meet the sweetness

I’ve been hesitant to write this or say this out loud for fear of jinxing us.  But I’m going to do it.  

Grace has exited the terrible twos.  

People, her twos were terrible.  Thank you to my dear friends who didn’t judge me but prayed for me as I cried and cried in a mall play place because I just couldn’t bear to face another day of it.  I am thankful for the phase teaching me to rely on Jesus to redeem all of mistakes and to prepare me for the extraordinary high maintenance parenting that is in my future.  The long and short of it is that I just cannot self-produce love and Grace’s terrible twos helped to completely dash that illusion. 

If nothing else, Grace’s “terrible two” phase taught me that it’s not just Lent that is for repentance.  Because I had to repent every.single.day for the way I was impatient, exasperated, and just all around hard-hearted with her.  And still, God and the girl love me. 

Ever since Thanksgiving, she has softened.  It is as though we are getting to meet our daughter for the first time and we adore her.  We get to meet the soft and kind and spunky girly-girl that her preschool teachers kept telling us about, rather than the tiny terrorist that once sat at our kitchen table.

So allow me to re-introduce you to our daughter.

This girl loves her Daddy.  She wants to sit by him at every meal and adores bounding into our room in the morning to give him his wake-up snuggles.  But she also adores me.  Beyond explanation.  Apparently all those times I lost my temper while sitting with her on the steps didn’t scar her.  She cradles my face and tells me she loves me, she really loves me.

She loves to sing and bounce.  In particular, she loves Hip Hop music.  I’m embarrassed to confess that if she asks about Beauty and the Beast, she isn’t referring to Belle and the Disney Classic.  She is requesting Justin Beiber.  She also requests “Tay-bor Wift”, “Kesha”, and “Twift Pop”.  She has, on more than one occasion, had a full on temper tantrum because I could not find “Juttin Beeeeeeeeeeber” on the radio.  At some point, I’m going to have to break down and download some of her faves.  I also may have taught my kids that Britney is singing “Britney Ditch.”  Just play along.  

She has never seen a musical she doesn’t love.  Her current favorite is the Wizard of Oz and she is usually singing “Oh ee oh, yo um” or chanting “Lions and Tigers and Bears! Oh my!”

She continues to be a picky eater.  We’ve stopped fighting her on this and are just resigned to the fact that she may only eat breakfast some days.  She would prefer to only eat carbs and dairy.  Oh, and bacon.

 

She was super easy to potty train.  Two days after we made the plunge to panties, Sloan and I put together the boys’ bunk beds (meaning we ignored the kids all day long).  No potty accidents.  She even forgets to asks for a treat sometimes and has woken up with dry pull-ups on many occasions.  I assure you that we have done nothing unique for this.  She is just independent. 

She can dress herself, brush her own teeth, sloppily make her bed, and is all around very helprful.  Not in that “oh we will let our three year old help to instill a work ethic even though it adds hours to the process”, but actually helpful.  She can vacuum, dust, straighten pillows, empty the dishwasher, fold napkins and blankets, bring in groceries, push the little grocery cart without killing anyone and even help Henry get dressed.  She even attempts to pour her own milk.  This, um, is NOT actually helpful.

While I didn’t want to confess it, I’m certain that part of the delays in our adoption journey were to give Grace time to mature a bit and to teach me that I can rely on Jesus to do his work in our children’s lives. 

Thank you Jesus for using my stubborn daughter on my stubborn heart.  Please continue.

Good things are coming...

So you were probably expecting this to be a post about how we only have two more nights in this house.  How Henry helped me pack up all his Thomas trains and tracks and said, "I guess this is really real because where my trains go, I'm going too.  Two more nights and then I get my new room!" 

But the post about the new house will have to wait. 

Why?

What could be more exciting than the new house?

This.  That's two signed and sealed referral acceptance letters.  That's right.  We've got kids! 

(And sorry if these descriptions are kinda cryptic.  I don't want to divulge too much identifying information on the interwebs that could possibly interfere with our adoption.) Our children are biological siblings from a town whose primary language is Swahili.  And because God likes to mock me with His sovereignty, the city where they are from was called Elizabethville under Dutch rule.  And we got the referral the day after we closed on the new house.  You know, when we actually had room for 4 kids.  One year to the day from when we learned that Grace had two younger birth siblings and we first thought that perhaps we'd be a family of 6 one day. 

Classic Jesus showing me what's up.  I get it.  I get it.  You've got this.  I'll just hold the tail while You skin this cat.

Our son, C, is a few months younger than Gracie.  Our daughter, A, turned 1 over the summer.  It is our fervent hope to have the kids home prior to her 2nd birthday.  From this point, the average time frame is typically 6-9 months.

We haven't yet decided 100% on what we plan to name our children.  With K and N, we planned to bump their African names to their middle names and give them family first names.  We had planned to call K an American nickname for his African name.  But our children's names given to them by their African birth mother are not your typical African names.  They are French and the family names we had picked out just don't seem to fit them.  We think we've settled on their names, but we aren't sure.  So we are going to hold those close to the vest for a little while.  So as for now, we are simply calling them their given names.  But Gracie calls her little sister something completely different.  She can say her sister's actual name, but prefers a nickname she has given her.

She is acting like a big sister already.  Bossy and planning to not share her toys. 

But we did get to send in packages for them to get at Christmas.  

For A. 

For C. 



Next month, we hope to send them shoes, but we don't know their actual shoe sizes, so I think we will try to get them some Crocs.  In order to insure that the packages make it through customs, it is best if we send them gently used items. Thankfully, I have friends who have kids roughly the same age as my youngest children. 


We are over the moon. 

3…The Magic Number

This girl is three. 

We (barely) made it out of the terrible twos alive.  Her preschool teachers describe her as a party in a can.  I’d say that is about right.  Because most parties I attended in college were loud, left me sweaty, covered in unknown stains, and crying in the corner.  

I prefer the term "hot mess."

She is sassy and smart.  She is the ultimate Daddy's girl and loves nothing more than to be with, sit on, kiss, climb on, or dance with her Daddy.  When I make her mad, she says, "I'm telling Swoan!"

She is always on the move and can often be found standing on her head.  Her athletic abilities are staggering.  She can do pirouettes, hop across the room on one foot, run like the wind, do forward rolls, and leap from the couch to Sloan’s chair unscathed (which are about 4 feet apart).  And trust me, I have not tried to teach her any of these things.  And given her passion about all things pirate, she usually does all of the above while wielding a sword.  She is currently enrolled in a creative movement class and we are hoping to put her in gymnastics as well after the New Year.  Yes, I do think she is a bit young to have 2 classes a week.  But her temperament and energy level are such that I really do think she will do best when her schedule is booked and her boundaries are firm.  Henry and I will just happily read books and try to move as little as possible while she runs circles around us.

She has two imaginary friends with whom she does EVERYTHING.  Their names are Mrs. Fox and Mrs. Walker.  Incidentally, there is a teacher at her school named Mrs. Walker.  Mrs. Walker isn’t her teacher, but since Mrs. Walker is my friend in real life, she just might dote on Gracie a bit.  And Gracie loves her fans.  We once saw Mrs. Walker at a restaurant and she screamed louder than a tween at a Bieber concert.  At least once a day she asks me, “Remember when we saw Mrs. Walker?  I WUV MRS. WALKER!!!”  

She is a horrible eater.  She would prefer to just eat cheese, crackers, bacon, and Honey Banana Chobani yogurt.  She will pretty much do anything, including keeping on her sleep cap or pooping on the potty, for the promise of a chocolate chip.  And her heart is so big that it is unacceptable to her if only she gets a chocolate chip.  EVERYONE present must eat a chocolate chip with her.  So I take one for the team and eat the chocolate.    

She continues to love her Pinkie and loveys.  She is learning to sit for long periods of time while I do her hair.  Of course, this requires the help of Pixar and snacks, but yesterday I spent 5 hours braiding her hair in the hopes we don’t have to mess with it much during the next two weeks while we move. 

And now, I’ll leave you with her interview.  The answers in italics are my explanations of her own words.

Favorite color: Purple

Favorite Book: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Favorite Song: Jesus Loves Me

Favorite Food: Pizza and Candy!!!  (And of course she asked for candy after answering this) 

Food that is yucky:  beans (actually ALL vegetables are hated equally. She goes to bed without dinner a lot.  A lot.  But she weighs 34 lbs, so clearly, she isn’t starving.)

Favorite Restaurant: Angelo’s

Favorite Sport: Dance class!

Favorite TV Show: Little Einstein’s

Favorite Movie: Mary Poppins (We watch it at least once a week.  We are watching it now.)

Favorite Toy: Lego Soup (She likes to “cook” with legos at her kitchen.)

Favorite Game:  Hide and Seek (*ahem* not so much the seeking)

Favorite Thing at School: play toys with my friends and see Mrs. Walker on da pwayground

Favorite Place to Go: Costco

Favorite Thing to do with Mommy: Spin to music

Favorite Thing to do with Daddy: Cuddle

Favorite Things about Henry: I can’t remember. (I do.  I’d have to say that he has never once hit her or pushed her despite her constant fretting, pushing, sitting upon or toy stealing.  In fact, we’ve had to teach him to use his hands to pry her off of him sometimes.)

Favorite Thing About about Myself: I don’t know.  I gotta tink about it.  I SOOOOO funny. 

If I could go anywhere in the world it would be: Costco. 

When I grow up I want to be: I want to be Gracie Mommy.

3 words to describe myself:  energetic, silly, mischievous

My wish for the coming year:  to be a witch for Halloween.

Ballerina Girl

In an effort to live vicariously through my eldest daughter, she has been signed up for dance.  Well, Creative Movement really.  It's all part of my master plan to make the world cry.  Either from her bio film on So You Think You Can Dance or (please oh please!) in the Women' gymnastics finals of the 2028 Olympics.  Who knows?  Depending upon the age of her little sister, they could both be balance beaming and vaulting for Team USA.  Magnificent 7?  Fab 5?  Ha!  It'll be the Phillips Dynamic duo!

Also, I may have cried as she was getting fitted for her first ballet shoes, tights, and leotards.   Be still my ballet loving heart...

My Wandering Angel

My darling Grace

Most days we spend a lot of time at the bottom step.  We talk about what hands are for and blow kisses and clap and high five and hug.  We practice whispering and using our inside voices.  We stand for minutes on end with our noses to the wall.  We pray.  We ask for forgiveness.  We say we are sorry.  These moments, while they are how we spend a lot of our days as of late, are my least favorite parts of the day.  Well, least favorite AFTER the incidents that mandate our presence on the bottom step.

My favorite part of the day with you is bedtime.  Not because you will soon be asleep, but because of our dear ritual.  We lube you up with Coconut Oil.  We gather your hair or braids and put on your pretty pink silk scarf.  We read a Bible story and then you and Henry each get to select a story.  Then Henry goes to his room and, here is my most favoritest part, you and I snuggle up with your lovey and Pinkie and rock in the yellow rocking chair and sing.

Generally, we sing three songs.  You always ask for ABCs.  And once we are done singing the ABC song, you ask we sing it again.  We do not.  You also love Twinkle Twinkle, Jesus Loves Me, My Bonnie, Amazing Grace, My God is So Big, and your all time favorite finale song—La La Lu (from Disney’s Lady and the Tramp).  You love La La Lu.  You are so precious as you belt out the words.  Your nose crinkles, you rub my face, as you snuggle into my chest.  You even tap my nose when you sing, “Here comes a pink cloud for you.”  

And then I tuck you in, with your head on your satin pillow case, and gather up Pinkie, your multiple loveys, and all of your stuffies—Eyore, Piglet, a sea lion, a lamb, a mermaid, an owl, a purple sock monkey, the stuffed Build a Bear dog your brother made you while we were waiting for you, and your two blankies.  Without even looking, you know if one is missing.  

That’s how I feel about you.  Even with my eyes shut, I see you.  Do you drive me bonkers?  Yes.  Because you are so. much. like. me.  You love and approach life with everything you have.  You never walk, but dance everywhere.  You shower me with kisses and snuggles and zerberts.  You have always been, and will always be, no matter how many more kids God brings into our family, my little star sweeper and wandering angel.  

Fold up your wings, close your eyes.

La la lu, la la lu, and may love be your keeper.

Adoption Update

So we've made some headway with our adoption paperwork.  We are in the final rounds of our homestudy, just waiting for it to make it through multiple levels of bureaucratic approval and a few more papers need to be filled out and signed.

So now we are beginning our Waiting Child Special Needs paperwork and tomorrow we have our first phone call with our Dossier Specialist. 

In an effort to not have a panic attack, I am attempting to be like Anne Lammott with all the paperwork.  As a child, Lammott's brother was overwhelmed by a report on birds.  Apparently, it was the day before the paper was due and he couldn't even start.  Lammott's writer father suggested he not to think of the paper as a whole, but as the sum of many pieces.  To take the paper "bird by bird."  I cannot think of the forms and spreadsheets and notaries and state seals as an entirety or I will just.shut.down.  So I just look at my check list and take it bird by bird, willing myself to not look at item 4c before I even complete section 2a. 

I've also pretty much given up on Gracie being in panties full time until all this paperwork is due.  If you are in Richmond, you will hear me talk about this a lot.  Sorry.  It's because I'm trying to convince myself that this is okay she is in pull-ups. 

We have also once again asked to be matched with a particular child.  I'm equal parts hopeful that he is ours and hopeful that a family with their Dossier already logged in China gets matched with him because I want him out of China.  Now.

I think I believed when we made the decision to adopt a special needs child that would be that.  That just the choosing to obey God would be the difficult part. 

But following Jesus isn't a "one and done" item on a checklist.  Being God's child isn't just getting your name in a book and them continuing on your way.  It is a relationship, a dance, a quest, an adventure.  The "in between" times are perhaps more instructive than the grandiose mountaintop experiences. 

I suppose I forgot the invitation of my dear Savior--  Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.  Luke 9:23

So it is a good thing I had to write up a letter as to why we are doing this in the first place.  It's not because there's this adorable little boy in a yellow ducky jacket eating a graham cracker that I want to snuggle.  It's because the words I wrote at the beginning of this journey still hold true:   

"I want my family to be aware of its need for Jesus.  I want us to never get so self-sufficient that we forget who is the Great Provider.  I want for all of my kids to know what real love looks like—a love that doesn’t count the cost of suffering, a love that chooses to be uncomfortable for the sake of another, a love that values joy over happiness, redemption over ease, reconciliation over smoothness, grace over rightness, resurrection over complacency.  

And, there’s also this:

When I was lost, broken, spiritually paralyzed, and an enemy, Jesus came for me.  He left the comforts of heaven and came to the chaos.  For me.  And he was not content to just forgive.  He was not content to just make me right before the Father.  No, He adopted me.  He gave me a family.  He gave me an inheritance." 

Happy Easter!

If you don't want to see a bunch of photos of my adorable children, then you should probably skip this post.  

 Our little bunny who got her face painted at our neighborhood's egg hunt.

Bucketheads!

Surveying the loot!

I have chocolate!

2nd Annual Cousin Egg Hunt at my sister's house!  (aka how we get the kids out of the house while the meal is being prepared!)

 

 I just love this picture.  Taken by my very talented niece, Rachel.

This year's Easter was sponsored by seersucker. 

Semi-Open, Part Two

In our most recent letter to GBM, we wrote that if she was sober and was healthy, we would be willing to consider a more open relationship, that we would be willing to drive to where she was, along with our case worker, to meet her.  

Within a week of receiving that update and its accompanying photographs, we received our first letter from Grace’s birthmom (GBM)!

I was sitting in carpool line about to pick up Henry when my friend and Bethany pregnancy counselor, R, called to tell me they had received a letter from GBM.  Did I want her to mail it to us? 

“No!  I-want-you-to-read-it-aloud-to-me-and-then-I-will-drive-really-fast-to-the-office-to-pick-it-up.  Oh, yeah, I’ll probably pick up Henry from school first, ya know, since I’m here. And perhaps hit a drive through.  But read it to me.  Read it to me.  WHY ARE YOU STILL BEING QUIET; HURRY UP AND READ IT TO ME!”

I will not share all the details of this letter here, because they are not my story to tell.  GBM shared that she was excited that we were willing to consider a more open relationship and gave us her address and ways to contact her.  Though, because of the advent of caller ID and the like, having her phone number isn’t really helpful.  We called her from Bethany.  She hung up on us.  My guess is that she was hoping we would call her directly or give her our phone number.  At the present, even though we share a daughter, she is a stranger to us.  While we feel like she is family that simply is not the case.  It doesn’t make much sense to give a stranger our home phone number, much less a stranger with a history of addiction.

We also received the most precious letter ever from G’s tween half-sister (GTHS—not to be confused with DWTS or SYTYCD).  She included a picture of her dog and mentioned all of the physical traits she shares with Grace. It was written on a typewriter.  I don’t know why this fact moves me so.  I imagine GTHS sitting at the typewriter, knees bouncing, reversing and marking xxxx’s through her misspellings, perhaps chewing on a pen, trying to tell the little sister she has never known outside of her mother’s womb that she loves her and thinks of her often and I break.  She also included her most recent school picture.  She is beautiful and is prominently featured on our refrigerator.  We pray for her daily.  She has the same shaped eyes as Gracie, but in an ice blue.  Her hair is silky and blonde, with a red feather extension.  She favors my tween niece Rebekah.

Through the letter of GBM, we learned that Grace had two more siblings.  That, at least biologically, Gracie was now a big sister to a set of twins.  A set of twins that were born extrememly premature and had been taken into foster care.

We were confused.  Was Grace’s birthmom telling us about the twins because she wanted us to have them?  What about China?  Was God calling us to adopt these twins and not a child with special needs?  Was He calling us to do both?  And what about the 10 yr old little girl?  Were we now adopting three kids?  Would we have to transform the attic into a living space for a tween?  Would we need to move?  Would I ever stop trying to second guess Jesus?  Would I, for at least 30 seconds, stop asking my husband what the heck was going on?  Did social services even know we existed?  Wouldn’t they want to keep siblings together?  Did we have rights?

Or what if they had been placed with a family?  I was guessing that a bi-racial set of twins with addictions born extremely premature would be a difficult placement.  (Though to be fair, we didn’t even know the race of the twins.  It obviously didn’t matter to us.)  Were they healthy?  What issues, if any, had GBM passed onto them?  What about the risks for just being born 12 weeks early?  Did they need foster parents?  Would Grace’s birthmom relinquish her rights or would she fight for them?  Would we fight her for them?  

I kept asking Sloan what we were supposed to do.  And he kept telling me that we didn’t have enough information to make a decision.  I called several friends and asked for their wisdom.  Not a single one of them told me what to do.  Everyone basically said, “Whoa.  This is big.  I don’t know what God is doing.  But He is doing something.”  My friend Ali texted me, “I’m hearing wait and watch.”  (Note to self—make at least one friend that will feed my crazy.  Let’s all pretend that I hadn’t already begun to decorate a nursery for twins.  Let’s pretend that I didn’t name them and give them ADORABLE nicknames.)  

So. Not. Helpful.  

What I wanted was a burning bush or some respected older person in my church to call me and say, “While having my quiet time, I thought of you and I wanted to tell you that I will buy you a minivan and help you decorate a nursery for those twins.”  Instead, I got a 4 year old son who was telling me that he wanted a brother to share bunk beds with.  

What I wanted was to call GBM and for her to tell me how wonderful I was and how healthy she was and how she wanted me to raise all of her children and go on tour like some singing family in a painted volkswagon van.  What I got was a husband out of town on business and unwilling to entertain my ever-growing list of “what ifs” while on the telephone.  

What I wanted was to know how much of this letter could even be trusted.  What I got was a God so big and yet begging me simply to trust him.    

What I wanted was to know the end of the story and perhaps have a hand in writing it.  What I got was a Savior reminding me it wasn’t even my story to begin with.  

But wait…this story isn’t over yet…