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....