The Third Most Wonderful Moment

  The first most wonderful moment of Water's adoption journey was watching his Mama D bring him into the world and the second was reuniting with D, Sky, and Fire.  The third most wonderful moment happened the night we arrived at my in-laws house, what we call the prairie home.  We stay with D's dad and step-mom, R and C, every time we come to Kansas.  It's where we ran to when we were told that Sky had tuberculosis and where we came to rest during our crazy-busy family vacation a year and a half ago.  R and C are great with the kids, really patient, completely accepting, and both with a great sense of humor, the perfect grandparents, and Sky and Fire love them.  They are comfortable and happy here.  So are D and I.  If we can't be in our own home, we'd chose to be in R and C's home.
  To preface the rest of the story, let me tell you that Water started out as a great sleeper in baby terms.  H would sleep for almost 3 hours at a go through the night so I was able to get through the days without feeling like a sleepwalker.  All that changed the second night of my road trip to Kansas with my mom.  Water had been wanting to eat all the time so I'd been feeding him more but he'd also been throwing up more and it looked like it was that last ounce that he'd cried for that had been coming back up, so I'd gone back to feeding him just two ounces again.  About that time he started waking up more often, about every hour and a half through the night and sleeping fitfully when he did sleep.  Maybe I was sleep deprived but I never made the connection between feeding Water less and him sleeping less.  To that, add two slightly older jet-lagged and time-zone-shifted kids and you've got a perfect storm of sleeplessness.
  We were in rough shape when R and C came to pick us up from the hotel (my driver's license is expired and D had flown out to buy our new truck).  Sky and Fire had barely slept for the last two nights and went to sleep relatively quickly on their first night at the prairie home- they were finally someplace familiar and could let their guards down enough to let sleep take them.  I finally had the head space to think about Water's fussy and interrupted sleep together and tried feeding Water a little more food (and took the extra time to burp and fully settle him) and I was able to get him to put him to bed in his travel bed, happy and calm.
  So what was the third most wonderful moment?  All three kids were asleep at once!  Honestly, I almost started crying.  I had underestimated how hard it would be to adjust to three kids but suddenly the clouds parted, the sun shone, the angels sang, and survival seemed possible.  I know that might seem shallow but to have those few moments of peace, to have everyone who is normally very dependent on me settled and safe, with all those needs that small children have met, was an amazing, heart-lifting thing and I'll take it were ever I can find it.

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