Started the day at church this morning and today was the day to turn in our plastic bins with our Operation Christmas Child gifts. It was really kind of heartwarming to see the gargantunormous pile of bins waiting to go abroad. Our senior pastor is in the Holy Land right now with a small group of church members, so the sermon today was given by our missions pastor, who also just happens the father of a newly adopted Chinese son. He told the congregation about their journey to adopt, and challenged those that might be considering adopting to move forward.
This couple isn't the first of our friends to adopt from overseas. Another couple friend adopted a little girl from Taiwan.
I can't say I haven't thought long and hard about adopting. It's been on my mind, well, most of my life since I am adopted myself. My wife isn't nearly as excited about the thought as I am. I think she worries that despite her best efforts she will an adopted child differently. It's a valid worry I think, but probably an unfounded one. I know her capacity for love is much greater than she thinks.
After church my wife fixed lunch for us, a nice thing to come home to. (She stayed home because technically she's on bedrest.) Then I finally got to assemble my latest gun project after about 3 weeks painting and curing all the parts. For those that know, (or care,) it's a Howa 1500 in .308 Win in a Bell & Carson stock. For optics I chose an IOR 3-18x42 FFP MLR reticle. Anyway, here she is.
After putting my rifle together, I shifted gears and worked on the nursery. Last weekend I got the chair rail hung, and the wall beneath the chair rail painted. This afternoon I managed to get the crown moulding hung, and caulked into place. Hanging the moulding went surprising well. Crown is notoriously complicated because of all the compound angles involved, but this afternoon went really very well. In fact I didn't have any gaps that the caulk couldn't take care of. When I'm finished I'll take pictures of all the kids bedrooms and share.
My brother and dad went shooting this weekend while my mom and I were getting our hair done in preparation for a dinner-dance. I'm very girly and love getting my hair done, but I was very jealous and can't wait til I go to the range with my dad next time!
ReplyDeleteI mean no disrespect with my choice of words, but I think it's cool that you're adopted. :) An friend from middle school had twins in August and was overjoyed to meet her birth mother during her pregnancy. I remember her telling us very casually, "My birth mom was a drug addict and met my mom at JC Penney." Oh Nicole has such a lively and beautiful soul.
I don't mean to separate you from those from other backgrounds but I just think it's an interesting experience and I thank you for sharing about it. I do think about adopting, despite still being a baby myself, haha. Brian and I "decided" that we want two boys and a girl, and which ever sexes our first two future biological children are, we'd use the remaining sex as a guide in our adoption journey. Haha.
Oh I really hope I'm not offending you, but from what I know of you I don't think you'll take my comment the wrong way. I keep telling my parents to adopt one of my patients who I am in love with, and my mom calls our house a zoo after all the animals I adopted in the past year. I truly think adoption is amazing and once again, I thank you for sharing. :)
Andrea:
ReplyDeleteNo, no offense taken at all. Adoption isn't some sensitive out of bounds topic to me--my parents have been very honest with me from the start. In fact I can't remember when they told me I was adopted, I always knew.
I recently reunited with my birth mother, which was an interestign experience. It's been more difficult than I thought. She was very emotional about the whole thing, but not as much for me surprisingly. Anytime there is a disparity in feelings like that, it can make for a rocky start in a relationship. I'm glad I found her, but I might have done some things differently. I probably would have just communicated by email or phone for much longer before going to visit. Expectations may have been more clear if I'd done that. I think she expected to play an integral role in my life now that we'd been reunited, but I don't think I am/was ready for that. It's not that I don't think she's important, or that I don't have room in my life, only that her role needs to be defined as of yet.
Wow, I should probably just write a post about that, LOL.
the first time i told my husband i want to adopt a little girl from china or some other asian countries, he looked at me like i have a third eye.
ReplyDeletenow that he is considering about it too, i am scared. i don't think i have what it takes to have another child.
may--not sure how I missed this comment, but I just found it.
ReplyDeleteI think there's absolutely nothing wrong with self awareness. The very fact that you question your ability to parent another child makes you infinitely more qualified to do that very thing. Fear is a healthy thing I think. Unless you let it dominate your choices...