Our family has grown by one heartbeat and two feet. My baby sister added a little girl to the family. The funny part is, I knew before she did! Well, I suspected. I texted her and asked and she vehemently denied that she was pregnant. At the time, she didn't think she was! Twelve weeks later, she told us that she would be expecting her second child at the end of the year.
I was excited to be an aunt again. As we all suspected, she was having a girl! One of each. The picture perfect, all-American fam. It's an overused cliche but they truly are blessed. Baby girl came bouncing out with no issues, happy and healthy to the delight of all of us—and with a full head of hair!
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Christmas has long been a hugely celebrated time of year for our family. It's a mix of lights, baking, parties, concerts, family, friends, cards—we did it all. To my husband's often perturbation, I still continue to be quite the elf when it comes to the jingle season.
This year our calendar started October 19th and I warned William, don't plan anything until the second weekend of December (let's be real, January). Yes! We were that packed. But something was different this year. I just wasn't that "into" it. I wasn't being a Grinch, I just wasn't the glitter-covered force to be reckoned with I normally am. Decorating was haphazard. There was no begging my DH to go look at Christmas lights in the "fancy neighborhoods." I even cancelled attending a party (gasp!). I was feeling ill, but normally it would take a bout of pneumonia to keep me away. Anyone who has known me more than five minutes knows that I adore giving gifts. (Receiving gifts is also one of my top love languages so that could have something to do with it.) I take my time searching for the perfect gift for each person in my sphere and about bounce out of my skin waiting for them to open it. I of course still enjoyed this process, but near Christmas I began to panic. I felt that I had failed this round. There wasn't that much spare change to go around and the gifts seemed more difficult to find. William's favorite tradition is stockings. He reverts back to childhood poking through finding what oddities people found and associated with him. This in particular I just really crashed into the asphalt. A part of foster care and adoption is opening up your home, life, and heart for full and complete inspection. And quite frankly—I can't blame them. In the case of foster care, the State has come and told someone, "at this time you are deemed unable to care for your children. These people over here have been chosen to care for them in the meantime." If I was that parent, I would expect those people to be well vetted. Wouldn't you?
We have reached the milestone of inspections. Gas inspections, financial inspections, fire inspections...in essence, the magnifier has been cranked up. We learned things we never knew; like a 2-lb fire extinguisher is not large enough and you need a carbon monoxide detector in addition to fire/smoke alarms. But we made the necessary adjustments and we received all the check marks (so far). Because we are chosen. We are being deemed as a safe place for the fearful, a restful place for the weary, and a loving place for those that fear they may never experience it. There have been frustrating moments, but if they have to come back and check my gas knob for my fireplace twice, fine by me. xoxo Y'all. We did it. We chose a paint color! Well—kind of. What really happened was William said I had exhausted my paint sample budget and had to choose from what we had. (Really, it's better this way. I should never be allowed to look at 1,526,321 color blocks anyway.)
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AuthorWriting is really my outlet, so you'll mostly see my prose on here. But William might occasionally make a guest appearance. Archives
May 2021
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