Sam is twitterpated

My Sammy's got it bad. Love that is. A little girl from his pre-school class and his church class named M has my boy in quite the tizzy. I watched him plant a full-on-mouth kiss on her at the Mother's Day tea at school this spring. And I listened the entire semester as he spoke of nothing but M. I, stupidly apparently, assumed the infatuation would end when school was over and he wasn't seeing her as often. I was wrong, so very very wrong. Things are only ramping up in that department.

Recently he's started telling me he's in love. Yes those are his exact words. He is in love and M is in love and so they are going to get married because that's what you do when you are in love. Sam has started picking out wedding details (the church and the flowers -- just like mommy and daddy's wedding) and there is talk of the 5 sons and 2 dogs they will have when he is daddy and M is the mommy. Luke and I told him he should probably consult with M on the 5 sons part! We've also mentioned that perhaps he should wait to talk to M's daddy before he starts planning to get married to her.

Yesterday, while driving in the car, the topic of conversation suddenly turned to family reunions. After I explained why Daddy's cousins weren't at the reunion for Grammy's (my mom) cousins, Sam declared that M was his family. I asked how that was possible and he non-nonchalantly replied, "because we're in love."

We're working on directing Sam to think they are just good friends but this is a battle we are losing. As he says, she is not his girlfriend. They are in love -- there's a difference.

The groanings of a family

It's happening again, that groaning accompanying the stretch of adding new family members. With the addition of two new to our flock I'm surprised the groaning isn't audible elsewhere. Both the babies are home now and have been for about 2 weeks. As a whole they are doing wonderfully. They've acclimated to the extra noise and general commotion that comes with living with other little kids. They are beginning to get used to seeing our faces and hearing our voices. Unfortunately both have been a bit under the weather each battling a different bug. And these bugs have meant little to no sleep for us...more on that in a bit.

The big kids are adjusting. We are dealing with expected behavioral outbursts from all of them -- extra noise, extra tears, extra pushes against our boundaries. They are also a bit needy for affection -- each vying for more time in our laps and more attention of our eyes and ears. This has all happened before and it will fade as quickly as it began; it just wears on mom and dad while in the middle of it.

As I alluded to earlier, sleep is a priceless commodity around our house and one that is rarely found. Luke and I are tired and so the groaning is a little louder and perhaps more woeful. One of the babies refuses to sleep without being held so it's often true that the parent of the night only gets about 1-2 hours of sleep total. That wears on the body, mind and soul and so we are bone-weary.

Personally I'm struggling with spiritual issues because of my exhaustion. I've allowed myself, foolishly, to forego any quiet time and serious Bible study and I'm paying the price. My lack of attention has allowed cracks in my armor and those are being used against me. Any little seed of evil -- doubts from people unsupportive of our decision to adopt, criticisms posed as questions -- these are growing into full-blown ugliness inside me. I've had to spend a lot of time today praying and reading, trying to fill up and fix what I've allowed to empty and break.

This afternoon has been better and I've no doubt things will continue to improve. They have to sleep eventually, right? ;)