Heavy Thoughts

I rarely post my heavy thoughts here and when I do, they never draw comments, so that makes me think people would prefer to see pictures of my beautiful kids than to learn what it is that I'm thinking about (and who can blame you, they are seriously cute kids), but tonight I'm writing what's been on my mind anyway. There will be no cute photos accompanying this post, so you can just stop reading now if that's all you come for! No offense taken, I promise (I won't even know).

Not all that long ago I came to the tough realization that I don't really enjoy my family. I think most people end up here at some point, but it was killing me. I was feeling really unhappy and down in the dumps. I honestly started wondering if I was suffering from depression, but that just didn't seem to fit. I am very good at analyzing myself if I just take the time to do it, so I took the time and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I didn't enjoy my family. I was in survival mode. You know...how long 'til nap time, how long 'til lunch, how long 'til bed time? Those were my thoughts--just get through the segments of the day and then the next day is the same thing all over again. Except, I don't want to live that way. So, since I came to this realization I have been doing my best to enjoy my family, at least for part of each day. Trust me, I'm still in survival mode quite a bit--I have three kids under the age of 6 (one who constantly has to be in charge, one who has had a negative reaction to our adoption and one who was adopted internationally). Sometimes, survival is the best I can do, but I'm working on it. I don't always want to be in survival mode. I want to enjoy Gavin and his creativity. I want to enjoy Reily and his stories. I want to get to know Kayla better and enjoy her social, playful personality.

Speaking of...I have hit yet another realization when it comes to Kayla. I finally have the love for her that I have for my boys. It's nice. I struggled with her baby-ness for the first two months that she was home. I didn't want a baby. Her baby-ness annoyed me and seriously wore on me. I think it's a big part of what pushed me into constant survival mode. I have decided that I need to embrace her baby-ness. This too shall pass and we are truly fortunate to have gotten her at this age so that we have more time to get to know her, influence her, overcome attachment issues, etc... I am doing my best to just adore her and give her the best part of me. She is a remarkable little person and I'm really enjoying her. She is amazing--such a resilient little person, so strong and so pleasant. She is a baby, but she is a great baby. She sleeps through the night, she uses the toilet, she eats anything we put in front of her, she does her absolute best to communicate with us and she'll even play alone for a few minutes. I honestly don't think babies come much better than her. I am in love (most of the time)!

As for Chris, I also want to figure out how to enjoy him. That's going to be a little tougher to figure out. I have loads of time with my kids, but time with Chris is very limited. Still, this should be my number one goal, so I'm trying.

Okay, so those are the heavy thoughts. Not so bad, right? I'm glad I realized these things. I'm sure I'll slump back into survival mode in my lifetime, but for now I'm glad to be crawling out of that hole. It's better than not surviving, but barely.

Some not so heavy thoughts...I'm headed to Dallas! Kayla and I are going to Dallas to see old friends, new friends and to meet some online friends. The adoption world is a small and very connected one. There are many wonderful people who walked through our adoption with us and they were a wonderful support through the process because they fully understood what we were going through. The person I connected most with online lives in Dallas. She adopted a little girl just one month older than Kayla right around the same time that we adopted Kayla. We were stuck in the process together and communicated a lot. We had hoped to meet in Ethiopia, but since that didn't happen, I decided to go to Dallas. Added bonuses are that one of my best friends from college recently moved to Dallas, so I get to see her too. And, the woman that traveled with us for both Ethiopia trips to adopt her little boy lives about 1.5 hours from Dallas and we'll also be able to spend quite a bit of time with them. We may get to meet one other adoptive mama and her little girl--this mama checked in in Kayla for me while we were stuck in adoption limbo last summer/fall. It's going to be a crazy trip, but wonderful. I can't wait. I just booked my ticket tonight--which I was able to get with airline miles thanks to two round trip flights to Ethiopia! Kayla will be joining me since she still flies free and I can't wait to get all these kiddos back together--they were all at the same care center in Addis. How fun to keep that connection for them! So, if you're disappointed in the lack of photos in this post, I can guarantee you that after that trip, there will be enough to make up for it!