Making the transition easier...

As stated many times before the transition from a family of six to a family of seven proved far more challenging than I had originally anticipated. It was tough to say the least...I did find that a few things made it easier and seemed to work for us.

1. Exercise....I know this may sound strange but I found that as soon as I took the time to get to the gym and sweat my outlook on everything was better. I truly believe that we parent our children by example and we owe it to our kids to be both physically and emotionally fit, for the long haul. It is also hard to feel guilty about taking time to exercise.

2. Sleep routines....this one was a big one for me. I like to sleep and don't do well when my sleep is interrupted or cut short. This made it all the more important to get Wil into a good sleep routine from the beginning. We took a pretty firm stance on when and how he fell asleep. It took several weeks to get him to go to bed without crying but it was sooo worth it! Wil is now the best sleeper of all of our kids, going to bed around 7:30 or 8:00 and sleeping until about 8:30 the next morning. We still do naps around here as well. It is a bit of a reprieve for me and much needed by Wil. If he doesn't nap he is falling asleep standing up by about 4:00.

3. Figuring out my own emotions....As we navigate through the adoption process we are filled with emotions for this child(ren) that is so far away. I truly believe that in many cases we confuse the feelings we have for authentic ones. I longed for Wil to come home. I lost sleep knowing the conditions he was living in. I would have done anything to get him here. It wasn't until he was actually here that I realized that my emotions during the process were more about the actual process than they were about Wil.

4. Not assuming everything was adoption related....I know many adoptive parents would disagree with me and that's fine but for us we tried to take the stance that Wil was a "normal" two year old. We didn't assume that everything he did was related to the fact that he was adopted. Of course there were some behaviors that were glaringly obvious adoption related, but for the most part we treated him like any other two year old. If he misbehaved he got a time out. If he threw food he was given another chance, if the behavior continued the plate was moved out of his reach for a few minutes. We always gave it back but we made loud and clear that certain behaviors were not acceptable.

5. Avoid letting your older kids "parent" your new child.... In our case Wil came home to four older brothers and sisters, the majority of whom wanted to cuddle and provide for him in any way they could. Kelsey and Grace are extremely maternal and loved to act as a pseudo mother of sorts. We had to constantly remind them to not be the ones to console Wil, to feed him, to put him to bed, etc...We wanted to be abundantly clear that we were the parents, not them.

6. Talking to others going through the same thing.... I had a few other adoptive moms that I could talk to that did not judge me in what I was thinking or feeling. I could say things to them that I couldn't tell my close friends or even my family. There is a lot of guilt associated with not feeling the way we think we should feel. Talking to these other moms via facebook, email, the phone, in person, etc...was my saving grace. Realizing that you are not alone and that in fact you may be the majority is quite comforting.