Paying our attachment dues

It is time to pay the piper.  The attachment piper.  Ezra has been home for one year, seven months and two weeks and five days.  His adjustment into our family has been wonderful.  He fits right in.  He loves his brothers and sister, often looking for them or asking about them if they are not in sight.  He loves loves loves his Mama and his Daddy.  Loves us.  And I think we are doing pretty well in the attachment and bonding area.  There are always little things to work on, but overall I think we are doing well.

Leaving him for two weeks was hard.  I was honestly afraid of what it would do to our attachment to be gone for that long.  We had never both left him overnight before we went on this adoption trip.  We had left him with sitters for a few hours, but never for a full day much less for overnight. I think there had only been one night that someone else had put him to bed besides either one of us.  He sleeps at least part of the night in our bed most nights.  He is great at independent play, but has to be in the same room I am in while he is playing.  He had just gotten to the point that he would go in another room and play, either with his siblings, or just lately, by himself.  And he was finally not crying when I would take him to Bible study class on Wednesday mornings.  We were beginning to see him have some confidence in his attachment to us. 

When we left him we honestly did not know how he would respond.  We made sure he was staying with people he knew.  And people who were affectionate and would be willing to meet his needs.  And that he was staying with Josiah, his brother to whom he is most attached.  For five days he stayed alone with a friend whom we have weekly play dates with and their 3 year old son.  We were amazed.  He really did so well.  Slept well, ate well, napped well, adjusted to being shuffled from one home to another every few days.  And even when we got home, he was not overly clingy.

But the last week or so, we are paying the price.  He is still sleeping well, thank you Lord.  But everything else is not going well.  He screams, traumatic screams, when we take him to the church nursery.  He refuses to go to the bathroom alone or let me go to the bathroom alone.  He has to be right by my side at all times.  And literally freaks out when I walk out of the room and he can't see me.  When I do leave him and return, he has the death grip around my neck and literally has his head and body plastered to my face.  He is no longer as friendly with other people, even people he normally loves.  We have taken a few steps back in his confidence in our relationship.

It is hard to be a good parent at these times.  It is hard to be "on" for every single waking moment of your three year old's day.  It is hard when a shower is your one moment of sanity and there is a frantic, traumatized three year old banging on the shower door.  Or when you take the trash out to the garage and come back to a sobbing weeping mess of a toddler on the floor because he thinks you have left him. Again.  Nap time is borderline okay.  It has varied from laying down with no complaints and going right to sleep, to today, when he stood in his bed, yelling for half an hour, "I want to get out!  I want to get out!  I want to get out!"  It is hard to eat when he wants to sit in your lap, sitting next to you is not enough, even if you are touching him, even if you are holding his hand and not eating your own food. 

It gets messy when attachment stuff and toddler stuff gets all intermingled and you can't easily decipher what your child really needs.  I am trying very hard to approach everything from an attachment point right now.  I honestly don't think that can be wrong.  After all, you can't effectively train a toddler who is not attached to you, and to whom you are not attached, so we have to make sure that comes first.  For this little boy.  Especially at this time.  And there are moments that I forget this and just try to parent this kid like his attachment and bonding are 100% a-o-kay.  And then I have to remind myself of what has happened the last month in his life, and the last year in his life, and the last two years of his life and the last three years of his life.  And try again to parent this child the way that HE needs to be parented.  And it is hard work.

I know that the next six weeks, the next six months, the next year, are going to just get harder.  I will be leaving again.  For a week to go to court.  Daddy will be here, but Daddy is not Mama.  No foolin' this little boy.  And he loves his Mama.  And Daddy will still work, so there will be other caregivers during the day.  And a month later Mama and Daddy will leave.  Again. For two weeks.  And when we come home, we will have a whole 'nother little one who will need 100% of Mama and Daddy also. And there are three other kids at our house who like their Mama and Daddy too.

Yes, we have our work cut out for us.  These pipers are expensive.  It is a good thing...it is a blessed thing... it is a miraculous thing that we have a very good, blessing giving, miracle working God to give us all of the pricelessly expensive grace that we need for the next year.  And for the next month.  And for the next week.  And the next day. And the next hour.  And, even, friends, the next minute.

I know I'll need all I can get.