she is everything to us

i wanted to wrap this blog up with a final post of our sweet girl. she is so precious to us, it is hard to describe. as we get await LOA to adopt abigail (http://www.mistyming.blogspot.com/) and are ready to travel to rwanda to serve orphans there, (http://www.nowthatihaveseeniamresponsible.blogspot.com/) orphans have been on my heart and mind even more than usual. i told ben this morning, "can you even imagine phoebe still being an orphan and living in an orphanage?" i truly cannot fathom this little girl not being with us. and to think we almost told our agency 'no' because we wanted a younger child.

here is the final picture to this blog -- in all her glory :) -- on her way to her first princess tea party. she is indeed a princess. a princess of the King.

open wide

stainless steel crowns that will last until adult teeth are ready to come in :) and the hole behind the single crown is where the really big gaping hole used to be, you know the abscessed one that probably hurt like crazy. no teeth are better than rotten, painful teeth anyday

good timing because sarah lost her first tooth this week too....

phoebe did great today! she was such a trooper. she has only fussed for a short period this afternoon after we both woke up from a power nap. the dentist called in tylenol with codeine for the weekend, although he said she probably wouldn't need it (fantastic surgeon, but would he take only motrin after 5 extractions, 5 crowns, and 7 fillings....i don't think so... :)

so, hopefully we are settling in for a good night's sleep, or not. we'll see. thank you so very much for your emails and posts and especially your prayers.

sweet dreams from an incredibly precious, tough, toothless little girl, and her blessed mommy. xoxoxoxo, :)

bye bye bad teeth....

good news on the insurance front! after 42,003 phone calls her surgery is approved and she is good to go for early friday morning. another blessing is that the international adoption clinic will draw all the blood they need while she is under.

i will post an update tomorrow afternoon, Lord willing, with how she did. it will look strange to see her minus four front top teeth. but you can see in the picture above, how much damage can be done by eating the wrong foods and never brushing. enamel, although the hardest substance in the body, can't stand a chance against those odds. show your kids if they don't believe you :)

prayers for safety under anesthesia, pain control, and healthy healing would be very much appreciated. thank you sweet friends and bloggy buddies. xoxoxoxo :)

i wonder...

i am seeing so many changes already. they sneak up on you. she is settling in. getting more comfortable. getting goofier. losing the animal whine sound she used to do often whenever she wasn't getting her way. kissing on the lips instead of only the cheeks. smiling more. going to bed without drama. still cleaning up :). meltdowns to a minimum.

before she falls asleep, i tell her i will never leave her. her and i are forever. mommy. phoebe. and then she just starts talking. and talking. i have no idea what she is saying. i think i wish i knew. i wonder how much she remembers of her first three years, before her one year stint at the orphanage? tomorrow night, she will meet another foreign exchange student friend. this one is from HCMC. it will be her first time to converse with someone in vietnamese since she left. i am excited, and a little nervous, to find out what she tells kim. do any of you have any thoughts as to whether we should eventually have kim ask her about her life before? part of me wants to record it for her if she remembers any of it. or will it be too painful and confusing? will we ever know why she was left at the orphanage gate at night when she was three years old? God will have to help me here. i will need His grace. His words. when the time is right, probably many years from now. the first two nights here, she slept fine in her little bed. and then the third night, i found her on the couch the next morning. and the next. and then it was major drama to be put into her bed. so now she sleeps on the couch. fernando ortego plays quietly all night long (just like he does almost all day :) box fan on. and she sleeps like a baby now. i think being left in the dark is very hard for her. and i understand why.

her dental surgery is scheduled for weds. feb. 18th. couldn't get the insurance and hospital availability coordinated before then. God's timing.

thanks to anyone who reads this. again, i am amazed, and humbled, when someone posts a note or sends an email or sees me and tells them they have been following along. some people i've never met. never will. but our paths crossed here and their words give life. it is just neat that people care enough to keep tabs. wow. blogs can be a good thing. xoxoxoxo.

slug

sarah is slowly trying to convert phoebe into being a girly-girl. they've got popcorn and backpacks loaded with odds and ends. perfect stuff for surprise attacking goofy brothers.
phoebe drying dishes with mint, a foreign exchange student we have befriended from thailand. we had a belated chinese new year dinner for her and a friend in conjunction with sam's birthday celebration.

my baby boy isn't a baby anymore. sam i am turned 8.

okay, each day i have less and less reason to still be soooo, shall we say lazy? i have been so unmotivated to do much of anything. i am just happy to be home playing skip-bo, reading, sleeping, doing school but at a slower pace, and not much of anything else. what is weird is that i am normally getting 'stuff' done. alot of stuff usually. i kind of like being laid back. for a change. plus i have this weird stomach thing going on. greg, sam, and about 42,000 other people had it last week so now it is my turn. plus it is cold and snowy. all good reasons to snug in and watch the world go by.

phoebe is doing better each day. i have been very blessed by some moms who have also gone through some really scary, but necessary, behaviors in kids they adopted at this age. some of them are moms that i followed awhile back through their journey to me site. it is neat to now have them write me. really, a big blessing as i feel i already know them :) it makes it all feel like it is going to be okay and probably sooner than later. i can definitely tell the difference in her moods better now.....the grieving/overwhelmed with all the change vs. i am deciding to be a complete brat right now. so the response is different too :) but she is settling in beautifully with sarah and her brothers. they run wild. they get irritated with each other. they hug. they play.

her dental surgery may be this thursday if we can get the insurance approval in time. she wakes up VERY GRUMPY. unfortunately, my first word to her most mornings is 'stop'. the whining and contortions are a little over the top. i can only imagine her coming out of anesthesia. now that will be lovely.

she is still quite the little orderly child. this is endearing to me as the rest of the things that live here are p-i-g-s. she drys dishes, takes out the trash to the garage and then puts in a new trash bag, and twice i've gotten out of the shower to find the bath mat folded :) and all this is without being asked. i call the other kids over so they can get a lesson. we just watch in amazement. the other kids definitely get a long list of chores, almost daily but they are told what to do. rarely is it just because they see a mess and just think 'hey, i will clean this up.' over time, we will find out if this is phoebe's personality, orphanage training, or she is OCD. i'm hoping for option #1.

p.s. the two books i just finished which i would highly recommend are 'a thousand splendid suns' by khaled hosseini (also wrote kite runner which was incredible too) and 'having a mary heart in a martha world' by joanna weaver. both are time well spent.

do not lose heart....

i think she just realized there was an extra kid :)

another random post.... sorry. i am doing this blog for a couple of reasons. primarily, it is for phoebe. it gives her a history, and a glimpse of a past, a past that i can only recapture a piece of -- the piece since she grew in our hearts. it is also an easy way for family and friends to see pictures. and it helps me. selfish, i know, but it does. writing forces you to put your thoughts onto paper and acknowledge they are real. maybe not right, not justified, not whatever, but they are there. to everything there is a purpose, and a season, and we are in a season of change.

we've been home a week and there have been many, many wonderful moments. i thank God for each one of them because they make taking the not-so-wonderful moments a little easier :) part of my devotion today for friday, january 30th, 2009 was this -- "in due season, we shall reap if we do not lose heart" from galatians 6:9. i KNOW that He isn't caught off guard by phoebe's meltdowns. i KNOW He is not surprised by them evoking many emotions in me. i KNOW He will use them for good, to grow both her and me. i told a good friend yesterday, part of the struggle is not really knowing her. can you really know someone in three weeks? her behavior is random (note to self: why does that sound familiar?) which makes me somewhat on pins and needles, never knowing what to expect. BUT, this is not about me. it is about HIM first and phoebe second. and for crying out loud (bad pun...), like i just said it has only been three weeks. i've heard the statistic that it takes as many months to adjust to a new family as they were in the orphanage. we've got a long way to go before we see any real adjustment i think. i remember distinctly two things early on when we adopted sarah, neither am i proud of....calling a friend explaining that i was about to go crazy with this little girl who could push buttons in me that i didn't even know existed and secondly, emailing our travel group and asking if anyone else was experiencing similar behavior that we were (we adopted the oldest child in that group as well although sarah was only 18 months). everyone across the board was struggling to some degree BUT nobody had eluded to any difficulties whatsoever. i will be honest on this blog. because being real is the right thing to do. i pray i glorify God in every real thing i write. He created all these emotions and i believe He understands our struggles, our joys, our emotions. after all He allowed them and/or made them. He is where my strength comes from. i love blogs that include love stories from the first moment with their child. that gives me great joy! but i also love the blog stories of those, like me, who are muddling their way through. somewhere i read that adopting children from ages 2-5 are probably overall the most challenging. they have some life experiences, good or bad, and they don't have the intellectual capacity to understand what is happening. this comes out and it is directed at you. the phoebster and i now have a little routine down... when a meltdown starts, i take her hand and we go to the family room by ourselves. no need to subject everyone else :) and i sit there with my fingers in my ears until it subsides. and i hum 'amazing grace'. i think it was wendy maybe who left me a blog post when we were in vietnam and suggested that i sing church hymns. i also hum this to her as she falls asleep at night. back to the tantrums... i tell her, through words and actions, that as soon as she stops, we can go back out. or if she will say 'up', i will carry her out. please understand, she is very aware of what she is doing wrong, and what the desired behavior is. no language barrier on that one. she is stubborn. i know because stubborn #1 has met stubborn #2 :)

this is a season of upheaval for both phoebe and our family. well, duh? how brilliant was that statement? i guess what i am saying is that while i knew it was coming, i wasn't really prepared... because you can't be. i am trusting in God's Word that He will accomplish His purpose for all of us through this journey He deliberately led us to. so 'do not lose heart' will be my verse for today and the days ahead. thank you for your patience in her, and me, and i have hope that as i look back at these posts, Lord willing, in the months ahead i will once again see His faithfulness and again, ask myself 'what was the big deal?" just as, to a small extent, it was with the trip's homesickness. His faithfulness will be there, absolutely no doubt. i hope i am wise enough to recognize it.

on to this week's primary business -- dental appointments. first, the second dentist, partner to the first who actually does the surgery, seems to be incredible! he hit it off with phoebe and she let him look at every tooth. every last rotted one :(

she has 20 baby teeth. 14 are bad. 5 will be extracted (her four front teeth plus the bottom left molar which is bascially a black hole), 3 crowns, 6 fillings. all done at one time in the hospital. now we are waiting to get her added to our dental and medical insurance and getting the procedures pre-approved. thankfully, we have had very, very little exposure to pre-approvals and insurance junk, so i am happy this is all new to us :) he wants to schedule it immediately to reduce the chance of infection.

and to end on a fun note -- she loved the snow. all 13 inches of it. from the tropics to the tundra (not really, but close :)

thanks for listening. thanks for not judging. thanks for praying. just thanks.

when i am weak, He is strong. xoxoxo, me :)

score one for jet lag....

can you spot all three male cardinals? what a beautiful sight to wake up to....
finally, a sister to paint with....

first church with five kids :) an answer to many, many prayers....

holy moly. i am a wimp. jet lag has kicked this old bottom big time. every ounce of energy has been sucked from me. one thing about being borderline hyper most of the time; i notice it alot when i'm not :) five days home and i haven't unpacked yet. and don't even care :) i am very glad greg is off this week too and i didn't have to hit the ground running. maybe the sleep will come tonite :)

phoebe is doing well, all things considered. she has had a few more meltdowns and i hate it that i react so poorly to them. it is ridiculous that i am so slow to figure this out....she hates being alone. no time outs for this kid, i've discovered. it just isn't worth it to anyone within a long earshot :) i am going to have to get creative in dealing with her stubbornness and defiance. it was only a year ago that someone left her. forever. and she won't be forgetting that for a long time, if ever. it is true that every child requires new skills for the parent to learn. just takes awhile sometimes to figure that out.

loved the dentist we went to on monday. the Lord led us to the right one we believe. during the appointment, i said that friday night i had prayed Jesus would give us the right dentist to work with. and he responded with "that is Who i serve too and He has given me this gift and i do my best to give back, if even a little, to Him through my dentistry." he confirmed in about a minute that her mouth is a mess. we go back thursday to meet with the surgeon and decide the plan of attack. because of the extent of the extractions, it will be done as medical in the hospital. he also said the antibiotics should have relieved the discomfort and we can't blame any bad behavior on her mouth now :)

phoebe loves everyone in the family! what a huge praise! she has taken a special liking to everyone. sarah was a major cling-on to only me and so this makes me really happy to see her love on all of us. it makes her brothers happy too :) because sarah blew them off. and now i think sarah regrets it :)

phoebe did incredibly well at church on sunday. she went downstairs for sunday school like she had been doing it her whole life and she did the same for junior church. absolutely amazing. i was fully prepared for her to be overwhelmed and to need to leave early. but nope. not yet anyway.

thank you again for your comments and prayers. i am sooo very humbled to think that there are people who are concerned about our family and are willing to keep tabs on us. i don't take that for granted one single bit.

the journey continues, me :)