Busy bees and rough days . . .

Just thought I’d share some sweet and funny stories . . . Before they are forever lost in the halls of my very poor memory.

Lil C
No stories from him yet other than that he is cutting 2 teeth on the bottom and was 18 pounds at his 6 month appointment. He is bigger than E was at that age (E was only 16 pounds at his 6 month) and he is definitely going to be taller than E. He is giggling a lot and rolling over (back to front now). Gone are the days of sitting quietly in his bouncy seat! He also did something so cute the other day. Tim laid his head down next to C, then lifted it up and C mirrored him, going up/down, up/down like his Daddy. It was so cute. The other thing he likes to do is touch foreheads with us :) He adores his bubba and sissy, and they adore him to pieces and help take care of him in so many little gestures.

E
Awhile back, both kids were testing their boundaries some by lying about different things. On one specific instance, I talked with E about how when he lied to me, it hurt my heart. He said it hurt his heart too, and then said “my heart is brok-een” then “you forgive me?” My sweet dear boy got a big hug from his Mommy.

We’re not sure where he got this from (not us), but on the way to church one Sunday morning, E said something like “God wants us to be on the right path.” And then, in reference to various cars on the road not driving in the same direction, “They are not on the right path because they are not going to church.”

We continue to share about Jesus with E and S in ways we think they can understand. We are believing for their little hearts to seek the Lord early in life, and E, especially just seems so close. Anyway, I was preparing E for a well visit to the doctor last week, and mentioned they would look in his ears, mouth, nose, etc. And he asked if “Geutersloh” (his dr.) would use a stethoscope. I replied affirmatively saying she would listen to his heart. He then said “She will see Jesus in my heart.”

There is a beautiful song by Chris Rice called Untitled Hymn (see lyrics below) that we were listening to in the van the other day. The song ends with the phrase “fly to Jesus.” After the song was finished, E said “I want to fly to Jesus.” I told him that Aunt Sara and Josiah Joy (we told the kids the other day about our baby we lost when we went through Fort Worth on the way home from VA) already flew to Jesus, and he responded “I want to fly to Jesus now!”

On July 4th, we taught E to take his hat off at the singing of the Star-Spangled Banner. Mommy, with her spectacular singing voice (ha!) proceeded to demonstrate by singing the song for him, and when she finished, he said “not again Mommy!”

This morning E animatedly told us what he learned in Sunday School. He told us excitedly that Martha was a “busy, busy bee” and she “not want to talk to Jesus,” but that Mary did.

S
We are trying to be more “squeaky wheel”-like with S' adoption because things are moving kind of slowly when they don’t really need to. It’s hard to keep telling her “soon, soon”, especially when we know that will help her feel her permanency with us. We are open with her about her history. She’ll often talk about being in her birth mother's tummy, and then going to live with her foster parents. She’ll say, “I cried and cried and cried, then Ethan gave me a paci” and she’ll also say “they gave me cereal.” She’ll equate whatever stage C is at with what she might have done at her foster family's home. Oh, and it was so sweet . . . The other day, she said, when we were talking about them taking care of her, “I tell them thank you.”

Another time we were talking about going to court to put S' new name on paper. She said in her very commanding voice “they not take it off!” meaning, once it’s changed, they can’t change it back :) Another sweet gesture she has started lately is saying lovingly “I not gonna let you go” when we’re telling her night-night, which is accompanied by a very strong hug, and she means what she says because we can barely pry her arms loose!

We have learned that S LOVES her sweets. We have to watch her carefully! And she is very much like her Mommy who LOVES ice cream. Well, one day she woke up from her nap and we had promise ice cream for snack that day (not a usual occurrence, mind you). So, when she got up, Tim started teasing her that we were going to put peanut butter, pickles, etc. on her ice cream. She started to get very agitatedly upset, and almost began to throw a tantrum. We reassured her that Daddy was playing with her, then she caught on all of the sudden and said “we put TUNA on my ice cream!” She was teasing us back; it was darling!

The other day, S had been icky-boo with Daddy at our 1st Wednesday service at church. She and I took a walk together and started talking, and I asked her why she had been icky-boo, and she said “I having a rough day.” I cracked up because I have a feeling she hears that all too often from Mommy’s lips when Daddy comes home from work because of the crazy chaos that is our lives right now.

We were praising each of the kids at the dinner table the other night, and we told S she had beautiful, kinky brown hair. She said “It’s not kinky. Kinky is NOT a word!”

Despite all of his teasing, S and her Daddy have a precious relationship. Tim had to run an errand one evening, and she warned him “Don’t you dare flip over your car” and then with all seriousness and concern “Don’t fall out the car.”

Our sweet, sassy lady also called her Daddy a buckethead the other day. E then countered, “He’s not a buckethead; he’s a hathead” because Daddy had on a baseball cap. Then, E proceeded to put a cup on his head and pronounced “I’m a cuphead.”

These are the days of our lives in the ongoing saga of parenting . . . three absolutely beautiful children!