Interview with a 4-year-old

 On May 19, this little guy turned four years old.  Four.  Four.  Four.  I really just cannot get my mind around it.  I spent 4 years in high school.  4 years in college.  4 years total in China.  There is so much in my almost 32 years of life that has lasted 4 years.  It seems so long at the beginning, but goes by in a flash, and here I am, with a son who is as old as my favorite days of life in Athens and Chengdu, China.  Wow!!  Brett and I have exclaimed over the past year that we LOVED age 3.  It was the most challenging age so far, but SO MUCH FUN!  And in the past few months, we have realized that our baby turned into a toddler, and our toddler is now a little boy (but if he heard me say that he would say, 'Actually, mom, I'm a BIG boy').  

 Well, this big boy is exactly that...SO BIG!  He is tall and skinny with not an ounce of baby fat on him anymore...these pictures are not actually from his birthday but from a few different occasions in April, and they all represent something that I want my memory to cling to forever...his first (and many to follow) ice cream cone at Ikea in China, him walking countless stairs in downtown Chengdu...when we moved there, I had to carry him, but he morphed into a stair climber...his favorite face to make at almost age 4...his train conductor hat as he plays with one of his loves...trains (cars top the trains by only a 1/2 %!), and his darling smile.  He is a treasure!

 We had a party at a nearby playground a few days before his birthday, because we flew to Shanghai on the big day in preparation to fly back to the States on the 20th.  I'll hopefully post about the party later...So, at the Shanghai airport, we celebrated at Burger King (I know, you're thinking, that is so gross, and you haven't eaten at the BK since you were 9, but, overseas, these fast food chains are like a dream come true!)

 We had a little dance party and got some stares from a few locals and Harrison managed to poop on the floor in the bathroom, which is another story for another day, but amidst all the fun, we managed to ask him some birthday questions, which is a new favorite tradition of mine, learned from my precious friend Anne Coleman.  We have continued the interview throughout the week and here are some of the answers....

Me: Harrison, what was your FAVORITE thing about being 3?
H:  Ummmm, turning 4!
Brett:  Well, buddy, you're growing SO fast...let's slow down a little so we can do lots of fun things, okay?
H: Yeah dad, like eat ice cream!
Me: Harrison, who is your best friend?
H: Cameron and Gunner
Me: What is your favorite color?
H: Dark blue, blue, and light blue (He likes to cover his bases, huh?)
Me: Harrison, what's your favorite food?
H: Watermelon (while he was eating watermelon)
Me:  What do you want to be when you grow up?
H: A King or a tiger.
Me: Who is your hero?
H: Daddy.  (No prompt here...probably one of Brett's favorite moments ever!)

My favorite is the very first question...He loves being 4!  He always says to me, "Mom, I can do it, because it's easy for a big boy."  He also says "Actually" ALL the time, which is really funny to me!  He has flown at least 40 times in the air and has landed his feet in 5 different countries, he is a tender, shy, loyal and cautious little guy, and I love him, I love him, I love him.  I'm so glad God chose me to be his mom...the hardest, but most rewarding job I have ever had.  Happy Birthday, Hare Bear.  I am so glad you're my boy!

jet lagging

Well, we are here...back in the good ole' US of A!  I have neglected to write much about it or anything lately as, of course, there was much to do to leave China and arrive here, but I also think I was just avoiding processing the inevitable...leaving.  Did 2 years really just pass by?  Was it all just a dream?  So much of it was impossibly hard, but in a strange way, I loved it.  I miss it already and will miss it forever.  And here I sit in the fog of jet lag, with one kid playing couch potato, loving watching American TV again, and one baby screaming her lungs out since the time won't let her know when to stay awake or go to sleep.  We are trying to unpack and settle in to my dad's house for the summer before we move back to Orlando in August.  I'm not sure how I feel about any of it.  Sad, excited, overwhelmed, but mostly grateful.  Grateful for our time overseas, and grateful to call America my home for a time until we possibly go elsewhere.  I hope to come back and share a little bit about our time there as I have a few more minutes to hang out here on the blog.  I most definitely will be reporting on a brand new 4-year-old boy very soon!! Until then, I will just try to stay awake and enjoy the sunshine and green grass, while missing my friends halfway across the world, and hoping to make new ones here.  I'll be back soon!

8 & 9 months

Blythe is swiftly approaching 10 months!  I knew that I would fall behind on these monthly updates soon enough!  I don't have much to report since my details have fallen by the wayside!

 During Month 8 Blythe started baby food!  She started right after her 7 month birthday on Feb 13 with sweet potatoes (same food H started with).  She did great!  I know 7 months is a little later, but I didn't start her on rice cereal til 6.5 months.  With #2, I was not in a hurry and we were traveling SO much during Jan and Feb that it was easier to wait.  Also, I have to make most of my baby food here ( a practice that I am not too fond of), hence the later start!  That is all I have for month 8 other than Blythe being complete preciousness!

Month 9 took Blythe from rolling to scooting.  She had kind of a limp crawl, dragging one leg behind the other.  Motion was in full effect!  (She is now completely army crawling!)  During month 9 she was trying to get up on all fours, rocking back and forth, scooting ALL over the place, and by the end, army crawling!  She started waving this month and WAVES ALL THE TIME!  She waves when she cries, when you hold her, when she's playing...she looks at a person, makes eye contact, then looks away and waves.  HA!  She laughs so much, and is SO smiley.  We just love her.

On her 8 month birthday i went away for a few days and although I pumped, my milk dropped a lot.  But, with some work it went back up, so she is still nursing 4 times a day (sometimes 5) with a little bit of formula at bedtime or if I'm away from her,  takes 2 good naps and sleeps great at night, but does like to wake up early sometimes.  Ugh.  She eats great, but gets so distracted, and is so active that she is starting to thin out, but still just the most precious girl ever!  She loves her lovey, and is still a thumb sucker, but only when she's tired!

Gege (pronounced guh guh, means 'big brother') got in the picture shots this month....

 Every day he asks, "mom, I just want to squoosh her cheeks, may I please???"

 His favorite face to make!  Did I forget to mention she's teething like crazy?  No teeth yet, but  she puts everything in her mouth!!  Harrison still to this day has never put anything in his mouth, so this is very new to me!!

And finally, a good shot of little miss 9 month old!  I'll be back soon with some 10 month snapshots!!

4 years

4 years ago today we lost my stepbrother, Kevin. 4 years. 4 years. It feels like yesterday.

Today I took Harrison to school, got a baby-sitter for Blythe and went off to be by myself to remember him. And I cried and cried and cried.

Every day I think of Kevin. Every day I miss him. Some days it hits more than others. But, when I look at this face, his smile, I grieve for myself that these are just pictures and not him. I wish so badly that he was still here.

I fear that I will start forgetting the times we had together...the sound of his voice, the way his eyes danced when he laughed, his larger than life heart, his desperation to be freed from his addictions. The memories fade, but the mark he left on my heart never will. I have written more about him in past years here and here.

Kevin's death was SO sad and tragic and unexpected. And there were parts of his life that were so sad as well, but he was such a tremendous person. As I ran into 2 friends today, Lori and Sonya, all I could say to them was "I wish you had known him". And I wish they had...I wish everyone could have known him. He was so special to me.

Knowing Kev changed my life. He taught me so much about being spontaneous, enjoying each day, and loving people as well as receiving love from people. His life was such a gift to me. So today I celebrate his life, and I grieve his death, and I am so thankful for all the moments in between. I long for the day when I can see him fully alive, healed and whole.

Kevin, I love you, buddy. I still feel like every time I go home, you should be there. I hate that you're not. I miss you every single day, and I wait anxiously for the day when I see you again.

Jane's visit

A few weeks ago one of my very best friends came to visit!

When we knew that we were for sure going to be spending a couple more years in China, we wondered if we would get visitors this time around...Most of our family visited us during our first tour here in Asia (for me it was from 2002-2004 and for Brett 1999-2004). It was actually Brett who said, "I bet Jane will come see us." And he was right...She did!

Jane and I met when I was in 7th grade and she was in 8th grade. We met at church and were instant friends! Shortly after we met, we would hang out on Sundays. We never, ever went to the same school except for one day when I had a teacher work day and I visited her school (hilarious). To this day she remains one of my dearest friends, and I am so grateful for her!

Jane LOVES to travel and she originally planned to come visit us last summer during an around the world trip...however, when I got pregnant with Blythe and we chose to deliver her in the States, Jane chose to cancel her trip and just come to visit over her Spring Break (she is a 3rd grade teacher). It meant the world to me to be able to show a friend our life here. It is truly so hard to share a life experience with someone who has never seen that part of your world. Living overseas is a privilege for us and we hope to live overseas again one day. I am so thankful to have shared part of my heart with one of my dearest friends.

We traipsed all over my city...eating yummy food, seeing the Pandas (all the pandas in America come from our city), seeing where I studied language, going downtown, etc...then she and I went to Beijing together and went to the Great Wall, Temple of Heaven, The Summer Palace (which I had never been to before), She did Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City on her own, a local acrobat show, and somewhere in between we shopped and ate a little bit. The best part was the Brett kept Harrison AND Blythe, whom I did not miss for even one second (until I got home, of course!) Even though I have done all those things at least 7 times, I had a BLAST doing them with her and getting the extra time to talk uninterrupted.
Jane's visit was a highlight for sure. I love visitors and she was so much fun to have around for a week!! Love you, Janie! Can't wait to see you in Atlanta this summer!

Faith

20 years ago today, I first heard the story of Jesus' death on the cross for all of humanity. I had never heard it before. Even growing up in the South, I had only been inside of a church a handful of times, and I had not been exposed to any stories of Jesus' love, truth, or grace. If I'm honest, childhood was a rough go for me. But, I met the God who redeems early on a Spring day when I was 11.

So, on that day, March 21st, 1992, on a 6th grade spring retreat with the youth group at Northside United Methodist Church, when I heard that God was my Father, and that he loved me and accepted me EXACTLY how I was....so much so that he sent a savior, His own Son, to die for me...me? I reached out and grabbed it. Me? Really? He loved me? I wasn't too chubby or talkative or quiet or silly? He was my Father? Really?

And sometimes I still ask those questions, but I know that He did. He died for me and my heart that is more deceitful than even i know. He loves me more than I could ever dare dream. I'll never truly understand, but I suppose that is this faith that I confess...believing in what I cannot see and at times desperately don't understand.

So, I struggle to follow Him. And I fail miserably. But, He saved my life on that day. And I will spend every day of my life left on this Earth grateful for His incomparable sacrifice, through joy and pain, gain and loss, I will praise Him and follow Him to the ends of the Earth.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Tales from the Toilet...Revisited

Lest you think I forgot to update you on the potty training that started, oh, ONE YEAR ago, here is a little update on our little trainee...
What a precious boy I have...I love him so much...and this has been the hardest thing I have ever experienced since pushing him out almost 4 years ago...You may have read my previous post which I wrote last year and just posted. It talks about some of my feelings during the thick of training.

Warning:: Potty talk is going to be very prevalent in this post!

I would say now that Harrison is mostly potty trained. He doesn't wet his pants (well, sometimes if he's playing too hard and doesn't want to take a break), and he doesn't poop in his pants anymore. But, we still have a long road to go.

Potty training was never going to be easy with him. I should have known. I did know. Hindsight is 20/20 right? I hesitated to write on the blog because I knew it would just be a snidbit of the nightmare I was experiencing...well-meaning moms who had no idea what was going on would offer more advice. Don't get me wrong, I was asking for advice, but from people who were walking through it with me, not someone who just heard about my plight for the first time.

You see, when we moved to China, Harrison stopped eating and pooping. I see now that it was his coping mechanism with all the change...and yes, a 2 year old can control things...2 things...eating and poop. H would go 10 or 11 days without pooping. So, it was not necessarily the potty training that was the problem...it was his colon.

He got pee down after 7 weeks. He is so good at peeing in the potty, he really only has had a few accidents since then, and I can count on one hand how many times he has wet the bed. Rare. But, because we hated the enemas and he hated the potty, he would hold his poop. As I said in my previous post, we used Miralax, which is truly a miracle, but you have to pump them full of it and it does just make the poop fall out. So, we had a lot of poopy undies (he refused to wear diapers or pull-ups, remember?) But, as crazy as it was, I was grateful to clean poopy undies, because that meant he was pooping!

Over time, his body didn't recognize the cues of needing to go. His stomach would swell up like a little starving child. He wouldn't eat as much when he was full of poo, and his attitude would get worse and worse. He and I would both get worked up. During the summer, I let Brett take over and he did great. Harrison was sitting on the potty and pooping! Yet, then we would wait a few days (too long) and the fear of pain would creep back in.

We visited a pediatric gastro in Thailand and he was wonderful! He gave us some new medicine and a poop chart (which, yes, has diagrams of poop on it...Brett LOVES it!) And we are pumping him full of meds and trying to get him to eat well and drink lots. He now sits on the potty every day at least once (this has been since the beginning of December...this is HUGE...he actually agrees to go sit on the potty. No screaming, no kicking, no "I don't want you, Mommy!") And I do whatever he wants...I let him take a bag full of toys, I give him goldfish on the potty, etc...and he has been doing so good. The doctor said it would take about a year to teach his colon how to contract again and to shrink to normal size, but we have to be on him, so that he will not require surgery.

And he has done SO well! Actually, the past few days he has not gone, which makes me a little nervous, because as he gets backed up, the fear of pain creeps back in, and the fight gets stronger. I cannot tell you the number of days where he is sitting on the potty and I'm sitting on the floor and we are both sobbing...me holding his face in my hands telling him I love him so much, and him saying, "But, mommy, I'm scared...get it out, please get it out! I can't do it!" I can't tell you how many times we have spanked or given time outs for him getting off the potty...or how many times I have told him that he has to poop or else I will take him to the doctor and the doctor will have to take the poo poo out. I have also read him so many stories to keep him on the potty, sung to him, rapped to him (I mean, I DID go to North Atlanta high school--I've got soul!), danced for him, quoted scripture to him, etc. It has been so hard, and I know it's not over yet. Every time we do well, then he skips a few days and we are back at square one.

So many moms said to me when I started potty training and tried to share my woes, "Don't worry, he will not go to his senior prom in diapers." Well, DUH! If one more person says that to me, I will flip my lid. I know he won't wear a diaper when he's 18, but it was more than that...it was his will, and his body that was messed up. It has been a year, and it will be much longer. I would say he is trained, but he still doesn't tell us if he has to poo poo, and he still says he doesn't want to go potty.

As I write this, I'm crying a bit thinking of how awful our bathroom experience has been. I have been so embarrassed at times, I have thought I was a horrible mom, thought I had failed. I have thought that I did this to him, that I should have not let him go as long as he did...did I ruin his colon? I was so discouraged at times, and I am sure I will be in the future. There were days a year ago, that I would wake up and immediately start crying as I didn't know if I could handle one more day of the fight. Doesn't this sound ridiculous? Well, it was so, so real. And so, so hard. And it is a reality for us, and I know I can't go back and change things I did, so I have to do things differently now and trust that God will heal our sweet guy!

But, my little man is a tender warrior. He is so extremely sensitive, and although I fear at times that he will get walked all over, he has fight in him. He now tells me everyday, "Mommy, I won't hold it today." And if I ask him if he is scared, he says, "No mommy, God is with me." I ask him if it hurts, and he says, "No mommy, God is with me." I have had the joy of teaching him one or two verses through it all, and I pray he will remember that Brett and I sat on the floor of our nasty chinese bathroom and prayed for him, and I hope that this whole situation won't send him into the looney bin!

So, there you have it, a bit of an update on the bowels of my eldest. I am sorry if it was too much information, but you were fairly warned. Somehow, I have (almost) survived, and I hope that it only gets better from here. I remember a friend here telling me when I started potty training that it took her a year and I thought, "that will never happen to me." and here I am, a year later.

Never say never!