Girls are bossy.  I just now discovered this.  My brother has probably known this about us for some time.  I don’t have any sisters, so growing up, the only one bossing people around was me!  With Evie’s introduction into our family, my world is turvy topsy spinning around.  This bossy little almost-two-year-old is taking over!  She bosses Elliott around.  She bosses me around.  And she flirts with her daddy.  Every day, we follow the same script.

Evie: Elliott!  No!  No!  No!  No!  No!  Mamamamamamaaaaaaaa!  No!!

Elliott: Mom!  Evie’s telling me no!

Me: Is she the boss of you?

Elliott: No!

Me: Are you the boss of her?

Elliott: No!

Me: Who’s the boss?

Elliott: You are!

Me: That’s right.

Evie’s searching for control anywhere she can find it, and who can blame her?  She must feel rather out of control.  Bossy bossy bossy the cow.

Girls are emotional.  Oh, the emotions rolling off of her!  Some may be adoption-related, transition-related, and I try to soothe, comfort, love her through her anger and frustration and grief.  And some of it is her, a girl in my home.  She can wield emotion like a weapon, manipulating situations to gain control.  I give her a boundary, she punishes me with unprecedented levels of angry tears and pouty lips.  And there is no redirecting her, distracting her.  She is not a boy.  She is a girl.  And wow.  Bossy, emotional.  It’s all true.  I keep asking my mother, was I like that?  Apparently yes, and my mom giggles sadistically that I’m getting it full force.  Her prayers for payback have been answered.  I’m too afraid to ask my husband if I’m still like that.

This boy-mom is out of her element.  And there was no build-up to now.  She is simply here, plopped in our midst and ready to rumble.  I grip the kitchen counter and pray for patience a lot.  Girls are complicated creatures, and I’m one of them!  Two complicated females in one house.  Two complicated, too complicated!

We didn’t “choose” the gender for our adoption.  We felt like it was too big of a decision.  Better to leave it up to God.  I think I figured we’d get a boy.  But God gave us a girl.  And over the last couple of months, He’s been refining me through His decision!  Mothers and daughters…whew.  Two girls enter…one girl leaves.  Or is there another way?  My wise, wise friend, mother of twin girls, told me early on, fight FOR her, not WITH her.  I think about that a lot.

Every day, I see snapshots of beauty.  I take mental pics.  My kids playing kindly with one another in the kitchen while I cook doro wat.  Click.  Beautiful.  My daughter holding her doll and saying, “Baby.”  Click.  And yesterday, Evie had her doll in one arm and her purse in the other, polka dot tights, ruffly skirt, sequined shirt with hearts on it.  I began to twirl in the kitchen.  And then she started twirling, too.  Two girls, twirling in pretty outfits.  Two bossy, emotional, beautiful, twirling girls.

I’m so glad I’m not missing this.  I’m so glad God chose to refine me with a daughter.  It’s not easy for me.  I think I kind of stink at girl stuff.  I’m impatient with anyone’s emotion, including my own when it rears up and tackles my face.  The woman in me bristles when another woman tries to tell me what to do, even a two-year-old one.  But the snapshot moments, when I see gentleness and grace seep out between the battle lines, I see the relationship that we can have, the one that’s here now, shining moments of softness, and the one that’s coming, like my relationship with my mom, forged in the tough years of hurt and head-butting, seasoned with years of grace and trust.

Worth it.  Oh so worth it.  We both fail.  Every day.  And the boys in our house have to hear it.  But we both win.  Fighting FOR her.  Fighting FOR her.  And loving her, even through the pouty lip and scrunched up mad-face.  And loving when the pouty lip becomes kissy lip and the mad-face opens up and radiates a trusting smile.  I guess this boy-mom is becoming a girl-mom, too.

This is one of those days where I’m thinking about the last 7 weeks and I’m amazed at the blossoming flower that is my daughter.  No wait, that’s boring.  Not the blossoming flower – the roasting coffee bean – smells better, tastes better, and reminds me of Ethiopia.  Anyway, where do I start?

For the first few weeks, I thought she was sleeping in every morning.  Turns out, kids that are institutionalized feel like they don’t have a voice and are just used to waiting for a caregiver to come get them in the morning.  They often don’t cry, because they’ve learned that they just have to wait.  I never thought that could be my daughter, because she is ALL ABOUT letting me know what’s what during the day!  But in the mornings, I wouldn’t hear from her.  And whenever I’d finally go in, she’d be standing in her crib, panicked, diaper full of poo.  Nine, nine-thirty, ten….  At first I thought she was jet-lagged and really sleeping, but then I started chatting about it with some fellow adoptive moms online and realized that I needed to encourage my girl to let me know when she was up!  To let her know that she has a voice!  And I want to hear it!  (Ugh, maybe not at like 5am, honey.)

So I started going to her door at the same time every morning.  I would stand on the outside of the door and say in a really sweet voice, “Do I hear my girl?  Do I hear my Evie?  Do I hear her voice?  Is that my sweet Evie girl?”  I did that every morning at the same time.  Some mornings I would wake her up, and some mornings she was already up.  And now she’s started babbling happily in the morning.  I’ll hear her in there chanting my name, “Ma-MA!  Ma-MA!”  And I do my same routine on the outside of the door, and now when I go in, she’s bouncing happy legs and a big smile.

She’s gained two pounds since we took custody.  That’s as of a week and a half ago.  Two pounds in six weeks.  And some of her mollescum bumps are starting to explode and fall off.  I had to take her to the doctor last Saturday because her eye was completely swollen shut and pus was dripping in her eye.  They gave me antibiotic ointment…to which she had an allergic reaction.  And I had to drain yet another enormous oozing horn on her head.  So painful for her!  It drained all day long and her crib looked like a Tarantino film.  We put little pieces of toilet paper on it like a man after he cuts himself shaving and I’d have to sneak pulling them off and putting new ones on as she soaked them again and again.  And she still has new bumps and more eyelid bumps to go.  But.  Several have exploded and fallen or ripped off this week, and I’m beginning to see the end of the pus-lined tunnel!  Last night I dreamed that I was draining one of her abscesses.  Ew.  Not my favorite dream.

More progress, more milestones.  When my mom came to the door yesterday, Evie started clapping, shrieked with delight, and spun around.  When dad came over today, she ran to him to be picked up.  My next door neighbor watched her while I had a doctor’s appointment last week, and Evie had a great time.  When I came home, she yelled, “Mama!” happily, leapt up, ran over to me, and gave me a big hug, then went back and sat down and kept playing with Nancy.  Perfect!  Happy to see me, bonded and knowing that I’m mama, but comfortable with a handful of people who love her.

I’m forever trying to determine what’s normal toddler behavior and what’s adoption-related.  She has a really hard time with Elliott when it’s just me and the kids.  If he even sets foot in the same room with her, she starts screaming and tattling, “Mamamamamaaaaaaaa!!!!!”  I’ve watched her from the other room, and she doesn’t even look around for me and he might be on the other side of the room playing with something completely unrelated, and she’ll start that up, like it’s ingrained in her to start screaming for the nannies to come rescue her or rescue a toy from the older kids.  I’m praying for God to break her free from past fears and help her to feel secure that her brother loves her and that she is safe and protected.  And I’m praying for renewed patience every day for Elliott, who can start to get frustrated when she’s screaming at him for no reason all day!  He gets that look in his eye, like, “Oh really?  Am I standing too close?  How about here?  How about here?”  I felt encouraged today when a friend told me that her biological daughter acted the same way with her older brother.  My friend Melissa suggested getting them to cheer for each other, like dancing to the music, and we did that today.  ”Elliott!  Elliott!  Elliott!  Elliott!”  They had fun, and I do think it helps them to see me cheering for both of them.

We really are having so many good times.  I love my family.  I love my kids.  Tonight Elliott let Evie chase him around the upstairs.  She LOVED feeling empowered and in control, and I fall in love with her more when I see her running – yes RUNNING, that’s new, too!!! – around in her lady bug jammies squealing and laughing.  And I fall in love with Elliott more when I see him playing with his sister, letting her chase him, treating her lovingly and playfully, and every night during prayers thanking God for her!  Totally in love with my kiddos.  And totally loving the quiet house right now, with no sound but the wind in the trees.

I haven’t blogged lately because frankly, the stuff with which I’ve been wrestling is embarrassing to me.  The last few weeks have brought some big decisions to our doorstep, and God has blessed us with clarity at every turn.  I’m not even going to elaborate on the following, but we almost adopted a third child this week.  We came to the brink of it, felt total peace about adding an infant into the crazy, but at the final moment, God was very clear that this particular situation was not for us.  So grateful for God’s peace and clarity and discernment!  We prayed for God to speak to us through wise counsel, and prayed over a list of our friends.  The next morning, we called them one by one, and one by one, they told us the exact same thing.  Beautiful unity.  Got it.  Hearing it loud and clear.

Out of this experience, we realized that we’re ready to start the process to adopt domestically, so we’re working on updating our paperwork and switching our home study from international to domestic.  Excited.  Loving our family with every fiber.  Oh loving our family.  Elliott pushing Evie on a riding toy while she laughs from her belly.  Evie taking a bath with no tears.  Elliott thanking God every night before bed for his sister.  And even Elliott and Evie fighting all afternoon until I had to put myself in timeout!  Yes, loving my family.  Alex and I learning what quality time looks like in this new phase: listening to an Andy Stanley sermon on the iPhone while driving to the zoo, kids strapped into their carseats playing with toys while we drink coffee and chat about life.  Stolen moments together.  Beautiful and full and bursting with yummy life.

So what embarrassing thing have I been wrestling with that’s kept me away from my blog?  When we thought about adopting a new baby (and ha, we thought we were done with babies and gave all of our baby stuff away!), we realized that our three bedroom home might not be “enough” and we started looking at a couple of bigger homes, where we wouldn’t have to make our closet into a baby’s room.

The last two years have been about stripping ourselves, worshipping with our giving, sloughing off the excess…and here we were, considering buying a bigger house.  It makes me want to vomit a little.  Really.  How can I write about sponsorship and kids with nothing.  How can I see kids from Adacar every time I close my eyes and think that our house in America can’t hold more children.  Sigh.

Every time I spend a dollar, that tension is there.  One of the people I admire most grew up in a mud hut with the distinction of having a metal roof.  Another one didn’t own his first pair of shoes until he was eighteen.  Godly men leading HopeChest in Uganda.  They have taught me so much.  They are pouring out their lives for the kingdom of God.

And I consider a bigger house.  I know so many of us here in America wrestle with these decisions.  And a little over two years ago, I probably wouldn’t have even wrestled.  I would’ve just grabbed it.  The baby that we almost adopted – Alex called the situation “low hanging fruit.”  After the struggle to get Elliott, the struggle to get Evie, that we could reach out and adopt our next child that easily…it was tempting.  Very tempting.  But wrong for our family.  And a bigger house.  We could reach out and pluck that fruit.  But would it be rotten?  Would it fill our mouths with a bad taste and make our bodies sick?

I don’t know.  I don’t think a bigger house is bad or evil or sinful.  I really don’t.  I love big homes teeming with children.  Big homes mean lots of opportunities to serve the kingdom of God.  But is a bigger house right for our family?  Our old pastor said, “If there’s doubt, don’t.”  I have lots of doubt.  I wrestle.  My four trips to Africa have ruined me.  Gloriously ruined me.  Broken my old mindset apart, shattered my ideas of belongings and families and what makes God smile.

Looking at bigger homes has actually made me fall more and more and more in love with the home I have.  I’ve realized how content I am right here, right now.  No matter how low the interest rates are right now, I want to bask in the contentment of now.

My biggest fear is becoming so comfortable here that I become irrelevant for the kingdom.  Every day my life teeters on that precipice, a latte here, a new sweater there, dinner at a nice restaurant…and I feel kids around the world whispering remember, remember, remember me. Finding the balance.  Being IN my world in America, but not OF my world.

So I wrestle.  I do drink a latte.  I decide NOT to buy a sweater.  Every decision, every dollar.  Think.  Remember.  In America, we have so much food that we have to diet and workout.  In America, we have such big houses that we have to decide to reorganize rather than relocate.  I realized that my house seems crowded because I have so much furniture.  Too much furniture.  And Bosco’s mom offered me her only chair.  Tears.  Lord give me eyes to see, ears to hear Your will, Your heart.

I love pretty things.  I love decorating and adorning and change and new.  But I love God more.  And He is refining me and teaching me contentment.  We have so much.  We have SO MUCH.  In a bigger house, I might miss the sound of my children’s laughter.  In a bigger house, I might miss an opportunity to teach about sharing.  In a bigger house, I might miss the call to GO, to visit the widow and orphan, to continue building those relationships, because I’m too comfortable, or I can’t afford to anymore.

Just trying to live for God, point our resources where He wants them.  Houses are resources and many people use their houses for His glory.  And I’m blessed by those people.  What does He want for OUR resources?  Because they’re His, and we’re just fallible stewards.

So, I wish I could claim to be someone who shops only secondhand and doesn’t own a TV and gives every penny to orphans in need, but I’m a mom and wife who wrestles.  We’re doing shopping differently, we’re doing presents differently, but we have a long way to go.  So I think about every dollar.  God, help me to glorify You with my choices.  So many good ones.  Help me to discern what’s best.

This morning in church Reggie Joiner said, “Families don’t need a better picture; they need a bigger story.”  Yes!  I want our family’s story to be HUGE!  I don’t know what that means yet, so I’ll just trust God with each decision and keep on wrestling.