Day 159: Last day

Today has been a strange day subconsciously. The boys have been here all week and it has been good. But it is hard for them. They don't live here most of the time and coming to our house after long absences is like visiting a home instead of being home. It takes a few days for them to feel at home.

I wrote yesterday about how hard it is for my husband to process all the complex emotions of coming and going. I can't imagine how stressful it is for the boys. They live in one house most of the year and have to come into a new home with a parent and step-parent they rarely see. It must be hard for them to deal with the emotions of switching houses and families plus dealing with Daddy coming and going from war.

Today I don't think they woke up truly here. Something I've noticed after being a step-parent twice is that the last day of any visit the kids act up, push buttons and get on nerves. Maybe because it is easier to leave that way? Maybe because their emotions are kind of on edge too. They feel it, the looming good-bye, the knowledge that Daddy is gone for months again.

I know for me today was hard. I felt so much pressure to make today fantastic for the guys. We had so much to get done today, but I wanted tonight to be a special family fun time, but life just took over. Chad had chores he was working on and the baby takes so much of my focus. Between laundry and dinner, it was just not the perfect family day I had hoped for. Maybe the pressure of it being the last night the boys will see their father made it seem less than perfect.

We grilled hamburgers. Trenton helped make dinner while Nathan watched the baby and I folded clothes. Then we made sugar cookies and started playing our new Kinect game we bought this afternoon. After playing for awhile, we had pecan caramel brownie sundaes with Oreo cookie ice cream, whipped cream, drizzled in caramel and chocolate.

Now I think the sugar high has kicked in and we're still up at 11:30 playing Kinect sports. Nathan is starting to act a little manic and Trenton vacillates between being an active participant and napping. I know we will have to send them to bed soon, but no one wants to night to end. Tomorrow's good-bye comes too soon for all of us. 

Day 199: A Hallmark Day

This afternoon, I watched a Hallmark movie. They all make me cry, but this one was about a woman whose husband was a Navy pilot during WWII and was listed as MIA, but she never stopped waiting for him to come home. She was pregnant when he left, and he never met his son. Talk about a tear jerker! I cried through the whole thing. I guess after feeling the way I did last night, missing Chad so much, hating this half life without him, I should have known better than to watch it. Lil Bit crawled up into my lap for nap time and I had to wipe the tears from her cheeks that had run down mine.

The movie was part of the Hallmark Channel Anniversary celebration so every commercial break was an emotional reminder of how Hallmark cards and recordable books can be so very special in our lives. I normally wouldn't get so touched, but this year without Chad I was worried about our little girl not knowing her father.

Right before he left, I bought one of Hallmark's recordable books, All the Ways I Love You. On the back of the book is a note asking if the book has meant something to you, to write to Hallmark and let them know. I've considered writing them about how important the book has been to our family. Something along the lines of the following:

When my husband and I married, we knew we would never have any biological children together. We thought about adopting, but weren't sure we would ever be able to afford it. After years of living as frugally as possible, all the stars aligned and we brought home our precious baby girl.

My husband is a soldier and misses a lot of his family's lives. We were so thrilled when our daughter was born when he was home. He was able to spend the week she was in the NICU with us and most of the first three months of her life, including the most special day of finalizing her adoption.

He left for Iraq a week later. She was three months old. She was so small, still such a newborn. I worried about her first year being fatherless. I worried about how much he would miss and also how much she would lose not having her daddy, the snuggles, the first milestones, the bedtime stories.

So I bought one of Hallmark's recordable books, and my husband carefully recorded each page and locked the recording the day before he deployed. We started reading it daily that night. I cried when I heard his voice crack on the last line. She was captivated from the first time she heard it. Every time we read it, she stops squirming and settles in, staring intently at each page, listening closely.

As she got old enough I could hold the phone to her ear, my heart melted when her face lit up at his voice like I had never seen her smile on the phone with anyone else. She recognized his voice, she knew her father. Yesterday, she even said "Da da" on the phone to him.

We have a few weeks left to go before he gets to come home for R&R and a few months before he comes home for good. I worry about his safety everyday, and I worry about his daughter getting to know her father, but at least I know when he comes home, she will know the sound of his voice.

A lot of soldiers come home to children that are so little they've forgotten their dads or moms. The children are nervous or afraid of the stranger in their homes. All mommy or daddy wants to do is hug them hard and make every second count to make up for the many that were missed. I can't imagine the heartbreak of a parent whose child is afraid of them or too shy to go to them, but I am hopeful that my husband will not ever have to know that sadness because my daughter sees his pictures around the house and hears him read her a bedtime story every night.

As an Army wife, we do all we can to maintain the house and the family while our soldiers are gone. I have a Teddy Bear in Army uniform, pictures of him in her crib at daycare and all around our house, and his voice in a special book that reminds her not only of how her daddy sounds, but how much he loves her everyday in every way. And that has made all the difference to my precious little girl and her far away daddy, who nightly says, "I love you round and round the world. I love you through and through. And when it seems impossible to love you more . . . I do."

Day 340: Prettiest Girl in the world

Today I woke up ready to take care of business. There are stacks of papers everywhere. I have stuff to shred, stuff that needs filing and just stuff. Plus in the mix are things I have just been meaning to do. One of those things was to email pictures to the attorney who helped up finalize our adoption early. I can't tell you how much it meant to me and Chad to have the adoption finalized before he left. While according to the attorney, only one of us had to be there and the baby didn't even have to come, we were so disappointed to have missed her physical birth due to the fact that she was so impatient to be here, neither of us wanted to miss her second "birthday."It was a special day for us to welcome the prettiest girl in the world into our family.

While I was thinking about how special this little bundle of joy is to my heart, how words fail to describe how laughter bubbles up inside of me when her face lights up in a smile, I thought about writing a letter to the adoption agency to thank them for helping us add Lil Bit to our family. I went to their website and thought I would just take a peek at the waiting families. I knew we were extremely blessed to get chosen this quickly, but it made me understand exactly how blessed when I saw that over half of the families who were waiting when we joined the agency were still waiting.

For those of you who are not familiar with the process of adoption these days, you are not really on a list like they used to have. You used to wait on a list and when your "turn" came up, you received the next available child. Today's adoption agencies are more focused on the birth mother's choosing the right family for her baby. She comes into the agency and looks at books prepared by the agency's waiting families. She chooses a family for her child, then the family can decide if they like the match based on the mother's background and prenatal information. We were accepted by the agency on March 1. We got a phone call March 25 that a birth mother had chosen us. While she needed a little more financial support than we had planned for, we were so excited that we chose accept the placement. We had been crossing our fingers for a little girl to add to her two brothers. This birth mother was far enough along that we knew the baby was a girl and healthy 26 weeks  already! It felt like a dream.

We had been praying that it would either happen almost immediately or take a year or so to get chosen. With Chad leaving I wanted him to be able to be here and bond with the baby before he left for Iraq or not to get selected for a baby until he was almost home. With the current army climate, it is so hard to plan a life. He has been on the luckier side of the army. He has been home 15-18 months between deployments, but has been deploying every other year or so since 2003. That is a topic for another blog - but it made planning an adoption and the process really scary for us. We knew he would be going back at some point, but this time he knew he would have orders again pretty much before he came home the last time.

God's hand was in this process and we were given the most beautiful little girl. I keep asking her for her secret, how she gets prettier every day, but she isn't talking. I knew I would love her and she would change my life. I didn't know how I would just hold her and be moved to tears by that love. I didn't know she would change how I see the world and my life.

While 9 families still wait to be chosen from the list, I held my daughter for hours today while she snuggled, giggled, slept. How blessed we were to become a forever family this summer. God was watching over us. As a new mother, I now realize the responsibility that comes with loving her. I just pray that God continues to protect her daddy and keep our family safe for a long time even if we can't always be together. Lil Bit deserves all the best. She was a game changer for me. No matter how tired I am from taking care of her, house, dog, school and sometimes even myself, I wouldn't trade a second with my beautiful girl. There are no words to describe how it feels to love this hard and I am just getting started - all you Momma's out there know what I mean. What a godsend to survive missing her daddy!!!

Day 352

And Labor Day = Lil Bit is 4 months old! Somehow she doesn't feel like such a Lil Bit anymore! She is already trying to sit up and can hold herself up with very little back support. Side to side is something else, she does the slow descent a lot. Kinda funny to watch her slowly tip over. Of course I am always there to catch her. I really wish I could be there to catch her forever. Putting her into daycare is just the first time I don't get to be the one to catch every cry or sniffle or smile and giggle. I know I will have to let her go eventually, but I think it is totally rational to want to wait to let her go until she is at least 5 years old. I mean most moms want to hold on until um 20, 40 or so = ).

Well I bit the bullet, and asked for help with the baby. I have asked friends for help before, but I hate having to do it. Despite all logic, it makes me feel like a failure, but tonight it was 4:30 and the baby wouldn't let me put her down and I was near tears overwhelmed by all that I had left to do. Don't even get me started on the things I WANTED to do, but the list of what had to be done was so long. I finally broke down and asked my neighbor and friend to come hold her so I could shower and take care of a few niggling chores. Thank you KARLA!! I was able to wash dishes, make breakfasts for the week, shower, clean out the fridge.  Felt so good to have an extra set of hands even if just for an hour or so.

We got a phone call today! The caller ID said U.S. Government, but I knew before I saw it that it had to be him. I don't know how I knew, but I usually get a feeling when he plans to call. It felt so good to hear his voice. The call center must not have been too crowded, because we got to talk for a long time. I put him on the phone with Lil Bit. Her whole face lit up when she heard his voice. It was too priceless! She was smiling and cooing back at him! I feel so much better about her remembering him if we can keep this up. She listens to her recorded storybook often and we listen to the messages on the answering machine. I have a board book full of pictures of our family, some really special ones of her and Daddy. I don't know when they go through the clingy stage, but I hope she remembers him enough not to be scared when he comes home.

One last thing to do, I have to write a monthly progress report to her birth mother and upload all the  pictures for her package. While right now, I am tired and it is just one more thing to do, I am so thankful for her unselfish heart! She could have aborted this unplanned child, or kept her despite knowing the life wouldn't be very stable, instead she saw a life for her daughter that she wanted us to provide. She chose us out of all the parents available to her and felt lucky she found us. I don't know the words to use, but I don't consider her the lucky one. She gave me the most perfect Mothers' Day gift I could ever have had. I had my daughter in my arms this Mothers' Day. A letter and a few photos are small thanks for such a gift.

Today was a day of many blessings, a phone call, a friend, and a precious little Bit of a girl turning 4 mos. Just goes to show, when the sky starts getting dark, a silver lining can always be found!

Day 361: puke and a dirty shirt

The week has just flown by and I don't know that I have really processed that he is gone. It is hard to feel anything when I am so exhausted I have actually hallucinated a giant spider or small gecko crawling across my shoes. At least I am telling myself it was a hallucination so I don't have to sleep in a hotel. and God, if it wasn't a hallucination, can I pick the gecko? Momma don't do spiders! Although when he is deployed, there aint nobody else. I have had to evacuate geckos, bats, spiders, and snakes. One snake tried to share the shower.

I was so wiped out I thought I would be anti-productive today, but if you're wondering how to motivate a very tired momma to get off the couch and get out of her pj's, Lil Bit knows - just puke on her! The first bottle of the morning made a reappearance all over the couch, me and her. I was out of my pj's, had a load of laundry going and the baby in the tub by 9.

My first load of laundry meant emptying Chad's hamper. We spent last weekend cleaning house and doing laundry so that when he left I wouldn't have extra work on my hands. Somehow he managed to fill an entire hamper in less than 24 hours. I don't know how he does it! As long as I was doing a load, I might as well separate his laundry too. Doing this last load (or three) of his laundry is always an emotional minefield. Having the pile of dirty clothes is a way of keeping him present for me. I generally pick one or two things and leave them most of the year just so he doesn't feel so gone. The laundry is one I don't let sit too long for obvious reasons. I don't know if I can explain how it feels to wash and put away those clothes. It is almost putting him away and hiding him in the recesses of my head and heart. I am torn inside between the quiet contentment I get from organizing and cleaning the house and the pain of its emptiness. I kept one shirt that still smells of his cologne and held it around Lil Bit as we listened to daddy's voice on the answering machine and the recorded storybook. I don't know if the smell makes much difference to her, but it does to me. Such a little thing, but it brings the tears right to the top today, especially when I heard his voice cracking on the last page of the story, "and when you think I can't love you any more, I do." The tears sit on my lashes, daring me to blink.

But that is generally as far as they get. I feel silly crying alone. It doesn't fix anything and can't bring him home. I know it is probably important that I do cry from time to time. Somehow though I always find that one movie that will let me cry on those days. Today it was Remember the Titans, uplifting and sad and I cried through the whole darn thing. The baby thought Mommy was funny. Somehow, holding her was all the more poignant today. She needed my snuggles. In less than two weeks, her brothers went home to their mother, her father and mother went back to work, she started daycare and then her daddy left for a year. She is very little, but it just has to be a lot for her. I just wrapped her up so tight and my tears blended with hers a few times today. Luckily she is mostly all smiles and now giggles too. It is hard to be sad when the baby's whole face is grinning at you waiting to see you smile too. I think she is going to save me this year. Every time I start to get maudlin, she pulls me back. Heck, every time I need to pee too. But her complete adorableness also makes glaring not having anyone with whom to share it. Nothing is quite so sweet as seeing this big, strong, fierce soldier sprint into the nursery to watch her laugh or the tender way he touches her tiny hands and snuggles her for long, lazy naps. There is a hole in our home today and it is only Saturday, 361. But the dirty shirt will sleep on the pillow beside me to try to kick just a little dirt back into that hole.