10 Months with Sleeping "Bootie"

This week was the 10 month anniversary of Gotcha day in China. I can't believe 10 months have already gone by. I've been trying to take a photo each month on the 24th so that at a year, I can see how she's grown. Here's this months:






I'm in awe at how she has handled what she's been dealt. I'd be a puddle of goo if I had to endure all the changes she's had to endure in the just three and a half years. And she's so aware of the life she had and the one she has now. The other night we were talking about how she was so sad at Gotcha. She said, "I not sad anymore. I love my mama. You. You different in china - Lulu was scared. I cried a lot. You not different anymore mom. I love you really, really really lot." Yeah, that can make your day. Of course the next day, she said, "I done with China!" That of course, makes me sad. I want her to want to be here, but I don't want her to dislike China. Right now, she talks a lot about China in a good way, but if unfamiliar people talk too much about it, she becomes visibly uncomfortable. My parents took her to church (pic below) last week and an Asian woman offered her a donut after the service - "No! Never!" she yelled. She does NOT like unfamiliar Asian people. She'll talk with asian parents of kids at school fine, but new Asian looking people, I think, make her nervous that she's going back. I've had her now, just as long as her foster parents had her, and I'm sure she often wonders if these new Asian people will be taking her back or to a new home. A lot of baggage adopted kids come with, a lot...

So, Disneyland is on the horizon and halloweek not far behind, so as I zipped down the aisle at Target, the Disney princess dresses caught my eye. Well, I touched one and Lulu saw me and her eyes widened. Princess!!!!! So we came home with a frilly, fluffy, pink sleeping "booty" dress. And just so you know that she's not all princess, I offered to buy her a halloween t-shirt and with all the adorable girly ones she picks a boys all black long sleeve one with a creepy white image: "little vampire motorcycle club." My girl is definitely a study in contrasts.










Lulu also took a trip with my parents to meet a wealthy older couple my dad does some work for. I didn't go, but my parents said she was delightful. She shook their hands and said, "nice to meet you," and then charmed the cookies out of them like she'd been doing these social kind of events all her life. Sitting on a swanky setee, during a lull in the conversation, she announced, "you know, I'm from China..." Which caught everyone off guard, but was evidently hysterical if you were there. She went on to explain about how she'd had surgery on her palate and has shiny new teeth.

Oh my god, Lulu has discovered polly pockets. She got a small set for Christmas, but didn't enjoy it much because she was frustrated by the tiny pieces. But the little box filtered up in the toy bins and she's obsessed, and yeah, hurray for mama, she can put all of the pieces on herself. Oh and I can actually get things done while she dresses and undresses the dolls with those tiny pieces of vinyl. My favorite so far was when I asked her what the names were, she of course answered, "this one is polly pocket, this one is polly pocket, this one, etc...," but when I asked if they had other names, she said "this one is Aavia, this one is Ayanna, this one Azaria (friends from school) and then came a naked one, save for the purple painted on bikini, and she examined it closely and said, "this one is grandpa." Okay, I got to talk to my dad about this one! LOL

Well, that's about it for now. Hope all's well with everyone in cyberspace!

Lulu Tidbits

Well, I'm back here before a month has passed. I thought I'd toss out some tidbits about my girl...

She started year two at her preschool - officially now in the ladybug class. New classroom, new cubby, proud girl. She just had to go to school in all ladybug attire - shirt, pants, socks, etc. She's one proud insect.

We were at a Burger King and there was a mom there with her two daughters. A California Highway Patrolman and father to the girls stopped in to eat with them. He was decked out in his CHP attire and Lulu looked up at him and told me, "Wow, that man has power." Surprised, I ask her where she learned that concept. "S-chool" (yes, it's always a two syllable word). "Look, see, he have a power in his pocket" then makes the pointer finger gun with her hand and says, "pow, pow, pow, like the power rangers." Oy. The stuff she gets from school..

We sent a package off this morning to Lulu's foster family. I included a lot of photos, a box of Sees candy, a talking picture frame where I was able to record Lulu singing and saying 'Nihao" to her mama and baba and baby Meili. I wish she would have hung onto her Chinese. She dropped it like a hot potato as soon as I got her and still gets nervous if she hears too much of it. I hope someday, that she'll want to learn it again. We also sent a ton of Lulu pictures for them to see how she's doing in her new life. They are the most amazing family. Lulu was so lucky to have them. We also sent a little dress to Lulu's beloved baby sister Mei Li. I hope to find her on a waiting child list sometime in the future - if not to adopt her myself, to at least let Lulu have contact with the little one she loves so much. So if any of you see a Yang Mai Li (or maybe Mao Li, or Mei Li or something similar - I'm going on Lulu's word here) born in Guilin, Guangxi, 12-20-04, SN-cleft lip and palate, probably both repaired, let me know! That would be incredibly cool.




Pics above are from last weekend's jaunt down to see cousin Brian. Had oodles of fun on the slip and slide!

Finally have decided on a vacation destination. With a three and a half year old in the house, where else would it be other than Disneyland. Oh there is one excited girl around here. The Disneyland sing along tape is going to wear out before we go, I'm sure. Every morning she wakes up and asks if we are going to Disneyland. It's going to be a long month before we go!

I'm having problems loading photos to blogger, so hopefully I can add them tomorrow. See ya later...

The Travel Game

Well, not 24 hours later here I am again. I finally actually put up four auctions for my homemade travel game yesterday. I've got some sort of bug and was feverish all day. Joy of joys. Maybe not the best day to create text for an online auction, but I didn't have much energy to do anything else. Anyway, the game is simple and fun and can has a number of ways to modify play based on the number of kids traveling, age, etc. So, if you're off on a road trip with the munchkins before school starts come take a peek. This game has been a lifesaver to me in the past!

I've got two unisex versions up:
Fun Travel Game

Fun Travel Game

And one boy and one girl one (boy sets are more likely to have bugs or vehicles, girl sets dolls or rings, etc.)

Fun Travel Game for Girls

Fun Travel Game for Boys

Shiny Teeth, Ladybugs, Games, Mei Meis and a Portuguese Chinese girl

So here I am again, apologizing for not blogging more regularly. I'm envious and awed by those of you who post daily. My goal is to blog more than once a month. Well, enough of that. I'll try to do better.

The biggest event since last posting has been Lulu's second surgery since coming home. Technically, it was dental, but it had to be done at UCSF because of the extent of the decay in her mouth. In short, Lulu likely never saw a toothbrush during her time in China. That, it conjunction with a less than ideal amount of nutrition in her early days, has lead to the state of her mouth. If you're grossed out by open mouth shots, look away now...




By the way, ever since Lulu had her first visit to the craniofacial clinic and they took shots of her mouth, she has loved to take this kind of photo. And she loves to take them of me. I have at least fifty open mouth and up the nostril shots of me on my digital camera. I'll spare you from seeing those!

Lulu's upper molars had the worst decay, but I couldn't get enough light to really show what was going on.

Our local pediatric dentist gave me a two page list of all that needed to happen - spacers, root canals, crowns, caps, pretty much everything and the kitchen sink. The amount of work necessitated doing the work under general anesthesia. Normally, they do provide this service in the office, but because of Lulu's cleft palate -even though it is repaired - she will continue to have a compromised airway and putting her under in a non-hospital setting was not recommended. In fact, they wouldn't do it and I totally understand. So, that's how we got to UCSF.

I didn't get to spend as much time preparing Lulu for this surgery as I did for palate surgery in May. But she's so adaptable and ready to take on anything, it didn't really matter. We traveled up on Thursday the 27th and she had her prepare appointment and got another set of doctor's stuff (mask, gloves, surgical cap, oxygen mask) which she wielded like a pro. She was set for a 7:30 am surgery so we had to be there at 6:30 am. She could hardly wait. That pic up at the top is her at about 5:45 am that morning asking if it was time to go to the hospital yet.

So the surgery itself went well, but was long. I had been told it would take two hours and it was nearly four. Ugh. I had mentioned the trouble Lulu had coming out of anesthesia during her palate surgery, so they gave her a mild sedative to ease her waking. Brilliant move. Lulu woke up in recovery, took a peek around, saw me, and napped on and off, quite peacefully for the next hour or so. Outpatient surgery is weird though. One minute, your kid has every tube and monitor known to man attached to them, and the next the nurse is saying, okay, put her shoes and sox on, you can go. So, I did just that, walked out of recovery and to the parking lot we went.


So, the chipped and pretty much dead tooth got a shiny silver cap. As did just about all her molars. She took one look in her mouth and was so proud of her shiny teeth. "All better!" she exclaimed. Her teeth were a little sore, but she was eating potatoes and eggs just a few hours later. So, she looks great, feels fine, and all that work is going to start falling out naturally in a couple of years. C'est la vie!

So, here's the after shots:




Elsewhere on the homefront, Lulu starts her new school year on Monday. She'll officially be in the "Ladybug" class. They arrange the preschool into three groups: Butterflies, Ladybugs and Busy Bees depending on when you're slated to start kindergarten. Lulu joined the Butterfly class of mostly 2-3 year olds two weeks after coming home. This is a pic of her last day of Butterflydom. She wasn't a happy camper that day, not because of the changeover, but because she vetoed on her decision to wear the dirty yellow sweatshirt from the previous day. She misses her kindergarten cut off day by a handful of days, but that's probably for the best. She'll be a kindergartener in the fall of 2008. Could she have handled it in the fall of 2007, I honestly think so, but what the heck for? School starts so early here, (early August) that she'd be barely 4.5 and not turn five until December. She'll also be starting speech therapy soon as the district will be back in session. That will be good for her. I understand about 90 percent of what she says, most others I would guess would get about 50 percent of what she says. As her vocabulary has exploded over the last few months it has also made it difficult to distinguish which word she's saying.

Me: Truck or trunk?
Lulu: Truck.
Me: Oh, truck.
Lulu: NO, TRUCK! Like elephant nose or on back of the car where you put stuff - TRUCK!
Me: Oh, trunk.
Lulu: (with eyes rolling) "Yeah Mom.

Okay, looking forward to speech therapy here!

And one of the things Lulu is talking about all the time of late is going to China to get a mei mei (Chinese for baby sister). I have every intention of doing this again. I don't dig the only child thing. I don't have any problem with it for others, I know lots of happy, well-adjusted only children, but of all relationships in your life, the sibling relationship is the longest and most enduring. I wouldn't trade my sister for anything. Plus, as I'm sure identity issues will arise in the future, I'd like Lulu to not be the only Chinese girl in the family. Could I do more for one than I could do for two? Probably. No way in the world can I envision paying for college for two (probably not even for one, LOL) but I figure if they want it bad enough, they'll find a way to do it. I somehow got myself a BA and an MA on my own. I see the determination of my little one and know that she could too. And as far as little ones go, I'm so in love with another three year old girl on my agency's waiting child list. She looks like Lulu right down to the look of her cleft. She's only only five months younger than Lulu, but she's luscious in every way. Oh it makes me wish I was independently wealthy. I do have to wait until Lulu's in kindergarten, because at $600 a month for preschool, two would put me in the poor house in no time at all. All this talk about mei meis though has made me start thinking about ways of financing adoption number two. I have a very simple little travel game I've put together for friends for and kids I know for years. I'm going to stick a few up on ebay to see if there's any interest. If so, maybe dear daughter number two doesn't have to wait for two more years. Anyway, we'll see. So, speaking of games...

Lulu has discovered board games. More so the girl is my child. My sister and I had more games as kids than we had hairs on our heads. Love em and so glad Lulu does too. Here are the links to some of her favorites:

Cariboo is a great treasure hunting game, too easy for Lulu, but she loves it still the same - here's the link if your interested:
Cariboo

Hullaballoo is wonderful. Something sort of between a cake walk and twister. Great, great, great for preschoolers:
Hullabaloo


We've also recently discovered Guess Who, which is a little hard for her (ages six and up) but she's quickly becoming an expert: Guess Who


And this new game, which I've seen played and have purchased -hopefully to be saved until Christmas if I can hold out:
The Touch Game

And lastly, we went to a Portuguese festa a few weeks ago. These are big celebrations I had to be dragged to as a kid. Think "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and you sort of get the picture. Parades, food, festivities and lots of loud talking Azorian Portagees. There was a local one and my parents asked if Lulu and I wanted to go. Lulu of course jumped at the idea. She loved it. I swear to god this kid has more Portuguese blood flowing through her veins than I do and I'm a pureblood. And she willingly wore a dress. Had to take a picture of that one!

Ta ta for now and I hope to post within the month!