Leap and the net will appear: Single parenting off the cuff

How sad is this?

2009-05-01T08:35:00.000-07:00

That the only extra time in my schedule comes as a result of being stuck in the Honda Dealer service waiting room with my laptop? I just missed the shuttle, I don't have the files I need to be productive, so, what the heck, free internet and I might as well update the blog.

Here's the deal. I'm a bankruptcy attorney. The economy is in the tank. You do the math. But in case you can't, what I'm trying so say is that I'm swamped with work. I know, wah wah wah, when so many people are unemployed or under-employed, but cheese and rice, I'm exhausted. I've worked every day for months and months. My younger brother comes in and meets my kids after school so I can work until 10:00 pm when he needs to leave to go to work. I take the kids in to my office on the weekends where they watch DVDs and Chuck episodes on the computer. I wasn't able to do any work last weekend because I (a) couldn't face it, and (b) needed to clean the pig sty house so I didn't horribly disgrace the family name when guests arrived on Sunday. I'm paying for it this week. Three of the four kids participated in an expressive dance program thing at 2:00 pm at the school and I skidded into the school just as the program started because I cut the travel time to close because I got stuck on a contentious phone call when I needed to leave to get to the school on time. Driving angry is probably more dangerous than driving drunk, I thinkg. I'm trying to calm down and figure it all out as I drive to the school, knowing I still had a couple hours of work to complete and wondering if other parents go through this calculation: soccer practice? or malpractice? soccer practice or malpractice? I chose soccer practice and stuffing Arby's down their throats on the way back to my office where we stayed until 9:00pm on a school night because I had a filing deadline. Oh well, you do what you have to do, right? Okay, shuttle driver is here, back to work.

How lucky am I?

2009-04-01T09:30:00.000-07:00

Very, very lucky. So I'm sitting in the dining room this morning, working from home because, in honor and recognition of house guests who will be arriving Sunday, hey Rebecca, I mean you, I finally made an appointment to have a carpet cleaner come to the house and make the downstairs extra bedrooms habitable for humans after Gladys and Lucy had dueling canine urine wars down there with me so clueless about dog behavior that I didn't get a grip until after Gladys went home (we were dog sitting) and I walked into that room and the smell made me drop to my knees. Damn dogs.

So, anyway, urine is what it is and it had to be cleaned and the nice guy that is here to do the job gave me a "deal" on the kitchen tile, damn kitchen tile, never buy a house with textured ceramic tile on the kitchen floor, it just isn't worth it. Although the price was the same as the last time he was here when there wasn't a deal, I said, yeah sure, I'm to the point of hating that floor so much that I would rather pay someone $100 to clean it because he's here and willing than mop it by myself this week. So he had just brought the hose up the stairs and is starting on the tile and I hear a loud pop. I don't even look up. I figure he hit something and if it he had damaged it, he would stop and then I would look at it and shrug, because what can you do, but he didn't stop. A split second later, he calls from the kitchen, "what was that?" I get up and shrug, look down and hop. A liter of Diet Pepsi (the one and true diet cola) exploded in the wierd pantry room off the kitchen and it is spreading fast. He grabbed his big water sucker upper wand and took care of it in a jiffy. I went behind with a wet rag and got it off the walls and it is as if a full liter bottle of Diet Pepsi never exploded in the pantry.

Can you imagine the horror of walking in on that later this afternoon if I hadn't been home with a professional carpet cleaning technician right at hand when it happened. The horror, the horror.

So, I ask, how lucky am I? Very. Did you know that one time I flew to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, was met by friends, picked up my bag at the luggage carousel, got into the friends' car at the curb and drove away full of excitement for the upcoming festivities and carousing. About 30 minutes away from the airport, I asked who had put my bag in the car? no one? really? let's check. Pull over, my bag is not in the trunk. Head back to New Orleans airport, and it's full on Mardi Gras, hordes of people, and there's my bag on the curb. So, again, how lucky am I? Very.

And then there were these times I went to China and met four beautiful children who didn't have parents and I was able to bring them home and love them. How lucky am I? Very isn't quite the word to describe that level of good fortune, and I'm stuck for a word that could.

Baby Haze

2009-03-17T11:58:00.000-07:00

At least once a month, I run with a much younger crowd. I'm like the token old lady: I'm not quite the oldest, but I have the most kids, so that makes me look like the oldest for sure. I'm grateful for this link to the young and vibrant who put the plans together so that the girls and I just have to show up and commence the fun having. Three of the moms in the group have had domestic placements this year: one two months ago and two this week, and oh good hell, this is exciting (and one other Mom just passed the 3 year mark on her wait for the CCAA to gets its act together and make the placement already). So it makes my heart high to know that single parent adoption is still a viable option in this world: the birth moms chose these single mom placements. The kids are gorgeous; two baby girls (one will make her debut tomorrow but I'm all the way confident that she will be muy delicioso also) and one just eat him with pie little baby boy. So my family is part of the lump in the cultural snake consisting of families created through single parent adoption from China. But it has been so good to learn, first hand, that single parent families by choice are still getting created every day. Children are still finding good homes even if not "good" in the "traditional" sense, and I use quotes because I have no idea why my home is not a good home other than the obvious when I'm crashing around with my Dyson and wondering out loud, very loudly, why I'm the only one concerned about hygiene in this house, then my kids might not think they landed in such a "good" home. But I know that there are those out there that would disqualify me from the opportunity of parenting based on my marital status (like I had any control over that). I think those are the same folks who don't think my gay friends (like they have any control over that) deserve equal protection under the law, just guessing. But is still hurts my heart that not all the children still waiting in China will find homes because the Chinese government doesn't think single parent homes are good enough anymore. And that still hurts although I'm past the point of adding to my own family, the Chinese policy to exclude single parents just still hurts. If I were Queen, this bitter rule would not last for long. But my crown has been misplaced because surely, a Queen wouldn't have love handles the size of small dogs. So don't be looking to me for help with this issue even though you know I would cut loose on the CCAA's single parent ban and my love handles in a hot second. You know I would, the only difficulty would be deciding which to do first.

So to Tiffany, Yvette and L, congratulations on your new additions, I just couldn't be more excited for you and your beautiful little families. You make my heart high.

Loving her differently

2009-02-08T13:28:00.000-08:00

I’ve been running around the edges of this blog post for over a month. January 10th was the third year anniversary of becoming Nora’s mother. I go back and forth, back and forth trying to get my feelings right about what that has meant to me for the last three years. On every other adoption related blog in the known universe, it seems like the gotcha day remembrances are heart-felt tributes to the power of the universe to bring together just the right parents with just the right child. Of course, I have difficulties with the whole red-thread premise. I take exception to the belief that god with a big G ripped our children away from their birth families on purpose so we could know the joy of parenthood. That can’t be right, right? Gods don’t do that kind of thing to innocent children and grieving birth parents, right? But I can agree that the tragic fall-out of a failed political and economic system made by men, not big G gods, brought four beautiful humans to me to parent as wisely as I can. However, one of those little humans is giving me a run for my money and makes it all a lot harder to parent wisely than it was before she arrived on the scene.

Nora has made me stretch emotionally, and I have to admit, I have absolutely resented her for that. I’m not so good at expressing complex feelings, not good at all. I am not a member of the emotionally mature club. My application is still at probationary caveman status and approval does not appear imminent. But I keep this blog going if for no other reason than having it makes me keep thinking about being Nora’s parent and how that makes me feel and how I need to keep making an effort to put labels on how I feel about this beautiful girl and not just grunt and whine in exasperation.

It’s hard to be emotionally evolved when you lack the introspection gene. You know those people who can listen to a problem or observe a situation and see past the externals and really try to understand the ulterior motivation for the result? I truly admire those people but I am not one of those people. Not even close. I don’t live in the same country. I can’t even figure out why I react to things the way I do not to mention trying to figure out someone else’s reason for their behavior. Sometimes I feel like I need one of those emotion boards therapists use for non-communicative kids so I can point to the mad or sad face to even get close to labeling my own feelings.

And labeling my feelings about Nora is so much more complicated than the mad/sad faces on the kiddie feelings chart. Without the half-composed blog posts constantly running through my head, I think I would still be sitting here with my finger on the mad face. I wouldn’t be doing any constructive thinking, I’d just be knee-jerk reacting and letting her push my buttons like a .10 ocarina from the Chuckie Cheese prize counter that ends up costing you $20 in game tickets. Writing about Nora in my brain (even though I seldom get those kinds of posts written down and can think of a bazillion reasons not to make them public) makes me page through my mental thesaurus to try to find a more nuanced vocabulary words and ways to describe my feelings. My relationship with Nora does not represent the simple, straightforward and beribboned basket of slobbering love that I hold in my hands for my other three daughters. My relationship with Nora can make me brittle with frustration and despair that she will live with me forever because she will never learn to navigate by herself in the big world. But then I can go for long calm stretches where I can just begin to enjoy who she is and what she brings to the family.

I am riding the emotional roller coaster with this child. I find it difficult to hold onto my emotional sanity with my hands tightly gripping the crash bar. Whatever slobbery love basket I had for her flew out on the first big hill and once in awhile I catch it again and throw my hands up to enjoy the ride, but just as soon, I’m gripping the bar again, basket loose in the wind. Like last week, Nora’s teacher sent two exasperated emails (this from a woman with a pretty high tolerance level for exasperation) about some abominable new behavior Nora was engaging in at school and I felt so angry and embarrassed that I wanted to punish her until she was 21. Three days later, Nora’s teacher sent an email to let me know that Nora got her first 100 for the year on a test and it brought me to tears. I know how hard Nora has to work to understand the class work and to keep up in school and how doggedly determined she is about completing her homework and how it hurts her to be the cellar-dweller in her class. We made a huge, HUGE, freaking deal about the 100%. But see, the other girls bring home their occasional 100% papers (all four of my daughters are hell-bent on defeating the Asian academic stereotype, apparently), I don’t have to make a big deal, no extra effort is expected on my behalf, they know they are just meeting my basic expectations, they get a high five and life goes on. But with Nora, everything seems to take extra from me, whether dealing with her bad behavior choices or filling her big black emotional hole of need to help keep her on the right track. I have struggled and flogged myself and I did so desperately wanted to disrupt during that first year but never ever acted on that feeling because what in the world would that say to my older three? I had to get over my self-pity and myself. I had to let go of the happy family fantasy that I had created and recognize that NONE of the things that Nora does is aberrant or unusual or intentional or the product of some clinical condition. She is a pretty normal little kid who is academically challenged and emotionally immature. That’s all, nothing personal, that’s just how she came pre-loaded at birth and after 4.5 years in an institution.

She was born in the year of the Snake and I was born in the year of the Pig and we are mortal enemies according to Chinese zodiac lore. But just as I don’t buy the red-thread story line, I really don’t buy the idea that the course of our lives is prescribed by a zodiac prediction either, Chinese or otherwise. I have to constantly remind myself (and it is a good thing when the parent rooms at Shriners Children’s Hospital are full and the wise Mrs. Ellison is forced to bunk with us and reminds me in person, thanks Stefani), that being a parent is not about our children meeting our needs, it is about how we meet the needs of our children. Compared to my other three children, Nora has big needs. I have to remind myself to hitch up my big girl panties and give this child what she needs even when I’m staring at the last end of my last wit as it fades in the rear-view mirror. She does make things harder and I give myself that. Everything about parenting has been harder since Nora walked into that conference room in the Lottery Hotel in Nanning and stripped the Groovy Girl out of my hands and proceeded to rip the clothes off the doll and scatter them on the floor.

For not being very introspective, I did come with good instincts, and my instinct that morning was to grab up YuYu and run, run fast and far from the challenge that pounced into the room with tons of attitude and fake curly pigtails attached to her head. I instantly knew that she was the kind of kid I don’t usually like to be around. The kind of kid I smile at patiently and benignly when I take my kids on school field trips but can’t wait to give back to the teacher or parent responsible for the little miscreant at the end of the day. Nora is that kind of kid for me. She might be someone else’s cup of tea, but she wears me out. So that morning in January 2006, I stood up for her out of obligation but I am learning to continue to stand up for her out of love. I will continue to fill in my own emotional deficits in order to become her best parent because Nora, my perfect and innocent child, is NOT the one with the problem.

So if you thought that big lead in was going to result in a beautifully written and inspirational thesis statement about raising a challenging child, you would be wrong. After three years of living with Nora, I have reached this conclusion: Loving Ellie, YuYu and Mimi is easy, loving Nora is hard. I love them all differently and that isn’t bad.

Angel Eyes

2009-02-05T13:14:00.000-08:00

She is THRILLED. She kept nagging and nagging, "Has Costco called yet?" "Are my glasses ready yet?" We ran down to the Costco after dinner on Tuesday and she hasn't stopped beaming since she put them on her face. She can't stop looking in the mirror and she's going to starve because she would rather look at her reflection in the kitchen window than eat dinner. These are her sturdy glasses and I'll need to get a picture of her hip and kicky frames. I never knew anyone could get so worked up over wearing glasses, but YuYu can. My myopic angel.

I stand chastened

2009-01-22T21:11:00.000-08:00

The same school district staff member who insulted me so deeply with the implied criticism that I righteously griped about in the last post also sent a vision screening report home about YuYu and it said that YuYu also flunked her eye test.
So, being the heads up parent that I imagine myself to be, I hustled her skinny butt into the optical shop and sure as shooting, my babe has become near-sighted since her last school district vision screening test. She needs glasses on her sweet face which I thought would be more of a challenge to choose. YuYu's face is practically bridgeless, just a blank spot where the bridge of her nose should be, but totally yummy and gorgeous, just not much to hang her specs on. But we picked a tough frame for everyday and a fun frame for the back up pair. She just beamed when she put on the fun pair. I'm sure she thought she looked like a hip teen-ager. Thank the fates that Costco was having a $25 off the second set of glasses sale this week because the moths are flying out of my pocket book what with YuYu's rotten teeth and my own adventures in oral health. I learned a new vocabulary word this month, trismus. It's getting better, but who knew that wasn't supposed to happen after a root canal?

So, yay, you go school district vision screeners, you rock. Unless, of course, I think you are being critical of my parental care-taking skills, then not so much rocking.

Lost in Translation

2009-01-17T09:38:00.000-08:00

I know that I do go on about how charming I find YuYu, my DD#3 in acronymland, to be. I find everything about her to be, objectively speaking, adorable. I don’t get aggravated when I ask her to go see if we have any more milk in the downstairs refrigerator (necessitated by the 1950’s size fridge nook in the upstairs kitchen) and she comes back up, hands empty, and says “yes.” I don’t get too upset when I go through her assignment folder and find finished homework packets that should have been turned in weeks ago but she “forgot to remember.” I have vast patience for her new developmental phase where she has to ask me to choose between two impossible and/or unlikely events: “Mom, would you rather step in goat’s milk or vinegar? Which would you rather lose an arm or a leg? If you were a dog, which would you prefer, Booda bones or jerky treats?” etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum. All cute, all good, all adorable, classic YuYu, I'm so excited to know the adult she will become, she is really something. Objectively speaking, of course.

So one of the things I like best about YuYu is her “good ear.” Most people wouldn’t consider a good ear (and I just don’t have a better shorthand way to describe that she can carry a tune, so good ear it is) to be particularly remarkable, but I do, I really do. I come from a family with a deep genetic legacy for ears of the tin variety. We, my parents and all my brothers, lack the ability to carry a tune in a bucket, or as the French would say, we sing like casseroles. And even though the genetic link is missing, my other three DDs will sadly carry this family trait forward into future generations, but not YuYu. YuYu of the lilting voice will sing for us all, or not, because she’s so shy about it. Don’t’ misunderstand, YuYu is not shy socially, but no way no how is she going to sing in front of people by herself, not on her life, isn’t going to happen, mores’ the pity.

But I give you this background only to illustrate her current use of her talent. Her good ear gives YuYu the ability to memorize and repeat movie dialogue verbatim and with the right accents. And don’t you know, her knack for listening and regurgitating is a cool parlor trick and can be hugely entertaining on long road trips. However, her newest source of material has made me more aware that I have to start being a lot more careful about what she ingests and spews back out. She is starting to use this talent to entertain friends and non-family members and certain words of which she has no understanding of the meaning are creeping into her vocabulary and it might not reflect well on my parenting.

And by certain words, I mean “bollocks.” The first couple of times she used it, and appropriately I might add, I just hooted. Hearing my 8-year-old American kid saying bollocks, a British curse word, it was funny, I just thought it was funny. She watched “Mama Mia” a zillion times during the Christmas holiday and memorized all the words to all the ABBA tunes and flits around the house singing “money money money, it’s a rich man’s world.” She also picked up the word bollocks from the Colin Firth (yummm, Colin Firth) character who exclaims “Bollocks!” in fine BBC English when he misses the ferry to the island. I should be happy because the Pierce Brosnan character exclaims a word that is universally renounced as a bad potty word and she didn’t pick that one up, thank the fates.

But here in the Western United States, at least as far as I know, we don’t so much know from bollocks, so I have just let her use it for my own perverse pleasure because I think it is cute and not too many other people know what the word means. Can it be a curse word if no one knows the meaning? I say no. But this morning, we were hustling around, cleaning up and getting ready for Ellie’s sleepover friend to leave with her mom and YuYu dropped her box of many toy horses, the pieces scattered and YuYu exclaimed “Bollocks.” The word did not seem to resonate with the mom who was here to pick up the sleepover friend, or at least she showed no reaction which could have just been gracious good manners, which would have been different from me if I heard someone’s kid say bollocks, but it made me think.

I fired up the computer, went straight to the definitive source (she typed facetiously in reference to folks (okay, my mother) that don’t understand that Wikipedia isn’t a reliable and irrefutable source of information) and found out that the “relative severity of the various profanities, as perceived by the British public, was studied on behalf of the Broadcasting Standards Commission, Independent Television Commission, BBC and Advertising Standards Authority. The results of this jointly commissioned research were published in December 2000 in a paper called "Delete Expletives?". This placed "bollocks" in eighth position in terms of its perceived severity, between "prick" (seventh place) and "arsehole" (ninth place). By comparison, the word "balls" (which has a similar literal meaning) was down in 22nd place. Of the people surveyed, only 11% thought that "bollocks" could acceptably be broadcast at times before the notional 9pm "watershed” on television (radio does not have a watershed).”

Oh, well, now that I am educated about the relative severity of profanity (I love that phrase) and since I wouldn’t let my kids say either of the other swear words that bookend bollocks on the BBC list of bad words, it looks like I better weed bollocks out of YuYu’s vocabulary before her potty mouth spreads and she starts sounding like a British sailor, assuming that British sailors still curse as badly and richly as the stereotype would lead us to believe. Now I just have to figure out if I was bird, would I rather land on a branch or a telephone wire and if I missed either perch and crashed into a wall, would I say bollocks or balls?

(I had to add this photo of YuYube, the bruise on her chin? otherwise preoccupied, she walked into a wall, the blood blister on the inside of her lip was huge, HUGE, that's my girl)

Does not respond well to criticism

2009-01-15T11:50:00.000-08:00

Whether implied or direct, when I feel unjustly criticized, I can get my back up so fast you might mistake me for the Incredible Hulk.

Ellie brought home a Salt Lake City School District Vision Screening Referral Form, again. Every year the same drill: Could not see the line on the chart appropriate for child's age. But this time, the district staff person who conducted the screening test checked and circled "3rd Referral!!" on the Symptoms line item and I can't help but feel criticized by that, like I'm somehow to blame that my kid with the glasses thicker than pop bottles can't see the eye chart and shouldn't I be aware of that and what kind of parent lets their kid go to school without 20/20 vision and good hell woman, this is the "3rd Referral!!", so do something already, what more do we need to tell you so you will stand up and be a better parent and do right by this child already. You can see that implied criticism of my parenting in "3rd Referral!!", can't you? It seems so obvious to me.

I can only speculate that the five prior referral forms upon which I have diligently obtained the signature of her pediatric ophthalmologist (which requires cover letters and SASEs and more time tracking it down by phone and busy work I just don’t need) who practices at the world famous Moran Eye Center and who has treated her since she was four were missing from the file that the district staff member was referring to when she conducted the vision screening test on Ellie. I guess the brand new and stylish pair of pop bottle lens on my child did not give the district staff member any confidence that a concerned parent was on the job and everything that could be done was being done so this child can see the damn white board and get an education.

Here is the measured response I just dropped in the mail. The first draft was a lot fiercer, a lot, this is milk toast comparatively, but I’m nothing if not measured and thoughtful in all things:

To Whom It May Concern:

I have enclosed an unsigned copy of the vision screening referral form for my sixth grade daughter E* (Ellie) H*. I have also enclosed a copy of her most recent optical prescription dated September 12, 2008, written by Robert O. Hoffman, M.D., Moran Eye Center. Her vision is corrected to the best possible extent. Ellie is wearing a brand new pair of glasses with lens ground to the most current prescription. Nothing more can be done to improve her vision. Everything that can be done is being done for her, she is not being neglected. Ellie will continue to fail all vision screenings even though she is wearing glasses as thick as pop bottles because her vision cannot be improved any more than the current prescription allows.

I am not forwarding the vision referral form to Dr. Hoffman for signature. You can confirm that Ellie is his patient and under his continuing care and has been since she was four-years-old by calling his practice at 801-581-2352.

If you have any further concerns about the level of care Ellie is being provided for her bad eyesight, please call me at either number referenced above.

Sincerely,
M* H*
Parent

Although the signature line would have been more accurate if I had typed:

Sincerely,
M* H*
Touchy Touchy Touchy Parent, Back Off You Overbearing Officious Creeps

Defensive much? Who me?

smells like a holiday card

2009-01-02T22:07:00.000-08:00

Here's to our friends whose addresses I didn't get updated on the master list and the card I mailed just barely before Christmas bounced back, undeliverable. You know what I love though? when USPS returns a card mailed to an address with an expired forwarding order with the recipient's new address listed on the yellow sticker. Hey, USPS, just keep moving it forward I'm thinking, why bounce it back? but there must be bigger brains at work who reached the decision to make me put another stamp on a new envelope, see? there are big brains at work at USPS. But blogspot and I showed them a thing or two, hah! take that USPS, no stamps needed. And so, without further ado:

(l-r, Nora, YuYu, Ellie and Mimi)

Hanson Family Christmas Letter 2008,
or
If the Hats Fit, Wear Them, Again

Yes, the Santa hats are a rerun, you’ve seen them before, two years ago, when a similar lack of foresight found me lining the kids up in front of the fireplace and snapping picture after picture trying to get one shot with all four sets of eyelids lifted higher than half mast. Some day, some day, they’ll all be wearing matching holiday outfits while standing in a field of new fallen snow, wearing the hats, of course, but the effect would be so much jollier. Some day, or not. I mean, I’m a single parent of four active kids and I work, a lot, so while you’ll likely see the hats again, don’t hold your breath for festive. It’s just a real good thing for me that the girls are flat out gorgeous and don’t need any fancy props because it isn’t going to happen.

Ellie is 12 and finishing her elementary school career this year. Will someone tell me where the time went? Hard for me to believe that my baby will be in junior high school next year. I’m not sure how that happened because I haven’t aged, so, you know, who knows.

YuYu, my funny, sweet and flighty little third grader is 8 and over the top excited to see her foster family when we travel to China next summer. We are going to see her foster brother graduate from college, well, a military university, sort of the West Point of China, so it’s a big hairy deal and I’m willing to break the bank to get us all over there for his big day. This trip is like a vacation budget black hole, sucking travel money from this year, next year and many years to come, but to reunite YuYu with her beloved foster family? So worth it.

Mimi and Nora are in second grade this year. Mimi is 8 going on 15 and mad about Hannah Montana and begging for a cell phone. Nora is 7.5 going on 4 and crazy about Webkinz and playing dress up. Real studies in contrasts are these two girls: no cookie cutter parenting allowed. It doesn’t make it easy for me, but who needs dull, boring and predictable when you can have Nora?

Merry Christmas from the Santa Hat Gang. We hope your holidays are full of cheer and great memories this year.

Seeing Red

2008-12-26T14:23:00.001-08:00

This is the fourth year for these dressses (although the size four did have to be retired this year). If the little girls continue on their slow growth arc, who knows, dare I hope for one more holiday out of them? I bought these red dresses from Lands End, on sale, big discount, I felt like a winner, for Christmas 2005, pre-Nora, but soon to have Nora, and only Ellie has out grown the dresses and the whole concept of wearing matching outfits with her sisters, actually.

Sometimes I feel sorry for the folks who get our hand-me-downs, who needs three or four of everything, often the same size? But hey, I didn't plan to have triplets, it just kind of happened that way because that's the magic of building your family through interational adoption. I look at other families with stair step children, not lots kids all bunched at the same height and weight, and I think hmmm, that's odd, how did they pull that off?

And I thought it was the last year for all my kids to believe in Santa, but a report from our friend who treated Ellie to a viewing of the tween sensation "Twilight" this afternoon, thanks Lisa on so many levels, most of all that I didn't have to watch it, makes me think that maybe Ellie, 12, still believes, or wants to believe, but I don't dare ask her directly because then she may ask me some hard questions that I don't want to answer yet. Yes, that's me, the textbook example of open communication with your children about the hard facts of life.

But if he does exist, I'd like to give him a piece of my mind, stupid old fart, he has no self-discipline, he brought way too much crap again this year after I specifically instructed him to hold back, but nooo, does he listen to me? Stupid old fart gets all the glory and I get stuck with cleaning up all the mess. As Nora would say, not fayoh.

Good Night Nurse, She Moved to China

2008-12-26T13:48:00.000-08:00

While I'm playing hookie from work today, I thought I would share my amazement and admiration for an e-friend who up and moved her family to China this month to become a house manager for a foster group home for Chinese orphans (one of three supported by this charity). I don't know all the details, here's link to the COAT website for more more background information about the charity and its good works in Jiao Zuo, He Nan Province.

My friend's name is Donna, and after much planning and packing, she took her three youngest kids with her to set up housekeeping on the sixth floor of the building that houses one of the foster homes COAT calls Eagles Wings II. I know I tend to the hyperbolic, but good hell, I can't even begin to imagine the preparation and courage needed to turn the life you've built on it's ear and pack it up and try something so different and so generous for five months. Five months is her commitment for now, due to other big events back here in the states she must attend, but I guess she can cross that bridge when she comes to it. For selfish reasons, I want her to still be in China when we make our trip next summer just because I think that would be so stinking cool.

Here's her blog link The Lauries Go To China, and I've added it to the side bar for future reference, because I don't know about you, but I'm hanging on every word.

My Best Christmas Gift Ever

2008-12-24T08:59:00.000-08:00

And to think I almost didn't get that prescription filled yesterday afternoon because I was doing so well with ibuprofen, what a dummy. So, I haven't been acting responsibly re: my cracked tooth, #19 to be exact, left lower jaw. A chunk fell out a few months ago. I just got used to the jagged edge because I was in big time denial about the necessity to DO something about it other than put my tongue in the hole every waking minute. But, of course, I knew, in my best most grown-up brain, that I couldn't neglect it forever, but the last time I had a crown put in, I agreed to have the permanent tooth glued onto the pretty and attractive stub of the old tooth (is that the creepiest thing in the world?) without novocaine, to avoid the numb slobber mouth effect, and when the glue hit the exposed nerves in the dentin, well, I passed out. I was crying, I had the dentist crying, it was very very unpleasant.

So, with that memory hovering in the back of my nervous system, it was easy to tune out the voice of responsibility that kept nagging at me and saying: geez woman, get into the dentist before it gets bad and becomes an emergency and there you are, in throbbing pain over the Christmas holidays and no way to do anything about it except indulge in buckets of self-recrimination. So, I finally listened to the voice of my better self and the dentist was able to fit me in yesterday afternoon to take a look at the crater I've been neglecting. He didn't want to mess with it, said he'd be "cranking" on my tooth for hours and an endodontist would be in. out. zip. zip. zip in an hour. More expensive (me = self-employed = no dental insurance), but less time in the chair vs. more dollars, no contest. So I walked out of the dentist's office with a referral and two prescriptions: penicillin and Lortab. My very first thought, oh heck, I don't need pain pills, I've been getting along with this pulsing penumbra of pain for many weeks, I don't need any stinking pain pills. But for the bargain price of $5.98, what the heck Mr. Pharmacist, fill 'er up while I run next door to Big Lots and do some last minute panic shopping for stocking stuffers. Two birds, one stone, love it when that happens.

I took two of the penicillin tabs the minute I got home, where good friend Marque was watching all our kids to cover my late arrival home, we ate take and bake pizza, drank a glass of wine, and glory glory, no pain, the penicillin was kicking some cracked tooth butt, or so I thought. I was so happy. Until 12:18 am when the pain woke me up like a lightening strike and I wanted to pull my own tooth out of my head with beading pliers. It took a few minutes, but I rememberd the Lortab and convinced myself that it was worth it to stand up and drag my butt into the kitchen several throbbing steps away.

I've never needed pain pills in my adult life, no surgery, no accidents, very lucky woman, so who knew, who knew?? One small medical marvel later, and sweet bliss, the pain went away. I slept well for the first time in weeks. To hell with my freakishly high pain tolerance, I don't need it anymore, someone has invented a reason not to just grin and bear it. What a gift, what a wonderful Christmas miracle. I'm a little vulnerable right now, what with the throbbing pain on and off and sleep deprivation, so in this weakened state, it might be possible to convince me of the existence of a higher being. Of course, not in the biblical sense, more like a benign and kindly chemist or pharmaceutical researcher in a white lab coat and half-moon spectacles pushed up on his balding forehead, smiling sweetly with a prescription bottle in his out-stretched hand. Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, to mix a few metaphors, because I got my gift two days early this year and there you have it, proof positive. Of course, next week, root canal, but until then, I have a way to deal with the Fred Flintsone (remember when Barney would smack Fred's toe and it would pulse big, little, big, little?) effect going on in my head. Who knew? Life is good.

My Little Buddy, reprise

2008-12-02T11:13:00.000-08:00

Remember my Little Buddy? Well, we were intimate with each other several times yesterday. One time right on the 400 block of Main Street, right out there in the open, ooh la la, and we even had a three-way in the parking garage behind 404 South Main, racy stuff. I love my Little Buddy and I’m not too proud to show it, although I think the Honda van is jealous because it started screaming at me when I was preparing for our last episode of togetherness as I was leaving work yesterday evening. I still love the Honda van, but not like I love my Little Buddy.

So yeah, this time it was the dome light over Nora’s seat after getting home late on Saturday evening and not moving the car until Monday morning. I know, I know, you would think I would have taken the advice of the Sisterhood of the Honda Odyssey, but that button on the dash the disables the lights? I don’t like it. I don’t like entering and exiting a dark car, and since it feels like it gets dark shortly after 1:00 pm around these parts, the lights stay on, dammit, becuase, after all, I have a Little Buddy. The funny thing, I was aware of that button, but did not reach any independent opinion about its purpose, so I just ignored it for four years. That’s called not thinking outside the boxy van.

But, I am educable in other ways. I did remember to throw Little Buddy in the back of the van as I left the house because I knew I wasn’t driving far enough to recharge the battery. The thought that didn’t cross my mind? Little Buddy in the back cargo area is hard to get to when the electronic hatch won’t open because the battery is as dead as the doornails. Hope no one had their video going to catch my middle-aged contortionism as I crawled back through the van to get my hands on my Little Buddy.

And the three-way? Well, after my creditors’ meeting in 405 South Main, I FINALLY, and I do intend the caps, because good hell, the cobbler’s children have no shoes, dropped off the readoption petitions for YuYu and Nora (makes the state produce Utah delayed birth certificates) at the state courthouse that is through the block to the East of 405 South Main. And I was walking past the parking garage to get to the courthouse, I looked up to see a couple with the hood up on their car on the first level (open grill work on the garage so you can see, no solid walls) and I asked gallantly: “Hey, battery trouble?” And guess what, yes, battery trouble and my Little Buddy saved their bacon too. My Little Buddy, my hero. Talk about serendipity.

But on the final jump last night, something something, Owner’s Manual something something, after opening the door with a key, something something, alarm will sound, something something, hook up Little Buddy, horn BLARING in my face with hood lid up and head buried by battery, oh good hell, I jumped out of my skin. Honda van, you have no right to act jealously. My relationship with Little Buddy has grown and deepened because of your own weaknesses. Stop crapping out on me and maybe we can try again.

In the meantime, Little Buddy goes everywhere we go, do you hear that? Everywhere. Get used to the idea.

Utah Mom Sir, Utah Mom Am I, Ki Yi

2008-11-20T22:45:00.000-08:00

You might have heard of me, I live across the green? My gang it is the jolliest that you have ever seen? You know the one, catchy tune, loud staccato Ki Yi-ing at the end of the chorus? sure, you do. (And for those of you not familiar with the University of Utah fight song, make sure you really project on the Ki Yis!!! Because that’s how we do.) Well, I hadn’t heard of a Utah mom either until just the other day and I’m so glad I heard about it with a time delay, because I might have embarrassed myself a little bit in public if I hadn’t had a minute or two to digest my new label, Utah mom.

My YuYu, my dear one, my heart, prepared a power point autobiography at school. Many weeks ago, YuYu and I sat down at our computer and picked out pictures for her life story. We copied a couple dozen photos that her teacher scanned in for her in the computer lab (if I had known that it was for a computer presentation, I would have copied them to a disky thing, I’m pretty sure I can do that). She used the photos to prepare her Life of YuYu autobiography and I’m sure it was lovely, but I haven’t seen it yet, but I will, it’s saved, we can see it any time . . . I’m not screaming into the parking lot at 6:00 pm to pick them up from aftercare, the last nuts on the tree and they’re locking the doors behinds us.

So the kids in YuYu’s class invited the parents to attend the autobiography presentation on election day. I had back to back hearings at exactly the same time way across town from our school and there’s just the one of me. The one whose clients pay her to remember to show up at the hearings and not commit malpractice, so I just couldn’t be there for YuYu this time. And I get so resentful when that happens. I can’t volunteer in their classrooms for two reasons, really: I work like a mad woman during the hours they are at school and, a classroom full of randomly churning kids? it makes me nuts. There’s a reason I never considered education as a career, ever, I would be a tragically inept teacher. But I do what I have to do to my schedule to make sure that I drive or chaperone on at least two field trips for each of them (that’s eight field trips, so I’m in there pitching), and I make it a priority to attend any special productions their classes put together for parents. But I couldn’t make it to YuYu’s autobiography, so I asked her to tell me about it at dinner that night.

She told me how Ms. L taught them to start with the most important picture: her foster mom.

And then the next one: her foster mom and dad.

And the next one: her whole foster family:

And then, finally, she slipped in photo of her sisters and her Utah mom.

And I have to tell you, her order importance for the photos?, referring to me as the Utah mom?? it got to me a little. I was a little rattled. There we were, looking for all the world like a normal family (well, if normal families only had one parent and the parents and the kids don't match) all sitting around the dinner table, and I’m doing my level best not to act like an jealous pre-teen because I just found out that to YuYu, I'm distinct from her foster mom not by permanence, but by location. You know, really mature stuff. My precious love nugget thinks I’m just a Utah mom. Not a forever mom, not her real mom, just her Utah mom. And then I thought, oh thank gawd I wasn’t in a room full of other parents with YuYu narrating her story and labeling me as the Utah mom. They would not have understood, and I wouldn’t have been able to explain and I would have just died sitting there thinking that they thought I wasn’t a “real” parent. That I was just a space filler and YuYu's "real" parents were pining away for her, the victims in a sordid kidnapping scenario, which they kind of were, they wanted to adopt her but just couldn't afford the fees.

Do not get me wrong. It was only a twinge of hurt and jealousy. I am so grateful to and thankful for YuYu’s foster family. Sharing this beautiful girl with her wonderful foster family and being her Utah mom is Ay Oh Kay with me. But I wonder what the other parents were thinking, or did they even hear/care/note the difference.

I still have huge guilt for taking YuYu from her foster family after they watched her grow and grew to love her for four years. I am so happy for YuYu that she had such a strong start in less than ideal circumstances. She had a wonderful warm mother, a truly doting father and a very proud and protective big brother who adored her, still adore her, who wouldn’t? YuYu is adorable. I get misty, still, when I think of the pain YuYu’s adoption caused these good people. Wanting the best future for their treasure, wishing that future could have been with them. I know that YuYu thinks of them often and with great fondness, no grieving, just acceptance that she is here with a family she loves and the other family she loves is in China, loving her back. YuYu is so well-adjusted, so in love with her other parents, so content and in love with me, but always her foster parents are in her thoughts and I am the Utah mom. Not the only mom, not the forever mom, the Utah mom. And I can live with that.

We just celebrated our fourth year together. If YuYu went into foster care when she was probably nine months old, I’m quickly rounding up on the day when I will have had YuYu with me longer than her foster parents had her with them. But it is apparent that all of the changes in her family life haven’t quite settled out in YuYu’s mind. She knows that this is now her home and her life, but she has such wonderful memories of her life and family in China. Being reminded that I am a Utah mom was a good thing for me. I need to be more aware of what YuYu lost and make sure she knows that I know and that I remember and that I love her even more for what she had to give up to be my daughter.

And it was especially good to be reminded of YuYu’s connection to her foster family since I am already flipping out about taking time from my practice (and I really mean my business and livelihood, practice is a word that doesn’t adequately convey the cash flow aspects of a legal career, it’s not all parsing statutes and writing briefs) next summer to travel back to China to attend her foster brother’s college graduation. Not to mention how much this is going to cost for all of us to travel, makes me cringe to think of the $$$ it will take to just buy the plane tickets. But YuYu will see and feel her beloved foster family and they will see and feel her and even if I end up piling more $$$ on the big mountain of debt, I can’t think of any better reason to do it. YuYu talks and thinks about the upcoming trip all the time. She is ready to fly there tomorrow. I can’t even imagine how exited her parents are for her arrival, can’t even imagine. This is one very special child who has the potential to become an incredible adult and the honor of being her Utah mom, considering how deep YuYu’s love runs for each family, is plenty enough for me. I am a Utah mom sir, Ki Yi!

My Little Buddy

2008-11-15T10:19:00.000-08:00

So last summer, another adoptive family with a daughter from the Guilin SWI who shared time in the institution with my Nora although my Nora has a memory like a colander so remembers NOTHING of her first 4.5 years in China, good and bad I guess, but anyway, this great family was going to stop by on their way back out to the toolies so our kids could hang. Being the excellent hostess of renown that I am, I wanted to have the take and bake pizza at least took before they arrived, but the Honda was dead like the doornails. When Jane arrived at my door, I had to make her do the pizza run. Lord knows what she was thinking of me at that point, how conniving, how cheap, all true, but not my purpose that day.

But I was not without hope because the Honda is always dead like the doornails because pokey little children can't keep their pokey little fingers off the dome lights and the big brains at Honda didn't anticipate that eventuality and the damn car dies a slow death over night in hotel parking lots in Las Vegas, or, you know, wherever or whenever it would be most inconvenient. To that end, last Christmas, I asked for and received from my father (he will not shop or initiate gift giving, but if you relay through mom that you need something that Dad feels comfortable picking up for you at the auto parts store or Lowe's, he is okay with that, as long as it does not exceed approximately $75, more than that and he'll piss and moan until you think you've asked him for his PIN), a portable battery charger. What I also should have asked for was a short training session because Jane and I got that sucker all hooked up to the Honda and turned it on and it made a satisfying noise for several hours, but did not give the Honda back it's mojo in the slightest. So I'm thinking, Dad bought me the cheapest POS charger he could find and if I even knew where to recycle all the AA batteries we go through (where do you recycle used batteries?) that sucker would have been in the recycle bin too.

That day I borrowed a plug into the wall charger from my across the street neighbor George (an able-bodied early retired airline mechanic who would no more offer to help me as he watches me struggle with huge bags or topsoil or mountains of leaves or porch light fixtures or mountains of snow, or squat, he doesn't have to, sure, but hell, bad neighbor) and got the car recharged. For the next several months, I would cast disdain laden glances at the POS battery charger on its shelf in the garage, wondering what to do with it, not sure how to dispose of it, but sure that I needed to dispose of it and soon because it's very presence was an aggravation to me: POS charger.

So the weekend before Halloween, the little girls had their last soccer game and if they don't arrive on time, the team forfeits because the team roster drops below six if my kids don't play since they represent more than one-third of the team membership. I tell the kids to go load up in the car as I top off my mug o'joe and while I'm pouring my low-style flavored non-dairy creamer (I'm sorry, I like this stuff, shoot me), the little ones come back in through the garage and tell me that the van is acting funny. Oh shoot. It's dead. I can tell that George isn't home, wouldn't matter, the plug in the wall charger takes overnight to recharge. I call Stewart, no answer (what good is a best friend when he won't answer his cell at 7:40 am on a Saturday morning?). I spy Ron two houses up raking leaves, trot up to ask if we could get a jump, sure thing he says, I trot back down, realize that the Honda is so dead that I can't get the gear lever out of park and, therefore, can't back the car out of the garage to get access to the battery for a jump. I run back up the street to tell Ron, thanks, but no thanks, and he says: "We've got lots of cars, take one or ours." I'm am stunned by his generosity, really, we've spoken on maybe four occasions in three years. I don't go to church in the ward, so I don't know my neighbors as well as my neighbors know each other. I overcome my innate reluctance to ask for or accept help. I accept graciously, get the kids, three soccer balls, my camp chair and blanket loaded and off we go in Ron's sedan. I rack my brain for a way to thank him for his generosity and after too long really, this idea should have been immediate, it was so obvious, it hits me, fill up the tank stupid. So I put $30 of gas in Ron's car and return it to him only 20 miles worse for wear.

I call my dad and let him know that the POS Honda is dead, it COULDN'T be related to dome lights because I had been the last to close up the car when I put Hannah Montana in the back the night before, so would he please buy a new battery for me on the way into town and could he also install it for me and I won't be tormented by the disloyal battery anymore.

Dad and Mom arrive, without a new battery, but with his portable charger. He asks if I had tried to use my charger. I admit to him that the charger he gave me is a POS and that all it does is make a lot of noise and then eventually it dies without ever lifting the spirits of the target dead car battery. He hooks up his portable charger and I watch in disbelief as he turns it on and it makes no noise. I think, wow, his charger is really good, silent and all, no big noises like mine. Then he sits in the driver's seat and turns the key! What are you doing? I ask. I'm starting the car, he says. But don't you have to wait for the battery to recharge? He looks at me through the windshield with such a quizzical expression. But the car will not turn over all the way anyway. He says; let's hook it up to your charger. I say, okay, but it won't work beacause my charger is a POS. He hooks it up to the POS, he turns it on and THERE I see my critical error. I laugh, ha ha. In my previous attempts to use what I had assumed was a POS charger, I had turned something on, for sure, but I had turned on the COMPRESSOR, not the battery charger, hence the satisfying but mis-directing noise. He hooked up my new Little Buddy, no noise, and the Honda came back from the grave with one tell tale dome light left on over Mimi's seat where she had been pouring over her haul of cheap prizes and candy on the way home from the school carnival the night before. Kids, can't trust them.

So all's well that ends well: I rented the neighbor's car for $30, found out that its my Dad who actually owns the POS portable charger because mine worked when his wouldn't and my new Little Buddy is a life-saver, works like a champ and I'll never be parted from it or disparage it to friends and neighbors ever again. And the moral of my story is: get yourself a Little Buddy (make your Dad get you one for Christmas, it will make him feel useful), keep it close to your heart and turn on the right ON switch when the need for its services arises and you will feel safe and happy forever, but don't let your friends know that you have one and they will still have to pick up and buy the pizzas. The End.

two more cents

2008-11-11T23:10:00.000-08:00

So I'm up late, working, I’m tired sleepy and tired mentally, but I've been trying to jump back into the blog, but the longer I go between posts, the lazier I get. I'm picturing myself, watching the rope go around between the two twirlers on either end, both of my hands up and down, up and down, timing my jump, but every time I've tried to jump the past few weeks, I been sucked back into the real world where filing deadlines nip at my ass every time I try to sit down to blog and end up losing the rhythm and just put my head back into the job, but hell, I could really use the diversion and sustenance writing provides, especially when I feel like I'm stretched so thinly.

So I’m corralling my thoughts about the election and how it feels to finally, finally be represented by a leader who reflects my values, and the best way I can describe it?: it feels like a party in my patriot’s heart. And I AM a patriot, I AM a real American even though I AM a big D Democrat and I didn’t realize how very hopeless eight years of
GWBush and a lifetime of being a big D Democrat in the reddest of the red states had left me feeling. I am proud of my country, I am proud that Utah did not have the highest percentage of support for the Republican candidate like it usually does in presidential election years, Idaho and Wyoming beat us out of that distinction this year. I am proud that more of my fellow Westerners figured out that voting Republican is truly voting against their own self interest. But most of all, I am happy that at least 37% of the voting citizens in this state don’t think that I am in league with the devil because I voted for the Democrat because they did too and we can’t all be in league with the devil. I don’t think it works that way, too public, doesn’t the evil one work on a more discreet scale?

I am a life long Democrat and a life long resident in the reddest of the red states. Where, not only as a non-Mormon, but a non-Republican, and a single parent, I have certainly experienced what it feels like to be suspected of being in league with the devil because of the choices I make on my ballot. We pretty much have a one-party political system in local and state government, and seriously, it hasn’t been working all that great for us. You have to go back to the Great Depression when most Mormons were Roosevelt Democrats because the depression walloped our state so badly and like they’re aren’t any atheists in a fox hole, there aren’t many Republicans in a depression, but since World War II, the trend has been decisively red. Well, not so red anymore, you can see streaks of purple and my zip code; forget about it, blue, blue, blue, blue.

But one positive thing of learning to get along as a Democrat in a Republican stronghold, you learn to adapt strategies that keep you from screaming obscenities at the neighbors. I like to think that it has made me a better person, or maybe just caused me to retreat from a fight, but either way, no bloody noses over politics is a good outcome. So when my ancient neighbor Cuma (I really need to ask her the origin of her name one of these days) came down the street the day after Halloween to chat while the girls and I were out front raking leaves, she launched on how many other good causes for which the money Obama (although she said "that man") spent on his infomercial could have been used and that she was just livid about the waste. I was pretty gentle, I told her there were restrictions on campaign funds, he couldn't just spend the money on anything he wanted to, although I’m sure he agrees that hungry people should be fed, because the people who donated to him did so to help him get elected, not to feed the hungry, but she shook her head and said, "well, there's a reason those Democrats are known for their spending." Then she asked if the girls were still collecting for UNICEF and put a $5.00 bill in each of their boxes and marched them up to another ancient neighbor's house so she could donate too. I've lived my whole life trying to gently disagree with my neighbors without offending them because I know that (a) I can't change their minds and pretty much, they can’t change mine, and (b) they are good people who would give $20 to a “radical” cause (US out of the UN is a permanent metal sculpture at a house near my folks' home) because it made my kids feel special.

Living in the reddest of the red states makes me understand that, red or blue, most folks just want what they see as best for the country, and we all see “what’s best” through the prism of our own political biases. Although, each year when the Utah state legislature convenes, I do the mental equivalent of plugging my ears and singing Dixie at the top of my voice for 45 days so I don’t know what those yahoos are doing to the laws of my state to further disadvantage the weak, poor, vulnerable, voiceless and disenfranchised citizens of our state.

So can I just tell you, the relief I felt to wake up on November 5 to a country lead by a man who reflects my values? It felt wonderful, like a party I get to go to where I'll know lots of people and I won't have to feel like I'm a second class member of society because I'm a Democrat. And I do not over-exaggerate; so many people in this state think you are not a real American if you don't vote for Republicans. But there is no more sappily patriotic American than me and I have the trophies to prove it (grade school patriotic speech champion, two consecutive years, I was on fire). Now I have a leader who reminds me of the pride I felt and expressed out loud to a “multi-purpose room” full of fourth, fifth and sixth graders when I was just a girl and still full of hope. See, was I wrong?, sappy sappy sappy.

When bad things happen to good apples

2008-10-30T13:01:00.001-07:00

Oh, and while I'm still in the playing hookie from school mind set, I just have to share the pinnacle of my culinary achievements. This is what happens when impatient mom slops a little more water in the carmels to make them melt faster so we can all get on to the next fun seasonal event. Look at me, I'm Queen of the Kitchen.

I ran away from my own office today

2008-10-30T12:55:00.000-07:00

I ran away from my office today, boy did I need to. A mom and daughter came in at 10:30 (wrong day, they were supposed to be here Tuesday). Daughter is a newly minted professional person (she went back to professional school later in life) and while she was freshly divorced, in school and not making ends meet, she intercepted credit card offers in her mom's mail and opened accounts without permission, bad bad bad scene. Especially since, well, that’s criminal behavior and that kind of behavior could get daughter’s newly minted professional license yanked in a hot second should her mom choose to press it. And things between them started to get so tense, they have not reached a point where they can talk about what happened without tears and recrimination, there is so much anger and guilt spilling out all over my desk, respectively: daughter guilt, mom anger, so I faked a hearing at 11:00 (since they were here on the wrong day anyway) and fled.
I fled my own office to get away from angry sad people who love each other but are wrecked and ruined over what has happened between them. But the help I could offer, the mom didn't want to take, and I am not a counselor/listener/it's going to be all right personality, so I fled. I flew away from them, I cannot fix it for them, I think the mom thought I could wave a wand, and maybe attorney Samantha Stevens could wave that wand or crinkle her nose, me, not so much.

So on my mental health break fleeing from the scene of sadness, I picked up some kid costume things at a here just for the month gone November 1 Halloween store, some new casual black shoes because I was in Fred Meyer (I know, now Smith's, but it took me so long to get used to calling it Fred Meyer). But the Fred Meyer has shoes and it is close to my office and I will never make it to the mall, I only just kid myself that it will ever happen so, there it is, I'm into convenience not fashion don't you know and you that know me IRL as the kids say, know. I filled my tank and ran the van through the car wash because I must have driven through a couple of swarms of bugs between here and Kaysville the past few trips to visit the old folks. I'm loving the new Legacy Parkway even though I don’t drive on it, but others are and that leaves I-15 all open and maneuverable, just like I like it. So I feel SO MUCH better now and even better after I do a little blogging during work hours, ooh, look at me, I’m wasting time, ooh.
I even called my mom while I was running those errands and said, hey, although you think I'm spinning out of control a lot, it could be worse, I could be running up debt on your accounts without your knowledge or consent, so think about that, see, not such a disappointment although my freezer is packed to the gills with sacks and sacks and sack of Bertolli meals. But show me a working mom out there who doesn’t need a few, or many, meal time crutches crammed away in the freezer, huh? Am I right?

It's just that I have been so busy at work, which is a good thing. Mo' money to hack away at the Nora adoption debt mountain caused by the lack of (a) cash flow, caused by my lack of (b) foresight. For a few months before and well over a year after bringing Nora home, I was not creating a big old pile of steaming debt that is not related to Nora specifically, but caused by the Bankruptcy Reform Act for which I didn't adequately or even at all predict the whammy it was going to put on my income at just the same time I was bringing home No. 4 mouth to feed. But with the economy in a tail spin, I haven't slowed down for a few weeks and mom is coming in again to watch the kids after school so I can work late to try to catch up on things. I'm having bad interrupted sleep and really strange stress dreams that I remember because I'm waking up so much which is a sure sign that I’m under a lot of pressure, that and the bad impatient parenting, that’s a pretty sure sign too.

And maybe it's here, while I’m really feeling the strain of being the sole provider, that I'll air my pet peeve (chuckle, like I have just the one). When a member of a two parent household says to me, "I don't know how you do it, when Jack or Jill Sprat is out of town for business, and it's just me and the kids; it just makes me spaz out." Well Mrs. and/or Mr. Sprat, try that scenario without the absent Sprat's paycheck hitting the automatic deposit into your checking account on a bi-weekly basis and THEN we can talk, you know? But I don't say anything; I graciously accept the compliment, keep my lips zipped and smile. Hey, what can I say anyway? I asked for this, I sure did, so don't let me hear myself complaining now that I got what I asked for, but, seriously, sometimes I don't know how I do it.

Pretty much perfection

2008-10-19T15:41:00.000-07:00

A wise friend, who I'm sure is not aware of my blog and is too busy for it anyway, peeled off a little piece of advice at our last bookclub meeting that I gamely hosted at my house a couple of weeks ago (one-half hour after I emptied the house of too many 8-year-old Hannah Montaniacs from Mimi's b-day party) which my suave and elegant friends gamely attended and graciously looked past, over and around the dust bunnies big enough to have reserved parking spaces in the hall and the full size cut-out of the aforementioned secret pop star.

I was at my end of the table lamenting work load and loads of laundry and the general penumbra of guilt that comes part and parcel with more than full-time work, full-time house keeping and full-time single parenting (the genuinely single kind without the benefit of monthly support payments, although many may disagree with my definition of genuine because I don't have to deal with the emotional cost of a reviled ex-spouse that may or may not be forthcoming with said support payments and may or may not be poisoning my childrens' minds). My friend, who is a judge and a good parent, very credible and, as I already mentioned, wise) said to me, very directly, well, yeah, there's all that, and there will always be all that, and sometimes more of that, but just concentrate on making one memory a month and call it good.

Well, yesterday, it was good, very, very good, pretty much perfection, and I'm here to wrap it in waxed paper, tie it with string, and call it good.

Another wise mother of my acquaintance, who seems to have come instinctively loaded with the making memories strategy in her parenting quiver, generously shared her inside scoop (get it?) on the top secret pumpkin patch location (yeah, top secret, about 2 miles from where I grew up, who knew? I thought pumpkins came from the front of Albertsons and that was that, well they get to the front of Albertsons from this place). Equipped with empty bladders and warm jackets (you never know what kind of facilities, or lack thereof, one may encounter), we headed North yesterday on a morning that just screams for a cliche: picture perfect. Good heck, mid-October in our great state known world wide for what? oh yeah, snow, and it was dry, warm and so sunny, so really? other than what that damn electoral college does to my vote, what is so wrong with this place? Rhetorical, purely rhetorical, no need to answer.

Last one in the pumpkin patch is a rotten squash.

Wait, we don't need no stinkin' coats, where do you think this is? Utah?

alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5259003091785087538" />

(Don't know how I just stranded that line of magic code, can't seem to fix it either, oh well)

Come on sis (they call each other sis, is that too much? I love it) let's ditch the little losers, they're slowing down our pumpkin hunting mojo.

Come on sis, let's take the high road and we'll be in Scotland afore ye.

Who you calling loser? Look at us Ma! Top of the World, um, top of the hay bale maze!

So many pumpkins, so litte time. Come on, you knew I had to say it, they're standing in the middle of a big honking pumpkin patch, how could I not say it?

Ellie, cut your hair, we don't get paid when you wear a logo sweatshirt if the logo isn't visible. Go Utes anyways. And that is about the most I can rev up for my alma mater, I so don't get the wearing 'o the red, unless the Utes play the Ys, then, yeah, GO UTES, I can spend a few more capital letters for that.

We learned in school that some eggs have a long incubation period, wait, wrong science unit.

Sis, come look, I found the perfect one, oh, crud, shouldn't have blinked, look sis, I found the other perfect one!

Mom, if I don't get me some help with this cart, your Social Security payments won't be able to even touch my therapy bills.

YuYu, we drove all the way to Farmington for pumpkins, come on, go big or go home, or well, yeah, we'll go home too, but come on little gal, load up, we're in the middle of a big honking pumpkin patch.

Total cheesecake, but did you notice, matching themed $4 t-shirts? I was in it to win it yesterday, they'll remember the matching t-shirts for sure.

Okay, cart is full, time to bring it on home, many hands make light work.

Many hands also make cart crooked.

Okay you amateurs, let the big sis have at it, I'll show you how it's done, although this is my first time in a pumpkin patch too because until today, Mom thought pumpkins came from the front of Albertsons. I feel so cheated, hope Mom's Social Security payments will be enough to cover all the therapy.

Okay, finally, the last 20 yards to the car, Mimi finally pitches in to help. I don't call her the princess of everything for no good reason.

Sorry girls, all sales are final, too late to take any back. Just start lifting, it's only 80 pounds of pumpkins. Put your backs into it, tote those bales.

No really, my hands are full with the camera, just keep lifting, it will be done before you know it, really, trust me, I'm your mother, would I lie to you? oh yeah, well I really thought that pumpkins came from the front of Albertsons.

And despite Mimi's pained expression, a good time was had by all and a good memory was stored in the childhood memory banks, I'm pretty damn sure. One month down, infinity to go.

Irrefutable Logic

2008-10-18T15:34:00.000-07:00

Can't really argue with it, just find it kind of odd and, truthfully, a little disturbing,coming from a second grader, but that's my kid, just kind of odd and disturbing and totally gorgeous.

Look who's 8 (and totally gorgeous)

2008-10-02T21:34:00.000-07:00

The fair Mimi Catbird turned eight yesterday and she is a heart swellingly beautiful child, am I wrong? Oh good heck, look at this kid, she is a delight to see and even more delightful to know and love. Happy Burtday my lovely girl, my Hannah-mad darling, my pixie, my #2 daughter even though she is chronologically my #3 daughter but I brought her home after Ellie so I think of her as DD#2. What a tiny, happy baby was placed in my arms a little more than seven years ago and look at the beauty, look. at. the. beauty. These milestone days make me remember to be grateful, and that I am, I am. Oscar Hammerstein said it for me, I must have done something good.

Oh and the other three aren't too shabby either.

Audited, Seriously?

2008-09-25T12:47:00.000-07:00

Just what you want to see, right? An audit inquiry from the Utah State Tax Commission arrived a few weeks ago and it has been sitting on the corner of my desk while I stewed about it. The audit only has one action item: Deduction for Adoption Expenses. My first reaction was to drive over there with Nora, find the yahoo that flagged my return and ask, What the Hell? I don't have time for this, here she is, do you think she got here on her own dime?

But I've come down from that ledge a little and I'll spare you all the rest of the content of my response related to my 2005 and 2006 returns and adoption related expenses for both YuYu and Nora and when they can be claimed for state and federal tax purposes. I'll just cut and paste one paragraph where I try to weasel out of paying the bank a buttload for copies of three year old checks:

2. Although the USTC audit form requests copies of cancelled checks related to the 2005 adoption expenses, I have declined to provide those copies. The expense of obtaining all those copies from my bank is prohibitive and would not provide proof of all expenses where some expenses were incurred by electronic funds transfer or wire transfer. I have, however, enclosed a copy of adoption related expenses itemized by my personal finance software program for your review. When preparing my response to this audit inquiry, I realized that the cost of our airfare to China (families must travel to China to adopt their waiting children, children are not escorted to the adoptive family’s home country) had not been recorded and the actual 2005 adoption related expenses exceeded the amount claimed on my 2005 USTC return by well over three thousand dollars. Obviously, an international adoption does not happen for free and copies of the cancelled checks would not be especially probative under the circumstances. I have also enclosed a photo of myself, center, my third daughter YuYu on the left and my fourth daughter Nora on the right. This photo was taken by our Chinese guide seconds after we first met Nora and Nora met us. Nora is the unhappy one. Nora is real and the expenses related to bringing her home were real and within normal parameters and copies of cancelled checks are not going to be more or less useful than the enclosed transaction register.

I sure hope its the last I hear from our friends at the USTC (and I actually have friends at the USTC, just not in the audit department), but I kind of doubt it. My tax dollars at work, blerg, to quote my favorite TV character.

Run! Don't Walk, it's Honeycrisp Time!!

2008-09-24T12:24:00.000-07:00

It's Time!!! It's Time, they are here, run, don't walk to your nearest green grocer and buy as many of these special little jewels as you can haul off in a goat cart because they are only here for a short short time and you need to eat, eat, eat a lot of them so you can savor the memory all year long. I'm serious. This is not hyperbole. The Honeycrisps are back in the markets and they are are "Explosively Crisp! Honeycrisp are fast becoming the most popular apple in the world!"

And lest you think all the extra exclamation points are a little histrionic, then you have obviously never eaten a Honeycrisp because: "Honeycrisp it is more than an apple it is an eating experience!"

I'm getting all the quotations from the "official" Honeycrisp website where they say things like: "We like to say Honeycrisp vs. Red Delicious; "You got the looks, But have you got the Crunch?" Think of that when you eat other apples!"

It is such a bad, amateurish website, but obviously reflects the grower's unparalleled enthusiasm for it's product, which I share whole-heartedly and also approve of the unfettered use of the many exclamation points. And if you can't find these incomparable queens of the fruit world in your local market, you can have them shipped right to your door. And I don't know any service men and women personally, but these good Honeycrisp people are picking up the shipping for any apples going to APO addresses, can you just imagine how good one of these things would taste if your butt was stuck in Ramadi? so I clicked a little donation to contribute to the shipping costs because that got me where my patriotism hits the road. Hard enough that these men and women are sent to stand in harms' way, separated from family, the comforts of home and then, to add insult to injury, to miss the short seasonal window of Honeycrisp availability because you're serving your country? Hell no. That cannot stand. Apple for Troops. I can't end the war, but I can help send apples. Off my soap box, safe to keep reading.

These apples are so good in fact, I know of a local woman who buys them and sneaks them out of the house to keep in the break room refrigerator at her office just so she doesn't have to share them with her husband. Sounds shameful, I know, but once you taste these apples, where: "The balance between sweet and tart utterly seduces your taste buds," I don't think you will or could judge her so harshly. She is definitely making the right decision. He can find his own way to the grocery store if it is that important to him, I say. And she knows who she is and you know it's not me because although I would certainly do the same thing if I had a husband, I don't, so I just keep my apples from my kids: I tell them I'm feeding them Honeycrisps and slip them Galas instead. They don't know, they're kids. I'm doing the right thing. Taste one, you'll see.

Mooncakes!!

2008-09-13T14:40:00.000-07:00

What makes a happy girl even happier? Mooncakes from her foster mother, that's what. Notice Nora in the corner of the driveway photo? That's the "Ohwah! where's mine" face she wears on any occasion when she is not the designated recipient of the package, e.g., every birthday party she has ever attended that was not her own. EDIT[Well, all my worry about anonymity and I posted a picture with our addres on the shipping label clearly visible, damn these high resolution cameras, but no more picture of pouty Nora] END EDIT But she got over it and she and YuYu have been devouring these mooncakes, especially the cute kid-sized little numbers. I had to hide some of the cakes to share with our neighbors (Chinese citizens who work in a medical research lab at the U) to take over when I impose upon them, I mean ask them nicely, to read the letter that came with the package. And we have to save a few to eat under the Autumn Moon and think of friends and family far away who spent money they don't have to express mail mooncakes so they would get here on time and still be fresh.

Mimi and Ellie, both adopted as infants, don't have any affinity for Chinese snack foods including these mooncakes. They tasted a tiny corner of a cake, but that was all I could get down them. YuYu and Nora, both adopted at 4.5, retain their appetites for Chinese snacks and they could eat mooncakes and dried squid strips 'til the cows come home. Ever been driving along, minding your own business, when you were completely enveloped and overwhelmed by the smell of dried squid stips wafting up from the back row? I have and now we have a no squid strip in the car rule at our house so Mom doesn't drive off the road inside a cloud of squidiness.

Happy Mid Autumn Moon Festival!!!

Plenty Good Enough

2008-09-13T14:14:00.000-07:00

See, I'm completely immune to external pressure to perform to a higher treat standard than I could ever achieve without staying up and fussing over it all night before the "big game." My kids call every Saturday game, regular season play, not a playoff or tournament, the "big game." Too much Disney.

Her feet are long fellows

2008-09-09T20:23:00.000-07:00

At the end of the school year last spring, YuYu's second grade class invited their parents to an Author's Tea. The wonderful Mrs. G compiled the poems into a book and each child scrambled up to the front of the classroom (literally, scrambled, Mrs. G had 28 second grade students and I think each child had at least one adult there for the tea, plus lots of younger siblings, so it was wall to wall humanity) to read their own poem out loud.

So you know that YuYu was in foster care with a family in Nanning for a little over four years and that they adored her and would have given anything to adopt her but could not afford the domestic adoption fees and were compelled to deliver her back to the orphanage on the morning of November 15, 2004, so I could meet their daughter, our daughter, a few hours later. I still cannot think of how painful that must have been for her foster parents to have to let her go that morning. Sure, sure, they knew what they were getting into when they agreed to the foster arrangement. But YuYu was their first placement and she stayed and stayed and stayed with them year after year and they had dared to hope that she could be with them forever, and the news of her impending adoption, which they heard first from me, actually, in a letter I enclosed in a pre-travel treat package, rocked their world. They told me the news of her new family really set them back on their heels, but they were grateful to have as much advanced warning as they could get. They told me that some foster parents who live in their apartment complex don't find out until the day before they need to send their foster child back to the orphanage, harsh, very harsh. But they wanted me to know that even in their sadness, they were so pleased and excited about YuYu's chance for a different future. I admire them for being able to see the positive aspects of having their beloved daughter torn out of their arms. I don't think I could have been so generous about losing an angel to a stranger.

So you also know that we are breaking the bank and all five of us are traveling to China next summer to attend her foster brother’s graduation from the military college in Guangzhou. I don’t think the idea of the trip is ever far from YuYu’s mind. Don’t get her wrong, she is a happy, well adjusted child who loves me and her sisters and she just feels lucky to have two mothers (the concept of her first mother has not seeped through her consciousness yet) who love her best.

So think of me, a sentimental softy on even the best of days, sitting with my knees under my chin in a tiny plastic chair, listening to my angel read her poem to her classmates. Imagine the odds looks I was getting from other parents as the tears leaked down my face. Good lord, they’re thinking to themselves, pull yourself together, it’s only a second grade author’s tea. Yeah, only.

China
By
YuYu

The sun warming my body
The soggy fog goes away.
The sun comes out shining on the city
Rain drips from leafs
I feel you though you’re far away
But I can visit you another day.

alllooksame

2008-09-07T21:44:00.000-07:00

A comment to the previous post about soccer treat mom's possibly kinder ulterior motives reminded me of this website alllooksame I stumbled upon a few years ago. I thought I was more sensitive to the differences between Japanese, Korean and Chinese cultures than the average Joe. By the time I took this test, I attended school at the University of Hawaii for one lovely too short semester where I porked up on Asian food like there was no tomorrow, and there weren't too many tomorrows, one semester was all I got, but you name it, I ate it and I ate a lot of it, with two scoops rice and kimchee. All my roommates were Japanese Americans who shamed me into using chopsticks by telling me that 5 million Chinese pre-schoolers could do it so then so should I. And of course, by the time I took the alllooksame test I had traveled to China a couple of times and had read Red Scarf Girl and Wild Swans and whatnot trying to understand modern Chinese history so I could wrap my head around the genesis of the misbegotten one child policy that ultimately brought me to my children. I figured if I couldn't affirmatively recognize something as Japanese or Chinese, well then, it must be Korean by default and if it looked like bulgogi, I couldn't miss.

So I felt confident as I took the test (you go to the exam room link on the right side of the home page). I would have done okay if the test for cultural awareness had been limited to identifying pictures of food, but it wasn't and as it turned out I am just average at identifying the differences between these three major Asian cultures based on the seven other categories contained in the test. But, hey, I sure know my Asian food. So I guess it's a start.

A well meaning friend (and one who does not for sure read this blog) gave me an antique doll dressed in a unmistakably Japanese costume (and even if she did, wouldn't recognize herself because she wouldn't know that the doll wasn't wearing a Chinese costume) before Ellie came home, truly a thought that counts kind of gift. I'm still not sure what to do with that doll.

So it would not have occured to me that soccer treat mom was making a nod at my kids' birth country because they weren't born in Japan. And of course, I'm too self-centered to ascribe any other motive to soccer treat mom other than
a bald faced attempt to make me feel more inadequate than I feel almost every minute of every day as a parent. To stick the knife in and twist where I'm most vulnerable because it is all about me, always all about me. Next thing I know soccer treat mom will inviter herself over to my house so she can shut the hall door real fast and make the dust bunnies jump. She's diabolical.

Saturday Soccer Sushi

2008-09-06T21:23:00.000-07:00

This is the first year that I've signed up the little girls for soccer. I could just never figure out how to get everyone to games and practices at different times on different fields, so I didn't push it. I figured if the little girls were interested enough in playing soccer they would nag me, but the guilt got to me first. Ellie has played on a recreational team for many years. She's not exactly in it for the athletics, but I thinkshe enjoys being on a team with a lot of her friends from school and if she wasn't having fun, I figured she let me know and she could stop, but so far, she's hanging in.

The guilts finally got to me though because I also know that the little girls would like to be on a team too, but they don't know enough about how things work to know that they just had to ask me to get what they want. I think they trust me to give them what they need and if I haven't given it to them, they must not need it. So I fudged YuYu's birth date a little so they could all play on one team. I have to rely on parents of girls on Ellie's team to ferry her to games I can't get to on time because I'm with the little girls (which was tough for me to ask for help, so stupid, but I am growing up a smidge). So for the next two months, someone will have soccer practice every night but Thursday and my Saturday mornings will be spent in a folding camp chair yelling until my throat hurts, but hey, it's only two months. And I never was a yeller before, but you try having half the team consist of your own kids (5 and a goalie for the little girls) and see how quiet you remain. Not.

But I have to tattle on the the treat mom this morning. And I could just kick myself for not getting a better picture. I sneaked this picture because I knew I was going to mock her and I felt badly about stealing the image. She probably thought I was some kind of royal wingnut when I sneaked this photo of her treat tray, but swear, I totally passed the camera around at Ellie's game later this morning because none of those parents have ever or would ever go to this level of effort for soccer snacks. I should have flattered excessive-effort-treat-mom and told her a lie like that I wanted pictures for my SIL or just made up someone who always has their eye out for cute kid treats, because no lie, these things are cute, but who was the cute aimed at? the kids or the parents? But I didn't think fast enough to flatter her with some load of crap so I could get a better shot, so this was all I got, but can you see what she's got going on here on the decorative pewter like tray?

Is this any better? can you see the bamboo sushi rolling mats atop a grass green sheet of what, who knows? and she even included a set of artfully placed chop sticks, no lie.

What the hell? who does she think she is setting the treat bar so high on the first game of the season? I, for one am neither impressed nor intimidated (well, yes actually a little bit of both), so boy are these kids going to be disappointed next week when I rip the top off a box of granola bars from Costco and hand them a warm juice bag and call it good.

Over-the-top-treat-mom made Rice Krispie sushi treats, damn. Maybe its the all the accessories that got to me the most, but geez, seriously? no one really expects their kids' soccer treats to get food styling points, or have I been living in a bubble?

just in the nick of time

2008-08-26T21:19:00.000-07:00

First day back to school today, half days for the rest of the week, but after the scramble that I made out of day care for the kids this summer, what a relief to have them all in one spot, for a predetermined and consistent amount of time (I signed the little kids up for a dance camp that was over at 1:50 pm every day for a week. Just plain unadorned stupidity. I guess I forgot I had this job thing happening every day past 1:50 pm that week and every week until I drop in the harness). They are safe, happy and encouraged to complete their homework in aftercare. And if you could be a fly on the wall watching me eat my own liver while I try to help Nora, memory like a colander girl, with her homework, you would know why just that one aspect of having them in extended care if worth the price of admission.

So I have a sixth grader (and I pitched a fake fit with wailing and cries of deeply felt heartache over my "baby" being a sixth grader in front of her friends, I think she felt special), a third grader and two second graders. So there is Mimi, standing first in line, in her new first day of school clothes, ready to make a good impression. And then there is Nora, in regular old clothes, didn't want to wear the new stuff, so excited about the first day but lacking the ability to communicate her feelings in words or appropriate behavior, so she just mugged for the camera like crazy and that's the best she can do, so it could be worse, I'm grateful for small improvements, really, I am.

But then there is YuYu, just calmly occupying her space in the world, what a kid. But for that matter, what great kids, every last one of my little treasures. Each one fed and dressed herself, had her book bag* completely packed and ready without needing my help, nary a cross word or hint of bickering, laughed and sang on the walk to school, what great kids. So now I'll start the weeping and wailing for real, these pictures make me a a little weepy for real, my babies, look how they're all grown up, wah, who pushed the fast forward button when I wasn't looking? My babies.

* And the little leopard print book bags were such a steal. I never find bargains, I just don't, but last winter, a mom who does find bargains, great bargains, posted the link to a clearance sale and these cute bags were like $3 and free shipping, so whoa, load me up. But I almost lost the good bargain mojo and turned them into not quite a steal. Last week the girls were with g'ma and I called to ask my mom to take the girls out shopping for new book bags. Fortunate, Ellie, my other brain, called me back to remind me that they already had new book bags stashed away in a downstairs closet, which had completely slipped my mind. So even though the bags were only $3, when you buy two bags for each girl because you are so addle brained that you forget what you already purchased and duplicate things, then that kind of bone-headedness cancels out the bargain. It's like a law of physics or something.

Well, cheese and rice, this got away from me

2008-08-17T20:46:00.000-07:00

So the big gap between posts, the big no show, in large part was caused by my dithering about privacy issues. How to keep blogging about my fine little family without having one of them come home from school in tears because their classmates teased them about something I blabbed to the world on this blog. Because, you know, this blog didn't start out for public comsumption. I was just looking for a substitute for the yahoo group I started for YuYu's 2004 adoption. So many in my circle didn't understand that they needed to sign onto yahoo. Without a yahoo account, they could read the posts, but couldn't see the photos, I wanted a better format for the 2006 trip. And worst of all, I thought I had printed out all my posts about darling YuYu after I got home only to realize that I had screwed the pooch, printed the yahoo ads and page template and whatnot, but the text of the posts didn't print. And before I looked at the pages to see what printed, I deleted the yahoo group, sort of like setting your own journal on fire, so sad and I was bitter about yahoo groups for travel log purposes.

So with this blog, I just thought it was kind of like a yahoo group, didn't know what the rest of the more technologically savvy citizens of the world knew, that the content could be googled and there I was, using the kids' real names, not even attempting, not even aware that I was doing the digital equivalent of throwing the front door open and inviting everyone to look in. And then I discovered that I liked keeping the journal and anyone who has peeked through our front door (ah, so much for extending the metaphor, that sounded creepy, I just mean anyone who has actually entered the center of chaos where I raise my children) in real life knows that there's no scrap booking going on in this house, and the blog was something, something pitifully small in comparison to the serious scapbooking going on in these parts, but at least something that will help me remember their fleeting childhoods.

So the dithering without finding answers started the big dry spell, and then I just got bucking busy being a mother of four and the sole financial support for those same four who insist on eating and growing and needing new shoes and stuff like heat and running water and college accounts and trying to fit in a more than full-time "career" and I use the term loosely, between the hours they are being kept safe at school or in aftercare. There's just no denying that my job is stressful, it just is, no getting around it, and I'm reviving the blog tonight instead of looking at the file I brought home because I scheduled clients early tomorrow morning because last week it sounded like a great idea and I'll be up for another hour just getting ready for that appointment. That's a seriously run-on sentence to say, cheese and rice, most of the time, I'm balls to the wall all day long (and of course, I didn't grow my own set of balls, I just adopted four children and out of necessity, anyone who voluntariy becomes a single parent has to man up and strap on a pair just to enter the game) and how do I keep a clever, engaging blog, and try to graciously respond to comments from the good people who have found our story on the internets? Well, I'm just not that all together and I can't even pretend that I am because I'm just not fooling anyone.

So this is my re-enty post. I haven't figured out the privacy issues, I'll have to keep thinking about a solution. I'll have to password protect at some point, or create a new address and start using code names for the kidnicks, I've written too much about how hard I have found it to attach to Nora to leave this out there in the ether for her or her classmates to find. There's got to be a good, easy solution, I just can't focus well enough to figure it all out just right now, and since Nora can barely read, we're safe for a little while longer.

The pics are of my three littles from a lovely picnic at the park with other single parent families yesterday afternoon. My big girl was acting camera shy, not sure what was up with her yesterday, so that's why no pics of Ellie. And see, I am such a slug, eating good food and gabbing up a storm with smart and fun moms, admiring their gorgeous kids, enjoying the really pleasant weather (kind of fall like, not like August at all) that the only reason I even used enough calories to dig out the camera was because the kids were climbing a tree right above my chair, I didn't even have to stand up to get these pictures, so, what the hell, why not get a few snaps?

love story

2008-02-22T11:14:00.001-08:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve been a slacker. I tell myself, “hey slacker, get that motion drafted, or that settlement letter out the door, or that demand letter finished, or or or or or, and then you can take a break and add to the blog. But you’ve got to earn it first, you big slacker.” But, hey, who’s the boss here? So I gave myself permission to work at home this morning, and after six years of self-employment, can you believe that this is the first time I’ve let myself do it? I bring home work to finish at night after the girls are in bed, a lot, but I grabbed enough to keep myself busy for hours this morning so the girls can walk home from school. They usually go to after-care, so for them, walking home in the afternoon is a big treat. So for today, they'll get to briefly see what it feels like to have a SAHM for a change. But sheesh, I can’t believe I’m so thick and haven’t allowed myself a work at home morning (I'll take the girls to the office this afternoon to finish stuff) like this before now. But, since I’m blogging and not working, hmmm, maybe not so thick. Maybe I know myself better than not.

So back to the subject that impels me to break the blogging silence: Ellie.

Yesterday was my tenth anniversary of motherhood. Ten years ago, my delicious bun, wrapped in layers of clothing, red-cheeked and stunned, was placed in my arms in a crummy hotel room in Changsha, Hunan Province, and I became a mother. The memory of that moment will be one that I hope to take out and unwrap over and over again when I’m a very old woman with a dowager’s hump and bullet-proof support hose.

I’ll remember her chapped cheeks and head lice. I’ll remember her noodle legs that couldn’t hold up all sixteen pounds of her weight even though she was fourteen months old when I first held her close. I’ll remember the sound of her sweet little mouth as she sucked and rubbed anything smooth she could get her hands on against her upper lip. I’ll remember coming to the understanding that the callous on her upper lip came from her self-soothing technique and feeling torn up about not being there for her from the beginning, the first of many episodes of inadequate mother guilt. I’ll remember bursting into tears when the facilitator stripped her down to listen to her heart and seeing the burn on her upper arm for the first time. And crying harder when he misinterpreted my tears and asked me if I wanted a different baby. And I’ll remember the gift of sharing the joy and the excitement of that moment with my own mother. I will remember how proud and happy she was for me and how much I needed her advice, guidance and confidence in me that first week of my stumbling but earnest mothering.

I’ll call this memory “The Day I Met the First Love of My Life.” I’ll take it out and hold it up and turn it all around and feel the indescribable warmth of loving a child who needed and deserved a mother’s love so badly all over again. So even though I may not have much set aside in my Roth IRA account, my memory banks will be full, the strength of this memory should be enough to keep me warm, even with the bad circulation in my ankles.

And speaking of my mother and her connection to Ellie from Jump Street, there was definitely a little extra magic in the dingy room with loogies ground into the carpet on that memorable day. I’m not a big believer in the red thread adoption lore school of thought. I’m grateful for the gift of Ellie, but don’t believe it was pre-ordained by a big spool of thread in the sky. I do, however, think that there is some value in the idea that even though they were born on different continents sixty years apart, Ellie was meant to be my mother’s grand-daughter. Somehow the Big Spool of Red Mercerized knew that my mom needed Ellie, and only Ellie, to sleep by her chair and jump up without complaint several times every night to help her during her recovery from bypass surgery. That she needed Ellie to stay by her side for weeks after she got home from the hospital. Mom only wanted Ellie's help because Ellie eagerly complies with any request, without hesitation or a hint of resistance, and can even anticipate my mother's needs before she needs to ask.

Somehow too, Ellie got matched with a grandma who knows just how to make her feel important and special, who likes to play card games without end and indulges her fussy eating habits with great kindness and tolerance. Sometimes when I see them together, engrossed in their mutual admiration society meetings, I feel like just a conduit, chosen by the Big Spool, for bringing Ellie and her grandma together. And even I, in all my skepticism, silently thank the Big Spool for the privilege.

So to Ellie, queen of babies, princess of tweens, thank you for making me a different and better person on that cold and damp day in February 1998. Thank you for loving your grandmother with such fierce devotion. Thank you for leading your sisters by sterling example. Thank you for being the first love of my life. I couldn’t have asked for or ever imagined a more perfect gift.

baby steps

2008-01-30T11:29:00.001-08:00

This month is my "catch her doing something right" full court press. And not like that is rocket science and good parents do that unconsciously, they don't have to keep a running self-talk dialog turned on in their heads, but I need to work at that kind of thing because my expectations are rigid and high and I need to dole out praise a lot more liberally. I'm kind of in the "well, isn't that the least I can expect" camp so I'm joining a new tribe. But, kid, let me tell you, that praise for every little thing, no matter how minor stuff is working like magic beans for Nora.

This morning, Ellie asked Nora to put a pencil away while we were getting breakfast on the table. Nora jumped up and said, "right away." I pulled her aside gave her a big squeeze and told her how great it was to watch her be so helpful. A few seconds later, I asked Nora to fill the dog's dish, a request usually met with resistance, flopping and evil eye throwing, and she said, "Shore." She was johnny-on-the-spot for every other morning task and we all left the house in a much, much, much better frame of mind.

Ahh, basic kid psychology, where have I been?

Two years? hmm, seems longer

2008-01-27T21:31:00.000-08:00

So, after a little prompting from a friend to update this blog, I opened a Word screen and am forcing myself to type. Of course, the friend wanted something a little entertaining and that’s exactly the reason I haven’t written for a few weeks: just not feeling entertaining so much.

January 10 was the second anniversary of becoming Nora’s mother. I know you shouldn’t look to the calendar to measure your progress in life, but using those little squares to keep track of stuff is hard to resist even when a timeline really just doesn’t fit the facts. Two years ago I could never have predicted the course this attachment dance with Nora. Never, never, never in a million years could I have predicted it would play out this way, never. The progress seems glacial. I haven’t written because I’ve been discouraged and sad that I couldn’t sit down and whip out a bit of adoption lore treacle about a crooked path that led a lost heart to her true home. I mean, geez, it's been two years, shouldn't that count for something? It hasn’t worked out that way. Two years later and we’re still walking the crooked path with no pretty ponies and rainbow finish lines in sight.

And the think is, I thought I was prepared. I thought I knew what I was doing. After all, this wasn’t my first time at the dance. It took me six months to feel the heart lurch moment with Mimi and she was a tiny sweet baby, only 10 months old, when I met her in China. My love for YuYu grew slowly too, but is now so profound I kind of sort of understand all the sickly sweet love letters written by adoptive parents who gush about feeling like their child has always been with them even though the child just joined the family. And, of course, Ellie, the child who made me a mother, had me at hello. I thought I was ready to deal with the emotional roadblocks my limited imagination could conjure up prior to the last adoption trip, but I wasn’t prepared to not like her very much.

So here is Nora, a stubborn, pessimistic, demanding, pouting, self-pitying, easily angered, impulsive, queen of one-upmanship. A needy and annoying child I wasn’t at all prepared to parent. The shame of it all is that I have been so very lazy. I have been resistant to even acknowledge the hard work that it is going to take to become the parent she needs let alone to roll up my sleeves and start shoveling already. I buy the parenting books and fall asleep trying to read them. Most of those books are so poorly written, so grindingly boring, I can’t stay awake long enough to sieve through for the nuggets of advice. I think I finally have come to terms with the idea that Nora is not going to change to adapt to my default parenting style and that I am the one who will need to change to adapt to her needs. But hell, it’s taken me two years to force myself to face that conclusion? And I don’t think it’s taken me so long because I’m dense, but I am lazy. And yeah yeah yeah, I won’t beat myself up too hard. It might not all be on account of my sluggishness. I might be related to the size of the load I’m already carrying and the fear that one more stick in the bundle could break me, but I’ve got to gird my loins and shoulder the additional load, to mix a metaphor or two.

And also in my defense, although the progress I have made is small, it is progress. I don’t sob in the shower anymore. I don’t indulge my huge feelings of regret. I used to fantasize about turning back the calendar and making different decisions. I fantasized about taking a different road where Nora was someone else’s daughter, a family that might not see her as a problem, a family that could see only her excellent qualities, of which there are many. I fantasized about how easy my life could be if I had reined myself in and stopped at three, like a sane person. I used to read the older adopt yahoo boards and I tried put a good effort into “fake until you make it” parenting-like behavior. My mistake was in deluding myself into believing that faking it was enough and that some day I would pass the magical mark and it wouldn’t be fake anymore, that I would magically love her like she needs to be loved and I wouldn't have to do the hard work necessary to reach that mark.

I am letting go of those delusions. I know I'm going to have to work hard to learn how to love her and parent her the best way I can. I need to stop looking at this child as one task too many and start looking at her as the catalyst for my own improvement as a person and as a parent. It has been so easy to parent the first three and I’ve been so reluctant to fully admit the challenge Nora has set before me, but it has only taken two years for me just to arrive at the point where I can put a positive spin on the ordeal. It doesn’t mean that she still can’t push my buttons like a pro from Dover, but I am going to learn how to sing back with more than one note. I’ve got to expand my emotional range, and I have, a little. I’m going to learn to be happy about the growth and also for the pretty, pouty little reason for it. I will learn to drop the resentment and be proud of our progress along the crooked path.

So check this space in another twelve calendar squares. Who knows what kind of treacle might be flowing after a year of my new and improved attitude.

For Ellen, Merry Christmas

2007-12-26T10:46:00.000-08:00

*****There was an apparent lapse in quality control during our ye olde x-mas letter stuff, label and seal-athon. And if Emily Post is dead, which shows how clued into the whole world of etiquette and nice manners I am, she may very well be alive, but if she's dead, she's tuning in her grave whenever I prepare our Christmas cards. I use address labels, both return and addressee. If I didn't, well, those who know me know that there would be no holiday greeting from our household if I had to hand address even a single envelope. So here is our holiday letter and accompanying photo for Ellen and whoever else we missed when many hands were making light work.***

Hanson Family Christmas Letter 2007

For starters, I knew I should have had my hair colored before we left for Disneyland, but my skin looks good, don’t you think?

The girls are all amazing. They continue to thrive and grow lovelier every day. Each child is establishing her own unique personality and relationship with the world.

Ellie, my fifth grader, is still on track to become a leading organizational theorist. She is never happier than when making a list or successfully executing a plan. She starts to hover two inches off the ground whenever she walks into Staples or OfficeMax. So many day planners, what to choose, what to choose. I’m not saying that chaos would descend without her help, but the weeks she was away at Girl Scout camp or being her Grandma’s post by-pass surgery home health aide this summer were a little more challenging for me than not.

YuYu still dances to a different drummer, still my delicate blithe spirit. Her internal life is much richer than most and often much more interesting to her than second grade curriculum, which can sometimes be a problem. She woke me up early one morning to tell me she wished that there were no more wars, that people had enough clean water and that our leaders would make better choices. I asked her what we could do to help make changes. She thought for a second, “be kind and recycle?” That’s a good start, my sweet girl.

Mimi is tiny and perfect and defies definition. She is a goofball and loves being the center of attention. We watched an episode of America’s Top Model filmed in China. The models wore beautiful historic costumes. Mimi shot out of her seat, “I want to be a model,” and started posing and voguing. A few minutes later, when the judges were criticizing the flawless models, she said to no one, “That’s harsh, prob’bly not for me.” She may be goofy, but she has a practical side too.

Nora and Mimi are both in first grade this year. I agonized over the decision to promote Nora or keep her in kindergarten for another year. She is bright, but learns differently, and the years she spent in the orphanage have made a mark. I’m glad I didn’t hold her back, because no one will ever or should ever hold Nora back. She fights to read, she fights to speak clearly, she fights to control her impulses and she is winning the war. She gets a green slip for every day of good behavior at school. We keep them in a clip on the refrigerator. I’m so proud of this little warrior, my Nora: the clip is now too heavy to stay up and we need another clip.

From all the happy Hanson girls and one old crone, we wish you the very best and brightest of holiday seasons.

Apple Ipod White Screen of Death

2007-12-15T21:00:00.000-08:00

I stared it down and I kicked it's ass. Yay me. Oh my god. This evening I heard Ellie start crying downstairs and I thought she had really really hurt herself. She is generally the most serene child, sanguine, is the best word to describe her personality. So if she's upset, something is horribly wrong. I met her on the staircase. She was wailing, large snotty sobs, and holding her non-responsive video Ipod in her hands. It appeared dead. She was bereft, she was holding the lifeless carcass of her best friend and was looking at me like I should know how to give it the breath of life.

She worked so hard to earn most of the money to buy this techno marvel. She stayed with Grandma after her by-pass and vascular surgeries for weeks on end last summer. Ellie did everything for Grandma that her self-centered and emotionally immature spouse (yes, my own father and more's the pity) should have been doing for his wife of more than fifty years. Instead, dad sat and leered at her from across the room, angry that she was sick and no one was going to fix him a sandwich because his damn hands have been painted on for the past fifty years. I do not exaggerate and I do not tell a lie. I could go on about his deficiencies, but he is so extreme, everyone thinks I'm making it up, but I'm not, he's a jackass.

So, Grandma made Grandpa feel guilty enough that 10-year-old Ellie was covering all the duties society usually ascribes to the able-bodied spouse, pillow plumping, foot rubbing, keeping her company, helping her out of the goddamned recliner so she could hobble to the bathroom. I'm not kidding, he grunts like he's been asked to cut off a toe if she needs help getting up out of a chair, and that we're all saps to help her because she's manipulating us and how else is she going to get her strength back if we continue to baby her. Oh my, seems like I'm stewing in my own caustic pool of resentment and I digress, back to my victory over microprocessors.

My dad pitched in the extra $150 (no shit, the man is made of money and he actually took Ellie's $100 she had saved from helping YuYu with her homework all last year, bastard, really what's a hundred to him?, oh there I go again, father issues? not many) and they went to Walmart and bought a white video Ipod. She has lovingly loaded it with Zack and Cody and Hannah Montana and she prizes it above all else and all others, even me. I do not want to know how she would answer if she was given one of those ethical dilemna questions: your mother and your Ipod are teetering on a cliff, you can only save one, who would you save? I pretty much know I'd be people paste.

So I calmed her down, explained about one-year warranties, made her blow her nose, calmed her down again, more nose blowing, very dramatic, "but Jordan got a scratch on his and it just quit working, sob sob sob." She was really beside herself, but I got her to understand that we could send it off to get fixed, it might take awhile, "how long?" she almost started crying again, but she would have it back no problem.

But I couldn't go to bed without trying to fix it, how hard could it be, the screen was glowing, it was just frozen. Couldn't be that uncommon and it turns out it's not and the condition has it's own nickname: white screen of death. Good old Google:
"ipod video common problems blank screen." Ta Duh, and the step by step by step fix on a non-Apple support page dedicated to helping hapless middle aged parents in the middle of the night walked me to promised land. I am a hero. I gave it CPR and it lives again.

For a brief moment this evening, she would have picked me to save on the edge of the cliff because she thought her Ipod was irretrievably broken. Tomorrow morning when she sees that I saved her world from falling apart around her ankles and her Ipod is fully functional once again, I go back to being people paste at the bottom of the ravine. Oh a mother's sacrifices. Epic.

Okay, off to be the toothy fairy. YuYu lost two teeth yesterday and today, finally. She is not at all like I was at that age, yanking them out with a good hunk of gum still attached, but just needing to have them gone. And, of course, I didn't start losing teeth until the fourth grade, so I was a little more motivated than most.

I'm high tech and low tech mom tonight.

See what happens?

2007-12-08T18:22:00.000-08:00

When your best friend is a big ol' gay ranch hand? You end up with a six foot tall phallus in your front yard. Can't be helped. Wonder what kind of google hits "big ol' gay ranch hand" and "six foot tall phallus" are going to generate.

I was just going to end it there without explanation, but I don't have that kind of restraint. Here's the rest of the story. My good friend Stew*, the girls' best un-uncle, came by this morning to help with the shoveling, and I don't even have to ask, because I never would, because that's my MO. But my neighbor's boyfriend (I guess, why else was he using her snowblower, don't ask, don't tell, I guess) whipped up the sidewalk and took care of it for us. Hey, I'll take home maintenance help in any way shape or form when its volunteered. Even if its an unfamilar man pushing the snow off my driveway on a cold Saturday morning. No way I'm going to run out and stop that kind of thing.

So, with no actual work left to do, Stew and the girls set about building a snow man. This storm brought much wetter snow than last week, but still not wet enough to roll snowman parts according to the classic snowperson building specs, but you could pile it. So it grew and it grew and it grew and really really looked like am emerging man bit, but by the time I ran back in the house to get the camera, Stew had made it look less pornographic, but you can see why I was teasing him unmercilessly the whole time it was, um, growing.

And you've got to love Stew's hip and happening snow gear. He grew up in rural Utah, yeah, it's not all flash and sizzle like SLC all over the state, helping his family run cattle. So the rancher coveralls aren't just a fab fashion statement, they've seen real agriculture action. Stew isn't a sissy drugstore cowboy. He's just a sissy cowboy. He'll drive all the way to Denver just to hit the gay country bars with big dance floors so he can two step with other like-minded boot scooters. Just wish he could find a man here in town who deserves a catch like Stew so he wouldn't have to build them out of snow.

*Stew traveled with me on both Mimi's and YuYu's adoption trips, insisting on paying his own travel expenses, that's a true blue friend. Not like the guy next to him who'll disappear without a trace or so much as a howdya do ma'am by next week. So that's the scoop on the men in my life, either gay or frozen.

White Knuckler

2007-12-07T22:36:00.001-08:00

I'm still a little zingy from it, so if I type this out, then maybe I can start to think about going to sleep. The ad agency that handles the Big O Tire store franchisees in Utah (my brother Garth and now, my evil brother Max (he bought the Kaysville store from Dad and Garth this year) are franchisees) buys out a theater at Christmas for a family movie and gives each franchise holder a bunch of tickets for free admission and all the popcorn you can eat (Ellie just about pees down her leg, that girl just loves, loves, loves the popcorn). Last year we saw Charlotte's Web way way way out in the south end of the valley. I felt like I drove to Provo to get there. When we came out it was snowing and really cold, the roads were pretty damn treacherous and it was a slow slidey slog home but worse for my brother and his family heading a lot farther back north to get home. But we all lived.

So wouldn’t you know, well, you would know because the weather forecasters have been warning us for days about this storm, when we walked out tonight, it was really putting it down with about five inches on the ground already. At least this year, the theater was only halfway to BFE, not the full fare, so I didn't sweat it, we'd be home in a jiffy. I drove slowly and safely heading north on State Street until I could hop on the freeway heading back up the hill and then home: twenty minutes max, even at 25 mph. I’m not a timid driver, I have reasonable confidence of my driving skills in snow storms. I wasn’t even thinking twice about pulling into one of those the seedy motels you pass on State Street way out there past that one mall (don’t you love my precise descriptions? Should have been a damn map maker) to wait out the storm. I just kept plowing forward, wishing I was behind the phalanx of plows that was clearing the westbound lanes of the freeway, but still not sweating it.

But I was concentrating on the car ahead of me just a little too hard and followed it off the exit to Park City heading east on I-80. Doh! We don't live in Park City. Okay, now I'm feeling a wee bit sweaty. I-80 it notoriously bad in snow, crap. And no phalanx of snow plows, or even a pickup truck with plow attachment, had been over this stretch yet. It was ugly and I was gripping the wheel and sitting so far forward in my seat, you could have mistaken me for 14 year old on an out of character joyride in her father’s car (not that I would know what that feesl like). And I couldn’t get off, I just had to keep going. I started to think that the seedy State Street motels were looking a lot better than hanging upside down from the shoulder harnesses in an I-80 borrow pit. I pulled in behind a semi, turned on my flashers and just drove. I do not exaggerate: the semi's tail lights and the rumble stips were the only things keeping me on the road. Yikes.

I didn’t dare take either of the ranch exits I passed to turn around because who knows how deep it would have been on those over passes. But thank the gods that I didn’t end up driving all the way to PC just to turn around. I got brave and pulled off at the East Canyon exit because it was lighted, yay, and isn’t that where the salt dump is for the plows? So I got us turned back in the right direction, with the view out the windshield looking a lot like hyperdrive in the Millennium Falcon. I nearly snapped Ellie’s head off when she wanted to know how much longer it would take to get home right as some horse's ass flew by us in the left lane and threw up so much slush I couldn’t see squat or bupkiss. Nothing like a little adrenalin surge to top off the prickly sweats. So 90 minutes after leaving the theater located not too far south, we pulled into our own driveway. And we all lived.

And the movie we risked life and limb to see for free? The Golden Compass. Two thumbs way up. I never take the kids to PG-13 movies, but a mom at school took her 5th and 1st graders and said it was not scary, no worse than Harry Potter and my little girls love to watch the Harry Potters and, what with the buckets of free popcorn to boot, I thought, oh, why not, they can’t watch Disney dreck all the time (although they really could, my girls loves them some Disney dreck).

So when a couple of Coke’s polar bears were fighting it out to the death (albeit bloodlessly, go figure), a scene that was really too intense for 6 and 7 year old eyes, was playing out only six rows removed from five sets of 6 and 7 year old eyes (my niece and nephew too), I just kept saying in a loud stage whisper, “Whew, isn’t this exciting? Not scary, right? What a good adventure story, I wonder what will happen next, whew. That Lyra is a brave smart girl, whew.” My kids were all very excited about the movie and whined “Oh” when it ended without resolution. They left the theater wanting more. Talk about a successful franchise. Count me in the crowd that can’t wait to see the next one.

And for all the leaders of conservative Christian groups who are worried that the movie will create interest in books that are written by an atheist and, therefore, cause more copies of morally corrupt books to be sold? You were right! Amazon has my order which Santa will put in my Christmas stocking and I can’t wait to start reading the series to the girls. Wow, what a good adventure story, right? Ideas aren’t scary, right? Ideas are exciting, whew.

Teacher gifts with a side of smug

2007-12-05T18:25:00.000-08:00

At the risk of sounding sanctimonious and smug, oh who am I kidding, what risk, this does sound sanctimonious, but it's my blog and I'll be smug if I want to and I usually want to. So, she typed smugly, if anyone out there in internet world is casting about for an idea for a well-received teacher gift that won't get stashed in a bottom drawer in the back of the room within seconds after the wrapping comes off, visit this link to Angel Covers and check out the donation cards. Angel Covers is another of those incredible parent initiated charitable foundations that brings comfort to orphans just about everywhere there might be orphans who need comfort. These folks took an inclination to make a difference in the lives of homeless children and have grown the program to Africa, China, Russia, the list goes on: I am truly ruly in awe of the kind of energy and commitment it takes to make these big kind of ripples in the world.
I feel good about giving these cards because I know the Angel Cover folks make the best use of every dollar. I get cards for the kids' classroom teachers and their after care instructors and for my Aunt Fay in Texas who always sends the kids a ship load of dollar store treasures every chance she gets and our friend Lynette who traveled to China with us on Mimi's adoption trip and has such a soft heart for kids and gets teary eyed when she opens her card at our annual Panda Express holiday luncheon where said Mimi knocked a full cup, extra large, of Diet Pepsi in her lap last year. Glad she opened the card after the drenching.
That concludes the self-righteous portion of tonight's programming. Thank you for tuning in.

first snow

2007-12-01T19:53:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I made this, but so what, I guess. You know how it goes, you follow a few links, monkey around, it takes too much time, but you don't want give up because, you think, man, how hard can this be? and it takes too long, but you persevere and this is all you have to show for it, a picture mosaic. What the hell are you going to do with a picture mosaic? put it on the blog, that's one, but what else is there? can't think of two.

But what a great day. It's been forever since we had real snow and a day warm enough to be out to play in it. The bitch about Utah snow is that it's too dry for good snow people construction. Greatest Snow on Earth, who says. Well, I guess the ski industry says, and over a million license plates say, but four little girls who couldn't get the snow to stick together to make a presentable snow man say, meh.

But so you don't have to squint, here are some full size photos of our snow day and my driveway, because that's what's really important, a clean, snow free driveway surface. Just wanted you all to appreciate the craftsmanship.

Feeb Feeb Feeb Feeb

2007-11-30T16:14:00.000-08:00

Total and utter feeb, card-carrying, any dumber and I'd need to be watered, feeb. So we missed Jaynie. As we pulled into the airport parking terrace with plenty of time to spare, I even commented how nice it was to be at the airport without being pushed for time or up the entire night before. Jane's instructions were for Northwest flight #### arriving terminal 2. We got inside and the arrival board showed only Delta flights which I confirmed with the friendly gent behind the information desk, no other flights besides Delta. So we hauled over to terminal 2 and watched the arrival board, Northwest flight #### until it just disappeared off the board. It never said landed, or arriving or squat and then it was gone. What it DID say, and this is where the density issue arises, baggage claim SIX which is NOT in terminal 1, but, where it should be when there is a CO-SHARE flight with Delta, over in terminal 2 where Jane said the damn flight was going to land. Although I'd like to blame the info desk guy for not say, oh, but sometime Delta CO-SHARE flights land at terminal 2, this was all on me. Especially when you add to the whole picture that I was standing in terminal 2 for over an hour because I had convinced myself that since there was no other family waiting for them, that Jane was obviously going to step off a 24 hour travel day and drive them all back out to Vernal powered by true grit and pioneer spirit. And my tiny mind was okay with that, that Jane's husband and other children where fine to just wait for them to drive out from Salt Lake and they'll all just see them later tonight providing that Jane could keep a car between the lines after a marathon adoption trip and return flight. Feeble, feeble, feeble minded. I just got my ass whipped by an airport arrival board. I am so ashamed. By the time I got smart and headed back to terminal 2, it was way too late and we missed them. Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap. Plus I had to be a good model to show my own kids how to handle disappointment and aggravation when all I really wanted to do was windmill my arms and jump up and down on the bag of treats from the Asian market that we stopped to buy on the way to the airport. I thought we were going to share a special moment with one of Nora's friends from the old days and be useful, or something, and I blew it and that blows. Now we'll have to drive out to Dinosaurland to meet the lovely Miss Jaynie and who knows when the dinosaurs will be migrating. Crap.

Sharing the Joy

2007-11-21T11:19:00.001-08:00

A local family (mom and older brother are making the trip) are in Guangxi RIGHT NOW, even as I type, adopting this stunning beauty. Her name is now Jayne (Jaynie) and she is a contemporary of Nora's, there is only a few months difference in their ages. Unfortunately, Jaynie sat on the back burners longer than Nora had to wait for whatever the hell reasoning goes behind whose files the SWI prepares and sends to the CCAA in what order and when.

And from all reports, Jaynie is having a smooth transition, no trauma, no terror, so far and I wish them all continuing ease as they learn to love each other.

And typing this reminds me to mention that I am a fraud. I get nods from folks thanking me for my honesty about the sometime rocky road to attachment in adoption, but I'm not that honest. I don't want anyone to worry about Nora or think that I'm a monster mom and that Nora should be removed from my home so that she can get the kind of parent she deserves, that all children deserve. I do keep my own counsel a little bit, which you wouldn't really suspect considering I spill on an open blog all the time.

But I read the piece I submitted to Love's Journey 2 from the day in Nanning when I stepped between Nora and an elephant with a head cold and tried to write about how I knew my feeling for Nora would grow and I would learn to love her as much as I drool and fawn over my other three. That I was confident that I would reach the same peak of adoration and all would be right with the world. Well, I haven't. I love that little girl and I would take a bullet/bus/runaway cement truck for her, but maybe not on a day when her behaviors had stomped all over my last nerve and I just look at her and think, when? when little girl? what next? how do we get past this? when do the flood gates open because waiting for erosion/gravity/tiny spoonfuls is hard, not impossible, but hard.

I actually gave in and let my mother take Nora last weekend under the guise of giving Nora a Grandma weekend (all the other girls have had opportunities to stay at g'ma's house without the other three) when the truth was, I needed a non-Nora weekend for myself. Almost two years into our relationship and I needed respite care and not because she did anything that outrageous, but just the accumulation of small annoyances that builds up and I just needed. Away. And I won't lie, it was pretty nice with just the first three because they are so easy to be around, so easy to parent, falling off a log, hands tied behind my back easy to parent, you get the picture. Although, objectively, there is nothing in particular that I can point to that Nora does that is not absolutely consistent with ordinary, run-of-the-mill six-year-old (slightly immature) behavior. She tries hard to meet my expectations, but what six-year-old can mind their p's and q's 24/7? When Mimi and YuYu are tired or crabby and not completely compliant, I don't get freaked out by that in any way, I roll with it, that's what I do. Maybe because I can't predict when Nora is going to lose it, not related to sleep or blood sugar, and I'm on guard all the time for the WHAM: well here's an inappropriate behavior exhibiting a lack of impulse control, the tension builds and I over react.

I really need to loosen up. And I have. I bribe Nora with good things so that she will behave at school and I have recently been dangling a trip to the movie house to see Disney's new princess movie that's out in a few days, love the hype. Nora messed up at school on Monday (after 5 consecutive good days) and I backed down because I realized the punishment (leaving her home with a sitter) would be way too harsh. She helped me fold and put away clothes to earn back her good to go status. I'm not completely uneducable, but close.

So, as we move into a 5-day holiday where I am expected to be a full-time parent and cannot escape to my office like I usually do, wish us luck. Just as I wish Jaynie and her new family all the best as they celebrate their first turkey feast (minus the turkey, substitue the dumplings) together in Guilin.

To Disney, and beyond

2007-11-12T12:44:00.001-08:00

I took my computer with me on the Disney trip, but I was way too bushed by the time we got back to the room every evening to even think about opening it up. During the time it took for the computer to boot up, I would have fallen asleep anyway. So I have no contemporaneous descriptions of our experiences, but it’s not like I need to reliably recreate a crime scene from memory, so no loss, but if I hadn’t needed Mapquest that weekend, hauling the laptop around the Western US would have been a completely useless activity.

So, quick trip recap:

We left Thursday morning and drove through to Las Vegas and checked into the seminar hotel and walked into a room bigger than our back yard. The girls thought they were finally in surroundings worthy of their heretofore unrecognized status as descendants of Kings.
Wow, who does excess like Las Vegas? On Friday, my best friend’s brother, SIL and teen-aged niece threw themselves into non-stop girl entertainment while I attended the seminar. On Friday evening , after getting the full run down about the day’s activities, bowling, hot-tubbing, decorating Halloween cookies, board games, dress ups, Disney Channel (big treat, we don’t have cable) and hours of Capture the Princess, I started to get a little worried that Disney would be a huge let down for them. The girls loved their day in LV and I can’t ever thank Phil, Mary and Megan enough. Ever. Not to mention the bags of incredibly cute and hardly ever worn hand-me-downs from Megan. I can’t even begin to calculate how much I will save in not having to buy blue jeans alone. So glad I drive a van. We're talking BIG bags of loot.

Speaking of driving a van, on Saturday morning we left LV and headed out for So. Cal. We hooked up with the Ellison family just outside of LV and I followed them the rest of the way until I peeled off in Anaheim (they were staying the night a litter further south). I tell you kid, that’s the only way to drive, I just sort of drafted off Stephen the whole way down. He picked the lanes, when to pass, the freeway links and I just followed in my ovine mini van. So relaxing, the only way to fly.

It seemed like I blinked and we arrived in Orange County on Saturday afternoon, so we had time to check into our hotel room and then zoom over to Newport Beach so the girls could put their toes in the sand and say they’ve seen the Pacific Ocean. This was YuYu and Nora’s first glimpse of an ocean, that I know of anyway.

YuYu could have stayed all evening and gone back every day. The next big vacation will have to be beach oriented for my YuYu Bee. She just loved it.

The kids had a GREAT time in Disney. I had fun having fun with them and sharing their Disney Character, live, in the flesh, euphoria.

Nora was pretty good, for Nora. When she went through turnstiles, she kept purposefully trying to wham whichever kid was in back of her with the turnstile, like no one would notice that she was aiming and timing the twist. After the third day of that, and many calm warnings and always trying to grab her to go last, I finally lost my temper with her on the Disneyland train stop in New Orleans Square. A fine scene for everyone waiting for the train to see: overwrought Mom hissing in small, tired, hot daughter’s face until she cried. It wasn’t so much the whamming that made me so angry, it was the insincere apology she bit out to Mimi that made me fly apart. Nora, as always, was only sad that she got caught, not that she was leaving bruises on her sisters every time she managed to get in front of them in a turnstile. But after herding four kids under ten years old through Disney single handedly without ever losing any of them, if that was the worst of it, I think I should get the freaking mother of the year award.

I tell you kid (my mom has a friend that peppers her conversations with “I tell you kid,” even though they are both over seventy now), the constant vigilance of keeping track of them wore me down to the nubs. And I do mean constant, “C’mon Meems, fast feet, fast feet,” “Nora Bud, if you can’t stay by me, I’m going to tie you to me with a rope, I swear to God,” “YuYu Bee, please please please keep up,” “Girls stay together, stay together, please, keep me in your sight,” “Ellie, thank you little friend, I could NOT do this without you, you are the best.” It is just very very tiring, but all the Disney moments, “MOM!! That’s Ursula, she’s REAL!!,” made it completely worthwhile, although we won’t be doing Disney again soon, I need a spiritual rest. And the girls need to run A LOT of excess adrenalin out of their systems.

We met up with with the Ellisons in Disney on Sunday afternoon (THEE CHI family (you kind of need the local cultural reference to understand that one, e.g., Thee Church, and be conversant in Chinese WC adoption lore)) for a really nice party at the home (well the g’parents’ home, but oh, wow, so nice, what a treat) of a So. Cal CHI family in Encino on Sunday afternoon.

It was also a very real pleasure to get reacquainted with So. Cal Super Parents C and D and meet the two children they’ve brought into their family since the first time we met a few years ago here in Zion.

Okay, maybe it’s just me, but bombing down the Hollywood Freeway with exit signs for all the great streets of song and film flying past, it just gives me a tingle. I also had the privilege a meeting an efriend in the flesh: a calm and fun single mom from the Bay area and her darling, darling, precocious is the understatement of the century, child L, and if I get her permission, I’ll post some pictures and a link to their own blog. D and I mistimed Monday evening and didn’t get around to feeding our kids until 9:00 pm at the IHOP on Harbor Blvd. YuYu, my waif, almost fell asleep on her pancakes; she just does not have a very deep well to draw from when she’s low on sleep. So maybe that admission nixes my mom of the year trophy, but, hey who knew only two of four logs were running on Splash Mountain? And once you’re inside the mountain, tough luck brother, you’re stuck, ride or die.

And, of course, the Highlight with a capital High: The Princess Lunch at Ariel's Grotto. You can't put a price on princess love, unless of course you're Disney, but a chance to meet the "real" princesses, priceless (Is VISA/Mastercard/evil consumer credit lender still running that contest for a write your own ad? I might be onto something).

We trick or treated on Tuesday evening at California Adventure and that was pretty fun too. Lots of characters were out and about and the Disney people had treat stations set up around the park and my kids who were worried about missing out on Halloween if we didn’t get back home in time the next day, got pounds of candy that night. Those Disney folks covered all the bases. That’s what makes them great.

I drove straight through from Anaheim to home on Wednesday; can I say thank you thank you and a few Hosannas to the gods of ceiling installed DVD players? and still made it back home in time to trick or treat on Halloween (not bad time, I drive fast, but safe, fast but safe). But it went something like this: Pulling into the garage at 7:30 pm. “Girls, quick, get your coats on, run downstairs, find a crown in the dress up box, grab your treat bag (already full from the Halloween party at California Adventure) and let's RUN! before it gets too late.” I tell you kid, after hitting all the houses on our street and the circles, we got back to the house around 8:45 pm where it finally caught up with me. After driving them like cattle for the past many days, not enough sleep and 12 hours of continuous driving, I was actually shaking from fatigue. The girls, on the other hand, slept a lot of the way back, were wired on candy and PST (to them it felt like 7:45 pm), and that was a bad combination. I made them brush their teeth and go to bed even though they were not ready or even tired, and I fell into bed, splitting head, and tried to sleep. Kind of an anti-climatic end to a really fun vacation, but such are the physical limitations of single parenting.

We're here, we're here

2007-11-08T09:39:00.000-08:00

Just a quick drive by to end any needless worrying by our internettie friends over our health and/or well being. We are hale and well, but technology is conspiring agains my middle-aged ass, I crowed too loudly about being hip and with it. The universe is letting me know that I am neither and that I must take a smack down.

Somehow, someway, the DSL connection on our home computer punked out. I know the DSL line still works because when I drag my laptop home to work into the wee hours, because that's what lawyers do, don't know a one that doesn't work long hours and if you do, let me know because I want to practice in that area, I have no problem connecting. I need to call Daniel the computer geek guy who fixes my messes over to the house to fix it, but then I think, well, as long as I have to pay for a home visit, why don't I drag the other extra tower home from the office, make space, get another station ready for him to connect to the little home network because God knows I'm incapable, but then I don't because that would take effort and I'm low on effort/energy whatever it takes to do much more than clean an occasional bathroom, occasionally.

So the days go by and I think about things to blog in my head, there are things that are reportable in our lives because, after all, we just got back from the Disney pilgrimage AND a pipe burst on the third floor of my office building (my office space is in 1898 school building, really cool, exposed brick and all, but recently sold and set to be entirely renovated for an entirely different purpose and I'm moving in 23 days anyway) and I got flooded out of my office (gross, yuck, so discouraging) and that was really fun yesterday, not to mention anytime you try to get away from your office when you're self-employed, it takes a truly Herculean effort to nail enough flapping ends down so that you don't commit malpractice or neglect during the time you are gone and that kind of contributed to the blog silence. Plus, I'm feuding with my erstwhile law partner, jackass, and that is emotionally draining me more than I like to admit, jackass.

And Nora has been spitting on other kids. She had a bad week in October, there was a flurry of yellow and red behavior write-up cards flying out of her back pack every evening, but she pulled it together and strung several "green card" days in a row, I fussed and made a big commotion over her good behavior, but this week, she's spitting, disrepecting, not listening, disrupting, again. If there was ever a kid that should have come with an instruction manual, this is the kid.

So, I'd love to share the Disney photos, pictures of true princess love, and I'll take my laptop home this weekend, if only to protect it from any other mishap in the last month I have left in this building, and do a little uploading.

Thanks for the concern, I'll get back in the swing of things some day, maybe, or not.

ahead of the curve

2007-10-05T09:55:00.000-07:00

I'm middle-aged and unhip in the bad way as opposed to unhip in the good way like moonboots on Napolean Dynomite. I unintentionally turned up a top 100 tunes/album/whatever the hell list when I was clicking around the web the other day and I kid you not, I did not even recognize ninety percent of the bands/artists/whoever the hell on the list. I exclusively wear comfortable shoes and we don't even have cable. But as I type, I just realized that regardless of my age, middle or otherwise, I have never been hip. A quick search of the memory banks and wildest thing I can come up with on the fly was the time I sneaked into the back door of a "The Knack" concert at the University of Hawaii student union when I was 19 because my surfer dude friends Howie and Lucas dared me and I didn't want to be left standing around like a loaf outside for a couple of hours. But I couldn't even enjoy dancing (there weren't any chairs, just the band on a short stage above a gym floor, obviously booked way before they had a number one hit) to My Sharona because I kept waiting for the tap on the shoulder and the bums rush out the front door when someone in a position of authority discovered our devious scheme. I'm so pathetic that way. And, really, age does have a lot to do with it too: I'm always the oldest parent at back to school or driving on field trips, always. And, yes it causes me no small amount of heartache that I am a dull reflection on my bright and energetic children. They did nothing to deserve being stuck with an old AND unhip mom but when you don't start building your family until your, late, ahem, thirties, someone has to pay the price.

So you can imagine my glee when my urban dictionary word of the day popped into my inbox:

Brick

High five, mini celebration, yay me. I turned my laptop into a brick and used the right word WEEKS ahead of discovering that I was using the freshest jargon, slang, argot, the lingua franca of the times, shall we say, to describe it. I'm hip, that's right I'm hip. Although using a term like lingua franca and admitting to being 19-years-old when I saw The Knack perform My Sharona at the height of the band's popularity probably just off-set my hip credits and now I'm back in the unhip column, brick or no brick, oops.

When Macoun met Honey Gold

2007-09-26T22:21:00.000-07:00

It was magic. I'm spoiled for life. I don't want any other apple. I just want to be left alone with a crate of these babies. Oh good hell, it's like eating cider except that it is "explosively crisp." The Honey Crisp are back in the local groceries and life is good. Buy some now. They won't be back until next fall and you should not live another day without crunching up one of these gems. I often, more like constantly without ceasing, fantasize about finding my life's work: the job that would fulfill my destiny and my best purpose in life. If I could stand by the apple display at Albertson's and hand out samples of Honey Crisp apples all day long, I think my prayers would be answered: a shill for the apple industry, heaven. I could be pushing Honey Crack, um, Crisp apples on the uninitiated. I can see it in my mind's eye: sad sad shoppers would taste these amazing apples and throw their arms around me and thank me for showing them the light and the way and for filling their small desperate little lives with hope again. I'm just saying, these apples are fine and could possibly be life changing. Buy some now.

the tooth fairy is bleeding me dry

2007-09-23T13:40:00.001-07:00

But that will be nothing compared to what the orthodontist is going to do to me. Back when I was dentally naive, I thought Ellie's teeth were going to be trouble. The two top incisors look like they're trying to escape each other and are running for the hills in opposite directions. I took her for the orthodontist consult and was told to come back when she lost the rest of her baby teeth and four years later, I still have no reason to schedule the next appointment. And even after the little pearls finally give up the ghost and drop out of her mouth, the permanent teeth take their own sweet time to make their appearance on the gum scene. And I mean drop out; there is NO way this child would ever assist a tooth by the normal methods, e.g., wiggling and worrying it until it's ripe for the pulling or just wrapping string around it and a door knob and letting your older brother help nature take its course. No, no, no, Ellie's teeth, loathe to come out in the first place, get no encouragement from the management. So, yeah, she'll need spacers and braces, but no biggie really, no major renovations.

But then the three littles came along and my orthodontic innocence evaporated. All three of them, oh good hell, it's like total tooth soup above the gum line. The x-rays make you shiver. The toothy confusion is truly truly frightening for a parent to see. And on top of the scraggle tooth thing Nora and YuYu have going on, Mimi's tiny pretty head isn't big enough to house more than 10, maybe 12 teeth tops. I just live in dread of the money that I'm going to have to pour into their mouths by way of the orthodontist's boat loan. Boat, nah, with their teeth? we're probably talking Ferrari payments more like it since they'll all three be in braces at the same time . . . and college at the same time . . . and driving at the same time. What was I thinking, I would really like to know, I'm a crazy woman, but that's not news, more about the teeth.

So Nora's bottom center incisors popped up behind her firm and secure baby teeth about two weeks ago and I was wisely counseled to be patient, to wait and see if nature would give an assist to the desiduosity (word?) process, and it did. She pulled out her first tooth yesterday and today, she just wiggled, worried and finally offered up the second tooth to be yanked by me because it was bugging her so badly. She is the only child of mine that doesn't winge and whine and clamp her lips shut so tightly that they disappear from her face when all I want to do is just want to take a look. And I even remembered, without prodding, to leave the money under her pillow last night. I hope I do as well tonight, but you never know, the fairy has proved to be fairly unreliable in the past.

The tooth that came out of Nora's head this morning was stained on the back side. I tried to use the stains as motivation for her continued efforts at good dental hygiene. "See," I said, "why you need to keep brushing your teeth bud? That's from when you were in the orphanage." "Yeah, that's why they shoulda boughted me a tootha brush." Even in an event as universal to child rearing as losing teeth, the adoptive parent is handed another poignant reminder that your child spent the first 4.5 years of her life without so much as her own toothbrush not to mention comfort and affection. Poor little sprite.

Cool Hand Luke

2007-09-22T15:08:00.000-07:00

Dell Technical Support person: Now that it is in safe mode, does it still have the same problems?
Me: Yes, no keyboard and the touchpad mouse just froze up. I've turned it into a brick.
Dell Technical Support person: You have a brick on the screen?
Me: No, there is no brick on the screen. Metaphorically speaking I have turned the laptop into a brick.
Dell Techncial Support person: What does the brick look like?

What we have here is a failure to communicate . . . and a brick. Crap.

Don't Cha

2007-09-10T21:52:00.001-07:00

Okay, probably not the most appropriate pop music reference I could find to illustrate why I think my pre-teen is the best kid in the universe, that song kind of sexualizes everything it comes into contact with, but don't cha wish your kid was just like mine? What kid does this? how did I ever deserve such a great kid?

I did not direct her or ask her to do this. I did some ominous glowering and deeply frustrated sighing and she just read between the lines. My ten year old Ellie, sensing an imminent parental unit melt down last weekend over the dvd cases strewn amongst the kid clutter and food wrappers her heedless little sisters had left all over the sixties home handy man basement TV room that nearly makes me cry every time I walk down the stairs even when the room is tidy, took it upon herself to organize and label the dvd's by genre: ogre, talking animals, real people, not real people, Barbie, princess, Lindsay Lohan, etc. It might just be me, but I think that's hot.

And yeah, there are a lot of dvds, but we don't do cable. And we don't don't have cable not because I want to protect my impressionable kids from being exposed to the wrong kind of stuff (although that is a fortunate side benefit). We don't have cable because I learned, way back in the day, that I will stay up to watch absolute crap into the wee hours of the morning just because it's there. I can't imagine what a coma lady I would turn into now if I could watch people cooking things with butter and cheese 24 hours a day. I would. never. stop. watching. mmmmmm, cheese.

Oh yeah, and I just noticed that there's dust all up in that air intake vent, but cut me some slack. I'm not much of a housekeeper, but hot damn, the dvd's look great, don't they? Focus on Ellie's dvd racks and it will be easier to look past the filth and I've already uploaded the pictures and starting over after I take the time to clean would really kill the moment.

Labor Day labors

2007-09-02T19:32:00.000-07:00

I had hoped to get energetic enough to get us on the road this weekend, but, instead, I buggered up the 50-year-old timer on the pool pump, you should see this thing, it's ancient and ugly and it only took me two years to make it useless after many lifetimes of service. And why would a buggered up timer keep us in lock down? because the (cess)pool can't sit there and stew in its own juices for three days, so here we are, manually turning the pump on and off every day. Okay, I'm back, forgot it was getting late and I just slipped out to flip the switch. Help, I'm being held hostage by my pool, hmm, that feels like deja vu all over again, better go check for scum.

So, since I'm shackled to the old homestead this long weekend, I thought I would be productive and sort through mountains of kids' clothes to see what fits, or not, maybe plant some perennials that are in danger of over-wintering in the same pots that they came in, clean my room, mop the kitchen floor, that sort of thing. But no, I have not achieved these lofty goals because I was a computer drone and followed a link to a slideshow software vendor's site and spluck, I got stuck. These good people, in a cooperative venture with Satan, produce a little product that lets you turn your sloppy My Pictures folder into a full blown video presentation, with music! So I clicked, and clicked and clicked some more and too many hours later, I gave up on my real purpose of making a video for Nora about her adoption trip, and just created something for me. I found I just needed to reinforce the concept that this deal is FOREVER so keep those sleeves rolled up, there's no turning back, pitch in, do the hard work and reap the big rewards. If this kid isn't shaving my corns when I'm 85, so help me, there will be hell to pay.

I sent all of the trip flotsam and jetsam, tapes, snaps, picture disks (pre-digital, it was barbaric) from the first three China excursions to another adoptive parent at Pergamon Productions. In exchange for my $$, Ann made three truly wonderful keepsakes for Ellie, Mimi and YuYu. Very stylish, with video and stills woven to make a real story. For example, she wove Ellie's data together to make it build from shy, stunned baby, to laughing happy love bug during the time it takes to listen to two pop songs. In my memory of events, however, I have the idea that Ellie was a bug of love from day two, but for dramatic effect, I like the way the video builds to the belly laughs.

I have just not pulled my act together to get all of Nora's trip data in one spot and mailed to Pergamon, but I really meant to, difficulty bonding or no, Nora deserves her own trip video. But, what the heck, I followed the link and thought, oh give it a try, it doesn't cost very many $$ and it might be fun too. Well, I did it, but it wasn't that much fun. I forgot that I'm not creative and, therefore, do not need a creative outlet, it was more like work, but I did one too. Warning, even though it may not seem like I tried, I could just barely keep it under 7 minutes, so don't click if you're reading at work. No way someone in a position to disapprove is not going to walk by during this epic.

This WILL NOT be Nora's final video, I was too eager to get going and none of the video footage is in the computer, and it will be so much better when that is included. This turned into a story writing exercise for me, to remind me that she started out prickly for damn good reasons and if the prickles haven't yet worn off, and may never, she comes by them honestly. It reminds me to love her the way she came, to accept her for who she is and help her smooth out the rough edges that make her sad and angry and feeling excluded. Tacking these pictures together had the double bonus of reminding me of how incredibly beautiful my little soldier is all the time. I swear, she hardly ever takes a bad picture, me, on the other hand, well, I was having a very bad hair year.

because I changed the screen saver

2007-09-01T12:19:00.000-07:00

to shuffle through the "My Pictures" folder, I just walked into the room that is laughingly called a home office, home armpit is more accurate, and I saw this . . .

then this . . .

then this . . .

The anniversary of Mimi's sixth adoption day was last week. Thanks to Uncle Stewart who brought over everthing we needed for a hamburger cookout picnic, we had a better way than our usual Panda Express dinner to celebrate the occasion (it is the siren call of deep fried chicken bits in orange glaze that gets them every time, every damn time). Uncle Stewart is my long time friend and a brave good man who traveled to China with me for both Mimi and YuYu's adoption trips. He is not an uncle by blood, but an Uncle, capital U uncle, by love, just like my daughters are daughters by love, so it all works out, it all works out pretty damn good.

I didn't see this one on the screen saver, but found it as I was searching for the others in the junk pile that is the "My Pictures" folder and if I can't get the physical plant in order, do you wonder why the data storage is in shambles too? don't wonder, I'm a data storage loser. But I thought I would throw it in for a bit of a damn cute baby bonus. I tried to tell her that she is a natural beauty, that she just doesn't need all those cosmetics, but she just wouldn't listen.

Back to School Sidewalk Sale

2007-08-28T20:36:00.000-07:00

They don't do that anymore do they? shame. I have fond memories of downtown Bountiful, hot pavement, bad selection, picked over sizes, milling crowds and marked down ugly Buster Browns. Oh, on closer inspection, those memories aren't of the fond variety, but remembering the sidewalk sales takes me right back to my elementary school daze. The sixties, nothing like 'em, good times, good times.

Today was the first day (or first of four half days of school, really, why bother?) and the race is back on or, a more apt metaphor would be the gerbil is back on the wheel for another academic year. The only school shopping memories my girls will have will be centered around ripping open the Land's End boxes on the porch. I fear that point click UPS delivery just won't be as evocative 30 years from now of the first days of school as the words "sidewalk sale" are for me, shame really.

However, how do I feel about school starting up again?: If I had half a clue about computer stuff, I would know how to find some zesty graphics or clip art of a tiny defenseless person just about to be swept away by a tidal wave of paper to illustrate how I feel this evening. Having four in elementary school at the same time and keeping track of homework, homework folders, reading assignments, reading charts, spelling lists, menus, student profiles, student supply lists, teacher and classroom supply lists, field trip sign ups, poetry folders, and various ME bags is feeling a bit much right at the minute. So instead, I figure why not update the blog because even though I'm feeling decidedly flat and unamusing this month, writing a blog entry is much less daunting than the pile o' crap waiting for me on the kitchen table. Really, I must be nuts. I really need my head examined because it's not like any of my children were "accidents." This was all planned, I knew exactly what I was doing when I sent in each adoption application, there were no oopsies in the bunch unlike my youngest brother Clark, he was a definite oops, but I really like him so that worked out okay in the long run. So I only have myself to blame, but when Nora's teacher said "I just don't know how you do it?" I replied, "well you're about to see first hand how I don't do it very well sometimes, and only just adequately the rest of the time." I should have added: "Please have patience with me and try not to resent me too much when everything you send home gets lost in the roaring vortex of homework/announcement/half-page permission slip of paper doom," but how do you do it is more of a rhetorical question and I didn't want to overstep my answer.

And it's those half-page sized dealies that are sure and certain to be important as in please mark your calendars or please sign and return before yesterday that are sure and certain to get lost/recyled/used as scratch paper, never fails.

And yes, last spring I made the decision to hold Nora back and within two days, I had changed my mind and let Nora graduate from Kindergarten with her sister. Nora started first grade today. She is tall and competitive and too smart to be held back. I had to process and accept the fact that Nora will struggle to learn and regardless if I made her repeat kindergarten, she would still struggle to learn because that is just who Nora is going to be, a different learner. I can't protect her from the struggle even though holding her back felt like I was protecting her. I wasn't. I was only protecting myself from watching her flail and fail and feel hurt and "less than." And I have to admit that holding her back also protected me from the the extra effort it will take on my part from now on to help Nora do her best in school. It has now become my struggle to find out how to help her learn without so much struggle and tears and shame.

I've had it so easy with the oldest three. They may not ever be Rhodes Scholars, but they won't make me worry about how in the world they will ever make a living or support themselves. I have to come to terms with my Nora, who, in addition to being a child who is an emotional challenge to raise, is also a challenge to teach and learns differenlty than her peers. I can't sit back anymore and just beam with pride like I have for the past five years since Ellie started kindergarten. I have to learn how this whole public education system works and how to make it work better for Nora. And did I mention that I'm lazy? to the bone? and beaming with pride is easy, but learning a whole new language with it's own special jargon and pushing for the right extra assistance is hard and, on the whole, I'd really rather not? But, apparently, that's what other parents do and now I need to do that too. But while I'm doing that, there's nothing says my kids can't look damn cute on the first day of school. Not only do I beam well, I burst buttons pretty good too.

and before you know it, it's August

2007-08-06T23:05:00.000-07:00

First, I really must figure out all those slick slide show gizmos because it just took for freaking ever to upload these pics and that will teach me to be a schlump and not update the blog for vast time periods. But here's July is a picture essay.

The Big Dig, SLC version. The whole reason I bought this house was for the proximity to the Jr. High where I envisioned my wholesome teens walking home within minutes of the last bell, cracking the books the second they walk through the door, finishing all of their homework plus the extra credit before starting dinner and tidying up and making me a proud proud mama. It could happen and I bought this house to ensure that it would, but be careful what you ask for because to take my delusions up a notch, the school district granted me a brand new junior high school. Unfortunately, they chose to build right next to the old junior high so the kids don't have to be uprooted during the school year which means the new school is being built in the space that used to be the sports field and heavenly buffer between my back wall and the old school building. No more, they've torn out the playing field and excavated many many feet, I want to say 30 feet down, but what do I know, it could be 20, but however much, it's a ton of dirt and . . .

a great portion of it ends up on the bottom of the pool that shall spurn all covers every damn day. If you can't dope out this picture, those are the tracks in the crud left by the pool vac on a typical day after the diggers have done their damnedest to churn up every piece of grit they could get airborne during their shift. The fellows at the pool supply know me by my new nickname, the Phosphate Lady, and what does algae love to eat more than anything? that's right phosphates. What a big wide pain in my big wide ass this pool has been this year. . .

except for when it's not and the kids are having a blast and frolicking to beat the band and making my heart high.

We drove up to Cache Valley for Grandma's summer birthday although she hasn't been alive for the last two summer birthdays, it's still a great reason to go to my Uncle John and Aunt Elaine's grandkid Neverland (they have a ton of grandkids) to ride Chocolate and Chip, the go carts, the riding mower turned into a wagon train, the little play house, the big amazing water slide built into a gully and powered by a hose dropped into the creek, the girls love love love it up there and I always pick up a great recipe or two from the potluck, so it's a hit for every generation.

Then came Nora's birthday, she turned six this year although it feels like she's still emotionally not quite four yet and I have to admit, my blogging reticence is in large part related to my still not warm and fuzzy feelings about Little Miss Firecracker, it is still hard work to be her parent and it may always feel like this and that's still a hard concept to which I must adjust. But, for her birthday, I sacrificed my comfort and sanity for a day at the local amusement mecca and we hit Magoon (Nora can't remember Lagoon and in 100 degree heat, it feels more like a Magoon) with all pistons firing . . .

with some of this . . .

some of that (click this one to enlarge, does it look like being spun against the outside of the ride over and over and over is a good time?) . . .

a little more of this . . .

and some more of that . . .

and they still were strong after the second log flume ride, the wet invigorated them . . .

until all of the this and the that and the oppressive heat finally wore my Magooniacs down and I convinced them it was time to go . . .

to Grandma's house with all of Nora's gifts in the back of the van and my brother tasked with bringing the cake and ice cream up to meet us. Grandma still too weak and tires so easily that it is by far easier to bring the party to her than to expect her to come to us and it was a good day and I don't have to go to Magoon for a whole 'nother year, yay me.

Alex, what is Provo Canyon?

2007-08-06T21:34:00.000-07:00

I can't think of the right category, though, for the question. Potent potables? But that only applies to half of the question: As the sun sets on Lindsay Lohan and my eldest daughter, where are they both laying their heads to sleep? Yep, in scenic but the willies producing Utah County: there's a whole lot of religion and bad architecture going on down Provo way, makes me shiver. The difference is that my chaste and Polly Purehearted daughter is snoozing away at Girl Scout camp where I delivered her excited little GS self this morning and that other gal, the one who is deeply, deeply troubled, sad and self-involved, is sleeping it off a little further on up the canyon in her new get clean digs.

And how about this for a comparison of extremes. Lindsay leaves a drug rehab center after a month of therapy and heads to Vegas to sip energy drinks, wink, wink, yeah energy drinks, with a whole lot of folks who didn't take any stinking sobriety pledge. She so very obviously values her own sobriety and would never take any risks with her career and health, not that Lindsay, she's too much of a smart cookie for those kinds self destructive high jinks.

As opposed to this moring, when I asked Ellie if she had packed her fanny pack, she jumped like she had been shot because she just remembered it still contained two contraband packs of Trident gum that she learned from her last GS camp experience are forbidden fruit and not welcome at GS camp. She tore into the pack, emptied out the gum and cast it away from her, out devil, out. My girl won't even try to smuggle sugar free gum into Trefoil Ranch even without an aspartame detecting ankle bracelet.

But won't my girl get a kick out of knowing that she and Lindsay spent the week just a few miles apart? breathing the same bracing mountain air, both riding horses along side the Weber River, attending group meetings to discuss the principles of beating addiction though a twelve-step program? Oh wait, that one's just for Ms. Lohan. Ellie will be making boondoggle key fobs, whew, what a relief, much better.

And, yes, I agree that I know too much about Ms. Lohan's escapades because (a) you just can't escape the coverage, it's shamefully pervasive, and (b) my girls want to know what it all means, why is she always getting in trouble?, what does rehab mean? what's a DUI? We have some interesting conversations about how Lindsay just keeps forgetting to say no. So we wish Ms. Lohan the best, but since the true human drama is happening about 150 miles south of Provo Canyon, all my best thoughts and hopes for recovery are for those miners and their families tonight. Sorry Lindsay, you're on your own.

Australia

2007-07-26T21:33:00.000-07:00

I want to go there and I want to eat rock lobsters in Perth and keep my eye out for Tim Winton who should be easy to spot because he has a really long ponytail and looks literate. I know I'm probably like most Americans who are, how do we say politely, geographically illiterate, but Australia is all about Sydney and kangaroos and a town like Alice to me. I mean I've heard of Perth, but just thought it must be in the Sydney neighborhood where all Australians are bunched up eating shrimp and getting stung by jelly fish on beautifully dangerous beaches. I just finished Dirt Music and was motivated enough to learn more so I could picture the territory the characters were covering and it turns out there is a whole western edge, with people, of Austalia, who knew? So it should be easy to find Mr. Winton, very little stalking involved, right?

Everytime I read a Winton book, it makes me want to book flights so I can go listen to real Australians speak English instead of the fake Australian accent I have playing in my head as I read his dialogue (while the Outback Steakhouse jingle runs persistently throughout). But regardless what this guy writes about, I feel like I'm there and when I'm done, I want to jump on the plane and really be there to see it like he sees it. Even though I read The Riders probably 10 years ago, I still can't get it out of my mind and on my book judging scale, that's some fine writing.

Althought I love to read, I still go through books like I was in fifth grade plowing through the elementary school library: for transport, not for more information or new skills or god forbid, intellectual challenge. So I love a good rich and dense text that is wonderfully chewy, but I'm a wee bit shallow and under-educated and I'm always aware of the fact that if any message or symbol is layered under the story, I'm probably missing it just like those magic focus prints that were all the rage 15 years ago in which I NEVER saw the damn magic picture even though I stared into the distance until my contacts dried up and popped off my eyeballs. I was listening to the Diane Rehm show (even though her voice, oh her voice, how it makes me cringe and I know she can't help it, but oh oh) on the way to work last week and her book reviewers were working over Like Water for Elephants, a book that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. One of her panelists said that maybe the book's popularity could be explained because it was so one-dimensional: just a good story that was all there right on the surface and there wasn't anything else to dig for, no deeper meaning. I thought, oh, hmm, really? hadn't occurred to me, I just thought I had missed the deeper meaning just like always.

So I dream about when I'm old(er) and gray(er) and looking even more like a shar pei because they let the senior set audit classes for free or a small fee at my dear old alma mater and I can get the education I missed the first time around. I'm going to sit on the front row of every art and literature appreciation course I can find and give all those kids the benefit of my widsom and experience (e.g. bore them senseless with my endless questions that are really just statements of the obvious). A gal's got to have plans for retirement. My plans are to finally understand all the books I read like I was eating Triscuits for my whole adult life.

But if you need a good read right now, dial up a Tim Winton novel, you will not be disappointed. Then write to let me know was I missed.

loose poop

2007-07-16T21:27:00.000-07:00

So, say, for the sake of argument, and of course totally hypothetically speaking, that you had a guest in your home who barfed on your duvet and your deeply discounted, but still brand new, area rug in the kitchen, made your downstairs carpet into a multi-hued canvas in the style of Georges Seurat using the largely over-looked media of loose stool and urine in addition to possessing the ability to create lung threatening clouds of noxious gas wherever she came to rest? Would you let her stay, or unceremoniously ask her to get her skanky dog butt out of your house and hit the mean streets with that business? Or, as I have contemplated, would you secretly put her in a kennel for the remainder of the week and then play it all innocent like when her ride comes to take her back home next weekend?

Oh good hell, Stewart’s dog Gladys is the houseguest from hell. She stayed with us a few months ago and was a relatively good guest even though she was a most prodigious pooper. I had to take the blame for that because I unthinkingly left the baggie full of Milk Bones where she could get at it and talk about adding bulk to a dog’s diet, oh boy. I wasn’t thinking that Gladys would, you know, even get into the bag at all, such bad manners, and I was even more floored that she would eat them all up at one time exhibiting no doggie self-control. My tiny animule dog can make one mini Milk Bone last for days as she carries the increasingly smaller nub from room to room, leaving a trail of crumbs so she can find her way back. Gladys horks down anything in her path and doesn’t ever look back. And after conferring with friends, the horking and gobbling are more typical dog behaviors to which I say, who knew? All I have for comparison is my dainty 6-pound nibbler/bruiser and I just wasn’t prepared for Gladys' reaction to an unprotected stash of Milk Bones. She could have at least saved a few for the end of the week, don't you think? I have no explanation for the current tummy troubles, she hasn’t over eaten and it doesn’t appear that she found any illicit yummies but in a house full of kids, that can never be completely ruled out. She is chipper and Schnauzer-happy, doesn’t act at all ill, I have no explanation for my ruined carpet.

Oh well, I needed to have the carpet cleaners come and deal with the bad stains in the girls’ room, now I can get the three-room and a hallway special and feel like I’m getting a bargain. She sleeps in her crate tonight by damn and her flirty brown eyes won’t sway me. I know she only wants me for my clean duvet cover, skank.

how to void a warranty

2007-07-14T10:04:00.000-07:00

Failure to use product according to package directions may void warranty.

Hostable notes

2007-07-14T09:40:00.000-07:00

The good good grandma gave us another medical scare this past ten days and it's probably better not to blog when I'm in a high drama dither. She rallied after another couple of ICU stints and is back to the regular ward and will hopefully be discharged tomorrow or Monday. The girls are so flexible. I drag them back and forth from the hostable (Mimi's version of hospital) and they don't complain or balk and I think that's remarkable considering that when they get to the hostable, they can't even go into her room and are trapped in the second floor waiting area with grandpa or Uncle Glenn while I stay in mom's room. When mom is in the ICU with limited visiting hours we walk all over every inch of the hostable on safari to see what we can see and truth be told, there just is not much to see in the average hostable. There are some nice fish in the radiology waiting area, but there are limits to how fascinating fish can be to the average six-year-old for any length of time. All the traipsing back and forth to the hostable, late hours and cafeteria food (which, truth be told, they love and so do I) brings my lack of reliable babysitters into sharp focus. Stew watched them for several hours last Sunday so I could be at the hostable longer and not have to worry about herding the little girls (Ellie is never a problem armed with books and her Nintendo) that was the best gift (not to mention the gratis lawn mowing he threw into the child care package) I've received in a long long time, I am so grateful for such a generous friend. I need to cultivate some teens who don't already have jobs and/or intense social lives and need the money badly enough to watch four kids and not let anyone drown in the ceement pond. When my other brothers arrive solo at the hostable because their spouses are at home in charge of their kids, I do feel more than a twinge of envy, but I get over it. I wouldn't want to married to any of their wives if that was the price for solo hostable visits.

Sparkle Plenty

2007-06-26T20:48:00.000-07:00

YuYu is seven. It is hard not to wax rhapsodic about this child and if I could do her justice, I might try. But this loving child’s gifts are beyond my feeble words and descriptive abilities. I wish I were a poet. YuYu needs a poet to capture her loveliness and my feet are not long fellows. All she wanted for her birthday? Seashells. How lovable is that? She was thrilled with this cheap basket of shells from Oriental Trading Co. You wouldn’t think there could be merchandise out there a step down from Lillian Vernon, but then I found Oriental Trading and not only is the quality much inferior, you buy all the inferior products in multiples of 12 or more. Our birthday party goodie bags entered a whole new realm of awesomeness when I discovered this cornucopia of cheap crap.

YuYu is wearing the most deliciously green pajamas her friend Hunter (or more accurately, Hunter’s amazingly thoughtful mom Trish) selected for her in New York’s Chinatown. The color makes her skin look like it is lit from within and she is cool and toasty at the same time. YuYu proclaimed her new pajamas to be “handsome and popular.” What dreadful video has she been watching that gave her handsome and popular? I don't know, but I love it. I love her. She makes my heart high.

Happy birthday bird girl, please don’t grow up too fast.

Bastards

2007-06-22T21:57:00.000-07:00

I was actually, no lie, sitting beside the pool tonight as the little girls were splashing and having big fun and thinking to myself: I should go get the camera to snap a few of girls and my Mike's Hard Lime to illustrate a blog entry along the lines of all's well that ends well, but it hasn't ended well, yet. Bastards.

Yesterday we had 14 Girls Scouts and assorted siblings in the pool for an end of year shindig and badge extravaganza complete with exhortations by Juiliet Gordon Low from beyond the grave. I don't know the netiquette for loading up photos of other people's pre-teen kids in bathing suits, but I'm pretty sure I shouldn't, so here is a photo of Ellie finishing up the requirements for her small craft safety badge. All I ever remember getting badges for was embroidering and making puppets, man, did I grow up in the wrong generation.

So, it gets to be the end of the evening, I'm inside scooping up root beer floats like I'm on a conveyor line when I'm informed by one of the troop moms fresh from ouside that the pool is giving shocks. Electrical shocks. Not big shocks, but still, I'm pretty sure it shouldn't be giving shocks of any size, big or small. I run outside to turn off the pump, not because I think it is the pump causing the shocks, but because I have no earthly idea what could be causing the pool to give shocks and it is the only thing electrical that is on and operating around the pool and I had to do something to make it look like I was in charge and had a handle on the whole pool giving shocks thing. I didn't try to duplicate the problem by getting my own shock because I was needed on the rootbeer float assembly line and by the time everyone left, I wasn't really thinking about it until Ellie started asking about shock and it started to appear to me that maybe the whole thing was a product of over-wrought pre-teen imagination and maybe some girls had seen the empty bags of Sock It To Me chemical shock in the crap bucket in the corner by the deck and thought it was fun make everyone get worried about getting "shocked" ala the Salem Witch Trials where innocent women were burned at the stake based on the testimony of attention-seeking teen-aged girls. I thought no more of it and assumed that I had been witch trialed and my pool was in fine working order after all.

I thought nothing more of it that is until this evening when I thought better and thought that maybe I should question Ellie to see if the "shock" was a product of empty chemical bags and fevered imaginations. I asked her good leading questions and she fell in line and agreed with me: it wasn't an electrical shock, it was because of the empty shock bags. But even I knew her answer was based on my big person intimidation style grilling and the apparent lack of distinction in Ellie's mind between an electrical shock and chemical shock. So I backed off a bit, gave her a chance to explain. She reminded me that it was a troop mother who told me the pool was giving shocks and Ellie confirmed that the troop mother got a shock when she touched the surface of the water NEAR THE POOL LIGHT while standing on the deck. And guess what, you CAN get a shock when you sit on the deck and touch the surface of the water because I GOT a shock when I tried it too.

Which brings me to the bastards. Those pool guy bastards. Drain my pool to the bottom, a thing I should never have had to witness, pull the fixture out, leave it hanging for awhile, then reinstall it so inexpertly that I get a whole new amusement park quality feature in my back yard pool: think hair-raising, thrill-a-minute, Terror Ride, you never know what's going to make you jump out of your skin or Speedo as the case may be. Bastards.

Then add the dust storm in downtown Baghdad that's been happening just over the property line as the excavators tear out a small mountain of dirt to make way for the new Jr. High and didn't have the good sense to get the damn water tank trucks on site to spray down the dust like the damn contract says they should and the money the sub-contractor saved by going thbbbpt to the contract terms should be disbursed equally to all the neighbors to clean the dust off of every surface imaginable. But I kind of doubt that's going to happen, but I think I'm more pissed off about the time it took me to get all the right names so I could call and complain oh so diplomatically right after I made the first call to the county DEQ. Wouldn't you think the school district or the general contractor would have had the sense to warn the neighbors that this shit was going down and wouldn't you think the general would have the good sense to at least apologize when confronted in person by a calm but assertive home owner about the lack of any attempt to mitigate the dust? bastard.

So, no photo evocative of warm, relaxing summer evenings poolside with a cold bottle of alchopop and wet kids enjoying the hell out of the water after a hot hot day. Just my meandering diatribe about the bastards and yes, I have let them get me down, just a bit. I'll review a motivational poster this weekend about the bastards and how not to let them get you down and I'll be better when the pool isn't giving involuntary eletrolysis and the air on my street doesn't go crunch when you get some in your mouth.

Does he have a single brother?

2007-06-19T21:17:00.000-07:00

I know, I know what I said about my handsome bright yellow Kartchner power sprayer and I still do love it so, but I've found a man to make me rethink the pronouncement about not needing a husband. I was poking around the big web to do a little self educating on the money sucker embedded in my back yard and I found The One. He should be mine. Too bad The One is married with kids and living somewhere happily, looks like the South, no snow or ice in any of the pictures and the dirt, she is so red. Unfortunately, regardless of the married with kids thing he has going on, at the very least, I'm geographically undesirable, who would want to relocate to the land of bitter cold turns to dry heat and odd liquor laws. And I'm not even going to get into the oh so many factors that make me oh so unmarriageable at this point in time and space, but, I digress and you really need to check this flickr story. Tell me you don't find this man ultimately attractive even though you can't really see his face in any of the shots. What he looks like just doesn't really matter, does it? This Adonis, this faceless god amongst us, this true American hero, rent/wrung/brought forth on this continent that gorgeous after out of the hideous before with his own bare hands and a crummy cement mixer. Gives me the longings that I thought I had long long long ago learned to suppress. Big sigh.

Slumgullion

2007-06-15T21:21:00.000-07:00

Hey, who wants to take a dip? Come on in, the water is fine!

Oh good hell, I gasped, then I swore like a cop when the pool guys pulled back the cover to expose this stinking mess. It was either curse or cry and I was all cried out last week, so cursing it was. What the hell, what the hell? Just when I thought I was climbing up the slope on the cement pond learning curve, I got kicked all the way back down. This cost a fortune and I don't know who to blame.

Every fall, I pay someone to "close the pool." They dump a ton of chemicals in the water, float some bags of chlorine, stretch the winter cover over the top and when they come back to open it in the spring, there's a lot of debris in the water, but it's pretty clear other than the floaters. Not this year, that's for damn sure. It was revolting. I had a different pool company close the pool last fall and I called them to schedule the pool opening back in March because every pool service gets so overbooked in late May. The woman I spoke to apparently thought I was a nut job, because she ignored me and didn't put me on the schedule. So by the time they got to me, it was three weeks later than I had anticipated, but still, this didn't get that bad in three weeks, did it? When I moved into the house, we didn't open the pool until July 7 that year and the water was fine. The two young men who had come to get the pool open were full of speculation, all except for the obvious to me answer that someone fucked up the closing and further fucked it up when they didn't get out to open in until three weeks after I asked for it to be done. So, to add salt to the wound, I had to let them drain the damn pool, do an acid wash, and fill the money sucking pit back up with fresh water. I hate financial rape and I'm feeling very victimized, to the tune of $987 victimized not including the water bill yet to come, that will be at least $200. Damn. Then, when the pool was empty, a sight I NEVER want to see again, you can see where the plaster has been worn away (the chlorine eats it up) and the concrete is starting to show and that can only mean one thing (or so I have recently learned); it will start leaking unless it is replastered. Who the hell do you get to replaster a pool? and how the hell much is that going to cost? Now I understand the comments I've received from any number of people who find out I have an antique swimming pool in the back yard: "so, are you going to fill that in?" Well, yes, I just might, dammit.

And last, but not least in my graphic essay of swimming pool nightmare hell, the one bright spot, My Hero. Seriously. Who needs a husband when you already have a power washer?

why I’ve been MIA, or things that whip my ass

2007-06-15T20:51:00.000-07:00

Ever felt like Stretch Armstrong? Too many obligations, too much drama, not enought time? Now imagine a vintage Stretch doll that’s someone’s been hoarding all these years in case it became a collectible that could be flogged on eBay for ninety times it’s original value. The plastic on this Stretch is getting crumbly and takes a dog's year to snap back to it’s original shape and it looks like the skin around the lips of a skinny old woman who’s had a two pack a day habit since before the Big War. That’s the kind of Stretch Armstrong I’ve felt like for the last three weeks. Aha, that's telling, it's only been two weeks, but I typed three because the last two weeks have felt like forever and a week.

My Mom, aka my best friend, had quintuple bypass surgery June 5 because she had an episode (can’t get any better info than that, but apparently whatever the episode was, it was significant enough to get her immediately admitted to the CCU) during an angiogram on June 1 to determine why her circulation is so bad no one can find a pulse in her right foot and a big old wound from erupting celluitis that she swears she got because my niece got into their hot tub with too much body lotion and hair product and Mom got blood poisoning from the tainted water. Hey, she's old, she's entitled to a few crack-brained ideas, I guess.

So, starting from the "episode," it all got very melodramatic: thoracic surgeon gives us a cheery prediction of a 50% chance of death or stroke during the bypass because her right carotid artery is 70% occluded (which she knew about but the medical professionals were just “keeping an eye” on it, WTH?) which resulted in a lovely Sunday afternoon with me perched on her hospital bed with a college ruled notebook jotting down her wishes for her funeral service and all the specific dispositions of certain assets that she was too tired to fight my rat bastard father (and no, I do not exaggerate or use the term lightly, in fact, I toned down the description to retain credibility) about when they did their estate planning but she figures that with a wedge of guilt and the wedge of my personality, she can make it happen from beyond the grave. Much too much drama for me, too many tears, so much to lose, very hard, very hard.

But, she survived the surgery! Recovery was a little dicey, heart rate wouldn’t regulate, but eventually it did, on its own, no pacemaker needed, and they sent her home yesterday. And just so you know what a rat bastard my Dad is, when they stopped at the local grocery/drug store to get her baker’s dozen of prescriptions filled, he went inside, determined that he did not want to wait, that he could come back later to pick up the meds, but that Man had his priorites straight. He bought a box of bear claws and Danishes because he was feeling a bit peckish. He had the nerve to hand the box to my Mom, my diabetic heart failure Mom, to hold on the way back to their house where he had not brought groceries home since she was admitted to the hospital a full two weeks prior. Frankly, he would not know how to shop for any food item that wasn't next to the check out stand. In all his 72-years, he has never grocery shopped. There wasn’t a speck of fresh food in the house, but by damn, he had something to eat for breakfast. Rat bastard.

Mom is now on the mend, which is such a relief. She will not last as long as I assumed she would last. My granny was 92 when she kicked the bucket and I didn't bother my pretty little head with thinking about what diabetes was doing to my mother because it looked like she had that old diabetes smacked into submission. But, sadly, the damn diabetes was just silently killing her, damn diabets. In a month, she'll go back in for the carotid artery surgery, then the femoral artery as soon as possible after that, and if she’s not dead or on the way there by that time, they will consider the renal arteries. My poor Mom. Diabetes is the real rat bastard, but my Dad gives it a run for the money.

So that explains where I’ve been, treading water and feeling pulled in a million jillion directions. I still have to work, no family emergency days for the self-employed; I have to keep the specter of malpractice away from and some revenue coming in through my office door, no matter what: I've got four kids. I had the big dilemna about whether to retain Nora in Kindergarten another year. Made a decision and then backed down. I'll try to blog that soon, I need to get my thoughts straight again on that issue. Then, to add to the big basket o’stress, I got a couple of other ass-kickings from some home improvement headaches which have vacuumed my bank account as clean as the 12,000 gallons of fresh water in my pool and, as always, Nora, who absorbed my stress and sadness and reflected it back in her best less than charming fashion. Just when I need her to suck it up and be a team player, she falls apart and acts out as badly as she ever has. Nice. I'm a sad and scared daughter, one step ahead of a bar complaint professional, rigid and over-reactive mother, home handy man failure kind of gal. But my mom is still alive, it's good to be me.

Project 337

2007-05-30T12:22:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, no school. The district leaves a make up day on the calendar in case of emergency cancellations during the year. Think snow days. But, even though this is Utah, home of the 2002 Winter Olympics and "the best snow on Earth," we NEVER have snow days because this is Utah, home of Pioneer Spirit and who in their right mind would call off school on acount of a few inches or 36 of snow? C'mon cowboy up, stop your complaining and trudge you big pansy. Literally, I have had to walk ahead of the girls to break a path for them to get to school because there was no way, even if we could get the car out of the garage, to drive them there. But I digress.
So, with a day to kill, we had our choice, this expedition into the art world or the one I chose, pictured above in all my phone's .3 megapixels of power. Cool huh? When they think of art, this is what I want them to think of first. They may reject my sensibilities when they get older and form their own opinions about stuff and the world, but I'm the mom and for now, they have to look at this.

Who's on first

2007-05-26T08:40:00.001-07:00

Okay, because I can't always figure out how to respond to comments in private when there’s no gmail account associated with a comment entry, I'll do it in public, because I've already blown any hope for anonymity with this blog. And here’s why if many of you were wondering how I could be so irresponsible as to spread my children all over the web without cute aliases or more care to protect their privacy (which I’ll have to move on soon, password protect or something.)

When I adopted YuYu in 2004, I used a Yahoo egroup* and could approve/deny requests to join the group and guarantee that I was sharing all my personal laundry with people to whom I was already acquainted. So, when I geared up the travel machine to go retrieve Nora in 2006, technology had advanced so rapidly that any fool could create a blog and that’s what this fool did. When I created this blog, it was with the intent to treat it as a travel log and share the address only with people who could give a hoot about my particular madness and me. However, a week into the trip while we were still in Nanning, Stefani, the China coordinator for my adoption agency, prevailed upon me to post the address to the agency egroup (a very large and busy busy group) as a precautionary tale. When you adopt an older child fresh out of an institution, the transition is not always rainbows and salt water taffy. Stefani, bless her, thought it would be good for prospective parents who were considering the adoption of an older child to see the spectacle unfold live and in full color. Kind of a gut check for the uninitiated.

So with not much consideration and in the spirit of public service, I opened this blog, that was never intended to be public, to the inspection of many, and found that I liked writing more than I had admitted to myself and here it is, too much disclosure and not enough privacy. But this gal lives in the same hood and from what I can tell, has not been stalked by wackos, so it may not be that urgent, but I will have to deal with the privacy issues soon. But this gal is taking all the good ideas and I don’t want to be a copy cat (and, no, I’m not that delusional to make any comparison between my weak musings and this gal who is making a GOOD living with her blog (her house is on the non-ghetto side of Foothill) and it's just my lame attempt to be hip and facetious). I’m almost prostrate with frustration because I can’t find the courage to fight the crowds at the new IKEA that opened up down the interstate this week, prostrate I tell you, but she already beat me to the blog and she grows bad body art too and tells the story much better. If I ever run into her at the Dan’s, I’ll just have to snub her.

So, to Abby in MA and Carrie, here’s the roster:

Ellie is really Elizabeth Arlene Fu Yan. She was matched to me in early December 1997 just before she turned one. But we didn’t travel to China (bad agency, bad, I think they could have easily avoided the delay) until end of February 1998. She was meant to be Eleanor, but my mother, with whom she shares the name Arlene, did not approve of Eleanor and me, with no spine, knuckled under and agreed to use Elizabeth with the same nickname I had in mind if she had been named Eleanor. But it wasn’t that much of a sacrifice. I love the name Elizabeth and had/have two great and good friends who share her namesake rights. Mrs. Siska, alive, kicking and kicky and worried about her salvation (very devout former nun) and my dear Liz, taken by bone cancer too soon. Ellie is ten, in fourth grade and being her mom is as easy as falling off a log into marshmallow fluff.

Next came Mimi, who is really Meredith Jean Fuling. When I started the paperwork for Ellie, the social worker who completed my homestudy had adopted two as a single and recommended that I consider someday bringing a sibling for Ellie into the family. Since I had just come to terms with the idea that I was going to be a mother and solely responsible for a child, my reaction to this advice, was, I’m sure, under whelming: I stared blankly, then snorted derisively. No way no how. But after a few years, I got the hang of parenting, Ellie who was the. most. low. maintenance. child. ever and I went for it. I had no name in mind except for Jean, after my funny wonderful maternal grandmother. I was reading Charles Schultz’ obituary and his daughter Mimi (Meredith) was mentioned and I thought: Mimi Mei Mei, Mimi Mei Mei, perfect for little sister. Mimi came home a week before the Trade Tower attack in 2001.

Then came YuYu, who is really Kathryn Marta Rui Yu. Kathryn was my Aunt Fay’s second daughter who died in an auto accident a week before her high school graduation. It looked like Aunt Fay would never have a grand daughter to use the name and my mom suggested that I consider it for YuYu. I love the name, but I’m not too excited about any of the common nicknames: Kitty, Kathy and there were like four Katies in Mimi’s preschool class, so that wasn’t an option either. Luckily, YuYu has clung to her Chinese nickname and doesn’t even remember her given name from time to time. Marta is my maternal great grandmother who was strong, resourceful and courageous. If she ever wants to use either name, I’m all for it, but she’ll always be YuYu (treasure treasure) to me. YuYu was in foster care (with a warm and adoring family) until I adopted her at 4.5 years old in November 2004. She will be seven years old next month, is three months older than Mimi, adopted out of birth order with no apparent issues, yet.

And then came Nora. I finally got my Eleanor. She is Eleanor Elaine Xiao Ye. Elaine is my maternal aunt who has successfully raised 11 children and is what I like to call a Shiite Mormon (in full friend shipping armor all the time) and I love her to bits despite and because of it. Nora’s Chinese name is beautiful: morning leaf, isn’t that lovely? But she dropped it like a dirt clod within a week of coming home, insisting: “No Xiao Ye, NO rah!” She was exactly the same age as YuYu was on adoption day, 4.5 years old, but had only been in foster care (with a family that couldn’t control her) for 4-5 months prior to adoption. Being institutionalized has taken a big toll on my girl. She will be six years old in July and is ten months younger, chronologically, than Mimi, but years behind emotionally.

My own name is a contraction for Margaret or Marjorie, neither of which I was lucky enough to be given. Because I was cheated out of a real name, it was very important to me to choose solid, traditional, real names for my girls. They all have easy, fun nicknames they can use until the nicknames don’t suit them anymore, if ever. I also incorporated their orphanage names (except for Mimi, her orphanage name had negative baggage, so I used her home town) and they can use those names if they want to get in touch with their cultural roots some day. But, if the circumstance requires, they can assert their fully loaded names when the weight and heft I hope they symbolize may come in useful.

*After we had been home for over a year, I remembered that the egroup was still hanging out there. I sat at my desk and carefully copied each post of my heartfelt sentiments, my excited utterances as we say in the legal biz. The posts printed out to my little printer on the credenza behind me. I heard them, the little printer whirred its reassuring whir and I knew I had captured my thoughts in hard copy for time and eternity, as we like to say in Mormon culture central. So when Yahoo sternly and with much gravity questioned my willingness to delete the group, I was convinced of my actions and pulled the trigger with confidence. Only after the cursor clicked did I turn around and look at the printouts to discover, to my horror, that all I had printed was the advertisements and page format surrounding the posts: no content. Nothing, not a single word is left of my first impressions of my treasure treasure, sob.

Spirit of Giving

2007-05-19T21:26:00.000-07:00

Or, not so much. I went to a mall, on a Saturday, with four little kids, where do I pick up MY reward? We braved the gaping open mouthed stares from the mall denizens, (yeah, it still surprises me that once we move outside our regular circles, like our neighborhood Albertsons where a middle-aged mom with four Asian kids lashed to her cart doesn't cause a stir any longer, people flat out stare and do the clown college double take as we walk by, I don't think I imagine it, but maybe) as we skidded into Build-A-Bear today to help stuff four bears that will hopefully make it into the arms of kids who need their own homes, but will have to take a bear in a pinch. The working premise is that the bears stuffed at the Build-a-Bear Stuffed with Hugs day, which will eventually trickle down to LOOK Project, another inspiring parent-driven charitable initiative to help meet the needs of the thousands of older children living in Chinese orphanages who may never finds homes. So, keeping things in perspective, paying the emotional price of being ignored by every single sales clerk in the Limited Too this afternoon is a mere piffle in comparison to the reasons and need for this project, so happy to do it.
But, let me tell you that there was no small suffering at the Limited Too. I was ignored to the point I just had to leave the items on the counter after standing there with my credit card in hand like a big bird for a long time. I started to get really steamed and was on the verge of dressing down the nearest 19-year-old to whom I had apparently become invisible, when I thought, heck, no, I can just get this stuff on line. I told Ellie that was the new plan and we blew that pop stand so we could go home and buy them where no one could aggravate mommy in real life. And, this coming on top of the jackass who pulled into the gas station island ahead of me and STOPPED at the first pump. When he got out to take the cap off his tank, I leaned out my window and passively agressively asked him if the first pump had special gas that he couldn't get at the second pump if he had JUST PULLED AHEAD. I bit my tongue to his sharp as a tack answer that he hadn't seen me pull in behind him. I wanted to jump out and get in his face and ask him why my arrival time had anything the HELL to do with pulling forward like a normal Earth citizen. Hmm, if I ever need hormone replacement therapy, I hope they hold the testosterone, I mostly don't need more.

But check out Mimi. She did not want to leave that bear behind. I know, it's creepy to take pictures of your kids when they're crying and distressed, but I thought it would be great to have this photo when she's an adult so I can show her how much she has grown and matured. Provided, of course, that she does grow and mature and develop compassion and that this picture will seem funny in 10 years.

Family Fun Nite

2007-05-16T21:06:00.000-07:00

How to rock Family Fun Nite (and yes, I spell checked):

a) Lose the tween. Ellie was gone like a shot within minutes of entering the school yard. She joined up with her peeps, it looked like there was some tag happening, I may have seen some boys in the mix, I was too far away to see clearly, but hair may have been tossed, too hard to tell if it was tossed with intent, but wah, my baby is not a baby anymore. Ellie and her core homies roamed the field between the bounce house and the deflated shark slide (anything more sad than a flat inflatable with a busted zipper and hundreds of slide happy elementary kids?) like exquisitely beautiful and wholly unself-conscious 10 year old royals, my heart was set to burst and I didn't even get one photo.

b) Power up. Hit the snow cone and cotton candy lines first, before the crowds gather, and load up on empty calories, you're going to need everyone of those thermal units in just a mere 55 minutes. Oh good hell, I stood in line for the bounce house for 55 long, long, soul searingly long minutes. I tried to talk to the mom in line behind me, but all she wanted to talk about was how great I am for "what I did." Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a plucky gal intent on saving every homeless waif in the world, I'm so good-hearted, I'm a saint, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh good hell, how many different ways can I say, "Oh no, I'm the lucky one," before some people will take the hint and let me own my decision to become a parent for the self-same reasons THEY became a parent: because I wanted to be a parent and love my children. Sheesh, some people. But, on the bright side, as I died on the vine, keeping Nora and Mimi from bickering while they hung on my arms and stepped on my feet while simultaneously tamping down my urge to slap the other mom and tell her to dry up, I did hear some interesting talk. It may all be my imagination, but if the word on the street is credible, it looks like I'm a shoo-in for Middle Aged Mother of the Year award and my heroic achievement in the bounce house line just might have put me over the top. If the rumors are true and I'm called to claim the title, I'll wear the crown proudly.

c) Bounce. Bounce big baby, yeah, bounce like tomorrow may never come. Bounce like you'll never bounce again (and you won't bounce again tonight, for damn sure, because crown or no crown, this middle-aged mom is NOT standing in that soul-shredding line in this life time, or until next year, which ever comes first). That's it work it, work it, sell it, sell it, show me some life, give it to the camera, that's it, that's it. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce.

d) Power down. Hit the snack line one more time before you call it a night, you earned it, you deserve it. Take that party on home, it's time to roll up the sidewalks.

Oops, I forgot to get married

2007-05-14T21:47:00.000-07:00

Good night nurse, I’m a single mom. I've never had the kind of personality that lent itself to nicknaming. I have a hard time calling people I don't know well, I mean really well, by a nickname. It just doesn't sit well with me, makes me uncomfortable with a familiarity that has not been earned. And since my own lame name is a contraction for a real name (all my girls all have real names in case they ever need them, letterhead, prescription pads, that kind of thing), I've never had a nickname of my own, until now: the human blur. Kindly please refer to me in all future correspondence as either The Human Blur or, for short, just The Blur, but only where dictated by lack of space. Thank you in advance for your considered compliance with this request.

But, when I think “single mom,” I don’t think of me, you know? I’ve got resources. I’ve got support. I’ve got a good education and initials behind my name (although it has been my experience that only the truly affected JDs among us ever use their JD in print). My parents are still halfway hale and hardy. I have great friends with skills of the hammer swinging, spade fork yielding, pool filter fixing variety. I’m self-employed, and although that comes with its own uniquely excruciating worries, I was able to leave my office at noon today so I could scramble to pull a Ready, Set, Let’s Camp try-it badge together replete with 12 bandanas, a hand-out on lightening safety written by a girl who survived a direct hit, 12 two-foot lengths or nylon cord with the ends individually singed to eliminate unsightly fraying, AND every-one-can-help-make-trail-mix that even contained a home-made component. Now that would have only been impressive IF I was a single mom who worked a rigid, clock in, clock out, ask in advance for time-off, schedule, and lived on a limited budget and had to be creative AND thrifty (no trail mix with 12 exotic ingredients because I had waited to the last minute and that’s all I could think up while standing in the middle of the grocery store like the proverbial deer in the headlights), and didn’t have the luxury of stashing Mimi and Nora with the grandparents last night because kindergarten is on a 2-day hiatus this week.

So I squinted a little bit when the news article to which I did fully consent, the photographer didn’t have to pull a paparazzi to get the pictures, obviously, appeared under the sub-heading of a long-running Trib series: Single in Utah. Yeah, so, I’m single, and that’s relevant how? The single part, truly, truly, seldom crosses my mind. I just don’t define what I do day to day as single parenting. I just work and then I parent. Single doesn’t enter the equation on a daily basis. I never made finding a partner a goal, again, obviously, because I guess I could have been married a couple of times but was either too immature or too independent to make the final commitment. Because I didn’t and don’t have a husband, it never, ever occurred to me that I wouldn’t be a mother, ever. I did not realize that some people would be critical of that decision, never crossed my mind, ever. I did not agonize over the decision to become a single parent, ever (well besides the closest I’ve ever come to an anxiety attack in the Chongqing Marriott the night before Mimi’s adoption, but I recovered). Maybe I should have approached the adventure more thoughtfully. Maybe I should have actually read that big hardback book I bought while I was waiting for Ellie, but it was all filled with unwed mother angst that I just did not have. Who the hell should care whether I was married or not? I didn’t and I assumed that the baby I would bring home to be slathered with love, lotion and Baby Gap wouldn’t care either. And because I am the queen of self-delusion when I really really want something very badly, I never second-guessed the wisdom of my decision and then proceeded to surround myself with like-minded people who also thought a baby raised by a single parent was better off than a baby not raised by anyone. And besides, a strong mother and an ineffective father raised me; it just feels like I am repeating the pattern minus the guy in the short-sleeved poly-blend dress shirt and the clip-on tie.

So when Jennifer* took the focus of this article into the land of cheap sperm delivered to your doorstep, I didn’t see myself in it because I never felt that deliberate about the kind of choice I made. My mother and I in the delivery room together would have been so inconsistent with my lingering teen-age romanticized vision of giving birth with the right man holding my hand; it would have taken too much personal bravery to make that choice. But, I guess, that is how others must see me and others like me, all lumped in the plucky to be a parent category, but I don’t see it that way. I just don’t feel like in 2007 that the choices I’ve made could be viewed as bucking convention or trail blazing or even plucky. Parenting is a privilege, to be sure, but to me, because I wanted to and I could, it felt more like an entitlement. I was never told no and can’t begin to think how I would have responded if I had been denied the opportunity of loving a child because I could not find the love of an adult male person.

I am sincerely and deeply saddened for the potentially thousands of single parents who have now been told that the dream of parenthood will not come true for them in China. I am hurt for the children who will not be slathered head to precious toe in the awe and adoration of a mother who chose to love them and rear them because she could and she really really wanted to.

If I thought for one minute that giving the unknowable and unmovable bureaucrats a good piece of my mind would make any difference in this world, I’d be on the first China Southern cattle car out of LAX to hand it to them on a silver salver, so help me god I would.

*Jennifer Barrett is also an adoptive parent and we are connected through mutual friends and her husband is a professional colleague of mine. Made it hard to say no when she called with the idea of a Mother’s Day article about single parenting by choice. I ended up saying yes because, if there’s a woman out there who is on the fence and reads that someone as inept as I am can muddle through and keep four kids fed, clean, clothed and loved, then just about any monkey could do it too. And maybe that woman will pick up the phone and call a home-study provider and say: ”Hey, it’s time to make a few dreams come true around this place, who do I need to talk to first?”

Little Swinger

2007-05-12T21:00:00.000-07:00

I raced uptown to see Ellie's music program at 1:30 pm, grousing and grumbling the whole way. If the program had just started a half hour later, at 2:00, school is out at 3:15 and I could have just knocked off for the rest of the day and felt good about it. Instead, I knocked off for the rest of the day and felt put out and guilty about it. I imagine there's a good reason why the kids had to return to their classrooms for what I am sure was a stunningly productive 45 minutes after the program ended, but I can't think what that reason might be. But even though I was peeved and feeling pissy about what I perceived to be inept and inconsiderate event planning on behalf of the elementary school faculty, I walked right out into the silver lining. I left through the back doors to walk back home across the rear playground. Some classes were at recess on a very welcome warm and sunny day. I spied YuYu on the monkey bars and was able to watch her playing, unnoticed, from across the yard until she finally saw me and I went closer to give her a hug. What a treat to watch her at play, when she didn't know I was spying. She is so uninhibited and happy. This little girl knows how to have fun. She just flipped and jumped and laughed and smiled and I smiled too. Her shirt says World Champion Giggler. Of course she didn't win it in a competition, but she could have.

Single Mom Succumbs

2007-05-08T16:05:00.000-07:00

West Valley City – Authorities were not surprised to find an adult female, slumped over and lifeless at a local indoor amusement park last weekend. Tragically, because death by seedy amusement park can be so easily prevented, she leaves behind a family of four young girls ages five through ten. The children, who were brave and not all that upset because they were pretty worn out anyway, went willingly into shelter care pending notification of nearest relatives because they were allowed to play just a little bit longer before leaving with DCFS officials.
Emergency medical technicians responding to the incident indicated that they were often called to the facility under similar circumstances. ‘Yeah, sure, it’s usually the older ones with little kids. They’re just not accustomed to the noise, the smells, the inanity and we find ‘em this way all the time . . . sad, really,” said West Valley paramedic Jim Tooyoung. “It can be a lot of things that cause it. See, here, the strap on her hand bag is too short and was probably sliding down her shoulder all day. That alone can be fatally annoying.”
Misty Dampears, ticket counter manager at Hollywood Connection, said she had noticed that the dead woman was holding way too many jackets for far too long before she noticed the wall of lockers installed for safe keeping of personal items. “For sure, older parents as human coat racks either freak out and just have to be taken away or they just go kind of internal with it and keel over,” said Ms. Dampears. “This woman hauled those coats around way too long. I didn’t see her lose it, but it was probably making her real mad inside, you know?”
It has been discovered that the woman was found sometime after she paid too much for frozen and not completely cooked pizza that her children would not eat for lunch. There also might have been a spill of a sticky soft drink at the unfortunate woman’s lunch table, but the condition of the floor under the table made it impossible to tell if the goo on the floor was recent or had occurred much earlier. “Any time you get an older parent, consession stand food and a spilled Sprite, well, you’re just asking for this kind of trouble,” concluded restaurant manager Fly Speck.
Paramedic TooYoung also speculates that the spilled soft drink could have added to her stress level and made her more vulnerable to system breakdown. “It’s kind of like these old ones just don’t remember the thrill of being little and riding anything that twirls and lifts them at least 10 feet in the air. They forget that it’s all about the kids and let the stress of the environment overtake them.”
“I wish more older parents would adjust their attitudes before they come to a place like this. We take too many kids to shelter care from this place because some parents just don’t get it. They’re not bad parents, just horribly unprepared for the conditions they face once they arrive here,” added Carol Riskco of DCFS.
The photos from the dead woman’s cell phone are being published with the article in hope that the childrens' grandparents may recognize them and contact DCFS immediately.

Say no to bad body art

2007-05-04T09:19:00.000-07:00

So, yesterday morning, as I was laying in bed, willing myself to put on my game face and swing my legs over the edge to get the morning hairdo hustle started, this NPR story started to run and I flopped back to take a listen and itch at my newest biopsy divot received just the day before and I thought, oh my, how serendipitous, and I do love serendipity, always have.
So the reporter featured a young woman who had her life turned inside out by recurring instances of melanoma and the attending fear of death that would leave her very little kids without a mother. Turns out, after several lesions had been removed over the course of five years, she just never had it. The biopsies were misinterpreted, the labs were wrong, although I don't recall the reporter telling us what it was that had been scooped out of this woman. The story concludes that doctors are diagnosing melanoma when there's no cancer or when the cancer would never have become deadly, and that most dermatologists don't recommend annual skin checks for everybody. I felt a little sheepish and silly for even scheduling my first annual check. Ooh boy, was I being over reactive, I'm such a sap. And why did my internal dialog take that trajectory? because I'm my mother's daughter and besides being responsible about your annual pap smear, why the hell would you ever need to see a doctor except at a cocktail party?

So, based on this encouraging story, I just knew that the divots that she took, one on my décolletage and one below my arm, would be harmless random auto-executing body art. And how did I reach this sunny conclusion? because I completely repressed the fact that I'm pasty, blue-eyed and capable of great stupidity, therefore, high-risk for non-harmless body art, and oh yeah, I've grown bad body art before. I live on the banks of a big river in Egypt, you know the one.

I was born pasty, I can't help that. But the stupid I have to take full blame for. The innumerable times I laid in the sun like a beached shark covered in baby oil (with iodine, remember that?) trying to change pasty pale to some shade more socially acceptable when wearing short shorts. Or the horrible sunburns I got time after time after time that always resulted in weeping water blisters that I just accepted as the price of *beauty*. Hell, I went to school for one semester at the University of Hawaii and did not even own a bottle of sunscreen. The kid in the next student apartment unit called me chum. I thought that was right friendly, a sweet nick name, until I discovered that he called me chum because I was so pinky pale that I reminded him of the dead fish bits in the chum bucket they used to attract game fish when deep see fishing. Nice visual, huh?

I just listened to the message from the md's office and yes, I have grown another basal cell carcinoma. And as bad body art goes, this is the best of the bad, very manageable, kind of poseur bad body art. The bump on my décolletage (say that word with a heavy Peter Sellers Inspector Clouseau accent in your head, much more fun that way, and yes, I noticed, two french words in one post, who's the poser?) is bad body art, the one under my arm is good body art, but it can't stay either, she'll burn it of with the liquid nitrogen, ooh, ooh, ooh. This will be my third scoop out and, based on my history and the gene pool I crawled out of, I'll just keep growing more. I was looking for a new hobby, now I've found it.

So to those of you who heard this story and put the kibosh on calling your dermo because full body checks aren't recommended for everyone, please reassess that decision. If you are blonde, red-headed, blue or green eyed or share my special youthful stupidity re: sun worshipping without a license, you are not everyone, you are a high-risk someone. Pick up the phone and make the call. Say no to bad body art.

Bored Mom + Camera Phone = Boring Blog

2007-05-02T12:18:00.000-07:00

After we share two orders of halibut and Yukon gold fries from the Arctic Circle down the street, with many testimony meeting cups full of special fry sauce, we still have to kill a significant amount of time while Ellie finishes up soccer practice. A non-slacker mom would have thought to bring the little girls' reading homework to work on while Ellie beats it up and down the field with Coach Dave, but I don't belong to that club.

Picture Day

2007-04-27T20:49:00.000-07:00

My old, old, old friend, sorry LisaB, but we're approaching 20 years of you putting up with me so that makes us old, old, old and friends, has developed a real passion for photography. After much pestering of me to get the girls cleaned up at the same time and to let her take some photos, we finally met up at the big park for a shoot, as they say in the biz. The photos turned out nicely even though it was a little breezy which made me instantly regret the decision to let Mimi go hairbobless. I had to scrounge around in the bottom of my handbag to find a functional but not photo shoot worthy ponyholder just so we could see her eyes. And the breeze did not do YuYu any favors as she produces a spot on Alfalfa from the Little Rascals imitation as her fly away hair flew off her forehead in a most unfortunate way. However, I can't blame the breeze for the sad fact that Nora doesn't yet have the vocabulary to understand me when I say, "Bud, please stop grimacing," so she looks like she's passing a stone in most of the pictures.

But it was a fun evening and gave me this great shot: a pile of beauties with an Uncle Stew on top.

Big Risk Taker, Who Knew?

2007-04-23T13:46:00.000-07:00

All last week, I kept promising myself that when I completed tasks A-C little i-iv, I could indulge myself and write a feel good blog entry about my wonderful little family. About how I’m learning to help Nora see how good choices get “good” attention or how I cannot WAIT for the IKEA store to open next month which will bring Utah closer to the middle of the mass market retail stream (if we could just land a Crate and Barrel my life would be complete), and then I opened yesterday’s big Sunday edition and saw this huge feature article about international adoption on the main local page and all other topics went to the bottom of the pile.

I’ve never felt the need to blog about current events although, of course, this blog exists in real time and of course we are all feeling the pain and horror of the senseless deaths in Virginia, or the forced abortions in Guangxi Province, or can’t comprehend that our tax dollars are being poured down a bottomless bucket called Mr. Bush’s Homemade Civil War. But I am acutely aware of my literary limitations (which is a topic for a future blog, man there are some folks out there in blogworld that can lay it down, they can write their nubs off). I know when I don’t have anything unique to add to the discussion besides a “yeah, me too,” so why create more clutter?

But can you see the headline? Taking a Risk: More Families Adopting. I don’t know how long this link will last, but good hell, what additional scary risk exactly are we taking when we choose to build our families through adoption? And, apparently, according to this headline, the risk of this mysterious scary X-factor that I can’t figure out goes way up when we choose international adoption. The last time I checked, the state pen was not filled exclusively with adult adoptees. Tim McVey, Adolph Hitler and Sueng Hui Cho were not raised by adoptive parents. My Nora is not the only child in her Kindergarten class who can’t read or count and the other “academically challenged” kids in her class are being raised by their biological parents.

I kept reading the article to see if the reporter was going to tie in the disturbing story about a local agency that told big fat lies to Samoan birth parents and US adoptive parents and made a heartbreaking pig’s breakfast of hundreds of lives. She gets there, she mentions Focus on Children and the adoption scam, but that does not seem to be the risk referenced in the headline. Am I reading this too critically? Does the reporter think the risk is that adoptive parents roll the dice and we could get a “bad” one? Who chose this stupid stupid headline? She discusses the extra baggage, the “narrative burden” a transracially adopted child comes with from the start. But she writes about the narrative burden generally, that all adopted children have a big sign over their heads that invites the stranger standing behind them at the grocery store to pepper their parents with personal questions. I just don’t think that happens to the blond-haired, blue-eyed Ukrainian adoptee and her mom, but I could be wrong.

I very much appreciated reading the companion article written by a Tribune staffer who is an adult adoptee. I always want to learn more about the feelings of grief and loss my kids will inevitably need to address as they grow older. I want to be prepared to recognize the issues although I will have no better answers for them when they become old enough to formulate the questions.

So is that the risk? That our internationally adopted children are removed from their birth cultures and may resent us for being the tool of the oppressor when they get older? Does she think that our aopted kids will be the only ones that rebel or reject their parents’ values? Does she think that all adoptive parents are dumb as rocks and haven’t wasted a single brain cell worrying about these issues? That we haven’t wept as the plane taxied away from the Guangzhou/Vilnius/Amaty/LaPaz/Guatemala City airport for the loss we were inflicting on our children by providing them a family? These issues of grief and loss are complex and deep and unending, so is that the risk? That building a family through adoption means we’ll have to talk about tough stuff?

I know about the risk of losing your heart to children who will never carry your biological stamp of approval, so is there another kind of risk of which I’m not aware? I am a leap then look kind of gal. So what is there about international adoption that I am so completely unaware of that I have to even ask this question? I guess I better write to the editor to find out.

And since I still haven't quite figured out how to respond to comments, I'm just throwing another paragraph on this post and italicizing for fun? distinction, because it's the only other font Blogger gives you? A wise efriend, (and who could have dreamed that up a generation ago, that we'd have efriends, when you don't have to buy a stamp for a letter, a penpal becomes an efriend, boggles the mind, but, back to this topic), who, in three sentences distilled my the discomfort and annoyance at that stupid headline (Dawn, you're right, I don't mind the article, but the headline frayed me a bit) that I couldn't make clear in shower of words. That to regard international adoption as a category different from "adoption" is the problem. Not that it isn't different from domestic adoption, but that to set it off as so different, so risky, seems to deemphasize the human characteristics of the children we welcome into our families. They are children, not something different than other children. It seemed to me that this headline gave the article an orientation that the reporter wasn't trying to communicate about the children, but about the process. The headline stressed the alien-ness of the experience rather than the humanness of it. See, it still took me two times the volume to paraphrase the idea, but hey, when you're used to billing your time in 10 minute increments, over-writing is a hard habit to break.

Park Place

2007-04-15T18:46:00.000-07:00

oh yeah, and $95 I'll never get back

2007-04-14T22:17:00.000-07:00

I forgot to add this companion photo to the last post. After the disastrous LAX plane change of 2001, ask me about that story some day when you've got an hour or two, I was this close to getting thrown in the holding cell by an INS security officer, good times, good times. So on this trip, I sprung for an airport hotel and an overnight layover so we wouldn't risk leaving Stewart and all of our luggage behind in Los Angeles again. Yeah, so this is the girls getting my travel dollar's worth at 3:00 a.m. after napping for an hour and a half while I laid wide awake trying to make myself fall sleep by sheer force of will since the last time I slept was more than a day before in China, but my will is not forceful enough and it never happened. So I sat with the girls watching Barbie's Princess and the Pauper for the bazillionth time seething with misplaced anger at Stewart, the non-parent travel companion extraordinaire who had the outrageous bad manners to take an Ambien so he could sleep like a salamander while I suffered. I really do not know to this day why we remain friends, I mean, the nerve of the man.

Buried Treasure

2007-04-13T22:13:00.000-07:00

You all know that I got this spammy new camera, for which I haven't, as yet, read the instruction manual, but that's a different personality defect and not the subject of today's chat. So, instead of the fat memory cards, it uses the skinny kind (I realize this is all very technical, my apologies if I'm talking over your head). It came packaged with a single skinny chip with so little storage that 10 pics will earn you a premature beep beep beep, out of memory you big loser, before you even get your shutter finger limbered up. But I had an aha moment when I remembered that my camcorder has a skinny chip for the purpose of taking low resolution, pretty poor still photos (probably not the stated purpose Canon had in mind when it added the feature, but the picture quality is lame). I scrounged around the Kitchen Counter of No Return, actually found the camcorder, raided it for parts and we were off to the races. But soon after the girls started gathering the outside eggs on Easter morning, I got another premature beep beep beep, and thought to myself, WTH, I sure did buy a loser camera; couldn't possibly be me, I found the skinny chip and everything, I was so proud.

So I popped the chip into the reader and, X marks the spot, buried treasure. One hundred and sixty-seven still shots were causing the beep beep beep, most of them from YuYu’s adoption trip from 2005. It’s not that I had never seen them, I knew of their existence although good friend Stew was manning the video on that trip and snapped most of these pics. I know I sent waiting parents copies of the snaps of their Guilin cuties I was allowed to photograph on that trip (and the irony, Nora was somewhere in that HTS pre-school room I was too polite to poke my nose into, wouldn’t that have been a trip if I had caught her on film months and months before she became a gleam in my eye? but, sadly, no). Only now do I remember that I took the card reader to my office for a faster connection to send the files (hadn’t ponied up for DSL at home yet) and I never copied the files to my home computer.

This was the last photo from that trip on the camcorder. It is a photo of three very tired (and apparently hot, see how Ellie rolled up her pants past her knees?) sisters on the last leg of the trip on the morning flight from LAX to our fair city. To them, it is the middle of the night, China time, and they are toast. We drove straight from the airport to grandma’s house, crossing no rivers, for Thanksgiving dinner with hordes of Hansons. When I read all the carefully planned transition plans adoptive parents devise for their new additions: no one but mom and dad holds baby for first 37 days, no one allowed in home, grandparents eat grit, for first 75 to 115 hours after arrival, baby only allowed to be fed by mom or dad until age four, etc., I just bet those folks want to report me to DCFS for pulling YuYu off the plane and dumping her into an overheated house full of thirty new uncles, aunts and cousins and the delicious, but to YuYu, decidedly strange smell of roast turkey. Hey, my motto is sink or swim, baby, sink or swim. She did great, no one needs to worry because I disregarded conventional wisdom. YuYu was off my lap and running with her cousins after only an hour of careful observation, then she wanted to be part of the fun. She’s still an excellent, but cautious, social swimmer. My little gal is not a sinker.
It was very enjoyable to rediscover those memories. So glad my new camera requires skinny chips.

And on a lighter note

2007-04-09T21:42:00.000-07:00

The rabbit found us, again, this year, although it is still uncertain how she gains entry. I thought I had hard cooked two dozen eggs, but it apparently doesn’t take me as long (oh God, will this never end, this lot is huge, I’ve been pushing this mower For. Ever.) as I thought it did to mow the lawn and the eggs ended up under cooked. For future reference, if I engage you in conversation this summer and try to make you feel sorry for me because I take care of my own yard because I can’t figure out how to give back yard access to the lawn care professionals when we’re not home because of the Folsom Prison perimeter installed (just shy of the broken glass shards embedded on top of the wall) by previous owners who were Seriously concerned about attractive nuisance liability theory (uncovered ceement pond), tell me to shut my trap and give me no sympathy because if two dozen eggs can’t hard cook before I’m done mowing, I’ve got no room for complaints.
So, in open defiance of the multiple weathermen the rabbit watched as she sat there into the wee hours filling egg after egg after plastic egg with teeth rotting fight inducing zealously guarded ziplock bag with names in big bold Sharpie stroke (MIMI CNDEE) filling treats, the rabbit threw caution to the wind and left the real eggs outside in the grass to be found by four finely tuned egg hunting machines on Sunday morning. The rabbit hedged her bets and hid the HUNDREDS (or maybe it's not hundreds but just felt like it, kind of like how long it feels like it takes to mow my lawn) of candy-filled plastic eggs in the house. However, in spite of the rabbit's misplaced confidence in her it won't rain if I hide them outside strategy, rain it did and all the color came off the carefully colored eggs. And I don’t use the term carefully loosely. I made them strip down to their underwear and sit on the deck on patio furniture without the decorative seat cushions to color the eggs. The rabbit hates dealing with spilled egg dye in the house. The rabbit is only slightly better equipped to handle it on the deck, but, fortunately, the rabbit’s nerves went untested this year. The rabbit discovered that the eggs were undercooked as she distributed them on the lawn, and due to her advanced years, she was too lazy, er in a hurry, to bend down closer to the ground until she heard a couple cracks that sounded like an over-ripe and unappealing melon hitting the turf. Since life is a constant quest to keep adding knowledge, to become wiser, I walked further down that road because I learned that you can throw the eggs back in the vat and cook them good again the next morning. Little bastards were sure hard to peel though.

Someday I hope to learn the secret. The rabbit's mother insists that older eggs peel more easily. Well how the hell old do they have to be? These were purchased two weeks in advance to insure easy peeling, but that didn't buy me any advantage. I had to savage the slimy things to get the shells off. So much for a symbol on new life, these things were only fit for egg salad and there's not too much life affirming about egg salad.

On the commercial side of things, the rabbit was so proud of her restraint this year. The rabbit really cut back on the amount and expense of the crap, er, lovingly selected gifts she left behind in the baskets. But then the rabbit’s mother took the girls shopping and bought them so many clothes that all of the rabbit’s restraint didn’t amount to much against the weight of all the new outfits from grandma. We are heathens, really, no religious observance of any kind, really, even though we live in Utah, really, we don’t go to church. So my kids really don’t need Easter dresses, certainly not for the customary reason kids need Easter dresses, so the outfits the kids selected ranged from June wedding guest (Ellie) to, your mom really let’s you wear that? (YuYu). You should have seen YuYu’s face: the wonderment, the happiness, the eagerness! over this polka-dotted, multi-tiered little number that makes you wonder when she’s going to transform into Mother Ginger and hordes of bonbons are going to skitter from under her swing top.

I also found out that Ellie, 10.5 years-old, is still a firm believer and that I don’t even have to be that careful about hiding the fact that the rabbit is me, she still really wants to believe in the magic. Even faced with the overwhelming evidence that no magic is involved in our Easter celebration, such as bags of crap, er, lovingly selected gifts in the back of the van, clearly visible and easily discovered, the swim suit she picked our from the Land’s End catalog in her basket and the Land’s End box still in my bedroom, my not very well disguised handwriting on the money egg in their baskets, she remains convinced that the rabbit is not me because of my stunning persuasive skills:
Ellie: Mom, are you the Easter rabbit?
Mom: Ellie, think about it. Have I ever just given you money without making you earn it?
Ellie: No.
Mom: Okay, how do you explain the $10 in that money egg? Would I ever just give you money for nothing?
Ellie: Oh, you’re right, you’re not the rabbit.

I rest my case.

One at a time

2007-04-08T20:59:00.000-07:00

is so stinking easy, especially if you have a little bit of a crush on the one. It's spring break next week, so I'm doing the working mom shuffle to arrange child care. Ma and Pa took DDs 1, 3 and 4 out to the home place this afternoon until tomorrow afternoon when they need to leave for funeral in Idaho, so Tuesday is still up in the air, hmmm, I need to knit a thicker support net. So here I am tonight with only the charming, easily pleased, uberadorable YuYu because she has a Brownie event tomorrow afternoon and will need to go to work with me until I take her to the SAHM-planned (obviously) event to celebrate their epic victory in the cookie wars with great feasting and feats of skill and awards for bravery (Little Ceasar's pizza, swimming and new badges).
There wasn't enough time to do much together, a bath where I got creative with the tub crayons, carrying clean laundry up the stairs and singing She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain with YuYu giggling go hard at the crazy lyrics I was making up that she got a side ache, then folding great mountains of laundry (with only two pair of Ellie's clean knickers to be found in the whole entire heap, hmmmm, not a good sign) when YuYu wanted to know if I was boring, well yes, but what she really wanted to let me know was that she was bored, so we talked about the meaning of bored and she said: "Mom, you really do know everything." Easy to see why I have the mom crush on her, yes?
But what was most noticeable, sadly, sadly, noticeable, to me was how relaxed I was without Nora. How easy it was to sing and be fun and make up games and not have to worry about Nora spinning it out of control and into the badlands of competing/needing me to focus the fun on her, or at least demanding and making sure in loud and intrusive ways that she gets her fair share of the fun which usually sucks all the fun out of whatever fun I initated anyway. She just NEEDS so much from me, needs so much more than the other three combined. Needy, to the point that she hangs on me and I feel like I have to suppress myself and only make small gestures, only give small portions away because she'll just need more and more and more and more and more never ending until I just don't see how I can ever give enough, so I don't want to create any expectations I'll never have enough resources to fill. If I loved her like I love YuYu, it wouldn't feel like work to try to fill her up, but the magic isn't there yet and it still just feels like work. I've been quiet about the slow progress, but there it is, it goes slow, not even steady; just slow and erratic with just a splash of guilt to make it emotionally exhausting.
Well, interesting how that post just got away from me. Hmmmm.

New camera

2007-04-03T20:32:00.000-07:00

Hmmm, new improved mega mega pixel but same old shutter bug. I guess I better actually read the manual. How cliche.

It's official, I think, China July 2009

2007-04-02T10:47:00.000-07:00

Here is the babelfish translation from the email I received in response to my question about attending Huang Wei's graduation ceremony. I think that it says we are invited. Huang means yellow, but his name symbol is not the same as the yellow symbol, so, whatever, it's a free translation, can't complain, but you'd think it could sort out yellow from a name. Oh boy, Guangzhou/Guilin/Nanning/Chongqing in July, can't wait, it will be so comfortable and cool, the timing just couldn't have been better.

"Marji and treasure treasure; □□hello, on March 31 we received the mail carrier's bag which you mailed, the true feelings thank you the vitamin healthy product and the cashew which chose for us, we extremely liked. Huang Weidao in July, 2009 graduates. After we must come you Guangzhou to participate the yellow great study graduation ceremony the news to tell him, yellow great is extremely happy, he also very much thought of the treasure treasure in US'S content life, and was anticipating you come that one day."

Blue light special

2007-03-31T00:28:00.000-07:00

Doesn't someone NEED these bed linens kukunest so I can get at least a contact high from shoppy shoppy? These sheets hit all my weaknesses: bold graphics in bright colors. Can I have this on my bed? what? too Suzy Zoo for a middle-aged lawyer? naw, I could so totally pull this off and it wouldn't be sad or strange at all, really, really, not in the least. Good thing it only comes in twin or there woulda been a big ol' lantern festival ahappenin' in my room as fast as UPS could put it on a truck.

But she hears good for free

2007-03-28T10:53:00.000-07:00

So now we know that Nora can see fine and that she hears like a bat. And the hearing test was free thanks to the kind intake clerk at the state health department who winked at me as she waived the fee because Nora is a pre-schooler, wink, wink. I just love folks like that who can bend a rule once in awhile especially if the benefit of the bend falls my way.
So now we also know that Nora's struggles to learn and behave in school are not related to lack of hearing or poor eye sight, so we've got that going for us. Last fall when I enrolled Nora in kindergarten because she met the age cut-off even though I could see that she was still very emotionally immature, I went ahead anyway with what I now see as a very cavalier attitude that "oh well, I can always hold her back." I'm such a cock-eyed optimist and I really really believed that my obviously bright little girl would catch up, just like YuYu who entered kindergarten at the same age and after leaving China for exactly the same length of time. But Nora is not YuYu, for damn sure, they broke the mold after they made my sweet YuYu. Nora has not caught up and she struggles with both her behavior and the academic challenges presented by the kindergarten curriculum. Like hash marks. Oh lord, looking into her eyes is still like looking into an empty handbag when I try to help her learn four sticks and a stripe mean five.
Well, now the time has come to make the decision to "retain" her in kindergarten for one more year and I'm not feeling so damn cavalier. She needs to stay back, that is clear, but it is hurting her. Nora is FIERCELY competitive, what I would call a one-upper. The kind of person, who during the course of any conversation, has done, felt, accomplished, or lived through something just a little more extreme, harder, intense or funnier than the experience you are trying to relate, and we all know how annoying that is. So my little one-upper will need to repeat kindergarten while Mimi advances to first grade and it is really troubling her now and we're just in the discussion phase. When it is real and Mimi (who is now an inch shorter than Nora although 10 months older) trots off to first grade next fall and Nora stays behind, I anticipate big, sobbing angry grief. I try so hard to present the idea to her in the form that "hey bud, some kids just need more time to learn and you will be the leader in class next year while you have more time to learn." But she is too bright for that and knows that she can't read and can't count past 10 and that the other kids are capable of doing so many things that she can't figure out yet, and it hurts her and she gets frustrated and describes herself so negatively but so matter of factly, that it hurts me.
It is the best decision, and everyone seems to agree that if a child needs to be held back, repeating kindergarten is the least socially destructive year to do it, but, of course, I still have guilt. I'm beating myself up for not anticipating that it was more likely than not, considering her lack of progress leading up to kindergarten, that she would not do well this year. I'm second guessing my decision not to keep her in pre-school another year, but I really really believed that Nora would rise to the occasion and meet the challenge exactly because she is so bright and competitive. But instead, kindergarten whipped her ass this year and because of my Pollyanna tendencies, she is the one who will have her tender feelers hurt. Poor little PITA chip.

A vote of no confidence

2007-03-16T20:56:00.000-07:00

Kind and guileless YuYu lost her first tooth yesterday, finally, since she will be seven years old in a little over two months. She was very pleased with herself and I was very pleased with myself because I had two crispy dollar bills saved for the occasion although it’s not like I didn’t have plenty of notice. That little pearl has been hanging on by a thread of flesh for days and days. No WAY would she even entertain the notion of helping it out of the socket a little faster with a little string and door knob action. Come one, don’t tell me that I’m the only one whose older brother convinced her to let him tie one end of a length of string to her tooth and the other end to a door knob and then, slam, tooth out? But when you don’t lose your first tooth until FOURTH GRADE, what the HELL was the matter with my mouth? I tend to think you might be justified to give into extreme measures. Well, thank god my kids are less gullible than I was in my deciduous years, she wouldn't go for the hardware assist.
So, to go along with my excellent preparation with the crispy ones and related smugness, I even remembered to do the deed before I went to bed. I slipped the crispies under YuYu’s pillow before my own head hit my pillow, because, that’s when I usually remember it, right when I’m on the verge of falling asleep and I have to sqeeze every extra ounce of shame on myself to roust my tired butt out of bed to finish my parental tooth duties. But not this time.
But, if anyone remembers this post, there is someone in our household who, through harsh experience, isn’t as sure of our household tooth fairy’s ability to honor her commitments and who, apparently, didn’t want our YuYu to also be disappointed by the slack-ass fairy who has been assigned to us on her collecting route. I really did actually LOL when I walked into my bedroom last night and saw this propped against my pillows:

Dave and Amy are in China!!!

2007-03-15T10:55:00.000-07:00

When I announced to the girls that we were going to move to our current house back in the summer of 2005, Ellie's first reaction was, "but what about Jean?" Jean was our next door neighbor for seven years and she was such a good listener, and she let Mimi eat strawberries from her patch and she was a font of good gardening advice. Jean was one of the hardest things to leave behind when we left our old house (that and the MUCH lower mortgage payment, WHAT was I thinking?). Well, Jean's son Dave married a smart, talented, dynamo named Amy who was already blessed with Sarah, who Dave later legally adopted, and then they brought the wondrous Genevieve into the world to make Jean a happy grandma of two beauties. But feeling that their family was not yet complete, Dave and Amy started the adoption process and found a beautiful waiting older child who they will name Eleanor Zi Tao and they are only DAYS away from meeting their new daughter. You can follow their progress at Amy' Blog. Except for a regrettable moment of TA-waiting-induced-self-indulgence when she posted statistical analyses that burned my eyes on her blog, Amy writes beautifully and thoughtfully about their adoption experience and I can't wait to read her thoughts and observations in the next few weeks. I wish them all the best for an easy transition and evolution into a family of five.

And if we hadn't already moved away from Jean, I'd probably be pretty upset with Dave and Amy because they thought it was somehow acceptable to help Jean find a much better job in Colorado and then entice her to leave Utah with stuff like a higher salary and instant access to her grandchildren and junk like that.

$45 later

2007-03-12T21:39:00.000-07:00

Nora came home from school with a report that she had flunked the mandatory vision screening and wouldn’t I please follow up with either (a) a professional eye exam, or (b) the DIY chart that came with the too-bad-your-kid-can’t-see report. I scheduled the eye exam, but put her through the DIY test just because it sounded fun. She didn’t miss a beat, her little hand moved up, down, left, right, with amazing speed, and even though I only play a doctor on TV, I concluded that she could see just fine.

But I took her to the optometrist anyway (who knew Costco had optometrists? Five pounds of frozen peas, a pint of roasted garlic hummus the consistency of mousse, so yummy, and vision testing, score). I took her to the eye technician because (a) I know she can see, and (b) I know Ellie’s ophthalmologist is booked 9 months out (and I always love that they test Ellie without her pop-bottles on and send her home with a flunked the vision test report every year too, d’ya think?). If the technician found a problem, the pediatric ophthalmologist would be the second stop on the vision train.

Nora is a quintessential class clown, and with her three sisters in the exam room for a captive audience (teacher ladder day? What the hell is teacher ladder day?), she was in her element and had them all snickering pretty good. I’d try to explain what was so funny, but a lot is lost in the effort to translate 5-year-old humor (a line drawing of a jeep was loosely interpreted as “a snake or stumfing”and got big yuks). When the lights were flipped on and the laughing subsided, the very patient and kind optometrist declared her vision to be sound, a smidge nearsighted, but certainly not anywhere near bad enough to need glasses to navigate her world each day. Hell, my younger brother Clark is navigating the interstates and driving his family (not my family, ever, forget that, blind boy) around town with myopic eyes and should wear glasses, thick glasses, but is proof that you can be very near-sighted and stupid and still get your car in and out of the garage every day.

So, after trying to keep Nora on task and stem her crazy nervous giggling long enough to finish the exam, the optometrist said, with laser-like perspicacity, “I think she probably didn’t co-operate with the eye testers at school.” D’ya think? And that’ll be $45, please pay at the desk.

It's good to have goals

2007-03-09T16:09:00.000-08:00

Here is the text of a letter I'm sending off to YuYu's foster family in Nanning. It just occured to me that if I don't say this out loud, create an expectation, have some accountability, I'll never get it done and the opportunity will pass and I'll kick myself in the butt for years.

Dear Family;

Thank you for letting me know that you appreciated the vitamins and cashew nuts. My friend Xiao Hong (who is translating this message) gave me good advice about sending the vitamins and YuYu chose the cashew nuts because she loves them too.

If there is EVER anything that you need or that could make your life easier, please do not hesitate to ask and I will do my best to get it to you. You are YuYu’s parents just as much as I am. I think of you as part of our family. YuYu is a very special child and I know it must still give you pain that she had to leave your home. Her absence must be something you feel sharply because she is so loving and beautiful and unique. It is my hope that knowing that she is happy and thriving here with me and her sisters gives you some comfort.

I would like to plan a trip back to China within the next few years. I was wondering when Huang Wei will graduate from university? Would it be possible for us to attend the ceremonies in Guangzhou and to share his accomplishment with your family?

I know YuYu would be thrilled to share that special event with her brother.

With all our love and respect,

Marji and YuYu

I figure that should put us back in China in the spring of 2009. Don't you think I could get organized by then?

Passive Agressive Mom

2007-02-28T08:36:00.001-08:00

So, YuYu has a birthday party invitation for Thursday at 3:30, WTF? So, trying very hard to keep the incredulity and disdain out of my voice because I'm calling her from the center of my universe that crams dinner (both preparation and consumption), homework, reading, bathing, errands, lessons and life into the 2.5 hours between after-work pick-up and 8:30 bedtime, I call back to RSVP with regrets because, "I work full-time and cannot transport her to the party." Good thing I got the recorder given my attitude at the very moment I made that call. But what I was hoping for was a call back from the party mom to say, "Oh don't worry, I'll take her with me when I pick up party girl from school,” or, "Hey, mutual friend is also invited and I'm sure her mom wouldn't mind picking YuYu up at school too." But no, I'm too pissy to make those suggestions because I expect someone who chooses a weekday afternoon for a party to have considered the possibility that some of their little guests may have working parents and that they may need to provide those sweet deserving little girls who had the horrible misfortune of getting stuck in a family with working parents an alternative method of transportation. And, yes, I could have called and been more direct and put party mom on notice that I have irrational expectations and want to know how she planned to get my child to her child's party, but then she would know that I'm a jackass.
And here's how even-tempered and accepting my little YuYu can be: When I told her that she couldn't go to V's birthday party because I couldn't leave work to drive her there, she said, "okay."
And if you noticed the ooze sliding off your computer screen and onto your desk, don’t be alarmed, that’s just my single parent guilt dripping out of every corner of this post, I don’t think it’s infectious.

Promise Keeper

2007-02-21T22:41:00.000-08:00

In the beginning, there were no electronic transmissions from the Middle Kingdom. It was the rare adoptive family on the vanguard that could stay connected to the mother ship once they set down on the surface in China. Sending an email home proclaiming your joy and amazement from the White Swan business center was a technical super achievement. We could not have dreamed of a day when we would get more than one referral photo, or more remarkable, that we could get a digi-pic of our waiting child sent from a complimentary computer in the Chinese hotel room of a volunteer working at her orphanage or another adoptive family you "met" on your Yahoo orphanage egroup who traveled ahead of you and snapped pictures or your child when they visited the SWI. Making those kinds of predictions in 1996, when I started this process, would have been severe crazy talk, would have set you up for ridicule, would have marked you as a wing-nut: families allowed to visit an orphanage?!? that's crazy talk.

So, when I traveled to adopt Ellie, back in those early days of China adoption, one 2-inch by 2-inch fuzzy photo, of what may or may not be a Chinese infant or just a life-like replica, was all you were going to get before you took the big leap and flew to the other side of the earth to make your family grow and to bring your tiny photo home. And once you were handed your tiny photo, all you received to fill in the gaps of your child's first months or years was a completely and utterly fabricated immunization record (to comply with INS immigrant visa requirements, see, I'm talking way back in the day, it was still the INS). And yet, somehow, in the absence of advanced technology and reliable information, the face in the tiny photo with the fake shot record, turned out to be the right child. The child you longed for, dreamed about, and in whom you invested your whole heart before you met her all on the basis of a fuzzy 2x2 photo. She was the one, and you knew it without hesitation, only immense gratitude to the hands of fate that brought her to you. And it was everything you imagined it would be times a bajillion. And you loved her. You held that baby and had the world by the tail and the confidence that you could do this right, you could make this right, you could be the parent that she needed. You promised her that you could and you had no doubt that you would deliver. You have never in your life felt stronger or more determined; and it shows, it's written all over your face.

Nine years ago today, my own little fuzzy photo was placed in my arms and became love incarnate. I don't always keep the promises I made to her. Sometimes I fail, I'm too tired, distracted, or impatient, but she always shows me the way to do better, she leads by example. She keeps the silent promise she made to me from that fuzzy photo: she is my child. For now, she thinks that I am the best mother in the world, and that's more than I ever asked for.