I won’t lie. Grace has given us a run for our money in terms of behavior. In stressful situations, people tend to flee, fight, or freeze. Grace is a fighter. As a kid from a hard place, she is constantly in a state of high alert and very high stress so she is fighting the majority...
Category: Our Adoption Adventure
Lenten Lessons about Parenting Traumatized Kids
The kids and I have been reading through Contemplating the Crossduring this year’s Lenten season. The reading level is advanced but I’ve really enjoyed the way we’ve been able to camp on the Easter story. One verse, one day at a time. Mostly, I’ve been challenged by how it relates to this season in our...
Life is Good
But right now life is also hard. Harder than normal…whatever that is. Ironically, life is hard right now because John, Kayla, and Grace are grappling with the concept that life IS hard. It requires hard work. It requires us to do things we don’t necessarily want to do. Our pastor recently quoted a football coach...
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
“Get your running shoes on, ladies. You can run while I make lunch.” This was The Bad. I probably should have warned them ahead of time…like at breakfast. That’s how it started. We have this weird lag while I make lunch, and I thought it would be a great time to fit in the girls’ movement....
The Truth of the Matter
If I had a dollar for every time we’ve been asked, “How is everything going?” we may be able to put our kids through college. Okay, not really, but you get the idea. So how is everything going? I normally answer that we’re doing really well. And we are. On one hand, in the grand scheme...
We have Grace!
After a less than comfy ride to Addis, we freshened up at the guest house and, then, headed to Abenezer to pick up Grace. We hung out with the kids there while she took lots of pictures and said good-bye to her friends and nannies. For dinner, we at Habesha (Ethiopian), of course! Grace couldn’t...
Day 62
We don’t call them adoption adventures for nothing. We left the house a little later than we planned. After 2 cups of coffee, Patrick was desperate for a pit stop before we got to the airport. Traffic was worse than anticipated so we couldn’t really afford to stop but when nature calls… The easiest access...
The Details
After passing court for Grace in a whirlwind with four other families, we were suddenly optimistic we could return quickly for her Embassy appointment as some families were travelling as soon as 4 weeks after court. In mid-September we heard we might get submitted anytime. Then came October. No submission. By this time, we were...