Every year, one song strikes my heart and just gets me. This year there wasn’t a Christmas song that had really hit me yet, and I was okay with there not being a song for the season. But I was kind of still waiting for God to give me one because He usually does.

Then yesterday I was driving in my car alone and heard Amy Grant’s “Breath of Heaven”. I’ve heard it a bajillion times before, but this year, one part in particular had special meaning.

In case you haven’t heard the song, the song is sung from Mary’s perspective in thinking about having Jesus. She just prays that God would be with her in what He’s called her to do. Here’s a video if you’re interested:

Amy Grant – Breath of Heaven

The portion of lyrics that was playing when I turned to the station was:

Do you wonder as you watch my face
If a wiser one should have had my place?
But I offer all I am
For the mercy of your plan
Help me be strong, help me be, help me…

Oh I’m certain that is probably a thought of mine at least five times a day regarding God’s choice of me as the mother of these five sweet children. I’m almost constantly certain that God is sitting in heaven thinking, “Wow, I was hoping she would do better than this. Turns out she’s not able to do this. I was hoping she would, but nope. She failed. I’m disappointed.”

Thankfully, in God’s sweet mercy, on most days that those thoughts are running through my mind, I’m even more conscious of God’s sweet voice reminding me, “For he CHOSE us in Him BEFORE THE CREATION OF THE WORLD to be holy and blameless in His sight.” (Eph 1:4)

I chose you Sarah. I chose you. Before I even created the sky or the grass or the oceans or the sun, before I created light or darkness, before the first animal or plant or human was formed, I chose YOU. To be HOLY and BLAMELESS in my sight.

I’m doing a very timely Bible study right now by Tammy Head entitled “Duty or Delight? Knowing Where You Stand With God”. It took me a few weeks just to get through the first few days. It’s about this very issue of knowing that God isn’t a bad guy cop waiting in heaven for us to mess up so he can “get” us.

But I just don’t always feel very chosen…

I love this song because it shows Mary (our imagined song-version of Mary) didn’t always feel very chosen either. Of course that’s not in the Bible. We don’t know what she felt.

But we do know that she was human. And humans – we weren’t made to be perfect. We mess up, we learn, and hopefully we grow closer to God in the process. So I feel pretty certain that Mary had a moment or two of flipping out in the nine months she was waiting to give birth to Jesus. I’ll bet she bit Joseph’s head off a time or two. I’d bet that she had some late night conversations with God that went a lot like mine.

Really God? You think I can handle this? Why in the world did you choose ME? Why? I’m failing you miserably. I’m not cut out for this! Really God?

Whether you’re a mom or newly married, single or wedded for 60 years, working in the home or outside of it – don’t you think we as women tend to always think we’re not measuring up or not doing quite well enough? That’s a constant struggle for me.

A good day in God’s book does not equal me getting it all right. A good day is not measured by whether or not I kept my Mary Poppins voice with the kids all day (whew – I don’t think I even HAVE a Mary Poppins voice!), have dinner on the table (on time, not overcooked, and everyone loves it!), folded the laundry instead of leaving it piled up in the laundry room (or strewn about my room), or kept peace with Jason.

Just because I feel inadequate does NOT mean that God thinks I’m inadequate. He CHOSE me to do this. But believing it in my heart is a whole lot harder than knowing it in my head.

I love song-version Mary’s response to wondering if God is happy with His choosing of her. She feels inadequate, but what does she say? “I offer all I am for the mercy of your plan”. And then she BEGS God to be with her.

Breath of Heaven, hold me together
Be forever near me, breath of Heaven
Breath of Heaven, lighten my darkness
Pour over me Your holiness for You are holy

Amen to that.

I was home one night this week with only the girls; the big kids were at church with Daddy. I pulled up my Christmas playlist from last year, and I was half-listening to it while I did stuff with the girls and worked on my ever-lengthening to-dos. I haven’t listened to that playlist since last Christmas, so it was good to kind of re-hear all the songs from last year. It was a nice little moment with our Christmas tree lights twinkling, Christmas music, and the girls happily playing as I hummed along to songs here and there.

When all the sudden my ears perked up. And my heart.

On came the song that I’d forgotten about. The song I’d cried a few tears through the previous Christmas. Third Day has a song entitled “Merry Christmas” about a man who is thinking about his daughter to be adopted that’s on the other side of the world. He talks about how he’s hanging the stockings, but she’s not there, she’s all alone somewhere while her family is all here. And he’s wishing her a Merry Christmas.

But half a world away I hang the stockings by the fire
And dream about the day when I can finally call you mine

It’s Christmas time again but you’re not home
Your family is here and yet you’re somewhere else alone
And so tonight I pray that God will come and hold you in his arms
And tell you from my heart I wish you Merry Christmas

You can watch the video here if you want to hear the whole song:

Merry Christmas by Third Day

Really depressing in a way, but in another way, it was so comforting last year to hear a song that kind of identified the way I felt. So it’s really more of an adoption song than a Christmas song I guess.

Anyway, I quit what I was doing and sat and just WATCHED the girls. And tried for the millionth time to let it sink in that they are HOME and HERE and MINE. It still doesn’t seem that way sometimes – it just took so long to get them here!

I was remembering all that I felt and wondered and thought last Christmas. Of course we thought we’d have them home pretty quickly – like March or April at the latest – so I had no idea the fight ahead of us. We were happy to have a referral, hoping for a court date, and dreaming of those two little sweet faces. It was hard to think of them not being here for Christmas.

As I was watching the girls and getting all misty-eyed, I guess I weirded Lyla out or something (I could see her thinking, “Mom, why are you staring at us like that?”) because she crawled over and wanted me to pick her up. So I stood and scooped her up for some good cuddle time. I was singing along to the song and giving that baby sweet kisses while I thanked God over and over and over that they WERE home.

And then came the end of the song. I had forgotten all about this part. The words go like this:

It’s Christmas time again and now you’re home
Your family is here so you will never be alone
So tonight before you go to sleep, I’ll hold you in my arms
And I’ll tell you from my heart, and I’ll you from my heart
I wish you Merry Christmas

I forgot there was a verse at the end where the little girl came home, and she WAS finally there for Christmas. So then I was bawling all over Lyla and was really telling God my thank yous. It was a sweet moment.

So I am SUPER grateful to have our girls home. These past months have NOT been easy, but we’re coming into a new normal finally. And I promise to get blogging again sometime SOON!

Until then, I’ll leave you with a few cute girls pictures – they are getting SO SO SO BIG!

The girls really are a joy! A challenging, beautiful joy!

We sat and gazed at these pictures, listened to how sick their little bodies were, heard their story, and just wondered in amazement what God was up to:

Lyla on left, Sosie on right

Lyla

Sosie

Nor did we expect such a long wait to get them home. Aahhh, what a journey this last year has been. But ohhh, look at these sweet babies now:

Clapping after church this past Sunday - they went to nursery for an hour! It was rough, but we all made it! YAY!

I love how they watch each other.

Lyla started playing peekaboo with her dress...

I see you!

Lyla

Sosie

My two little Halloween pumpkins...

Sosie on left, Lyla on right

The two pumpkins did not go trick or treating with my Spiderman, Princess Leia, and Indiana Jones - they stayed home with me. They were a bit out of sorts.

I'm seeing more and more scenes like this - holding hands at their highchairs...

Oh that twin bond...

(Sosie was done holding hands and was doing her pose for the camera - Lyla's like, hey, come back here, hold my hand sissie!!!!)

Another everyday scene - both the twin love and the diarrhea of toys...

Cuddling again...

What? You have the camera out? Let me jump up and do my camera pose!

I know I haven’t written in a while. Yes, we’ve been fighting to keep our heads above water, but if I’m 100% honest, most days I can’t write because I don’t dare write what I’m thinking/feeling. We have had some really really tough days. My lack of documenting them has less to do with what people will think about me and more to do with what the girls will think when they grow up and read what I wrote.

We have lots of good moments, and I don’t want the bad to overshadow the good. I remember reading a couple of places (where????) that it can take a year for the parents and adopted child to bond to each other. I read that and thought it was ridiculous, but I can see that more.

And as much as I’ve read that you instantly have the same bond with your adopted child as you did with your biological children, I say hogwash. It’s different. And every normal person I’ve talked to says the same. It’s just different to get a kid who has lived a year or more of their life somewhere else with different rules and procedures and methods of communication, etc and then to try to integrate them into your home – it’s just different. It’s not a “blank slate” – of course a biological kid isn’t a blank slate either with their personalities, etc., but on top of the normal “presets”, there’s no blank slate with an adopted kid.

We’ve learned a WHOLE lot more than I ever wanted to know about brain chemistry, the chemistry of fear in kids from hard places, hyper-vigilance, mother rejection, and all kinds of other things that literally fill books. But we’re learning. And growing. And improving.

All day today I sat and just marveled at the girls and thought about what we were doing a year ago. One year ago right now we were getting the news. One year ago right now we were telling the kids. One year ago right now we were telling most of our parents. One year ago right now we were laying in bed going, “Twins? Really? Twins? WOOOWWWW!”

I’d remember being anxious to hold them yet at the same time anxious about how in the world we could do two babies plus three others. And while I was remembering those feelings from a year ago, I’m also chasing and laughing at and changing diapers with those twin babies. I’m cuddling them, kissing their smooshy cheeks, keeping them out of the toilet, patting their backs for nap time, and scooping dinner into their little mouths. I’m watching them play with each other, hold hands, and roll around on the floor. (All the pictures in the white sleepers were from tonight.)

And BOTH girls are walking now. Lyla is toddling around everywhere, and she is incredibly proud of herself for walking so well. We cheer her on and she just LIGHTS UP! What a bright smiley face! She and Sosie have such fun together! When Lyla picks up a little more speed I’m going to be in BIG trouble!

It’s so neat to see them come out of their shells a little bit everyday. They bond to us just a little bit more, and their connection with each other is amazing. They comfort each other when one is crying or upset or tired. They bring each other their doggies or sippy cups (AND BRING THE CORRECT COLOR – AMAZING, YES???!!!) The pat each other on the head (or smush the crying one on the head making it worse.)

And they do the same for Nolan, Everett, and Katie Beth. Today Nolan was crying about something and he was laying in my lap for a few minutes of cuddle time. Both girls toddled over and patted his head and rubbed his back. Sweet babies.

And then tonight right before bed I got both of them in my lap at once, both heads laying on one of my shoulders, and I just got to sing to them while they sat cuddling with me, looking at each other, their faces only inches apart from each other while doing their twin-babbling, and yet they were cuddled up to ME.

So that’s what I was doing today while I was remembering a short, yet long, year ago today. It was a wonderful referral-versary day. Not perfect, but it was a pretty darn good one.

I love these sweet girls. And as hard as life is sometimes around here, it’s getting easier – slowly. (really slowly) And all five of us are so so so thrilled that they are here. I don’t think we could imagine our lives any other way.

(Well, except the times when I imagine myself alone on a lonely beach with no rescue in sight for a few days or the times when I imagine myself sleeping in a big comfy bed for days on end with only the interruption of room service or the times that I imagine a nice massage. But other than that, totally can’t imagine life without them!)

Thanks for being on this journey with us! What a year it’s been!

And if you want some more memories, here’s our referral/we passed court video:

We did meet with an adoption attachment therapist on Thursday. No tons of mind-blowing, new information, but she confirmed that we were doing things right. It just takes time.

She nailed the girls’ personalities and kind of their major areas of struggle/need right now. It was good to have a “label” (so that I can google it of course!), and she was great to let us know some things to help.

It’s just a slow road of course. Sosie is kind of like a teapot on the stove. She’s warmed up to us really fast, but she has a lot of need and does best with some quick attention. She’s a “sensory seeker” meaning she loves to be held and touched and likes some kind of “rough play” and being held tightly, etc. It makes sense with what we see. It’s why she’ll go to anyone – she craves the interaction. But the challenge is being able to “fill her up” just from Mommy and Daddy and not others.

Lyla is more like a crockpot – on LOW. She’s still not completely warmed up to us yet – she’s more cautious and we just have to take it easy with her. It’s so interesting to watch. She is a BIG TIME Daddy’s girl. She sprung up a crazy fever yesterday with a bad cough. She did NOT feel good last night, and she ONLY wanted Daddy. I was like, what??? I’m the Mommy! I’m great at taking care of sick babies!! Come to me!! But, nope. One time Jason held her out to me and she literally arched her back mid-air to try to back off from me.

That was really hard, but I did some googling last night, and found that MOST toddlers reject at least one parent. And most often it’s the mother. Interesting, right? Nobody really KNOWS why b’c of course toddlers don’t talk and say, “I’m rejecting you because…” But, it’s believed that it’s due to the fact that most caregivers in institutional care are mothers. And once they get home and have settled in a bit, that relationship starts to grow with their adoptive mother. But then they get this sense of fear of being separated from her again and so they try to “detach” emotionally to keep from being hurt.

I’m the first one to look at theories like that and call it “bull”. So much of psychology I think seems just crazy-talk. Some things just are because they are. But, they’ve done this study with adopted toddlers across various countries of origins, various orphanage setups, various circumstances before birth, and the same results have repeated themselves. It’s fascinating to me that our brains our built to protect ourselves like that – even as young as 14 months old.

She challenged me to rest and get out for “me” time more – to put it IN MY SCHEDULE. That’s a challenge. But I’m working on it as we saw the results this past week of not having it.

Today begins a couple of weeks off for Jason. Such a blessing. We’re going to do some traveling to see family this week so we’ll be out of pocket. We’re going to try and leave the screens OFF. Really praying it’s a chance for our whole family to just take a collective breath of fresh air from the busy-ness of the past months. Praying for lots of laughter, connecting, and fun!

Headed to pack… I’ve taken the “you need rest” suggestion TOO seriously in the last 24 hours. I hate packing and always procrastinate until the last minute. And I still am procrastinating… At this moment. The more sentences I write, the longer I can delay packing. The more sentences I write, the longer I can delay packing. The more sentences I write, the longer I can delay packing…

This past weekend was a hard weekend. Last week was a hard week. We took turns alternating nights sleeping on the girls’ floor on a little futon. Miserable. I missed my husband. On the nights that I was “off” I still couldn’t sleep. I was comatose during the day catching up from a few sleepless nights. I drank lots of coffee – probably contributing to the lack of sleeping. So I backed off the caffeine, took a few Tylenol PMs, and then I SLEPT. Too much.

I was so discouraged yesterday. I realized that I had not been out of the house in four days. Except for a carpool run, but even then I never got out of the car. My feet had not touched any other land but our fraction of an acre for four. full. days. That’s just not like me. Any other time, I would have been clawing the walls to get out. But when the opportunity came, I couldn’t think of one place I wanted to go. Except bed. To just stare at the ceiling. Which made me worry about me. What was happening? Where was ME?

I went to bed crying.

I woke up in the middle of the night crying. I told Jason I wish I had never heard the of the plight of the orphan. I emailed adoption attachment therapists at 1 am. I emailed like six of them. I know nobody that has come home and struggled like we have. Nobody. Although the statistics say that 60% of parents struggle with some sort of “post-adoption depression” or “adoption blues”.

I was texting a fellow twin mom (yes also at 1 am… she knew I’d be up). Hers are bio twins, but she was telling me all the things they were doing that were so similar to our girls. And she had some of the same feelings I did! Everyone thinks twins are insanely cute. And they are! But the work and getting used to TWO of them is unimaginably HARD!

I woke up crying. Nolan came and cuddled in beside me this morning, and I wrapped my arms around him and just held him tight. I wanted to lay there all day just cuddling him. I made sure my hot tears slid down my face onto my pillow so he wouldn’t notice I was crying.

I stared at his precious little face, his little blonde curls, his expressions as he played games on my phone. (You didn’t think HE wanted to lay and cuddle all day did you?? Bribery can be a good tool when momma needs some lovin from her boy.) I held him tight and listened to the girls happily babbling in the other room, and I didn’t want to get up. I didn’t want to get them up. I didn’t want the day to start. Because if it was going to be a bad day, I wasn’t sure I could take it.

Laying there, I decided I had to get out today. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I HAD to get out. In the early weeks home, I went out to stay sane. It was fun to have them out with me. I liked using my cute little stroller. And it was fun letting them see the world around us – well, Target.

But then I realized that the work of getting out, forging through errands while the girls are transitioning out of their morning naps, and all the in and out of the car seats and stroller wasn’t worth the getting out. So I quit.

I didn’t have ANYTHING I needed to do today. I had a doctor’s appointment that I’d been putting off for an oddly infected finger – weird story. I sat up, made an appointment, and I got ready. I took a shower. I wore cute clothes out – nothing schmancy. Still leggings and a big sweater, but with a cute tank and ballet flats and I actually put on my rings. Go me. It struck me as funny that I was excited to go to the doctor’s office.

At the office, the girls were so charming, albeit a little restless towards the end. And they wanted ME. Ladies in the office (that we know) held them for a minute or two, but they wanted ME. ME!

I decided we would STAY out until it was time to get Everett at 12:45. Luckily the pharmacy’s long line and Chickfila’s long line helped me out. And we made it out all day! (not without tears, but we made it)

We came home, and I fed the girls more lunch. They got down and played, and they laughed and giggled and did the silliest things today. Things I just hadn’t seen them do! Their personalities just sparked a bit. They giggled. They hugged me and came back for more. They argued with each other. But they were overall in a great mood. I really enjoyed watching them today.

Then they took good naps! Hello! (and a side note, I ALSO got a great deal on a planner I’ve been eyeing!! I found a random coupon online for HALF OFF! WHOOP!)

Tonight we headed to school for a little coffee house thing for Everett. The girls were again sweet, charming, albeit a little restless again towards the end. They toddled about the room, and every once in a while they’d check mom and dad out to make sure we were still there. That’s a really good sign of attachment. They were so darn cute.

We headed to a quick dinner – which wasn’t so blissful, but whatever.

We got home, and they again played and played and played. They laughed, they ate up their Daddy’s attention, and they just seemed to “own” the living room and their toys. They interacted a lot with us. And again, lots and lots of giggles.

I sat marveling at them tonight as they took their chunky baby legs from Daddy to Mommy to Daddy. They’ve changed so much. For the good. They’ve learned to PLAY. They’ve learned to LAUGH. They’ve learned to BEG FOR MORE.

I’m not saying they didn’t know how to do those things before. They loved their caregivers, and I’m sure they played little games. But now they are learning to play with US. What brave little resilient girls.

I cuddled each of them close before bed, lay a million kisses on their little faces, and said prayers for peaceful hearts and restful bodies tonight. And I said a million thanks to the Lord for letting me be their Mother.

And now I’m sitting on my back porch with perfectly fall-like temperatures and a gajillion beautiful stars out tonight. I sat and sat and sat just staring at those stars. I thought about what I had just said this morning in the wee hours – I said that I wish I’d never even heard of the plight of the orphan. And then I thought about how very full my heart was tonight.

Oh I’m so grateful for a great big God. I’m so grateful He knows me far better than I know myself. I’m so grateful that He gives me what I don’t think I can handle. I’m immensely grateful that He’s right beside me as we’re walking this road. I don’t know how anyone does it without Him…

And we’ve still got a long road. This “attachment dance” is one that ebbs and flows. My heart has not fully embraced these temperamental little 14 month olds. I’m not all the way there yet. But they haven’t fully embraced this crazy emotional mood swings momma either.

But we’re at least on the same road, and we’re walking in the same direction.

I’m so grateful. For the best times. AND the worst times… (Well, grateful for the best times a little more if I’m being COMPLETELY honest here…)