Randoms.

Since I can't seem to find the time to stop and blog, here's a post on the go, complete with iPhone pics.

And note to reader: Charlie does exist. But refuses to have his picture taken, well, most of the time.


Sam and I took a trip to the dr today. He has a sinus infection and some new allergy meds. This was him showing me how long he is.


And this is him eating breakfast in my bed. He assumed since he didn't have to go to school today that he could do whatever he wanted. Which was almost true.


And here is me getting my butt kicked at Jenga by a 6-year-old.


We started soccer last weekend. More on that later.


We had some cousin time last weekend while we celebrated birthdays. More on that later too.


Does anyone else have this never ending laundry problem??


I was attacked by a ninja turtle the other day. Oh, who am I kidding, this is a daily occurrence. Life with boys. I'm wondering how a little girl will graft into this mix...I should probably get her a helmet. Or maybe a bubble.


A variety of fabrics have been purchased. Don't worry if you can't see the vision. It will all come together. Work on EK's room will begin during Spring Break. Which is in a week. Geez.


This is why there are few pics of Charlie...


Sam tried a climbing wall at a recent birthday party...


I was actually surprised he got as high as he did before declaring he was done. Now!


Sam as a random Star Wars character. All I could think was, "Ewwww, how many other kids have had their heads in there??"


Sam represented Ethiopia last week at International Day at school. He thought he was super cool.


Love these people's faces.

More real posts later.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Happy Birthday Boys!!

Five years ago on March 11 our boys appeared in an orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  Charlie has told us several times about the trip to the orphanage and what transpired in the days before.  He was about 4 or 5.  Sam probably just about a year old.

For the next 18 months, the “big house” was where my sons called home.  It’s where they slept and where they ate their meals.  It’s where they made friends and where Charlie went to school.  It’s where they both had the chicken pox.  And it’s where Sam stole his way into almost every visitor’s heart.  At least that’s what I’m assuming based on every picture I saw during their time there.  It’s most likely where Sam said his first words and it’s where Charlie learned yet another dialect of Amharic.

And it’s where they waited.

March 11, 2008.

We were still 2 months shy of starting the adoption process, but the Lord had a plan.

That day was given to the boys as their birthday.  Even though neither boy had ever celebrated a birthday.

But now March 11 means something. 

It means that we became parents.  It means that we are blessed and overwhelmed by a woman in Ethiopia who chose life for her handsome little men.  It means that on March 11^th, the Lord’s plan for our family was fulfilled as we celebrate the births of one cool and composed 10-year-old and one rambunctious and crazy 6-year-old.

I tell Charlie all the time that God knew he would be a Cook even before he was born.  March 11^th wasn’t a random day.  God knew the plan….

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHUCK & HAM BONE!!

What now??

So you’ve gotten the low-down on referral day for our sweet Ellie Kate and what the boys think about the whole thing, so what happens next?

Remember when I told you that China is fond of their acronyms….well, I’m gonna throw some more at you!

Since getting our PA in record time (still can’t believe that happen in 3 days!!), we are waiting on our LOA.  Also know as the Letter of Acceptance.  LOA typically comes 90 days-ish after LID.  Remember, LID is log-in date.

We were LID on January 14 and are currently on Day 50 of waiting. 

Basically we want to get LOA ASAP!  You got all that??  OK!

Travel to go pick EK up is usually 2-3 months after LOA, so we are hopefully looking at traveling sometime this summer.  Obviously, the sooner the better.  Duh.

Now, acronyms aside, on to little Miss Ellie Kate……

Besides being fantastically precious, she’s a tiny little squirt!  The info we have on her is from the end of November (almost 14 months old) and at that point she was measuring between 6-9 months.  Basically all we know at this point is that she has been deaf since birth.  We were blessed to have actually received a hearing test and tons of medical info.  I say tons because the info we received on the boys was literally nothing short of their names and a picture, so having all this info for EK is a tad bit overwhelming!  Other than her hearing and being tiny, she appears to be perfectly healthy!  She is currently in HuaZhou City in the Guangdong Province. 

 

EK is somewhere near that Huazhou arrow! We will spend about a week there and then travel to Guangzhou to spend another week before coming home.

I’ve been able to talk with an audiologist and get her opinion and talk about what steps we should take once we get her home.  We also have some friends that have two little fellas who are deaf and have the same type of hearing loss that EK has.  I’m certain they will be an invaluable resource to us as we navigate our way into this new world.  (I may annoy her to death before this is all over with…)

And I’m sure it’s just another piece of this puzzle that God has had in the works for many years, but Louisville is a fantastic place to be (or be close to!) when raising a child who is deaf.  There are so many resources available!  Because of my early intervention background, some of those I knew already, others I am finding out as we go along.

The last week and a half has been looked at through very different eyes.  I’ve been acutely aware of what things will be different for Ellie Kate.  And for us.  Like music…we are a music-loving bunch of fools around here, dancing to the likes of New Kids on the Block (our latest obsession) and hitting up some praise and worship music every chance we get.  To think about her possibly not being able to hear what the boys hear, to praise our God through music, hurts my heart. 

It will be an adjustment for all of us, but honestly, it’s one I’m looking forward to.  I’m excited to learn sign language and teach the boys.  And I can only think that it would make us more intentional about things that we say and think a little more before just opening our mouths and letting hurtful words fly.  And the good Lord knows that I always need a little more time to think before just blurting out what I’m thinking!  (Please, no comments needed here.)

So…how can you pray??

1.  Pray that LOA comes soon!  The sooner that coveted document arrives, the sooner we can start moving towards travel plans!!

2.  Timing.  I’m just going to leave it at that.  God knows already how the timing of EK’s arrival will happen and His timing will be the best for our family! 

3.  Wisdom.  We are jumping into something totally new to us.  There will be decisions to be made, schedules that will change, routines that will just all around look different.  I’m sure much of it will be challenging, but I’m ready to dive in feet first!

God thunders wondrously with his voice;  He does great things that we cannot comprehend. 

Job 37:5

I’m holding onto to this verse right now.  If I’ve learned nothing else from the adoption process, it’s that I serve a God way bigger than me……..

What do the boys think??

That whole ride into school after getting the email about EK was with the boys.  I fought hard to maintain composure!  I didn’t want to lose it in front of them and as much as I wanted to tell them, I wanted to make sure this was a done deal before sharing with them!

Kenny came home a little early from work that afternoon and I wrapped up a present with her picture in it.  I told the boys it was an early birthday present for them, but with several disclaimers…it wasn’t a toy, but something we could play with and something we all had been wanting for a while.  I realized we were off base a little when I heard Charlie tell Sam, “I bet it’s an iPad!!”

Ummm, not quite.

Watch the reveal below…

 

They have been soooooo excited!!  We told them from the beginning that God made Ellie Kate’s ears so that they didn’t hear and one of the ways we could talk to her would be with our hands.  They never missed a beat and have dove head first into learning sign language! 

It has turned into quite the challenge (as in, against each other!) and less than a week in, they both know the whole alphabet and Sam actually kicked Charlie’s butt when I was quizzing them the other day!  Although he struggles with getting those fingers in the right place.  He’s flipped us off on more than one occasion! 

I’ve overheard Sam tell several people… “I have a new baby sister and she can’t hear and I’m gonna talk to her with my hands!!”  He has her picture printed out and carries it around the house with him, giving her kisses or hugs.  The other day I caught him staring at her picture on the fridge and asked him what he was doing… “She is just so cute, Mommy!”

Charlie asked if he could take her picture to school, has fiercely studied the ABC’s sheet on the fridge and is asking for more to learn!

Her given name is Ji Xisha (pronounced Gee Shesha…according to the "translate" app on my phone!) and Sam has dubbed her ‘Lil Ji, which I think fits perfectly with Chuck and Ham Bone.

Chuck, Ham Bone and ‘Lil Ji.  I like it.

 

 

THE day!

Tuesday, February 26, 2013.

I was trying to get the boys out the door and to school.  Sam and I had a field trip to go on that day.  We were running a little late, but as I check my phone to see what time it was, I realized I had a missed call and voicemail.

From our social worker at Lifeline.

It was before 7am.  Social workers from adoption agencies generally don’t just call to shoot the breeze with families on a regular basis before 7 in the morning.

Her voicemail just said to call her, so I herded everyone out the door, ran and told Kenny I had a voicemail from Sarah, but that I had to go and headed out the door to the car.

You know that feeling you get when something good is about to happen?  Yeah, that’s what was going on.

I called Sarah back and she told me she had a file for us to look at for a little girl who was born on October 9, 2011.  She is 16 months old.  And that she is congenitally deaf.  (If you haven’t read this POST, now would be the time to do so.)

I was so excited (on the inside!) I actually had her repeat what she said because I wanted to make sure I heard her correctly.  Kenny and I have this deal worked out where I don’t agree to see any files with out discussing the details with him first because I just get myself too worked up and want to bring every child in China home.  And in this tiny house, I’m not sure we’d be approved to bring home that many more.  So I called him, gave him the scoop and we agreed to let Sarah send us her file.

If you are at all paying attention, you realize by now that I’m telling you we have been matched!

I’ll give you a second to let that sink in………………….

WAAAHOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

I knew almost the second that Sarah told me that she was deaf that this was our Ellie Kate.  I hadn’t even seen her picture yet, but a Mommy’s heart just knows things like that!  And apparently so did her Daddy because when I called him back he said “Yes!” before I barely said a word to him.

SIDE NOTE:  I don’t know how to explain it other than it just being God, but when we started this process I told Kenny something along the lines of hoping that her special need was hearing loss.  I know, that sounds like an absurd thing to “hope” for!  I even tinkered with the idea of telling our social worker to look specifically for a child who was deaf, but decided to leave that in God’s hands.  How cool is it when God aligns your heart and desires with what He already has in store for you??  I get chills just thinking about it!!

Praise the Lord for traffic that morning!  I came to a rolling stop about 10 minutes after Sarah sent the email and was finally able to look at her picture.  Sitting there in the middle of morning rush hour traffic.

Due to the ill timing of a kindergarten field trip, I wasn’t really where I could talk to Sarah, so I sent her a text telling her “YES!” and spent the next FOUR hours watching a play about a frog (and maybe a toad or a snail…I wasn’t actually paying attention!) and sneaking looks at my phone to look at her picture.  Sneaking, because I was sitting with Sam’s teacher and she had made multiple comments about how she had asked the parent’s to put their phones away during the play, but no one was listening. 

Yeah, I was that parent.  The one disobeying the teacher.  But at that point I didn’t care.

As soon as I was able, I touched base with Sarah and she sent me the documents I needed to file our PA (pre-approval).  We submitted that paperwork first thing on Wednesday morning.  It usually takes about 2-3 weeks to get back and one of the things that it allows us to do is share her picture publicly (hence the blog post). 

I got a phone call just this morning that our PA had come back…a mere 3 days after being filed!!!!  As if we needed more confirmation that this child was ours, God gave it to us in a short 3 days!

So, without prolonging this any further…

Meet Ellie Kate!! 

I know!  She’s about the cutest thing I’ve seen since December 1, 2008 when I opened the email of two handsome Ethiopians staring back at me!

Happy Referral Day!!

More later on telling the boys and what happens next…

Hard paperwork.

This post has been half written in my head for quite sometime.  But after several recent conversations with people, I thought I’d just throw it all out there.  

I’m gonna fill you guys in on a little something most of you don’t know.  

The program we are in with Lifeline Children’s Services is a Special Needs Program through China.  I know the term “special needs” gives some people the hibby jibbies, so I’m gonna educate you.  

What does that mean? 

Well, that means that our little girl from China will have some sort of medical or developmental special need.  It could be something mild.  It could be correctable.  Or it could be something major.  Or something that affects her for the rest of her life.  It could be any combination of those things.  Or it could be something that barely qualifies as a problem. 

But what really matters is that God has already chosen Ellie Kate for us.  He knows her needs and the path her life will take.  He knows what our little dysfunctional family can handle and what we can’t.   

One of the hardest things I ever had to do was fill out paperwork indicating which special needs we were open to.  I just kept thinking… “If I was pregnant, I would have no choice in this.  This really isn’t fair.” 

I’m gonna be real transparent here.  As we filled that paper out, I was having an inner struggle.  One side of me said to just mark “yes” to everything because that would kinda be like us having no choice in the matter.  But the fleshly, sinful side of me wanted to kick the other side’s butt and mark “no” because I didn’t want my little girl to have to go through life being picked on or with a disability that would hinder her.  And if you want to get real honest about it, there were a lot of things I (me…JANA!) didn’t want to have to deal with! 

In the end, we did our research, did some praying, lots of thinking and filled out the paper based on what we felt like our family could handle.

And then I sat.  And worried about it.  And prayed about it.  And worried some more. 

I mean, nobody WANTS for there to be something wrong with their child.  Yet, that’s what we had just done.  We had requested to adopt a child, who by the world’s standards would be less than perfect.

Until one day the Lord told me to cool my jets, He had it all under control.  Well, maybe not in those exact words, but you get the point.

Huge sigh.  Thank you, Jesus.  I needed that reminder.

I’ve worked with children with special needs most of my adult life.  I always knew in the back of my head somewhere that we would one day adopt a child with special needs.  It almost just seemed like the natural thing to do.  I have this background and this education, it would be silly to ignore it.  I’m not sure I had let Kenny in on that little nugget of truth until much later, but he is totally on board with me.

One of the reasons I haven’t told many people this info is because they tend to give you a pity reaction.  Or you get the “oh, that’s such a wonderful thing for you to do” reaction.  Neither of which I want. 

God doesn’t put parameters on caring only for the healthy orphans or only the super cute orphans.  The command was to care for the orphans.  All the orphans. 

This is how God has chosen to grow our family.  Regardless of those worldly standards, Ellie Kate will be perfect because she was chosen for our family.