Deep Thoughts By the Johnston Men

It's conversations like these that families are missing by not setting aside time to eat together as a family!

Adam: My butt boobs are sore after going tubing.

Dad: What do you mean "your butt boobs".

Holly: Stop saying "boobs"!!!!

Williams: Adam, we don't say "butt"! We say "bottom"!

Adam: You know, these. (Pointing at butt)

Dad: You mean butt cheeks.

Williams: Dad, we don't say "butt"! We say "bottom"!

Adam: Butt boobs, butt boobs, butt boobs...

Holly: Stop saying "boobs"!!!!!

Home For the Holidays!

We have now been home for the holidays a total of 11 days. Will it never end?!?!?! It's terrible that my first "holiday" post is so negative, but I've had enough! Not of Christmas, Christ's birth, good stuff, etc., but enough of all the togetherness with my children. Sorry, but it's true.

I have been shopping every day before Christmas and, in a quest to spend Grandma's Christmas money and various gift cards, every day since Christmas. I have had ENOUGH shopping. In a frenzied huff, I headed out to Michael's tonight at 8:30, in a frigid, 30 mph wind for the second wooden human skeleton thingy because the first one couldn't have his or her ribcage finished since it broke and had to be hot glued.

Today we went to Limited 2, Claire's, Barnes and Noble to use a 4 year old gift card, Children's Place, and Michael's, all with 4 kids in tow. Yesterday we went to Walmart, Michael's, Target, TJ Maxx, Penney's, and Icing to have ears re-pierced from a bad job done the day after Christmas. The list continues similarly every other day. Yes, I know that this can't happen unless I let it, but that's beside the point...isn't it?

The shopping continued here at home. Hannah set up a "store" in the hall outside all of the bedrooms. It is directly, and I do mean directly, at the top of the stairs. She had gathered a bunch of junk, I mean stuff, she didn't want anymore and was offering great deals to her brothers and sister. With no takers, she swiftly cut her prices, drastically, and got some interest. Now, I was allowing this as a good exercise in free trade and entrepreneurship. Adam actually got a great deal because he wanted to return his Spore Creatures DS game (from one of those previous trips to Walmart) because it keeps freezing. He was going to buy Diddy Kong Racing instead. Fortunately for him, Hannah was selling her Diddy Kong for $5 so he bought it. He saved $25!

With business being slow, Hannah set up a rental deal. She offered rental of toys and stuffed animals for 25 cents. I thought this wasn't too bad until I realized that that was the same as the cost for some of the stuff. I guess if someone takes you up on a deal like that, you can't really argue that it's a bad idea. I bought a spool of lavender thread for 50 cents and Williams bought a headless person on a horse for a quarter.

She told me tonight that she made $8 something from her sale. I think I'll need to check with the rest of the siblings to make sure no one got "taken" by their merchant sister. I explained to her that it was all a good idea with lots of chances for "learning" something, but emphasized that taking advantage of younger brothers, who shall remain nameless, was not a skill she needed to cultivate. She vigorously denies any wrongdoing.

Never underestimate the drive of a 10 year old on a mission to buy an I-Pod Touch.

School starts again in ONLY 6 days.

P.S. I spelled entrepreneurship correctly, on my own. Just wanted everyone to know.

Cruising

We took the whole family on a 5 day cruise over Thanksgiving week. Everyone was excited except Williams who said that he just wanted to stay home. I kept telling him he'd be happy that he'd gone, knowing that he had no idea what he was in for. I'm pretty sure he was imagining the fishing boats in Accra which make up such a big part of the local economy.

Eating, of course, was one of the highlights of our trip. I refused to let anyone order off the kid's menu in the dining room. Grilled cheese sandwiches or chicken nuggets seemed just wrong when there were so many wonderful foods to choose from. Amazingly, one night, every kid (except Williams) tried an escargot. No one gagged or anything! The last 4 months of Williams life has been spent tasting one weird food after another. I didn't push it with him. Our favorite was dessert when almost every night we all had the Chocolate Melting Cake.

The girls both made lots of friends in their respective "kids clubs". They enjoyed the chance to have a little freedom roaming around the ship with friends and without mom and dad. There were days that we really didn't see much of them during the day. (We did usually know where they were!) The boys enjoyed the water. They would have been happy to spend from sun up to sun down in the pool and hot tub.

I have to recommend a cruise as an excellent family vacation option. I think I can honestly say that the kids enjoyed it even more than mom and dad, if that's possible. We didn't have to worry about food costs, which is usually large with a family of 6. There were activities tailored to their age groups which allowed mom and dad to have some time off. There were tons of kids on our ship since it was the Thanksgiving holiday, so we didn't have to worry about making them toe the line with their behavior. Adam and Williams playing catch with the football in the hall didn't receive too many dirty looks. I'm also proud to say that only one golf ball went overboard from the putt-putt course. It could have been so much worse!





















Williams and Hannah in "the tub".

















You can never have too many pillows!


















Scott in the ping pong tournament.

Guitar Heroes

Famiy Update

Time has come for me to recommence, is that a word?, with this blog. The main purpose is to have a record of so many of the experiences we have had and are having. Life has gotten in the way lately, broken feet, broken computers, new MACS that I can't maneuver around in quickly, and, of course, kids.

We had our first snowfall of the winter on the day we returned from a cruise from the Western Caribbean. Williams enjoyed the experience up until about half a second after this picture was snapped. What's Adam doing behind Williams? Well, putting snow down the back of Williams shirt, of course. That's just what any self-respecting big brother would do, right? And Williams, just like any typical little brother, recently arrived from Ghana, near the equator, never having seen snow, reacted with the proper behavior of screaming and crying.

The kids continue to adjust to their new relationships and roles in the family. Williams is adjusting at what seems to me a rapid pace. His English is excellent and it's a rare occasion that he doesn't understand something that's been said. Sadly, his adorable accent seems to already have faded some, and he gains new American slang and jargon daily. He has grown 1 1/4 inches in three months and gained 5 pounds! He's eating more and more foods and becoming more willing to try new things.

Thanksgiving was spent on the cruise ship so we kind of missed the traditional ringing in of the holiday season. Holly and I had fish for thanksgiving dinner, Adam had chicken, and Scott, Hannah, and Williams had turkey. We decided that one of Williams interesting trivial facts about himself when he's an adult can be that he had his first Thanksgiving turkey dinner in Mexico and he was not even an American citizen.

By the way, "recommence" is a word. I just did spellcheck.

Among the Living

I am among the living but just barely. I can't think straight and shouldn't be sitting here thinking about myself and posting, but I am. Scott has been home from China now for 1 week, but I still haven't recovered from him being gone for 2 weeks.

About an hour after he left for the airport my doctor called with the results from the MRI I'd had done on my foot the day before. "You've got multiple fractures in your foot. I need you to come over so I can put you in a boot and you need to get back on your crutches. I'll set you up with an appointment with orthopedics next week." You've got to be kidding! This kind of set the tone for the whole 2 weeks. I drove and drove and drove and drove and then drove some more getting everyone where they had to be in the evenings. Kids got sick. We had 2 softball tournaments in KC. I've pretty much put everything else out of my mind. I don't remember anymore of those 2 weeks.

Supposedly things are winding down a little bit now. Baseball's over. Hannah's softball tournaments are over. Holly's got her last tournament this weekend. BUT, basketball's starting! This evening's Halloween party is over, but Halloween is next week and it's HUGE in our neighborhood.

Now I've relieved some guilt by breaking the blog fast. However unintelligible it is, it's done. I promise better next time!

My Friend's Blog Post

Jennine is a mom who has adopted recently from Ghana. She spent 4 weeks in Ghana while she prepared to bring her daughter home. She spent a lot of her time doing great things. Check out her post about Christ Outreach Orphanage. This is where Williams was prior to coming to AAI's Eban House.

http://goingghanagone.blogspot.com/2008/09/orphanage-in-kasoa.html

Kid Sayings

Williams had been playing a lot with the Billy Blazes action hero from Rescue Heroes and also watching the movie. Billy will pass along a fire safety tip whenever his button is pushed. One of them was, "If your clothes catch on fire, stop, drop, and roll!" I wondered if Williams was picking up any of Billy's words of wisdom. I asked, "Williams, what would you do if your shirt caught on fire?" He looked at me like I was crazy for thinking such a thing, thought for a minute, and said, "Take it off." I love a kid with some common sense!

The last week has been challenging, at best. Scott left last week for 2 weeks in China. I had an MRI, found out I had multiple fractures in my injured foot, and am in a moon boot and on crutches for another 4 weeks. We've had crazy schedules all week. A couple of evenings ago I was leaning on the kitchen counter, crutches in arm pits. and was complaining about being tired after driving 4 kids around to everywhere. Hannah said, "I can see why! I'd HATE to be you!" Honesty is obviously one of Hannah's virtues. She's kind of cute too!

Fun House

A few weeks ago my best friend Cindy invited us over to her house for an evening of fun. This is just not any kind of fun, this is the best kind of fun. The kids compare this experience to Disneyland. There's not a whole lot that rivals the excitement of going to Cindy and Eddie's house.

One of the big draws is the "chat mountains". I can't tell you exactly what they are but they're really fun to climb on. That is, for everyone but mom. I'm just waiting for someone to one day plunge into one of the deep crevices never to be seen again.

I can't remember if Adam was going up or coming down.

Next we have the pond and fishing.

And for the first time, we rode the quads.

Cindy had dibs on giving Williams his first ride.

We have so much fun playing at their house, but really the best part is having great friends. Although Cindy is only one year older than me, their 2 kids are both in college. Amazingly, they still enjoy hanging out with us. That's true friendship!

Overdue Update

Oh, the days of wanting his picture taken and yelling "Snap me! Snap me!" seem to be lost already. I was lucky here to get a picture without hands covering the face. I sneaked up on him and got him.

Days have been oh so busy with little time to ponder the days activities or milestones. I'm going to take the time now as I wait for two different daughters to return from two different softball tournaments in Kansas City and as two tired little boys are already in bed.

Yesterday Williams received his vaccinations. I put it off as long as I could after the horrific scene when he got his blood drawn. He had to get four shots and kept up his reputation of not holding back his displeasure for anything involving needles. I know this is no new thing. He's certainly not the only kid to share this emotion at shot time, but he is very vocal in his displeasure. He walked out of the doctor's office with an armful of treats, stuffed animals, and stickers, so I guess it proves that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, or in this case, the screaming boy gets the goodies.

My mother-in-law left last week after spending a week and a half here from Ohio to help while I had my foot banged up and was on crutches. I'm pretty sure we done wore her out. I tried to give her bonus trips to Panera to give her incentive to keep going. I think it worked. She got her fill of baseball and softball games. She was still smiling when she left. God bless Grandmas.

Here's one of the attempts to block out the camera.

I guess he felt well hidden behind the hat and shades so he blessed us with a shot. Oops, that's a bad word around here right now!

Things have really been going well. Williams loves school, although he will tell you he doesn't. I loves playing soccer, although he will tell you he doesn't. He loves Sunday school, although he will tell you he doesn't. Are you detecting a pattern here? He's going through a phase of saying no to everything. The good news is that he doesn't act negative like all his responses. He's very outgoing, happy (usually), and cooperative. We still have consistent limit testing, but I always win. Go Mom! I'm getting some kisses on the lips which is a new and welcome thing.

All in all we have nothing to complain about, well the adults anyway. Four kids with no complaints would be just wrong, not to mention creepy.

Injured Dork

This I did not need! I do not have time for it! All I can say is, at least the small child in front of the school bus is ok. As I picked up the kids from school I saw a toddler, separated from it's mother, wander into the path of a speeding school bus. Of course I had to make a mad dash into traffic and rescue the child from certain death just in the nick of time. How could I live with myself if I hadn't?

And how could I live with myself if I didn't tell you I was lying through my teeth? Really, I accidentally stepped halfway off the curb in the front circle of the school and toppled into the line of traffic waiting to pick up their kids. There could not have been a more visible, busy place to stage one of my epic falls. The dork meter is off the charts on this one. Oh, why, oh, why couldn't it at least be a better story behind it?

The good news is that I was carrying Williams at the time of the tumble and he was perfectly fine. He's also too young to be embarrassed by me yet. Give him time, give him time.

Noise

One of the things that families traveling back home from Eban House in Ghana would tell me about Williams was that he was quiet. I thought it would be great to have one quiet kid because the other 3 not only talk A LOT, but they also talk very loud. Especially 7 year old Adam. Remember the Loud Talkers on Saturday Night Live? That's my kids.


Well, I spent plenty of time worrying how a quiet child would get lost in the noise of our house. Would he become frustrated at never getting to be heard? Will his sisters and brother scare him?

Let me tell you something. Williams will never be at risk for not being heard. He is loud just like everyone else here. He can yell "Mom" at decibels to rival is siblings. He can talk incessantly when he has the notion to. He can screech out the "girl" scream just like Adam's "girl" scream.

There are 2 intensive talk times in our house when everyone has the most important information that Mom must know immediately. The first one is right after everyone gets up in the morning. Everyone has had a dream that needs to be told. Everyone has the piece of information for this day of school that they forgot to tell me yesterday. Everyone has an issue with their clothes. Everyone needs help with something.

The next time is when everyone gets in the car right after school. We literally have to take turns to let each person speak and tell their story of the day, what they need to get for school IMMEDIATELY, who's mad at who in their class, what they drew a picture of today, what they want to eat when they get home, and can "so and so" come over and play. There are days when we are one of the last ones out of the parking lot because I have to sit there and referee the talk times.

Tonight as the boys were going to bed in their bunk beds, I was reading to Adam on the top bunk with a book light as Williams laid (I use this word loosely) on his bottom bunk going to sleep, having already had his book and prayer. Understand, Adam is notoriously loud and can speak for what seems like many minutes without taking a breath. As I was reading, Williams started whispering, "Mom, Mom, Mom" each a little louder than the last. When I finally said, "What?" he told me his pillow had fallen on the floor. I told him to pick it up. (duh!) Adam was flabbergasted saying, "He has to tell you EVERYTHING!" This is the child who almost turns blue trying to give every detail of an imagined battle.

I now sleep well at night, secure in my belief that all is well in the lives of the 4 Johnston children. I know almost every detail that they can remember and it has all been relayed at a volume level that will inform Grandma and Grandpa across town also.

NonGhana-like Weather

Unfortunately, this sight is going to be a thing of the past. Fall has arrived in Missouri, and way to early I must say. Typically, we will maintain the pool until the end of September and even into October with the help of the heater. Instead of swimming, I have been scavenging stores looking for 4 slim jeans.

Williams is in great shape for warm weather. I had all his drawers ready for the nice warm days of late summer and early fall. The problem is, we aren't having that. I don't have a single pair of long pants that fits him! I had bought 2 pairs of 4T's at Old Navy on their $7 sale day and they're both too short. I have now been to Penney's and Kohl's in search of loner 4 slims for 2 days in a row, and tomorrow will make it 3. I wonder if there's a limit on how many returns you can make? I keep explaining to them that as big of a hassle as it is to return and exchange, it's a LOT worse bringing 2 boys in to try them on. Adam's outgrown all of his since last spring too.

So the goggle-eyes are going to go bye-bye until next spring, and Williams will be experiencing his first autumn just a little sooner than expected

I'm Learning

Tomorrow Williams will have been home 3 weeks. How is that possible? At this rate, he'll be graduating from high school in 6 months! After 3 weeks I'm starting to feel the "baby" fog start to lift, and I'm constantly amazed at how the emotions and uncertainties are so similar to birthing a baby.

For instance, you don't have enough history and experience with this child to know what to expect from him. If he gets mad will he cry, sulk, or run out of the house and down the street? I don't know! How LONG will he cry, sulk, and how FAR will he run down the street? I don't know! Will he stay in his classroom at school or will he think it's ok to wander around the halls? I don't know! Will anyone see him if he leaves? I don't know! Will he be polite to a stranger at the store or will he make an embarrassing face at them? I don't know!

Another example is that I can't really enjoy time away from home by myself when he's home with my husband. Will Scott feed him the right foods? Will he undo all the hard work I've done in "training" Williams with one unfortunate decision? Will he watch him closely enough to make sure he doesn't run out of the house and down the street (see above)? I really do think we're on the same page, but sometimes I just can't help wonder what happens when mom's gone.

I have definitely learned that there are a few more things you CAN'T force a child to do, or not to do, for that matter.

1. You cannot make them not spit.
2. You cannot make them yell at you in English instead of Twi.
3. You cannot make them not run from you if you've already lost your grip on them.
4. You can't force them to smile.

Although this list makes it sound like all our times are bad, that certainly is not the case. Most of our times are good and the bad times are getting fewer every day. (Pretty much non-existent today :-) I just really have to keep a sense of humor about the tough times and situations. We already think about how we'll enjoy telling Williams when he's 15 some of the things he did when he first came home. I'm sure he'll be proud of his resourcefulness.

Williams is home!

I've put this off for long enough! The thought of trying to condense all that has happened and is happening into words has been too overwhelming for me, I just avoided it. So here I am, starting anywhere just to get started.

Williams is home, and boy is he home. Talk about life-changing! I try to imagine what it's like to be him experiencing everything that he is and missing everything that he is. I'm having a little trouble dealing with the massive changes taking place in my life and they don't even begin to compare with his changes.

I didn't realize this picture was so blurry and I don't know how to take it out so it's stuck there for now.

Tomorrow will be 2 weeks since Williams homecoming. The traveling home was hardly a piece of cake for either Williams or Scott. Williams was obviously overwhelmed and scared. He had a few temper tantrums on the plane that earned Scott the gold medal you see in the above picture around his neck. On top of that, he (Scott) became sick on their second day of travel. Apparently he wasn't as careful as he should have been in watching what he ate.

A long story short, they made it home and we are now in the process of figuring out how to live, us with a new son, him with a new family, in a new country, state, city, house, room, etc.

I know this is not a well composed post, but I wanted to force myself back into the blogosphere. It can only get better from here!

Obsession

I am officially obssessed with Williams and Scott getting home. In 17 hours they will be in New York, on American soil. (They have to spend the night there.) In 30 hours their flight will leave from JFK. In 34 1/2 hours they will be here. I constantly count ahead 5 hours to figure out what they might be doing. I wake up several times a night and I can think of nothing else.

This is where they'll be in 3 hours:

This is the bathroom they may use in 4 hours:

Kind of creepy, isn't it?!

This is the sweet pea Scott will have in tow:

And, hopefully, sweet pea will be doing a lot of this on the plane:

Mealtime Etiquette

While Scott is somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean on his way to Ghana, I will look to other urgent matters that need to be addressed in our household.

Recently my 13 year old niece was eating dinner with us. When I asked her to pass the salt she passed me the salt AND pepper. She said she'd recently taken an etiquette quiz and learned that if someone asks for the salt, it is proper to pass the pepper with it. I did not know that. Interestingly enough, I wasn't familiar with the other couple of things she could remember from the quiz. This probably illustrates why there are some issues that take place at our table that need to be addressed. These are some etiquette tips that need to be followed in my home.

1. Do not hit another diner in the face with your plate. This actually happened shortly after the salt and pepper discussion. The perpetrator...my niece, the etiquette expert.
2. Do not gesture with your knife when there is a glob of soft butter on it. It WILL fly across the table...and no, it is not funny.
3. Do not throw peas or any other food objects.
4. URGENT! Do not change your underwear at the table, standing on your chair, with your butt at face level with another diner. (To be fair, Adam is the only one who breaks this rule.)
5. Do not walk up to the table at dinnertime and use any of the following expressions: Eeeewww! Yuck! Gross! I hate that!
6. If you have to throw up, do not do it on your mother's plate.
7. Do not purposely scratch your fork on your plate creating a "fingernails on a chalkboard" screech.

These are all actual incidents that have happened or do happen on a regular basis in our family. And they, the children, actually had the nerve to comment while watching video of Williams, "He chews with his mouth open!"

Scott's Ghana Bound

I guess I wont do a day-by-day version of my trip to Ghana. (You all are lucky!) I can't believe it's already time for Scott to head off to Africa. I'm hoping that I can get him to blog from there. I am anxious to get his perspective. I have so much information in my head from our AAI Yahoo group, blog reading, and research, that I can't quite bring myself "down to his level" :-) on Ghana knowledge. I'm sure there are things I should tell him to help him, but I'm not sure where to start. And, to be honest, he probably wouldn't listen much after the first couple of minutes.

A mom who's there right now had a really, really bad experience with the chop house where I ate almost every meal, so he's going to have to blaze his own trail when it comes to eating. (I can't bear to tell the gross story!) I'm sending him with protein bars and a jar of peanut butter. I could live a long time on just that.

He's going to be paranoid about getting ringworm since I have it all over my left arm. I feel pretty good that that's all I came home with...completely treatable and no big deal. He's started on his anti-malarial medication, and, as I suspected, he never went back to get the Hep. A and B shot that I told him to get.

I packed all of Williams things today and it was one of the most rewarding activities I think I've ever experienced. Why isn't packing Scott's stuff as much fun? Preparing for this trip is a piece of cake compared to the last one where I had to take all the paperwork to file our I600 and possibly the I864. I hope I'm not being too laid back about the packing process. I feel like I should be experiencing a lot more stress than I am. Maybe this is just called "being organized" which doesn't happen to me often.

The End is Near!

Our final piece of paperwork has been approved! I guess the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has ruled that it poses no threat to national security to allow Sweet Williams to immigrate to the United States. We have been deemed financially stable, emotionally stable (yeah, right!), parentally(sp?) stable by the U.S. and the Ghanaian governments and will now be allowed to move this little peanut of a kid into our home. I never thought this day would come. Well, yes, I did, but it just seemed like it might take forever, literally.

As far as I know, Williams' visa was applied for today by our POA in Ghana and that is absolutely the final piece of paperwork required. Everyone keeps asking, "How long do you have to stay in country to pick Williams up?" The response is, "Not at all. We're done!" Unbelievable! Scott has even joked about having someone just drop Williams off at the airport so that he doesn't have to leave the airport. As you can see, he's not nearly as excited as I was to experience Africa.

The ticket will be purchased tomorrow, but at this moment Scott is scheduled to leave for Ghana on Thursday, Aug. 7 and return home, WITH WILLIAMS, on Wednesday, Aug. 13 at 10:35am, but who's keeping track?

I can't wait to smell his head! Just a little quirk I have. God has blessed me with 4 children with the best smelling heads in the world!

Bathroom Central

After meeting Williams on my first night in Ghana, I returned to the guest house where I had a wonderful American, AAI (my adoption agency) family waiting for me. We sat in their room and chatted until much too late, but it was so nice to have them there. I can't quite imagine what it would have been like to be there all by myself.

Edward, my driver from the airport and the guy who booked my room, told me on the way there that a family that was supposed to have checked out, didn't. What that meant to me was that I couldn't get a room with it's own bathroom. Edmund at the guest house (a whole lot of "E" names, there was also and Emmanuel) showed me the bathroom right next door to my room and said that I would just have to share it with another AAI mom who would be arriving in a few days. I thought that sounded great, especially because it had a regular toilet and toilet paper.

As we were shutting down for the night, Heather, the other mom, was in my room and I heard the shower running in "my" bathroom. I said as much and she agreed. We waited for the door to open and she backed into the hall to see who it was, as if we'd know them. She came back and said it was some guy in his underwear. Alrighty, then! A little surprising but I could deal with that.

Heather said goodnight and went to her room. As I was getting my things together to go take a long awaited shower, I was just sure I heard the shower again! I went into the hall and the door to the bathroom wasn't quite shut. I knocked and heard some kind of an answer. I went back to my room and sat on the bed waiting to take a shower in "my" bathroom. When I heard the door scratch open I went into the hall and out came a woman in jeans without a top...I mean nothing. I said "hi". I hope that was the appropriate greeting for when you pass a topless woman in the hall.

Right then and there I thought I was going to sit down in the hall and cry. What a big baby I was! This all was just not clicking with this American's expectations of normal. If it hadn't been for the Americans in close proximity at that moment. I would have found some way to move somewhere else, ANYWHERE else, regardless of the fact that it was probably 11:30pm or midnight.

I managed to make it into the bathroom, LOCK THE DOOR, and take my cold shower. There was no hot water at this guest house. At least I DID expect that. Looking back, I just laugh at myself, because this quickly became the norm and didn't bother me at all. I still have no idea who all the other people who used the bathroom were, but they were there the whole time I was because it was a very busy place. Just to let you know, I did jump at the chance to switch rooms later in the week when my American friends left to go home. I would have continued to share my bathroom with the rest of Ghana though, to have had my friends there for the rest of my trip!