When we were waiting for Kyle and Owen people would often say things to us regarding the subject of BECOMING PARENTS. We found it very interesting that so much of what people said to us was negative, or at least tinged with transparent negativity. I'm sure part of this was because people knew we were adopting twins - and they were somewhat scared for our fate (probably rightly so!!). But they said stuff to us like, "Oh, you're in for it!" And "Enjoy your life now while you still have it!" Similarly, they'd give us advice, like, "Sleep now - you'll never sleep again!" And "Spend time together now since once you have kids it won't ever be just the two of you anymore." Etc. Etc. Etc. Truth be told: these sorts of comments were really kind of difficult for us. People didn't seem to get it -- They didn't seem to get that during the eight months we were waiting for our boys we had a hard time enjoying life at all since our babies were barely surviving in an orphanage. And we were not sleeping (at least once they came home we were sleep deprived because we were up all night with them, not because we were up all night worried sick about the fact that we were without them). And we had spent a solid ten years together before we decided to adopt -- we had gone out to dinner enough, we had gone on fabulous vacations enough, we had slept in on the weekends enough. We were so ready for kids. We were so ready for our kids. Tonight at the supper table (see photo below of Owen-"Pasta Fingers"-Johnson-McCormick!), Braydon was laughing his tush off -- and he reminded me of how people used to say all those negative things to us while we were waiting. And then he talked about how he remembered that our friend Marisa had said something so divergent from all the rest. He reminded me of how Marisa had said that upon becoming parents: "You'll laugh more than you've ever laughed before." Wow. It is so true. At the time she said it to us we were both struck by how not-negative it was. It was refreshing to hear. It sounded right up our alley! But we didn't know who our kids were going to be. And we were scared to even hope for funny-laugh-provoking-fun-loving kids. We were happy to just take whatever we were going to be given, even if they never ever made us laugh. What we didn't know then was that our two little bambinos -- those very same babies who were lying together in a port-a-crib in a hot dingy barely-scraping-by orphanage in Haiti -- were to be two little spark-plugs, two huge personalities, two charasmatic life-loving fully-immersed-in-living little people. We didn't know then that all our hopes would come true: That Marisa would be right, and that all those naysayers would be so, so wrong. Some photos from this evening:
1 comment:
Okay, we keep leading totally similar lives...... John and I were married 10 years before our girls were born and we worked very hard to have them. We also got the "wow, twins, you'll never sleep again," or "wow, double trouble," etc. Sure, our lives are not our own anymore, but that's what we WANT! We, like you two, had already had many years of marriage, many fabulous vacations and travels, and many nice dinners out. We were ready for that part of our lives to be over. Now it is the time to eat dinners with one hand while cutting bits of food for the girls with the other and to spend all evening being a human jungle gym (tonight's featured activity). What could be more fun at this time of our lives?! How lucky we all are.
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