Since we signed our contracts with our adoption agency, I have had a standing appointment with our case worker every other Thursday afternoon for a phone call together. It's just a way for us to connect, ask questions, hear about what's going on, and make sure we're on track. When I had my call this past Thursday, she informed me that we've graduated! We're so done with paperwork (for now) that she no longer feels a need to check in with each other so often. We talked about our timeline, and she thinks (no guarantees of course!) that we could have a referral within about 3-6 months, but to be prepared for anytime. Our dossier is currently in D.C. and once our immigration approval comes back, our case worker expects to be logged in about 5 weeks after that. Again, no guarantees, and we've certainly had delays up to this point, so I'm not holding my breath. We still have not been fingerprinted, and I've been hearing from other adoptive moms that the immigration process took a good 2 months.
In the meantime, we mostly just wait. We could receive a special focus referral, or we could receive a referral from the orphanage our agency has a partnership with, which isn't very likely at this point. So we wait. And have fun with the little sweeties we have at home. This is my favorite time of year, and the next several weeks are going to be very full, with holiday celebrations, shopping, crafting, baking, a special birthday party, travels...
I am ready for this next part of our lives, where we hold our sweet Chinese baby in our arms, but I am also thrilled for the months ahead of loving on my two little ones who are getting big way too fast. I think some quality time with them and enjoying our days of being a family of 4 is just what the doctor ordered.
Our Family
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Saturday, November 2, 2013
On Special Needs Part 2
For the past several months, I've been feeling like an imposter about alot of things. There have been the moments that someone has mentioned how "patient" I am with my kids and I want to laugh out loud. Or how creative I am, or how clean my house is... I'm not even going to get into why that makes me feel like a fraud, but I think you can figure it out. Then I trained all summer and ran a half marathon in September. But I still feel guilty telling people that I run. I always feel like it should come with a disclaimer that I am super slow. Like I need to explain.
And then there is the adoption. For a while, I refused to even add the "special needs" part when we talked about the adoption. I worried people would get the wrong idea. I didn't feel worthy of the title of special needs mom. The needs we are open to seemed insignificant and not even like special needs anyway. I just didn't want anyone to think I considered myself special just because we are adopting a child with special needs.
Then, life happened. For the first few weeks, I lived in denial. I assumed God would take it away. Or that there was a mistake. After the second opinion and a few weeks of watching carefully, I woke up and realized it was true. My child, one who lives at home already, was diagnosed with a special need. I realized that adoption isn't going to make me a special needs mama. Because I already am one.
A friend told me "___ is still the same kid. A diagnosis doesn't change who he/she is". Oh, it's so true. That little darling of mine is still the person God created him/her to be. He knew. That little person is still my baby. I don't love him/her any less. There are unknowns. Our sweetie may deal with extra challenges for a long time, or he/she may overcome them quickly. Meanwhile, our lives are filled with therapy and praying for healing, but preparing for a long road. I just keep remembering this need is one part of him/her. That kid is so amazing in so many ways. Just like those babies waiting for families. I feel so positive that we are on the right path.
I've heard before that God doesn't call the equipped, but He equips the called. That's what's happening in our home. Before Jared and I knew that we would adopt a child with special needs, God knew that He would make us special needs parents whether we followed the call or not. Suddenly, I am much less afraid of the unknowns in adoption or the "special needs" our children may have, because I know I'm not the one in control of it all. And I know, without a doubt, that love is much more powerful than any need. I know that our family is so capable of love and we are ready to love whichever child is coming to us.
I don't feel like an imposter anymore. At least not with the adoption. We are adopting a special needs child. Their needs may be great, they may be minor. As we've learned recently, we can do all we can do, but ultimately we don't get to decide these things. I know we'll love him either way. And I know he'll fit right in. This journey has taken us places we didn't expect. Sometimes those places are hard and there will be more hard places ahead. There is going to be so much joy though. I know it. I'm ready. So bring it.
Just another day closer to you, Baby.
And then there is the adoption. For a while, I refused to even add the "special needs" part when we talked about the adoption. I worried people would get the wrong idea. I didn't feel worthy of the title of special needs mom. The needs we are open to seemed insignificant and not even like special needs anyway. I just didn't want anyone to think I considered myself special just because we are adopting a child with special needs.
Then, life happened. For the first few weeks, I lived in denial. I assumed God would take it away. Or that there was a mistake. After the second opinion and a few weeks of watching carefully, I woke up and realized it was true. My child, one who lives at home already, was diagnosed with a special need. I realized that adoption isn't going to make me a special needs mama. Because I already am one.
A friend told me "___ is still the same kid. A diagnosis doesn't change who he/she is". Oh, it's so true. That little darling of mine is still the person God created him/her to be. He knew. That little person is still my baby. I don't love him/her any less. There are unknowns. Our sweetie may deal with extra challenges for a long time, or he/she may overcome them quickly. Meanwhile, our lives are filled with therapy and praying for healing, but preparing for a long road. I just keep remembering this need is one part of him/her. That kid is so amazing in so many ways. Just like those babies waiting for families. I feel so positive that we are on the right path.
I've heard before that God doesn't call the equipped, but He equips the called. That's what's happening in our home. Before Jared and I knew that we would adopt a child with special needs, God knew that He would make us special needs parents whether we followed the call or not. Suddenly, I am much less afraid of the unknowns in adoption or the "special needs" our children may have, because I know I'm not the one in control of it all. And I know, without a doubt, that love is much more powerful than any need. I know that our family is so capable of love and we are ready to love whichever child is coming to us.
I don't feel like an imposter anymore. At least not with the adoption. We are adopting a special needs child. Their needs may be great, they may be minor. As we've learned recently, we can do all we can do, but ultimately we don't get to decide these things. I know we'll love him either way. And I know he'll fit right in. This journey has taken us places we didn't expect. Sometimes those places are hard and there will be more hard places ahead. There is going to be so much joy though. I know it. I'm ready. So bring it.
Just another day closer to you, Baby.
Friday, November 1, 2013
On Special Needs...
When we tell people we are doing a special needs adoption, especially family, the reaction usually involves some fear for us. Most friends and family, and even strangers, wonder if we know what we are getting into. Honestly, no, we don't. When we first started talking about adopting, we never considered special needs, and when we think about it now, we don't really know when we decided to pursue a child with special needs. But here we are.
In China's program, we were able to fill out a checklist of needs that we are open to. Our case worker, who will place our child with us, has that list, and she will use it as a guide for helping us find our baby. As I've posted about before, after we receive a file from her, we are able to share it with our pediatrician and accept or decline. So in some ways, we do have control over the needs our child will have. However, we have been warned to expect greater or lesser needs than what we think we are getting. We know there is no guarantee.
That checklist is difficult. To complete it, we googled, researched, prayed, considered our lifestyle, and had a long consult with an international pediatrician. Filling it out was a bit of a rollercoaster ride. We started with very, very few needs. But then you start to feel like saying no to certain needs is the same as saying a child with that need is unadoptable. Which is not true. But emotion gets in the way. So our list grew quite a bit. Then we had the consult with the pediatrician, and the list decreased again. Because you have to have compassion, and we want to be open to as much as we can, but we also have to be wise. There are certain needs that are just not compatible with our family right now. For instance, we live in an older home with all bedrooms upstairs. It is likely not possible to add a wheelchair lift. So a child in a wheelchair, or a child with a condition that may lead to mobility issues would not be a wise decision. (And probably wouldn't have been approved during our home study anyway). There are other conditions that are not as easy to make a decision on.
Let me add that the list is very personal. Please don't feel bad if you've asked about our list. But know that the decisions that led to the list were not made lightly, and that prayer and tears went into that list. We feel pain over some of the needs we had to say "no" to. So be aware that many families do not wish to share their list with everyone.
We ended up with a list we feel very confident with. It has needs on it that we knew at the beginning would be there, it has needs that we never thought would be there, and it has some "no" checks that we thought would be "yes". It's been amazing how we've been stretched during the process. How our hearts have changed and how excited we are to bring home our child. How things that seemed like a big deal at the beginning feel like of comfortable to us now and how aware we now are that a person's "special needs" are just one aspect of that person and don't define him.
So, no, in some ways we don't know what we are getting into. But we feel like we have been given discernment and we are as prepared as we can be (for now) for whatever our baby brings. We probably won't be able to handle it alone. But together with God, our family, and our pediatrician, I think we'll all be just fine.
In China's program, we were able to fill out a checklist of needs that we are open to. Our case worker, who will place our child with us, has that list, and she will use it as a guide for helping us find our baby. As I've posted about before, after we receive a file from her, we are able to share it with our pediatrician and accept or decline. So in some ways, we do have control over the needs our child will have. However, we have been warned to expect greater or lesser needs than what we think we are getting. We know there is no guarantee.
That checklist is difficult. To complete it, we googled, researched, prayed, considered our lifestyle, and had a long consult with an international pediatrician. Filling it out was a bit of a rollercoaster ride. We started with very, very few needs. But then you start to feel like saying no to certain needs is the same as saying a child with that need is unadoptable. Which is not true. But emotion gets in the way. So our list grew quite a bit. Then we had the consult with the pediatrician, and the list decreased again. Because you have to have compassion, and we want to be open to as much as we can, but we also have to be wise. There are certain needs that are just not compatible with our family right now. For instance, we live in an older home with all bedrooms upstairs. It is likely not possible to add a wheelchair lift. So a child in a wheelchair, or a child with a condition that may lead to mobility issues would not be a wise decision. (And probably wouldn't have been approved during our home study anyway). There are other conditions that are not as easy to make a decision on.
Let me add that the list is very personal. Please don't feel bad if you've asked about our list. But know that the decisions that led to the list were not made lightly, and that prayer and tears went into that list. We feel pain over some of the needs we had to say "no" to. So be aware that many families do not wish to share their list with everyone.
We ended up with a list we feel very confident with. It has needs on it that we knew at the beginning would be there, it has needs that we never thought would be there, and it has some "no" checks that we thought would be "yes". It's been amazing how we've been stretched during the process. How our hearts have changed and how excited we are to bring home our child. How things that seemed like a big deal at the beginning feel like of comfortable to us now and how aware we now are that a person's "special needs" are just one aspect of that person and don't define him.
So, no, in some ways we don't know what we are getting into. But we feel like we have been given discernment and we are as prepared as we can be (for now) for whatever our baby brings. We probably won't be able to handle it alone. But together with God, our family, and our pediatrician, I think we'll all be just fine.
Saturday, October 26, 2013
A rare, all technical, no emotion post. :)
I just wanted to update a little bit on where we currently are in the process of adopting our little one. It may be a little bit boring, but we've had a lot of questions about where we are recently, so I felt like I should take the time to explain.We started in May with an application to our agency for their China Special Needs Program and we completed all our notarized contracts in June. So mid June is when we officially started gathering documents and paper chasing actually began. Our agency required us to complete all of our education courses and fill out all of the home study paper work before having actual home visits. Home study paperwork is very detailed and was a 2 page checklist of documents needing completed. I can share that with anyone who is interested.
During the time that we worked on home study paperwork, we also gathered documents for our dossier. The dossier is basically notarized, state certified original copies of documents that verify we are who we say we are. Birth and marriage certificates, psychologist letters, employment/income verifications, medical letters, criminal checks, etc. These documents must be no more than 6 months old when the dossier gets authenticated and translated. The dossier is what goes to China, for us to be approved to adopt a child there. Besides for the documents I listed, the dossier also includes an approved home study and an approved immigration letter.
In order to get the immigration approval letter, we have to apply for it, and to apply, we must send them an approved copy of our home study. So you can see that the home study is crucial to everything!
In our specific situation, our home study (for reasons out of our control) is taking an especially long time to get to us. It is approved, but we still have not received our copies. Since we can't apply for immigration without it, there started be a concern that we would not get our immigration approval in time to get the entire dossier translated before some of our documents started to expire. (Since we started in June, and they only last 6 months, they will start expiring mid December). Our entire dossier is complete, besides for the immigration approval.
So... where we are at... Our case worker had us go ahead and mail in the dossier to be authenticated and translated so that those documents won't expire. We *should* receive our approved home study copies within a few days, and we will immediately file our I800-A (our immigration form). As soon as we receive approval, our agency will add it to our dossier and it will be complete! It will then go to China, and we will receive a log in date. And from that point, we just wait to be matched.
We are so happy to be mostly done with our paper work stage. Everything on our end is complete, so we just wait and act as needed, but the major parts are done. And just in time for the holidays!
During the time that we worked on home study paperwork, we also gathered documents for our dossier. The dossier is basically notarized, state certified original copies of documents that verify we are who we say we are. Birth and marriage certificates, psychologist letters, employment/income verifications, medical letters, criminal checks, etc. These documents must be no more than 6 months old when the dossier gets authenticated and translated. The dossier is what goes to China, for us to be approved to adopt a child there. Besides for the documents I listed, the dossier also includes an approved home study and an approved immigration letter.
In order to get the immigration approval letter, we have to apply for it, and to apply, we must send them an approved copy of our home study. So you can see that the home study is crucial to everything!
In our specific situation, our home study (for reasons out of our control) is taking an especially long time to get to us. It is approved, but we still have not received our copies. Since we can't apply for immigration without it, there started be a concern that we would not get our immigration approval in time to get the entire dossier translated before some of our documents started to expire. (Since we started in June, and they only last 6 months, they will start expiring mid December). Our entire dossier is complete, besides for the immigration approval.
So... where we are at... Our case worker had us go ahead and mail in the dossier to be authenticated and translated so that those documents won't expire. We *should* receive our approved home study copies within a few days, and we will immediately file our I800-A (our immigration form). As soon as we receive approval, our agency will add it to our dossier and it will be complete! It will then go to China, and we will receive a log in date. And from that point, we just wait to be matched.
We are so happy to be mostly done with our paper work stage. Everything on our end is complete, so we just wait and act as needed, but the major parts are done. And just in time for the holidays!
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Meant to Be
When I started this blog, I didn't intend to share much ugly. I've read adoption blogs that focus all on the awesome happy side and I've read some that tend to share a lot of reality, including negative. I'm a pretty honest person, but this is the internet after all, so I decided to keep most of the junky parts to myself. Still, there are some parts that I feel like I should preserve, even though they're difficult. So today's post is going to be difficult.
Last week, I was shocked when our caseworker asked if we'd like to see the file of a beautiful little girl. Our first reaction, of course, was just surprise at the timing. We were not expecting to see a file for quite a while, since our home study is still (yes, STILL) in the review process. And of course, shock that the file belonged to a girl, as we've been feeling pretty positive we'd be referred a boy.
After the initial shock wore off and the earliest questions were positively answered, we felt sure that we should move forward to the next step, which is to send the file to our international pediatrician. Yes, this is really soon, but maybe this was our baby! We knew this darling girl would always be in the back of minds if we did not give her a fair chance. We know that God's timing is perfect and if this was His timing, we would go forward. So we basically left it up to the pediatrician's report. We laid out some clear guidelines together. If those were met, we would accept. If not, we would decline. We prayed for a very clear answer and that we know exactly what to do when the time for an answer came.
That seems pretty cut and dry, right? Easy. Except it's not. Because we're talking about a baby. A human baby. Who has no family. Whose photo I've seen, whose name, weight, length, and feeding schedule I know. We tried not to become attached. But when there's a photo (several actually) of a sweet little girl sitting in your inbox, and you wonder if she's yours, it's hard not to sneak a peek. Or two. Or more... It's hard not to imagine what it would feel like to hold her, to snuggle her close, to watch her grow in my home, to hear her laughter as she joins in our family fun, and to comfort her when she grieves. And, even though you know it's not true and you truly believe with all your heart that her life is governed by One who created us all, you somehow feel as though her future is in your hands.
No matter how hard you try not to become attached or think of her as your own, the "no" hurts. We got our answer to prayer, we got a very clear answer. As crazy as it seems, we have peace about the "no". Because we feel 100% sure in our hearts that she is not our daughter. But gosh, it's hard. The thought takes my breath away. Sitting here, wondering if she will ever know the love of a family seriously makes it hard for me to breathe. How can I grieve over a baby that was never mine? I don't know, but I know I can, because I am. I struggle to even say her name because it makes me involuntarily tear up.
My first thought, in an effort to comfort myself, was "It just wasn't meant to be". But I don't think that's quite right. It WAS meant to be. She was not meant to be part of our family, but we were meant to allow her into our hearts. And SHE was meant to be. I pray somewhere out there, God has a family for her. And that she will feel His love and protection. She may not have a family right now, but I know that she has a purpose. She is meant to be. A beautiful little girl, placed on this earth for a reason. Meant to be.
My sister in law reminded me that the little girl is one step closer to her forever family now. And we praise God for His faithfulness to us as He continues to break our hearts for these little ones and bring us one step closer to our baby.
Last week, I was shocked when our caseworker asked if we'd like to see the file of a beautiful little girl. Our first reaction, of course, was just surprise at the timing. We were not expecting to see a file for quite a while, since our home study is still (yes, STILL) in the review process. And of course, shock that the file belonged to a girl, as we've been feeling pretty positive we'd be referred a boy.
After the initial shock wore off and the earliest questions were positively answered, we felt sure that we should move forward to the next step, which is to send the file to our international pediatrician. Yes, this is really soon, but maybe this was our baby! We knew this darling girl would always be in the back of minds if we did not give her a fair chance. We know that God's timing is perfect and if this was His timing, we would go forward. So we basically left it up to the pediatrician's report. We laid out some clear guidelines together. If those were met, we would accept. If not, we would decline. We prayed for a very clear answer and that we know exactly what to do when the time for an answer came.
That seems pretty cut and dry, right? Easy. Except it's not. Because we're talking about a baby. A human baby. Who has no family. Whose photo I've seen, whose name, weight, length, and feeding schedule I know. We tried not to become attached. But when there's a photo (several actually) of a sweet little girl sitting in your inbox, and you wonder if she's yours, it's hard not to sneak a peek. Or two. Or more... It's hard not to imagine what it would feel like to hold her, to snuggle her close, to watch her grow in my home, to hear her laughter as she joins in our family fun, and to comfort her when she grieves. And, even though you know it's not true and you truly believe with all your heart that her life is governed by One who created us all, you somehow feel as though her future is in your hands.
No matter how hard you try not to become attached or think of her as your own, the "no" hurts. We got our answer to prayer, we got a very clear answer. As crazy as it seems, we have peace about the "no". Because we feel 100% sure in our hearts that she is not our daughter. But gosh, it's hard. The thought takes my breath away. Sitting here, wondering if she will ever know the love of a family seriously makes it hard for me to breathe. How can I grieve over a baby that was never mine? I don't know, but I know I can, because I am. I struggle to even say her name because it makes me involuntarily tear up.
My first thought, in an effort to comfort myself, was "It just wasn't meant to be". But I don't think that's quite right. It WAS meant to be. She was not meant to be part of our family, but we were meant to allow her into our hearts. And SHE was meant to be. I pray somewhere out there, God has a family for her. And that she will feel His love and protection. She may not have a family right now, but I know that she has a purpose. She is meant to be. A beautiful little girl, placed on this earth for a reason. Meant to be.
My sister in law reminded me that the little girl is one step closer to her forever family now. And we praise God for His faithfulness to us as He continues to break our hearts for these little ones and bring us one step closer to our baby.
Monday, October 14, 2013
I'd Rather Be with You
Jared and I have been married for 6 years, as of Saturday. Autumn is a special time for us. We met in the fall of 05, started dating in the fall of 06, and we married in the fall of 07. It's been a good 6 years. There has been a whole lot of life in those 6 years. There has been happy and sad, joy and frustrations, ups and downs, but just mostly good.
This weekend has not been the greatest. We've had a lot on our minds. We hit a couple rough patches with our two beautiful children. We feel like we need a win in the adoption world.
So today we put one kid to bed and put one kid in front of the tv, and we made a cake together. It was a brand new thing for us. We don't usually bake together. But we needed a date and it seemed like a nice thing to do. So we went to my favorite cooking blog and looked at pictures of lots of cakes and we just chose something brand new and we did it. A ridiculous thing to do, when the house is a mess, and the lawn needs mowed, and we're watching our diets. But we threw caution to the wind and it happened. A cake from scratch,(including homemade butterscotch and caramel!) start to finish, just the two of us, together.
Even on a crappy day, I'd rather be with him than anyone else in the world.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Missing Alabama
This week last year, we were finishing up our 12 months in Alabama, saying goodbye to the people and things we had come to love and preparing to head back to our Ohio lives. So of course, especially this week, I keep thinking of our time spent there.
I'm just going to be honest here. We went to Alabama kind of as an escape. We needed a change, our family was not in a healthy place, and the opportunity came, so we took it. And for the sake of honesty, Alabama and I did not get off to a great start. Maybe it was the sad, sad phone call I received on the drive down there that caused me to give my growing tummy a squeeze and love my tiny squirmy baby a little more. It could have been the mouse that invaded our apartment during week 4 and had Gracie and I squealing and standing on chairs. Or it could have been the tour of Huntsville Hospital's maternity floor that sent me home in tears, the awful disappointing trip to Nashville for Gracie's 2nd birthday, or the Christmas Eve when I had to beg Jared to tie my shoes for me because I couldn't reach my feet. (Ok, the not being able to reach my feet had nothing to do with the state I lived in, but it was still traumatic) Whatever it was, those first couple months had me questioning our decision to be there. And for a whole year?!
I don't know when my feelings changed or what exactly changed them. I have a suspicion that Liam's magical birth set the tone for the rest of time. After that, things started looking up. And the funny thing is, the things that bothered me most at the beginning were the things I grew to love... Like the laid back attitudes, the wimpy outdoor mall, and Publix.
But what I know is that every special memory in Alabama happened because of time spent with our little family or in community. The memories I brought back from there are of Jared and I playing Frisbee together in the evenings and Gracie begging us to push her on the swing. I remember snuggling sweet baby Liam on the bench while watching Gracie ride herself silly on the carousel at Bridge Street. The lunches at the hole in the wall Mexican place after church on Sunday. Sitting in Judy's living room, chatting with friends while our kids literally tore the playroom apart. The brunch where Gracie threw up and before I could even comprehend what was happening, one friend had napkins under her mouth and another grabbed Liam from me to free up my hands. The beautiful starry sky, the family walks, our Wednesday night small group, the morning we had the science center all to ourselves, the new Target, the Chocolate Crocodile, dates at the fancy movie theater, watching Gracie play with her friends, the Y, amazing bbq, the kindness of new friends, I could go on and on. I think we would have stayed forever if the details had worked out. But they didn't.
I would say that leaving Alabama left a hole in my heart, but that's not really true. Actually, I think my heart is fuller and happier after that year. I still miss our friends there very much. I continue to be amazed by them and their support and general awesomeness, even though I'm horrible at staying in touch. I still miss the simplicity of our life there. Gracie still misses it too. She often brings up her friends, and says that she loves and misses them. Sometimes we drive down a random street, and she gasps and asks if we are in Alabama. I'm glad to know that year blessed her heart too. We learned about adaptability, about expectations, about kindness, graciousness, and hospitality. I am a better person because of Alabama. Our family is healthier because of Alabama. In 2011, when I heard someone mention that southern state, I wrinkled my snobby nose. Now I hear her sweet name and my heart smiles. We've been back for a year now and our family is with a doubt right where we should be. We are home for now. But I am forever grateful for our year in Alabama.
Missing Alabama this week. <3
I'm just going to be honest here. We went to Alabama kind of as an escape. We needed a change, our family was not in a healthy place, and the opportunity came, so we took it. And for the sake of honesty, Alabama and I did not get off to a great start. Maybe it was the sad, sad phone call I received on the drive down there that caused me to give my growing tummy a squeeze and love my tiny squirmy baby a little more. It could have been the mouse that invaded our apartment during week 4 and had Gracie and I squealing and standing on chairs. Or it could have been the tour of Huntsville Hospital's maternity floor that sent me home in tears, the awful disappointing trip to Nashville for Gracie's 2nd birthday, or the Christmas Eve when I had to beg Jared to tie my shoes for me because I couldn't reach my feet. (Ok, the not being able to reach my feet had nothing to do with the state I lived in, but it was still traumatic) Whatever it was, those first couple months had me questioning our decision to be there. And for a whole year?!
I don't know when my feelings changed or what exactly changed them. I have a suspicion that Liam's magical birth set the tone for the rest of time. After that, things started looking up. And the funny thing is, the things that bothered me most at the beginning were the things I grew to love... Like the laid back attitudes, the wimpy outdoor mall, and Publix.
But what I know is that every special memory in Alabama happened because of time spent with our little family or in community. The memories I brought back from there are of Jared and I playing Frisbee together in the evenings and Gracie begging us to push her on the swing. I remember snuggling sweet baby Liam on the bench while watching Gracie ride herself silly on the carousel at Bridge Street. The lunches at the hole in the wall Mexican place after church on Sunday. Sitting in Judy's living room, chatting with friends while our kids literally tore the playroom apart. The brunch where Gracie threw up and before I could even comprehend what was happening, one friend had napkins under her mouth and another grabbed Liam from me to free up my hands. The beautiful starry sky, the family walks, our Wednesday night small group, the morning we had the science center all to ourselves, the new Target, the Chocolate Crocodile, dates at the fancy movie theater, watching Gracie play with her friends, the Y, amazing bbq, the kindness of new friends, I could go on and on. I think we would have stayed forever if the details had worked out. But they didn't.
I would say that leaving Alabama left a hole in my heart, but that's not really true. Actually, I think my heart is fuller and happier after that year. I still miss our friends there very much. I continue to be amazed by them and their support and general awesomeness, even though I'm horrible at staying in touch. I still miss the simplicity of our life there. Gracie still misses it too. She often brings up her friends, and says that she loves and misses them. Sometimes we drive down a random street, and she gasps and asks if we are in Alabama. I'm glad to know that year blessed her heart too. We learned about adaptability, about expectations, about kindness, graciousness, and hospitality. I am a better person because of Alabama. Our family is healthier because of Alabama. In 2011, when I heard someone mention that southern state, I wrinkled my snobby nose. Now I hear her sweet name and my heart smiles. We've been back for a year now and our family is with a doubt right where we should be. We are home for now. But I am forever grateful for our year in Alabama.
Missing Alabama this week. <3
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