A Stroll on a Snowy Day

Today was beautiful! We awoke to more snow falling in giant fluffy flakes. The church across our street already had a beautiful blanket of white trimming its steeples, archways, and gates. We had to get out and play.

So, we finished our day early and headed out for an afternoon in our neighborhood. While most New Yorkers are not fond of the snow that slows down our city and leads to less parking spaces and more cleanup, Gracie and I love it.

When it snows, it covers, if only for a short time, the mucky yuck of the old snow or mud and leaves something almost magical. The city is quieter when muffled by the soft blankets of snow and I love it. So out we went today.

As I am writing this, more snow and sleet are coming and the fluffy bits of snow are now turning to icy stinging snow, but now I am warm watching it all fall from the warmth on my side of the window.

Sunday Snapshot: A Snow Day with Her Little Friend

A good friend is pretty wonderful.

No matter our age, those special people with whom we laugh until it hurts . . .

play ponies and dolls, finish each other's sentences, eat snow pizza together

speak through looks, sing the NiHao Kailan Theme Song, help grow,

and well, just be around, make life richer and more all around pretty great.

Gracie and Isabella are those kind of friends. Being on the move every two years hasn't been always easy.

When Gracie and Isabella met each other it was like peanut butter found its jelly or like my daughter says, like the peas found their carrots (No, she hasn't seen Forrest Gump...but she does love her peas and carrots).

When your daughter finds that friend that just fills her life with joy, well, it makes your heart pretty grateful.








I love their friendship. It is sweet. There is just this innocent enjoyment and love for one another that melts my heart. We were away from the city for a weekend and they had their very first "sleepover" together, camping at a lodge in the mountains. What fun they had with one another and their little friend, Levi! On the morning we left, they had one last adventure in the pure mountain snow.


This post is linked to Stephanie's wonderful Sunday Snapshots for at Ni Hao Ya'll.

VELVET SHOES

Let us walk in the white snow
In a soundless space;
With footsteps quiet and slow
At a tranquil pace,
Under veils of white lace.

I shall go shod in silk
And you in wool,
White as white cow's milk
More beautiful than the breast of a gull.

We shall walk through the still town
In a windless peace;
We shall step upon white down,
Upon silver fleece,
Upon softer than these.

We shall walk in velvet shoes:
Wherever we go
Silence will fall like dews
On white silence below.
We shall walk in the snow.

~Elinor Wylie

Jars for China Update & Turning Hurt to Joy

It has been several months since that day we talked and she made a decision on how she would respond to the discussion about her scars. You can read about it here.

It is only $35 a month, but to a 7 year old that is a lot of money. In our house, that is 35 days of making Mom and Dad's bed at $1 per bed makeover, one of the many creative ways she has chosen to raise her money (her bed doesn't count since it is her responsibility). Her price seems expensive but it is for a good cause, she says. Last week, I entered my room to the strong aroma of perfume. I mean strong! My nose followed the scent to my pillow. Gracie stood pleased and asked if the extra eau de toilette might get her an extra quarter for her Jars for China. I said, "Of course" (and then I opened up all the windows and aired out my pillow case). We have also found flowers (pulled from vases around the apartment) placed on our pillows, stuffed animals, Graciemade sleeping crowns, and other delights on our neatly made bed to the cost of an extra quarter here or there. At the end of the month, she hands over $35 in bills and her variation of coins, which has included piles of pennies (she like Abe a lot). I make the payment with my card and we deposit the money in the bank together. We just made our third month today.



I am watching my daughter whose passion for this has not slowed down. I am thankful to see the light in her eyes when she talks about her friend, Gabriella. I am amazed to see the little sacrifices she makes to use her money for her friend she is sponsoring rather than tempting treats or things. She loves to tell the story of Gabriella and get the latest update on how she is doing. Joy. That is what I see in her face. Joy that she is doing something positive. Joy in knowing that she is helping Gabriella.

Christmas is around the corner and she is already thinking about presents. She is enlisting her aunties and doting grandparents. In the past, our family has chosen to do a gift for someone that we all do together. Gracie is putting Gabriella's name in the hat hoping that this year, Gabriella will get that extra something special.

Total raised for Gabriella: $124.35

I am struck with something today. We have just finished the holiday of thanksgiving and I am hoping that we have taken the opportunity to truly be grateful for that which we have. It is so easy to get caught up in the negative, in the loss, the hurt, the injustice. But to take all the tough stuff and still enter each moment with gratitude and with hope can change the way we see things and the way we respond to our hurt, our scars. Taking our hurt and from it, choosing to do something positive means that we are making our world better in spite of all the injustice and sadness. And before we even know it, we begin to heal ourselves. And those scars that could threaten to make us hard, instead become fuel to change.

We are entering in to the season of hope...of giving...of joy....How is it that we will turn hurt to joy? How is it we can turn hopelessness to hopefulness? How are we going to give in order to heal...ourselves and those around us?




Gabriella is one special little one of many beautiful, special little ones at An Orphan's Wish. If you would like to get involved in their lives by giving, check them out here:

Little Sis Turns 19

It was her big birthday. 13. She was excited. We celebrated at a little restaurant in Ghaunzhou, China. It was exactly a week after Gracie had joined our family and here we were celebrating my little sister's big day surrounded by our new friends, 8 beautiful baby girls and our family.





Watching the baby of the family welcome in the newest baby of the family was...well...pretty great. She turned 13 in China as far away from home as she had ever been, lost her place as the baby of the family and became an auntie in one wonderfully memorable week. I remember a particular bath time in China with a little baby who was a lot afraid and a little 12 year old who wanted to help. She climbed in the tub with her where new little niece sat. Her feet and clothes soaked and her trademark silliness she made her little baby niece laugh.







And six years later on this beautiful Sunday afternoon, I watched them walk hand in hand across the grass, my sweet girl looking up at her beautiful Auntie with adoring eyes. They were walking in their dresses and smiling. And I, I just watched. With my camera in my hands. And forgot to take a picture.


Happy Birthday to a beautiful sister and a pretty all around wonderful Auntie. You are loved.

I Feel Pretty

We talk a lot at home about beauty. Don't get me wrong. Yes, I tell my daughter how much I love her eyes, her button nose and especially how beautiful her feet are. These little feet that are wide and thick and a bit turned in and absolutely perfect to me. I am talking about a deeper beauty. She asked me one day if she was ugly...I got worried. Why would she think that? A little girl had told her she was ugly and had ugly straw hair. My first defensive response wanted to be, "She's just jealous...and ugly." And by ugly, I mean her attitude, which really does affect one's outer beauty, but I don't even know the little girl. Of course, I didn't go with the defensive mom approach. I did say that what the little girl said wasn't nice and also wasn't true. I told her she was perfectly and wonderfully made from the top of her sweet head to the tip of those toes that require special shoes. I told Gracie beauty began on the inside of her heart and poured out into her smile and the twinkle in her eye and the sweet way she met the world.

She gets told she is pretty or cute a lot. And I think she is the most beautiful girl in the world. "Mom, you have to say that. You're my mom." That's what I would tell my mom and I am guessing every other daughter has said that one to their mom. But I want her to grow up knowing that she is perfectly and wonderfully made but her beauty is a decision, a decision in character that flows from heart. Right now, she gets that.

And what is really great about kids is naturally, they see beauty for what it really is rather than the standard by which the world sees it. That comes as they see us model it, as the world's ideas start barging into their perfectly wonderful perspectives. One afternoon, we were walking in the park. There was a homeless lady sitting on a bench and she was smiling a half toothless grin and waving at the children playing by the fountain. She seemed quite happy and Gracie turned and said half laughing, "She's beautiful mom!" Really? I thought she looked very sweet and kind, but beautiful wasn't the word that came to my mind. She said that because kids see beauty differently until they are taught by the world a different version.

I haven't always been very good at preserving her perspective of beauty. Sometimes, I really goof up. One morning before church, I was standing undressed in front of the mirror having tried on several dresses and feeling unhappy with what I saw staring back at me. I was sighing and reaching for another gown when Gracie stood in the door and said, "Mom! Why are you trying on another dress?" And then in a softer tone, "You are beautiful and soft and cuddly and I like you just the way you are!" True story. Honest to goodness. She said "soft and cuddly," which is a direct reference to all soft and cuddly under-toned bits. I tried to make light of the situation and asked if I should just go like this...dressless...and she said that was "inappropriate!" and marched with her sassy self out of the room (we're working on that sassy thing)! Another morning, on our way to church I was madly applying my make up in the car between potholes and stoplights. Gracie said, "Mom? Why do you always have to wear makeup to church and to school?" Anyone who knows me (my lovely students and coworkers from years past) knows that there are more days than not that I have come to class in my favorite hair bun and makeup less luster. But, Gracie saw a trend. It was when I was entering the community of certain groups of people or places that I would hurry to put on the makeup. I, off the cuff, said I was getting older and had to fill in the creases and bumps and wasn't about to let people see me looking like ....Oops. Bad mom. "Like what? Mom!!!! You are beautiful and just the way God made you and you don't need makeup! You said!" Oh, right. I said. If we want it for our girls. We have to emulate. We have to believe it for ourselves about ourselves. This doesn't mean walking around in our sweats, bedhead, two day old mascara (I am not admitting that this has ever been me...) It is okay to wear that makeup and look our best, but we have to find the fine line of appreciating our aging and the changes that come to us physically, because to age gracefully is more about appreciating our bodies, our faces for the beauty that they truly are and growing in wisdom, working on who we are inside rather than trying to stop what is happening outside or tirelessly working to perfect some Barbie doll beauty. Because when our daughters will look in the mirror and see their reflection what do we want them to see, how do we want them to view themselves? I am pretty sure, that whatever they see and however they see it, it will be in the same light as we, their moms, see our own reflection.

30 Days of Givaways

I should be doing some really important things from my Tuesday To Do List, but I could not pass up another entry. I just popped over to Ni Hao Ya'll and saw this:



I am joining this fun! Check it out. Wonderful treats! And I am not just talking about the giveaway. Visit her blog, read her posts, learn about An Orphan's Wish, and you too may be a regular visitor!