The World Through A Two-Year-Old's Eyes

I have been reading about being a more sympathetic mom. This has been more convicting than I care to admit.

I serve a God who "is not unable to sympathize with our weakness but has been tempted in every way just as we are" (Heb 4:15). A God who doesn't look down His nose at us in judgment and roll His eyes at our weakness, but who One who put on the cloak of our frail humanity and came and walked in our shoes for 33 years.

So today, as I was throwing up my hands in frustration at my two-year-old and wondering why everything with him, and I mean e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g has to be a battle, I began to consider what life must look like from his point of view.

What must it be like when you are two and everything in the world is new and exciting and just waiting to be discovered and explored and conquered? To have such a wild variety of things before you to touch and smell and taste and write on the wall with?

When you're two (and in possession of a serious type A personality), you have an insane amount of energy coursing through your veins as you run through the world, heady with the desire to get control and have dominion over all of it.

Except you can't be in control because the big people are in control. And they want you to sit still and be quiet because they don't have any energy left to chase you around.

And in Joshua's case, what's it like to have a boisterous 6 foot 7 inch personality crammed inside a tiny little body just bursting to get out? To have so much to say and almost no one who understands it?

I looked at him tonight and remembered that he really is very cute and endearing, not just a stinker who is trying to make my life as difficult as possible. I took some extra time to enjoy him, to make him feel that he is understood.

Practicing sympathetic thinking towards him however, certainly doesn't make me any more permissive. Especially when my two-year-old still has yet to learn that he actually has limitations.

The other day at the pool, he and his big brother were laughing as they jumped into the pool with little inner tubes around their waists. Some kids his age might be worried when their faces momentarily go under water, but not Joshua.

In fact, when Caleb had had enough of his inner tube, he climbed out, tossed it to the side and jumped in with a big splash (he could touch the bottom here, but it was well over Joshua's head). Josh watched with delight and then seemed to decide Well, if it's good enough for Caleb, it's good enough for me!

He too stepped out of his inner tube and tossed it away recklessly. With a wild yell and without so much as a glance towards me, he leaped into the pool and sunk straight to the bottom.

I pulled him up, expecting him to sputter and cough and need reassuring, but he emerged smiling and ready to go again.

At this point, I'm thinking about all the houses we go to that have backyard pools, including a babysitter's, and I decide to let him jump again. As I watch him sink like a rock, I think that maybe it would be good for him if I gave him a few extra seconds on the bottom before I pulled him out.

And I'm talking just a few extra seconds. We were, after all, right under the lifeguard's chair and if I had let it get to the point where she had to jump in and save him while I was just watching him drown with a "I hope you're learning your lesson" look on my face well, there's goes my Mother-of-the-Year award for sure.

A few extra seconds, though, really did nothing to help him gain healthy respect for water's power over him.

Later, as he played in the shallow water, he decided things looked a little better in the deep end. He began tiptoeing towards it, the water slowly rising until just his nose and a few inches of his face were showing. Rather than being concerned, though, he kept determinedly pushing towards his destination while barking orders at me to hurry up and provide assistance.

So I'm doing my best to get both him and me through the next few years without too many scrapes and bruises, and I'm learning a little about sympathy and understanding along the way.

Perhaps my most convicting moment came about a week ago during a hectic trip to the grocery store.

Joshua truly does not seem to realize that he is younger than his siblings and therefore not entitled to all of the same privileges they enjoy. He is incensed when we treat him like... well, like a two-year-old. One of our biggest struggles comes when he has to suffer the indignity of being strapped into the grocery cart while everybody else gets to walk.

On this particular day he protested so fiercely (and all of my resolve had been worn down already that day) that I agreed to let him walk. Big mistake.

It was right before dinnertime, so the grocery store was swarming with people. My two-year-old was on a mission to lose me as fast as possible while investigating everything in the store. Add to that a five year old who was peppering me with questions: "Who was the tenth President of the United States? Well, you just have to tell me his last name. Do you know his first name? Okay, just tell me what he looked like? Why don't you know? Who says you have to be sixteen to drive? Why did they pick sixteen instead of a different number? Mom, are you listening to me? Then tell me what I just said."

I began to feel like I was held together by just a few tiny threads and Caleb was slowly unwinding one thread with his incessant questions, and Joshua was swiftly unraveling the other one as he ran away from me laughing.

I stopped the cart and told Joshua to stay RIGHT HERE as I walked a few feet away to look at a particular section. A store employee was right in front of what I wanted to look at, but I tried to look around him as Joshua kept running away from the cart to wrap himself around my legs.

I kept trying to get Joshua to stay in the right spot - "Over there, go over by the cart" - all the while distracted with what I was trying to look for. Finally irritation won out as I looked at him with clenched teeth and said a little too loudly: "Move over there right now!"

To my horror, the store employee thought I was talking to him and immediately jumped out of my way with wide eyes, gasping "I'm sorry, Ma'am."

"Oh, no, I'm sorry. I wasn't talking to you," I said sheepishly.

Yeah, I only talk in a harsh and mean tone of voice to my beloved offspring. I wouldn't talk to anyone else that way.

There's some food for thought.

Another Great Idea by Grace

It is bedtime again, and Grace is again requesting a Bible story "...and make sure that it's one I've never heard before!"

And I'm tired. And I'm kind of wondering how this little girl who loves Bible stories and is an amazing little independent reader now, could possibly be motivated to read the Bible for herself.

"Well, you tell me the stories, so I don't need to read them," she reasons.

"How do you know I'm getting them right?"

She looks at me. She's not quite old enough yet to realize how much I don't know. But she's getting there fast.

Without really meaning to, I begin to give her a little speech about why it's important to know what the Bible says. I tell her that when temptation and lies come to us, there is sometimes just enough truth to make it sound okay, and we have to really know the truth so that we aren't deceived.

It is, I think, a fine little speech. And it appears to be sailing right over her little seven-year-old head.

She looks at me and I can imagine that in her head, my voice sounds not unlike the voice of all the adults on Charlie Brown movies: "Mwa mwa, mwa mwa, mwa mwa...."

Or maybe not.

She gets up and brings her Bible over. "How about this," she suggests. "When you tell me a Bible story, tell it mostly right but tell one little thing wrong. Then show me where it is and I'll read it and figure out which part is wrong."

Not a bad idea.

After doing this for a week or so, I have discovered several benefits. It gets Grace to open the Bible, it teaches her good reading skills, she gets double exposure to a passage, through hearing and reading, and, because she's such a sharp little thing, it really keeps me accountable to be reading the Bible. (As usual, God brings the thing I want to work on with my kids back to something I need to work on myself - Why does it always gotta be like that?)

Another Monday

The build-up of weekend clutter that never got picked up greeted me when I woke up this morning, along with a sick child, eight loads of laundry(which I have yet to get to), and the realization that it was past time to do some grocery shopping.

Oh, and one of my children was tested for the swine flu this morning.

(It was negative in case you were considering severing all contact with us.)

And I discovered yet again that the best way to get a fever-ridden, miserable child on the road to a quick recovery is to break down and go through the hassle of a doctor's appointment and shell out the money for the copay. Almost immediately, they start feeling better.

Back home, I tried to coax my kids back into the routine of the week, though I think it was me who was most resisting it.

As I refereed sibling arguments and dealt with a very testy two-year-old, I searched for a glimpse of the sacred amidst the mundane, and this is what I came up with:

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
(Galatians 6:9)

And this:

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!
(Philippians 4:4)

Oh, The Places You'll Go...

See that tiny little speck near the top of the rock wall - the one clinging precariously to a one-inch ledge far off the ground? That would be my little boy who used to cry if his mama was out of sight for more than two seconds when he was a baby.

Mama's little boy no more, he insisted that for his birthday we take him to a rock wall now that he was officially old enough to climb it.

And he climbed it, again, and again, and again.

While the rest of us had to take breaks between climbs to let our arms stop shaking, Caleb didn't seem to need breaks at all. He was a little climbing machine.

I made it about halfway up the wall and then happened to glance down at the floor. Holy cow! How did it get so far down there?! And WHAT in the world am I doing up here?

As I sat there frozen by fear, afraid to go higher or trust my rope to take me down, my five-year-old scrambled right past me to the very top without thinking twice about it.

Later, I ran around the track with my daughter, who passed me easily.

I know it's the way of things. Our kids are supposed to get stronger and surpass us. I guess I just sort of thought I had a few more years before that happened. I mean, Caleb's only five.

The truth is, I have never been even half as athletic as I would like to be - maybe that's why there is something satisfying about seeing my kids go farther than me.

I think it's a picture of how life is (or supposed to be). In watching my kids reach physical heights that surprise (and terrify) me, I'm reminded that our kids are created for great things - kingdom things - and they are meant to reach farther than we will ever be able to and see things we only dream about.

Even my two-year-old, who happens to be very short for his age, recently regarded the tricycle passed down to him with disdain.

He shot us a look that clearly seemed to say: "Don't you know, I was made for bigger things!"

And with that, he climbed onto the big-boy bike and rode away.

"Our children are a gift we send to a time we may never see."
-Tim Kimmel Grace-Based Parenting

Yeah, But...

In my last post, I wrote about living with a sense of expectancy before God. I was remembering this time one year ago when I was on a plane headed to get my son from China. I had only a vague understanding of the way God was about to bless our family. And Joshua in the orphanage, could not have even imagined that he was about to be embraced by his Mommy and Daddy.

But let's be honest here, also.

Thinking back to one year ago, if Joshua could have seen just a glimpse of the week ahead of him - how his world would be turned upside down, how he would be handed off to strange-looking people who didn't even know how to talk right, he probably would have responded in fear and protested, "You call that a good plan? NO THANK YOU!!"

And honestly, if I on the plane could have seen ahead into some of the difficulties of the coming months - including spending a few weeks with a toddler in arm restraints - my response might have been just as fearful. (Adopting a toddler is a wonderful adventure, but let it never be said that I said it was easy!) I might have been tempted to yell, "Turn this plane around and take me back to the safe life!"

Can a person really trust God? I mean for heaven's sakes, you could wind up living in a mud hut in the jungle or something.

Sometimes I feel like I can relate to the Israelites of the Old Testament who followed God to the Promised Land and then balked at it. This is NOT what we had in mind, God! It looks way scary and not at all safe!

And they missed out.

Adoption is a beautiful thing that happens to a family, but if you think it's all hugs and kisses all the time then you probably also believe those women who say that childbirth doesn't hurt a bit. The truth is that whatever method you use to bring children into your life it's hard, messy, painful, costly...

And so worth it.

When Phil and I first felt that God was inviting us to bring another child into our home, we could have decided that it was just too risky (and I could have kept right on thinking up excuses of why I wasn't cut out to be the mom of a special needs child), and the truth is, life probably would have been a little easier this past year.

But we're forever richer because we said yes.



No, Lucy, Aslan is not safe. But He is good.

March 23, 2008

One year ago today, I was stuffed into a crowded corner of an airplane headed across the Pacific Ocean. I was trying without success to get some sleep, my mind racing with thoughts and questions of how drastically life was about to change.

One year ago today, my youngest son was involved in the predictable daily routine of orphanage life. He had absolutely no idea that his Mommy and Daddy were on their way, and that life was about to be changed forever.

Immersed in the ordinary, he had no sense of expectancy.

But of course God, who saw clearly into the next year of Joshua being embraced by a loving family and gaining a new sense of belonging, was whispering over him: I am about to turn a page in your life. You can't even imagine the great things I have just ahead for you!

Recently, I was challenged to live with more of a sense of expectancy before God, and that has given me a lot to think about.

Am I so weighed down with the ordinary, so focused on myself and the little things I want, that I am not able to see the great things God is doing all around me and wants to do in me?

I thought about this on a recent night while I was laying down with Joshua at bedtime. I thought back over the journey God has taken him on so far and, amazing though it is, I suspect it's only just begun.

This same God, who had great things ahead for him while he was still in the orphanage, is certainly not finished with him now.

Or with any of us for that matter.

No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him.
-1 Corinthians 2:9

A Great Idea

I was laying down with Grace as she went to sleep - she, obviously deep in thought with her back to me, and me silently praying about opening lines of communication with her, drawing out some of the worries I know she has been silently carrying around.

Suddenly she turned to me with a sparkle in her eye. "Mom, I have a great idea!"

Oh boy.

I prepared myself to attempt a small show of enthusiasm before I totally squashed her next great idea.

Yes, Honey, it would be fun to have another Valentine's party with your friends here tomorrow and I can see you've already spent a lot of time creating hand-made invitations and party favors personalized to each person, but I'm afraid we have other things to do tomorrow.

Well, I'm not sure if popcorn kernels would get hot enough to pop on your light bulb, but it doesn't sound all that safe to have them flying around the room.

Yes, I'm sure you and Caleb could build a fine stable in that corner of the backyard, but our neighborhood does not allow us to keep ponies in our backyard.

No, it doesn't allow chickens either.

Well, yes, fish are allowed, but I'm not sure a pond in the backyard is such a great idea.

"So what is your great idea?" I asked cautiously.

"Well," she began, "I was thinking that we could put a bucket in my room and every night I could write down something that is bothering me and put it in there. After I go to sleep, you could take my worry out and write down a Bible verse about it and put it in there for me to read in the morning. It would be like I'm trading my worries for God's peace!"

"That is a great idea," I responded with true enthusiasm. "I think we will really enjoy doing that."

And we have.

...present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7

Priorities

My house is starting to look really dated. I have been spending a lot of time looking through magazines and collecting paint chips, but a couple of days ago we did something for it that really made it look like a whole new place.

We had it cleaned. By professionals. And I mean it sparkled. I walked through my spotless house, still fresh with the faint smell of household cleaners, and I thought, Man, this is really a nice house. I was a little perplexed wondering just what setting they put the vacuum cleaner on to get enough horsepower to suck all the dirt out of my carpet and make it look so fluffy. It certainly never looks like that after I vacuum.

Just having my house that clean actually made me feel more relaxed than normal. I imagined the peaceful evening we would have sitting in our spotless living room.

And then my kids ran in from the backyard.

"Don't touch anything!" I almost said. "Don't play with anything, don't even breathe!"

And then the doorbell rang.

See, here's where my dilemma really begins. Phil and I have always wanted to have our home be a place where neighbor kids feel welcome and know they will be listened to and cared about. But, the selfish little voice whispered in my head, if I open the door my clean house will quickly disappear and I won't have my relaxing evening.

With a sigh, I opened the door."Wipe your shoes, please," I said.

In the next couple of hours, mud was tracked all over my clean, fluffy carpet, the kitchen floor returned to its usual sticky state, furniture was turned over during a wrestling match, and nerf arrows were littered all over my house along with other toys. It was not exactly the quiet evening I had been imagining.

But another way of looking at the evening is this: Six kids ate and laughed around our table and after dinner, my husband engaged the kids in a fun object lesson for family night. He had their undivided attention as he clearly explained the Bible's message. God loves us and wants relationship with us. Our sin is in the way. Jesus forever removed that barrier on the cross.

In the light of eternity, I suppose there there are more important things than a clean house.

A house isn't a home until you can write "I love you" in the dust on the furniture.
-Unknown

New Year's Resolutions

I think we can all agree they're kind of lame. A few weeks into the new year, and here's how I've done with the "traditional" resolutions:

1. Exercise. I pulled out an old exercise video, only to find that I had to spend most of the time answering questions from kids like, "Why are you watching a movie with naughty words on it?" (butt is a semi-naughty word here). "Why aren't they dressed very modestly?" and "Why isn't that girl wearing a shirt?" (Um, that's actually a man with long hair who has taken too many steroids. You know what, let's go for a walk instead.)

2. Eat better. So I bought some lentils with the intention of learning how to sprout them, which I'm told increases their health benefits by a gajillion times. I took them home and put them in my pantry right next to the lentils I bought several months ago that never even made it out of the bag. I reach right over both bags now every time I go for the chocolate.

3. Go Green. This is very popular these days and recently one of my favorite grocery stores gave me some of those reusable shopping bags to encourage me in that direction. The thing is, I use the plastic bags for an awful lot of things, the most important of which is bagging poopy diapers so we can dispose of them in our outside trash (and yes, I know disposable diapers are also an environmental problem but somehow I still manage to sleep at night). So just last week we ran out of plastic grocery bags on the same day that my toddler produced six highly-putrid smelling diapers. With our bag supply gone, we were left with no other choice than to put them in our inside trash. As the toxic smell wafted through the house, I realized that in saving the planet, I had made my own house completely uninhabitable. Plastic, please!

And yet there is something about this time of year that makes me reflective of the year just past and optimistic about the fresh start in front of me. So here are a few resolutions I am taking with me into this year:

1. Treat my children and talk about them as though they are blessings, not burdens. Because it's true and sometimes I forget it in the middle of the hullabaloo around here. I feel sad that our culture doesn't value children and our new President has even referred to babies as "punishments," but if I'm honest, my own attitude sometimes doesn't reflect that I believe God when He says they are blessings and rewards. It is definitely hard work raising kids. My life would have been easier if I never had kids, but it is richer because I did.

2. Be more intentional about praying for every child that plays at my house (and sometimes that is a lot) and making sure they know Jesus loves them.

3. Read the books on my bookshelves before I get any new ones. I am always on Amazon looking at books that interest me (as if I have nothing to do but read all day while I eat bon bons) and the library is a second home to me (and I think I might have been able to buy a second home with all the money I have paid them in late fees), but as I was dusting my bookshelves the other day, I realized there are some really good books up there that I had somehow forgotten about. In fact, on one shelf alone, I hadn't even read half of the books. That sounds really bad, but in fairness, some of them were my husband's (okay, one of them was his), and I don't know... I guess I just don't dust very often.

4. Limit my time on the computer. I'm not even sure how to do this - by the time I go through all the business of email, checking friend's blogs, researching homeschool ideas I will never have time to implement, recipes I will forget to make....I think I'm going to somehow have my speakers play a giant sucking sound, so I will at least be mindful of what is happening to my time. Speaking of which, there are a lot of other things I should be doing right now...

Bedtime Stories

I think there should be something special about bedtime for children. Between the busyness of the day and the restfulness of night, I think God gives parents an intimate window of time to spend with their children. I have sweet memories of my parents talking and praying with me right before I went to sleep, and I find that my own kids are more willing to talk with me at that time, and more inspired by the stories I tell.

But so often, after a long day of homeschooling, housekeeping, nose wiping, diaper-changing, errand running, etc. etc., we get to bedtime and I am DONE. Especially on nights when my husband is gone, I am tempted to open the bedroom door and toss them into their beds with a quick: "Goodnight, I love you...AND DON'T COME OUT UNTIL MORNING!!"

I know I sound like a terrible mother, but truly our bedtime routine seems to last all night. By the time we get through the bath, the teeth brushing, the drinks of water, and the wrestling of jammies onto wiggly kids... then story routine starts. There's the story from a book, the story from when Mommy or Daddy was little, the Bible story.... I begin to think I will never get out of there!

Henry Blackaby says that the God of the universe not only speaks to His children through the Bible and prayer, but also in special ways that are unique to each of us, because His relationship to each of us is special and intimate. Blackaby encourages his readers to look for the the unique ways that God communicates with them.

I was thinking about that the other night as bedtime rolled around. It had been one of those days. And when I say it had been one of those days, I mean It had been one of those days. Phil was gone on this particular night, I wasn't feeling well, and was rather close to dissolving into a pathetic puddle of tears and self-pity. "But you have to tell us the Bible story!" my kids were insisting.

I used to put a lot of effort and drama into the Bible stories I told, making sure to tell them something I had just read about so that my enthusiasm, which they so easily catch, would be fresh. But on this night, like many others recently, I was trying to think of the shortest story I could come up with.

I began telling the story of the small lunch feeding a great crowd, and God in His great love for me, did something that has happened to me on many story-telling occasions. As I got about halfway into it, I listened to the words I was saying and realized they were for me. The story I have read and heard a thousand times spoke to me in a new way and encouraged me right where I was at on that night.

It was not the first time this has happened. Many times, I look at old Bible stories in a new light, or find encouragement or conviction from them as I'm telling them. And it's not usually until I start the story that this happens.

As I think back to Blackaby's words, I realize that God uniquely speaks to me when I am sharing His word with my kids. This is especially encouraging to me, because as a busy mom whose children have secretly negotiated to sleep on completely different schedules, I get very little time to myself. Usually when I am reading my Bible, someone is sitting right next to me scribbling in it (or on the wall). Fortunately, God is not limited by that. He has given me a full-time job, but is able to come and speak to me right when I am in the middle of it.

When you think about it, it's pretty strange that God chooses to speak to me while my mouth is moving, but then, I suppose that is part of the mystery of Philemon 1:6:

"I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith so that you may have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ."

And if my kids get something out of it too, all the better. Meanwhile, I'm working on shortening that bedtime routine!

Quote for the Day

I confess to being a bookworm and a lover of words. I think it was Mark Twain who said, "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between the lightening and the lightening bug." Some people have things they like to collect. I collect quotations, and I thought it was worth sharing one I found today:







"I remember my mother's prayers
and they have always followed me.
They have clung to me all my life."
~Abraham Lincoln


When you consider the man's life and some of the things he accomplished - saving a nation from being torn apart, giving the right of freedom to a whole race of people - you truly get a sense of how significant his mother's prayers were and how faithfully she must have prayed.

Of course it's possible that maybe he was just saying this to be nice to his mother. But as the child of a faithfully-praying mother myself, I do not discount the power of a mother's prayers.

Recently I watched my kids and their cousins running around laughing without a care in the world. I found myself wondering what the world will be like when they grow up, what kind of courage will be required of them? Will they find the dreams God had for them when He made them?

Lincoln's words are reminder to me not only to pray more for my kids, but to have the faith to pray big prayers for their lives. Not just, God, make this child sleep! (I confess that is probably what God hears from the most), but God, let this child's life bring freedom and life for many.

And So I Became A Soccer Mom...

...Or maybe I should title this post: Confessions of a Soccer Mom Drop-out. Was signing a child up for soccer and giving up all of our Saturdays really my idea? Okay, maybe it was, but nobody disclosed to me ahead of time how early the games would be.

This last Saturday, thanks to pre-game soccer pictures, we had the pleasure of getting ourselves to the field by 6:30 am. There are very few things, in my opinion, that warrant getting up while it's still dark on a Saturday morning, and soccer pictures are not one of those things.

I wracked my brain, trying to find some way I could just blow this off and still teach my daughter the value of being part of a team and honoring commitments. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to justify it, so I pulled myself out of bed on the one Saturday morning my two-year-old had decided to sleep in and didn't care to be awakened early.

In a magnanimous gesture I later regretted, I offered to let my husband get some much needed rest while I got everybody up and ready. And I use the term "ready" very loosely. By the time we made it to the soccer field, two of my children were still partially in pajamas and all had hair sticking up in numerous directions as they ate nutritious breakfasts out of baggies.

And then I discovered that apparently all of the "good" soccer moms had gotten up at 5:30 to curl their daughters' hair into ringlets for pictures and make sure they had cute little pony-tail holders to match their uniforms. Very cute, but seriously - ringlets?

As my rumpled daughter lined up to smile for pictures, I still couldn't help but think how beautiful she is. She may never allow me to come near her with a curling iron, but she has a genuine smile that lights up her entire face, cute freckles and all. She is having a great time playing and to her it doesn't matter at all that everyone else on the team has expensive cleats and she is wearing plain old tennis shoes because her mom actually believed the coach when he said cleats were optional.



Not so many Saturdays ago, I watched my kids running around in the grass outside our house playing soccer with their daddy and laughing their heads off.




I'm not sure why I thought it would be nice to spend a small fortune in order to trade that for spending our Saturdays trying to navigate a small parking lot with 50 bajillion other minivans and SUVs all trying to get their kids to soccer games on time. (I don't know why, but every time we pull into that parking lot, there are paramedics already attending to someone with an injury. I strongly suspect it is someone who has been run over by another frantic soccer mom.)

Don't get me wrong - it's not all that bad. The confidence I see blooming in my daughter is beautiful. I love it when the parents and older brothers get ready to scrimmage with the girls at practice and my once-timid daughter yells, "Bring it on!" to all of them. And I love it that she's never too serious to wave to her little brothers cheering for her on the sidelines. But then my four-year-old reminds me, "Mommy, I get to play next year too, right?" and his little brother gives me a look that seems to say, "Don't forget about me!"

And yes, that would be my toddler running out into the middle of the game. Again.

It doesn't seem like all that long ago I was a mom of preschoolers and babies, and the days seemed to last forever. I must have read the same story books a thousand times each day as I wondered if there was more to life than play-doh. I remember looking forward to the day my kids would be older and we could do fun things like organized sports.

Now we gulp down dinner and race around looking for shin guards so we can make it to soccer practice on time. As we pile into the car, I can hear Grace in the backseat: "... and after soccer is over I'm going to play basketball, and then tennis, and then maybe T-ball, and then swimming..." and I find myself thinking how nice it would be to stay home and play play-doh and read stories with my kids.

Being Thankful

Always be thankful, for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
- 1 Thessalonians 5:18

Yesterday, as the morning light dawned, I met the day not with a smile, but with a groan. I had been up since 3:30 am with a screaming child and had just returned to my bed to find another child sprawled out in my spot. As I went off in search of another place to sleep, I couldn't help but think of what a hard week it had been.

There were quite a few things that I felt more than justified in complaining about. The only problem was, I couldn't, because it was Saturday. I keep a journal, and for the past couple of years, my practice has been that every Saturday I make a list in my journal of all of the things I can be thankful to God for from the past week. Some Saturdays (like this one) it is harder than others, but it is always very rewarding.

So I won't bore you with the whole thing, but I once I started, I had quite a few things to put on my list including:

• Joshua's fever finally broke. After two weeks, three different medicines, trips all over town to multiple doctors, and most importantly, lots of prayer, he is now fever-free!
• He is actually gaining weight. Apparently his restricted diet and refusal to eat didn't hurt him too much. He gained a whole pound in the last two weeks, and is now tipping the scales to the point where he is almost in the 5th percentile for weight!

There were also some rather unlikely things make the list this week. From the Don't Know Whatcha Got 'Till It's Gone category:

1. Getting to do laundry! No, I haven't started using drugs - I'm serious. To be more specific, I should say: getting to do laundry in my own house. Laundry has always been my least favorite household chore, the subject of much of my whining whenever I'm feeling the urge to whine. There's so much of it, it never ends, I hate it, blah, blah, blah...

With surgery and bloody drainage and colorful medicine being spit back at us, a washing machine out of commission couldn't have come at a worse time. I have had to drag my family's unmentionables to friend's houses, the laundromat, the Ronald McDonald House at the hospital, and even watched my kids scrubbing them in their play pool for fun. And now we have a working washing machine again and I am thrilled! I will never again groan over having to laundry at my house again! (Okay, that's just not true, but it sounded good.)

2. Cooking for my family. Because Joshua is on a restricted diet, we haven't wanted to eat forbidden foods in front of him. That means I haven't cooked in over two weeks. Truthfully, I kind of miss it.

3. Eating together as a family. We haven't all been able to do this in two weeks and it makes a big difference. Truthfully, mealtime with all my kids could fall under the category of things I used to complain about, because it was constant up and down for me, getting requested items from the fridge, cutting food up, refilling drinks, cleaning up spilled drinks, incessant chatter... and so often I thought how nice it would be to have a quiet meal by myself. But after having to hide out in other rooms to eat and sending my kids into other rooms to eat alone, I've learned just what a privilege it is to be able to eat together with my family.

4. Elbows. Yes, elbows - where would you be without them? My son has been without the use of his elbows for two weeks now and though he has adjusted and made the best of it, I've decided: life is just nicer with elbows.

Giving up Control

Our surgeon had reassured me that although I wouldn't be feeding my one-year-old anything but liquid for ten days, "he'll do just fine with it." Maybe the fact that most of the toddlers he's around are under general anesthesia explains why an otherwise intelligent man could hold to such a delusion.

As for Joshua, he fiercely maintains that he would rather starve than be fed pureed food by someone else. The biggest issue for him seems to be one of giving up control and allowing someone else to feed him or even hold his cup while he's drinking. I am again struck by the difference in my sons. If Caleb had to lay in front of the TV and have someone pour food into his mouth, he would probably think he was in heaven, but Joshua has resisted this with everything he's got.

I have offered him many of his favorite things, including a popsicle, which he was pretty excited about until he found out that it would be me, not him, holding it. He let me know in no uncertain terms that even such a treat as that would not persuade him to give up control. We have managed to wrestle a few liquids in him, and I do mean wrestle. Physically, he is weakening, but his resolve has yet to budge.

I have to wonder if this is just a natural tendency toward stubbornness and independence magnified by toddler-hood, or the result of some early experience in the orphanage.

His will of iron is actually kind of impressive. I'm sure it will serve him well someday when he is a CEO, or an Olympic athlete, or perhaps even the dictator of a small country, but if he (and we) are going to make it through the next ten days, he's going to have to bend a little and decide to trust us.

I once heard it said that children, for all their immaturity and quirkiness, have a way of sometimes acting as mirrors for us. As I watch my son beating all of his limbs on the floor in frustration, choosing hunger and misery over surrender, I feel like God gently whispers to me, This is what you look like sometimes.

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very BadTuesday

Sunshine without rain is a recipe for a desert.
- Arab Proverb

We have been living this week in the land of pink eye, fevers, coughing and gag-induced vomit, sleep-deprivation, behavior regression in our older kids, and the joy of collecting stool samples.

We took Joshua for his first doctor's visit today. Our appointment was very early, and it was quite challenging to get all of us out the door in time since I'm not still not quite used to getting that many people ready and everybody's still a little under the weather.

What is it about the doctor's office? It happens to us every time. The kids can be so calm and well-behaved and then there's something about waiting in that tiny exam room. The pressure to make noise builds and builds.

By the time the doctor gets in there, the contents of my purse are everywhere and noise is bouncing off the walls and cold tile. By the end of the exam when I'm trying to have a discussion with him, the cacophony is deafening.

There was an almost surreal moment today when I'm looking at these stringy-haired children in mismatched clothes as they tear up the protective paper on the exam table and toss it around the room making " snow" and I'm thinking, "Who ARE these kids and where have I gone so terribly wrong?"

And it was only 8:30 in the morning.

I was desperate for a nap by about 11:00 and I had to get Joshua to sleep so he would get a nap before his x-ray appointment. Grace and Caleb were in their rooms for rest time with the usual strict instructions not to come out unless it is a REAL emergency. Joshua was not happy and after a long battle he finally settled down with a big sleepy sigh.

At that exact moment, Grace bursts in and starts digging noisily through my bathroom drawer. Joshua immediately wakes up and starts the battle all over again. Enter the evil mom. As I turn on my daughter in frustration, she explains that she needed some floss.

Floss??! Since when did dental hygiene become such a priority for her? Since when did it qualify as a REAL emergency?

Fortunately, our x-ray and lab appointments went much better - well, not in Joshua's opinion. At the lab, we were also given some plastic tubes and the technician instructed me in the fine art of bottling poop.

Oh, the fun, it just keeps on coming.

J.I. Packer says that every single thing that happens to us in life is an expression on God's love for us. Hmm. I know that must be true, still, as my kids were playing this fun game called "Open the Bathroom Door while Mom is Going Potty in the Public Restroom," I must say that I'm not exactly feelin' the love.

Thank God for the little blessings that get a mom through the day, like a toddler who delights in constantly covering me with sweet, if a little-too-wet kisses, and a four-year-old who walks by me as I sort laundry and randomly reminds me that God can do anything.

Yes, He can. And I suspect He has more opportunity to work in me when I'm bottling up poop than when I'm smelling the roses.

"We live in the midst of holy teachers. Sometimes they spit up on themselves or on us. Sometimes they throw tantrums. Sometimes they cuddle us and kiss us and love us. In the good and the bad they mold our hearts, shape our souls, and invite us to experience God in newer and deeper ways. Although we may shed many tears along this sacred journey of parenting, numerous blessings await us around every bend in the road." -Gary Thomas, Sacred Parenting

Adoption Fears

Do we ever worry about the risks that come with an adoption? That our child won't bond well with us, or will have medical or emotional issues that weren't disclosed ahead of time? What if we get a drug baby or have to deal with something like fetal alcohol syndrome or attachment disorder? I recently read that as many as 80% of adoptive mothers experience post-adoption depression (now there's something to look forward to).

Do we ever think about these things? Yes. In fact, sometimes when I look back at how clear God made it to us that He wanted us to do it, I think, "Well, that must be because it's going to be pretty rough and I'll be wondering if we did the right thing or not."

I admit, sometimes I can have a pessimistic attitude about God. Like He's just about to give me a whole bunch of trouble to deal with. Just the other morning I was thinking about how much our lives could be about to change. "Who knows what is around the corner?" I mused. I was thinking of the sleep deprivation a new child brings, the trauma for our whole family if this child has a difficult time adjusting, all kinds of things we could be dealing with that we never imagined. Yep, things could be pretty bad.

As a parent, it must make God sad when his children look at him and say, "I just know you're about to dump a whole bunch of trouble on me." I think about how I would feel if I asked my kids to do something and they did it but acted like they thought I was only going to hurt them.

That same morning, I read from Proverbs 16, "...his favor is like a rain cloud in spring." Here in the desert, a rain cloud is pretty much always cause for excitement. We see it coming in from a distance and we look forward to it because we know it is full of what we need.

As a child of God, do I dread what he's going to do next, or do I open my arms to welcome it in anticipation? How can we not expect a blessing from the God who loves us so much?

Not that we're going to be free of having to deal with any of the issues we worry about. Sometimes it's not a gentle rain that the clouds bring. Sometimes our monsoons blow in with a fury and roofs are damaged, trees are lost. We don't escape unscathed, but neither do we hope it never rains again, because rain ultimately brings life.

I'm reminded of a passage from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, when Lucy, upon hearing of Aslan, asks if he is safe. Not unlike me, when I ask God, "Is everything going to work out just right for us?"

Mrs. Beaver's response to Lucy is: "Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I'll tell you."

How Our Adoption Journey Started

One year ago, we had absolutely no thought of having another child. We had two great kids and quite frankly, that was about all we could handle. We were done. We were talking vasectomy (well, mostly I was talking about it - not a favorite subject for Phil). And yet just last week we sent a huge dossier of paperwork to the People's Republic of China, requesting permission to adopt a child from one of their orphanages.

There are plenty of risks in bringing any child into your life, and added risks when you're talking about an institutionalized child with unknown background. How did we get to this point? What brought us down this road when we aren't even infertile and we already have children? Why go halfway around the world when you could just have a baby the old-fashioned way? Well, it kind of started with Grace, and her belief that God listens to prayer.

A Child's Prayer

A couple of years ago, I don't remember exactly when, Grace began talking about having a sister. I was a little overwhelmed with a baby and preschooler at the time, so I said, sorry, you're not going to ever have a sister.

"Well, I'm going to ask God for a sister," was her response.

I told her she should thank God for her brother because that was all she was going to get and she prayed, "Dear Jesus, thank you for my brother and please give me a sister."

She was surprisingly persistent about it. She didn't pray about it every day, but it popped up with some regularity over the next year or so.

A Changing of Heart

Around November of last year, Phil and I started to have second thoughts about not having anymore kids. We weren't super sure about having another one, but we weren't super sure about not having any more either.

I remember one night talking about family and kids and Phil made some off-hand, kind of random comment, something to the effect of, "Maybe we shouldn't always be so sure we know what is best for us and what God wants for us." Maybe it was a prophetic comment. Then again, maybe it was a man trying to get out of a vasectomy...

Ask a Question...

I always thought there was something special about international adoption. I would hear about people doing it occasionally and would think, "That's really neat - maybe we'll do that someday." But having little kids at your feet all day has a way of making thoughts like that fade deep into the recesses of your cluttered mind.

We had been talking more about having another baby and one morning in November as I was going for a walk, the thought of adoption popped into my head again. I remember dismissing it with, "Well, I guess we'll never do that." But as an afterthought, I said a quick prayer: "God, if that's something you want us to think about, let us know. Maybe bring something up about adoption today - I don't know in the news or something."

I didn't even know that much about it. I briefly thought about trying to find an informative website, but what was the point?

That afternoon, as I was talking to my mom she said, "You know, I was listening to Focus on the Family this morning and they were talking about adoption. For some reason I couldn't stop thinking about you guys. They gave this really good website you could go to for all kinds of information if you are ever interested."

...Get an Answer

I knew that Phil listened to that radio program on the way to work in the mornings and when I asked him about it that night, I could tell that he had been thinking about it too. We agreed to start praying about it, and suddenly adoption was everywhere. It seemed like every time we turned around someone was talking about adoption.

I went to a garage sale and the woman told me she was raising money for her Chinese adoption and while we were talking another woman overheard and told us she was in the process of adopting also. I even turned on Sesame Street one morning to find that it was about a Guatemalan adoption.

We were reading books, taking webinars, and talking to people about it now, and there was no mistaking that God was talking to us about it. One day as we were talking in the car and in the middle of saying something like, "Do you really think God wants us to do this?" someone was calling in on the radio talking about how they had just adopted from oversees and were so glad they had listened when God had started talking to them about it.

And it really became something we wanted to do - not just something God wanted us to do. I guess the more we listened Him, the more He changed our hearts, until we felt like we would miss out forever if we said no.