Writing Challenge

My friend Nicole put me onto this blog writing challenge for the rest of the year and I thought it might be a nice way to finish out 2015 and a good way to kick-start the old blogging juices. It's pretty simple, the challenge is to just blog once a day for each day in December. The point is not to stress about it, not to beat yourself up if you miss a day, just do your best and blog as much as you can.

Blogging Challenge!

The above is a link that you can go to, to check out some of the other blogs that are participating in the challenge. And I'm off.....

So There's This Thing Called Facebook

     I have recently started this blogging thing again and I have quickly realized why I ever started it in the first place. I just like to have a place to out my thoughts down and maybe put in a picture or two and blogging was a way to do that and also let my family that lived a few states away keep in touch. Then Facebook came along and I started doing that, so blogging felt a bit redundant at times, so I slowly moved away from it. Now I'm back bitches!!!!
     Some of that is because on here I tend to behave myself a bit more, I am consciously aware that this space is more for my entire family unit and our memories and I won't be as prone to put political stuff on here, but it's mostly because I like having a bit more space to talk about the subject I'm blathering on about and a bit more time to use for adding pictures and maybe some video.
In the recent past that old FB has given me grief. I do tend to be opinionated and I just can't seem to stop putting things on my wall about my political views or issues that get my blood boiling, no matter how many times I promise myself I will keep things light and about me and my family. Then, I go ahead and post something and invariably someone forgets the number one FB rule, "If you don't like it, you just don't leave a comment" and I just sort of black out and either start defending myself (which leads to HUGE issues) or I just start un-friending people. Listen, I started the whole un-friending after a huge personal issue came up over FB and a political view got way out of hand so now, I just tell myself, "If this person and I are that diametrically opposed and they can't keep their fingers off of their keyboard, then they don't need to be looking in on my life."
     On the positive side of FB, I have 133 friends on there that I have contact with. They make me laugh, wish me well when I am sick, wish me Happy Birthday, watch my children grow, laugh at my stupid jokes, tolerate my political crap, listen to me rant about animal cruelty, put up with my extreme geekery, love me despite my back yard water feature, support me in dark times. Some of my FB friends are real life friends, some are family and some are just people I met online and never met in real life but whom I have been online with now for so long, that I would just walk right up and hug and start chatting away with (you know who you are).
     I'm going to keep doing both, blogging and Facebooking. You will more than likely get an overlap of pictures, because my kids are old and sodded and will only allow me to take so many anymore (the ingrates). Read along if you want. I'll just be here doing my thing, because it makes me happy. You know, like a room without a roof.

Liam and His Kung-Fu

When we moved here, we realized it was time to start Liam in a year round activity. For awhile he wavered between martial arts and gymnastics but, eventually his love of fighting and whooping ass took over and he chose Kung-Fu. I wasn't sure, at first, how it was going to go, he is Liam after all. A bit clumsy, a little goofy, sometimes a bit difficult to focus...but, to my surprise he is thriving! He loves it.
He goes into class, behaves himself, focuses and really enjoys the things he is learning there. He too works hard at his chosen craft. In October, he tested for, and passed for his yellow stripe on his belt. That was quite a moment for him, his first big solo achievement in life. He had worked hard for it, practicing kicks and blocks every night, making sure he knew his bow and the stretch routine. You know that is all very hard work and dedication for a little guy but he did it and he was happy about it.
Sometimes his Si-fu Mr. Yes even tells me that he uses Liam as an example to the other boys as to how they should be behaving in class! He goes three nights a week and he is always happy to go. I am also happy about the fact that he has made a gaggle of friends that he calls his "peeps" and they all get along and seem to help each other out and have fun in class and after.

USAGC 4

We moved to Florida 6 months ago and in that time, my little gymnast has had to work hard. You see, there was a gap in her training due to the move and that is hard for a gymnast anyway. Then when we started at her gym, we learned that they did not have the program she was used to being in, in New Jersey, that she would have to train and compete in the USAGC branch. USAGC, for those of you who don't know, just really means that the judging is more picky, that every little wobble or bounce gets a deduction, every little turn of the foot they don't like gets a deduction, if your hands aren't held right they give you a deduction...It also means that there is no longer the luxury of picking your own music for floor routines, or designing your own floor routine-everyone does the same thing. It's tougher all around. Also, she just had to catch up on skills.
Well, she has worked and worked and worked. She has listened to her coaches, she has tried and failed and tried again. She has made us proud by managing to work so hard but still have fun and keep loving her sport. She comes home after every practice completely worn out but smiling and laughing and telling us stories of her gym mates and tales of her training. She leaves that gym exhausted and sweaty, smiling and ready to get back in there the next practice. The thing I love most? When she goes to a competition, even if she falls on the beam, or she doesn't get her squat on, she says, "That was a great competition! I had fun. Thanks for letting me go." Every time.
I still remember taking her to her very first gym practice, she was three years old, a very shy and still chubby little thing that refused to go out onto the mats unless I went with her. She would reluctantly go through the motions for the first few times but soon enough, she started to really just want to get there and get out on the mats and start jumping and tumbling. She never looked back. I can't tell you how many less we have gone through but I can tell you this, I hope we have hundreds more because she loves this and even if she never makes it to the Olympics, it has been good for her spirit and it has made her strong in her body and her mind. I have to give credit to gymnastics for helping my little daughter go from being a tiny, weak baby to the strong muscled young lady with an 8 pack that can haul in more groceries than I can.

Yesterday Was National Adoption Day

The Saturday before Thanksgiving every year is known as National Adoption Day. If you are an adoptive family, like mine, this is something you just kind of know. If you are an adoptive Mom, similar to me, this day can fill you with mixed feelings. Those mixed feelings stem from the fact that most people take this day and use it as a big advertisement for Adoption, almost as if to say, "Hey! Look, this is what everyone with a beating heart in their chest SHOULD be doing." I am here to say though, that adoption is not something that everyone should be doing.
Adoption is something that you should do only if you have considered it carefully and purposefully. Because, you see, the end result of adoption is having a child, and being that child's parent forever, no matter what, and that is quite a big deal. The biggest deal of all, as far as I'm concerned.
Adoption is rough. Adoption is messy. Adoption takes time, lots and lots of time. Adoption is expensive. Adoption has issues with bonding, both child to parent, and parent to child. Adoption is amazing. Adoption is life changing. Adoption is life. Adoption is love. Adoption is the miracle in my life that gave me the two greatest kids on the planet. In short, adoption is just like making a family in any other way, messy and full of growth and love for everyone involved and you, nor I would have it any other way.
Even though I feel this way about adoption and being a parent, I do not feel that adoption should be advertised and pushed off on everyone on Adoption Day. And I have an even greater problem with Orphan Sunday. I feel that a greater purpose would be served if we could just show adoptive families as we are.

Families just like everyone else, just with a different start. Let's just let people know that if biology isn't working, there is something else out there that can work for them. And at the end of the adoption road there is love eternal. That is what National Adoption Day means to me. 

My Tumbling Bean

Evelyn has been in gymnastics since about, oh….. yea high….
   

Actually, this was taken after she had been tumbling around for about 18 months or so. When I first put her in gymnastics, I had no clear idea of what I was doing, we lived in North Carolina and that was the only program that she would deem to go to. It was a big gym that had all of the big mats laid out and the girls were so little and chubby that the coaches would just run them through these little obstacle courses. 

Then we moved to Ohio and her second gym, in the picture above, was where she really got moving, little cartwheels, and jumping, holding onto the uneven bars…I could watch her muscles getting stronger! She loved it. We kept going. She kept growing.

Then we had to move to New Jersey and she thought she would just die. Little did she know that Blake's Gymnastic's and Miss Tracey were just about to enter her life and make gymnastics EVEN BETTER. Ev' love of gym is so great that, before we even had furniture here, we had her signed up for gym and she was going. 

All I can say about gymnastics for her as a person is this, there have been no negatives. She is a strong minded person and I believe that gymnastics help her learn how to develop that side of herself in a positive way. She has to come up with the determination to go to practice day after day and week after week, on her own- and she does. Gymnastics comes with a lot of disappointments, a lot of falling as your muscles learn these tricks over the years and you have to be tough to keep taking that kind of beating. Still, she keeps it fun, she is always smiling and ready to go. 

As her Mom, I love it because I see the teen girls in gym who are dedicated being in a group together and they have no time for shenanigans, nor do they want shenanigans in their lives as that would make their scores drop and who wants that?

I have compiled some slide shows of Ev's meets from her years as a gymnast. Feel free to watch as many or as few as you like. Please keep in mind that these skills are works in progress. Also with things like her vault? For this year she just moved up to a new level so she had to switch over to "the big vault" and if you watch close through the videos, you can see her improvement. I have been very proud of her, watching her work hard getting strong enough to get over that thing! First off, you have to remember that she only weighs 47 pounds so she has had to learn how to really pound the spring board to get any bounce and then she has to get those legs back together and over the back end and nail the landing!! And never once has she cried or thrown a fit or refused to go to gym, she eats up the challenge, she wants to go. I love her. 

                                                                Her First Show Ever
                                                                       

                                                                      NJ States 2013

NJ States 2014

Already Looking Back On This One

As I am experiencing this Christmas with my husband and children, I am aware of the fact that I will look back on it as one of the best Christmases ever. Somehow, we are right at that junction where everything is just right and I have been trying to take the time and be conscious of that fact.

Evelyn is 9 and still believes. Liam is 5 and so, he is a firm believer and will remember the way things go next year. Ev and I are baking cookies together. The tree seems perfect in its imperfections. Les is a wonderful Papa and keeps all of the traditions alive.

The things I have loved watching my children do or be excited about this year are: paper chains to count down the days, the traditional movies, going to Grandmas, hearing Liam trying to figure out which a morrow HoHoHo will be coming on, dis wom or de utter a morrow, watching Ev write a whole story book for her Papa including an "about the Author" page, and just the general feeling of innocent near psychotic joy as they progress through the countdown to Christmas. They were both locked in their rooms alone for a time today, wrapping gifts for the family, though it is uncertain where Liam procured his give-aways.

I hope that everyone I know is enjoying their family as much as I am this year, it is all I could wish for any man or woman.

Just Watch It

There's a documentary going around the adoption community. I was not going to watch it, I mean, every one said it made them cry and MY adoptions have been completed so… then some adoptive moms I really respect mentioned that they watched it and I started remembering our trips to China and our first days with Fu Mei and Ao Zhuang. I queued it up o Netflix Watch Instantly. I watched it. I cried. I remembered. Oh I remembered so many things.





So many other things came into focus though. The impotent rage Les and I experienced during the wait for our children. Our inability to adequately express to family and friends just exactly what we were waiting for and maybe why those specific little face were THE faces we would now fight hell and The Devil himself to bring home.

Abandonment alone is the single most devastating thing that can happen to a child, even if that child is found and cared for very quickly, that loss of the birth mother leaves a gap, a black hole of pain that will stay with a child as they mature forever. Add to that the indifferent care of an institution in any country and now the heavy hand of the US Government---these children have very little or no chance at all to find love or security or opportunities food a day or week with adequate food even. They will know hunger and neglect of every kind for every single moment of their lives. I am not exaggerating this. Please take one hour and 22 minutes, watch this video and see what you think about the US Hague Convention Laws that deal with International Adoption and how they strong arm third world countries. Then you can just BE AWARE, spread the word, sign petitions, look for this issue when voting.

As an adoptive parent, you are never quite done with the issue of adoption. The adoptive country becomes apart of your daily life, the recipes creep into your cooking. For Les and I we really have Ev because of China's politics and we have Liam because of certain beliefs the Chinese people hold about a medical condition. As stated above, the abandoned, institutionalized child will remain traumatized for their entire life and we do deal with that, each child on a different level and in their own way- but it IS there. During the movie, I was particularly drawn to the family that adopted a boy and a little girl from Ethiopia because their experience was so very similar to ours; older boy, younger girl and the way the mother spoke of waiting for her son to emerge from the institutionalized behavior gave me chills of recognition.

 Don't watch this and grieve for my children, they are here, they have made it! Celebrate that fact!! Evelyn and Liam and all of the children here are thriving and doing well and they are regular American kids and don't ever tell them how lucky they are. Their parents are the lucky ones, we truly are. I would have died if that Ayi had not placed that tiny 14 pounds of nothing into my arms that sweltering day in May in the middle of Jiangxi province, I just would have died without my Evelyn. And we would not be complete without our jokester of a son, our Liam.

The parents need the children. The children need the parents. Its really quite simple in the end.

Blogging vs Facebook

Sometimes it is hard to sit down and write a blog after you have jotted a few quick sentences about your day on fb. You think, "aw, they got the jist", and tend to be lazy and leave it at that so that is one reason my blogging has fallen off a bit - okay- a lot- lately. The other reason is that I have honestly just been depressed. Just back to the wall depressed and I have had no energy or desire to do anything other than maybe exist.

If any of you out there have ever dealt with depression…it's just a…you can't describe it. It's like being in outer space. No sound, no movement. Nothingness. You just fight against black nothingness. And the blackness wins. Day after day after day. Until one day you see a spark. The spark is different for each person, but is makes you start to pull and fight. It's work. I'm trying.

 I'm still on a lot of meds that don't really help because they keep me overweight and sleepy. I have had quite a few issues with my Neurologist and keeping in touch with him as he made a move from one facility to another. I need Botox every three months so I can get off of these oral meds and then I won't feel so bad physically and that will help oh so much! So I am in touch with him now and he is arranging the Botox at his new office.

Meanwhile…The kids are terrific!
Ev is thriving at public school. She has friends, loves math, loves her teacher and eats up having homework. In gymnastics she has moved up a level and her competition season this year should be much more nerve wracking for me to watch. At home, she is nearly the dream child except that she is driven nuts by Liam and she is a bit nasty to him so we are dealing with that issue but I expect that will all settle out when Liam figures out that she didn't hang the moon.

Liam is still evolving as a little person and as a part of the family. This is amazing to me because the evolution that we are seeing is not subtle. It's a daily thing. I'm talking about an adoption thing here, about more and more native personality coming out. Les and I thought we were nuts until we went to Parent Teacher Conferences and the teacher that had him last year said the same thing! He is doing well in school, soaking up learning there and here at home. He loves to play board games and cards. He ca not wait to play baseball in the Spring. He is a very snuggly wuggly little man and I can't get enough of that.

Les is working and working and doing more than his fair share of things here at home to help me keep up. I just do not know how I could manage without him.

Totally My Kid

So there's this thing that's bothered me my WHOLE life. Thing is, I have never, ever mentioned it to another person, not even in one of those, "Hey, tell me ten random facts about you", my sister doesn't know it, my husband didn't know it. It was just one of those little pet peeves that I had that I would remember whenever I watched a particular movie. And then the scene plays out and EVERY time from the age of six or seven, I can never , ever understand why the main character does what she does when there is a much simpler and eco-friendly way to go about the thing (admittedly when I was 6 I didn't know about eco-friendly, I knew about not wasting though).
Now I know you are dying to know what I am talking about right? Like what Movie?? What character??

This movie and the chic in the blue dress and red shoes. And no, it's not the shoe thievery, you do not comprehend what I would do for a pair of ruby slippers, Ms. Gale was ligit on that - plus it was all laws of magic and house flopping and stuff, I can't judge that.

No. Think ahead. They are on the YBR, in the forest and she needs breakfast. She goes up on a little hill, under some apple trees and picks some and starts chomping away. But if you look, bitch has to step around like 5,000 perfectly fine apples already laying there!! She could have just picked up an apple or two and been done with it! She didn't need to pick it off the tree and hurt him and wake him up and wake up the whole grove. Nope. She did not.

Ev and I are driving along a dark highway last night and out of the blue she says, "Hey, Mom? You know what Dorothy does that makes me mad?" And I'm briefly in trouble because I have no FREAKING CLUE who Dorothy is because it's been like a year since she's watched TWoO...

Eventually, I say, "Kid, What makes you so mad?" and, hand to God, she, Evelyn, my 9 year old, born in another country half way around the world, starts going off about old Dot Gale and wasting those apples and making the tree mad. And I was all like "I know RIGHT?!?!" and I was all like just happy, quietly happy. She's totally my kid.

Week One Done

The first week of school has been completed around here and all opinions are in, tallied accounted for and taken into consideration.
First off, Liam. This was the start of year two Pre-K for him so really, no big dealio. Riding the same bus, going to a different room, but having at least one of the same teachers and he honestly could not wait to get back. He has tolerated it great, just a little tired by Friday evening.
Now the big news, Evelyn wanted to stop Homeschooling and go to school this year. Les and I deliberated for quite awhile over the decision but the issue kept cropping up and Ev has always known her own mind, and to be honest, we are the kind of parents that follow her lead. So I signed her up! She's in 4th grade and she loves it!! She is stressing out a touch about some time management things, for instance she is worried about home work and gymnastics but we are helping her to realize she will have time. She just tends to be a BIT Type A and a BIT OCD and a BIT independent....Lord beer me strength.
She already has a few friends, loves the her classroom has lots of bottles of glue, she adores her teacher and is thrilled with the lunch line.

So we are off and on our way for the Academic Year of 2013/2014!!

Did You See That?!

That was summer blowing by!! I barely caught my breath!
The usual things happened when you live near the beach- beach things, Fourth of July on the beach, lots of visitors, the kids runn oft-ed to Grandma and Grandpa's for 2 weeks- let's see that took care of July. August has been devoured by a shoulder injury acquired by moi. Because who else in this house would get hurt or sick? Yes, we really haven't been too exciting in  August, just a whole bunch of Ev's summer training for gymnastics, some more beach time and lots of Mom moaning and aching with her shoulder. Bugs and frogs were caught. Books were read (Ev read 25 books on her own).
My Grandpa Matt had a great big birthday and we travelled for that and I got to kiss his face off!
We stayed in Ohio for a bit, dropping the kids off and picking them up again from Smokewood.
Jodi came by for a visit.
Ryan, Kristi and Olivia Kiley came for a visit.
The Klosterman Clan came for a visit.
Ev had a birthday, now she's nine. Papa had a birthday now he's old.
And I loved every minute except for the part where my kids grew actual inches and gained real maturity that I can measure almost with a spoon. Because no-one ever tells you that time is cruel to you if you are a mother, time goes by so fast when you have children, that you consider, every day about going to The Crossroads to make a deal for just one more day with them.

And now   PICTURES!

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

Navigation Systems On

And so we come to the section of life where the four year old boy needs to start talking about his Birth Mother. After the long, emotional talks into the night with Evelyn, I considered myself prepared, and after spending most all of my life as a mother to both a girl and a boy contrasting the differences between the two, I am not sure why it ever occurred to me that this particular subject would be the same.
 Can we just say that, in this home, with these two personalities at least, that talking over emotional stuff with the daughter is kind of like a Freudian Marathon that you forgot you signed up for, at the end of a very long day and it involves lots of crying, laughing, photo albums and maybe some art therapy at 2 a.m., where as, with the boy? It's a bit more like drive thru Voo-doo and some random conversation thrown in. No less exhausting- just completely and utterly different and new. I'm not trying to make light of this subject, or my son. ( Well, if you knew Liam...you'd already be smiling because he is really and truly so very funny, you just can't help it). It's just that sometimes we laugh to survive.
We have been taking care of Liam's surgical scar- scar massage and surgical sillicone applied daily. As he lays across my lap, he looks up at my face and gently rubs it, most often focusing on my lips, where he has found, a dark birth mark. And for three or four days he has asked me about this mark very tenderly and concerned. Then one day he said wait, did you say "birth mark" or birth MOM" and I repeated myself, but he responded, "Oh, I think you should tell me about mine and sissy's Birth Mom's". And just like that we were off.
The interesting thing for me with him though, has been that he just doesn't want to hear stories from me. He wants to TELL ME stories. Now, this is something very new to me. This is something Evelyn never, ever wanted or needed to do. I am completely ok that he needs to do this. I know that it is normal for some kids to need to do this. I am not even shocked at some of the scenarios he creates. He is just a small boy, trying to make sense of the very confusing way he got to us, his forever family. And believe me, he IS confused by the whole thing, and I don't blame him. And sometimes he still gets afraid that things are going to change again for him, that his family will swiftly metamorphasize into something else he doesn't know or can not recognize, he doesn't use those words, but I am his Mom, I can tell by certain moods, or certain cries in the night. And so he begins to find his way now.
He tells me stories about what his BM is doing in China. Sometimes she is dead. Sometimes she is alive and shopping at the store for milk. Sometimes she is on an airplane coming here to see him, just to see him, you understand. The other thing is that he has asked about his Birth Father, which Evelyn never has. He also likes me to tell him how he got from his BM to us and how even though she was probably nice and loved him and made a good choice for him, he never, ever, ever has to leave us or his Sissy or Billy Bones or WaWa (his Fish) or Cerina(resident hammy).
This happens-lightening fast and then he wants chocolate milk! Then! He's off!!!!!
Stop crying Sister. And most likely Aunt Kathryn.
It's ok.
It's not sad.
I mean it is.
It is. It really is. That whole bit is. That first part is. The First 21 months. The loss of a birth mother, her terrible choice, the orphanage, the foster care, the first surgery without us, more foster care, the next orphanage. No wonder he is confused.
But then came us! Which includes you guys!
And he's talking now! Which I love because that means we know what he's thinking and we can see that he's healing and we know that he's getting it and we are making his fears smaller and smaller and we can do better and better for him. So this is meant to be a good post. A happy post. A Liam is doing great post. A shadows from the past are getting smaller post.
I don't always have the right words for my kids. I just say things and mortar it up with a lot of "I love you"-s and a lot of trips to see family so you guys can help me.