we have a new rule in our house

rules in our house are not new.

in fact, we add to them everyday. but not like you may think. rules in our house are about things that make life for someone in the family function a little better. there might be one person who has more "rules" than others. but, there are others who contribute. ;)

tonight, a new rule was added - my rule. i'm not sure why tonight it stood out, but tonight i made a declaration. "no eating of sour cream dollups." if i add sour cream to a little boy's plate, i want it dispursed somewhat equally. i want it to be enjoyed throughout the dish. really, is that so unreasonable? if one of these sweet boys eats their sour cream alone - without adding it to the meal, it's just so wrong! like eating it out of the bowl in the fridge.

why is it when someone else repeats your rule, and an almost 4 yr. old & a very soon to be 3 yr. old laugh at you - it really drives home how rediculous the outburst is/was? we had a good laugh over that one.

i guess if you can admit to yourself that it's really irrelevant, but you want to take a stand - well, in our house, you get a rule.

jumpstarting our blog, again

as you know, our lives have been a lot of chaos in the last 2+ years. thankfully, today, and for the most part, our lives are much calmer - and i am excited about the calm before whatever the next storm is. excited that our lives have routine for today. thankful beyond expression that we are healthy. and i am motivated to update my boys (lack of) baby books. so, part of this year, at least for this part of the season, my desire & intention is to be regular here with stories of the boys & yes, even pictures. and since i am confident that their baby books will always be lacking, this is my attempt at journaling and getting it down for them. the stories aren't going to change the world, or inspire anyone, this is just a place to get it down somewhere & keep the grandparents grinning from ear to ear. to remind me of the sweetness in all the moments that make up our days.

so here's to everydayness!

these pic of them on the couch may look like a mess in my living room, but in reality, it's the fort that gets built in my living room about 17 times daily. i say fort, but the title really is irrelevant. they make forts out of the cushions, houses, volcanoes, use them to protect mommy from tigers, steps, chitty chitty bang bang, etc. and as you can see, the fort is always fortified with shooters! cushions on the couch in proper order, with matching fabric, and zippers in the back - that's for company. :)

i wanted to capture our bedtime routine in a picture. what was i thinking??? it's never possible to get all three of them to look at the camera at the same time, while the picture is being taken - but putting them in their pajamas & on the bed & having them smile for the camera . . . well, sweet boys . . . but, truth be told, this really is what it's like trying to get them to go to bed. they're jumping on the bed, rolling each other over sushi roll style in the comforter, grabbing for blankets - their specific blankets - and their specific stuffed animals. if it wasn't so funny, and darn cute!

biscuits & gravy

i thought i would share something with you that would get you to smile, and give you a little of the mental gymnastics that are such a normal part of just getting dinner on the table every day.

so, yesterday had been a long, hard day with the boys. and, on top of it, we have been out of groceries in the house since last thursday - and, i am just now getting to the place where we have our "systems" in place. many more things are becoming routine & predictable - so, i can be a little more prepared. weekends start on friday morning & last until monday morning for us. it's not a cultural thing - except that it is our families' culture. that's when sean is able to shut his brain off from serious overload of job transition, living in a new culture, struggling through language barriers & all of the unexpected things that are a part of all of that. it's when he is able to relax - and i get my honey & the boys get their daddy! during the week, we are all kind of in survival mode. not really, it's just the mechanics are so different. sean heads out the door around 8 or 9am to go to work, but then doesn't get home until 7-11pm depending on the "unexpected factor. so, with that, i have been trying to figure out what those 3 1/2 days look like - the parts that are predictable & how to make our days something that we all enjoy & sean has a haven to come home to after such a long, hard day.

so anyway, with our week last week (out of town trip with all three boys, court hearing, meeting both declan & quin's birthmothers & all three boys had colds) - i didn't get to the grocery store before thursday & thus, here it is wednesday & i am trying to get food in the house for the rest of the week & actually remember to prepare for next week. :) sometimes i get into the game & start to figure out how to win. today is one of them. :)

so, last night, we were down to flour, sugar, olive oil, and . . . ummmmm broccoli. even in the states, that's a challenge. and i had already made pancakes twice. so i thought - ahha! i'll make biscuits & gravy! yeah!!!! but, you need milk & butter to make biscuits & gravy, right? well, not when you have baby formula in the house & olive oil.

so here was the adaptation i used for the recipes: (keep in mind that i don't have measuring spoons or cups of any sort - english or chinese - and to top that off, taiwan uses the metric system & by brain naturally functions on the english system - so, anything that i rig that is an approximation of a measurement can only be found in metric & i am converting to english)

biscuits
2 c. flour - had that, that was easy
1 T. baking powder (which later i figured out that i was using baking soda, no wonder things have had that funny taste - gotta love not being able to read in chinese!)
1/4 t. salt (no prob. just a couple of pinches for measurements)
1/3 c. shortening - ummmmm, can you use the exact amount in olive oil & the biscuits taste right? the answer - YES! in fact, they are very, very moist - just not flaky.
1 c. milk - yeah, i really did - i used canned baby formula with the appropriate amount of water. :)

bake at 425 for 15 min. translation 220 degrees in celcius. not a problem until i remembered that i don't have a cooking sheet - cause to the chinese baking is an wonderful novelty! and, thus, i don't have a baking sheet in my kitchen. so, now what, ummmmmm - ahha! the lid of my stir fry pan was attached with a screw, so i took the handle off & dropped the biscuits on an oiled "baking sheet". only problem there is that the lid was curved in, and so the biscuits slid to the center. they baked just fine, they were just close together & i tore them apart. they were perfectly golden & tasted wonderful, with the exception of that funny "baking powder" that we get here at the rt-mart.

on to the gravy
2 c. milk (yes, again)
2T butter (yes, you can make white gravy with olive oil)
2T flour
salt
pepper (i only had szechuan pepper, which tends to be a little sweet, but we really like it)

the chinese don't really bake - ever. so, any recipes are more approximations to your families' tastes - so again, i was BAKING not COOKING, and doing it all WITHOUT measuring cups or spoons.

surprisingly, sean was like "honey, these are good! they're a little sweet (thanks to declan's milk, shhhh). and now that we've figured out the baking soda vs. powder thing. let's do this again." and honestly, i haven't heard that about any new concoctions i have made since we've been here! mind you, sean loves my cooking. but, there is so little here that is familiar & all of the adaptations that i have to make to put it on the table - let's just say, i feel like a 12 year old in the kitchen - all the time! so, yeahhhhhh!!!!! for biscuits & gravy. not overly chinese, healthy or nutritious, but we were able to make something that we all liked & filled our bellies. see why i'm not ready to leave - i wanna get this whole family meal thing down, so that everyone is like, "ahhh, i love going to the thomson's for dinner!" vain, i know.

such a huge part of this cultural adapting is learning how to accept that you feel stupid 99% of the time & because you feel stupid, you are intimidated & insecure 100% of the time. especially since we are in a chinese culture - we don't recognize anything on a street sign, or on a food label. if we were in a spanish speaking culture, or another romance language, we would be able to make educated guesses on things. it's a really good lesson in what it's like to be illiterate. and - not be able to tell someone what you are looking for, even if you can't read. sean and i are learning how to do the dance, and it's time to leave. i want to drag my heals & do it right for a while. i am finally figuring out the grocery store/getting food into the house system, only to go back to the states, and figure out how to do it there with three kids in & out of car seats & grocery carts that don't have three buckles. adapting again. part of me loves the "challenge" itch - the other part of me is utterly exhausted!

i don't know if sean really understands the gift he gave me today!

the house was sooooo trashed from everything we packed into the weekend. so, sean took the older boys this morning while i cleaned house. wow! amazing what a difference that made!!!!!!

they came home & had found 2 new parks, ate things that i'm sure momma wouldn't feed them & had so much dirt under their fingernails (not to mention that they smelled like wet puppies)! they had a blast!!! AND, my house was clean! i know it's just my fantasy to have left the house in a disaster & walk in the door & everything is in it's place, spotless & sparkling. that's not ever going to happen . . . but, sean gave me a wonderful, amazing gift this morning - and it comes pretty darn close to being that magical! actually better, cause they got time with their daddy.

(use your imagination . . . the house NEVER looks like this when any combination of any of us are up & going - the boys in this house need to start carrying their weight! :)

everyday life

I have been stuck since my last post. I have written and rewritten. There are so many important things that have happened, a lot of them really hard things, since we have arrived in Taipei. What I don't want to do is misrepresent what we know God to be doing in our (Sean and I's) hearts and lives. The events themselves have been overwhelming, and spiritually tremendous. It has been much more about our character, than about the hardships. We know that it is incredibly important to write about this time, especially for our boys. And we will. But right now is not the right time.

So, instead of writing about the last almost four months of our lives, I just wanted to update everyone on some pictures and the "every day-ness" of our new home away from home - Xindian City, Taiwan.

since we've arrived in Taipei . . .

We've had a fun morning full of reading books, dancing to Michael Card's "Hide 'Em in Your Heart" cd. I just finished a gourmet lunch menu that included peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, bananas & orange juice, and spot cleaned the house. All three boys are asleep. I've even showered. :) It's barely 1pm. Today has been a good day, and that is becoming more and more normal every day we wake up.



But, it hasn't been like this much. Honestly, this has been a very hard trip in many different ways. I feel like I have lived enough for at least a lifetime in the last few months.

to catch you all up to speed

September 3, 2008
An actual update. Errr, more of a bring you up to speed, & the next one will be an actual update.
The boys are all asleep, Sean is working, the house is clean, nothing on the calendar, I am decently rested & in good humor. It’s a good time to write.

Before I start telling stories, sharing "mommy juices" (a term Sean has coined, meaning all the details & rabbit trails that only another mommy can endure, let alone enjoy), or even get into pictures (which I now actually have had time to take & download onto my laptop – haven’t had time to select or photoshop, but I’m getting there), I wanted to give all of you a bulleted outline of the last five years of our life. I know, we’ve only been here in Taiwan for 9 weeks, but for most of you, there are snippets that we have shared, and so many lines we have forgotten to draw, that I felt like it would be important to catch you up with, not only what we are doing, but who we are and who we are becoming.

So, with that in mind, I have thought back to where to start this blog. It really does go back at least that far, probably further, but for today, my brain can handle the highlights of the last few years. Needless to say, none of you want to sit through my ramblings for that long. I will outline the high/low points & important dates & then come back and flesh them out. Sort of like what I was supposed to be diligent about with my term papers. Only this time, my motivation to do it well, holds more personal significance than whether or not I cared about the topic at hand, or how I performed as a student that semester.

Before you get your red pen out & start critiquing, look through the outline & comment at will. Later, I will invite you to sit down & share a cup of coffee. At least in cyber world & in my blog spot, you and I can make our time zones & kids nap schedules meet & enjoy the ambience of the coffee shop. Somewhere in all of this technology, I find comfort in the idea, that despite the fact that it may take me 9 weeks to create one blog entry, I don’t have to cover the phone receiver to utilize a teachable moment, or stop in the middle of a really important conversation to save two toddlers from a life-threatening situation, or have to end our conversation, because I have pushed their patience too far. PLEASE NOTE: I delight in being the mother of these three blessings, I just stinkin miss the luxury of dropping by your house & plopping down on the couch and talking until the wee hours of the morning. And, you can read my musings and keep up with all of those blessings & life details on your end that need tending to, at the appropriate time.

And now, as with the start of all good term papers, I am sitting down with a cuppa joe & wracking my brain, confident that there will be "note cards" that need to be inserted & edited before the first draft, but the rough outline of the really great idea in my head starts here:

2002 – December
* Sean and I met on eHarmony.com
* "the email" that defined the rest of my life
Sean: "Do you know that you have been called by God, to be . . ."
mother to a large family?
mother to adopted children?
homeschooling momma?
And that my friends, was the very moment I began to hope that this was exactly the man who God had been preparing me for all along!

2003 – January
* Sean and I met in person
February
* I moved to Colorado
March
* We were engaged
April
* We were married!
April
* We finished paying off the remainder of our credit card debt!
August
* Sean began testing for his architectural license
* I started pursuing the degree of "International Adoption Studies" (at the Thomson
Academy of Pain)
October
* I started Guild Books, LLC, an online book business "specializing" in previously loved books.
* Okay, I’m gonna brag, because he won’t ever tell you (and, it’s my blog) – but Sean passed every single architectural exam for his license, the very first stinkin’ time! Ask the architect next to you how many times they took each of the exams before they got that blessed piece of paper in their hands that says "licensed architect" – okay, I’m done. But, doggone I’m proud of my man!

2005 – January
* We were approached by a friend-of-a-friend to adopt her unborn baby, due June 2005,
without hesitation, we said "yes!"
February
* The birthmother of our adopted baby, changed her mind & we miscarried on paper
April
*Approached & applied to the Home of God’s Love orphanage in Taiwan for a child
October
* Accepted by HOGL
November
* Paid off a huge tax bill for Sean’s business & felt financial freedom for the first time in
our adult lives

2006 – February
* Started the paperwork pregnancy through state & country standards
May
* Camden Taylor Thomson was born in Taiwan & we received "The Call"!!!! Camden is named after Hudson Taylor, missionary to China, and the one of the biggest influences on Christianity in Taiwan. May God remind us daily to raise this little boy to have the courage to face the unknown challenges that He has for him, the tenderness of heart & creativity to love people that need our Savior & the discipline to put his desires into the hands of the One who has people that need Him.
September
* Camden’s adoption was finalized in Taiwan & we traveled to & stayed in Taiwan for
three weeks to meet our son & enjoy some time becoming a family of three
* Before our return flight, Sean and I discovered that we had this Taiwan-sized-whole-in-our-heart, that we knew, out of obedience, that we wanted to pursue & needed to walk in faith, to find our return to Taiwan

2007 – January
* Crazy as it sounds, Sean and I were both ready to start paperwork for blessing #2
May
* 8th - Camden turned one!
* 15th – we were approached about a 2 yr. old little boy that needed a family, we said
"yes!"
June
* Started the intense & purposeful process of simplifying our lives & becoming mobile
* Held two huge garage sales and got rid of everything that wasn’t necessary . . . well the
beginning of the process was started, anyway
August
* We got rid of Guild Books, so that I could be a stay-at-home momma, not a mnnn
* Closed up our s.f. architecture and planning, LLC office, the one outside our home, in
order to further simplify our lives
* We moved into a 750 s.f. condo that was within walking distance to everything need: grocery store, postal services, bank, park, and the coffee shop (really, is there anything else?). This was an experimental move for us, to see if in this crazy simplified, mobile lifestyle, we could really live in this tight of quarters, with a baby & a home office. I have never loved any of my homes more & I miss that place every day!!!
September
* We took on our first official non-location specific job, to keep trying on this mobile
lifestyle. It was a short-term project in San Antonio.
October
* We got a call about a 5 week old little boy that needed a family, we said "yes!!!" (*Remember, at this point we are also still anticipating the arrival of our now 2 ½ yr. old son, as well.) (Knowing that if we said "yes," we could, at any moment have 3 boys in our house under the age of three.)
*3 weeks after the initial call, and lots of drama, we discovered that he (the 5 wk old baby) definitely would not be coming home with us
* With much soul searching & many heart wrenching tears, due to state social services procedures, we had to remove ourselves from the option of becoming the 2 ½ yr. old’s family
* We started pursuing our next adoption in Taiwan
December
* The Plague hit the Thomson household – all within a 6 day timeframe!!!
Camden ran a fever of 105F for 4-5 days
Sean got pneumonia
I had the sniffles & was taking care of the guys, when my sniffles went into a sinus infection, I suddenly couldn’t hear out of my right ear & had debilitating vertigo – end result was a 3 month bout with the vertigo & 80% permanent hearing loss in my right ear
* My sister & Jimmy got married in Miami
* A baby hospital in Taipei, that we had been in contact with, called us and asked if we would take two baby girls. Wow! Girls? What would we do with a girl, let alone two . . . we said "Yes!!!"
* We began "getting pregnant on paper". We started the wheels turning so that everything necessary was in order, so that we could travel to Taiwan as quickly as possible to bring these little girls into our family

2008 - January
* Our first trial trip for this mobile lifestyle – we went to Denver to see friends for 5 weeks. We took LOTS of notes, made LOTS of adjustments & determined to make our next trip lighter!!!* The devastating call – we were not going to be able to adopt either of the girls from Taiwan
* Another call from Taiwan . . . a 1 yr. old little boy, would we be interested? Once again holding our breath in faith, that God has more children for us, but preparing for the rough waters ahead . . . we said "YES!"
February
* Termination papers were signed by this little boy’s bio-mom, and wheels were starting to be in motion for this little boy to become a Thomson! We started making preparations to move out of our rental condo in Pagosa & move to Taiwan.
* Watching "this little boy" grow up in pictures, and relying on God to give us the name that He had him to be, "this little boy" became "Kenjiro Quin Thomson" (Kenjiro is Japanese, meaning "2nd son who sees with insight." Quin is Scottish, and means "wise").
March
*"The big week!"
My parents came from Nebraska
We moved out of our rental condo
Our dear friends helped plan a baby shower/going away party
Camden dislocated his elbow
Sean purposefully became "unemployed" to walk into this next part of the journey
We got an email & made frantic arrangements for . . . surprise . . . Baby #3
And . . . surprise . . . we can’t travel . . . not yet
April
* Surprise Baby #3 became Declan Stewart Thomson (Declan is Scottish & means "blessing." Stewart is also Scottish & means "a steward.") (We were able to say "yes" to Declan, because back in December, we started paperwork with the U.S. Homeland Security for visa clearance on 2 babies from Taiwan – remember the girls?) (Declan has been our "surprise" baby, in every way that every other couple that unexpectantly gets pregnant so quickly after two babies, already close in age. J We could not be more excited & are confident that we have no idea how hard this is going to be!)
* Well, now what??????
* We decided on another trial run on our mobile & "simple" lifestyle since we were now homeless & trying to keep our minds occupied until we could travel to Taiwan to get our boys.
April/May/June
*4 weeks in Edmond, OK – we were hoping this trip would be a chance to catch up with a lot of Sean’s home stompin’ grounds friends & family – we did get to see some wonderful "blast from the past" friends that really are family & then . . .
* Camden swallowed a button (hearing aid) battery – nice little trip to the emergency care, 4 x-rays & a healthy colon pulled our little guy into the category of "Wow! That never happens, it’s usually a much worse scenario . . ." (just picture my little pooper, who on a normal day delivers 4-6 "packages", and me with my handy-dandy tongue depressors going through every "delivery" until we knew we were "in the clear") I know that I had never felt so desperate for God to defy the very physics that He set into motion & for Him to spare the life of our little boy.
* Sean got 12 (yes, not a, or 1, but 12) brown recluse spider bites – we were introduced to "The Zapper!" – the scariest bite of them all was less than 1 inch from Sean’s spine & in a 5 hour time frame had progressed from the size of the dot of an "i," to the size of a golf ball. I cannot tell you what went through my head and heart in those few hours in trying to understand whether or not God was going to allow me to lose my husband. Yet again, God, who doesn’t owe me an explanation, showed us mercy & gave us one more day together.
* Camden dislocated his elbow – AGAIN, twice in one day (yes, the same one as last month). Because it was a holiday weekend, tornadoes, and just weird extenuating circumstances, there were not doctors available to help this time. Again, God graciously provided a friend-of-a-friend, who had a daughter that would dislocate her elbow about once a week for the first 5-8 years of her life. This understanding father, on speaker phone, walked us through the re-locating procedure over the phone. (****btw, this is NOT recommended, but one of those really good skills to tuck into your hat for when you are in a hut in Africa, and there is no medical help available – DO NOT try this at home!)
* 4 weeks in Joplin, MO – again, we were hoping this trip would be a chance to catch up with a lot of my home stompin’ grounds friends & family – we did get to see some wonderful "blast from the past" friends that really are family & then . . .
* Camden got the Chicken Pox – which put us into a self-administered quarantine. No real drama, except on my end. Because I didn’t want to expose all of my favorite people (and their littles) to Chicken Pox, I pouted & called a bunch of people, instead of getting to have coffee with them.
* Well . . . none of that really went as planned, and every day we were out of Pagosa, we were going more into debt & we weren’t even out of the country yet . . . so, we headed back to Pagosa to ease the discomfort of being displaced (self-imposed), to try to regain some footing financially & well . . . wait some more until we could travel to Taiwan.
July
* FINALLY, we are leaving! (If you are still reading, you are a good friend, and here is where we can start catching up on the last couple of months when we saw you/talked wi you last . . .
* We spent my 33rd birthday with friends/family in Castle Rock, CO (Denver area) & flew out on July 5th. J God must have smiled when we found this travel agent. This guy worked triple overtime and found us "deluxe" class seats – for $30 more/person than the cheapest ghetto seats than we had found. Wow! Now that we are spoiled, it will be hard to suck it up & have our knees hit the seat in front of us again. But hey, if it means that we are on this crazy journey as we follow the mysterious journey that God has us follow, I’m sure that we will see the humor of ghetto class & count our blessings, but for today, I am celebrating & eating it up, up in "deluxe" class!

_____________________________

I am going to take a break & my next "entry" will be about our time here in Taipei.
Thanks for sitting & having a "few" cups of coffee with me. I enjoyed writing, I hope some of this filled in some blanks for you, but please, if I just muddied the water, please ask – there are sure to be others that are scratching their heads more than you J
Love, Dayla (for Sean, Camden & Declan, too)