I am writing this simply to record a day in our crazy life. There is no deeper purpose and mainly I am writing for myself. Because someday I will look back and smile and say, oh yeah, I remember that! and recall that by God's grace we made it through.
Alarm at 6:30 a.m. ... hit the snooze once, twice. We are spending our nights on the semi-comfortable futon which Pedro hauled from the first floor to the third a few days ago. It's just a tad small after being accustomed to a queen-size bed, and the denim has a way of absorbing and then radiating back our bodies' heat. But with windows opened and the fan blowing, we manage to sleep soundly anyway.
Shower, check book bags, put out snacks ... kids out the door with Pedro at ten minutes before 8:00 a.m. Drink coffee, pray briefly, hubby comes home and I leave.
At 8:30 a.m I join three other ladies for prayer at church. We pray specifically for our families, the temptations our church teens are facing, the church building project we are asking from the Lord. Just within our small group we carry burdens of wayward children, upcoming moves, serious health scares. Praying together we cast our cares upon the Lord, because He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7.)
We share tea and fresh bread with avocado until 10:20 a.m. The ladies are concerned about our van, which has been at the mechanic's for nearly two months without a successful repair. They ask me every week, and this time I suggest going together to meet with the owner who continually puts off my patient husband. Two of us go and he sputters one excuse after another as I stare at the belt looped in half and the screws lined up on my windshield and frustration at the ineptitude and dishonesty wells up in me.
Parting ways, I head home after a cell phone update to my husband which includes an insistence to find a tow truck and new repair shop! He calls around, nothing is for sure available, a mechanic friend agrees to go back to the shop with him in the evening. Pedro kindly succumbs to the little boys' pleading and takes them with him downtown to pay bills after I arrive home.
In the brief moments of quiet my mom calls. She listens to my harried accounts and frustrations, and shares news from home. Someone has died, someone else seriously ill, my dear pastor dad always faithfully there with each need. We talk furlough and Christmas and count the days until we arrive with the grandkids on her doorstep. Soon!
It 1:00 p.m., we end our conversation which has reminded me to look up the guidelines for re-adoption in the state of Delaware as we will need to begin this process literally upon arrival in January. I find a phone number, call the courthouse in Wilmington (yay for Vonage) and soon an e-mail is sent to me. Put the attachment on a pendrive, head upstairs to the currently internet-less computer and begin typing the required documents. Realize I need birth certificates, adoption decrees, wonder what this French word means?? Pedro comes home and searches it on the laptop downstairs. Add to the list, we must have these documents translated to English before we submit them to the courthouse. Remember the scanner is currently unavailable since we moved the office from the first floor to the third. Add that to the list, too.
And at 2:00 it's time to pick up the kids from school, Pedro needs to pick up some computer cables from a friend at the Zofri and I need to get a couple of Christmas gifts I had scouted out earlier. We pile into the hot car with the little boys (the car with a/c is the one in the shop) and collect kids 1, 2 and 3 at school. Head down the Costanera and get stopped in the blistering sun while the carabinero waves through traffic being re-routed from the opposite direction. Stop at Jean Paul and Leticia's sandwich shop to drop off church invitation and she insists on making hotdogs and churrasco at lightning speed for our hungry family to eat in the car. Yummy!
At the Zofri, Pedro gets his cable and also two free one-hour game cards for Happyland. We call it an early birthday celebration for Ian and the kids go crazy for sixty minutes. Alec attracts a stalker mom who keeps trying to call him over and gives him a smooch on the lips when my back is turned. I intervene and make clear that lip kisses are for family only and point out that she is, after all, a stranger and she would certainly not want me to touch and kiss her kids without permission no matter how cute they may seem! Grr. After play time runs out, all tickets go to buying a "present" for Ian which results in two cheap plastic pirate men and two cheap plastic basketball guys, but he's happy. We splurge on frozen yogurt with blended fruit, two big tubs for the seven of us to share.
It's around 5:00 p.m., the kids and Pedro head one way and I go another to pick up the Christmas gifts. Finally we reunite at the car and head home. Everyone is hot and tired and thirsty and we forgot Martha was coming and she forgot her key and has been waiting outside in the sun for over an hour. In the chaotic spilling out of the car and into the kitchen and everyone wants this and everyone wants that, our friend arrives to go with Pedro to the car shop. The little boys are whining and fighting, a neighbor stops by at the gate, Owen and Eva bicker over table space, and I just have to take a minute to stumble through boxes and bags to my third-floor hideout for some calming breaths.
Dinner, let's make it quick, got some pasta, veggies, mix it all together and call it good. Feed the kids, send the girls to showers, Daddy does bedtime and Mommy tries to organize paper chaos on the dining room table. The packing shuffle has both girls sharing a bed which ends in either uncontrollable laughing or endless fighting every night, and tonight it is the latter. There's scolding, tears and consequences, it's 8:30 p.m. and time for Pedro's pastoral meeting. Then it's 9:30 p.m. and the phone keeps ringing and I don't want to answer but then it's my cell and must be important. Another mom from school calling to ask if I've reviewed the 4th grade math test and how did my daughter do and several of the parents are going in to talk to the teacher because the test covered content we weren't required to study and she's giving the test over to some students and others not, and that isn't fair. Sigh. Can this school year just be over already?
Now it's 10:10 p.m. and I've written about Alec's kissing incident on Facebook and received the comforting computerized comments of friends and almost finished this post. Pedro is still not home and probably won't be until midnight because that's just how things roll in Iquique. So I think I'll hunker down with "Heaven is for Real," the book I've been loaned and began skeptically but now am really enjoying.
Because frankly, on crazy days like this one ... I am more thankful than ever that Heaven is for real and that this old world is not my home. I'm just a-passing through, but I want to leave with many others in tow. Which means an attitude check after today, a round of hugs and kisses on my family's necks in the morning, and starting over with thanksgiving for God's grace and His Word and His faithfulness even when I am falling apart. Amen!
10:26 edit, Pedro just called and he is coming home! Will wonders never cease. And he is bringing home the bacon, I mean, the Spanish sandwich from his favorite late-night joint. Hooray for ending the day with my hubby. :)
Alarm at 6:30 a.m. ... hit the snooze once, twice. We are spending our nights on the semi-comfortable futon which Pedro hauled from the first floor to the third a few days ago. It's just a tad small after being accustomed to a queen-size bed, and the denim has a way of absorbing and then radiating back our bodies' heat. But with windows opened and the fan blowing, we manage to sleep soundly anyway.
Shower, check book bags, put out snacks ... kids out the door with Pedro at ten minutes before 8:00 a.m. Drink coffee, pray briefly, hubby comes home and I leave.
At 8:30 a.m I join three other ladies for prayer at church. We pray specifically for our families, the temptations our church teens are facing, the church building project we are asking from the Lord. Just within our small group we carry burdens of wayward children, upcoming moves, serious health scares. Praying together we cast our cares upon the Lord, because He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7.)
We share tea and fresh bread with avocado until 10:20 a.m. The ladies are concerned about our van, which has been at the mechanic's for nearly two months without a successful repair. They ask me every week, and this time I suggest going together to meet with the owner who continually puts off my patient husband. Two of us go and he sputters one excuse after another as I stare at the belt looped in half and the screws lined up on my windshield and frustration at the ineptitude and dishonesty wells up in me.
Parting ways, I head home after a cell phone update to my husband which includes an insistence to find a tow truck and new repair shop! He calls around, nothing is for sure available, a mechanic friend agrees to go back to the shop with him in the evening. Pedro kindly succumbs to the little boys' pleading and takes them with him downtown to pay bills after I arrive home.
In the brief moments of quiet my mom calls. She listens to my harried accounts and frustrations, and shares news from home. Someone has died, someone else seriously ill, my dear pastor dad always faithfully there with each need. We talk furlough and Christmas and count the days until we arrive with the grandkids on her doorstep. Soon!
It 1:00 p.m., we end our conversation which has reminded me to look up the guidelines for re-adoption in the state of Delaware as we will need to begin this process literally upon arrival in January. I find a phone number, call the courthouse in Wilmington (yay for Vonage) and soon an e-mail is sent to me. Put the attachment on a pendrive, head upstairs to the currently internet-less computer and begin typing the required documents. Realize I need birth certificates, adoption decrees, wonder what this French word means?? Pedro comes home and searches it on the laptop downstairs. Add to the list, we must have these documents translated to English before we submit them to the courthouse. Remember the scanner is currently unavailable since we moved the office from the first floor to the third. Add that to the list, too.
And at 2:00 it's time to pick up the kids from school, Pedro needs to pick up some computer cables from a friend at the Zofri and I need to get a couple of Christmas gifts I had scouted out earlier. We pile into the hot car with the little boys (the car with a/c is the one in the shop) and collect kids 1, 2 and 3 at school. Head down the Costanera and get stopped in the blistering sun while the carabinero waves through traffic being re-routed from the opposite direction. Stop at Jean Paul and Leticia's sandwich shop to drop off church invitation and she insists on making hotdogs and churrasco at lightning speed for our hungry family to eat in the car. Yummy!
At the Zofri, Pedro gets his cable and also two free one-hour game cards for Happyland. We call it an early birthday celebration for Ian and the kids go crazy for sixty minutes. Alec attracts a stalker mom who keeps trying to call him over and gives him a smooch on the lips when my back is turned. I intervene and make clear that lip kisses are for family only and point out that she is, after all, a stranger and she would certainly not want me to touch and kiss her kids without permission no matter how cute they may seem! Grr. After play time runs out, all tickets go to buying a "present" for Ian which results in two cheap plastic pirate men and two cheap plastic basketball guys, but he's happy. We splurge on frozen yogurt with blended fruit, two big tubs for the seven of us to share.
It's around 5:00 p.m., the kids and Pedro head one way and I go another to pick up the Christmas gifts. Finally we reunite at the car and head home. Everyone is hot and tired and thirsty and we forgot Martha was coming and she forgot her key and has been waiting outside in the sun for over an hour. In the chaotic spilling out of the car and into the kitchen and everyone wants this and everyone wants that, our friend arrives to go with Pedro to the car shop. The little boys are whining and fighting, a neighbor stops by at the gate, Owen and Eva bicker over table space, and I just have to take a minute to stumble through boxes and bags to my third-floor hideout for some calming breaths.
Dinner, let's make it quick, got some pasta, veggies, mix it all together and call it good. Feed the kids, send the girls to showers, Daddy does bedtime and Mommy tries to organize paper chaos on the dining room table. The packing shuffle has both girls sharing a bed which ends in either uncontrollable laughing or endless fighting every night, and tonight it is the latter. There's scolding, tears and consequences, it's 8:30 p.m. and time for Pedro's pastoral meeting. Then it's 9:30 p.m. and the phone keeps ringing and I don't want to answer but then it's my cell and must be important. Another mom from school calling to ask if I've reviewed the 4th grade math test and how did my daughter do and several of the parents are going in to talk to the teacher because the test covered content we weren't required to study and she's giving the test over to some students and others not, and that isn't fair. Sigh. Can this school year just be over already?
Now it's 10:10 p.m. and I've written about Alec's kissing incident on Facebook and received the comforting computerized comments of friends and almost finished this post. Pedro is still not home and probably won't be until midnight because that's just how things roll in Iquique. So I think I'll hunker down with "Heaven is for Real," the book I've been loaned and began skeptically but now am really enjoying.
Because frankly, on crazy days like this one ... I am more thankful than ever that Heaven is for real and that this old world is not my home. I'm just a-passing through, but I want to leave with many others in tow. Which means an attitude check after today, a round of hugs and kisses on my family's necks in the morning, and starting over with thanksgiving for God's grace and His Word and His faithfulness even when I am falling apart. Amen!
10:26 edit, Pedro just called and he is coming home! Will wonders never cease. And he is bringing home the bacon, I mean, the Spanish sandwich from his favorite late-night joint. Hooray for ending the day with my hubby. :)
2 comments:
I'm praying for you Stephanie, especially in this extra hectic time in a hectic life.
Ginny C
I hate how strangers think they can love all over your child just because it's obvious he/she is adopted (or in our case it is very obvious). We have to watch for that because our twins are really friendly and will go to anyone. Not really an attachment thing (though if unmonitored it could become one) but just a willingness to be fussed over.
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