Once again, this can’t be a long entry because there are children needing attention. Having five children age six and under is… not fun. There are moments that are fun, of course, but in general I’m splitting up a lot of fights and being called on to resolve a lot of petty issues. Most of the fights involve either the almost three or the almost two year old. They’re at about the same level emotionally, so it makes sense that they’d butt heads over things. They also both annoy their older sisters equally well which is tough. And the three year old hits. I think it’s mostly a communication frustration, but that doesn’t totally excuse it. She’s talking better and better each day and she needs to learn that even if she doesn’t have the words to express her feelings she can’t hit her siblings.
We also have our townhouse on the market… still. It’s been on since early August. That’s probably not that long in the current housing market, but when you’re paying two mortgages it seems like a long time. We’ve cut out all things we consider unnecessary for living (like Mt. Dew for Joel and ice cream for me) and we’re buying 2% milk for the kids instead of whole milk, and skim for me. I can’t really complain. We’re still far better off than most of the world’s population. At least we can still buy milk.
Joel is in Honduras on a mission trip this week so my mom is staying here to help me. I wouldn’t have been able to make it through without her. Even with her the two of us are just barely hanging on by our fingernails. The laundry is constant, of course, and so are dishes. We also had the insane idea to pick apples from an orchard a week ago and ended up with two bushels to use. We’re saucing them, but it’s time consuming work and it’s hard to find that many consecutive hours when the kids aren’t needing attention.
Sometimes I wonder what the heck I was thinking when we decided to adopt, but in that it’s a comfort to know I’m in good company. Apparently that thought occurs to a lot of adoptive parents sometime in the first year of the adoption. Things supposedly settle down greatly by a year. I sure hope so.
Eli has been testing as severely hearing impaired, but he just got tubes in this past Wednesday, so we’ll see if that takes care of the problem. The doctor said it was about a 50/50 chance that it would. He does seem to be hearing better, though I can’t tell if his hearing is perfect or not. He’s a good baby, in any case. It’s the almost two and almost three year olds that are really driving me up a wall. It’s a good thing I never had an alcohol addiction because those two would certainly drive me back to drink!
Branwen needs more one on one attention since her younger siblings arrived and we moved and such. I wish I could find a mother daughter art class or something. She loves to paint and shows real talent for a four year old. Maybe I’ll find something yet. In the meantime, I’ll just have to try harder to give her some time alone with me during the day. Not an easy thing to do.
Alexis and Branwen are both in Awana now and they’re enjoying it. Since we can’t afford to do Christian School at this point, I’m happy to have them in a program that really encourages Bible memorization. We’re church hunting, too, so hopefully we’ll have a new home church before too long where they can attend regular Sunday School again. Branwen has trouble when we try new churches, so we try to put her in a class with one of her siblings. That seems to help a lot.
I’ve left my mom alone with the kids for long enough. Time to jump in again. Ready…. set… dropping like a hand grenade…. *sigh*