Bite Me, Yet Again, NJ Bureau of Vital Statistics

Many months ago I blogged about going to the BVS to get Micah's NJ birth certificate and how what the NJ BVS gaveth, it tooketh away about two weeks later, claiming that his birth certificates had the incorrect file number on it. It all was resolved, or so I thought, after I sent the incorrect certificates back to BVS and new ones were reissued. Matter concluded, all in less time that it took to get Thea's birth certificate three years ago, one more thing checked off the list.

So imagine the spike in my blood pressure when I get another letter from BVS stamped in red with FINAL NOTICE stating that the issue of the incorrect birth certficates was still outstanding. I put the letter on top of the envelope with all of Micah's other documents that are waiting there until I muster the energy to apply for his passport, and let it marinate for a few days. Until it popped into my head again Monday at around 4:05 pm.

No NJ state employee answers a phone after 4 pm, or so it seems, so I left the pinhead who sent the threatening missive a voice mail. So the nice head of steam I worked up was all for naught.

And then I called her again during a brief lull in the morning. The woman agreed that the file numbers on the certificates in my possession are indeed the correct ones, offered nothing remotely like an apology (and she called me "Hon" which just automatically torques my shorts) and then we concluded our call.

And there went the five minutes that I could've gotten a cup of coffee, checked email or gone to the restroom.

The afternoon was spent, 12:30 to 3 pm or so in EMR training. We're getting an electronic medical record system. Much as I love technology, gadgets and geekery, there are parts of this that seem like a major headache. Or I'm on the downside of my learning curve. God help me on the 29th when we go live, there isn't going to be enough chocolate in the world to soothe my psyche.

So I'll practice for my next career: "Would you like fries with your order?"

Paging DYFS, catching up, etc.

Day of Guilt. I am a bad mommy, I've been thinking about Micah needing new shoes for a week or so, but never managed to get us to Village Shoes to do something about it. Today, on the way home from Sound Beginnings, he woke up as we were almost home so I decided today is the day.
Last time we got shoes for him was on a trip to Oma's last fall. Size 6. Measured today, size 7.5 - almost eight. One ticket punched on the guilt express. And we have a second kid with wide feet so it limited our selection a little bit, but overall I think Micah found the experience satisifying because when we got in the car to leave, he looked at his feet and said, "Wow, SHOES."

Our morning was spent at Summit School. The mommy group was especially heinous today because I didn't have much to keep me occupied other than cleaning out my mental sock drawer, having brought the scraps to write up my call slips but having left the booklet of pink messages at home. Fortunately the mommy whose voice was getting on my last nerve has a child who turns three and is aging out of the system at the end of this month. And I work the next two Wednesdays, so no group for me. By the time we go back, it will just be the cochlear implant moms and their usual minor monopolization of the group. Majority rules, whatever, them I'm used to.

I still need to connect the camera to the computer and download a bunch of pictures. Micah Thea and I went to Oma's the week/weekend of the 26th-30th. Oma had an appointment at the nail salon on Friday, so I went to Babies-R-Us, bought an umbrella stroller and took Micah and Thea on Metro to go downtown to meet up with my friend Lorrie and see the cherry blossoms. Thea had her own farecard so she thought she was all that and a bag of chips.

We got there early so we got off at the Smithsonian stop and went to the Air and Space Museum, which was a huge hit with Thea. ("I'm the luckiest girl in the whole world!" - Mommy will remind you of that comment one of these days, Miss T.) Then we subwayed it to Federal Triangle, which is not the Federal Triangle stop of 1995, the last year I worked in DC. Someone has built a huge building there, named it after Ronald Reagan (doesn't he already have an airport named for him dammit?) thereby throwing both of us off the proposed meeting place. Fortunately, we connected despite all of this and set off for the Tidal Basin. Thea was a trooper - we only had the umbrella stoller for Micah - which Aunt Lorrie pushed, for which I was probably not sufficiently expressive in my thanks. I miss the Stand-n-Stroll that was such a help in China but didn't survive much beyond the trip, it is the best stroller for the toddler/preschooler como, IMHO. The cherry blossoms were beautiful, the crowds weren't horrendous (the actual festival started the next day), and the whole trip exhausted them enough that they went to bed early that night.

Oh, and we had another ER visit, this time at Civista Medical Center in LaPlata. Micah was walking backwards, fell on a sofa pillow (that he had earlier pulled off of Oma's couch) and hit the back of his head on the brass handle of the drawer on the TV cabinet. Small hole in the back of the boy's head, and since I nearly didn't take him to the ER for the forehead thing that took four stitches, I thought it should be checked out.

When the triage nurse put the thermometer in his armpit, Micah said "all bettuh", which was cute. We got sent over to the fast track side and had to wait 20 minutes or so - long enough for Micah to discover a small plastic cup for medication on the floor, crutches that were propped against the wall and the rolling gurney-side table. By the time the physician assistant saw him, the small hole had swollen enough that he said just to put antibiotic ointment on it. Four mini packets of Bacitracin and a dose of ibuprofen for the $50 co-pay; peace of mind, priceless.

Now he just has a scablet on his head that everyone thinks is a tick. No, it's just a scab, I broke the baby. Again. Stop picking at my kid's head.

Not much else going on. Tomorrow I have EMR training - our electronic medical record system goes live at the end of the month, so in preparation I have to sit in one place for three hours (read: a nightmare, the one thing I don't have to do in my job is sit still), in front of a computer screen, with my phone on speaker setting connected to a training teleconference. I'd rather have a rectal and a root canal. Simultaneously.

Thea learned how to sing the Barney song in Chinese. What a nightmare. I hate Barney in English and his status is not made any better by putting him in Mandarin. (I much prefer "I love you, you love me, let's hang Barney from a tree. . . but I don't think Thea's Mandarin proficiency is at that level, yet.

She's sleeping in her Dora bed these days, which beats having a 60 lb. snoring lump in our bed. We had a couple of partial successes with the 100 Good Wishes Quilt and her 'real' bed, but it's going to be incremental progress to evicting her into her own room. She loves that quilt as much as Soft-Soft, her fuzzy blanket from Betty at my office.

Miscellany

A) Micah got shorn this week. He was getting this very unflattering muffin-top from his new mesh BAHA band making him look like a demented aerobics instructor, so off we went to Snip-Its. Just as the stylist was prepping the clippers to have at it, he looked over at her and said, "Uh oh" but he sat still and let her clip and snip until a good bit of his hair was on the floor. Thea also got a haircut two days later. Flo, Thea's stylist at Snip-Its, only works Saturdays and Sundays so we had to trust someone new, but this stylist did an amazing job shaping up the cut that Flo originally did and getting Thea's random wisps under control. Thea was decked out in her knight's costume and green dinosaur backpack for the occasion, her sword and helmet stayed at home.

B) Thea's One Hundred Good Wishes Quilt arrived today. It's been almost four years in the making - or rather a few months in the acquisition phase, many more months in the sitting around phase and then the hand off of the fabric to Eleanor, the expert quilter, who volunteered to pull the project out of the abyss into which it had sunk in November 2007. It's beyond amazing, somehow she made all the random patterned fabric squares work together - and she added squares with the state flags of Maryland and New Jersey, the US flag, a crab, and better still the hideous Redskins fabric was relegated to the side while the Bears fabric had pride of place further in. Photos to follow. It was such a nice surprise because I had to work this morning and I returned home to a living room that was trashed. (Steve took the kids to visit his mother and then to Seaside for a walk on the beach so I came home to a quiet house.) I saved opening the box until after the debris field was cleaned up and order restored. Then after giving the quilt the proper amount of admiration and attention, I remembered to look upstairs - and yes, the bed still needed to be made.

C) I went to the most amazing continuing education program last Saturday. And it was free. Granted the presentations started at 7:30 am, which is just way too early - though breakfast was provided and copious quantities of Starbucks. It was at the Westin Forrestal which is just a hop and a skip from home so I could leave home at 7:10 and be signed in and on my way to the buffet by 7:20. The speaker on conjunctivitis totally rocked and had wonderful, really gross slides to go along with his talk, turning what I thought would be a total post-lunch snooze fest into the best session of the day. The two quotes of the day came courtesy of one of the co-presenters of the HPV (human papilloma virus) session: "Cancer is yucky" and "The anus is interesting." I think that cancer is a little, itty-bitty bit BEYOND yucky, and even in the context of HPV, the anus is, at best, approached with gloved hands and a bit of K-Y, if at all. Interesting? I don't think so.

D) This year I recertify so I need 150 contact hours of continuing education. My last re-cert was 2003, the year before Thea arrived. Since 2004, with free time at a premium, I felt like I had accomplished next to nothing in the way of CE and was getting very nervous because the recertification application will be arriving some time in the next couple of months (even though my certification doesn't expire until November 2008, the accrediting body wants its $400+ fee early, greedy buggers). Then a brochure for a national conference conveniently taking place in late June/early July practically in my mother's backyard arrived, followed by another for an NP conference in Philadelphia in May. Between those two events, the program last week and another two-day freebie in April, I figured I might just squeak by. So Thursday night, in a fit of inspired panic with a purpose, I dug out all the CE certificates from 2003 until now and put them in an Xcel spreadsheet. I have 118.1 hours. (Insert sound effect of me breaking my arm patting myself on the back.) Things are not dismal AT ALL, and I am much more industrious than I give myself credit, especially when those 118 hours are comprised of mostly one and two hour increments. Now I just need to make sure that I meet the requirement in terms of percentage of credits acquired through an ANCC-certified continuing education provider - that's probably where I'll fall short.

E) I got a comment on one of my more recent posts. Comments on posts since returning from China have be nil, giving me the feeling that I am pretty much writing this blog for myself - and for the kids if they are ever eventually interested in reading it. So if you're reading this regularly or just passing through, leave a note once in a while, it's like getting a present when I find one.

Yet another audiogram. . .

It's hard to believe that it has been three months since Micah's last audiogram, but today we had to make the pilgrimage up Route 1 to Edison for yet another hearing test. He was much more cooperative and tested consistently at 25 decibels with the BAHA on, 60 decibels with it off. Now we're off the hook for six months - and once that audiogram is done, he'll be seen annually. This is wonderful because parking at JFK is a major pain in the butt - usually I manage to find something relatively close, but this time we were out in the provinces beyond the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders.

This past Friday Thea, Micah and I went to Family Fun Night at Summit Speech School - which being on call was not exactly hitting all cylinders as far as being fun. I spent a good twenty minutes in the ladies' bathroom, the quietest place I could find, returning patient phone calls. Thea thought the father/son clown/magician act was hysterical; I thought the father clown was totally disturbing: his make-up had a tiny cross between his eyebrows and Chinese characters on his left cheek. Disturbing. Emmett Kelly he wasn't.

Monday's parent group was great because each of the facilitators thought the other was with us, so we were on our own. I got all my call slips written up, cleaned out expired coupons from my purse and hung out with Baby Ana who had decided that she would rather hang with her mother and the other moms than play with the Connor, Cormac, Campbell and Micah. Eventually someone figured it out and out the window went the unstructured, just-hanging-out format.

Pictures from Micah's laid-back, almost un-birthday to come. He got a Radio Flyer tricycle with handles/a parent steering column. It's still a little big and he hasn't figured out how to keep his feet on the pedals, but it's only a matter of time.

Today the Boy is TWO

...and he woke up happy, played in his crib for a bit and then starting sending his come-and-get-me signals. Birthday Boy had breakfast with his father while Thea and I made a run for the store (BB was getting the last egg in the 'fridge) and a side trip to Toys-R-Us to return the little adjustable bike (no assembly required) for a tricycle with a push-handle (some assemply required).

"Some assembly required" is right up there with "I'll call you in the morning" in the pantheon of greatest lies ever told. Anything requiring a screwdriver, a wrench and a hammer is a major project, made more major because BB was right there in the thick of it to lend a hand because if there is whacking to be done, he wants to be in on the action. (BB's father was upstairs with Thea because she was having a meltdown and was getting a time-out, so he wasn't available to distract him - not that he would have been distracted.

Since our oven is kaput, Thea and I bought Muppet cupcakes, two Elmos, two Cookie Monsters (or maybe they're Grover; they're blue, whatever) and two Oscar the Grouch. Oscar's cupcakes are chocolate, so one of them is mine, mine, mine.

BB is currently napping so photos of him on the new bike will have to wait. I also need to take him along to the store to fit his little dome with a helmet. We didn't get one for Thea until she was riding independently, but somehow I would feel better if he had one now. Bad thing is that the helmet will probably interfere with wearing his BAHA.

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.