To my crazy boys on the night before your adoption

To my crazy boys on the night before your adoption,

Dad keeps saying we're going to be a hot mess tomorrow. Well, the joke's on him because I'm already a mess.

There are so many things I want you to know and remember about the day before we finalized your adoption. I want you to know that I barely held it together today when we gave you the special family shirts we will wear to court tomorrow. And that when I told you that after tomorrow you will never be in foster care again – that you will never be foster kids again – my words caught in my throat for a second because I think those were just about the happiest words I've spoken in my life.

I want you to know that tomorrow simultaneously changes everything and nothing at all. After tomorrow we will have a single name that identifies us. Dad and I won't have to ask anyone else if we can send you on a field trip, take you to a certain doctor, send you to your grandparents' house, or take you on vacation. I won't need to write "foster mom" on forms, I'll just sign them as your mom. These are important things to me.

More important though, I want you to know that this changes nothing about the love I have for you as my sons or the daily life we share as a family. Ask me anytime about the day I first learned your names, or the day I met you when your faces were etched into my heart forever. I will gladly hold your hand and tell you about the day you rocked my world. I will tell you that I knew you were mine even then, and no piece of paper or last name could alter that. My love for you is a force to be reckoned with, and I have and will use that force to protect you for the rest of my life. I don't need DNA or a judge's ruling to promise you that.

Tomorrow will solidify in your minds the special place you hold in my heart and my family, and I cherish that. I want you to be secure in your place in this family, that you will never have to leave. I want you to know that everything I do is for your well being, even when I get it wrong. I want you to know that the only people who love you more than God, Dad, and me are your grandparents. I know this because of the way they love Dad and me and have done everything for our good.

I want you to know that life will move on somewhat normally for you after tomorrow. You may not notice a big change, and that's the way it should be. Tomorrow does not mark the day you became my sons. You have been my crazy boys from the day I met you and this will continue to be true forever. Tomorrow is the day this fact goes on public record: We are a family. Forever.

I could not imagine a more wonderful love story than ours. I would not change a single thing about our life together. All the chaos and calm, the meltdowns and precious memories. I love it all because we're living it together.

You boys and Dad are my whole world. I would take a stormy day with you boys over a sunny one with anyone else. Sometimes I still can't believe how blessed I am to have the privilege of being your mama, but I am honored.

Love you forever,
Mama