Thank you

Hello there.

If you’re still checking our blog after a long season of no posting, I’m really grateful. I suppose there are dozens of reasons you could think of why I haven’t posted anything for a while. Most of them are probably true.

It’s busy at our house. It’s also kind of up and down with good days and hard ones, and I find myself at a loss for knowing whether to tell the good stories or the challenging stories—or none of them at all. I don’t want to sound like a broken record, and I certainly don’t want to evoke pity, although I do appreciate understanding and support.

Our family has also shifted from being so focused on bringing home an adopted kiddo to living as family with a child who has quite a few special needs. In my earliest posts related to Matthew, I spent my time and energy focused on his adoption—and explored that wide range of emotions and feelings. But now I don’t exactly feel like we fit in the adoption community like I had hoped—we can’t fully enter into some things I expected to find myself in—like preserving a culture for a boy who knew and understood he was adopted. Right now Matthew has no clue he’s adopted—nor that he’s from China—nor that he looks different than the rest of his immediate family. These things don’t really matter right now.

What does matter is his delayed development alongside the amazing yet subtle milestones he achieves each day. What matters is this mama’s heart, adjusting and learning, trying to wrap my head around this little person and all it takes, right now, to help him learn and grow. Both Aaron and I have committed ourselves these days to being very present with our children, which doesn’t leave a lot of extra time for things like blogging.

But I did have something to say this morning—something that I feel deeply in my heart. I wanted to express my gratitude to all of you who are walking this journey with us. SO many of you play an important role in this season—whether you spend time each week with Matthew, pouring yourselves into him (like some of my family members and also some of our friends) or whether you kindly take my phone calls, even when I’m calling again to process, to tell you it’s hard, to tell you I’m scared, or to celebrate some little, tiny achievement of Matthew’s that has taken on giant-sized proportions in my heart.

Thank you to those of you who willingly keep our big kids for an hour here, an hour there, so we can take Matthew to yet another medical appointment or OT or SLP visit. Thank you for your wisdom and love—for not giving up on us when we live this life awkwardly or selfishly sometimes.

We couldn’t do all of this without the investment and support of our wider community, and I feel—daily—a deep sense of gratitude in my heart for all those who come alongside us.

And on the days when it’s actually fairly calm here at our house—when it’s not so hard (because we have those days too)—I still feel the love and support and companionship of our community, and I know our kids feel it too. All three of them are growing up with the deep and abiding love of so many people. It does take a village to raise our three—and they know it and are blessed by all the pouring in of so many people.

So we’re here—we’re busily doing all we possibly can to invest in the three small people who inhabit our home and our days. And we’re glad that you’re here too—in person or in spirit.