Life as an Asker

It’s 8:52pm. I just finished making XS’ bed for the second time today. Thankfully, it’s the bottom bunk. For those of you who enjoy bunk beds, you know what a joy it is to make the beds.

We have had a lot of laundry today. XS woke up soaked after a long night’s sleep, wetting the bed. When I picked him up at the Y today, he was wet. (Thank You Jesus for thick, fuzzy pants that absorb the tinkles!) When he woke up from a long nap today, he was soaked. Even his pillow. Even his socks. He woke up so sad.

Thankfully, I had needed a nap myself. So I took one.

The day started off rough. We had just been on a whirlwind doctor’s visit the day before, leaving the night before that so the last 24 hrs had been hectic. Our big kids were left in very capable, loving hands, but still…

The boys both woke up crabby. Calista barely woke up. We got her off to school in time, but then she didn’t want to leave.

Dad had to leave today for 4 days. She was very sad. Somehow the boys don’t cry when he leaves, maybe b/c they don’t get what it means when he leaves. She gets it. She knows how long 4 days is. She misses time with him when the boys get extra wrestling, Legos and making breakfast together.

We got Brian’s rental car and I made myself go to the Y. 4-5 people asked how I was. Perhaps my puffy eyes and lack of luster emitted a yellow light of caution. Even halfway through class, I admit I cried. The push-ups and renegade rows were just too much for me today.

Even after the class and an attempt at my post-class “run a mile fast” goal thwarted, I didn’t feel much better.

Elam bullied his brother twice in the time it took them to put their shoes on and walk out to the front door of the Y.

There was also a strange deal at noon: I went outside and heard a deer in distress. A neighbor hollered at me “That’s the sound of a deer being attacked by a dog!” He thought it was my dog, but I shouted I didn’t even have one. It was 3-4 minutes of holy terror noise in the woods.

Then I had to go in because XS was making his own holy terror noises. Elam had turned the lights out on him, leaving him in a dark bathroom with the door shut.

Anyhow, by 12:30 I was done. Just plopped Elam with the iPad next to my bed and I crashed for 60:00 thank you very much.

I woke to the irritating sounds of Calliou and realized I should engage Elam a bit.

That’s when the tsunami woke up and needed a shower. 10 minutes before the bus came. Somehow we made it.

Then Calista ramped up and without going into too many more stupid mom stories, I realized how fortunate I was to have taken that nap.

Rest.

We need it.

Eventually (in the midst of a Calista meltdown over a toy lent by a friend and then her fav new boots, both of which I took away) we went outside to experience quite the afternoon.

The boys ran. Calista complained she didn’t have a sister to play with… Then ran with them.

I think at one point I was yelling about parmesan cheese when I realized how silly I must have sounded to anyone able to hear me through the open slider.

Life really isn’t that bad. I had had a nap for pete’s sake! (are we suppoesd to capitalize Pete there?)

Brian is out of town, but really, he is planning to come back.

Calista had a meltdown but at least there is no snow yet so I could escape outside.

And yes, I did the bedding twice today, but wow, thank God I have a machine to do it while I played outside.

And even though I lose my temper, am not able to be “dad” when the kids want him, I got to enjoy part of the day with these adorable, lovable, mostly happy kids.

everybody on mom’s lap!

Oh and Calista taught XS how to pump today on the swings. Woot.

Some days I just can’t keep up.

It started yesterday around 4:30. AM.

Brian had a 6:00am flight and I guess I was restless. When his alarm went off (*very quietly*) I let it go off for about :30 and then I had to wake him up. Later I asked if he’d heard that alarm. He wasn’t so sure if he’d had gotten up on his own.

Then later that afternoon, we had planned to have 2 families over for a play date. It was a gorgeous day. This, for a mom hosting a play date, is a blessing because it means one thing:
KIDS PLAY OUTSIDE. Leaving the house as is. Meaning less mess to clean up later, when I am single-parenting. Yay.

Also I wasn’t sure how it was going to go considering these families have all girls (there were 8 kids. 6 girls and my 2 boys.) It was a fabulous time and I heard no complaints from anyone.

Then we had to rush to eat and head to church. I had a meeting and could NOT find a babysitter in our circle of people XS knew well. So I packed snacks, the iPad and some prayers and put them in the room next door.

They played for a while, singing as they did. Then I headed over to ask them to clean up before making popcorn and putting on Planes the movie. It was sublime and I managed to stay through the whole 1.5 hrs.

I imagined bedtime was going to be awful considering the late hour and the kids who had just been babysat by the movies and popcorn.

She sacrificed me reading to her because XS asked her to read him one more book before bed.

Instead it was peaceful and even helpful. Calista read to XS while I cleaned up dinner and then everyone fell asleep before 9:00pm.

I got to watch the rest of the baseball game on the iPad and fell asleep, wondering when the stuff was going to hit the fan…could I keep up with all this goodness.

I woke up around 6:00 to the sounds of the boys giggling. Talking. Giggling. Then I fell back asleep, waking up to them playing trains in the basement. Elam told me later XS woke him up, then crawled into the top bunk where they snuggled and talked before heading downstairs. Blissful.

The day has been beautiful out and the boys and I even got a short hike in before I headed to a friend’s where I left the boys and got to go the Y without kids in tow. Bliss.

I actually accidentally typed “bless.” Yep. I have managed to receive much grace, mercy and BLISSFUL BLESSINGS this week while Brian is away.

Nice enough for snacks on the deck today!

Not that we haven’t had moments. Elam and I are just getting over one. And everyone is eating so many apples we are frequently refilling the TP, if you get my meaning.

It’s been bad enough to interrupt an afternoon hike, when we had to rush home due to a stomachache. Not before Calista tried to hike reading a book and eating an apple. I know a certain relative who is maybe to be blamed for this bibliophile and mulit-tasker (MY MOTHER!).

Epic Multi-tasker

The Bible says there isn’t room in itself for all the things Jesus did while He was alive. There are so many good things that get unrecognized around here that I need to stop and try to catch up on them.

But most days, I just cannot keep up.

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we might obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:16

We talked about this verse last night at our church small group. When asked “when have you received grace at just the right time?” we all agreed every minute of the day… Marriage, parenting, working in an office, being a student or just being a human seems to require much grace and mercy.

The past weekend had many moments of needing grace and mercy: when Brian decided to take all 3 kids up on the roof to help clean leaves off and empty gutters. I felt like quoting “T’was the night before Christmas…” The part about hearing footsteps on the roof. I heard elephants.

When I had offered to host some good friends for the weekend and forgot my Saturday was full, and they extended grace to us, even allowing for my morning run.

When we learn Chinese. Uff da.

Learning how to read our family members by their Chinese characters.

My girlfriend from Singapore says Calista has great intonation. I have no idea but I’ll trust her and accept her gracious words:)

Then there were the 2 hrs I flew around Duluth, finding new shoes for the Y because my old ones STINK. Then grocery shopping and errands. Only to arrive home, pass Brian his hair gel and find I bought paste instead of pomade. Seriously?! I screwed up. He tried some on XS and made his head look like a greasy, flat pancake. He even tried to wash it out and it still looked gross.

Then we raced to eat before small group. It went ok actually. Only 1 cup of spilled milk and no tears.

Then it happened:
I was playing Kitchen Fairy (just took me 10 tries to spell kitchen accurately: think I need therapy? I spend too much time in that room of the house…)

With my new HOT pink kicks…

And Brian walked into the kitchen giggling like no man has giggled before. I told him I didn’t know what to do with him he was so uncontrollable… He said, “It’s a good thing I wear glasses!” I thought he meant because he has just run into someone or the kids had done something to him… Nope. He took off his glasses and I still didn’t get it.

He says “oh good you didn’t notice. But I just shaved my eyebrows.”

I started to laugh too and then said, “you are too ridiculous I don’t even know what to do for you!”

Remember we are about to leave for church, I’m trying to get Calista to pack her lunchbox, Elam to clean his room and I’m trying to pack up the snakes and whoa: that’s SNACKS people. (iPads and blogs should never be allowed. I do have a keyboard around here somewhere…)

{insert snake-handling Christian joke here}

Ok so anyhow I was really trying to get going and Brian somehow found enough free time to do WHAT?!?!

I think he was embarrassed and then angry because he pulled an Eve in the garden on me: “well you told me I needed to trim them!”

“Trim Brian. Not shave OFF!”

– ok so to be fair, recently we had had a conversation about his eyebrows. He also had a few stray nose hairs. Ears are still ok, btw. Well I had said, “Next time I cut your hair, we should trim your eyebrows. There are a few wackadoodle ones.” And we had discussed keeping the nose hairs trimmed. He has a dandy “personal grooming” trimmer all set for such manly personal grooming issues.

In that, Brian really thought he was being helpful and responsible and fastidious, grooming these stray hairs.

Unfortunately, he went overboard. Shaved those suckers right off.

Seriously who’s life am I living.

I’m not sure what all happened in the course of getting kids and selves into the van but what we realized is we were both wiped. Brian for taking kids while I shopped. Me for shopping. He thought he was serving me for letting me do that. I thought I was serving them by going instead of dragging the family with. What turned out was neither of us got what we wanted. And now Brian was down 2 brows.

We shared it all with our group and had a good laugh. Then as we studied Jesus being our sympathetic High Priest and how we need mercy, it became a thing in my head: even when we shave our eyebrows off, we need to go to God. Even when we feel embarrassed, angry, tired, weak, we can approach the throne. He sympathizes with our weaknesses.

How many of us have shaved our eyebrows off? Or made someone else?

I am sorry Brian you thought I wanted you to shave off your eyebrows. Maribeth still called you my “cute husband” at the Y this morning. She didn’t notice either:)

Oh dear. It’s loud. It’s loud when kids bike outside due to the plastic tricyle XS rides (which now has a giant crack in the front tire that makes a snapping sound every rotation.) It’s loud when baba walks out the front door to work, with 3 kids screaming goodbye.

It’s loud right now (evil momma laugh) with calls for “BABA! DADDY!” 2 boys are calling for him and I told Brian straight up I’m not helping.

It’s bath time and wind down time but you wouldn’t know it.

Swimming in the tub

Brian and XS have challenged me a lot this week.

You know how your own kids can be angels at school, church, your best friend Rebekah’s house and the minute you show up, the whining, complaining and laziness emerges as a tiger from his lair.

It’s probably something regarding attachment, feeling safe and how we take our worst out on our favorites because we know they will love us, care for us NO MATTER WHAT.

Well, XS is a daddy’s boy. 150%. There are days it is easier when Brian is not around because I seem to be able to discipline and correct him more firmly and quickly. He won’t even “let” Brian blow his nose. He just refuses.

Now I’m a control freak, admittedly (although I could pass the blame off to the 3rd and 4th generational sin stuff…). But when one of our kids tries to control one of us it really bothers me.

Even just right now, XS is trying to climb Brian’s back by grabbing his shirt. Uff da.

I don’t know what to do so much about this. Ideas are welcome from non-adoptive families and those that have adopted…

We spent 30 minutes looking at pictures from China the other day for “bonding” time.

I do know what I can do differently to bond more with him but darn it, there is just so much work to do around here! The laundry alone is enough to keep my legs and back in shape (laundry is in basement…) but the cleaning the bathroom, the weeding through clothes, getting ready for winter, gardening and don’t get me started on meal planning and trying to keep these 5 fed (I include myself. I had 2 servings of pesto and pasta for lunch today…)

So I came home from dropping Elam off at preschool Wednesday and we sat down to look at pictures from XS’ orphanage. He pointed to a bedroom picture with bunk beds and perfectly folded blankets. I asked where he slept. He told me the top bunk! He remembered “ba-ba policeman” and called him “ba-ba” and didn’t seem disturbed by it all. We want to keep doing that. Often. And it was nice for the 2 of us to just sit still for a while, leaving the dust, breakfast dishes and even yogurt (gasp) sitting out on the counter.

Other news this week:

It’s cold. This is hard for XS. We seem to be teaching him how to put on gloves and hats. But he soldiers on, biking to the bus stop every day.

That dot in the distance is Elam on his 2-wheeler!

And tonight, Friday Night OUT LOUD, we kicked off with a dance party, singing to “Let it go.”

She loves to dance: gets that from my sister maybe or at least some other relative. Definitely not from this chick.

Overall the 3 kid are getting along better (although Elam still gets blamed for so many tears and tantrums from his brother. Pray for him.)

HEADBANDS! Perfect game to play with a kid learning English:)

Aaah, it’s getting quiet around here. Books are being read. Calista is in the bath, actually not using the acoustics to her benefit. I’ll enjoy it while it lasts.

I had an epiphany while updating my signature on my iPhone email a few days ago…

You know, that place where you quote a Bible verse, your favorite mentor or something else clever like “please forgive any misspelling as I am using my iPhone, it’s winter and I have stupid gloves…” And then you put your job title, position in life or salary. Just kidding. Or at least your phone number.

Well that got me thinking: what is my job? I had someone ask me last week what I did. Even my son asked last week, “mom what do you want to be when you grow up?”

Last weekend Calista helped me set up for teaching a weekend in the book of Ephesians. I loved having her and the boys a part of what Brian does and I used to do full time. I loved having them play with students, sing with the worship team and even draw on a manuscript.

This week, Elam decided to give one last try on 2 wheels before the snow flies. He is learning on our short driveway and is so proud!

Teaching my kids how to do something is one joy that never, ever gets old.

So I had my epiphany: I am training World Changers (InterVarsity lingo) in Training. WCiT

I want to teach Calista, Elam and XS that we read our Bible every day, pray and memorize verses. So we do a “quiet time” with them at night.

I want to teach them self-control, so we are teaching XS especially, to take deep breaths to slow down and stop tantrums. Especially since lately he gets mad when he leaves school (he wants to stay and attend!), when I turn to go home and he wants to go to “Wook’s” (Luke’s) so I can go “buh-bye!” or if he can’t get the Lego motorcyle to stand up. I have 3 children. One is just familiarizing himself with the roads around here yet he is the one who I swear knows every intersection and where we are headed before I tell him. He is so bossy in the backseat it’s almost irritating until he has a meltdown when I don’t follow his directions. Then it’s just laughable in a sad way.

I want to teach them to pray for their friends that are struggling so I ask what they are noticing around them… For instance 2 of Calista’s classmates cried every single day of the first month of school. We started to pray for them and they stopped!

We had teacher conferences this week and without going into details, Calista is brilliant. One of the things her teacher is working on in 1st grade is reading comprehension, asking questions after they have read stories. When she gave us examples of how to practice at home, I laughed on the inside. It was very similar to how we teach college students how to study the Bible and interpret it faithfully using the text. Who knew Calista’s teacher was also training her to be a World Changer?!

Sometimes I see the glass half empty, or wondered if there is even a glass at all.  I can wake up and think, I should have gone to bed earlier.  Or after a workout, I wish I had pushed through one more set of push ups.  Or sighed when the boys tackled each other on the trampolines, kicked each other in the head and knocked skulls … AGAIN.

But others days I am grateful when the rain holds off until I am done with my long run.  Or rejoice when I only needed a hat to get Calista to the bus instead of a jacket, hat and mittens.  Or been grateful only half the container of blueberries spilled and rolled under the fridge.

Sometimes I get complements about how honest I am and I hope they mean about the good, easy stuff to share, not just the freak out moments that happen regularly around here.

Sigh.  I am afraid I can be a Debbie Downer.

So here is a list of all the good things I have enjoyed of late:

A friend (who is from Singapore and speaks Chinese in her home) and I have had a dream of a Chinese play date… Well she posted an ad at UMD for this and voila!  We meet a women who:

1. Is a psychologist.

2. Is a developmental psychologist, including CHILDHOOD development

3. Seems to like kids!

4. Has done this sort of thing before: including her own kids, other Chinese kids, English-speaking only kids and adopted from China kids

5. Lived in ZhuZhou City for 5 years, which is XS’ birth city.  Now I want you all to imagine the country, the IMMENSE country of China.  Meeting someone from the same province is …. Providential, much less from the same CITY!  We think God was in this…

Dress up with our friends.

Any good weekend includes ice cream!

I pray this is not a sign of attitudes in the future!

We got to have our new pastor and family over for dinner tonight.  We also had two other families making for a full house.  It was a stellar night, including 8 adults and our 9 kids.  But the highlight was before the dinner.  I am known for spazzing, yelling (although in my sleepy stupor that was just edited from “yellowing…”) and various other nasty things.

Tonight I kid you not, we had a dance party (all 5 of us) about an hour before folks showed up.  I was able to get the kitchen cleaned up (I know, before the party!?) plus had an extra :30 before they all arrived!  We did some school prep, lunch box prep and even sat down a bit before they arrived.  Miracle.

We welcomed our new pastor and family today at church. No potluck is complete without faces of the new pastor to pass around!

We also received a new kite from our Chinese friends.  Here is a quick video:

And Frozen still reigns around here. We love to crank it up:

All in all, I am so grateful for the ways life shifts from “I don’t know if I can do this without therapy, some medication and lots of potato chips” to “Lord lead me deeper than I have ever been before…do it, whatever it is.  I am ready.”