Addendum

I just have to post an addendum to my Love Thursday photo post from this week (click here). I had purposefully just left it as a photo alone with no text. But for whatever crazy reason(s) it has been nagging at me and pestering me every day since, and I feel like I need to write something to explain that moment in that picture.

Here's the thing---- blogs are like photo albums in many ways. In our blogs we create the imagery and story that we want to convey to ourselves and others. We choose what goes in, how things are spun, and what is left out. I don't focus much, for example, on the times I lose my temper at K & O or the times I cry on Braydon's shoulder out of sheer exhaustion or the times I want to just explode in frustration at x, y, or z. I don't write much about the boys' bad behavior or my to-do-lists that just keep getting longer or the fights Braydon and I have over any number of things. Those things are part of our life. For sure. The reason I don't focus on them in the blog has nothing to do with trying to present a glossy "picture perfect" version of our life. The reason is I don't focus on them in the blog is simply this: I am a person who has always seen the glass as half full. Or, as my dad explains it: I am a person who always "makes lemonade out of lemons." In terms of this blog as an historical 'document' for my boys... well, I figure that they'll remember well enough all the bad parts about our life -- all the times I lost it on them, all the times they saw me cry to their papi, all the times that I did __whatever__ 'wrong' and it stuck deep with them. As a mother I try to do the very best I can knowing full well that it will never be good enough, and knowing full well that some things that I can't possibly predict will surely come back to haunt me when my boys are going through teen angst or going through twenties therapy or, God willing, going through their own raising-of-their-children. But still, it is very easy for me to sincerely feel that life is, indeed, good. That comes naturally for me. And it is genuinely an organic way of being for me to focus on the positive.

When you, as a blog reader, look at that photo from Thursday (here), you will see whatever you see. I can't control your reactions to the photo -- even if I do write in text. But I do want to write briefly what I see in that photo when I look in it... mostly for the sake of Kyle and Owen if they ever happen to read this later in their lives. I want them to know honesty.

When I look at that photo I see the sheer intense love of a mother-child bond. I see myself holding my precious baby boy. I see a perfect corn-rowed child in a cozy winter sweater, whole-body-relaxed in the arms of the only mama he's ever known. I see calm. I see contentment. I see love. I see myself, a mother who can't help but smile. And I see myself, a mother with complete determination glowing out of my icy blue eyes. I also see that moment as I remember it... We had just come home from Doylestown where we had been before a judge in a formal Bucks County courtroom. Braydon and I had taken the day off from work, we had all dressed up, we had brought the camera, we were ecstatic to finally be taking the last step of a long and painful and -- at times -- truly torturous adoption process. It was the day of our final court hearing. This court hearing would officially proclaim Kyle and Owen legally adopted by us under U.S. law. A huge day in the life of any adoptive family. We had gone to the court, tried to keep the boys quiet through the proceedings, and waited on the edge of our seats for this whole entire paper-chase-red-tape-home-study-adoption-agency-check-writing-immigration-visas-fingerprinting-heart-wrenching-up-all-night-with-anxiety-trip-to-Haiti-re-adoption-U.S.-citizenship-doctor's-visits-transition-attachment-social-security-fill-out-the-forms-never-ending-phone-calls ORDEAL to be done for once and for all. Then the judge denied our adoption. His ruling was not what we had expected: he ruled that we were not their parents under U.S. law. "Well, who's children are they if they aren't ours?" we asked ourselves. Under Haitian law they were already our children. But in our own country they were officially nobody's. Yet again, our adoption had not gone according to plan-- yet again, another bump in the road. Yet again, our hearts and spirits were shaken. The problem that the judge had found (a technicality that even our lawyer -- someone who had practiced adoption law for over a decade -- told us was "ridiculous") was resolved and a couple of months later we were officially declared a legal family. But that moment in the picture -- that moment we had come in the door, my baby sleepy from our car ride home from the court house, my husband capturing it with the camera lens -- that moment is much more complex than it may first appear. Still, however, it is the honest truth -- when I look at this photo what I see is the sheer intense love of a mother-child bond. I see myself holding my precious baby boy. I see a pefect corn-rowed child in a cozy winter sweater, whole-body-relaxed in the arms of the only mama he's ever known. I see calm. I see contentment. I see love. I see myself, a mother who can't help but smile. And I see myself, a mother with complete determination glowing out of my icy blue eyes.