Thursday, May 23, 2013

Those Days

Today is just one of those days . . .

One of those days when no shower was possible (or even desired really).

When my hair is most definitely not brushed.

When I went into the office with carrots, apples and spit up all over my jeans.

When I question the majority of parenting decisions I am making.

When I miss my hubs terribly. 

When I feel like there is not enough time in the day to get everything for my job done. 

When I broke out new baby spoons from our gift stash because I was too lazy to wash dishes and when I used disposable diapers because I was unmotivated to wash the dirty ones.

It just was one of those days.

But it was also a day when I got to snuggle with my little man.

When I watched my dog and my son become friends (truly, they were playing with toys together)

When I got to spend time talking to God about worry and grace.

And when I got to dance around the office to Disney songs with my little man.

So, I will continue to survive these kind of days and look for the joy within them.



Monday, May 13, 2013

A Different kind of Mother's Day Tradition

Mother's Day is hard. 

I am a woman living in the land of infertility which means it has been really hard for years. As a friend of ours said the other night, it is like starving while everyone around you is enjoying a feast.

With that perspective, I entered into this Mother's Day knowing and understanding the dark sides of it. Don't get me wrong, It is one of the greatest joys in my life to be Little Man's Mom. His snuggles and sloppy cheek sucks are just a piece of the blessing it is to raise him. But I know that Mother's Day was one of the hardest days of the year for so long and still is for so many women. This Mother's Day was like going to Disney World after spending time in India. It was fun and celebratory, but the filter with which I was seeing the world had changed.

So Jay and I decided, as a family, we were going to have a different tradition in our house. Instead of breakfast in bed (I work for a church, it will never work on Sunday anyway), gifts,  or other grand gestures directed at me, we are going to make Mother's Day a day to honor the incredible woman who gave our Little Man life.

We are going to celebrate Birthmother's Day. 

We started this year by writing a brief update on our Little Man to send to adoption agency and praying with Little Man for his birthmom by name last night, and then God, in His perfect timing, caused this to happen:

       I was checking my email this afternoon only to find an email from our adoption specialist saying that Little Man's birthparents had requested an update over the weekend. It is the first contact with them we have had since birth. I quickly drafted an email, included lots of pictures and sent it away to hopefully bless them.

Our God does such crazy works in the world around us and I love to be in a place that I get to give testimony to that.