There need to be better laws concerning adoption

So we had dinner at Daniel’s sister’s on Friday. I hate going to their place for meals. Pre-kids it was because Daniel always abandonned me chit chatting with his sister and brother-in-law while he went and rough housed with our niece and nephews. I hate chit chat but its worse with people I really have NOTHING to chit chat about with). Post-kids it was because it is SUCH a huge hassle. The house isn’t all that big and there are plenty of things for active pre-schoolers to break. Now they have this Golden Retriever "Puppy" running about (in this tiny house) that Sam is terrifed of and that keeps trying to sniff me - yuck. Also the chit chat hasn’t improved much.

On Friday though they wanted to ask about adoption. Specifially Sam’s adoption and how “final”it was. They have never shown much interest before now. It was odd until the trigger was revealed. There is a new adoption story in the news. Sigh. I didn't catch it until the 11 o'clock news last night because I've been ducking the news over the holdiays. No one ever seems to do stories about good adoption outcomes but then again those would be boring. Two parents desperate for a child adopt a lovely baby whose birthparent can’t parent for whatever reason. Birthparent and adoptive parents maintain a good healthy relationship. The child grows up happy. The end. Can’t get more boring than that. There are however lots of juicy bad adoption stories going around.

In Ontario, when birthparents place a child for adoption, they cannot sign anything until a full 7 days after a child is born not counting day 1 – so 8 days (in Kamryn’s case she was born on a Friday and there was a holiday on what would have been day 8 so it ended up being 11 days). After they have signed over their parental rights they have, again, a full 28 days during which they can change their minds. Birthparent counselling is mandated by law and is paid for by the adoptive parents through their adoption agency. It is against the law for the birthparent to receive ANYTHING from adoptive parents directly – no expenses, no renumeration, no medical bills (although the state generally covers those anyways) -- nada. Adoptions fail here like they do everywhere but I think it happens less often than other places and the horror stories are rare. Now we seem to have imported one – a horror story that is.

The awful thing is, I think the birthmother has been wronged; and while kidnapping her children probably not the best course of action she could have taken, I can see myself doing the exact same thing. She has arrived in our fair city from North Carolina (I think) after kidnapping her 17 month-old twins whom she had visitation rights with. She is 48 and got pregnant through artificial insemination. When the twins were born she was ill and depressed and was convinced (so her lawyer says) to place the children for adoption. She did so twice and changed her mind twice within 12 hours of placing them. For some reason the second time she changed her mind the children were not returned to her. I don’t know her medical (physical or mental) history but the children were not seized she voluntarily relinquished her rights and then changed her mind – within 12 hours! Those children should NEVER have been placed with an adoptive family and I can’t believe that it has reached this stage.

More will be revealled in the coming weeks I’m sure. The children’s adoptive parents were due to arrive in town today and I expect their side of the story will be on the news tonight. In any case a 48 hour cooling off period (hey birthmom didn't even make it through that) is not sufficient for a birthparent to make a decision like this. As hard as waiting over a month for a birthparent to be sure of his or her decision is, that really is fair amount of time. I’ve waited that long twice and I’d do it again. I can’t imagine the nightmare that is unrolling right now. There are however lots of juicy bad adoption stories going around.

It’s stories like this that make good people who would be good parents afraid to pursue adoption. It’s stories like this that make adoptive parents look like predators. It’s stories like this that give fodder to all the anti-adoption sites out there. I’m really angry about this. Better laws… there should be better laws.

As a completely separate aside, I e-mailed Sam’s birthfather over a week ago and heard (as I sadly expected) nothing. :(

Sam has a favorite song...

Santa brought him the album for Christmas and he regularly asks to here "Woohoo." Hearing him ask for it always cracks me up. He has SUCH defined musical tastes for a 2 year old. lol

This is the album Track 4.

Before I forget...

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Ours was nearly perfect. I hope you all will have a wonderful New Year.

P.S. Santa brought snow. It started snowing about 10 pm on Christmas. It now looks (and feels brrrrrrr.... like winter. :))

The Joys of Mass with a pre-schooler.

So we went to mass Christmas eve - Midnight mass -- at 7 pm. ;) To get seats we had to arrive around 6. Then I had to keep both kids amused for an hour. Yuck. Sam goes to bed around 7 normally. Not because that is a convenient bed time for his parents but because he NEEDS to go to bed around 7. I knew the evening was going to be a challenge and it was. Before Mass began it was a huge challenge. It was less so afterwards although he certainly kept those seated near us entertained (some didn't appreciate his efforts all that much :P to them!). He did all right for what must have been interminably boring to a little boy. Kamryn did pretty well herself. They weren't quiet or composed but they did all right. Somehow we got tagged to bring up the offering. My father was working as an usher and my mother a "holy-cookie passer" (Daniel's name for Eucharistic Ministers; he calls them that to tease my mother); we know EVERYONE so not a hge stretch for them to ask us to do this but they've never asked before. Yay team. The kids did well though. We went to the back of the church at the appointed time and took our places. I carried the unblessed hosts and Daniel the wine. We each held a child's hand. They looked adorable in their matching outfits. I was of course stunning (lol) and Daniel dashing. The perfect little family. We get to the front of the Church and we pass up the offering to the priest and turn to return to our seats. Sam disolves into boneless boy and starts wailing. We can't understand a thing he is saying although it's evident that he doesn't want to go back to our seats. Daniel struggles to get him to come along and then just picks boneless boy up and carts him back to our seats. Everyone (well the less pious types) in the congregation started laughing. It was only on returning to our seats that we finally understood what he was yelling (loud enough for the people in Bethlehem to hear). For some strange reason he had gotten it in his head that we were going to "play." So he got to the front of the Church and when it became evident that there was going to be no playing he freaked. Odd boy but as I said in my last diatribe you have to love him. He's too cute not too.

Other hightlights of Christmas mass:

His loud announcement to the congregation (well it was to me but everyone got to share in his wonderful proclamation) on returning from the bathroom with Daniel that he peed.

His spontaneous but ill-placed shouts of Alleluia.

His loud questions about whether mass was over yet.

He was very cute.

Kamryn not to be outdone was gorgeous and remembered my admonitions not to role around on the floor in her new silk dry-clean only (yes, Mom is a nut!) dress.

I Like My Kids

I was thinking today of how much I like my kids. I was thinking that last night too. This is a good thing, I think, to be thinking. Not that there are a lot of times that I’m not liking them but there are times. As an adoptive parent those times really niggle at you. Is it all right not to like your kids sometimes? Of course I love them always. Even when I’m the most frustrated with them I would die for them but is it all right to feel sorry for yourself as you carry your kicking, screaming, and scratching (our new trick — yay!) kid through the mall and back to your hotel room because you just can’t handle one more public tantrum. At least a 5-minute walk (an eternity) past hundreds of people, each and every one of them staring openly and not one looking understanding. Is it all right if that happens at least once a week?

I think even more than infertility patients blessed with pregnancy, adoptive parents feel even less of a right to complain where a “normal” parent might gush complaints. It’s not that you finally have the child you wanted to so long. It’s just that there are soooooooo many people ready to blame your child’s normal “problems” on adoption. I actually had someone go on the other day about how wonderful adoptive parents are and use as an example a mutual friend of ours who is having problems with her “adopted” teen age daughter. She was comparing our friend’s child to her own biological children and the relatively few problems she had with them and talking about what a saint our friend was to have taken such a risk in adopting. Okay, I was a little rude in my response. Parents with biological children always have perfect kids!?!

Anyway, since I know that a good many people are ready to judge my kids because I didn’t give birth to them I don’t feel that I can be completely honest on those days where I wish it was easier. But those days do happen. I admit it. Okay I’m not the perfect Mom. I don’t think my kids are perfect all the time. Sometimes I know they are VERY imperfect.

Then there are the guilty feelings you put yourself through. There is a lot of ignoring the fact that they aren’t biologically related to you. Forcing yourself to ignore those qualities that you don’t particularly like that you might sooner excuse if you could see them in yourself or your spouse. Seeing their behaviors mirrored in your own personalities doesn’t make the behaviors more legitimate but maybe easier to understand. That stubborn streak isn’t yours – or is it? Have they picked that up from your reactions to things or is it something genetically ingrained.

Sam’s birthmother mentioned in an e-mail last week something that made me cringe a little. I had put in my Christmas letter that it was torturous for Sam to stay still. She wrote to me that she was happy that “he was hyper” and that he was “just like her.” Sigh – she’s trying to fix her life; she really is, but she is kind of a disaster. My biggest fear is that he will be too much like his birthmother. That too many of her challenges will be his as well. I can’t/won’t deny his origins but I so hope that being in a good stable home (birthmother’s was far from) and having the opportunities that she was denied will mean so much more for him. At two I barely have an inkling of who he will be in the future so much is unknown; it’s scary.

Kamryn’s birthmother had gone on about how painfully shy she was as a kid. We’ve worked hard to try to build Kamryn’s confidence and perhaps shift her away from that tendency. If you’ve met Kamryn you will note that she is far from shy. Is it our skill as parents or did her birthfather’s personality weigh in there? You know though, ever so often I see it and it always comes without warning – shy Kamryn. Put the right set of circumstances together and she is miserable. She’s quite gregarious one on one but in a crowd she can disappear a little – first day of school, ballet recital, home of a new friend … Is that just a normal four-year-old or is it a biological tendancy. Do biological parents have these little debates in their heads? Do adoptive parents? Am I a freak? More than once I have been accused of being overly introspective. Yes, I often have these little conversations about dumb stuff in my head.

It’s easy to look at my children and see their birthparents in their features. It’s harder to look at them and see their birthparent’s in their behavior.

Promised Photos.

These photos are all pretty self explanatory. I offer the first one up only as evidence that I did let them "help" to decorate the tree. :)

Random Christmassy type Ramblings

What follows is completely disjointed and lacking any flow (or connections whatsoever). Just some thoughts/experiences that I needed to share.

So I was going to write that this is what it must feel like to have Christmas in Dallas but then I thought I should check to see what the weather must ACTUALLY be like in Dallas. I was wrong being that at this moment it is something like ~24C (75 F) there! Ah beauty. Nothing beautiful at all about our weather. It sucks.

That is a debateable point out on the street though. MANY are enjoying this bizarrely warm (everything being relative) snowless weather. Jokes about tulips erupting from the ground and buds on the trees abound. We have had snow. Paltry amounts of wet snow that did nothing but tease and melted in the ensuing days. Whole oceans of rain have fallen from the sky though. Torrents. Floods. The sun is a rare site and when I got up on Sunday morning I lit the Christmas tree because it was just so dark. It was (although not having ventured outside I didn’t know it at the time) a balmy 10 C (50 F). It was amore reasonable 2C (35 F) today. So cold enough not to want to hang about in a cold wind but certainly not enough for snow. Winter without snow is just boring and ugly. With snow – 10 isn’t a problem. You don’t notice the cold (much!). You can ice skate and ski and build forts and toboggan. You can live. With just cold (even “warm” cold) there isn’t much to enjoy.

I have had only two Christmas in my life (to my memory) without snow. One was spent in the Carribean (they would NOT handly snow at all well) they other was a few years back. It wasn’t as awful because there had been snow and then VERY shortly after Christmas there was a good deal of snow. This year is somewhat different. As I mentioned – very warm, tons of rain and no sign that the weather will change anytime soon (although as a seasoned Ottawan I know that change is what our weather is all about.) I need it to be cold darnit! I need snow. Lots of snow. A good snowstorm with a solid foot of snow would be a good start. Okay rant about the weather over.

Despite the un-Christmassy feel brought about by our complete absence of snow we have gone about preparing for Christmas. Kamryn and I decorated our annual Gingerbread House this weekend AND I made cookies. I felt very… Martha Stewartish. Better though Daniel and I rolled up our sleeves and got to some real wor clearing out our basement (our aim is to finish it over the winter months so the kids will have somewhere to play come…ummm…. April(?) lol when they should be playing outdoors.)

I was very pleased with our progress but I’m staggered – completely and totally — by the amount of books the two of us have ammassed and simply stored in the basement. I don’t think I will ever purchase another book again (how’s that for an empty promise). The pile is embarassingly large. I have been ruthless in sorting (read I’m not sorting at all). I’m thinking anything that has been in a box six years that wse haven’t gone searching for we obviously have little need of. As such we’re at BIG box #6 and the pile still grows.

We have amassed quite a few boxes of clothes to donate though and that makes me feel warm and fuzzy this time of year. If a little embarassed that my family is the source of so much… stuff! Hopefully, someone can put them too good use and they can make someone elses life a little easier in the New Year.

Anyway…

Pictures of Kamryn and Sam decorating our tree and Kamryn and I decorating our Gingerbread House 2006 to follow - My picture server isn't behaving right now.

Cheerio.

A Whole Mish Mash of Stuff -- Life, Christmas, Birthparents.

I rule! Okay not really but I feel so in control this year (note I didn’t say I was in control just that I felt that way). House looking Christmassy – done. Christmas newsletter – written. Christmas cards – mailed. Christmas packages – mailed. Christmas shopping – done (except for some gift cards I have to pick up). The newsletter and the cards are generally the bane of my existence. It all just sneaks up on me. Not this year for some reason I got on the ball and got the pictures taken and the cards ordered in time. I got the newsletter written at work during the lull we are experiencing. I got them all out last week and for once MOST of the people on my list will get them before Christmas (might be dodgy for the outside of Canada people in that I think cards to Europe and the Carribean were supposed to be in the mail by December 5th and I didn’t get them out until the 8th. A well. Still they are gone!

My parents couldn’t watch the kids today and Claude had to work so I took a family day to play SAHM (okay I bent the truth a little and told them I had to take the kids for flu shots. We are allowed five family days a year but they must be used for illness or medical appointments etc. I do have to take the kids for flu shots but not until 5:30 pm). So Sam and I did a ton of errands this morning. We dropped off some old coats for the poor. We shipped Kamryn’s birthmother her presents and I bought all my supplies for baking cookies and squares. After I finish writing this blog entry I’m off to wrap all our presents.

Baking is the project for this weekend. We have no social activities planned for some strange reason (not complaining at all!) and Kamryn and I will bake, bake and bake some more. :) I even managed to pick up the raw materials for our gingerbread house. Unfortunately, I could only find an already assembled house which is kind of disappointing BUT really that step was pretty easy last year so I’m trying not to be too disappointed (I’m NOT doing one from scratch!). Kamryn actually asked about doing one without any prompting from me. It makes me all warm inside to realize that I’m creating traditions. :) Looking forward to the weekend.

Work has pretty much come to a grinding halt. Last Friday I had a last minute emergency tasking that I handled in stride and had me staying a little late at the office but that wasn’t too awful as it was the only work I had done all week. I also had to hang around because I’m competing for a promotion (and had waited until the last minute to complete my application!). I think looking at the many qualified people competing along with me that I’m mostly wasting my time (and my stomach lining!) but I couldn’t not put my name in. I will have to spend Christmas studying – ugh! I won’t mind if/when I don’t get the promotion (I kind of like my current job) but I NEED to get through at least the knowledge test (it's a pride thing). Let me get an interview and then don’t promote me but please let me get to the interview stage. The knowledge test is very scarey. To put it in perspective EVERYONE competing will have at minimum a Master of Arts (many will have PhDs) and EVERYONE is sweating this knowledge test. Merry Christmas. I’m guessing the exam will be in mid-January.

On the adoption front we have had an interesting development this week. We (well actully the adoption agency we used) has heard from Sam’s long lost birthfather. He sent the Children’s Aid an e-mail to ask how he find out some information about him which they then forwarded to our agency. Sam's birthfather still thinks that Sam is a Crown Ward and I guess had no idea he had been adopted (not for lack of trying on our part; he was served papers; he was called; he was pleaded with). Anyway he left his name, address and telephone number with the adoption agency. I have to sit down and write him an e-mail and find out what his contacting us really means. Sam has been on this earth 2 ½ years and he has NEVER even seen a picture of him – again not for lack of trying as Sam’s birthfamily were ready to move mountains to get him involved prior to deciding to place Sam for adoption. He had the opportunity to participate in the process once we got involved and all he did was make things difficult for us (wouldn’t sign any papers but wouldn’t return phone calls or show up in court either!) Anyway, I don’t know if his reaching out now is serious or not. For Sam sake we will reach back but we’re not even certain he is his birthfather. I don’t want to get to involved with him if he isn’t so I guess I need to find out the particulars of getting a DNA test done. At least I don’t have to hire someone to track him down first which I thought was going to be the case. I hope he is his birthfather (despite a rather unattactive history/profile) because any history (bad or good) is better than no history. :( We’ll see what happens. Watch this space.

Also in this edition of birthparent chronicles, Kamryn’s birthfather surprised us this Fall (I think I forgot to mention this byt pardon me if I already have) with a surprise wedding announcement. The guy we didn’t think would ever marry (he’s 45) got married. He’s living overseas right now and we don’t have a lot of contact with him (I keep asking him for an address and he’s yet to furnish one which is a little annoying and odd for him). I responded to his e-mail (the first one in almost a year) and he never responded back. He will (I hope) call over Christmas. He married a woman much younger than himself. Makes me nervous (and almost certain) that Kamryn will end up with some siblings. I had hoped that would never happen simply because it raises the question of “why them and not me.” :( Again, we’ll have to see. I’m also VERY nervous that the difficulty we are having staying in contact with him means he is drifting away. I hope not. :(

Okay on that happy note I better go wrap presents. Have to pick Kamryn up from school in an hour.

A LONG Overdue Update

My apologies in not updating in so very long. I know it’s been long and I’ve felt guilty about it almost daily. Not guilty enough to do anything obviously but I hope it makes some of you exasperated out there a little more forgiving.

Work, home, life — everything — has just been horribly busy. When it’s not busy; I haven’t felt like writing. I’ve felt like lying on the couch doing nothing. I’ve felt like reading escapist novels. I’ve felt like sleeping. So that is what I have done. I was so bad about blogging. I have even avoided opening my blog to check for messages, partially because I was afraid there would be a slew of messages from friends/readers who wonder why I have dropped off the face of the earth and partially because I was afraid there would be none. (as an aside; Katya saved me from that fate. Hi Katya).

Life has been busy but for the most part good.

Work has been absolutely, completely, totally insane. From about a week before I wrote my last entry until ummmm… today. Every time I thought a break was around the corner – oops fooled ya! There have been good parts to it all and bad parts. I wrote some pretty significant speeches — nationally broadcast speeches shown live on our news networks, speeches quoted on news broadcasts, speeches given entirely the way I wrote/edited them, speeches that I was proud of. Career enhancing.

I sweated blood and tears to write some others that were then changed so completely before delivery (the pretty much used the first 500 words of a 3000 word speech) that I wondered why they even asked me to write them in the first place (they were good speeches they just didn’t fit their political purposes). It burns more because they were GOOD speeches and it’s really hard to work that hard on something — to create a work of art in some respects – and know that only ten people or so will ever know what you did. Still, it’s not that anyone EVER knows what I do – the hallmark of a good speechwriter is your invisibility but I want people to experience my craft anyways. I told SUCH good stories. It wasn’t easy at all and it took a great deal of time — unpaid overtime. Ah well.

We had an “emergency” writing session one night where I ended up taking a cab home at 3 am for a bunch of speeches that while used were hardly Shakespeare. (it takes on average a week and a half to write a ten-minute speech properly. In an ideal world, we would have at least 17 days. We wrote these, beginning to end in about 11 hours) It wasn’t exactly a Shakespearean debate though – yawn. It did earn us personal notes of thanks and chocolates from the Minister though.

Anyway, we had too much to do and not enough time and our entire team (there are 5 of us) logged a lot of uncompensated overtime and lugged a lot of work home with us. You do that for a time and people start getting sick. That is EXACTLY what happened. All of us worked though some pretty serious colds that would normally have us home on the couch so then Mother Nature stepped up the challenge a little. I went down with Step throat. I have two colleagues out this week with various kidney ailments. Insane I tell you. The strep throat knocked me on my keister and kept me home from work for two days although I worked two days with a fever (pre-doctor visit) because I had no choice. That was last week.

This week work has slowed to a manageable, even pleasant, pace. I’m crossing my fingers that we can get through Christmas without the necessity of a major announcement.

On the home front, Daniel has been amazing. He has had to be. I couldn’t juggle everything and I dumped a lot on him. He nursed me and both kids through sickness last week and he’s kept the household limping along since the end of October without much help from me.

The kids are doing wonderfully well. They really enjoyed Halloween. Kamryn was Superman for her school Halloween party and Spiderman for trick or treating. I was so proud of my little superhero for her independent spirit. I saw a lot of princesses this Halloween but not one other little girl dressed as a superhero. She wouldn’t even have considered being a princess. My first instinct when she declared her costume preference was to push her towards something a little more girlie but I’m glad my inner voice intervened and told me to let her be whatever she wanted. She’s not a tomboy; she’s just Kamryn and I really admire that. She’s a lot like I was as a kid which I find a little bizarre but makes me smile nonetheless.

Sam was a chicken (using Kamryn’s old costume) for Halloween and he had so much fun. I got crappy photos because I couldn’t get Sam to stay still long enough to actually get a picture. He was just too excited.

Here are a few belated and out of season pics.

Kamryn and Sam at her school Christmas Party with Kamryn's teacher. Yes, they are wearing pyjamas. They think there the coolest pyjamas on the planet and would wear them 24-7 given the chance. Kamryn had a mask but not for the photo.



After Pumpkin carving. The table is covered in newspaper to protect it from Pumpkin guts that in the end there weren't much of.


And just before they left the house to beg for candy that I would later have to throw away. lol

>

Kamryn seems to be doing well in school. She speaks highly of her friends and she is beginning to talk increasingly about her day, which I appreciate. She seems to be learning well and fits well in her class. The other kids seem receptive to her. Her teacher tells us that she is friendly and respectful and listens well (a shock to her parents lol). I visited her class one morning for her day at “show-and-tell.” Lordy, her teacher has patience. Kamryn did very well and I was so proud of her. The kids had to describe their favorite room in their house. Kamryn described her bedroom. I sent her with a couple of pictures to show (I took a bunch of photos for her and had her pick the ones she wanted me to print) and one of her favorite stuffed animals. The kid who followed her – wow — her mother must have been up late working on her presentation (I was disgusted not impressed). She had a big poster board with flower appliqués all over it and photos with fancy little drawn frames around them. Uh hunh, its show-and-tell for jr. Kindergarten people! How did this kid benefit from this? Where was her input into it all? Anyway – tangent, back to the topic at hand.

Oh first some pics of Kamryn giving her presentation. The first picture is a 1000 word essay on why I could never teach kindgergarten. See how they are all paying careful attention to what is going on? :)





Okay they aren't great pics but I was trying to listen AND be inconspicuous.

I’m looking forward to parent teacher interviews which should be next month for a true picture of how Kamryn is doing but I really have no concerns. (Edited to add: We got her report card tonight and she did swimmingly! I was so impressed by her language skills (remember she is going to school in her second language) where she has met and/or exceeded ALL the goals for this year. Her only "needs improvement" is fine motor skills. THis is something I have seen on my own. No real worries my first report card said the same of me. Santa will bring some helping tools I think.)

Sam is Sam. He’s getting somewhat easier to deal with. He can be reasonable when he’s not being “two.” And it’s a pleasant surprise how often that is now. He still has his meltdowns but it’s all within the normal range. His language is continuing to just blossom and his sentences are getting more and more complex although he’s still very difficult for me to understand. I’m not sure if it’s because he IS difficult to understand or if its because he mostly speaks in French and well two-year old French is hard for an Anglophone to understand. Dunno, not worried.

His grandmother, FINALLY (after almost a year) made it down for a visit. Although, she disappointed me a little. She came down with her new boyfriend. They arrived around 3:00 pm and visited with us until around 5:00 pm, then they had a dinner commitment with friends. We joined them for breakfast the next morning and then they wanted to go shopping (It was pretty clear NOT with us). So ya she’s seen him once in a year and didn’t really seem to want to spend a lot of time with us. He remembered her though which was a big relief to me because I didn’t want to deal with her emotions if he didn’t remember her (we show him pictures of his birthfamily almost nightly). She says she will visit again in the Spring but after the past year I’m not holding my breath.

Took both kids to see Santa last week. It was the worst year ever. We have never had a problem getting Kamryn to sit on Santa's knee. She isn't a shy kid and never has a problem with others. This year for some reason she was terrified. Wouldn't approach the stage, wouldn't even LOOK at him. Sam went and that didn't move her one inch. I REALLY wanted a photo. We have had a photo with her and this particular Santa every year of her life.

So there I sat on the side of the stage behind most of the set just trying to get her to look at the man because I figured if she looked she would see that there was nothing to be scared of. Wasn't going well - Daniel walked away from me really annoyed (okay I was being a bad mother he had cause but I just wanted her to look and then decide she didn't want to do it). Then Santa came over - with pictures of him and Rudolphe as well as his dog and his cat. Kamryn, the animal lover, was hooked. Santa asked if she wanted to see some more photos and she went a long with him quite happily. I was stunned (also a little wary at how easy she was to turn). We got our picture though and then had a long talk about strangers and about Maman or Papa always having to be there. Lol

I didn't have high hopes for a good picture or even a picture at all of Sam. Last year he wanted nothing whatsoever to do with the big scary guy (and I don't blame him lol). I started bribing him right up front telling him how he would get a gift from Santa (a colouring book). We got there and he marched right up. He was obviously out of his comfort zone (no smile!) but he sat for his picture and chatted with Santa all right. After Sam's trip, Santa offered him a colouring book for his "little" sister.

As we are leaving the stage, Sam is repeating something in Sam-speak over and over again. I couldn't figure out what he was saying. Then I realized he was telling me we forgot to get his Christmas present from Santa. He expected Santa to have his Christmas gift all ready for him. No waiting for my little guy. Although we tried to explain, he is still totally confused as to why he didn't get it.

Here are some Santa Pics.






Ummm… okay I think I’ve droned on endless about our lives enough here. Still awake? I know there are probably relevant things that I want to/need to write about but I’m tired of writing and you’re likely tired of reading. This entry will have to sit on my computer one more day while I collect some pictures to plug into it. Here after I will try to post once a week. Posting is a habit that I obviously fell out of and need to fall back into. I like writing – it clears the mind and leaves a record that I did indeed pass this way. I miss it. I’ll be seeing you.

Thanksgiving

So I had 18 people for dinner on Sunday. 12 adults and six children ranging in age from two through 13. I was looking forward to it. I was looking forward to all being able to sit down at the table together (thanks to my new dining room set) rather than perching precariously throughout my living room and den wherever people could find a spot. Everyone could sit together. Everyone could share the meal together. Exactly what Thanksgiving is supposed to be. It did pose a few challenges though.

We didn’t have enough chairs. Easily solved by buying some. Check.

Then I didn’t have a tablecloth big enough. A little researched proved (erroneously) that they don’t make tablecloths for my table that would be wide enough. Standard tablecloths are 60” wide. Because the table is 44” wide, 60” wide tablecloths left to little of a drop. So I bought a ton of fabric to make a tablecloth. I thought the table was 96” long – nope. It’s 117”, which meant that the $60 worth of fabric I bought was too short! Not all that big a deal I can use it to make a table cloth for when the table is partially open. I sent Daniel back to the store for more fabric and then spent a good two hours on Friday night carefully measuring, re-measuring and stitching over 4 years of material into a very nice tablecloth. Tablecloth Check.

Then I looked at my piddly little candlestick holders and thought I needed something more impressive looking. So Saturday I popped out to the store in the hopes of finding something holiday appropriates. Something with a Thanksgiving/Halloweeny/Fall theme to it. Imagine my shock when I walked into the store on the 7th of October to discover that I couldn’t buy anything remotely fall like because it had all been cleared away to make way for the Christmas decorations. Good grief! We ended up with candlestick holders that resembled and evergreen branch with pinecones to hold the actual candles. Ummmm definitely Christmassy but paired with orange candles it was suitable. Scratching my head though over the dearth of anything fall like remaining in the stores on the 7th of October!

Dinner was great. We gave thanks. We laughed, we chatted, we drank too much and generally had a blast. The kids had a blast. Despite the wide age differences they all seemed to enjoy one another. We had an adult table and a kid table and while I worried that the kids would feel ostracized I know that they really enjoyed being able to hang together and not be nagged to bits by adults. Everyone had fun. It was just the way a dinner party ought to unfold.

No use trying to be inconspicuous

Okay so I'm writing the posts. Just not getting them up. From last week:

So we went to Church this weekend. We haven’t been in a LONG time. Probably since the summer and then not to our “normal” church but to the one a few blocks from home. We technically belong to two parishes, an English one and a French one. The French one is an easy walk from home but I don’t like it. The church itself is dark and uninviting and has a barn/storage shed like feel to it. The community seems uninvolved and annoyed. The moment mass is over they bolt from their seats like their hair is on fire. The priest doesn’t even have a chance to get off the altar. So we don’t go often. When we went regularly (pre-Sam we went every week). We went to the Church where I grew up (technically – the parish since the Church is only 8 years old). We were married their. Both kids were baptized we feel like it’s our parish.

We haven’t been going regularly for a while. Sam is more than a pain in Church. He’s an exhausting handful and a half. He’s embarrassing. He makes church “not fun.” If Daniel can’t come with me (because he is working) I don’t go. Lately he’s worked a lot of weekends. When he’s not working, often we’re just not up to it. But this weekend was thanksgiving so it was important to me that we made the effort.

We made special plans on Sunday to make sure to attend the Children’s mass so that Kamryn could go to the Children’s liturgy. They take all the elementary school aged children in a back room and they have the readings and gospel on a kid level. Kamryn had never participated before but I thought she might enjoy it now that she’s old enough. When the time came for the children to go up, she didn’t want to go. She was getting all whiney and clingy so I told her I would go up with her. When she got to the top of the aisle and saw all the other children she willingly went on her own. There had to have been twenty children standing in front of the altar all of them a good foot taller than Kamryn (she looked SO tiny!) when she got there. Then the priest (who Kamryn worships in a super hero sort of way) started asking who wanted to carry “the book” and lead the other children out. All the other children have there arms in the air waving madly à la Horshack. Kamryn is standing in the back looking small. I am way at the back of the Church watching like a mother hen and happy that there is no way she will be noticed for this task. The priest is miked and I hear him say “Kamryn would you like to carry the book.” I see the nod and she goes forward. Yikes! I know stuff the priest probably doesn’t.

1) Kamryn has never participated before so she has no idea what is happening.
2) Kamryn has no idea where to go with the book.
3) Kamryn is clueless.

So he gives her the book and shows her that she must hold it over her head. She stands there with the book over her head motionless. He tells her she must turn around. She stands there staring him, motionless. He physically turns her around. He tells her she should go forward to that the other kids can follow her. She stands there looking a little crazed with a grin plastered on her face – motionless. He tell the kids to open up a path to let Kamryn through. Thank the Lord. Now she can see (as can all the other parishioners) her crazy Mother standing at the back of the Church frantically gesturing for her to walk forward. Ah we have lift-off and Kamryn successfully leads all the other children out of the Worship Hall and back to the sacristy for what every secret rites they perform. ;) Exit stage left beamingly proud mother. No worries, Sam was able to bring me back to humiliating reality in a few short seconds. It was almost like we had brought monkey high on amphetamines to Church with us – a VERY noisy monkey. A very noisy monkey that would die if it stopped moving for even a millisecond and knew it. Ahhhh…. Children….. :)

So I'm selling Gymboree stuff on E-bay...

First time I've tried to help moderate my Gymboree obsession. I have 3 auctions going. 2 Gymboree outfits and one Children's Place. One of the Gymboree outfits isn't going particularly well but that's because I had it in the completely wrong category for 3 days - oops!

If you're interested ...

Children's Place Holiday Dress


Adorable Little suit that I accidently put in "Girls' Dresses."

Cute coat that was kind of a dumb purchase for Canada where fall lasts about a week and a half before it's colder than Antartica.

I have $200 in Gymbucks

Those of you who know me from Friends by Adoption won't be surprised here.

It is, in my humble opinion insanely funny (and a little insane period).

Okay, okay, okay... I'm not keeping them or the clothes (well not all of them) for that matter.

I wasn't going to buy Christmas stuff from Gymboree this year. I wasn't! I spent way to much on Christmas stuff last year and Kamryn's black velvet Gymboree jumper from last year still fits fine! So what if she wore it last Christmas. She isn't royalty and I don't own a kingdom.

Then I saw the new line...

Okay - so I bent a little.

Sam didn't get a new outfit for Christmas last year (he wore the same suit he wore for his Christening). I thought the little red vest and red plaid shirt in the new Gymboree line would look nice on him AND I had $25 in Gymbucks that I figured I could spend on him. But, I had to go and look at them in person. This was a mistake. The dresses.... oh the dresses.

I left the store with a plan to return when Gymbucks started next week JUST to buy a vest and shirt for Sam. Mmmmmm ... but the call of the dress. Silk... plaid... they would match so adorably.

Sigh. So I went back (I work just across the street from a store) to buy JUST the little red sweater that went with the dress. That and a pair of socks would give me $25 in Gymbucks which would help with the purchase of the whole bleeping ensemble (Sam's outfit and a dress fo Kamryn) NEXT week.

Yikes - their stock was not looking at all robust. Would everything last until next week? Panic! Ummm... so I bought everything.

Wait, it gets worse. I bought everything in two seperate sizes for both children so I can go home and see what size they really fit into. So that's TWO beautiful silk plaid dresses, TWO little red sweaters with knit bow, TWO little red and grey vests, TWO little red plaid shirts and then I tossed in a pair of argyle socks because I could (hanging my head in mock shame here).

$200 in Gymnbucks later. How will I explain this to Daniel? Somehow he might not think this is as hilarious as I'm finding it. * evil grin *

So I converted this blog ...

to be all handy-dandy and modern and well I discovered (not unexpectedly) that what it did was make it impossible for me to blog from work. Thus my silence over the past little while. I often blogged during a spare moment here or there at work -- no more. :( Well I can blog. I just can't actually post to my blog. So I wote this a few days ago and I'm just getting around to posting it now.

I am a professional writer. Something I have always wanted to be. Somedays, like yesterday, I am a VERY good professional writer. Somedays, like last week a pretty bad one. There is nothing to indicate which one you will get though. Doesn’t matter the topic, doesn’t matter my knowledge level or even how I am feeling.

I wrote a really good speech this week, well last week actually. It was horrible to write. I volunteered to write that particular speech because I thought the topic would be interesting – it wasn’t. It was painfully boring (to me! The audience will probably be interested) after about the first page. It took me forever to write, not because I was working so hard, but because I spent much of last week procrastinating and surfing the web rather than writing. The final product though will make people laugh and will make people cry. That’s something that I’ve learned, over the short while that I have been doing this, you can’t purposefully try to do. You just have to write honest speeches and if the spark is there is will be there. This speech hums, I’m proud of it.

So here I sit waiting for the critics to tear it apart. After we write a speech, because we aren’t experts in everything or anything for that matter, we send it out to the experts to vet it and make sure we aren’t saying anything wrong or anything that will have Islamic militants putting a price on our heads (take note Pope Benedict!). Apparently, my speech, brilliant as it is, is FULL of factual errors. Don’t blame me, blame our Chief of the Defence Staff as he pretty much dictated the speech to me (I just made it pretty). He’s a big cheese though and I’m not going to tell him he was wrong. I’m letting the experts do that directly (there were many fireworks set off yesterday. I lit the fuse and then went home). So as I said here I sit. I have nothing to do until the fireworks are finished. I’m somewhat nervous since the critics (I mean vetters) didn’t say what was wrong with my speech just that it was full of errors.

In my spare time I figured it was time to write Sam “his story.” I wrote one for Kamryn as a present for her first birthday. Sam’s will be a present for Christmas. I will also redo Kamryn’s at that time as hers is a flimsy laminated book and technology has advanced somewhat since I made it. It also has some pictures in it that I don’t want to use anymore for various reasons.

Okay now back to all my bragging about being a professional writer. I have no idea how to go about writing my wee son’s story. It’s so complicated and kind of depressing and it can’t be. It has to be something he is proud of. His beginnings. His origins. How much he was wanted and loved. Ugh! How do I convey that? I’m going to stop procrastinating here now and go and stare at a blank screen instead. Wish me luck.

So this is the part where I teach my daughter about community responsibility

Only I'm failing miserably. For the last two years Kamryn and I have walked in the Mother Daughter Walk Heart and Stroke. I started with a neighbour who dropped out after the first year and have continued on my own (with Kamryn of course). I saw it as a good way to be a little active, have some fun but most importantly teach Kamryn about community responsibility.

Okay there is a slight problem here. I like walking. I love doing stuff with Kamryn and I am community minded. The problem -- I HATE asking people for anything much less money. So I dread it every year. But I made this pledge you see. To do it for Kamryn.

So this year's walk rolled around -- they've changed it to a "family" walk now. and back in August I dutifully signed up and began to dread asking for pledges when I saw an out and leapt at it. I signed Kamryn up for swimming lessons and her first lesson clashed with the walk. I seriously considered having her skip that first lesson but I had specifically siged her up for this session because they had 12 classes in a row and I thought with this good block of classes there was a small chance of her learning how to swim. So I decided we would forgo the walk this year (yay! no asking for pledges!!!!) and find something else equally civic minded to do later in the year. Today they called to tell me that the first swimming class is cancelled. My excuse vanished.

So here I am 1 week to go before the walk with no excuse not to participate and exactly $0 in pledges. Pathetic. Actually I have $50 in pledges because I'm about to go and sponsor myself. Truly pathetic. Last year we raised $530 which I was proud of until I saw that the two people I sponsored for the Breast Cancer Run for the Cure both collected pledges in excess of $1000. Obviously I need to get over my problems with asking for money.

Everywhere I look in our family (and both kids birthfamilies) there is heart disease so there is personal link here. Okay I'm off to pledge some money to myself. If you are interested in doing likewise (for which I would be eternally grateful) here is the link to the Heart and Stroke pledge form.

Well, I dropped my baby off at “big girl school” this morning.

It was sooooooooooo much harder than I thought it would be. I think my heart is broken.

I was so excited for her right up until about 5:00 pm last night and then it hit me like a ton of bricks. She was going out into the world without me and she would be just fine (at least I keep telling myself that).

On the way home from work last night, as I cut across the mall to my car I had a small panic attack over the fact that we had chosen not to buy her a fleece as part of her uniform. They didn’t have one her size for us to sample when we were buying uniforms so we figured we would just wait until the fall order. I never thought we would have such a cold September.

It was a good place to panic over that though because there was a Children’s Place right there and I popped in and bought her a nice thick cable knit sweater that looks good with her uniform. I don’t think they are allowed to wear “no uniform” apparel inside the school but I think it would take a really heartless teacher to let a four year old sit there and freeze (I think it’s probably warm inside the school anyways). Anyway so she has the sweater.

Last night I made her try on her entire uniform (for the gazzillionth time) just to make sure it was set for this morning. (I went though a similar routine with Sam who started preschool today but I was less anxious).

Last night around 9:30 and long after I had tucked Kamryn away in bed she came wandering downstairs, blanket in hand and a little sobby/sniffly to tell me she wanted to go to [her school]. I expect she had had a dream — as excited and anxious as she was. I don’t think she slept at all well last night. Excitement, anticipation, nerves and the beginnings of a cold did nothing to help her. I actually had to wake her this morning which is almost unheard of.

She did tell me she wasn’t feeling particularly well and didn’t eat all that wonderfully at breakfast. I took her temperature and luckily it was normal. I think the cold was getting to her but so were nerves. Poor kid. Regardless, we managed to get dressed, snap a bunch of photos and get out of the house somewhat on time.

Got to the school and her teacher was outside waiting for her surrounded by a cluster of 4 year olds, most of whom looked a great deal happier than Kamryn to be there (although going through my pictures this afternoon I see that she was pretty typical). She wasn’t sad per se but much more nervous than I expected her to be. More pictures and then lots of hanging around then they did a train to go into the school.

I made her a Sunbutter sandwich, with a Nutrigrain bar and raisins for lunch and an apple for a snack. She did feel it necessary to describe this in intimate detail to her teacher. :) She has a little surprise as I slipped chocolate milk in her lunch bag without her knowing. She really loves chocolate milk.

I had a hard time not crying when leaving her at the school (totally unlike me!). Hell, I’m having a hard time not crying just writing about it. There has been much blinking this morning and looking down. Now I’m not trying to be tough and suck it up. I just didn’t want to have to explain to Daniel why I was in tears and well… crying at work would be bad. Lol

After dropping Kamryn at school, just to make matters a little worse, we had to drop Sam off for his first day at pre-school. He’s done summer camp so it doesn’t feel so “first dayish” but really it is his first day too and he shouldn’t be jipped. Summer camp and preschool follow somewhat different routines and he’s all by himself without his big sis to look out for him. So that made me all teary as well. All in all – good morning for the kids, not to good morning for Mom.

I have pictures though...

Before leaving the house:









Arriving at the school:







Off to class:

I'm buying stock in Lego...

Kamryn and Sam have been playing quietly (everything being relative) all morning with some old lego that I dragged up from the basement. Minimal fighting or trying to kill each another. Why didn't I do this sooner. To inifinity and beyond ...

On a completely unrelated not but bizarrely embarassing reason for not posting longer, I seem to have wrenched my right shoulder while (don't ask!) positioning myself on the ummm... commode last night. Ah well. Lord I'm old. Ít's not all that bad but kind of funny, doncha think? I'd laugh but -- wince -- ouch. :)

My "Before" Pics

There isn't much to say here, except that it was ugly and I hated it and I'm a little embarassed by the pictures.







La pièce de la résistance:

So I have "After" pictures too... and a whine. :)

Who would have thought getting glorious new furniture would be SOOOOOO much work?

I called the furniture store on Friday afternoon to see if I could get an ETA on my furniture's arrival and was delighted to find out that everything was in. Woohoo! Me. They said they could deliver it on Saturday - perfect. Daniel was working Saturday and I was likely going to be stuck at home anyways. I was very pleased. I got home and hit my pace nagging poor Daniel. The existing dinning room -- awful as it was -- needed to be completely packed up. Not and easy task. Lord do we have a lot of "cochonrie" (Creole for junk!) I never would have believed it. Packing up the contents of the dining room and finally getting the chandelier hung took the better part of the night. Of course the eletrical box for the chandelier is no where NEAR the centre of the room. Sigh, new reason to curse my builder -- lazy sots. The chandelier came with handy hooks though so while not perfect it will do. So Friday afternoon doing muckity muck work.

Saturday, the delivery guys arrived at around 11:30. It took them three-quarters of an hour to get everything unloaded, assembled etc. In the middle of it all my mother appeared. Once she left and I got the kids fed and into bed for their naps (you would have thought the delivery guys had delivered a pony as excited and Sam and Kamryn were) I started working again. The shelves for the hutch had to be unloaded and assembled and all the glass had to be cleaned. So I did that. I dusted everything and then I swept up endless styrofoam that I STILL keep finding. Then I started putting dishes and dining room stuff away in the hutch. Who would have thought I had so much crystal. Okay I knew I had it, it's just I hadn't seen most of it in a while. It was scattered in various nooks and crannies in the kitchen and in our family room wall unit. Most of it was dusty and needed to be washed before being placed in a glass display case. Scarily at least 50% of it still had price tags on it. Ouch! These were ALL wedding gifts and we love the pattern which has now been dicontinued but we've been married 8 years and we still have tons o' glasses with the price tags attached. Nine years ago EACH glass was $36. I keep imagining what I could do with all that money now. lol Ungrateful git that I am... Anyway to took forver to get the hutch organized. Then I was Martha Stewart and cooked a good homecooked meal for the family. I really felt like Suzy Homemaker.

Today, I zinged out to Home Depot for Scotch Guard (we got a deal on the set and the white chairs aren't Scotch Guarded). Okay the furniture assembler's in their wisdom attached the seats of the chairs onto the frames without taking off the plastic bag that covered them. Getting the plastic off took forever and there are still little tell tale strings of plastic in places where I just couldn't tug it off. Then I scotch guarded all the chairs - that got old fast. The manufacturer (of the Scoth Guard) recommends up to two coats. I was going to do two coats until I got to about chair number 4. One good coat better be enough. Okay so then we were finally done (while I was Scotch Guarding chairs, Daniel was moving the Chandelier so it hung approximately in the middle of the table and I could take pictures ...

Okay I'm trying something new...

I'm always pleased to receive comments on my enteries. It bolsters my ego (which needs constant stroking or it gets cranky) and makes me feel loved. :) So thank you to those that post. Thank you to to those that read and do not post; I'm actually guilty of doing that on far to many people's blogs.

I do however feel quite guilty that people ask me things and make suggestions and I appear to ignore them. I'm not ignoring you at all I just don't always figure out how to respond appropriately. I could just make seperate enteries but I have a small brain that is very cluttered with important worries (like how to make lunch for a child and when to eat my own lunch. Sigh it's 2 pm and I have again forgotten to eat lunch and will now ruin my dinner). I often forget to make said important enteries and then weeks have gone by and it seems pointless since no one will have any idea what I am talking about.

It was easy on TLOL because I would get an e-mail with someone's comment and I could just reply to the e-mail. Not so easy here. Except I do have an easy mechanism that if I had a bigger brain I would have figured out sooner - make a comment of my own.

So I'm making comments on my own blog which not only lets people know that I appreciate them and care about what they have to say but also has the added advantage of building my comment numbers. lol

Okay now I'm worrying that those I don't respond to will think I don't like them...

I'm getting an ulcer. I do like you. I just didn't have anything intelligent to say except thank you. :)

Is it bad to have peanuts and diet coke for lunch?

I'm laughing at myself (just a little) and completely panicking

Over school lunches of all things. Yesterday, at the orientation interview for Kamryn, who starts “big girl” school next Wednesday, I found out that I had misunderstood the whole staggered start thing they are doing. I THOUGHT that the two days she was going next week (Wednesday and Friday) were half days. Seems reasonable since they are gradually introducing them supposedly. Nope – it’s a full day 8:30 – 3:00 pm. The whole “staggered start” seems a lot more useless to me now. But what has been slammed home to me is that I have to send her with a lunch on Wednesday! I think it’s the immediacy of it all that is getting to me.

I just called Daniel from work in a complete panic that he go to the store immediately and start buying up truckloads of peanut-free merchandise:

- Chewy Granola bars (what?!? You only bought a normal sized box; why not an econo box?!? Those will never last!!!!)
- Nutragrain bars
- Yogurt – ummm get little yogurts rather than the family sized jobbers we normally get. No wait get little ziplock plastic throw aways. Ummm – what if those pop open. No wait get the little yogurts AND the normal family sized ones.
- Cold meats we need cold meats lots and lots of cold meats.

Pretty obvious we’ve been married awhile. He listened on the other end of the phone as I rattled stuff off, talking mostly to myself. Then when I realized how silly I sounded AND the fact that I need to pack exactly two lunches total next week and kind of petered off and told him to ignore everything I just said he said “okay, honey”.

I am so stressed out about lunches. Lol

My kid won’t eat eggs or cheese and isn’t a huge fan of sandwiches. She’s also a messy eater and I worry what her uniforms will look like after I send her to school with thermoses full of pasta and soup (I’ll do it but it scares me). Also (just to stress me out because I am above all else a rule follower) the school has made it quite clear that only “healthy lunches” are acceptable. I stood in the hall yesterday and listened to a teacher tell her kindergartners to go to their lunch boxes and get a piece of fruit, a vegetable or some cheese to have for their snacks – yikes – she made no mention of Nutragrain Bars or muffins or cookies (my mom had it so easy!)

Sigh. This really isn’t a huge problem I’m sure. I have loads of stuff I can feed her. Daniel bought a teeny weeny bottle of sunbutter for 9 bucks – so I have that. He swears he won’t buy it ever again. I pointed out that a bottle of Scotch is $60; he got quiet. I feed her healthy stuff at home for lunch every day. She LOVES fruit and vegetables.

I’m panicking mostly I think because I need something to panic over. I’m a goof. Just thought I would share that with you all.

We're all going to be blind as bats.

Also today, we had both kids eyes checked. Oi! What an appointment. Sam and Kamryn spent last night with my parents so that Claude and I could celebrate our 8th Anniversary of not trying to kill each other with forks. :) I know that when they stay with their grandparents sleep isn’t to be had in mass quantities. They manipulate my parents. They go down late and get up early. My kids, neither of them, do particularly well without their normal quota of sleep. Kamryn gets hyper and annoying; Sam whiney and tantrumy. It was one of those appointments where you know the staff would be talking about you when you left. I was certain Kamryn was going to break something expensive. Sam had a meltdown over giving back the doctor the little toy she used to test his eye movement. Sigh. Both kids are eventually going to end up bespectacled. I guess not a huge surprise because both birthmoms wear glasses (the optometrist doesn’t know either kid is adopted).

Let me preface this explanation of why my kids are going to need to eat A LOT of carrots not to end up in little horn rimmed glasses with the fact that I can never remember which terms mean which (i.e. nearsighted, farsighted, short-sighted etc.). I’ve thrown the terms in here from what I thought the doctor said but I may have mixed them up. So if you’re not suffering from the same mental block I am and I seem not to be making coherent sense, substitute the opposite of what I’m saying and it will probably work.

Kamryn has developed a slight astigmatism that isn’t bad enough to need correction yet and may disappear on its own. The doctor told me that astigmatisms can appear and disappear as the eye changes with growth. She’s also LESS farsighted than she should be at this point in her development, which means she may end up nearsighted in the end. We’ll watch it she said; no worries (or glasses) until next year.

Her first comment on Sam was that he had really big eyes. Duh tell me something I don’t know. What I didn’t know, but what she explained, was that people with really big eyes tend to be far-sighted. So we’ll be watching him too.

It does though look like in a few short years our entire family will be decked out in what will be expensive eyewear. Ah well. No REAL problems have been identified and that’s a good thing.

School Interview

Well this morning we had an interview at Kamryn's school with her new teacher. She has a morning teacher and an afternoon "early childhood education specialist" (read: daycare provider although they do do a little more than a daycare would). Both of them are named Julie. Too easy. She will attend school full-time but her afternoons are supposed to more play-based and focused almost exclusively on developnig language. This is because many of her classmates will be going to school in their second language and it is intended as a catch-up. My friend who has had her child already go through this program and is a teacher herself tells me in the end they end up well ahead of their peers in other programmes. This isn't why we are doing this but that's a nice fringe benefit I guess. We are enrolled in this programme because there isn't another option. All french language schools structure their pre-K and Kindergarten programmes this way.

So we had our first meeting this morning. Kamryn looked very cute in the same dress I sent her to preschool in and a nice white blouse with her new blue shoes (school shoes must be blue or black) and some aqua socks. I describe her outfit in such detail because:

a) I forgot my camera and took no pictures.
b) She was the only child in the school dressed that way - oops!

All the other children were in uniforms (school started yesterday for all grades except pre-K). The child who had the interview before Kamryn was wearing her uniform. The child who had the interview after Kamryn was wearing her uniform. Okay I figured that it was a 45 minute get to know you interview and that it didn't make much sense to waste a perfectly clean uniform on 45 minutes. I guess I fugred wrong. No one said anything though. * shrug * Although I guess there was a casual remark made to Kamryn with a quick glance at her delinquent parents that when she came for "real" next week she would be wearing her uniform.

Kamryn didn't really participate all that much in this interview. She played with a puzzle with ECE (early childhood ed ...) Julie while we met teacher Julie and then she joined us in the classroom and checked out the doll house and the play kitchen while we chatted with Julies squared.

We answered a host of VERY boring questions about Kamryn's completely typical development and generallly accomodating and independent nature. We smiled to ourselves as the Julies worried about Kamryn suffering any separation anxiety. Daniel commented later that he's pretty certain he could put Kamryn on a plane with a flight attendant she had never laid eyes on and leave her with no concerns. I we discussed her development I was waiting, hackles already up, indignant reply playing through my head about why they needed to know, for "is the child adopted." I know that for a lot of schools that is a standard question. It's not a secret, it's just not an appropriate question in my opinion. The question never came. All that choler wasted.

I found out that nap time is 12:15 - 1:00 (I think they nap instead of a noon recess but I didn't ask further). I'm thinking unless they REALLY work them in the morning there is no way Kamryn will nap during that period but I guess we'll see. I know she will want to nap before the school day is over. I also found out that she has 16 children in her class which is at least 4 fewer than I thought there would be and which makes me happy. It looks like one of her "friends" from preschool will be in her class which has its advantages in at least she will know someone else and its disadvantages in that the little girl isn't the best influence (if she is any influence at all) on Kamryn in my opinion again we will see.

The biggest revelation of the meeting was that school next Wednesday is ALL day. I though it started as a half day; I don't know where I got that idea. So she is right into it next Wednesday.

We found her cubby in which she stowed her shoes and her blanket for nap time. There are no other Kamryn's in Pre-K although there are at least two in Kindergarten (this we discovered by reading the names of all the children outside the various classrooms).

We talked a bit about their teaching methods and Kamryn's sometime reluctance to try new things and/or to give up immediately when encountering any difficulty or missing perfection on her first try. We also discussed Kamryn's tendancy towards excitability when pair with another child (she is quite calm without an audience/accomplice). Part of the educational approach is teaching children to work calmly and quietly on their own - oh that will teach her LOADS!

All in all a good meeting. Kamryn is now very excited to return to school. It feels nice to see her looking forward to it.

My Across the Street Neighbour

Some may remember my posts about my neighbour who has waited it seems FOREVER to adopt a baby from Russia. Well, they left this morning to go and bring Maxime (pronounced Max-eem, we have another french Canadian on our street lol) home. He's 16 months old and just adorable. White blond hair and blue eyes and a little moon face. Can't wait to meet him. They are going to have so much fun.

I've never known a "real-life" contemporary who has adopted before (I've met many online friends that have been down that path but it's different when the person lives across the street). All my adoption experience have been friends that were adopted or friends of my parents who were adopting. This is the first time I have "seen it all go down." You know, I'm more excited for them than I was for friends who have been pregnant (even those who have undergone infertility treatments). I think it's because I understand how bad the ache and despair is and I know how much fun they are going to have. I'm just giddy for them.

Maxime may be the last addition to our street for a long while. I do have a neighbour who's daughter was tragically born stillborn this spring but I don't know what there plans are (I think they MIGHT try again but I know her heart is hurting :(). I think pretty much all of my other neighbours families are complete. It's been a 6 year cycle of babies, babies and more babies and now everyone's house is full :).

Last Day of Preschool

Thursday was Kamryn’s last day of preschool. Left me feeling all gooey inside.

I dressed her in the same dress she wore when she started preschool in January 2005! lol I guess I bought it a little big. I can remember looking at the shots I took back then and thinking how very grown up she looked. Looking back at them she was sooooooo very little.

She starts "big girl" school on 6 Sept and keeps asking me when she's going to be big like me. I get the idea that she thinks she will go to bed one night and wake up the next morning 5'9" and way too many pounds.

I'm sad that I won't be taking her to preschool anymore. She really enjoyed her time there. She's psyched to start school though and I'm very excited for her. She's ready and it's pretty obvious that she's outgrown her current school and needs more of a challenge. Bring on elementary school. Yikes!

We go into her school on Wednesday to meet her teacher and have a little pre-school interview. Her first day is September 6th.

Yadda-yadda-yadda...

Some Mom I am... I told you all about my new dining room and not at all about my "new" son. I thought I had; I honestly did. My excuse is that work is CRAZY right now. I've written 6 speeches in the last 8 days during a period that is supposed to be the quiestest of the year (ya right!)

Okay back to Sam. We can't shut him up. He talks constantly, has an opinion on everything and wants you to hear it. This summer has been phenominal for him he has just exploded linguistically. That's how it was with Kamryn to some extent but she was just silent and then talked. Sam was unintelligible for so long and then I guess something just clicked. He, interestingly, speaks MUCH more French than English. Odd.

Anyway, despite having most of our worries about his language development assuaged Daniel insisted we go forward with the appointment we made to have his language formally evaluated. The speech pathologist came to our home last Thursday for the evaluation. I couldn't have been prouder of Sam. You never know which little boy will show up (or stay!) - cooperative, happy boy or miserable, tantruming, you can't make me boy. For a two year old, Sam couldn't have behaved better.

The speech pathologist told us that she planned to start off with her regular test and see how long he would tolerate the formal test but that at his age children normally couldn't do it. Ha! Sam was cooperative from start to finish. He was even having fun. The good thing about the test was that by being forced to say specific words/sounds, we got a very good picture of what he could and couldn't say. I was really surprised at some of the things I didn't think he could do that he did fine when pushed. I think he might be a "lazy" ennunciator. Why try if gobbledegook works? he was nailing complicated words AND he was doing a lot of them in English which truly is his second language (she brought the wrong test along with her). It was funny at one point she pointed to the duck on her flashcard and asked Sam what it was. He told her "canard" (duck in french). She was trying to see if he could say the "Du - ck" sound and told him it was "duck in english" he looked at her like she was from Mars and said "no! Canard!" I cracked up.

He did very well with the flash cards, describing things he wasn't even asked to descibe. He was using 3 word sentences. He was flying. She did four different tests and then skipped the last one because she told us he was definitely on track and maybe even ahead and she didn't feel it necessary to waste our time and money further. In truth he was using sounds that he shouldn't be able to do for a few years. I was very proud of him.

We're waiting for the report to be written up, but honestly all concerns are completely gone. Now our only concern is how we will survive two non-stop chatterboxes in the house. Poor Daniel, the only quiet one in the family, he will never get a moment's silence.

A really important post (tongue firmly in cheek)

Okay don’t get me wrong – I have a nice house. It’s big, not as big as some but plenty for a family our size. It’s got some really nice touches. For instance we have a good sized family room off the kitchen which has some great advantages. The kids can destroy it/play while I cook dinner for instance. I also have a small laundry room off the kitchen which makes doing laundry a little less of a chore (although my family room is often full of laundry needing folding lol). Still, I’m often a little embarrassed when people come to visit.

We built this home in 2000. RIGHT in the middle of our infertility woes. If you didn’t know that we’d wasted (read:spent) an obscene amount of money on infertility treatments followed by two reasonable priced but still expensive adoptions you’d really wonder whey we wasted our money on such a large house that we couldn’t afford to furnish. We’ve been working on things. Slowly. We’ve gone room by room and done what we could afford. Family room — check. Nursery — check. Kitchen — check. Big girl room — check (Sam inherited the nursery). Living room — getting there. Our bedroom well – we’ll just close the door. Dinning room — maybe we should install doors or perhaps just seal it off.

When we moved in everyone in my family HATED the light fixture in our kitchen. As a housewarming gift my parents bought us a new fixture. We took the hated lighting fixture and hung it in the dining room where there was nothing, temporarily. Ya. It’s been six years. It gets worse. For our formal dinning room table we used the table my father’s friend had given me when I moved out of my parents’ house. Okay, it’s the one he had when he himself had gotten married 40 years ago, an old brown melamine table, nothing special. When you use your knife at this table, the entire table shakes. My father re-upholstered the four wooden chairs for me. The re-upholstered part is quite nice. The chairs, well they need a good coat of paint. They are after all 40 years old. We took the Ikea book cases from Claude’s old apartment, the one’s he used as a TV stand to use in place of a buffet and/or hutch. It was better than an empty room.

When more than 4 people came for dinner I would use our old kitchen table on little wooden blocks (so the tables were the same height) and cover them with a tablecloth.
I stored my good dishes and crystal in my kitchen pantry. I tried to be casual with guests about not finding just the right set yet. If I get a chance this week I’ll take a picture and let you drink all the luxury in.

So a friend came to hang out last week. They just built a new house down the road from us last fall. When they moved they left ALL their old furniture behind and bought all new stuff for their new house. Their home is devine. As we sat using the computer in our dinning room (might as well dump the computer there as we aren’t affecting the decor any). I commented that I had finally found a light fixture for the dinning room and that maybe it would give me the incentive to finish off the whole room. She giggled a little too politely at my little joke. Sigh.

Anyway I bought the “chandelier” the next day. Without telling my husband. It really is a temporary chandelier but definitely less temporary and embarrassing looking as what we have there now. I pulled out the new Ikea catalogue when he got home and told him I was sick of waiting to buy a dining room set that we liked AND could afford and that maybe we should get something serviceable and just live with that for awhile. The next day he showed me a furniture flyer that had a set that looked all right in the ad on sale. It was a going out of business sale. I acquiesced to going down and looking although I had no real intention of buying anything. We’ve looked for years and NEVER purchased. Only dreamt. On Saturday, 2 seconds after walking in the door, we had a new dining room set. We got home an on checking out our dining room and imagining the set in place (it won’t be delivered for 3 weeks) I decided that we needed to take better advantage of the sale that the Bombay Company was having and that I also needed a new clock. Ta da! Off to the store on yesterday to buy a new clock and just like that we now have a formal dining room. Although I still need window treatments and I guess I have to find somewhere else for the computer or at least a nicer desk.

I’m giddy with excitement and keep looking into the room longingly. Okay it’s a silly thing to be excited about but what I’m really excited about is living in a grown-ups house after living like a student for so very long. I have a good job. I’m careful with my money. This shouldn’t have taken so long. Infertility affects us in so many ways. If I could pop kids out like the next guy well this would have been done years ago and then some.

Ah well — Off to look at roll top desks.

On the Kids' Birthfamilies

Okay this is going to be disjointed. Sorry, I’m throwing up on paper. Lol

I’ve been reading kind of off and on of late, the Naked Ovary. I’m insanely jealous of the fact that hundreds/thousands(?) of people read her blog and about 20 read mine lol. She is much more interesting and funny than I am. I don’t spend a lot of time reading it though because she generally is writing about where I’ve already been and while interesting isn’t adding much to my life except voyeuristic glee (lots of that lately since she has just been matched :)) Anyway, recently – big controversy – on her opinions or, for some, apparent lack there of on her daughter’s birthmother. Started me thinking a little of Kamryn and Sam’s birthfamilies.

I think about their birthparents a lot. Probably daily. It’s part of raising the adoptive kid. There are adoptive parents out there who I know like to pretend the birthparents don’t exist. Sadly many more than you’d expect. I can’t. Kamryn will proudly tell you that she has gorgeous curly hair – just like her birthmom Sarah. Sam has a collage on his wall of his birth family that we go through each night in the hopes that he will not forget the family he spent the first year of his life with but now never sees. Anyway we think about them and talk about them a lot. It’s not always easy.

About a year ago I wrote about ending the monthly updates with Kamryn’s birthparents. A distance has developed there. I don’t know if it’s because I chose not to write as often and they were waiting for permission to step back a bit or if it is just circumstances. Kamryn’s birthdad moved to Kenya in January and technology makes it harder for him to stay in contact. When I do send out e-mails I may or may not get a response from Kamryn’s birthmother. If I do get a response it could be WEEKS later. From her birthdad we hear very little. Never an e-mail (he does have e-mail access I think). He’s called three times – Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Kamryn’s birthday. Dunno. Contact is good just not often.

Sam’s birthfamily is sporadic as well. Nana, claims she doesn’t get my e-mails. Well I can’t fix whatever filter she has accidentally put on her e-mail account from here. She calls but not very often – once every two months or so, maybe. She was supposed to visit in May (for his birthday) but had to cancel (pretty typical of her) and has finally rescheduled for the end of August but I’m not holding my breath. She last visited (her only time) in November 2005. She is afraid he will have forgotten her – so now I’m anxious that he has. We show him her picture nightly (as I mentioned above) but there isn’t much more than we can do. Also – he used to call Kamryn, Nana (I understand this only makes sense to those of you who know Kamryn’s real name). That’s how he said her name. After months of repeating “not Nana, say Kamryn” he finally got it. About two weeks ago. So I told him to say goodbye to Nana on the phone last week and he says, you guessed it, good-bye Kamryn. So now part of our nighttime routine is reinforcing the word “Nana.” He now thinks it's a big joke and this kid LOVES to clown. God only knows what he will say when he actually sees her. She won't think it's funny if he doesn't call her Nana.

Anyway, contact with Sam’s birthmother has been weird but that’s not unusual either. As our relationship “develops” her developmental delays are more and more apparent. I have to keep reminding myself that I’m not dealing with an adult but, mentally in a lot of ways, a pre-teenager. When she sends an e-mail I need to respond immediately or she panics that we are somehow hiding from her. No matter that she doesn’t respond to an e-mail from us for months if at all. She needs that reassurance that we haven’t disappeared with her boy. I understand that little but she panics after hours not days. She might send us 12 e-mails in a week. She may not send us any e-mails for months and months. We worry when she disappears because we seriously worry about losing her someday (as does her own family). Anyway… nothing we can do there. She’s had serious difficulties of late that I can’t get into but at least would make her easier to find. Sigh.

Okay all that ramble brings me to who I’m really thinking about and the serious repercussions -- Sam’s birthfather. Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t; no one knows but we spent a lot of money terminating his parental rights because he wasn’t cooperating. He was happy to interfere just enough to slow the adoption down but not enough to actually get involved (i.e. show up at court or even answer the phone). He never stated anything about wanting Sam by the way. There never really was a chance of him getting him. If Sam hadn't been adopted by us or another family he would have become a permanent ward of the state. Before the adoption was finalized the adoption agency counseled that we have no contact with him whatsoever. He’s kind of a scary guy so I’m not sure I want any contact with him. I would like to know for sure whether he is Sam’s birthfather though for several reasons most predominant of which is that Sam’s going to want to know and I want to be able to tell him.

I have this man's last known address, his grandmother’s house, so conceivably if I sent something there it would eventually make it’s way to her. I don’t want him to have our address though (although if he is Sam's birthfather I wouldn't be adverse to letting him know about this great little boy). I need to look into maybe renting a PO Box. I don’t know if he’d write back. I don’t know how long I’d have to keep the PO Box. Perhaps I should write him through the adoption agency. I don’t know if they’d help or if have to pay for that kind of help. Lots of I don’t knows. It makes it easier to procrastinate. The longer I procrastinate though the greater the likelihood that I will lose this man who right now is just a name and the nasty things we’ve been told.

I am so dreading the questions that will come from Sam on his birthfamily. They are going to be VERY tough to answer. In this case I wish I knew less because “I don’t know” would be the easy answer. But I do know, and because of that I need to know more. It's all very depressing.

Wanna know a secret?

I don’t miss my husband.

Okay I do miss him but not in the way I expected to miss him. I miss his company, not his help. I was thinking this morning as I walked into work that this is not at all as hard as I thought being alone was going to be. I’m quite competent and kind of enjoying the simplicity of doing things on my own – my way.

Now I’ve cut some corners in the past few days but not that many. I actually had to edit this paragraph because I was listing the corners that I was cutting and I could only really come up with one thing. They’ve eaten (for some strange reason) a lot of hot dogs. Oh and I haven’t put the laundry away – I just keeping moving it back and forth from the big chair in my bedroom to the bed and back again. Last night, (at midnight!) I at least folded a bunch of it.

The kids have had their normal number of baths and showers. I’ve been grocery shopping with them. They’ve had a playdate that included dinner – hotdogs! They’ve been to a picnic – more hot dogs! Tonight, if it doesn’t rain I’m going to take them to this new and wonderful park that the Kiwanis Club has built a short drive from our house. We will have something for dinner that isn’t composed of spare beef bits grinded up. The house (except to the laundry, hidden in my bedroom since the playdate on Friday (when I moved it from the couch in the playroom lol) is neat and picked up. I’ve ordered a new chandelier for the dinning room that I haven’t even mentioned to Daniel (it was on sale and there were only a “limited number” (fifty-six) available so I had to act fast lol).

It’s just so much easier to say wash the dishes when I know I’m the one who dirtied them. I feel responsible for making sure they get washed immediately. I get my dérrière out of bed in the morning to get everyone washed and fed because there isn’t anyone else to do it. It’s much easier to pull up your socks when you know that if you don’t then your ankles will just get cold – no one else is going to do anything about it. I feel less guilty when I hop on to the computer after the kids have gone to bed instead of spending “quality time” gazing at the TV and drooling next to Daniel on the couch.

Okay sleep isn’t going well at all – for me though, not the kids. They are sleeping fine. I haven’t managed to close my eyes much before 1 am yet. I hate sleeping alone. Last night was the best but that’s because the exhaustion is catching up on me. Tonight will hopefully be easier still and tomorrow, late, he will be home. Got to get the laundry away.

The kids seem to be doing fine as well. They ask about Daniel but more in a matter of fact, accepting way and MUCH less than I thought they would. I have told them both that Daniel is on vacation visiting his “Maman and Papa.” Kamryn gets this and asked me this morning how much longer we were going to wait for him (like we were sitting pining by the window lol). :) Sam seems to equate the word “vacation” with his grandparents (who were on vacation for the better part of this summer) and golf (also a grandparent thing) so he thinks his dad is out playing a very long game of golf I guess. Lol They’re doing fine but will be thrilled to see their father on Wednesday morning.

So we are all holding it together. I think much longer than a week and what would get to me would be the loneliness. Competency is fine. Having time to do what I want to do instead of lining things up with Daniel – nice, but when the kids go down it is AWFUL quiet in the house. I couldn’t handle much more the 6 days of it I think. That and while it’s Monday morning I can’t say I feel particularly rested. I feel like I spent ALL weekend running - hard. Every joint and muscle in my body is actually sore. I think I’m actually a little exhausted and it’s only been 5 days. Egads. I am spoiled.

My Sunday at the beach (not really a day at the beach)

I'm so punny. :) lol

I've always been of the mind that at 2 discipline is pretty hit and miss. You try to discipline because well you can't let your kids run wild (or can you?). Anyway you do your best and just hope. I expect that everything I say remains in Sam's little head for about 2.3 minutes - about the length of a time-out. I am sooooo wrong about that.

Yesterday, I took Kamryn and Same to a big family picnic that friends of my parents hold every year. It was VERY close to home. My plan had been to take the kids in the morning and let them play, feed them lunch at the picnic and then run them home for naps around 2. That meant pushing nap time for Sam by just a little (on a normal morning where he hasn't been playing hard he goes down around 1:30).

So at around 1:00 I sat them down to give them lunch. My four year old sits down happily to eat. The moment Sam sees her get food, he starts to freak out that he wants some to. Okay give me a sec kid I have yours all ready I just got Kamryn set up first because she's easier. I take him by the hand and lead him to the other side of the picnic table. Sit him down and give him his little styrofoam plate of cut up hot-dog and bread. I got back around the other side to open up the cooler and get them their milk. In the cooler were juice boxes. I very rarely let my kids have juice - no better than liquid candy. Special occasions (like picnics in the park) are the rule. We don't even buy juice at home. Earlier I had given them both a juice box with their snack. He knows the juice is in the cooler and IMMEDIATELY refuses to eat and demands juice. I told him there was no juice for him and to eat his lunch and that I had milk for him. He looks me in the face, scowls and sweeps his hand rapidly across the table, flinging his food to the dirt below.

I, calmly, (quite proud of myself here - nothing like having a battle of wills with a two-year old in front of at least 30 people who knew you when you were two-years old!) asked my mother if she would keep my Kamryn for the afternoon - why should she have to leave the picnic early because he brother was in a snit - left instructions on the food in the cooler that Kamryn could have. Picked Sam up and left - all within 3 minutes. The entire time he is screaming at the top of his little lungs and as highly pitched as possible "manger picnic" (eat picnic). I walked to the car - he is screaming. I strap him in - he is screaming. I drive home (5 minutes) he is screaming. I even stopped along the way to give my parking pass to a shocked family that was just arriving - he is screaming. I unstrap him - he is screaming. I carried him upstairs and changed his diaper. Screaming. Put him in his crib screaming. The same phrase over and over and over again - "manger picnic." He is screaming this desperate, high pitched, "you will listen to me or else" way. I never said a word to him after my initial calm reproach that his behaviour was unacceptable. I closed the door and walked downstairs, screaming STOPPED -- like someone turned a switch. I waited 3 minutes and went back upstairs and he was sound asleep. Exhaustion is ALWAYS a bad deal with Sam. He's not giving up naps anytime soon. He slept for exactly 3 hours.

When he got up I changed him, fed him and put him in the car to go back to the picnic. We get about half way there and he keeps saying "ecouter" (listen). So I finally asked "ecouter what" Sam. He says to his stunned mother: "Ecouter Maman. Ecouter Granddad. Ecouter Grandma. Ecouter Kamryn" I laughed at the last one and told him he didn't have to listen to his sister. He went on. "Manger. Pas dégât" (Eat no mess). "Picnic."

Lordy - 4 hours later. He remembered why we had left. He understood the consequences. I never thought it possible.