This has been a very full week for all of us, as I'm sure it has been for most families! It was filled with appointments, getting ready for school, getting used to new routines, making lunches, and continuing to get used to one another. This week I noticed that there were many times when I had the feeling of the "mom with the new baby to show off" feeling. I remember bringing my babies to church for the first time and having everyone come and see them. It was so fun, and I was so proud! I remember bringing Austin to church and sitting in the back with him in his baby carrier. I remember one lady coming over while I was staring intently at my sweet boy and saying, "Did you ever imagine you'd be so in love with this little one?" I had no idea I would be so crazy in love with him, and have felt the same with each child as they have entered our world! There were many moments full of being "crazy in love" and "oh so proud" as we brought Aleeya to different events this week, and people got to meet her for the first time. It was also the first time many people got to see how she interacts with our family. It was special when another dad heard Aleeya call Scott "dad," and said that it sounded so natural! It's pretty amazing! Along with that, we had some times with our new precious girl when we found ourselves frustrated over some things that she does. Grant it, they are just small habits and nothing awful, but we are finding that we need to have lots of patience and work through it and talk about it. This part seems much like having a new baby - when you realize that this precious little bundle requires a lot of extra care and you don't always understand what they need.
On Monday this week, Aleeya and I went to school to meet with our principal and kinda have an informal meeting. It's a time for the principal to talk with Aleeya and give her an overview of the school, and a time for Aleeya to ask questions. Can I just say that it was wonderful?! Our principal began with prayer and covered our sweet girl with the assurance that God loves her and has a wonderful plan for her life! She prayed for her school year and her fears, and by the end, I was fighting back the tears once again. So thankful for this special time! After we met, the principal gave her a tour of the school, and we were able to meet her teacher. We both could tell she was going to be a very nice teacher and felt immediately comfortable with her! This was great since she is a new teacher at the school this year, and neither of us had met her until today! I had been praying all summer for her, and God had answered those prayers! As we left the school, Aleeya (who has been really nervous and questioned me a ton about school previously) said, "I don't feel so nervous anymore." Wow, what a great thing God did just then! After our meeting, I had scheduled to take Aleeya to have her annual birthday pictures done at the mall. Each of our children go to JCPenney Portraits to have their pictures done around their birthday time so I have a good shot of them at that age (I'm not real big on school pictures, so we do it this way). They were a little behind, so we walked to get a pretzel at Auntie Anne's - her new favorite snack! While he was setting up, I wanted to be sure she knew what to do and showed her the red dot on the floor was where she would take most of the pictures. Then it occurred to me to ask her if she had ever done this before. She said "no." Yet another time I would like to burst out in tears, yet held back. All of my other children have had so many photos taken of them, there are too many to number (especially those baby pictures where you go like every month or every 3 months). As she started with the pictures, the guy that was taking them recognized me and was trying to figure out how Aleeya fit into our family. I explained that we are adopting her, and go figure, his family adopted two siblings as he was growing up as well. He took some great pictures of her, and she is a complete natural in front of the camera! He made her feel really special and told her that she was doing a great job, which she was! The one we ended up choosing was the one that I asked him if she could just do a "natural pose" for him. We headed home, and thankfully Scott had dinner ready for all of us! That evening we had "Back to School Night," which is a time for us to take the kids to meet their teachers. Alec was excited to find out his homeroom for 6th grade and get his locker combination. Scott helped to be sure he knew how to do that. Ashley ran off to see friends and play on the playground, and Aleeya found some of the friends she had previously made while on a visit to our home a month or so earlier. They were so friendly once again and asked her to come out to the playground! I told her that would be great when she asked, and then realized that we needed to be there with her!!! Lots of people enjoyed seeing her that night and celebrating with us, so we were a little caught up in the excitement of it all! We followed her out. I noticed that she enjoyed the girls, but would come back to be close to me a little here and there. She didn't seem to need anything, just wanted to be close and be reassured I think. It made me a little nervous to know that in two days she would be out here without me, yet I was thankful that she had this time to prepare. As we left that evening, Ashley says, "when am I going to get to meet my teacher?" All this time I figured she already knew her teacher or had already met her along the way, and we missed the whole thing! Thankfully, we saw our principal on the way out, who called the teacher to see if she was still there (most people had gone home by now). She had already driven off campus, but was kind enough to come back and talk with Ashley. I felt so grateful for such a wonderful teacher and friend, and everyone left happy :)!
Tuesday was another big day with us dropping off Austin for orientation for high school (can I just say "unbelievable? - 9th grade really?")! We were heading out of town to take Aleeya to a couple of appointments about an hour and half away where she used to live with her foster family, so I took him on our way. Sweet boy that he is actually granted my request for a kiss before he got out of the car :)! I felt kinda bad because we had so many other things going that I didn't really notice that Austin was nervous. He told me later that he was, but he really seemed to be doing so well. He said once he got in there, he was fine. I situated the other two kids with friends, and Aleeya and I spent the day together. Since we had quite a bit of driving time together, we talked about lots! She talked about her birth mom some, and asked some questions about us. We talked about modesty, some TV shows, and some computer sites that she is interested in. There's one thing on TV that she particularly wants to watch because she grew up watching it with her dad and likes it, and I'm pretty sure it won't work out in our home. But I told her I will sit down with her and watch it once before deciding, and we can talk about it. She was happy with my response. It should be interesting! We drove near a couple of the foster homes where she had lived, and she talked about that some. It was a good time of understanding more about her life. I was also really happy to see her social worker while I waited for Aleeya at one of the appointments. She asked how we were doing and set up a time to come see us. On our way home, we stopped and visited with a special friend of Aleeya's. I really enjoyed seeing her interact with her friend and talking with the family. This too gave some great insights into her life prior to us. It was nice to know that they too thought she was super sweet and enjoyed her so much! She thanked me for taking the time to stop and visit! We headed home and went out to dinner to celebrate our last day of summer. While we were there, I noticed I had missed a call from our principal. Of course, the call was for Aleeya :), just checking on her and letting her know she was so excited for her to come the next day. It was great to see Aleeya listen to the call and know she was truly cared for. We went home and made sure everything was ready for our next big day with school starting. That night I noticed Aleeya looking at her old yearbook. It was still out on our desk as I was still working through her "memory items" and trying to organize them for her (we had just arrived home last Friday). At that point, I decided that while I want to keep her memories special and stored well, and I want her to feel free to share her memories with us, it seemed that this was a time to put them away for a bit. If she was consistently "looking back," it may be harder to move forward. It's hard to know how to handle that stuff at first, but we'll keep learning as we go along. As we headed to bed that evening, we spent some time in God's Word and had special prayer for each of the kids' first day of school!
We woke up pretty early on Wednesday to be sure everyone was fully ready for the first day. I had all the clothes ironed and ready to go, and was ready to do hair for the girls. I wanted to be sure I was ready for any tears or concerns that may happen that morning, just in case. Thankfully, everyone got ready quickly and we headed off. We have this special picture we take of the kids each year in front of the fence, so we had to arrive prior to 8am so Austin could be in it this year. High school starts at 8am while elementary begins at 8:30am. We took our family picture and then Scott walked Austin over to high school. It was super early still, so the girls and I headed out to the playground for a bit. Aleeya seemed very relaxed, and I think it helped being there early to see everything unfold slowly. As she left, it felt much like leaving my kids for that first day of kindergarten where you hope they will do well and have fun with new friends. God blessed us with a couple of sweet girls in her class that she already knew, and we felt so blessed. Scott and I said goodbye, and as he headed to work, I headed to pray with some other parents around the flag pole. Each prayer meant so much! I have to say I had a hard time leaving campus that day, but prayed much for all the kids throughout the day, and knew God would answer! I counted this morning as a victory - no tears, no profuse sweating, and no throwing up - that's a good first day of school for this sweet girl that has been "new" so many times and was so nervous for the past few weeks. It ended up being a really nice day of having some much needed time to myself to do errands and just "be." I had been full-time for 2 1/2 weeks with no real breaks, and the quiet was so helpful! Scott met me at pick-up, and we hugged each of the children as they came out. They all had a great day and seemed so happy! All the nerves where finally gone! I asked each of the kids about their day, and remember Aleeya telling me that the principal saw her and gave her a hug today! Wow, how awesome is that! So thankful for how God was paving the way ahead of us with just the right friends and people in place. We had quite a few errands to do that afternoon (for yet more school supplies), and then took Austin to High School Ministries to play in band that evening. It was such a full day, and I was thankful to see Scott when he arrived home late that evening from rehearsal!
Thursday went really smooth as well, and the one major thing Scott and I noticed that day was a "new smile!" When we picked Aleeya up from school, she seemed so relaxed. As we asked everyone about their day, she spoke with real "joy" about how much she liked school. I think Christian school with lots of loving people was suiting her just perfect!
Thankfully, since Scott is off on Friday, we spent the whole day together!!! It was just what was needed! He arranged for us to get a massage in the morning, and then we had a nice lunch together that afternoon. It was so great to talk freely with no children around and just be together! I was so thankful for this time! We were once again both able to go pick up the kids from school. Since we had officially made it through the first week of school, I thought it would be fun to have a friend come with us after school. Alec had a birthday party to attend, Scott took Austin to do some special stuff with him, so I took the girls for a special treat. I ended up not being able to get a friend for Ashley in time, but did for Aleeya. This was the first time having a friend over to our house, and I think it was kinda hard for Aleeya. She was still getting used to our home and what we do on a normal basis that I don't know if she knew how to have a friend over yet. She did fine, and her friend was really easy to have over, but I could tell this was so new for her. After we picked up Alec from the party, family night officially began! We had pizza and then went for a bike ride to feed horses. We couldn't seem to find any horses, but ended up riding a little further and finding a nice ranch. A man was in the field and said we could come around and feed the horses at the stable. When we got there, we realized that we knew him from church (he recognized Scott, of course). We ended up talking for quite awhile and enjoying their kitten, cat, and dog, along with the horses. The family invited us in and we talked for awhile. Their daughter used to attend jr. high with Austin, so it was fun to see her again. They too asked if these were all our kids, and I said yes. I introduced them to them, and Aleeya put out her hand and said, "I'm getting adopted." She was so relaxed about it all, and the family was so happy for us. On our way home it was getting dark and Aleeya said, "I love family night!" Alec shouted back, "it's not over yet!" We headed home to watch Little House and have some popcorn :). Everyone really enjoyed being together!
Saturday morning, Ashley asked if a friend could come over. I called the family and realized that I should invite both her little one and the girl Aleeya's age! Thankfully, they could both come and had a great time together! Once again, I realized that Aleeya didn't really know how to take care of a friend at our home. The girl knew our family really well and was fine either way, but I thought I should probably give Aleeya some more time to settle into our home before having more friends over. Then I could explain more about how to make someone welcome and stay with her friend after she felt more comfortable in her own home. This was only the second Saturday she had ever had in our home as part of our family, and it was all so new!!! That afternoon, we cleaned the house. Since the kids were old enough, I have always involved them in helping with jobs. We decided to switch some jobs around now that we had a new family member. Aleeya's job would be vacuuming. I was told prior to never expect that our new child would know how to do everything, and to be ready to teach them. You never know what they have been taught previously and what's new to them. Well, vacuuming was one of those things :). It was so cute to see her "go after" the particles of things she saw! I explained that you have to vacuum the whole room in rows to be sure you get all of the dirt and showed her how. We went through the whole house room-by-room, and she did great! The kids jumped on the trampoline with the sprinkler on and had a great time together in the afternoon. Later that day, we sat down to be sure I had seen all the school papers and everyone had done all their homework. She had some Math to do and asked if I could help. I knew she was especially concerned about Math, and said sure. We worked through the lesson together, and it went great! She's quite bright and eager to learn, but our Math book is new to her and there are some things that we need to review. Thankfully, I love Math and told her I can help her each day to be sure she's getting the concepts down. That night before bed, she thanked me for helping her with her Math. I can tell she really wants to do well and enjoyed the time together!
Sunday was a great time of worship together. The difference today was that after we enjoyed the main worship service and headed over to Club 56, she didn't sit with us! I had to use the restroom on the way over and sent Austin and Aleeya to go ahead in and find seats at Club 56. When I came in, I didn't see Aleeya. Austin was in the back where we normally sit, and Aleeya was up front with some girls she knew from school. On top of that, I saw another of her friends towards the back that said she had saved a seat for her as well!! I was so blessed and overwhelmed! Aleeya's a super sweet and fun girl, so it's not that girls wouldn't like her, it's just she was fitting in so well so quickly, and these girls were really caring for her as a good friend!!! After church, we went out to lunch with some friends that had a girl her age. We kinda had to split up between tables to fit us all, and every once in awhile Aleeya would come over and stand by me. She was just still needing that reassurance and wanting to be close I think. I am realizing that this may last awhile, and am actually thankful that she's coming to me. I'm hoping her friends don't take it wrong when she leaves them for a bit, but they seem ok with it. We headed home for a restful day. After a really nice dinner together, I pulled out some Math flashcards to go over multiplication. With this many kids, it's really fun! They were all really into it! I think it will become a normal happening after dinner in the future as well :)!
It has been such a crazy, full week - full of emotions, full of love and excitement and joy, full of newness around each corner, and at times, full of some new fears. There are times that I want Aleeya to feel like she really "fits in" and is just like the other children in our family so much that I try not to make her feel "too special" or "pointed out," and there are other times I think that's exactly what she needs! Still learning for sure and trying to figure out the balance in it all. But God keeps taking us through each stage and reminding us of His presence and our need to depend on Him fully. Really thankful He brought us through this important week!
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