Tonight is the last night we will be a family of 5 as Dustin and his mom are returning from Ethiopia tomorrow. So many things have gone through my head today as I tried to prepare for his arrival. Things such as,*Do I have enough diapers
*When will I ever get a chance to clean my bathroom again?
*Have I prepared our other kids well enough for Moses' arrival?
*Will Moses hate me and cry every day. . . . . . I'm not sure my nerves can handle that. . . .
Here Moses will probably have had an average of about 15 caregivers during his short life. To him, I'm just another new and very 'white' face. I smell different, I talk different, I don't know his schedule that he's been used to of eating and sleeping and the list goes on. One of the biggest issues Dustin and I have talked through has been attachment. We wanted to post a little something about all the things we learned in doing things with Ezra and what we will do differently the second time around.
So here's a few things:
1) He will be sleeping in our room and if not in bed, directly next to me so I can roll over and touch him
2)I (Heidi) will attempt to carry him attached in a carrier and facing me for a minimum of 6 hours a day, for 6 weeks
3)No one else will hold Moses until we see good signs of attachment(minimum of 3-6 months)
4)He will be fed a bottle for as long as possible so that he learns to make eye contact with me(mom)
5)We will try to encourage him to go through those infant baby stages with us as long as possible(i.e. rolling, crawling, etc)
*Those are just a few things that we learned we should've taken more seriously the first round through with Ezra. Although everyone(including us) thought that since Ezra was so young when we got him, it wouldn't matter as much- but really it did . We know every parent makes mistakes, but we sure would do things differently looking back.
Thank goodness for God's grace in all of this! If not for God's grace in Ezra's and Moses' and my life- we would all be going crazy. . . .seriously! But God is indeed gracious, especially when He calls us radical living each and every day. I pray that our family and 'radical living' for Him would point others to the cross of Christ and how because of him, we are adopted into God's family as sons.
Thank you to those of you who've labored in prayer along with us and watched/read our journey in bringing Moses home. We have felt your prayers and been encouraged by your comments. And we are so blessed to have all of your support! Humbly and with gratitude, Dustin and Heidi Greenup (and kids)
