Tell me my stories Mama.

One of the things I did for Emerson when we were adopting him, is I wrote a journal in letter from to him each day we were in Kazakhstan and a few weeks prior and a few weeks after we got home.  One way we celebrate, Emerson joining our family, is to to read him the letters on the same day I wrote them to him, but years later.  This is the first year that he has started to love hearing his stories.  He thinks it is funny that he was the baby who screeched the loudest when the bottles came out.  He also loves to hear about how when the caregiver would hand him to us for our visits, she would always say "now, don't shake him because he just ate."  Of course John would shake him, then hand him to me, and I would get spit up on.  Well Emerson loves this story. 

He also loves the one about our flight home.  On the last flight from LA to Seattle Emerson took a large stinky poo during landing.  When I reached for the last few diapers we had remaining after 2 days of flying, there were none to be found.  So we had to wrap his bottom in a bandanna and the first time he met his Grandma Carol, Papa Ed, Aunt Christie and Uncle Jeff he was a loaded weapon with the safety off.  Then, being the great parents we are, we unpacked one of our suitcases right then and there in the airport, and unwrapped the vodka that we had wrapped in diapers (talk about absorbent bubble wrap) to put a fresh diaper on our newly adopted son. 

Anyway, telling Emerson all of these stories has been very fun and filled with lots of laughter.  Unfortunately this has also brought up a deep need for Isaac, and quite frankly me.  Our time in Texas was very different from our time in Kazakhstan.  The information I was able to gather for Isaac is so minimal compared to Emerson.  When Isaac ask for his funny stories about joining the family, I find I am a bit speechless.  Sadly what floods my mind is all the things I don't know, and well the things I do know, were not so funny. 

How do you tell a 5 year old searching for pieces about starvation, neglect, parasites, drug addiction, night terrors, peeling wall paper off the walls, banging your head against the wall in a rage until loosing consciousness.  Granted, he knows this on a very basic cognitive level and he is emotionally tormented by it.   John and I have always vowed to be open and honest with our boys about their beginnings.  After all it is there history.  I just never realized how hard it would be for me to cope with not really knowing my son's birthday, or really why he was left the way he was left, or really anything about his first 5 months and only a slight bit more about his next three years. 

I guess the goal going forward is to make some funny memories so that next year when he wants to hear some, I can tell him about his past with us.