My sweet middle child Kate. I love her heart. She is so sweet, so insightful, so perceptive. She is always ready with a joke, a laugh, an encouraging word, a hug (as well as a sassy frown and smart remark!). She is a calm place in the middle of two wild book end brothers. She so longs for a sister.
We have tried (for the past little over a year now) to not talk about our adoption a ton. Knowing that kids realization of time is different than ours (well, not so much as I want most things NOW, or better, YESTERDAY too). We have tried to not live our life around it, because we have no idea when it will happen. But sweet Kate seems to often be reminded of it. Seeing some cute clothes (our baby would look cute in that), a new toy (I beat out baby would love that), an old toy that we are putting in the attic(are we saving that for our baby?) , a new outfit for her (I will get to give this to our baby someday). I am also thinking all these thoughts, just not expressing them.
We have been telling them, and ourselves, that it would be this year, maybe late summer, maybe fall. In my mind planning my next school year imagining that I will have another little one (or two) to put in the mix.
Lately, with all the possible changes to the adoption process, I have tried to talk about it with them even less. As it occupies more and more of my thoughts and prayers, trying to not live my life like I am waiting. Trying to plan my next months as just a family of 5. Breaks my heart really.
Lately I feel like Kate is talking even more about it. Probably because we have friends who are also adopting and have things like pictures of their kids, or have been to meet their children already and are now just waiting to bring them home. The other day Kate climbed up into my lap and said, "Mom, when will I get to meet my little sister? I am really ready to have her here." Oh me too, me too. Then today she was looking at some pictures of bedrooms or something like that and her little eyes got bright and she said, "Oh mom, when can we start decorating my little sister's room?" I didn't want to tell her that it was too painful to do something like that, not knowing how long it could take, so I just said, Not yet sweetie but hopefully soon.
So bittersweet.
You know I am right there with you, Cortney. I have all those same thoughts. Not moving school downstairs to free up a bedroom for her, not buying clothes, not buying any more donations for HH, not, not, not, because we just don't know. Andrew, my youngest, asks too, and I can give him a more realistic answer, because he's ten, but he's just as ready as we are. We "try" not to think of life as family of five too much, but really it's always there. Our girls will be home someday, just not in the timeline we envisioned. The good news is court appointments are being made now for children referred in March, something I didn't expect. Maybe it won't be as long as we think. Know that you are not alone, we're all struggling and praying through this whole process.
ReplyDelete