Levi Love

We got some great pictures yesterday. On Sunday I saw our cousin, Alicia, snapping away taking pictures of Levi and these were some of the great surprises I found in my inbox. Here are a few of my favorites. 

He just finished a growth spurt and is getting so tall!

At three he's still a paci boy. We know...his teeth, his age. In due time.
For now, he's still enjoying this little blue security blanket.

Our boy and his beloved Nana

Worthy of double duty as the blog header and a picture in this post, this is my favorite.
That's the sweetheart who makes my days so rich.

Thank you Alicia Tegen! Pretty sure you made the grandparents' week especially those in Georgia who don't get to see this boy very much.

Adoption From the Eye of the Storm

We've been absent here a long time. This semester, mainly March and April, has been a time to be silent on the blog about the adoption. We've often heard from others about the hardships involved in adopting children, and we'd nod in agreement or internally tell ourselves we knew all about it. But, really we didn't and probably still don't. Adoption is no simple thing. To answer a call to enter brokenness and be willing to be part of the puzzle of redemption is not for the faint of heart. We are gaining stamina and learning that standing in the middle of the battle is not the time for lamenting. I've done my share of that this past year. 

In March we discovered that after five months we finally had received our first of three clearances. We thought we had received it earlier but there had been a misunderstanding. Finally, at the end of March we got it. That meant next came the national clearance then the judge's then the passport and, finally, travel. I know we've reviewed it before...it's a whole lot of clearances and a whole lot of time waiting between each one. Finally having the area clearance meant we could then wait for the national. We had no idea what would hit us here...

On Tuesday, May 14th, I missed a call from our agency. I'm always excited when that number pops up. But when I called back there was bad news. The national committee met and had decided that we did not seem to be a good fit for R. "Too young," they said. "Denied." 

Really? 

We're twenty-nine and thirty-three. 

Under other circumstances I'd be flattered, but that Tuesday I cried a whole lot. Jason and I love R so deeply already. Every book and training and phone call has been with her in mind. We've talked to Levi about her since he was born. We hoped the one page acceptance letter filled to the edges using the smallest margins and font size would show our love and commitment. But, we are fully aware that commitment doesn't make us older or change Levi's age. With so many things already having been said, we had a lot of praying and thinking to do mid-May. Since our agency is allowed to send one appeal on our behalf we began our attempt to write such a letter that same day. Letters had to come from our agency, our home study agency, from us and a personal friend who adopted under the same circumstances years ago. Additionally our orphanage would send one in separately. So that whole week we prayed and gathered letters finally submitting everything last Monday, the 20th, including a picture of Levi hugging R's picture. The phone and email have been quiet since then with a warning that there could be weeks or months more of it to come. We do know they received it and that is the grand news of last week.

By now we should be professional waiters. It's been four years since we realized a little girl would join our family by way of India. And in the four years we have been great pupils, totally surrendered to God's time, learning every lesson there is to learn in this process...are you believing this? Don't. I can only speak for myself that I have a long way to go. Jason...he's doing a lot better in many of these here areas. Yet, in this particular phase in which we find ourselves, while there are lessons to be learned about surrendering, there are also some big lessons to be learned about warring in prayer and believing that it is not God's plans for little girls and boys to sit for years in limbo waiting. That brings us to a new phase in this adoption-- the intensified warring phase. Not that we haven't been doing some of this all along it's just that, well, desperate times call for desperate measures. In this uncertain time we are resolute that our only hope is in God convincing a small committee in India to see past the black and white numbers. We believe this little girl, R, is the one we've been waiting for. We believe she belongs in a family and in limbo no longer. We believe the Lord will be victorious and that this long ache will finally come to an end. Faith will be made sight and a little eight year old will meet the family that has been longing for her for four years. 

Sometimes I've believed that this adoption was our plan, but I'm reminded lately that this is not the family plan we would have naturally chosen. Breaking birth order, adopting an almost pre-teen across cultures, five years difference between our children...it's not the way we would have written things. Yet something quite mysterious happens when we fall in love with God-- we realize his love and ways are better than anything we ever could have dreamed up. Even if there is sacrifice and hardship, doing life with him is the deepest of riches. And then it happens, come rain or shine our hearts long to do life his way. We even yearn for it. And so it is with this brown-eyed, precious girl. While walking this path may be scary and extremely hard at times, we are so  honored that the Lord is setting her into our family to cradle in our arms and love forever.

Once while at Billy Graham's training center we read a quote (warning, I thinking I'm going to butcher it) by Ruth Graham: Views from the mountaintops are amazing but the fruit grows in the valley. In this valley of waiting on word from India, we pray some good fruit comes. Grey hairs are not good fruit in my opinion so we're hoping and praying for more. For us, for others, for R. 

The emails are there in the small office where they'll decide. Pray with us that they read and review them in weeks, not months. Pray that anywhere the enemy is trying to steal, kill, destroy or delay that his head would be absolutely crushed to steal from R any longer. Pray that God's kingdom invades the earth, the he draws people to himself and opens wide the door for our total, legal custody of R. 

And to leave you with a grand praise, the week we got the hard phone call we made a new friend who, when watching our daughter's video, started translating everything for us giving cultural insights. We also got a check in the mail. From our best calculations, our adoption is fully funded. Tickets could be purchased tomorrow. Visas could be ordered. Hotels booked... Now there's a little encouragement and fuel for us all. 

Show yourself, Jesus. Be glorified through this adoption even in the midst of this storm... 

Three

This last month held a LOT. But the biggest, most notable thing was ushering in a new year with Levi. He realized it was a big deal. At 5 am he came to our bed and said with overwhelming excitement, "It's my burfday." Later he asked, "Am I a gown-up now?" "Nope," I told him. "Not yet." And that makes me so happy. 

Levi is now somewhat interested in dinosaurs thanks to PBS Kids' Dinosaur Train so we pulled together a few things from campus and had a dinosaur party with family.

The dinosaur bones were excavated and the baby dinos hatched in minutes which was quite ridiculous being that it took me three days to encapsulate them in paper mache. 

After some dinosaurs and presents, we had one last surprise... One night after coming out of our school's cafeteria (caf-ah-tee-tah according to Levi) we saw a wish lantern in the sky. Levi was amazed and especially wowed when Jason's parents brought one to our house that had fallen on the road. We heard about the "Japanese yanterns" for over a month and so we order a few to surprise him. They were every bit as exciting as Levi made them out to be. Little and big kids alike were mesmerized.

The night we launched one there was virtually no wind and the lantern went straight up and virtually disappeared. (We sent two up during the day and one at night. Our favorite was the night because the flame was visible for a long time.) It was a really fun way to celebrate. 

So now we're entering a new stage. There is an obvious growth spurt going on, a new battle of wills and a growing vocabulary. Just today while picking flowers Levi held one up and said, "This is lovely. I'm going to hug it." Where does he come up with this stuff? Meanwhile he still can't remember to say three when people ask his age or figure out how to hold up three fingers. It reminds me that he's certainly not all grown up yet and that's a great thing! 

Happy birthday my little love.

Blog Blitz, Part II: Eight is Great

Last month we celebrated. Eight years of marriage has taught us a lot about giving and confessing and compromising and a whole lot about being teachable. We are complete opposites in many respects and have had our work cut our for us. Take, for instance, the simple way we do things.

This would be Jason's way of putting things away.

And this would be mine.

I can say that these kinds of simple differences (notice who's writing this blog post) equal eight years of lively discussions. And eight years of trying harder still can't put the organization into someone or even take a hint of it out. But we are so much richer, so much better for having each other and all of our differences!

One way we use these differences to our advantage is by taking turns planning anniversary celebrations. Jason always has his plans in place months in advance. Mine might be finalized the day before we walk out the door. But this year, Jason was planning and lucky for him he's a runner. In his book running makes you a winner and this time, his running literally paid off. At a recent 5k Jason won his age division with the prize of a free night's stay at an ultra-nice local downtown hotel. Add to that an additional free upgrade when we arrived, and we were staying at a suite, downtown, for free.

While Jason and I have many differences, one similarity is our love for simple cuisine. There were many amazing restaurants to pick from but we found ourselves sitting in a little sandwich shop and drinking coffee ground from beans  from our daughter's home state in India. There were some chocolate fudge cupcakes involved too...and that was the PERFECT night out to us. Forget a $70 meal. We'll take $20 and some really meaningful coffee.

Getting away to stop, to talk, to process is so good. Doing so consistently even when it means wading through some disagreements keeps hearts connected. And because of it we can say for real that eight is great.  

Blog Blitz, Part I: Milestones

Let's see, where were we a month ago? Waiting on word from India? Yep. Living on a college campus? Yep. Working full time raising a two year old? Uh huh. And guess what? We're still right there doing those same things. But I suppose there are a few specifics I could give between the generalities.

The whole family was home last week for Spring Break. Levi and I both felt a little under the weather and cancelled plans to meet my mom and cousin in Alabama. It was a sad but obvious decision, and I'm feeling much better from the rest and antibiotics. We also had a student staying with us recovering from surgery so there was a whole lot of cooking and medicating and enjoying the sunshine. Students arrived back on Sunday and the days, especially Jason's, are more structured with meetings peppered everywhere. On Monday we started with a bang cooking-- and a cooler full of popcorn, two chocolate chip cookie cakes, two batches of sugar cookies, two batches of butter cream icing and two batches of chocolate crackle cookies later everything was ready for the evening RA meeting. Now, lest you worry we're teaching these bad eating habits of gorging on sweets, they weren't just gorging themselves on sweets but also bagging many of them up to spread some love on our campus. So I suppose we were teaching the whole campus, huh? Healthy or not a good sugar cookie, I dare say, could make any heart warm... So while they bagged some heart-warming love I tucked Levi in bed reading The Poky Little Puppy and fell right asleep beside him.  

There have been so many moments with Levi in this silent blog month. Some I've written and some I need to. The terrible twos have been really, really fun and not at all so terrible. Levi expresses himself well amazing us and others daily with his wit and intellect. Some things I've noted lately:

• Communication is at it's finest when face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball.

Late one night while laying down with Levi, after multiple threats to stop being silly and running trains over my hair, we closed our eyes and he was quiet. Then, all of a sudden I felt little breaths on my nose and opened my eyes, eyeball-to-eyeball with those little blue eyes.  

"What are you doing?" I asked. 

 "Thomas is saring me," he said still nose to nose.

 "Why is Thomas scaring you?"  

 

"Cause his eyes are like dis." Levi, in his animated way, showed as much of the whites of his eyes as possible.

 It was cute and then I looked over at Thomas who looked exactly as Levi had described. So with both of us in total agreement of the creepiness of those bug eyes, Thomas was booted over the too-tall safety rail onto the floor below and we both settled back down. This time Levi was as silent as a mouse and I was the one trying to follow my own rule and keep my chuckles quiet.

• There is a direct correlation between enjoying life and self-consciousness. As self-consciousness decreases, so, seemingly, increases the enjoyment of life. I have a lot to learn from my boy {cue the next observation}.

• I still have so much to learn.

Levi is in the why phase. And although he's looking for simple answers now (most times nonsense answers will suffice), he'll be looking for more complex answers soon enough. Why do woodpeckers peck wood? Why do we have to go this way to get to so-and-so's house? Why are you sad? I make the statement. He asks the why and we're often learning the answers together to some of his crazy whys. Somebody say it gets easier or that there is an Einstein button I haven't yet discovered.

• Even mundane things can be amazingly fun.

Like, washing the dishes or taking the trash or even the unthinkable                                                          source of fun-- folding clothes. Levi especially likes themed pancakes these days. Below Jason just served up Uncle Phil.

I remember leaving the hospital with our tiny baby wondering how we'd manage to take care of him until we could get to a doctor for some more instructions. But with every little inch he grows, I believe Levi's been the one teaching us. And they are big lessons on beauty, priorities, simplicity and innocence. Every child deserves that. To have parents who fight to make them priority, to enjoy every the simple thing they do, to protect their innocence and to celebrate their unique beauty. They are sweet gifts to us. And my mind goes to really bad places when parents don't fulfill their responsibilities. I ache for children to be treasured and to receive that I-will-die-to-keep-you-safe kind of love. I think this heart has room for more who need that...and definitely for one sitting protected and loved by Christian foster parents on the other side of the world...but I digress.

Now that we've managed to get Levi past the helpless stage and into the talking back one (yeah...in both ways), we realize the process of learning our boy and parenting him is a great adventure. And we are eager pupils. Every day I find myself so blessed to stay home with him treasuring up these little lessons and milestones. Nothing could be more fulfilling for my days than this beautiful, blue-eyed boy.

Empowered to Connect

This weekend was one we'd been looking forward to for some time. Levi would get some quality time with his Georgia grandparents while Jason and I got away for some preparation time for R's coming. We registered months ago for the Empowered to Connect conference in Orlando, FL and driving back last night to our sleeping Levi at the grandparents, we came away with more than we thought our $25 registration could buy. I'm not over-exaggerating in saying that we're coming away from the conference as better individuals, a better couple and better parents for our son and daughter. Parenting should come with the required prerequisite of this conference and a reading of The Connected Child.

The principles seemed simple enough-- nurture a child by giving them a voice, opportunities for re-dos and compromises and the understanding that they are precious. Could these techniques really lead to connected, healed children and families? The explanation of brain chemistry changes and the testimonies of changed families who used these strategies was convincing. This trust-based relational intervention (TBRI) has brought healing and attachment to children with some of the most profound traumas and diagnoses. The results were children and parents' hearts growing in connectedness. Now who wouldn't pay attention to practices that claim these kind of results?  

Below we're including some, but certainly not all, of our take aways. One of my favorite things is sharing and receiving helpful tips. Like the book a friend shared that helped with a skin problem or a friend sharing her journey to freedom with food, I love learning from others and sharing things they might learn from me. So here are a few things from the conference that might be helpful to others out there reading. And just to keep this interesting, I'll be candid in our pre-conference lessons too. :) 

• Credit card points can get you into amazing hotels you wouldn't afford otherwise. But when you only have enough points for one night and try to find a budget-friendly second night, being cheap can backfire severely. After a $40 Expedia gamble, we killed five roaches, cut our losses and moved to another hotel.  

Now lessons from the conference...

• Lack of nurture and voice (being safe and able to safely explore and share thoughts) leads to development of overactive chemicals in the brain stem regions. Those chemicals translate into defense behaviors such as aggression, violence, manipulation, triangulation and control.

• There is hope for EVERY child. The techniques taught through Dr. Purvis' Trust-Based Relational Intervention have helped children around the world showing incredible improvements and changes even in brain chemistry.

• There is a great difference in being available for our children and in being engaged with our children. (Is our heart open and connecting with our child instead of our hearts and minds always away on something else?)

• The call to adopt is not a call to make a child "mine" but to become "mine" for a child. (Instead of them being molded into who we want them to be, we are molded to see healing and connecting in their hearts for them to be all God created them to be.)

• Seventy percent of what people take from you is based on your tone of voice. These findings are based on a ten year study conducted by UCLA.

• "There is no healing without 'being with'." (Not sure who said this...maybe Michael Monroe?)

• Fear and pain are primary emotions. Anger and aggression are secondary. Underneath violence is often fear or pain. 

• Guilt is about what you do. Shame is about who you are. We should never shame our children.

• Healthy parenting is trust-based and connection-based not consequence-based.

• Discipline is not primarily about correcting wrong behavior. It is about filling a cup and meeting a need that has not been met. 

While we know these isolated sentences outside of their context can't do justice to the great truths we learned at the conference, we also collected a list of resources that could give a better, clearer picture. We hope in the next few weeks to read some* ourselves. At the bottom of the post you'll find some of the great resources we came away with. 

If you are stuck in a rut in your parenting, if you are an adoptive or foster parents or if you are soon to be parents, there are two more conferences this year. You can find out more about locations and costs here. We couldn't recommend the information highly enough. And if you want the info but can't attend a conference, check out the book The Connected Child and videos at both the Empowered to Connect and TCU websites. We plan to be visiting and reading here a lot in the next few months! Hope you'll find them useful too!

Websites

www.adoptionnutrition.org

www.child.tcu.edu

www.empoweredtoconnect.org

www.tapestryministry.org

Websites for help with sensory issues

www.babybabyohbaby.com (Infant massage)

http://kidcompanions.com/

www.therapyshoppe.com

Books

*The Connected Child by Purvis, Cross and Sunshine

Play by Stuart Brown

The Out-of-Sync Child by Carol Kranowitz

The Out-of-Sync Child Has Fun by Carol Kranowitz

*The Whole-Brained Child by Dr. Daniel J. Siegel

The Adoption Latest

In this adoption journey we are thankful that since beginning the process in March of last year there has been little lag time without some paperwork to be completed. The paperwork was a welcomed task as it was our part in helping the process along. Early in January we submitted our final documents to the U.S. Embassy. There will be a few more forms before travel...but for the most part we are finished. So began the wait to hear from Immigration and India's committees and courts. 

At the beginning of last week our orphanage contacted our agency. We had requested R's measurements to begin purchasing some clothing and shoes. Days later we got an email with every measurement on her body. It's incredible   that one email from us starts a flurry of activity for our little girl across the world. Technology is amazing. Included in the measurement email was the happy news that our paperwork cleared the state level committee. :) Happy news indeed. Now for the national committee clearance (NOC), court hearing for a judge to grant custody and passports and visas. We are getting so much closer. 

In this waiting time with no paperwork required, we've put our energy into preparations. Soon we should be able to send a small care package in which we can send photos of our family and a few small gifts. With R being eight years old, she understands a bit more about adoption so we hoped to include some words of reassurance along. We kept it simple and hope the translation speaks peace and a deep sense of love to her. Every page is included below except one special page. In the event you speak the languages translated here, these aren't correct. When Google Translate failed us, our tutor and his friend blessed us with the correct translations. Here is the first draft before our final translation edits: 

A final edit page w/ only one language

And in both of her native languages, one final reminder that these new faces really, really mean, "We love you, R..."