"I Finally Feel Like I Belong Somewhere"

I saw this video on Kelly's blog and just had to share...

Put me in the zoo!

 

Yesterday we had the first of a series of appointments at Cincinnati Children's, part of Ellie's comprehensive evaluation.  It was a parental interview with no children allowed.  Thankfully, Mom and Dad Waggoner were traveling through the area for the weekend and we arranged a day together so they could stay with the kids while we met with the psychologist.  The Cincinnati Zoo was just a quarter of a mile from the hospital and was a perfect place to spend a few afternoon hours!  The weather was gorgeous and we were all really impressed with the zoo!

When we first arrived, Ellie was hungry and very grouchy.  I couldn't resist including this image, right after she stuck her tongue out at me.  She was lucky we were in public and I didn't want to lose our place in line.  There was an 11:45 feeding of the giraffes, which we just happened upon, so we made one more stop before lunch to fit in this activity.  [Yes, I will do anything for a good picture, even paying $1 for a giraffe cracker.]

 Ellie passed up her opportunity to feed a giraffe ("I'll do it when I grow up"), but here's my $1 picture of Reni.

  (below)  There were some peacocks roaming the area which were chased mercilessly by both of my children.  (top right) A little food does wonders for her attitude!

 After lunch, Nathan and I left for our appointment and the kids continued to meet more animals.  Special thanks to Dad for sending us many of the pictures below so they could be included in this post...

 (above and below) Dad made souvinir flattened pennies for both kids.  They were obviously fascinated.

Can you see the tiredness in his eyes?  No nap!  A very sweet expression nonetheless!

Bye Zoo!  We'll be back!

Warning! Cute Boy Alert!

It's been a while since I've documented some of our little man's milestones and I periodically need to do this here as part of my journaling (since this is as good as it gets for me)!

As you know, kids at this age can really change rapidly.  Where we see this in Reni right now is in his verbal skills.  He's regularly communicating in sentences.  It's no longer a matter of stringing together 3 or 4 words.

Case in point:  Last night I watched Reni scoot a stool over to the media bookcase (which is 5 shelves high) and hoist himself up on the second shelf.

Me: What are you doing?
Reni:  I trying to get the i-Pow (his interchangeable word for i-Pad or i-Pod).

The "i-Pow" was on the top shelf.  I didn't even know he could see it, let alone realize he thought he might actually be able to scale that piece of furniture.

He also regularly asks these questions:  "What's that?", "Why?" and "What's that mean?".

Yes, he's 2 years and 2 months ... going on 20.

He's still super crazy about those things with 4 wheels.  Most recently he told me excitedly that we had a firetruck in the backyard (it was just the contractor's red pick up truck).

Our little guy has gotten quite attached to a fleecy blanket and doggie snuggle toy.  This is a new thing for me since Ellie never had a comfort item, and neither did my sisters or I growing up.  We frequently hear, "I want Puppy!" or "I want blankie!" over and over until said item is securely under his arm.  Right now, it's kinda cute.

I think we have two oldest children in our family.  Reni has taken on Ellie's bossy-older-sibling tone and turns it back on her.  He will furrow his brow, raise his right index finger and sternly say, "Elisona! No!"  It cracks. us. up.  He'll also do the same thing to visiting children who might be unknowingly breaking one of our house rules.  Yep.  Two Boss Hog's in this family.

When something exciting is about it happen, he'll suck in air and say, "ohhhh!" just like his sister.

 Speaking of "no", apparently, as he's gotten older, he's also outgrown his previous opinions because he'll say, "I want a snack."  To which I run through a litany of (traditionally favorite) options, to which he will say "no" after each suggestion.  His tastes are starting to change.  Or he could just be TWO!

Next week he gets new legs!  Can't wait to post video of him in those for you!  The prosthetist at Shriners was VERY complimentary of Reni's performance in the rough fit and optimistic that he going to be as ambulatory as any above-the-knee-double-amputee he's treated!

Reni boy, we love you!  What a gift you are to our family!

Goat Roast 2011

On Saturday we hosted our biggest event of the year, an African Goat Roast.  It was idea cooked up by our cabinet 7 years ago and has kind of taken on a life of its own.  I don't even know how to begin to describe it but thought some photos might help. 

Let me preface them by saying that the primary objective is to draw students to our facility whom might not otherwise come so they might be more comfortable returning and familiar with who we are (personally and as a missions organization).  On a small Christian campus that is admittedly "over-programmed" you have to do something a little different to stand out.  What's something different to do in Wilmore than eat goat?  Given that our organization serves in several east African nations where goat is regularly eaten, particularly at celebrations, this seemed like a perfectly appropriate "party" to throw.

Thankfully, we have access to some cool African novelties to give an authentic feel to our shindig -- like a real zebra pelt from Nathan's missionary grandparents, which they hunted back in the 60s when they hunted for their food, not to poach!  Or how about an elephant ear shield which was a gift from the Maasai?  Other spears, gourds, and necklaces (all from  Kenya) were on loan from our dear friends, the Lauters.

Yes, we roast a real, Jessamine County goat on the firepit. (I'll spare you the photos of the butchering, though the PG-rated images can be viewed on the Facebook album here).

For those who want goat in an easier to consume manner, we serve stew.  Lots of it.  Like 30 gallons of it.

Our recipe might be a little "Americanized".  It's basically vegetable soup (green beans, tomatoes, corn, potatoes and carrots), but with goat meat.  Served over rice and with a wedge of bread it's a stomach-filling meal on a chilly autumn evening!

It's a GREAT night to spend with friends (like hundreds of them)!

... and play games, like volleyball, cornhole, hillybilly horseshoes...

... or make up games of your own!

There's also great sweets, like make-your-own caramel apples...

...or s'mores

And make some memories that you can take home for a cheap price at our Photo Booth...

...while listening to some great live music! (and for those of you who say I'm never on the blog, you can see me below.  This photo and the following one are courtesy of Aaron Holmes, shooting on my camera).

And for the really adventurous, you can take a turn crawling through our pitch-black, multi-level, cardboard box maze!

But if you're too scared to try that, you can settle for watching your friends on the live feed downstairs, thanks to a night vision video camera planted in the maze.

And now, I want to take a nap and forget about all the stuff still piled in the garage that needs to be sorted and stored until next year...

To view more photos from the event, click here.

"I wanna hold you, Mommy"

Today Reni wanted me more than normal.  He would come to my feet, wherever I was, lift his arms and say, "Hold you, Mommy.  I wanna hold you!"  I would pick him up and he would lay his head on my shoulder. Sometimes he would lay there silently.  Sometimes he would just let out a quiet, "Hmmmmmm."  Other times he would quietly sing, "Ma Ma Mommy, Ma Ma Mommy."

Melt my heart all over again.

It was happening so often though I began to suspect he wasn't feeling like himself.  Sure enough, tonight he snuggled up next to me on my bed and his body felt warm all over. A preliminary forehead scan read 100.1.  His eyes were looking bleary.

Holding him again snuggled up on my shoulder, my heart was sad.  Not just for him feeling sick, but for all the times he was sick before he was ours and he didn't have a mommy to comfort him or get him water or grape tylen*l.  Ellie too.  We know from her records that she had bronchitus at some point before we came for her.

So tonight, I'm praying for our little guy, that he will get better.  But I'm also praying for all the other feverish little ones lying in orphanage cribs or on matts around the world, without mommies or daddies to give them extra love at times like this.

Orphan Sunday is approaching (November 6). Click over here to find resources for your family and church
"Defend the cause of the fatherless..." Isaiah 1:17

"Post Something"

It's been on my list.   Just post SOMETHING!  Juggling our lives with a new label ("homeschooling") has taken some adjustment as we haven't yet found that place of equilibrium.  Don't get me wrong.  We LOVE it. It's totally worth it.  I can see us continuing beyond this year (though we still need to get through an entire year to see how Ellie does with it longer-term) however this time of year is just plain busy.  

This weekend Nathan came down with a bad cold virus, no doubt just wiped out from keeping up with it all (in the past three weekends I've attended a women's conference in Ohio, shot my last 2 weddings for the year, and hosted my mom and sister -- all wonderful things, just b-u-s-y).  Thankfully Nathan seems to be on the mend, just in time for our biggest annual event, this weekend's "African Goat Roast".  Each night we've had a team of students over working on constructing the cardboard box maze (which our kids think is the coolest thing ever -- Reni regularly asks if he can go and play in the "mock maze").  We're making daily trips to Sam's Club, Lowes, and/or Wal Mart for supplies (which, like the nerd I am, I've saved on my computer from previous years, so that helps a bit).  With kids, we just can't seem to do all the stores on the same day! 

Last night after cabinet meeting another team of students helped me chop 40 lbs of potatoes, peel & chop 6 giant bags of carrots, and a bag of onions for goat stew.  While we were doing that, at the request of a student, Nathan went and auditioned for a role in a campus film project.  (Don't we have the coolest job?  Ellie will think her Dad is IT to see him in a movie.  That is, if he gets the part.  His "sick" voice may make him sound too creepy for the role. We'll see. ;-))

Jesus is sustaining us and helping us.  Case in point:  On top of the important stuff getting done on schedule so far, on Sunday night as we were moving old pieces of cardboard down from the attic for the box maze, a student lost his footing and fell through the ceiling!  Thankfully, he wasn't hurt and thankfully the one square foot of space he fell through happened to be over the rounded corner of our fiber glass shower unit so he didn't break through any sheetrock requiring a repair!

No, life is not dull here!  I did a quick scan through my photos folders to see if I had any photos of the kids and found these from the last week and a half.  Below Ellie and Reni are with their new friend, Gracie.  Gracie's Mom and Dad were in our small group Bible study in the B.K. era ("before kids").  They now live in a creative access country so visits with them are few and far between!  We were grateful that they were coming down to Kentucky and could come and visit for a few hours Monday before last.  I feel I should also explain that we were having some issues with our apartment's climate control, hence Reni is enjoying his freedom as a boy to go shirtless.

 I really wonder what they're doing behind me that all the kids must be mimicking...

I'll try to be better about having the camera close by so I won't be short of blogging material!

Pondering this...

Read an article this morning and it resonated strongly with me.  Adoption WAS so foreign to me a few years ago.  Then we spent 4 weeks in an orphanage visiting Ellie in 2006 and all I kept thinking was the word "potential".  How much potential was waiting in little ones like Olsi and Gjergi and Mathilda?  How much potential was lost every day they sat in cribs waiting for a family to love them?  With the passing of Steve Jobs this week, we are all reminded the potential each and every life holds.  This author articulates it so much better than I could:

"It’s amazing to me that, in 2011, especially among Christians, how foreign a concept adoption is. Adoption is the essence of salvation. There is no Christianity without adoption, in the spiritual sense. Yet, in the physical sense, it is rarely considered as an option. For those who are so passionately prolife, it is often the challenge thrown before us in our opposition to abortion, and rightfully so.

We have an opportunity to unleash purpose in a child waiting to be loved. I was one of those children back in 1971. Steve Jobs was back in 1955. The beauty of possibility is that we all can play a role in helping to foster and encourage it.  Who knows what my children, both adopted and biological, will become? All I know is that loving them, unconditionally, will allow their God-given purpose to flourish..."

Read the article in its entirety here.

Celebrating Five Years Today...

Five years ago today I wrote my first post to this blog... introducing to the world our daughter, Ellie.  Hands down, one of the happiest days of my life!  Our previously nameless, faceless child now had all of those things and more. That day set us on a journey of understanding in a whole new way the Father's pursuing love. Thank you, Lord, for the privilege of being her parents.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.  James 1:17