This weekend we had the great pleasure of meeting the new additions to our family. I had prepared myself for all sorts of emotions I may feel, but I mostly prepared myself for rejection. Although we have been learning and seeking after these boys since the end of 2014, they only found out the night before we met that they were getting adopted. I knew this would be the case and so I prepared myself to deal with the fact that the weekend may be awkward and hard and all around an emotional mess.
I couldn't have been more wrong.
These boys welcomed us with love and excitement. They talked about how excited they were to meet their other little brother and eventually to have a little sister. The oldest talked about how he had a baby sister who died in his bio-mom's tummy. They both had many stories...some tall tales, some horrifying, and others so painfully beautiful that my heart could hardly control the joy it felt to have these boys in my life.
But one thing was abundantly clear...
I am now the mom of two beautiful, wonderful, perfectly normal boys.
Here's what being an adoptive mommy means to me:
1. I have to share the role of mommy with many women... and that's okay!
I wondered if my love would feel stolen or if I would be jealous that they had called another by such a sacred title. I had marveled at how I would control my emotions if they didn't want to call me mom. But all of that changed when I met them. We had been guided to have them call us Mom and Dad from the get-go and both boys seemed quite okay with that, although the youngest struggled a little. He has lived with his current foster family for over half of his life and calls them Mom and Dad already. At first, my heart stung a little because I wanted him to love me, but as I grew to know his foster family, I realized there is no one better to share the role of mommy with! How grateful I am to them for raising my son in love and happiness. How blessed I am to know that he was loved!
2. I am not the perfect mom... and that's okay!!
It would be a lie to tell you that I have any clue as to how to raise these older boys. I can pretend pretty well and I have the basic ideas planned, but as for each day, I'm just winging it. And if I begin to think about it past the day I'm on, I think I'll drive myself crazy because I have no idea what the future holds. On the first day we met the boys I was so excited to let them have a fun time that I disregarded all previous parenting techniques. We had ice cream, cotton candy, and many other sweets. And we stayed up way too late and we let them run through mud puddles in their nice leather boots. And when I returned them to their foster home overly tired and crashing from a sugar high, I realized that I had failed basic parenting that day, but I had created memories that will hold true to the end. Needless to say, the next day we focused a little more on eating good meals and being home at a reasonable time! ;) And that day was fun too. I may not be perfect, but I do love these boys and I know that is really what matters.
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