Ethiopia--and Back

Hooray!!!!! Paul (Mark's brother) and Brenda finally have their children!!!!! They've had delay after delay, so it this is a great relief for them. The children are so sweet, but please pray for them as they have to adjust to a completely different country with a strange language. They are aged 6 (girl) and 2 (boy), so I expect that the 6 year old will have the most difficulty.

Five Children and It

FYI, I am skipping out of town tomorrow for 10 days. Mark's brother and sister-in-law are going overseas to pick up the children they are adopting, so Mark's sister and I will be taking care of their other children. I'm hoping that this will be a lot of fun, but I'm sure it will also be stressful to suddenly be a (co-)mother to five children instead of one.

The Moon

Apparently, Irene stories are my new M.O. The moon is her new obsession. By new, I mean that it started today in the car on the way home from prayer meeting. First, she saw an airplane, then we turned and she couldn't see it anymore. My sister, Betsie, was in the car as well, and pointed the moon out to Irene. From then on, Irene would say:
"Moon!"
"Whey it do?"
"MOON!!"
"Whey it do?"
"Moon!!!!"
"Whey moon do?"
and so on all the way home. Once we got home, Betsie took her to the front window to see if she could see the moon, and soon Irene said "Dey it is!!! Moon!!!" It became a game, where she would turn her back to the window, and say "Whey moon?" then turn back and say "Right dere!" Mark asked her if she would get the moon for him. So she reached toward the moon, then put her hand in his for a moment. He looked at his outstreched hand and said "Where's the moon? I don't see it." She looked at him like he was crazy, pointed to his hand and said "It's in here!!!"

More Counting

Irene has developed a love for counting. A month ago, she was only saying "One, two, one, two." Nearly two weeks ago, she learned some more numbers. Grandma (C.) has a little purse with five bracelets, and she and Irene counted them over and over and over and over as Irene took them in and out of the purse.

"One, two, free, fie, seek."* Run across the room as fast as you can. Repeat.

What about four, you might wonder? She will say "forr" if prompted, but she apparently doesn't realize that it belongs between "free" and "fie".

As I was doing my devotions this morning, Irene was getting in my face. She doesn't like it when I read, no matter what it is, unless I'm reading to her. Out of the blue, she started patting my Bible and saying "ba-boo, ba-boo". It actually took me a minute to figure out she was saying "Bible, Bible". It threw me because I didn't know she knew it was different from a regular book!

*"One, two, three, five, six."

Praise the Lord!

Nathaniel is recovered now! See his blog entry for details.