And once again, I am back...

We are really still here. It has just been a crazy, full couple of months for our family. Jason and I have been quite busy with doing fun responsible adult stuff in our free time - the kind of stuff that requires stacks and stacks of paperwork. But I think we are almost finished with that. The kids have been doing well.


Wyatt is still enjoying kindergarten and is becoming quite the reader. He seems to now enjoy reading, which I was afraid he wasn't going to do.


Callie is still thriving. She just started her second session of parent/child gymnastics which she loves. I was hoping we could graduate to a non-parent-involved class, but she is still learning about social interactions and listening and following directions so we will take it slow and I will be right there to help her along. Since she is the smallest kid in the class no one knows she is the oldest! Gymnastics has been great for her to work on her gross motor skills and strenghten her muscles.


Callie is still making small gains in eating. We still have speech therapy twice a week and she is slowly becoming more consistent with foods she will eat. She really enjoys crackers and baked veggie chips. She can now drink a measurable amount of liquid (imagine a medicine cup with water). So we are getting there.


Sadie is still our happy, laid back child. Although lately she has started finding her temper - particularly when it comes to removing non-edible items from her mouth. Boy, does that ever set her off. She might be my child with the biggest tantrums. It should be interesting.


A couple of weeks ago was quite fun with every member of the family being sick. And no one had the same thing. That was festive. I was sick but moms can never really get sick so I guess my illness doesn't count. Wyatt had some yucky sounding lung crud with a cough but thankfully, he was still able to go to school. Sadie sounded like she had croup for a little while but quickly recovered and then just had a snotty nose. Jason and Callie had to up the ante though. Jason decided it would be fun to bring a stomach bug into our house and then strep throat after that. Thankfully, he gave in and saw a doctor and managed to not pass it on to anyone else in the house.


Callie had a really crummy day (while I was dealing with Jason) but could not tell me anything that was bothering her. We went through every part of the body and she promised everything felt fine. After five days of non-stop whining, one night of a fever, blood leaking from her ear, and two doctors, we discovered she had an ear infection with a ruptured eardrum. I don't know why doctor #1 didn't catch that on day 2 when I specifically asked about it, but he didn't. Thankfully, her pediatrician was able to identify the cause of all of her irratibility. It was a very eye-opening experience for me, though. It made me remember that also Callie might seem "normal" to the rest of the world, she still has issues that make her distinctly different. I believe that due to her early start on life, she doesn't feel and/or process pain like most everyone else. That is why I knew something was bothering her but she could not tell us what it was or how bad it hurt. I only had a few pieces of the puzzle to try to put it all together and her doctor helped with that so we could figure out what was going on. Hopefully as Callie becomes more proficient with words, she can better describe what she is feeling, especially when she doesn't feel well.


So that pretty much sums up our last many weeks except for one other bit of news. Jason and I have just had our homestudy approved to adopt a child.


Adoption is something Jason has brought up since we have been together, but I have never really been on board with the idea. In the last few months through Jason's prompting, it is something we started to seriously consider and pray about. It was very definately a matter of seeking God's will for our lives and our family. It is quite possible that I was very hesitant to the idea, mainly due to the roller coaster ride I know the process can be. I have already been on an emotionally/mentally/spiritually/physically draining ride with Callie and the girls and I wasn't really eager to do that again, though in a different way. However, time after time, prayer after prayer, God showed us individually, in very clear ways that adoption was in His plan for us.


Jason makes fun of me and tells people I was just like Gideon throwing out the fleece multiple times and changing the rules just to see how God would respond. And just like Gideon, God made his intentions very clear. (If you're not familiar with that story, you can find it in the book of Judges in the Bible.) It came to the point where for our family, refusing to adopt would be a sin. It would be saying "no" to God and what he was calling us to. So, in faith, we are proceeding with the process of domestic infant adoption.


We have a wonderful Christian agency we are working with, and we have almost completed everything required before our family profiles can be sent to other agencies to be matched with a birthmom and baby. I think the hours spent on paperwork, adoption training, and the homestudy were nothing compared to what is going to happen now. I feel like I am strapping on my seatbelt and preparing to ride a wild and crazy roller coaster that I know nothing about.


That is pretty much what I have to share for now. We really didn't know at what point to share this news. I opted for after the baby is placed in our home, but Jason thought that might be a little late! In some ways we are sharing it for some of the same reasons we started blogging with the girls. We need prayers. We don't know what is going to happen or how long the process will take. That is all in God's hands. But we firmly believe that this is what God wants for our family and we would love for those of you who still check up on us to once again pray us through this life-changing decision for our family. I still have moments of terror where I wonder how it is all going to work out - both in the immediate future and longterm, but those are the times I have to remind myself that God is in control and He knows what is best for our family. With Callie and the girls, I shared very intense, very personal feelings for everyone to see. We will probably not be doing much of that with this situation. There might be times when we ask for specific prayers but with adoption, there are more people involved and we don't feel it is right to post all details for everyone to see. We hope you are understanding about that. Also, we don't know how long the process from here on out will take, because it is out of our hands. If we don't say much it is probably because we don't know much.


So that summarizes my novel for the evening. If I got in the habit of writing more often, I wouldn't have to arrange my posts in chapters. In all my free time, I should probably work on that. Thanks for sticking with this until the end and thanks for still caring about us and our lives. Oh, and I might let Jason share more about his thoughts and his side of the story later. It will probably be less wordy.

The Belt

Thank you to everyone who offered tips on how to keep the little girl's pants up. I did some internet research and found a belt I wanted to buy. Then I came across an even better belt, one I thought I could replicate. So with items I already had on hand, Velcro and grosgrain ribbon, I fashioned Callie's new belt. It is working wonderfully. It holds her pants up and doesn't require her to unfasten anything before using the potty. The only down side is the pants have to have belt loops.

And, just for the fun of it, Callie is wearing a her first piece of 3T clothing - the shirt. It might be a little big still but she is well over 3, and I was tired of 18 and 24 month clothes.