...and rainbows, and happy smiley faces. At least that's what I thought when we first started considering adoption. All these things would automatically come with the child or children that we adopted. Clearly I was wrong.
Even through all the research, the education, the homestudy, the pre-placement visits, yada yada yada, I still had that tiny bit of hope that the cake, rainbows and happy smiley faces would come as part of the package. "Once the kids are in OUR home, things will be better." Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
I'm not sure at what point that little fantasy expired, but I think it was in the first few hours we were home. Of course, things were slightly better once we got home - better for me that is. Living between hotels and foster parents' homes is incredibly stressful.
It was different for each of my kids though. My oldest (who was 3 at the time) thought it was great fun to have playmates for the first two days. Then she would wake up in the morning and ask "have they gone home yet?" My son spent his first few days escaping from his crib (he was 20 months old), and having meltdowns every time things didn't go his way. My middle daughter (who was also 3 at the time) refused to comply with any request and implemented her reign of terror on everyone. My house looked like a day care centre after a hurricane.
Eventually we implemented new routines and structure into their lives, but the cake moments were few and far between. There were times when I thought we would never have cake moments, and I often doubted my ability to parent. But I knew if I could hang in there long enough, and just take one day (sometimes one hour) at a time things would get better. It was slow going and often no progress was made.
But here we are more than 9 years later. There have been many difficult moments and often it seemed I would never see cake again. But I have. There have been many cake moments complete with rainbows and happy smiley faces, and those moments are the ones I remind myself of when things seem cake-less.
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