In this season....

I struggle so much in this life with doing big, being big. I want to be that person whose ministry is making a difference. I want to make a difference. But these days all I can do is just live. To make it through this day. I can't even organize my thoughts as to what I would do to make a difference, there are just too many needs. And how could I make a difference? I am just one person with no extra time. Actually, I am representative of 5 people with no extra time. (And I just spilled milk on my jeans.) I have to remind myself regularly that I cannot do all things.  I must do what I can do; well. Raising my kids. Supporting my husband. Fulfilling our call to expand our family through adoption. Homeschooling. Youth ministry. There it is; my plate is full. I can do those things well right now, with God's help. 

I wrote in my daughter's journal this morning that we go through seasons of our lives. There is a season for working, volunteering, creating, but this season right here is for loving and raising these babies. And that is a good thing. It isn't an easy season, it's the kind that earns you time alone when your husband gets home from work because you called him near tears with both toddlers screaming at you; demanding all of you at the exact same time.  It is the kind of season that breeds lots of laughter and silly faces and funny games. It is the season when you teach a two year old and a three year old that they have to share, and you teach a seven year old just how valuable and important she is even though her world is overrun with irrational siblings. It is the kind of season when you laugh and you cry; when you change more poopy diapers than you ever thought possible in a 2 hr time span. It is a hard and wonderful season and it may not feel like I'm doing anything big or changing the world, but I am changing their world so that they can do 


big too.

 I am in a season of multiplication and it is hard but good. Someday, someday... Someday there will be time for sitting and painting and praying and changing the lives of others outside of this tight knit little circle I live in, but not quite yet. A reminder from my devotions today Luke 16:10 “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.”
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I can be faithful with these littles right now.

Is this what we call normal?

Yes, I think our lives are finally slipping into "normal".  I wouldn't say that normal is always easy, but it is good to be here.  Normal means that the transitional things we have noticed with Doron have either ceased or we now can expect them and work through them.

Doron has handled our transition back to church remarkably well and we are now in the process of transitioning back into youth ministry as adult leaders (our church has a youth pastor and several other adult leaders).  This is still a bit tricky as we both have our life groups to work with and Doron cannot be without one of us in the nursery.  Last week he handled life group "ok" and needed to go to the nursery during worship, so Aaron took nursery duty.  Not sure if we will switch tonight or if Aaron will go again.  After a long day at work Doron isn't much for leaving Aaron's side at night.

Aaron is still Doron's favorite but I get plenty of hugs, kisses and snuggles during the day too.  Last night Aaron had had all three kids at his mom's house while I took a webinar.  When they got home Doron yelled "Mama!" and ran up to me with his arms wide open.  It was so sweet!

As Doron has gotten more comfortable with us we are seeing more of his little personality coming out.  No longer is he quiet and timid but he has a lot to say and often we call his little language his Mandrish.  We can tell he is trying to say something in English but it sounds like it is probably partly Mandarin.  He has become a daring little boy who tests his limits with climbing ladders and chairs and trying to ride his sister's big bikes and his little (but still too big for him) bike; laughing the whole time.  He is quick to smile and a tickle will bring on a fit of giggles that makes you never want to stop tickling him.  He likes to be thrown by Daddy high up in the air and smiles a giant smile every time.

He is also a little stinker who will sometimes hit or bite his big sister, Zizi.  Sadly, its usually her who gets hit or bit.  She is still taking it well, although she did go through a phase when if he came near her she would run away screaming.  Mostly the two of them play really well together but there are also days like today when Z does NOT want to share her Mommy and Doron does NOT know what he wants so everybody cries and screams (sometimes Mommy cries too... I try not to scream, that usually makes things worse).  Naptime has finally settled itself out.  Z watches an episode of Octonauts or Clifford... or whatever her favorite show this week is and Doron snuggles up on my shoulder and quickly falls asleep.  Then Z goes down pretty easily too.  I am thankful we found a system.

Am has been so busy this summer playing with her best friend whenever possible.  It seems we hardly see her; just glimpses as they run between houses.  Doron thinks Am's best friend is also one of his sisters and he calls her Jie Jie as well.  It's pretty adorable.

This is an amazing time in  our lives - crazy busy and difficult - but really amazing.

Sleep, Baby, Sleep

The first two nights after Doron joined our family bedtime was a piece of cake.  In every way; it was easy, it was sweet, it was enjoyable.  About the third night though Doron didn't want me anymore.  At first when it came to bedtime he would lay his head on my chest and full out lay on top of me, with his tiny little body.

On night three, he didn't want to be anywhere near me.  Since then, Doron has preferred Daddy.  And by preferred, I mean - he cries like the worst is happening all over again unless Daddy is there to lay him down for naps or bedtime and be there when he wakes up from either.  Even this afternoon when Doron woke up from his nap, I went in to get him and pick him up.  He cried and cried and cried, huge tears, lots of snot - CRYING; knowing that Daddy is headed back to work this week and that we are going to have to figure this thing out I tried to distract him with his favorite snack.  Nothing.. the tears would not stop coming.  Only after going outside and getting Daddy, and being held by Daddy did the crying stop and he ate the snack I was still holding.

Doron loves Daddy.  No doubt about that.  And really, I have no doubt that he loves me too, but for some reason when it comes to sleeping he doesn't trust anyone like he trusts Daddy.  And that's ok, because that's what he needs right now.

Tonight was different though.  For some reason when we were putting Z down to bed, Doron got really jealous of her snuggling me.  Doron wanted Mama.  Since Daddy has only put Z to bed once since we got home from China, I picked up Doron and we cheerfully waved goodbye to everyone and headed downstairs to put Doron to bed.

He was so calm.  I've never seen him so calm at bedtime.  But I sang to him softly all my bedtime songs, twice.  And then we laid down in bed together, like we did the first night we had him.  I took off my glasses and he touched my face and he called me Nai Nai.  It's a small glimpse into his little mind, what all of this must feel like to him.

His Nai Nai is his foster mom.  At 18 months old our son was placed in a foster home for 7 months while we waited to be able to travel and get him.  During this time he bonded really well with his foster mom, I imagine she must have sang to him quite a lot.  She loved him very much.  Nai Nai has long straight hair, similar to mine and sometimes I wonder if I was too similar to her for awhile.  That he had to learn to separate her and I.  Tonight, with my glasses off and half asleep he thought I was Nai Nai and he fell asleep peacefully in my arms.

Our little baby has endured quite a lot in his short life.  It can be hard to understand all that our son has gone through because in all my life I haven't suffered the loss that he has.  I hope and pray that as he grows, we are able to help him fully process and understand his past, his present, and his future.  I pray that God gives him peace as he works out all that he endured.  I know it will be a lifelong journey for him to mourn what was and what will never be, and accept what is and all that can be.

Goodnight friends.

An Important Job

I joined instagram less than 24 hrs ago, pretty much for the sole purpose of keeping up with a dear friend who left Facebook probably over a year ago.  She left for a lot of reasons, reasons I definitely agreed with, and I got an instagram because I am tired of not keeping up with her life!

I really thought that Instagram was just pictures, but apparently she uses it for so much more.  She has a lot of followers, and she uses her instagram (whether she knows it or not) to speak life and encouragement into others.

This morning I opened my instagram and when I was at a *most frustrating* part of my day I felt encouraged in my role as a mother.  I was reminded of the importance of my position and while laying on the living room floor, bemoaning the effort it was taking to get anything done today.

Sometimes it feels like we work so hard at this mothering gig and our kids don't always get it.  Last week I stood on a beach in Florida with my husbands strong arms wrapped around me as he spoke life back into my tired home-school mother's soul.  I was feeling like a deflated failure coming down from the busy holiday season, where school often fell to the bottom of the list, wondering if all of this - if home schooling was really what we were supposed to be doing.  And then my husband swooped in like a night in shining armor to encourage me, and remind me that all of this - yes, this is the right thing we're doing - and our child is recieving an excellent education.

I can't imagine that I am alone in this.  I can't imagine that I am the only home schooler out there who thinks at times that she is failing her child.  I can't imagine that I am the only mother who wonders if I am really doing this correctly.  I know we all do, and so today as I laid there wondering how we will ever get back on a decent schedule, and how will my house ever look as clean or as organized as it once did - I was reminded that this job I'm doing, day in and day out, early evening, late night, middle of the night, way too early morning -

It is an important job and I am doing a good job.

Crabby Pants

I have been a crabby pants all week.  (My husband likes to follow this statement up with something about a "crappy pants".  If you know him; this comes as no suprise, I'm sure.)

I thought the week would be great, last week was so hectic and busy that this week was bound to be fantastic.  But the cold virus (that we've been battling in a horrible cycle for 2 months) found our two year old and took her down with great force.  First with an ugly case of viral conjunctivitis, followed by not much sleeping and the inability to nap unless being held by her mother.  This should help you to understand the crabby pants.

In light of the crabby pants, I feel I should share a few lessons from this week.

Lesson #1: Jamberry nails are not as easy as they make them sound.

I bought some Jamberry's for my girls for their stockings this year.  I was so excited, since I have been wanting to try Jamberry for awhile.  When you buy 3 you get 1 free, so of course when they came I decided to try my free pair.  Round 1 was a major fail.  Apparently when heating the sticker thing before applying, you don't heat the adhesive side... that's a really bad idea as it drys out the adhesive.  Round 2 was okay... and Round 3 worked out fairly well.  My theory is that they give you the free pair because they know you're totally going to screw it up the first 3 times.

Lesson #2: Having a child with pink eye makes outings challenging. (as in you can't have any)

Nobody wants your kid's pink eye, even though its a relatively mild and simple disease.  It's actually less horrible than a bad cold, but if you have pink eye you have the plague.  Nobody wants to be around you or your kid.  So, think about drive through restaraunts and hiring a teenager to watch your child so you can take your test at church.  You know.. those things.  But it is so very cute to hear a two year old say "I have a pink eye!"

Lesson #3:  Studying for a final doesn't mean it's going to be easy.

We took our finals for our class at church on Wednesday night this week, and even though we studied, and I was pretty sure I was going to rock that test.  It wasn't easy.  I didn't rock that test.

Lesson #4:  When planning for a ballet rehearsal, or recital, or Christmas play dress rehearsal - don't let the stress get to you.

I am a perfectionist.  (May come as a legit surprise to many of you) But I really like to have my ducks in a row and to be honest... my ducks are so far out of their rows right now they're not even in the same pond.  So when recitals and performances come, my perfectionism FREAKS.  Like "You are not allowed to talk while I do your hair because it breaks my concentration" freak.  Poor kid.  (Aren't you glad I'm not YOUR parent??)  Anywho - I seem to notice that the other parents just.don't.care that much.  Why is this?  Didn't they read the note?   And when they see they did it wrong, they still don't care.  I want to be like them.  This is something I have to learn.  How do I just not care so much?

Lesson #5:  Some people are just not very nice.

We encountered on Friday a woman who thought she would take it upon herself to correct my child for doing something wrong.  Problem is; I was right there.  My child wasn't doing anything wrong.  I was taking care of the non-situation.  Mama Bear reared her head in protection and defense of her child.  My child was genuinely embarrased by the situation.  And I am still trying to figure out whether I handled it correctly or what I should have done differently.  It took me a solid 24 hours to cool down.  And I came to the realization that parenting is really hard.  I've talked the situation through with my child, and she is okay, but sadly I am not.  And I think I can remember this happening when I was a kid.  That my mom had those times when she just wanted to defend and protect us, and when someone else does that damage, beyond making sure our child is okay - you can't really undo the damage.  It's really hard.  I'm really sad that people don't know their boundaries or what is an appropriate and inappropriate way of speaking to a child (or anyone for that matter).

Lesson #6:  I need to give myself more grace for weeks like this one.

It was a big week, a lot happened.  Next week is destined to be bigger as we get closer to Christmas.  I'm going to need a lot of sleep and a lot of patience.  Thankfully we are starting to get over our colds, hopefully we can keep them away for the next few months.  And with a little more grace, and a lot more patience, and hopefully some good sleep - next week will be better than this week.

On the adoption front, we are in the painful process of waiting.  This is all normal, what we were told to expect, but it doesn't make these days seem any faster.  It is especially difficult as we know our little one is living without a family and we are here celebrating with our family, just one short.  Please pray for our son this Christmas.  We would love to hear news very soon that we will be bringing him home in a few months.  Pray for us too as we prepare our home and our family to bring him here to us.

Screen Free Time

Screen Free Time is something most people are familiar with.  (and I know I should not end that sentence with a preposition.)  Here in our house SFT usually comes when I just can't take the screens anymore.

Many of you know that we homeschool - if you didn't, now you know - we homeschool.  (Which by the way is one word even though spell check is constantly trying to correct me. click here)  There are so many reasons a family chooses to homeschool, and ours, like many families is a combination of reasons.  I won't go into them right now, but I just wanted to throw that out there.  This post is actually about Screen Free Time.

It seems when we start out the school year I'm usually "super-mom".  I am on top of school.  I am on top of the house.  I am on top of everything.  We follow our schedules.  I prepare things the week before and then the night before, and I feel great!  And then about two weeks in I start to stumble, we let a couple of things slide.  Then three weeks in some more things slide, and by week six - we're in a bad spot.

Well, week six was last week for us and let me tell you, by the end of the week I was about to sign my daughter up for public school.  The problem was not my first grader.  No, she's great!  Doing her assignments, not complaining, enjoying school - the problem was ME!

Our schedule is gone.  My organization is gone.  My house is a mess and climbing back up the ladder of success seems like such a long hard climb.

So, we made a new rule for school days.  All school days are screen free from 8 am - 3 pm unless it is an educational website that has to do with our math, science, or some other assignment.  This eliminates two BIG problems we have - the constant whining and asking to watch a movie or play a computer game and then me losing track of time and letting them watch another movie and play another game... which can wrap into more time than we intended.

Today is our first day screen free.  (I also said that this rule does not apply to me, because much of my other home activities involve some sort of screen) Although, right now this blog writing is just therapy.

Can I be honest though, so far today has been awesome!  I feel like super mom again, even though the house is still a big mess.

Another thing I did today that I'm going to try and keep up with is keeping a bowl of healthy snack food out on the table.  This morning I cut up a melon and left it out with a plastic wrap over it.  Every time the girls whine that they're hungry I send them to the table for a bite of melon.  It has been awesome!  They just go and eat it - and they stop whining.

Today I also mandated that we spend time outside running around.  So we got out the soccer ball and set up some goals and played a rudimentary game of soccer.  And I officially lost.  We ran around and got hot and sweaty and tired for an hour!

After lunch we sat and Amariss read to me while I picked through her hair and then we switched and she picked through mine.  We were pretending we were monkeys looking for bugs.

I know that not all days (infact, most days) will not be like this, but today it feels pretty nice to have a good day and remember that its okay that we had a bad week last week.  It won't be our last one, but it wasn't our first - this is just a part of life.

I'll let you know how we feel at the end of the week.

Any other homeschooling parents have bad weeks?  How do you handle them?

A quick update!

It has to be a quick update because I'm pretty sure if I blink my life will fly past me!

Homeschooling:

My daughter doing a numbers puzzle.

We have been so busy this week with our first week of homeschooling and to top it off I got a cold.  So, in between trying to modify lesson plans or prepare for the next day, I was trying to catch sleep where I could and continue to keep up with our regular activities.  To say this week has been crazy would be an understatement.

But, my 5 year old is really enjoying Kindergarten at home and my 1 year old hates it.  But we'll figure things out with her, it might mean postponing school until her afternoon nap time.  Which is what I'm going to try and do today since yesterday was so awful.

On the reproductive front:  
After a little bit of office mix-up at my midwife's office (really who can blame them they have a ton of patients) and maybe a misunderstanding on my part, after 3 weeks I finally got my blood tests ordered and drawn on Tuesday afternoon.  I haven't heard back yet what the results were.  I called yesterday but something tells me I probably won't know until Monday and even then I'll need to schedule an appointment with my midwife to discuss our options from here.

So that is where we sit right now.  We are still waiting for answers, and I feel like I'm right on the precipice of major decision making.  The outcome of these tests will make a lot of decisions for us right off the top, which is encouraging, but I know that they will also spark more discussion, more planning, and maybe even a little more confusion as we now have to take the next step.

In the meantime I am going to enjoy the weekend coming up.  We finally have very little on our agenda and I'm looking forward to enjoying family time and hopefully cleaning the house.  (Betya never thought you'd hear me say that, eh?)

Happy Friday!

Not what I thought it would be....

PAIL Post

When I first started out on this parenting journey, just like many newbies, I had a lot of grand ideas of how awesome I was going to be (cue laughter)... 

I quickly, and I mean quickly, learned just how little I know about parenting, and even - dare I say - judgemental I had been towards other parents (ouch!). 

I thought Attachment Parenters (AP) were crazy, and I had several friends who used Babywise and I totally disagreed with a lot of it.  So, I didn't know which school of thought to follow. 

What I found out though, was that God equips us exactly as we need to be equiped.  Oh, I make mistakes, a lot of them, daily - but my daughter knows the truth about Jesus, she is full of love, and quick to share, and that strong-will she was blessed with? - its still there, and being shaped for God's purposes. 

Some of the things that make me the craziest about my daughter and parenting, are not wrong at all - they're just different than me.  Where I am introverted, my daughter knows no stranger... (seriously, we have the stranger talk all the time).  Where I am quiet, my daughter is boisterous.  Where I want to fit in, my daughter just wants to be herself.  *If you know my husband, you know where my daughter has inherited all of these, oh so wonderful traits.*

Sometimes, its not a matter of changing those traits in her, its a matter of changing those traits in me.  We've taught her to love, and love she does! 

And parenting?  It is HARD WORK.  This kid is no angel, just like the rest of them.  She tests the boundaries and makes me wonder if I really knew what I was getting into.  No, I didn't. 

I didn't know what it would feel like to get up in the middle of the night, 3 times - because she's thirsty, hungry, or has to pee.  (When they're 4 and you're pregnant, you have a lot less patience for these shenanigans.) 

I didn't know what it would be like to still have to give a consequence to the most adorable little face I've ever seen, that's crying becuase I looked at her sternly. 

I didn't know how much I would love this kid. 

And that love only grows every. single. day.

So parenting philosophy?

I lean more towards Attachment Parenting and I still disagree with Babywise.

But just like anything, I don't follow that perfectly either :)


*On that strong-willed child though - If you have one, I can tell you right now.  One of the BEST books out there is You Can't Make Me, But I Can Be Pursuaded by Cynthia Tobias. 

Go buy it.  now.  for real.  It will change your life and the way you parent.  It made a world of difference in our home and our daughter was just turning 4 when I read it.  I wish I'd read it when she was 2 though!