Forgot to put my game face on today.

Denielle has an aunt in Tucson and she wanted her to meet Miss S and Lil C so she decided to pack them up, pick up her mom in Chandler, and head down to meet her aunt. They left our house by 8 and spent the day having fun at the park, pool, and her aunt's house. They didn't get back home until almost 4.

You'd think when they got home, I would have had plenty of time to mentally prepare myself and have a good attitude about seeing them and taking care of them. And you'd be wrong. Instead, I spent the day cleaning up their crap, doing an infinite pile of laundry, and nursing a headache. On the plus side, I got to go on a walk with Samson for almost an hour.

The problem is that 95% of my time is devoted to them. A good friend of mine said that when kids come, all your wants and desires go away. They don't matter anymore because you're always taking care of your kids. For the past 8 weeks, I've been proving his theory to be true.

I know my heart is selfish. I know it's deceitful too. When people meet Miss S, they say how cute she is and that she's so sweet. My first thought is "This is as good as it gets. As soon as you leave, she'll be pouting again." What happened today sums up the condition of my heart. She decided to do some coloring and wanted to write a little card to Denielle and another card to me. On Denielle's, it said something like "Thank you for teaching my brother his abc's and 123's. I love you so much." Sweet right?

Mine said "Thank you for being the best dad in the whole world." Denielle read it and said "Doesn't that just break your heart?" I looked at her with cynicism. She read my mind and impersonated me, saying "No, because I'm dead inside." (FRIENDS fans?) She said it somewhat lightheartedly but she was right. My thought was "What a little manipulator", not "Oh thank you Miss S. That was so sweet." The reason why is because if we do 10 things and the first 9 are great but the last 1 is so-so, she spends the next five minutes pouting. I've learned that I have no sympathy for that.

So when I figured out that my heart was full of crap, I decided to spend a good portion of the night outside so that I wouldn't have to affect everybody else. God help me.

If you would, please pray for D and me. We are at the 2 month mark and it looks like this could be going 4-6 months longer. This is very hard. There are some pretty precious moments but they're few and far between. These kids are sweet and they're doing so much better now than they were when they first came here, but there's a long ways to go too. Please continue to pray for patience, guidance, and support. I would ask a special prayer for myself (I don't want to speak for D). When I see teenage girls at my church, I think about all the pressure they face from the world to look a certain way and be sexy. I think of how they define love and what they do to get it. I hope that their fathers love them so they don't go looking for it with some boy who wants to be a man. Then I think of Miss S. I might be the only Christian man she ever has consistent contact with. Pray that I can get outside my sinful heart and show her what healthy physical affection looks and feels like. Pray that I can show her that love so that she doesn't look to any other boys to fill that void. Thank you.