june 19th

We are home from our post sleep study check up with Joya's ENT, who has looked at her sleep study results and cleared her for surgery on June 19th.

Apparently, she has some sleep apnea, but it is mild and triggered from her brain and not due to her physical birth defect.  I am amazed that a sheet full of confusing line graphs and number tables can tell us that, but then again, I didn't go to medical school either.

Her first surgery will be on the side of her face and her ear.  I could explain each step, but I don't have the time.  The plan is for her to have two surgeries, first her face, then her mouth - both in 2012.  We all hope that she won't have to see the inside of an operating room until elementary school, when she will have the first of several jaw surgeries over the course of her growing years.

We are celebrating today.  Although the surgery is not without risks, I am very ready to get the ball rolling so that we can live life and not be waiting to schedule our life around medical procedures.

I have stopped giving perfect strangers detailed explanations about her birth defect when they ask about (and sometimes reach out and touch) her face.  I'm sorry to say that the number of ridiculous responses and follow up questions has reached the limit of what I can politely respond to. 

I went into this all prepared and motivated to help people learn about and not fear correctable birth defects, but now she is my daughter, I love her, and I'm tired of defending her to people who clearly have no social skills when they follow up with questions about her HIV status or statements about the evils of the Chinese government that have absolutely nothing to do with my little girl.

Stepping down from my soap box now.

Overall, she is making some big steps of progress, which makes me giggle.  I no longer fear when she hugs a perfect stranger, because she immediately comes running back to me.  She can pick her brothers out of a school crowd and treats them like her brothers - with love, affection, thrill, and admiration.  She also asks for her daddy when he is at work, but seems to completely understand that he will come back.

Her sleep is not perfect, but tolerable and we can manage on the status quo.  She eats a lot of food, but is not stuffing herself until she is sick as was her tendency when we first returned home from China.  She only tolerates her car seat for short rides around town - longer than 20 minutes and she turns into Princess Whiny-pants.

Luckily, this isn't my first visit to the royal castle.

reality

I owe an update to my brother and sister in-law because they rebel against don't have facebook accounts.

Reality is hitting me tonight that in 14 days I am leaving for a foreign land to embrace a two year old child that I've never met.  I will bring her home to the boys I have known from my womb and we will be a family.  She will be their sister, and they will be her brothers.  We will be her mom and dad.

Forever.

I am looking in the face of mothering five children, living in the busiest and most demanding season of my life.  I am looking in the face of 15 years of marriage.

But honestly, when I'm buying a bottle of wine, I really feel like the twenty-something who needs to whip out her ID to prove she is old enough to drink.

Why don't I get carded anymore?

We are scheduled to depart for China on March 14th.  All of the airline tickets are booked.  My sister, mom, and favorite aunt are all taking time off from their jobs (some of it even unpaid) and away from their commitments at home to come out west and keep our precious boys feeling at home while we are away for the longest duration since any one of my little men were born.

It has been an eventful few weeks.

We received official Travel Approval from the Chinese government to come and adopt our daughter.  And for that we are excited and grateful.

We asked our agency weeks ago for a "safe" projected date that we could count on to travel.  Our agency sends parents in groups to travel to China every two weeks.  So, if your paperwork doesn't meet requirements for one group, you join the next group.

We asked for a projection because we wanted to use our frequent flier miles that were painfully earned by my Beloved's many nights away from our family working like a crazy man.

Long story short, we booked our tickets based on safe recommendations and after our paperwork caught up with us, our daughter's visa appointment at the US Consulate wound up being scheduled one day too late for us to be able to make our flight home.  Without any frequent flier seats left, it leaves us having to pay thousands of dollars for new tickets.

When our agency was telling me that there was no possible way to change this Consulate appointment, I refused to take no for an answer.  I announced our problem on facebook and was encouraged to seek help from my senator.  I promptly went to his web page, then dialed the local office.  A wonderful grandmotherly type woman answered my call, and after hearing an abbreviated version of our problem, she told me that there were staff members who handle these issues and could she have my name and number for one of them to call me back.

The dam broke and all the stress turned into emotion.  I could barely choke out my name and phone number through my tears.  But I did.

My call was returned by a very helpful woman, who said that she was hopeful that she could help.  She gave me instructions for what information to send in an email to her...

... and then she finished the conversation by telling me that she and her husband had just completed their second adoption from China just six months ago.

Thanks God.  I needed that one.

So now we are waiting to see if we need new tickets or if all systems are a go for Operation Bring Nesbit Home.

Reality is setting in.  My mind is reeling with my packing list and the adventure ahead of us.  So when I'm done writing this post, I have to order my daughter some shoes and socks!

bullets

• We inherited an outdoor cat to solve our mouse problems from some friends who moved away.  Our outdoor cat has suddenly become an indoor-sleep-on-Rufus's-bed-22-hours-of-the-day-until-I-put-her-out cat.  My husband likes We like her though. 
• I've decided that my favorite daytime listening Pandora station is "70's easy listening" - there is rarely a song I don't love.  I know, I should work in a doctor's office.
• I'm seeing my sweet Squirt blossom at four and a half years old.  I agonized over the thought of him going to Kindergarten this fall, but now I think he's really ready.
• Two weeks ago a dear friend and I set up a "let's meet for dinner come hell or high water" night.  That night was last night.  It was blissful.  We ate lots of food including fried green tomatoes.  We talked and talked and laughed until the restaurant closed and then we walked to my car, I drove her to her car, and we talked for another 30+ minutes.  I left with a smile on my face.  It was a treat.
• Fifth grade homework sucks.  I hate that projects become MY work and I wind up caring more about his responsibilities than he does.  Then again, I thought that midnight feedings sucked until I was on my third and fourth child and then they were easy.  So maybe fifth grade will be like that.  Or maybe not.
• I hate the school science fair.  Please refer to my previous bullet.
• My kids are so hungry when they come home from school.  Today I have dinner prepared for them at 3:30 so we can eat for real and then a snack later.  I'll report back with how that works.
• One of my older children still wets the bed at night and I've gotten my hands on a "potty pager" to try to train the stubborn child out of the habit.  Last night was the dry run, except it wasn't dry, it was wet, more than once, and he hates wearing it.  I hate pee, so there.
• The first part of January was spent painting Mrs. Nesbit's room, and since we've lived in this house six and a half years and I've been looking at dingy not-so-white walls and ugly light fixtures in my bedroom, I just decided to push on through and paint that room too (which happens to be a rather large bedroom).  Ceiling, trim, walls, outlets, light switches, and light fixtures are all new now.  I was an aching, messy, paint covered, non-showering woman on a mission for an entire week, but it is done and I love it!  Now we are drooling over the thought of new carpet, and I hate to drool.
• Because I know you're wondering, our adoption paperwork is in the final stages and we look on track to leave for China on March 14th.  My waves of anxiety have started regarding our/her transition and I'm clinging to the proven fact that God works good through the hard stuff in life.  Not that I wish it to be hard, but I want more of God for sure, so pretty much I can't lose, right?
• The ski season has been a total BUST so far and I am actually praying for several big, powdery snow storms to crush our little town so that I can frolic on the slopes sufficiently before I bring a precious two year-old home from China.  Have you ever known me to pray for snow?  It's bad, people.

trick or treat

I have a really hard time spending money on costumes for the big kids when they no longer play dress up in their spare time.  So, my little thieves were delighted to wear plain black shirts wrapped in white duct tape, strips of black fabric as their masks, and cheap pillow cases with $ signs written all over them with a big sharpie.

Mike Wazowski won the candy weigh in due to pure cuteness.

full swing

First day of school pictures are finally up.  This is the last year these three will go to the same school.  Rufus is in first grade, The Hunter is in fifth grade and Sauce is in third grade.

They were literally running to the bus stop.

  Until I made them slow down so we could enjoy the walk together.

With their buddy at the bus stop.

No tears from Squirt this year.  He happily rode home on his bike and enjoyed the day with Mommy.

sick-of-winter-fever

Some call it "Spring Fever."  But seeing that winter in the mountains lasts well into May and it doesn't surprise us to see a dusting of snow in early June, we have renamed the fever.

Each April, we get the itch.  South....must....go....south!  It is still winter here, but a four hour drive south to Moab will usually plop us in temperatures in the 70's or 80's.

This year we had a campground reservation, but had to change it to a hotel reservation due to a forecast of unusually chilly nights.  Daytime temps were to be in the mid 60's and that is double the Park City temps where we were blessed with got 12 inches of snow per day that we were away.

I can handle sleeping in the cold.  My big boys can handle sleeping in the cold.  But my littles?  I'm pretty sure they'd be miserable.  And if the littles ain't happy, Mama ain't happy.

And if Mama ain't happy.... well you get the picture.

So, we packed up the new family truckster "Ruby" (Beloved took a new job = no company car = newer used Suburban for Mama = older, kid "loved", very unmanly minivan for my Beloved) for her first road trip.

We've never had a DVD player in any car before.  It wasn't on our want list for a vehicle, but this one came with it.  Can you tell it is their first time?  We don't really sit them four across - we were just testing the headphones.

A couple of movies later, we were in Moab.  Our first adventure was the giant sand dune across from Arches National Park.  A lovely FREE piece of fun that you can just drive up to and play.  Hours of entertainment for four boys, exercise for Mom and Dad, and we (almost) felt like we were at the beach!  I guess we were, but there was no water, just desert.

Next, we saw some of these.  Just as Kenyon was commenting how despicable it is that people carve their names into the rock next to historical art, he looked down to see Rufus finishing letter number three of his name.  Luckily, some sand washed it off, but we were laughing for the rest of the trip about it.

One thing that tends to define us when we hike is that my husband we always tend to push the boys past their limit and into the depths of exhaustion.  Our first day we hiked eight miles.  My Beloved would argue that it made them into the tough hikers that they are today.  I argue that it just makes for a cranky bunch of boys on their way to the car.

The perks of hiking great distances are these:

 

AND there's this view at the "end".

I'm saving the best for last.  Check back for the story of our most fascinating hike ever (picture "127 Hours" but with both arms).

Also, just a teaser - I'll share one of our most humbling parenting moments.

snapshots

By default, faceb**k has become my streaming blog.  But in honor of the giant winter storm that is blowing through my neighborhood today, I thought I should post some pictures and video of our winter.
Snow and skiing.  Skiing and snow.  That about sums it up.
Sauce, now called "Cannonball" on his ski race team - in the zone.
Even my little Squirt is up and running on skis this year.
Again - he loves an audience, so I have many pictures of Cannonball in the air.  He will wait at the top of a jump until someone is for sure watching him before he takes off.

This is the boy who won third place in the final state championships - and had a proud mama!

Oh, what is that I see?  Cannonball in the air again?  This time there is a ski coach laying under him to up the stakes a bit!
I actually skied about 15 days this season (compared to the 50+ that each man in my family has skied).  My dear friend Erin treated me to a free ski day at D**r Valley (normally too rich for my blood).  And that's Ashley in the middle.  She was about 12 months pregnant with cute little baby Cooper, so no skiing for her but she came and met us for lunch.  If she didn't she knew we'd talk about her the entire time ;-).
When a ski coach needs the kids to have a visual aid, here you go.
Kindergarten play dates take on a whole new meaning in a ski town.  Here's Rufus (on the right) with his friend Nathaniel "out playing."
Did I mention that we had more company than our cleaning lady I could keep up with?  Here's my dear friend Reeny laughing when Sauce tried to get her to go down a black diamond run with him.  Not a chance.
My sister Amy and her family were the first of our many visitors.  She is in pink getting dragged around the mountain by my maniacs.
And in case that wasn't enough - here is the moving picture version of those maniacs.  They are all Rockstars in my book.
AND - it is still snowing.  The end.

it's five o'clock somewhere

Shall I say "Part One?"

Welcome to my periodic series recognizing the end of a long day - or possibly even several trying days in a row - with a rant and a glass of wine (well deserved, in my opinion).

Our household has been passing around yucky-fever-cough-snot-congestion-can't-sleep-staying-home-from-school-whiny-fussy-watery-eyed-only-want-mommy-illness for the past week.

Our little Squirt definitely had it the worst with fevers nearing 104 degrees and lots of crying for a boy who normally does a lot of smiling.

A trip (with four kids in tow) to the pediatrician won him the prize diagnosis of an ear infection and a trip through the drive-thru... pharmacy.

During our prayer time this morning, Sauce prayed that Daddy would be sure to use lots of hand sanitizer on his trip - I'd say we're all sick of being sick if we're going to the Lord about hand sanitizer.

Our neighborhood is having some sort of water issue (picture brown tinged water coming out of the faucet) and we can't use our water to drink or cook with.  Another errand was needed to the fire station where a nice firefighter loaded up my trunk with gallons of tax payer funded free drinking water.  Two days of this and it still isn't resolved.

Call me a spoiled American, but if I have running water in my house, I would like to actually, ahem, use it.

There are some more little punks at school giving my eldest a hard time and I'm growing weary of guiding him to rise above their crap antics.  I'm about ready to tell him to unleash his recently acquired cuss words karate training on them to silence them - no matter the consequences from the principal.

My beloved is on the east coast receiving some specialized training for his job, but I sure could have used him here today to kick some butt when my two middle muddles, Sauce and Rufus, couldn't get along for the life of them (for no particular reason at all, I might add).

In an attempt to "aid" their reconciliation, they spent quite a bit of time holding hands.  Then they graduated to sitting cheek-to-cheek when they still couldn't find love for each other.  Sauce was still having a hard time cooling down his hot temper, so I'm sorry to say that he was shoved out on the front porch (high temperature of 29 degrees today) and his fed up mother someone promptly locked the doors behind him.

He heard the muffled instructions to, "Calm the heck down!" through the door.  After about five minutes of teeth chattering, he came in to reluctantly make peace with his younger brother.

I thought I was feeling better, but tonight I can't take a breath without an over exaggerated coughing fit.

But since my beloved won't return until late tomorrow night, I'm heading upstairs to curl up with my body pillow that fills his vacant spot - and a healthy shot of Nyquil.

one week left - summer highlights

One week from today marks the first official day of classroom school for my little men.

Ever.

I really have no idea what to expect.  I think they are going to like it and that they will have a great experience.  But, I have no idea how much homework will be brought home each night, how busy I will be during the week with school involvements, or whether it will be a great choice or a royal failure.

One more week of summer vacation, but today is a cold, rainy day making me appreciate the fun we had in the last couple of months.

 

Our stream was roaring this spring and the boys came up with the idea to float down it in an old inflatable baby bath tub.  Keep in mind that this water is snow melt, in other words, no matter how warm the summer gets, the stream is always ice cold!!!

The stream is behind our house, but off the front of our house across the cul-de-sac is a city golf course.  Our street borders one side of the fifth fairway and the other side is bordered by a historical and beautiful farm property with the ski resort right behind it.  We had some great sunsets this summer.

wordless wednesday

the podium

Although our mountain town keeps winter alive and well until late May, our ski season is coming to a close.

Our little men finished up their ski programs this weekend and our voices are a little hoarse from our cheers.

Rufus finished his program with the Cookie Race.  Notice the foil-wrapped cookie medal around his neck.  Coach Julia was awesome and really helped lay the foundation for his future in skiing.

 

Today The Hunter and Sauce had the final race with real times and medals within each age category.

The Hunter spent the day battling the barf and diarrhea bug, but mustered up the energy to get to his race and take third place in the eight year old category.

Coach Martin named his team of boys "Princesses" and worked these boys to the bone this season.

Sauce was visibly shocked to beat out every other boy in his age group to take first place.  Coach Justin sure sharpened his skills and their team had such a blast this year.

I did get to ski with my boys a few times this year.  Here we are on top of the world last weekend.

And, my world of men - my life and pure joy...

Just so you know, this is how it all starts.  Here's our little Squirt, giggling through his first experience on skis. 

I'm sure he's picturing the turns he will carve with his brothers someday.