Combo #27

The following is an e-mail tht I sent to Les while he was at work, oh about a week or two ago. It's where I am. It's what's happening in my heart and head.




Leslie,
I have been thinking this morning and most of last night as I lay in bed. I am tired of being the "delayed gratification so I don't feel excitement" person. As a military wife and a mother who has to go thru an International Adoption ot bring her babies home, I am quite used to sitting around just waiting. I have learned how to turn almost everything off and live for the day or the minute that I am in and not think about how long I have until I see you again or how long I have until I will hold my baby. While in Alaska I exhausted myself, literally emotionally exhausted myself. It seems like I was always waiting for you to come home, and that was while I was waiting for Ev. It was hard. I got to the point where I just sort of closed off during waits. Now it is what I do.
And not just for huge life changing things- all things. Like this trip to Hocking Hills? I was so excited the day I was planning it and then "click" I turn it off. Go numb and wait. It's scary- I can even make the appropriate noises and expressions but it's all fake. Nothing is there until the moment we are "doing".
Last night I realized that the scene in The Office bothered me , not for what I was thinking at first. It was that they let themselves be blissfully happy and unaware. I never let myself do that. I do have all of that joy flood in at the call and at the hand over, that's true. But then I have to dive right into making travel arrangements and then taking care of the little bugger. I have never allowed myself those moments of joy, when you can just sit back and be in love with the idea. It's me. I do this to myself!
I have moved thru the miracles that lead us to this child and this place right now with this whole web of worry and doubt over my head and heart. I have not really enjoyed the idea, the timing, the hope, the excitement. I am too afraid. I am just surviving. But it's not good enough any more. I AM excited for this little guy. I DO want him home so bad that I shake. I just push it away and worry about the SN thing, the meds, the surgeries, the fear.
Well, I am tired of it. What will all of that worrying get me? Grief- plain and simple. I get mad because I don't want people to be NOT HAPPY for us, but I never show the joy myself. I never pull people along on my tide of joy. Like with Chris and Kathryn? I just launch right in to the SN and the problems that the baby might have and then tack on a hurried "oh but we are happy at the end". I am done. I do not care what people think. I do not care if I exhaust myself again.
I am going to let myself be happy and enjoy the feeling of a baby coming. All of those other things will take care of themselves. I know that we will still have to talk about the SN about the issues, about the real and understandable worries. I will actually still worry. I am just going to be doing both now, happy and worried. That's Combo Number 27, the joy/fear combo.
I deserve this. The baby especially deserves to be anticipated with joy. No one else will love him unconditionally like we will. We have to find that now. We have to let go and let it all happen and take him in our arms and sigh and say "finally you are home, we have you now." All of the other stuff will fall in line.
I am not trying to become a head in the ground sort of Mom. I know that we still have hard conversations about what is coming, what we will face. But that stuff? That's not all there is. I am going to let myself see the rest. I am going to let go a bit.
Okay?
M

Because

Because every girl needs her very own sparkly tree in her bedroom.

Because, even Princess Leia had to learn her letters.

Because, sometimes you just need to steal Mama's colander, the cat play cube and turn yourself into a robot.

Because, even big girls need their Papa.

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Because, sometimes, nothing will do but a quick holiday bootie dance!

Steve

The Tree and then a Party

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On Saturday last, we went out and brought in the tree for this year. It's a tall skinny tree that we have affectionately named Steve. Don't ask why- that stuff just happens around here. We had the chance to visit one of our very favorite tree farms and bring home the perfect "not perfect" tree. I learned that the act of obtaining a Christmas tree and hauling it into the house is akin to crack cocaine for a 5 year old- wow. WOW. Did Bean have fun.
That night it was time to get gussied up and head out to the anuual Coast Guard Christmas Party. If you know me, then you understand when I say .... "meh" It wasn't as horrible as some CG functions, wasn't what you would call truly fun either. However Ev got to dress up in her new party dress that just happened to have a matching dress for Baby, then she (Ev) got to play with a nice little girl and her brother all evening, hey at least one of us expanded their social horizons.
I do have pictures of Steve all decorated but am currently too lazy to go find the camera and upload them. I will have to get to that tomorrow.

Surprises

There are things about being a Mother that you can expect to love. The smiles, the giggles, the hugs, the laughs, those quiet moments, those big moments when your child learns to tie her shoe or ride her bike, the first time you hear her read a few words. It's no surprise really when you find yourself in love with those things and find yourself craving them. It's no surprise to watch her walk across the room and know that, there in that little body, there is your heart- now and forever.
There are things that you love from the first or end up loving-eventually. Things that no one else seems to ever bother telling you about. These are things that are little and maybe a nuisance, things that-- well surprise you, when you find that you love them. Then when you realize that these are the things that are the glue between all of those other expected and wonderful moments, when you know that these things are there because SHE is there-
epiphany.

• Dirt piles. When I sweep my floors now, all of my dirt piles have glitter in them. This always makes me smile. It's as if that little girl magic has infiltrated every bit of this old house.
• Finding items put away "wrong". Like when she helps and it's not perfect or the way that you have done it for umpteen odd years.
• Hearing her bedroom door slam when she stalks off to her room in a tizzy.
• The endless arguments and battles between human child and feline child.
• Tripping over the stray cooties foot left in the floor.
• Scraps of paper. I never thought that I would say this, but she has won me over to her side with the scraps of paper. When she was sick last week, she sat with markers and tissues and colored me up bits of tissues to "decorate" with. They were lovely and everywhere. I am sure that my visiting in laws wondered what was up.
• Watching her "smoke" her corn cob pipe.
• Listening to one silly potential sibling name after another. her current fave for a brother? Well, "Super Duck" has just taken the lead from "Live Long and Prosper". For a sister "Candy Cane" and "Lantern" are big time faves.
• Waking up in the middle of the night to help her find a lost animal.
• Arguing with her about if we should eat Subway first or go to Costco first.
• Explaining in detail every single aspect to every single moment of my day.
• Stopping what ever it is that I am doing approximately every 32 seconds to "look mama"
• My refrigerator. I used to have a wonderfully clean and uncluttered fridge- not any more. It is covered with pictures and scraps of art work, colored pages torn from coloring books, alphabet stickers- you name it, it's on the fridge and I LOVE it.
• Having your work on the adoption stopped, or having to stop working on a job application or your resume because some little person desperately needs a Popsicle, or because the cat is chewing her Barbie, or because she needs a drink, or because she is hiding and wants you to find her and sometimes it's all of these things - at once. Or it's a hundred other little things that she is asking for just so you will stop and look at her.

There are about a gajillion others but I think that you get the point.

It's. All. Good.

Time

The Bean has been home with us since May 23 in 2005. According to Leslie that is 4 years 6 months and 10 days. That is roughly 1,650 days. In case any of you out there is pondering the whole attatchment/bonding thing. Let me tell you this. It has taken every single second of those 1,650 days to help my daughter turn the corner as far as trust and intimacy. Every second.

Then, you know what? It sort of happened without me noticing it. I just realized yesterday that I am getting brighter and more open smiles, she is starting to accept the choices that I lay out for her instead of divising one of her own, she is hugging us more and allowing us to hug and kiss her more. She is more easy. That's all that I can say.

Easy like Sunday morning now.

More confident.

If you don't know her as well as we do, you probably would not even notice. Heck, it took me awhile! It's just that well, it's hard to put into words...... I can sense with my mother's heart that so many of the things that I have been hoping and praying would happen for Ev have happened.

It seems that these days she is luminescent. She is more free.

It has not been all me. Or all Les. It has been Grandma and Grandpa Aunt Lissa and her Dillon Aunts. It has been having Brevin in her life. It has been watching us struggle to get the baby home and hearing every day that this is what we did for her-reaffirming that she was wanted and loved form the very beginning.

It has been HER.

This tiny girl who was followed home by the pain and betrayals of her beginnings. This baby that was left outside at just a day old. This child who survived hospitalizations and an orphanage-alone- this one little being who determined somewhere in her mind that she would live. I have learned so much from her. I have to respect her shell- it is part of why she survived. I have to make room in my life for her inner warriors for they kept her strong. I am almost bowed over every day that I see her smile and feel her arms around me and hear her say "Mama I LOVE you." Because there is no real and solid reason that she should have lived, that she should have healed, that she has found a way to finally crack that shell and send those warriors off for a lunch break. What I have on my hands is a miracle.

I know that.

Leslie knows that.

I am not saying that our work is over. I know that there will be questions later. Hard questions with answers that one can only soften so much. I know that those teen years are out there- looming.

It's just that this Christmas more than any of our other 4....This Christmas is something super duper. Something great. Something important. I want it to last forever and I want to bask in every minute.

So I will.

This One Is Mine