A Very Traditional Birthday Celebration

Lessons learned this Christmas:

1. If your 35 lb. toddler decides that Wintergreen rubbing alcohol would wash down dinner well, there is no need to rush the ER. Really. A very nice lady named Allison at poison control told us exactly what to do. "Watch and see how drunk he gets," she said. If he gets REALLY drunk and vomits more than once, call back immediately. Be more concerned about the chemical in the wintergreen flavor that can give him an aspirin overdose." The best part? "Give him lots of sweets, because the alcohol will lower his blood sugar, and we don't want him in a diabetic coma." The most important part: "Call back in an hour." We aren't quite sure how much of the 16 oz. bottle he ingested, but our C. had a very...happy... Christmas Eve. However much he ingested wasn't enough to require an emergency room trip, though, thank God! That is the LAST place I wanted to spend Christmas Eve!

2. C. loves Santa. J. doesn't; wouldn't go near him.

3. When your husband comes home with a 12 lb. goose for Christmas (even though there are only 2 adults and 2 toddlers for dinner, and you bought 1/2 ham the day before), don't panic. "It'll be nostalgic," he insisted. After a couple of minutes of confusion, like, "Where ARE the giblits in this thing?!"
...it turned out quite delicious, but I prefer it in small doses! A European friend of mine said, "Americans don't have the palate for goose." Consider that your warning. It is very rich, all dark meat, and goes well with a deep red wine-even though it's poultry. Tim loved it, and wants goose every year.

3. Another lesson related to geese: They have a lot of fat. Our 1 goose emitted three mason jars of fat! However, we learned that goose fat is some sort of odd delicacy-though aren't all delicacies a little odd?-and sells for $1-3.00 an ounce. So, don't throw out the fat. You'll have enough to replace all the butter and oil in your house for the new year. Just what you wanted, I know!

4. The traditional Christmas meal is the way to go. Goose, pears in orange sauce, asparagus with cashews, raisin stuffing-baked in the bird-red pepper and paprika breadsticks in the shape of candy canes and cranberry sauce... It did feel nostaligic, Dickens-esque; everyone had something they liked, and we don't have a fridge full of casseroles that jiggle.

5. Presents are good. I know they shouldn't be the emphasis of the day, and we did very well this year reminding the boys that all of these gifts were for Jesus' birthday, and because Jesus is sooooo loving, when it's HIS birthday, he give US presents. That's just how He works, and aren't we glad for it! Some of the biggest hits in red wrapper packages were jet airplanes, new babies (to practice on for the real new baby), Curious George movies, Amnesty International 2008 wall calendars (for me, of course), the Indiana Jones trilogy (for Tim) and pretend shaving kits.

Lesson 6: Above all else, take time to remember that the birth of the Christ child is the reason for the surprise goose, the "hot candy canes", Santa and elf hats, the "very very pretty" tree, school programs, nearly 200 Christmas cards sent out domestically and internationally, gifts with bows, pop-up nativity storybooks, the extra time with Dad, the annoying Chipmunks Christmas CD, the long drive looking at Christmas lights, new perfume, argyle sweaters, and the chocolate birthday cake. Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Merry Christmas! (Double click the x on the right of the video to shrink that box so that you can see the pictures.)

Can you see me now?

As firmly as he believes that cats are for chasing and music is for dancing, C. believes that if he covers his eyes, he is invisible and can therefore get away with anything! Several times each night, and in the wee hours of the morning, we find him running through the house with his eyes covered when he should be in bed. He'll even make a run for it right in front of us, like he did here, completely unaware that we can see him, convinced he's invisible and invincible. Usually, he'll run into a wall or two on the way, and often he'll yell, "I'm Okay!" or "Silly goose!" from the ground-still covering his eyes. Don't feel sorry for us about this, though. It is much prefered to the once weekly sneaking- off- of- the- diaper- in the pack-n-play and pooping. We may not always see that happening, but we smell it, and it is a mess. For that, you can take pity on us. Not only us, actually, but all of us raising two year olds! Merry Christmas! By the way, sorry the video is dark...it was 10:00 pm... and someone was supposed to be sleeping...

African Proverbs

While I wait-not so patiently-for this adoption situation to go one way or another, these African proverbs have spoken to my heart. By the way, I read of three babies that died in an orphanage in Ethiopia this month. Babies die all the time in third world orphanages; there is nothing necessarily unusual about this. However, reading of it this week isn't helping me to wait patiently to bring home baby #3, nor to accept that God may have a new plan as to when our adoption process can continue. Please continue to pray that the situation with our agency, Love Basket, is resolved quickly and to the best interest of the children-which hopefully is in our best interest as well...


"Lord, make my heart sit down." (Don't just have patience; have patience with peace).

"The moon moves slowly, but it crosses the town." (This baby will come home, in God's timing. What beauty would the night hold if it went by in a flash, going my way?)

"The wind does not break a tree that bends." (I tend to break easily when things don't go my way. I need to be more bend-y).

P.S. Is my header big again for those of you who said it had shrunk to a sliver? I fixed it on my screen. How's it look on yours???

P.S.S. (These are more pictures that Tiffany Shaw took last week. If you live in our area, she does a great job! You can contact her at her blog on my sidebar.)

The long awaited for glitch

In intercountry adoption there is always a glitch. With J., it was the fact that his birthmom had two different last names in his paperwork, so his US immigration papers were held up for nearly seven months as we had to prove that these two women were actually one and the same woman. It got worked out. I had to cry and beg and cause a small scene at my local friendly USCIS office, but they're used to that. Believe me, I've seen a lot of weeping and begging at that office.

With baby #3? Our agency may have to close down its Ethiopia program indefinately to restructure. There's a complicated story here, obviously, but I don't want to get into rumors and hear-say. I really don't know the full story anyway. But I do strongly believe that all the parties involved, Love Basket and the Ethiopian contact, have the best interest of the children in mind. I truly believe it is simply a miscommunication, maybe a difference of opinion on matching procedure. Whatever the reason though, unless our agency and their on the ground contacts can work out this confusion, the program will have to close until a new contact can be found and prodecures are re-written. I commend our agency for contacting its families ahead of time, and warning us that they may have to do the right thing to ensure transparency and ethics in adoption.

What does this mean for us? Well, we are waiting along with several other families for three weeks to see what transpires in Ethiopia. All could go well, and our process would continue as planned. If the next three weeks doesn't go well, then we'll have to switch agencies. That equals=loss of money, loss of time, basically this adoption going God's way and not Tiffany's way which always takes awhile for me to take a liking to. Grrrr....

Please pray with us that things are resolved quickly for the best interest of the children. Placement is life or death for many orphans in Africa, and delays like this, though God is in control of them, well...I just don't see how it's good for anyone other than teaching Tiffany patience and subservience. I'd hate to think I was learning this life lesson at the expense of a child. I really had my heart set on this baby coming home in the early summer, and now I need to accept that God's plan may be very different than that.

On a different note, Thank You, Tiffany Shaw, for taking our Christmas pictures this weekend! One of the pics she took is here. I'm saving the best for Christmas cards and later posts. The full color ones of the family in the leaves are fabulous!

And, PLEASE tell me what you see when you log onto my blog! Specifically, my header. It should be a black and white photo of Caleb holding my hand when he was 3 days old. It should say, "Namaste" on the top, and a few sentences of what that greeting means to me on the bottom. It should be BIG. The same way it has looked for a year. It still looks like this on Tim's mac and on my friend's pc. But on my computer, looking at it right now, it's just a sliver of what it once was. Very strange, and I don't know how to change it. This just happened yesterday out of nowhere. So tell me, BIG or sliver???

Happy December, by the way!

Adoption Update

Our homestudy for baby #3 is finished! YAY! In fact, ALL of our papers are done. We are just waiting for some of them to be notarized, and for the homestudy to be authorized, and then everything will be sent to our agency, Love Basket. They will check it, translate it into Amharic, and send it off to Addis Ababa. So, there are a few more little steps, but our prayer is that things will move quickly form here, and that everything will be in Africa by Christmas.
Our agency director told us last week that once in Addis, a referral could come in as little as a few days, or up to six months from that time. (It depends upon whether the orphans in the orphanage at that time are actually adoptable or not, or if their histories are unknown without papers that would get them legally into the United States.) Still, six months isn't a very long wait!
Honestly, this adoption process has been so much easier than it was for the other two adoptions. I don't know if it is because the Ethiopian process is easier (it is fairly straightforward and uncomplicated), or if because this is becoming old hat for us. Or maybe, we're just sooooooooo anxious to meet this new baby, and get to know this precious soul, that the paperwork, fingerprints, fees, notarizations, recomendations, and authentications don't seem like a hassle at all. I mean, what wouldn't YOU do, or pay, to get your child out of bondage? What ransom wouldn't you pay to set your child free from life in a third world orphanage without medical care, proper nutrition, clean water; to keep them safe, watch them grow, and give them a forever family? Christ paid a HUGE ransom for me-to give me life- abundantly-and a family, and I didn't deserve it at all. Children, on the other hand, deserve it. What's a few mounds of paperwork? ;)
If you have a few minutes, watch this video! It's famous in the adoption world, and beautiful. Steven Curtis Chapman wrote it after adopting his daughter from China. Blessings,

Time with Dad

Tim and J. have been spending a lot of bonding time together since he's been home. Last week, Tim took J. to get his citizenship cetificate at US Customs and Immigration. J. had a lot of fun manning the camera this day...J. has been a citizen of the US, technically, since his arrival into the US with US born parents-us. However, in order to prove such citizenship, one must apply for the N-600 through USCIS, pay a fee, supply mounds of documents, and go to the local immigration for an interview. After which, you are granted a certificate proving that you are actually a citizen. When must one prove he or she is a citizen of the US? I'm not sure....but Tim needed proof for his job, so we had to go through this arduous process. Tim did most of the talking for J.'s interview, obviously, and the little man passed with flying colors, and was warmly welcomed to the United States with a certificate lined with the same print as that that is on the US dollar.

Hmmm.... "It looks like money," I told Tim when he got home. "This paper IS money!" Tim replied. He's right, I guess, on all sorts of levels.

This morning, Tim woke J. up early, and they went fishing. They came home empty handed a couple of hours later. "The fish are all gone," J. explained. "J. need to go to Papa's house. Catch fish at Papa's house. Papa's house has LOTS of fish." So, Thanksgiving morning fishing wasn't a huge success, compared to fishing at Papa's house anyway, but they had fun and started a new tradition.

We wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving!

He's just too beautiful not to post

I'm shy...

I'm tough... I'm artistic (even when I shouldn't be...)

And I'm sooooooo handsome! (Notice his hair has almost completely grown in from the haircut incident. YAY! Now we just need to get everyones' stomachs recovered from the Cool Whip incident. I think I'm going to put bungee cords and alarms on our refridgerator! And the walls still need to be restored from the blue marker incident.... oh, toddlers...)

There is No Me Without You, by Melissa Faye Greene

I've pondered what I want to say in this post for a week, and I still can't figure it out. Hence, the shock approach. I'm not usually one to communicate a passion via the shock method, nor to evangelize via the hell-fire and brimstone tactic, but the orphan situation in Africa, Ethiopia specifically, is so horrific, so atrocious, and so...unfair... that it's the only approach that seems to communicate a tenth of what I feel about African adoption.

This is Yohannes. He is an orphan in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (where we are adopting). The boy in the picture is also Yohannes-6 weeks ealier. Yes, 6 WEEKS. In the picture=without HIV antiretrovirals. In person=with HIV antiretrovirals. It's called the Lazarus effect, and a simple drug regimine can take these children from the brink of death by AIDS to a manageable sickness that is no longer terminal. Why don't all of the AIDS orphans in Africa have these drugs?

In short=money.

Granted, the situation has gotten better since the patents expired for most of the current HIV drugs and generic companies are now allowed to produce them at reasonable prices. But the virus is mutating, as viruses do, and new drugs are needed. The poor-all over the world-will have to wait until the patents expire on these new drugs (about 8 years after the rich get to use them), before they can even consider buying the generic version. And even now, over 4 million in Africa need AIDS antiretrovirals (ARV's), while only 500,000 have access to them. Yohannes received his ARV's from WWO (World Wide Orphans).

I know some people are still hung up on HIV/AIDS as a self-inflicted disease; the "you got what you deserve" mentality. Though I believe in compassion for all, I'm not only talking about the African man who danced with infidelity and is now dying of AIDS. But I am talking about his wife and children. Consider these facts:

*It is believed that the benign (in humans) monkey version of HIV mutated into the deadly HIV we know today when it mixed in human systems with unsterile vaccinations that well-meaning doctors injected into millions in Africa in the 1950's. Whose fault is that?

*The WHO estimates that in the year 2000, 40% of injections were STILL done with reused needles.

*The WHO also estimates that these unsterile injections lead to over 100,000 new HIV infections a year, sixteen million Hep-B cases, and thirty million Hep-C cases.

*There were NO AIDS drugs in Ethiopia until 2005, and they still cost $140.00 per patient per year. That's a lot of money when the GNP is $156 a YEAR (up 5 from the worst in the world.)

*An orphan doesn't have $140.00 a year to buy life saving drugs.

*Patented antiretrovirals cost $15,000 a year per patient. The actual cost of production? Closer to $200.00 a year.

*In 2003, in America, less than 2% of babies born to HIV+ mothers tested positive for the disease. In Africa, in 2003, about 60,000 babies were born HIV+ to HIV+ mothers.

*Also in 2003, the Dr. to patient ratio was 1:134,000 in Ethiopia (nearly the worst in the world). Hence the mass vaccinations with reused needles at makeshift clinics.

*In 2005, Ethiopia had the highest number of AIDS orphans in the world (children made orphan by the disease, not necessarily + themselves) at 1,563,000. There are over 4 million orphans in Ethiopia from all causes, the second highest in Africa.

If you ever wondered from us, or have asked us

1. Why are we adopting from Africa?

2. Why Ethiopia?

3. What about HIV in African orphans? Do all AIDS orphans have AIDS?

4. What are these children coming from?

5. What are the conditions like in Africa for them?

6. What is the adjustment like for them when they arrive in America?

OR, if you just want learn the history of HIV/AIDS-all the way to its roots in monkeys in Africa-and how this disease is currently affecting humankind, how compassion can be shown to the victims, and who are the heroes of this fight, PLEASE read this book! If you are close to our family, and will be a major part of baby #3's life, I'm begging you to read this book. True, it speaks right to my passion, but I'm confident that it will touch your heart as well. There are heroes in the world today; Haregewoin Teferra being one of them, and there are many who need a hero, like 4 million of Ethiopia's orphans.

THERE IS NO ME WITHOUT YOU website where you can read more, and order your own copy: http://www.thereisnomewithoutyou.com/

Hope

Here are some pics from the past week. There are more of C. because Tim and J. went to buy a new F-150 on Halloween. Tim let Judah pick out the truck, and calls it "J.'s truck", so now J. goes everywhere telling people that he got a new truck! He enjoyed that much more than trick-or-treating. However, they both were train engineers that day for their school party. Thanks, Emma, for the costumes!

On Saturday, Tim and the boys got up before the sun to go to a Gleaning for Hope Farm. They are nation wide, and our church participates with one locally. These farmers reserve several rows of crops for benevolence purposes, and Saturday was sweet potato day. Tim and the boys picked all the potatoes they could, loaded them up in the new truck, and delivered them to an elderly neighborhood where some of the widows from church on a very fixed income reside. The boys loved digging in the dirt, getting messy, finding potatoes, and loading them into buckets. Unfortunately, the camera battery died shortly into this trip, so there aren't many pictures to work with. If you want to see something remarkable though, pull up a pick-up truck full of free sweet potatoes to an elderly village in the south. J. calls them "happy potatoes." There were many happy people today! Our homestudy for baby #3 is underway. We should be done with visits with our social worker by the end of next week, and we hope to have the report to our agency by the end of the month. As we sat on the couch with our wonderful social worker last night, I realized, "Wow! We have another baby coming home! This is really happening!" All of our paperwork should be done by the end of the year... and then we wait. Though the wait for a Filipino child is nearly two years, things move MUCH more quickly in Africa. Average wait times are 1-6 months. Happy Autumn,

A Family of Four

A friend called me this weekend to tell me that her husband's plane was supposedly coming in that evening. We thought maybe Tim was on it too. Since we were in town around that time, I went ahead and met my friend at the guys' work to wait for the buses to come in, just in case. And sure enough...Tim was on that plane! Nevermind that I had a wet head from the shower I just took and sweats on. NOT the usual look for picking up your husband from war whom you haven't seen in months! Oh well; it was better than a burka. The boys were elated. Caleb ran to him laughing, screaming, "Daddy! Daddy!" Judah took a little while to re-warm up to him, but all is well now. Tim is home for several months at least, we hope, and life is sooooooooo good! Thanks for all of your prayers during this deployment. Blessings,

P.S. Judah gave himself a very handsome haircut the other day. ;) So no, I didn't do that, and he isn't pulling his hair out in chunks. Evidently, giving oneself a haircut is fairly common for toddlers!