New Years Eve Fun

Well as you can imagine being the parent of a 2-year-old...New Year's Eve is quite thrilling...NOT!

Anyway, we did have some good laughs, when our lovely child Lily who loves to be naked, announced that she needed to use the bano (bathroom). She proudly stood on her blue stool in front of the toilet,  lifted up the toilet seat (just like daddy), and tried to go....oh so cute!!!! If I wasn't worried that she might pee all over the place I might have run and got my camera.

Oh, how I love the toddler!

When the child's away the parents will....

SLEEP!!!!!

Today was the first day during our break when we had no obligations...I had big plans of going to the grocery store blah..blah...blah...but no...we got up at 6 or 7, I forget now...took Lily pad to daycare...and then around 8 fell blissfully asleep in the bed together until almost noon!

Ah, the exciting life of the parents of toddlers!

P.S. Lily was so cute this morning...she got into my Vaseline and came running to the kitchen to show me her greasy hands filled with chunks of gooey greasy Vaseline...so proud of herself! Gotta love it!

Holiday Season Update

Lily...our precious gift among gifts

Christmas Eve 2008

Sometimes life seems so mundane, it is hard to think of captivating things to write. However, I wanted to include some new photos taken and share some recent favorites of Lily.

Favorite Books: I Love You Forever (which by the way..I can't stand:)) and the Foot book by Dr. Seuss. I think we read these two books at least every day sometimes at both nap and bedtime.

Favorite Foods: Yogurt and Granola Bars with Chocolate Chips

Favorite Activities: Loves to sing and dance. She also likes to rock out with her guitar when her daddy is rocking out. I love watching her sing into her "microphone" (the antenna of an old CD boom box) while rocking her little body out, occasionally with her hot pink guitar in hand.

She loves to pretend to be a cat....most days she is a gato (cat in Spanish) named Lily....she meows, purrs, etc... Mommy indulges her fantasy, and Daddy tolerates it!

Spanish is becoming less and less of her vocabulary...we are bringing in a new person next week to speak Spanish to her, so hopefully it will help. Whenever I speak to her in Spanish she answers me in English...it still bothers me, but I feel like I am fighting a losing battle some days.

Lily has enjoyed the Christmas season even if she didn't get all of it! She loves Santa Claus. Every time she sees him now she exclaims "Santa Claus". She loves to sing the songs Rumbbabumbum, Jingle Bells, and Santa Claus is Coming to Town. We have tried to make sure she is aware that Jesus is the reason for the holiday with a birthday party for Jesus on Christmas Eve and reading the children's version of Luke 2 on Christmas morning.

Protecting Lily

We've only been home 3 months and in just a short time I have come face to face with the harsh realities of adopting a child from another country. I knew it would happen...but nevertheless, it saddens me deeply...I wonder how I will be equipped to deal with the questions and comments. Will I have the right answers at the right time? Will I accidentally share too much of Lily's "private" story somehow exploiting her in the pursuit of honesty or will I become jaded and angry and strike back in equal rudeness. How will I be able to help Lily deal with people's questions and comments?

Lord, help us to protect our precious daughter Lily. We love her so much.

Love,
Kim

It is amazing how some things never change

We received two emails from Guatemala today...

hola KIM: Espero todo este bien rafa acaba de enseñarme tus fotos son muy lindas y ustedes lucen muy bien. Gracias por lo que icieron por Lili. Espero verte nuevamente algun dia. Dios te bendiga y que pasen las mejores fiestas de navidad y año nuevo los queremos mucho, con amor. Gloria y familia besos.

For those who don't understand Spanish...basically, it is from Gloria...thanking us for what we have done for Lily and that hopefully she will get to see us again someday!

It is truly amazing to me that someone can be two so different people...it totally blows my mind.

The other was from Lily's 1st foster mother. I had accidentally sent her an email several months back and so the other day when she wrote me, I sent her photos of Lily and updated her. Today we received this letter

HOL A KIM GRACIAS POR MANDARME LAS FOTOS DE LILY ELLA SE VE FELIZ GRACIAS POR TODO EL AMOR QUE LE DA KIM PERDONEME EL ABUSO PERO YO QUIERO MOLESTARLA SI ME PUEDE AYUDAR ECONOMICAMENTE YA QUE NO TENGO TRABAJO Y ESTOY ENFERMA DE LA PRESION ALTA Y LA MEDICINA QUE TOMO PARA REGULARME LA PRESION EN CARA Y AHORITA POR LAS FIESTAS NAVIDEÑAS ME HE VISTO MAS AFECTADA ECONOMICAMENTE PERDONE LA MOLESTIA CUALQUIER CANTIDAD ES PARA MI LA MEJOR AYUDA GRACIAS Y MIL PERDON

Again, she is basically telling me that she needs help economically...she doesn't have work and she is sick and the medicine she needs to take and the Christmas season has affected her economic situation. So whatever quantity of money you can send is a big help.

Ahhh....Guatemala....

God is.....

Lily has learned at Ms. Helen's to pray before she eats.

She says God is good, God is great, and we thank him for our food. Let's eat.

Well, last night she was leading us through her prayer and I guess she got mixed with the words great and good and the words came out God is...GROSS.

Olav and I busted out into laughter. Of course, what makes it even more endearing as we were laughing she had no idea what we were laughing about...but deciding it must be funny so she started laughing too! I am not even sure she knows the word gross yet...

So now whenever Olav and I get into a discussion that might get intense one of us will break the tension with God is gross. It gets us both rolling with laughter!

More Photos

Lily loved the Christmas lights...aside from opening the boxes and popping the bubble wrap, I think this was her favorite part of decorating the tree!

Lily's "first" snow...well not exactly a real snow...we have had several snow flurry showers, but few have stuck around...this laid only about 1/4 inch on the ground, but it was fun to touch and throw at Daddy! Notice the "bolsa"....a purse like this can normally be found with Lily whenever she travels!

Lily's 1st Thanksgiving in the US. What a joy it was to share the day with our family. Lisa and John hosted. Bob and Ginger came in from Vermont. My Uncle Eddie, Aunt Di, and my cousin Eric came. Jessica was home from college. Very fun!

Mommy instinct and Tears in my eyes...

MOMMY INSTINCT

First, let me start by saying....in the middle of the night when Lily wakes up crying...I don't want her to come into our room, I want her to stay in her room and bed and cry it out...but no....my mommy instinct automatically says "Come here, Lily".

The other night I told Olav I didn't want Lily to keep coming into our bed in the middle of the night when she woke up because I felt it was starting a bad pattern, he said, "I know, you were the one who told her to come here". "Really", I said. I guess it is just that mommy instinct. So now every night before I go to bed...I try to will my brain not to call out to Lily, "Come here, Lily".

So yesterday after willing my brain once again before sleep not to say "Come here Lily", Lily cried out...and darn it if you would not believe it I called her to our bed when she awoke. Fortunately, after she came into our room and laid down in our bed...I came to my senses..."I don't want her in our bed". So I picked her up and put her back in her own bed with no fuss...

We'll see how many more times my mommy instinct kicks in!

TEARS IN MY EYES

While I was super thankful to have Lily home for Thanksgiving...honestly Thanksgiving has never been a day that has a huge emotional pull for me. But Christmas...that is another story.

I remember the first year we were trying to adopt Lily, Christmas 2005... well-intentioned friends said, "Next year you will have your daughter home with you". The following year Christmas 2006...Lily still wasn't home and Christmas was a very difficult time for me. Tears welled up in my eyes as I yearned to have Lily home for Christmas. Christmas 2007 was joyous because I had gotten to be Lily's mommy finally and because my dad and my sister and her family came to see us in Guatemala. But of course, there was always the lurking shadow of will we ever get to come home that was present until August of 2008.

So last Sunday when we went to church they were having a special advent service, complete with music, and dance. Lily pad was rocking out to the music....it brought tears streaming to my eyes....she really is home this year for Christmas! Even now as I write this I get choked up about it! Our beautiful baby girl is finally home for Christmas! And I tell you....regardless of what craziness is going on in the world this year....for the Gjerde family....this will be a great Christmas!

Love,
Kim

Lily's 1st Thanksgiving in the USA

We are happy to report that we celebrated our first Thanksgiving with Lily at home! It was a wonderful time filled with lots of family. My aunt, uncle and cousin came. As did my father and stepmother. And of course all the usuals, Lisa, John, Jay, Brian, Jessica, Kodi and Aly.

Of course, in classic Lily style, she didn't eat a thing! It really amazes me how she can sustain herself!

A couple random thoughts that have made us laugh recently.

The day after Thanksgiving our neighbor had caught a deer and had it hanging from a tree while he was "cleaning" it. Lily saw it as we drove past and said "Pinata". Oh, the eyes of a two-year-old!

Also today we saw Santa and he had a big bag of wrapped toys. Lily exclaimed, "Muchas happy birthdays". So cute!

Saturday Night-Frederick

So do you ever wonder what parents of toddlers do on a Saturday night when their toddler needs to run off some energy?

Surprising...they all go to the mall!!!!

Last night we went to Barnes and Noble to "play" in the kids section...only to learn that half of Frederick's population also thought it was a great idea. Not that I am complaining. We met a ton of nice people, it was just an interesting sociological observance.

We also have decided that if we want Lily to experience a true blend of cultures and races then hanging out at the city park and the mall are the way to go. Those places are teaming with multi-multiculturalism which I simply adore and believe is good for children to be surrounded by. Plus where else can you hear multiple languages being spoken everywhere you turn!

Other random thoughts for the day...

Lily loves yogurt...it currently is her favorite food

This morning in bed for a brief moment she was cuddling us...she wrapped her arms around both of us and said "amigos" and gave us 1 big amigo hug. If I could only freeze that moment in time!

Love
Kim

Picture People Visit!

Today we went to picture people. Lily was great! Here are the results!

Typical Lily "Saltando" Jumping

Feliz Navidad (Merry Christmas)

La familia muy guapa (Very handsome family)

Que Linda (How Cute!)

Una familia feliz (A happy family)

Before the throne...I come....

Amanda, Olav, Lily, and Stian

Stian and Amanda

Where to begin...first this weekend was great! My sister and dad threw us a welcome home party...it was wonderful to celebrate Lily's homecoming with so many wonderful friends!

Then Stian came up with his new wife Amanda. It was so good to see them. I look forward to them returning around Christmas time for a longer visit. 25 hours was just not enough!

But the thing that has really got me bowled over is how???? How can we raise Lily to be cut from a different mold than today's young people?

We were on Stian and Amanda's My Space pages looking at pictures of their friends and they were plastered with young girls wearing provocative clothing and posing provocatively for the camera. It saddened my heart greatly. First, it appears as if these young girls have gotten the message that their only value is in their sexuality. And of course, my mind immediately went to Lily...how will we be able to raise her so that she is "different". How do you raise a child to love and fear God? It brings me to my knees.

I find myself even now praying for the friends she will have in school. That God would surround her with good friends who make wise decisions. That God would protect her from harm, even as she flexes her "muscles".

Parenting is a daunting task...I am very afraid! Jesus, I ask for your guidance, wisdom, and protection por favor:)

P.S. I took two pictures of everyone that I wanted to post, but in the first picture Lily turned her head and in the 2nd picture my stomach and red bra were showing through...so I thought after my rant about modesty...it might not be appropriate to post that one:)

Love,
Kim

Catching Up!

Wow, I guess it's been a while since I have posted. First Lily had a great Halloween. She dressed up like a cat!

In the historical world, on Nov 4th we elected our first African-American President of the United States....pretty cool I think.

Lily has been a bit of a pistol lately. She is strong-willed and when she is disciplined for not listening or following directions she retaliates with biting and hitting. Especially with her mamma. Last week we introduced eating soap because the time-outs were not working, I was getting angrier and angrier, and I needed another way to deter her from biting me. So far it has seemed to work. I only have to mention soap and she closes her little jaw. The hitting is still there along with the power struggles, but we are just trying to continue to be as non-emotional as possible (which sometimes is so hard) and consistent in discipline. In fact the other day she was behaving so rottenly, that I was going to kill her if I didn't walk away. So I buckled her in her car seat in the car and walked away! Please tell me she will outgrow this phase!

Today Lily went to the lab to have blood taken. I was super nervous...afraid she be screaming and I'd have to hold her down, but she was amazing. Muy Valiente! She did cry a little, but we sang songs, and that seemed to be enough for her. She really is an amazing little cookie! They even told me that I was one of their best moms as well. That was nice to hear because I felt like a train wreck inside...I was muddling the words of the songs! But I guess all those fertility treatments cured me of my fear of blood and needles!

Anyway, this week Stian is coming up from NC with his new wife Amanda and my sister is having an open house for us. I can't wait to see all our friends and family.

Love

Kim

A few random thoughts...

First of all Olav's skin test came back positive....he goes to the doctor tomorrow to follow up.

I also learned that Lily has a tb vaccination scar on her arm....which can cause a positive tb result. So I wonder now if she is taking this anti-botics unnecessarily.

A couple cute things...

Lily says here alphabet...ABCD Eat some Cheese HIJK....I love it!

Also last night I was at Kodi and Aly's eating dinner and Kodi proudly states that we he grows up he wants to be an engineer. Ali than proudly states that when she grows up she wants to be winnie the pooh! God how I love them!

Guatemala...the gift that keeps on giving!

Well, we may have our real Guatemalan souvenir with us for a while. TB! Yippee! As I may have written earlier, it had been determined that little Lily pad had been exposed to TB and to prevent her exposure from turning into active TB she is on 9 months of anti-biotic!

Daddy has been coughing horribly for the past two months. Tonight he finally went to the doctor thinking that maybe it was bronchitis or walking pneumonia. But no....they think it might be TB! He went to get a chest X-ray at the hospital so we will know more tomorrow.

I guess that means I better get myself to the doctor as well.

Here's the Guatemala gift that keeps on giving!

Birthday Parties...American style

Well, today marks the first of I suspect many American birthdays. Today we had two in one day! One for our friend Isa whom we actually met in Guatemala and one for our friend Emma who is the daughter of a co-worker. Both girls were turning 3!

Our first birthday party was a pony-riding party. Lily had a great time feeding and riding the pony! Although after one time she was done!

Our second party was crazy. It was at a place called Pump it Up. I have never seen anything like it. Basically, it was a glorified moon bounce place. You went into two separate rooms. The first room had three separate climbs, slides, and bounce "houses". The second room was similar but had different types of climb, slide, and bounce houses Lily loved it, but she was a little too small to do some of the stuff by herself, so I got lots of exercise as well. I must say though I was happy when it was time to go eat pizza and cake! I was beat! You'd think Lily would be beat as well...but no...over tired and over-adrenalized at almost 8 p.m. and she is in her bed yacking away! Oh to have toddler energy!

A grieving mommy

Lily is doing great! She is speaking more and more English every day. I am amazed at how quickly she has picked it up. In fact, she now chooses to speak English more than Spanish. As a mother, this is grieving my heart. I so want her to be bilingual, but I feel it slipping away. I am still speaking Spanish to her, but I am also painfully aware of my limitations. We recently hired a young girl to come to our home two days a week to speak Spanish with her, but is that really enough? It's like a personal angst. I guess what will be will be, but it still grieves my heart deeply.

In other news...Lily is doing so much better at daycare. She didn't even cry when I dropped her off. That was the first time since we began! She also has been going to bed relatively well and staying in her bed without waking up in the middle of the night.

She continues to be active! I asked Mrs. Helen how she was doing and she said good, but she was one of three little ones who tend to express themselves physically (i.e. hit, bit, push etc).

One of my favorite things is this song she sings...Mary had a little lamb. Except she sings Mary had a little man. So cute!

Where to begin!

I have wanted to start a new blog to chronicle the new chapter in Lily and our lives, but things have been so crazy I haven't had the opportunity to. However, with so many things having happened I wanted to get them down on paper.

We have now been home for about 2.5 weeks. Overall the adjustment is going much better than I expected. Lily is really amazing in her ability to adapt to new situations. She is acquiring English at record speeds. We recently started a new discipline program with her called 1-2-3 magic to help stop all the power struggles we seemed to be constantly having. She is responding very well to the program and has been making much better choices. Of course like everything it requires consistency and patience.

The other day she was put in time out because she would not put on her shoes and we needed to get out the door. Well, we had a new parent moment when once in the time out (in her room), she locked herself in the room. Our home being old, we didn't have any of the keys to unlock the doors and of course, communicating in English or Spanish to turn the knob did not go well. Anyway thank goodness Olav was home, he ended up kicking down the door! So we have a little drywall, painting, and trim repair work to do. But I can now safely say that the lock is now on the outside of the door! So much for getting on the door in a timely fashion.

This week Lily has begun to sleep in her big girl bed alone. If she cooperates, we will sit in the chair until she goes to sleep; if not, we leave her in her room.

She has done overall quite well in her bed, however, the other night she fell off the end of the bed. Poor little thing.

Lily has discovered Play-Doh and absolutely adores it! She plays with it all the time! She also loves shaking her body to the wiggles. She even break dances.

I went to a huge yard sale last week and bought her a few toys to keep her occupied. But still her kitchen set with the play dough seems to be the reigning favorite! She also really likes this Dora tent I got her. She loves to play hide and seek.

Lastly, she loves to play dinosaurio. She and Daddy play it all the time!

One thing that has been hard about leaving Guatemala is grieving the loss of her Hispanic culture. As much as I try to continue to speak Spanish to the best of my ability at home, I am not nor will ever be a native of Guatemala. I just so badly want her to keep that part of her life with her. I think if Yolanda is able to come home with us maybe that will help, but with the economy the way it currently is I am not sure if that is feasible at this given moment in time.

This week she started daycare. Originally she was supposed to start on Monday, but her TB test came back positive so we had to wait until we were cleared by her negative x-rays before she could start daycare. Overall she has done well. I was most worried about the nap time, but that has seemed to be not a problem at all. The hardest part is dropping her off in the morning. Today she was screaming....but I called Mrs. Helen and she told me after 5 minutes she was fine!

Today the staff at my school threw me a baby shower. They have been supportive and encouraging to me over the past two and half years...that this just took the cake. I just couldn't believe all their kindness. You'd think by now they would be so sick of our situation, but they just continued to pour out their love to us. I was in tears...humbled by their kindness and love for us.

The shower was incredible...they decorated with Dora tablecloths and Dora cake....many Dora-themed gifts. Just when I thought I had opened up all the gifts, my team brought in a radio flyer wagon and bicycle filled with gifts. I lost it...I couldn't even open them up. I was so overcome with emotion. I had to stay seated in a chair and just take it all in.....

I was having a talk with two of my co-workers one day shortly before I went to pick Lily and Olav up from Guatemala. My co-worker had bought Lily a few little gifts. I was so thankful to her and my response was thank you so much....I will never be able to repay you for your kindness to me.....so began an interesting discussion about giving and receiving.

You see growing up I always felt that if I was given something, I needed to repay somehow. Whether it was with an equivalent gift or some token of appreciation. But basically, I always felt indebted to that person somehow. I know this came primarily from my mother, who I loved and adored, but it was definitely an area of strife in our family for many years...as nothing came free.

So you can imagine over the last two years as we have been overwhelmed with love in the forms of cards, gifts, money, prayers etc.....that the "debt" became too great to repay. Never in my lifetime would I be able to "payback" people for their kindness to our family.

However, my co-workers brought up a very good point, that I am still learning to swallow. They said they didn't want to be paid back, in fact, it brought them great joy to give. They also asked me about how I liked to give and that when I gave did I expect to receive something in return. Of course, my answer was how I too enjoyed giving to others and of course, I did not want something in return. So this is such a hard pill to swallow...accepting such kindness and simply saying thank you.

Of course, this gets me thinking about spiritual things as well..... God cared so much about me, that he sent his only child to this earth to die for me.....I know my debt to him is great. I will never be able to pay him back for his love for me.....and yet that is not what he requires.....he simply would like to be thanked and praised and would like to continue to pour out his blessings. Honestly, the reality of the situation is so intense I can't even really ponder it.

Anyway, I don't feel like I adequately captured all my thoughts there, but at least it is a start.