WANTED: Prayer warriors

I have been thinking a lot about our trip to China (obviously). I am thinking that while we are there, I just want Kate and my family covered in prayer. We want God's guidance, good health, blessings, peace, and courage while we are there (and home for that matter). So I am calling on you all - my friends and family, as well as those of you I have not yet met - to pray for us. I know that some of you already are. You have sent me comments and emails telling me so. What I would like is to have at least one person/family praying for us everyday. We leave on Thursday, October 9th, and return on Thursday, October 23rd. Would you be willing to take a day to pray? Whenever we come to your mind, lift us up to the throne? If you are willing, send me an email or a comment with the day that you will pray for us. Our schedule is written on one of the sidebars on the right, so you will know where we are. I will try to post each day while we are gone so that you will know what our needs are. So, let me know what you think. I appreciate your encouragement even more than you know, and I value your prayers!

Ideas of things to pray for:
Our health, our safety, Kate's caretakers, Kate's attachment to us, the boys adjustment, the boys will travel well, my mom, patience for Tim and I, and our guides in China. I am sure I will think of more things as I go!

Christmas in September

We got an early present:) Yesterday our agency sent us Kate's Chinese medical paperwork to take to China with us. When it arrived it had a surprise in it - 3 photos of her that we had never seen! Well, actually we had seen one of them in black and white, but she is even more beautiful in color. It is my current favorite photo of her! I think I've decided it was taken between 12-13 months of age.

The other two were evidently taken the same day as the first two pictures we saw of her. We think these were taken in March. So now I am back to staring at her picture all day:) I apologize that I didn't get them posted sooner, but they required a bit of cropping and rotating.

Many of you have asked me about her cleft lip and palate, and I have tried to answer your questions. We have done a lot of research and reading about CL/CP, as well as talking to parents of cleft affected children and doctors. But the truth is, I have only seen unrepaired cleft lips and palates in photographs. However, I thought I would post some of what I know anyway.

For starters, no one knows for sure what causes CL/CP, but it is likely caused by genetics. CL/CP is more common in Asian people, kind of like other conditions are more common in other ethnicities. Her lip was repaired when she was seven months old, but her palate has not been repaired. The palate is basically the roof of the mouth. We think her gumline is also cleft affected because of a photo where she is smiling, but we aren't sure. We don't know exactly what her palate will look like, because they are all different.

Once we arrive home, we will see our doctor at the international adoption clinic. From there, we will see doctors and therapists who will assess her palate, lip repair, speech, ears/hearing, and several other things. We do not know how many surgeries she will need, but we anticipate palate repair, ear tubes, bone grafts to repair the gumline, and lip and nose revision.

For those of your who still have questions, ask away. We are not embarrassed by her cleft or your questions. We do, however, ask that you be sensitive to her when she is home. She may or may not be comfortable with her lip, and she will learn to understand English rapidly. Sometimes kids pick up on subtleties that adults think they will overlook. We think she is absolutely beautiful just like she is, but we want her to be comfortable with herself and happy with how she looks.

For those of you interested in learning more about cleft affected children, here are some links where you can find out more. There are many more out there, but this is to get you started.

http://www.cleftadvocate.org/adoption.html

http://www.widesmiles.org/

And by the way, little Susannah is home now. God is good. All the time.

Proud Mama

I have to take a minute here to brag on my boys. As many of you know, they are not perfect children, but they are awesome. The past couple weeks we have had several reasons to brag, so I thought I would share. (This is especially for you grandparents/aunts/uncles out there.)

I'll start with Will. When I picked him up at preschool one day last week, one of his teachers stepped outside with me to talk. Now, I've never had a "discipline" conversation with his teachers, but I know that he is familiar with the timeout chair there, so I was thinking maybe that was the subject of the day. Instead, she tells me that he is an incredibly creative child who has an amazing use of color in his artwork. Wow! She even told me that another teacher had commented on his butterfly in the classroom. Seriously, a month ago he would only color with the blue crayon, now he is the talented art student. Who knew?

Then yesterday, the dust build-up in my house was out of control, so I told Will he could help me dust. I meant this in a "mommy's little helper whose work I will go back and fix later" kind of way. I figured he would help for like 10 minutes and then go play. Apparently his second hidden talent is dusting, because he probably shaved thirty minutes off my furniture polishing. He would run a dust cloth over everything and then I would follow up with the polish. Then, he finished first, so he did all of the window sills (well, most anyway), and he dusted the air intake vent in the living room. It was covered in filth, and he ran that cloth across every single slat. It is spotless now. Unbelievable. The best part though was when I was bragging on him. He got the cutest grin on his face. It was his "see what a good boy I am" smile. So funny, especially if you know Will.
And have I mentioned that he loves to read too?

Now on to Ben. On Monday, Ben came home to tell me that he was the Star Student of his class this week. Apparently, he got the award because he worked very hard. He loves school and loves learning new things, so to be rewarded for this just made his whole week I think. He got a certificate and everything. He was so proud. He says that he is the line leader for the whole week, and on Monday he got to pick first at "choice time". He got to play on the computer all by himself, which to him was the best part of the whole deal.
Mimi has been here some this week, and I suggested that Ben read to her while I finished up something on the computer today. I hear him read all the time, but she hadn't heard him in several weeks, and she was amazed at how much he had improved. He learns new words all the time. It is so much fun right now. Except I have discovered a few drawbacks to this whole reading kid thing. For one thing, he can read menus now. Ordinarily I would consider this a good thing because it is less work for me, right? Except that now he knows EVERYTHING on the menu, including things that I normally leave off when I read it to him, like ice cream and potato chips and soft drinks. And he tells his brother. On the bright side, he can read the grocery list to me when we are shopping. Anyway, such a smart boy! I have two wonderful sons, and I am very proud of them both!!!

And for those of you wanting a Kate update, we got some photos today that I will try to load tomorrow. I am way sleepy right now, so check back in later.

Update on the family I told you about last week. They were supposed to leave China last night and arrive here today. Hopefully that went according to plan and they are home safe and sound. Read their blog for the whole story, but God has moved in a mighty way to bring that little girl home!

Perspective

Anytime I whine about how we are waiting a whole extra month to travel to China, someone usually reminds me that things happen for a reason. On a good day, I know that God holds it all in the palm of His hand. On a bad day, my response is "yadayadayada" even though I know that He is in control.

Well, today I was granted a bit of perspective. You see, I am a part of about 4 or 5 online adoption communities. And back when we had failed to get a September consulate appointment, there were a handful of families on one of these forums that got September appointments that were opened up after we already had plane tickets. Too late for us to change our plans. I was extremely jealous. One of these families even had MY departure date! How dare she steal my departure date?! (Yes, I was outraged, but I knew it wasn't her fault. I am exaggerating at this point, people.)

Fast forward to yesterday. When this family went to pick up their daughter, they were told that she was in the hospital. Right now this little girl is critically ill, literally fighting for her life. Her new mama and daddy and grandma are at the hospital with her, but because she is so critical they are having trouble doing the leg work that they must do to adopt her and bring her home. The mom does not feel like she is getting good care at this facility and wants her to be moved to a different one, but there isn't much she can do since the little girl isn't legally her daughter yet. I just hurt for this family.

So once again, I am given perspective. Although Kate needs surgery and therapy, she is definitely not in critical condition. And although Kate needs a forever family, a mama and daddy to hold her and tell her that they love her forever, she is with a family who is taking good care of her. This other family needed to be in China RIGHT NOW. We did not. We can wait a month (even though I still don't like it).

Please pray for this little girl and this family. They need God to move in a mighty way. I have posted a link to their blog (in my blog roll on the right) for those of you who are interested in their story. I haven't read the entire blog - just the last few entries. It is called "Room for at Least One More".

If we had left on Thursday...

I have to admit it. I am a little down today, and it took me by surprise. We were supposed to leave for China last Thursday. I expected to be sad that day, but I really wasn't. But last night when I was getting ready for bed I realized that if I had been in China, it would have been Monday morning, and I would have been meeting Kate for the first time. So this morning I was kind of down about that. And Ben has been a little down today too. I don't know if I have rubbed off on him or what. When I asked him what was wrong he said he was having a grumpy day. Bless his heart. Hopefully we will both be better tomorrow.

God, watch over my children. Be with Ben and Will as they go through so many changes right now. Hold Kate in your arms and whisper that her mama is coming. Keep her warm and well-fed and smiling. Help her not to be afraid when she is brought to the SWI and to Nanjing. Comfort her. Prepare her heart for You. Prepare her heart for us. Bless her foster family - let them have peace that we will take good care of her. And for her birth mother and father, wherever they are, may they someday know you, so that Kate will have the opportunity to meet them face to face one day, in your presence.

Birthday Parties & Dress Up

Go ahead and play the song. You'll figure out why when you get to the goofy pic of me and Em below...

Today Tim and I took Ben and Will to their friend's birthday party at GattiTown. As you can see from the photos, a fun time was had by all. It was a Ben 10 party (do I a detect a trend here?) and half of the kids had on their matching T-shirts.

Will's Muscles

After eating too much pizza, too much cake, and opening gifts, the kids ran around the game area with their parents chasing after them. The first thing that the 5 and 6 year olds wanted to do was ride the bumper cars. I envisioned all 7 of them piled in the corner, stuck for the entire time, but they all did pretty good. No one got stuck at all. It was Ben's first time, and every time someone hit him he would laugh like a loon. Very entertaining for the parents to watch.

Ben's First Bumper Car Experience

Will watched for about a minute before deciding that the bumper cars were not for him. He was more interested in the carousel. We rode it twice. The first time he wanted to sit on the bench and hold my hand - so sweet. The second time Ben went with us, and I suggested that we ride the horses. Will was scared, so once I put him on the horse, he had a death grip on my neck the whole ride. He liked it though, and had a smile on his face the whole time. Come to think of it, he has always liked being scared. When he was a baby we would sometimes come around the corner and surprise him. I can remember him screaming with terror and then laughing hysterically. Then he'd motion for us to do it again. He was easy to entertain back then.

Death Grip on the Carousel

I can see the value of the whole GattiTown party thing. The kids have a ball, and the parents don't have to do clean-up. I know when we have a party at the house, the grandparents and I spend the whole afternoon cleaning up. (Tim somehow always escapes to a mission trip or something work related...hmmm.) Still, I hope it is a few more years before the kids start requesting these. What can I say, I am cheap! We shall see.

After the party we went over to the mall to run an errand. I am totally out of the girly-girl loop, so I was a bit surprised to see a series of kiosks in the mall called, "Backstage Divas" (I think). There was a whole group of girls there, and they appeared to be together. At the first station the girls were choosing solid colored t-shirts, shorts, bags, etc. At station 2 they were choosing decorations to go on the clothing - hearts, skull & crossbones (?), flowers, whatever - and the staff would sew it onto the clothes. Then at station 3 they got their hair and make-up done. Finally, there was a runway walk to model their self-designed clothing. There was music, and the parents were standing there and clapping for their little divas.

My first reaction was - Remind me not to use this entrance when Kate is home! I do not want to spend an afternoon doing THIS!!! It all seemed so, well, GIRLY, and quite frankly, I have never understood the whole modeling thing. Yes, I am sure that you are right and I have spent too much time living with boys. Still! I grew up doing Gatti birthdays, so that doesn't seem weird to me at all, but modeling parties???

Anyway, after I thought about it, I commented to Tim that I can remember doing this type of thing at slumber parties. We would do each other's hair (I don't remember make-up until junior high) and go through old clothes to come up with "wild" outfits. We would put them on and model them for each other. Occasionally we made a game out of it. I can remember once at Nikki's house we had to create crazy outfits for each other to see who looked the silliest. (I looked everywhere for the picture and couldn't find it.) And of course, Emily and Jacob and I used to take this to a whole 'nother level. We would act out skits or songs dressed in our outlandish outfits. Sometimes we filmed them, especially if Matt, Josh, or Rankin was involved. I found this picture of me and Emily in an old album today. We were acting out the song "Little Red Riding Hood" by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs (1966). Our parents were really into 60's music, and we were too. We thought this song was a hoot. She was Little Red, I was the Big Bad Wolf. We were 12. And I found the song too, for your listening pleasure:) I would kill to find the old video of us performing. I am sure it was hilarious!



Anyway, back to the divas...
I guess I liked to dress up and show off when I was a kid. And I have to give the "Backstage Diva" people props in terms of their posters they had up. The posters were of very normal little girls. They were not "ultra" beautiful, or done up with tons of make-up. They didn't look like those awful Glamour Shots that were popular when I was a kid. They were regular girls. I appreciated that.

BUT, if I ever tell you that I am taking Kate to the mall to spend way too much money to play dress-up, JUST SHOOT ME!

27 Days to Go!

This has to be the longest paper pregnancy ever. I am so ready to get on that airplane! I had planned on waiting until our travel itenerary was finalized to post it, but I decided that I needed something to occupy my time while I waited (umm, as if I don't have a million other things that need to be done). So I have listed our tentative itenerary on one of the sidebars on the right. It will probably change somewhat over the next month, but it gives you a general idea. I might try to add some links so that you will know more about our destinations. We will see.

We have been given the choice to travel to Suzhou, which is where Katie's orphanage (SWI) is. We are very excited about this. We don't know if we will travel to the SWI or not, but we really wanted to be able to see Suzhou so that we can tell her something about it when she is older. We hear it is a beautiful city, with canals, gardens, and pagodas. It is also an important silk manufacturing city. Maybe we can bring something home for her?

I am also pleased that after we adopt Kate, our itenerary (for the most part) only includes one activity a day. I think that it will be a nice balance of seeing China and time to ourselves. That will give us a bit of freedom to just focus on Katie and her attachment to us. Pray for her (and for us), as we know this will all be very scarey for her. We don't know if she got the photo album we sent her, and even if she did we are still going to be complete strangers to her. We will sound strange, look strange, smell strange, and act strange. A day of joy for us will be a day of trauma for her. We pray that God is already preparing her heart and mind for a relationship with Him, but also a strong relationship with us. We are already completely in love with her and are ready as we can be for whatever comes our way!

New Picture of Kate

Well, actually it is an old picture. The boys and I stopped by A Helping Hand on Thursday to pick up our Travel Approval letter to take with us to China. I glanced at it as I put in the car, but wasn't paying much attention. I remember thinking, "I wonder why there is a random child's photo on my TA." Well, today I picked it up to look it over and noticed that the "random kid" looked a lot like Kate. I thought, huh, that child has a repaired cleft lip. Same side as Kate. Huh, she also has the same nose. And eyes. Oh my goodness, that's a picture of her shortly after her lip was repaired! I was so excited! Since the scar is much more prominent in this photo than it is in the more recent ones that we have, I am going to guess that she is 8-10 months old here. Which would mean it was taken June-August? But she is so bundled up, it makes me think that maybe it was taken in the fall or early winter of 2007? But in China they often bundle up babies in the heat of summer, so it could be from her first year. I don't really know, but it is interesting to guess. Either way, she is absolutely gorgeous. 35 more days until travel, baby!

Bugs Bunny

A couple of months ago we were in Louisville with Jacob and Alison. At the hotel, there was a big poster of Bugs Bunny in the lobby. To Ben and Will they said, "Hey look, there's Bugs Bunny!" Ben and Will said, "Yep, that's a bunny..." They had no idea who that was. We all laughed about it because obviously I have done a terrible job educating my children about American pop culture (she says sarcastically). We don't watch much tv, and it is entirely on purpose. We don't even have cable. We just pick up channels with rabbit ears. (A few months ago, Will came outside to tell me that we shouldn't let our tv become just a box. But that's another story...). We also watch a lot of tv on the internet.

Anyway, I'm not even sure they would know Bugs Bunny if we did have cable. Does that even come on any more?? Well, it came up in conversation again today, and I decided I was going to find Bugs on You Tube and relive my own childhood a bit. We found this old clip of "Bully for Bugs". My kids laughed their heads off and then asked when we could watch more.

Now, let me just say that it was just as violent as I remembered it. Guns, explosions. (At one point Will said, "Now that had to hurt!" when the bull ran head first into the anvil.) Not to mention all of the smart aleck comments from Bugs himself. But it was fun to watch something together that all three of us enjoyed. It turns out that Bugs stands the test of time for entertainment, even if he isn't very PC.

Leave me a comment, please!

You don't actually have to if you don't want to. But several people have recently told me that they tried to leave me a comment and they just couldn't figure it out. Or they didn't want to set up an account to do it. So I have now changed my comment section so that you can leave a comment without logging in. If you do that, it will show up as "anonymous", so please tell me who you are when you comment. Or if you prefer to set up an account, that is fine too. All you need is an email address and you are in business.

I am going to leave it this way for a couple of weeks as an experiment. If I get a bunch of freaky anonymous comments I am shutting y'all down! Seriously though, I thought I would try this, hoping that more people who wanted to leave a comment would feel comfortable doing so. We shall see...