You're Amazing!

Not sure that blogging is really my thing but I finally have decided to give it a try. I've had some friends telling me I should and I've resisted until now. I'm not much of a daily recorder, scrapbooker, have the camera with me type. I wish I was a lot of the time, but I figured blogs were better served by people who were good at logging in their lives. But, as I mulled the idea over in my head, I realized that thinking of what to say helped me to see the humor in my life and to put the ups and downs of daily living into perspective. Its like spending your day trying to sum it all up in a catchy facebook status! But as strange as that is, it seems to help...

What really seemed to tip off the decision to do this was thinking about all the people that tell me "You're Amazing". Its really not as great as that seems. Don't get me wrong, I love to hear that I'm amazing just as much as the next person, but what I realized through having so many people tell me that, is that really it has very different meanings. Some people are thinking that because they can't picture parenting four young children that close in age themselves. I feel like they sell themselves short and think if they REALLY lived with us, they'd see the truth that we're really not amazing at all... just typical. Others are thinking we're amazing because they can't picture adopting 3 children. Again, I feel like they sell themselves short. As mom used to say, "Try it, you'll like it!". While I understand its out of the realm of typical, for most people once you adopt it just feels like you're adding a child to your family like everyone else. You don't live everyday within the label of "adoptive family". And then other people when they say "You're Amazing" really are saying "You're insane! You couldn't pay me to trade lives with you!". These people I can relate to the most. You can tell who they are because their "You're Amazing" comes when the decibel level is through the roof, the chaos and energy of four young children is past the overwhelming point. They've seen a snipet into our life and they are ready to run out the door screaming never to return.

At least I must say I prefer the "You're Amazing!" comment to the other frequent comment I get... the good old "Wow! You really have your hands full!". And the funny thing about this comment is that it generally comes from strangers when I think the kids are doing great! Like today, everyone was quietly marching out of the furniture store to the car - a mother duck followed by the many ducklings -- and while it takes a bit of time to march through the door with that many, they were all quiet and well behaved (at that moment -- admittedly we were LEAVING the store because E couldn't keep his hands to himself and out of his mouth and nose and K was just fussy and wanted to run screaming through the store). However, this woman was just entering the store and had no prior knowledge of any chaos contributed to by my lovely brood.

The truth is, I've never been so tired in my life. I literally drag myself out of bed in the morning and this used to be "night person" who couldn't go to sleep before 11pm even if I wanted to now finds it a challenge to stay awake until 10pm! The noise level on days like today (no school!) can give me a headache before 8am. But each very unique person has lots of strengths and perspective to bring to the table as well as unique parenting challenges and areas for growth. So, its always a split decision. With six people, on any given day at least one if not more is having an off day or doesn't like the dinner or whatever. But the good news is that with this many, at least one person if not more is having a good day and loves the dinner! And most of the time, its a lot of fun. And well, at least we can laugh as we look back at some of the not so fun moments too...