Z is for Zachary

My boy.

Proving you're never too old or too big to sit on Mommy's lap.  

My firstborn.

The child who made me a Mom.

The one I made the most mistakes with.

Who turned out great, despite me, not because of me.

Big brother several times over.

The kids miss him.

I miss him.

I will always be grateful that I got to be his mommy.

I've learned so much from him and because of him.

My life will always be richer because he's been a part of it.

Now he's on the other side of the world.

Being a grown up.

Being an Airman.

Even though my heart still sees him like this.

He's obviously not.

I miss you, Zach Zach.  And I'm so very proud of you.  

Y is for Yesterdays

I had an interesting conversation with Annaliese that made me think back over my adult life.

I made the comment in passing that I was pretty much mortified by everything I'd said and done between the ages of 14 and 25.  She said there must have been SOME good things about those years, and I replied, yes, that was when she was born.

I was then asked when was the best time of my life.  Oooh, that's a toughie.  Looking back, it's easy to say, "oh, this time was so great" and forget the hard parts.

For example, the Early Married Years were good, because the babies were born, and we had a sense of community where we lived and with the church we attended.  However, the Early Married Years were hard because we were really broke and I was still so immature.  That was also when we lost Baby E.  Talk about hard times.

The Farm Years were good because the kids had space to run and play, more babies were born, we lived in a HOUSE instead of an apartment, and Paul got his dream job.  However, The Farm Years were hard because we had a whole bunch of little kids and Paul was working and going to school and working a second job and volunteering and gone a lot.

Then we moved out of Sonoma County, away from everyone we knew, and it was good because we bought our first house, and because Paul was happy at work, and because I feel like I finally grew up and mellowed out in that home, but it was hard because I missed my friends and realized that to many people, we're freaks.

Oh, harmless freaks, to be sure, but freaks all the same.  The lots of kids, homeschooling, home-birthing, extended breastfeeding, cloth diapering thing raised some eyebrows when I tried to break into the playgroup scene here in town.  Unfortunately, we're also freaks in the homeschool community for sending our kids to school.  Nothing like having a mom who's oldest kid is 4 tell you that she's going to homeschool through high school, and why aren't you homeschooling your older kids??  (Our motto:  Education is a year by year, child by child decision.)

Adopting is another way we're freakish.  Although we're starting to see more and more families with a blend of biological and adopted children, there are still people who asked why we were adopting, since we obviously weren't infertile.

6 months ago, we moved here.  In this chapter of my life, the kids are starting to grow up and leave the nest.  It's bittersweet.  Paul's dad once said, "Once they get to the point where they're actually helpful, they leave."  I can see his point.  Zachary's absence left a huge vacuum of quiet at first until we found our new normal when he went away to boot camp.  I'm sure it will be the same as the other kids grow up and spread their wings.

The best time of my life?  I think it's about attitude.  I look back at pictures of the kids and smile, seeing the fun memories and forgetting the pain and frustration interspersed between images.  If I can do that for my yesterdays, and choose to see only the good--not in a revisionist history sort of way, but in a choosing to focus on the happy times, the blessings--what's to say I can't do that for now?  This!  Is the best time of my life.  And the past 2 decades have been, as well.

X is for eXtracurricular

eX is for eXtracurricular.  

In my 20 year parenting career, we've done many extracurricular activities.

Off the top of my head, I can remember:  4H, ballet, cooking, sewing, t-ball, soccer, softball, baseball, basketball, general sports camp, art, Spanish, AWANA, VBS, Mandarin, and sign language.  

Even better, we've done some truly amazing field trips.  

From purely fun places like Nut Tree

To educational places like the Nimbus Fish Hatchery

The Aerospace Museum

And countless trips to firehouses

Plus many annual visits to pumpkin patches and apple farms.

Turtle Bay, in Redding

One of the greatest things about homeschooling is the chance to get out and see all the amazing things around us without having to compete with weekend crowds.  

Hilmar Cheese Factory

USS Hornet, aircraft carrier

We're blessed to be able to explore and go and do and see.  Other places we've been to include:  Sutter's Fort, the state Capitol, 2 Native American museums, 2 children's museums, a couple of missions, a sticker factory, a jelly bean factory, a history museum, a science museum, a military museum, botanical gardens, zoos, and more.  

X is for eXciting eXtracurricular activities.  

W is for Wonder

5 years ago, I was looking forward to taking my girls to Disneyland.

5 years ago, my biggest worry was transitioning my 3 year old Furby from private speech therapy to speech therapy at the local public school.  I was scared about the whole IEP process.  (Silly me.  God was using this experience to prepare me to advocate for Hannah.)

5 years ago, Zachary and Eli were going to BCS, and I was homeschooling Annaliese, Josiah, Samuel, and Brianna.

5 years ago, Josiah was in braces.

5 years ago, we were not even planning to adopt yet.

5 years ago, I had NO IDEA that on the other side of the world my daughter was taking her first breaths.

So, today, as we celebrate her birthday, W is for Wonder, both for the Wonder that she is to me, and for all the things I Wonder about surrounding that special day 5 years ago.

How much did she weigh when she was born?  It makes me so sad not to know that basic bit of information.  I took for granted that every mother knew their child's birth weight.  My child was 26# when I got her.

Was Hannah's first mom older or younger than me?  Was this her first baby?  Or had she been through birth before?  Was she single or married, did she live in a rural or urban setting?

Did she cuddle Hannah close and sob over her, or shrink in revulsion at Hannah's deformities?  Who made the decision to give Hannah up?  Did her first mother want to keep her, but her husband or mother in law insisted that she would bring the family bad luck?  Did they feel she'd get better medical care in a Social Welfare Institute than what they could afford to give her?

I wonder if her birthmother remembers her this day in some special way, or if the day passes without her thinking of Hannah at all.  I wonder if she sees 4-5 year old children at the park and wishes things were different.  I wonder if she's gone on to have another child since then, and whether or not she is parenting, and how that impacts how she feels about not parenting Hannah.

She has no idea that the tiny "handicapped" infant she bore is amazingly capable, totally hilarious, and full of potential.  I wish I could tell her.  I wish there was some way to let her know that Hannah's okay.  That she's more than okay, she's really great.  I wish for a moment, Hannah's birthmother could have a window into our lives and see her daughter, my daughter, our daughter laughing and playing with her siblings.

And I wonder what the next 5 years will bring.  When Hannah is the age that Eli is now, what will she be like?  Will we be homeschooling?  What activities will she be involved in?  Will she have a best friend that accepts her just the way she is?  What adoption issues will she be processing at that point?  How will she feel about being Chinese? Adopted? Different?  Will she still be the baby in our family?  If not, how will she handle younger siblings?  What kind of big sister will she be?  Will it be a comfort to her to have adopted siblings like her?

I wonder if Hannah will want to search for her birth family when she's older.  I wonder if she'll find them.  China is changing so rapidly, I wonder if there will be more and more first family reunions as time goes by.

There are so many things I wonder about.  The unknowns in adoption are endless.  But what I do know is, we have been so blessed to have Hannah in our family.  Hannah is a very special girl, and I can't wait to see what God has planned for her.  Even though I can't give her answers to all the questions she will eventually ask about her origins, I can give her love and care and happy memories.  And I can cry with her when the not knowing is too overwhelming.  Because, believe me, I wonder, too.  

V is for Vacation

We don't do a lot of vacations in our family.  It tends to be a Big Deal when we go somewhere.  Our last vacation was China, of course, in 2010.  But that was just Paul and I (and Hannah from the time we got her).

Before that, it was Zach's BMT graduation in Texas.  Also just Paul and I (um, and Zach, of course).

There have been a couple of quick trips to Monterey for the homeschool free days at the aquarium (a couple times as a family, once with friends, and once just me and the homeschool kids).

When I took the kids by myself, we stopped at Mission San Juan Bautista on the way home.  Someday, I want to visit each of the 21 California missions.  I've only been to 3 so far.  

Our last FAMILY vacation was an 11 day roadtrip through California, Nevada, Oregon, and (briefly) Washington.  This 2007 trip was a chance to visit family on both my side and Paul's side, and an experience the kids STILL talk about sometimes.  

This shot was taken at Crater Lake.  

Also in 2007, my mom and I took the girls to Disneyland.  

(Zach got to go to Disneyland with school, and the rest of the kids haven't gone yet.)  

Before that, it was a 2006 trip to Legoland for the whole family, which was pretty much our first family vacation.  

So, now that you see how rare vacations are for us, you'll understand how very excited I am.  Annaliese was going to Disneyland with her ASL class at school when she came down with chicken pox and didn't get to go.  Her teacher said, "Well, her ticket is good through June, you guys can go another time."  I didn't really think that would happen, but it's looking like it will!  Not the whole family; just Annaliese, a friend, another child and I.  Nothing is set for certain yet, but it's starting to occupy my thoughts.  

Now that I've got a passport, I've been bitten by the travel bug.  There are so many places I would love to see if we could afford to go.  

Ah, so many amazing things to see in this big, wide world we live in!  Someday, perhaps.  But for now, I'll be content with getting away to Disneyland for a couple days.  I'm most looking forward to watching the wonder of a child experiencing Disney for the first time, and Annaliese getting the chance to make up for what she lost out on.  Crossing my fingers that this trip works out!

U is for Unfinished

U is for a number of Unique words, and at first blush it might seem a little depressing to pick a word with a sort of negative connotation.

But I'm choosing to think of Unfinished more as "work in progress" than perpetually Undone.

I'm talking about... my school room.

We moved in October, and the school room was one of the last rooms to be worked on.

But it quickly went from this to...

...a working school room, albeit a messy, unfinished one.  

With lots of boxes.  

Lots and lots of boxes.  (Mostly books, honestly.)  

One of my first purchases for the new school room was the 3 turquoise cubes you can see in the pictures above.  The lids come off, so they're seating and storage!  I got them at Target.  

Currently, one holds books, one holds reams of printer paper and binder paper, and one holds botany supplies/science stuff.  

These pictures are much more recent.  After Paul finished the bookcase, I was finally able to unpack the last of the boxes!  

The "clothesline" has Christmas card and other photos of friends & family.  The pink bucket holds the overflow from the summer sales at Staples.  I stock up every year when things are super duper cheap.  The drawers under it are art supplies.  

The "family tree" hanging on the left came from a craft booth at Apple Hill.  The kids enjoyed picking out faces to represent themselves.  The apple wreath under the clock was a group homeschool project from 2007.  Each of my students painted their own apple and I added our school name and year.  

As you can see, the 3 cubes have become a faux window seat.  They're easy to move around, though, and the kids rearrange things when we watch something together on the computer.  The basket on the floor and the tub atop the milk crate are board books.

Even though it's looking better all the time, it's still Unfinished.  

Work in progress.  (kinda like me)

But I'm very happy to have a dedicated school room.  

And I'm excited about the changes that I'm making to our curriculum next year and how that will impact how we use this room.  

The thought of the memories we'll make here makes me smile.