A Week (almost) In.......................

Hey gang, my two tots are out for the count and my sweet hubs is at Bible Study so I thought I would get on and say hello while I am sitting in the glorious peace and quiet of my very own home. I think there is nothing I love more than that these days. It is nice to have quiet any way you can get it, but in your very own house it is most glorious. I wouldn't turn on that TV if you paid me a million dollars (ok well I would but you know what I mean). Silence is my greatest commodity these days.

So one week (almost) in, where to start? In the middle of my types I am icing my eye bone where my sweet son clocked me today. The good news is, he was being sweet and we were playing. The bad news is, this is a bit symbolic of how I feel at moments. I'll start with the not so good and we'll end on a high note, how about that. Cross is struggling but it is ONLY a week (almost) in so I am not worried at all, just tired and tired and patient are rarely related. We have also decided that we have two children who span the great extremes on the personality profile. She is calm, smiley, helpful, smiley, and her version of running through the house is like a light prance. CROSS IS A WILD BOY (I wanted to say heathen but he may read this one day). Jeremy's mom encouraged me last night that Jeremy was JUST like him and he obviously turned into a fine young man. And my precious doctor reminded me that Cross will know he needs a Savior, Mercy might think she is perfect without one. Tell me that's not a good word for us all.

It is almost as if this new sister thing has put his boy nature on steroids. Hence the probably black eye on my part and the horrible reality of comparison that I just can't seem to shake already. So pray for Cross, pray for us, pray Mercy doesn't get physically harmed (too bad at least) in all of this. Cross LOVES her most moments, sometimes just a little too much. She thinks it is all hilarious until he pushes too far and then she calls for back-up. This is a good time to mention that Cross had also grown a foot and 10 pounds in the short week that we were gone and he towers over her and frankly me as well. Another problem lies in the fact that I think I have been over compensating. I felt like every time I even glanced her way I needed to pay him a compliment and my dear friend set me free of that by saying that it is NOT a bad thing that he is not the center of the universe anymore. I just needed to hear that it was okay, okay that he had to share basically everything, that in the end it would make him a better man. Honestly the only other bad is our 4-6 a.m. wake up sessions. I feel like I have a newborn for many reasons but this sleep thing is killing me. I wanna have one full night and thus break away from my Diet Dr. Pepper obsession. I hadn't had a "coke" (that one's for you Delilah) in months and now I wake up thinking about my ice cold $1 Diet Dr. Pepper and today I remembered Sonic has $1 drinks in the a.m. Oh sweet Jesus if I go on talking about it I'll never be free again.

Ok, on to the good, let's change the subject. First off, thank you tons for your prayers in regards to sweet Snicker girl. After some glorious wise counsel from another adoptive mom, Snick and Mercy are now almost officially BFF's. She chases Snick and tries to pet her and she feeds her and she tells her bye-bye when we leave. She did let out a blood curdling scream this a.m. when Snick woke her up by jumping in her bed but other than that she has done perfect with the dog. Her behavior has also been very close to perfect after the first 48. I am praying we just had an early testing of the boundaries and now we understand that there are some but I am still trying to stick with zero expectations to be safe. Outings have been good, the few we've done. She is good as long as we are right there. She is a far from being able to play freely with adults though, that is certainly obvious. She just has ZERO stranger anxiety which is not healthy so we are still asking people to please just say hi and then direct her on to mommy and daddy. That will probably have to go on for several months but it is the only way we can actually have a life and still do what is best for her. It is just so hard because she is SO darn cute but that also helps with Cross' behavior because he doesn't feel threatened which good or bad certainly makes for a more pleasant visit.

And then finally, just because my brain is tired and my thoughts are random, I have a few things that people have asked me over this journey (either directly or indirectly) that I think are questions I would ask and want to know the answer to, especially in terms of adoption. So I think while we are all happy and I need to make myself stay up until at LEAST 8:30 I'll just take this moment to share. The first is Jesus, Jesus told us to do this, He told us to name her Mercy, He told us she was "in Ethiopia and to go and get her now". WHAT IF WE HAD NOT OBEYED? That is probably the greatest sobering fact for me right now. The first few days I did feel a bit like I was babysitting, but already I can NOT even fathom life without this sweet girl. Thank you Jesus for giving us the grace and wisdom to obey, Your ways are always best. The second is the topic of infertility. I do not for one second want anyone to think we chose this path because we tried for a few short months to get pregnant again and did not. That topic is so touchy to me because there are somewhere in the vicinity of 163 MILLION ORPHANS out there and if we only adopt because we can not get pregnant then that is a sad day in Christianity if you ask me. We adopted first because God told us to, but secondly because I got to see first hand the need. When I walked into that first orphanage in Ethiopia (which was Mercy's orphanage btw) and I went in a saw that baby room, filled with sick, starving babies, I literally thought I was going to throw up everywhere, sprint out of the building, and find a way back to the airport and back to the United States. It was literally more than my heart could bare. But then I heard these words "oh yes, all of them are adopted already, all of these babies have homes". It was like a ray of Jesus sunshine showered down into that room and God was saying to me, "see, those families are bringing hope to a hopeless situation".

Guys, YES sometimes God does use infertility to nudge people to adoption and even for me, certainly if I had gotten pregnant over those few months I would have never even gone to Africa, but we have got to understand that there are enough children out there that need homes that no one needs to step to the side "because you can have your own". Well my man is almost home so I am going to leave you tonight with a little blurb from my BFF in the adoption world's blog. She put it perfectly so no need to rewrite the written. I love you guys. Thank you again for your prayers. God knew before the foundation of the earth that Mercy was to be ours. It is not a chance, she is a chosen child of ours. We are so honored God entrusted us with her and that He led us through each and every detail of the process and footed the bill to boot.


http://paynefamilyblessings.blogspot.com/
"The numbers are now at 163 Million so our Adoption Memory shirt is just that... a MEMORY of how many Orphans there were. Now there are MORE. And there will be MORE tomorrow. We need MORE families to step out on their faith and say YES!
Did you know that 34% of Christian Families have considered adoption, but only 1% actually do it! Did you know that if we could raise that number to 7% that there would be NO ORPHANS LEFT IN THIS WORLD??? That was a statistic, shared by Katie Davis that SHOOK ME to my core when I was "just reading" her blog. We had no intentions to adopt, I was just reading her blog, but that statistic haunted me.... After I read that, everything began to change and I began to ask WHY NOT US? We had the room, we were capable of loving more, we had plenty to share with someone who had no one and nothing.... There were many tears shared over that quote.. I so didn't want to be a member of that 1%!
I promise you, that if you SAY YES, it will be a blessing beyond blessings. I only wish that ALL of you could experience the JOY and the LOVE that we feel each and everyday with our little guy! We can't imagine LIFE without him!"

Well said Gina, I t-totally agree!