I saw this here. She got it here.

I saw this yesterday on a blog I follow and it caused me to breath a little sigh of relief. My world feels like a lot of chaos right now. Reading this made me look forward to the changes God has in store for us. 

I also breathed another sigh of relief last night as I was holding Isaiah on my lap and looking at my other kids . . . because I thought about what three of their lives used to look like and where they physically used to live. As much I as feel like we are struggling to provide what they need (in terms of structure, activities, discipline, etc.), in that moment last night I was grateful that they simply had a family to belong to and a safe place to live. For last night, that was enough. 

I didn't mention in my post last night that Jason left on a short business trip Sunday night and is coming home this evening (I didn't exactly think all of cyber-space needed to know I was home alone with four kids for two nights!). So, of course, this has added to the chaos. We've had this trip on the calendar for several weeks so the kids could have plenty of time to know about it. We talked more about it over the weekend. The girls have been okay with Jason leaving and being gone. This is another benefit of adopting kids that are a lot older - they are able to think literally so when we say daddy is coming home Tuesday, they can look at the calendar and know what that means. We also intentionally drove Jason to the airport and are going to pick him up so the kids can see the airport and airplanes, etc. which helps their understanding of what is going on.

Isaiah, on the other hand, has had a harder time. When I put Isaiah to bed Saturday night, he was full of distress (like when he first came home) and it took him a long time to go to sleep because he knew Jason was leaving the next day. Before we drove to the airport on Sunday, Jason gave Isaiah his pillow and told him to take good care of it and give it back to him when he got home (my CA friend gave me this idea of giving a child something that belongs to the person leaving to take care of because it helps them grasp the concept that the person is coming back). I had already told Isaiah he could sleep with me while daddy was gone, which has increased his felt safety the last two nights. As soon as we dropped Jason off at the airport, Isaiah started crying and cried all the way to Ankeny. I hated that there was nothing I could say that would make him feel better. He just has to learn overtime that his parents won't leave him. Yesterday he asked where daddy was in a really sad voice. I reminded him where he was and when he was coming home and told him to go get daddy's pillow. Having him go get the pillow allowed him to do something with those emotions he had and it reminded him (better than my words, probably) that daddy was coming back.  

I'm excited for us to go get Jason at the airport tonight and see the looks on the kids' faces when they see him coming. I'm also excited to have my husband home!