Like sands through the hour glass, so are the days of our adopted lives
At my house we do Mom School, scavenger hunts, progressive parties, balloon rockets, art projects, laser mazes, field trips, dance parties, MadLibs, and many more adventures. On snow days I scour Pinterest for ideas of games, crafts, and activities. During the summers I spend a lot of time making sure my children aren't sitting idly in front of the television, melting into the fabric of the sofa.
I'm sure there are people who feel I do too much to entertain my children. But I'm not really entertaining them…I'm creating memories with them. I have years of memories to make up for with my children. My friends with biological kids have spent years pretending to be Santa and hosting their Elf on a Shelf through all sorts of crazy antics. They have been leaving trails of jelly beans as proof of the Easter Bunny's visit. These moms and dads have been making countless costumes for school programs and spent countless hours preparing to be the "cool" Room Parent at every party. These biological parents have snuggled their babies, kissed boo-boos, bonded over midnight feedings, shared first steps, first words, first birthdays, and every other "normal" childhood memory. I didn't have those luxuries with my children.
My girls joined our family when they were eight and ten. Prior to that, their memories were filled with drug abuse, exposure to Rated-R horror films, poverty, inappropriate language, poor nutrition, and neglect. They have to live with the childhood memory of the police ripping them away from the only life they had ever known and being scrubbed down in an emergency room to remove the traces of meth exposure. These sweet girls have known what it feels like to bounce around the foster care system, each time being exposed to a mixture of good and bad memories…along with loss and disappointment.
Soon enough my children will be teenagers and won't want to spend time with my husband and me. Until then I am watching the grains of sand eking out of the hourglass as time slips away. I have precious little time to build positive childhood memories with them -- memories that will hopefully bond us together like glue, even as their adolescent development is pulling them further away.
So, enjoy your photos of those Elf on a Shelf antics and your child's first birthday -- and I'll be over here enjoying sweet memories of all the times we tried out activities I found on Pinterest. Hopefully while we play catch-up my daughters won't feel slighted by all the ways their friends' moms and dads have been succeeding at this parenting thing from Day 1.
I'm sure there are people who feel I do too much to entertain my children. But I'm not really entertaining them…I'm creating memories with them. I have years of memories to make up for with my children. My friends with biological kids have spent years pretending to be Santa and hosting their Elf on a Shelf through all sorts of crazy antics. They have been leaving trails of jelly beans as proof of the Easter Bunny's visit. These moms and dads have been making countless costumes for school programs and spent countless hours preparing to be the "cool" Room Parent at every party. These biological parents have snuggled their babies, kissed boo-boos, bonded over midnight feedings, shared first steps, first words, first birthdays, and every other "normal" childhood memory. I didn't have those luxuries with my children.
My girls joined our family when they were eight and ten. Prior to that, their memories were filled with drug abuse, exposure to Rated-R horror films, poverty, inappropriate language, poor nutrition, and neglect. They have to live with the childhood memory of the police ripping them away from the only life they had ever known and being scrubbed down in an emergency room to remove the traces of meth exposure. These sweet girls have known what it feels like to bounce around the foster care system, each time being exposed to a mixture of good and bad memories…along with loss and disappointment.
Soon enough my children will be teenagers and won't want to spend time with my husband and me. Until then I am watching the grains of sand eking out of the hourglass as time slips away. I have precious little time to build positive childhood memories with them -- memories that will hopefully bond us together like glue, even as their adolescent development is pulling them further away.
So, enjoy your photos of those Elf on a Shelf antics and your child's first birthday -- and I'll be over here enjoying sweet memories of all the times we tried out activities I found on Pinterest. Hopefully while we play catch-up my daughters won't feel slighted by all the ways their friends' moms and dads have been succeeding at this parenting thing from Day 1.
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