Random Contemplations

I have had such a difficult time, even thinking of writing this post, so please forgive me if you have been expectantly waiting on an update. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting…I did e-mail many of my readers to let them know what has happened, but I do realize the rest of you are unaware and may be wondering what happened after we left to bring Violet home.

After meeting Violet, spending the weekend with her, and bringing her home with us for a couple of days, we made a very difficult decision…we decided to not go forward with adopting her. We felt it was the best thing for our children already in our home and for Violet. I can’t say that there was any one thing that was wrong to make us decide that, but I can say that I felt it, in my spirit, that it was not the right choice for us as a family. With many, many tears we told her caseworker that it just wasn’t the right fit, timing, the right thing for any of the kids, two of whom need so much because of special needs…I don’t know what exactly, but not right, and she understood. She understood, amazingly. I truly never thought I could do such a thing, it was hard, it was painfully sad, I am still grieving…but it was the right choice.

Violet went back to her foster home a week ago today, and believe me when I say, she was quite happy to tell us good-bye, and go to see her “mama” and “daddy” and siblings that she has known and attached to so strongly. It was like a little weekend get-a-way and then she went back to what she knew. I am thankful for her foster family, who showers her with so much love, and has nurtured her through her hurts. They are very loving and patient with her and have a real gift for helping hurting children to begin to heal before they move on to their new forever families. Violet is their 38th foster child! God bless their efforts!! I have to say that a part of me really wishes that they would adopt little Violet, I wished it even before we went down there, because they are the only people she has ever attached to in her life. I know though, that the Lord has a plan for Violet, a path that is hers, one that I cannot see, but the Lord can see it and from His view it is beautiful, it is orderly, not the messy, broken one that I see. Briefly, our lives connected, were intertwined in His tapestry, He knows why, He has a divine plan.

Psalm 34:1-10
1 [a] I will extol the LORD at all times;
his praise will always be on my lips.

2 My soul will boast in the LORD;
let the afflicted hear and rejoice.

3 Glorify the LORD with me;
let us exalt his name together.

4 I sought the LORD, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.

5 Those who look to him are radiant;
their faces are never covered with shame.

6 This poor man called, and the LORD heard him;
he saved him out of all his troubles.

7 The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him,
and he delivers them.

8 Taste and see that the LORD is good;
blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.

9 Fear the LORD, you his saints,
for those who fear him lack nothing.

10 The lions may grow weak and hungry,
but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

It was an extremely difficult decision, one of the hardest I’ve ever had to make. A friend wrote to me, “God’s ways can be hard, but I do know that He helps our hearts to follow along on His path”… not always an easy path, but all we can do is faithfully continue down the path that we believe that He has for us.

I am very thankful for all of you who have called or e-mailed with your prayers and words of encouragment!  Your words have been very soothing to my heart and spirit!

I will continue to work through this, just please know that your prayers are appreciated, even coveted, for my family, but mainly for Violet. There is still a home out there waiting for her, a mom and dad who have had the desire put into their hearts to help and to love a little girl…

Continue to love one another!~Yvonne

Camping was fun this weekend. In the beginning, I couldn’t believe that Hubby was “making” me go camping (on our 15th anniversary too) when I have so much to do here at the house before we leave on Thursday, but I am now so glad that we went. He said I needed to get away and relax, away from the house, and he was right. Sitting on the rocks by the lake, listening to the waves hit the shore…I was able to relax and just “be still”. Luckily, Hubby doesn’t read my blog, so he won’t know that I said how right he was! :-)

I have been cleaning and organizing all day! I just don’t want to have a lot of stuff like that hanging over my head after we get Violet here, I want to be able to just focus on the kids, and all of us getting to know each other. I even pulled out the washer and dryer today and cleaned behind there, believe me it was scary! EEK!

We had a phone conference last Thrursday with Violet’s foster parents, and it was so encouraging to me! We, for the first time, heard positive things about Violet! Up until now it has just been all the things that she has a hard time with, behaviours that she has done to show her unhappiness, ect…but now I can have much more postitive images in my head when I think of her. She giggles, she likes to be tickled, she likes Barney, and Dora the Explorer, she likes to ask if she looks cute in the mornings after she gets dressed, she likes bubbles in the tub, eats just about anything but spinach, and her nickname is Peaches. :-) I heard her say her name over the phone, and my heart melted hearing that little voice. Oh, I can’t wait to see her!!!!

I leave you with some pictures of our camping trip!

Love one another!~Yvonne

I have a sick little one again today, but we still went to a birthday party, for my nephew Evan, they are all snotty over there too so why not continue to share the germs? :-) Joshua isn’t running a fever though, just a very snotty nose, and a cough, a glaze to his eyes…poor Pooh Bear. I wore him in the Ergo for a lot of the day, and he was very content there. I am finding it to be more and more comfortable all the time, my body did have to get used to lugging my 28 pound boy around! Now we both love it!

Hubby spent most of the day at his mom’s house doing our taxes, and I’m so excited to announce that with our adoption tax credit we are going to be out of debt! A car and house payment only! Pooh Bear told Daddy he is hoping for a pony out of the deal, but Daddy wasn’t buying! Shucks! Just think of all the benefit of our own hippotherapy we get out of a pony! What a huge blessing, we are so thankful!

Mee Mee and Bubbie (my mom and dad) are in town and Christine is spending the night over at my sister’s house with them tonight. The cousins were thrilled! It’s quite exciting when your big cousin spends the night you know! Speaking of Christine, on Friday she began her volunteer position as my nephew Eli’s aide at the homeschool co-op that my sister’s family attends. Eli is 4, with special needs and still non-verbal, so he was having to attend the baby nursery with his mom and little brother all last semester and he was soooo bored in there. I suggested to my sister that Eli should have an aide to help him to be in the class with his peers, and my Christine volunteered to be the one. They both had such a great time, she came home so excited, telling me all about Eli’s teachers and who played with him and how he likes to eat crayons but she helped him to color like the other little ones. It is going to be so good for both of them, I just thank God for her servant’s heart for her cousins! I had wonderful big cousins who were awesome to me too when I was little so I really know how much she means to all those little guys.

I always end with “Love one another”…I just want you all to know that all your words of encouragment and your prayers for my Violet make me feel so loved! Thank you all! I will personally respond to all of you as soon as I can. I would have liked to have done so already, but recently I have been buried in Violet’s case file, which is only about a foot high!

Love one another!~Yvonne

We’ve officially been chosen as Violet’s new family! Hooray! Praise God! We are all thrilled, to put it mildly. :-)

We have not yet been told the date that we will be going to get her, there are still things that her caseworker needs to get done, paperwork mainly, but it will happen and that is all that I need to know right now. I now concentrate on praying and preparing for her transition to our home. To be two and taken from all you know to go with strangers…I know that God can prepare her heart though! Thank you so much my friends who pray on our family’s behalf, it is such a joy and a comfort to my heart!

I am still in awe and overwhelmed with JOY tonight…

Love one another!~Yvonne

We will soon be in the midst of caseworker visits again. I am so, so thankful that we will probably have the same one we did for Joshua, that is IF we get Little Miss V. When you are first starting out on the adoption journey or foster parent journey you just don’t know what to expect from the caseworkers. When they come to your home, you run around cleaning like a madwoman (at least I did) and fear that if you don’t pass the white glove test it will be a mar on your record, I even feared losing Joshua if I didn’t appear to be perfect. That was a bit extreme, but when you love a little person that much and someone else is in “control” of them being in your home it can be, was, nervewracking. Those were fears I had at that time…

Now, a year later, I know that the caseworkers were not looking for me to do something wrong like I had feared. Indeed, they even wanted us to succeed as a family, even if my couch had a load of laundry on it, or the legos were scattered accross the floor! Imagine that! I am glad to have that knowlege now, as I prepare to go down that path again.

I read a blog entry tonight that made me think of this, it’s title: Barbies and Caseworkers go over and read it if you are interested in the topic, it’s a very enlightening piece written from both sides of the fence.

Do you ever click to my blog and wonder if you are in the right place? I feel the need to change the look of my blog yet again. We are in the midst of the winter blahs here in Texas, probably the longest one that I can remember in a very long time. I’ve already moved all the furniture I can, so now the blog gets a dose of change too, as much as possible without having to pay someone to do it for me. I have looked all through all the cool blog designs at Bluebird Blogs, but I don’t forsee any spare money lying around to do that anytime in the near future. Susie sure does create some fabulous looks though! Maybe one day!

Joshua is doing so well tonight that you would not even know that he has the flu! Christine, while she has stopped throwing up, still is running a fever that is keeping her quite uncomfortable. At least she is young and doesn’t have to still keep up with a toddler right? :-) Instead she gets to lie in bed and watch Sense and Sensability, and Pride and Prejudice all day long. Hey, that sounds pretty good to me right now!

I started reading a book called Holding Time tonight. If you have read it, I’d love to know how it worked for you or your opinion of it. I have heard many mixed reviews, but bought I bought it mainly in preparation for when/if we get Violet, and attachment issues.

Speaking of Violet…we will hear on February 13th if we are the chosen family for her or not! The month is already feeling very long and it’s only one day in! Still praying for her transition to a new home and for God’s will. It will be difficult to accept if we are not chosen, but I know that God will hold me up throughout what will feel like a loss. I have dreamt of her, envisioned her in our family, kissed her little picture good-night even, I feel as if she is here already at times. May God’s will be done, and my will be in sync with His.

I spoke too soon, my baby girl is sick in the bathroom once again…I guess I don’t want to be her afterall today! Of course I would gladly trade places with her for her to feel better. Off to hold a cool washcloth on her forehead!

I have taken the picture of Violet down now, if you missed it and would like to see her shoot me an e-mail and I’ll send you her picture!

The past couple of days have been busy caring for Joshua. I took him in to see his doc yesterday, to learn that he had a double ear infection and a double eye infection. He had stuff oozing from both places so it wasn’t a surprise to me. He was up in the night the night before last for a couple of hours and I actually enjoyed it because he sat and cuddled on the couch with me and drank a bottle and watched Wiggles. I later took him to bed and ended up sleeping the rest of the night in his bed, and he snuggled up to me the entire night. I was a Mama in heaven! Christine slept with us for many years, but Joshua has never been able to calm himself enough to sleep if someone was with him, so this was a VERY special treat for me. Ahh….

I heard from the nuerologist today. They told me that Joshua’s MRI on his brain was normal, and the EEG did not show any seizure activity at this time, but that it did show “irritability”. The nurse explained to me that they will need to keep watching him because of the irritability, that it is seen in people who go on to experience seizures, BUT that there are some individuals who exhibit that same irritability but never develop seizures. So, I am very hopeful that he will not develop seizures!

Violet’s caseworker e-mailed me the other day and reported that she had gone to a doctor’s (nuerology) visit with her early that morning, and that all seemed to be fine. I wish I could have gone!

Thank you all so very much for your kindness, for your prayers for our family. It is a wonderful thing to know we are being lifted in prayer!

Love one another!~Yvonne

We are in the midst of hopeful prayer for a little girl, a child named Violet. Joshua’s former CPS worker has called us and seems very hopeful that we will be the family chosen for her. Violet turned 2 in September, so she is 9 months younger than Joshua, and has had quite a rough time in those two years. Please, join me in praying for her transition to a new home, as she has bonded with her foster family and it would be expected that she will have a very tough time with the transition.

We are very excited at the prospect of having Violet as our new daughter, and the kids new sister in our family! I am finding it difficult to think of anything else this week! I will update when I know more.

Update: This is our very first picture of Violet, I just got it today! We have all stood and looked and ooh’ed and ahh’ed over her for about an hour now. :-) It is nice to have a picture, I already think of her constantly, and now I will have a sweet little face to think of too! I am going to keep it up for a few days but then I will remove it, so hopefully dear readers you will get to see her while she up!

Love one another!~Yvonne

I just read a post, by Erin of Transracial/Transcultural Adoption Blog, responding to a question she often receives from others: “Are you done yet?”. Erin is an adoptive mom that I really love to read and truly admire. Go over and read it for yourself!

Our Family Size

I know just what she means when she says that she just feels like someone is missing!

Love one another!~Yvonne

If you are interested in the subject of attachment and adoption, I suggest you go over and read Erin’s post, she has adopted all different ages and has great experiences to share.

Questions and answers- Age and Attacment in Adoption

Love one another!~Yvonne