Itsara

No baby yet. Should that be cause for concern, when the due date was 2 weeks ago? Well, no, not really.

See, a month or two ago the doctor changed the due date to March 9th based on a late ultrasound. We’d read that third trimester ultrasounds are supposedly not very accurate for due dates, so we didn’t believe him at the time.

Now, of course, we’re starting to have a little more faith in our doctor…

While you’re all waiting for news about the baby, our boys have a song for you.

Nothing new to report. We’re waiting, often impatiently. The doctor says it could be any day now, but we already knew that.

Keep praying for patience and then all the stuff we (mostly Cindy) will need when the time comes: peace, strength, endurance, etc. We’ll let you know more when we know.

You know how the air gets very still just before a tornado hits? Yeah, me neither. But I imagine it’d be something like what we’re experiencing now.

Cindy’s due date is the 25th. The doctor is thinking it’ll be sometime next week. Regardless, Cindy is not teaching dance now, and she’s not tutoring. She is cleaning things up and making sure everything’s ready for the baby. Though most of that is done, so really we’re watching Friends and playing Agricola.

Cindy’s mom arrived yesterday to help us out. So now Cindy’s not even cooking and the boys are often taken care of. It’s good and bad. We have a lot of time to relax and prepare, but Cindy has a lot of time to stress about the birth.

I’m even taking a break from writing. Yesterday I finished work on novel #2 (working title: Air Pirates) and sent out my first batch of queries. That’s really exciting for me, but only vicariously exciting for you since it’ll probably be months before I have any other news.* In any case, I don’t plan on writing for at least a couple days, maybe not until after the birth.

And then there’s the rest of our family. Isaac and Nathan are finally (FINALLY!) sleeping through the night in their room. Pan and Lu are doing life as normal, though everyday they wonder if we’ll be here when they come home from school.

We’re still getting stuff together to adopt Pancake; we plan on going to Bangkok during the April break to turn everything in. We’ve also heard about other kids we might take in, but no real news yet. I can’t tell you how many kids we’ve said yes to but then couldn’t have for one reason or another. As always, I’ll give you news when I have it.

So that’s it. The quiet is nice, but temporary. Something big is coming, I can feel it.

* If that. It takes 1-2 months to hear back from agents at all, on average. If they actually request to see the novel, it takes even longer. You won’t hear much from me on the subject until I can say, “I have an agent!” in 3-14 months — if I actually get one.

And that’s just getting an agent. Don’t get me started on how hard/long it is to get a book deal.

A little while ago, Pan wanted to talk to me. She told me about things that have been bothering her. Misunderstandings that resulted in her getting mad at us (which she never shows and she always feels guilty about… I so wish we could take credit for this girl). Concerns she has about her future.

Pan is in 11th grade, and plans on going to university in a couple years to become a teacher. But she’s afraid of how much it will cost. “I’d like to go to some place like Payap, but it’s too expensive,” she told me. “There are other universities that are cheaper.”

She also said, “Sometimes I’m afraid to ask you for money for school. You always want to know what it’s for, and I wonder if you trust me.”

I smiled when she told me this and explained that I just need to know what I’m giving her money for so I can keep track, and if needed, report it. It has nothing to do with her. Though I understand why she’d think it does; not every kid is as trustworthy as Pan.

As for university costs, I assured her, “Your education is very important to us. We’d go without food, if we had to, to get you a good education. But don’t worry, because it won’t even come to that. We have money, and if someday we don’t, we know a bunch of people who would be more than happy to help pay for you.” (In fact, my dad said this very thing just a few days before this. I told Pan so.)

The next day we had a family devotion/worship/prayer time. Pan shared how happy she was to know she was taken care of — that even though it doesn’t always seem that way (those were my words), she is very important to us.

Sometimes I forget that all it takes to love is a little time talking. Sometimes we all forget that, I think.

My parents came to visit for a few weeks and took a lot more pictures than I normally do. My dad wrote a blog post on their time here, including links to a bunch of pictures and videos. I highly recommend the album from Cindy’s dance performance (including Pan and Lutiya) and the video of Cindy doing homeschool with Isaac, Nathan, and Abby.

Ah, heck. Why don’t I just embed that video here.

You can see their attention spans waning, but they’re so dang smart! Part way through you can see Nathan trying to stop Opa (my dad) from taking pictures. He’s saying, “No cheese, Opa! No cheese!”

Go to my parent’s blog for a bunch more pictures and videos.

Emmet’s come and gone. My parents are here for another few days. And Our Young Apprentice is due to appear in about a month. For the most part, this is the calm before the storm (although it’s going to be a really cute storm, with drooling, diapers, and nursing). Cindy’s dance class is done for now, and I’m trying very hard to finish up edits on my novel in the next couple of weeks.

I’m still working on getting Lutiya a birth certificate, so she can be a full-fledged Thai citizen. It’s complicated, but I haven’t hit a dead-end yet, so I’m not worried. Yet.

We’re still trying to get all the documents together for Pancake’s adoption process. That’s also complicated, and there’s so many fears we have about what the government will say about what we’re doing and want to do. We just try to remember that God’s the one putting this family together. We often have little say in it.

Anything else? We went Airsofting and I put some welts on Lu’s leg and my dad got hit in the head. And we’re late on our truck registration (though it’s really not that big of a deal here; just a small late fee).

I’m sure I’m forgetting something. And probably something terribly important if I’m telling you about our truck registration. I’m sure it’ll come to me…

I think there might be one picture from Christmas in here.

Isaac’s birthday was in December. We also had a shared party for Isaac, Nathan, and some other 2-to-3-year-old friends (at least one of which had a birthday around the same time too). We didn’t know how to explain to them that it was some of their birthdays and not others, so we just gave them all a candle. Finally Lutiya had a birthday too, which we’ve celebrated a couple of times with food, but we have yet to go Airsofting like she wanted.

And then there’s Children’s Day. We took everyone to a local carnival, consisting of a few slapped-together rides — often being welded or fixed on the spot, some grounded via a stake in the dirt, jury-rigged wires connected to a breaker switch or foot-operated brake. So in one sense, this was the most terrifying carnival I’ve ever been to. But the kids loved it and nobody died, so I guess that’s a win.

Click here, or on any of the pictures, for more.

I don’t think I ever posted this here. One of the things Sean is doing is helping set up rice mills for some of the villages. These aren’t charity, but a small loan business (the kind banks won’t bother giving because they’re so small). So Sean’s looking for investors who will earn their money back as the rice mill makes its small profit. The idea is not to make rice for mass production, but so that the families can produce rice for themselves in a fraction of the time and earn money helping others do the same.

Ultimately, Sean plans on this project being self-sufficient — the profit from the rice mills being enough to start up new rice mills. For now, he needs donations and investors. The video below can tell you more, or you can read more about it at Sean’s site here. If you’re interested in helping, talk to Sean.

Sean’s got an update on his blog with more information on Abigail, news about a new teenager he has, and some other stuff. Go check it out.