Firsts...

This week, we celebrate a few more "firsts". We had the fun of watching Junia "perform" in her first preschool Christmas show. Sitting there staring at my child through a camera lens with my husband in a parallel position next to me armed with a video camera (and Eden on his lap) while Junia waved during the song and yelled "Hi, Mommy! Hi, Daddy! Where's Eden?" felt very "parental" to say the least.



We also made Christmas cookies for the first time. It was a stretch for Type A Mommy (see previous post about this problem!) to just let the cookies look like kids made them, but I am proud to say that I kept myself from redoing them before we put them in the oven. We also got our first professional family pictures taken by a sweet friend of ours. The girls look beyond gorgeous - as usual. It must be my great genes! I can't wait to post these in a few days.



Another first was discovering, after Junia's first dentist appointment this week, that she will need to have a baby root canal (!) because of how worn and decayed the enamel is on one of her back teeth. Apparently, weakening of the enamel is a fairly common problem in kids that have been malnourished. This was something that I never even thought about - particularly because the girls are both doing so well physically now that they are home. It made me really sad to think about how many other children in Africa (and across the globe) have teeth that are literally rotting away because of lack of proper nutrition and dental care. For what we spent at Toys-R-Us this Christmas (thank God for good dental insurance), we will get her tooth fixed. But she is just one of so many - so many who need a Mommy and a Daddy to make sure they have warm coats and clean teeth and maybe even a tricycle. As always, I come back to the troubling question "But what about those who remain?" After having seen what we did in Africa, it is still so hard sometimes to just walk through the mall with cheezy Christmas muzak blasting in the background as I try to battle the crowds with my arms "burdened" with a few packages, toddler on one hip and green tea from Starbucks in my hand. It's hard not to feel shamed by the extravagence of what is my "normal" life here in the United States. As I think about Junia's tooth decay, in some ways it reminds me that our girls will always carry some "scars" from their past, some we see now and others we don't but may see later. It's hard as a parent to accept scars in your children's lives because they are physical evidence of hardships and adversity they may have faced. And yet, as one author pointed out, scars are reminders that you are one of the ones who lived...one of the survivors. Scars only form on bodies that are alive. And so, even a decaying tooth, is a reminder to me that my daughters are some of the brave children who have survived orphanhood and who march forward boldly (very boldly most days!) into each new day. And for that, I have great respect for my courageous little ladies and much gratitude to the God and selfless family who entrusted them to me.

Thankful Thoughts, Lots of Poop and An Award

Thinking back on our recent Thanksgiving weekend, it's hard not to pause and reflect on the ways that our little family has changed in just 9 months. It's crazy to think the girls have been home that long. In some ways, it feels like yesterday that we were in the midst of praying (again!) to pass court, and in some ways it seems like my little sidekicks have just always been there in the back seat singing "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" over and over again in the effort to make sure their entire social circle gets included in the song. In some ways, my responsibility-free life feels like it just vanished in a blink (I find myself looking for it sometimes...when I feel that way, I just pop in Twilight for the umpteenth time and escape to the banal diaper-free zone of high school vampires). In other ways, I've just kicked into Mom-mode and somehow manage to get by one day at a time even if I often feel a bit out of place in Mom World. Somedays the daily chaos makes me feel like I may spontaneously combust at any moment and other days things seem to hum along just fine. Such is life as a mom, I guess. I am certainly still a "Mom In Training" but day by day I learn more about how precious it is to have someone in your life who calls you "Mama" (in my case - two little someones!) even when "Mama" comes with a whole lot of new responsibility and a lot less sleep. Here are some pictures from our first Thanksgiving together as a forever family. We have much for which to be thankful.

Eden was lucky enough to share her birthday month with her much-beloved Poppa. Over Thanksgiving weekend, they got to share a birthday cake made for them with love by Junia and Gammy. We also started a family tradition back at home this year of letting Junia make Eden's birthday cake (she was adamant that she wanted her present to Eden to be a cake). I'm not sure if there are any sprinkles left in our house now.

As our gift to Eden to celebrate #2, we took the family to Disneyland. Let me tell you - that was an adventure. We hadn't been in over a decade and it's not our go-to place for a "happiest place on earth" experience. We of the hippie persuasion would far rather find ourselves on a quiet hiking trail than trapped in the consumer-infused madness that is all things Disney. That being said, it just seemed like something you need to do with your kids. Because we are nerds and I have what will probably become a very-annoying-to-the-girls academic background in media studies, our girls haven't had much Disney in their media diet. Hence, they didn't have a lot of context to bring to their Disney adventure. However, Junia learned very quickly who Mickey Mouse was and waved at him screaming "Hi, Mickey!" during the Christmas parade. She and Eden also loved seeing snow fall on Main Street when they lit up the castle with twinkling blue lights before the parade. We both agreed that the bulk of the day was kind of like being trapped in hyper-stimulating video game but that the entire day was worth watching our wide-eyed girls during the Christmas parade, bundled up in peacoats and scarves, as they waved at all the people going by. That was the iconic "Disney magical moment".



We aren't sure if we have it in us to do Disneyland again anytime soon. Let's just say after a Disney day with two toddlers in tow, we didn't buy a season pass. We were also led to wonder, given the sounds of children all around us all the time in various stages of meltdown, if "happiest place on earth" is perhaps a misnomer. Another sweet part of our Disney weekend was seeing the girls in MY dresses from my first visit to Disneyland. My mom had been saving them for years (we won't talk about how many years!) and amazingly they are in pristine condition. The girls looked beyond adorable in them.




Speaking of gifts, Eden also had a special gift for Mommy on the day of her actual 2nd birthday. We were having a pretty good day and I really hoped that we would go the whole day with no time outs (etc.) as that would have been nice for her birthday. I put her down for her nap, which was greeted by much crying and fussing, as naptime was apparently not on her birthday agenda. Eventually, she stopped screaming and things got quite for awhile. It was shortly thereafter that I heard her calling for me. I went into her room only to see two huge mushy turds that had been thrown onto the white furry floor rug by a ticked off Eden who had opted to take her birthday revenge on Mommy by removing her diaper and throwing the contents of her diaper on the floor. There was poop everywhere - on her hands, her shirt, the bedding! It was seriously the grossest thing ever. I guess she was giving me some #2 on for her big #2 birthday. Very fitting. In retrospect (now that my blood pressure is somewhere back in this stratosphere), it makes me glad that I had a dog to break me in before I had kids. Our last dog licked himself and ate poop and barf on occasion - you know, all the usual dog stuff - and then used that same tongue to lick my face. In that regard, dogs and kids have quite a bit in common.



On another note, I have mentioned hair on my blog before. A friend sent me this link about Chris Rock's new documentary called Good Hair. While my girls seem to already be blessed with what some would term "good hair", I look forward to seeing this film as it looks like it will address the significance of hair, particularly for women, in the black community. This topic is one that as a mother of two African-American daughters I know I will have to continue to keep up on, especially as they get older as appearance becomes even more important.

Finally, thanks to Zoe at Chasing Saints who was kind enough to give me another blog award. I don't really keep up with this kind of stuff (or things like Farmville or Mafia Wars on Facebook!) but I certainly do appreciate her kind acknowledgment and am going to attempt to participate. I
am supposed to tell you 7 random things about me and then highlight 7 other blogs I like. Here goes:

1. I grew up in Hawaii as a minority for most of my life in school. I found myself in a bit of withdrawl in high school when I moved back to the mainland. I was shocked to see so many white people. Perhaps that's what my girls feel like now!

2. My first job out of college was on the corporate side of things for Girl Scouts. No, I didn't sell cookies but I did have to wear a uniform sometimes. Totally embarrassing. Why I took this job still remains a bit of mystery to me.

3. I have a serious issue with what Davis calls a "farm fantasy". Maybe I've just heard one too many country songs but I dream of living on a big ranch with a farmhouse that has a wrap around porch with a rocker on it where I will sit after I get done riding my green John Deere around the farm in white dress and cowboy boots. I won't actually do any work on the farm, mind you. I'll have workers for that. I'm just going to drive my tracker around. Also, no animals will be harmed on my farm. Maybe it will be an animal refuge farm and I'll raise corn - or my farmhands will.

4. I've realized I am addicted to the ellipsis and use it far too often in my writing. I prefer to end emails that way as I feel like it bounces the ball back to the other person and implies that the conversation is still in process. I use them way to often...

5. I really love almond butter. There is a place near us where you can grind your own fresh almond butter. That stuff rocks. I also really love boots. They are my favorite footwear and I have way too many pairs of them. I recently added a dusty rose colored pair to my collection thanks to Gammy and Poppa's generosity. Like almond butter, sweet boots rock.

6. I am the ultimate Type A poster child. It's so bad that I often annoy myself. Case in point: I was totally stressed out because several neighbors got their Christmas lights up a week before we did. I felt like a total slacker and was freaking out. It made me feel better that Junia was also troubled by why our lights weren't up yet and chose to also bug her Daddy about this until they got put up. Thanks, Big Bear!

7. I love travel more than just about anything and have been blessed to see a fair bit of the world with my handsome husband by my side. One of our craziest travel adventures involved getting thrown overboard when our speedboat hit a log and flipped over on the Amazon River deep in the Brazilian jungle. We would have lost everything - including our passports - if some kind locals in dugout canoes hadn't come along to rescue us. There were bloody dead fish in the bottom of their canoes and they spoke no English. It was a very hairy experience, to say the least, especially given that the river is known to have both snakes and piranhas in the water.

Random enough for you? So now I guess I need to tell you about some other blogs that I like to read. There are so many great ones out there that it's hard to create a short list. One of my #1 favorites is actually Zoe's blog Chasing Saints but I guess I can't give the award back to her. I also love Coffee Mom's blog but she too already got this award. So, here are some more great blogs I enjoy that are worthy of the Kreativ Blog Award.

Baby Dorr - This couple is very artsy and is bringing home a sweet boy from Ethiopia soon.
Meet the Lambos - Meggan is also working to help find sponsors for kids in Swaziland as a HopeChest advocate like me. Her adorable son Biruk is welcome to marry either of my girls!
Living Freely - Brandi is an amazing "warrior girl" and has a son from Liberia named Davis. Now, that is cool. She also works for HopeChest.
Ethiopia - Here We Come - Rebecca has some great candid posts and pics about life with her son Eli. She was also kind enough to take care packages from us to our girls in Ethiopia before we brought them home.
Finding Rest - I went to college with the savvy girl who writes this blog. She is a great writer and mom who brought home her son from Ethiopia just a few months before we brought our girls home.
Our Walk By Faith - Farm Boy and Buttercup offer very funny insights on their blog. Their newest addition was one of Junia's best buddies in the Gladney Care Center in Ethiopia.
PJ's Are Clothes - I just discovered this blog through Brandi and I love Jude's candor. Check out her recent post about overcrappage and Christmas. Love it!

So, there it is. The long post I have been trying to get finished forever. Here's a final picture to round out this ridiculously long treatise.

A Photo Snack

If I were wearing a name tag right now, it would say "Hello, my name is Buried In Work". Given that, I probably won't hit my Thanksgiving retrospective blog post tonight either. So, here is one more to tide you over- another photo snack until the real post actually materializes - someday.



Little Bear watching her first Christmas parade - at Disneyland!

More to Come Soon...

So I obviously still haven't found the time to finish my latest post about Thanksgiving. Here's part of the reason why...



More to come soon, I promise!

Happy Birthday, Little Bear!

We are coming off a long holiday weekend with much for which to be thankful. We are still digging ourselves out of suitcases to be put away, dirty laundry to be washed, an empty fridge to be filled, and stuff for work that has to get done (tonight!), but we couldn't let today pass without taking a blog moment to celebrate our little girl who is growing up so fast.

Happy Birthday, Eden! We are blessed to have you as our precious daugther and love you more than you will ever know. You are the child of our hearts.

More to come (hopefully tomorrow) on the Little Bear's special day and the Little Ladies' first Thanksgiving...

Girlfriend!

Lately, we have been inhabiting our favorite space called Camp Chaos. We seem to park it here a lot these days. When we are in perpetual fast forward because life is just that crazy, my blogging life disappears. We had all of the build up to Orphan Sunday, followed by a huge event at our home with 14 screaming kiddos climbing trees and having access to red paint (I'll let you envision that for yourself), and now we are moving into holiday mode. Add to that the fact that this is THE busiest time of the year for me at work and we have all been sick. However, in spite of all that is swirling about me, I could not resist sharing this latest Big Bear moment.

Last weekend, we were in the midst of getting ready for the big party at our house and Junia was being really fussy and would not finish her breakfast. She is in full-blown testing mode right now and often uses time (her ability to control when she will do something) as a vehicle to assert herself in our little power wars. Because she chose not to finish her breakfast, I picked up her plate and took it to the sink - to which my three year old daughter responded, "Hey! Me still eating that, girlfriend!" I should have put on my parent cap at that point and had a teaching moment about why we don't call Mommy "Girlfriend" but I couldn't stop laughing long enough to say much at all. It reminds me of the time that I, as a middle schooler in the Bart-Simpson-infused '80's, thought it would be a good idea to call my dad "Dude". I vividly remember him saying to me "I am your father. You will not address me as dude." I guess what goes around comes around, girlfriend.

Can you imagine what we are in for when Big Bear is in middle school? Look out...

Will You Help One of These Precious Kids?

The country of Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS in the world. A child that lives to the age of 15 in Swaziland has a 1 in 10 chance of living to age 35. A statistic like that is nothing short of obscene. As you can probably imagine, thousands of Swazi children have been orphaned because of this disease. The pictures you see above depict just a handful of the many Swazi children who so desperately need our help.

Maybe you have a heart for orphans, but don’t feel called to adopt. Not everyone is called or equipped to do that. The great thing about sponsorship is that it allows anyone to get involved with supporting children in need. Children's HopeChest is an amazing organization that is currently working in Swaziland by using a sponsorship program to reach these incredibly vulnerable children with a message of hope.

Children’s HopeChest believes that every orphan has the right to know God, experience the blessing of family, and have the opportunity to develop independent living skills. Each of their programs attempts to restore wholeness to the brokenness that is orphanhood. They believe orphans have the greatest chances for success when they are surrounded by loving role models who remind them of their great worth and value in the eyes of God.

Through Children’s HopeChest, you have the opportunity to not only sponsor a child but also to develop a relationship with that child through letter writing. I now have profiles of 25 children (out of 150 that have recently been added the program) who are all in need of sponsors in Swaziland. The area where the children come from that I am trying to find sponsors for is so poor that children and adults spend much of their time in the garbage dump trying to find food. Many of the young children have also been sexually abused or have become sexually active in order to feed their families. This is particularly true of young girls.

For $34 a month (the cost of a couple of Frappucinos a week!), Children’s HopeChest is able to meet the basic needs of these children by creating a safe place where they can learn about God’s love through what is called a Carepoint. The Carepoint runs a preschool, as well as neighborhood school which helps to keep older kids off the streets. After school, anywhere from 180-250 children daily come to the Carepoint for Bible Club and a meal.

HopeChest is just one of many great organizations that are seeking to address the orphan crisis through the vehicle of sponsorship. It is an organization that I really believe in and that's why, in addition to sponsoring our child, Tanele, through HopeChest, I have decided to volunteer with them as an advocate. If you read this blog and are feeling God calling you to give of what you have to stand in the gap for orphans, sponsorship is a great way to do that. Please contact me via my email here on the blog and I would love to set you up as a sponsor for one of the precious children you see here in this post. They need you more than you will ever know.