These Thy Gifts

Family Rosary with Littles

While I wouldn't want anyone to mistakenly think that our family has firmly established a routine of a regular family rosary, I do want to share something that has worked well for us.  Very young children, as we all well know, find it impossible to sit still for any length of time.  Additionally, they learn best by doing.  Any kind of learning that can incorporate a manipulative of some sort is useful for them.  Hence, I came up with a way for them to participate in our rosary Montessori-style.

I laminated images of the crucifix and each mystery of the rosary.  Later I also laminated a picture of the Pope (not pictured) to be placed between the first Our Father bead and the three Hail Mary beads.  As each prayer is said, the child places either the appropriate card, or a bead (I used gemstones) to construct the rosary as it is said.  This gave the children something do physically do during the recitation of the prayers, helped them to learn how to say the rosary, and certainly aided them in meditation on the mysteries as well.

Tis the Season for Giving

We were introduced to Operation Christmas Child a couple of years ago through the MOPS group I attend - this was the outreach project we did as a group that year.  I thought it would be a nice way to help the kids appreciate the giving aspect of Christmas, so this year we are filling a shoebox for a 3 or 4 year old little boy and will drop it off to our local pregnancy resource center to be given to a local child in need.  Nathan and I had such fun packing our shoebox with the below items - I tell you we've never had such fun at Target's dollar spot!

Here's what Nathan chose for our box:

• Washcloth
• Toothbrush
• Candy
• Crayons
• Dominoes
• Small soccer ball and cones
• 2 stuffed fish
• Flashlight and extra batteries
• Wind-up snail
• Wooden airplane
• Wooden ball catch game
• Spinning top
• Bounce ball
• Balls in the holes puzzle
• Dinosaur figurine
• Stamp pad and ink set
• Slinky
• Balloon
• Pens
• Memo Pad

Adoption News!

What a wonderful Thanksgiving, Advent, and Christmastime this will be - we are expecting!  Brandon has been in foster care since birth and has recently been made available for adoption.  He will be two at the end of January, only three months younger than Zachary!  I always wondered what it would be like to have twins, and it looks like I am about to find out.

There are many details we do not yet know, but we do know that we are meant to be his forever family, and he is meant to be our dearly beloved son.  A little over a month ago, you may recall that we had a couple of potential adoption situations in the works.  Brandon was one of them, and the other was a baby girl due in December.  We were open to and excited about both and would have taken both if we could have.  But here is what ended up happening ...

I had been very excited about Brandon in particular - more so even than the baby girl.  While we would love to be blessed with a daughter someday, my heart just went out to this little boy who, being older and full African-American, would have a harder time finding a good loving home.  I knew that he would thrive in our home, with two older brothers and two experienced parents to love him, and all the resources and developmental activities that we are able to offer in our home environment.

So, I called our social worker to see what was happening with Brandon and was informed that the agency was trying to decide between our family and another equally qualified and suitable couple who had no children yet.  As soon as I heard that, I asked that they bless this other couple with Brandon, as I vividly remembered what it felt like to be desperately desiring to be parents, and knew that the most important thing was that little Brandon end up in a loving, nurturing home.  I also knew that if God had more children in mind for us, I didn't need to try to manipulate or control anything, that he would arrange for those children to come to us at the right time.  In the meantime, the baby girl's birthmother decided to place her baby with another couple.  I was at complete peace with all of this.

Well!  Last Thursday we received a call asking if we were still interested in Brandon, as the other couple ended up declining him.  Their loss, our gain!!!  Of course we are interested, and so it seems that he was meant to be ours all along.  God is so very good.

We will be meeting with our social worker on Monday December 3rd to learn more about Brandon and how and when the transition process will happen.  In the meantime, PLEASE pray for me, as I do feel a bit overwhelmed with how much there is to do to prepare for our upcoming Christmas trip to Hawaii (my parents live there) and all the other preparations for Brandon's homecoming after the New Year.

Look Who's Two!

Happy

Birth

Day

Zachary!

Yesterday we celebrated a life, the life of a little boy whose name, Zachary, means "God has remembered".  And remembered, He has.  He has remembered all my prayers to be blessed with children, to be a mother, to give of myself for the sake of one of His little ones. 

On this day, I remember a night two years ago, when the phone rang at 2:00 in the morning, we got the news that the baby we had been matched with was about to be born three weeks earlier than expected, and that we needed to come to the hospital as quickly as possible.  I remember turning around in circles, so excited that I couldn't think what to do.  I remember calling my dearest friend Kendra to ask her to come over and stay with our then 2-1/2 year old, that she arrived in 10 minutes flat, and that she helped me pack my suitcase with my clothes, toiletries, and unisex baby clothes.  I remember Tom and I trying to choose a boy's name and a girl's name as we drove the 45 minutes to the hospital and how quickly we came to a consensus.  I remember arriving at the delivery room, greeting the baby's birthmother, seeing the ultrasound for the first time, and finding out that we were being blessed with another boy - what joy!  What happiness to be in that room witnessing the miracle of birth!

And then - I remember that all of a sudden the doctors and nurses got very serious and started rushing all about, how we were ushered out of the room, how we sat in the hallway outside that door praying for the baby's and birthmother's safety, as something - we knew not what - had obviously gone wrong.  I remember seeing her wheeled quickly down the hall and out of sight around the corner, and that a kind nurse came back to tell us that the baby's heart rate had dropped dangerously low and that they were going to perform an emergency C-section to save his little life.  I remember how they gently suggested we move to the family waiting room and how we called friends and family at 4:30 in the morning and asked for prayers as we waited for news.

And then, a nurse came into the waiting room and placed a tiny newborn baby, wrapped in a hospital blanket with blue and pink stripes, into my eager arms.  He had the biggest, brownest, most alert eyes, and we gazed at each other and fell in love in an instant.

Yes, God has remembered, indeed.  Happy Birth Day, Zachary.

He's the One for Me!

My husband is the most wonderful man in the whole world.  I know, I know, you are protesting that YOUR husband is the best, and I'm sure he is, for you, but for me - there's no one like my Tom.  Lately he's been working even harder than he usually does, taking care of the boys while I'm away on Saturdays for catechesis training and such, and he does such a wonderful job, even though he isn't used to full days of child care on his own.  We all know how challenging that can be even with the stamina and experience we moms have built up over the years!

And so I dub today "Appreciate Tom Day", and I will spend my day trying to facilitate him having a restful, rejuvenating day full of the things he enjoys and showing him how much I love and appreciate him.  Some of my ideas:

• Keep the kids quietly entertained this morning so he can sleep in as long as he likes
• Take a brisk walk at a nearby Metropark to get some fresh air, exercise, and admire the beauty of the fall foliage
• Give him a massage/foot rub and a nap this afternoon
• Play a board game together
• Send him off to a bookstore or coffee shop for some time alone
• Get him a copy of the New York Times so he can do the crossword puzzle

How do you show your appreciation for your husband?  Please share!

Touching Base

Wow, it's been a busy week.  I have SO many ideas for posts swimming around in my head, but haven't had a spare moment to get them onto the screen.  At times like these I really admire my mommy friends with larger families - how do they do it?  I suppose they do it about the same way I do with just my two little ones - one day at a time, becoming more clever and efficient with time management and a clearer understanding of true priorities as a necessity along the way.  As much as I'd love to have the time to blog every day, realistically, I cannot allow the blogging to interfere with my mission, which is to educate my children in the ways of love and life.  And in order to do that well, I also need to nurture and protect my relationships with God and my husband, and care for myself as well.  When properly used, my time spent blogging will serve me and my family in this mission, not detract from it.

That being said, here's what I've been up to recently: I have begun an online Montessori training program for 3-6 year olds and am loving it.  Three days a week enrolled students are emailed Montessori presentation downloads, pictures of presentations, and various other files.  If we have questions, we email our AMS-certified instructor and receive detailed answers several days later.  It's inexpensive, doable for a busy mom, and very worthwhile and edifying.

Tomorrow I begin training to become a catechist for Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.  I am excited and yet a little apprehensive about this as it is a huge commitment.  Ten months of once per month 8am-5pm training, with quite a bit of reading and labor-intensive assignments in between.  Can I do this?  While I definitely get a sense in prayer that I am called to pursue this, time will tell.  I have also enrolled Nathan in a Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Atrium in Detroit on Thursday afternoons so that he can benefit from participation, and I can learn more by observing and assisting.

We are also waiting to hear if we have been selected as forever family for a couple of adoption situations.  It's funny - when we found out we were infertile, we thought our hopes and dreams for a larger-than-average family had been dashed.  We were told that we'd be lucky to adopt one newborn, extremely lucky to get two, and that if we wanted more we'd need to switch to international or special needs.  But the reality is that since we are now a biracial family, we get contacted quite frequently about various newborns and very young children needing good loving homes.  This past summer, we had 5 different opportunities presented to us, all but one of which we needed to decline due to practical/timing issues (the other was a biological relation to one of our sons, but fell through).  Now we feel our youngest is old enough for me to handle another baby, and again the possibilities keep coming!  Stay tuned, I'll let you know as soon as we know anything.  The one thing that is truly wonderful for me about being in this place (as opposed to where I was emotionally 5 years ago) is that I am so laid-back and surrendered to God's will and timing as to who and when and how (or even whether) our future children join our family.  I've learned to radically trust God's plan because I finally actually believe in my heart (instead of just in my head) that God really is good and really does want the absolute best for me, I have no need to fear or be anxious about anything.  I'm so grateful!

Raspberry Picking

On Thursday we went to Rowe Farm U-Pick for raspberries with Luke and Jillian Oleski and their mom.  It was a gorgeous day and the kids had a blast picking (and eating) berries for a while, then playing hide and seek among the bushes after they tired of picking.  Zachary got fussy after a while so I put him in the nearby car to let him pretend to drive while I continued to pick.

At some point, without my noticing, Nathan decided that Zachary might like a snack, and placed a pile of berries on the (cloth) car seat.  When I got to the car, Zachary was happily sitting on a pile of smushed berries, face and hands covered with them.  I wish I had thought to snap a picture - but I was too intent on trying to clean up that I didn't think of that at the time.  Fortunately, and amazingly, the bright red stains came right out with wipes and a little elbow grease - thank God for Scotch-Guard!

 

Mystery Solved

Zachary has had no appetite and a mild fever for the past few days, and has been taking extra naps.  We thought he was probably fighting off the bug the rest of us had last week, but I just discovered the first of his two-year molars pushing through those tender gums of his.  Poor little guy ... no wonder he's been refusing most of his food, it hurts too much to chew! 

Greenfield Village Old Car Festival

Calder Dairy Farm Field Trip

Our visit to Calder Dairy was cut short by rain, but we'll definitely go back another time - hopefully to see the actual milking!

This is the dairy that delivers our milk.  Yes, that's right - we get fresh, hormone-free, antibiotic-free milk delivered in glass bottles to our door every Thursday morning!  The kids love watching for the milk delivery truck and saying hello to our driver, Billy Calder.