He's back!

Aidan arrived back this afternoon safely. I invited his first mom to bring him here to the house, it was her first time in our home. Usually we meet in the parking lot of a local fast food place. Not just because I wanted to have a little anonymity, but mostly because it was right off of the highway and our home is about 15 minutes farther.

Anyhow, I figured it is time for her to come over here, I am not afraid she will act up as I was in the beginning. And I really feel she needs to know we trust her as I believe she trusts us.I also need her to feel comfortable, so when Aidan goes home to her for good, she will feel like she can call me or bring him here if she is in crisis or just needs time for herself.

So I did pretty well last night, only checked up on Aidan once, remembered he wasn't there and went back to what I was doing, no tears, so that is good. I still got up around 6:30am and had a little extra time to get ready for church.

Speaking of church, I am really trying to like our church since it took on it's new format. We were the Berean Christian Church and now we are part of a big mega church called Harvest Bible Chapel. I really like the Pastor and the 4 Pillars and the music. But some of it is taking me a long time to get used to. Before, we would go into the sanctuary together, sit as a family for the worship time, then announcements, and then they would call childrens church and the little ones would leave for the last part. Now we "check them in" to their various Sunday School rooms. I have to dash around to 5 different rooms including the nursery to drop off everyone, including Katy. Then I go into the sanctuary alone for the entire service. They do bring Katy and Mackenzie's classes into the sanctuary, but the kids all sit separate from their parents.

After the service I have to rush again to round them all up so the teachers don't have to wait with them too long. I am exhausted by the end of this, and I truly miss being with my children during church. I want to worship together! Does this sound unreasonable? Because of this, I am not sure where this is going to. I did a lot of church "hopping" during the summer and we just never found anything we really liked. Today Katy and Mackenzie sat with me for the worship and then Mackenzie followed her class back when they all left. Katy stayed with me and followed along really well for the service. She took great notes and we were able to discuss it later at lunch. In fact, she even got out her notes and went over some of the scriptures with her sisters. Maybe we'll try that again and see if that feels comfortable for all of us. Madyson Claire is happy to go to her class. They give out candy at the end...she'll do most anything for candy I am sorry to say.

We had lunch at Costco, Hot Dogs of course! We needed pull-ups for Ava Marie and a couple of other things. We had to walk around and have some of the taste tests and one of them was their Rotisserie Chicken Pot Pie. A really huge deep dish, savory chicken pie that you take home to cook. It tasted wonderful so I bought one to make for dinner tonight. It was definitely a hit! Very tasty and moist. Everyone had seconds and Randy ate with us also. And I still have half a pie for leftovers!

It's going to be a long night...

I woke up this morning pretty early. Even before Aidan was up. I wanted to be ready for him with a fresh bottle and I also wanted time to shower and dress before he got up. Aidan goes on a visit today with his first Mom. He has all day visits now on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. This has been going on for about a month and a half. But today his visit will not be over at 7pm tonight...this time he will spend the night with her.

I didn't think this would be so hard. But Aidan has been here with me for just under six months now. Tomorrow morning will be the first time in all that time that I will wake up without him. And I am feeling a little melancholy. We still do not know exactly how this will all work out. His first Mom is on her meds, she has completed all of the tasks that the agency has asked her to do. She is nice and appropriate when we meet with her to exchange Aidan for his visits. There is really no reason for me to even think that this will not progress to Aidan eventually returning home with his first mom. Except that he is her third child and she does not have custody of the other two. She has not been stable enough to even hold down a job in the last 10 years. History is the reason we really don't know how this will turn out.

I spend a lot of time praying about this. Asking God to watch over him while he is away from us. Asking for peace of mind and peace in my heart so I will be able to be happy for the first mom, and not devastated for me. I am a big girl, I know what it takes to keep care of another persons child while they get their life together, get better, become the mother that Aidan needs her to be. I ask God to give the first mom courage to keep going, and the wisdom to ask for the help she needs, and the strength to do the right things for him. I am blessed by being Aidan's other mom. My other children love him too. They pray with me, they like first mom, she is very nice to them. Aidan is already 10 months old, I just hope if he is going to return home, that it happens soon, so it won't be such a hard transition for him. First mom and I have discussed staying in touch if that should happen. We have also discussed her relinquishing him to me. I keep telling her she must make that decision with God's help. My knees are getting sore!

So today we had a fun breakfast of McDonald's breakfast sandwiches, grapes and orange juice. Randy joined us and then headed up to Lawrence for the weekend. The girls are outside playing and riding bicycles right now. I will be working on laundry and sewing.

We don't have any big plans for this weekend. Next weekend we have so many committments I don't know how we will keep them all. But for now I will have a relaxing weekend. I am trying to sew 3 skirts for each of my daughters. They have shown quite an interest in changing their wardrobe over to just skirts and dresses. I would love to accomodate them, I just need to get these skirts done and then we will have enough to get through a whole week in skirts and dresses. I will keep the pants just in case, since Katy and Madyson are always so clod, I cna't imagine how they will get by in a skirt on one of our really cold winter mornings. I will post pictures later of the skirts I actually get done.