A Summer of Small Moments

“Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; 

to me those have always been the two most 

beautiful words in the English language.” 

~Henry James

A common annual refrain is that summer flew by and we can't believe school is upon us and where did the time go? But not this year. We lived summer this year. We lived it in slow, ordinary moments. As Sherlock Holmes says, "There is nothing so important as trifles." We had a very trifling summer, in the best possible way. 

Maybe it was that after arriving home from China at the end of June, we did not do any traveling, aside from a weekend trip to the beach. 

Or maybe it was because we stuck fairly close to home, while settling Graham into our family and our routines. 

Or maybe it was because it was the hottest summer on record and we found ourselves longing for a gentle autumn shower to quench our parched pastures. 

Or maybe it was because we had a record-breaking zero minutes of screen time for seven straight weeks, which helped us savor those fleeting summer moments a little more deeply.

Whatever the reason, come September, we were ready for routine and cooler days and the end of summer, and school. And we did not grieve because we lived summer, and who could begrudge September her rightful place in time? 

September...

"This strangely still pause between summer and autumn, 

greenery and gold, and the heat and rising wind 

that is once again readying itself to 

rush it all away in a climactic symphony 

of color and scent is - in my opinion, 

one of the best parts about living on earth."

~ Victoria Erickson

China in Two Blog Posts... Part II

When I left off in my first post we had just received Graham, who was so solemn and reserved it broke my heart. Sometime the next day Britton coaxed the first smile from him. He absolutely loves Britton and having him on the trip with us certainly helped ease Graham's transition. 

Guangzhou

Graham's first flight

The American Consulate in China is in Guangzhou in South Eastern China, just across the water from Hong Kong. All American families must stay there a week to complete Visa paperwork and a medical exam. As I mentioned in my last post, we had two fewer days in Graham's province than usual and two extra days in Guangzhou. This meant we were leaving on a plane with Graham less than 48 hours after we met him. Thankfully, he did great on the flight, mostly because he was still so tentative, reserved, and unsure of us that he sat still, flipped through a book and ate snacks. He had certainly "found his voice" by the time we travelled home. 

Guangzhou is a pleasant, heavily western influenced, tropical city, and we had a lot of time in between our fixed appointments to explore. The heat and humidity were stifling (95 degrees with 90% humidity) but we tried to be troopers. Graham continued to warm up to us and we saw glimpses of his playful personality. Here is a sampling of how we passed our eight days:

Attending Graham's medical exam

Visiting the most amazing zoo we've
 ever been to

Introducing Graham to McDonald's (which we
never eat at home, but I must admit,
tasted pretty good half a world away).

Bonding with Graham

Swimming

Strolling around

Working hard for smiles

Visiting the best Starbucks in the world
(a renovated British Colonial Building on Shamian Island)

Doing "real life" stuff (We needed a stroller and other necessities.) 

Taking a river cruise with the 20 other Holt families

The time passed quickly and enjoyably, though we were definitely ready to head home at the appointed time! 

Inspiration

Our Holt adoption group 

Aside from meeting our son, the highlight of the trip for me was watching the stories unfold around us. I kept thinking of Psalm 68:6: God sets the lonely in families. In our group alone, I saw twenty orphans become sons and daughters. I'm tearing up just writing that. I witnessed families welcome long awaited first children, long-awaited second children, long-awaited first daughters, and a few families like ours that were welcoming a younger sibling with many older siblings. Many of these children have significant medical needs. One child will likely need a heart transplant. One child is missing both his hands and feet. One child is deaf and his new family has spent the past several months learning sign language. He had never had a way to communicate and after meeting his new family he eagerly pointed to every object in sight wanting to learn the sign for what he was seeing. Several little girls had cleft lip and palate which brought all kinds of emotions, reminding me of Rosie. The reality is that these children have little hope and bleak futures in China. But each of these adoptive families saw that these beautiful children have worth and wanted to give them a home where they could grow and thrive and be loved. God bless you all.   

Home Sweet Home

Three weeks home and we're doing amazingly well. Watching Graham get to know his siblings, begin to understand that we are his people, and become comfortable in his new surroundings has been heart warming. He was terrified of our dogs and chickens (hysterical crying anytime they were in sight) but within three days began petting them. He is seeking out interaction with me and fussing sometimes when I leave the room. (Yay for attachment!) He has many English words already and understands almost all that we say to him. We see more smiles from him every day, though I do think he has a cautious and reserved nature. God has answered every single prayer and worry and fear with His faithfulness. The biggest blessing this time around has been perspective. I understand the journey better, and it is a journey. When I reflect on how far Rosie had come in two years, how far I have come in two years, I understand that this is only the very beginning opening paragraph of Graham's story. And we all still have so much growing and changing and learning to do. But thankfully there is Joy in the Journey. 

How did I get to be these amazing kids' Mom?

Brother time

The Williams 5

China in Two Blog Posts...Part I

We have been home as a family of seven for two weeks. I didn't blog while in China because I wanted to have time to reflect and collect my thoughts before sharing. It can be difficult to have perspective in the middle of an experience. I also find it tricky to blog about adoption in a way that shares the excitement of the miracle but preserves the privacy and dignity of my adopted children and of our family. Many details are theirs alone to share (or not) as they choose in the future. Also, please know that if I don't share hard things, it doesn't mean they aren't there. "Snapshots of Life" is in my blog title. Who takes snapshots of their child screaming bloody murder on a plane for an hour? (I was too busy crying and have subsequently tried to erase that hour from my mind.) If I am speaking to you personally, I am happy to share the hard stuff, but I don't use this forum for too much of that. This is the GOOD stuff! I really tried to keep it to one blog post, but for goodness sake, I used two posts for adding goats to our farm, so I figure Graham deserves at least that. And there is just too much GOOD stuff! So bear with me, Friends.

Beijing

The part of the wall across the road was 
very crowded so we came over here and 
had the wall to ourselves. 

Caleb and I probably would not have done sight-seeing in Beijing this time if we had not had Britton with us. But it was so much fun having him there! Last time it was winter and there was not a stick of green anywhere. We found the city much more appealing this time. We were also blessed with incredibly good weather (mid 70s, whereas it had been in the mid 90s for weeks) and incredibly rare air quality. No one was wearing masks, which is nearly unheard of. Thank you, Lord!

Highlights of our two days:  
*The Great Wall
*Jade factory
*Pedicab ride through a historic Hutong lane
*Kung Fu show
*Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City
*Silk factory
*Amazing lunch at a local restaurant
*Traditional Peking Duck dinner 
*Night Market 

Pedicab ride through a Hutong lane

Tiananmen Square

All sorts of creepy-crawlies at the Night Market
available for consumption. We selected scorpions.

Below is a video of Britton eating his scorpion. You will also witness me dropping mine because it appeared to move. I contend it did. For the record, we bought another skewer and I did eat one, as did Caleb. 

Nanjing

Can you tell I want to throw up
from nerves?

Nanjing is a beautiful former national capital city on the Yangtze River, and now the capital of Jiangsu province where Graham is from. Unfortunately, due to a Chinese holiday, we had two less days there than usual and two more days in Guangzhou at the end of the trip, so we had almost no time for sightseeing. June 15, 2015, is the day we met Graham, but not until 2 pm. I was feeling very nervous. We distracted ourselves by crossing the street to the Confucius Temple, which is one of a handful in China devoted to his memory. It was a maze of well-kept old buildings turned into shops and a very pleasant place to stroll around. Britton had some souvenir money absolutely burning a hole in his pocket and thankfully, he was able to make a purchase: a Chinese instrument called a Hulusi. After three years of tin whistle at Classical Conversations, Britton was able to seamlessly transition to the Hulusi. (I can hardly type this with a straight face. The Hulusi is like a tin whistle + nails on a chalk board. And we shared a hotel room for two weeks.)  

Britton haggled like a pro with this shop keeper. 

Brit's selfie with Confucius

Forever Family Day

This picture pretty much sums up how 
Graham felt about us at first.

Five families with our agency, Holt, and three Dutch families with another agency, all met their children at the same time and location. Graham was the last to arrive. He was led in by the orphanage director and his favorite caregiver was waiting in the wings. He let me pick him up but was very tentative and serious. Eventually his caregiver came over and put out her hands to him and he gladly went to her. I was wishing she had not done that because I could see it was going to be hard for him to come back to me. But as I saw her nuzzle him and kiss him and wipe away her own tears, I realized that my prayers had been answered. He had been loved and I was so, so grateful. I could never begrudge her a final goodbye. Thank you Yuan Nai Nai (Grandma Yuan) for loving my boy. He did cry when he returned to me, but it was a stoic, controlled cry. He stopped and started three times in the 90 minutes we were there. And then he's never cried (apart from fussing at bed time and the aforementioned incident on the plane where he was completely exhausted) again. 

My sad, terrified boy. It was heartbreaking,
but he bore it so well.

Snacks were key to helping him calm down.

The first night we got him in jammies, ordered room service (he loved pizza and french fries!), watched some TV, and he slept 12 hours straight, holding a Matchbox car in each hand. Sweet, emotionally exhausted boy.  

The next day we returned to sign papers and make the adoption official. The orphanage director gave us a gift, a beautiful plate with the name of Graham's city on it. She also gave us her contact information and asked us to send updates on him. She said she would like to send us all of the pictures she has of Graham. She proceeded to scroll through her phone and showed us many pictures of him with his friends. I could see how deeply she cares for the children, and as I've gotten to know Graham more and witness how emotionally healthy he is, I am certain that he was in a very loving place. Through an interpreter, I feebly attempted to thank her for taking care of our son until we could get to him. I could scarcely get the words out for the lump in my throat. She said that it was her job to take care of him. I could see though that it was more than a job to her, and I can't thank God enough for answering this Mother's prayers. 

Part II: Guangzhou, our amazing adoption group, and HOME SWEET HOME!

Fullness

Be still and know that I am God. 

Psalm 46:10

Britton and Elisabeth enjoying the view and the stillness
and the breeze of a Spring afternoon from the barn roof.

Britton transporting my garden plants from car to garden

Holding Pattern
Spring is usually such a time of possibility - What new flowers do I want to try? What new animals do we want to raise? What new vegetables do I want to grow? But this year we have just been intent on daily survival amidst chaos and keeping all current animals alive. The above verse has been a good one for me. We did get fruit trees pruned and I did get my garden planted, though slightly smaller than last year. The repeat plantings from last year are tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, kale, spinach, peas, green beans, watermelon, cantaloup, cucumbers, zucchini, yellow squash, butternut squash and pumpkins. The only new ventures are corn and onions. I am also trying carrot seeds again, which failed miserably last year. I've seen those pesky robins rooting around in my seed area, so I'm thinking that may have been what went wrong. Our raspberries are suffering from an unknown malady and our strawberry patch is about 50% smaller than last year. But the marionberries look to inundate us once again, and I still have a bunch in my freezer. (No complaints!) My pantry is still about half-full of last year's canning, so I'm feeling relieved that I can do less this coming summer and still have plenty of home-grown things to eat throughout the coming year.   

Too Many Cows 

Goggles, a beautiful boy

In the winter pastures go dormant and grass does not grow. (Think about how you don't need to mow your grass between November and March, even though it is still green.) So all winter we fed our Mama cows, Stripe and Splotch, hay and more hay and more hay. We grossly underestimated the amount of hay we would need and bought bale after bale from those wonderful neighbors I always mention. Yet the Mamas got skinnier and skinnier. By March we called our neighbors and asked what they thought was going on. They said that nursing the Boys was probably taking its toll and that we needed to wean them. They were 9 months old after all. It was time. We came up with a plan where the Mamas would go down to our neighbors for a couple of weeks until the Boys were weaned and the Mamas dried up. Our neighbors cautioned us to pen the Boys up in the pasture farthest away from their property because they had done this process before with the previous owner and the cows went straight through the fence to reunite.

Mask and Elinor playing peak-a-boo

For two days we (and the rest of our neighbors) endured the piteous crying of four miserable cows calling back and forth to each other. It really was one of the most pathetic things I've witnessed. Finally our neighbor called and said that the plan wasn't working. The Mamas were too distressed to eat and were just pacing back and forth along the fence line. He suggested we bring the Mamas back, but keep them in a pasture next to the Boys, so they could be near each other but not nurse. This did the trick. The Mamas licked their Boys through the fence, which was a very sweet sight, but after a week or so everyone seemed over it.  

An Irish Dexter

Because of the amount of hay required to feed two nursing moms through the winter, Caleb decided that maybe we should sell the Mamas. He did some research and discovered the Irish Dexter Cow. They are considered the perfect homestead cow because they are half the size of our Herefords, standing only 36" tall, and requiring half the feed. Of course, you get half the amount of meat, but we would still have plenty for ourselves and some to sell. When we attended the Oregon Poultry Swap in February, a local farmer who raises Irish Dexters was there and we had the opportunity to pick her brain. She said when an Irish Dexter is in milk, even after nursing her calf, you can milk once a day and get 1-2 gallons, whereas a true dairy breed gives 5-9 gallons a day - way too much for the average family. We decided this is the direction we wanted to go and so formulated a new plan: We would sell the two Mamas to our neighbors (who had become very attached to them when they cow-sat last summer for two months and had offered to buy them), butcher the Boys in November or December when they are 18 months old, and buy two Irish Dexter Heifers, preferably already bred, in January. We have completed step one of that plan: Stripe and Splotch now live across the street.   

cRaZy Times
I haven't had a kitchen in 10 weeks. And not only no kitchen, but no family room, dining room, or basement either. We have been living in the Living Room. Is it possible to fit any more life into one room?

The room is hosting the piano, TV, computer, dining room table, microwave, toaster and coffee maker, training potty, (I abandoned this effort after one day. I just don't have it in me right now.), the coat tree and shoe basket (our entry foyer is off limits also), four kids, two dogs, one cat and the fish tank. On the back deck is the refrigerator and camp stove. The toaster oven is set up in the garage. I use the sink in the laundry room (when I can get to it). 

Mama cooking on the camp stove.

People keep asking me what we're eating. Here's the pretty complete rundown: cereal, pre-packaged snacks, tuna sandwiches, hot dogs, crockpot stew, quesadillas, and taco salad. You know, life just goes on and we've adjusted. The kids are doing school in extremely tight quarters with a lot of construction noise around them, but life goes on. We figure out what to eat because we're hungry, and life goes on. I am mindful that much of the world would be very thankful to have a propane stove and clean running water so that helps give me perspective. (Though I'm not denying it has been hard. I am SO ready to be done with the chaos and excited to have a new kitchen!)

For the past two days (and for the next seven) we have been completely out of the living room as well. We are only allowed in the bedrooms. Thankfully we have a random sliding door in the bedroom hallway that we've always laughed at, but allows us to actually leave our house during this time. Elisabeth said, "We have to live in our bedrooms?? This just keeps getting worse!!" It's definitely getting worse before it gets better. But after these nine days... completion. And then five days later, on to much bigger and better things....

CHINA BOUND

We leave in twelve days for China. Paperwork is complete, tickets are bought, itineraries are settled, and a little boy waits for his family. People keep asking me if I'm excited. I definitely am, but it's not a pure excitement. It is twinged with some anxiety about the unknowns and a greater understanding than we had the first time around of the woundedness that our son will bring home with him. It is impossible that two years in an orphanage won't leave their mark. BUT, we are thankful that we know the One who heals and pray He will use our love and our home as vessels of healing for Graham Jeffrey. We welcome him into our family with open arms and the excitement lies in watching Graham's story unfold and merge into ours, for our God is also the Master Storyteller. 

I can't believe I will be pinching these cheeks in just a couple of weeks! Pray for us, Friends. Pray for the logistics of our trip and for our hearts to be open and loving. Pray for Graham as his world is about to be rocked completely. And please pray for the kiddos and grandparents back home, especially Rosie who struggles with being away from us. 

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory...

Ephesians 3:20-21