We Survived the First Week!

It’s officially been just over a week since we got Buzz and Woody* and we all survived!

*My Instagram friend, Jessica from @theopenhome suggested we use those names for our online names for our first foster care placement and they are so perfect for these boys.

 

Here’s a few random things from the first week:

The first few nights were rough

Not a lot of sleeping occurred but the daytime was pretty good. You win some, you lose some.

Thankfully it got better and they are pretty much sleeping through the night now except Woody who will sometimes wake up once and wants to be held to fall back asleep but then wakes back up when I try to put him in his crib. I haven’t quite figured out how to make the nights he wakes up work well. Since the boys share a room I don’t want him waking up Buzz.

 

They know where home is

In some ways it’s concerning how quickly they were okay with our house being home. After they had been with us for two days we had our first aid training and the kids were at my parents for the day, that evening when we drive into the house Buzz raised his arms and said “Yay! Home, home!”

 

They (generally) nap and fall asleep well

Buzz likes either Jared or I to sit in the room until he falls asleep which usually takes 15ish minutes (except I’m trying most of this post so far on my phone while he’s supposed to be napping and today it is just not happening).

 

Toddler kisses are just the cutest

To give kisses Woody puts his lips on my cheek and breathes out through his nose, it’s adorable.

 

 

It took hardly any time at all to fall in love

This is one of the biggest things I prayed while we were all in the approval process. I have seen God really answer that later because they came to us with colds (aka snotty noses) and I still quickly felt love for them. Because of this it is easy to treat them the same as our own children and it makes serving them and helping them through trials and tantrums that much easier.

 

Taking in two toddlers is a great exercise and weight loss program

Granted I haven’t actually weighed myself so I don’t have definite statistics but it’s definitely hard to find times to eat and toddlers don’t always allow for me to finish my food. Add in the carrying of some not-so-little toddlers and you’ve got more muscles than you did the week before.

 

Toddlers are busy

Seriously busy. Make that two boy toddlers and I think that doubles the busyness. There have definitely been moments where I’ve thought “maybe we should have started with just one”, but we didn’t get into this thinking it would be easy, we wanted to be able to open our home up to siblings so they could be kept together. Yes, life is busy, but I don’t think I would be living a life poured out if it wasn’t.

 

I’m rooting for their birth family

Honestly, I thought I would feel more hesitant to be in the birth family’s corner but that hasn’t been the case so far at all. I really want them to be able to do what they need to have a safe home Buzz and Woody can go back to.

 

I think that’s a pretty accurate summary of our first week! Honestly, I’m more tired than I expected but things are also going better than I would have expected. Thanks for praying for us, we would love your continued prayers!

 

On a slightly different note, November is adoption awareness month. I hope to share a number of adoption related posts in the next few weeks. If you have any questions related to adoption that you would like me to attempt to answer or topics you would like me to cover, let me know! I’ve got a few ideas of things I will be sharing but am open to some other ideas as well! (A few potential ideas: why we chose international adoption over domestic, timeline, fundraising, etc.)