A miracle.....an incredible miracle!

I have to tell you that yesterday and the day before that were EXHAUSTING and made my back side HURT and my back feel like it was going to break.  Neither Ethan NOR Sophina were going to the bathroom well AT ALL!!!  Sophina is STILL REFUSING to go poo poo on the toilet due to an earlier time on there that seems to have scarred her for awhile, at least and Ethan just seemed to refuse to care.  I would sit there for forty-five minutes as they would stink up the bathroom (obviously trying to hold it in while yet leaving the aroma of what was being held in!!!).  My bumm was killing me.  
If you read my FB posts yesterday, you realize that yesterday was quite the day in and of itself and to have literally HOURS spent on a little tiny plastic stool that my bumm barely fit on for two days was EXHAUSTING!  Also, the exhaustion was due to the fact that i was beginning to wonder if i had just started too early!  WHAT WAS THE POINT!?!  Sophina, for three days now, has waited me out (except once, a little slipped out because i had her so distracted and when she realized it......let's just say that she was HORRIFIED and begged to get OFF the toilet-IMMEDIATELY---as she was turned COMPLETELY backwards lifting herself up into the air like one of those acrobats that can lift themselves on one arm).  THEN, i would finally give up after waiting as long as my old body could handle, only to have to change her diaper three minutes later.....EVERY SINGLE TIME (yes, even the time with the slippage).
SO, THIS makes THIS afternoon all that much better!!!!  You see, MY Ethan....OUR Ethan........HE NOT ONLY POOPED BUT KEPT pooping like he did in those first two days when i thought he "got it" and LOVED my cheering for his pooping abilities.  I have no idea how he does it!  SO, this afternoon, instead of sitting there for forty-five minutes in complete HOPE of ANYTHING to happen, i was sitting there in complete awe as i continually THOUGHT that he was done only to realize well, that he wasn't!!!  THREE times this happened, in a time span in between 4:30pm and 8:45pm!!!  YEP, i DID let him stay up 45 minutes PAST his bedtime!!!  Are you kidding me???  Poop all you want and you can stay up!!! ;)
Victoria and i oiled his precious little body.  I was completely amazed that he wasn't having a massive melt down as is his typical if he is even up ten minutes past his scheduled time for bed.  Catherine and i took him up to my room where Ethan sleeps in his crib, just a few feet away from where Scott and i sleep.  He got into my lap for our nightly time in the old rocker. He immediately curled into me (which i don't think will EVER get old and has only happened since a friend of mine told me a great tip for bonding).  I was expecting him to also be his typical wiggly self yet was surprised to have him STAY in the cuddled position......which was also not lost on me.  (I never understood the gift of cuddling with my girls until i didn't have it with my son......cuddling with your child is a GIFT!!!  PLEASE, if you have children and they cuddle with you.....do NOT take it for granted.....it is an incredible BLESSING!!!)   Anyway, Ethan stayed cuddled right into me with his little legs wrapped around my body and his face right against my chest, looking right up into my face.......THIS is the reason that i have WORKED SO HARD to bond with him!!!  (i am shaking as i write this....i am choked up with tears as the gift tonight was amazing)  He continued to stay that way for the five minutes that Catia was in the room, preparing things for bedtime.  She did what she does EVERY SINGLE TIME that she leaves the room with Ethan.....she went through the doorway and said, "Good night, Ethan........I LOVE YOU"  Ethan turned then, toward her voice and then turned right back and looked up into my face, just as she turned off the light and the room went into pitch darkness.
Now, i have to be completely honest here.  I had a TON to do yet and i was already an hour late by now.  I had meat that i had to cook up yet and more things that i should do and then there was Sophina who hadn't even started to eat yet!!!  I was rushing through the songs that i sing to Ethan every single time i hold him in this rocker that i had rocked our other babies in.  THEN, all of a sudden, i remembered that Catia and i had decided that i should oil Sophina BEFORE i had taken Ethan up to bed as he had been on the toilet with Victoria watching him that time.....and i had taken Catia's advice and oiled Sophina.  I KNEW that the girls COULD feed Sophina as i HAD already made her food and they WERE giving her her milk.  I IMMEDIATELY slowed down my songs and then as i realized that Ethan was getting even CLOSER to me....i went SLOWER.  Less of me was thinking about what i needed to get done and more of me was focused on this precious boy in my arms.....the nagging thoughts about the house and the meat and even the girls......were going farther and farther away.  I finished my last song and by now had his face almost to my own and i didn't care that it was killing my back.  (weeping right now)  I realized that his even breathing showed me that this was one of only three times that Ethan was falling asleep in my arms. I sat there for a minute more, drinking in this precious time and leaned to get up when he jerked his body to try to make me sit back down!!!  I did!!!  I cuddled him up to where our faces were now touching and his body LOVED it.  His breathing slowly went back to its evenness of sleep. I waited a little more then got up and took the three steps to his crib where he started to cry.....not in his typical anger tantrum cry but rather, he sounded like a baby.....a baby who wanted his Mommy!  A baby who wanted his Mommy to hold him longer.  HONESTY again....my mind thought this thought......"if you go back to the rocker, you are going to teach him that you HAVE to be there with him until he is COMPLETELY asleep and you do NOT want that" to which i walked right back over to the rocker and sat down.  To which in response, my son stopped crying a cry that i have hardly EVER heard.  I decided that i would sit and enjoy this incredible gift that was lasting way longer than i ever dreamed possible!  We cuddled close together in the same way as before and i KNEW that he was in a place of TOTAL REST in a way that he had rarely allowed himself!  OH MY WORD!!!  I cannot begin to tell you what it was like!!!
I finally went to put him into his crib where he again started to cry as his head hit the pillow but i played with his hair and cuddled up his blanket that was made just for him (and that we left with him after our first visit to be with him in the orphanage in Bulgaria and then brought home when we took him with us on the second time) up against his face.  I scrounged in the dark for a stuffed animal that had been thrown out of his crib for his sleep.  I stayed for a few moments longer and closed the door with a heart that was feeling COMPLETELY and UTTERLY blessed.....as i ALWAYS am, you know!!!