Adoptive Mamas be Cray-Cray

Adoptive mamas be cray cray. No really. It's the best kind of crazy, because it's backed by love!

I'm going to take you on a little picture journey to try and help you understand the wonderful craziness of the adoptive mother. 

We drink out of special coffee mugs and we think our coffee or tea actually tastes better in these cups. 

We encourage each other through snail mail. 

We have Google video chats because we live all over the place. 

Some days we literally go insane over how much paperwork we have. 

Our caseworkers are like celebrities and we get really excited to meet them in person. =)

We stay up to register for C4C, www.createdforcare.org because we all love it so much, the 2 retreats sell out in 24 hours. 

We send each other pillows with our theme verse printed on them. 

We write each other's names on our hands to remember to pray for one another, or to pray someone through a particularly hard time. 

We soak up different cultures to celebrate our children's heritage. Here we are in Chinatown celebrating my dear friend's son. 

Again with the caseworker. I love her so. 

We sometimes drink coffee in the bathroom. 

We make our husbands become friends. (and they actually end up loving each other)

We come up with crazy fundraisers to help bring our children home. Thank you Ashley Rippke. 

We put countdowns on our walls. 

We put hearts over our children's faces until they are legally ours. 

We sign lots and lots and lots of paperwork, and get it notarized. 

We have lots of people praying for us. My sister sent this to me 38 minutes before we received our referral for Cruz. Incredible. 

We allow our children to drink from a bottle when they feel like it.

  

We jump on top of each other and scream and cry with joy when one of us gets a referral. Yes, this happened when my girls were here visiting. BEST MOMENT!

We walk in parades to spread the word about fostering and adopting. 

We run out to the mailbox and stalk the mail person. We get really excited over finished paperwork. 

When one of us is feeling blue (me), these crazy women flew across the US, from Oregon, Illinois, Kansas and Georgia, because when we lost Cruz, they did too. We are soul sisters. 

We go to airport parties!

We send each other ugly photos of ourselves to make each other laugh. 

We buy a special shirt for our child to come home in. 

More paperwork excitement. 

We are closest of friends with people we see once a year, or maybe have never even met. 

We wear matching shirts. 

We buy lots of adoption t-shirts to support each other's fundraisers. 

We wear our 4 and 5 year olds on our backs.

We stand on our heads. 

We dream of being #1 on our wait list.

We know who this is. 

We all own this, and we've read it. 

Friends decorate our backyard when we finally get our referral =)

We wear stuffed animals in our shirt and sleep next to them so that when we send them to our child they can get used to our scent. 

We know that life is not all rainbows and lollipops, but we think we're really funny. Thank you Lisa Frank. 

We celebrate holidays from our child's birth country. Melkam Gena!

We have a lot of yard sales!

 
We eat traditional foods. Injera anyone?

We send our children a photo album and gift to let them know we are coming soon. 

We make our children hold cutouts of whatever country we're adopting from. 

We dress our children in traditional clothing. 

We know that when someone says they are cocooning, they don't mean this. 

If you are an adoptive mama or a waiting mama, I hope this made you laugh and reminded you that we are all in this together! 

We hope, we pray, and wait, and then one day our child is home forever. 

Hebrews 6:19 "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure." 

Please add to this list by commenting below. What 

makes you cray-cray?

Now these videos are for the really committed. We send each other videos to make each other laugh and to help each other along the way. 

We get Footloose.

We Wobble.

We sing happy birthday to children who are waiting to come home.

Begging our caseworker to "Call Me Maybe"

Suzanne started us out!

We have giveaways!

People say crazy things to us.

Did someone say "Bathtub Diaries"? Yes, that's a real thing. 

EW!

Love you all!