Boys, Boys, Busy Boys!

Hi Everyone – its been a while since my last post! I feel like I should rename my blog to something like… Confessions of a New Mom…  Life has been hectic! Good Hectic.

I have lots of cool stuff to tell you guys and have been looking forward to finding the time and energy to write.  Last time I blogged about Tom coming home - so anyway Friday was the day. I arrived early on Friday morning as promised to collect Tom and Jake. They were packed and ready and oh so excited for the weekend.  I asked them if they wanted to go home to explore or to my shop for milkshakes and they begged to go to the shop! All they wanted was strawberry milkshakes and NOT the kiddies ones - they wanted the large ones so that’s what they got.  They loved the shop and Jake asked if I was the “boss” of the shop – and was delighted to hear that I was indeed.  The girls all made such a fuss of them and they each left with a small treat, which they took great delight in choosing.

We headed home and they unpacked their bags and got into their cossies. Jake said he wanted to teach Tom how to swim and Tom said that he wanted to teach Jake how to fish so they struck a deal and started with the swimming part.  We played outside and had a picnic lunch out on the deck by the pool. Little Max needs a sleep after lunch so we use this as an opportunity to have some siesta time on the couch and we let them take turns choosing a movie out of our DVD collection.

When Max woke up we headed down to the beach for a late afternoon walk and run around and Jake and Tom had great fun chasing the shore break up and down the beach until eventually Tom got soaked by a surprise wave. We packed the soggy, sandy kids back into the car and headed home. Rog did a braai for us and the boys took great delight in “Helping with the braai”.  They devoured their chicken and afterwards Jake hovered around the table with a silly grin on the face saying how much he loved his chicken, until he was instructed to stop eating before he popped!

(On that note I have to tell you something cute – Tonight Tom asked me to help him write a letter to Father Christmas and one of the things he asked for on his list was a plastic chicken – cause he wants one to hold – cause he just loves chicken.)

So after dinner came bath time and all three boys had such fun together in the bath – lots of noise and splashing and asking “who suzad?”. They ask for bedtime stories EVERY night and EVERY night I ask them if they are listening because the zone out so quickly and they insist that they are and beg me to continue. Sometime just to see if they are listening I throw in some crazy embellishments of my own and I get the funniest reactions!

Sat was great, Rog took all three boys fishing and I went grocery shopping (not so fun in Ballito in December). They caught a fish and an eel and came back with lots of tall stories and handfuls of litchis that they had picked themselves and insisted that I eat in front of them. We had salad rolls for lunch and Jake was delighted that we had potato salad, which he had mentioned was his favorite the day before. There is something about the way that a child’s face lights up when you do the smallest thing just for them that is addictive!

We had afternoon nap for Max and TV siesta time for everyone else. One of my new most favorite things is to wake Max up from his afternoon sleep. When he wakes up in the morning he is very energetic and not too interest in lots of cuddles but when he wakes up from his afternoon sleep - now that’s a whole different story. He lies on me for about 10 minutes and we have the BEST cuddle time ever. This time makes me want to push pause on the growth button and keep him this small forever.

After siesta time we all took a walk - Max in his pram, Tom on his bike and Jake on Rogers skateboard. Rog and I laughed so much at one point because Tom asked for a push on his bike and Rog pushed with his foot instead of hands and he toppled backwards onto his bum from the downwards pressure. It was slow and he did not hurt himself at all - but he reprimanded Rog in the sternest of 4-year-old voices and then demanded that we stopped laughing which was even funnier so we had to giggle in silence behind him while he deliberated about forgiving us. Rog took turns taking them on the skateboard and they stood up in between his legs while he stood over them and carved his way down the hills. Hair-raising stuff – I poured myself a glass of wine as soon as we got home – my nerves were a little shattered by then!

Sat night was pizza and movie night. We sat on the floor in the lounge and the guys took great delight in this simple event.  Let me tell you that every night is a bun fight over who gets to say grace between Jake and Tom and it is the cutest most beautiful thing to listen to!

Sunday was beach day and we packed our car and headed out to the beach. There was lots of climbing around on the rocks and sand castle building and I discovered my least favorite place to change a nappy – on the beach. Wriggling, sand, soggy nappies and far away bins are not a cool combination. Need to work on larger change mats and baby handcuffs and things should be better for next time.

We took Jake back on Sunday night and during the weekend I asked Tom whether he wanted to stay with us or go back with Jake and he said a definite stay with us. I packed a little bag for him incase he changed his mind when we got there and nope he was fixed on the idea of staying with us – what a victory over such a short time! We stayed and had a braai with Ruth, the children all said an official goodbye to Tom and Max and we brought home two sleepy beautiful children much to our great delight!

Recipe for Pure Bliss...

If someone could have described to me the feeling of putting a baby in your car, driving home and taking that baby out of your car, then telling him that he is HOME now and then watching him settle in – I would have done this many years ago.  If I could bottle this feeling, brand it “PURE Joy” and sell it, I would be a Billionaire. A few years ago if you had asked me what I would do with all that money the answer would have been very different, today the answer is – “I would adopt a lot more children – A LOT more!”

I got there to fetch Max after lunch sometime and he was having his nap so I sat and spoke to Ruth’s children outside. Ruth has adopted 4 children and these kids are probably some of the coolest kids I have ever met in my life. Tom was with them and Ruth has begun to speak to him about the future and how Rog & I wanted to be his Mom and Dad and how he can always call her Mom if that’s what he wanted to do. I am totally fine with this; to share the title of “Mom” with Ruth would be an honour in my books.

She said that he got very clingy through and after the conversation but that today he started taking about his Mom and Dad and that he was referring to us! Today when I got there he wanted to come home with me and clung onto my leg and when I gave the other kids attention he actually even came and held onto me and said “MY mommy!” in a rather cheeky way.

Back to Ruth’s amazing adopted kids. Their names are Siya, Mary, Jake and Simon. Ruth lives upstairs with her family and uses downstairs for the other children. Jake and Tom are big buddies and Jake is coming back with Tom with the weekend – I am fetching them on Friday. Jake tells me that Tom needs to take a certain DVD from the family collection cause its his favourite and he should have it and gave me a few other little nuggets of advice for his friend Tom. Jake wanted to know if we would visit lots and I said of course we would – that we would be like cousins.  Jake then piped up “Yes, we could be adopted cousins!” I agreed that they would always be our adopted nephews and nieces and that he could call us Aunty Haley and Uncle Rog – he was delighted with this!

Jake then told me that he was packing tomorrow so that if I came really early on Friday he would be ready!!! (It like that have been scripted to say the coolest things – now I know why God loves children SO much!). Tom looked very torn seeing Max leaving with me and got very clingy and literally wrapped himself around my legs like a koala. I had to peel him off and promise to come early on Friday and eventually he let me leave. They all said bye to Max and gave him lots of hugs and kisses.

I drove off with Max and because I had been very brave in front of the other children emotions just came over me like a flood, I cried most of the way through Verulum and got it together just before the toll rd. (Don’t worry is was a quiet, don’t scare the baby happy cry – but I did get a few strange looks and I wondered whether anyone though I have stolen him, HA HA the mind plays tricks…:)

We got home just in time for fun and games before bath time. I discovered that Max loves it when you jump out from around a corner and scare him, he cracks up in fits of laughter and instead of running away from you tries to catch you – it is so cute! We played catches and playdo and ball games and even had time to squeeze in a remote speech therapy assessment via iPhone FACETIME.

My friend Sarah lives in London and is a Speech Therapist – her research has been published and is on “orphans and language development”, so we have some rather good connections in that department! Max is almost 2 and not speaking but according to Sarah there is nothing to worry about and he should catch up completely within the next year. She gave me some amazing pointers so we are going to work hard on that.

Rog got home and hopped in the bath with Max – that was fun and games and I loved watching them! Rog thinks that we have the cutest baby in the world and so do I – now we finally know how other parents feel. 

Things get even more fun on Friday when I fetch our big boy Tom and his “cousin buddy” Jake! Good Times Ahead!

Thank you Lord for this amazing blessing.

xxx

Plans for this week

Hi All – we had our meeting yesterday with their social worker and she was delighted to here that our weekend with the boys had not scared us off but rather reinforced our decision to fight for them now more than ever.

She was going to go to court later in the day to vary their place of safety and we will have to wait until January to officially process the fostering application. We will have to appear in court for that and we will then have to meet their biological mother. She will be forced to come to court - if she does not then she will be subpoenaed and if she ignores the subpoena she will be arrested so however it happens she will be there and the process will begin.

We are going to fetch Max on Wednesday and will probably wait until Friday to go back and fetch Tom. We are going to tread very carefully with Tom – he has bonded with his temporary safe care brothers and sister and calls Ruth Mom at this point.  We are grateful for this because he really loves them - he has been cared for in a wonderful way but he simply cannot stay there any longer.  Rog and I are going to take whatever time he needs to transition him across and there will be no pressure on him to do it in one step. We will probably fetch him on Friday and hopefully bring on of the other boys across for the weekend and return him on Sunday or Monday of whenever he asks to go “home”.

By the end of holiday period and before schools begin we trust that he will feel happy to call this home and then will be visit and allow his “extended family” on weekends to that he maintains his connection there.

So Wednesday is the day for my little Max the Munchkin – we are officially moving him in! He is such a happy little fellow, I don’t expect any obstacles to settling him in - all he wants is love and cuddles and yummy food! Our little Max certainly knows how to put away the grub, that boy can eat!

I am now on a mission to find a pre-school for Tom for next year. This is really going to be a challenge as schools in this area are already full and have waiting lists. Please pray that we will find favour with the right school and that they will somehow have space for him.

Otherwise I have had a couple days to make my home child friendly, we have bought a bed for Tom – this bed has a pull out bed underneath so always place for friends and it is getting delivered today so I know he will love that. I have buckets and spades for the beach, blowing bubbles, ice cream cones, mosquito spray, sunscreen, armbands and a lovely new set of plastic plates and cups – so we are READY for the holidays!

Please pray for Tom - we are trusting for a smooth and happy transition where he does not feel a sense of loss but rather understands that a new and wonderful adventure has just begun!

xxx

Fun & Games & The Future...

What a fun weekend!

Ok so some of you are wondering what is going on with our search for Lucy and what is all this talk of boys etc.  Well to answer your questions it looks like we might have found some brothers for Lucy but no – still no sign of Lucy!

YES I KNOW THIS IS MAJOR …..

Any way let me fill you in….. There has been one special place that we have been going back to since we first visited and that it Sinakekele Childrens Home in Verulam.  We have gone back there many times and visited a little girl with a rather complex situation and have been waiting to hear about her case etc.  During our visits two little boys slowly began creeping into our hearts and we found ourselves gravitating towards them over recent visits.

They are brothers. The little one is nearly two and the older one is four years old. They were meant to spend a week with Ruth and have been with her for just over a year now.

We have another meeting with their social worker tomorrow so will know more then – for now it looks like we will foster them for a year and process an application for adoption after that year is up.  We are not allowed to do a straight adoption in this case and the foster period is non negotiable.  Without going into too much detail the circumstances surrounding their case seem unlikely that there will be many obstacles to adoption even through there may be a lengthy foster period.  There are risks as in any situation but when you meet these kids any ideas of self-preservation quickly fade away and the full steam ahead mode kicks in properly.

So back to our weekend. We fetched them on Friday afternoon and for the sake of this blog we are going to call the little one Max and the older one Tom (not their real names but names that we hope to add to their existing names if and when the time is right. )

They were a little shy to start off with but soon starting exploring and relaxing and they just loved racing around on their bikes outside on the lovely flat tar of the parking area by our house.  We had hotdogs outside on the deck for supper and they both polished off their dinner very quickly. We had more fun and games and then a lovely long bath time.  They don’t usually get bubbles, toys etc and we had so much fun with them over bath time  - it was such a delight to watch!

Rog read them a bed time story and they went to sleep at about 7:30 nice and easy no problems at all.  That night I probably slept about 1 hour if I was lucky – they hardly made a sound I simply could not sleep. I had the baby monitor shining in my eyes all night long and I check on them about 6 times for no logical reason at all.  I eventually went to sleep at about 5 am and then woke up again at 6am.  Rog and I – after what seemed an age - eventually woke the boys up at 7am!

All they wanted for breakfast was corn flakes which I sadly did not have so Pronutro was an acceptable alternative.  I tried to give Tom a treat by putting a mini waffle in the toaster and covering it with syrup but he took one bite and then politely asked me “where is the bin?” Needless to say he did not like his waffle at all.

We spent the morning at the animal farm which was very cute and I was amazed by how gentle they both where with all the animals  - there was no shouting, chasing or crazy behaviour they were so sweet. I think I spent more time chasing the animals than they did!

I then had a baby shower to go to so Rog took the boys and headed over to our friends Pete and Wendy. The boys had such a wonderful time there, they played in the sand, road bikes, splashed in the pool, went fishing, playing cricket, golf and generally had an amazing time – they even left with presents from their daughter Ashleigh who incidentally came up with the name Max so WOW – what a special time.  We got home had another super fun bath time and then off to bed. Oh and Max who does not speak yet said my name today – nice and crystal clear like he was announcing it! Adorable!

This morning Max woke up at 7am and Tom slept till 8am – (Keep that up boys and you’ll be in the good books for real!) I slept so much better last night and woke up feeling a lot more energetic today.

Today we went up to the farm and spent the day with Roger’s folks – another wonderful time with lots of fun and games had by all. We took them back late this afternoon and then stayed there with them for about about and hour and a half – it was very hard to leave. Moving on...

We really loved our weekend! I think that God in his Wisdom knows that if we had to share one child we would smother them with all the love that we have each stored up over the last 8 years – I smile when I imagine Rog and I arguing over who gets to do this and who gets to do that.  Now we could have 1 each!  My Rog (handsome husband) has been AMAZING and you should see his face when he talks about these boys – he could not be more on board, it is such a huge blessing to be in agreement over the directions on this path we are on.

SO WHAT ABOUT LUCY?

Lucy is a dream and a promise that we will never let go off. One day our little girl will come into our lives and when she does we really pray that she will have two big brothers Tom and Max de Charmoy waiting for her. Lucy will always be our little Promised Princess and she will surely rule the roost!

For those of you that gave us such beautiful girly things for our baby shower – if it was clothes then we are going to swop some of them and keep some for Lucy and Di your purple Bumbo is now a green Bumbo!  We are going to keep a box of special goodies for Lucy - thank you for being such a blessing to us!  I have had to make some adjustments to the room, most inconvenient but they say pink is the new black so how bad can it be?

Thank you all for your continued prayers – you might need to dial those up a notch now that we have two little boys on the way.

Will keep you posted!

xxx

The Boys

Rog and I are counting down – 3 more sleeps till we fetch the boys for the weekend!

We have fallen rather head over heels in love with two little brothers we met while searching for Lucy. These boys are nearly 2 and 4 years old and are adorable. 

Last night we went to "Tom's" school play – he was a cow in his play and he was very cute to watch.  He seemed rather sleepy and yawned a lot but was very happy to see us at the end.  We were so delighted that Ruth invited us to join in – what a privilege!

The last time that we visited them all - "Tom" took us into the garage and showed us a car seat that he would fit in if we wanted to take him home – you must know what it takes to say no to that.

Anyway the time has come and we are so excited for our weekend together! So if you see us running around the town with two VERY handsome boys pls say hi to them – we have loads of fun planned!

3 more sleeps!

xxx