shadows

There’s this really awkward moment when you have a child adopted from an orphanage who is delayed—when you go see the pediatrician and the receptionist hands you the development questionnaire and asks you to fill it out while you are waiting in the waiting room. It’s the one for 24 month olds, or 2 ½ year olds, or 3-year olds—or whatever.

It comes with the very best of intentions, I know—so I try not to be too frustrated as it’s handed across the counter to me. Doctors want to make sure they are catching delays early enough—so if parents check enough “no” boxes (as in, “is your child saying 25 or more words, yes or no?”) it alerts them that the child is probably needing some interventions.

But with our Matthew, we know that already. So I’ve stopped filling out those questionnaires—it’s my mama resistance, I suppose, to the status quo of standard-based child raising and benchmarks and expectations.

“No thank you,” I say kindly, and hand it back. “Our doctor already knows that our son is delayed. I don’t have the heart to check 37 ‘no’ boxes again today.”

But in my heart what I’m really thinking is, “What I’d love to do instead is to tell you all the milestones Matthew has achieved since the last time we were here.”

But unfortunately no one asks me that.

So let’s pretend YOU asked me. Let’s pretend you want to know what new things Matthew Oscar Xu-Bo Russell is up to right now.

“Oh, you want to know what new things he’s doing?” I say, secretly thrilled. “Well, let me tell you.”

Matthew—our boy—loves to dance when I play the guitar. He parades ‘round the kitchen with his older brother, wiggling his bottom and clapping his hands.  Any kind of music thrills our boy—but especially the folk music his mama plays on her guitar. When Dad gets out his drum and starts beating along, then it’s pure joy for our boy.

I realize that if Matthew had been adopted by some other family in some other part of the country, it could very well be jazz or country western or some other genre of music that our boy would be dancing to. But there’s something about folk music—about its accessibility and its rhythm—that stirs this kiddo’s soul and gets right to his heart.

Matthew also LOVES trucks—which isn’t new, as our boy has always traveled through his days with at least one truck in his hand. But these days he’s driving his trucks around the floor, sometimes even making “vroom, vroom” noises as he does so.

“Functional play,” our speech therapist calls this, and she’s thrilled that Matthew’s reached this milestone. I’m thrilled too, as I know that Matthew’s moving along the developmental spectrum—slowly but surely!

And he’s also become my shadow. Everywhere I go, he goes. To you this might not seem amazing, but to me it is. Matthew’s awareness of other people—particularly his mama—is a new development for him. Anyone who saw him in his first several months home will attest to what an amazing thing this is—to be aware of where I am and where I am going. He picks up whatever style of truck is in his hand at the moment (for there is ALWAYS some truck in his hand at every waking moment of the day, as I assured you earlier) and comes to find me. I can be in the basement or in the attic, and that kid will find me and come play with his toys right beside me.

What an amazing development for him.

Tonight for some reason this struck me as important—these little, small milestones. My heart filled with joy, I sang my heart out in the kitchen with my guitar as Matthew danced at my side, truck in his hand—joyful and full of glee at the music and the love that wraps around him in this life.