A Dilemma

It’s an age old question really…when a child is supposed to be sleeping and she starts crying do you go in and comfort her or do you let her cry a bit?  It’s a question Mark and I are facing daily and nightly.  When Bella was first home, the answer to the question was easy…we'd go comfort her.  We’d seen her lying in a bed in the orphanage wailing and no one going to her because it was supposed to be nap time.  It broke my heart.  I’m not an orphanage worker, I’m a mommy, and I wanted my little girl to know that I am here for her.  So I responded to her cries.

But now she’s been with us longer than she’s been anywhere else, and we’re fairly certain of her confidence in us as her mommy and daddy.  She lets us know her needs and we respond to them.  She prefers us to others (and sometimes prefers me over Mark).  We’ve set a pattern that we respond to her every cry.  So now, even when I know she’s tired, she doesn’t want to just lie in her bed and go to sleep.  If she’s still awake, she will cry until we go in to comfort her.  She wants to be rocked and snuggled to sleep. The trouble is, now she won't go to sleep on her own. 

Books I know I agree with and parents I respect who are following these books’ advice would tell me, “Erika, you’re going to make yourself crazy exhausted if you keep this up.  And you’re teaching your child that she is the center of everything as you bend to her every whim.”  Well, the crazy exhaustion is setting in.  And I definitely don’t want my children thinking they are the center of my universe…they’re not, Jesus is. 

But what do I do?  What do I do when my beautiful little girl just wants her mommy to snuggle her for a little while before she falls asleep?  Tonight I timed it.  It took a whole 12 minutes for me to get her from crying to sleeping.  Months from now, when she’s no longer with us, won’t I wish I’d spent those twelve minutes and more snuggling with her?  The nights she is wide awake from 2:30-3:30am and won’t lie in bed without wailing are absolutely draining.  We’re taking turns and sometimes we just rock her for a long time and sometimes she ends up in bed with us.  I would love to know how to get her sleeping through the night again, but I also want to cherish every snuggle.

Leaving on a jet plane

We have to go on trip.  Because our adoption process has had some unexpected delays, paperwork is expiring.  We updated the home study the beginning of October.  For that we had to fly a licensed social worker to our home (from another city in our country, not from America.  But still not cheap).  Now the US government approval has expired and to get the approval extended you have to get fingerprinted, again.  We’re a bit baffled because our fingerprints haven’t changed since we did this a year and a half ago, but apparently we could have become criminals within that time.  It’s the background checks that have to be run again and fingerprints are needed to do that.  Now if we were in America, we would drive somewhere within the town we’re living in and get this done, a total of a couple hours perhaps.  But we live in East Asia and we have to fly to another city to go to the US consulate for these fingerprints.  Because of flight times and travel within that city to get to the consulate there’s no way for this to be done in one day.  So we spend the night in a hotel and have two very long days. 

There are a few bonuses to this trip…We’re traveling from temperatures in the mid 40s to a high of 78 tomorrow.  We’re traveling from a city with sparse locally run western food to a city with Starbucks, Burger King and a Mexican restaurant, and we will even have time to visit them!  And we may just find a few fun Christmas presents, because there’s always better shopping in places like that.

 
This means that Bella will have two days without us.  I’m guessing it’ll be rather rough on her since she’s pretty attached to me right now.  But our dear friends have agreed to take care of her and I know they’ll do an excellent job.  Please pray for her little confused heart and safe travels for us.

An afternoon photo shoot

Bella kisses her baby like she kisses us, open-mouthed and slobbery!

This doll is actually one that I played with as a child, "Honey"

Is she tired from taking too many pictures...

or because it's nap time?  I can't remember.

We love our sweet girl!!!

Caught in the Moment

It snowed today.  I was on break from class and wandering campus thinking, praying and worrying.  Thinking about words my wife had said the night before.  “Why can’t something go right for us, just once????  Why can’t we have something that gives us just a little hope????”  She said it so much more eloquently, but her words encompassed the feelings I’d had for the last 6-8 months.  Last night had been  a late night and today an early morning of wrestling with choices in our adoption process that are gut –wrenching.  “God, couldn’t you give us just a little hope?  Couldn’t you give us some sign that things will turn out OK, that you truly ARE working all things for our good?  Because right now it doesn’t feel like it.” 

We have glorious times with Bella that cannot escape the looming shadow of her impending departure.  She giggles with full belly laughs that are a delight to the ears as we hide our tears behind forced smiles and hidden sorrow.  She’s too young to perceive that we are trying to protect her.  Or are we trying to protect ourselves? 

Then, today, as it was snowing, I was brought a measure of comfort.  At first there was a flake here and there, wisping and wandering through the air.  Without any wind they seemed to dance all around me, calling my eyes heavenward and away from my thoughts.  Bigger and loftier flakes began to fall until I was in a snow globe of emotions.  I began to remember simpler times.  Times as a boy in Ohio laying on our front lawn looking up and letting the cold flecks touch my face and melt.  Times with loved ones, my brothers, Erika, my niece and nephew and how the snow seemed to change how we interacted with one another.  Times when my biggest worry was the paragraph I had forgotten to write for my high school American Lit. class.  Was life really that much simpler, easy, pure, or was I just remembering it as such?  At the time I remember the stress of life as being greater than what I thought I could handle.  It took faith in His hands and plan and sovereignty in this world to overcome those pressures.  Had life really changed that much?  The decisions are greater, have greater importance, seem more complex, but am I not a more mature, stronger man through the years?  More importantly, has HE not shown Himself faithful through all the trails and hardships?  So then, can I not trust Him that much more? 

The snow was coming down now in an onslaught of white.  The bell had rung, students had gone inside and class had begun again.  Yet there I was breathing it all in.  Trying to make the moment last.  Trying to remember and forget all at the same time.  My Norman Rockwell moment would soon pass, but then, for just a moment, hope sprang into my heart again.  It is impossible to rush about and be so concerned with the weightiness of life when a slow snowfall alights on your world.  For the moment, our decisions did not seem so momentous.  For the moment, I was living in the moment.  Not in the past where regret and what ifs and what could- have- beens survive.  Not in the future where worry, doubt and fear exist.  That moment I was there, present in the present.  And it is in the present that hope can exist.  In the present, I am realizing that I can enjoy the moments that I have with my daughter.  It is in the present that I can truly live.  The key in this though, is to trust His plan for our future and His provision for our past, Christ Himself.  Upon these truths, I can live in the present.  A gentle snow fell today and it was glorious.