Going Home

After eight days of travel, I am ready to go home. I'm glad I came to Asia. I've had good meetings, visited some interesting places and enjoyed conversations with industry colleagues and friends. I took a few photos and bought a few gifts. I've also endured long hours, awkward conversations and food that is not familiar. With the exception of the past few evenings, I have been "on" for seven days straight. I'm ready for a little time off. And I am soooo ready to be with my family again. I'm going home.


Symphony of Lights and the view from Victoria's Peak

Reporting from Asia

I am travelling in Asia for work this week. I spent three days in Seoul, Korea and am now in Hong Kong for another few days. I have been honored by the graciousness and generosity of various people who have hosted me and others in my group for office visits and dinners. I was able to visit the the offices of four publishers in Korea in addition to meeting with 25 publishers in a convention setting. I participated in two traditional "royal" Korean feasts where we were served course after course of the finest Korean food. And I went to an Outback Steakhouse and the martial arts comedy "Jump!" with a group of friends and publishing industry colleagues.

Last night I visited a publisher here in Hong Kong and was treated to a wonderful buffet dinner. At 8:00 pm the city of Hong Kong lights up with a laser light show. Our table was in front of a large window displaying a panorama of the city and a splendid view of the light show. The light show is synchronized to music, which the restaurant played for us. Many of the buildings in central Hong Kong have large lights on the face of their buildings that light up and change color in coordination with the music. In addition, large spotlights appear to shoot from the tops of the tallest buildings. It was quite a spectacle. I forgot my camera, but the people I was with took some photos for me. I'll have to post them another time.

I've been with other people for the past four days, mostly as a guest where I needed to display certain decorum and sometimes squelch my own personal preferences so as not to seem rude. As much as I have enjoyed everything so far, today I am happy to have some quiet time to myself. One of my dinner hosts last night gave me an entire itinerary of interesting things to see and do in Hong Kong today. If I were more adventuresome and brave I would be out exploring the sites of the city. As it is, I'm an introvert and a bit timid so I am spending the day in my hotel room reading a book and catching up on some blog reading. I hope I'll have some time to explore on Monday or Tuesday evening (I'd really like to visit Victoria's Peak, especially), but today I need the rest.

I'll spend the next two days in meetings, building relationships with publishers and showing them our newest books. I'm looking forward to visiting with these people, but I'm looking forward to going home on Wednesday even more. Traveling can be fun, but "there's no place like home."

First Day of School

Josiah and Elijah started school this week. Here are some photos.


This is Elijah waiting for the bus. He refused to stand still for photos. His bus didn't show up and I forgot to bring the camera to school with me, so these are the only "first day" photos I have of Elijah.

If Josiah looks a little nervous, it's because he was.

Josiah was really happy to find out that his friend from our neighborhood is in his class this year.
This is Josiah meeting his teacher for the first time.

Fun in the Sun (and Sand)!

Last weekend we took the kids to the Indiana Dunes. The water was closed due to the risk of rip tides, but we still had a lot of fun.

A Confession

I have a confession to make. Not everything I do is for the enrichment of my children. Sometimes I do things just because it's something I enjoy.

At a recent event I attended one young mother mentioned how her sisters' lives seem to revolve around their children and the various activities they are enrolled in. One mom mentioned that it would be good for our kids to have one night a week where they can't participate in outside activities because it is mom's night to do something. Another mom mentioned that her friend tells her children that date night with her husband is "to make sure you are happy."

As I drove home from the event I thought about the idea of explaining date night to our kids as something we do to keep them happy. Explaining alone time with my spouse in this way, I realized, would actually reinforce the idea the world revolves around our kids. While it may be true that maintaining a happy marriage will help my children remain happy, the main reason I spend time alone with my spouse is that I really like him. I enjoy having uninterrupted conversations with him that allow us to connect at deeper levels than "When was the last time we changed Elijah's diaper?" or "Have you seen Josiah's backpack?"

The same is true of other activities that take me away from home. I enjoy taking sign language classes, leading worship and having coffee with friends. I could explain to our kids that I am a better mom when I am able to pursue activities I enjoy, but I think it may be better to simply tell them, "I am doing this because it is something I enjoy."

I can't do everything that I enjoy all the time. Sometimes I decide not to do something because I would rather spend time with my family or because my kids need me to be with them. I enjoy being with my kids and I want them to feel loved and to know that they are important to me. And I am intentional about making sure that I am frequently home with my kids. At the same time, I want them to know that I am more than just their mom. God has given me gifts to serve both my family and the world around me. Having children may require modifying my activities, but it doesn't mean that I have to hit the pause button on my life indefinitely.

Having a child with special needs can sometimes exacerbate this issue. Children with special needs often require more of our time and energy. We may become so wrapped up in helping and advocating for our children, that we allow their diagnosis to become a primary part of our identity. If mothers of typical children are tempted to believe that their kids can't survive even one evening a week without them, imagine how mothers of children with special needs often feel, especially when our children require special medical care.

But when we lose our own identities to our children we are not the only ones who lose something. Our churches and communities lose out too. They may lose out because we are not using our gifts to serve, but they may also lose the opportunity of using their gifts to serve us. And, if we are so worried about our children that we do not allow them to spend time in someone else's care, they may lose out on the opportunity to learn about our kids and how to love and serve people with special needs.

I just signed up for a second class in sign language this fall. I'll be out of the house on Wednesday evenings from late October through early December and the kids will be spending a little more time with Al or, in some cases, with a babysitter. But that's okay. I enjoy learning sign language. The kids will survive without me for one night a week.

The Tooth Fairy's on Vacation

Josiah recently lost his two front teeth. The first came out while he was eating a piece of toast. We washed it off and put it into his special tooth treasure chest and tucked it under his pillow for the tooth fairy to retrieve. I had a sign language class that evening and by the time I came home the kids were in bed and I had completely forgotten about Josiah's tooth.

I was in Josiah's room when he woke up the next day. He squinted at me and asked, "Is it morning?"

"Yep, it's morning. You can get up if you want to."

Josiah brought his hand out from under his pillow. He was holding the treasure box with the tooth still inside, "Why is my tooth still here?"

Thinking quickly I said, "Oh! I mean, it's still night. Go back to sleep!" Once his eyes were closed I rushed into my bedroom and rooted around my dresser for a quarter. I found one and sprinted back to his room where I tucked it under his pillow while retrieving the tooth. Phew!

"Um, mom? That was you, not the tooth fairy."

"I know. The tooth fairy is on vacation and asked me to take care of things, but I forgot. I'm sorry."

Josiah looked at me askance, but didn't make further comment.

That weekend his other front tooth came out while he was playing with friends at church. He ran over to me and showed me that his tooth had come out. I washed it off and put it in my purse for safe keeping. Josiah then went to the sanctuary where he walked up and down the middle aisle, smiling as largley as possible to show off his missing teeth until I realized what he was doing and had him sit down (church was about to start).

After church he continued to show off his missing teeth. A couple of people asked if he was going to put his tooth under his pillow for the tooth fairy. Josiah responded flatly, "It's just my mom, not the tooth fairy."

Oh well. I guess he to find out eventually.

At Home with Down Sydrome

Al just sent me a link to a nice article about Down Syndrome in The New Atlantis. This is a very nice article exploring recent books about living with Down Syndrome. I highly recommend the article.

At Home with Down Syndrome by Caitrin Nicol

I love the beginning of the article explaining the possible origins of a painting by Andrea Mantegna, who may have used a child with Down Syndrome as a model for the Christ child. I came across this painting in a book while I was still pregnant and dealing with Elijah's diagnosis of Down Syndrome. It was immensely encouraging to me.

I've read most of the books reviewed in the article. I think my favorite book of those reviewed is Gifts edited by Kathryn Lynard Soper. This is a terrific book for families who have just learned that their child has Down Syndrome.

Meme: 7 Things About Me

My husband, Al, tagged me with a meme. Here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as
links to their blogs.

4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

So, here are seven facts about me:

1. I have a huge sweet tooth. When I was a kid I walked six or seven blocks in a snow storm (school was cancelled due to the weather) to buy two candy bars and a coke. My mom would give me quarters so I could call her from school and was always upset when I couldn't call her because I used all of my quarters in the soda machines. Fortunately, I have strong teeth and very few cavities. Our six year old, on the other hand, inherited my sweet tooth but not my strong teeth and has a number of cavities. (I'm munching on M & Ms while I write this).

2. I am learning American Sign Language. We have purchased a number of Signing Time DVDs for Elijah, who uses a combination of sign language and speech to communicate (his speech is delayed) and I've found that I really enjoy signing. I've been signing the liturgy songs at church for awhile now and decided to take an ASL class at College of DuPage. I am thrilled that our church's children's ministry director is taking the class with me!

3. I totalled my parent's car one month after I received my driver's license. I was following a friend home late at night on a country road and took a curve way too fast. I haven't been in a car accident since then (I also get nervous if someone I am riding with takes a curve faster than usual).

4. My biggest fear is that something horrible will happen to our kids. I usually don't express my fears aloud, but when I do mention them to Al he usually thinks I'm really weird. Last night I worried that Elijah would strangle himself in the safety rail of his bed. Al, of course, thought I was weird when I expressed my concern. Elijah was fine and we actually got a decent night of sleep since he didn't fall out of bed even once.

5. I am very organized at work, but less so at home. I think this is because once I get home from work I no longer have enough energy left to deal with things like filing and organizing. I do try to keep the floors clean, but that just means our dining room table is laden with books, old mail and various school papers. There is also a very cluttered corner on our kitchen cabinet and other trouble spots that seem to overflow with paper and other things.

6. I have a strong sense of justice. This means I am drawn to organizations such as International Justice Mission. It also means that I can get pretty angry if I feel like I have been wronged. When we moved to our current house we reserved a U Haul moving truck, but when we went to pick it up it was not available. We quickly rented a truck from a different company. I was angry, but didn't lose my temper. Until, that is, we learned that U Haul still charged us $50 for the reservation. I was livid and made numerous calls to their customer service department until a refund was issued. I may look nice, but you don't want to cross me. Just ask Al (he gets to listen to my side of these phone calls).

7. I am an introvert and somewhat shy. In high school the simple act of talking to a boy (whether I liked him or not) made me blush. This is why I can say with confidence that Al asked me out on our first date! (see number five of Al's meme). I would have been way too shy to ask him to take me to a movie unless it was utterly clear to me that he was actually asking me out.

So now I am supposed to tag seven other people. I'm an introvert though and I can't think of more than three folks to tag that haven't already been tagged by Al. Here they are:

Llama Momma

Shannon Farrier

Julie Kouri

Marker Woes

Yesterday Josiah bought a book on how to draw Transformers. I read my own book while he sat at the kitchen table and worked on his drawings. After a while he came out and said, "I'm tired. Can you finish the drawing?" I refused for awhile, but after 30 minutes I gave in and agreed to help him if he sat with me. He had done a pretty good job, there were just too many steps and it was taking more time than he wanted. After a few minutes of working on the picture, Josiah moved over to work on a different picture.

I was wrapped up in drawing Optimus Prime when Josiah came over with a wet piece of paper. He had drawn the symbols for the Autobots and the Decepticons and was working on coloring one of them with purple marker. "Josiah, why is your paper all wet." When he looked up at me I could see tears beginning to well up. "It's not coming out."

"Oh, honey," I said, "marker doesn't come out of paper."

He walked to the counter to check the marker and then cried, "But the marker says 'washable'!"

I explained the marker was referring to washing out of clothes, not paper. He was disappointed, but went back to work on his art. A few minutes later he came over with a dripping red marker.

"Josiah, is the marker all wet?"

"Yes. I think the red is all gone."

"Did you put the marker under the water?"

"Yes. It had stuff on it... Can you put the red back?" He was clearly upset (again).

"I'm sorry, buddy, I can't put the red back," I said as tears started rolling down his cheeks. "Put the cap back on the marker and let it sit for awhile. Maybe it will be okay if we don't use it for a few minutes."

A little while later Al came home from a used bookstore. He proudly showed me a couple of new CDs he picked up. Then he said, "Look!" and proudly held up a copy of The Adventures of Harold and the Purple Crayon. (At this point I should mention that Elijah has vandalized our house with a purple marker twice already. Once all over our downstairs, including our formerly white furniture, and more recently all over our upstairs. He wrote on the walls, the carpet, the refrigerator, his pillow...practically everything. Most of it came out, but it was still pretty frustrating.)

I looked at Al in disbelief. "You bought The Adventures of Harold and the Purple Crayon for a child who has taken his own adventures with a purple marker twice already?! Do you really want to encourage that?" Al gasped in sudden realization and quickly dropped the book in our kitchen garbage (which, conveniently, was right next to him).

We all laughed. Al retrieved the book and went to hide it somewhere until Elijah gets a little older and has more self-control.

To Sleep or Not to Sleep

As I mentioned earlier, Elijah has outgrown his crib. We quickly converted his crib to a toddler bed and surrounded it with pillows until he learned how to stay in bed without falling out. Three months later he is still falling out of bed multiple times each night. Each time he falls out of bed, we get up and gently settle him back into bed.

Tired of, well, being tired all of the time, Al and decided to buy a bunk bed. We thought between having a larger bed and adding a safety rail we could get Elijah to stay in bed and that we might actually get some full nights of sleep again. So last Sunday we went to IKEA and found a reasonably priced bunk bed and brought it home. It was bedtime when we got home so we left the boxed bed downstairs. Al left Monday morning for a trip and I thought I would wait until he got home to put the bed together.

On Monday I was excited about the new bed and had the day off anyway, so I thought I would start getting things ready for the new bed while Al was gone. I started by rearranging the toy room so we could move Josiah's old bed into it. Then I decided I may was well move Josiah's old bed while I was at it. Then, since Elijah has been sleeping on his crib mattress on the floor anyway, I decided to take apart his crib and put into storage. Once I finished that I realized it was only mid-afternoon.

To make a long story short, I ended up assembling the new bunk bed and rearranging the toy room and the boy's bedroom on Monday afternoon. I did most of the work by myself while the kids occupied themselves watching videos and playing on their own. Josiah helped a bit when I got into a bit of a fix. I kept saying "Dangit!" when something didn't work quite right and Josiah kept responding, "Mommy, that's a bad word. Please don't use bad words anymore."

Josiah also used part of the time I was busy working on the bed to crumble some of the styrofoam packing all over the house! I knew he was up to something when I heard him
laughing nefariously (seriously - he was cackling while he went around on his crumbling mission). Elijah used part of the time to dump foam alphabet stickers all over the family room. By bedtime I had finished building the bed, cleaned up the toy room, bedroom and family room and vacuumed most of the styrofoam up. Oh yeah, I also did a few loads of laundry. The next day I woke up tired, bruised and sore. Actually, I'm still bruised and sore.

To make matters worse, I'm still tired. Why? I found out that you can't use a safety rail on a bunk bed. It's not safe. (sigh). Thinking I was oh-so-smart I put the mattress crib on the floor next to the bunk bed and put the safety rail on the crib mattress. I figured if Elijah fell out of the bottom bunk he would land comfortably on the crib mattress and that the safety rail would keep him from rolling onto the floor (and waking us up). Not so. He woke me up two or three times last night. He falls comfortably onto the crib mattress and then ends up scooting off the head or foot of the mattress, which are still open. Then he kicks the floor to sooth himself back to sleep, which always wakes me up and I just can't leave him sleeping on the floor without feeling guilty. Well, that and I can't fall back to sleep with all of that incessant foot banging!

So, our investment of approximately $400 and 6 hours of hard labor for a good nights sleep resulted in a battered and bruised body and a new bed that both kids think is fun. It did not, however, result in better sleep for Elijah or for the rest of us. Oh well. He has to learn how to stay in his bed all night eventually, right? Until then don't be surprised if I'm a little tired and grumpy.