Padon the Terrible!

I love Padon very much but he was down right awful the first two weeks home from the hospital. I was grateful the whole time that he wasn't mean to Sophia. But to us he hit, threw things, did the opposite of what you said, and cried almost non-stop. Everything we had done to make him feel included and loved was all for nothing, because the abused sleep schedule, the being away from home for a week and a half (a night home had resulted in a very relived and tiny quivering voice asking for Farmer Jed (Fisher Price music CD) who he hadn't seen or heard in what must have felt like an eternity), and whose Mother had all but disappeared into a boring hospital room had wreaked him.
Even our belated Christmas celebration with Walter's Dad, Leo, had Leo sitting on the couch in an exhausted slouch with his mouth partially hanging open while watching the dobleganger that was our Padon.

I understood why he was acting the way he was but I was exhausted from my feed-the-baby-every-two-hours schedule and Padon's terror quest wasn't showing any sign of lightening up. I could now completely understand why you read in the news about children being shaken into brain damage, and why infants were found dead due to some trama. I was clicks away from sending an email to all family and friends that were within a 100mile radius to come pick Padon up and take him away, at least for a day, except I knew that him not being at home was the reason we were in the disaster we were in. I had never had anything bad to say about Padon until that point, and always made a point to not do so, but there was nothing left of the sweet boy we knew two weeks prior and it broke my heart how ugly I felt about him.
We were all miserable, and I am so glad that in all of it, he still loved Sophia, wanted to hold her, and wanted to kiss her. There were few times in Walter and my relationship where we felt our emotions had been pulled to the max and the two weeks after Sophia was born totally gets marked on the list. The last time we had felt this bad was four years ago when we thought we had lost the chance to buy our house, we were stuck renting one bedroom from a friend of a friend, and were living in it with a dog who ate Walter's Search and Rescue backpack and a pound of chocolate, and three ferrets.

Thankfully, after the two weeks we could see a little of the Padon we loved coming back and he was once again more affectionate. It was amazing the difference we saw in him. People later asked me why we didn't wait longer to have Sophia, and at the time it was very apparent that for Padon's health and ours there was no way we could have waited. I think to myself, what an ackward way for Sophia to become a part of our family, but I supposed that is what stories are made up of.

These images were an attempt to get one picture. It was a great example as to the emotional rollercoaster that Padon was going through too.