2 month update

We have been home from China 9 weeks today with our boys.  For most of that time, I have been searching for milestones so that I could say we had passed them.  And all of a sudden, it has been nine weeks!  I thought it was 2 months today but somehow a week has slipped up on me.  Oh yeah, Micah Jude's surgery was a week ago...there is my missing week ;-)

I don't have time, energy, or recall to relate all of the last 9 weeks so I will abbreviate if I can.  You realize this is very difficult because I tend to have a lot of words.  Here goes:

Oct 17 - Dec 19, 2012  Really long plane ride home which included all 6 of us RUNNING from one side of Chicago (airport) to the other only to discover our plane was delayed and moved to the concourse we had just run from.  2 weeks of jet lag.  The boys have slept through the night EVERY night since we have met them.  Boys learn how to play Nintendo DS.  Boys fight over DS games/devices.  DS devices mysteriously disappear, never to resurface ;-)  Eden takes on big sister role easily.  Harrison has two 7 yr old brothers bunking with him and is mostly ok with it.  8 trips to the horse farm for riding lessons.    8 trips to Eden's ballet class and playing on the playground while we wait for her.

12 creeks jumped over

One trip to the Pumpkin Patch on a Sunday afternoon.  7 games of SORRY.  Toy Story 1, 2, and 3 in the car.  Waverly got new tires on her car.  Mom used one old tire to hang a tire swing.  Mom's hammock is demolished as kids gravitate to it instead of the tire swing...grrrrrrrr.  Puzzles, letters, numbers, colors, shapes, names.  112 temper tantrums, the last of which (wait!  there was not a temper tantrum today! whooohooo!) ended with the whole family giggling (except the screamer).  I guess your body instinctively knows when it needs to produce endorphins.  8 doctor/dentist visits in 8 days.  6 vials of blood drawn.  Only a few tears.  Lots of bandaids and stickers and lolipops.  2 cases of strep throat.  One sinus infection.  One case of the flu.  One tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy/Baha post implant.  One case of mono.  Traditional Thanksgiving meal because Mom needed something to remember her former life by.  63 shower baths given by Dad.  63 wet bathrooms cleaned up by Dad.  163 wet bath towels (well, it seems like it).  7,214 articles of clothing folded...exaggeration? I couldn't say.  2 trips to the store to buy jeans for the boys (one of them by Waverly at 2am on Black Friday).  1 set of keys locked in a trunk.  9, no 8, no probably 6 episodes of Parenthood with Waverly after kids are in bed.  A Senior portrait session  for Waverly by my great friend and talented photographer, which somehow included ALL of my kids.


A little bit of sewing.  Christmas shopping almost exclusively online and by Dad.  Boys started school November 14!  Micah Jude got a bone conducting hearing aid in preparation for his Baha (bone anchored hearing aid).  One family portrait sitting...boys are confused by it all.  8 Sunday buffets at Miss Su's.  Lots of dinners brought by good friends.  One Rubbermaid building assembled to house bikes, scooters, and chipmunks (jk).  Lots of trips to Lowe's with Dad (the boys love it there).  24 waves goodbye and kisses blown to the bus in the morning.  Lots of hugs and kisses.    Several trips to Full Moon BBQ.
Passion music at bedtime worship with Dad.  Strobe dancing in the living room with LED lights and lasers.  Playing outside with neighbor friends.  Only a few scuffs from scooter accidents.  A couple meetings at the kids' school to talk about how THEY can help US teach our boys...AMAZING group of teachers!  Txt counseling by godly friends.  Daily prayer (did I say daily prayer?  I meant prayer ALL day).  Many reminders of my weaknesses (2 Corinthians 12: 9,10).  One note for Santa taped to the front door tonight by Gideon.  Merry Christmas everyone!

We are leaving!

I completely shut down when we got our Consulate appointment yesterday.  I am not sure what happened, but I just felt like I was turning around in circles and not sure of what to do now.  I think I ended up running a couple errands that were already on my list to do and then had an extra 30 minutes so I went to the Verizon store to get set up for International calling :-)  So SOMETHING is ready for travel.

Oh yeah, after school I took Eden to her horse riding lesson.  I am so glad that was on the schedule yesterday.  I LOVE going to the horse farm.  It was exactly what I needed to calm me and start my brain functioning again.

So, I have lots of lists to make so I will just give you all the details.  If we are successful booking flights this AM, we will leave next Thursday (10/4) and return WITH OUR BOYS (!!) on 10/17!  This is really happening people!  This is when my nerves kick in because you really have NO IDEA what to expect.  It's kind of like riding a new rollercoaster for the first time...you are excited and nervous at the same time.  You are pretty sure you are going to love it and be terrified at the same time.  You are pretty sure when the ride is over, you are going to want to get back in line again ;-)

If you see a change in tone or voice over the next few weeks, it is because I am relinquishing the blogging to my husband DW.  He is in charge of all things techological from here on out.

From my heart

The last weeks of an adoption, right before you travel...excruciating!  There is so much going on inside my heart and brain and body right now that it is really hard to articulate.  Those who have been where I am will know what I am talking about, I think.  (Unless I am truly some sort of weirdo.)

Last week we sent out a letter (via Facebook), to practically everyone we know, detailing a little of our adoption story.  I have read that letter a bunch of times, and re-read my own accounting of our story in my March blog post and every time I read it I am so amazed!  When I look back at the whole of my life, I don't understand how I get to have this life!  God's grace is so incredibly amazing!  I could not, did not, would not have planned this life for myself.  As a matter of fact, I tried my best to make sure it would never look anything like this.  I ran from God for a long time.  I wounded and alienated many people in the process.  But God pursued me unrelentingly!  Eventually I could no longer resist a love that knew me, all of me, and still pursued me.  I did not feel at all worthy but wanted a true love so desperately that I accepted the love and forgiveness He offered.  I had nothing to offer Him in return except myself.

It is with this same kind of love we pursue our children.  With a fraction of the intensity, I am sure.  But if what I feel is a fraction of the way God feels about me,...there are no words.

In the letter we sent out, at the very end my husband said something along the lines of "thanks for your interest in our family and our mission".  By the way, our family IS our mission.  This week, I read a post from a friend (also an adoptive mother) who has been accused of being "some sort of missionary" bringing children to America to rescue them.  My heart hurts for her and for those who don't understand that that is not our "mission".  Our mission is to bear/adopt children and love them like God has loved us.  That is it.  How we come to have the children we have is a mystery to me, but not to God...never a mystery to God.  When we talk to Eden about how we found her, she always wants me to tell her over and over about how God told us she was in China and to go find her, and how we searched and searched and it took a long, long time for us to find her.  And she inserts at this part of the story that she was "at the playground" (orphanage) looking and looking for us but she couldn't find us and she was so sad and scared.  But we didn't stop, we kept looking until we "found" her.  We will tell our boys a similar story.  We started looking for them in Peru (weird, I know, because they are Chinese).  We will not tell them that we were on a rescue mission, or a disciple-making mission. We will tell them we were on a mission of love.  God told us to find them and bring them home and love them and we did not stop until we did just that.