Falling in Love

I haven't shared our earliest picture of Ben!! This is from the notice placed in the paper that a baby had been found.  We weren't sure at first, but it looks like the spot is an ink stain.  Though the paper is from January, it looks from this picture that he is just a few weeks old.  How I long to hold that little baby Ben too!

Life is finally starting to get into a kind of routine, we are finally figuring out how long Ben sleeps at night (10 hours) when he prefers to nap (right now we are on 2 short naps). If I could sum up how Tom and I have felt since having Ben, it is probably this:

In China: Excited, happy, nervous, busy parents

Once home: Exhausted, happy, jet lagged, nervous, busy parents

One week home: A routine is building, the realization is setting in- we really are a forever family

In the beginning, jet lag was awful.  When Ben would finally fall asleep, I couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief and attempt to get done the to do list building in my head all day- sleep, shower, pay bills, schedule appointments, email, text or call back so and so, etc.

Now finally, as we settle in, Ben falls asleep in my arms and I just think to myself, "Not so soon!  Lay here in my arms a few minutes longer..."  And I cannot help but spend some time with my sleeping angel, rocking him in my arms.   Watching him fall in love with ME has been so incredible.  A glance into my eyes has turned into deep, penetrating gazes.  Instead of two hands on his bottle, one holds on while the other plays with the edge of my sweater, tangles itself in my hair, or touches my face.  Oh my love.

When he is playing with his toys, sometimes I cannot help myself to call his name to see him turn to me, and to watch as a broad smile fills his face.  Oh my love.

As he sleeps now, I walked into the kitchen to get something to eat, and see the pots and pans strewn all over the floor, a reminder of  making breakfast this morning with this little child pulling pots and pans out of the cabinet.  His sweet smiles and laughs fill my mind and I am completely overcome.  Who has sent me this child? Where did he come from? How, how could I have received this extraordinary blessing? This child who laughs and sings and smiles and coos, with his sparkling eyes that can be both sweet and mischievous.   Adopted children don't come from a lily pad from heaven, they are real people with a past, a life before you, but somehow I feel like God has handed him directly to me, like he was sent to fill every hole in my heart I never knew I had, I just want to say, "what have a DONE to deserve this gift?" Surely this angel was meant for another, and he WAS, his birth mother.  My heart aches for her, I know no woman gives up her child without leaving a permanent chasm in her heart.  Someday, whether on earth or heaven, she will meet him and know him. But today, I will be his.

A jet lag day

I love puffs!!