The First Day of the Rest of Our Lives...

How did we get here? Well...it was a long time coming. So here I am...standing on the edge of this precipice, about to make the big leap...brand new title, brand new life...

*Home-School mom
*Domestic Goddess
*Loving Wife

Okay, starting to make myself a little sick here...but truth be told, this is what I will be doing. Homeschooling, stay-at-home mom-ing, and of course coupon-ing ('cause how else could I be stay at home mom-ing without the couponing?). That's a lot of "ings" for a girl who has never really done ANY of these without some kind of outside work.

I could beat myself up endlessly for NOT doing this sooner, but I know that the Lord wouldn't want me to do that. I am here, now, because He called me to be. Finally, I listened. Listening is not something that I do all that well, so this is monumental in and of itself, but there is so much I have to say and share here. So much to share about our adoptions, our journey to home-school Big C, and I think a lot of it is worth sharing.

For so long I have felt all alone in my adoptions. Since I ran the program the second time around, I missed out on the opportunity to feel truly connected to the other moms. It was like some invisible wall separated me from them, and it created this lonely pocket that I have bumped around in for the longest time. I feel certain that there are other moms of older adoptees who could truly benefit from what we have experienced, learned and learned the hard way.

For the longest time I have felt like the Amateur Parent. It is like I was never issued a ticket to the exclusive "mom club" because neither of my children came to me as infants. There are many stages I missed and therefore have felt "out of the loop". Big C just turned 8 and Little C was 4 and 1/2 when they finally arrived. My heart aches and longs to have been there for ALL of the early stuff, and yet that was not the Lord's plan. For a planner like me, it is often hard to accept that His plans will almost always be so different than mine.

So today here I am standing on the edge of this precipice...refusing to look back, doing my darndest to continually look up. Daily, working to look up... and to take it day by day.