The Most Significant Time of the Year

Christmas is very significant for us this year. As it should be. Because Jesus is the reason for the season? Hell, no! (This is the Public House, people. If your holiday is lacking religious dogma, search elsewhere. Christian we may be, but dogmatic we ain't.) It's because Christmas marks six months home with the Fabertids.

Many experienced adoptive parents will tell you the same thing over and over again when it is time to bring home your child. "Don't evaluate your life for six months," they say. Six months. Six months. Six months. Why six months? Because right around six months is when you wake up one morning and realize your life feels completely and totally normal. It's when you no longer worry that you don't know who these people are that cling to your pants leg and demand food from you before they've even taken the time to say, "Hi, Mama." It's when the fears that you've made their lives worse, not better, begin to subside. I don't know why, but six really does seem to be the magic number.

It doesn't just take the parents six months to get from crazy to normal. (Well, still crazy, but more of a normal crazy rather than a crazy crazy.) It takes the kids some time, too. Remember that baby who used to scream every time I moved more than three feet away from him? Well, he pretty much woke up one morning and decided life was good. It was that simple. We didn't do anything special to help him. We were just there, every single day. And sure enough, after about four months of us feeding him and clothing him and loving him, he got the picture. We are not going anywhere. Except maybe to the kitchen for a beer.

And right around six months, one day when we weren't looking, that baby decided to stop being a baby and turned into a little boy.