THIS

Don't blink or else you might look at the calendar and realize it's a year later.  

Little Man joined us at 5 p.m., one year ago today.  It was traumatic.  There really is no other word for it.  Dropped in our living room by a caseworker with a transparently false sense of duty and not the slightest bit of empathy, a boy who was no more to him than a faceless job responsibility, one more task to check off of a never-ending to-do list continuously written by a depraved society.


Our homemade kids were elated and completely clueless, which is probably a good thing. They had spent months sincerely and fervently praying for new brothers and sisters and now one of them was standing in our living room, in real life!  Shock and awe etched on his tiny, brown face, he refused to eat for three days and despite the fact that he barely talked about anything else, insisted, every night at storytime, that he was Curious George and his former foster mother, the only mother he'd really known, was the Man with the Yellow Hat.  He was lost and she was frantically searching for him.  Pathetic and true.

Life has a funny way of blurring the lines, of smoothing the jaggedly, incongruant edges until they begin to line up like they were a perfect match the whole time.  It still hurts, the sanding, the dust that flies away.  Pieces of you and them are still being removed but egos and pride, like a swollen door that's gotten too big for it's frame in the heat of summer, need to be lessened to fit again with the whole floor plan, instead of doing their own thing...our own thing.  What good is a door that doesn't open and close properly?

A year later, he sleeps a feverish slumber brought on by the preschool plague they are all so willing to share.  The day passes unnoticed, no aplomb, no celebration, just a few extra juice boxes while he snuggles under a blanket and watches more movies than would normally be allowed.  Who wants to celebrate the day your son felt like he was kidnapped by his caseworker, his life altered without his consent?  I don't.  Guitar Hero doesn't.  Being forced to care for and explain the inequity of life to a tortured child is not a day to celebrate.

But, this...

THIS

While March 2nd returns to it's rightful place as a normal day on the calendar, this will be celebrated on March 6th every year.  After a judge's order and a coveted lunch at Chick-Fil-A, this will be permanent, a family forever.