Eyes, Ears, and Growin' Up

Our oldest child is on cloud nine. If not a little higher.

As you all know, Addie's been having issues with her ears. Nasty issues. Such as, every time she gets a cold her ear runs faster than her nose. It's totally disgusting.

We went to the ear doctor last winter right before we headed for Russia. Or maybe it was right after we got home. I forget. Regardless, we went back in March for him to check things out. The visit didn't go too well.

She had just recovered from a cold which meant that her ear had been draining large amounts of nasty stuff for close to a week. It was packed full of dried nasties. The doctor got out his 'sweeper' with the sole intent of sweeping out the stuff.

He didn't know our daughter.

She freaked the first time he stuck that little hose in her ear and finally had to stop so he wouldn't rupture the ear drum when she jerked and screamed. It was so not funny.

Instead, he prescribed $130 ear drops to clear up the stuff so he could see if the hole was still there.

The ear drops worked. A few weeks ago, we headed back in. She was nervous as a wet hen, and requested that we pray before we stepped foot outside the car. She visibly calmed down and acted like a big girl the whole time we were there.

Of course, he didn't use the 'sweeper' though.

The verdict is in. She is still sporting a hole in her eardrum. He isn't going to do anything about it for now. "Just think of it as a natural tube," he said. And so we are. Until she stops getting an ear infection every single time she gets a cold, there is nothing to be done. When the ear infections stop he'll be able to go in and put a patch on it. If he does it before, we run the risk of it coming off the next time she has an ear infection.

Fun stuff.

In other news....she went to the eye doctor the beginning of the summer. She was thrilled to hear that before school started she would be able to get glasses. It's a focus problem, so she really didn't need them until she would be staring at papers for any length of time.

We picked them up today. Currently she's on cloud nine....but I'm waiting on that cloud to drop. I remember having glasses when I was six. What a nuisance.

I may appear to be a tad biased, but is she not the cutest little thing ever?!

AND....in other news. This year she will be heading off to school. She's going to be doing kindergarten again this year as we think it would be good for her to have the reinforcement of the foundation. She knows her stuff..well, most of it.

She still can't consistently count beyond ten. I know. But trust me, we've tried and tried. I think it's a similar situation to learning her colors. Until she decided that she wanted to know it, she simply couldn't do it.

She will only be going three days a week. Make that three mornings a week. It'll be strange sending her out the door. Okay, that's not quite right. I'll be walking her to school as she's going just up the road to a small Christian community school.

She can't wait. Actually, she hasn't been sleeping due to her sheer excitment over getting glasses. Since that has happened, she won't sleep due to the excitment of going to school.

And life goes on. Sleep or no sleep. But I'll be thankful when the excitment wears off a bit and she starts sleeping again.

Summer Produce

Remember way back when I showed you the pictures of the onions we planted? The row after row after row of onions. The ones that were dug up not once, but twice, by some unknown creature.

Which means that we planted the onions not once, or twice, but three times.

Those onions.

Well. The time came to harvest them.

And, boy, what a harvest we received.

Jason and the children went out one sweltering day and started to pull them. They came in toting three of these.....

heaped up and running over.

The onions are now dangling over the rafters in our garage to dry for storage in the basement....waiting to be used this winter. The 'dangling over the rafters in our garage thing' was a last resort. Something we did simply because we didn't have time to find somewhere to lay them out nicely to dry. If you google 'how to dry onions' I can almost guarantee that you won't find that result.

Good thing we eat lots of onions.

The rest of the garden is doing okay, but not quite as well as we would prefer. The broccoli died. The cauliflower died. Only two of the four zucchini plants have survived. The beans look lovely, but aren't producing very well. The cucumbers died. The melons are on their way out.

However, with all the stuff that isn't doing well, the lima beans (my least favorite thing of all) appears to be bearing multitudes. The tomatoes are producing lovely deep red tomatoes.

We have been so thankful for some friends who have offered their green beans to us. And my parents who gave us some free sweet corn....something we didn't even plant.

It's keeping us busy. And in a couple months when the weather is cold and the snow is blowing and the upstairs windows are rattling I will be able to head to my basement to bring up some of that hard work.

As much as I don't enjoy gardening, I'm thankful that God has once again blessed us abundantly with produce.

Now....a month later than when the above was typed, the green beans are producing lots of lovely beans. The limas are still giving us an abundance...which is especially true when you consider the fact that I don't really care for them. They were planted for the sake of my husband.

And. Jason planted a fall garden. So far it's looking good, but we have to water it weekly. It's so dry here. So dry.

As much as I don't particularly enjoy picking the produce, it is definitely rewarding to see all the jars lined up like soldiers on my basement shelves. I lost count of quarts of green beans somewhere around 100. We got 35 pint of corn, 15 quart of pickles, 10 quart of salsa. Still to do is more green beans (only because they are still producing, not because we really need them), a bushel of pears, pizza sauce, and grape juice.

It would be so easy for me to till the garden under. By this stage of the summer I am more than ready for the garden to be done. I'd love to be able to put the canner back in it's box. I'd love to be able to stop buying jars.

But. I can't help but think of all the starving people around the world. I can't till under green beans that are still producing lovely bug-free beans.

I can't help but wonder if someday God will hold me accountable for the produce that I have allowed to go to waste. Perhaps that seems a little odd. Perhaps it's way off base.

But it makes me wonder. All we did was plant a few little tiny seeds. God sent rain. God sent sunshine. And God allowed that tiny seed to produce quart after quart of preserved food now in my basement. If God chooses to continue to bless us with fresh veggies, what right do I have to destroy that blessing?

Sure, I'm sick and tired of snapping green beans. I'm sick and tired of shelling lima beans. I could quit today and be very happy about not having to head to that garden one more time this summer.

Okay. So I haven't been doing it all by myself. My children get in on it and my sis and mom have both helped snap beans. And this past weekend a couple of friends snapped a bucket for me. Thank you, Melanie and Brenda!!

But I'm not going to quit. In fact, I'm going to paste a smile on my face and head out that door with a couple buckets to pick those lima beans.

If you need me this afternoon, I'll be shelling beans.

Dear Larisa~

Today is the day that your little boy turns two. Two years ago you gave birth to a little boy whom you named Nickolay.

You probably haven't even seen this picture. We're told that it's a picture of him with his godmother the day that he was baptized.

Today he's a nearly white haired little bundle of fun!

He loves animals.

He loves his big sister and brother.

He loves to write. On everything except paper.

He loves to play with trucks and tractors.

He loves taking four wheeler rides with his daddy. Don't worry. He goes really slow and only as far as the pasture.

He's fully potty trained....something that is beyond wonderful.

He giggles uncontrollably. He loves to be tickled.

He loves life. Sure, sometimes he throws his little fits as many two years old do, but he snaps out of it pretty quickly.

His favorite pastime at the moment is taking toys from his older siblings. He runs off giggling with his siblings screeching along behind him. :)

He's a stinker. But we love him so very much. We are so very thankul that you chose to give him life and that in doing that we gained a son. There's not a day that goes past that we don't think about you. What a sacrifice you made so that we could have the blessing of little Nickolay in our home.

If you're thinking of him today and wondering how he's doing, just know that he's thriving. He's starting to talk and I'm pretty sure he'll be a chatterbox just like his older siblings. He's spoiled rotten. His older cousins and siblings tote him around and do whatever he desires.

As he grows, he hears about his birth mommy frequently. We want him to grow up knowing that you loved him enough to give him away. We want him to know all about his short little life in Russia.

Thank you so much for your little boy. We will always love you.
Jason & Jody...and Addie & Will

Drop off points for Operation Jackets-n-Hats

Here are the options you have for dropping off your jackets and hats from now through the end of the year....

Me...jody@orphansatplay.org...Greenville, OH

Autumn...mroot2003@gmail.com...Denair, CA

Lilian...lilian.levitan@gmail.com...Gaithersburg, MD

Meredith...merebinder@yahoo.com...Cleveland, OH

Melissa...mbridges98@gmail.com...Alabama

Christen...withtwopugs@gmail.com...Elmhurst, IL

Sabrina...sabrina@orphansatplay.org...Florida


So there you have it. Options. You can contact any one of us to find out addresses if you care to send your items, or if you live close by you can simply drop it off.

Also. If you happen to have any old suitcases lying around that you simply don't know what to do with?! We'll take 'em. They'll be used to take donations overseas and will be left at the orphanages. Some orphanages use them for....something. I don't exactly know what.

Thank you so much for your donations. The children in Russia will be thrilled to actually be able to keep warm this winter!!

Blessings to you all~

Eight Quick Years

Eight years ago right now I was standing in front of a mirror making sure I looked just right for our wedding. Just right.

I was preparing to marry the man who had captured my attention. The man who just one year earlier I didn't even know.

If we looked like pipsqueaks, remember that looks can be deceiving. :) He was 28 & I was 21. Definitely not pipsqueaks.

Yes. We only dated for 11 months from start to finish.

I'll have to admit that the first little while of our marriage wasn't a bed of roses. But what worthwhile thing is? Jason had lived on his own for a couple years and I had lived with my grandparents (which was about like living on my own) for a couple years. Both of us were well settled into our little routines. Both of us didn't know just how hard it really would be to mesh our lives together.

Marriage is hard work. It isn't something that just naturally works.

Eight years later, I can honestly say that being married to Jason is way better than I ever imagined it would be.

It's been an eight years full of mountaintops and valleys. Full of ups and downs. Full of unexpected events.

Who would have thought that we would have three children. Not one of them with our genetics. Not one of them from anywhere close by. All three of them were born on the other side of the world. All three of them have come to us only because God orchestrated our lives.

Never in our dreams eight years ago did we think we would ever be world travelers. Never did we think that our boring-to-that-point lives would be spiced up as they have been.

Never did I know that my husband would become my best friend.

I love you Jason. I can't wait to see what the next eight years will hold.

Operation Jackets-n-Hats

Exciting things are happening over at Orphans At Play. Terribly exciting.

At least they're exciting to a girl like me. A girl who has been to Russia. A girl who has seen the orphans who are left behind. A girl who has wanted to find a venue to help the orphans (without bringing every single one into her home...which in effect, would simply create another orphanage) for the past five years.

And she has found it.

That girl is me. As if you didn't know that already. ;)

Anyway. As you already know, I am the go-to person for the desitin program at Orphans at Play. If you go to that link you will find a tab that says Projects. Under Projects, you will find a link to Helping Hands. At the end of the Helping Hands description, you will find a link to my e-mail. Use that if you care to help out with the desitin (or any other brand). We are collecting that on a regular basis...some through monthly pledges, some through one time donations. Whichever way it comes to me it is greatly appreciated. So far we have sent 105 tubes of diaper rash cream to baby homes in Vladivostok, Russia. We have larger dreams, but are pleased with this for the first couple months up and running.

But all that has absolutely nothing to do with the title....Operation Jackets-n-Hats. If you did happen to go read the description of Helping Hands, you would have noticed that it mentioned clothes, along with rash ointment and diapers.

This 'operation' has everything to do with clothes and nothing to do with rash ointment and diapers.

Here's the deal. In the next month or so, we at Orphans at Play would like to collect as many jackets (or coats) and hats as we can to get to the orphanages in Vlad before the cold weather sets in. And trust me, it. is. cold.

Never in my life have I experienced such cold as I did when we were in Vlad this past winter. Never. We took warm clothes. Layers. Heavy wool coats for everyone, plus sweatshirts, scarves, and mittens/gloves. What I wasn't counting on was all the walking we did. It only took a few days of walking in windy 0* weather for us to decide that hats were necessary. I had taken hats for the children, though they weren't nearly heavy and warm enough. It's what we wear around here, where it does get cold, but over there? Their weather required way warmer hats than what we took with us. We soon found a hat booth in a Chinese market across from our motel in Nakhodka where we purchased four hats. The men thought they were warm enough without buying new hats, but they were caught stealing our scarves to wrap around their heads/necks on occasion.

The point of all that is to show just how cold it gets over there in the winter. If I remember correctly, we had only a couple days when the temp hit 10*F. And those days felt so warm that we didn't bundle up too much.

As cold as we were, we had the funds to just head into a market to buy new hats. We were blessed enough to bring heavy winter coats with us from home. We went to the baby store to purchase a new coat for Addie cause she 'ruined' her nice wool one while playing on the slide at the playground at the Vlad Inn. It really wasn't ruined. A trip to the dry cleaners once back home and it was as good as new again. But we bought her a new one so we could save ourselves the embarrassment of having a filthy little girl with us every time we went to town. Kind of pathetic, looking back now.

That was us.

Currently there are thousands of orphans in orphanages/baby homes who don't have the luxury of parents to race them to the store to purchase them a new coat. They don't have the blessing of a couple dollars so they can go to the market to buy a warmer hat. Instead, they layer on the few items that they do have and hope to stay warm.

And they do layer. We have never seen the children in the baby homes outside in the winter...I don't know if they get fresh air during that season or not. But we have seen them outside in September and June. Both those months...even in June when it was nearly 90*...the children were layered. When we picked up Addie in June, 2008 she was wearing a tank top, a t-shirt, tights, shirt, jumper, sweatshirt, hat, and sandals. She was sweating more than I have ever seen a child sweat. The culture is totally different.

Everyone bundles up like eskimos in the winter. I used to laugh about it, but after experiencing it for four weeks, the laugh was on me. If I had to walk to the train every day and then walk on to my destination after arriving at the correct stop, I'd bundle up a bit more around here.

This operation is to gather as many jackets and hats as we can in the next month. Any sizes will work. Perhaps the focus will be more on older children. Ages three to sixteen. Smaller sizes will work as well, but it's the older children who really need weather worthy clothes. The older children do get outside more. Some of them have to walk to school....which wouldn't be too far...but still. Their buildings are far from modern. Wind whistles in around the edges of the windows. While many rooms are too hot to even stand it, many other rooms are so cold you have to wear winter clothes just to try to keep warm. We experienced both on our trip this past February in the childrens hospital that Jack lived in.

So. Here's the deal. Over the next month or so, I'd like to see just how many 'Jackets-n-Hats' we can gather up to send over to the orphanages in Vlad. Buy them new. Go through your closets. As long as they are something that you wouldn't mind your children wearing...not ratty, not holey, not dirty...we will also take the gently used items. Any type jacket. Sweatshirts, heavy winter coats, spring jackets, etc. Any type hat. They have a thing about a child venturing out of doors without a hat on. Doesn't matter what the season is.

If you are interested in helping out, send me an e-mail at jody@orphansatplay.org. I'll let you know the closest point that you can take your donation. (So far only in Ohio or California...but hope to get some more drop-offs lined up.) Or if you'd rather donate money, send an e-mail. I'll get you information on how to get that to us as well. I would then take the money to buy as much as I could.

And by the way. I'd love to have the problem of wondering how in the world we're going to get all the 'Jackets-n-Hats' over there.

That'd be one of the better problems to have.

Thanks in advance!!!

Day at the Zoo

A couple months ago we took a day and headed to the zoo in Indianapolis. It was a cool day...only 70-80 degrees...and the children had a ball.

I have since wondered why we went as it seems we live in a zoo the way it is....but we don't exactly have zoo-worthy animals.

We left home about 7:30 and stopped at Bob Evans for breakfast.

Addie loved all the animals, but couldn't stand still long enough to really look at them as she was too concerned with the animals we still had to see.

Will loved the animals...he claimed...but spent quite a bit of time screeching around about how he couldn't look at them because they were too scary.

Jack simply loved the animals. And enjoyed looking at them. And never wanted to move on to the next pen.

I loved the animals because they provided a chance to use my camera.

By the end of the day we were getting a little warm, though at that time we didn't really know what warm was all about. Had it been in the last couple weeks when the temp has been pushing 100*, we really would have had a reason to complain.

Anyway. The men of the family took off and came back bearing sno-cones. They were a big hit.

The end of the day arrived and we left. Three tuckered children clonked out within minutes and slept much of the way home.

That evening we had a surprise visit from some old friends of ours. We hadn't seen them for nearly three years, so it was fun to catch up a little. They have three children...a girl Addie's age....

A boy Will's age....

And a boy Jack's age. Though I didn't get a picture of Jack and Levi.

The children had the time of their lives...and you would have never guessed that they had never met each other before.

It was a wonderful family day.

Made me wish that we did that spur of the moment stuff a little more than we do.

Can you help me?

Can anyone tell me why I can't use my google account to post a comment on someone else's blog. I can only comment anonymously.

It's annoying.

Details would be great!! I am far from tech savvy.

Thanks in advance.

Six Months Home

In just a couple days we will have been home with Jack for six months.

Six months.

I can scarcely believe it.

Where does time go?

He is growing up so fast. Two inches up and several pounds of weight. While I know that many adoptive families' children will grow six inches in the first six months of US life, ours never have. The doctor says we eat too healthily for that to happen. :) I doubt that. Besides, from the articles I've recently read on the rapid growth thing, I don't like the sounds of it. But that's another topic for another time.

He would live outside if I would allow it. Still. Unfortunately his mommy has gotten a little smarter than she once was and she now locks the door to keep him inside when she can't follow him around. He's so quiet as he toddles around destroying everything.

His sleeping quarters are still on our bedroom floor. I really think that we could move him upstairs, but something in me just doesn't want to do it. As strange as it may sound, I like to have him close by. I know he's nearly two years old, but he's still the baby.

He's finally starting to talk a little. Ma-ma, pa-pa, ook (look), hey, boo, hi, oup (ouch)... Simple words, but considering he had never heard English til six months ago, I don't think that's too bad!

This past month has been a little stressful for him. About a month ago I took the children to a splash park for my cousins daughters birthday. The children had a grand time.

At least for the first couple hours. Off to the side of the splash area was a big man-hole type thingy....I'd say about six feet by four feet maybe...that had a little sign posted above it. 'CAUTION. MAY BE HOT ENOUGH TO BURN.' That was it. No barrier of any sort to keep the children off it. My children were barefoot as they are every time they swim.

Jack got away from me for a split second and, you guessed it. He walked onto the man-hole cover. He screamed, but it took me about 15 minutes to figure out what the problem was. I took him to the bathroom. He screamed. I took him to get a drink. He screamed. I finally grabbed a towel and lay him down to take a nap. It was the last resort. After all, he had missed his nap that morning and it stood to reason that he was simply exhausted.

When I lay him down on his towel I saw what was making him scream. He wasn't simply grouchy or tired. He had burned the bottoms of his feet when he stepped onto the man-hole cover for that split second. Really burned them. I felt like I should receive the award for the 'worst mother of the year'.

I immediately scooped him up and raced to the water, where I hung out with him and soaked his feet. My cousin zipped off to Kroger to buy some aloe vera gel. We doused his feet in the gel and within 10 minutes he was sound asleep...his feet obviously feeling much better.

That isn't gangrene, it's aloe vera.

No. I didn't take him to the doctor. Perhaps I should have. It was obvious that the burns were second degree as there were multiple blisters, and I felt comfortable treating those myself. We drove the 40 minutes home and he laughed and played with Addie and Will the whole way (strapped in his car seat, of course). He didn't act like anything was even wrong.

When we arrived home I smeared them with salve, wrapped them in a bandage, and strapped a diaper on each foot to protect them from dirt and to add a little padding. He started walking on them immediately.

By the end of the second day his one foot had healed completely and by the end of the first week we was cruising around with no bandage on the other foot. Now? Both feet look great, though the areas that were blistered are still quite pink. We feel very blessed that he didn't get any infection.

We haven't been back to the splash park in order to find out if they have done anything to keep it from happening again. I am so thankful that he was able to stay upright when he stepped onto the cover. Typically he falls if he tries to hurry off something too fast and had he done that he would have had burnt hands as well.

A mere three weeks or so later we were picking green beans at a friends house. They have two dogs. Jack loves animals. Loves them. The only animal he's ever been scared of is our horse, Pumper, and that was only because Pumper stole his cup and chewed on it. ;)

Anyway. Jack trotted up to one of our friends' dogs and threw his arms around its neck. The dog snapped at him and actually managed to puncture the skin under his right eye. Not that it affected him too much. Sure, he cried, but before we left less than an hour later he was petting the dog....with an adult holding onto it. Turns out the dog is far from used to toddlers and really didn't appreciate getting that lovin' from a toddler.

We're hoping that is the extent of his accidents this summer.

He stayed with a baby sitter for the first time last week. A baby sitter. Who happened to be his grandma. But still. It was two and a half years before Addie and Will did that. They simply weren't ready....but Jack? He is so attached to me that I really wasn't too worried about it. Granted it was only about 30 minutes ;) but he still had his first experience with a baby sitter.

I'll have to admit that it felt pretty good to drop off all three children and zip off by myself. As much as I love them, sometimes it's nice to have a smidgen of time to myself. It's been six months since that has happened. Jason takes the older two with him frequently, but the midget is just not ready for that. Poor daddy would get absolutely nothing accomplished if Jack were along. He gets into absolutely everything.

He has done so well at adjusting. I really think that we owe so much to his caregivers at his baby home. He came to us already knowing what love was. He came to us knowing that he should cry when he gets hurt. He came to us knowing that 'big people' can be trusted.

It's been a breath of fresh air. I always assumed that children would automatically know all that, but they don't. If a child never gets any attention when he/she falls down, they learn to buck up and laugh even if there is blood running. It was amazing for me to watch Addie...and Will to a lesser extent. I'll never forget the time that Addie fell off a chair onto a concrete floor, landed square on her head, and got up laughing. It had to hurt, but she had been conditioned to laugh things off rather than cry and get no attention. She had to be taught that some things hurt...but sometimes I think we taught her that a little too well. :)

If all children adapted this well, and if the process were free, we'd head back every year. For a while anyway. But reality is that not all children adapt so well. Not all children blend into the family so easily. Some children require tons of time and energy before they are truly blended into the family.

What a blessing it has been to receive the gift of our third child.

Happy Birthday Jason!!!

Thirty-six years ago, a little guy was born into this old world.

I wasn't there. Obviously. I still had a seven year wait til I arrived.

Anyway.

He was born and we (his wife and children) are celebrating that today!!

I've only known him for not quite nine years of those thirty-six, but they have been the best nearly nine years of my life. He's the husband that any girl would dream of (though I didn't spend much time dreaming of that as I had decided I would not ever marry :) ) and the best daddy to our three children.

I love him.

And I am ever so thankful that God allowed him to celebrate yet another birthday.

Lil' Miles....

is HOME!!!

Praise the Lord!!!!!!

I hear that he is too weak to walk at this point, but otherwise is doing fabulously well.

We serve a God of miracles....