the ebb and flow

As the ebb and flow of hate goes, my hate is beginning to ebb. That is if "to ebb" means to be healed with the help of God. It has been 3 years, twelve days and 18 hours since my babies first walked into my home. They each came in with a bag consisting of a comb, a new shirt, and the really stinky clothes they had on. My daughter had some tight braids in her baby fine hair that made her head look bald, her cute little baby pudgy face look bloated, and my son cried and cried and cried, until I sat him in front of Sponge Bob. (The only cartoon I knew about back then!)

The social worker left, my neighbors came over, and we began taking out braids, giving baths, and giving hugs.

That night began a series of nights that lasted for about six months where I would awaken to a little dude standing next to my bed staring at me. He wouldn't say anything, so with heart racing, I would say, "Are you okay? Are you scared? Are you hot? Are you sick? Did you have a bad dream? Do you have to go to the bathroom?" He still wouldn't say anything, but his little feet would pad back to his bed, and he would go back to sleep.

For a few hours. Until it would happen again. Little dude by my bed. Silent. My questioning. Then, the quick walk back to his room.

I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what he wanted, and I was sick of being awakened three times a night! I would lie there and toss and turn and wonder what I had gotten myself into, until one night, 6 months later, I finally learned to say what he needed. It was something simple. Something easy. But something so profound. It was, "I'm here baby..... and I'm not going anywhere."

And all those months later, my baby slept through the night.

From these nightly episodes, I started to put the pieces together about the first three and a half years of his life. And the first year and a half of his sister's life. "I can change her diaper," he would say. "I do it all the time."

He would also say, "Are you going to steal that or buy it?" and, "One time, my dad got so mad he made my nose bloody." And daily, "Are you coming home?"

I learned from a trip to Petco, while standing by the yellow cans of dog food, that my babymama and my babydaddy used to put formula under my baby's coat, and have him take it out of the store without paying. They don't search three-year-olds, you know?

I learned from checking on him at night that he didn't like to sleep in his bed. "In the hotel with G," [my babymama's boyfriend] "we slept on the floor," he told me.

And I learned from chasing him around the kitchen table repeatedly, and pulling him out from under the coffee table when it was time to go somewhere, that he felt the need to hide and to run. From somebody.

3 years, 12 days, and 18 hours later, he knows that we pay for our groceries. Even when money is tight. He knows it's too drafty to sleep on the floor and likes to "make himself a nest" in his bed. And when I say, "It's time to go," he's ready!

My hate got worse before it got better. My hate for the babymama I never knew I could have, and the babydaddy who, by now, I have met.

It's hard to be a parent! It's hard to be a single parent! And the days of wishing I'd tried route #2 (hot sex in the night with no condom), which would have given me at least a chance of a semi-decent baby daddy, are high in number and a source of many daydreams.... Oh God!! These are some of the most difficult years I have ever experienced!!

I wish I had someone to rely on. Someone to talk to about all the many decisions, big and small, that I have to make on a daily basis and which will affect the lives of my children perhaps well into adulthood. I wish I had a babydaddy whose care and concern for our children matched that of my own. I wish I had someone to go to the movies with or laugh with me at the funny things that my babies say. And Goodness!! I wish I had someone to help me figure out what to say!

But I know that I do. Because when I wake in the middle of the night scared and unsure of how to be a good mom, and how to heal all the wounds that have cut my babies so deep, and when I wake thinking about all my own wounds and my dream of having a real babydaddy with whom to share my life and the lives of my children, I pad to my own Father's bed, and I realize as he whispers softly to me, that I knew what to say to my son all along.....

"I'm here baby.... and I'm not going anywhere."

"I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness."

John 8:12