Me, a soccer mom. Who would have thought?

I can't say that I've ever dreamed of being a soccer mom, primarily because I grew up in the Land of Perpetual Drizzle. Soccer in the Seattle area generally amounts to little more than a group of children sliding around in mud, providing less-than-sufficient entertainment for the shivering spectators huddled together under super-sized umbrellas. Not that I was ever unfortunate enough to participate in either role. I do, however, have vivid memories of the pity I felt upon viewing such spectacles from the comfort of my family's heated Suburban on the way to real entertainment... like shopping. An athlete I am not.

However, I happened to marry a firm believer in the value of team sports. I've been reluctant to join in due to the demanding schedules of some leagues, but we were able to locate one in our area that has a rather gentle, family-oriented approach to that little black and white ball. So we decided to give it a try. Alyssa and Parker get to practice in the same place on the same day at the same time, and their games are back to back most Saturday mornings for just 8 weeks. Their coaches are pretty laid back, and I'm not sure Parker has even noticed that his team has lost every game.

Not surprisingly, the personalities of our two athletes are abundantly evident on the field. Alyssa works hard, but her sweetness makes her reluctant to try to take the ball away from anyone. I'm quite sure she enjoys chatting with the goalie even more than following the game. The goalie has become a good friend and she's getting good exercise. Her team has even won a few, so we'll call this season a success.

Parker on the other hand thinks the ball should be at his feet at all times. He's quickly learning the game and his enthusiasm makes us all laugh. For all the time he spends on the ground, he could sub in for the ball if his defensive role doesn't work out. Just because I'm such a proud mama I have to share a bit of the e-mail Parker's coach sent to all of the players after last week's game:

"We all enjoyed Parker intercepting the ball from (it seemed) every Fireballs player. What a heart and great timing, today we discovered our best Defender. Thanks to Parker the Fireballs did not scored a goal in the second half, he really helped out our goalie at the half."

Then this week he said:

"I could mention Parker in every game summary, he is by far, the player who is evolving the quickest; and one of the few players who plays the whole game. That is how good he is!"

We're grateful that each of the kids have great coaches: non-yellers who care more about the kids than about winning. We're grateful that they're having fun, learning a new game, and entertaining all of us while they're at it. And I'm especially grateful that through all of that we've encountered no rain and no mud. Being a soccer mom really isn't so bad.

Up close and silly

Pooltime!

Over the past couple of months our pool has been putting in a lot of overtime. We've had some dear friends on hand to share it with, and they've helped us get creative in our use of the water. This night we decided to add a little soap to the spa...

Another night, Danny and the children somehow all ended up in the pool with their clothes on...

I can't imagine why Alyssa, Parker and Reagan weren't anxious for school to get started again!

Part IV

Part four includes a photo of one very cute kid! Send me an e-mail if you still need the password (momwholoveschrist@hotmail.com).

Part III

Part III is now posted here.

Which one is not like the other?

Danny and Parker spent last weekend in the dirt and mud camping with the guys. Alyssa, Reagan and I got dressed up and enjoyed an afternoon at the theater. Each group was convinced that the other missed out, proving once again that boys are just different.

Part II

Part II of our new adoption story is over here. Send me an e-mail if you still need the password.

A new journey, a new blog

We're changing countries and I'm changing formats. As much as I love Three Times a MOM, I've determined that as long as we're in the midst of the adoption process to become a mom of four, my adoption-related posts will need to reside elsewhere. There are a lot of unknowns facing us in the months ahead, and one of those unknowns is how much my bloggy ramblings might influence the authorities we're placing ourselves under. I intend to continue blogging here with our normal family stuff. Anytime I post at my new site I'll give you the heads-up here. However, we want to err on the side of caution and password-protect any posts relating to our new son. Since Blogger doesn't allow me to do that, you'll need to find me here: http://fourtimesamom.wordpress.com/. If I know you in real life, or know your blog, or know you from a forum, I'd be happy to give you the password. So just ask! Leave a comment here with your e-mail address or send an e-mail to momwholoveschrist@hotmail.com. See you there! And here too!

In the meantime...

we ride sheep and bulls! It was $1 day at our favorite local fair yesterday so we brought along some of our favorite friends and cousins to enjoy the funnel cakes, livestock, pig races, mechanical bulls, and the highlight of the day - a sheep riding competition. Ironically, we don't let our kids on the rides at fairs due to this mama's fear for their safety (don't feel too sorry for them - we do have Disneyland passes), but somehow it never crossed our minds to worry about them being thrown under a racing sheep. They had a blast, escaping with only a little dirt, well... everywhere. Parker took 2nd place, and both Alyssa and our friend Abigail were interviewed and photographed for our local paper. Tells you how much is going on around here when Mutton Bustin' makes the front page!

Danny looks pretty handsome, and tough too don't you think?

Redirecting

The mind of man plans his way,
But the LORD directs his steps.

(Proverbs 16:9)

We've made our plans, but it seems like God is changing them in amazing and exciting ways. I can't post details yet, and I may need to move to a password protected site for a while, but I'll give you a hint: our plane to #4 will be flying west, not east!

Nesting

No, not me. The bird. The bird that we thought was a male... until he laid an egg. And then another. Apparently Maltby is a girl, and a little mommy in the making at that. Of course, her little eggs aren't going to hatch and we'll have to wait several weeks for her to lose interest in them, but she's making a valiant effort at keeping them warm and safe. Lest you think I'm a bad pet owner, I have tried to make nest-making as easy as possible for our mate-less bird. I've provided little bowls, filler and special food, all upon the advice of the experts at our local bird store. But do you think she wants any of that? Nope. She seems quite content with her little spot on the floor next to her food dish, and has promptly pushed and plucked away any helps I've added to the cage. So there she'll sit, at least until her environment just too filthy to leave undisturbed a moment longer.

Paperchasing

While my presence here has been negligible as of late, there is no need to worry that my laptop has been neglected. The paperchase is on, and I'd nearly forgotten just how time-consuming the process can be! If you've never before pursued adoption, your head would spin to know just how many sheets of officially sealed, notarized, stamped, signed, authenticated, translated, and logged-in paper are consumed in the process of bringing an orphan home. I'd list them here for you, but it would surely put you to sleep, or lead you to false conclusions about the praiseworthiness of this blogger. I have concrete proof in the form of a Little Miss asleep upstairs that every second, every cent, and every signature is repayed a thousandfold through the joy of parenting the child you know God meant to be a part of your family.

Fortunately (knock on wood), the process has gone relatively smoothly so far. Danny agreed to be a daddy again one month ago today, and both our homestudy (a social worker's report detailing why we're fit parents) and dossier (the collection of documents that will represent who were are to the Chinese government) are nearly complete. We still have to get approval from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services before we can send our stuff overseas, but it took us about 10 months to get to that point with Reagan's adoption. The hard part this time is knowing that our son is alive somewhere and waiting for us. With Reagan we knew she probably hadn't been born when we started the process (indeed, she wasn't born until 14 months after our first application was sent in), so I didn't feel quite the fire underneath my feet. Now, every moment that our paperwork is delayed means another moment our little guy is living without a mama. I have to keep reminding myself that God is in control of even this. He knows what's best for all of us, and, incomprehensible as it is to me, His best right now means that part of our family is a half a world away. Please pray with us that God will be the Father our son needs right now, and that He'll speed our paperwork along to unite us at just the right moment. Thanks friends!

It's a boy!

We're on a paperchase for a little guy! I've explained a little bit about our journey to Danny's "yes" and a bit more about where we're going, but not much of anything about who this newest member of our family might be.

Though it seems a little strange to be able to "shop" for the characteristics you want in a child, adoption does afford that opportunity to some extent. The vast majority of the adoption process is completely outside of our control. So is our child's history and everything else that will influence his personality, health and development until we bring him home. We are given a little control however over the superficial characteristics we're willing to parent. We therefore, have carefully thought through our options, submitted our leanings to God's ultimate authority, and trusted Him to provide us with wisdom and counsel for making the decision that will most glorify Him.

All of that has led us to a preference for a little boy. From the most pragmatic of standpoints, it will even us up at two girls, two boys, and make the room-sharing thing a snap. When we told the kids our new child might be a boy Alyssa was initially a little disappointed. She contemplated it for a moment however, and then concluded, "Parker, I think this will be a great thing. Then I won't have to play swords with you anymore!" Parker indeed, could use a brother as he routinely laments his sisters' intense interest in dolls and ambivalence towards all weaponry.

We also were drawn towards requesting a male because more boys need homes. Generally speaking, more adoptive parents prefer girls. I'm not sure why, though we fell into this category with our first adoption. Our preference then was based on a desire to have a girl-boy-girl family, so that at least if Parker had to be the middle child he would have the distinction of the only boy. Who knew that God would have four in store for us?! We also pretty ignorant about all things adoption-related, and had no idea that so many little guys out there needed families. Now we'll have the opportunity to be blessed by two of each.

Many people then have found it strange that we're going to China. "Doesn't China only have little girls available?" is a question I've been asked more than once. The answer, generally, is yes if you want an infant. Which brings us to another characteristic we strangely get to shop for: age. We love having our kids close together. Alyssa and Parker are just 19 months apart, and Reagan was born 28 months after Parker. We initially thought we'd be bringing home a toddler from Vietnam and would have had #2 and #3 even closer together. I'd actually given away all of our baby stuff and was quite thoroughly shocked to have been referred an infant. Of course, in retrospect God knew exactly what He was doing and brought the child into our life that was and is perfect for our family. Reagan didn't even seem to mind sleeping in a pack 'n play and having her diaper changed on top of the washing machine!

Given the fact that Reagan will be four in October, we really didn't want to start over with another baby. I suppose it's no surprise that there's also a greater need for families willing to adopt older children. There were certainly be extra challenges involved in bringing home a preschooler vs. an infant, but we believe that the benefits to our child and to our family will far outweigh them. Our hope is that we will be matched with a boy about a year younger than Reagan, up to maybe an 18 month spread. That will mean that he'll probably be between three and three-and-a-half when he comes home.

Another distinctive of the China program (and many programs with older children) is that our little boy will have some special needs. China currently has a list of 1800 children waiting for families with needs ranging from blindness to a corrected cleft lip. We are open to a range of needs, but prefer something of the mild or correctable variety. That, again, is something we choose, and we'll work closely with our agency to select someone from that list that would be the best fit for our family. Even if our guy isn't on the list right now, children are added about once a month and we have no doubt that we'll quickly be able to identify the boy God has in store for us.

We're anxiously awaiting the opportunity to share with you even more details about who our little guy is. You'll know as soon as we do!

Six!

As we're scrambling around, collecting paper to bring another son into our family, we are thoroughly enjoying the boy who is already ours. Today my baby boy turns six. In those six years I've yet to get over my own capacity to love a little male. I think I've mentioned before how sure I was, coming from a family of girls, that God would give us only girls. How good He was to surprise me! Boys are different in the most delightful of ways. Parker is a perfect blend of tenderness and toughness. While he's the first to jump into the fiercest of wrestling matches with Daddy, I've never known a more affectionate caretaker of stuffed animals. He's very capable of making messes, but organizes his many collections with the utmost of attention. Every day Parker's similarities to Danny emerge with greater clarity, and I pray that he continues to learn what it means to be a man from the greatest man I know. My only fear is that Parker's maturing might result in a little less cuddling with and kisses for mama as the years continue to go by. Even that loss, however, will be bearable if it's accompanied by the love for God that He seems to be graciously implanting in Parker's heart even now. I'm just trying to convince him that six year-old boys are much more affectionate than five year-old ones. Do you think it'll work?

Where in the world are we headed?

So once we decided to adopt again, the next big question was “from where?” For those of you not familiar with the adoption world, you might be surprised to learn that the list of possibilities was rather short. We all hear stories of the millions of orphans around the world, anxious to have families of their own. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of those children are available to Americans.

Most countries’ adoption laws are written specifically to exclude non-residents, or to limit adoption to residents of counties with which they have adoption treaties. Then, even those countries willing to entrust their children to Americans have their own rules regarding what kinds of families they’ll work with. In our case, we are ineligible in many countries because of the size of our family: We’re too big already. Other countries require parents to make multiple and/or lengthy trips to their country to complete the adoption: Given our family responsibilities here, that wasn’t an option for us. We excluded other countries based on the length of their processes: We hope to keep our children rather close in age and Reagan is already close to 4, so a two-year wait seemed a little too long. A few other nations charge significantly higher fees, and therefore were simply out of our budget.

The rest of the decision basically came down to preference. I wanted to work with an agency that had an excellent reputation in Vietnam since that is the adoption environment I am most familiar with: There is only a handful at the top of that list, so we limited ourselves to the countries available through those agencies. After all of those filters were applied, we were left with two countries: Ethiopia and China.

The scales were tipped toward China by two main factors. The first was the relative stability of the Chinese program. While there are no guarantees in any adoption, the policies in Ethiopia are still being shaped. It is fairly new and adoptive parents have faced unexpected hoops to help establish more protections for the birth families and children. Finally, we were attracted to China for the simple reason that Reagan might share some physical and cultural similarities with our newest family member. So… we’re headed to China! A long answer to a short question that may or may not have been on your mind.

Danny's "yes"

“Lord, please either change his heart or change mine.” That has been my prayer for the past year and a half. Danny was pretty sure our family was complete with Alyssa and Parker. Then God led us to adopt Reagan, and Danny was even surer that we were done with three. I wasn’t convinced. But I didn’t want to push. There are significant challenges involved in adopting a child (as well as, of course, parenting said child), and I didn’t want him to resent me for talking him into it. I truly believe that God has given Danny the primary role in leading our family. Nagging him into a fourth child just to please me would have eventually put a strain on our marriage, and would have dishonored the roles God has established to bless and protect us.
As my desire to mother another has grown, I’ve had to work harder and harder to stay quiet. I didn’t keep my longings a secret from him, but I determined to always let him initiate the conversation. Every so often he’d come up with something like “are you really sure you want another kid?” And my answer was always an enthusiastic “yes!” As time has gone on, he’s started those discussions more and more frequently. I’d explain my desire to provide a home for an orphan that might not otherwise have one, and all the ways I thought our family would be exceedingly blessed by another child. (We’ve discovered with Reagan that the joy she brings to us far outweighs any benefit we’ve provided for her!). He always listened carefully, but definitely wasn’t like-minded. Through it all I kept praying my prayer.
Finally in mid-February Danny asked me to research what our various options might be. Of course I was excited, but didn’t want to get my hopes up too much. I joined an adoption agency research group, investigated the various countries that are open to international adoption, carefully looked into foster-adoption, and even explored charting our own path to a child in Malawi where adoption laws are largely untested. I reported it all back to Danny, but he continued to be content with three. With my research basically complete and my heart about done with wondering, I recently set a deadline for myself. If Danny hadn’t given the green light for another adoption by Reagan’s birthday I would consider that to be God’s indication that I should stop considering it as well. But I kept praying.
Then on Sunday, we celebrated Father’s Day with my family. Totally unbeknownst to me, this is the card Danny prepared and presented to my dad:

Which means… I get to be a mama again! I just kept asking Danny, “really?” “Really?” “Are you sure?” He maintained the same slightly-panic-stricken look on his face that he’s had each time I’ve told him we were pregnant, but with a resolved YES. God had been working on his heart using His Word, Danny’s love for me, and the counsel of some wise men. Though I would have remained confident in God’s goodness if He had chosen to answer my prayer differently, I am beyond thrilled to announce that He has another child in store for us! I’ll share more details soon, but this is already plenty long enough. I’ve got nesting to do!

I love my summer flowers

Fancy Dinner

Alyssa is our little server. More than anything, she loves to help. If you need someone to fetch a phone, find a tool, or fix a snack, Alyssa is your girl. We were not the least surprised then, when several weeks ago, she began planning a "Fancy Dinner" for her mom and dad. With Gaga's (grandma) assistance, she sent us an invitation, planned and printed a menu, shopped, prepared, set up and served us a delightful meal on our bedroom balcony. She even arranged for Papa to take Parker and Reagan on a date so they wouldn't "get in the way." Everything you see in the photos was Alyssa's doing. She picked out the potted plant, knowing that I'd prefer something I could put in the garden rather than in the trash. A bell was brought to our table so we could summon our server from the kitchen downstairs if needed. She carefully set the table with our china, silver and crystal, and specially folded the cloth napkins so we could see "all of the flowers." Her daddy's favorite chips, Fritos, were chosen as the appetizer (literally "Free Toes" in french on the menu), along with mama's favorite ranch dip. The chicken picatta was excellent, and the deserts were incredible. But the best part was watching Alyssa slip from the very professionally executed role of server, complete with uniform and half-apron, into our sweet little 7 year old and back; think, chips being popped into her mouth every time she left the table, bringing up a plastic cup in hopes that we'd share the sparking cider, and pulling up an extra chair to get in on the dessert. Oh, and inquiring every few minutes if the tip was ready yet! We are so blessed to have a girl with such a sweet, thoughtful heart, and only pray that she will grow to use those gifts to serve others, and especially our God, for many many years to come.

All dried off... for now

Swimming season has begun! Danny has had the last two weeks off work, and we got to spend this last week in Palm Springs as a family doing little more than swimming, sleeping and reading. My kind of vacation! We were unexpectedly free from electronic distractions (NO INTERNET - gasp!), turned on the TV only for a couple of movie nights and morning cartoons (= more sleep for mama), and thoroughly enjoyed the quiet. Now we're home, I'm caught up on all the social media I'd missed (though in actuality, there was precious little of importance, and not much more even of interest), and the speed of life will pick up again. Summer slow is in sight, however, and I'm looking forward to many more days in the pool with my favorite people.