Metamorphosis

I was talking with my mom the other day and the subject of my two children came up- inevitably, inexorably. And I said something in the heat of a moment, trying to get from point a to point c and I took this verbal shortcut and that shortcut has been ringing in my head like a bell gone mad ever since.
The thing I said to my mom was this: When we met Ev, she was Ev and we just had to wait for her to grow and open up but when we met Liam we had to wait while he completely changed. I think that is the single most fundamental difference when you adopt an infant versus adopting and older child. At least that has been the truth in this family, in this home.

When we were home for the first days, weeks and months, I knew that Liam was a bundle of Orphanage Behaviors. I knew that he had lived for two years learning how to survive and his particular brand of survival meant extreme manipulation of the adults around him. I never once thought of him as angry. I kept waiting for him to grieve. I just didn't realize that he WAS angry and he WAS grieving. He was a mess. But I kept thinking that it should have been worse. I kept thinking that he was ok- more ok than he was.
I look back at our China pictures and see him sitting there in my lap, with my arms around him and I know that he is the same person but my heart reacts so differently to the boy he was versus the boy he is.
We had a rough time with Liam. I did. I had a hard time just letting go and letting him in. I felt off kilter, uneven, unfair and unfit. But I realize now that we were all waiting. We were all waiting to see who he would be. We needed something other than the manipulations to hold on to.
People see him now and they are amazed at how HAPPY he is. He smiles most of the time now. He laughs and he walks silly. He still uses his whole being to communicate, but now he says things like love, comfort, happy, relaxed.
You see, he was angry. He was grieving. But the boy that lay under all of that pain and anger- well, I am seeing that boy now and he is a happy go lucky kind of fella and he was always under there, tempering those Orphanage Behaviors, skewing the grief. We have watched this boy shed all of those things and begin to thrive- not physically but emotionally and mentally.

My little boy has come so far in the ten months he has been with us. He has made the journey of a lifetime and I do not mean the physical miles. I am talking about how he has changed and let go of those survival behaviors that held him together like so many cobwebs and how he has let this shining new boy trust us enough to emerge.

I am not sure that I will ever be able to get over the negative reactions I have to the pictures of our days in China with Liam. I am not sure I will ever be able to be all gushy and mushy about his Gotcha Day. It has been so hard- all of it. I wish I had a picture of the first time we saw the real Liam- that I get super mushy about but, in reality it has been a slow and difficult process, like the slow dawning of a winter morning. And it's not over yet. I mean, we still see the hurt and confusion sometimes take over. We still see him regress and turn back to his old ways of trying to illicit certain responses. But we are so much closer to a healthy and happy boy right now. He is a part of the family now, integral and omnipresent. He is our son. Our Fat Behbay. Our Sir Guizdo. The little person that is totally and completely boy and teaching me a thing or two about my own self and about my expectations.