I haven't posted in a while becasue I needed to post about Ammon - but the thought was too overwhelming that I have just been avoiding it. It is overwhelming becasue I wasn't sure what I wanted to say - should I be vague and just say, "this is Ammon" or do I open my heart and talk about how much we love him? I wasn't sure what was "appropriate".
But I need to get caught up before the end of the year (read: there will be 1 or 2 posts a day) - so I am going to force myself to talk about Ammon.
This is Ammon. He is 15 years old and is from Syracuse Utah. He plays hockey - that becomes important later. He is living with us this school year.
One night in July I was on my computer posting an advertisement for my preschool on a stake yahoo group. I am NEVER on this yahoo group and hadn't checked it in about 6 months. While I was posting I was scanning though the other ads and saw one for a home for a 15 year old. I was intrigued - mostly becasue people sale couches on this site - not kids! ha - so I clicked on it. It was from a father who talked about how his 15 year old son made a competitive hockey team in Colorado and wanted to come live here for the school year to play. A voice in my head said, "you should do that". I quickly dismissed it. It was absurd. We have young children. We can't afford to take in another child. There was A LOT going on in our life that most days it felt like we were just surviving - how could we add a 15 year old? But the voice kept coming, "they are praying someone will say yes, you could be an answer to their prayer". I immediately made a list of about 10 families in our ward who were in a better position to take a 15 year old - I told the spirit to tell them to answer their prayers - I turned off the computer and went to bed. The next day I couldn't stop thinking about it. I kept hearing, "you should do it." Jason was out of town at the time - so I called to tell him about it. I knew that he would tell me that was crazy/stupid and that way I could appease the spirit that I had "tried". After I told Jason about the ad he said, "ok". I said, "ok, you'll think about it?" He said, "no, ok - lets do it." Immediately I felt peace. I called his mom and we started talking details. I had a list of reasons why it wouldn't work (we only have 6 kitchen chairs), and so did she, but the more we talked the more those reasons didn't matter anymore. At first I was doing this to "answer their prayer - to be a blessing to them" - secretly I hoped they would say no, or that after a few months he would want to go live with a hockey family. I had NO IDEA I would fall in love with him.
As we prepared for Ammon to come I was in full "expectancy mode" I was preparing for a child to come into our home and I was full on "nesting". I was so excited. The kids were excited too. We had to give up our extra bedroom which had become our craft room - I thought it would make the kids sad - they could have cared less.
Ammon came during one of the craziest weeks of our lives - right during Jason's family reunion with 28 house guests and the start of school (Madison starting kindergarten) - I met Ammon's parents during one of my most stressful time periods - I was worried they were not going to leave him, thinking "she is a hot mess - no way our son can stay here". But, thankfully, they gave me grace and looked past the house and the people and the noise - and saw us for who we really were.
Ammon is a delight to have in our home. I can't stand the thought of him leaving in April. Things we thought were going to be hard or weird (early morning seminary, having a kid with us after bed time around the house, picking him up from school, etc) have been so fun and wonderful and have blessed our family so much. We love having "real" conversations with a kid in the houter and has made me see how good it gets as the kids get older and how much fun it can be. Plus I love feeling like I have another sane person in the house when Jason is out of town - it is fabulous. The down side is he honestly isn't here all that much. But when he is we love it.
The kids love having someone else to play with.
We have loved going to his hockey games.
And 15 year olds are so useful - they can do anything Jason or I can do. It's fantastic.
No comments:
Post a Comment