Sometimes

Sometimes I get tired.
I have mentioned before that Bean is complex. I have mentioned how she likes everything just so. I have mentioned how we deal with some issues left over from her first days.....
The thing that MOST gets me down is the constant play around her stubbornness, how she is never really excited -ok let me re-phrase that- how she IS excited but can not let herself show it. How she never fully jumps into ANYTHING enthusiastically unless it is her idea. Now I know that some of this is just "kid stuff". Some of it is not.
I have been struggling lately with a few things. Mainly how she can not just be loved on, how she can not let any energy go without careful consideration.
I was hit with a revelation last week. I was on the phone explaining some of the "whys" of Bean's behaviors to a family member and in my frustrations, I blurted out "it's like this, she had to use so much energy to simply survive, until we got her, that she reads a situation and if it will require her to let go of control and then to also use up some of her energy (emotional stuff) then, she will completely dismiss it and go on because it is still about simply surviving".
And that's it. There are people in her life who do not think that she is a "deep" child, who think that she is not sensitive. The irony is that she feels more deeply and completely than anyone I have ever known. She is just not able to let go and reveal that.
This is a girl who will fall down and, even though I know that she is hurt, she will laugh and announce how silly she is, walk out of sight and then let herself feel the pain. Yes, I always go after her, and comfort her.
This is a girl that, even if the only thing she wants in the universe is to put on a fun apron and bake cookies, will NOT do it if I say "hey kid, come on! let's bake cookies." Yes we bake cookies, but I have to just put my own apron on, lay hers out, and start baking, then she will join me happily.
This is a girl who will not just cuddle. It has to be on her terms. Yes, we cuddle. Yes we are helping her around this issue.
Sometimes though? I just want to holler, "let's play in the rain!!" and have a kid that yells "YES!" and runs outside to join me. Sometime I want to just grab her and lay down and cuddle without telling her that Mama needs the cuddle even if she doesn't. Sometimes I want to have our plans change without having the Spanish Inquisition over it. Sometimes I want it to be easier.
Except that if it were ANY different, then SHE would be different. And that is the last thing that I want.

Some days we trip along and NONE of this comes up. Sometimes we spend DAYS around these issues.
Heaven help me if I use the wrong phrase and see her set her face. I know that I have just lost a battle and that will never change. I never knew that a human being could be so small and so young but so absolutely resolute. Leslie puts it this way, "She got her Warriors in place in those first ten months, they are strong and they helped her live until we could get there. We just need to learn to work around them, because they aren't going anywhere." So that's what we do.
If you are reading this and you are in the Adoption Community, please do not think that we are ignoring her attachment issues, we face them and deal with them every day. We help her and work through things as they come up. I just did some parent training for our agency and in one of the classes, a very smart lady with a daughter form China, said "these things COULD just be personality or they could be attachment issues , it's hard to tell , but either way what's wrong with making room for your child to be herself and love her the best that you can?"
That's where we are, when you read about attachment disorders, you get the established spectrum of no problems to severe problems. If you are a family like ours and just have a few, what? blips, hiccoughs, you just read and read and read and do what you can. Sometimes you follow your gut. Sometimes you go against your gut. You keep trying until you see a change. Until you see a smile that you have never seen before or until your daughter falls down and runs to you for the first time.
People always ask us if the adoption of a child with medical needs scares us. I always kind of laugh. Because technically they are all special needs. They have all lost more in a short time than we can ever imagine. I live every day with the emotional left overs of Bean's early days. I have no label. I have no prescription. There is no surgery. No team of Specialists. It's just you and your baby and a broken heart that needs mending. So, no. The physical stuff does not scare us. It's knowing that your children come to you with a pain that you will never be able to heal. It's knowing that someday they will be hit full force with the knowledge of the nuts and bolts of how they came to be yours.
During all of the "sighs and whys", I have NEVER regretted my daughter. I have never wanted anything but Evelyn. I am glad that my body is a mess and I was lead to China for her. She is mine. And you know what? Who really cares in the end HOW she gets the apron on and starts baking and giggling. She is there, right beside me, living her life. Being loved and loving in return.