We're Still Here...

Okay, okay, I know that I'm woefully behind in keeping up with this blog, and I promise that updates of our exciting life (ha ha!) will be coming soon! After all, this is one way that I record memories for myself nowadays. However, we've been busy getting into the swing of school lately, as well as going on vacation, so maybe I can be excused from the lack of posts, right?

As a start back into posting, I thought I'd share one brief tidbit from this morning...this should prove to all of you that some things haven't changed at all. A few moments ago I heard some unearthly howling coming from Frankie in the living room. I mean, these were sounds that she only makes when she sees my mother (Frankie HATES my mom, who teases her unmercifully.) I walked out to investigate and saw this:

Yes, the boy pretending to attack the cat with dual light-saber action, complete with special sound effects. He wasn't coming all that close to her (he knows better), but she was NOT impressed with the assault on her kingdom. She was giving him her "if you come any closer I will personally bite your head off" look. (She is sometimes convinced that she is a tiger in her other life.)

Ah yes...life with a five-year-old boy...

Imagination

Yikealo likes nothing better than playing dress-up. He is constantly forming costumes out of anything that he can find, so we've recently suggested that he spend some of his fun money on some dress-up clothing. His first purchase was a pirate costume, and he spent a couple of weeks in pirate mode. When his cousin Zavier visited for a few days, I was continually being attacked by two dastardly villains.

However, that was before he discovered the most supreme costume ever invented.

Over the last few months,  Mr. Y has become completely and totally infatuated with Toy Story's Buzz Lightyear. He spent some of his hospital money on a Buzz action figure quite some time ago, and this toy has become his favorite playmate. He talks to Buzz, and eats with Buzz, and sleeps with Buzz, and Buzz has to be present for any stories that we read together. But then...he discovered the most awesome thing of all: a Buzz costume! Oh...if I could only begin to describe the intense delight in our house when that precious box arrived in the mail. He put it on at once, and  he insists on wearing it at every given opportunity. Seriously, like every single day. We started homeschooling this week, and on at least 3 of the days, I was teaching math or language arts or phonics to a Buzz impersonator. Last week, I was awakened one morning at 6:00 by Buzz leaping onto my bed, shouting something about a space ranger coming to my rescue....ummm....yeah....at 6:00 a.m. I'd rather be rescued from Buzz than by him. I sleepily stammered out something about wanting to snuggle my little boy, not Buzz, to which he replied, "I AM your little boy! I just look like Buzz, because this is a costume!"

A few days later he wanted me to play with him:
Y: "Mom, I am going to be Buzz, and you are going to be Wendy."
Me: "Wendy? Who is Wendy?"
Y: "You know...from Bob the Builder."
Me: "Well, if I am going to be Wendy, then why don't you be Bob?"
Y: "No, I NEED to be Buzz, because I want to be the one who saves the day!"
Me: "Well, then why don't I be Jessie?"
Y: "No, you need to be Wendy, because Jessie is more cooler than Wendy, and you cannot be the one who saves the day...that has to be me."
Great...why do I always have to be the less "cooler" person, anyway?!
(and note the chin curl he insists upon....grrrrrr!)

A few other recent Yikealo-isms:

• while waving his hands in a "cease and desist" manner: "We are NOT having this 'confercation'!" (Ummm....I think maybe you mean "conversation"? Although I have to admit that now "confercation" has become part of the household vernacular!)
• while listening to a new song in the car: "Mom, George needs to know what kind of song this is." (I guess it's good to know that Buzz hasn't evicted George yet.)
• One morning he started whining that I was reading my Bible instead of playing with him. I told him that I would play with him after I was finished, but God's word is very important, and God comes first. He responded immediately: "Why does God always get to be first? He is not the youngest!" (Apparently, in Y's opinion,  board game rules should also apply to the Lord.)
• At supper, David finished his prayer with something along the lines of: "And please help us to be Your hands and feet here." Yikealo looked up with a rather horrified look on his face and questioned: "FEET HAIR? Why would we wanta be His feet hair?"
• As I was snuggling him one night, I said, "You are such a present from God," to which he answered, "For one thing, I am YOUR present, 'cause you 'dopted me on your birthday." Technically, my birthday was the day AFTER our gotcha day, but that's close enough, right?!

Oh yeah, and along the homeschooling topic, what happens when Daddy gets a new I-Phone during the same week that school starts?
An I-Phone upon which both "boys" in the household can spend a ridiculous amount of time playing "Angry Birds" together?

And Daddy also decides that he would like to take over the math lesson for the day?
Well, the shape blocks are used to replicate the "houses" from Angry Birds, of course.

 A tiny plastic figure of Buzz becomes the evil pigs hiding inside the "house."

A sling-shot is built from Tinker Toys and a rubber band, and much time is spent shooting down the "houses" with a folded up paper "bird" from every conceivable angle.

Right, because in addition to learning about shapes and sizes, "velocity" and "trajectory" are obviously very important concepts to teach your 5-year old math student.

The Shirt

Remember this shirt?

Yikealo was wearing it in about half of the referral photos that we received of him in March 2009.

He was also wearing it on June 5th, when our caseworker took lots of photos of Mr. Y with his birthmom.

He was wearing it on June 15th, for his very brief appearance in Kristi Johnson's now famous "Lucy Lane's Gotcha Day" video. (Check out the little curly-top at the 2:43 mark!)

And last, but certainly not least, he was wearing it again on our gotcha day of June 29th, 2009.

It was the defining article of clothing for our son while he was at Hannah's Hope, and he still remembers it quite clearly.

Well, yesterday, Erica received a photo of one of her little guys from another traveling family, and guess who was wearing the EXACT. SAME. SHIRT??

Yep...he's definitely meant to be part of our family! Yikealo just beamed at the photo on our computer screen and said, "They must know that he is my cousin!"

In other news, Chris and Erica learned today that they have their court appointment on August 5th! We've also heard that the courts close for the rainy season on August 6th, and won't open again until sometime in late September. We are praising God that He worked out the details for them to meet their precious sons before the court shutdown!

Laying Low

My little boy thrives on having a schedule. He has been that way since the very first week that we had him in our home. Before he could understand much English at all, we had learned that he NEEDED to know the plans for the day - it makes him feel safer, more secure and in control. This isn't surprising, considering his background, and many adopted children have this same need. There is less chance of surprises that way, and having us talk him through a day's schedule helps him to know that we're planning to be with him throughout the day.

Normally this works out just great - after all, I'm a bit of a control-freak myself, and I also like having a schedule. However, the month of June was a bit crazy for our family. It started out with our Nursing Home's silent auction and garage sale: I was busy every single day for the first week of June, and Yikealo was shuffled around to various extended family members for parts of most days. For the next two weeks, I was involved with a Genesis-themed VBS that some good friends of ours organized, and I wasn't able to devote the normal amount of Mama-time to my little boy. Following that, Y and I traveled west and stayed with my parents for a week so that he could attend VBS at their church. It was a fun, relaxing time for me, and Yikealo enjoyed his time with his cousin Zavier, but by the end of the week, his safe little world was definitely fraying around the edges. Things had been weird for just too long, he hadn't seen his beloved Daddy in five days, and on top of that, Chris and Erica got their referral that week. All of a sudden, there was lots of talk about Ethiopia and lots of pictures floating around of two scared-looking, dark-skinned little boys. Yikealo began to get nervous, and he regressed in his normally very secure connection with us by about a year and a half. If I left a room while he wasn't paying attention, he panicked that I had left him. He began to bring up memories of his fear when Mihiret left him, and he was by turns very clingy and very distant. He got way too friendly with acquaintances of ours that he doesn't know all that well, and he cried much more easily than normal. Things desperately needed to return to the status quo.

Thankfully, our lives have gotten back to their nice, boring, typical schedules! After being gone for three weekends in a row, this is our second with absolutely no plans. Mr. Y and I have had two weeks of long, sunshiney, stay-at-home days - full of snuggling and reading stories and long walks and playing in the wading pool.

He is back to his normal, happy, self-confident personality. I am so glad that he shares his feelings and fears with us, rather than keeping them bottled up inside. I am so glad that a few days of normalcy returns him to his sunny self. I am so glad that we have made so much progress over the last two years, and that, for the most part, he trusts us.

Oh yeah, and then there's this scary pirate who showed up in our home this week: constantly brandishing his sword and threatening to slice off various body parts of his captured victims. Unfortunately for him, this Mama isn't too frightened by a pirate in Miss Sally socks who diligently practices writing his letters at the kitchen table...

One more thing: our June and July numbers. I was obviously a bit lax in posting them during June, but last month we were at #53 for a girl and #40 for a boy.

There has been a nice amount of movement in the referrals over the last couple of weeks, and for July we are at #46 for a girl and #34 for a boy...although we are already a bit lower than that, as there have been three more referrals just this week!

Two Years Together

Two years ago today, our lives changed forever. Two years ago today, we held our son and heard his high-pitched little voice for the first time. Two years ago today, I was scared to death, and I had no idea how quickly I would fall head-over-heels, irrevocably in love with Mr. Y.

Here's a video from that morning - the two of us were negotiating trades of his hated raisins for my fruit snacks. At the time, I had absolutely no idea what he was saying - today, I understand most of it.

Today, I am praising God for His good and perfect gifts. I can never thank Him enough for leading us down a completely unexpected path into the world of adoption and parenthood. Through His plans for me I have discovered more of who He is, and I have had needs fulfilled that I never knew had existed before. I love this child more than I could ever possibly express through the weakness of language, and today I am rejoicing in his presence in our lives!

Praising God This Morning!!

Just a quick post to let everyone know that we have two new nephews on the way...Chris and Erica received a referral yesterday of twin boys - 2 1/2 years old. They are precious, darling cute, and apparently on target for their age. The story of the referral is amazing, but I will be letting Erica share that once she's done with piles of paperwork, so keep an eye open for her blog posts at: www.possibilityofmiracles.blogspot.com!

Also, please pray for these little guys and for their birth family. There is so much sadness mixed with the joy in an adoption, and yet my God is the great Healer. We are praising Him for His goodness, and trusting Him to work out the details.

Doc

In January of 1967, a small-town boy from flyover country shipped out for Vietnam with a company of soldiers comprised wholly of southern California surfers. Flyover country. A term for that part of the United States that falls between the coasts -- between NY and LA. No doubt the surfers from SoCal have many names for those of us backward enough to be born and raised in flyover country. But, in this particular case, in 1967, one of those names was "Doc" .

The differences between the members of this newly commissioned unit went well beyond geography: they expanded to include opposite worldviews and each man's perspective on bearing arms. You see, Doc was a non-combatant and was committed to doing everything in his power to preserve life. Others in the company had no such qualms and, in fact, had a highly skeptical attitude toward a comrade who didn't 'have their back' as they saw it.

Now Doc wasn't really a physician; at least not by any of the typical standards that can be applied. He had only the skills that a few weeks of medic training can provide. No more. No less. Yet what Doc lacked in medical knowledge he made up for with love and concern for those who relied upon him for help. In this sense, he truly was a physician.

Through the first six months of their deployment in Vietnam these young men slept together, patrolled together, fought together, bled together, and forged a bond that those of us who have never served can never understand. They learned to trust each other and, in Doc's case, they learned that whether or not a medic carried a weapon had no bearing on his ability to perform his duty and contribute to the unit. Through these shared experiences they became not just a group of men, not just any company, but they became Charlie Company.

That's what made June 19, 1967 so hard.

As part of Operation Concordia I, Charlie Company was ordered into battle on June the 19th. By noon, Charlie Company and the rest of their Battalion were involved in a fierce fire-fight with enemy forces that were not only superior in number but which also held better positions and the element of surprise. Through the day, over forty American soldiers were killed and over 150 wounded and, in the middle of it all, was Doc.

Early in the fighting several of the other medics were either killed or wounded. Further, Alpha Company had walked into a trap and many of their casualties were in the open and still under fire. I do not have a clear understanding of the details of this day. I know that many bronze and silver stars were awarded for the efforts made to rescue those who were ambushed. I know that many died trying to save their comrades. I know that Doc and several other men were able to rescue a handful of wounded soldiers and load them onto a helicopter -- only to have that helicopter shot down, killing some on board and nearly crashing onto the rescuers (see details). What I know is that there was a small part of Doc that died that day too, and left him wondering what he could have done better; what he could have done more.

And I also know that over 35 years later, an officer who was on the field that day looked me in the eyes and said "I do not know a braver man than your father."

You see, Doc is my dad. And on this Fathers Day -- June the 19th -- 44 years after Operation Concordia, I cannot be with him. But I know about June the 19th, and I know about my dad, and I know that many of you who read this blog will see him in church. And I know that Doc wouldn't want a big fuss made over him, so don't make a big fuss. But if you get the chance, just tell him "Thanks, Doc." (see Doc)

I cannot write this post without also mentioning dad's cousin, Denny Nieman. Denny was part of Alpha Company and was wounded on May 15th. As a result of his injury he was shipped home. On June the 19th many -- over half I think -- of the men Denny served with were either killed or wounded. Both Denny and Doc need your prayers this Fathers Day as they remember things that nobody should have to remember and grieve for losses that no one should have to suffer.