Count Your Blessings

If I was forced to count my blessings, I don't know where I would start. Since this is Father's Day weekend, I guess one of the first places to start would be my children. But I wouldn't be a father without my wonderful wife so maybe I should start with her. But I probably wouldn't be married to such a wonderful wife if my mom had not taught me a few things about how to be nice to others. But being a good husband and father is more than just being nice to my wife and playing with my children. And I was blessed to have a Father that was an awesome example of integrity and committment.

I will have to admit that I stole this next thought from a friend of ours that also blogs about her family's adoption from Ukraine and on Mother's Day she had sort of this same thought and I haven't stopped thinking about it since then. We certainly enjoy Coy and love having him here with us and we believe that it was God's plan and divine power that brought him to be a part of our family. But somewhere out there, there is a Mother and a Father that saw their little boy be born and they have no idea what has become of him. I wonder, if Ukraine has the equivalent of Father's Day, if it will cross that man's mind to

think about what has happened to this little boy. I wonder, if when Coy gets older, if he will see me the way that I see my father. I am sure that he will have questions one day about who his birth mother and father were and we will answer them with all of the information that we have but how that information plays out in his mind has to be a concern for almost all adoptive parents and parents of children from broken homes.

This Father's Day is going to be a little more special than the ones in the past. That is not to say that the ones in the past weren't special, because they were. But this year, I know a little bit more about what it means to be a father. I

know a little bit more about the sacrifices it takes sometimes to be a good father. I appreciate a whole lot more the opportunity I have been given to be a father to my children. I appreciate a whole lot more the fact that I am the only earthly father they will ever know and the sense that they will base a lot of their conceptions on our Heavenly Father by the way they see me as their earthly father nearly overwhelms me at times. I am obviously not perfect, far from it actually. And some days, I wish I could have a mulligan and just start them over from the beginning. But at night, I ask God to give me another opportunity the next day to do better

and He has so far. So I guess where I would start with my very long list of blessings would be that He has given me today. He doesn't promise me tomorrow and what has happened in the past is not held against me. He has given me today to be the best father, husband, and friend that I can be and it is my responsibility to do all of those things. I will do my best. It is the least that I can do.

We have been very busy this week. We went to a Bats game on Monday night. I think we discovered that Coy is afraid of adults dressed in silly costumes. Of course, that is not unusual for

young children to be freightened by such things but it is still cute just the same. We also went to Holiday World on Friday. It has been a tradition of sorts for us to take a picture of the kids in front of the mushroom in the water park. Coy got to take part in that tradition this year.

Coy's friend is Cole who is a neighbor from just one door down. They play together pretty well for how 2 year old boys play. They mainly just play beside each other but it will be good for him to have a friend his own age when he gets a little older.

The Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor gave us some good news on Tuesday. He said that it appears that Coy has a normal range of hearing and that our Pediatrician had misdiagnosed his last round of ear infections. He indicated that Coy's ears were indeed red but not from infection. They were red from the scarring of numerous, previous ear infections. He will have tubes put in his ears in July.