...Love can move mountains

The children are all snuggled in and sound asleep. That sure didn't take very long tonight! Sometimes it can be a bit of a fuss. I'll hear the boys up and playing quietly in their room, or I'll walk by and see the girls' light still on and hear them talking. Most nights, I have to turn the television up just so that I can't hear the girls talking and "sharing secrets," as all sisters should.

I love how well the children all fit together. It certainly wasn't easy at first and some days, it still isn't. For the most part though, they all just fit together as though they've always been here.

And it's often easy to forget that I did not give birth to three of these kids. It's easy to forget that they haven't been here since the dawn of time. I look into Mr. Man's face, and I swear sometimes, I can see his infant eyes gazing back up at me, looking for a connection. He's eleven, so those infant eyes have been gone for quite some time now.

And times I look at JD and can swear that I can remember him doing some odd little thing as a toddler; except that I didn't have him as a toddler. I hug Princess Pink good night and can almost think back to her tiny arms wrapped around my waist in a good night embrace.

These things never happened. I adopted these children just this year, and yet, my heart tells me otherwise. It's like this for all of the children that enter my home, whether they stay an few nights or months. And every once in a while, I have to remind myself that while they are my precious babies, in their eyes, I'm just another random adult that may or may not give up on them at any given time.

These guys might never learn to trust me, or that they are here no matter what, and that tears me up. I can see it happening in their minds where they start getting comfortable and then quickly try to self destruct to push us all away. I just have to remember what I told all three of them before they came here.

With a little bit of hope and a little bit of faith, love can move mountains.

And a strong support network! Do not forget that! Oh, I don't mean the network for myself or my husband. Building a strong foundation of community is so very important for these kids. Helping them to learn to trust adults and authority figures, while at the same time, building bridges for them, outlets for their fears and frustrations, is the single most important thing we can do. Helping them to build a connection to the community around them so that later, they know they belong somewhere in this big world, is so essential.

And just like any other parent, biological or otherwise, I often get scared and have my doubts. What if I break them even worse than when they first got here? What if I push them too hard? What if I don't push them hard enough?

With a little bit of hope and a little bit of faith, love can move mountains.

I just have to remind myself of that on a daily basis. It's something I've believed for a very long time and it repeatedly proves to be true.  Just ask my kids! But wait another ten years first. Let's help them move some mountains of their own, first!

What about you? What has been your biggest parenting challenge and how did you get past it?