All the things

This weekend, amidst a fantastic Thanksgiving and wonderful time with my babies, we had some more poignant moments that filled our weekend together.  The first came at Thanksgiving dinner as the four of us feasted {alone} on turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and corn bread.  As dinner progressed, Seth blurted out, "Mom, I need some more beer, please!"

You can imagine how this stopped me in my tracks.  I looked around, searching for another grown up whose eye I could catch.  But only my kids were there.  When I peaked at Zechariah, he burst out laughing and so I joined him, pain growing on my side, pee-in my pants, laughing.  What did Seth want?  Sparkling grape juice.  HAH!

Then on Saturday, in one of my more brilliant moves, I decided I could move a full length couch from one finished room of the basement to the other finished room.  Alone.  Except for when it got stuck 4 feet off the ground on the "turn" and remained lodged in the doorway until Joel arrived.

Or that time that I attempted to put up our Christmas tree and nearly chucked it through my front window for all the frustration {and cursing}.  Joel rescued that mess too.

But in the midst of all of this, there were sweet moments.  At church, the kids were in adult church because it was a 5th Sunday.  The sermon was entitled, "Hold On" and was based on the scripture in Isaiah 2 that speaks to the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace who is coming.  In part of the message, Derrick addressed the recent murders in Chicago and the fact that a young man mentored by GRIP was shot in the neck and paralyzed.  Seth heard this and had a million questions.  In the van on the way home, I explained:

A boy was shot in the neck with a gun while sitting outside his home.  He was not killed but he can no longer use his arms or his legs.  He is paralyzed.  There are some parts of Chicago that are very violent and lots of shootings are happening.  This year alone -- in 2015 -- there have been over 500 murders from guns in Chicago.  It is so, so sad.

Seth didn't take but a moment to respond:  It's a good thing God doesn't leave us alone, Momma.

Ah, precious son of my heart.  I love him.

Later that night, after Joel rescued us from all of the Steiner Mayhem of the weekend, Leah came running to me, taking a break from playing Wii, to tell me that last week, she spent a lot of time telling Oliver (the current bestie) about Jesus.  She said she told him God is good and He loves him.  She said Satan is bad.  Satan sometimes whispers things in your ears and you have to ignore him and tell him to go away.  We need to listen to God all the time.  Then she asked him if he believes in God and Oliver changed his mind (apparently first having said he did not) and said YES.  Leah was so excited to tell me all about this and repeated it again at bedtime with the boys.  Such a sweetheart of a daughter who wants to do right and loves Jesus with her whole heart.  I adore her.

One of the best parts about Leah's story was listening to her tell me in a fluid, coherent manner. Often that's an issue for her little cloudy brain, but on this day, at this time, she rocked it.

I'm thankful for our messy, loving, crazy existence.  My kids rock.

Fall Soccer 2015

Zechariah chose to play soccer this fall with AYSO.

He had a really good team and I think he learned a lot!

 Despite the final tournament being on the very rainy Halloween, the last game was on Sunday the 1st and they won!  The game was tied and went into a 10 minute overtime period which also ended deadlocked.  So they went to shoot outs and Zechariah's team prevailed.

YAY!  SO FUN!!!

Soccer Days

After trying a lot of other sports, Zechariah is back to soccer.

And lovin' it.

His team has only lost one game!

Woot!

My three

Behold a couple of the best pictures of all time!  hah!

Grace upon Grace

I got home from work and started to cook dinner.  The inevitable question came from Seth:  "Can we play Wii?"

 

I have a love/hate relationship with screen time.

 

Since it had been a few days, I relented. 

 

As I stood in the kitchen, listening to Seth and Zechariah shriek with delight as they conquered Mario Brothers, I suddenly heard, "OH, JESUS."

 

I nearly broke my pan.

 

Now, let's pause for a moment and acknowledge that I over-reacted here.  I own it.  I did.  But if there is any word/phrase/reaction that makes my skin twist up into knots, it's this one right here.  JESUS. 

 

I ordered the boys to pause the game.  I told Zechariah to go to his room and get his Bible out.  I screamed to anyone who would listen how WRONG and gross and ugly that was.  Gah.  I completely freaked out.

 

So I kept cooking and Seth kept playing -- now with Leah.

 

After cooler heads prevailed, I went up to Zechariah's room where I found him dutifully reading his Bible.  I sat on the bed across from him, now totally calm.  I explained why saying "Jesus" or "Jesus Christ" is so offensive to me and to God.  We talked about how it is similar to saying, "Oh my God" which was a previous lesson in our home.  I told him it scared me when he said it.  I also said that I understood that his friends say it, but that we are not going to do/say everything our friends do.

 

Once I finally took a breath, Zechariah burst into tears.  We spent the next 5 minutes huddled up on my lap, working through all the feelings about what he said and my {awesome} reaction to it.

 

And then we moved on.  We cleaned his gecko cage and went downstairs to finish dinner.

 

At least four hours later, the *event* securely behind me, I was putting the kids to bed.  When I jumped in Zechariah's bed to snuggle him, without missing a beat he said to me, "Mom?  I'm sorry I said that thing."

 

I almost vomited.  This dear, sweet, sensitive, wise and mature beyond understanding child had been thinking about this for hours.  And then he was brave enough to apologize to me.  I took a deep breath and told him I knew he was sorry.  I told him I was so proud of him and how much Jesus (and I) love his tender, precious heart.

 

Zechariah is such a gift to me and my other babies.  Lord, thank you for trusting me with him.

In Jesus' name.... 

Inside Out

We recently saw the Disney movie "Inside Out."

It's marketed as a kids movie about feelings inside of a little girl.  Honestly, I found it much more relevant and challenging to us adults than for kids, but my children seemed to enjoy it.

Because we saw the movie with friends, Zechariah ended up far away from me, at the other end of our long row of people.  After the movie, he confessed to having cried during some parts.  I didn't dig into it at the moment, but I assumed that it related to leaving Uganda and feeling joy and sorrow at the same time, something the movie addresses.  I put my arm around him and as we walked to the van, I chattered with him about how God gives us a full range of emotions about situations and it's good to feel them all.  Zechariah says he does and then he named them:  joy, anger, sadness, disgust . . . 

At bedtime, I intentionally raised the movie because I wanted to open the door to more conversation on this topic.  I specifically asked Zechariah what made him cry during the movie.  He immediately started to cry and could barely squeak out, "The part when she stood up in school and said she was missing home."  Zechariah sobbed.  Leah clung to him.  Seth protested and said we should stop talking about it.  Immediately.

Seth had to excuse himself (he can't do "sadness" yet) and Zechariah, Leah and I snuggled and talked about how when we allow the sadness to come out, just like at the end of the movie, then joy can start to sneak back in because the sadness is released.  I told Zechariah that it is OKAY to feel sad about Uganda.  I told him it's OKAY to miss it; it's OKAY to miss friends; it's OKAY to feel angry that his life worked out the way it did.  And none of these things hurt my feelings.

At base, I'm thankful for Inside Out because it may help us start to unpack real feelings about adoption and life and Uganda.  Because adoption:  it's not all rainbows and unicorns.

Zechariah and Mrs. D

Since Zechariah came home from Uganda, he has had the same teacher:  Mrs. Druckmiller.  Our school's use of the multi-age classroom has been such a blessing for my family and this is one huge aspect of it.  Three year (K,1,2) one teacher.  So good.

 

Mrs. Druckmiller hand wrote each student finishing second grade a letter at the end of the year.  Here is Zechariah's letter.

 

Zechariah still can't read it without crying.  So precious, her words to my son. 

 

When Seth noticed Zechariah's angst over the letter, he agreed to immediately cancel summer and head straight back to school, without moving onto third/second grade.

Such a good brother.

Love them so.

Fact? Or Fiction? Uganda Edition

I keep forgetting to post these sweet pictures of Zechariah telling his whole class about Uganda after our trip.  So here we go!

Zechariah did a great job with our fact or fiction powerpoint and then everyone got a drum!  

Zechariah Returns to Uganda

I decided in the fall that I needed to take Zechariah to Uganda in the spring for his 9th birthday.  Since coming home, Zechariah has forgotten almost everything about Uganda.  All of it.  He doesn't even recognize photographs from there.

So with that in mind, I scheduled our trip.

Seth was not impressed.

But he survived.

Zechariah took hundreds and hundreds of pictures.  Here are some of my favorites:

 Zechariah remembered nothing of mosquito nets.  Nothing.

Zip.  Nada.  Zilch.

Repressed memories are tough.

I knew it would be hard to separate the three musketeers for the week, and it was.

Suffice it to say, the pictures speak for themselves in terms of the happy reunion!

Next time, all four of us.

Can't wait!