You Can't Hurry Love

A few days ago during nap time my phone rang and Sunshine, reading the caller ID, yelled, "It's The Captain's school."

"Hmmm," I thought, "time for the ARD review already?"

Not quite.  The Captain, it seems, had been falling apart at school.  Can you say, "Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, BING!?"

This child could be a cover model for a story entitled,  "What to Expect of Your (Former) Foster Child."   Poor boy.  I'm sure that his teachers, who at least on one occasion have read my blog, have wondered why we call him "The Captain."  Because up until now, at school he has been an angel.

Here in the trenches, we know he is a perfectly normal boy and a fairly bossy one, at that.  At school, though, he has been wearing that halo.  Then, like clockwork, he began to test their true love for him.  We will never be sure what has caused this sudden rash of testing -- it could be the natural progression of relationships in the life of a fairly broken little boy.  However, we strongly suspect that it is closely related to the now very obvious pregnancy of one of his teachers.  He's been through 3 pregnancies with his birth-mommy;  it's a lot for a little guy to take on.

I've had the opportunity to discuss this with his teachers on a daily basis now for several days.  Yes, I said every day.  God bless his fabulous teachers.  They love him and have great compassion for him which is certainly helpful when a defiant 3-year-old is systematically tossing your library into the middle of the room.   On Monday, though, I felt perplexed.  I thought we'd had a couple of real breakthroughs over the weekend.  I'd taken care that he was as well rested and well fed as he could possibly be.  And yet, another break down.

As I hung up with his teacher, and started making lunch, I pondered possible interventions.  Suddenly, I found myself humming a Motown oldie, "You Can't Hurry Love."

"I need love, love
To ease my mind.
I need to find, find
Someone to call mine . . .
But how many heartaches
Must I stand
Before I find someone
To call mine?  . . .

No, love, love,
don't come easy
But I keep on waiting
Anticipating
For that soft voice
To talk to me at night
For some tender arms
To hold me tight . . .

You can't hurry love.
No, you just have to wait.
She said, love don't come easy,
It's a game of give and take."

Thank you, Diana Ross and the Supremes.  This could be the theme song of his life.  Thank you, Holy Spirit,  for reminding me once more, that although this precious little spitfire has been in our home for a whole year already, he's spent two-thirds of his life being moved from one caregiver to another and having his little heart broken over and over.  He's still un-moored.  So it's not terribly surprising that he's coming a bit unhinged.  You can't hurry love.