Weekend wrap up

I wanted to go to the Dragon Boat races today, but that was vetoed by Rob. Instead we went on a shortish (~4 mile) walk with Maddie in the park and had a nice picnic lunch by the lake. Then we came home, and while Rob read his book, I finished the assembly of the main body of Nora's quilt. Now all I have left are the borders (one of which is pieced, so not a trivial task, but still...). Here's a photo taken this evening. Everything you see here is now completely sewn together.

I hope to start on the borders next week. Once that's done, I'm going back to the crib quilt that I started forever ago. Applique is still not my strongest skill, but I've ordered a book from the library and will practice some more on the doll bed quilt.

To close out the weekend, I wanted to share a picture of the graphic on the t-shirt that Maddie gave Rob for his birthday (yesterday)... and, yes, I am the sort of person whose dog gives gifts. I thought it was quite a find - looks just like them!*

Happy Birthday Honey!! I look forward to many more adventures with you!

*except that the actual Maddie has floppy ears and would be in full-alert, critter-chasing posture.

An important travel consideration

I am a naturally curious person, which means that I visit a lot of different websites, which puts me on the distribution for a lot of e-newsletters. One of the lists I'm on is from International Assistance & Adoption Project (IAAP), originally I think I signed up to view their waiting child list and have stayed on the distribution just because they share some good information. This week's newsletter had a little snippet about prescription drugs in China.

Talk to Your Pediatrician Before Travel
We have always recommended you talk with your pediatrician before you travel to get antibiotics you might need for your child. We recommend this even more strongly now that so many counterfeit drugs have been exposed in China. Some drugs approved in China are also dangerous. The former head of the Chinese
FDA was put to death on Monday July 9th after being convicted of approving drugs
that were ineffective and also drugs that resulted in the death of many
people.

You cannot trust the drugs you may buy in China and you may not be able to find what you need when you need it.

I'd heard about the execution of Zheng Xiaoyu earlier in the week, but somehow didn't make the connection to our adoption trip. I wonder how safe Chinese medications are now that the FDA is under new leadership. It's probably smart to play it extra safe and bring everything with you.

Here's a list of travel meds and toiletries that I found of the University of Minnesota International Adoption Clinic website:

For Parents

• Personal hygiene items, including items for feminine hygiene
• Disinfectant soap (e.g., Dial)
• First aid kit including antibiotic cream, Band-Aids, scissors, tape, gauze, rubber gloves and Benadryl
• Disinfectant (e.g., Lysol)
• Contact lens supplies, including saline solution
• Prescription medications
• Tylenol or ibuprofen (e.g., Advil, Motrin)
• Decongestant
• Preparations for diarrhea (e.g., Pepto-Bismol tablets, ImmodiumAD)
• Sink stopper
• Rubber thongs for showers
• Mosquito repellant
• Sunscreen
• Scissors
• Facial tissue
• Toilet tissue
• Wet Wipes
• Transparent tape
• Alcohol wipes

For Baby

• Disposable diapers
• Infant formula; powdered milk-based (e.g., Similac, Enfamiml, Carnation)--only to be used with boiled or bottled water
• Oral electrolyte solution (e.g., Pedialyte or Kaolectrolyte packets)
• Moisturizing cream (e.g., Lubriderm, Aquaphor)
• Infant thermometer
• Plastic gloves
• Infant or Children's Tylenol and ibuprofen (e.g., Advil, Motrin)
• Antibiotic cream (e.g., Bacitracin, triple antibiotic cream)
• Hydrocortisone cream or ointment (1%)
• Oral antibiotics (e.g., Amoxicillin)
• Scabies treatment (Elimite cream)
• Lice treatment (e.g., Nix creme rinse)
• Pacifier
• Infant Sudafed for nasal congestion
• Diaper rash cream (e.g., Desitin, A+D Ointment)
• Fungal diaper rash cream (e.g., Lotrimin cream)
• Baby soap/shampoo
• Mild detergent (e.g., Ivory, Dreft)

More about transracial adoption

I received an e-newsletter from Minnesota Adoption Support and Preservation (MN-ASAP) yesterday afternoon (although I'm just now reading it) that has got to be one of the most thought-provoking 12 pages that I've ever read. If you are part of a transracial family or are thinking of adopting transracially, this is a must-read. Here's a link. Be sure to check out "Externalizing Racism: A Parenting Tool in Transracial Adoption" by Deb Reisner on page 3 and "Parenting Tips for White Parents With Adopted Children of Color" by Sun Yung Shin on page 8.

BTW, I've heard great things about Deb Reisner from one of my coworkers. We are planning on attending a workshop of hers this Fall.

Would you move??

Tomorrow is book club at work. We're discussing Beyond Good Intentions by Cheri Register. This book made me think about a couple of things, one of them was about where we live. Here's an excerpt from the book:

Given this tendency [to seek people like us], we can't really fault parents who object when adoptees advise them to relocate. If you have spent your life in a small town, the same one where your family has lived for generations, why should you have to uproot yourself to add a child to your family? Why should you give up your low-rate mortgage and your well-funded suburban school to move to the city where the houses are aging, the crime rate is higher, and the teachers are busy dealing with social problems? You know you wouldn't feel happy or safe there, so how could that be good for your child? Just keep in mind that he has the same instincts you do: to seek the comfort and safety of the familiar, which, as he grows up and becomes more self-aware, may mean faces less like yours and more like his. Remember, too, that he has traveled a great distance to fulfill your dreams of family. Your move across town or to a neighboring city or even to another state is a minor adjustment compared to the upheaval he has endured.

This same topic has come up in a couple of our adoption network meetings. Last month one of the adult adopted people on our panel mentioned an exercise that one of the local adoption agencies does with their clients. You start with an empty jar and a bunch of black and white marbles - then you go through the people in your life - the ones your interact with regularly like your neighbors, your hair person, your doctor, etc. - and put a marble in the jar representing each of those people. If they are white, you put a white marble and if they are a person of color you put a black marble. Then you look at your jar. It tells you something about the diversity of the environment into which you'll be bringing your child. The good thing about doing this is advance is that you have time to make changes - like look for another doctor or another community all together.

I'm ashamed to say that I don't have to do this exercise to tell you that my jar is mostly white. I also don't especially want to move. I like where we live. Anyone else struggling with this?

RQ's latest analysis

The Rumor Queen posted a new wait time analysis this morning. Here's her table:
So, with a 1/16/06 LID we would have a referral between December 2007 (good case) and September 2008 (horrid case), with between March-May 2008 being more likely.

I also checked in on the China Adoption Forecast site and it is currently saying:

Our best guess - a weighted average of recent CCAA velocities, guessing that CCAA will perform about as well in the future as they are performing now, but might return to previous trends: 2007-12-03

Their worst case is about the same as RQ's - September 28, 2008.

December would be so exciting, but I think March is a lot more likely. I'm hoping that it's not much later than that because of (1) the Beijing Olympics and (2) steamy Guangzhou summers.

Busy busy busy...

Happy belated 4th of July! I'm sorry to have been away from the computer for so long. We've been having a great time with our house guests (five members of Rob's immediate family). We did a bunch of fun stuff - carnival, canoe trip, zoo, birthday party.

The pinata was fun - j and H helped decorate and our neighbor M came over to help break it open. Here's the finished product - the passenger is one of those moose gift card holders from Caribou. He was a perfect fit.
Maddie was also a great sport at the birthday cookout. Not only was she very sweet with j and the neighbor kids, but she also donned an official family canoe expedition bandanna and gamely modeled some of the birthday headgear. I love this dog. It was a very fun weekend, but the house is seeming very empty this evening!

June 29 - a very good day!

Why is it a good day?? Here are all the reasons (in order of occurrence or my discovery):

1. We had unbelievably beautiful weather. 80 degrees, sunny and only 29% humidity. Doesn't get much better than that!
2. I went out to lunch with co-workers - my choice, the local malt shop. The boss paid.
3. The Rumor Queen had GOOD RUMORS!! If this 10 days/month is real and continues, we could have a referral in January or February - wouldn't that be great?!
4. My Mom and Dad sent us a Grand Traverse Mission Cherry Pie, possibly the best tasting thing ever.
5. Rob and I realized that everyone either of us had seen all day was in a fantastic mood (must have been the weather)
6. We had a very nice after-work walk to the beach with Maddie.
7. Maddie swam (retrieving thrown sticks), without a floatation device, in water over her head. She wasn't even scared (much). My girl's finally a swimmer!!
8. We went to our neighborhood wine bar for dinner - sat on the patio, had the cheese plate, a salad with gorgonzola, pear and fig and a terrific pinot.
9. We agreed that all chores can wait until tomorrow, tonight is a night off.
10. There's going to be a full moon tonight*, so we're going to take Maddie on another walk before bed.

* technically, the full moon isn't until tomorrow. but tonight it'll be close.

Jia Baoyu and the lock of jade

Something else I learned about from Rob's friend Jasper:

Another tradition in China is to put a necklace with a traditional Chineselock on the baby, and bracelets are also popular in the same way. Thistradition can also be rooted from a long time ago. The locks are usuallymade by silver, gold or jade, and silver prefered, with words on them. It'ssaid that these materials have special rays that can scare monsters away,and the words can bless the baby with best luck and happiness. Jia Baoyu,the main character in one of the most famous Chinese literature novel, wasborn with such a lock of jade in his mouth.

Attached are some pictures of such locks and bracelets. The patterns on thelocks could be the the Chinese Zodiac of the baby, and the text could be"长命百岁" (live as long as a hundred years if translated directly) orother good wishes for the baby.

If you're interested in learning more about Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu, here's a link.

Nora's quilt - update

I don't think that I've mentioned before my apprehension about the quilt project (at least not on this blog, if you know me you've probably heard it!). When we first started this process, I threw myself whole-heartedly into the experience. Anything that I heard we should do, I did because I didn't want Nora to miss out on anything. After a while though, I came to suspect that some of these supposed Chinese traditions were less rooted in Chinese culture and more a creation of the adoption community.

The quilt I regard a little bit differently - I think it's a great idea and I love having a little reminder of all the friends and family who care about Nora and are wishing her well. Some of them, like my Uncle Buck and Rob's Grandma Violet, have already passed on, so those are extra-special mementos of people that Nora will never know. I always intended to complete this project, but I didn't want to tell Nora that it was Chinese custom unless it really was. So, I braced myself for the cold, hard truth about the quilt and sent the question to a friend of Rob's who is Chinese by both birth and residence. Guess what? It's REAL! Here's his response:

I have consulted some classmates and some aged people in China, "Bai jiabei" (百家被 in Chinese) is something used to be popular in some areas in China, and maybe still popular in some places. The word "Bai jia" (百家)means a hundred families, "bei" means quilt, it was usually made by every family in the village when a baby was given to birth, and later it's simplified to be just several women in the village to make such thing.Another saying about this is that this thing was made by pieces of cloth that come from every family in the village. Whatever, people can express their love in this kind of ways to the baby...

And, more good quilt news ... tonight I finished my last block! I still need to assemble the squares, finish the last partial rows on the bottom and side and add my borders, but you can get a really good feel for how it's going to look. This will be a twin size quilt. I've decided to have it quilted at the shop we visited up at the North Shore, so I need to have it ready to go before our Fall vacation.

Next post I'll tell you more about another Chinese tradition that Jasper told me about.

Define success...

True to our word, we did rent a canoe yesterday. We put Maddie in her doggy life vest, had her jump in the canoe and pushed off. She absolutely refused to sit down for me, so Rob did what any good father would do - threatened to pull over the canoe. Maddie spent the rest of the paddle sitting in the back with Rob. She was ok. She didn't love it and she really didn't understand why she couldn't stand up, walk around or get a drink from the lake while we were moving, but she didn't hate it either. She loved the part where we pulled up on an island and she got to go swimming. Canoe camping is probably not going to happen any time soon, there's just too much of a risk of her dumping us out. We'll keep trying though and eventually we'll get there.


Other parts of our trip did go well - camping and cooking were both good, including the walleye and carrots cooked in foil on the campfire (yay!). It was very nice to eat real food and not rely on pb & j all weekend! We also had several very nice long walks and spotted some interesting wildlife including a doe and her fawn this morning. Deer aren't unusual where we live, but we don't often catch a glimpse of a fawn. It was a great weekend and will be very do-able with Nora (all except the canoeing). In fact, I saw a couple of families tent camping with toddlers so it can't be all that crazy of an idea.

Even though canoeing with Miss Madness didn't go as well as I'd hoped, I'm still rating the weekend a success.

Here's a moment of camping zen:

Happy Father's Day!

I'm sure it will come as a surprise to no one that Rob's Father's Day gift was a book. Believe it or not, I'd actually never heard of this book before; I just stumbled on it by accident at Borders last week, but I think it was a great choice.

"Healing the broken bond between our young and nature is in our self-interest, not only because aesthetics or justice demand it, but also because our mental, physical, and spiritual health depend upon it."—from "Last Child in the Woods," Algonquin Books

You can read more about it here.


We love being outside and hope to that Nora will come to love the outdoors as much as we do.

Next weekend we will be trying out a canoe. We currently have kayaks, but can't take either dog or kids in those. One option that we considered was a double kayak with a center (third) cockpit, which would work for one child but not much else. I think it's time for a canoe. Rob is bummed; this will slow him down considerably.

Happy Father's Day also to our Dads! We love you!

I want to be the fun mom

My mom was (and still is) the fun mom and I want to be able to give our kids that kind of experience as they grow up. Life is quite nice when your mom is a happy, fun-loving person.

Anyway, we are expecting a young house guest, j, in a couple of weeks. j told her mom that she wants to host a birthday party while they're here, so I've been thinking about how we can do that. The one thing that I always wanted at my birthday party as a kid (and never got - there's a lesson, even the kid of the fun mom doesn't get everything she wants*) was a piñata. So, I decided that we would make a piñata.

I don't think that I've done papier-mâché since the 3rd grade, so I went to the internet looking for a recipe and perhaps some instructions for a piñata. If you haven't already discovered it, Family Fun magazine has a terrific website with all kinds of great ideas, including instructions for a hot air balloon piñata. I decided to do the papier-mâché part before j gets here and then hand it over to her for decoration, which turned out to be a good idea since it needs three coats of papier-mâché and needs to dry for a full day between coats. I also had a little mishap with the first balloon and needed to start over.

Here's a photo of the work in progress. Pretty cool, huh?

The paste recipe is also way better than what I remember using in grade school and it's super-easy.

Papier-Mâché Paste (from Family Fun magazine)

1. Combine 1/2 cup all-purpose flour and 2 cups cold water in a bowl.
2. Add this mixture to a saucepan of 2 cups boiling water and bring it to a boil again.
3. Remove from the heat and stir in 3 tablespoons of sugar.
4. Let it cool; it will thicken as it cools. Once it does, it's ready to use.

My learning: be sure to let the paste cool all the way before you use it, otherwise it causes the air in the balloon to expand when the papier-mâché is applied and contract as it cools. It will mess up your project. What I do now is cook up the paste in the evening, let it cool uncovered until bedtime then cover with plastic wrap and let it sit on the counter until morning. If I get an early enough start I can get a coat on before work. It seems to take about 45-60 minutes per coat and I'm using a fairly large punch ball instead of a regular balloon.

I think I might have to subscribe to Family Fun.

* I also did not get a dog, imo a mistake on the part of my parents. Every kid should have a dog. Obviously I am making up for that in adulthood.

Our big backyard

You'd think that the rambunctious pooch would be a deterrent to wildlife, but NO! Our backyard is chock full!

I glanced out the window as I was letting Maddie in from the back porch and saw this:
Then about two feet away from the butterfly, I saw THIS:
This bunny was sitting in our yard, eating clover (we have clover in the back because I don't want herbicides where the pets - and someday Nora - play), completely oblivious to Maddie. Or maybe not, she may have experience with Maddie and already think she's safe.

I hope that's not the case. Maddie has caught squirrels twice, who knows what might happen if she were to get the jump on a bunny!

152 insights into my soul

Do you remember that quote from You've Got Mail? It popped into my head this afternoon as I was opening the fabulous July gift from our Jan DTC Secret Pal. SP, I have no idea who you are, but I do know that you "get" me.

Our SP chose "Father's Day" as her theme for the month and sent two books (one an adorable board book by Garrison Keillor (NPR - Rob's favorite!)) a photo paperweight and a so-sweet "I Love Daddy" bib for Rob.

She also, as usual, remembered our furkids with treats for both Abby and Maddie. Maddie's were "Fortune Snookies" by the makers of the tasty Snausages (no, I've never tried a Snausage, but every dog we've ever known is wild about them). Anyway, "Fortune Snookies" are like fortune cookies, or conversation hearts, for dogs. Maddie is still checking around the table where she got her first snookie, which said "The Bark Stops Here" (inset in the photo of Maddie lurking by the table).

Thank you so much SP. It was a wonderful, thoughtful gift. I bought Rob "Daddy" books last year for Father's Day also, thinking for sure that would be our last Father's Day without a baby (shows what I know, right?) - but the ones you've found are new to us! Who knew that there were so many great books for Daddies to read with their little ones!

P.S. SP, I didn't think your clip art was cheesy at all. It's a fine line between cheesy and sweet isn't it? I dance along that line all the time, frequently falling over into cheesy!

So many books, so little time...

I've been making good use of my van pool time the past couple of weeks (not that my previous van pool activity - sleeping - was a poor use of time, but this is even better!). First I read our July book club* book, Beyond Good Intentions by Cherie Register. It was a quick, easy, POSITIVE read, which was so good for me. So many of the adoption books focus on what can go wrong, that it is really refreshing to read something that makes you feel that, despite some challenges and mistakes along the way, in the end it might turn out all right.

Then I read Learning the Dance of Attachment by Holly VanGulden and Charlotte Vick. Holly was the speaker we heard back in April. We really learned a lot from that seminar, so I ordered her book from Crossroads. This book did more than just make me feel better, it made me feel empowered to make a positive difference in our child's life. I've reread several parts of the book already and made Rob promise me that he would read it. I consider this a must-read for all adoptive parents. I know that I will keep mine on hand for reference for years to come.

Next up is my library book, Talking with Young Children About Adoption by Mary Watkins and Susan Fisher. I checked this out on the recommendation of C at work and think that I will probably buy a copy to keep, but since they had it at the library I figured I'd go ahead and take it out for a test read.

And if that wasn't enough, in today's mail:

I think I need to take some time off and spend a couple of days reading at the beach. I've got the beach on my brain - this topic comes up at least 2-3 times every day. By the way, I don't only read about adoption. I'm also reading Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons, which coincidentally does include an adoption :)

* This is the adoption book club at work.

Feeling...CRABBY!

6 days matched. That wouldn't be bad if there were a lot of dossiers logged in on those days - we *know* that November is a big month, right? But ... the big U.S. China-only agencies do not seem to have received many referrals. I'm now hoping that there were a lot of referrals for families in Canada and Europe. Otherwise, they just did not match very many this month and we still have lots and lots of November dossiers waiting. Unfortunately, I'm thinking that it is probably the latter.

Be the change

Do you remember my lamenting the lack of Mandarin Chinese in our school district? Well I did email the district learning services director asking about foreign language programming at the elementary level. She responded and said that currently our district offers Spanish and German for grade 7 and above, but that their Long Range and Strategic Planning committee was looking into the need for language and cultural awareness at a much earlier age. She said that she would mention my interest at their next meeting and suggested that I share my thoughts with some of the school board members.

That message came last week on the day that we left for the North Shore, so I hadn't responded to it yet, although I've been thinking about it a lot. First I had a big reaction to German being one of the two selected languages, but then decided that it was probably a regional thing. Refocusing on my main objective of getting foreign language in the elementary schools, the next thing to do seemed to be get a list of the school board members and start calling them.

Then today I got a phone call, a voice mail message really, from the learning services director. She said that she has applied for a state grant to investigate offering Mandarin Chinese in the elementary schools and was wondering if I would like to be on the exploratory committee with her. Hmm, let me think about that.... YES!!!!

Aaah

This is an actual un-edited vacation photo. Isn't it lovely? It could be a postcard.

We had a wonderful, relaxing, LONG Memorial Day weekend at the North Shore. So good, in fact, that Rob has declared Northern Minnesota "better than Maui". Good thing for us since it is (1) closer (2) cheaper (3) less-crowded (4) more pet-friendly (5) more kid-friendly. Sign us up for the annual trip and if we should win Powerball tonight, we might just move there.

And for the China a-parents out there... although I do not subscribe to the lucky ladybug thing, I did take a picture of the only one I saw all weekend and it came out quite nicely (after I got the stinking little camera to focus on it). All my pictures this trip were taken with the little camera. I am determined to figure this thing out. Anticipation is key because it is just not as fast as the big camera and I'm having trouble figuring out how to focus manually or focus on a micro object. If anyone knows how to do these things with a Powershot SD900, please let me know. Anyway, here's the obligatory bug shot.

Thank you Secret Pal!

Thank you very much to our Jan DTC Secret Pal! It was Mother's Day in May, so this month's gift was all about me (mostly). She sent bath beads, facial masks, candles, a bib that says "I Love My Mommy" and treats for Abby and Maddie. Thank you SP!!

Maddie will be bringing her new bone on our weekend road trip. It should keep her busy for a while in the car, so really it's a gift for all of us!

Sometimes they turn out really, really well

The women in my adoption book club at work* know how much I worry about being a good parent. It's one of those good-thing-bad-thing aspects of a long wait. Good thing: I've got lots of time to read and prepare for Nora. Bad thing: Most of the books focus on what can go wrong. It can be very discouraging. Raising kids is hard. Not just adopted kids, raising any kid is hard.

Just when I think it's impossible to get it right, something happens to change my mind. This weekend it was my niece's high school graduation. Sometime I'll need to ask my brother and his wife how they did this amazing thing. Their kids are smart, funny and kind. How does it happen? I think it must be good parenting. Maybe I should send Nora to spend some time with them...

* Yes, we have an adoption book club at work! Isn't that cool??!! It's sort of an add-on to the adoption network that J coordinates. Our first book was Are Those Kids Yours? and our second was Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew. Up next is - I think - Beyond Good Intentions. I'd better check on that. The next discussion is in about 6 weeks and I'll have some time to read over Memorial Day weekend.

Not the happiest start to my weekend

I just checked the RQ site and saw that she has some new predictive analysis of referral times. Here it is:

So, it would take a good to very good case scenario to bring Nora home for Christmas.

I guess I don't need to worry about my somewhat reckless use of four vacation days for long weekends this Spring/Summer.

Mad, mad, mad - I'm mad.

Great news - Chinese immersion schools have come to our area!! Bad news - we live across a state line from these programs, so Nora won't be eligible to attend. Not even if we pay tuition. I know. I asked. This STINKS.

I've also learned from a friend that our local school district does not offer any foreign language programming at the elementary level. This REALLY STINKS, not just for Nora, but for all the kids in our community.

Those of you who know us know that moving to the other state is not an option. Long story. Project house.

So I figure that there are two options. Right now I'm pursuing both:

(1) Convince the immersion school in the neighboring state - where we both work, by the way - to let our kids attend if we pay tuition. For the record, Chuck in my van pool suggested that I get a P.O. box in the other state and "fudge" our way in and I deemed this unethical. One karma point for me.

(2) Devote my time and energy to bringing language programming to our up-and-coming school district. I just sent an email to my unwitting victim the district learning services director, offering my assistance in the matter.

Thankfully, I have a little time. I figure that Nora will be able to attend Chinese daycare for 4-5 years until I can impose my will on the world figure things out.

For anyone facing the same problem, here are a couple of resources:

NACELL

Nanduti

and, of course, there's always my favorite book.

Spring is here!

Tonight after work I bought some of my annuals. I just decided this afternoon that I was going to get plants. You wouldn't believe how much it improved my day just thinking about it. Tomorrow evening I'm going to plant.

See Maddie "helping"? She's that way.

The falls

I love where we live. Can you believe that this wondrous site is just a few minutes from our house? We were here both Saturday and Sunday last weekend. It's a great place for walking with Maddie -- and plenty of water for a cool-off swim (for Maddie anyway, the water is still too cold for me). We're planning a picnic breakfast for this Saturday.

Fun in the sun

Thank you new Jan DTC Secret Pal - we love our "Fun in the Sun" gift for Nora!

Our new SP has decided to make her own themes (yay - I love a theme!) and this month is "Fun in the Sun". Hmm, beachtime fun where we live in April - that's highly unusual! This is an unusual year though - we actually did take a walk to the beach on Sunday a full two months before our usual first beach trip.

SP sent Nora the coolest stuff - inflatable beach toys, swim floaties, a frisbee, a pail, a sand shovel and rake, two baseball caps (one pink and one denim with ladybugs - Nora's first ball caps! How long do you think it will be before she has a pony tail to pull through the back?), and *my favorite* sidewalk chalk!

Rob's right - I am a cheap date. All this great stuff and what do I like best? Chalk. Figures.

One more thought

Today is my Mom and Dad's 57th (is that right???) Anniversary!! Congratulations Mom & Dad and Happy Anniversary!! We love you!!

Love,
R & J

Some random thoughts...

I'm sorry, this post is not going to be coherent. I have a lot on my mind.

(1) As many of you I'm sure know, a horrible story of a disrupted adoption surfaced this week. Here's a link. It is at once heartbreaking and eye opening for those of us in wait. If you're a worrier, you should probably not read this (Mom - this means you!), but if you are a waiting parent and are not already following Jen's blog, I would encourage you to catch up with the story. I'm sure this sort of thing does not happen often, but it does happen and we all need to educate ourselves and be as prepared as possible.

(2) AmFam wrote a hysterical post this week. First I laughed Diet Coke out my nose. Then I dwelled over our robbing Nora of her culture. I posted the following comment on AmFam's blog:

Comment from Jennifer Time: April 22, 2007, 11:14 pm
Great post - made me laugh Diet Coke out my nose!
I share many of your feelings about the FCC. It’s disturbing. Here’s my dilemma. DH and I neither are Chinese. We are concerned about robbing our daughter of her culture, but nothing we do is going to be really authentic. Thankfully we have a few friends who are Chinese (some live here, some in China). We will travel to China - I love it there. But… that’s an every couple of years kind of thing. In between, though, what can we do that’s not… well… creepy?

This is such a difficult position to be in. At once we are robbing our child of her culture and pretending to be Chinese. How on Earth do you ever do the right thing?? I want to be the best parent possible. I want Nora to be proud of who she is. I will not dress her up in silk brocade and I will also not wrap her in an American flag. If any of you ever see me do either, please give me a good whack, ok?? Wait -what about the red couch photo??* Should we ditch that? Please advise.

(3) I ordered that book, Learning the Dance of Attachment: An Adoptive Parent's Guide to Fostering Healthy Development, that I wrote about last week. It came yesterday and I started reading it this afternoon. I'm also reading Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew for the Adoption Network book club at work. I'm sure I will have thoughts to share about both.

(4) Holy Cow -- I almost forgot the best event of the week! We received our new I-171H on Wednesday. This one is good through 10/26/2008. I sure hope that we have Nora home by then and are on our way to Carys. Carys will be Nora's Mei Mei (little sister) ... I hope!

*The "red couch photo" is a Chinese adoption tradition. Every travel group has a photo taken of the babies dressed in Chinese clothing on a red couch in the White Swan Hotel.

The "dance" of attachment

Yesterday Rob and I attended a very good seminar about attachment. The speaker was Holly Van Gulden, an author and family counselor who grew up in a family formed through transracial adoption (four brothers I think she said - and this was back in the day when transracial adoption was much more unusual than it is now) and who is an adoptive parent herself.

We learned a lot and came away with some good information about transitioning Nora into our family and promoting attachment and also about talking to our families and daycare providers about attachment issues and what we need them to do to help Nora. I should have bought Holly's book, but foolishly assumed that I could get it on Amazon. Turns out the only way I've found to order it is through Crossroads Adoption (where the co-author Charlotte Vick works). Here's a link to a review on the Adoptive Families website and to the order form on Crossroads Adoption's website.

If you ever have a chance to hear Ms Van Gulden speak, take it! She's outstanding.

Sitting, Waiting, Wishing...

I had a much more depressing title for this post, but decided to try to keep somewhat optimistic.

There is a terrible, terrible rumor on the Rumor Queen forum today. Some agencies are telling their clients that only two days have been matched. If that's true it will have taken a full month to move from October 24 to October 26. I'm hoping that the truth is that the CCAA has matched two days of LIDs for those agencies and that it will amount to a week off the calendar. Please.. Please...

I understand that this is outside of my control and that the CCAA owes me nothing, but I really would like to get a little bit closer to our daughter this month.

Mega Mail Monday - Daddy edition

Great news!! Are you sitting? Better sit.

Last week Rob took a class at work - something about thinking on your feet - and one of the other participants made a comment about every child needing to be read Aesop's Fables. So he ordered Nora an Aesop's Fables book!

This is the first thing that Rob has bought for Nora on his own! I think that she is becoming as real to him as she is to me. I so love that he's thinking about reading to his little girl!

P.S. Also in today's mail was a replacement for the first Combi diaper bag that arrived damaged. I didn't post about that at the time because I wanted to give BabyStyle a chance to fix it before I bashed them for sending me a torn up bag. They fixed it. All is well. Shop at will.

Jan DTC Secret Pal - Revealed!!

HUGE thanks to Kim R for being our Jan DTC secret pal! I think that Kim must be channeling my thoughts because she sends exactly the kind of stuff that I would buy myself. The pig plate was especially weird, because I came very close to buying the same plate myself about three days before it came in the mail.

This month's theme was bath time for baby (or something like that) - Kim sent a very cute hooded towel and wash cloth set, farm animal bath squirters, baby bath products (including California Baby calming bath wash!) and a swimming stingray and lobster. The lobster, by the way, is a HOOT.

There were also marshmallow peeps (claimed by Rob, of course) and Panda bookmarks (claimed by me, of course).

... and a chewy bone for Maddie! The picture is of Kim's pugs, Caesar and Louie. They are Maddie's new best friends. She's never met them, but anybody who'd get you a bone and not eat it themself first has got to be special!

Thank you so much, Kim!!

*** Update ***

Maddie LOVED her bone - it lasted about 5 minutes, including time spent deciding where to eat it! Isn't she cute??

Walking the dog

It is a lovely Spring day today - 64 ° and sunny! - and Rob has gone into the office, so I decided to take Maddie on a walk. Oh my goodness. We have a lot of work to do before Maddie can walk with a stroller. She pulls, she's distracted by wildlife (especially squirrels - which she chases) and she doesn't pay attention to me like she should.

We have a gentle leader from our obedience classes, so we started off using that. That experiment lasted about 4 blocks, then I switched the leash over to her regular buckle collar. She needed a lot of correction at first, especially when she spotted a squirrel, but by the end of our walk she was at my knee where I wanted her. She was even good when we passed people she knows and when our neighbor Mason (who's about 7 or 8) passed us on his scooter.

I called Rob when we got home and we've made a pact to only walk Maddie on her leather lead (not the flexi) and really work on her pulling and squirrel chasing. If she doesn't improve, I won't be able to take her on walks with Nora and that would make me sad.

Dec Secret Pal - Revealed!

...it's Kim B! Thank you so much for all the cool gifts and kind words of encouragement. We have really looked forward to opening the box each month - Rob tries to be stoic, but I know he secretly loves all the baby things.

This month's gift was typically wonderful -- a bright rattle, bath squirters and a V-tech ball that will be great for Nora when she's crawling and learning her animals, shapes and colors. Thank you again for everything - you've been a terrific secret pal!

A Sad Day

Today we said goodbye to a good friend...

Our Missy lost her five month battle with kidney disease this morning at 16.75 years of age. Stinky, we'll really miss you and all your sassy, dog-like ways. You've been a great friend and companion to all of us. Someday we will see you on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge. Until then, I know you'll have a good time with Tyler, Cody and all the other furkids who are waiting for their people to join them. God bless you little one. I love you.

Gearing up

While I've bought some toys and books and a couple of little outfits, I really haven't purchased any of the baby gear that I know we'll need. No high chair, no car seat, no stroller... I know that we have plenty of time before Nora comes home, but I'd like to spread the expense if I can and avoid the big cash outlay right at the time when we'll be paying for a trip to China. So what I've decided to do is watch the sale sections on all my favorite websites and start snapping up some of these necessities.

This morning I found a Combi Urban Sling diaper bag for $24.99 at BabyStyle. That's an awesome price for a diaper bag and it's stylish and neutral enough (we got the black) that I think either Rob or I could carry it without embarrassment. I'll let you know what we think of it once it gets here.

By the way, the downside of frequenting all these websites is that I find a gazillion other things that I'm not shopping for but can't resist. So, in the box with the diaper bag, there will also be a 12-18 month velour track suit.

Ready for Spring.

After much looking, we've decided on a larger tent!

It's a Columbia Cougar Flats 2-room tent. It's a 2006 model, so we were able to get a really good price. We also bought a double sleeping bag (more family-friendly than our mummies) and an adjust-a-grill for the campfire. I know it's not a top-of-the-line tent, but we've never had a great tent anyway, so this is still a step up for us. Truthfully, we will not be camping in any sort of extreme conditions for a while anyway. Mostly we just want a little quality family time at the park.

So, what else do we need to take Nora camping??

The Three Questions

1. When is the best time to do things?
2. Who is the most important one?
3. What is the right thing to do?

.

Having not bought a book for a few weeks, we decided it was time to go to ... (all together now) Borders! And we found a gem from Nora's wish list among the sea of children's books. The Three Questions is a Tolstoy story retold and beautifully illustrated by Jon Muth who also wrote Zen Shorts and the Chinese version of Stone Soup.

It also carries a powerful message: There is only one important time, and that time is now. The most important one is always the one you are with. And the most important thing is to do good for the one who is standing at your side.

This is a must have for every book collection.

More Family Fun

Do you remember last year when I decided that camping would be a fun family activity? Well, I still think that (I know - who'd have thought? Until last year I thought that vacation involved room service!) . We have a reservation for Memorial Day weekend and will probably do at least one more trip between then and Nora's referral. Our goal will be figuring out what we need for a successful family camping trip with a ~1 year old.

First order of business is a larger tent. Our little three-man dome is barely big enough for Rob, Maddie and me. We are thinking about Kelty Mantra 7, Sierra Designs Moken 6 or North Face Trailhead 6. We'll only be 4 with Nora, but I still think that a 2 (or 3)- room tent would be nice for the separate living/sleeping quaters. We do have a screen room, but that usually goes over the picnic table and it doesn't have a floor.

We're also thinking about getting a *gasp* canoe. Yes, much less cool than the kayaks, but much more family (and dog) friendly. Probably that will be next year.

If anyone has any tips for camping with little kids, please let me know. We've got some time to experiment this Spring.

Immigration Update

After we sent in our I-171H extension application, I asked our social worker how long it would take to receive a receipt and fingerprint appointments. She said that our local USCIS office had been taking about 2-3 weeks for this logging in/scheduling process, so I've been trying hard to be patient.

It turns out that that 2-3 week estimate is about right. Yesterday we received our fingerprint appointments - they will be on 3/28. We also got the receipts for the fingerprinting fees, but not for the I-600A application fee. I'm hoping that will come soon. I think I remember it taking a few days longer last time also. Fingerprints and applications must go their separate ways within the CIS office.

Right now my main concern is getting all the paperwork in order so that we don't have any problems when it's time to bring Nora home. The other bit of pressure is that Rob is trusting me to keep track of the adoption expenses, so I want to be sure to get that receipt!

Update: I just checked the USCIS website for the processing times at our local office. As of February 20, they were processing documents received on November 20, 2006 - so three months. That is approximately how long it took the first time through. Ugh. Anyone who needs to reapply, start early.

Say hello to my little friend

I have a new "toy" - a brand new crackberry pearl from work (yes, I know it's not a toy, but the idea of 24/7 availability sits a whole lot better with me if I think of it as a techno-cool plaything instead of an electronic ball and chain).

So far I've got the phone part working ... and my work email, my calendar, and two personal email accounts. Pretty good, I think, for day 1 set up. Now I'm starting to wonder if it will work in China, possibly as a backup plan for posting to this blog.

I googled "blackberry in China" and found this. The posts are a little bit old, but still encouraging. I'm going to check with my carrier and see if it will work. My employer will probably not be thrilled with the $2.99/minute, but if it keeps me connected to the office and lets us publish an occasional update to the blog it will probably be worth taking along. I never would have guessed that it would even work. The last time we went to China my supposedly global cell phone was completely useless.

Has anyone out there gotten either their cell phone or blackberry to work in China? What did you need to do to set it up?

One step closer

I just did my weekly Wednesday evening check of our agency's website and see that families with LIDs through 10/24/05 received their matches yesterday. I had no clue - see how out of touch I am without the Rumor Queen?!

That means there are 84 LID days between us and Nora's referral. My brain is already shut down for the evening, so I'm not sure what that equates to in real time. 6 or 7 months I think, but I don't have the brain power to make a good guess right now. Referral in October maybe ... so she *might* be home for Christmas. I hope that's true.

A picture (book) is worth a thousand well-pruned synapses

A couple of times I've mentioned a book that I've been reading called, Raise a Smarter Child by Kindergarten. It was written by a neurologist and has taught me a lot about brain development and the importance of early experiences.

Because we will have missed roughly the first year of Nora's life, I want to be sure that in addition to our boundless love we also give her the right kind of stimulation while she's still very young. It really matters; developing the right neural pathways early on affects your ability to learn and process information throughout your life.

One of the first sections I read was about books (you know how much I love books) and it said that there are two kinds of children's books - picture books and storybooks - and every child's library should have both. Now, Nora's got a nice, growing book collection (you can see the current list by clicking on the "Nora's Library" link under the site navigation section on the right), but I realized that she mostly has storybooks and very few picture books. Since that's obviously going to have to change, I bought a nice picture book when I was at Target.

I think that, in addition to teaching some words, it will also help her to learn colors. Hopefully she will also develop a love of books and reading.

Sometime I'll show you her puzzles...

Thank you secret pals!!

Rob made a little discovery this week. I came home one evening and the first thing he said to me was "Jenn, I went into Nora's room. Have you seen it?! She's got a lot of stuff!"

We've had some great new additions this week too, with packages from both secret pals. First on Wednesday we received a shopping cart/stroller bar cover (a genius idea!), plush caterpillar rattle and pretty pink bibs from our December secret pal.

Then yesterday we received a quartet of pink photo items from our January secret pal. This month's theme was "Pretty as a Picture" and we received a painted wood frame, a soft magnetic bunny frame, a baby brag book and a little flower frame.

Thank you very much to both our secret pals!

Today's lesson in opposites (aka the camera dilemma)

We have not done much preparation for our trip to China, but one thing that has become clear to me over the past year or so is that I will not be able to carry my beloved digital SLR every place we go. It's a great camera, but it's big and it's heavy. Too big. Too heavy.

So, for Christmas, Rob got me a teeny little camera. It is so teeny that I can carry it in my pocket ... and it's 10 megapixel so the images are really quite good. It can also take short video, which will be nice for our first days with Nora. There are a couple of tradeoffs though. The big camera has better optics and it's MUCH faster; it powers up instantly and takes some crazy number of shots per second. The little one, you push the button and wait for what feels like an eternity. I took it with us to the dog park once and came away with a bunch of pictures of Maddie's tail (the rest of her was out of the frame).

I'm determined to learn to use the little one, though, because there is no way I'm going to schlep the giant camera and a baby and a boatload of baby stuff all across China. Now what I wonder about is video. Is it worth it or will we never watch? Is a video camera something we'll want or can we get by with video clips from the Elph? What about those one-use video cameras from CVS?

Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Happy Chinese New Year!!

The photo above is a picture of the CNY greeting cards that I ordered from our local FCC group. If my secret pal is seeing this, it will probably give away who I am, but oh well, there was only one month left anyway!

Our original plan was to make a Chinese dinner and watch A Chinese Tall Story on dvd. Unfortunately, Maddie came down with a stomach bug on Friday night and threw a bit of a wrench in our weekend plans. Poor thing threw up at least 10 times between 10:30 pm and 3:30 am. We took her to the vet the first thing Saturday, then spent the rest of the day watching her and trying to get her to drink Pedialyte. She's better today, so we spent the afternoon doing all the things we didn't get done yesterday. We'll probably still watch the movie, but Chinese food isn't going to happen unless it's take out.

... pink knitted booties topped off with bling, these are a few of my favorite things

Wendy from the Dec DTC group has an Etsy store called The HeiWen Way where she and her friend sell all kinds of neat soaps and stationery and stuff. My favorite item was these baby booties -- I just had to order them for Nora! They are so cute with the "bling" at the top. They must look suspiciously like a dog toy, though; Maddie is fascinated (or maybe she just likes the bling?). I hope that she doesn't try to steal them off Nora's feet!

Do you ever wonder if it's a test?

We received our home study update in the mail yesterday, so we have everything we need to apply for our I-171H extension. Knowing that our local USCIS office has been known to experience periods of slowness (our first I-171H took 11-1/2 weeks!), I want to be sure to get it all ready and sent off this weekend. I've read every bit of instruction we've received - messages from our home study agency, messages from our placement agency, a mailing we received from an adoption support network that I must have subscribed to at some point. Of course, all were different. Here's what I think we need to send:

• Cover letter
• Completed I-600A application
• Photocopy of our previous I-171H approval
• Photocopy of previous fingerprint expiration information
• Photocopy of each of our birth certificates
• Photocopy of our marriage certificate
• Two photocopies of our original home study
• Original + 1 copy of our home study update
• Original + 1 copy of our home study addendum
• Check for $685, payable to "Department of Homeland Security"

At the top of the cover letter it is supposed to say either "EXTENSION" or "ORPHAN". I'm not sure which is right, so ours will say both. Apparently "EXTENSION" needs to be highlighted and "ORPHAN" needs to be green.

As I am so carefully following every instruction, I have to wonder is this real? Does it really make things easier for the USCIS? ~or~ Is it some sort of test by which they weed out the lazy or uncommitted? ~or~ Is it purely for entertainment and they just laugh when we do this?

Really?? Why??

So, I was catching up on my email backlog this evening and came across Tuesday's email newsletter from Cookie magazine. First, I want to say that I love Cookie magazine and one of the things I like best is recommendations for kid-friendly playlists of real music. So when I read "... listen to Rockabye Baby's lullaby versions of Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, The Ramones or the Pixies" I got all excited and clicked on the link.

It is not nearly as cool as it sounds. It is all that great music (and more - U2, The Cure, Smashing Pumpkins...) on what sounds like a xylophone or something. WHY??? Is there some reason that kids can't listen to the original music as long as you keep them away from questionable lyrical content? And why is there a need to adapt the Beach Boys for children - does that really need cleaning up? It was practically children's music to begin with!

This is one for the mini-van list probably (i.e. things I say that we'll never do, but will probably renege on once there's a baby in our lives).

Thoughts of Spring

As cold as it has been the past couple of weeks, it was really fun to receive something Springish in the mail!

Danielle sent Nora this cute kitty cat bucket hat and gardening gloves - hot pink and apple green, our favorite colors! I sure hope that Nora likes hot pink and apple green. Those two colors account for about 80% of her stuff.

Bedtime for baby

Thank you to our Dec DTC secret pal for the great box of bedtime goodies! She sent a lavender ladybug fleece blanket, Johnson's bedtime lotion, a baby toothbrush with mixed fruit toothpaste and a sweet board book called Mommy Always Loves You.

I really wanted to smell the lotion, but was foiled by a safety seal that I decided that I should leave alone so that the lotion is kept fresh for Nora. I'm sure it is soothing and wonderful, though. In my imagination, it smells either like babies or lavender.

It's never to early to start the brainwashing

This week I had the opportunity to go on a recruiting trip to our alma mater, the University of Illinois. Traveling there is sort of crummy -- it involves two flights, one on a prop plane -- but it was great to visit for a little while. I also got Nora her very first Illini-wear, in two sizes so that she is never without some Illini orange!

This breaks my heart - please help

...but I know that I am a good dog and I just want to go home.

I'm sure by now everyone has seen the Pedigree adoption drive commercial. If you haven't, you can view it here. This is a truly outstanding commercial - I cry every time I see it (Rob would tell you that "cry" is an understatement, I SOB), but more importantly it has moved me to action.

I went to Pedigree's website and donated food to a shelter near our home (only $9.99 for each 22lb bag of Pedigree and they match donations if you order through their site!). And now I'm telling you, so you can do the same. Or, if you'd prefer, you can also donate to the ASPCA or the Humane Society of the United States. I wanted to adopt a shelter dog, but have been told that three pets is enough for now.

I should probably add that Maddie does not eat commercial kibble. We lost our two previous dogs to cancer and after doing some research I concluded that it was not the most healthful choice for Maddie. It is a convenient, economical option for a shelter situation, though, and I give Pedigree a lot of credit for their efforts in this area.