One month home

Well, one month plus a few days, but I'm not sure I could accurately tell you the date at this point.  Sometimes I feel very poetic when I write.  Today is not one of those days.  Heck, this week isn't even one of those weeks.  These days, I am mostly living on a dry sense of humor and wine chocolate.  

In all honesty, things are going well for JP.  She is making great strides in attachment.  She constantly wants our attention to show us a bite of food she's taken, another rock she's put in her basket, another streak of color she's drawn on her page... or just to look at her whether she's actually done anything new or not.  She definitely likes hugs now, although she still really doesn't do kisses much.  She and N are playing and laughing hysterically (and loudly) together constantly, until they both want the same toy, and then it (loudly) goes downhill very quickly.  Tantrums have gone from 1-2 per day to one or two every few days.  We have been loving, but very firm on boundaries, and I think she is starting to recognize that consistency.  

Mostly, we have pretty good days.  I can't explain how those good days still manage to be so. stinking. exhausting.  I now carry ear plugs in my pocket at all times, because I reach a point nearly everyday where I have to take the volume down about 30 decibels, or I'm going to lose it.  I occasionally lock myself in the bathroom for a few minutes of relative peace and quiet.  I've even taken to locking my bedroom door too just so that the knocking and fingers groping under the door are not directly visible to me... even if I know they're there.  This is the never ending winter.  It is cold.  And they are loud.  And crazy.  ALL THE TIME.  I love my children dearly, and I thank God for them.  That doesn't stop me from bundling them up and sending them outside to run laps, even if it's 40 degrees.  They have rooms full of toys, but all they want to do are the things we only allow outside: run, and yell.  Something's gotta give.

It was finally sunny and warm today, and we got to go out and play for real.  We spent hours out there, and let me tell you, it makes all the difference in the world.  We all got some activity, and they were able to run, play, and yell as much as they wanted to.  It was glorious. They were tired this evening, which means dinner was actually somewhat pleasant, instead of looking like a scene out of a Looney Toons Taz cartoon.  If Spring will actually stick around, I just might survive these first few months of adjustment.

It's hard to explain how this feels similar to bringing home a newborn.  We definitely have a different set of challenges, and I am getting more sleep than I did when N was a newborn, but good day or bad, I am totally and completely exhausted by bedtime.  It's more mental and emotional than physical, but it makes you feel tired in body when it seems like you've been filled up that morning to literally have every last drop sucked out of you over the course of the day.  That exhaustion lasted for months with N.  I can only imagine it will be a similar run with JP.  She needs us as much as a newborn would, but we have all the parenting challenges that come with a five year old (any five year old) along with the attachment and emotional needs that are specific to her background.  And I'll be honest, the exhaustion has had a large effect on my ability to feel attached to her as well.  I struggle with it daily.  I love her.  But it's not the same yet.  I would have been the first to argue that you can love a child that is not from your body just as much as a biological child.  And I still believe that.  But once they are home, and reality hits, you realize that it doesn't happen overnight, no matter how desperate you felt during the waiting.  She is my daughter, but it doesn't feel like it yet to me.  I've just accepted that for now, my feelings are on hold.  I am choosing to love her and mother her every single day, to wear myself out doing it, then to crawl into bed so I can get up and do it all over again the next day.  Some days I do it really well.  A lot of days, I feel it is painfully obvious that I am barely getting by.  But when people ask how it's going, all I know to say is, "pretty well, all things considered," because well, it is... but I still feel almost numb as I go through the daily motions of motherhood.  Perhaps I will thrive again someday.  I hope that my children will know me and remember me as more than the shell of a human being I feel like right now.  I suppose all this just makes it painfully obvious that I need just as much grace everyday as she does.  Here's hoping the light at the end of the tunnel I keep hearing about is still there.  I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other until I round the bend and see it for myself.