It's Already Taking A Village

Since we decided to adopt, Mitch and I have had many times when we look at each other and say, "What are we thinking?" If we didn't feel so strongly that this is God's plan and not ours, we might just bag the whole thing. I mean, our three kids overwhelm us at times. Adding a fourth? We might be nuts.

But here's the thing: We have a village. Take our oldest son's birthday party this past weekend. We planned to have 17 boys ages 5-8 to our house, then take them to a dinosaur park that is 45 minutes away. It seemed to take all our might just to get the silly evite out in time, figure out the guest list, and sort of plan the cake (a dinosaur era timeline....long story). So by the time the actual party day rolled around, we still hadn't solidified which grownups would 1)drive all those kids to the park, 2) be willing to also keep track of them with us at said park and 3) lend us kid hauling vehicles to drive said kids to said park. Very last minute we made a few calls and ended up with one grandma's minivan, sister's suburban, other grandma driving and lending minivan, and twenty-something bachelor friend agreeing to drive and kid-wrangle. Oh, yeah. We also needed to get rid of the three year old, so sent her with suburban-lending sister.

The party was GREAT! Oldest son loved it and we didn't even lose one kid. Our village came through with flying colors.....again. And since the party (only 3 days ago,) there have already been more instances where we've been bailed out by the village.

Sometimes we feel guilty that running our family requires this village. It can feel like we aren't good enough parents to keep it all afloat on our own. But we are deeply grateful all in the same breath. Our family is so much better for the village! So here's a shout out to our village people. You know who you are and we hope you know how much you are loved and appreciated. Speaking of the village, kid 2 and 3 are being dropped off by grandma as we speak.....