Aedan: 71 Months, Week 3
Owen: 29 Months, Week 1
Life was kind of like adjusting to a new normal with our two extra kids returned home. In fact, I got a sweet message from someone at church who I didn't really know, and it was really encouraging to me. She said a few weeks ago at church the kids in Samantha's room were to write down a prayer request for that week. Samantha asked for them to pray that the parents of our two new little ones would make good choices and be able to get their children back. She commented on how selfless this was and complimented us on how we are teaching our children life lessons that are going to carry on for their whole lives.
In processing our new kids going home last Tuesday, and thinking toward when we will accept our next placement, I read this poem in the book, "The Next Right Thing," and it really spoke to my heart. I am invited to release the burden of heavy decisions into his care.
"Do the Next Thing" by George A. Paull
"From an old English parsonage down by the sea
There came in the twilight a message to me;
Its quaint Saxon legend, deeply engraven,
Hath, it seems to me, teaching from heaven;
And through the hours the quiet words ring
Like a low inspiration: "Do the next thing."
Many a questioning, many a fear,
Many a doubt, hath its quieting here.
Moment by moment, let down from heaven,
Time, opportunity, and guidance are given.
Fear not tomorrow, child of the King;
Trust them with Jesus: Do the next thing.
Oh! He would have thee daily more free,
Knowing the right of thy royal degree,
Ever in waiting, glad for His call,
Tranquil in chastening, trusting through all,
Comings and goings no turmoil need bring;
His, all the future: do the next thing.
Do it immediately, do it with prayer;
Do it reliantly, casting all care;
Do it with reverence, tracing His hand
Who placed it before thee with earnest command.
Stayed on Omnipotence, safe 'neath His wing.
Leave all results, do the next thing.
Looking for Jesus, ever serener,
Working or suffering, be thy demeanor!
In the shade of His presence, the rest of His calm,
The light of His countenance live out they psalm;
Strong in His faithfulness, praise Him and sing.
Then, as He beckons thee, do the next thing."
On Sunday Samantha had a birthday party she was invited to at the movie theater, so we went out to lunch at a brunch restaurant after church while we were waiting for the time we should drop her off. The restaurant was pretty busy and we had to wait awhile to be seated and then for our food, but once the food arrived, they just devoured it all so quickly. They must have been hungry!
After dropping Samantha off at the movie, we took the boys back home and had both boys nap. They were both acting really tired and needed some extra rest.
Once Samantha got back home that afternoon, we did something very important to Samantha: we had a funeral for Essie (short for Esther), her fish that died a few weeks ago. They had been planning this funeral for quite some time, and Aedan even had certain things he was supposed to say at the funeral. I was told my job was to pretend to cry at the end. It was silly and sweet, and she was glad to finally have a funeral for her poor little fish.
The other thing I spent most of my free time working on over the weekend was making a photo book of all the pictures of our time with our two kids that stayed with us for about two and a half months. It took a lot of time for me to go through the pictures and arrange them in a book form, adding captions and descriptions for each picture. However, it was something I wanted to do as a special way to remember the kids that come into our home. Plus, once I was finally done making the book, I ordered two copies and sent one to their family and one to us so that we would have those memories to keep forever.
Monday, February 17th Samantha and Aedan had the day off of school, so I decided to take all the kids to the Lewisburg Children's Museum for the day. We hadn't visited that museum yet, and it was a little less than an hour and a half away, so an hour closer than going down to the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia. The day didn't start too great with Aedan spilling his whole cup of milk all over the table, chair, and floor, and us not leaving the house as early as I would have liked, but we had a blast once we arrived at the museum. We met Mary Beth and her kids there, since they live close. We hadn't seen her since our time in Bloomington, so it was fun to reconnect again and see each other's kids. They had to leave earlier to get one of her boys down for a nap, and then we enjoyed the afternoon playing and discovering all there was to do at the museum. They had a lot of different rooms to play like a Space and Science area, a Play Cafe, a Teddy Bear Clinic, a Grocery Store, a Virtual Valley, a Creation Station, and so much more. Here are some pictures of the kids playing at the museum that day.
They spent a lot of time playing in this tree house, bringing food inside it and running back and forth from the cafe to stock the shelves of the tree house. Owen was the lookout and had to sit and protect anyone (including me) from taking their food.
These pictures are taken inside a play area where they could pretend they were food going through a digestive system, even going down a slide and out a hole at the bottom of the intestines. Owen particularly enjoyed this area.
Another favorite place was this area where they could dress up in different outfits and pretend to act out a play. All the kids got involved in this, and Samantha even stood on stage and belted out one of her songs from the play she is doing. It was fun to just sit and watch them be creative and perform together.
We had a great day out together, and I'm so glad we went to check out a new museum. It's nice to know that there is one closer to our house that would be fun for the kids to play at as well. I also had the idea that it would be fun to just take Owen there on his own some day when Samantha and Aedan are at school, or to invite a friend and their kids and all ride there together so that way Owen has someone else to interact with as well.
That evening we invited my friend, Kaili, and her family over for dinner. They arrived a little after 4:30, and even though our kids were tired from a busy day, they did a pretty good job interacting with their girls. We had the powerhouse beef roast and tomatoes in the crock pot, and all the kids wanted to sit up and eat at the bar together. The kids ate pretty well, and Ben made a carrot cake for dessert. After dinner, the adults were able to sit around in and talk for awhile, sharing our stories of how we came to our faith in Jesus and how we got to be where we are today. It was fun to learn more about this family and to get to know some more people by inviting them into our home for dinner. We enjoy that we have started doing this.
Aedan lost another tooth sometime during the night on Monday to Tuesday, so here he is with another missing tooth on the bottom right side. I love this little boy's silly faces and grins, and now his smile is going to start looking a lot different with these grown-up teeth coming in!
On Tuesday morning Owen and I followed our normal routine of going to the play gym in the morning, followed by coming home for lunch and nap time. Izzy will always go up to Owen's room with us when I am changing his diaper and getting him ready to take a nap. She will just jump right up on the glider and hang out for awhile until we need to sit down. I thought she was so cute sitting there that I took a picture of her before telling her to get down.
Here is some work the kids brought home from school on Tuesday. Samantha had to do some different activities to practice her spelling words, so on this first page she is writing all her words with her left hand instead of her right hand, which she found to be much more challenging than she expected. After that page there are a few more spelling word practice pages as well.
The next thing on the agenda that night was Skate Night with the kids' school. Ben took Samantha to the last one that was held in the fall, but Aedan didn't go to that one because he was too tired and ended up staying home with me. This time, however, he was really excited to be able to go with Samantha and try something new. This was going to be Aedan's first time on roller skates and Samantha's second time. I remember roller skating a lot as a kid, so I was excited to see how they liked roller skating. It was a little bit of work getting both of their skates on, but they were excited to get out in the rink to skate, and they pretty much stayed together the whole time. It was cute to see how much Samantha was watching out for Aedan, staying with him and helping him. It took Aedan a little bit of practice to learn how to balance on his skates, but after a little bit of going back and forth and using the walls for help, he got the hang of it pretty quickly. He didn't seem to have much trouble with throwing his body around and falling down. After skating for about an hour, we stopped for a snack from the snack bar, Samantha got a chocolate bar and Sprite and Aedan got sour straws and Gatorade. After eating their snack, they got right back out to skating, going strong until the last song of the night when they had to return their skates and it was time to go home.
These next few pictures and video are my favorite because they are skating around the rink together, holding hands. It was so sweet to watch them, and I wanted to freeze this moment in time so I could revisit it later in life. I pray that they can always stay this close and have this strong of a bond. It just melts my heart. I love these wonderful kids of mine, and it was a pleasure to share in this experience with them.
Even though the kids were out past 8:00, and it was going to be a busy week with things happening most evenings, it was worth it to take them to this school event. Ben had a good evening home with Owen, even though he ended up pooping while take a bath in the bathtub again. This is is second time doing this, and it's kind of strange because he had never done it before, nor had Samantha or Aedan ever pooped while taking a bath. Someone always has to make life interesting!
Ben took this pictures of Samantha's AWANA book because it's cool to record how she answered some of these questions about when she accepted Jesus as her Savior, how she heard about Jesus, what she did to trust Jesus as her Savior, and how her life has changed since accepting Jesus. I'm so proud of how much she has been learning and growing through both church and AWANA. These weekly sections encourage her to be in God's Word and think about how to apply it to her life.
After a busy night on Tuesday, Wednesday morning was difficult for everyone, Aedan in particular. When it was time for him to get his snack and get ready for school, he just didn't want to, and he got really upset about it. I took this little video of his pathetic cry because sometimes he is just so emotional, and he certainly does not hide the way he feels. This cry is not very real, but his emotions are very real when he has to stop playing and get ready for school.
Wednesday was a pretty normal day for Owen and me. We went to story time at the library again, and he was little bit more fidgety and not wanting to listen to the stories that day. He definitely was not as engaged as he was the previous week, and he wasn't even interested in playing much afterwards. I think he was just tired as well, so it was good to get back home earlier so we could have an earlier lunch and get him down for an earlier nap. Things were definitely different and easier having just Owen to take care of.
On Thursday I noticed an interesting post from a year ago with a picture of Ben in bed hugging Samantha and Aedan. He was gone for a few days for a campus interview at Wilkes University for a potential tenure track position. We had no idea what was in store for us in the months that followed with getting the job offer and moving to Pennsylvania, but we feel very glad that God led our family here to northeastern Pennsylvania. It was very clear that this is where we should be through how he guided us here, and it's amazing how much can change in just one year.
Here's a funny interaction between Owen and me and lunchtime on Thursday, after being at Bible study that morning. He always gets more energy when eating lunch and afterwards, and he was getting pretty silly during this lunchtime. He likes to sing songs from Frozen like, "Do you Wanna' Build a Snowman?" and pretending to be a snow monster and scare us.
Recently, Owen requested to have a pillow to sleep with so he could be just like Samantha and Aedan. Well, I gave him one on Thursday afternoon, and after he fell asleep in my arms and lap, I laid him in bed on his new pillow. He seemed pretty comfortable on it, so I figured it was worth a try. He is growing to be more of a big boy every day.
The other interesting thing that happened on Thursday was that we got another placement call just after 3:00 that afternoon, basically for the weekend until they could find a longer term placement. It was for a little girl who was being taken out of her current foster home that she had been at for about a year, but she had quite a lot of issues that we would have to work with. Ben called and talked to the caseworker with a few more questions, but then she ended up calling back a few minutes later saying they did not need us anymore.
We have some pretty interesting and silly conversations at mealtime around our house, usually involving crazy, loud noises, and a mention of poop, of course. Here's just a little glimpse of that from breakfast on Friday morning.
We have some pretty interesting and silly conversations at mealtime around our house, usually involving crazy, loud noises, and a mention of poop, of course. Here's just a little glimpse of that from breakfast on Friday morning.
Once the kids were off to school, Owen and I did our typical Friday things of laundry, changing sheets and towels, and just general pick up around the house. Owen played a little on his own and a little with Izzy, but mostly he just follows me around and plays where I am all morning long. It's sweet though because it shows that he just wants to be with me, and I know he won't always feel that way, so for right now I will enjoy his company as I do my work around the house.
We were eating something messy at lunch that day, so I took Owen's shirt off. Towards the end of lunch he just sat there and announced, "I'm Owen and I'm naked!" It was so out of blue that it made me laugh really hard, so then he kept repeating it over and over again, of course. He loves to make people laugh. We often say that he will probably be a class clown when he grows up with how much he likes to say funny things and make people laugh. I tried to get him to say it on video, and I did get him to say it once, but then he was just too interested in sticking his hand in his mouth and watching himself on the video.
On Friday night Samantha had a game night for her T&T AWANA group, so we decided to drop her off at the church and then take the boys out for pizza. We went to a place called Pizza Perfect that is known for its fried and baked pizza. They have a train that rides around the perimeter of the restaurant, so we thought the boys (especially Owen) would really like that. Aedan brought the book "Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Seuss to read in the car and even brought it in the restaurant to finish reading. He has gotten so good at remembering and sounding out words. I was so proud of how well he was reading that, and I recorded him reading the last two pages of the book without him noticing. I loved hearing him read this book, and I know he is really excited to read actual books with stories that interest him. You can see the pleased look on his face when he finished the book.
That night after getting home from pizza and playing with the boys for a little while, I was working on getting Owen ready for bed. You can tell by his video that he was just a little bit wired and not quite ready to get pajamas on and go to bed. He is such a silly, crazy little boy, and he puts a smile on my face every day.
Here is some work the kids brought home from school on Friday. Aedan brought some art work home that was hanging in the halls of the school: a butterfly, snowman, and mitten. He did such a nice job on them!
Aedan also brought home some work on beginning blends, number words, the letter Gg, modeling and counting to 20, and counting by 10s.
This is a paper done by Owen at AWANA, and since he knows I hang up Samantha's and Aedan's work, he was excited for me to hang up his picture as well.
Here's more work from Aedan on modeling and counting and writing to 20, the sound of Gg, counting and writing numbers, matching color words, and a test on the letter Gg that he got 100% on.
While Samantha was a play practice on Saturday morning, I took Owen to story time at Barnes and Noble and let him look at books and play with the train set while we waited for Samantha to be done. We were out pretty late past nap time, so he was pretty tired on his way home, but Samantha did a good job of interacting with him and keeping him awake.
Since Samantha is at play practice every Saturday from 10-1, I suggested that Ben take Aedan on a date on Saturday. They had a wonderful time on their date together! Here is what Ben had to say about his time with Aedan:
"Initially, I was planning on taking Aedan to go bowling, but it was too busy and we couldn't get a lane until 2:30 in the afternoon. So, I gave him a few options of what we could do, and he picked Sky Zone. He had gone there for a birthday party in the fall and really enjoyed running around with other boys and jumping like a crazy kid."
"On the way there, he asked me if I would jump with him and I said yes. We spent most of the time playing dodge ball, jumping in a pit, and jousting against each other. We also just jumped around in their big room of trampolines. He really enjoyed being the leader and telling me what we were going to do and for how long. After about an hour and 15 minutes he started getting tired of running around, which is good because I paid for an hour and a half. So, we decided it was time to get lunch."
"I offered to take him out to any restaurant he wanted to go to. Aedan has always liked chicken wings, so I suggested Buffalo Wild Wings. He also really likes going to Moe's, which I suggested. But, Aedan was insistent that we go to Wendy's instead. He was eager to try a 4 for $4. This boy loves Wendy's. It really makes me smile because Aedan's middle name is Arthur which is my maternal grandpa's name. I always looked up to both my grandpa and grandma immensely. They were relatively simple people who loved their God and family deeply. Grandpa served in World War II, and together they opened their home to many foster kids over the years. So, we believed it was only fitting that Aedan should have his name somewhere. My grandpa LOVED Wendy's. Every chance I get I try to tell our kids about my grandparents. So, I took the opportunity to talk to him about my memories as a kid of going to Wendy's with my grandpa and getting a frosty. It was a special time with my quickly growing up 5-year old and reminiscing about my grandparents with him."
(Blog about February 16-22, 2020)
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