Just here to reassure a couple friends that today went very well. Everyone is in bed, and the day ended as well as it started.

Either the bribe worked or Jumoke is going into one of his good cycles.

Tim and I laid in bed tonight whispering about the good cycles. Jumoke is such a neat kid that usually by the 2nd day of  regular boy stuff, we forget about the bad weeks we had just sludged thru. Kind of like forgetting about the pain of labor.

This good day came at just the right time.  We both felt our hearts starting to fall in love again, which with Jumoke is a fairly short trip for us, and had to ask ourselves if what we are doing is the right thing. I'm so glad today was so good...we needed it in order to look at this thing realistically.

We did. We are continuing down the same road.

We were remembering tonight that for almost the entire first two years that Jumoke was here that we had no good days.  Every day was frought with tensions and tug-of-wars for control and somebody (usually me) getting "paid back".

But then, a little more than 18 months after he first came home, we had a few days in a row of a whole different child! It was wonderful! I was thrilled. Oh, I liked that little boy.

Then it all crashed.  It took a long time, but we did see another time that lasted a few days.  Over the next couple years, the few days turned into a week or 2 weeks or, once, 3 weeks.

Last year was the easiest in some ways because we had a schedule that went kind of like 1 or 2 weeks off, then 1 or 2 weeks on, with a great glorious 3 weeks off in the fall. 

But along with the increasing days of being "normal", we also saw increased sophistication in how Jumoke dealt out his revenge, in how he enjoyed his malice, disturbing things like that.  He started the longer cycles with a bang last year: accusing us to someone else of abusing him.  Each of the bad cycles got worse, till this spring we just couldn't take any more.

The good cycles were longer. It should have counted for something. The bad cycles were more severe. Labor was getting harder to forget.  Then this spring....three and a half months without a single good day.

When we are in a good cycle, it means the world is perfect and the sun shines 24 hours a day. I'm hoping this is the beginning of a good cycle for Jumoke.  He is more relaxed and open during the good days.

But we are going forward with this.  It's the right thing to do.