Friday, December 5, 2008

Tim's Birthday! and more Life with Luke

Today is Tim's birthday! Yay!!! He has decided to work from home, so that will be nice. Nathaniel and Luke and I went shopping and bought him lots of presents. All very practical, but I hope he will enjoy opening the packages anyway. I wish I could tell of the things we have done to prepare for this birthday for him, but...he may read my blog, and then the surprise would be ruined. Suffice it to say, we hope to make this a special day for my darling husband.

We have recovered from Luke's Thanksgiving cold and mine that followed on its heals. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving shared with friends. It was a blessing to be invited to join other families for the special day, as I would not have managed to accomplish a big meal, nor the celebratory feelings if we had ended up staying home. I assume due to the cold Luke woke up with, but possibly the anticipation of the big day also, Luke had his most challenging day with us so far. He had two fits before noon, and a close call during our Thanksgiving visit. Amazingly, we have not had any temper fits since that day!

We seem to have finally fully recovered the ground we lost after the last FM call. It took a full 10 days. During and following the call, Luke was in his baby talk, "I need nurturing" mode. It had seemed as first that the only negative results from the call were minor, but as the week progressed, I saw how Luke had pushed me away and was reaching out his siblings and Dad only. He also told me several times that I was not his mom that his FM was, and that he would never love me and he had only lied when he had said he did. It is a relief to be past all that.

I feel much more confident about my decisions in regards to refusing to be coerced into more communication with the foster parents, as we now have a therapist to advocate on Luke's behalf. She is a warm, happy lady who will come to our house once a week and stand up to social services for me about what is best for Luke. She agrees completely about cutting off the FP. Yay!
I am so pleased to see Luke decide continuously to make wiser choices and not make the choice to tantrum. I see him stop and think about which path he will take and he continues to take the path of wisdom and compliance. I don't carry high hopes that he will never choose to tantrum again, but we are certainly not seeing any for now, and I anticipate less from now on.

On Saturday, we had a lovely visit with a family who has adopted five children (also have four birth, and pregnant now, and 10 years younger than us). They were so encouraging and uplifting. Being with that family for much of Saturday was really very therapeutic. Even our teens enjoyed and felt uplifted by the visit. Unfortunately, I talked my voice right out. I haven't had it since. I would trade my voice for a week for the joy they brought into our home any day.

We told our matchmaker/social worker that we do not want to be taken off the list of those still looking for children. We know that we will have to renew our home study soon, but it is much easier to renew than to start over. We are definitely still wanting at least two more, hopeful under four years old. Luke is very interested in having more adopted kids and is enthralled with babies. He also is amazingly gentle with babies and protective of them. I am so glad that this little boy is not what the "adoption people" all warned us he would be. God is an amazing God. He put that list of yucky stuff in Luke's description to scare everyone else off, then he directed us straight to him. God be praised!