Being a Woman Again

Today was the first day all week I felt like me again.  Not just a foster mom, but a confident, beautiful woman.  I understand now why most women my age with kids look so much older than I do.  I’m sorry, but it’s true.  They just plain wear you out!  I hadn’t shaved in weeks, my eyebrows had morphed into tiny caterpillars above my eyes, I haven’t taken the time to wash my face thoroughly or do my hair or put on an appropriate amount of makeup.  My roots are completely grown out and my nails have been bitten and chipped down further than they’ve been since middle school.  I’ve been in survival mode and I completely lost track of all things feminine and beautiful.  But yesterday when Half Pint was away on her family visit, Dawn and I went and got our eyebrows waxed and I fixed my nails and bought hair dye and today I took time to pick out a dress and shave my legs.  Today I felt like a woman again and not a frazzled female just trying to survive.  I felt more confident and ready.  It’s amazing how coral colored nails and polished eyebrows can make you feel!  The lesson in all this is not pure vanity, although I must confess I like feeling pretty.  The lesson is that every woman needs to take time for herself and feel beautiful and create beauty in herself before she can pour beauty into other people.  I want to model for my Lydia what it means to to be a lady and act and dress and live like a woman who loves the Lord.  Most of the time I’m a pretty poor representation of it, but today, I think we did alright.

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Getting in the Groove

It’s amazing to me what a kid Lydia’s age can comprehend and feel and wrestle with.  Today was graduation day for my students and I knew it would be impossible to sit through the whole ceremony with Half Pint next to me so we came about an hour into the program in an attempt to catch my first freshmen class walk across the stage.  A day that I had worked up as being very bitter sweet turned out to be mostly trying to get through the morning and snapping a few shots of my favorite students.  There was very little emotion surfacing except just trying to keep my cool with a crabby little one.  I don’t blame Lydia, though, for her whining attitude.  Yesterday she had a visit with nine relatives and spent the day at the zoo and eating pizza and hanging out with them.  She didn’t make it back and into bed before ten which totally threw off the schedule I had been working so diligently to keep.  So today we both woke up a little cranky and then to have to sit out in the hot sun and watch a bunch of strangers in black gowns walk across the stage was too much for her to handle.

We sat inside an airconditioned building, waiting for the ceremony to end, trying to figure out how I was going to juggle having a kid and saying goodbye to my beloved students.  Lydia was laying on the couch crying and I asked her what was wrong and she said, “I don’t know.  I think it’s just spiritual warfare.”  I wasn’t quite prepared for that answer, but I talked to her more about what she was feeling and where in the world she heard the idea of spiritual warfare.  I could not have labeled it better myself!  We talked for a little while about how she was feeling and what a Jonah of a week it’s been, and she laid her head on my lap and I stroked her hair and just tried to spend a few moments thinking about how much Lydia has gone through this week.  She has been such a strong trooper this week and despite all the obvious setbacks, she is doing fantastic.  In the last week she has gotten kicked out of her group home, had to spend the weekend with a new set of foster parents, was driven to a new county and loaded into a car of someone she’d never met, was taken to a new house with a new room, new toys, and a new dog, started a new school, had a visit with her family, and had to spend a day getting introduced to people twice her size out on a crowded lawn of people in caps and gowns.  Of course she’s going to have melt downs!  Why did I expect anything else?!

Lydia has one of the most sensitive spirits to the things of God out of any child I’ve met.  She is constantly talking about Him and wanting to read more stories.  I bought her a Princess book from Lifeway yesterday so we could read stories of women in the Bible that God used and loved and redeemed.  I also bought her a day-by-day kid’s Bible so we had more to read at night.  She eats this stuff up!  The Princess book has questions after each chapter and she answers them.

Lydia is also incredibly smart!  After dinner tonight I was going over her spelling words from the week (you know, the week where she was only in school for one whole day), and she knew almost every word.  She loved spelling so much, she made me keep calling out harder words for her to spell so she could learn even more.  She is hungry for knowledge and thirsty for truth.  I’m so glad she’s here!

It sounds like her dreams are getting better and her writing is expanding beyond her “usual”, not so healthy diary entries.  I have cut out secular music (yes, I’m that mom) and pour into her the Word of God and songs about Him.  She may not like it now, but she will love me for it later.  I’m both excited and nervous to take her to KidSpring tomorrow but I believe with all my heart she will love it there if she would only give herself a chance.  Ah, there’s so much to write about!  So many lessons of the heart that I’m learning.  So many precious moments when God just shows up and gives me a huge hug.

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