Best in Show

Keep reading to the end for the contest winner!

I have my family back!

Hooray and Hallelujah!

If I'm being completely honest (and I do try to be most of the time), I actually enjoyed my alone time. I could get up each day and set out my plan--and for the most part things followed that plan.

I worried what I would make for meals for just little ol' me, but Tom said he didn't think I had anything to worry about in that area. Just in case you're wondering, that wasn't a dig at my current state of curviness. It's just that I like food and enjoy cooking.
Tom brought out the good point that even when I'm simply scrambling eggs for myself for breakfast I tend to dress them up. "Now me, he said, "I just grab some bread and peanut butter and make a quick sandwich. Come to think of it, I don't know I've ever seen you eat a peanut butter sandwich". And he's right. I have of course made them. Few mothers of many children can get away with not making stacks of PB&Js. But, they are not my favorite thing to eat.

Sure enough, I made wonderful meals while everyone was away. True they were often leftovers fixed in multiple ways, but I ate well. I also ate much less because I didn't have to make a large pot which would tempt me into eating seconds. I simply cooked exactly what I needed.

I watched a full season of Parenthood--love that show!--and a few other movies as well. I had a lovely evening where I watched You've Got Mail and ate vanilla pudding out of tea cup. Joy!

************

Tom and the kids had a wonderful time in Lusaka. The fundraiser evening was especially fun for Jasmine and Troy who have so few opportunities to enjoy outings.

They did have one little adventure while out and about in Lusaka which I will write about next week.

And now on to the results!

This costume guessing contest had only 2 guesses (and none got all three right) so I'll assign the prize to the one that got 2 correct.

And now for the big reveal!

Tom absolutely loved making these costumes. He's a pro!

First of all, here is Troy:

 

He was the Joker, as you can see. Both commenters guessed right on that. Tom found all the elements for this costume in one thrift store. He is pretty amazing at that! They used Tom's old clown makeup to color his hair and cover his face.

Troy enjoyed frightening small children at the party. Ha ha!

Here comes Jasmine:

Elektra! For this costume Tom just pulled anything red he could see out of the thrift store racks, and later at home we fashioned the costume out of a shirt dress and a shirt. We turned the dress into a wrap and used the extra pieces for bands and belt. As I was sewing the pieces by hand, and adding velcro for the fasteners, Jasmine commented that I was a velcro master. I asked her if that was like being a Play-Doh Michelangelo. LOL

Tom had a local welder create those swords out of a design he (Tom) had come up with. He used springs for the handles so they had some give to them when you hit something with them.

I loved how her costume turned out! Unfortunately most people at the party were unfamilar with Elektra and thought Jasmine was a pirate.

And now for Tom!

He was Rorschach! That is a character from the graphic novel Watchman for those of you not quite up on your comic books. I know I wouldn't be if I wasn't immersed in it day and night thanks to my geeky family.

Tom's costume was not thrifted, but he now owns a handsome trench coat so I'm happy.

Here is the picture he used as his inspiration:

I'd say he got it quite close. Wouldn't you? Tom created that gun out of bits and pieces in his work room.

That mask did get in the way at dinner and he ended up having to remove it. But, he looked great!

So, the winner with two guesses right (Joker and Elektra) was Heather from Prairie Mother! Congratulations!! I'll get your coffee out to you in the next couple weeks.

I'm so glad my family had fun, I enjoyed my alone time, but I'm glad we're reunited!

(Almost) Exactly Two Years Ago: I Can't Believe It's Not September

A Month For Recharging

I've been a bit off kilter for the last couple of months. The summer, all the guests and volunteers, the return from the U.S and getting back into the Africa groove, plus a few different disappointments has thrown me off my game a bit.

The thing is I have known for a few weeks now soem of the things that were missing: I haven't been exercising. My devotions slipped away to the misguided need for 'just a few more minutes of sleep'. And (as I'm sure you've noticed) I haven't been writing as much as I used to.

Mary and her daughters from Owlhaven have started a challenge for October. It's called 31 Days to Focus and Refresh. 

The plan is to spend 31 minutes per day doing something that refreshes you or limiting yourself to only 31 minutes on something else so you can focus on the important stuff.

So, my game plan is:

31 minutes of devotions/meditation

 I've missed my quiet time. It will take a bit of effort to get this done in the morning. The day seems to start off so quickly and also, if I haven't gotten my solid 8 hours of sleep I can feel groggy and not quite ready to sit still and meditate on God's Word and my journal. However, I know it will be worth it and give me the strength I need to face each day.

31 minutes of exercise 

The days I do yoga I'll get more time in, but I will do no less than 31 minutes so that I can get the energy back that I need. Losing some weight would be a nice side effect too.

31 minutes of writing

I'm going to spend 31 minutes each day at the writing process. Some of this might turn into blog posts, or I'll work on my memoirs (doesn't that sound pretentious! LOL) or I'll journal. But, the important thing will be that I will turn on the faucet and let the words flow each day. This will really aid me in getting my head back where it should be.

Only 31 minutes of FB time in the morning before work.  

I easily lose my focus through the day by checking Facebook all the time. I love Facebook for its ability to keep me in touch with my friends and family around the world. But, I can get my family/friends time in, and pass over the cutesy pictures and slogans and memes that eat up my time and keep me from the important stuff.

Today was Day One. I worked out with Zumba on the Wii Fit. I'm still learning all the steps, but I got my heart rate up. Later I danced with the kids at Just Dance for some extra time. Yeah!

I also began reading and journaling from Lysa Terkeurst's book Unglued. It has already begun speaking to me and refreshing my parched soul. So good!

And, I wrote. Can't tell you what yet. But, I was happy with it. :)

I'll let you know how things go through the month and if I'm sticking to my goals.

I'll get to wake up to this every morning. Hooray for early starts to the day!

Exactly One Year Ago: A Family Affair
Exactly Two Years Ago: Monkey Business

We Love Babies of All Shapes and Sizes

As I said in yesterday's post, we deeply care for all babies no matter the type. The other day Tom came into the office and said there was a problem with two of the babies. I had to ask him to clarify: human or animal--like a funny game of 20 Questions. It was animal this time. Two of the baby goats had disappeared during in the night. We didn't know if they'd been left behind after the day's time of grazing up our hill, or been stolen, or what? Turns out, since they are so tiny, they had wandered into the storm drain.

Real

One of our mother goats gave birth to triplets. Right away Tom noticed that the smallest kid had been rejected by its mother. We waited a day or two to see what would happen, but finally we decided to help nature out a bit.

 

Funny

We've been bringing Billie (Tom wanted to name her Billy, but she's a girl) into the house to get her bottle 4 times a day. The first day we did this, after Tom fed her, she began to wobble around the living room. She is very curious and wants to climb on every elevated surface she can find. In fact, one morning I was trying to do my Wii Fit workout but Billie kept climbing up on the little Wii Fit platform, which completely messed up my stats. Silly goat had to be shut up in the office with Tom for a while. 

Anyway, the first day she came in we lost track of her after a bit. We couldn't find her anywhere. Then we noticed something out of place under one of the chairs.

Hello there, little bitty, baby goat! Now when she disappears we know just where to look.

Happy

 
This picture makes me so happy because this is exactly what we want for the children growing up in our care--the chance to look after animals on a farm and thereby learn compassion and responsibility. Johnny looked after Billie one afternoon and kept her fed and happy.

Billie is doing so well now and is getting stronger every day. Whenever Tom goes out to the goat yard carrying the bottle of milk, Billie comes running up to him bleating and crying. She knows just who her 'mother' is.

I'm happy to be linking up with Like Mother, Like Daughter again. It's been too long!

By the way, don't forget to check out yesterday's post. The contest is still on!

Heroes and Villains

Tonight I'm a little sad. 

Why is that, you ask.

Well, for the next five days I will be home alone. As alone as one can be with 23 children, 16 staff members and dozens of animals, anyway. But, our small personal family will all be away--except for me. I'm staying here to hold down the fort.

I was going to be working hard on a project with a visitor who wants to help us with some rebranding, but that fell through for now, so I'll be catching up on other work. The nice thing about being alone is that I can do this work on the couch while watching any channel on the TV I want!! Hooray for that!

But, still a bit sad to be all alone. Any ideas on any special things I can do with my alone time?

So, why am I being left all alone?

When we were in Lusaka for our mini family vacation, Tom saw a poster that got him all excited. It was an advertisement for a fundraiser being held September 29. It is going to benefit the Elephant Orphanage in Lusaka.

Now, Tom wasn't particularly excited because it was a fundraiser--not that we don't care about elephant babies (especially orphaned ones), because we care deeply about all babies (more about that tomorrow)--but, because this particular fundraiser was going to be a comic book event. To be specific, a Heroes and Villains Ball.

Within minutes Tom, Troy and Jasmine had begun to dream, design and deliberate.

They have been hard at work these past few weeks crafting their costumes. As you probably know from reading our annual Halloween posts, this family takes their costumes seriously!

I know there will be plenty of photos to share of their time in Lusaka attending this Heroes and Villains Ball. I'll share them all with you and tell you all the fun details about not only the party, but how they managed to put together the costumes with mostly thrift store acquisitions.

But for today, I would like to play a little game with you:

I will give you three clues for each character, and if you are the first person to guess all three correctly, I will send you a pound of Zambian coffee.

Tom: trench coat, fedora, mask

Troy: purple pants, vest, green

Jasmine: red, knives, villain

This contest will run until Tuesday when I will reveal the costumes and the winners.

Have fun!

Exactly Two Years Ago: Snakes and Klingons

Ages and Stages

When we opened our orphanage nearly five years ago, there was one parenting challenge we didn't anticipate--the ability to tell exactly how old some of our children are.

Our policy was (and is) to only take in babies and toddlers under 2 years old. This was partly so that we would be able to help the most vulnerable of children, but also so that we would have a good chance to get the orphans we help off to the best start possible.

We were a bit naive to not realize that people might not always be completely honest with us about the children they brought to us for help. We had one family bring us their two year old daughter and say she was an orphan, but that's a story for another day.

When grandparents, cousins or aunts and uncles brought children to us, most of the time we had to take their word about the children's histories. Let me explain:

Babies here in rural Zambia are often born at home with the care of a traditional birth assistant. I've seen the paperwork on such a birth. It was a tiny 'receipt' about 2" square with the date and names of mom and baby. Not a whole lot of details. Even if a child is born at a government clinic the paperwork is pretty skimpy, and almost no one has an official birth certificate.

What all children should have is an Under-5 card which is basically a glorified immunization history card. However, if a child loses his or her parents, maintaining this card may not be the first priority of their relatives. Many of our children came without their Under-5 card and we then have to create one for them using the relatives' information to fill in the gaps.

Filling in the blanks is not always easy since birthdays are not high priority here so we couldn't always count on families to know the exact date. We do our best to question the relatives, but they simply don't really know. Even narrowing down the year can be tricky. Because of this, many of our children have approximated birth dates on their paperwork. I try to use the 15th as a marker for myself to remember that that particular child has an 'assigned' birth date.

Elias is one such child. He was brought to us in June of 2008 by his grandmother. We had been open just over half a year and he was our seventh child.We were told that he was 21 months old. With no reason to doubt his grandmother's word, we accepted the date she gave us: September 22, 2006.

He settled in perfectly to life at the orphanage and has, for the most part, been a pretty good kid.

Then, early last year he began to lose his baby teeth. By the beginning of this year, he had lost both his upper, middle teeth. I started to question his grandmother's account of when he had been born since, according to his teeth, he seemed closer to eight rather than 5 and a half.

I wasn't sure if he was just an early bloomer or what.

This summer, volunteers began to point out that his emotional development seemed to be older than the other kids as well. I saw an example of this just the other day:
Elias and Chola were setting the table in the dining room as I finished up dinner prep. I heard Elias call across the room to Chola to say, "Hey, Chola! Would you like to ring the bell today? I've rung it lots of times already". He was clearly giving up a task he enjoyed, because he knew someone else might really enjoy it too. I felt this went beyond 5 year old emotional development.

And now, I've been looking at pictures of him, and I can see how his face has really matured in the last few months. We even visited a dentist and she agreed with us that he is at least seven, but probably eight.

Now comes the dilemma. Do we sit him down and let him know he's suddenly jumped two years ahead and rather than just having turned six, he is now eight and the oldest kid? It seems to me this could be really confusing for a child still trying to tackle basic numbers.

I'm leaning toward just continuing to take each child where they are, and not worry about the number on their records, but rather meeting their individual needs--whatever they may be--and encouraging them to make forward progress.

What would you do?

I'm blogging along with other parents today at Fried Okra.

Exactly Two Years Ago: Walk Like a Man 

My Favorite Color

Just over a year ago I bought my first smart phone. We had been without internet access for over three weeks and this was hindering our ability to do our job. 

Blackberry apparently was the fastest to the Zambian table because they are the only ones that offer an affordable unlimited internet service--so, Blackberry it was. 

It cost way more than I would ever have imagined paying for a phone--and certainly way more than I would have been willing to pay if it hadn't been a necessity so we didn't lose contact with the outside world again.

Anyway, all that to say when I bought it I was terrified I would drop and break it. As soon as I possibly could I bought a rubbery case from a street vendor. It was a bright purple which meant I would be less likely to lose it in the depths of my purse.

Earlier this year I found myself in Target shopping for a couple things I needed. Something you should know about me is that I am not a relaxed shopper. I'm a get in (with an organized list) and get out shopper. More than 30 minutes in a store and I get itchy. 

So, this particular day I needed to buy two things: a Kindle cover and a camera. For some reason my Blackberry's camera had stopped working and I just needed a simple, inexpensive point-and-shoot for taking with me on my U.S travels.

I took my Kindle out of my bag and tested cases until I found the first one that fit. Into my basket it went. 

Next I walked over to the camera counter, looked for cameras in the $50 range, took the first one I saw, and headed for the checkout stand. Job done!

As I sat in a Starbucks drinking an Americano (.....................Oh, Sorry! I got lost in a daydream for a minute thinking of coffee), I unpacked my purchases. 

And for the first time noticed I had ended up with purple in both cases!

I guess my sub-conscious wanted more of my favorite color. 

 It may have been an unconscious choice, but then I decided to make it a game. I could finish out my set by getting a purple wallet! My dark blue one had been nice but it was getting ragged. I decided to keep my eyes open. 

A few weeks later while Tom and I were on vacation in New Mexico we spent a couple very wonderful days poking away in antique and resale shops. Well, truth be told the days were wonderful, but I spent most of my time on benches outside said shops. Tom, however, was absolutely beside himself with pleasure. But, I digress.

In one of the thrift shops Tom found something he wanted and asked me to go bargain with the owner. The problem was, I didn't feel we were in a good bargaining position with just the one item. I cast my eyes around the shop quickly. There! Just near the door, was a purple wallet. What are the odds?

This is more purple than pink in real life

I love having purple accessories. It's like a party in my purse!

 Do you have a specific color you like to accessorize with?

Exactly One Year Ago: It's a Party! (an excellent recap post)
Exactly Two Years Ago: Happy, Smiling, Faces (AKA the day I almost got arrested)

Reading Our Little House in the Prairie from Our Large House in the Bush

Recently I've started reading to the kids in the afternoon, during their post-lunch siesta. For my whole life growing up, and for the whole time my kids were little, afternoon rest time has been a requirement. Most cultures in warmer climates have this built into their lifestyles, and it just makes sense. It gives the kids a chance to regroup after a busy morning, and helps to fight off any illness that may be threatening. It gives the nannies a breathing space. They have their lunch hour and a chance to sleep or at least rest too.

But, that isn't what I came to talk about today. So, back to storytime.

I chose to read the Little House on the Prairie books because we live in a similar rural setting to the Ingalls' family--farm animals, candles at night (occasionally), Pa having to go to a far away town for supplies, etc. 

The Little House on the Prairie series were some of only a few books we brought with us when we moved to Africa 10 years ago. I read them to my kids every night--many times by candlelight during a power outage. We did many of the things that were described in the books.

But, even more than the similarities, I chose to read these books to my African children hoping they would learn from the differences.

The first book in the series is Little House in the Big Woods. It starts out with Pa, Ma, Laura and Mary preparing for winter. They have to hunt, butcher and store food for the long days ahead. Soon the snow falls. The word snow means absolutely nothing to the kids. It is rarely even cold enough for jackets here. I will be doing an ice activity with them one day so they can hold cold ice shavings in their hands and get a better idea.

The other day I overheard the kids playing in the playground and they were pretending to 'prepare for winter because soon the animals will be all gone'.

My heart sang a happy song upon hearing that because it means that their imaginations are alive and well. I'm gonna keep doing my part to feed them. One day perhaps they'll see snow in person, and even if it's nothing like they imagined, their lives will have been richer for the dreams. And I'll have done my part in parenting them.

L-R: Johnny, Jennifer, Little ol' me, and Elias
Note: Jennifer was actually happy--I think she may have been concentrating.

 Another parenting part I play when I read is weaving little sermonettes into the story. When the book talks about Laura having only one little rag doll named Charlotte, but how carefully she takes care of her, I talk about stewardship and caring and responsibility.

When Pa mentions seeing a baby deer and how there will be no more fresh meat because the baby animals need their mommys and daddys to look after them, I talk about the importance of taking care of the animals around us and not harming them through over-hunting, or greediness. 

I'll admit to reading just a little louder at these times, hoping that my voice carries to the end of the room where the children's nanny is resting on her bed. Because I'm parenting the caregivers also, and there are lessons they can learn too.

Reading out loud to children is so important for vocabulary building, imagination building and life building. It's a tradition I'm proud to carry on as a parent. 

I've linked up with a Parenting blog party called The Parent 'Hood over at Fried Okra

Exactly One Year Ago: Birthdays and Reunions    Check out an update to Kanono's story here.
Exactly Two Years Ago: High Praise--our visit from a Cabinet member.