settling in

Almost one month has passed since our caravan of two red cars arrived in Florida, this time for much more than just a vacation. We spent the first week at Disney's Saratoga Springs on my mom's gracious dime, and the next week at my parents' house on their even more gracious dime. Welcoming a family of SIX into your usually quiet and orderly home and allowing them to stay for an entire week is no easy task! We waited as patiently as we could for our household goods to arrive, and they finally did on that wonderful Friday, July 10. However, anyone who's moved, especially with children, knows that settling into a new home when memories of the last are so fresh and precious can be an emotional challenge. It was! But by God's grace we are quickly making memories in our new home and finding it to be a comfortable place of rest.

The pain of leaving our home in Louisiana was greater than I had anticipated. Even though we were relocating to such a supportive place, the history of the last 6 years was difficult to leave in the rearview mirror. More difficult than leaving the history, which included everything that had happened in our family since our firstborn was 2 months old, was leaving the people I had come to depend on as my closest friends. From special neighbor children and their parents to my fellow young stay-at-home mothers, those relationships were a precious and integral part of our family's network. Though we are staying in touch, long distance communication just can't replace the sweetness and intimacy of long playdates and late evening conversations in the driveway.

It's been helpful for me to remember how difficult it was for me to leave our base home in early 2013. We moved just a few miles down the road, but it felt shocking as we lost our familiar surroundings and transitioned from the base housing community to a civilian neighborhood. It took a year or two, but the memories made in that new house and neighborhood became just as precious as those made in the previous one. Different, but precious. Living on base, we learned how to parent Ezekiel, brought Eden home (almost had her in the living room), adjusted to life with two babies, welcomed Mason home from his first deployment, forged close friendships with our neighbors, and discovered that we were pregnant with Isaiah. Living off base, we brought Isaiah home from the hospital (could have had him in the living room, too), endured his subsequent illness and hospitalization, and adjusted to life with three children ages 3 and under (which took several months). In that house we potty trained, played hard, and began our homeschooling journey in that lovely little upstairs loft-turned-schoolroom. We enjoyed countless mega-playdates and even a few big parties that left us all grateful to God for providing us with such a spacious place to call our home.

So with all of these sweet memories in my pocket, I'm ready to move on and make this new place in Florida our place of ministry, recreation and refreshment.

If you noticed one big event missing from the list of significant things that happened in Louisiana, it's not that I forgot about it - we did bring Kamelia home to that house. But it will take awhile for memories of that time to become sweet. What is actually sweet is when we step back, breathe, and take in the changes God has brought about in her life since then. It's been one year on July 28 since she left the orphanage with us. We try not to use the "o" word with her unless she brings it up, in an effort to respect her past without throwing it in her face constantly (this rule resulted from a helpful conversation with a friend who was adopted herself). Unfortunately, Mason and I were so consumed over the past month with the stresses and duties of relocation that we didn't spend much dedicated time with Kami. Ezekiel, Eden and Isaiah also felt the strain of the fast pace - the displacement of packing, the road trip, the nights in various beds across the southeastern United States - but they were able to take it in stride as you might expect. At times, we felt we had no choice but to expect the same from their new sister, though we knew that the entire ordeal was far more disorienting to her than to the rest of us. One thing is for sure, we couldn't have negotiated this move at all successfully without God's wisdom, grace and forgiveness!

The other night when we arrived at Mason's parents' house, everybody rushed inside to play with grandparents except for Kami, who wanted to swing on the front porch. I took the opportunity to sit down with her and swing. That time of dedicated attention, which was probably just 15-20 minutes, made a huge difference in the way I looked at her for the rest of the day. I realized suddenly that with all of this extended family so close now - both sets of grandparents within half an hour of our house - I would be wise to use the times when my first three are busy to slip away and spend time with my fourth. I am so glad they have a swing, three swings actually! It makes their house a special and easy place to hang out with her. During our porch swinging time, I was able to devote my full attention to her, engage her in conversation and follow her train of thought. She knows so many words now and works hard to string them together meaningfully. These attempts lead to some absurd sentences like "I am pizza," but that's alright; we're simply grateful for the presence of subject and verb and for the fact that she's learned that not every sentence begins with "May I." As usual in these one-on-one moments, she was hungry for communication and eye contact and I got to study her big, deep brown eyes that still show so much pain. It was a sweet time, and I pray that we create more of these moments in order to replace some memories of our less pleasant interactions. For instance, one morning this week she came into our room, head soaking wet, and said in an instructive voice, "no hairspray." Her self-instructive statement indicated that she knew she was not to play with the hair conditioning spray, but chose to do so anyway, which soaked her clothes and a spot of carpet and left me with an empty $3 bottle. Why this irked me so much I don't know, but my reaction was less than Christ-like. After mornings like those I shake my head and sometimes laugh - because I don't know what else to do, and also because I marvel at the differences in the ways I instinctively respond to my children. I know that if 2-year-old Isaiah had done the same thing, he would have met with a much different response from me: probably something like "Uh-oh! No-no, let's not play with bottles, ok? You're so cute, I love you!"

I've said it before and I'll say it again, adoption is a messy yet lovely business. Redemption is costly, and since we're not God, we don't always play our role in the story gracefully. But as always we rely on the love He has for us and for her and we press on. My attitude is the most important factor in the equation, and unfortunately during the last month's upheaval I let days and weeks slip by without focused time in God's Word. Now that the boxes are unpacked and I realize my error, we are sailing for smoother waters as I study how to be effective and productive in my knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1 is where I'm camping out for awhile.

I plan to follow this up with a picture post, but for now words will do! As we continue to adjust to our new life here, please know this, LA friends: we love you and are looking forward to seeing you again, whether here or there. Now that we live in Florida, our kids think we will take our vacations to Louisiana. We'll see about that!