Wednesday Wisdom

I'm not sure if you will take much "wisdom" out of today's post, but you will certainly take some laughter with you. My first story will be about Joon with my second about Noah.

Life with Joon is very opposite from life with Ahmed. That is a good thing for me because I miss Ahmed so much! Honestly, my first couple of days with Joon were near emotional for me because it reminded me what it was like to be a family of 4. So - anyway -- not to make any more comparisons. But one I will do is food. Ahmed ate a lot like Keith does. He does not eat many veggies and he will eat any form of chicken. And he did not eat pork - not because he did not like it but because of religion, and I respected it! Well, Joon will try just about anything. Momma and I took him and Noah for an outing on Saturday to sight see downtown Birmingham. We drove through Northside, saw the Alabama Theater, drove through Southside, saw Railroad Park, UAB (hospital and school) and eventually made our way to Dreamland BBQ. We introduced him to good ole southern bbq. He really enjoyed the ribs, bread and sauce, baked beans and potato salad. I have learned with all exchange students not to ask if they like something - they will probably say no as they do not understand what you are asking. This was the case with baked beans - said he didn't like them but ate a 2nd helping. SO - anyway - back to my story. Last night we had a pork tenderloin, pasta salad and fresh veggies. He saw the meat and asked "what is this we eat?" I explained it was called a pork tenderloin. He told me he didn't understand and dummy me said again "pork tenderloin" as if he didn't hear me. DUH! So he looked at me with a huge question look on his face. At that point I realized I needed an explanation of pork but I did not want to say "PIG". He said "well, I will google it later and learn more about it." Then, I  laughed!!! I finally said "PIG" and he said "OH! ok!" Then I explained that it was the same kind of meat as dreamland the other day. Why did I not think of that at first??? I'm sure I scared him when I said "PIG"!

I just wonder how many things is he really not understanding and turning to google for? Then my brain really gets the best of me when I think about how amazed I am that he (and hundreds of other students, Ahmed and Elle included), at 17 years old, packed up and moved half way around the world, away from his family just to be able to go to school here in America. How scared would I be if I had moved to another country, one where you don't completely understand the language; one where you have to trust the people who you are told to live with. What a process. I know that I would pray hard for God's blessing on me or my child. Praying that they would be with a Godly family, one who would take care of them or me as if I or them were their own. Kind of a humbling thought.

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Now to my Noah story. I was in the process of taking Noah to bed last night (about 9:10ish - later than his bedtime!) when his Daddy told me that Noah had mentioned wanting to sleep in his big boy bed. Yes, Noah is 2 1/2 TODAY and he is still sleeping in his crib! Dr. Miller had told us that it was ok to let him sleep in his crib as long as he was not trying to climb out. Fortunately Noah has not tried to climb out once (knock on wood!) Well - Noah heard his Daddy mention "big boy bed" and off he took. He did not listen to the rest of his daddy's words when he said we would take the crib down this weekend. I found myself taking his mattress out of his crib and putting on the toddler bed. Let me tell you - we fought for a hour and a half. I was SO tired. Finally about 10:40 I had had enough and gave him a small dose of benadryl and put the mattress back in the crib. Against his better wishes he finally caved and laid down. I'm not sure if I will try it again tonight (if so, it will be much earlier in the evening!) but I may just wait until Friday night where we can all sleep a little late if need be! And let's just say that I got a lot of reading done in that time frame of waiting on him to try to go to sleep. I sat in his room at his request for 30 minutes or so trying to to talk him into going to sleep. He would get real close and then pop up. Several times he made fake snoring sounds (which sounded so funny!) so that I would think he was asleep. Little stinker!!

So - any words of wisdom from my mommy friends would be greatly appreciated!! I have no idea how to tackle this! Next tackle will be the "b" or paci as some people call it! We keep talking about giving it to Owen when he joins the family in October. I just hope he will leave the "b" at the hospital for Aunt Jennifer to give Owen! BUT I will have a spare just in case!!! If that doesn't work, snip snip for the "b"!!!

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Well, this post ended up being all about wisdom after all! Wisdom of knowing to go look for something or research something that you don't understand (which I admit, I am not good at! Fortunately my bestie is a bestie with Google. I can always count on their tight bond to pull me through!!) And also wisdom that I need from experienced Mommies. We can always count on depending on each other's past experiences for future advice!!!

~Randi