When we brought her home, we could tell that she was adventurous, but she was also overwhelmed. She had come from a small home (most likely a hut) where she was starving despite her mother’s best efforts, to a place where everyone had their own bed, no one lived in one room, and there’s more food available than people can eat. Not to mention she had four brothers before, three of them a good bit older than her, and now she had three sisters close to her own age. Oh, and she couldn’t talk to people or understand what they were saying to her. All in all, that’s a pretty huge journey for a two and a half year old to take.
One way that we saw her cope with this was the way she would fall asleep. Where our biological kids would do the “normal” kid thing and find every excuse they could to delay actually sleeping, she would lie down and immediately be asleep. I remember so clearly the first night she was home. The older two girls were just smitten with her, and when we put her to bed, they stood next to her and stared as she fell asleep. The whole process took roughly two seconds and involved one long blink followed by closed eyes and deep breathing. The girls were amazed and thought that was the most interesting thing they had ever seen.
There are so many ways that she’s become a typical American three year old since those first days home. She can communicate, she plays normal three year old games with her sisters, and she’s developed an appreciation for pizza and chicken nuggets. But last night I was reminded of yet another way I can chart her comfort level in her new surroundings.
She still goes to sleep pretty quickly when she gets in bed, but not quite as fast as she used to. And some nights when she’s upset, she needs her mommy with her. Last night she was over tired and was upset about various minor issues, and by the time she was getting in bed she was in a terrible state. Joel got her calmed down for the most part, and then as he said goodnight and left the room I knelt by her bed holding her hand. I knelt there whispering to her that I loved her and every now and then giving her a little kiss until she fell asleep, and it struck me that sleep isn’t an escape route for her anymore. Sleep is now just… sleep. And as she held my hand in her slowly relaxing grip and sniffled her way to her dreams, I knew for certain that we had arrived at a wonderful place in our journey. I was fully her mommy, and she was fully my girl.