It's ours!

Closing went without a hitch... Well, except for Mark forgetting his driver's license. ;-) today, we stripped wallpaper in the master bedroom and got one bathroom painted. Goal for tomorrow is to get the master bedroom and bath painted. Then, we can start moving stuff in. So incredibly thankful for the help of Mark's parents and sister Betsy today! Here are a couple of pics. Matthew is loving all the space!

Thankful Thursday

Tomorrow, we close on our new home. I am thankful that God has blessed us in this way and know that this is going to be a wonderful place for our kiddos!

I will just share a funny story, too. As we were house hunting, we often shared that one of the reasons we wanted to move was so that Matthew had more room to "burn off some of his energy." Well, sometimes I make energy bars as a quick breakfast or snack. On Tuesday, we had our final walk through at the house. The kids were going with us and Matthew asked if he could have an energy bar before we left. Why? "Mom, I need to have lots of energy at our new house so if I eat an energy bar, then I can burn it off." Oh, he made me giggle!

"But you chose this."

Quite a while ago, I posted about how frustrating it was to me when people ask how things are going, but tell me that I "asked for this" when I am honest about some of the challenges we face as parents of children with special needs. I had commented that yes, we did choose to adopt but did so not anticipating the issues that we deal with on a regular basis because of our children's background.
Well, I would like to add to my previous response a little bit and also thank a fellow adoptive mom (Hope Ann) for making a comment recently that helps me to state my perspective much better.
Why am I revisiting the topic? Well, probably more for my sake than anyone else's. But, here goes.
Yes, we did choose adoption. Mark and I talked a lot about whether we should take that path when we came to that "fork in the road." We had a pretty carefree life. We could travel, do what we wanted, when we wanted with little planning. Our responsibilities were few, we were the envy of many of our friends. We knew that having children would change all of that. And we chose to pursue parenthood, expecting it to come easily. But, it didn't.
So then, we talked about adoption vs fertility treatment. What made the most sense and again, how far did we want to go to pursue parenthood. When we started the domestic adoption process, we were confident and hopeful that a birth mother would see our profile and immediately choose us as parents for her child. It quickly became apparent that this would not be the case.
Then, Mark and I began to talk about international adoption, special needs adoption - how that would look, how it would affect our lives. We talked about what we felt we could handle as far as special needs. We had a clear idea of what we wanted, a dream for our family and what it would look like.
Two and a half years later, reality looks far different than we imagined. Harder? Sometimes. Easier? Sometimes. Stressful? More than I could have imagined. Rewarding? Absolutely! The long and short of it is this.
Did we choose this? Yes, the fact is that we chose to adopt two children with special needs. But the truth is also that God chose us to adopt Maia and Matthew, specifically. He could have placed them in other forever families. Yet, He asked us to step out in faith to bring our children home. He allowed us the freedom to say "yes" or "no." We can only claim that we were obedient to His call. We chose this because God chose us.

Thankful Thursday

I am thankful that our little Maia is doing so well. Last year at this time we didn't know if she would make it. Keep praying for her so that she will start to talk soon. I am also thankful that Matthew is doing well. He has been doing great at school and has some good friends that he talks about often.

Mark

Happy Mother's Day

And thank you to the two women who gave me the gift of motherhood!

"Dear God" and Matthew's perception of mommy (giggles for your day)

So tonight, we were saying our bedtime prayers. Matthew's went something like this:

"Dear God, thank you that dinosaurs don't live now like they did when papa was a little boy."

On Friday, Matthew brought home a picture that he had drawn of the two of us. At the bottom were some fill in the blank statements that he had filled out with his teacher's help.

- My mom is 4718 years old.

- My mom is the prettiest when she wears a dress and pants (Gotta love the image that brings to mind, especially at my "advanced" age - lol).

- My mom likes to  make peanut butter and jelly sandwich (which is pretty funny because I rarely make them).

- My mom always says, "There's a TV show I like to watch. (also pretty funny because the only time I watch tv is if Mark has it on or Matthew has earned enough points to watch it.)

- My mom is funny when she tickles me on my back and tummy.

- My mom is special because she likes me. (yep, kiddo - you've got that one right. Love you forever!)

Thankful Thursday

Sorry gang, tonight I have no great list for the day. I've been looking back at some pictures of my sweet girl over the past 2 1/2 years and I am just feeling incredibly sad. Of course, more than anything I am thankful that God saved Maia's life. So, I will leave it at that for now.
Ok, I will add one more thing. I am thankful for all of you who have shared this journey with us. Your friendship is truly a gift from heaven!

Remembering

Today has been a hard day for me. I'm not sure what triggered it, but I knew from the time I woke up this morning that it would be a sad day. At church this morning, I cried through the service and again in Sunday school. Why? Silly perhaps, but one year ago today was the last day we were in church before Maia got sick. I didn't expect the emotions of her illness to gang up on me yet, but they sure did.

Here is a picture of our sweet girl in April 2012. We had just come home from a day at the zoo and the weather was so perfect. Maia had her bubbles and was running around the yard, laughing. What a precious day.

And here is Miss Maia today in the same shirt (notice the snow in the background this year - lol), "running" in our yard. Physically, she has come so far. And cognitively... yes, compared to when she left the hospital, Maia has made progress, too, I praise God for that. However, I still grieve the loss of the child in the picture above. My heart aches today for my sweet girl. 

 

I've got more I want to share and will try to do so tomorrow, but for now this is all I can put together. :-(

Thankful Friday

I'm a few hours late and I guess I could backdate, but I think it will just be a thankful Friday instead :-)

- First, I am very thankful for God's protection. Miss Maia took a tumble down the stairs Wednesday night and other than the scrape on her nose and forehead (which can't seem to catch a break lately), she is ok.
- thankful for an unexpected snow day yesterday. It's only the second one I've had in over 16 years. But, what a treat to stay home and enjoy the extra time with my family. Worked by phone and computer and was just lazy in general.
- thankful for God's blessings! I've been looking for a dining room table for our new house (we don't currently have a dining room), but what I wanted seemed out of reach price wise. He provided almost exactly what I wanted (only the stain is a bit different) at a fair price. Now, I will be praying for four more chairs and a hutch!
- very thankful for a reminder this morning that successful mothers are not the ones who seem to have it all together (something I never will manage), but the ones who don't give up. It's easy (for me) to get bogged down in guilt about all my moments of parenting failure, anxiety for what the future holds, and feelings of inadequacy when I see the "super-moms" around me. But, I will keep my eyes focused on the perfect parent (my Heavenly Father) and His guidance as I raise my previous kiddos.