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It Feels Like a Losing Battle…
Have you ever felt that no matter what you do or what you say, your situation doesn’t seem to change? That’s kind of where I am right now. I never dreamed that parenting would be so hard. When our son came into our home, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was my son. I didn’t question it and I still don’t. I know that God placed him in our life. I just sometimes feel inadequate as his mom. I wake up each day with a determination to make things different and somehow it just doesn’t happen. I know I haven’t prayed like I need to about…
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A Little Closer to Answers
I really have to start writing more. I have every intention to and then things get crazy and I just don’t take the time. I felt this was a post I needed to prioritize. If you have read all of my blogs, you have an idea of just how hard life has been for us over the years. If you are just joining me, I’d suggest going back and reading all of my previous posts. Our oldest child has always been a bit difficult. He challenges us daily. I feel like we are always having to find new ways to discipline and redirect because what worked yesterday might not work…
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It’s Been a While…
I am so sorry guys for my silence… life has Been a roller coaster the last few months and I felt like all my blogs would be depressing…well…. buckle up and hang on tight because today’s blog is gonna be a bumpy one. When I started this blog, my intentions were to be an open book. To be honest about our lives and to be willing to just be real. Well here is me being real. The last few months have been filled with so much sadness and heartbreak. I feel like if one more thing happens my heart may shatter into a million pieces that will take years to…
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Sometimes I Feel Alone…
Being a mom to kids with special needs is overwhelming and lonely sometimes. No one really understands where you are coming from because they don’t live the day to day like you do. I always try to keep my complaining or venting to a minimum because I don’t want to burden people with my problems. Sometimes I want to be alone because the pain of all that is going on is so severe. We have melt downs everyday, sometimes from more than one kid. We can’t really go a lot of places because we never know when a melt down might occur. I don’t write all of this for sympathy…
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Flashback Friday Special Edition : It’s Wedding Day
It seems like only yesterday that my nephew was born. I remember the first time I held him. I think the only reason I remember because I had on a glittery shirt and a family member about freaked out because I was holding him! He isn’t a baby anymore though.He will be 19 in December . I remember when Riley was in my wedding. He was only 3 months old. He made the cutest little ring bearer. Now he is getting married himself. Today he will marry his best friend, his soul mate. I’m not sure I’m ready for this. He isn’t suppose to be old enough to get married…
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Do You Have a Velcro Baby Too?
I have always wanted to have a mama’s baby. I wanted to be his/her favorite person. All I can say is, be careful what you wish for because it might just come true! I have a Velcro baby! If you are unfamiliar with that term, let me break it down for you. A Velcro baby is one who thinks that their said person is supposed to hold them all the time. A Velcro baby has a complete melt down when that said person puts her down or isn’t paying attention to her. A Velcro baby can also be called a Magnetic baby because if her said person leaves the room…
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Panic Attacks… They Happen to Kids too
This is a hard blog for me to write but I feel it’s important. One of my children deals with some major anxiety. The things that wouldn’t bother us, drive her insane. When we get sick, we deal with it and move on. When she gets sick she panics. As a mother, I can assure you it is the worst feeling to see your child struggling and feel helpless. I used to be so against mood altering medicine for children. Medicine changes who they are to an extent. I feel like I’m experimenting with my kids. I guess to an extent I still am against them, but until I find…
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Flashback Friday : Our First Foster Placement
Adam and I started working to become foster parents in August of 2011. We had to go through several weeks of classes first. Once that was done, they started the homestudy process. They ask questions, ask your preference in children and a whole lot of other stuff. During that process, we also had to get fingerprinted. By the time it was all said and done, it was middle to the end of October of that same year. We now had to sit and wait and believe me when I say the waiting was hard. Adam and I were doing foster to adopt. We weren’t really interested in just foster at…
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Infertility is Hard
Growing up, I always thought I would get married and start a family right away. It’s funny how we plan our lives out the way that we want, forgetting God has already got it all worked out. When Adam and I got married, I didn’t wanna wait to get pregnant. I wanted a baby right then. When it didn’t happen right away, I began to get discouraged. I knew that getting pregnant could take time but I’m not a very patient person(just ask Adam). After trying for a few years, we decided to go for testing. The doctor told us that it was going to be near impossible for us…
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Flash Back Friday: We Just Knew
In the Previous Flashback Friday I told you that he asked me out the weekend before my 18th birthday. The way that he did it was definitely different but I wouldn’t have it any other way. He gave me a big bear, flowers and the card below. My creative way was to kiss him. I couldn’t think of anything else. So on July 29, 2000, we officially became a couple. From that moment on, we were together every chance we got. He came over every Wednesday and every weekend. We fell hard fast. Within two weeks of dating, we knew we were meant to be together forever. I know that…
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To Cloth or Not to Cloth
I love cloth diapers. They are so cute. They save money in the long run. Let me rephrase that, if you don’t buy every cute diaper you see, it saves you money. We started our cloth diaper journey with Ali when she was 7 months old. She developed a really bad rash and no rash Cream would clear it up. I sat down with Adam and told him I had read that cloth diapers were good for babies with bad diaper rashes. I was able to find some pre-loved cloth diapers just to try. Within a day of her wearing cloth, the rash was totally gone. I was sold on…
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Motherhood is Overwhelming
I can’t tell you how many days I’ve wanted to sit in the floor and cry! Afraid I’m doing this whole motherhood thing all wrong. As a mother, we go through so many emotions in one day! I think i just might hit every emotion on a day to day basis! Each one of our children are different and require our attention in different ways. Some of them want us to sit and listen about all the video games they are into. Some of them wanna put on a show and dance. Some of them want to snuggle. What’s hard is when you don’t know what it is that they…
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Flashback Friday : How We Met
When I was a teenager, most of my friendships were online. I feel old because the way of communicating then vs. now is totally different. When I was 18, we had AOL Messenger,ICQ, and chat rooms. Online dating was not as popular back then as it is now either. Another thing we had when we were teens was Yahoo Personals. That’s where I found Adam. I didn’t go out with friends much, so weekends were usually spent on the internet chatting. I guess I got bored one day and decided to look at Yahoo personals. As I scrolled through, I came across Adam’s picture. His yahoo personal said “Looking for…
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Being Sleep Deprived is a Way of Life for Me
It’s my fault. I take full responsibility. Ava was spoiled rotten before she was even born. I’m paying for it now tho. I have rocked her to sleep every night since coming home from the hospital. Now that she is 14 months old, she refuses to lay down on her own. Sleep training? Nope, she poops her pants every single time and sometimes she throws up everywhere too. I know she can’t help it. I don’t blame her. I blame me. I have held her while she sleeps for naps. If she cries, I pick her up. She is spoiled. Plain and simple. So now I have to figure out…
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”Worry About Youself”
Do any of you remember the video that circulated a few years ago of the little girl trying to fix her seatbelt? For some reason,when I think of this blog post, that video comes to mine. In case you haven’t seen it, I’ve linked it below. A lot of us tend to have the mentality of “ I’ll take care of me once everyone else is taken care of.” That mentality gets us in trouble because when we neglect ourselves, we tend to get overwhelmed with life. Stop worrying about everyone else and worry about you. If going to Walmart to get groceries by yourself relaxes you, girl go shopping!…
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Flashback Friday : Why Us? Part 2
Thanks for coming back for part 2! Maybe it won’t be as long as the first one! We were put up in a hotel by our insurance company until they could get our claim processed. That process was so long! Living in 2 hotel rooms with 4 kids, no common area, no kitchen, no room for anyone to visit really and no feeling of home was the most difficult and trying time of my life. Our meals consisted of the free breakfast downstairs and eating out. I bought an electric burner and a toaster oven. I think we tried to do a few meals in the room but it just…
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May We Never Forget
I remember it like it was yesterday. I was 18 years old and had not even been married a year yet. Adam and I had just recently moved to his hometown. I had gotten a job as an assistant teacher. I called Adam from work. I of course had not been there long at all. I was having some chest pains and ask him to come take me to the Urgent Care Clinic here in town. We were sitting in the waiting room when news of the second plane hit. We were in shock, as I’m sure everyone was. I don’t remember all details of that day but i do…
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The Struggle is Real
I said when I started this blog that I wanted people to see that everyone has struggles. I don’t want any of what I’m about to say make it sound like I’m complaining about my kids because I’m not. I am grateful that God choice me to be they’re momma when their birth momma wasn’t able to. I just want people to step into our lives for a moment so they see that life is far from perfect. I’ve never been career oriented. There was never anything that interested me. For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a stay at home wife and mom. It has…
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Flashback Friday : Why Us? Part 1
House fires…You hear about them on the News or you watch movies where they happen but you never think it’s going to happen to you. I debated back and forth on if I should share this part or not. I am not one to throw anyone under the bus, especially my children. I don’t feel that is what I am doing but I am afraid some people may feel that way. Alex (who was 11 at the time) is the one that started the fire. He wasn’t trying to burn the house down. I don’t think he really even understood what he was doing. He doesn’t understand the magnitude of…
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Meet Ava
Ava was a total surprise. After we met Morgan ( Ali’s birth mom) , we continued to talk, even after she signed over her rights. About a month after we met, Morgan told me she thought she might be pregnant. We didn’t really discuss us taking the baby for a while. I just talked to her about what she was going to do. At the Time, she wasn’t really sure. Adam and I talked and prayed about it for a while. Adam was not sure he wanted another kid, after all he just wanted 2 lol. I told him that if we didn’t think we were able to help her…
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Meet Ali
I’m going to be honest, this is going to be a difficult post for me. I have been struggling with how I wanted to write this one because there are a lot of emotions involved. Not to say that there wasn’t in the other ones too, but this one is different. We learned about Ali before she was even born. Adam and I had discussed trying to adopt a baby . One of our friends had told us that her niece was pregnant and she didn’t know if she was going to keep the baby. She ended up having Ali on November 28th 2016. We didn’t meet her until she…
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Life After Adoption
Settling into life after adoption meant learning to be a homeschool family. That was and is still a challenge but we have come a LONG way. Homeschooling is totally different than public school. It was hard getting the public school mindset out of their heads. Some days we still struggle with them wanting to do things like public school Four months after they were adopted, we brought a new child into our home. I look at that choice now and wonder if it was the right choice. I can’t change it now, so I have to believe that we made the best of that situation. She was a sweet child.…
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The Adoption Process
We were told when Alex moved in that it was a legal risk placement. That meant that the parental rights had not been terminated. We were also told it was not going to be a long process. Well they got that wrong! Due to the circumstances of their case, there were a lot of pieces that had to come together before rights could be terminated. We went to court numerous times and each time was a wait. The first time we went to court we only had Alex. Had they terminated, things might not have worked out with Adi. The next time we went to court we had Alex and…
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Meet Anna
We were told Anna would never live with us because she was with another family. Imagine our surprise when we received word from the foster mother that she believed Anna needed to be with her siblings. We had a chance to get to know Anna a little before she moved in with us. She has spent a couple over nights with us and also went to the zoo with us once. So when she moved in, she knew us just a little. I remember the moment and where I was. We had just returned home from dropping her off. She had visited with us for the weekend. I believe God…
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Meet Adi
She adjusted so much better than we thought she would. She walked right in and acted as if she had always been there.That weekend also happened to be Father’s Day weekend, so Adam was able to share that day with her. The following Tuesday she moved in. Our whole family had fallen in love and at the time, we felt our family was complete. She was just a little over 2 when she moved in. She had the whole family wrapped around her little finger. We were so thankful that God had answered our prayers and given us a sibling group Up next, Anna!
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Meet Alex
When Adam and I first started the process of adoption in 2011, we wanted a sibling group. The first child they placed with us only stayed 3 months but during those 3 months we met Alex. We actually told the worker no about meeting him several times. It wasn’t because we didn’t like Alex, we were just dead set on a sibling group. They ask us if we would be willing to just meet him. I never understood what it meant to fall in love like that. When we met him and got to know him, I KNEW he was our son. There wasn’t a question in my mind. He…
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Meet the Asquad
I have sat and tried to figure out how I wanted to start this post for months. My passion is to share my life with you. I want you to know the good and the bad because I want you to see that no one is perfect. Everyone has their struggles. I guess I should slow down and introduce myself because not everyone (well I hope not everyone) reading this knows who I am. My name is Amy Sudduth. I am wife of 18 years to my awesome husband, Adam and mother to our five amazing children, who I will introduce in a minute. It wasn’t always our plan to…
