Are we the chosen ones?

I was talking with Leslie this evening and our conversation led where it almost always does these days. To the Younger. The baby to come. We have alot to ponder and that is putting it lightly.
I read to him this blog entry of a blog that I follow. The parents have just chosen the file of a Special Needs girl and the Mama wrote a post ( a beautiful post) about the days and hours leading up to their acceptance of this child. She talked openly and with heart about the initial "knowing" that you have just seen the face of your child, about the doubts that start to creep in and those moments when you finally decide to put the child first and see how the decision plays out. I read this entry to Leslie and while that entry had filled my heart with hope and light- it seemed to cause Les some discomfort and anguish.
He wondered aloud at the fairness of being put in the position of choosing these children- a child really- one out of thousands. Our choice yes means a child will live- not only live but thrive and be loved. Our choice no for a child would mean....God only knows. It is a heavy burden some days- every day. I KNOW both emotionally and intellectually that our acceptance of a Special Needs child means that, that single child will come home and share our lives. That child will live.
Leslie always dismays at this responsibility. He feels that those decisions are better left to God and that we, as mere humans should not have the power that our acceptance does, indeed have. It is a decision of life and death- we know that. He feels unworthy of this. I think he feels afraid mostly that a very understandable passing fear may cause him to hesitate when we see the face and file of our new child.
I agree with him. It doesn't seem fair sometimes that the ones of us who can't have children biologically have to make these decisions.
In my brighter moments I wonder if God knows something that we don't? I wonder and hope that HE sees something that said, "these people have the love and ability to make the choices I need them to make to get their children home". You see, I KNOW that God is with us in this journey. I have had too many confirmations to truly doubt. I just hope that we can set aside ourselves and put this new child first. I hope that we are up to the task. I hope that we know when to say yes and when to say no and when to push ourselves and when to back off.
Please. Do not misunderstand. Leslie and I are both in this 100%. We are right with each other. We talk talk talk about this. I have not pushed him into this and he has not pushed me. We know we want to adopt again. We know that we want a Special Needs child. It's just that even when you KNOW, there are moments of doubt and fear. I will say that our fears have never been about doing it or not- they are about making the decision that would be right for the 4 of us.
I am going to find my husband now ( he is down stairs teaching Ev how to catch and throw a football) and I am going to say to him that I think he is perfect to help me make these decisions, simply because he is worried about it. His worries means that he is thinking. It means that he understands the magnitude of this and in my book, he's got what it takes. It means that he is already Papa to that mystery person that will complete our family.

Fun at The Lake

I may have mentioned that one of the perks about being a military family at this particular CG station means that we have access to a small beach on the Lake that no one else (read as riff raff) can go on. So there have been a few days that I have packed the kids up and hauled them off to the lake for swimming and getting sand insensitive places.

Right near the beach we use is the access to a small river. Huge tankers use this river. You can see one heading out into the Great lakes in these pictures. I love seeing these huge ships, it's one thing I missed when we were out of Ohio. I love seeing the evidence of shipping on the Great Lakes. I love that it seems impossible that these ships even fit up that tiny river- but they do- all of the time. The kids always love to see them as well.

These make great days for the kiddos. I let them swim until the are exhausted ( my main rule is that they stay where their feet can touch - this helps with their confidence and my peace of mind), I take some snacks and we stay as long as we can. I hope they all remember these days when they are older.

Don't you just love how they grabbed their water tube shooty things and posed a la Band of Brothers style in that middle pic above. I did not coach them.

We also get lucky enough to have lunch time visitations from Leslie when we are here- always a huge hit with the kids.

Leslie

My husband came home from work today, after being at work for 2 days. He walked in the door, said hello to Evelyn and then Kate and Aden. Then he came into the living room, sat down next to me, looked me right in the eyes and said "lets just spend the day together, just me and you being together". How lucky am I to not only have such a great man to share my life with, but that after 15 years of marriage- he still wants days with only him and I?
Now the reality was that we had not only our one child in the house but, two others as well. Did you know that kids need things? I also needed a nap- in the worst way. So I napped and he watched the kids and then we loaded them in the car and drove them to the nearest pool. Then Leslie and I sat in the shallows and watched the kids and we talked- to each other. In fact we had to keep shooing the children off to "swim over there- we can see you" . I know it wasn't much but it was what we could get. And I am grateful.
I am hoping that sometime in the near future we can have Ev go to Grandma's or to Aunt Jenny's and we can have some time with just us. I am hoping that in another 15 years he still wants to have time with just me.

Anticlimax

We have/had a Hornet's nest in the eave of the house. Leslie noticed this the other day and decided to do something about it. Okay. That's great. Except that with the recent "fireplace cleaning", the "paint on the stairs incident" and various other house-y things gone awry, I was a bit trepidatious. I mean, this Hornet Problem wold involve chemicals and heights and probably very angry stinging, flying bugs. I did what any normal person would do- I grabbed my camera so I could document any potential, umm, happenings. You can see the nest in that crappy picture above- if you squint. It's the dark blob at the top angle.

This is my brave and stout husband- reading up on his chosen method of Hornet Death and Destruction.



This is his game face. We are ready to go.....

This was his/our method. Death Dealer to hang out of the second story window as far as he can and Assistant/Photographer to hold onto his waistband to prevent falls and/or death on the pavement below. Good plan. I think OSHA would be all over this.

This is a view from the driveway. That's how far a potential fall could have taken us. And I say US because I am always included in any injuries sustained, any chili sauce gone wrong in the car even if it wasn't MY damn chili dog- I am just saying. I get the dirty end of the stick no matter what. So I was convinced that I would end the day with at least a hornet sting if not a cracked rib or femur.
So we confined Ev and Billy in her room with closed windows and a towel covering the bottom of the door.
Les dropped the window.
I hung onto him with one hand and my camera with the other. Braced myself ...
Les hung out the window while standing on the office chair. He sprayed.
And.....
nothing.
He sprayed, hit the nest and made it back in safe and sound. No stings, no buzzing, no need to scream.

I was so disappointed.

Mostly About My Cat

This is my cat. Billy Bones.
I know that I have talked about him before and some of you may be rolling your eyes right now, thinking "oh great more cat stuff". Well, yes.
You see, this is a one in a million cat. He is my companion and my helper. He talks to me all of the time. He is never more than a few feet from me -if I am at home. He sleeps with me, on my face to be precise. He is just one of those cats that you hope and pray come your way.
I was looking at him yesterday and he is all growns up now. No more kitty- just cat. When he WAS a kitty I used to say that he would grow into those crazy feet, he never did. The feet have stayed prominent and I am glad, it's so unique and funny and a part of who he is. He loves us all and if I am tickling Ev and she is squealing, he jumps up and gets in my face and sniffs her, just to be sure that she is okay. If Ev does get into trouble and I holler at her and she cries, Billy will show me only his back for at least an hour. If Ev goes into her room in a snit, he goes with her and they close the door and plot against me I am sure. At the end of the day though, he knows which human puts out the Tuna and that's me- so I win.
This is Billy a few weeks ago. All grown up and handsome.
This was Billy Bones on the first day he came home with me. Just look at that pile of toes.
Still on that first day home. In this picture you can also note that my Brother In Law Mike has handsome knees. You can also see some of that old man scrawny neck of Ev's that I love/loved so much.

Really though Billy adopted us. He chose us over his cat family. He stayed right in my backyard and waited for me to talk Leslie into allowing him in. He came right in and sniffed a bit, played a few minutes with Ev and proceeded to sleep for hours, right in the middle of the couch.
None of us have ever looked back.
So, yes , this many toe-d, striped, orange creature who chews everything in the house, who talks like he is human, who defends my daughter, who lets me know when she is hurt, this cat, he's mine. And I love him.

No Trust

Since my camera freaked out at the Aquarium in Newport, I have been reluctant to take any more photos with it. I have been using my i-phone. Then, I loaded up the i-phone pictures and I can access them from my Kodak program but not from the Blogger photo up-load page!!!! What is going on? I have attempted to talk with Leslie about this but, he ummm... is a bit like me, we just pretend that at any moment, the computer will remember to do what we want it to do.
For instance, we used to have 2 profiles on the computer- mine and his. I would use mine to do my stuff, up load pictures- e-mails and what-not. Well, then one day Les decided that having 2 was silly , what with all of that logging off and on and back and forth. So he went through the process of combining our profiles into one. Ok. Fine. Except that all of the pictures that I had up loaded from my profile- months and months worth, are no longer accessible. This means that when I want to go back and put older pictures on the Blog, I can't. It means that we have pictures (theoretically) that I haven't laid eyes on in years.
We both just keep avoiding this issue.
Is that weird? I mean we are so go get 'em in every other part of our lives, but the computer? That confounds us and makes us nervous.
I don't trust it.
I don't trust my camera anymore.
I don't REALLY trust Les when he tells me that all of those pictures aren't lost, when he says they are on a disc somewhere. I won't even REALLY attempt to find this "disc" because I am afraid that I will strangle Leslie if he is wrong.
Because I don't trust myself either.
The other issue with my pictures is that I am so behind on ordering my digitals onto prints that I am about 2 years behind! Maybe more. This makes my chest feel all weird and tight and I start to get a bit panicky. I want those prints. beautiful glossy pictures in albums. In order so we can browse through them. I am afraid that any minute the computer will just pphhtttt! and I will loose, literally thousands of photos of my family life.
Then we still have the whole, "the computer is slow that I can't even bother to up load pictures right now" issue.
All of this is to say that when I get my trust issues sussed out, there will be a return of photos to this site.

Also? My video camera broke. That was a few weeks ago when I was right in the middle of finding all of Ev's baby footage for her to see. So, as you can see we are a bit of a mess when it comes to our "media".

Shapes

It all started with her feet. One day Bean still had those generic but sweet, soft little feet that resemble any child's feet. One day they were round and soft and looked the the feet of a baby, a toddler a pre-schooler. Then one day I looked down and she had different feet. Her big girl feet. Feet that have substance and a shape all their own. Feet that look like they will carry her through many adventures.
It is startling to me in a way. All of the females in my family have similar shaped feet. Evelyn's feet stand out. I imagine that her feet look like her Chinese Mother's. I imagine that the shape of them would seem so familiar to that woman if she could see them. At first I was unsettled by these new feet. This new shape on Evelyn's body. Now I love them. They are tiny and brown and perfect and they are strong. They have bony parts and her toes don't flow off her her foot like mine do. But I love them. They are hers.
All of our shapes do not have to match. I love the exotic-ness of her shapes.
Her almond eyes. That wedge of dark hair against her chin line. The shape of that chin line, how very definite but soft it is. The shape of her silhouette against a bright sky. The shape of that perfect nose. The various shapes that make up her hands, her wrists, her waist. The back of her neck....
That has changed too. The back of her neck. It used to be such a scrawny, hairless shape. I loved it , it looked like the neck of an impossibly small old man. I know that sounds crazy but that IS what it looked like and I loved it. Now she has a neck that is covered by her dark hair and it has filled out and strengthened. Sometimes I lift her hair up and search for the remnants of that tiny old man neck, it's there - if you know what to look for.
And oh! the shape of her big girl knobby knees.
I love the shapes that make up my daughter. They are so familiar to me but at the same time so different. My favorite shape right now though is the shape of those little feet. And the shape of her mouth as it smiles- that's a great one too.

The Way A Day Ends

The way a day ends can speak a thousand words about the day itself.
Pretend that you are 5 and it is summer. Pretend that your day ends with a warm bath, a lube job (that's what we call being slathered in lotion around here), powder, fresh pj's and a long cuddle with Mama in your soft bed that's in your pink room. Imagine that, that bath you had ended up with the dirtiest water that you or your Mama have ever seen. Imagine that while snuggling you laid in bed and practiced your finger snap and for the first time, got a loud one.
I would say then that THAT particular day started good, stayed that way and ended that way. I would say then that THAT particular day had porch swinging and morning cuddles, a movie with cousins, beach time, swimming time, playing in the sand time. I would guess that on that day, you built sand castles and waged water wars. I would assume that you spent all day in sun and water, at home and at the lake. I would think that you got to help Mama wash the car and then splash in the driveway. Of course you would have held an inch worm and wondered at it's perfect lightness and green-ness. Absolutely you would have gotten to help your Mama cook dinner. And postively would you have gotten big bear hugs from your Papa on demand.
Indeed, you can tell alot about a day by the way it drifts to a close.

Chim-chim-che-roo

We have company coming today. We were scrambling to clean up the joint after days of neglect and human abscence so we wouldn't have to hang our heads in shame when Jim and Lynnette walked in.
In the middle of cleaning Les says "I think I'll bring in the shop vac to vacuum out the fireplace"
( An aside here..... I will never stopped being amazed at the things my hubby will consider a priority for "Weekend Guests Cleaning"- the fireplace- indeed)
So I said, skeptically, "we have 2 hours and 20 minutes and you want to vacuum out the fireplace? Really?" He responded in the affirmative with a side of "why are you nagging me woman?" So I let it go.
He had to don a rain coat ( it was thunderstorming), to get out to the garge and drag in a shop vac. He started with the little one. That one didn't have, and I quote "the intestinal fortitude" to suck all of the ashes out. So, again with the rain coat and outside, this time he came in with the "big" one. By this time Evelyn was thouroughly engrossed- because to her, the only thing that rivals toilet cleaning is vacuuming the fireplace out. So there she was, garbed up in her polar feece Princess Leia dress ( she HAD been watching Star Wars all dressed up in her polar fleece P.L. dress), ready to assist Papa.
I was standing there looking at them and wondering where in my life I had gone wrong. Then I shook it off and started to frantically dust and try to make up for the loss of, not one but two workers at that point.
Then they turned on the Big Vac.
It was loud.
Nothing happened really until Leslie put the sucking end of his shop vac into a pile of very fine black ash.
That's when it got interesting.
That ash went in one end- the hose- and was sort of dispersed at a high rate of velocity out the back end! Let me tell you, there was maximum dispersal. I stood there in that plume of ash and hollered like a fool.
Leslie and Ev did not hear me as they were right by the loud motor and talking about how that ash was really getting sucked out.
Finally, finally they heard me hollereing and shut the damn thing off.
Needless to say, there was alot more dusting to be done.

Aquarium

Our special trip with The Grands, Lissa and Brevin was a success. We rented a van and we all drove together to this place http://www.newportaquarium.com/ To say we all had fun would be an understatement. The kids were all excited on the way down, I mean they WERE getting to spend the night in a hotel! The Bean was actually so excited that, despite the fact that she was exhausted, she talked and giggled the entire trip (which was 3 hrs and 5 minutes). We got to Newport and had dinner at this place http://www.pompilios.com/ , which is the little eatery where they filmed that famous toothpick scene in Rain Man, also my Great Grandma worked there in the 50's. We then, went and checked in at the Hotel and let the kids burn off some energy swimming while my sister and I practiced our Synchronized Swimming Routine ( I said at the time that I had NEVER seen a thing like it on the Olympics and I'm sticking to that).
The next day we headed off to the Aquarium- it was fabulous! We got there early enough so the kids could watch the Penguin Parade that opens the Aq. every morning- at one point they were literally 3 inches away form African Penguins! It was so cool. Inside the Aq, was awesome too. I think Bean's favorite parts were the sharks, feeding the Lorakeets and watching the Jelly Fish. Brevin loved the Penguins and the sharks.
Okay, so Ev did get pooped on by the Lorakeets but she didn't mind THAT much- she just wanted to feed them. Okay so Melissa did get a cup of nectar down her front , she didn't mind that much (that's a lie-she minded).
Both kids were brave and touched the star fish, the horse shoe crabs and the tiger sharks at the Touch Pools. Both kids loved being in the big "Surrounded By Sharks" Tunnel. Both kids ran themselves ragged. Also, The Grands were run ragged!
We had lunch at Johnny Rocket's on The Levy and then we took a "Ride The Ducks" ride trough Cincinnati and Newport.
Then, sadly it was time to head the van towards Smokewood.
I would take this trip again in a hot minute. Every bit was fun and easy. The kids loved it and I loved that their Grandparents were there to see their little faces light up and hear them squealing and talking and just plain enjoying themselves.
You will notice that I have no pictures posted. That is because for some strange reason Leslie and I can not figure out, my camera freaked out and, at the end of the day, wiped every single photo off the the memory card. I am heartsick over this. I had some great pictures and I so wanted to make a special memory book for each kid.
Stupid Camera.

The Weekend That Kept On Giving

The Fourth. What a time. We had so much fun and it all spilled over to this week!
Okay, on Friday we went to the Hot Air Balloon Festival in a town near my parent's house. I have always loved hot air balloons and long to take a ride in one (as does Ev now that she has seen them). We made a little camp on the ground in a big field and waited for the wind to die. When the conditions were right, we got to watch 28 hot air balloons fill with air and float away. Then we, hum hum, snacked. It was technically dinner but I would like to say that it was quite possibly the unhealthiest and most fun dinner that bean has ever had! At one point I looked at her and she had an ice cream cone in one hand and a wad of funnel cake in the other. Later in the evening the balloons came back and filled up and "glowed". It was a pretty sight.
Saturday we spent at Grandma's just hanging out and eating and visiting. It was a nice time and we had awesome Chicken Kabobs that have changed my mind about Kabobs in general. Ev and Brev spent alot of time playing and running wild.
Sunday we headed back this way, picked up Jodi, and plopped ourselves on the lake shore for a bit, had a nice dinner out and then caught some fireworks at the Coast Guard Station.
Monday we went back to Grandma's and dropped Ev off for 2 spend over nights - The Grands are on vacation and this will be E's first time spending the night with them alone. The afternoon was spent with Ev in a car seat in the front seat of her Grandpa's Pontiac Le Mans- red, classic car that totally rocks. There was ice cream and engine noise and going fast- she loved every minute of it.
Tomorrow we are headed off for a special trip with The Grands, Lissa and Brev. Papa can not come because of work but we expect to have as much fun as possible.
I will leave you with a few pictures from the weekend....

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