Goodbye Jameson

One cold February day in 2014, we called up a certain biological father and asked if for our anniversary, we could take his little son out with us to celebrate.  We had invited Micah and Renee over to watch our four kids, and then we could think of no better way to celebrate and make both of us happy but to see him. . .the JAMERS.  His dad admitted we were a little crazy, but obliged our request and we were over joyed.  It had been possibly around four months since we had seen him, not because we wanted it to be that long of course but we were at the mercy of others.  Anyway, as he stood behind his daddy's legs peeping out at us (he was about 2 1/2 years old at this point) our hearts were beating so fast just dyeing to rush in and scoop him up and kiss all over him.  His dad says, "well, his skin is doing really well.  It is really looking good lately."  We didn't think much of it till we got to the restaurant and started seeing others staring at us.  When we took off his hat and coat, we saw the same thing.  He looked like a burn victim.  His eyes were swollen and his eye lids were cracked.  We thought he was beautiful but the way others were staring at us we felt as if we should explain why he looked like he did.  Every inch we could see was scarred and blotchy with cracked and chaffed skin.  We held back tears as we tried to just enjoy him, knowing we were powerless to change life for him in anyway.  Our only power was to pray and be there for him whenever we were allowed. We loved him so much and couldn't imagine why he was allowed to be so neglected.  One lady, our waitress even came up to us to say, "wow, is his skin ok?"  bold I know but it was the question EVERYONE around us was asking.  We slightly filled her in on the quick version of what had happened to him and his situation, and then we went on to love all over him.  He opened his birthday present we had bought him so many months before.  He called Micah "amike" and we just laughed.  He shared French fries and peanut butter milk shakes with us. 

After we ate, we left to go to Walmart because we were not ready to take him back yet.  I took him to the bathroom to change him and his socks were pasted to his feet with dried blood.  I took them off to find open wounds on his feet from scratching and untreated eczema.  .  A lady in the bathroom, again bold, walked by and said, "girl that is the worst case of eczema I have ever seen if it even is eczema."  Again, another stranger, judging and commenting.  Another realization this was bad.  Walking through the Aisle of Walmart, pushing you in a cart, and a couple we barely knew stopped by to say hi.  They too commented that we needed to "put some cream on that kid!" 

 To us, Jameson was our sweet boy and we saw him in there, deep inside, when his little eyes peered out at us through this foreign wrecked body.  We felt as though we were peering into his soul and he was saying, SAVE ME!  It was so hard to see and feel that and yet be so helpless.  The other odd thing was after four months of not seeing us, he was latched to us like we were his life line.  He, at age two, didn't want to go home.  This made us feel good on some level, but also devastated us that he was not really ok where he was.  Not emotionally anyway. 

We took the little man back to our house and made the decision to take some pictures of him and try and have some evidence.  We knew what we had to do . . . we had to make the call.  The hard call that would literally have potential to break our already breaking hearts.  We had to make that call to CPS about our Jameson, knowing that we possibly were single handedly cutting our last ties with him.  For, he was isolated enough that he didn't see ANYONE except his family and us, so though anonymous, we would be found out.  Sure enough, we were.  When we dropped him off that night, Micah was so sad as Jameson cried to hang onto him.  Then he waved bye at Micah and that picture has never left his mind.  A lot of things transpired from that day forth, but we lost Jameson.  Our last time seeing him was that night and we didn't hear of him or see him again, until September.  Everybody told us we had done the right thing and what we had to do, but all we knew was we had let the poor buddy down.  We wrote him lots of letters trying to hold onto the hope that someday we would see him again.  Love that sweet little boy. God did work it out and little did we know that almost exactly a year from this date he would be returning to care and to our home! God is good, but sometimes it is hard to feel that in the hard moments. :)  Praising God for Jamers safety.

Christians Shocks

I have this memory of buying Christian his first pair of Nike Shocks.  They were on sale and I was o excited to be buying them for him. I loved them and every time he wore them I was so happy cause they were so stinking cute and small and adorable.  As he grew out of them, I passed them on to my nephew Roman.  yesterday, he came to my house to hang out for a bit.  His little shoes he was wearing were none other than the pictured above beloved SHOCKS.  I quietly reminisced and thought how amazing it was that the sweet shoes were now on my adorable nephews feet.  Then, at one point, my daughter gathered the pair of shoes up and placed them over on the doorstep.  When Micah came home, he stepped inside the door and went to step over the shoes.  He stopped and said, "awww, Those are Christian's little shoes!"  I guess he was thinking along the same lines as me  . . . .WHERE has the time gone.  He is growing and changing and yet, it seems like yesterday he was our tiny laughing man running in his very new SHOCKS.  had to take the time to capture the shoes on camera. 

Old Man Christian

 

Today was Christian's 100th day of 1st Grade.  This is the year they are supposed to dress as if they were older, like 100 years older. :)  So he wore his suspenders, a tie and we did his hair with powder.  This was funny because he was a big poof ball of powder every time his head was touched.  Also, then we drew on a mustached which he really appreciated.  We couldn't get him to smile, but we think maybe he over heard Micah saying that old men are grumpy.  So we think he was trying to follow through in character. :)  hahahaa.  He sure did make for an adorable Grumpy Old man!