I forgot about sleep. Well, really, I forgot about the lack of sleep. I talked myself through it months ago... "Listen, self. In a few months, there will be a baby, and you will never sleep at all, and you will feel like you're going insane and maybe you need a divorce or at least a facelift and you will ask yourself where have all the flowers gone, but it will be because of NOT SLEEPING, so tell yourself to take it easy on yourself for a few months, and then it will get easier." That's a little glimpse into a veteran parent self pep-talk.

Despite my prep work, I forgot. Tristan sleeps 2 or 3 hours at a time, sometimes even more. Some of my other children ate every hour and a half, so this seems reasonable. And there I am, awake in the middle of the night, over and over, checking to see if anybody else is awake on Facebook and feeling okay. Really, in the middle of the night I feel like, no big deal, I'm awake now, I will be awake in 3 hours and then I will be awake all day, and it won't be hard.

Then, at 7 am-ish, the other children come, with their sagging diapers and burning questions about the nature of God and eating habits of beavers, and demands for cereal. Lately, they've given up hope and started eating cheese sticks until some adult staggers downstairs. I lay there, with the baby now sleeping soundly and peacefully, and think, wow. This is gonna be tired.

I remember being mad, when the other kids were babies. Being awake made me angry. I don't so much have that, this time. I just have denial. I feel fine, I tell myself. Totally normal. And then I find myself standing in front of the pantry, thinking. For a long time. And I could eat crackers, but they're just so much work. Or I assess Toby, wearing jeans that are 2 sizes and 6 inches too small with a t-shirt and a pinstriped blazer, and shoes with no socks. It's 34 degrees, I think, but that is kind of a jacket. Okay, that looks fine. I start sentences and can't

I'm tired. I'm trying to be normal and write blogs and cook food, but it is so tired. It is so very worth it, and so very tired.

If you're new around here, you might not know that I am a celebrator, married to a non-celebrator, when it comes to Christmas. He celebrates plenty when his new multi-channel snake with titanium overlays or banana clips or something comes via UPS. He celebrates when he, in a continual pursuit of studio excellence, finds a faux snare that sounds like a Europop band in his digital setup. But the birth of our LORD, not so much.

As a child, I would begin preliminary drafts of my Christmas list in August. My dad and I would get the tree as soon as Thanksgiving was over and the check wouldn't bounce. Once the MOG and I started dating, we pulled him into all the holiday customs, with the eggnog and the cinnamon rolls and the utter disdain for artificial trees, and the chopping trees down at a tree farm and so on. He would come along, because he liked us and me, specifically. It wasn't until we were married a few years that I figured out his secret. He wasn't that into Christmas.

Would I have married him, knowing that? Well, yes. I broke up with him for bankrupting my dad at Monopoly, but honestly, I was hooked on the guy and accepted his lame apology for that, so I doubt anything would have swayed me.

A few years ago, somewhere around the time that our radio station started playing Christmas carols from Thanksgiving day through New Years, he threw down an ultimatum. Christmas could not begin prior to December 1st. I, being all kinds of submissive, accepted. Then I stepped it UP as soon as December came around. All carols, all the time. Homemade cinnamon potpourri. Christmas lights inside and outside. The tallest, fattest tree I could find, covered in lights and tinsel. A 2 foot dancing Santa, singing Jingle Bell Rock and gyrating on the mantle.

Then Toby happened. Toby is all about celebration. He wakes up screaming with excitement for Valentine's Day. "A special EVENT! It's a special EVENT TODAY!!" He has no idea of the mythological elements of Santa Claus, just that he is the Christmas guy and anything that has to do with Christmas is SO EXCITING.  Brynn is following in his footsteps, cheering the female (?) Santa at McDonald's and singing songs about snowmen...The MOG is weakening. He let us buy outdoor lights at Target, even with the implication that he would be putting them up. And when we found an all-Christmas station the day after Thanksgiving, he let it stay. "FELIZ NAVIDAD!" cry Toby and Brynn. So it begins.

All babies are strangers. They come to us, with their mysterious knowledge of the womb, disturbed by our bright world of noise and busyness. They carry a stillness that we aren’t familiar with. They cry, and we have to figure out why. Some babies sleep on their backs, some on their tummies. Mine likes to be held, all the time. You never know a new baby. You learn them.

So this one, who I did not carry in my body, is no more or less of a stranger than the ones I delivered. I remember trying to settle in to Toby’s name, trying it on my tongue for days after he was born, seeing if that’s who he was. He wasn’t, not for a little while.

I’m only speaking for myself, but usually when I do that, people say they feel, or felt the same way, and I imagine this is the same. Loving a baby is very easy, even with their demands and their neediness. They need you, and you love them, and then they love you.

In the morning, the sun is finally up and I look over to see two serious blue half-moon eyes looking at me. This world is new to him, and he’s going to teach me all about it. I put my hand on his tiny chest and he curls his whole hand around my finger. I am his, and he is safe. Now we begin our day.

In years past, I have waxed poetic about Thanksgiving. We usually celebrate with family, in multiple households. We go a couple of places on Thursday and eat like Americans, and then on the weekend we eat something non-patriotic with Viking Granny, since she's not from here.


This year, we got a baby and stayed in Missouri for Thanksgiving. I got homesick and cried on Wednesday, but Thursday, I was busy eating. I cooked like a grownup for us and a few friends, and we even ate on real plates. The MOG and I made an executive decision and banned turkey, green beans and cranberry sauce, because we don't like them.

It was one of those beautiful, sleepy days, and I had the realization that we are a family. That we're making traditions and memories that these kids will treasure and maybe even carry on. Who knows, maybe someday turkey will be eradicated from the Clark family lines forever? It's a crazy dream, I know.

Also yesterday, the furnace died. It's being replaced now, but it was 21 degrees last night, so we bundled everybody up and camped out in our room with 3 space heaters. It was sweet going to sleep with all of us in the same space. It was less romantic when they all started waking up and only had the one room to use while getting out their wiggles. The house outside our room is FRIGID. I'm trying to hunker in place, but a trip to the outside world is likely. YIKES.

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BABY SHOWER!

Moms gotta cope. Some of you might use meth, or salsa dancing. I use a computer. That is, I give my children to a computer, and they play PBS kids or Starfall or what have you for hours, if necessary. In the meantime, I read books and write blogs and even, on occasion, do housework. During certain seasons of my life, I have leaned more heavily than others. It's coping, folks, and it has worked. Until now.

Upon arriving home with my 4th child, the MacMini died. Just kaput. Gave up the ghost. Kicked the proverbial bucket. Now, in its defense, it is very old, and it has been through a lot, like having 3 DVDs shoved in it at one time, having popsicle sticks lodged in the CD drive, and being dropped and vigorously unplugged, as a defensive tactic. It lived a good life.

I, on the other hand, face new challenges. Like most young and neglectful parents, I had intended on setting some boundaries and locking down on computer time really, really soon, just not the first week home with a newborn. I had even expressed to the MOG that I was planning to totally phone it in this week and let them veg, for the sake of my own sleep and sanity.

But no. God in heaven laughed at my plans, and reached out and smote my MacMini. I would be in a crisis of faith, but I'm too tired. The 3 big kids have decided to spend the time formerly given to PBS to me, alternately sitting on me and jumping on my organs, and petting the baby, and reading my text messages over my shoulder with commentary. They've also given themselves to the pursuit of finding their own snacks, and have eaten most of a 72 pack of American cheese slices. They made birthday cards for Liz, using an inkstamp on the paper, the table, and their hands, and decorated their faces with markers. They experimented with pouring a bag of popcorn on the floor and kicking it around. They made "snow" in the sunroom out of a large block of styrofoam, which is evidently impervious to being swept up or vacuumed.

Lucky for them and me, I am not such the housekeeper and find their antics amusing, for the most part, unless those antics involve throwing Hot Wheels cars high into the air in my general direction.

Tomorrow, I think I will give them my laptop and hide under the bed.

I tend to view my children's lives through the scope of a future therapist. I've never been to a therapist, personally, but you know, it might have helped a couple of times... But anyway, back to my kids. I try not to say things like, "Quit crying, you're a BOY!" or "You can't wear that, because it looks ugly..." or "No one will want to be your friend if you pick your nose and eat your boogers." I have said all of those things, but I was kicking my mental self in the head at the same time. 

So bringing a new baby home, I've tried to be vigilant about what I did not want to say. Basically anything that would get my kid on a psychiatrist's couch, crying gentle tears and repeating, "Get off the couch, you're shaking the baby...." or "For heaven's sake GO OUT OF THIS ROOM WHILE HE'S SLEEPING..." 

I have failed. Oprah will hold Toby's hand, liquid brown eyes and mutant eyelashes wide. They will put pictures of me up on the big screen, scowling. Chunky women with frosted hair will shake their heads and hold back tears. Brynn's book, "You're Not Getting Anything, This Gift Card Is For the Baby" will set records on the Bestseller lists. 

I think we'll make it. Either I will figure out how to make everybody feel important and loved. More importantly, I will figure out how to feed everyone simultaneously, and before they are falling apart. OR, we will have a reality show. Toss-up. 

I have 4 children. So far, I've only had 4 at one time for about an hour. That was a pretty wild hour... I don't see a lot of sleep in my future.

Directly after Tristan turned 3 days old, the little guys arrived at the hotel. They blew into the room like a hurricane, demanding to "see it". To this point Tristan's world had primarily been adults, petting his face and talking softly, occasionally laying hands on him and weeping while quoting Isaiah or whatever. The onslaught of sound that is his siblings came as a surprise, but he handled it well.


Brynn held him for a long time, seeming to have a natural knack for babying. "Lookit his little hands! OOH, look at his little face." Once the boys had a turn holding him, she went and found a pacifier and stood at the ready."When he cries, I will PUT this in." she told us. We had to prevent her several times from forcibly shoving the paci in his mouth.

Toby held him for a minute, and seemed to really like him, and then took a few experimental swipes at him, claiming they were "pats". I tried to intervene and hold Toby, sure that his heart was breaking at being replaced, but he was pretty busy. Later he told me he was ready for our own family to live at our own house. Me too, bud. Me too.

R2 was a little resistant about being given a baby, but he settled in after a little and looked very closely at the squawking bundle of human in his arms.

There's probably a deep psychological edge running here about acceptance and rejection and grace and family loving each other, but there's time for that. For that one night, as chaotic as it was, we were all together, and it was beautiful.

At some point in the future, I will write all about this week, and the journey to Tristan, and all of the emotion and the depth. Not today, though, because I'm tired and I've watched a LOT of TV.

See, the thing is, Tristan is a Kansan. He's grafted into Texas, and we receive him, but he was born in Kansas, and we live in Missouri. So there are all these rules about adopting a baby out of state. The sending state and the receiving state have to both sign documents sending and receiving said baby, and it's all Fed-Ex and government offices and so on, and it takes 7-10 days.

During that time, he can't cross the state line. And this might shock you, but you can't leave kids alone. (Sometimes, when I walk outside to check the mail alone, Toby warns me not to get caught by the police) So I am staying in Kansas with Tristan, in a hotel room. At first, I was like WOOO party about a week vacation from the children that I LOVE, but then I sat in a hotel room with a sleeping baby for 2 days and figured out that babies don't do much. So Tristan and I have settled into a routine of eating every few hours, catching a nap and watching excessive amounts of Everybody Loves Raymond and The Cosby Show.

In the evening, the MOG comes to us and tries to take the remote and watch things about the birth habits of eels, or the history of the AK-47, told by Irish fishermen who survived the Titanic.

But about the baby. He is GREAT. He's so sweet and snuggly, and now that he's figured out there's a difference between sleeping on me and sleeping in his playpen, he has decided his playpen is so passe'. So I have been holding him for most of the day and most of the night, and he has been waving his long fingers and making little faces and in general, being heartbreakingly adorable.

Last night he met his siblings. But that is a story for another day, unless there's something good on TV.

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(Cross-posted at Moral Outcry)

I am sitting in a hotel room with a sleeping newborn. The last 3 days have been such a whirlwind, I can’t think where to begin. So I’ll start with when I met my son in a hallway.

One of the things that plagued me the last few months was the fear of not bonding, not connecting with an adopted baby. What if I saw him and felt nothing? I wondered.

We spent the day in the delivery room with the birthfamily, alternately making conversation and just being. Around 6:30, we decided to grab a sandwich while C (our baby’s mom) slept. By the time we got back with our sandwiches, it was go time. We stood in the hallway, waiting to hear his first cry. And we waited. Finally, the chaos built and then he sang his birth song. Richy and I and Susan, the social worker, were just frozen in the hall, listening to him.

Several minutes later, they whisked him down the hall to the NICU, because he had some issues with his heart that needed to be monitored. We were standing in the hall with his birth grandmas and tried to snap a picture as he passed, when one of his grandmothers called out and stopped the nurses.

To my complete surprise, they stopped everything and put him in my arms. I don’t know if I’m skilled enough to explain what went through my head, my heart in those seconds.
Will I love him?
Oh.
You are mine, and I am yours.

In a span of seconds, my heart was captured. I don’t know how, or what or why God put it together this way. I just know they handed me a stranger and he was my flesh.