WE MAY BE MOVING

Eddie's plant is closing on June 30. The company has offered Eddie a job transfer. Jobs are so hard to come by lately, so Eddie has decided to accept the transfer. Eddie will be commuting 150 miles round trip each day until we decide when, where, and if we want to move. The job is in Jackson, Tennessee.

SOME SETBACKS

I am so tired. Isaac's separation anxiety seems to be getting worse instead of better. I can't be out of his site for more than about 30 seconds, usually less, before he starts screaming for me. Yesterday we went to the mall to look for a dress for Olivia to wear in my cousin's wedding. Olivia is going to be the flower girl. I had them both in a double stroller. My mom came to help me look. My arms and back were starting to hurt from pushing the kids for so long, so my mom offered to push the stroller for a while. When Isaac saw that my mom was pushing the stroller instead of me, he started crying. He won't even stay with Eddie without me in the room. He isn't afraid of Eddie. He likes to play with him, but if Eddie tries to do anything for him or if I walk out of the room for very long, Isaac starts to cry. He wants me to do everything. I feel like crashing from pure exhaustion by the end of the day. Isaac even got upset tonight when I asked Eddie to take the kids to the bathroom and get them to brush their teeth. Isaac got upset because Eddie was doing it instead of me. He also got upset when Eddie took them to the backroom to read a book to them. They were upset because Eddie was reading the book instead of me. Isaac also just wants me to tuck him in, fix his food, give him his bath, put him in and out of the car seat, pretty much everything. It isn't that I don't want to do these things for him. I want to take care of him and do things for him, but it is exhausting doing it all by myself. I also think it is important that Eddie do these things too, not just to give me a break, but because we are both their parents and he needs to bond with Isaac. He needs to see that he got two parents, not just one. He of course doesn't know what it means to have a Mommy and a Daddy. He doesn't know what those roles are. All he understands right now I think is having caregivers. He seems to look at me as his sole caregiver. He doesn't seem to look at Eddie as one of his caregivers. Right now I don't really think Isaac knows who Eddie is. He seems to think that he just hangs around with us and follows us around. I think Eddie to him is just like the young guys that would come to the orphanage at night to help out. They played with the kids and ate supper with them, but that was about it. I know that this should get better with time. We have been through it before with Olivia, but I am not sure how much better it will get. Olivia was like this in the beginning too. She only wanted me to do just about everything when we got home from China and it was really stressful and draining. The reason I am not sure how much better it will get is because Olivia is still like this in some ways. She still gets upset if I ask Eddie to do something that I would usually do so that I can have a little "Mommy time". Olivia has been with us for 4 years. I had a breakdown tonight and everyone was crying, except for Eddie who was trying to calm all of us down.

BIG SISTER AND LITTLE BROTHER

I am really enjoying watching Olivia and Isaac bond. As I said in my last post, Isaac doesn't really know how to play or socialize with other children, but Olivia is doing a great job helping him to learn to socialize. They play pretty well together. Yes, they fight, but what brother and sister don't fight? I am so glad that they are only 2 years apart in age. If we had adopted a baby, it wouldn't have been very likely that Olivia and her little brother or sister would play together very much. They age gap would be too much. Even though it is a boy and a girl, they still love to play a lot of the same things. Olivia is very imaginative and she is great with thinking of great things for them to do together. They both love to color, so they love sitting at the kitchen table together coloring. Olivia is teaching Isaac how to pretend, which is something he didn't do very much. Today they made a beach in the living room with blankets. I know that Isaac doesn't understand English yet, but he is following along with Olivia every step of the way. They both also love to play with bubbles. They take turns blowing the bubbles and the other one will chase them and try to pop them. This morning they were playing with trains in the kitchen floor. Isaac still has separation and anxiety issues, but I think spending time in fun with Olivia, Eddie and myself will help him to bond with us and to start to feel safe and secure. We are also trying to get into a routine to help him feel more secure.

UPDATES! THREE URGENT PRAYER REQUESTS!

I wanted to update everyone on everything that has happened since I last posted to our blog. We really need prayer on some issues we are having. I have three different prayer requests.

* FIRST PRAYER NEED and UPDATE ON HOW ISAAC IS DOING
This first prayer request is pretty long and detailed, but I really felt the need to not only ask for prayer but to tell exactly what is going on. I think it will help people to pray more specifically and I think it will also help people who have not adopted to understand some of the issues that adopted children face. This is not to discourage anyone from adopting or to say that I am regreting any of it. On the contrary, I would do both adoptions all over again. Our two children were meant to be in our family and I can't imagine our life without them. There are challenges with raising a child whether biological or adopted, but I just wanted to share the different kind of issues that some adopted children deal with. This is not to say that all adopted children have these same issues, but a lot of adopted children, especially older children and children from institutions, do experience many of these issues to varying degrees that Isaac is facing. Here are some of the issues that we are facing with Isaac.

I spoke a little too soon about Isaac sleeping well at night and about his adjustment. He slept through the night the first two nights, but I have now realized it was from pure exhaustion. Now that the jet lag and exhaustion is starting to wear off, other fears and feelings are starting to emerge. I am seeing that he is a very sweet and active little boy, but under the smiles and laughter is a very scared and insecure little boy. He now cries at night before going to bed and he sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night crying for me. I think it is because he is scared. The language is a definite barrier for us. It is hard to comfort him when he can't understand what I am saying. I just do what I can. I hold him and tell him that it is alright and that Mommy is here. He also has severe separation anxiety, which is very understandable with what he has been through. He panics if he doesn't see me. For example, at church yesterday, I took him to Sunday school. I didn't leave him in there by himself. I stayed with him. He wouldn't even get out of my lap. He wouldn't even look at anyone. He kept his head turned into my chest the whole time. I also went with him to children's church. He seemed to do alright in there for a while until I slipped out for a few minutes. When he realized that I wasn't in the room, he started screaming, "MOMMY! MOMMY!" Olivia was in there, but that didn't help. Once I got back, he calmed down, but he looked my way every minute or two while he was playing to make sure that I was still there. It broke my heart. He has been so traumatized. It is going to take a long time with a lot of patience and understanding and love for him to learn to trust that he is safe and that he can trust us to come back if we leave him for a little bit. I have had people say things like, "Oh, he is fine. Look he is playing. He is laughing. He is adjusting just fine." They haven't seen the panic and terror on his face. He will be happy and playing one minute, and the next minute, he is in a panic. Some people think that he will be just fine in a few weeks. They just don't realized that you can't erase three years of trauma in a child in a few weeks. It could take years. People don't realized that just because he was in an orphanage with other children, that doesn't mean that he will do fine in any situation as long as there are other children in the room with him. What they don't understand is that Isaac really doesn't know how to play with or socialize with other children very well. He wasn't brought to the orphanage until he was 2 1/2 years old ,so he didn't have other children to play with the first 2 1/2 years of his life. He became very independent in those first years. He was also only at the orphanage for 6 months before we came. Although he was getting Christian love and care at the orphanage, 6 months just wasn't much time for them to help him get over his fears and insecurities. His nannies said that he was still very afraid of the dark, and he cried at bedtime and when he woke up. They also said he didn't play much with other children. He would get a toy and go off to play by himself. If he played with other children, it was because they came over to play with him, not the other way around. He plays pretty well with Olivia, but I can still see his independence and tendency to be reserved around others. He still has trouble interacting with her or any other child. She tries to play with him and teach him things. He is open to it sometimes, but at other times, he rejects it and pushes her and any other children away. Also, no matter how much love and support he got at the orphanage, it wasn't the same as the love and stability and security he would get from a home with a mommy and a daddy. I wish I had the words to help people to understand that the smiles and playful little boy that they see is only a very small part of a larger picture. There is so much more going on deep inside our little boy that they have not seen, but we have. Another thing we are having trouble with is him bonding to Eddie. He will play with him, but he still gets upset if I am not around. Even at home, he will come looking for me every few minutes to make sure that I am still there. With me being at home and Eddie back at work, he is attaching to me and not bonding with Eddie. I know that this is completly normal right now because Olivia did this too. We are trying to make time where Eddie spends time alone with Isaac with me not there, but he has cried for me each time we have tried this. At first I tried leaving the house to spend some quality time with Olivia which she desperately needs, but Isaac got very upset. We are now trying for Eddie to just take Isaac alone to another part of the house to play just with Eddie. They may go to his room to play trains or go outside to play ball. I do something else in another room with Olivia. That hasn't worked out great either because Isaac keeps coming looking for me. We are still trying to work this out. I know this is a normal reaction for a child who has been through what Isaac has been through, but we want to do everything we can to help him. I am also concerned about Olivia because she is feeling left out at times. I am having a hard time balancing everything. I am so proud of her. She hasn't complained about all of the attention that we are having to give to Isaac, but I can tell that her feelings are hurt sometimes. She looks so sad at times. She still tries so hard to help and it hurts her when Isaac pushes her away, but she still keeps trying and keeping her hurt to herself. I see it though and I am trying my best to continually remind her how much I love her and how proud I am of her.

* SECOND PRAYER NEED
On top of this stress with the children, Eddie was in an automobile accident less than a week after we got home from Taiwan. We think that his truck is totaled. We only had liability on the truck, so we won't get any money to replace it. We can't afford to buy another vehicle. We used all the money we had to bring Isaac home. He also has some medical needs that we are unsure how we are going to pay for.

* THIRD PRAYER NEED
And as if this wasn't enough, Eddie found out today that the plant where he works is going to close on June 30. They will be offering some of the employees a job transfer to their other plant, but we are not sure if Eddie will be offered a transfer. The other plant is 70 miles away from us. He would probably have to commute since it would be very hard for us to sell our house with the way the housing market is right now, and we couldn't afford to rent a house there and pay a mortgage here. There is also the vehicle problem with commuting too since his truck is out of commission. He would have to use my vehicle. If he isn't offered a job transfer, he will be laid off. He really needs to find another job quickly. He has an industrial engineering degree, but he also has experience in quality and management as well as engineering. His current position is Quality Manager at his plant. He has 11 years of experience in manufacturing. Eddie is also a music minister. He is currently serving at a church, but only in a part-time capacity. If anyone knows of anyone with a job opening, please tell them about Eddie.

Please pray for all of these situations. Satan has really been attacking us and I am starting to feel defeated. I know that God is with us and that He is going to take care of us, but in our human nature, it is easy to feel down when so much is thrown at you at once.

I know that some of you may want to call me, but I would appreciate you just praying for us right now. If there is a job prospect that you know of, please feel free to send me an e-mail about it, but I really don't feel like talking about everything right now. It all makes me cry and I really don't want to cry in front of the kids. I really need to be focusing my energy on them right now. Olivia doesn't know about Eddie's job and we don't plan on telling her right now. She wouldn't understand. She is so in tune with other people's feelings. If she saw me crying, so would know something is wrong and she would get upset too. We want to protect our children from this as much as we can.

BEAUTIFUL PHOTOS OF TAIWAN

I wanted to share some beautiful photos of Taiwan. We went to a place called Taroko Gorge. It is like the Grand Canyon of Asia. It was absolutely breathtaking to see in person. The pictures just don't do it justice but hopefully you can get an small glimps into the beauty of Taiwan with these pictures. There are a few other pictures of some other pictures that I took around Taiwan. Just click on any of the pictures to see a larger view of it.

ISAAC IS ADJUSTING WELL

We have only been home for 3 days, but Isaac is already adjusting so well to his new home. He is sleeping in his new room all by himself and he does not cry when it is time to go to bed or when he wakes up. Isaac and Olivia are playing great together. Olivia is a great big sister. My heart melted this morning when Isaac started calling me Mommy. I know that he doesn't really know what it means yet and he may be just copying what Olivia is saying, but if he gets upset or wants something he calls "Mommy!"

FIRST DAY HOME

Our first day home has gone great. Isaac is adjusting so much better than we had expected. We let him play for about an hour this morning before we put him to bed. We didn't get home until about 2 a.m. so none of us got to bed until 3 a.m. this morning. Of course, we are suffering from jet lag. Isaac didn't have any trouble sleeping in his own bed. He didn't cry at all. I just read a bed time story to him and Olivia and let him watch me tuck Olivia into bed. I let him cut her light off. Then I told him it was time for him to go to bed. He loves his new bed with the balls all over it so he climbed right into bed with his stuffed frog and his new Mobi light and went straight to sleep. He slept for 8 hours straight. He has played hard all day. He is all boy. We got him to bed tonight at 9:20 and he went to bed just fine. No crying at all. He was exhausted though. I know there will be some challenges in different areas to come, but I am so thankful that he is doing so well.

Isaac's birth mother wrote him a beautiful note explaining why she made the decision to place him up for adoption. It was so beautiful. In the letter I could tell that she really loved him and wanted to keep him but she is very, very poor and can't afford to take care of him. She also doesn't have a set income and she said that she wants him to have a chance at a better life than she had. I am so glad that we have this. I think it will mean a lot to Isaac some day. We are not going to show it to him until he starts asking questions and we feel that he is really ready for it.

WE ARE HOME!

We got home about 2 a.m. Friday morning. Whew are we tired! Isaac did a lot better than I had expected on the trip home. He cried some but only a few times and I think it was mostly because his schedule was off, he was tired and he was unsure of what was happening. When we got home and he saw his new room, he was so excited. We let him play for about an hour before we tried to get him and Olivia to go to sleep. We thought it would be better to let him get familiar with his surroundings first. He did just fine sleeping in his new bed. He loved it because it has balls all over it. We went to sleep around 3 a.m. and he sleep until 11 a.m. I am really tired right now so we are going to try to get some rest today. I will try to post some more pictures later.

COMING HOME TOMORROW AND A LITTLE ACCIDENT

Well, we are on our way home tomorrow with our new son. We will miss everyone here, but we are very happy to be coming home.

We went to Taroko Gorge yesterday to do some sight seeing. It was absolutely beautiful. You can look it up on the internet to see how beautiful it is but I did take a lot of pictures. Isaac had a little accident while we were there. He was being a typical boy and jumping off everything he could find. He missed and landed on his arms instead of his feet. He got a pretty bad scratch. It scratched the hide of his arm about 1 inch by 1 1/2 inch wide. I guess I had better get use to this with a boy. I never had these problems with Olivia. Oh, well, welcome to the world of boys.

Here are a few pictures from our trip yesterday.

ISAAC IS DOING MUCH BETTER

Isaac is doing much better now. We had a great time yesterday. Eddie and Olivia caught the stomach virus that has been going around, so I spent a lot of time by myself with Isaac. He sat in my lap to color, he sat next to me at supper and he gave me a goodnight kiss before he went to bed. We have been staying upstairs at the home and Isaac has been sleeping in his own bed, but we are moving today to the apartments that the home owns. Isaac will be going with us and spending he night with us. I am praying that helps the bonding process start. Please continue to pray for us.

WE ARE IN TAIWAN!!! PLEASE PRAY!

I don't have much time, but I wanted to give everyone a quick update. We made it to Taiwan safely. Praise God! We have spent two days with Isaac now. He is still not spending the night with us, but he is just not ready for that. They are trying to gradually work him in to spending more time with us. He is a very insecure and scared little boy. I am learning more now about his time before he came to the orphanage at the age of 2 1/2 and it is very sad. He is getting a lot of love and care here, but he desperately needs the love and security of a loving family. He will play with us, which is much more than the caregivers here had expected. He is still unsure of us so we are just giving him time. Please pray that the bonding will begin to move faster. We are praying that he will be very comfortable and trusting of at least one of us before we leave next Thursday. It is a hard enough trip for any child, but for one who is tramatized and scared and who can't communicate with you, it will be even harder. Here are a few pictures.