Quick Update

I’m not as diligent as I’d like to be about the blogging lately. And that is all I’m saying on that. I wanted to give a quick update on Yaya’s lip…it looks fabulous. We are down to one little stitch that you can barely see on the pouty part of her lip. We her “3 week” check up for it on Oct 4. (Yeah I know it’s 4 weeks but I didn’t schedule it…the doctor’s office did.) I hope we get to talk about when her palate will be done. Since surgery her desire to talk has shot through the roof. I think the new lip coupled with being able to hear clearly has really made her want to speak. I had been hoping for a January palate repair date but now I wish we could do it tomorrow, just so she could start learning to talk. We now have to really step up the sign language for her. We also have to force her to use it. She’d rather just scream and make us guess, so we are having to really work with her to use her signs. It is frustrating to her, but isn’t this what you do with toddlers anyway…”use your words honey”. We are doing that with Eden as well. Yaya is back to eating baby food again and we are back down to only 3.5 bottles a day. The eating isn’t where I’d like it to be, but she averages about 3-4 containers a day and we want her eating 5-6…so we are getting there. Yaya (dare I speak this out loud) has slept well the past 4 nights! She has had only one nightmare and that was well before we went to bed. She wakes one time during the night and if we reach in the crib and hold her hand she goes right back to sleep. So it has almost been like normal sleep for us 4 days in a row, with regards to Yaya. (I was still up with Eden with strep issues. I never sleep.)  I’m sure now that I’ve blogged this Yaya will have a two hour night terror but I am at least thankful for the past 4 nights. The girls are “off and and on” sisters. They spent 3 days quarrelling like sisters this past week. I was literally the referee (Foreshadowing, I know)  Now I have to say that Eden had strep and we didn’t know it so that may have played into the fighting…hmmmm…uhhhhhyeah. They occasionally like each other though. We have caught them watching TV together. Once when I had to get up to go get the phone, Eden replaced me in sitting behind Yaya. And when I asked them to pose for a picture on a walking trail they went and sat down next to each other on a step and both said cheese! It’s the little things that are such a blessing that I get excited over now. Below is pictures of most of those moments. My favorite picture in this post, however, is the one of Noah…check out what he did to his hair and how COOL is he?!!! Love that kid. (P.S. Eden took the picture of Eric and Yaya below!)

Becki…email me!!!

Okay I have been wanting to write this post since the day of Yaya’s surgery and I am finally getting to it. It’s a strange title I know, but I want Becki’s attention if she is still following the blog. On the day of Yaya’s surgery I got the most surprising comment on our blog and it blessed me to tears to receive it. On Yaya’s “Gotcha Day” there was only one other adoptive family receiving a child at the same time we were, and they came to get their son who also had cleft lip/palate. The difference between our two families was that their son had the HUGE blessing of coming from an incredible foster family. Eric and I marveled at the love that poured out of this family and filled the entire civil affairs office. I want to say there were 5 other children and watching them broke my heart. This little boy was loved. It was so hard to watch them hand over this precious little life that they had cared for and clearly come to love dearly. I kept telling Eric, “That is a true calling from God, I don’t know how their hearts survive doing this time after time.” I admire foster families so very much. They stayed for a very long time and waited patiently for the new family to leave with with their foster son. They had to endure much of our experience as well…they got the full force of Yaya’s grief, fear and anger. We were shocked and even further moved for this family when we saw them again the next day at the civil affairs office for the paperwork stuff! I was told that the adopting couple requested them to come back. May I say that I marvel at this family that they would go through a second gut wrenching good-bye. Eric and I talked often of this incredible family who serves and loves the children of China. Little did I know that they would find our journey and follow it! I can’t explain why it means so much that this precious family has followed our journey. Perhaps because they are really the only other people that knew what we went through when we got Yaya. And they gave me so many comforting looks and smiles while Yaya was thrashing about in my arms. They were hurting for our family too. I don’t know, it is hard to explain. I suppose it is a similar connection like when total strangers share a tragedy and are instantly bonded. It was a tragic day as much as it was a glorious day. That is how I feel about this family. So Becki…email me! I would love to keep in touch with you!

I also want to say a shout out to my family at Red Ridge United Methodist Church. Thank you so much for following our journey and your kind words of encouragement and all your prayers; it all helps more than you know. Blogging was never something I thought I’d do, or do consistently, I am amazed at how many lives Yaya’s life is touching. I have always known that this little girl would have a great impact on our family and the world around us but it continues to amaze and humble me how God is using a little Chinese orphan to impact the lives of so many. And really her story is our story.  We are all orphans that God has adopted into His family, so I why I wonder at what he is doing through Yaya, I don’t know. I suppose it is because she is unsuspecting of it all. She has no idea the impact she is making throughout the world. I pray that one day this information will help her hurting heart as she struggles with her story and with who she is. I pray that it will point her to who she really is in Christ; that she won’t define herself by who her biological or adoptive parents are but by who her Heavenly Father is and by how HE made her and for what purpose.

All this to say…to all of you silent followers and all of you commenting encouraging followers…I thank you for sharing in our story, it makes life a little brighter knowing we are in good company along our journey. Thank you.

Scabs Away!

10 days post surgery and finally the big unsightly scab on her sweet lip came off! She still has a few stitches hanging out but she looks a world of better and must feel better too! Do you see that sweet little smile now?! That face is so sweet I want to eat it up!

Four Months

So here we are at four months with Yaya. It is hard to believe that 4 months ago (yesterday actually) we were in that terrible red office in Chongqing, China, changing all our lives forever. So how are things at four months? I’d love to say that life is FABULOUS! But that would be a bit of a stretch. It is good though. I can say that we have more hope now than we did several months ago…and I mean that on a couple levels. We can see glimpses of what the new normal will be and it is exciting. We are seeing more of Yaya’s personality and it is funny and cute. Eden is playing more with Yaya and seems to almost enjoy her at times. Noah is….well Noah is Noah and he is awesome. Yaya seems to have turned a corner with me recently and dare I say we actually kinda like each other…yes, I do dare say it. It was the Sunday after her surgery and up until this point she had been shunning me pretty harshly. After our trip to the creek and her car nap, I took her out of the car and we sat together on the front porch enjoying the cool afternoon. She sat in my lap and let me hold her hand. We talked all about the day and what future days could be like. We must have been out there for an hour or so. Since that time she has shown much more affection and sometimes preference for me. Even more amazing is that we have taken the girls out to a restaurant to eat twice and got to finish the entire meal!! (okay it isn’t as amazing as her and bonding but it is pretty cool).

But it is still very, very hard. Not that any parenting is easy but this attachment parenting for three children is just exhausting. And I remember thinking Eden was hard before we got Yaya…I was so wrong and clearly a much lazier parent. Yaya continues to have sleep disturbances. Night terrors every other night and wakes multiple times. So the sleep deprivation makes everything worse. Eric and I have now taken to splitting up at night and taking turns with her. Noah still wants someone with him so we are in his room with him. I went and bought 4” memory foam toppers for all the upstairs beds. So now I can get some sleep upstairs with Noah and my back doesn’t keep me up all night. Sleep is probably our worst area right now and it touches all the other areas of our lives. Because of surgery Yaya is not eating baby food anymore…well not regularly. She did eat some the other day, but for the most part she is a bottle baby again, but we are slowly working solids back into her life. I’m so glad she was eating before surgery and that eating baby food is not something new to her. She will come around soon. Yaya is more clingy than before, but now in a new way. It is more of an affection clingy than a anxious attachment-fear response. She has taken to giving good long hugs, saying I love you often, and she likes cuddling on your neck. When we are holding her she drops her head down on our chests and shoulders more often now. It is the beginning of what seems to be true affection. So that is exciting to witness.

Sweet Eden is on an emotional roller coaster. We are seeing a shunning of all care taking activities and an increase in anger again. But as stated she seems to like Yaya more and plays with her more now. She is resisting going to school and I drop her off teary eyed every M/W/F. However, I pick her up smiling and she reports having a fun day playing. She even comes home and pretends she is at school and is the teacher telling me what activity we are doing next. Eric took her to her first Thera-play evaluation and he says he will be shocked if the therapist finds anything wrong with Eden. They played together beautifully and had a great time. I just wonder if she cooperated because she was so glad to have Daddy and her time. We will see how her and I do next week together. She had a wonderful day yesterday and was funny, imaginative, kind, even tempered and cooperative…all day! But who knows what today will bring. She is still trying to work it out, and we know that she will. If we can help her we will, Lord knows we are trying.

Noah, he is good but we are seeing now some signs of wear and tear. He is finally of the opinion that Eden as a little sister is rather annoying. And that is stemming from the fact that she tends to shun him a lot and his feelings are hurt. Yaya can do no wrong but Eden is almost too much for him. He clearly has a double standard. And I can’t say as though I blame him. Eden is often difficult and rather mean to him. He is getting to the age where his “tone” tends to get him in trouble. It’s funny and disrespectful all at the same time. He has his “you are so irritating and lame” tone, his “I am so annoyed with you” tone, his “you are so unfair” tone, and his “will you just get off my case tone.” All of which get him into loads of trouble on days when I have not had much sleep and forget that I am still attachment parenting him. He is growing up. It makes me sad…and happy.

Eric and I are weary. We miss our friends and our church family. I am often lonely for my friends. We are doing our best to keep it together and we are making it, although it seems barely some days. Life is what it is and it is getting better, but slowly. We keep pressing on knowing with each day we are becoming more and more the family God created us to be. We have ups and downs, there are really funny moments and moments that make us want to scream and cry. It is an adventure and we are the better for it.

It’s Super Monkey Girl!

These pictures were taken right before Yaya’s surgery so I didn’t get to blog them. But they are so stinkin’ cute! Eden came running out into the living room screaming “Ta-da!” I believe Noah dressed her in this but she loved it and we called her Super Monkey Girl and she also loved it. I’m fairly certain she will one day NOT love that I posted this picture on a blog. But by the time that comes I wonder if ‘blogs’ will still exist.

This photo was taken the same day, I think. I just love it. She does the messy hair look really well.

Noah, Lego Designer, U.S.A.

So Noah wants to be a Lego designer one day…that and several other things. Recently he has pulled away from the store bought ‘builds’ and is branching out on his own builds now. He did a few things recently that were so awesome I thought them blog worthy. The first is a two room classroom.

The portion in the middle with the black rail has doors on either side so you pass through and outdoor hallway to get to each room. That piece also holds the ‘star observatory’ where the student is looking through the telescope, as you can see. The room on the left is a standard classroom with teacher. The room on the right is the science room complete with a ‘cauldron’ in the center. It currently is full of gems they are studying. I love this kid!

Next up is the Mars and Earth bases, complete with chopper teleporter. I’ll begin with Earth Base.

As you can see here, the chopper is in the teleporter docking bay. The colorful thing in front to the left is the ‘oxygen/atmosphere’ link that makes the Mars Base habitable. Note: if you knock one of the hoses off this device the Mars Base can’t breath until you hook it back up. It teleports the atmosphere and oxygen they need from Earth to Mars. On the front right is a science desk that analyzes stuff and the back right is the ‘communications center’, notice the satellite dish. Next up is the Earth Science Lab. It is where they analyze the stuff that is teleported from Mars….rocks, bones, gems and stuff. The box with the clear sides holds all the things they found. The green pod on the left is the alien containment unit, it was being used last week but apparently not this week.

On to Mars Base.

I don’t really know what all this is…but I know some of it. I love that he thought to use the red bricks to make the terrain. You see the teleporter pad for the chopper on the top of the garage for the Mars rover.  I also like that Noah put a red/white bar at the entrance of the garage that actually lifts up and down to let the rover in. The other thing I want to note is the blue pieces on the bottom left corner. Noah built that originally with other red bricks covering the blue. When I was brought to the grand opening of the Mars Base, he “blasted” the red bricks on top which revealed the water hidden underneath. A true and incredible scientific discovery. I love, love, love this boy’s imagination!

I want the Nanny Treatment

The sweet woman you see in this picture holding Eden who was only 2 months old is Nanny. (Helen Norred) She is the beloved grandmother of one of my dearest friends Sunni. I have known Nanny for almost 12 years. Today she went home to be with Jesus and see her loved ones that went on to Heaven before her. She was 89 years old and ready for home. I got the honor and blessing of being able to spend some time with her Wednesday evening. She was expected to go home that day but she had other plans. When I showed up at the assisted living facility I was ushered down to her room by the choruses of praise songs I love beckoning me there. When I walked in the room it was clear that this wasn’t a “death watch”, it was a praise and worship service. The worship team from Sunni and Rusty’s church (which includes S & R) were in her room praising our Lord. There were several guitars and Rusty had a ukulele, there was sheet music spread all over Nanny and her bed and there were several people singing . It was incredible. I went over to Nanny and bent close to her ear and when I spoke she responded slightly. I knew she knew everyone was there. When the guys would take a break from singing and playing…so would Nanny. When they would begin again she would slightly twitch and mover her arms and raise her eyebrows often..especially if she could hear Sunni on the high notes. People kept coming in to visit with Nanny and then Sunni broke out the pictures and photo albums. We all laughed and giggled and ooh’d and ahh’d over pictures both old and recent. Soon there after Sunni’s church brought in several spaghetti dinners and the assisted living facility sent down cookies and coffee…unprompted. I’ve never seen anything like this. It was how it should be, rejoicing over a sister getting to go home. And those that loved her didn’t stop until Jesus gathered her in his arms. I was told that many loved ones gathered around her bed this afternoon and said a prayer. When they all said, “Amen,” Nanny opened her eyes, looked around the room, closed them and took one more breath and then she went home. That is how I want to go out. Everyone is calling it the “Nanny Treatment”. We are joking that she would have gone on to Heaven sooner but she was enjoying the two day music festival in her room too much. She will be dearly missed.

I told her before I left that the angel she gave Eden Marie is one of Eden’s favorite items in the house and that we will always remember her until the time we will get to be with her again. Nanny felt a special connection to Eden because they share the name Marie, and she gave Eden a beautiful Waterford crystal angel..and it truly is one of Eden’s favorite items in the house. We have to get it out of the china hutch weekly for her to inspect it. She begs to hold it and Eric “helps” her do that…I’d kill him if he gave a Waterford crystal angel to a 2 year old to hold. I have so many wonderful memories of Nanny. One of my favorite memories of Nanny is at a sock hop we had at our church one time. She showed up in poodle skirt with little white tennis shoes and was precious! She danced the night away. It was awesome. I also love that she drove a Camaro….a nice one. And hands down she had the best Christmas letters of anyone I know. She typed them on her typewriter…seriously. Then she would have them copied and she would put Christmas stickers all over the margins; front and back AND on the outside of the envelope These had to take her some time. They were always so funny, Nanny had a super sense of humor. But more than that she had an incredible heart. She was a strong woman of faith and served in the Kiaros prison ministry I think since its inception, not joking. In lieu of gifts or flowers for her service she has requested that people support the Kiaros prison ministry. She gives and serves even after leaving this world.  She was an incredible woman, I was blessed to have known her. The world will be a darker in her absence and Heaven will shine brighter now that she is there. Blessings sweet Nanny we will see you again one day.