Dear Mama...

It's been more than three months since I hugged your neck goodbye.  You kissed your baby, buckled her up, and we drove away.  You may never see this, but I am writing to you anyway.


You have missed so much already.  I remember us celebrating her learning to roll over the last time we were together.  You wouldn't believe what she has done since then!  In the last 100+ days your baby has learned to sit up, wave, clap, feed herself puffs, laugh, and go to sleep without being rocked.  She loves veggies more than fruit (that is a first in our house).  She also has two teeth and is finally getting some hair.  I know you would be excited about that with me.


The most exciting?  LOOK AT THIS!

She is incredible.  Time is flying and she is proving to be a determined little person.  She is getting more of an opinion and is not a fan of being told no.  When we take something away that wouldn’t be safe for her to play with, boy does she lets us know about it.  She is smart, I can already tell.  


Remember her smile?  It still lights up a room and it is the most defining thing about her personality.  She is such a happy kid.  I hope that she will always be happy, but I know there will be sad days down the road.  We all have to deal with things that are difficult and we all have sad days.  It's an inevitable part of life.  Sometimes I feel like I already know what some of those things will be for her though.


As I look at her sweet face I still see you.  I see your eyes.  I see the same dimple in her cheek that you have in yours.  The reminder is that no matter where you are you will always be a part of her.


I anticipate that you will always be important to her in ways that I won't fully understand.  If she is still with us years down the road, she may ask me questions about the short time that I had to know you and want to know what you were like.  She will wonder if she is like you.  She will probably look at pictures of the two of you together and wonder other things like…Why didn't you fight harder?  Why wasn't she important enough to you?  I weep about these things because I know it doesn't have anything to do with her.  I'm just afraid my answers will always be up against the lies of the enemy who will want her to believe that she "wasn't enough" and will want her to think that she should have been.  The truth is, no one is "enough" to compete with a stronghold that controls your life.  I cannot even wrap my mind around some struggles you have, but I know that no one on the planet can convince you to fight it unless you are ready.  You have to want it.  You have to be desperate to be free.  You have to hate what it is doing to you.  You have to see it with different eyes.  You have to be willing to leave all that you know and start over with new people.  You have to face some things you are running from, like pain, regret, and shame.  You have to be vulnerable.  You have to be willing to forgive others and humble yourself so that you can receive it as well.  You have to let new people into your life that want your freedom too, even when you want to run back.  More than anything, you need God and His help to overcome it.  Your kids should add fuel to the fire but they cannot be the only reason you have to fight.  I know you know that.


Knowing the truth will never matter though, unless you are ready. 


If and when those questions come up, and as many times as she needs to hear it, we will tell her what is true.  She IS precious and wanted.  She IS worth fighting for.  She IS loved and important enough to do whatever it takes to protect her and know that she is loved.  No matter who has the great privilege of raising her, there is a Savior who did all of that so she would never have to live with those lies.  He died for her and fought for her freedom from the grips of sin and the enemy long before she was knit together in your womb.  I hope that His love for her, His protection over her from the very beginning, and all that He does in her life will one day bring her heart to a place of surrender, trust, and overwhelming joy. 


I can see all of that for her already, but it won't matter until she sees if for herself.


The last eight months have really drove home the fact that no one can ever force us to see the truth, embrace the truth, or live any other way than how we ultimately want to.  This quote came across my Facebook feed a few months ago and it has resonated…


“If you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse." - Jim Rohn


We can blame others and make them our excuse, but at the end of the day we have to decide what we want to live for.  If we want to overcome, heal, or fight for freedom we need the help of others, but no one can choose it for us.  I still believe God is absolutely able to deliver you, but you have to surrender your life to Him.  The same thing is true for me and every human being on the planet.


We still love you.  While we wait and pray, we will keep loving your baby.  She is wonderful and we thank God for the gift of her life that came through you.  We understand the weight of that.  We are blessed beyond measure to have her with us and to be a part of her life.


So, until we meet again...


Your baby's foster mama

Birthdays, Holidays, and Not So Fun Days

Hello again friends and family.  Anyone interested in a long overdue update from our clan?

I haven't touched the keys on my computer for about two months.  A lot has gone on since my last post and not much time to sit down and write about it.  Jeff lost his second grandpa in 6 months back in November.  His family has been grieving on both sides and I have hated it, especially for his mom and dad.  I had the honor of watching them all come together and get through the holidays with such grace. Loss is hard.

Also in the "not so fun days" category would be the stomach bug that ran through all the bio kids once, and Ella actually three times.  She had a long list of weird health issues (I'll spare you the details) for about two weeks. The events of December resulted in roughly 5 trips to the doctor. One morning, when Ella was sick for a third time, she was laying on a pallet in the living room just looking at the Christmas tree.  She said, "maybe next Cwistmas I won't be sick, Mommy."  Ugh.  Toward the end of her whole ordeal she was crying one night I just started crying too.  I didn't know how to help.  I HATE not knowing how to help.  All that I had left was to join her in her tears.  I don't know that a three year old finds any comfort in that, so thankfully Jeff stepped in.  We still don't really know what caused some strange things to happen in her little body but she seems to be doing great now.  We will just blame it on a "virus."  That is what everything is that you can't diagnose in kids.  I guess I can live with that.  I'm just glad that it wasn't any of the terminal illnesses I found doing online research which seemed to fit her symptoms.  I'm well aware it's bad idea to do that, but I wanted answers and no one had any.  The real fallout from it all is that I am now in a state of paranoia.  Any weird look on one of the kid's faces makes me want to hunker down, prepare for the worst, and cancel all plans.  In the span of 24 hours I thought Avery was coming down with strep, then pink eye, and I thought L had a stomach bug.  Crazy much?  Nothing turned out to be wrong with either one of them upon my waiting a few hours and CHILLING OUT.  At least I'm aware of my problem.

On to happier events...

We celebrated Ella's third birthday with family back in November.  She is a big Doc McStuffins fan.  However, I tried to kill two birds with one stone by purchasing the Doc MsStuffins costume for her to wear on Halloween, which would also double as a birthday gift/something fun to wear at her party.  On Halloween she wouldn't have anything to do with it.  I was frustrated with her and planned to take it back the next day to get my money back (thank you very much, sassy pants).  Before I could get it returned she begged me to keep it for her party.  So, in short,  I lost...then I thought I was going to win..then I lost again.  I let her keep it only because it was her birthday and it was going to be so dang cute.

See what I mean?

If you live near Jefferson City allow me to recommend my friends, the Barbs, for all your cookie needs.
They blew my expectations out of the water with these.  

I may have these events out of order, but Micah also had a big event in November.  He received the "Respectful" award for his class in the first quarter.  We are so proud of him.  It was actually the second year in a row that he received this award.  This award means more to us than a perfect grade card.  You would assume that nothing in the world cause us to forget about the special assembly where he was going to receive this honor.  Right?  RIGHT?  Except that is precisely what we did.  Jeff dropped him off at school just minutes before the assembly was going to start and saw the grandpa of one of Micah's friends walking in...didn't register.  I was at home just doing something that I don't even remember.  Only when my sweet friend, Sarah, sent me a text that afternoon did it hit me.  Her daughter received the same award for her class so, naturally, like a good mother she went.  She said, "I saw Micah get his award today!" Mother guilt.  How could I forget?!  I asked her questions to try and feel out his level of disappointment before we picked him up at the end of the day.  I don't know if it was already decided that Jeff would pick him up or if I threw him under the bus, but anyway, Jeff picked him up.  Not surprising, he was hurt that we didn't come.  We quickly rebounded from our failure and celebrated his achievement by going to his favorite restaurant, McDonald's (don't judge uber healthy friends).  Our sins were forgiven.

Jeff and I celebrated 10 years of wedded bliss in November, which I gushed over in my last post.  We struggled to find a good time to get away because of the uncertainty with his grandpa.  So, one night we decided to just go on a date until we could really get away.  Bri came over and freed us up to leave for a nice evening alone.  We get in the car and I point out that it sounds weird.  Jeff says, "yeah, it's sounded that way for a while.  I'm pretty sure it's the belt.  I think it will be fine."  I wasn't as sure.  Half way down our street he offers to go back so we can take the van...but let it be known...I said no.  I take responsibility for that.  For, you know, trusting his judgement about it.  I kid.  I kid. ;) We found out 10 miles north of town that it apparently wasn't "fine" though.

"Hold it up proudly!"  It was a good thing he's so cute. :)

Thankfully, we were able to drive it back to a shop to leave it there for the night.  Our good friend, Joe Banderman, drove in from another town and picked us up like kids that needed a chaperone.  He was our hero and gave us a lift back to the house.  We got in our other sweet ride, a 2002 Honda Odyssey minivan (don't be jealous) for our second attempt at a night on the town.  We drove to our next choice for dinner.  It was closed.  For our third attempt we went to  Long Horn which is about 3 miles from our house.  In the end, after I had a bad attitude for about 30 minutes, I was thankful that we weren't in a wreck or stranded anywhere.  The food was good and we connected.  We'll call that a win.  We ended up getting to have a terrific weekend getaway to Kansas City a couple weeks later.  We had live jazz, Ethiopian food, a great hotel, super kind people everywhere we went, a movie we really wanted to see, lots of rest, and a little shopping.  I was so grateful for that time away.  We hadn't been away together since we added L to the family and we needed it.

We went back to the Cheesecake Factory where we had our first date 11 years ago.

We love getting to see Lonnie McFadden at The Phoenix.  He is amazingly talented.

I will wrap up this post with a few pictures and just say that I can look back over these last couple of months with sincere gratitude.  We have much to be thankful for and the pictures prove it.

We celebrated Jeff's 33rd birthday!

The kids were more helpful this year putting up the tree.  It felt like a milestone in parenting.  They had a lot of fun remembering ornaments from years gone by too.  It was a surprisingly pleasant time.

A little Charlie Brown makes everyone feel better.

Jeff is now the official cinnamon roll maker for family gatherings on my side.  He can pretty much do everything better than me.  If I didn't reap the benefits of this, I might hate his guts for it.  ;)

I regret how few pictures I took during Christmas celebrations with family, but this picture is a reminder of how special it was getting to celebrate L's first Christmas with her.  Both sides of our family loved on her like she was born into the family.  That meant more to us than they may ever know.

Micah lost his first tooth!  I remember what a big deal it was when a tooth finally came in and now 6 years later we are celebrating that it came out.  I have mixed emotions about how fast time is passing.

 

For Micah's 7th birthday we had a double birthday party with some good friends at the ARC in Columbia.  I will share more pictures from the day when I can somehow get them from the thoughtful mom who actually brought her camera to the party (thanks Rachel!).  I think Micah would say that this was THE BEST birthday ever.  It was a fun day!

Thanks for hanging in there to the end.  I would resolve to have more frequent posts in the new year, but we all know how resolutions usually go...and I hate feeling defeated. What I actually need is for someone to magically grant me 48 hours in the day.  I could get so much done.  Until that happens, I hope you will enjoy sporadic updates from the Carson family in 2015. :)