Tales of Christmas Present(s)

Christmas was very eventful this year. A lot happened that was blogworthy. A lot. I'll just give you the highlights though.

*Noah received a punching bag and gloves. Seeing this, Tommy jumped up and yelled, "Yay! Now you won't have to beat me up anymore!!! Thank you, Santa!!"

*We thought we would have a little fun with Emily this year. Be assured we will not attempt this in the future. She wanted a cell phone bad--real bad. We decided to go ahead and get her one because she will be staying at school a lot with cheerleading and whatnot. So, we thought it would be funny to wrap up a toy cell phone and give it to her and then give her the real one when she was done opening all of her presents. She opened the toy cell phone and we all giggled and she played with it a few seconds, looked under the tissue paper in hopes of finding a real one hiding there, and proceeded to...sob. Nice. Someone's heart was a little too set on a cell phone I'm thinking. So, Sam got up to console her and I went and got the real phone and said, "maybe this will make you feel better." She opened it while continuing to sob--this time feeling bad for her bad response. We're up for Parents of the Year after that one.

*We have two Santa believers in the house and so we have to be careful what we say. We have never told the kids that Santa is real but after a few comments by one of our children to a neighbor child a few years ago (something along the lines of "Santa (i.e. St. Nicholas) is dead") we decided to play along with them. So, there are a couple of gifts for each kid under the tree that are just labeled with their name and don't say who they are from. Rachel is a serious believer--putting milk and cookies out for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. So, on Christmas Emily was opening a gift of clothes from "Santa" and Sam says, "Em, guess who picked those out." (He helped and was very pleased with his selections obviously.) From across the room I was trying to shush him without drawing attention to it. After getting no response I graduated to mouthing the words "SHUT UP!" and finally seeing me, Emily pipes up with, "Why is Mom saying 'shut up' to us?" Luckily our younger children were not paying close enough attention and figured it was an inside joke or something. Oy.

*Sam likes to guess what his presents are before he opens them. It is a ritual I've come to accept. What is weird is that he has a very high percentage of correct answers. Noah has clearly inherited this gift because when he was preparing to open the radio control helicopter we got him, he announced, "it's an r/c helicopter." I am sure I confirmed his guess because my jaw was on the floor. Later, Noah decided to help Sam open--and guess about--his gifts. Noah decided that he was only really able to guess well with electronics because he was way off on any clothing items. When I was on my last gift Noah was hurrying me along because he wanted to play with his toys and he was annoyed that he had had to wait for Mom and Dad to open our gifts. So, I started going really slowly because that it the kind of mom I am. Sam said he should just use his "powers" and tell us what it is and we could be done. So, Noah picks up my gift and feels it all over. "Hmmmm," he said, "it feels like a food box....maybe crackers?...like Ritz." Sam is astonished and tells me to just open it and what did I find? A Ritz box (with a gift card to Crackers restaurant inside mind you). We are beside ourselves wondering how he did it and laughing hysterically when Noah starts to giggle and says, "I cheated!" He had seen the Ritz box peeking through the wrapping paper where I had started opening it and decided to string us along. We laughed even harder at that point because he had so totally tricked us.

*After the kids opened their presents, Sam told them to come sit down and he was going to read from Luke. Noah was not at all excited about this and replied, "You don't need to read the Bible today it's Christmas!"

Katya's friend

Katya's best friend's last day of school is today because she is moving. Katya has a difficult time understanding and communicating her own emotions so I'm not sure how hard this is for her. She has also experienced a great deal of lost relationships in her life and I'm sure there is a temptation to just stuff it and move on. She has had difficulty making friends in the past, but it appears that she has become friends with a couple of other girls at school in anticipation of Brooke leaving. Please pray for her as she is in this transition and pray for us to help her walk through it.

Green cards and glasses

You will be happy to hear that Tommy got a green card yesterday! And the P.E. teacher said that he had the best day he has ever had in P.E. and "was the most well behaved student in the class." (Half of Tommy's class informed me of this when I walked into his classroom yesterday. They were soooo excited to tell me how great Tommy did that they were all talking at once. He has 19 personal cheerleaders.) The down side for Tommy is that the P.E. teacher said, "Now I know that you can do it and I'll expect you to do that every day." Oops. Rule #1 of School Poker: never show your hand.

Oh, and Tommy broke his glasses yesterday "opening them too hard." He made it two months. That's longer than I had guessed and the very reason we bought two pair.

Gaps and our great, big God

There are many days when I am stunned by the lack of knowledge we have regarding Tommy and Katya's life before they were part of our family. We have no idea what their life was really like, other than some of the stories that Katya can tell us. And we will never really know the full effect the various traumas they've encountered have had on them. To lose both parents to death and then to be separated from family members and live in an orphanage is mind boggling for me. Thankfully, God is the Father to the Fatherless and He never took His eyes off of them even once.

The other day, a conversation with Tommy reminded me of all of this. It revealed a huge gap in his understanding of family and relationships. We were talking about how his Dad doesn't know what it's like to have a brother (having only sisters) and I commented on the fact that had we not adopted him he would never have had a brother either since he only had Katya as a sister. His shocked response: "Katya was my sister in Russia??" He went into the orphanage at 3 1/2. We adopted him when he was almost 5. I remember early on that he would refer to his orphanage classmates/roommates as his "brothers" and I would correct him and tell him that they were just his friends and not his brothers. Somewhere along the line at a developmental age when he would have been figuring out how people are related to one another, he was without family to connect to. He knew Katya and knew she was his "sister," but apparently didn't necessarily differentiate that relationship from the others in the orphanage, except that they had history together living with Babushka (Grandma). Wow. He can say the words but clearly does not understand the deeper meaning. He refers to his brother and sisters all the time. He talks about his friends' brothers or sisters. But in our conversation he had to ask me "So, what makes someone a brother and sister?" Wow again.

I am left feeling thankful that God is sovereign over Tommy and Katya's life. I will never know all of the gaps they have and all of the emotional scars they carry as a result of their early life. But God does. He knows all about them and cared for them throughout their trials. He brought them out of a life of certain poverty and difficulty by bringing them to the United States. He is giving them an education lightyears beyond that which they would have received in their orphanage. And most importantly, they have come here and learned that there is a God who is Creator of all things (including them), that we are all sinners in need of a Savior, and that God provided that Savior by sending His Son to die on a cross for the sins of His people. There is very little likelihood that they would have heard the Truth in their rural orphanage or in the small town they would have returned to after leaving the orphanage. God could have sent a missionary to them or some such thing, but instead, he plucked them out and brought them here to Gilbert, AZ to be raised in an environment that (hopefully) points them to the Savior and their need for Him.

Wow.

Elvis sighting

Last night we were driving in the car and Elvis was on the radio singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." I said to the kids, "It's sure not Christmas without Elvis." To which Rachel responded, "That's Elvis? It doesn't sound like him. Was he alive when he did that?" Hmmm. After about 30 seconds of seeing me stifling a giggle she realized what she said and cracked a smile. Apparently the recording sounded so clear and "not old" that she was confused--knowing that Elvis sang his songs soooooooooooooo very many eons ago she assumed that it should sound crackly or something.

Cha-ching

I'm sure you were wondering what $9000 looks like in a bottle. Now you know. Thank you Lord for insurance!!!!!

12 Days of Christmas

About 5 years ago I started a tradition with the kids where starting on Dec. 13 they get a small gift in their stocking each day until the 24th. I got the idea from a magazine I think. Basically it is a way to give them socks and underwear and have them get excited about it. The gifts are really no big deal (from my perspective) but they get sooooo excited each year they are ready to come unglued by the 12th. Noah, who only likes to take a shower in the morning--and has decided to fight many battles on that point--decided to shower last night so that he would be ready for the stockings this morning! I got smart last night when I was putting their gifts in their stockings--I hung a sign next to the stockings saying "Rule #1: No one goes near the stockings without permission. Rule #2: No one opens a gift until ALL rooms are completely clean." I didn't have to remind one child to clean their room or pick clothes up off the floor before they left for school. I'm thinking our mornings are going to go a little smoother for the next 11 days.

This morning they each got an ornament for their collections (the girls each get angels and the boys each get a star--reminders of the story of Jesus' birth).

This year Noah blessed Sam and I by making us some gifts for our stockings for the 12 days. Today Sam got a felt cup holder and I got a felt purse "embroidered" with MOM. Too cute. Here's a picture of them:

The Big Red Wall

Sam has been wanting to paint our kitchen wall red since we moved in. He finally did this weekend and we love it!

Nativity

We made this nativity set when Emily was 3 and Noah was a few weeks old. Emily "helped" paint a couple of the wooden pieces but the rest was done by Sam and I and our friend Velma (who was living with us at the time.) It was originally one of those projects you see in a magazine and think will be fun to do with your child--until you see the detail required and end up doing the whole thing yourself. We had a great time staying up late and figuring out what we were going to use for each part. The cow is my favorite--Velma made it. I love pulling this out of the box each year.

Wrinkles of all ages

Last night Katya referred to an elderly woman in a movie she had seen as being a "grandma." The woman actually was not a grandmother and so I was explaining to Katya that not all old women are grandmothers and helping her to see what does make someone a grandma. One of the things she said was that having a wrinkly face meant someone was a grandma. So Rachel chimes in with: "No Katya, Mom has wrinkles and she's not a grandma." The other kids guffawed loudly, Rachel took one look at me and you could hear the tires screeching as she threw on her mental brakes and attempted to fix her faux pas. She very kindly pointed out that even she has wrinkles when she scrunches up her face. I feel much better now.

Rewards and Consequences

Okay, so after dinner tonight we started a discussion regarding drawing up a contract for things that have been--or in many cases haven't been--happening around the house. Sam and I originally thought about leaving the kids' messes and seeing how long it would take living in squallor before they decided to clean up after themselves, but the flaw in that plan is that they have an incredibly high tolerance for filth. As indicated by their tendency to step over multiple items on their floor and think nothing of it. So, we decided to go with a contract of rewards and consequences for behaviors instead of seeing how long I could be grossed out by the kids' filth.

The conversation really got lively when we decided to implement some consequences for Daddy. If Daddy doesn't clean up after making his coffee the first suggestion for a consequence was no coffee for a week. Ouch. If Daddy comes home late from work they wanted him to have to pay each kid 50 cents. Which of course lead to ideas for calling his boss and asking him to make Daddy work late! Young capitalists. And if Daddy yells they want him to have to buy them ice cream.

It got very funny when I said, "What if I yell?" and Tommy yelled out, "You get a kiss!" Sweet! Rachel suggested I get a "Leukemia Day Card" from them so that I could rest so I would feel better. Hee, hee, hee--clearly I only yell if I'm having a bad day from my leukemia and I can't be held responsible. "Is there anything else that I do that I need consequences for?" Thoughtful silence. It was agreed that they couldn't think of anything. At this point I am laughing hysterically because they wanted to lynch Sam for leaving his shoes out and they want to reward me for yelling and give me the day off. It's great to be Queen.

And the evening wouldn't be complete without a little Tommyism. Noah suggested that a great reward for his own good behavior would be to be allowed to beat Tommy up--to which Tommy instantly replied, "Yes! I love it when you beat me up!!" (Insert confused looks on parents' faces) Noah: "So, you like it when I flip your entire body in the air and smash your head on the ground?" Tommy: "Yeah! I love it!!" (Insert Sam and I shaking our heads slowly and sighing heavily.) Instantly I had a mental picture of Noah saying, "But he said he liked it," as we are carting Tommy off to the ER.

Merry Christmas in Tommy-ese

You know who is walking around the house singing:
Anees Nahveeda
Adees Nadeeva

Emily keeps correcting him and so she is constantly saying, "It's Feliz Navidad!" and throwing off his rhythm. Every time she says "Feliz" he responds with "Anees." It's actually kind of funny to watch as she throws her hands up in defeat and sighs heavily. Welcome to my world.

And do I really want him to say it correctly? I mean he is singing it with such gusto and clapping along and shaking his hips and everything. Singing it right would ruin the moment!

The Plague has lifted

Thankfully we are disease free here at our abode. Well, except for that pesky leukemia that keeps hanging around. Everyone was finally back at school on Friday. Just in time for the weekend! Luckily the one holdout who was home could be left alone for trips to the store so I wasn't trapped in the house the entire time. I could have been insane if I had.

We went to the Electric Light parade in Phoenix last night. Thankfully it was not as cold as it had been because we were quite comfortable throughout the parade. I did start to get chilly toward the end because I am a true Arizona cold weather wimp but I had made sure I dressed properly in order to keep the frostbite at bay. I am happy to say that no fingers or toes were lost thanks to my good planning.

We introduced our kids to the joys of a thermos. We brought hot chocolate and toward the end of the parade Rachel and Noah wanted some. They were visibly surprised to find out that it was still hot! How can this be??--It's cold out here! Hee, hee, hee. Clearly they have not spent enough time in cold weather.

This was Katya and Tommy's first parade ever. Tommy says he liked it a lot, but he would like to see one in the day time to see how they compare. I overheard him before the parade started telling his friend that he was planning on running out to hug the clowns when they came by. Hmmm. So, we had our first parade etiquette talk. It went something like, "You don't want to know what will happen to you if you run out into the street during the parade." It worked--everyone stayed in their seats where they belonged. A few well placed threats can work wonders in parenting.