I'm doin' my Skoo-Work!

Luci has been ill the past few days with congestion and a fever. What does she do when the fever finally breaks? She gets out one of our Childcraft books (Volume 4, in case you are interested) and starts copying poetry. At 9:30 at night. What a funny kid.

What a Difference

One of the families in our Guizhou yahoo group (Guizhou being the Chinese province that Luci is from) posted a link to a video of their daughter's first few months with them. This daughter was adopted at age 8 months (1 1/2 months younger than Luci was when we got her).

I cried when I watched this hand-over from one family to another. This baby was in foster care from the time she was found until adoption. Luci was in the orphanage from the day she was found until her adoption.

Why the tears? Because this little girl looked so much like Luci except that she was well-nourished and was doing all the normal things 8-month-old babies do. Like sitting up. Rolling over. On her belly, pushing up, as if doing a push-up. Crawling. From lying down, putting herself into a sitting position. Picking up bits of food and putting them into her mouth. Sitting up nicely on the Red Couch at The Swan without slumping over. And looking so healthy with those chubby cheeks and legs!


Luci was so different. Such a stick-figure, and very poor muscle tone. How much brain development was missed by having such meager food and attention? And grieving for her for the lack of love lavished on her those 9-and-a-half months. Other than the physical differences, these two girls look a lot alike!


Luci, home for just one week. She pushed herself into a sitting position, for the first time ever, all by herself...at age 10 months exactly. You can see just how skinny she is. Nothing "extra" on this little girl, at all!


But heartened, as another blog friend said in one of her posts, we are "Plan B" for Luci. (Thanks, "Snapshot.") This mom tells better than I can here that God's "Plan A" for children is to be taken care of by their parents, by the families to which they are born. For some reason, Luci was not able to stay where she was. Was she a daughter when they wanted a son? Was it in-laws who pressured them into abandoning this precious little girl? Was she child number 2 after child number 1 was a daughter also? Was she half Buyi and half Miao (she looks so Miao to me but the orphanage director was adamant that Luci is Buyi), and that mixed heritage is the reason?

Whatever the reason, John and I are happy, deliriously so, to be Luci's "Plan B."

Luci two weeks ago. A lovely, healthy little girl who knows she is loved.

Luci-isms

stink: a spot that gets on your clothes, as in I want an apron so when I cook I won't get a stink on my clothes.

mommies: those things in Egypt that can be found in pyramids.

Normal: a language, as in In Mexico, they speak Spanish. In America, they speak "Normal."

Busy Week

This has been one hectic week. Homeschooling? It's been more like "Traveling Zoo."

Last Saturday was busy. Then this week happened.

Church. Karate. Boys' class on early US History. Orthodontist. Karate again. Library--don't forget to bring something that begins with R, and what happened to that DVD we checked out last week?! McDonald's playdate for Luci with BFF* Kalyn. Bryan's trip to Gatlinburg for Winterfest Youth Convention. Penguin Party at the library to celebrate reading lots of books. Soccer evaluations for Upward Soccer (which Luci performed in her Princess ball gown). Dinner with Daddy at Cracker Barrel (need I mention that this is my favorite thing all week?). Trip to Huntsville for soccer shoes, Build-A-Bear Workshop field trip with new homeschooling group, then to Redstone Arsenal for groceries. JT's Black Belt Clinic in Russelville.

Too much. Especially when Mom's dealing with a sprained ankle (it's getting better, but all the walking is taking a toll...the sprain happened last week, otherwise it would've made it on the list above). Even things "in town" are at least 23 minutes away (yes, I timed it). We did manage to keep on track with schoolwork and get it all done! So that makes me happy. Next week's calendar has two EMPTY days! That makes me even happier!

*BFF=Best Friends Forever

Here are some snapshots of today's trip to the mall in Huntsville:

A nice group! 13 kids and 5 moms.
Pretending to be a mannequin at the video game store.
Dreaming!

Gold from China

We just watched the Gold Medal Pairs Ice Skating team, Chen and Zhao from China. Wow! Luci is proud of these folks from her home country, and I quote:

I like her, she wears sparkly clothes.

I guess when you are 5, that is what's important.

Busy Saturday

First, JT had a pre-test for his black belt. Test, JT! Test!

Then we had a Chinese New Year lunch with our Families with Children from China group. There were 9 girls and one boy present, all from China, among other siblings and family and friends.

Our newest treasure, who came home in January. Here she is with her proud mama.

The line-up.

Giggly girls.

Luci and Kalyn getting silly during lunch.

JT brought his diabolo (Chinese yo-yo) and demonstrated it for everyone. It was a big hit. This little cutie kept trying to make the diabolo work.

Luci noticed these gorgeous clouds and had me come take a picture. This was at sunset.

That was not the end of the day--JT and John played paintball in the field by our house. JT's in this picture, oh-so-far away. Look near the big bush in the middle of the shot. Our house is on the far right.

John hunkered down...

and hidden by the trees.

Ready to shoot at my baby.

JT with his paint ball gear...

and ready to shoot back at his daddy.

Today

Why is it, when little people get in the bed in the middle of the night, they sleep perpendicular?

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John: I'm staying home all day, so I'll do the housework today.

Me: Good thing I saved up for you.

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Luci: Momma! Don't come look! I'm not doing anything!!

Two that are appropriate for our house...

A Little Sponge

That's what Luci is. Yesterday the boys and I were "doing Bible" at the kitchen table. Luci was in the living room, busy with her toys. The subject of our Bible study was Jacob and his family, in Genesis 29 and 30. I began quizzing the boys, asking questions about the passages read. One of the questions:

Whom did Jacob love?

the boys hesitated, but from the living room comes:

Rachel!

Never Forget

New photos released of September 11th, 2001

Redeployment

Redeployment means coming back from a deployment. John's last redeployment was December 23rd. The last one! He's retired from the US Army Reserves, so no more overseas trips as a military man.
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Seems like a good thing, right? But all change, even good change, brings some stress. This has been the hardest transition of all of John's redeployments. I'm not exactly sure why. Perhaps because it is final, there is no more traveling for months at a time. That sounds backwards, but that's the way it is. Maybe part of it is knowing that the extra money from deployments (housing allowance, hazardous duty pay, etc) won't ever be there again.
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I think part of it is that John came home to two teenagers who had their own minds and needed different things from their dad, who was not all caught up on the situation. My ways of handling the situations that arose had to change because John had different ideas (and I'm not happy about handing back the reins!). That's probably the hardest thing right there.
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Fitting this person back into the family dynamic is difficult. Yes, we had lots of phone calls and emails, and John "parented from afar" but that is not the same at all as being there as things happen.
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Things that have changed:
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We don't have the nightly tears, "I want my Daddy!" from Luci. (This photo is from December 2009.) That is a good thing. But now she's transitioned into, "I want my Grandma!" or "I want Pal!" (the dog who was run over 3 years ago), or "I want my China Momma!" or anything else that is not reachable now. What is good is that Luci only cries for those things when she is extremely tired. Unlike crying for Daddy when he was in Afghanistan--that she did every night. It was pitiful!
I guess we can take down the time-table that's on the fridge. It does not seem quite real that John won't be going on any more long trips. The boys still have this table taped to the back of their bedroom doors, too.
I'm not constantly checking the news online for updates on the troops. (While John was in Kabul, if there was a blast I'd email him the story and he'd hear about it first from me--after they were released from the bunkers, that is. Usually they heard basic information. The online news had more details.) I don't feel such a need to read the crawl at the bottom of the screen on my favorite 24-hour news channel. I'm checking the earthquake page fewer times to see if John's area is still quiet tectonic-wise. The US Corps of Engineers page is no longer on my daily must-read list. Sleep is still hard to come by, though. I thought that sleep would come more readily once John got home.
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Here's the sign we put up for John's homecoming. Check out Build a Sign / Troops to get one for your favorite troop. It's nice to not have to have the yellow ribbons anymore. We also notice everyone else's ribbons, and talk about the families in those homes.
Nice that John can stand next to the real Luci now. :)
Sweet that John can tell us things in person now, and we don't have to play "Where's Waldo?" just to see him.
Did you find him? Here he is!
It was strange taking these signs off of the van's windows. Not only is the vehicle more bare now, but have you noticed how many silver vans there are in any given parking lot? I can never find ours now...those signs did more than let the world know that we were missing a vital part of our family. More than once I've walked to the wrong van!!


Luci actually makes love letters for me now. Here is a string of notes she made for John one afternoon...multiply that by the 365 days or so that he was missing from her life since November 2008, and you get an idea of the love this little girl has for her Daddy. During all that time, I think I got five little notes.
No more standing in airports, waiting for that special man...
No more of Daddy missing out on the kids' learning special skills, like Luci learning to use chopsticks (or chapsticks, as she calls them)....
Or missing JT's TWO gold medals at a Tang Soo Do competition.
But the best thing of all is not having to count on this chain how many days John was missing from our lives. This was after six weeks or so...before his last trip was over (June 28, 2009 to Dec 23, 2009), this chain wound around our entire dining room. The deployment was really over when John and Luci burned the chain, as you can see here in this post.

First Time EVER!

Luci sledding for the first time--turn sound OFF, it is just me yelling "Protect my child!" "Watch out!" and "Wave!"

Luci is going down the hill with Bryan, and JT follows.

Snow!

We have an inch-and-a-half now and it's still coming down! So exciting. The best snow all year and it wasn't even predicted.

We got two robo-calls from our County Superintendent this morning (hello! we homeschool!)...first one said school was delayed 1.5 hours, then canceled altogether. This is nothing like what the East Coast got, but it's enough to put the county into a panic. We have no snow-removal equipment. Also, there was a terrible wreck about a mile from us the last time we got a dusting...3 people were killed, so no chances are being taken.

Homeschooling plus "official school snow days": They don't really matter. We will do a shortened version of school today. Right now the kids are studying physics: how fast you can go down our hill on a sled! YAY for snow!!

I do!

You never know what's going to bring up insecurities. Weddings are happy, aren't they?


College Road Trip was playing in the van's DVD player on the way to church this morning. Somewhere the dad mentions giving his daughter away at her wedding.

Panicky voice from the back seat...

Mama!

Luci, we will never NEVER give you away. Not even when you get married. When you get married, you will still be ours, too.

(Sigh of relief)

Show and Tell

Luci and I were invited to Heritage Christian's homeschool co-op day, to share some things about China. The geography class was studying about The Great Wall of China. Amanda, the mom teaching that unit, invited Luci and me (but really LUCI) to be her show-n-tell.
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Luci prepared the night before by "doin' my skoo-work." She made a nest for herself behind the recliner and wrote songs and stories in her notebook. (Papa: I was so impressed with one of the songs she made up until JT told me tonight that she was just singing one she'd heard on TV. Major bummer! I thought she was taking after me with that darker-lighter "poem" I came up with at that age.)

Luci wore her "qipao." She loved being in front of the class! Amanda (in the background) had Luci to count to ten in Mandarin. We also posted some names and phrases on the whiteboard. Those of you who are more knowledgeable than I will notice the accent marks missing. Since I wasn't sure which words got what marks, I left them off.
We brought a Miao minority doll to show...
and I read this book, which tells the legend of the Chinese zodiac, and why the animals are in the order that we know them. We also passed out fortune cookies (which most everyone knows are American through-and-through but how can you not have them when talking about China?).
After class, Luci went to the K-4 class on art appreciation. She fit right in and tried to run part of the class (blush!!). She was not afraid to participate. I remembered how the boys were at that age, and they would have shrunk back and not said a word to the teacher. Here Luci is showing the teacher how she would look at 100 years of age (the assignment), and telling how her hair would be PINK.
We were invited on a good day--the day for the Valentine party! Luci brought her Valentine box and a bunch of Valentines and Feingold-approved lollipops to give away. She had a ball being a big girl.

Just checking, to see if anyone has left a Valentine for her yet!
Lunch. Got to carry a tray and everything! Woo-hoo!
And look! Lots of Valentines!


After co-op, we joined another homeschool group for game day. Luci had had enough of Mommy and her camera. Can you tell?