On Being In Touch...

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Well, I am finally sitting down to write another post in my adoption series! What a long time it's been!

Would you like a quick recap? I was adopted at birth and last year began the process of tracking down my birth-mother (for privacy, I refer to her as B - for Birth-mother), and you followed along my journey as I sent off the first letter and received the first reply! It was incredible.

Well, since receiving B's first letter in August last year (wow, so long ago?), I have written back and she has written back again. Let me tell you, it is SO AWESOME to be in touch with her!!

At first it was just so surreal to finally be corresponding with this wonderful lady that had only ever been a concept in my head - to actually have a real person at the other end was so strange! Since exchanging a few letters back and forth it's been really nice. Wonderful to 'hear' her voice and get an idea of what she is like as a real person, and not the imaginary one that's always lived in my head.

We haven't met yet because B lives in a different country. So for now I have to be patient - if we had the money I would jump on an aeroplane tomorrow! I've said before how I'm so excited to meet her - and that was before we'd exchanged letters - and I'm looking forward to it even more now! In my head, the scene I see as we meet again is amazing. Can't wait for that looooooong hug that I know will come. Alas, unless we win Lotto (highly unlikely, as we don't buy tickets), that meeting won't be until the end of next year sometime. Patience, my pretty.

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I'm in the process of writing my next letter to B - I started it about 2 weeks ago! I must finish it and send it off today, as I just got another letter from her in my letterbox this morning! Oopsie! I'm taking a bit to long to reply... It's been a busy few months: since I last wrote, we've found out we are expecting No. 4, Rosie started Montessori kindy, Elliot started school, we started renovating the house and Hayden had his accident - an eventful 6 months!

In the next few weeks (once my letter arrives at B's house) we will be setting up a phone call. Exciting and nerve-wracking - I get nervous talking on the phone!! But like she said in her letter today - one we start talking we'll probably never stop! I love it.

Also, interesting fact: today's letter included photos (YAY!!) and now I know who Tristan looks like! Amazing! He's always looked quite different to the others, a bit like me, not much like Hayden, but I see now lots like B! As I looked at the photo of her at 3.5 years old, I thought, "Tristan!" SO DARN COOL! Growing up, family resemblance was always something that I really missed: surrounded by a beautiful extended family who all shared the same genetics and family traits, no-one looked like me (or my sister). I have loved having my own family and seeing our children turn out to look like me and Hayden, and now I love love LOVE knowing that they also have resemblance to B.

So that's where I'm at! So happy to be in a good relationship with B; that my worst fear of being turned away by her never came true. In fact it was the opposite - she's glad I contacted her! It's wonderful to have been able to open up this side of myself that had, from necessity, remained a closed book. It's great to be able to fill out the blanks.


Check out the Adoption & Me tab at the top of my page (under the blog header) for the rest of the posts in this series.

Progress, of the Head and Bathroom kinds

We are making progress. Some fast, some slow, but both steady.

Our renovations are coming along. To be honest, when we started, I hadn't realised just how big a project it would become. Naive little me. Currently, we have a bathroom that is now about 60% finished, I think. We have a new bath installed, walls have been re-Gib'd (how do you write that?), bath/shower has been lined with ACP shower-liner, new plumbing has all been installed and the Gib-stopping is just about finished. Our lovely plasterer Phil will be finishing with the sanding tonight or tomorrow morning and then we will be ready to paint it. After that, we still have to slightly adjust the vanity, get new vinyl laid on the floor and put up the towel rails. It looks pretty different in there now!



Here's the house plans again, for your refreshment. (Remember the hand-drawn one is totally out of scale.) We have done the bathroom, are keeping the toilet, existing shower is still connected until we're ready to use the new one, the new wall will go up for the laundry/mudroom space and the new room (Baby's!) will be done last.



We've taken out the hot water cupboard, laundry cupboard and wall that separated the laundry from the short hallway, so we currently have an enormous laundry! It's quite nice to walk into such a big space! Last week Hayden and his Dad put up the new laundry door, so now instead of a short hallway, we have just a door. It's actually made a really big difference in heating the house - we hadn't realised how much heat got lost out to the external (glass) door!

The laundry is the next on the list. Here's my attempt at showing you which walls have been taken down. I think my attempts just make it harder to visualise...


Photos of the new door going into the hallway:


We've hit a slight snag in that the wall between the current shower and laundry - which falls bang-smack in the middle of the intended new room - is a braced wall. This means we need some expert input to see if we can brace the new walls instead or if the structure of the house needs the brace to be right where it is... This was unexpected because we thought the only load-bearing/structural walls were the ones running down the hallway.

So that's where we're at. I'd appreciate every single one of your prayers for these renovations to be finished (or finished enough!) by the end of July, so that I have some time to decorate Baby's new room! And relax...

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And now for a quick update (this post is long enough!) on the Progress of the Head kind. Hayden is doing pretty good. He is now working with an Occupational Therapist and last week we saw a Neurologist, both of whom have been really good in helping us to understand where we're at. The neurologist expressed surprise at an actual bruise on Hayden's brain, indicating just how severe the blow to his head was. However, he 'passed' a lot of the little tests, so he's making good progress. One tricky little reflex test shows that his brain still has the injury, so we're not clear yet. He said typically, a concussed person will make most of their recovery (80-90%?) in the first 3 months, and then over the next 1-3 years will make the rest of the recovery.

Hayden has now gone part time at school, teaching only his 2 senior Chemistry classes, which is really great and means he can rest a bit more. This will be in place until then end of the term, after which we'll review. In the mean time, Hayden occasionally has a headache - though not as often as I expected - and still struggles to cope with too much noise or interaction - like two students asking him questions at the same time. He also is dealing with fatigue.

I don't have any more interesting photos sorry - is face healed quite quickly, for all that it looked so gruesome at first! He now has two new pretty cool (he says) facial scars. And a dubious new facial hair arrangement...

What is normal anyway?

'Normal' is so quickly changed. We get used to things in our lives going a certain way most of the time, and then it becomes different. We reach a new normal. Sometimes a step forward, sometimes a step back. Sometimes we just move sideways into a different kind of normal. One thing I learned having babies, there. You get used to something, and it changes, quick as a flash! Baby sleeps for one and a half hours in the afternoon, then Bam! Fourty-five minutes. Baby doesn't like pumpkin, then Bam! They love it.

Anyway, this post actually wasn't supposed to be about babies... I was just locking the back door for the night and a tiny little 'new normal' detail struck me. I thought that I won't have to lock the door again before I go out tomorrow morning, because no-one will have gone out of it between now and then. You see, Before, before Hayden's accident, he would leave the house via the back door on his way to the garage to get on his bike, well before the rest of us were up (or at least coherent), leaving it unlocked. (It can't be locked again from the outside.) Now, he comes to school with us in the car, in time for the first bell. Therefore, the door stays locked. See? Nothing major, just a tiny detail that has changed without me taking notice of it until now.



I'll admit, that as I turned around to behold my Man relaxing behind me (good, just what he should be doing!), that I had a wee twinge of longing to go back to the old normal. While I still have my positive attitude and Big-Picture glasses, I'll admit that they've become a little battered around the edges these last few weeks.

I'm 30 weeks pregnant. I'm really tired. My pelvis is sore and my back/left hip is intensely painful. I have three busy (gorgeous) children. I have house renovations going on. I have so many things I'd like to be doing - friends to care for, progress to make in the bathroom, crafty things for my baby and my friends babies-to-be-born - and no energy to get to them. I have church and school projects to finish. Blah blah blah. That's enough moaning.

But it's good to have a husband who has slowed down. It's so nice to spend just about every evening together AND get to bed at a good time every night! It's good to have been forced to step up and create new, good patterns and habits around our home. Sure, every time someone pops over to drop something off the house looks like a whirlwhind blew threw it, but I'm just going to call that bad timing... (Maria, the house looks 1000% better than when you stopped in a few hours ago!) It's good to be so well supported by Hayden's school, Hamilton Christian School, and especially his principal. It's good to know so many people have been and are praying for us. It's good to see God's grace in the small things, even if I've been ungrateful in my receiving them.

I think life is always 'normal', for the person living it. It doesn't look the same for everyone. Someone else's normal is not mine - and at times that can be a source of thanksgiving! And 'normal' isn't static. You can't define it, because, like I said at the start, you define it and the next moment it's changed!



At the moment, my normal is more difficult than my old normal. But it's up to me (by God's grace, because I've seen my own strength isn't enough) to step up to the plate and embrace it, not lamenting what was. Notice how I didn't just say 'deal with it?' Highs and lows are part of being a human, and for me (and I'd like to think all of us) there are always joys to find. Sometimes the joys are obvious. Sometimes you just need to see that the joys are the little things you usually take for granted. Sometimes the only joy you can find is, like I read somewhere today, that you woke up in a warm bed this morning. But there'll be something. Somethings, usually.

I have much to be joyful about. So much. I'm going to attempt to focus on those things. Remind me when I forget, will you?

Aaaaaah...

Excuse the phone photo - lost my battery charger for the real camera...

Thankful today for the absolutely beautiful sunshine and the even more beautiful friends who came to hang out today.

Now my washing is folded and put away (by me!), washed and hung in the sun (by Glenys!), dishes done (Glenys again!) and benches cleaned (by Renee!). Now I feel less stressed and can get down to putting away the detritus strewed around the house by a plethora of happy children playing together - known as 'good mess' - and I'll be under control and pleasant again!

Now to convince Rosie that Circus Quirkus will be fun tonight (and not terrifying, as she seems to think)...

Doing It All?

Enjoying some lollies that Oma bought

I have been wanting to blog a lot more than I have been able to lately. With my husband being mostly out of action - at the moment that looks like getting out of bed as late as possible and into bed as soon as he arrives home again - my list of Things To Do, already over a mile long, has now grown to about 3 miles long.



It's impossible to get everything done, and a little depressing to look around at all the things I couldn't get to each day. I'll admit to feeling a little flat lately. I suppose that if I weren't growing this beautiful baby right now, things would be different because I'd have more energy. I'm trying to be gracious, knowing that I shouldn't be a hard task-master to myself but instead realistically understanding that life is just busy right now. I'll admit to some worry over knowing that life is only about to get busier with a newborn thrown into the mix after the next 10-ish weeks!



So please excuse me while I have my sad face on for just a little while. I want to be a vibrant part of my wonderful blogging community, but it's too hard to participate right now. I do love to see all your beautiful projects and photos and read your wonderful stories, even though it reminds me of all the things I'd like to do but can't right now. So keep them coming, and remind me of what life looks like on the other side!

Onwards and upwards!

Garden Duty

All photos courtesy of our garden in better, sunnier times.

I've just come back inside from 45 minutes in the garden. 45 minutes spent solely tearing out weeds or dead vegetable plants, most or which were bigger than the plants themselves. I won't say it felt good to get out (especially when it started raining!), as tiredness is beginning to get the better of me these days. But it certainly is a relief to have gotten a job done that has been nagging at me for a number of weeks now. (Does anyone else's garden nag at them too?)



Next on the garden list is to mow the lawns - just waiting for a time of day when the grass isn't either wet from dew in the morning or rain in the afternoon! And then I'll ask hubby to dig over the vege garden when he feels up to it.



I'm not sure about my humble vege patch. I'm certainly no green thumb, and anything edible I grow is almost entirely up to the goodness of God, the soil, sunshine and rainfall than my paltry efforts. I do love being able to eat from our own garden. And I love the money it saves, when I can get something from outside for our consumption and know I haven't just bought it at the shop for $2.99 a kilo, or something.



But my patch is a bit forlorn and ugly looking. It was lovingly dug and edged by my wonderful Man sometime last year and it's in a good spot, but as I was outside, I began contemplating raised beds... Wooden boxes that would match our sandpit and deck planter box... Easy to use... Easy to keep pest free... Bit of a cover-up for our not-particularly-glamorous tin fence... Hmmm, I can see the positives. Now to find the money, time and uninjured husband to get it done... Do you think we could make them out of reclaimed plaster board and an old bath?

Girl's Weekend!

I am so excited for tomorrow! We're goin' on a girl's weekend! Woo hoo!



We did the same thing a year ago - see us up above? - and had such a good time that we vowed to do it again. So this year we booked our date in plenty of time so that we could all make it fit with our families and prepare our husbands children for a weekend without Mummy.



We'll be staying in the same bach in Raglan as last time because we know it works well. We chose Raglan - a small west coast beach town - because it's nice and close to Hamilton so we won't spend half the weekend travelling, yet it still feels like a holiday because you know you're 'at the beach.'

The Mums who didn't bring their babies entertained the babies whose Mums were doing their share of the clean up.

We've divvied up the meals so each lady is responsible for one meal, and we'll all bring a drink and snack to share, so we're guaranteed some delicious food! I still drool when I remember Renee's salmon and tropical salad from last year...



The one thing I hadn't been able to factor in when we planned this so long ago was my husband having a head injury... It's been a bit crazy round these parts for the last four weeks and I really feel (maybe you'll think me selfish) that I need this weekend to have a bit of a break from the (extra) hard work that has been my life lately. Thankfully, my husband sees this need (or at least sees my desire to make it work) and we've arranged care for the kids for the weekend so that I can still go. Phew. I'm glad it works out that way actually, because it means that Hayden will actually have a nice quiet weekend to rest as well. Win win, I think.

Danielle and Stephanie - they look so little compared to how big they are now. A year is a long time...

So, I've got my Things To Remember list well sorted - as we all know my brain is like a broken sieve. You know when you're excited about something and so you get packed and ready really really early? (Apart from on the way to Christchurch for the Blogger's Conference, sorry Talia!) I've already got the kids overnight bags sorted and Saturday night's roast defrosting, plus my supermarket shopping list waiting for me in the morning.

Look at 1-year-ago chubby, short-haired Tristan! (And his little buddy, Leyton.)

**Edit: Ha ha, oops. I must have gotten distracted after I added the photos to this post because I totally forgot to finish writing it... Woop woop! Looking forward to tomorrow!