Different, like Every Other Day

This morning I got up, made bottles, set up a place for feeding/playing/reading in front of the fireplace, turned on some Nora Jones, and went to get my buddies.

I always wait for them to make noises. They know the ritual. They talk to each other for a while. Then they call for me. Sometimes they even say "dadadada". They greet me with big smiles and flailing limbs. I go back and forth to each crib to say "good morning" three times before I actually reach in and pick one of them up. This builds the excitement to the appropriate level.



Then I pick one of them up. (It alternates every monrning) I am sure to get a good cuddle all the way to the feeding couch.

I secure my first buddy while I go get my second buddy. After the bottles we change diapers, read two books, and then play.

This is a sacred hour. Since Andrea works at nights, the morning hours are almost always mine to savor alone (I like it when Andrea's with us too--but this is special and important in a different way).

This morning was perfect, in most ways no different from the last 180 mornings like it--but in a legal sense this morning was different. The boys are fully and irevocably ours.

It didn't feel different. Probably because we have been fully and irrevocably *theirs* for more than six months.

We celebrate the finalization of the adoption. But the beautiful/terrible nature of love dictates that nothing worthwile can ever be truly final or perfectly safe. We don't know how many days we will have to teach Isaac and Will what it means to be loved unconditionally. It's the kind of job you can never finish and you never want to.