Mortimer's Mom

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.

Guess what we are doing today...

Email on the go, sent by TELUS

So Long....

Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu.

I never ever thought I would stop blogging. But right now I don't know how to keep going. So I am signing off. I am officially not going to finish NapoBlahBlah. I may or may not be back. I don't know. If I am back in any way shape or form, I will announce it here. It won't be secret.

But for now, before the blahs take over this blog entirely and I look back on it in a few years and regret letting it get so down, I will put it on hold.

(*cue Sound of Music)

timewasting link of the week

This one came to me a while back thanks to Jen at Mimiboo:

What not to Crochet.

Even if you have no interest in crochet, trust me, this one is worth it. particularly this entry.... (*WARNING, not safe around children. Also, don't have a drink in your mouth)

Pardon me while I reminesce....

Today my Great-Aunt had a surprise 80th birthday party. It was a wonderful brunch where I got to see so many relatives that I rarely get to see. It did, however, make me feel very very old. In my immediate family, I was the first of my generation, the oldest grandchild. So for many years as a young child, our family celebrations were spent with this branch of my father's family, really, his cousins.

Today, these 2nd cousins all have grown children, some of whom are also parents. This made me feel so old. Especially when my favorite "great-cousin" of all time, the one who worked in communications and PR and inspired me as a young teenager to go into that field, introduced me to her 16 year old daughter! The summer she found out she was pregnant, I was in college and working with her for the summer doing pr work in her office. Can it possibly be that I was in college 16 years ago? How is that possible? Where did the time go?

The girls had a good time. They were the only little kids there, except for a not-yet-2-y.o., so they were pretty  much the center of attention..... Too bad for my Great-Aunt! We did leave them there with my parents mid-party to go to  more open houses..... the great house search of 2008 continues. You do not want to know what we are attempting now.... I'll let you in on it in a couple of days....

Links! I promise you a REALLY great time waster tomorrow! and if you didn't catch my link request on Friday, go back a couple of posts.

Link: Store and Style

Among my few addictions, the big ones are of course Camper Shoes and wine after the kids go to bed. But one I haven't mentioned too often is my addiction to magazines. Even though I don't actually believe one word that is printed in it, I still buy People magazine almost everyweek. Vanity Fair is my absolute favorite and doens't last more than a week, evne though I read it cover to cover, including all the captions under the party pictures. I buy almost all the "modern and trendy" decorating magazines like Domino, Real Simple, Canadian House and Home.... I used to buy Blue Print and Budget Living. Ready Made is another favorite, as is Craft.

As you can imagine, I end up with a lot of magazines laying around.... But try as I might, I can't wrap my head around the online versions. I like to keep the magazines in my purse to read in the car when I get to school 15 min before pick up time, or I take one to bed at night when it's 11 but I'm not quite sleepy enough yet.

But I understand that the future of mags is online. the line between blogs and mags is blurring. So when a decorating  blog last week pointed me to a new online mag, I had to give it a try and I hope you will too: Store & Style seems to be the perfect hybrid between blog and mag. Read the article on home-banking for kids. I'm totally going to do that!

link: YOU give me one!

I met with a therapist today, talking stuff out..... Still on the Kosher wine, but I graduated from Halloween candy to a lovely box of Guylian Belgian chocolates that was in the out-of-towner gifts bags at the wedding last week. Like I said, Klassy with a capital K!

So tonight instead of giving you a link, I'm gonna ask you guys for one. But it's topic-specific: i ahve to make something for a gift swap we are having with the Wednesday Kitting Gals. I have a ton of ideas of things to make, but since I am completely unable to make any decisions right now, I'm gonna simply leave it up to you guys. Suggest something I should make. The gal getting it is a very busy mom. I'm not really limited in medium: could be knitting, sewing, glueing, whatever. I would like it to be useful. I could easily make something pretty with no purpose, but I would rather give her something she can use. It's gotta be done by mid december, so it can't be super complicated. But then again, I tend to be lightening-fast, so throw me your best suggestions!

To give you some ideas, I was thinking of making something like this: A little sewing bag and then maybe adding a cable needle holder to it.