great endings

This weekend has been long and not all that fun. There were fun parts to it, but overall it's been work and frustration. We've had a million and one errands to run and the house, despite my best efforts, is a train wreck. I'm sure you're thinking, "Get over it, you have kids now. The house will always be a mess." But it's hard for me. It feels yucky and I'm not a big fan. So I complain a lot and wish it would be clean. Maybe I need to try cleaning more. Oh well. Let's move on.

There have been some things this weekend that were very special. We had a visit with some of the girls' birth family. We met them at Peter Piper and all the kids played. Lucy just screamed any time someone other than me wanted to hold her. This is her thing and has been since she was about 3 months old. It's nothing personal. If you aren't mama, she doesn't want you to hold her for longer than a few minutes. Our friend jokes that she has a 5 minute time limit. Oh, he's not joking. It's not 5 minutes either. She usually won't make it that long. It's the really dramatic crying too, complete with tears and shaking sometimes. She stops instantly when she thinks I'm taking her back. My hands don't even have to be on her yet and she'll usually stop. It's sweet and all that she loves me so much, but man, it's tricky when people just want to love on her. We'll always wonder: is it because she's adopted or would she have always been that way?

Back to the story... The visit was good, but this was the hardest one on Emily. She's processing. The wheels are turning. I know she's hurting, but it's hard to know how to comfort her and what the right things are to say. Although I never want her to feel sadness and hurt, I think this was the best visit so far. It seems like it's hitting her that this whole adoption thing is for good. She is settling into her new life and learning to deal with that comes with having a new life, and that is that she's had an old one. That is a strange concept and we are working through it with her.

More good things: my oldest, dearest, best friend bought the girls some books and brought them by today. We sat in my living room playing with toys, reading books, catching up. It was lovely. It was just what I needed. When chatting about how it's hard to feel connected to friends is tough right now because of how needed I am at home, I said, "who else would want to come and do this with me?!" This is how I have to hang out right now. It's not coffee or dinner with the girls. It's not shopping or lunch or even phone calls right now. It's someone texting to see if I'm home right then and then just coming over, whether I liked it or not. I did like it, by the way. Thanks, Bex, for being wonderful.

I won't go into the draining, tiring, hard parts of the weekend. I will not bore you (or humor you) with my discipline situations from this weekend.

I will tell you this: we had a wonderful bedtime tonight and I snuggled Emi into bed and held her tight, thanking God for my daughter. I also thanked Him for great endings. It's exactly what I needed to an overwhelming weekend.