I just realised - it’s now been four months since the end of our two year odyssey through the various hurdles and high jumps of the social services system. Four months since little people invaded our house for the first time. Four months that seems like a very long time ago now.
The children have confounded our expectations - and if brutally honest, we have confounded our own.
While sitting in a panel to be rubber stamped to adopt children last winter, I came out with something that I thought rather clever at the time - and caused nods of heads and smiles among the various psychologists, doctors, policemen and care workers around the room - while reflecting about me becoming the primary source of income for our family, I said “the children will become my reason to get up on those mornings when you don’t want to”.
The clever line has become the truth. After being thrown back into London by my employer I willingly get up at 5:30 each morning to clear the kitchen, make a packed lunch for the eldest, and prepare the breakfast things before sneaking out to catch the early train into the city. I do it because I want to help my other half and our children in whatever way I can - and any thought of “can’t be bothered” doesn’t enter my head.
On weekend mornings I sneak into the girls bedrooms if they are still asleep and pull the curtains - flooding the rooms with light, and wrenching them from their dreams. They meet me with bleary eyed greetings of “Good morning Daddy!”, followed by hugs on the edge of their beds and huge grins.
The girls are three of six children from their birth family, and progress behind the scenes is slow and frustrating to bring them all back together. We have the youngest children - the elder brothers and sisters are spread across the country now. The worry of course is that our younger children will soon have no memory of their siblings - making their discovery all the more shattering when they are old enough to understand.
While the early weeks were spent bonding with the children (which went spectacularly well), recent weeks have been what seasoned parents might describe as “real life”. The day starts with brushing of teeth, getting dressed, having breakfast, and then gathering the troops for the walk to school.
Lunchtime usually dissolves into a battle of wits with middle daughter over what she has decided she doesn’t like today. She is being four years old with quite some determination. Meanwhile her younger sister is discovering how to be in a mood with you. She’s being three spectacularly well.
The eldest is in her second year of school now, and has fitted in beyond our wildest expectations. We have also thrown ourselves into school and parent life as you might expect - great hilarity was had when the Mums beat the Dads at the May fayre parents tug of war.
Dinner times are a time when I arrive home from work, and am greeted by the youngest throwing herself at me energetically, hyperventilating as she screams to everybody else that I am home. I am her favourite - and there’s nothing myself or W can do about it. In the early weeks it upset Wend quite a bit - but then we discovered that she is the favourite of the middle one. The eldest seems to favour whichever of us hasn’t pulled her up recently.
Bedtimes give us an opportunity to do what all prospective parents look forward to - to read stories to children. I was reading Peter Pan to all three of them last night, and the gasps of shock when Mrs Darling accidentally shut Peter’s shadow in the window caused such a wide grin on my face that I had to stop reading for a moment.
Several people have asked recently “how are we coping?”. We are not coping - we are just getting on with every day life and ducking the slings and arrows as they are fired at us.
The best bit? The kids have not only started volunteering that they “like” us… they have begun using the L word.