So how is it going...really?

So many of you have asked how it is going. I weigh whether to give you the warm, fuzzy answer that you are looking for like "Oh WONDERFUL! I knew these girls were mine from the moment I saw them and we spend hours doing each others' nails."

But that's not reality. Here is the unfiltered truth...

I cried to Darren three nights into this that I wasn't sure I was going to be able to handle this. I don't "feel" like the girls are my own yet although the bonding grows each week for all of us. I was so glad to hear my friend Jill say that, even though she had anticipated the arrival of her adoptive daughter from the birth mother, she, too, felt like she was "watching someone else's kid". I am not a person that attaches immediately to much of anything but when I do, it's for a long time. And I am committed to these girls for as long as the Lord allows.

Each week gets better. There are starting to be more good moments than bad. We are down to one good time-out per day for each one and they are starting to self-correct their behavior with one lethal "if looks could kill" glare from me. But I can tell that they have not had a lot of attention in their short lives. The first two weeks they would constantly need to be around me, calling "Mommy, mommy, mommy" which I know should thrill my soul and certainly did the first few times but 54 times into it for the day, it was less than thrilling. I felt like the life force was being sucked out of me.

Slowly they are learning to play on their own, to be content and secure, to be respectful and obedient. All in all, they are adjusting remarkably well considering...

And I am learning to manage my expectations. As part of the adoption licensing process, we had to write a paragraph about what we imagined our biological children would be like. I wrote that my daughter would be strong-willed, overly dramatic, love to read...

And what do you know? That is exactly what my adopted daughters are like! Oh, how God must laugh.