Yes, we are learning how to deal with a defect that brings added challenges to life and overwhelmed me a few times in the last few weeks. Yes, we are living ten thousand miles apart and most of our communique happens in texts and twitter-sized bits. Yes, the kids are still sad about leaving China and not sure whether they should be excited or nervous about starting all over in Singapore...knowing so recently how that felt. Yes, we just adopted a new child who is not a baby and who is learning with us what our family is like, and we are learning with her what she is like in our family and kids don't really have that objective of a view of it all some days (okay, to be honest neither do I)Yes, one of our family members only speaks one of our languages, and we're all having to brush up on that pretty quick, and sometimes it's hard to learn Chinese fast enough to yell at your little sister (thank God!) Yes, we sometimes just give into the strangeness and rebel, but really it's become normal pretty quick and considering how much Amelia has had to adjust to our family and all the nuances she has to learn everyday to keep from clamming up and shutting down I'd say we're getting right up there close to the normal bar. And if I was me and my kids were talking to me about how they are so weird and our family is so abnormal I would lecture them about how we don't try to be normal and no one is normal and blah, blah, blah, 'cause they don't believe a word of it anyway. So, I remind myself through this post that actually, normal isn't what we're after, so I can quit trying to define my life by that and start defining it by the creativity of a Creator who is anything but normal! Below, our family and their cousins, and grandma...yeah, maybe Drew's right, maybe they aren't that normal:)
