Mortimer's Mom

Visit with the Chinese Cousins

This afternoon, we had our almost-annual visit with Dumpling's travel group. Usually, it's in the summer, but with 3 families having new little ones, somehow, it never happened.

The person organizing it ad decided it would be a halloween costume party, since it was only a week after. Dumpling was very excited for yet another excuse to leave the house in all her princess-grandness. Imagine her surprise when every single other girl there, save for one, was also a princess. All total, 10 girls. 1 hippie, 1 Fairie (BB) and 8 princesses, in all manners of fancy dress. In a wooden pirate ship, walking the plank. I wish I couldl show you pictures, but I have to see if I can find a way to not show you the other kids first....

So it was interesting to watch the interaction. Dumpling didn't seem to remember the girls, but was veyr happy to play with so many little girls just like her: Princesses AND Chinese! She did recognize her buddy Pebbles Flinstone and seemed a little protective of BamBam. There is a definate closeness there, they have their own way of playing. What's interesting is that with every visit, it takes Dumpling and Pebbles less and less time to warm up to each other. It used to take about 20 min. Now, about 5/6 min after getting there, they were holding hands and running around like best buds. Which is great, because we last saw them about 2 months ago.

The floors, by the way, are fixed and look great. The furniture will be back soon and I'll show you some pictures. Or maybe I'll make you wait til I do the trim-paint and the wallpaper in the living room....

thank goodness for Disney movies

Today, Dumpling had an EEG. That's the wires on the head brain scan thing. Don't worry, she's fine. It's part of the test the adoption clinic is running to help us deal with some of the ongoing behaviour issues. Just making sure there is nothing physical going on (turns out she's anemic, so she needs iron boosters, just like me!)

Anyhow, the test was ordered after we met with the doctor, and we weren't sure if it was and EEG or an EKG, so up until yesterday, we weren't sure. Once I spoke to the technician and found out it took one hour, involved more than 30 leads on her head, and, this is the kicker, she had to be still for 30 minutes. Yeah, right!

So I needed to talk to her about it BEFORE,...... I didn't want to scare her or freak her out. I couldn't think of anything that she would understand or could relate to. And then, I had an idea. I told her it would be like something out of Monsters Inc., and the doctor would take pictures of her head, to see how smart she is. And she'd have lots of wires coming out of her head like the snakes on the girl monster. She LOVED that idea.

Once we got there, we needed her to stay still to put the leads on her head. That wasn't too bad. The tech was sweet and fast and there were posters on the wall to look at (she was quite curious about Bambi, which she hasn't seen yet). The laying down for 30 min though, that was worrying me. She had brought her blanky, so I suggested she play Sleeping Beauty. Not only did she love that (imagine, a Sleeping Beauty Monster, she was in heaven!), but a combination of the hypnotic music and a kleenex on her eyes to get her to keep them closed and she was out for the count in less than 3 minutes! Just like that, asleep! It was hilarious 25 min later when we had to wake her up to do a part with a strobe light. She was so out of it, she'd give Lindsay Lohan a run for her money!

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In Beach Ball news, we had a visit from the social worker last night after dinner to write up our 6 month progress report. Yes, it's a month early, but at least it's done. I wasn't too thrilled about having her over after dinner, which is not usually a good hour around here. But met outside in the yard and let the kids play in the Bouncy-thing and in the sand box. Not a disagreement or a tear until about 5 min before she left. They were so well behaved, it was astonishing! And they stayed up late, so they both slept in til 7:30 this morning. Bonus!

3 years

May 31st. 2004 & 2007

You can't tell from the China pictures, but I'm wearing the same dress tonight that I wore when they handed her to me. As long as I can fit in it, I plan on taking that picture every year on this anniversary.

4

this would be Dumpling at school this morning, enjoying a morning snack of cupcakes. I didn't make them, thanks to the school rules about kosher, non-dairy, peanut-free, certified food, I was absolved of the cupcake baking.

Here is a shot of tonights table. The grandparents came for dinner, but the cousins and aunts/uncles came over for dessert only. There were 2 cakes. The horse carrousel one is a mold, I just iced the horses. The circus tent was my doing. I will have all the details tomorrow, with step-by-step pics. It was actually pretty easy, just took a lot of leveling and smoothing.  The fruit kebabs were fun, with cookie cutters and bamboo sticks. I have a second set of them for tomorrow, along with a Cinderella cake, photos of which I haven't taken yet.

Finally, for your viewing pleasures, the sisters, after waaaayyyyyy too much sugar:

the last day of 3

Dumpling was three today for the last time. Tomorrow, she's 4. I can't believe it. I really, really can't wrap my head around it. She's so grown-up in so many ways.... She tries to help Beach Ball, she carries on interesting conversations, she's almost tall enough to reach the light switches by herself..... when did this happen?

I promise you lots of pictures tomorrow, but tonight I am too tired. I baked 3 cakes today (one family party, one kids party) and then decorated them. Let's just say I should not be allowed to watch Ace of Cakes anymore, it gives me a false sense of what can be done!

Snow Days

on Friday, we finally got a real snowfall. 30 cm (12 inches for you non-metric people). They called a snow day at Dumpling's school. It wasn't really necessary, I mean, people here drive in snow all the time, but since the non-jewish schools are mostly all on winter break this coming week, I guess they were starting a day early! (we had the jewish winter break already 2 weeks ago.)

I'm still very energyless from the B-12 and Iron deficiency, but I got my butt of the couch a couple of times and took the girls to play outside in the snow. We had a great time.

 

and yes, eagle-eyed readers, my husband was outside in doggy-print pajama pants and an Elmer Fudd hat......

I can't hear you from INSIDE the TV

Dumpling watched mommy on TV today. It was quite traumatic. When Dora asks her which to go, Dumpling answers, and Dora tells her she's right and on they go. On the rare occasion when she watches Blue's Clues and Joe asks her if she sees a clue, she screams at the TV, joe finds the clue and they move on.

But today, when she saw mommy on tv (at grandma's house) and she started talking to mommy, she got totally despondent when mommy didn't answer back, didn't say hi, didn't look at her. My mom told me she just completely lost it. I even watched it with her twice later on and she still couldn't quite comprehend that I could be here and in there at the same time......  (link here, but the episode wasn't up as of this posting)

Also, it's done:

it's the same height as the door frame! That is one massive magnetic blackboard!

year in review

I could write a whole long post about it, or I just just steal Deanna's idea and give you this:

http://mortimersmom.blogs.com/photos/year_in_review/

It's not as crafty or musical as Deanna's, but hey, I'm on vacation and I'm resting.

PS: I have taken a nap every day for a week..... the amazing restorative powers of napping.... Too bad Dumpling is most definately outgrowing the afternoon nap... we'll be lucky if she lasts through the next month!

Dumpling's Winter Fun

Nose Bead

it's still all fun in the snow up here. Dumpling went to her first official ski-school lesson today and proceeded to cry for the first 30 minutes. She did not want to go with the bunny/instructor. Last year, she cried for about 3 minutes and then forgot all about it after he took her On the magic carpet up the kiddy run. But this year, she has words. And she knows how to tell anyone within ear shot that:

a) she does not want a PuPLE bunny!
b) she does not want to share the bunny!
c) she does not want mommy to leave!!!!!!
d) she wants only a PIIINNNNK bunny!

I did what every stellar parent does, I spoke to her for about two minutes, reassured her everything was going to be OK and then, I walked away, sat inside the chalet and had a hot cocoa. And called my husband to tell him I felt like to worst mother in the world. But having been that pink bunny myself for a good 10 years (probably more, the years are fuzzy, no pun intended), I know that parents hovering is actually the WORST thing for the kids. That the instructors need to take over and distract, comfort, and be in charge. But as the parent, especially of an adopted child with trust and bonding issues, it was very hard to walk away. Of course, at the end of  the lesson, she was very excited to tell me how much fun she had and how nice the bunny was and that the bunny was going to try very hard to be pink tomorrow....

And just to show you that my parental instincts are completely off, i did notice two days ago that Dumpling seemed a bit congested. But she wasn't sniffling, just didn't seem to be breathing quite right. So after her nap that afternoon, I decided that we would have a big nose-blowing session. At first, one nostril was quite clear while absolutely nothing was coming out of the other one. Nothing. Not a tiny bit of air... I got a bit concerned. So I made sure I blocked the other one well and got her to blow again... and out popped..... a bead.   From a necklace set that I threw away in the city days ago, because I thought the beads were too small and I am trying to re-baby proof the house with the impeding arrival of Sprout. But obviously, Dumpling somehow got her hands on one of the wayward beads and.... well... how or when it ended up her nose I have no earthly idea! She didn't complain, and I did notice the breathing thing so I'm guessing it wasn't in there more than that particular morning, but how the bead made it to the country house and up her nose...... At least I noticed and I got it out!