More than Enough

One of the first things we noticed about Joshua was his appetite. He was and is a good eater. Our foods are not really his favorites all of the time, yet he always eats - A LOT. We are amazed at how much he can eat. While in China, this overeating combined with car sickness, led to some unpleasant experiences. Thankfully, we haven't seen any hoarding, but he always clears his plate and asks for more. Frequently, he will go to the fridge or pantry asking for something to eat. I have heard this is very common among children that come from an orphanage. We have been expecting that eventually, he will come to trust that we will always have more than enough food for him and he will learn to eat to fit his appetite.

We are very thankful that Joshua is very engaging with each member of our family. He has an easy smile and is generous with his hugs. He seems to crave physical closeness and affection. He probably comes to me for hugs and kisses 50 times each day or more. I wouldn't describe him as "clingy" because he has no problem being out of my sight and being with other people. He just seems to need lots of expressions of love and affection. He likes to sit in my lap and snuggle up close. With our record breaking heat this week, it has been a sweaty experience. On Sunday morning, he was wanting to snuggle through both hours of church. Anna also wanted to snuggle close to me. As I sat there sweating with both of my little China blessings wrapped around parts of my body, it occurred to me that perhaps Joshua's need for affection is a bit like his appetite. It will take some time for him to trust that there will always be more than enough love and affection for him and it will never go away. I'm so thankful that he so readily gives and receives love and has already learned to say "love you" when he gives me a hug. I sat in church praying that he will learn that God loves him unconditionally and always and that he will have the same intense affection for his savior that he is directing toward me. I find myself worrying that I will let him down and disappoint him. Hopefully, he will learn to trust in the One who is always trustworthy before he realizes how imperfect his mommy really is.

Last night, we took Joshua to meet a family from Taiwan. They have lived here since their children were toddlers. Their 13 year old daughter does some interpreting. They were very sweet and Joshua seemed to enjoy talking with them. We explained about my sister and her family coming to visit and about a dentist appointment he will have today. We asked him about food and he tried to explain how he likes rice. Not sure I'll ever have it quite right, but this family explained to me how they eat rice and suggested I add some sugar. Joshua seemed to like it better this morning -- not that he had a problem eating rice before... He spent some time talking about the orphanage. Apparently there were some bullies there, but he didn't seem too upset about it. He said there were about 20 children that would sit around a television for several hours every evening. We're trying to change that habit and explained to him that we like to "do" things instead of "watch" things. He didn't really seem to like that answer. He kept asking about watching some shows from China. He really likes his Go Go English DVDs that we bought in China, so hopefully we can keep that momentum going and keep making it a treat to work on English with those DVDs. He also told them how smart he is and that his "baba" (apparently they called the orphanage staff mama and baba) started teaching him math when he was very young. He is quite good at math for his age. I teased him that I would give him very hard math when we start school after the summer and he quickly replied that it didn't need to be too hard. Hopefully that will be a fun subject for us since it doesn't require much use of English right away. We've been doing single pages each day with all three boys.

The phrase "more than enough" has run through my head so many times, that I kept thinking of the song.

We're Back!

We're back from China, back from family camp and back on the JbarJhappenings blog!

Sorry for the confusion with switching blogs two days before we left for China. There were many miracles in the journey to Joshua. One of those miracles was being able to travel to China to get him at all. It truly was only because of what we are calling "a Divinely Appointed Mistake" that we were allowed to go. We know of no other families that have been allowed to travel to this province since the swine flu made the news. The province officials were a bit upset with us for having communicated our travel plans with other families and our agency advised us to make our blog more private before we traveled. For anyone that missed the updated travel blog -- here is the link -- http://jbarjendsofearth.blogspot.com/ We are praying that the other families waiting to travel to this province will receive news soon.

We returned home on July 8th, tired, but so very thankful to be home and to have Joshua here with us. He has been doing really well. He is an energetic, friendly, smart, outgoing boy. He has had a few sad moments where he has become a bit withdrawn, but so far, we've been able to draw him back out of it with patience and persistence. We all truly love this boy and I think he is growing in his affection for us as well. He seems to be a loving and affectionate boy by nature.

Just over a week after returning home, we were packing up again to go to family camp. Thankfully, the camp is only a bit more than a half hour from home. Joshua really enjoyed the camp. He enjoyed meeting and playing with the other kids from church, especially the ones he had met the first Sunday home. His favorite activity was riding a bike. The only problem was that we only had one bicycle with training wheels and Anna also became interested in that bike. Taking turns is a good lesson, but created a few problems over the weekend. Once home, I was able to get training wheels onto another bike that was a better size for Joshua and everyone is happy now -- other than a few scrapes and bumps that have since resulted from the bicycle riding.

The second day at camp, Pete wiped out his ankle in a big way. We spent the afternoon at the ER and he spent the rest of camp on crutches or with his leg elevated. He saw the podiatrist today. His ankle was still very swollen five days later. This is not the first time he has injured this ankle. The doctor's evaluation was pretty discouraging. We think we need to pray for a miraculous healing. The podiatrist thinks he has no ligaments left to heal (as in, he has completely destroyed them) and would need reconstructive surgery. Wouldn't it be great for the doctor to have a huge surprise at the next visit!

The kids did this crazy audio adrenaline song for talent night -- Joshua fit right in when he decided, at the last second, to join them on stage... not sure which side of the gene pool this comes from (notice my husband and I were NOT there), but he seems to be an Aldrich child. My efforts to remain behind the scenes don't always work. There was this crazy activity at church this year of passing a cookie jar from porch to porch and whoever had the cookie jar when church started at camp would have to do "the chicken dance"... someone left the jar on our camper porch while Pete and I were at ER (okay, they claim they delivered it before my husband was injured, but my kids found it and called us as we were on our way to the hospital) We actually returned to camp with cookies and were prepared to deliver it to another unsuspecting family on Saturday night. Unfortunately, someone decided to change the rules and declare the game over during our campfire worship time on Saturday night... Joshua wisely headed for the nearest tree branch when we were sent center stage (crutches and all) for the chicken dance -- sorry, no pictures - you'll have to imagine...

This week we started using the English language program that we purchased in China. Joshua loves it! The other kids have enjoyed watching the DVDs and helping him too. This is a program that I heard about from an American woman who is teaching English in China with her husband. We met them one day in Guangzhou. What a blessing that meeting ended up being! I had no idea what program to use to teach English and I don't think I ever would have found this one here. It is fun for all of us to hear Joshua trying out his new English phrases. Next time you see him, be sure to ask "How are you?" The program is called "GoGo's Adventures in English".

We're enjoying a new produce stand in our little community. One of the benefits is being able to supply Joshua's watermelon eating habit. It seems everyone likes to have the ends of the watermelon. Since we are now able to eat three watermelons per week, we decided to be crazy and cut the ends off of three watermelons at once and have our own little watermelon party....