Mortimer's Mom

5 years ago today

Believe it or not, it was 5 years ago today, in Nanning, that I met Dumpling and became her mom. She didn't get to meet her dad til 2 weeks later, but we still celebrate May 31st as her adoption day because he was there in spirits.

It doens't seem possible that it's been 5 years. She is such a grown up young lady. She is an incredible artist and a budding singer/actress (we tried so hard to keep her form HSM, she became a Hairspray fanatic instead and does a killer Tracy Turnblatt). She is now (finally!) a great eater and is very interested in cooking and baking and helping in the kitchen.

Most days, she is a fantastic big sister, though she is quite devious and can manage to convince her little sister to do all kinds of things she knows she shouldn't be doing!

Of course, on a day like today, I want to celebrate all that is wonderful about Dumpling. The truth is, it took a lot of work and patience and sometimes tears to get to this point. There are days when I just don't know if I will ever truly understand her. But we have persevered and all of us together, we are a family.

if you scroll down this page, you'll find my entry from 5 years ago ( I seriously need to import that diaryland blog!). Apparently, I didn't write anything down on our first anniversary, but here is year 2, year 3 and year 4

and tonight, we continued our tradition of taking a picture every year in the dress that I wore 5 years ago in China. When she is big enough, Dumpling will start wearing it.
  

Right before bed, we read Happy Adoption Day, a book Dumpling received as a baby git from our friends Susan,Gord and Cara-Li. Cara-Li is 1 year older than Dumpling and from the same orphanage. S and I became friends online and then in real life and now, 5 years later, we see each other regularly. As a matter of fact, CL and G came with us to the movies yesterday morning. So when I read the book tonight and pointed out the inscription to Dumpling, she was very pleased and expressed genuine gratitude for their friendship and the special bond that we have formed with that family.

I have a closet and other sundries

Once upon a time, I really wanted to take the roof off of my house and put it back at a different angle so that we could have a walk-in closet. Thus ensued the planning, then the decision to move to The House, which of course didn't work out. Back to planning, and a the last minute, contractor problems kept us from taking off said roof. Well about 7 weeks ago, a different contractor with a very different, very scaled-back, non-roof-removing plan and we have new stairs to the attic, a very funky, though not totally completed master-bathroom and I have taken over my husband's side of the closet.

Here is my closet before. Yes, I only had the one side of this IKEA PAX cupboard...

   

And here it is now.... I have taken over the entire thing.

 

Sorry, Something wonky happened with the picture.... but you can see the dresses are no longer scrunched up 4 per hanger, and the pants have room to breath, and the jackets have their own little rod.... To do this, I had to kick my husband's clothes out and into his new cupboards in the bathroom.

Behold the entrance from our bedroom, formally the door to a 2x2 cubby under the stairs:

 

and here are shots of the bathroom. We are missing a mirror and light fixture, along with two boxes on either side with shelving. and the glass shower walls. but otherwise, it's done and I love it.

       

In non-closet related updates, if I were to tell you what happened to us in the last few months, you would not believe me. Those of you who know can back me up on this... it's truly not-believable, in a not-good way. We have dealt with store robberies, cancer, home-IVs, ER visits, iron-infusions, and the terrible unexpected death of a close family member.

Somewhere, in the middle of all this, literally in the middle, with Daddy on home-IV and Mommy getting iron treatments and grand-ma starting chemo and our entire family in deep mourning, Dumpling turned 6. And put the facts together and asked us, in the middle of her birthday dinner, if the 6th anniversary of her birth also meant that is was 6 years ago on that day ther her mommy in China left her....

Somehow, we still managed to have a good time and celebrate this huge milestone. My baby is 6.

 

Yes, i realize that I am frighteningly pale. That was after one iron infusion but before my impromptu visit to the ER....

Two Years Ago Today

This is what our family looked like two years ago tonight, in a government office in China:

 

and this is what we looked like tonight, celebrating Chinese New Years with our most special friends, right here in Chinatown:

 

When Susan sent out her now-annual invitation to join her and her family for dinner in Chinatown, of course, we accepted gladly and made sure to clear our schedules and make sure we were free. It fell perfectly between my return from New York and Mortimer's Dad departure for a quick trip to Florida. Then we took a good look at hte calendar and realised it was in fact the anniversary of BB's adoption, the day we completed our family. So it felt particularly appropriate to celebrate with Susan and her family, which by now includes a merry gang of other adoptive families and friends.

It feels unreal, the last two years. That first day, in China, Dumpling was the happiest kid on earth and BB was seriously the unhappiest kid ever. I don't think DUmpling had ever been as unhappy as BB was that day. And now. Well, it couln't be more switched around. BB is still the ray of sunshine in this house and everwhere she goes. She is so secure in herself and in who she is. Just a few weeks ago, she finally became a Canadian citizen. We tried to explain it to her, but citizenship is hard for a 3.5 y.o. to grasp. "I'm not from Canada mommy. I'm from CHINA. It's very far. I live here now, but I'm not FROM here."

To quote from Dirty Dancing, "Nobody puts BB in the corner" That kids had major Cajones! It's of course given rise to a serious was between Dumplingdom and BBstan, a war of such proportions that sometimes 3 adults in the house is in fact barely enough to monitor the situation.

BB loves to dance. It's a bit Elaine-ish, but man, she loves to dance. She has dance parties in her bedroom with her "friends", aka the large collection of stuffed animals and dolls. She can now draw pictures that actually resemble something. Not always, but when she wants to.

And the eating. It's never stopped! You guys all told me to enjoy her appetite when she was little, that it would wane with time.... WRONG! you were ALL WRONG! This kid will eat until she pukes and then eat again. No, that is not a figure of speach and I am not exagerating for effect. She LURVES food. Except fruit. And vegetables. OK, so she loves meat and carbs. But she will agree to eat the fruits and veg in exchange for more of what she really wants. She is a most excellent bargainer.

She only is now starting to learn the fine art of manipulation from her sister. Unfortunately for her, her fake-crying skills are rather poor and we can smell a rat the instant she begins. But she is honing her skills.

She has no favorite color. No favorite toy or blankie. EVERYTRHING is her favorite. She loves everything and everyone she meets. Just tonight at dinner, she finally realised that rather than fighting for Dumpling and Cara-Li's attention (Susan's daughter), she should make her own very best friend, little G. who is 4. It took 20 minutes and then she proclaimed that she too had a bestest best friend and walked around the restaurant holding her hand. And went to bed singing a little song she mad up about her new best friend.

BB. She truly completed our family.     

The last day of the craziness

We serve customers today. Tomorrow we celebrate with my parents, and then, we un hook from the world and head to the snowy hills.... It was a particularly buzy shopping season at the stores and I'll be quite happy to wrap the last present today.

Yesterday, not 5 min after I left work, Halle Berry walked in and bought baby things! And I missed it. Crap!

Happy holidays, whichever one you celebrate.

Here's the deal....

It's been a while, I've had a lot of time to think.... Here's the deal: I dont' feel much like Mortimer's Mom anymore. She was the infertile who blogged about shots and morphed into the adoptive mom of two fantastic daughters. But she is not the frazzled, overwhelmed motherwho doesn't know which way to turn and when the other shoe will drop.

So for now, this story is on hold. I really don't feel like it's done though, so I think I will aim for a monthly update. In the mean time, I've been in crafty-overtime and so the Ubercrafty blog is alive and will be quite prolific in the days to come.