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Two little boys,
one little yard
under one big blue sky.
One little green kite,
one afternoon snack
of juicy strawberries.
Many juicy strawberries.
The only other option for a day like today
was spinning
at the park.
And spinning fast!
And sliding with a toddler girl
who wants to slide down only one way.
(Head first!)
A late afternoon drive,
one tuckered out little boy.
A little time for pictures along the way.
Spring is here!
Dear Marin Pie,
I had this idea, well over a month ago, since I have been ever the stellar parent in documenting your babyhood both online (not so well) and in your baby book (not at all) that I should write you a letter, here, to commemorate your turning one and a half.
And in true form, you will turn nineteen months old in just a handful of days and I am making a first attempt.
Thankfully, I have been mindful enough to snap pictures of so many of your firsts that have been taking place. Here, your first time joining us at the actual dinner table. We packed up your high chair last week and traded it in for your booster seat at the table. It really changed our dinner dynamic to have you in one of the chairs-- so neat to see the three of you seated all together, screeching and laughing and talking to each other over our favorite Chicago pizza.
Here you are well past your bedtime one night, allowing your big brothers to read to you.
You love books. LOVE books. We read a handful before nap, a handful before bed, and ten handfuls more throughout the day. Your favorites include Three Little Kittens, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, Raffi's Baby Beluga and the Big Animal Board Book. If any grown-up sits down on the floor within your vicinity, you immediately grab a book and plop yourself in his or her lap, instructing, "Books." "Ead?"
You have your own ideas about everything, of course, including some of your books.
This one in particular, Noah's Ark, reminds you strongly of Santa Claus. Each time I say Noah, you correct me, pointing to the red-robed, white beard-wearing man, exclaiming, "Santa!" This went on for many days, each time we read this story, until eventually I began telling it to your liking: Santa built a boat and loaded up the animals two by two. Santa fed the animals. Santa washed the animals. Santa sent out a dove to find dry land, and Santa saw a rainbow in the sky. Ho Ho Ho, merry Old Testament.
Right from the beginning, you have been a girl on the go. Here you are playing with friends at LegoLand (a brand of toys you'll never be able to escape, surrounded by brothers.) Partly due to homeschool, and partly just because we simply like to have all kinds of fun, we find ourselves all over the place all week long. Sometimes I feel great about this for you, that you have such a unique chance to learn about the world in a very direct way, and socialize, and sometimes I feel guilty because I know you could benefit from longer naps and possibly less time strapped to my chest or riding in your stroller. You don't seem to mind, honestly, but it is my job to worry.
Everybody stick a toy in your mouth, quick!
I want to say that it is so much fun to raise you-- my daughter, because indeed there are traits I notice in you that I hadn't seen with your brothers (like the way you are so quick to run for shoes and socks and even attempt to put them on yourself when it is time to go places, or how you pack your random little cloth bags to wear on your arm, or echo my discipline for your big brothers, shouting "Guys!" or "Bees!") but specifically I just have to say that it is so wonderful to raise you. Somehow even after watching KJ and Jack grow, two kids that couldn't be any more different from each other, here you are, our third child with a personality completely your own. You add so much to our family that I could never imagine my life without, now knowing who you are growing into. I think often about what we will be to each other in the future, shopping for prom dresses and doing all of the special things that mothers and daughters do together. But for now we rock, rock, rock together in the chair beside your crib multiple times each day, and at four o'clock every morning not only hoping for just a few more hours of rest, but also savoring the time we have to chat in the dark together, about the dog who keeps coming back in, the night light on your wall, and naming all of our facial features over and over, before sealing our night-time visit with a "tiss." We are close, you and I, and though I know it is probably not your conscious decision at this time that has made us this way, I thank you anyway for the abundance of joy that you give to me every day, being the mom of an amazing daughter.
You recently had a tug-of-war with Jack, over a squishy ball.
You lost.
Thankfully you weren't sad for too long.
You get him back for it all the time, by leveling his delicate wood-block towers. Today you popped him in the eye with one of said blocks. You hold your own.
It is likely that there will be a brother following behind you soon, and though it makes sense that this would be something I should stress about, even a little, I honestly have no worries about your near future. You are the most adaptable child ever, and so secure with your place in this family. You have no qualms with speaking your little mind, or throwing a temper tantrum if you feel the situation calls for it. You are happy in our growing family, and nothing leads me to believe that having someone smaller than you to make plastic meals for and dress from the living room basket of winter gear would bother you. When I think of a brother, a third brother for you, I wonder first if you will ever manage a date in high school. And I wonder if there will be a sister, then, to follow for you, because I would love to give that to you (and to her) just like Auntie and I, if that is in the cards for us. I am excited to see where we go next, and what it will mean for you.
At eighteen months old you are definitely so special to each of us. Mommy's girl, Daddy's princess girl, KJ's "honey" as he calls you, and Jack's buddy. You are fluent in your speaking skills, now beginning to string two and three words together. You sing Twinkle, Twinkle and a few of the ABC's. I was shocked to learn, this morning, that you can count to ten. You still love to eat, blueberries and strawberries at the top of your list, followed closely by cheeses of all sorts and crackers. Every liquid in a cup to you is Juice or "juju" and if there is a snack to be had, you want a bag, a bowl, a plate of your very own, by dammit. (None of this sharing crap.)
You feed baby dolls and your Elmo doll with sippy cups and toy bottles, you love play cooking, especially with Jack, and you correctly make distinctions between Bakugan toys and Transformers, though any action figure from Lego to Star Wars is simply, "Man!" You have no interest in television, barring the occasional moment or two of Sesame Street, but you somehow correctly identify the image of SpongeBob, the least favorite of all children's characters I know. There will be plenty of time to try and kill me in your teenage years, if you could just hold off for a while longer, thank you.
Now that you're nineteen eighteen months old, I am painfully aware that your babyhood is passing in a flash and will be gone in no time. I loved the surprise of you, and the sweetness of you when you were first born. I loved having another chance to snuggle with an infant, you in particular, and to buy soft pink blankets and pink pants with ruffles and little hair bows. It was being welcomed into a whole other dimension of life I had not previously known, and it exceeded my expectations a thousand times over. There is something about the youngest, a baby to a mama that makes her all her own for a little while-- so connected. I know this connection well with you, my baby and my little girl. I hope I never lose this with you.
Love,
Mama
I shopped!
We are [this close] to having all of our Dossier documents together. One more letter, one final criminal check, completed homestudy. I am waiting to get that last criminal check for each of us until we have homestudy and fully-assembled mailer in hand, because our county can only declare us non-criminals for fourteen days, for whatever reason, so I want those pages as current as possible when they reach our agency, and/or the other side of the globe.
It has been two weeks and a handful of days since our home visit, and we were told it would be two to three weeks until we received our homestudy. This should be the week, then, right?
I learned from our agency, recently, that if we did not specify either boy or girl, there is a 99% likelihood that we will be referred a little boy. Girls in adoptions, for whatever reason, are in high demand.
My heart does flip-flops to think about having another little boy in our house! I am so excited for it! I bought a few things at the Carter's store to indulge my happiness. And to have something of him to look at.
Kevin's favorite, I am so sure.
A decision was made, the week before last in our adoptive country, that orders parents to now travel twice per adoption. First we must be in-country to pass court, making our baby legally ours there. Then we travel eight to twelve weeks later to bring him/her home.
Initially I was panicked. Wait-- PAAANICKED! This puts a great deal more strain in terms of babysitters for our three children left at home, and financially, as well as deepening my gloomy worries about how Kevin could ever get THAT much time off work.
But I have calmed down about it. It is just the way it is, and we will make it work because we have to. Our family and friends will help us with caring for our kids as they can. Kevin and I will make the first trip, and I will travel with a friend for the homecoming trip. I will set out jars and buckets for the upcoming Silver Dollar Rainstorm, forecasted for sometime this summer. Or something like that. All of our loved ones are part of our new baby's life and part of God's plan for him/her and us, and I am confident that everything will fall into place.
It also means that we get to meet our baby sooner! We get to travel to Africa twice! We can bring twice as many donations, bring home twice as many souvenirs! Pictures!
On the down side, we will have to leave without our baby after the first trip, and that will near kill me, I am sure.
You know-- The Band!
We have chosen our godparents, but are waiting to ask. We have chosen a name, but waiting to make sure it all fits together. We are reading and learning and preparing to make this as easy a transition for our little one as can be expected. There will be grief for the loss of his caretakers, his family, his country, and difficulty from whatever he or she has endured in a short little lifetime. There will be transition for all six of us. We feel so blessed to be called here.
Baby don't you cry, gonna make a pie,
Gonna make a pie with a heart in the middle.
Gonna make a pie from heaven above,
Gonna be filled with strawberry love.
Baby don't you cry, gonna make a pie,
Gonna make a pie with a heart in the middle.
---Quincy Coleman, The Pie Song
---The Sugar Addict Mom's Perfect Lullabye
Last night I wrote a quick post in a groggy sleepy state after spending the whole day in the fresh air with the kids at the zoo. Then Kevin came home from work at ten, I woke up just enough and we watched a movie. A movie that my very thoughtful husband picked out based on one of my favorite leading men (Richard Gere!!) It was awful. I fell asleep briefly in the middle and woke up for the end again, just before the wild horses gallop across the beach, after his death, after the letters (come on, no email?) and after she gives the son his father back when he meets him working as a volunteer physician in a third world country. (Name that movie, anyone?)
"So cheeeeesy!" I told Kevin before as the credits rolled. And then I realized that just a couple of hours previous I had microwaved and poured very similar cheese right onto my blog. (Right onto the computer screen, actually. I could barely see what I was typing.) I popped online and killed the entry before bed.
So here I am today, to serve you taco chips, and possibly a few halved cherry tomatoes in case you caught the cheese last night.
What I did want to say was that we spent the day at our zoo yesterday, after several months of winter.
There were little tiny buds on the trees, and I was beside-myself-excited to show the kids. We had studied life cycles and photosynthesis in the very early weeks of homeschool last year, and now we've watched it cycle through with our own eyes. Proof that I am learning just as much as the kids through this homeschool process.
It was also my intent to communicate my great love for our favorite zoo, and to tell you that I might grow up someday and marry it and have zoo babies. In an alternate universe somewhere I wear a khaki uniform and leather boots and work at a zoo. In this universe I will load our zoo tram to capacity with my own family, and teach them the difference between a buffalo and bison, maple tree and sycamore. And I will drag them there as often as humanly possible, even after we must purchase a tram to get around town in.
At the Play Zoo (heh, after Jack painted his own face) I watched him carefully wrap the pretend eggs in nesting cloths to keep baby birds warm. A child on the heels of a chick-hatching experience, for sure.
I could have stayed in the primate house all afternoon.
And I observed my seven year old excitedly pointing out on a map where his baby brother or sister will soon be coming from.
Heart. Melt.
(Alternatively, if your son points out to his buddy where his new baby brother or sister will be coming from because you're pregnant, spontaneous melting occurs for a completely different reason. Also involves crawling under the nearest table.)
(Not the case here.)
(Thankfully.)
(Adoption. Map.)
Nobody look, all at once! I'm making these funny noises and calling loudly for *the concrete lion statue.*
So there you have it. All of the pictures, none of the cheese. Bring it on, Spring. We are soo ready!
I thought I might never make it back here. I have ten entries cooked up in my head and have spent the last week everywhere but home with a computer. Alas, I have returned.
Also, this is so not a chicken blog.
Mama say Whaaaaaa?
They grew very quickly-- even just one week into their little lives, losing their fluff and beginning to grow feathers on their tails and wings.
And they pooped.
These chickens pooped more than any animal I had ever come across in my entire thirty-one years of life. KJ helped me to clean their brooding box at least three times a day. Then we fed them more. And they pooped more.
KJ, Professional Chicken Sitter
At one point I decided to toss some of the chicken feed straight onto the newspaper-covered floor of the brooding box to save the chicks all that effort of eating and digesting and pooping. But then they became bored and felt their lives to have less purpose. They began asking for a Wii, and to have stories read to them and multi-colored fleece tie blankets at night, and to attend the free days at the Museum of Science and Industry with us. I gave up and encouraged them to eat the feed off the floor, and we continued cleaning the stinky box three times a day, at least.
We played with them, too. We tried to give them all the best of childhood experiences.
Okay fine, no one actually punted, but it was funny enough, right?
What up, Karate Chop Action Optimus Prime?
What up, Chick?
Everybody, hide!
Our German Shepherd became more and more interested in the chicks, especially once they learned to cheep loudly, and hop. I would place them in their temporary Chicken Storage Shoebox while cleaning the brooding box, and KJ would watch them closely. They learned to leap higher and higher until eventually they looked like Chicken Popcorn (or is that popcorn chicken?) flying over the sides of the box and onto the kitchen counter (dangerous territory, chicks...you have no idea.)
We put our dog outside while we cleaned them, and moved the brooding box to a safe room with a closed door while we slept and while we went places.
KJ hoped to remedy the situation in his own way, to keep that pacing, tail-wagging, chops-licking canine away from his poultry babies.
Too bad the dog can't read.
I made sure to warn the kids, even before our eggs arrived, that the chicks couldn't stay (and the chick above, mildly grateful for that). Even so, they tried and tried to convince me to take on the 4H Poultry Project. They loved their smelly chicks.
But the dog, and city limits, and all that, brought us to say goodbye to the chicks. A family from 4H came to pick them up, eventually, and she told us where we could find them this year at the County Fair. The boys were very happy to hear that.
Not Number One, Two, Three all the way up through Ben Ten will be eaten, that we can foresee (that eleventh egg never did hatch, poor baby.) We will most definitely do this again next year! What a fun experience.
Oh Noes!
Are you people serious?
I am so outta here.
After a week of watching eggs, turning eggs and making sure, sure, sure that the temperature was a constant 100.5 degrees, we began seeing little cracks late on Saturday night! We could actually hear a couple of them cheeping from within their eggs, which was so neat.
And then we got this!
Babies!
One baby on Sunday afternoon. Not exactly cute at first, very wet and gooey and flopping around, but still exciting just the same.
KJ is determined for every. single. chick. that hatches to see his face first. He is the very dedicated Chicken Mommy of the family. He remembers the order in which they hatched, and calls them by name-- Number One, Number Two...all the way through Number Nine. And then there's Ben Ten.
He also disciplines them, scolding when they peck each other, and gives them orders to be nice, have a drink, maybe a bite to eat. He barely leaves them.
I, too, have been very dedicated to the hatching, fluffing chicks. Who knew chicks could keep me up at night? Two a.m., three a.m., six a.m., checking the temperatures of the incubator and brooding box for the necessary 100.5 and 95's respectively.
I'm a new mom. I'm obsessing.
Far too early, this morning.
We've had a million cross-curricular learning experiences with the chicks (eggs) this week, and I knew they would be marvelous for that. But what I didn't anticipate was the sense of awe we would experience in observing this miracle of life come to be.
We learned last week about the parts of an egg, and the twenty-one day process from fertilization to hatch. This morning we took turns holding our, now, ten delicate little guys who cheep and hop and are so soft and adorable, and it's just crazy to realize that they didn't exist in any way just over three weeks ago. They can hear us (hate when I microwave coffee above them) and they all pop up, all ten heads at the very same time, glaring in the same direction to quickly look out their giant window when they hear...
CHIIIIIIIIICKS! She screeches, running across the kitchen.
She wants to hold them and poke them and kiss them and squeeze them. Think Elmira from Tiny Toon Adventures. Juuuust like that.
We're just waiting for one more to poke through, now. It was the smallest egg- the one I've wondered about from the beginning. Still no crack, no little hole.
There are people in this world who are just meant to have kids. Lots of them. The noise level doesn't bother them, mostly. The messes-- the learning materials, are something we learn to embrace. The rewards are so overwhelming some days that you wonder how on Earth you got so lucky to be called to this family, this place, this time.
We are meant to have a large family.
When we got married we said we would wait something like three or five years before having children. (Aww hell, who remembers anymore?) It was what everyone accepted as the norm, to give us the chance to buy a fun car, vacation and go out to dinner whenever we wanted.
We tried to wait, and we did the above mentioned things that young married couples are supposed to do by American standard ...until we couldn't any longer. We didn't make it a year, I think eight months or so, before we started trying for a family. We celebrated our second wedding anniversary very quietly in a restaurant where our brand new baby boy slept, for once, peacefully in his infant seat. We were a changed couple forever.
Something funny happened to us with the birth of our third child. We knew we loved being parents, we knew we were a strong couple both in spite of and because of the ups and downs that come typically to a marriage over the years, but we realized, as a family of five, that we are really, really happy with where our life is headed. We don't just love kids-- we really love kids. I don't know the exact moment when I figured this out, but one day it was like waking up to see blue skies and sunshine for the very first time, and knowing for sure that, yes, this is what we are called to.
Kevin and I are family people. We enjoy our family time to no end-- watching our kids play their sports, reading together, taking vacations and day-trips and dancing around the kitchen while making dinner. We understand, and care deeply about the AIDS crisis that is devastating our adopted African country. We know we are called to an effort, not just to bring a couple of the 147 million orphans worldwide, to the United States to grow up, but to work towards a solution for a country- a continent, that is being wiped out by poverty and disease.
Figure out what makes you come alive, and do that.
I took the above picture last night, just after our social worker left. During our homestudy visit our kids did what they do. They demolished platters of fruit and cheese and crackers, made messes and pushed one in front of the next to tell the new visitor what they knew. Marin passed out the contents of the paper recylce can to her brothers, Jack gifted my very long (previously recycled) list of Things to Clean to the interested lady. (Gahhhhh.) KJ showed off his Bakugan abilities, Jack melted down over an empty Honey Nut Cheerios box, and Marin tipped back my (again, previously recycled) McDonalds pop cup-- straight out of the trash during our interview. My youngest two emptied the lower kitchen cabinets that they empty every day because it was apparently time to play House. (Apartments, really. Marin lives in Tupperware, and Jackson Pots and Pans.)
All of this, while completely normal to those of us in the throes of early parenthood, made me nervous under the watchful eye of one who has been charged with the job of writing a report about us.
Within a couple weeks our homestudy will be complete, notarized and in our hands. We now begin the gruelling process of filing official government paperwork with the United States and individual authorities, and will finish putting our Dossier together. Once that is all sent out, we wait to be approved, and we wait for our child to be referred to us. Then we must pass court, and travel to Africa.
Baby steps, right? One official document at a time, one child at a time. For now, anway. (Eeeeee! A baby! We are really, really "having" a baby!)
I am breaking up with winter. It's March now. Enough already, right?
I could watch them paint all day. This day, we were studying watercolor artists. My home, and especially their bedroom, is covered in kid paintings. I could watch them create all day.
All day.
Here, his fishes and their seaweed dinner.
We are down to eleven eggs.
I thought that my seven year old could help me turn them last night. They need to be turned three times daily. He picked up one of his favorites, the brightest pastel green one. He brought it closer to his face to have a look, and then it slipped from his hands.
It was one of those moments where I wanted anything but to be the adult in the room. Six or seven days from hatch, I figured the little chick couldn't make it, and with all of the blood coming from the egg, I knew there wasn't much we could do.
I am now the sole egg turner. I am ridiculously careful. And still utterly mortified.
My children miss the Olympics.
The snowboarding, specifically.
I am told that we will be seeing the sun, here in the midwest, over the next couple days. It has been grey here for thirty-seven months, I think. If I may make a request with the Powers That Be, now, I would like it to be a super blue incredibly sunny sky capable of melting the remaining slushy crud on the ground. And make it pop up my tulip buds, too.
I had a few sad days, recently, and out of the blue my four year old showed up with a card for me.
Okay it was a birthday party invitation that never made it into the mail last December, but he filled it out for me with his own letters, just the same. It reads:
"Dear Mom,
I love you.
And I know you will turn to the dark side.
Love,
Jackson"
It was perfect!
I have been playing Pink's Glitter In The Air song on repeat all day. It has nothing to do with the above picture. Unless you can imagine me twirling on silks above my children to get this picture. Then it totally does. I've watched it seven thousand times on YouTube today, here.
I need new music for a CD. We've been spending lots of time in the car lately. What do you have on repeat?
Har har har har, gotcha!
Our babies are a long way off, still.
Our chick eggs were delivered early this morning, though!
Twelve warm, delicate little eggs.
We've spent the better part of the day checking the incubator temperature and moisture level, and reading egg and chick library books and doing egg and chick-related projects, and again checking the temperature, temperature, temperature. It must stay at a constant 99-100.5 degrees, and in spite of the mad cleaning rampage that is happening in our house at the very same time, I think I will be glued to our incubator this week. Just to check the mercury, again.
There are other babies, too.
Randomly falling asleep in our hands as we play with them.
Happy to converse with toddler cohorts, and to receive lots of little girl kisses.
My mom and dad's black lab delivered seven jet-black little puppies a few weeks ago, and while they've been squeaky and smushy and cute since they were born, they have now become infinitely more interesting to my children, as their eyes have opened and they are learning to walk.
So dark their sweet little features can barely be seen as they sleep, as if they fell from the sky.
Oh no, this family of five (and one old dog, one old cat, twelve unhatched chicks) will NOT be taking a puppy home. Nor will we be keeping any of our chicks. I believe my plate is full at this moment. And so is my back yard. And our bedrooms are about to fill quickly, as well. These baby animals are fun for the short time that they remain ours.
As the four of us, myself with Marin strapped to my chest, and the two boys trailing by hands, made our way through the county courthouse for the ninety-seventh home study document required a couple weeks ago, we must have been a sight. Comical and kind comments abounded as we passed through one hallway after the next, about how full my hands must be, and what a crowd we are. And then again last week, through the overcrowded hospital waiting room for my bloodwork, and through our family doctor's office for my adoption physical. I give a smile in appreciation.
We travel in puffy coats and clunky boots and winter hats, and with miscellaneous action figures and board books and little red boxes of raisins, a bit like a noisy herd. Growing families are every bit the norm in libraries and at playgrounds-- places frequented by mobs of children. But when we are the exception to the norm- at ten a.m. in an elderly-filled hospital waiting room while most children are in school, we are doted upon. Countless silver-haired women smile at my baby girl and quietly lean over to share with me stories of raising their own children. These have grown to be some of my favorite moments as I am allowed somehow to reach back in time to the very best part, as I am always reminded, of these women's lives. It is a priviledge to join this very long line of mothers, and to do what I find best for my family, best for our changing world.
Our babies are coming, and my hands will be more full, as will our bedrooms and our back yard. Raising one child is no easy task, nor is raising three, or imaginably, five or seven. But if my hands are full, and my days are filled, my heart is even moreso.
When we reached the car after our most recent courthouse adventure, I called Kevin to tell him that our local background checks were finished, and to share with him our hallway experiences. I looked forward to next year, when we will repeat these trips-- with three by hands, and a fourth member of our crew being worn on my chest, as we prepare for number five. Next year another sibling will hatch chicks with us, and excitedly wait for spring with us, and play with Gramma and Papa's eight black labs. (Oh right, sorry, they are sooo going to give most of those adorable, squishy puppies away. Wink wink.) It just keeps getting better.
