limping to the end

So the last few days have not been so smooth.  All my "I'm feeling better and can actually get out of bed in the morning" talk backfired and I have really struggled the last few mornings.

I just talked to Matt, he's waiting for a delayed flight.  ugh.  He's been gone on longer trips than this, but I'm pretty sure this has been the hardest.  By far. 

We did manage to have a lot of fun while we were in the city, and I am so grateful for sweet friends there - I do think that there is definitely a mental component to feeling cruddy.  It's like a vicious cycle: I feel bad, so I lay down, so I have time to concentrate on how bad I feel, so I don't want to get up, so......

But when a friend sends a "headed to the pool, please try to come, it'll be fun" text message, and I know my kiddos would delight in a morning at the pool with their friends..... Well, I pull myself off the bed, throw the pool gear in a bag and off we go.  And you know what, I felt better when I got there :) 

(proof that we made it to the pool...  so I wasn't feeling good enough to take too many pics, but one is better than none, I guess). 

It's also been a lesson in "if this qualifies as 'hard' life, then you live a pretty cushy life, Laura".   I mean, seriously. 

My dear cousin Julie's husband is deployed for ONE year, she and her three little kiddos are finishing up his two week home leave and saying goodbye again for MONTHS!  It would take years for Matt's travel schedule to add up to 365 nights away from home! 

The average monthly salary in Afghanistan is 14 USD, I spent that on take-out!!!!  (Can you even fathom 14 dollars a month?  And while I'm sure the cost of living is cheaper in Afghanistan than wherever it is that you and I live, I am doubly-sure that 14 dollars doesn't buy enough.)

Sick while (because?) I'm carrying the life of a newly created child has got to be one of the "best possible reasons" to be sick.  I mean, it's a heck of a lot better than just about any other reason I can think of. 

So I'm grateful.  Grateful that Matt is coming home.  Grateful that tomorrow morning when little footsteps come scampering into my bedroom I'll rest easy knowing Matt will be the one putting bread in the toaster.  Grateful to be carrying the life of one child, while I teary-eyed watch youtube adoption videos and dream of God adding yet another to our family. 

Grateful that, above all else, I know Jesus. 

He is good.  He is wise.  He is sovereign. 

skipping school

I'm still not entirely sure how this happened, but Julianna is 5 and a half years old.

Please tell me time will slow down.

If we were in a more typical schooling environment, she'd probably be starting kindergarten.  But typical we are not.  And starting kindergarten?  We are not.

For years I have dreamed of home schooling.  I wanted to home school before I had kids.  And once the kids showed up, well it just seemed even more fun.  Matt and I thought we'd send our kids to local preschool a few mornings a week for language acquisition.  And when the time came, I'd start home schooling.

So far, things are going swimmingly.  Our girls enjoy preschool.  And it's a sweet little place that emphasizes creativity, imagination and fun.  They sing, they dance, they listen to stories, they play games, all in their second language.  Their language skills are admirable and give them the ability to navigate relationships with our friends and neighbors.  Julianna is excited that when she turns 6 she'll start learning to write characters.  (preschool here runs til children are six, they then transition directly to first grade.)

We are so grateful for the Lord's graciousness to our girls in this area - their three morning a week foray into 'doing childhood' in a different language and culture has been wildly successful. 

Right now they are finishing a month-long break from their preschool and will start up again in September. 

But what about home school?  Well, after consulting many experienced home school mom friends (both here and in the States) I decided to skip kindergarten.  More accurately, Julianna is skipping kindergarten.  Not to start first grade.  Just to take one more year apart from any formal structured learning. 

We'll read piles of books and play plenty of games.  We'll measure oats into cookie dough and talk 'driving east vs driving west' when we're on the highway.  I have no doubt that her reading will improve and the little books she writes will have more complex plot lines and her diligence will increase and, more than anything, I dream that her love of learning will grow and grow and grow.  But we won't be doing "school".

Plan A was that fall of 2012 we'd look into a first grade curriculum.  But as friends pointed out a few days ago, fall 2012 is going to be a smidge more complex than I originally thought, with an infant and (hopefully already in our home or soon to be arriving) adopted toddler.  Maybe we'll start fall 2013?!? 

Sure, Julianna will probably have a few places she needs to play catch up.  We'll cross that bridge when we get there.  And, of course, by the time Julianna pulls up a chair and starts something called home school her little sister will be 5 and, most likely, sitting right next to her.  So Julianna might be the only one who gets this extra year of fun  :) 

[In other words, this decision to skip kindergarten is nothing that we are super passionate about, nor do we think that parents who choose otherwise made a poor decision - most likely all our children except Julianna will do something along the lines of kindergarten, at least in the sense that they'll spend their preschool years in a environment with a home schooling mom and older sibling(s).  But this year, I do feel confident that we have made a good choice for our family.] 

And for right now our little home is not officially school - except, of course, in the sense that it's been a school since the day she arrived. 

updates with a side of baseball pics

So here I am, 33.333 % of the way through this little Daddy-less stint and it's going just okay.  I am most definitely feeling better than I was this time last week.  Thank you Jesus. 

Last night was a doozy - visited by a big thunderstorm with awe-inspiring, child-waking, power-outage causing lightning and thunder.  If Matt was home and we were pre-children we'd probably have sat on the enclosed porch and watched God paint the sky. 

Unfortunately, Matt wasn't home and the children were not as ready to be awe-inspired but instead begging Mommy to turn the nightlight back on.  Bummer is, Mommy can't turn on the nightlight when the power is out.  (This is our third little nighttime power outage in about ten days and I am just about sick and tired of it - the previous two, I'm almost certain, were rolling blackouts to our area of the city, this one storm-caused..... but still, no power when camping is one thing.  Life is not a camping trip.  I like electricity.  Now I'm done complaining, let's proceed.)

So I'm feeling better.  I am able to get out of the bed (after the kids come to find me, but still, OUT of the bed) and serving up some breakfast.  I left the apartment twice yesterday and once today.  And when I'm out I'm feeling ok, not just moving my weary body to someone else's couch. 

Is the worst behind me?  Who knows.  I'm still on anti nausea meds (and can definitely feel them wear off as the time for the next dose approaches).  But I'm glad to be where I am, health-wise.  

The baseball pics are from our friend Graham, who we visited on our road trip earlier this month.  Isaac is actually "most likely to be carrying a bat" in our family, but Julianna had a fun (albeit not very successful) time playing this particular day. 

I especially love that she's wearing her Itasca (Minnesota) State Park t-shirt, playing the quintessentially American game of baseball, with the blurred Chinese characters in the background. 

state of the home address

This post is mainly for my parents, who arrive next weekend and need to be forewarned.... and also for me, so in the months/years to come when I wonder how we made it through this season, I'll remember a few telling details :)

So here goes, the state of the home address, when momma just isn't feeling that good!

1. We are constantly out of silverware.  I simply cannot explain this, other than to conclude that when I am not spending my days on the couch I must wash a lot of silverware.  I cannot tell you how many times over the past weeks I have heard "but there are no more spoons". 

2. I have not yet put away the clothes I unpacked from our road trip (we got home ten days ago).  I did put the kids clothes in a big laundry bucket, and Julianna put them away (sweet little girl, she is doing a lion's share of work these days).  But my clothes, well I've moved them from a pile on the bed, to the floor, to the bedside table (they didn't all fit), back to the floor again.  Since I rarely change out of my pajamas this particular arrangement is working out just fine.

3. The menu planning/weekly home calendar that I print and usually use to organize our entire week is hanging (right where it should be) on the side of the fridge.  It hasn't been updated in weeks. 

4. I realized last week, for the first time since moving here, that exactly zero restaurants deliver to our home.  This has never bothered me before.  It is currently the source of much consternation.  If only one teeny tiny little restaurant would bring me something, anything to feed the troops.... ahh!!!  I can only dream.

5. The oven door pull is dusty.  I don't cook.  My house helper has started cooking three meals a week, but she's never seen (nor used) an oven (welcome to Asia.... stir-fry heaven).  Matt, well, he has proven again and again that he really is Superman.  But he's running the busiest work weeks of his year, and trying to support our family as best he can, so his oven usage (usually rare) is non-existent.  One day I will bake again.

6. I am constantly with my Kindle.  I am rarely off the couch for more than about fifteen minutes at a time.  When the kids are up and about I do my best to win the "present yet simultaneously absent parent of the year" award.  When the kids are sleeping and I feel good enough, I read. 

7.  Laundry is everywhere.  Some dirty, some clean.  It's a good day that I manage to put an entire load of laundry through it's paces...... first washer, hang on the line, bring inside, fold, put away.  [Our weather is way too hot and sunny to use the dryer much at all - though I do resort to it some - but if I use the dryer I have to open the windows to vent, and if I open the windows then I turn off the air con, and if I turn off the air con it's really hot inside, so the best option is just hang it outside :)]  So laundry, in it's various states (waiting for the washer, wet in the bucket needing to be hung, on the line outside, piled on the sofa but not folded, folded but not put away)..... it's taking over our home! 

8.  MY KIDS.  Oh, sweet littles.  They are hanging in there, really, they are.  But it's a tough stretch for them too.  I know they miss 'the old me' and I miss them too.  I mean, we're all still here, but it's a different kind of 'here' and it's not nearly as fun.  So I can't wait to get back down on the floor and really play, to serve them lunch, to read piles of books in one sitting, to go for walks and enjoy little outings, to color and craft and do puzzles and all that.  Soon, little ones, soon.

So, Mom and Dad, welcome to our new reality.  Hopefully passing soon.  But we'll be REAL glad for you to be here! 

and in light of all that - and the fact that Matt leaves crack of dawn tomorrow for a six day trip..... we're moving!  Yep, me and the kids, moving in to town to be near friends, people who can help, and restaurants that bring food!  We'll be back Tuesday afternoon (if I feel good enough to move the family) or we'll wait til Matt gets in late Tuesday and then move back out here on Wednesday.

Packing our swimsuits since the pool is literally at the bottom of the building we'll be living in, and surely I can drag myself that far - right?  Plus, I've had two pretty good days in a row, so maybe the worst is behind me??!!??

and a bun in the oven

About a month ago I started to feel, well, ummmm.... pregnant.  This was, (ahem), not part of the plan, nor anything I was prepared for.  I'll be honest, I did NOT handle it well.  Dear Jesus, this was not part of my wonderful plan for my life. 

The first days were tough.  We quickly emailed our agency to find out what would happen with our adoption plans, and were relieved to hear that we could proceed normally, and would just need to update some paperwork after baby makes his/her appearance.  So then I tackled the next stumbling block - 2012 would (most likely) bring two new additions to the family.  Baby in the belly (due late March) and toddler in the orphanage (hopefully coming home mid to late 2012).  Bringing the grand total to 5 children born within six years.

Just as we were starting to wrap hearts and heads around all of this I started feeling sick.  And it got worse, and worse and worse.  So much sicker than with my other three kiddos combined!  Well, that certainly complicated things a bit.  Thankfully I started on some anti-nausea meds that do help a lot, and I'm learning how to live with these limitations.  I do have some good days, some okay days, and some pretty tough days.

This afternoon Matt and I scooted over to the hospital down the street for an ultrasound, just to check things out and, honestly, because I thought the sight of that little beating heart would bring encouragement to this weary Momma soul.

12 dollars later we walked out of the building with a black and white picture of the bun in the oven :)  Hearing the heartbeat always does wonders.  But I am still weary.  At 8 & a half weeks I've got a ways to go before I start feeling better. 

Excited? sure.  Overwhelmed?  very.  Tired of hours on the couch?  oh dear yes. 

Trying hard to trust Jesus.... He is good, He is on the throne, He knows what He is doing. 

And one day soon we will be SEVEN :) 

the fairy song

Every day, almost without fail, my girls dress up.  Wednesday afternoon about 5:15 the kids were changing out of bathing suits (they'd been out in the courtyard wading pool) and Lydia came running, "Mom, I can't find my clothes".  I thought, and thought, and thought a bit more and could not remember one single item of 'clothes' that she had worn since breakfast.  Yep, 5:15 and she was looking for her first set of non-dress-up, non-pajamas clothing :)

And when they dress up, they love to dance.  So I am treated to myriads of performances.  Little rehearsal, but big results :)

One of their new favorites to dance to is David Crowder Band 'O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing'.  (you can listen to it here - and you should, it's a sweet song)  We call it the fairy song... I told them that the dulcimer at the beginning sounds like fairies dancing, and it stuck. 

They even have props (some homemade) to accompany the twirls and spins. 

Oh how I love these little girl days, and how fleeting they are -

riverside

One last post from our road trip.... this was probably one of my favorite activities. 

Friday afternoon we went to a nearby river to go wading.  I seriously felt like I was in the middle of a country song.  Ashlei and I (and her five week old little boy Langdon) were planted in reclining lawn chairs in the shade.  Matt and Graham supervising the other children in the water. 

All types of water guns and water sprayers..... check out Julianna's face : )

And after we all got hungry... time for supper.  Veggies and tofu and homemade sausage and other yummy stuff roasted over hot coals at this little roasting table.  The lady carries her whole set up on a bamboo pole slung over her shoulder.  I guess you could say she delivers :)

Hanging from one end of the pole is the grill table with hot coals ready to cook.  On the other end of the bamboo pole hangs a big basket full of veggies.  It's fresh too - while the eggplant cooks she sits on her little stool, peeling and slicing potato.  Then the potato cooks and she slices up the sausage links.  And so on.... till our bellies are full and we stop ordering.  

(that's a wider, deeper portion of the river in the background). 

So fun - we would DEFINITELY do this again :) 

four years

Lydia is four.  Four years old!  Oh my.  So very fast, it all went so very fast. 

Lydia is captivating.  She captivates me.  She captivates people on the street.  If our family meets someone briefly, the child they are most likely to remember is Lydia.  She's just.... well, captivating.  LOVE this precious child of mine.  

A few photo highlights from her fourth birthday .....

Lyds and her big sis, still in their pjs.  Julianna presented her gift (bought with her own cash) moments after the girls woke.....

..... a pink plastic headband.  When you are turning four, your 5 year old sister is one of the best "present pick-er out-ers" around and Julianna's gift was no disappointment :)

Morning Bible time with Daddy before he left for work.  Matt always does something special on birthdays and it's a sweet time for the whole family.

We like to watch a slide show (set to music) of pics of the birthday person each year - (so simple, I have a folder for each child and add in fun shots from throughout their life, just updating each year)  .... the kids call this "a birthday movie" and they can watch it over and over and over.  This year I picked a few favorite pictures from each year of Lydia's life, printed them and strung them with yarn across our bookshelf.  Very simple, very fun. 

The cake was a stretch for me this year, but I got it done.  Complete with mailed-from-America pink (strawberry) cake mix and pink decorator icing. 

And this is probably one of the best blowing-out-candles action shots I've gotten of any kid so far.  Love her cheeks.

Sweet sweet Lydia.  Oh how we love you!

HOME

2200 kilometers and almost 30 road hours later, we are HOME.  The trip was incredible, but not without challenges.  Thankfully, my husband loves an adventure and he fearlessly lead our family through thick and thin :)

I am way behind on posting and have some great photos and memories to record, but it'll have to wait because tomorrow is..... (drumroll please)....... Lydia's birthday!  I'm not sure we've ever had a child who was so excited about her big day. 


Stay tuned :) 

our old home

Thursday morning we packed the car and hit the road for adventure #2..... on "our way home" we swung through another province to visit more friends!  We just got home from wading in the river and had a blast :)  Pics and more later, but I do have a few more things to post from our time in our old city.

Tuesday afternoon we went to visit our old home, and it was a sweet time.

[Julianna and I joining Lydia in THE classic Lydia camera-pose in our old complex!]

 

We visited Nai Nai (who delivered our milk and yogurt daily for three years) and she was so excited to see the kids again.  

With Nai Nai and some of her family in their home. 

The girls at the gate of their old school -

yay for a chance to return to our old home and refresh our kids' memories

feiyang teppanyaki

One last post from the first half of our week....

We joined family friends for dinner at a local "grill on the table Japanese steak house style" restaurant.  Without a doubt, the best part - for Isaac at least - was the ride there.  We took their electric three-wheeled bicycle, and Matt followed on their electric bike (with Lydia). 

Check out this smile :)

At the restaurant.  Our kids were definitely entertained :)

Especially Isaac, who has his own "cooker man hat" and was thrilled to see this guy spinning his knife and flipping zucchini on the cooktop :)

xiao li

Our dear Xiao Li..... what a treat to spend some good time with her and her newly-adopted son, SiEn.  (Unfortunately her husband is working overtime trying to catch up from the vacation he took to go meet their new son and process his paperwork, so we didn't get to see him.)

My children LOVE Xiao Li.  I just can't explain it.  She walks in the door and they attach themselves to her.  They love to hear stories of "how Xiao Li ayi held me when I was a baby" or "Xiao Li ayi fed me pumpkin [baby food]" and all that.

And her new baby boy makes any Xiao Li visit a double treat.  He crawled all over the house where we are staying, usually following the kids.  One night they were here and my girls were in the bath - he could hear all the fun noises spilling from the bathroom and every time we turned around he was headed back down the hallway to get a good look at those silly girls :) 

And Isaac is a pretty big fan of this BOY!  Isaac is especially excited that "our baby in the orphanage" is a little boy, and he knows that Si En was an orphan so I think it's a special connection for him. 

These guys had a little fun in the bath themselves :) 

And Xiao Li's mother, carrying her grandson on her back.  Although I hardly understand a word Xiao Li's mom says it is clear that she is in love with this little guy!

Definitely a highlight of the visit - loving our time with Xiao Li and her little boy!

little friends

One of the highlights of our trip???  Getting to hang out with old friends!  Our children learn early on that people move, a lot.  Most everyone they know is moving, or has moved, or just moved, or will move.  Without a doubt one of the absolute hardest things about the life we lead.  Constant relational transition.

Six months in to life in our new city and I can promise you we are still in the midst of massive relationship transition.  And you know what, some of the people we are getting to know will not be here in 2013.

Reality.  Even for our kids.  So imagine our delight to watch Julianna LOVE every single second with her old buddy Kayleigh.  Julianna was a six month old when Kayleigh moved in, and their relationship is one of the oldest Julianna has.  Earlier this week Julianna was at Kayleigh's house for sleepover number ??? - I've lost count!

LOVE this! 

and me with Kayleigh's momma, my dear friend Alisa - oh what sweet times we had!

street food breakfast

We're having lots of fun catching up with old friends and seeing old places.  (though I haven't felt well for much of the time, but I guess if you're going to feel icky, one of the best places to do it is with old friends.)

So I have tons of pictures to post and am way behind, but I'll start with this little outing to get breakfast. 

A special local treat that we can't get in our new city - rice flour tortilla, heated over coals, spread with fillings (sweet, spicy, you name it) and then wrapped around a stick of fried dough.  It's every bit as healthy as it sounds, and tastes even better :)

We devoured them!! 

Isaac wearing the evidence all over his face :)

Yesterday afternoon we drove out to our old home (in a suburb) and it was a fun treat.  Many emotions to sort through as we walked through that sweet little town.  In many ways I still miss the life we had there.  Such a wonderful place to live.  LOVED it. 

The internet is not being very friendly so I'll hope to post more later, now I gotta run :)

13 hours!

We made it!  Y'all, it was a looooong day but such an incredible drive.  I don't think I knew there could possibly be so many mountains.  We drove in and through mountains the entire trip.  I bet we went through 40 tunnels - the longest was 2900 meters (that's almost two miles!).

I didn't feel like taking too many pictures, and it's almost impossible to capture that kind of scenery with a camera, but here are a few....

We drove together with another family we know - such a sweet provision, especially considering we personally know only two families/individuals who have ever done this drive.  And this family (who drove up at the beginning of the summer) was driving back down and we drove together.  Soooo nice to have another friendly set of wheels on the road. {Yes, they have a big bus, it's a big Dutch family and they need lots of seats!}

Our lunch stop was a small dirt road that we spotted.  We pulled off and parked about ten feet from the roadway.

I'm not sure who was more surprised... Lydia, hopping out of the van to see an elderly gentleman grazing his cow and goat, or the elderly gentleman, who wasn't quite sure what to do with the sudden influx of blond curls and peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. 

The view from our lunch site looking back towards the road

Seriously, it was gorgeous.  The whole trip.  Rare billboards, few exits, occasional gas stations, light traffic (for the most part). 

Our kids?  SUPERSTARS!!!  They handled it better than I did :) 

I took the headrest off my seat to take this photo - check out Lydia's face, looking out the window ...... she and Julianna had a blast counting waterfalls, and there was even a little waterfall right up the dirt road/path where we stopped for lunch and we washed our hands and faces in the freezing cold water!

The last few hours got long.  But we were treated to a gorgeous sunset. 

In these final hours we had dropped down into a valley..... those are rice paddies in the foreground.  We also saw a lot of corn, and tobacco, (lots of agriculture and terraced fields) and cows, pigs, horses, chickens, goats. 

So, while I'm glad to NOT be in the car today, that was one road trip WELL worth taking!

hey kids, meet road trip

Our flight happy little bunch is getting a big wake up call on Friday morning when we set out on our first major road trip.  (We did some long drives in the States last fall, but never more than about six hours.)

We are heading south to our old home town for a week long vacation.  The trip could take anywhere from 9 to 13 hours (or much much more, if road conditions are bad, but I don't even want to think about that).  Highways here are NOT like highways in America.  Not at all.  There will be no fast food/gas station/mini mart conglomerate at exit 273, or any other exit for that matter.

We briefly toyed with the idea of plotting to drive at night but decided against it since we really don't know what to expect in terms of road conditions and it is always safer during the day.  So we'll set out early morning and see how far we get.  Late afternoon we'll make the call - try to finish up in one day or abort ship and find a place to stay the night before continuing on the next day.  (and if we do stop and find a "hotel" ... well, that will definitely be a story all in it's own right!)  

The gas tank is full and the luggage is (mostly) loaded.  Matt is (without doubt) the most excited and optimistic about the trip, so it's a good match that he'll be in the drivers' seat. 

ETD is 6:30 am tomorrow morning.  ETA???? We'll just have to see about that :) 

starting August

Well this morning started off with a bang at approximately 7:27am when Lydia (accidentally) dumped her yogurt in the silverware drawer.  I'm not sure when you last dumped yogurt in a silverware drawer, but it comes highly UN-recommended as a "top ten ways to start your day".

Fortunately, about ten minutes later Isaac countered with one of his un-intentionally hilarious comments asking "Is Mommy your English name?"

I answered with a confident YES, then realized that years ago I told people my English name was Laura.  I guess I have two English names.

We've had a slow lazy day.  LOTS of water play in the courtyard.  Sure they spend hours in swimsuits, but they had a blast this afternoon soaking themselves and their clothes right before dinner.

yes, Isaac is wearing Lydia's shoes.  I have no idea why.

These were some of my favorite moments of the day :)  Watching the sheer delight on their faces and listening to delighted squeals. 

We continue to see a lot of our neighbors that are preparing to move overseas (actually, the Dad already left, Mom and baby LeLe are here for a few more days).  Since their kitchen is all packed up they eat all their meals here - we're trading off cooking responsibilities - today she cooked lunch and I'm covering dinner.   It works out nicely since Matt is missing most meals these days, I am glad for the company at the table and we trade off watching kids while the other does meal prep.

End of the week we leave on vacation!  Going back to the city we lived in for years before moving last summer.  More about that trip later.....