What an incredible journey we are on...I knew it would take time but I did not know it would be this challenging. What was I thinking-just business as usual? All of us are trying to find our new place in the family.... Tess is doing so well! It's the rest of us that seem a bit off. Tonight we had our first family meeting when Jeff got home from work. We all sat around the family room and talked about how we feel so far, what we need to be praying for and how we can each make sure we are having some special one on one bonding time with Tess. Each day it seems everyone scatters into their own life- Bennett surfing at the beach, Cameron over at Danny's or Charlie's, Christine off saying her good-byes to her high school friends and Jeff off to work. Tess and I are left to entertain each other. We always do something fun, but we also end up running errands and grocery shopping and managing our old life-just with her in tow. We decided we all needed to be a little more available to spend time with Tess and make her feel a part of our family. Each one of us came up with 2 or three things that we could do everyday with Tess. It was actually very heartwarming, Jeff really made the kids understand that she was an orphan who has been through things we can not even imagine and that we need to live a bit more in her world and think about how she might be feeling. Tess is just amazing. She sat through our family meeting not understanding a single word, but busily braiding Christine's hair the whole time. She is such a strong child with such a happy spirit. Everyone tells us how lucky she is to have ended up in our family, but I think we are the lucky one's to have been blessed by her.
