FIVE!!

Five years!!  Can you believe it has been five years since we let the world know about the journey we were taking to become family?  Five years ago we started this blog as a way to share with friends and family about our adoption process and hopefully to share more about our life as a family of three.  I had no idea when I started this blog that we would be matched by the end of the month.

It seems like an eternity ago that we were at the beginning of our journey where your heart jumps every time the phone rings.  Every day was filled with prayers for our future child and his/her birth mom.  Every day was just another lesson in patience. (For the record, I am STILL learning how to be patient.) Every day we would waiver between hope and despair.

If someone had told me five years ago when I started this blog that I would be the proud momma of TWO  and that we would end up taking a twenty something year old under our wing, I would have never believed it!  Five years ago I was in a pretty dark place.  Desperately clinging to any glimmer of hope I could find.

When others found out that we were struggling on our path to parenthood, they shared their stories and struggles with us.  Many of which were going through this at the same time as we were.  Since then, every single one of them has become a parent. (And sometimes more than once!) Pretty awesome when you think about it.

When we started writing, we intended to utilize this blog to share with friends and family.  It has become so much more.  We have met people that we would have NEVER encountered otherwise.  I am so glad that we have a platform to share our journey and to share our family.  Thanks for joining our journey!

Before him

Before him I didn't know how much I could love someone.  I didn't know that my heart would jump with joy and break in half and that I would be able to feel both all the way down to my toes!  I didn't know that I could love someone so much that I would think about them constantly and worry about their every move and every breath.

Even as an infant, he would put his hand on mine like this.  LOVE!!

Before him I didn't know that I would agonize over decisions that affect his little world like preschool, daycare, kindergarden....oh my!  That sends me into panic mode just thinking about it!

Before him I didn't know how much fun it would be to play with cars or trucks or anything "boy".  I didn't know that I would laugh at gross boy words like "poop" simply because his laugh was infectious.  (It is not ladylike to talk about bodily functions...but for him I will make an exception.)

Before him I liked to have my space.  Now I will take every hug, snuggle and cuddle that I can get!  Even if these means that he climbs in my bed every night or at some unknown early morning hour and I end up with his feet on me!

Before him I didn't realize how important every tradition was and how I would want to start a bajillion new traditions for our family and how I would want to make every new experience special.

Before him I had no idea what the world of little boys was like.  In a house of girls, everything was pretty and pink when I was growing up.  My world was full of blue when he came around.

Before him I had no idea how much I would love having my little man with me!  I had no idea how much fun little boys were.  I had no idea that he truly would be a dream come true!

BETTER

I want to better my world in 2014.

A better mom.

A better wife.

A better counselor.

A better sister, daughter and friend.

A better human-being.

I want to do a better job.

I want to be a better leader and a better follower.

I want to focus my energy better in my life.

I want to do a better job at helping the world around me.

I want to feel better in 2014 by working to become healthy.

I simply want 2014 to be BETTER!!

Last year I chose the word SIMPLIFY.  Well....I am still working on that.  So this year I will do a BETTER job to SIMPLIFY!  How do you like that?  This way I feel like I haven't failed at 2013...simply going to be better at it than I was in 2014.

There are so many things that I want to do to make 2014 a better year for me and for my family....I just need to focus!  I tend to go in a thousand different directions that it is hard to focus on the true outcome.  I need to focus on being better at planning to be better.

And to top it all off, I want to work harder to keep a better account of our life and thoughts on this blog.  For crying out loud!  I only had 6 posts this year!!  (Including this one!!)  I certainly simplified the blog in 2013....barely took time to write.  (Perhaps that is what happens when you get a "gift baby" overnight and are still reeling from the surprise and wonderful change in our family.)  In the past I have felt that this blog helped up communicate with our family and friends.  In addition to the communication, it has been therapeutic and a great way to share our love of adoption.  In 2014, I will be better at keeping up with this because I know that if I don't, I will be disappointed in 2015.  I would hate for my word in 2015 to be "repeat".

2014 with be BETTER!!

If you want to join me and choose a word, check out http://oneword365.com.  Share your word with me, share it with your friends and family.  Let others help you on your journey as I hope you will help me to focus on making 2014 to be BETTER.

Hurricane Augustus

I used to believe that my little man was so sweet, well mannered and well behaved.  He would sit nicely.  Hew would listen.  He would smile at the camera when he was asked.  He was a gentle, silly little soul.

And now we have this....

He is like a hurricane at times.  I absolutely adore my little hurricane.  Even if he is a crazy, rowdy, rambunctious 4 year old full of energy and a little bit feisty.  We often have to remind him to use his listening ears and I feel like I am using his full name A LOT these days.  Very rarely does he just walk.  He can often be found running!  There are days that we get home and I let him out the slider to play in the backyard.  It is fenced in so I know that he is safe to run and run and run....and that is exactly what he does.

Yesterday at preschool, Gus got an "uh oh" face.  (They get smiley faces until they misbehave and then the card gets flipped to an "uh oh" face.)  As educators, my husband and I both feel strongly that our children should behave in school.  You can imagine how my heart broke thinking about how he misbehaved in school.  Turns out he, and two other students, were tackling kids!  When I got to thinking about it, I realized that maybe Gus has been around football practice too much!!

Gus can be quite a handful at times.  After yesterday's event, I started reflecting back on the past two years and the variety of events we have been at where I could have used my running shoes to chase after Gus.  I thought about the variety of comments others have made about my little hurricane.  The comments this past summer have started to bother me and the incident yesterday was the final straw.  I need to do something so I decided to start doing some research.  Over the course of the past 24 hours, I have read a bunch of articles, looked back in my files from my master's degree program in counseling and cried.  

I found a variety of great activities to help keep my little hurricane occupied.  I found a lot of "experts" who talked about discipline.  And of course, the ever present issue of attention deficit disorders and medicating children.  The best resource I found was on THIS BLOG.  (It is a great post and I strongly recommend it to anyone who has a high energy child in their life.  It is also good for those of you that have calm, well mannered children so that you can see why some of us are so crazy!)  As I read through the post, the tears flowed.  It sounded just like my life! It was like she was writing about my little hurricane.  And then she said something that hit straight to my core.  "It was in that moment I realized, he is not a bad kid, he is just an energetic one."  I needed to hear that!  My Gus-Gus is NOT a bad kid.  He is just very energetic.  

This mom also decided how to approach her son and his actions.  "I learned to embrace this energy of his and try to work with it rather than fight it."  From the moment I read that line, I knew that I needed to find a different approach or I would drive myself insane.  I am going to "tackle" Gus' energy in a different way and hopefully get some better results.  So next time you see me chasing after my little hurricane, please remember (and remind me, too!!) that it is a process and that learning to embrace this little boy and all of his energy will pay off in the long run!