Itsara

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.