Saturday, May 18, 2013

Home 18 months.

I have nothing profound to write, just that we are settling in as a family. 

It's been a rough few months for each of us, with different challenges individually and collectively. We're working through it - and in many ways - the difficulty of what we've each been going through, and what we've been going through together, has brought us all closer. After all, no one ever said it would be easy. 

Sam has been afraid of a lot lately, and struggling with a few new things. Mostly normal 2 1/2 year-old stuff - and then some. His fear is giving us a chance to pick him up and reassure him. An adoptive mama can understand the blissful feeling when a child finally lets himself "melt into you" after almost a year and a half. (OK - I lied, that is pretty profound, right?) 

When Sam cries in the middle of the night and says "mama, I'm scared", I welcome it, (almost hope for it once in a while, as strange as that sounds) because I know picking him up and rocking him back to sleep is soothing deep fears we'll never understand. I still take him out of his crib 3-4 nights a week for a midnight rock with mama. He used to fuss a bit, but now he snuggles right in. I know, deep in me, that this ritual over the last 18 months has been healing for both of us. The only problem is that he's getting so big, it's hard to lay with him on my chest in the rocker, much less get him back in the crib!

Otherwise, as spring gives way to summer, we spend as much time outside as possible throwing rocks in the creek, playing in dirt and doing little-boy stuff. I try to get Sam to rock his animals and give them a bottle. This lasts for about :30 seconds and he's back to cars and trucks. He named the baby bear we got for his best friend blue bear, "truck bear". This kid is ALL boy. It's not going to be too much longer before he resists putting on lipstick with mama in the morning. I wish we were younger, or we'd started sooner - it'd be fun to have a sibling for Sam. But we're pretty sure the Stones are only going to have one pebble, and what an amazing little pebble he is.


Mama's favorite...beautiful boy.

 Construction site fun - playing in the dirt.

(It is an awfully nice mama who spends her Saturday morning at the construction site, I might add...)

Bubble hat.

Just before he put the stick in his mouth. 

Is it too early to be hoping for a scholarship?