Journal 5

Again these are just my journals...some days are mere snap shots of what we experienced at that time and other days are a little more in depth...more personal.  Either way, very true feelings and emotions were behind each word written. Enjoy....

Sorry the paragraphs and spacing is off...For some reason this journal would not uncode? I had to go through and extract each word out of a jumbled mess of symbols, letters and numbers...Does that sentence even make sense? ha! Anyways it is the best I could do without actually losing it. so weird...

China October 18 

Tonight dinner actually seemed decent. Graham through up at the dinner table and all over me. Twice. He then went diarrhea 4 times one on me and the floor...Yup, I lost my appetite.  
Jeremy is in the hall chatting with 2 girl teachers and I am looking at pinterest, it makes me feel happy. It is dangerous. It makes me feel sad too.. It makes me feel like I am at home… It’s fun to dream. Last night I dreamt of homemade bread. I was in the kitchen, in my apron and bread was baking in our oven. It was heavenly. I have been craving bread so much here. The kind my mom used to make. I cant wait to eat an entire loaf myself when I get home. I also promise to make fresh bread 1 a week, ok, maybe 1 every 2 weeks when I get home. It’s the little things we take for granted. 

I have eaten almost all the candy we brought for the Chinese kids. Apart of me feels guilty, apart of me feels pregnant…  
I told Ashtyn I liked her voice today. She kept saying VeggieTales and Christmas (which sounds like Crip-Nas) and it sounded so cute. She looked at me so sweetly and said, “mommy that makes my heat happy.” Ah I love her.

Journal 4

China Journal October 17th, 2013

Its been awhile since I last wrote. Writng is hard. Today I am cold. The weather has chaged and it is cold. The kinda cold that chills your bones. I remember that feeling from Russia. I am nervous for winter here, although I am not sure we will even be here. 
We walked to McDolands last night. It is a 3 mile walk. I needed food, healthy food..ha! I literally feel like I am starving at times, food is just so hard to get. The grocery store is far, taxi’s don’t like big families and especially don’t like big families with bags of food. We will go shopping tomorrow and stock up the best we can…we need fruit, bread, sugar, chicken…we NEED food. 

Ashtyn is growing up so much. She is changing right before my eyes. She loves calling me mommy….finally. I was afraid she would never call me mommy. She also loves to mimic everything I do. We brushed our teeth together and she copied everythings I did, even cleaning out the sink full of our tooth paste. It made my heat melt. Things might be ugly and unstable outside our walls but inside our dorm room we still have a beautiful little family with sweet, growing kids.

 As far as china goes, I am not sure what Ashtyn thinks. I know she is overwhelmed by all the attention she gets and acts very shy around people. She is constantly saying, “China scary”, but then will also tell us she likes China. 
Graham is also growing up too fast and is saying and repeating so many words and phrases. He loves it here and all the attention and waves "hi" to everyone. He sits in his stroller, smile, talks and waves. He is sooo funny! 

Graham has been really sick the last week and a half. It has been hard. In 3 days I was actually thrown up on twice and pooped on once. I am tired. I am dirty.

Baby Matlock # 3 is doing ok. I lost about 7 pounds the first week here, which made me a little nervous. I think I have gained some back. I was able to go to a public hospital and get an ultra sound. I didn’t get to see the baby, but they told me everything looked good and on track. I was also able to hear the baby’s heartbeat. I love that sound. During the ultra sound the techs kept telling me how beautiful I was and so skinny..ha (kinda weird when you are half naked). 
The hospital was exactly what I would expect. The staff was nice, but it was sooo dirty and unsanitary and just kinda scary. My ultrasound was $15 and listening to the heartbeat cost $1.25. I guess that’s what you get living in a communist country. 
I am going to go out on a limb and say that I think this baby is a girl…I just have that feeling. In China it is against the law to announce the gender, so I don’t know…

Everything is hard. I am starting to get into a routine and that helps, but I am so lonely. I have no friends, no one to talk too. Jeremy leaves early in the morning and then works late and by the time he gets home, we eat dinner, give baths to the babes and its bed. I desperately need alone time, adult time. I need friendships and romance. I am completely going to instill date nights when we get back to the states. Once a week, even if we just sit in the car. I am excited for that. 

I like my routine. We wake up, eat breakfast, play and put graham down for a nap. I get ready and Ashtyn plays, Graham wakes up and we go outside and walk the track. We then eat lunch and take naps again this time Ashtyn and sometimes myself included. The kids wake up and Jeremy comes home about an hour later. I always have this sense of, I survived come 5:00 pm. 

You know, even though I hate it here and hate all that is going on around us, I am truly thankful for the experience. I hope it ends soon, but can see the difference it has made in my life. I know things aren’t always about me, but maybe...just maybe, something in this is. It probably isn’t, but anyhow, I am a completely different person. I am learning how to find joy in hard times. Understanding that it is NOT about our circumstances, but the decsions we make on HOW to respond. I am learning how to forgive and true forgiveness. Not to hold grudges or blame others. I am becoming extremely resourceful. I am also thinking less and less about me and WAY more about others. And ultimately I am getting to spend enourmous amounts of times with the 2 little people whom I love the most (I love Jeremy the most too). 
All I have ever wanted to be was a mom and I am getting to do that for reals 100% of my day. No down time, but how blessed am I. I can create an atmosphere in our dorm where our babies feel comfortable and safe and every day I am striving to do it better. They are depending on me, and I will provide that for them. 
As much as I am learning and as thankful as I am trying to be….this is hard. I say that a lot because I don’t know what else to say. My heart is broken and I am sad. I love going to sleep at night because I am able to dream about a differnt life. I know that might sound cynical and probably not what many would like to hear from a Godly woman, but it is true. As much as I don't want to share that, I want to remember exactly what I was feeling at these moments. It is a good thing our beds are just a boxspring cause I could easily fall into a depression and lay in bed all day. But not lying in that bed. I want to get up come 7am. Well these are my thoughts for the day. I am tired and want to try to nap before the kiddos wake up. Thank you God for another day. 

China Journal 3

China Journal 10-10-13

Today Cassie brought us a carton of butter. 

Who would of known that butter could make someone so happy.

FYI:

Dairy products were very hard to come by where we lived. We were extremely limited on the quantity and quality of food we recieved. Butter was a huge TREAT. You don't realize how much it gets used on a daily basis. Towards the end of our stay we made friends with a man from Georgia who had just opened up a Southern Style food restaurant. He was so kind to our family and fed us well. Seriously the best hush puppies I have ever had! Although, I was starving and pregnant...so my judgment could have been easily skewed...ha! One night we had asked him about where he buys his butter and next thing we knew, he cut us off a chunk from his block. It was like Christmas. It was such an act of kindness cause 1.butter is very expensive  and 2.butter is hard to find. We were able to eat toast that entire week and then some.... To him, I will forever be thankful.

China Journal 2

China Journal October 9, 2013

Well I have officially been here one week. I honestly can’t believe I survived this long. Life is hard. HARD. 
Today I had to get a physical for my visa. Crazy experience. Almost words can’t describe. Lots of lines and people and tests. I almost passed out when they said I had to give blood. If you know me…you KNOW I hate giving blood!!! It almost makes me not want to have a lot of babies…you know, cause you have to give blood... a lot…no, not really, I still want lots of babies! 

Anyways, I survived and the nurse was actually pretty gentle. I think it was the tiny needle she used. Why doesn’t America have those? 

Next came peeing in a cup. Now this wouldn’t be too bad, except they are squatty toilets (hole in the ground) and when I say cup I mean, tiny plastic shot glass….Do you have a visual…. Almost impossible. Seriously impossible…oh and the shot glass had no lid. When done peeing you had to unlock the door while holding your shot glass and try to pull up your pants while straddling a hole in the ground. Then walk down the hall and find the number on your cup and match it with a number on a tray…reach across the tray and drop the shot glass in…with everyone else’s pee.

 Remember no lid!

 Then came my ultra sound (which I was hoping they would sneak a peak at my baby, but they didn’t). The lady did keep saying I was beautiful, so I'll take it.

 Next was my sight test, which I failed. The lady actually got angry with me. But I seriously cant even begin to describe what it was like…actually I’ll try. You know those pictures that if you stare at a long time you might see something….Yeah that. It was insane. Again I failed. I actually thought it looked like the letter "G"…and she said ,”NO NUMBER”..I still don’t know what it was? I am starting to wonder if I am color blind? Was it a color blind test? Mom, am I color blind? 

Then came an EKG and blood pressure test. No big deal. Except that they shuffle about 10 people in at a time and everyone stands around you and stares.

I was able to opt out of the Xray and Vaccination cause I am pregnant…Thank you Baby Matlock #3. All this, with about 150 other people and no social order…. complete chaos. 

To make everything more stressful, I left my babies with the school front office. I didn't really have a choice. They had said this should take about 40 minutes..ha! I left at 9:00am and got back at 2:00pm. I was sad and stressed. The kids were fine but happy to see me. 

The nice part of the day was…. I made a friend. They sent her with me as my translator. I really like her. She is originally from Zheng Zhou but has lived in England for 13 years. She is nice and fun and speaks English. She is not a Christian, so I invited her to church. She asked me if I went to church and I thought this is my opportunity. Church isn't something you talk about. Pray for Rieka.  

I am tired. I am thankful for things in America. I remember feeling this in Russia, but it is different here, harder. Pray for my kids…Pray for me. I haven’t written anything cause I honestly haven’t had the strength or desire to write. Life is hard. I decided I better start writing…even though I have no desire..its still a story. On a happy note China has birthday cake oreos…Um Amazing! 

And I will leave you on that note….

China Day 1

This was my first attempt at a blog post in China. I had been keeping a journal, but hadn't shared my thoughts with anyone at that point. It was hard to write. It was hard to express what I was experiencing and feeling. Again these are just my words....nothing great...nothing profound. Just a glimpse into my life in China. The plan was my sister would share my journals for me, since blogger was blocked, but our computer broke and that plan didn't happen. Just in case you were wondering.

Hi. We are alive and well (well mostly). We have been struggling with sickness on and off, but are on the road to recovery. I apologize for not writing sooner. We have been here 3 weeks now and the first thought to comes to mind is….We have survived. Ha! It is hard. Very hard. Russia was hard. Russia has nothing on this. I needed to take a break before I wrote anything. I needed to be well, in a right mind. In this moment of trying to be very transparent, I didn’t have the strength to write anything. Anything good that is. Life was hard. Life is still hard…but I am learning to find JOY in every situation. What a gift. What a lesson. It is not easy. It is not even fun at times…but it is necessary and I already feel like in these short (long) 3 weeks I have learned more and God has opened my eyes to so much. It is truly God that is getting us through each day. It is definitely not on my own strength. I have been keeping a journal often and am going to start to share those. Please remember these are my personal journals. They are not well written, some are funny (at least I think so), some are just pure honest emotion… But my heart is in every journal I write. Also my blog is blocked from my computer…thanks China , so my sister will be posting these for me…Thanks Jess. Anyhow…I look forward to sharing with you and showing God’s love and grace here in China and in my life. I am blessed. There is much to be thankful for. Just so you know our journey here was long but the kids were amazing. Thank you for your prayers! They were complete angels. They never cried and I couldn’t sing their praises enough.  Also our housing is still pending. It’s a long story and a lot I can’t share. However we are living out of 2 dorms rooms; one room we sleep in and one room we live in. This is extremely challenging! Please continue to pray for the apartment to open up. We need some stability and a feeling of home. Especially the kids.

We had just arrived.