Another reminder...

I need reminders from time to time to sit back and appreciate what I have instead of what I'm missing. Don't get me wrong, I don't take my children for granted - not for a moment. Not in the most harried, frustrating, obnoxious moments when they're fighting over imaginary toys and making noise to hear themselves do I take them for granted. Even in my sheltered life, I've seen enough to never, ever forget to appreciate them for just being. Besides, I know their trade-in value ;) But sometimes I get overwhelmed by the missing of Anna so much that it shadows the amount I can sop up the moments with my Munsters. I constantly struggle between wishing away the time until the referral, and willing time to stop so my Munsters don't get any bigger. (This would lead well into a segue about Jack entering school, but I shouldn't go there as I ate only salad for supper and am sipping a cooler.)

Today a family attended my clinic. They have two daughters, one biological, one daughter of a different race, different name. I got up the courage to ask if she was adopted, and she was, but not by the same means Anna will be. Their adoptive daughter had been a babyhood friend of their biological daughter, the child of a neighbouring family. Her parents both died before she was seven. She has been adopted by my client's family at the wishes of her mother.

I hope and pray with every part of me that our adoption comes through and our family is completed by Annie's inclusion. As with the willing of time to speed up and stop in the same breath, I'm confronted by another contradiction of truth. Anna will complete our family. Without her, we're not quite done. But for now we're perfect. Our family is intact. There are many things that may cause our adoption to fail, on both sides of the pond; CCAA decisions, financial complications, politics, health and death to name a few. If in fact the adoption doesn't come to pass, I will forever miss her that was meant to be with us, but I pray I still have my perfect family of today. I needed the reminder today, to bask in the perfection that I experience each and every harried, frustrating, obnoxious day. With any luck, the CCAA will read our application and decide that our Circus will be a perfect fit for a certain abandoned or orphaned child, and our family will be complete. Until then, things are perfect.

N