We're back home. . .

. . . after a slightly less than three day trip to Maryland for Christmas. I blew out of the office at 5 pm on Tuesday, leaving chart notes undone and picking up Micah from the sitter's (normally she delivers him on Tuesdays and Thursdays) and went home to pack.

With packing and dinner and whatnot, we didn't get on the road until shortly after 9:00 pm - and had to make stops to drop off the sitter's present and a couple of things at work. So we rolled into Southern Maryland after 1 am on the 24th. Micah awoke when were were almost in LaPlata, and when he spotted the turn onto my mother's street he bellowed out, "OMA-A-A-A ! Oma's house!"

Thea immediately changed into her pajamas and went off to her bed and back to sleep- the Queen was not granting audiences to anyone but her pillow and her tigers. Micah was wired until around 3 am. After unpacking the car, my immediate goal was to put together the holiday cards, address labels and letters to be able to drop them off at the post office on my way to the hair salon. So I worked until 4 am or so - thank goodness for my mother, for both folding most of the letters and bringing me snacks to get the taste of envelope adhesive off my tongue. My Mom rocks, especially when it comes to snackage.

The good thing is that the cards were postmarked the 24th (I hope), the bad thing was that I think that Kodak shortchanged me on a few so I have to go back to them, register a complaint and hope I can be given the balance. Next year, back to Snapfish.

Christmas Eve we got to see cousins - Micah is fortunate to have two who are close in age. And thanks to their (very cool) joint present, we are now chasing small horses, saddle blankets and plastic saddles all over the house.

Santa was good to the kids. Micah is thoroughly and completely enamored of a plastic train set that Oma got for him. Paradise runs on six AA batteries, complete with sound effects and smoke. When I finally got the batteries loaded and flipped the switch, the ensuing ruckus probably shortened my life by a few years. Thea got a wooden castle, complete with a dungeon. And the both got books, puzzles, games and things.

We all went to my sister-in-law's aunt's for Christmas dinner, which was very nice - we did it a couple of years ago. This time, instead of Thea being the only kid, we have Micah and my brother's family has Willi - they're two months apart, so it was very much cousin see, cousin do for the little guys. Thea stayed above the fray for the most part. We got turned on to a new game, Whack-A-Mole, which held the boys attention for a few minutes here and there. I could have smacked the little suckers all afternoon.

Friday we came home in the evening, I had to work Saturday - and we had a Hanukah party to go to on Sunday. Other than going to the grocery store, I have not hit the after-Christmas sales, so I am not doing my part for the economy.

Call Me Mrs. A. . .

Anyone who knows me, knows that when I married, I didn't change my name. This was driven by various factors: laziness and wanting to keep my father's last name being the top two reasons.

It's been a fabulous way to spot telephone solicitors, who call up asking for Mrs. A. and I sweetly tell them that there is no such person at this address. Buh-bye, click.

So Saturday when the mail brought a letter from the State of New Jersey addressed to Mr. and Mrs. A., my initial reaction would have been annoyance - a double dose because whoever had addressed it hadn't even bother to use Steve's first name, which is just shear sloppiness.

But it was the letter stating that Micah's second BAHA was approved, and we could go ahead and call JFK's audiology appointment to set up an appointment.

Two things:
A) for that kind of news, you could address me by any name you like; and

B) I know that the "call to set up your appointment" is patently untrue unless the audiology department has received its paperwork from the State, so it's not worth getting too excited about. And it trickles back to audiology via the hospital's business office instead of via the direct route. Last year when this same letter arrived, I promptly got on the phone to make an appointment and was rapidly shot down because there was nothing in Micah's chart yet. Call back later.

So this morning at 8:30, I was on the phone, talking with the audiologist, and lo and behold, the paperwork had also been received on that end, and things are moving forward with ordering the BAHA. A Christmas/Hanukah miracle, no less, since we might be able to go to Edison to pick it up on New Year's Eve.

And another miracle, my mother called to say that our Christmas cards, ordered Friday night from Kodak had arrived at her house- one full day before we're due to get there.

Now if all that pesky holiday shopping stuff would just take care of itself, I'd be in the clear.

Coming Soon on a Christmas Card Near You. . .

The Winner for the 2008 Holiday Card

The Runner-Up for the 2008 Holiday Card

Tonight was do-or-die time for our 2008 holiday card, it was either going to happen or we were going to take a pass this year.

So during dinner I put the squeeze on Thea. Mommy wants to take pictures for our Christmas card. And I want you to wear a dress. I want you to wear the dress that's been hanging on your door for the past two years (or more). The dress your cousin Norah wore when she was the flower girl for Mommy and Daddy's wedding.

No.

So I resorted to bribes. Money? No. Chocolate. No. (This was a sign she was serious in her refusal, my children would likely set their father on fire for chocolate.)

She would consider the red velvet dress that I bought last week. (Weakness, a crack in the armor, must exploit.)

Finally after a few more rounds of emotional blackmail that I am sure will cost us thousands of dollars in future therapy, Thea consented.

And thank goodness she did, because even though Norah was the same age Thea is now when she performed her duties as the best and most beautiful flower girl on the planet, Norah was a reed-like five. Thea is built like a five-year old stockade, solid, rock solid. Next year would have been too late, if she keeps growing at the rate she is.

What you don't see in the picture is that only the top button of the dress is buttoned, what you don't hear is the whining about something inside the dress itching/hurting/bothering her. (I remember no such complaints from the first wearer of the dress.)

Last year, I think I took close to 60 pictures; this year due to the lateness of the hour (we were doing this after Cyberchase, which ends at 9 PM), I took fewer than 30. It felt like herding cats while having a root canal, how hard can it be to get two people to sit nicely, smile in a way that isn't totally artificial and wait for Mommy's somewhat sluggish camera to snap the picture?

Micah making Play-Doh Cookies during his lesson with Ela. The Play-Doh practice run was followed a week later by baking sugar cookies.

Bonnie and Clyde free-wheeling at Storybook Land on December 14, 2008.

Micah's CTS Evaluation (or the Non-Event Event)

Today was the 'big' day: Micah meets the Orchard Hill Elementary School Child Study Team. Going against our usual modus operandi, we were early, and left to freeze outside because the receptionist who buzzes people into the building was away from her post.

When we went to the CTS office, the secretary seemed a little surprised, not an auspicious sign, but I think they were hoping we would forget about the meeting - and they tried their best to help this along by not calling to confirm it.

Micah went off with the speech therapist and the psychologist while I got to answer the questions from two evaluation questionnaire - one of which re-asked all the questions she should have already had the answers to from our initial transition meeting. (What do you know about Micah's birth mother? What do you know about her prenatal history? With the two big, fat ZIP, ZERO, NADAs that she got there went two entire pages of one form.)

The occupational therapist was away today, so this part needs to be rescheduled, so it isn't over yet.

But today it finally seemed to dawn on the social worker, who is sort of functioning as the cog in the wheel of the evaluation process that Micah's third birthday is March 2. So instead of thinking that we have January, February and March to get his IEP up and running, the light bulb finally went off in her head (almost visibly) that we have two months NOT three. And she now has to get most of the report finished before the winter break.

Since the social worker has a newfound sense of urgency, she said she won't be able to go observe Micah at either his babysitter's or at Sound Beginnings at Summit School. I was pushing for her going to Summit, which was met with "I always get lost going there." A most lame excuse. Use MapQuest or get a GPS, dimwit.

Anyway, it's over - save for the OT portion. Micah seemed unperturbed by it all which is the most important thing to me. I think the report is going to be extremely interesting since no one familiar with hearing impairment is having any input, so even a relative novice like me should be able to dissect it easily.

Christmas is in the bag. . . .

. . .the forces in the universe, Santa included, have come together, albeit somewhat more slowly than last year, and the word from our service coordinator at Early Intervention is that Micah's second BAHA has made it through the approval process and is on its way to getting the check cut for JFK's audiology department (the audiologist will then order it from Cochlear). It may actually be on Micah's head before the end of 2008! Improved sound localization here he comes!

This is the silver version of Micah's BAHA Intenso. BAHA's are manufactured in four colors to attempt to(roughly) match the wearer's hair (for those who use it snapped onto an abutment implanted in the bone behind the ear.) Micah's BAHA is black. We aren't using the softband from Cochlear, but have a mesh headband with an adapter made by Forwerd (http://www.forwerd.net/) .

It is appropriate that the SC comes through with the good news this week - Thursday is Micah's evaluations by the Child Study Team, and the SC opened her mouth and inserted my foot when she said to the CST social worker that "the parents want an out of district placement," thus giving away our intention way before the game even had begun.

Thea's First Report Card

If we had a scanner, I'd put the whole four page document in the blog, I'm so proud of Thea. Report cards were issued Friday, one week later than originally scheduled; Thea's was definitely worth the wait.

Instead of the A-B-C-D-F grading pattern, or the E-VG-G-S-US system used back when I was in elementary school, YingHua uses C-D-P-E - and before you fry your frontal lobe trying figuring out the secret code, it stands for Of Concern, Developing, Progressing Well and Exceeding Grade Level. Being new to all this, I don't know if this is a system unique to YingHua Day School, an International Baccalaureate system or the way grades are expressed in elementary schools in general.

Thea rocked out the Science and Reading (English) categories with all "E"s, and the rest were a mix of "P"s and "E"s. The reading wasn't exactly a shock, Thea started reading in January of this year, and she loves it; her science grades were a bit of a surprise.

Here's what the Mandarin-immersion kindergartner is graded on:

Chinese Listening
Chinese Speaking
Chinese Character Recognition
Chinese Writing
Social Studies
Numbers and Numerical Operations
Geometry and Measurement
Patterns
English Reading
English Writing
Science

Each of those categories has several sub-categories that are graded. So much more than the "knows one's colors," "knows one's letters/numbers" from Kindergarten circa 1965. I truly am in awe of her.

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Micah, Thea and I are going to Storybook Land in Little Egg Harbor tomorrow with a friend from my office and her daughter, and I hope to get one photo that can be turned into a Christmas card. Micah will be in heaven: a choo-choo train, antique cars to drive, a carousel, what more could he ask for.

A few pictures. . .

Our Christmas tree with its tree stand in an aluminum wash bucket.

A second view of the tree, in all its eclectic glory. Micah's first Christmas tree, too, and fortunately for both the tree and for Micah, he's keeping his hands off of it.

Micah at the train table in the Summit Speech School lobby, December 2008.

Micah's favorite friend, Helena, who is aging out of Early Intervention this week and will be going to preschool in January 2009. We'll miss Helena and her mom hanging out at the train table in the school lobby.

Secret Santas

Our tree is up, lighted, garlanded and has three decorations on it, and it's only taken four days.

Thea helped hang the stockings (I have many), but she edited the collection, so after we finished, I found four rejects sitting on the storage box, forcing me to move a few around to get some semblance of an artful arrangement.

The rest of the boxes of decorations are still blocking the path to the washer/dryer closet, but it's only three boxes (a fourth is lurking somewhere out in the garage) so one good shove grants access. I compare our collection of holiday decorations and ornaments to Micah's babysitter's. She has a least a dozen Rubbermaid Roughneck storage boxes, she is into it, big time, and makes Martha Stewart look like a freaking slacker.

I take the more European approach. Put up a tree, decorate it, hang the stockings, call it a day. Once upon a time when I lived in a house that had outlets windows I put a single candle in the windows that faced the street, but I haven't bothered with those in years.

Today at work was pick the name of your Secret Santa. My first pick was myself. I should have shut up, turned and exited quietly without appearing utterly gleeful and taken it as an opportunity sent from above to skip this activity. But I returned the envelope and picked again, and I'm keeping my mouth shut as to who I got, but I am eternally grateful it is someone that I know. My greatest fear was picking the name of one of the file clerks whose names I don't really bother to learn unless they stick around more than six months.

Since the whole Secret Santa thing infused me with a warm glow and oodles of holiday spirit (I am lying shamelessly, in case the needle on your sincerity meter is broken), I came home to order a couple gifts for Thea and Micah for Christmas and/or Hanukah. On-line shopping beats the pants off of going to a mall, especially since these days the scent of retail desperation is in the air and is much stronger than artificial pine or peppermint. Ten percent off an already discounted price and free shipping, so I could have it all sent to Mom's and I won't need to deal with wrapping stuff until the 23rd.

I need to find my little Grinch doll. I'm not fond of Christmas tschotchkes all over the house, but him I like. A lot. The Grinch rocks it, until that little wide-eyed Cindy-Lou Whoo messes with his head.

On Their Way. . .

Photos, that is. Christmas is coming, too - but so far I'm ignoring it and hoping for the best. I am beginning to feel that Christmas should be like the Olympics, on an every two or four year basis, so maybe we'd appreciate it.

But I digress. Yesterday, I had time to find the cable to connect the camera to the computer and upload photos slooooooooowly. Kodak EasyShare seems to work at the speed of that Tim Conway character from the old Carol Burnett Show. Next step is to get a few of them onto the blog. Maybe Sunday or Monday.

Friday after speech thereapy, Micah and I went to Freehold Mall to meet with Bobbi, our former social worker for both kids' adoptions. I had baby quilts to hand off to her, purchased from my mother's friend and she had a check for me. And the mall had a carousel that fascinated Micah. I financed two rides, one on the lower level, one on the upper level. Yes, there are such things as bi-level carousels, be still the two-year old's heart. Micah was sufficiently awed that he held onto both handles from the moment the bell rang and the ride started to the second it came to a stop, and did not protest at having the seat belt put around him.

There was also a neat little kids play area directly in front of the carousel, and Micah loved that as well. It had seating for parents around the edges and stroller parking by the opening, so I was suitably impressed. Until a bratty little blonde heathen (a girl of about four years old) grabbed Micah's band holding the BAHA off his head as he was climbing up the tiny little slide.

For being old, having arthritic knees, and being somewhat reluctant to yell at children who are not my own, when it concerns a little device that is worth much more than its $4K price tag, I was amazingly fast and loud as I got to the crime scene, telling the little monster, "NOOOOOO, you don't touch that!" She barely had time to curl her evil little fingers around the headband part before I took it away from her.

And for those of you who are ready to spring to her defense, it wasn't simple curiosity, this child looked around, then made her grab. She was being horrible, I saw the evil gleam in her eye so she knew full well that she was doing something wrong.

Of course her oblivious mother was sitting outside of the play area at a food court table, having a half-caff double latte with another mommy-type, both with strollers for infants with them. (Nice supervision, can we say "Amber Alert?") I nearly went over to have a quick word with them, but thought the better of it since I still was in the "Excuuuse me, the ill-mannered spawn that I believe is yours just yanked my precious son's hearing aid off his head. If it happens again, she will feel my wrath and so will you" mode. The BAHA was unharmed, poor Micah was a little rattled thinking that he had done something wrong, and that little brat went off to torment others, smirking at me while I loaded our stroller.

I could have cheerfully wrung her neck, but wished upon her a horrible adolescence filled with acne and menstrual cramps. Somehow having a degree of specificity like that makes it easier to just get over it. That, and blogging about it.

The Horse Fanatic and The Juice Box Hero

Saturday we went to a holiday celebration at a local shopping center which isn't really much of a shopping center: one florist, a large spa/salon/health club (overpriced), a small food court, a dance/theater school, an expensive home furnishings store, a garish black and pink costmetics store, and one or two specialty clothing stores, one restaurant and a Westin hotel, not exactly shoppers' paradise, especially in these economic times.

The bait for us was that the event was free and there was horse-drawn wagon rides, instant bliss for Micah. We caught a bit of the dance school's performance and then went to find the wagon ride, and then waited almost an hour for a turn. The wagon was pulled by two Percherons, Mike and Ike, who if they possessed opposable thumbs would have probably beaten the snot out of whoever wove artificial red roses into their manes. Amazingly, both Thea and Micah were patient little people for the wait. Micah would basically walk through fire wearing a gasoline-soaked diaper if any sort of horse-ride is on the other side.

We then went back to the food court to see the balloon-wrangling clown, another long line. And this guy was into his art, he didn't bang out a simple puppy dog, he used at least five or six of those long balloons for his creations. My daughter, the next Sylvia Plath in shining armor, went up to him and said, "I want a BLACK helmet and a BLACK sword, please." I was hoping that he couldn't tell his dark blues from his blacks when reaching down into the depths of his clown pockets, but he nailed it and Thea got her black balloon accessories.

Fortunately Micah seems to not care about colors so we got him a 'fishing pole' hat. It had a long balloon extension coming off the helmet which was tied to an uninflated balloon with a heart tied to that. He spent the next fifteen minutes chasing the heart balloon but never quite catching it, and never quite realizing that it was stuck on his own head.

While we were waiting for our turn with the balloon guy, we met lady in a mouse costume carrying a box wrapped up like a present, and in the box was another mouse, a hand puppet. Thea spent quite a while trying to decipher the one hand that was attached to her left arm, the right hand operating the puppet and the 'arm' supporting the box. Micah also found her fascinating and it was the one character at the event he didn't shy away from.

We skipped Santa, another long line. Micah had already had minor scares with Frosty the Snowman and Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer so I figured getting plunked on the lap of the fat dude in the fuzzy red suit would be yet another opportunity to add to the years of therapy he'll probably need to get over his childhood.

Later that evening, after the wagon ride, etc. and after dinner back at home, Thea drank an apple juice from a juice box that her aunt sent home with us from Thanksgiving. This time when she was finished we wanted to get her moving towards getting ready for bed, but she was not going to be parted from that damn juice box. Tears, snot, recriminations, she left nothing in her guilt-the-parents armamentarium. Even the threat of bad smells and bugs moved her toward that trash can so bent on the salvation of this particular box was she, claiming to want to make a craft project (though didn't know what exactly this project would be.) Compromise was arrived at by promising not to toss the box after she went to bed and leaving it in the kitchen to be discussed the next day. By which time I had found another cardboard box of the same size that she was willing to substitute.

And has she actually used it in one of her tape, construction paper and marker masterpieces, that would be a big fat NO. Time is short and her mother hates clutter, so its days are numbered because the recycling is picked up this Friday so it'll be Buh-Bye box. And she can take that up with her therapist at some point in the future.

All Is Well in the Universe

On the day after Thanksgiving, every year for probably more than 20 years, the Christmas card and letter from a friend of mine from college arrives. Without fail. Year in, year out, through address changes and any other ups and downs and despite not seeing each other for all those years, the card arrives and for me the Christmas season is official.

Until Friday. No card. Black Friday indeed.

And Saturday. Still no card.

Disturbing and worrisome.

The mail arrived today, and so did the card. Order is restored.

And this evening I got a chance to meet up with two former colleagues at Tokyo Bleu in Cinnaminson for a night out, though I am a sushi wimp and don't much care for the raw stuff. I haven't seen them since summertime, so there was much to catch up on - we're great at promising to get together regularly and then real life manages to intervene and another six months goes by.

The Sunday NYT Magazine

Irritation du jour:

From the New York Times Magazine's Sunday, November 30, 2008 cover story Her Body, My Baby on her experience with gestational surrogacy Alex Kuczynski wrote:

"Of all the possible mothering paradigms I could count - birth mother, biological mother, child-raising mother, legally recognized mother - I would fit three of the roles. I had to settle for three-quarters his mother. That seemed like more than enough."

Way to slap the faces of thousands upon thousands of families formed by adoption, Alex. You may be a good writer, but as a compassionate, thoughtful person you suck. Some thoughts should be kept to yourself and your mental mathematical equations of motherhood top my list.

And (as if there needed to be an 'and') what was really glaring was the photo of Alex and her infant son with the baby nurse standing in the background. So obviously she didn't go through multiple miscarriages, twelve rounds of in vitro fertilizations, tens of thousands of dollars and surrogacy (I'm paraphrasing from the article) to actually do the dirty work involved in motherhood. Don't chip your nails or get any drool on your designer dress, dahling.

I hope Santa puts a bit fat lump of coal in her stocking.