Two weeks home!

TWO WEEKS

And today marks two weeks that Verlande has been home.

Two great, hard, fun, scary, and FULL weeks! 

We have had tears and crying and pouting (really from all of us).. but we have so had love.  I have looked out  my window to see my three kids jumping and flipping on the trampoline, I have run on the treadmill while looking at Phoebe, Forrest and Verlande playing in front of me, I have gone in to check on 3 sleeping children.  I have been amazed.  I have watched Phoebe share her dolls, room, really her LIFE… her friends, her time.  I have never been so proud.

I have watched Forrest struggle so much, but also have seen him ask for one on one time, climb on my lap for hugs and kisses, and know that we are there for him.  He knows we will spend those extra times with him, and has seen that we have made extra one on one time for him, with extra books, games, lego building, etc.

I have watched Verlande gracefully (more than I would most likely being in her situation) learn our life:  polite ways of speaking, how to give people some space, how to share knowing that there will be a more and that there will be a later.  I have seen her break down because a store was too much, I have seen her try to lie and manipulate a bit, but I have seen her recover,  having her first glimpses that she can fall and get back up, that she can start over and be loved just as much as she was before,  that she… like all of us…. Will be given grace…

It has broken my heart to see her stomach huge with giardia, to see her skin erupt in rash/welts, and to hold her tight (hold  her DOWN and still more like it) while she gets her first vaccines and blood tests.  It makes me look up to her so much as she showed us pictures- the only ones we have seen- of her birth mother, and listened to Verlande explain her family situation, who is and who is not her brother, (we are still not sure), listen to her explain how she was told her mom died, who she thinks she lived with at certain times during her life, how she came to the orphanage.  She has joined our family so well, accepted us and I can see her working to adapt to us.

I am so lucky to have had Ryan’s support these past two weeks in our critical stages of bonding, establishing family rules and a general sense of what we do.  He has been firm with her, which I worried about him being able to do, and of course loving.

We’ve been on our first grocery shopping trips, daily bike rides and dog walks, visited schools, teachers and met her new class, gone to a few playgrounds, had family dance parties, game nights, my first race that she was home for, snowdays, church pictures, to the farm.  We have made bunny bait for Easter, planned fun stuff that the kids wanted to do on spring break, watched her first movie with us, and we have really tried to have a good combination of busy and just “down” (for all involved!!!!). Oh, and she helped me plant my indoor seeds which I will transplant, and all the kids painted a bird feeder this spring break!!

We see airplanes going overhead, and it amazes me that I am no longer dreaming that I was on that plane, going to bring her home.  It amazes me that the phone rings and I have no thoughts of, “is this it”….. I’ve been so busy that I regret so much that I hadn’t messaged my “adopting from Haiti” facebook group until today—they were my lifeline, and every day I had intended to message them…  But I’ve been so busy, and really hate that excuse.

I don’t mean to  make any of this seem like we have it under control more than we do!!!  Ii am sure we do not!! Haha!  But I also feel like the ridiculousness of the wait, the struggle, the TERROR of these years, has simply just diminished (for the moment at least) my frustrations with any of the hard stuff that comes up.. I am reveling in it.. I can do hard right now!! Yes please!  She is here, so yes please! I will work hard and be thankful for that!  And again, I don’t mean to seem like I am all happy, sunshine and unicorns here.. nope, I’ve been tired, and I write this on the day that Ryan is taking off so that I am essentially ON  MY OWN for most of the day (except for planned special times with each of the kids), but just doing computer work, exercise, and yes I just had a nap!  Because no, I doubt, I question, I worry that I am too tired to be a fun mom, I question why I am being too strict with Verlande?  Or is that right?  I am treating her just like P and F, is that right or wrong, are my expectations too high? Etc etc.. so I am working also, and never quite sure except that I am doing my best!