Ninjas

I don't know what's gotten into my kids but acrobatics are in the air. I've managed to train my heart not to skip a beat every time I catch them pulling one of their stunts, but the acts are starting to get a wee bit taxing.

The Little League rafters are Makena's jungle gym three days a week and she can't get enough of them. I've given up trying to stop her from climbing them, as have the rest of the parents on the team. I suppose I could equip her with a helmet and pads but I think they would only impede her balance. Add to that her love of launching herself off the couch -- whether you are there to catch her or not, and that sums up her activities for the day.

The electrician was over last Monday and while we were talking about what needed to be done, Makena sneaked up his ladder with her stacking cups. I had my back turned for a few seconds and that was all the time she needed. She had practically reached the top when the electrician saw her and got the shock of his life (every pun intended). I had to calm him down and explain that this was a normal occurrence and not to worry. He instructed me to quickly get my camera -- which I happened to have handy, and then he told me to stand next to her and spot her, because it might make me look like a more caring mother. Nice.

I am seriously tempted to lie about her age and sign her into gymnastics early (she has to be 18 months old,) just to give her softer and safer places to land, if and when she does wipe out. Because I do care. I really, really, do.

If you haven't discovered the Japanese show "Ninja Warriors" yet, you are missing something most excellent -- in the same vein as "Iron Chef" and including the funny, poorly translated voice-overs, only with crazy athletes trying to overcome mind-blowing challenges. We stumbled upon it surfing the channels one day and Jack took to it like a fish to water. We now have it Tivo'd and we watch it religiously. On any given night at our home, you might stumble upon a hastily made obstacle course of pillows and furniture that Jack has created to conquer. We always have to time him as he tries to better himself with every run of the course. As a result, the bathroom and the bedroom door frames are foot-smeared from his attempts to climb them and reach his ultimate goal: to touch the ceiling!

Dreams really can come true.

Is -- a mother to Ninjas.

Pig

This was our first Chinese New Year celebration and we threw a party for some of our friends and their daughters. The one thing we had in common was that our children were all adopted through the same agency (though at different times). My Taiwanese friend, Ching ( the MVP,) came over even though her daughter was sick and helped me launch the festivities. She made us fresh egg rolls, crab Rangoon and some kind of gooey red bean cake. She also helped me select food items from a Chinese restaurant menu. I made Chinese Chicken Salad (lame) and baked 50 (Year of the) Pig sugar cookies, thinking, at the time, that I would have an enormous amount left over. NOT. It's amazing how much sugar seven little girls can pack away. They spent about forty-five minutes icing and decorating the sugar cookies and then ATE THE ENTIRE BATCH. Jack made a quick exit to his room, clearly overwhelmed by the "girl power" that had invaded his home and missed out on the pig-out. We tried to help the little Tasmanian devils burn off the sugar but I'm not sure we entirely succeeded.

The following photographs depict the anatomy of a sugar rush:

Frosting and decorating...

More cookies...

More frosting and tasting...

Eating...

Time to start burning it off playing with balloons!

Ooh, look! Fire!

Let's teach Makena how to drive!

That's the ticket! But where are the air bags on this thing?

Let's drag the Fisher Price Jungle Gym into the living room! Hey, is that Jack?

Let's bring more toys and let's add Tiger to the mix!

Notice the men-folk carrying on a conversation while chaos reigns supreme.

Five hours later... Yes, Jack. Your sister is asleep, the girls are gone and so are the cookies.

Happy New Year of the Pig.

Is - loving this new tradition.

Elementary School Musical

Jack's third grade teacher decided to put on a musical about the solar system, entitled "Vacation to Mars". Jack and his friend, Caelan, were cast as "The Sun". Here they are shining bright in their first show! Jack is on the right and shows up about fifteen seconds into the clip.

Proud mom,

Isabelle
PS, Jack's hair is long because he is growing it to donate it to Locks of Love, for the second time.

The Duchess of Hazard

It's a miracle Makena and I are still alive. I was driving down PCH the other day, headed to Chinatown to pick up some New Year decorations in preparation for the celebration, when I felt a slightly twitchy thing happening on my forehead. I was talking on the phone (multitasking) and I happened to glance up at my rear view mirror to see A SPIDER CRAWLING ALONG MY HAIRLINE. I practically swerved into oncoming traffic, narrowly missing those upright yellow road dividers! Summoning all my sang froid to keep calm, and realizing that I couldn't get over to the shoulder without side-swiping several cars, I dropped the phone and flicked it off. I sighed with relief then freaked out all over again because it went onto Makena! She, thank God, was asleep in her car seat so I didn't worry about her deciding to eat it, but then the critter disappeared again.

I was still going fifty with nowhere to stop, every expletive in the book was shooting out my mouth imagining the nasty bites my baby was enduring, and before I could pull the car over to the shoulder and to a complete stop, THE SPIDER WAS BACK ON MY HEAD! Either the flick-off force hadn't detached it from its silk thread, or the eight-legged crawler had decided that "mi cabeza" was going to be the location for "Charlotte's Web ll". I allowed myself to scream, grabbed my hair brush from my purse and brushed the hell out of my forehead. Yeah. I killed it. I was invincible. I was "Lara Croft, Tomb Raider" (give or take twenty pounds and a good facial). To celebrate, I proceeded to Hill street for some dim sum with my daughter.

So that was on a Monday, on Tuesday, I was doing whatever I was doing when Tiger started circling Makena and a certain waft began to permeate the air. My cue! I gathered up the baby and carried her to her room to change her...and I was stunned. Three years of changing diapers with Jack never prepared me for this. I'd hit the mother-load. We're talking -- my husband's worst nightmare! The kind that makes you second guess the benefits of fiber-rich diets. I had to strip her down and bathe her immediately (it had reached up into her arm pits). So fifteen minutes later, life was good, the baby was clean, but I still couldn't get the odor out of the air and Tiger was now circling me. Why? Because I was soaking in diaper juice! My T-shirt was stained, my arms were smeared, my hair was streaked! So I just moaned and headed for my second shower of the morning feeling like I was toxic waste.

If being a mother isn't hazardous to your health, I don't know what it. And here I thought the spider was bad!

Stinkabelle
PS Yes, I know the top image is blurry. It's just way too hard to find appropriate pictures for this kind of post!

14

I never realized the symbolism the number 14 would hold for me but it finally hit me today. My husband declared on Valentine's day, two years ago, that he was ready to adopt a child (and that was my present!) Our Social Worker came to the house on the fourteenth to interview us for the first of two post-placement visits. July 14 is the day Jack was born. Makena was born on the 28th (a multiple of fourteen) and, although she came into our lives on August 15 in China, it was technically August 14 in North America, as far as our family and friends were concerned.

Six months have flown by, give or take a nervous breakdown and the onset of adult-acne, and today marks Mak's sixteen months on earth. She has officially been with us longer than she was with her foster mother (5 months) or in the care of the Social Welfare Institute (4 months). On June 16th, she will have been with us longer (10 months) than she hasn't (9.5 months). I think it's referred to as the "crossover day". I often think about her biological mother and her foster mother and I wonder if they still think about her often and wonder what might have become of her. I also find myself looking at referral photographs of children from Chongqing and I wonder if she has a sister who might have joined the ranks of abandonned babies. I know I'm crazy but admitting it is half the battle.

For the record, Makena is hysterical. She has a true sense of humor, loves to be chased, and has just discovered spinning on her feet -- which gives me high hopes that she might show a propensity toward figure skating! She is an acrobatic escape artist and will attempt to climb anything that presents a challenge. She dives head first down the slide at the park (I grab the back of her shirt at the last moment to stop her from flying off). She can be read to all day long. She pronounces the "k" part of book, when requesting a story. She officially says "Mama" when calling me and "Da" when calling her dad. Jack remains "Dat" and "Uh Oh" is huge, as well as her attempt to recreate the sound an elephant makes.

She walks around her room pointing to anything elephant, saying "booooooooo". Tiger remains the love of her life and I invariably find her tossing food overboard, saying "uh oh," and trying to hustle out of her high chair so that she can eat her food off the floor with Tiger. I know how gross this reads, but there is a cute factor to it and, besides, she hardly ever succeeds. Although I can see how she's obviously been rewarded in her attempts enough for me to post about it.

Today, I will surrender ALL of Makena's original documents when I apply for her first American passport. We're talking Chinese passport, birth certificate, abandonment certificate, adoption decree and her American Certificate of citizenship! It is a slightly nerve racking venture. I have been assured by the government worker (I waited twenty-five minutes to speak to) that all those things would be returned. We have a month to go until Jack's Spring Break and barring any unforseen clerical delays, we will be headed south, to Mexico.

Since Makena is still under the age of two, I am not purchasing a seat for her. Her travel tantrums will be part of the web of memories I have of her youth. Besides, Jack's waist is still smaller than mine so he can share the seat with her. Ha! I just hope the passport comes, or the next post will be about cursing the system.

Isabelle
PS The first picture was taken at the zoo, the second, is of Makena wearing the dress I brought her to wear on gotcha day and that se could not fit into 6 months ago. The third, the joys of driving and the last, an elephant sighting.

Team Mom

How I missed the sign up sheets at school, the ads in the paper and the placards posted all over town for an entire month, shows you what kind of vacuum I was living in. I almost blew it by not registering Jack for little league this season. He completely missed the official try-outs but by some miracle (the happenstance of trying to schedule a sleep-over with another baseball loving friend of his) I got wind of the make-up trial and managed to get Jack (with less than 12 hours notice) to the last selection round, in the last hour, on the last possible day. Had I missed that window, no amount of pleading, crying or cash would have made a difference. Zip, nada. No baseball for Jack this year. The only sport that would have been left to play in our house would have been hunting, i.e., "Open Season" on Isabelle, run for the hills-cardio, you name it.

Where was Nancy Reagan when I needed her? I was so desperate to ingratiate myself with the uptight league official who took Jack's application and asked me why I hadn't checked the box "will volunteer" that I agreed to be "Team Mom." She assured me that I wouldn't have to do anything more than shoot off a couple of e-mails and be the liaison between the coach and the parents. Half an hour a week of my time, tops.

Wrong! Six hours of my life have already been sucked out of me this week, writing out (ridiculous) practice schedules, cajoling parents to practice with their kids, and now being ordered to attend official league meetings!!!!! And let's not forget Makena and her precarious nap schedule and weaving that into the picture (and the horses... and the tortoise).

It just blew my mind (and this is post the "get my act together" epiphany from a couple weeks back). I'd quit but I don't want to set a bad example. I'll just practice saying "no" to my husband. For some reason, that seems to be a lot easier than saying it to strangers.

Now that I have twenty-twenty hindsight, the aerobic benefits of being hunted would have been welcomed.

What is wrong with me?

Is-a-sucker
PS This is what we do to Makena's hair when daddy is at work.

Where in the world is my mother?

I miss my mom. She died fifteen years ago and today would have been her birthday. I'm not quite sure exactly where she is right now. I'm not talking about the Grand Central Station in the sky, heaven, or whatever you believe happens to you after you die. I'm talking about her remains. She was cremated right after she passed away in 1991 and for the longest time she was kept in an urn, in her armoire, in our family home. That is until my sister decided to remodel the ancestral home last year. Since everything was going to be put in storage while the house was being revamped, my dad decided to take my mother on a little "road trip" to Spain for the summer. Yes, you read correctly, my father packed my mother's ashes up and shipped her off to Europe with him.


I was caught up in the "waiting for Makena's referral" vortex, my sister was caught up in tossing, organizing and selling forty years' worth of accumulation and before we knew it, dad had slipped out with the Samsonite and with mom in tow. By the time we came up for air, Dad was sipping Sangria on the Costa del Sol, my sister was up to her ears in plaster dust and I was -- come to think of it -- I never did come up for air, I was still in the vortex.

My mother's French cousins were called in for a "closure" intervention and quickly offered up the family mausoleum in this little village in the Pyrennees. It made sense, Mom could finally be laid to rest in a place that had meant a lot to her as a child and where she would be surrounded by her relatives.

OK, so we had about a five month window when this could have all gone down, reasonably calmly and in an organized fashion. I could have torn myself away, flown to France, hooked up with my dad and sister and checked out where mom would be laid to rest. But that would have been too simple, too planned. For months nothing happened and just when I get the "last call" to travel to China to formally adopt Makena, my dad realizes that his six months in Spain are up and that he has to come home. So he lights a fire under his posterior and contacts the cousins (via letter because a stamp is cheaper than a call and he didn't have their E-mail) and the cousins quickly whip up a mass, an interment and a luncheon (attended by the mayor of the village,) giving us two weeks' notice to attend.

Classic, I'm in Chongqing (we've had Makena about two days) when I get word that this is going down. I'm told via E-mail from my sister, that Dad is on his way to the Pyrennees with the urn and that she is scrambling to get airfare on zero notice, to be there in time. My husband and I debate the merits of booking me and Makena on a flight to Paris from Guangzhou and returning home after the burial, but then we realize that even if we moved heaven and earth to get me there, that I would not make it on time and that, furthermore, we would have had to re-adopt Makena in the States! Bottom line, I come to the conclusion that mom has been dead a long time and that she would forgive me for not being there.

So what does this really have to do with Chinese adoptions? Nothing. Except that six months have gone by since we've had Makena (and the ashes were relocated,) it's my mother's birthday, and I happen to read in one of the adoption forums that a Chinese girl, with the help of her Dutch parents, was able to track down her biological family in Chongqing, China. And I just lost it. It made me cry. I immediately thought about Makena and what something like that would mean to her...I started wondering about what kind of courage it took to undertake that kind of hunt -- the whole "if you love something, set it free" thing and I just cried some more and then my thoughts turned back to my mom and how I still missed her and how I wished that her grandchildren could have known her. And where the heck was she?

And then I just let it go because I realized that I know where she is. I've known it all along.

Happy birthday, mom.

Isabelle

PS The picture posted is the last photograph that was ever taken of my mom and me (about a month before she passed away.) It's damaged because it was lost at sea and then, by some miracle, was found when it washed up on the shore. Now, that's a LONG story!

I have a dream

What is it with parenting? You spend the first six years married without children, then you have the "one," raise him for six years before you realize that you're turning him into a little Emperor and that this can't be good for mankind, so you decide to bring number "two" into the mix to teach number "one" how to care and share. So what's the matter? Nothing. The baby is adapting very well and thriving and we feel very lucky that Jack is, more often than not, always pleased to see her -- but I can't say that it's been a walk in the park. On the best of days, I go to bed feeling like I'm a productive member of society raising healthy well-adjusted children. On the worst of days, I feel like I'm losing my mind, my autonomy, and staring into a pit of despair, raising children who will end up in therapy the minute they leave the house because their mother is whack. This could very well be the onset of menopause (gulp).

I feel like my brain has shrunk since Makena arrived into my life. I feel distracted and it takes super-human concentration to remember the simplest of tasks. My husband thinks that a black hole has formed inside my head and that it is slowly sucking up any remaining ounces of logical thought I have. The size of said matter so monumental that it has its own weather pattern. Normally, I would take offense, but I just thought that his analogy was so funny and biting, that I've decided to own it.

Are children contagious? Does having one make you want to have two? Does having two make you want to have three? I had a dream recently that woke me up and kept me awake for the rest of the night because it felt so real. It actually scared me because I knew that I couldn't keep it to myself and I also knew that sharing it would spew chaos into our delicate family ecosystem. So what was this monumental revelation? I dreamt that the director of our agency had called me personally to tell me that he wanted to place a teenage girl into our family. My heart leapt, I was so shocked and excited by how real it all felt. I don't know if it was the thought of being mother to another child or the fact that I could contemplate it without having to change more diapers or schedule feedings and naps, but it made me really emotional. I also knew, before I even woke up, that sharing this dream with my resident astronomer was going to be like having to navigate a minefield on the way to a 75% off Barney's warehouse sale -- very risky.

I just couldn't let good enough alone. I just had to "casually" mention this dream to my husband. I laughed, making light of it, I even dragged Jack into it by volunteering that he wouldn't mind having another sibling (he wants one) and, boy, was that NOT the way to go about it. Mentioning a number "three" at breakfast when we were trying to recover from a sleepless night with number "two" wasn't the best time to bring the subject up. Damn that black hole!

My husband dropped the sports page and stared at me for a long moment -- probably wondering which institution he was going to park me in -- and then he told me (without blinking) that he was done having children and that I could adopt as many of them as I wanted with my next husband. Conversation over. I felt like a meteor exploding upon entry into earth's atmosphere.

Nice. So I stewed, annoyed, wondering if I was just taunting him with it for argument's sake (which I may or may not have a habit of doing sometimes) and not at all serious about it, or if I was now determined to latch onto the idea of a Chinese teenage daughter because he hadn't expressed any interest or curiosity in my dream. I called my girlfriend (the one whose coat tails we rode through the adoption process) and I invited myself over with Mak and Jack so that they could play with her kids and because she had mentioned wanting a number "three," too, and had also been told "no."

Since we had so much in common, I asked her for a "teenage Chinese daughter adoption dream" intervention. I wanted to find out from her how she had gotten over it. Well, first things off, she hadn't, so the intervention was already on shaky grounds. But she did let me talk and she tried to help me analyze what it all meant. Initial diagnosis: sleep deprivation. Then we started wondering whether adoption could be addicting. We even hypothesized how long it would take to get divorced, lose ten pounds, find someone worthy enough to start dating again, get married and then convince number "two" husband to adopt a teenage daughter and the numbers just didn't add up. First,I'd be seventy by the time this could theoretically work out. Second, I love my husband, he is a wonderful dad (whose only flaw happens to be a lack of sharing when it comes to the television remote control) we have a great life together and why would I want to risk losing it all? Third, and more importantly, I realized that the dark hole in my brain had not sucked up all the logic because I came to these conclusions on my own (ok, maybe I had a little help)!

Ha! Just laughing about it diffused the whole situation. An enormous weight was lifted off my shoulders and I almost felt normal on the drive home. And ever since then, I have been more productive and organized than I have been in months. Which really isn't saying much, but it is progress.

So where are things now? Well, I have earmarked our donations for the Big Sisters program at Half The Sky (see link) and I feel better knowing that by sponsoring some of the older girls who still haven't been adopted, that I might be helping them realize some of their dreams of getting a higher education, even if I can't be their mom.

Isabelle
Who can't post pictures because she seems to have misplaced her camera charger...so much for being organized.

Big Fish

This is the photograph that will haunt my husband for a long time to come and I have to secretly admit to being happy that this sixty pound tuna got away because I know that if it hadn't, it would have been stuffed and hung on a wall in my house for me to stare at and dust, occasionally.

The Gods of good taste and home decor were shining on me that day.

Am I a bad wife? (Don't answer that.)

Is - relieved

Spam

I gave my husband a day of sports fishing for Christmas this year. I thought it was original, somewhat convenient -- since we happened to be in Hawaii -- and wouldn't clutter up the shelves or take up closet space like some of my past gifts (unless, God forbid, he actually caught a monster fish and decided to get it stuffed!)

I scheduled the expedition for Christmas Eve so that all the boys could fish together and they set off bright and early like the manly-men that they were, for a very long day at sea. Auntie and I promised them that we would cook whatever they caught and that it would be our Christmas Eve dinner. No pressure. Spam sushi was on the menu if they came home empty handed. You know, the canned ham that won't ever spoil? Otherwise known as the Hawaiian salt-lick.

They were true hunters and gatherers and Jack caught a skipjack and a tuna all by himself! For an eight-year old, he is a veteran of a dozen fishing expeditions, mostly lake, so this was a big deal! The charter company filleted the fish and they came home with twenty-five pounds of tuna steaks. I've never tasted fresher fish in my life! We sliced up the skipjack and ate it like sashimi and poke (a Hawaiian ceviche) and I marinated the steaks and grilled them and it was awesome!!!!!! Auntie took care of making us some deliciously tropical Mai Tais (she's an excellent bar tender) and it was a most excellent celebration and a special first Christmas Eve having Makena finally be a part of our family.

However, since this was "day two" of our vacation, I couldn't see us eating our way through twenty more pounds of fish, no matter how yummy or "Atkins" it was. I know I could have frozen it and taken it home for New Year's but we decided to give it to some locals to enjoy and they were thrilled. As promised, Santa found Jack on the North Shore and managed to spoil him -- go figure -- and his awe and enthusiasm confirmed that he still believed in the man. But I have to admit that the best gift of all (a slightly terrifying one at that) was the gift that Makena gave us! She started to walk! Life, as we know it, is officially over AGAIN!

Ladies and gentlemen, I present: Frankenbaby.

Happy New Year!

Is - watching my children grow up too fast!

Surf and Turf

Falling under the category of "How to get exhausted on vacation without really trying," I planned a "less than twenty-four hour" turnaround to take my family from the picturesque snowy mountains -- home, and then up at the crack of dawn the following day -- to catch a flight to Oahu and the North Shore for the second exciting week of Jack's winter break. I would have fired my travel agent except that the person was me!

Added "perk" to the stress was me slipping on black ice at a gas station as we were leaving the mountains. If the card-reader at the pump had worked, none of this would have happened. If I had been carrying Makena into the gas station to pay in person, she would have taken my full weight as I slipped and crashed to the ground. I guess that was the miracle, A) that I wasn't worse off than a severely bruised elbow, B) that I wasn't carrying the baby.

Needless to say my little 4.7 double axel (for artistic impression) shaved four hours off my travel turn-around budget and poof! Gone was the time I had allotted for the pre-trip manicure, pedicure and waxing. Thank God, I packed Mak and Jack's luggage and Santa's presents, the week before. I didn't have to worry about forgetting something key. Unfortunately, I ended up shaving and butchering my legs and wishing I'd had a more "European" approach to body hair. Do you really need to know this?



Anyway, the kids were All Stars and behaved charmingly on the flight over. I discovered that sucking on ice chips and punching the numbers on the seat-phone were Makena's favorite pass times. Jack actually said "please" and "thank you" to the flight-attendant, learned how to play Solitaire and let me sit in the window seat with Makena while my husband fed me Advil at regular intervals to help the swelling go down on my elbow.


When we got to Haleiwa, we all happily discovered that the rental agent had slapped some lights on a plastic palm tree. Jack grumbled that it wasn't a pine tree so I hastily explained that eight-pound, 6 ounce, baby Jesus (quoted from Talladega Nights) was born in the Middle East and that I suspected that the original Christmas Tree was actually a palm tree. Ha! Am I good or what?

This was the first time we weren't going to be home for Christmas and Jack was really concerned that Santa Claus wouldn't know where to find him. I assured him that I had mailed his letter to the North Pole with a forwarding address but he was very skeptical and moody. My brother and sister-in-law suspected that Jack's distress was an act meant to extract more gifts and that he didn't really "believe." They actually challenged me to confront him about it (They don't have kids) and for a while it felt as if I was living an episode of "Curb your enthusiasm" because they kept bringing the topic up. It was quite funny and nerve racking at the same time. Ultimately, is was a big "No way" because I wasn't going to be the one to pull Santa's sleigh out of the sky.

A hasty trip to Foodland provided us with some cheap colorful ornaments to hang and I would have added Leis to the trimming but my brother-in-law asked me not to embarrass him with the purchase...So I bought the National Enquirer instead and read it in plain view, in the check-out aisle, as we waited to pay. Now that was embarrassing!

Aloha.

Isabelle

Cool Runnings

The start of Jack's winter break was a hit (in more ways than one.) After this, we changed the sledding course to a less steep angle with a wider gap between trees...Call it Darwinism or the miracle of Christmas, but this incident made us realize that we definitely needed helmets in this terrain. It further confirmed my standing as "mother of the year."

We spent the first week of Jack's winter break up in the mountains and it was fantastic, we got there just ahead of a snow storm that left us with a few feet of snow and a good base for skiing. I managed to squeeze Mak into the same fleece one-piece Jack had worn when he was a baby (one of the few things I kept) so she was somewhat weatherized to have fun in the elements and loved it.

Jack's friends Conner and Olivia came along with us for the week and it was a blast. We always had to have our guard up because we never knew whether we would be assaulted by a barrage of snowballs or not.

We were also joined by Mak and Jack's Uncle and Auntie who showed up with a new fleece for Makena in girl colors.






This could have been a good alternate holiday picture but given the speed at which I operate these days, our friends and family would probably have received it around Valentine's day.

Is - slowly surrendering to the invasion of pink in my life...

Holidaze

There should be an award for getting two kids to sit still long enough to capture that "special moment." You know the one. The one you send out to all your friends and family that screams "we are soooo happy and content and wish you all the same." Yeah, well, appearances can be deceiving because our session was a family circus, a tragi-comedy full of tantrums and fits.

Once I had decided on the holiday neutral location, the Martha in me dared coordinate the kids in hues of blue. I figured the color would work well for Hanukah, the fire for Christmas and the orange bench for Kwanza. I tried to cover everything.

It was a commando mission Rambo would have been proud of. First, I had to time it right. I had to spring the photo shoot on my cinematographer brother-in-law who happened to be visiting. I had to do this within moments of sunset "magic hour" to inspire him to do this willingly. Then, I had to extract Jack from his bedroom while he was having a playdate and change him into some clean clothes. I banked on having all of five minutes to do this, so a shower was out of the question. Last, I had to hope that Makena would wake up from her nap with enough time to change her, snack her and keep her clean and happy long enough to capture that magical moment.

Of course, things never go as planned.

I even tried to bring Tiger into the picture but that proved disastrous after his wagging tail smacked Mak in the head...

One has to suffer for art.
















Then by some miracle, the sea parted, Tiger chased after a bird and there was calm. This is the shot we happily and gratefully settled for. The message I wrote was "Peace," which is what I wish you all for 2007.

Peace,

Isabelle
No resolutions, just resolved to try a little harder to be the best that I can be.

I can chew my shoe

A good indication you might be tired is when you wake up in the morning and you brush your teeth thinking that the sunscreen tube you are holding is actually the toothpaste. Not only did I squeeze a good dollop on my toothbrush, I actually worked up a furious lather in my mouth before my brain computed that it wasn't some god-awful European licorice flavor-gone-bad brand but actually sun block. I thought for a moment that I was going to have to call Poison Control for myself. Blegh. My tongue was UV protected to the count of 45, thanks to my anti-aging Neutrogena sunscreen.

That was the final straw. I decided to start taking better care of myself this week, because I realized the hard way that my energy and "focus" batteries were at an all time low. I started by addressing my back pains and carpo-tunnel aches that were a result of going from carrying zero to sixteen pounds, as I did, when we adopted Makena. Yeah, I know, I should have done the sit-ups. Whatever. So I marched myself into the chiropractor's office thinking that I would get one adjustment and be out of there, but the guy was slightly dumbfounded by the state of my back and told me that it would take a minimum of five sessions before he could have some effect on my posture and pains. Nice. In any case, I lay face down and I swear I've never heard so many "cracks" come out of my spine and neck (as opposed to the wise cracks that come out of my mouth). I think I may be an inch taller since the first session!

I also decided that I needed to dig up my "What to Expect The First Five Years " book because after spending several sleepless nights over the Thanksgiving holiday, I finally realized that Makena's "one year" molars had come in (duh) and those suckers are big. When the bottom ones appear, I won't be sticking my finger in her mouth anymore -- unless it's to pull out a live worm -- as I did recently. It was a "catch and release" and she pitched a crying fit because she didn't get the pleasure of swallowing it.

It takes a special skill to extract theses things from her and I have discovered that she has a cruel streak and that she derives a certain pleasure from locking her jaw around my index and clamping down. If I scream, as is usually the case, she giggles with pure delight. Thank god I'm not squeamish though, because when it comes to dealing with bugs in this family, I am the spider and moth relocator. I'll even give the odd earwig another chance at love, life, and the pursuit of moisture -- but as long as it heads outside. If you are cricket and you are in my house, you are out of luck, you get fed to Jack's geckos.

Makena had her "one year" check-up at thirteen-and-a-half months because the pediatrician wanted us to spend more time with her (between visits) so that we could better discuss her development. As far as statistics go, she weighs 19 pounds and stands 29.5 inches. She is creeping up the charts in height, closing in on the 50% and coasting at a 12% for weight. She babbles incessantly, continues to point, and I am beginning to suspect that the word "dat," that she always says, may be her attempt to call out "Jack."

She claps. She shakes her bottle on command and she likes to gouge babies' eyes when she meets them. She also has a good enough sense of balance to sit on a skateboard and be pushed along for a few feet. She loves her rice porridge, any kind of meat or fish, steamed carrots, green beans and yogurt. She is partial to pineapple, rice crackers, seaweed and noodles. She does not do well with any soy products. She doesn't digest them or sleep well if she has eaten them so they are no longer a part of her menu. I am inclined to think that wheat may cause her similar problems. The doctor also gave us permission to run out of formula and start her on whole milk, so I guess she is getting the nutrition she needs, but part of me wants to keep going until she is about 18 months. Mostly because we will be traveling and milk tends to taste different in other parts of the world and I want to keep things the same. I may just put milk in a sippy-cup and see how she likes it before I let formula go completely. Yes, I'm talking to myself.

On the downside, Makena continues to be fascinated by the toilet -- which is such a drag because now I have to get those seat locks. I'm not so concerned about her diving head first into the bowl, as I am worried about the "souvenirs" Jack's friends leave behind when they come to visit. It's very frustrating. Not everyone, it seems, has been taught to put the toilet lid down, let alone flush!

Finally, she took her first three steps this week and I think that she realized how monumental this milestone in her development was because she is now determined to practice every chance she gets and insists on holding our hand for balance. She is on the move everywhere, to the point where she is starting to pitch fits when we carry her. I am seriously worried that the minute she knows she doesn't need our help to go from point A to point B, that she will be off and running without looking back. I also have the sneaking suspicion that this precise realization will happen on the flight to Hawaii in a couple of weeks. I am inclined to book Jack and my husband on separate rows and have them pretend not to know us just to ease my stress. Which brings me to another "Isabelle is penitent" moment: I was always shocked, and I'll admit, that I also looked down on people who "harnessed" their children and "walked" them about in crowded places. I thought they were paranoid. Well guess what? I'm paranoid. I think Makena's "active" disposition may have won me admittance into that club and I can't believe it but I do understand those people because I now know where they were coming from. I hope I am wrong about Makena's "don't look back" attitude because if I wasn't able to leash-train Tiger, what the heck am I going to do with her?

Help!

Is - not all that I am cracked up to be.