Lamentation of the blessed

I am blessed. I do not even attempt to deny this. I am so very blessed. I am.

It is nearly noon and my boys are in bed for nap time. Eli is already upstairs in the pack n play since he could not stay in bed. Evan is still chatting in the other room. He refuses to lie down. Oh, wait. .. I hear feet on the floor. Sigh. Two seconds.

I am blessed with the sweetest little guy that can understand only some of my comforting English words. It seems he understands even less of my admonishments and my attempts at Russian. We are making due but I can never be sure he understands what I mean when I say "Please stay in bed or Mama's head will surely explode." On the other hand I am pretty sure he does not understand all of my murmurs of comfort when I am trying to get him to sleep at night. . .all of the "I love yous and you are safe and okay sweet boy of mine." I do have google translate on my phone but never think to use it until I am sitting here with a moment of quiet.

Ahhhh a moment of quiet. On the couch. I am still in my robe though I can say with pride that I have showered. YAY MAMA! I rarely have the energy to change out of my fuzzy pants and tshirt these days. Do my hair? Put on makeup? Want to leave the house? NYET. Dig me a hole and I will gladly spend the rest of winter in it. Please? Someone start digging. Gimme a shovel and I will help!

Blessed with a boy that does not like Kraft Mac n Cheese. Pizza. Calzone. Pot pies. Mexican food. Anything from McDonald's. All out. (This list is actually much longer but even what I have listed has irritated me again so I will not continue.)  He does eat pasta with tomato sauce, Cream of chicken soup over rice, eggs, hot cereal (sometimes) and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And fruit of any kind. I don't cook much or willingly and many of my staple dishes are out for Evan. Sigh. Poor Eli is getting little variety since I cannot bring myself to make two meals...I am not that accommodating.

So, Evan took 1.75 hours to go to sleep last night. I tried rocking him. I tried rubbing his face with his soft blankie. I tried letting him self soothe. . .. It is so frustrating and exhausting to want to help but to be completely helpless. He doesn't stim physically, so to speak, but he refuses to lie down and repeats something that sounds like "Dum" or "Dom" over and over and over again. . .for an hour and forty five minutes.

My boys LOVE each other. So much so that they cannot seem to nap in the same room, they are too busy giggling and playing and convincing each other to get out of bed. It is clear everyday that these two little guys were meant to be brothers. It is really amazing to see.

I "knew" that this transition could be rocky. I "knew" that Evan could come home with behaviors that may be difficult to understand. I "knew" that the language barrier was there. I "knew" that Eli may regress in this transition. I "thought" I knew what that would all look like and how I would handle it. I had NO idea. In reality, both boys are handling this transition very well, it is STILL exhausting and difficult. It is a blow to the ego, I thought I was prepared and well equipped. Instead I find myself too exhausted for words. Wondering if what I am doing is working, adequate, enough.

I never thought that I would be the person to wear pajamas every day. Dragging themselves through their super blessed life. I never thought I would be blessed to have these two wonderful gifts in my life. I do NOT wish to discourage anyone considering adoption, on the contrary, I encourage parents to take the leap, it is worth it. I raise my fist in support of all the other Mama's still in their jammies, exhausted to their limits because they spend their days LOVING their children. And now, I am going to curl up and rock myself and my belly bean to sleep.

Oh yes we PRAY!