All Stirred Up

This impending sibling business has Evelyn all of a dither.
Now, these are just my observations and never having added a child to a home where there are already children, I may be talking outta my rear end. BUT. I think the things that I am seeing in Ev are there because she's in flux. Her home is changing. She is already sharing that spotlight.
Well. Hum.
It's goes like this. There are a few Evelyns right now. One of the few things saving me is that the timing of these "moods" is rather stable, so each mood has it's time of day. That means I can keep reminding myself who's going to show up next and say my mantra :"swami mommy swami mommy it's a tough tough change for a tiny tiny muffin"
Mornings are good. She is always best in the morning. So she hits my lap or bedside all smiley and hopeful, lovey and warm.
Mid-morning she brings The Snark out for a run.
Afternoon is Faux Adult Evelyn.
Evening is reserved for Dreary Girl.
By bedtime I am band-aiding up about 5 imaginary boo-boos, cuddling a weepy girl and taking lots and lots of time to get this "Regressed Rita" into bed.
 I have had to drag her booster seat for the dinner table back down form the attic, she seems to be playing alot with the baby toys under the crib (like she used to, but how she knew this I don't know), we have even had to pick her up and put her in the crib for her to lay there and relax. She seems to have lost some of her ability to problem solve and the girl who wouldn't even think about letting me chose her clothes last week, will now wait patiently for me to deliberately take lots of time helping her. All of this coupled with random bouts of uber adult behavior: like driving advice or making lots and lots of very elaborate "what if" plans.

I am trying my best to give her that extra. The extra hug, the extra snuggles. The patient listening.
It's really not hard. I can see her struggling and I know why, and it's completely understandable. She's not going to be the solo act in this dog and pony show anymore. A brother is coming.
Her world is shifting.
She's trying to do it gracefully.
And for a five year old?
She's doing wonderfully.

She had to get three shots at the doctor today. In a way, I am glad. It means that there was a focus for all of these feelings. It means that she had a reason, that a vocabulary could be made, a dialog. I let her complain and cry. I let her lay on the couch until SHE was ready for bed. I even called her grandma at her request to tell of her trials.

She's afraid. Afraid of loosing us. Our love. This thing that we have.
I can not tell her so that she would understand. The only way for me to help her is to SHOW her. It will take time. We will have to go through this thing and get to the other side before she has her "ahh hah" moment.
Until then, I won't use words as my tools.
I will use this mother's love that runs so deep in me, it's almost painful.

5 Years Ago

Five years ago we were in China.
Five years ago I reached out and grabbed Ev to my chest.
Five years ago we had a tiny muffin - all our own.
Five years ago my heart learned what it was like to love unconditionally.
Five years ago I was given the most precious gift.
Five years ago?
It feels like forever. It feels like a split second.
It feels too much like time is flying.
Five years ago our lives began.

F-Bomb Hat

This one is for Sammy.

Les had to go to "The Federal Building"(TFB) last week, for a Coast Guard thing. He had weeks to prepare but, and this is why I love this man, the night before he left his hat at the Station. Again in true Les fashion, he did not realize this until it was too late to make it 30 minutes to the Station and then 45 back the other way to TFB. This was a big deal because of the whole military, be-in-uniform thing.
This is what he did.
He had his fit. He only throws one a year so you know--alright have your fit. ( in comparison I have one a week so he's like the Rock of Gibraltar). Yeah. He was in every. single. nook. and. cranny. of the house. The entire house. And no hat. Now mind you, two months ago he moved ALL of his spare hats to the Station for "decorating his office"- all 33 of them. He was just hoping, in vain, that he had forgotten one.
There were no hats in this house.
There was no time to get any.
It WAS a fit so there was stomping and slamming and well, cussing. Alot of cussing. So much cussing that I, Queen of The Cuss was like "damn that's alot of cussing"
In the meantime I helped to save Ev's life because she kept trying to jump in The Fit and offer counseling about priorities and planning and eating that omelette right there on the counter....( she does leave something to be desired in the whole situational awareness area) ( also this is how little a fit affects her. She just keeps on being....Ev)  I came in with the saving by clamping her mouth shut and thus rendering her invisible to The Stomping Cussing Wonder.

Then he left. He was out the door with a 'F@#%" and a wave.

It took Ev approximately 2 point 5 seconds to decide how she was going to process this event.
She slid off of the kitchen chair.
She donned a very, very sly grin.
She tilted her head down and began talking in a deliberate baritone. And stomping.
Then she said:
" Hi I'm Papa! Where is my hat?!?! My f-bomb hat. I need my f-bomb hat!!!!  Woman do you hear what I said?!!? I am going to be stupid late!!!!! STOMP STOMP

Slam! STOMP! No f-bomb hat up here! "
And she went on like this for about 10 minutes. No. You do not understand. She was actually saying" f-bomb." Not THE word--the stand in for the word. "F-bomb." She did this whole diatribe in her "papa" voice.

I nearly died. I could feel my circle of willis pounding. I have NEVER, in my life, laughed as hard as I did right then.

Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Program

So that was fun. Two days of bliss over the LOA and then 3 days of paper work. I must say it wasn't like this when we did Ev's adoption. I remember just mailing our passports to the Agency and they got our Visas and such. Not so lucky this time around and man, do I miss the "good old days". I mean really? Visa 37, Provisional Approval, I-797C, I-800, Article 5, Letter of Acceptance, Second Letter of Acceptance......Whew! I am glad that we have a great agency because I am just following orders at this time, as I only have a rudimentary grasp on what is happening. Please do not read this as complaints- I am happy as a pig in mud. I am working. I am mailing things off. The word "travel" is cropping up all over the place. It is all supremely wonderful.  We are moving towards our boy.

Before all of this happened Ev and I spent the weekend on the road with The Gramma and Brev. It was a fun weekend. We went to Indiana and I got to see my Grandpa Matt and my Grandma Rose. These are two of my very favorite people on earth and I don't get to see them near enough.
I learned two things: 1) My mother is a nervous wreck and 2) Despite her nerves we are good travel companions.
I also learned that Matt Fugate has not lost his charm as one little girl who never lets anyone close- fell head over heels for him and has talked of him everyday since then. Grandma Rose is no slouch either and I am afraid that she will be baking brownies for a whole new generation. ( I am not kidding Ev loved them both and let them both so close physically that it was a shock to me).
( Grandma and Grandpa? We will be back as soon as we can. )

Some highlights from the trip:

• Seeing Ev all snuggled up on my Grandpa's lap.
• Sleeping with Ev in the big bed I always chose to sleep in during my childhood visits to Grandpa's.
• Brevin wiggling in the back seat, talking very frankly about his bathroom functions and making the car smell awful- all with Grandma Rose in the car. 
• Brevin going completely berserk in the middle of a restaurant because "mawmaw" went to the bathroom alone.
• Driving down the freeway with the two kids in the back seat under blankets, eating ice cream cones and fries while watching Star Wars.

Acceptance

Yesterday we sat down with some very important papers from China.
It was one more step in the paper work that provided us the chance to say that we want him.
I had to write the phrase "We accept Dang Ao Zhuang".
 I wrote out that phrase.
We accept.
We do accept.
We have always accepted him.
I  have had many chances to think about this part, I day dreamed of it for weeks, as a matter of fact. What I remember from Ev's adoption is that I was a total mess signing her Letter. I thought that it would be no big deal this time. Just sign it and mail it the hell out and get on with it. But I was wrong.
 I sat there for a moment. I looked at the Letter of Acceptance. I looked at the words we had written in January and the Chinese translation of them. Underneath these words was where we had to write the phrase of acceptance. Suddenly my heart burst in my chest.
All of the love and acceptance that I feel for him in my heart just poured out.
All of my little day dreams swam through my mind.
Do we accept this little person?
Yes.
With every fiber of our beings. We accept.
We are willing to meet him where he is.
We are willing to take the slow boat to love.
We are willing to wait. To be there. To love. To lift up.

Do I expect HIM to accept us? Nope. Not one bit. I expect him to be wherever and whatever he is. I am hoping that I have in me, what he needs to get him to that acceptance of us. To let us in.

We accept.
We accept.
We accept.

Three Little Letters

L
O
A

That's right. I said it. LOA!!!!!!
We got out LOA yesterday. (Letter Of Acceptance or letter Seeking Confirmation From the Adopter)
This is the next thing that we were waiting for. Now we have to sign that, overnight it back and it gets sent off to China. Along with that, we have other forms to send out to Immigration and blah blah blah... The word is that once we get out I-800A Submitted to Immigration, we have an 11- 14 week wait to travel.
Sounds like a long time to wait right? Maybe. But now we have a timeline. Now we are not waiting  and waiting with no end in sight.
We have an end in sight and that makes all the difference.

In typical Dillon fashion we waited all of this time with nothing going on. Today we have the LOA stuff to do, Gymnastics, and a little thing called the Service Wide Exam that Les is taking for advancement.

In other news, the dining room is painted.

The Real Story

OK. Here it is.

The real story. Where I am and what I am feeling.

Riveting, I know.

It's just that, well, this is hard and I try and try and then I falter and then I have to pull myself back up and I want other AP's who are waiting out there to see that someone else is struggling.

I am dealing with a few things. Our life is essentially on hold. I am grieving for the loss of babies--babies in my arms. I am grieving for my son. I am longing for him to be home with us. I am tackling every day life in the middle of a home re-do project from hell.

Mostly I start feeling down and sad and then feeling guilty and ungrateful for being sad and down. So that's fun. Mostly it is so difficult for me to be around anyone right now, it takes every scrap of energy I  have to smile and keep track of conversation. I spend every day, all day, feeling exhausted and drained.

Having your life on hold and longing to do any single thing that is concrete for your child is awful. Sure you can buy clothes and things but, really then you just have this stuff around that's waiting for him. You can get the room ready but then it sits empty. You can read books and try to prepare but mostly they scare the beejeezus outta you. 

I have come to the conclusion that my grief over infertility is there. It will more than likely always be there. The new revelation is that it is completely separate from my children and my love for them. Grief over infertility does not mean that you are ungrateful and just can't see your blessings. It means that your heart is broken and will always have that scar. It's funny though, this pain. It prevents me from doing things like holding babies or even being able to be in the same room as a pregnant woman without being in acute pain.  Gut wrenching pain. I was never able to really and truly hold my nephew when he was a baby, my heart would ache so awfully, that it was physically painful. I dared not attempt any sort of care taking for him, lest my desire to truly take over his care, overwhelm me and leave me devastated. Some have said to me, "You know, God knew what he was doing when he made it so you adopted, because you can't deal with babies" . If they only knew. ( This means that the baby shower I am going out of state to attend this week end should be a real treat in land mine avoidance. That doesn't mean I don't want to go. I do and it will be fun. It's just that there will be nightmares and sorrow afterwards, also a whole lot of God Questioning.)

I have been inundated with feeling for my son since Jan 5.  Then this makes me relive the times with Ev when her grief was so close to the surface.   I know that he will be loved and that, eventually we will have him as healthy as he can be , both physically and  emotionally. It's just that there has to be so much to go through for him until he is there. I know that. I know that meeting us in China will only be the newest hurdle in his life. This constant influx of emotions cause this deep, deep need to MOVE, to prepare, to GO . . . then you have to back down. You have to stand down and live with the fact that any real preparation has to wait until only China knows when. It's exhausting. Mostly it's me here, worrying about his well fare there. Me here grieving his grief.

This whole let's-distract-ourselves-from-the-wait-by-completely-redoing-the-whole-downstairs-area? Not so bright of an idea after all. Like Les said "We effectively removed any scrap of comfort we had left." Nowhere to relax. No couch or chairs--it's all moved and stored away so the floors could get done. Eating on the kitchen floor, living in the basement? Fun. Hey it will all look awesome though and I am so glad that we did it before we got home with the walking 2 year old. 

There is also joy. Unimaginable joy. In my daughter. In the thoughts of the son to come. In my husband. I am looking forward to getting the house done and then we will have, for the first time  ever, a house that is exactly how we want it. In my family who understands this journey so much and who is always ready to listen to me dream and cry. 

I think it's living with the two extremes of human emotion in my heart, every moment of the day that wears me out so much. 

I start to worry that I am morbid. Morose. Depresssive. Then I read other blogs with posts like Loss or Pretty picture and I see that no, I am where we all are.

Waiting and exhausted. Joyful and sad. Ready and waiting.

My heart a-tangle of all the good and all the grief and me here in the center trying to make sense of it all.
And get dinner on the table.