Christmas Tree Ornament Photo Challenge

I love setting up our Christmas tree.  Every year we smile over the ornaments as we bring them out of the box.  We laugh at some of the stories.  We may even be saddened by some of them.  They all tell a story.

The stories are worth sharing!  So, I created the Christmas Tree Ornament Photo Challenge.

Tomorrow starts 24 days of photos and stories behind some of the ornaments on our Christmas tree.  Join in the fun!

Simply take a photo of a meaningful ornament.

If you can tell the story behind it within the limits of Twitter, go ahead and tweet.  If your story is too long, like many of mine will be, feel free to blog about it and then tweet the link to your blog.  Now, I'm not on Instagram after all the security scares from a while back, but feel free to upload there too!  Of course, we always have Facebook!  Use Facebook to upload your photo and tell us the story in the photo description.

Use the Hashtag:
#XmasOrnamentStory

For Shame!

I shopped on Thanksgiving.  [Insert gasps of horror and finger wags from naysayers.]

I have never done this before.  Heck, I'm not even a Black Friday shopper, you guys.  Why would I go out into the crazy crowds and fight people and fight traffic, get stressed out, et cetera, et cetera?  I prefer to have my Christmas shopping done before Thanksgiving, if at all possible.  I just prefer to enjoy my Thanksgiving weekend, the peace of it, the smells, the food, the parade, the relaxation, the start of the holiday season.  I love to put up our tree and deck the halls.  That's my typical Thanksgiving weekend.

I'm not against Thanksgiving or Black Friday shopping at all.  The debate annoys me.  I mean, to each his own, right?  If companies want to open their stores, let them.  You can choose to shop or not.  What good does it do to argue such an inane topic?

I should just stop there.  But...

So, why did I shop on Thanksgiving?

I shopped on Thanksgiving because the store of my choosing (Walmart) offered tremendous sales and guarantees on things we needed.  GASP!!!  Yes, I bought things for ourselves and not gifts for others.  Shame on me?

No.

You see, we are cheap!  I'm sure there are people in this country who are cheaper than I am.  I'm sure there are people who wash out ziplock bags in order to reuse them and save a dime here and there.  I'm not that cheap.  But when it comes to bigger ticket items, we simply don't buy them if they aren't necessities and I would never buy something big unless it was on sale or I had a coupon or gift card.

The week before Thanksgiving the hard drive on our 1 and only computer crashed.  I lost some data.  The important stuff was recoverable (we think).  Having a second computer in our home, with 2 kids who happen to use the laptop for multiple homeschool subjects, plus a mom who has a house to manage, a book in process, bills to pay, is something we quickly realized as a big benefit to our family.  Paying half price for a PC laptop seemed to be better than waiting until after the craziness of the Thanksgiving weekend and paying hundreds more.  Despite the fact that I have a rebuilt hard drive on the older laptop, it still seems on the fritz.  I don't and can't trust it one bit.  I was willing to brave the craziness to save hundreds of dollars and a new, reliable laptop.

Sure, I get the opinion that stores shouldn't even be open on a holiday.  I get that.  I may even agree with that.  Everyone deserves a holiday to be with family.  But think about it, do pastors ever get a holiday off?  No, my husband has had to work every Easter, every Christmas, year after year until we left ministry.  We never had a family holiday completely, solely together, without work.  And what about our military?  They never get a holiday off.  They go years without celebrating the day with family!  But I digress.  If I agree that stores shouldn't even be open, then maybe I shouldn't have participated in Thanksgiving Day shopping.  I get that line of thinking, but the stores were open and we had a big-ticket need.

I do not appreciate it when people say that shopping on Thanksgiving isn't what the holiday is about.

Um, I disagree with you there.  You see, I am very thankful that God has brought us out of our financial hole.  I am so thankful for how He has provided for our every need when we were in the midst of adoption and 2 job losses.  God asks us to be wise with our money and shopping on Thanksgiving was a wise decision for our bank account.  I was thankful that my mother-in-law could watch the kids for a couple of hours.  I was thankful that I could get a break without them and have some fun with my husband - a rare treat.  I was thankful for the smiles and laughs and conversations I had with other holiday shoppers.  That kind of interaction doesn't happen on a regular old Thursday when I run to Walmart.  And I am thankful that we'll have a new, reliable laptop that should be free from crashes for a number of years, Lord willing.

I was impressed by Walmart's organization.  Sure, they moved things around that didn't jive with their store map that I printed out at home.  But their staff all knew where things were and I found the line for the laptop fairly easily.  From an operational standpoint, it was quite impressive!  Only 1 shopper was rude to me.  Another was a jerk to everyone by just cutting in line while the rest of us patiently waited for the tickets for a sale item.  Other than that, shoppers were all very nice, polite, offering smiles, and good conversation while we waited.  We made the most of it and tried to spread some holiday joy.

We picked up a couple of deals for the boys' Christmas gifts too and I'm excited to see them open them on Christmas morning.

No, I'm not trying to be defensive.  Understand that is not my heart at all.  I don't care what you think about me, because my worth isn't found in what my readers think.

I simply write to ask you to realize that not everyone shopping on a holiday weekend is a greedy, self absorbed, unthankful, ungrateful, anti-family, credit card loving, he-who-has-the-most-toys-wins, American Consumer.

I don't know if I'll ever shop on Thanksgiving or Black Friday again.  The deals might be too good to pass up and it might be worth the trip if we are in need of a big ticket item again.  In the meantime, I can say that I did it once and it wasn't awful at all.  I think we got a great bargain and we had a positive experience.

If you're staying in today, then have a great day with your family.  If you're going out shopping, I hope you get great bargains!  If you're working today, I hope your workday is great!

Peace.

The Daughter We Never Met

My 6th grader and I started a new book in homeschool today:  Daughter of the Mountains by Louise Rankin.  So far, all I know from chapter 1, is that it's about a girl growing up in Tibet, in the Himalayas.

I couldn't get through the first chapter without tears falling.  The image of the main character makes me miss the daughter we never met.

If you've followed our adoption story over the years, you know what we limped through:  a country shutdown.  There are more recent developments to the story to add, though, and I think this update will be worth the read.

We worked on our paperwork for 9 months, then got stuck in a holding pattern for 4 months while the Nepal government was in flux, and then our dossier went off to Kathmandu and we were finally, officially waiting for our daughter… in Nepal.  We were family number 74 to be matched to a child -- only 73 families ahead of us.  It could have happened any day, literally!  Instead, while visiting family in Chicago, we got the call that knocked the wind out of us.

The US State Department, in all it's wisdom, shut down the Nepal adoption program on allegations, taken from dated UNICEF reports, that the Nepal adoption program was corrupt.  Our adoption agency called to tell us that our dream of a Nepali daughter was over.

We lost a year of paperwork, blood (yes, literally - we had physicals and lots of blood work), sweat, tears and prayers, not to mention $12,000.

We were never to know a brown skinned, brown eyed, dark haired Nepali girl in our home.

Devastation.  Suffocating grief.

We waited for a month or two, per our agency's suggestion, with hopes that Nepal would re-open.  It did not.  We nervously, prayerfully, picked ourselves up, brushed ourselves off, cleaned our wounds and started over again with China Special Needs.

Fast forward to last year.  We had our China girl home, our lives were settling into Texas.  I received word through an organization called Both Ends Burning that investigations led them to believe the USDOS made a known, horrible mistake and that the organization was going to do something about the Nepal shutdown.  I was invited to a series of conference calls with the organization and other Nepal families.  What I learned reopened old scars.

I learned that those families who had been matched with Nepali children at the time of the shutdown were able to bring them home.  It cost them thousands of dollars more and an agonizing amount of time.  I can't remember the number of families, but it was somewhere in the 80's.  Hang onto your hat for this next sentence, the one that makes me want to move out of this country of ours:

In all cases, international attorneys were able to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the Nepal adoption program was above reproach, that the children were indeed true orphans, that no bribery existed, that the entire program was on the up and up, completely legal.  In… every... case!  And the USDOS knew it!  Our government is to blame for our loss, for our heartache, for our lost dream.  Our government is responsible for removing hope from a child crying out for love of a forever family.

It still makes me sick to my stomach.

You can say that it just wasn't God's plan.  You can say that we weren't supposed to have a Nepali daughter.  You can say that we now have the daughter we are supposed to have.   But those words aren't helpful, friends… ever.  God sets the lonely in families.  The Nepal shutdown was the work of evil, the work of an evil force that will stop at nothing to keep the lonely living without love and care, without family.

How can I possibly miss a daughter I never knew?

Don't question it.  I miss her.  I  have a bracelet from Nepal that I bought for her through Tiny Hands International, an organization that serves and brings love and hope and the Gospel to the street children and trafficked children of Nepal.  I intended to give that bracelet to our Quiet Tiger once she came home, but I couldn't.  It simply doesn't belong to her.  It belongs to my lost Nepali daughter.

The daughter we never met.

The Debate

This post is going to be controversial, and as much as I hate confrontation, I'm going to post.

I think it's safe to say that most adoptive parents hate it when people say, "Oh, that child is so lucky to be adopted and home now."

I understand the debate and I agree with it… but only in part.

Adoption is loss.  Period.

My daughter lost her birth family.  She will never know who she looks like, her mom or her dad.  She will never know if she has a biological brother or sister in China.  She will never know her birth country, her dialect (yes, we can teach her Mandarin, but those Yulin folks have a unique dialect, I'm told).  Even today we deal with the brokenness of her past.  I would be remiss if I didn't even mention how unlucky it is to be tied down in an orphanage crib for 23 hours a day and horribly malnourished for nearly 2 years.  There is absolutely nothing lucky about that.  Nothing, nothing, nothing!!!  Some days I exhaustedly wonder if we'll ever be free of that brokenness and trauma.  It's a mess raising a child with a broken past!

She will have questions to which I will not have answers.

Loss.

Adoption is loss.  And that loss is… not... lucky.

I agree with that.

And while I don't particularly like the word "luck" and prefer the word "blessing," I'm going to stick with the former for the sake of the original statement that causes debate.

My daughter was adopted.

She was given a second chance.

Regardless of whether it was my family or another family that adopted her, Quiet Tiger is lucky to have a second chance at a happy, healthy life.  She is lucky to have a mom and a dad who fought for her and to have siblings to play with and pets to chase.  She is lucky to have food, shelter, medicine, care and love.  She is lucky to live in a free country.  Those are good things that she didn't have before!

And with that short paragraph, I just made many adoptive families very mad at me.  How can I possibly think that my daughter is "lucky?"  The fact of the matter is...

Some children don't get that chance.  

Our lost Nepali daughter never got that chance.  Some kids in China are labeled "un-adoptable" and aren't getting that chance.  Children who age out of adoption programs lose the chance.  Children in Russia aren't getting that chance.  Children in Guatemala aren't getting that chance.  Children in Kyrgyzstan aren't getting that chance.  Children in our own country are confined to a broken system and aren't getting that chance.  Those kids are living in worlds where they don't have a chance at family, at hope.  Those kids aren't lucky.

Will I tell my daughter she's "lucky?"  Yes (again, I'll choose the word "blessed"), but that yes comes after talking about her past and her hurts and acknowledging all the grief,  all her unknowns, all the pain that I cannot possibly fix.

What's more, we can introduce her to Jesus.  Only our Merciful God, our Healer and Comforter, can repair that brokenness and give her a hope and a future.

And that is not luck.

That is redemption.

He Did it Again!

Wow!  My husband has knocked it out of the park again and earned his second Diversification Trip!  That's 2 trips in less than 2 years with the company.  That's huge, people!  He is awesome at what he does.

It's always a good story worth sharing though.  You see, with each trip come more qualifiers.  He has to qualify on many different levels and he made this one by $22.  On a Wednesday afternoon, 2 days before the qualification period was over, he called corporate to see if a client's policy went through in time.  They confirmed that it would post the very next morning.  Jay asked what the commission was on it, because he needed $50 in this one final category to earn this trip.  They said it was $72.  That was more than enough!  They congratulated Jay over the phone and he called me to talk through details.

When he came home we decided that to go away on our next trip would be best over the Christmas holiday because we'd already be on break from school.  Yes, even though I homeschool, I still do not like to take unnecessary time off during the school year.  Academics come first and I'm pretty strict about that.

So, it looked like end December, right after Christmas, would be our trip.

Then to figure out where we could go.  The trips book up quickly!  The more veteran financial advisors earn these trips fairly easily and book them first.  The young ones like Jay have to work a bit harder for them and qualify at the last minute.  Because Jay earned this trip on the very last qualifying day, most trips were booked.

London or Rome?  Those were both options for us.  We had a little fun on Facebook and took a couple of polls.  It was pretty even among the two.  Yet from friends who had been to both locales, it seemed that Rome was the winner.

We are not taking the kids with us.  The company and it's product partners pay for the financial advisor and spouse (we have to pay for food and incidentals/extras).  They do not pay for the kids or family members.  For our trip to Jackson Hole this summer, we paid for the kids and my mom and stepdad.  It wasn't cheap!  But we wanted to celebrate as a family and the memories were well worth the expenses!

My mother-in-law will come to watch the kids and Jay and I will be enjoying New Year's in Rome.  It will be the first time we've been gone so long from any of our kids as a couple (remember, I traveled to China alone).  But we're excited and the time away from the kids will surely be good for us as a couple.

Time to renew our passports!  Lookout Rome, here we come!

Last Day of School

After 4 short weeks, Jay and I have been forced to make the decision to pull Quiet Tiger from pre-school.

You remember that first day when she wouldn't connect, when the life was sucked from her from the moment we got up, got dressed, ate breakfast and walked into the classroom?

Well, things got better very quickly, or so I had thought.

I picked her up and she was happy, content, even pleased but she still wouldn't connect with me.  No eye contact, eyes and brain still in that "far away place."  The teacher may have reported that she was a delight, a little leader, good, sweet and attentive and very smart.  He was happy with her performance.  It was exactly that.

It was an act.

You see, kids with attachment disorders go into survival mode and they can put on a good show, to go through the motions, to seemingly behave and do what people want them to do and even seem content in new, different situations.  They are good little actors, believe me!  But it's not real.  It's a falsehood.  It's merely coping and not connecting like you and I do.  It's how they lived in an orphanage, tied down to cribs, not held, not fed enough, not making eye contact and personal connections with fellow human beings, child or adult.  And it's a problem.

Coping.  Not connecting.

The problem reared it's ugly head with crazy hyper activity when L would be back in our presence, away from the school building and back in familiar surroundings  (even familiar surroundings such as Walmart, believe it or not).  You have never seen a child this hyper!  She was out of control.  Unable to control her body, her arms, her legs, her head, her mouth, anything.  Later in the afternoon she would find control and put that control in a bad place -- she would poop in her pants.  Daily.  Every afternoon.  Deliberately.  In front of me.  Or in secret.  She also destroyed items in our home, eating paper from her school backpack, destroying carpet, unraveling afghans, etc.  Total destruction.  Items thrown in the trash.  She was exerting her control in bad ways.  In the world of adoption, the world of raising a child from a hard place:

Control = Fear

Thankfully, the pooping in her underpants stopped in just 1 week with much "potty training revisited" at home; however, that fear she had quickly turned into "naughty" behavior.  When I'd pick her up from school she would be uncontrollable, off the wall bonkers, still refusing to connect, speaking baby talk, bouncing around, refusing to sit with me or listen to me.  Her teacher would be shocked by her behavior in the office when I'd pick her up.  He'd try to help by talking to her, but she wouldn't connect with him or with me.  He noticed that she could hold it in long enough in the classroom but once with me and her brothers, with her safe people, she would act out.  Temper tantrums at home and rage were a daily event.  Even on weekends our girl would just be a terror.  What on earth was going on with this child?

Coping.  Not connecting.

The problem started right away when school began and continued to get worse the deeper we got into school.  We looked for help from the teacher who is an adoptive dad of 7 and knows well the stresses of adopted children, from fellow Adoptive Parents, our new pediatrician, my church adoption group and ETC trained leader, and our social worker whose own older China daughter has been having similar issues as of late.  We gave it as long as we possibly could.  Everyone agreed it best to get her out of there.  Today was her last day of school.

So she's back home.  And hopefully soon we will see…

Less coping.  More connecting.

Last Day of Pre-School
09/26/2014

First Day of School - Part II

Look out, Pre-school!  Here she comes!

As promised, here is a quick post about Quiet Tiger's first day of school.  Today public school opened and she is a preschooler at a local elementary school.

Not going to smile.
Not going to do it.

You're leaving me here?
My Quiet Tiger with one of her Teacher's Assistants.

Of course, I've already had my issues with the public school and their registration rigamarole and absolutely ZERO communication.  Good gosh.  Filling out countless pieces of paper that all say the same thing, just in different ways.  Name, address, phone numbers, emergency contacts, allergies, demographics, etc.  One staff person told me one thing, that gal's supervisor told me something completely different.  I much prefer to work with the supervisor!  And today we just showed up because no one told me when to be there, where to be and the school's website and corresponding calendar were BLANK!

Really?

[They were updated on Meet the Teacher Night, which I was never informed of and clearly missed thanks to their lack of communication.  Sheesh.]

But she made it!  She walked into school with her empty backpack and we said our goodbyes.  While my daughter was distant and wouldn't make any kind of connection with me, this wasn't a hard morning for me.  I truly think this is the best place for her this year.  She needs to learn some key things and I think the teacher we have been assigned to is perfect for her (he's an adoptive dad).

Miss Quiet Tiger will probably be the highest functioning student in the PPCD/LifeSkills Pre-School class and the supervisor is strongly suggesting L go to a different, non Special Ed pre-school class also within the school.  But that suggested class is 5 full days a week with no option of going half-days.  And her teacher would obviously not be the same adoptive dad who sees the behaviors that I see in my girl.  If the class she starts today is indeed not the right fit, we will pull her out at the end of the semester in December and then determine if we should attempt the school's preschool if there is space for her.  But we are trying what seems like the ideal fit for her right now.

I will not send my 4 year old to 5-day, ALL-day preschool!  

That is way too much for a young child, in my opinion,

especially MY child who came from life in an institution. 

You can keep your opinions on that to yourself, please.

Today, I picked her up at lunchtime despite the program being full-day, we ran to Walmart for some school supplies and came home for sandwiches and Cheez-Its (her choice for a treat from the store).  I made sure she followed that with a nap/downtime to unwind.  I was able to finish up school with the boys while she rested/slept.

She said she enjoyed her day and wants to go back.  Here's to a great year for my pre-schooler!