What a surprise

here I was happily rolling along thinking everything was fine. and what a lovely honeymoon it was. and WHAM! I got hit in the face with "what have I done? am I nuts? will they EVER understand me? what the heck is the deal with their sudden behavior problems?" after this always comes the "how long until I can find them a new home? how will I do that? what will the children think of me then??" I have these feelings every time we have a new child/children. I have a freakout before they arrive and then I calm down and then they DO arrive and everything is going swimmingly and then something completely normal and par for the course happens and I start to wonder if I have lost my head. In fact I wonder why it took so long. Happened with Chrysta, Maia, Sophie and Ben, of course it would happen when you add FOUR children to your family. It isnt easy making four strangers into family. Especially four strangers old enough to walk and talk and speak another language. While we do love them all they do have their own personalities and experiences which guide them and sometimes its hard to understand what makes them tick that way. Thankfully it is only a fleeting thought that happens when things are going badly. MOST of the time the things we deal with are extremely normal childhood things or sibling things. some of it is lack of education on their part that they just dont understand how to live in a family. It will come in time. I have to remind myself that it isnt a personal assault when I find other peoples things under a child's pillow. They just dont understand that not everything is community property as where they came from everything was community property. and sadly I just dont have enough language skills to communicate to them all the time. My second language skills are woefully inadequate. but I learn new nouns all the time, problem is that all nouns and only one or two verbs makes it hard to talk to them.

I guess I am on track with Traci in that I am mourning my loss of freedom a bit. the changes in my life. While I chose these changes they are still changes and sometimes you just LONG for those easy days when all of this was a happy pipe dream. or when you only had 2 daughters and 2 sons so it was easy to buy 2 of anything. but when you have ten its hard to buy enough of something. If I think awww this is cute, I could buy it for the girls, then I have to buy 5 of them. in seperate colors of course so they know which one is theirs. Meanwhile husband goes off to work, comes home reads the news waits for dinner, and his life is much the same. It isnt that he doesnt help me. he helps me a lot when he is home. it is just that his world isnt changing like mine. and he still has plenty of outside communications. I have little to none. I long to talk to a grown up for awhile! but there is little point in calling anyone as I will be constantly interrupted and impossible to actually have a conversation. My mom calls now and then. She tries to catch me at not busy times. but with ten kids, who can say when its gonna be busy? I used to call her daily. I rarely have time for that now. Maybe when the kids are off to school all day I will have more time to call her. just me going through adjustments I guess. up until now it was all about THEIR adjustment. well its finally about my adjustment. things are different. things have changed. they are still changing. and I have to adjust. that takes time and energy. and when the boys are up all night I have little energy to face changes.

the rainy cold weather is not helping my spirits much. I am a sunshine girl. although I do love a good thunderstorm. I completely missed out on one last night. by the time I got finished getting everyone ready and to bed it was over and I had no time to enjoy it. winter is coming and I almost completely missed out on all the summer things I love. we cant even have a cookout, a favorite fall activity, because it would be too dangerous for the boys as they dont listen so great yet.

well I better get off this thing and get clothes for everyone for school open house in 2 hours.