A Weekend For Animals

Some weekends, I'm utterly amazed at the burden that has been placed on me.  I have the privilege and responsibility of teaching my son about the wonder's of this marvelous creation.

On a related note, I feel so utterly incapable teaching zoology, ornithology, botany, ichthyology, (and many of the other ologies).  If you know of any field guides that have been tremendously interesting to you, I'd appreciate a comment with the titles.

I'm looking for a basic adult book about insects that would be found in North America.
I'm also looking for a wildflower/weed guide for North America, a bird book specifically for Midwestern America, an amphibian and reptilian guide for North America, and a small rodent guide for North America.

We need to start in our back yard before we can even move onto the rest of the world.  

Mother-Daughter Bonding

After pictures of my mom, sister, and I from a 5K we "ran" (they ran, I shuffled more or less) together this weekend.
It was a lot of fun to do something together like that. 

Little Boys

Have I mentioned how much I love little boys?
Especially our little boy.

Teaching Prayer for the Hard Things

These days everything is teaching.
I am loving these days, but some of the teaching we do around home leaves me feeling so inadequate.

One thing in particular that we've been teaching Million is how to pray for and about hard and sad things like death, sickness, conflict, and sin.  Usually he just repeats what we pray, but sometimes he comes up with his own little prayers (which are usually adorable, by the way.)

Initially I felt a little vulnerable, letting a 2-year-old hear the things I normally pour out silently to God.
Following my vulnerability, I felt like a good dose of self evaluation was in order.  Is my theology of pain and suffering correct?  Am I only looking for a quick fix for those whom I care about?  Do I care about God's purposes in their lives?

It's so humbling to watch someone pattern their ways after you.

Mother's Day 2012: First Mother's Day With My Son Home

My first mother's day with my son home went well for the most part.

I played piano in church like I do every Mother's Day.  

Admittedly, the years we were in our adoption process, I would have rather just skipped church because sensitivity wasn't at its prime on Mother's Day, (and funny thing that Sanctity of Life Sunday was ALWAYS my Sunday to play piano too..)  and holding it together musically and emotionally while brimming with a mixture of hurt feelings and sadness wasn't the best equation.

After church, we went to my parents' house, where we had dinner and went for a walk "down below" in my parents' river valley.

I grew up with this.

I am well aware how fortunate I am.

We played some cards, and somehow my mom pulled off a last-minute win. 

Appropriate.

The very fact that I had this little boy, the one who runs to me while beaming, home with me this year made all the difference.

The only downside to Mother's Day 2012, was when Michael was mowing our garden down in preparation for tilling this week.

During the process, he found a nest of baby bunnies.

Thankfully none were killed by the lawnmower.

But we had to cage the babies (the two we found) in order that BonAmi wouldn't eat them.

(I have INDEED found a rabbit carcass under my dining room table in the past, and didn't want that experience repeated.)

It provided a good chance to talk about some emotions with Million.
"The little bunnies were in trouble and in danger of death from circumstances their mommy and daddy couldn't protect them from.
They were scared in the cage, but we needed to put them in the cage because we didn't want them to get hurt.
etc. etc. etc. "


We knew one person with a rabbit as a pet and thought about having them take in the bunnies, but the idea of the pet rabbit either attacking or ostracizing the babies just didn't sit well with me.
We tried contacting an animal farm who take in rabbits, but they were not home.

We did not inform Million of the likelihood of the baby rabbits dying due to no parental supervision.

I was emotionally distraught with all sorts of adoption thoughts in my head---how we were doing what was best for the bunnies but it was completely scary and unfair to them.  Michael likes to say that I'm currently hormonally compromised.  I told Michael that he ruined Mother's Day for some poor rabbit, and he told me that the rabbit and I should form a support group.

So I was a bawling wreck.
Not fit to be seen in public, releasing small critters into the wild.
Michael took Million to a soft, grassy knoll next to the river behind our property.
Michael had Million bend down and say goodbye to the rabbits and watch as he released them from the trap.

Completely unprompted, Million said to the rabbits as they scampered away "Bye bye, Peter! Bye bye, Benjamin!" (Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny are two of his favorite stories.)

Of course when I heard that, I went off into another fit of tears.
And Michael did what he knew how to do: He took me out for chicken tenders and mashed potatoes.


So Mother's Day 2012 wasn't all happy moments like I imagined it would be.
But the majority of the day when I wasn't thinking about the likelihood of dead baby bunnies were moments like this.

Eavesdropping

One of the things that brings a smile to my face is listening in at my son's door in the morning when he's entertaining himself.

Heard lately:
"Oh dear! Oh dear! It's a quesadilla!"

"Oh no! Mulligan shovel! Scoop scoop!"

"Daddy working. Grandpa working. Grandma working.  Mommy cookie dough downstairs."

"Piggy and penguin talking.  Piggy and penguin kiss."

"Million following you!"


If you can't tell by the first two, his play tends to be... ahem....dramatic, complete with large volume increases and decreases.
It's sure to make me smile every morning.

(Mostly) Wordless Wednesday

Books we're reading:

Treats we're enjoying:

Favorite activities:

The aftermath of gutter draining.

Bird watching.

Kissing.

New projects going on:

A Food Blogger I am Not: Thoughts On Whey

Since the boys are heading to a wedding today while I head off to a ladies' tea party, I have a little bit of time to type.
Fancy that.

One recent endeavor of ours was cheese-making.
We attempted mozzarella cheese.
We didn't fail, but we didn't succeed perfectly.

One thing I didn't know about cheese-making is how many byproducts you get.

We made mozzarella (or a slightly soupier version because we overcooked it...)
The byproduct was whey.

From that whey, we made ricotta cheese (which turned out perfectly). The picture is dark because it's an aluminum bowl, so you'll just have to trust me.

There was also 8 cups of  whey from the ricotta leftover.

So yesterday had me googling the health benefits of whey and alternate uses for whey, which apparently are many.

Some people drink it in shakes or mixed with fruit juice and carbonated water.
I wasn't going there.

But... it did say you could replace any water in baking recipes, and you can enjoy all of the health benefits added into your normal cooking.

So I tried it.

I made smitten kitchen's pretzels with whey.  Yes.  These are the pretzels I eat all too often, maybe once a month.

I would love to say that they tasted fantastically different and that I'll never make them without whey again.  But that would be a lie.

They tasted absolutely the same.  The dough was enjoyably more pliable, and they baked a little bit darker (or was that just absentmindedness on my part?) but other than that there was absolutely no taste difference.

After that success, which I declared a health-food because of the whey in it, I decided to try an ACTUAL homemade loaf of bread made with whey instead of water or milk.

I know.

I haven't made an ACTUAL loaf of bread not involving my bread machine or the bread machine's dough cycle for over a year and a half.

Here is my food blogger attempt at a photo of the bread.

I have this theory that most food bloggers scream at their children to leave the room or just focus in really closely on their food products.

Because you wouldn't want to know that in real life the dog is sitting in the bay window salivating.

Or that the little boy is dancing around the kitchen apparently unsupervised because he has a flower pot on his head as a hat.

Mysterious food blogger perfection just doesn't happen around here unless I focus in really really closely on the food that I'm photographing.
Just saying is all.

I do still have a canister of the whey in my fridge for use next week sometime.  I have appropriately warned Michael that it is NOT lemonade and that he should take caution when drinking products on the right-hand side of the fridge. 

A Walk Down Memory Lane

I found pictures today of what our house originally looked like nearly five years ago.

This is our dining room, which I know I've posted more current pictures of.  The only ones I could find were of my coffee station here.  (On a different note, it was really healthy for me to go back to my posts from August and September and read what I was thinking about the first few months of Million being home.)  Oh, and the reason I look peeved in the picture?  It was my second walk through with our realtor, (Michael was working, so I brought my brother and sister-in-law and mom) and we found out that the basement was actively flooding because of a plumbing problem.  

The night Michael and I closed on the house, we brought an air mattress and a few tools over to the house.  We tore up the carpet in the whole house before we went to bed. The white area was the original color of the carpet, and it had been protected by a plastic "welcome mat" for who knows how many years.  The rest of the carpet had been peed on by manifold cats and dogs.

This is what the living room (looking towards the dining room and my office) looked like.

There are pictures of what it looks like now here.  Seriously.  Click that link.  It doesn't even look like the same house.

May 4

May 4, 2011, a judge in Ethiopia finally thought it would be a good day to pass our case.

May 4, 2012, a boy in Minnesota is wearing what he calls "snorts," eating a homemade popsicle, throwing three cups of water on a very patient dog, and reading copious amounts of books.

We like this year better.

Some Exciting News From Our Family!

Our family is growing!

Baby #2 will be making his or her appearance in mid-to-late November/early December.

We are thrilled that God is giving us this opportunity, and we wanted to share the news with you all.

Pregnancy after adoption (and before another adoption, in our case) is what could be colloquially called "a whole 'nother ball of wax"....

I have many many dear friends who are struggling with infertility or who have struggled with it in the past, especially those whom we have met during the course of our adoption.  I've heard so many times that people have been the recipient of well-intended judgemental comments like "Now that you've adopted, you'll get pregnant."

I wanted to address this head-on before anyone decides to use us as a prime example to their infertile friends.

We didn't become pregnant because we adopted.  In our case, we became pregnant because we went off of birth control and because God allowed it. 

Right now, I'm struggling to find the line between openness and unnecessary vulnerability.  Pregnancy after adoption and all of the conflicting emotions and situations it brings isn't something I've seen blogged about commonly, but I also hesitate to make myself into a spectacle.  Pregnancy in and of itself is fraught with controversial topics, so much so that I've ALREADY gotten myself into trouble by asking "the wrong" questions...

I'd hate to cause controversy over something so beautiful as the way in which God has allowed us to form our family.

 Now there are some typical questions that I've been asked in the last few weeks that our families and close friends have known about our pregnancy:

1. How am I feeling?  
I'm tired and nauseous, but the physical pregnancy symptoms are absolutely nothing (and I'm really emphatic when I say that!) compared to the endless spiritual, emotional, and physical depression during the time-frame when we repeatedly failed court in Ethiopia.
2. Do we know names for our baby? 
We do know both of our names for boy or girl but will not be sharing them until the baby is born.  They are atypical names, and if we shared them, we would likely hear others' negative opinions more than we want.  We will not be naming children after relatives or Bible characters.  We prefer names that are chosen for the significance of their meaning, just as we chose Kumelachew as one of Million's middle names, and just as we were so pleased when we learned the meaning of his birth name.
3. Have you chosen a birth plan? 
If everything goes according to plan, we will be choosing a natural non-medicated childbirth, with the assistance of a midwife.  One of our primary reasons for this choice is that I just want to be able to experience raw pain, just as Million's birth mom had to experience raw pain.  (However, I do realize that I will have access to many non-medicinal pain treatment alternatives that she didn't have access to.)
4. Will you breastfeed? 
We will also be choosing to breast-feed.  However, obviously Million was formula fed.  I will not become a "breast is best" vocalist, because breast is not best in many situations---like Million's.
5. Will you find out the gender?
Yes, and we will be sharing that information with whosoever wishes to know.
6. Will you have more birth children?  
We're not sure about that right now.  We do know that we plan to pursue adoption a few more times, but to be honest, adoption is where both of our hearts are drawn more frequently than to pregnancy.
7. Have you told Million yet?
Yes, and he's forgotten already and could care less.  :)

We're so grateful for this opportunity, but to be completely honest, it brings out a lot of complicated emotions that we didn't anticipate and need to sort through.  We obviously want people to be excited about Baby #2, but it hurts us when people seem more excited about a birth child than they seemed about Million's adoption.  This is just one of the many complicated emotions that we have the privilege to process  (and I'm not being sarcastic here, it truly is a privilege to be exposed to unique circumstances that not many people have the chance to go through.)

If you're a person of God, we'd appreciate prayer as we'll have many different feelings and circumstances than the average to go through (i.e. trying to explain my "obstetric history" to a non-adoption-minded medical professional.)   You can also pray for humility.  We admit wholeheartedly that being pregnant is a new thing for us.  Pray that if we have questions we ask them humbly and respectfully instead of forming opinions and judgments based on what we have heard from other pregnant women.

We trust that God has given us this opportunity as a means of growing us towards Him, and we're excited to see our family grow.