Mortimer's Mom

Xtreme Emotions

I had thought about keeping this on the quiet side, but I think it might be good to put this out there for other families who might be dealing with something similar. I know we are not the only adoptive family that has a parent with health issues and the way the kids react can be very.... interesting...

BB has been a puddle of sadness. From the moment he got dropped off at the hospital, she was upset. She remembered the building from last year (1 year and 3 months ago, when she had been home less than 5 months... clearly huge impact on her) and was very upset: "I don't want Daddy to sleep there!" While he was gone, she was very quiet and kind of sad all the time, but she would light up during visits to see him. She's very talkative and expresses her feelings very well, so she asked A LOT of questions. "Why Daddy go to hospital? Why Daddy need special medicine? Why Daddy cough all the time?" The 20 min ride back from the hospital to the house was just one Why after the other. But at least she was able to say things like "I miss Daddy. I don't want Daddy to be sick. I'll be very nice and Daddy will get better"

When he came home, she was overjoyed. Couldn't get enough hugs and kisses. But now, she won't leave his side. I noticed yesterday morning she was very reluctant to go to school, but since it was the first day, he actually rode in the car with us and waited while I brought the girls inside. Today he stayed home to rest. BB was NOT happy. On the way there she complained about which streets I took ("this is NOT Daddy's way! I wanna go Daddy's way!") and she refused to get out of the car. On any other day, there would have been plenty of Dumpling's schoolmates arriving at the same time and I could have sent her in with a friend, but of course, this had to be the day where everyone arrived very early or very late and no one was there to walk her in. So I literally dragged a screaming-crying-kicking BB into the school and dropped Dumpling off.

Foolishly, I attempted to bring BB to her class. (permission to laugh at me now) She was having none of it. "I wanna go home to DADDY!" The teachers, who are all aware of the situation, offered to give it a try, so I left her (again, permission to laugh at me granted). I didn't make it to the front door. You could hear her from outside the building. It was the scariest screaming I have heard since the day we met her in China and the day she tried to rip my nose off after coming home. I was not leaving her.

So I ran back in, picked up a puddle of tears from the ground and rushed her home to Daddy's arms. We were in dire need of some essentials like toilet paper, so I quickly ran some errands and returned home to find her drawing pictures for Daddy. But he looked very tired, so I asked her if maybe, just maybe, she wanted to go back to school. Surprisingly, she agreed as long as Daddy drove her. So he rode in the car again and waited outside, but this time she went in willingly. Hopefully she'll stay for the entire time and I won't get a call to rush back.

At then other end of the spectrum, you have Dumpling. Dumping is not good with expressing her feelings. She doesn't differentiate between anger and sadness and fear and frustration. It all comes out as anger. She was happy to see him home... for about 15 minutes. And then, she immediately became angry at me. Screaming, yelling, kicking, biting, anything you can imagine. Everything bothers her: the light isn't right, the food is too hot or too cold, I'm not holding the doll correctly, this is not the shirt she wants to wear. But she doesn't know what is "right". Everything is just "wrong". And if I try to guess how to do something, inevitably, I will do the wrong thing and set her off.

We placed a quick call to the therapist who recommended asking her to draw pictures of her feelings. We were able to get her to admit she was sad and scared about Daddy being sick and away, but in the end, it all came back to her being angry at me. About what, I'm not sure. Maybe she thinks it's my fault, or maybe she's mad that I can't fix it. We haven't gotten that far yet.... But man, she's pissed off. At least, she likes school and it acts as a big stabilizer for her, but the instant she sees me at pick up, the emotions well up and she has a fit. But the time we get home, she's out of control.

We are taking it very much one day at a time. But I'm frustrated. I don't really know how to make it better for them. And people seem to think that because he's home everything is fine. Trust me when I tell you, it's not.

Fitting In

Today is BB's first day in her second year of Nursery School. I can't even begin to tell you what a difference a year makes. Last year at this time, we sent  just-turned-2-y.o. 2 mornings a week. She couldn't speak. At all. Not one word. She started weekly speech therapy at the same time. It was a pretty intense process, we did a tremendous amount of work with her and we had to learn to wait for her to use words instead of grunting and pointing. But a year later.... you would never know. She speaks as well if not better than the kids in her class (well, except for the one kid who is the daughter of the speech therapist! That kid sounds like a 24 y.o.!!!!)

What Dumpling lacked in confidence, BB  more than makes up for. She is now enrolled 5 mornings a week, but she is also attending the early drop off program AND the Lunch Bunch, which means that she gets to school at 8:30 (right after she brings her big sister upstairs to her kindergarten class at 8:20) and stays for lunch with about half the class. We then pick them up together at 1:30. No way Dumpling could have EVER stayed that long at that age. Heck, she barely made it when she started pre-K, which is now only a year away for BB (it could have been 2 years away if the speech hadn't improved, but at this point, it's clearly no longer an issue)

I am a tiny bit apprehensive for her today because this does mean 3 different classrooms and 3 pairs of teachers: the early-drop-off is in the older class, then she goes to her regular class and Lunch Bunch is inn the one class she wasn't in last year! On her visit yesterday, she was a tad overwhelmed by that, because if you add the baby-class she was in last year, that's all the rooms!

I packed them identical Bentos today,  hard boiled eggs with faces cut out of fruit leather.....

Which brings me to my final topic: Dumping and Lunch. As long time readers know, Dumpling was a non-eater for a very long time. There were problems eating at home, at the restaurant, at school. We sought advice and help, we had to get someone to sit with her at school to get her to eat in pre-K. Well this year, she's come home with a COMPLETELY EMPTY lunchbox every single day. She is loving the Bento concept and I'm not even making fancy faces or shapes everyday, just lots of little amounts of various fruits and veggies and turkey/eggs in the containers with the separators. She loves it! and the other kids at her table are so jealous, they are asking their moms for it too! 2 of the moms asked me where to get the containers, her friend J in the other class is already eating her own Bento.... Look at that! My kid, fitting right in at the lunch table and even inspiring others....

A year ago, had you told me that BB was going to speak at a 5 y.o. level and Dumpling was going to bring home empty lunch boxes, I would not have believed you for one second.

PS there will be BB first day of school pics, but I took them with the fancy camera and we are going to a fundraiser tonight, for which I am having my hair done.... so you'll have to wait til tomorrow!

Dumpling's Big Day

It's not all Doom and Gloom around here (well, OK, it sort of is!)

Dumpling started Kindergarten today. Yesterday, she went for an hour yesterday and said "Why can't I stay?" After years of needing to prepare her and be ready for the worst, it was so refreshing to have her be so excited about going back and be totally fine with the new class mix up, the new friends, the new teachers.... Of course, she insisted on dressing up for the occasion....

Today was the first full day, 8 to 1:30, with lunch. Speaking of which, I have a new obsession.... When I get stressed, I need to create/make stuff and since crafting time is non-existent, I have gone gaga for Bento boxes.... I ordered a bunch of supplies online from Japan (via Ebay) and they should arrive in a couple of weeks. In the mean time, the Asian 2$ store had a real bento lunch box and this was my first attempt:

There are 2 hard-boiled eggs under the cucumber/grape tomato flowers, with carrot sticks and carrots and pretzels... She ate every bite of it! My kid, the non-eater, ate her ENTIRE lunch.....

This is what it looked like at my house this morning:

Her feet are Ginormous!

the final craft project, which she has yet to see because she is now asleep, is her lunchbox. I absolutely 100% refuse to let her pick HSM or H.M. She has yet to watch either on TV, so that was NOT happening. Princess would have been fine, but every body was going to have the same freaking lunchbox. So I made her pick a plain one! The horror! But I had a plan. I asked her what her absolute favorite show was, expecting her to answer either Yo Gabba Gabba or Max and Ruby, but she picked Wow Wow Wubbzy, which I really like. I found he creator's blog, played around with a couple of images and voila, the one and ONLY Wow Wow Wubbzy pink lunch box!

I still have no employees, though I did find a 16 y.o. who apparently will watch my kids so we can leave the house to attend things non-work-related (we're having a trial this weekend) and there is only one juice-box of wine in the fridge!!!!

The Dramedy Continues, laugh along with me...

A couple of weeks ago, a long-time employee {who had left at the beginning of the summer (after graduating and looking for a "real" job) and came back in the middle of the summer after realizing that she wasn't ready for said real world} announced that she in fact WAS ready for the real world and was going to be a substitute teacher, starting next week! So an ad went up and we interviewed candidates.

As in the past when we put out such ads, most of the applicants were illiterate, couldn't follow simple instructions (attach a resume and availability) or were not eligible to work in this country. We ended up meeting 4 candidates, one of whom was so boring I almost fell asleep during the interview and one of whom had a bun on his head and an askew pink tie that he constantly fussed over (yes, a man, a grown man, with a bun on his head, for style). We liked the other two, mainly because they were not freaks, could speak in both languages and seemed interested in the job.

Then this past Saturday, another employee, a much less stellar one who wasn't returning after Labour Day, just stopped showing up, leaving us high and dry and scrambling (no phone call, no email. how passive is that? an email, how hard is that? a text message?). Since Saturday, Hubs and I have had to work everyday, only one of us has been home at night to put the kids to bed. This had never happened before. I realize this is the reality for many families, but it is not ours. We have dinner and do bed time as a family everyday. We invented our company so that our work schedule would allow us to be home with our kids every day.

Anyhow, it's been totally crazy around here, especially since M is now gone. Were she around, I would feel a lot less guilty about not being home for dinner 4 days in a row. But with her gone, it's been shuffling and juggling of the poor kids. The effect as been immediate though not what you would expect. Dumpling is not happy about it but she is sort of old enough to understand. BB, however, the happy-go-lucky girl is a puddle of tears. She is majorily unsettled by the absence of one parent. Today was Dumpling's -1 day at Kindergarten, in which she went to meet half her class, M through Z and her teacher. Tomorrow is her first real day, which in fact is not such a big deal, as it's the same school she's been in since nursery.

Today was going to be the day when both of the candidates we selected came in for a trial shift. We always do this, come in for 3 hours and try it out. We see if they fit in and have the personality for it and they can see what the job really entails.

I got out of school with Dumpling just before noon and super manager D called me to say that Candidate #1 didn't show up. Holy crap! That's NEVER happened before. She was really fun and energetic, though her schedule was a bit tight for us, but we were going to work around it to make it work. All right, whatever. I head to lunch with Dumpling (we were having a mommy-and-me date since it's her last day before she's a grown-up Kindergartner).

2pm rolls around, we're heading home from our lunch, shopping and ice cream date.... The second candidate didn't show up EITHER!!!! Seriously! What are the chances?

Of course, not we are totally up shit's creek.... We still have to cover a bunch of shifts and we in fact do not have enough employees to keep the stores running starting next week when they all go back to school.... The ads are running, we are searching high and low, but apparently, I'm not the only one who hates retail!

4 years of Dumpling Love

It was 4 years ago today, in Nanning, China, that a very scared and shocked Dumpling was placed in my arms. There was no crying, the water in her eyes never formed into a tear, she was just in shock.

Fast Forward and she is now a stunning 5 year-old. In the first year after she was home, she would watch the video I had made of the adoption trip. Then, somewhere after the first anniversary, she didn't want to watch it anymore and we didn't push it. But there have been issues lately that made me thing she might want to see it again. So as a way to commemorate the 4th anniversary of our Family Day, she got to pick the dinner menu (chicken stir fry with rice, confetti cupcake with icing AND sprinkles) and after dinner, we snuggled on the couch and watch the movie.

This time, she was ready. She was cuddly and asked questions and kept hugging and kissing me. And when I put her to bed, I gave her an old Chinese coin I had bought on the trip and accidentally found today in a major fit of decluttering (more on that saga tomorrow). It seemed too coincidental that I found it today, so I gave it to her. And for the first time in a very long time, her response was truly genuine. She gave men the warmest hug and thanked me, then she tucked it in a special drawer so her sister wouldn't get to it.

4 years. Where does the time go?

Partying with a 5 and 6 y.o. is EXHAUSTING!

just for the record, that booby picture of me is from last year's party, when she was 4. This is what a 5 year old looks like with a princess-pink-castle cake, decorated as the guests were walking in the house! (mommy was VERY last minute this year)

The Friday night supper/party was strictly grand-parents for dinner, along with cousins for cake afterward. The one exception was Dumpling's friend Cara-Li, who is Journey To Mei-Mei's oldest daughter. They are from the same orphanage, born almost exactly 1 year apart, and by coincidence, living in a neighborhood just a few street over from ours. Susan was the first person to come see me in person when we were waiting for our referral and lent me her travel books when we finally went.

We tried having the girls play together when they were smaller, but Dumpling's French used to keep them from having a good time. This year, things started changing and after a few family get-togethers and an attempt at Mandarin classes, the girls seem really taken with each other. So Cara-Li was Dumpling's one friend at the house on Friday night, and though she was quite excited to play with her older cousins, she really only wanted to talk about Cara-Li afterward.

And the next day, she went to Cara-Li's own birthday party at the build-a-bear place in the old part of town. She had a ball! I think she liked it even better than her own carnival/Purim-themed birthday party at school. Mostly though, she was so happy to see her 2 days in a row. 

She made a pink bear (shocker!) and somehow conned me into making Gigi the Giraffe for BB. And then, she further conned me into buying one outfit per bear/giraffe, and a pair of shoes. I balked at the 20$ shoes, but relented on the ice-skates, because I knew I could never make bear ice-skates. But I have since made diapers, shoes (pink satin and brown fur!) and have a request to make them silk pajamas. If you want a license to print money, open a franchise of that place! The people who go there are GAGA over the concept. And most don't even have kids! Just couples, women..... apparently, Japanese women think nothing of dropping 200$ on bear clothes and accessories!

I'm happy to report that bday-related events are now OVER. She is attending 3 or 4 other parties in the next 2 weeks, but thankfully I don't have to attend any of them. Because I'm tired. It's very very tiring hanging out with 5 and 6 year olds!

Icing and wrapping overload

Sometime between bedtime tonight and waking up tomorrow morning, my tiny little Dumpling will turn 5. We held a party for her at school today after class. The obscene amounts of presents she came home with it totally embarrassing. That's the big drawback of inviting all 22 classmates. She has selected a few to go into the Give-A-Gift box at school, which will be distributed to needy children.

Yesterday she got to go to a movie with the amazing M. Just like a big girl. And tonight, after going to dinner and *eating everything on her plate*, we stopped at a gas station and bought her some gum. Because mommy, long long ago, picked 5 as the age you were allowed to chew gum. And so tonight, I relented and in fact did not make her wait til tomorrow. In solidarity, I chewed with her. Purple grape flavored juicy fruit...... just like chewing essence of grape cough syrup! (I am not a gum chewer, and I seriously hope she gets over this)

Tomorrow, her actual bday, there will be a grandparents' dinner, followed by a princess-themed cake at home with some people close and dear to us. And to prepare for the tiny-non-party, after going to school dressed like a bride for a Purim party, Daddy is taking her to his hairdresser to get a trim and maybe even have her hair "done".

In the meantime, here are her past birthdays, for the sake of the virtual archive.

(sorry to subject you to the boobalicious pic of me again, it's the only webready pic from that party!)

Mother's Guilt

When the kids come home with a cold and then pass it on to hubs (or me), we don't blame them, it's what happens with little kids....

But when Mommy gets a big bad cold because she listened to Daddy and didn't wear a warm coat, and then passes it on to the kiddos.... Oy! The Guilt! Dumpling was coughing a bit last night. I thought it was for attention... But this  morning, she was burning hot. So I didn't send her to school, and because I had to conduct more interviews, instead she is being pampered and coddled by her grandmother.

BB seems to be safe from the germs for now, but who knows.... I guess once it's in the house, it's pretty much a done deal that everyone is going to get it.

To try to make up for making her sick, I printed up Dumpling's 5th Birthday party invites.... 5! Can you believe it??? The invites turned out pretty well, especially since they were free!

Upside-down world

Things are amiss around here.... In the last 8 months, we have rarely taken Dumpling to the restaurant. She is a much better eater now, and she eats lunch at school everyday without a fuss, but restaurants were always the last frontier. She simply couldn't behave in a restaurant. I can handle a fussy but eating child, or a calm, non-eating child, but in public, a tantrumy 4 year old who doesn't eat just doesn't fly with me. So except for the Disney trip, during which restaurants were mandatory, we have avoided restaurants meals with Dumpling. We do regularly go with BB, on nights when Dumpling is being spoiled by her grandparents.

Last night, however, was the first night that BB was going to have her own turn at dinner with the Grands at their house, so after her gym class, Hubs and I took Dumpling to a local Italian bistro that does spectacular pasta and is totally casual and no-fuss.  It was great. She was a tad high-strung, but we had discussed for many days how we expected her to either be "nice" or eat nicely. The first thing that went well was the waiter, who hadn't been there on previous visits with BB, so he was smitten with her and brought her a special mango/peach Italian juice on the house. She batted her eyelashes at him and that set everything off on the right note! He even offered to make her a half-portion, something that has never been offered to BB (though truth be told, BB can handle the whole plate!) There was only minimal coaxing during the meal, and she was rewarded with a brownie as dessert. We made a huge deal about how much we enjoyed ourselves, how fantastic it was to go to the restaurant and not argue and we asked her if she enjoyed eating out when Mommy and Daddy were so happy and relaxed, which of course, she did.

On the flip side of this little moment of bliss, BB hasn't been sleeping at the country house. At first, I thought it was a fluke, a one time thing. But it's been 3 weeks, and it's exhausting. This past weekend, she was up so late on the 2nd night (in the past, it's been a one night thing, making her so tired that the 2nd night was a non-issue) that we had to keep her from going skiing on Sunday because she was hell-on-wheels the minute she woke up from her way-too-short night. And this week, she's been acting weird. She was UBER excited for her first all-by-myself date at her grandparents' house, but today, she didn't want to go to school, then when Hubs coxed her to go, she didn't want to take off her gym clothes to reveal her beach outfit (it was Beach Party day), apparently threw fits whenever the teacher tried to leave the room and finally made a big fuss about doing her "talking class" when the speech therapist showed up this afternoon, an activity she usually loves.

So I am thrilled that Dumpling is making fabulous progress, because being able to go to a restaurant would go a LONG way in making me feel less house-bound, but I am not too thrilled about the reversal of fortune that has hit BB..... let's hope is a short phase.

The Disney line I will NOT cross

I have no problem with the Disney Princesses. Yes, the movies are cheesy, the old ones are full of terrible stereotypes, but in the end, I have no problem with them. Dumpling's first obsessions were Cinderella and Snow White, old school. How many times did we play "eat the bad apple"? And when she used to watch Cinderella in French, there is one scene where the mice are helping her sew the gown and pull and tug, in French, they say " Ho hisse" (heeve ho). She would wait for that one scene, and after that, she was done, she didn't care about the prince or the ball, she just wanted to hear the mice say Ho Hisse!

I'll take Mulan over The Wiggles any day, and as much as I enjoyed the Dora phase, Ratatouille and Toy Story are much more enjoyable on a long car ride, to me anyways. In an ideal world, we wouldn't be watching anything, but actually, I don't believe that. I think it's OK for my kids to watch some TV and some movies, provided they have been screened by my first. Theses days, the heavy rotation is Charlie and Lola, Bo on the Go, Backyardigans and Curious George.

I do try very hard not to let "branded products" permeate our lives. We have princess underwear and we have pretty much every Dora board game ever made, but like AmFam, I balk at Princess Cereal.

Lately, I have been fighting another battle. Keeping High School Musical I/II from entering my house. That's right. She's not 5 yet, and somehow, the tweenster phenomena has infiltrated the pre-K class. At the beginning of the school year, the little girl in our car pool would talk endlessly about HSM. Dumpling had no clue what she was talking about, and I would quickly turn the conversation over to something they both knew. I thought it was just the one girl. I quickly found out how wrong I was..... I figured out how 4 year olds came to even watch HSM: older siblings. The particular kid in our car pool is actually the oldest in her house.... which is weird. But the other girls who are very into HSM have an 8 or 9 year old sister. I personally thought HSM was more for the tweenster/teenager crowd, but in speaking to my 14 and 16 year old nieces, I was quickly informed that they would NEVER watch such a kiddy movie, and that in fact, 8-10 year olds were the target audience.

With families around here averaging 4 kids, it's understandable that the younger siblings would end up watching with the older ones. The kid in our carpool saw it with her cousins while staying at her grandparent's house. But here is the thing. The mother then bought it for her. For her then 4 1/2 year old. Who is now completely versed in the entire thing. She can rattle off every word to every song. I know. Because she turned 5 yesterday and had a party at school and someone gave her the CD. And this morning, when she got into the car, she asked to listen to it. I was curious to see if my instincts were right on this one, so without showing Dumpling WHAT I was putting in, I told her we would listen to her little friends music, just this once.

First of all, the idiot-savant of HSM proceeded to introduce every song with "this is the song with the pretty girl and the other girl, and the main boy" or "in this song, the girls and boys hold hands" and finally "this song has only boys. it's stupid. I like the songs with the boys AND girls".... The music is sooooo sugary-pop, and clearly, there are no objectionable lyrics or anything.... but  it's a movie about TEENAGERS in HIGH-SCHOOL. My kid is in PRE-K!

When we got to school, I gave the kid her CD back and thanked her for bringing it, but that from no-on, we would keep listening to the music her mommy and I had agreed on at the beginning of the year (Dan Zanes, Wiggles, non-children's stuff). But I know for a fact that when the mommy picks them up, she is going to put it on. And it bugs the crap out of me. Because this is one Disney line am I not going to cross, not in pre-K.