Easter 2014

Elsie needs your prayers

Seizures are scary.  If you’ve never experienced one, trust me.  Apparently they look differently in different people.  For us a seizure means that my poor child loses control of her body, her eyes roll back, and she convulses.   Unfortunately, Elsie’s medication is not controlling these seizures.  We went for a long stretch without seeing any and so it seemed the medication was working.  But recently she’s been at the full dosage and is still having them.  In fact, this past Wednesday she was sick and tired, and the doctor said those can both be triggers.  We saw five in one day.  They’ve all been short.  We’ve never seen one longer than two minutes and on Wednesday they only lasted about 30 seconds.  

So, her specialist is telling us that they need more information in order to know how to proceed.  They want to do more testing.  This means that Elsie will be admitted to the hospital for round the clock EEG and video monitoring.  She’ll have a PET scan too and maybe more.  She’ll be admitted on April 28th and may be there for up to five days.  

Elsie still has a VERY short attention span.  She’s constantly in motion.  She hates to be constrained and loves to run and climb and be swung.  How we are going to keep her somewhat content in a hospital room for days is beyond me.  

Please pray for our family during that week.  Please pray that the doctors will get some answers from this testing and know the best form of treatment for Elsie.  And pray too that the seizures would end and we would not have to deal with this for months and years to come. 

Emma's Fourth Birthday

We started the celebrations with a special date with Mommy and Daddy to Disney to watch the light parade.  (We are blessed with season passes this year as a special perk of the internship.  What fun!)

Presents awaited her when she woke up!

And the next day we had a Candyland birthday party!

Emma, we love you so much!  We stand in awe of the way God has made you and everyday we thank Him that He blessed us with you.  You are learning and growing and changing so fast.  You are silly and smart and spunky.  You bring us so much joy.  

Elsie's Third Birthday

We've been celebrating this beautiful little lady this week!

We let her get messy with cake and it was SO delightful to watch!

She's SO BIG now!

She actually started preschool on her birthday.  Because of her developmental delays, she receives special services and when you turn three, you can enter the public schools!  It's a bit of an adjustment for her, and for mommy.  But we're hoping she'll get used to it this spring and then be ready to jump in this fall.  On her first day, one teacher said to another child, "come meet our new little princess."  :)  Yes, she is!

We ended the week, celebrating with Grandma and Grandpa and doing some swimming.  It was a wonderful weekend, but now she's feeling a bit sick.  Pray for her to get better soon.

Sweet little one, we love you so much and we're so thankful that God chose you for our family!  You are growing and learning and we are so proud of you.  We delight in you.  You are a precious gift to us.

The dress

Years ago.  I can’t remember exactly which year, but before all the adoption paperwork started.  Before the heartbreaking failure of months and months of infertility treatments.  The two of us, with hopes and dreams and the excitement of the hope of little ones in our future, went shopping.  It was our anniversary and Mark said, “I want to do something that will bless you.”  (I love to shop, but he is a buyer, not a shopper.)  We went shopping for little girls clothes. 

At this time we were living in the middle of nowhere in East Asia and fashion there was not the same as what we can find in America.  So this was really a day of hunting for something remotely normal.  He would hold up a sweater and say, “this isn’t so bad.”  “Well, no, if this teddy bear with the lacy skirt wasn’t front and center, it would be okay,” I replied.  “What about this dress?”  “Um, no.  Maybe that mouse is supposed to resemble Mickey, but it’s just not cute.”  And so on the day went for a few hours.  I was attempting to educate Mark as to what makes little girls clothes cute and acceptable to me.  He was extremely patient and we had lots of laughs.

Finally in the last store, we found something.  A simple sleeveless t-shirt dress with a flower pattern.  And we hung on to it for years…the dress and our hopes of the little girl who would fit into it. 

It’s her favorite dress.  

Do little girls you know have this kind of dress?   The if-it’s-clean-I’m-going-to-wear-it kind of dress?  She would wear it every day if she could.  When she puts it on she twirls. 

And my heart swells with joy inexplicable.

   

Why I'm blogging less

Because I’m tired and I’m stressed!  This roller coaster of a life we’re on, well, it’s started to slow down a bit.  In the sense of, major life events have stopped piling up like the snow has this year.  In the past month or so, a path has begun to be dug to my heart.  And what I’ve found is a whole lot of emotions in there.  Sadness, lots of it.  Fear.  Hope.  Joy.  And fatigue.  I’m trying to seize a few of the girls nap times to take an honest look at my heart and work through some of these emotions.  Because then and after they go to bed at night are the only times of quiet and stillness in our home.  The rest of our time is a frenzy of me trying to keep my cool while feeding, diapering, and toileting while attempting to keep some order to the house and play with some purpose. 

I long for this to look and feel differently.  I want to be less stressed and more joyful.  I want to yell less and laugh more.  I want to correct with gentleness instead of panic.  (She pulled the folded laundry off the couch.  Yes, that’s annoying, but it’s not disobedience and it’s not harming anything.  I don’t have to freak out.)

In 1 Peter 3:4 the Bible says that a gentle and quiet spirit is an imperishable quality that is precious in the sight of God.  Oh how that does NOT describe me right now.  Depending on myself produces nothing but ugliness.  However, even in the midst of all my heart has been through, and all that my days hold, I believe “gentle and quiet” can describe me as I depend on Jesus to give me strength.  Even though I’m failing regularly, I know that His grace is sufficient and His love is constant.

I'd really appreciate your prayers!

6 to 8

The week we got back to America with Emma we went shoe shopping and bought her a size 6.  She can still squeeze her feet into those but we decided it was time for some tennis shoes.  A trip to Khol's this week revealed she’s now a size 8.  What happened to 7?  Without me knowing she just jumped two sizes. 

Is this what it’s going to be like raising them?  They’re just going to grow so quickly we hardly even notice!?  I really hope not.  I want to slow down.  I want to do so much more, so much better.  I want to be, no I need to be, so much more attentive.  I want to say “yes” as often as possible instead of “don’t do that” or “I can’t right now” or “I’m sorry, sweetie, Mommy has to…”  Do I really have to do those things?  Can’t I say “yes, I’d love to” instead?

Well, in an attempt to slow down today and share them with you, here are a few snippets of our girls currently…

Emma.  Not sure exactly when this happened, but she’s really only speaking English now.  Except for “还有呢?” (what else?) which she still says with consistency.  She’s a little sponge.  She’s asks questions incessantly and her favorite one is “why?”  She loves books and loves to pretend.  She'll pretend she’s a dog and she crawls on my lap and says, “Mommy pet doggy.”  I’ll rub her back and she says, “Feels nice.”  We've also tackled potty training, which we're doing as you're reading this.  Please take a minute to pray for us!  

Elsie.  She has a repertoire of tricks which I’ve attempted to capture here:

Saying “mom” is a recent addition and I cried when she first did it.  She still puts everything in her mouth, but she’s also tasting and eating more and more foods.  However at every meal, she tells us with sign language “more cracker” and will eat those non-stop.  She's constantly on the move but also focusing on one toy longer than she used to.  Maybe she's up to a 45 second attention span now!