Kicking and Screaming

Has it really been over a year since my last blog? I would say that is hard to believe, except every aching, weary bone in my body tells me it is absolutely believable! This crazy, chaotic whirlwind that is now my life leaves me with zero time or energy to blog. Not to mention the fact that other mommy bloggers say it a lot better that me. And then there is the transparency part... The part where I ask myself do I really want to share how freaking hard this is? How the sadness completely overwhelms me almost daily? How suffocating the darkness inside of me can be? And how do I even begin to put it all into words? No. Idea.

I guess I will start with a cartoon I saw earlier today posted on Facebook. 

That just about sums it up. Shortly after the first homecoming, the dream of what our family would be like died. Abruptly. Without apology. The family we had before the journey began died a slow, painful death. And the grief I have experienced as a result of both deaths still threatens to swallow me up to this day. So I often find myself being dragged along, less than willingly. Parenting children from hard places is hands down the hardest thing I've ever done. When we brought home a broken child, our family shattered into a million pieces right along with her. We were still finding little shards of glass here and there, you know the ones you find days after cleaning up a broken dish? We were still changing the bandages on old wounds and even treating new ones when we brought Nalique into the mix, adding to the exhaustion and confusion. To be completely honest, we almost passed on the opportunity to be his Momma and Dabby because we were terrified of being able to stand under the weight of it all. But, here we are. In spite of those fears, we said yes and welcomed a sweet yet stubborn, affectionate yet defiant, two year old into our home. As I said before, the dream died early on. Around day three the exhausted but miraculous became the exhausted and disastrous. I lost my patience every five minutes. I yelled often. The days became incredibly long and the timeouts came more and more frequently. What were we thinking? Why on earth did we think we could handle this? My feelings grew more and more frustrated, less and less "motherly". How am I supposed to bond with this child that defies my every instruction? How am I to hold him in my lap, tickle him, smother him with kisses, when he makes me so stinking angry? And please, let me just say... yes, a lot of this is typical behavior for a two year old. I get that. This stage is hard for a lot of mothers. But in the case of adoption, it's magnified a great deal. I don't have a bucket of warm fuzzies to draw from. I didn't carry Nalique in my tummy for nine months, marveling at every flutter and kick. I didn't nurse Nalique as an infant, snuggling him close to my body, memorizing the scent of his sweet baby breath. I didn't hear his coos and giggles. All of those first moments and memories go a long way when that same child is staring you down when you've just told him "No!". Instead, I am trying to capture those moments now, all with him demanding a "dank" and smearing poop all over Xbox games and screaming bloody murder in the middle of The Pizza Place... It is VERY different! And, I'm attempting it all with a teething nine-month-old on my hip. 

A nine-month-old. Nine. Months. 

And there it is. The sweet, glorious light that brings it all back into perspective. A gentle whisper from the Holy Spirit reminding me that Nalique was nine-months-old when I first laid eyes on him. He was so small, so vulnerable. At a mere nine months he had already experienced more loss than I can wrap my brain around. He was six months old when his mommy died. There was no warning. No time for transition. She became ill with a fever and died twenty four hours later. His daddy tried so hard to take care of him in her absence, but he soon realized he simply could not meet his child's most basic needs, so he took him to an orphanage. He was forced to walk away from his son, and an innocent, sick, hungry nine-month-old was left without both his mommy and his daddy. I cannot imagine what that would do to my Topher. He is such a momma's boy. He would be absolutely beside himself if I abruptly died. If Chris was forced to abandon him three months later. Again, I cannot fathom. Yet this is the story of our lil tree frog. And suddenly his tantrums don't bother me as much. Suddenly it is easy to snuggle him and smother him with kisses. The weight of it all doesn't matter anymore, because I would carry twice as much to make sure this innocent little boy, my son, knows he is safe, wanted, and loved. I did, after all, promise his first daddy that I would. Keeping that promise is a lot of grueling, painstakingly hard work and the cost to our family is far more than I bargained for, but after twenty one months in the trenches between him and Maphada, I am no longer kicking and screaming. I can finally say I am thankful we chose to grow our family through adoption. Who wants easy, right? All of the cuts, bumps, and bruises are making us who we are meant to be. God is breathing new life into what our family was, what it is, and what it will be, and I am so thankful. I'm still exhausted, I still get overwhelmed a lot, and the darkness looms just outside, but I will keep walking with my Light.