"Tank-full Tuesday"

Many bloggers use weekly titles like "Wordless Wednesday" (to post photos only) or "Thankful Thursday" (to talk about what they are thankful for). 

I was just struck this morning with the many different things for which I am extremely thankful.  So, in the vein of Thankful Thursday on a Tuesday, it's "Tank-full Tuesday" because I am thankful and the tank of my heart is full of gratitude.

• Jared survived his 3-week stay at SALT--where the boys were challenged physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  He learned a lot, made some good friends, and rose to the occasion for the many challenges they threw at him.  And it's so good to have him home again, bug-bitten and weary as he is.
• Lilly and Isabel are, most of the time, really a lot of fun together.  They crack each other up and when they smile at one another, my heart melts.  Even though we are working on behaviors and attitudes in many areas with each of them, I am thankful these sweet little girls get to grow up together.
• Anna is maturing and is becoming a hard worker at home and a helper at church.  She is helping the preschool teacher for this week's vacation Bible school at church and is really enjoying it.  She is also enjoying her summer league swim team which is a little bit less intense than her year-round team.  She is dropping time on all of her swims and is one of the fastest girls in her age group, which is a nice change from being middle-of-the-pack during the winter season.
• I am thankful for healthy bodies and minds, for an extended period of an infection-free Lilly, for a church family where we are making new friends and hearing solid Biblical preaching, for neighbors who are friendly and fun and helpful.
• I'm thankful for a partner in Tom--for shared love, vision, and commitment.  Even though our lives are so full and time for us to be alone or "date" is limited, I am thankful for the fact that Jared and ANna are old enough and responsible enough (and Bella is comfortable enough already) for us to head out to run quick errands or grab a quick bite together now and then.
• I'm thankful for our families and the upcoming opportunities we're going to have to spend time with each of them this summer.

Tanks for reading!

Just Some Spring Break Pics

My methodical Lilly! 

Bella loving a loaded paintbrush!

Headed to the National Zoo on the metro...

The panda cooperated and let us have a good look!

Catching up on the news on the metro.  Good Washingtonian kids.

At the indoor water playground with some friends.

Waiting for Joshua and Abby's play "12th Night" to start--Bella meets her cousins on my side for the first time!

The cute little cousins!

A few of the many cul de sac kids who decided to start up a cul de sac band practice one evening. They were awesome!

All about Anna

Turning the attention of this blog away from yours truly (as I continue "doing" daily life as it flies by, enjoying the joy in the journey along the way...), I was struck while out running yesterday with some of the awesome things about my beautiful Anna that I wanted to share with all of you.

First of all, she is the "middle child."  It is an obvious fact, a title that she acquired when we brought Lilly home some 2 1/2 years ago, but something that we don't often think about. It was brought up yesterday by her pediatric ENT doctor as he asked her about her siblings, and he commiserated with her (and I chimed in, too, as a middle child) as a fellow middle child.  It felt like the three of us were in a special "club" for those with an older and a younger sibling.  The term holds a certain connotation--for good reason.  In Anna's case, it is manifested in her being either considered "Jared's little sister" or "Lilly's big sister," and, truth be told, most of the time it is the latter. 

But Anna, on her own merits, is worth her own title.  Simply "Anna." 

Allow me to tell you some of the ways Anna has impressed me of late.

• She has managed a difficult school transition with very little fanfare.  With our most recent move, Jared has paved the way to High School, which has earned him a sense of accomplishment and a new level independence. Lilly has embarked on a new journey called kindergarten and kindergarteners naturally just steal the show.  But Anna's move here brought her from a school district where she had already completed the last year of elementary school (5th grade) to a new school district where her grade level is, once again, in elementary school (6th grade).  No excitement of graduating to a new level of education for my Anna this year.  Instead, she is top of the school, coming in on the last year of elementary school with lots of kids that have been together since kindergarten.  Not an easy transition.  Anna is quite social, but her interests are often different than other girls her age so true friendships don't always come easily for her.  She seems, however, to be doing really well and has a couple of new friends that she seems excited about. 

• She is learning to be others' focused.  This is something that it takes many of us years and years to learn.  Anna, however, made some big leaps in this area when we brought LIlly home from China, and continues to shine in this regard.  Most 6th graders don't have to worry about their kindergarten-aged siblings too much.  Anna, however, willingly continues to sit with the kindergarteners in the front of the school bus and help Lilly with her backpack almost every day, simply because she knows that Lilly needs and wants her help.  She did confide to me that sometimes she longs to sit in the back of the bus with the older kids, and I gave her the green light to do so, knowing that Lilly can and will adapt to not having her big sister by her side, but Anna continues on her own initiative to provide Lilly that extra measure of security during their rides to and from school.

• She is pressing on in her swimming, despite feeling like she doesn't quite fit in.  As I mentioned above, forming good friendships is not always easy for Anna, and this pre-teen stage makes it even more difficult, it seems.  With the swim team here, she has lamented more than once that she feels like none of the kids are interested in talking to her and they give her weird looks when she attempts to strike up conversation with them.  The one swimmer that she knows the best (they are in the same class at school and we carpool) approaches swimming and most things in general differently than Anna does, and so a close friendship is not looking likely.  Still, she does not complain when it's time to go to practice or a meet, and she truly sees the benefit in physical activity and wants to improve.
  
  
  
  
  
• She is learning to be more teachable and moldable.  This, again, is something that can take years to develop.  Anna will readily admit that it has been an area of struggle in her life.  By God's grace, however, we are seeing some progress in this area, and Anna understands the need for this trait.  She is learning to spend time quietly with God, looking to Him for her worth and her beauty.
• She is dealing with her hearing loss with grace and patience.  The issue first manifested itself to us back in February, just days before we headed to Philadelphia for Lilly's BIG surgery, just weeks before Nana got pneumonia and almost died, just a few months before Lilly's post op infection, and a few months before our big move.  All of these things caused some major delays in dealing with Anna's hearing loss.  We finally got started on having her hearing loss evaluated in Florida this summer, while LIlly was hospitalized with her infection.  The process takes time, and we are now, finally, getting close to having a hearing aid for her.  She has undergone at least 4 separate hearing tests and has been to at least 8 separate appointments so far as we're determining how best to treat it.  We have several more appointments to go, possibly some genetic testing.  Although she is eager to have her hearing aid and be able to hear, she is compensating for her unilateral hearing without much fanfare.
• She has been dealing with lengthy parental absences, showing growth in maturity.  Because of Lilly's many medical trips, Anna (and Jared) have been left with grandparents and/or friends on numerous occasions, sometimes for just a day or two, sometimes for a week or more at a time.  For Jared, who is older, this hasn't been too much of an issue.  For Anna, however, it is a difficult trial.  She doesn't like to have us away from home, she doesn't like the feeling that things are happening with her sister that she is not fully aware of or informed about.  She is learning to express her need for our communication while we're away and she is learning to be more self-reliant in a host of ways.

Anna with Nana...

Walking to the bus stop with Grammy just before
we left with Lilly for CHOP

• She grows more beautiful by the day, inside and out.  Yes, she's growing up on me.  It is hard to buy clothes for her, as she is sort of in between girls sizes and junior's sizes, but when shopping for an outfit for her to wear to her cousin, Tanya's wedding,  I realized how physically grown up looking she is getting.  And, because of her character development, her outer beauty is matched by her more important inner beauty.  She is not afraid to stand for what she believes in, and she has her own definite sense of style.  She is not afraid to stand out from the crowd, something that will serve her well as the teen years come hurtling our way.

I will leave it at that.  I am thankful I get to be Anna's mom, and am eager to see the plans God has for this strong, spunky, independent, verbal, thoughtful young woman.

And for your viewing pleasure, here are some pics of Anna (and various other folks!) taken recently--most of them at our niece Tanya's October 22 beautiful beach wedding in New Jersey.  (The rest of those photos are on facebook...what a wonderful day!)

Our family.  Anna is a little bit of a "mini-me"...or so I've been told.

Having fun with Tom on the dance floor.

Sharing her daddy for the father-daughter dance.

Taking time to dance with Lilly (though she confided to me

later that she "prefers to dance alone" which she did for most of the reception.)

Summer Vacation is Here!

It has been an eventful few weeks here, and I am weary from all the craziness.  Yesterday was an exciting day with lots of emotion as the kids wrapped up their school year, which all the neighborhood moms celebrated by ambushing our children as they came out of the school or off the bus with water guns, super soakers, and silly string.  So glad to have a quiet morning today to be still, let the kids sleep in, and just reflect.  Even I slept in till 6am and forewent the early am workout today.

Jared has now completed 7th grade.  He came home from school yesterday gloating and saying in his ever-deepening voice "Mom, I'm an 8th grader now!  Only one more year and I'l be in high school!"  Yikes he is growing up so fast.  And yet, I look at him and--notwithstanding his physical growth (he is up to my eyebrows now and growing daily; he can wear Tom's shoes)--I see so much growing he has to do emotionally, socially, and in the areas of organization, time management, and self-discipline.  So as I love him and encourage him in who God created him to be, I also am being mindful of ways to spur him on in those areas.  His language arts teacher this year has recommended him for the advanced class for next year with the caveat that "he needs to work on his organizational skills and writing in complete sentences over the summer."  So we will be doing a little bit of summer school at home.  Jared has recently taken up fencing lessons, and is pretty excited about that.  He will begin his summer conditioning for the cross-country team in a few weeks, meaning 3 early mornings of running a week.  I'm hoping for some carpool options so I am not having to get the girls out of bed early...

Anna has now completed 4th grade. She finished the year well, making the A/B honor roll all year long and achieving awards in many subject areas. She is thriving on her violin and will be picking up piano lessons starting next week. Even though a little stage fright at her violin recital this week left her at a loss for notes about midway through her piece, she remained poised and recovered well with a little queue from her teacher/accompanist. And she even calmly and articulately recited a poem she had written as an introduce to her piece before she played it. Her swim season is in full swing, and she has done 3 meets already, with another on the horizon in Tallahassee at the end of the month. 

Lilly, I'm sure, will be happy to have her siblings home with us now. She has been missing school, asking me almost every day "do I go to school today?" and saying "but I want to go to school!" when I've told her that she doesn't have school today. She has been having fun being my helper in household tasks, and she has been resilient as we have had SO many places to go and obligations in the past week or two. One day this week, I counted that she had been buckled into car seat, stroller, or bike trailer 14 separate times in one day. She and I were both ready to just stay home at the end of that day.

Tom is working diligently to finish his air war college readings and exams and papers. The poor guy really never has a chance to relax and just enjoy life. I will be so glad for him (and for the kids and me) when he is finally through with it and can simply do his job (and even take some vacation days!).

On the scoliosis front, we have successfully gotten Lilly's medical records from CHOP down to a pediatric neurosurgeon in Alabama, and are awaiting a call from his scheduler to get LIlly in for a consult and possible surgery on her spinal cord. Again, we continue to be blessed to enjoy "normal" life for now, because I know that upcoming surgeries are going to make life difficult for a time.

So, hopefully, lots of beach days, Big Kahunas Water Park days, and lazy days at home await.