The Sweet in Bittersweet

It is a bittersweet Mother's Day.  Mostly sweet, so let's start there.  We went to Pagosa Springs to see Dave's mom and extended family for Mother's Day.  It was our first attempt at a family trip and I am officially announcing it as a victory.  It was filled with fishing, paddle boating, the Malt Shoppe, family meals, and a birthday party and not one of those events was cut short by a poorly timed temper tantrum.  Maci just seemed to know that family was surrounding her.  Therefore, it didn't take the typical hour to warm up to all the new people she met.  Of course, at our family dinner, it also helped to have a 9 week old puppy (not ours, of course) to break in the squeals of laughter.

I wasn't sure how this weekend was going to go, but I was certainly ready to get out of this house for better or for worse.  "They" say that when you adopt, your family should cocoon and stay close to home as much as possible for the first few months.  My intent was to do that.  As it turns out, if I actually did that, I think I would find myself cocooning alone at someplace with a name like "Whispering Pines Home for the Not So Stable."  As much as I love our house and neighborhood, I shudder at the thought of staying home with my 3 young kids for days at a time.  It is within these very walls, after all, that most meltdowns occur.  For that, I am thankful.  It is better for them to melt down here, then in the grocery line or on the front steps of the Department of Human Services, but I needed to catch my breath somewhere else this weekend, after what was a pretty ugly week.

There is one area where my kids are very fair and where they are really good at sharing.  They are very thoughtful about sharing tantrum time.  Isn't that sweet?  Maci likes to scream loud and often, but she keeps it short, which we appreciate.  Leah spaces hers out a little more, but she has the extenda-cry down pat and Spencer is a real saver.  He goes a couple of weeks, but then he lays a big one down, which he did this week. I still feel like I am recovering from that one.  That being said and bring it back around to the sweet part of Mother's Day.  All three kids did just play together for 45 minutes without one cause for parental intervention.  That was a present of great proportion and the sweetest gift of all.  (Although Dave's present was pretty awesome.  If you stop by, you'll have to ask to see the cookbook the was made personally for me).  Well, now that I just wrote about the sweetness of the day, I don't really want to talk about the bitter just yet, so I think I'll save the bitter (Goosey) for tomorrow.

For now, thank you MOM for believing in this journey.  Thank you for accepting Maci as your grandchild. Thank you for walking with me in all of the craziness of adoption and for reminding me of how great God's love is for not only our kids, but for me as well.