It's a good time in my life right now. I love so much being able to be at home and spend so much time with my kids and Scott. I am trying to be really open and not *grip* tightly to this time in my life, but I do have an awareness of this being a unique and precious time when the kids are small.

This week Lucy's imagination has just blossomed so much. She is always pretending to be someone or do something from being Thomas Jefferson to Peter Rabbit or a pirate. She imagines scenarios about Santa Claus. Today she piped up in the car, "Santa Claus is a good man!" She's feisty and bossy and sweet and caring all in one little two year old package. Andy cut her hair last week and Uncle Josh shaped it up for her, so she has a little pixie cut.

Tonight I went to a movie with Andy, the 3-D version of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. It was so fun for his age and he loved getting popcorn and real Coke. It was a really special time for us tonight. He and I have been playing a lot of Stratego and Nine Man Morris. He's getting really good with strategy and beats me about half of the time. Yes, I am losing to a 7 year old.

Noah woke me up today snuggling in my bed. It was so cute! He must have been a little cold. He is currently in a stage where he unravels the TP constantly so you can always tell when Noah has been in the room. He's getting ready for the Special Olympics bowling event, so that should be fun.

Scott and I are so lucky to have a lot of time to just play with the kids and enjoy them. I am so thankful.

This week was a nice "typical" week of school for us. I thought I would try to summarize what we did.

Lucy:
Lucy listened to lots of stories, particularly wanting to hear ones by Beatrix Potter and about George Washington. She also watched lots of Dora and Kipper, which are her current favorites. She did all kinds of drawing and coloring and pretend play all week long. She plays all kinds of elaborate games with her dolls and stuffed animals. She loves asking me questions about butterflies, Thomas Jefferson, Monticello, George Washington, and squirrels. She is very curious and I love to hear the things she's interested in. She loves to sing to people and especially loves singing Twinkle Twinkle. She started music lessons and loves music of all kinds. She loves Sunday school. She's a sparkly little two year old.

Noah:
Noah had a great week. He is doing so well with eating. He had an appointment in Iowa City and was able to move up to the beginning of shaping chewing skills. We are working from square one for chewing, so this is quite the challenge we've got. But we are looking forward to it. He is also moving up to having some fork mashed foods instead of strictly purees. He's really working hard at bathroom skills too. He's been talking a lot and really enjoys taking little trips to the store and to church. School is becoming more of a routine for him and is something he really seems to enjoy. He's been working on writing and spelling his name. He also has been singing a Bob Marley song that I hadn't even heard before, so they must be working on it at school. I had to google the lyrics to find out that it was a Bob Marley song. Smouse has been a good transition for him.

Andy:
Homeschool started out the week with our Monarch hatching. Andy has his Climber patch for Sparks. We just finished up the story of Saint Ambrose in our church history book. In Language Arts he is becoming a super speller and loves to try to shock me with how much he knows. We've been working at writing neatly. He is a very good reader, and I enjoy hearing him read. We've been reading our Scholastic series from the Des Moines Public Schools. It's bright and colorful and has fun stories so that's been really fun for us. He's learning about capitalization, punctuation, homophones, and all kinds of phonetic rules. He's been working on a Spongebob mini graphic story and a Star Wars fan fiction play. I do the writing and he narrates, draws, and acts out the stories. We're finishing up Treasure Island and just started reading aloud Peter Pan as well as quite a few stories on early American history, which is the current favorite topic around here. Andy wanted to make a little early American corner so we hung up a copy of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and all kinds of Revolutionary War era currency, pictures of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington. We also made a little Betsy Ross area with a Betsy Ross flag and little pictures of her house. We learned how to properly fold the American flag and have been working on learning the "Star Spangled Banner". Andy learned about Jasper Johns at Studio Virtu and made a flag in the Jasper Johns style. He's also learning more about Van Gogh at Hubbell. He started Boy Scouts and we all went to a cookout. Andy did his first flag ceremony at Boy Scouts this week. One of his favorite subjects is the "Animal of the Day" time where he picks out an animal to study and we read about it. This week we studied hermit crabs and African desert foxes. In math he's working on his addition and subtraction facts, odd and even numbers, telling time to the half hour, reading a thermometer, and patterns. We've been searching out "living" math books and today we read Math for all Seasons. Today he was on his own measuring out how far his nerf gun could shoot using a tape measure. He's starting the tin whistle at music lessons. He loves playing computer games and has been researching Nerf hacks online because he'd like to tweak his Nerf gun to shoot farther. He took one Nerf gun apart, but it appeared to be more involved than he thought he could do right now, so he put it back together. He also has been building very detailed dioramas with Legos.

We've had fun socializing with family and friends this week, and life is really fun, relaxing for the most part, and full of new things all the time with the comfort and familiarity of old things.


So that's a typical week for the kids.

Noah is eleven. I'm happy and I'm sad. I am more happy than sad, which is good, because at the beginning of his life sometimes I was more sad than happy. Usually, though, I just relished his cuteness and adorable antics and hugged him a lot. Well, I guess I do that now too.

I still have anger, sadness, grief, fear, and guilt that like to follow me around now and then, usually to point their fingers at me when I am in bed at night. Not so much anymore, but definitely sometimes. Even if I did nothing wrong, and Noah is Noah because of genetics, I still have found ways to blame myself for things.

I've lost a lot of sleep in the past!

Noah is such a great person. I'm so honored to be his mom and to know him. I so often feel ill equipped to be his mom, but he doesn't seem to mind. He likes to sit by me and pat me, and he says, "I love you, Mom," in his deep voice when I say, "I love you, Noah." That's huge for me, because there were years and years when he didn't really say anything at all. I've never quite known what to do as his mom other than just love him as he is without trying to change him constantly. Now, I know that if you parent like I did, it feels right in the moment, but brings guilt in the future. I'm always thinking, I should have sought this approach or that one, I should have pushed here for this, and I should never have messed with that.

Overall, though, when I examine my choices, I can't see how at the time, I could have done anything differently. I feel like my best parenting choices came about when I was just seeking to help him find his bliss. Those have also been my best memories, and the times I remember Noah being the most happy.

There were years, though, when the gravity of the situation was more than I could handle. I cried a lot and thought a lot about God and suffering and healing and faith. That's a big thing that led me to Orthdoxy. I wanted Noah to be baptized and a to be a full member of a congregation. I believe strongly that any congregation that is not "equal opportunity" for the disabled is not on the right path. I examined what it means to have the faith of a child, and the idea that only those with the proper intellectual knowledge should be baptized really bothers me now. Miracles? Mystery? How can anyone have the proper intellectual knowledge on those topics? If you believe in an infinite God, then isn't it a bit arrogant to think you know, KNOW the mysteries of how that all works out? Orthodoxy showed me a better way. A way, where in a sense we're all equals. I mean no one can fathom it. What's 100 IQ points or a few years, here or there going to matter? Orthodoxy showed me that the point is divine connection, a oneness with God. How can anyone say, Noah can't or doesn't have the real path to salvation or can't be baptized or take communion? So he's baptized now, and he takes communion, and I'm convinced he gets more out of church than anyone. There is a part of Orthodoxy that says, "Sanctify those who love the beauty of your house." That's Noah.

Other things I've learned from being Noah's parent are that things that steal your joy need to be thrown out. But I've learned that you can't always know right away what those things will be. For example, there was one person who worked with Noah once who I thought was a little crabby. I considered cancelling her services, and then she turned out to be wonderful. She would massage Noah's feet, she LOVED him. The "crabbiness" I saw was seriousness on her part, to do her job well. She ended up not being crabby at all. I've learned that a lot about people who work with Noah. I used to think that I could tell what people were like right away, I still can quite a bit, but people who work with Noah are usually a little stressed at first, so they need time to get to know him. Stress can be interpreted as meanness at first glance.

I've learned that idealism in parenting is to be avoided. At least the formulaic idealism that says, A+B= Perfection. Instead go for the relationship, the love, the core of life. I plan to retire with Noah and Scott. I want Andy and Lucy to feel loved and important and not in Noah's shadow. I want an authentic connection with each of them. That doesn't mean that I always remember what's important. I can tend to be a visionary, and when I try to impart my vision... well, sometimes the troops will have a mutiny. Mostly I just want each of my kids to have their own hopes and dreams that they are able to reach, like any mom, I guess.

Once Noah was born, I no longer cared WHAT he would become. I prayed that he would be able to laugh and cry, to love and be loved. I would like to add that now I dream for him, a life of kind people and beautiful days.

Andy came along and as we witnessed the dissolution of his family before our eyes, on his process to adoption, and another person was added to the family. My warrior Andy. He's protective and brave. He awakens a fierceness in me that I didn't know I had. I love that kid. I also worry what having a special needs brother is like. What is it like sharing a room with Noah? What is it like to go places with your brother who might be doing something a little embarrassing?

Lucy came along and brought everything full circle. This time, she was born with what Noah had. But because of Noah braving the path before her, getting brain damage all the while, she will live a non-disabled life. That's usually something I don't mention, but it's another reason why you don't mess with Noah. In my book, that's a little like kicking Mother Theresa.

Anyway, it's September. Almost 19th, and that wave of intense emotion is threatening to carry me away. Scott and I are a little more sober. There's a bit of grief, I'll admit when I think about the could have beens. I allow myself to go there about once a year. That's all I can handle, and maybe even more than what is right.

I think of how Noah could be a skateboarder, or obsessed with books, or just starting to play an instrument. I think of how I would love, LOVE to hear him tell me about his day. I always wanted him to eat a cheeseburger. He hasn't yet, but I know he will. I would love to see him shyly talk to a pretty girl in his class or say a verboten swear word.

Most of the time,almost ALL of the time, though, I'm thankful, that I won't ever have to stop being a mom. Selfishly, I'm glad that I have my shiny haired, lovable, Raffi singing, poet of the silence, wind and sun and ocean lover, who eats 20 pounds of yogurt a week Noah, lover of Bob Dylan and Dr. Seuss and dancing ribbons and parachutes, and ducks quacking. The older Noah gets, the less I think of the could have beens and the more I think of the, "I'm so glads!" It doesn't really matter what I think at all really, I want Noah to be happy with who HE is. And I think he is.

I spent literally years of my life, I'm sure pushing him on the swing singing songs to him. I've taken him to the top of the Eiffel Tower, to Disney World too many times to count, and to play in the surf and to hob nob with the marigolds. Sometimes I give him little lotion massages and tell him what an awesome person he is, how much I love him, how I want him to be happy first and foremost, and what does he think about Arizona for retirement? Of course he can't retire until he's worked for awhile, so I figure he'll volunteer as a professional dog petter at the Animal Rescue League. He LOVES dogs and fur!! He has had some happy days and we all have had happy times because of him.


I'm head over heels in love with that kid, my Noah bean. My almost eleven year old.

Andy just did a practical joke. It was hilarious!! He said, while walking up to me, "Mom, phone for you." He handed me the phone, I took it, put it up to my ear and said, "Hello?" He then started singing Bananaphone! He had given me a banana, and I totally fell for it!!!!! It was so funny, I about fell over laughing.

Noah fell in love with the marigolds at Waterworks Park today. He just kept patting them and smelling them. He was laughing and smiling and so beautifully carefree and happy. Every time I would suggest he get up and try a new flower he would pull me down to sit by the marigolds. They were so beautiful and spongy. He really made me SEE them. I love how he makes me stop and smell the flowers. His teacher recently reminded me to get into NOAH'S world, instead of always trying to make him fit ours. At first it sort of hurt my feelings because I thought that he didn't know me very well, but then after thinking about it, I realized I hadn't been getting in Noah's world as much as I used to when I was homeschooling him. I've allowed myself to spend more time with the other kids and haven't spent as much time with Noah. So I've been making a point of trying to see the beauty of what Noah loves and trying to give him what he needs and helping him have his dreams and wishes everyday, if they are reasonable and good. I think his dreams might be to be happy every single day and to just take in beauty everywhere. I think he also wants closeness and peace. I also think that he wants me to read to him way more than I do and play the piano with him more. I love him so much.

Lucy is so fun! She currently has been carrying a cell phone, silver purse filled with sea shells, and some Miss Spider sunglasses all around. She's always shopping, or cooking, or taking care of her babies. She also has picked out all the convertibles to play with out of the car basket. She has GOOD TASTE!! One of my dreams is to have a large convertible we can all fit in some day. We've actually considered buying one for Noah when he graduates, since he's not really going to be a college kinda guy. Then we thought we'd have a rule that no one could drive it unless Noah was going along. That way, he'd get to go lots of places and with the sun on his face and the wind in his hair. Anyway, Lucy seems to be on board with this idea too.

Lucy is a talkative, sunny, cheerful, emotional, dramatic, spunky little girl. Today she told me she wanted to wear her rock star shirt. It's black, she told me. Well, I'm thinking she was talking about the Beatles shirt she had as a hand me down from Andy. But then she dug out a navy shirt that said, "Lil Firefly" with a jar and a firefly, and said, "Here's my rock star shirt!" I cracked up. She is always telling us stories about so many things. What the neighbor kids were doing, how the toy fairy is not her friend, how a bird came and ate our eggs (but she firmly told him NO NO BIRDIe, this is NOT YOUR HOME!)

Andy and I have been keeping a Monarch caterpillar, and it looks like we're going to make it to the Pupa stage.

Andy has started an art class at Hubbell Elementary as well as AWANA for the year, an art class at Studio Virtu, music lessons, choir, sunday school, and Greek school! Oh, and Boy Scouts! It's been fun to have so many things to go too.

Lucy started music lessons too. Noah is still doing equestrian therapy, but hasn't ridden the horse for months. He's currently just petting it for a half hour!! :)

We had a vacation that couldn't have been any better. We saw Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, took a carriage ride through historic Philly, saw the Betsy Ross house, the Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington memorials all at night when they were glowing, a retirement ceremony at the NRO, saw lots of family, went to a party, ate out at a restaurant, the National Gallery of Art (hello, Hans Hoffman, Calder, Goldsworthy!!), had a personal tour of the Capitol, did all kinds of speculation over conspiracy theories, Mt. Vernon, the Outer Banks in NC, Roanoke, the Elizabethan Gardens, the BEACH for HOURS, went swimming a lot, went to Festival Park (a living history place), went to a beautiful estuary park and did trails galore, saw a lighthouse and more. The kids are so fun. I really could have lived on that vacation forever. I will post more, hopefully pictures and hopefully go more in depth beyond lists... we'll see.

Oh and MONTICELLO! It was beautiful and eye opening, actually everything was. Philadelphia reignited my patriotism. DC gave me perspective on that. And all the founding father study helped me see how they were just men, not gods, and America is what we make it. I mean Jefferson had so many slaves. The sheer number of slaves that he had made me see how I am glad to live today and that patriarchy is something I detest and slavery is so, so evil. He hated it too, yet he still engaged in the practice.

The founding fathers were just men... not gods. I'm feeling patriotic these days, but in a totally different way than before. Our principles should never get in the way of our compassion.

The New Coloring Book

Not like the brazen artists of worldwide fame,
With spartan canvases touring from land to land;
Here at our well-loved art table shall stand
A little lady with a crayon, whose color
Is called "spring green", and her name
"Daughter of Scribble-philes". From her chubby hand
comes world size passion; her blue eyes command
That mother her artwork should frame.
"Keep, brand new crayons, your storied pomp!" cries she
With chattering lips. "Give me your tired, your broken,
Your crumbled colors yearning to draw free,
The wretched refuse of your ancient cigar box.
Send these, the homeless, forlorn crayons to me,
Even ones t'were stomped upon the floor!"

A silly poem by Me using Emma Lazarus' The New Colossus as a pattern

It's true, Lucy loves to color and she'll color with the tiniest pieces of crayon. She is a budding artist. She keeps them all neatly in piles and uses each one one time for each project, until she tires of that project. If the piles of used and not used get mixed within a session, she gets very frustrated. That gets complicated since I bought the "Special Edition! Biggest Crayola Crayon Set Ever!" See what I mean about her art? She's pretty serious about it! And then she takes it to the refrigerator completely skipping over the part where she shows me and I say, "Oooh, let's put it on the refrigerator!" She knows the drill well enough by now that she goes and hangs it up by herself. Since she doesn't really get magnets yet though, I usually have a little pile in front of the refrigerator.

We have had a lot of fun times with friends and family lately. It's been awesome. I think it has something to do with the thaw. We had an unschooler skating party (thanks Heather), park play day, numerous play dates with the Smiths way out by Ogden, a hockey game (our friend gave us tickets, thanks John!... AWESOME SEATS... ROW E right next to the Chops bench!), a concert with my good childhood friend Amy and her sisters (flash back to the early 90's), holy days at church, a day at the prairie and time with Grandparents and Aunt Marie. I feel like we are getting into busy spring mode. It's been wonderful.

On Easter Andy had 7 friends over and they were having a pogo stick contest which was funny. He of course, rocks with over 400 jumps in a row! Remember when I was hoping he could do more than 10? He's also starting to skateboard and can already balance on it, turn (slowly), and propel himself which is more than I could ever do.

Little Lucy Beatrice has learned to talk. It's incredible how much she says. She's also learned how to call people "Dum dum" and "Buttface." She's found her voice, that's for sure. That's what you get when you have older siblings, I guess. She's such a fun, fun little girl. I feel such a friend with her. It's so incredible how that happened. I don't know if it's because she's the other female in the house, the baby, or just our personalities really click, but I see great things in our future! I'm planning a trip with Amy and Annika to the American Girl Place in Chicago for June. That is going to be a blast.

Noah still plugging away on the eating front, and doing well. He's going to be in the Special Olympics this Wednesday. Yay! I'm excited to see him. He's so great.

Scott has been doing lots of programming and is going to do some runs this year at Childserve and the half marathon.

I have been reading like crazy. I joined a new book club and have just been going nuts reading outside of that as well. I also started writing a book. Yes, I did. I am on Chapter 6. Think I'll finish it?

Homeschooling has been extremely rewarding for me lately. I think it has been for Andy as well (which is the point, right?) We're about halfway through Treasure Island, which is an awesome story... who knew? Apparently we've been duped by Long John Silver (so says Scott, who threw us a spoiler). I'm getting excited for next year, I found some amazing art sites and books that are going to be a blast. In fact, most of my budget is going to go for art supplies and science experiment supplies because that is what he wants to do the very most, and I can get the rest of the books free from the public school (I do pay my taxes too) and the library.

Anyway, all in all, good springtime. Now tomorrow, Lucy has a glucose sensor placement, so we need to hope and pray that she does NOT have to go on insulin yet. I would like to have a bit longer of a honeymoon period.

Well, the kids are having their 7:00 "brawl" where they all have sword fight dancing with Scott. They are currently listening to Indian (the country not the American Indian genre) dance music and just got done with U2. Then Andy will pick Radiohead for his next song as these are all his favorite bands and he picks for all the kids. Lucy likes everything, and if it were up to Noah it would just be Dylan.

So that's the Petersons in a nutshell... Peace out.