Monday, May 31, 2010

A Matter of Perspective

Dada and Libby doing their circus routine

Last week, we got a very short update on Miss Maisy. So short, the agency is going back to the rep in China and asking him to please get more. We received no pictures, but you already know that because if we had, they would be plastered here! The day we got the update, we had one of Libby's schoolmates and her Mom over for a play date. I said "Oh, she is 17.9 pounds, good". The Mom looked at me in horror and repeated the weight and then asked Maisy's age, and then looked at me, but could not think of something to say. The next day I was at my friend Rena's. She also has a Hubei girl. I told her how much Maisy weighed. She practically shouted, "That's Great!". All in how you look at it. :)

This June will mark the 5th anniversary of when we started the adoption process to get Libby. We expected to be home the following June with our little girl. (I am not sure how much people know about the process, but no, we were not matched with Libby all those years ago and then had to wait to get her. You are not matched with a child until right up at the end.) It would be 2-1/2 years later before we were matched. My friend LA, whom I met in a China adoption chat site had a log-in date of two months ahead of ours. When we first met, we thought Eric and I would be traveling just a few months after her and her husband. We got our referral one year after they got theirs. I go to this China adoption blog site often as it has more information than any other site I know. I see families posting who have a log in date 5-6 months after our December 2005 one. They are still waiting. And today I thought wow, take a look at the past 5 years of your life. Marriage? Divorce? Child/Children? New house? Think of all the changes that have happened in your life in that time. Then do me a favor I have no right to ask of you. Please think/pray for those people who have been waiting all this time to become a family. Close your eyes and shoot some good thoughts into space. Thank you!

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Pre-k, here we come!

We just got the call from Randolph Heights, and Libby is in their pre-k program! Woo Hoo for drop-outs! If you read the blog, you know why we are happy. First of all, it is Free. To have that $185/month will be such a nice thing, especially since Maisy will be home by then. I also love that it is 5 days a week and that it is so close by. Whew! And, I do not have to look at parochial schools that Eric would not have been thrilled about her attending :)

My strep filled week would only be more complete if we got our update on Maisy and to find she is doing well. That may be too much to ask for, but I would love to see some new pics and to find her health has continued to improve and that she is doing good. Libby just told me that she is going to teach Maisy to swim underwater and how to pull up her underwear. There you go. Oh, and how pick her nose....

I'll leave on that note!

Monday, May 24, 2010

Woo Hooo

I797 (wait while I turn to read the rest of it) Notice of Action has arrived. The notice type is Notice of Provisional Approval. I contacted our agency to see if this was just another piece of wasted paper by the USCIS, but she said this is the one. We are approved! OK, I will grant you that there seemed to be little doubt of that happening, but still, one more step down. Next will be our Article 5, then our Travel Approval and once we get our Consulate Appointment, we can make travel arrangements-whoosh. I am now exhausted. I am sure it has nothing with my strep throat or our solid week of little sleep due to a series of unfortunate events.

In other good news, we found an Ikea sofa sleeper on Craiglist several weeks ago. It fits perfectly into the playroom and hopefully will be a good place for guests to sleep. We will find out when Eric's parents visit us in a few weeks. The nice couple selling it were from Germany and had finished their two year stint here. I jokingly asked if they had anything else they would like to sell. We now have two of the Malm dressers in white, and a very lovely armoire. All in great condition and for a fraction of the cost at Ikea. Time to get cracking and to get this house in order!

As for travel to China, our coordinator thinks it will be two months to our TA and then we will travel 3 weeks later. This is still keeping in the window of end of July/early August. The weather here has been hot and humid and I think it has been so to prepare us for our trip :)

Thank you to all of you who are here for our journey. I am still waiting to switch over the blog I have going to our new Baby Jelly Bean site, and you will see that here first.

Hugs to all of you!

Friday, May 21, 2010

Libby's Loves

"Mama, Mama, I love pink circles, Tenzing and S's". Turns back to watching Super Why. Yep, and I love you!

We are not the prayingist family, but a few weeks ago during bedtime, Libby and I said a prayer for Maisy. We asked God to take care of her, to let her know we loved her and that we hoped to meet her soon. Almost every day now, Libby will ask me to do the "God is great" prayer. At first I was like ?! Then I realized it is the only prayer she knows because she says it at preschool at snack time. I am a tad embarrassed, but, oh, well. During the prayer, Libby always pipes in and says "And I am going to be your big sister, me, Libby". It is so dang cute. Maybe we need to get one of those prayer dice to help us out in the future?

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Musing on a sunny day

I don't muse very much here. I generally just write things that are happening with us and leave it at that. However, this past week or so, I have had something ping ponging in my head and I told myself if it was still here, I would sit down and write about it.

On Mother's Day, there was an article in our local paper about older mother's. It was not the worst I have read, but it was still quite unflattering. One thing that I found so tiresome in it, was the comment that so many women put off marrying for their careers. Seriously, it is like an urban myth that just will not die. I remember once being called a career gal, and I could not help it. I just laughed and said "I work". Of all the women I know who did not marry by 30, none of them did it for their career. Oh, sure, we all worked, but it was not Miranda on Sex in the City taking over the world. Trust me, there are far fewer of her than just regular women who work to pay their rent, have fun with their girlfriends, and hope to meet a nice guy. Of all the women who did marry by 30, almost all of them still work. Hmmmmm. The article implies how selfish these "career" women were to not have married and had their children while they were still young. If I had met the right guy when I was younger, I would gladly have done so. I did not. In fact, many of us who did not marry until our 30's have to laugh at some of the things that have been said to us. "Oh, you are not married, so are you at least divorced?". Nope. "Did you at least live with someone?" Nope. And I do not exaggerate with the "at least" at all. Somehow, just being single in itself seemed to be far worse than not having "at least" been married or to "at least" have co-habitated. Really? Why? It would have been so much better had I married at X age, had X children and divorced rather than just be a single woman hoping to meet the right guy? I am sure there are sociologists out there who would tell me "yes". I could give many examples of women who felt that they had to be married by some magic number. Many accomplished it. I can't say all are happy for having done so. In fact, as I was typing this, I had a flash back to college and two women who lived in one of the off campus houses with me. They both were absolutely explicit (breathed it) that if they were not engaged by the time they graduated, they were failures. Oh, and the ring had to be half a caret, no less! Watching them work was awing. Yes, they were both engaged by the time they graduated, married, had children. Last I heard, one married, other divorced. I dated a guy who was very upset his father was remarrying. His mother had been gone for many years. His problem with his father's intended? She was 50 and had never been married. What was wrong with her?

As to the older mother part, again, it would perhaps have been nice to have been younger when I became a mother. But I would not have Libby and right there, even the thought of being younger loses all value to me. I could write pages about it, but will save for another time.

There, I have mused, I am done.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Knock Knock

I love my dance outfits, especially the leg warmers!


Who's there?
Smiley face
Smiley face who?
Smiley face monkey toes!

Yep, Libby is now telling her first knock knock jokes. This one could go on all day! I laughed so hard when she told me this one, her first one, that every time after wards when she would tell it, she would demand "LAUGH, Mama". It now has some variations, Smiley face Mama, Smiley face dada, Smiley face Merlie, etc...I need a knock knock joke book, I think!

New with us. Let's see. We got a notice from the USCIS that we would get a notice when our paperwork was completed. Gee, thanks. I got all excited over nothing.

My Mother's Day fruit bouquet!


Had a lovely Mother's Day. Eric and Libby let me sleep in while they made a fruit bouquet. As you can see from the picture, they did an exceptional job. It was both lovely and yummy. I was then treated to French toast and bacon, cooked perfectly. Later that day, we were joined by friends Doug and Colleen, and their two children, Jai and Sheng. It was a great day.

Libby with Jai and Sheng

Tomorrow is Eric's birthday. Let's just say, he should not be allowed to watch Food Network. Ironically, he will complain endlessly if I am watching it, but then will come up with, "We should really try to make that gyro meat from scratch". Hmmm, translation, "You should make that gyro meat from scratch and have a little birthday party for me while you are at it." :)

Kiss that girl!

A thank you to my friend Rena for telling me about using Murphy's Oil Soap to get out set stains in clothes. I had bought a cute shirt for Libby at a sale and did not realize it had a stain until I got home. It came out like "snap" when I tried this.

The sun is finally out and the next week is supposed to be lovely-wooohoooo!

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Look Mama, Chinese people!


Yep, nothing better than sitting in a Chinese restaurant and having your daughter blurt this out in that quiet pre-school voice! Today, Libby asked for noodles, so we stopped at the restaurant near our house. She never commented on the Chinese waitresses or busboys, but when a family came in, Mom, Dad and two teenage boys, she took it upon herself to let me know Chinese people were there. Two non-Chinese men were walking by at that moment and got a good laugh out of it. I had to call Eric to tell him. As funny as it was, and it was, it showed us that she is now putting those puzzle pieces together. We have always talked about her being born in China and that she is Chinese. We have always also talked about her being adopted (One book put it this way, if you were old enough to remember being told, you were too old) as part of her life story and weave it into conversations. However, she is now of an age where she is looking around and adding things up. She tells me that she is happy I have brown eyes, like her. I think our discussions about Maisy, and her being in China, also has Libby thinking. Sometimes I wish I could go into her head and see what she is processing.

On a different note, Libby wanted to make Dada a heart for his birthday. We met friends Michelle and Malia at Paint Your Plate last week to do so. I had hoped for a simple heart shaped plate, which they did not have. Dada will be getting a heart shaped jewelry box instead :)

We did not get into our pre-k school as we had hoped. Ironically, it is our neighborhood school, so it is guaranteed for kindergarten. The competition for this pre-k is fierce as it is a good program, is 5 mornings a week, and free. We are 3rd on the list, which would appear great, and yet they did not give us a lot of hope that we would get in because it so coveted. I am going to remain cautiously optimistic while checking out other options.

We met my nephew, his wife and their two children on Sunday at the Children's Museum. They live in Hibbing and had never been there before. Seeing if from fresh eyes helps remember how wowed I was the first time I went there. We still love it to pieces, but it is nice to appreciate how fortunate we are to have it so close by. Shout out to nephew and family to come for a visit this summer!

All in all, life is good as we begin the countdown to summer, and our journey to our next daughter.