Maggie is Ten!

Ten! Double digits! My miracle baby is growing up. 

Maggie still loves babies more than anything. She still wants to be a mom when she grows up and still hopes her house will be full of redheads. 

She loves fluffy animals, toads, and bugs. Maggie likes playing with Legos, making things with perler beads, fishing, and playing outside. She likes to wear athletic shorts and big t-shirts. Her favorite color is sunshiny yellow. She loves reading. Science with animals and reading are her favorite subjects in school. She is very good at math but she doesn’t love it. 

Maggie is a little bit of a picky eater. When she was in her first year of life she often had stomach problems and had a gluten intolerance. We are thankful she has outgrown that sensitivity. Foods that she liked a year or two ago she no longer enjoys. Her favorite foods are tacos (heavy on the refried beans, light on the meat), my homemade baked macaroni and cheese with stewed tomatoes from our garden, and lasagne. She doesn’t like most cheese, most yogurt, bacon, and most sandwiches. It’s not uncommon to hear her say, “I’m not hungry” before most meals. She also has an almond allergy where her face and eyes get red and she looks like she has pink eye. The good news is that she loves iced coffee and her favorite cream is the Cold Stone Creamery creamer. 

Maggie is a sensitive child. She doesn’t like anything scary and feels deeply the injustices she learns about in school and life. She will be the first to cry during sad and emotional parts in movies. One of her favorite movies she watched this year was “I Still Believe”, even though it made her cry really hard. 

It’s been very special to see Maggie take part in a weekly Zoom Bible Study she was invited to by her penpal from Hawaii/Tennessee. 

Maggie struggles with being quick to anger and letting a short temper get the best of her. It’s something I also wrestled with for many years so it’s hard to see her go through similar frustrations. I believe God will help her overcome just as He did for me. 

Maggie can be so very very sweet, kind, and generous to her little sisters. She is patient with them and loves to help Heidi. 

She was born tiny and is still very small for her age. She seems to have accepted the fact that she will likely be short forever. Caroline is 3.5 years younger than her and she is catching up to her in height. I often remind Maggie that many people in our family are short, that my younger sister got taller than me, and that your size doesn’t determine your worth. Ten years of hearing those phrases seem to have finally sunk in. 

Maggie loved her day at Clyde Peeling’s Repiland for her special day with her daddy. 

This is her year to have a birthday party and I’m thankful she agreed to have a combined celebration with Ruth for her 5th (back in April) and Heidi’s 1-year-home. 

Magdalena has a surgery coming up in October to remove her tonsils and adenoids. We’re hopeful this will help her sleep better and, in turn, be happier during the day. Her sleep study revealed a pause in breathing about 8 times per hour and it was clear that her tonsils are obstructing her ability to breathe well as she sleeps. 

Happy tenth birthday, Maggie! We are so grateful for your life! 

Eleven Months Home with Heidi

Wow! What a month!

Heidi has learned to take her diapers to the trash. She can bring me a clean diaper to put on her. She even recognized a clean diaper on the floor to bring me. As I came into the living room one day she was sitting up on an armchair and I playfully said, “what are you doing?” She waved her arm in front of her face like we do when she has a dirty diaper. Sure enough, she was stinky. 

Heidi enjoyed her first camping trip. It started out a little rough, she didn’t want to be put down and didn’t sleep well. 

(At least 1 of us is comfortable)

But by the end she was sleeping well and was walking in the dirt, throwing leaves, playing in the creek, laughing, manipulating Uncle Ramon to get her out of the playpen, following Matteo everywhere, mimicking her cousin Wally by repeating his two favorite words “Duck” and “dog”. She hasn’t said those words since coming home but we’re sure they are tucked away in her mind. 

Heidi was pushing a doll stroller! This seems small, but using a toy appropriately is a big step for her. 

She also learned to stomp and it’s amazing how cute it is. 

She was loving Grandma!

Heidi has now knows several signs:

1. More

2. All Done

3. Yogurt

4. Apple

5. Jump

6. Help me

7. Milk

She can combine more with the food words and jump. 

Heidi can point to four body parts when asked:

1. Head

2. Eyes

3. Nose

4. Belly

Adding to her cool factor, in addition to high-5 she can also fist bump. It’s super adorable. 

Carrie was playing with her near the baby pool and as Caroline started spraying the hose she stuck her finger toward it. Carrie then sprayed her finger. Miraculously, Heidi laughed. It was such a surprise. Then Caroline dipped her head in the pool and Heidi plunked her little face down in and popped back up, even popping her lips to blow the water off exactly as Caroline did. I couldn’t believe it!

Heidi has another visit to the eye Dr. He was very pleased with how cooperative she was. Her prescription is now -1.5 and -2.0. He still didn’t feel like it was necessary for her to wear glasses but wanted to see her back in 8-9 months. She has been totally desensitized to wearing glasses so we are prepared for when the day comes! 

(Daddy’s sunglasses)

(Heidi’s sunglasses)

We have continued to struggle on with Heidi’s resistance to feed herself. One evening when it was just the two of us (so, no audience, no pressure from siblings) I asked her if she wanted ice cream. The neat thing was she understood what it was, got excited and ran to the fridge. I hand-over-hand fed her the first bite but felt that she should have the motivation to feed herself. Unfortunately, it went poorly. Sometimes if I walk out of her view she will do things on her own. Sadly, she started hitting herself on the head and getting very upset. 

As I talked with her Occupational Therapist just today she decided to try something new. Heidi really likes a dolly that the OT uses, so she had the doll in the high chair and acted like the doll was feeding herself, then we said, “Heidi’s a big girl like the baby. Heidi can feed herself.” With initial prompting she fed herself 6 bites. Then I fed her some. Then with encouragement from the doll baby she fed herself 15 bites in a row (with me scooping the yogurt onto her spoon). 

This was a huge accomplishment but it left her very upset. I had to get her out of her seat, apply pressure to her palms, deep pressure down her spine, and bear hugs, all calming techniques that we have learned from our amazing OT. 

Her therapist believes that Heidi is cognitively and physically capable of feeding herself (great news!), but has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from her feeding experience in her orphanage in China. We are so grateful she has learned to trust us and since we are her “safe” people, she wants us to feed her as it makes her feel safe. We did not discuss how to further her progress to make her feel safe and also establish independence in this area. I’m sure that will be on our agenda for next week. 

Heidi also sometimes grinds her teeth when she is uncomfortable or stressed. This week I took just her in the car to do our curbside library pickup. She was grinding her teeth the drive there and back. As soon as we started to pull into our driveway she literally started clapping and cheering. Usually the only time it’s just the two of us in the car is when we’re going to doctor appointments so maybe that’s where she thought we were going so cheered when we went right back home. It was also awesome to see her recognize we were home. It was extra adorable that when we went inside she ran to her biggest sister, Anne, and hugged her.

I’m so grateful to my family and friends who are always so supportive of us and Heidi and understanding of her needs and that, just because she’s been home for nearly a year, all her difficulties don’t just “go away”. We are grateful to God that we are still seeing miracles and we fully anticipate seeing them for the rest of her life. 

We even ate out and, after initially being unhappy, she ate a great meal sitting on daddy’s lap. 

Happy 11 months home, Heidi the Brave! We love you and are so proud of you. 

Living Sacrifice

If you are living, well, anywhere in the world, you are likely faced with unforeseen circumstances this fall. Sort of the nature of a pandemic, I suppose, is it's affects on everyone, everywhere.

If you have school-aged children you are now presented with further difficulties. Even families like my own who were already home school families, are faced with challenges. Our extra-curricular activities and the normal breaks that help keep us sane are canceled.

Last fall when we brought Heidi home from China we began kicking around the idea of sending our oldest, Anne, to school for the first time. We had many reasons for this such as the extra burden she was taking on as a second mother in the family, her desire for higher level science classes, her desire for friends, and her desire to stretch her wings a little without the constant presence of her five little sisters. My desire for less on my plate also weighed heavily in this decision. We had prayed about it and researched our options and truly felt God leading us to a particular school for her. We loved everything about the school. Then the pandemic hit. We still love the school, we love their reopening plan, we love their desire to put parents in charge of their child's health and not the school. However, we couldn't commit to getting her there daily if (and most likely when) our public school closes for an uptick of cases.

So we found ourselves back in the position of home schooling her. But here's the thing, I had already felt like I released her to someone else to educate. Taking that burden back on myself didn't feel very good. I purchased her curriculum but had no desire to teach it. In fact, as I educated other parents on how to get started teaching their children my joy for teaching my children was diminishing.

I kept pushing back in my mind the fact that we needed to pick a start date. We have two kids that need surgery in September and October. We want to take advantage of our “last” (according to our plans-who knows what God has willed?) year all homeschooling together and take a trip between those surgeries. And there is canning to be done, and rooms to be painted, and therapies to do.

While I was canning tomatoes this weekend I was listening to Eric Metaxas' podcast. He was interviewing Phil Robertson (Duck Dynasty) and, while I can't remember what else Phil talked about, he mentioned a verse that I couldn't get out of my head.

Romans 12:1 “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship.”

I'm sure this verse can apply to many different scenarios. But as Phil said this verse it struck me that I was suddenly unwilling to offer my body, my time, my mind, my energy to my children. I was allowing my desire for what I was hoping to be a little bit of freedom for the first time in nearly 13 years of parenting, to cloud my attitude.

When I instead chose to look at this school year as myself offering myself as a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing to God, and not only that, as an act of true and proper worship, my whole attitude began to change.

While I know from previous experience that this year will have days that are terrible and hard, I also know there will be days filled with tremendous joy and ease.

The more I thought on these things the more I realized how fortunate I am to be in this position. For many, they don't have any choice but to do whatever the public school forces upon them.

And then, my five-year-old, Ruthie, asked if she could use my phone to take a picture. I handed her my phone and instead of taking a picture of a stuffed animal or the other random (but important to her) things she usually takes photos of, she pointed it at me. Me, in the midst of dressing my 2-year-old, Heidi.

As I looked at the photo later it made me smile. This is how she sees me. Dressing her sister. Making dinner. Reading a story. Doing all the mundane things that make up my life. It's not glamorous but it is mine.

I am actually living the dream I once held for myself. A wife. A mother of many. A teacher. An artist. And many other titles that I don't necessarily enjoy, but all of them are part of me. A house cleaner. A laundress. A mower. (Okay- I do love mowing).

Through all of these days, God is faithful. I encourage each of you to consider the position you are in this fall with your children. Maybe you'll be driving your child to and from a private school. Maybe you'll be teaching them yourself. Maybe you'll be facilitating online learning. Maybe you'll be working from home and trying to juggle all of those things.

I hope, whatever you do this fall, you can remember that when you do those things as if for the Lord, you are offering yourself as a living sacrifice.

Our school room has had this verse hanging on the wall for eight years now, “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord. To Him be the glory! Amen.” 2 Peter 3:18

Wherever you find yourself for this year, I pray you will look to the Lord for your strength, that you will grow closer as a family, that you will give your children and yourself grace, and that you will grow closer to the Lord. And through all the good and bad and in between days, you will give God the glory.

Ten Months Home with Heidi

Ten months home today!

This month started off a little hard. We had nearly two weeks where I didn’t write anything new on the calendar. I was definitely feeling discouraged with our lack of progress. We had been working on some particular communication skills for several weeks and it was not connecting. Or if it did connect, she couldn’t express it. 

My oldest daughter, Anne, loves to read and shared a true story of a doctor who had a daughter born with cerebral palsy. Specialists told him she would likely never walk, talk, or be independent. The girl grew up and eventually held a position in the White House. She did everything “late” according to a typically developing child, but she was eventually successful. Anne told me how in the book, the family never stopped praying for the little girl to keep learning. 

It struck me that I had stopped praying for more Heidi miracles. She had made so much progress from her early days that my desperation for God’s help had waned. And my oldest daughter, without realizing it, encouraged me to keep praying for miracles. 

And God answered. I do feel the need to state that just because we pray for something, in faith, does not mean that prayer will be answered in the way or time we hope for. But when it is, it is imperative to give the credit where it is due. Yes, we do therapy multiple times a week and we work what feels like all day long with teaching and caring for Heidi. But I truly believe God is answering my prayers for my daughter. I do get discouraged and lack faith. I have always related so strongly to the scripture where the father is begging Jesus to heal his child and when Jesus questions him the father immediately cries out, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)

The latter half of this month was full of Heidi miracles. They started off small. 

She gained confidence to go down the stairs easily. 

She started putting shoes on (though never her own). 

Leaving the house is always a struggle since Heidi will walk around in her sisters shoes and leave them in the most random places. 

Heidi played in the sand. For a child with sensory aversions this was huge!

Not only did she walk on the sand, she picked some up and rubbed it on her legs. She also started eating the sand so I had to intervene. 

Heidi is still the sweetest snuggler. 

(Ruth loves to have Heidi sit on her belly and bounce her. We all think it’s hilarious since they’re nearly the same size now!) 

Then all of a sudden she had a break through. She signed “all done” and said “duh” at the end of our meal Friday the 26 of June. You could see the intelligence in her eyes and that she truly understood. The next morning I was out for a bit and when I came back she went to her chair and wanted in. I started feeding her some yogurt and when I wasn’t fast enough she signed “more” and said “mah-mah”. She did this several times. When I started scraping the bottom of the container she signed “all done” and said “duh”. Since that day she has kept both those signs and words consistently, using them everyday!

She also pointed to the picture of herself in the swing to show me she wanted to swing. So even though I really needed to get to an appointment, you better believe I first pushed her on that swing! 

She also is comprehending and responding appropriately! Zoey asked if Heidi wanted to tick-tock (be swung upside down) and she literally ran to Zoey to be picked up and signed and said “more” over and over. We had been playing outside one day and I asked Heidi if she was ready to go back inside and she went right to the door. I asked if she had a stinky diaper and she waved her hand in front of her face like I do when I say “pee-yew!” 

She learned the sign “help me”. And “jump”. And is combining more + jump. 

She even colored for the first time ever! I was so excited I texted her therapists! 

Before I paint the rosiest image, please understand in the midst of the joy there is still so much that is hard. 

Our family loves creek stomping more than anything in the summer. And Heidi just absolutely hates it. She cries, clings, and cries some more every time we go. It’s so hard to have the most joyous part of our summer be changed into something stressful (for me). I don’t want to deprive our other kids of their favorite activity but I also don’t want to push Heidi too much and cause extra anxiety in her life. 

(My sister, Audrey, holding Heidi the last time we took her to a creek.) 

In fact, we were planning to go today but Heidi seemed a bit “off” yesterday so we didn’t go. I knew it would be too much for her. 

We learned that Heidi hates, hates, hates fireworks. She scream/cried so much at my sister’s house on the Fourth of July that when left. She scream/cried so much at my in-laws that one of the other girls took her inside. Fireworks are kind of a big deal in our family. We are learning that they are sensory overload for her, and we’re trying to navigate our joys with her terrors. We don’t have answers. 

She still cries at nearly every dinner. She typically does well at breakfast and lunch. However, dinner is currently hard. We’ve started letting her either sit on my lap to eat or even just get down from the table to play. This is something I would never (or very very rarely) allow any of our children to do, but we are learning to parent her a little differently. 

I hadn’t realized how effectively I have social distanced Heidi until she finally had to go to the doctor this past week. I haven’t taken her anywhere that masks are required and she had never seen me wear one. She was freaked out when a nurse wearing a mask took her temperature, then she hated that I had one on, then she fussed for the doctor with his mask. To make matters worse, I absolutely had to stop at a store with her. As soon as we walked in the door the guy who greeted us had a mask on and she started sobbing. She buried her head in my shoulder and turned her face away, only to see a customer with a mask on. It was quite the horrible trip and there was nothing I could do about it. I was never so glad to leave a store as I was that day. 

Yet through it all, Heidi is so brave. She has come so far and truly has bonded, attached to her family, and trusts us to care for her. 

She is truly, such a joy!

(Signing jump)

Happy 10 months home, Heidi! We love you! 

20/20 Vision

I saw many people at the beginning of the year talking about how 2020 would be their year of “clear vision” or “perfect vision”. And many of those same people (along with the rest of the less witty population) lament that 2020 was not what they envisioned (pun intended).  

We chose the word gratitude to focus on. It feels more appropriate than ever as we deal with shut downs and Covid-19 and unexpected surgeries and school uncertainties. 

The longer these strange times go on, the more closely I am looking for God to reveal himself to me in my everyday life.

And the more I seek, the more I find. 

I saw him in the rainbow tonight. 

I saw him in this sunset last week. 

I saw him in the beauty of this moment. 

I saw him in her joy. 

I saw him over and over again in her victories and miracles. 

I saw him in the sweetness of these sisters. 

I saw him in the unique combination of silliness and maturity of my oldest. 

I saw him in the tenderness and patience of my second oldest. 

My friends, if you are looking with 20/20 vision you will find God all around you. He is moving, he is here, he is still doing miracles. 

Isaiah 7:14 (NLT) All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).

God with us. Yes. He is with us. 

He is in my conversations, a gift received and one given, he is in an unexpected kindness, he is in impromptu deep spiritual discussions with someone I haven’t seen in years. 

Are you looking? Have you seen him? The world may appear to be crumbling but Satan has not won. Christ will have the ultimate victory and I am glad to be living in these days. I am glad to be raising my daughters in this climate. What strength and faith they have the opportunity to grow during this time. 

I hope you all have taken the chance to look at your life and what is truly important and that you’ve been able to seek God wholeheartedly. I’ve seen my little daughter participate in a Zoom Bible study with her penpal and her friends. It’s incredible. My oldest daughter was inspired to start her own study and she’s put forth effort to study the lives of missionaries and talk about them with her friends. These are 9 to 13 year old girls. Yes. There is much hope for the future. 

Jeremiah 29:13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Have you found him?