Tammy

They are not faceless.

Posted on November 15, 2015 by Tammy

So many sweet moments at the orphanage these past weeks.

I love seeing a child sprawled out on the floor coloring on newsprint. It might seem small, but when the child struggles with autism, pushed through her anxiety to lay on the floor to be traced, and then stayed on task to color — It is miraculous.

I love hearing the responses of my students when I pull something unexpected out of “the big art bag.” I carry all of my supplies back and forth from our apartment to the orphanage. I must admit, the anticipation of seeing what will come out of the bag can cause some of my dear friends to come unglued! This week, when I pulled out modeling foam, several children gasped out loud. Pure joy. I want to be more like my students.

I love seeing that children in the orphanage are normal kiddos. We used a spray bottle to blend washable markers on a coffee filter. Sounds random, but actually the process is simple for everyone and the results are amazing. One of the kids turned that spray bottle on me and gave it a big squirt. At my surprise the whole class roared in laughter. Yes, a little water fight broke out. We were damp by the end but feeling good after some belly laughs. All kids are tempted by water mischief.

Many moments are filled with laughter, joy and victory, but there are moments of tears and deep grief as well.

I love talking with my students. One class found out that a 13 year old boy has been chosen for adoption by an expat family who lives in our city. They were full of questions for me about this whole adoption thing. “Teacher, will he go to America?” “Does the family speak Chinese?” “Do you know them? Are they your friends? Do you have more friends who might adopt us?” The conversation kept getting harder and harder. Just when I thought my heart might break the conversation turned and they almost forgot about me. “Why do you think they chose him?” One teen asked another. “Oh, he is smart, short and can run fast. That must be why.” Tears came to my eyes as I saw the wheels turning in their minds. They didn’t say the words but the silence in the air was thick. They all wished they were smart and could run fast.

My students….they are normal kids who love to color while laying on the floor, enjoy a good water fight and get excited by something new to play with. The difference between them and most children – People don’t see them. So they are left to ask questions like….why do I get left behind. Why doesn’t anyone choose me? What is wrong with me?

Yup, I know this has gone from a sweet blog post to a downer. Welcome to my life – joy and sorrow mingle in my heart as I look into the faces of each of these children. Thousands of Chinese children are waiting, hoping and wishing for a family of their own. They are not a statistic. They are not faceless. They are my students. Let’s make sure they are not voiceless.

The best birthday gift would be….

Posted on October 9, 2015 by Tammy

I turn 40 this week. (My phone calendar even sent me a reminder just in case I forgot about it! HA!)

I have given it a lot of thought and have decided exactly how I would like to celebrate getting old. Because, my head is not buried in the sand…I have a teenage son, a daughter who knows what is cool (and I do not) and I am pretty sure my body creaks when I get out of bed in the morning. I am not even going to tell you the story of when one of my dears during homeschooling asked if I knew any of the Pilgrims. How old do they think I am? All that to say, I admit I am getting old.

I am embracing this birthday and I want to celebrate big.

How?

So glad you asked.

I would like my birthday gift to be a forever family for one of my favorite students. His birthday is this month too. He turns 4 years old. This month also happens to be Down Syndrome awareness month and his super power is Down Syndrome. Finding out that he has a family and will be adopted….that would be the most amazing gift! Would you pray that happens? Would you pass the word that he needs a family?

So let me tell you more about him….

He is beyond precious and may have one of the sweetest personalities ever known to man. He lives in a group foster home and attends kindergarten for special needs children. He knows his numbers, enjoys finger painting especially with the color yellow and always helps his teachers clean up after class. Although he is non-verbal, he expresses how much he loves his teachers by blowing kisses and often claps for his classmates to cheer them on during a project. He dances to music, is learning sign language and has a very large sweet tooth. Not surprisingly, this little guy is an orphanage favorite and the staff hopes he finds his forever family soon.

I wish you could meet him in person. The way he sticks his tongue out as he paints….well, it has captured this art teacher’s heart!

I would consider it a birthday gift if you would say a prayer for my 4 year old friend. Pray this is the last year he celebrates his birthday without a mom and dad of his own. Kids need families.

If you’d like to learn more about how you could adopt my 4 year old friend or other children like him who wait, please contact me. I’ll be glad to put you in touch with the folks at CHI who can tell you how to get started.

Back at it

Posted on September 27, 2015 by Tammy

If you don’t hear from me for the next 12 years it is because I am now homeschooling 4 children and it is kicking my tail! I have now done Kindergarten several times and really thought it would be no big deal to add it to our daily school business. Well reality has hit but we haven’t hit our stride.

All joking aside, we are working hard to get into a rhythm for the semester. Hubby has two weeks of classes under his belt (they are mostly literature classes again with a fun grad class to boot) and I have enjoyed two art projects with my special students at the orphanage. Play-dough and dot markers are a great way to start the fall.

On the home front we are tackling Kindergarten along with 3rd, 6th and 8th grades. Little Man was thrilled at first to have his own shelf of books and to be a “real” student. Three days in he was asking how many days we needed to do this school thing! Reality hits. The girls and I are digging in a bit deeper this year and exploring some creative elements in art and writing that have been over looked in the past. Hoping we can keep up the fun. Soccer Dude is testing the waters with online schooling and enjoying it even though there is a learning curve. Never a dull moment when a notice is posted on the apartment complex door that we will have no electricity when we were scheduled for a Skype meeting with his teacher and he was to do an online math test. In the end, we packed all the kids up and took the excuse to explore a newly opened Starbucks in our city. The kids joked that they felt like they were going to school in the States! I guess we don’t live in the backwoods any more if we are able to order a frappuccino!

All in all – we might not have hit a stride for the fall, but we are slipping back into routine and slowly recovering from our crazy summer. Soccer Dude even let me take his picture at Starbucks. He is looking good (thank you to the plastic surgeon in Detroit!) and all of his stitches have fallen out making eating so much easier. Now, if only we could find an allergy medication to help him with the hives he’s had since the dog bite.

Many have also asked how Little Man is doing. I sometimes forget he had such a major surgery at the beginning of the summer. He is back to his old self running around so much that there already is a crack forming at the toes of his prosthetic. I wonder if there has ever been a package shipped internationally with “foot” marked as it contents. We might ask our team of doctors in Florida to give it a try before we have toes fall off again!

Thanks again for all of your support and prayers as we have transitioned into the fall. His grace has been so real to us over the last few months and we know it will continue to carry us.

Home Sweet Home

Posted on September 12, 2015 by Tammy

Last night at dinner Soccer Dude casually mentioned, ” Hard to believe the last time I ate noodles at this table I didn’t have scars on my face from a dog bite.” It struck me again.

I have joked in the past that travel week for us is kinda like living out one of those sci-fi movies. You know, where you enter a time machine and arrive on a different planet and in a different dimension. We leave a world of grandparents, bagged salad, dryers, large yards with trees (and speaking English!) — to enter a world of friends, noodles, apartment buildings, and a college campus where we teach English and art. They are two totally different worlds and it can be unnerving to hop from one to the other. We really fit in neither, but love both…I struggle to wrap my brain around that, not to mention help my children navigate our two realities.

This summer has been extreme. HA, understatement! We went from our busy world in Asia to a world of hospitals, dentists, immunizations, doctor appointments — and did I mention doctor appointments?

In a way, it has helped us to be more thankful than ever to be back “home.” Surgeries are behind us. Little Man has a new prosthesis that fits and he is running again. (See photo of him during a walk through the woods!) Soccer Dude continues to heal and the stitches are dissolving. Life is moving on. We are beyond thankful for Father’s healing and our ability to come back to our Asian home.

It never felt better to walk in our apartment door. Starting the routine of homeschooling in our own space has been a comfort and facing a new fall has been a joy. There is no way we would be back here without the pr.yer and support of so many of you. It carried us.

A mentor always willing to take a phone call when we needed a sounding board, an ophthalmologist who fit Soccer Dude for contacts the last week we were in the States because his glasses were bothering the wounds in his nose, a pediatrician’s office willing to work us in to talk about hives and swelling, friends who drove an hour to play with us at a park and express their love and concern, friends in Asia calling and sending us gifts, a simple text message saying “we are pr.ying for you”….all these things (plus many more I could add to this list) carried us and reminded us of the love of a Father who provides.

So when we are weary from jet-lag, facing another busy semester after a crazy summer, when Soccer Dude breaks out in hives again…we have no doubt Father will provide.

Wow! This post has been full of lists! I am sure you could make your own list. How is Father providing for you this season?

Thanksgiving in August

Posted on August 30, 2015 by Tammy

We ate turkey dinner with all of the trimmings. Yup. It was August 19th and we pretended it was Thanksgiving and it was so very yummy (mostly because it was lovingly made by my mom!)

Even though it was a fake Thanksgiving, I still paused over the gravy bowl and took a second to realize how many things I have to be thankful for. Even just a week earlier I would have been hard pressed to visualize my whole family healthy and sitting around the dinner table. I am one thankful mom.

Two and a half weeks ago Soccer Dude was bit in the face by a large dog – a large well trained dog. It was a freak accident. Really. But as freak of an accident as it was, it landed our boy in the hospital for 5 days. He needed two surgeries to repair the damage and in the process we discovered he is allergic to several antibiotics. As you can imagine, none of us were happy about this turn in events. We were supposed to be having fun at my parents home in Michigan – not sitting around a hospital in Detroit. Every time Soccer Dude would introduce himself to the nurse coming on duty he would mumble between the hundreds of stitches in his mouth, “this is the worst summer vacation ever.”

At about the same time, Little Man was struggling with muscle weakness and the process of making a new prosthetic leg was not going well. The physical therapist who was helping us shook her head and told us he would need months of physical therapy.

So things haven’t gone as we planned this summer. It has been a ride. But, we are amazed at how two weeks and a lot of prayer can change things.

Soccer Dude’s face is healing and he has had no infection in his wounds. He is still struggling with crazy allergic reactions that are causing full body hives, and he has some swelling in his face. We are starting a new journey with him to figure out what all he might be allergic to…related to antibiotics, the accident and maybe even more. Let the fun begin! We would appreciate you keeping him in your thoughts.

Little Man – He has worked hard over the past two weeks and his strength is coming back. His story also is nothing short of miraculous. When the docs saw him Monday they were amazed and instead of recommending three months of physical therapy as they expected, they declared there no longer is the need. We were able to move forward in the fitting process of the prosthetic and he gets his new leg tomorrow.

There have been times this summer that I wondered if we would be able to return to Asia this fall as we had planned. We still have some loose ends hanging out there, but we are taking strides to be off this coming week. We are taking it one step at a time and are thankful for each small victory that takes a step closer.

Resting Comfortably

Posted on July 14, 2015 by Tammy

The first several days after surgery were rough, but we are seeing light at the end of the tunnel. Yesterday, Little Man was acting more like himself. His fever has broke, last night he slept through the night without pain medication, and this morning he is asking to go for a spin in his wheelchair. This mom is breathing easier!

He loves the wheelchair. Even when he was experiencing a lot of pain he was willing to push himself around. After a month of not being able to wear his prosthesis, mobility seems like pure heaven. He has mastered doing donuts and his favorite new game is pretending to be Pac Man. He chases everyone (ghosts) to eat them. Love hearing him laugh as he chases us – Don’t love those huge wheelchair wheels running over my toes! He has also figured out how to crawl without touching his leg on the ground. It is like some crazy knee lift push up while crawling. He is amazing.

This week we are focusing on his continued healing and exercising his leg to keep his mobility. It is more natural for him to keep his knee bent so they have given him a brace so that his knee doesn’t lock. Next week, we go back to the hospital for them to check his leg and fit him for a compression sleeve to continue the healing and prepare him for a new prosthetic.

We can’t thank you all enough for keeping him in your prayers. Our family feels very blessed by your love and support!

Surgery Day

Posted on July 10, 2015 by Tammy

We literally rolled in on our last wheel, but we are now in Florida getting Little Man all fixed up. We can’t sing the praises of Shriners Hospital in Tampa loud or long enough. They really are bending over backwards to help us care for our guy.

On pre-op day they discovered that even more was going on than we had anticipated. Rather than one bone spur needing to be removed he would need further amputation and reconstruction of his limb to remove old scar tissue. This is much more invasive than we had planned for, but since we were in good hands we felt confident with the direction things were going. Unfortunately, this means a longer recovery time, but we will take that one day at a time.

Yesterday was surgery. He wasn’t feeling very brave, but when they rolled a wii into his room as they prepped him for surgery everything else seemed less important. Mario Kart saves the day. Unbelievable that he could be woozy from pain meds and able to win a race.

Surgery went as planned with no surprises.

We spent the night in the hospital (and may be here another one) due to his history of infection. They are giving him iv antibiotics and pain medication. He is having a very hard time with pain because some of the meds that usually work just aren’t working in his body. Truly, this is one of the hardest things I have done as a mom. Hate seeing my baby in this much pain. He wanted to know if my leg was hurting because I was crying along with him. Sweet boy. No mom’s leg isn’t hurting…just my heart.

Would appreciate you praying for him that the pain would ease, that he would stay infection free, and that he heals beautifully. I am ready to be eating this boy’s dust again!

Virtual Gallery

Posted on June 29, 2015 by Tammy

When you pour your heart and creativity into a group of precious children it is so hard to see a semester come to an end. I dearly love each of my students and I seriously hate to say goodbye to them, even for a summer break.

This is my last week of art class for the semester, so we are ending on a high note of puffy glitter paint. I forget how much they love this stuff. The autistic kids love squeezing the tubes of paint, the sensory challenged crew love smearing the paint around the foam canvas, my special down syndrome friends express utter joy at the gift of a paint set to themselves, the CP kiddos are proud to manage the project all on their own…you get the point. Fun for all!

My sweet students were happy to end the semester with puffy paints, but for me…well,I am seeking a bit more closure. I am proud of my students and their art work. We have done some super fun projects, the kids have pumped out some amazing art, and I am thrilled that they have learned a few new skills along the way. I want to share the joy of all of that with you. Wish I had a gallery where I could proudly usher you around and tell you about each masterpiece and the amazing child behind it. Since I lack that – how about you pretend and indulge me by peeking through this virtual gallery.

Project: Oil pastel on black paper

Artist: a CP superstar who has mastered holding crayons and paint brushes this year!

Love doing this project with our kiddos who thrive in the abstract! It might look like scribbles, but this really is a masterpiece of a child who struggles to use his arms due to CP. There is victory in this finished product! He was so proud of his color choices and doing this all by himself.

Project: coffee filter butterflies

Artist: a creative thinking teen

Washable markers, coffee filters and a spritz bottle helped us to create butterflies after reading the “Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle. I am thankful that I found a bookstore that offers some of the classic children’s books I am familiar with in Chinese! We have been reading the books together and using them to inspire our art. During this project the kids felt like they were making magic as they watched the colors of the markers blend together as we sprayed the creations. The teachers loved the cute finished projects which they used to hang from the ceilings to decorate the classrooms.

Sometimes a blank page and a tray of paint can seem overwhelming, but with a stencil and a fun painting tool my special students feel free to dig in. I love watching them choose colors and ask for more and more and more paper!

Project: Stencil sponge painting

Artist: autistic sweetie who loves texture

The kids have been loving the Crayola watercolor trays that were donated for our classes. Usually, I print off some “coloring sheets” for the kids to paint. Then once they are “warmed up” I give them white paper and see what happens. This student came up with the idea for this painting on his own. He called it “Birds Flying on a Summer Day” It is such a happy painting. It makes my heart soar!

Project: Watercolor

Artist: A 13 year old creative thinker

You can tell watercolor is one of my favorites too. Here is another watercolor project – Crayon resist paintings. This project was so super fun! We drew on white paper with white crayons then painted over the drawings with watercolor paint. The paint makes the crayons creations pop! This was like magic for some of the kids! I can still hear the oohs and ahhs! I also was excited to see how clever some of my kiddos are as they tilted their papers to better see where the crayon marks were!

Project: Crayon resist painting

Artist: A special DS sweetie who LOVES color!

If painting is a favorite why not take it outside? We enjoyed a warm sunny day outside with our paint brushes and some cups of water. The teachers enjoyed the simple no mess nature of this project. The kids were thrilled with the endless canvas of the pavement. I LOVE, LOVE these Melissa and Doug paintbrushes with super sized handles – all kinds of fingers can get a grip on them!

Project: Outdoor water painting

Artist: A joy filled superstar with CP

We do scratch art about once a semester, but we could do it even more. The kids love tracing hands, coming up with their own designs, or just spending a whole class period removing the black and making a clean colorful paper! Each creation ends up so unique.

Project: Scratch Art

Artist: 10 year old buddy with a muscular disorder. He might walk slow, but his art work sure soars!

These are just a few of my favorites! Thanks for taking a peek at our gallery. I hope you see the heart of some special children in each of these creations. Pretty amazing to be doing art with these little people. I am truly blessed.

The Leg – Surgery it is

Posted on June 27, 2015June 27, 2015 by Tammy

Surgery has been scheduled for July 9th. Although it is a bummer that Little Man needs surgery, we really are seeing God’s provision in how all the details are falling in to place. His team of doctors in the States were able to review all of the information we sent them from here and they have concluded that there is a 90% chance that surgery will be needed. So we are getting ready.

The surgeon “happened” to have a slot for the surgery the morning after our already scheduled appointment so they switched it to a pre-op appointment and surgery will happen the next morning. Provision for sure!

The procedure is routine in the States – a bone reconstruction in his limb or in the words of our family “the doctors are going to fix the booboo in Little Man’s stub so that he can wear his prosthetic again!” That is what matters. It is killing our little guy not to be able to wear his leg. He likes to be on the move! I am afraid the frustration of immobility will be a theme for the next month if not more, but in the end he should be more comfortable than ever.

Our summer plans really are on hold while we seek the best care for Little Man. We had hoped to do a lot of visiting and speaking – now we might be making a lot of phone calls. We hope that you all will understand our lack of visits this time around as we focus on getting our little guy up and running again.

We for sure will be keeping you posted on how he is doing and how the process goes. I would love to hear any suggestions on how to entertain an active four year old while in the hospital!

Against the Norm – Leg Update

Posted on June 20, 2015 by Tammy

We live in a city where you often see adults with limb differences lying on street corners. They might be playing an instrument, singing, or painting characters with a paintbrush between their teeth. What they all have in common is a metal bowl sitting next to them to collect small bills. They beg for a living. People stand around and stare.

Our family gets stared at a fair amount, but it has intensified the past few weeks. People just don’t know what to do with us…we don’t all look the same and we go against the cultural norm. (Where we live, staring is not considered impolite. When you don’t know what to do with something, you just stare at it.) Usually, I take the stares in a stride. It is part of living here. I hate to admit that the past few weeks have been harder for me. The momma bear in me raises her ugly head when it is my son’s leg that is being stared at.

We were out for an evening walk in our loaner stroller (High five to a great expat community who is coming to our aid and helping us with our needs!) when we came past two grannies sitting on a bench. They live in our apartment complex and I have seen them a few times. I knew right away that they wanted to talk about Little Man’s leg. I started to bristle until my sweet four year old reached his hand over to the woman. They held hands as we talked.

“What happened to his leg?” she asked, and I answered with our standard reply, “He was born this way.”

“Oh, you are such a good person.” Again, I have a standard response for this common statement. “No. He is a good person and I am happy to have him in our family.”

“He is your son?”

“Yes, we have four children.”

This is where the conversation took a twist. Usually the conversation turns to how crazy I am to have so many children and how tired I must be! HA! I have a standard reply for that conversation too! Instead, my son, interrupted.

“Want to see my booboo? I can walk, but I am hurt right now.” I guess the English word booboo translates into Chinese because she understood! 🙂 He pulled up his pant leg and stuck out his residual limb to this unsuspecting granny. I felt myself cringe and I prepared my heart for the look of horror that would most likely come across her face. I had seen it so many times as folks stood around staring at us, staring at his missing leg.

That granny….she leaned down looked at his leg and while holding his hand said, “I am sorry you are hurt.”

Tears sprang to my eyes at the sweet, gentle nature of this old woman. To add to the healing power her words had on my soul, she looked up at me and said, “This boy will bring so much music to your home.”

I laughed as she told my son to be thankful he had a home to play music in and he would never play music on the street. Only a Chinese granny can be sweet and then fuss at you in the same sentence!

We live in a city where limb difference is equated with life on a street corner. To the man who helped me carry the large stroller off the bus, to the mom at the bus stop who told her son not to stare, to the granny who held my son’s hand…thank you. Thank you for going against the cultural norm.

Update: Little Man is doing much better.

The sore on his leg is finally starting to heal and this momma is breathing easier after two phone calls to our team of doctors in the States. I can’t say enough about Shriner’s Hospital in Tampa. They are just amazing! We still are unsure what the next month will hold, but we are confident that Little Man will have the best of care. This coming week the surgeon is reviewing x-rays that we sent to him from here. High five to technology!

The antibiotics are done, the pain has subsided, now the hardest part for our little guy…not being able to wear his prosthetic! It is hard for such an active guy to be slowed down. Thank you to everyone who is pr.ying for him!