My little dancer

We were told he could dance....I think he may have some genes from the Ethiopian dancers at the restaurant.

I know I have been being pretty transparant lately, and well it is probably coming across as complaint after complaint. I really don't mean to. I just want people to know this is how we are. Life isn't always lilies and bubbles. Sometimes it's hard but it makes you stronger and it heightens your gratitude when things are going well. I love Liam more than life itself. SERIOUSLY! I just know when I first came home I wish I would have had a couple of blogs to read where people were having a difficult time. Not because I wanted them to have a difficult time but because I needed to know that we were normal...Whatever those of you who have been there will totally know what I mean and those of you haven't can judge away.

Needless to say in honor of showing off my "boyfriends" moves I wanted to write 10 things about Liam I love in honor of his 10 month birthday..

1. I love your smile. When you smile it is very genuine and it makes my day.

2. I love your hair! It's so unbelievably soft and so curly and cute.

3. I love the way you smell. I can't describe it but I kinda want to eat you after giving you a good sniff:)

4. I love the way you crawl it's to cute.

5. I love the way you stick your butt out mid crawl. BABY GOT BACK!

6. I love the way you gently touch things with your middle finger. Daddy calls it your delicate finger.

7. I love the way you rest on me when you are sleepy.

8. I love how well you sleep! 12 hours! There is my sleeper (just like your momma!)

9. I love the way you want to give your cool big brother kisses..even if he doesn't always appreciate your love juice(aka slobber).

10. I love you...You are dramatic and passionate and Daddy jokes that you are just like your mom. I am honored as you are amazing!

I LOVE my little rain cloud

Today was one of those days when you feel like you can't do anything right in the eyes of your infant. You know the one that is supposedly looking to you to "fix it.." Although Liam is full of fun and I love him more than life itself he can also be quite a challenge. He is my little drama king. I love it...Most of the time but sometimes it can wear on me. Seriously I joke that he is 10 months going on 2....

Anyways On to my picture explanation. Liam had just flung himself on the floor and was throwing a fit when I scooped him up and started to sing you are my sunshine....you know the one, "you make me happy when skies are grey etc. Well I realized I didn't really feel the song was very fitting in the moment so I instead began to sing "you are my rain cloud my only rain cloud you make me grow so when you throw fits."

I know I should totally be song writer. Seriously though I love my little rain cloud. It's okay that he is my rain cloud. We so often think of rain clouds in a negative light. I know that when I see it is going to rain I feel gloomy or even pout. When I think about it though these feelings are pretty selfishly motivated. I mean, I don't like a rain cloud because why? Because I can't be outside...Because it won't be as warm as I like, Because I don't get the sunshine, Because it is dark....You get the idea. I mean really rain clouds have gotten a bad rap.

After giving this more thought I realized how God uses rain clouds to bring much needed rain to help things grow. Recently we have had a down pour of rain. I mean buckets and buckets. So much the ground is having a hard time absorbing it all. Man when the rain stopped the grass was so green and I mean goodbye yellow winter grass hello spring soft stuff. God has given me my little rain cloud for growth. I have grown so much as a person and we have grown so much as a family. I don't always like growth and sometimes growth can be painful and sometimes the growth opportunities are just pouring out of my little raincloud but we have our weeks of sunshine and it's in those moments I see just how much blessing my little rain cloud has poured out on our family.

Love

I love my little boys so much! I am overwhelmed right now. I am very very blessed.

Loss of Words and prayers for peace

I just read a post on the Riggs blog of a family who had to burry their 8 mo. old son. Please visit the Blogg and read the post they have put up in honor of this family. This is every parents worst nightmare. Please please pray for God's peace to cover this family as they grieve the loss of their baby boy. (You can get to the Rigg's blog by clicking on the square about called 'praying for Abby')

A child's honesty

So I was standing in the Kitchen today dipping chocolate chip pancakes in Karo syrup mixed with butter and eating them, when Wesley came up behind me and started punching me in the butt. I said "Hey why don't you go punch Daddy in the butt?" He ran over to Daddy and proceeded to do the same thing to him. After about 2 punches he was back at my rear punching me. I said again "hey go punch Daddy's booty." He said "Nah your bunnies(yep that's what he calls em) are much more squishing." To which my kind sweet husband laughed very hard at.

Thanks Wes. Yes this did prompt me to work out the glutes at the Y.

A breath of fresh air and new perspectives

So I took a little "vacation." Well maybe it wasn't little but it was very needed. On Friday morning I packed my things kissed my three boys and drove to Saint Louis where I met my Mom and sisters for a "girls weekend away." Where did we go you might ask? Well Jamaica. Yeah we don't mess around for our girls weekends. No I think the reality is we have to get that far away so that we can't hear what is going on at our houses while the men are home with our children. This trip came at a time when I really needed some new perspectives. Every night for the past 2 weeks I had prayed and prayed that God would give me wisdom on exactly what kind of Mom I needed to be. I wanted him to supernaturally let me "know" Liam as if I had had him from day 1. I mean motherhood is a guessing game but wow when you miss out on time it's hard to jump in the middle. Well anyway I came home with so much peace. Maybe I don't "know" him perfectly but there are a few things that I came home a littler wiser on...Here they are:

My husband: Amazing man of God! Amazing. Aaron is truly the rock and spiritual leader that holds this family together. He loves me so much and makes that very evident in the ways that he treats me. He is such a leader in our home. Not one of those take charge in your face kinda guys but he chooses to lead through service (He is such an example of the way Christ loves the church). He has continued to validate me and love me even through my adjustment periods...He has been so supportive and never once made me feel stupid or silly. He goes out of his way to make sure I am taken care of. He sees how much I sacrifice for his boys and he is right there trying to fill me back up the second he gets home from work. He makes me feel like I have the most important job in the whole world by staying home. He compliments me on my ability to be these boys mom even when he comes home and both boys are mad at me. I love him!

My kids: They are doing okay...(some of you may be thinking duhhh...but seriously you must not know me and know how much I obsessively analyze everything). They are emotionally healthy well rounded kids. They have two parents whom they both trust to care for them. Sure I felt like my boys missed me but when I walked in the door they were both so happy. There was not this melt down of..."ah you left us and now you are back to pick up the pieces."

The interesting thing is that I didn't take my vacation to reflect on this like I had planned. Yes I even brought my journal and everything to try to psycho analyze every detail until I could figure this whole thing out...No God did something so much better for me. He gave me illness. Yes I was sick the whole time we were in Jamaica. When I did feel good enough to walk to food or yes a lounge chair in the sun, my time was not spent analyzing life at home it was spent in peace (or trying to stay alive:) Seriously I had enough on my mind trying to take care of myself, a strange place for me to be actually, those kids always come first. Which in the last 2 months some of the best advice that I have gotten is that in order to be a good mom you have to take care of you too! So I honestly believe that had I been 100% I really might have stressed and obsessed over trying to fix Liam's screaming, trying to balance 2, trying to bond etc. Instead I sipped my water and ate my sudafed and passed out under a beautiful warm sun where the only noise I heard was the soothing sounds of the ocean.

No all of my previous revelations came to me the second that I walked in our front door. No one knew that I was on my way so I was able to catch everyone off guard. Wes was the first to see me and he happily ran to me with a big smile and a "mommy I missed you." Then as I came around the corner there sat daddy and Liam. Liam was getting some veggies and Daddy was smiling ear to ear. Cheesy for me to say but everyone was so peaceful. Liam then started his back arching and screeching but all that came out of me was a giggle. I could tell he wanted to see me. I picked him up and the first thing he did was give me a little 5 second frencher (j/k but you know how baby kisses are). I usually have to work so hard for those kisses. That's when the lightning hit. I got it. He is okay. He knows your his mom, He understands that you will feed him, He loves you, But man he wants space. Ahhh space yes the poor little man wants space. He is like a 2 year old stuck in a 9 month old babies body. He wants to figure it out himself. Yet I was so worried about his screaming being an attachment issue I was afraid something was wrong. No I had good perspective on the first reunion. My little man has what we would like to call a temper. Pure and simple. There is no psycho analyzing it anymore. The funny thing is now that I know that I feel a little sheepish as I realize just how much he is like his mom....

Verbal Diarrhea and Transparency

So I know I surveyed you all to see what you would rather read about; our days in Ethiopia, or how things are really going or something else (I can't remember) and not really the point. I know I failed you on writing about each day but I have to talk about how things really are. My intention is to process, to be real, and to be transparent. So please know you are reading the real stuff...

Through our whole journey I kept pretty calm. I had my valleys (more like chasm ), but for the most part it was fairly smooth sailing. I remember after we got our referral I was having a really difficult time. Then I felt like God centered me and redirected my focus to him. Then the whole waiting for a court decree happened OUCH! That one was really difficult. Anyway it was during that difficult time that I remember thinking to myself...Man if we pass court and we do get to bring him home and things are difficult I am going to look back at myself and think Wow what was my problem. I should have lived life to the fullest with just one child :) Well here I sit thinking Wow what was my problem....

So my first thought on what life is really like is to tell you about the transition of going from 1 to 2. I sure didn't see this one coming. Having to balance my time between both children. Making sure they both survive the day.

My second thought is to skip all the talk of going from one to two and tell you just how hard this really has been. Liam is amazing! (I know those two sentences don't fit together). But that is how I feel. He is a very bright little boy and a very fast learner. He is also very forgiving. I have not learned to totally differentiate between cries and the poor kid had a double ear infection. Another time I didn't notice until his 2 little teeth had already broke through. To my credit I did catch this last ear infection. So with that said things are still really hard around here.

Before we traveled I feel like the conversation we had with a social worker really set us up for failure. The conversation involved an incessant list of rules that to be totally honest there was no way we could keep up with.

Here are a few:

1. Wearing the baby

2. Responding immediately to his cries

3. Putting him to bed asleep

4. Not letting anyone hold him for the first 3 months

Liam loves his personal space and so do I. When I wear him the only time we are happy with this arrangement is when we are out of the house. In the house not so much. We are both literally pulling our hair out by the end of our "bonding" session.

Responding immediately to his cries is ridiculous. I don't consider myself a child psychologist and I by no means have a PhD, but I do know that you can make a child anxious by responding to his every cry. The kid has to talk. Also he needs to learn to self soothe. A very important skill. I have convenced myself of this...

When we first brought him home we put him to bed asleep every nap and bedtime. Unfortunately for us Liam did not want to be rocked or snuggled he wanted to be bounced to sleep. CURSES ON THOSE BOUNCERS AT HH. So I would begin my Jazzersize routine every 2 hours when he wanted to be put down. I would bounce for 5-10 minutes only to lay him down and have his eyes pop open again and the blasted bouncing would begin all over. Well as time went on it was taking longer and longer to bounce him to sleep. Meanwhile my 3 year old is tearing the house apart. So needless to say Liam learned very quickly the self soothing technique. He now goes to sleep 3 times a day for 1 1/2 hour long naps. He is laid in his bed awake and within 5-10 minutes (crying free) he is a sleep. He is laid down between 6:30 and 7:00 for bed and does not get up until 6:00-7:00. Heck yeah!

We had to let people hold him the minute we walked off the plane. My ear drum burst on our flight from D.C. to St. Louis and by the time we landed I was fit to be tied. When we made it to my parents house, I laid down on the couch for what I thought would be a catnap and well fell pretty much unconscious for hours. So between Aaron my parents and my little sister(who loved holding him) the 2 boys were taken care of. I was busy just trying to stay alive :)

So it sounds like we were able to work through these "rules" just fine and figure out what worked for our family...Please. There was a lot of sweat, tears, and maybe a little blood that went into figuring those simple things out and that's not even the half of it. Besides that a whole lot of guilt that I was permanently scarring him for not following "the rules."

So far in the 3 months we have been home I have run through every emotion created by God. I have been on cloud nine with my life, family, home etc. Watching my boys interact brings me so much Joy. Wesley really loves his little brother and Liam mimics everything Wesley does (he already thinks he is way cool). Then I have been in the depths of despair because of attachment issues (and I am not talking about him to me....I am talking me to him.) I have gone from thinking I have it together and am not only surviving but thriving, to thinking that I am crazy, literally and I self diagnose myself with all kinds of mental illnesses. Sadly there are days where this happens all before Noon. Those are the days that Aaron walks in the door for lunch and I just curl into the fetal position and shake. Then he leaves and I uncurl, function until he is home again and then I leave for an hour or so just to find my sanity... It's usually at the library where people are forced to be quiet.

So what triggers all of this? Well anything can really...Sometimes it is because I am still learning how to function with two. You know; having one asking 1000 questions not waiting for the answer moving on then coming back and asking the same questions over; at the same time that the other one is in his excersaucer (a very horrendously noisy one) screeching at the top of his lungs....I have often told Aaron "One will wear me down and then the other one is right there to break me." Seriously they are amazing at tag teaming me. Well I should call it more of an all out kamikaze attack. There is no taking turns they come in a pack.

Sometimes what triggers the emotions is dealing with difficult quirks that Liam has learned in the 6 months before me. Topping that list is the screaming. This is not crying mind you, it is an obnoxious scream/screech letting us know that he wants to be paid attention to. I wish I knew what to do to help him stop but as of yet nothing works and I am at a total loss. Next would be the panic he goes into when it is time to eat (this one is getting much better). He used to bawl up his fists and start his screeching. You could tell he was panicking over whether or not we would get the spoon in his mouth quick enough. And sometimes very rarely he gets very stiff necked when we are feeding him or other times I can't pin point it but it's weird it's almost as if he is not relaxed.

There were times when I would get so frustrated with Liam's behavior. I would think doesn't he know how much I love him. Doesn't he understand that now he has a Mom and a Dad a big brother and a whole world of opportunities in front of him? Why doesn't he realize this....

It has been a question that the Holy Spirit actually turned on me. I was living a life with no hope or future. I was rescued from death and given a hope and future. I have a loving Father whose love is complete, perfect and unconditional. Yet I resist him. I don't rest in his arms. I don't trust he knows best. I continue to try it my way then when I am frustrated and lost I scream. God unlike me continues to be patient time and time again. He redirects me with Love. I am so humbled when I think of how much I expect out of my little man in the 3 months that I have been home him and with the imperfect love I have to offer him. When here I have been adopted for 24 years by God and I still can't relax. I still don't act like I appreciate the huge sacrifice Jesus had to make in order for me to be God's child. Sure I sacrifice time for Liam, I sacrifice eating, sleeping, personal space, scream free silence...but that is nothing in comparison to what God sacrificed for me to be his child. To top it all off he did it so willingly.

Sometimes what brings out my emotion is the love I have for Liam. How I truly see him as my son the same as Wesley. I am at a place now where I feel love for that little boy even if he is getting on my nerves :). I love the way he smiles and laughs. I love how I know what will make him smile or giggle. I love the way his hair gets so curly when he is sweaty. I love the way he kicks his legs. I love the way he dances. I love the way he snuggles me when I walk him into his bedroom and give him his pacifier and he knows it's time for sleep. I love the way that he learned to put his arms in the air when you ask "how big is Liam" I then say "so big" and he throws his arms up. He now throws them up if he hears the word "so" or "big" it's too cute. I love the way he tries so hard to say mama but he has a hard time working those big lips. I love the way he blows raspberries. I love that he can blow kisses. I love his 2 teeth. I love that if you say "hurrahhhh" he claps. I love the way he delicately touches things with his middle finger. I love how well he eats. I love how well he sleeps. I love how he plays well on his own.

One thing that has been a huge blessing through this whole thing is the comfort I have in knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt, that before the creation of the world this little boy was meant to be ours. That God has orchestrated this beautiful union. I wouldn't trade him for all the babies in the world... individually of course no one would want all the babies in the world. I have found so much peace in the fact that I have not questioned what we did by adopting. Even though the process was difficult and the travel (for me) was excruciating I would do it all again if it meant bringing Liam home. I am so proud to be his Momma.