2011 - What a wonderful year!

Christmas was wonderful!  Santa was very very good to all of us this year, but the best part is always the simple fact that we are all gathered together, sharing a special memory.

We were blessed this year by the presence of my parents on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. 

Madeline bought gifts this year for her parents and siblings using her own hard-earned money.  Christmas morning she was so excited for us to open her gifts for us that she insisted we do that first, before she even touched any of her own gifts.  She put so much thought into what she bought.  It was probably my proudest moment of the day.  She 'gets' it.  And it makes my heart sing.

Elliott opened this as his first gift and loved it so much he declined to open any additional gifts for the next hour.  That kind of contentment is so rare on Christmas morning.  What a great reminder he gave us of the REAL meaning of this holiday season!

Charlotte got some sassy pink hair!

Madeline got a sewing machine of her very own.  It was a BIG hit!

TWO cars?!?!?!

New pink clothes for the Pinkaliscious Princess!

Playing trucks with Grandpa H.

So silly!

Story time with Grandpa

We didn't forget the doggies.  They got minty denta-bones.  They were devoured in less than five minutes.

And then it was nap time. 

Two days later we celebrated Christmas again with Matt's side of the family, which included a rousing game of Blokus!

What a wonderful Christmas holiday! 

Now the tree is down and the thousands of falling pine needles are all cleaned up.  I love having a live tree, but every year when we drag the dead tree carcass to the back of the yard and set it aflame in the fire ring, it scares the dickens out of me.  That thing is FLAMMABLE!  It was shooting up five foot flames in less than three minutes.  My house wouldn't stand a chance.

We took the younger two to the Grand Rapids Children's Museum while Maddie spent a couple of days with grandparents.  It was fun to see how Elliott explored the playrooms.  He is so curious about everything!  He is such a quick learner.  Charlotte has been to that museum several other times, but still finds it quite enjoyable.

And here I am, on New Year's Eve, reflecting on this wonderful year.  2011 has really been one of my best years: I got to travel to Kenya and to China.  In one trip I got to help change the lives of some wonderful, deserving people, and in the other I met my forever son and got to bring him HOME.  I got to soak up the culture of two incredible places and meet some wonderful people I will never ever forget.  We completed our family of five, and it just feels RIGHT.  We celebrated our tenth year together as a married couple and I am so thankful every day that I have Matthew by my side.  He is my best friend and so much more.  We are healthy and happy, learning and growing, enjoying time spent with one another.  We are aging, but doing it gracefully with no major health concerns.  We have gone on some really fun adventures with our family, near and far, and have so much to look forward to in 2012.  Our children are our life's work and they are really the driving force behind all that we do, and they are the source of much of our contentment.  And on this evening, I reflect on what truely wonderful kids they are.  There isn't anything in life that I need that I don't already have.  That is truely the most wonderful feeling of all.   Thank you, God!

2012 is going to be another awesome adventure!

It's almost Christmas!!!

What a fun week!  Matt is not teaching this week, and Maddie is not in school, either.  Having everyone home (minus my three required work days) has been such a blessing. We have been really enjoying our 'together' time.

Two nights ago we went to a Grand Rapids Griffins hockey game.  We had two extra tickets, so we invited Charlotte's friend, Alysse, and her daddy, Casey. 

Of course, Charlotte just doesn't go out (not even to a hockey game) without her Sunday best: fancy necklace, pin-on flowers and a fancy headband....

This was Elliott's first major sporting event.  I wasn't sure how he was going to enjoy the large crowds and the hockey game itself.  He did GREAT!  Matt was teaching him how to shout at the players (as if they could hear us from the upper deck....).  I can honestly say he thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

And Madeline was actually following the puck back and forth, and anticipating goals, plays, etc.... 

Their favorite part, however, was the dance music in between plays.  It's no surprise that they were totally worn out at the end of the game and asking to go to bed.....  :o)

We received the results of Elliott's CT scan yesterday: totally normal.  I knew it was a long shot that it was going to be a comlication of his spina bifida, but I just had to know for sure.  Being a nurse is hard for a Mommy - I know just enough to make myself worry but not enough to talk myself out of it.  Especially when it's my kid. I guess that's what makes me a good nurse. So the headaches are likely due to his major dental abscesses and his oral surgery and should be improving.  The plan is to wait two weeks and then reassess.  If he is still having terrible headaches, then we move on to an MRI.  It's still not 'normal' for a two-year-old to have headaches. 

And.... now I am offically in my mid-30's.  I am a mortgage-holding, van-driving, family-loving mother of three and I couldn't be happier.  We celebrated my birthday by hiring a babysitter and having a night out without the kids.  It was the first night Matt and I have had together without kids since Beijing in October.  And it was wonderful.  We went out to dinner and ended up a a pottery studio ( I love to get into my creative zone and exercise my artistic side once in a while! ).  Thank you for all of the sweet birthday wishes!

Today we are anticipating the arrival of my parents (wai-po and wai-gong in Mandarin) and a fun Christmas celebration. 

 Santa's coming!

Merry Christmas!

Speedbump

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

The Frederick Meijer Gardens Holiday party is always a good time!

Leo's favorite new napping spot.

The gifts are bought and wrapped, and the house is decorated.  I hosted my annual cookie exchange party last week and I now have almost a hundred holiday cookies calling my name every time I walk in the kitchen.  And because Matt has successfully pledged not to eat sweets in 2011 (and has stuck to it!) I need to find more willpower.  I've been binging on cookies.  That, when paired with the fact that I have not had time in the past two weeks to get to the gym for a workout (finding time to just eat and shower is challenging) is not good.  You have no idea how much I like cookies.

Matt and Madeline are now officially on Christmas break and it has been absolutely wonderful having both of them home.  And tomorrow I finally get my Jeep back from the engine rebuilding shop (non-technical term, I know.  I'm a girl.) so we can finally put the car up in the barn for the winter and get ready for feet and feet of snow to fall.  I am so happy that we have been able to keep driving it this past three weeks while the Jeep was being repaired; it's not safe to drive in snow.  Here in Michigan it's almost unheard of not to have a base of snow by this point in the season.  Having a heavy front-wheel drive vehicle or a 4X4 is necessary, especially for those of us who live out in the rural areas.  Matt's method of 'plowing' the driveway is to grab a hot cup of coffee, get in the truck or the Jeep with 4X4 engaged, and drive up and down the driveway until it's all compacted down.  By mid-January we usually have about six inches of ice on the drive.  It doesn't melt until mid-April.  But the alternative would be to pick up a shovel and do it myself.  Ummm...... no.

Elliott has continued to do very well post operatively.  He's even asking to brush his teeth several times a day, though he is still very cautious as there are several tender areas to avoid.  He is still such a good little eater.  But over the last week and a half his complaint of occasional headaches has escalated into several crying episodes a day. We drove to the Detroit area (almost 3 hours each way) on Saturday to visit with my extended family for the holidays, and he was in tears at least an hour each way.  Each time we experience this he points to his head and says "tung" which means "pain".  He can go from happy and engaged in playing to wailing in the matter of ten seconds.  And there seems to be no correlation to eating.  The occasional discomfort he feels while eating he is easily able to express by pointing to his mouth and saying "ouch".  This is different pain.  He started getting headaches about a month ago and they are getting more frequent and severe, so today while I was at work I had Matt take him in to see our pediatrician, who ordered a CT scan of his head tomorrow at noon at the hospital.  While this is a very simple, fast, and non-invasive test, it requires Elliott to lay absolutely motionless for the period of about ten seconds.  While we are not planning on having to do sedation for this, we have to keep him NPO (nothing to eat or drink) after 8:00am just incase we have to resort to that.  Elliott is a snacker/grazer, so that is going to be difficult to do.  So instead of spending my birthday the way I had planned, I am going to be downtown again, visiting my place of employment on my day off, hoping that nothing serious is wrong with my sweet little boy.  Never a dull moment for the Beresfords!

Please keep Elliott in your thoughts and prayers tomorrow. 

Elliott's Surgery is a success

We were at the hospital at 07:00am for his 09:00 surgery, only to find that his name was misspelled on his paperwork and his date of birth listed him as a 10-year old.  So my stress level started out slightly above average.  It took about 45 minutes to get everything straightened out, and after that things went smoothly.  His pre-op nurse, his physician, his anesthesiologist, and his PACU nurse were all so sweet and gentle with him.  They even let me gown up and carry him back to the O.R. and hold him while he fell asleep with the happy gas.  To me, that was huge.  Not only am I a nervous wreck about handing over care to someone else (I am a nurse), but Elliott has stranger anxiety and I didn't want him to feel like I was abandoning him.  He went to sleep peacefully, and his doctor was able to pull five teeth, crown two molars, and rebuild several others.  The surgery took about 2 hours.  When he woke up in the PACU (post anesthesia care unit) we were brought in and he was sitting there, in the middle of his bed with his hands folded in his lap, not a single wrinkle in his blankets and sheets.  He didnt' look extremely relieved to see us, but instead had that kind-of 'shut off' look to him.  He was recovering well, so I was allowed to scoop him up and hold him in my lap in a chair by the bed.  That's when all of his emotions poured out.  He cried and cried for 45 minutes, even pushing me away at one point.  He was scared and betrayed and painful and he finally felt safe when Mommy and Daddy were there to let go and 'let it all hang out'.  On one hand, it was hard to deal with and troubling to see, but on the other hand, I was so relieved that he so obviously felt safe with us and could share his emotions with us.  For weeks when we first met him he was just such a people-pleaser and didn't show much emotion: neither happy nor sad.  I was relieved that having surgery and all of the experiences that go with it had not set us back in our bonding and trust.  Once we redosed his morphine and gave him a little more versed to take the edge off of his anxiety, he fell asleep quietly in my arms and I rocked him, back and forth, while we received our discharge instruction.

He rode home quietly, and even asked for lunch when we walked in the door.  I fed him some lukewarm soup, and he ate that and asked for more!  He proceeded to eat an entire banana, three soft crackers, and a can of lychees (my favorite Chinese fruit).  He protested when he saw me cutting up the lychees, saying "Mama, BIG!" over and over, which meant he wanted to eat them whole.  I watched cautiously as he manuvered the soft fruit around his mouth, finding his new chewing spots.  In 5 minutes, the lychees were gone!  After lunch, he napped in my arms, in the rocking chair, in front of the fireplace.  It was such a wonderful hour!  Just snuggled up in a blanket with his Mamma with the snap and crackle of the logs in the fire.  I loved it.

Elliott woke up this morning and ate a whole bowl of cereal, then proceeded to eat a whole blueberry waffle.  He's going to be just fine!  :o)

Where does the time go?

Can it even really be possible that all eight of my FMLA weeks are past and I'm back to work already!?  The month and a half that we had here at the house, off from work, both Matthew and myself, was absolutely wonderful.  After all of the stress and chaos of us running after two busy and active kids and working full time, running this farm, and coordinating the adoption, then the overseas trip that lasted a half a month, to be home with our kids (all three!) and to have that time to dedicate to them was like someone reached over my shoulder and shut off a very loud and blaring radio.  I needed that time desperately not only to connect with my family but to settle my heart and my mind.  I feel like a new woman. 

So what have we been up to since I last posted?

Playing dress-up with Charlotte (note the fairy wings on top of a Tonka truck sweater!)

(Unwilling participant... poor Barney! He's such a good sport!)

Maddie was student of the week in her class, which meant she got to have lunch with her Mom on Friday.  (And she lost a tooth!)

Movie evening at church for the preschoolers (nice expression, Charlotte!)

Time for horseing around

Storytime with Grandpa Hardy

At Thanksgiving Elliott got to finally meet his cousin Ella in person.  Ella is also two years old.  They are almost the exact same size and it was cute to see them interact in person after seeing each other on Skype for the past two months.  Their names are just close enough where it becomes a tongue twister if you are talking to both of them at the same time.  :o)

Elliott and Charlotte love to role play being puppies and kitties.

First time visiting a bowling alley.  Elliott wasn't too impressed.

Basket of fun!

One very happy boy.  One semi-happy dog.

We made pinecone bird seed feeders.  It was ten times messier than I had thought, but a lot of fun.

A very dear friend of mine made a gorgeous cowboy-inspired quilt for Elliott.  It's awesome and he loves it!

We had an unfortunate incident on the freeway a couple of weeks ago.  I was on my way to drop the JEEP off at a mechanic shop because it was making an engine 'click' noise that was getting obvious.  Matt was already there, ready to shuffle all of us back home in the truck.  I had just merged onto the freeway when vroom, vroom, click, boom.... dead silence.  At 202,678 miles old, JEEP JEEP died.  The worst part was that I had three scared little children in the back seat as we coasted silently (read: no power steering) to the side of the freeway and called for help.  Matt was 35 minutes away and the rush of the freeway traffic whizzing by us at 70 MPH (or faster) was unnerving.  It was shaking the JEEP when a semitruck would pass by.  As soon as we called for help, it started to snow.  Great. Talk about BAD timing!  I was just about to bundle the kids up and exit the vehicle and climb up the embankment away from the JEEP when a Michigan State Trooper pulled up behind us to help.  The Boys in Blue to the rescue!  The officer parked behind us with his light flashing and waited half an hour until the wrecker came and Matt arrived.  All of the traffic obediantly slowed down and merged over after that.  We made it home safely, and the kids were so worked up from that experience that they went to bed 45 minutes early.  We were down to just one vehicle now that was capable of hauling five passengers, and that was the Dodge Ram with only a cab-and-a-half, while waiting for the engine rebuild on the JEEP.  It was miserable to squeeze all of us in the truck, and it was definitely not a long term solution, so......

Mama got a new ride!  I never thought I'd be THIS excited to enter the world of minivan nation, but I totally am.  I think this means I'm officially a middle-ager, but so be it.  The kids all have plenty of room to relax insted of whining over whose leg just touched whom, and who had the book first, or whatever the issue of the day is.  Elliott is so enamored with it that he has refused on several occasions to allow me to lift him out of his car seat when we return home and park it in the garage, and instead sinks his butt in his seat, tries to rebuckle himself in, and pleads with me to go for another ride.  I love having a new vehicle (we always have bought used), and it has SO many 'bells and whistles' and I feel so totally spoiled.  It gets good gas mileage, too.  My brother was on the engineering team at Toyota and helped design this fine motor vehicle and I must say.... NICE JOB!



Thanksgiving was a lot of fun.  For our family members it was the first time meeting Elliott.  We have Skyped from Day One, but have held off introducing extra relationships until he had a firm grip on what it was to be in our group of five, and to have two parents and a sister each and every day. Elliott handled the two celebrations better than I had hoped for.  He was shy and reserved at first, but as the day went by he opened up more and more and quite enjoyed playing with his cousins and interacting with his grandparents and aunts and uncles.  What we found out the hard way was that overstimulating him, even though we did get him to nap, causes him to have night terrors.  Bad.  Thanksgiving night we were up from 9pm to 1am with him, as he was tossing and turning and moaning and talking and crying in his sleep.  It's hard to explain.  A night terror is different than a bad dream.  Think of it like one of those horrible dreams when you KNOW you are sleeping and you KNOW you want to wake up but can't.  Elliott does everything he can to try to wake himself up, but he can't.  He's 'stuck' in that deep sleep.  All Matt and I can do is keep him safe and coo to him to try to settle him down.  It's hard to watch, and it gets tiring quickly.  We have at least identified the patterns, though, and know what causes him to have the worst nights so at least now we can plan around them and try to avoid it if possible.  Since that night, he has only had one other night terror, and that only lasted about an hour. 

Many people have asked me what Elliott thinks of the Christmas holiday festivities.  I doubt he's ever seen anything like a Christmas tree just based on the look he gave me when we picked out a live tree, brought it home, and set it up in the house.  He must have thought we were crazy!  He quietly observed his sisters hanging ornaments for about five minutes and then decided that it was too fun to miss, so he picked his favorite branch and loaded it with about 15 ornaments.  He loves to walk around it and look at all the decorations.  We haven't dared to put any wrapped gifts under it yet.  I don't think he knows what gifts are (he has had a few to unwrap in the past month and a half, and seems puzzled each time) but once he figures it out... look out!  Our house is all decked out with outdoor lights, garland, figurines, snow globes, handmade art, and don't forget the stockings by the fireplace!

For a kid that was so scared of dogs the first week here he could hardly breathe in their presence, he has turn into a real bonifide puppy lover!

Another question I hear a lot is 'How is his English coming along'?  My answer:  VERY well.  He understands just about all of the daily routine stuff (Go get your shoes on - You need to share - Please wash your hands - It's time for bed - etc...) without having to scruitinize our faces for clues.  I still default to speaking to him in Mandarin partly because it's routine for me, and partly because I am sad that he's losing it.  The girls have heard me repeat many phrases in Mandarin over and over throught the past weeks, and try to mimic them but the timing isn't always right.  Yesterday as I was getting dinner on the table Madeline, sitting next to Elliott at the table, told him (as I was setting his plate in front of him) BU YAO PUNG meaning "Don't touch it".  He just looked at her, looked at his food, then put his little hands down in his lap with a defeated look on his face. I about died laughing.  What she had meant to say was NI Eh MA meaning "Are you hungry?"  :o)

Matt and I both started back at work last week and it has been going pretty well.  He misses us when we are gone, but has a lot of fun with our friend, Kelly, and her children.  Charlotte is there with him all day, and I think that helps.  Madeline is there before and after school.  We have had a few attachment 'hiccups' but are working through those and I think everything is going to work itself out.  He seems to understand that we are his parents and that we aren't leaving and not coming back.  That was a major concern of mine, but I am quite relieved that it doesn't appear to be as big of an issue as I was fearing.  I am so glad that I am able to work three 12-hour shifts instead of a five-day work week.  They are long days, but they cut down on my days away from the kids. 

Today we had a clinic appointment for his special need, which is spina bifida.  It went well, and we now have a direction as to what specialists we have to follow up with and what type of tests to expect.  We have a clearer understanding of what his future health risks and complications might look like, which aren't too far off of what I had anticipated.  A week from today he is scheduled for surgery to remove about a third of his teeth, and have caps/crowns on about a third of his remaining teeth.  He will be under general anesthesia at the children's hospital, and as bad as it sounds to have all of that done, it will be a relief.  He has been coping with pain in his mouth for well over a year.  I am relatively calm about it.  It's so minor compared to what other issues we might have been facing.  My biggest concern is his fear of medical professionals.  I have a feeling that the care provided to him in the past may have been a bit rough judging by the way he screams and tries to escape from anyone wearing a stethoscope and a lab coat.   I know he will be in caring and capable hands, but they won't be mine.  Being a nurse myself, it's SO hard to hand the reins over to someone else when it comes to my kids. 

So that's us in a nutshell. 

15 days until Christmas!