Paul Revere's Ride and the end of Second Grade and Kindergarten

May 20th we said goodbye to Second grade and Kindergarten, at least for a couple of years.

Anne and Abbey will both move up to third grade in the fall. It seems hard to believe that we have finished our third year of home schooling and look forward eagerly to the start of the fourth year.

Maggie will be doing what I lovingly call Pre-First. I know this grade doesn't actually exist in our country anymore, but if you are my age you will remember many children leaving Kindergarten and heading to pre-first instead of first grade. We have chosen to do this for Maggie for numerous reasons. I'd love to share my thought process with you all. First, Maggie turned five a week after school started last fall. She has a late summer birthday and was technically *by one day* premature (born at 36 weeks and 6 days). So she is young for her grade and quite small as well. Second, while we saw tremendous growth throughout the year, it was a hard battle. Maggie has learned to read, but she continues to sound out nearly every word, every time. She really really has to work hard to accomplish what comes easily to others. We want her to love learning and love school. I can guarantee she will not enjoy school if we push her to first grade next year. Third, I want to take this in between year to try some different techniques with Maggie - especially more music. I really believe that if we give her another year to grow and mature it will be extremely beneficial for her in the long run.

Here's a short video from the end of the school year of Maggie reciting "Trees" by Joyce Kilmer. Isn't she so adorable?

A few months ago I was introduced to the Eric Metaxas Show. I listen to his podcasts at night while I'm painting. On April 18 he gave the challenge to memorize Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Although I was familiar with the poem it was not one I had memorized myself. At that point we had five weeks left of school. I decided it would be just the thing to push the girls through the end of the year.

Here is Anne's recitation.

Abbey was also able to memorize the full poem. She was a little nervous while I was recording. When I wasn't recording she was doing a great job of adding inflection to the words, but she was more concerned about getting the words right to focus on her inflection. Also, Abbey just turned seven on April 18. The fact that she was able to memorize this (with a couple minor mistakes) was astounding to me.

We are giving three cheers for summer vacation!
Hip, hip, hooray!  
     Hip, hip, hooray!  
          Hip, hip, hooray!

Immigration Approval

Hey friends! Just wanted to give everyone a quick update on our adoption.

Friday, May 20 we received immigration approval for our daughter to immigrate to the US! Hooray!

Unfortunately, we still need to have the immigration document certified and authenticated. This will take about five more weeks.

Wonderfully, this is the LAST piece of paper we need before our Dossier (huge pile of information on our family and all the things we have ever done in our lives) can be sent to China. Hopefully our Dossier will be in China the first week of July.

Once our Dossier is in China we wait for our referral, which is a formal way of saying our DAUGHTER and all her medical information and her photograph. We aren't exactly sure how long this wait will be. It can be 5-6 months or sometimes a little longer.

Once we accept our referral we have a bunch more paperwork to do before we can travel to China. Usually travel is 4-6 months after referral.

Thank you all for sharing in our joy and excitement. We do have a fundraiser planned for this summer that we are excited about and it is open to the public.

More information can be found here: Ice Cream Social Fundraiser

If at any time you feel led to give a donation you can message me for our address to send a check. Or we also have a YouCaring page which you can find here: Bringing Home Little Sister

Thank you, thank you!
xoxo,
Mama Hess 

Mother's Sacrifice

Yesterday was Mother's Day, and our pastor had a sermon unlike any other I've heard on Mother's Day. One particular passage stuck out to me. Most of you are probably familiar with the story of King Solomon's display of wisdom in handling the situation of two prostitutes  who came to him with a complaint. As the passage is short, I include it here for you now to read again quickly.

1 Kings 3:16-28(NIV)

¹⁶ Now two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. ¹⁷ One of them said, “Pardon me, my lord. This woman and I live in the same house, and I had a baby while she was there with me. ¹⁸ The third day after my child was born, this woman also had a baby. We were alone; there was no one in the house but the two of us.
¹⁹ “During the night this woman’s son died because she lay on him. ²⁰ So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while I your servant was asleep. She put him by her breast and put her dead son by my breast. ²¹ The next morning, I got up to nurse my son—and he was dead! But when I looked at him closely in the morning light, I saw that it wasn’t the son I had borne.”
²² The other woman said, “No! The living one is my son; the dead one is yours.”
But the first one insisted, “No! The dead one is yours; the living one is mine.” And so they argued before the king.
²³ The king said, “This one says, ‘My son is alive and your son is dead,’ while that one says, ‘No! Your son is dead and mine is alive.’”
²⁴ Then the king said, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought a sword for the king. ²⁵ He then gave an order: “Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.”
²⁶ The woman whose son was alive was deeply moved out of love for her son and said to the king, “Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don’t kill him!”
But the other said, “Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!”
²⁷ Then the king gave his ruling: “Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother.”
²⁸ When all Israel heard the verdict the king had given, they held the king in awe, because they saw that he had wisdom from God to administer justice.

As you can imagine, it was an interesting choice of Scripture for Mother's Day. And maybe I've heard this before, but this year it really hit home in a new way. I think it's hard for most of us American moms to consider the physical giving up of a child, let alone to a woman you live with who is apparently quite devious. Yet the true mother in the story was willing to sacrifice her own feelings and emotions in order that her child might have life.

I believe this struck me as profound because that is what our "birth mom" is doing/has done. Most likely, she was unable to keep her daughter because of a medical condition that she could not afford to treat. So she does what she believes best. She places her infant daughter in a place where she believes she will be found quickly in order that she can receive the medical care necessary that she can have life. Or the social stigma of having a child with a special need in China is so intense that she believes it best for her child to be placed in an orphanage. Again, I think we can't fully comprehend this as Americans. But I'd like for us to try. If we knew or thought we knew that our child could die if they stay in our home, would we not do whatever we could that they could have life? And while it seems extreme, this is the choice thousands of people around the world face.

Thankfully, most of the people reading this won't ever have to make a decision so intense. Yet on smaller levels, moms do sacrifice for their children. I read two wonderful blog posts yesterday that friends have written about their moms. The thing I love about these two moms is that they are SO completely different. And both daughters have wonderful things to say about their moms. 

First: Patsy. A cookie-baking, soccer mom extraordinaire. 
Mama Patsy  
 
Next: Edie. A no-nonsense, fun-loving, director.
Mama Edie 

So as this younger generation of moms rises up, I hope that we can remember that we are different. We have different skill sets. We aren't all going to make delicious cookies. Some of us might make terrible jello. We might not all have the gumption to speak our minds. Some of us are going to be softer. And that's okay. Regardless of our skills, I think we all make sacrifices for our children. While some might be very larger, others will be seemingly small and insignificant. And while it may take those children twenty or thirty years to understand why you parent them the way they do, I think they will understand someday.