searchingfortreasures's Xanga

She walked!

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 01:21:12 GMT

She finally did it. Fifteen steps across our living room. Our baby girl had a major milestone with us today! We hugged her and jumped up and down with her. It was quite the triumphant moment. Hurray! (wish I could post the video clip!!)

Thank you, Mom

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:21:24 GMT

Our baby girl is at the stage where she puts everything into her mouth. Even weird bad stuff. The worse is when I turn around and see her chewing on something, and I know I haven't given her any food. It's usually some small piece of something that fell on the floor. Gross! Yesterday, as I checked our baby's mouth again for the upteenth time with her wailing unhappily at me because I was removing the special treasure she had found, I said, "You'll thank me one day." But then I realized that she probably won't. I mean, can you imagine. "Mama Mary Ann, thank you for keeping me from eating gross stuff off the floor." That never dawns on any kid, really. Well, except today.

Today, on my birthday, I wanted to thank my mom:

Thanks, Mom, for all the times you kept me from putting bad stuff in my mouth. Thanks for all those times you saved me from touching things I shouldn't have -- because it might've hurt me. Thanks for keeping me from falling down and hitting my head on hard surfaces. Thanks for picking me up and carrying me around, even when you had your hands full of something else. Thanks for hunching down to hold my hand so that you could help me learn to walk - even though it probably hurt your back and, many times, would've been a lot faster for you to just carry me from place to place. Thanks for feeding me, spoon-feeding me, as tiresome as it might've been. Thanks for picking up the food off the ground that I threw and for wiping my mouth and my runny nose. Thanks for giving me baths every day and changing my poopy diapers (even though it stunk so bad you wanted to throw up). Thank you, Mom, for the sleep you had to lose as you watched over me in my sleep and woke up in the middle of the night to feed me. Thank you for sacrificing your own sleep time when I was napping so that you could take care of things around the house or get ready for me when I woke up again. Thank you, Mom, especially for letting me invade your body for 9 months and making you feel sick all the time and uncomfortable - and especially for the pain of child birth. Without you, there would be no 'me' here today as I am. Happy Day to you, not me, for a miracle and thirty years of selfless dedication. I love you, Mom!

A picture of Mom and me, making a snowman a few months ago.

The Stretching Pattern for Fostering

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:50:53 GMT

One of the harder things about foster parenting is not the actual parenting part but the fostering part. We are taking care of this little one and loving her as our very own. We do not limit the love we lavish on her nor the firmness needed for correction and guidance. However, at the end of the day, we need to remind ourselves that she is not ours for keeps. Weekly, she has visitations with her birth parents, and it's those visits that drive the point home. God has given her to us for a short season and after that, she will return to her parents. If ever there was an experiential lesson on "the blessedness of possessing nothing" (AW Tozer, The Pursuit of God), this would be the one. To love fully but hold loosely and put our heart in God's hands and our hope in His sovereign character -- that is the stretching pattern of foster parenting.

When "God's gifts take the place of God...the whole course of nature is upset by the monstrous substitution." -- AW Tozer, The Pursuit of God

"The blessed ones who possess the kingdom are they who have repudiated every external thing and have rooted from their hearts all sense of possessing." -- AW Tozer, The Pursuit of God

Those who know how to parent

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:08:09 GMT

"The only ones who know how to parent are the ones who do not have children."

I saw this quote a few weeks before I became a parent. Even then, I laughed because it is so true! When you're not a parent and have never had children of your own, you hear one expert or one parent's way of doing things and you think that's the one-and-only way, so you try to tell other parents who are having similar problems to use that method as the solution. But the reality is that every child is different (and even that one child changes every day or so), so there isn't just one band-aid method that will solve it all. I think most parents realize pretty quickly into things that they really know nothing at all. (We are a good case in point.) I'm so thankful that God stands in the midst of all that we do and all that we are, and He parents us!

On our knees

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:50:37 GMT

At church on Sunday, we sang a song by Hillsong United called "Hosanna". Something about the words really stirred my heart... maybe because it's a song envisioning the things of God's heart.

I see a generation
Rising up to take their place
With selfless faith
With selfless faith

I see a near revival
Stirring as we pray and seek
We're on our knees
We're on our knees

We read about revivals. We hear about life change and transformation en masse. But what would it be like to actually see it happen? I'm on my knees. I'm on my knees...

Speaking of being on my knees, (foster) parenting is one of the most difficult things Sam & I have ever done. The days that we don't pray for our little girl and for God's wisdom on how to parent end up being the most difficult and challenging days. We tried it out without praying a few times (mostly because we were too exhausted and 'forgot'), but after having those few hard, prayerless days, we are convinced that we need to come together and seek God no matter what. We are committed -- no matter how tired we are at the end of the day. If not, we will be even more tired the next day! Honestly, I have no idea how anyone can parent without God's power, wisdom and strength. With Him, though, anything is possible.

And then there were three

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 17:01:13 GMT

I got the phone call on Tues afternoon. Our agency rep told me that they had a baby girl at the P Center who needed to be placed in a foster home, would we be interested? (Inside, I thought, "really??!") I was pretty surprised by the call because we had still been waiting for them to call us to tell us first that we were officially certified foster parents. We thought we'd have to wait awhile after that phone call. But nope, this was the phone call that we had been waiting for all these months (9 months to be exact)! I called Sam and told him all the details about the little girl, and of course we both said, "Yes! Let's do it!"

Wed afternoon, we went down to the P Center and picked up our new baby girl. She cried when she saw us and almost had a major melt down when we tried to put her in the car seat. Who were we, anyway? Where were we taking her? She had been at the Center for a few weeks already after being taken from her parents. And if that wasn't enough trauma, she had been in a place where there were frequently changing caretakers and so many children in one place. It was understandable that she was frightened!

The first two days were so difficult. She cried so much, it broke my heart. She was scared, and she had needs that we just didn't quite know how to meet. The bright spot was that she became attached to me pretty quickly. This meant that I could hold her and rock her a bit to calm her down. However, everytime she saw Sam, she cried! That made it difficult, as I never had a break.

After the hard day Thursday, Sam and I came together before God and prayed earnestly for help. Would He help her bond with Sam? Would He show us how to meet her needs? And Friday we saw all our prayers answered. We were able to understand her cues better and provide what she needed, and she really started to bond with Sam! She laughed and smiled. It was a great day.

It's still hard, and we have so much more to learn. There will be many more difficult things that will come our way, but each day, we learn more about our little girl. And each day, trust gets stronger. She is an incredible joy and blessing to us!

Unfortunately, due to confidentiality reasons, I can't post a picture of her beautiful face nor her name, but here's a picture of her little footsies on mine and Sam's knees. :)

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:51:13 GMT

Tomorrow's the big day!

Four Years!

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 01:24:40 GMT

Joshua turned four years old today. There aren't adequate words to describe what a difference this little guy's life has made in the lives of so many. When I look at him, I can't help but think how amazing our God, the Creator, is! Watching Joshua grow up in these last years has been such an honor and privilege for me...

Here's Joshie at age 6 months:

And here he is with his birthday cake at four year's old! He blew out those candles all by himself!

And here he happily is on his big-boy bike, a birthday gift from his mama.

He's really such a big boy now!! Sam & I love him so much -- and can't imagine life without him! Happy birthday, Joshie. Praying that you will really come to know Jesus in this next year.

And now we just wait

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:11:56 GMT

"Just think, next week at this time!" Sam had said last week.
I completed his sentence, "We might not be looking at an empty crib anymore."

We got CPR and First Aid certified on Saturday. Things have changed since the last time I got certified. It's now 30 compressions to 2 rescue breaths. I learned that, in 4 minutes, a person goes from clinical death to biological death. If you can resuscitate a person in those first 4 minutes, then you have 98% chance of their recovery without brain damage. But after that, the chances drop to less than 50%; at 8 minutes, it's 10% and at 10 minutes, it's 1% chance of recovery without brain damage. On average, ambulance response time is 6 minutes. So if we waited for the "professionals" to come and rescue our loved one or friend, it's possible that they've already experienced significant brain damage. Scary, isn't it? All the more reason to get CPR certified!

Our instructor also gave us this scenario: if we were walking down the street and a homeless man fell over unconscious, what would we do? If his wife walked up to us and said, "Please, do you know CPR? Can you help him? He's the only friend I have in the world!" Would you give him CPR or grab your cell phone and call 911 because he stank so much and was so dirty? That was such a challenging question, because it's easy to think of doing CPR on a loved one, but on a complete stranger -- who is grimy and could have any kind of disease??? That's the question.

Yesterday, we had our 'home interview'. Our agency social worker did a walk-through to inspect our house. Are our chemicals locked away? Are our meds? Do we have a fire extinguisher? Do we have a first aid kit with a thermometer? Is our water too hot?

Then we had the interview: first, a one-on-one interview with me, then both Sam and me together, and then just Sam. The questions were very probing. She basically wanted to know our life histories, relationships with significant members of our family, any traumatic things that have happened in our past. She also wanted to know what our marriage was like, roles we have, values we have, etc. All-in-all, it was a pretty intense interview.

Afterwards, she told us that we are just waiting for one more background check clearance to come back to them, and then we'll be set. Which means...maybe in a week?? But then...Sam got the mail later in the evening and a copy of the background clearance was in the mail! With the paper in our hands, it suddenly dawned on us that everything was done. We have completed the long foster parenting licensing process! Now we just wait to be told that we are officially licensed...and then we wait some more for the phone call which will mean that we will go down to the P. Center to pick up the baby! Crazy, huh?

I feel excited. And scared. And excited. And scared. This is probably one of the most out-of-the-comfort-zone things God has led me to. I mean, missions was out-of-the-comfort-zone, but I envision that this will require more laying-of-my-life-down than that ever did. (I think especially since I have only experienced short-term missions so far and not long term nor in the jungles.) The "scared" feelings hint at the fact that I'm probably going to be pretty stretched from this experience -- to learn a lot about myself, God and Sam...and whoever else wants to get involved...

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:44:27 GMT

Our baby registry at Babies R Us. Since we're not sure exactly what age we will get (somewhere between newborn and 2-3 year old), it's been hard to narrow down what stuff we should get. Currently, we have an infant car seat and a crib, so we've been preparing for a baby under 1. When we have our home interview on Monday, they will ask us our preference, and we'll tell them 0-6 months...but we'll see what happens. We're open to whatever child God will bring our way -- no matter what age, gender or race.

Kind of exciting all the unknowns involved in this -- exciting because these things are known by a Sovereign God!