School

It's been ages since I last posted about school on here!  But that's not to say that nothing of note happened in school.  On the whole, it was a very good year for Daniel.  Not so much in terms of academic learning, although more of that happened than I would have predicted.  But Daniel learned lots of English, began to internalize some American social mores (that one is still a work in progress!), made some real friends (all girls), and developed a more positive self-image.

Some things that I loved about school (besides that I didn't have Daniel attached to my person 24-7!):

Although Daniel couldn't begin to do what the other kids were doing academically, his teachers let him develop a classroom niche as a helper.  He was the one who turned lights on and off for class videos, passed things out, and helped the teachers troubleshoot their technology when it didn't work as expected.  So Daniel felt useful and competent, and got a great boost in self-esteem from peers thinking he was really smart to figure out the tech stuff.

In choir and gym, by the last half of the year, Daniel was just a regular student.  He did what the other kids did (and was good at it!), was held to the same expectations as the other kids, and got actual letter grades.

Teachers, peers and administrators genuinely enjoyed Daniel.  (Well, most of his peers--he would come home from time to time talking about "bad kids" or "annoying kids" who would trip or push other kids (apparently not just him) or try to get them in trouble.  I offered to call the school about it but he would have none of it.)  Teacher reports about Daniel frequently contained sentiments like "a joy to have in class."  And whenever I was with Daniel in school there would be kids calling out, "Hi Daniel!" every little bit.  One day I had to get him for a dentist appointment, and as he walked by the gym on his way to meet me at the front office I could hear girls from inside the gym class screaming his name.  It sounded like a whole contingent of fans, but he told me later it was just two.  :-)  Daniel can be charming and exuberant at home and apparently is charming and exuberant almost all of the time at school, which may help to account for his popularity.  Tim commented at one point, "That probably explains why he comes home so tired every day, if he's 'on' all the time at school."  I know Daniel's teachers also appreciated his curiosity, his genuine interest in understanding things, and his helpfulness.  And I suspect his classmates responded to his great sense of humor and his "realness."

Some things that happened the second half of the school year:

After the incident in which Daniel walked home from school by himself despite explicit and repeated instructions not to, I asked his vision teacher for advice.  She promptly got him an evaluation for orientation and mobility services, and he now has a special teacher who meets with him once a month and teaches him skills for walking safely within the community.  He does not yet have the green light to walk home alone, but that is the goal.  Have I mentioned how much I love his vision teacher???

During the winter, Daniel's geography class studied China.  His teacher asked me if he would be interested in doing a class presentation about China, maybe with some pictures of his city.  At first he didn't want to do it, but I insisted, and he ended up getting really invested in the presentation.  We looked through pictures together (some that he has gathered of his social welfare institute and school; others that Tim and I have from our two years in Jinan) and picked out some that we thought would give Daniel's classmates the flavor of Jinan, then practiced what to say about them.  I accompanied Daniel to his class for moral support.  He did a super job!  His classmates didn't have any trouble understanding his English, even if it was a little creative, and they were riveted.  Afterwards they asked lots of questions.  Daniel's teacher was so pleased that she asked him if he could come to her other five periods of 7th-grade geography and do his presentation for the other students!  So pretty much the entire grade got to hear Daniel present, plus a couple of administrators made time to come in for those few minutes.  He got great feedback on how interesting his life story is and how good his English has gotten.  (He told me afterwards, "Mama, I'm the kind of person who doesn't have to prepare to speak in public; I just get up there and talk!"  And truly, he has great public presence, although the extemporaneous thing will only take him so far.)  Daniel's teacher asked him a little bit more about his social welfare institute privately after his last presentation, and according to his account, he brought her to tears with the following definition of a fuliyuan (social welfare institute): "Mommy Daddy no want baby, uh, put-it-back baby in-a street, uh, police hug baby, uh, put-it-back baby in-a fuliyuan."  The students in at least one class also caught on that many of the children who end up in social welfare institutes have disabilities, and apparently there was a pretty passionate discussion about how unfair that is to judge somebody like Daniel based on their disabilities.

A couple of months before school finished, I asked for a meeting with Daniel's teachers.  I wanted to know what Daniel was actually doing in classes, given that his standard answer to "What did you do today?" was "I played on the computer."  I know Daniel well enough to take such answers with a grain of salt, so I really wanted to hear from his teachers.  I was delighted with the results.  Daniel's teachers reported that he participated in group activities to the best of his ability (his science teacher reported that he tried to tell the other members of his lab group what to do!), and that even when he did not seem to be paying attention, he would be the first to notice that they were getting ready to show a video and he would jump up to turn off the lights and go up to the board and watch.  (He cannot see well enough to see a video from his seat.)  His math teacher also said that he was attempting the same problems the other kids were working on in class, including some stuff that is way more advanced than anything I had done with him.  They all agreed that Daniel is very bright and wants to learn.  I think that myself, but it was nice to hear that he had made the same impression on his teachers!

School behavior, on the other hand, was not always angelic.  Daniel spent the last 23 days of school trying very hard not to get a detention, because he was only one lunch detention away from a day of in-school detention.  Mind you, it is not all that difficult to get a detention at his school; two of Daniel's detentions were for "disrupting the educational process" (by disassembling a classmate's mechanical pencil when he had nothing else to do) and for "failing to exit in an appropriate manner" (because he was running loudly through the hall in sandals after a previous reminder that running and loudness are not permitted).  Not that the above are desired school behaviors, but I was glad he escaped in-school for this year!  

At the teacher meeting, I met Daniel's new long-term substitute math teacher for the first time.  She was very sentimental about Daniel and what a great kid he is and how inspirational he is, to the point that I was mildly irritated.  I was more than mildly irritated when Daniel came home saying that she said he could call her his "school mama" and he wished she could be his mama.  Obviously Ms. Starry-Eyed Math Teacher has never heard of attachment theory!  (I found out later that he took to addressing her as "chocolate mama" and the other kids picked up on it, so by the end of the year she was everybody's "chocolate mama.")  Since it was almost the end of the school year and I doubted she would be encountering recently adopted kids on a regular basis in the future, I elected not to say anything.  I was not disappointed, however, to hear that she will be at a different school next year.  (I should clarify that I don't bear her personal ill-will--I'm confident her intentions were good--but it wasn't helpful for our family at the place we are at.)

There were a couple of tragedies at school this year too.  One involved a student in Daniel's grade, and it hit some of his classmates pretty hard.  The day they learned about this situation, it was the main topic of conversation in choir class.  According to Daniel's account of events, somebody decided that they should pray for the girl involved, but then was too nervous to do the actual praying.  So they asked Daniel to pray.  And he did.  Out loud and in English.  As best he could remember it to tell me, his prayer went something like: "Dear God, please give [the girl's name] peace at your side and tell her that students love her and [our family] loves her."  I thought it was very appropriate for the situation.  And it did make me wonder what Daniel has been doing or talking about in school that his classmates thought to ask him to offer a public prayer.  We are proud of him being able and willing to step up and offer that kind of leadership.

The end of the school year finished with a bang.  Two days before school ended, I got to go see the 7th-grade awards ceremony.  I hadn't been sure what to expect, but it turned out to involve presenting certificates to any student who had accomplished pretty much anything.  The students were pretty good about clapping for all of their classmates, and from time to time a cluster of them would stand up to cheer for a particular friend.  Daniel got a certificate for "faithful attendance"--and more than half the student body gave him a standing ovation.  I just about started crying in the middle of the auditorium.  Then on the last day of school Tim and Esther and I all went to the final assembly.  Part of the assembly was a talent show, for which Daniel had auditioned and was one of ten students chosen to perform.  (Like with his geography presentation, he was very diffident at first, and would probably not have gone through with the audition if I had not insisted.  I'm thinking that next year I will insist more often!)  The performances were all good: a gymnastics routine (done by somebody Esther recognized from her gym); an original rap on the topic of bullying; an original song performed on the piano; a drum solo; an a cappella duet; and several more traditional musical numbers (mostly current love songs).  Daniel sang one of the songs that had been written for him when he was his orphanage's chief P.R. kid.  It is called "Mama," and ironically is addressed to the orphanage caregivers, describing how the orphanage is the "family" that the speaker needs in order to grow up well.  But since it is all in Chinese, nobody but Daniel's one Chinese-speaking classmate was any the wiser.  Daniel spent the several days before the performance insisting that he didn't want us to come, and that he would be embarrassed if we showed up.  We told him that was tough, we are family and family come to each other's special events.  Then he called us shortly before his performance to make sure we had gotten the video camera ready!  :-)  When Daniel was called to the front, his music teacher got ready to introduce him, but he grabbed the microphone away from her.  Then he told the students that he wanted to sing this song for his mommy because June 13th is his family day and last June 13th I came to China to get him.  He went on to nail the performance.  I think his voice was still changing when we met him, but now he is much more confident in his new tenor, and performing that very familiar song, he sounded amazing!  He got a standing ovation that time, too.  Later, as we were getting ready to leave, several of his teachers pulled us aside to say how much they had enjoyed getting to know him this year, and to give him a group gift: a motion activated soap dispenser!  He had been greatly admiring the soap dispenser in his science teacher's classroom, and I don't think they could have gotten anything that pleased him more.

And then we brought him home and began summer vacation.  :-)

Finally!

Remember that loose tooth that Esther discovered at three in the morning during a visit to Grandma's house?  You know, about six weeks ago?  Well, it's finally (finally!) out.  I don't know if loose teeth normally take this long, or if this one went slowly because Esther didn't want to yank on it (although she did enjoy wiggling it from time to time), or if it had to do with how the permanent teeth were coming in.  Both of her permanent lower front incisors have already erupted, behind the loose baby teeth.  So the missing tooth actually doesn't change her smile much, since there's already another tooth there.  It's amazing to me how tiny the baby tooth is.  The permanent teeth aren't huge either, which is a good thing if she's going to get them this early.  Her little mouth doesn't have space for big teeth yet!  I still can't believe she's getting her permanent teeth this early, but I guess it's within the range of normal.

Esther is, of course, excited about her tooth coming out.  Daniel suggested that she throw it up on the roof, like he did when his lower baby teeth came out.  (I've heard of this Chinese tradition; lower teeth are thrown up to make the new permanent ones grow upwards; upper teeth are buried in the ground to make the new permanent teeth grow downwards.)  Daddy mentioned that if she put her tooth under her pillow it would be changed into quarters.  But, although the quarters held some mystery and allure, she decided that the very best thing to do with her tooth would be to keep it.  So we now have a large plastic baggie containing a tiny tooth, labeled with Esther's name and the date and the precise original location of the tooth in her mouth.  Her other lower front incisor should follow soon, but I've told her that she's not going to keep every tooth.  So the next tooth will likely go to the tooth fairy.

Happy Birthday, Esther!

In our family, we now have three birthdays within two weeks.  First Daniel, then me, then Esther.  (Poor Tim has to wait until September for his.  I tell him that our next child needs to have a September birthday; he tells me that two is plenty!)

Esther celebrated her 5th birthday this past week, while we were still in Phoenix visiting Tim's family.  We started out by all swimming in the hotel pool.  Esther could stay in the water for hours and not get bored.  Then we went over to Tim's mom's house and Esther spent the afternoon playing with Grandma and Daddy and the dogs and kitten while Daniel and I helped Tim's sister with a bookcase replacement project.  In the evening, all of Tim's siblings and their families came over for dinner and an ice cream cake, and both the kids got their birthday presents from that side of the family.  Esther liked everything she got, but the funniest thing was her reaction to her gift card from Amazon.com.  She was beyond thrilled with it!  I don't know if she had any clear idea what she could use it for, but Daniel is crazy about Amazon and also had gotten an Amazon card, so Esther thought she was big stuff to have one of her own.  She thinks she is going to use it to buy a pillow pet.  She has been asking for one for months, and I have been refusing to buy it for her because I think they're a pointless fad.  But I remember how fun it was to have a grandparent buy me something that my parents had declined to spend their money on, so I will admit I was the one who suggested a pillow pet as a use for the gift card.  I suggested some other possibilities too, but the pillow pet was the idea that she loved.  (She also wants an iPie--aka iPod--but there is no way we are letting a five-year-old have a personal $175 electronic device!)

Esther is very proud of being five.  She is working on a mental timeline of her life, and will frequently ask me things like, "How old was I when we did X?  Could I talk then?"  Since X is often an event within the last year, her questions can come out sounding pretty funny.  She loves to talk about what she did when she was a baby, but is a little less invested in being a baby than she was even a few months ago.  She does, however, still love her green blankie and still love to be picked "uppy."  But even green blankie is fading slightly in importance; one day we went to look for it at bedtime and were shocked to find it still in her bed where she had left it when she got up in the morning!  That was just a one-time occurrence, however, and blankie frequently keeps her company while playing or snuggling, and comes along in the car with us when we go to church or on outings.

The world is blessed that there is an Esther in it, and we are especially blessed to have been entrusted with parenting her.  Happy birthday to our sweet, almost-grown-up-but-not-too-big-to-snuggle five-year-old!

Happy Birthday Daniel!

Today, I'm the mother of a fifteen-year-old.  Where did the last fifteen years go?!?  (Just kidding!)  Seriously, though...for whatever reason, it didn't feel too odd to me to be the mother of a young teenager, but fifteen feels old.  However, he is still our own dear Daniel, growing up on his own timetable, and it is a good feeling to be marking all our family's important occasions together with him for the second time.  Last year at this time we celebrated in China by going out to Karaoke, eating at Pizza Hut (Daniel's first time eating pizza; he was a fan from the start), and eating a not-too-sweet Chinese bakery cake in our hotel room.

This year, Daniel's activity of choice was (drum-roll, please)...going to IKEA!  He had been asking recently about home-decorating stores, and I had told him about IKEA, and he really wanted to check it out.  We don't have one anywhere near us, but there is one near my parents, so it was the perfect opportunity.  My dad, brother, Tim, Daniel and I all went. Daniel skipped a few sections entirely, but examined every bedroom display that they had.  He also liked the comforter section downstairs.

We also managed to find him an Asian-style cake.  When we picked it up, he told me, "I want to have my birthday here every year!"  (Our small city does not sell anything remotely resembling an Asian cake.)  So for dessert tonight, we had non-sweet (but actually pretty good) cake, watermelon, and Neapolitan ice cream (another Daniel favorite).  Daniel was a happy boy.  :-)  He didn't get much in the way of presents, since he has already gotten his present from us (a new mattress) and his presents from Tim's side of the family are waiting for when we visit them.  But he was quite pleased with cash from great-grandma and a projection clock (complete with white noise maker and radio) from my parents.

We have some pictures, but I'm too tired to post them right now.  Maybe tomorrow.

Happy Family Day, Daniel Huang!

A year ago today, we entered our hotel lobby with some trepidation, wondering what Daniel would really be like and what he would think of us.  I do believe the process of adoption is harder on the kids than on the parents, but in any case, becoming instant family with a stranger is not for the faint of heart!

A year later, we have real relationships, a foundation of shared experiences, and some understanding of how each other tick.  Can I just say how good that feels?

So, after a year of living life with Daniel, this is the boy we know and love:

Personality/character:  curious, kind, intelligent, extroverted, diligent (at least on projects of his own choosing!), helpful, skeptical, authentic, insightful, exuberant, loyal, open, funny, affectionate, outside-the-box thinker, tease

Likes:  anything that runs on electricity, mashed potatoes, physical contact, scented stuff (like candles and soaps), friends, music, noodles, sledding, his new mattress, feet (especially Mom's), swimming, ice cream, attention

Dislikes: anything that started life as a dried legume (with the exception of soybean products), wearing glasses, messes (poor kid, our house is always messy!), people being upset (especially if he doesn't know why), waiting to see the doctor/dentist, being stared at, most candy, not knowing what to do next, being ignored

Hobbies: fixing things, taking things apart to see how they work, lovingly arranging the many layers of sheets and mattress pads on his new mattress, helping people, watching the news in Chinese, getting the mail before anybody else does, "getting a rise" out of people, shopping, hanging around Mom, chatting, finding electronics and bed accessories on Amazon.com

Wants: an iPod, wireless headphones, remote switches (so he can turn off his light from in bed), a motion-activated light (he already has the motion-activated soap dispenser), twine and beads for the sort of handicrafts he used to make in China

Talents: fixing things, math, photography, singing

Possible future careers: maintenance technician, contractor, interior designer, plumber, electrician, electrical engineer, architect

Daniel is quite pleased to have a day that is all about him.  :-)  His first idea for how to spend his family day was to eat lots of mashed potatoes.  Then we thought about swimming.  But his final choice?  Shopping!!  We are making a trek to Home Depot (an hour away) and stopping at our favorite Chinese buffet in that city.  We may hit some other stores as well (like Lowes, his local favorite!).  No promises that we're going to buy any of his beloved gadgets for him, but he will have fun window shopping.  And, he wants to go sign up for a library card.  It will be a full day, but fun, and very Danielish.  :-)

busy few weeks

After Tim got back from his conference and (mostly) recovered from his stomach virus (or whatever it was), he had a work-related day trip and an evening foster care training, plus we got to spend a couple of hours taking Daniel to the doctor for a follow-up visit for his strep.  (The strep ended up being pretty much a non-event by the way; after 12 hours on the antibiotics, Daniel felt fine.) 

Then there was our 12-hour power outage.  Tim about gave me a heart attack one night by bolting up in bed saying, "What was that noise??"  I vaguely recalled there being an ongoing crackling noise at the tail end of my disappearing dream, which was the same noise that had woken Tim up in real life.  Now the noise was gone.  It had sounded like it came from outside the house, but Tim took a flashlight and went to check.  As he reached the end of the hall I saw a bright flash of light, heard a loud bang, and the power was off.  So at three in the morning I hauled myself out of bed, groggily hunted down an old electricity bill and called their 1-800-number to report an outage.  We thought the couple houses across the street that usually go out with us were affected as well, but it was hard to tell in the middle of the night.  Other houses clearly had lights still.  Neither child had woken up, although I did hear Daniel talking in his sleep about a clock.

The next morning when I went to wake Daniel up, I looked out his window across the street and solved the mystery of the crackling noise.  Our neighbors across the street have an enormous (and I do mean enormous) oak tree that overhangs their living room.  Sometimes on windy days I worry about it blowing down on top of their house.  At least the tree itself was still standing, but, although it had not been storming the night before, two giant limbs had fallen on the power line and snapped it.  Daniel of course rushed through his morning preparations and was out the door fifteen minutes early so that he could survey the damage.  I went out with him, being as I didn't know whether or not there might be a live wire on the ground (it turned out later that there was, though thankfully not in the street), and I didn't trust Daniel's vision or curiosity enough to be sure he wouldn't step on it.  Our neighbor who owns the house was out too, so we chit-chatted a bit and traded stories, and then I saw Daniel off to the school bus.  He was disappointed that he didn't get to stick around and watch the crew come fix the wire.  (Our neighbor commented, "He's going to be an electrical engineer; you can see that one coming!"  It's interesting how many people say that, or some variation of it, to us.  Yes, Daniel has great aptitude and interest in technical things, and I think he will very likely go into a technical career, but why engineer and not electrician?  Maybe people assume that with two college-educated parents we will necessarily produce college-educated children, but actually we'll be happy with any career that suits a child's abilities, contributes to the world, and makes a decent living.)  Esther did get to watch the electrician and the tree-trimming crew at work, and later she played electrician with Daddy.  He was impressed with how well she remembered everything they had done.  That one may well choose to become an engineer, although right now she's trying to decide between biology and physics.  :-)

We finally got our power back about 3:00, and a few hours later Tim's dear friend from Arizona arrived for a visit.  He and Tim have been friends since seventh grade, and he was actually the one who officiated at our wedding.  He had a meeting in a city five hours away from us, so he came a couple of days early, rented a car, and made the five-hour trip down just to spend time with us.  Now, that's a good friend!  We had a wonderful time together.  Tim and Mark played lots of pool and table tennis, and Esther hung on his every movement.  One morning I overheard her asking him if he would like her to feed him his cereal!  (He politely declined.)  Daniel was away at school for most of the visit, but he got in on some of the pool action.

Mark left on Friday morning.  On Saturday morning, not quite as early as we wanted to, we loaded up the SUV and headed out to my grandmother's house to spend the long weekend with her and celebrate her 88th birthday.  We had a great time there as well, even though the air conditioner wasn't working and the temperatures were above ninety degrees.  Some of us spent a lot of time in the cool basement!  :-)  But we wouldn't have traded the visit for anything.  Grandma is very special to us, and we love being close enough to go for a weekend.  Esther, true to her usual form when traveling, woke up at four in the morning our first night there and insisted it was time to get up.  And somewhere during those pre-dawn hours she discovered her first wiggly tooth.  Daniel slept fine, but the visit was an interesting preview of what our summer travels may look like.  He was calm and pleasant as long as he was in physical contact with me or engaged in conversation with me.  And of course he was fine when doing projects, of which he found many: adjusting the drapes, cutting an unused cord off of a recliner, fixing the screen on a door, fixing the back doorbell.  But if he wasn't with me or doing a project, he had no idea what to do with himself.  We are going to be away from home for three weeks this summer.  It could be...interesting!

This week has been a little less busy so far...just dental appointments for two of us, an audition for Daniel to perform in his school's end-of-year talent show, the arrival of Daniel's new mattress (his long-anticipated birthday present), our one-year post-placement visit with our social worker, and an inspection by pest control people to get rid of a possible carpenter ant nest.  We're hoping that the actual nest is outside somewhere and the twelve ants Tim killed in our bathroom after we got back from Grandma's house were just scouts, but we've been putting the inspection off long enough!

Then this weekend is the 30 Hour Famine at church.  I will be involved the whole time, and Tim and kids may come for some of the Saturday activities.  We decided that Daniel isn't ready to do it yet, though I'm hoping he can next year. 

Next weekend we have friends from DC taking a detour from a long road trip to come spend the night with us, and the following week we have two medical appointments (one in another city) and Daniel's Family Day, plus packing to go out of town for three weeks.  I'm super excited for the trip: we're going to see my family in Oregon, drive down the coast together to northern California to be at a cousin's wedding and see extended family, then fly on to Arizona with my sister and return her to her supported living community before spending almost a week with Tim's family and friends in Phoenix.  I suspect the trip will feel long at times, especially with our kids, but I am so looking forward to seeing loved ones I haven't seen in a few years and introducing everyone to Daniel!  In particular, Tim's mom is no longer able to fly easily, so this will be her first time meeting her newest grandson.  Very special.  And for a long time we weren't sure if we were going to be able to do it financially.  I was praying hard for us to have the money by the time we needed to decide, and I'm so grateful that we do!

So that's our lives right now.  (And I thought things were going to get relaxing once Tim was done with the semester!  Ha!)

What a week!

The week of which I speak is not last week but the week before--I'm just a little bit behind, here!

Tim "celebrated" Mother's Day by going off to a conference and leaving me alone with the kids for a week.  The timing was not his choice, of course, but I still gave him a hard time about it!  He gave up going to his usual professional conference this year because he didn't want to leave me on my own, but this one was a particularly good opportunity for him, and we decided it was time to give it a try.

The reviews...were mixed.

On Sunday after Tim left, both kids were positively angelic.  We had a really nice time outside, then Daniel occupied himself on the computer and let me read and play with Esther until bedtime, and afterwards I had some good one-on-one with Daniel.  It was great!  It was also the highlight of the whole week, which means: things went downhill from there!

On Monday, Daniel's school started standardized testing.  He is excused from the testing this year only, but all his teachers and classmates were involved, so he was put in with the special education class.  That worked well the rest of the week, but on Monday he hadn't known it was coming and I think he was a little upset by it, plus just stressed by being off his normal routine.  On Monday night I had a support group meeting.  Daniel has always had a hard time with going to the kids' group associated with this meeting; something about all the kids and the adult caretakers that he doesn't know well just doesn't work well for him.  So I had told him that he could try coming to the adult group the next time, but that was before I knew that Tim wasn't going to be there.  Daniel coming with just me would, I'm pretty confident, be a disaster.  So I made him go to the kids' group.  He was mad, and made sure I knew it.  And even Esther, uncharacteristically, cried when I left.  So, Monday afternoon and evening, not so good, although I was pleased that Monday evening ended with Daniel asking to call Tim, and pouring out to him the whole story of his day, in English.  Tuesday morning, also not so good.  Tuesday afternoon we slowly climbed back out of our hole, and we did fine again until Thursday.

I'm sure Daniel would prefer that I not share the details of Thursday.  But it ended with him being as rowdy and uncooperative as he knows how to be, and egging Esther on to do the same, right at bedtime!  And right at that moment, there was nothing I could do about it.  Daniel is just too big for me to pick up and hold in my lap until he calms down, like I can do with Esther.  And while I can talk either child down out of the trees when it's just me and him/her, this time neither one was listening to me.  Daniel finally realized that keeping Esther up was not in his own best interest and tried to help me get her to bed, but by that point she was so riled up that it was quite a job.  I was soooo happy when both kids were asleep and I could pour out my evening into Tim's sympathetic ear!

Friday afternoon Tim came home, and we were all very glad to see him.  The kids settled, and I felt better for having reinforcement in the house!

Saturday evening, Tim came down with a 24-hour stomach bug, and was pretty miserable.  But the kids were positively angelic again.  At one point Daniel had Esther in his lap, showing her how to play his favorite game on his computer, and at another point he actually invited her to play the Wii with him!  I thought, "You've got to be kidding me, you fight over me all week, and now that Dad's home you can suddenly play together??  That's not fair!"  But I was happy to be able to do what I needed to do and leave Tim to do what he needed to do at that point, which was sleep!

So that was my Mother's Week.  I am, as always, glad I get to be a mother...but also glad that I mostly don't have to do it on my own!