Keep your hands inside the ride at all times. . . .

This week has been quite the roller coaster. There have been wonderful, tender moments when I think we are just so lucky and blessed. Then we have those moments where I wonder in the heck we've done to our family and will we ever have "normal" again.

Spencer is so full of ups and downs. He can be such a cute, fun kid one moment and hitting, scratching and screaming "NO!" the next. I know he is just going through regular adjustment phases, but it sure wears me out. He is testing the boundaries and trying to figure out how he fits into this crazy home full of weird strangers.

But we've come a long way in a week too. When we took him to Carl and Meg's for dinner last Sunday. He sat on the floor the whole time by himself playing with a truck and blocks and wouldn't eat a thing (until the carrot cake came out and that only lasted until he found a raisin in it.)

Today we went to see my cousin Andy bless his new baby and to a family dinner afterward. Spencer played with the other kids and actually ate quite a bit. Progress. Slow and steady. But progress.

I've compared it to swimming in molasses. We're making lots of motions, but hardly moving at forward at all. I think that is how it is going to be for awhile. Meanwhile, I am just trying to breathe in and out and put one foot in front of the other.

And I keep reminding myself of something Elder M Russell Ballard said at General Conference in April, "The joy of motherhood comes in moments." Motherhood isn't all happy, all the time, but there are those little moments that bring you joy. We are hoping in the near future there are more moments of joy and less moments of tears.