One Thousand Gifts

I participated in One Thousand Gifts previously, and I'm excited to do so again. This is a community of believers that are purposeful about giving thanks for the blessings God has bestowed. Here we go:
1. I am eternally His!
2. Wonderful, adoring husband
3. amazing children
4. wisdom of an older generation
5. a Bible believing church
6. full gas tank
7. Fluxx
8. Photoshop

When my heart skipped a beat.

I was looking through an old blog of mine, that hasn't been updated in ages. The most recent updates are from January. I decided that I'd let that one die away and begin anew. I may borrow a few snippets from it as reposts as I go along. Hopefully I'll keep up this time, eh? Anyhow. I wanted to share something that I posted on that blog. It's from December 29 of last year.

We took the boys to visit their birth mom today. During the visit, the social worker told us about 3 children that she needs to place and is having a hard time finding a home for. My eyes lit up. Three more little ones!?!? She smiled and we talked about it a bit. I was picking out curtains for the little girls’ room in my head. To my joy, Jason was okay with the idea. Our new landlord, however, was not. My heart broke, and is breaking still. I know it’s a lot of kids, but they need a Mommy and a Daddy. They need a forever home. I’m sorry, beautiful ones, I will pray that God will bless you with an even better Mommy and Daddy that we could ever be.

We prayed and prayed for these little ones. Before we knew their names. Before we knew their faces. Before we knew their hearts. My heart longed to take them home.

But it wasn't possible.

There would be such an enormous amount of red tape. They were in a different county, in a different region. There would be other families that would love to take them. Out of hundreds of foster families, there would have to be NO families that could take them in their region. Social services would have to look through other counties to find a family. There would have to be NO other families in these counties as well.

It just wasn't going to happen.

My heart became heavy.

Five months later our social worker called me and said, "You're not going to believe this. There is absolutely NO ONE else that can take these kids. Are you sure you want them?" :) :) :) Isn't God funny :)

The testing of the parents

So, I guess Muscles is trying to discover if we really love him. That's the best I can come up with. Yesterday, he hit me. Yeah... he really did. He was sorry for it later... very sorry, but still. I've talked with Charming about this a few times, trying to understand the root of the problem so that we can get to a solution. It's not that he's never been disciplined before. He has. I don't know exactly how, or to what extent, but he has been disciplined. Pray for us. We are trying to not exasperate him, but when he does this, it get's hard for me to control MY anger, which of course only throws gas on the fire.

Really? Again?

So, Protector runs up to Me and Captain outside and yells, "Muscles dumped pee on me!" At this point, I'm quite confused. Why does Muscles have pee in something that would allow him to "dump it on me"? Why in the world did this happen? How did this happen outside where, just to relieve any confusion, we do NOT have a toilet?

Come to find out, Princess, yeah, it was her this time decided that if the boys can pee outside, she can too... so she did... in a cup... and Ty "thought it was water" so he threw it on Protector. Aren't brothers (and sisters) great?

Oh, what is this? I think I'll pee in it...

Wow... Protector peed in a cupin the bathroom. Yeah, he did. Well, it wasn't

really a cup, it was more like a container. A monkey container.

Not sure why it's in the bathroom. Actually, I'm not sure what it really is or where it came from. Then he lied about it. BIG mistake. I dumped it out and cleaned it, and filled it with water and told him to drink it since he thinks it goes in a cup like a drink. He flipped out! (No, I didn't really make him... sheesh) He refused to drink it (thank goodness) so I dumped it on his head (remember... it's just water at this point) and put him in the bathtub since he was "stinky". I don't think he'll do it again :)

The bowl overfloweth

Cuddlebug came in my room and said, "Da toilet paper not go'n down. i try to fix it, but it still not go down!" I, very slowly, walked out of my room and saw the entire bathroom flooded, with a plunger, a bowl cleaner, and lots of toilet paper on the floor... and all down the hallway. Really?