Home alone with mom

We have been home sense Friday afternoon and they have been fun and exhausting days! The flight was anything but fun. Although the kids were amazingly well behaved, all three of my travel companions were sick on the ride home. One threw up, another threw up and had diarrhea. John was nauseous had stomach cramps and fever. I think I slept for about 30 minutes before I realized how sick my crew was and stepped into “nurse-mom mode.” The worst was one child’s runny poo all over the seat and clothes! We now own one of those plane blankets because it was all I had to put around the no longer messy child after I cleaned them up and washed out the pants in the plane bathroom. Believe me, no fun!

After 23 hours of travel we finally arrived at DFW. Our friend Julie met us at the airport. Daniel was so excited about going to the long awaited “new mamas house.” One suitcase didn’t make it to Dallas. After a brief conversation with United they found the bag and guaranteed delivery between 6 and 10 p.m. Ok, let’s go home.

Once we arrived home, Cosette exuberantly walked Daniel through the house, explaining what was what, whose was whose, etc. It was fun to see them both so excited. Daniel loved “new mama’s house”. He was especially excited about his room. Several times he confirmed with me that these toys were indeed for him. This bed was indeed his; these clothes were actually for him, etc. The excitement in his expressions were priceless. Periodic gasps of excitement peppered his giggles and smiles. What fun!

Our good friend and neighbor, Jackie had prepared a crock pot with chicken cooking for our dinner. That was a wonderful blessing. Thanks Jackie! Another friend Julie had grocery shopped for us, filing our otherwise very empty fridge with milk, eggs and other necessities. It’s great to be loved!

Language - a systematic means of communicating by the use of sounds or conventional symbols.

Several people have asked how we are communicating. I must admit it’s frustrating and difficult, but we are communicating. It’s a hard thing to describe. He points and rambles on in Mandarin. I recognize a word, or simply figure out through gestures or context. Another method is simply to get him to show me. We do a lot of walking around pointing at things. Generally our language is a strange fusion of grunts, grins and words, both Mandarin and English.

Over the weekend our goal was to stay awake during the day, and to sleep at night. Simple right? Well, not quite as simple as you might think. In order to facilitate this goal we did our best to pack our day with activity. Shopping for groceries, playing in the back yard, unpack suitcases, do laundry, etc. We even went to church on Saturday.

We hadn’t planned on taking Daniel to church for several weeks, but we were bored, falling asleep and thought “why not”. We didn’t really plan on leaving him in class either, but when we got to Cosette’s classroom he seemed willing to go so we tried. Cosette took his hand and they went together. We picked up a pager so they could contact us immediately if Daniel needed us, then we walked around the corner and waited just to be sure he was ok. He did great! The teacher indicated that Daniel had a great time, joined in with the actions to the worship songs and was all smiles. He was definitely ready to go when we picked him up just an hour later. He grabbed my hand and wouldn’t let go.

On Monday morning Daniel (and I) had to face some harsh realities. Dad was off to work and even more difficult, Cosette was going to school. When John kissed and hugged each of us to say good bye for the day Daniel protested a little. Then later when he noticed John’s truck was gone we had a few tears. Then we loaded up the car and headed to Cosette’s school. Daniel was glued to me while we got Cosette settled into class. When we walked out of the building he was relieved UNTIL he realized Cosette wasn’t coming with us. He was devastated! He cried all the way home saying something about his “jie Jieh”. It was sweet but heart breaking. The rest of the day we had a lot of fun playing but still he would periodically ask about “jie jeih” with a distressed voice. The morning of day two Daniel came out of his room with his backpack on ready to go to school. Again we had tears when he realized Cosette was going to school and that he was headed home with me once again. Day three was a little better, at least no tears.

Daniel and I have filled our days with normal “stuff”. We have sorted laundry, had a blast washing dishes and gotten dirty sweeping the back porch; generally just done life together. Yesterday when we played dress up Daniel put a tutu on my head like a wig.

In a few weeks Daniel will start kindergarten and I will be going back to work. We will continue to adjust and eventually find our “new normal.” Keep us in your prayers. God’s grace is sustaining us, his love is filing our hearts and his blessings continue to encourage us!

Tonya (for J, C & D)