Dirkse Family Adventures: It's been a while!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I realized that I have not been very good about updating this blog. I am sorry for that, but 4 kids make things quite busy around here!

Well, EJ's first Christmas in the U.S. didn't go as expected - she was sick. She caught a bad cold with a fever and has been down for 3 days now so she missed the Christmas Eve program and Christmas Day festivities but she seems to be on the mend this morning. (hopefully!) She was pretty sad about having to stay home, mostly because she loves to play with her cousins on my mom's side of the family. :) Poor Greg ... he missed Thanksgiving home sick with Cade and now Christmas home with EJ. We have delayed our gathering on Greg's side so that we hopefully have healthy kids to celebrate there and don't get the little cousins sick. (Braden now has a touch of it so we will be waiting it out with him, Cade had a cold start last week and hopefully Caris, Greg & I somehow skate through without catching it ... although I don't know how that is possible given the amount of coughing and sneezing that has gone on here in the the last week!)

Overall, EJ's adjustment has been going pretty well. Some things are great for her - like school & food adjustments. Some things are really hard for her - like daily routines, staying focused & having to go along to watch her sibling's sporting events. Greg & I constantly have to remind ourselves that it's only been 5 months. We tend to expect a lot and need to be patient with her but it is really hard sometimes. Hopefully some of those things will continue to get better as she gets more used to us. She absolutely LOVES school and she will tell you she doesn't like the weekends. (multiple soccer or basketball games on Saturdays and sitting quietly in church on Sunday are NOT her favorite things!) I know most adoptive families of older kids will tell you that the happy child you see out and about is not at all the child we see at home when her guard is down. Don't get me wrong, she is normally happy at home but we also see the other side of things too. These last few weeks have been especially hard and sometimes frustrating for all of us. We were told by other adoptive families that we'd hit the point where we'd ask ourselves "What have we done? We've screwed up our nice little family". Yep. We're there. Just being honest. We know it will all get better and we have a great support system of family and friends. Thank you all!

In November EJ had her large umbilical hernia fixed. She was a trooper and recovered really fast and she loves being able to see a belly button on herself now. :)

Although she is getting used to it, she is not a big fan of winter and has asked multiple times when the warm weather will be coming back. ("a LONG time yet" is normally our answer!) This month we had our official state of Wisconsin re-adoption so after I change her name with Social Security I think our portion of the paperwork in the adoption process may finally be finished. There will be several more visits with the social worker who prepares reports to send back to Ghana's social welfare department, but that is mostly on their shoulders. I'm glad to be at the end of the road with the paperwork!

So, that is the quick version of what is going on here at the Dirkse household. We hope you have a very happy & healthy 2015!

Robin