OUR PLANS MULTIPLIED: This Morning....Many Mornings

OUR PLANS MULTIPLIED

In the beginning, JD adamantly only wanted two children. I thought that four would be perfect. Once we caught God's vision of putting orphans into families, our plan was multiplied by God. We are currently blessed with 12 children; five biological, six adopted and one more waiting in Ethiopia. Our first adoption was from the U.S., the next three were from Liberia, West Africa, and our last two were from Ethiopia. We are supporting our 12th child in Ethiopia after her adoption could not pass court.

Thursday, January 8, 2015

This Morning....Many Mornings

I hear from people everyday, "I don't know how you do it". Honestly, there are days I juggle so much, that I'm not sure I did "do it" (at least semi-decently). At this point, JD works from home two days a week when he isn't on travel and that helps tremendously; he does quick trips with the kids as well as helping watch the younger ones. Generally my sister heads to town every morning, but many days like today, she sticks around to fill in the gap.

Here was a run down of this morning:

JD left for D.C. long before my alarm went off at 5:20 and I started warming the car to take a child to work.

5:35 - I take the child to work;

Elijah woke up as I was walking out the door, so I tucked him in my bed and assured him that I would be right back.

5:50 - I am back and try to talk myself into staying up and working on my school stuff, but the warm bed wins and I climb back in with Elijah after resetting my alarm for 7:00.

7:00 - I get everyone up to dress, eat, pack lunches, pack back-packs and pack the wood stove, debate about the frozen animal water and do farm chores in the 15 degree weather. In the middle of all that, Bella coughs so much while she is eating that she throws up all over the floor. Selah promptly steps in it. It's so cold that schools are delayed for two hours, but that only affects Tori, since Julia and Selah have an appointment in town with me.

I leave at 8:15 with Julia and Selah with instructions on the board for Deb to drop James and Ben at class at 9:00, then pick up said child at work at 10:00 and make it back for the delayed bus at 10:15.

When the girls and I get out of the appointment at 10:40, we have 20 minutes to eat lunch before heading back to pick up James and Ben. I find out in the meantime that said child was caught at work a few minutes late and Tori burst in to announce that she would miss the bus, causing undo stress on said child. Said child then texts me her trauma. Tori misses the bus anyway and Aunt Deb drives her to school on her way back to town leaving Alyssa in charge of Elijah and Bella.

I pick up the boys and arrive home with seconds to spare, drop off the boys from class, grab Julia's eye Rx, take Selah to school, then drive Julia to her eye appointment. We choose reading glasses; I pop in Food Lion, because we forgot to pack her a snack and having a snack-free day even after Chick Fil A would cause too much trauma, and I take her to school. I swing by recycling because it's so full I can barely see out the back out the Escape. I arrive home again only in time to take said child back to work to check her schedule, since she left so quickly earlier that she was unable to.

I then arrive home at 2:00 p.m. to start the regular work of the day - you don't even want to hear about that!