Sheepish

Today Micah, Thea and I went to the Sheep and Fiber Festival at the Hunterdon County Fairgrounds.  As I sit writing, I am wondering if the smell of sheep, alpacas and llamas is stuck in my nostrils or if it's actually clinging to my clothes, or if I'm just imagining it.

We wandered around looking at the animals in their pens, the vendors.  There is an alpaca farm near my office and the owner had a booth so we stopped by to say hello:  Micah picked out a toy alpaca, Thea selected a pair of gorgeous fingerless gloves and we bought a knitted teddy bear for a gift. 

We went to the sheep shearing demonstration.  Sheep are amazing, get them on their back and they are like blobs of woolly Silly Putty.  The gentleman conducting the demonstration actually wrestled a feisty ewe onto her back propped something behind her neck or shoulder and walked away and the ewe just surrendered, lay on its back and made no effort whatsoever to escape.  Micah tried his hand at shearing, which was rather cool and both kids went up to feel the lanolin on the skin after the shearing.

For lunch we went to Panera's and while waiting for our food, we ran into the father of two of Thea's Mandarin school classmates.  (Mandarin school starts tomorrow.)  He was coming in for coffee and was next door at Chuck E. Cheese with his wife and their boys.  So after eating we went to say 'hello'.  I give both parents credit, they can actually read books while sitting at a table in the middle of background noise that almost defies description.  I am not that sort of person, I invested in the minimum amount of tokens that my sanity could tolerate.

Tomorrow is the first meeting of Thea's Junior troop, then Mandarin school - she still has a few pages of the summer homework to do.  Sigh.  At least this summer she didn't give much grief over doing the 20+ pages she completed.

School started Thursday, so after two days it's too early to tell, but so far so good. 

Religious school starts Tuesday for Thea; Micah doesn't start until next year.  Soccer is gearing up - Thea's team will be the Tigers, so she is thrilled.  The team doesn't have a coach, so the parents will need to take turns with practice and games, so I am NOT thrilled.

Last Friday

A week ago Micah had an appointment with Dr. Choe to check his ears and clean out the debris of summer from Micah's ear canal to get him ready for school.  He is an old pro at this, I just sit in the chair and watch the bits of stuff accumulate on the 4" x 4" gauze while Micah chats with Dr. Choe.  It's pretty much like going to the dentist - other than we do this about three times per year.  Micah's ear canals are looking good, everything is where it should be.

  The office staff recognize Micah the minute he comes out of the elevator and are always charmed by him.  All in all, totally worth getting up at the near crack of dawn to make it up to Englewood for an 8:10 am appointment.  We're so lucky to be this close to Dr. Choe's office, I can't image living far away from our atresia surgeon.

September 6, 2004

Once upon a time, eight years ago when my knees felt much younger, a bus loaded with thirteen families left the Holiday Inn in ChongQing and drove across the Yangtze River to a rather unimpressive office building with an elevator about the size of a large phone booth; it took multiple trips for our entire group and the two facilitators to arrive at our destination.  The adoption office was much swankier than the building or its elevator.  This is the email that I wrote on September 6, 2004, back in the days before I was a sometimes blogger and a full-time Mom:

Dear Everyone,

I started a nice, long email to all of you, which was just eaten by Juno or the

hotel's internet connection.  And I'm not even going ballastic.

Greetings from the Holiday Inn-Yangtze in Chongqing ("chun ching", if you

happen to care about pronounciation).

We survived the two long flights from Newark to San Francisco, and then on to

Beijing.  Our 24 hours in Beijing went by very fast: one Peking duck restaurant on

arrival, Tianmen Square, the Forbidden City and the Great Wall on Sunday, then by

5 pm we were on our way to the airport for Chongqing.  Our travel group and the 

facilitators are phenomenal.

Today was Gotcha Day, the day we've prepared, overpacked and angst-ed over for

months. It went so, so well.  We all met in the hotel's restaurant at 9:30 to do

the paperwork, which was spirited away by the facilitators, after lunch the bus 

came at 1:20 pm to take us to the local adoption office.  We arrived at a rather

non-descript corner, somewhere in CQ, went into a rather decrepit looking building

and arrived on the fourth floor to a rather new looking office with more than the

13 babies our group was there to claim.  Rolling scooters with babies (including 

one that was rocketing from one corner of the room to another), sofas with babies,

orphanage staff with babies, all in various states of happiness, apprehension, or

outright crying.

Steve and I failed to pick out Thea from the multitudes, but no sooner did we

really start focusing, someone called out "Liang Zhen" and a squalling Thea was 

placed in Steve's arms.  She calmed down pretty quickly and just stared at us

trying to figure things out; she like the toy we brought and seem to focus on 

faces.  For our paperwork we were photographed as a family (one hellacious picture

of me, don't expect to see it), then we met with the orphanage director and staff 

that accompanied the babies to ask any questions.  The LiangPing babies seemed 

very well cared for.  We managed to take a picture with them for Thea's scrapbook.

I have never said Xie Xie (shay shay: thank you) so many times on this whole trip

as I did today.

Thea had her first bottle (eats like a champ, liked whatever bottle she was given,

prefers silicon nipples) and diaper change at the adoption office.  That's what, 

I think, won her over:  we might be funny looking and unfamiliar, but we cater and

keep butts dry.

She fell asleep on the ride back to the hotel, so Steve did a diaper run to a local

department store.  I watched the nap and then played stacking cups with Thea.  We

had dinner with the group and the new additions, and then the doctor came to the

hotel room to check over the babies.  She's now 8.6 kg and passed her physical. 

The 9-12 month clothes with feet are a little tight, twelves are a little hefty in

the torso - we'll manage.

Chongqing had rain last night - the sky crying tears for the babies that we're

taking away, and still today it was a little damp.  It's foggy and smoggy - we're

on the 19th floor of the hotel and can barely see the other side of the Yangtze

for a few hours during the day.  There are beautiful lights along the river at

night.

Anyway, between the first effort and getting this email off, I've left Steve for

an hour and a half.  Thea's probably flayed the flesh off his arms with those nails of

hers, and he's so smitten, he's probably letting her.

Next update, if possible, either later in the week or after the 12th when we're in

Guangzhou

Hope all is well with you.  Thank you for all the good thoughts - they have

obviously worked.  Thea is fantastic, beyond our wildest hopes and dreams and we

can't wait to bring her home.


Lydia

And eight years later,  that little baby is still beyond my wildest dreams, the best daughter in the whole world and my fabulous girl.

Friday at Home

Some days with nothing on the schedule turn out to be the best days of all.

Beds made.

Laundry put away.

Laundry room floor swept up.

A little tidying up and dusting upstairs.

Finished an on-line survey that will eventually result in a check in the mailbox.

Much pondering of what to sew next - something from the modern quilt book or a paper-piece pattern ordered from an etsy.com vendor.

A Greek salad made with Jersey tomatoes and seedless cucumber and a heap of feta cheese.

Happy stuff.

Unfortunately, the back to school to-do list is lurking around somewhere:

Haircuts for both kids at Snip-Its with Ms. Flo

New shoes for school

New cleats for soccer

Check-ups for both kids

School supplies lists, including mass quantities of Dixon Ticonderoga #2 pencils

Going through two closets to pull the clothes the kids have outgrown.

Fall and back-to-school is looming large on the horizon.  Ugh.

Wishful Summer Thinking

 A post begun over a week ago. . . .

After two weeks in the WW-P Community Education summer programs, the kids are back to Princeton Friends School Camp next week.  They had a good time, but it seemed like quite a few of the program that we signed up for were cancelled and substitutions made.  Next year I think I want to take more time off during the summer so they can be home, hang out, go on day-trips and what not.

Fall seems like it's coming up quickly: Thea and Micah are registered for soccer, Thea is looking forward to the WWPSA's 3-on-3 tournament; I've got to register her for YingHua for the fall, check the school district's web site for school supply lists.

And even before this was posted, the week at Friends Camp finished and the kids are back to Community Education for one last week before returning once more to PFS for two final weeks.  Time is flying, I'm finding things other than keeping up with blogging to keep me busy.

It's almost August, time to start thinking about haircuts, finishing the remainder of the school supplies lists, starting to stalk the school district web site for teacher assignments, getting an appointment for Micah to get his ears flossed out, school physicals for both kids, and so on, and so on.

Maybe I've spent too much time at the quilt shops, where fall and Christmas fabrics are in abundance and everyone seems to be working on holiday table runners and tree skirts.  Not my thing, though some of the Hallowe'en fabrics are cute.

Meanwhile I haven't seen the Atlantic Ocean this year, I'm already planning for  Summer 2013 and taking more time off during the summer to enjoy it with the kids.

Two months. . .

until school starts. 

Thea volunteered that information today while we were out shopping.  To Thea, it seems like school is going  to be starting soon.  To me, it seems like there is still a lot of summer ahead of us.

Somehow there are people in the world who think that summer is somehow easier.  And it might be in terms of not having homework to deal with, but logistically, it may be more difficult.  It takes looking at my iPad to know where they will be each week for camp, learning the camps' schedules for snacks and lunches and whatnot.  With school, they have cafeteria accounts set up, and most days, I don't make lunches.  For camp, they need a lunch that will survive the heat (and yes, I do use re-usable freezer blocks.)

And in our lives, there is still is homework because we have the 35 page green workbook from Ying Hua Language School that must be finished and turned in on the first Sunday.

When the school year finally does get underway, it will be the first year that Micah stays put in one school for the entire day, and it will be Thea's first year at Millstone Upper Elementary School, which will be a much bigger school.  Wicoff School is the smallest of the district's lower elementary schools, which is nice because the staff and principal seem to know every student in the school but it will make the transition more interesting.

Ears. . . . .

Micah and I were in the family room, on the 4th of July, I think because I was sewing and he was finishing dinner, which is more of a process than a meal since he's a dining dawdler.

And while he was contemplating his dinner, he looked up and me and asked, "Mommy, will my ears always be this way?"

Oh, holy hell, really?  Today this comes up?  And what I want from him in the way of details as to why this is on his mind aren't forthcoming.

We've talked about this with him before, around the time he was having the atresia surgeries.  Micah was told that the atresia surgeries were not negotiable because we wanted him to have the best hearing possible.  But the microtia repair surgeries are up to him, and at that time he said, "No more surgeries, I don't want big ears."  He was four at the time.

(And then his father decided that it was finally time to have him circumcised, which will definitely give him something to talk to his future therapist about.  But that's a different story about parents who break promises.)

The issue of microtia has pretty much been way, way off the conversational radar since September 2010, which was when Micah had his last atresia surgery.

So I slapped on my parental verbal tap shoes and offered him a quick recap of the past, and told him that going to the doctor to talk about surgery to create bigger ears is entirely his choice. (I try to avoid the words "normal ears", we talk about big ears and little ears.)

He then asked if the surgery to have ears made that look like Thea's ears could be done in Dr. Choe's office instead of the hospital.  And when he was told that it would be at a hospital and it would also not be Dr. Choe performing the surgery, he would need to see a special doctor called a plastic surgeon.

Micah then said that if it couldn't be done by Dr. Choe in his office, he does not want big ears.

Issue closed, for now.