So – it’s been a month.  A month since my last blog.  A month since our lives have shifted.  I anticipated that I would say that it’s been really hard, that we are struggling to adapt, and deeply grieving still but actually God has been really gracious to me.  This transition has been filled with peace and so much time to reflect and look at how it will be going forward.

My whole life for the past eighteen years has been wrapped up in baby/toddler care.  We really haven’t had a break from having a baby in our home for the whole of our parenting years.  So the switch to only having a chatty, fiercely independent four year old at home all day has been different….but actually really amazingly great.   For the most part, I enjoy my days with just Bekkah home – she has been our most clingy child all along, she has significant separation anxiety (which is a whole ‘nother blog post!) and I am enjoying the ability to give her my undivided time and attention while the kids are at school.  She “helps” with household tasks, and we do fun spontaneous outings just because.  I enjoy the two mornings a week she goes to school as well – she’s been doing preschool on Tu/Th all year but up until a month ago I had the little peanut here napping or playing.  I am learning how much I love being alone to pray and reflect, read, or whatever.  I crave the silence and really love my mornings to just be me.

It would be remiss to go on without mentioning how we are doing with the grieving process.  So many of you have checked in with me, asking delicately and so lovingly how we are doing with Miss M moving.  I have felt so loved and supported in the midst of this change.  All I can say is that God has really done a work in my heart.

I miss her smile and sweet snuggles, I miss HER, but I don’t miss the work of having a baby/toddler in our home, the work of the additional little person who had to be carried everywhere, of being tied to a nap schedule.  Ryan and I are actually doing very well.  The kids are too for the most part.  Ella and Bekkah still talk about her a lot.  We actually had a morning play date with M last week.  I wasn’t sure how it was going to go….it was hard.  M was sad and confused (which is the LAST thing I wanted to do to her) and wouldn’t let me put her down, so Bek didn’t get her play time until the very end.

When we dropped her off, she wriggled out of my arms and ran to her mama.  Then down to play where she clearly felt at home and comfortable.  It was awkward, but so good to see.  Those are her people.  That is her home, where she can smile and run around and  be herself.  She successfully transferred attachment to another family, which has always been the goal.  Such a hard but seriously good morning for me to walk through.  I’m sure there will be more days like that, but hopefully as time passes she forgets the confusing parts and we can just play and be in her life.  Time is the healer of all these open wounds, it truly is.

And now we look at the other end of the parenting spectrum, with our oldest son graduating from high school in just a few more weeks, then leaving for the summer to work at a camp, and turning 18.  It is incredible to me that we have a child who is about to be an adult.  Absolutely incredible.  Lots more on that later (to Andrew’s chagrin, I’m sure).

Emotional days around this house….good stuff, but full, full of deep emotion…..