Can you believe we have had Kristyn and Greyson for a month already? Time really flies when you are having fun! Wait, are we having fun?
This involves a complex answer. There are so many adjustments, changes, and growing pains. We are beginning to find our "new normal". However, we have a lot to learn about parenting such a large family. Grocery shopping, meal prep, laundry, showers, dishes, etc all take on a completely different feel. Imagine you are getting ready for a kiddo's birthday party. You shop for all of the food you are going to need and then set up the seating for all of those cherubs. You spend all day making a meal and wishing you had just ordered pizza (when you do, it takes quite a few pizzas). Finally, you wrangle them all to the table only to realize it is impossible to serve them all in any timely fashion. You breathe a sigh of relief when the meal is done, because you made it. Now there is a tower of dishes to tackle. When you finally get through with them, you turn your attention to the small tornado that ran right through your living room, upstairs to the bedrooms, and finished up in the basement. The crazy part is this happens at least three times a day at our house and then there is the laundry and showers and potty training and...
I love ALMOST every minute of it!! I really do!! I am so thankful that God timed this whole journey so that I could have my entire summer to figure this out and enjoy these kiddos. Mark and I are constantly catching each others' eyes and giving that "can you believe they are all ours" expression. :) It's kind of a "take your breath away" when we unload the van at a store. It's so interesting to see who decides to play with whom, what games they make up to play together, and how different kiddos step up and really help out.
Now, we have our growing pains too. We had it mostly "figured out" before the newest two joined us. There are those instances when Kristyn or Greyson don't seem to understand the "Anderson way", or the appropriate way to respond or act in a given situation. There are some "rough edges" that occur from spending 6 or more years in an institution where you never learned what being part of a family means. Neither child really speaks English yet, they spend most of their day talking in Chinese. We take them to new places and they have to figure out the appropriate way to act and generally don't understand anything that is going on.
However, there are those moments (and they become more and more frequent) that we live for. The times that we get hugs and kisses. The unsolicited "I lub you, Wo Ai Ni". The huge smile and laughter that comes from realizing that they have a brother or sister that truly cares about them and wants to play with them. Walking in on them holding the blanket up tight to their chin, snuggled in bed with a sibling watching a movie, and realizing that they can just lay there and relax, because this is permanent. This is their FOREVER family!!
Yup, it's the hardest, most precious time of our lives!!
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