Choices

So, my "little" brother (he's 6.5 years younger than I am) is house hunting. I'm happy for him, really I am. I found myself getting a little jealous today as he described the house he and his girlfriend (I call her the girls' future Aunt L) are planning to buy. It's in a nicer, more affluent suburb than the one we live in, and the house is a good $50,000 more than our house was when we bought it in 2004. It is 800 square feet larger than my home. He and his girlfriend have a huge amount to put down as a down payment. We had next to nothing to put down when we bought our home! As he described the house with excitement and a smile in his voice, I found myself getting more and more grumpy about the whole thing. I was unhappy about my little brother's good fortune. And thinking why in the heck A and I didn't pick professions that pay more?!? I often feel like we're just getting by and never have money to get ahead.

But then I thought about the amount of money we spent to bring our girls home. True, had we not adopted our 2 girls in less than 3 years, we would be a lot better off financially than we are now. But then we wouldn't have our girls... Obviously, there is no question which life I would chose if it were between being better off financially or having my daughters!

So, the jealousy in my heart about my brother is gone, and I just feel happy for him and proud that he's ready to take this next big step in his life-- becoming a home owner. I guess it is all about perspective.

New Look!

What do you think? I thought it was time to include my E in the header for one thing!! :) And I was ready for a change. I think it is pretty darn cute myself.

Precious

Is there anything more precious than a baby, a sweet, happy, good natured, joyful baby? I think not. This is how I would describe my sweet E.

Tonight, we took a walk (thank god spring is nearly here where we are-- it's been a loooonnnng winter), and E spotted the moon.

And jumped, arms outstretched, to reach it.

Yes, baby girl, jump for the moon. Someday, I think you just might reach it. And when you do, I suspect you will hug it and give it a big, full-lipped kiss.

There's been a lot of talk lately about Ethiopian adoption, as you all know. I've been thinking about our two adoptions and that some think it is wrong to adopt infants when there are waiting children.

In our case, we'd planned to adopt a waiting child our second time around. I could even picture what she'd look like. And then our agency said we couldn't adopt out of birth order. That meant-- if we were to pursue adoption using "our" agency-- that we'd have to adopt an infant as R was barely one (15 months, to be exact) when we started our second adoption.

We chose to stick with our agency and bring another baby girl home.

I don't know who's right and who's wrong in debate about infant vs. waiting child. Both routes have risks, pros, and cons. All I do know is that had adopted an older child... we wouldn't have E.

And then, where would I be? I'd be without MY girl.

My girl who jumps for moon and expects to catch it.

My girl who kisses me on both my cheeks, my lips, and my nose and gives the biggest hugs before going to bed each night.

My girl who loves to sing and dance.

My girl who brings such joy to our family.

My girl who loves passionately and deeply.

My girl who has already proven herself to be a loyal and loving friend.

My girl who is the perfect daughter for our family.

As she jumped for the moon tonight, I thanked God, a silent prayer, for being her momma. I can't imagine my life without her.

I love you, E-poodle.

Attachment

I recently stumbled across this blog as I was reading someone else's. She's asking for adoptive parents to be real about attachment. So here are my two cents about the topic:

With my R, A and I attached to her very quickly. I loved her right away and felt she was mine from the first time I saw her little face staring back at me in those referral pictures. And when we met, she attached to us, too. She wasn't sure about A for maybe a day, and then we really were that happy little adoption story. This being said, R went through a huge period of jealousy when E came home and felt very insecure for a good one to two months. Life was hard at that point for us all, for that reason and reasons I'll discuss below. With R, most of the time, things are simple. We love each other. We drive each other nuts, but she knows that I'm her momma and that she is loved and safe.

With my E, though, it was a different story. I didn't feel the instant connection and love when I gazed at her referral picture. I was expecting her to look completely different, to be a different child, I suppose, and although I felt strongly that she was the girl for our family, I didn't feel the instant and complete, head-over-heels love I did for R.

This carried into our first meeting, when E screamed her baby lungs out. I suspect that she was expecting a different momma! The pictures from our "gotcha" moment are, quite frankly, hard to look at. She's screaming and pulling away from me, and I look horrified, miserable, and pained. I was worried that A and I had made a huge mistake in adopting her when we were in Ethiopia and when we boarded the plane for home.

Indeed, for the first month or so, I felt like I was baby-sitting someone else's sick and sad child. It was hard for me to get to know her, to love her at first. Knowing her and loving her now, I imagine she must have been so scared at first. E is VERY smart, and I am sure she had some awareness that something was happening and that she was being uprooted yet again. (I often try to imagine her first days and weeks after being relinquished by her birth mother. All I see is sadness. Oh, how my poor precious child must have grieved the loss of her birth mother.)

So, it makes sense. In her world, mommas were people who abandoned you and left forever and broke your heart. I understand it now even more than I did then. Slowly though, over the days, weeks, and months home, my E started to become, well my E. She became healthier (she had giardia and some other issues when she came home) and gained weight. We stayed close to home and cocooned. She started to feel more like my child, and I suppose to her I started to feel more like her momma.

The journey of attachment is not easy. I feel that my girls are attached to us and us to them, now... But every once in a while, E will have a day in which she cries-- A LOT-- or weeks when R has sleep issues (the place where her attachment and grieving tend to manifest themselves), and we have to take a few steps back.

On those hard days and in those dark nights, I hold my girls. I pray for healing in their hearts and for the aching to go away. I don't think we'll ever reach our destination on the journey to complete attachment, and some days that scares me. But I also don't know anything different.

What are your thoughts, struggles, successes when it comes to attachment?