Guess Who.......

WENT TO GREAT WOLF LODGE AND LOVED IT!

A Snowy Day, A Cute Baby, and a Difficult Decision

After a winter of very little snow Mother Nature finally unleashed the snowy white stuff in our neck of the woods.  The kids were excited to hear that buses were cancelled yesterday and even though we live in walking distance to their schools I told them they could take the day off as long as they helped with the shovelling. The truth is that I'm not really keen on sending them to school when the teachers are working with a "reduced" staff. The kids that do show up usually end up being put together in a free classroom and are set up with movies for the day. Not actually my idea of learning.......alot more value in shovelling if you ask me! :)  And so they shovelled......and shovelled...........and shovelled!  In fact they shovelled 4 times during the day and I pitched in and shovelled 3 more times. And this morning I awoke to a beautiful blue sky, sparkling white show and the realization that the plow has finally gone by, filling our driveway with 3 feet of snow. Time to bundle up, head out, and start all over.

 

The only one who got off lucky with the shovelling duty was this little one.  She obviously looks pleased with getting to stay in the house all snuggly and warm with lots of brother and sisters to attend to her every little need. Oh yes.........you have it good little one!  

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For those who have perused my blog over the years you know that it was started as a way to document our journey to China to adopt.  When we started the journey over 6 years ago we were told the wait was about 9-12 months.  We didn't go into the process with blinders and we understood that the wait time would most definitely lengthen.  We could have never fortold that 6 years later we would still be almost 18-24 months away from receiving a referral.  

The decision we were faced with was to either continue to wait or to bow gracefully out of the program. For those who know me I am not the kind of person who commits to something and then just easily "gives up." I take my committments very seriously and for that reason this decision has been even harder.  

My "heart" said that we should continue to wait for our daughter.....that we made a promise........that there was still a need even if the Chinese government indicated otherwise.

 My "head" started to do the math.  We realized that we'll be well into retirement when she would be going off to University and financally that didn't make the best sense. We were also worried about how much energy we would have to parent her and questioned whether she deserved younger parents who would have the energy and longevity to raise her well into adulthood.

Like I said...........not an easy decision and one that has been many months in the making. 

But make a decision we needed to do.  Our 4th homestudy update would be coming up, there were annual File Maintenance fees to be paid and quite honestly we just needed to have a decision, to have closure, to be able to move on. 

I just want to make it VERY clear that in no way did having Baby Avery have any impact on our decision.  She is a wonderful addition to our family but we did not have her to "replace" our adopted child and I would be mortified if Avery ever read this blog in the future and thought that we disrupted our adoption because of her.  So not true!  This decision had been coming for quite some time. We delayed in making the decision until after Avery was born essentially for the reason that I wanted to make sure my decision was in no way influenced by raging pregnancy hormones. :)  I needed to know that I was clear headed and making the "right" choice for our family.

And so......I will be updating my blog heading in the near future to reflect our new direction.  And we will continue to move forward, content with our 4 beautiful children but always mindful of the children that continue to wait for their forever families. The ones that wait for a mama or baba to tuck them in, to give them unconditional love, a sense of security,a future...........a family.