Someday you'll probably see the post written yesterday in our blog book. I just want to make sure there are a few things you understand as we talk about the impact adoption has had on our lives. Mom's stress was a prevalent theme and I suppose we should discuss that a bit.
You, my dears, can not, by any means, claim full credit for my stress. It's just part of the condition we face beginning the day we are born called Humanhood. It's what people do. They stress. Babies feel it when they are tired or hungry. Toddlers do when they have to share their toys...and go to stores...and at any inopportune time that they are in a public setting and embarrassing their parents is most readily available. Boys and girls experience it when they play sports and go to school and make and lose friends. Adults have it over the bills and the responsibility they hold. They stress over their jobs and marriages and raising the children and their parents and in laws and getting older and finding new wrinkles and gaining weight. Shoot, come to think of it big people get stressed out when they're tired and hungry too. So, we're all pretty much in the same boat.
And don't get me started on how those five whippersnappers who came along before you add to my stress level. Just ask Jayla about the days when she used to bang her head against the wall until her forehead was black and blue and have long screaming spells during each and every blessed night of her life until she was six years old. Being a first time mom, I was terrified my girl was a half deck short of a full. But look at her now. You'd never know. Or ask Stryder about how he would scream bloody murder whenever I tried to seat him in a shopping cart. Ask Tyden about his passion for complaining or hypochondriac tendencies or Clover about her resistance to eat anything healthy unless it is under such deep cover she can't possibly identify it as vitamin rich. And the arguing. Oh, the blasted arguing they all do in any configuration you can imagine. If arguing were an Olympic sport, these kids could sweep the Gold.
Any and all of these things are plenty stressful to me. It's alright though, because I signed on for this parenting gig and it really, really is my pleasure to get to live with you all. Stress and all.
But, let's be clear, most of all, I stress my own self out. Like all others, I am my own worst enemy, standing in full opposition to myself far too much of the time. We all - each and every one of us - has to work pretty much incessantly to push down and resist and squelch and diminish our sin and baggage and yet it just keeps rearing its ugly head, a nasty beast we wish we could finally, once and for all, tame. The truth is, we won't. Not completely. Not in this lifetime. Not until we are all ushered into the next and are made gloriously, purely, whole.
So, it's nothing to worry over. We'll just keep making our way together the best we can. Some days we'll rock it like super warrior conquerors and others we'll shrink back, weary of the battle, and just be ready for nightfall because we know that means the sun will rise again anew, giving us a fresh chance.
Don't ever blame yourselves for being a living breathing soul. Humans tend to spatter stress out all over the place. We just can't help ourselves. The closer you stand to someone, the more you get sprayed.
No matter what, I will never stop working it out with you, okay?
We are family, you and I and that's what families do.
I love you both very much,
Mommy ♥
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