Answered Prayers, Summer Pneumonia and Plan B

The sweet little boy I wrote about last week has a family! A paper-ready family was found for Monroe and God willing, he should be home by Christmas! Now, only about two million more to go!

Sweet baby M has pneumonia (since Tuesday). E also now has a high fever and runny nose, too. I’d like to personally thank the idiotic parents who insist upon bringing their sick kids to daycare jacked up on Ibuprofen and Tylenol to disguise their fevers so they can share their funky diseases with all the healthy children. Our daycare, like most others, has specific rules related to illnesses. As long as there is no fever and only one symptom they don’t send the kids home. M is kept “secluded” to some extent, but I suspect a lack of good hygiene on the part of the teachers is responsible for the transfer of germs. FRUSTRATING!! It also saddens me that parents don’t care enough about their kids to keep them home when they are ill so they can heal. I digress…..

I saw a quote a couple of weeks back – actually when Kevin and I were out on our date. I saw it on a coffee mug or something and when I read it, I felt like someone had just summed up my life in one, short sentence. It said: “Life is all about how you handle Plan B.” For some strange reason, saying it out loud brings an eerie sense of peace to me. Maybe it sounds silly, but it gives me courage to think about doing things that I would not otherwise consider and reminds me of all the things I’ve already done that were “not according to plan.”

When I look back on my plans for my life – none of them included living in a tiny community of 700 people, working full-time in a lab, and adopting three special needs children of different races. My plans most certainly did not involve driving a minivan! I recall picturing myself married, with two kids who looked just like me, living in a moderately sized city, driving a sporty SUV, taking vacations and wearing semi-stylish clothes. What I don’t recall is imagining myself as happy or as satisfied as I am right now. Every day I wake up amazed that I am Mom to the greatest kids in the world, married to the most wonderful husband in the world. I don’t have any desire for that sporty, new SUV or new clothes. I don’t miss going on big vacations. I love, and I do mean LOVE our home and our sleepy, little town. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all roses and sunshine, but for the most part, I am truly happy. There is one area of my life that plagues me; one thing I desperately want to change – I (we) feel courageous enough to set out to do it, now. We pray we’ll receive non-judgmental, unconditional support from those closest to us, but know that even if we don’t, we will be doing what’s best for the little people that are most important to us. In the coming months, there is likely going to be some big changes for the Fenske Family. I’m a little scared, a little uncertain and at the same time, quite excited. Stay tuned………………