ikea {socks on the windows} and lunch on a silver platter.

on the way home from CHOP on wednesday, we stopped at a really boring place. small. uninspiring. horrible. ok, actually it’s the opposite. it’s the best place on earth. cheap food, fun couches for the kids to test out (jump on) and ever endless amounts of things that seem to put themselves into everyones side-rolling cart.

the boys wanted to try out the kids playland. jing liu was exhausted and slept in the mai tai. so this mama had 30 min to wander around ikea without any children grabbing or whining or doing power slides in the kitchen wares section. i gotta say, my afternoon of leisure at ikea was divine. even if by "afternoon," i mean a half hour.

(ps. those are stuffed "rats" and "mice"?? seriously. that's just weird. but of course, my stuffed animal loving kids loved them.)

although this time i had to obey the budget (which is minimal at best) i did score some cheap curtains for the upstairs…the neighbors have been getting quite a show for the past 2 weeks since there wasn’t a curtain in sight when we moved in.

i also needed 7 curtain rods. uhg. who wants to spend money on those? but in the land of ikea, it’s not unusual to find $1.99 curtain rods with hardware. yes, $1.99 each. cha-ching. ikea, i love you all the more.

but before ikea, before playland and my leisurely afternoon, i had a philosophical breakthrough. breakdown? through? i don't know. nonetheless, at our meeting with the anesthesiologist (which, by the way, i am SO nervous out about jing liu having to be put under) i realized how much the past matters. in my own life, i never pay much attention to family history. it's always there. when i answer checklists for health insurance or a checkup at the doctor, i don't think about it. i just know. birthplace. sweet grandpa who died of colin cancer. cousin with diabetes. high cholesterol on my mom's side. etc. but in the past 6 weeks with emery, i've been asked so many questions that i will never have answers to...and it's made me perk up and realize what a sensitive issue "family history" must be to adoptive individuals later in life. case in point. the anesthesiologist had a LONG list of questions regarding emery's past and current health status. she asked me at least 30 questions, none of which i had the answers to. after the first 5, i said, "you could save yourself some time and just check "unknown" for all of these because I have no idea about anything before we met her." and the doctor replied "we have to ask you anyway, even if you don't know the answers." my brain was ready to explode by the time we were finished. i said "i don't know" a million times. all of the sudden, the unknowns are important. has she been under anesthesia? had surgery? allergic reactions? family history of diabetes? vaccinations? been exposed to communicable diseases? been subjected to abuse? has anyone in her family been diagnosed with cancer? has she ever been hospitalized? has she broken any bones? was she born premature? what was her birthweight? 

i'm praying already for her healing as she deals with her unknowns for the rest of her life. i pray for her later in life, when she fills out a random form that asks about family history. when someone asks her how much she weighed when she was born. it's one of those parts that i have no idea how to transverse. my love can't bridge this void for her. i guess we will take it as it comes...and trust that God will heal the areas of her heart and mind when she feels the pangs of the unknown.

until then, i'm filling her up with the things that we do know. like at our early intervention evaluation yesterday, we learned it's officially not just us who see "it". her something incredible. the sparkle. the way she discovers and learns life that is oh-so-fascinating. it's not just us who marvel at her. not just her brothers who clap with irate enthusiasm when she pulls to stand on her own. i no longer have to wonder if the incredible change over the past month is truly as amazing as we think it is, or if she is still lightyears behind her peers. yesterday proved we're not imagining it. it's fair to say she's incredible and not be overstating it. she is no longer a 15 month old with the abilities of a 6 month old...this chick scored as a 13 month old in 2 out of 3 of her evals today. 4 professionals sat on our living room floor, filled with a wealth of knowledge and love, and played and cheered and laughed and interacted with my girl for 3 hours. one of those ladies, sarah, met emery a few weeks ago when she came and did our did our initial consult. at that time, emery couldn't sit without falling over. she was still flailing and clawing when she got upset...the night terrors were at their peak...i was literally feeding her all.day.long...and i struggled to feel like we could communicate at all. when sarah walked in the door yesterday, emery was busy scootching across the floor chasing a ball. she flashed me the sign for "bottle" when she was hungry, and i beamed with delight as she showed me just how much she has changed. the clear theme of our 3 hour evaluation was "wow, that's amazing!! did you see what she just did? wow. that's all I can say is wow." her lowest evaluation came in at 10 months for gross motor skills, mostly because her arms are so weak and she is still wobbly on her legs. basically, she's incredible. plain and simple.

ok i'll stop bragging now. you get it. i'm nutso proud of her.

i stepped up my efforts to occupy the boys while we needed quiet, destractionless time with emery during these long evaluations and video taped university of delaware studies (UofD was here today. we've had a marathon week. uhg. too many meetings. i'm exhausted). i prepped an array of fancy lunch and snack items, set up movies on my laptop in their room, and earlier in the day we transformed their room into fort central.

it's as close to a tea party as we get in these parts.  apparently pb&j's taste much better when eaten off of a silver platter under a tent. when i came up to check on them (because it was eerily quiet), i found their clothes strung up on the tent chords and socks suction cupped to the windows. i love seeing what they find to include in their play. such imagination. geeze, i love these kids!

so that brings us to today. it's been a long one. one of those days that seems to be going well...we had moments that worked out great...like actually making time to do schoolwork with foster...but it was a day that even a small bit of disappointing news sends me into a tailspin because i don't even realize that i'm just barely hanging on. i'm ready for 2 days with clint around. he's so generous in giving me the time that i need to run errands, or work on projects, etc...but he is even more understanding of when i need rest, even if i rarely take his advice. and he's always right. so tonight, i'm working on craft show prep, against his better judgment. i'm sure he's right. i'm sure i'll wake up feeling horrible in the morning because i haven't rested in days...weeks...months. in fact, when have any of us rested in recent memory? i'd love to know the secret of getting everything done and still allowing for rest. both of those things elude me at all times. but maybe if i were well rested, i wouldn't care so much that i didn't get everything done :)