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!