Expectations

I Would Love To Be Asleep Right Now! 

Right now in Western North Carolina it is 5:30 A.M.

 I have been awake since 2:30 A.M.

My house is quiet, except for the occasional popping and cracking that houses usually make when they are settling or the noise the ac makes when it comes on.

My brain won't shut off and my body has decided to have a "moment" so I am left to deal with 6 children in a couple of hours on precious little sleep (blog post to follow, I'm sure). I've been strolling through Facebook and Pinterest trying to make myself sleepy but none of that is working right now ...

I am quite the planner, having 6 children in my home requires organization and finesse. I typically plan an event at least a month in advance and begin planning holiday events several months in advance.

While on Pinterest, I was looking through the Holidays and Events sections trying to get ideas for the upcoming holiday season (yes, I am 'that' mom).

Fall is my favorite time of year ( I discussed my adoration for this season here in my last post). During my time of misery and trolling of the interwebs I sought out new things for my family to do this Fall that we didn't do last year.

Last Year

While I was reading a Fall Bucket List I was reminded of the transition my family was experiencing last year. The excitement and anticipation that we all felt ... and the expectations that we all had for upcoming events. 

During this time last year, my husband and I were visiting with the children who would become our son and daughter. They didn't know the reason for their increased time with us until almost three months later when we asked them in front of our family, their foster mom and G.A.L. if we could be their forever family. 

Expectations

When you find out you're going to have kids, biologically or by adoption, you begin to have a lot of expectations about what the future holds for your family. In your dreams, trips to the pumpkin patch go perfectly, no one gets an attitude or says their bored and everyone comes home with the perfect pumpkin. On their best days no one gets in trouble and everyone does what you say ... and then you wake up and realize that NyQuil may relieve your Cold symptoms but it gives you delusional dreams. 

My expectations were a little too unrealistic to be met. It takes time for a family unit to be created, for trust to be built, and for a bond to be knitted. 

We had taken the kids to a pumpkin patch on a Sunday afternoon. I spent the entire morning talking about how great the place was going to be (which it was great!) and getting the kids pumped for our adventure at the pumpkin patch ... but the kids had expectations and the pumpkin patch was smaller and not as exciting as they expected (you see how this works?). 

My "family fun day" was about to turn into a "this is boring, can we go home" day and we weren't even out of the car yet. 

I was literally sitting in the parking lot of the pumpkin patch with my husband asking me what we were going to do when I realized what I needed to. 

What I Needed To Do

In that moment I realized that I could either let their attitudes ruin the entire day or I could choose to change my expectations for my children's behavior and enjoy our time together as a family. 

I chose the latter. 

It wasn't easy. It would have been easy to give in to my kids bad attitudes. It would have been easy to pack them all up and go home. 

Christ calls us to love in the hard times and being a parent is definitely loving during the hard times. It's teaching your kids to do the things they don't want to do because they might actually enjoy it (which they did) or learn something from it. 

I know I learned something from my children. Sometimes ( most of the time), I might be the one who needs to change to meet them where they are. 

My Encouragement to You

I encourage you, dear reader, to choose love with your children, even when choosing love is the hardest thing to do. I encourage you not to be be discouraged when your children don't get as excited as you are about family events. One day they will understand the value of your efforts and they will have the memory of the hard work and dedication that you put into their childhood. 

We came home that day and carved all the pumpkins you see in the picture above. We had a blast cleaning out the pumpkin guts and giving them faces. 

Your Turn 

What parenting tips or encouragement do you have for others who may struggle with getting their children to be involved with family events? Do you involve your kids in the planning process of family events? In what ways have you changed your expectations to make family outings more enjoyable? Did you find this encouraging? Leave your comments/suggestions below. Be sure to like/share/follow if you find this blog worth your time. Thank you! 

Your Baby Is Cute But I'll Stay Over Here

                                                            What Kind of Depressing Title is That

As children we are told to dry it up, stop crying, everything is fine; how does that translate into adulthood? 

It translates into adults thinking they have to carry the weight of their burdens by themselves because they think they have to be stronger than they feel. 

Why I Don't Want to Hold Your Baby

In September 2012, after over 2 years of trying; my husband and I found out that our dreams of having biological children would never be a reality. We were crushed. We sat around the house and cried for days (and ate pizza, lots and lots of pizza); once the shock wore off we slowly began to look at adoption. We thought our calling was to adopt infants from another country but the financial aspect of doing so seemed daunting to say the least; so we tabled our dream and continued on with life. 

In April of the following year we moved from Missouri to Tennessee to go to Graduate school, but Knoxville never felt like home. In November of 2013 we began the process of becoming Professional Foster Parents with an organization in our home town in North Carolina and we moved back home in February of 2014. We felt like Abraham and Sarah. Although we knew our plan was to adopt, we promised each other that we wouldn't adopt the first children that we met or that was placed in our home. 

We've had several children placed in our home but the two that God placed on our hearts and that we grew to love as our children are the two that we met first on the day we were moving in (funny how God works). I won't give you their names simply for the fact that we are working on new ones; they will be changed after the adoption is finalized. I will say that we have grown to love a beautiful, 10 year old girl with curly, strawberry blonde hair and a handsome, 8 year old boy with freckles all over his face. 

The sting and jealousy of infertility still creep up every now and then when I allow myself to think about the years that I've missed or the things that I don't get to experience. However, the joy that I get to experience with these two far surpasses anything that I could have planned or wanted for myself. My Father knew what He was doing when He said that my plans weren't good enough, that there was something better in store for my family. 

So, I don't want to hold a baby not because I'm a hateful old hag who hates babies or because I'm a witch who steals their souls ... but because I must guard my heart from the feelings that holding a baby inflicts on it. My family is complete, I have the children that God has promised me and I am happy; I don't want to tempt myself to be unhappy in the things that God has blessed me with. It's a human flaw, an easy trap to fall into to become unhappy with the blessings that we have; one that I have fallen victim to many times. I have learned, in my meager 26 years, to guard my heart from the things that make me jealous or angry.

Back To The Beginning 

It took a long time for me to be comfortable sharing this "shame" with people. People "more fertile" than us would ask when we were going to start "popping out" babies and once I got over the urge to throat punch them, I would ( as politely as possible) explain our situation to them.

 I was told as a child that everything was fine, that I needed to dry it up.  As an adult, I never learned how to depend on other people for support. I'm learning to do that now (whoopieee!) ... more importantly, I'm teaching my kids how to do it. Transparency is a huge component in my relationship with Christ, my husband, my kids and others and I believe they need to see it functioning properly in order to learn how to be transparent themselves. It's not easy and there are days I don't like to do it, but it's healthy; therefore, I'm going to do it for them. 

Your Turn

How do you promote transparency in your home? Are any of you brave enough to share you struggles/shame with us in the comments? I look forward to reading them.