The 7th Ring of Hell. . . .

. . . is located, not in the depths of Hades, but in Hillsborough, NJ at a place called Boro KidZone. Monday both kids' schools were closed for Presidents' Day, so I was looking for something to do with them since the weather was rainy. The local Moms' Club that I belong to (but have never gone to any meetings of) sent an email about Boro KidZone, so I thought we'd try it out. Big mistake. Huge.

It's an indoor play center located in an industrial park with one of those enormous inflatable bouncy castles, enormous inflatable slide, a climbing wall, some stuff for smaller kids and one of those Habi-Trail-like structures that kids can climb through, slide down, play in the ball pit, whatever. Nothing wrong with any of this - though other than the structures, the interior decor was about as visually stimulating as the inside of a microwave oven.

What really roasted my goat were the dozens of parents sitting on chairs, noses stuck in books or newspapers or engaged with their cell phones or lap tops while their adrenaline-crazed, ill-mannered spawn ran rampant through the facility. Thea climbed up in the structure and then was on her way down and missed a little soft block so she dangled before climbing back up, which scared her to the point she was crying. I gathered up Micah and talked her to a place where I could help her climb down, but herds of these miserable ill-mannered brats were crawling over her, over me and on top of Micah while we were doing this. Not a single "Excuse me" or anything. Not one, even the older ones, stopped to help - so in addition to lousy manners, they had the empathy of sea sponges as well.

What also bugged me was how unengaged the vast majority of the parents were. They just wanted a place where they could let their children run wild, burn off some energy while they did whatever. Only a few were actually playing with their children which is lazy and pathetic.

Once calm was restored after the climbing structure fiasco, Thea tried out the bouncing castle but came out because she said someone had said "something mean" to her. By then I figured out that of the two of them, I had to make sure to keep a closer eye on her, Micah can pretty much hold his own - you push him, he'll either holler or push right back. And while hanging out at the bouncing structure watching Thea give it another try, Micah engaged a girl in playing basketball and catch with him. A girl who looked somewhere between 15- to 16-years old. In hip huggers. With boobs, earrings, make-up. Once Thea was ok with bouncing around like a ping-pong, I went over to check on him, and the girl (who did seem nice) says to me, "Oh, we're just playing and talking." His BAHA was off - too noisy and too many rammy/rowdy kids around, so I felt a slightly evil compunction to tell her that he has microtia/atresia and isn't yet the most brilliant conversationalist (although he will occasionally say "Tickle bellybutton" though you have to know it or understand (from his lifting your shirt and trying to find your navel.) My bad on that one for doing it to him, so now he's going forth to do unto others) and "Dog, 'oof, 'oof."

For $9 per kids, we got out two hours worth, but usually if Thea, once she warms to something, will fight leaving. This time both of them got their shoes on and were perfectly willing to get out of there, and we won't be going back anytime soon.

Valentine's Day, Adoption Group Get-Together, etc.

I sucked at Valentine's Day this year. Basically my mother and Steve's mother got cards with photo of Micah washing dishes in the kitchen sink, while sitting nekkid in the sink (will post that later) and my friend Janet got a Barack Obama Valentine that was just too perfect, also with the gratuitous nekkid baby photo, and that was it.

On Friday Thea and I also made twelve gift buckets for the kids at the mini-reunion of our first adoption travel group - she wimped out after about bucket number six or seven. They had a semi-Valentine-sy/Easter-ishy theme. Her Valentine's present from us was two sets of swim goggles, since last summer's pair popped a lens and it doesn't seem to stay there when put back in. Cards came from Christine, Oma, Aunt Shannon (who did a photo card of Willi that was adorable and makes me feel guilty that I haven't done anything like that with the kids since Micah's been home.) In my defense, Micah has also sported a number of bruises, his stitches and a scratch next to his right eye so having him looking like something other than a posterchild for some anti-child abuse agency hasn't been the easiest thing in the world) and my mother's neighbor, Miss Cora. Oma also sent a small box of chocolates for each of them that I've been doling out slowly.

The ChongQing adoption group reunion was great, ten little girls and Micah, who seemed to do pretty well with the attention (and he also managed not to whack or hit anyone or anything, not to break anything and not to flush any foreign objects down our friends' commode. Big sigh of relief.) The nice thing is that most everyone who has used the adoption agency again hates them almost as much if not more than we do, the bad thing was that one of the mom's from another travel group is friends with someone who works at the adoption agency. Wish I knew that before shooting off my mouth, but a big part of me is saying, "So what?" Nothing I said was untrue: Other than the whole miserliness with information and unreturned phone calls, which seems to be standard treatment across the board, finding out that there would be another family traveling with us to Wuhan from Marleen, one of the mom's from our ChongQing group, and not from the agency itself, is totally illustrative of how poorly the agency staff communicates with its families.

I only wish that I had the courage that another mom in our group did in filling out the questionnaire after their second adoption trip. She told them exactly what she thought; I just tossed the form, thinking that I was not going to waste my time providing the agency with feedback that would probably be ignored anyway. One more post-placement assessment in July and we're done with them forever and ever.

Thea's over at Emily's for a playdate - which is a really Yippy-Skippy moment since she usually prefers to do playdates here, in her comfort zone. Micah is napping, and I need to get him up or he'll be up forever tonight. The Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle and I aren't getting along at the moment, and the mouse on our computer seems to have something along the lines of Parkinson's or a seizure disorder. Janet's crockpot ginger beef recipe is in the crockpot, and with any luck will be done by dinner time. There will be a memorial service for our oven, which has taken brief and none-to-brief sabbaticals before, but now seems to be just a little more dead than usual.

Enter The Year of the Rat

Be forewarned, this post contains references to urine, feces and snot, and their roles in my recent life. If it's not your cup of tea, stop reading now and move on to a blander blog.

The Lunar New Year is off to a rather inauspcious start at our house. Wednesday Thea's school had a performance at the Princeton Senior Resources Center. She went to the rehearsal the day before, had been singing the songs around the house and in the car and was otherwise totally ready. Until the moment arrived, the children all marched out and she crumbled like a house of cards and started to cry.

And she spent the remainder of the performance on my lap.

The next day the performance was repeated at school for the Lawrence Day School students (Ying Hua and LDS share the same building), and she participated in the entire show. So much for rearranging schedules, having Steve home to do Micah's session with Ela, etc.

Thursday came and I arrived home to find that a glazed earthenware bowl that had been my grandmother's had an accident. The bowl had survived twelve years of me using it while I lived in DC, the moved to Philadelphia and two moves once in Philadelphia, the relocation to Princeton and seven years here. I loved that bowl because I can see my grandmother grating cabbage - and she always let me have some with just the vinegar and oil on it, before the mayonnaise went in and made it yucky.

And I know that it's people that matter, not possessions - but that bowl was a link to a person, and that person was enormously important to me.

Steve said it was in too many pieces, but he kept the pieces in a plastic bag - and it wasn't quite as bad as the "totally shattered" that he told me. Five large pieces, one shard and a chip, and with Elmer's glue and 3M tape, the bowl is back. Nurses and tape, baby - miracles can happen.

All of the above is almost insignificant compared to Friday's events. Thea was annoyed at the computer and threw two major tantrums - one of which I called Steve so he could listen in on the tirade. She got a 15 minute time-out from using the computer twice, and howled like I was pulling her eyelids over her head until they touched her butt. By dinner she was back to good humor - which was a good thing since Steve was trotting out to a bridge tournament. The whole theme of any of her tantrums is I WANT IT AND I WANT IT N-O-W. And since my membership at Our Lady of Instant Gratification has lapsed, it really gets her going. During one of the snot and tears tirades, I had to get a tissue and wipe her face and get her to blow her nose, only to have her scream at me I WANT MY BOOGIES BAAAAAAACK. Much as I would have like to have obliged, I might not have been willing to return them to the same orifice from which they emerged.

After dinner and clean-up, Thea went upstairs to get ready for bed. I was downstairs, stripping off Micah's clothes to throw in the wash. He indicated that he also wanted his diaper off. It was soggy and warm, so I figured I had a few seconds to dump it in the garbage and grab a new one. A few seconds for the little hoser to unleash the contents of his bladder onto the kitchen floor, and then try to splash around in it.

So after mopping up after the mess, kicking myself for my stupidity, I went upstairs with him. Thea was on the potty, I went to get my pajamas on and grab Micah's pajamas and undershirt, seconds really, just a few seconds.

During which Thea got off the potty, after pooping, giving Micah the opportunity to shove the toilet brush in and stir up a nice batch of turd soup, and then walk around the bathroom carrying the dribbling brush.

Nasty boy. And Thea, who usually starts hollering if he looks at her funny for thinking about hitting her some time next week, remained silent throughout this, so as an AWACS system, she is somewhat selective and therefore sucks.

So the two little beasts got tossed in the tub, I washed off my feet, and since it was after 9 pm and my mother is usually asleep by then, I was unable to call and ask her what was her magic formula for not killing my brother and me because I needed that particular incantation and I needed it N-O-W. Thea paddled around in the tub for almost an hour, relieving me of having to do bedtime stories.

Saturday, other than making them breakfast and getting them dressed, they were Steve's problem. I went to see Juno, probably the first movie that I've gone to in almost two years - it was great, but I could have lived without the ten minutes of commercials before the previews. Much more annoying than the music and slide-show advertisements from back in the day.

Tonight I settled for The Nanny Diaries on PPV. The book was better.

So much for Lunar New Year, I'm already looking forward to the Year of the Ox.

Define Yourself

Another blog I read had a link to http://www.quizgalaxy.com/quiz_83.html - how would you be defined in the dictionary. I put in all of our names, first/middle/last and got the following:

Me: (adjective) fuzzy to the touch
Thea: (noun) a real life muppet
Micah: (noun) a man who falls into the outhouse and dies
Steve: (noun) a dance with little or no clothing

Unfortunately, it doesn't give you the same definition if you go back and re-enter the information, so I may have taken liberties with the exact phrasing of Steve's definition, but I swear it did involve the concepts of dancing and nudity.

The second time through with my name came up with banshee-like, which I like even less than the first one; how dare a web-site presume to know the state of my waxed-ness (or lack thereof.)

Who makes up these stupid things?