In Like A Lion, Out Like a Lamb (I Hope)

Wow!  March, what a month.  The first Saturday

in March, this is what we woke up to.

P.'s foot, swollen, red, and blistered.

After one week in the children's hospital,

nobody knew what  caused the blisters to happen.

Once they looked like they were starting to go away,

our sweet boy was sent home.

After a week recovering, we were on the 

road to North Carolina to visit Grandma Jean

and Grandpa Tom.

First stop on our way, Jamestown, Virginia.

There we learned all about Indian and Pre-colonial life.

The kids were able to make a canoe Indian

style.  They learned that Indians, who had no

metal tools, burnt a tree and used shells

to scrape out the ashes.

This is how canoes were made. 

We took some time to visit the fort in Jamestown.

We talked with the metal worker, tried on armor,

learned about storing and drying meats, and 

saw the way that the early settlers lived.

After our day in Jamestown, it was off to North

Carolina.  Grandma Jean and Grandpa Tom

took us to the North Carolina Zoo.

The kids saw all sorts of animals.

Although we tried to leave them with the monkeys,

they kept insisting that they needed to come home with us.

After a day at the zoo, we spent a day at the local Children's

Museum.  This was a favorite of all of our kids.

There was a big fire truck that the kids could climb

on and pretend to drive.  There were fireman boots,

coats, and a hose to spray.

At the Children's Museum, there was a media room

where the kids could pretend to be cameramen, anchormen, or

weathermen.  P. especially enjoyed giving us his forecast while watching

himself on the screen.

The favorite stop, of all the kids, was the airplane.

The airplane was awesome.  There were seats in the back for your passengers,

working throttles, and lots of buttons that begged to be pushed.  If

the kids got tired of the airplane, they could slide down the slide on the side, and

then run right back up to the cockpit.

After the airplane, everyone enjoyed rolling around

in blue barrels, because really, what's more fun than

rolling your siblings around the floor.

Our trip to visit Grandma Jean and Grandpa Tom was 

SOOOOO much fun. We had a wonderful week.

At the end of the trip, we were exhausted.

Thank you Papa and Cheryl for watching our pets so we could go,

and thank you Grandma Jean and Grandpa Tom for

letting us stay with you , and for showing us such a great time.

Not So Random Thoughts About Adoption

On Sunday, Jon and I took the kids out for brunch.

We always get a lot of looks whenever we go places

with the kids. I choose to believe that it's because

we're all so good looking.  Jon informs me it's because

we have such a large family.

A girlfriend once told me it's because we all look so different.

We're a curiosity to people.

The hostess, after pulling some tables together, seated us.

She looked at me and asked, "Are they

all yours."

I answered yes, and she asked me, "Adopted".

Now, in all of the years that I've been a Mommy to my kids,

she is the first stranger to ask me if the kids were adopted.

I answered, "Yes".  I'm not ashamed of their adoption, in fact

I'm quite proud of the way that the Lord made our family.

She smiled, said "I know what it's like to be adopted.

I was in foster care."

At that point I shared with her that all four of our children

were adopted out of foster care.

That part of our adoption story is a little more unusual.

You see, foster children are often older. They're often hurt with

complicated histories of abuse and neglect.  They're often hard to place.

They have memories of times before you were their parent.

They love people that you may not be able to stomach.

I am a HUGE advocate for adopting out of foster care.

HUGE.  It may not be the journey for every family, but it 

is the journey for our family.  It's easy to love a baby.

It's easy to adopt an infant. They will never know anyone but you as a mother.

It is much harder to adopt an older child.  To adopt, and love, a person that may

call another woman "Mom" or another man "Dad".

That doesn't mean that I disagree with infant adoption.

I don't. I know a lot of people that have adopted infants. 

Those babies need homes just as badly as my children did.

I just know, from my experience, that adopting an older child

out of foster care can be a difficult but rewarding journey.

 I would never have adopted any other way.

Never.

You see, to adopt out of foster care is to see a life

changed.  A future given.  To adopt out of foster care is to

give a child hope.

To adopt out of foster care allows siblings to grow up

together, to be a family.

To adopt out of foster care stretches you in ways you never imagined you could

be stretched.

Adoption made six people a family.

Adoption made four children siblings.

Adoption healed hurts.

Adoption showed love.

Adoption changed lives.

Not just their lives, but mine.