Adoption Journey: Random thoughts

Alright I know I haven't updated you guys in quite a while. I'm not avoiding you, I just been avoiding writing this update. You know; it's a it's not you it's me kind-of-thing. You see everyday something changes and I think "I should sit down and update everyone", well then the phone rings and everything changes once again.

Unfortunately, I can't talk about J-man's case. I can tell you that he is still our foster son. Yup lame I know, but that's it. Everyday his case changes and one minute we think this could be forever and then the next minute well....maybe only a week or a month or a year.

Which leads me to my first thought about what the heck is going on. We knew going into this that the "system" was flawed. We knew that CPS workers were overworked and underpaid. We knew that birth Mom's can be perfect one minute and literally crazy the next. We knew that sometimes your case all depended on the judge and how he/she feels that day. (You know maybe they had bad Mexican so now everyone must pay, yes they can do that) We knew that we could fall in love with a little boy or girl and one day have to give them back to Mom.

But for some reason "knowing" all these things and LIVING all these things is REALLY REALLY REALLY DIFFERENT!

My next thought is all about me. (Yeah cause that is how I roll sometimes) I've gotten lot's of encouraging comments from everyone online, on the phone, in the grocery store, and everywhere else. Comments like:

"Jen, you were made for this." or "Jen, I can't believe how well you handling your life now" or "Wow fostering, that's incredible only really special people can do that, great job." or "You make that look easy"

I smile and say thank you or something nice and take off, partly because I don't want them to see the "truth" and partly because in most cases I HAVE 4 CHILDREN to watch and control and I can't chat people.

The "truth" is I feel like that stupid saying about ducks; "calm above water, but paddling like crazy under". That's me, calm and put together on the outside or even out in public. But at home my house is NO WHERE as clean as it used to be. I rarely get to eat dinner until 9:00pm every night. I don't always feel like a give each child the attention they need or deserve. And I'm tired.

Then there's all the crap that is going on in my head. One day I feel like I got this and we've had 4 kids forever and this foster thing is easy. The next moment I'm saying in my head, "What were we thinking?". One day I'm planning our life together with J-man and the next day I find myself plagued with fear for what his future will look like.

The kids are doing great and don't even notice my dirty house or that Mommy just might be crazy. Connor just got his first stripe on his white belt in Karate. Bryce is talking up a storm and loves playing with his brothers and sister. J-man is crawling more everyday, eating well, sleeping great, and bonding with me and the family very well (Birth-Mom might think "too" well). And Alexis is lovin' life and becoming more and more stubborn everyday (in a good way of course).

I'm increasing my time with Jesus to help me with everything that is going on right now. I'm getting back to my journaling because I just need too. I just ordered some bracelets that I'm going to wear for each kid to help remind myself to pray more often for each of them. And I started reading "Radical" by David Platt. This is a very good book for me to read right now, because it helps remind me why we signed up for this fostering to adopt thing in the first place. We felt called to live different, to love others the way Jesus loves us, and to live as an example to others that Jesus loves them no matter what.

So there's my update. This is really hard, not J-man but all the other crap. We look at each day with him as a day to love him as our own. And we keep doing what we feel God wants us to be doing; Loving Him and loving others.