My stress is less about how life will be once Major comes home than it is about all I need to do to prepare for another international trip and a new child’s arrival. I am bringing clothing for Major, our stroller and a Bundle Me, blankets and PJs, a multitude of shoes in various sizes, some special foods and all my electronic equipment and media that I can’t go without. I am not as organized as I need to be and though things are happening, they happen slowly. I have put away his clothing, beautiful new items I bought and some handed down by some of the most well dressed little boys I know. Pottery Barn boxes are arriving. Soft cozy blankets, booster seats for the kitchen table, bibs and bottles are ready for him. How silly I was to buy underwear already. This kid is going to need diapers for quite a bit longer. Baby gates and other baby proofing devices are needed this week. Caregiver gift bags are purchased and the gifts still need buying. Still need gifts for all the amazingly helpful people we met in Kaz. Gary’s in charge of the men. Baby House director gift is purchased … one down.

I wasn’t this nuts before the birth of my daughters but there are a lot more elements to this than my births. The preparation to bring a 2 year old home who will surely hit the ground running has me needing to revamp my entire decor. I never ever had to do this for Emma and Eden but I have been told about boys I shall soon see.

Sometimes I just want to hold this moment at bay. The sweet moment of anticipation before the reality and arrival and the true work begins. Challenges and joys are what I am expecting. I have been told by many Kaz mamas to imagine our child as an alien, for lack of a better term. He is coming into a new world, so different than the life he knew before, to strange people, strange sounds and language and strange smells. We will take him on a 25 hour journey on a plane where he will then meet two eager young girls who have loved him for so long and will likely want to show it. He will be driven in cars and strapped into car seats, something he never experienced in his life. He will be fed foods he never ate before, be bathed in a tub (he likely has only had sponge baths) and taken to new doctors here for customary blood work. He will be touched and kissed and hugged and lotioned up. He will not be used to this touch, having normally had his sweet soft skin hidden beneath 3 layers of thick clothing. He will be lovingly touched and kissed, but slowly. He will learn to trust us. He will get used to loving touch. And kisses. Did I mention kisses? And hugs. He will have a new bed to sleep in and though I have tried to emulate the white pillow he sleeps on at the orphanage and a brown soft fleecy blanket with a bear on it, it is not the same …. not the same at all. And perhaps he might even sleep between me and Gary … two strange people so close to him? So loving, so close … but yet strange.

He will grieve. Surely he will grieve and miss and long for and cry for the people he left behind. He will not understand at his age how he came to be with us, that we are his mommy and daddy who will love him forever, that his old life will be mourned but never forgotten deep inside him. He will be scared. He will likely have tantrums and night terrors and lash out, unable to use his language, still so limited and not understood by me anyway, to express his fears. He will wake up many times a night wondering where he is and his heart will clutch for a moment. Soon my face will be a most familiar face to him but surely he will search for the “other mamas”, those dear caregivers, who were 8 of his first mothers. Perhaps in Tyler and Henry and Dylan, he will search for the faces of his little friends whom he will never see again.

I never expected to be adopting a child almost two years old. It is likely one of a few tough ages in which to adopt. No longer a baby but still too young to understand the concept of coming home to a loving family. When I imagine Emma or Eden at age 2 being ripped from all they ever knew and going to live with someone else. One day you just take a walk out the doors and you get in a car and never turn back. It is heart breaking to think of this for Major while at the same time, I know it is life giving.

Thankfully I am getting my crazies out now. When Major comes home, this lady is gonna be the best mama this little boy ever knew. The best one he will ever know again.

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