I said awhile back that I was going to work to make this adoption journey more concrete, more "real". I wanted to find meaningful ways to acknowledge the steps we will go through and to honor thie process. Tonight, we got to start doing that!
I wanted to do something special with our family to acknowledge that we'd been approved. After we finally got the paperwork done, I treated the family to ice cream sundaes. But I wanted to do something a bit different. So I decided to plan a special Family Home Evening. Of course, being Family Home Evening, it didn't quite end up being the spiritual feast I'd hoped for. Sariah wanted to sing Jingle Bells for the opening song as usual. Dallin got mad during one of the games because he wasn't getting the most answers. Sariah spent most of the evening jumping off of her play table and onto the floor and completely ignoring the lesson. (A few weeks ago we acted out the story of Samuel the Lamanite jumping off the wall and fleeing. Now Sariah thinks it's an integral part of every lesson.)
We started off by singing I Am a Child of God. We talked about how Heavenly Father wants every child to come to a home with "parents kind and dear" and also siblings ready to love that child. We talked about how we've just been approved to adopt another baby, and what that means, and how it might not happen for a long time. Then we played a fun game. I got slips of paper and wrote fun questions about the kids' adoption stories, like "Whose birth mother has curly hair?" and "Which baby did Mommy and Daddy first meet while that baby was getting a bath?" The kids had to guess whether it was Dallin or Sariah. They did enjoy that game, despite Dallin getting mad because at the beginning we just happened to be drawing all the ones where Sariah was the answer. (Even though I made sure there were an equal number of questions for each child.)
Then we did "predictions". I made up questions about our future baby, and each family member had to state their predicted answer. For example, "What color of hair will our new baby have?" "How many months will we have to wait for our new baby?" "How old will our baby's birthmother be?" We'll keep the answers, and when the new baby arrives, it will be fun to see who was right!
Then we sang the last verse to I Am a Child of God and talked about the "rich blessings" that will come to our home by having a new baby, and talked about our responsibilities to help "lead, guide, and walk beside" the new baby to help him or her return to Heavenly Father. Of course, at that point both kids were pretty much out of it and not paying attention. But we tried!
It's actually really scary to be at this point. I am already feeling that conflict between showing faith by making this real, and wondering if I'm making a huge mistake by making it too real too soon. James, ever the practical one, made his prediction that we would wait 18 months for our next baby. I know he was just trying to balance Dallin's guess of "two months". But it brought back to me what I hate about adoption, and that is the utter lack of a timeline. I'm trying to do these things to make it exciting and to keep myself in a place of expectancy. But honestly, it could be several years. And that frustrates me! So now I'm doubting how to best handle this wait. Sigh.
I wanted to do something special with our family to acknowledge that we'd been approved. After we finally got the paperwork done, I treated the family to ice cream sundaes. But I wanted to do something a bit different. So I decided to plan a special Family Home Evening. Of course, being Family Home Evening, it didn't quite end up being the spiritual feast I'd hoped for. Sariah wanted to sing Jingle Bells for the opening song as usual. Dallin got mad during one of the games because he wasn't getting the most answers. Sariah spent most of the evening jumping off of her play table and onto the floor and completely ignoring the lesson. (A few weeks ago we acted out the story of Samuel the Lamanite jumping off the wall and fleeing. Now Sariah thinks it's an integral part of every lesson.)
We started off by singing I Am a Child of God. We talked about how Heavenly Father wants every child to come to a home with "parents kind and dear" and also siblings ready to love that child. We talked about how we've just been approved to adopt another baby, and what that means, and how it might not happen for a long time. Then we played a fun game. I got slips of paper and wrote fun questions about the kids' adoption stories, like "Whose birth mother has curly hair?" and "Which baby did Mommy and Daddy first meet while that baby was getting a bath?" The kids had to guess whether it was Dallin or Sariah. They did enjoy that game, despite Dallin getting mad because at the beginning we just happened to be drawing all the ones where Sariah was the answer. (Even though I made sure there were an equal number of questions for each child.)
Then we did "predictions". I made up questions about our future baby, and each family member had to state their predicted answer. For example, "What color of hair will our new baby have?" "How many months will we have to wait for our new baby?" "How old will our baby's birthmother be?" We'll keep the answers, and when the new baby arrives, it will be fun to see who was right!
Then we sang the last verse to I Am a Child of God and talked about the "rich blessings" that will come to our home by having a new baby, and talked about our responsibilities to help "lead, guide, and walk beside" the new baby to help him or her return to Heavenly Father. Of course, at that point both kids were pretty much out of it and not paying attention. But we tried!
It's actually really scary to be at this point. I am already feeling that conflict between showing faith by making this real, and wondering if I'm making a huge mistake by making it too real too soon. James, ever the practical one, made his prediction that we would wait 18 months for our next baby. I know he was just trying to balance Dallin's guess of "two months". But it brought back to me what I hate about adoption, and that is the utter lack of a timeline. I'm trying to do these things to make it exciting and to keep myself in a place of expectancy. But honestly, it could be several years. And that frustrates me! So now I'm doubting how to best handle this wait. Sigh.
Comments
What things did you do before that helped with the waiting, especially while waiting for your first child?