Adoption is one of those things that it seems like the journey is over when the family is finally united with their kiddo.  It’s like everyone does the big sigh of relief, but, at least for me, this is when the journey really begins.  This is when the real gets real and you begin to walk on this journey together.  You work hard on bonding and attachment and all the other adoption related things you have to work on.  There is a lot.

I can remember with Solomon, we knew we were going to be matched with a baby, so most of our training was more directed at baby adoption stuff, but I still remember so much information telling us that even when a child is an infant there can still be a grieving process.  I remember that information hitting me hard and it was just so heavy for me to think about…even a baby can still grieve the loss of their natural family…it made my heart so sad for our future child.

With Amon…I almost dropped the phone when our director told me we had been matched with a 6-week-old baby boy.  What?  Everyone and their mother…Josh, me, our director…everyone, just knew since we were open to an older child, that we would be matched with an older child.  So we geared up for an older kid.  We donated or gave away all baby items…I mean E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G.  Gone.  We just weren’t going to need them…clearly.  And I remember researching and reading all about adopting older children and again, the grief and the attachment and the bonding and the hard backgrounds and coping techniques…and just everything.  And then, with a phone call, I wasn’t going to need that information to start off with after all.  We were back in baby land.

Since Amon had his special little heart, we bonded pretty quickly.  He couldn’t go out in public and we were seriously home bound with limited visitors and then we were in the hospital together for almost a full month.  We became tight.  He’s been home 9 months now and has been a dream.  In the hospital, the nurses, techs, doctors…everyone, could not get over how easy and laid back and just smiley this kid was…especially after open heart surgery and then all the weeks with no food.  He was a true dream.

He’s the happiest baby we’ve ever had and honestly, not to brag, but we’ve been blessed with some easy babies.  None of them gave us a super hard time.  They’ve all been good eaters and sleepers and very content.  Huddy kept us on our toes the most with all his allergies and then Amon hit the home run of stressful parenting with his open heart surgery.  But they have all been pretty laid back and happy, but Amon takes the cake.  Josh and I say multiple times a week…He is ridiculous.  Because he is.  He smiles all the time.  He laughs.  He eats like crazy and sleeps good.  He plays so well alone or just watching Harper, Hud and Sol run around like lunatics.  He just goes with the flow.

And with a single word yesterday I found my heart enthralled over the strangest thing.  We usually barricade the steps off with kid chairs, but yesterday afternoon they weren’t blocked off.  With a firm “No Amon, don’t go up the steps” our happiest child to date, flipped his lid and threw an all out fit on the steps.  It was hilariously amazing.  Josh and I totally cracked up.  And the minute he would stop and even make a tiny motion up the stairs, we would say again, “No Amon” and he would lose it all over again.  So as any good parent does, we continued to say it just as soon as he would stop crying because it was so funny and we have never seen him do anything even remotely close to this.

As an adoptive parent I tend to dissect everything even more than normal.  So when Sol goes through some sort of change or phase and we are parent evaluating it, we always have to throw in the adoption aspect…is he feeling a sense of loss or other ideas.  Not to make excuses for him, but to make sure we are parenting him the way he deserves and needs to be parented.  All our kids are different and need to be parented in very different ways.  But with this fit Amon threw my mind didn’t go to grief…it didn’t do the adoption dissecting I normally do.  It seemed too out of place for this incident and honestly, I loved it.

I loved seeing him be a typical baby who was pitching a fit because he didn’t get his way.  He understood what “no” meant and it rocked his little self-centered world.  And I sat there and soaked it up.  His shrill little cry and those big alligator tears and the snot…oh, the snot.  I felt like it was a small victory.  He was being a baby and in his own baby way felt comfortable enough to absolutely flip out because we told him “No”.  This may change.  If he keeps it up, then maybe my mind with go to that “grieving” place, but for today, I feel it was just him being our kid…our boy, pitching a regular old fit because he didn’t get his way.  And today I am, oddly enough, completely thankful for that fit…I am thankful I get to parent this sweet boy…and I get to be right along side him, no matter what he does and no matter what he goes through…adoption related or not.  It’s a blessing and an honor.

And near the end, he did let a little smile slip…a hot mess of a smile, but still a smile.

Happy Tuesday!