Honeymoon Baby

I did not want a honeymoon baby. In fact, I was so adamant that I did not want a honeymoon baby that I broke down into sobbing hysterics on our honeymoon when I thought that our contraception of choice wasn't working properly. Poor Andy had to comfort an irrationally hysterical wife just three days into marriage.

It did not surprise any of our friends and family when Andy and I welcomed Sam into our family last year. Our sweet friend Sarah had taken custody of her younger brother, Sam, in 2008. He had the awesome opportunity to live at Bethel Bible Village in Chattanooga for more than two years, but last year he finished high school and his time at Bethel was coming to an end. Sarah shared at our small group that if Sam couldn't find a job in Chattanooga that he would be moving onto her sofa. For a few days I mulled over Sarah's predicament. Then it hit me: he could live with us. Sarah lived in a house with two other single girls and little space to spare. I lived in a house with three extra bedrooms and an incredible male role model. Andy was away that weekend and I kept rehearsing how I would ask him if Sam could come to live with us. After he arrived home, I dropped the bomb on him, "I think that Sam should move in with us." Andy said that he would think about it and we snuggled onto the couch to watch a movie. About an hour later, he paused the movie and said, "I think that Sam should move in, too." That was that.

 God put a desire to do foster care into our hearts during our engagement and while this wasn't actually foster care, Sam was a young person who needed a home and we had a home to provide. Sarah reminded me recently that I said to her, "Sarah, we are Christians, this is the type of thing that we do for each other." It really is that simple, God tells us to open our hearts and our homes to our brothers and sisters, to the foreigner, the widow and the orphan.

We have been taking our lumps lately in regards to being mentors to Sam. We are rookies fighting battles that seasoned parents find exhausting. Sam is the sweetest young man you will ever know, but he is a typical 20 year old that is very tough to motivate and inspire when most of the time he wants to sit around playing video games and reading comic books. Crafting a responsible adult is a long, slow, arduous process. Last night, as I bandaged his hand from a small wound he got at work, Sam told me that he was preparing me to be a mom. I am not Sam's mom, he has a mom and house mom that fill that role, but I realized for the first time that Sam is my honeymoon baby. Sam moved into our home on October 25, 2010. A honeymoon baby, had he come the traditional way, would have been due in the last week of October. So here's to my 6 foot 2 inch, 250 pound honeymoon baby who is teaching me each day how to be a mom.