Everthing went well!

It is like a miracle when I see my son's face. He looks so amazing. I see cheekbones and a true front to his face. It is weird to say but skin and flesh simply look different with bone beneath. I am a Mama who sometimes watches her child while he sleeps (like every other awesome parent) and I almost do not recognize him. It is not the swelling. There is simply a different shape to the face I love so much.

It is like my loving eye is constantly "readjusting" to see the miracle we wrought for my son. Being a "sometimes slow to change Mama" I already miss the blue tint under his skin that indicated that which was missing. Gone is the worrisome flatness of his rebuilt lip over missing bone. That was the kid I worried about and protected from so much.

It is kind of silly, the doctors keep checking with me to make sure I have Alex on a soft diet. It is silly because I have always been so careful of anything he eats. We have talked about it so much he tells other adults what he can eat and why. My son is so precious to me.

Anyway, enough about me. Alex did great. They took bone from his hip and put it where it was missing in the bilateral cleft. He is such a favorite at the hospital. People came from other floors to say hello to him. He also got a huge balloon bouquet with a Scooby doo balloon that is actually larger than his sister. :)

Already the swelling in his face is down and we all see the new Alex - complete with beautiful cheekbones. I keep checking his mouth not only to marvel at the rebuilt palete but to also see the permanent space we made for his front teeth. My son still does not believe that he too will have "spongebob front teeth" but I look at that magic space now in the front for his teeth and I cannot wait. Those are still a bit away but we can all see the space for the dream to manifest.

I just did not know it would be so hard to get his mind away from that other place. I did not know how high the price I would personally pay to stay by his side while he came home and got what he needed.

I did not know I would love him so much - no matter what. That is what we tell each other - "I love you no matter what." I hope all adoptive families get to that point of total acceptance. For both the parent and the child. It is a great place. All adoptions take time for all to adjust.

I see it with our little girl adopted last spring. She came with none of Alex's emotional adjustment issues but it still takes time for her to adjust. We all love each other so much but it is still hard sometimes.

We are lucky to have found each other. Life is good.

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers tomorrow

As always, I cannot sleep the night before an Alex surgery. Tomorrow we go in for his bone grafts. I think that even this time he is worried though with him it looks like just really bad behavior. At times today he was so on and then there would be these weird behavior spikes. Thank goodness my Mom was here to help me see that at those times today he was just not being my son. Gosh I wish he wouldn't do that because he so has my buttons down. I think he just punched them to make sure that everything at home was normal. Normal Mama response means normal life.

If I was my son and had to face (no pun intended) what he has to, I do not know if I could do it. I try to down play it but this is a big milestone for us in reconstructing his face. I remain sleepless.

So we had his favorite dinner (KFC), did the bath thing and packed our bags. Really we just packed his bag. :) His has cats in toy and book form of course. Dr. Seuss made the cut as did a Russian nursery book I bought way back when we first left the orphanage together. It is the Day and Night book in Russian. I think he also tried to sneak our Maltese into the bag at one point but I was onto it because the bag kept wiggling. BeBe the Bischon is too big so was left to sleep peaceably.

So tomorrow we will take his sister to her Russian immersion kindergarten and then take the train to the hospital. We will confirm the balloons he wants from the gift shop on our way pre-op. We will then create the miracle I hoped for my son when I first decided to adopt him. It will not be the last surgery of course. But it will be the most invasive and the most helpful.

So if you could pray for us that would be awesome. I know that life will be what God wills but sometimes I wonder if he watches over the little ones closer if more of us ask. I know that my heart hopes so and I pray for many kids still not safe.

It has been awhile ...

And that is a good thing. Alex is doing well and is getting ready for his bone graft surgery in a couple of weeks. I am so scared for him, yet so excited because it is an amazing milestone for us. Alex just wants to get on with fixing his face. In March we did surgery to place a screw so as to move a bone fragment and that went very well with none of the possibly devastating consequences. The procedure was rounded out with his new sister cheering him from the sidelines. I thank God every day that Alex is so upbeat about the surgeries because we have so many ahead of us. I think that it is hysterically funny that his sister (also cleft) is his own cheerleader directing him in Russian when he fusses at a particularly difficult moment.

Since Alex took the picture with Santa last December he and I have traveled to Moscow three times and subsequently brought home a sister for him and a daughter for me in late April. She is awesome. So sweet and smart. She came home and it is was like she was always here with us. First day of school came and she was like every other kindergarten kiddo.

She and Alex attached and they seem like they have been siblings forever. Everyone thinks they look alike and it seems like a big happy family. And it is.

I think a lot about how it all began for us - Alex and me. We beat the odds.

I often wonder how we did it - how we do it everyday. I think about how I still battle his school and their failures when dealing with him - but he does okay with coping with them (even though I so am not) so I am thrown back to wondering how did we do it?

No child is saved without their consent I have decided. We silly parents fight and work and cry and pray and hope for our kids. I yelled, I pleaded, I argued, I sacrificed any and everything to save my son. Yet, what made the difference was Alex. I helped because without it he wouldn't have had the chance but it was my son that finally decided to save himself. He reached out and finally grabbed one of those life savers I kept throwing to him. I am not sure when it happened but one day he decided I meant it that he was my son and this was now his life with all its particularity. I think he kept me flinging those life savers for awhile after he caught one just to make sure I meant it. :)

It is like I told my Mom, who suffered a particularly difficult relationship with Alex for a long time, Alex tests those he cares the most about the hardest and longest. He wants to make really, really, really sure you love him no matter what. They now are very close and it makes my heart bloom with love every time I see it.

So I go back to what I have learned. Today my kiddo is okay. He is okay because I went to where he was, got down and stayed there until he got up. I think I was sleeping when he actually did it. :)

What I have learned is that sometimes kids are in a bad space. A really bad space. Sometimes they cannot leave it for awhile. People just need to keep working at being there for them. Then, finally, the kiddo can come home. Home into your arms. Today I have the most awesome kid. He still has edges - all eight year old boys do. I am forever pulling bugs out of his pockets. I may grump about it but I love it every time. It is just so Tom Sawyerish.

I remember a training I took last year about nurturing damaged children and resilience. The lady teaching the class likened the heart of a traumatized child to a vessel sort of like a sieve with lots of really big holes. She demonstrated this by lacing her fingers together widely so we could see the holes. She then said that those of us who adopt these damaged children pour love and attention into their hearts. In the beginning this love and attention is liquid pouring through really wide, wide holes in their hearts. It does not seem to make any difference with those really, really wide holes. Yet, that love is full of sugar and honey and over time it builds up a residue that, given enough time can fill that which it once ran through.

Alex's heart has been healed with love. I pray that all parents loving such children hear the direction from God to just keep loving. And accepting. I hope they learn to accept their child as they are - not as they want them to be.

And then, sometimes, kids come home and everything is perfectly fine. My little girl is like that - no problems what so ever. A joy to be around everyday. Just last night she got mad at me and Alex and told us we did not make her happy and she did not like us. The kids then went up to bed and she broke down the hard attitude and insisted on hugging me and Alex (I had to get him back up) so that she could tell us she did really love us. I think all that drama lasted less than 10 minutes. I often stare at her in awe because it is all so unexpected given everything.

I thank God everyday for my son. He is an amazing person to know and love.