and then she grew hair....

Did you know that Julianna was a bald baby? 

Very very bald.  All my babies were bald but Julianna was in a class by herself.  Slick headed for ever so long.  Matt and I laughed that we could clean her head with a wet washcloth.

She was 3 years and 3 months old when I cut her hair for the first time.  Even then it wasn't really long, just kind of wispy and crooked-y along the ends so I gave her a little trim. 

I used to have a hard time picturing Julianna as a elementary school-er because I could never get a good mental image of a bald 7 year old :) 

And now she is 7 and far from bald!  She loves her hair, and wants it long long long.  Even on the days when I fight through knots and she's anxious to get moving and doesn't want to wait for me to put it up, even on those days when I say "we could always cut it shorter".... she answers a definitive "No.  I like it long."

Maybe she's making up for all those bald years?!?

For proof of her baldness check out these pictures..... taken around the time of her second birthday (with sweet baby Lydia! also a baldie!)

And happy birthday to my Dad, a man whose known a lot of bald babies!  Bald looks good on a lot of different ages, right Dad?!?!? 

another show. yes. another one

Multiple times a week I am invited to 'a show'.  There's always a start time, a ticket price, assigned seating, and plenty of entertainment.

Lucky me, ticket prices are very reasonable.  They usually charge me 2-4 角 for the adult ticket, plus I'm expected to pay for the little boys (half price tickets for them).  10 角  = 1 元 and 6 元 = 1 dollar.  My girls are better at switching currencies than telling you the difference between a nickel and a quarter.  They've already secured promises that we'll help them change their savings from Chinese Yuan into USD when we arrive in America.

[Actually, I've completed skipped all the math work that dealt with US currency.  Especially at this age, I LOVE seeing them work with info that is applicable!  Working on U.S. currency when we were years from America didn't seem too applicable.  I'm betting they'll have those coins figured out before I can get to Target.  Nothing motivates quite like spending your own money, huh?]

Anyways, back to the show. 

Here we have the sun and the clouds.

And Isaac setting the scene.

That's Luke in the gray sweats and JP in the orange plaid.  Neither of the little boys do a decent job of staying in their seats for the show.  The bigs are used to it and their motto seems to be 'the show must go on'.

And it does.  Day after day after day.  Sometimes its songs and dances.  Sometimes a story with a plot.  Sometimes just a bunch of kids having fun and wanting to make sure Momma is watching! 

So I pull out my small change and buy my ticket(s) and watch :)  Come over.  We'll watch a show together!

donkey races and cutting crafts... must be a Sunday

About a month ago we ended up with a crazy convoluted few weeks - different work and school schedules, local holidays, work travel (Matt), etc - and realized that one week we would 'miss' Sunday.

So we decided we'd have our own little church service on a Saturday morning and let the kids plan the whole thing.  Matt and I selected a verse (Leviticus 19:18 Love your neighbor as yourself) and a story (the Good Samaritan).

I also assigned responsibilities.

John Paul: the songs
Luke: the hand motions for the songs
Isaac: the play
Lydia: the game
Julianna: the craft

John Paul excels at singing.  Actually, he's not a good singer, he excels at telling other people what to sing.  He did an terrific job as song leader.  

Luke is your standard toddler - give him a few hand motions and he'll catch on quick.  Perfect sidekick for John Paul's stint as worship leader.

Isaac directed a pretty hilarious Good Samaritan play.  All seven of us had a role. John Paul insisted he was a cow (not standard for the Good Samaritan but worked just fine alongside the donkey).

Lydia's game? Donkey races.  Picture all five kids (ahem, donkeys) lined up on their hands and knees at one edge of the living room.  Matt (acting as the injured traveler.... lying on the floor on the far edge of the carpet) would say "oh I'm hurt, who can help me? who can be the first to help? [Dramatic Pause] on your mark, get set, go" and the donkeys would race to Matt.

We're lucky we didn't have any injuries.  And I hope you understand why there are no pictures of the fun. 

For the craft Julianna made a donkey pattern and a man pattern. 

Lyds and Isaac traced and cut out and colored and then - with excessive amounts of tape - created a donkey and rider.

If you bent the donkey's legs correctly he would even stand up. 

This portion of the morning was easier to photograph.  John Paul busy with crayons and Luke laying low, probably waiting for an unattended pair of scissors to snatch. 

Such a fun way to celebrate and worship together.  And a neat way to let each of them exercise a little responsibility over 'their' portion of the morning! 

Julianna is ready to claim yet another big sister award.

Candy Land with John Paul is no joke.  John Paul is not a "sit still and play a game" kind of two year old.  He's a "bounce and jump and explore and move constantly" kind of two year old.  But recently he's really been wanting to play games.  He watches the bigs play (mostly card games these days) and always wants in on the fun. 

And is there a better place to start your foray into the game-playing-world than Candy Land?  And is there any better playing buddy than a big sister?

After just a few attempts he is starting to really get the hang of things.  14 months ago (when he first came home) John Paul wouldn't (couldn't?) focus on a single activity for more than a millisecond.... or at least it seemed that way.

To think that he can actually wait for his turn, draw just one card, try to remember which man is his, move a prescribed distance on the board..... woohoo John Paul! 

And woohoo Julianna!  And a big thank you from your momma who on this particular night could barely keep kids running through baths/showers and get pajamas on the right children.... to think that you were willing to sit down and play Candy Land with one of your brothers while I coaxed others through the bedtime routine and counted minutes til everyone was tucked into bed!  I am grateful for you!  

sleep on the road (looks like this)

I realize I run the risk of you thinking that my little boys sleep through all our travel.

No way. 

Travel is - inherently - filled with heavy doses of missed naps and sleepy eyes and late bedtimes and all those delights :)  When sleep does happen it's like this.... on a median in the midst of honking horns and crowded traffic, waiting for our ride (train station to hotel), three hours past nap time! 

I treasure all the rest they can get though.  And I LOVE when they fall asleep on me.  Precious moments with my babies.  It's no rocking chair in a dimly lit room, but cuddles are cuddles wherever you might be standing! 

I'm (almost always) pleasantly surprised by how well they (almost always) do.  We tend to ask a lot of them on travel days - stay by mommy, hurry up, slow down, no running, hold the stroller, sorry I'm out of water, only one more hour, I can't find your coloring book, please wait patiently and on and on and on and on - it's not easy on little ones (or their parents!)!!

I only wish I had a picture of everyone asleep in our hotel room.  It was pretty awesome.  In a "with heads on pillows everyone is within arms reach of at least one other person" kind of way! 

home (by train)

We're back at home after a great weekend away.  Anytime we travel (especially voluntary trips like this one) I have moments where I think "What in the world was I thinking?  This is stressful, hard, crazy, intense, ridiculous, you-name-it." 

But I also have moments where I think "I am so glad I came, and it is worth the hard to be here". 

This weekend was no different.  We rolled into the hotel Friday evening just in time for dinner and when all seven of us piled into the hotel room an hour later I had a (long) wishful moment of "oh I would rather be putting everyone in their bed AT HOME!"

So while I tried to figure out who would sleep where (it was basically wall-to-wall bodies!) the kids did their normal hotel room gig - opening drawers and crawling into the closet and pulling out the free toothbrushes and flipping every light switch multiple times.

Deep breath Laura.  They will be asleep soon.  [We hope!]

And they did sleep.  And so did I.  Decent the first night, incredible on night #2.  The kids ran around delighted all weekend long.  Plenty of friends (mostly singles in their early 20s) to love on them and the hotel complex was great for exploring.

We traveled home with friends (3 adults and 8 kids, not a bad ratio!) and it went as smoothly as it could have. 

It helped tons that both my littles slept for a bit on the train.

[We had plenty of seats so I opened the stroller and shoved it into one of the rows.  Perfect.]

With my phone already out I decided to take some pictures through the window.

The countryside is really pretty farmland.

The sky in this part of the country is usually a white/gray.  In the city it's a pollution-weather mix.  Out in the countryside it's mostly just the weather.  Often rainy and overcast and cloudy.  It's not my favorite.  I miss blue skies.  I miss bright sunshine.  I'm not a fan of the days on end when the weather forecast always seems to be "just rained" or "about to rain" or "drizzling" or "looks like rain". 

So we enjoy the sunshine and blue skies when we see them.  And count all the blessings from a travel weekend like the one we just had.

Matt's still on the road - the kids and I had to head home to get the girls back to school for Monday morning (one of the downsides of having them in school, less flexibility than pure homeschooling).  But it works out okay.  And the next few days wouldn't have been nearly as fun as this first chunk of time.

Tomorrow is 4-weeks-and-counting til we take off for America.  And so our next trip is a biggie. 

19 months of the little bad egg

Luke is 19 months old tomorrow.

It's not a typical age marker, but in our family it tends to be significant.

Julianna was 19 months old when she met baby sister Lydia.

Lydia was 19 months old when she met baby brother Isaac.

John Paul was 19 months old when he met me.  And Matt.  And Julianna, Lydia, Isaac and Luke.

And now Luke is hitting the big 19 month mark :)  Sometimes I look at him and cannot believe that when Julianna and Lydia were his age I was bringing home another baby! But oh how I loved all those little little people in my home!  Now it's crazy that he's my littlest -

His first 19 months have not been smooth.  If I had known at his birth how hard they would be, well .... it's a good thing I didn't know then!  His struggle with reflux is definitely better.  He has made SO MUCH progress since we started the meds (10 months ago).  But, he is still on medicine.  And I still see signs that he struggles with reflux.  [We'll be checking in with a pediatrician as soon as we get to the U.S.]

He sleeps better than he used to, but good consistent rest is still hard to come by.  On the afternoons where he doesn't get decent sleep he is a bear.  Not a warm fuzzy cuddly bear.  A cranky, needy, grumpy, wants-to-be-held-by-mommy bear.

God is so faithful.  He provides exactly what I need for each day.  I am grateful.  But, honestly, I'm also tired of this particular journey.

Luke has more good days than hard.  He is a precious little guy and I love watching his personality emerge.  He loves loves loves his big siblings.  Every last one of them.  It's pretty incredible to watch them all interact, and brings me much joy.

I love the way he races down the hall to my arms.  I love the way he hollers 'mama mama mama' from his car seat.  (He calls my name once every 5 seconds for pretty much the entire drive.  It's awesome.)  I love the way he holds a jump rope and does these short jerky squat-like moves in an attempt to imitate his big sisters (who are obsessed with jumping rope!)  I love the way he starts asking for 'more more' every time I come to the end of a song.  He would listen to me sing for hours!

I love this age in general, when the vocabulary starts piling up and you realize just how very much they know about the world around them.  (Though Luke is far far from being my most verbal baby - he talks constantly....but it's not very clear.)

My helper calls Luke a 小坏蛋.  The literal translation means "little bad egg".  It's a very affectionate term and insinuates he's being mischievous or getting into something he shouldn't be.  His newest move is standing on the kitchen table.  This is certain to earn a "little bad egg" comment from ayi :)

Believe me when I say ayi uses this term with the utmost affection, a voice full of joy and laughter.  She is head over heels in love with Luke and he knows it.  

We all love to hear her say 小坏蛋!  And the kids laugh right along with ayi at their little bad egg of a baby brother.  19 months old tomorrow.

[And we are headed out of town, joining Matt for the front end of a trip.  The kids and I will be home Sunday night.  We'll be traveling by train, and with no Matt for the return leg I am aiming to pack very very light!  So I best get back to my piles of packing.  'Light' takes on new meaning with five little ones in tow!]

too bad we never have any fun

Dropping Isaac off at school is usually about an hour, round trip. 

Remarkable, especially considering I can see his school from my porch window.

The problem is there is so much to see and do between here and there ....  At least if you've got three little boys in tow :)  This is one thing I love about motherhood.  Sure, there are moments when speed is important (try coming in late and scrambling to get food in hungry bellies). 

But for the most part, my children slow me down.  In all the best ways.  Sometimes it should take 20 minutes to walk a few blocks. 

For our morning school drop off routine we usually hit the playground on the way there.  And again on the way back :)

This morning we detoured towards the back of our complex which looks out over the green-way.   Lucky us, they closed this short section to add new storm water drainage pipes. 

Does it get any better than this?  The boys love watching.  Luke hollers at every piece of moving equipment.  Not really distinguishable words, just sounds of pure ecstasy.  The more impressive the equipment the louder he yells. 

Actually, he'd make a great foreman.  When a machine stops moving he yells "more more more". He has no time for lazy construction workers who do anything as silly as getting out of the drivers seat or turning off their machine. 

The fence is a nice perk.  Not every construction site is so nicely contained and it takes me out of the bad-guy role of saying "not so close to the bulldozer" and "please back away from the edge of that hole".  We'll be back tomorrow morning to check on their progress!  

Too bad we never have any fun :)

Saturday. Yay! (a wrap up of our week)

We just wrapped up a Matt-less week and boy is it good to have him home!  Matt brought home a portable vpu (for work - not for our family) and we're enjoying it tonight before he takes it in to his office. 

We pulled out pillows and blankets and he set it up to project Mary Poppins onto the living room wall for a super fun movie night.  [Luke is already in bed and John Paul is half watching, half playing near the siblings.  I hear him now, clomping up and down the hall in my house shoes.  Neither of my little two will watch a movie for more than about 8 minutes.  They'll grow into it one day.]

Other than missing Matt, I'm grateful for a normal week.  Finally (thankfully) I feel like we are in a good routine with the girls in local school.  The homework load is still heavier than we prefer, and the amount of memory work is just incredible!  One (or more) poems to memorize every night!  Plus they memorize  the reading lesson introduced that day.  We talked to the teachers about reducing the memory work quantity for our Chinese-second-language speakers and they seem open to the idea.  As it now stands, if you get the girls started on recitation they will go and go and go and go.

Normally Matt and the girls would team up for an intense homework session after dinner but with Matt gone (and the after dinner hour plenty busy for a single-momma) I moved the homework to afternoons, our typical home school time.  It worked okay.  

That's Julianna working in one of her language books.  Precision is not a natural bent for her.  Precision is demanded by the Chinese educational system.  She's drawing lines connecting different characters that often appear together.  The lines must be {ahem} STRAIGHT! 

To me, this is one of the gifts of a combined home school plus local school education.  If I had asked for lines that straight?  Nope.  I wouldn't have thought to ask, and she would have probably resisted. 

But for her teachers at school?  Julianna knows that she has to perform at the top of her game.  And I've been pleasantly surprised by how she'll embrace challenges from them that I'm almost sure she'd resist if they came from me.

But it's not all sunshine and roses.  Sometimes I revel in our current set up.... two kinds of schooling seems like a WIN-WIN situation.  Other times it feels like a LOSE-LOSE situation.  Sometimes I feel like I get the best of both worlds.  Sometimes I feel like I get the worst of both worlds.  For now, I'm choosing to embrace the good and accept the hard. 

And I'm also wondering if what now seems like hard will (in hindsight) actually be good.  You know how that tends to happen?

[new topic]

These boys.  Love it!  Isaac and John Paul are officially VERY good friends.  John Paul came home at 19 months old and he seemed so much younger than Isaac.  In reality, they are only 21 months apart.  And, crazy as it sounds, that's actually the largest age gap between any two sibs in our little family chain.  So Isaac seemed so old and John Paul so young but now, well now they just seem like perfect buddies. 

Earlier this week Isaac told me a long story that involved recounting lots of conversation between him and John Paul.  The crazy thing is, from an outsiders perspective you wouldn't think he and John Paul really have conversations. 

John Paul's expressive language is delayed (thanks to his cleft).  For a little boy who had virtually zero words pre-surgery (9 months ago) he's doing great, but he does not speak in sentences.  Usually just a few words strung together.  And his pronunciation is terrible.  It really is.  I know that moms of toddlers always understand their little one's language better than anyone else but John Paul and I really take this to a new level. 

So Isaac's story of "then John Paul said .... and I said ..... so he said ....... and then we both...... until he said ....."  I loved to hear it.  Because in reality John Paul didn't say all that stuff.  But it is what Isaac heard.  They are close enough that his language delay doesn't affect their play.  Isaac takes the words John Paul uses and ascribes (correctly) the entire thought behind it and their play continues undisturbed and just perfect for the two of them.  More and more I hear Isaac calling for John Paul to play and John Paul's "coming. Isaac."  answer. 

Of course little Luke is never far from the action.  Whew.  They keep me running in circles.  Happy happy circles.

And the running seems easier when Matt's home and I'm so very glad he is.  {He and John Paul have been 'working together' while I write, unpacking Matt's bag and doing all sorts of odds and ends.  I can hear the movie finishing up so bedtime is just around the corner.  Something tells me the big three will be asking to watch another movie sometime soon!}

posed.

At the playground with friends yesterday afternoon.

And what did I see?  My blond baby boy, posed for a picture. 

I have no idea what he thought of these little girls, their mommas, or the cameras.  The paparazzi is no new thing to him.  Just another day at the playground, I guess :)

the wild things hunt

We are finishing up a big local holiday. Most people spend the holiday traveling and shopping (or both) ...we did neither.  In my book, traveling and shopping with 1.2 billion of my closest friends does not equal a holiday. 

We did enjoy having Matt around a bit more than normal and the highlight (for the boys) was probably the "wild things hunt".  Matt talked it up big the night before... going on a big adventure, just the boys, to do some exploring.  Somehow Isaac got in his head that they were going to find some wild life and he started calling it "the wild things hunt". 

Life in a multi-million person city does not lend itself to wild life hunting.  I'm extra grateful for all the freedom to run and explore in our apartment complex but let's face it, it's hardly wild.  The complex has a full time gardener for goodness sakes.  [And he is a treasure - works as a team with his wife and I knew they'd be good friends of ours after our first encounter... when my boys followed him back and forth, back and forth watching him mow the lawn and he just grinned and patiently waited for them at every turn.  Now he's on Luke's 'top 10 favorite people' list!]

Anyways, back to the wild things hunt.

Matt loaded Isaac and John Paul on the electric bike and they were off.  [Luke was voted too-little for wild things hunting.  He stayed home with the girls.  Next time, buddy.]

About ten minutes down the road they turned onto a less used portion of greenway that gradually becomes crumbly dirt path and heads down towards the convergence of two rivers. 

Posing at the park area where they left the bike.  Our city has some really beautiful public spaces.  Not wild, but beautiful.  So thankful. 

Boys + big sticks = happiness?  Is this some sort of secret equation?  Isaac seems to have a built in big-stick-finding-sensor and John Paul is bound and determined to be just like big bro.

Alas, no wild things.  But construction equipment was a happy alternative.

And always incredibly easy to find!

date night swap

We have a little deal worked out with our neighbors, a date night deal.  And it is SO GREAT! 

Every Wednesday is date night.... every other Wednesday Matt and I eat dinner alone while they watch our kids (and theirs)!  On the off weeks Matt and I eat dinner with 8 of the greatest kids on the planet. 

This was our week on kid duty.  And this is their Eli - the littlest of the bunch :) [Our Julianna is the oldest - we're a young crowd!] 

 

Eli slept through dinner and when he woke ready for his own supper my two girls were eager to practice their big sister-ing skills. 

While I supervised this peaceful little scene Matt had an ever-so-slightly less peaceful supervisory role :)

Five boys - ages 5, 4, 2, 2, 1 - all sharing the same car ramp.  They are a noisy bunch!  Especially when racing matchbox cars down plastic ramps. 

Here's the beauty of it all: we live two buildings away from each other.  So when bedtime rolls around I take their boys home to their beds and Matt gets our kids all tucked in.  

This little arrangement is a huge blessing to our family.  We love it.  Maybe we love it ever so slightly more when it's our week to 'date' :)  But I truly do enjoy the times we have all of the kids too. 

These Wednesday night dates plus sweet little text messages like this one..

 ... mean we get lots of opportunities to spend good time together away from the kids.  So grateful for friends who bless us like this.  And grateful for date nights - even the ones full of children!