Getting settled in

Since Caroline literally came overnight, we were left scrambling to figure out the room situation for everyone. It felt like someone just played 52 card pickup with our lives and the first order of business was to give everyone a place to put their things so we could establish some stability and move forward. We decided the best thing to do was to give her Harris' room and move him to our bonus room. There were several problems with that, though. The first issue was that he adored his room and we felt pretty bad booting him out of it with no warning. The second problem was that the bonus room was currently Tom's office/our guest room/dumping ground.

We didn't really have a choice but to go ahead and tackle it. So after we put the kids to bed we worked several hours a night to get it ready. We had promised Harris a cool room in exchange for being kicked out of his overnight. This is what it looked like for awhile. I kept repeating to myself that it must look worse before it gets better.

 

Here is what it looks like now. He insisted I take a picture of the door.

 

Much better, right? The pink chair was my grandmother's and I love it but we have no other place for it right now. So it's staying. Everything else is all little boy fun and functional. It's usually wall to wall covered in Legos. There is also a full sized bed up there for a guest to use and the world's smallest bathroom is there as well. It's a cool set-up for a little person and he loves it. When the other boys get a little older they'll be moving in there too. 

We also wanted to give Caroline a place to call home but at that time we had no idea if she was actually staying. She could have left at any moment since we had no legal claim to her. It was such an odd situation. We grabbed furniture off Craigslist the day after she came home and she picked out bedding but we didn't do anything else with her room until we knew for sure she wasn't going anywhere. She'd never had a bedroom before and was thrilled with what she had so she was content with that. However, once we knew she was for sure staying, we fixed it up for her. She loves her room and shows it to everyone that walks through the door.

Caroline's favorite part of her room is her name on the wall. The boys each have their names on their wall and she wanted hers up too. When we put it up she was just learning her letters and couldn't spell her name. Now, she writes her name all the time, on everything, and is so proud to have her own room with her own name.

Everyone settled in their own spots have freed up time to start putting other things back in order too. I have basically ignored everything the past 5 months except meeting the basic needs right in front of me. There just hasn't been an opportunity to get ahead of this snowball of four children and all the chaos that came with adoption. Especially one that was so sudden.  We have just been juggling many balls lately and it feels like we're at a place where there aren't as many things up in the air right now. Hopefully those aren't famous last words. :)

Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky (Philippians 2:14, 15 NIV)