Going all out

Yup, I went all out this Christmas season.

I. Cleaned. Under. My. Couch. Cushions. I'm still impressed by my boldness to make such a big decision.  But it is still making me shiver, all that crumby stuff and lots of chunks and random toys. Gaaaross. 

And then I put Missy down for a nap after having a melt down over not being able to put ALL of her cards in a Christmas stocking and not being able to put a pair of sandals in a tiny tiny tin. Life is tragic, I tell you. 

And then you are imagining that I propped up my feet and had a smoke. Well, I don't smoke. Well then, did I have a tea then? Nope. Chocolate covered cherry? Nada. 

Instead, I washed the whole kitchen floor. Woohoo. And I surprised Mr Gum, our fish... I cleaned his house. He thinks Santa already came. 

To bad for me, these are "quiet" things to do while little one was sleeping. 

I'm having too much fun today, aren't I. 

I did start the day out with being sad for myself, because I miss my coworkers. You see, my manager had this terrific tradition of Christmas Eve Eve Moring Breakfast. It was so fun...  

So after mopping around, I packed up my girlie and hauled off to McD's (a whole two mins away) and we had big old breakfasts and pretended that we were having a party! 

After being out in the rain, I was happy to come home where it is nice and cozy. 

I get to go out with my girls tonight.. Score!! My friend and I made a joint decision that we weren't buying Christmas presents for each other, but that we would go out together and buy ourselves a meal and say Merry Christmas to me. So for my gift to myself...can you guess??  Stuffed mushrooms. Can I get a "Yeah, Yeah"!!

Wires crossed

You know what happens when you learn a language too fast?  You get your wired crossed. So if you shorten Mommy's name to Mom, then what do you get if you shorten Baba?  Bab..which sounds like Bob.

Why in the world does it irritate me so bad I don't know but it does.  And if she gets confused even more she will cross mom and bob and she will call either one of us, Mob. 

I refuse to answer because I'm mean like that so I will often hear through the day a little one yelling, "Bob, Bob, Mob, Mom". And then I look over at her beautiful brown eyes and melt all over and then get over it. 

I know I'll look back on this as hilarious :) but come on. 

She loved to match and be the same. But I was talking about her eyes and how beautiful and brown they were. She asked, "mom too"? 

Oh no, honey, Mommy's are gray blue. "Daddy too", she asked. 

No, Josie we are all different, Daddy has green eyes, Josie has brown, and mommy has gray. Our hair is all different too, you have black, mommy has brown, and daddy has none. 

She got this silly grin on her face, rolled her eyes and said, "No hair, wwwaaaaaa, no hair clip".

She continues to amaze me. Some days you think she is not learning a thing and other days she can't stop. Just this morning as I was writing this, I was sounded out waaa slowly and she announced "waaa is W".  I looked at her and said Boom, Boom, Boom, you got it right. She repeated "Boom Boom, is B".  Unbelievable. But tomorrow she will probably answer "maybe" to EVERYTHING!!

She can write a J,O, and I, but still can't get S or E to finish her name. She was scribbling wildly over her paper and called out, mom look. She showed me a h and p. I'm doubting she made them as letters but in her scribbles they formed and she picked them out. 

We ate out with some friends this weekend (a table of 8) and got a surprise when we went to pay.  Another couple had paid for our whole entire table.  I am just in awe for the generosity of these people.  What a blessing not just for the food, but for the spirit behind it... warmed my heart... reminded me of the true meaning of being a Christian and sharing the love especially around Christmas.
    G and I got to go to a concert also this weekend with another couple and we felt at least 10 yrs younger:).  It was sooo fun to have couple time and they had amazing laser show along with pyrotechnics.  And did I mention my favorite part was a Asian violin player :) 

    J has stayed over at my Mom's house a few times, but this time she stayed at my sister's house for the first time. It was the first to have another child in the same room.  At times it bothers me that she seems to not care that we leave, but it has been a blessing that she understands that we are coming back. She kept demanding earlier that day that right now " I go bye bye and Josie go to Aunt S by herself". Ok then. 

     It hurt my momma heart that when I went to pick her up, she couldn't have cared less. But I guess being held a lot and spoiled makes one not want to come home to boring bossy momma. 

We are still fighting the "mine" word. I'm guessing it from not having personal belongings and now wanting to protect them. It's even more pronounced with Christmas presents. It rather exhausting.  We had our Christmas over at G's parents home and J loved having other kids to pull around.  She even played air hockey. Lol. If sitting on the table is how you play it. 

Christmas is coming

We have been fighting terrible coughs for about three weeks. None of us went to the doctors yet, but every day I try to figure out if I should take Josie. This translates into long long nights of coughing, crying, irritableness, and random kicking of blankets. 

The other day, I felt guilty of our schedule of getting up at 9ish and eating breakfast at 10ish, but that's what she likes. 

After last night, I decided I needed to get over feeling guilty about it. I was up hrs and I need sleep to be able to function emotionally. I wish I was one of those people that can just sleep 7 hrs and be good. But I'm not. 

We attended Gary's work Christmas party on Sunday. It's always a long day of 1 1/2 hr drive there and a few hrs sitting and then the drive home again. But I found out... It's even a longerrrr day with a toddler. 

She was rather pleased with her first Christmas gift. She tries to sing Away in a Manager. It's cute but a little shoddy. Sometimes she remembers that it's Jesus in the manager, other days she thinks it is Josie. She had her own little fan club going on there at the company Christmas especially since it was the first time most of his coworkers would have met her. 

Times like these, I'm overwhelmed by the support that we have.  So thankful that our people has crowded in and listened and prayed and loved us through these months. 

So many people tell me that she is adorable and I always feel at lost for words. I was telling Gary that and he said, just tell them thanks. I just feel like by saying thanks that is taking the credit away from God. I look at her beauty and am in awe of God. Only God. 

It seems as we have a good week then follows a rough week. I just expected myself to have adjusted by now. But it is STILL hard. I don't really miss my actually work at my job anymore, but now I'm missing being alone. Very very bad. I feel like a terrible person just saying that out loud but seriously right now I'm laying on the couch and she is crawling up my skirt. Completely up my skirt. I'm serious. Some days I only remain sane because of my Facebook adoption pages. They are real, they are honest, they feel the struggles. We talk about wanting to go to the bathroom by ourselves. We talk about being failures. And we talk about Jesus. We talk about sleep issues, about not knowing how to play, about the kids habits that didn't come from us, about wanting to run away for a evening, about over simulation and hyper activeness. 

And then I start to feel ok again. That I'm not just crazy. At least I'm not going by myself. 

We try to take a short walk every day just to clear the cobwebs. We went to the library today and took a walk at the park on the way there. 

She was pleased as you can tell. It probably had something to do with that Grandma came along with us :). 

One of G's favorite Christmas snacks are Christmas wreaths.  I tried them once before and then did not turn out. But this time they worked out. So yummy but don't ask about how much green food coloring that they take. Or about what that green does to you. 

Occasionally we act her age. And it feels good. 

I ran into this song again and was thinking about how it spoke to me and moved me to tears while I was waiting on God to send me my little girl. I had felt so broken and wondered why, Lord, why. Now I see beauty in the wait and trusting God. 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Lmi9IBP209s

Now today it again had me in tears, I'm trusting with faith that God can still bend us but not break us. That He will mold us through the trials that we can become something even greater. I'm praying that God shows His power especially to my friends that are without a job right now and it's unbelieveablely hard to trust. 

Believe with me. 

Believe in the miracle of Jesus' birth and how He died and rose and now can live in us. 

Remember with me that it's all about Jesus this season. All about Him. Give Him your all. And be Him. Let your Jesus light shine. Give your all to others.

She's so funny

Today, she found something she was looking for and said, "there it is, BOOM". 

Had me rolling. 

So ridiculously full of life ;) all the time. 

Changes

So many changes..

She is already growing up and we both have our brakes screeching.  She wanted to put herself to bed once this week and she walked into her bedroom and closed the door.  My mind was internally screaming but I was waiting to see what G was going to do.  He turned and looked at me and said, "I'm not ready for that".  "ME EITHER, OPEN that door".

She has even taken a few naps and was happy about it.  That is a miracle.  You just may not know.

She stayed over night at Grandma's again and did good again.  She seemed to get it sooo much more this time that mom and dad was going to come back.  And she has been begging to go back :).

Her first words in the morning isn't "Baba work?" but now is telling me who's turn it is to put her to bed.  We take turns and you better believe she remembers who's next. 

I took her to the library for the first time two weeks ago and it was terrible.  I may have said that I wasn't going back in again.  But yesterday I went back in with her and it was like a million bucks better.  You just have to have to have two hands available since she has two hands grabbing.  She LOVES books.
I was joking around the other day about having no friends to go to the library with since it was in the middle of the day and she looked up in all seriousness and said "church".  She remembered me telling her who was sitting beside us and that they are mommy and daddy's friends.  She had signed friends to me then.  NOTHING passes her.

We got a betta fish.  I asked what to name it and her choices were People, Gum and Carpet.  I thought it was going to die but it hasn't yet and it's been about a week so we asked her again, and this time, she picked Gum.  We feed Gum every day.. she reminds me.

I took her to the eye doctor just for randomness really. On one of the referral pictures, I thought her eye was crossed but no doctors said anything about it, even after John Hopkins' 5 or so doctors and then her regular doctor.  But still I decided to take her, and her one eye is not great at all.  She needs glasses....my heart moans at this.  All those annoying kids and glasses in our office, well now I'm going to be those people.  Its a amazing how things come back to bite you in the rear.  Just a note to you, just get their eyes checked to be sure.  

Today we just picked them up and she wore them for the rest of the day.  I may have only gone grocery shopping and glasses watching done today.  Nothing else.  Hey, it's a full time job. I told her that she could take them off a hr before bedtime, but she wanted them back on. Crossing our fingers and toes that they stay in one piece for a week. 

I'm bored, just saying.  That's not saying that I don't have anything to do.  My house isn't clean, nor my laundry caught up, and have no idea what we are eating tonight.  I just have days that I struggle with no end in sight of missing people.  I have started a Pinterest string art just because of feeling blah blah and my hand hurts from pounding nails and so does my neck.  lol.  But it took a few minutes away from the day.  I'm listening to some instrumental music and it's putting me to sleep.  I just bargained with dear daughter that if she puts her abc puzzles together correctly that she gets candy.  Trust me, I'm mean, she may get three m&ms but she thinks its worth it. Anything for several minutes of quiet time. 

I don't feel like she has learned to play by herself or her age of friends any better. They said it gets better with time and I'm begging for time. I had my old coworkers over for game night and it was fabulous with no kids to fight with. Apparently I'm going to have adult parties only. Haha. I know the emotions are more than we can see and more than she can express. After a night with small kids and fighting and what not, she will have a restless night of 3ish times of crying. We wonder oh, wonder what history she has and why it unsettles her. 

Her words have exploded and it's hard to guess what she is saying. She gets very annoyed when you don't guess right. She didn't want to hug me after a bath. After a long time, we figured out that "she was soggy", at least according to her. She is using the word "actually" in the funniest ways. She will just randomly add it to the end of a sentence. "I play toys actually".  

She wants to go and see and do everything. She wants to "go now, build snowman" every day. I was telling her about how Jesus died on the cross for our sins and she looked up so seriously and said "Josie go cross too". 

Later looking at a submarine, "Josie go mama and daddy too". 

She will match everything!!   As in, the colors of my clothes will get matched to the colors on the cereal box or the signs in food lion. Oh, the giggling, when she realizes that she matches mama or baba. 

Sooo after a long day... Yeah, I want to go to the cross too. Let it all down at the feet of Jesus. You can too. 

Cold vs Hot

I was sweating just looking at my running shoes. 

She was cold so I wrapped her up like a snowman.  

Worth every minute

The need to write swells up in my soul as my emotions are to the edge of over flowing. And normally I'm driving alone in the dark. These a few of my randomness..

So I truly think that G and I are the cat's meow of a couple. 

Now stop, don't be gagging. Just stop.

I want you to feel like that about your relationship. Yes, you should and be stinking confident about it. Own it. 

So back to us. We are cool, yes, only to us, but really our opinions are the only ones that matter in this relationship. 

I'm in love with him, his heart, and his characteristics. He is hilarious to me. He is the calm in my storm. He is truly the most tender hearted man I know. He stands for what he believes. Oh, and is a amazing daddy. I still no idea what he sees in me, but he keeps coming back because he is loyal. 

So with these characters that he has, I'm sure that we could make some awesome biological children. 

But let me tell you, Josie is way cooler than all those characteristics. She is way above any thing that we could have ever imagined. 

She is everything to us.  To me. 

Sure, she can annoy me, but those little arms that grab and hug so randomly are so worth it. When you are trying to walk or work, hugs that grab on and won't let go. Or those random kisses to whatever body part closest to her which doesn't exclude your hiney. 

We will stay up every night to stop her crying because we were picked by God. We get to comfort her.  

I am incredibly lucky. I am beyond imagination... blessed.

 

People tell me the miracle of birth, which I believe is a true miracle. 

But adoption is a miracle too and will always over rule in my heart. God made me that way. He put the adoption passion in my heart as a teenager. 

People tell me that you will never know true love until you birth a child. 

I believe you will never know true love until you adopt. Until you trust God enough to follow into the unknown. 

People tell me that they are proud of me for doing this as if this is a noble deed.

People don't tell other  people that they are proud of them for becoming pregnant.

Don't be proud, be jealous.
Because even in the middle of the night....

There is absolutely nothing I would rather be doing.
This child that only by the grace of God, I get to call my daughter, is awesome.