Category: Family

I have had one of those days.  You know the kind….the kind where I notice in the hallway of the school that I am wearing slippers.  The type of day that I forget to grab the backpack, am two steps behind the kids I am “watching” and five minutes late to pick up my own kids.

It all came to a beautiful climax when I was digging in our “very organized” art closet for Big Girl’s hand weaving project.  My digging in that closet isn’t unusual, the fire alarm going off because I forgot the oil warming on the stove for stirfry….well that is what made for an extraordinary moment.

Flames were leaping.  I jumped pretty fast myself – and felt fairly heroic for getting the burning pan out the front door.  My sense of pride quickly faded as I noticed that my children were then in the front yard screaming fire and the dog was half way to the community park trying to escape the loud alarm.  For the second time today, I realized that I was somewhere without shoes….running down the road chasing a dog trying to assure the neighbors that we did not need a firetruck.

Just one of those days.

I survived.  And I will survive again tomorrow.

More than once, Hubbie has caught my eye over the spilled milk, loud voices, and missing shoes to say with a grin- “four huh?!”

Yeah four!

What’s a bit of spilled milk?  I need to be humbled every once in awhile and show up in my slippers.  Now…..Running down the road in February in bare feet chasing the dog – is a bit over the top.  But hey, most great blessings don’t come cheap.

Monday was the day.  The first day of Spring Festival – or Chinese New Year!  It could have gone by without notice in our small Kentucky town.  There are no fireworks to mark the occasion (I must say I don’t miss the two weeks of constant firecrackers from our China days!), but we did manage to celebrate!

We enjoyed an awesome meal at a local Chinese resteraunt with our Wilmore Adoption Support Group.   Then we were off to the University of Kentucky campus to attend the Chinese Cultural Festival.  We enjoyed the dragon dance, fan dancers, acrobats, bubble tea, and traditional Chinese music.  I think the kids loved staying out so late!

Red envelopes with money for the children along with a new set of clothes to start the new year completed our celebrations.  It wasn’t the same as enjoying the holiday in China – but we did our best and enjoyed.

 

$8 for an order of dumplings.

$10 a ticket for the UK Chinese Festival.

$5 in a red envelope.

Our little monkey saying, “I love being Chinese.”  Priceless!

 

 

Sam declared that turning 10 has been the best birthday ever!  What made it such a great day?  Chinese food at home and a bike!  He was thrilled with both.

I must say our attempt at Hot Pot really is the closest we have come to some of the food we loved in China.  We found a new Asian market and now we are stocked up with the spices we were missing, rice bowls and a hot pot of our very own!  We ate so much we didn’t want birthday cake and the girls have already put in their request for hot pot for EVERY birthday from here on out! 😉   Fun had by all!

It was a day all about Beth….the good, the bad and the ugly.

It started out good.  She couldn’t have been cuter dressed in the pilgrim costume we had made out of a paper bag.  (Some school projects are timeless – I know I did that in Kindergarten.  Mom, you do that in the one room school-house too? ;-))  She walked in,  found us in the crowd,  gave us the thumbs up, and then proceeded to be brilliant while reciting her poems.  Definitely the GOOD of the day!  (Photo on left is what I got when I asked for her to “pose” for a picture of her pilgrim costume.  What a ballerina at heart.

The bad of the day….

While attending a Mom’s In Touch prayer meeting, Beth had a nasty fall that included an end table, her eye, and much panic on the part of her mother.  Nothing like a big crash and a screaming child to bring halt to a prayer meeting (and start-up a whole new type of praying!)

I normally am a pretty cool laid back mom.  When I reached my crying screaming child, I scooped her up and starting with the back pat.  No luck.  That is when I see the HUGE goose egg forming near her eye.  So I decide it is time to leave and go home for Tylenol.  By the time we are to the van it has doubled in size.  Okay, scratch the home and tylenol plan, maybe we should head to the pediatrician’s office.  Calm call to the hubbie and we are on our way.  Peek in the rear view mirror to see the bump still growing, eye almost swollen shut and child half asleep.  Who did I say stays calm?  Another U turn and change of plans as I head to the ER.  Now I am the mother who is trying not to cry while running into the ER with my child tucked under my arm.

“Birthdate?  What?  I don’t know?  Hers?  Mine?  Just point me to the DOCTOR!”  Very cool and calm, wouldn’t you say?  The story should go….once she was being taken care of by professionals that I regained some control.  But as every nurse in the place gave a dramatic “ohh, ouch” when they saw my baby – when they rushed her in for a head scan – when the doc says, “Let me just say that usually with this much swelling there is a broken bone – ”  well you fill in the story.  Did you just catch the part about her having a broken bone in her face?!  Not calm material in my book.

Thankfully the “bad” of the day did not turn into “ugly.”  The scans all came back looking good.  No broken bones.  Our brilliant four year old happened to hit a blood vessel just right to cause all that swelling.  Amazing!  A mild concussion and a bad black eye really is a decent way to end the day.

I will have to post a photo soon.  Her eye is amazing.  She saw herself in the mirror and she said, “I look like a young old lady!”  That is when I calmed down.   Her head is fine.  The funny comments are still in there.  We are back to normal!

Beth – our lover of all things sweet and huge fan of dress up – has decided that Halloween really is the best holiday ever!  Class parties, carving pumpkins, Candyland Walk at Asbury College and a fall party at church – what a weekend!  Sam decided he was to “cool” to dress up for school, but when it came to the fall party, well he compromised.  Flannel shirt, his Tibetan hat and a dollar store cap gun = cool cowboy outfit.  Actually, I think it was an excuse to carry around a gun to torture his two sisters.  Accomplished.  The girls dressed up in something different for every party.  (The girls have not out grown their love of dress-up!)  Ruth was a butterfly, a ballerina and Belle.  Beth landed on Repunzil and an elephant.  We got our moneys worth out of the dress up box this week!  Here are a few photos from the fun.

Having the hubbie gone for a week is good for me.  It always reminds me of how involved he is and how much he does around here.  I am not sure how he juggles going to school full time, working full time and still be a constant presence – but he does.  And I have thought of that often as I spent extra time in the van carrying kids to and from ballet and soccer, juggling homework help and making dinner, dried all the tears myself, put out all the fights (okay, well stopped most of them by separating the kids) and was the one up in the night with the bad dreams.

The girls always seem to go into a bit of a tail spin when Bryan is gone.  Nightmares, extra tears and drama are par for the course.  As I was in the midst of a big old drama (I will spare you the details!) I did realize that they are fewer and far between.  6 months ago when Dad was in Peru it seemed like the tears and drama didn’t stop for the whole ten days.  This time – bedtime is hard, but not nearly as bad.  Praise The Lord!   I guess we are finally feeling settled.  Beth has been established in our family enough to know that Daddy has not abandoned us, and will return.  Ruth is settled enough in our new home that she isn’t fearful of every bump in the night.  These are HUGE accomplishments.  Samuel is also going through a change (what is it about 4th grade that is growing my little boy up?!)  He says “I am the man of the house and I will help you out mom.”  So sweet.

So where is Bryan this week?  He is on a “scouting” trip in Nicaragua.  The goal of this six day trip has been to evaluate the need of the local church and see how we can partner with churches in the States to help.  Specifically he was going to look into ways to train church leaders and how to help with feeding stations for street children in the area.  Bryan called yesterday.  The first thing he said…”I have never seen poverty like this before.”  Seriously?  At first I didn’t believe him.  We are well traveled and have seen a lot.  “Worse than the squatter villages in Peru?  the orphanage in Africa?  the street people in China?”  I pushed him.  “Worse.  Tammy they are living on top of a garbage dump.  We need to do some work here.”  The call ended shortly after.  I heard the passion in his voice – we will see what plans come out of this trip.

The drama began again last night at bedtime.  The tears were coming and frankly I was grumpy too.  Beth (who forgets regularly where Bryan is) asked again why Daddy wasn’t there to kiss her goodnight.  Last night instead of trying to explain where Nicaragua is, I simply told the kids, “daddy is helping feed some starving children.”

That doesn’t make us miss daddy any less, but there is a purpose behind him being gone.  I think it is good for our kids to remember not all kids go to ballet, have three choices of yogurt in the morning followed by two more meals in the day.  Those kids don’t have a daddy who is usually home providing security to their lives.  We can survive sharing him for one week.

After a five day visit with grandparents – we are experiencing the big crash.  You know, the “we have to entertain ourselves, eat normal food and aren’t going anywhere fun” day.  Against popular belief (meaning Sam, Ruth and Beth) Mommy has a hard time the day after Grandpa and Nana Shirley leave too.

Before crash day we did have a blast with Bryan’s folks.  The highlight – a trip to the apple orchard.  Here is a peek at the fun: