Look back

One year ago today, I was standing outside a restaurant in La Antigua, Guatemala. I was in the middle of a rain storm straining to hear my husband's phone call. The reception kept getting cut off as he tried to give me the details of Makena's referral.

She was eight months old and she was described as beautiful, active and curious about bright lights and music. In the ten months since she has been home, nothing about that description of her has has changed, except that it failed to mention how funny and fearless she was.
When I finally laid eyes on her photograph the next day, I cried. I hugged Jack, immediately called my husband, and I told him that I loved him and I thanked him for making my dream (over thirty years in the making) come true.
I love your extraordinary and boundless spirit, Makena. I love it with all my heart.

Is - your mother

PS The picture of Jack was taken in La Antigua, the day he became an older brother.

Olivia and Amelia

Makena and I met up with her Qianjiang "cousin," Olivia, her older sister, Amelia, and her parents for Dim Sum a few Saturdays ago. The girls had a great time. They miraculously managed to stay seated for almost half an hour so, we, the parents could catch up and talk. When it was over, they successfully left the restaurant without stabbing each other with chopsticks or getting scalded by the steamed dumpling carts.

Of all the families who traveled with us to China last summer, they lived in closest proximity to us. As of July, that won't be the case anymore because they are moving to North Carolina. They have great jobs to go to, family close by, fresh air, affordable housing and the chances that the girls will be whining for BMWs when they turn sixteen are slim to none. Who could ask for more than that? I'm bummed because (selfishly) this means that we won't see them as much and because it also means that they won't be able to attend our first reunion next month. On the other hand, I'm happy because they have promised to scout "Outsider Artists" in the area for me (a type of art I like to collect), which could be just the excuse I need to go visit them!

Chinatown was the perfect setting to get together. What was also wonderful was how the dim sum waitresses hung around our table and marveled at the girls, peppering us with questions about them and Qianjiang. It was a very happy atmosphere and a lovely way to say good bye.

Have a great adventure and we hope to see you soon.

Is-going to miss you.

PS: If you are wondering what Outsider Art is, click on the "yard dog" link.

Ticked off

I went on a hike with my girlfriend, Rae Dawn, last Thursday. ( A hike that I normally ride when I take my horse out on the weekend.) I decided to be adventurous and led Rae Dawn on a little bushwhacking to get to the creek because I knew it flowed nearby. It was great. The dog stayed with us the whole time and we discovered these stacked stones that someone had left and realized that they were the gateway to this beautiful part of the creek. It had several small pools flanked by boulders we could climb and hop around on. It was magical. I felt great. My girlfriend's fat-burner meter watch read that she had burned 400 calories (Therefore I had too, right?) and my goals of slipping into a bikini before August seemed almost reasonable. We came home exhilarated.

Shortly after that all hell broke loose. I felt something crawling along the nape of my neck and ran my hands through my hair. My fingers zeroed in on something crawling and I pulled it out to discover A HUGE TICK. Ugh. I thought that was it, until Rae Dawn told me to lift my shirt up so that she could make sure it was the only one. I did as I was ordered and, I swear, about 8 of those parasites fell to the kitchen floor and started to scatter away. I was screaming, trying to gather them up and exterminate them, when Rae Dawn told me to stop moving and not panic. Nancy (my babysitter) took one look at my back and said "Oh, that's not good," and by then I'm in silent freak-out mode thinking I"m in some bad remake of Anaconda, the movie. I had two more tics imbeded in my back and Rae Dawn came to the rescue and grabbed one of our prized bottles of Tequila. I was thinking, "Cool, I could really use a shot," and she laid the open bottle straight onto my back and covered the tic with it. (Not what I had in mind!) About thirty seconds later, she pulled the (now drunk) tic off my back and repeated the process again with the second one. Finally released from the grasp of these parasites, all my modesty flew out the window and I stripped in the middle of the kitchen and ran to the bathroom to shower. In retrospect, I can only imagine the visual the babysitter was left with because I found out that Rae Dawn did the same thing, only she didn't immediately run away. She had poor Nancy check her over, standing in front of her in her birthday suit!

I was thinking this little nightmare was behind me until I woke up the next day to see these enormous bites on my rib cage. Just so you have the correct visual, they were swollen about two inches in diameter. I know this because I drove myself to Urgent Care (The same place you can get Botox injections on an emergency basis.) The doctor took one look at me and prescribed oral antibiotics four times a day for the next seven days. Thank God for Keflex.So much for wanting to be active and healthy. Let's just say this little episode left me really ticked off!

Is-a-bitten
PS The pictures are of Jack, Makena and Jack's friends: Skyler and Caelan at the "survivor" party their teacher threw for completing third grade.

Love

Summer is finally here! One year ago today, we were getting the first of three calls from our agency letting us know that we were one step closer to laying our hands on Makena. It would be several more days before we saw her face and knew how old she was or where we would travel to finally meet her, but I clearly remember the relief (of having waited eighteen months for this call,) the excitement and the joy we all felt.And look at this smiling face! Makena is always giggling and full of mischief but the minute I point a camera at her she gets all serious and no amount of cajoling can get her to smile on demand. (She's very controlling that way.) It isn't often that I am able to capture this expression but when I do, it's like gold for me.
Jack is more complicated when it comes to having his picture taken. If he isn't doing his "rabbit ears" or giving me his "tough guy" look, then his smiles are slightly forced. I love this one. A) because it's a record of how long hair can grow in one year. (He hasn't cut it since China.) And B) This is the last photo I will post of him looking like this before he gets his hair buzzed for camp.

We were attempting to grow his hair out so that he could donate it to Locks of Love, the organization that supplies wigs to children suffering from cancer, but he's been whining and complaining so much about having to brush it that I'm throwing in the towel. Donated hair has to be at least ten inches long, and we are about three inches short of that. We will still send them his hair and they will, in turn, sell it to wig makers. This isn't the first time we've donated Jack's hair to Locks of Love. We did it a couple of years ago, but he was younger then and somewhat more compliant with the hair brush. We'll pick another cause for him to get involved with. One that is less "hair raising".
Little League and my "Team Mom" duties, I am happy to say, are finally behind me. Makena became the team mascott and all the boys were so sweet and patient with her. They loved having her around. My heart melted at the closing ceremony when Makena left my side and weaved her way through the crowd to reach Jack. Without missing a beat, Jack opened his arms and she came to rest in his embrace and stayed there about five minutes. I'm so happy they have each other. They really do love and care for each other in their own special way and that is the best gift I could ever receive from them.

I love my children.

Isabelle
PS This post is part of a photo challenge from http://www.2happy.typepad.com

Go fish

I was so pleased to finally be able to have Makena reconnect with one of her China "cousins". Lien was also raised in Qianjiang and was adopted on the same day as Makena. We hadn't seen her or her mother since our return to the States last August.

We decided to meet at the Long Beach Aquarium because we thought that looking at fish and getting to run around there would be safe and somewhat quiet. WRONG. I think that every student from L.A. County showed up for a field trip that day, at that very exact time. It was like being back in China -- except that the girls would not sit or stand still. So keeping track of them in the darkened exhibit rooms as they wove in and out of schools of children, was mind-blowingly stressful -- to say the least. I couldn't coral Mak with the stroller because there was no room to manoeuvre it!When we finally got to lunch, it took a super-human effort for me not to buy the mini-bottle of Chardonnay that was staring me in the face. I gave the LB Aquarium a golf-clap for appreciating the stress people are under when they take children to their establishment and offering "said" refreshments. Boy did that look good. I opted for a tall, cold, bottle of water. It wasn't until we finally sat the girls down to lunch that Linda and I had a chance to catch up.I'm hosting our adoption group reunion in August and I wanted to get her input on food options for the fifteen or so families who are going to come party at our house. FYI: We decided on pizza & salads for lunch and a taco and quesadilla bar for dinner -- with Subway sandwiches for the picnic, the following day. I'll blog about this event later.

Lien and Mak are practically the same size and have the same non-stop energy level. They both babble, love to laugh and run around and climb. Except that Lien was way more well behaved at the dinner table than Mak. Mak, in her best Helen Keller impersonation, refused to sit down, had to either eat standing or diving under the table, snatching food off Lien's side of the table and, as a final blow, attempted to stab a little boy at an adjacent booth, with her fork (thank god for plastic).

After lunch, we took them back to see the fish and the girls ran around up and down this ramp, following each other. It was pretty darn cute.They finally allowed us to strap them into their strollers when we were leaving, so I managed to snap a couple of pictures of them to have a souvenir of this great day.

I drove home in bumper to bumper traffic thinking about the glass of Chardonnay that was waiting for me at the end of this fish trip...

Is - tired

Ninjas, Part Deux

I mentioned a few posts back that Jack had discovered the show Ninja Warriors on the G4 network. He was never what I can call an "active child" -- but watching this show triggered something in Jack that moved him to start climbing door frames, leap over our bed and rearrange furniture so that we could time him in his acrobatic exploits.

EM and I had talked about getting a jungle gym to give the kids an outlet for their energy. But it wasn't until Jack decided to "traverse" our bathroom shower wall by hanging onto our towel hooks ( in an attempt to recreate the NW cliffhanger) and literally pulled the glass tile off the drywall, that we decided to cough some dinero up for a play structure.
The WHOLE ENTIRE WALL separated yet managed to stay in one piece. It was a miracle that my aqua hued bottle-glass tiles didn't explode and slice Jack up. Boy were we mad, but without further ado, we purchased a play structure (so that junior could take his ninja show outdoors) and it was finally delivered and installed last weekend. Of course, you'd think the kids would have been foaming at the bit to play on it. They decided that the packaging was more intresting and spent the whole morning camping in the boxes with their friend Caelan.



They did finally did turn their attention to the Jungle Gym -- which, I admit, is a bit advance for Mak. She's already taken a header off the slide (she likes to go up the slide and down the ladder) and Jack's first attempt to traverse the monkey bars, saw him get his leg caught in the trapeze which made him fall, dangling.Nevertheless, practice will make perfect and I am one or two CAT scans away from feeling confident that my children will be able to play safely on this gizmo.

Now, all I've got left to do is it to call my tile man and see how much he is going to charge me to fix my bathroom -- I'll add that to the price of the play structure to get the final tally. Gulp.

Is - still a mother to ninjas

Just add water

Makena started her first round of swimming lessons a couple of weeks ago. The teacher's goal was to have her hold her breath underwater, blow bubbles, learn to kick, hold onto the edge of the pool and clear her nose. As expected, she took to the lessons like a fish to water. It was a group lesson and Moms were not in the pool. The only problem that arose was that Mak wasn't very patient at waiting her turn, so if the teacher so much as glanced at her, she threw herself in.

The good thing was that, by the third lesson, she was holding her breath from four to five seconds and coming up smiling. By the end of the session, she was starting to figure out that kicking helped her get to the outreached hands while she was still underwater -- her movements became almost dolphin-like. It was quite fascinating.

The teacher tried to get her used to floating on her back but she always wiggled out of that position, and blowing bubbles wasn't something she understood -- or so I thought. I caught her blowing bubbles in the bathtub this week, and yesterday, when I was giving her another bath, she spent it entirely on her back, submerged in three to four inches of water! She refused to sit up and every time I tried to assist her, she would screech and throw herself backwards, flapping her arms and soaking me (I'll post video, later.)



We also took her on her first boat ride last Memorial Day -- duh, she loved it. The life jacket, not so much.

Needless to say, I've decided on a second round of lessons (1 hour, 10 weekdays in a row) because she is so eager to be "one" with the water and because I desperately need to have her somewhat water safe, sometime soon.


Is -- mother to a fish.