Last Day Happenings Before We Travel

Being that our fam has battled a bit of sickness, and with SO many other things of the 'perfect storm' like conundrum, we are super busy. David and I both needed time to prepare for our trip so we tag-teamed the weekend with the kiddos. This was fine since we had just had a fun birthday celebration for Sophia all together.

I took the kids on a neighborhood bike ride where Sophia discovered a great tree for a tree house/fort:

From a across the way:

Settling in. Sophia returned home and brought back our old shower curtain and bungee cords to help set up house.

 So happy exploring, but the bugs were eating us!

 We also put down palm leaves for mats on the muddy floor.
Later in the afternoon the kids came back on their own while G napped.

For lunch we went to one of our fave places one last time before we travel.
These are just a bunch of food stalls right outside a park, we get a type of tofu with spices or sugar added, grilled rice cakes, grilled meat, french fries with hot pepper sauce and a green veg.

 Then we top it off with a local dessert: paoluda, coconut milk, coconut, gelatin, pieces of bread. YUM.

We always get stared down and pics taken every where we go, still. Daily.
These guys were brave enough to use their English on Sophia, it went something like this:
"Hello. Girl. Can we take photo with you" She said 'no' at first but then obliged.

And then the next day lots of friends came to visit.
Old friends we had not seen in a while. This was a great time of reconnecting!

One friend brought her two month old baby. Precious!

 She was crying a lot but I still held her, I know what it is like to need a break from a crying baby!
I am no baby whisperer but I did calm her down some.

 David came home and shared in the joy.

This baby and these people are precious to us.
Lots of love for this place. We will miss it for a few months...
But we are ready for Thailand and the USA.
Bring it on.

Our Fave Read Alouds This Year, and another Commendation...

We have read a ton of books aloud over the past few years that it is hard for me to keep track. But I did ask the kiddos their opinion and reminded them of some.

Usually their favorite is the one we are reading right then!

All three (G is listening/playing but doesn't have an opinion yet) LOVED The Tale of Despereaux, and I really did too.

Sophia mentioned really liking Little Britches, Johnny Tremain, and Pippi Longstocking. 

Bella loved Mrs. Piggle Wiggle (and read it 2x on her own afterwards), and we laughed our way through the shorter story: 'Rackety Packety House'. 

I personally loved The Wheel on the School and all of the above.

Last year we read 'The Princess and the Goblin'.  Sophia loved it so much that she read it on her own and it is not a super easy read.  And this year I thought I would follow up with The Princess and Curdie, but I vetted it first to see if it was too deep or the language too advanced for all to grasp the best of it. And it was. But I was blown away.

I have fallen in love with the works of George MacDonald! 

People overlook him, or just read one great work, but please, adults, I commend to you his works. The way he weaves the spiritual and the human heart and the world of fantasy is amazing and no wonder all the 'greats' looked to him. 

JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis both highlight MacDonald as a developer of their own storytelling and as you read him you can feel the worlds of Tolkien unwind and the depth of Lewis evoked.

I  cannot wait to read more from him, I will learn and be challenged in my Christian walk, in my parenting, in my creative soul. A summer of reading awaits.

Sophia turns 9 (early, shhh!!!)

While I am sure that the kids at camp will sing to Sophia on her real birthday (June 30th), we decided to celebrate here at home a little early. 

Sophia got a much-needed new bike a few weeks ago, (it should last her through college), but she still got a few fun gifts: a watch, a nice 3d book in Chinese, and a bracelet.

I decorated her doorway for when she awoke:

And I accidentally made a ton of pancakes and forgot the salt too, but we still ate them up for two days. Sophia 'made' the chocolate chips the day before by going to the store at our neighborhood entrance and buying some dove candy bars and then putting them in my hand chopper.

 We had a great morning making her cake. She wanted a river with a bridge. Like Bella, I let her design it and put it together. They love this.

 the jello worked well.

 She decided to add Sofia the 1st and Princess Amber to the cake, so they needed places to sit:

 The lean two of saltines was clever.

 Sophia decided to do a very small 'party' and then go to the new water park. This was a great idea.
YY and LBH came to enjoy cake, Sophia explains all that she did to it.

 We sang!

 LBH has a wonderful pet poodle that we took care of for a few weeks when her Grandma died. Yesterday the dog bit her on the hand. Even though it had shots, they went to get LBH shots. The doctor said she cannot eat chocolate, fish, alcohol, etc. for a month. Very interesting. We were laughing at this but also very sorry that she could not enjoy the cake. More interesting is that this dog even bit her, I considered him to be the kindest, most fun-loving dog, and he still is, but like I tell my kids: any animal can and will bite if feeling threatened.

Back to the birthday:

 I can't believe this girl is NINE, can you?

 Only YY could go with us to the park this day. The water park was SO. MUCH. FUN. again. Yes, we just went a few weeks ago. It has rained ever since and was supposed to rain this day too, but since we call the forecast app: inaccuweather, we were not too surprised when it turned out sunny and perfect for going down water slides!

Sophia continues to grow into her own. She loves to do creative play (ice cream shop), she loves riding her new bike, and wants to play soccer in America when we go for a few months. She loves having friends. She and I continue to maneuver her emotional move into lady-hood. We both do not like surprises, we like a sense of control (no matter how faulty that is), and we like to be right (who doesn't). But God has shown us so much grace together in this area. I am learning to decipher the emotions of a nine-year-old girl, and there is no book for it. One night as she was crying over something, I gently asked her: "what is it you really want Sophia?" and she said: "I don't know." So I just crawled up in bed with her and we cuddled.

She has great ideas, has amazing Chinese language, and is a great student at home and local school. Though she gets into it the most with Tobin, she will go to bat for him in a sec. She is an incredible big sis!

We continue to apologize to Sophia for 'all our mistakes being on her, our first-born' and she laughs and forgives. We are so thankful for our eldest, Sophia Grace, may God grow you into your namesake: wisdom and grace!

Bella Turns 7

Bella turned 7 on June 16th. 

Originally we were going to have her party that night, but moved it to Friday so that I could get everything ready and really enjoy it. 

But on her actual birthday we did give her some gifts...

 She had just woken up and put on her school uniform, hence the unkempt hair.
She is sporting her new 'Elsa' shoes or 'blue sparkly clickety clack' shoes. She asked for these and loves them.

She also said she would like a new doctor kit. She has always said she wants to be a doctor...that is until she was grossed out by dissecting owl pellets. She then wanted to be a nurse. But she goes back and forth so we found a kit made of wood that has things she doesn't yet have, including a real stethoscope, mask, and some iv bags.

She looks ready for her rounds:

We stopped for pancake breakfast

 Sophia made a joke...(and had a raging eye infection and high viral fever following that)

After local school I said: 'no homeschool'!

 And all the kids enjoyed the kit...Tobin dug into the dental part and wanted to pull some teeth.

Nurse Sophia started an i.v. on the patient Gabrielle

 Then the doc came to check her out.

 She did have a heart beat.

Daddy came home for a quick lunch and was the next patient
he is wincing from the shot he is about to get.  I actually passed out on them :).

 And then the Friday night party. She invited her row from class, the kids she plays with the most.
And then added two more at the last minute. Only one of the invited boys came and he lives in our complex and comes over all of the time anyway. It was still a big crowd, including her teacher. I love it when teachers come to our house so they get a sense of what we are about. We do ask for special treatment in some ways (only go in the afternoon, not doing all the homework for every subject, getting homework prepared beforehand if possible, not staying all semester, coming in late during a semester). When they come to our house they see we are intentional about their education and them loving where they live.

The front yard started filling up! The swings are always a hit.

 The cake. Bella wanted a cake with Ariel on it. She also wanted a chocolate eclair cake (layers of vanilla pudding/whipped cream and graham crackers topped with chocolate icing). She had no idea I was going to try to make a real ocean for Ariel to swim in.

 We ordered blue jello off of TaoBao and let it set a bit before putting it on the ocean side. The sand is graham cracker crumbs. Gummy bears are sunning on some gum towels, a few are swimming in their floaties. I let Bella tell me where to put everything and what she wanted to do, this was super fun for her!

 chocolate rocks surrounded the cake.
Here she is, growing up fast.

Before the cake we played musical chairs, after the cake they went outside to play hide-n-go-seek in our neighborhood. 

The friends all had a lot of fun and some didn't leave until close to 9 p.m.!

We were so thankful it wasn't raining and that everyone was mostly well for the party.

We all had a blast.

Bella is big brown-eyed beauty of girl who loves to giggle, play jokes, tumble and do gymnastics. She loves to draw and play games and HATES any scary part of a movie so she just avoids them altogether (even cartoon movies). She has some good friends at school, loves dance class, and loves being at home close to mommy and daddy. She recently said she would just marry Tobin and live with us the rest of her life. 

Though she seems to go through life at her own pace (slow at times), she is a thorough and hard-working student who excels. She is a peacemaker and go-with-the-flow kind of gal whom we adore. 

End of Semester Mommy Dates

We are actually still plugging through for four more days of Homeschool, but after we finished our CC and history books we took a few days break. I took each kid on separate days with me to run errands and get a fun snack.

Since Sophia and I are going to camp together we had the most errands to run to prepare. We went all over town and even did a little bike shopping since she really needs(ed) a new bike. 

Bella was next up and we were also doing some shoe shopping and birthday party prep for her on her day. 

And on Tobin's day I only had a few more things on my list of travel prep, so we shopped a bit and chatted the while. (This was before his medical emergency).

 When we came out of the grocery store we found this cat on my moto. Tobin wanted to bring him home but I said 'no', of course, though he did look like a good mouser.

Then we got caught in the rain and Tobin wore my jacket.

When we got home, Sophia and YY had set up shop. They always set up their 'ice cream shop'. They have done it a gazillion different creative ways and always surprise us when we go buy their pretend ice cream. They have sang songs as we entered, they have put on a puppet show, and even have lowered ice cream down in a basket from the loft, just to name a few.

love. this.
Love these days of fun amid the chaos of trip prep.

This Week? Absolutely NOT Dull: An Unexpected Medical Trip

As I said as I ended my last post: Tobin was getting sick. 

The only reason I wrote our doctor was because he was acting so unlike himself when sick. 

He was clutching his head in pain and moaning. He wanted me to stay with him always. He felt nauseous from the pains in his head. He threw up. 

I wrote our doctor and said: 'this may be something really serious, or absolutely nothing' and what I learned was, that there is always the in between, depending on your definition.

The cycle of headache, nausea, a little relief was happening every 3 hours or so, though the headache continued throughout. The time he kept the tylenol down he got a little relief. 

The doctor actually took it all completely seriously and said: 'this sounds like migraines, but we have to rule everything else out...you need to get on a plane'. 

Migraines, in a five year old? Seriously?

Get on a plane. I know that sounds a bit extreme, but from our experience and the doctor we consult with (who has lived in this country longer than we have), an appropriate evaluation and efficient protocol is quite hard to find. We do a ton of self diagnosing and treating often via consult, not by visiting the local docs here. 

Our doc wanted Tobin to be seen by a western trained doctor, looking for very specific things. 

So, we headed to the provincial capital where the international clinic said they were too busy. When we boarded in our town I thought we were on our way to Bangkok. When we landed, David said we were on our way to ChengDu. 

Didn't I just come back from there? Going this alone I thought I would be more comfortable in Bangkok, especially if it was one of the more serious things they were looking for. But with David navigating my flights and my friend G arranging the same driver we had last time, I was gaining confidence. I was so thankful for this driver who knew exactly where we were going, since I had never been there before. 

Tobin was lethargic and didn't even feel like playing on the ipad (something we reserve only for trips). He slept most of both flights. He had trouble walking fast through the airport (duh) so I put him in the carts with the big X over the child, and jogged through to make it out until we had to give up the cart. Once I checked us in and got us through security I hired the golf cart to drive us to our gate. 

The trip was completely smooth and Tobin's head was still hurting but he wasn't throwing up. The clinic staff was very helpful and we got in quick to see the doctor, who was expecting us. It had been about 36 hours since the symptoms had started. 

He did a full neurological exam but also mentioned migraines right away. He said that children this young can have them. Thankfully, Tobin passed the exam, ruling out the more horrible options for his severe head pain. The doc told us that most migraine episodes last 24-48 hours so that if his symptoms did not go away then we would go get an MRI. We talked quite a bit about migraines and what this could mean for Tobin. 

We made our way across the street to our hotel and already Tobin seemed better. We rested for a bit and then went across the street for dinner. I let Tobin drink a whole gatorade and he ate a little. But at least he was up for walking a bit. 

We returned to our hotel, watched some soccer on TV, and I read a story to him.  Tobin's symptoms were definitely diminishing, with some lingering headache, but not as severe. 

We (the docs I was consulting) would see how Tobin did in the night and morning before deciding to return home. 

Tobin slept great, he did not wake every three hours like the previous night. He slept from before 9 until after 7 and woke up feeling normal but weak. 

We decided to find breakfast and I had promised him some tea (cold black tea). Starbucks was down the street. It was a nice little walk. On the way we found 'rou bao' (meat filled bun) and 'dou jiang' soy milk. We did end up at starbucks where we each got a muffin and coffee and his tea. It was here that we ran into the very doctor we had seen the day before. This was a great coincidence because I was supposed to talk with him before the clear to return home. He could see that Tobin had his color back and was clearly a different boy. He said he would not need an MRI now and that if whatever 'it' was was serious it would not have gone away. 

Yea! We could go home. I immediately contacted our consulting doctor and our travel agent, who arranged all flights home. 

So thankful for this boy.

Chengdu has some cool stores in their airport. We played with robots for half an hour.

Tobin still would love a drone.

This robot could understand standard Mandarin and respond.

.
We arrived home at 5 pm, and caught a taxi to surprise the girls. I was in contact with David and he really needed to work late with our guest and others. The little medical trip was unexpected and only slightly delayed their week-long project.

The next day, David and crew continued on the project while the guys came to install our new shower. Tobin and I settled into the end of the week by resting and playing (him). I re-grouped and tried to finish some homeschool with the girls and plan Bella's birthday party that was also delayed a day because of our trip.

So many people prayed us through this little crisis, and we were so thankful.
The whole trip could not have gone smoother.

Now we will get to researching childhood migraines.
We are not naive, we do know this is not a good diagnosis. But it is the best of what it could have been, for that we are thankful. We will rest in God's goodness to our family and His faithful care of us no matter what that entails in suffering as well.