Culture up the ying-yang...

Today we took the kids to a dance class to learn a little Chinese dance. In 40 minutes the teacher ran over the dance moves and then the kids performed the little dance for the parents. It was so stinking cute, I couldn't believe it. I had to be careful to actually watch the kids instead of getting caught up in the video taping process. This was a "friends of FCC" event. There were a bunch of us adoptive parents there. I only talked to a few of the parents.

There was a phenomenon in China that I noticed many, many times. Back in 1990, it was rather uncommon to see back back travelers in China. I had been in China for about 7 months and was eager to talk to "Westerners" and couldn't wait to just talk with other people who were from the states or Europe or whatever. When I would see another Westerner, I would try to make eye contact, a connection talk about something...ANYTHING! If it was a teacher, even better, we could share "war stories". So many times, though, the other Westerner would walk by and not even make eye contact. It was as if they were upset that there was another Westerner in the city ruining their "Asian Experience".
I had a similar feeling from some of the parents at the FCC event today. The feeling of "I'm more Asian than you and I'm the one providing my child with the REAL Chinese experience". Some guy was telling me about how he went and spent 4 days without his adoption group in Guilin and how he skipped going to Beijing. Wow, dude...that was totally daring and different. I wanted to say, "You know, brave dude, I've spent 2 years in China. I've been to places you don't even know exist. Don't brag to me about your Asian experience". But I just smile and nod. Their daughter probably knows how to say, "Ni Hao" and can say "Xie Xie" (pronounced shay-shay). Their so very Chinese and culturally in touch. OK, I'm not being very nice. It's better than nothing. In the end, everyone had a good time, the kids were adorable and I got some cute pictures. Sometimes this journey takes me to strange places.

And now they are 5...

Laina turned 5 in December. Min turned 5 in January. They are both so very pleased to be 5 years old. They learned how to ride bikes last month. Min learned how first, and Laina learned a week or so after. They both are learning their alphabet letters and like to practice writing their names. They go to Tiny Tots two times a week for 3 hours at a time. They're really looking forward to going to Kindergarten. Getting into the mind of a 5 year old is a challenge at times, but they're really interesting little kids that I get the amazing chance to parent. Oh yeah, and they're the cutest things ever!

It's been awhile!

Yeah, so it's been a while since I've blogged, and I miss having something to go back and look at. Let's catch up---

Last summer: bought a house in California. It's a rather ugly house, but we're working on it. Take a look:
Here's the living room before we started working on it



Here it is now that we had the fireplace re-faced, the fireplace surround re-faced, and the floor put in:



Check out the awesome kitchen:


We're going to have to live with it for a little while. In the mean time, I've re-grouted all the counter tops because the counter tops were disgusting. The grout was all rotted out and there was slimy gross junk deep in the cracks. So at least the kitchen is clean.

Here's the glorious powder room with a fantastic plastic gold tone mirror. Fan-frickin'-tabulous. Honestly, people paid good money for this look.





Here's the powder room after I got done with it. I still haven't added in the cabinet knobs or the mirror or the towel holder. I'm using the cabinets for linen storage, since there isn't a linen closet in the house. The room also houses the laundry/dryer.



Check out the dining room. Note the fantastic wallpaper on the ceiling and walls. There's are special accents such as the gold tone crown molding and the candle looking chandelier with grapes all around. Yes, it's lovely.




So, since we couldn't stand to have such a lovely room in our house, we stripped the wall paper and painted, put strand woven bamboo flooring down (that dark blue carpet was just too fancy for our taste...) and we're still picking out the perfect lighting fixture.

So the house is one thing that's been occupying the time.

I'll blog again tomorrow--I have so much to blog about!!

Bad Bloggy Momma

Yeah, so I haven't updated in a while...sorry...

We've been a bit busy. We're moving. Not far from here, but to a "new " house. We bought a house in the hills and moving day is 2 days away right now. Our house is a "cosmetic fixer" which means it looks a all sorts of bad inside. The yard is huge and the house is big and we're all happy with it.

Since the last post, we've been to San Diego, Universal Studios, here and there and have had bunches of stuff going on. So--how about a picture or two?

Here are the girls at Universal Studios meeting a doggy friend at the "Animal Actors" show.



Here's Min with Laina in the background at the beach in San Diego. It's funny to think that just a year ago, Min HATED the beach with a fierce passion. Now, she loves it.



Laina went to Lego Land with Daddy. I stayed at home with Min. Here's Laina on a ride:


Next time: our new house...

The wait of a Lifetime...

Look at this Picture. It was taken on March 15th, 2006. Laina had been home for 6 months and we still lived in Portland, Oregon. Laina was 15 months old. Since then we've moved. We've traveled back to Portland several times. Friends have gotten married and had babies. We've added Min into our family. I'm starting to think about the girls starting Kindergarten in the year 2010. I'm starting to think about starting back to work when the girls are in school. Our lives are quickly moving forward and things are looking bright.

There are a group of people that we have something in common with that have had their dreams and plans put on hold since the date that this picture was taken. On March 15th, there are at LEAST 25 families that had their dossier logged into the Center for Adoption Affairs in China. We know that 25 people reported to the Rumor Queen that they have their Log In Date on March 15th, and more people haven't reported. Right now, China has given referrals of babies and children to the people who have logged in their paperwork up to March 6th, 2006. They turned in their paperwork just one year and 2 months after we turned in our paperwork for Laina and they're having to wait for 3 YEARS or more before they can see their child's face. We waited for 6 months. The slowdown is just so long. Many families are going to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel before too long, though. At least 83 families are going to be getting their referral at the beginning of April. I hope that more than that will be processed.

How did we get Min home so quick? She was a special case called "waiting child". We had identified her off of our our agency's "waiting child" list. We filed our paperwork specifically for her, and because of that the process moves much faster. Even so, it was a year in process, including gathering all of our dossier documents.

One of my secret joys is seeing the faces of the babies that are matched with new parents and watching the families go and get their new babies. It's a fantastic journey that I love to watch from afar. Check out this page and watch the babies come home. There should be a new group of babies matched to their parents coming in the beginning of April.

So...all 2 or 3 of my blog readers that are waiting for your babies, my thoughts are with you, and I'm also counting the days/months/years along with you.

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The last couple of Sundays we've been braving the world of Realty and we've gone "Open Housing". We're not going to be buying a house in the next week or two, but it's a good time to start checking things out and seeing what one can get for how much. I enjoy seeing in other people's houses and thinking about how our things would fit in the house. We've seen some that we like, and others that are pretty awful.

The last weekend we were out, we stopped by a Yuck-in-a-box for lunch (Acutally, the grilled Ciabatta sandwich isn't bad). Jorg recently bought a new snappy cam and we were trying it out. Here's what we came up with--

Don't worry, I wasn't about to rip of Min-min's head. We were playing a game of "Make a silly face" and I was pulling a face at Min and she was reacting to it and Jorg happened to take a picture of it. Nice, huh?

I always say that if you make an ugly face at the camera, the only thing you'll get is an ugly picture that someone can post on the internet.



Here's a nice picture of me and Min together.




Jorg and Laina like to sit together, or rather Laina likes to sit with Jorg. He's a softie pushover and she gets to drink as much of her soda (7-up mixed with lemonade) as she likes. I usually pull her cup away until she eats most of her dinner.



At this second, the girls are playing legos on the floor. Min is trying to roll the lego car up Laina's arm, and Laina is squealing happily and then after she squeals, she tries to bump Min's chest with her head which send off another peal of laughter and the process starts again.

I've just annouced "Jammie Time" and nothing is happening. They're totally ignoring me, the little scamps. **sigh** gotta go and enforce the law...

Time marches on...

So, now it's the beginning of March and I haven't updated the blog since the middle of December. BAD bloggy momma. Let's do a Reader's Digest Condensed version of the last few months.

So, for Christmas we went to Germany and had a very nice time. The girls got to experience some snow (thankfully, not too much). We got to visit with our relatives in Germany and a good time was had by all. Except for that whole stomach flu thing, but that went away.
Here's a picture of us and some cousins, aunts and uncles mixed in somewhere. We're at a castle somewhere in Germany.



I had to buy these coats special for the trip, and we really haven't used them since. I don't think we'll use them again before the kids grow out of them! The picture is the skating rink in the Fussgangerzone in Stuttgart.



After Christmas, we came home to the OC and then we all got sick for most of the month of January. Blech. Fever, sinus infection, ear infection, bronchitis, stomach yuckiness, and jetlag. Hurl. A picture? You want a picture? OK, let's see what we've got.

This picture was taken sometime around Min's birthday, which was on the 21st of January. I was going to take her to Disneyland, just her and me, but on the actual day, we were both so sick that we had to just stay home and convalesce. We'll have to do her first trip to Disneyland on another day...maybe my birthday we'll go. Well, the girls don't look to sick, but I think they were putting on a happy face for the camera.



After the horrible month of January, we moved into February, which brings with it the happiness of the New Year! We let go of the year of the rat and welcomed the strong determination of the Year of the Ox. For our New Year celebrations, we again had a lovely lunch with the Chinese Consul General to Los Angeles, Mr. Zhang. We really enjoyed seeing him again, and the girls ask when they can see him again.


We also had a fantastic dinner with our friends from our Dragon Boat team, the Blazing Paddles. The girls really like dressing up in their fancy clothes.





And now, we're back into the day to day rhythm of life that I enjoy so much. I started going to Zumba classes to help me keep my pants size the way it should be, and also to help me get down with my bad self. The girls go to their Chinese teacher twice a week and to tiny tots twice a week.
Today we took some "for fun" pictures. The girls saw me puting on a little make up and wanted some, too. I made them all up and we looked like real floozies! So what do you do when you look like floozies? Well--pull out the camera, of course! Actually, the camera didn't capture the skank very well, and actually, the pictures turned out really cute. Here's a few...
Me with my girlies!!





Not bad for holding the camera out as far as I can reach, huh?

Here's some of Laina:









And Min:

The Aftermath

You'd never guess by looking at her smiling face chomping on a slice of Salami that an hour before she had been screaming like I'd never heard her scream before. This morning Min woke up crying that her head hurt and we gave her a dose of Ibuprofin. She has a little bit of bleeding coming through the bandage that is a little disconcerting, but I know that it will stop in the next day or so.

After the girls were sleeping yesterday, I cleaned up the mess in the bathroom. It really wasn't as bad as my memory made it out to be, but it was bad enough.




Right now, the kids are at the YMCA kidcare and Jorg is exercising. Me? I'm not writing in my blog and watching the Simpson's in the background, don't think I am. I'm making Pizza for Pizza friday. Actually, I made the Pizza's about and hour and a half ago and they were waiting in the oven for the kids to go to the Y and I just started baking them. Oh yeah...a few minutes of no one else in the house...just a few...

Tomorrow we have breakfast with Santa and go to a classic car show. Horay!!

Slightly Damaged.

Both of my daughters are at nap right now, and I'm finally able to reflect on what happened this morning.

We were literally 2 minutes from walking out the door for the girls "preschool". It's a Parks and Rec. program that meets 2 times a week for 2 1/2 hours, just enough time for me to grocery shop and catch a few minutes by myself. I had just finished combing and styling Min's hair and she wanted to see how it looked. She took off running from my room to her bathroom, just around the corner. As she got ready to turn the corner, her foot slipped and all I heard was a bang and a cry. I got up to see what was the damage, hoping for the best. She was face down on the floor crying and I could see the blood dripping.

I carried her the few steps into the bathroom where she could bleed on a surface that was easily cleaned and grabbed a wad of toilet tissue to wipe the blood, all while calling to Laina to get me a towel from the linen closet. Laina brought me a towel and after a few wipes, I could see that we weren't going to make it into Tiny Tots today.

I called my husband, but he didn't answer his cell. I called my girlfriend from MOMS club and she said that she'd drive over to pick up Laina and keep her while I took Min to urgent care. So, 45 minutes after initial impact, Min and I ended up in an examination room at the urgent care center.

Min had a gash on her forehead about 2 CM long and it was too deep for using the adhesive stuff, she'd have to be stitched. I helped to hold her hands while the doctor injected the lidocane and started stitching her up.

Min actually fell asleep on the table. The doctor and the nurse let me keep her there, sleeping while I went to go buy some children's Advil and fill a prescription for a short term antibiotic. She slept for about 20 minutes after the procedure was over, I actually had to wake her up.

Now, she has a bandage on her head that we have to leave on for a week. I'll get some mederma for scars so that she won't have a big scar on her forehead.

I had stitches 4 times as a kid. One of the times was because I ran into the wall, just like Min did. We'll have matching scars.

About Min

It's easy to write about Laina. Everyone comments on how smart Laina is, how clever, how funny, how crazy. She's like commenting on how big the ocean is, or how tall the empire state building is. She's so out there that it's impossible to ignore her. She refuses to let people ignore her. I haven't written about Min too much, since it's so easy to write about Laina. That's not fair, is it? Let me tell you about Min.

Most people don't really know about Min. She gets the shadows of the spotlight that fall on Laina. Min is very smart, she figures things out very quickly, but she's also even tempered and sometimes, although she figures out that things work one way or another, she'll do things in her own time and in her own way. She's even tempered and it takes so much for her to lose her temper, which is good, considering her hair trigger sister. Min is sensitive and doesn't like people to be sad or mad. She also wants her own way and will pout and cry if she doesn't get it. Don't we all, though. She's a little girl who has been alive not quite 4 years and has already been through so much. When you stop and think what this little one has been through in four years, it's staggering. She was abandoned by the woman who gave birth to her. She was brought into institutional care where she lived for a couple of months. She was brought into a family that fostered her, a loving home, but a little less than stable. Her foster sister was adopted a couple of months before she was, a loss for her that she cried about when we met her. In her mind, Laina has been merged with the memory of her foster sister, Zi Qin. I asked Min who Zi Qin was and she said, "it's Laina". She won't process until she's older, that Zi Qin is now called Zoe and lives with a family somewhere in Florida. Min has left her home city which she still remembers and has taken this town as her home. She has accepted me and Jorg as her parents. When you ask her about China, she says very matter of factly that she was living in China waiting for us to come get her.
When we met her, Min didn't do many things. She didn't take off her clothes by herself. She couldn't get dressed by herself. She didn't walk very far. She didn't sleep by herself. She didn't swing, slide or jump. Taking a shower or a bath was terrifying for her. She can do all of those things now, plus many other things. She's learned English so quickly. She's retaining her Manderin with much effort, but we're trying to keep it up.
She's silly and likes to dance and sing. She bites when she's mad. She can be naughty and sabatoges Laina sometimes. She's sweet and funny. She likes to draw and paint. She's afraid of dogs and bears. She hated the beach and now she loves the beach. She can swing on the swings all by herself. She likes to shop. She likes to play in the yard with the water hose and also dig dirt in the garden.
She isn't the force of nature power house that her sister is. Min is more of a sweet and beautiful breeze. She's soft and easy to be with. She can sometimes cause a squall, but for the most part, she's so pleasant to be around. Sweet and beautiful Min, we're so happy you're with us!