Ups and Downs

Today during our morning visit, the music room that we usually take Blake to play in was occupied with little kiddos singing and dancing, so we went into the therapy room to play with him.  This room contained a slide, climbing ladder, swing, large bouncy balls, a floor mat with many colors on it, a container full of bouncy balls, a small couch and some storage containers.  While we were in there playing with Blake, several nurses came in and out of the room with small children to do therapy with them.  First they would place the child on a table and take off their clothes and begin to massage their extremities with oil, then they would redress them and sit them on a large stability ball and bounce and roll them around.  They would proceed to put them on their tummies and roll them forward and backward before standing them behind a large walker and having them push it around to strengthen their legs. (I presume)  Then they would play with them and put them in the swing or in the balls before taking them out and bringing another child in.  They did this with many of the smaller children in Blake's groupa.  As each child from his groupa came into the room, Blake would get excited and flap his little wings!  So seeing that he was probably due to have therapy today, we did our own therapy session with him...

 

 

 

 

The Facts.

Looking back I never really filled you in on the medical facts of what we know about our little guy.

• Facts about Blake:
• Vladislav was born Nov. 1, 2009.  He was the 2nd birth.  He has an older sister who lives at home with his mother...not sure about his father.  He was sent to the orphanage where he currently lives at 3 months. 

• Stats at Birth: 6.16 lbs. at birth, 19.6 inches long

• Down Syndrome was his only diagnosis.  He had an open oval window heart defect at birth, but is said to have closed up on its own as of his last doctor's visit.  He has a heart murmur, which is said to be benign.  He was also said to have problems with his ear at birth, but again, as of his latest doctor's appointment his ears both are working fine.  The translator also described something being wrong with his belly button, we are assuming a hernia, but she quickly added it was not a problem, no surgery needed.  We will definitely have all of these things checked out upon arrival back in Kansas.  But we are pleased to think he is a pretty healthy little guy!
• They said he could walk with things and around things with assistance, and can crawl.  He was sitting up at 9 months and has continued to develop quite well.  
• They described him as an active and kind child. 
• He eats mashed foods, and he can feed himself (obviously) and drinks from a cup (still working on that one)
• He lives in a groupa with very active children, I'm assuming about his age or a little older.  He is probably one of the smallest children in his groupa besides 1-2 other children who aren't on the move yet.
• He seems to be very well taken care of.  His nanny's all seem very helpful and loving on the children.  
• When we arrive, they always put him in a pair of overalls and collared shirt.  He is usually running around in tights and a onesie and a t-shirt over the top, with socks over his tights.  They dress the children very warm.
• The children have come to expect us now so when one child spots us the whole room goes crazy! I kind of feel sorry for the staff when we arrive because it turns into chaos in seconds...every child running everywhere yelling "mama" "papa"...then they all head for the open door.  Jerad has had to chase down a child or two to return them to their room...haha, it was quite humorous.  We have learned to be sneakier and to make sure all the doors leading into Blake's room are closed behind us.

For those of you unfamiliar with the adoption process...we have been here 2 weeks now, and in Blake's region 6 of those days.  Our facilitators have been running around like crazy getting papers notarized and signed to present to the judge in hopes of us receiving a court date.  We were told we'd hear yesterday, but to no avail...so we waited to hear something today...and still nothing.  We are praying we hear something tomorrow, in hopes of possibly getting a date for Friday.  It might be pushing it, but we have learned to never doubt our God!  So I guess our prayers requests would be: for a court date to be given ASAP so we can begin our 10-day wait appeal period before arriving home, for Blake to continue to build trust with us, for discernment on my part whether to return to the U.S. to see the girls during the 10-day wait (because evidently Autum has taken up walking while we have been here!!) or stay here and continue to bond with Blake, and for the Holy Spirit to continue to provide us and our girls with peace and comfort while we are away from each other. 

And now to the fun stuff...

Why are you snoring?

Throw the ball!

You are so funny!

This was the first time we have seen him celebrate after throwing his ball!

Teasing daddy

He can get where he needs to go!

This is how he turns around...haha!

It's hard to imagine Jerad without this boy around, now. :)

Awww...

Singing  "Jesus Loves Me"

What God's Will is for Me.

I know I have posted a blog similar to this in week's past about the idea of this journey of adoption being all about glorifying God.  It has nothing to do with us being good people, doing good things, having big hearts, etc.  This journey is all about obeying God and doing what He commands. 

Something else I know I have been a victim of saying is "I wish I knew what God's will for my life is..."  Honestly, I don't know how many times in my spiritual walk I've said that.  And honestly, I don't know how many times I've heard that from other people as we discuss the Holy Spirit's calling on our hearts to adopt Blake.  As I have grown spiritually in the past year or so, I've realized that for me, saying "I wish I knew God's will for my life" was a crutch.  It was my lazy way of avoiding the idea of God calling me to do something I didn't want to do.  It was my lack of spiritual depth and understanding of Scripture.  It was my lack of understanding of God's character and the way He uses the Holy Spirit to work in the lives of others.  And to summarize all of those statements, it was pretty much based out of fear.  Which is the root of most of my hesitancy.

But not any longer.

God's will for my life is so clear cut, so defined, and so perfect.  His will for my life lines up directly with how He created me to be.  If you spend any time in the Scripture you will realize all the answers are all there, as I recently have.  I am not called to sit around and wait on the will of God to slap me in the face...I am to according to God's will and He will work out the rest.  Like the song we all grew up singing in Sunday School..."trust and obey, there's no other way."  Specifically, I am called to make disciples of all nations, preaching the gospel to the lost.  That is the baseline foundation of God's will for me.  It should effect everything I do.  I am ultimately responsible for the lost people in this world to hear about the gospel of Christ before they die.  Am I taking this one, single, clear-cut command, seriously?  Before adopting, I probably would have said "yeah, but I can't move to a remote village in Africa..."  My answer now would be "Yes, I can.  I just might be called to do that."  Once I learned to get over myself, I realized that God's will is perfect for me, and that my sole responsibility on this earth is to glorify Him and bring others to Christ, there should be no questions. 

Trust me on this one.

I never, ever, in a million years thought I'd be halfway across the world, away from my children, adopting a child with Down Syndrome.  Never, ever.  I never ever thought I would have a child born here, planned just for me.  I never ever thought I would grow to love this country because of my son being born here.  I never ever thought I'd enjoy being here.  Never, ever. 

But God did.

And trust me being within God's will is the best place to live. 

By far.

Otherwise I'd have missed this opportunity to be his mama and to see this!

 

 

 

Top 10 Things You Do With a Bowl of Lemon Water

Okay...we had another pretty funny, well funny to us at least, situation happen while we were eating lunch with Sarah and Shawn the other day.  We chose to eat at a new restaurant called Silver's.  We were told it was pricier but good food, so we thought we'd give it a try.  So far we have been eating our meals for under $20 a day!  Food here is so cheap, I bought a 1/2 gallon of apple juice yesterday for less than a dollar...and it tastes way better than what we drink in the U.S.  Anyway, back to what I was saying before...Shawn, Jerad, and I ordered the baked chicken...the waiter told us it was a small plate so we each ordered an individual order of baked chicken.  And Jerad ordered a side of 'fried chips' (or fried potatoes)

So our 'small' chicken was brought out to us looking like this...again, we were wondering what the waiter was thinking about our feast!

It was REALLY GOOD!

Not long after we received our meals, Jerad, Shawn, and I were brought these...

...and this is where things got tricky. (and quite humorous)

We all debated what we were to do with warm bowls of what we think was water with a little bit of lemon.  Shawn posed the idea that since we had 3 bowls, we could all do something different with them, and hopefully 1 out of the 3 of us would do what we were supposed to do with them.  So here are a few of the things we came up with...

1. Shawn was going to stick his face down into the bowl and blow bubbles...he even considered asking for a straw to assist him.

    
2. Jerad was going to drink all of his, again possibly using a straw, and eat all the lemon and smile with the rind in his teeth when the waiter returned to take the bowls away.

   
3. I thought maybe I would take my shoes off and wash my feet in the bowl, since we are asked to wear shoe coverings or remove our shoes wherever we go...maybe we needed to clean our feet and shoes before leaving this nice restaurant.

4. Then, Shawn thought maybe instead dip his fingers into the water and wash his cuticles like you would before a manicure.

5. Jerad considered putting his silverware in the bowl and washing them to help give the dishwasher a headstart.

...we had NO clue what to do with them, and it was obvious.  The waiter came back and removed every dish from our table but the bowls of water with lemon.  Being we were the only ones in the restaurant at the time, we had no one else to take our cue from.  We finally just concluded to do this...

Cover the bowls up with our napkins and get the heck out of there!!

So that's my question to you today...what are your top 10 ideas for use of the warm water and lemon?