Things That Make Me Go Hmmmmm . . .

Some friends of ours in the adoption world have two beautiful children adopted from China.  They decided to go eat Chinese food last night (we did too - Mongolian Beef - YUM!).  They bumped into an acquaintance, who was obviously not too familiar with their family dynamics.  This person they bumped in to said to my friends that he was here to 'get slant-eyed' then asked 'should I have the dog or the cat?'  Obviously the adopted children were not in sight or, hopefully, this man would have held his tongue.  I'm not sure what the parents said, but I'm pretty sure they wanted to punch him in the nose a few times.  Once this person realized what he had said and who he had said it to they could see that he realized his mistake.  Thankfully, the children were not within earshot of this person's insensitive comments.  

Just thought I'd share because it has been on my mind.  We go through some training and read articles and books on how to handle things like this.  I wonder what will come out of my mouth?  Hopefully whatever it is it will have love in it and be a good example for our beautiful daughter and all of our children.  But I'm not making any promises :), you know how I get sometimes and there's that whole 'Momma Bear' thing!

Well . . .

We went from this:

To this:

to this:

Well, the first pair did not withstand the hands of an almost 2 year old. We were trying to go for fashionable and inexpensive and had to go with pricey and indestructable. Hopefully she'll get used to them and then we can go with the dainty little metal frames. At least the girl that's wearing them is cute as can be!

What a Sweetie

Carlie started preschool today! She goes just two days a week where Nicole and Ethan went. Her teacher is Miss Angela, Carlie calls her, "Onlala." Carlie had a great day and didn't even cry! She even went potty - she may be the first McMurphy potty trained before they are 2! When I dropped her off she had her pacifier (passy) in her mouth and I told the teacher that she did not need 'this' all day. Carlie just pulled her plug out and handed it right to me. She even left her glasses on quite a bit. Now, what is mommy going to do all day? Well, today I spent at home with Ethan because he was recovering from a little bug. Maybe next Monday I will go shopping or something!

The Sister's and their Specs

I found the pictures of Nicole in her glasses when she first got them. Too cute!

SBG got Glasses!

SBG is short for Sweet Baby Girl in case you were wondering :)! Well, Carlie got glasses. Apparently there is some gene I pass to my children (I guess we could somehow blame my parents because not only is it me, but my sister has it and my cousin's daughter. Really it's my mother's fault if we are placing blame. But we are TOTALLY NOT placing blame on anyone. It's just a freak of nature, that's all nothing more, but wait . . . does that mean that I am a freak of nature? NO! Anyway . . . ) We went to the pediatrician, he did the pen light test and suggested we go to an ophthalmologist. We did. He said that she definitely was far-sighted and her left eye turns in. Same story, different person. We got our glasses just today and she's doing pretty good with them around the house. When we went to Target before coming home she kept raising them and saying "HELLO!" It was so cute, but they were not staying on her face at all, they were a new toy. It is going to take some adjusting to and I'm sure we will on more than one occasion say, "Carlie! Where's your glasses?" Nicole and Conner both had to have glasses, too. Conner was about 3 1/2 and Nicole was about 4. So far E is unaffected.

School Day One

We've been in school a week now and it has been fun, even though waking up so early has been an adjustment from our lazy summer days. I got a call two days before school started letting me know that Ethan got into all day PreK at a different elementary than Nicole. It's actually the school Nicole used to go to (and Conner) before we got redistricted. AND he has the same PreK teacher that Nicci had! She's wonderful and her teaching assistant is a friend of ours, too! God is sooooo good to work those details out. Now to get two kids at two different schools pretty close to the same time even though they are a mile apart . . . . doing pretty good on that one.

Conner is at the 6/7 grade center in the 7th grade. I went to his Open House the other night and his teachers are wonderful! It's amazing that we are in a pretty good size district, and we continue to have great teachers that really care about what they do. Not that bigger schools have worse teachers, but I think it's easy to lose that 'homey' feel or personal touch. These schools are very good at making you feel like you are in a smaller school. Not sure if I'm making any sense about this. I guess since I grew up in a small school system where most people knew me, knew who my grandparents were, and I knew most people that I wish my kids had that. Well, we don't have some of that, but I think they do a pretty good job of making you feel that way. I'll stop talking now!

As far as the adoption goes, we just had our 4th or 5th home study visit (who's counting, right?) to stay in line with our immigration paperwork. We love visiting with our social worker, she's so funny and has such great advice for us. We do wish she'd walk through the door with a beautiful Asian baby for us one day very soon, but we continue to wait. Hopefully not much longer.

A Little Trip . . .

We didn't tell E we were going ANYWHERE because we knew he would obsess about going to Carson's house and not stop talking about it AND because we wanted to see the LOOK on his face when we actually GOT to Carson's house. But, obviously, as it got closer to time to go, he figured out that we were going somewhere. So, we told him we were going to GaGa's house. He was so excited! He packed a HUGE backpack of toys to take (including the white mouse puppet that 'hopped in his bag' the last time we were at her house), a few clothes, and we were off.

As we were loading the van Lyndal peeked his head in to ask Conner a question about a game controller that we might need at Aunt GiGi's house. When Lynbal went back into the house, Ethan said, "GaGa doesn't have a sister named Aunt GiGi?" I had to tell him that what he MEANT was Aunt Chrissy. So, we're all loaded into the van driving over to the vet to have Jasmine boarded (we usually take her to GaGa's with us). E was upset and asked why we couldn't take Jazzy with us to GaGa's? I just told him that we couldn't this time. Not another hint of confusion was spoken from his far corner of the backseat of the van for many hours. He pleasantly rode, reading books, and watching movies. He's only 4 so the MUCH looooooonger drive - 9 hours compared to about 4 - didn't seem to tip him off either. *SMILE*

When we were about an hour away he started whining because he was thirsty. So, I texted Angie to tell her to be waiting in her front yard with Carson holding a drink for Ethan. For the next hour he cried and whined because he was sooooo THIRSTY! Like he was going to DIE if he didn't get a drink RIGHT THEN!!! But when you are that close to your destination YOU JUST WANT TO KEEP GOING (not to mention the fact that we had some pop in the van, but he didn't want that, he wanted 'Bug Juice.' This "drink" that Lynbal buys the kids whenever we are on trips and have to stop at gas stations, it's quite lovely AND healthy I'm sure. We FINALLY pull up to their house and you can tell E is confused. He gets out, Carson hands him the drink, Ethan says, "Thanks Carson." I said, "OK, let's get back in the van we've got to get to GaGa's house!" Ethan says, "Bye, Carson." And gets back in the van!

Ethan Rocking OUT!

This is kind of old, but still a family favorite. I love his hair sticking up in the back! Enjoy!

Lunch with New Friends!

We had a traditional Chinese lunch today at China Camp after the panel of doctors spoke (see that brown thing at the bottom of the bottom picture, in the center? That's tofu and it is yuck.) There were 6 doctors that have come from Gansu Province to learn at Baptist Hospital in OKC for 6 months. They were very fun to listen to and were very knowledgeable. Two of the doctors, Angel and Maria, happened to sit with us for lunch. They were very embarrassed about their English, which I didn't think was too bad, just a little broken. I'm just glad they didn't ask me to speak Chinese! They would've gotten a 'Ni-hao' a 'Tzai-chen' a 'Wo Ai Ni' or a 'Shay-shay' and I'm not even sure I'm spelling those right.

Maria wanted to know how many children we had and when we told her 4 and that we were waiting to adopt she was very surprised. She wondered how we have time for them. She said she was exhausted and she just had 1 child. Angel also has one child. They both miss their children very much and Maria was very interested in Carlie because Carlie and her daughter are about the same age. They will not see their children until October. I asked them what their children's names were. Maria said that she gave her daughter an American name, "Emma." Angel said that her son, who is 3 1/2, was named "Do Do" (said like doe-doe with sort of a 'th' sound mixed with the 'd'). Ethan laughed and said, "You mean Dum Dum!" Thankfully they didn't understand him!

I think having lunch with them was my favorite part of the whole day.

Ni Hao From China Camp!

Every year they take a group photo. This is not everybody!

See Nicole in there?

One little group singing "London Bridges" in Chinese.

This week we had China Camp for three days. The kids are immersed in the Chinese culture and the adults can either volunteer or attend classes on various subjects. I did a little of both. Nicole was with her 'rabbit' group (that's her in the bottom picture on the left) and they performed a dance called 'Rice bowl' during closing ceremonies. The kids learn a little of the language, holidays, food, dance, videos, and kung fu. Nicole's favorites are the crafts and kung fu. My two little ones were in the nursery (E was not happy about that, he thinks he's too big for the nursery). I helped out the first two days, then Lyndal and I attended an adult adoptee panel and a panel that had doctors from China's Gansu Province. There are kids that come from all over the U.S. to attend China Camp! The first day there were 238 campers. My friend Kim said that she heard one of the little girls say, "They all have black hair just like me!" It's the little things we might not think about that makes a big difference.

Looking Back . . .

I was looking back at some old blog posts from when we first started, and found one from 11-05-06:

The CCAA has finished the placement of children for the families whose adoption application documents were registered with our office before August 25, 2005.

The box at CCAA now says:

Placed through:
March 20, 2006

That almost makes me want to throw up. They have moved 7 months in 2 and a half years. I am glad we are now on the special needs waiting list. But, I wonder if they are ever going to speed things up again. Why is it so hard to bring an orphan home?!! Get out of the way people!

FREEDOM

We spent the 4th in Woodward at GaGa's house. It's nice there. Not much to do except play in the sprinkler, ride the golf cart and watch Jasmine (our dog) run after it, read, watch a little TV, and just chill. We did a lot of chillin' at GaGa's house! The city was going to do a fireworks show at 11pm. Call me a fuddy duddy, but I thought that was a little too late to be staying up with 5 kids (we brought an extra). So, we spent about $20 and bought our own. Lyndal bought 100 of these flower fireworks things because they were on sale - A HUNDRED! I just started lighting one right after the other to get them over with because I know the extras will be sitting in my laundry room above the cabinets until we remember them for some other fourth of July. Boys and fire and blowing things up = a lot of fun evidently!

The Brookster

For TWO WEEKS we were blessed to have my niece Brooke with us from Tennessee. She is 12, just like our oldest, and such a GREAT kid! We had quite a few adventures in the days she was with us. We drug her to VBS (she was even a part of our music program in front of our whole church!), the library, Pops and the Round Barn in Arcadia, the Aquarium and the OKC Zoo! She was a HUGE help with the younger kids AND she can make grilled cheese sandwiches, fold some clothes, and vacuum (not that I had her do a lot of that, but why not?). The second week she was with us GaGa joined us for the fun - WOO HOO!

By the way, did you know that two 12 year olds scream and yell a lot?

ALICE!

I don't normally advertise on here.  Not that I'm against it, some people make a little money off their blogs.  I just haven't gone that route yet.  BUT, this is ALICE (the little banner to the right of my blog) and it means free shipping on groceries, they automatically keep track of coupons, your order is shipped within 3-4 days via UPS, and when you click my little banner over there you get a $10 sign-up bonus!  AND if you sign other people up then you get 3% of their order for a year!  Go check out ALICE!!

The ZOO - WHEW!!!

Four families all somewhere in the adoption process met today at the zoo for some good ole hot fun. There were 16 kids in all present - we had two stow-a-away friends to add to the group, and 8 adults that trapsed ALL over that zoo and saw just a few animals (one family had to leave early and they aren't in this picture). Apparently the animals are pretty smart and stay shaded or under water during the hot days - what a novel idea! Three of the four families are waiting to bring four more children home from China. The last time we were together, in 2006, there were only three adopted children present. Since then two more have been brought home, one more born (to us), and when all is said and done there will be a grand total of TEN children born originally in China to forever live in the hearts AND homes of their forever families here in the US (unless God has other plans and decides to add to it :)! I so wish we could get together more often so our children would get to know each other better. I know my children are so impacted by being around families who have adopted - it completely changed Conner's mind the first time we were together, now, to him, it's just a part of our life.

It is hard to explain, but we have a connection and a bond that really has no words. We speak a different language sometimes. We rejoice in referrals and pieces of paperwork. We also comfort each other when the wait seems unbearable for our children to come home. We are PRAYER WARRIORS more than anything. I know these moms will commit to pray for my adopted daughter and I would do the same for them, no question. Seeing their families gives me hope. International adoption is a miracle that involves God, of course, but also paperwork, and people in different parts of the world moving together in accordance to God's timing all fitting this giant puzzle together to bring a child home. A child, that, once you see him or her you know without question that that is YOUR child just as if they were born to you. It is amazing to see this all unfold! GOD IS AMAZING.