Attachment disorder, Reactive Attachment disorder, Post Traumatic Stress disorder etc.  These were all mentioned briefly in the "adoption educational" materials we were required to read during our homestudy.  After we got a real agency, we were also required to read a few books about Liberia.  Since the above disorders were so briefly mentioned, I guess I thought they were pretty rare. 

I didn't think most of the behaviors listed applied to Leona (except the superfically charming and crazy lying) until someone recommended a few books to me and I read some real-life examples!   I was very surprised when the book mentioned that kids with attachment problems actually pee on purpose (when angry etc.)!  Our adoption materials said "bedwetting" is common (I don't consider bedwetting the same as peeing on purpose!). 

Another adoptive mom clued me in on the fact that adopted children are often feeling miserable and do things to make those around them feel the same way.  Well, it worked for Leona!  We were all a bit irritated with her wetting and lying!   They also try to sabotage family activities (hence, her wetting every Sunday morning). So, we've found some answers I think!  We need to be UN-irritated.  This is very difficult sometimes because now that it's not so easy to irritate us, she needs to try harder.  AND SHE DOES!!

For example, on her sisters birthday, she woke up drenched in pee up to her hair (I don't really want to know how she does this!).  None of us got irritated or made any comments (like EEEW GROSS!).  I told everyone to be extra nice to her.  She was MISERABLE!   She was yelling at everyone, calling names, trying to constantly provoke and irritate while she cleaned up herself, the bedroom, and the bathroom(this was pretty much the whole day since it takes her hours to get cleaned up on her own-I refuse to help other than getting her a bucket full of water and a rag).  

Last week, she went so far as threatening to hit me when she was angry.  She has also mentioned that she would like to go back to Liberia and get a new mommy and threatened to call the police because I wouldn't get her a drink until she calmed down and asked nicely.  She is just trying everything she can think of! 

What I am getting at, is that I really wish I would've read THESE books before we adopted (although they do deal with kids who are a danger to others-I may have chickened out if I read that beforehand!)!  At least I would've know better what to look for.  If you are a struggling adoptive parent one of the books is called:  When Love is Not Enough by Nancy Thomas.  This one was the most helpful to me although one other book that I read had a wonderful suggestion for the tinkle problems:  It is as follows:  tell the child since they like gross things like pee (and/or poop) in their rooms and other places so much that you will be giving them the job of cleaning up after pets, cleaning toilets, etc. (I added diaper pails and toddler "pee" accidents too-we don't have pets.). 

So, we are trying a new approach.  Please keep us in your prayers-it is not easy! 

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While I wish I could say this about Leona's issues (which seem to be improving), I am actually referring to our "learn to eat what mom cooks" boot camp!  All the children were doing very well with eating what I cooked without much complaining for quite some time BUT I recently realized just how amazing the change was that took place, mostly in Samuel, age 4, who only liked pizza and peanut butter sandwiches-and liked NOTHING with a vegetable in it and who gagged on mashed potatoes.  I recently heard him say the following phrases "I like salad", "Can I have MORE salad?", and "Salad is my favorite vegetable!".  I was so excited!!  But the best thing happened when, on New Year's eve, when we had snacks-veggies, dip, and chips.  I let everyone pick the snacks they wanted (this means I did't MAKE anyone have veggies!).  I looked at Sam's plate and he had cucumbers on it -6 of them even!!  AND he ate them all!!  YAY!!!!!!   Ian (age 6) was eating carrots!!  WOOHOO!

Before I close for the day, I'll add a cute story about Sydney (2) and the baby.  Jeremiah is "her" baby she says.  It's a good thing too, since I might not know how to take care of my 8th newborn.  (Of course, with each one I DO seem to get more forgetful!!)  She is always telling me things like, " Mom, my baby's crying, can you nurse him?" and "Mom, I think my baby pooped, can you change his diaper?"  She's so cute!

Have a great day!!

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The whole gang!

Jeremiah at 3 weeks in the little orange diaper that I sewed him (it no longer fits him!).  It has a monkey print on the inside and Daddy says it's silly because he poops on the cute part!  Bailey and Rebekah also sewed him some diapers that worked very well!The proud new big sister-and baby at 6 weeks--my how he's grown--from 7lbs. 14 oz. to almost 14 pounds ALREADY (he will be 8 weeks old this Wednesday)!! 

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It's hard to believe, but we realized that it has been 2 years now since we began our adoption journey!  Wow!  Time goes soooooo fast! 

I have to admit that adopting 2 girls with special needs has been quite challenging.  Is it challenging in the ways I thought it might be?  Not usually!   I had visions of the possible horrific situations the girls may have faced and thought they would be extremely homesick.   But these ideas weren't the case at all!  They were happy to be here and DID NOT miss Liberia at all.  Most of the things we faced (and in some cases still are facing) were just annoying kid behaviors (although sometimes taken to the extreme!!).  Overall, I think they adjusted pretty well and it has been a joy to see them grow over the course of the year.

Are we still facing challenges after a year of having them here?  YES!! 

We are still not fluent in ASL but I do have to say that we are able to communicate with Josephine very well in spite of this.  Josephine had many "orphanage" behaviors when she first came and was very rough-hitting and grumping A LOT!  She does this rarely now although last week she did have a very bad day!!  That was her first bad day in 4 months!  When she first came, she had days like that at least a two times per week!  She really has come a long way and I am always encouraged by her progress.  She will be getting two hearing aids of her own soon and the audiologist was very excited by her response with the newer hearing aid in her right ear.  She is not sure how much benefit she will get from this.  Will she be able to speak?  We don't know-actually, Josephine doesn't want to learn to talk and says "signing is better"!!  She is learning to read and knows many more words than she did at the beginning of the year.  The one thing we still struggle with (and probably will for many years) is food issues.  She never hoarded food or anything but she will eat until she is stuffed full and complains her stomach hurts-she has even run to bathroom to throw up after eating too much.  I have had to make many changes to our dining habits which include putting a reasonable amount of food on each childs plate (according to the size of the child) and not putting food on the table or offering seconds.  I really struggle with having to control the amount of food a child eats but I was really tired of having Josephine tell me that her stomach hurt after she ate-obviously she does not know what "full" is yet.   Some of the older kids seem happy that I am doing this because they are growing "up" and not "OUT"!!  Usually, they have fruit after lunch and dinner and usually have an afternoon snack.  But Josephine is still not able to say "no" to more food.  Recently, in her junior church class, when snacks were sitting out, she ate 1 large cupcake 4 mini donuts and a glass of soda (this was after she had a large bowl of cereal for breakfast).  I am suprised she didn't vomit on the ride home!   Even though I began to limit her food intake, she has gained 20 lbs since she came home!!  At first, it was only about 5 lbs. but then she really started hitting that puberty growth spurt and now has gained a total of 20 lbs. and quite  a few inches.  When she came, she was about 4 inches smaller than our 5 year old (he's 6 now) and now she is a little taller than him. 

With Leona, we are still having the lying and wetting issues although they are nowhere near as frequent.  Josephine never had the bedwetting issue although she did use pullups for the first week here.  I am sure many are wondering exactly how we came to realize that Leona wet her pants on purpose (I, myself , find it hard to believe that any child would WANT to do this!).  As a mom of 2 bedwetting biological children, I knew that it was a very real possibility to have a child who is not able to wake up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night-two of my boys just COULD NOT wake up and wet the bed almost every night-one until he was around 6-7 and one until he was over 4 1/2 years old.  They rarely woke up dry and we used pullups to minimize the laundry-sometimes they even wet through them.  We used pullups on Leona at first and the pullups were always wet ,however, on the occasions when she forgot to wear a pullup, she used the bathroom in the middle of the night and in the morning and woke up dry.  My two bedwetters would NEVER have been able to do this!  When I forgot to put a pullup on them, they woke up SOAKED!!  There were also occasions when she peed her pants in the daytime, only it was usually at a time when she was doing something she didn't want to be doing and wetting her pants was a convenient way of getting out of doing it.  For instance, once she was in time out and asked to go potty and I said sure go ahead.  Then no more than 10 minutes later, she asked again to go potty.  I told her she just went potty and she immediately started whining and crying and peed on the chair (obviously she didn't go the first time! She actually did this same trick more than once!).  On the other hand, once when we were in the grocery store, she asked to go potty and I asked her if she could wait since the potty at that store was pretty gross.  She said yes but by the time we were done in the store, she had to go more.  I told her to go sit on the bench while I checked out and try her best to hold it in because home was only  a few minutes away.  I made sure she could get out of the van and run to the potty (expecting that she would be wet since it had been over a half hour since she asked to go potty the first time!).  She made it to the potty just fine without a drip in her panties.  Recently, she had a dry bed for almost a month and then on Saturday morning, she woke up soaked.  We were going to church to do some work and on Friday she told me she didn't want to go to church, she wanted to stay home.  Normally, she loses the privilige to do anything fun for the day (like going out to the park etc.) and apparently she thought she would not have to go to church if she was wet because I asked her in the morning if she knew what we were going to do that day and she replied "Yes, we were going to church but I cannot go because I wet my pants" (of course, she went anyway).  Do I think all children who are adopted and wet the bed have this same situation?  NO WAY!  But I definitely think , in Leona's case, it is a way of manipulation and sometimes for attention (she saw our 2 year old getting a lot of attention for learning to go potty and then her wetting became more frequent again!).    We are thankful that she is doing quite a bit better than she was but are praying that she will realize it is not a good way to get attention and manipulate others.  To her, we call it making the "right choice" to stay dry and try to minimize even mentioning wetting her pants (NO LECTURES FOR IT-that's too much attention and has definietly made matters worse in the past!!).  One of the things I find most exciting about Leonas progress is all the questions she asks about God, Jesus, and the Bible.  Of course, she has also come quite a way in her schoolwork-it's really been pretty amazing in that area.

Do we think we'd ever adopt again?  Well, if we though the Lord were calling us to adopt again, yes, we would.  Although, I have to say right now, I am feeling bit overwhelmed just thinking about it!   But, overall, our adoption experience has been a beneficial thing for our whole family.

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My 10 year old daughter (and the rest of the kids) asked me to post this on my blog.  It seems that Rebekah has figured out the secret number of licks that it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop.  They wanted me to post it in case that makes her famous.  It turns out that it takes 1,259 licks to get to the center of the tootsie pop.  This took approximately 2 1/2 hours just in case you have some extra time to fill up!! 

Aside from that, everything is going well here.  Leona has admitted to wetting her pants because she is too "LAZY" (her word-not mine!) to go to the bathroom.  So, we are now working on the toughlove/3 day reward boot camp program for her.  If she goes 3 dry days she gets a big kid reward.  It had been 7 days but this didn't work well because I don't think she could comprehend exactly how long 7 days is.  We are hoping 3 days works better.  First reward, deodorant!!  (Don't laugh, she is actuallly happy about it! Everyone keeps telling her how stinky she is-even after she takes a bath daily!).  

The baby is doing well-growing like a weed already.  I think everyone else is hoping to return to school work.  We were going to start yesterday but we had technical difficulties.  One of our computers is down and I had to move one student to another computer (we use switched on schoolhouse).  Now, it's finally all taken care of and I think tomorrow can be the day!  Should be interesting! 

There are a whole 3 flakes of snow outside and the kids are running around yelling "IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!"  How silly!  Better get going-time to nurse the baby again!

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Our newest little one was born on Oct.29.  His name is Jeremiah Thomas.  He is doing very well.  He is such a good baby that I worry about him!!  I was not doing so well after he was born.  They induced with pitocin and I got the epidural.  They went in a little too far with the epidural and my spinal fluid was leaking a little.  This caused a major headache that was barely relieved by the pain med. they gave me.  It was not too bad as long as I was lying flat.  Thankfully, it is over now! 

Leona has cut down considerably on her lying.  But the peeing is continuing.  She does stay dry when she wants to (like the week before her birthday!).  We did try to ignore her after we realized she was doing it for attention.  BUT then she started doing it LOTS more!  I felt so bad for my oldest daughter that had to do the extra laundry that I decided to give Leona some extra consequences without giving her the attention she wanted.  This has worked better and she is only wetting maybe once per week.  Although she has been worse this week (twice so far).  I really don't think it has much to do with the baby coming although I suppose it could.  It's hard to figure this girl out!!  Best I can figure is that it's just a bad habit she used to get attention in Liberia (both peeing, and lying).  We didn't have these problems with Josephine but she came from the deaf home.  Thanks so much for the prayers! 

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Hi all, if you're reading this I'd like to ask you to take a minute and pray for our adopted daughter Leona.  She has been quite a handful lately (see previous posts).  It really seemed like things were improving until a few days ago.  She has been able to keep her underwear dry for months now, including at nighttime (although there were a couple of accidents at night-no big deal to me since I never really expected her to be dry at night-that was just a bonus!!).   She has been testing us by lying about everything imaginable and sometimes throwing fits.  I have sensed that she was doing this for attention (I thought the same thing about wetting her pants) and because I am sure those are 2 behaviors that she practiced a great deal in Liberia.  The other day I was beginning to get sick and I just had enough of her lying and misbehaving and really lost my patience and screamed and yelled at her.   I really haven't done that before (although I am sure I spoke in a frustrated tone quite a few times!).   I don't know if that is what set her off, but I am guessing it was.  A few nights before that she had wet her bed (someone was in the bathroom when she got up to go, so she just went back to bed instead of asking to use a different bathroom).  She was made to clean up after herself and was fine for a few days.  Then I yelled at her for lying and throwing a fit.  Later that day she asked to go to the bathroom and 10 min. later (after she had gone to the bathroom) sat on the chair and wet her pants..   Since then we've had many more episodes (including that exact same scenario again).  She has been wetting her pants more than my 2 year old who just got potty trained.  And still the lying goes on too.  Recently, I had been looking for every opportunity to praise her for good behavior (especially in reference to telling the truth).  She has been misbehaving so much that it is difficult to find the good things to praise her about.   Today, I tried something new that included dealing with her misbehavior as quickly as possible (to minimize the attention she gets for it) and employing the other kids to watch her while she cleaned up after herself (same reason).  There were a few other things that I tried and I am just praying that some of them will work!!  I can't even leave the house with a 6 year old who pees her pants this much!!   We did discuss the possiblity of going to the park if she was miraculously a "big kid" and could keep her underwear dry again.  I keep praying for wisdom from the Lord-this is certainly something that I've never experienced before (although I did have 2 kids who wet the bed until they were about 5-6, just none that purposely peed their pants during the day!).  So, that is the long version of why we would GREATLY appreciate any prayers on our behalf (did I mention that the baby will be coming in about 2 weeks?!!).   

I have noticed something very good about all this though--(must be God's perfect timing!!).  The kids loved playing with Leona right away when she came and no one really enjoyed Josephine much because she misbehaved an awful lot.  But now the tables are turned, and it's been very exciting to watch Josephine blossom and also see how the others are enjoying playing with her more.  Sydney (age2) used to screech everytime Josephine would touch her and now they are buddies!  It is so cute to watch them sign to each other!  Just so you all know, I was at my wits end for a while (from about Jan. through July) with Josephine also--For a while I thought I completely misunderstood what God had been telling us when we decided He wanted us to adopt her!  Again, my new favorite verse:  Galatians 6:9, Let us not grow weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.   

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I am now 37 weeks pregnant!  YAY!  The baby will hopefully come on time (I'm not usually early-4 days early was the earliest!!).  It is definitely a boy.  Somewhere along the way, we decided that we liked the name Jeremiah but the kids have wrecked it by calling him "baby Jerry"!  I'm not really fond of Jerry as a nickname but it's really stuck.  I even find myself calling him baby Jerry (and I still don't like it!!).  He weighed 6 lbs. 2 oz. at the last ultrasound (a little over a week ago). 

Leona seems to be making a little progress.  She did go for 4 days without lying but then had one really bad day where she made up for it (lying 4 times in one day-not her record but bad enough!).   So she is still training in "quit your lying" or "truth" boot camp.   Her main motivation to tel the truth seems to be that she does not want to go to jail when she gets bigger.   We have talked to her about how God wants us to tell the truth, how it can make a big mess of things when we lie, and if we lie all the time that no one will believe what we say (you should have seen her eyes when I told her the story about the boy who cried wolf!!).  Then one day I told her about a girl I know who lies about a lot of things and how this girl lied a lot when she was younger but now she is big and still lies a lot.  This girl lied so much that she had to go to jail because she lied (for writing bad checks).   I explained to her that I would be very sad to see her grow up and lie so much that she would go to jail.  That really stuck in her head!  I never thought it would make such an impact-I was just trying to explain how much trouble you can get in for lying!

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I guess it's time for my monthly update from Boot camp!   We are still in training!  Most of the kids now realize that they need to eat what is on their plate without complaining.  But watch out for that inconsistency to creep in......and it just comes crashing down!  If the Lord has taught me anything through our adoption experience, it is that I need to be CONSISTENT!!! 

Last week, Leona was very ill.  Now Leona is still in her lying, making up stories, generally being dishonest phase BUT I don't think anyone could fake the way she was acting (although I did momentarily consider that possibility!! OK maybe it was more than a moment!)-she was practically delirious, couldn't keep her eyes open and focused, and was sweating like a pig.  I thought she was going to faint at the breakfast table.  I escorted her up to bed and called the doctor.  We decided that she could be having a recurrence of malaria and he told me to give her the same meds. she had before.  I did this and she seemed somewhat better in a few hours-but the eye thing really had me worried.  So I took her to the ER.  They decided she probably was having a malaria recurrence (she was doing quite a bit better after a few hrs. there and they said the malaria medicine probably was working already) and gave me some different meds and also some antibiotics since her ear was had some pus.  Anyway, to make a long story shorter (about the consequences of NOT being consistent in parenting!)-she had actually lost 2-3 lbs. because she hadn't been eating well for a week or so before, so I decided to get her some meal replacement shakes at the health food store(to give as snacks).  She drank all but two sips of one and gagged a little.  I let her go without drinking the last two sips figuring she was still not feeling too well.  BIG MISTAKE!!  The next time I gave her one, she had a HUGE FIT!   Needless to say she has been getting a lot of these and is now drinking them happily (or at least without complaining).  And by the way (in case you think I'm extra mean!), all the other kids thought the shake tasted pretty good and were begging for me to give them some!

Last week we had a little  2 year old houseguest (and his Mom).  He demonstrated perfectly to my kiddos the reason why they are not allowed to hit and why they need to learn to obey!  By the end of a few days, he was driving all the kids crazy with his misbehavior!!  It was a very good lesson!   Josephine was probably one of the most irritated by his behavior-and to think she acted just like that when she first came :)  --TOO FUNNY!   On a different note, we tried out some yarn extensions in Josephine's ponytail this week (I didn't have the nerve to try the full head of hair on the first try!).  They look very cute and she loves them.  I'll try to post a pic. soon.  They were much easier than I thought they would be-10 of them took about a half hour or less.  

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I guess boot camp is taking up quite a bit of my time here!  Again, it's been a while since I've updated!  Carri...if you're reading this, please email me to let me know your success with the lying!   I can't seem to find your email address anywhere-even on your blog!  Thanks!

Leona is doing great keeping her underwear nice and dry now!   It's so odd how that minor little thing that we wanted her to work on opened up quite a few more issues.  Mostly it is the lying.  It is unbelieveable how many silly things she is lying about!  It seems that when we tell her she should not be doing something (wetting her pants, lying etc.), she decides with all her little might that she will do it even more!   Sometimes it's almost amusing-much of the time it's quite annoying!!   It certainly has made me much better at being consistent when I discipline my kids!   My new favorite encouraging Scripture verse has become Galatians 6:9-Let us not be weary in well doing for in due season  we shall reap if  we faint not.   Sometimes I do feel like "fainting"!!  I think I mentioned this before in one of my posts!   We are making progress though-eventually she does decided that we are really serious and she needs to get with the program!  She doesn't fuss about food anymore and I've even heard her say that she likes green beans!  And now she is keeping her underwear dry (I can't for the life of me figure out why on earth anyone would pee their pants just because Mom and Dad said they needed to get to the bathroom quicker!!--it doesn't sound like much fun to me!)--I am often reminded of the verse where Paul mentions that the things he wants to do, he doesn't do and the things he doesn't want to do, he does.  (Sorry, I am too lazy to walk back to the kitchen and get my Bible and give you the exact verse and reference for that one!)

 Soon we will be starting school.  I've been procrastinating for weeks!  I wanted to start at the beginning of August but we are just having too much fun with boot camp!!  No, actually, we have been canning and sewing and doing all kinds of fun stuff that I could count for school if I would at least write it on the calendar!! 

Well I better get going!  Have a great night!

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This is a record I think for not updating my blog!  You see I've been very busy in our time off from school!  No relaxing summers around here!  We are having BOOT CAMP.  All kinds of Boot camp.  First of all, we had "learn to eat what mom cooks" boot camp.  That's the boot camp you have when you are tired of all the complaing about what you've cooked!  My children are so stubborn that they would rather starve than learn to eat some vegetables (I take responsibility for spoiling them all these years-I have no idea what I was thinking-so if you're reading this--don't make the same mistake!!  You could have 9 kids someday and that is A LOT of complaining).   We have successfully ended this boot camp and 98% of the time everyone eats their veggies and beans without complaining, gagging, pretending to vomit, and just general fooling around.  Of course, there are still a few who find the need to test every now and again, hence the 98%.

Next came, "quit fooling around after you get tucked into bed" boot camp.  I have the kind of kids who wake at the crack of dawn no matter what time they go to bed, so I decided they needed to get to sleep instead of playing in their beds.  They are doing pretty good with this one now, except for one who has decided to be very testy recently.

The very testy one is Leona.  I am guessing she just feels comfortable enough with us to begin testing us about many things.  Josephine has settled down with her testiness and is doing much better.  The biggest thing we tried to conquer with her recently was that she would be playing happily with Noah all day and then suddenly start grumping at him if he were to sit by her at dinner...she got to sit by him at dinner for a few weeks and has since gotten over her grumping.  I did tell her she would be sitting by him until she got happy about it.  Thankfully, it worked!  She still has her moments but has come SOOOOO far since she arrived. 

Leona on the other hand went through a brief period at first where she was a little stubborn and then settled down and was fine for a long time.  Now she has decided to test and boy can she be STUBBORN!   For example, one night she ate a chicken sandwich just fine and happily and two days later (leftovers!!) she refused to eat the same thing.  I kept giving it back to her until she ate it (that was one of our boot camp policies).  Just as the food pickiness settled down, I came to realize that she had some other issues that needed some attention.  Mostly she is getting herself in a lot of trouble for lying.  About dumb things.  Even things she knows she will not get in trouble for UNLESS she lies.  I'm sure it will just take some time before she realizes that we really mean what we say.  It took about two months with the food pickiness (by the way, when she came she ate ANYTHING I cooked and loved it!).  We are hoping that the most recent issues will NOT take 2 months for her to learn that we really mean what we say!  On a more positive and much more important note, Leona did recently ask Jesus into her heart and we are very thankful for that.  She has been praying and asking for God's help to overcome her lying and the other things we are working on.  The biggest one is making it to the potty before she pees her pants (something an almost 7 yr. old should be able to do).  It turns out that she is not a bedwetter after all.  We had her in pullups since she arrived but mistakenly forgot to wear them a few times and she miraculously woke up dry.  Each night she had a pullup on, it would be wet.  It turned out she had been lying in her bed and peeing while she was awake.  She does not wear pullups anymore and the only problem she seems to have is getting to the potty in time although, she seems to be able to hold it when she wants to (more stubborness, I think!). 

Other than that, we have been doing some sewing projects and the kids have been enjoying the $8 pool I got for them at a yard sale.  I've sewed a few newborn size cloth diapers for the baby and Bailey sewed me some cloth diaper wipes today (I ran out of the store bought variety and paper towels too!).  She did a good job, it was good practice.  Next project:  modest swimwear.......scared about this one!   Someday I hope to get our schoolwork for next year set up.  I had wanted to start a few weeks ago!  OOPS--just having too much fun with boot camp I guess!  I'm sure I will win the meanest mom ever award after posting this entry!  Have a great night!!

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The ultrasound went well.  They are so amazing!  The baby is doing well and THANKFULLY there was no sign of any subchorinic hemmorage (that means the bleeding is ALL GONE!).  YAY!!  I got a very nice 3-D picture. 

AND......well, I couldn't resist finding out...so we are having a baby boy!  Now, we will have 5 boys, 5 girls! 

Well, Have to go cook dinner!  Have a great night!

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This past Monday, we took our yearly trip to Knobels.  We've discovered that school picnic days (homeschoolers included) are nice quiet days at the park.  The kids spend their birthday money to get a handstamp from 10 am-6pm and ride, ride, ride!! 

Leona and Josephine enjoyed the trip.  Josephine went on all the "big" rides and loved them(she just made the cut off by a little over an inch!) and Leona stuck with the kiddie rides (along with Sam and Sydney) for most of the day.  She did ride a water ride and came out crying.  Then she went on the bumper cars with Bailey (who Leona says is a bad driver!)-she didn't have a nice time on those either.  After those two rides she said she was having a bad day!  So we went back to the kiddie section.  Josephine, of course, had to test the rules a little and had to sit out a few rides but she got the picture that you aren't allowed to stand up and if someone asks you to move, you need to do it!  They both had a lot of fun and so did the rest of the family!   Although, the next day was not too fun for everyone since they were all tired and  a little grumpy!! 

Today was a nice warm day (OK-HOT!) in our area.  We found out our air conditioning isn't functioning properly AGAIN!  (this translates into our heat probably wasn't working very efficiently either for the last few months).   Our heat pump is only 3 years old and each year, we have had a problem or two with it.  I am praying that we can get it all straightened out this year!! 

I have an ultrasound this Thursday and am praying that all is well with the subchiornic bleeding (hopefully GONE!).  I suppose if the baby opens his/her legs, I will be wanting to know if it's a boy or girl!  (Previously, I wanted to be suprised this time but...well, if the ultrasound tech. knows, I want to know too!)

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Well, Josephine had her first birthday in America.  The dr. had decided that she was a little over 8 years with the bone scan so she has just celebrated her 9th birthday.  She had a nice day.  She shared her birthday with Sydney.  Since the birthday's are so close, we decided to do both at once.  They both wanted ice cream cake.  Sydney had Dora and Josephine had Barbie (although she does like Cinderella much better!). 

Leona is a bit sad that her birthday isn't until October!  I am a bit sad after talking with her this evening-she told me that everyone here is cute except her.  She says everyone has a nice face but her face is ugly.   It just broke my heart!  I told her that she is beautiful and God made her just the way He wanted her.  I hope someday she will understand that!  I told her God thinks that what is inside her (I explained this in detail!) is more important than how she looks on the outside.  She has also been asking many questions about having Jesus in your heart so if you're reading....take a minute to pray for her!!

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A friend of mine recently emailed and said the girls must have suffered quite a bit of "culture shock" when they arrived!  I started thinking about how much they have learned since they came.  I tend to think of knowledge for them as very behind because they are on such a much younger level than their true age (emotionally and school-grade) but really, I should be thinking of it in terms of how far they have come since they are home.

When they came, they used to spit on the floor and throw their trash everywhere (mostly the floor!).  They took FOREVER to get a bath (even if they weren't dirty!)-they had to scrub with half a bar of soap and rinse off squatting in the tub at least a hundred times (this included LOTS of splashing water ALL OVER the floor!!).  They didn't quite understand that they needed to wear WARM clothing because it was cold outside.  Josephine kept a little bit of crackers and candy stashed in her backpack.  They never used booster seats and especially NOT seatbelts.  They were probably never in a store!  Screaming fits must have been common in Liberia (called the "Liberian wail" by some adoptive parents!) And the list goes on and on......!

That is a lot of learning-well, really, it's breaking old habits.  You know how hard it is to break old habits, don't you??  I sure do!  Looking at it in this way, they have done remarkably well. 

They now know how to use a trash can.  They know how to use a toilet (although I am not sure they always use toilet paper when they go "pee") and remember to flush (we did have to break them of flushing muliple times-I guess it must have been interesting to watch the toilet flush?).  They have been told that it is OK to cry but loud hollering along with it is not allowed-they have been doing well with this (this was mostly a problem with Josephine-Leona only tried it once). 

They pretty much understand that we mean what we say and are usually happy to do what they are asked to do, in fact, most times they LOVE to help!  They have learned that they need to dress warmly when it is cold outside.  They know they have to keep their seatbelts on and sit in their booster seats in the car.  Josephine no longer keeps food (she stopped this after a week) and toys in her backpack-I actually had to remind her that something was in her backpack recently!  We help them get quick showers now and our bathroom is much happier!  

They know I WILL NOT  buy the yellow (orange?) cheese puffs or vienna sausages no matter how many times they tell me they like them (I buy white cheddar puffs and lots of tuna!) or the very colorful cereal!   They know that they can't have "A lot" of food (6 pieces of bread, 2 sandwiches, 3 helpings of chips etc.) but that they will be able to eat more in the next few hours. **side note on this-when Josephine had her eye surgery, I had to explain to her that she could not drink water or eat food when she woke up in the morning.  Leona was standing nearby listening and later she asked me "Mommy, we not eating tomorrow?"  I said "Of course you will eat tomorrow, why are you asking?"  She said "You tell Josephine she can't eat tomorrow".  I felt so terrible that she hadn't understood what was going on and that she was probably scared of being hungry.  I explained everything to her and told her that Josephine would be able to eat after her surgery and if Josephine ate BEFORE her surgery, it could make her sick. 

On the schoolwork items, they have also been making progress.  Josephine is now pretty good at remembering to begin writing on the left side of the paper (she is left handed and used to write completely backward) and has gained quite a bit of ASL (even though we are nowhere near "fluent"!!).  And she has finally grasped the concept of adding numbers!!

Leona has learned A LOT of sign language and has gone from not being able to write ANY letters, numbers, or her name to writing pretty well and beginning phonics.  She works very hard and is very determined!  It took her a full month to be able to write LEONA correctly in all capital letters.  Then only a week or so to be able to write ZEPP.  Recently, we gave her a middle name "Grace" and she was able to copy it perfectly in less than a minute!  I was so proud of her!  It was a real struggle at first (I think we spent 4 weeks learning to write the number "3") and sometimes VERY frustrating (for me!! I'm sad to say!).  She has come so far!!  She recently had a visual evaluation and her sight with glasses is 20/30 for near-vision and 20/60 for distance. This means that eventually, she may even be able to drive on a restricted license. 

All the kids have adjusted to their new siblings amazingly well.  It has been such a blessing, although difficult at times to deal with the little irritating behaviors.  I think one of the worst things was that Josephine wanted to "baby" the baby-well, the baby isn't really a baby, she will be 2 soon and always wants to be running aroun-NOT carried and cuddled!  For quite a while, everytime Josephine would even touch Sydney, Sydney would let out a loud screech of protest!  It was VERY frustrating!!  Obviously, this phase passed and now it so cute to watch Sydney try to sign things to Josephine!  She does pretty well and thankfully, no more screeching!! 

We are still working on some minor behavioral issues and I have to admit that one of the biggest things we are now working on is "holding your pee".  Yes, I know that is strange!  It seems like the girls have never acquired that skill.  Now I know that it isn't always good to hold your pee in for extended periods of time BUT, it is a useful skill in case you are riding in a car full of groceries with no way to get out or even a place to stop (speaking from experience!).  I think they were just allowed to go "pee" anywhere, anytime, at the slightest urge in Liberia and never learned "how to hold it" until you get to a potty.  I can totally understand the bedwetting (only Leona-she wears pullups at night), but you really should be able to have some control while your awake especially when you're 8 (and even 6!)!  We are working on limiting fluids prior to car rides and bedtime now and I have been making them wait for a few minutes longer when they say they need to potty so they realize that they are able to wait and not pee their pants. 

So, that's the news!  It continues to be a very interesting journey! 

Since I didn't finish this whole entry before accidently posting it, I would like to comment on the comment that Kat left.   I was had to chuckle when I read the part about the patience, strength, and determination!!  You can trust me on this, it is only through the Lord Jesus Christ that I have any patience, strength, and determination!  In my own flesh, I would've quit long ago!  In fact, a few days ago, I told my husband that after we finished our last day of homeschool on Friday, I would be taking a 2 week nap-maybe longer!!  (After the nap, I did plan on trying to teach Leona her letters and Josephine how to read! Not thrilled about the summer school idea though!)  Adopting kids-especially older children- is definitely much different than having biological children!  

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Well, here I am again-a little behind on my blogging!

We had an eventful week with our 4 yr. old last week.  He spiked a high fever of 105.8 one night and started hallucinating.  He insisted that there were worms with teeth, snakes, and spiders everywhere.  He was very scared (SO WAS I-but not because of the snakes that I couldn't see!) When we put him in the bath to cool him down, he said the "magic school bus" was in there.  He had some bruises on his leg and started screaming "see what the worms did to me!"  After having nine kids and being a mom for 13 2/3 years (I know this because my oldest is keeping track of how long it will be till she is 14), I have never had an experience quite like this one!   After some tylenol and a lot of praying, his fever went down to 102 and the worms went away.  He got to sleep with Mom and Dad and little sister and was happy about that.  It turned out that he had an ear infection (I took him to the dr. a few days later). 

Leona had a visual exam and the dr. said she has pretty good vision (for someone with albinism) with her glasses.  I think she estimated her near vision to be 20/30 and her distance to be 20/60, which she said meant she would probably be able to drive a car eventually.  She prescribed a handheld magnifier for her and also a pair of glasses that get darker in the sun (my husband says this is polarized but I really can't remember the technical term). 

Tomorrow I will go to a new OB/GYN.  I am praying that all is well with the baby -I'm not sure when I will have another ultrasound.  I am 16 weeks pregnant now. 

That's all for now!

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Josephine had her eye surgery this past Tuesday.  She did very well-it took a whole 15 minutes. She had gas to put her to sleep-no needles (I did prepare her for a needle and she said she would be brave!)!   They opened her tear duct and made sure there were no other blockages in the tear duct system.  They inserted a small plug to keep it open so it doesn't grow closed.  It has made such a difference already.  She was very happy that her eye no longer watered and said her eye was "finished" watering.  YEAH!  The doctor thought that she may have been born with a closed tear duct.  A long time for her eye to water like it did!  She did have to have the plug replaced twice in the office because it fell out.  She did well with this.  I don't think it was painful for her, just a little strange to have someone working so close to her eye.  They used something that looked like a pen to insert it.  She didn't even cry--very brave!!

This Tuesday, Leona will see an ENT to have her eardrums checked.  You may remember that she had an ear infection for 2 years at the orphanage and came with pus oozing out of both ears. Hopefully those holes in the eardrum will close on their own but if not she will have to have something grafted over them to help them close up.  Sh eis looking forward to getting  another blood test to see if her malaria has cleared up. 

On another note, we found out that Josephine loves swimming.  Unfortunately, she was so excited and jumped in so fast that she forgot (and no on ecould catch her in time) to take her hearing aid out.  OOPS!  It seemed to work OK once it dried out but now continually beeps in her ear.  She was a bit sad.  We did find out from the audiologist that the recommended hearing aid for her costs about $1200.  Some people were paying quite a bit more for the same aid so we were  pleasantly surprised.  The audiologist said because she is deaf, medical assistance would cover the cost.  Unfortunately, this will take a few months to get through all the red tape for that to happen.

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Our re-adoption hearing went well today.  The judge was very friendly (he said he thought we would bring ALL our children!) and didn't seem to mind that we were not represented by a lawyer.  He approved our case and gave us our "official" Pennsylvania adoption certificates.  The girls should get their new birth certificates soon.  We changed their names to Leona Grace Smith Zepp and Josephine Emily Tokpa Zepp.  Very long names but we thought it would be appropriate to keep their birth last names in there somewhere even if they don't use them.  Josephine's birthdate will also be changed. 

It's such a relief to have that over with!!  Thank you for your prayers!

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