Foul play

I'm exhausted. The last of the 25 guests who rolled through our mountain house to celebrate Thanksgiving with us have just left. Makena is asleep, the kitchen is trashed, and Tiger is collapsed on the couch with a rawhide hanging out his mouth and bloated with gas from having been fed too many scraps.

If you are wondering where Jack and daddy are, they are in town in a clean house, asleep, and getting ready for school and work tomorrow. I've stayed back a couple of days, to put the house back together and await new appliances (pictured,) especially, the new dishwasher. The old one broke the day before T-day and was repaired -- with a lot of begging on my part -- but ultimately, I was told that it wouldn't last ten more washes.


I did two sacrilegious things this year to mark Makena's first Thanksgiving with us: I ordered an "already cooked" Turkey AND a half-gallon of gravy. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE to cook, I'm the type of person who gets excited when she opens a set of Le Creuset pots or stainless steel mixing bowls for Christmas. My idea of a good souvenir is to come back with a cookbook from the places I visit (which reminds me that I didn't get one in China!) I love food. I love Iron Chef --my sister, on the other hand, would use those gifts as a weapon and clobber you over the head with them for even thinking about getting her that, but I digress...

I've never committed high culinary treason before --I've also never had two children or twelve guests (plus three extra dogs) spend three days with us-- so ordering the bird made sense at the time. And, I'll be honest, I wasn't sure that my first husband would pull off frying the turkey (at altitude), so I wanted to be safe. I say "first" husband because he was deservedly insulted by my lack of faith in his frying abilities and gasped when he found out that I couldn't even own up to the gravy.

Well guess who ate crow? Moi. Not only did his, not one but two, fried turkeys come out perfectly cooked and delicious but my overpriced bird was RAW. Sure, it looked golden and mouth-watering on the outside, on the inside it, was uncooked and cold. There was a collective gasp from the crowd and they sort of looked at me with pity. I even tried a bite of "sushi turkey" hoping against hope that it wasn't as bad as it looked. Adding further insult to injury, the yam risotto that I had proudly prepared before coming up (to save myself the trouble of cooking in the mountains) was still frozen! I was 0 for 3. Thankfully, since the rest of our friends were serious foodies, there was no shortage of amazing side dishes or dessert (a special golf-clap to Tamara for her Yam pie with caramelized Cabernet sauce and whipped cream.)

Jack stuck to the turkey and freshly baked pumpkin bread (not made by me, of course) and the only one who actually ventured to eat my, subsequently defrosted and disastrously microwaved, risotto was Makena (who thankfully didn't throw it up.)



Our place was a revolving door with groups of friends arriving as others left and it was fantastic -- all be it exhausting. Although Makena handled it all beautifully by day, by night, it was awful. I realized too late in the game that all the festivities (and three new dogs in the house) had her overly stimulated to the point where she couldn't sleep. I spent two entire nights with her sprawled across my chest in an effort to help her. But the only angle that was acceptable to her was upright. So I contorted myself in an armchair and pretended I was on the flight back from Guangzhou and that I could do this. I could find that zen place between delirium and nervous breakdown and make it through the night. Thankfully one of my girlfriends handled making breakfast for everyone on those two days and Makena and I got to sleep in. Tragically. I didn't pack my make-up so I could have looked better.

I wouldn't change a thing about the weekend (except to have my concealer on hand and maybe serve everything on paper plates so that I wouldn't spend so much time washing dishes.) I want Makena to be able to hang with us when we have large groups of friends around -- as Jack does -- and I am thankful that she doesn't seem to have held these disruptions against me. I'm thankful for Makena and Jack's brilliant personalities and extremely thankful that I wasn't served divorce papers for dessert -- although I have been suspended from cooking duties for next year's meal.

In the meantime, I plan on having a serious word with the grocer who sold me the raw Tom Turkey because I suspect that was foul play!

Is - on a diet.
PS Makena spent a great part of the weekend chasing, Earl, our friend's hairless chihuahua (pictured above.) Makena's friend Josie had a bublebath together. Last, our friend Tony also helped her ride a skateboard for the first time. Look for Makena in the XGames of 2017.

Shoot first, ask questions later

What do you call the person who packs up her two kids on the spur of the moment, takes a couple of carry-on, and flies to Seattle for three days? My husband called me his "frontier woman" as he loaded us into to the car for the drive to the airport. That was me, Is-a-crazy, flying solo last weekend.

My oldest girlfriend, who I have known since I was nine years old (she shares the title with her sister,) was going to be in Seattle to do the interior design of a private jet for some billionaire who lives up there. She hadn't met Makena and I didn't know when I would be going to Montreal, so since we were on the same coast and I was suffering from writer's block, I decided to shake things up and take the bull by the horns and I quickly booked myself on a super cheap-non-refundable-no matter-what Expedia package so that she could meet the baby and have a visit with Jack. Seattle also happened to be where another family, we traveled to China to adopt with, happened to live so it all seemed like a reasonable adventure and meant to be. I'd kill two birds with one stone: reunite Makena with one of her China cousins and have her meet my jet-setting friend.

If I had paid closer attention to the Weather channel and noticed that they were having record-breaking rain storms and cataclysmic floods up there, I may have hesitated. If I had been told that trying to get my rental car at nine-thirty on a Saturday night would turn into a two hour fiasco as I dragged luggage and pushed a stroller with a crying baby and a sleep-walking eight year old up in the elevator and across the sky bridge, into the parking lot and back to the airport terminal THREE TIMES because every direction I was given was wrong! Only to finally make it to the airport car rental site and discover that it was closed and reading a notice that told me to grab a shuttle and head to Timbuktu to pick up my vehicle -- To finally get there and be told that all the computers were down and that they were unable to verify my reservation... To finally get the car and to have to drive exhausted into an unfamiliar city -- in a rain storm -- because it only started to rain the minute I got in the car -- I may have stayed home!

Nevertheless, around the stroke of midnight, we made it in one piece and the hotel was extremely accommodating. When they rolled the crib into the room, I had flashbacks of Chongqing just before we got Makena and I wondered how the baby would deal with everything when she woke up and found herself in a strange bed, in a hotel room, and what impact that might have on her. Jack mumbled something about "room service" pancakes and bacon before passing out and I fell asleep watching an episode of "Flip that House," a remodeling show full of insane people with dubious decorating and remodeling tastes.

Sunday was great. Our China friends and my girlfriend met us at the hotel and we walked to the public market in the rain and ate lunch and then strolled to the aquarium. I worried that Jack would complain about all the walking but I slipped him a twenty (for hardly complaining at the airport) and he spent the rest of the afternoon figuring out how to spend it. Finally settling on a stuffed Ecoli virus toy. It was a toss up between the Ebola and polio ones but the fringe is what finally sold him. Besides, with all the Spinach fiasco, Ecoli was on his mind.



Monday was spent visiting the Space needle and the science museum and Mak and Jack were total troopers. The flight home was uneventful and the crowning glory was Makena returning home, seeing Tiger and her bedroom, and breaking out into this huge smile followed by a twelve hour sleep through the night!

Yeah! I'm so glad I shot first and asked questions later. We had the best time.

Is - a- loving Seattle.

The 200 year old man

My husband loves breakfast at any time of the day, so when I asked him what he wanted for his birthday dinner the answer came as no surprise. I tried to think of various places that serve breakfast all day -- Denny's came to mind -- but I decided that Nate 'n Al's, a deli in Beverly Hills, would be more fun and would offer those who didn't care to have eggs for dinner a greater range of choices. I spoke to the (young) assistant of one of our guests to give him the directions and details for the soiree and he was speechless. He was stunned that I would host a dinner at a deli and not follow it up with a round of drinks at a bar or some dancing. Yeah, well that's happens when you suddenly have 2 kids and the big "45" is in your rear-view mirror and you don't want to cook and scrape pancake batter off the kitchen counter, let alone your hair. The small group who attended were amused and thought the whole thing was cool and original.

The evening was a hoot and the bonus: A celebrity sighting of Larry King eating his dinner. I told everyone who would listen that "this was a birthday fit for a king." I had the waitress put the number "200" on the apple pie (my better half does not like cake) -- thinking I was being clever ala "Mel Brooks, the 200 year old man." Except, in typical Isabelle malapropism fashion, I was off by a couple of thousand years, 'cause it's the Two Thousand Year Old Man and hubby wasn't as amused by my cleverness, as I was.







Mak and Jack were in attendance and carried themselves extremely well, or so I thought. I gave Jack the camera to let him take pictures (and to keep him from complaining that he was the only kid there) and I was shocked to see the framing on some of his shots after we got home. Should I be worried?


Happy Birthday, dude.

Is - a - young at heart.

PS Those aren't my boobs. Consider the picture a gift.

I interrupt this bulletin

I interrupt the usual blogging about my children to remind my dad (pictured with me when I was two) and my sister that, not only did I have a birthday a few days ago, but that I also celebrated my fourteen-year wedding anniversary (a longevity feat by California standards) and that unless the phone lines were down and are still down, I'm wondering why I didn't get a phone call? I don't need gifts. And I understand the concept of saving trees, so I can do without a card, but an e-mail or a message on my voice-mail would have been nice.

And people wonder why I have a birthday complex when it comes to my kids.


Is - getting older by the day

PS this is what happens when your family become blog lurkers.

Halloween

How many elementary school principals, do you know, have to write an open letter to the parents of his students asking them to disguise themselves "appropriately" for the Halloween parade? Ours did, because one too many moms in recent years have shown up on the playground dressed as hookers or sexy she-devils, wearing too revealing an outfit (thinking they are so daring and creative) and he's trying to put a stop to it. Why? Because the audience is fifteen years too young for this kind of exposure! Hello? Don't get me wrong, I love a good party and I don't consider myself a prude but I was shocked when I read the flyer that came home in Jack's folder. Then, I was stunned when I read the next one: "hand out Granola bars and mini carrots instead of chocolates so that we can be "healthy." In retrospect, I can see how the principal was trying to cover our mental health as well as our physical health in those bulletins. Something for everyone, just pick and chose.

Nevertheless, Halloween was a blast this year. Jack and I invited a dozen of his friends and their parents over for a bucket of the "Colonel's best" and some refreshments to kick off the "Trick or Treat through the neighborhood walk". Poor dad could not be with us. He was stuck at a Rolling Stones concert in New York and had to miss out on all the fun and excitement.

We live at one end of this almost rural neighborhood and nobody ever pays us a visit on Halloween, so we've started this tradition of having a few people over for a bite to eat before they go out -- I figure that nothing goes better with candy and chocolate than a bit of grease and maybe a glass of Chardonnay, to put you in a festive mood. So, just after it got dark, we pulled out the lanterns and the plastic to-go cups and chaperoned the kids to the street where all the action happens when it comes to the spectacle of Halloween. We're talking decapitated heads, mummies walking the streets, haunting projections on the sides of houses, women who may have had too much plastic surgery -- you name it - - a very ghoulish experience for the faint of heart.

Jack went as a werewolf. I slapped together his disguise by cutting the horse head off a costume that was too small for him and sticking a werewolf mask over it. The only drawback was Jack's size. I wanted to paint his hands and feet blood red, to compensate, but he wouldn't let me. Then, he insisted on wearing socks with his sandals. Ergo, the photo you see. Scary from the waist up, scarier from the knees down.

Jack insisted that Makena wear the bat costume he wore for his first Halloween (one of the few baby items of his that I have kept) and by some miracle, related to her tiny size, it fit. I managed to snap a shot of her dressed as a bat in front of her Fisher Price house (talk about musical nightmare) and had I had Jack's photo of him wearing it on disc, I would have posted it as well.

I, on the other hand, ended up slapping the cut-off horse head from Jack's old costume on my head and pretending to be the decapitated horse from the Godfather movie. I would post the photo but I'm way too vain. Now, had my husband been in town. I probably would have dressed as Superwoman. I love those red boots!

Yeah, right.

Isabelle

Happy Birthday Makena

I got up this morning and sleep-walked into Makena's room to give her a bottle. Several minutes had passed before my brain actually warmed up enough to function and I realized that my baby was a year old, today.

I sang a whispered "Happy Birthday" and held her close for a few seconds before she wriggled away to play with this Fisher Price monstrosity I bought her a couple of weeks ago to honor this day. It's big, has lots of gadgets and will spew out mind-numbing songs at the slightest touch and Makena LOVES it. It hasn't ceased to amaze or entertain her and I'm thrilled to be getting my money's worth -- even if I feel like bashing my head against the wall everytime I have to hear the "Itsy-bitsy Spider" song.

I watched her happily lost in the wonders of babyhood and couldn't stop myself from thinking about the other women who played a role in shaping my daughter's young life: The mother who gave birth to her and kept her for five days before casting her off to an uncertain future and, her foster mother, who spent five months keeping her healthy and well cared for before having to say good bye to her. I'd like to think that the women who cared for her in the orphanage will remember her but I'm not that naive. Would they remember what day this was?

How do you survive the loss of your mother not once but twice? How do you attach, detach, reattach or trust that sharing your heart will not be met by more abandonment? I don't know how Makena does it but I feel truly awed by her courage and resilience and joy of life. I hope that I can be as good a role model to you as you are to me. Happy birthday Makena, my fearless little leader.

To mark this day, I thought that a visit with an elephant would be appropriate and so did my girlfriend, who by sheer coincidence thought of the same thing and hired one for her son's birthday! It's funny how like minds think alike. This was a trunk show like no other. I especially like the part where my idea was free of "charge."




In the meantime, if you are as curious as I was to find out how to throw a pachiderm party check out: www.havetrunkwilltravel.com or click on the link in the title.

Pony rides are sooo passe.


Is - loving my daughter

Chop chop

I an so proud of Jack. He tested for, and received, his brown belt in Tang Su Do karate! The video is of Jack breaking a board with a side kick -- which he must do in order to pass. It is also noteworthy because it is the first footage I have been able to upload to my blog!




There are all kinds of moms out there, "soccer moms," "Little League moms," "Figure skating moms," etc.. I'm a "karate mom". Jack has been going twice and sometimes three times a week since he was four-years old and, to be honest, I never imagined I would be one of those moms who would rearrange her schedule and sit patiently in the sidelines while her child punched and kicked his way to Bruce Lee glory but I guess even I can surprise myself.

During that time, I've probably read a dozen novels and become quite proficient at Sudoku -- mostly to steer clear of the gossipers in the crowd. Don't get me wrong, I love gossip. I have a third degree black belt in gossip (which drives my husband crazy) but sometimes twenty women stuck together in a tight space can be a little intense. I feel like I'm back in high school reliving some kind of personal hell, over and over, and I don't need my karma to go there three times a week -- especially on a bad hair day, of which I seem to have many these days.

Enough about me, the whole point is that I really believe in the focus and discipline a good martial arts instructor can instill in children and I also believe that testing for a belt is good practice for keeping your cool while taking exams in school.

My eight-year old Jack is now officially three shades of "red belts" away from getting his first degree black belt, which means I'm four months away from making good on a promise that I would join him, and take classes with him, at the dojo when he got his first red belt (which is the level you have to be as a kid to take classes with an adult). I am stunned and I can't believe that day is almost here. I wish the uniforms were more flattering...and I wonder what breaking boards will do to my pedicure? Oh, that's right. I don't have time for that anymore. Never mind.

Now, who's going to watch Makena?

Is a karate mom

Let them eat cake

Makena had her first birthday party yesterday. It was an intimate gathering of about fifty friends and children. Yup, things got a wee bit out of hand the last few days leading up to the celebration when we realized that a lot of our friends still hadn't met her and that this fiesta was a good opportunity to have them come by and help us wipe the drool off her face.

We managed all this through word of mouth and a simple "save the date" e-mail I originally sent out to ten friends a week ago. One of whom called me in a panic because he hadn't received a paper invitation. I told him to print the e-mail if he needed to hold some tangible proof that this event was actually going to take place.

When my girlfriend and neighbor (the one who organized Makena's closets when she felt I wasn't doing it fast enough) realized that I really wasn't going to get around to even handwriting a store-bought invitation and sending it out, I think I really offended her "Inner Martha" to the point that she offered to make a dummy one so that I could have it to put in Makena's baby book. I'll get right on that. Right after I put my fourteen-year old wedding photos in order and Jack's eight-year old baby pictures together...And did I mention that I have two horses? Take a number, Mak.


In any event it was a blast and I am slightly shell-shocked -- which may or may not have to do with the shots of Tequila we toasted Makena to. But the best part of it all was that four of the families we traveled to China with came with their children and it was like having Makena's family around her, so that was really emotionally satisfying.


At one point, one of Jack's friends commented that there were "a lot of Chinese girls" at the party. He's a little slow but we really like him. Another friend marveled at how an American Jewish guy married a Canadian Catholic girl, that they adopted a Chinese daughter and served Mexican food at her birthday party. I think the Fairly Odd Parent bouncy I rented for the occasion pretty much summed it up. We are fairly odd parents.

And tired. How I ended up with two of Jack's friends having a sleep-over on a school night is beyond me. I handed over the air mattress from Makena's room so that they would have enough beds in Jack's room and wouldn't you know it, the party apparently didn't tire my daughter out one bit. She was up all night and I had nowhere to lie down. I ended up sleeping on the floor with her for part of the night and then another hour or so on the rocker with her sprawled across my chest and then I finally managed to slip her back into the crib and crawl back to the comfort of my bed (except my side was freezing cold) and then it was seven AM and I had to get up and make three boys breakfast, get them dressed and to school on time with a cranky baby on board and...let's just say I'm not a morning person.

Is a tired.

PS Photo # 1: The gold cat I drove all he way to downtown L.A. to purchase so that I could set it on her cake. # 2: The girls reunited (from left to right) Makena, Olivia, Charlotte and Emily. #3: Special on aisle 4! Makena helping me shop for food for her party.

Crazy

So I paraded Makena through my husband's office a few weeks ago and before I packed her into her car seat for the half-hour drive, I seriously reviewed her "presentation" outfit -- knowing full well that a "Mr. Somebody" who worked there would not let my fashion choices pass without comment. I wasn't in the office five minutes and he walked up to me, cooed appropriately over Makena, approved of her T-shirt -- but poopooed the pants. Then finally turned to me and gave me the once-over and told me how great it was that I was finally going to get to "lose" the baby weight!!! Of course, he said it right in front of my husband who guffawed with laughter (as did I). The best comeback I could think of on the spur of the moment was, "You bitch!" That man-diva stole my joke!

It's one thing to be self-deprecating and tell people that I'm finally going to lose the baby weight. It's another thing to hear it coming out of Mr. Fashion police's mouth! I told him right away that I was going to blog about this and then he told me that he would sue me. So I waited a couple of weeks 'cause I don't think he follows the blog anymore.

In any event, I have made some changes to my eating habits. I try very hard not to finish Makena's food because I got into trouble doing that when Jack was a baby. You'd be surprised how fast a chicken nugget here and there, a spoonful of maccaroni or half a bowl of congee can add up to on any given day. I'd much rather save the calories for my glass of Chardonnay. I mentioned this to a friend of mine who has more than two children and she laughed. She told me that Chardonnay doesn't cut it for her anymore and that she's graduated to single-serving Margharita bottles from Costco (they come 24 to a box, I believe) and that she sneaks one into the theater whenever she takes her kids to see a movie. She drinks it, chews red vines, and tries to stay sane... Crazy.

In the meantime, my husband expressed mild concern that I haven't done a single thing to prepare for Makena's first birthday on October 28. I was stunned. Of course, he was right. And so this week I've been scrambling to pick a date. I was going to do it on the 28th but one of my close friends asked me not to because she's celebrating her son's fourth birthday on that date (his birthday was in September) and she's hired an elephant to be the entertainment for the party. And we're not talking unemployed actor making an extra buck by wearing a mangy suit, here, we're talking full blown, full grown, pachiderm! Okay, who can compete with that?

Whatever the case, I've decided on doing it on the 22nd. I was going to do it on the 21st - which coincided with the fifteenth anniversary of my mom's passing -- as a way of including her "spiritually" on this occasion, but two friends of ours beat me to the punch. One, with a mega blow-out haunted-Halloween-kid-party in the afternoon and the other, with a fiftieth birthday bash celebration at night. Crazy.

Now, I've tried to send an evite with Mak's picture on it, but the file was too large and wouldn't upload, so I'm going to resort to an e-mail, the way I did with Jack after I came back from Guatemala. And the theme will be "Mexican" because it's a good excuse to go to Costco and check out that case of Margharitas my girlfriend's so fond of. And besides, everyone knows that a baby's first birthday isn't about the baby, but about the parents -- or more particularly, me.

That's it. I've got a birthday to plan.


Is-a-crazy

PS My new joke when someone congratulates me about Makena is: "I love it, no stretch marks!" (At least, no new ones.)

PPS I just realized I'm friends with someone who is turning fifty.

PPPS Jack is fine, except he's bummed the Dodgers didn't win the Playoffs.

Bling

I knew my daughter loved jewelry but I didn't know to what extent until a few days ago when she was crying around four o'clock in the morning. I went into her room to check on her, thinking she probably wanted a bottle -- but the smell told me otherwise. So I picked her up and sort of sleep-walked through a change of diaper until something "sparkly" caught my eye. I thought I was seeing things 'cause that was some shiny s#*t!

I quickly replaid the list of foods that we had fed Makena the day before and "turquoise rhinestone the size of my finger nail" (and I'm not talking "pinky") wasn't on it. I was stunned by its size and surprised by how shiny it still was -- not to mention relieved that she hadn't choked swallowing it. I have to admit that "choking" was last in the order of my thought process.

This being a house of boys until a month ago, I can testify to the fact that we don't yet have a collection of sparkly stuff you can paste on art projects or jewelry beads. She must of stomached it on a visit to my neighbour's house when she was playing with the girls. Ugh.

Makena puts absolutely anything and everything in her mouth. In the six weeks we've had her the most noteworthy things I have pulled out of her mouth (other than dog hair) are: a splinter the size of a tooth pick that she fingered out of the track in our sliders, a scrabble tile and a rolly polly insect -- that I chalk up to her need for protein.

She reminds me of Sunny in the Lemony Snickets books.

Also, her first official word (other than "mama") is "Tiger". When she says it, it sounds like "Tay Ga" but there is no question as to whose attention she is trying to get when she says it.

Last, I'll be careful not to mention Jack's needs and wants anymore. One of my husband's clients bought him a PS2 and "Dance, Dance Fever" as a present. I couldn't believe it. Of course, Jack was over the moon with this gift (we all know how much he loves to dance) and I was the mean mom for having hesitated to even give it to him -- because it was completely over the top. I was hoping to wait until Christmas or Hanukkah but I lost the battle since I wasn't the gift "giver". We now have disco thumping through the house. Yeah!

Disco and Rhinestones -- it all seems meant to be.

Is a bling.

I need a hole in my head

My back finally went out last week. It had to happen. I didn't do the sit-ups leading up to Makena's seventeen pound arrival and I was now paying for it. So to help me along, my loving better half had a masseusse come to the house to give us much "kneaded" massages. The plan being, that when one was getting massaged, the other would be watching Makena. Jack, after all, is sort of like a self-cleaning oven. Give him the remote control and a friend who is easily hypnotised by electronic diversions and he's good to go. Just pull the plug out when you want to get his attention back.

So I was the first to get massaged and as I was relaxing and unwinding, Linda (the masseusse) asked me when I was bringing Nuiumaia (New Maya), my horse, back. I had sent him to a ranch, just before I left for Guatemala, so that he could keep company with other horses during the summer and have wide open spaces to romp in. I told Linda that I had gone up to visit him earlier in the week to make arrangements for his return, and I had discovered that he had bonded with another horse named Sizzler and that they were inseparable. Now it was time to bring Nuiumaia home and I knew he was going to be upset to be alone, that I would be stressed out worrying about riding or walking him every day (as I used to do before Makena) because, realistically, I knew that I wouldn't be able to do that anymore. So I was feeling guilty, too.

Linda, conveniently, had studied animal husbandry before she became a masseuse and insisted that I had to bring Sizzler back with (and for) Nuiumaia so that we could all have peace of mind (she included herself in the "we"). Remember, this conversation was happening during the massage that was supposed to relax me. I told her to forget it and that I'd rather have a hole in my head because one horse was enough work, but two? Besides, my "first" husband would never go for that. I say "first" because how much more of me and my animal antics could he take? The thought of adding another horse to the mix might quickly make him realize that it might be cheaper to divorce me. No, forget it, I was chosing to save my family and my marriage and Nuiumaia would get over it. Conversation over.

So the massage ended and I got on with my day. I separated Jack and his buddy from the video games, packed Makena and the kids into the car and took them to a birthday party, then spent the rest of the afternoon running errands.

I came home and the first thing out of my husband's mouth was, "Call the ranch and do what you need to do to bring Sizzler here." Huh? Say what?. Then he said, "Have them brought at the same time because I don't want to pay two trailoring fees." Two trailoring fees? And here I thought I was insane. Linda sure worked a number on my husband because, in one little hour, he was a changed man. A horse whisperer with a heart of gold."

So I attempted a smile and he smiled back, shaking his head, and I said, "Is this my birthday present?" and he said. "Yep, happy birthday."


I always tell people that our house is like "Green Acres". Except that I'm Eddy Albert and my husband is Eva Gabor. You get the picture?

One acre, one son, one daughter, one dog, one (big) African desert tortoise, 11 chickens, 2 leopard geckos and now, TWO horses.

So, yeah, next time I'm thinking about getting a massage, I'll just get a hole in my head.



Is - still married

Roman numerals

Packages addressed to Makena seem to arrive at the house on a daily basis and it's beginning to take its toll on Jack. We've tried to explain to him that he was showered with the same kind of love and attention from our friends and family when he was a baby, but - duh- he doesn't remember any of it and he is highly skeptical. For every couple of gifts that arrive for her, we get a teary meltdown from him begging for a PSP game because he is a poor suffering child who has nothing and no one to play with. He's good and he can really squeeze out the tears in a heartbreaking way which makes me suspect that he has too much salt in his diet.

If I'd taken the time to put a scrapbook together for him and maybe slapped a couple of pictures in a baby album, that might have gone a long way and convinced him more than me saying,"trust me, you got the same deal." But seriously, he is hurting from my diminished attention and he's growing up so fast because of the new role we've assigned him and it's tugging at my heart that I might be missing some of it because I'm too busy wiping snot or changing diapers. Yeah, I feel guilty.

Still, I'm not going to say that the honeymoon is over between Mak and Jack, because he unabashedly adores her and is very protective of her as long as she doesn't fart on him. She did so the other day and he turned around and let one rip on her! I had to nip that in the butt a.s.a.p.. Seriously, if he thinks that he has carte blanche to flatulate on his sister, I'll pass out from the fumes trying to air the house out. And let's not forget Tiger's contributions to the air quality around here...so sick.

In the meantime, my husband and I have stopped leaving any gift packages we receive for Makena out in the open where Jack can see them. I sneak them into the house and quickly unwrap them and get rid of the evidence while he is away at school or my husband sneaks them in after Jack has gone to sleep.

Well, another box arrived the other day and I opened it assuming it was for Mak and I pulled out this enormous blue Rams jersey with the number eighteen on the back of it. I was confused until I saw that my husband had ordered it for himself. I called him at work to tell him that his "package" had arrived and you'd think it was Christmas morning the way his voice shot up with excitement (the arrival of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition seems to do that, as well). He was supposed to fly up to San Francisco last weekend to attend some football game with friends of his, and it was a Rams game, and he had decided that he was going to wear Roman Gabriel's jersey (vintage, I might add) to taunt his friends who were rooting for the 49ers - I'm pretty sure I'm getting all the teams mixed up but I do know that it was number 18.

Anyway, the trip got canceled at the last minute and I thought that was the end of that until I found him in the living room over the weekend watching a football game, wearing the Roman Gabriel Jersey, while talking to his friend on the phone and declaring that he was going to wear it every time he watched a game during the season. I quickly flashed on the inflatable Budweiser seat with the beer can holders in the arm rests and made a mental note to donate it to the Goodwill before he remembered where it was in the garage...because the thought of him sitting in it, playing dress up, and slamming his fist into a tray full of Nachos... Well, my imagination can't take this kind of visual. I think I can handle him shooting "dog liqueur," better.

And then he told Jack that he would be wearing the jersey to trick-or-treat with him on Halloween. Should I be the dutiful wife and go as a cheerleader? Halloween, after all, is meant to be scary. Makena could be the football and Jack could be the whack fan with a chunk of foam cheese on his head...or the Ref?

Actually, it is kind of brilliant.

What is happening to my family, seriously?


Is a bewildered.

Mommy and mean

I'm having a serious dilemma. Jack started school and U10 soccer last week, add to that karate, homework and the occasional playdate and I'm now in crisis mode, crisscrossing town, being his chauffeur/social planner and going through two tanks of gas a week. Add Makena to the daily chaos, and the exercise du jour has been getting her to sleep a full night (so that I can) and getting Jack to school on time so that we can make a good impression on the new teacher.

We didn't know her before this year and she is new to our public school district but she's really cool and happens to be a mother to a class clown, like myself. She has a very nice class set-up that seems geared toward teaching kids more than it does toward impressing their parents. By that I mean that it's essentially clutter free, very well organized, and with things clearly marked on the boards and walls for kids to read. Other classes are extremely colorful (I like that too) but they are so crammed with "educational" tools and paper mache monstrosities that it seems hard for me to think that these kids will have a peaceful setting to let it all sink in...Whatever, not my problem this year.

Jack loves her and the environment she has set up, so ultimately, that's all that matters. He is in third grade, in a three/four split and the day before classes started, I showed up at school to see who he had been assigned to. As I approached the bulletin board, I overheard this anorexically thin mother, who I used to have playdates with when Jack was a baby but then stopped because she drove me mad, complaining to her equally thin friend that her fourth grade son had been put in a class with third graders. So I quickly put the breaks on giving her my superficially smiley "hello" and clammed up, aghast, when I saw that I was going to be seeing a lot more of her than I wished to! AGH! I stepped away and paid great interest to what classrooms Jack's friends had been assigned to and, feigning disinterest, overheard her list off the names of the kids in Jack's class, moaning. Then she perked up and counted six kids in fourth grade, including her own, of course, who were smart and bright kids -- so maybe this wasn't going to be so horrible and she would wait to pass further judgment. This is exactly why we kicked her out of our mommy and me group!

I just wanted to lecture her and tell her that all the kids were smart and maybe the third graders had been put in her class because they were especially bright (which they are, of course), but I didn't. I decided that I would blog about it instead!

So this morning I made it to Makena's first "Mommy and Me" class, the same one Jack went to when he was a baby, and where I met my three friends who threw me her shower. I'm sitting there with my ten-month old Chinese daughter and she's crawling all over the place with her runny nose and drooling mouth (she's not sick) and freaking all the other moms out and I study them wondering what we have in common (other than babies) and then the next thing I know, I'm seriously panicking because I don't know how many more friends I can add to my mix. It sounds so horribly calculated but I can barely see the friends I have now, add to that my new China friends, and the time I also need to spend with my husband and not to mention, my horse (not to be confused with my husband, the work-horse) and it's way, way too overwhelming. And did I mention my professional obligations?

And then I think about that uber-thin mother, and that it all originated in "Mommy and Me" eight years ago, and I freak out. Internally of course, outwardly, I appear super-relaxed cool.

So now that I've had seventeen cups of green tea and a bowl of congee to think about it, I've decided that I'm not going to force the issue. I'm just going to be not overly desperate to set up playdates for Makena and be sucked into someone else's neurotic soap opera when I have my own whack issues to work through. Then again, maybe that is something we have in common and I have a whole new mine full of new friends to relate to...hmmm...

I think I'm A.D.D. In fact, I'm sure of it.

I need help, because with friends like me, who needs enemies?

Is -- a mommy and mean.

PS I was finally able to capture Makena's smile in a photograph. She is always very studious. It was taken at her first visit with her pediatrician (the one that took my calls from China). She babbled the whole time he was examining her and didn't cry when she was given a meningitis shot! (FYI she was current on all her vaccines according to her book.) She weighed in at 17 pounds and 27.5 inches and he told us that she is developmentally right on track. Yeah!!!

Pink Cadillac

Sally (the face that launched the $100K remodel) came by with her family to visit Makena and she brought a completely over-the-top, super-cool, present: Her first set of wheels. And not just any car, but a pink Cadillac!

Makena was found at a gas station when she was five days old and I've always felt that the location she was left to be found at meant that her biological mother had hopes that her child would be going far in life. I know, I have a vivid imagination and I tend to romanticize things, but so what? That's the story I'm telling myself and I like it. And, of course, that's why this gift is so meaningful because it ties in perfectly with what I have imagined.

Of course, Makena will be driving it off the deck next week, so I'm now going to have to think about more baby-proofing. Ugh.

This was one of Makena's referral photos. I stared at it for six weeks wondering what kind of child we had been matched to. A very resilient and determined one, that's what. This kid is a survivor and a fighter. On August 15th we were handed a very light -- around fifteen pounds -- baby who needed a bit of assistance sitting up and who could not crawl. By the time we left Guangzhou, she was officially crawling and had probably put on a pound or two in her first two weeks with us.

Now that we've been home two weeks, today, Makena is pulling herself up and standing for several minutes at a time. This is going by whiplash fast, I can barely keep up.

Furthermore, I still have to put my wedding pictures in an album (I've been married almost fourteen years) and I still have to do Jack's baby book (he's eight) and of course, I have to put something together for Makena but I can barely document her progress. Where does time go?

I also wanted to post this picture because I think it was taken outside the orphanage in Qianjiang. Several of the babies who were referred to the families in our group, were posed in front of this grass.

Coincidence? I think not.


Is a - clue

PS: official thank you for the Cadillac, headed your way in the next six to eight weeks. Look for it in the mail.

Thank you

As soon as we received Makena's referral, I purchased two disposable cameras and put a care package together that included them along with, a couple of small toys, gifts of cash to the orphanage and to the Foster mother, and other small items. I had a letter translated into Mandarin asking that pictures of Makena be taken with her foster mother and where she lived and I mailed it off with my fingers crossed, hoping against all hope that the postal worker who kindly translated the address into Chinese letters for me, did it correctly.

The cameras were returned to us the day we got Makena and I didn't get them processed in China because I wanted them saved to disc.

I finally had them developed. Of course I cried as soon as I started leafing through them, because it was obvious that Makena was well taken care of. All the pictures showed a very content baby (I'll post more later).

The detective in me now wants to go to Qianjiang and figure out where the apartment complex she lived was, and see if I can't track the woman down. They won't tell us her name. I already know that I will have to get special authorization to visit the orphanage but I definitely want to do it. I'm thinking November or April as good months that can't possibly be as hot as the inferno we lived through.

Obviously not this year but when Makena is old enough to understand things and young enough so that a visit like this doesn't become a huge emotional deal. Maybe when she is five or six. I'll have to put some serious thought into it.

In the meantime, I'm sending out a huge telepathic thank you to Qian Li han's foster mother. I'm also going to send her copies of the pictures via the orphanage, along with new ones and I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope that she gets them.

I feel so lucky to have one piece of Makena's past to show her when she is older. It's a far cry from completing the puzzle but it's a step in the right direction.

Isa -grateful.