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Boys are so different from girls...

Today was one of Charlie's days off and he was home with the kids. We had open house night at school and the kids got to see their new desks and we got to meet the teachers. The girls start school next Tuesday (Annie in 3rd grade and Bethany in 1st grade) and Jack starts kindergarten on Thursday. Because he only got a few months of kindergarten after coming home last year, and because he has a late birthday, we decided to have him do another year of kindergarten to give him as chance to catch up.

Annie has been refusing to sleep in her bed for some time now and prefers to sleep on a comforter on the floor (surrounded by piles of blankies and books). When we got home tonight, she went in the room and there was a big wet spot on the comforter. Maggie the dog (aka the Maggot) originally got the blame, but it eventually came out that it was actually Jack's doing.

He first tried to pass it off as something that happened in the middle of the night while he was sleepy but since the spot was not there this morning, that did not fly. He finally admitted that he decided to pee on Annie's comforter because he was mad at her! Oh my. I don't think the girls would have ever thought about doing anything along those lines. He had a nice long time out to think about it and now understands that he is at risk of having his Ultraman collection going away for a long stretch if something like this happens again.

Boys certainly add a whole new dimension to your life.

Afternoon on Cooper Mountain

On September 13th some friends and all five of us are doing a walk to benefit Pancreatic cancer, the awful disease that took the life of our friend Mike. The walk is going to be in a state park south of here. We've been trying get some practice in with the kids and today we went the Cooper Mountain Nature Park. It opened just this last June and has beautiful views and nice paths. It was a little warmer out than we'd thought so the whining started about halfway through the walk. Annie in particular hates hot weather. She comes from a hot and humid part of China but immediately became a true Pacific Northwesterner when she got here and loves the rain (like her mom).

Luckily the nice play park at the end of the trail helped restore the good moods and the day turned out to be a lot of fun.

Saturday, in the Park

We visited my parents today and took the kids to the park both my mom and myself played in when we were children. Here are a few pictures. I have a ton more pictures of the birthdays to go through, will post those soon!

Coat

Annie and Coat Last Weekend Annie and Coat when they first met


I have posted about Coat before, but as we come up on four years since Annie's been home, I think Coat deserves another post of his very own.

Guangzhou was hot and humid that November as we prepared to leave China with our newly-adopted daughter. Annie was four years old and we had fallen in love with her picture months earlier. The fears and doubts we had about becoming first time parents at the age of 47 vanished the moment we saw her in person. In that instant, three lives were irrevocably changed and we became a family forever.

We flew into a cold and rainy Pacific Northwest autumn. Our friend Laura was in the crowd waiting at the airport to meet us. She was cradling her own daughter, who had come home from China just a few months earlier. Laura had thoughtfully brought a jacket for Annie to wear into the chilly, wet weather. Annie, fresh off her first plane ride and thrust into a world full of sights and sounds, smells and words so very different from the orphanage she grew up in, latched onto that jacket as if it were a lifeline. It was light purple with a soft lining, pockets and a hood. Somehow that cute little girl’s jacket evolved into Coat--Annie's security blanket, a never-ending source of comfort and a friend who is always there when she needs him. She sleeps with Coat, he watches TV with her and snuggles with her while she reads. He is always with us, though he most often waits patiently in the car when we are out and about.

In the beginning, Annie wore Coat like, well, a coat. At the end of that first winter she was growing out of him. By that time, though, Coat had gone far beyond normal coathood and his importance has only increased over the years. He (and Coat is definitely a boy) goes everywhere with Annie. Coat has been to China twice, when we brought home first a little sister, then a little brother, for Annie. I was more afraid of losing Coat during our travels than I was of losing just about anything else. Passports, paperwork, money...all those things could be replaced. But not Coat.

Coat has had other adventures. He was once left in a little children's clothing store late on a Saturday afternoon. The store was closed on Sunday. I left desperate messages on their voice mail, but couldn't get a hold of anyone until Monday. We were waiting at doors when the store opened and Annie ran straight in to rescue Coat. Another time he accidentally stayed behind at my parents' house after a visit. They live about 50 miles from us. My Mom had to express mail him back to us the next day.

At first we washed Coat on a regular basis, but he has become a little too fragile for that now. His seams are coming apart, his purple is darkened by age and dirt and his very fabric is starting to deteriorate. Besides, there is his special Coat smell, developed over the years. It’s probably best not to think about what substances might be contributing to his aroma, since Coat is often dragged across floors, walked on and has had many things spilled on him. Annie sleeps with Coat close to her face and when she says goodbye to Coat in the morning, the last thing she does is give him a sniff.

Coat is a part of the family and we all watch out for him. He’s the first thing Annie reaches for when she wakes up in the morning. Should she somehow forget to bring him as we leave the house, her sister or brother will go find him and bring him to her. The other night he was nowhere to be found and all five of us went on a hunt. Thankfully he was found hiding under the seat in the car and all was right with our world.

Annie is eight now and may someday outgrow Coat. She's promised that I can have him when she does. Perhaps he will live on in a quilt she can give her own child. Coat is too much a part of the fabric of our lives to ever let him go.

Sleep wars

Sleeping is often a problem in our house. Before we had kids, Charlie and I both had periods of no sleep or little sleep or not-very-good sleep. When Annie came home, she made it clear there was no way she was going to be sleeping alone. This was fine with us, but she was a very active sleeper and Charlie and I were getting very little real sleep. So we embarked on a series of sleeping arrangements that left a lot to be desired.

Annie had serious night terrors during her first months here. If you've never seen one of these, they are terrifying for the watcher as well as the sleeper. Annie would scream and kick and flail her arms around violently. It was extremely difficult to get her to stop and impossible to wake her up. So we would usually just let her ride it out and she would eventually calm down. Watching her in the grip of one of these was heart-wrenching, wondering what things from the first few years of her life might be causing such fear.

Eventually she started sleeping better, but by that time, the arrangement was Annie and I in the bottom bunk (a skinny little twin bed) and Charlie and the dogs in the nice queen-sized bed in our room. Just about the time we had graduated to Annie in the top bunk and me in the bottom one, we went back to China to bring home Bethany.

Both girls wanted to sleep in the big bed with us, but that made it nearly impossible for the adults to sleep. It's amazing how much room a 3 foot, 35 pound child can use up, especially one (or two) who has a tendency to kick and do other gymnastic moves in her sleep. So we tried different arrangements and it mostly ended up with the girls (and dogs) in the big bed with Charlie and me moving out to the couch part way through the night. Annie would sometimes bring her sleeping bag out to the living room and sleep on the floor next to me. We would try moving them into their own beds once they were out, but they often returned in the dead of night.

So we kept working on it until we were finally all in the right rooms and the right beds. And then it was time to go back to China for Jack. We have a small house with only two bedrooms on the main floor and another one in the finished basement (when I bought the house years ago, I never imagined one husband, three children, two dogs and two cats). We figured that Jack would not want to sleep alone at first so we ended up with toddler bunk beds and a single toddler bed in the kids room (thank goodness for Craigslist) I made Charlie move almost every piece of furniture around in the room until we found the perfect arrangement with the most amount of floor space.

First night home with Jack, who in China had been sleeping with his sisters on piles of comforters on hotel floors. No way was he going to be sleeping in a bed that put him at the other end of the room from them. He cried and cried and cried. So we ended up moving the single bed right next to the bottom bunk and totally messing up the nice room arrangement.

Annie is supposed to be on the top bunk, but that has become a place for her Disney Princess tent and large collection of Magic Treehouse books. Bethany is in the bottom bunk with Jack next to her in his single bed. Her bed is so full of stuffed animals and other treasures that she can't stretch out. Jack inevitably has some kind of Spiderman toy and several books on his bed. When they are really tired (= really cranky) we have to hang a blanky from the top bunk so they can't actually see each other though they are only inches apart.

Annie makes herself a nest on the floor. She has actually always preferred sleeping on the floor. When we visited her orphanage, we saw the crib and the bed she'd slept in and in the Chinese way, the children slept on a hard surface with no real mattress, so she is used to it and can sleep just about anywhere.

From the start the three of them have been the best of friends and the worst of enemies, like siblings who had been together from birth. Many mornings when I go in to wake them, Bethany is partially in Jack's bed or he's in hers. Sometimes they will all be on the floor, cuddled next to each, wrapped in their special blankets. I think about how closely they are connected now, three children from different parts of China who came so far to find their family, and hope that they keep this bond for life.

Fourth of July at the Beach

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Many years ago, I saw an ad for an interesting-looking inn on the Long Beach peninsula. Charlie and I spent a 4th of July weekend there. Washington has very liberal laws regarding fireworks and any adult can buy the kind that explode high up in the air, just like a big fireworks show.

That night, we walked down to the beach and came upon an amazing scene. The peninsula is known for its miles of straight and sandy beaches. There were literally hundreds of fireworks going off up and down the beach, as far as we could see in both ways. It seemed as if we were coming into a battle scene - continual explosions, people everywhere gathered around huge bonfires and so much smoke it was like walking through a thick bank of fog. The fireworks were going off directly above our heads. It was breath-taking and unlike anything we'd ever seen.

Charlie and I started spending quite a few weekends on the peninsula. Several years later, some friends came with us and were quite taken with the area too. They started thinking about a vacation home there and asked us (since they live a long ways away) keep our eyes out for a possible place for them. This, of course, was the perfect excuse we needed to visit even more frequently and it eventually dawned on us that maybe we should look for a house too, given the amount we were spending on motels. So we ended up with our little house.

We've tried to spend as many 4th of July holidays at the beach house as possible. Each of the little towns on the peninsula has a big event and ours has the parade. We sit in the same place each year-- Charlie stakes it out with chairs early in the morning. The parade usually starts with a Coast Guard helicopter swooping over the parade route (all 6 or so blocks of it). Then we have Boy Scouts and senior citizens in classic cars and dogs in costumes and kids riding bikes decorated with flags. The kids watching wave flags and blow horns and run into the street to pick up the candy that gets thrown. It always ends with the Sentry Market Shopping Cart Drill team. The cashiers from the market march with their carts and perform routines to music. It's pretty darned cool.

In evening we join the hundreds of others on the beach who are letting off fireworks. Charlie does some too and always puts on a good show for us.

This year we were excited because our friends Kaz, Marcie and Alia were staying on the Peninsula too. The kids are close in age and had a blast playing together in the little river than runs from near our house into the ocean. This river is rarely the same from visit to visit. It's never very big, but the depth and width changes with the weather and the tides. This year it was the perfect depth for the kids to splash around in, dig channels to and float sticks in. So we played in the river and had a hot dogs and hamburgers in the front yard later. The weather was great the first day and not so warm the second, but the kids played in the river anyway, in between bouts of violent shivering while covered in layers of towels.

On our second trip to China, we bought a large dragon kite in Beijing. Kaz and Charlie got it put together and it flew high in the sky for the longest time.

Kaz took some wonderful pictures and video and shared it with us. Hope you enjoy them too.

Family Day

Charlie has always worked one weekend day. It was Saturday up until fairly recently and now it's Sunday. The day he doesn't work is reserved for Family Day--we try to do something fun together. Two weeks ago we were planning to go visit a lcoal fish hatchery and got sidetracked by a cool little fair we stumbled across. Annie and Jack rode their first ponies (Bethany chickened out at the last minute). Last week we spent a few days at the beach over the 4th of July and had a blast. I haven't posted for a while because I like to put pictures with the posts and we lost the cable connecting the camera to the computer. We got one of those card reader things but our old card still has hundreds of China pictures on it and I can't get the reader to download the last few pictures from the last few weeks.

So anyway, we got another card today so finally have pics to post. This morning we met with our beloved Vicki from our adoption agency to give her information for Jack's post-placement report - something that China requires. Then it was off to the mountain. It was totally gorgeous, sunny, few clouds and the kids were thrilled to get to play in the snow--especially in July!

It's been a good summer so far - very busy, but nothing new there.

Ps Check out Jack's haircut. We were at breakfast a couple of weeks ago and the waitress asked what the girls would like to eat. We had to explain there was a brother there too (his hair was really long, but he was also wearing Bethany's pink coat, so maybe that had something to do with it). So he had his first real American haircut.

Next Visit - 2013

Jack was born with a large hole in his heart which was repaired in China when he was 16 months old. A few weeks after we brough him home we saw a pediatric cardiologist, who was able to get an EKG done and not much else because poor Jack completely freaked out. The doctor recommended that we come back in 6 months when Jack would be more acclimated to his new life. He didn't think there were any issues but wanted to do an echocardiogram to make sure.

So on Thursday we went back and Jack was just amazing. They put one of his favorite movies ("Cars") on a screen and he lay quietly while they did the echocardiogram. And...drum roll please....based on the test results, everything is just fine and we don't have to come back for 4 years - yes, 2013. The doctor was very pleased with his growth in the last few months and how active he is.

What a blessing to know that everything is okay!

Haven't really posted for a while....

Things have been insanely busy lately, but I guess that's really what our life is like now. So a summary of the last few weeks....we went to the beach over Memorial Day weekend. Our friends Lynn and Doug were there and Lynn and I enjoyed a morning of garage sale shopping until Charlie called and said Bethany had had a close encounter with a rusty nail. So it was off to the little beach hospital, which turned out to be kind of fun. Bethany got to soak her foot for a while and then had an tetanus shot, just in case and both girls got a popsicle (Jack stayed home with Daddy). We were the only patients in the ER! And it turned out that the ER doctor is waiting for his referral for a daughter from China so we had a lot to talk about.

Charlie went on the annual sturgeon fishing expedition on May 30 with the guys in my family and came home empty-handed (since I don't really like fish that isn't already cooked and on a plate in a restaurant that was just fine). The next day was my Mom's birthday and we spent a lovely day at this amazing Children's Museum (yes, Mom chose to have her birthday there)with a nice birthday picnic.

Today was Jack's initial evaluation at Shriners for his knees (they do not straighten out completely, which causes him to lean forward and walk/run on his toes. The diagnosis we got from China was only "knees that don't straighten out." He was totally fine until we got into the exam room and he realized what kind of place it was. Luckily, my friend Becky had come along (Charlie had to work) and very wisely pulled out a giant candy bar, so we were able to lure him out from under the chair in the corner (the doctor, Becky and I were all on the floor with him). So after x-rays and exams by several doctors we have a diagnosis of....knees that don't straighten out. Actually, they think it is something more along the lines of congenital contractures of the knees, but we will be seeing another specialist at the end of the month for more tests and maybe a definitive diagnosis as there are some things to rule out. He will also start on PT. We are so lucky to have a Shriners only a few miles from us. It's an amazing place.

Two more days of school and it's summer vacation, for three of us at least!

Life Lessons

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone...
4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first pay check.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion, Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words in 5 years, will this matter?'
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive everyone and everything.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give it time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.
35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
42. The best is yet to come.
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift.

Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio

Happy Mother's Day

When I was a child I expected I would have children, it just seemed like that would be how my life would go. And then for a long time it seemed like that wasn't going to happen. Marriage later in life, fertility stuff...though it seemed like it wasn't meant to be, adoption was always at the back of both our minds. It took some friends starting their own adoption journey to get us going and on November 9, 2005, Annie came into our lives. Eighteen months later, we met our Bethany and 18 months after that, Jack.

I never thought I would be so blessed. Every day they surprise me and make me proud. They have overcome so much and have more challenges to face in life (as do we all) but when I think of the scared little ones we first met, it's astounding to see how far they have come. They do drive me totally crazy a lot of the time. I don't think either Charlie or I realized that level of competitiveness we would have to endure. Why it's important who finishes their cereal first or gets dressed first I am not sure, but apparently it is very important when you are 5, 6 and 7. And one will smack the other and get a time out but a little later later they are giggling together (and more than likely plotting some mischief).

Charlie had to work today and we had one of those frustrating, cranky days("Mommy, Jack looked at me funny!" "Mommy, Bethany hit me!" "Mommy, Annie didn't wait for me!") but they are sleeping peacefully now and in this time of quiet I am reminded how truly lucky I am.

Another story by Annie

TEN OF THE BEST PEOPLE I KNOW
By Annie Brundage
I know a lot of good people. I know some best people too. Those people are nice. Here they are.

Mommy. Mommy works hard at her building to take care of us. She loves me a lot. Mommy, I love you.

Daddy. Daddy works hard too. He loves me too. Daddy is very nice. My dad is very funny.

Mike. Mike was a good friend. He got sick and died. We miss him a lot. I think of him watching over us.

Bethany. Bethany is my sister. I like to play with her. She is sometimes silly. Sometimes she is very cute.

Jack. Jack is my brother. I like to play with him too. Jack is also sometimes silly. Sometimes he is noddy.

Becky. She has been a good babysitter for us. Sometimes we go to the store and buy things there. Becky loves to share things.

Grandpa. Grandpa helps us. He gives us big hugs. Sometimes he hugs us very tight. He loves to sit in his chair and read and sit there and think about Grandma.

Grandma. Grandma cooks good food. She is good at cooking. Sometimes I like Grandma's food a lot. I like mashed potatoes with gravy. Sometimes she gives us things. She loves to go to the park with us.

Kathy. Kathy is my friend who lives far away. She takes us cool places. Sometimes she gives us hugs. She wears sunglasses and carries her purse around.

Laura. Laura is Mommy's best friend. She is the best. She gives us drinks. She is sad about Mike. Laura's dog can do tricks. His name is Roady.

These people are my ten best people. I also know another best person that is Mr. Fraught. Because he teaches a lot of math and how to carry the numbers. He is the best teacher. Thank you Mr. Fraught for teaching us.

The Best Mike Ever

Our dear friend Mike passed away on Monday, April 13th, after a sudden and stunningly short illness.

I first met Laura about 14 years ago when she started working where I worked. We quickly became friends. She had moved here from Ohio hoping to make a fresh start. I don’t think she had really thought too much about including romance in that, but then a very wise woman who we worked with said she knew someone who was perfect for Laura and would she think about going out with him? Laura kind of hemmed and hawed. She was a little worried because he was so much older and had grown children and she had a lot going on, having just started a new job and a new life. But she finally agreed to a date with this guy Mike. I remember her saying after that date, “Wow, I didn’t know I would like him so much!” And from then on they were together all the time.

Things had gotten pretty serious when, as sometimes happens in the course of true love, Mike decided he needed a little time to think. That night, Laura and I fortified ourselves with heaps of chocolate, a tear-jerker movie and way too much cheap wine, and waited and waited for the phone to ring. It never did, but finally a bell did ring - the door bell. When I answered it, there was Mike. I yelled at him “What took you so long??!!!!” He looked a little taken aback, but said “I am here to see my girl.” I don’t know exactly what he said to her, but a few months later, Mike and Laura were married in a beautiful ceremony full of friends, family, flowers and so much love.

A year or so later, Charlie and I got married. Luckily for all of us he was really into NASCAR and he and Mike bonded immediately over cars. We had lots of dinners where Laura and I would talk about work and Mike and Charlie would have a parallel conversation about Dale and Junior and Jeff. Sometimes Laura and I would talk about how amazing it was that, when she and I met we were two single women who weren’t even dating, and now we were married to the loves of our lives. We had many dinners over the years and Mike and Laura were always there for all the important things in our life, just like they were for so many people. Their love and caring were always there for all of us, along with Mike’s very special sense of humor.

Mike and Laura were partially responsible for the wonderful family that Charlie and I have now. They were so happy and proud when their son and daughter in law, Gary and Laura, started on the process to adopt Chloe from China. It’s all they could talk about and that turned out to be the push we needed to start down our own path to adoption. One of my favorite pictures of Mike is of him and another grandpa holding their new grandchildren in China. The look on his face is just priceless.

The night we signed the paperwork that started us on our journey to our oldest daughter, it was Mike and Laura that we celebrated with. They were both so supportive and helpful to us throughout all our adoptions, though I know they thought we were a little (okay, a lot) crazy when we started our third one. But that didn’t stop them from helping with our house and dogs and whatever we needed while we were in China. One time they had the keys to our car so they could pick us up at the airport. Mike just couldn’t help himself - he detailed the car while we were gone!

Mike and Laura had the kind of relationship that many people dream of and not so many people get to have. They were truly soulmates. Their prior life experiences had brought them to the places they were in their lives and when they met, they were ready for each other. They fit each other so well. Good times or bad, they faced them together, a strong and invincible team.

I never knew Mike without Laura and didn’t know her all that long before she became half of “Mike and Laura.” Really, that should be one word, MikeandLaura, because that's how we usually thought of them. They were one.....two halves of a whole. Together they had such a large and loving circle of family and friends and we are honored to be part of that. It’s so hard to think of them apart in body here on Earth, but we all know that they will be together again some day, and that knowledge will hopefully help keep Laura, and all of us, going.

Mike was one of a kind. It’s impossible to picture his face without seeing him with a big smile. He liked to make very bad jokes. He was one of the most genuinely nice people you could ever hope to meet and he always found such joy in life. He so loved his family, his friends, his pets and most of all his girl, Laura.

We will always miss Mike. Our kids just loved him, too. When he got sick, Annie wanted to write her own message in the guestbook on their website. She wrote “Mike, you are the best Mike ever.” That pretty much says it all.

Happy Easter Egg

Jack

Queen of the Monkey Bars!

Bethany loves her Grandma

Cousins




I saw what looked like a really cute Easter project in a magazine, which involved using modeling clay and small twigs to make a nest that you could put Easter eggs in. It was advertised as fun and easy - right. Somehow ours do not look exactly like the lovely photos. In fact, they are downright ugly and a little scary. Oh well. We had a nice Easter at my parents' house, though Charlie unfortunately had to work. After a traditional dinner, we visited the park, where these pictures were taken. We were having typical NW weather- rain, sun, clouds, rain, blue sky--all in the space of 20 minutes or so.

Another major accomplishment for Annie--she has learned to go all the way across the monkey bars without help! Because of her shortened fingers on her left hand, this has always been a very difficult thing for her to do but her hands have finally gotten big enough that she can grasp onto the bars.

And the title of this post? That's Bethany's standard holiday greeting. It is amazingly cute when she comes up to you and says Happy Easter Egg, Mommy! I love you!" :)

Please pray

Our good friend Mike is very, very ill. Please pray for peace and comfort for Mike and his family.