Friday's Good Karma

Today was my day for finally mustering the mental fortitude to deal with renewing my driver's licence at the NJ Motor Vehicle Commission. This was the third time there for obtaining or renewing my license (last time in 2004, with Thea in tow, home all of a week or so from China), as well as several miscellaneous trips to obtain duplicate registrations or purchasing the Conquer Cancer vanity plates. All previous trips have made me wonder how the former Soviet Union could have created mindless, soul-less bureaucracy as an export product.

After driving Thea to school, caught behind every idiot with a driver's license who had forgotten how to use a turn signal to show intent as well as a total inability to allow enough room for others to go around while he or she holds up traffic with the unannounced left turn, Micah and I had our session with the speech therapist this morning; her whole idea of introducing Micah to scissors was a big fat non-event. He got to make two snips in a strip of meatballs and then glue them onto a paper picture of spaghetti - even with the coveted scissors he was bored in about three meatballs. And now I have to spend 15 minutes morning and evening hyper-correcting him for pronunciation, I think I'll leave that to Steve.

Micah's turning into quite a mynah bird, repeating everything he hears. Unfortunate when it's "stupid idiot" called out to the car in front of us.

So after speech and after applying a light coating of spackle to my face, Micah and I set out for the NJMVC. We got there at 11:45 am, and in addition to getting the driver's license we also went for a duplicate registration (different lines, no one-stop shopping, so it's not quite all sunshine and puppies) and were back in the car by 12:05 pm. And in the whole process, only encountered one snotty humanoid employee (the receptionist). Micah just loved standing on the yellow taped lines - he lined himself up next to me while I was having my picture taken and then lining up next to the guy in front of us at the registration section. (Get this, the chick flashed my current-about-to-expire license photo on the screen and said do you want this or a new one? I almost kept the four-years-younger me, but decided to go for the real deal)

Now I'm just sitting around waiting for the meteor to land on my head because that kind of stuff doesn't happen to me, so there will be a karmic trade-off somewhere down the line.

Meanwhile, back to life with an almost five-year old, Thea blew up her first balloon last night. She's been trying and trying, but just not getting the coordination of breathing, pinching the balloon shut while inhaling, and the power to force the air in. Then, it just happened. It was rather cool - and a redemonstration was captured on film to put installed on the blog at a later date.

Our Summer in Pictures

Not necessarily in chronological order. . . .

Thea on the beach at Manoloking, August 2008

Micah on the beach at Mantoloking, August 2008

Micah getting in touch with inner Gypsy Rose Lee, Summer 2008

Hanging out with our Cousin Willi, waitng for the train
Watkins Regional Park, Labor Day Weekend 2008

Autumn Moon Festival, September 13, 2008

Chinatown, Philadelphia

Marching in the Autumn Moon Festival Parade

Getting in touch with nature at the Sotterley Plantation

Photo by Thea, June 2008

Ready to save the world, Summer 2008

Catching up on summer reading at Oma's, June 2008

Making a splash in the sprinkler, August 31, 2008

Riding the train with Oma

Watkins Regional Park, June 13, 2008

Modelling swimwear, June 2008

Working on our Summer Home, July 2008

Pool Party, September 13, 2008

Lion Dancers, Autumn Moon Festival

Back where we started, waitng for next summer . . . .

And now a word from our sponsor. . .

I know I've been promising photos since forever, putting it off due to technical difficulties - needing a new cable from the camera to the PC as well as just procrastination in general. Until came the day when I had 888 photographs on the camera. And despite a new cable, despite having the actual time to sit down and do it, nothing happened. It just seemed like the number of new photos (350+) was just more than EasyShare (total misnomer) could handle. Without photos, a blog becomes a blah-g rather quickly, at least mine does.

BTW: If anyone has a better photo manager, I'm all ears. I also have close to 3,000 pictures that would need to be transferred,

So today, while the kids were with Steve, off to visit his mother, I set out to copy the memory card onto a CD. No luck at FedEx Office (formerly FedEx Kinkos, formerly Kinkos), it's device was out of service. So on to ShopRite, where I selected the whole contents of the card to copy on to a CD (and having no clue as to how many photos a CD actually can store), no go. Then I selected 388 photos to copy from the card, and onto two CDs. Except that ShopRite only had ONE Kodak photo CD left in the entire store, and the non-food items manager was away and this could not be rectified until his return in a week or so. Bite me, ShopRite - especially after I invested 30 minutes or so in figuring out how to use the Kodak kiosk.

There was a part of me that said, "Bag it, this is just not in the cards today." And there was the part of me that was hell bent and determined that I WOULD prevail. So I went to Wegman's since I had coupons for a free 50 ounce bottle of 2X strength store-brand detergent and another for eight ounces of basting oil (whatever that is, but it was free and sounded interesting.) The Kodak kiosk here is a remnant from the dark ages of digital photography. It moved at the pace of that Tim Conway character from the old Carol Burnett Show, and there was only one. So my need for one CD of 200 photos and another of 188 and the anemic pace of the copying irritated at least one customer (who had previoiusly tried CVS and found its machine out of service), but that machine was mine, mine, mine. I skipped copying another smaller memory card because I didn't want to completely monopolize the kiosk, and I was bored to tears waiting. I could have never accomplished this on a week day with Micah in tow. He would have completely dismantled the displays of disposable cameras and picture frames or wandered off to find someone more interesting than his mother to hang with.

So, the bottom line is photos are coming, you should enjoy each and every one because of the cost involved, not in terms of monetary expenditure (Wegman's $2.99 per CD was $2 cheaper than ShopRite), but what it cost in terms of my time and patience. And my Sunday afternoon communing with the New York Times crossword never even got off the ground, though Wegman's did redeem itself by having a few papers left at 4 pm so I didn't have to go to WaWa or Speedy Mart or wherever to track a copy down.

Ela's baaaack....yay!

Micah's teacher, Ela, is back from her maternity leave. She delivered her daughter via C-section on July 22, 2008 and is back part-time. Micah talked about it all morning. El-LAH? El-LAH? We wrapped a baby gift for her, we talked about her bringing toys to play with, blah, blah, blah.

And he proceeded to call her Nancy for the first hour she was here. Nancy being Ela's substitute for July and August, Nancy whose name I couldn't get Micah to say clearly despite much practicing. Nan-SEE, Nan-SEE. Clear as a bell today, damn kid. Fortunately he snapped out of it and she's back to being his first love, as far as teachers go. And Ela seems to understand me - I'm fairly blunt (or honest) about disliking going to group (the mommies portion, Micah loves his two hours at Summit School; I'd rather have a hot poker stuck in my eye than hang with a bunch of cochlear implant kids' mommies who re-hash the same issues week in and week out.)

Today both Thea and Micah went to see Dr. Andy, their dentist. Micah survived the first invasion of his mouth by fingers not his own and was pretty non-plussed by the experience. Thea got a cleaning and fluoride treatment and will need to go back in October to have a little soft spot - not quite yet a cavity - checked and either sealed or filled.

We snagged the first appointment of the day at the dentist so we were in and out by 9:15, so Thea only missed a few minutes of school. Good thing, since she was the first "Leader of the Day" - sort of a teacher's helper, line-leader, featured kid at sharing time. She didn't really have much to say about it, so she probably had a good time being semi-in charge.

Interesting Article

I hope this will be my kids in 10 or so years:

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2008/08/30/the_point_of_return/?page=1

In case the link doesn't last, it's an article about three teenagers who were adopted from a SWI in Wuhan (Micah's province) who went back this summer to volunteer there. I'm just amazed that they got cleared to do it by the authorities.

Kindergarten

The day arrived, my baby went off to Kindergarten today. Thea had on her yellow polo shirt and blue shorts, and was sporting her backpack (which is my old semi-see-through backpack from when I worked in a prison and clear purses or backpacks were the order of the day.) She managed to forget her lunch box, despite pep talks on how she would now be responsible for having her lunch with her when we left the house.

Micah and I celebrated by going to ShopRite to do our grocery shopping, then we stopped by Marquand Park for a bit. At home, he 'drove' my car while I unloaded and unpacked and then we went for a bike ride. He's upstairs resting from his labors, I'm avoiding cleaning up and doing the rest of the unpacking from our trip.

I'm proud of myself. I took pictures of her and I managed not to cry.

Labor Day Weekend and Nosy Problems

It finally happened, one of those annoying encounters with a person who actually was so out of touch with the social norms of this world that she asked how much my children cost - and did so right in front of my children and my mother. This is a rather long-winded post, so cut to the bottom if you want to know exactly how I feel about the above.

Thea, Micah and I joined the rather limited throngs of Labor Day travelers on Friday, driving down to Southern Maryland to see Oma. We hadn't been to visit since the end of June/beginning of July, giving Oma almost seven weeks to recover from babysitting both kids while I attended the AANP conference. Oma called and warned us off of our usual back roads route that brings us over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge so we came down I-95 onto the Baltimore Beltway and over the Key Bridge to I-97. Other than the usual glitch where the Delaware Memorial Bridge route merges with I-95, it was smooth sailing. Thea slept most of the way and Micah chattered on about how his balloon blew away (three weeks ago).

Saturday we went with my brother, sister-in-law and nephew to an Amish Market in Upper Marlboro, followed by a trip to Watkins Regional Park which has a train, a carousel and a miniature golf course. I managed to snap the cutest picture of all three kids (youngest to oldest, Micah, Willi, Thea) hanging on the gate waiting and watching for the train to pull in. Micah and Willi were just about beside themselves over the train. Thea actually screwed up her courage and went for a carousel ride, though both of them rode on the benches and not on the up-and-down or even the stationary animals. (This earned us the comment from the carousel operator, "You did not pay $1.25 each just to sit on some benches. . . ")

Thea and I played a round of miniature golf while my brother folded himself back into the train with the two boys for a third trip around the track. Thea and I played by four-year old rules: no scoring, do-overs allowed, no worrying about stance, etc. - so we were done in about the same time it took for the boys to ride the train. Eighteen holes. (When Thea and Steve played this course on Fathers' Day, it took them forever because Steve actually felt compelled to teach Thea how to stand, line up her shot, and all that nonsense. For that, he deserved to roast in the hot sun.)

While Micah napped, all the train-riding and carousel-riding having taken a toll on him, Thea and I went to Target for school supplies. Yes, Kindergartners have school supply lists. It was a short list: one box of 24 crayons, one box of colored pencils, two erasers, one pencil sharpener with cover, a package of #2 pencils, three glue sticks and a box to put it in, 5"x 8" x 2". Charles County schools were back in session last week, so we had a major search for Pink Pearl erasers.

Later that evening Aunt Shannon and Willi came over and we went to Rita's for ice cream. Willi and Micah were just too cute, chasing each other around on the patio at the ice cream place. They both love to laugh and run, and it's just so neat to see how a like two-year olds are despite being born two months and thousands of miles apart.

Sunday we decided to "go and see the goats" - which means a trip to Westmoreland Berry Farm in the Northern Neck of Virginia. It's a farm store, berry-picking place that happens to have goats and has built a long ramp so that the goats can ascend, cross over the road that leads down to the berry fields and arrive at a platform where they wait in joyous anticipation (as joyous as a goat gets) of fools who put a quarter in a gumball machine that now cranks out feed corn. The corn is placed in a little cup and a pulley system is used to raise it up to the goat. All of this is endlessly fascinating if you are five and under. If you are forty and over, you just spend time praying that goats do not move their bowels while they are 25 feet in the air. The farm store has a large open-air pavilion with a snack shop, so we had ice cream and snacks (my mother was appalled that I followed my dish of butter pecan with a side of sauerkraut - I just love sauerkraut; she always has to make extra on holidays because I'll start eating it from the pot at breakfast._ The kids got to run around on the playground equipment and we made a trip through the petting zoo section. Thea was brave and got into having the goats eat from her hand, though she thought that the goat spit was nasty; Micah was right there watching but he kept saying "NO GOAT, NO GOAT, Mommeeeeee" so something about them, the smell, the vacuous eyes with those weird slit-like irises, skeeved him.

So on the way home, we decided to go to Mom's local Chinese restaurant. It's straight out of the 1960s and its decor is only slightly different from the Sampan, which was the Chinese place in Hyattsville that I used to go to while I lived in N.E. Washington. The staff is friendly, they are very tolerant of children and the messes that follow in their wakes, and the food is typical American-style Chinese food. We were seated at a booth in the back, they were either being kind to my mother who would not have to walk far on her bad knees to the buffet or were putting us in Siberia because they remember when we last patronized them.

Mom wanted the buffet, but I decided to order off the menu - the buffet leaves too much opportunity for Micah Man to run around and cause chaos. About the time the kids were occupied with their egg-drop soup and dumplings, a woman stops by our table and asks, "Where are they from?" Since I was hungry and about to get my mouth around a dumpling, I didn't have the wherewithal to say Princeton, New Jersey, but I don't think that would have done much to shut this person down.

Her next query was, "How much did they cost?" At this point my idiot-radar did start to function, and I said something to the effect of "Not as much as we love them" which was sort of a nonsequitar, but anyone able to read social nuances would get the idea to BUGGER OFF, BUTTHEAD. I should have asked her if she had children, and if so, were they conceived in the conventional manner or with the assist of a petri dish, were they delivered vaginally or by C-section? But I digress, she followed this with, "Sooo, you weren't able to have children of your own?" What the HECK to these two little people look like? They are my own children, you moron. At that point I decided to just go back to eating in hopes she would find that she needed to return to her table before her plate of food from the buffet got cold. And if she made any further trips to the buffet, she thankfully left us alone.

In all the Yahoo! groups I've belonged to related to adoption from China, I've read about this stuff, and I've always figured that having read about it, I would handle it so much better, but I didn't. Fortunately the children were oblivious to the whole encounter, dumplings trump nosy strangers.

This is right up there with a question posed to me last year by one of the after-care teachers at Thea's school: What do you know about their real mothers? I AM THEIR 'REAL' MOTHER. I wrote that one off to language (the person's first language was not English) and cultural differences, but in many ways it still was irksome. And considering that there are a few Chinese-born adopted children in the school, they'd better learn the lingo quick, cultural differences or not.

Thea's been thinking about adoption: she knows that she was born in China and that we came to China to bring her home. And she knows that the same is true for her brother. While we were at my mother's, she made the observation that, "Micah's first mommy recycled him so we got him." Which is an interesting interpretation, and proof that Bob the Builder's "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" message has made an impression on her.

Monday we went to Miss Gertrude's to feed starlight mints to her neighbor's horses. Gertrude and Micah clicked so Thea and I walked to the barn and Micah held fast to Gertrude and regaled her with his best conversational tidbits, most of which I don't think she understood, but she did an excellent job of faking it. Thea again got into feeding the animals and allowed Ethel and the other horses to eat out of her hand; Micah at first wouldn't even go in the barn. But he got scooped up and brought in so he could help me feed some peppermints to the horse. Such a soft nose this one had, and they were nice because they were eager, but not greedy so they kept their teeth in check.

After horses came a trip for school shoes for the kids - with a stop to look at a desk Mom saw and thought would be neat for Thea. It was like a little secretary desk with a fold out table-top and lots of cubbies at Everything Amish (If It Ain't Dutch, It Ain't Much is the store's sign's subtext). I took pictures of it, but I think it's a little out of our price range.

The best day of the weekend - for me - was yesterday morning. My mother made an appointment with Lindsey, the stylist who had been cutting and coloring my hair until around the time we went to China last year. I went back to a salon around here that I had gone to once upon a time and the stylist was ok, but she wasn't Lindsey. So yesterday I got to catch up with Lindsey and I let her lop off and thin out a ton of hair. When I saw the floor, it looked like a poodle and a pitbull went at it, and it wasn't pretty for the poodle. (The haircut turned out fine, it was just more hair on the floor than I've seen in awhile.)

I think Thea was having a little pre-first day of school anxiety because I told her that we were going to home she wanted to stay with Oma and she was very sad to be packing up. By staying the extra day, we avoided holiday weekend/beach traffic. Everyone was in a good mood for the four-hour drive.

Anyway, the bottom line to the encounter with the nosy wench in the Chinese restaurant is: It is totally unacceptable to ask adoptive parents how much their children cost, and the sin is doubled if it is asked in front of the child(ren) in question. Ditto with the use of 'real' as an adjective in front of mother when the real mother is the one being asked. Birthparent. Biological mother. Whatever. Pick one, use it.

And don't get me started on people who ask about how my children were abandoned or found (not a subject for casual conversation) or those who say that "Baby girls aren't wanted in China" because it's so much more complicated than that.