O.k. it’s been
a long time since I contributed to the blog. Believe it or not, but having recently adopted 2 kids, I
don’t have a lot of time to sit and blog.
<gasp>
The other thing that’s been eating up space on my calendar
is the First Lego League Robotics competition that the oldest 3 participated
in. They started working on it in
August or so, and finished up last weekend. It was a LOT of work!!
(More on that later.)
So let’s see….
I left off after we returned home from China and the new kids were all
excited about everything new. That
lasted about 2 weeks or so. The
day the social worker came to do the post-placement visit was the calmest day
we’d had to that point. Part of
the explanation for their unusual calm may be that I’d put together some
pictures of China for them to look at.
I’d included that pictures of X’s foster family and AB’s friends at the
Children’s Welfare Institute (hereafter referred to as “the orphanage”). I think they were both a little
melancholy. It’s not that they don’t
like their new life (I think they do.), but of course they miss their friends
and “family” and life in China, too.
Wouldn’t you?!? It
took a while for us to all work out a way to talk about the people they miss in
China. One day we discovered the phrases,
“Zhong Guo Mama” (“China Mom”) and “Mei Guo Mama” (“American Mom”). Same goes for Dad, big sister, big
brother, etc. So, it can be heard around here, “I
have 2 Moms; a Chinese Mom, and American Mom, 2 Dads: a Chinese Dad and an
American Dad, and 5 big sisters – 4 Chinese big sisters, and 1 American big
sister...” “Yes, you have a whole
lot of people that love you!
You’re so lucky! H. only
has one Mom….” They don’t
really call me “Mei Guo Mama” unless they need to differentiate between the two
of us. They just call me “Ma” most
of the time.
After the social worker’s report was finished, it was only
one week ‘till Christmas!
Argh. We got out the tree
and started decorating. There was much
giggling. They’d seen the trees at
the hotels in China. (An obvious
sign that those hotels cater to Westerners, because there aren’t many
Christians in China, and the vast majority of Chinese don’t celebrate Christmas
any more than you celebrate Chinese New Year.) They decorated the lower branches and the older kids did the
upper branches. The lower branches were very, very full of
ornaments. But I’ve never been one
for an artistic tree. I think they
should be fun and pretty. The little ones thought the stockings
were great fun. They put them on
their feet (like socks, you know).
So cute. We talked a little
about Santa Claus, but not much.
First, I don’t believe you should ever lie to your kids because you’ll
lose their trust , but 2nd because China has a lot of gods (for
fortune and luck etc. etc.) and I didn’t want Santa to be like one of those
guys you pray to who brings you good stuff.
I started my Christmas shopping on the 15th (or
maybe it was the 22nd – I can’t remember). The older kids gave me prioritized lists (bless them!). It was too late to mail order anything,
so they had to accept what I could find in town. Overall it was a good Christmas. Erin thinks it was too much and too exciting, but honestly,
I tried to keep it low key. We
took most of the morning to open presents because I didn’t want the little ones
to start going nuts and get over stimulated. So we opened one present each and played with that for a
half hour or so and then opened something else. X got a car garage and cars, AB got a doll. They both got Leap Pads, and several
other small things to play with.
The older kids got books, DVD’s,
military gear, rings, nerf guns, etc. according to their taste. Mom got the pleasure of seeing everyone
happy, and Dad got to pay the bill.
J The older kids each bought everyone
something with their own money. I
got a couple of 3-D puzzles from China, and I must be a terrible Mom, because I
can’t remember what the 3rd thing was….. oops!!
The day after Christmas, AB started her Occupational
Therapy. The purpose of this therapy
is to help with fine motor skills.
But in reality, we’ve worked on a lot of other things, too. The therapist works closely with AB’s
physical therapist to come up with ways to improve AB’s overall abilities. We decided early on that it wasn’t that
AB couldn’t do the fine motor skills, but that she’d never been asked to do
them. It was clear that she’d
never been asked to draw a straight line or a circle. I don’t think she’d ever held a pair of scissors. She is 6 ½ years old. I really try not to be too critical of
the orphanage. They have so many
kids with huge special needs, and too few workers and probably too little
funding. But I do get irritated
sometimes that they lump the physically handicapped people in with the mentally
handicapped people. Sigh. I really feel bad for the kids who will
be there until they ‘age out’.
What kind of skills will they have? I’m sure they try to ‘keep the kids busy’, and I do not envy
them their job. But really? Never drawing or cutting? On the other hand, school in China
doesn’t start ‘till you’re 7, so maybe they were planning for her to learn all
that in school.
Anyway, at occupational therapy we sometimes work on fine
motor skills, but mostly we work on her core muscles. The therapist and I both believe that strengthening AB’s
core muscles will help her fine motor skills as well as her walking and
sitting. When we started, she
didn’t have the muscles to sit up, or hold her arm up to write on an easel. She just didn’t have the strength. She spent a lot of time hunched over
with her head down. I have a
feeling that she must’ve spent a lot of time like that. I’m not saying that she was sad all the
time, but left to herself she will sit in the floor and look down at whatever
she’s doing.
AB has been doing the occupational therapy for less than 3
months now. We’ve been working at
home as well. She really enjoys
coloring and drawing. She can draw
straight lines, circles, triangles, squares, faces (!), and loves to draw
rabbits. We no longer have any
scrap paper because we use it to print out pictures for both of the little kids
to color. They will color for
hours without stopping. They color
Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, flowers, cars, super heroes, etc. etc. It’s hard to keep enough pictures around
for them to color! They both
also love to use the scissors. The
therapist suggested we save old cereal boxes for them to cut. We draw straight lines on the boxes or
paper for them to cut. We’re
working our way up to cutting curved lines and corners as well. I really think they’ve made a lot of
progress in just a few months!
Two days after Christmas was our first eye Dr.
appointment. We were anxious to
hear what she would say about both kids.
We knew that X’s “special need” was something to do with his eyes. We were told he had a “keyhole
pupil”. When we first got him, we
looked in his eyes (even with a flashlight at one point), and couldn’t see
anything unusual, other than the fact that his eyes are really, really
dark. Erin said, “I can’t even see
where the iris ends and the pupil begins.” Turns out, there’s a reason for that. X. was born without irises. I know. I’d
never heard of that either. It’s
called “aniridia”, and it is also commonly associated with kidney tumors. That is a strange connection, isn’t
it? The eye doctor explained that
because he doesn’t have an iris, his eyes can not adjust to light. (He can probably see really well in the
dark, though.) But that also means
the UV rays are doing terrible damage to his eyes when he’s outside. He must wear sunglasses when he goes
out. He already has glaucoma and
cataracts. He is using eye drops
for the glaucoma and we think it is improving. It’s hard to tell, because it isn’t easy to get a pressure
reading on the eyeball of a 4 year old.
LOL. The first time we
went, we got a reading on the left eye.
The second time we went, we got a lower reading on the right eye. So hopefully that means the eye drops
are working! The cataracts aren’t
bad enough to treat yet, though I can tell he has to look around them
sometimes. We also took X to have
an ultrasound of his kidneys. All
was clear. (hooray!!) That will
need to be repeated every 3 months until he is 10 or so. Apparently, after that age the danger
decreases. In spite of his
aniridia, his vision is fine. He
could wear glasses, but his prescription would be less than mine and we don’t
really want to put him in glasses at the age of 4. We plan to wait a few years and see if his eyes will get
stronger. If not, then we’ll do glasses. AB, however needed glasses far worse
than X. did! Poor thing! No wonder she looked down all the time
– when she looked up everything was blurry! Her eyesight was quite bad, actually. I was so happy for her to get her
glasses and be able to see.
The next day we went to our first physical therapy
appointment for AB. The lady has
been such a blessing and help! She
recommended that we start AB off with a quad cane instead of a walker. I was pleased with that
suggestion. She really thinks AB
will walk without aids eventually – not even a cane. Hooray!! We are
working on strengthening her legs so that she can put all of her weight on one
foot at a time when walking. She
is really making progress and will now walk on her own with the quad stick in
one hand and a small cane in the other.
We all think she only needs the cane for psychological support, but
we’ll get there eventually. She
has walked without it once or twice.
Her confidence is improving with her strength. At first, she wouldn’t walk anywhere without one of us
holding on to her. But now she
will go around the house by herself.
She still prefers to crawl because it’s faster, but I’m hoping that soon
that will be a thing of the past.
It’s kinda tricky how far to push her. I want her to walk all the time, but I also don’t want to be
cruel to her. Also, when she
wants to play hide and seek with the other kids, it’s much more efficient to
crawl. Should she be allowed to
‘be a kid’? I think so. I don’t think the crawling will last
into the teenage years LOL. The
therapists here are talking about Botox.
It is widely used now as a treatment for c.p. They tell me, though, that once you have the shots, you need
to do intensive (3-4 times a week) therapy to get the most benefit from the
injections. Right now, I’m not up
for that. Right now it’s
more about getting used to our family and playing and learning and growing. I don’t want to have to be the ‘tiger
mom’ for physical therapy just yet.
She is getting stronger and standing MUCH, much straighter. Everyone comments on how much she has
grown in the last 2 months. She
has grown about an inch, but it’s hard to tell, because when we first met, she
never stood up straight. Now she
is standing and walking much straighter.
It looks like she’s grown 4 inches! We tried to compare her with X. in China and they were
almost equal in height. Now she is
clearly taller. She even outgrew
the stroller we were using. We had
to go get a taller one designed for older children. Her feet were literally dragging the ground in the old
one. This one will fit her for
several more years we hope.
The therapist also recommended a specialist who could make
AB a pair of AFO’s. (Ankle-Foot
Orthotics). He wrapped her feet in
quick-drying plaster (like a cast) and then cut it off and sent it to the
lab. She was happy to get them,
and they do indeed help her walk better.
They are very tight and help stretch her achilles tendon so she can put
her heel on the ground. They also
help her foot to stay straight, which is difficult for her.
For New Year’s Eve, we had a junk food party. We had Chinese Dumplings, chicken
wings, French Fries, Spring rolls, pizza, and I don’t know what all. Everyone ate all they wanted. I think the older kids stayed up
‘till midnight. I certainly
didn’t!!
This might be a good place to talk about sleep. We were told that both kids took
naps. In China, we had little
trouble getting them to take a nap at the hotel. They would both generally sleep at night the same hours we
did. Usually, we’d have to wake
them up if we were going somewhere in the morning. After getting home to Singapore, it quickly became a
struggle to get them to take a nap.
I think it was because they realized that the older kids were not napping. Also, they were going to bed around
9:30 or so and getting up at 7. I
realized I was spending an hour or more trying to get them into bed for naps. I decided it wasn’t worth it. So we quit naps sometime in
mid-January. I was hoping that
they’d sleep later in the mornings, but that isn’t happening. They are now going to bed around 8:30
or so, but getting up at 7. I wish
they’d sleep ‘till 8. I really
like having some time in the mornings to get things done. Ah well.
Early January was X’s birthday. We had cake and ice cream and played pin the nose on the
clown. I bought him a big airplane
that he loves. We had a good time,
but tried to not make too big of a party.
The idea is still to keep things relatively calm.
In mid-January, our dear friend, Emiko, gave a “Kids’
Shower” for AB and X. She is so
sweet!! She invited a lot of her friends and I invited some of mine. It was a rainy day, but there was a
good turn out and the kids had a good time and even said, “Thank you” to people
they’d never met (I was so proud, because they are painfully shy with new
people.). They received lots
of new clothes and toys. They were
thrilled. I was hoping they
wouldn’t get the idea that every other week is a gift-giving occasion!
The next Saturday was AS’s 13th birthday. Two teenagers in the house!!!! ARGH!! No, really….. They’re good kids and I love ‘em up! I couldn’t be prouder of my two
teenagers. They are both such
wonderful people and will be fine adults.
They are solid gold where it comes to the new kids. I don’t think we could’ve EVER done
this without H and AS!! They
compete to see who can babysit when I need a babysitter. I admit that they are motivated by the
money they make babysitting. (I
pay well because I don’t want the older kids to resent the younger ones.) But they also truly enjoy playing with
the little ones, and often start a game with them, or come along and offer to
wrestle or play with them without me or the little ones asking. I just can’t say enough about how much
they’ve helped! Of course, the
little ones idolize them. If “jie
jie” or “da ge ge” says it or does it then they want to do it too. O. is also very popular, but his
patience for the little kids isn’t quite as high as the older kids, so he gets
frustrated with them and goes off to do his thing. But he has been a great help as well!
Going into February, we only had one month left to finish up
all our robotics work. We started
meeting twice a week. That took a
lot of time. Also, I decided that
it was time to start taking the little kids out of the house a little
more. Since our combo season pass
to the zoo, night safari, and bird park was going to expire on March 2, I
decided to tackle that in February.
At first I asked each of the older kids to pick one place to go with
me. But as it turns out, H wanted
to go to all 3 and the boys stayed home alone.
At the zoo, we had a great time. We watched the otter feeding, fed the kangaroos, and saw the elephant show. We also fed the elephants after the
show. Then we went up and got some
lunch and visited the playground.
Then the heaven’s opened on us.
Everyone had a small umbrella except me. AB was in the stroller with a sunshade. She held her umbrella over her legs and
stayed the most dry. X. stood on
the back of the stroller with a small umbrella and still got soaked. He actually fell asleep standing on the
back of the stroller with rain running down his face! I couldn’t believe it!
It had been such a hot day I thought the rain felt great. When it stopped, I pulled out the dry
clothes for the little ones and they were instantly more happy. I had to wake X up to change his
clothes!! We finished our visit to
the zoo and waiting an hour for a taxi home. Grrrr.
That weekend was Chinese New Year. The beginning of the year of the snake was Feb. 10. We ordered a feast from a local
restaurant. (What? You thought I was going to cook a
Chinese feast? Ha ha ha!) We also did hong bao (red packets) for
the kids at church and our kids of course. We had up plenty of decorations and played lots of New
Year’s music. CNY is really about
getting together with family, so we didn’t have a huge celebration since we
didn’t have any family to go visit or to come over. Hopefully next year all the family can come visit us. (hint hint!!)
We skipped Valentine’s Day this year except that H bought me
a rose made out of soap (very pretty) and some chocolate. After all the parties we just didn’t
feel like doing anything for Valentine’s Day.
On Feb. 16, AB went to her first Girl Scout meeting. She joined a Daisy troop. At first it was intimidating, but the
girls there were soooo wonderful to AB.
They welcomed her as a sister.
She loved the arts and crafts and the singing. They even made and flew paper airplanes – something that AB
loves to do. It was perfect!! I was so happy that she could go and do
something with girls her age.
Awesome.
The next Monday, the little ones had to go back to the dr.
for more vaccinations. Poor AB is
pretty far behind. She needs at
least 4 more. X. is in better
shape and only needed one or two.
They both had full blood work done before Christmas, so they’ve really
been through it.
That week we took them to the Night Safari. I knew that they’d fall asleep in the car
on the way home, but we did have fun.
They enjoyed seeing the animals.
I don’t think they’d been out much at night, however. And when the lion started roaring, they
were both completely freaked out.
I had to sit down with them and explain that the lion could not possibly
get out. This before we got on a
tram and drove through the enclosures of several other animals (cattle, birds,
etc.) They fell asleep on the
tram! J We had to carry them back upstairs from the garage. I was hoping they’d sleep late the next
morning, but no.
The next day I went camping with AS’s Boy Scout patrol. We went to Pulau Hantu. You can see pictures of it on my
Facebook photo page. It was such a
relaxing weekend. I really enjoyed
just lying around reading my book while the boys cooked my food. Bwa ha haha!
Next was family dentist day. Everyone got a clean bill of health and the little ones saw
a dentist for the first time. They
were both a little nervous, but did fine.
Now I only had one week left to work in a visit to the Bird
Park, so we went the following Tuesday.
We enjoyed feeding the lorikeets.
I wasn’t sure if the little ones would do it. They wanted me to hold their hand as they fed the birds, but
they did like it. They also
enjoyed seeing the owls and other birds in the exhibits.
The next two weeks were completely devoted to robotics. They
had to write and give three separate presentations as well as program their
robot to perform autonomous tasks.
Their teammate was 10 years old and they competed against mostly high
school teams from across Singapore and one team from China. They did really well on their
presentations and I think they enjoyed that part the most. The programming was a little
frustrating because they left it ‘till the last minute and didn’t quite have it
the way they wanted it. We’re all so glad that’s over! The team did win an award, though, so
it feels more ‘worth it’ somehow.
They won the Teamwork award.
They did do a good job of
working together during the competition.
Monday after robotics finished up, Jockey (my 16 year old
cat) had to be put down. He had
had diabetes for a year and had lost about half of his weight. I went in the bedroom and found him
almost comatose. He was extremely
dehydrated for some reason. I
think he was too weak to go get a drink, even though he’d been in the kitchen
that morning eating breakfast as usual.
He’d had a complete blood work up a few weeks ago to see why he was
losing so much weight. The dr.
couldn’t find anything. One reading
indicated that he might’ve had something going on in his intestines – like
maybe he wasn’t absorbing nutrients correctly. Ah well. He was
very old, and it was apparent Monday afternoon that he was not going to get
better. I took him to the
vet and stayed with him during the procedure. Then I had to hurry home. I was scheduled to go out to eat with some friends. I debated about cancelling, but thought
it might cheer me up. I really
should’ve stayed home!! I ended up paying a small fortune for some food
poisoning. Ugh. I was up all night being sick. I cancelled all of Tuesday’s activities and took the day
off. The big kids watched the
little ones and I stayed in bed. I
was feeling better by Wednesday, but it wasn’t fun.
To celebrate the end of robotics we had decided to take the
family to Kuala Lumpur. We had
been to K-L before, but the Petronas Towers were closed to visitors at that
time. We were very disappointed,
and said we’d have to come back some time. This trip took more planning that you might think. Because the little ones are still
Chinese citizens, we had to apply for Malaysian visas for them. We went with the el-cheap-o no-frills
Jet Star. The tickets are
advertised at $26, but by the time you pay the airport taxes, etc. it works out to be more like $100. Right. Love that truth in advertising. Anyway. We went
up on Thursday, checked into the hotel, walked around the mall across the
street and then went back to be lazy bums in the hotel suite. We had one gigantic suite with 3
bedrooms. This place was bigger
than our apartment in Texas! Erin
mentioned that they’d given us a coupon for the spa. I looked it over and went down for a massage. Ahhhhhhhh! Then we ordered PapaJohn’s pizza (not available in
Singapore) and watched a terrible Tom Hanks movie in which the characters were
not believable and there was no action, and the make-up artist should’ve been
fired. When we first
started planning the trip, we’d planned to fly up in the morning, visit the
science museum and the Petronas Towers and fly home that night. But then a friend told me that you
can’t just show up and get tickets to the Petronas Towers. You have to be in line at 6:30 a.m. to
get tickets because they sell out by 8a.m. She was close to being right. So Friday morning, Erin and I went and got in line (we were
the first in line) at 6:15. They
start selling tickets at 8:30, and the lady says they usually sell out around
lunch time. But we had a plane to
catch at 7p.m., so we wanted to pick our visit time. We went up in the towers at 9:15, and then had a snack and
went over to the Science museum.
This is the only science museum that my kids have ever asked to re-visit. We went in Nov. of 2011, but only
stayed a couple of hours. This
time we were there 4 or 5 hours.
It was nice to have time to play with the exhibits instead of feeling
rushed. All the kids found
plenty of fun things to do. There
was a huge T-rex near the beginning of the museum. AS came back and warned us that the little ones might freak
out. So I told them about it and
that it wasn’t real, even though it was moving a little and growling. They were o.k. with it, but not
overjoyed. The path through the
museum curves down and around from there so that you end up walking through a dark
tunnel right under the T-Rex. By
then, everyone had run on ahead and left me with the two little ones. When H went into the dark tunnel AB put
her hands over her eyes and started shivering. X grabbed me and held on for dear life. I had to push the stroller with my hip
while holding X and also holding AB’s hand. I was trying to explain that it was all o.k., but they
didn’t visibly relax until they saw H again.
We made our way on through the museum and caught our ride
back to the airport. It was a
fast, but nice little family vacay.
I think everyone enjoyed it.
We are doing homeschool, two kinds of therapy for one hour each per week, boy scouts,
girl scouts, cub scouts, soccer practice, soccer games, Bible class on Wed.
night, and church on Sunday. I
have Chinese class, and Ladies’ Bible class every Tuesday. That’s a “normal” week. Of course every week has some extra
somethings (doctor’s appointments,
camp outs, trips, parties, etc.)
to fill in the empty spaces on the calendar.
So when I say I’ve been busy
lately, now you know what I mean.
And by the way, we are moving back to the States in May. So I don’t anticipate my calendar
getting any emptier any time soon.
Wheeeeee…..
