Son's rays

This has been a tough week. Physically and emotionally draining for us all.

Tim's uncle lost his life in a house fire on Wed. His wife, Tim's Dad's sister passed away just before we brought Elisha home. His dad still mentions how much she wanted to see our little guy come home before she died. How devestating for family and friends to lose them both, and all the memories they had established there in the house they grew up in. Elisha and I went to the funeral home on Sat, hoping somehow by our presence, to give a little love, joy and comfort to this family that has lost so much. Elisha did very well, bringing smiles to many faces with his cute antics. I had warned him ahead of time that there might be some people crying there, but that was OK- they just had to say good bye to someone and they were sad about it.

Tim came back from Haiti last week with a nasty cough. It got worse pretty quickly and he spent almost 3 days doing little else but sleeping, desperately trying to recover from a nasty case of pneumonia. After 4 days of antibiotics and many, many prayers from so many people, I am so glad to report that on Monday afternoon the doctor said he wasn't clear yet, but was significantly improved. What a blessing.

We've started the process to obtain Elisha's Ohio birth certificate. We found a wonderful lawyer in our county, an internationally adoptive mom herself, who knows just what needs to be done. Sometime in the next few weeks we'll go in and sign the paperwork and get it all officially started, and 6-8 weeks later, viola!! We'll be able to use the Ohio birth certificate, or copies there of, instead of taking the original copy of his Certificate of Citizenship (illegal to make copies!!) with us everywhere they would need it. (Preschool, kindergarten, school, driver's license, marriage license, etc.)

We met with our case worker on Monday- hard to believe we are doing our 1 year post placement report already!! If you remember our 6 month report, Elisha was asking Therese to take off her shoes the whole time she was here.

This time Amy came, and though he did eye her shoes and give her a few raised eyebrows about them, he didn't say anything this time about the shoes. He was quite a performer for her, though. He played a drum solo on the drums- keeping a great beat and using all the drums in a pretty unique rhythm. He ran around the room, acting like a total 2 year old- and then curled up on Papa's lap to read/look at book while we talked.

I was so proud of Tim. He still felt miserable, and hadn't been up for more than a few hours for several days- but he made it through the meeting just fine.

Amy asked Elisha to take him up and show him his room. He took her hand and led her up the stairs, and when they reached his room, he ran over and scaled the side of the crib, plopped down into it and pretended he was asleep. Then he peaked up and asked her to cover him with his blanket.

As we were standing there, she asked me if we had started potty training yet. I explained he is still more potty timed than trained- if we put him on the potty at the right time, his diaper stays dry. We get most of the poopy in the potty, and he pees every time we put him on, but still goes in the diaper. (sorry if talking about poop and pee offends any of you... this is a blog about a 2 year old boy..... *grin*...)

So, Elisha heard us talking about the bathroom. He promptly grabbed Amy's hand and led her to his bathroom. Then, while I could only stand back and watch, he dropped his drawers, whisked off his diaper, climbed up on the big potty using his little stool and showed Amy how he peed on the potty. She looked rather chagrined and I wasn't sure what to do.... So I went over and got ready to put back on his diaper. "No, Amy do it!!" my son told me. I said, "No, honey, Mommy puts on your diaper......" Hmmmmmm.........I had to laugh.

So, in the midst of everything going on over the last few weeks, there have been the little rays from God- like the sun peeking through the cloudy overcast sky- shining more brilliantly than you ever knew they could, just because you have become so accustomed to clouds.

Elisha has been helping me get meals ready. He loves to help in the kitchen- pretend as much as for real. It has been so much fun watching him fix me eggs (pretend) and help get Papa's coffee ready.

Last night at dinner, the boys had vanilla pudding with bananas and were dunking vanilla wafers. Not unusual, but last night was so hysterical. I had some tiny cookies and some regular cookies, so I put out both and told Eli his were the little ones, and Papa's were the big ones. So, the next few minutes went something like this....

Papa dropped a wafer in his pudding and scooped it up with his spoon. Eli was watching him, looking fascinated. Then, as the spoon reached Papa's mouth, Eli plopped another big wafer in Papa's pudding and then acted as if nothing had happened.

I covered my mouth to keep the bubble of laughter from escaping.

Then he did it again. and again, and again, until all the wafers were gone. Well, by this time, I had my head in my hands, elbows on the table, shoulders shaking I was laughing so hard. It was just such a priceless moment of mirth!! So, Tim finished his pudding.

Eli had some left- both pudding and cookies, so as he scooped up a spoonful, I reached over and plopped a cookie in his pudding. He looked at me and leaned forward, covering his face with his hands making a loud almost crying noise. I looked at Tim, both of us wondering what he was doing- until Eli looked up with an ornery grin on his face, and we realized he was making fun of me!! He was putting his face in his hands and laughing his head off as I was doing when he dropped the cookies in Papa's pudding.

He repeated it each time I dropped a cookie into his pudding. What a release for Mama to be able to laugh so loud, long and freely!!

Thank you, God, for the moments of Sonshine in our lives when we need it the most, when we feel weary and aren't sure if we can make it one more day and are, in our states of exhaustion, just putting one foot in front of the other. Thank you for being made perfect in our weakness, and showing us ever more new and different aspects of this awesome, amazing God we serve.