boom!

After the first boom, I decided to wake the kids up to watch the Belgium fireworks. We woke Kailin up last year at the cottage to watch and she loved every minute. So at the risk of crabby kids tomorrow, I forged ahead. We had great seats for this show at the end of Kailin's bed! Colby watched six and declared he was tired and wanted water. I put him back to bed, and then watched the rest of the show in the shadow of my husband with his arm around my daughter. Priceless.

Colbyisms

As I was going to bed the other night and Steve was already laying there we heard a somewhat common, nevertheless jarring, banging on the wall. I'd just checked on Colby and discovered him with his body pillow (the barrier between us and the banging) all cattywompus in his bed. (As an aside, cattywompus is apparently either not a word or not spelled that way. Spellcheck has suggested that perhaps I meant "cutworms". I'm not sure I know what cutworms are, but I would hazard a guess that they would not be representative of the placement of Colby's body pillow the other night, so cattywompus stays. That leads me to another random thought not really relevant to my original story which is that I used to play a game called "Hunt the Wumpus" on my TI computer - the kind that hooked up to a TV. The graphics were archaic and nearly nonexistent, but it was the best game EVER at the time....ahhh memory lane.) Anyway, there he was, spread eagle and diagonal in his bed. That was a recipe for thumping and banging all night long, so I hauled his 55lb sack of potato body back into an acceptable position and replaced the body pillow. Fast forward five minutes and we had banging. I went back in there expecting for find that he'd already arranged himself (and the pillow) into a similar picture and instead found the boy sitting up on his bed, wide awake. "What are you doing banging on the wall?" "I want water." I poked my head back around the corner into our room. "He's banging for service." "What?!" "Yep, he wants some water, so he's banging on the wall until he gets some service." We both just shook our heads. That's Colby.

Just now, while I was sitting here catching up on email, letting the kids have their Friday night pizza while watching Scooby Doo Colby began asking question after question after question about the show I'm NOT watching. "I don't know, I'm not watching this." I responded to the four hundredth question inside of a single 23 minute show. He said, "I know....Mom (mom is like an afterthought. You think he's done talking and then he adds the mom in there. I wish I could capture the tone of it. It makes me smile.), I was asking Bubs." Oh okay. Then two seconds later he's repeating a different question over and over and over at increasing volume. Turns out that one (also about the show I am not watching) was for me. I give up. BEDTIME NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ala the "Serenity Now" Seinfeld episode). Bedtime now.

Fabulous Friday news!!!!!

I just got the news that our dossier was sent to China yesterday!! Hooray!!

This is wonderful news on two fronts - one, it's the last thing (for now) in "our control" in the journey to Carter.

Secondly, due to Milwaukee County taking 8 weeks to do our child abuse clearances, we were rapidly approaching the expiration date on our pre-approval to adopt Carter (6/27).

This is a big step in the journey and a huge relief! We will be sending Carter a care package soon, and hope to receive some updated photos of our little guy!

(Today) this mama is ready to GO!!! (Tomorrow may be a different story - I'm finding myself stuck in a "it's coming up so quick!"/"it's never going to come" cycle lately.)

on "saving a child"...

Occasionally I encounter someone who inquires about my kids' origins. Since adoption is no secret in our house, I usually explain that my kids were adopted and sometimes go on to give their native country. About half the time, the person inquiring will go on to say that my kids "are so lucky". My pat response is to tell them I am the one who has been blessed. Sometimes that person becomes insistent that I have "saved" my children and that they, not I, are the lucky ones. I know most people's hearts are in the right place. I found a quote today that sums it all up for me. "By adopting a child and helping them reach their potential, they help us reach ours. An adopted child is not an unwanted child; to the contrary. They are a child who was searched for, prayed for, cried for, begged for; received by arms that ached, making empty hearts full. Love is meant to be shared." Author unknown. I couldn't have said it better myself!

times they are a changin'

We painted Kailin's room with a green polka dot border and flying ladybugs the summer before she came home. I painted a vine growing out of the baseboard and some ladybugs that crawled up the vine, down onto the top of the closet, across the boarder, up the door frame, and over onto the cold air return. We set up the crib and her dresser and waited. That winter, I had to close the door to the room for awhile as China referrals slowed way down and we had to spend another Thanksgiving and then another Christmas without our baby. I had great visions of the peaceful baby who would slumber in the crib and the warm, happy, caring mother who would cheerfully appear to gather her up when she awoke and it was just too painful to look at the empty room day after day.

Of course the reality of the thing was that the baby was far from peaceful at bedtime for a very long time and didn't actually slumber in the room at all for several weeks while she adjusted to new surroundings and a vastly different time zone. The other reality is that the sleep deprived, overwhelmed, actually suffering from mono new mother was also far from happy and warm most days. We settled into a routine soon enough, and my beautiful little baby did sleep peacefully in her room for almost 2 years.

After Colby came home we decided to have the kids share a room. I'm not sure anymore of the exact motivation. I know that I believe that it's a good character builder for kids to share a room for at least a portion of their lives, but I am thinking that there might have been some kind of reasoning for how it was going to help them sleep longer or better. I think I might have been taking some drugs or something when I thought that... At any rate, the kids have been sharing a room for nearly 3 years and this peaceful nursery has been functioning as a toy heap...er....playroom, guest room, storage for dressy clothes room, and home to our aquarium of fish.

The time has come to move Kailin "home" in preparation for Carter's arrival this fall. We really wanted to give Kailin some time to adjust to her new room before she was also adjusting to her new brother, so we decided now was the time. It pained me to think of painting over the room I had designed with so much love, but life moves on. Thankfully, the theme we decided on allowed us to preserve all but two of the ladybugs and that eased the sting a bit. Actually, the design we decided on would have sacrificed several of the ladybugs until Kailin beseeched Steve the night before the brushes came out to save her vine. I never knew she loved it so much! The vine and the bugs were spared at the cost of several hours of "painting around".

We got the base coats of blue done in one weekend, but didn't make it to the grass. We planned a weekend for the kids to go to Grandma and Grandpa's so that we could finish the rest of the painting without "helpers" and because we thought it would be really fun to have a big "reveal" and surprise for her.

We didn't plan for Steve to throw his back out the night before the kids went to his parents' house! I worked feverishly to finish the room and did actually put the bedding on her bed five minutes before I walked out the door. When she fell fast asleep (snoring, in fact) in Mequon, I thought my hopes of a big reveal were dashed. She didn't disappoint, though! She woke up and was quite excited to see the new room and was thrilled with the results! It was such a great feeling to see her so happy. She's spent a lot of time up in her new room over the past couple of days (of her own volition!) and that just solidifies to me how much she likes her new room. It's the end of an era around here for sure, but clearly the beginning of a new one as well!

shuffling off to bed

As I shuffled up to bed last night, I was contemplating the things that I've learned as a parent. One of them is "the bedtime shuffle." I'm usually the last to go to bed in our house and by the time I head for the stairs, the lights are usually all off. I've learned, the hard way, after trying "the bedtime march" that the shuffle is the way to go. There is ALWAYS at least one toy on the floor and often where I would least expect a toy to be. There is frequently a rogue wooden block on the floor in a random location. (Wooden blocks are surprisingly sinister. They look innocent, but when placed directly in the arch of the foot...wowza they pack a punch!) The bedtime march only wards off the large items. The bedtime shuffle, conversely, makes a swatch through the toy detritus allowing for safe passage to the stairs. Combined with the "zombie arms", I can usually avoid contact with not only the toys, but the walls and furniture as well. It's a skill I'd never have developed if it weren't for my kids. I should take a moment to add these important skills to my resume, don't you think?

I pledge of allegiance....

Kailin was reciting the pledge Pledge of Allegiance the other day. She was reciting it to her brother, repeatedly, and I admit that I pretty much tuned it out. Oh, and did I mention that she was reciting it INTO a walkie talkie? Colby had the other one and was sitting approximately 18 inches from her just to give a fully accurate picture of our situation. I tuned back in to hear what she was saying and heard, "I pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of the America. And to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you and have a great day." I commended her and then said, "you know that the 'thank you and have a great day' part isn't actually part of the Pledge." She argued vehemently that it was. I gave up and giggled under my breath about it instead of arguing further. It tickled me that she pledges OF allegiance.

Speaking of pledging allegiance, on Friday we received our official immigration approval allowing us to adopt from China! Now our dossier can finally go to China and then we will wait for our "Letter Seeking Confirmation" which is the Chinese government confirming that we want to adopt Carter in particular. Once we have that, we will resubmit paperwork to Immigration specifying Carter as our chosen child (right now our approval is very vague as most people do this step before finding their child - we have done almost everything in reverse). As he meets all of the criteria we are approved for, it is just a necessary formality so to speak and not something we'll be sweating. Once we have that, then his visa approval is "cabled" to China and then they will issue our travel approval. We're still on target for November travel if all goes well from here on out. That seems a long way off some days, but then when I look at how quickly the first five months of the year have gone, it seems like it is right around the corner!