random thoughts

Last week we had a fun little excursion.  Tim had a one-day conference in a city halfway between here and my grandma's house, so we all drove up together and while Tim was in his conference, Esther and I spent the day (nearly seven hours!) in a science museum.  It was nice to have a day that wasn't about accomplishing anything but just about playing and exploring.  Esther was seriously considering trying to take a nap by the end of our time there, but she made it! When Tim picked us up, we drove on to Grandma's house (Esther slept in the car) and had a mini family reunion with her, my aunt, and two cousins.  We just got to stay overnight and part of the next day, but it was really nice to get to see family we don't see very often and to celebrate Grandma's birthday.  One of my cousins had never met Esther, and the other hadn't seen her since we were in China adopting her (that cousin lived in China at the time).  Esther took surprisingly long to warm up to everyone when we arrived, but once she reverted to her usual attention-loving self she had a wonderful time playing with everyone.  At one point I came into the living room to see her holding a "story hour" with my cousins.  She was in her little chair holding up a book, and they were sitting attentively on the floor in front of her.  I came in just in time to hear her say, "And there was a storm!"  ("Another one?" a cousin interjected. "Oh no!")  Esther continued, "And the T-Rex got wet!  And it wasn't waterproof!"

While we were gone, we got word that our Article 5 has been issued!!  That is our final immigration approval from the U.S., and it came faster than I had expected.  On the other hand, I had thought that our TA (the last document we need in order to travel) would be issued immediately after our Article 5...and we're still waiting.  :-(  So we still haven't gotten plane tickets, and we want to be in China meeting our son a week from Monday!  We would appreciate prayers that our TA is issued tonight (Wednesday China time) and our consulate appointment date tomorrow night (Thursday China time).

Tim and I are trading off being stressed.  Last weekend he dedicated himself to helping me get things checked off our checklist, and we got a lot accomplished.  Now he is frantically trying to finish up a paper that he wants to submit to a journal before we go.  Last night I helped him enter some articles into his list of references.  Engineering/physics is a weird field in that every journal (or group of related journals) has its own style of formatting--no MLA or APA that everyone in the field follows.  So on at least three separate occasions I had to go back and change the formatting of all the entries I had already done because we discovered that the journal Tim thinks the paper will be submitted to did something differently than the example I was following (e.g. I had to go back and type in page ranges for every article when I had just put in the beginning page number of each article).  And then if the article ends up going to a different journal, Tim will have to go back and reformat everything AGAIN.  Ugh.  

This morning Esther said to me, "I don't like FH [her soon-to-be brother].  I am going to be so mean to him when he comes.  He's going to be mean to me, and he's going to say, 'I don't like Esther.'"  I can't absolutely assure her that he won't dislike her, so I mostly just listened empathetically.  At least she knows it's okay to talk about her negative feelings.  We talked a little bit just now (I'm writing while she takes her bath) about what we are going to do in China.  She is excited about the trip, but told me again that she doesn't want FH and she is going to spit on him.  I don't think she means it.  (The spitting part, that is.)  

Three Weeks

I realized last night that just three weeks from today is the date that we hope to meet our new son!  Yikes!!!!  That means we want to be on our way to China in about two and a half weeks.  And that means that our Article 5 needs to be issued early next week.  That is, if our desired timing is going to work out.  We do have a few days beyond that before we have to be in China, but we're hoping for the above schedule.  I looked at my to-be-done list today.  I have only managed to cross off a few items since I wrote it at least a month ago, but I have made progress towards most items, so it's not too overwhelming.  It's going to be a busy couple of weeks, though.  It's just hard to feel like we're really leaving that soon when we're still at least a week away from buying plane tickets!

Meanwhile, our son's orphanage relocated to a new campus outside the city last week.  We're wondering how he is feeling about the move...whether he is still somehow going to school or whether he had to leave his classmates and teachers before the school year was over in order to make this move...how another move right before his big one into our family is affecting his stress level.  I also can't help thinking about the littler kids, who don't quite get what is going on.  It was really hard for Esther to move last year.  :-(

Less than a month now before we meet him!

Day Seven?!

Today was our last full day with Big girl.  As Tim said to me just now, I have mixed feelings about it.  I will not mind getting some time back.  I will not miss the noise, the mess, and the extra need for supervision.  But I will miss her.

This morning the four of us went to a free fair at which county organizations who serve children were exhibiting.  I had hoped to find out about local preschools for Esther, but the only preschool there was Head Start.  However, all the tables had cool free stuff (like temporary tattoos and coloring books on being safe and pencils that change color when you rub them), and there was a moon bounce, a bouncy obstacle course, face-painting, a few games, and free hot dogs and bottled water!  Both girls had an excellent time.

In the afternoon, while Esther napped, Big girl sorted through all of her loot from the fair (which Esther keeps referring to as the "welfare") and packed up her stuff.  Then she did some work for me as reparation for my having to buy the almond bark the other day.  She swept and mopped both the front and back tile porches (which are small) and mopped the kitchen floor.  They look much better now than they have been!

By that time, Esther was up and Big girl wanted to start making dinner.  She knows what she is about in the kitchen, but still required supervision, especially since her ideas on handling raw chicken are not up to my cleanliness standards!  So I hung out in the kitchen, washed lots of dishes, and watched how she made the stuffed tomatoes so that I can make them myself if I want to.  I may tweak the recipe a little bit, but we all agreed that they turned out yummy!  It was such a nice day that we had dinner out on the deck.  Big girl told us that she feels proud of herself.  I asked why, and she said it was for being a good cook, for doing well in school, and for doing something for somebody else (the cleaning she did for me).  I'm glad we're able to send her back to her long-term foster home with that little glow of self-esteem!  It was a reminder how important it is to people's well-being for them to feel that they are contributing something valuable to others.

After dinner we finished icing the cookies.  It made a huge mess (including on Big girl's shirt and pants and in her hair) but was otherwise fun.  Then we did a science experiment and a small art project before bedtime.  The art project turned out to be a problem, as I had envisioned them sharing some of Esther's stickers, and Esther suddenly became very possessive and didn't want Big girl to have most of them.  I was perplexed as to what to do, because they were Esther's stickers and I want to respect her property rights, but at the same time it didn't seem right to rub it in that Big girl didn't have her own stickers.  I finally had Esther pick out a few of her favorites that she absolutely did not want anyone else to take, and let Big girl pick out hers from the rest of the stickers.  I think they were both okay with that.

Esther took a long time to fall asleep tonight, and Big girl fell asleep while waiting for me to come sit with her! So I think she is feeling more settled than a few days ago.  Hopefully that settledness will survive her transition back to her other foster home tomorrow.  She is going to be with us through lunch, and then we will meet the other family and she will go home with them.  It will feel strange to have only one child in the house tomorrow afternoon.

Day Six

The Big Event of today was that Big girl got to have a parent visit!  She has been sooooooo missing her parents and worrying about them.  Tim said she cried in the car on the way home, but she told me before she went to sleep tonight that she thinks she'll sleep much better now that she has seen for herself that they're okay.  And I'm sure it won't hurt that they brought her her teddy bear that she's had since she was a toddler.  We all went to drop her off, so we got to meet her parents briefly.  They were very nice to us, but of course mostly excited to see their daughter!  Big girl had collected a whole assortment of gifts to bring to her parents, including: a small hydrangea bush, a Mother's Day card, two paintings, the glass boot mug that she won at the church Ladies Dinner, a can of sardines (that she had picked out as a snack for herself, but I guess she decided she wanted to give her dad a present more than she wanted to eat them), and four photos that I had taken of her over the last few days and printed out.  I had thought Big girl might be in manic mode when she came back from her visit, but she was actually pretty subdued.  She and Tim and Esther played boat with legos in the basement while I made dinner, and after dinner the three of them went outside for a few minutes while I got ready for icing cookies.  Then we iced until bedtime.  We didn't finish that many, but since they got to bed so late last night I made sure they got to bed in time to catch up on their sleep tonight!

And now I have to figure out how to tell Big girl that she won't be allowed on Facebook any more.  She may well feel betrayed, since she told me so confidingly about her account, and I hate that!  But she isn't even old enough to legally have an account, and there are all kinds of reasons why it's not a good idea for her to be using one.  (She hasn't gotten on it this week, since she uses her DS to do so and its battery has died.  At least, I think she hasn't gotten on it this week--she was telling me today about something that she saw on another child's Facebook page on their DS at school.  Apparently, monitoring tweens' internet use is no simple undertaking!)

Day Five

Discover of the day: I do not like shopping with Big girl!  I had Tim drop us off at the store while Esther was in her gymnastics class, and it became a very long hour.  There was the touching everything, the getting "stuck" looking at scrapbooking stickers and not moving on when I said it was time, the yelling "Don't leave me!!" when I finally told her I was moving on and started walking away from the scrapbooking section (that got us some startled looks from nearby shoppers!), the tossing fruits and vegetables roughly back into their piles if they weren't the ones she wanted to buy, the constant asking for food items (especially sweets and fruit)...and did I mention the touching everything??  She is now the not-so-proud owner of a bag of almond bark that she whacked over her knee and broke in half.  Well, I was the one who paid for it, but she is going to pay me back, probably by doing a job around the house since she doesn't have any money.  It was the first time I've spoken to her sharply since she's been here, and she felt terrible about it.

The rest of the day went pretty well.  I think she was a little bored at school, but no drama that I'm aware of.  In the afternoon she and Esther and I mixed up some sugar cookie dough.  Then Esther watched some new Thomas the Tank Engine movies, I washed dishes, and Big girl called her parents.  They told her the good news that they have completed one of the tasks they need to in order for her to come back home!  She was over the moon excited, and thought she was going to be going home right away.  Sadly, that is not the case.  :-(  There are a couple of other things that they have to do as well, and then they will have to wait for their next scheduled court date for the judge to decide that they've met all the requirements and she can go home.  But progress is progress.  Meanwhile, she has a parent visit scheduled for this afternoon, and she can't wait to see them.

I made the mistake of thinking we'd be able to finish the cookie baking process after dinner.  Oops.  Both girls ended up staying up way past their bedtimes so that they could eat some of the first batch of cookies out of the oven.  (I finished up after they were in bed.)  Big girl complained of feeling sick last night, and again this morning.  I suppose she could really be sick, but I think more likely it's either tiredness or anxiety.  I am shooting for early bedtimes tonight!  I'm finding it's a long process to get two children into bed, especially when both of them need me to sit with them in order for them to fall asleep easily.  I don't mind, though.  :-)  I just need to adjust my timetable a little.

Days 3 and 4

I'll try to make this quick so I can get some sleep!  Last night I ended up staying up late talking with Big Girl, who was feeling overwhelmed with anxiety.  Then I sacked out in my sleeping bag in her room, since she didn't want to sleep alone.  So I slept okay, but not as well as I would have liked.  She wanted me to do the same tonight, but I wanted to sleep in my own bed and I have reason to think the anxiety won't be quite as intense tonight, so we compromised: I sat in her room with my laptop until she feel asleep, she has permission to turn the light on and write or read if she wakes up during the night and can't fall back to sleep, and I'm leaving the door to her room and the door to our room open during the night.

Some vignettes from the last couple of days:

Big girl painted again yesterday--she is amazing at mixing colors!  Then she decided to paint her arms and face, after which I asked her to take a second shower.  So she hid under the table and spent about fifteen minutes chanting, "No, no, no!  I don't wanna take a shower!  You can't make me!"  After which she got bored and came out and took the requested shower, after just a little bit of stalling and griping.

Big girl and Esther love to play a lot of the same things.  I wasn't sure at first whether it was because Big girl loves those things herself, or whether she was just being nice to Esther.  But I have had some time alone with Big girl when Esther was napping or in daycare, and two of the things we have played, at her request, are: hide and seek (the version where I know where she is and she knows I know where she is, but I pretend to look in a bunch of other places anyway) and house.  Her "house" play is very, very elaborate, with lots of details.  Yesterday she stopped in the middle of it and said, "Out of the game.  I have a good imagination, don't I?"  I agreed that she does, and she said gleefully, while jumping up and down on a seat, "I'm acting just like a grown-up!"  I thought, but did not say, "Yeah, I know lots of grown-ups who jump up and down on seats!"  Ha.  This afternoon we got to go outside for a while, and she and Esther played cooking.  She made herself a "stove" out of things that she found, and created some beautiful spring rolls with rolled-up leaves and flower petals (did I mention that she's artistic?).

In her play, and in dealing with frustration, she acts a lot more like a six-year-old than a twelve-year-old.  (This is not an uncommon phenomenon among kids from turbulent backgrounds; they seem to be going back and "catching up" on developmental stages that they didn't get to do properly when they were at the chronological age for it.)  But then there are other times when she's like a twelve-year-old and then some.  She made pancakes for lunch yesterday (from a mix, but it was her idea to add strawberries and she did all the cooking), and she is thrilled that I'm going to let her make stuffed tomatoes (one of her specialties at home, apparently) on Saturday.  Her interests in books, music and movies are...I won't say age-appropriate since I'm not so sure that some of them are appropriate, but I'm guessing that she would find a lot of company among her peers.  She is a fan of Justin Bieber, vampires, and rap songs with risque lyrics.  She has explained to me how a "chick fight" works at school, and sung me the song that kids sing to "fat kids" as well as the one that is sung by popular girls to put other people down.  No wonder she's not keen on going to school!

Last night all four of us went to a Ladies' Dinner at church (Tim helped serve).  The theme was "footprints."  Esther spent half the evening crying to go to her daddy, which was a little frustrating for both of us.  (I eventually let her go, and he hung out with her in the kitchen for part of the evening.)  I think Big girl found the dinner part a little tedious, but she enjoyed the guessing game, and won a prize in the footwear fashion show!  (Esther and I also won prizes--I got socks with lotion in them, and Esther got some sandal-shaped lollipops and notepads.) I think it was a good evening altogether.

AND, today Big girl had her first day of school.  She was, I think, dreading it (but had a poker face on), but came home all excited about all of the new school supplies she had been given, and the fact that she doesn't have to take the standardized tests with the other kids but gets to do all the fun stuff.  She sits in the principal's office while the testing is going on.  She said that this morning she napped (which she probably needed after last night!), but tomorrow we're sending her with a book in case she doesn't sleep and wants something to do.

Tomorrow she has to be at school even earlier, which means...I'd better quit and get to bed!

Day Two

Our (mostly my, since Tim went to work) first full day with two kids went pretty well.  A lot happened!  I got to talk to three different social workers on the phone (Big girl's social worker from her home county, her social worker from our county, and our home study social worker), and one of them came for a visit.  We also found out that she will be starting school this week after all, on Wednesday.  The school is doing standardized testing this week, so I'm not exactly sure what she'll be doing...but apparently, it was deemed important to get her enrolled.  She didn't react one way or the other when I told her of the new plan.  She didn't react when I told her that her social worker was coming either, but was shrieking and jumping up and down with joy when she arrived, so apparently no reaction doesn't mean no emotion!  She was a lot more expressive today in general--very dramatic exhibitions of frustration or excitement.  A couple times it was hard for me to tell if she was truly upset or just kidding around.  Big girl also got to talk to her parents on the phone today.  I tried not to listen in the the conversation, but since she either had the phone on speakerphone or had the loudest connection I have ever heard, I did hear parts of it.  She sounded happy about some of the things she has gotten to do here, but it was clear that she and her parents are both hurting from the separation.  At one point I overheard her tell her dad, "You think y'alls the only ones feeling the pain, but you ain't."  Then she added, "Just playin' with ya."  She's supposed to have a parent visit this week; I really hope it works out.

In the morning, Big girl and Esther painted.  I had been thinking I could go in the kitchen and get stuff done while they were both occupied, but since they both chose to use tempera paint, I ended up spending most of the time in the dining room with them, helping Esther mix her paint and dealing with various accidents.  Big girl really does have an artistic bent.  She wanted to paint an evening sky, so she mixed two different shades of blue, some yellow, and some pink, and it really did look like the sky at sunset!  She was pleased with the result, and plans to give the painting to her mommy.  Then towards lunch time Big girl discovered the space under her (elevated) bed and decided to open a "Christian Academy" in her room, with Esther as the student. Once I told her that I needed to be in the room with them for that game, I was recruited as the teacher's aide. Big girl spent a good part of Esther's nap making signs and writing out the schedule (which included an "opening preyer," offering, meet-and-great, questions, Bible study, snack time, play time, praises, prayer requests (which she described as, "I'll pray for the person and tell them everything will be okay in the end"), and a "closing preyer.")  So after Esther woke up we played "Christian Academy."  The text for our Bible study was Job 15, a speech of Eliphaz the Temanite.  Oy!  This evening towards the end of dinner we all played "I Spy" for a long time.  And Big girl and Esther got in some playing house too.

A few minor frustrations...Big girl has a habit of going through other people's stuff that I find kind of annoying. She does, at least, ask before using any of the stuff--and she doesn't fuss if I say no--but there are times I wish she would have asked before getting into it in the first place!  And she really, really wants to play a virtual-reality computer game, and we don't have any available.  She has some games on her DS, but the DS ran out of batteries about the time she got here.  We could possibly figure out how to recharge it...but given that she also has Facebook on there (despite being too young to legally have an account) and was planning to use Facebook to contact a friend (who we know nothing about) this week...I'm not really sorry that the DS is out of commission!  Just one less thing to deal with.  Oh yeah, and then this afternoon she put her hair up in a bun, which reminded her of a song she likes, so for a while she was going around singing, "Your BUNS...buns, buns, buns!  They make me feel HOT...hot, hot hot!" and Esther was dancing around to the rhythm.  Yikes!  However, if those are the biggest issues we have this week, we have nothing to complain about!!  (I described to our social worker how our time was going and she commented, "Honeymooning big time, huh?"  Here's hoping the honeymoon will last all week!)

We're going to send Esther to daycare tomorrow morning as usual.  Hopefully Big girl will be able to find a way to entertain herself that doesn't involve getting on the internet and looking for virtual reality games.  I'm thinking another art project will be in order...