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Jason is home. THANK GOD. He travels a lot for his career as a musician and I’m totally fine with that. I love that he gets to travel. However, becoming a foster parent and a parent for the first time while he was 4,000 miles away was not easy. After 3 days of carrying around a 25 lb. sweetie who loves to snuggle and needs lots of extra hugs these days, along with the up and down getting into and out of the crib, the high chair, the car seat, etc. my arms were killing me. I am so happy that Jason is home with his strong, sexy, man arms.

This is a strange way to become a parent, no doubt about that. We’re learning so much, having a lot of fun, and we’re pretty exhausted, too. Oh, and we’re still supposed to be earning a living too, right? My brother-in-law who just became a daddy in February promises that we’ll fall into a nice rhythm soon and be able to balance it all. I hope he’s right.

Regardless of the unusual circumstances, witnessing your spouse become a parent has got to be one of the coolest things ever. I could see his love and interest and excitement through their Skype interactions the first couple days but actually getting to see Jason scoop up this little girl and give her hugs and kisses was the sweetest thing. And to see her reach up to him, asking to be picked up and held in his secure arms was precious.

We don’t know a whole lot about little L’s family situation but the only relatives we’ve heard about are female, which leads us to assume she has never really experienced the love of a daddy. Another clue is that she keeps calling Jason “mama,” (which she is also calling me and my mom.) We keep saying, no that’s “papa.” And she says, “Papa.” But then if he walks out of the room, she calls out for him, “Mama!”

I’m so happy that Jason has been not just willing to fill in this gap for however long she’s ours, but that he is truly excited to be her dad. He’s excited to take her out to ice cream and to the park and to hold her hand while she’s toddling around. He’s happy to feed her and hold her as she’s falling asleep and to let her bury her face against his chest when she’s scared of a new situation. His desire to protect her stirs up a righteous anger, usually directed toward “the system” that would allow her to get bounced around from home to home.

Jason is doing an awesome job being a papa. I’m so proud of him for doing this, for agreeing to give himself so fully and to love someone so completely, knowing that she may be ripped away from us. And I say ripped away because even if we agree that her moving back with her original family is the best thing for her (and if we don’t agree, there isn’t much we can do about it…) it’s still going to be the most awful heart ripping pain we’ve ever experienced. We selfishly hope that she can stay with us longer… forever? We just don’t know right now. But more than anything, we want the best for her. We want her to have a hope and a future, a great life. We want her to always know that she is loved, precious, and wanted.