Sick-o Sidekick

My little sidekick is sick. She woke up crying on Saturday night and is still not completely better. She has had fevers off and on and a runny nose. But for the most part she doesn't feel terrible.

So we have been hanging out together. She is the last one of our children who still feels better when she is held and cuddled. I know from experience how precious it is and how quickly that changes, so I have been holding her all I can.

I remember the days of sick babies, when it seemed like there was never enough of me to go around. The younger me would never have believed that I now make up reasons to hold my sick 9 year old just a little longer. But I do.

This girl of mine enjoys it just as much as I do. You see, she remembers a time when she didn't have a Mommy to hold her when she was sick. It is as if we both recognize how precious the moments are. Perhaps we are both "wise beyond our years" thanks to the hard things we have experienced. She in the loss she experienced so early in life, I with the loss of health and strength.

It makes sick days holy days of togetherness and healing. There is nothing like rocking and being rocked to solidify relationships and satisfy the deepest needs of the rocked and rocker alike.

I don't want her to be sick. But I'm not quite ready for her to be well yet either. Though I must say, we do pretty well with cuddling even on the not-sick days.

Week At A Glance

Saturday is here with late get up times and pancakes for breakfast, with Freeland working at Chick-Fil-A and Annika at a friend's house, and Eliana and Casper doing chores around the house. This has been a busy week and I am glad to get to Saturday. Keith is working today, which, while not unusual, is the only fly in my ointment today.

I wrote this post on Tuesday morning. I thought the wildness of the day was over at 9 AM. Ha! Ha! Ha! That afternoon I waited for the girls to get home from schools and we left to go to the boys' basketball game. Only I put the wrong school in my GPS. So I drove to a school and there was nothing happening there. Panic ensued. But, other basketball mom to the rescue! I got the correct address and rushed to the correct location. By the time I arrived it was time to leave to get Casper and Annika to Myerstown so that they could go to choir practice with Keith. Casper changed on the way to Myerstown while I got lost in Reading. Only he left his pants at the gym where they had been playing. Fear not! Witmer's to the rescue! He likes his new jeans, so that is a win, right? Eliana and I went to Walmart from there to pick up a prescription and get some food for lunches. She is such a sweetheart and is always so excited to spend time with just the two of us. My heart rate slowly returned to normal as I strolled the store with her.

Wednesday started out great! Casper not only brought me my medicine at 6 AM, he also told me to stay in bed and that he would get the others up when my alarm went off at 6:30. There were easy things for lunches and the house was in decent order when everyone left at 7:25. That afternoon I picked Freeland up from school at 2:30 and went to get his physical then his written test for his driver learning permit. We waited quite a while at the doctor and squeaked into the DOT office 5 minutes before they closed. But we made it and he passed the test. We have a new driver in the house! While teaching a child to drive isn't easy I do love the chauffeur aspect of it.

Cell phone picture is all I have.

Thursday afternoon the girls and I went to the basketball game at school. It was the first time I got to see Casper play on the JV team,  which was super fun! The varsity game was incredibly intense. The score was so close and the BMCS team was playing so hard! They won by 1 point. The other team was ahead less than a minute before the end of the game. I may have been a little hoarse the next morning. I can't imagine why...

Friday the boys did not have basketball practice or a game so they came home on the bus with the girls. It was so nice! They love playing, but it does make them so much busier over basketball season.  I took Casper to get a desperately needed haircut and stopped at these helicopters on the way home to snap a few pictures. I also dropped Annika off at her friend's house where she spent the night. I am planning to pick her up in a few minutes. This is not something she has done much of at all and I have appreciated how her friend's mom has sent me pictures and videos of what the girls are doing. I can't wait to hear all about it from her when I pick her up.

Don't they look like they are having fun? 

And here we are at Saturday. Tomorrow we plan to go to church then go to a family get together with Keith's dad's extended family. Which means I need to get a hot dish and cold dish ready to take.

I am not a lover of busyness. This type of week is not my favorite. In so many ways we have rearranged our lifestyle to keep busyness at bay, but sometimes it can't be helped. Sure, we could decide that basketball makes us too busy, but it is not a long season and it is important to the boys. So I am trying to embrace the busier times in my life too. I always try to balance it with lots of rest and relaxing activities when we are at home, and am normally successful in doing that.

Wet-n-Wild

That describes my morning so far.

Our mornings are well-planned. Everyone knows what they are supposed to do. Each person has goal times for each step of getting ready. Up by 6:30, out of the shower by 6:45, in the kitchen by 7:00. You get the picture. Please note that planning and executing are two totally different things.

Casper is supposed to get up at 6:00 and bring me all of my morning medicines. This allows me to be somewhat functional by 6:30 when I wake the rest of the crew. Only sometimes he forgets to set his alarm, or he hits snooze, or he turns it off. Now I don't fault him for this in any way. I do the same thing. But when I wake to my 6:30 alarm and I am in the typical significant pain I wake with I know it isn't going to be the easiest morning.

That is what happened this morning. I woke them all, fumbled through my pills. My hands do not work very well at all in the morning. It makes getting my own medicine so delightful. It started to actually kick in about the time I needed to run them down the lane.

Proof that I do go grocery shopping. These lasted about 3 days. 

It was one of those lunch packing mornings that took a little creativity. We have food, just not little things that make it easy, like bread. Somehow I couldn't get them excited about egg salad on cornbread. Eliana was putting jello in a ziplock sandwich bag about the time we needed to leave. Don't worry. I threw some cereal in a bag and handed her milk money.

So we ran out to the vehicle, which was parked out away from the house. Now remember, my medicine was still not 100% on board, I wasn't dressed (at least not in proper clothes), and it was pouring rain. I had tossed a jacket on with my just-below-the-knee nightgown and lace shoes. I was pretty sure I had icicles hanging from the hem by the time I made it to the vehicle. Then the cold air blasted from the vehicle vents on my bare, cold legs as we drove down the lane to meet the bus.

By the time I got back to the house I felt like I should call it a day and go back to bed. Instead I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down to write because I don't actually want to forget. I want to remember the chaotic mornings. They aren't all like this, but some are and it is OK. Sometimes you have to eat egg salad and cornbread from a lunchbox for lunch.

Tomorrow they shall dine on ham and cheese sandwiches like properly cared for children. The sun will come out... tomorrow...

And Just Like That...

This boy, my baby boy, is a teenager.

He has grown quite a bit from his tiny 2 pound 11 ounce beginning.

This was taken when he was just a couple of days old. Pictures do not accurately show his tiny size

He is a sensitive, loving child. I can barely comprehend that he is 13 years old and in 8th grade. That means high school next year! I mean, how???

The day he left the NICU

He checks in with me often to see how I'm holding up when we are away from home. He knows that social situations are often exhausting for me and he is always concerned. He will come up and rub my back and say, "Are you doing OK, Mom?" I can count on it. It is so precious to me.

He likes listening to music and loves a good book. He does not love getting up in the mornings and would sleep in every morning if he could. He asked a while ago if he could paint his room black. He did, and he loves it. He has a Star Wars theme going on in there now.

He is on the Junior Varsity basketball team at school. He still finds school easy and makes good grades. He is a funny kid. He has been in the school plays this and last year. He can be shy, so it surprises me that he does really well in school plays. Maybe he is going to be like me, introverted but not shy.

Keith and I took him to breakfast yesterday on his birthday. It was convenient that there was a 2 hour delay at school, so we could have breakfast together and still get him on the bus in time.

Last night Douglas took him to the Winter Jam concert. How fun is it that it was on his birthday!?

And now we begin life with 3 teenage sons in the house. Fun times!

Six Years

Six years ago today Eliana officially became a Martin. You can see our post from that day here. I love looking back, not only because it was such a wonderful day, but because the things I experienced that day have now become familiar. I have been back to Yu Garden many times. I have eaten delicious Chinese food many times. I can eat noodle with chopsticks like a champ.

But I digress. This girl right here. That's what it is about.

She is the most loving child. Sometimes she sees another child say something unkind to their mother and she is genuinely horrified. I could never treat you like that, my precious mom! It is the sweetest.

She loves pandas. She wants to move to China and take care of panda babies when she grows up.

She never misses an opportunity to say she is thankful to have a family. Her prayers are just precious. She always thanks God for her family and that she has the best mom and dad in the whole wide world.

She calls herself my sidekick and loves to do anything with me. She will say, "Do you need your sidekick, Mom?" and jump right in to do whatever I'm doing. She curls up beside me on the bed every chance she gets. She likes to ask, "Is it snuggle time?" And it normally is when she asks.

We are so thankful that little Wu Xing Yao became Eliana Peace Martin six years ago!

A Tale of Two Boys {Part 2}

I feel like you need to understand my journey in order for me to actually communicate what I want to say, so I'm going to tell you some of my thoughts and struggles. It seems the children that we see in Taiwan are happy where they are. They are well cared for, they have people who care about them. So is it truly in their best interest to find a family in America for them? I wrestled with this, not for the younger children so much, but for the older ones it is only right to think about these things.

I watched as someone showed caregivers pictures of a child who had been adopted months before and I watched them smile at the adorable pictures, happy for the good family he was in... and it struck me, the children are cared about, no question. But they deserve to be the center of someone's universe. They need to be so important to someone that that person's world would shatter without them in it. That is what is missing.

Even older children need that. I think of my boys. Casper will be 13 tomorrow. Freeland is 16. Douglas is 18. They still need us. They need us in a different way than little ones do, but I try to imagine them navigating the teenage years and launching out on their own without the steadfast love of parents and family and I can't do it.

So, with all of that background I want to tell you about two boys.

Here they are. Taiwan has privacy laws that prohibit the sharing of a child's full face.

They are not biologically related, but they feel like brothers and they want to be adopted together. What are the chances? They are 9 and 11 years old.

Anderson is 11. He has experienced some things in life that make him fearful and he lacks self confidence. He wants a family, he wants to belong. But he feels much more confident when he is with Morgan. Morgan is 9 and is good at math. He is a quiet kid. They are in the same foster home. They belong together.

They belong together and they deserve to be loved like my boys are loved. Do you see the difficulty here? Do you see why my heart has been heavy since I got home from Taiwan? Do you feel the burden I feel?

Could you possibly be the family for these boys? Or maybe you know someone who could be the perfect fit. It isn't easy to find families open to older boys. And especially not two older boys at once. But I am going to try.

They deserve that I try.

I am praying that I am going to write a part 3 to this tale telling you their family found them. Will you help me make that a reality?

If you want information about Anderson and Morgan email Mary Chapman at mary.chapman@gladney.org.

Happy Birthday, Freeland!

I will get back to my post about the boys I met in Taiwan, but today is all about Freeland.

This morning

This boy, this quirky, funny, risk-loving son of ours turns 16 today. For him that means getting his driving permit and one step closer to independence. For me it means that 16 years have disappeared into thin air.

At about 1 week old.

I know everyone says it, but wasn't it just yesterday that our tiny son was born at 32 weeks? I'll never forget that first day, seeing him in the NICU, the tiniest baby I had ever seen at that time.

And, at times the days have seemed long. So long. But the years... how can they be this short?

age 4

This sweet boy loves his dog. He loves basketball and doing things with friends. He is outgoing and likes to be busy, but he does love a good cozy afternoon at home too.

In the evenings, after the girls go to bed, he heads straight to our bedroom where he, Casper, and I watch different series together. Or sometimes we just talk and laugh. We have had some of the best jokes and conversations in those times. I know I will always cherish those memories and hope that he will too.

He works at Chick-Fil-A on Saturdays right now. He doesn't love doing jobs around the house, but apparently he does know how to work well because we get great feedback from his managers.

Age 12 

Tomorrow we are going to go let him take his written test for his driving learners permit. He has been studying so I think he will do fine. And then, oh God watch over us. This reckless child of mine will begin to learn to drive.

There is no way I can put into words the way I love this boy. Happy birthday, son. May God be near to you in the coming year.