I'm Going To China, Baby!!!

It came! It came! It came! A simple little piece of paper titled "Letter Seeking Confirmation from Adopter" (Some things just don't translate so well).

It's hard to believe how life-changing one little piece of paper can be. But I guess, most of our life-changing moments are marked with a piece of paper -- a marriage license, a birth certificate, a certificate of death...

Anyway, the one we've been waiting for came today. And I have to read it to you. :-) It says,

Based on your application and in accordance with the Adoption Law of the People's Republic of China, the China Center of Adoption Affairs matched a child with you. Herein, we sent the information about the child to you. You are kindly requested to make your decision, sign in the proper place below, and deliver this letter as soon as possible to the adoption organization which submitted your application file, HAND IN HAND INTERNATIONAL ADOPTION.

Obviously I checked the box that says We accept the adoptee mentioned above and delivered it "as soon as possible". :-) (Nah, I thought I'd sit on it for a week or two.) Actually, I signed it in the office and handed it right back over.

So...our agency is trying to get our appointment at the US Consulate as soon as possible after Chinese New Year. Everything closes for the holiday, but she's hoping we'll leave the end of February.

It's funny how these things work out. Some friends we knew 4 years ago celebrated with us when we came home with Emily. We lost touch with them for a couple of years, but one day they called and asked if they could talk to us about adoption. We met with them, showed them all our pictures, and told them everything we knew about adoption from China. They ended up working with our agency and have been waiting for over a year now on the non-special needs list for a daughter.

When they learned of the new special needs program Hand in Hand has with the Nanjing orphanage they switch over and were matched with a beautiful 2 year old girl. In the meantime, we decided to adopt Cooper through the same special needs program. All this time we've been talking about how cool it would be if we travelled together, but knew it wouldn't happen because they were so far ahead of us.

They received their "Seeking Confirmation" letter on Thursday and we thought we were still a month or more from getting ours. I couldn't believe it when our agency called today. Doug and I were in a group of 5 families who were expected to get our letters about the end of February at the earliest. We were the ONLY one of those 5 who got it today. So I get to travel with our friends. How cool is that?

And just for the heck of it...cute kid pictures.

Happy Birthday Cooper!!!

Or maybe not so much. The wonderful couple who squeezed Cooper's birthday present into their suitcase sent us this picture. They got to see him when they adopted their son a few weeks ago. Their exact words were, "Cooper is a chunky monkey with a strong set of pipes." Great. :-)

So I dug out the medical report they sent us when he was about 4 months old. If he stays in the same percentile on the growth chart by the time he's 15 months (desperately hope to be there by then) he'll be too tall for 18 month clothes. Move over Yao Ming!

Still no word on when we can travel. Our agency assures us we've not been forgotten. Our file is in "room 2" at the China Center for Adoption Affairs in Beijing which means we're simply waiting on the last precious piece of paper. Meanwhile, Cooper is quickly outgrowing every item of clothing in his closet.

When your family is biracial and you've become a family through adoption you have to pick and choose when to educate people, and when to "let it go." I've never given much thought to our blog address getting Cooper until last week. We were in Ikea when a woman stopped us (in the plant section if you want to picture the scene), looked at the girls and bellowed, "Where'd ja get em?"

First, I looked around to make sure she was really talking to me. Then I looked at the candles in my cart and said, "Over there in the candle aisle." (I know, I know. Sarcasm. But it's so fun sometimes.) She said, "No, I mean your beautiful China dolls. It's horrible how they just throw girls away over there."

Not fun anymore.

Of course, I knew she was talking about the girls and I am usually very patient and more than happy to help people understand adoption -- that Emily and Grace are my own ("Can't you have kids of your own?"). That I'm a mom just like you and that adopting my children wasn't noble or selfless. ("You have such a big heart. They are so lucky.") When you think of me as noble, you make me a different kind of a mom than you. And I'm not. I'm just their mom, just like you are your kids' mom. And no, they are not really that lucky. They lost their birth family, their culture, their language, their home.

I have to admit. That day, I wasn't very patient. I snapped at her, actually. "They're not dolls, they're children. And they can hear you." Nothing like teaching your kids how to deal with racism with grace and composure.

But it made me think of our blog address and I desperately hope getting Cooper doesn't offend other adoptive families. I didn't mean it like, "Where'd ja get em?" More like, "Tutor Time called. Emily is sick and I have to go get her."

Every day is an education. For me and those close to us. A woman we met at Chinese school, who has become a dear friend, just asked me last night if I was going to tell Emily and Grace they were adopted. (Head tilt) Huh?

The ongoing picture drama...

Grace cut her bangs. Actually, she cut big chunks out all over her head, but it mostly only shows at her bangs. And yes, I was standing right there. She kept saying, "Hey, Mommy. Look. Look Mommy. Hey, Mommy. Watch." I kept saying, "Just a minute, honey. Hang on. Just a minute, Mommy can't look right now." Nice.

It reminded me of something that happened just after we got home with Grace. Emily was pushing her in this little child-sized rocking chair and I said, "Careful Emily. You've got to watch her. It will tip. Remember when baby Angel (former foster baby) tipped over and the chair landed on his head?" And Emily said to me very seriously, "Weren't you watching him?"

Of course I was. I was sitting right there. Watching him. And I watched him tip right over and the chair land on his head.

Anyway, back to the bang trim. It was just in time for the big Christmas Eve program at church...and my final opportunity in 2007 for "the perfect" Christmas picture of the girls. :-) These are 2 of my favorites.

Dustin and Brianna, my step-kids were here for Christmas. Emily and Grace absolutely adore them. Several time last week I watched Dustin and Brianna play with the girls and realized how lucky we are that they have these awesome "big kids" in their lives. But, there is this one thing...

Grace, when I dress her. (Notice what's left of the bangs glued back with hairspray.)

And when Dustin and Brianna dress her. Thanks, guys. My precious little "gangsta".

Still no news from China. Happy New Year, everyone.

Merry Christmas!

It is 2 days before Christmas and we are so happy to be winding down from shopping, Christmas pageant practice, work, and last minute errands. Emily turned 5 this week and we had a birthday party with many of her sweet friends and their parents (our sweet friends).

The day of her party we received a very nice surprise. For the past 4 years we assumed that Emily had lived in the orphanage her first 10 months. On Tuesday, through a series of online encounters I found out that she was actually in foster care from the time she was 2 months old until almost the day they brought her to our hotel room. A few days later we received 13 priceless pictures from the foster care agency. We laughed out loud when we saw this one. Doug said it looks like a pile of laundry with a head on top.

Emily at 2 months

Birthday girl!

Cooper turns 1 in a few days. A family from our agency left for Nanjing yesterday to adopt their daughter. They squeezed a small birthday gift in their suitcase for us. I sent a little toy that Grandma Whittenberg brought him when we thought he'd be home for Christmas...and pictures of our family. Crossing my fingers that they will see him and take a picture.

I've never taken a formal picture of the girls so last week my hairdresser, Jan put their hair all up and we put on their beautiful Christmas dresses. Off we went to the photographer for Christmas pictures. An hour later I had two rumpled girls and no pictures. We tried again today. Christmas Sunday, Dustin and Brianna are here, beautiful family picture, right? We ended up in Urgent Care waiting for Doug to pass a kidney stone. Still no pictures. Hoping for better luck tomorrow night. :-) Merry Christmas, everyone.

Da bai ma.

So now I'm in pre-school. Actually the girls are in Chinese school (pre-school class) and I go, too. I'm speaking Mandarin at about a 3-year-old level. Actually, most of the 3 year olds in the class, including my own, are doing much better than me. But, I know my colors, a few body parts, animal names, and several descriptive words like big (da) and small (xiao). So when I go to adopt Cooper I will have no problem at all saying "small elephant head" or "big red hair", etc. I feel confident that I will be able to get my way around and communicate effectively.

The hard part about Mandarin is the tones. There are four of them and a single word can mean four different things depending on the tone you use. For example, this weekend my friend Amy and I were looking at a book about horses with our girls (four between us). I pointed out a beautiful grey horse and we talked about how it looked like the horse I grew up with. Being very proud that I know how to say "big white horse" in Mandarin, I boldly said, "Da bai ma". But instead of using the third tone I used the first tone for "ma". So while I meant to say, "big white horse", I in fact said, "big white mother". Hmmmm. Interesting.

Whew! What a day.

Well, it was pouring down rain when we got up at 4 am to move the garage sale outside and hang signs. After a few deep breaths we figured out how to keep everything inside and by 7 the rain had stopped, signs were hung, and we had lots of shoppers! Shoppers were very friendly and many told us to "keep the change...for Cooper". The garage sale was a huge success and we are so grateful to Colin and Julie, Mike and Jenny, and Mandi for all your help this week.

This is how Emily and Grace got through the morning. :-)

We're doing the no-rain dance...

Our wonderful church has allowed us to have a really big garage sale on Saturday to raise money for our travel expenses. Dozens and dozens of people have donated stuff for us to sell -- so much stuff that tonight I got slightly concerned (ok, hysterically overwhelmed) that I won't get it all sorted and organized by Saturday.

What great friends we have.

Fran, who owns the daycare that meets in the church, told ALL her families. Karen, emailed everyone she could think of. Ellen told neighbors who asked a business that was closing to donate all the toys from their child care room...and they DID. Loads and loads of stuff have been dropped off at the front door of Desert Foothills UMC.

It has been so fun going through all the stuff. Mostly because my sweet and wonderful friends have been hanging out with me all week helping me tag every single item from the 10 year old "dehydrator/yogurt and beef jerkey maker" to the bag of vintage swing dancing costumes. Every coffee mug and wicker basket to the complete set of "Aurthur" VHS tapes (and I'm talking almost a hundred tapes. Someone REALLY loved Aurthur.)

Thank you Jenny, Mandi, Lorilee, Kristy, Hui, and Amy.

And now it's supposed to rain. It rains about 2 days a year in Arizona and Saturday is supposed to be one of them.

We'll keep you posted.