Precious Gifts!

Each gift I received this year for Mother's Day was a gift of the heart! My husband got me the can opener I wanted and my son scrap booked a handmade card and put a Starbucks gift card in it.















The baby got me a gift card from J.Jill, which was really a surprise. My 6 year old was so excited for me to open the cat pot holder that she was jumping up and down saying," You are going to LOVE this gift mom!" Of course I did too! My other six year old gave me a cheese grater that we each got a turn at later that day when we had spaghetti. Sege was very thoughtful and made sure I had mustard, mayo, and ketchup squeeze bottles. One of my older daughters took pity on me and got me a pair of REAL potholders. (As you can tell I was potholder deficient) Two of my richer children bought me a certificate for a pedicure. Candles were even purchased by my starving college student. All in all I made quite a haul on Mother's Day...but the best gift of all was just having my children all home and present to celebrate with!

10 Things Boys Can Do When They Have 7 Sisters

1. They know to buy The Best of Deanna Durban Movie Collection for their sisters at Christmas.
2. They can sing all the songs from "Meet Me in St. Lois" with Judy Garland, and "Singing in the Rain"with Gene Kelly.
3. They can change a diaper.
4. They open doors for girls.
5. They can knit.
6. They win a blue ribbon at the fair for best homemade strawberry jam.
7. They can swing dance
8.They have actually read Pride and Prejudice, not just watched the movie.
9. They can make peanut butter cups from scratch.
10. They scrapbook Mother's Day cards better than girls.

Casting Out Fear!

Wow, I can't believe we had our second post placement report today. Our social worker was at our house bright and early this morning at 9:30am. That might not seem so early to some, but considering our entire family woke up an hour later than we expected things were a little rushed this morning. We are pleased to report that E has been extremely easy to adjust into the family! She is a dear, sweet, and helpful child who really has a love for God and is able to talk about her feelings easily with me. She has worked through a lot of grief since the last post placement and we are so proud of her and thankful God choose us to be her parents. E is enjoying the relief of being just a little girl without a lot of other stresses in her life.
Baby M is growing so fast and is very mobile...I mean fast! She is generally cheerful, yet of all our adopted children she has had the roughest time with her adjustment. I have had many sessions of serious holding time to help her work through her mistrust issues acquired from her earlier traumas. There have been times after these sessions that my arms are shaking from exhaustion. But I must report that as difficult and at times scary as it seems we are definitely seeing progress. Just to encourage any of you other adoptive parents that are experiencing attachment problems, hang in there and get outside help if you need it. Yesterday was a particularly hard day. At one point she was raging and I felt fear. Immediately it was like God spoke to me and said, " Love has no room for fear. Rather, perfect love casts out all fear..." I got a mental image of myself coming towards a ball and picking it up and throwing it far, far away. It seems that in order to get rid of fear it is necessary to move closer to what is frightening us and actually cast it away. It will not just miraculously go away by itself and running away from it or ignoring it is not Biblical. So for one more session in my rocker with my raging baby I sat until her anger subsided and a calmness came over her. She ended up falling asleep. With each of these sessions her anger is a little less. Tonight we went through the routine I have started...music, massage, blanket, rocker, bottle, singing and holding. It was better...much better! I know the brokenness in my baby came from the sin of man...she was the recipient. So as her mother I will hang in there even though it is exhausting and after six months we are still seeing her pain. But things are improving and she is worth every sore muscle and fit she can muster. She smiled and laughed tonight...what a joy. Maybe she still has more to "get out" and work through, but I am not afraid of tomorrow. I understand that I need to move toward the fear and literally "cast it out". No one will deter me, not even my angry baby who acts like she doesn't want me to hold her sometimes. I will win so she can understand that is exactly how God is and as time goes on she will learn she can trust both of us.