Merry Christmas!

I usually send out Christmas cards to out-of-town friends and family, but it didn't happen this year. Somehow I couldn't seem to wrap my brain around a photo shoot. So consider this your Christmas greeting. At least this way you get outtakes and maybe a laugh or two.

Merry Christmas!


Love, Tim, Amy, Ben, Will, Kate, and Yin Tao

LOA

I am very pleased to announce that we received our Letter of Approval from China today!

Would love to stay and chat, but I must go fill out about four or five more forms.

And no, we still don't know when we will travel, but this does narrow it down from March-August to late March-May. Probably. Maybe. Yeah, I still don't know.

Merry Christmas!

What's wrong with this picture?

My blog header is acting crazy. It has turned into this tiny picture. I have tried re-loading. I have tried loading a new picture (which is up there now). I have tried looking for online help to solve the problem.

Any bloggers or techies know what is wrong? How do I make it big again?

(And no, no word on our LOA. Believe me, I will post here as soon as I have it, Lord willing and the internet isn't down.)

Perspective, Part 2

I woke up this morning pondering what today would bring. I am not a morning person, so usually the only thing on my mind is turning off the alarm and finding the bathroom. After I took care of those two items on the agenda, I realized that my jaw was clenched. It hurt. My teeth hurt. And I remembered what I was hoping would happen today. The same thing I have hoped for for the last 67 days. My LOA.

I am usually pretty relaxed about things. I normally have no trouble falling asleep at night. I try to roll with the punches and stay flexible. But this wait is killing me. I lay awake worrying about things that I have no control over. I grit my teeth all day long. I am having headaches more often.

But this morning I realized something that normally would've occurred to me much earlier. I have no control over this process. I try to have control by keeping up with LOA and TA averages and what provinces process paperwork more quickly and whether my agency has checked on my dossier lately. But ultimately, I have no control.

And that is killing me.

I have rationalized that I need my LOA quickly for a million different reasons - It would be nice to travel during the kids' spring break. The boys' passports will expire soon (and they may or may not travel with us). Yin Tao needs better nutrition. He also needs to have his repairs done soon for the sake of his physical and developmental needs.

And these are all good reasons to want to travel this spring, but I am old enough to realize that my perspective is not God's. His plans are always better.

So this morning I resolved to let go. That is probably more easily said than done, but I need it. I desperately need to turn it over to the One who holds it all in the palm of His hand. I need to rest and allow Him to do His thing. I need to sleep at night so that I can be a better parent during the day. I need to relax and enjoy my family of five. I desperately need to re-discover the reason for celebrating Christmas.

So hopefully I can spend the day taking deep breaths, praying, eating healthy foods, and enjoying friends and family. And then maybe I can get up and do that again tomorrow.

Something's gotta give.

That Kid

You know, that kid. The one that ruins Christmas and Santa for everyone else. I'm pretty sure I've got that on my hands this year.

Back in November, Kate came home from school and said something about Santa bringing presents. Will dispelled the Santa myth in our house last year once and for all, so I was surprised and reminded her about who brings the presents and not to tell kids at school. (I also did not want a repeat of the last three Christmases where she has screamed her head off anytime we bumped into the Jolly Old Elf or his Wife.)

Fast forward into December. She came home from school again and says, "I got into a fight today." I took a deep breath, reminded myself that fight likely meant argument, and dove in.

Me: Why did you get into a fight.
Kate: Well, it was about whether Santa is real or not.
Me: Please tell me you didn't tell the other kids that Santa isn't real.
Kate: Well, yeah.
Me: NaNa, we have talked about this. Not everyone knows the secret that Santa isn't real, and some families like to pretend, so we don't want to spoil their fun by telling the secret.
Kate: Oh, yeah, I forgot.
Me: Well, from now on keep that information to yourself.

So let me officially apologize to all the families that my daughter has told about Santa. I hope you were able to repair the damage.

61 Days and Counting...

That's how long we have been waiting for our Letter of Approval (LOA) from China.

Technically, we spent the first nine days waiting for Pre-Approval (PA), which means we have really only been waiting for 52 days.

For that matter, we didn't know we had PA until October 19, which was 14 days into our wait. So that means we have been waiting for 47 days.

But no matter how I try to slice it up, we are still 61 days into our wait since we officially decided to adopt Yintao. Two entire months.

The average wait times right now are somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 days from LOI to LOA, so we are still two weeks under average, but that doesn't change my strong desire to get on a plane tomorrow.

I know I said I wouldn't worry until after Christmas, but I don't know how much longer I can hold it off.

Mawage

One of the unexpected blessings of living in this little town is the friendships I have made here. (Ever notice that when you move somewhere new, you are just sure that you will never find any more friends? No? Is it just me who does that?) And it's not just that I have friends, which is surely a blessing, but the interesting situation that four of my dearest friends here are all 10-15 years younger than me. Yes, they are all in their 20s. And for the first time, I am the old one in the group.

We get together a couple of times a month for our book club, but who are we kidding? We talk books for about 15 minutes, and the other hour and 15 minutes are spent talking about our lives. I get the wonderful privilege of walking with these ladies through joys and sorrows. Babies, jobs, engagements, marriages, school work, faith, family stuff... you name it, we talk about it.

One of them - Blair - just got married, and another one - Kandice - is engaged. Thankfully, they both have found wonderful men. But as I have pondered their (up-coming) nuptials, I have thought a lot about what makes a good marriage. Tim and I don't have a perfect marriage (who does?), but we are a lot stronger and more committed than we were thirteen years ago. How does that happen?

Kandice and Blair, I don't mean this to be a comprehensive guide for marriage. People way smarter than me have written books on that topic. But here are some things I have learned in the last 13 years.

Play Nice

Sometimes I want to be ugly. I want to say ugly things. And sometimes I say them. But if I talked to my friends the way I talk to my husband (ugly), then I wouldn't have friends very long. They would totally up and ditch my butt for better friends. So why should I expect to get away with talking to my spouse that way? I can't, obviously. I have to use kind words, and speak to him the way I want to be spoken to. Or else he will leave me physically and/or emotionally.

You are on the Same Team

Early on in our marriage, I saw every argument as an opportunity for me to win and Tim to lose. Eventually I figured out a secret. You are on the same team. Either you both win, or you both lose. If one of us "wins" the argument, then our relationship suffers, and the winner isn't a winner after all. Of course, this means we must both compromise and not use our words to "defeat" the other. See also lesson number one.

You Cannot Change Your Spouse.
You Can Only Change You.

This is a hard one, but a very smart woman told me this when I was a teenager. Don't ever marry someone and think you can change them once you are married. It is never going to happen. Marry the person as they are, and love them as they are. Instead of working on them, work on changing You. You aren't perfect, so make yourself into a better spouse. If you are easily angered, work on that. If you expect perfection, work on that. If you can't seem to put your socks in the hamper, you might write yourself a note or something. Look at yourself and see what you can do. Focusing on your spouse's flaws just gets you a heap of trouble. Now, that's not to say you shouldn't talk to them when something they are doing is bothering you, but see lessons number one and two for information about how to handle that.

Oh, and my friend Elise told me something valuable years ago - when you fight, touch each other a lot. It's harder to stay mad when you are touching.

That's all I can think of for now. I love you both (and your boys). I wish you every happiness and all of God's blessings. Amen.

(Happily married people, any other time-tested and God-honoring tips you want to share?)

Ugh. I'm Stuffed.

As usual, our family took three whole days to celebrate Thanksgiving - one with each set of grandparents and their part of the extended fam. Which means that over the course of the last 72 hours I have eaten enough to last me until... probably tomorrow afternoon.

But also, as usual, I realize that I have much to be thankful for. My children have more grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins to love than most people ever will. We all love each other and get along (for the most part ;-), and we actually enjoy being together. We have a warm house to sleep in, food in our bellies, and good friends. We have a Savior who loves us.

We are blessed.
For some reason I never remember to get my camera out, but we did manage to snap the annual cousins-on-the-stairs shot, and then we got one of Tim's family.
Happy Thanksgiving:)

The Name Game, Part 2

Before I get started, I just have to point out that I have posted Every Day for the past eight days. I don't think that has happened in a couple of years. Lately I am doing well to write one post every two weeks. Eight in a row is unheard of! Don't get spoiled. I am sure it will not last.

Now then, back to my post. Y'all are cracking me up with the name suggestions! Not because they are bad names - they are actually really good suggestions. I can't think of one that you all have put forward I don't like (except maybe on fb, where one friend's ideas were...ummm, interesting. Ahem, John W.) I told my husband he needed to look seriously at both lists and we could discuss later.

No, what is cracking me up is that I had no idea how crazy it would make me trying to figure out who you all are! Of course, it is all my fault because I told the lurkers to come forward and set it to allow anonymous comments. And several of you have signed your comments, which I appreciate (even if it is with aloha, that helps;), but some of your signatures are still ambiguous enough that I have no clue. OK, some clue. But still, what if I end up using your name suggestion, huh?

So let's make a deal. You all keep making me nuts with anonymous suggestions. It's a great distraction for me when I should be doing homework. Lurkers and unknowns, keep leaving me comments. (Comments are like crack for a blogger, even when you don't know who is leaving them.) And then, on the off chance that we use your name suggestion, then you can come forward and reveal yourself. Deal?

If you haven't left your suggestion yet, go ahead. And no, you all still haven't guessed two of my favorite names (although you have guessed many great ones).

And just cause I love looking at his big ole head, let's see it one more time. What does this face says to you?

A Boy?

The next question I tend to get regarding our adoption is this: You can adopt a boy from China? I thought they only had girls for adoption!

What was (sort of) true ten years ago, is simply a myth today. China's traditional adoption program, which is where potential adoptive parents used to request healthy, female infants, is pretty much a thing of the past. Some of the people who are currently waiting in that line have been there for more than five years. I'm not going to get into the "why's" with that - I have shifting opinions on that topic, and it isn't relevant to this post.

Anyway, a few months before we found out about Kate, we switched to their Waiting Child program, also known as their Special Needs or Special Focus program. For a long time before that we feared what we didn't know, but after listening to lots of stories (and reading lots of adoption blogs like NHBO), Tim and I realized that the SN program was definitely for us.

Now, don't assume we are some sort of heroes or saints. It was just one day I was reading blogs, and I saw one where the kid's special need was a birthmark on his forehead, exactly like the one Ben has. And I had this huge aha moment where I understood that special needs kids are really just kids. Yes, some of them go to the doctor more often than others, and some of them will need special help in other ways, but if you looked at the members of our family, all of us had some sort of "special need".

Aaaannnndddd, I'm off topic again. Where was I? Oh, yeah. Boys.

So, the kids in the special needs program have a wide variety of needs, but many of them are available for adoption largely because of their special need. And special needs don't discriminate based on gender. A parent who can't afford heart surgery for their daughter probably can't afford it for their son either.**

But about 75% of waiting parents only want to adopt a girl. And let's face it, most people don't even know you can adopt a boy from China because of above-discussed myth. But out of the over 1500 children on the Waiting Child list, about 75% are boys - infants to teens, minor needs to major needs. Lots and lots and lots of boys.

So, this time around when Tim and I decided to mark "either" under gender request, we realized that meant we would probably be bringing a boy home. And frankly, being the mama of two boys, I have to say that they are pretty stinking amazing little creatures. So the thought of one more boy in this house just makes me smile.

And that is how we are adopting a boy from China.

**If you are interested in learning more about how you can help parents in China not have to make the heart-breaking decision to abandon a child, check out LWB's Unity Fund. It funds surgeries for kids so that they can stay with their families. A beautiful thing!

The Name Game

The next question I keep hearing is: What is his name?

My answer? Good question.

We will keep Yin Tao (or Yintao) as his middle name (just like we did with Kate's Chinese name - Xuna). And for now, we call him Yin Tao or TaoTao (you know, like NaNa). But as for his first name, we just haven't decided yet. Tim has names that he really likes, that I don't care for. And I have names I like, but he really does not like. And we have about two names that we would both be ok with, but we aren't excited about. That could change with time, but we want to cover all our bases.

Part of the problem is our stringent criteria. Every name has to hold up to pretty rigorous tests.

Test #1: We like strong, traditional names. Ben, Will, Kate... Names that you could imagine being your teacher or doctor or senator. (Lord, help us if that last one happens...) It can be unusual, but not weird or made up.

Test #2: It needs to be a family name. All 5 of us have family names, either for first or middle names. Since we are using his Chinese name as his middle name, it needs to be his first name.

Test #3: This one is weird, and if it came down to it, I would probably ditch it if I found something I loved, but here it is - It needs to NOT begin with an A, B, K, T, or W. I initial water bottles, lunchboxes, jackets, toothbrushes, and all sorts of other things when they are semi-identical. So, to keep my life easy, I would prefer if it did not start with one of the above letters.

Test#4 & #5: I am putting these two together because these are Tim's requirements. And this is my blog, not his. He wants it to be one syllable (or able to be shortened to one syllable, a la Benjamin, William, Kathryn, & Timothy), and he wants it to start with a consonant.

Since my name is not one syllable and does not start with a consonant, I am not sure how I feel about those two tests. A little insulted maybe? Right now, my favorite name for Yin Tao does not pass test #4 or #5, but I am still trying to convince Tim it is perfect.

So, we are looking for suggestions that pass our tests, especially numbers 1 and 2. I know I have many extended relatives and hometown friends who read here (and are maybe familiar with either side of our family tree?), but never leave a comment. This is your chance to come out of the shadows! I even have comments set to allow anonymous! Heck, even if you are a complete lurker, feel free to jump right in:)

And the winner will forever go down in family tales as the-person-who-thought-of-your-name, just like Shawn K. came up with Ben, and Jason W. suggested Will. (I get credit for Kate, since I decided on it when I was about 14.)

Come on! Let's play the Name Game!

Waiting

And now for the hard part... the waiting.

When I talk to people, they seem to have the same basic question that I have: When?

Well, I don't know. Sometime between March and July 2012. Helpful, yes?

Let me see if I can break it down a little better. Right now we have our pre-approval (PA), but what we need is our official approval from China, called LOA. Our PA came on October 14, so we have been waiting 31 days. Our agency checked today, and we are not yet "in-process." Which means absolutely nothing has been done yet. But that is normal for this time around. (Those of you who remember how we got our LOA for Kate in 10 days? You just throw that right out the window - that has never been normal. We were extremely blessed for that to happen.) Right now "normal" can run anywhere between 45-80 days, with outliers running 35-160 days. We sincerely hope to be on the low end of that spectrum.

I have promised myself to not even consider the possibility of getting it before Thanksgiving, and not to worry about it before Christmas. If we don't have it by New Year's? I will be in full out worry mode because it seems either people get it within those 80 days, or they end up waiting about 130-150 days. I do not want to be those people, bless their hearts.

After that? We then send our Chinese approval to the US government, who then do stuff I do not even begin to understand, send their approval to the consulate in China, which is then sent to Chinese government. At that point we wait for travel approval (TA). Right now, the time between LOA and TA is about 2-3 months, with travel usually being within a month after that.

So, to sum up, we hope to travel in the spring. You can cry with me if it ends up being July.

And dear online friends, feel free to ask me questions here, since we can't gush together in person:)

An Announcement, Part 4

Just in case you missed the beginning of the story, here are Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

On Monday morning, I got up bright and early and emailed our agency. I said, if he is back on the shared list this morning, we want you to lock his file for us. And I sat and waited with my laptop on and my phone in my hand. I knew that if my email popped up first, she hadn't found him. But if the phone rang, he would be ours.

And the phone rang. Sure enough, Dana had found him. I gave her our full names, birthdates, etc., and listened to her type, entering the information into the website. And she locked him in.

You would think a person could just relax at that point, right? But no, that is when the real stress begins!

At that point I made a copy of his file, including a note outlining his known special needs, to be delivered to our local pediatrician, Dr. Q. I called our international adoption doctor, Dr. T, and then emailed his file to her. Then, I called Kate's audiologist, Dr. S, and discussed his hearing test in the file with her.

I would've called Kate's old SLP, Jennifer, but I had already called her the week before. When we couldn't find his file.

The audiologist told me that while he has pretty serious hearing loss in the left ear, it appears the right ear is much less serious. Perhaps he has excess fluid and infections because of the cleft, and his hearing in that ear can be somewhat restored.

Dr. Q's first comment to me was, "I can't find a single thing wrong with this kid. He is perfect for you." My response? Yes, we think so too.

With our 72 hour deadline approaching on Wednesday afternoon, we joyfully told Dana that we wanted to accept the referral.

Dr. T is usually very quick to get back with us with any sort of question, but for some reason she didn't get back to us until after our decision. When she did call, she basically agreed with Dr. Q. She then went on to express some concern that his height and weight are low (teeny, in fact), but his head is nice and big (heh), which means his brain is growing. She was also concerned that he is a bit anemic. Tim and I were both prepared for all of that, so while we are concerned for his nutrition, I knew it wouldn't stop us from adopting him. She was even less concerned about his hearing than we were. She felt like even if tubes don't improve his hearing, other procedures/devices probably will. She doesn't feel like he will be deaf. Not even close.

I told her I was really glad that her report was so positive, because we had already sent in the paperwork to adopt him. He was ours, either way.

So who wants to see some pictures?

These crack me up because he looks incredibly annoyed to be bothered with taking some dumb pictures.
This boy seriously needs some mama love.

This one is my favorite. He looks so earnest. If you look closely at his left ear, you can see a little ear deformity. We don't know yet if it is just his outer ear that is affected, or if it extends into the canal and inner ear. Either way, he is perfection.

An Announcement, Part 3

Alright, back to the story...

Wednesday morning, he was gone from the shared list. We didn't know if that meant he had been matched with a family or he had been pulled to an agency specific list for a few months or something different.

A few hours later I got an email from Rainbow Kids, an adoption website that advocates for waiting children. Basically you fill out a waiting parent profile, and then they email you when agencies have children that you might be interested in.

The email was advocating for a little guy they called Adam. I clicked on the link to learn more.

And it was Su Yin Tao. Being advocated for by the same agency who emailed me the night before. And I realized that if they were advocating for him, there was a very good chance that they were the ones who locked him in for 72 hours, but they didn't have a family for him yet. (The rules aren't supposed to work like that, but sometimes it happens.)

And so I started praying. I prayed that if there was another family out there for him, that God would connect them together. I prayed that if he was ours that God would somehow make a way for that to happen, even though there was also a very good chance that he had been either been placed on that agency's list or he was matched. And I basically just asked if he was ours.

By Sunday night, Tim and I felt a peace about the whole thing. And I felt like somehow, God was going to work it out to make Su Yin Tao my son. Diapers and all.

I got up bright and early and emailed our agency. I said, if he is back on the shared list this morning, we want you to lock his file for us. And I sat and waited with my laptop on and my phone in my hand. I knew that if my email popped up first, she hadn't found him. But if the phone rang, he would be ours...

An Announcement, Part 2

Where was I? Oh, yes, preparations...

Our dossier was sent to China on September 9, and logged in the following week. At that point, I literally thought we would be matched any day. There are well over 1500 kids waiting on the shared list. Wonderful, amazing kids. Boys, girls, babies, toddlers, big kids, and teenagers. Kids with heart disease, cataracts, birthmarks, limb differences, cerebral palsy, and things you have probably never even heard of, but really aren't that big of a deal. I poured over the list, praying to find my child. We were open to either gender and several special needs.

But I can remember telling our agency back in 2009, Oh, how I would love to have a little boy from Jiangsu Province, like Kate!

Then, the day after my birthday I got an email from an agency I had contacted back in January. Actually I got about 20 emails from them that day. They were pulling files off of the list and advocating for them. Among the many emails, I saw the subject line of one said, "Su Yin Tao." And I thought, huh, it's a Su kid.

In case you didn't know, Kate's name is Su Xu Na. The Su part indicates that she is from the city of Suzhou. Not all kids with Su in front of their names are from Suzhou, but all kids from Suzhou have it, so I perk up when I hear that name.

Anyway, I open up the email, to see if this really is a Suzhou kid or not. And I saw this face.



Yes, he was a Suzhou kid. He also had cleft lip and palate on the left side, just like Kate NaNa. He also has hearing loss, just like Kate did (although we didn't know it until we brought her home). At the time, he was 13 months old, which I have to admit, freaked me out a little. I had it in my head we would bring home a three year old, who was potty trained. Diapers? Are you kidding me? But honestly, could I turn down a child because he was too young and I was scared of a little thing like a diaper? No way.

I skimmed his file and realized that it was 5:05 on a Tuesday afternoon. Immediately I picked up the phone to call our agency, but it was 5:05 in the afternoon. And of course, my computer picked that exact moment to freak out, and my keyboard quit working. Not one key stroke did anything. So awesome.

Later that night it started working again, of course. I emailed the other agency to find out if this child was on their agency specific list or if he was on the shared list that all waiting families have access to. They responded quickly that he was on the shared list.

OK, I thought, I have an appointment to go in and meet with the SN coordinator in the morning anyway. I will just have her pull up the file, we can lock it for 72 hours, and then we can pray about it and make a decision.

But when we pulled up the website at 9:15 on Wednesday morning, he was gone from the list. OK. Fine then. That could mean that someone else has locked him in for 72 hours or that he has been placed on an agency specific list. Either way, there is nothing I can do about it. I guess I will let it go.

But of course, I didn't let it go...

An Announcement, Part 1

We came home with Kate NaNa in October 2008. At the time, I can remember thinking things like, "Next time we do this..." or "When we are here again..." We settled in pretty quickly as a family, but I always had that in the back of my mind.

Once we had been home a year, I started pestering my dear husband about adopting again. Bless him, he usually just rolled his eyes at me because I get smitten with pictures of children I will never meet and daydream about parenting them. I just told him to pray about it, and assured him that I would pray too.

In November 2009, he told me that he was ready to start our next adoption. I was excited and terrified all at the same time! We started praying over our options and investigating programs. We considered looking into other countries, but our hearts kept coming back to China. We both love China, and with it's special needs program, it just felt like a natural fit for us.

But we had one problem. In fact, it was the exact same problem we had when we started Kate's adoption in 2005. China said that we didn't make enough money. China's income requirements are based on how big your family is. In 2005, I was devastated by that news. But God provided in the form of a friend who hired me to do part-time work for his company. It turned out to be a huge blessing because we were able to save most of my income for the adoption expenses.

This time around I didn't get devastated. The money needed was only about half of what it was back then, and if God could do it then, He could do it now. The question was, how?

I researched several options for me and for Tim, from merchandising to substitute teaching. The one thing I did not want to sacrifice was time home with the kids. Amazingly, several friends I knew were looking for part-time childcare. Out of the blue, people started calling me. It was a slow build-up, finding the right families/schedules for my business, but by summer 2010 I had a solid clientele and a steady extra income.

But for some reason I still wasn't ready to start the adoption paperwork. This time the problem was me. I really had to do some soul-searching - Do I want to raise a fourth child? Our family works so well together right now. Will another kid throw off the balance?

After a season or two of soul-searching, Tim and I both decided that yes, we did want to proceed, and the time was right. In February 2011, we started our home study. I can't tell you how many roadblocks and delays we hit. Notaries who wrote down the wrong expiration date. Notaries who wrote it down correctly but had expired. Lab results and extra tests that postponed our doctor's reports. And at the end, when I finally had everything in my hand, I realized I just plain old forgot about having Tim's birth certificate certified. The red tape is rather ridiculous, and everything must be perfect. And what should have taken about three months, took us seven months. Ugh.

But there is a time for all things, and this was definitely a time of preparations. Preparations that were going on on both sides of the world...

Stay tuned for more...

Colonial Williamsburg

Several weeks ago, the kids had a four day weekend for fall break. I had wanted to go to Colonial Williamsburg back in the summer, but the kids wanted Washington, DC even more, so we didn't go.

My mom is always up for a trip to just about anywhere, so when she asked me if we should go somewhere during fall break, I knew exactly where I wanted to go!

Because, yes, I am nerdy like that. Most kids want to go to Disney World (let down - Cinderella's castle isn't even a real castle for Pete's sake) or a beach (love, love the beach, but btdt). Me? I was always looking for some historic monument or battlefield to visit. So yes, I have always wanted to go to Williamsburg.

Back to the story. I honestly figured I would be dragging the kids from place to place and bribing them with promises of hotel swimming pools and movies in the room. But I was wrong. At least partially. I guess that the apples don't fall too far from the tree, because Ben and Will were just as enamored with the costumes and old buildings and museums as I was.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let us start in Jamestown, the first permanent European settlement in Virginia. (Let me just put it out there that although I love history, the Colonial period is not my specialty. I very well may be making this stuff up.)

The first stop was the museum, where we learned the basics of Jamestown history before venturing out into the park. We then walked to the re-created Powhatan village, where Will told us all about totem poles, we learned that it is really cozy in these houses when it rains, and we found out animal hides are pretty comfy to sit on. Ben also learned how to make a rope out of long leaves and grass.
Just down the hill from that is the re-created ships that the English settlers came on. The kids decided that it was way more fun steering or shooting the cannon than being inside the ship.

My mom was a total trooper, just going with the flow and enjoying her grandchildren, even in the rain. She loves to travel even more than I do (which is saying A LOT).

Then we went to the re-created fort, where they asked the park re-enactors lots of questions about chickens, blacksmithery, and the shape of the fort (I'm just glad there was somebody there to answer the questions, since in DC I got to field the hard ones).

The next day was Colonial Williamsburg, which I have to say is way bigger than I thought it would be, but there is a bus, so it is all good:)

We went to the governor's palace, the colonial capitol, and ate lunch. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, and the kids were incredibly well-behaved during the tours. They participated several times, and Ben was asked to stand up and quote, "Give me liberty, or give me death!" at one point. He thought that was really funny.

We walked around, going into the "businesses" that interested us, and leaving when Will got bored. Will was a good gauge for that because Ben could've listened to these re-enactors all day, while Kate was bored immediately. Will was somewhere in the middle, so when he was done with listening we moved on. We visited printers, wig-makers, and lots others. They gave out maps to the kids, which Will loved, and if they went into certain places, they could go talk to a person sitting outside, tell them something they learned, and the person would stamp their map. After they collected so many stamps, they earned a free pin. Will talked some guy into giving him a second one.
He and Kate were fascinated with this jailhouse toilet.

After earning his pins, Will was eager to get to the museum, but at that point he was exhausted, and we all know what happens to Will when he is exhausted. But thankfully, they had a children's area with paper and crayons, which always has the most calming effect on my Will...


By the time they were done he was ready to go to dinner without making a scene. To bad I can't say the same for the other kids.

There was lots of climbing on statues.I later caught Will with his fingers up this guy's nose.

The last day was spent in Yorktown, which was the location of last major battle of the war. There were about a million re-enactors that day, who answered all of my kids questions. Some of them are park employees who are paid to do this, and some of them are volunteers. And some of these people are intense. I made the observation that the volunteers, who do this for fun, are waaaay more intense than the park employees. Like, sometimes you just have to walk away while they are still telling you about what soldiers' rations were like. I started asking them right off the bat whether they worked there or were just there for the weekend before I decided if I wanted to ask them any more questions.

Ben was asked to help load a cannon, which he thought was awesome, and Kate thought was loud.

After that we walked around the tiny little town, drove around the battlefield, and ended the day with some miniature golf. Because you have to do that on vacation. Or so my kids always say.
And what did Kate think? She never once complained, but I asked her what she liked the best, and she replied, "Nothing." The day after the trip, I overheard her tell her Daddy that she should have stayed home with him.

Birthday, Halloween, and Everything in Between

Every once in awhile I just need one big ole catch-all post to capture a whole bunch of busy-ness. This is going to be one of those posts, so prepare for randomness and tangents...

Kate is now a big FIVE year old. Yes, I said all of those cliche, "How did my baby get so big?" things, because seriously, HOW did my baby get so big? She is going to start kindergarten in less than a year! She is working on her letter sounds and writing! She helps me bake and wash dishes and folds laundry! She is sassy and bossy and hilarious! Ugh! So big!

OK, I feel a little better to have that out of my system, but I'm sure I will do it all again next time I see an old picture of her. Anyway, Grammy and Boopa, Bri and Danielle came up to celebrate by going to Kate's T-ball game and then to a local pumpkin farm that Will has asked to go to no less than 487 times since last October.

Mimi and Arlie also took us out for some Olive Garden on her birthday...which makes me really hungry to just think about.

Moving right along... As usual, the kids had no less than three opportunities to dress up for Halloween this year, with all the sugary goodness that accompanies that. Ben was a young Obi Wan for each event. Will was Obi Wan for event #1 and a pirate for events #2 and #3. Kate changed her mind hourly about what she wanted to be. I have stopped buying costumes at this point, because they have them ALL. Seriously, I just say, go upstairs and find something, and they come down fully dressed up. Anyhoo, she was a clone trooper, a dragon, and here you see her dressed as Clark Kent. However, she never actually opened her shirt to show the giant S, so she mostly just looked like a cute old man. They also decorated pumpkins with their dad. All three of them hate to clean out the pumpkin's insides, so Tim tells them that if they can't stick their hands in the pumpkin, then there is no way he is going to let them wield a knife. They are fine with this and just draw pictures of what they want, and Tim does the cutting. Ben's is the big Angry Bird on the left, Kate's is the Angry Bird in the middle, and Will's is the pirate on the right. Arrrgggg.

Ear Tube Update

Kate and I visit the ENT every three months. He likes to keep up with whatever is going on in her little ears. Usually the visit consists of getting a ton of wax pulled out of her ears, and then he says she looks good, and we go home.

Her last set of tubes was from August 2010, and one of them had fallen out almost immediately, while the other one lasted until this past spring. He had pulled one of them out, but the other one is still laying in there. He also mentioned that one of them (the right? Why can't I remember this stuff better?) still had a hole from where the tube was. It hasn't healed like it should have.

So what now? Well, because of her cleft palate, her Eustachian tubes don't work like they are supposed to. As she gets bigger, they will hopefully get stronger and do their job, but until then we have to keep an eye on her ears for ear infections which could also lead to more hearing loss. The plan is to let the hole in her ear act as a "tube" to drain fluid from that ear. Then we will watch the other ear (left?) to see if she her Eustachian tubes are working properly and if she gets more infections. It will act as a gauge to tell us when she is big enough to not worry about tubes any more. At that point she will then have to have the hole repaired.

At this point it isn't a huge deal. We just watch it and see what happens. Most people aren't even aware that she has ear issues, especially since it doesn't affect her on a daily basis. We are very thankful that she recovered so much of her hearing when she had that first set of tubes put in. Later this week, she has an appointment at the cleft clinic, where we will see the plastic surgeon and the audiologist. We expect that appointment to go well too.

Happy Belated Kate NaNa Day!

It has been three years since I met this little girl.

She was timid and quiet at first, and not really intereted in us - just our cookies. But then she realized that the man they kept calling Baba had a cool camera.

She still likes cool toys like that.

It didn't take long for her personality to come out. By the time we were back at the hotel, the boys had her laughing this deep, scratchy laugh, with traces of tears still in it. And I knew that she was one of the bravest people I had ever met. This tiny person who was terrified of me, she could still find a way to be vulnerable and show joy. To show trust in this Baba she just met.

For the next few days, she only tolerated me if I was bearing chocolate (see the last video here).

But now, three years later, she is the biggest mama's girl you ever saw. If we are home alone together, she is right by my side, "helping" me with whatever I am doing. At this moment she is sitting right next to me on the couch, with one foot that she keeps sticking under my leg and the other on top of my leg. I keep moving it, but she keeps kneading me with those tiny, beautiful toes.

While I type, we wait for her chocolate birthday cake to come out of the oven. I am still bearing chocolate for this girl.

This year we had to celebrate Kate NaNa Day a week late because we were out of town. We gave her the red silk purse that our guide, Sunny had bought for her when we were in Suzhou. We had saved it because we were afraid she would tear up the embroidery. But a big, almost-five-year-old can probably take care of it now.

Kate NaNa, we love you with all of our hearts, and we are proud of what a strong, brave, smart, funny girl you are. We are so glad that you are a part of our family!

Procrastination

Have I mentioned I am taking a class right now? No, nothing fun like pottery or painting. Or painting pottery.

No, I am taking library science technology. Part 2. It has two components - web design and video making. Can you say gag me with a spoon?

I know I may have some of you fooled into thinking that I am a Technology Genius with my mad blog design skills, but here is confession (There have been a lot of those lately, yes?) - Blogger does it all for me. I do very little. I just get to write. (Of course, those of you with blogs of your own realize that my blog design is lame, but I have been fooling many of my readers for years!)

It's not so much that I find web design hard. Although to me it is. I also find it incredibly boring. All of the link creating and repetitive tasks involved and frankly, I would rather read a good book, or play on RQ, or clean a toilet than do it. But alas, if I want to pass this course and eventually be certified to be a school library media specialist (aka, librarian), then I must actually do the work. Ugh.

But you can see how well I am actually doing that. Here I am, with an assignment due tonight at midnight. All my kids are at school. The one child I am babysitting today is upstairs asleep. Dinner is in the crockpot. And what I am I doing? I am here talking to you. And not even about anything important like Kate NaNa Day, or our recent trip to Williamsburg, or a Big Announcement that hopefully I can share soon. No, I am writing about procrastination.

I do seem to be an expert on the topic after all.

Another Bad Mommy Confession

We are still catching up on the Summer Activities Report with this one. Unfortunately, I have put off telling this story because I am totally embarrassed by it. Ahhh, confession time.

First, a little back story - As a kid, I swam constantly. Like, every summer weekday I was at the pool. Every weekend, at the lake. I spent about seven summers working as a lifeguard. I swam competitively for awhile (although be aware I am using the term "competitively" quite loosely here). I have been swimming so long that I don't actually remember learning to swim.

If you had asked me ten years ago, what is one thing your kids will know how to do before they are five years old? I would have said swim. Obviously, it is a very important life skill, right?

But all of a sudden, I looked around, and I had three children who were afraid of the water. Had I taken them swimming? Had I gotten them lessons? Had I worked with them myself? Yes to all three, but obviously not enough.

This summer, I decided enough was enough. I declared that this would be the summer that everyone would learn to swim! I told them that every chance we had to be in the water, we would be swimming!

It sounds like an excuse, but it really was a challenge to find a suitable pool. That has always been part of our original problem. Our local outdoor pool is freezing and only about three feet deep. None of my kids were going to learn to swim in water that shallow. The local indoor facility has one pool that is warm, but only about three feet deep, and one that is cold and reserved for swimmers doing laps. Again, not ideal conditions. We ended up doing most of our "lessons" in two locations: my uncle's pool in the next town over and in a tiny little pool (that is five feet!) in my hometown, two hours away.

So, a couple times a week I would drive to one of the above locations, put them in the pool, and work with them individually and as a group. We practiced kicking, holding our breath, blowing bubbles, and moving our arms. They were mostly willing to learn, but I'm not going to lie. Every one of us lost our patience more than once. We all got mad at each other those first few times.

On one particular afternoon in June, I almost had a mutiny on my hands. We were at Uncle Ricky's, and we were all upset. All three kids wanted to quit. One of them shouted that he would learn to swim when he was a teenager. I told them that no way, no how, were they going to be the 15 year-old kids requiring a life jacket to swim in five feet of water. They were learning. Now. Yes, Mean Mama, who was also embarrassed at what a bad job she had made of it, had had Enough!

After much weeping and gnashing of teeth, they got back in the water. And they tried. And I tried. And on other days their dad tried. And Daddy John tried. And basically we all worked very hard all summer to not let one more season pass without them learning how to swim.

So, did it pay off? I am very pleased to report, that despite my ineptitude, my children did indeed learn to swim.
Ben is learning basic strokes, and can swim across the pool. He is even starting to learn to dive.
Will was terrified to swim without a life jacket in June. He is now doggy paddling all over the place, and loves to jump in the deep end. And he isn't holding his nose!
Kate NaNa still prefers to hold onto a float, but she can swim across the pool. OK, she can in the shallow end. She can't quite figure out how to come up for air without putting her feet down. But she is only four, so I can cut her some slack on that one, especially since she has conquered her fear of the water. She also has a crazy strong kick that propels her really quickly across the surface.
By the 4th of July, they were able to swim with their cousins without clinging to the wall. Or holding their noses. Or asking 18 times if they could put on their life jackets.

In the end, we still have a long way to go. And I am still embarrassed that I let this go so far. But at least I am now confident that my children will not drown. Or still be afraid of the water at the age of 14 (no offense to those of you who are older than 14 and afraid). We are going swimming at an indoor pool this week, and I am eager to see how much they remember from last month.
I'm sure if I lose my temper again that they would be happy to tell you about it.

Canoeing with Dad

Now that fall is upon us, I realize that I am woefully behind in my blogging. And it isn't just my random ramblings about whatever is bugging me, but rather my posts that I write as a sort of scrapbook for our family. Tonight I will try to at least partially remedy that.

One very hot Saturday in August, Tim decided to take the kids canoeing. We live less than a mile from a creek that is great for taking the kids for a calm ride. It circles through our town several times, so I dropped them off at one landing and picked them up at another. They spent a couple hours on the water playing, learning how to paddle, and spending quality time with Dad. And obviously there wasn't room in there for me, right? Thanks, Tim, for being an awesome dad.

T-Ball, Part 2

Kate was ready to try something new this fall, so she chose to play T-Ball instead of soccer. She even gets to be a Cubby like her brothers!
The coach pitches the first two balls, and if the child doesn't hit it, she gets to hit off of the tee. At her first game, she was the only kid on her team to hit a pitched ball. Can't wait to see what else this girl will do!

Birthday Party!

My kids' birthdays are at the end of June, August, and October. In the past we have done separate birthday parties, but that is a lot of cake and ice cream in a very short amount of time. So this year, with a little help from Uncle Jacob, I convinced them that it would be a blast to have one big ole party for all of them. OK, honestly, they weren't thrilled with the idea at first, but then I convinced them with promises of pinatas and water balloons, and they were on board!
We had grandparents, tons of aunts and uncles, no less than six cousins, and many friends and their parents. We even had Uncle Jacob here! (He was in town for a wedding.) I wish I could say that I am super-mom because I am capable of pulling off a party like this all by myself, but honestly, it took the whole family to get the job done. Every single person had a job - from my niece who filled water balloons and peeled carrots, to my grandmother who was the welcoming committee, to the men who washed dishes, to all of the relatives who brought food. Somehow we managed to feed 40 people, and the party was a huge success. Once again, Will declared it the best party evah!
Don't be hatin' on the cake pictures. I had to snap them fast before the flames melted Luke Skywalker's light saber!
Now I am wondering what I will have to bribe them with next year so I can get away with only one party again...