Keeping up with the Joneses: Selah Tae and Naomi Kat

I've been meaning to put this post together for a while now- an update of our "little two" as we call them. Their adoption has been final for over 3 months, but we've had them in our home and been "Mommy and Daddy" for a over a year and half. I know it's cliche, but I can't remember life without them. And I can only barely remember when we where questioning our future with them. There is no other way to say it than it just feels right. The bond is sealed. They are ours.

The transition this time to our new forever family has been very different from our first time of adopting. This go round there have been no attachment issues and no challenging behaviors to navigate. Part of me thinks it's because the little two had less transition than our middle three boys who went from Isabel- to us- then back to Isabel- and finally back to us again. Researchers say that each time a foster child changes caregivers it's a brand new trauma to their brain. Although, actually Selah and Naomi both lived in different foster homes for about 3 months before being placed with us so technically they moved around a bit too. I used to think their young age contributed to the smooth adjustment into our family until I did the math and realized that Selah was 2 1/2 when we got him and Judah (our oldest placement) had just turned 3 when we got him for the first time. As the oldest of each of their "sibling sets" they were basically the same age, which is crazy because I can't remember Judah that little.

My personal theory for the easy ride this time is that it has a lot to do with each individual kid's personality and temperament as well as our whole family's personality and temperament at the time of adoption. I can easily testify that going from 3 kids to 6 kids was much harder than going from 6 kids to 8. I, for sure, had a much lower threshold for stress back then. And we all know the saying, "When Momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." I mean, could there be a truer statement? I definitely am the one to blame for some dark times circa 2013-2014.

But whatever the reason for the difference, we are so grateful for the ease now. Selah and Naomi are each so secure in our family. They know they are adopted and have a birth mom and birth dad. But really Selah thinks being adopted means he can play on the trampoline now (he couldn't while in foster care) and in fact just asked the other day, "Momma, Seffy can play on the trampoline? He's not adopted." :) And Naomi calls her birth mom her "birthday mom" because she remembers her coming to her birthday party back in February.

The exciting news is we are taking baby steps towards an open adoption with their birth mom, which is super important to me, and I didn't think it would ever be a possibility. It's not the same relationship I have with Isabel and I don't know that it ever will compare. For example, just a few weeks ago Isabel asked for some pics of our new house, but I thought it would be easier to show her over face time. I called her up one afternoon and then handed the phone right over to Judah, Canaan, and Silas and said, "Here, it's mom. Y'all take turns showing her the new house." And off they went. I trust her so completely.

Speaking of easy, the little two's switch to their new names only took a few weeks. We wanted to stick with biblical names to continue to honor our faith and also to keep the consistency amongst our kids. Having such a common last name, we prefer a little flair for the first names:)

Selah, which we pronounce "See-lah" but have also heard as "Say-lah" is from Psalms and means: To pause for worship. Tae is his middle name and is a throw back to his birth name Keontae. From the first day he was in our home we always called him "Tae Tae."

Naomi's birth name was Shaniyah, but our then 2 1/2 year old Tae Tae called her "Nonnie" and so we followed suit. While talking to her birth family before court one day we realized they really call her "Ni-ni" and he was just mispronouncing it. Too late though, she was already Nonnie to everyone at home, day care, and church. We struggled finding a girl's biblical name that we liked until we thought of Naomi and were instantly smitten. We liked how similar it was to Nonnie (we actually still call her Nonnie ALOT), but also love the namesake from the book of Ruth. In fact, one of my favorite sermons Cory has preached was years ago on the book of Ruth and I remember him saying the book really should have been called Naomi because it's all about the her faith, integrity, and capacity to love beyond expectation. We picked Kat for the middle name after my mom, Kathleen. Kat is a pet name from my dad and I just love that my girl shares it. In fact, she has my permission to take on many more traits and likenesses from my incredible mother!

Not much else to report on as far as an adoption update. We are just living life, loving our life, and so amazingly blessed by adoption. I guess the only thing left to do is plaster up a bunch of pictures :)

They are only 14 months apart, and we have toyed with the idea of raising them as artificial twins by waiting until Selah is 6 for him to start kindergarten. Still not sure what we will do on that front. They will both be very petite thanks to genetics, so waiting a year for him to grow a bit makes sense. And they absolutely already share a twin type bond in the way they look out for each other and talk to each other.