Santa?

I've come across something that I am not sure how to address with my Ethiopian kids. 
Santa.
All our older bio kids now know that Santa isn't real.  Yet today I was listening to them in the car tell Hana and Andy all about Santa.  And Hana and Andy were like "What!?  He brings gifts to all the kids?  You leave him cookies?..." etc...
I was just waiting for them to ask me why Santa didn't come to any children in Ethiopia.  I am glad they didn't.  But my mind was racing.  What if they ask me?  Do I tell them Santa isn't for real?  Or do I try to cook up some story to explain why he skips over Ethiopia?  Seems silly I know, but I just thought I'd throw that out there.

All about the day I went to Middle School

Our oldest child Celeste is a genius. She is just brilliant, and always has been. The problem is, this last year she has been a terrible student. She's lost interest in her classes and lacks the motivation to complete her work. She can do great on tests, but fails in her other academic responsibilities. This has been a huge disappointment to Steve and I. If she was stupid and got poor grades, we'd let it go. But she's too smart to get the grades she has gotten lately.
We've talked to her extensively about getting those grades up. The how's, the why's, the threats, the incentives, etc., etc. Still bad grades. We were desperately trying to help her out with this, but nothing we were doing was working. So I decided to go to school with her one day.
That day I got a babysitter and I just showed up at her school. I got her schedule from the front desk and walked right into her class. The look on her face when I stepped in that door...a total look of shock, embarrassment, pride, happiness, and shame, all mixed into one priceless expression. They were in math and moving around the classroom in groups solving various problems. I joined her group. It was actually fun. Then I followed her to the rest of her classes and sat with her in each one. I nagged her about taking notes, getting her papers and assignments turned in, staying on task, and so forth. We ate lunch together in the lunch room. Kids were asking why the heck I was there. I told them frankly. And surprisingly enough, they all reacted like I was pretty darn cool.
I asked Celeste how she felt about me being there. She was not really embarrassed when it was all said and done. But she did not like having me there breathing down her neck. She decided she would do better in school in order to avoid me showing up there again.
Overall, it was a great day.

New Discoveries

*We've recently discovered that Charity is ambidextrous. We had our suspicions for a while, but they recently got confirmed.
*We recently learned from Andy that he was supposed to be adopted by a different family. From Spain. But they backed out. He said he's glad they did.
*Just the other day Celeste shared with Steve and I some very powerful personal spiritual experiences she had that blew us away. We couldn't believe she hadn't told us about them until now.
*This school year we've witnessed our Jonah become the biggest brainiac in the family. He is in love with learning. He is a straight "A", driven, overachiever, student. We're very proud! Him and his friend built a pretty awesome robot together that can do some things I never thought an 11 year could program a robot to do.
*Hana is possibly the most popular 1st grader at school. She's bursting at the seams with friends. Also, she had many teeth that had to be pulled upon arriving in America. She's lost a couple more since then. This girl can eat an apple with just a few random teeth left in her mouth. Amazing!
*We've witnessed Samuel (our baby who was born 3 weeks early) grow bigger at 10 weeks old than any of our other children were at his age. It didn't come as a surprise the way he eats. He still must eat every 1-3 hours, around. the. clock.
*Eden has shown us lately that she has a natural ability to reason and calm down an upset child in the family. She can sometimes be better at it than Steve or I.
*Becca loves her sister Hana and is so good with her. However, we've recently discovered that those two like each other so much, they even accompany each other to the bathroom. Even when one of them is taking a big nasty dump. We had to put the kabosh on that one.

Hypothetical Questions

Celeste asks me these all the time. They are often hypothetical questions about having children or money. For instance:
"Hey Mom. If you could have millions of dollars and 100 kids or have just the kids you have now but live in India, which one would you choose?" I know. Strange question.

So it got me thinking today about this hypothetical question:
If you had to choose to keep just one of your children, which one would you choose? I honestly couldn't answer that question. I love them all so much. But there is something I favor in each of my children.

I am sure these will change, because it hasn't always been this way. But for now,
Celeste is my favorite child to talk with.
Jonah is my favorite child for a good laugh.
Eden is my favorite child to be a good socialite with people we come in contact with.
Andy is my favorite child to experience new things with.
Becca is my favorite child to motivate me to be Christlike.
Hana is my favorite child to be silly with.
Charity is my favorite child to observe because of her cuteness.
Samuel is my favorite child to snuggle and calm me down.

As hard as it can be at times to be a mom, I do feel so lucky for each of my children. I didn't know I could love people this much.

So emotional!

I think the majority of my friends and family are aware of my sister and brother in-law being in Ethiopia right now for their adoption. Having them there has been so emotional for us. For our entire family. Steve and I are obsessed with watching for updates. Our kids, especially Hana and Andy are anxious for any news, photos, videos, or to Skype. They cannot wait to have their old friends, now cousins, in the US with them. Emily's kids, (Nate and Nyah,) and my kids lived in the same orphanage. In fact, Hana's bed was right next to Nyah's. And Nate's was right next to Andy's. They did everything together and love each other very much. I can't wait till they can see each other again.
Emily and Rob's kids are so wonderful. We've spent some time with them and they are very sweet and happy. They are smart and funny. They are going to be a great addition to the Matson family and everyone is gonna love them to death. I can't wait to hold and love on them again.
Seeing my sister and brother in-law go through this has been like reliving our own adoption. It brings back so many memories and emotions. It's such a difficult, painful, joyful, and all around emotional thing to go through. The months between going to court and actually having our children home, were tremendously hard. It was the most difficult part of the entire adoption because we had met the children, fallen in love with them, but we couldn't bring them home yet. I hope that Emily and Rob have a smooth court to Embassy process. They will need plenty of support.
I'm so happy for them to experience the joy we have experienced through adoption. It is very worth all the work and money.

Jonah's letters

Jonah cracks me up! One of his favorite things to do is to write letters to people or companies. He often gets letters back. He has written to the President, NASA, and various companies. The letters he has written he often doesn't show us. He will just write it, and mail it without a word about the whole thing. Then at times I pick up the mail to find a letter addressed to Jonah from some random company. They often get his name wrong. I think it's so funny that his name is messed up so often by these people. Recently I found a package from the White House and a package from NASA for Jonah. The contents of the packages were pretty cool and it was total fuel for his fire.
So like I said, I often don't know who or what he's written to people, so sometimes it makes the return letters even funnier.
Yesterday he got a letter from Post Cereal Company.
This is what it said:
"Dear Mr. Bishoy,
Thank you for your inquiry regarding Parsley Flakes Cereal.
Unfortunately, this product is not a Post product so you may want to check with Kellogg's or General Mills to see if they produce the product you are looking for.
We do have many cereals for you to enjoy. Please visit www.postcereals.com to find out about our other fine product..."

Classic.

Head Lice

So. Funny story. Well, now it is, but it wasn't that funny to me when it happened.
On Sunday I was busy getting all the kids ready for church. At some point Charity got a hold of some soap and put it in her hair. I waited to get her ready until the last. In fact, we needed to be at church in just about 15 minutes and when I got to her, she had the soap all in her hair. As yucky as her hair was, I didn't have time to bathe her and get it out. So I just brushed it into the standard pig tails and we left for church.
For 7 weeks since we had a newborn, we all went to the first hour of church together trying to keep anyone from coming near our baby. Then either Steve or I would quickly rush out before the closing prayer so people wouldn't have a chance to gawk at him. Charity too. We didn't want her getting sick in Nursery and then getting our baby sick.
So this was the first week we decided to send Charity back to Nursery. I went home with the baby and Steve took her to Nursery. Then he went to teach his Primary class. Well, a little while later the Nursery leader brings Charity to Steve and says that she has a messy diaper and dirty hair.
Yeah. You read that right.
So Steve takes Charity home to me and there he changes her diaper. No messy diaper. Then he gives her a bath and cleans up her hair. We talked about how that was a bit odd for them to do that. (Kick her out saying she had a messy diaper when she didn't, and dirty hair.) But we just brushed it off. Well after church we get a call from our Bishop. He says he's calling about the incident in Nursery. Steve's like "What incident?"
The Bishop proceeds to tell us that they kicked Charity out of Nursery because of her head lice. We were like head lice? What the? We tell him we were pretty sure she didn't have head lice. To which he asks us to please double check and think about who she's been playing with recently, etc., etc... So we double check. Of course. No head lice.
There's a lot more I can say about it. But that's where I'll leave ya.

oops

In the last post I had a typo. Of course I am not infinitesimally grateful for Samuel. That would be sad. I'm infinitely grateful. Oopsie.

Oh Baby

Just a little update on our littlest. He's 8 weeks old today!
He is pretty much my favorite person right now. (Besides Steve.) I love holding him and kissing his squishy cheeks. I love how when an unnamed preteen gets a little too sassy, I can sweep him up and go hide in a quiet room and suddenly feel happy again. Babies are the best medicine. He's perfect and I am infinitely grateful he is here! Being pregnant is the pits. P*I*T*S! I hate it! But the 9 months of misery was totally worth it.
He still doesn't sleep the greatest. But it has improved for sure. He eats at 10pm, 2am, and 6am. We are anxious for the feedings to stretch out further. But we're surviving.
He doesn't cry too much. Just the right amount. Enough crying to keep from getting neglected and not enough to make us cry. Perfect.
Did I ever mention why we named him what we did?
Samuel Timothy Bishop.
When we lost baby Benjamin 3 years ago, we made kind of a deal with God. We told him that if He would bless us with another healthy baby boy, we would name him Samuel after the Biblical boy prophet. The prophet who was the son of Hannah. Hannah was unable to have children and told God if He would give her a son, she would raise him to be His servant basically. And she did. And Samuel did become the prophet. Steve and I told God that we would raise our boy to serve Him too. I am not expecting him to become a prophet someday, but this baby is special.
The name Samuel means "Asked of God."
The name Timothy means "To honor God."
And our Samuel was asked of God to honor God. Perfectly fitting isn't it?
And another huge incentive on those names as you probably already know, they are my brother's names. Two great souls :)

Some pros and cons we've experienced with our adopted kids

Lets start with the cons that we've experienced.

*You're suddenly family with someone you have spent literally maybe a handful of hours with. Live together, eat together, do everything together and you just met. There's a big learning curve as you get to know each other.
*Your former orphan/s need to learn to trust you. This is a painful process for all involved at times. We are so grateful to know that this lesson has definitely been learned by our adopted children now.
*Your former orphan/s need to learn how to live and act like a member of your family. Again, this can be a painful process too. Another lesson we are grateful has been learned.
*This child who has known nothing but deprivation in almost every regard, now has a loving family, a comfortable home, and all the food they need to be healthy and satisfied. They go from nothing- to so much. But then they have to learn that the sky is not the limit. Just because you have food, doesn't mean there's an endless supply of food. Just because you have a car, does not mean we can have 5 cars, all fancy, like another family they might see. Just because we have money, doesn't mean we are filthy rich. Just because we scrimped together enough money to fly to Ethiopia doesn't mean, we can go to Disneyland anytime soon. Just because we love them does not mean we can give them their way all the time. And the list goes on and on and on. We didn't expect this lesson to be an issue at all, but it was. Fortunately, they get this one now too. Big emotional sigh of relief.
*The countless lessons to be learned about appropriate behavior: in a home, at church, at a concert, a movie, in a restaurant, with guests, at school, as an American, as a Christian, as a friend, in someone else's home, and so on. You have no idea how many lessons our children have learned in the last 5 months unless you've actually been through something like this yourselves. This can also be considered a pro, because in many ways it has been fun to witness them learning some of these things.

Some of the pros we have experienced:

*We absolutely adore our new children.
*They make us smile and laugh all the time.
*They are so smart and seeing them learn and grow so rapidly is one of the most remarkable things we've ever witnessed.
*Witnessing their "firsts" are almost more fun than seeing a baby do their "firsts". For instance, their first Halloween was my favorite Halloween I have ever had. Actually, I hate Halloween. But this year, I actually really liked it! And the day Hana brought home her first friend birthday party invitation from school...I smile every time I think about it. She was SO excited! And she burst out, "Mom! Will you call and say 'This is Hana's mom. Hana is coming to the party!' " Their first time swimming, biking, going to a store, a museum, etc. This has probably been one of my most favorite parts of having these children.
*Witnessing their emotional progress (especially Andy's) has been incredibly rewarding. Some may have thought that he had too much baggage and was too old to overcome his issues. But it's not so. He can learn. He has. He is really gonna make something of himself and have a successful, meaningful life. And being a part of that brings me more pride than almost anything else I have ever done in my life.