September 2016

I think September is my favorite month.  It's been productive, yet, restful at the same time.  

We made some carrot cake jam with our homegrown carrots!  It's a new favorite!

Moses likes to hold onto every last bit of summer!

This is the second year that we got to help lead Monarch Tagging with Tremont.  

Mosesisms

"Mama...I'm going to go outside and do something malicious!"

Me:  Moses, what do you want to be when you grow up?
Moses:  A journalist

After Moses calls a grownup "Mike" I tell him it's "Mr. Mike".  I ask why he needs to say "Mr. Mike".    "Because he's a boy, not a girl."    I ask why he can't just say "Mike".    He says, "Because that's a kid's name".

Moses's word for the summer: "Awkward"

Last week was kind of a blur!  In the midst of Christy's first ever birthday week, we had numerous unplanned appointments.  Despite that, we had some really great times.   She and I got a lot of girl time, which was greatly needed.   We seem to have a lot of frustration between us lately.   She's very impulsive and also likes to help me "parent" a lot.   I'll go to grab something...like a utensil...and she'll reach and grab it before me.   Not out of disrespect....it's just what she does right now.  We are both learning and growing through this time.   Just getting out away from everything else was good.   We went out to eat and got her ears pierced.  Then we just walked around the mall and chatted.  She's so cute and funny.    I felt really bad because I thought she was prepared for getting her ears pierced.  There is not telling how they pierced her ears in Ghana.   One was WAY lower than the other and one of them....the hole was not pierced straight through so it was an ordeal to get an earring through the hole.   So, I thought that Claire's would be no big deal!   Well, apparently, when someone starts putting on gloves, sterilizing everything, gets out a little gun and sits you up in a tall stool....it's quite intimidating.   They did both ears at once and she sobbed when they were done.  I think she was more scared than anything and just didn't understand what was going on.   She's happy with them now though.   Luke already managed to rip one out, but, thankfully I was able to put it back in.

I also took her for a speech evaluation. I'm so glad I did.  She is still very hard for a lot of people to understand and it's not because of her accent.  She has some serious speech issues and will be starting speech therapy soon.  I think it will really help her confidence.   She gets frustrated sometimes when people can't understand her and I think she'll be happy to be able to communicate more clearly.   

The speech evaluation was hilarious!  At first they were asking her to tell them all about a certain picture.   One was a shoe.   You could tell Christy didn't understand why she was doing this stuff.  "Tell me about the shoe.  Where do you where it?  On your head?".  Christy..."no!  outside!".      Next....a  jacket.   "Tell me about the jacket".   Christy..."it flies.   it will bite you!".    The sweet lady looks at me very confused.  I told her she was talking about a yellow jacket and that Christy's never worn a jacket in her life!   Wow....we are still adjusting to so much!   

The sweet woman who did the test was very understanding.   She would ask Christy a question like, "You have 5 pennies (holding up her five fingers for Christy to see)....I take away one penny (now holding up 4 fingers)...how many pennies do you have (holding 4 fingers right in front of Christy's face)."   Christy replies enthusiastically, "One!".   Huge smile.   The sweet woman just says, "Ok".  :)  There were 3 more questions like this.  Then the very sweet woman says, "Mom...where does she go to school?".   My face turns red and I mumble, "I homeschool her".  Ha!   Nice.   Great!   Thankfully she asked how long she'd been in the states and understood when I said it'd been less than 6 months.   

Tonight at dinner, Luke was talking to Chad and Christy started to say something and then said, "Oh....I almost erupted!".   I'm trying to soak up all of the cute, funny stuff that's happening.  It would be easy to let the frustrations and hard times overwhelm me.  There really are some great memories in the making.    Moses is putting his mark all over our house in the form of paint, sharpies, holes in the wallls, etc.   We're working on reigning that all in...but, it's definitely going to be a process.   

Aunt Melissa got her this cabbage patch doll and Aunt Jessie made her this wrap to carry her in!  So cute!

We made her this little play kitchen...Moses used it to give the baby a bath :)

Here are some pics of Christy's party.   It was so cool.  There were 3 girls from Ghana at her party, two of whom she lived with for years in Ghana!  How amazing is that!  I just watched them and couldn't believe God orchestrated that!    You could see Christy soaking everything in.  She had a great time and I think she really felt celebrated.   On her 7th birthday, she had her first every birthday celebration!   

Sitting at the breakfast table, Christy says, "Jesus is white because I want the white bowl!".  Luke, very confused says "Jesus is white because you want a white bowl????  Jesus isn't white because you want a white bowl!".    We all laugh and explain that she wants a white bowl because Jesus is white.

Christy loves to wear fancy clothes. She calls them wedding clothes.   This morning she had on her fanciest dress and I told her we were not going to a wedding.   She says "how many days until the wedding? "    Luke said very seriously, "You're a kid, we don't do that in America."

Surgery

Today Christy had to have oral surgery.   I HATE having anything done to my teeth.  I actually have one wisdom tooth left and my dentist has referred me to an oral surgeon because I've let it go for so long...and that was a couple of years ago!  So...when I found out what Christy would have to have done my heart just sank.     She had 4 teeth that were broken off.  3 of those had rotted and broken away and there were only tiny little pieces of tooth that you could still see through the gums.   The roots of those teeth had been infected for a very long time.   Then, she had several very large cavities and he had to fill those and do some work on some of the nerves.   We got to Children's Hospital early this morning and left there around 1 this afternoon.  She was so funny when they gave her the "happy juice".   She was holding onto Chad's head kissing his face.  She would not let go and just kept saying one more, one more.   Then the nurse came to talk to her and she was holding her hand up in the air trying to touch something.  She told the nurse that the fish (stickers on a door across the room) were swimming.    When she woke up after surgery, her whole mouth was numb and she was still out of it.   She slowly put her finger on her bottom lip and then looked at me and said "What is this!!" and then started tryign to pull it off!   She had me dying laughing.   She did really well.   She is already up and I'm having to make her take it easy.  Amazing!

It amazes me that she lived with so much pain in her mouth for so long.   She only complained a couple of times until I started asking her if it hurt...even then her complaining was a "my tooth" every once in a while.   I think of all the kids still in that home and others.  They're living with pain...physical and emotional.  They don't know any different.  They've never had the luxuries we have.  Thinking about it makes me sick of my excuses and apathy.  "I'm sorry your teeth are rotting out of your head and you're in constant pain...I'm sorry you'll never have a mom or dad....It's so sad that you don't have enough food to eat or water to drink...poor thing....doesn't have clothes that fit.....but, it's just too expensive to be your mom...my house isn't big enough....we wouldn't be able to afford everything we want....or everything our kids deserve....you might have a lot of issues...I'm sorry your life is too hard...but, adopting you would just be too hard...to inconvenient...to uncomfortable."    Uncomfortable.  I don't think I really know what that is.  I can't help but look at each of my kids and think about those without a home...a mom and a dad...basic necessities.  I know it's said all the time...we're not all called to adopt...but, as a christian...we are called to do something.   I'm blown away when I think about how much people helped us with bringing our kids home.  People are so generous.   God was so good and faithful.  And...if we step out to obey Him, he will bless us and provide.   After all...he loves these kids more than we do!