The promised long entry....

We had planned yesterday to spend the day at a safari that is about 45 minutes away from here. That changed when I woke up. The night before I had been feeling kind of crummy. But crummy was not nearly strong enough a word for how I felt when I woke up. I've had a sore throat for almost the entire time we've been in country, but on Monday night, whatever had been brewing erupted. I have never had a cold come on this fast or this hard. Thank goodness we didn't have adoption stuff to do that day, because all I did was rest. At one point, I was on the couch, with my hand on my head, and Max came over and struck the exact same pose! He even had the same forlorn look on his face!



Jason was such a trooper, handling the kiddos all by himself so that I could sleep. He even took them to the playground by himself so that it would be quieter for me to sleep. Another adoptive parent here, who I had been emailing with before our trips, happened to have some antibiotics with her, that she had no need for. So I spent last night calling the doctor to find out if I could take them. I am not the kind of person who runs to the doctor to get prescriptions when I feel bad. I only went to the doctor once this past year-but I did not want to chance that this illness develop. We head out in 48 hours, and I do not want to be stuck on a plane for 12 hours feeling like my ears are about to pop. All that to say, Jason got the antibiotics from my friend today (thanks Kristi!!!!) and I started them this evening. I pray that whatever I have will improve before we leave China on Friday. Even more important, I pray that the kids don't get sick!!! I have been very careful about trying not to give them germs.


So enough about me and onto the ones that really matter-the kiddos. But before I share some fun stories, I just want to take a second and say thank you to all of you who took the time to email me or post comments on our blog after we posted about Max and our concerns about his bonding with us. We felt so much love from all of you and so much support and encouragement. We are so grateful to all of you and know that our family is being bathed in prayer right now. We thank God for you. We know how fortunate we are to have friends like all of you. We know too, that God will give us the wisdom and the patience that we need in order to guide Max through this transition into our family. He has already blessed us by opening our eyes so quickly. I have heard from others that they have seen families that allowed their children to give their love away to anyone and everyone, and because of it, are still dealing with the ramifications of no parent attachment. So we thank God that we realized so quickly that things weren't as rosy as they seemed. Thank you to all of you for your advice and kind words about our skills as parents. It means the world to us!!


So this time I will truly share about the kids. Because we didn't go to the safari yesterday, we had lots of fun play time around the apartment. Man we are thankful that we are staying here. I don't know how we would have managed yesterday or today if we had been in a hotel room. Jason and I had some special time with Max while the girls were still sleeping. We woke him up a little early so that he wouldn't nap quite as long-he's been stalling at night when it's bedtime, so we thought we would try a little experiment. Anyway, we brought him into our bedroom to have some one on one play time. Now let me just preface this with the cold hard truth. Jason is 31 years old-on the outside. In his heart, lingers the spirit of a 13 year old boy (and I have the pictures to prove it!). Sometimes this is fun (like yesterday), not so much when it's time to put the kids down and he's still throwing them around on the couch. But yesterday was precious! There is a window right behind our bed that just happens to have a deep enough ledge that a 3 and 1/2 year old boy and a 31 year old man could stand up on it and jump off onto the bed. How fortuitous for our family because we just happen to have a 3 and 1/2 year old boy and a 31 year old man who love jumping off of things onto the bed. Jason and Max had an absolute blast. I served as recorder of the jumping session-also to have documentation of what exactly happened to give to the doctors at the emergency room-which is where I was sure we would end up later. (We didn't)

I loved seeing Max's face light up! It was so sweet to see such sheer joy on his face. Jason is such an absolutely wonderful father and our kids are lucky to have him. The girls love to wrestle and that is completely due to Jason. Max loves it too and has fit into our wrestling matches quite perfectly.

We also had fun with arts and craft time. The best part was playing with some foam playdough that I bought right before we left. It began innocently enough at the table, with all of us molding our craft into different shapes and sharing nicely. It ended with each craft being shaped into perfect balls in order to peg someone else with precise aim. Unfortunately I have no pictures of the incident as I was one of the participants in the throwing. The kids loved it! Most of our family members know that Jason and I have an insane affinity for throwing things, both to each other, and at each other. It's inexplicable how two people with the same weird passion met up and actually married. We have spent many a night laughing hysterically after having spent that previous hour dodging objects that were hurled with great speed at our bodies. In the past, we have used bean bags, rolled up paper, socks, wash rags, baby dolls, stuffed animals, dirty diapers, etc.. Notice how the list changed-after we had kids the objects that we found in reach were quite different. Please don't judge us.

At dinner that night, Max did something adorable. We have been holding hands and praying at all of our meals (just like we've always done at home). It has taken some time, but finally Max knows that we will do that before we eat. He has even started whining when we all sit down, if we don't pray fast enough. Well last night, he upped his involvement. As Jason prayed, we suddenly heard Max talking as well. It was not understandable, but he was trying to mimic Jason. It was so sweet. He even said amen at the end. He is so smart!!!!

Today we spent the whole day in our apartment. It was another day for me to rest and try to sleep and fight off whatever it is that I have. We had some great play time with the kids and Jason and Max ran down to the grocery store to get some things for dinner. We have been cooking many of our meals here, since we have the kitchen. When we decided to stay here, at the apartment, one justification was that we could save money on food by cooking. Some of the meals have turned out really well, and one has gone straight into the trash can (that would be the smoked sausage we made last night). Jason said he had a bad feeling about it as soon as he smelled it when it came out of the package. We raided the fridge for leftovers and were relieved that we had not served the sausage to some guests the other night. We have had pan-grilled chicken and potatoes, beef stir-fry (the beef had to be diced into miniscule pieces so that we could chew it-it must have been a cut more suited for stew!), spaghetti, chicken nuggets, ramen noodles, peanut butter sandwiches and fish fillets (actually came pretty well!). We have enjoyed the challenges of cooking and feel that it has been a mostly positive experience (except for the sausage). Abby has also decided that there are certain things she likes better here, because they are chinese. For instance, she informed us last week that would she eat the broccoli because "Chinese broccoli is much better than Texas broccoli." She has also said this about rice, pineapple, fried eggs and some types of bread. However, the infamous smoked sausage did not make the cut. Texas sausage is still better. Yee-haw.

Tomorrow we do the very last step of the adoption work, we go to the U.S. Consulate for Max's oath ceremony. His visa was approved today, so we'll pick it up tomorrow and then he will be sworn in as an American citizen. What a momentous occassion. He will actually become a U.S. citizen when we land at LAX. I cannot believe that our trip is almost done. I am so excited to be returning home-to introduce Max to all of you, who played such a big part in getting us to him.