August Martini

Here's the August martini. If you're wondering why the heck this post is called a martini see here.

Of course we started the month with a trip to Riley Children's Hospital and an MRI for Meadow. She looked pretty stickin' cute in her baby hospital gown but I didn't take any pictures. Here's one from the original trip to the ER that started all this craziness.

As you know we received the news the following morning that the MRI report showed no calcifications on her brain! You can read all about that and how I became the crazy adopting urine mom here. Man, this has been a LONG month.

On August 2nd we had the Third Annual Wallace Home Study. It's never comfortable when someone you barely know comes into your home, asks you a bunch of questions and evaluates your ability to parent, especially when you have two living breathing specimens on display. However, by the third time you're almost use to it. Almost. Also, we love our case worker and she's super easy to talk to. That helps.

We went to the zoo three times this past month. I'm not a big fan of summer, but for some reason I felt the need to take advantage of the last few weeks of it. Not sure why, the first day of September is supposed to be 99 degrees...

Of all the choices, Moses choose the bench. Poor kid. He got mama's scared-of-fast-moving-things gene.

 Some nice woman offered to take a picture of all four of us - it's a rare one!

William went with us one day, can you guess what his favorite part of the trip was??

Last day at the splash park:-(

 I started homeschooling Moses earlier this month. We are doing the Sonlight 3/4 Core, an alphabet add on I found that focuses on service, a "worksheet" book I got at Costco for $8 and some of Lisa K's Raising Kids with a Heart for Orphans stuff. It sounds like a lot but it's really not. It helps that we're only doing 2-3 days a week. He loves it so far.

This day we read a book about Noah's Ark. Here's our ark - what do ya think?

Yes she's eating a raw squash. She's a freak of nature.

Meadow is 100% girl and has a new infatuation with shoes. We keep all three pairs of her shoes in a basket in the closet and she opens the door, carries the basket over and then hands me each shoe and grunts. It's ridiculously cute.

The last week of the month our Family Group (community group, small group, etc.) has a meal together. Here are Moses and Meadow with their favorite older cool kid buddies. (hence Meadow not looking at the camera but staring at Judah instead.)

A few (half?) of the kids in our date night co-op. If you do not go on regular dates with your man you need to start. The co-op idea is awesome! There are four families that participate in ours so we get three dates a month then, one Friday night it's our turn to watch all the kids. Brilliant. (And FREE!)

And we exposed all the kids in the last two pictures to hand, foot and mouth disease. Whoops. 

Another month is over. Adoption update coming soon.

Rebuked By A Teenager

This is from the newsletter of Lisa Kjeldgaard. I shared her amazing ideas for raising kiddos with a heart for orphans a while back and this story, from her 14 year old daughter Kate, is the fruit of Lisa's hard work.

Be prepared to get rebuked by a teenager.

(And then pray that your kids would have this girls heart. At least that's what I'll be doing)

"I look around. I catch myself complaining, again. Whining because a brother used MY bathroom. Upset that I have to get out of my bed to go to work at 9 a.m. when I'd rather sleep. Bummed I didn't make it to the movies last night with my friends because I can't drive. This is normal American life: Be upset about what you don't have, and forget about what you do.

We don't seem to care about what we have. All we seem to care about is what we don't have.

But. We. Are. So. Blessed.

Running water? Blessed. House? Blessed. A job? Blessed. Three meals a day? Blessed. We seem to notice our idiotic mundane problems but forget the little boy half way across the world on the streets: abused, addicted, starving, and homeless. Let's face it—our "problems" are wimpy.

God put you where you are for a reason, and he put that little boy on the streets of Kenya for a reason too. You could be that homeless Kenyan boy, but you're not. You're a rich middle-class American with EVERYTHING you could ever need.

EVERYTHING.

God wants you and me to do something with it.

Here's what this 14-year-old learned in Kenya:

"Life isn't about what you don't have, life's about what you do have, and what you can give."

If those Agape Kenyan boys pretended to be us whiners and just focused on what they didn't have: how they don't have toilets, don't have soda and might not see their parents ever again, they would never get anywhere. Yet, they don't.

They wake up and say: "I'm off the streets and know I'll eat, I'll live."

We deserve a slap in the face from those boys, because they, they know what they have. And they're doing everything they can to change the world with it. More than anything, I want to go back to Kenya to learn from those boys. Don't worry, I'll be back to tell you about it. ~Kate

Beautiful Necklace Giveaway! (from Awake & Alive)

Check out this amazing necklace and go here to enter to win it!

Make A Difference

There are about a million things running through my head that I want you to know. I have been praying all day that I would chose the "right" topic to share tonight... Then I opened my email and saw these precious faces:

 I'm not able to copy and paste their story but you can read it here. (scroll about half way down and look for the same picture)

Please read their story and donate toward this little girls medical care. Know that every dollar you give will go to her and give sacrificially.

Share her story. Share it with your family. Share it with your friends. Share it with your kids.

Maybe they have a birthday coming up and instead of requesting gifts they can request donations for her surgery? Maybe they can mow a neighbors lawn for some extra cash? Maybe you can sell something on ebay? Maybe you have $4,000 laying around somewhere collecting dust? (hey, it's possible)

We all have more than she does. And we can all stand to loose some of it for her.

Adoption fundraiser t-shirts!

We are taking orders for our adoption fundraiser t-shirts!

baby blue

lemon

slate

You do not have to pre-pay but it is helpful if you pre-order. That way, we'll be sure to have your size and color.

They are American Apparel shirts (sweatshop free!) and run a bit small so you may want to order a size up. The scripture is "I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you." - John 14:18. (It's kinda hard to see on the images.)

We have kids sizes too!

They are $28 for adults and $18 for kids.

Please share with your family and friends to help bring our little boy home from Ethiopia!

You can comment here with the color, size and quantity you would like or order with the paypal buttons above!

Why I Hate Roller Coasters

I hate roller coasters. Just ask my Mom or sister. They will both tell you that they "ruined" me when I was about 9 or 10 on some ride at one of the many amusements parks they use to drag me to as a kid.

The top 5 reasons I hate roller coasters are:
1. I like being in control. On a roller coaster = not being in control.
2. I'm scared of dying. Let's be real, I wanna meet Jesus but would prefer to not have to die in order for that to occur.
3. I don't like to go fast. In anything. Be it car, plane, train or roller coaster.
4. I don't like that butterfly feeling in my stomach. I think people who do are weird.
5. It's scary people.

Our adoption process is kinda a roller coaster. Ok, maybe not just kinda, maybe the full on tallest, fastest, scariest, upside down roller coaster of all. And sometimes I hate it. For the very same reasons.

1. I like being "in control". I like knowing what is going to happen and when and why and how and... you get the picture. I'm a control freak. Just ask my husband.
2. I'm scared of dying to myself. To enter into this "process" of adopting a kid from another country, who has been through unimaginable loss, doesn't speak our language, who frankly belongs to a government that could really care less about whether or not that kid makes it out of the orphanage, is to step out in faith. It's to say yes to God even when a lot of other voices are telling you no. It's dying to your plan and reaching out for His.
3. I will have to ride on a very long plane ride, multiple very long plane rides actually (thank you Ethiopia for changing those rules up just in time for the Wallace's), to get this kid home. The last time I was on a plane was on our honeymoon. And we only went to Oregon. And I cried.
4. I have that butterfly feeling in my stomach a lot. I get good news and bad news regarding our adoption daily, sometimes hourly. It is an emotional roller coaster at times. The highs are sweet but the valleys make me anxious and worried and sick to my stomach.
5. It's scary people.

the devil lost Meadow's urine

Confession - there has been a LOT going on with our adoption that I haven't posted. The last time I did an update was in November. Nine months ago. Who knew so much and so little could happen in nine months?

In November, we were waiting for March, for William to be scanned and to get a clean bill of health. Praise God that happened.

In April, we were ready to get back on the adoption train when our home study agency alerted us to the fact that our CIS (Citizenship and Immigration Services) approval expired in August. The CIS has to approve American citizens to bring orphans into the US. It use to be part of the Department of Homeland Security until they got busy with other things...

When your CIS approval expires, you HAVE to re-do your home study. The one thing we had that had not expired was... our home study. Since CIS is very particular about when the paperwork they receive is dated, it didn't make sense to re-do our home study in April, because we would have had to re-do it again in June just to make them happy. Who do they think they are anyway?

So the new new plan was to begin home study paperwork in June and have our re-done home study in the mail to CIS in July.

Here's where things get really interesting. The first week of April, after we had learned all of this timing crap stuff, Meadow fell out of her highchair and hit the back of her head on the kitchen floor. She appeared to be ok, but our pediatrician said to take her to the ER just to be safe. So we did. They did a CT scan since she has no way of telling us how she feels and because that's kinda a long way to fall.

The CT scan showed no trauma from the fall. It did show "calcifications on the basil ganglia". If you google "basil ganglia brain calcifications", which I don't recommend that you do, you will get a seemingly never ending list of conditions, diseases and disorders all of which list brain calcifications as a symptom.

If you have been following along closely, you know that just a couple weeks prior to this on our crazy-does-this-really-happen-to-people timeline, my step-mom passed away from brain cancer. SO, when the ER nurse gave me this info I must have turned white, based on the look of fear in her eyes. She asked me if I was ok, I think I nodded, and asked if we could leave.

I called William. And I cried.

Our pediatrician called me the next morning. His exact words were "I'm looking at this CT scan, and it is not normal, and I have a perfectly healthy developmentally 'normal' child and the two don't add up. Sometimes technology gives us more information than we know what to do with and this is probably one of those times. I can't tell you 100% that these are benign so let's send you to someone who can." Love him, by the way.

He referred us to a pediatric neurologist. There was an almost three month wait to get in. That was hard, and even though we had a peace that was certainly from God, I'd be lying if I said we didn't hug her a little tighter and kiss her a few more times at bed than we had before. It's pretty scary for someone to tell you that your kids brain isn't normal and then to have to wait three months to figure out what that means.

So the end of June FINALLY rolled around and we went to Riley Children's Hospital for our appointment. The reason that this is part of our adoption story is because before our home study agency would re-do our report, we had to know that either a.)Meadow was healthy or b.)Meadow has such and such condition and we are capable of caring for her and an additional child. I'm still unclear if they just want to know or if CIS actually requires that information...

Anyway, the appointment went well. The neurologist did a neurological exam, which for a 15 month old basically consists of squeaking a bunch of toys in her face to see how she responds. The doctor explained that it was likely an insignificant finding but since we have knowledge of it we should investigate further. They drew about 10 viles of blood and Meadow had to pee into a bag that they taped you know where. The whole experience was pretty positive considering. They told us it could take 6-8 weeks to get all of the results back because the conditions they were testing her for are super rare, so few labs have experience with them, yada, yada. The doctor also ordered an MRI to see exactly what these brain things look like.

At this point, we were still feeling good about Meadow's health. Had she not taken a fall, we would never had been concerned about her. But there was this lurking thought in the back of my mind that, what if, we would end up praising God for the fact that she did fall because we found out about some crazy rare condition and caught it early... William helped me control those thoughts though and kept me on track.

The time frame of the tests was a little too close to our CIS expiration than we would have liked, but everything would have come in in time. If. They. Hadn't. Lost. Her. Urine.

"How do you loose urine?", one might ask. Good question - I have a theory but I won't share it here. The problem, is that I didn't find out that the urine was lost until just a couple weeks ago. Meadow's blood work trickled back in and all results were negative. We tried to get out of the MRI. Twice. But the doctor insisted that it was necessary. (another story for another day)

When the blood results came in, I let the nurse know that I needed a letter, from the doctor, for our adoption, saying she's healthy, etc. (No one ever gets this, by the way. If you are going to adopt be prepared for people to look at you like you have a third eye when you request stuff like this. They actually asked me if we were adopting Meadow and had to prove that she was healthy before "they" would let us. Uh, not exactly.)

So, when I requested the letter, the nurse relayed the message that the doctor wouldn't write the letter until the genetic (aka urine) results were in and until we agreed to an MRI. This lead to a conversation that ended with the realization that the urine had been lost. At this point, I lost it on the nurse because this is the test that takes 6-8 weeks. She thought I was crazy, and loosing it over lost urine, which frankly, loosing it over lost urine would be ok in my book.

I explained, in the nicest way that I could at that moment, that we did not have 6-8 weeks because of a lot of things that she didn't understand related to our adoption (and that no we are not adopting Meadow) and that it would cost us $800 if we didn't have that letter by the beginning of August. (If you miss the CIS extension deadline you have to re-apply, and re-pay.)

The conversation ended with me offering to drive Meadow back to Indianapolis the following day to deliver more urine and her offering to contact the manager of the lab to "plead our case". I think she knew better than to put me in touch with the lab manager. I was the crazy adopting urine mom.

Meadow cooperated and delivered the urine and the lab manager sent the message that it would take a minimum of 2-3 weeks. We started praying. And asking almost everyone else to join us.

Our prayer request consisted of: A clean MRI scan. We know enough about scans and doctors to know that even if these funky brain things did turn out to be "clinically insignificant", the doctor would still want to scan Meadow annually until they did something or disappeared. So, we prayed that they would be GONE. We wanted this whole thing to be over and we wanted God to get all the glory. The only explanation would be that He answered our prayer. So we prayed like we believed that He would.

We also prayed for negative and miraculously quick genetic test results. And I prayed, in the middle of the night when no one else was listening, for signs. Signs that we are on the right path, that we didn't misinterpret His call to adopt. I prayed that he would make our adoption journey from this point on smooth and fast.

I'm so thankful that he answered my prayer for signs. It seems like a silly, unfaithful thing to pray for, but I needed them. After 2 1/2 years, a girl needs some reassurance. And he delivered. Three times, after spending time alone in prayer, requesting "signs", I got them within 24 hours. A couple times through sermons, one at our church on how we as believers are "family", one from a sermon podcast about obeying God's word and once today, when I was told that Meadow's genetic screen results are expected by the end of the week.

I'm thankful for those signs. But the truth is, when I peel away all of the trials and setbacks, I know we are on the right path. I know He set it for us. But I realized, a couple weeks ago, amidst all of this urine business, that the devil doesn't want us to adopt. He hates adoption. He hates it the same way that he hates marriage. He hates marriage because it is a visible symbol to the world of Jesus and his church. And he hates adoption because it is a visible symbol to the world of God's love for, and adoption of, us. Our family will be a sign of worldly adoption and heavenly adoption. The devil lost Meadow's urine.

I love it when God answers prayer. Seriously. LOVE IT. It's even better when there is no logical human explanation for things going the way that they did. It can only be a God thing. And that was the case today. This morning I got a call from the nurse. (I think she has forgiven me for loosing it over the lost urine) Meadow's MRI was clear and the calcifications are GONE. THEY. ARE. GONE!!!

I called William. I cried. I thanked God. And I danced.

If adoption were a board game, we'd still be on the same square we were on in November. So much and so little can happen in nine months.