Oh What a Day ... (or A (Mis)adventure of a Little Sis)

If you know anything about us, you know that we don't operate on the same clock as the rest of the world.  Usually, my earliest work "morning" is 4 pm (though I'm starting a neighborhood class next month at the ungodly hour of 11 -- we'll see how that goes).  Every once in a while, however, I get called into a recording job for a company that publishes junior high school English books.  The work is fun, the company is great, the pay is good -- the hours are insane in comparison to the rest of my life.  9:30 am to me is what 3 am would be to a person who normally starts work at 9 am.  

If Vivienne wakes up when mommy is out, daddy needs to
come be her teddy bear and doesn't get much sleep either,
So it's not always daddy's favorite kind of morning, either.

And so, last night when Stephen said he'd watch the kids so I could go into the bedroom and rest, I jumped at the chance. Well, maybe I didn't jump since I was pretty darn tired, but I definitely took him up on the offer.  

It sounded like things were going well as I wound down and the drifted off into oblivion.  I got a good half hour or so of rest when I was awoken by the most blood-curdling screams little 11-month-old Vivienne could muster.  I gave it a minute or two to see if it was something daddy could handle, but it was soon obvious that it was not so I stumbled on out to join the party.  

It turns out that Jonathan is better at opening door knobs than we have given him credit for, and where Jonathan goes, his sister doth follow.  They made there way into the bathroom where there was a baby tub full of water and ready for fun.  Jonathan even managed to divest himself of his shorts, leaving himself in only a nappy.  He couldn't manage Vivienne's romper, however, so when I reached down to pick up the screaming little miss, I found her sopping wet.  Jonathan must have been engaging in one of his favorite bath time activities, washing his little sister.  I'm sure she had quite a few cups of water poured over her.  

If he had stopped there, all would have been fine.  She loves her brother and lets him get away with quite a bit.  However, Jonathan got fancy and tried to wash her hair.  Unfortunately, the baby body wash was not what he went for.  Hey, when you're two, one pump bottle looks like the next.  From the tell-tale remnants of blueish shampoo strewn about the bathroom floor, we're pretty sure he went for daddy's Head and Shoulders shampoo, and let me tell you, that is NOT a no tears formula.  That is a many, many, many tears formula.  And a baby with stinging eyes really does not want her eyes flushed out with water or wiped with a damp cloth or any other thing the Worldwide Web says to do for a baby with daddy's shampoo in her eyes.  And, from the looks of it, it got not only into her eyes,  but also her mouth because every time she went to nurse (her usual panacea), she came up again with a mouth full of bubbles and more tears.  Jonathan, being the excellent big brother that he is, ran in and got his Baby Giraffe to give her, but that wasn't helping either.  All this time she was sitting in her nappy in mommy'ss arms screaming and screaming and scrunching her little eyes closed.  

Eventually, however, she began to nurse and daddy put on Veggie Tales.  Apparently, Veggie Tales not only works on split lips (something Jonathan is becoming quite skilled at getting), but it also helps sooth shampoo-stung eyes.  She kept popping up from nursing to watch Bob and Larry and Junior Asparagus sing.  Eventually, things calmed down and she even let mommy put on her new little outfit (bought in a nine month size so the pants wouldn't fall down around her ankles) and even had time to marvel at the long sleeves.  Finally, she drifted off to sleep.  

Oh, the blissful oblivion of sleep!

After a short nap she was back to her happy self.

This morning was the first morning in months that she woke up with crusty eyes.  They're still a little red and she really doesn't want mommy to clean them, but other than that, she's back to her normal, happy toddler little self.  And all is quite, for now, until the next (mis)adventure of this little sis.  Ay-yo, as they say here in Taiwan.

An interesting question ...

Fun at the Cultural Center

As a Westerner living in Kaohsiung, Taiwan with two adorable babies who look nothing like each other, I stand out a fair amount, especially as I spend a lot of time wheeling them around the neighborhood and the Cultural Center in their mondo double stroller.  I also get asked all kinds of questions and launch into all kinds of conversions primarily in Chinese, which is to say that half the time I have no idea what I'm talking about or being asked.  However, they tend to all be in the same vein.  Often they start with comments about how much Vivienne looks like me and then queries about Jonathan not looking like me.  They often just assume my husband is Taiwanese and Jonathan got his looks from him.  Inevitably it leads to me telling them that Jonathan is adopted and more questions usually ensue, some of which I might understand.  Adoption is not something generally done in Taiwan I suspect, and it's rather a new concept for many -- particularly those of an older generation.  Today that got a new response from one grandmotherly-type patron of the children's clothing store downstairs.  She instantly asked me several times if he knew that he was adopted.  I kept telling her, "He's two.  He just knows I'm his mommy." In fact, at this stage, I don't even feel like an adoptive mom most of the time.  I know that questions and struggles will come, but they are far away on the distant horizon.  For now, I'm just the mom of two toddlers with less-than-orthodox bedtimes.

As much as I am looking forward to looking forward to getting to know my kids as little people and as fast as those days are approaching, I know that I am in an easy stage of their lives right now.  OK, so maybe not an easy stage, but a simple one at least.  Things are pretty predictable.  I know that without Baby Giraffe for my boy and nursing for my girl, there's almost no chance of bedtime sticking.  I know that if that's not enough, Pokoyo on the iPad works wonders much of the time.  I know that Jonathan will spit out at least one mouthful of food a day.  I know that Vivienne will only let me be out of her sight for so long.  I know that when Jonathan points to his mouth, he's probably hungry.  I know not to let my son hold his own cup of grape juice unless we want to go for the purple spattered look.  I know that a walk outside brings complete joy (or sleep) to my little ones.  And I know that they are ours and they are beautiful and that God has brought us the perfect children for this family in His own special way.

He's such a wonderful older brother --
most of the time, at least.

Jonathan knows some things, too.  He knows that if you put shoes on, you're going out.  He know that the high chair means food.  He knows the lullaby CD should be playing in his room -- even if you're leaving it and shutting the door.  He knows that if anyone is taking a shower, he should be in there playing in the water, too.  He knows which pacifiers are his and which are Vivienne's.  He knows that elephants roar and toothbrushes are fun.  He knows that the button on top of daddy's computer turns it on.  He knows grandpa and grandma live in the iPad, though they occasionally visit the laptop.  He knows that the DVD's go in the player and that you stomp on empty containers to squish them.  He knows that he should hand the empty bottle out of the crib if he gets a new one.  He knows how to play peek-a-boo and get-in-daddy's-chair-before-daddy-does and how to wave and do "Superbaby!"  He knows a lot of things in Chinese and English when he hears them and how to say "hi," "bye," and "up."  And he knows the people in his life.  Vivienne is awesome.  Daddy is fun.  Nanny is great and feeds him well.  He knows Mike and Lucas and Breanna and Jeanay and Deborah and Fawkes and Andrew and K. Kay and Katie and the big boys at church, Adam and Eden.  And he knows -- and I'm not sure when or how he figured it out, but he really knows -- that I am his mommy.  And at two, that is all he needs to know.  Though it would be nice if he added a bit more vocabulary to this extensive list of his worldly wisdom -- mamma or dadda, for instance, would be nice.

A rare picture of Jonathan and his mommy.

A Tale of Two Babies, chapter one, "Beginnings"

A Tale of Two Babies is a blog in retrospect (since I wasn't blogging at the time) about how our first two children entered our lives.  I'm going to try to go back from time to time and add to it, though the two actual babies usually prevent me from blogging about much that requires actual thought! 

January 2011 started with a journal entry wondering if finally I was pregnant (after several years of trying to get pregnant that involved two miscarriages, a bad infection, a week in the hospital, and lots of disappointments).  I had had a positive test saying that there was little lasting damage from the infection and had been powerfully prayed for at a conference we were attending and it seemed that really, now was the time.  After having been in church leadership for a long time, things had changed around and I wasn't any longer, which also seemed like God was freeing me up to focus elsewhere.  It seemed as if the time were right.  And there I was, on the first day of 2011, between the two possibilities, pregnant or not.  (A state which often led me to ponder on the relationship of the common expression "You can't be a little pregnant" and Schrodinger's cat, but that's for another time.)

Sitting in a church conference, two ideas kept coming up again and again.  The first was the Greek word pistis which is the word for belief, but it also carries the idea of trust.  I love that the two go hand-in-hand in Greek.  To believe in God is to trust him.  I wrote, "The picture that came to mind for that was Jill Pole riding on Aslan's breath in [C.S. Lewis's] The Silver Chair -- neither on the cliff above nor the land below but solely suspended between on the breath of Aslan.  That's how I felt.  Safely suspended between two possibilities, held by God."

The other idea was that of Peace.  From the moment in our first pregnancy that I climbed on the ultrasound table knowing that I had probably miscarried the baby, the "peace that passes understanding" was a major theme in my heart.

Other ideas that had been floating around really since the first miscarriage right before Easter were those of resurrection, life, and hope.  Having encountered death, it meant so much more to me that God was a God of life and that the resurrection hope was real.  I even dusted off enough of my Greek from seminary to write John 11:25-26 in the front of my journal ("I am the resurrection and the life ...").  I would read it and cling to the Greek words for resurrection and life, which are the basis of the girl's names Zoe and Anastasia.  That's what I wanted to name my first daughter, Zoe Anastasia, as a testimony to the God who could bring both physical and spiritual life into existence.  (This did not end up being the name of our first daughter since my husband had a say, but we kept the meaning of life in Vivienne's name.  Her father liked it better in Latin/French than in Greek.)

And so I wrote this journal entry with all the ideas and thoughts God had been giving me at the conference.  Everything was coming together.  Surely now was the time ...  And then, it turned out it was not yet to be.  I contemplated tearing out those first pages, something I had never done before (but this was a spiral bound journal, so you would even be able to tell).  I must have gotten God's message wrong.  But I decided that my act of faith would be to leave those pages in and see where God would take us.

And so, I wrote again, on January 2:
"And that which was hoped for is not yet to be.  It seems that in your sophia [wisdom] hope is to be deferred once again, and, oh, my heart is truly sick.  But it is Yours.  I am Yours.  May it be to me as You have said.  I am but Your handmaiden.  My testament to Your faithfulness, Your love, Your goodness, and Your hope still stands.  But I don't understand it.  I am no saint.  I seek no stigmata.  I have no other choice but to bear this cross You have given me.  Your grace will be sufficient."

And on January 3:
"Disappointment -- yes.  Despair -- no.

"I stand under the authority of the Father, the blood of the Son, the strength of the Spirit.  I place myself, Stephen, and any family You may give us in Your almighty and loving hands.  I claim the power of Your Word in our lives and in our bodies.

"O God, You are my God and nothing can hinder me.  You are good.  You are holy.  You are everything."

Little did I know, even as I went through all this and wrote all these words, my two month old son was living just a few blocks away from where I taught English three times a week and that two months later, he would be coming home with us.  But this post is too long already, so that is for another night -- if Vivienne Irene lets me put her down long enough to write it, that is.