the plight of the ugly pants {with a side of internet comatose}

i'm on week 3 with no internet. i'm not sure i will survive another day. if you find a nearly comatose lady curled up in a pathetic ball of twitching nonsense, just pass on by.  i've been shocked to learn how much i miss it...and therefore find it necessary to feel the void so i can overcome it. on the other hand, can i really live without it? who can in this day and age?  important stuff like online banking and googling things and ordering photo prints, and, well, blogging. they all go by the wayside. phone internet just isn't the same. my blogging brain is all clogged. when i fail to blog, i fail to remember anything. if it doesn't make the blog, my brain has no memory. as if i've been zapped by the men in black. is it this phase of life? have i lost brain cells in the past few years? i digress.  what was I talking about? i forget. :)

em (as her brothers call her) has palate surgery on monday. we will be in the hospital at least 2 days. i'm more and more nervous each day. when i look at her, i want to cry knowing what is coming, and the pain she will experience.

she's been so much more and more relaxed as each day passes. she scootches around and plays so happily. her number one goal is to catch up with her brothers and try to swipe any nearby toys. she's pretty darn effective at the toy swiping. the climbing. the standing and reaching. in fact i turned around earlier today and found her sitting on a box. on the TOP of the box. she climbed her way up there somehow. i pulled her down, and in an instant she was back up. she's crafty, this one.

i'm praying and praying for the next few days and weeks. praying God will use me to comfort her when she is in pain. please join me in praying for this sweet little gal on monday. her surgery will start around noon or so. please pray for fast healing,  and for her sweet little spirit...that we won't backslide in our bonding...that no complications will arise.

we are also rather stupidly making craft show items for next weeks' show. everyday we ask each other if we should cancel. at this point, i've spent so many hours, i just can't cancel. i'm one all nighter away from being totally done...that way i can spend all next week with emery instead of worrying about finishing crafty things. i've even been able to sew in small increments throughout the day when the kids are playing....something i used to do all the time before emery...and its been a pleasant surprise to see i can have 20 min here and there to stitch a few things.

the boys love to help me sew. wait, let me rephrase...they love to "drive" the sewing machine. i always wonder how long it will take for me to get my finger sewn to a piece of fabric because they get a little trigger happy.

from time to time, they like to think of things to make and then see what we can come up with. today it was scrap fabric pants. after we made makeshift (horribly ugly) pants, one little boy decided he really didn't care that much about them afterall, and another little boy decide he didn't want to ever take the ugly pants off. he is still wearing them at this moment. they are hilariously horrible.

it poured rain today. cool, refreshing, make-all-my-wipe-off-markers-smear, rain. we spent a lot of time gazing outside. wishing it was sunny. going so stir crazy that i almost wanted to run far far away...and after i decided it's better to stay stateside, i threw those wild boys in a long shower with lots of cars and trucks to wash...they laughed for 45 min. it was the perfect rain cure. now if only i can find time to take a shower of my own. :)

this sums up the truth about me.

thank you stephen for exposing my true feelings about life. :)

is anyone else cold? {sunday climate}

it's september. i usually love september. but i'm laying under a blanket, fully dressed in my daytime clothes, because its south of 50 degrees and much too chilly to even think of re-donning attire. oh and I'm lazy. perhaps that is the truer fact.

i awoke this morning, still dressed from yesterday, making it easier than ever to pop out of bed and start the morning routine including breakfast and pillow hopping on couches and bananas thrown all over the floor I just scrubbed. oh and me leaving my coffee on the floor (where I was sitting with emery when a certain little boy fell off of a couch doing a certain pillow jump and needed assistance). it was after i got distracted after the pillow injury, and after i headed into the kitchen to warm up my coffee, that I realized I had no idea where my coffee was. oh but emery knew. boy did she ever. floor meet coffee. coffee meet floor. i'm sure you two will be very happy together. or at least matchmaker emery seems to think so as she dips and splatters, dips and splatters with her very effective hand dip maneuver.

and my son foster says to me, as he rips off his flanel spider man pj shirt, while throwing a ball that nearly takes out a local lampshade, "mom it's so hot in here, my underpits are sweating!!"
underpits. perhaps my new favorite saying.

i'm shivering and his underpits are sweating. clearly we live in different climate zones. isn't that so true of life sometimes? different climate zones, same continent. one big happy family.

one big happy Sunday morning family. evening church = leisurely morning. kids squealing giggles while daddy does his sleeping spider impression with boys sneaking up for ambush. they never make it. 'sleeping' spider always attacks. they always attempt ambush. it repeats and never gets old. clint makes the best coffee. it tastes better than when i make it. he refills my cup when i'm not looking. somehow Sunday mornings never feel rushed the way midweek does. the way Friday seems to fly by. Sunday feels slow. gloriously slow. delightful and perfect. it makes me wish for a world of Sunday. even if i'm shivering and foster has sweaty underpits. Sunday puts us all on the same continent and we're stuck there. and we love it.

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 :)

canvas ladies

i've been seeing these canvases popping up all over the place. and although i think they are lovely, i wasn’t convinced i wanted to spend the money on one. (see previous coupon insanity involving picture people circa 2008). my innate “get a good deal” savvyness perked up when i got an email giving me the opportunity to test drive a picture to canvas of my own. let me think about it YESOFCOUSE i will. where do i sign?  i've since become a believer.

at the time of the test drive email, we were 2 weeks away from meeting emery and my brain was in ultra spin mode.  so i waited. and when we got home, i had grand plans of using some of the professional shots we have of our family. but as i started looking through photos, i remembered how many i have from china and i want to have them as mementos throughout our home. i came across this one…the last photo i have of her and i together in china…and i knew it was perfect.

the great thing about this canvas is somehow it made my so-so photo composition look even better! i‘m in love with this photo because of what it means to me…i‘d love for her to be looking at the camera, or smiling, or for the exposure and white balance to be better…but it captures exactly who we were at that moment. i look at it and remember how that day felt. it felt beautiful.

i still don’t have the right spot to hang it. we are somewhere in between moved-in and still-needing-to-paint, so the kids rooms are still in limbo. emery's room is going to be a light grey (my new favorite wall color). hopefully after my craft show prep mayhem is over, i’ll have time to paint. well maybe after the craft show and after palate surgery. ok, after craft, palate, lip. then i’ll have time. i’ll be able to run circles around bystanders with all of my free time. then i’ll paint and perfect and actually do pinterest ideas.

until then, this gem is hanging out on a stray nail from the previous tenants (thank you whoever you are) and looking quite adorable.

the post in which i over post leggings {because i just can't help myself}

this post has nothing to do with leggings. but i haven't had time to unload photos from the big camera. mostly because it's a pain to transfer them to my husbands computer (which i am on now) and then even more mostly because i love this chick in leggings and i will forever post leggings photos excessively.
the disclaimer portion is now over.
good. i can get on with it.

wait, first things first...

now that my first in a slew of limber stripes is out of the way, good gracious there is a lot to say. i'll never get it all out. especially with the piles upon piles of unfolded laundry.
(seriously, if your laundry is all folded, i will ever applaud you. you are my hero. piece de resistance. i tip my ever un-folded hat to you.)
life feels too exhausting right now. but sometimes that's when i come up with the best stuff.
as of today, i've entered insanity. i started plotting my craft show creations.

12 bundles of yarn and 12 straw wreathes later, i'm realizing some lady needs to carve out time to wrap those babies and then make some outstanding accoutrement flowers to accompany them...and that lady is me. i'm literally giddy with excitement to have a reason to stay up into the wee hours that doesn't involve packing or unpacking or cooking. (at the last minuet on friday i decided to enter the realm of OAMC. i nearly collapsed by the end of the weekend after cooking all night for 2 nights, but on this side of things, i have nearly enough meals for 1.5 months if we plan carefully and eat our leftovers. oh the joy of forgetting how agonizing it was. i might just do it again :)

have i mentioned my 3 year old mr rowan has been all out of sorts since we came home with emery? other than a few sleep issues and irate crying during the first 2 weeks, little lady has adapted so well, it's scary. mr 5 year old foster has also adapted amazingly well. it's as if the change brought out the best in his skill set. he's crazy amazing with her. so patient. so loving. he even giggles when she slobber kisses him on the mouth. now that is love, folks. 'cause her slobber kisses taste like boogers :)

but rowie, oh dear. although i know he loves her, kisses her feet constantly, and plays the most adorable games with her, he has not been in love with his mommy being unavailable throughout the day.
in fact, he has thrown every tantrum/floor-punching/throw-down-knock-out/terror-ridden/ear-piercing scream in his arsenal. at me. at everyone. at life. for nearly a month and a half. i'm out of ways to deal with it. totally out of ideas. loosing my mind to think of ways to move it in a more positive direction. at times, i'm quite sure it will never end.  i never known him to be so unhappy for such long periods throughout the day. sometimes it feels like all day. or maybe it feels like all day because it is. as if someone captured my sweet buddy and returned a monster instead. as if his screaming/tantruming is AT me. directly at me. so i know just how much he dislikes the change.

and then yesterday happened. i thought for sure it was a fluke. a mirage. an accident. our day was pleasant. he was pleasant. when he started to freak out, with a quiet word, he calmed. he changed his attitude and the tantrum was over before it started. it was like we went back in time. a cool breeze floated through the house and coaxed us all into wonderment.  i decided to consider it an anomaly.

then today. a long day. we were in the car a lot, i was holding emery a lot, in and out of stores, dropping foster off and picking him up from school (45 min away from home). to my surprise, it was pleasant. fun, even. he was delightful and helpful and best of all, snuggly. we held hands a lot. he stuck with me all through the house. all through the stores. all through our lunch at the park. after dinner we were all pooped. we watched a movie together, and he snuggled on my shoulder while i fed emery a bottle. if i had to move or adjust, or reach, he did too. he found his niche. it's not exactly the same, but i think he realized we can still be close and snuggle and be near each other...and emery being there is ok too. it feels normal for him. finally. i needed a few good days like my husband needs a tall glass of ice tea. i needed it bad.
praise the Lord for good days. can i get an amen?

praying tomorrow is another day like today. because we are headed to CHOP for a pre-op appointment and the boys are coming with me.
have i mentioned that foster is very upset about jing liu's surgery? so upset he starts tearing up when we talk about it. he keeps asking if she has to have it. he's so sad to think she will change or look different. so we talk about it. we talk through it. it's a normal thing around here to talk about stitches and anesthesia and facial structure and how things bleed and how things heal. i'm hoping that meeting the surgeon and talking with the doctors will help calm his fears.
we've also started talking about pain. how we can help when people around us are hurting. i want them to know they have an imporatant...nay, vital role in their sister's recovery. because it's true. she reacts to them. they make her smile in a way that lights up an entire continent. in the end, the life lessons our family will learn will be ever valuable to life. to our legacy. all because of one little girl and what she brings to her family. we all bring something unique and special. family members change and mold each other. being present to watch the shift occur in our family is something i will always treasure.

we are less than 2 weeks from surgery.

so i confess 2 things.
(1) upon excepting emery's referral (which is a story i should tell one of these days) i had never seen a baby with a cleft lip/palate in person. a year or two ago, i could have never imagined loving a cleft lip. that was last on my list of needs i wanted. sad, but true. OH PRAISE GOD for the way He softened my heart. what on earth would i do without her?? if i had closed my heart to the option. if i had hesitated longer at the "cleft lip/cleft palate" box on the special needs acceptance list. can i just advocate for a moment? can i just say that if you are scared of cleft babies...if they make you uncomfortable (like i was). get over it. have the faith that your heart will melt when you meet one of these precious lipped individuals in person. because i guarantee you will never ever meet a cuter child. never ever.

(2) when i finally met her in person, oh dear lord. every. single. part. of. her. was my favorite part. i could talk endlessly about how beautiful she is. novel worthy. in fact, i'm sure i'll spend the rest of my days gushing about her. but her lip? nothing on earth could be cuter. i kiss her cleft a thousand times a day because it is so breathtaking to me. she is breathtaking.

upon returning home, i expected to be up in arms when we went places with her. i expected to get the "are they all yours??" question. or the "how much did she cost??" or "are you her real mom?" questions. i prepared my forced smile and cheeky (or snide) replys. but much to my pleasant surprise (so far) we've been met with such sweetness. men, women, young, old have approached us when we are at target...restaurants...the park...and made comments about how cute she is. how lovely. how precious. and i beam.

but today at the park, we were sitting in the grass. miss emery was chomping on a banana. mr. rowie was eating yogurt. several little kids walked by. they stopped right in front of us and stared. literally 2 feet in front of where we were sitting. they started right at her. they glanced quickly at me. i smiled and said hi. no response....the gaze went right back to emery. zoned in on her banana eating lips. they couldn't figure her out. the stare lasted longer than it should. i said hi again, but their stares were so intense that they couldn't hear me. it continued so long, we just went on about our bananas and yogurt. we played and talked. serously. it was strange. uncomfortable.

they are just kids. i'm not upset at them. i am upset for her. for that kind of attention. she deserves to be seen as more than a kid with a cleft lip. because she is so much more than that. so from here on out, i'm praising God for her surgeons. i'm looking forward to the change. even if in my heart i'm dreading it.

and that's enough of my cleft soap box.

back to my kitchen overhaul and glass of wine. oh and somewhere in there i'll fold some laundry.
or maybe i'll just go to bed and hope i fold it tomorrow :)

donning our very worn and now “old clothes bin” pj’s, we took advantage of the first day without rain in recent memory. we had a morning that resulted in lots of water and mud. the kind of morning that warrants a slight amount of awe and wonder as to how on earth i will manage to get them all cleaned up enough to get upstairs and in the shower. it’s the best kind of morning.

little girl had her first experience with sand and a bucket of water. after 2 hours, she was still playing happily. apparently, it’s her new favorite thing…much to the delight of her brothers.

after they got bored of the buckets and my project of “washing” all of the outside toys, the decided to do what boys do best:

the house has resumed peace again.

my attitude feels joy in the midst.

there's still wildness and laughing and chasing and the "he hit me" or "he's looking at me" incidents...

but within those, there is still peace.

it feels wonderful.

oh and i got my internet fix, finally. thanks to clint and his work computer with internet port. eesh. i was beginning to get the shakes :)

can i wear these tomorrow??

leggings might just be my most favorite item in emery’s closet. her wanna-be-thunder thighs are now almost wide enough to support them. and seriously, could anything be cuter?

now if only i could pull off the same look. perhaps i’ll host a throw-back 80’s party so i have a reason to try.

the internet, or lack thereof {just call me grumpy old yeller}

we are totally out of the loop around here. not only are the doctors visits and physical therapy and pre-ops taking over life, but I can't seem to make it back into the real world. partially and completely due to the fact that we decided to try to save money and not get cable and internet. seriously. i'm going into withdrawals. cable tv i can live forever without, but the internet? oh dear. how pitiful and sad that i can't live without this luxury. my photos are all stuck on my computer. blog posts waste away in my brain (perhaps that's where they should stay) and i have no idea what's going on in the world. i just called clint and admitted i can't take it. i need it. we made it one week. he is calling today to order some world wide web therapy.

season. it's a season. but at the moment, it feels long. not unbearable...nothing like the waiting...oh dear, nothing compares to that. I have so many friends in the waiting phase...waiting for their babies. my heart aches to think about it.

it's just that i crave the goings on and in of the dear ones in my life, and in the foreseeable future we are booked solid. play dates have disappeared from the schedule. in fact, i called today and canceled 2 weight checkups and emery's 15 mo well baby. she'll see plenty of docs in the next 2 months. no need for anything needless. besides, my girl is getting a minor case of thunder thighs...beautiful, pinch-able thighs.

i hesitate to post the next part. I'm all for keeping things light and filled with lovely photos. but since the internet strike is wining the photo access war, I'll just go ahead and be honest. I'm sure someday I'll look back and be glad. or at least I hope so.

we've had a semi good week...with moments of chaos surrounded by me having the crummiest attitude ever. and it effects everyone. the saying rings true: "when mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy."
i don't want to blame it on hormones, or moving or the crazy schedule. it's deeper than that. i snapped on some level. yesterday was the low point.

at 7:30am the carpet guy came to replace the nasty carpet on the stairs in our apartment. at 7:30am when we were supposed to be walking out the door to emery's 1st physical therapy appointment at CHOP. i was supposed to have 3 kids dressed with shoes on and bellys full of breakfast for the long day ahead. supposed to have packed lunches and toys and a pile of paperwork and directions and a referral. supposed to have a calm peace to start our long and surely trying day. none of those things happened at 7:30am. well, except for the carpet guy. he was there just in time to catch quite a show. i was in rare form.
emery, who is very mild mannered, has one really frustrating, and not very mild habit. she insists on throwing food. sometimes because she is done, but sometimes because she thinks it's fun. she puts food in her mouth and then rips it out after it's nice and slimy and sticky. it is only then that she chucks it behind her, around her, or on my pants. yesterday, it was avocados, which is usually a grand favorite. she decided the floor was more fun than her mouth. foster tried 7 times to find his socks upstairs and 7 times came down with a car and not his socks. rowan got up from his breakfast 47 times and wandered around. 47 times I told him to sit down and eat.

at my lowest point, i yelled at them. a real yell. the kind i've rarely ever uttered. my 3 kids who are just being kids. kids who don't understand why mommy is stressed out. why the day needs lunch and paperwork and keys and referrals. they just know to be kids.

i'm not a yeller. so my crazy outburst was followed by silence....3 somber shocked faces...and one pitiful and defeated mama. oh and then screaming from emery followed in addition to even more excessive food throwing.
instead of making it right, i kept my storm if ugliness blowing through the house.
as i scurried around throwing random things in my bag, none of which included important paperwork, directions, or house keys.
(little did i know, 5 hours later we would return to find ourselves locked out of the house...and i would find it neccisary to swipe a shovel to lift the window and then hoist foster through. for foster, it was a grand hero moment. for that reason, I'm glad it happened :)
clint caught my eye. i grumped past him in a huff of irritation.
"this stuff happens." he said with his usual calm. "you're a mom, remember?" he has such a way of speaking truth without judgement. it's truly a gift.

the mood was bad when i loaded the troops in the car. i knew only i could change it.
so i started where i should have started initially.
i sat in the front seat and paused. i breathed. i begged God to forgive my resentment. my annoyance. my irritation at the little things i need to find joy within.
then i apologized and asked the kids to forgive me for yelling. for having a horrible attitude. for being a stressed out mommy.
and that's the thing about kids.
they don't know judgment yet. they don't hold grudges against me.
they just forgive and move on.
i decided no matter how i felt, i would fake my joy until it arrived.
so for the next hour in the car, i told stories. they laughed and smiled and begged for more. i reached back and held emery's hand. in no time we were at CHOP.

and at some point, my ugliness passed. I didn't need to fake it anymore.

I found my joy just in time to see the shocked face on the PT specialist when she met emery. when emery shocked a room full of people by pulling to stand, cruising along a bench and passing each exercise with flying colors. the PT specialist had previously cleared her schedule in preparation for meeting emery's needs after reading her chart. she had previously scheduled emery to come 2 times a week for 6 weeks. emery, the little girl who could barely sit up and couldn't bare weight on her arms or legs a month ago. after meeting her, she canceled the future appointments...canceled them because of emery's rockin awesomeness. we can now use the FREE early intervention PT. emery is close to removing "failure to thrive" from her charts. I can't wait for that day. when that label is gone. her feisty food chucking spunk that doesn't let anything stand in her way. even a mom who cops an ugly attitude.

when mama's happy, kids are happy. or is it more than happy? I think joy is more descriptive. the kind that isn't effected by moving boxes or flying avocados or lost socks. a God provided joy that I lost sight of this week. i picked up my reading in acts his morning. I seriously need a grip on life...what I'm going through is nothing compared to being thrown in jail or beaten for an outspoken belief in Christ. I need heart attitude healing. but that's the thing about God...
He doesn't hold grudges against me.
He just forgives and move on.
forgiveness is a beautiful thing.
and boy have I needed it this week.
sent from my iphone

new digs

at long last, the move is over. it's been a brutal few days and at certain moments i wasn't quite sure i was going to survive, or at least not with my sanity intact. after clint and i moved all of our furniture, kitchen and random items out of storage during our midnight madness, we thought we were in the clear. not so. apparently living in limbo for over a year gave way to so much volume that it took 4 cars and a truck to get our clothes, toys, and everyday living items to the new digs. oh and 4 extra ppl (our last minuet saviors who know us too well, and graciously arrived to help). somehow the little things i kept thinking i would pack at the last minuet, morphed into a monstrous load of great proportion. i've since vowed to get rid of half of our stuff. already gave 7 boxes to the goodwill. at least 7 more to come this week. oh stuff. i wish we didn't need any.

we slept at the new place last night...or should i say clint and the kids slept. i went into crazy- compulsion-refusal-to-sleep mode. no matter how exhausted i felt, there was no way i was going to wake up to a house filled to the brim with boxes and chaos and disaster. filthy floors with babies crawling on them are one my top 5 pet peeves (right up there with the use of the word "moist" eww) and there's no way jing liu was setting foot on these floors. so i organized and unpacked and scurried until the wee hours of the morning. i fought of every inclination of sleep and nearly had the downstairs totally livable. even washed all of our scummy-sat-in-storage-for-1-year dishes and steam cleaned the floors (jaclyn, i thought of you dear friend & your love of floor cleaning...wish i had a steam cleaner years ago! makes all things feel fresh and new). around 4am, i was making my 100th trip to the 3rd floor with an armful of boxes and the power went off. for no apparent reason. the neighbors all had power, but we were in total darkness. at that exact moment i was in the basement with an armload of junk. FYI: new house + no lights is the perfect storm for toe stubbing and loud tripping over invisible items.
i think the power loss was God's grace on my sleep deprived soul. or perhaps if it takes a power outage to make me stop obsessing and go to bed, then maybe there are some other issues that need to be dealt with :)
regardless, i got a few hours of sleep, and when i awoke, the power was back on as if it had never been off. hmm. maybe my brain had a power outage and i created the blackout in my subconscious :)

the kids are crazy busy enjoying the many toys and fun things that have been in storage. you'd think we held a toy store hostage and made it puke all over the 3rd floor playroom from the looks of the sheer volume. they don't know it yet, but the toy room is on my Goodwill list as well.

how is it that i find zillions of great and clever ideas when i don't need them? i'm having visionary block looking around this place. blank canvases are a hard place to start...especially with a zilchy budget. since we don't have the internet yet, my pinterest obsession has been relinquished to scrappy moments throughout the day on my phone. eesh, i need to get some fresh ideas fast.

we are t-minus 3 weeks from emery's surgery, with lots of dr visits, PT, pre-op and early intervention sessions between now and then. the kicker is clint and i decided to go all craft show gung-ho and registered to be vendors at several craft shows this fall...the first is the weekend after emery's surgery, which we didn't know when we signed up. soo, next week starts craft show prep around these parts...maybe it will end up being worth our time...rephrase: please oh please be worth our time.

goodnight from unpacked and partially put away land.

mr. helpful {chore charts}

i've been procrastinating to make these for a while now. i've been eye balling a bunch of these on etsy and pinterest, and in a crazed moment last week, i nearly bought 3 of them with a zillion magnets. then something happened. perhaps it was the looming boxes threatening to crush me at any moment, but i finally buckled down and found a way to use what i have and make them myself. although, i'm no longer calling these "chore charts". since it won't be long before my gung-ho chore happy boys become disgruntled at the thought of chores, i decided these would be know as the "mr. helpful chart" to promote being a part of a team and helping out our family. we work hard together because we're in this together, not just to get a reward or allowance. i want little boys who naturally grow up to be helpful. and in a short while, those little boys will be big boys...and hopefully the training we are doing now will reap benefits later.
(i'm planning on instituting "tv/computer" time rewards, or something like that, but i can't decide how to do it. ideas??).

and i threw in a morning routine. i have a feeling they will grow out of this one pretty fast, but it's cute :) i couldn't help it! oh and a school itinerary for our day. foster will L O V E it!!

since i don't have fancy photoshop, i made these in Word using lots of google images and printed on vellum (my favorite paper product. i use it whenever possible). then i put cardstock i found laying around behind and laminated them so they work as white boards as well. the "mr helpfuls" have magnets on the back so they can go on the fridge.

total cost for all 6 = $34 (laminating was the most expensive part) + magnets and clear circles which i somehow had on had.

and we shall be known as the midnight movers

that's what they'll call us.

they being the neighbors in vicinity surrounding our twin-house apartment.
the ones who peered out from their late night bedrooms as we shhh'd and giggled and schlepped a trailor, an suv and a minivan load of our belongings last night.
but not when normal people move...you know, during the daylight hours...no not us. no fancy moving trucks or well packed items in these parts.
it's called "are you going to the gun show?? what gun show? THIS gun show" - meet arm one and arm two. although arm left is much stronger...thanks to carrying a child for a solid month, i can single handidly wield a washer whilst holding the door open and dragging a swiffer sweeper. oh wait, no, that was clint :). and as we were hoisting a very large bureau across the grass, a nice man with a cigarette and a 40 offered his assistance. we politely turned down his half drunken offer of muscle man power. although at that point a swig of his sustenance wouldn't have hurt :) there is something fun about working so hard that your arms want to literally fall off. who needs his help anyway?? my ever strong mr. clint literally carried our bedroom dresser up the stairs single handily while i pretended to lift from the top. he's quite amazing.
then at 12:30am we made a stop at walmart (what all great midnight movers do) to buy zippered mattress covers for our beds (oh the stink bug atrocity...i'm totally paranoid they live in our mattresses...probably because they do :( .  insert skeeved out squirm here).
and we held hands. how long has it been since we held hands? too long. he fits well with mine. and we laughed at the squeakiest cart that i chose. that we couldn't find window curtains no matter how hard we tried.

so while you are sipping a nice glass of wine and enjoying a relaxing moment tonight, we will be putting the kids to bed, and then reliving last night.

it's a pain.

but somehow, i love it.
i love his determination.
i love his ever-positive attitude.
i love him.
and i'll do whatever it takes to have a few moments just him and i. no kids. just us.
even moving an entire household at midnight.

oh and as i was taking these pictures, i turned around to find he was standing there holding a mattress on his shoulder.

smiling.

"seriously, ang? the camera?"