Washi Tape.

I have had the best time using Washi Tape or Crafting Tape. Here's a few of the crafts I've made. My issues with being crafty is that my brain is very crafty, but my hands are not. I can never make the ideas in my head come to life. I usually commission that job over to The Abstract Bedouin. With the tape, however, I can make my dreams come to life. It's tape. It's not to hard to mess up and if I do mess up I can just take the tape off. I've gone from covering a few wood letters, to bow holders, and I'm at furniture right now. I am enjoying being able to give them as gifts and decorate Carlee's room as well. (since I have a slight bow addiction)

Testing. What It Doesn't Show.

We are testing this week. I despise testing with most of my energy. I understand I need to figure out where my kids are in the scheme of things. I just dislike that the powers that be, judge them from 100 some odd questions. By filling in those little bubbles, that will tell them how well they did this year.

That sterile sheet doesn't show much. It doesn't show the compassion they learned for special needs children. It doesn't show the overwhelming joy when their brother and sister were adopted. It doesn't show the many lessons they learned at Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. It doesn't show that they finally passed their swimming test or that they figured out how to fix our doorknob on their own. It doesn't show the skills the picked up redoing their sister's room. It doesn't show how they learned to measure carpet or trim a wall for paint. It doesn't show the measurements we used to rearrange their rooms. It certainly doesn't show the character lessons they learn or how they became closer to God. It doesn't show how reading their Bible has improved their reading out loud skills (something I still struggle with). It doesn't show their organizational skills. It doesn't show the amount of work and effort they put into making their tree house. It doesn't show the night he couldn't sleep because he was so excited about the new Wimpy Kid book being released the next day. It doesn't show the pile of biographies we read. It doesn't show the science experiments we made. It doesn't show their domestic skills they've learned. It doesn't show how they've learned to budget their money. It doesn't show the dinners they've made, the clothes they've washed, or the way they learned to pack a suitcase correctly.

So, Mr. Test, you can show how well the can add, subtract, multiply, and divide. You can show if they know where the quotation marks should go. You can eve show if they can do fractions, but you are pretty much pointless in showing me what they've learned this year.

Personally, I think testing is a waste of time and money, for most students. I know some kids test really well. I understand they need test taking skills for later in life. I know there are some merits to testing, but I think the cons far out way the pros. We'll take the test and giggle at some of the questions and in two weeks, we'll start our new school year. We'll be learning way more than can be scored by a scan tron machine.

 In closing, I'm adding a video from a Ted X event. I found it very enlightening. The speaker is Seth Godin. It's 17 minutes, but it's worth it. (Thanks Brandy for sharing it with me)

A Brand New Day.

I had a lady ask me "if you knew, would you do it again?" I was kind of shocked. I haven't been asked this before. It got me thinking. If I had known we would have been dealing with all these medical issues, these delays, these dashed hopes. Would I do it again? The answer is a resounding YES! Yes, I would. Honestly, I think it would have been easier to know all this in the beginning. I could have been pushing harder for medical intervention. I would have known what I walking into. Instead, I'm a stumbling bumbling mess of a mama. I am coming to terms with the fact the our lives are forever altered. From the moment we said 'yes', a whole new world, a whole new path, spread out in front of us. We are in the cliched "Holland" when we expected to land in Italy. (If I just confused you, read this poem. )

So here we are, four boys waiting to zoom around Italy, and a daughter chilling in Holland. I set out to have three children. A boy, a girl, and a boy. I made plans and God laughed. I had three beautifully healthy boys. We started the foster care journey. We had our sweet Baby J. A boy. Then our darling Little Miss. A girl. Then our Matthew. He came, he left, he came back, he stayed forever! A boy. All six children perfectly healthy. Then the phone rang for our sweet princess. Our forever daughter. And our lives changed forever.

We never charted this course. We didn't know what awaited us. We originally said no to special needs children. My thought process was that I didn't know how to care for them. I had no experience in this field. I didn't want to upset the balance and schedule of our family.

Then the phone rang. I was told she was twelve months old. When we met her, it was apparent she was no a year old. She was twenty months old, she was delayed to a twelve month old level. It became quickly obviously, that she was further delayed that. Then the medical needs hit the fan. Study after study, appointment after appointment, and therapy after therapy. Question after question was asked and went without answers for months and months.

When the answers finally started coming in, there were no solutions. Only brick walls met head first. Until finally we were on our knees. Begging for help. Help came in the form of adoption papers and an insurance card. It's amazing how quickly those two things got things moving right along. Within two weeks of her adoption we had an appointment with a surgeon. She will finally be getting her at surgery in nine days. This surgery will help her food stay in her body and off my clothes. She may put on weight. Her nutrition will stay in her body. We are holding so much hope in this surgery. The goal is that once her body isn't making itself throw up all the time, her brain will be able to focus on other things. It needs to rewire or compensate for the damage.

Yankee Baby Designs

So my dreams of taking my three year old daughter for her first pedicure on her birthday have been replaced with images of her peacefully rocking in her new swing, nutrition pouring directly into her body. Her little intestines absorbing and using all the goodness. And I'm okay with that. Granted, she wasn't born to me. But there's no reason why I had healthy children and others don't. So, I have my girl, my special tiny princess. And I would answer that phone and say yes, all over again. I would go through the frustration, the tears and the unknowns again. Her path is still unclear. I can imagine my boys futures. I can ask them what they want to be when they grow up. I can't ask Carlee. Her future is full of dream and goals, just the same as the boys, but her path is hazy. For now, I'll just drift through the fields of tulips in Holland, holding my girls hand. And we'll wave to the boys running paths around us. We'll all have a picnic under a tree, as a family.