Mauve Sheep

It's hard to believe it's been twelve years since the last Year of the Rat - the thought occurred to me this morning when I woke up and saw the t-shirt I found in the drawer, one that I got at an event put together for families with children from China.  Madison was so tiny back then.  She wore her small red Chinese outfit and watched the dragon dance, walking around that place in Cobb County.  I can't remember the exact name of the location, but once a year, families would fill it up with vendors selling trips to China, books, clothing, Chinese food, kites, souvenirs and bubble tea.  Dancers young and old would be performing on stage, as would martial artists as well.  The dragon dance was always the last part, and there was even bubble wrap on the ground for the younger kids to stomp on to make loud noises.  For a few years straight, we attended this event without Madison, before we met her.  We were still in the midst of the process, either the paper chase of the actual waiting game, and of course the cancer too.  We'd sit there amongst families who had their children already, and many would recognize us and wonder why we didn't have our child yet.  The reason, of course, was the increased waiting time.  We started the paper chase in 2005, submitting our documents and getting our log in dates by January of 2006.  That, of course, is simultaneous to Mom's cancer diagnosis.  Unrelated to that, the wait increased for all prospective adoptive parents, and we wound up waiting two-and-a-half years.  During that time, of course, Mom was enduring the cancer treatments, and winning that fight.  And she wouldn't have been able to go to China if the time they said to come was any earlier.  But it all worked out, and we made it there after waiting that long.  But each January or February, we'd go to this event for families with children from China, and each time we'd sit there with such hope and say, "Some day we'll be here with a child of our own."  The Year of the Rat was the first one we made it to with Madison, and the following one too.  Soon after that, things changed quite a bit.  The number of children adopted plummeted, and so the large scale event got downsized considerably.  God was gracious enough to get us to about two of these events with Madison before they were no more, and we saw the tail end of them.  Each year subsequent, we've tried to come up with alternate ideas, home parties and so on.  I was shopping online today for an item or two, but not having much luck about it.  We've got time - Chinese New Year is a little under a month away.  Even before Madison came we'd use this time to play music from our collection from the Chinese pavilion in EPCOT to all of these events we'd go to mentioned above.  We had a decent amount of Chinese music, and it worked out that when we put up the Christmas music, we then brought out the Chinese music.  We'll be listening to more of that in the coming weeks, as it is relaxing and we actually enjoy it.

Tonight we read some more from the book "Scoundrels," that Star Wars book about a heist, where the characters are working together to steal something big.  Will they pull it off?  It's been a fun read each night, but we're just now realizing that this book is a pretty long one!  We read from the book of Matthew too, for our Bible study, reading about the time Jesus was tempted in the wilderness.  Most amusing to Madison and myself was the Message translation when Jesus was done being tempted:  "“Beat it, Satan!”

We watched "Twister" tonight, and then actually an old History Channel program about technology used to track tornadoes and measure windspeed.  This is all part of the research process for the upcoming series we're returning to, "Storm Chasers."  I need to write a devotional for that one, so watching all this material is helpful.  For example, tonight we learned about the Fujita scale, and how it's actually measuring damage done.  It's like a unit of measurement for damage. 

Madison had her small groups tonight, and I made up the game for them yesterday and sent it to Camille.  Madison hadn't seen the game before, but she did in fact win it tonight by one point.  It involved counting sheep, or at least doing your best to remember how many were wearing shoes, sunglasses, hats, or how many were white, black, or mauve.  Yes, I made mauve sheep.  

Madison had school today, and after school she was at her Live to Give club, where the club membership just doubled!  Of course, there weren't many in the club to begin with, but still!  I picked her up afterwards, and we drove home talking about her day, about a game she loves to play called Four Square, and a few other events of the day.  We got home to a nice dinner tonight, an absolute gem of a meal.  Mom has been preparing some of the best meals lately, tonight's being a fish dinner with cauliflower and cheese, and twice-baked potatoes with all the toppings nearby.  

This morning's walk was through Sequoia, which I miss terribly.  I miss it all terribly.  But at least I can visit virtually with the treadmill, walking through trails and pathways, or even on roads.  Tomorrow I'm going to join the rest of the runners on the marathon through Castaway Cay.  

No piano tonight.  But the Frog Prince was under my pillow, and Madison absolutely got me good with that one.  I put my head down on the pillow, and sure enough, that shaking and singing frog was there beneath the pillow, completely cracking all of us up.  I'll have to get her back now!