Home Three Months!!!

Celebrating Joshua!

Sunday, October 18^th is Joshua’s 7th Birthday! (Although he insists he will be 8...we're still trying to explain that age is counted differently in China...) He is very excited about “Happy Birthday to Joshua.” To celebrate this event and his arrival in our family, we are inviting friends and family to an open house on Sunday, October 18^th. We are so thankful for the friends and family that prayed for him for the many long months we waited to bring him home. He has been blessed to be welcomed so warmly.

It is amazing how much a child can learn in a three month period. Joshua has been learning English, American Culture and the Aldrich Family Routine at an amazingly rapid rate! We are endeavoring to keep him using Chinese as often as possible, but he is clearly more motivated to master English. Today, when we met with our dear translator friend, Bonnie, he really just wanted to talk in English. Our hope and prayer is for him to be fluently bilingual. We will have to be very purposeful to help him keep his Mandarin. He adds new English phrases every day. One of his new English phrases this week was, “Anna, no whining…”

He is doing very well with school work. I think he’ll be ready for some more challenging work soon. I’ve intentionally tried to keep it simple enough to avoid frustration. He has been doing addition or subtraction sheets each day, some pages that review concepts like – up/down, right/left, between, etc., has two workbooks that teach phonics and one that has cutting, pasting and coloring activities. He has gotten a bit bored with his Go Go Learns English DVDs. When I flipped through the books the other day, I realized he has mastered most of the words. We have been using an Explode the Code book. He really likes it. It has been great for learning new vocabulary words. He was also interested in the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons book that Anna does with me and was especially interested when he learned there is a prize for completing the book! He has completed the first five lessons. I think he will be able to learn to read English at the same time he is learning to speak English. This is pretty amazing to me.

Joshua has been watching the other kids play instruments. I’ve told him that once he can read a book, he can try music lessons. He really enjoys drawing and does amazing work. I’ll try to post a picture of one of his drawings here. Despite the physical challenges of his wrists and hands, he actually seems less fatigued by writing than his older brothers. His surprising passion has really been his interest in sports of all kinds – really, all kinds. His latest interest is basketball. He watched a video about “Pistol Pete” and has been dribbling basketballs around the house ever since. He likes to get us to watch him while he stares at us and dribbles so that we see that he isn’t watching the ball. Try dribbling with the back of your hand sometime – not a simple thing! We expect this interest in sports to continue motivating him to work with us on treatments for his arms and hands.

Joshua still has occasional episodes where he withdraws. They are much less dramatic than they once were and to an outside observer would really just appear the behavior of a child pouting for not getting his way. He (and we) are able to work back out of them much easier. He is always back to his happy, fun and affectionate self when it is over. He is very generous with his hugs and “I love you”s. He seems genuinely happy to be part of our family. We try to talk about China with him and think those memories will be important for him to preserve in some way. Most of the time, he seems uninterested in talking about his life there, but once in a while he will decide to share some memories.

He and Anna are getting along better. They are very much like you would expect siblings to behave when one is only five and still learning how to consider the feelings of others. Most of the time they have great fun together and other times they provoke one another. Anna is learning to be “gracious” and very proud of her efforts. Joshua and Mark are having more and more fun together. One day, they were watching Rachel and James practice a fight scene for their upcoming performance in The Hobbit. A little while later, I saw them rehearsing their own fight scene. Joshua’s English may be limited, but he was able to direct Mark in just where to thrust his sword and when to turn and fall. What a dynamic duo they will be one day. As I’ve been watching Rachel in her first debate season, I can’t help but picture a debate team of Mark and Joshua one day.

Rachel, Sarah and James also have very good relationships with Joshua. He seems to look up to and respect them. James has really taken on the role of big brother, guide and peace maker. He is very quick to notice if Joshua is starting to get upset and possibly go into withdraw mode and has become very adept and diversion tactics.

It still amazes me to look back over the journey that brought us here. Joshua is such a testimony of God’s grace – as is my life and our family as a whole. I surely was not qualified for this and have to live on grace every single day. I’m so thankful not to have missed this adventure.

Rachel's Blog

There is a link to Rachel's blog on the left -- It is currently called "Carrying the Torch", but I think I heard she may change the name. It is fun the read and she posts a bit more frequently than her mother....

Let us Run with Endurance

This song and these verses from Hebrews Chapter 12 have been running through my mind all weekend. We have been contending in prayer for some friends going through a difficult time. It is painful to see friends going through a painful trial. It is a reminder to be thankful for God's grace and mercy in our lives.

If I were to pick "life verses" they would probably be the first few verses of Hebrews Chapter 12...it follows a favorite chapter in the bible - "The Hall of Faith" Hebrews Chapter 11...

"Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the LORD loves He chastens and scourges every son He receives...Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord; looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled...Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire."

Kristine (accidently posted as Rachel...oops...)

Home Two Months!

Wow! Where did that last month go? It was another full and exciting month for the Aldrich family with little time for Mom to be on the computer.

We are mid way through our second week of school. We decided to start up last week before all of our outside activities were in full swing. I'm so glad we did. This year we have a high school junior, an 8th grader working on high school, a 5th grader AND a 2nd grader, 1st grader and Kindergarten student! This craft challenged mom has managed to start nearly every day with a fun craft. With the help of my older kids, we have also had music time. Joshua loves that -- most days. All six kids are playing soccer. Thankfully, they practice and play games at the same field and at the same time. We'll be trying to keep up with a German II class (Rachel), Spanish III (Rachel and Sarah) and hopefully a beginning Chinese class (everyone else). Rachel and Sarah are very excited for another year of speech and apologetics meetings and Rachel is adding debate (hopefully she won't be using those skills on me...) Rachel and James have parts in the play, The Hobbit. In between all of that we have people learning piano (x4), guitar, drums, Biology, Geometry, Algebra, Fractions, Division, Multiplication, Addition, Subtraction and which way the point the numbers, US History, US Government, Writing, Classical Literature, Reading, Phonics and how to speak English! No wonder I have trouble checking email or writing a blog post! Rachel has started her own blog...I might need to rely on her to update here too.

Sarah told me today how amazing it is to her that Joshua has only been here two months. She said it is already hard to remember life without him. I think we all feel that way. Joshua is working hard at learning English. Aside from every day immersion, we use a DVD program we picked up in China and have found that books that teach phonics are also good for learning vocabulary. His ability to understand us is very good and with the English he knows and some charades and pictionary, he is pretty good at sharing his thoughts, needs and questions with us. I can tell he will have a LOT to say when he has a full command of the language.

We all feel blessed to have this boy in our family. We are blessed that he wants to communicate, wants to learn and wants to test and trust us. 95 percent of the time, he is a fun, sweet, happy, smiling, obedient and cooperative boy. The other 5 percent of the time, he is testing us. It takes a good deal of energy and a need for us to be alert as parents, so that we are prepared to win the battles when battle lines are drawn. I usually try to avoid getting into battles, but sometimes it just isn't possible. Today was one of those days. For 30 minutes it was disruptive and it was exhausting, but it was so good and healing too. When it was all over, he was again a sweet and affectionate boy and he had learned an important lesson again about what is expected in our family and who is in charge. Tonight I told my husband I had been reflecting on this testing. Although it is exhausting, I think it is so very necessary for the process of learning to trust us. Our other children did this over a period of years from the time they were infants and learned to trust us when they were very small. If I were going to trust my entire life to something, I would need to test it too. If he were simply to comply with everything we asked and never challenge or test us, I wonder if he really could develop actual trust in us or if it would simply be him hoping we were what we said we were. Through this testing process, he is developing geniune relationships with each member of the family. When he quarrels with his siblings over a toy or who is cleaning which part of the room, he is learning how to relate with them too as the conflict is resolved. It has been fun to watch him ask his older siblings for help and to call Mark or James or Anna over to see something he has built with Legos. Last night, I heard a couple of adopting moms chatting at soccer, one was talking about how her son was just so happy to have a mom. I think I would say that of Joshua too. He seems genuinely happy to have a family, especially a mom. He still gives me tons of hugs and kisses and many "I love you"s throughout the day.

Joshua is a smart little boy and has been good at embracing the adventures that have become his life. He has probably seen and experienced more new things in the past two months than in the previous six and a half years of his life. He has been on an airplane, gotten used to a car booster seat, been to farms, the zoo, museums, the ocean (first time ever), climbed huge sand dunes, learned a new language, learned to use a camera, been to the mountains, been fishing in a row boat, eaten all sorts of new foods, ridden a bike, ridden a four wheeler, flown a kite, been to church, made new friends, gained grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, thrown a frisbee, baseball and basketball, started learning soccer, taken swimming lessons, won ribbons in the county fair, learned a bit about spending money, learned to vacuum and empty the dishwasher, been to the doctor, been to the dentist (four times so far....) Most recently, he went to an arthrogryposis clinic with Anna where they saw multiple doctors. He was asked to perform a variety of tasks, had his joint functions measured and was fitted for night splints. Through it all, he has been such a good sport. He seems to completely understand why we are taking him to hand specialists and is eagerly hoping they can improve his hand/arm function. He has been very good at wearing his splints each night. We think some of his motivation is a great love for sports. We hadn't anticipated this. He is especially excited by American Football of all things! He is also very interested in baseball.... He will no doubt keep life interesting here.

When I pause for a moment, I am still so in awe of what God has done. Working in our hearts to open our lives to this little boy and then working together all of the details to bring it to pass required such an amazing string of miracles. I recently finished reading a novel with an adoption theme that follows the life of a birth mom and adopting mom from their childhoods up until the adoption. It caused me to spend a lot of time thinking about Anna and Joshua's birth parents and Anna's foster family. I can't understand how it is that their lives were brought to the excrutiating decision to rip out their hearts, give up their child and entrust them to strangers in the hope they would have a better life, while my life has been so blessed. It is a sobering thought to reflect upon the great treasure that has been entrusted to us. I know that Anna's foster family was broken hearted to say goodbye to her. Joshua's birth family kept this child with an obvious disability for over three years before coming to the decision they couldn't raise him. I pray that I will never take this calling for granted. On the most difficult days of trying to meet everyone's needs, I am still doing it from the comfort of the most blessed nation on the planet, with the support of family and friends and with the oversight of a Mighty and Compassionate God who has already worked many miracles on behalf of these children.

How is He Adjusting?

That is the question I'm asked at least once each day. It is a very good question. I often try to put myself in his shoes and am at a loss to even begin to comprehend what it must be like to be 6 1/2 years old and have everything about your life change in an instant. The closest comparisons I can think of are the culture shock of traveling to Mexico or China or the adjustment of getting married and suddenly sharing everything about my life with another person. But those events really aren't fair comparisons -- I knew a lot about Mexico and China before I arrived, had translators available to me everyday and knew I was returning to what was familiar in a matter of days. When I married my husband, I had spent a few years getting to know him first before deciding to share my life with him. Joshua has had very little control over any of what has happened to him, little if any choice and most of the time has only a vague understanding of what will happen tomorrow or next week.

We are truly amazed by this smart, resilient and sweet little boy. We still see about one episode each day where he will withdraw emotionally and physically from us. Usually there is some small thing that has upset him. Today it was that he and Anna had a brief argument about whose turn it was to see a book. A few days ago it was because he had found a box of hershey bars (smore supplies) and wanted to bring them in the car and was told "no". Sometimes, he will just wake up in the morning or from a nap and be in this "funk" as we call it. He will spend 20 to 30 minutes looking sad. Sometimes he even has some tears. We love on him and keep him near us, often times going about our business in between giving him a hug and telling him we love him. Then, he'll just snap out of it again and join in with whatever is happening around him. He'll usually come give me a hug and kiss and be extra affectionate for a while. We think it just seems to be his way of processing all of the stress he has to be feeling from so many changes and the difficulty with fully expressing himself.

Today we had lunch with the dear woman who was a pediatric nurse in Taiwan for 32 years. Joshua really seems to enjoy visiting with her. I'm so thankful that he has had opportunities to converse in Mandarin. Usually, he chatters about things that are seemingly insignificant, but it must feel so good to him to be able to chatter and feel like there is some understanding of what he is chattering about. I'm quite sure that he will have much to say when he is fully fluent in English. I tried to ask about some of the most recent "sad" episodes. The only one he would talk about was the incident with Anna and really only said that she is always wanting to do whatever he is doing... Yes, we knew that. We talked a bit about how she is a little girl and was used to a lot of attention from Mom and Dad before he came and that she is learning to get along. He seemed to understand that. He really is very patient with her and shows geniune concern and affection toward her...she's just pushing him to the limit at times. I asked him what his favorite thing is about America and he said he really likes to go shopping! Yes, I knew that too -- hmmm, want to guess my least favorite thing to take him to do??? I asked him if he missed anything or anyone from China. Our friend wasn't sure what he was talking about in reply, but I'm fairly certain it was another narrative about the television shows he liked so much in China and that we don't let him watch here. It was all very light hearted with lots of smiles and laughter.

He is doing really well with learning English. Thankfully, he loves his English program and since it is DVD based, it fills some of that void left behind from those days of watching TV at the orphanage. Today, I took the kids and a friend on a long walk/run. For part of the time, Joshua and I started talking about "fast and slow" then "up and down", then "walk/run" then "feet/hands" and then I was pointing to various "flowers". He started walking along holding my hand practicing the harder to pronounce words. He is trying to teach me some vocabulary words in Chinese too -- I'm sure he is doing better than I am. Let's see, today I learned "shee gua" (that would be my spelling) for "watermelon" when he couldn't remember the word and resorted to drawing a picture (which he does very well!)

Here are pictures of Joshua's experiences this past week -- trip number two to the dentist (for the first 2 of 10 fillings...), crawfish with Grandpa, tether ball with Rachel, walking back to the car with siblings and friends after his first theater movie (love those free summer movies!) and the Shady Dell Steam Engine Park.

This week, I came upon a verse that I really liked. I need to figure out a way to put it into my own words so that I have an appropriate response to people that want to tell us what a great thing we have done. They are words spoken by Jesus regarding servants from Luke Chapter 17 (verses 9-10) "Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not. So likewise, you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, 'We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do. '"

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....