Thankful

A belated, one day late, Happy Thanksgiving to all. We had a lovely day and celebrated with friends. Good food, good friends and good times. Ainsley and Sofie actually painted coffee mugs for both Jim and I for thanksgiving. They are too cute....so are the mugs :)

It has been a very thoughtful, reflective week for me. A time to take stock of our lives and realize all that you have to be thankful for. I didn't even know where to begin, I have so much to be thankful for. Family, two beautiful daughters, health and wonderful friends in all aspects of our life. I have great friends who lift me up when I start feeling overwhelmed, a wonderful husband who always pitches in and tries to help out however he can. I have also met a group of adoptive Mom's from this area and we have started trying to get together once a month. No kids, just Mom's. It was wonderful to sit down in a room with people who have been there done that. Very uplifting! The wine and snacks were good too!

I finally sat down and looked through Sofie's memory book again, the one that the orphanage gave us. It was a very emotional trip down memory lane. For the first time, I also showed it to Sofie. I hadn't showed her yet as I wasn't too sure how she would do seeing pictures of herself with her lip unrepaired. A little voice inside my head always told me to wait until she was better able to express her emotions verbally. And express them she did. She did not like the pictures at all! We talked for a while about how her owie was fixed now and eventually she calmed down. She was fascinated looking at herself as a baby. She has seen pictures of Ainsley as a baby and now pictures of herself as a baby. In the book were also lots of pictures of her nanny. I think about her all the time. Sofie seems to hold such adoration for her. She loved her girls like they were her own. I could tell that by the look on her face at the orphanage when Sofie said goodbye. Two of her little ones were adopted within a week of each other. The heartache on her face was unfathomable. My friend has a picture of the nanny holding Sofie, saying goodbye to her other little one the week before we got there. Sofie is just staring at her nanny with a serious look of concern and caring on her face. This picture is ingrained in my brain. I love this woman for looking after our little peanut and for teaching her how to love and be loved. I wish I could call her or see her and tell her that. I hope she knows that Sofie is doing well. I have sent her pictures and letters but I have no idea if she has received them.

Yesterday marks two years since we saw a picture of Lu Jing Jing for the very first time. The very first time we were able to gaze at the face of our youngest daughter. The very first time I was able to show Ainsley a picture of her sister. After 3 years of wondering, it was a surreal experience. Ainsley very much travelled through the ups and downs of adoption with us for 3 years. As much as you try to shelter your child from the gory details, they are so smart and intelligent and pick up on so much. To be able to show Ainsley a picture of her actual real soon to be sister was a moment I will never forget! Tomorrow also marks the 2 year anniversary of when we officially told the Chinese government that we would like to proceed and adopt Lu Jing Jing. That was also the day when the huge emotion of seeing our child was replaced with the urgent and unending need to get on a plane and go get my daughter NOW! Oh such fond memories of the roller coaster that we rode on our path to Sofie.

It has been two years since we first saw this little face. Two years, and look where they are now :)

Holland, not Italy

A couple of friends have shared this article with me. I absolutely love it. Sometimes as adoptive parents we are afraid to say that this is really hard. Raising a child with any kind of a medical condition is hard. It is a lot of appointments, sometimes a lot of surgeries, a lot of patience and a lot of work. Yet we are afraid to say those words out loud. I don't know if we are afraid of the day that someone says "tough, you decided to adopt. You knew what you were getting into. Deal with it." I don't know if we feel that we don't have the right to complain. All I know is that it is hard to utter those words so instead we have a stiff upper lip and just muddle through it. I can't imagine what all the adoptive parents did who came before me and didn't have the internet and long distance friends to help hold them up. I commend them for making it through the tough times. 

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by
Emily Perl Kingsley.

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Halloween has come and gone

Ainsley went to a birthday party yesterday at a friends house. Sofie and I went to go pick her up and the end of a party and I was talking to the Mom who hosted the party. Sofie was doing her usual come on lets go this thing is over talk. She doesn't like it when I sit around and chat. She is all business! We were heading out the door and the Mom turned to me and said "it is good that we have such strong willed girls (referring to her daughter, Ainsley and Sofie). They will grow up and be just fine. It will be a good trait later in life as long as we don't kick them out first :)" I loved her honesty. I felt like I had been let into the secret club where mom's are honest and not perfect with the perfect family and perfect kids. I wish more mom's were like that. I wish someone would come up to us while Sofie is having a total melt down in public and comment on her how pretty her shoes are! Something to distract her. Instead people give you the LOOK! Poor Mom just can't handle her kids. Ainsley never had a melt down in public. She waited till we got home, then she had tons of them. This is a new area for me and I am still trying to figure out how to grab the child, my purse and whatever else I am carrying and make a quick exit. So, if you see a mom having a hard time with a strong willed child, don't give the mom the LOOK. Don't give her advice. DO distract the child somehow. The mom will be eternally grateful. Think of it as your good deed of the day.....pay it forward :)

Halloween was a blast this year. Not as many kids out as last year, hence, the large candy donation I made at work this year. Share the calories! Sofie totally got it this year. She was raring to go and didn't want to stop. She had a potty accident toward the end of the evening and had to come home. She went and changed into her night time pull up and jammies and then proceeded to head out the front door by herself! I asked where she thought she was going. She pointed out the front door and said "candy" insert goofy smile here. I said no it was bedtime and temper tantrum #1 ensued as Ainsley was still outside trick or treating and Sofie was not. I swear Sofie is a much older child stuck in a little kids body :)

Ainsley had a blast too! She loved her costume and was floating around on a sugar high all night. The weekend before Halloween, all the grown ups were actually going to go to a Halloween party downtown but our nanny got sick so we ended up staying home and had a family party with our neighbors.  We all dressed up in our costumes and had dinner, carved pumpkins and bobbed for apples. Earlier in the day, Ainsley, my girlfriend and her son and I all ran in the Monster Dash 5K. Both kids did super and finished the race right along side of us. The only difference was they weren't gasping for air at the end :)

I have posted a link to some pictures from Halloween.

https://ainsleyandsofie.shutterfly.com/pictures/197

I sometimes wonder if my posts get a little melancholy or whiney sometimes. I can't help it. The happy fun stuff is easy to write about. The tough stuff is the stuff I need to write about. It helps me work things out and I am not good at just stuffing my emotions away. I wear them out on my sleeve for all the world to see and experience. Ainsley is a lot like me. The blog is a way for me to work through things so they don't eat me alive. It is also kinda selfish too. I can vent away and I don't have to listen to anyone's advice. People in general are not good listeners. They feel like when you are talking to them about a problem, they need to come up with a solution for you when there really isn't one. You just wanted someone to listen. You guys are my listeners :)

Last Tuesday Sofie had speech therapy and then an appointment in Audiology so took her to school after and then stayed to observe her class. It was her deaf/hard of hearing class. It was an eye opening experience for all. Apparently she is very well behaved and participates in everything at school and is a good listener, until Mom shows up. Her teacher was amazed at the difference. I think it gave them a better insight into Sofie. Sofie's DH/H class consists of three kids, Sofie and two other kiddos, one has an external Baha hearing device and the other little girl is adopted from China and has a repaired cleft and an external Baha. She is the same age as Sofie. I really try not to compare Sofie to other children as she has had so many different experiences than most kids her age. These two little girls are so alike and then so different. The other little girl was adopted at a much younger age. I am starting to realize how important it was that Sofie was not able to properly hear people talking during the time when babies absorb hearing language. We always try to remain positive with her progress. Any small step in speech for Sofie is monumental. We have been trying to work on the T sound at speech. She has a very hard time with it and has gotten very frustrated with it. She won't even try now so we moved onto a new sound. The other day she came home from daycare and she walked up to me and said clear as day "butt" complete with the T at the end. She said it over and over again. What do you do. We now practice T by saying butt. You pick your battles. I left her school feeling like I had been hit by a ton of bricks. She is miles behind the other kids, miles behind the other little girl. I knew she was behind, but, it just hit home how far behind she is. I pray that she will suddenly blossom and start speaking clearly and never stop. Right now, it is very small steps. Part of me is very hopeful and part of me is very scared. Most of me is so very tired from all the running around that I don't have time to worry about it.

Our lives are so full of so much joy. It is amazing to watch Sofie and Ainsley together. It's as if Sofie has always been here and she and Ainsley have always been together. Some days are just a little tougher than others :)