Oh, man.  I know it sounds cliché, but I knew so much about parenting before I actually became a parent.  I could have written books with all the knowledge that I had gleaned from years of being a mentor, counselor, and youth worker.  My husband and I were married for nearly 7 years before we adopted and had talked through many of the scenarios that we were certain would come up once children came into the picture. 

While it is fun to daydream and play out those scenarios, almost none of these situations have come up in actual parenting.  I am convinced that is to keep us humble.  I would never have admitted it, but I had parenting pride even though I had not yet become a parent.

When our kids moved in, I treated it like we were at a youth retreat with new students.  I was friendly, funny, warm and tried to get them to feel comfortable.  That is all well and good, but that is not the best way that we should approach parenting.  The first time that a discipline issue arose, I panicked and deferred to my husband.  I liked being the “cool parent”, the laid back one, the one that fixed situations with wise words and reason.  Turns out, that doesn’t always work out the way we think it will.

Please hear me out.  The wisdom that I gained from experience in ministry and through studying God’s word truly was useful for training our kids in righteousness.  We had to rely on God’s spirit to give us wisdom to take those general principles and apply them to meet the specific needs of each situation.

Our adoption classes and experiences failed to teach us how to deal with our son’s fantasized version of his parents.  Having read their files, we knew the truth and it was far from what my son thought.  How should we help bring a child back to reality and speak truth, but not defame his birth mother?  Unfortunately, we didn’t exactly know. 

We explained that every one of our choices has long and lasting consequences.  But, this is where our counselor was able to offer assistance. We still take our kids every few weeks to meet with a Christian therapist even though CPS no longer requires it.  She has an incredible way with words and has a unique ability to help bring about understanding.  Despite what I would wish for, most parenting issues are not solved in a single conversation, but through years of consistency and modeling. 

My husband and I are both growing as parents.  We strive to model Jesus, but generally fall VERY short of that.  We were each fortunate enough to have amazing parents, who always seemed to know the answer and what to do in every situation.  Then it began to dawn on me one day, were they simply faking it?  Our parents seem so wise and experienced, but maybe they were just winging it.  This thought was rocking my world. 

So, what did this planner/people pleaser do? I began to learn to trust more and more in my Heavenly Father to give me wisdom and guidance.  I also learned that every parent out there (for the most part) is trying to raise their best kids that they can.  We all fall short.  EVERY. LAST. ONE. 

This profound thought can either overwhelm or empower.  I try to choose to take that extra moment before speaking, take a deep breath in and ask God for help.  And surprisingly (well, not really), God provides. 

I pray that as you consider entering this road less traveled, you enter with caution and humility.  Find a support network, spend serious time in prayer, learn from more experienced parents, and most importantly understand that when (not if) you fail, you join the ranks of every other parent ever.  Pray for God’s forgiveness and ask your child for forgiveness as well.  In order to be used by God for big things, He must increase and we must decrease. 

Am I a bad parent?

We were parents.  We had a son and a daughter.  Now, how in the world do we entertain these kids?  In our pre-parenting days, we were “that couple” that had it all planned out with how our kids would be different from “everyone else’s kids”.  You know, “that couple”.  “When we have kids, they will never…”.  Blah, blah, blah.  Oh to be young and idealistic.  In many ways we were incredibly naïve to the struggles and challenges of parenting.  Here are a few of the things we said we would never do, but at some point or another did.  Sorry, not sorry.

1.    Let TV babysit our kids

Now this was definitely not an all-the-time thing, but it did happen more than I ever thought it would.  We tried our best to restrict TV at our house to one hour a day in the summer, but being in grad school I needed a little peace and quiet. And, unfortunately, educational programs would not always get the job done.   Sometimes, you just need a little Alvin and the Chipmunks to so you can power through a discussion post. 

2.    Yell at our children

I came from a family of yellers.  We were passionate folks, but I always envisioned a peaceful home where kids were disciplined and calm mannered.  Think Full House. I wanted to sit my children down and explain to them rationally why what they were doing was wrong, but sometimes kids need to know that their parents can lose it a bit.  Something about hearing a generally mild-mannered parent lose it every now and then can act like a reset button for an unruly child.  

3.    Use sweets to bribe my kids

Don’t judge me.  We really are pretty restrictive about sweets in our house.  Sometimes you need to get things done in your household, and you don’t have the energy to negotiate with a pint-sized tyrant. The promise of dessert can motivate in ways that my words will never be able to.

Hopefully, this makes you feel better.  We are all just trying our best, but no one is perfect.  There were, however, a few things I feel that we did well, and I want to share those too.  Adoption, and parenting for that matter, is tough work, so we should celebrate the small victories.

1.    Hung out with our friends with kids

We began this very early on, and I think it made the transition much easier. There is something about throwing kids on some floats as you soak in a pool that makes all well in the world.  Our kids had left behind all the friends they had known, but now they were learning that they had many new friends who were thrilled to get to know them.

2.    Found things the kids loved and embraced them

My kids love animals.  The zoo became our best friend.  I think that first summer we went there about 5 times.  A membership was one of the best gifts we have ever received.

3.    Got our kids involved with service activities

We brought our kids along when our church did service activities, and I am so glad they went.  They were able to hang out and do a work project alongside at-risk teen boys and serve meals to the homeless.  The kids loved it and we loved watching them show love to others.  So sweet.

Those first few months were a blur of excitement, chaos, and pop-in visits from caseworkers.  We were trying to figure this whole family thing out, and thankfully we have a gracious heavenly Father who provided us with an amazing support network.

Getting to Know You

For date #2, we picked the kids up for dinner and let them choose the restaurant. IHOP was picked without hesitation.  When we picked the kids up, Z told us in the sweetest voice you can imagine, “You’re back! I missed you so much!”  It barely felt real.  We took them by my parents’ house, which was close by, and they were able to briefly meet a few members of the family.  This was amazing. 

Our next visit was a sleepover.  I cooked the standard kids’ food, chicken nuggets and fries.  We watched a movie and played some games and let the kids sleep in their rooms.  H was excited to sleep in his own room, but for Z, this was the first time to ever be in her own room.  She was sad and scared at first, but we prayed, did the obligatory monster check and thankfully, my sweet dog Vida hopped up the bed to sleep with Z, and all was well. 

For some reason, after our few dates, CPS told us that we were going to have to wait a full week with no face-to-face contact with the kids prior to them moving in.  I’m sure there is some logic behind this, but for me this was pure agony.  Imagine having your newborn taken away after birth and returned a week later.  I tried to busy myself with tasks that needed to be completed prior to them moving in, but I just kept counting down the days until they moved in. 

Talking on the phone was all that we had, and phone conversations with young children can be tough.  We made the most of it though.  I looked forward to those 10-minute phone calls, and we scheduled our lives around them. 

Finally, on June 13^th, we picked our kids up for the last time from their foster home and brought them to their new forever home.  That drive was surreal and the kids kept talking about how excited they were.  BEST. DAY. EVER.  This did not make the adoption official in the eyes of the law, but in our eyes, it was final.

Our First Date

In the last post, we had just discovered that we were chosen to adopt H & Z.  We read their file and spoke to their foster parents.  This was getting real in a hurry.  Because it was almost the end of the school year, we set a move-in date and allowed for about a week or so to get to know the kids. 

Up until this point, the kids had not yet known that they were going to be adopted.  Without going into too much detail, our beautiful kids were told once before that they were going to be adopted, only to have it fall through in a most devastating manner.  Now, CPS was correctly trying to shield their emotions until we were 110% sure that we wanted to adopt.  A few days before our first “date” with the kids, they were told about the adoption and given our lifebook about our family.  Z was thrilled, and H was less than ecstatic (understandably so) until he found out we had dogs. 

Our caseworker sent us a photo of the kids with the lifebook and I seriously lost it.  I was at work, and kept tearing up.  These were our babies. They were 5 and 10 years old, and not biologically ours, but these were our babies nonetheless.

We met them the first time with the caseworker at the foster parents house.  We were told to bring a gift, so I brought the blankets I had made each of them.  We were bubbling over with excitement, but the kids were a little unsure about us.  That is until Z with all her friendliness (which as I am discovering now is a little too friendly at times) plopped herself right between me and my husband.  She held our hands, and all the tension began to melt away.  H was more reserved, but still warm toward us.  We left that night, and made plans to meet them for dinner at the end of the week. 

                                                                                                 

We've Been Chosen!

In the last blog about our journey, we found out that we were in the top three families considered to adopt H & Z.  We were ecstatic, but tried to remind ourselves that there were many steps remaining before any children would be in our home.   One afternoon in April of 2014, we received a call that would change our lives forever.  We were chosen as the top family for the kids.  Our case worker wanted to know if we were still interested, and we of course responded with an emphatic, “YES!” 

                                              

We knew very little about them, their history, or what they would need.  Their photo (a grainy black-and-white photocopy) was already posted proudly on our refrigerator.  We had been praying that they were safe and loved even before they moved into our home.  This was getting so real, and we asked all of our friends and family to pray that we would not simply get swept up in excitement, but that we would make wise decisions regarding our future family.

We were told that there was still quite a process ahead, but everything felt finalized.  We scheduled a time to meet with the kids’ caseworker.  She came by our house and told us more about the kids.  She shared how our son wanted to change his name to Tre’, but she was not sure why.  She also told us that our daughter looked up to her big brother.  He was her hero and she adored him.  We heard a bit about how they were brought into CPS custody and what they had been through in the foster system.  We hurt for our kids over the things that no kid should ever have to go through. 

The next step involved us reading their complete file.  This task may be incredibly daunting depending on how long the child or children have been in CPS custody.  Unfortunately, our kids had spent quite some time in the system in various houses, and therefore had extremely lengthy files, which were probably nearly 1,000 pages long in total.  These must be read in the CPS office in a single sitting.  My husband and I divided and conquered the stacks, and shared information that seemed pertinent.  We spoke in depth to the caseworker that had known the kids for most of the time that they were in CPS custody.  Although we could never know EVERYTHING, this was about as good as we could get.

We were then scheduled to have a conference with their current foster parents.  All that we managed to arrange was a conference call with the foster dad due to their schedules.  This conversation provided us with more insight than we realized at the time.  I would suggest writing down questions ahead of time that you feel will help you to better understand what life is like with the kids day in and day out.  At the end of all this, we were decided.  We wanted these kids to be our kids.

My husband and I were thrilled, of course, over the idea of these adorable kids coming into our family and the adventure ahead of us.  I know that I say this all the time, but this new adventure in our lives came at a tremendous cost to our kids and their bio family.  I don’t say this to put a damper on your excitement, but rather to help with future interactions with your kids.  There will most definitely be days when your kids will not feel happy to be a part of your family.  There will be days when your child will blame CPS for taking them away from their families.  There will be days when they remember their parents as nothing less than perfect.  There will be days when all they can see are your flaws.  There will be days when nothing will seem right, no matter how hard you try. 

I challenge you to remember two things in those times: your excitement at the very beginning and the long-term goal.  You are changing lives forever, and that quite the undertaking.