Decade: a post I've dreaded for a long time

**Disclaimer: I have piecemealed (?) this post together over several days. I'm way too lazy to change the tenses for it to make sense....enjoy!!**

On Monday, my boy is turning 10. He's going ahead and doing so despite my protests. I've tried to bribe him with money, vacations (Peyton, how would you like to go search for the Loch Ness monster instead of turning 10 this year?), groundings and trickery all so that I wouldn't have to come to terms with the fact that my baby is not really a baby anymore. And, if we're all being honest, he hasn't been for quite some time. Double digits really hits that home for this momma.

The circumstances leading up to December 26, 2001 were anything but picturesque and romantic. I don't remember where I was when I first felt him move inside my womb. I didn't do the fun watch me grow pregnant pictures. I spent most of my pregnancy dreading what was ahead and hadn't given much thought to anything after that. Details are in the past, but if I fail to mention it, in my mind, it won't be understood how such a rough start turned out to be the reason for the beautiful decade that has followed it.

From the moment he was born my life had changed completely. The selfish, self-serving kid that I was had to take a backseat (and eventually leave altogether) because he deserved all of everything that I had to offer. I hadn't prepared myself to be totally and utterly smitten by this little guy:

2001-Meet Peyton Alexander Porter

Raising him has been a dream, that's not to say that there aren't days when I want to crawl under my bed and hide for a year or three, but it's been such a wondrous decade. One very vivid moment I remember from a few hours after he was born found the two of us alone for the first time ever. I was so afraid of this sweet little gift that had just been placed in my care and I whispered to him "It's just you & me, buddy". And, for ten years, he's been my buddy. I'm still as in love with him now.

In honor of Peyton's 1oth birthday I'm going to list ten (among thousands) of my favorite things that I've learned from this boy who has held my heartstring for ten blissful years.

1. Hats are always appropriate and there is always time to run back to grab one before leaving the house.

2009-Celebrating Lincoln's 200th birthday in Washington, DC.

2. Imagination is important. This is one quality that he has to this day. He creates things out of junk and I love his excitement when doing so.

2004-Using Mia's bassinet, toy goggles and my scarf to reenact Snoopy's red baron.

3. Little boys require a lot of weapons. A. LOT. Nerf guns, water guns, marshmallow shooters, slingshots...

2006-Backyard fun is not complete until someone gets it with the water gun!

4. Cookie dough was made to sampled. Often.

2011-Making cookies on a lazy Saturday.

5. The bond between a little boy & his great-great-grandmother transcends words.

2009-Nan's last Thanksgiving with us. She and Peyton had an amazing bond.

She called him her buddy. <3

6. Watermelon is a food group. :) This kid will pick watermelon over almost every other food. And, he thinks it's always in season.

2005-Kristin's college graduation menu made Peyton very happy :)

7. Sisters are annoying.

2007-This picture makes me laugh! I'm sure Peyton (or someone else was annoying her...)

8. Trucks are cool.

2003-Peyton driving his first big boy truck.

9. Dads and Paps are built-in best friends.

2010-Peyton & Wayne in Mexico on a mission trip.

2001-My dad & Peyton the day after Peyton was born.

10. Mustaches are always in style. And, who can resist a cute kid who can whip out a variety of mustaches on a moment's notice?

2011-Showing off one of his mustaches for Aunt Becky in Disney.

Then...

And 10 awesome years later...

I'm so thankful that God saw past all of my junk and allowed that little boy to be mine. He was the start of this amazing family that we have now and I'm ever grateful for everything that Wayne and I had to go through to get here...ten years later madly in love with each other and these two beautiful kids.

Signing off here, officially the mother of a 10 year old. Sigh.

Psalm 127: 3-4 "Lo, children are a heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. "

I want (enter random As Seen on TV junk here) for Christmas

Last Monday started off to be a very bad day. As in scrubbing the wall's in Peyton's room because he got sick early that morning bad. Emilia had crept over complaining of a "hurty belly" earlier in the morning and I was snuggled up with her before it all hit the fan. So, it was a sick day for the two little ones and a lazy day for me.

I baked some cookies, registered for my FINAL semester of grad school, put a Playmobil school back together, cuddled kids and watched a lifetime's worth of Hallmark Christmas movies. Even on a bad day these kids bring such joy to my life. I'm so blessed to have been chosen to raise them.

Along with said Hallmark movies come television commercials. And, like other kids, ours always NEED most of the junk being advertised. Ha. So Mia and I are on the couch and she is yelling "I need this, I really need this. Look Mom!" She thought in her sweet Mia mind that Dragon speak & type software would enhance her life in some way. Mom and I were laughing and she looks at me and says, "Well, Mom, I don't type very good."

The very next commercial had her wishing for this beauty:

Who knows what she saw in this bathtub chair assistant but her delight in it had me in tears. She is such a sweetheart and I love looking at life through her eyes. Even if she may very well be endeavoring to become the laziest person ever. :)

It's L-O-V-E

I'm sitting in the waiting room of same day surgery waiting to hear that my mom is finished (she's fine) and I'm trying to write the last paper of the semester on universal preschool. I've got my resources lined up and ready, my name's on my paper and that's as good as it gets. Did I mention it's due Friday?

My thoughts are wandering around Christmas presents left to buy, things that need wrapped, baked, made or cleaned. And love.

Love is these two turkeys:

Writing this paper has also become difficult because I'm captured by the 87 year old man who's also been waiting for his wife to finish her testing. Speaking loudly, like older men do, he's telling the man beside him that she's taken care of him for sixty years. She's back now, he's stroking her hair, fussing with the blanket covering her frail legs, holding her hands. That's love. I'm blessed because I know I've got that same kind of love with him.

I'm thankful for early morning snuggle sessions with my boy who has been constantly reminding me that he'll be ten in a mere 18 days. The past ten years of his life have flown by so quickly which makes me hold on a little tighter.

I'm blessed by this crazy little girl that I'm happy to call mine. She makes me laugh on a daily basis. Yesterday she was all into learning the heritages of our family for a school project and asked in all sincerity if "all of our family are African Americans, or was it just us?" I love her innocence. And for these little reminders that I'm loved:

It's L-O-V-E

How can I yell it her for using my phone when she leaves little surprises for me like this? :)

Lucky

I often joke about how Emilia is our crazy baby. She's goofy and silly. Carefree and cuddly. She will climb up in my lap and ask for a "holdy", still wants to hold my hand and is constantly by my side. She's precious and all mine. However, there are days and times when it is so hard to remember all of these sweet qualities.

Days like Monday. She spills stuff. A. LOT. We know it, she knows it, anyone close to us knows it. I also like to leave my laptop sitting around. More often than I should. So, I'm upstairs trying to get some cleaning things done and I hear commotion from the little ones downstairs. Then quiet. In my mind, they've already worked out whatever problem that was taking place. WRONG. I go downstairs to find several dishtowels placed strategically around my laptop. Emilia says that there was a "little spill". I rush over lift up my precious baby (my Mac, not Emilia) and water pours out of it. Cue sickening feeling. I yelled. A. LOT. I saw tears well up in her little eyes (more pronounced thanks to her new glasses) and stopped momentarily. It kills me when my kids cry and more so when they're crying because I yelled or am in the process of yelling. :( I was able to power through the sad little tears and continue on my mission of expressing to her how angry I was. Not my most shining parental moment. Happily, my laptop is almost fixed. I say almost because oftentimes the screen just goes black and then it's a fun game of did my computer just die or do I need to just open and close the screen a few times. :)

Days like last night. When I was washing up the last of the dinner dishes. The kids were cuddled in our bed watching a movie before bedtime and I hear the commotion again. I go up to find Peyton frantically scraping popcorn off of my bed. Emilia had spilled popcorn, not once, but twice in my bed. It was everywhere. In the sheets, on the quilt, under pillows. Ugh. I quickly cleaned it up, changed sheets and saw that hundreds of tiny pieces of popcorn and kernels were sticking to my quilt (that had just been cleaned). I put on the furniture attachment and started to vacuum it all up. And there she was at my side in her jammies holding her blanket and she started smiling at me and said, "You're lucky to have me, huh?" "You had to do that anyway, huh?" It reminded me of her favorite lullaby song from Dumbo, "Baby Mine" the line that says "All those same people who scold you/What they'd give just for the right to hold you. "

There are days like those and then there are moments when I'm reminded just how lucky I am. I am so grateful to to be given the great privilege of raising her:

Be still my heart.

Wordless Wednesday (on a Thursday) Take 2 :)

The thing about a year...

In a year's time one can read the entire Bible, make a new friend, find their favorite pair of shoes, or channel Julia Childs and cook their way through The Joy of Cooking among many, many other things.

One year ago (yesterday) Wayne and I were sitting at The Cheesecake Factory in Baltimore waiting for White Chicken Chili and we saw the sweetest face. I cried because I knew that he was going to be ours. I told Wayne that I felt like we just saw our son for the very first time. And, of course, I cried some more. I knew I couldn't wait; that evening on our way home I sent an email to our agency requesting information. Thank God for smartphones. For real. What followed was a whirlwind of emails, telephone calls, late night Google searches on things like 'malnutrition, neglect, brain development', PAPERWORK, constant prayer and did I mention waiting and tears already? Good things happened then too, I met this friend and she drew me into a network of families that have been a constant support for Wayne and me. I LOVE these ladies and cannot believe that I haven't met not even one of them (yet).

The week before Thanksgiving (11.17.10) we were told, after weeks of waiting, that we selected to become the parents of one of the sweetest little boys I've ever seen. In. My. Life. I wish I could have bottled that feeling so that I could have it for times like now. Times like tonight when I'm trying really hard to trust in The One who carefully crafted out this plan for our family.

And then I saw this:

a stack of Bibles on the leveled remains of someone's home in Joplin, Missouri. A team of us had traveled there this weekend to serve the city as theY continue to rebuild and restore. I had been so focused on documenting what we were seeing for our church family back home and for the other members of our group that I was looking but not fully seeing. I was present but not processing. Going through the pictures this evening I had really looked at some of them to see exactly where in the Bible the pages had turned to. Ironically, it was turned to Exodus, the chapter that our Bible study group had touched on recently. And although I was too busy taking pictures during our time in Joplin to really fully process a lot of it I was blown away tonight when I realized that my waiting is so small in comparison to Moses'. Moses waited for the the moment of his vision to be the deliverer of Israel to come to fruition for FORTY years. So, tonight I'm thankful for God's perfect timing and for the knowledge that I will not have to wait for years for this season to pass.

Will you join me in praying favor over our process? Currently, Megan is waiting to travel again TO BRING HER BABY HOME while Tracy & I are still waiting for reports and affidavits.

So as I continue down this journey, I'm learning and growing and trusting and waiting.

It goes together like Peyton & chili

The following paragraph was written by Peyton this evening as a class assignment to write his favorite dish. I'm convinced that each year this kid writes about chili in at least one of his assigned prompts.

"Chili is my favorite dish. When I eat chili I eat it as fast as I can so it's so hot. When I eat the first bite it's like a bomb of delicious fire. Then I can taste the blend of meat, beans and tomato. I also like crackers in my chili." ~Peyton Porter aged 9