Good Gratefulness

It is not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.
~Mother Teresa

For the blessing of an adoring husband that I have loved deeply for 20 years, four children who reflect our love and His, the uncommon gift of learning to set myself aside for another who is desperately broken and in need, the freedom to put into practice the love we hold for our God, sweet America and those who fight bravely, a good paycheck, a full pantry, a safe and warm home, clean water and plumbing, home schooling, airplanes to bring us together with family who is too far away (well, we're too far away), redemptive joy, girlfriends who get it, all of it, Christmas lights, and the hope of being home forever sooner than later, I am grateful.

love

Happiest of Thanksgivings.

So, how are things, reeeeeeeeeeeeeally?

James has been with us now for 12 weeks. We are asked almost daily about how things really are at home. We stepped away from Facebook quite a bit, which included many adoption groups with oodles of advice, in order to take a breath and shield our bruised hearts with a little distance. When I post here on our blog, with pictures and stories of highlights of our days, and our homeschool, we often get comments/texts/emails/phone call asking, "Is it really that good?" "Are you lying?" "He looks so great in the pictures." "Awe that smile." "The kids look so happy!" ...

While protecting our family and keeping close our privacy, I'll simply say that no, it is not wonderful. The last 12 weeks have been indescribably challenging and full of sadness, loss, grief, disbelief, and questions. Even writing those words seems like a futile attempt to impress the nature of what our life has become since late August. The little boy in our home is layered with hurt and deep attachment issues and we are treading water, at best. at.best. This goes beyond adoption-related trauma, but at-this-poor-child's-core trauma for the agony that tainted his life for the last five impressionable years. He is among the most traumatized of children that the professionals helping us have met. In turn, our other three kids are for the first time having to witness hurt and anger, which is a great loss for them, too, which I was not prepared to parent and I still don't know how to heal.

We live moment-to-moment and our days are blandly peppered with happiness but weighted with sadness. Believe me, I know how heartless I sound, and I've come to a place where I believe that it's okay if that's what others think. Unless you've walked five minutes in my shoes with this child, or witnessed the sparkle disappear in your daughter, or the fear of what is to come, you can imagine anything you wish about me, but Jesus knows my heart and my intentions and how desperately I am trying every second of the day and night to love the most unlovable. To heal the most hurt. To reach deep inside of me and forgive and teach and reflect Christ's love. From where I sit with blurred, wet eyes much of the time, it can seem desperately bleak, but every day manages to offer a flash of hope that it will be okay ... not just okay, but good ... and in our weakest moments we are given the grace to do it all again each new morning, for His glory and for His child.

We covet your prayers, well wishes, good energies ~ anything and everything to carry us through this season. 

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me." ~2 Corinthians 12:9

~ Rowing ~

Rowing, rowing, rowing ...

When Mae was a wee four years old I bought my first homeschool curriculum. It has been my first love in the art of teaching my children. It is such a thoughtful, delightful, almost unconventional way to unleash a love of learning in little ones.

We rowed titles from Volume 1 with great fervor and intention for Mae's preschool years, peppered with a few necessaries, such as, handwriting and counting and Bible. Good stuff. Once we started Kindergarten with My Father's World our rowing started to wane and here and there we'd row a title as a special treat, which was made more special since Viola was old enough to tagalong a bit, too.

Now with James home and speaking very very very little English (but understanding much much much more) it seems time to pull out FIAR again and row away. Is there anything more crucial in life than learning to read and to LOVE to read? Five years of literacy have been lost to James so it is time to light the fire of words and illustrations and rhythm and tone and emotion and wisdom that comes from the very best books.

We have decided to re-row Volume 1 -- actually, Mae decided so that she could share her experiences with FIAR with James. Sweet. I'll take these moments between these new siblings ... they are not always as easy to come by as one might imagine (since the picture in most minds of older child adoption is not truly the reality of older child adoption, but that's another story for another time, maybe).

Miss Charlotte Mason will turn in her grave to hear that we are opening windows of learning via unit study, but I still love her immensely. I think she just might secretly be swooned by the beauty and passion behind FIAR. Timeless children's literature, read and re-read with love, and then unraveled from five starting points ... social studies, language, art, applied math, and science. Smart and deliberate and yet sparking a curiosity in thinking that can only be fueled by rich, living books. (Additionally, the FIAR Cookbook will afford us the opportunity to bake and cook every week as part of our lessons. This and crocheting and Mae is over-the-moon.)

Our first stop ~ Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost. This is also the poem the girls are memorizing this week (from Queen's Language Lessons for the Very Young) and it is Mae's copywork selection.

How in the world will I add FIAR into our already full days? Cheerfully and rhythmically and only just a smattering -- not every day, not every week -- just here and there for the joy of it.

8:30a: morning devotionals (daily)
9-11:30a: language lessons & picture study (2 days/week), handwriting (daily), poetry copywork (1 day/week), spelling (2 days/week), math (daily), poetry (daily), reading (daily), history (3 days/week), bird study (2 days/week), nature study (daily)
11:30a-12p: tidy house and prepare lunch
12-12:30p: lunch & history read-aloud
12:30-2:30p: independent reading, baking, sewing, music (daily during boys' naps); FIAR
3-4p: outdoor play

This includes *too many* breaks unseen here on this neat and tidy (and wishful) blog page.

More to come.

Ten Weeks Ago Today

Ten weeks ago today we landed in America with the newest addition to our family. I am not sure that I believe it has only been ten weeks, but that is what the calendar tells me.

~it feels like forever~ 

Ten precious things James has learned since becoming part of our family:

1. to laugh without hesitation ~ feeling reckless joy
2. to be at peace when I walk in a room ... almost no more jumping out of his skin when I come near ~ understanding his mother's love
3. to use a fork, spoon, toilet paper, toothbrush, lotion, comb ~ confidence is growing
4. to let Jack have his way sometimes (okay, most of the time) ~ brotherly love
5. to color, paint, and hold a pencil ~ education is a gift and he knows it
6. to acknowledge us as his very own family ~ stifling his fear of abandonment
7. to sleep in his cozy bed with less fear of monkeys, elephants, and hyenas attacking him or us at night ~ safety
8. to sing and gibber jabber aloud like no one is listening ~ comfort is blooming
9. to hold my hand ... as in with fingers tightly clasped around mine ~ feeling wanted and protected
10. to look at pictures of "home" and his daddy without crumbling and calling himself by his birth name ~ finding his identity without losing his history

The first eight weeks and three days home were suffocating. Mere words here could never illustrate James's suffering or our inadequacy. Nine weeks to the day of driving away from his orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and it came together. Our lives blended and each day since has been a fresh, gracious, humbling new beginning. He has taught us deeply compassionate love and mercy and we continue to be in awe that our Father chose us to raise, protect, and help heal this little boy.

 Above all,

preserve an intense love for each other,

since love covers many a sin. ...

 Each one of you has received a special grace,

so, like good stewards responsible for all these varied graces of God,

put it at the service of others.

1 Peter 4:8, 10

School ~ A little catch-up

What happened to weeks 5 and 6 and 7? sigh. I don't know. One little African who continues to topple my world upside down then right side up then sideways then all pretty and (seemingly) perfect again. But, if I'm being honest, it's not perfect. Seriously though, perfect is terribly overrated, especially for us natural, homeschooling, attachment parenting, adoptive, wish-I-had-a-homestead sort of moms. James has stretched our family in unimaginable ways. Stretched in ways that eight weeks ago I'm sure would have made me crumble. There are days, like today, that I was fairly certain I will not survive. Can not survive. Do not want to survive another day like today. Adoption is hard. Adoption is beautiful. Adoption is blessed. Adoption is painful in eleventy-billions layered ways. It's like childbirth. Ouch. Holy heck that hurt for those endless hours. Wait, hurt? What hurt? I'm clinging to the light at the end of the tunnel, and as my dear friend has said to me before along our adoption journey together, sometimes it's very dim and I'd settle for a third of the way down the tunnel. That said, the last three weeks have been brimming with new school lessons, ridiculously wonderful new materials, visits from family, James's first toes-in-cold-Atlantic beachy sand in the big wide ocean, insane temper tantrums and grief, strep throat times six, including one little Ethiopian who cannot say (still working on good ol English) that he is nauseous but it becomes very clear very fast in very bad ways always in public, and the quiet at the end of the day with my husband and two bowls of cereal thankful that we are still snuggling on the couch together ... 20 beautifully blurry years later ~ gosh it goes fast.

We are in week 8 of our lessons and I can say that we have found our niche. Stumbled maybe, or more accurately gave up control and sat still enough to listen to what God was pressing on my heart. All along.

SCM's Genesis through Deuteronomy and Ancient Egypt is perfect for us. Just the right fit. I am shouting this from the rooftops. Finally. Peace. No more up-all-night scouring curricula and wasting precious money on materials that never work like I want them to or like I think they should. This does. All of it. Wow. It surely helps that Mae and Viola absolutely crave Bible time and illustrating Bible stories and timelining history. Throw in Ancient Egypt to uncover what life may have been like for say, Abraham, and pure success. Short, varied lessons, living books, read-alouds, narration, and lots of one-on-one with my girls and we have success and happy lessons.

Oh, I did buy Mae a new Bible in the same translation as my preferred reading Bible (ESV) and she really loves it. We had her initials monogrammed, too. She was ready for more substance than her Discoverer's Bible and we prefer a translation that is word-for-word over the NIV we had been using with Mae. Her 8th birthday is in three weeks ... I am terrible at saving presents!

I read Ganz's Herein is Love: Genesis and absolutely adored it. It is a commentary for children, but perfect for me, who has just so much to learn. I am definitely going to be reading her series as we read through the Bible. Sparks gorgeous discussion. 

Viola lost her FIRST TOOTH! She's 5 1/2 and this was such a rite-of-passage for her after witnessing her sis lose seemingly all of her teeth. She was thrilled to find $5 under pillow and this mama took her and the others to the dollar bins at Target ... $20 later the tooth fairy had made a new friend (well, four actually).

The necessaries are moving along wonderfully ... reading, handwriting, and math. We will begin next week with adding Life of Fred: Apples from their Elementary series two days a week to spice things up and to make their minds work in an entirely different way when approaching math ... it's also going to be a unique way to bridge family learning and math. I have wanted to use LoF for years, but until this year it was only Fractions on up, so this is a special treat. Viola breezes through her math lessons, though we love Math Lessons for a Living Education, so we will use the additional math a couple times a week and still enjoy her math core. Mae's Math Mammoth is exactly what she needs, but it is quite worksheet-y, so some LoF will surely break up the routine nicely.

Love our Pathway Readers!

This is what a sick day at home school looks like. :(

Even the 2-year-old loves book basket!

Queen Language Lessons ... just the right amount for Viola.

Cheerful Cursive with Mae ... most delight in her day, aside from Map Skills. Silly girl.

Our Place Value Village

Up until this week we were using 106 Days of Creation for science and nature. It is a lovely program and ties in with our study of creation seamlessly. Life is somewhat a cluster at present so I reread my Charlotte Mason Companion as well as Pocketful of Pinecones and again, we're taking a step back and focusing on nature. We will pick up 106 again in the fall, but we have changed course to Queen's Discovering Nature Series with All Nature Sings. From Queen's website: "It is a year long study of forest plants and animals, dinosaurs, the days of creation, and Noah's ark, etc." 

Our most recent lesson with 106 was on shadows and we had a fantastic time studying God's wonderful works through scripture and nature. First, we were greeted by turkeys ... if it's not turkeys, it's deer or moose. Then the girls took turns tracing each other's shadows several times that day. Our discovery: shadows shift with light and sometimes objects get in the way. We then turned our attention to our Bibles and learned that God never changes. He is constant and everlasting. We discussed our lesson and then the girls notebooked their findings. I am eager to turn back to this guide on science and nature next year when I hope that all four kids might participate a little more fully. Until then ... 

I'll close with Mae's favorite part of school ~ her Map Skills B workbook. She just has that knack and spatial perception (that I lack). Here she is mapping her room. Love this girl so much.

Peace.

Happy Halloween

I'll try to make this the last post with a bazillion photos. Darn they're cute kids though! Hope your Halloween was indeed HaPpY. It was 25 degrees while we were out in our little town ... not a big hit for our snow-loving (haha) African. He endured the trauma of the cold and snow dressed up like a dragon for strangers handing him candy door-to-door. Oh what he must have thought?!? We also had ballet in costume (what could be more fun than dancing around an unsuspecting new brother?), carved our pumpkin, watched Charlie Brown's Great Pumpkin (why do we remember that being so much more FUN?), and we played in James's very first (and he wishes last) snowstorm ... 8-10 inches overnight in time for trick-or-treating. Admittedly, I was like a kid on Christmas ... can never get enough snow! Enjoy.

garden fairy & lady bug

She totally learned this from me. :)

I can tell from his stiff stance that this is just about as exciting as snow falling.

Don't let the smile fool you. This was accompanied by a lot of gutteral "noooooo"s.

Much better from the inside.

dragon

my monkey & husby

Yes, it was freeeezing.