Adjustment issues

On Tuesday we went to our monthly FCC meeting. There was an attachment therapist there who gave us waiting parents (and a few already back folk) some great advice on dealing with attachment. Alot of this I have heard before, but it doesn't hurt to hear it over and over again. For instance, as much as we want our family and friends to be able to hold and hug and kiss on the Empress, this is a huge no no. The biggest piece of advice she could give is don't take any advice from people who only are parents to bio kids. How you raise bio kids and adopted kids is a 180 degree difference. I am already getting the deer in the headlight look when I tell friends and family that the Empress will be sleeping either in our bed or in our room for at least the first year. This goes against everything a bio child should do. Strollers are strongly advised against, they want her to be carried in a snuggli for as long as possible. No trips or vacations for the first year either, unless it's a quiet trip to see family and even then the babe needs to be within eyesight 100% of the time. Another must: limit stimulation-have very little toys around and keep the nursery-if you have one as she will be in our room-in minimalist style. Use red if you can, because that is the one color that is everywhere in China. So much for my pottery barn watermelon pink and lime green theme! The most interesting thing she should have is us.

Why all of these crazy rules you say? The first year she is home, we must recreate for her what the first year would have been like if she was ours biologically. She needs to become totally dependent on us. Even if she is 18 months when she comes home and can feed herself, we can't let her. I know alot of people looking outside in will think us FCC parents are over protective, too uptight, somewhat nutso, but these things must be done in order to have a healthy toddler and a healthy adult later on. The thinking is she must go through all of her stages, even when we have to start at stage one.

Some other interesting advice the therapist gave us:

- Practice alot of eye contact, usiing mirrors if she won't look directly at you

-Learn a few words in Chinese. While we are in China, she'll still have some familiar smells, tastes, ect...but once we get home, everything will be unfamiliar. Kinda like taking someone from Amish country and bringing them to Vegas by themselves. It would probably be frighteneing. If we speak some Chinese to her, she'll have something familiar to her.

-Exchange something of value for something the nanny or fostermom wore, so that she has that familiar scent around her.

-Buy a Chinese lullaby cd to play at night.

-when you hold her to rock her to sleep, cradle her in your arms so she can have that eye contact.

-Tell her that she had a story before she came in her forever home, she wasn't just adopted, she was born.

-One Mother's day, light a candle for fer birth mother. This will help deal with the grief she will always have.

One thing I was very happy about Tuesday was the new families that I met. We are no longer the last ones to get our baby. Two new couples have Oct 06 LID's, and they will travel after us. I am not trying to sound selfish here, it'll just be nice to have people before and after us!

Comic Relief

Did you see in the daily comic page that Marvin has a new little sister? Just adopted from China. Love it! Check more of her out here ! Her name is Ming Ming. Kinda sounds like a panda's name, but still....

Lucky

Although I really would love to see a few leaves change color or some snow on the ground, I am so happy to live in the Sunshine state. Friday we met some friends who were in town from Michigan. They went scuba diving that morning and caught twentysome lobsters and a giant grouper. We reaped their rewards and stuffed our bellies with the delicious crustaceans and fish fillets that evening. Tonight some friends from college invited us over to join them in enjoying a fresh caught dolphin they caught off of a drift boat earlier in the day (is that a run-off sentence, sorry Professor Rose). One day D and I are going to live in the Keys (where I grew up) and live like the song "Tin Cup Chalice" by Jimmy Buffett. My favorite line is "Give my oysters and beer, for dinner everyday of the year, and I'll feel fine".

On another note, just want to say congrats to Cyndi and Jon & Fernando and Neal on their beautiful new two week old babies! Lily and Sebastian are so stinkin' cute! Remember a few months ago when I whined, I mean wrote about how everyone I knew was pregnant. Well, now everyone I know has a newborn. Well, almost everyone. My sis in law is having the twins anyday now, and then seriously, everyone I know will have a newborn, or newborns. But that's ok, I don't have to get up every 3 hours right now, so it's a very very very small consolation for me. I do love my sleep-and my seafood. Good night-going to go dream of Amelie. And swordfish in a lemon buerre blanc sauce.

I broke down...

Oh boy. I said I wouldn't. I promised myself "not til we are out of the review room", but...I did it. I bought the Empress some too-cute-to-be-passed-up-plus-they-were-on-the-sale-rack clothes. Ok, I will try to be good from here on it, seeing that we have another two years, but it's going to be so hard. I almost bought her a winter outfit today-but there is two problems with that-we live in Florida(it's 86 here today) and I haven't a clue how big she will be her first Christmas here. We'll be off to Park City in three weeks, I may come back with a 2T ski outfit. I just may!

Another possible hold-up?

A couple of agencies are now confirming that if you are asked questions in the review room your dossier will be batched with whatever month is in the review room for your agency at the time that all questions are resolved. Right now they are reviewing Feb-April 2006. So, anytime between now and January, we can be called by our agency and asked to clarify some things. David was not able to get his birth certificate certified and authenticated in Colombia. We sent it along with a letter of explanation with our fingers, toes and every other body part crossed that they would accept it as is. If the CCAA won't move our file forward without it, David will have to trek back down to South America. That could take weeks or even months to do. I know, I am just working myself up into a tizzy as usual, but if that does happen, our file will no longer have an April LID date. It could be much much later, and as you know, they take 2-3 months to get though each LID month. In other words, if we are pushed back with the June LID files, it could mean an additional 4-6 months of waiting. Keep your happy thoughts on us so that they have NO QUESTIONS! I really need some part of these to go smoothly!

Material girl

I have to say, alot of people are giving Madonna critism on what appeared to be a spur of the moment decision to adopt from Africa. This is fact, not actually the case. According to Madonna, she actually was in the process of adopting for years and said it was the hardest thing she has ever been through (Amen, sista). She just did not publicize her desire to adopt, and really, who blames her? I love her response to a stupid question regarding the adoption in Time magazine:

"And by the way, say I did cut the queue? Say I did cheat and not have to wait two years to adopt a child? Well good for me! Do you know how many children are going to die in the next two years? It's a stupid law. Change the law."

I totally agree. I mean, I know they have to do background checks, doctors visits, ect on all of us waiting parents, but waiting more than a year for an orphan from any country is just wrong, especially for the children. See my previous post, which made me tear up while I was writing it. I haven't been a fan of her music since I myself was wearing leg warmers watching Family Ties and the Facts of Life, but you have to give this lady some respect.

Missing the good stuff

Today my friend Cynthia stopped by with her precious two week old baby girl Lily Anna. I got to hold her for a little while and smell that sweet newborn baby hair and watch her teeny face wrinkle up as she dreamed her innocent dreams. As I looked down at her, I was sad for a moment. You see, Amelie will be anywhere from 9-18 months when we meet her. Sure, I am a little sad for David and I that we won't have the chance to have a newborn in our arms to call our own, but I am more sad for Amelie. She will have 9 or 12 or 15 or 18 months with no one to comfort her cries in the middle of the night, no one to kiss her boo boo's when she falls down, no one to take seious note of her first crawl or first step. Yes, she will have nannies to witness some of her first's, but no one will jot down the dates of these first's in a baby book. No one will take pictures of her firsts and frame them on the fridge or on the dresser. I know she will be loved by the nannies at the orphanage, but she just won't have all of the love and attention a baby needs and deserves that first year of her life. We'll just have to somehow make up for at all when she is home, safe with her forever mom and dad.

Whew

Ok, I just want to say a big fat congrats to all of those August 9-25 LID'ers who got their referral today. The CCAA really had everyone on the edge of their seat not letting on as to when they were going to give out referrals. Even though they were a week late giving out referrals, they did 15% more than the usually do. This is a great sign. I hope they can continue to speed up. I hate to keep whining, but I just don't want to imagine waiting until the end of 2008 to meet Amelie! I miss my girl already. Is it possible to miss someone you have never met?

How to make 10,000 waiting families jump off a bridge

Ok, so the CCAA has not referred any babies to any families in the entire month of October. No word out of China as to why this is happening. No travel approval for families that have their referrals either. I can't even imagine what the people who were expecting referrals are feeling right now!

Rita Hayworth gave good face...vogue

What's up with the cheesey Vogue lyrics in the subject line? Saturday night we attended the first annual Dead Celebrities Ball at our dear friend Heather and Danny's home. I was, you guessed it, Rita Hayworth. Hubbins was Bruce Lee, although he kinda looked like a monk with his hair the way it was. The costume's were amazing, I won't describe everything, but a picture is worth 1000 words, so here are a few. Congrats to our friends Ana and Ron (friends who are also adopting or FWAAA-ha, ha) won best couple's costume, they were the Crocodile hunter and the stingray. Danny, the host got voted best male-he was Christopher Reeves, first as Clark Kent, then changed into Superman, but had a wheelchair and ventalator to boot. It was so wrong, but so very funny. My best friend from high school, whom I have seen twice since then 15 years ago also came. I think she had a very good time, but I think I broke her. Poor thing was not feeling so well the next day! Gotta run, lots of work to catch up with today and I am suppossed to be working right now, but a girl's gotta prioritize!

Today's episode is brought to you by the number 6

Today marks the 6th month anniversary of our Log In Date. When we started in Oct of last year with our paperwork, the referral date was 7 months after the LID. Ha, ha, ha. How times have changed. It's frustrating to think if we would have started our paperwork just 6 months earlier, we would be on our way. Now, we have to wait another 18-24 months. Trying to find the silver lining in this. We have decided to forgo all nursery decorating for at least another year. The closet in her room is still shut tight, I can't look at her clothes. I know several people in my April LID group that are done with their nursery's. I just can't imagine having it sit empty for what seems like an eternity, but I guess everyone deals with this in a different way. Here's to hoping and praying things speed up before I am too old to be a new mom!

Adventures in Babysitting-the sequel

A week ago I received an e-mail from Wendy and Ed, who got back a month ago from China to adopt their baby girl Samantha. They asked if we could watch Sammi for a few hours this afternoon. They sent this e-mail to David and I, as well as two other "waiting families" Ana and Ron & Kim and Todd. Well, they should have know that since we are all living vicariously through their lives as parents of an adorable little girl from China that we would all say "pick me, pick me!". I did in fact, respond in that exact manner. So, instead of choosing one couple to do the task, we all went over to watch the bambina. Well, Ron had last minute final plans that involved no diaper changing, but we didn't let David and Todd in on that dirty little secret so that they would still tag along with us womenfolk. So that left us with 5 adults and 1 small child, and therefore there was no napping. At least not for the small child. My husband did fall asleep on the couch for a bit, but who could blame him with the awful Dolphins game that was on (that is another story, what are they now, 1-6, seriously...I am burning my cute little dolphins tank top, or at least peeling the logo off, I digress again) . For a much more amusing take on this day...click on Ana's blog...see Gigi's Page over on the right. I am too pooped to be ha ha funny tonight. After all, our day started with just D and I teaching Sunday School to 15 kids. I liked the afternoon adult/child ratio much better! I will leave you with a few pics of our day with little miss Sunshine. She really is the best baby I have ever watched!

Need more assvice

Nope, this isn't about the adoption and how to keep myself from going nutso-but I have another factor in my life that may push me over the edge as well. My, make that Dave's; 12 year old cat, who has never scratched any furniture or done anything ill-behaved, has suddenly decided to start pissing and crapping on our couches. This morning was about the 6th or 7th time in the past two months. I don't know what brought it on, there is no new stresses for him to be concerned about, the dog is gone, no kids to taunt him (yet). Seriously, David is so lucky it's his cat, because if mine did that (and my perfect little Higgins would never ever do anything wrong), I would give him a new home. Under the wheel of my car. Any idea what a pain in the arse it is to remove the cushion covers, febreeze the crap out of the cushions, leave them in the sun, wash the covers 10 times and repeat twice a week? This is why I am a dog person, you can't exactly punish a cat like you can a dog and have them "get it". Not to mention the deep 8 inch scar on my thigh I have from trying to pick him up. Evil little creature. Yes, I know Ronnie, cat soup does sound like a good idea.

No sugar coating here

My lovely agency just sent out their bi-monthly newletter. For the first time (probably because of all the pressure us anxiety ridden parents are placing on them) they are being honest and up front about the timeframes. As you can see, based on our 04/24/06 LID, we are looking at an Oct 2008 referral and then traveling Dec 2008-Jan 2009. We started the process in July 2005. Once again, this wonderful, delightful, optimistic cheerful news makes me want to go down a lunch of chocolate, wine and prozac. Holy crimidy. And other not so nice pleasanties I can't write in case my church friends are reading. But believe me, I am cursing and throwing things as I write this. Anyone want to give me some assvice as to how to get back to my happy place?

August-08 LIDs: 3/31/2006 4/9/2006
September-08 LIDs: 4/10/2006 4/19/2006
October-08 LIDs: 4/22/2006 5/1/2006
November-08 LIDs: 5/2/2006 5/11/2006
December-08 LIDs: 5/12/2006 5/21/2006
January-09 LIDs: 5/24/2006 6/2/2006

Too much time on my hands

If you have a minute...check out this facial recognition website. I did a few pics and another less flattering one pulled up Bridgit Fonda and Jennifer Love Hewitt. I used to get told all the time that I look like Brigit Fonda. I'm not complaining, poor David had Sean Astin and George W Bush. Poor guy!

Warning: Joke in very bad taste to follow

My brother sent me this:

Q: How can you tell the difference between a Democrat and a Republican?

A: A Democrate uses bookmarks, while a Republican prefers his pages bent over.

Bad, I know. I actually tried to contact Foley's office to help me with out whole USCIS/I-171H mess. His office never got back to me. I should have sent David into Mr. Foley's office dressed as a school boy. We'd be in China by now. I wish I'd known then what I know now!

And speaking of Chinese culture

David and I went to the coolest Asian boutique yesterday. He bought a really great black "pajama" outfit and some numchucks(I can't spell and I am too lazy to use spellcheck). It has a big black dragon on the front. He is going as Bruce Lee for a "Dead Entertainers" Halloween party we are attending. I'll be Rita Hayworth, but I'll get into that after the event....

I tried on a few of the dresses in the store, just for shits and giggles. I thought I'd get one for the Chinese New Year and Harvest Moon festivals. Let me 'splain something to you Lucy, if you are ever feeling thin and want to change that thinking, go to one of these stores and try on the clothes. I kid you not, I was an XXL. I wanted to cry. A large is a size 2, a XL is a 4 and so on and so forth. Who are the small's made for, smurfs? Mediums are for the Nicole Ritchies of this world. Not to mention, they are made in the shape of a box. By the time I found a size to fit my booty, I could have taken a tire off of my car, put my body through the middle of it and sit it at my waist, and it would have fit around the middle. Maybe they would make good maternity clothes since the hips and waist are the same size. Anyone knows anyone who can sew? I'll have to have a handmade one! Guess the only shopping I will be doing in China is for pearls and jade, not that that is a bad thing!

Celebrations

I have many many fond memories of the holidays with my family from age two and up. I cannot wait until we start our own traditions with Amelie. In addition to Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter (and the all popular Groundhogs Day, ha, ha), we will have the opportunity to celebrate several Chinese holidays as well. Many FCC families feel strongly about incorporating Chinese culture into our children's lives, but not shove it down their their throats. It's a very delicate balance. We intend to introduce the Chinese Holidays to Amelie and gently encourage her to take Mandarin language classes. If she becomes more or less interested in all of these things, we will allow her to delve into them more, or steer away from them, whatever her choice is.

One of the big Chinese holidays that just passed is the Harvest Moon Festival. The Moon festival (also called the Mooncake or Mid-Autumn festival) falls on October 6 in the year 2006. What is the Moon festival? Every year on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, when the moon is at its maximum brightness for the entire year, the Chinese celebrate "zhong qiu jie." Children are told the story of the moon fairy living in a crystal palace, who comes out to dance on the moon's shadowed surface. The legend surrounding the "lady living in the moon" dates back to ancient times, to a day when ten suns appeared at once in the sky. The Emperor ordered a famous archer to shoot down the nine extra suns. Once the task was accomplished, Goddess of Western Heaven rewarded the archer with a pill that would make him immortal. However, his wife found the pill, took it, and was banished to the moon as a result.

Luckily for us, we don't have to try to create this festival by ourselves. The FCC community does a fantatic job recreating this event in Palm Beach County. I am very much looking forward to attending with our daughter!

Dave's blog

David started his very own blog. His is a little more heartfelt, a little less sarcastic and a not full of much-ado-about-nothings like this site! It's deep man. Hey-ya gotta have balance. Check it out! www.ouryangnu.com Like mine, except leave out the blogspot part

dog days

After another night of sneezing, itchy red eyes and a runny nose, we decided to let Henry to go another family this morning. A freind of the previous owner who has a few kids and a fenced in yard just lost their boxer to a car accident last week. We decided to give him to their family. I miss him and his big beautiful blue eyes, but he will be much happier there. After all that drama begging David for a dog. We are wheaten people anyhow, it'll happen again : (